Strange Justice

From what I can put together, here's what seems to have gone down in the Denny Hastert, former Republican Speaker of the House, recent indictment by the Obama Justice Department:

- Many years ago, when Hastert was a high school teacher and wrestling coach, he had sexual relations of some type with a male student ... and probably a wrestler. The statute of limitations may well have expired on this crime.
- After Hastert left Congress, and was making big bucks as a lobbyist for a Washington, DC law firm, this student started blackmailing Hastert to keep this incident quiet ... to the tune of $3.5 million.
- Instead of trying to launder this money, Hastert was withdrawing this cash from his bank in sums less than $10,000 to avoid banking and, I think, IRS regulations. When caught, he had paid his blackmailer about 1/2 the amount demanded.
- The blackmailer was discovered ... perhaps by the IRS ... and probably ratted out Hastert.
- The FBI came after Hastert about these cash withdrawals and he made up a story as to why he was doing it.
- Hastert has now been indicted for violating banking laws and lying to the FBI (the Martha Stewart crime) ... not for his diddling of this student.
- Hasert's blackmailer may well be skating because of his turning state's evidence in this matter.

I am not a lawyer, but this seems a strange type of vindictive justice ... not that Hastert was lily white in this matter ... but we have seen many Democrat congressmen do much worse and avoid any retribution whatsoever. Perhaps if Hastert were just to change his party affiliation?

reddit Gallery CCCVII

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!

I'll Be Back

Fossilized Dinosaur Skin

World War I Trenches

1930 Henderson Motorcycle

Mandarin Duck

A New Broom

A grand jury, under the new Attorney General (AG) Loretta Lynch, has just indicted Denny Hastert, the former Republican Speaker of the House on the strange charge of violating banking laws to pay hush money to some unnamed person ... see: Washington Post Story. This coupled with the previous indictment of that rogue New Jersey Democrat Senator Robert Manendez on corruption charges ... see: Washington Post Story ... suggests that the Obama administration may be using its Justice Department as a political hammer.

Since, to me, it is clear that Washington is chock-a-block full of crooks of all stripes, the real test for our new AG will be how many more of these miscreants she brings before the docks. How about Representative Charlie Rangel on tax evasion? How about Senator Harry Reid on misusing the IRS? How about Representative Nancy Pelosi on corruption? How about that presidential confidant Al Sharpton on tax evasion? How about Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation on RICO charges? How about our president himself for flaunting his oath of office and numerous crony-capitalism payoffs?

If Loretta Lynch has brought a new broom with her into her new job, I would love to see her begin to sweep clean that snake pit of our nation's capital. How about it, AG?

Soccer It to Me!

Soccer, the most popular sport in the world, has just been exposed as being a criminal enterprise benefiting its overseers, the FIFA. Mucho millions of dollars of bribes have been paid to FIFA executives in order to select venues for the World Cup matches ... as well as, now it seems, to pick sports equipment sponsors for the FIFA teams ... see: Washington Post Article.

If soccer fans think that the corruption in this sport stops at the picking of venues for the World Cup matches or equipment sponsorships, I think that they may have a few more surprises. In particular, the officiating at the last World Cup matches had too many questionable calls for my taste. And I also suspect that many players may someday also be implicated for shady dealings in key match-ups.

Ole!

Cleanliness ...

... is not necessarily next to Godliness. We are living in an age of Purell ... that omnipresent liquid that the Felix Ungers of the world slather on their hands at the drop of a doily. (There are even grocery stores that now offer an equivalent way of sanitizing your shopping cart.) Now in Switzerland it has been discovered why the holes in Swiss cheese have been disappearing ... things have gotten too clean in the dairy barns there. It was the tiny specks of hay dust that were causing those characteristic vacuoles in Gruyere cheese ...  see: ENews Story ... and modern sanitation methods had eliminated this good contaminant.

Along these same lines, many years ago, on a swing through Napa valley, a few of us stopped at the Grgich Hills winery (the cru of the first American white wine to win a gold medal at a French wine fair.) Luckily, old man Grgich was there and gave us a personal tour ... during which he spilled the secret of making superior wine ... "Don't keep things too clean," he whispered.

