Saturday, September 30, 2017

We have reached the point where facts don't matter

Many of us knew some of these things from first-hand experience, while we learned others only through passage of time and years of reading and studies.

'Five myths about the Vietnam War'

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/five-myths/five-myths-about-the-vietnam-war/2017/09/29/467ef3e0-a474-11e7-ade1-76d061d56efa_story.html?utm_term=.be8cbd568ecd

For others, the certainty of their lies and misbeliefs still give Kerry, Fonda, et al, first place in the pantheon of Liberal Heroes.

Won’t hire Americans? Here’s a DOJ lawsuit

By Jake Gibson, Fox News

The Department of Justice announced Thursday it has filed a lawsuit against a Colorado corporation for allegedly discriminating against U.S. workers.

The complaint alleges that in 2016, Crop Production discriminated against at least three United States citizens by refusing to employ them as seasonal technicians in El Campo, Texas, because Crop Production preferred to hire temporary foreign workers under the H-2A visa program.

“In the spirit of President Trump’s Executive Order on Buy American and Hire American, the Department of Justice will not tolerate employers who discriminate against U.S. workers because of a desire to hire temporary foreign visa holders,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement. “… Where there is a job available, U.S. workers should have a chance at it before we bring in workers from abroad.”

This is the first complaint filed stemming from the “Protecting U.S. Workers Initiative,” which was launched on March 1.

A Civil Rights Division official told Fox News that since the initiative’s launch, the division has opened 29 investigations of “potential discrimination against U.S. workers based on a hiring preference for foreign visa workers.”

DOJ officials also told Fox News the department has reached at least one settlement with a company discriminating against U.S. workers in favor of foreign visa workers, and distributed over $100,000.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/09/28/doj-files-suit-against-company-for-allegedly-not-hiring-americans.html

Link at http://knuckledraggin.com/2017/09/its-a-start/


Thursday, September 28, 2017

British liberal shows her knowledge of things military

She says Prince Harry does not know how to fly an Apache helicopter.

"Somebody else will tell me whether or not that's true but I've been told that's an absolute fact that somebody sits beside him and drives the helicopters for him."

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-41411889?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link&ICID=ref_fark

If the gentle lady from Kensington knew anything about the Apache attack helicopter, she would realize the two pilots sit in tandem (one behind the other) and it is impossible for someone to sit beside Harry and drive the helicopter for him.

Drive the helicopter?

Never underestimate the stupidity of a British liberal.

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

NFL will 'pay a financial price'

“Sadly, the NFL has, you know, I think gone out very, very far on a limb here — has disrespected America, disrespected cops, disrespected the military — and thankfully it is gonna pay a financial price. This is also a league, an organization, which is receiving enormous amounts of corporate welfare, frankly … from the American taxpayer, which I think is despicable.”
-- Steve Cortes, Trump Hispanic Advisory Council

https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2017/09/27/the-nfl-backtracking-begins/

Link at http://ace.mu.nu/#371750

Woman uses gun in self-defense, fired from job

Her mom set up a GoFundMe account, which has raised more than $64,000.

By Emily Crane For Dailymail.com
PUBLISHED: 16:48 EDT, 27 September 2017 | UPDATED: 18:10 EDT, 27 September 2017


Donations are pouring in for a mother-of-three who lost her job at a New Mexico gas station after she shot an armed robber.

Jennifer Wertz was held up at a Circle K gas station in Albuquerque last Monday while she was working behind the counter.

She said the suspect, identified by police as 23-year-old Ferron Mendez, ran into the store and pointed a gun at her.

'He pointed the gun at my face, I grabbed my gun from my pocket, I cocked it and I shot,' she told Fox News.

Wertz was initially suspended for two weeks by Circle K after the shooting, but they have since fired her for breaking company policy that bans employees from carrying guns at work.

A GoFundMe page set up for Wertz after she was fired has since raised more than $64,000 in donations. The page was set up by her own mother who wrote that Wertz would never ask for help herself.

'She has always been a good person, mom and daughter. She is in need of dire help to support her family. She was already living pay check to pay check and now has no savings or nothing to fall back on,' the page reads.

Wertz said she had been bringing her gun to work lately due to a recent spate of crimes in the area and claimed her employers weren't doing enough to make her feel safe.

'Robberies have been going on like this for the past few weeks,' she said. 'They have done nothing to protect me... and I felt the need to protect myself.'

She said she chose not to follow protocol because she was tired of being a 'sitting duck'.

'We are not to chase. We are not to provoke. We are not to do anything we just stand there and give them what they want and they leave,' she said of the policy.

'What if he would have come in and just shot me just because I wasn't behind the counter?

'I'm sick and tired of being a sitting duck.'

Mendez was hospitalized but has since been jailed. He is facing a string of charges including attempt to commit armed robbery and aggravated assault.

No charges have been filed against Wertz.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4926874/Mom-fired-shooting-robber-given-64k-donations.html

Link at http://knuckledraggin.com/2017/09/a-follow-up-on-the-abq-circle-k-shooting/


Zip Code 72755 -- Arabia and an African Safari in Mexico

That code is in Saudi Arabia. Here is a link to a satellite image:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/72755,+Saudi+Arabia/@30.4322087,39.5576166,20902m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x15129fa3c6b097e9:0x718657e58c24fcf6!8m2!3d30.4173924!4d39.6311688

All that red stuff and tan stuff is sand. You can focus in as close to the ground as possible in all directions, and you are looking at sand. Or sand and rocks.

There is a 72755 in Mexico, too. Here is a link to a map:

http://zip-code.en.mapawi.com/mexico/7/san-pedro-cholula/3/518/el-lucero/72755/53272/

In the northeast corner of the map there is a large lake, and a notation for “African Safari.”

Here is a link to a satellite picture of the wildlife area:

https://www.google.com/maps/@18.932063,-98.2412,22930m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en-US

Guadalupe-Hidalgo and San Baltazar Campeche are nearby.

Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Another reason why the rest of the US doesn’t like the Northeast

“What’s been hardest is the way our legal system is structured to favor private property. I think people all over this city, of every background, would like to have the city government be able to determine which building goes where, how high it will be, who gets to live in it, what the rent will be. I think there’s a socialistic impulse, which I hear every day, in every kind of community, that they would like things to be planned in accordance to their needs. Unfortunately, what stands in the way of that is hundreds of years of history that have elevated property rights and wealth to the point that that’s the reality that calls the tune on a lot of development.” -- Bill de Blasio

https://no-pasaran.blogspot.com/2017/09/new-yorks-big-d-democrat-is-shamelessly.html

Link at http://ace.mu.nu/#371733

(Da Mayor knows not American history. This country was built on private property and real property. Here’s truth: Government serves two functions – to maintain order and to protect property. Anything else is illegal.)

‘Left-wing corporate managers have declared war on our freedoms’

‘YOUTUBE Suspends, Deletes Pamela Geller’s Account’

By Pamela Geller - on September 23, 2017

YOUTUBE JIHAD

What a day. First Berkeley, now this.

YouTube has deleted my account. Why? Ask the leftist authoritarians. I haven’t a clue.

I have been posting videos to YouTube since 2006. Over a thousand videos of rallies, events, interviews and the like. Now my account has been deleted, suspended — poof! Gone.

All that history — gone. Like Aamon Goeth said before he deleted the Warsaw Ghetto, “They never happened. Today is history.”

Months ago, YouTube demonetized my videos. Last month, YouTube blocked me from posting videos because of a video I posted in 2007. The video was up ten years without incident, but suddenly it warranted a suspension?

Left-wing corporate managers have declared war on our freedoms.

Facebook has blocked my newsfeed from my one million plus followers. Pinterest has blocked links from my website. PayPal suspended me until an outpouring of condemnation and outrage forced a reversal. My twitter account is shadowbanned. My website and posts have been scrubbed from Google search. Fourteen years and over forty thousand posts. Google Adsense has banned my account. Google is blacklisting and has admitted to working with alt-left smear groups to silence opposition. And it’s not just me, it’s all criticism of jihad and sharia.

Is this really America?

Joseph Stalin airbrushed photos to erase the presence of those who had fallen out of favor. Left-run social media titans are doing the very same thing. They are disappearing me.

Send a letter to YouTube if you want to reach their customer service department. Write to “YouTube, LLC, 901 Cherry Ave., San Bruno, CA 94066.” Do not expect a prompt reply.

• Alternatively, you can fax a letter to 650-253-0001.

Tweet at those goons – leave comments on Facebook. These mindless savages are out of control.

https://www.facebook.com/youtube/

https://twitter.com/youtube?lang=en

This is a war on our freedoms. We must fight back.

Link at http://knuckledraggin.com/2017/09/youtube-deletes-pamela-gellers-account/

(YouTube is in business to make money. YouTube sees people like Geller and you and me as a threat to the stability of its money-making. YouTube is not a public service. However, the people who make decisions tend to be asshole leftists.)








Tuesday, September 26, 2017

Rush Limbaugh was right…

… but not in the way he expected.

About five years ago, radio entertainer Rush Limbaugh stated that the Progressive-leftist-Democrats would not rest until the National Football League was nothing but a memory.

Limbaugh was right about the Progressive objective, but wrong concerning Progressive tactics. Limbaugh thought Progressives would hammer Congress and other law makers about football injuries as the means of ridding the country of the many-times-over billion-dollar sport.

He never thought the NFL, bowing to Progressive politics, would commit suicide.

Navy leadership sold out to keep careers

Why fast naval combat ships run into slow commercial vessels.

“First, there was a failure by the nation and particularly the executive branch of the government to recognize that by using the armed forces as a social change agent, as well as denying them the tools (forces) to do the job, will always cause the forces to break. We are at the breaking point and it shows.”

http://neveryetmelted.com/2017/09/24/why-the-us-navy-keeps-running-into-merchant-ships/

Monday, September 25, 2017

Dear Mrs. Clinton,

Despite what your book claims, here is why you lost the 2016 U.S. presidential election:

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2017/09/the-democrats-dolchstosslegende.html

“The Democrats had allowed themselves to believe that they were so innately superior that they couldn’t lose an election except through fraud or dirty tricks. The humiliating defeats of McGovern, Carter, Mondale and Dukakis were all in the past. They had gone so far to the left that they couldn’t lose.

“They had confused ideology with electability. The fallacy of fanatics is the conviction that their beliefs explain reality. And that following their beliefs must therefore lead to a successful outcome.”

(Overall, the best piece I have seen on why the shrill, shrieking old woman from Illinois/Arkansas/New York lost.)

Sunday, September 24, 2017

Dear Amazon: Are you serious or just seriously crazy?

An email: ‘Starting this Week: Thursday Night Football live on Prime Video.’

You are serious, aren’t you, Amazon. And seriously stupid. You are not yet aware of suicidal tendencies running loose in the NFL. The crazies have broken out of the backfield and are running unopposed toward the End Zone of Death. You don’t have enough problems of your own? You have to take on someone else’s guilt by association?

(That was my reply to Amazon. We’ll see what Amazon replies, if anything.)

Reply from Amazon:

Greetings from Amazon.com.

You've written to an e-mail address that cannot accept incoming e-mail.

If you wish to report a suspected spoofed e-mail or phishing attempt, please visit: http://www.amazon.com/phish

If you wish to change your e-mail subscription preferences, please visit:
http://www.amazon.com/unsubscribe

If you have privacy concerns, you can view our Privacy Policy here:
http://www.amazon.com/help/privacy

If you need to contact Amazon Customer Service, please visit our Help pages at the address below and click the "Contact Us" button:
http://www.amazon.com/help

Please do not reply to this e-mail, as we are not able to respond personally to messages sent to this address. We appreciate your business
and look forward to seeing you again soon at Amazon.com.


Sincerely,
Amazon.com Customer Service
http://www.amazon.com/

(So, Amazon does not know why I am replying to an email that cannot be replied to. Hey, Amazon! Your email had a clickable "Reply.")

