Two Analogies

Finally someone has written what I’ve been thinking about the regime in Iran. Namely, that it is less a nation than the headquarters of a movement which, of necessity, operates a nation about which it isn’t especially sentimental.

In this it resembles the Soviet Union when it was the headquarters of the would-be ‘worldwide’ Communist movement. For now, the reach of the theocratic gang in Iran is less global.

If the US has been talking to the folks who run the country of Iran, trying to reach a deal, the effort has been pointless. An approximate bureaucratic analogy would be talking to the building manager when trying to cut a deal committing the entire corporation. 

The real power lies elsewhere, in the mission-driven ideological side of the house. No wonder the supposed president of Iran offered his resignation to the top Ayatollah, he is just a flunky with no power to make decisions or deals for the ideologues in charge.

Many of the IRGC ideologues would, if necessary, offer up Iran as a martyr for the cause. In their minds the cause is so much bigger than simply Iran. The cause encompasses the whole Middle East, for starters, with the world to follow.

The appropriate biological analogy would be cancer. You can’t reason with metastatic cancer. It will not become healthy tissue. Your four choices: ignore it and die, or fight it off until you (a) die of some other cause, (b) kill it or (c) it kills you. Right now the Rx for Iran is more kinetic ‘chemotherapy.’

It's About Time

Trump has resumed bombing Iran. Better late than never. 

Whichever party to a negotiation wants a deal more is the weaker party. It seemed Trump wanted a deal more than the Iranians. 

The way to reverse that is to increase Iran's discomfort level. Destroying the power generation system for Tehran would be a good start.

Getting the Voter Lists

The US Postal Service is proposing a new regulation requiring states to turn over to them the lists of people asking for absentee ballots and all voters in states (e.g. CA) which mail ballots to all voters. States which refuse to do so would find the USPS will not deliver ballots in them. 

I like it, and I have skin in the game. The DrsC need absentee ballots for the November election, though not for the August primary when we vote in person.

Democrats will go crazy ... again ... as usual. SCOTUS will have to decide its legality. 

The second Trump administration has been particularly adept at finding ways to act w/o Congressional approval. That is, turning the "administrative state" against itself.

Wednesday Whimsy

Babylon Bee image courtesy of Ed Driscoll,

posting at Instapundit.

Support for Deporting Illegals Up

The Center for Immigration Studies is out with the results of the latest Harvard/Harris Poll regarding attitudes toward illegal immigration. Some upbeat findings:

Some 80 percent of voters polled support “deporting immigrants who are here illegally and have committed crimes”, up five points from April.

The rise compared to April crosses party lines.

Then there’s “deporting all immigrants who are here illegally.”(snip) A solid majority, 56 percent, of the voters polled by Harvard/Harris in late May support such a “mass deportation” plan, including 77 percent of GOP voters, 53 percent of Independents, and well more than a third (37 percent) of Democrats.

What do you guess the politicians' reactions to these numbers will be? Is there a snowflake's chance in hell Democrat pols will listen? The odds are zero, zip, nada.

A Guilty Verdict

In Collin County, TX, a jury has found Karmelo Anthony guilty of fatally stabbing unarmed Austin Metcalf at a high school track meet. A Fox News story has details. 

Anthony is black, Metcalf was white, both were students. Anthony admitted the stabbing, claiming self-defense. Several black witnesses spoke for the prosecution. I hope this verdict will not stir civil unrest.

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Collin County is adjacent to Dallas County, to the northeast. Post-retirement, the DrsC lived there for a year, before either Anthony or Metcalf were born. We were visiting on the faculty of what is now East Texas A&M University. It was a pleasant year.

City of Angels? No Longer

Author Walter Kirn posts the following on X.

A lot of people don't want to confront the implications of what they just saw happen in LA, even those who are appalled by it. They want an out, just so they can go on, not be terrified, feel a tiny tiny bit in control still. It will be interesting to see what they come up with.

Indeed it will. Hat tip to Stephen Green posting at Instapundit for the link. 

Minnesota Malfeasance

Image courtesy of today's Lucianne.com

Dangerous Ideologies

SecWar Pete Hegseth, in Normandy honoring the D Day landings, takes a shot at European leaders' weakness. NBC News has his words.

Sadly, today, different European beaches are stormed by different dangerous ideologies. Beaches in Spain, in Italy, in Greece and Bulgaria. Boats and men arrive. When will European capitals do something about that invasion?

A good question, Europe is committing cultural suicide.  Breath-holding while awaiting a sensible answer is not wise.

Looks Not Deceiving

Here are two headlines listed together in one Instapundit post, links in original:

Bill Maher says artists quitting America 250 concert makes it look like Dems ‘don’t love America.'

Only 36% of Democrats say they’re “extremely” or “very” proud to be American, according to a new Gallup poll.

Presuming Gallup is correct, the looks are not deceiving. Most Democrats don't love America. Similarly, we who love America don't think much of Democrats.

Light Bulb

I posted this with Saturday Snark and, reading back over it, had an insight to share with you. The notion that no one much cares about "liberal white women" may explain why they are so angry and troubled. Human affection is what's missing in their lives, cats are poor substitutes.

Sunday Memes

Images courtesy of Sarah Hoyt's Take on Memes! a-ha!

Image courtesy of Ed Driscoll, 

posting at Instapundit

Shazam

Trump hired a pool company to fix the reflecting pool, it cost $3 million. He didn't ask permission either.

When was the last time the government did something so nice so cheaply? Maybe not in the last century.

Democrats are furious, of course. Furious is their default setting.

Beyond Brussels and the EU

Frank Christian Hansel, a German AfD legislator, writes for American Greatness that the EU is a doomed enterprise. He believes it is based on premises that ignore human nature and cultural differences, is a relic of the Cold War, and should be replaced with regional groupings that make sense to their inhabitants. 

