Monday, June 30, 2014

Divers find Russian submarine “Shark” sunk in 1915

“Divers have identified a wreck on the bottom of the Baltic Sea as a legendary Tsarist-era Russian submarine known as The Shark, which vanished during the First World War.

“The 400-ton craft, commissioned in 1911, was the biggest in the pre-revolutionary fleet and is though to be the first submarine in the world that was capable of firing a volley of several torpedoes. It was dispatched on a mission in 1915 with 35 sailors aboard but never returned to port.’

---

"’Part of the outer shell of the craft at the stern was still intact and suddenly we could see, through the shells stuck to the hull, the word 'Akula' in white lettering.’"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/10936051/Tsars-Shark-submarine-discovered-beneath-the-Baltic-Sea.html

At theospark.net.

‘We’re trying to give away some money’

So says Texas Lottery Commission Executive Director Gary Grief.

$12 million in “some money.” So far, no one has turned in the winning ticket from the Jan. 1 drawing. The ticket was bought at a Shell station in Liberty. If no one shows up with the ticket by close of business today, the Texas Foundation School Fund will be a lot better off.

http://news92fm.com/451077/did-you-buy-a-lotto-ticket-in-league-city-you-might-be-a-millionaire/

At fark.com.

Solyent Yellow is … is wood chips!

“The cost effectiveness of this filler has pushed many chains to use progressively less chicken in their ‘chicken’ and cream in their ‘ice cream.’”

http://news.msn.com/science-technology/there-is-a-secret-ingredient-in-your-burgers-wood-pulp-1

If the fast food folks jacked up the percentage of wood pulp, they might increase profit margin enough to pay the coming $10 or $15 federal minimum wage.

Euell Gibbons: “Ever eat a pine tree?” He was a profit prophet ahead of his times.

Sunday, June 29, 2014

Shout out to her Muslim friends

Virginia GOP representative Barbara Comstock twits a “Wishing Our Muslim Friends a Ramadan Mubarak.”

Or, “We all know establishment Republicans will say anything to get a vote to obtain or keep power….”

http://www.black-and-right.com/2014/06/28/bonehead-day-12/

Saturday, June 28, 2014

The Moderate Syrian Rebel Application Form

After announcing, on Thursday, that it would seek $500 million to help “train and equip appropriately vetted elements of the moderate Syrian armed opposition,” the White House today posted the following Moderate Syrian Rebel Application Form:

Welcome to the United States’ Moderate Syrian Rebel Vetting Process. To see if you qualify for $500 million in American weapons, please choose an answer to the following questions:

As a Syrian rebel, I think the word or phrase that best describes me is:

A) Moderate
B) Very moderate
C) Crazy moderate
D) Other

I became a Syrian rebel because I believe in:

A) Truth
B) Justice
C) The American Way
D) Creating an Islamic caliphate

If I were given a highly lethal automatic weapon by the United States, I would:

A) Only kill exactly the people that the United States wanted me to kill
B) Try to kill the right people, with the caveat that I have never used an automatic weapon before
C) Kill people only after submitting them to a rigorous vetting process
D) Immediately let the weapon fall into the wrong hands

I have previously received weapons from:

A) Al Qaeda
B) The Taliban
C) North Korea
D) I did not receive weapons from any of them because after they vetted me I was deemed way too moderate

I consider ISIS:

A) An existential threat to Iraq
B) An existential threat to Syria
C) An existential threat to Iraq and Syria
D) The people who will pick up my American weapon after I drop it and run away

Complete the following sentence. “American weapons are…”

A) Always a good thing to randomly add to any international hot spot
B) Exactly what this raging civil war has been missing for the past three years
C) Best when used moderately
D) Super easy to resell online

Thank you for completing the Moderate Syrian Rebel Application Form. We will process your application in the next one to two business days. Please indicate a current mailing address where you would like your weapons to be sent. If there is no one to sign for them we will leave them outside the front door.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-06-27/pentagon-has-problem-vetting-moderate-al-qaeda-rebels-can-be-tough-so-here-simple-so




Yeah, it sucks, duckhed procks making decisions for me. But the alternative …

NEW YORK—Noting that it has had thousands of years to develop a more agreeable option, humankind expressed bewilderment this week that it has yet to devise a better alternative to governing itself than always letting power-hungry a$$h(ats) run everything, sources worldwide reported.

Individuals in every country on earth voiced their frustration that, in spite of generations of mistreatment, neglect, and abuse they have suffered at the hands of those in positions of authority, they continue to allow control over the world’s governments, businesses, and virtually every other type of organization and social group to fall to the most megalomaniacal pricks among them.