Raccoon hitches ride on police car

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – You’ve probably heard of a police ride-a-long, but we guarantee you haven’t seen one like this.

A police officer in Colorado Springs was on his way to a car crash Thursday night when, out of nowhere, a raccoon jumped onto the windshield of his patrol car.

In a post on Facebook, police said the officer was “pawsitively surprised” to see the animal on his windshield.

The officer pulled the car over and the raccoon jumped off and went on its way.

http://www.newschannel5.com/news/national/raccoon-hitches-ride-on-windshield-of-colorado-police-officers-patrol-car

Link at http://knuckledraggin.com/2017/09/one-for-wisco/

(The po-leece could have ticketed the coon for interfering with a police officer.)

Yea, me

I got 10 million points in solitaire. 13 million if I count a previous 3 million total, lost when I had my computer de-bugged.

Saturday, September 23, 2017

Teacher: You're not allowed to learn that

You're white. Just shut up and go to the back of the classroom.

College professor urges ‘destruction’ of ‘whitestream intellectual habits’


“A University of Texas, Rio Grande Valley professor recently called for the ‘destruction.’” of what he calls ’Whitestream cherished knowledge.’

“Such knowledge, Jupp explains, ‘refers to Whitestream subject area content and related whitened intellectual habits that form the basis of much mainstream learning and teaching in U.S. schools.’

“Jupp then cites K-12 history lessons as an example, noting that many K-12 students are taught through the lens of ‘white privilege,’ which creates problems among the future educators in Jupp’s classes, whom he teaches to ‘resist critical race and whiteness pedagogies.’”

https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=9819

Link at http://ace.mu.nu/#371671

(I have a bachelor’s degree in journalism, completed 27 hours graduate school, worked for five daily newspapers in Texas and spent 16 years in the Army, including three years as an intelligence analyst/Intelligence Section S2 NCO. One thing I learned in all that was immediate recognition of bullshit. “Whitestream subject area and content”?)

Beaver, Oklahoma

Beaver is in Beaver County in the Oklahoma Panhandle. The Panhandle is three counties long and separates Kansas from Texas. Beaver is also the county seat.

The town’s population was 1,515 by 2010 census figures. About 6.8% of families and 10.2% of the population were below the poverty line.

Beaver’s greatest population was 2,087, in 1960. The smallest population was 112 in 1900.

Each April, Beaver hosts the World Cow Chip Throwing Contest.

The Jones and Plummer Trail Museum is in Beaver. The museum “offers a glimpse into early day Beaver Country and the beginnings of the town through displays of historical artifacts and prototype rooms.”

http://www.travelok.com/listings/view.profile/id.4038

(I’m not sure what a “prototype room” is. More than likely, it is a room made up as an example of how people’s houses looked long ago. I’d expect people writing a tourist publication to do better than “prototype room.”)

The Jones and Plummer Trail was a route laid out from Dodge City, Kans., to Texas and originally carried buffalo hides.

“The Jones and Plummer Trail was established in the fall of 1874, when two former buffalo hunters turned merchants and freighters, Charles Edward (Dirty Face) Jones and Joseph H. Plummer,qqvestablished a store at the head of Wolf Creek. They had seen the need for a convenient place for buffalo hunters to sell hides and obtain supplies after Quanah Parker's raid had convinced the Dodge City merchants to abandon the Adobe Walls trading post. Jones marked the trail, and the partners' trips to and from Dodge City to deliver hides and buffalo meat and to purchase goods cut ruts into the sod deep enough for others to follow.”

https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/exj01

And:

“In the 1870s and 1880s the nation's pressure to expand the West created a recognizable region that included the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles and southwestern Kansas, best described as a ragged, imperfect triangle with Dodge City the hub and anchor. The Jones and Plummer Trail was founded by hunters Charles Edward "Dirty Face" Jones and Joe H. Plummer. They formed a short-lived partnership and opened a dugout store at the mouth of Wolf Creek in the Texas Panhandle, between Dodge City and Mobeetie, Texas. Jones staked a trail to both locations for his own use, but it was open to all comers.

“Known from the beginning as the Jones and Plummer Trail, the route stretched 168 miles from Dodge City to Mobeetie. The trail crossed the Cimarron River at Miles Landing, located east of present State Highway 23 in Meade County, Kansas, before entering the Oklahoma Panhandle. The trail then ran south-southwest to the site of present Beaver and forded the Beaver (North Canadian) River. Continuing south, the trail entered the Texas Panhandle north of Booker.”

http://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=JO017

Here is a link to a satellite image of the Beaver area:

https://www.google.com/maps/@36.8080076,-100.5143081,2248m/data=!3m1!1e3



Thursday, September 21, 2017

Miami-Dade County ticket residents cleaning up hurricane damage

“Mere hours after Hurricane Irma, Miami-Dade County was ticketing residents for building code violations on their wrecked properties.

“Celso Perez was helping his neighbors remove some fallen trees blocking their street when a county code enforcer rolled up and issued him a safety notice for having a downed fence. "I laughed," Perez tells WSVN-TV. "I thought he was kidding. 'You are kidding right? We just had a hurricane six hours ago.'"

“It wasn't a joke. The official told Perez that the downed fence—which encloses a pool—was a safety hazard, and that if it wasn't fixed by the time he returned, Perez would be hit with a fine. The official then hung the safety citation on the portion of Perez's fence that remained standing, leaving him and his neighbors to finish clearing the debris from their street.”

http://reason.com/blog/2017/09/19/hours-after-hurricane-irma-miami-dade-co

Link at http://knuckledraggin.com/2017/09/miami-dade-county-tickets-residents-for-code-violations/

(County officials weren’t admitting anything at first, but then perhaps decided silence was not golden. “The safety notices given to property owners identify the hazard, steps that should be taken to correct the hazard, and who to contact for additional information.” Hazard identification? That’s not what residents said they were told.)

No redeeming social value

Last night I called up a movie from Netflix. I said to my wife, “It’s got Antonio Banderas. How bad can it be?”

