Monday, September 21, 2015

Out of Pocket


I will be blogger-less for a few days ... maybe more ... as I am going under the knife. If you get bored, please go back and read all my past blogs. There will be a quiz.

Even though I know what "out of pocket" means (away), I have no idea why it means it?

The Kite Runner


Anyone who has read or seen "The Kite Runner" will remember some of the more disturbing passages in which Afghani boys were repeatedly raped by sinister Afghani men. Supposedly this is a cultural norm in this 12th century country and so the United States military has taken the antithetical  posture of forbidding its personnel from interviening when they witness such evils ... even when they take place on our own military bases there ... see: New York Times Story.

I sure hope that this policy is questioned in the confirmation hearings for Obama's newly-chosen Secretary of the Army. And can I add this to my list of gay accommodations in The Obama Agenda? And yet we tweet with futility from the White House about #BringBackOurGirls! We are such unadorned hypocrites.

Calvinism

Calvin and Hobbes, we want you back ...




Sunday, September 20, 2015

Skulduggery

Secretary of State John Kerry, mimicking his totalitarian boss has just unilaterally announced that the United States will legally admit 100,000 immigrants in 2017 ... see: New York Times Story. Wow! Go back and read this statement carefully ... it is designed to deceive. Is Kerry (who once served in Vietnam Nam) saying that we will just be admitting 100,000 immigrants of any stripe ... or 100,000 Muslim immigrants ... or 100,000 Syrian immigrants? Are these the total numbers or are they just the increases in the existing numbers?

Clearly, Kerry is purposely misleading the American press and the American people with these well-chosen weasel words. He is playing three-card Monte ... now you see the numbers, now you don't.

Well as it turns out. the United States already allows over 250,000 legal Muslim immigrants into this country every year ... and who knows how many more illegal ones are finding their way in  ... see: Breitbart Story. (Read this link if you don't believe me ... which I suspect many of you won't.) So whom are we to believe? That arm-waving bunko artist John Kerry? Or the official numbers as reported by our government?

Is this slight-of-hand skulduggery also how Hanoi John has negotiated our nuclear pact with Iraq ... and is attempting to sell it to Congress?

reddit Gallery CCXXXIV

Another excursion into the world of reddit Pictures. See: reddit Pics for sources.  Do yourself a favor and click on pictures to enlarge them.  Enjoy!

Cupcake Bouquet

McLaren P1

IPad

Train Station Entrance

Solar Eclipse


Saturday, September 19, 2015

Overexposed


Donald Trump
Bill Nye, the Science Guy
Hillary Clinton
Ian McKellen
Ayatollah Khamenei
Flo
Neil deGrassie
Caitlyn Jenner (signs his name as Bruce)
Pope Francis
Vladimir Putin
Tom Brady

Another Juicy Irony


Pacifists in Japan are objecting to Prime Minister Abe's new defense bill which relaxes the restrictions on the militarization of his country imposed after World War II. How have these pacifists expressed these objections? With a free-swinging melee in their parliament, of course ... see: Breitbart Story.

The Obama Agenda


Over the last seven years President Obama has revealed three major thrusts to his political agenda:

- Muslim accommodations -- by refusing to refer to jihadists or Muslim extremists by these appellations, by cozying up to the Muslim Brotherhood -- a clearly extremist organization, by offering only token resistance to the ISIS threat, by negotiating a sham agreement with Iran over its nuclear ambitions, by dissing Israel at every opportunity and insisting that it return to its 1948 borders, by admitting hundreds of thousands of Muslim "immigrants" into the United States preferring them over other religions, by staying mum as thousands of Christians are murdered and enslaved in Africa and the Middle East by Muslim extremists, by observing Muslim holidays in the White House, by repeatedly refusing to call terrorist attacks in this country by that name (workplace violence?) ... and too many more to mention.

- Black accommodations -- by inviting the Black Lives Matter radical organization to the White House, by saying the the Cambridge police force acted "stupidly" in the Chip Gates case, by refusing to condemn the recent rash of police officers killings by black miscreants, by saying that Trayvon Martin "could have been my son," by only proposing blacks to be Attorney General and to many other important government administrative positions, by continuously fanning the flames of racial divide by his speeches and his actions, by refusing to disavow Rev. Jeremiah Wright for his racist comments, by calling his grandmother "a typical white person" ... and too many more to mention.

- Gay accommodations -- by "evolving" to a position supporting gay marriage, by bathing the White House in rainbow lights after the gay-marriage decision by the Supreme Court, by removing the "don't ask don't tell" rule for military service, by naming an openly gay man to be Secretary of the Army, by having numerous gays as high-level advisory positions, by frequently pushing the gay rights agenda in speeches, by hosting a LGBT Pride event at the White House, by opening the Peace Corps to same sex couples, by backing gays as Boy Scout leaders ... and too many more to mention.

