Musing of One Watching a Squirrel Trying to Crack Open a Golf Ball

In the news reports lately there's been a story that the new national security strategy will focus more on diplomacy and international cooperation than military pacts and actions.
This is a laudible goal. However, there is an old truism about treaties and pacts. It says that a treaty is good only so long as each party to it intends to, and does, comply with its terms. Some examples of broken treaties come to mind; the Treaty of Versailles, the Kellogg-Briand Pact, the Munich Accords and the Paris agreement between the U.S. and North Vietnam. I think that prior to World War Two the Germans and Russians had one or more treaties which probably neither one of them ever intended to honor.
One of Ronald Reagan's famous one-liners was "Trust, but verify." To which we would add "Stay alert."

Musing of one preparing to explain...

...to a student who is unfamiliar with it that the Great Depression was neither a topographical feature nor a period of extremely high demand for Prozac.

Way back in the days of the mastodons, saber -toothed tigers, and early cavemen, and before there were any formal languages, a young caveman was wandering though the forest one day looking for something to eat when he came upon a clearing with a stream running through it. Sitting on a rock by the stream was an absolutely ravishing cave girl sunning herself. “wow” said the cave man by whatever means cave men used to communicate with themselves , “ that’s for me” he started toward the rock , and about half way there he admitted a grunt that sounded like “ah-ha”! she looked up and grasp her club that was lying beside her .Then she admitted an answering grunt which sounded like “unh-unh” he came a little farther and grunted again something like “uh-huh” and received the same reply “unh-unh”.
By this time he was close enough to reach over and touch her shoulder, where upon she whacked him over the head with her club. Fortunately his thick hair cushioned the blow somewhat, but he still saw stars and felt woozy. While he was standing there trying to recover he suddenly began to speak regular words in English, which wasn’t even going to be developed for another zillion or so years. She shows some evidence of interest and soon becomes intrigued and then so entranced that she throws herself into his arms, they precede to head back to his cave, settle down, and then begin production of some little “ah-has”.
Periodically the Muse visits him and he spouts more English words. this always entrances his mate who drops whatever she is doing to sit there and listen. One day he is in the mood and she is listening to what he is spouting when he accidently strings together a number of words that make up a complete intelligible sentence. Both of them are trying to figure this latest thing out when a saber-toothed tiger sticks his head into the entrance of the cave. They forget everything while they grab their clubs and attend to business. After ward they try to recall what he had said, but have no luck what so ever, and so the sentence is lost to posterity for another zillion plus years. Then one day a minor bureaucrat, trying to decide which one in his group may have the data needed to answer the question from his superiors, kicks a waste basket and resurrects the sentence, and brings it immortality- “next week we gotta get organized” .
And so, children the moral of the stuff is: any account of history may or may not be factually accurate in all respects, depending on the mindset of the author and the reliability of his sources.

Musings of One Who Has Just Been Asked the Question "Why is a Biscuit?"

I have been having trouble ascertaining what is included in the current immigration reform proposals in congress. However, from what I have been able to glean they include some sort of amnesty for illegal immigrants along with a path to citizenship. If so, this is probably the only instance in all recorded human history in which a government proposed to reward people for breaking its laws.
(As far as unrecorded human history, there probably weren't any governments then anyway.)
How ridiculous can it get?
This seems to me to be the ne plus ultra of absurdity.

Musings of One Finally Admitting Membership in the Krotchety Old Kurmudgeons Klub

Amendment 1 of the US constitution gives people the right to "peacably to assemble and petition the Government for a redress of grievance." I was reflecting on this some days ago as I watched a demonstration in Phoenix against the new Arizona law regarding illegal immigrants. What I saw was a crowd rampaging through the streets, impeding traffic, defacing buildings and injuring at least one police officer. I said to myself "This is hardly peacably assembling." And so we have the situation where a group of people who have flauted the constitution in at least one way, and two if they entered the country illegally, calling on that same constitution to invalidate a law which they consider inimacal to their personal interests. I call this sheer hypocrisy. I also call this blatant arrogance.

Musings of One Trying to Remember What a Flint Lock Was

Here is my take on responsibility for the mortgage meltdown and the recession. It's based on what I have been able to glean from various news reports, talk shows, and printed reports. Listed below, in descending order of importance, are those whom I think were, in my opinion, responsible for the mortgage meltdown:
1. Mr. and Mrs. J. Q. Smith of main street USA who bought a house they could not afford, took on a mortgage not justified by their income, and later when the value of the house rose- took out a home equity loan without really considering the possible risks. (I'm not blaming them, that's human nature, in the same circumstances others of us might do the same thing. What I'm doing is trying to assign responsibility.)
2. Real estate agents and others who entered fraudulent data on loan applications in order to qualify the buyer for a bigger mortgage.
3. The government and large lending institutions, which over the years, cooperated to relax lending standards to the point where a homeless person without a job could qualify to buy a home, with nothing down and 40 years or so to pay it off. I'll admit to some hyperbole's here.
4. Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, which provided a market for mortgages, but apparently didn't carefully analyze the risks.
5. Wall street for packaging mortgage obligations into securities and selling them world wide.

In my opinion, also a factor in the recession was unrestrained use of credit by individuals to the point where they could no longer buy things on credit.

Instead of accepting responsibility it seems that everybody is busy pointing fingers at everybody else. Reminds me of a line from some piece of literature, (I would gladly credit the author if I had any idea of who he was): "Lord Henry stormed out the door, flung himself onto his horse, and galloped off madly in all directions."

Oh well!

Musings of One Trying to Remember How a Flint Lock Worked

Recently there has been quite a bit in the news about SEC charges against Goldman Sachs, also there has been an item in the news, in which Warren Buffet is quoted saying that he isn't selling any of his Goldman stock. Somewhat confusing. Also note that the president and various other politicians have castigated Goldman for causing the mortgage meltdown and the recession. That brings to mind the fact that over the years various politicians have used big corporations in some fields of endeavor as favorite whipping boys to arouse the electorate and thereby gain support for further government interventions. In my opinion, Goldman Sachs had very little to do with the recession and the mortgage meltdown. In general, that is another stick of confusion thrown on the fire.

Way back in the 1930's an Ogen Nash character uddered the immortal line "O tempora, O mores, O God, O Montreal!" which makes about as much sense as some of the things going on today.