This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Geezer Alert!

  • Invoking Che to sell cars?

    Never thought I’d be citing CBS, but:

    Coming out of Germany?

     “Some colleagues still think that car-sharing borders on communism,” Mercedes-Benz Chairman of the Board of Management Dieter Zetsche said onstage at CES today, speaking about Mercedes’ new CarTogether initiative. “But if that’s the case, viva la revolucion!”

    To be sure, a luxury-car maker like Mercedes is not actually promoting communism. But during his CES talk, Zetsche pushed hard on a vision that the company has for a greener future that allows drivers to reduce emissions by using connected and social technology to easily find compatible passengers to share rides with.

    Still, it’s odd–and no doubt intended to stir up conversation–to hear a company so inexorably tied to money and lavish lifestyles invoking philosophies like communism. Especially with a picture of Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara towering over Zetsche as he talked. Of course, Che’s signature beret sported a Mercedes logo.

    Speechless here.  After all, how many ways can one say WRONG?

    Unless…

  • The Answer Was Simple – Or Silly?

    A US drone was downed in Iran. The speculation about the ‘how’ has been rampant.

    We now know The Truth!

    Iran’s Flying Saucer Downed U.S. Drone, Engineer Claims

    Late last month, Iran put on display what it insisted was a captured American stealth drone. At the time, Tehran claimed it brought down the RQ-170 with a sophisticated electronic attack. Nonsense, says one Iranian engineer who claims to have inside knowledge of the drone-nab. The Islamic Republic used force fields and flying saucers to subdue and capture the unmanned aircraft.

    Of course I knew it all along…

    Oh yeah… we’re screwed!

    Thanks to Maggie for the link.

  • The Coasties Answer the Call – This Time

    I dunno if it’s a matter of strategic import, but it fascinates me?

    US ship rescues Iranians at sea _ again    

    A U.S. Coast Guard cutter rescued six Iranian mariners from a vessel in distress in the Persian Gulf, the second time in less than a week that the American military has come to the aid of Iranians at sea, an official said Tuesday.

    Pentagon press secretary George Little said the Iranians aboard a cargo dhow about 50 miles southeast of the Iraqi port of Umm Qasr used flares and flashlights to hail the cutter Monomoy at 3 a.m. local time Tuesday. The vessel’s master indicated that his engine room was flooding and “deemed not seaworthy,” Little said.

    If America will soon no longer be “The policemen of the world”  maybe we can hang around to be the rescuers??

    After all, those 6 sailors didn’t seem to be willing to wait for an Iranian rescue?

    ETA: From the comments a logical response I missed: We should have held them captive as spies, until the Iranians release the former Marine they are accusing of being a spy! Six Iranians for one American seems fair.

  • For Sunday: Thoughts on The Grey Man

    Much of what is written about TGM has to do with staying under the sheep’s (and LEOs) radar while being prepared to be a sheepdog if needs be.

    If you haven’t heard of the concept here is a great intro:

    The Grey Man is always invisible in plain sight.

    The Grey Man is totally aware of his environs, his own capabilities or lack thereof, his weaponry and his levels of competence with that weaponry. He constantly strives to improve upon both his capabilities and competence. In public, he is always respectful, even to the point of obsequiousness if the situation calls for it. He always appears to be just a little confused by what is happening around him, while in reality he is alertly doing a tactical assessment.

    If the Sheep, Sheepdog, and Wolves metaphor is new to you here’s the canon:

    If you have no capacity for violence then you are a healthy productive citizen: a sheep. If you have a capacity for violence and no empathy for your fellow citizens, then you have defined an aggressive sociopath–a wolf. But what if you have a capacity for violence, and a deep love for your fellow citizens? Then you are a sheepdog, a warrior, someone who is walking the hero’s path. Someone who can walk into the heart of darkness, into the universal human phobia, and walk out unscathed.

