Blackmail?

In light of the revelation that the NSA has been intercepting phone calls made by those in Congress, a caller to a talk show yesterday put this fact together with much of the counter-intuitive behavior that has been exhibited in our legislature (recent omnibus budget vote) and in our court system (John Roberts' strange flip flop on Obamacare) ... maybe even within the administration. Could it be that our White House, through this or an equivalent process, has assembled many juicy pieces of scandalous data on many in our legislature and on our courts ... and are using this info to sway the opinions of these individuals?

Add to this the possibility that there might have been a few brave souls who didn't bow to such revelation threats and thus were made examples of  ... Senator Menendez? ... General Petraus? ... This coercive behavior essentially would duplicate what J. Edgar Hoover did when he ran the FBI.

Am I being politically incorrect again?

Funding our Exectioners

It was a common yet strange practice in medieval England for the condemned to give a tip to their executioners in order to be dispatched quickly and cleanly. It seems that a similar warped generosity extends today to funding those terrorists who intend to do us in. Many mosques in the United States with links to known terrorist organizations have received millions of dollars of taxpayer money ... sometimes with very strained logic ... see: Daily Caller Story.

This is just another disturbing example of why our political system is failing us and why this guy Donald Trump has captured the hearts and minds of many perplexed Americans.

Dreams

I just ran across a 56-minute video of Barack Obama discussing his book, "Dreams from My Father," at the Cambridge Public Library in September of 1995 ... see: Video. Please watch it ... it is a worthy hour investment. This reference also contains a video of a discussion of this Obama lecture as it relates to Frank Marshall Davis being a father figure for Obama (the first video). I recommend that you watch the second video first and then, if interested, go back and watch the first one second to see if you can agree with its observations.

But it is the second video that is most important in my mind as it gave me a few insights into this man's being ... a man who has been at the helm of our country for the last seven years. Here are a few of my thoughts that I derived from his lecture:

- I now believe that Obama did in fact write this book ... as opposed to the rumor that it was ghost written. He may have had lots of editorial assistance ... but it was clearly an Obama original.

- Obama was then an older student at Harvard Law School ... after he had been a community organizer in Chicago and traveled to Africa. Perhaps this added to his gravitas and helped propel him to edit the Harvard Law Review without the usual requisite law writings.

- I also now believe that Obama is brighter and more articulate than I have given him credit for in the past ... not as articulate as those who lade his Teleprompter, but certainly glib and perspicacious.

- It also seems obvious that Obama is a complex and layered personality ... much more layered and hidden today than he was back in 1995 ... possibly a product of the many handlers that have shaped his political career during the ensuing 20 years.

- To me it is also obvious that race has been the idee fixe in most of Obama's political decisions during his presidency ... driven by the kind of incidents to which he relates in the book passage he reads in this lecture. This obsession seems the basis of many of Obama's poor presidential decisions.

- At one point in the video Q and A, Obama makes the point that white America today lives in a mainly black culture. I concur, but feel forced to add that, up until about 1960, the opposite was true. It was the final liberation of American blacks that more balanced justice  ... but also flipped our culture ... not always for the betterment of our society

Bimbo Eruption

I hope that this doesn't occur ... but assume for a moment that the presidential race next year is between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton ... and Hillary, being true to her word, accuses Trump of being a sexist in the war on women. Now,Trump with his unlimited funds enters the first debate with Hillary by assembling a group of women whom Hillary's husband, Bill Clinton, had sexually assaulted ... and whom Hillary had helped to smear with her "bimbo eruptions unit."

Here are the names of just a few of those "bimbos" ... Gennifer Flowers, Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey, Monika Lewinsky, Juanita Broaddrick, Eileen Wellstone, Elizabeth Ward Gracen, Regina Hopper Blakely, Sandra Allen James, Kathy Bradshaw, Sally Perdue, Dolly Kyle Browning and Carolyn Moffet. Want more? The list is almost interminable ... see: Alamo Girl Listing. (Maybe Trump can't get Lewinsky.)

Anyhow, The Donald flies them all to the debate venue in his big black Trump plane and puts them in the front row of the audience referring to them repeatedly during the debate, causing the TV cameras to repeatedly scan this lineup ... and then makes them all available to the national press in the Spin Room after the debate ... encouraging them to tell their stories of how Hillary was an enabler to Bill, the archetypal sexist.

Now that would be a true bimbo eruption ...

