Big Red Car here.  The Boss is enjoying the cool weather in Santa Fe and me and the house sitter are enjoying the ATX.  Sure it’s a bit warm but the house sitter — and about ten of his friends — are enjoying the pool and the Big Red Car.

Last night we went down to Sixth Street west of Congress and we had a blast.  [Please do not tell The Boss because well, the house sitter was a bit wild last night.  I am not supposed to be driving around when folks are drinking.  And, Old Sport, folks were drinking.  And drinking.  And drinking.  But, hey, I get the young folk — they just want to have fun.]

So, The Boss was laughing the other day about his Global Bullshit Theory and the attendant Global Bullshit Meter.  It works like this.

Deep v broad thinking and a splash of skepticism on the side

The Boss does not see himself as a deep thinker but rather a broad thinker and one with more than a bit of well developed skepticism.  He has paid a bit of tuition to develop that skepticism to be sure.

He does not see the Theory of Global Bullshit as being really “global” but rather an attempt to focus on the “bullshit” factor more.  Kind of like “global warming”?  [Haha, Big Red Car, keep it together here.]

Global warming — speaking of Global Bullshit, eh?

The Theory of Global Bullshit

So, The Boss thinks there are things afoot in the universe that simply do not stand the test of basic logic particularly when that logic is coupled with a bit of questioning skepticism.

Here are some examples:

Rules of Engagement 

It all began back in the mid-1970s when The Boss was a Lieutenant in the Army in Korea.  Long after the war, the North Koreans and the South Koreans and the Americans were still taking potshots across the border at each other.  The North Koreans were always sending infiltrators across the Demilitarized Zone — DMZ — and the Americans were always waiting for them.

The Boss was working up on the Z taking out old fortifications and mine fields and putting in new ones.  He loved blasting those old concrete positions out and building new ones.  He was a damn good demo man and safe.  Safe being more important than good sometimes.

The Boss and his troops used to sleep out on the ground up by the Z, so they had to provide their own local security against infiltrators.  Pretty typical soldiering.

They had Rules of Engagement — the rules as to when they could fire at the infiltrators.

A field grade officer came down from II Corps to give a briefing on the new and revised Rules of Engagement.  This pissed The Boss off because he felt like they should have just told him and he would brief his soldiers.  That’s why they have a freakin’ chain of command, no?

So the ROE were so damn complicated you would need a diagram, a spreadsheet, a flow chart and a Wharton MBA to understand them.  The Boss used to keep a neat little green notebook in his pocket and a carpenter’s pencil which he used to sharpen with his KBar and it took 7 pages to get the new ROE down.  They were complicated and confusing and silly.

So the Platoon Sergeant, looking all confused and concerned,  said:  “Hey, LT, WTF, over?”  Platoon Sergeants call their Platoon Leaders “LT” which is pronounced “ell tee”.

The Boss, laughing a bit skeptically, said:  “Global bullshit in my book.  Tell the men — if I shoot, they shoot.  When I stop shooting, they stop shooting.  Global bullshit.”

Thereafter whenever the Platoon Sergeant questioned something he would ask The Boss quizzically:  “Global bullshit, LT?”

Often The Boss would reply:  “Global bullshit, Sergeant, indeed.”

And there was born the Theory of Global Bullshit on a mountain side in South Korea tight up to the DMZ on a very cold morning.

Raising children

When you are blessed with children you will find them reasonably well behaved until their ages become two digits — teenagers.  And then the fun begins.

You will learn that any story told by your babies — they are still your babies though they may be filling out a bit and starting to shave and be 18 years old — that starts “Dad, it was two o’clock in the morning…” is going to have a bad ending.  A bad damn ending.

Any story that entails the use or abuse of alcohol is going to include someone bleeding even when your babies are all theoretically grown up.

One time The Cub was talking to The Boss and said:  “Hey, Dad, my room mate got stabbed and almost had his pinkie cut off.”

The Boss:  “What time was it?”

The Cub:  “It was two in the morning, Dad.”

The Boss:  “Drinking?”

The Cub:  “Wasted.”

Global bullshit.

Room mate is abandoned by his wing man and walks home drunk from Old Town, Phoenix, and gets jumped, stabbed and chopped up by some thugs.  Didn’t we learn anything from Maverick in Top Gun — never, ever abandon your wing man.

Global bullshit, indeed.

The IRS Scandal

OK, so the first explanation of the IRS scandal was the “two dweebs in Cincinnati wandered off the reservation” explanation.  Really?

Off goes the Global Bullshit Meter — two dweebs worked over 300 applications?  Not believable under the “what government worker works that hard?” theory.

Story unfolds, folks taking the Fifth Amendment against self incrimination, IG reports — bad moon rising?

Global Bullshit driven by healthy skepticism.

Bernie Madoff

So Bernie is able to deliver better than market returns for a long, long, long time and never has a down year.  Really?

Off goes the Global Bullshit Meter — nobody outperforms the market consistently for a long, long, long time.  Nobody.

Story unfolds, Bernie goes to jail.

Global bullshit.

Benghazi

So some wayward movie critics out for a stroll decide to air out their mortars, crew served heavy machine guns, rocket propelled grenades and small arms fire — oh, about 140 of them.

Off goes the Global Bullshit Meter — movie critics do not own mortars, heavy machine guns, RPGs and even the Benghazi Movie Critic Meet Up does not number 140 members.

Then they send out someone to ‘splain it all to us — right before the election, no less — on all five Sunday morning talk shows.  And the ‘Splainer in Chief is the UN Ambassador who has nothing to do with State, Defense or the freakin’ CIA.  Hmmmm?

Off goes the Global Bullshit Meter — the ‘splaination does not make sense, the ‘Splainer is not the right  person and everybody else is — “Move along, ya’ll, nothing going on here.  Nothing to see but some movie critics.”

The real thing is this — did they think that would work?  Haha, Big Red Car, it did work and the President was re-elected.

Global bullshit.

The NSA and Sir Edward Snowden

So a dipshit working for the NSA through a contractor gets access to some big secrets.

Everybody seems surprised to learn that the NSA is listening in on, well, everything and everybody.  Hell, then it turns out that all the big Internet Digital Illuminati have been sharing your shit with the NSA forever.

You give some guys engaged in espionage — meaning breaking other country’s laws — a bunch of Cray computers, a seemingly unlimited budget, no oversight, liars before Congress and you are surprised that they are trying out their toys?  Really?

Do not be surprised when you learn that guys who break laws for a living are breaking laws for a living.  It is naive and unbecoming such a worldly chap as you, Old Sport.

Then you give them the War on Terror as a justification for doing anything they want with a bunch of secret hearings and are wondering if they are making stuff up to get access to whatever strikes their fancy?

If you owned a Ferrari would you park it in the garage and never, ever drive it?

No, Old Sport, you would be taking that baby out and making it scream with pleasure and if you had no oversight?  Well, Old Sport, you would be coloring outside the lines more than just a little bit.

Then, if the Chinese and Russians could get their hands on those four laptops that Sir Edward is trooping around the world with — would you extradite him back to the US so the Americans could learn what he had stolen and which you now possess?

Not.  Bloody.  Likely.

Global bullshit.

OK, sayeth the Big Red Car, you are getting the idea and we did not even mention the GroupOn IPO, did we?  Of course, you know the chorus, the mantra — right?  Yes, indeed, Global Bullshit.

So now when The Boss says “Global Bullshit” you know the story of its birth on a cold mountain side 40 years ago and you can start saying it yourself.

But, hey, what the Hell do I know really?  I’m just a Big Red Car and that’s no Global Bullshit, Old Sport.