And there are other controversial causes he is also pushing ... but what, in fact, does the above track record suggest about the predilections of our president? One, possibly two are obvious. No more hints ...

Friday, September 18, 2015

Media Head Fakes


The liberal media has forever been trying to mold public opinion with fake and/or partially-true news stories. Witness the picture and narrative of the drowned little Syrian boy that galvanized sympathy for the recent plight of the "refugees" storming Europe. Well as it turns out this boy's father was the paid coyote transporting a boatload of immigrants traveling to Greece. His boat overturned and the boy's mother and sister also perished, but somehow the father survived ... see: New York Post Story. Has this sympathetic narrative been walked back in most of the major news outlets?

Another half-true story meant to drive an agenda is the story about the Muslim boy who brought a "clock" to school in Texas that looked a lot like a home-made bomb. He was arrested but later released ... still to became a cause célèbre for being persecuted as a Muslim for his "scientific" accomplishment. He has even been invited to the White House and Mark Zukerberg of Facebook wants to meet with him. What is the real story? It turns out this kid is the son of a Muslim activist who has agitated many times in the past about the persecution of those of his faith. And they boy himself would never explain why he brought this suspicious device to school ... see: Breitbart News Story. This again sounds very much like a set-up story that fits the liberal (and our president's) agenda so the salient details were broomed under the rug by most media outlets.

It's to the point where I seldom believe anything that I see in the news anymore ... particularly if it seems to support the agenda of the left. Yes, the right might be engaging in such shenanigans ... but I haven't discovered as many egregious examples. Feel free to supply some.

The Farm


Now it seems time for an autobiographical sketch ...

When I was 14 years old I had the lucky opportunity to work a whole summer on a working farm. A friend in high school got me a job on Lee Brandt's farm outside of Newville, Pennsylvania which is near Carlisle. This farm was a bit of everything ... it had a barn with about 10 Holstein milking cows, a heifer, a steer, a bull, a large apple orchard with a variety of apple varietals, a peach orchard, chickens, hay fields, pastures, a corn field, and the requisite two dogs and a barn cat. The farmer also had much of the usual farming equipment ... a Farmall tractor, a hay wagon, a plow, a harrow, a manure spreader, a hay baler and a set of discs. In exchange for baling other farmers' hay fields, he would get to use their combines or seeders or money ... so, yours truly spent many days on the hay wagon stacking bales of hay ... often having to lift them over my head.

After arriving at the farm my first job was scything the underbrush and weeds off of the side of the road leading upto the farm house ... interesting and tough job. Next, farmer Brandt had me clean pick a cherry tree (I think it was Rainier cherries) near the house. It yielded about a bushel of cherries which we then drove into Newville and sold to a local grocer for about five dollars. Later that day or, more probably the next, farmer Brandt gave me the keys and, after some brief instructions, told me to take the tractor and harrow a nearby field which I surprisingly did. About halfway through this chore I had a call of nature so I hopped off the tractor and returned to the farm house to relieve myself. I was teased about this for the rest of the summer.

That night I was introduced to milking the cows ... which I did morning and night for the rest of the summer. This task consisted of first bringing the cows in from the barnyard or field, tethering them, , feeding them hay and grain, briefly washing their teats then attaching the milking machine ... after which I finished them each off by hand into a bucket. All this milk was then dumped into 10 gallon milk cans and deposited into the cold water of the spring house. This milk was sold to the Hershey Chocolate Company which would come by every day or two to pick it up. After the milking was done the cows would then be moved out to the barnyard (in good weather in the evening) or to a field (in the morning). After the morning milking I usually had to muck the area and move the manure to the barnyard ... and replace it with fresh straw. About once a month or so the farmer loaded the manure from the barnyard into his manure spreader and dispersed it on the appropriate field.

One of the worst jobs on this farm, which i did a few times during my stay there, was cleaning the chicken coop ... a dirtier job I cannot imagine. The coop was full of dusty droppings which just about overcame you before you could finish the job. But I got back at one of these little buggers ... one afternoon the farmer's wife gave me a hatchet and ask me to get a chicken for supper. Using a tree stump meant for this purpose I dispatched this bird with a certain relish. It flopped around the front yard for a good five minutes before she took it in to clean it.