Answer: Really bad. Really, really bad. Maybe in Bob’s Top 20 Worst Movies of All Time bad.

I won’t bother you with details. The movie is bad. We’ll just leave it at that.

Oh. The name of the movie is Gun Shy.

Rotten Tomatoes gives the movie one star. Is there no half star rating?

Roger Ebert agrees with me.

“’Gun Shy’ is an action-comedy starring Antonio Banderas that is lacking only action, comedy and a performance by Antonio Banderas that is anything other than a complete embarrassment. At least with a good number of bad movies, you can sometimes see what they were attempting to go for and then analyze where and how they went wrong. In the case of this film, not only does it not work by even the most basic of entertainment standards, it is impossible to grasp what the result might have been like if it had actually worked, unless it was meant to be a part of an experiment designed to make 92 minutes seem as if they are lasting forever.”

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/gun-shy-2017

It is bad, folks. Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad.

Kansas, Oklahoma

Kansas the town is much closer to Arkansas than it is to Kansas the state. Kansas the town is in Delaware County, the second Oklahoma county south of Kansas the state, but right up against the Arkansas state line.

Kansas’ population in 2010 was 802. Demographic makeup was 46.42% Native American; 45.84% White; 0.15% Pacific Islander; 0.15% from other races; and 7.45% from two or more races.

Just wondering: How does one become part of “two or more” races? If someone is, and somebody else asks, “Are you black, brown, red, white or yellow?”, does he answer, “I am two or more races.”? Maybe I’ll start checking that box when the 2020 census forms come around. Probably, the Census Bureau would call me on it and tell me I checked “White” in 2010. If so, I’ll just say, “I changed my mind.”

Darrell Winfield, aka “The Marlboro Man” was born in Kansas in 1929. He died in Riverton, Wyo., in 2015, six months before his 86th birthday.

Even though Kansas is in Delaware County, that part of the country was the Cherokee Nation.

Here is a link to a satellite image: https://www.google.com/maps/@36.1698667,-94.7701752,4095m/data=!3m1!1e3

In the Flint Creek area, southeast of town, there are lots of roads running along the ridgelines, but few houses. Somebody expects growth. That expectation might not be too far from reality. Kansas had its largest-ever population in 2010. The previous high was 685, in 2000.

Why is a small town in Oklahoma called Kansas?

“There are several versions of the way in which Kansas received its name. One claims that the town was named after a popular housewares peddler from Kansas City, Kansas. A second asserts that so many of the town's inhabitants migrated from Kansas that they named their town after the state. Census records do not bear this out. Regardless, Kansas existed as a thriving boomtown while still a part of the Cherokee Nation, Indian Territory.

“On December 2, 1902, the federal government chose Tom Caywood and A. K. Wright to plat the town. The government paid the Cherokee Nation twenty-five dollars for the forty-five-acre town site. At the end of the twentieth century the actual city limits encompassed more than five square miles.

“Early businesses included two general stores, hardware and drug stores, a gristmill, sawmill, pool hall, hotel, rooming house, print shop, the Cherokee Land Company, a doctor, and a dentist. Many of these concerns were in operation before 1906. Two short-lived newspapers served Kansas: the Cherokee Hummer, from 1906, and the Delaware Tribune, from 1910. In 1911 there were an estimated two hundred residents. In 1930 the census showed 22. The next available census figures indicate a population of 317 in 1970.”

http://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=KA002



Tuesday, September 19, 2017

The Man who Burned

Willie Joe yelled at Tom for shooting the man who was on fire.

“What the fuck you want to go and do that for, huh?” Willie Joe waved his arms. The M-16 in his right hand went up and down when he waved his arms. “The fucker was gonna die, Man. What you want to go and shoot him for?”

“He was on fire,” Tom said.

The answer didn’t do anything for Willie Joe’s anger.

“Exactly what I’m talkin about, Man.” Willie Joe got close to Tom’s face. “Why d’you think we called in air support, huh? Why?”

“Because we couldn’t get them out with what we had. Our own fire, I mean.”

“Riight,” Willie Joe said, and his head went up and down in fast nods. “We couldn’t get the motherfuckers out. So we call in air support, they drop napalm, and the gooks fry.”

“He was on fire,” Tom said.

“He was well on his way to being a crispy critter, Man.”

Tom looked across the open space between the rice paddies and to the clump of trees, where there were bunkers and trenches and the black thing lying not fifty meters away. The thing that was the man Tom shot looked like a line drawn in the grass, small and insignificant.

Tom said, “He’s a crispy critter now. What difference does it make, whether I shot him or not?”

Willie Joe got closer to Tom’s face. “The difference is, he was supposed to suffer. The difference is, he’s supposed to be a fuckin example. Anybody fucks with us, he gets fried. He doesn’t get shot, he doesn’t get put out of his misery. He fries.”

Tom looked at the black line. Small wisps of smoke rose from the body. “In New Guinea,” he said, watching the smoke rise and diffuse in the hot air, “they call it long pig.”

Willie Joe was no longer in Tom’s face. “Do what?” he asked. “What you talkin about?”

“People,” Tom said. “People cooked for eating. In New Guinea, they call it long pig.”

Willie Joe’s face squinched up. “That’s fuckin disgusting, Man. That’s -- ” He waved his arms. “That’s the most disgusting thing I ever heard.” He turned then, and walked away.

From When I Went to Vietnam

Bureaucrats, Lord love 'em

My wife answered the phone Monday evening. The caller said she was with a state-sponsored agency that provides services to John, my wife’s brother. She asked if she could speak to John. My wife said, “John does not live here. I am his sister; how may I help you?” The state person asked my wife’s name, and when given that, said, “You are not on the list of people authorized to speak for John.” My wife said, “I am his legal guardian.” The woman said, “You are not on the list. We need to speak with John personally.” My wife said, “You do realize John has the mental capacity of a 5-year-old.” Silence from the state person. Then: “We need to speak with John.” My wife said, “All right. If you will call tomorrow, I will be at John’s assisted living home, and you can talk to him.” The state person and my wife agreed for 10 a.m. today.