It is also believed that exposing children to many of the microbes of life builds up their immunities ... rater than the opposite effect. So, you helicopter parents who never knowingly expose your chillins to any germs ... you may be causing them more harm than good ...

reddit Gallery CCCVI -- 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!

Skin Colored Yoga Pants

Ah Volleyball!

Mexican Cyclist

Pretty Maidens in a Row

Art Class

Motorcycle Girl

Thugs

The mayor of Baltimore, Stephanie Rawling-Blake, and the state's attorney there, Marilyn J. Mosby, have taken sides ... and they are standing with the thugs. The mayor  told the police to stand down, and let the looters and arsonists have their head when Freddie Gray died under suspicious circumstances after a ride in a police van. The state's attorney has brought charges and achieved a grand jury indictment against six police officers, three black and three white, involved in this case. And both these city executives have made inflammatory political statement clearly indicating that they are not pro-police. The simple logic then dictates that they are on the side of the thugs in their bailiwick.

What is the consequence of this tilt to the dark side? Well of course Baltimore thugs believe that they can now "do their thing" ... and the cops see that they should, for the sake of their careers and lives,  relax their grip on street crime there.  The natural result is that the thugs are having a heyday ... producing the deadliest month there in sixteen years ... see: CBS Baltimore Coverage. In the yin and yang, back and forth of human existence, Baltimore is now experiencing a yin moment ... counterbalancing what was thought to be too much police yang.

Since they are elected officials, the bubble-headed mayor and state's attorney there are playing to whom they think are their constituents. This is clearly misguided. I suspect that they will learn the cold hard truth in the next elections. If they don't, then God help Baltimore.

Memorial Day Message

Seriously ask yourself ... would you sacrifice your life for your country? Whatever your answer, please let us take a few sincere moments today over the BBQ to remember and thank those who did ...

International Commuters

"Illegal immigrants" ... taboo, change the term  to "undocumented workers" ... oops, change it again to "dreamers" ... oops, now the ACLU has mandated that this same group be called "international commuters" ... see: Breitbart Story. International commuters! Are these people going back and forth across our borders on a regular basis? I doubt it. I suspect that most of these international commuters' return trips are paid for by the Border Patrol.

More and more such weasel words are being used to try to change the public perception of issues. "Global warming" has morphed into "climate change" which is now being dubbed "environmental sustainability" ... see: National Science Foundation Piece. Who can argue with sustaining the environment? Don't fall into such a man trap! If you do, then the real rub becomes how these language manipulators insist that such environmental sustaining be accomplished ... sequester CO2, the source of all life. Once you buy the premise, then you must also buy the fatal consequences.

I've written before about such newspeak ... see: Groupthink and New Newspeak and U-Turn and Job Lock and More Newspeak. George Orwell (and myself) were trying to warn you against such forked-tongued political language manipulators. Clearly those that control the vernacular, control the minds of the masses. We can view this as semantic silliness ... but it is also extremely dangerous.

Can we turn the tables on those who wish to corrupt our language ... and call them "sons of tyranny?"

reddit Gallery CCCV

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!

Working on Self Control

Fossils in a Chunk of Marble

Louisiana Luau

Triple Kill

California Ghost Town

Mr. Rodgers, Rest Warmer

A Stretch

I scratch my head about a flap of a butterfly's wings in Japan causing a hurricane in Florida ... but really ... atmospheric CO2 levels in the United States going from 38 parts per million (ppm) to 40 ppm being the cause of the rampaging of the terrorist group Boko Haram in Nigeria? This is the malarkey that our esteemed leader is spoon feeding to the Coast Guard graduates at their recent commencement ceremony ... see: Yahoo News Story. (This bit of warped logic happened to be coincident with ISIS capturing the city of Ramadi in Iraq ... apparently without the benefit of elevated CO2 levels.)

I suppose that next President Obama is going to tell us that some snapped exercise rubber band is what blinded Harry Reid's right eye?

