Thursday, September 18, 2014

The Scottish Vote, ISIS Ties Knot in Obama's Tail



"The official ballot is one line: 'Should Scotland be an independent country?' And that's it. Why is it that I have to go through 18 pages of terms and conditions to download iOS 8 while a whole country can secede from the United Kingdom by checking a box that says 'Yes'?" – Jimmy Kimmel

"British Prime Minister David Cameron went to Scotland this week to persuade citizens of the country to vote 'no' on leaving the U.K. He said, 'It's never worked out for anyone-well except America, and Canada, Australia, India, and . . . I'll stop talking now.'" – Jimmy Fallon



Today is the day that the Scots vote to become independent from England - or not. I don't really care much about the outcome, since I'm not Scottish, but I do admire how civilized the whole process is, perhaps an object lesson the Irish might learn... I'm of  German ancestry on my mother's side, and Welsh and English extraction on my father's side. If I were to vote I'd have to vote to stay with England, even though my heart goes out for all tribes to be free. My last name says that we are sons of William the Conqueror, given land to settle as reward for being in his army, and we settled around the Welsh border, pretending that we were native to that plot of land...

If letting Scotland become independent will lower the price of my favorite single malt whiskies, then set those Orkney Islanders free, dammit. And while we're at it, let's annex Cuba like we did to Puerto Rico and bring back the five cent Cuban cigar. It would cost five dollars these days, but well worth it. Funny how some luxuries in life often take precedent over abstract ideas like human rights...

Among other popular abstract ideas is the establishment of an Islamic Caliphate, declared by both Boko Haram and ISIS. Both groups take delight in invading and taking land by force, and killing everyone who gets in their way. Beheading is becoming so popular that it is getting its own Youtube channel...

For some guilty reason, the US believes that it is responsible for taking out ISIS, setting president Obama in a quandary. He had vowed never to send US troops back into Iraq, despite the CIA having never left and continuing to "train" Iraqi troops, who have a bad tendency to strip off their uniforms and run away when the going gets tough, and real bullets are being fired. Which tells us a lot about the quality of CIA training these days...

Even worse, is the perplexing attitude of all the other Arab countries, who don't plan on lifting a finger to help, content to let the Great Satan and his Western allies run amok in the desert again. Perhaps we should just let them all alone, let the two Caliphates end up at war with each other, letting the Iranians pick up the pieces. Then the Islamic Caliphate of ISIS would be reduced to a small part of Iraq, quarantined off much like we do with our Native Indians. Heck, we could even sell them firewater and film the results, print up bumper-stickers that read:


The only Good Caliphate is a Dead Caliphate, y'all

We could sell these to the Shias, and the Kurds, and to the US rednecks. I'd even send one to Lindsey Graham and John McCain, even to ol' Clint if it would make his day... what we should have done was to have drafted George W Bush to go over and become our permanent envoy to Iraq. It would have been his personal responsibility to guide the Iraqi government towards democracy and away from extinction of all Iraqi Sunnis, a task he'd need the help of his best friend Dick Cheney...

The only problem that I could come up with is that they would have staked him out in the desert long ago, or that all of our hawkish Neo-Conservatives would migrate over to become one with their BFF, heck of a good job, Georgie. Of course, then we'd be contemplating bombing Iraq because the neo-cons would have set up a Neo-Conservative Caliphate,ready to administer freedom to all Middle Eastern liberty lovin' folk...