How this has gone in the past: The state person calls. My wife holds the phone. The state person says, “Can you tell me your name?”

My wife: “John, tell the woman your name.” John does.

State person: “What is your birthday?”

My wife: “John, say Ten.” John says Ten. “Twelve.” John says Twelve. “Nineteen Fifty-Six.” John says Nineteen Fifty-Six.

State person: “What is your Social Security Number?”

My wife: “John, say Five.” And then the remaining numbers, one at a time.

This year would have some additional remarks from John. First additional remark: “We had a hurricane. Wind blew big. Wheew, wheew! And it rained real hard.” Second additional remark: “My bowels move good. I go and go.” This has been a good year for John’s bowels. He tells everyone.

Like telemarketers, bureaucrats work from a script. Say A, get response. Say B, get response. Not on script: ““You do realize John has the mental capacity of a 5-year-old.”

Saturday, September 16, 2017

Today’s news brought to you by …

“The young people you see in the mass media are just are fogy-ish as an old fogy. They are positive that the old model is still relevant. They create the news and supply it to you in doses they believe you can handle.”

http://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=11485

(It’s not news until we say it is.)

Friday, September 15, 2017

Wiergate, Texas

Wiergate is in far East Texas, on State Highway 63, between Farrsvile and Burkeville, not far from the Louisiana border.

Wiergate had a population of around 1,000 in 1936. Today, 450 people live there.

The town was established in the middle of thousands of acres of never-cut forest. The area was prime for logging.

“It had the last large lumber mill built in East Texas in 1917 by Houston lumberman Robert W. Wier, for whom it was named. The Wier Long Leaf Lumber Company was to clearcut an 86,000-acre tract of virgin longleaf pine in northern Newton, Jasper, and Sabine counties owned by the heirs of early lumbermen Henry Jacob Lutcher and G. Bedell Moore. The Lutcher and Moore heirs, who considered cutting and transporting the lumber to already established mills too expensive, gave Wier a contract to build a large sawmill on the site.”

https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/hlw34

Reportedly, Wier wanted to build the big sawmill at Burkeville, but landowners there didn’t want “rough sawmill workers” wondering around in town. In other words, “We’ll take the money the lumber brings, but we don’t want those people upsetting Burkeville.” Wier built a new town, carrying his name, four miles west of Burkeville.

The mill had a cutting capacity of 200,000 board feet every ten hours.

“In its heyday Wiergate was in all respects a company town. With a peak population of perhaps as many as 2,500 persons, it had a company-owned commissary, a drugstore, a barbershop, an ice plant, a depot, a swimming pool, a movie theater, and two schools and community houses (one for blacks, one for whites). … Wier also built the fifteen-mile Gulf and Northern Railroad, which connected his town to Newton.”

With lumber pretty much gone in the early 190s, Weir “dismantled the large mill, and abandoned the railroad. The population of Wiergate, estimated at 1,000 in 1936, fell to 350 by the end of the 1940s. However, a smaller mill, with a daily capacity of 50,000 board feet, was still in operation in 1990, using lumber from the region's second-growth forests.”

(Same link.)

Here is a satellite image link: https://www.google.com/maps/@30.9996389,-93.7251869,5200m/data=!3m1!1e3

There are a lot of trees around Wiergate. They do grow back.

Thursday, September 14, 2017

Tom Quick – 18th century hero, 20th century genocidal maniac

“The story is told that young Tom was out with his father and brother-in-law one day on some errand across the river, when the senior Quick was felled by a round from a marauding Indian’s rifle. Young Tom and the brother-in-law tried to drag the elder wounded Quick to safety, but he was dying and commanded them to run for their lives. The two men then frantically made their way back across the frozen river. Tom paused after reaching the bank to see if they were being pursued and saw to his horror his now-dead father being scalped.

“Something snapped in him and from this point on, Tom Quick swore vengeance on all Indians.”

http://www.legendsofamerica.com/loa/tom-quick/

Link at http://knuckledraggin.com/2017/09/tom-quick/

For a similar character, see http://www.johnlivereatingjohnston.com/




Wednesday, September 13, 2017

In case you are wondering if stupids are still in charge of the Democratic Party

MSNBC newslady says Democrats should have more of their people move to Wisconsin and Michigan.

"Why would the Democratic Party not just recruit people from California to move to Michigan and to Wisconsin?" Tur asked, adding it seemed like a "simplistic answer."

Tur said her friends had "brought this up repeatedly whenever we've talked about what's going on with the Democrats."

"Democrats have more voters, but they're in the wrong places," New York Times reporter Nicholas Confessore said.

Liberal guest Zerlina Maxwell interjected that there are policies in red states that "marginalize communities and that's why we choose to live in places like California and New York."

"Got it," Tur said.

(Got it? I don’t think so.)

http://freebeacon.com/politics/katy-tur-democrats-people-move-california-wisconsin-michigan/

Link at http://americandigest.org/


Tuesday, September 12, 2017

Facebook users exposed to new ideas

Zuckerberg promises error will never happen again.

“MENLO PARK, CA—Assuring users that the company’s entire team of engineers was working hard to make sure a glitch like this never happens again, Facebook executives confirmed during a press conference Tuesday that a horrible accident last night involving the website’s algorithm had resulted in thousands of users being exposed to new concepts. ‘Unfortunately, late Monday evening, a major failure in our news feed program allowed a significant number of users to come into contact with concepts unfamiliar to them,’ said CEO Mark Zuckerberg, appearing contrite as he emphasized to reporters that the issue had been resolved and that it was now safe to visit the social media site again without fear of encountering any opinions, notions, or perspectives not aligning with one’s existing worldview. ‘To those who were forced to read a headline they did not agree with when they visited Facebook yesterday, we are deeply sorry. It’s an inexcusable failing on our part if your viewpoints were not reinforced by what you saw onscreen. I want all Facebook users to know that you’ll never again encounter any ideas on our site that are in any way novel or ideologically challenging to you—that’s my personal promise.’ Zuckerberg then concluded the press conference by thanking users for their support, assuring them that a news article confirming their own individual political and personal biases would be directed to their news feeds with more information on Facebook’s policy.”

http://www.theonion.com/article/horrible-facebook-algorithm-accident-results-expos-53841

Link at http://americandigest.org/

Sunday, September 10, 2017

Hurricane

Sitting at this machine in my West Central Florida, rain blowing and falling outside. Steel shutters on windows. Sounds like a storm. Not even close to the catastrophic disaster predicted (and hoped for) by TV news and weather people.