“We’ve all seen what this system leads to, so you’d think that by now, someone, somewhere would have sat down and thought up another way to keep our societies functioning without giving all the power to arrogant, amoral d(u)cks whose only concern is improving their own status,” said Mumbai software designer Ankan Rao, one of 7.1 billion humans who conveyed continued surprise that their species has so far proven incapable of formulating a method of governance that was even slightly more tolerable. “Everybody dislikes the people in charge and everybody knows they’re only serving their own personal agendas at the expense of everyone else, but we just keep allowing these jerks to make our decisions time and time again. And it’s not just here—it’s everywhere in the world.”

“Boy, maybe we shouldn’t do that anymore,” Rao added. “Anyone have any better ideas?”

“My old boss, my sorority president, my congressional representative, my current boss—they’ve all been soulless, backstabbing d(u)ckheads whose only concern is getting what they want,” said administrative assistant Sheryl Gittens of Fort Worth, TX, who went on to list the bully back in her seventh grade class, her homeowners association president, and the coordinator of her Bible study group among the legions of selfish jagoffs who have inexplicably been granted commanding roles by the acquiescent masses. “What’s even more annoying is that we essentially reward these people for only thinking of themselves and repeatedly screwing us over. If you stop and think about it, that’s pretty messed up.”

“Jesus,” she continued. “What the hell’s wrong with us?”

Full story: http://www.theonion.com/articles/humanity-surprised-it-still-hasnt-figured-out-bett,36361/

Linked from maggiesfarm and zerohedge.com.

Friday, June 27, 2014

It was 100 years ago. All is forgiven, right?

“SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Marking the centennial of the beginning of World War I in their own way, Bosnian Serbs have unveiled a monument in their part of Sarajevo to the man who ignited the war by assassinating the Austro-Hungarian crown prince on June 28, 1914.

“At the other end of the city, the Vienna Philharmonic orchestra was rehearsing Friday for Saturday's grand EU-sponsored performance planned as a symbolic start to a new century of peace at the place where the century of wars started 100 years ago.

“The two evidence testify to the depth of lingering divisions, with one side promoting peace to the tunes of Joseph Haydn's ‘God save the Emperor’ while the other erects a monument to the assassin of the emperor's heir.”

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/bosnian-serbs-erect-ferdinand-statue

At fark.com.

(Really? A “new century of peace”? Does the writer know anything of Balkan history, or of Eastern Europe?

(I wish; therefore it is.)

"I thought about going to Sarajevo," Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic told reporters. But, he said, "I was supposed to stand beside a plaque that speaks of the 'Serbian fascist aggressors'. Sorry, with all due respect, I cannot do that."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/26/us-wwi-anniversary-bosnia-idUSKBN0F10ZH20140626




There is nothing wrong with making money …

… but don’t pee on my tent and tell me it’s raining.

“Bill Clinton has been paid $104.9 million for 542 speeches around the world between January 2001, when he left the White House, and January 2013, when Hillary Clinton stepped down as secretary of state, according to a Washington Post review of the family's federal financial disclosures.”

“The financial industry has been Bill Clinton's most frequent sponsor. The Post review showed that Wall Street banks and other financial services firms have hired him for at least 102 appearances and paid him $19.6 million.”

http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2014/jun/27/clintons-speeches-money-in-the-bank-201/

Chelsea Clinton said in an interview she tried but could not become interested in money. She no longer has a $600,000 contract with NBC, but works for her father’s foundation.

And, yes, former Bush administration people make speeches and sometimes are paid a less embarrassing amount. Condoleezza Rice got $25,000 from Montana State University in September 2012; $150,000 for an April 2014 talk at the University of Minnesota, where a revived Students for a Democratic Society found her fee “troubling” and said the money could be spent on better things.

http://www.startribune.com/politics/statelocal/252827411.html#mjIfhhAQjXS55tMs.97

Mrs. Clinton will be at the Chenal Walmart Supercenter in Little Rock today, signing books.

Thursday, June 26, 2014

Leaving Vietnam

A dream from a dozen years ago:

A young woman and I were in a plantation house in the Central Highlands.

“If...When we are able to leave, we will go to the United States on an airplane,” I said. “No,” I amended. “We will get on a boat, a passenger ship.”

She said, “There are no passenger ships at Saigon, nor at Vung Tau. Certainly not at Nha Trang.”

I said, “Singapore, then. Are there flights from Saigon to Singapore?” She said she did not know. I said, “Then we will fly to Bang Kok. There are flights from Bang Kok to Singapore. We will get on a ship at Singapore, and we will go to Indonesia and then to Australia and from there to the United States.’

“I would like that,” she said.

“Or, we could go west. We could go to...Where would we land in East Pakistan or India? I don’t remember the port cities there.”

“There is an atlas in the library,” she said. “I will get the atlas.”

I watched as she walked from the room. She wore blue jeans and a white blouse and her hair tied in back with a red bandanna.

The veranda doors were open. Gentle rain fell.

She returned with the atlas. She sat beside me on the couch. She placed the atlas on the coffee table. She opened the atlas to a map of Southeast Asia -- both Vietnams, Laos and Cambodia.

