Saturday, October 31, 2015

Blonde in a dark-haired world

Allah graced his people with dark hair. Unbelievers and harlots have hair that is not dark.

In the mid-1970s I knew a blonde-haired woman, mid-20s, whose father was an MD. In the late 1960s, the doctor received a Fulbright scholarship to bring medical care to poor people in Kabul, Afghanistan. The doctor took his wife and two daughters with him to Afghanistan. The daughters were in Kabul for about two weeks before being sent home. Afghans threatened to stone the girls. Blonde hair and blue eyes were an affront to Allah. And the girls were girls.

You can’t pull a people out of the 7th century.

Swedish TV reporter stoned by Muslim mob

She is a she. She is blonde. By Muslim standards, she+blonde=harlot.

"Swedish journalist Valentina Xhaferi set out to report on a Muslim no-go zone in Stockholm. The reporter ended up being chased out of the district by a stone-throwing Muslim mob."

Video in Swedish:

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2015/10/video-journalist-stoned-while-trying-to-film-muslim-no-go-zone-in-sweden/

“A Swedish journalist attempting to make a movie about the residents of a Swedish no go zone and their habit of throwing stones at police has herself been attacked and had stones thrown at her as she attempted to film.

“'They thought we crossed the limit and that we were standing on their land,' journalist Valentina Xhaferi told Swedish newspaper Expressen.

"Ms Xhaferi planned on investigating police reports that any officer trying to patrol the Stockholm district of Tensta – with its foreign born population now over 70 per cent – would be pelted with rocks. She wanted to get behind the black headlines and find out what was really troubling the poor residents.

"So along with a cameraman, she traveled into the suburb to film their report last week. They had set up their recording equipment in a small, central square, and spoken to a man who had agreed to be interviewed.

"But as they waited, another man, who appeared to be upset, approach to ask why they were filming. He went away only to return with his gang.

“'Then he became very, very angry and said he’ll get stones and show us what stoning is. When I saw that he was armed with a stone I just wanted to get out of there,' said Ms Xhaferi.

"At this point more three men appeared from a subway and demanded to know what they were doing. The camera was recording, and captured the moment the men kicked the equipment to the floor, shouted insults at Ms. Xhaferi and poured coffee on the cameraman before running off…"


T-Shirts

You can’t buy happiness, but you can buy Prozac, and that’s kind of the same thing.

And: Medicated for Your Protection.

Been there*:

Dear Alcohol,

We had a deal where you would make me funnier, smarter, and a better dancer.

I saw the video.

We need to talk.

(*Except for the video part.)

There’s a reason for everything. I guess.

“The Masculine Identity Crisis in
“Christopher Nolan’s ‘Dark Knight Trilogy”

Sascha Ranke Bachelor Thesis.

If you are of a mind to read it:

http://www.grin.com/en/e-book/266772/the-masculine-identity-crisis-in-christopher-nolan-s-dark-knight-trilogy

(After reading a small part of the thesis, I am glad I am an old(er) man and determined some years ago I did not have a Masculine Identity Crisis. And, why do men allow (or think they must allow) someone else, particularly movie writers and film makers, to decide what a man should be? What gives someone else the wisdom and authority to determine the masculinity provisions of every American born with male genitalia?)

Friday, October 30, 2015

Indian cow patrols

“They are mainly vegetarian and many say they drink cow urine for a ‘healthy life’. Many of them, including Mr Sharma himself, believe that the Muslim man who was lynched by a Hindu mob over rumours of storing and consuming beef deserved his fate, and ‘when fights happen, people do get killed’.

“All of them believe that ‘mother cow’ is endangered, and conflate saving the cow with saving Hinduism. ‘The cow will become extinct within 20 years if we don't save them now,’ says Suraj Bhan Gujjar, a farmer. Although there are rising concerns over cattle smuggling in border areas, India has more than 100 million cows and buffaloes, and it's one of the top milk producing countries in the world.”



“The vigilantes are armed with sturdy batons, baseball bats, sticks, stones, machetes and sickles mounted on sticks. They use beds of nails on wooden slabs as road blocks to stop vehicles. When the going gets tough, they chase the smugglers on their bikes.

“The battle to save the cow appears to be a bit asymmetrical: the smugglers often fire in the dark to ward them off and the two sides often end up in high speed chases. ‘We are experts in dodging bullets. We jump into the fields when the smugglers open fire,’ says Babulal Prajapati, the TV repairman.”

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-34634892

Link at http://gatesofvienna.net/2015/10/gates-of-vienna-news-feed-10292015/#more-37735






Your tax dollars at work, bravely defending Palestinian freedom fighters

Voice of America headline: “2 Palestinians killed in West Bank Stabbings.”

I guess somebody stabbed to death two Palestinians in the West Bank. Oh. That’s not what happened?

“Israeli forces shot and killed two Palestinians, including one who stabbed a soldier, the latest in a string of clashes in the volatile and divided West Bank city of Hebron. …

“In one attack on Thursday, a 23-year-old Palestinian man stabbed and lightly wounded an Israeli border guard near a shrine in Hebron known to Jews as the Cave of the Patriarchs and to Muslims as the Ibrahimi Mosque.

“The man then attempted to stab another security officer before Israeli forces shot and killed him.

“In the second incident, a 19-year-old Palestinian allegedly tried to stab an Israeli soldier in Hebron.”

http://www.voanews.com/content/palestinian-shot-after-stabbing-israeli-soldier/3027674.html

Link at http://moonbattery.com/

Not too bad

Found while image searching: “I was addicted to the Hokey Pokey but I turned myself around.”

The news I was waiting for!!

I can’t believe it! Finally, a story that means the world has a future!

‘George & Amal Clooney adopt a basset hound’

http://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/celebrity/george-and-amal-clooney-adopt-a-basset-hound/ar-BBmzDhH?ocid=ansmsnent11


News photographers in the way

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e91TGtoocRY

One of the scenes, you can imagine the picture in news, “Afghan soldier carries wounded friend from battle” or something.

Get out of my face. Go stand behind that RPG.

Thursday, October 29, 2015

10 U.S. tankers killed since 1945

“Since the end of World War II, only 10 U.S tank crew members have been killed in warfare. This is an amazing testament to fighting vehicle technology and the money spent to develop and sustain that tactical edge over our enemies.

“In that same period, the United States has lost some 60,000 soldiers in small arms engagements, an approximate one for one exchange.”

So … Three-plus years of war in Korea, all of Vietnam, years of Iraq and Afghanistan – 10 tank crew members killed.

Here’s the story:

http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/archive/2015/November/Pages/USMilitaryLosingEdgeinSmallArms.aspx

One comment: “The statistic on Armor crewman killed since WW2 is incorrect. In Vietnam 2,720 ‘tankers’ served in Vietnam of that number 725 were KIA, or 27% the highest death rate of any military MOS. Someone doesn’t have all of the information.”

The column (I think) is the usual M14 vs M16 vs AK vs M1 Garand, .45 vs 9mm. After reading of the 70-year invincibility of U.S. tanks, I kind of stopped reading.

Some things will live forever

Despite what the Yogi said, there is no “over” for many things in this country.

Take this headline (please): “Dear Feminists, The Fight For ‘Women’s Rights’ In America Is Over. Let’s Move On.”

It’s here: http://www.floppingaces.net/most-wanted/dear-feminists-the-fight-for-womens-rights-in-america-is-over-lets-move-on/

If the author (Matt Walsh) watched History Channel or some of the other “learning” and “educational” TV places, he would know some things are never over. He would learn: Jesse James was not killed in 1882, but took another name and lived a long life. Same for William Bonney, a.k.a. Billy the Kid; Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid; Amelia Earhart, and others.

Of course, there is a difference between a person faking death and a movement dying, but the thought is the same.

It ain’t over and never will be.

Wednesday, October 28, 2015

The right to protect

A week ago, a man living a few blocks away reported to the sheriff’s department that when seeing someone on his patio, he got his pistol. When the trespasser tried to open the patio door, the homeowner fired through the glass. The intruder ran away. Another man later commented on the story on a neighborhood Facebook page and then said, “There are too many guns in the hands of people who are not police or military.” My wife read that to me. I said, “Ask him how many he thinks are not too many.” She said she did not want to get into an argument. Really, though, when someone makes that statement, I wonder where they place the magic number. I know what it is – 0, as in zero.

More light reading: Anti-partisan operations

Guerrilla warfare is as old as time itself. During more recent times this type of operation has assumed an ever greater importance in military and political planning. That the study of partisan and antipartisan combat methods is an absolutely necessary element of any up-to-date military training program is obvious. …

Partisan operations do not conform to any hard and fast tactical doctrines or principles that have general applicability. The partisan fighter is unpredictable and unscrupulous. His weapons are usually simple in design and limited in number. They achieve deadly effectiveness in the hands of a tough, crafty group of individuals who operate almost entirely independent of normal logistical support. Proficient in camouflaging their activities, these men spread a reign of terror over the civilian population of their own country.

