As of the moment I write this, my Southern California home region is awaiting a week-long dousing by Mother Nature. To put it into some kind of a perspective for those of you who have never experienced the Pineapple Express, a one-hit-wonder named Albert Hammond wrote a song entitled "It Never Rains in Southern California," later covered by Barry Manilow if you're into his music.
Contained in the chorus are the following lines:
It never rains in California
But girl, don't they warn ya
It pours, man it pours.
He isn't kidding. It can and does happen. It's about to happen.
We are told by the Weather Service that we can expect up to eight inches of rain in Downtown Los Angeles and a foot or more in the mountains over the next seven days. What this will produce is a lot of entertainment for the disaster ghouls who are getting a little bored with the Haitian earthquake. This storm is likely to affect Hollywood lib'ruls, who will lose their multimillion-dollar Malibu mansions as the ground beneath them collapses from the water. You will get to see just as many conservative Orange County Republicans who live out the same foolish residential fantasies as their much-maligned political rivals up the coast suffer similar consequences from their ill-considered vanity. You might even get to see some serious flooding inland, which tends not to happen very often. It will affect the non-rich, and just might remind you of Haiti - and of New Orleans. So stock up the beer supply, pop a mound of corn, and settle in for real reality television! Eat your heart out, Jeff Zucker!
I don't provide this entertainment report about the coming weather on a political page unless there is a connection. The connection is: this nation is facing away from the approach of metaphorical storms which will cause as much havoc (allowing for variances equaling orders of magnitude) as either the Haitian Earthquake or The Great Southern California Flush.
The United States is so deep in debt that there is a realistic expectation that it can never be fully repaid. But the biggest single expenditure of the government -the military budget- isn't about to be touched, for it is needed to conquer the rest of the world and put it all under our national control for the benefit of the overt owners of the government - the private commercial sector (see: "health care reform" if you have doubts). Everything else is subject to curtailment or elimination in order to facilitate this insane goal. You ARE expendable in this effort.
But while the American armor appears to be strong and shiny on the outside, the inner portion suffers from malevolent neglect. Our industrial base -vital to any nation at war- has been shipped across indefensible oceans, something that isn't a good idea as our military planners should have learned from our successful submarine warfare against Japan in WWII. Despite the much-vaunted abilities of the US Navy, they were seriously surprised by an undetected Chinese sub surfacing about one mile away from a US carrier -a guaranteed kill, according to experts- during the conduct of an anti-submarine exercise which should have detected it. This incident tells us two things: We cannot protect our lines of supply. We cannot protect our means to wage war, much less ourselves. Imagine if real terrorists started flying into Detroit! No one will be able to save you from that.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Joanne Huspek
I agree with you on the landslide spending (metaphor intended). But this country should not stop at halting war spending. NOT ONE MORE DIME should be spent on anything until we get ourselves out of this debt. But it's hard to find anyone in the Beltway who knows how to add and subtract or with enough sense to figure it out.
2 - Jeannie Danna
So here you are bored with the earthquake coverage in Haiti..is that right?
Maybe we should bury you up to your neck and leave you half alive, buddy.
You wouldn't be so tired of the l'iberal media then, would you?
This is the appropriate article to post my full comment on!
3 - Jeannie Danna
Please Text the word Haiti to 90999, so that ten dollars will go to the Red Cross Relief Effort..
4 - Glenn Contrarian
Realist -
I am retired Navy. The Kitty Hawk is being mothballed about ten miles away from me as I type this. I served for four years on her sister ship, the USS Ranger (CV-61).
Those who suffered 'great consternation' at the submarine popping up alongside the carrier are far behind the times. Why? Because it's well known that diesel-electric subs are very, very quiet...when they're not snorkeling to recharge their batteries. That, and they don't have anything even remotely close to the range that our submarines do.
So I'm not surprised that the sub surfaced close to the Kitty - look where they were operating at the time - within less than a thousand miles off the coast of China! The only thing a sub like that is really good for is regional defense...and a surprise strike at the start of a war. Why? Because of the sub's lack of legs (unless it's a closed-cycle diesel (it's not)), and because our subs can usually (but obviously not always) track them rather easily. Even though the article says we didn't know about the sub...perhaps we did, and didn't want the Chinese to realize how easily we could detect their subs (and our defense contractors could have an excuse to be given more billions in contracts). Frankly, I think that's at least as likely an explanation as the sub not being detected at all.
One other thing - it's devilishly hard for any surface ship to find and track modern subs. That's why the best way to kill a sub is with another sub.
Oh, and another thing - the sub being that close to the carrier was a 'guaranteed kill'? No sailor will ever call a ship unsinkable...but you've no conception of the compartmentalization of a supercarrier and the degree of damage control proficiency and training we maintain. Could the sub have crippled the Kitty? Easily. Could it have sunk the Kitty? Possibly. But a 'guaranteed kill'? No, not without a nuclear-tipped warhead.
I realize that this particular incident isn't really what your article's about, but I do have to speak up when I see people worrying about things that they don't really need to worry about when it comes to my Navy.
