The Office Pool
I meant to put this up on New Year’s Eve, but it’s still early in the month, so we have the rest of the year to get our money down.
If I was still working in an office where real money changes hands based on the outcomes of sporting events, elections, and the imminent deaths of world leaders, this challenge might have more incentive. Alas! I’m squatting in a dusty, smoky corner room of a hilltop retreat, wearing thermal underwear and a tattered sweat suit, with no one to talk to but the dog at my feet and the possum peering in the window.
So, here’s the deal, if you want to play along at home. Imagine you’re handing me a $5.00 bill. We’re going to have an office pool. Pick a month—any month but February—of the coming year. (February’s my pick; I’m in on the action.) It costs $5.00 to play; you have 11-1 odds of winning, which is better than most state lotteries. We have twelve players, so you stand a chance of making a $55 dollar profit, plus your original investment.
What are we betting on? Something more easily understood than the point spread on the Super Bowl or the Iowa caucuses. Select the month you think Iran is going to invade Iraq and finish them off as a nation once and for all.
When World War III was playing out in slow motion from 1950-1990, “our” dictators like Somoza and So-damn Insane had strong armies. We saw to that, just as the old Soviet Union made sure that “their” dictators were nominally well-armed with Warsaw Pact junk. Saddam fought the Iranians to a draw for ten years. Things changed, allegiances shifted, and suddenly Saddam Hussein was on our hit list. We kicked his ass in Desert Storm, and no matter what you think of the cause-and-effect of the last war in Iraq, we finished the job and totally devastated their military potential.
Now that we’ve declared victory and unassed the area of operations—as we should’ve done in Vietnam—the hapless Iraqis are at the mercy of their next door neighbors. Geographically, they possess the finest oil fields on the planet, and that’s vital to a world that hasn’t developed electric cars and solar power to a viable degree. Politically, they’re as much of a mess as they were when the Western powers invented the nation of Iraq at the end of War I. The dissolution of Iraq as a nation, and the dispersal of their tribal factions, is just a matter of time.
Owing, in large part, to political correctness and environmental insanity, America and most of the collapsing European Union is dependent upon the oil that flows out of this region of the world. While the late Mr. bin Laden might have danced with joy in his cave when his thugs brought down the World Trade Center, cutting off America’s oil supply will do more to damage us and advance the cause of the worldwide Islamic caliphate than any tactical horrors involving airliners and skyscrapers. Like a financial neutron bomb, strangling the world’s oil supply will bring The Great Satans of America and Europe to a standstill, while leaving the machinery of capitalism and material production in place, as well as a huge slave labor force to be placed into dhimmitude and forced to provide for the righteous servants of Allah.
Oh? What’s that you’re saying? “It can’t happen here! This is extreme right-wing lunatic raving!”
Really? Then why is Iran bragging about rolling out their first nuclear fuel rods, field-testing ship-killing missiles, threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz where one-sixth of the world’s oil supply must pass, and strategically repositioning their navy? Is China refusing to back any useless “sanction initiatives” against Iran because the Chinese know where the bread’s buttered?
Why does Brainless Joe [Biden] suddenly come out and say “the Taliban are not our enemies”? Why is Jughead making noises about releasing some of the most vicious terrorists on the planet from Guantanamo Bay? (The latter is ostensibly to enhance “peace talks” in Afghanistan; I’m having nightmarish flashbacks of British PM Neville Chamberlain stepping off the plane in London, waving a sheet of paper signed by “Mr. Hitler” promising “peace in our time.” I think we all know how that turned out.)
When Tel Aviv disappears in a cloud of thermonuclear dust, and we don’t have enough oil to fuel the finest military machine in the history of mankind, what are we going to do about it?
Naw, I’m just a drunken, raving lunatic. It can’t happen here. Islam is a religion of peace. The Taliban are not our enemies. Barry O. not only promised “fundamental change” and prosperity for everyone, he’s promised to heal the planet and provide “social justice” for every swinging Richard in God’s creation.
Meanwhile, you can play the odds at home and pick the month you think Iran is going to roll into Iraq and start the party. The $55 you might win will be very useful when the world is involved in a thermonuclear war between barbarism and civilization. It might buy you a gallon of gas.
Jump into the office pool! It’ll be fun, entertaining, and provide some much-needed relief from those Kardashian reruns.