Success in antipartisan warfare is not a matter of observing certain rules or applying standing operating procedures that have proved effective in particular instances. Rather, it is contingent upon carefully gathering all facts for evaluating the partisans’ command structure, intelligence system, mobility in occupied territories, and relationship to the civilian population. The more examples from practical experience that are available for analyzing these factors, the better prepared will be those who might be called upon to lead the fight against partisans. The study of these examples will condition the future leaders and arouse their imagination, thus preparing them for missions that, under the present conditions of warfare, are likely to be assigned to any military commander.

… Far more important than the application of proper tactics, however, is the adoption of a sound overall policy guaranteeing the successful conduct of antipartisan operations. This policy must develop appropriate propagandistic, economic, and political measures designed to turn the civilian population of occupied areas against the partisans and to obtain cooperation in the antipartisan struggle. The enforcement of such a policy is the responsibility of the top-level command. It must be planted before the first bomb is released over enemy territory and must be applied when the first soldier sets foot on enemy soil.

During their first encounter with partisans, combat troops usually tend to underestimate the importance and effectiveness of these irregular forces, principally because their equipment consists solely of small arms. What a dangerous fallacy! In most instances partisans are energetic and relentless men driven by a fanatic belief in their cause. Weak individuals drop from the ranks long before seeing action. The partisans’ will to resist and their resolve to inflict damage, regardless of international convention, compensate for deficiencies in equipment. – DA Pamphlet No. 20-269, Small Unit Actions During the German Campaign in Russia, July 1953.

(DA Pam 20-269 was based on articles and studies written by officers of the army recently defeated by an enemy “whose chief characteristics … were … savagery, fanaticism, and toughness of the individual soldier …” The average German combat soldier was no less savage, no less fanatic or tough in fighting the Red Army, nor was his top-level leadership any less reluctant to expend any number of soldiers necessary to attain victory for a fanatic cause.)

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Forget reality; blame the Poles

‘Poland’s shock election result has just
made the EU more of a mess’

http://blogs.new.spectator.co.uk/2015/10/polands-appetite-for-eu-politics-has-now-diminished/

‘Polish elections: Who is new Prime Minister Beta
Szydlo from right-wing Law and Justice party”

“Poland's conservative Law and Justice party has swept to victory in the parliamentary elections, with exit poll results suggesting it may have won enough seats to govern alone.

“Exit poll results suggest the party won 39% of the vote, which if confirmed, mean Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość) will be the first party to govern alone in 26 years. Since democracy was restored in 1989, post-communist Poland has never seen a single party command a legislative majority, meaning the country has been ruled under coalition governments as well as periods of minority rule.”

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/polish-elections-who-new-prime-minister-beata-szydo-right-wing-law-justice-party-1525734


Links from http://legalinsurrection.com/

Well, it’s combat, but it’s complicated

“Carter hailed 39-year-old Delta Force Master Sgt. Joshua Wheeler as an exemplary hero who ‘ran to the sound of the guns’ in the helicopter assault Thursday with Kurdish Peshmerga fighters that freed 70 ISIS hostages. He was the first U.S. combat fatality of the campaign against ISIS.

"’This is combat,’ Carter said of the raid on an ISIS prison compound east of the town of Hawija in northern Iraq, and ‘we expect do to do more of this kind of thing.’

“However, Carter said that ‘things are complicated’ when asked if the policy against U.S. troops engaging in direct combat was still in effect."

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2015/10/24/delta-force-death-in-iraq-doesnt-reflect-combat-role-carter.html

Obama spokespersons said the raid decision was Carter’s and that the president had not signed off on the raid, but he was aware of the mission.

Border Patrol gives in to 600 protestors

"’We regret to inform the community that out of concern for the safety of CBP Recruitment Officers, U.S. Customs & Border Protection will no longer be participating in the UCI Fall Career Fair,’ U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Ralph DeSio told FoxNews.com, instead referring students to the agency's recruitment website.”

The decision “followed a Change.org petition drive that some 600 people backed demanding the agency be banned from the Oct. 22 job fair at UC Irvine's Student Center. The petition claimed ‘having Border Patrol agents on campus is a blatant disregard to undocumented students' safety and well—being’ and is insulting to ‘mixed--status families.’"



"’Students didn't want Border Patrol there because it is an immoral, human rights-violating institution,’ wrote a commenter identified as ‪Levi Vonk‪. ‘This is about denouncing an organization that has ruined literally millions of people's lives through detention and deportation, and has deported unknown thousands to their deaths in their home countries. This is a civil rights movement for everyone, regardless of citizenship. This is bravery.’"

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2015/10/26/safety-concerns-make-border-patrol-pull-out-of-job-fair-protests.html


UC-Irvine has 32,000 students.

Monday, October 26, 2015

Another stupid

Life is hard to live,
and some still press on.
then answer this question.
what happens when you’re
Gone?
--unknown

The best thing said about all that: Whoever posted it got “you’re” right. Punctuation and capitalization … Not so much.

And another thing: Why does Unknown believe life is hard to live?

Here's a fact for you, bubba: Life is all you got.

And, whatever happens when you are gone, you won't know anyway.

Unknown should do some thinking before philosophizing.

Sunday, October 25, 2015

Wouldn’t it be nice to be famous and write stuff like this …

… and people would say, “Far out, Man!” or, “Man, he really knows his (stuff),” or, “What in the wide, wide world of sports is he talking about?”

From Richard Brautigan:

“I have always wanted to write a book that ended with the word 'mayonnaise.”

“She was never going to go out with another writer: no matter how charming, sensitive, inventive or fun they could be. They weren't worth it in the long run. They were emotionally too expensive and the upkeep was complicated. They were like having a vacuum cleaner around the house that broke all the time and only Einstein could fix it. She wanted her next lover to be a broom.” – Sombrero Fallout

“He created his own Kool Aid reality and was able to illuminate himself by it.”
― Trout Fishing in America

Brautigan’s body was found in his home in Bolinas, Calif., on Oct. 25, 1984, about five weeks after his brain took possession of a .44-Magnum slug. Neighbors told police they had heard a loud noise while watching an NFL game.

(Like the hippies he did not like, Brautigan faded into insignificance.)

40 years ago, we were told …

… it’s better to live with someone before marriage, because that way you will learn the everyday aspects of her likes and dislikes and how the two of you fit and work together.

Sounded logical at the time, since the live-together-before-marriage idea would have lessened the divorce rate, right?

How’d all that work out?

Saturday, October 24, 2015

What happens when a territory secedes

“Drivers in Abkhazia won't have to buckle-up so often in future, as officials have decided current seatbelt laws are too strict, it's reported.

“Anyone driving within city limits in the breakaway Georgian republic will now be allowed to travel without being strapped in, Abkhazia's official news agency Apsny reports. Previously that would have led to a hefty fine, but the region's interior minister says the current seatbelt rules are difficult to enforce in practice.

"’Adults are capable of driving a few streets from home to work without buckling up,’ Leonid Dzapshba says. ‘People should always come first - let's not conduct experiments on our own people.’ Mr Dzapshba adds that with speed limits set between 40 and 60km/h (25 to 37mph) in cities, he believes safety ‘will not be affected’ by the rule change. That's not a view shared by traffic experts around the world, who agree that not wearing a seatbelt doubles your chance of serious injury or death in an accident. The seatbelt law is still in force for major highways with faster speed limits.

"Statistics on road safety in Abkhazia are hard to come by, but according to one EU-funded news website the republic has one of the highest rates of road fatalities in the Caucasus region."

http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-34541772


Abkhazia broke away from the Republic of Georgia and declared itself an independent state with the demise of the Soviet Union. The new state and Georgia warred in 1992-93. Georgia lost. The Republic of Abkhazia is recognized by Russia, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Nauru, South Ossetia, Transnistria and Nagorno-Karabakh. (Nauru used to be called “Pleasant Island.” The South Pacific island is now known as a tax haven and illegal money-laundering center.)

Georgia considers Abkhazia under Russian occupation.

It all sounds so not-21st century – Russian occupied territory and other countries not recognized by international organizations. But, when it comes to independence, people haven’t changed all that much over the centuries.

CDC to teach Pittsburgh black teenagers not to rape

‘Gender Norms Change’ will cost about $1 million.

“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is spending nearly $1 million on a study that seeks to change gender norms to prevent sexual assault, teaching young men to resist ‘rigid masculinity.’

“The project seeks to produce ‘healthy masculinities’ in young black males in Pittsburgh, using a curriculum called ‘Manhood 2.0.’ The curriculum involves ‘identifying examples of policing gender and sexuality’ and teaches young men that masculinity is not about physical strength.



“The study is enrolling 900 teenagers in 14 community centers in Pittsburgh into its ‘Manhood 2.0 curriculum or a jobs skills program, to see which program is better at changing attitudes about sexual assault.”

http://freebeacon.com/issues/federal-study-seeks-gender-norms-change/

Link at http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3352415/posts

Thick in the head and lacking brains is anyone who thinks classroom sessions will override long-held societal norms or everyday neighborhood experience.

And, how can a Progressive, non-racial government get away with this focus on black teenagers in Pittsburgh, effectively labeling all as rapists?

