Malaekahana Beach Park Camp Out, Again

About three weeks ago Valerie and I jumped into old Nellie Belle and motored off to the North Shore for several days of camping at Malaekahana Beach Park with our friend Dan and quite a few of the locals of both the fuzzy and the feathered persuasion. We took plenty of food for each so we had plenty of freeloaders to entertain us.

We did have to check out the beach, of course, and on day two discovered that a big log had floated in during the night. As usual, clik on the pic if you want a bigger version.

 

It had been in the water for awhile, long enough for plenty of hitchhikers to latch on:

 

In a few places they were pretty sparse. Note the little brown crab just above center, trying to hide out:

 

Most places, though, they were thick as small government advocates when the politicians are handing out subsidies:

 

It was breezy, and a few sailors took advantage of it:

 

While Valerie and I were hanging around the beach one day a fellow with a grey plastic suitcase in hand came walking up the beach, peeled down to his POLICE wetsuit, put some gear in the case and tethered it to himself, then waded into the water.

 

He came back a few minutes later with an illegally set and unregistered lay net. He looked like anybody walking down the sidewalk in the financial district, briefcase in hand.

The gear he had tossed in his briefcase consisted mainly of his wallet, badge, gun and gun belt: Can't very well leave those lying on the beach, so the gasketted case goes with him whenever he has to go in the water. What a pain.

 

There were a couple dead fish in the net. One, which proved the net had been untended (illegal) had been dead for a while. Apparently legal nets have to be checked daily. The other was fresh:

 

Back at the ranch, Dan gave a little help to his friends. Nothing like welfare queens getting salmon dished up with a silver spoon. Might as well be Democats. Or Republicats, for that matter

 

 

 

Tough cat: Must be a Tareyton smoker:

 

One morning we drove over to Kahuku Golf Course and went for a beach walk, then stopped at the InterGalactically Famous Fumi's Shrimp Wagon for you guessed it, some shrimp. While there we saw our old friend Fumi, the Black Crowned Night Heron:

 

The water in the shrimp pond had been drawn way down, exposing mud flats, or nearly so, and for the first time there we saw a Hawaiian Stilt at Fumi's. They are the endemic sub-species of the Black-necked Stilt, which is common enough elsewhere, but there are only about 1400 of the Hawaiian race around.

 

Here's the same guy:

 

Here's one more. Yeah, yeah, I know: three is too many. Well, it's my blog, and I call the shots. If you want fewer pics of Hawaiian Stilts, go to HuffPo.

 

We did more than lie around the beach and feed the welfare queens, but I didn't take any pictures, so that's all, folks.

Jerry Pournelle on Our Adventures at War

Pournelle, long time space scientist and sci fi author:

I am not much in favor of imperialism as a policy for the United States, but I do favor competent imperialism over the present policies. If we must have an empire, should we not be competent at it?...

I was opposed to extending our Afghan adventure beyond the punishment of the Taliban for harboring out enemies; left to me we’d have been out as soon as Kabul fell to the anti-Taliban forces, with perhaps a billion dollars in bribe money squirreled away to be spent at the discretion of whomever we left behind as resident. Our policy in Afghanistan should have been simple: don’t harbor our enemies, don’t let your country be used as a base for attacks on the US, and apply to the Ambassador if you need anything. Been good to know you. A policy, by the way, that would have been as welcome to the Afghans as to the Legions.

Iraq is another story. We’re pulling out. We have spent $Trillions, we have left chaos, we have removed a major threat to the stability of Iran, and I am not sure what we got out of it. And Iraq certainly does have stuff we want. Oil, to begin with....And we’re running out because the Iraqis insist on applying Iraqi “law and order” to the US forces in Iraq.

I’d be tempted give them a $3 Trillion bill on the way out, and leave an occupation force in one of their major oil fields where we’d be pumping oil and selling it until most of the bill was paid, but that option was apparently never considered. Incidentally, we could defend our occupied oil fields with Sudanese and for that matter Libyan mercenaries, which we pay for out of the oil proceeds.We wouldn’t need a large US force in Iraq; they could be in Kuwait . Pumping lots of Iraqi oil would drop the world price of crude, and be a great jobs program for the United States.

There is no way that we could leave US troops in Iraq subject to the tender mercies of the Iraqi courts. US troops are not going to be subject to Iraqi law. But can you imagine the Japanese making that sort of demand as part of their surrender in 1945?

The result of the Iraqi war? We have removed Iran’s worst enemy. We have installed a Shiite government in Iraq. We have succeeded in changing the Middle East beyond Iran’s fondest and wildest dreams. This is the result Iran has worked toward since we invaded Iraq. They have their goals. Now we go home.

I don’t much like Empire as a policy, but if we are going to play Empire, can’t we find someone who knows how to do it competently?

Somehow I think Pournelle's ideas should have had a better hearing in both the Bush and Obama administrations.

The whole thing is here.