Gongol.com Archives: 2018 Weekly Archives
July 8, 2018
The President refuses to read the briefing book prepared for him, so "ahead of important meetings, aides have made something of a deal with the president: If we put it in a red folder, please read it." If a 2nd-year TSA screener or CIA field agent refused to read assigned briefing materials, he or she would deserve prompt termination.
Building "tiny homes" for Hawaii volcano evacuees
Good to see novel solutions being applied to important problems. Finding ways to house people displaced by natural disasters is a persistent problem.
July 7, 2018
Case study in a disaster-in-waiting that could be stopped right now
But will it? Or will the normalization of deviance win out?
Something about exuberant dancing Germans is hilarious
Good for a light laugh
Show notes - Brian Gongol Show on WHO Radio - July 7, 2018
Live on WHO Radio from 2:00 pm until 4:00 pm Central
July 6, 2018
An aggregation of coverage from the June 30th flash floods
Rainfall totals of 9" in a short period of time, centered right on top of Iowa's biggest urban center
Budget deficits and billowing debt as intergenerational warfare
America's wildly imbalanced budget priorities will spend vastly more on entitlements for the old (and interest on the debt) than it ever will on programs that benefit children. In the words of Margaret Thatcher: "We have first to put our finances in order. We must live within our means. The Government must do so. And we must do so as a country."
July 5, 2018
Are you a practicing American?
Being an American takes practice and belief. Some of us just happen to have been lucky enough to have been born here.
The torment caused by family separations
In the words of Stuart Stevens, "There's not a community in America that wouldn't move heaven and earth to help when an Amber Alert is announced. And yet we have a massive Amber Alert of missing children on the border and it's our government to blame."
Russian nerve agent poisons two more in UK
And those two people aren't thought to have been targeted -- they may just be collateral damage from the original attack
US resettles far fewer refugees in 2017 than in prior years
Having taken in three-quarters of the world's refugees since 1980, the US has closed its doors in a substantial way. That's to our detriment; refugees aren't freeloaders looking for a free lunch -- they're people trying to escape detrimental circumstances at home and make new lives for themselves in a safer place. If we aren't confident enough to be that safer place, then we need to take a long look in the mirror.
Tariffs and counter-tariffs are scheduled to become no longer threats but reality. And that's just stupid. The President is threatening to escalate from taxing $34 billion in imports to $500 billion. It's hard to stop the bleeding from a self-inflicted wound.
July 4, 2018
America is neither doomed nor perfect
America is, and always has been, a work in progress. We have work to do today, and more to do tomorrow.
Thomas Jefferson was 33 years old on July 4, 1776
Wisdom doesn't always wait for age. Benjamin Franklin was 70 years old when he signed the Declaration of Independence, an act that truly put everything on the line for his country. Age is no excuse to stop being a patriotic servant of what is good and right.
China's debt-based diplomacy is no trivial matter
The country's "Belt and Road" initiative may be creating a lot of tangible infrastructure projects all over the world, but those projects aren't being done for charity, and they're not all necessary. China's bankrolling them in the expectation of making money off the construction work itself, as well as off the financing. And the government is so touchy about it that it has gotten aggressive with Australian journalists who asked questions about it.
Meet the people defending trade
It needs a robust defense in this era
Fastball's catchy song "The Way" is about a real-life tragedy
Which certainly tempers the story a bit
Not, as some on Twitter have mistyped, "Independance" Day. Though it might be fun to see whether anyone could do justice to the Declaration of Independence in the form of interpretive dance.
July 3, 2018
Senate Intelligence Committee concludes that Russia really did try to influence the 2016 election
There's no (reasonably) denying Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election. There's no (reasonably) denying they're trying the same in 2018. And 2020. And 2022. There's no (reasonably) denying that other states and non-state actors are trying, too.
Boring politics are good politics
The three key attributes of a good political leader: Curiosity, competence, and humility. (It's that third one that keeps things the right degree of boring.)
Syrian government wants 5.6 million refugees to come back
To go back would take an act of extraordinary faith in a government that hasn't earned it
Why are people torching their credibility?
Commentators like Brit Hume are seeking to argue that certain principled conservatives who stood against the election of Donald Trump are now "standing on a shrinking sliver of ground". After Charlottesville, family separations, and a nascent trade war with Canada...if you still think that people like Tim Miller are the problem, then you're the one missing the point.
A heart-wrenching attack in Idaho
A refugee child was killed at her own birthday party. As one resident put it, "I felt how defenseless those kids were, and how their parents felt they couldn't protect them in those moments."
China is trying to drive a wedge between the US and Europe
The Chinese government is making opportunistic use of President Trump's indefensible trade aggression to try to wedge the US away from historic allies in Europe. It's an opportunistic tactic in service of a very long-term strategy. As Dwight Eisenhower put it: "So we are persuaded by necessity and by belief that the strength of all free peoples lies in unity; their danger, in discord."
Technology is only as good as the people using it
Nebraska State Patrol uses FLIR technology to find and rescue a man who got lost and disoriented in a corn field
Most photos of fireworks are overrated, but not this one
A spectacular shot of downtown Des Moines
July 2, 2018
"National security" isn't a blank check to do stupid things
Tom Nichols: "This is not a serious appeal to national security, but an attempt to use a magical incantation to shut off debate and dissent."
"There is no failsafe...There is, in fact, only us."
The people who think there's nothing to lose by putting a wrecking ball to the world order, to the function of the Federal government, or to the classic notions of civility that make the country function? They are sorely misguided. As Eisenhower put it, "[W]e view our Nation's strength and security as a trust upon which rests the hope of free men everywhere."
Unless you type slower than 20 words per minute...
...there's really no excuse for non-standard abbreviations.
Protectionism, no matter what?
The Commerce Secretary says the President isn't going to alter course on his trade war against the world, no matter what the stock-market reaction. Putting aside for a moment that the stock market isn't the economy and the economy isn't the stock market, the real worry here is that, as the economic consequences of bad trade policies mount, the President will not only "not be deterred"...he'll double down. Because that's what he does when backed into a corner: He always doubles down. As even Canada retaliates against our nonsensical policies, one doesn't need to begrudge those who wanted to believe the President when he promised that trade wars would be easy to win. He's a masterful self-promoter, and people have been buying what he's been selling. But it's time to tell the emperor that he's naked: Trump's trade wars are stupid.