Home cooking wanted

Refugees at a camp in Italy are tired of bread, eggs and pasta with tomato sauce, but, hey, they don’t intend to work in Italy anyway and are just marking time until the German work visas come through.

http://www.thelocal.it/20140827/refugees-protest-against-monotonous-italian-food

At fark.

Government to average citizen: Just shut up

Study by Northwestern University professor and a Princeton professor.

“The statistical research looked at public attitudes on nearly 1,800 policy issues and determined that government almost always ignores the opinions of average citizens and adopts the policy preferences of monied (sic) business interests when shaping the contours of U.S. laws.

“The study's findings align with recent trends, where corporate elites have aggressively pursued pro-amnesty policies despite the fact that, according to the most recent Reuters poll, 70% of Americans believe illegal immigrants ‘threaten traditional U.S. beliefs and customs,’ and 63% believe ‘immigrants place a burden on the economy.’"

http://mangans.blogspot.com/2014/08/study-average-americans-dont-count.html

From gatesofvienna.net.

(Everybody who thinks the U.S. Chamber of Commerce backs “immigration reform” through the goodness of its heart …)

Walker’s life sentence ran out

“The Soviets used the information he and others passed to them over the course of 17 years to decode millions of secret US navy messages.”

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-28992446


(During Walker's trial, insiders said he had given operative's names to the KGB, and at least a dozen were killed.)

Absentee landlord tells natives how to vote

Yesterday I read an interview with a former Beatles drummer, the one who is not left handed. Mr. Best said he is quite happy, thank you, and not the least bit bitter. He has a band and is on tour.

On the other side of happy (as in not), a former bassist for the Beatles is telling Scots not to vote for independence from England. The opponents of Scottish independence say “United Kingdom,” but we all know the English want to continue running the show; after all, English armies won the wars against Welsh and Scots and Irish, and only the hard-headed Irish had the gall to keep on fighting after they were so soundly beaten ... and got back their own country.

“(CNN) -- Beatles star Paul McCartney became the latest high-profile figure to sign a letter calling on Scottish voters to choose to remain part of the United Kingdom in a vote on independence next month.

"Other famous signatories to the so-called ‘Letter to Scotland,’ organized by the Let's Stay Together campaign, include Rolling Stones singer Mick Jagger, physicist Stephen Hawking, actress Dame Judi Dench and celebrity TV producer Simon Cowell.

The campaign describes itself as a UK-wide effort giving a voice to ‘everyone who doesn't have a vote in the decision to break up Britain.’"

http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/30/world/europe/uk-scotland-independence-mccartney/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

(Aw, ain’t that cute! Let’s Stay Together. Sounds like a Haley Mills song.)

Link at fark.

Landfill tryst

Small town story.

A police lieutenant said one day when he was a patrol officer, he decided to take a check of the town landfill.

“That was back when the town had a landfill,” he said. “Now you have to go all the way to Hunt County if you have something to get rid of, and they have rules about what you can dump. Back then there wasn’t a scale or even anybody out there most of the time. That’s how long back it was.”

Still, he said, the landfill was a place where crime might be committed, drinking or drug use sometimes. So, he took a drive out of town and onto the landfill road.

“The road took a turn or two, and after the second turn I saw a car parked on the other side of the road, faced toward me. I knew who the car belonged to.”

Thing was, he said, when he got closer to the car, the woman driving held up a newspaper, as though reading the paper, so he could not see her face.

“I drove on past her and went to the landfill and drove around. It was empty, so I went back toward the highway.”

When he got near the parked car, the driver positioned her newspaper next to her window, again pretending to read.

“I went past her and then toward the highway, and just before I got to the highway, a pickup turned off, onto the landfill road. I knew who the pickup belonged to, and it was not the woman’s husband.”

The pickup driver, though, did not have a newspaper to hide behind.

“We went past each other and waved,” the lieutenant said.

He went on to the highway and turned and drove back to town.

“The places people go to for their liaisons,” he said. “But a landfill?”

Color

On the radio the other day was a song “What Color Would You Choose” or something similar. That is, if you could choose skin color.

Shoot, that’s easy.

I’d stay white.

