Privatize All that Risk

Ma Nature dealt the USA another blow when hurricane Harvey, first of all smacked into Texas and lingered there to flood out the city of Houston.  How fortunate, then, that the State of Texas had been considering some amendment to insurance claims legislation and just so happened to have a law going into effect on the coming first of September.  It didn't take long for people to see rising water and recall that legislation,  before the social media lit-up with warnings that people were about to get screwed.

In order to qualify for damage during the current situation the claim has to be filed in writing, by Friday, specifying exactly what damages were being claimed.  After that no claims for current damage were to be accepted.

National Flood Insurance    A government program that lets people build on a flood plain.

America has had some notable devastations in its history and it has grown up a healthy insurance industry to ameliorate the damage from those things.  Generally,  the insurance industry thrives, most often paying out far less than it takes in, adding investment value to its holdings and sharing some profit with investors. Everything usually goes just great,  unless there is a 'run on the corporation ' in terms of claims. The last significant hurricane, Katrina, did exactly that and the damage from that is far from being repaired - but the insurance industry survived.

The Dirty Dems will screw thinks up (hopefully)  It took three years to get legislation passed to assist the New Jersey clean-up - Republicans didn't go for the idea.

Some of the industry 'biggies' were almost 'taken under' by damage claims and the industry by and large reacted badly to its long-term customers. The Gulf oil spill added more claims the industry didn't want to pay. So where there's a tragedy - there is charity and the public purse - if insurance is involved there are higher rates, across the board,  to cover the "loss".

 When such things happen the insurance industry goes into 'self-protection' mode scouring the files for defaulted policy holders, examining claims in such a way that damages could be ascribed to non-covered causes, or by joining in the great calls for charity to help ordinary people rebuild.  It is far easier for insurance corporations to toss all the damage to the public purse and private charity.  In the meantime premiums for everybody take an up-tick (that will never actually go down again) . Texas if the focus for another 'fleecing of the suckers'. Let's see what happens with flood and hurricane damage  insurance.

That clean-up's gonna cost ya extra. There's a law requiring that inflated wage rates be applied to government funding in emergency situations. But apparently there may not be enough construction workers .


Not to be outdone,  valiant little EUkrainia, or at least the Ukrainian 'cowboys' of Texas,  are helping get some millionaires' dumps back into full service. Head's up Mr. Trump. We are still needing better weapons to kill the russians.  Please help us help you?

Oligarch helps Harvey clean up

I'm Gonna Huff, and I'm Gonna Puff ...

And he'll wind-up blowing North Korea too.

Donald Trump is reported by some media to have responded to the North Korean threat to' make the US pay' for its new sanctions program.  while everybody else on earth views the North Koreans as all talk and very little effective shelling, Trump had to respond in in kind - threatening an American response of "fire and fury",   this after US 'scientists' conceived that the North Koreans had advanced miniaturization processes in hand and had, in fact, produced an atomic warhead small enough to fit into the nose of the artillery rockets they have been firing into inner space of late.  Is it now also believed that those rockets, if fired on the same kind of trajectory as most other ICBMs,  could travel as far as Chicago.

Other US agencies were announcing a willingness to talk to North Korea if they promised to stop launching missiles.  And yet others were taking some delight in the prospect of costing  North Korea  a billion dollars a year in truncated exports - essentially we are told the USA was shutting down the North Korean sea food industry - as well of course as enduring they will be blackballed by anybody peddling weapons or electronic technology. So I guess when the gargantuan TV on Kim il Sung square goes on the blink, they'll be scrambling for some circuit boards and switches. That  should serve them right!

When the Norks actually did stop launching more missiles (at least the ones they said they were planning to shoot towards Wake)  the CinC congratulated them on being "wise" (good cop) , the Sec State (bad cop) said he'd be willing to talk but that it would take "a little more" something from the Norks.  They gave three short-range rockets as a reply (but they all 'failed' (yay!))


One has to wonder what, in all this,  did the North Koreans do to 'break the agreement' they had made with Clinton's America?  That saw them go from "world threat" to "world charity case" in less than three years. It also saw them allow US technicians to  'assist' in dismantling their sole nuclear reactor and, as far as was evident by inspection, stop developing Uranium towards making a weapon.  George Bush moved into the White House and before the dust settled on the WT complex,  the Norks were again "pariahs" and "threats" and the US was reneging on whatever Clinton had  agreed to do.

A Nork Nuke funny

They started work again. rebuilding their reactor and,  by the time Obama took over the fear mongering,  they had detonated a real bomb. Since then, 'the threat' has only gotten worse, exacerbated perhaps by the thought that , if they kept it up,  they might be tempted to nuke America rather than Seoul,  or Tokyo.   To-day, according to Trumpco, they can. And the US military, we were told last week waits only for the go signal.