The neighbors of this farmer were very friendly. Every time you passed them on the road they would greet you with,a hearty "hi, cousin." whether you were one or not. On Friday nights all the locals would assemble at a nearby church yard for an auction, country music, and some local entertainment. I still remember one local wag saying that, although he was too old to cut the mustard, he still could lick around the jar (right on the edge of my adult awareness). The auction consisted mostly of unused farm stuff donated to the church and watermelons. Someone apparently drove down to Virginia every Friday morning and brought back a truck load of these beauties. But I don't recall my farmer ever having the winning bid on even one melon. The country music was tolerable and did whet my taste for this genre. At the end of the summer this assembly morphed into a super gala (in the narrow world of these people ... as it was in mine) with their famous chicken salad sandwiches, lemonade and coleslaw. All this festive Saturday (after chores were done) was devoted to eating, music, bake-offs and games at this local church..

There came a day that one of the farmer's two dogs died. I was given a shovel and a burlap bag full of dead dog and told to go bury it in the woods. Being a tad lazy for this chore, I went deep into these woods and just flung this sack as far as I could ... to my eventual dismay. About a week later the farmer decided to graze his cows in a different pasture which, unfortunately, meant I had to drive them through these very same woods morning and night. The daily stench of this rotting dog then was my punishment for my previous lassitude.

The daily life at the farm was rustic. For breakfast, the farmer's wife gave me a bowl of cereal and milk which, when finished, was supplanted with a fried egg. In general this woman was not a very good cook (contrary to folklore). The lunch and dinner was forgettable. One day later in the summer we killed a steer I had been feeding and tending to ...  the slaughtering is an experience anyone eating meat should see and appreciate. I was anxiously awaiting a dining upgrade ... some of my buddy for dinner. Not so fast, George. The first night of this bounty was the ox tail simply roasted (to be tender, it needs to be braised or served in soup). I went to my bed depressed. I was allowed a bath only once a week on Saturday night. The ring in the bathtub was an inch thick. I was only sick one day at the farm. I came down with a fever and pock-marked skin. Since I had alread had chicken pox and measels as a youth, I have since surmised that this was cow pox.

One day one of my older cows escaped her fencing and got into a corn field. This bovine ate so many young corn plants that she killed herself ... her throat and mouth were so full of chewed leaves to the point where she suffocated. What a dumb animal! The farmer called a butcher who came and winched her stiffening body onto his truck ... to be disposed of in some economical manner (fast-food burgers?)

On Sundays after my chores I often visited a neighboring farm to help my buddy (who got me the job) with his milking. When we had placed the milk cans in the spring house, my buddy would retrieve from the cool spring water a large jug of apple jack. Boy was that good! It was carbonated, thick and dark like thinned apple butter and carried a kick ... nothing like the insipid stuff that they call hard cider today.

That summer was filled with a variety of other work projects. I helped the farmer build a silo. I thinned, with a stick, the peach and apple trees of excess fruit so that the remaining fruit would be bigger. I cleared the weeds from around the apple trees to keep the mice from damaging the roots. I plowed fields (see: Haiku Wanderings for one of my experiences). I helped with the early apple harvest (Transparent apples as I remember). I helped with the cutting and storage of corn silage. I, of course, stacked and emptied into the barn, many many hay wagons. I fed the animals (try lifting a sack full of wheat ... I think it weighs well over 200 pounds). My days were always full of things to do.

For that ten weeks of my back-breaking farm work, right before I left to go back home, I was paid $100 (less a few advances I was given during the summer). Plus, of course, I got room and board (such as it was). Now I usually worked there about 60 hours a week for ten weeks which means I worked about 600 hours for $100 ... or almost 17 cents per hour. On an inflation-adjusted basis this is $1.52 in today's terms ... and it was and still is the best money I ever earned.

Thank you Lee Brandt and family.

Thursday, September 17, 2015

Blood on their Hands


President Obama's Svengali, Valarie Jarrett, recently met with the leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement in the White House ... see: Breitbart Story. Apparently, the Obama administration, being in their waning days, feel that the slimy optics of such get-togethers can no longer hurt them ... or that the media will not cover such outrageous indiscretions. For the White House to lend prestige to this ragtag bunch of anti-police chowder heads does nothing but encourage more violence against our thin blue lines.

Yes, I believe that President Obama and his quislings have blood on their hands every time an officer of the law is gunned down by a radical racist who has been encouraged or abetted by this sick antisocial movement. The Black Lives Matter mob is based upon a lie and supported by slope-headed anarchists ... and to welcome them into the White House does nothing but display this administration's blatant disregard for the President's oath of office. He did twice swear to protect the American people from all enemies foreign and domestic ... wrong on both counts. Ms. Jarrett, such seditious actions really do matter ... shame on you!

A Genuine Debate


Last night's Republican debate in Simi Valley, California was feisty ... it was edifying ... it was humorous ... it was uplifting ... but, most of all, it was genuine (even, sometimes, Trump). But what struck me the most was how small the disassembling Hillary Clinton ... or any of the other Democrat hopefuls ... would appear when juxtaposed with any from this truth-talking line-up that appeared at the Reagan Library. No matter who the Republican nominee is, I can't imagine that our country will not overwhelming support him or her to get America back on the tracks.

