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My online activity has been eating into my time, so I have deleted my Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts. I have found no willpower to resist engaging online, so I hope this drastic action will help focus my activity locally.

I am in the process of remodeling our home. I have made my wife live in this shack too long, and now that she is retiring, I hope to give her something more worthy for her to retire in.

But to accomplish this task we basically have to move out, and that is what I am up to. We not only have to pack and move our stuff (read here cherished belongings) and put them mostly in storage, but we also need to find temporary living accommodations. So far these temporary living accommodations have gone from building a home on our bare lot next door to erecting a yurt.

I also placed my web site into private, but have decided to open it again to the public for those of you who like to check in every so often.

Beauty sent my a message on LinkedIn, but because my account is closed I can’t reply.

So far everything is good. Will post changing conditions on this web page if I find the time.

The Strategic Advantage in Fighting on Only One Front

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“It is a concern to me, it’s a concern to any veteran, anybody in the military,” Hagel said during his first appearance on Capitol Hill since being confirmed as defense secretary.

I think it is significant that this is the only news I found coming out of Fox News, but maybe I just didn’t look hard enough. I guess Fox couldn’t find anything more important coming out of the House Armed Service’s committee than this one issue, who deserves a medal more, those with or without “skin” in battle.

Taking medals away from someone that actually might have earned them is not something I imagine Fox wants to be behind of. Fox better hope Hagel doesn’t come to the conclusion that someone fighting in a Nintendo environment needs to be reward with this medal, as someone in the Service that Hagel talks about in this quote did. If they do deserve it, then Fox should ask why.

As it is, anyone getting the “Nintendo Medal” with Hagel as the top administrator will deserve it. Fox should figure out why he/she would deserve such a medal, before they get on the wrong side of  the strategy behind the giving out of this medal.

But then Fox is owned by someone that wasn’t, if I understand correctly, born or raised  as a North America. Apparently their owner wants America to follow the Rightwing Conservative principles of another nation, in another hemisphere.

The nation he was or still is a citizen of has gone from calling China a totalitarian nation to aggressor nation, and now an assertive nation. It kinda makes me wonder what the Fox’s owner thinks of his own nation, as their Conservative principles change.

It doesn’t appear that China has changed all that much, at least in structure. The Right is a structure, not a culture, and China doesn’t appear to be changing its structure anytime soon.

It also appears that China’s culture is going to need more time for change. China is a very complex culture in which change doesn’t culturally seem to happen, unless there is a revolution. China’s structure is geared towards stopping revolutions.

But then, Fox’s owner is not a North American. He is Australia by culture, so what would he know about strategy anyway?

I think North American people’s advantage has always been that they think more strategic. After reading “Empire of the Summer Moon, I think strategy has always been the North’s advantage, as it presents itself to the world historically.

To that end, I never really understood the significance of Lincoln’s strategy, of using people from both sides of the aisle to fill some of the executive positions within his administration. That was until I watched this hearing on CSPAN yesterday.

The strategy that Lincoln used has the advantage of using an executive, such as Hagle, from the opposition  positioned as a handle to a lever that pushes against the force of the opposition and the POTUS forces as well. Kinda of a twofer.

In the House yesterday, Hagel not only tore into the Republican Chairman of the House Armed Service Committee, who wanted Hagle to take something like a 100 billion more dollars, but Hagle also tore into the smug Democrat who thought Hagel was a force pushing Democratic issues as well. The Republicans and Democrats both got their asses kicked.

In politics, the enemy isn’t in front of the POTUS, but positions themselves behind the leader. The people infront represent an image of change, as the image of Hagel in front of the POTUS.

Lincoln’s strategy handles those behind the POTUS (today they are called Democrats) as well as those in front of the POTUS (today they are called Republicans). Hagel with Dempsey at his side, tore up the House yesterday and made mincemeat out of all who were in front of him.

I would like to see him do the same in the Senate.

Really? The Republicans want to come out on the side of spending more money at the expense of our civilian society, while at the same time the Democrats want to come out on the side that says spending cut aren’t hurting our military, as our civil society takes a pass on having to make any sacrifices?

All Hagel and Dempsey are asking for is time to reposition our forces. I mean everyone realizes that Iran is in Asia, right?

