reddit Gallery CCXXXVII - More 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!

 Actual 1971 Jeans Ad

A League of Her Own

Curves of Cataluña

Jane Mansfield

Rack and Racket

The I’s Have It

In a recent speech in India, President Obama referred to himself 118 times in the course of three minutes … see: PJ Media Video! Can we have a more self-absorbed chief executive?

And we think that a “cult of personality" exists only in Russia …

Non Sequitur

The warmists are blaming our recent severe winter weather on global warming ... see: Washington Post Story. This was once called a non sequitur, but, with the bizarro world that we now are living in, a goodly number of liberal lemmings are nodding their heads in alarming agreement. (Isn't it also strange that global warming has become a political hot potato?) Can we now draw the following conclusions using the same pretzel logic?

- Losing weight can best be done by eating lots of cake, ice cream and cookies.

- Water-boarding is torture but killing by drone strike is not.

- The shortest route from New York to L.A. is by way of New Delhi.

- The best way to defeat one's enemies is by not identifying them by name.

- Smoking cigarettes is good for one's health.

- Paying more unemployment benefits creates jobs.

- Wings are not required for commercial airplanes to fly ... but tray tables are.

- Forcing banks to give mortgages to unqualified people helps them out.

- Carbon dioxide, the basis of all life, is an air-pollutant.

- Thought crimes are more dangerous as real ones.

Afterward: Greg Gutfeld had a good one ... drug dealers are undocumented pharmacists.

Good for Her!

Michelle Obama has refused to cover her head with a jihab when meeting with Saudi Arabian dignitaries as she and Barack stopped in Riyadh on their way back from India ... see: Yahoo News Story. This clearly-planned slight combined with our president's poor negotiating skills does not auger well for the Saudi's putting a stop to oil price declines which are damaging our oil-fracking industry. This combo already has probably cost us any such concessions ... but at least someone in this country has the chutzpah to stand up to these 9th century potentates.

(Barack, on the other hand, was again caught chewing gum while in India ... another pointless grade-school slight ... see: Politico Story.)

I don't often compliment our first lady, but in this case, "you go girl!"

Afterthought: I must have forgot ... President Obama hates the oil fracking industry in America ... so why would he try to protect it?

Luegenpresse

Some Germans have an interesting term for their main-stream media, it is “liar press” or luegenpresse in German … see: Breitbart Article. I guess that it was inevitable that a polarization like this would occur when militant Islamists in Europe keep pushing their agenda and the media there keeps papering over what is occurring. Eventually demonstrations, like what have occurred in Leipzig, Dresden and elsewhere in Europe, boil over and things start getting uglier and uglier on both sides.

The PEGIDA (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West) movement in Europe and now in Germany is disturbing in many ways. It is reminiscent of the fascist anti-Semitic frenzy that characterized Germany during the Second World War with all its brutal consequences. Yet it is also in some ways similar to the Occupy Wall Street movement and anti-Ferguson police riots here in the United States … both of which were instigated and encouraged by a biased media determined to scandalize our societal norms by pushing an unrealistic agenda.

To this observer, it seems that the consequences of the Second World War are still being felt in the West’s obsession with tolerance and diversity … perhaps to a fault. There is so much diversity in Europe that many countries there are in danger of losing their national identity. And many European countries are so tolerant that they allow sharia-law “no-go” zones where non-Muslims dare not go. (Could we possibly call them “ghettos”?) Both of these over-reactions to the horrors of the last big war have created a vacuum into which Muslims have stepped. Who really knows what percentage of these Muslims are militant extremists … but it is big enough to intimidate those who aren’t.

This is obviously a dangerous situation which is also slowly creeping into the social fabric of the United States … augmented by a president and much of this nation’s luegenpresse who have not yet had the scales fall from their eyes. I actually believe that a more realistic treatment of these diversity and tolerance issues relative to our Muslim communities here would serve them far better in the long run.

But unfortunately, I don’t expect that this will occur anytime soon.

Deflategate

Zzzzzzzz ...