Why? To begin with, if I were black that would mean my putting up with a whole lot of shtuff some white people throw at black people, road blocks and obstacles to getting somewhere.

And, if I were black, I would have to develop an attitude that just pisses off a lot of white people.

So I’ll stay the way I am, believing all men/women/persons are created equal and that God, in creating humanity, gave each of us the rights to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness and the right to purchase property any damn place we please.

Gun cameras

Last minute has Me262 and Me163 shoot-downs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VM9O_WeKeQg

Probably not what they were looking for

“British Botanists conducting a Summer survey of Scotland’s tallest mountain, Ben Nevis, have been stunned to find evidence of recently formed multi-year ice fields, areas of compacted snow, some of which weigh hundreds of tons.”

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/08/24/surpise-glaciers-appearing-in-scotland/#more-114884

At maggiesfarm.

Canadian police ‘seize large amount of weapons’

I’ve got that much in my desk drawer.

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Police+arrest+connection+with+Burnaby+weapons+bust/10137662/story.html

Found at fark.com.

Nothing’s going to change his world

Obama statement on murder of James Foley.

ISIL “speaks for no religion. Their victims are overwhelmingly Muslim, and no faith teaches people to massacre innocents. No just god would stand for what they did yesterday and what they do every single day.”

‘Obama’s awful statement about James Foley was even worse than I predicted’

http://www.bookwormroom.com/2014/08/21/obamas-awful-statement-about-james-foley-was-even-worse-than-i-predicted/

(Uh, Mr. President … “No faith teaches people to massacre innocents.” You might want to read the Koran, except Mohammad’s words would refute your assertion, and we can’t have that, can we. Also, “No just god would stand for what they did …” Same suggested reading.”

(A reporter interviewing Yazidi refugees expressed surprise when Yazidi said their Arab neighbors pointed them out to ISIS/ISIL Muslims. Again, see the Koran’s teachings that even trees and rocks will point out hiding unbelievers (specifically Jews) and tell good Muslims to kill the Jews. If trees and rocks follow Mohammad’s orders, we cannot expect otherwise from good Muslims.)


Warning! Gag reflex!

“The United States of America will continue to do what we must do to protect our people. We will be vigilant and we will be relentless. When people harm Americans anywhere, we do what’s necessary to see that justice is done and we act against ISIL, standing alongside others.”

(Same link.)

“Words are flowing out
“Like endless rain into a paper cup
“They slither wildly as they pass
“They slip away across the universe”

Beatles - Across The Universe Lyrics | MetroLyrics

Advice to the younger

Make lots and lots of money, put some away in interest-bearing accounts, donate some, take vacations and travel to wherever your mind suggests.

Navy retreats from attack on Judeo-Christian publications

For the time being, anyway.

“The Daily News, Jacksonville, N.C.|Aug 18, 2014|by Adelina Colbert”

“A recent decision to remove Bibles from lodging facilities aboard Navy bases was reversed on Thursday after public outcry.

…
“Lt. Chika Onyekanne, a spokesman for the Navy, said the decision to transfer religious materials from the Navy Lodge to the local command religious programs was made by the Navy Exchange Command (NEXCOM) in June, without consultation of senior Navy leadership.”

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2014/08/18/marine-corps-lodges-keep-bibles.html?comp=7000023468045&rank=1

NEXOM ordered bibles removed after complaints by a “freedom from religion” group. A week ago, the group praised NEXOM’s decision, saying: “FFRF is pleased to learn that NEXCOM has taken seriously its constitutional obligation to remain neutral toward religion as a representative of our federal government. By removing Bibles from Navy-run lodges, the Navy has taken a step to ensure that it is not sending the impermissible message that Christians are favored over guests with other religious beliefs or over those guests with no religion.”

http://www.theglobaldispatch.com/navy-removes-bibles-from-hotels-on-bases-after-freedom-from-religion-complaint-82442/

Another reason not to have a smartphone or anything else that keeps track of your location

Police say “location data gathered from the smartphone does not fit with Bravo's account of his movements that evening.”

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2723786/College-student-accused-murder-asked-Siri-hide-body.html#ixzz3ATMZjoKs

(The dude was dumb enough telling his phone “Siri, I need to hide my roomate.” Expectation of … what? Privacy? Are you serious?)

