A GLASS OF WINE WITH YOU

Uncounted cups of coffee; one English muffin; one crumpet; small bowl of muselix; and one banana – so much for our startup on our first day ‘downstate’.

Dear Wife is off to the symphony with lady friends to be followed by lunch at the Detroit Yacht Club. One of the symphony ladies is a member.

Sometimes, even often, it is not what you know, but who you know!

And the news keeps rolling in over our various receivers: radio; TV; ‘net’:

North Korea has let off another one; declared the’53 armistice to be over; and perhaps has restarted plutonium plants.
We are witnessing major effort to force b.o. to the negotiation table – one-on-one.

Iran has deployed a naval flotilla and announced that nuclear program(s) are going forward.
Iranian sea power, nascent but symptomatic of Iranian attempts at hegemony.

Pakistan is suffering new terrorist attacks.
This will occur more and more frequently as the pressure mounts on the barbarians in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

GM bankruptcy appears more and more likely – with Government majority ownership more and more likely. The US Government will not make cars as well as GM can.

Queen Elizabeth II was not invited to the Normandy commemorations to take place shortly. No secret about the lack of love between the French and the Brits. But b.o. should have taken care of it.

b.o. apparently feels that Israel must ‘freeze’ Israeli population in the disputed territories in order to make possible Mid East peace.
If a baby is born in the territories, b.o. wants an Israeli to leave.

Non-tabloid British press is condemned by robbie gibbs as being excessively frugal with the truth.
More likely gibbs is reacting to a press which is not ‘in the tank’ with his boss.
Pathetic!!

I know, I have picked only negative items.

One more: careful observers should note that all of the above are not happening in some sort of isolation or vacuum.
The world is watching the bad guys do bad things – and it is watching the good guy, the United States of American, apparently doing little or nothing to deal with the bad dudes.

The world does not just watch.

It watches and eventually responds. If the US does not deal with the cretins, the world will do the best it can, and that best may not be in the best interests of the US.

In a nutshell, that is why the election of b.o. and his programs, or lack of effective programs, just might be most distressing.

It is one thing to have idiotic tax policies and to repay political cronies and to appoint mediocre or even worse people to important jobs.

It is quite another thing to cause international realignments; destabilizations; and changes in balances of power, alterations which might be nigh on impossible to rectify.

As the old British Naval toast said/says: “A glass of wine with you and…confusion to the enemy.”