The Day I Almost Died

I think it was sometime in the Fall of 1965. I was living on York Avenue in New York City in a rather upscale apartment building with a doorman with whom I had a good, jocular relationship. I was leaving this building in the morning to go to work when, in front of the building, our doorman was holding open the back door of a long black limousine. As a prank I entered this car's back seat and sat down as though the doorman was waiting for me ... to the surprise of the doorman, the limo driver, the front-seat passenger and the entourage of those right behind me.

The doorman, his face ashen, quickly grabbed my hand and pulled me back out of the limo ... to the relief of everyone. The intended passengers then entered the car and sped off. The doorman next took me aside and told me who these poobahs were. They were the Cuban delegation to the United Nations including, presumedly a few bodyguards. I then surmised that the front-seat passenger must have also been a bodyguard.

I then quickly realized I had come within inches of becoming an international incident ... with the strong likelihood of being pumped full of Cuban lead.

I gave the doorman a large tip that Christmas.

reddit Gallery CCXXXVII

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!

Sand Sculpture

Royalty

Napoleon's Pistol

Paper Cutting

Long-tailed Widowbird

The Cult

An MIT professor emeritus of meteorology, Richard Lindzen, who apparently isn't one of the 97%, has called climate alarmists a "cult." He says that, as evidence keeps mounting that global warming is nonexistent, "they get more and more fanatical." Read how one real scientist deals with these global-warming loonies here: Breitbart Article ... and how he deals with 2014 being the hottest year on record.

(One wag recently commented that 97% of scientists can't agree on anything.)

Afterward: The author of this article, Howie Carr, hosts a radio talk show here in Boston on which he occasionally offers to sell "Honest Howie's Carbon Credits." I wonder if the owners of any of the 1,700 private jets that flew to Davos, Switzerland this week will buy such credits? They are there to attend a conference at which one of the topics of discussion is ... you guessed it ... global warming.

After Afterward: See also: Breitbart Article.

Currency Wars

The world is a boil with currency devaluations, interest rate cuts and quantitative easings (QEs) by numerous central banks. Because of the recent slump in oil prices, the Canadian central bank has just cut its lending rate … with another commodity exporter, Australia, expected to follow suit shortly … see: CNBC Story. And today Mario Draghi of the European Central Bank is expected to announce the start of another QE program totaling perhaps 500 billion euros … see: Another CNBC Story.

I have in the past commented on what has degenerated into a major pissing contest between the central banks of the more developed nations and what the consequences that might result are … see: Race to the Bottom. It seems to this observer that the world has been lulled into an expectation, led by the now retired Chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank, Ben Bernanke, that central banks are the panacea for all the world’s economic woes.

Clearly monetary policy, in the long run, cannot solve basic economic malaise … yet the world’s stock markets now seem addicted to the opiate of easy money and very low, even negative, interest rates. This cannot all end well … at some point, possibly sooner than we wish, as Obama’s reverend, Jeremiah Wright, would say, “the chickens will come home to roost.”

What is now an illogical deflationary monetary and commodity spiral, I somehow expect, will flip into run-away inflationary in a nanosecond. Money is, after all, just gussied-up pieces of paper representing a political promise. Be prepared for these promises to be broken …

What's Wrong with this Picture?

I found this picture on reddit with the title, "A Belgian Blue Super Cow"

Detoxification

Scott Johnson has posted on the Powerline blog a way of detoxifying from last night's State of the Disunion address given by someone whose name conveniently escapes me. His post features a video of Thomas Sowell of the Hoover Institute commenting on all issues big and small. A lot of it is right on ... some of it is not Sowell at his best ... but it is 50 minutes better spent than watching that haughty high-hat huffing and puffing last night. Grab a cup of java and a donut and enjoy this low-key return to economic and social sanity ... see:  Powerline Blog.

This fellow thinks and speaks So well.

New Ulcer Cure

Don't watch President Obama's State of the Union address tonight ...

Juxtaposition LIV

Muslim Women

Catholic Nuns

Posture Pictures

Mount Holyoke College has canceled its annual Valentine's Day showing of the play "The Vagina Monologues" on the basis of some of its "female" students may not have vaginas ( vaginae?) and might be offended ... see: Breitbart Story. Now, I may be of the old, old school ... but at one time, when entering Seven Sisters women's schools, the administrations would take front and sideways nude posture pictures of all their students ... assumedly checking for scoliosis ... and the rumored super coup for male Ivy Leaguers was to abscond with this portfolio of soft porn.