Somebody is having fun; pass a law and stop it

New York bans pictures with big cats.

Carole Baskin said “men hoping to use tiger selfies to score a date should consider posing with a domestic feline instead.”

Oh, it’s men doing the pictures. Well, hell, that’s different. Put a stop to it.

“Similar laws are already on the books in states including Mississippi, Arizona and Kansas, where a 17-year-old girl was killed in 2005 while posing with a tiger for her senior photos.”

How many men have been killed while … Doesn’t matter.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Latest-News-Wires/2014/0813/Tiger-selfies-Stop-taking-them-says-NY-law

When news reporting sucks this bad …

… maybe there’s a reason nobody is smart enough find a broken water main.

“BAY CITY, MI — Bay City and Bay County officials meet at 1 p.m. Monday, Aug. 11, to regroup and strategize efforts in finding a broken water main that has thrown the area into a county-wide water emergency.

“The meeting takes place at Bay County Central Dispatch. The meeting isn't opened to the public, but media will be briefed at its conclusion.

“Going forward, Bay City Clerk Dana Muscott is serving as the media liaison for all news related to the crisis.”

http://www.mlive.com/news/bay-city/index.ssf/2014/08/water_emergency_bay_city_count.html

(“…regroup and strategize”? Did this guy take news reporting at survivor dot com? “The meeting isn’t open to the public.” That is a time for citizenry to fire up torches and sharpen pitchforks and scythes. And what does that last sentence mean? Would Ms. Muscott not be media liaison if things were “going backwards”?)

Candid Camera

A TV news piece the other day publicized the return of Candid Camera. Peter Funt, son of Allen Funt and chief wrangler of the new version, said his program will be just as funny as the original, and has been updated, with episodes on “gay rights” and “immigration issues.” I don’t remember the original doing any “issues.”

Silence -- A short, short story

She said, “What do you think we should take away from all this?”

He said, “I don’t know.” He crossed his legs, left over right. The chair was deep and he would have a little trouble getting up. He liked the color of the chair and the fabric. The color was beige and brown, alternating stripes, and the fabric an open weave. He liked the wide arms, too, but he always had to push off from the arms. He said, “Do we have to take away anything?”

“You have to take away something from everything you do, don’t you?”

There was silence, except not really, because never is there real silence. He knew that, like in a movie or TV show where two people have talked and no one can offer anything else for the moment and you get this loud empty sound. No one is saying anything; there is no dog barking outside, no fire or police siren far off, no children laughing at play, and the two people who were talking no longer are because nether has anything to say. But the room that should be silent is not, because the empty sound is there, loudly there, as though listeners turned up volume on their listening devices and you get this almost tunnel sound.

That’s the way it was when she said “You have to take away something from everything you do, don’t you?” He knew she would say something else; she always did. She could not abide silence.

Physical labor -- it's not just for young folks anymore

'Watching Old People Work'

"Sunday, August 10, 2014

"The other day I was watching a monkey **** a football. By that, I mean I was watching a bunch of guys tear up some concrete in the courtyard of my office building. One guy was running a jackhammer, but not the traditional kind. It was attached to a bobcat. Others were cutting rebar, while others moved the rubble around for no apparent reason. They were not screwing around or loafing, just disorganized. So much so I could not help but watch it.
…

"Every one of the crew was over forty. One guy was in his sixties. He was busting his hump, outworking everyone else. The old guy was in great shape. He even smoked, which puts the lie to the whole smoking scare. I’m going to say the bulk of the crew was between 45 and 55. There was one guy that could have been under 40, but that’s it. Pretty old for manual labor."

(Well, maybe not so old.)

http://thezman.com/wordpress/

‘Iowa Democrat May Lose Senate Bid Because He Is A Litigious Idiot And His Wife Hates Chickens’

A neighbor says, “Buddy, we’re here in Iowa. … We talk like men here and we act like men. Usually, a man’s word is like gold. A handshake is a contract. Neighbors are neighbors, and if you’ve got a problem with your neighbor, you talk it out.”

http://news.yahoo.com/iowa-democrat-may-lose-senate-bid-because-litigious-153206796.html

(At a lawyers' convention in Texas, the candidate said that if he didn't get more campaign cash, Iowa voters might send a farmer to Washington instead of a lawyer like him. Yeah, he'd have my vote.)

