Looking forward to it. I moved off of blogger a couple of years ago and didn't look back; Dreamwidth is full of hippie weirdos and almost no one drops by (which suits me fine), but it seems to work well. I write for my pleasure, not for others. I build everything is a word processor and then just cut and past into a typepad interface (Dreamwidth branched off of typepad back in '08). Bada big...done. Everyone here is welcome to drop by, not much to see there. https://degringolade.dreamwidth.org/ Gotta get away from the big boys, the small not-very-corporate providers are the way to go. Keep going Colonel. Non illegitimi carborundum

Guess I am a Marxist/Commie bastard then. Screw Johnnie Reb. My folks fought on the Union side (First and one of them even won the Medal at the third battle of Petersburg. My say is take the civil war card out of the whole shebang. Forts Patton, Eisenhower, Bradley, Pershing, etc would sound fine to me.

I am hoping those are capers. That would be awesome with fish. Not so much peas. Never developed a taste for those.

It was always just business. Never liked doing it. Doesn't mean it didn't have to get done.

There were quite a few Italian prisoners of war along with the Germans in Ogden, Utah during the war....One of them ended up as my great uncle and was sworn in as a citizen the same year I graduated high school.

I always try to spend time reading both sides. As I hang out here a lot, my views are pretty obvious, but I do spend time reading what the other side says. https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/12/10/seeking-biggest-incident-voter-nullification-us-history-18-republican-ags-back-texas They are presenting idea that eighteen States Attorneys General have requested the Supreme Court to review the results of a federal election as an attack on the constitution. Run that by me again. Last time I looked, the outline of how this was approached was put together by some pretty smart folks who have bothered to read the constitution.

Of course the corollary to Sir Winston's bon mot is Will Roger's "Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock"..

Colonel: I gotta agree with you on the "long on talk" diagnosis of the prez. But As I age, I more and more agree with that committed pacifist Winston Churchill when he pointed out that "To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war".

From What I see on the videos. I would guesstimate the area around King Bench. (Note: Credentials here are an old Utah boy who read too much Edward Abbey and Carlos Casteneda)

This is also interesting. https://history.house.gov/Institution/Origins-Development/Electoral-College/

Thank you

Colonel: Just to jerk your chain a bit. I think that tomorrow I will grill up the last of the halibut steaks from the two 60 pounders I caught last year off Newport. Tough duty....I think you will understand John

Colonel: That made me laugh out loud. My time in had a different slant. An NCO has a different take on things than you officer types. CTFD (calm the fuck down) was a constantly used phrase. I think that the best description of this A/B dimorphism is this quote from Neal Stephenson's book "Crytonomicon". “This "sir, yes sir" business, which would probably sound like horseshit to any civilian in his right mind, makes sense to Shaftoe and to the officers in a deep and important way. Like a lot of others, Shaftoe had trouble with military etiquette at first. He soaked up quite a bit of it growing up in a military family, but living the life was a different matter. Having now experienced all the phases of military existence except for the terminal ones (violent death, court-martial, retirement), he has come to understand the culture for what it is: a system of etiquette within which it becomes possible for groups of men to live together for years, travel to the ends of the earth, and do all kinds of incredibly weird shit without killing each other or completely losing their minds in the process. The extreme formality with which he addresses these officers carries an important subtext: your problem, sir, is deciding what you want me to do, and my problem, sir, is doing it. My gung-ho posture says that once you give the order I'm not going to bother you with any of the details--and your half of the bargain is you had better stay on your side of the line, sir, and not bother me with any of the chickenshit politics that you have to deal with for a living. The implied responsibility placed upon the officer's shoulders by the subordinate's unhesitating willingness to follow orders is a withering burden to any officer with half a brain, and Shaftoe has more than once seen seasoned noncoms reduce green lieutenants to quivering blobs simply by standing before them and agreeing, cheerfully, to carry out their orders.”

Colonel: I read both the books (nine and eleven) and both of them have some merit. Both seem to come out of academia, with the usual gloss and prejudices therein, but neither are terrible and there is food for thought there. The Red-Blue divide is real. The difference is that the blue seems bent on making all the country blue while the red seems to just want to be left alone. American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America: Colin Woodard The Nine Nations of North America: Joel Garreau What the left can't seem to accept is that the country is constituted as a Federal Republic, Not a Democracy

Colonel: For what it is worth, when I got out in '81 and went back to grad school on the GI bill, I used to head up to the dinkey little Fort Douglas PX to buy non 3.2% beer (was in the reserves in the 19th Group). I met a couple of your edumacated grad school officers while reprovisioning. Even had beers with them (since I was in grad school and a vet, they were comfortable chatting) down at Big Ed's off campus. Where this is going is all they and their wives did is bitch about the cold, drafty, hot, nasty beautiful Victorian quarters. Seems to me that you dodged a bullet. John

Colonel: Oh Kingsbury Hall? That is down at the bottom of the Circle, just across from the Newman Center.

Yum: $10.50 a pound is a steal. First time I ate swordfish was in Algiers. It was an epiphany Just curious about the first line of your last post. As I have absented myself from the political as much as possible, I am afraid I don't understand your reference. As a fellow Ute, What building were you speaking of at the U of U. Or did I miss the reference entirely?

Colonel: In the long ago in Bangkok, a young lady approached me on Soi Cowboy with a similar proposal, albeit couched differently and definitely more intriguing. Not the worst night I have ever had.

You did read it? I am impressed!! I tried to read it to impress one of the Utah dance team (remember the Utahnas?) back when we were both ensconced in Milton-Bennion Hall and environs. I couldn't make it past ten pages. Now you have really impressed me Colonel!!

Colonel: In the day a long time ago (the 70's!) and while I was still in our previous profession, My team played skip-to-my-Lou with a similar group of folks around the Tonle Sap in our old stomping grounds. The folks that we were watching/hiding from then bear a remarkable similarity to the folks now. Their fate is known.

This piece may be of interest: https://www.redstate.com/shipwreckedcrew/2020/08/22/john-brennan-perjury-trap-yeserday-completely-legitimate-one/

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/J9YOYTqN3us/maxresdefault.jpg

When we got back from Thailand in 77, went with the demo guy from the team (unlikely nickname: Baby-crusher) to visit his family who lived in Bed-Stuy. Damned interesting place back then. Felt a little bit safer than Udon Thani, but not much

Just read this and was just about to go over and make a donation, but just then one of the incredibly obnoxious mountain jays that I have been feeding for the last couple years came by and started bitching about the lack of service. So I toddled out and laid down their peanuts on the concrete in front of the old homestead to shut them up. Usually a couple of the crows come by to take their share of the largess and get the last four or five peanuts. Squirrels are kinda infrequent. We have some fat and sassy squirrels here and I think that they are too well fed to bother with such plebian fare. In lieu of your request, I went out and added another handful of peanuts to the stack. Be well. Thanks for taking care of the east coast cousins

I guess I am a little on the fence on this. I don't see an apocalypse anytime soon, but I think that there is enough to the concept of "Climate Change" and "Peak Oil" that the long term implications cannot simply be dismissed. I do see change coming, I just can't for the life of me figure out what will be the actual trigger and what will simply be trotted out as an excuse to make the changes. For that matter, I can't even say that the data presented by the folks in the white lab coats is valid or invalid. At this point here it is just data and the hypotheses and theories being worked out to explain the data are not really all that satisfying. Mostly I am in the "denialist" camp by default. I don't think that the apocalypse is coming soon, so that puts me in the opposition camp in the eyes of the true believers. In the immortal words of Zhou Enlai; "It's too early to say".