Jan 23, 2015 - after "State of the Union" address

I am sure you are following current events in the world, especially those surrounding ISIS and those surrounding Ukraine/Russia/West conflict. Things are not good in either area.

ISIS is likely to follow through with its threats of sending its operatives to the "West" to cause havoc directly and indirectly; indirectly, by causing western countries to instal ever more measures of police state to "defend" themselves (the citizens, the infrastructure, and the state apparatus) and by the citizenry getting increasingly fearful and accepting those measures as necessary. We may face an ongoing retreat into the "caves" while they all battle it out. ISIS can not win, but can cause perhaps incurable damage to the rest of the world.

Unless there is an internal revolt by the oligarchs or by the Russian people, Russia will not be bullied into submission. The oligarchs are not too happy with Putin to start with since he allows them to continue their dirty business of creaming Russian resources for their private benefits as long as they stay out of politics, both domestic and foreign, which leaves them in a precarious place where at any moment they can be eliminated as it has already happened to a few of them, but they are still going along because their coffers are getting fetter and fetter. Even if the West succeeds in curbing the oligarchs' power by squeezing Russia economically, they will not revolt since they'd need either the people or the armed/security forces or both on their side. There is no sign of that happening and so they will simply flee taking whatever they can with them.

Russian people are still overwhelmingly supporting Putin as Russian saviour. It is unlikely that they will revolt.

The West is playing a fool's game by militarily intimidating Russia, forgetting that Russia, while not as militarily powerful as the West, is still a substantial military power. Any open military confrontation by the two sides is unwinnable for either side and potentially catastrophic for the whole world.

So, things are looking bleak on the international scale. Domestically, US-wise, someone asked me what I thought of Obama's "State of the Union" speech. I had not seen it live, but watched a video recording of it after the question popped up and replied as follows:

"What did I think of the O speech? I must be careful not to be too harsh, but I thought nothing of it. I am reminding myself that he is a politician and says things in this political spectacle called "state of the Union" that must be said to keep us quiet and to continue enduring the flawed system that is only serving the interests of a small minority at the expense of the great majority. I could not even expect to be impressed as the whole political system that he is a part of is totally rotten. I could not expect to hear much from the terrorist-in-chief who daily sends drones around the world to kill people, who willingly participates in stiring up international tensions, who opened up the spigots of big business welfare state, etc. I saw a narcissist getting orchestrated accolades in the theater show designed to make us feel good and hopeful. I am through thinking that the political system in the US can be reformed -- it is obsolete and in its final days it puts up a garage sale for its buddies to scavenge whatever can be scavenged and make it look like "we are doing much better." Sorry, I am not impressed, but I am not disappointed either for a simple reason that I did not expect anything from it. If it were not for you mentioning it, I would not have watched it. Oh, I thought Michelle looked very sexy."

The person who asked the question was shocked by my reply. So much for that.