Clearly, if this scoliosis check was still in vogue, Mount Holyoke would have a much better notion if any of their entering students were carrying wood.

reddit Gallery CCXXXVI -- Circles

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!

800 Year-Old Indian Stone Wheel

Waterlily Bottom

Man in the Moon

Japanese Manhole Cover

Tennis Rackets

Islamic State

There are some who are proposing that an Islamic state be established in the United States ... see: Breitbart Article. If this is to be the case, may I suggest that it be California? (I would recommend Massachusetts as an even-better candidate, except I happen to live there.)

Black Swan Events

L

2015 has had its first black swan financial event ... the removal of the peg between the Swiss Franc and the European Euro ... an event that has traumatized currency markets causing the Swiss Franc to appreciate 30% in minutes ... and sent the Swiss stock market down over 10%  ... see: CNBC Story. (Black swan events are out-of-the-blue occurrences, like a black swan landing on a koi pond.) And I have a suspicion that this may not be the only such unexpected financial event of this new year ... already speculation is growing that the Euro may be on its last legs ... see: Breitbart Article.

If I were to guess,  another such financial shock in the new year might well center around commodities ... in particular gold. Already there are rumors that China might be hording gold with the intent of establishing its Yuan as a gold-backed currency ... see:  Money Metals Story. If this were to occur, Gresham's Law (good money drives bad money out of circulation) would change the financial landscape overnight. The U.S. Dollar, which is now on a roll, would plummet and financial markets would suffer apoplectic fits. The United States might even be forced back onto a gold-standard itself ... that is, if we have as much gold in Fort Knox as we claim ... see: U.S. News Story.

The only thing that I could imagine that would deter China from making such a bold currency move would be the large amount of dollar-denominated debt that it currently holds ... it would be cutting of its own nose to spite its face. But also note, China has been gradually paring back such lendings to America  ...see: Bloomberg Article. Perhaps China's intent might be a longer-term strategy?

Religious Pluralism

China, it seems, has taken a pragmatic approach to radical Islamic terrorism. In China's Xinjiang region, it has banned all Muslims with full beards or wearing "hijabs, niqabs, burkas or clothing with the Islamic star or crescent" from traveling on public transportation ... see: Breitbart Article. The Uyghurs there are the mostly Muslim residents who have been causing a bit of mayhem ... but it appears not nearly as much as has been experienced elsewhere in the world. Nonetheless these Chinese radicals are now getting it as good as they have given.

As this Muslim zealotry metastacizes throughout the world, more countries may have to be as realistically repressive as China. I do sense that Europe is finally waking up to the severity of this jihad threat. Hindus have also fought long and bloody battles with Muslims after India achieved its independence from Great Britain. And Russia has been brutally combating these uprisings in its Muslim provinces for some time now.

And I suspect that eventually, whenever this radical Muslim threat hopefully subsides, most of these peoples will have some pangs of remorse for such measures ... a tale oft repeated in the past.

But in the meantime, true to form, the United States is once again leading from our president's behind on the issue of the Muslim fundamentalist threat. Will we need eventually to follow suit? My guess is that we will be forced to ... out of desperation ... but not for a few more years

Racism

Much like Michelle Obama once was, this chap was also subjected to blatant racism ...

(from reddit)

A Strategic Suggestion

The falling oil prices are causing problems for the shale oil industry players  in the United States ... postponing many new wells and putting a crimp on their payback of existing capital-spending borrowings. This is a seeming result of Saudi Arabia's refusal to cut oil production despite a world-wide glut of oil ... apparently as an opening salvo in its economic war on most of the other world's oil producers ... including America. It apparently believes that it can use this strategy to protect its long-term market share.

However, the United States does have one way to counter this aggression (if we would take some time out from our golfing). We could take a cue from our old railroad baron, Jay Gould (see: Pricing for Profit), and begin buying enormous quantities of Saudi oil and storing it in our strategic petroleum reserves (or creating new ones). This would be a win-win-win in that it would allow us to help out our shale-oil producers, prepare these oil reserves for any future oil shortages, and also top-off these reserves at rock-bottom prices.