Snake!

Kathleen called and told my wife she killed a snake on her back porch. She thinks it might have been a water moccasin. The snake was blackish, of a large circumference and about two feet long. Sounds water moccasinish. Florida, a body of water within 40 meters of the house … Anything not definitely identifiable as a grass snake or a rat snake – Off with its head! K said she put on her combat boots, her Kevlar trousers (??) and Kevlar shirt (??) and did battle of hoe vs. snake. “It was hard to kill,” she said. The first blow did not do the job, so “I stood on it and chopped off its head.” My wife suggested she sharpen the hoe. K said she would get a machete. I gave her a 20-guage coach gun before she went to Florida, but I suppose a blast of 20-guage buckshot into a concrete porch beneath the snake would not be a good idea.

Kathleen posted a picture of the snake on Facebook. The snake looked like a moccasin.

Leadership failures led to deaths

The Virginian-Pilot|Aug 04, 2014|by Dianna Cahn

“NORFOLK -- As they slowly asphyxiated at the bottom of a pond last year, two Navy divers shared something extraordinary: the choice to die together rather than abandon a fellow sailor.

“That selflessness went with Petty Officer 2nd Class Ryan Harris and Petty Officer 1st Class James Reyher to their deaths on Feb. 26, 2013 -- undiscovered until a Navy investigator reconstructed the events.

“The investigation, conducted more than 16 months ago, was released last week to The Virginian-Pilot under the Freedom of Information Act. It pinpointed a series of failures that contributed to the training accident that day at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland: bad leadership, poor decision-making and faulty equipment.”

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2014/08/04/navy-diver-heroic-to-the-last-breath.html?comp=7000023468025&rank=2

Question for Hamas supporters: Have you no shame?

By Naomi Ragen

I’m sitting here in Jerusalem after a week of heartbreak over three murdered teens, followed by almost three weeks of sirens, bomb blasts, and finally, the funerals of young IDF soldiers, of whom one-third are students who should be taking their final exams instead of risking their lives. I’m reading on the internet about what a horrible person I am as an Israeli and as a Jew, and what a terrible, immoral country I live in.

All this criticism comes mainly from the European press: The Guardian, the BBC, papers in Italy, Norway, France, and don’t forget America: The New York Times, CNN. And I’m thinking: Gee, the British should understand. After all, they lived through the blitz, Nazis raining bombs indiscriminately down on them, the way Hamas is raining bombs down on us. And when the brave pilots of the RAF aimed their bombs at Dresden and killed 300,000 men, women and children, they didn’t throw down leaflets telling people to politely evacuate; didn’t send their soldiers to knock on doors to see if they’d followed the leaflets instructions (as CNN complained Israel failed to do at an UNRWA school, which was probably hit by a Hamas bomb anyway).

And I think of the rest of Europe, who rounded up our grandparents and great-grandparents, and relatives — men, women and children — and sent them off to be gassed, no questions asked. And I think: They are now the moral arbiters of the free world? They are telling the descendants of the people they murdered how to behave when other anti-Semites want to kill them?

As for Americans, represented by the New York Times, that bastion of high-minded hypocrisy and mediocre journalism parading as the “newspaper of record,” one has only to read the article by Professor Auerbach in the New York Observer (“Two Weeks of Shallow, Facile Moral Equivalency From the New York Times“) to see how Jodi Rudoren and other Times apparatchiks have learned to close their minds and love Hamas.

After all, there are CHILDREN DYING. It doesn’t matter that the Palestinians have educated an entire generation to be little Nazi-wannabes, who worship death and hate Jews, murdering their souls, and are now callously putting their bodies in harm’s way to use for touching photo ops. We shouldn’t be shocked by this omission by the Times. After all, The New York Times was one of the last news outlets to bring to the attention of the reading public the Nazi atrocities in Europe. Read the Times during the nightmare years, and see if you can’t find a pattern here.