A Silk Purse

Ho Chi Minh, when he became North Vitnam's leader, made a silk purse out of a sow's ear. He rounded up all the prostitutes in Hanoi and turned them into public nurses ... not a bad idea. So how come our political leaders can't be equally innovative? For instance, every year a too large portion of rural California burns down ... primarily because the officials there won't spend the money to cut back the scrub brush that grows in the public spaces and along the roads ... see: CNBC Story.

Then, during the dry season, when lightning strikes and/or a powerline falls, it takes millions of dollars to subdue the resulting conflagrations ... often with the loss of life and personal property. The cost to put out these fires is probably much larger than what it would have been to remove the dangerous overgrown underbrush to begin with.

And how about a little icing on this cake? Why don't the California authorities use convict labor, welfare recipients and their myriad homeless people performing this clean up duty as a condition for their parole, welfare payments or shelter? This gratis exchange seems very much like a Ho Chi Minh silk-purse solution ... one that would save this state lots of money and grief every dry season.

Afterward: Over six years ago I wrote a similar, albeit better post, California is Burning, in which I made many of these same points. In the interim, California has done nothing to reduce this fire hazard ...

reddit Gallery CCCXLIV

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!

1948 Norman Timbs Special.

Manhattan

Swan Lake

Human vs. Gorilla Skeleton

Norwegian Forrest Cat Chasing a Fox

A Difficult Recipe

How will the world (mainly the U.S., Russia, China and India) suppress the radical Muslim movement before it becomes too large to deal with within their criminal justice systems? Whatever the answer, I don't believe it will be accomplished with "containment" and half measures. The brutality being displayed by these jihadis will need to be matched and even exceeded by the rest of the world to cause this existential evil to be squashed. This will not be pretty. It will cause outrage and gnashing of teeth within the pacifist class ... those naive ones who choose to believe that they could not be touched by this metastasizing menace.

I can't predict exactly what measures might be required to  effect this ultimate victory over the caliphatists ... but, be assured that, if it were here known, it might turn the stomachs of the squeamish. Just as the incredible brutality of the last days of the Second World War finally humbled the Axis aggressors, such mayhem will realistically need to be repeated or even exceeded to triumph over these radical Muslims. I would wish this need not happen, but the flaming fanaticism now being displayed by the jihad movement does not give me much optimism.

Can all this bloodshed be avoided? Yes, I believe that it might ... but only through a radical reformation of Islam ... one equivalent to what occurred in Christianity in the 1500's. This would require the zealots within the jihadi movement to adopt modernity from a world that is itself rotting from within ... rife with sinfulness, self-indulgence and sloth.

This is a  very difficult recipe with lots of bitter herbs.

Afterward: Russia's Putin has already suggested using atomic weapons against ISIS ... see: UK Express Story. I realize it is uncomfortable to discuss or even think about such solutions to this Islamic extremism ... but when Iran goes nuclear or if the crazies take over in Pakistan, then the apocalyptic desires of the jihadis need to be reckoned with realistically. Then the Putin solution may be the only answer.

My Christmas List

I know I am a little late in submitting these gift requests to ol' St. Nick ... but then again I would be happy to get them anytime in the New Year:

- a rollback of about 30 of my birthdays

- a Ronald Reagan clone running for president on the Republican ticket

- a purging of looney liberal professors in the Ivy League

- after repeated agreement violations, the US. reimposing sanctions on Iran

- Obummer deciding to spend all of his last year as president on the golf course

- the starting of a real reformation movement in the Muslim religion

- some stoney resolve being shown by the Republicans in Congress

- an indictment of Hillary Clinton for her criminal abuses when she was Secretary of State

- Al Sharpton paying his millions of dollars of back taxes

- Kim Jong un of North Korea developing a incurable case of severe rectal itch

- John Kerry being told he can no longer tolerate Botox injections

- Lois Lerner losing her government pension for malfeasance

Blasé de Blasio

New York City is back on the decline ... in so many ways ... not just poor schools, flagging terrorist intel and poor relations with the police force. Mayor Blasé de Blasio has also brought back the squeegee beggars, the defecating street people and now the graffiti ... see:  Local CBS Story.

The Big Apple is populated with many bright people. So how could they elect this boob of a mayor whose ideas and actions run across the grain of so many things which have made this city great? All the effective efforts of mayors Giuliani and Bloomberg seem now to have been in vain.

One small solace ... de Blasio does realize that he is a doofus ... see: New York Times Story.