Have a fine Navy day!
5 - Jeannie Danna
My comment might have sounded a little threatening to you yesterday Mr. Realist..for that I apologize.
I see how heated things can get here right now.
I saw that you commented on my blog. Thanks:)
Yet , when I searched for your personal web space, my server says the page cannot be found...just thought you should be aware of the problem.
I once lived in Laguna Beach and I still miss those sunsets. As they say, 'Have a nice day':)
6 - Ruvy
Interesting how so few people want to comment on the decline and fall of their own country.
I always found this part of the movie "Cabaret" (1972) to be fascinating - almost as fascinating as the final scene - because like so much in the movie, there was a prescience to it that makes the spine shiver.
I don't think that tomorrow belongs to you, folks. You Americans created the monster of the Wahhabi, and the monster of the Taliban - and now you are discovering - to your disgust - that you cannot control the monsters you have created.
But don't worry. Tomorrow did not belong to the nazis, and it will not belong to the spiritual children of the nazis, either. It looks like a storm blowing in from the Yangtze, but my faith and the prophecies of the Bible tell me otherwise....
"2010 will be the year that tries the souls of men.
It will be the end of the beginning and the beginning of the end."
7 - fcetier
1 Thessalonians 5:2
For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.
8 - Jeannie Danna
Ruvy,
Every generation has believed that they were the end...and man destroys man.
Two little sayings that I heard over and over in the fifth grade.
9 - Jeannie Danna
WTF? fcetier
Oh, it's Sunday
10 - Jeannie Danna
Either photography...hmmm
Maybe corporations sending out religious quotes are spammers.
Dave, what do you think?
11 - Ruvy
I'm not a Christian, kiddies. I don't write this because it is Sunday. I write this because it is evident. OUR traditions (the Talmud) say that the Redemption will be accomplished by the years 5786-5790 (2026-2030).
That means that there will be a Temple on the Temple Mount, that the nations deserving judgment will have been judged, that many will have died at G-d's Hand, and that all of us who survive will have had one run at Judgment - comprehending how the evil we have done in our lives has affected the world around us from the point of view of those we have hurt. The messiah will have come, and will rule from Jerusalem, and Jerusalem will be the capital of the world. A program for cleaning up the planet (tikkún ha'olám) will be in place and will be beginning to operate. Technological advances will speed up and remarkable cures - cures that would look like magic to many of us today - will begin to take place, healing the sick, and curing the sick at heart.
None of these things were evident at all 50 years ago.
But America and Europe will fall because of the evil they have done - not merely to us, but to the rest of mankind. Before all this happens, despair will grip the planet, and death will cut like a scythe.
Exactly how this will occur, I cannot tell you. But what I have written above is what the prophecy in the Hebrew Bible points to.
12 - Jeannie Danna
Ruvy, You misunderstood what I wrote.:(
13 - Jeannie Danna
and, if you click on fcetier then you will see a photographer? I took it as an advertisement and wondered why the Bible quote.
I know that you are religious every day and not just on Sunday. Does this clear up our misunderstanding?
14 - Cindy
The United States is so deep in debt that there is a realistic expectation that it can never be fully repaid. But the biggest single expenditure of the government -the military budget- isn't about to be touched, for it is needed to conquer the rest of the world and put it all under our national control for the benefit of the overt owners of the government - the private commercial sector (see: "health care reform" if you have doubts). Everything else is subject to curtailment or elimination in order to facilitate this insane goal. You ARE expendable in this effort.
Excellent article Realist. Quoted for truth.
Incidentally, something to do in NYC om MLK day! May as well put this here.
IWW March Against Wage Slavery
15 - Cindy
Jeannie, Realist is writing with irony. As far as I can see, you are on the same side. :-)
16 - roger nowosielski
Yes, it is an excellent article.
17 - Jeannie Danna
Cindy,
Funny, I didn't get that impression when I read his comment on my blog.
Then again, that was yesterday !
In fact, maybe I should read this article in it's entirety before flying off the handle! :)
18 - Jeannie Danna
OK here I go!!!!
19 - roger nowosielski
I'm trying to access his comment, but I can't.
20 - Jeannie Danna
Cindy, On my way down to the comment box, I stopped by your blog. There was no way for me to leave you a comment there. Why? Is it my Computer?
That is a good cause! You go woman!!! :)
21 - roger nowosielski
Jeannie,
All you've got to do is click on the comment box.
22 - Jeannie Danna
Realist,
Boy did I snap out at you for nothing!
After reading, the whole article, I see that it really has nothing to do with Haiti...
Maybe you have painted everyone in it with a broad brush. But then again, if this is irony, then never mind what I just wrote.
I never get what satire is and I am just too darn emotional to see the humor!
S:(
23 - Jeannie Danna
Roger,
I didn't see a comment box.
24 - roger nowosielski
Jeannie, not a box but a "comment" heading. Just click on it and a box for leaving a comment will open.
25 - Jeannie Danna
Roger, That's because I deleted it..his comment.