Friday, October 23, 2015

Walking along, minding his business …

Hiker finds 1,200-year-old Viking sword.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/22/europe/viking-sword-norway/

Link at http://neveryetmelted.com/

Why Western MSM hammers Israel, but featherdusts Palestinians

MSM know this: The Israelis are us. Even though Israel is in the Middle East, its government is Western democracy. Palestinians will never have a Western democratic government. Western MSM know the Palestinians are different and do not play by the same rules. Palestinians go out of their way to murder Jews. Israel goes out of its way to lessen casualties. Palestinians get a by because they are different, because Western MSM wants “diversity” in all things. Israeli Jews are not, in MSM thinking, diverse. Palestinians, by simply being different, are diverse.

Of course, too, the Western intellectual is by nature anti-Jewish, and all MSM people consider themselves intellectuals.

Tom Joad, Walmart greeter

“Enjoy Walmart’s low, low prices. I can’t stay here no more. But I want you to know, a part’a me will always be next to you while you’re shoppin’. I’ll be ever’where — wherever you look for cheap products. While you wander this store or the one two towns over, I’ll be there. When your children are runnin’ ‘round your green lawn, kickin’ up dirt and shootin’ each other playin’ with that Nerf missile gun you plucked off a shelf over in the Toy aisle, I’ll be there. When a customer raises his voice because of an unnecessarily complicated return policy, I’ll be there. When a Walmart employee is threatened to work more for less, I’ll be there.”

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/tom-joad-walmart-greeter

Chicago’s Guantanamo

“Police ‘disappeared’ more than 7,000 people at an off-the-books interrogation warehouse in Chicago, nearly twice as many detentions as previously disclosed, the Guardian can now reveal.”

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/19/homan-square-chicago-police-disappeared-thousands

(The citizens were not “disappeared” in the same sense as Brazil or Argentina disappeared, but there seems to be a lack of coverage by Chicago newspaper, radio and TV reporters.)

Link at http://www.coyoteblog.com/

Thursday, October 22, 2015

Some people do extraordinary things

Col. Frank Leslie Dietrich died in 1997. I ran across his photograph while searching for something else.

Col. Dietrich wore two stars on his Combat Infantryman Badge. That is three wars as an infantry soldier. When a lieutenant colonel, Dietrich was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for actions as commander, 2nd Battalion (Airborne) 502nd Infantry Regiment in Vietnam. 2LT Dietrich was awarded his second Silver Star for actions on 24 July 1950, while serving in the Heavy Mortar Company, 27th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division in Korea. Almost seven years earlier, Staff Sgt. Dietrich was awarded his first Silver Star while with Co. C, 504th Parachute Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division. He also had a Purple Heart.

If any other soldier brought up a feat of necessity, Col. Dietrich could think: Been there, done that.

http://valor.militarytimes.com/recipient.php?recipientid=4962

A bitter pill

“When new drugs are put on the market, clinical trials determine whether they perform better than inactive pills known as ‘placebos’. Research shows that over the last 25 years the difference in effectiveness between real drugs and these fake ones has narrowed - but more in the US than elsewhere. Are Americans really more susceptible to placebo effects, or is something else going on?”

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34572482

“In 1996, pain-relieving drugs were on average 27 percent more effective than the placebos. By 2013, the placebo response had risen so much that the drugs were only 9 percent more effective.”

https://ricochet.com/americans-and-placebos/

(I would say advertising and expectations. The increase of ads, especially TV advertising, has increased tremendously in the last 15-20 years, and Americans have become more ready to believe in the effectiveness of any pill or capsule. People expect a pill to work; therefore, it does.)

Certified Emotion and Body Code Practioner

From something called JOYRadio:

“Brenda Lainof was urged to have day surgery six years ago, to see if the burning sensation she was experiencing was cancer. Immediately upon receiving anesthesia, Brenda had a cardiac arrest that required doctors to feverishly bring the heart back to its normal rate. End result, she did not have cancer and had this unexpected cardiac arrest. Full of feeling betrayed by the medical health system, she knew that she had to regain her power and help others regain theirs. This life altering experience, led her to the healing modality known as The Emotion Code and Body Code, as developed by Dr. Bradley Nelson.

“Brenda works remotely with clients throughout the world via Skype or phone as a Certified Emotion and Certified Body Code Practitioner and has assisted numerous individuals to learn how to muscle test using the Emotion Code chart and truly self-heal.

“…Her goal is to continue teaching and coaching individuals to help release the past and be willing to forgive and begin their healing process.”

Ms. Lainof is also known as a “medical intuitive.”

Have your credit card handy.

I’m not linking.

My assumption is “remotely … via Skype or phone” means there are no face-to-face talks. As Randy Newman sang in It’s a Jungle out There, “I could be wrong, but I don’t think so.”

You’re laid off. Oh, you’ll be working for free, too

“You come into work and learn you will be laid off. That sucks, but it happens. Then they tell you that you have to train your replacement. That more than sucks. That’s humiliating. Then you learn that your replacement is a turd eater from the other side of the world. Now you’re pissed. Then some smug asshole from HR says you will have to agree to help the guy for two years on your dime.

“Here’s a wild guess on my part, but if things get out of control in America, a whole lot of bank managers are going to turn up with their throats cut. Of course, this sort of spiteful treatment of Americans by people who no longer think they are Americans is common these days. The Cloud People who imagine themselves cut loose from the bounds of citizenship seem to take pleasure in humiliating the Ground People.” – Burn, baby! Burn!

http://thezman.com/wordpress/

“SunTrust Banks in Atlanta is laying off about 100 IT employees as it moves work offshore. But this layoff is unusual for what the employer is asking of its soon-to-be displaced workers: SunTrust's severance agreement requires terminated employees to remain available for two years to provide help if needed, including in-person assistance, and to do so without compensation.”

http://www.computerworld.com/article/2994787/it-careers/bank-s-severance-deal-requires-it-workers-to-be-on-call-for-two-years.html

Jet ski killer drone

Well, why not? Next up, killer snow machine.

Killer craft can be linked to aerial vehicle made by same company.

http://defensetech.org/2015/10/13/firm-pitches-dragon-spy-killer-jet-ski-drone/

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

The time,1936. The place, McAllen, Texas and Reynosa, Mexico. Folks didn’t have enough to do.

‘Rockets over the Rio’
By Phil Atley

The Mayor of McAllen lit the fuse. The First International Rocket Mail roared up the launching skid ... and exploded 10 feet into the air.

The mix of gunpowder and the US Postal Service always guarantees a good story. Not always a story with a happy ending, but a good story.

The time was 1936 and Texas was celebrating its Centennial. Ft. Worth had hired Billy Rose and Sally Rand to entertain their folks, but the rest of Texas was depressed. With a capital D.

Things were tough on the border too. Times were so bad that Texas Rangers, who traditionally passed the time making their badges from Mexican silver pesos, started making their buttons from five-centavo pieces.

Those Depression-era desperadoes Bonita y Clyde didn't include the Rio Grande Valley in their area of operations, so locals bout to be foreclosed upon had to take matters into their own hands and shoot their own bankers.

We all know that desperate times call for desperate schemes. How else could one explain a suitable-for-the-Marx Brothers script that suggested launching letters to Mexico and back (and even hoped to turn a profit).

The story begins with an American Legion Post in McAllen, Texas that wanted their mortgage paid off in time for dedication ceremonies that were scheduled for July 2nd 1936. Money was tight, and ideas were in short supply. But the Post Commander's son had one.

The boy had two hobbies: rocketry and stamp collecting. Combining the one unusual hobby with the more popular one, he came up with the idea of Rocket Mail.

Rocket mail had previously been tried in Europe, but with mixed results. You can understand France's reluctance to have anything remotely explosive come across its border with Germany.

Having a foreign country just across the river would allow the use of the word INTERNATIONAL to the already impressive name ROCKET MAIL.
The son convinced his father that First Day of Issue commemorative covers of the event could be sold to stamp collectors around the world. At that time, stamp collecting was the most popular hobby in the United States. Even President Roosevelt collected stamps.

The enterprising boy didn't miss a trick. He even designed his own triangular Rocket Mail stamps that he sold for .50 each. In addition to that stamp, each cover had to have a 16 cent US stamp and for those making the return from Mexico, a 40 centavo Aero Correo stamp. Add a few postmarks and there was hardly any room left for an address.

Even today, a letter from Reynosa, Mexico can take three days to reach McAllen, although the distance between the two post offices is a mere 10 miles. The Rocket Mail could claim that (at least some of) your letter would arrive on “el otro lado” in about 10 seconds.

Official postal authorities on both sides were reluctant to participate at first, but it was the Depression and everyone decided they could use a good laugh. The seven-foot laminated cardboard rocket tubes were built and (it is said) schoolchildren emptied out 600,000 Black Cat firecrackers to fuel the fiasco (Spanish for Fiesta).

On the chosen day, dignitaries were on both sides of the International Bridge in Hidalgo praying that Mexico City and Washington hadn't heard about what was about to happen. The trajectory (rocket language) was set for 1000 feet.