Potty Talk

Hillary Clinton was tardy for the second time during the Democrat debates ... returning from the bathroom during one of the commercial breaks ... so late this time that the moderators started their questions directed to the candidate next to her empty podium. Various explanations have been offered for this potty delay ... the distance to the woman's bathroom was further than to the men's ...  and, as she indicated in the first case, "It takes me longer."

However, it appears that the delay in this most recent instance was really because Queen Hillary won't share the ladies room with anyone else ... see: Breitbart Story for the interesting details. I find this shyness on Hillary's part quite curious.

Now I also find this incident amusing and even ironic since Hillary has been an outspoken advocate for transgender people to be able to share bathrooms and locker rooms with the sex that they identify with.... even though it may not be the one with which they are physically typed ... see: Another Breitbart Story. So here is yet another reason why this woman deems herself royal. She can behave in ways far above that which she would impose on the rest of us peons.

I thought that we fought the Revolutionary War to rid ourselves of this regal bullshit.

Afterward: I suspect that her aide, who didn't keep the bathroom unoccupied, has been skinned alive by her queen ... and is now looking for a new occupation.

After afterward: For more on this see: Daily Caller Story.

Abetting ISIS

Recruitment for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria is helped by:

- the Guantanamo Prison for foreign combatants

- using the terms "jihadi" or "radical Islam"

- stronger vetting of Muslim immigrants

- American bombing of the ISIS oil infrastructure

 - the Second Amendment of our Constitution

- climate change ... aka, global warming

- Israel's retaliation toward Palistanian stabbers

- investigating certain American mosques

- tighter airline screenings

-  the printing of the Koran on cheap paper

- Donald Trump's hairdo

- increased pricing of Girl Scout cookies

So sayeth Obummer and the rest of the Democrats.

What if ...

the 2016 presidential race were to be between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump? In order to assess this disturbing choice, I have developed the following comparisons:

As president.                                         Hillary                                   Donald
he/she would:                                       Clinton                                   Trump    

Keep us safe from                               Unlikely                              More likely
radical Muslims

Keep us safe                                        Unlikely                                   Likely
from Russia

Keep us safe                                        Unlikely                                  Unsure
from China

Be liked by.                                             Yes                                            No
Western Europe

Be liked by                                               No                                             Yes
Eastern Europe

Fix immigration                                      No                                            Yes
problems

Reform taxes                                   No ... more taxes                        Possibly

Reform entitlements                          No ... more                                  Yes

Reform regulations                                 No                                         Possibly

Strengthening our military                  Unlikely                                     Yes

Fix Obamacare                                        No                                            Yes

Reduce deficit                                          No                                          Likely

Demagogue                                              Yes                                            Yes

Self-serve                                                  Yes                                             Yes


I think this is enough to distinguish between these two candidates. If Trump is hopefully not the Republican choice, then I suggest that you repeat this exercise for that one that is ... I know I will.
                  

reddit Gallery CCCXLIII

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!

Rainbow Grapes

Chilian Volcano

1930 Henderson Motorcycle

Life is Unfair

Incoming

reddit Gallery CCCXLII

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!

Titanium

Pyrite

Fluorite

Jade Boulder

Watermellon Tourmaline

Et Tu Ryan?

See: Rush Bash.

Survivor

I have not followed the TV program "Survivor," but, from its promos and trailers, I know its premise. That is that a bunch of people of all stripes are isolated on an island ... then they, one by one, vote off the island the losers. This generates lots and lots of intrigue ... backbiting, alliances, and cabals ... until there is just one left, the survivor.

Does this sound like the Republican race for president? It certainly does for me. Have Trump and Cruz formed a partnership to kill off Rubio and Bush? Is Fiorina pissed that she is being marginalized by the men? She certainly looks to be so. Huckabee, Santorum, Pataki and Graham are in the boat on their way back to the mainland. Christie is desperately seeking someone to partner with so that, as a pair, they can vote off a few of the front runners. Paul is playing me-too-ism in his attacks  on the establishment candidates ... hoping to be drawn in with the gang at the front. Frustrated, Bush and Kasich are flailing ... striking out at anyone who gets too near. Carson, having no taste for the fight, is standing off to the side ... perhaps expecting that the front runners will vote each other off. Rubio seems a little dismayed that so many candidates are attacking him for so little reason ... so he is trying to split the Cruz-Trump alliance.

How does this all end up? The survivor of this melodrama is then transported ... sunburned, scarred and weaponless, to another island, built on the Clinton Foundation, for the ultimate battle with Hillary Medusa and her hydra-haired wig.