Afterward: I found Jake Tapper's attempt to confuse the global warming issue by equating Reagan's stance on ozone with Obama's position on carbon oxide to be as underhanded as is typical for the manic media. Glad that Marco Rubio crushed this silliness with good logic and loquacity.

Supermoon


The moon is coming much closer than usual to the Earth. This is called a "supermoon" ... see:CBS News Story. I have in the past associated such events with large earthquakes ... see: Quaking in Our Boots and Copy Cat. So it is no surprise (to me) that there was just a large 8.3 magnitude earthquake of the coast of Chili ... see: The Guardian Story.

This current supermoon won't actually reach its closest approach to us until September 27th. The fact that the sun will then also be in alignment ... a solar eclipse will occurs also on that very same day ... may make for even more dramatic tides in the Earth's crust.. Therefore, I think that it is only logical that our planet should soon experience some more of these large Earth shakers.

Be prepared.

Monday, September 14, 2015

Graffiti

Bansky Graffiti


Graffiti is often the bane of cities' ambiance. Gang tagging or political messages corrupt views of otherwise beautiful vistas. Paris and Vienna both suffer from this malady. If you take a boat cruise on their respective rivers, graffiti is just about all you see. And I am sure that there are many other world cities that suffer this same ugly fate ... particularly since the invention of spray-paint cans. One small exception is Bansky who adds talent and humor to his street art ... see above.

However there sometimes can be amusing graffiti in the form of bathroom-wall humor which I  can tolerate as long as it is indeed humorous and not just crude. There used to be a bar on 61st Street off Lexington called Dick Edwards whose men's room contained some quite creative graffiti. One was, "my mother made me a homosexual" ... under which was scrawled, "if I gave her the wool would she make me one too?" Another clever example was, "death is nature's way of telling you to slow down". Yet another famous graffiti bon mot is, "God is dead, Neitzche" and underneath,  "Neitzche is dead, God". This comes ourtesy of  the blog Half-wise Half-wit.

One of Mayor Giuliani's great accomplishments in New York City was to virtuarry erase the obscenity of gang tagging that had so destroyed his city. Now, under Mayor de Blasio's liberal agenda, the Big Apple is slowly sinking back into a tagger's heaven ... see: Vice.com Article. Too, too bad.

Friday, September 11, 2015

reddit Gallery CCXXXIII -- Trees

Another excursion into the world of reddit Pictures. See: reddit Pics for sources.  Do yourself a favor and click on pictures to enlarge them.  Enjoy!


Tree on Tree

Rooting

Tenacity

Bonsai Forrest

A Lone Tree in the Namibia Desert.



Bon Mot


My wife recently asked me, "How do transgenders have sex?"
I replied that when people tell them to go f..k themselves ... that must be what they, in fact, do ...

Afterthought: It was OK to make fun of transgenders back when J. Edgar Hoover was thought to be one of them ...

