Glibertarians.com 2017 Archive

Author: Swiss Servator

  • Sunday Morning Links

    Good morning, Glibs. Fire up the coffee pot and set yourself down. I have some fresh links here for ya.

    • Cuba no, Yanqui si? (spoiler alert “…and lack of running water there.”)
    • There is something very libertarian about this. Best part = “Prison authorities say they can’t do anything about what’s going on at the parking garage.”
    • So… this seems fun (in behavior, it seems very Glibertarian).
    • If this was one of you lot, we can install a tipjar, dontchaknow.

    Enjoy, scorn, ignore – whatever you’d like to do on this Sunday morn.

  • Saturday Morning Links

    I supposed that you all want some links this morning, hmmmm?  Or more likely, just some place to snark and chat and such?  I suppose we can do that.

    • These should go well. Right?
    • OK, whatever you say, Joe.
    • This is working about as well as you think it could.
    • Have some pictures of dogs.

    Commence to snarkin’, commentin’ and whatever you feel like this morning.

  • Qatar $#&*storm

    The past two weeks have not been kind to Qatar. The strange little appendage off the Arabian Peninsula has had its landward side cut-off by everyone’s favorite neighbors, the Saudis. They also got a big middle finger up from Arab heavyweight Egypt, and other neighborhood states Bahrain, Yemen (such as it is) and the UAE. Mind you, this is a state that imports almost 100% of its food. So this is going to come to a head, quite rapidly.

    Some of the oddities you will find about this place;

    • 90% of the people there are NOT Qatari (which is why over a quarter of the population is Hindu or Christian – think imported labor).
    • Only a bit over a quarter of the populace are women
    • YUUUGE natural gas reserves
    • Oh yeah, US CENTCOM happens to have an interest in the area (I was too stupid to take a 4 day pass and go there, when I was in Iraq in 2008)

    This has all the elements of a perfectly toxic brew of regional influence struggles, a possible humanitarian disaster and all sorts of nasty knock-on effects.

    I will have to say, I was quite surprised this came to a head so quickly. I think the Saudis are striking while the anti-Iran Trump iron is hot. The war in Yemen is not going well, so they figure it is time to snip off one supporter of the Houthi rebels.

    Keep an eye on this one folks – it could get damned ugly, real fast if one side or the other doesn’t give, soon.

  • Afternoon Links of Distraction

    A lot of the Glibs are distracted by the wedding of Grand Moff Serious Man and Kibby. I, however, am stuck many hundreds of miles away doing chores. So I am taking a break from yard-work in the 91 degree sunshine to give a few links for you all to mull over.

    • Of course Brexit = jihadism!
    • Not sure how to snark this one. Wish I could, though.
    • I have been stationed in Daraa for three and a half years. If I were posted to the dark side of the Moon, I couldn’t be more….isolated.
    • Drat.

    And there you are. Enjoy!

  • Not again… in Kabul. A short impression of recent events.

    Reading this, I felt a sense of dread – not just because I am familiar with the terrible situation in Afghanistan, and knew how the dead from both the attack and the protest were innocents. Rather, it reminded me of 1992-1996.

    Now that you see the protests and a ham handed reaction by the current central government, I am reminded of one of the Taliban’s advantages. When the Talib swept up from the South and Southeast of the country to take Kabul and most of the rest of the country – the populace was bone weary of the constant violence and accepted the immediate calm they brought in their wake.

    A difference now is that the Talib are responsible for most of the attacks and violence, rather than prime assholes like the recent returnee to Kabul, Hekmatyar Gulbuddin. Other scum like the Haqqanis have chipped in too. But when you cannot even carry on a normal day without worrying about being blown up, you get to be more amenable to accepting whomever can give you security.

    I am not sure who will come out on top of this new round of murder and chaos – but I am absolutely sure of the losers. The people of Kabul (and elsewhere in country) are 100% sure to lose.

  • Saturday Morning Links

    Let us have a cup of coffee and read a few links, shall we? OK, how about a cuppa and you just snark on whatever you want?  That should work!

    • Oops. NOT brought to you by the Thai Ministry of Tourism.
    • OK!!! I can do the whisky part, but do I have to do the cigars?!
    • Master genius super criminal caught!
    • Turkish purge continues.

    So there you have ’em. Commence to commentin’!!!

  • Memorial Day

    SSG Juantrea T. Bradley, SPC Tenzin L. Samten, and SPC Dustin C. Jackson. I did not know them personally. But right after I got to the base at Talill, Iraq (March 2008) they were killed by a 107mm rocket that landed right on the pickup truck they were taking to pick up some local workers at the front gate (I was trying to scrub a layer of dust off in the shower at the time of impact. How is that for martial glory?). Two of them died instantly, one made it a few hours more before succumbing to his injuries.

    A few days later, their names were added to a memorial wall on base, and their friends and fellow Soldiers told us about them in their eulogies; they were close friends, and someone’s husbands, fathers, and sons. Their stories differed, certainly, but they all came back in the end to the impact they made on their fellows – the NCO who was a friend and mentor (that one really hurt to hear – the pain lent the speaker eloquence and clarity) the cheerful Soldier who never left a comrade without a good word or thought, the soldier with the great and selfless desire to serve and to help. Then the final call of the Roll, Taps being played…it hits home in a way that is hard to describe.

    I have known others that have been killed. But that seemed to make it….personal. This hit in a different way. Why them? What the Hell were they doing that was so wrong or so dangerous? They were just getting some guys in to help build a damned gravel road….it wasn’t a bayonet charge against a machine gun nest! But it was a Soldier’s Risk, so you accepted it and moved on. Though I must confess, if I never hear Taps again, I would be fine with that.