When you Google "North Korea Nuke" this is the first image that isn't a 'real' rocket photo or a cartoon.  Even this is a photo=montage creation - for,you see, there is precious little evidence of Pyong yang's Nukes, either.   Hopefully that's enough to stop a war , as well  as to start one?

The 'situation' for Long Dong Clinton

The question remains - how lucky do we feel?

Gone from America's media is Syria - a perfectly good peoples' rising against tyranny has gone 'poof'.  Oh sure there is still stuff happening over there. The USAF is custom-bombing Raqqa, the Marines are bringing in equipment 'for themselves' (and the Syrian Kurds). But things have gone to hell in a handcart down in the Jordanian border - where a little incident (two weeks ago) involving some 'retreating' freedom fighters being 'ambushed' trying to cross into Jordan,  parlayed itself into a fight between factions and, a few days ago,  a fairly significant desertion (with all their equipment) by one group of America's 'anti-Assad' heroes.

So far,  whatever agreement about Syria that Trump made with Putin seems to be holding. and while it does,  the Assad forces are making significant inroads in blocking future coalition moves to 'grab territory', while putting some significant dents in ISIS land.  It would appear that Assad is moving toward the relief of Deir ez Zor  and clearing the rest of the Iraq border.   But none of this matters to American news sources for the news isn't good. They need another good 'gassing' while somebody still remembers the hokum about the last one. (actually there was an attempt again to launch an 'Assad dunnit' news story.  This once complete with the standard gasping babies and water hose decontamination procedures - flopped.  It didn't make the front page anywhere, maybe even not onto the 'beautiful baby- cruise missile strike calculator'.

Meanwhile America has shifted focus to considering a bunch of 'initiatives': somebody's got the military option for Venezuela out for a 'boo'.  'Defensive' lethal weapons ( how are they different from offensive lethal weapons?)  are 'on the table' for EUkrainia.  And just to show how much we care , the NATO contingent ( un-armed eh?) marched in EUkraine's national independence day military parade. Hopefully the Ukrainian 'elite' units (they didn't seem to be lacking much lethal equipment)  were around for the post-parade party, before shipping-out for some 'blooding' in the 'ostfront'.   The message for Putin 'ist klaaar' - Barbarossa only sleeps.

Addendum:

One of the side stories coming out of the Nork's threat to whirled piece is the answer to the question "How'd they do that?'  The answer being,  they bought the rocket technology from somebody.

What somebody? Probably directed by Putin's goons,  the finger initially pointed at Ukraine - purveyor of rockets parts and engines to everybody engaged in space activity.  The Ukrainians naturally denied doing it and fingered the Russians who, it was claimed,  had three or four Ukrainian-made roman candles that they hadn't bothered to shoot upwards. The russkies must have sold them to the Norks.

To-day another double back-cover story floating out of EUkrainia with all the eyes dotted and fingers crossed:  the saga of how Ukraine duped the Norks into stealing phony rocket plans and got hem doing it on tape.

Ecce evidencia

Heil Trump!

German Propaganda

Russian propaganda

                                           

America is coming off a good week.  After a minor riot in Charlotteville, Virginia ( named after the relative of the tyrannical English monarch George III),   the USA got to look at itself up-close and personal - and it's hard to tell what exactly it saw.   Particularly if you were trying to take any lead from the leader of the nation.

As riots go it wasn't much - Wall Street has seen more violence after a market downturn. It didn't even match Moscow for 'critical mass', but somebody drove their car ( an iconic American  muscle car) into the crowd and a woman as killed. The driver,  whose Mom said he isn'y ( "He just went out for some snacks!")  was accused of being a neo-nazi and white supremacist.  His murder trial should be interested in that.

Good nazis in Ukraine

Bad nazis in Charlotteville

There were, so we are told nazi flags there, nazi helmets were there - but the biker variety and there were some cis-genitals,  in white Lacostes,  who were saying they wanted to keep America 'blank' and 'fag-free'.   There were also some 'haters' on the alter side - blacks, violent femmes and at least one Boudicca reenatctor with one bare boob and thigh-high combat boots.  Each side was laying some hurtful words and some regular bric-bat hurt on the others. Than goodness nobody as armed.


Everybody saw what happened on the news - even the Prexy - for among his other cares and worries of orifice - Norks, Afghanis and Russian 'resurfacers' - he had to take time from the dwindling daze of his holiday periods to rebut the dishonest media to point out that such 'division' was an American tradition and that both sides were "baaaaad". The press immediately 'went nuts' about him conflating peaceable icinoclasts with the jack booted sturgeons of Weimar Germany.  He should have, they clamored,  blamed the Nazis for supporting that hateful statuary.