The Mayor of McAllen lit the fuse and the First International Rocket Mail (in the Western Hemisphere) roared up the launching skid and exploded 10 feet into the air, turning covers and stamps into so much scorched confetti (Spanish for burned mail). Much of this first batch was rescued by Mexican school children who mistook the event to be some sort of postal piñata.

After everyone calmed down and most of the letters were recovered, a second rocket was launched that spiraled into downtown Reynosa, sideswiped a Model T and slid up against the curb at the American Bar where it's smoldering remains were doused with (the cheaper brands) of Tequila.

Mexican authorities that were miffed because they couldn't attend the ceremonies on the bridge, confiscated the 150 covers in that rocket's payload. This was turning into more entertainment than anyone had imagined and it looked like an international incident or a Second Mexican War was only a rocket launch away.

Another Launch and then Lunch:

Now it was Mexico's turn. Since a Mayor is a terrible thing to waste, a much longer fuse was lit by a more expendable Reynosan. This rocket surpassed all expectations and traveled about a mile into Texas. Most everyone broke for lunch while others searched for the rocket. A total of six rockets were launched that day in varying degrees of inaccuracy. Smart bombs these weren't.

Approximately eleven hundred covers were sent into Mexico that day and approximately nine hundred returned. All but the confiscated ones were sold and Loyal Service Post 37 was solvent in time for their buildings dedication.

The confiscated covers were returned a few years later and placed in a safe deposit box in McAllen. Time passed and finally an alert clerk noticed that the rent on the box hadn't been paid for twenty years. The remaining covers were put on the market for the price of five dollars each. This time there was more interest and even the Smithsonian Institution and the US Postal Museum bought samples. A display including photographs of the launches can be seen at the Museum of South Texas History in Edinburg.

The next time someone tells you "You don't need to be a rocket scientist to mail a letter" you can entertain them with this strange and amusing tale from South Texas.

As for the boy from McAllen who combined his two hobbies in 1936 to save an American Legion Post, he did go on to college and enjoyed a long career with the government – as a genuine “rocket scientist” (not a mailman).

http://www.texasescapes.com/FEATURES/Believe_It/Rockets_over_Rio/Rockets_over_Rio.htm


Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Oh shut up

(Tripped over while searching for something else.)

As you waste your breath
complaining about life, Someone out
there is breathing their last.

Be thankful and stop
complaining.


Live more, complain less.
Have more smiles, less stress.

(“Someone” cannot be a “their.” Except in non-gender-specific approved no-think talk.)

Something, or less than something?

Dumb and dumber.

“The GOP is a party of men with the imagination of mid-level bureaucrats at the department of motor vehicles. The Democrats are a bunch of geriatric hippies and radicals that sound like extras from a documentary on the 60’s. The hard part about watching Sanders and Clinton go at it is not laughing. It’s two old farts arguing over bingo at the retirement home, but instead of bingo, they think they will get the chance to rule over the rest of us.” – Filling the Void --

http://thezman.com/wordpress/

Link: www.maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com

Queer/African-American/lesbian/racial head of music department

“A respected state university lists the qualifications of the recently appointed head of its music school as follows:

“An ethnomusicologist, her research interests include African American music, feminist theories, queer studies in music and the social sciences, and race in American popular culture. [She] pursues these interests in…a study that tracks the emergence of black feminist consciousness in women’s music. The latter is a network that emerged from a subculture of lesbian feminism in the early 1970s. ...[Her] research into the interactions of race, gender and sexuality in regard to African American music cultures is complemented by her personal and professional advocacy on behalf of women, people of color, and other underrepresented constituencies in departments and schools of music.”

http://www.popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=3271

Link at: http://maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com/

So if a student wants to better play a tuba or a violin, he/she must understand … What, exactly?

Bronze Age weapons found on Isle of Coll

Says Jill Harden, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds archeologist: “The items were recovered from what had once been a freshwater loch. It seems that they had been purposely broken and cast into the waters as part of a ceremony, most likely as offerings or gifts to the gods or goddesses of the time.”

http://www.thehistoryblog.com/

Link: http://maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com/

I don’t know about that explanation. Maybe the remains were swords and spears broken by the local laird after a buy-back of civilian individual weapons. Can’t have an armed citizenry, you know.


Sunday, October 18, 2015

Again, why are these people still allowed to contaminate the gene pool?

Found while image surfing: “I’m not driving too slow your driving too fast.”

The thing is at a bumper sticker site. I will not link to the site. One mention of a stupid is enough.

Saturday, October 17, 2015

Let me see if I have this straight

A former professional basketball player married to a Kardashian woman, with a (cough) reality TV show, passes out in a whore house in Nevada after spending $75,000 in two days in said whore house, and this is news because ... he is the first NBA player to go to a whore house, or the first (cough) reality TV person ever to pass out in a whore house, the first man married to a Kardashian woman to do something incredibly stupid ... Maybe I don't have it straight.

*FIX. I misspelled the Kardashian's name in the lable first go-round.

Prisons pull plug on pulling pork

Sort of. Pork roast is back on the menu, but future of bacon and chops still simmering.

"After a week of controversy surrounding its abrupt removal of pork dishes from the national menu for federal inmates, the government did an about-face Thursday and put pork roast back on the prison bill of fare.

"The Bureau of Prisons disclosed the decision to The Post hours after a Republican Senate leader expressed dismay at what he implied was a wasteful survey of inmates’ food preferences and a lack of transparency in the decision."

A government spokesman said he was not cleared to say why Bureau of Prisons changed its no pork policy.

http://hotair.com/archives/2015/10/17/prison-pork-prohibition-pulled-promptly/

Someone should grill the spokesperson on why he isn’t talking.

Bundestag: Your country is OK; don’t even think about coming here

German parliament declares Albania, Kosovo and Montenegro “safe countries of origin, free of political repression and armed conflicts, and stipulating that, under German law, migrants from these states will no longer be entitled to apply for asylum in Germany.”

Opponents say the legislation is “a cruel attack on migrants’ rights.”

http://sputniknews.com/europe/20151015/1028585237/german-bundestag-limit-migrants.html#ixzz3oexLzH8w

Link:
http://gatesofvienna.net/2015/10/gates-of-vienna-news-feed-10152015/#more-37599

Friday, October 16, 2015

Workers find lab designed by Thomas Jefferson

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2015/10/15/chemical-lab-designed-by-thomas-jefferson-discovered-in-university-virginia.html

An ongoing two-year renovation of the University of Virginia’s Rotunda has revealed a chemical lab designed by Thomas Jefferson that dates from the 19th century.

Workers uncovered the early science classroom behind a wall on Monday, according to the university.

The room was sealed in one of the lower-floor walls of the iconic Rotunda in the mid-1840s and protected from a fire in 1895 that destroyed much of the building’s interior.

The chemical hearth inside was originally built as a semi-circular niche in the Rotunda, with two fireboxes that provided heat. Brick tunnels underneath the building led fresh air to fireboxes and workstations, while ducts carried away the fumes and smoke.

Students at the time worked at five workstations cut into stone countertops.

The school’s senior historic preservation planner, Brian Hogg, said the chemical hearth may have been used by John Emmet, the school's first professor of natural history, who worked with Jefferson to equip the space.

“This may be the oldest intact example of early chemical education in this country,” Hogg said in a news release.

The university believes the chemical hearth may have been sealed behind the wall when the chemistry laboratory was moved to an annex of the Rotunda before the 1895 fire.

“The hearth is significant as something of the University’s early academic years,” said Mark Kutney, an architectural conservator in the University Architect’s office. “The original arch above the opening will have to be reconstructed, but
we hope to present the remainder of the hearth as essentially unrestored, preserving its evidence of use.”

Once the renovations are completed on the Rotunda, the chemical hearth will be on full display behind a barrier.

Germans moving out, Russians moving in

Seventy-five years ago, Germany would have paid the money for an air base in Russia.

“Germany will close its air base in Uzbekistan by the end of the year, German officials have said, marking the end of the fourteen-year military presence in Central Asia.



“Uzbekistan had just raised the rent of the base last year to 35 million Euros a year, more than double what it had been charging, and was now trying to raise the rent to 72.5 million Euros.



“Meanwhile, a senior delegation from Russia's ministry of defense visited Tashkent last week to discuss military overflight rights, apparently to Afghanistan, reported regnum.ru.”

http://www.eurasianet.org/node/75556

My Halloween costume takes away your power?

Valdosta State University Housing and Resident Life cautions against costumes that “reinforce negative representations of cultures and groups … take power away from individuals who are a part of those groups by objectifying them, while also not honoring the diversity that exists in their communities.”

“Among the get-ups that Valdosta worries have the potential to reinforce racism, for instance, are ‘Indian’ and ‘Geisha’ costumes, ‘items that have specific cultural associations and significance (such as bindis and sombreros),’ and of course anything involving ‘blackface, redface, or yellowface.’ Valdosta also wants students to avoid ‘reinforcing prejudices and fears,’ and so cautions them against ‘wearing costumes that make light of domestic violence, sexual assault, sex work, or matters concerning the LGBTQ community…’ Finally, the email states that ‘dressing as “ghetto,” “hillbilly, associated or similar groups, etc.’ is likewise discouraged, because those ensembles might reinforce classism.

http://moonbattery.com/#sthash.PhssYGyU.dpuf

The university’s web site proclaims: “Experience VSYou. Here, we are a place where all doors are open and you will never feel invisible.”

http://www.valdosta.edu/

(Never feel invisible? Not even when everybody has to look like everybody else?)

