Ebola

Chris Matthews, of all people, is questioning our president’s assurances that it was unlikely that we would have a case of Ebola originating here in the United States … see: Real Clear Politics. Now we have … and Obama’s acolytes (like Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel) are still assuring us that everything is contained and will be OK. I do hope so and am somewhat inclined to give the president the benefit of the doubt. 

However, I have less confidence that, once the thousands of our military personnel are returning ... who we have sent to the west of Africa ... that things will be still be so rosy. Another eminent doctor, Dr. Benjamin Carson, has expressed doubt that we are handling this potential major epidemic correctly … see: Breitbart Story.

British Airways has shut down all flights in and out of these Ebola infected countries in Africa through the end of the year … see: Washington Examiner Story . I do wish that our president would step up and explain why we haven’t done the same thing.

Bedfellows …

Make strange politicians. On Saturday George Clooney, 53, and Amal Alamuddin, 36, got married in a glitzy wedding in Venice, Italy … to the bitter disappointment of thousands of female wanna-bes around the world. It seems that this match-up had political overtones as Clooney, an uber-left, Israel-hating, Obama-loving, environmentalist, movie actor, and Alamuddin, a Lebanese-born, Israel-hating, human-rights attorney; share most of the same political views. Clooney is now also rumored as having his eye on running for governor of California in 2018 and an Arab bride would obviously round out his diversity credentials in this hotbed of mindless liberalism … see: Breitbart Story.

I have seen most of the swooning reports of these nuptials and I have yet to notice any indication that Alamuddin was sporting a beard.

Afterthought: I also have yet to see any mention of George Clooney's parents at this wedding ... strange?

Webb Master

The former Senator from Virginia and Viet Nam veteran, Jim Webb, is toying with the idea of running for president in 2016 as the anti-war candidate on the Democrat ticket. I still believe that Hillary won’t run and, if the war against ISIS is going badly by then … almost a certainty, given the fecklessness of our Commander-in-Chief, Obama … Webb might just have a shot at the Democrat nomination. To read a lot of the back-and forth about his possible dovish candidacy … with lots of quotes from him and third parties … see: The Washington Post Article. (You might also note that the Post has already subtly taken sides in this imagined dog-fight.)

But Hillary does have one ardent supporter … Don Imus. The other morning on his Fox Business show he said that, because of the growing ISIS threat, he was going to support Hillary. He added, “if the Clinton's are willing to kill their friends, they certainly would be willing kill those ISIS dudes.”

Ba-da-bing.

Obama's Weapon of Choice

The Blame Game

President Obama now has a reason why he underestimated the threat from ISIS (and called them the “JV team”) … it was the failure of our intelligence services … see: Face the Nation Interview.            

Maybe just perhaps if he had attended more of his daily intelligence briefings? See: The American Thinker.

Billy Come Lately

Bill Clinton knows three reasons why Americans' wage growth has been non-existant under President Obama. He shared these pity thoughts at the Clinton Global Initiative meeting over the weekend. These insights are: 1) a loose labor market, 2) a stagnant job mix, and 3) poor economic growth. He suggests three solutions: 1) raise the minimum wage, 2) companies should share more of their profits with their workers, and 3) reform the corporate taxing system … see: CNBC Story.

Except for corporate tax reform, I feel that none of these thoughts were that economically profound … in fact, like most of Clinton’s pronouncements from on high, they were just weak syllogisms or tautologies. What about fewer government regulations? What about fixing Obamacare? What about stopping the flood of cheap labor through illegal immigration? What about reducing government wasteful spending? What about free-trade agreements particularly with Central and South America? What about encouraging rather than trying to stifle this country’s energy development? Just to name a few …

Nevertheless, I have a suggestion … Bill, you had a phone and your wife had President Obama’s private number. Perhaps you could have rung him up sometime over the last six years and offered him some advice on how you would fix things? Instead of Billy come lately ...

reddit Gallery CCIV

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!

