reddit Gallery XXXVI

Another excursion into the world of reddit pictures.  See reddit Pics for sources.  Click on pictures to enlarge them.  Enjoy!

80+ Year-Old Car of Unknown Make

Tulips

Aurora over a Volcano

Road to the Moon

Huge Selenite Crystals

Wag the Dog

The United States' Seal Team Six staged an unsuccessful raid in Somalia Saturday morning in an attempt to capture or kill an Al Shabab leader.  They were forced to retreat after experiencing heavier-than-expected return gun fire … see: CS Monitor Story.  Much as I admire President Obama’s pluck in approving this military excursion, I am forced to surmise that this and a similar raid in Libya may well have been a “wag the dog” response to (aka, a distraction from) his plummeting approval ratings as a result of the current budget and debt-ceiling imbroglio with the Republicans.

Must everything that this administration does be a political calculation?

reddit Gallery XXXV

Another excursion into the world of reddit pictures.  See reddit Pics for sources.  Click on pictures to enlarge them.  Enjoy!

Cage Match

Handlebars

Iranian Hill Village

Malachite

Tuscany

My Ears are Steaming

There is steam coming from my ears.  Blowhard Bill Maher yesterday had the knock-kneed temerity to slander World War II veterans  as “[not] the brightest generation.” This was due to their entering the WWII Memorial that had been Barry-caded as a result of the impasse over our government’s 2014 funding (aka, the “continuing resolution”) ... see: Breitbart Story. 

Mole-rat Maher has a supposed comedic show on HBO wherein he launches equivalent incendiary commentary to an audience of other know-nothings.  After 9/11/2001, on a previous show on ABC, he said that it was the U.S. military who were cowards and not the Islamic extremists who drove the planes into the World Trade Center ... see: Mediate Story.  He was quickly to leave that gig.

I sincerely hope that one of our “greatest generation” octogenarians calls out this 57-year old misanthropic pipsqueak, Maher, over his cheap characterizations.  Then we will really find out who is the coward.

reddit Gallery XXXIV -- Stairs

Another excursion into the world of reddit pictures.  See reddit Pics for sources.  Click on pictures to enlarge them.  Enjoy!

649 Step Staircase

Newel Post

Greenhouse Stairs

Romanian Spiral Staircase

Stairway

Mossy Staircase

reddit Gallery XXXIII

Another excursion into the world of reddit pictures.  See reddit Pics for sources.  Click on pictures to enlarge them.  Enjoy!

Watkin's Glen, New York

Dartmouth, England Wild Wood

Fruit Dove

Inside Large Hadron Collider

New Bridge over Hoover Dam

Blink

There are oodles of pundits who think they know how the current U.S. federal financial impasse will turn out.  Right now it does look as though this year’s government funding (aka the “continuing resolution”) and the raising of our government’s debt ceiling on October 17^th are going to be rolled together into one gigantic fiscal conundrum.  Both the Republicans and the Democrats are vying for media headlines in order to force their opponents to capitulate.  It’s kinda like that old children’s game of fake-slapping of another’s face ... trying to get the other to blink.

The Republicans’ feints involve the House of Representatives passing a series of funding resolutions and then pointing out how the Senate won’t even consider them … even if this means helping to cure a child with cancer or the opening of the World War II Memorial to returning veterans.  The Democrats’ ploys include bellicose statements on their refusal to negotiate, attempts to talk down the stock market, and the use of their allies in the media to smear Republicans with playground taunts.  Both sides also keep pointing to polling surveys, however skewed, that support their positions.

Who’s going to flinch first?  I’ll be damned if I know.  If I could extrapolate President Obama’s behavior when dealing with international adversaries, I would easily expect him to back down first.  But for some strange reason, he is much more resolute here at home than he is on the world stage.  Maybe if Speaker Boehner could get Iran’s new President, Hassan Rouhani, to make the Republicans' fiscal case for him?

reddit Gallery XXXII -- More Oddities

Another excursion into the world of reddit pictures.  See reddit Pics for sources.  Click on pictures to enlarge them.  Enjoy!

Over-the-Top Concert

Black House in Germany

Supercell

Goliath Beetle

Solar Eclipse in Space

reddit Gallery XXXI

Another excursion into the world of reddit pictures.  See reddit Pics for sources.  Click on pictures to enlarge them.  Enjoy!

Auckland, NZ

Cave in Bulgaria

Ice Cave

Subway, Zion Nat'l Park

Waterfall Cave, Iceland

What I Admire about Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi

Harry Reid

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Nancy Pelosi

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Presidential Get-Together

Bush 41, Obama, Bush 43, Clinton, Carter

"And that's where you were schtupping all those girls ..."

What I Admire about Obama

- His grace on a staircase
- He never closed Gitmo
- His modulation and tempo when reading from a Teleprompter
- His affection for his family
- He OKed the raid that killed Osama bin Laden
- His infectious smile

That's it.

reddit Gallery XXX

Another excursion into the world of reddit pictures.  See reddit Pics for sources.  Click on pictures to enlarge them.  Enjoy!

Aurora

First Date

Fire Opal

Icicle

Old Man of the Iceberg

A Test

I am herein offering a test to measure the bias of national media outlets .. that is, if and whereof they mention what happened in Congress yesterday that was meant to ameliorate the effect of the government shutdown. The House of Representatives proposed a piece of Ted Cruz's strategy ... a measure that funded the District of Columbia, veterans' services, and the national park service.  But the House Democrats kept this from reaching a required 2/3rds majority ... even after passing a similar measure to fund the Defense Department ... which was later passed by the Senate and signed in to law by President Obama ... see: The Blaze Story.

However, this morning's printed version of the New York Times indicates that somehow this bill made its way to the Senate and Democrat Majority Leader, Harry Reid, refused even to bring this proposal up for a vote in the Senate.  I'm sure that this was meant to punish the Republicans by punishing segments of the American people ... with the cooperation of national media outlets.  How cynical can one political party get?

Although the New York Times did reveal this information on page one this morning, it was in paragraph 8 and referred this measure as a "narrow bill."  I grade the Times with a B- ... it should have been in the headline and the first paragraph ... it's real news!  An exercise that you, dear readers, can use to test our media outlets' biases is to follow how much of this really important development the national media are willing to convey to you.  This should be fun.

reddit Gallery XXIX

Another excursion into the world of reddit pictures.  See reddit Pics for sources.  Click on pictures to enlarge them.  Enjoy!

Glen Canyon

Rainbow Mountains, China

Hallelujah!

Elusive Green Flash

Steam Engine

Wait a Minute!

Today starts the government shutdown as a result of the impasse between the White House and Congress over the contents of the continuing resolution on federal funding. The media is beginning to gnash their teeth and wear sack cloth over this event.  I'm however looking forward to a number of deserving things that I hope happen as a result of this fiscal hiatus:

- Stopping all bribes to the President of Afghanistan, Karzai
- Closing the Congressional Country Club
- Ceasing all government grants to favored eco-companies
- Stop sending arms to the radical Syrian rebels
- Eliminating Pelosi's weekly private flights to/from California
- Eschewing future White House galas
- Stopping NSA's Internet snooping
- Closing the IRS's Cincinnati office
- Stop recharging EBT cards
- Ceasing Eric Holder's gun-running purchases
- Curtailing of the Obama's extravagant  family vacations
- Shuttering the Congressional barber shop
- Stopping all government bank bailouts
- Closing all Obamacare federal healthcare insurance exchanges

And I'm sure there are many other worthwhile possibilities ...