When falling back to a defencive position, as our resources go bye-bye, there is some advantage to be had in having to defend only one front, and that front should be “pivoting” across the Pacific.

The Pacific is the position our debt is centered in. This center can be called a pivot point. While Boehner has come out in favor of paying our debt, I am not sure the Red States agree with him.

I mean, if they really want to secede from the US, aren’t they independent of the debt? If the Red States what to take advantage of our nukes and not pay back our debt, who’s to stop them, Obama?

Oh, right! If they did secede it wouldn’t be their decision, but that ain’t going to happen now, is it.

via Hagel Decision on ‘Nintendo Medal’ Expected Next Week – Fox News.

The U.S. is running out of fancy planes to send to Korea

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It would appear that if U.S. muscle-flexing is to continue, military planners will have to come up with something more creative than dusting off the latest hangar trophies.

If you’re like me, and has watched the Iraq and Afghanistan through the portal called the internet, then the advances in the military hasn’t been in its fancy technology, but by the leadership that is represented by the military.

The leadership represents a total top-down to bottom-up advancement in the mobilization of forces. To me it is highlighted in what took place in Benghazi on the anniversary of 9/11. If you want symbols to represent the future, then this is it. Benghazi represents the look in the future of the US military.

And the biggest news there was that the US Marines came under fire by Afghan forces, as there were some in the vicinity of the fight, and created another front in the WOT. No wait! that is exactly what didn’t happen.

I am sure any other administration would have quickly brought to bare a Marine expeditionary force on those who took part in the killings, or would have been crucified for not taking action against those people who killed Americans in Libya  not this administration.

As I have said before, Afghanistan represent the center of a religious movement, which is why it is a strategic position for our troops to be in. We have learned how to fight Afghans, and the best way to do that is to let them go back to their country, and bring the 15th century with them.

I mean it doesn’t look like, or the opposition party would have taken advantage of it, that any of the Americans who died could have been saved by an expeditionary force.

They all seemed to have ventured out of the network that was protecting them, and apparently the network really wanted these guys alive. In fact some of those in the networked died also, which is kind of a big deal.

So what has Benghazi to do with Korea, you may ask?  Well the world has now seen the military might that the US military is able to bring to a fight over the skies of Korea, so now where is the leadership?

Well maybe here:

via The U.S. is running out of fancy planes to send to Korea | FP Passport.

Boehner memo hails GOP ‘tactical plan’ against Obama as success

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He also complimented Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s (R-Va.) “make life work” initiative, which is meant to showcase GOP ideas that will help working families.

But tactics are only successful if there is some kind of strategy behind them.

Strategy bridges the past and future by having a clear picture at both ends. Tactics, for any movement like the Republican Party, only works if there is a clear picture of where it has been and where it is going. Strategy supplies that picture, which tactics can’t. Tactics are short-term, so it is almost all past and no future.

If there is strategy behind the tactics that Boehner calls a success, then success depends on whose strategy the tactics are following. Is it the Republican strategy or Obama’s?

I think Boehner would have said so, if he thought the Republicans were following some kind of a winning strategy.

While the tactics Boehner underlines are successful, they might represent a losing strategy for the party that has labeled itself the “values” party.

Is it really family “values” to have a bill named “make life work”, on the floor of Congress? The title, if not the bill, seems to give more to Caesar than called for in a party claiming “family values”.

I mean the bill could be about how individuals should stop whining and pull themselves up by their boot straps and go to work. You know, make life work idiot!

Which is what a father would tell the young in the family.

But as The Daily Show said last night, can they do that with a warm smile?

In other words, does the Republican message come across as the rich telling the poor to “suck it up” (if that is even what the bill is about, because I don’t know the bill), or do they give it a human-type emotion.

So if these are not successful tactics for the Republicans are they successful for Obama?

Is it possible that these successful tactics of Boehner’s could be a part of Obama’s strategy to have the Republican name itself as a party in which work is your life, instead of highlighting what comes after work the family.

If this is Obama’s strategy, for the Republicans to name themselves the party of work instead of family, then perhaps Boehner is correct, they are successful tactics.

If this is the case, and the Republican Party is following the strategy of Obama, then I am not sure that the tactics of the Republican Party will be successful, for the Republican Party.