Hard of Heart


I have written multiple times about the dilemma posed by the wave of mostly-Muslim immigrants surging into Europe ... and now the Wall Street Journal has published an op-ed by Peggy Noonan on this topic that expresses my thoughts better than I possibly could. Rather than give you a link to these sage remarks, I will reproduce them here. (I hope I am not sued for copyright infringement ... but it's worth the risk):
What a crisis Europe is in, with waves of migrants reaching its shores as the Arab world implodes. It is the biggest migration into Europe since the end of World War II and is shaping up to be its first great and sustained challenge of the 21st century. It may in fact shape that continent’s nature and history as surely as did World War I. 
It is a humanitarian crisis. As Richard Haass of the Council on Foreign Relations notes, it will not soon go away, for two reasons. First, the Mideast will not be peaceful anytime soon and may well become more turbulent. Second, “The more that Europe responds the more it will reinforce the supply of migrants. Europe is caught.” If it doesn’t respond with compassion and generosity it is wrong in humanitarian terms; if it does, more will come and the problem grows. “This is now part of the architecture,” says Mr. Haass. 
Three hundred eighty-one thousand detected migrants have arrived so far this year, up from 216,000 in all of 2014. Almost 3,000 died on the journey or are missing. The symbol of their plight is the photo of the 3-year-old Syrian boy, Aylan Kurdi, who drowned along with his mother and 5-year-old brother when their boat capsized near a Turkish beach. Just as horrifying is what was found inside a Volvo refrigerated truck stranded on the shoulder of the A4 highway 30 miles from Vienna in late August. Inside were 71 bodies, including a 1½-year-old girl, all dead of suffocation. They’d been left there by human smugglers. 
It is a catastrophe unfolding before our eyes, and efforts to deal with it have at least one echo in America, which we’ll examine further down. 
According to the U.N. refugee agency, 53% of the migrants are from Syria, 14% from Afghanistan, 7% from Eritrea, and 3% each from Pakistan, Nigeria, Iraq and Somalia. Seventy-two percent are men, only 13% women and 15% children. Not all are fleeing war. Some are fleeing poverty. Not all but the majority are Muslim. 
The leaders of Europe have shown themselves unsure about what to do. It is a continentwide crisis that began in 2011, as Tunisians fled to the Italian island of Lampedusa. The following year, sub-Saharan Africans who’d migrated to Libya made for Europe after Muammar Gadhafi’s fall. Since then the European response has largely been ad hoc and stopgap. European Union President Jean-Claude Juncker has proposed a “permanent relocation mechanism” with EU members taking greater shares of the refugees, but it is unclear how exactly it would work. 
In many EU nations there will be powerful pushback. Like the crisis itself the pushback will build. Europe is in economic drift. As this newspaper has noted, even Germany is growing at only 1.6% a year. Welfare systems will be strained. Youth unemployment is already high. In Britain the crisis could contribute to a vote to leave the EU outright. There are fears, which the elites take lightly, that floods of displaced people will “alter the cultural balance of the country for ever,” as the columnist Melanie Phillips put it in the Times of London. The Gulf states have not offered a home to their Arab and Muslim cousins. Dutch right-wing leader Geert Wilders this week called the wave of migrants an “Islamic invasion” in parliamentary debate, “an invasion that threatens our prosperity, our security, our culture and identity.” A recent poll showed 54% of Dutch voters opposed to welcoming more than the roughly 2,000 refugees previously agreed to. Hungary is building a fence. 
Reading the popular press of Europe you see the questions. Do we not have a right to control our borders? Isn’t the refugee wave a security threat? ISIS is nothing if not committed to its intentions. Why would they not be funneling jihadists onto those boats? 
Many things could be done to ease the crisis. States such as Jordan and Lebanon work hard to help refugees in neighboring countries and need help. Humanitarian relief is needed for the internally displaced. Go after the human smugglers, patrol the waters, take in those who are truly fleeing war and truly desire to become a peaceful part of their new, adoptive homes. 
But here is a problem with Europe’s decision-makers, and it connects to decision-makers in America. 
Damning “the elites” is often a mindless, phony and manipulative game. Malice and delusion combine to produce the refrains: “Those fancy people in their Georgetown cocktail parties,” “Those left-wing poseurs in their apartments in Brussels.” This is social resentment parading as insight, envy posing as authenticity. 
But in this crisis talk of “the elites” is pertinent. The gap between those who run governments and those who are governed has now grown huge and portends nothing good. 
Rules on immigration and refugees are made by safe people. These are the people who help run countries, who have nice homes in nice neighborhoods and are protected by their status. Those who live with the effects of immigration and asylum law are those who are less safe, who see a less beautiful face in it because they are daily confronted with a less beautiful reality—normal human roughness, human tensions. Decision-makers fear things like harsh words from the writers of editorials; normal human beings fear things like street crime. Decision-makers have the luxury of seeing life in the abstract. Normal people feel the implications of their decisions in the particular. 
The decision-makers feel disdain for the anxieties of normal people, and ascribe them to small-minded bigotries, often religious and racial, and ignorant antagonisms. But normal people prize order because they can’t buy their way out of disorder. 
People in gated communities of the mind, who glide by in Ubers, have bought their way out and are safe. Not to mention those in government-maintained mansions who glide by in SUVs followed by security details. Rulers can afford to see national-security threats as an abstraction—yes, yes, we must better integrate our new populations. But the unprotected, the vulnerable, have a right and a reason to worry. 
Here is the challenge for people in politics: The better you do, the higher you go, the more detached you become from real life. You use words like “perception” a lot. But perception is not as important as reality. 
The great thing in politics, the needed thing, is for those who are raised high in terms of responsibility and authority to be yet still, in their heads and hearts, of the people, experiencing life as a common person on an average street. The challenge is to carry the average street inside you. Only then, when the street is wrong, can you persuade it to see what is right. 
The biggest thing leaders don’t do now is listen. They no longer hear the voices of common people. Or they imitate what they think it is and it sounds backward and embarrassing. In this age we will see political leaders, and institutions, rock, shatter and fall due to that deafness.
We in the United States also have our fair share of gated-community politicians and media types who like to prance upon the stage trying to out-compassion their rivals. Showing the slightest bit of realistic concern regarding this immigrant invasion is labeled as being hard of heart and to be castigated. Count me among these pariahs

Predictions.