Christmas Tree Ornaments

Today Paul Ryan donned a fur-lined red suit with a pillow beneath ... all he needs now is a red hat and to whiten his beard ... to validate his position as the Santa Clause of Congress. The House is ready to pass a $1.1 trillion omnibus budget bill that includes a large number of Christmas tree ornaments: -- largess for NASCAR tracks, race horses, Hollywood, college students, UN Climate Fund, Syrian immigrants and many more mark-up handouts to buy support ... see: Washington Times Story.

I thought that this new Speaker of the House was going to fix things in our broken legislature? If he had such designs, he seems to have forgotten them and is reverting back to the old pork-barrel ways.


Afterward: Now we know why Romney/Ryan lost in 2112.

Handful

Why does Obummer say that only a handful of detainees released from Gitmo have returned to the battle ... see: The Gateway Pundit? What is a handful? 9? 10? 11? Does he not care that we can check the number? So it turns out to be close to 200 ... quite a difference! Our fearless leader is so driven by ideology and his pledge to close the Guantanamo Bay prison that he tells bald face lie after bald face lie to the American people. I guess he is so used to the media covering up his verbal diarrhea that he doesn't even think to wipe himself.

In this same interview with Yahoo News Obummer would not refer to Jahadi John by his nickname ... he had to call him by his given name, Mohammed Emwazi. Again, Obummer is reverting to his obsessive fear of admitting that there are radicalized Muslims roaming the world. He somehow believes that if he said the word "jihadi," this would betray his longing for this connection not to be made. The columnist, Charles Krauthammer, a former psychiatrist, frequently calls Obummer "delusional." To me, a mere layman, it seems that our fearless leader's psychological malady is much more serious than that.  How about "just plain nuts?"

Fatwa This

The I-word State (an accommodation to Obummer's delicate sensibilities regarding this religion of peace's establishment of a Mideast caliphate) has issued a fatwa decreeing that all children with Down Syndrome and other such birth defects should be murdered ... and so far about 38 such infants, some only a few weeks old, have been so dispatched by this group of M-word extremists ... see: Breitbart Article.

As barbaric and "final solution" like this fatwa sounds ... it differs by only a few months from that advocated by Planned Parenthood here in the United States ... just a thought.

Semantics

There has been a subtle shift in the semantics being used by Obummer and John Kerry when crowing about the squishy results of the Paris Climate Accord. Instead of talking about reductions of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, they are now taking about targeted reductions in "carbon." Now this seems like a trivial difference but it truly isn't. Smoke is comprised mainly of unoxidized carbon and its reduction is a good thing ... with which most civilized people can agree. Whereas CO2 is the source of all life on Earth ... and its reduction is not necessarily a good thing. During the Carboniferous Period (360-300 million years ago) CO2 was 10 times higher than it is today, yet the Earth survived well ... thank you very much.

In fact this 60 million year period in our planet's formation is when most of the oil, coal and natural gas was laid down underground. Ponder on this for a moment. All the lush vegetation that was growing in this CO2-rich environment is the source of most all of the fossil fuels that we use today. 60 million years is 20 times longer than when the earliest man appeared on Earth and 30,000 times longer than the period of time since the birth of Christ. That's a good long time with a whole lot of vegetative growth ... and thus a whole lot of fossil fuels ... much more than I suspect we currently estimate. Yes, some day we will run out... but this is many lifetimes away ... and I believe that our sources of energy then will not be wind ... maybe sunshine ... but more likely safe fission and fusion.

So our administration's purposeful obfuscation of the term "carbon" to imply both smoke and CO2 is disingenuous and purposefully confusing. ... an attempt to lead the uninformed to its way of thinking. How very semantically Orwellian!

See also: Power Line Blog.

Teflon Hillary

How has Hillary Clinton gotten away unscathed from so many damning scandals ... White Water, missing Rose Law firm billing records, Travelgate, FBI Filegate, cattle future profits, bimbo eruption unit, Clinton Foundation, Benghazi security lapses, missing e-mails, her private e-mail server, and more? Simple ... deny, delay, obfuscate and rely on the American media to cover her spoor with kitty litter.

Here is another supposed smoking gun that implicates Hillary directly in the death of Chris Stevens and the other three Americans at Benghazi, Libya. Small problem ... it is so delayed and so infused with "in the weeds" detail that the American people, like Bernie Sanders, just won't care. But read it anyway if you want to understand how this evil woman continually escapes ever having to account for her many sins ... see: The Daily Caller Story.

