Well, It's Done

     The new President has been installed, with slightly more fuss than screwing a new plug fuse into a 1920s electrical box.  Apparently, we're going to war against Panama, possibly Mexico, and Boy George.  The latter is a Crown subject and presumably protected; Mexico's reaction to organized U. S. efforts against drug cartels is an open question.  But I'd sure hate to be Panama right now.  No, strike that: I'd sure hate to be the Panama Canal.

     The thing about a vulnerable asset, of which the canal is a prime example, is that it is entirely too easy to destroy its value, especially while fighting over it.

     The incoming President's speech was -- and I don't want to be unfair, this is hardly atypical of Inauguration speeches -- long on rah-rah rhetoric and short on specific plans.  So was his express desire to "retake the Panama Canal" chest-beating boosterism or a definite plan?  Are his aims to turn the fed.gov on a dime going to run headlong into the reality that even a cooperative Federal bureaucracy has far worse cornering ability than a 1930s battleship?  I dunno about the first, but the second is likely, and the pile-up will be ugly no matter what.