Delusions

President Obama's press secretary, Josh Earnest called the the latest Iraqi city to fall to ISIS, Ramadi, a "village" yesterday ... and downplayed its loss. This exemplifies just how delusional this White House is regarding what ISIS is achieving militarily in Iraq and Syria This plum is now added to Fallujah and Mosul as key Iraqi cities which the United States had spent many lives and treasure to capture from previous Islamic extremists ... but which now have been handed back to ISIS  (along with numerous tanks, Humvees and heavy weapons) by our fumbling, bumbling administration and the inept Iraqi army, Now we can also add to this the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra ... also seized by ISIS this week ... see: New York Times Article.

Actually "delusional" is a favored word of the columnist Charles Krauthammer when describing the Obama administration's dismissal of these ISIS advances ... see: Brietbart Story. And Krauthammer chooses this word with authority ... he started his professional life as a psychiatrist.

Do our fools in the White House believe that they can say anything that flies in the face of the facts and the American people will buy it? I suppose so ... since they have be doing it successfully for years now.

What's Up With Hillary?

Phallic Imagery?

Although Hillary Clinton has formally announced her presidential candidacy, her big splash opening event, which was to have taken place in May, has been delayed indefinitely ... or at least until June ... see: Breitbart Story. This postponement coupled with her "silent movie" campaign so far is raising eyebrows among the talking-head TV pundits. This certainly novel approach to campaigning for president has caused myriad speculations regarding her unconventional strategy ... to which I would like to add and/or amend with these possibilities:

-- As I have previously speculated, Hillary may still have no intention of actually trying to win this office. However, she still would like to amass a huge campaign war chest which she, her husband and Chelsea can burn off at their leisure for political and other nefarious purposes.

-- Others have speculated the Hillary has no fire in her belly about this run for the roses. Thus she has gone underground so that she does not have to regurgitate her panel-tested positions. Or perhaps, all her tactical positions have still not yet been fully vetted ... particularly those surrounding the Clinton Foundation ... therefore she is reluctant to fumble over any of them in public.

-- Could it be possible that Hillary is still suffering from some medical maladies (concussion, etc. from 2012) that kept her from testifying in front of Congress for two months ... and when she finally appeared caused her to make a spectacle of herself?

-- Ms. Clinton may be waiting until all her possible opponents have taken positions on all the major issues of the day  ... before she cherry-picks them to her advantage ... a political rope-a-dope if you will.

But, to me, clearly Hillary Clinton has come across in her few recent public appearances as haughty and condescending ... which, in turn, is alienating many in the media. Somehow I just can't believe that this would be the demeanor of a serious presidential candidate.

Frankenfoods

GMO stands for genetically modified organism or any living thing that has had its genetic material altered using genetic engineering techniques ... see: Wikipedia Entry for much detail about this process. The purpose of these genetic alterations in plant foodstuffs is primarily to enable them to resist disease, pesticides and insects ... or better tolerate environmental stress. Some examples of foods that have been so altered are corn (insect resistance, etc.), wheat (drought tolerance, etc.), and soybeans (survive saline conditions, etc.). Monsanto has been a leading developer of such products with its Roundup Ready line of products.

Obviously genetic engineering is akin to natural evolution only on a vastly compressed time scale. In nature, genetic mutations occur as a matter of course ... with good ones surviving and bad ones being selected out. Genetic engineering speeds up this process with (hopefully) good intentions. But as could be expected there has been a public backlash against such Darwinian tampering  ... with the term "frakenfoods" being the pejorative used to turn the public against such scientific advances.This public aversion is similar to the hysteria that now surrounds vaccinations and that which once pushed back against the use of fluoride in drinking water. In both cases there seems to be a very small risk associated with a very large public benefit. To me, this same cost-benefit trade-off also applies to GMOs.

However, GMOs have apparently now become a real bugbear ... with marketing hucksters now using the banning of foods containing GMOs as a selling advantage, The most recent example of same is Chilpolte Mexican Grill which now brags that it will phase out meals that contain GMOs ... see: Organic Connection Magazine Article. This is easier said than done as huge amounts of worldwide acreage is now devoted to growing GMO crops (see the above-referenced Wikipedia article) and many nearby non-GMO fields have also been cross-pollinated by such plants. And since the testing for GMOs is not easy and cheap, it is quite likely that much of this marketing hype is just that ... empty claims ... see: USA Today Article..