On the other hand, when I was young I thought that I didn’t want work to define me, but now as I grow old I am less sure. To me success now depends on how the society is structured, and how the culture fits that structure.

It is more obvious than ever to me that the U.S.A. is structured as the Right.

If the structure of your country matches the culture holding it up, then to me that means you have a successful country, a country successful in its past and future.

The Right, as a structure has a large normalizing force that controls the friction inside a society, and that normalizing force in America is becoming more corporate each year. I am beginning to believe that the culture in the USA is also beginning to match its structure.

I think there is a large push-back, but each year it gets harder for those wanting the U.S.A. to have a winning structure, either more as the Left or for God to be that normalizing force instead of Caesar.

Those with the losing strategy seems to be those pushing push against corporations (replacing God as the normalizing force) and those of the Right (replacing those on the Left without a normalizing force).

But then the Republican Party doesn’t apologize for being the party of Caesar or on the Right.

And there is no reason they should apologize  given BushII’s failed Crusade into the Middle East and the win by Obama as the structural leader, ha!

I remember watching a video out of Iraq which showed a US military commander in charge on the ground in Iraq rallying his troops with the slogan, “We are doing God’s work”.

I am sure the Persians said the same thing to the Greeks, as the Persians removed the Jews from Israel. Oh wait! That is exactly what they didn’t say.

It is what we said to the Chinese as the corporate Right removed Saddam from Iraq, and the Islamic Left replaced him.

Thanks Bush :)

Some kinda strategy, huh????

via Boehner memo hails GOP ‘tactical plan’ against Obama as success – The Hill’s On The Money.

Britons want to know what possessed officials targeting apostrophes

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But, he added, correct use of the apostrophe isn’t simply nitpicking; the tiny punctuation mark can make an outsized difference, as in this sentence: “If you’re late for dinner, you can eat your son’s.”

“If you don’t put the apostrophe in ‘son’s,’ it’s cannibalism, isn’t it?” said Noon, the father of two English teachers. “It’s only when English is clear and precise that you can get the message across properly.”

Yes, what did possessed them, the Apostles?  but then is it also not Paul’s or the King’s, unless it says so?

The British are so polite, it doesn’t even sound like war.

Of course I guess they don’t have Fox News then either, to stand up for God and King. If no one tells you it’s war, is it war?

I wonder if this Pope is going to weigh-in on the issue? The last Pope was more interested in what was considered mundane issues in the Church. If I understand it correctly, the new Pope is a little more Conservative.

via Britons want to know what possessed officials targeting apostrophes – latimes.com.

The Project: Final Remodel

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I have begun the final remodel. I am in the Data phase, and the data almost killed me, as I added knowledge. I ended up with a fractured spine and one rib.

It was nothing that needed any medical attention except for some ibuprofen (drop that oxcondone as quick as you can), then go on muscle relaxers until you can feel that the bleeding has stopped.

I don’t know if this “cheep trick” works or not, but my pain is more real now and I don’t think that it is caused by spasmodic bleeding. I have stopped taking spasm medicine, and trying my back out.

But that is what knowledge is all about, pain, unless you handle the taking of all that data carefully.

I knew better than to use the top step of anything, much less of a 20+ years old step stool. but then I did use it as a platform to do my data-taking from.

Despite the knowledge that I had on how dangerous it is to work from a position of no leverage (top step), I kept using the top step of the stool because I didn’t want to stop and think what I really need in resources, to gather this data safety. I was neither craftsman nor a good manager.

Most people don’t understand that the real job of a millwright (my former job) is safety, and that means not only working with your hands, but ones mind.

In project class in college I was categorized as a mastermind. In one project I was the only one in class (including my team, ouch!) that wrote up the correct answer, and I think my experience as a millwright helped in that effort to categorize me.

I often wondered if anyone was interested in the answer, but nobody asked me about it, so it was hard to tell.

So, go ahead and start that narrative with data gathering, but understand that the odds of getting hurt can catch up with you as you gain knowledge, as I did when I found myself on the floor, on my back, above the edge of the stairs, and with my legs on the steps below me. Talk about a position with no leverage!

Beginning with the right “tempo” is very important in reducing those odds of getting hurt. With tempo you can find the time to become both an organizer and a millwright, a very safe position to be in.