I put a finger on the map and said, “We are here.”

“Your finger is too big.” She turned to a two-page map of the world.

“That’s too small to see all the port cities,” I said.

She turned to a section that had Southeast Asia on two pages. She and I looked at the map.

Bring to us that lack of confidence

After the uprising of the 17th of June
The Secretary of the Writers Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts.

Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?
-- Bertolt Brecht, The Solution


Synagogue services

A dream:

I told my mother (but she wasn’t tall and thin like my mother; rather, she was shorter and rounder): “I need to go somewhere.”

She said, "All right.”

Then I was in a motel. I had little money. I took a long, hot shower. I called a cab company. "I need to go to the synagogue," I said. The cab picked me up. I sat in the front seat. The driver asked questions, but I don’t remember them. He gave me advice, but I don’t remember any of it.

The cab arrived at the synagogue. No one was standing outside. The driver said he would be back when services were over.

I went through glass doors and into the foyer. From my right, someone slapped a yarmulke into my hand. The yarmulke was small and had a thin elastic string that fit beneath the neck and had what looked like a black lace bow in the top center. I don’t remember if I put on the yarmulke.

Light was dim in the main room. The room was wider than it was long. There were several rows of pews. One set of pews -- five rows and to my right -- were perpendicular to the other pews. Ten or 12 young men sat in those pews, facing to my right. An older man taught the young men. The remaining pews -- facing front -- were filled with men, women and children together.

A man to my right handed a white garment to me. At first I thought it was a shirt, but it was more than a shirt. The man said I should take off my shirt and put on the white garment. I wore a black pullover shirt. I took it off and put it on an empty back pew, then put the white garment over my shoulders. The garment was of heavy fabric, similar to a light cotton canvas, and not bridal white, but more of a creamy white. The garment went to below my knees. (I wore blue jeans.)

A woman to my left asked if I could hear what the older man was saying to the younger men in the pews to our right. I said, "I hear a sound, but I can’t hear the words." She said she couldn’t hear any words, either.

A short time later, services ended. Someone said I should go through a door to the right. I did. A long line of teenage girls and boys were in the hall, walking toward the door I came through.

I went to the back of the synagogue. I looked for a bathroom. There were white cardboard signs with hand-written letters and numbers -- “1609” “C-1202,” but none labeled “Men’s Room.”

I went back up the hall and asked a man where the bathroom was. He said it was in the direction I came from, three doors down on the left. I went where he said. The designated door led to a room with many tables and small electric motors. I did not find a bathroom, so I went to the front of the hall. The cab driver was talking with two congregants of the synagogue. The driver then went into the main room and sat in a pew.

I went outside and found hundreds of people in a wide grassy area with tall trees left of the synagogue. A woman asked if I needed help. I said, “I can’t find my car.” The woman asked what kind of car I had. “A black 1954 Ford,” I said.

I walked around, looking for the car. I passed in front of an eight-foot drop-off, lined with brick, and that divided the grassy area into a high part and a lower part. People sat on the grass and in the shade of trees above the wall. In the lower area, several dozen young women and young men appeared and began a dance.

Four young men approached. One said, “You are looking for your car.” I said I was. He said, “My friend says your license is about to expire. And, one of the tires will go flat in about seven days.” He wrinkled his nose. “And, you really should wash the car.” Woke up.

An edifying speech

"Well, boys, I reckon this is it — nuclear combat toe to toe with the Rooskies.

“Now look, boys, I ain't much of a hand at makin' speeches, but I got a pretty fair idea that something doggone important is goin' on back there. And I got a fair idea the kinda personal emotions that some of you fellas may be thinkin.'

“Heck, I reckon you wouldn't even be human bein's if you didn't have some pretty strong personal feelin's about nuclear combat.

“I want you to remember one thing, the folks back home is a-countin' on you and by golly, we ain't about to let 'em down.

“I tell you something else, if this thing turns out to be half as important as I figure it just might be, I'd say that you're all in line for some important promotions and personal citations when this thing's over with. That goes for ever' last one of you regardless of your race, color or your creed.

“Now let's get this thing on the hump — we got some flyin' to do." -- Maj. T.J. (King) Kong

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Li’l Kim has li’l sense of humor

Or, the sense of humor one would expect of a Communist dictator who gorges on cake while his people starve.

It’s a movie, Li’l Dunce.

Foreign ministry spokeskim: “(I)f the U.S. administration allows and defends the showing of the film, a merciless counter-measure will be taken."

http://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Culture-Cafe/2014/0625/North-Korea-is-reportedly-displeased-by-Seth-Rogen-comedy-about-assassinating-Kim-Jong-un

You mean you won’t keep Dennis Rodman?