And so, as an Israeli, brought up with Jewish values, and an American, taught to love freedom, justice, democracy and fair play, I have to tell all of you – Europeans, Americans, and last of all Muslim terrorist sympathizers and barbarians, that what you are saying no longer moves anyone of good moral judgment and intelligence. The current crisis in Gaza is so morally clear-cut, so absolutely a case of self-defense, that I must say to you, as someone finally said to Senator McCarthy: “Sir, have you no shame?”

www.naomiragen.com

Link at www.floppingaces.net

Not in my back yard

A bunch of dumbasses went into the diamond district of NYC, with pro-Palestinian posters and chants against Israel.

http://www.bookwormroom.com/2014/08/03/watch-the-miracle-that-happens-when-anti-israel-protesters-invade-new-yorks-diamond-district/

(At around1:30 you can see a pro-Palestinian with a Mexican flag.)

Angry black woman to ‘Students for Justice in Palestine’

Example after example of who those people really are – murdering misogynistic child abusing barbarians.

“If you seek to promulgate the legacy of early Islamic colonialists who raped and pillaged the Middle East, subjugated the indigenous peoples living in the region, and foisted upon them a life of persecution and degradation—you do not get to claim the title of ‘Freedom Fighter.

…

“You see, my people have always been Zionists because my people have always stood for the freedom of the oppressed. So, you most certainly do not get to culturally appropriate my people’s history for your own. You do not have the right to invoke my people’s struggle for your shoddy purposes and you do not get to feign victimhood in our name. You do not have the right to slander my people’s good name and link your cause to that of Dr. King’s. Our two causes are diametrically opposed to each other.”

http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/180382/students-justice-palestine?utm_source=tabletmagazinelist&utm_campaign=7aacaedd26-8_2_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c308bf8edb-7aacaedd26-206672819

Today's funniest farks

(OK, these are yesterday's funniest farks, but I messed up and saved them as a draft when I meant to click "Publish.")


‘I was like, “Oh my gosh this is crazy!”’

“…since July-August is peak mating season, males will occasionally wander into housing areas while searching for a mate.”

http://wtkr.com/2014/08/01/video-chesapeake-residents-find-large-canebrake-rattlesnake-outside-apartment-complex/

(Yeah, there's always a problem with males wandering into housing areas during mating season.)

We can’t have people growing just anything they want, can we

National Security and all that.

http://cumberlink.com/news/local/communities/carlisle/department-of-agriculture-cracks-down-on-seed-libraries/article_8b0323f4-18f6-11e4-b4c1-0019bb2963f4.html


‘Thieves steal an RV trailer and find out the Texas way that the owner was fast asleep in the back’

http://www.crushplate.com/2014/07/thieves-stunned-to-find-armed-owner-in.html

OMS and CRS

After securing two shopping buggies at Lowe’s this morning, Priscilla and I went to the Moving aisle and quickly realized we needed a large, flat-bed cart for what we were going to buy. Fortunately, someone had parked just the right cart in the aisle, so I left my buggy and took the cart. We loaded a two-wheel dolly onto the cart and then 20 medium moving boxes ($1.21 each, what a deal!) and a 100-foot roll of bubble wrap. Priscilla also got a roll of 20 inches by 1,000 feet of clear plastic wrap. We paid for the stuff (and got the standard 10 percent military discount) and went to the car. When everything was loaded, I opened the passenger door and discovered I had not put my cane in the car. I mentioned my forgetting to Priscilla and then went to the buggy parking place where Priscilla had parked her buggy and I parked my cart. The cane was not in Priscilla’s parked buggy, of course; it never had been. Ditto the cart. I said, “I left it in the buggy inside on Aisle 9.” I walked to the store and went to Aisle 9 and there were the buggy and the cane. Procuring the cane, I walked to the main aisle just as Priscilla arrived. We went back to the car. I noticed I had left the door open. I said to Priscilla, “I didn’t close the car door.” She said, “That’s all right. I locked the car.”

OMS and CRS – Old Man Syndrome and Can’t Remember Stuff.