I have been batting like the ol' Ted Williams  of late ... predicting the U.S. stock market swoon arising out of the Asian contagion  ... see: Broken China ... and recently forecasting that Obama would, by fiat, allow droves of Syrian refugees into the United States ... see: Good Fences. See the Syrian refugee prediction coming true here: U.S. News Story. Not to mention my prescience about "climate change" and Hillary Clinton.

Now, if only I could get nominated to the Soothsayer Hall of Fame ...

Wednesday, September 09, 2015

A Monty Python Skit


Attorney Lynne Stewart, who represented the "blind sheik" against terrorism charges in the first World Trade Center bombing and who, after being caught smuggling out of prison directives to his followers ... and later convicted, was sentenced in 2010 to ten years in prison. She was released early in December of 2013 because she "had terminal breast cancer and only had at most 18 months to live," However, she has since experienced a medical miracle as is still alive after 22 months ... and quite active proselytizing for her radical causes ... see New York Daily News Story.

If this were a Monty Python skit, we would now see a phalanx of Pythonettes in white medical coats barge into Lynne Stewart's dining room, throw her on the table, and, reading to her the pleadings that her lawyers made to get her out of prison early, remove her vital organs in a bloody carnage ... while she screams "Allahu Akbar!"

Exclusivity

The Berghain Nightclub Bouncer

"I wouldn't want to belong to any club that will accept people like me as a member." --  Groucho Marx

There is something about the human psyche that compels people to want to be where they are not wanted. This is what propelled the manically exclusive Studio 54 in the 1970's and 1980's into the "place to be" and the "place to be seen." Keeping people out of this devil's den only made people want to be there even more. Now we have, in Berlin, a remake of this type of glitterati grotto. Descend with the author of this story into the world of debauchery, drugs, alternate lifestyles, tattoos, body piercing and mosh pits as she recounts her nightclub experience in Germany. The Berghain nightclub in (East) Berlin seems a modern day remake of the infamous Studio 54 where the fringes of society suddenly became its center. To read about this odyssey see:  New York Post Story.

At my age, I think I'll pass ...

Afterward: I wonder if the Berghain nightclub will admit Syrian refugees?

Tuesday, September 08, 2015

Folding Like a Cheap Suit


The family of Freddie Gray has settled their wrongful-death lawsuit against the city of Baltimore for $6.4 million in order to "save the Baltimore taxpayers long and costly litigation" ... if you wish to read the sorry "folding like a cheap suit".details, see: Breitbart Story. This aggrieved family has pledged to spend the majority of this suit's cash settlement to pay for the rebuilding.of the CVS drugstore and the under-construction senior center ... as well for other widespread destruction and arson that occurred in the mayhem that followed this petty criminal's suspicious death. Any leftover monies will then be donated to Mayor Stephanie Rawlings and Marilyn Mosby, the county District Attorney's reelection campaigns.

 Just kidding ...

Afterward: If the city of Baltimore had only waited until the six police officers charged in this case were acquitted, it may have saved quite a bit of money.

Strange Bedfellows?


In his column in the New York Times Paul Krugman, that loopy left-wing Nobel prize winning economist (who believes that our $18 trillion debt is not a national problem), has endorsed Donald Trump as the Republican candidate whose economic views are the closest to his own: see: Powerline Blog. (However, he still can't resist calling Trump an ignorant blowhard  Does this mean that he is also one?) Perhaps he is trying his feeble best to sink Trump's presidential chances one way or the other?

Monday, September 07, 2015

The Gore Gods


Have you noticed fewer hurricanes lately? Scientists believe that the Atlantic hurricane season may be entering a phase of fewer and weaker hurricanes ... just the opposite of what the global-warming alarmists have been predicting ... see: EarthLink News Story. Ah well, these bloviatig bozos can now turn this development on its head and claim that such weird climate behavior is just another manifestation of too much CO2 in our atmosphere ... and that, when the hurricanes do return, we will all suffer greatly at the hands of the Gore Gods. Be afraid ... be very afraid!

Good Fences

"Good fences make good neighbors" -- Robert Frost


A few years ago I tutored a Mexican immigrant who believed that the borders of the United States should be wide open to all. No matter what I said I could not convince him of the dire consequences of such foolishness. And at least one of my liberal friends is also in the camp for open borders. I hope this is only because he has not thought this thing through.