I’d rather my DL not identify me as anything

http://militarybenefits.info/veterans-id-on-drivers-license-id-card-by-state/

A writer at Flopping Aces: “I recently received my Driver’s License renewal. Interestingly enough, the DMV is now asking drivers if they are veterans. Well, now, that got me scratching my head and wondering: ‘Why do they want to know?’ According to various state’s DMV web pages, having this veteran’s designation added to your license (to paraphrase) ‘is to to help you receive benefits, discounts and freebies from businesses who honor our veterans, and for you to be recognized for your service.’”

First they came for the Redskins …

“The Minnesota Senate approved John Hoffman’s (D-MN) bill to change the name ‘Asian carp’ so called because the species originates from Asia, to ‘invasive carp’. ... While arguing his case on the Senate floor, Hoffman said that referring to the fish as ‘Asian’ was hurtful to some people.”

“What animal is next? Black bear? Siberian tiger?”

http://youngcons.com/liberals-passed-a-bill-to-change-this-fishs-name-because-it-is-hurtful-and-offensive/

At maggiesfarm.

Dew monkey

In the great arboretum of life, I am nothing but a dew monkey.

A dew monkey.

Yep.

What is …

He is the monkey that wakes up wet every morning, the one sitting near the end of a limb where there are no leaves above to keep him dry.

Well, now, dew does not fall from the sky but forms when a surface cools through loss of infrared radiation down to a temperature which is colder than the dewpoint of the air next to that surface.

What?

The only way your monkey could get wet every night, every night, because not every night has dew, so if he is not under a leaf, but he gets wet every night, would be if another monkey on a higher limb was, well, pissing on him.

There you go. I am a dew monkey.

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

U.S. crude oil imports from Norway …

… and drivers killed in collision with railroad trains.

http://www.tylervigen.com/

Number of people who drowned in swimming pools on increase as is power generated by nuclear plants.

At maggiesfarm.

M. Obama doesn’t know any better


The “usually politically correct first lady” said she “was getting gypped” on a part time job. Not the one she has now, understand. No doubt she probably got “Jewed down” at some point in her life, too.

Roma citizens (“gypsies” to most of us) don’t appreciate the word “gypped.”

But, hey, nobody is perfect. We all make mistakes. There are no winners or losers. And just make sure you do your best, right? That’s all that counts, and here is your “Participant” ribbon.

The first lady was not the first member of her family to slur the Roma. In 2009 in Allentown, Pa., President Obamahe told people he was going to make sure they didn’t get “gypped” by insurance companies.

http://dailycaller.com/2014/06/24/first-lady-uses-racial-slur-and-gets-away-with-it/

Sometimes the Obamas are particularly stupid.


More déjà vu all over again

“Yes, Maliki’s militaries evaporated because he had appointed leading military officials who were Shia cronies. But also because he allowed his military to hollow out with corruption. While the security sector ‘had an annual budget greater than the budgets for education, health, and the environment combined,’ according to Zaid Al-Ali, very little made its way into security. df“Ghost” soldiers who were paid monthly salaries but never showed up for duty were legion. “Ghost” trainings were never held, with the money lining elite pockets, faulty, overly expensive equipment was purchased to enrich still others. No surprise that morale among the rank and file was low and they wouldn’t – and couldn’t – fight. A few years of cronyism and corruption undid a decade of painstaking U.S. effort.” – Rachel Kleinfeld, ‘Corruption IS a National Security Problem’

(Ghost soldiers and corruption happen every time the US pours money into a Third World country.)

http://breakingdefense.com/2014/06/corruption-is-a-national-security-problem-ukraine-iraq-afghanistan/?utm_source=Breaking+Defense&utm_campaign=db3d33a83b-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4368933672-db3d33a83b-407339625

(Americans who can fix everything all too often know “We will show them the way, Lord; we will show them the way.” **

(We are the rich guy who “feels” bad because he has too much money, and surely there is a poor man somewhere who needs some of it, a man who will take the money and listen when told, “I can fix your problem. All you need do is hear and obey. Unless, of course, you need more time to digest and understand what you should do. In that case, I will give you more money.”)


**Has nothing to do with religion or religious missionaries, only that knowing what is best for everyone else is as firm a belief by some as is religion by others.

Sunday, June 22, 2014

The war that made the modern world

In six days, some of the world’s citizens will note the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the greatest event of the last century.

On June 28, 1914, Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were assassinated in Sarajevo, Bosnia, then a part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. A month later, Austria-Hungary and Germany were at war with Russia, France and Britain.

One hundred years. It is an unusual thing, marking the century anniversary of anything; especially so in knowing that every international event had a link back to that summer day in a city that later would host a winter Olympics and still later would be the focus of a tearing apart of a country – Yugoslavia – deemed an absolute necessity by the makers of the Versailles Treaty.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/world-war-i-the-war-that-changed-everything-1403300393?tesla=y&mod=djemLifeStyle_h&mg=reno64-wsj&url=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303384304579628672537150700.html?mod=djemLifeStyle_h


(Right now I am reading Prit Buttar's Collision of Empires: The War on the Eastern Front 1914, and Christopher Clark's The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914.)