That does, of course, presuppose that our current government could think strategically ...

What

does this mean? All is forgiven ... by whom ... Muslims ... Mohammad ... rather presumptuous, no? What is the "all" that is forgiven ... the Paris butchery ... the original slight against Islam ... the fact that President Obama stayed home to watch football? The magazine/newspaper Charlie Hebdo is printing three million copies of this assumedly defiant issue when it normally sells 60,000 copies. Suddenly the slaughter of those 12 innocents has increased its circulation 50-fold and it's first run of 500,000 is already sold-out .. see: ABC News Story or Wall Street Journal Story or Fox News Story or CNN Story. (It is interesting to note that in none of these links is the actual full cover shown ... is that what is to be forgiven?)

This kerfuffle reminds me a bit of the "Bring Back Our Girls" Twitter hashtag campaign over those African kidnappings by Boko Haram ... a victory of symbolism over substance.

And the Obama administration can't even bring itself to utter the words "Islamic extremism" ...

Liberal Solutions

Why is it that so many liberal solutions to societal problems don't work? Now liberals generally are not stupid ... nor are they, I assume, trying to make matters worse. But all too often their well-meaning solutions to imbalances in our society end up costing a fortune and destroying an existing working mechanism. What is that old saying ... if it ain't broke, don't fix it?

It isn't difficult to come up with examples of these liberal failings here in the United States  How about their insisting on dealing with terrorists inside of our criminal justice system? How about their not enforcing many of our immigration policies (George W. Bush included)? How about their continued diminishing of our military hegemony? How about their expansion of our welfare system beyond reason? How about their creating of mechanisms that encourage voter fraud? How about their self-serving roiling of race and gender relations? How about their attempts to overthrow our gun freedoms? How about their penchant for deficit spending (ditto George W. Bush)? How about even their continued attempts to centralize powers away from the people?

To be fair, there are occasional liberal ideas that do work ... at least for a time ... like social security, and some reasonable welfare benefits. (Many might also claim that the roll-back of slavery and the Jim Crow laws were liberal wins ... but it was just the opposite.) But, when such successes are accomplished, liberals double down, triple down, and even quadruple down until such benefits are crushed under their inherent weaknesses.

reddit Gallery CCXXXV

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!

Money from the Titanic

Black Swan in Koi Pond

Tulips

Chrysocolla

Shooting Star

Who

is not in this picture of the Charlie Hedbo Unity March in Paris? Obama? Biden? Kerry? They must be under the haystack, fast asleep ... see: UK Daily Mail Story.

Afterward: To read Diplomad's slightly different slant on this issue, please read: Paris Peace March.

Little Boy Blue

Little Billy De Blasio

The Mayor of New York City, Little Billy De Blasio, has created a bit of mess for himself in his dealings with Big Apple's police department. I hope I don't need to recount the details of his hashing of relations with the police there ... a muddling that may not be remedied in the next three years of his term. However, seeing what has just happened in Paris, I believe that Little Billy's problems may have just begun.

I surmise this because one of Wee Willy's first actions after assuming his office last year was to disband the city's anti-terrorist task force (see: Atlas Shrugged) ... a task force which had proven over the years its effectiveness in thwarting many terrorists incidents there. So now, if and when there is a Paris-like jihadist attack in Gotham, it will clearly be on De Blasio's shoulders ... just as the recent assassinations of the two policemen there can be traced directly to Little Billy's inept handling of the Staten Island death of a seller of "onesie" cigarettes.

I clearly hope that De Blasio's ideological-driven silliness does not backlash on New York City. However, if it does, then this physical giant's metaphysical stature will shrink even further ... into nothingness.

Priorities

I don’t particularly like Bill O’Reilly as I find him a little too pompous for my taste. Anyhow, last night I did happen to be watching him as he was interviewing Josh Earnest, the Obama administration’s press secretary, regarding Islamic terrorism and their recent attacks in Paris. O’Reilly was on a rant and tore Earnest a new orifice. In particular, after ticking off the numerous recent horrendous incidents of Muslim butchery, O’Reilly asked him what was Obama’s strategy for defeating the worldwide Jihadist movement. The usually glib Earnest said that Obama did not have one! Oops!