Pacific Ocean Floor

Exploding Lava Bubble

Jacked Up in 1919

Yin and Yang

Kinesin (a motor protein) pulling a vesicle along cytoskeletal filament

Snake Eating Its Own Tail

Bill Maher is sounding more and more like a right-winger with every of his passing HBO shows ... see: Breitbart Video. This is a video of another of his monologues with which I can mostly agree. Can somebody ... like a snake eating its own tail ... become so liberal that one ends up being a conservative?

Poo Poo

I’ve had my full share of poo-poo-ers in life. 

“I don’t think that it’s safe to travel to Egypt at this time.” “Poo Poo.” 

 “I think that George W. Bush is wrong about Putin.” “Poo Poo.” 

 “Wind and solar energy will never supply our needs.” “Poo Poo.” 

 “I don't think many Muslims reject violence.” “Poo Poo.” 

 “Obamacare is a travesty.” “Poo Poo.” 

 “Mexico may not be the best place to retire to just now.” “Poo Poo.” 

 “There seems to be widespread voter fraud.” “Poo Poo.” 

 “Illegal immigrants are drawn here because of easy welfare.” “Poo Poo.” 

 "There really were WMDs in Iraq before the invasion.” “Poo Poo.” 

 “Carbon dioxide is fundamentally a good gas.” “Poo Poo. 

 “Hillary Clinton has animus toward Israel.” “Poo Poo. 

“President Obama often shows disdain for capitalism.” “Poo Poo.” 

 “Late-term abortions are clearly infanticide.” “Poo Poo.” 

 “Our welfare system has destroyed the American family.” “Poo Poo.”

 Actually, I think my batting average is at least as high as Derek Jeeter's

It’s Heeere …

Alton Nolen, aka Jah'Keem Yisrael, a radicalized convert to Islam brutally beheaded a female co-worker in Moore, Oklahoma today, tried to kill another worker, and was shot and stopped by an executive of the company from which he had just been fired ... see: Yahoo News Story.

President Obama issued a statement deploring this gratuitous gun violence and saying that Alton could have been his son …

Afterward" Even more reason to believe "its heeere" ... see: The Gateway Pundit. Since this is Oklahoma, I wonder if this band of radicalized Muslims might contain a few that entered via Mexico?

Our Next Attorney General

Since Eric Holder has announced his departure from this post, there has been great speculation as to whom President Obama might name to replace him. Such names as Deval Patrick, current Governor of Massachusetts, have popped up … even though he strenuously denies that he is in the running. That being the case, I would like to offer my suggestions as to who it might be. How about?

      -        Lani Guinier – lawyer, rejected nominee to the Supreme Court

-        Bill Ayers – former Barack Obama neighbor, often needing a lawyer

-        George Clooney – played a lawyer in “Intolerable Cruelty”

-        Bill Clinton – disbarred lawyer for lying under oath

-        Lynne Stewart – The Blind Sheikh’s lawyer, convicted of abetting terrorism

-        Michelle Obama – former lawyer and famed nutritionist

-        Eliot Spitzer – roue, lawyer and former governor of New York

-        Anthony Weiner – out-of-work protégée of the lawyer, Charles Schumer

So Long Eric

Eric Holder will be leaving his post as Attorney General in the Obama administration. I expect that, in his mind, he was honest, patriotic, selfless, color-blind, non-political, guileless, forthright, non-inflammatory, even-handed, unapproachable, non-controversial, a constitutionalists, and "a uniter, not a divider."

He wasn't ... not even close.

reddit Gallery CCIII

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!

Beautiful Table

Beautiful Toolbox

Earthquake Problems

Inside a Burning Log

Freezing Soap Bubble

Branson’s Booby

Surprise, surprise! The Virgin Galactic sub-orbital space flight has been delayed again … see: Bloomberg Article. Richard Branson, President of Virgin Enterprises, has just announced that the first passenger-carrying flight of his Buck Rogers adventure will be delayed again … until next spring. This is the umpteenth cancellation of this event which was last scheduled for this past August … see: Space Shot. Tom Bower who is writing a book about this British entrepreneur opines (in the first article referenced above) that Branson’s booby (my term … that sea-bird which is notorious for having difficulty taking off) is “unlikely ever to attain its goal of carrying passengers into sub-orbital flight.”

