Allen's Weblog

At the risk of stepping on my lede, something my Editors have warned me against, let me say: GET A SECOND OPINION.

it was five years ago today that my wonderful wife, already suffering from Alzheimer’s, collapsed with an abscess on her intestine.

For two weeks the hospital, as I slept on a couch in her room. Discharged, Jean came home only to relapse and back into the hospital for another two weeks of antibiotics and I living on her couch.

After those two weeks, the Surgeon called me to a private conference, and told me “She is too weak for surgery, and if she were my wife, I would place her in Hospice and let her pass, quietly.”

After breaking down, because Jean and I are one person occupying two bodies, I called in Hospice.

My best friend, a brilliant Physician and former Professor of Engineering at Case Western, visited us regularly, and visiting Jean in our bedroom one day, he said, “Alan, I have placed a lot of patients in Hospice, and Jean is not ready to die. GET A SECOND OPINION.”

I told him I had no idea how to do that, and he said he would arrange it, which he did, and the “Second Opinion” placed Jean in a new hospital. That elicited two more weeks of antibiotics, a new Surgeon and a new antibiotic still failing, said he must operate.

He did, and Jean holds my hand still today. Her quality of life is good and she gives the family great pleasure. Only her Alzheimer’s steadily robs her memory, but she suffers no physical pain and I have wonderful 24/7 Caregivers to limit her frustration.

Their wonderful care over the years made them part of the family. Here, another piece of advice..I pay my Caregivers twice the going rate so they can afford to only work for us, giving Jean the continuity and familiarity that Alzheimer patients so desperately need.

I am so happy that she is still with us. Always get a second opinion!

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Trump wants the U.S. out of the Middle East. Iran wants the U.S. out of the Middle East.

Someone needs to tell the Ayatollah about the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. The British Army wanted out of France. The French Army wanted the British Army out of France.

But instead of letting the small, starving, dysentery-ridden British Army to march to the British held port of Calais so they could go back to Britain, the French marched quickly to get between the British Army and their leaving!

A massive, French Army, which may have been as large as 36,000, led by the cream of French Knighthood on massive warhorses, got between the tiny British force of 6,000 led personally by King Henry V, and their exit spot from French soil. (This has to be the most stupid thing the French ever did…all it had to do was let the British leave, but no o o o…)

The French initial attack on Warhorses got mired in a muddy field, and British Longbowmen, who had a range of 300 yards, lethal at 200 yards and able to penetrate armor at 100 yards, could and did launch 12 arrows a minute per man. Their starving 6,000 could, and did fill the air with 60,000 arrows in five minutes, decimating and routing the cream of the French Knighthood, and the British dragged themselves to Calais.

The British lost about 600 men, but they killed almost 6,000 Frenchmen, and the French Knighthood never recovered. All the French needed to do was leave the British alone, and all the Iranians need to do is leave is leave the U.S. alone.

We will see if the Iranians are smarter than the French!

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I hope no one believes this is the end of the Iranian crises. Iran has been at war with us for 40 years and will not go quietly into the night.

Through almost all of that 40 years, Iran has used proxies because their military dares not meet ours, but something changed several years ago, probably fueled by the $1.7 billion dollars Obama fed them. Of course it was all their money, $400 million plus interest accrued over 25 years, but that cash, delivered in Swiss francs, fueled a lot of proxies and pumped up the Iranian missile advances.

I am not quite certain when Iran made the new and very stupid move of direct confrontation, but something gave them barroom courage and it was badly timed because Trump is president.

Perhaps the first move was the seizure of the British tanker, but the shooting down of the $19 million drone in the Strait of Hormuz was specifically a tweak of Trump’s nose. The direct attack on the Saudi oil field was a game changer in that it was missiles fired directly from Iranian soil.

Iran was getting frisky and not using its proxies, for some reason. They felt less need for deniability. I suspect there were simply attacks that proxies couldn’t perform.

Where does it go from here, I have no clue because it will depend upon how much proxy activity Trump permits before he again strikes directly at the head of the snake. I doubt it will be much, but proxies like Hezbollah has already been provided with thousands of rockets, and can attack Israel without Iranian guidance.

Then what?

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Iran usually uses proxy groups to attack the US, because the last time they took on the US Navy (1988), they lost a lot of planes and ships without so much as scratching an American paint job.

Subsequently, we ripped them a new one with a highly powerful computer software attack, and Iran planned a direct murder of the Saudi Arabian Ambassador in a Washington, D.C. restaurant in 2017…both more direct actions than the proxy fights where we were in a defensive position.

Last week we directly hit an Iranian-backed militia in Iraq, Iran directed a group to attack the American Embassy in Iraq, and in our first recent direct kinetic action we took off the head of the snake.

Iran does not want a direct war because they have no ability to hit the US, except indirectly, while we can pulverize their nation. We risk getting their currently divided population into a patriotic mass, but the attack on our embassy could not be swept under the rug.

Iran should understand that, quite simply, Trump is not Obama. Iran cannot dig in at the plate, because they face an erratic 100+ MPH pitcher wearing thick glasses!

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There is a sob story dominating the San Diego News…ICE has deported the Mother of an Army Lt. In the Intelligence Corps. Probably the assassination of Iran’s Intelligence Officer will diminish her case being national news.

(If her Intelligence Officer son has any intelligence he should have at least had his mother learn English in the 32 years she has lived here illegally! He didn’t!)

Not only has this Mother lived here for 32 years, but she has been deported to Mexico three times before! She has more experience with American laws on the subject of immigration than anyone who is reading this! She tells the San Diego Union that she hopes to return to the U. S. and, considering her experience at breaking our laws and recrossing after deportation, she is probably right.

She is a frequent flyer in the Justice system. It is a federal felony to return after deportation, but that felony is seldom enforced. This is her fourth deportation, and locally that puts her in the lower tier of frequent flyers. The record locally, is 17 deportations and returns.

Federal immigration law is a farce.

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My Democrat friends, and yours, need to explain, if they can, how it took the DNC shenanigans to stop Bernie Sanders last time, and Bernie is showing so well in fundraising this time.

If the Democratic Political Party is not a socialist party, how does one explain Bernie?

Of course they don’t explain it. They can’t.

Transferring to a Republican Party under Trump May be a bridge too far for moderate Democrats, but they must be considering that they don’t have a natural home. Bernie made $10 million more this last quarter than the second place, and Bernie’s power in two consecutive political campaigns should scare moderate Democrats.

It should scare us all!

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Let me admit that it would be better for Trump if he had asked for an investigation of Hunter Biden at the start of his administration, and not during the Democratic Party Primary where Joe Biden is standing well in the field.

Now I am all in favor or investigating how Hunter could be paid $50,000 a month to sit of Board of a major Ukrainian energy company. Hunter doesn’t speak Ukrainian, and he knows nothing about energy.

The Hunter job was obviously a pean .to the US VP. It’s the old, “Would you give my kid a job” ploy.

The problem is investigating the obvious during the Democratic Party Primary. It looks bad and it gives the Democrats a lever. I have no idea if it qualifies as a “High crime” or even a “Misdemeanor,“ but it is an unforced error.

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