Thursday, October 15, 2015

Do some stonework, eat some barbecue – average day at Stonehenge

Workers at England’s largest enigmatic tourist attraction had a party town nearby, archaeologists say.

"Moving 50-tonne rocks is hungry work. The people who built Stonehenge were duly fuelled by feasts of barbecued pork and beef, according to a major study of pottery and animal remains from a nearby settlement.

"The Durrington Walls village, about 2 miles north-east of Stonehenge, is thought to have been inhabited during the monument’s main construction period – about 2700-2300 BC – and probably housed the people who built it.


Stonehenge was “more a sombre monument, whereas Durrington Walls is this place where all the activity happens, a party centre if you like, where people are coming to consume food, organise themselves and start active relationships with each other.”

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn28333-stonehenge-builders-had-barbecue-feasts-at-nearby-party-centre/

All work and no play, you know.

Why do these people still live?

While image searching, I came across this:

“2015
“A year were the war started”

(It were?)

But wait! There’s a link!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjtqhx7va00

At the link, there is a message: “This video is unavailable. Sorry about that.”

Yeah. Or as we used to say: XIN LOI : (sin loy) a polite Vietnamese phrase literally meaning "excuse me" or "pardon me", but used sardonically by GIs to mean "sorry about that", "too damn bad", or "tough shit."

http://www.combat.ws/S4/MILTERMS/MT-X.HTM

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

No more squishes

“The voters have had enough of GOP squishes… as was demonstrated by Mitt Romney’s dismal performance at the polls in 2012. They want leadership that is willing to stand up and say they will fight Barack Obama’s leftist agenda, and then actually do so. Fight on the killing of babies in the womb? Bring it on. Fight to stop empowering government largesse via another debt ceiling increase? Absolutely. Fight to stop the drive to turn the country into a third world banana republic via open borders? When do we start?”

“In 2010 and 2014 Americans showed the GOP they were willing to support a fight to when they sent Representatives and Senators to Washington who had indeed promised to fight the progressive cancer that has taken over Washington. Once again, once in power however, the party demurred from the fight. The GOP establishment types were more interested in the perks of office, their privileges in Washington, making sure big donors were happy than actually accomplishing what voters had sent them to Washington to do. That’s the reason the GOP brand is so damaged, not ‘dysfunction’”.

http://www.floppingaces.net/2015/10/12/the-peoples-house-a-historic-opportunity-to-lead-should-not-be-squandered-on-a-squish/

50-lane traffic jam

China does nothing small.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=6&v=O3kL6nMap2s

Search results 'muslim t-shirts'


“je suis Charlie la liberte d’expression”

“Mohammed Sucks”

“It’s time to choose sides” (Cross or crescent)

“Pakistan Sucks”

http://www.cafepress.com/+muslim+t-shirts

(Café Press isn’t paying me any money for the above. The hits are funny for “Muslim” T-shirts.)

Monday, October 12, 2015

Further proof Russians are rednecks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=1&v=Jb7f1Dw0gak

Redneck way of doing things: You have a problem. You have friends. Your friends have beer (or vodka). Somebody comes up with “Let’s give this a shot.” The idea works or it doesn’t work. If it doesn’t work, you drink another beer (or a shot or three of vodka) and somebody says, “Hey, hold my beer for a minute. I’m owna* try something.”

*Redneck for “going to.” Also applicable is “fixin to.”

Sunday, October 11, 2015

Mr. Mason's mother should be arrested for giving her son a future criminal name

Quenton Montrell Grundy was shot and killed in his home in Paris, Texas, two weeks ago. Paris police have issued a murder warrant for Christroyvius Dejuan Mason.

The story of the killing reminded me of an African-born comedian whose name I can't remember, who talked about people's reaction when learning he was born in Africa. They would ask his name, and he replied, "Jeffrey." That always brought looks of disbelief, as in "An African can't be named Jeffrey!"

If you believe the stated reason, you are a Democrat

The government is eliminating pork from federal prison meals. Yep. Bacon, pork chops, pork roast, ham – No more.

There is a good reason, of course. The federal government always has a good reason for anything it does.

Here is the reason: Prisoners don’t like the taste of pork.

And, according to a federal spokesperson: “’People are more health conscious these days. … Some people choose to be vegetarian or vegan. That’s their preference.’ As of last week, the prison menu had added an ‘economically viable’ turkey bacon substitute.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2015/10/09/finally-the-government-has-decided-to-eliminate-pork-from-the-menu-in-federal-prisons/

Link at http://legalinsurrection.com/2015/10/so-why-did-federal-prisons-remove-all-pork-from-the-menu/#more-145592

(Here is a guess: The number of vegetarian and vegan prisoners in federal prison is somewhat less than the number of meat eaters. And that part about pork ranking last on a taste survey … What were the other choices?)


Saturday, October 10, 2015

A non-Texan gets Texas right

(If G-d were looking for new Chosen People, He would choose Texans. Stiff-necked, hard-headed, generally hard-working people who will argue with anybody, as Abraham and Moses did with G-d.)


‘Travelogue: Texas’

Travel is one of the best ways to see the world. I’ve been lucky in my life in that I have had the luxury of traveling quite a bit on someone else’s dime. Business travel is not vacation travel, but I think it is often a better way to see the world simply because you have long stretches with nothing to do so you look around, explore, adventure. On vacation, you have “stuff’ that fills every waking moment, usually within the confines of the Potemkin vacation area.

I’ve been to Texas many times. I used to travel here often for work matters. Thirty years ago when I first visited Texas on the way to Mexico, I thought this is a place I should live. For some reason, it just seems to fit my sensibilities.

Every time I’ve come here, I have had the same thought: I don’t think I’m going back. But, here I am nearing my jump into the void and I’m still just a guy who visits Texas.

The funny thing about Texas is it is remains the one place in America that is brimming with confidence. Texas is not a terribly sentimental place. They will knock down an old building for a new building without giving it a thought. In the Northeast, an army of weirdos will be there guarding the old building, even though the weirdos will have no clue why the old building was built. It’s just old so they think it has to be saved.

At the same time, those same weirdos will claw one another’s eyes out to cancel the school Christmas play. There’s the lack of confidence. In most of America, our betters conduct themselves like the ne’er do well grandchildren of a successful man. The kids compete with one another as to who is the most reverent toward the old man, but not a one of them tries to emulate him. The best they can do is have a big picture of him in their house, which he bought for them.

Texas does not have the problem yet. Texans love being Texans and they love being in Texas. There’s really nothing special about Texas. Dallas is a massive suburb that looks like every other suburb in the South, but they are proud of it and you see that everywhere you go. Texas plays Oklahoma today in the Cotton Bowl and tickets are selling for $500 on the secondary market, even though UT is terrible. It’s just a great celebration of Texas football history.

I think that confidence is why Texans are soft on immigration. They are cocksure that if you move to Texas, you will become a Texan. They are right about it too. Vietnamese refugees landed in Houston and are now Texans whose ancestors came from Vietnam. Of course, Texas has always had loads of Mexicans from the northern part of Mexico. A big part of what makes Texas tick is the blend of Southern culture and northern Mexican culture.

In Massachusetts, there’s zero cultural confidence. If America were invaded, the good thinkers of the Bay State would surrender on day one and begin taking classes in the language and culture of the invaders. That’s why the northeast seems to be leading the charge on the immigration fight. They are scared. A friend here in Texas, who is from Mass, is a rock-ribbed Trump man now and it is all over immigration.

In the South, illegal immigration is an issue, but mostly because it offends the people’s law and order instincts. It’s not seen as a threat to their way of life. In many respects, migrant workers are a part of their way of life. The South would be a very different place without the flow of migrants into the agribusinesses. Go into a poultry plant in Virginia or North Carolina and you see nothing but Hispanics. It’s been that way for generations.

The same is true of Texas. Mexican migration in and out of the state is just a part of the state’s character. The Mexicans who live here permanently came here because a part of what made them Mexican also made them Texan. The transition was easy. Of course, there are Texas families who were here before Texas was a place. The result is most Texans feel they have a good handle on how to manage Mexican immigration.

Finally, kicking around here it strikes me that the Cult hates Texas for the same reason they hated Sarah Palin. In the case of Palin, the idea that dirt people could live the feminist ideal while hanging onto dirt people culture enraged the Cult. Palin was the living negation of the One True Faith. There’s a similar thing with Texas. here, diversity is on display all over, but it’s held together with the dominant Texas culture.

The Cult believes this is impossible. For them, diversity means obliterating all culture by running it through the blender of multiculturalism. The result is the exact opposite of vibrant diversity, but the screaming and bellowing makes it impossible to point it out. A state like Texas puts the lie to the Cult’s blathering about diversity. Texas has boatloads of it without adopting any of the Cult-Marx nonsense.

