And now, for something different (or it should be)

 

A shortened version of a post I made in a different blog....

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The war with Iran has been going on for several months now, and what do we have gotten for it?  As I write this, we got 18 service members coming home in body bags, a depleted munitions stock, an aircraft carrier coming to port due to an under-supplied, emotionally exhausted crew, and hundreds of billions of dollars deeper in dept.  We did not get regime change in Iran.  We did not eliminate the potential nuclear threat Iran poses.  And we did not vanquish our "enemy".  Instead, we have shown that the US is a paper tiger, and that Iran has the power to shut off 20% of the world's oil supply.

If you ask our president, he'll say we're winning the war, and that the Strait of Hormuz is open for shipping.  Yet, he'll act like a little child when someone asks him a question which holds him to account for his mistakes.  His ego is so fragile, that by not admitting any of his failings, he is unable to learn from his mistakes.  As a result, he keeps doubling down on his lies, and no one trusts him anymore.  Yet, people are afraid of him due to his ability to rally members of his cult to attack his enemies.

America is now $40,000,000,000 in debt.  For the first time in history, we are now paying more in debt service than we pay for defense.  This can not last for long.  This president would cut social spending in order to preserve our war machine.  But what good would that do?  We can't even defeat an enemy like Iran.  Our military is not nimble.  We still act as if we need to fight the wars of the 20th century, instead of those we need to fight now.  Instead of retreating into 1940's military technology, as our president would do with our aircraft carriers, we should be at the forefront of 2020's military technology, as Ukraine has exhibited with its use of drone technology.

Unmanned vehicles (air, land, and sea) are the future of warfare, as they can enable militaries to fight wars while keeping their service members well behind the scenes in relative safety.  For those near the front lines of battle, they can provide the tools for defense that older, more expensive military tools and weapons can not provide.  Unmanned vehicles are cheaper and more effective than older military technology.  They have allowed Ukraine, a nation without a navy, to defeat the Russian navy and make it an almost useless asset.

Given the cost of proven drone technology vs. the cost of our overpriced military technology, I see a potential to kill several birds with one stone.  First, we can no longer afford to enforce a "Pax Americana" as we did for the second half of the 20th century.  So, let's wind it down to areas we can defend, and have other nations form healthy regional alliances for defense.  Second, let's take she savings from winding down the "Pax Americana" and do three things with it: (a) develop drone technology with Ukraine and build up stockpiles which both countries can use, (b) plug up holes in our social safety net (especially in healthcare, and (c) pay down our national debt.

The British empire fell because it couldn't afford to maintain it.  America is well on the same path to a similar national failure that could cripple us for generations.  And yet, our president's incompetency has given us an opportunity if we are wise enough to seize it.  Things are so FUBAR (F'd up beyond all recognition) that radical change may just be possible.  Licensing Ukrainian drone technology might help our military become more nimble and cost effective.  It may help America rebuild its industrial logistics, so that we can again build civilian products in the US, as we did with the aircraft and space industries.  We can learn from the past, and choose to take a different path than those who preceded us.

The big question is:  Will we learn the lessons of the past and make good choices.  I'm hoping that America will follow the lead of a wise woman (Mae West) who said: "Whenever given the choice between two evils, I'll choose the one I haven't chosen before."  It's time for something new, and even a bad choice of something new is better than the continued choices of something old we have been making as of late. 

Hump Day - For some, a good night for sex.

Mae West once said that it's not the men in her life, but it's the life in her men.  It's hard to believe that she was almost 100 years ahead of her time.  But her words still resonate today - even after they have been censored to fit the morals of her era.

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I had only one thing on my docket for the day, and that was an interview with an image scanning firm.  Everything went well, and I was made an offer.  Yes, the pay is lower than what I was earning at the census. But with my skill set being relatively worthless in this market, I'll take this job for a while to see if I like it.  It's not that I need the money.  Instead, it's that I need to keep myself active enough to enjoy getting up in the morning.

When I got home from the interview, I found an email from the employment bureau waiting for me. Since the email was addressed to Marian, I had to mention that I am pre-op transgender, and that my legal ID and photo doesn't match the image I presented on the interview, I had to ask if this was a problem - and it wasn't.  So I guess that my feminine presentation is better than I would have once thought.  Let's see what happens assuming that I'm on the job for a while.

On other matters, I have been in phone contact with two women from north of me.  One was from Kingston, and the other from Pawling.  I basically gave up on the one in Kingston, and Pawling may have dropped by the wayside.  What's really strange is that the Pawling phone number has been disconnected.  This is just as well, as both women carried more than their share of baggage.

And lastly, I had another fun online game night with YGD and some of her friends.  The Jackbox games are mostly party games, but they are fun when you have a larger group to play with.