So far this adventure has already collected more than $80 million in deposits (@ $250,000 a pop) from would-be passengers (many famous … see the above article.) Although I have been picking on Richard Branson ... in a way this would be a shame … for such a “failure to launch” would clearly sully what has been Branson’s otherwise larger-than-life life.

Ben Shapiro Decodes Obama

Ben Shapiro, wunderkind of the Breitbart news organization, has written a running commentary of President Obama’s Teleprompter reading today at the United Nations General Assembly. It is pretty much spot on … may I suggest you indulge yourself at:  Obama's UN Speech?

For those of you who, like myself, are not 'versant in Twitter short-hands, I offer the following translations of Shapiro's mnemonics:

ROFLMAO – Rolling On the Floor Laughing My Ass Off

LOLWUT --   no direct mnemonic translation, but indicates confusion about something someone else has said. I think the LOL part is the standard Laugh Out Loud and WUT stands for What?

SMDH --  Shaking My Damn Head

The only thing that I can add to Shapiro’s  comments is that I am often perplexed over how this man (or might I say his speech writers) can be so often at variance with the majority of U.S. citizenry.

Afterthought: Mika Brzeznski was absolutely organismic over this very same Obama UN speech on this morning's Morning Joe show. I guess I am at a loss as to how two people can have such diametrically different opinions about the same event. Perhaps The Shadow is at work ... remember the line from his radio show ... that he had the "ability to cloud the minds of man" ... and, in this case, woman?

Death Panels

Sarah Palin warned us about the coming death panels under Obamacare. Now, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel (brother of Rahm Emanuel, now Mayor of Chicago, but President Obama's former Chief of Staff) has indicated that he wants to die at the age of 75 ... see: UK Daily Mail Article. And, as it turns out, Dr. Emanuel was one of the chief architects of Obamacare and has been a very vocal advocate of its "benefits" ... usually on MSNBC. His rational for this headline-grabbing article in The Atlantic was that, at 75 years of age, people are " feeble, ineffectual, even pathetic."

Now, as it turns out, I am 75 years old and, although I may be ineffectual, feel neither feeble or pathetic ... and I have refused to give my permission for my family to "pull the plug" on me when I am sliding home. I want to live as long as I am aware of things. Now Dr. Emanuel is only 57 years old so it is a little easier for him to harbor such a death wish ... but I suspect he might have second thoughts in another 17 years. I am also sure of is that I would not like to have him on my Obamacare-decreed death panel. This current administration controls too much of my life as it is. I really don't want them deciding when and how I croak.

Afterthought: Just did some Internet snooping. I think that Ezekiel Emanuel's parents are both alive ... Dad Benjamin is 87 and Mom Marsha is 81. I wonder how they feel about Zeke's comments dissing old people?

Threading the Needle

President Obama has finally let the dogs out … unleashing air strikes against ISIS targets in northern Syria. I happen to believe that this is the right thing for him to do. However, this action is bound to enrage the leftist peaceniks and the rightist libertarians/isolationists. So he has a very delicate job ahead of him in justifying this belligerency. Some are already linking this to the “October surprise” that I had previously mentioned … see: October Surprise. This may be the case, but turning this opportunistic war into the Democrats’ holding onto the Senate is bound to require a bit of legerdemain.

Many in the Democrat base will feel a eerie connection to President Bush if they supposed to vote for their local Congressional candidates in November … and therefore may stay home. Whereas, America-first Republicans (mostly in the contested states) may be even more energized to throw Harry Reid’s band of outlaws out of Senate. So I don’t envy Obama in this political balancing act. Yes, his Teleprompter writers are good politicians and glib wordsmiths … but can they manipulate both these blocs and save the Democrat bacon from this Middle-East conflagration? I am now awaiting our fearless leader's TV address to the nation …

... I just heard the president’s talk. It was short, sweet, and bereft of details. But he did say that Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Jordan, and Qatar had joined us in these air strikes (exactly how?) and that that one specifically-targeted group, Khorasan, an al Qaeda affiliated group, was planning an attack against a western interests (whom exactly?). He also said that this was just the start of what would be a sustained series of air attacks on ISIS (at least through election day.)