Now, I’m off to eat my weight in fried food.

http://thezman.com/wordpress/


Can’t remember what you did, but you know sex was involved? There’s an app for that

(There is too much stupid in this story for me to make any understandable comment.)

High Schools to Teach Students How to Ask for Sex

By Rod Kackley

Sex education classes in California’s largest high schools are going to have to include lessons for their students on how to ask for sex after Gov. Jerry Brown (D) signed the legislation into law at the end of September.

Students in high schools that already include health classes as a graduation requirement will be taught the meaning of a new phrase in the pursuit and acceptance of coital pleasure — affirmative consent.

“Good for you, too?” may not be in the syllabus. After all, that question mark comes at the end, and is more about ego reinforcement than sexual permission. But boys and girls are going to be taught how to ask for permission at every step of the teenage mating game.

“May I touch now?” “Is this OK?” or “How about now?” are certain to be included in the next textbooks.

California Sen. Kevin de Leon (D) said in a statement on his website the legislation he sponsored is all about teaching kids the importance of affirmative consent, healthy dating relationships and the harsh reality of “aggressive and violent sexual behavior.”

He also described the legislation as a first step in the effort to reduce the problem of sexual assault and date rape on college campuses.

“I firmly believe that by instilling in young minds the importance of affirmative consent, relationships built on love and respect, that we can reduce the sexual violence inflicted on young women,” said Sen. de León. “Lessons taught today will result in safer campuses and communities tomorrow.”

Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson (D), who co-authored Senate Bill 695 with de Leon, said the new course will help “establish boundaries of acceptable behavior, give students the skills they may need to navigate difficult situations, and prevent sexual assault before it occurs.”

Jackson and de Leon see SB 695 as a natural followup to SB 967, which they also co-authored. That’s the legislation that came to be known as the “Yes Means Yes” bill while it was being debated in 2014.

As usual, the Left Coast is leading the trend for America. California is the first state in the nation to mandate such a high school program. But Michigan may not be far behind.

The Michigan legislation mandates students in high school sex ed classes be taught that “voluntary affirmative consent” must be given by both parties to a sexual encounter and that the affirmative consent can be “revoked at any time.”

“Teaching our kids about affirmative consent is a great first step in the fight against the epidemic of sexual assault,” said Rep. Tom Cochran (D), sponsor of the proposal offered in the Michigan House.

Action on the California and Michigan legislative mandates is the result of the nation’s focus on date rape that has evolved into a discussion of campus rape.

Even though the California legislation was passed without a dissenting vote, there are some who don’t like the very concept of “affirmative consent” because it puts the burden of proof on the defendant

In Tennessee, Judge Carol McCoy overturned a University of Tennessee-Chattanooga decision that found a male student guilty of sexual assault. McCoy argued the school provided no evidence to prove the assault actually occurred.

More importantly to those who find shifting the overarching theme to American justice to one of “guilty until proven innocent” rather than “innocent until proven guilty,” Judge McCoy found UTC “improperly shifted the burden of proof and imposed an untenable standard” upon the defendant’s lawyer to disprove the accusation.

But that being said, if an “affirmative consent” case does to go court, memory can be a problem. That is especially true if both parties to the sex act were drinking. However, there is an app for this too.

The app We-Consent is designed to be incorporated by lovers into their foreplay as both a reminder of the good time and the consent given at every step of the carnal process.

Michael Lissack, the executive director of the Institute for the Study of Coherence and Emergence, created the We-Consent app. He told MTV News that documentation of the sex act and the agreements that lead to affirmative-consent copulation isn’t really the point of the app.

He said it is more important to teach people, and that includes high school students, that they need to have a healthy discussion of healthy sex before engaging in what could be a life-changing event.

“The idea that you do [sexual] things based off weird silent body language; it is normal to the 20 percent. But I think it’d be better to spend some time figuring out who were you were supposed to do something with before you discover the hard way that you’ve made a terrible mistake,” Lissack said.

“What I care about is that young people talk about what they’re doing. If we can get the kids to talk — that’s the victory.”

Michigan lawmakers have a different definition of victory in the quest for affirmative consent. In addition to high school students being taught how to ask for sex, the legislation mandates they be told celibacy is really their best option.

“Educating teens about consent and open communication in regards to physical intimacy in relationships does not promote sexual activity,” said Kathy Hagenian, the executive policy director of the Michigan Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual Violence. “In fact, research and experience shows the opposite is true.”

http://pjmedia.com/blog/high-schools-to-teach-students-how-to-ask-for-sex/?singlepage=true

(Kids will have sex. Minors in middle school and early high school, age-of-consent high school and college students are going to engage in coitus. Ridiculous is the idea sexual activity can be legislatively controlled.)

Link at http://maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com/

Friday, October 9, 2015

Keep kids where they belong – On the streets

‘Uzbekistan Bans Children from Mosques on Eid’**

The story is two weeks old, but still informative.

“TASHKENT -- Uzbekistan's government has banned people under the age of 18 from attending regular Friday Prayers or special prayer services at mosques across the country, including the Eid celebrations on September 24 that mark the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.



“The Uzbek government frequently expresses concerns about the threat posed by Islamic extremists amid increasing Islamic sentiments in the country.

“Ubaidullo Azimov, a local official in Tashkent, told RFE/RL that the government's position was that ‘children's brains should not be distracted’ from school studies by religion.

“He said the government thinks children should only learn what is taught at school, and that religious studies should take place only after students have finished their high-school studies.”

http://www.eurasianet.org/node/75246

(The headline is misleading, as the story says the government doesn’t want anybody under 18 attending any services.)


Thursday, October 8, 2015

These people have to stop having weddings

How many weddings have to be bombed before terrorist groups figure out intelligence analysts know “wedding” is Arabic and Pashto for “gathering of armed insurgents?”

Back when the US was officially involved in shooting bad guys in Iraq and Afghanistan, terrorists labeled “a wedding” any group struck by air strike that produced multiple casualties. Dozens, if not hundreds, of “women” and “children” were killed when bombs struck “wedding parties.”

In the last 10 days, at least two air strikes against Yemini Al Qaeda groups did not hit terrorists, but “wedding parties.”

On Wednesday, Saudi-led bombings killed 15 people at a "wedding" in Yemen. Or 22 or 23, depending on whether you believe the Associated Press, Huffington Post or The New York Times. Saudi officials have not yet commented on this latest attack on a “wedding party,” but earlier denied its air strikes hit another “wedding party,” killing 130 “wedding guests.”

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/witnesses-saudi-led-airstrikes-kill-15-at-wedding-in-yemen/ar-AAfe7X1?ocid=ansmsnnews11

Over and over and over

An Arkansas friend of my wife’s was deployed to Iraq with the state’s National Guard infantry brigade in 2004 and was heavily involved in planning the brigade’s second deployment. At one point in planning, she mentioned to other staff officers, “We are making the same mistakes we made before. We wrote and published after-action reports and recommendations to keep these things from happening again.”

The Army is not alone in déjà vu all over again: “The Navy has spent decades getting rid of specialized airplanes — the S-3 Viking sub-hunter, the F-14 Tomcat interceptor — in favor of multi-purpose fighter-bombers, the F-18 and future F-35. But it’s time to bring back the specialists, the report argues. For example, the next Navy fighter, the still-notional F/A-XX, needs to be a thoroughbred air superiority machine rather than a fighter-bomber.”

http://breakingdefense.com/2015/10/carriers-crucial-in-war-with-china-but-air-wing-is-all-wrong-hudson/?utm_campaign=Breaking+Defense+Daily+Digest&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=22682385&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--HlfD2QyEqILCgmZ6P6WfTqOlOTJ1XhgxUse2mz-IFw4A1Y0gXoQlREcHF6OCKenqLV6K5XNxaD1g3yDZT0jWbk81Yxw&_hsmi=22682385

Apparently, every generation of naval officers produces admirals who develop the new idea of an aircraft that can do all roles – intercept, bomb, reconnaissance, close air support and anti-submarine warfare.

Wednesday, October 7, 2015

Christians refuse to return to Islam, crucified by Islamic State

“The Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) executed 12 Christians, including a 12-year-old boy, after they refused to abandon their faith and convert to Islam. The murders occurred on August 28 outside of Aleppo. ‘In front of the team leader and relatives in the crowd, the Islamic extremists cut off the fingertips of the boy and severely beat him, telling his father they would stop the torture only if he, the father, returned to Islam,’ revealed Christian Aid Mission. ‘When the team leader refused, relatives said, the ISIS militants also tortured and beat him and the two other ministry workers. The three men and the boy then met their deaths in crucifixion.’ The boy’s father was a ‘ministry team leader who planted nine churches.’ One woman allegedly yelled ‘Jesus!’ right before the terrorists beheaded her. Militants took eight aid workers, two of them females, to another village. They proceeded to rape the two females before they executed them. ‘Villagers said some were praying in the name of Jesus, others said some were praying the Lord’s Prayer, and others said some of them lifted their heads to commend their spirits to Jesus,’ described one source. ‘One of the women looked up and seemed to be almost smiling as she said, “Jesus!”’” The barbaric radical Islamic group has executed more than 11,000 people in ‘Iraq and Syria since its establishment of a self-proclaimed caliphate in June 2014.’ ISIS captured Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, in that month. For over 2,000 years, Christians and Muslims lived peacefully with each other. But when ISIS invaded, the Christians were told to either leave, convert, or pay a subjugation tax. They kidnapped the majority of the females to sell on their sex slave market while they slaughtered the males in front of their families.”