However, our fearless leader apparently did spend his 17-day Hawaiian vacation coming up with another government spending program to appease his base … taxpayer-funded (China-funded, actually) free two-years of community college. I’m so glad that our president has his priorities straight.

Global Smarming

IPCC Global Warming Model Projections vs. Actual Observations

John Hinderacker tosses a dart into the heart of the global warming cabal with his latest blog post on Powerline. In it he compares the actual global temperature track (from satellite data ... the most reliable data there is) from October, 1996 to present which shows absolutely no global warming for the last 18.25 years. In this blog post's conclusion he states:

Models that are invalidated by observation are worthless. There is no point trying to excuse their failure or make modest tweaks to keep the erroneous theories on which they are based alive. As a matter of science, anthropogenic global warming alarmism is finished. It survives, like a dead frog whose legs are still kicking, by virtue of countless billions of dollars in government funding. The warmists will keep up the charade as long as the money holds out.

Well said! Let us hope that the money dries up faster than the smarmists' tears of perfidy. To see Hinderacker's full riposte and the 18 years 3 months chart see: Powerline Blog.

A Modern Crusade

The brutal attack on the staff of the satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, yesterday in Paris has raised higher the spectre of a real religious war between Islam and the rest of the world. It seems that the appeasers (like you know who) are still stuck with their heads in the sand maintaining that Muslims are a peaceful lot and that it is just extremists of some unspecified religious persuasion who are grabbing headlines around the world with all these unspeakable butcheries.

George W. Bush was tut-tutted when he opined that the horrors of 9/11 necessitated an extended “crusade” against such Islamic extremism. This word evoked the thought of how those medieval evils were eventually neutered by Christendom’s crusades and Islamic infighting. However, fate has a way of keeping mankind’s next Pax Romana at bay … in that so much of the world’s oil has been found to lie under the sands of Araby and petroleum has become the life blood of our modern society.

As a result of these sea changes, very many in the Muslim world began feeling their oats and decided that they now had the capital wherewithal to convert the rest of us to their backward thinking. And so, oil-funded Islamic proselytizing became the norm which then evoked more and more extremist thinking and actions in a religion unfortunately founded not on love but on butchery. The history of Islam, much like the history of early Christianity, is replete with mayhem and murder. The difference is that Christianity and most of the other world’s religions have evolved out of such insanity. Islam has not … as we continue to experience on almost a daily basis.

Fortunately, there are some Muslims who have recognized this flaw of faith. The current president of Egypt, Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, has called for Islam to abandon its extremism and growing militancy because it is corrosive and ultimately futile … see: Fox News Story. (How many U.S. media outlets have carried this item? Has the Obama administration reacted favorably to this ray of hope?) And in the 1920’s Kemal Ataturk in Turkey also recognized this Islamic failing and tried to modernize his country into a secular state. However much of the progress he made is now being rolled back by Turkey’s current fundamentalist president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

I suppose that the conclusion of this short overview is that things are very likely to get worse as ancient Muslim beliefs continue to scrape against modern societies. And, yes, if things maintain their current path, the non-Muslim world (including Russia, India and China) probably is in for a very long and bloody crusade to modernize these zealots of Mohammed’s teachings. That is, unless the likes of Sissi or a neo-Ataturk can bring about a Muslim religious reformation. This, I believe, should clearly be the basis of any foreign-policy push back from the United States’ government against Islamic terrorism.

But all I have witnessed here at home is exactly the opposite.

Afterward: For a slightly more frank view ... see: The Diplomad's Thoughts.

After Afterward: George Will thinks that Sissi should get the next Nobel Peace Prize for this stance. I agree. However, President Obamais, once again, is coming down on the side of the Muslim extremists ... see: Daily Caller Story.

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!

Big Sur's Golden Portal

Skeleton Flower

Namibian Desert Meets the Ocean

African Pangolin

Frog in a Rose