I also do commend the administration for this recently-assembled Sunni coalition, but believe that would be a lot more important if they were actually sending “boots on the ground” into this area instead of flying next to U.S. F-22s.

The Four Horsepersons ...

of the Apocalypse ...

From left to right:

Jane Goodall (I think) with her stuffed gorilla, etc
Al Gore, the lead horseperson
NYC Mayor, Bill de Blasio
UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon

all at the vanguard of the death match against evil carbon dioxide.

I feel so much better ...

Afterthought: Doesn't Jane Goodall look pathetic with her stuffed animals? Rather, she might have just deferred to those two gorillas to her left ...

Damn!

Here follows a series of on-the-street interviews with the yo-yos marching at the climate protests in New York City this past weekend ... see: Powerline Blog ... watch the video ... it's priceless!. I say "damn" because I would have loved to have this interviewer ask the following question, "What percent of our Earth's atmosphere now is carbon dioxide?" I am certain that the answers would reflect the hysteria that these useful idiots are experiencing. I sincerely believe that most of them would have suggested well over 10% ,.. but nothing like 1%. However, you who read this blog religiously would know that the actual number is much less than 1/10 of 1%. In fact the actual number is 0.04% (see: Wilipedia Entry) ... and this fraction has only grown by 0.0065 percentage points over the last 34 years (see: Answers' Answer)! 300 million years ago (during the Carboniferous Period) carbon dioxide was over ten times as prevalent as it is today ... yet the world survived then very nicely thank you.

I might have even had this interviewer instead ask the question as to what the percentage of carbon monoxide is in our atmosphere ... as I am also reasonably sure that most of these self-defined saviours of our planet would not know the difference. The term "useful idiots" was well chosen by Lenin.

NFL

The NFL (Not For Lace-undies) has had a rough week. The Ray Rice (a Baltimore Raven's running back) wife-battering scandal along with numerous other female- and children-abuse accusations has embarrassed the National Football League's Commissioner, Roger Goddell, and many of the more reticent team owners ... see Fox Sports Story. Yes, this league is not generally composed of Nancy-boys. It is, in effect, chock full of modern-day gladiators ... trained from their tweens in the more violent aspects of sports combat. And, much as we hate to admit it, most of we fans relish this violence and use it to keep our juices flowing on Sunday afternoons.

For us, in this increasingly sissified country, to imagine that this violent sport will not breed violent individuals is an obvious flight of fancy. We (by way of the TV sponsors) pay these pig-skin gladiators millions of dollars and inject them into the glitzy limelight of modern-day adulation. Really, how can we expect these combatants to be able to turn on their aggressions during game day ... and then be pussycats off the field? Yes, some may be able to live such a bifurcated life, but we really should not be surprised ... and exhibit feigned indignation ... at those who can't.

The effective solution ... either modify this sport to remove its violence ... (flag football ... and lose the fans) ... or possibly outlaw the sport altogether. Keeping the status quo will only result in many, many more of these upsetting brutalities. Therefore, if we choose to keep and pamper our precious NFL gladiators, we should not be high dudgeon when these abhorrent off-the-field incidents occur. Yes, punish any miscreants to the full extent of the law in the courts ... and too the league and team owners involved in cover-ups ... but keep the sport intact.

All you real football fans, let's stop being high-pitched hypocrites.

Afterthought: Even though Joe Scarborough was one of the "high-pitched hypocrites" I was thinking of when I used that above-term, I had to agree with him this AM on MSNBC when he called for the NFL to lose its tax-exempt status. This "trade association" will take in $10.5 billion in tax-free revenue in 2014 ... and its commissioner gets $30 million of this while $6 billion is distributed to the NFL teams ... see:CNN Story. To me, this seems a blatant and undeserved perk ... one that should be rescinded by Congress for the sake of keeping the NFL's head from exploding. Now seems a perfect time to do it.

Inertia

A body at rest tends to stay at rest. Despite the boast that U.S. airplanes have struck northern Iraq over 180 times (and now French aircraft too), it doesn't seem to be slowing ISIS down. Just in the last 24 hours over 70,000 Syrians have fled across the border into Turkey ... see: Enews Story. These refugees are mostly Kurds which does not make Turkey all that happy ... for it has been oppressing this ethnic minority also ... but not by putting their heads on stakes ... not yet anyway. When our fearless leader issued his call-to-arms last week, we had already made some 150 air strikes in Iraq. So this means that, since then, we have had just 30 or so more ... and none yet in Syria.