“There is not a single Christian family left in Mosul,” said Bashar Nasih Behnam, who left with his two children. “The last one was a disabled Christian woman. She stayed because she could not get out. They came to her and said you have to get out and if you don’t we will cut off your head with a sword. That was the last family.”

http://moonbattery.com/#sthash.TZtqdQjX.dpuf

(The “moderate” Muslims searched for by Obama and who some in Congress want to arm are no better than these barbarians.)


Classic TV

One day in eighth grade someone said, “Did you hear about the Mouseketeers? They were killed in a car crash!”

As with many accidents of the time (1959), the car carrying the Mousketeers stalled at a railroad crossing. The oncoming train was unable to stop, and the Mousketeers were not able to get out of the car in time.

Not all Mousketeers died in the crash, only the most popular – Anette, Darlene, Tommy, Cheryl, Doreen and Bobby. And Jimmie and Roy, the adults.

Skeptical Bob did not believe the story. Why were the eight in one car? If the eight were in one car, why was Jimmie driving? Could Disney not afford a driver? Why couldn’t everyone – anyone – get out of the car? Were the doors somehow jammed? Did the windows not roll down?

Derision met my questions. I was supposed to believe.

In my mind was a picture of six my-age (approximately) Mousketeers and two adults in a 1952 Chevrolet sedan (I don’t know why I imagined a 1952 Chevrolet), sitting across rails at a crossing, the car for some reason dying at that spot, or maybe high-centered in crossties and rails. It didn’t make sense.

And, of course, it had not happened.

Stalling at a railroad crossing was a theme of death, real and fictionalized. All adults had a story of somebody’s cousin’s friend whose sister or aunt died in a car stalled at a crossing and hit by a train.

In rural areas, few crossings had signal lights, and none had drop bars. People sometimes thought they could beat the train. People still do.

Teen Angel was a tearjerk song, sometimes real.

But not the dead Mousketeers.

Tuesday, October 6, 2015

It is to use maybe a can

PURPOSE

This product can be used to the oil can, The in full fig and edible liquid in an etc. in sauce goes together with to anticipate the usage.

OPERATION METHOD

• By hand the screw opens the plastics cover, making it open with a personal status.
• Put a body on the terrace, then from an oil for pouring into live deal or sauces, combine to cover the bottle to screw tight.
• Pour the hour of oil as long as bring up the oil bottle to combine to open the transparent a cover, Then face a direction tilt to one side to can use then.

(Instruction for oil container found in China.)

http://www.engrish.com/

Prancing Indian soldiers

Cramming a 30-second fire mission into 5 minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fag3ZlUvg8U

Monday, October 5, 2015

Copeville, Texas, 75121, Collin County

Pick some numbers. Any numbers.

A graph at city-data.com says Copeville’s under-53 population is 0. Each of the 14 (or 43) residents is 53 or older. Six of the residents are women; eight are men.

http://www.city-data.com/zips/75121.html

In 2011, 6.8 houses were sold, with a median price of $68,000.

Median household income: $85,318.

Mapzipcode.com has Copeville population as 0.

Usa.com says 2000 median income was $20,250 and 2000 median house value was $32,500.

“The population of Copeville may have reached 300 in 1915. The population estimate had fallen to 240 in 1926. It remained at that number throughout the 1920s and 1930s due to the Great Depression, mechanization of farming, and job opportunities offered in the Dallas metropolitan area. In 1943 a further decline to 150 was reported. Until the early 1970s that estimate remained constant. The town had two churches, five businesses, and a school in 1947. Copeville had 106 residents and seven businesses in 1986 and 1990. In 2000 that number remained unchanged.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copeville,_Texas

Charles Denton “Tex” Watson grew up in Copeville. Watson has been in prison in California since 1971, after being convicted of murder in the Tate-LaBianca killings, as directed by Charles Manson.

Also from Copeville are radiologist Aubrey Otis Hampton and country musician Charlie Walker. Walker’s songs included “Tell Her Lies and Feed Her Candy,” “I Wouldn’t Take Her to a Dog Fight Even if I Thought She Could Win.”

If you are in Copeville and need to face Mecca, here is a web site for prayer times:

http://www.islamicfinder.org/prayerDetail.php?country=usa&city=Copeville&state=TX&lang=english

Of those 43 (or 14) residents, I would guess the number of Mecca-kneelers as 0.

Animal, gay rights activist ‘shocked’ at ‘ignorance’ of NYC Chick-Fil-A customers

“But not everyone outside the new sandwich shop Saturday was there for a taste of chicken. ‘I was very shocked by the amount of people lining up to support this company,’ said Lila Trenkova, a founder of Collectively Free, an animal and gay rights activist group. ‘I think that it’s ignorance rather than people actually not caring.’ Trenkova and about two dozen others staged a demonstration outside the three-story behemoth to protest Chick-Fil-A’s history as a conservative-owned chicken palace.”

NY Daily News does its part, describing the fast foot place as the “massively popular Southern staple owned by a conservative Christian family known for their anti-gay marriage views.”

http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2015/10/04/chick-fil-a-arrives-in-new-york-gays-animal-rights-nuts-hardest-hit/

Wow. Hits all the American strengths – “Southern ... conservative Christian … anti-gay marriage.”


Sunday, October 4, 2015

We need to admit our guilt in causing the problem

Like hell we do.

Uninvited undocumented infiltrators in Macedonia are rioting because they are not given halal food and the packages have a red cross.

Muslim “immigrants” attack travelers on a roadway in France.

http://www.floppingaces.net/2015/10/04/how-immigrants-in-europe-show-their-gratitude/


Armed robber supersized by victim, customers at McDonald’s

“At a MacDonald’s in Buffalo, New York, two guys were standing in line when one decided to rob the other with his gun. A struggle ensued, and the victim was shot. The thief also shot himself in the hand during the struggle. Other customers joined in the fun and disarmed the robber holding him until the police arrived. The article says that neither gunshot wound was life threatening. I wonder why the thief thought that someone in the MacDonald’s line would have enough cash to make it worth his trouble to rob him.”

http://thisainthell.us/blog/?p=62139

Leaking nuclear plant and a big tornado

Both at Hallam, Nebraska, 68368, southwest of Lincoln.

Over the last six years, Hallam real estate prices roller-coastered, six homes in 2009 selling for a median cost of $120,000, dropping to two sales at $38,000 each in the second quarter of 2010. In 2013, 10 houses sold for a median $220,000, but in the second quarter of 2014, six houses sold had a median price of $120,000. Or, “Gee, we’re back where we started.”

http://www.city-data.com/zips/68368.html

Wikipedia has the town population at 213 in 2010; City-Data says the 2010 Zip Code population was 485, a drop of eight from the 2000 census. The 2000 census also had the town population as 93.4% white; 2010 white percentage was 95.3.

Here is a photograph of Main Street.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallam,_Nebraska#/media/File:Hallam,_Nebraska_Main_from_Harrison_2.JPG

On May 22, 2004, a tornado 2.5 miles wide touched down near Hallam. NOAA says the tornado was the second-widest on record. A May 31, 2013, tornado at El Reno, Okla., surpassed the Hallam storm by .1 mile. There is no indication either town erected a sign “Second-widest tornado on record.”

Search for “hallam ne tornado” shows the storm pretty much devastated the town.

http://www.premiergundogs.com/Gospel.html

near Hallam testifies there is a reason dogs are man’s best friend. Dogs and man were made that way, for a purpose.

“What is believed to be the largest tomb in Nebraska is located near Hallam, about 25 miles southwest of Lincoln.”

The Atomic Energy Agency in 1958 built a sodium-graphite nuclear power plant north of Hallam. The plant went on-line in 1962 and was at full power in 1963. AEC shut down the plant in 1964, after several moderator elements cracked, “allowing sodium to come in contact with the graphite.”


“There is no known environmental contamination at the site. In dismantling the reactor, its core, most of the radioactive materials and bulk sodium were removed from the site. All other potential contaminants were entombed and remain below ground. The entombment structure contains the reactor vessel, the guard vessel surrounding it and most of the internal parts of the vessel, stainless steel thimbles which contain process tubes, control rod tubes, dummy elements, and a spent neutron source. Twelve storage cells within the structure contain the damaged moderator elements.”

Monitoring will continue until 2090.

http://www.neo.ne.gov/winter97/win97_12.htm


Saturday, October 3, 2015

What makes a revolution?

Anarchy cannot succeed, because “without the theoretical underpinnings of Marxism, their actions were often devoid of revolutionary content.”