I am just now getting in position to find were my advantage, at least in not getting hurt, will come from.

America the Home of the Brave?

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larrydunbar Says:

February 4th, 2013 at 4:35 pm

Step 1.Know yourself; Check.

Step 2. Know your enemy. Understand the advantage he/she has in the environment that you both share.

As an example, if the owner of Fox News is from Australia and an elite,  there is some not-so-small advantage in keeping the “Americans” stirred up all the time.

Unlike America, Australia is an island whose history shows that the inhabitants can’t defend.

A friend of the family was sent to Australia to up-root the Japanese that island-hopped their way down to Australia. He and his D8 Caterpillar dug the Japanese out of the sands, as he and the rest of America headed north.

But he also told, in his narrative, how little help he got from the Australians themselves.

Of course, as he writes, it was hard to find the Australians, they were too busy fighting in other parts of the world. I think what surprise him the most was how little civilian help they got in their effort.

But then, as history shows, even if every Australian had given their lives and resources fighting the Japanese, it would not have been enough.

During the war in the Pacific, it was towards the Austrian’s advantage for the U.S. to dig the Japanese out. Australia, negotiating from a position of strength, was and still is: too small, too little populated, and too isolated to defend using just the natives that live there.

China is buying up most of the island now (using US dollars), so the threat of violence, from an outside force, gives the Aussies an edge to work from. I am not saying that “stirring” is the function of Fox, but it, at the very least, looks like stirring is a good chunk of that function that might be supported by the elites.

As Americans and Gamers, stirring the “pot” is not really that hard, right?

So how about instead of trust have a heart, bud, as we move on to step 3 & 4?

via zenpundit.com » Blog Archive » America the Home of the Brave?.

How Obama Is Unraveling Reagan Republicanism

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Republican libertarians have never got along with social conservatives, who want to impose their own morality on everyone else.

I think this is the exact split I was talking about that happened when the “Dixiecrats” of the South joined the Party of Lincoln.

The Southern Democrats turn from home-team-blue, to the away-team-red, and the Republican Party is just now adjusting.

via How Obama Is Unraveling Reagan Republicanism.

Inauguration Day: Unclear strategy for an Obama legacy

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Persuading some centrist Republicans that their voters want them to be constructive. Their decision, after a retreat, to put off the clash over the debt ceiling could be a sign of this. But it is more likely simply so they can concentrate on a fight over spending.

Not “constructive”, destructive. Knowledge is destructive, and the voters want their Republicans to be knowledge based, which right now isn’t happening.

Republicans seem to think that the voters want their leaders to go against their word, and not pay for a debt we owe.

That is not a very good strategy. We basically went to war in the Middle East to keep the dollar relevant it today’s world.

If a relevant dollar was indeed, at least, one of the strategies for war, why would we want to counter that strategy with another? Especially when that “other” would mean going back on our word.

Wouldn’t going back on our word mean we have wasted that debt which was paid for by those wars?

While keeping those guys in the Middle East spending our money wasn’t the only reason we went to war, it must have been a sizable chunk of it.

We live in a consumer society. If we can’t consume anymore, because we don’t have the dollars, then we need someone to continue consuming, at least continue consuming our dollars.

The Native American were the first ones to learn that it’s never good to turn your back on  the world.

I mean, they seem to be back, but they went through some really destructive years.

So, yeah fellows, just keep playing around, we gotcha!

We will just pass on the free blankets, this time around.

via BBC News – Inauguration Day: Unclear strategy for an Obama legacy.

Congress: Wanna get away? – First Read

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Reid’s job is to help move President Obama’s agenda through the upper chamber, but he must also protect his five-seat Senate majority, and gun-rights groups are threatening to go after vulnerable Senate Democrats who back the president’s calls for a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines.”

So why call for a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines? Why not just give the assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines to the militias,  and let the militias worry about the collection of weapons? Wasn’t forming militias a big part of the 2nd Amendment to begin with? If the majority of the people think we need to arm ourselves with automatic weapons, then let’s arm ourselves with automatic weapons.

If not, then let us keep supporting our first responders. Not really sure there are the funds to do both.

via Congress: Wanna get away? – First Read.