What in God's name is Obama waiting for? He has been called the "reluctant warrior" ... I think a better name might be the "body-at-rest warrior."

Free Ride

The initial public offering (IPO) of Alibaba Group Ltd. (BABA), the huge Chinese Internet company, has made quite a few investors quite a bit of money ... and I don't even mean the venture capitalists and other initial and mezzanine investors like Yahoo. I mean those people and companies who were allocated stock in the initial distribution this morning at $68 per share. They then had opportunities to sell this stock for as much as $99.70 per share after the stock started trading about noon today at $92.70. During my days on Wall Street, selling an IPO during its first trading day used to be called a "free ride."

The size of this initial offering was 320.1 million shares and the total volume for this first trading day totaled over 271 million shares. This means that it is possible that many of those who received their shares on the original allocation had a opportunity to sell them for at least a $24.70 per share profit to as much as $31.70 per share profit ... meaning that those who were lucky enough to get these allocations were wealthier (on paper anyway) by at least $7.91 billion ... possibly more. Not bad! Basically all this wealth was just created out of thin air. One clever author call this IPO-created magical wealth, Supermoney ... see: Amazon Listing.

To me, this suggests that all this monetary gas may keep the stock market inflated for a while yet. To read more about this IPO and Alibaba itself read: Marketwatch Writeup.

Afterthought: Thinking about this IPO further, I may have stumbled upon the fundamental advantage of capitalism ... super wealth creation. Such things just don't happen under those economies of the commonwealth variety. Perhaps that is why the U.S. keeps winning despite all our screw-ups?

October Surprise

Bob Beckel said last night on "The Five" that he believed that the Democrats had an October surprise up their sleeves to help them hold onto the Senate ... see: Breitbart Video. He suggested that it had to do with national security. Obviously this would not be the first time that the Democrats have cynically toyed with the safety of the American people in order to win elections ... remember Benghazi? How can this administration hold back on a national security issue and then cause it to surface on cue? I just hope that this possible bit of subterfuge does not misfire and cost the lives of any more Americans.

Will we be able to identify such an October surprise when it occurs? Now I know I will.

reddit Gallery CCII -- More Pulchritude

NSFW. 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!

Lolling

20 year old Sofia Vergara

Out for a Stroll

Horsing Around

Butt Pretty

Where is WHO?

Let’s give him credit … President Obama has instituted a magnanimous humanitarian effort in West Africa by sending 3,000 U.S. troops there (Liberia mostly) to help combat a growing Ebola epidemic through restoring order and the construction of 17 Ebola treatment centers … see: Yahoo Story. This apparently is motivated in part by the reticence of rest of the world to step up in force to this crisis. There used to be an old expression, “Let George do it.” Now it is, “Let the U.S. do it.” Where are the prosperous nations of Europe … Germany, Sweden, Norway, Great Britain, France? Where are the U.N. and the World Health Organization (WHO)?

WHO’s budget this year is about $4 billion … see: Wikipedia Entry . Where is WHO in this crisis? And what about the blue-helmeted UN peacekeepers whose budget this year is about $8.6 billion of which the United States pays 28% … see: Reuters Article … where are they? Apparently, according to the UN, its peacekeepers are not trained to fight Ebola. Are the U.S. troops any better equipped?

To borrow an expression from my old days in the construction industry … the UN and WHO are about as useful as tits on a bull.

ISIS vs. ISIL

What's in a name? The Obama administration insists upon calling the current insurrection in northern Iraq and Syria "ISIL" which stands for Islamic State in Iraq and Levant ...  as opposed to "ISIS" which stands for Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Therefore the key to this mystery is the word Levant ... so, in order to clear things up, I went to my good friend, Google, and found the following information:

Countries and regions located in the Levant region. (Cyprus, Hatay, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine and Syria)
Countries and regions sometimes included in the Levant region. (Iraq and Sinai)
Entire territory of countries whose regions are included in the Levant region. (Egypt and Turkey)

To see the actual source of this information, go to: Wikipedia Entry.