The “theoretical underpinnings of Marxism” must be the cinematic attraction by men and women of liberal education, those who sit in classrooms to learn the ways of the world and whose only touch with reality is in protests and rallies held outside, preferably in spring sunshine.

‘The Makhno Myth’

http://www.isreview.org/issues/53/makhno.shtml


Friday, October 2, 2015

Beatrice Webb on Winston Churchill

“He is not a true Englishman, you know. He has negro blood . . . inherited from his mother. You can tell [by] his appearance”. Statement to Soviet Ambassador to Britain, Ivan Maisky.

‘Stalin’s Man in London’

http://www.standpointmag.co.uk/node/6227/full

Link at http://www.aldaily.com/


Webb and husband Sydney were, of course, over-educated, under-experienced, non-working English persons who always knew what was best for the working class.

Do these women vote?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=9&v=_a_pxcoFAvQ

Not unless they can selfie in the booth.

Killing comrades

“I had known el Mammun when he was our vassal. Loaded with official honors for services rendered, enriched by the French Government and respected by the tribes, he seemed to lack for nothing that belonged to the state of an Arab prince. And yet one night, without a sign of warning, he had massacred all the French officers in his train, had seized camels and rifles, and had fled to rejoin the refractory tribes in the interior.

“Treason is the name given to these sudden uprisings, these flights at once heroic and despairing of a chieftain henceforth proscribed in the desert, this brief glory that will go out like a rocket against the low wall of European carbines. This sudden madness is properly a subject for amazement. And yet the story of el Mammun was that of many other Arab chiefs. He grew old. Growing old, one begins to ponder. Pondering thus, el Mammun discovered one night that he had betrayed the God of Islam and had sullied his hand by sealing in the hand of the Christians a pact in which he had been stripped of everything.

“Indeed what were barley and peace to him? A warrior disgraced and become a shepherd, he remembered a time when he had inhabited a Sahara where each fold in the sands was rich with hidden mysteries; where forward in the night the tip of the encampment was studded with sentries; where the news that spread concerning the movements of the enemy made all hearts beat faster round the night fires. He remembered a taste of the high seas which, once savored by man, is never forgotten. And because of his pact he was condemned to wander without glory through a region pacified and voided of all prestige. Then, truly and for the first time, the Sahara became a desert.

“It is possible that he was fond of the officers he murdered. But love of Allah takes precedence.

“’Good night, el Mammun.’”

“’God guard thee!’”

“The officers rolled themselves up in their blankets and stretched out upon the sand as on a raft, face to the stars. High overhead all the heavens were wheeling slowly, a whole sky marking the hour. There was the moon, bending towards the sands, and the Frenchmen, lured by her tranquility into oblivion, fell asleep. A few minutes more, and only the stars gleamed. And then, in order that the corrupted tribes be regenerated into their past splendor, in order that there begin again those flights without which the sands would have no radiance, it was enough that these Christians drowned in their slumber send forth a feeble wail. Still a few seconds more, and from the irreparable will come forth an empire.

“And the handsome sleeping lieutenants were massacred.”

From ‘St-Exupery: Men of the Desert’

http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/49911.html


(Why Afghan allies kill us: We are there; we are not Muslim.)

I am not an addict

Heads in the phones: “I hate these people and whenever I’m pushing a stroller I like to charge straight at them in a game of chicken they don’t know they’re playing. If I’m riding my bike, I like to go within a puppy hair of clipping them in a desperate attempt to scare them straight. If they’re crossing the street against the light and forcing me to slow my car, I can’t resist yelling, ‘Get off your f------ phone!’ This is met with derision 100% of the time, though that might be a New York thing.” – Gavin McInnes, ‘10 Steps to Phone Freedom’

http://takimag.com/article/10_steps_to_phone_freedom_gavin_mcinnes/print#ixzz3nQ5GzmUR

(I think it's a coastal and big city addiction.)

Thursday, October 1, 2015

Putin banned from ESPN baseball analysis


“Russian president Vladimir Putin received grudging praise from Republicans for his strong U.N. speech against ISIS. Putin called for a coalition to wipe out ISIS and compared Islamic radicals to Hitler's Nazis. Within an hour ESPN banned him from covering baseball games for the rest of the year.” – Argus Hamilton at

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0915/hamilton.php3#.Vg3zo2oQU5s

(ESPN has not responded to my email notice that I will not watch the channel again, following the decision to suspend Curt Schilling for his free-speech post comparing radical Islam with Nazis.)

While the bombs whistle down …

“The White House is reaching out to the transgender community for a list of things that its members want as they follow their lifestyle choices.

“The initiative was launched with the help of White House Chief Data Scientist DJ Patil, who expressed concern that there is very little data of what the transgender community needs from the government.

“’In the transgender space, there exists no data,’ Patil told Fortune Magazine. ‘There’s none.’

“Patil helped launched the initiative in order to quantify the desires from the transgender community so that the federal government could reach out with assistance.”

http://moonbattery.com/#sthash.0IooPggC.dpuf

(Quantify the desires??? Is a desire now a government-given right? Sorry. There are no rights. Is a desire now a government-guaranteed entitlement?)

How is Russia getting war goods to Syria?

Or, the geography of politics.

The shortest way for Russian aircraft would be from southern Russia, over Georgia, Armenia and Turkey. But two of those countries – Georgia and Turkey -- give a big “No way!” to Russian flights.

So, Russian aircraft fly over the Caspian Sea, into Iranian airspace, and then to bases Syria.

Turkey apparently convinced Russian ally Azerbaijan not to allow Russia to overfly any of the Azeri airspace.

“Turkish Foreign Minister Feridun Sinirlioglu visited Baku earlier this month en route to Russia to meet with his counterpart Sergey Lavrov to discuss Syria. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has strongly opposed Russia's military buildup in Syria, complaining that ‘Some countries have still been sending aircrafts... Two million people have not come to Russia, but they have come to Turkey. We have spent about 6.5 billion dollars for [refugee crisis] until now,’ he said. It seems likely that Sinirlioglu, on his Baku stopover, tried to convince his Azerbaijani allies not to cooperate with Russia's intervention.

http://www.eurasianet.org/node/75301

(With map of area and probable route of Russian aircraft.)


Lynnville, Iowa, 50153

In Jasper County, South Central Iowa.

Population: 772 in 2000; 734 in 2010.

Cost of living index: 83.1 (based on US average of 100).

Average house cost in 2009 was around $72,000. That hit $150,000 in 2011 and in 2013 dropped to slightly less than $120,000.

Estimated 2013 population was 730 white, one “Asian,” and three “Hispanic or Latino.”

A plurality of houses (160) was built in 1939 or earlier. The next largest number is 93, built between 2000-2009.

One house for sale falls in the 1939 or earlier span, and was listed at $439,000.

Above data from:

http://www.city-data.com/zips/50153.html

Here is a satellite view:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Lynnville,+IA+50153/@41.5728605,-92.786033,2193m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x87ef15502ee00535:0x14518f3b7beb347c

City Council met a couple of weeks ago. The agenda included discussion on trick or treat night and ordinances concerning bothersome animals and domestic chickens.

Ebert Honey is located just south of town, on County Road T-38. I don’t know anything about the company, but honey production always sounds interesting. Ebert has about 1,000 hives and processes around 100,000 pounds of honey a year. Here is the Ebert website:

http://www.eberthoney.com/Location.html

A yelp site says it has reviews on the 10 best restaurants in Lynnville, but none of the places is in Lynnville.


Hindus kill Muslim for eating beef

Daughter of dead man says fridge held mutton.

The story:

Indian police said Wednesday they had arrested six people after a 50-year-old Muslim man was beaten to death over rumours he had eaten beef, a taboo in the Hindu-majority nation.

Mohammad Akhlaq was dragged from his house on the outskirts of the capital and attacked by around 100 people on Monday night, a police officer told AFP.

"When our team reached the spot a crowd was there outside his house. They (police) managed to rescue him and take him to the hospital, but his life could not be saved," said senior police superintendent Kiran S.

"We have arrested six people and deployed additional personnel to contain any further repercussions."

Akhlaq's 22-year-old son was also seriously injured in the attack and was in intensive care at a nearby hospital.

Killing cows is banned in many states of India, a majority-Hindu country that also has sizeable Muslim, Christian and Buddhist minorities.

In March, the state of Maharashtra toughened its ban to make even possessing beef illegal, a move seen by religious minorities as a sign of the growing power of hardline Hindus since nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power.

The rumours that the family had eaten beef began when a calf was reported missing in Dadri village, 35 kilometres (22 miles) from New Delhi.

"An announcement about the family consuming beef was made at a temple, after which the mob descended on the man's house," said Kiran.

The Indian Express quoted Akhlaq's daughter Sajida as saying the family had mutton in the fridge and not beef.

"They accused us of keeping cow meat, broke down our doors and started beating my father and brother. My father was dragged outside and beaten with bricks," she told the daily.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/mob-kills-indian-man-over-beef-rumours-police/ar-AAeXdnS?ocid=ansmsnnews11

(Hindus and Muslims haven’t exactly been on good terms since first meeting a few centuries ago.)