I just read some accounts of interviews with the throngs of immigrants who are passing through Austria on their way to "open arms" Germany and the countries further north (Sweden, Norway, etc.) These mostly young men are seeking a better life from what they just fled ... and you can't blame them. And I don't believe a "better life" is just strudel and sauerbraten. It is a chance for a job augmented by the generosity of these welfare states. When these sinecures are accomplished then, I expect, these men will call for their families and relatives ... and relatives of their relatives ... until such abuse hardens the hearts of their benefactors ... at which point these immigrants will grow resentful and, possibly even violent (witness many of the North Africans in France.)

And there are billions of people around the world who want a better life.

So, are open borders a good idea? The best analogy I can conger up is an open houses. Imagine that your home was open to all strangers who wished to live there. Yes, these interlopers might perform some chores, but mainly would depend on your family for shelter, food and clothing. The bigger house you might have, the more of these squatters you would have to accommodate ... until overcrowding and other unpleasant disruptions occurred. Lots of social tensions would arise out of pressures of this situation ... petty thievery, arguments over responsibilities, slovenliness, too much noise, etc. The quality of life for your family under these circumstances would go down hill fast ... until you questioned your rationale for such generosity.

Is it hard-hearted not to open your home to anyone who wants to live there? I don't think so ... and I also don't believe that there are many who do. So why are open borders any different? I strongly believe that the degree of one's generosity should be left up to individuals and not determined by some third party or government who might have some other agenda in mind.

Prediction: President Obama will, without consulting Congress, soon announce that the United States will accept tens of thousands of these Middle Eastern immigrants.

Afterward: For some further disturbing insights, see: Infowars Posting.

Sunday, September 06, 2015

Strange?

Has anyone noticed or noted that the vast majority of "Syrian" refugees causing all the kerfuffle in Hungary ... seem to be aggressive young men without families? I find this to be quite strange and a little unnerving ...






Afterward: Confirmation ... seeBreitbart Story.

Saturday, September 05, 2015

reddit Gallery CCCXXII

Another excursion into the world of reddit Pictures. See: reddit Pics for sources.  Do yourself a favor and click on pictures to enlarge them.  Enjoy!


An Estonian Chimney Sweep 

Ships -- Zheng He Vs. Columbus

An Orchid Mantis

Bird Tornado

Spanish Moss

Walk the Plank



I guess it's time for me to bloviate on the County Clerk in Rowan, Kentucky, Kim Davis, who has refused to grant marriage licenses to gay couples and has, as a consequence, been thrown in jail ... see: Kentucky.com Story. Politicians, of course, are also taking both sides in this dog fight ... Republicans, often sympathetic to Ms. Davis ..,. and Democrats, requiring that she walk the plank. So, for what it is worth, here's where I come down:

I believe the Ms. Davis has a perfect right, in the proud tradition of civil disobedience in this country, to ignore a law when such a law conflicts with her strongly-held religious beliefs ... just as our imperial president chooses which laws he will enforce based upon his wildly gyrating moral compass. However, when one does disobey the law ... and we are a nation of laws ... there needs to be consequences. In Ms. Davis' case, I think jail-time is too harsh a penalty. Perhaps she could be forced to relinquish her job and pay a small fine?

In President Obama's case, it might be OK if he were asked to walk the plank.

Friday, September 04, 2015

The Next Step

My Twin Granddaughters
May I live long enough to see them see their children off to kindergarten (turn around, turn around ...)


Enter Japan

Nikkei 225
The focus on stock market corrections in the Far East has been China ... but now there is another worry there ... Japan. The Nikkei 225 stock index in Japan has dropped over 15% just since mid-July ... from 20,953 to 17,792 ... dropping 390 points this morning. Whether this is Asian contagion or some other fundamental problem, I can't say ... see: CNBC Analysis. But this is occurring in the midst of a large amount of Quantitative Easing on the Bank of Japan's part ... an action that normally props up stock markets.

Japan is also carrying government debt equivalent to something like 200% of GNP versus about 74% here in the United States. This also worries me ... for, if both China and Japan swoon in tandem, can the rest of the world be far behind?

Thursday, September 03, 2015

Schmoozing


That old saying, "if you snooze, you loose" has now been updated for President Obama. It is now, "if you schmooze, you loose." And apparently, while The Barry has been refining his golf game and hosting Hollywood galas at the White House, the Chinese military has been plotting the demise of the United States Navy.

The old saw that generals always fight wars with the last war's weapons does not now seem to apply to China ... the Dragon of the East has just taken the wraps off of its new "killer missile" in the recent Beijing parade celebrating the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II. This hypersonic (10 times the speed of sound) missile is supposedly capable of wiping out an American aircraft carried in a trice ... with no American counter-measures currently available  ... see: U.S. Naval Institute Article. Now aren't we tingly glad that the Obama administration has effectively defunded our anti-missile research?

There is a solution however. Perhaps if Obama were to bow one more time to the Chinese president, Xi Jinping?