He makes a reasonable argument that the EU, as now constituted, is not representative government in any true sense. It is rather of, by, and for bureaucrats responsible only to each other, not answering to any electorate. He concludes.

The time of the Union as we know it is running out. The only question is whether Europe will shape this transition itself—or whether it will be torn apart by the contradictions of its own artificial construction and have its place in the world decided by others.

The alternative is clearer than many care to admit: Either Europe becomes political again—or it remains an apparatus until other powers decide its place in the world.

That sounds prophetic. My one quibble with his column it that he views Russia as a natural part of Europe while ignoring its hegemonic behavior vis-a-vis Ukraine and the Baltic republics. I find AfD is too weak on the role of Russia.

D Day Remembered ... and a Recommendation

On this date in 1944, the largest armada ever assembled on this planet gathered off the shores of the Normandy region of Nazi-occupied France. Warships and freighters, landing craft and amphibians, they deposited American, British, and Canadian troops onshore and supported them with naval artillery fire and materiel.

Overhead the skies swarmed with warplanes, their wings wearing the "invasion stripes" of alternating black and white (see photos and explanation). Some dropped bombs, some dropped parachutists, and smaller planes shot up German vehicles and armor.

The landing was a success in spite of iffy weather, and the invasion continued eastward until the war in Europe ended some 11 months later. While all this was going on Soviet troops were attacking westward and the two attacks met in Germany in April, 1945, near the Elbe River.

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About WW II, the DrsC recommend two TV mini-series originally broadcast on ABC TV, based on books by Herman Wouk and entitled, like the books, The Winds of War and War and Remembrance. The first covers the period before the US entered the ongoing World War II, and the second covers the war period. The first has 7 episodes and the second has 12.

Both series star Robert Mitchum playing naval officer Pug Henry, Polly Bergen as his wife Rhoda, and Victoria Tennant as Pamela Tudsbury. The continuing story follows a Navy family, the Henrys, a Polish-American Jewish family, the Jastrows, and a British family, the Tudsburys. 

They includes portrayals of FDR and Eleanor, Churchill, Eisenhower, Patton, Hitler, Mussolini, Goering, many German generals, Pearl Harbor, D Day, El Alamein, extermination camps, the war in the Pacific, in Europe, and at home. In its 19 hours it literally has a cast of thousands.

We own the two series on CD, they also appear to be available on YouTube for streaming. A longtime DrsC family mid-winter ritual is to watch the two series in sequence over 10 or more nights. We recommend them, your experience may vary.

Saturday Snark

Not sure many ladies will get this.

Today is the anniversary.

Images courtesy of Power Line's The Week in Pictures

and its Comments section.

Henry Nowak, Say His Name

The Brits are dealing with an event that is very nearly the mirror image of the George Floyd event. A young white Brit - Henry Nowak - was stabbed by a young Sikh - Vickram Digma* - and when the police arrived they handcuffed Henry, the victim, and asked Vickram if he was okay.

Henry meanwhile repeatedly said "I've been stabbed," and "I can't breathe." To this the cops replied "I don't think you have, mate." 

No ambulance was called and Henry died, choking on his own blood. Eventually Vickram was tried, convicted, and sentenced to 21 years, the minimum allowed for this offense.

An insider board investigated the officers' behavior and found them 'not culpable.' The British public is beyond angry at the police taking the non-Brit's side, something they've been taught to do in an DEI effort not to stir up immigrant anger. 

Being even-handed when non-whites are involved is a punishable offense for Brit cops. British prosecutors are lame, too.

By the way, Brits have mostly gotten guns off the street, so now they cope with, and worry about, "knife crime" and autos as mass murder implements. The impulse to violence will find a way. 

*Some sources render it Vickrum Digwa.

Friday Meme Fest

Images courtesy of Politico's

The Nation's Cartoonists on the Week in Politics.

Images courtesy of RealClearPolitics'

Cartoons of the Week.

Walters Explains the CA Vote

If you're wondering how to think about the primary election results in California, I have a good choice for you. Writing for Vox, Christian Paz interviews Dan Walters, who has spent a lifetime studying CA politics and writing about them for the Sac. Bee. Dan is old school which means you don't know his own politics. Walters opines:

Karen Bass is definitely in trouble. If you're an incumbent mayor and you can't get 50 percent in the primary,  that means most of the voters are against you.

I think Bass defeats Raman, but I think with Pratt she's got a potential problem here because he's struck something in the voters in Los Angeles, their unhappiness with the status quo on homelessness, crime, and the fires.

It looks like Democratic voters kind of rejected the more progressive wing of their party. (snip) California is not as progressive as it's often portrayed in the national media. And there are a lot of Republicans in California - a quarter of the registered voters.

Walters also talks about how CA got saddled with the jungle primary, and the structural issues which make both governor and mayor less powerful in CA than one might imagine. 

Tough Times at U of O

The College Fix reports my graduate alma mater University of Oregon has declining enrollments and a consequent financial problem. It needs to slash $65 million in spending. Steps taken include a hiring and pay freeze and the shuttering of two off-campus dorms.

Enrollment changes do not arrive unheralded in academia. Today's birthrate predicts the size of the entering freshman class some 17-18 years later. That's nearly two decades of foreknowledge.

The Great Recession of 2008 cut the birth rate and it never truly recovered. Universities have ignored the demographic reality and hoped to make up the difference with marginal students, including foreign students. 

Doing so has damaged the reputation and value of their product: degrees. It was administrative willful 'blindness' and the financial chickens are coming home to roost.

I am reminded once again of the truism that timing is (almost) everything. The DrsC got into academia in its boom years and exited before everything went pear shaped. We are thankful for our good fortune.