12 September 1683

Why Poland and Hungary say ‘Never again.’

“With the cry of ‘Jezus Maria ratuj’ (Jesus Maria help), the whole Polish line rode down upon the Turks. Encased in glittering steel that covered head to thighs, with their tiger and leopard pelts fluttering in the wind and eagles’ wings affixed to their backs, the leading units of hussars presented an almost unearthly spectacle. Armed to the teeth with a 19-foot pennon-tipped kopia lance, a curved and a straight saber, four pistols, and a battle hammer, and mounted on a powerful armored steed, the hussar was the epitome of the Polish cavalier.

“Following the hussars were pancerny and kwarciany. Likewise made up of Polish aristocrats, the cavalrymen of the pancerny wore helmets, mailed shirts and shields and wielded short lances, falchions, the handzar dagger, poleaxes, and musketoons or bows. The kwarciany light cavalry of the poor Polish gentry and foreigners wore little armor and brandished short lances, sabers, and the occasional pistol. Leading the whole attack was Sobieski himself, his armor decked out in blue, luxurious semi-Oriental garb, his hand holding the bulawa marshal’s baton. On his side, curved saber in hand, rode 14-year-old Prince Jakób.”

http://warfarehistorynetwork.com/daily/military-history/the-1683-battle-of-vienna-islam-at-viennas-gates/

Polish cavalry broke the Turkish attack, ended the siege of Vienna and saved Central and Western Europe from Muslim conquest.

Saturday, September 9, 2017

Don’t want chickens and ducks around? Move TF back to town

Some “frustrated people” near San Jose, Calif., want told Stanislaus County planning commissioners to outlaw roosters, noisy ducks, geese and other pesky “small livestock farming” animals from many unincorporated areas near cities and towns.

Owners of said “pesky animals” say remember where you are and just STFU.

One woman complained of “hundreds of roosters” crowing.

“’It’s a nightmare,’ Connie Goesch said. ‘The noise is ridiculous. You can’t open your windows when it’s nice out, to have the air come in, because of the noise.’”

“In addition to roosters, the proposal would prohibit ‘quacking ducks, geese, guinea fowl, peafowl, worms (except for personal use), or any other small domestic animal determined by the Planning Director to have the potential to cause a nuisance.’ It also would clarify limits on chickens, turkeys, pigeons, rabbits and beehives.”

http://www.modbee.com/news/article172091722.html

(Worms, except for personal use? If you keep worms, they're for fish bait or plowing the underground in a flower garden. Or feed for those hundreds of roosters.)

Link at http://knuckledraggin.com/2017/09/country-livin/


Friday, September 8, 2017

Italian-Americans out, indigenous peoples in

LA City Council replaces Columbus Day with celebration to commemorate “indigenous, aboriginal and native people.”

http://ktla.com/2017/08/30/l-a-city-councilmen-at-odds-over-renaming-of-columbus-day/

Okay. If you are not an IANP, you must not celebrate their achievements, because to do so would be cultural appropriation.

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

Tex Vache – police officer, WWI naval NCO, MLB player at 35

Vache had one year in the majors, 1925 Red Sox. He hit .313, with 3 home runs and 48 runs batted in.

Stats: http://www.baseball-almanac.com/players/player.php?p=vachete01

Bio: https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/4ffae0aa

No scroll, no credit

Sorry, folks, but this “oral law” has no basis in the written law.

“The chain of transmission of the Oral Torah is recorded in the first mishna in Avoth: Moshe received he Torah from Sinai, and entrusted it to Yëhoshua‘ bin Nun, his successor. Yëhoshua‘, in turn, entrusted it to the zëqénim (literally ‘elders’), who were the first Sanhedrin. They in turn entrusted it to the shofëtim (‘Judges’), who formed successive sessions of the Sanhedrin. And then they to the Prophets, who in turn handed it over to the Anshei Kënesseth haGëdola (the ‘Men of the Great Assembly,’ the last three prophets were actually members of this august group). They, under the leadership of ‘Ezra haKohén, reconstituted Jewish life after the disaster of the Babylonian Exile.”

https://pjmedia.com/faith/2017/06/06/who-were-the-pharisees/

The writer says the majority of the Jewish people, or the “ordinary Jewish people of the country, called the ‘am ha’aretz (‘people of the land), (were) also generally Orthodox in their observances but less learned and therefore less careful due to their ignorance.”

So, the “ordinary people” wanted to do the right thing, but needed more-educated men to tell them what the right thing was. Sounds like Progressive Democrats. “Listen to me. I have numerous degrees, and, therefore, I am smarter than you.”

He also says the Essenes “were not so much a separate sect(,) as a group steeped in the lore of herbal healing.” Source?

The Karaite have the more accurate, common-sense version of Judaism: The law given to Moses is a written law, and the claim to an unwritten, or oral, law is spurious and has no support in the written law. Claims that G-d gave Moses an additional law, a law to be used in later centuries because the Israelites were not yet ready for this additional law, is a scam visited upon Jews after the Babylonian captivity, a con developed by (probable) well-meaning, educated men who, by their studies alone, were more knowledgeable than the ‘am ha’aretz. That scam continues today.

Too crazy for Charlie

“Back in the Sixties the thing to do was go out to California and join a hippie Commune. My Judo instructor's cousin did that. One day he gets a call at his Dojo in Houston from the leader of the Hippie commune who says ‘You have got to come out here and pick up your cousin - she is too crazy for us.’ My Sensei replied ‘Yeah, my cousin was always a few cards short of a full deck - OK I'll come pick her up.’ So he drives out to LA, spends a few days at the commune playing guitar with the hippies then drives his cousin back to Enid OK - drops her off - then drives back to Houston.