D.C. gone a-whoring, or …

Babylon on the Potomac.

“Contrary to popular belief, much of Washington D.C. doesn’t exist to govern the nation. The leading occupation in the city is whoring. Whether it be make-work jobs in unconstitutional bureaucracies or using a young intern as a personal sex cushion, the general disposition is one of exploitation and greed.” – Taylor Lewis, “Summer in D.C. Brings out the ‘Skinterns’”

http://americanthinker.com/2014/06/summer_in_dc_brings_out_the_skinterns.html



Friday, June 20, 2014

This can’t be true

ISIS captures Saddam’s chemical weapons stockpiles.

“17.09 Chemical weapons produced at the Al Muthanna facility, which Isis today seized, are believed to have included mustard gas, Sarin, Tabun, and VX.”

But … But they don’t exist! During the illegal American invasion and occupation, no chemical weapons were found!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/10910868/Iraq-crisis-Obama-may-launch-air-strikes-without-Congress-amid-calls-for-Maliki-to-go-live.html

At maggiesfarm and pjmedia.

Apartment manager doesn’t realize which state she lives in

A Webster (Texas) man says his apartment complex manager told him his American flag was a “threat to the Muslim community,” and that he has to take it down. But he’s not giving up without a fight.

Stepping onto Duy Tran’s balcony in Webster, one thing is clear: “It means a lot to me,” he said.

He’s talking about his American flag that he proudly put up when he moved in just a few days ago. But then an apartment manager at the Lodge on El Dorado told him he had to take it down.

“What really stunned me is that she said it’s a threat towards the Muslim community,” said Tran. “I’m not a threat toward anybody.”

We tried to ask a manager if that’s exactly what was said, but she just handed us a statement, refused to answer any questions, and called an officer to escort us off the property, before we could press any further.

"While the Lodge on El Dorado admires our resident's patriotism, we must enforce our property rules and guidelines. Such guidelines maintain the aesthetics of our apartment community and provide for the safety of all residents. The apartment community already proudly displays our country's flag in a safe and appropriate manner at the entrances to our community."

But we saw other patriotic symbols hanging from other balconies in the complex, and Tran doesn't plan to budge.

"I’m gonna leave my flag there, as an American, until she shows me proof that I don’t have the right to leave my flag there," said Tran.

To Tran it's about so much more than stars and stripes.

"I have friends that died for this country," he said.

So he says this fight is the least he can do.

We have not heard of any residents complaining about any flags at the complex, or any of the patriotic items we saw. In fact, we spoke to several neighbors who say they want Tran's flag to stay.

http://www.khou.com/news/local/Man-says-apartment-complex-called-his-US-flag-a-threat-to-Muslim-community-263757051.html

At thegatewaypundit and maggiesfarm.

Thursday, June 19, 2014

Office of the Director of National Intelligence celebrates perverted sex month

Because “LGBT Pride Month” is “what the IC (intelligence community) is about …”

DNI James Clapper in a speech at the “Intelligence Community (IC) Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Allies (LGBTA) Summit which was held this year at the National Security Agency in Fort Meade, Maryland.”

Oh, that NSA.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/director-national-intelligence-celebrates-lgbt-pride-month-what-ic-about_795326.html?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed

At maggiesfarm.


Duh!! Low skilled lawbreakers can't balance check book

“Researchers at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock say inmates released from prison lack financial literacy to such a degree that it raises the risk for them returning to jail.

“The school said Thursday that a year-long study funded by the school's Institute on Race and Ethnicity could prevent offenders from being set up for failure on their release from prison. The researchers hope to use information collected to design a financial literacy program for soon-to-be-released inmates.

“UALR professor Ken Galchus said that through his interactions with inmates at a minimum-security facility, he realized how few inmates knew basics such as how to balance a checkbook, or the importance of a good credit report.” – Associated Press, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

(Released inmates can’t balance a checkbook; therefore, they are at risk for recidivism. Logic, anyone?)

For the futurists among us

“At the present time, the administration is demonstrating imperial ambitions toward the very nation it governs. An overweening executive branch appears intent on reducing the states to the equivalent of satrapies and Congress to a useless nonentity. Executive orders and unelected bureaucratic organizations such as the EPA, the NSA and the IRS -- among others -- are used to rule and to subdue opposition. The rapid militarization of bureaucratic entities -- even the USDA is taking up arms -- also augers ill for American citizens.

“Perhaps even more dangerous is the fact the administration is attempting to erase state/national borders by encouragement of runaway immigration that essentially amounts to an invasion. There is contempt not only for individual states such as Texas, but for national sovereignty itself. A nation without clear and defensible borders is no nation at all.