So Obama and his ragtag posse of Keystone Kops are allowing that this "non-Islamic" insurgency really is laying claim to a much larger area than it currently controls ... including Israel. This gives it a lot more credit than it clearly deserves.

Why would the Obama administration insist on doing this?

I'm going to keep calling it ISIS ...

Progressivism

The Ken Burns' documentary "The Roosevelt's" has spent considerable time on Teddy Roosevelt's progressive reforms (trust busting, pure food and drugs, civil service hiring, land conservation, etc.) ... most of which are universally lauded today.  And T.R. has had his likeness carved on Mount Rushmore as a consequence.

This has got me musing ... there is one fundamental flaw with the progressive agenda ... and that is ... after the most obvious beneficial reforms have been enacted, many "progressives" think that any change is still necessarily good. Thus change becomes an objective in and of itself … with little thought to the possible consequences. If the progressive movement was right in Teddy Roosevelt’s time, then it must still be the bright path to lasting political fame.

Once most or all of the low-hanging progressive fruit has been plucked, then progressives find sillier and sillier things that must be reformed ... many of which begin to erode the very fabric of our society. Many of these inane progressive fixes have more to do with changing social norms rather than fixing structural economic problems. Here are a few:

- Poverty is a primary target of the progressive movement … with transfer payments of all types now totaling hundreds of billions of dollars annually. The result? This country now has a huge indolent class which is now totally dependent on these government handouts … and unwilling to seek gainful employment. Yet they are still indigent because “poverty” keeps being defined upwards and most of those transfer payment are not included in such measurements. And this growing unproductive population then requires millions of immigrants to take their places at an additional economic and socially-disruptive cost. And this is called progress …

- Progressives have now determined that the government cannot now intrude into the bedroom to define deviant and often destructive moral conduct ... yet it can and must intercede to pay for the consequences of such questionable morality ... contraceptives, an AIDs cure, abortions, redefining marriage, sex-change operations, etc. So far pedophilia, bestiality, incest, and polygamy have escaped such social "progress" but, if such progressive trends continue ...

- Progressives have also decided, on very dubious “scientific" evidence, that carbon dioxide, a gas that is the basis of all life on earth, is a pollutant and must be regulated with punitive economic policies. This would be the equivalent to Teddy Roosevelt, because of the then unsanitary slaughterhouse practices, outlawing meat.

- Gender and sexual-orientation equality has morphed in the progressive mind to gender and sexual-orientation equivalence. Women are now encouraged to serve in military combat roles. Men who think of themselves as women must be allowed to intermingle with women in all their erstwhile segregated places ... and visa versa. Did Teddy, the archetypical progressive have women serving with him in the Rough Riders?

Has ‘progressivism” now devolved into something bad instead of something good? To me it has …

Yoyo Pants

Above is a picture of the Columbia women's cycling team. Notice anything strange about their uniforms? See: Breitbart Story.

The Roosevelts

Like many, I have been watching Ken Burns' documentary about the Roosevelt's on PBS. So far it has included many interesting facts about Teddy Roosevelt of which I was unaware ... for instance, his actual derring-do (which I had understood to be manufactured) ... his many interactions with Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt ... and his early cowboy life in the western United States. The preponderance of the story has so far has concentrated on Teddy, but I am looking forward to more on FDR and Eleanor ... whose lives somewhat intersected mine.

In particular I have two recollections of this pair ... one, somewhat shabby and the other, somewhat poignant. First the shabby one ... even as a young child I can still hear the animosity that many in this country felt toward the Roosevelt's ... as exhibited by this joke I recall hearing (even with the inflections mimicking FDR's patrician way of speaking.) It goes thusly:

FDR -- We have a new weapon that will destroy all armies ... We have a new weapon that will destroy all navies ... We have a new weapon that will destroy all nations ... Eleanor, show them your teeth. (Sorry, not very kind ... but for the sake of an historic perspective, I repeat it.)