Why this Gaza dustup is different

If Gaza were bigger, Hamas would not have to put its rocket firing positions and command/control in civilian areas. (With video.)

http://freebeacon.com/national-security/hillary-hamas-uses-human-shields-because-gaza-is-pretty-small/

Hamas is a humanitarian organization.

http://nation.foxnews.com/2014/07/28/pelosi-qataris-told-me-hamas-humanitarian-organization-0

By refusing to share missile defense with Hamas, Israel might be guilty of a war crime.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/aug/1/un-condemns-israel-us-not-sharing-iron-dome-hamas/#ixzz399LE9pgO

So, we have the stupid and the stupider.

Zionism

(I have been a Zionist since 1962, at age 16, when reading an Encyclopedia Britannica 1949 yearbook and seeing a picture of Israeli soldiers entering Jerusalem in 1948. “What is this”? I wondered. In none of my history classes had anyone mentioned Israel or its war for independence. I remembered television news stories from the 1956 invasion of Egypt by British and French forces after Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, and somehow there was a connection to Israel. But I knew nothing else.

(So I studied and I read and I discovered a history not taught in American schools or in Baptist Sunday School classes, a 2,000-year-old story of a people thrown out of their own land, a land given by God. I learned of attempts at destroying those people, Jews. And I decided Zionism was a good thing, both for Jews and for the people surrounding the Nation of Israel.)

"’All Zionists are legitimate targets everywhere in the world!’ declared a banner recently paraded by anti-Israel protesters in Denmark.”

…

“The army imagined by Theodor Herzl, Zionism's founding father, marched in parades and saluted flag-waving crowds. The Israel Defense Forces, by contrast, with no time for marching, much less saluting, has remained in active combat mode since its founding in 1948. With the exception of Vladimir Jabotinsky, the ideological forbear of today's Likud Party, none of Zionism's early thinkers anticipated circumstances in which Jews would be permanently at arms. Few envisaged a state that would face multiple existential threats on a daily basis just because it is Jewish.”

http://online.wsj.com/articles/in-defense-of-zionism-1406918952?mod=WSJ_hp_RightTopStories

Link at http://americanpowerblog.blogspot.com/

‘Anomalous Thrust Production from an RF [radio frequency] Test Device Measured on a Low-Thrust Torsion Pendulum

Or, You Don’t Have to Shoot Something Out the Back End of A Space Craft in Order to Make the Craft Go Forward.

Converting electrical power into thrust by bouncing microwaves around in a closed container.

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-07/31/nasa-validates-impossible-space-drive

"Test results indicate that the RF resonant cavity thruster design, which is unique as an electric propulsion device, is producing a force that is not attributable to any classical electromagnetic phenomenon and therefore is potentially demonstrating an interaction with the quantum vacuum virtual plasma."

See www.ace.mu.nu

‘NASA Confirms The Plausibility of Reactionless Drives??!!’

Sensitive Secret Service agents miffed when VP swims sans suit

(Read “Women” for “Sensitive.”)

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/vice-president-biden-loves-skinny-dipping-new-book-article-1.1887901

(Not my place to tell an agent her job, but: Your job is to protect the VP, whether he is buck nekkid or in a tux.)

Found at Ace of Spades HQ.

They tell me the drought line runs right through here*

“In medieval times the California droughts coincided roughly with a warmer climate in Europe, which allowed the Vikings to colonize Greenland and vineyards to grow in England, and with a severe dry period in South America, which caused the collapse of that continent's most advanced pre-Inca empire, the rich and powerful state of Tiwanaku, other recent studies have found.”

http://www.nytimes.com/1994/07/19/science/severe-ancient-droughts-a-warning-to-california.html

Link at maggiesfarm.

(Of course we modern humans will not allow a 200-year drought. We will fix the problem. Or something.)

*With apologies to John Hartford.

Should I adopt a dog or hire someone else’s mom as nanny?

“I’m amazed how much white liberals worry about organic eggs and only adopting rescue dogs, yet they have no problem buying someone else’s mom. They care more about animals than they do human beings. We complain about third world countries using child labor, but importing love from an impoverished country is downright evil.”

http://takimag.com/article/10_great_things_about_young_nannies_gavin_mcinnes/print#ixzz39FOPaggO

(Too much of this kind of writing and white liberals will stop hiring nannies. … Nah. White liberals can do whatever they want and never see a contra argument.)

Link at maggiesfarm.