Imperial Powers


It appears that the Senate Democrats now have the 34 votes needed to block an override of President Obama's vetoing of the Congressional disapproval of his Iran nuclear deal ... see" AP News Story. Senator Barbara Milkulski is retiring and therefore has nothing to lose by throwing Israel to the Iranian wolves. However I do hope that the Republicans still pass this resolution of disapproval and force Obama's hand in this matter. Since 70% of the American people oppose this Iranian nuclear pact, President Obama, once again, is governing against the will of the American people.

Once this legislative sham is completed,  I do hope that the Senate then immediately takes this matter to the Supreme Court saying that this really is a treaty and so requires a 2/3rds vote in the Senate to be ratified. I think that this then could be a clean rebuke of Obama's grasping for imperial powers. But knowing how wimpy Mitch McConnell is, I'm not holding my breath.

Wednesday, September 02, 2015

Google Strudle


I have in the past commented twice on possible problems with self-driving cars ... such as are being created and tested now by Google, Uber and Tesla ... see: As I Predicted. Now more of my prescience is being displayed in the tests run by Google wherein the real problems with driverless cars are the other cars with human drivers ... see: New York Times Story. Reading this NY Times story leads me to believe that this Google "moon shot" technology, to be successful, will require many more years of refinement and many probable lawsuits. In the meantime, let us not place to much hope in this Google strudel.

More Immigration Facts


The Center for Immigration Studies has just published a new disturbing study ... over 50% of all immigrants, both legal and illegal, are on some form of public assistance (73% for those from Mexico and Central America) ... see: Powerline Blog Posting ... and I could not determine whether this study includes the Earned Income Tax Credit which is not considered by many as welfare ... but it clearly is. This contrasts with the statistic that only 30% of native-born Americans are on the dole. Yes, immigrants are contributing money to our various governments with sales taxes, income taxes for those with work permits, and FICA taxes collected on often-phony Social Security numbers. But I find it very difficult to believe that our immigrant population is contributing more to our government coffers than they are extracting.

The Free World is dancing with a dangerous dichotomy ... offering generous welfare benefits while at the same time relaxing its immigration constraints. This, as Milton Freeman says in the referenced blog entry, is a recipe for an eventual economic and social disaster.

Ad Hoc


Apple is forming a strategic alliance with Cisco Systems, the huge communications equipment maker ... purportedly for the purpose of better enterprise solutions. However there is one throwaway in this deal that has caught my attention. And that is that this new alliance will provide Internet users better tools to block ads ... see: Fortune Magazine Article. And God knows I and many others would welcome some relief from the deluge of these bothersome pop-ups, wipes and overlays. If given an easy way to cleanse my on-line experience of these annoying distractions, I would jump at the chance ... and I really don't care that this may be damaging some pesky advertisers.

This may be a game changer for online advertising because these ads are the life blood of Google, Facebook, et al ... and are the most annoying aspect of these newer technologies ... and, interestingly, these are the kind of companies that Apple views as its biggest competition. However, there might also be collateral damage from this development ... and that will be that Internet news outlets (The Drudge Report, Huffington Post, etc.) and popular blogs (Powerline, Mother Jones, etc.) might also see revenue declines. Fortunately, for an obvious reason this blog would be immune ... see: No Ads.

Burlesque


There is a (real) old joke about a well-over-the-hill burlesque dancer whose audience was not shouting, "take it off," but rather "put it on!" I have similar feelings about the latest Miley Cyrus attempt to stay in the media spotlight by showing more of her naked body to her tween fans. I saw this link on the Daily Caller ... Miley's Most NSFW Shoot Yet Photos ... and, although I offer it here, could not find the stomach to actually view it.

I hope you feel the same way ... PUT IT ON!

Tuesday, September 01, 2015

Pigs in a Blanket


President Obama has labeled the execution-style shooting of a Texas Deputy Sheriff as "completely unacceptable." In his signature distracted and perfunctory way our president then added that this was "an affront to civilized society" ... see: Breitbart Story. No, Mr. President, chewing gum in school is "unacceptable." Pulling your sister's pigtails is "unacceptable." You have a staff of highly-paid and talented writers who, I am sure, could come up with a better adjective than "unacceptable."

How about "craven" or "heinous" or "cowardly" or "gutless" ... or even "lily-livered?" This kind of soft-spoken cerebral response to this Texas shooting by our president I think speaks volumes to those in the Black Lives Matter movement who believe that the police should be "pigs in a blanket" and they should "fry like bacon." Has the president made any comments about this pond-scum movement ...  or has our Justice Department sent a phalanx of investigators to Texas like it did in Ferguson? Making his administration's sly response to this Black Lives Matter movement so invisible only encourages more of the same.

Wait and see.