“Meanwhile, the rapid and draconian reduction of U.S. military power leaves the nation vulnerable to strikes from hostile powers. President Obama is making the Franklin Roosevelt error of the 1930s by reducing military strength in order to pay for entitlements. But this time, due to nuclear missiles, there will be no grace period to make up the military gap should a power bent on expanding empire attack the U.S. as Japan did in 1941 when it bombed the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor.

“In brief, while the rest of the world is empire building, the U.S. is contracting its global power even while this pestilential administration is conducting empire building by executive fiat within the homeland.

“The vacuum left by the rapid diminution of American power encourages destruction of national boundaries by entities with expansionist ambitions, aggressive natures, old grievances and dreams of restoration of former lands.”

http://americanthinker.com/2014/06/the_persistence_of_empire_.html

(There is much more, on once-defeated empires rising from the swamps and deserts and steppes, of the decline of the West.)





Caliphate, Saudi Arabia and the Empire of the Persians

In the Middle East, “there will be a need for a Treaty of Westphalia-style solution — a redrawing of boundaries in a region where boundaries have been bursting for decades.”

http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2014/06/the-conflict-in-the-middle-east-is-far-bigger-than-isis-and-al-qaeda/

Refer to Sykes-Picot agreement and subsequent line-drawing by Britain and France, creating Syria, Lebanon and Iraq. World War I continues, as it has since the original cease-fire in 1918.

Link at www.ace.mu.nu

Monday, June 16, 2014

And now for some important news

Top 10 beers in the world.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-13/the-top-ten-beers-in-the-world-aren-t-what-you-think-.html

So Chinese drink more beer than do Americans. Shouldn’t they?


Dilemma of university educators: How to define consensual sex

The White House recommends “affirmative consent.”

Who? Michelle and What’s-his-name? Why are they involved in this?

http://www.npr.org/2014/06/13/321677110/a-campus-dilemma-sure-no-means-no-but-exactly-what-means-yes

Somebody named Rory Gerberg, “a student at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government” helped advise the White House develop guidance for colleges. “She says … hypotheticals are critical to showing students what ‘loud and clear’ consent actually looks like.”

Showing? Looks like? Sex at Harvard requires a picture?

OK, here is an example of “loud and clear” consent: “Yes, yes, yes! Oh yes, oh yes!”

Any question?

At fark.com.

That's what happens when you put 'Virgin' and 'Australia' in the same logo

An inspection of the aircraft “revealed significant structural damage ...” (No, potty brain; not to the virgin. There was no virgin.)

‘Two pilots tried to fly Virgin Australia plane in “opposite directions”– report”

(One was trying to raise the nose; the other was … doing something else. Elevators don’t like that. Neither did the flight attendant who brokea leg when tossed around by the confused airplane.)

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/jun/12/two-pilots-virgin-australia-plane-opposite-directions-report

At fark.com.

Sunday, June 15, 2014

Four people who got knocked in the head and became acquired savants

A pianist, a geometer, an artist and a sculptor. The latter, Alonzo Clemons, “was 3 years old when he suffered a severe fall. To this day, in his late fifties, Clemons still retains an IQ of no more than 50, and he can neither read nor write.” Clemons’ works, though, have sold for as much as $45,000.

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0614/brain_injury_geniuses.php3

Definitely insensitive

“L.A. marked the twentieth anniversary of the murder of O.J. Simpson's wife Nicole today. It was a shock. If someone told you beforehand that an NFL Hall of Fame running back from USC would kill his wife and the jury would let him off, you'd have bet the farm it'd be Frank Gifford.” – Argus Hamilton at www.jewishworldreview.com

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

How bad are Chicago public schools?

One is really, really, really bad.

Paul Robeson High School 2014 prom theme: “This Is Are Story.”

http://eagnews.org/prom-slogan-highlights-cps-failures/

Maybe you’re thought is its not to bad I meen nobodies perfect. Everbody make mistakes.

At fark.com.



More musings from solitaire

Goat failures. (I have no idea what that means.)

10 Years After, Going Home (by Helicopter).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bW5M5xljdCI

(Alvin Lee got lost. Music theory** says you can depart from a point and go out there and do whatever you want as long as you return to the place you departed. Or, You Can Go Home Again. Lee got lost out there somewhere, but he made it back.)

**Gleaned from listening to however many records, tapes and CDs over the almost last 70 years.

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Free falling

Stuff that popped into the head while the body and part of the mind played solitaire and listened to the rain fall:

Pay cash for it.

The Eureka Bowl.

It’s good to see religion has finally taken over.

Montana Jones.

Now it's back to playing more solitaire or maybe writing more of the latest novel-in-progress or maybe formatting the three already finished. Or, finding someone who knows what he's/she's doing and paying him/her to format the things and get them on Kindle. Yeah, that sounds better. If I do the formatting, bet the mortgage formatting will be incomplete.