If I was still working in an office where real money changes hands based on the outcomes of sporting events, elections, and the imminent deaths of world leaders, this challenge might have more incentive. Alas! I’m squatting in a dusty, smoky corner room of a hilltop retreat, wearing thermal underwear and a tattered sweat suit, with no one to talk to but the dog at my feet and the possum peering in the window.
So, here’s the deal, if you want to play along at home. Imagine you’re handing me a $5.00 bill. We’re going to have an office pool. Pick a month—any month but February—of the coming year. (February’s my pick; I’m in on the action.) It costs $5.00 to play; you have 11-1 odds of winning, which is better than most state lotteries. We have twelve players, so you stand a chance of making a $55 dollar profit, plus your original investment.
What are we betting on? Something more easily understood than the point spread on the Super Bowl or the Iowa caucuses. Select the month you think Iran is going to invade Iraq and finish them off as a nation once and for all.
When World War III was playing out in slow motion from 1950-1990, “our” dictators like Somoza and So-damn Insane had strong armies. We saw to that, just as the old Soviet Union made sure that “their” dictators were nominally well-armed with Warsaw Pact junk. Saddam fought the Iranians to a draw for ten years. Things changed, allegiances shifted, and suddenly Saddam Hussein was on our hit list. We kicked his ass in Desert Storm, and no matter what you think of the cause-and-effect of the last war in Iraq, we finished the job and totally devastated their military potential.
Now that we’ve declared victory and unassed the area of operations—as we should’ve done in Vietnam—the hapless Iraqis are at the mercy of their next door neighbors. Geographically, they possess the finest oil fields on the planet, and that’s vital to a world that hasn’t developed electric cars and solar power to a viable degree. Politically, they’re as much of a mess as they were when the Western powers invented the nation of Iraq at the end of War I. The dissolution of Iraq as a nation, and the dispersal of their tribal factions, is just a matter of time.
Owing, in large part, to political correctness and environmental insanity, America and most of the collapsing European Union is dependent upon the oil that flows out of this region of the world. While the late Mr. bin Laden might have danced with joy in his cave when his thugs brought down the World Trade Center, cutting off America’s oil supply will do more to damage us and advance the cause of the worldwide Islamic caliphate than any tactical horrors involving airliners and skyscrapers. Like a financial neutron bomb, strangling the world’s oil supply will bring The Great Satans of America and Europe to a standstill, while leaving the machinery of capitalism and material production in place, as well as a huge slave labor force to be placed into dhimmitude and forced to provide for the righteous servants of Allah.
Oh? What’s that you’re saying? “It can’t happen here! This is extreme right-wing lunatic raving!”
Really? Then why is Iran bragging about rolling out their first nuclear fuel rods, field-testing ship-killing missiles, threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz where one-sixth of the world’s oil supply must pass, and strategically repositioning their navy? Is China refusing to back any useless “sanction initiatives” against Iran because the Chinese know where the bread’s buttered?
Why does Brainless Joe [Biden] suddenly come out and say “the Taliban are not our enemies”? Why is Jughead making noises about releasing some of the most vicious terrorists on the planet from Guantanamo Bay? (The latter is ostensibly to enhance “peace talks” in Afghanistan; I’m having nightmarish flashbacks of British PM Neville Chamberlain stepping off the plane in London, waving a sheet of paper signed by “Mr. Hitler” promising “peace in our time.” I think we all know how that turned out.)
When Tel Aviv disappears in a cloud of thermonuclear dust, and we don’t have enough oil to fuel the finest military machine in the history of mankind, what are we going to do about it?
Naw, I’m just a drunken, raving lunatic. It can’t happen here. Islam is a religion of peace. The Taliban are not our enemies. Barry O. not only promised “fundamental change” and prosperity for everyone, he’s promised to heal the planet and provide “social justice” for every swinging Richard in God’s creation.
Meanwhile, you can play the odds at home and pick the month you think Iran is going to roll into Iraq and start the party. The $55 you might win will be very useful when the world is involved in a thermonuclear war between barbarism and civilization. It might buy you a gallon of gas.
Jump into the office pool! It’ll be fun, entertaining, and provide some much-needed relief from those Kardashian reruns.
posted by Robert at 8:16 PM
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