"You're probably thinking ‘You senile old fart, why did you tell us that pointless story?’

“Oh no, you don't understand: The hippie commune leader was Charles Manson, and the cousin was too crazy to be a member of the Manson family. This was about six weeks before the Tate - LaBianca murders. So up in Enid Oklahoma there is a little old lady who makes the members of the Manson Family look sane.”

http://ace.mu.nu/

A metaphor that doesn’t quite fly

“When it comes to dealing with unwanted turkeys, it’s not the ODFW’s first rodeo.”

‘Pilot Rock City Council looks to ODFW for turkey solutions’

http://www.eastoregonian.com/eo/local-news/20170906/pilot-rock-city-council-looks-to-odfw-for-turkey-solutions

(Maybe Oregon has turkey rodeos?)

Wednesday, September 6, 2017

In which nursing school were they taught that?

‘Denver Health nurse suspended after opening body bag to see man’s genitals’

“DENVER – Five nurses at Denver Health Medical Center were suspended for three weeks after they inappropriately viewed a deceased patient’s body and talked about it, a hospital spokesman confirmed to Denver7 Investigates Tuesday.

“A tip to Denver7 said the nurses disciplined admired the size of the deceased patient’s genitals and at one point opened a body bag to view parts of the body. A hospital spokesman confirmed details of the incident.”

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/local-news/denver-health-nurses-suspended-after-opening-body-bag-to-see-mans-genitals

Link at http://knuckledraggin.com/2017/09/really-hes-hung-like-a-oh-my-g/

Tom, Oklahoma

Tom is an unincorporated community in McCurtain County in Southeast Oklahoma.

At one time, the area around Tom was settled by former slaves of the Choctaw Tribe. Robert M. Jones, a Choctaw politician and planter, had four plantations in what is now the Choctaw-McCurtain County area of Oklahoma, but before statehood was in the southeastern part of the Choctaw Nation. By 1861, Jones “had acquired 227 enslaved men, women, and children who lived and labored upon his four cotton plantations along the Red River. The Colonel also operated three steamboats that conveyed thousands of bales of Choctaw cotton to New Orleans before returning to Jones, laden with products to dress the shelves of the general stores that he ran in the large towns of the Choctaw Nation.”

https://repository.lib.ncsu.edu/bitstream/handle/1840.20/33347/etd.pdf?sequence=1

Additional indications of Jones’ wealth are included in the Oklahoma Historical Society Encyclopedia.

“At the peak of his success he ran approximately twenty-eight trading stores, six plantations along the Arkansas and Texas borders, and a sugar plantation in Louisiana. The two largest plantations were Lake West, with almost five thousand acres near present Oberlin, and Rocky Comfort, with approximately ten thousand acres. He was the largest slaveholder in Indian Territory, owning approximately 225 slaves at any given time.”

http://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=JO022

Other sources said Jones had 250 slaves or 500 slaves and two steamboats.

Jones maintained headquarters of his farming operations at Rose Hill Plantation, southeast of today’s Hugo. A family cemetery marks the location of the plantation. The big house burned in 1912 (or 1911 or 1915, depending on sources).

Tom is one of those places you aren’t there unless you intend to be or you are lost. Tom is not West Oklahoma out there, but the idea is the same.

Here is a satellite image of Tom and the surrounding fields and woods:

https://www.google.com/maps/@33.7359468,-94.5729863,5042m/data=!3m1!1e3

Facebook has a page established for Tom, but posts on the page are not related to the community.

Here is a You Tube video of a German band and singers doing something about Oklahoma and Tom:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCLaJIV4mOk


Tuesday, September 5, 2017

Tonkawa massacre

The eastern half of what is now Oklahoma was not a good place to live during the Civil War.

Factions in the Five Civilized Tribes brought personal and political animosities with relocation from the Southeast United States. Those animosities resulted in physical altercations and even murder.

The American Civil War gave legal purchase for continued killings. The Five Civilized Tribes joined the Confederacy in its fight against Northern forces. Confederate Indians fought Union Indians throughout the area. While not one of the Five Civilized Tribes, the Tonkawa discovered that supporting the Confederacy could spell disaster.

“On the morning of October 24, 1862, pro-Union Indians attacked the Tonkawa tribe as they camped approximately four miles south of present Anadarko in Caddo County. Roughly 150 Tonkawa died in the assault, a blow from which their population never recovered.

“The Tonkawa had been relocated from Texas to Indian Territory in 1859. Placed under the authority of the Wichita Agency, they settled along the Washita River near Fort Cobb in the Leased District. Rumored to be cannibals, the Tonkawa were outcasts among the southern plains tribes. This macabre reputation, and their loyalty to the Confederacy during the Civil War, led to their destruction. On the night of October 23, 1862, a roving Union force of Delaware, Shawnee, Osage, and other Indians attacked the Wichita Agency. Once the facility was destroyed, the marauders unleashed their fury upon the Tonkawa. Fleeing east toward Fort Arbuckle, the Tonkawa were overtaken and massacred the following morning.

“The Tonkawa were resettled in Texas after the Civil War. In 1884 they occupied their last reservation in present Kay County, Oklahoma. Impoverished, their population continued to decline. Numbering some 367 individuals at the time of the massacre, the Tonkawa tribe was almost nonexistent less than one century later.”

http://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=TO005

Wikipedia notes: “In the 15th century, the Tonkawa tribe probably numbered around 5,000, with their numbers diminishing to around 1,600 by the late 17th century due to fatalities from new infectious diseases and warring with other tribes, most notably the Apache. By 1921, only 34 tribal members remained. Their numbers have since recovered to close to 700 in the early 21st century. Most live in Oklahoma.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonkawa


Monday, September 4, 2017

Red Bird, Oklahoma

“An Opportunity for the Colored Man.”