    (more…)

  • Irony, Thy Name is Iran

    Many years ago I witnessed an odd thing. A coupla neighborhood kids got into a scuffle. After a few minutes of the usual childish attempts at bluster and mayhem the apparent loser decided on discretion and took off running. Over his shoulder he breathlessly yelled out, “if you catch me I’ll beat the shit out of you”?

    Fast forward…

    A few days ago Iran was threatening our Navy  over control of traffic through the Straights of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf.

    Today we have: Iran thanks US for naval rescue operation

    In a rare display of praise for the West, Iran on Saturday applauded the US’s rescue of 13 Iranians held hostage for weeks by pirates in the Arabian Sea, calling it a “humanitarian and positive” act.

    The rescue operation took place on Thursday by the same US aircraft carrier group that Iran warned not to return to the Gulf.

    Speaking with Iran’s Arabic-language broadcaster Al-Alam, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said that  “we consider the actions of the US forces in saving the lives of Iranian seamen to be a humanitarian and positive act and we welcome such behavior.”

    “We think all nations should display such behavior,” AFP quoted him as saying.

    My emphasis added.

  • Reality Check

    I seem to be at nearly 100% accurate at stating the obvious.

    Well, obvious to most readers here, at least. My only saving grace is that I’ve been doing it for quite a while.

    Aside: I rarely watch videos on-line because I’m on a satellite ISP.  So have probably missed someone already posting this here?

    Got this from MaryAnn on FB.

    Krauthammer: Obama military reforms a ‘road map of American decline’

     “This budget strategy is a road map of American decline,” Krauthammer said. “It is going to reduce our capacity. It does exactly what the president had said he was not going to do, which is it will adapt our capacity and our strategies to fit a budget.”

    One of the premises of the Obama strategy is the notion that the United States won’t be involved in another large-scale ground war. Krauthammer noted that such wars aren’t always planned for.

    “Sometimes a Pearl Harbor happens or an invasion of South Korea or a 9/11. Then ground war is thrust upon you. It’s not as if it’s a choice,” he said. “This is a budget that is going to reduce American capacity. It will make it extremely hard to carry on the role that we have for 70 years.”

    I sometimes earnestly disagree with Krauthammer, but not this time.  On the other hand? YMMV!

  • Another Book I Won’t Read

    Hollywood seems to lack for new ideas; how many movies are re-makes, sequels, or prequels? Our news media (as Jonn notes) certainly lacks perspective and originality as well.

    Us geezer types are often accused of lusting after “The Good Old Days” while the REAL hypocrites like the antiwar crowd, and OWS, are trying to recapture their own imagined “Good Old Days”.

    Rarely is this hypocrisy quite so blatant as in this book (no direct link from me!)

    A review: In “The Operators,” Michael Hastings, the man whose Rolling Stone interview doomed the career of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, offers up dispatches from Afghanistan.

    During the Vietnam War, the generation of David Halberstam and Neil Sheehan transformed America’s mainstream media into a hotbed of antiwar and antimilitary muckraking. By the time a major war effort returned, in 2003, that generation had grown too old to visit the trenches, allowing the emergence of Generation X reporters like Dexter Filkins and George Packer, who did not share their predecessors’ contempt for the military. Most Americans welcomed the change.

    Not so Michael Hastings, as we learn in “The Operators,” his account of events in Afghanistan from 2008 to 2011. Mr. Hastings asserts that this generational change drove him to write “The Runaway General,” the Rolling Stone article of June 2010 that doomed the career of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan. With characteristic acerbity, Mr. Hastings laments that his press colleagues have abandoned the spirit of Vietnam, when “war had been exposed as the Giant Lying Machine, in Halberstam’s words.” Instead, he says, they write glowing profiles of generals and other officials in the hope of gaining greater access to sources.

  • What Matters…

    Got this via Kriste Gerhard on FB.  Spending some time with our commenter Doc Bailey had reminded me about some non-trivial stuff.

    Screw politics – the rubber does meet the road!