I did a search on Montana Jones. Turns out there was an anime TV series and a sheep and a blog. Imagine.

Monday, June 9, 2014

Weather forecast

Plans. Cut grass. Rent small tractor with front end loader and move stuff in landscaping projects. Clean ditch of leaves and mud. Change level of another ditch so water actually flows. Pile fallen limbs in one place and rent chipper.

Reality: “I think we should go buy some gopher wood,” my wife said a couple of minutes ago.

Yes, there is rain. And will be for the next three or four days.

The U.S. has no idea of grand strategy

“For decades, policymakers in Washington pursued policies that sought to contain the power and influence of Moscow. Through persistence and strength (including a number of debatable policy choices), we won that struggle despite the fact that no one—and I mean literally no one—saw the defeat of the Soviet Union coming.”

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/americas-grand-strategy-disaster-1062

(We had a defined enemy, an opponent political/economic system that defined itself opposed to us and to our political/economic system. Today we do not have an opponent whose overall strengths are equal to ours. President Obama is Hell-bent on making us as less powerful as other economically rich countries, and it is possible that he and the members of the Ruling Class Congress have pushed the United States beyond recovery.)

“In a recent article in the New Yorker, David Remnick quotes President Obama, as saying that the United States does not need a new grand strategy. Remnick writes, ‘Obama told me that what he needs isn’t any new grand strategy—“I don’t really even need George Kennan right now” states Obama “but, rather, the right strategic partners.”’” – Same source.

(The statement “I don’t really even need …” sums up the Obama presidency – the emphasis, the supreme realization, of “I.” He says – The United States dos not need a grand strategy. I need people who agree with me.

(The world is an unfriendly, tumultuous place. It is filled with humans of differing goals, and many of those humans will go to any length to achieve their goals. Announcing cooperation and absence of force does not make the world safe.)




Sunday, June 8, 2014

SHARK!!!

9-foot Great White dragged down 1,900 feet, later thrown up.

http://travel.aol.co.uk/2014/06/08/9ft-great-white-shark-eaten-huge-mystery-sea-monster/#!slide=aol_2175374

Link also has: ’10 Easiest Places To Get Eaten By A Shark’

(“Easiest” for whom?)

At fark.com.

Headline from The Paris (Texas) News:

‘More downtown sidewalks to be replaced with grants’

Concrete has been proven the best substance.

http://theparisnews.com/news/article_d2e21040-ee9e-11e3-9a97-001a4bcf887a.html#user-comment-area

Thursday, June 5, 2014

TwodaysagoIwenttoanApplestoreforthefirsttime,

where the blue shirts talked that fast,

and discovered: (a) the future; or, (b) the end of the universe.

OK: (c) both.

My wife’s Really Intelligent Phone had defonked. Totally, ya know?

Here is what I noticed at the Apple Store: They don’t have anything, except for a lot of bare tables, a few stools, cables running from the table, and many Comic Book Store escapees wearing blue shirts.

The back of the store is no doubt filled with devices in boxes, AKA Things I Don’t Know How to Use and Don’t Really Have Need For.

While my wife and I were waiting for a technician to return with her new Really Intelligence Phone from behind the curtain, a man slid into a chair near us. He said, “This is the greatest store I have ever seen!”

I thought about saying “I have a First Issue Spider Man comic for sale.” But I don’t. And that would have been cruel.

It all started at 0512

0602. Three dogs barking. Neighbor let out his yippy furballs; Kathleen’s American bulldog reacts: Whine. (Let me go see what that is.) Yippy furballs yip. K’s dog: Wuf. Y dogs: Yip, yip, yip. K’s dog: Grrr. Grr. Y dogs: Yip, yip, yip. K’s dog: Grrrr. Grrrr. (Let me out and I’ll put a stop to that yipping.) Repeat, etc.

0606. All dogs satisfied with performance of protective sounds.

Backtrack. 0512. Pain in my right hip drove me from bed. Other times that happens, I go to guest bedroom, where bed has a different mattress, one that gives a different support to the hip. Kathleen is using that room while she is here for Mrs. R.’s funeral. John is in the other guest room.

Earlier in the week, my wife asked: “What are you going to do when your hip starts hurting?” I replied: “Suffer.” She suggested I use the reclines-fully-horizontal chair in the living room. So, at 0512 I put on my jeans and emptied my pockets, got my pillow and went to the living room.

K’s three dogs were asleep in the hall. They followed me to the living room. I got a quilt from a couch and sat in the recliner and reclined and pulled the quilt for cover. My feet and 12 inches of each leg hung over the foot rest. I got as comfortable as possible. K’s big dog licked the top of my head.

I did not get back to sleep. I turned onto my left side to alleviate the pain. After a short time, I turned onto my stomach as much as the chair allowed. Any more turning, I figured the chair would decide to make its own turn (over) and the sound of the chair falling and my exclamations would wake up my wife and K and John and any dog that for some reason was sleeping.