So until such time as Al Gore travels the country with his PowerPoint presentation decrying the evils of frankenfoods, I'm not going to fret too much about this newest GMO way to feed mankind.
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Diversity

From whence came this religion of forever-expanding "diversity?" When I was younger and attending an all-male college, diversity then was defined mostly in geographic terms ... since the majority of my classmates were middle- to upper-class whites ... religious diversity (particularly in regard to Judaism) having been a previously-enacted reform. The next push at my alma mater was for ethnic diversity ... primarily African-American, Native-American, Hispanic  and Asian. This, of course, automatically helped the college also effect improving economic-class diversity. Then, in the early 1970's, the College on the Hill decided that women were needed to round out its diversity menu. When admissions were opened up to females, it was promised that they would never total more than 30% of the undergraduate population. It is now over 50%.

Having eliminated all these obvious demographic profiles, the college's administration could not contain themselves ... next came a push for sexual-orientation diversity ... gays and lesbians needed to be represented in the student body at least as they existed in the general population ... and, of course, the college's curriculum needed to be revamped to accommodate these new hooking-up preferences. Aha, you think that now we are done with this remake. But no, you narrow-minded bigot. There is still the notion of gender-identity to accommodate. So if you are a woman in a man's body or vise versa, you are now the newest required diversity target. So now the undergraduate body has been fully Balkanized beyond reason ... to the point where it has become almost impossible to represent all these diverse pigeon-holes of our population in the next entering Freshman class ... given that there seems also a modest desire to maintain a least some modicum of academic standards.

But, there is still one diversity cross-section that has been ignored in both the pedagogical and student populations ... and that is political diversity. How about it Dartmouth ... can you take this one last and logical step in completing your pathological pandering to diversity?

Afterward: This obsession with diversity is not just at the college level. It also seems to have permeated our governance ...  witness a seeming national requirement for representation of all these diverse categories in our political leaders. That is why the more of these diversity boxes candidates can check, the more likely their election ... political persuasion and administrative competence be damned. This clearly is a sign of the times and one on which Hillary Clinton seems to be relying.

The Pope Knows

Pope Francis, the heretofore darling of the world's media, has gone from solid theological grounds into a political quagmire ... calling the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, an "angel of peace" and has had the Vatican recognize Palestinian statehood .... see: Associated Press Story for details. Does this man not read the newspaper? Has he not seen that Abbas's servants have placed Israel under a firestorm of over 11,000 rockets since 2005 (see: Israel Defense Forces Numbers)?  Did he not see how last year Abbas cynically thwarted his citizens a golden opportunity for statehood ... see: The Impossible Dream? Is he confused because both angels and rockets fly through the air?

Unfortunately, His Holiness is also preparing a papal encyclical to be delivered this summer in which he is expected to ally the Catholic Church with the Church of the Moonbat CO2 Haters ... see: New York Times Story. Does Pope Francis not recall how his church was besmirched by its treatment of Galileo when he had advocated heliocentricity? When the Catholic Church starts teaching science is when it loses its luster of saintly objectivity and becomes just another pitchfork-carrying peasant preparing a bonfire for the heathen.

And most of the Christian world had such high hopes for this man when he was elected to this august post ...

Rogues Gallery

The Clinton Posse

Huma Abedin

Cheryl Mills

Harold Ickes

Mandy Grunwald

Ira Magaziner

John Podesta

James Carville

Paul Begala

George Stephanopoulos

Philippe Reines

Terry McAuliffe

Ann Lewis

And many, many, many more ... here are just some of the Clinton Foundation players ... see: Leadership Team.

Afterward:

Sid Blumenthal

David Kendall

reddit Gallery CCCIV

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!

Danish Ice Cream

Foggy Night

Taj Mahal

Red Panda

West Palm Beach

Maybe We Should Play Indoors?