They disagree with me. Tax them.

“The reason that Congress taxes nonprofit organizations is not because they need the revenue; it’s because incumbent politicians want to control political speech. They want to have the power to determine how much political speech you can have. It’s hideously un-American. If these nonprofit groups are so hateful to Congress, they should just ban them, rather than further complicating the Tax Code with yet more exemptions.”

http://americanthinker.com/2014/08/taxes_and_property_in_the_real_america.html

Point: Congress hides behind its approval of bureaucrats’ seizure of rights and property.

Anniversary

Priscilla and I were married 42 years ago today.

Happy anniversary, Dear Wife.

The perfect trench

In the last 200 years, no war sucked more than the First World One. Other wars had the same mud and dust and rain, the same rotted bodies, the same fear and carnage brought by artillery. Infantry weapons of other wars produced larger body wounds -- .70-caliber smoothbore flintlocks or .58-caliber Springfield and Enfield cap and ball, vs. .303-caliber or 8-millimeter center-fire metallic cartridges.

Until the second year of the World War, no other conflict had produced the number of artillery pieces, and none had both sides armed with machine guns. No soldiers had ever spent as much time in such mind-breaking circumstances.

More soldiers and many more civilians died in World War II, but the first of anything is more memorable.

At Ypres in Spring 1917, “There was mud waist-deep around support and front-line trenches. As we tried to cope I remembered the ideal trench we had seen somewhere near the base. It was dug to a depth of 10 feet with a row of sandbags neatly dovetailed on the top of the trench. A real show piece, and as dry as a bone that had been well licked by a dog.

“It was said that King George V, accompanied by high-raking army officers, had inspected this show trench, and had been most impressed. When I saw it, so was I. …

“What a joke it all seemed when one became acquainted with reality – holes in the ground surrounded by evil smelling muddy water which filled up the huge craters around Ypres. According to men I talked to who had, by the grace of God, survived a year or more in the Ypres Salient, there had never been any ideal trenches. ‘Brass-Hats’ very rarely went anywhere near the front line in the Salient. … Machine Gunner No. 66518 118, quoted in Machine Gunner 1914-1918, Personal Experiences of The Machine Gun Corps, compiled and edited by C.E. Crutchley, Pen and Sword Military, Barnsley, South Yorkshire.

No warriors need apply

A friend in Texas was wounded in the face in 1966 while an Infantry scout with 4th ID. After a year of hospitalization and therapy, he attended Infantry OCS and was commissioned a 2LT. Deciding his prospects might be better with steel between bullets and his body, he then went to Armor School at Knox and received an Armor commission. He was a tank company commander in Korea in the 1970s when forced from the Army because he was only an experienced fighter, not a college graduate.

The Army is surpassing stupidity now by giving pink slips to around 50 captains presently deployed to Afghanistan. That's right. Army captains in a war zone have been told their services will no longer be needed, but keep up the fight until processed out Stateside.

“At least 48 Army captains serving in Afghanistan are among nearly 1,200 captains who have essentially been given pink slips forcing them to leave the military as part of the Army's drawdown, service officials said Wednesday.

…

“A senior Army official defended the move to tell captains in Afghanistan that they had been chosen for separation rather than wait until their tours in the combat zone had ended.

“The official said that the seven or nine-month clock for transition out of the Army started running when they were selected for separation and it was better to ‘give them the maximum amount of time” to prepare for civilian life.

"’I believe it was the right thing to do,’ said the senior official, who spoke on background on the condition he was not identified.”

…

‘The selection process for separation began with an extensive records check to turn up those with marks against their careers – ‘anything from an extra-marital affair to a DUI (Driving Under the Influence),’ a senior official said.”

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2014/07/23/captains-deployed-to-afghanistan-get-pink-slip.html?ESRC=army-a.nl

(“I believe it was the right thing to do.” Of course you do, duckhed. You still have a job.

(As for giving the captains “the maximum amount of time” to prepare for civilian life, hey it’s not like they have anything else to do right now. “I can’t be bothered about an attack on one of my outposts. I’m preparing for civilian life.”

(By saying “extra-marital affair” and “DUI,” the “senior official” branded every departing captain as a drunken adulterer.)