0544. Charley (red poodle) begins complaints from his cage in another room. May I get up? … I want to get up. … Are you going to let me up? Repeat, repeat, etc.

0552. Enough. I let the dogs out. All five, I thought. From living room I hear high-pitched “Bark. … Bark.” K’s smaller pug has walked behind the television and cannot figure out how to come out. She is looking through the window and asking the dogs outside for assistance. K had said Lola is as dumb as a sack of rocks. Now I agree. I convince Lola she can turn around. I let her out.

All the dogs are in; all the peoples are still asleep.

This straight chair is comfortable. I think I will sit here for a while.

Wednesday, June 4, 2014

You should be jailed for thinking

“Critics suggested not only that I be fired for my views but that I should be prosecuted for them, and that the government should ensure that such views are not published. Live-and-let-live is not the Left’s way, never has been, and never will be. It is not sufficient that transsexuals should be free to act on their delusions — the rest of us are expected to participate in them with unreserved enthusiasm, and the Left is willing to use the state to compel us to do so. To simply believe otherwise and to share those views in print is in the minds of many on the Left not only a social transgression but something that should be a crime. The belief that members of minority political tendencies should be jailed for their views is very much in vogue for the Left at the moment. Democrats in the Senate are seeking to repeal the First Amendment. All of us — conservatives and whatever traditional liberals there still may be on the left side of the spectrum — should fully appreciate the sobering fact that there is a nascent, popular, authoritarian movement among members of the Left that supports everything from censorship to literal, non-metaphorical gulags in which to imprison people for their political beliefs.”

Linked at http://pjmedia.com/eddriscoll/2014/06/02/fallacies-fashions-fascism/

Original article: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/379312/rage-rhetoric-and-reform-kevin-d-williamson#!


Cause of irritation among Progressocrats:

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/379188/laverne-cox-not-woman-kevin-d-williamson




One of the funniest dumb things ever

Austin artist angry she has to pay for community improvements she voted for.

“’I’m at the breaking point,’ said Gretchen Gardner, an Austin artist who bought a 1930s bungalow in the Bouldin neighborhood just south of downtown in 1991 and has watched her property tax bill soar to $8,500 this year.

“’It’s not because I don’t like paying taxes,’ said Gardner, who attended both meetings. ‘I have voted for every park, every library, all the school improvements, for light rail, for anything that will make this city better. But now I can’t afford to live here anymore. I’ll protest my appraisal notice, but that’s not enough. Someone needs to step in and address the big picture.’”

Link at: http://hotair.com/archives/2014/06/02/liberal-austin-homeowners-surprised-to-find-they-have-to-pay-all-the-taxes-they-voted-for/

Story: http://www.mystatesman.com/news/business/surge-in-property-tax-bills-spurs-push-to-reform-t/ngBXt/?icmp=statesman_internallink_textlink_apr2013_statesmanstubtomystatesman_launch#c710210c.3313332.735385


Tuesday, June 3, 2014

John's reaction to his mother's death

When Cylla told John his mother was dead, “He rejoiced.” She went on: “He clapped his hands and he grinned and he said, ‘All right!’”

What a terrible reaction. Except it wasn’t.

All his life John was told when a Christian dies, she or he goes to a better place, where there is no pain.

John had seen his father go through the process of dying. He had seen his Uncle Murray and his Aunt May unconscious in hospital beds, in that most unflattering of poses, that open-mouth, embarrassing, natural, before-death attitude that, thankfully, the dead most likely do not remember.

John had seen his mother in the same posture. During weekend visits at our house, he had watched while Cylla fed Mrs. Rodgers. He had heard his mother’s complaints and accusations when Cylla did the diaper changes.

On the way back to Texarkana after that first weekend in March, John said, “My momma’s going to die.”

“Yes, John, she is,” Cylla said. “Mother is old. People get old and they die. It will happen to me and it will happen to Bob and it will happen to you. But Mother is not dead now, and we are going to take care of her as much as we can as long as she is here.”

After a moment, John said, “They ought to just let her die.”

Among people who are as badly brain damaged as John, there is mostly a realization of now. Tomorrow is not here; yesterday is gone.

But the sense of death – as much as it is sensed – seems to bring a realization of beyond tomorrow. Or maybe not. Maybe it is only a continuance of now.

Whichever, to John the end of life is part of the road to Canaan’s land – no sad farewells, no tear-dimmed eyes, where all is joy and peace and love.

Monday, June 2, 2014

First they came for the ‘We don’t have proof’ drug dealer

Who’s next?

Feds keep $200,000 even after charges dropped, say the gub’mint has a right to the money. Analogues or something.

DEA filed for “arrest and seizure of the Defendant Currency.”

http://www.startribune.com/local/261384251.html

At fark.com.