The other story involves me, at the age of six and a small playmate, Eliot. We were playing below our house in an alleyway when my father came home from work and called out to greet us. Eliot shouted up to my father that Roosevelt had died. To my lasting surprise, my father started crying. I say surprise because I thought my father, a Republican, didn't care much for FDR. But apparently the stress of the war and his understanding of how FDR had carried us (almost) through it, brought out this stronger emotion. My father himself died a few months later.

I look forward to the remaining episodes of this well-researched and carefully-produced documentary.

Poor Timing?

Cat Stevens, or Yusuf Islam as he is now known after converting to Islam in 1977, has just announced a new national musical tour of his "Peace Train" ... his biggest hit prior to his enlightenment ... see: AP Story. It would seem to this blogger that Yusuf's notion that he can recreate his prior popularity in the light of what is taking place in the Middle East may be a bit of wishful thinking. Obviously, touring the country using his Muslim name does not make a lot of sense ... so he has reassumed his feline appellation in the hope that the mindless millennials in this country won't notice.

But in order to kill two birds with one stone, at the conclusion of each appearance, he is planning to end with a heavy-metal flourish ... decapitating one of his Christian frontmen.

You know what? This tour well might work after all for Yusuf ... if Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber can bamboozle our young-in's, why not him?

Cult of Personality

The media is in a frenzy ... Hillary Clinton has gone to Iowa to "attend Tom Harkin's annual Steak Fry" ...  acting coy and coquettish about whether she will seek the presidency in 2016. Makes me want to heave to see she and husband, Billy Bob, playing the frenzied crowd like a harp ... see: New York Times' Saccharin Coverage. Isn't this the exact same kind of cult-of-personality mindless adulation that got us into our current governance morass?

Such glorification makes for a big head ... but an even bigger bank account. Hillary Clinton, until such time as she decides (from on high) about her run for the Oval Office, can still command her astronomical speaking fees (maybe even higher ones) and she and Billy Bob can also extort hefty donations to the Clinton Foundation ... as potential access grease for when she would be president.

And this is why I believe that she won't run ... repeat won't run ... and why she will put this Macbeth-like decision off for as long as the national media will tolerate. By then she will likely have feathered her nest and that of the Clinton Foundation to the tune of mega millions ... enough to spend her last years in plutocratic luxury ... and keep Billy Bob in bimbos.

I'm Puzzled

ISIS is clearly using its recently performed beheadings to draw the United States and possibly other infidel nations into battle within its homeland ... in what it calls the Islamic State (which isn't Islamic according to our fearless leader.) Yet the well-documented reason for the original 9/11 attacks was because the United States was defiling the holy land of Saudi Arabia with its presence. Are not these two rationales in fundamental conflict? Want you here ... don't want you here ...

Such schizophrenia on the part of a large group of heavily-armed religious fanatics is obviously a very dangerous situation ... and yes, President Obama needs to be cautious in his dealing with such a mass malady. But why hasn't he and his legions of expensive advisers figured things out by now? Despite Obama's nationally-televised "strategy" statement, it still appears to me that our ship of state is rudderless ... lacking any truly decisive direction. Words are not actions.

The longer this kinetic vacuum exists, the more concerned we all should become ...

reddit Gallery CCI

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!

232 Carat African Diamond

Man;s Best Friend

Joan River's Drawing Room

Artistic Wood Pile

Neon Pink Dragonfly

One, Maybe Two, Trick Ponies

Virgin Enterprise's Sir Richard Branson has had some business success ... but some of this infant terrible's  recent promises have  been hollow. He previously had pledged  to contribute $3 billion to cleaning up air pollution ... he has delivered on less than 1/10th of this amount ... see: The Guardian Story. He also has set multiple deadlines for his traveling to the edge of space in his Virgin Galactic "spaceship" ... the latest date being this past August. Suffice it to say he has still not fulfilled this pledge ...  nor is this likely to occur anytime soon ... see: Space Shot.

One has to admire this man's chutzpah ... but, on the other hand, like Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg ... who has outgrown his bank account ... see: Business Insider Story, he sometimes seems to have much more money than brains. Success often does this to entrepreneurs ... give them one round of applause in the center ring ... and they think that they can run the circus.