Before the 1920s, Red Bird had two cotton gins, a blacksmith shop, a casket shop, a lumber yard, a cement block factory, grocery stores, dry goods stores, a hotel, a delicatessen, a soda pop factory, a broom maker and two syrup mills.

http://www.redbirdok.org/Some-Hist.html

Red Bird was one of 50 all black towns in what is now Oklahoma. Wikipedia says Red Bird is now one of 13 surviving communities in Oklahoma.

In 2000, the town’s population was 153. By the 2010 count, 137 people lived in Red Bird. Demographic breakdown of the 2000 census showed 87.58% African American, 5.88% Native American, 4.58% White, 0.65% from other races, and 1.31% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1.96% of the population.

“About 27.3% of families and 36.6% of the population were below the poverty line, including 44.6% of those under the age of eighteen and 43.5% of those sixty five or over.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redbird,_Oklahoma

Red Bird reached its largest population in 1950, with 411 residents.

Red Bird is in Wagoner County, in East Central Oklahoma. Here is a link to a satellite photograph:

https://www.google.com/maps/@35.8857815,-95.5953198,2456m/data=!3m1!1e3


Texas A&M grads

In 1991, the small-town newspaper where I worked hired two recent Texas A&M journalism graduates.

One, John, had intended to be a Marine Corps officer. After his junior year he spent summer at Quantico in the first phase of USMC officer candidate school. Had all gone as planned, he would have completed OCS and been commissioned a second lieutenant. That did not happen.

Back at A&M, John was riding his bicycle from the library to his dorm one night, when two other students on bicycles ran a stop sign and hit John. He suffered a head injury, which led to some physical problems and an inability to pass the USMC physical. So, instead of leading a Marine platoon, John wrote feature stories for a newspaper with circulation under 10,000. He would have made a good Marine officer. He listened, he asked questions, and he had common sense.

The other A&M graduate, Jim, was assigned to cover city and county schools and other reporting as needed. Unlike John, Jim did not live up to the expectations of an A&M graduate.

One day when writing a story, he asked me, “A heifer is a male cow, right?”

I said, “Doesn’t the A in A&M stand for ‘Agricultural?’”

He replied, “Oh, that doesn’t mean anything these days. They don’t teach that any more.”

I said, “If you have to ask me if a heifer is a male cow, I’d say they need to return to teaching that stuff.”

After less than a year at the small newspaper, John got a job with the PR department of a major Texas university. It wasn’t A&M, but it was out of the small newspaper.

Jim on a day before he left the small newspaper told me he had an interview in two weeks with the Tyler newspaper. He said, “Should I tell them (management) I’m going for an interview with another paper?”

I said, “Would they give you advance notice if they were going to fire you?”

“Probably not,” Jim said.

“Well, there’s the answer.”

Jim got the job in Tyler. I did not miss his presence. One day before his Tyler interview, he said, abruptly, “What this country needs is a war to get things going.”

I said, “Then get yourself down to a recruiting station.”

“No, no,” he said. “In didn’t mean I want to go to war.”

“Hunh-unh,” I said. “That’s not the way it works. You want the country to go to war, you get your ass to a recruiting station and enlist.”

Sunday, September 3, 2017

Never thought that would happen

I was greatly surprised to see in the blog Referring URLs the link to Rep. Maxine Waters’ Twitter. Must be some sort of automatic thing that happened when I linked Rep. Waters with fellow-Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Sens. John McCain and Susan Collins as old people who need to leave the government.

Amazing. A link to her Twitter stuff.

Dacoma, Oklahoma

Dacoma is in Woods County, which is five counties east of Colorado and touches south Kansas.

Dacoma’s 2010 population was 107, a drop of 41 from the 2000 census.

The Oklahoma Historical Society notes: “The community is located on land homesteaded by two African Americans, Nathan Dedman and Frank Kinberling. The town was platted, with a locust tree marking each block's corner, in August 1904. The original post office name of Zula was changed to Dacoma, a combination of Dakota and Oklahoma, in October 1904. Postal officials used a ‘c’ instead of the proposed ‘k’ in the name.”

http://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=DA001

Dacoma’s population reached 332 in 1930 and declined thereafter. Many towns in Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas saw peak populations that year, and then declined during the Great Depression and when population shifted to defense factories during World War II.

Woods County population peaked in 1910, at 17,567, the first year of a federal census in the new state of Oklahoma. The nearest the county would again get to that number was in 1930, when census takers counted 17,005 residents. Population has declined since.

Here is a satellite image of Dacoma and nearby:

https://www.google.com/maps/@36.664583,-98.5561346,3874m/data=!3m1!1e3

Lots of farmland and quite few oil wells.

In Dacoma, you can see a long way.

Messengers

With Priscilla’s surgery scheduled in Tampa for Tuesday morning, she said we should get a hotel room near the hospital, since five miles of signal-light traffic would be easier than 40-plus miles of freeway traffic.

So on Monday night we checked into a hotel near the hospital and went to Cracker Barrel for supper. At a nearby table sat a well-dressed black couple, in their mid-60s. When we got our bill, the waitress asked something about our plans for the next day. Priscilla said she was having surgery at Moffitt. The waitress said, "Nothing serious, I hope." Priscilla said, "I have breast cancer." The waitress went silent.

At that moment, the well-dressed black woman stopped beside Priscilla, gave a hug and said, "God will bless you." Her husband took my hand and said, "God bless you." He then put his hand on Priscilla's shoulder and leaned in and said something. Then he said, "God bless you." They left.

When we were walking to the cash register, we both agreed that was an unusual thing to happen. And, we both said it was a very nice thing for someone to do. Priscilla said, "He whispered a prayer in my ear."

The couple had just finished paying when we got to the cash register. I said to the man, "Sometimes people come along..." I could not go any further. I mean to say, "Sometimes people come along, and you don't know why."

When I stopped talking and choked up and threatened tears, the man put his hand on my shoulder and said, "It's all right. Take your time."

Priscilla laughed and said, "He's taken this worse than I have."

The man said, "He's supposed to. He's a man." He then said to Priscilla, "You are already healed. The Bible doesn't say you will be healed. It says you are already healed in his name." The couple left.

As we walked to the car, Priscilla said, "God sent them." And, "You needed to hear what he said."