This week they want to remove Columbus from 'Columbus Circle' in Manhattan. And they'll be doing what with the circle, giving it back to the Indians?   Like homosexuality - once you start tolerating such change you wind up supporting it and eventually promoting it.  I don't think most left wing Americans have through through what undoing a few centuries of cultural genocide has done, particularly if you live in a nation that curt its teeth on screwing the natives.  Crikey!  We could be reverting to a time when red savages might kill us all in our beds before the rowboat-jihadi invaders do!

After bloviating his way past Charlotteville Trump hied himself west for another of his patented 'resuscitation rallies' - the ones where he touches his 'base'.  There he laid down chapter and verse on all the bad guys - foreign and domestic-  and the bad stuff they'd done to him and to America.  He didn't mention his Afghan plan which might have caused some disappointment.

The subsequent 'address' to the nation which didn't involve any screaming and shouting - no need to do that if you're reading a script - and Afghanistan was as scripted as it could get. With the standard Trumpisms that conflated everything central Asian into an interlaced bag of goo and mother love and then laid down his patented 'starting NOW!'  mantra that gets him so much traction with those trying to figure out what they're supposed to be doing. At least they've been warned that what they're supposed to be doing is now overdue

Donald is big on getting friends into things. Afghanistan is a case in point. While there are now commitments from previous participants like Britain and Spain to commit a couple of hundred personnel each - to training and a re-up of sorts from those members of NATO who didn't leave America to change the mission on her own - the Germans and Italians - to hang in, the greatest response has been received from Non-NATO allies - Georgia, Ukraine, and New Zealand who are 'doubling down' on the great shows they've already made.  Thew rest of NATO is busy trying to figure out how they can spend more on their military without handing it over to defend America in Asia and now Africa.  Don't anticipate Trump showing-up to take the 'allied' march past in Kabul.

                         
                                                                 Welcome Allies!

uniting America

uniting America

                     

What Losing Looks Like

America is on 'the horns of the DeLeon', again!  Afghanistan, that 'burning bush upon a hill' is once again in peril of going to the south side.  The Taliban are resurgent and the enrollment figures for ISIS (Hindu Kush) are 'bustin' out all over'. The poor bashi-bazouks of the army America has drilled trained, equipped and taught to understand and use basic NATO military terminology ("motherfucker")  are , either, dying in droves, deserting to the enema, or busily-buggering babies while 'stoned out of their gourd' and dreaming-up green-on-green attacks.  The Afghan government is impotent to stop any of it.

So what is America to do for, you see,  a withdrawal will create a vacuum and all the suction required to draw other forces into Afghanistan - the kind of forces that don't like America and that should not be allowed to benefit from 18 years of the best investments Bennie Franklins could buy.

The single greatest present danger of losing Afghanistan to somebody else, comes from Iran - the 'base' used by Alexander the Great for one of the few 'successful' invasions. And they hate America just on principle. Read, and moan gently.

We KNOW who ya are, and we SAW what you done.

The invasion rowboats will be built in Teheran

Putin's always in the wings somewhere. In fact our Afghan adventure may be turning into Russkie 'payback' for all the help we gave the Jihadis when they were setting up to eject the Russians.

American guns blood and treasure, Putin gets the gravy

Hey Omar! Where'd you get that kalashikova?

Pakistan has been number one with the bullet since Lord Curzon drew his line through the Pashtunwali. We forget that Britain's restive 'northwest frontier' was most of northern Pakistan and southern Afghanistan.   Neither one of those places were pleased to entertain the Grand Poobah or their 'civilizing'  Mem Sahibs.   They haven'r modernized a bit - except in the arms department.

The India-Pakistan conflation adds to the steaming pile of ca-ca lying around to be stepped-in in Afghanistan.  That little 'tiff ' they're having over Kashmir is something the Afghans don't mind poking - to remind both sides that they are important. And India's northern border is close enough to be affected by Afghanistan if they wanted to make trouble. India seems intent in nose-poking into Afghanistan to annoy the Paks,  but shouldn't want to to get too closely involved.

We KNOW what you done.

Nailing the Paks to Afghanistan

And then there are those opportunist Chinamen,  eyeing some 'tourist hotels' in the Hindu Kush and a east-west transportation artery through mountains flattened at US taxpayer expense.

The Yellow Peril and the silk rode west - rock and roll like you've never seen

Aside from the increasingly obvious failure to win (this week the Taliban and ISIS teamed-up to wipe out one of our 'home-defense militia' units.  - whoever is causing it, there seems to be the growing sentiment that there isn't much except continued waste left in it for the USA. Trump however points out the minerals - lots of beautiful minerals, that the US should take with them when, or before,  they shut out the lights.

So, what to do?  Stay in let the ulcer weep?  Double down again in hope of getting it right?  Leave and shut everything down?   There has to be some reason to stay - central Asia is the 'America' of tomorrow.