    But now, on Memorial Day – I cannot help but think about them again. Obviously their families remember them, know what they were doing, and today is but another slightly more sad day than all the others. But does the day set aside for just such remembering have any impact on the thoughts of others?

    Certainly, there are solemn ceremonies at various cemeteries and memorials across the country.

    My town’s Civil War memorial. The town lost a tenth or more of its military aged men.

    But the number of people who have direct experience, so to speak, are lessening. The people who fought in the huge conflicts, in mass conscript armies and navies are becoming rarer, as time marches on. So are the family members who lost a close/immediate relative in those conflicts. Ours (US and Canada – this is glibertarians.com after all) is a professional, and volunteer armed forces. They are also smaller than what has been around for most of the 20th Century to today. Soon enough, it will be my turn to be the white haired, bent with age and infirmity, but-still-attending-the-ceremonies guy. What will I remember?

    Those that died during the various wars, police actions, interventions, kinetic whatevers – whether they were conscript or volunteer – paid the highest price anyone can. THAT is what I wish people could remember. You can be vehemently against the involvement the country had in the conflict in which they died, but they didn’t cause that involvement…. They sure as Hell paid for it, though.

    You will hear the word “hero” bandied about rather a lot this day. But it doesn’t matter if the person who died was heroically fending off a wave of enemies (i.e. SFC Paul Smith) – or just going to the front gate at Talill to pick up some day laborers? Either way…They lost EVERYTHING. Their families lost their father/son/brother, mother/daughter/sister. Juantrea Bradley and Tenzin Samten never got to see their children again (between them, they had 7 kids). Their children never got to see their fathers ever again.

    In some military and veteran circles, it is popular to rail against the mattress sales and “the unofficial start of the barbecue season” and the like. I will not stamp my foot, demanding people be solemn and quiet. Personally, if that Jaish al-Mahdi version of Davey Crockett (SOB was landing 107s on my tiny camp with shocking accuracy from a long way off) in Spring of 2008 had nudged his launches a tiny tap to the left – I wouldn’t be here… and I would want my family to remember me with grilling and toasting with high quality beverages, while throwing around a frisbee or playing volleyball in the back yard.

    But do, please, take a moment to remember that a fair number of people over the whole of this last bloody century (or two) have had their lives snatched away because they were put in harm’s way. Just war, unjust war, ambiguous war…it doesn’t matter to the dead. Just remember what happened to them, please.

    BONUS RANT: The past few years it has become semi-fashionable for people to say “thank a veteran or someone in the Armed Forces today” – save that for Veteran’s Day, Memorial Day is about the dead. They had life taken from them early – and that should be the primary thing in focus. Oh, and for the people who have started adding in police, firefighters, “first responders” – KNOCK IT OFF.

    Oh, and keep yer fookin’ politics out of it, period. I don’t give a fig who was CinC when someone got killed, where or when. Shut yer gob about neo-cons, Islamoappeasers or whatnot. The dead don’t need that crap, nor do their families. Just remember, somebody got the ultimate short end of the stick – and it wasn’t you.

  • The Progpocalypse

    And I saw when the pan-sexual, differentially-abled, undocumented Person of Color opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see.

    2 And I saw, and behold a white privileged horse: and the shitlord that sat on him had a semiautomatic assault rifle with a black thing that goes up; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth kinetic actioning, and to utilize authorized military force.

    3 And when xe had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say, Come and see.

    4 And there went out another horse that was a non-revolutionary red: and power was given to the cis-het patriarch that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should microaggress one another: and there was given unto him a great phallus.

    5 And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black lives matter horse with spinners on it’s hooves; and the (((racist))) that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand.

    6 And I heard a capitalist voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of GMO wheat for a penny, and three measures of non-fair trade barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the fracked oil and the wine.

    7 And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.

    8 And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Discrimination, and Anthropogenic Global Warming followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to hurt with words, and with food insecurity, and with lack of single payer care, and with the fascists of the earth.

    9 And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of Bernie, and for the testimony which they held:

    10 And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O DNC, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the primaries?

    11 And robes of color were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowtravellers also and their xirthren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.

    12 And I beheld when xe had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of culturally appropriated, braided hair, and the moon became as blood;

    13 And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a non-GMO, organic fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty AGW caused wind.

    14 And the True Socialist State departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.

    15 And the politicians of the earth, and the Top. Men., and the rich kulaks and wreckers, and the chief captains, and the mighty fascists, and every welfare recipient, and every libertarian, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains;

    16 And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of Xe that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the pan-sexual, differentially-abled, undocumented Person of Color:

    17 For the great day of Xir wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand without government transfer payments?

  • Afternoon Links

    Good Afternoon, Gentlemen…I am an H.A.L. 9000 computer…. Wait, no I am not. I am your humble purveyor of links. So without further ado, here they are, for your use and amusement.

    • NATO Cha-Ching time?
    • Chicago is a tiny bit less of a toddlin’ town.
    • Someone needs killin’ [update: Here]
    • Was he trying to look like a wizard? A Fremen?

    Bat ’em around like a cat does a frightened mouse. Or ignore and post your own. Your choice.

  • Monday Afternoon Links

    Back to the ol’ grind, eh everyone? How about some links to make the afternoon a little better? Well then – you will just have to settle for these.

    • This is about as British Tabloid-y as I can find.
    • Um, not the way to handle such a situation. Try “Apartment Finder” instead.
    • Stayin’ shooty in Chicago….read the headline and try not to cringe.
    • I am getting a ever so slight impression that the author is not a fan of MA’s Governor.
    • Germans interrogate interview Julian Assange.

    So there you are.  Oh, a note from the Roller Derby article – you Glibs amaze me – I see something like LT Fish’s article on something I consider a bit exotic… and the comments light up with people involved in the sport directly, or have spouses or such involved. An odd and wonderful lot you all are.