They have the most beautiful minerals - rubies and pearls and lap dancing ladies

One innovative way is to declare a victory and have the Afghans install a purely defensive force of 'contractors' tasked with winning the insurgency without all the hooplah of Geneva conventions and potential war crimes charges.  Shy anything up to a nuclear strike, Erik Prince and the military marketplace will provide canned security for what's hoped to be a 'reasonable' (viz more waste) price. He could be America's last poke at a vict'ry parade.

Private Armies? Private Air Forces! Go USA!

Yemen: Go ahead Blame the USA

Before there was a war on terror, possibly before there was an Al Qaeda or a Bin Laden there was some sort of anti-something operation going on in Yemen.

To begin with were the Brits and their  Horn of Africa bastion at Aden - a port and RAF layover base. After the Second World war the Brits had more than a passing fancy on the Arabian littoral - the Trucial States, Oman,  what were to become the 'United Arab Emirates', as well as the states of Jordan, Egypt, and Iraq had more than passing relationship with the 'Empire of Daylight'.

As Empire gave way to Commonwealth and Britain retracted itself into paying-off war debt and occupying West Germany, the Gulf States were among the last to go. Aden was a major military base into the mid-60's. After Yemen gained independence it split into two  lesser states -  a religious one and a socialist one.  Surprisingly it was the more ruggedly-backward socialist state in North Yemen - target of at least a decade of British suppression -  that eventually won the war  in  the whole country. Then the fun began.

The Egyptians, at that time backed by the USSR,  took on the communist Yemenis  over some kind of insult. They actually invaded and wasted themselves on a five-year 'un-pacification program',  before retiring to lick wounds and gird for continued battle with Israel.  They held a couple of Red Sea archipelagos that the Sisi government  'returned' to Saudi Arabia (not Yemen) only this year,  as a 'sign'of friendship and loyalty.  That hasn't shaken - out completely with most Egyptians,  yet.

Then America appeared, extending its embassy and upping the CIA contingent.  The CIS/FNI/NatSec chief killed in the 9/11 event was the 'lead hand' in Yemen for a decade and became an expert on terror. That was before most Americans knew there was terror. He cut his teeth killing 'commist terrorists' in Yemen. That education lasted until 'the balloon went up' a year and a half ago - with the USMC embassy  contingent being 'forced' to abandon their weapons at the airport in Sana'a,  before 'freedom birding' it out, to Djibouti.  But look Ma, 'we're back and kicking goats herds'  ass!

When it comes to bombing and droning,  Yemen has to be on a couple of video game 'scenarios'  by now . Now there's intel to be shared,  and the former AQAP is now ISIS in the heart if Islam.

We're here to help!

Yemen has to be the poster child for wanton destruction , civilian deaths, disease, starvation and the other couple of Apocalyptic Horsemen.  Sure,  somebody humanitarian wants to rush in there and aid them but not until they say 'اخو الام'.  So they can just suffer - no water, no  hospitals, no hope and typhus - they've brought it on themselves by refusing to make nice.


The Other Side of Nicky Haley 

One of the bad things is having to wonder why they just don't quit?  Usually it's because somebody evil is egging them on, or giving them supplies and weapons.  We know they (Iran and Russia probably) are giving them weapons,  we just can't prove it. But that doesn't stop good guys from accusing the Iranians of smuggling stuff thru Kuwait and down the Persian Gulf to Hormuz and into the Indian Ocean and Red Sea in little boats - to the one or two small ports still under Houthi control.

Smuggling arms into Yemen_ thru Kuwait! 

That's probably why they're still rowing out there to attack the Arab Navies.

Invasion rowboats at War


In days of yore we'd have been cheering for this tough, fighting,  little people - not bombing the shit out of them too.  But, hey,  they don't want us cheering, or anything else we'd like to do 'for' them.

The Outrage that Got Away

Just after the latest Assad 'killing his own people' farce, a real outrage did take place. It was roundly ignored in western media because, very obviously, the good guys, or the Moslem extremists we're backing in Syria,  did it. They made a video record of their attack and they very obviously targeted a defenseless 'enemy' civilian population.

 What we saw of the massacre was 'given out' as 'payback' of some kind for the alleged  'atrocities' done by the Assad regime when it liberated our 'poster city' for western-based Jihad in West Aleppo.  Even that latter point failed to mention that those 'victims' were involved in another of the Assad regime's - 'move them instead of maim them' population swaps - the main reason why any Jihadis weren't carried out (some were) .

These 'victims' were  pro-regime people who had been besieged, for 3 years,  by AlNusra/AQ/ISIS forces in their Idlib town,  being swapped for a an anti-Assad population being moved to rebel held areas. And many of them - including children - failed to make the swap.

The following post is graphic - although President Trump wouldn't find many of these dead babies beautiful, - or worth a humanitarian bombardment of somebody.  It should be required watching for moral relativists like Nicky Haley.

By way of a follow-up  Caution graphic pix