And if she and Donald Trump are their parties' nominees next year, DuPont will have to keep its Teflon factory going round the clock  ...

reddit Gallery CCCXLI -- 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!

Noemi

Naturalist

Abstract Sculpture

Yvonne Strahovski's Body Paint

Volleyballer

Unhinged

Donald Trump now has most media big guns leveled directly at him. The more things that he says that seem to be over the top ... yet don't sink him ... the more unhinged the ruling class (politicians from both parties and media elites) becomes. Two cities in the United States have banned Donald Trump from entering there ... St. Petersburg, Florida and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania ... see: NBC News Story. Even the United Kingdom is circulating a petition to ban him from entering their country.

Can our political discourse get nuttier than this? We have now degenerated into exchanging playground taunts between petulant bullies. John Fetterman, the mayor of Braddock ... a suburb of Pittsburgh ... has called Trump a "jagoff" see: CNN Story. Being from this area myself, I know this refers to male masturbation effluent ... not a very elevated taunt coming from a mayor.

So when Trump suggests that, for security sake, we should place a temporary ban on Muslims entering our country, he is then banned from entering at least two major U.S. cities ... how puerile and obviously unhinged. I actually find this whole back and forth somewhat amusing ... as it puts on display the discomfort now being felt by the ruling class ... trying to exhibit moral outrage, but really worrying that their political sinecures might be in jeopardy.

Opposites

As a result of a heated family discussion yesterday, the issue of opposites came up ... so I have decided to investigate this subject further. Generally every non-appellative word should have an opposite ... viz: cat vs. dog, winter vs. summer, night vs. day, yin vs. yang, meat vs. fish, love vs. hate, rain vs. snow, fast vs. slow and round vs. square. However, there are some words which either don't have an opposite ... or, if they do, they cannot be expressed in politically-correct society.

For instance what are the true opposites for the following words or phrases:

Feminist?
Jahadi?
Genital mutilation?
Media elite?
Gringo?
Tranny?
Pro-life? (No, it's not really "pro-choice")
Racist?
Red-neck?
Folks? (a favorate Obummer term)
Mafia?
Fly-over country?

Reader(s) with the best set of answers will receive a signed full copy of the Affordable Care Act.

The Bug's Bug

I have a certain empathy for what Volkswagen did in order to get around the stringent nitrogen oxide emission regulations in the United States (mostly inspired by California where it was a causative of the once-choking smog). In 2005, the engineers at VW concluded that there was no possible way that they could meet these emission standards within the cost and time constraints that they then faced ... so they took the low road and developed a software override that made it appear that their diesel beetles passed this nitrogen oxide  test ... see: Earthlink News.

Don't get me wrong ... I am not encouraging such civil disobedience, but, then again, if our obsessive tree-huggers in government impose regulations that are beyond the limits of the then-current science, should they not expect such shenanigans as Volkswagen tried? And it's not like this VW nitrogen oxide misfeasance was like General Motors' malfeasance with its ignition switches which actually killed people. The evidence for this car's level of nitrogen oxide pollution causing serious short-term health problems seems quite tenuous. And in the long-term we all get felled by who knows what ... perhaps some other stupid government jack-booted regulation.

Lock Step

Amy Farrah Fowler, Sheldon's "girlfriend" in " The Big Bang Theory," once made an interesting observation ... that a group of women in close proximity for a while will synchronize their periods. Now I don't know if this is true, but a parallel idea struck me today while watching the ruling class's reaction to Donald Trump's proposal that we stop all Muslim immigration for a while.

Without taking a position on this statement, I have been amazed by the degree of spontaneous congruence in the opinions of politicians and the press (the ruling class) being voiced about Trump's comment. These lock-step denouncements had about as much space between them as the stonework at Machu Picchu.

I suppose that, taking a step back, that this is not surprising. Man, being a social animal, normally does not want to be an opinion outlier ... and so will modify true feelings to conform to what the group-think seems to be forming. This is kind of like how flocks of birds or schools of fish often seem to form one undulating mass ... swooping and turning in remarkable unison.

Again, not taking sides in this Muslim immigration cage match, one of Donald Trump's appealing qualities is that he doesn't swim with the schools or fly with the flocks. But I think that I, and a whole lot of other people, would like to figure out to the beat of what drummer he is marching.

Bile Green

The Obummer administration has just scored another big crony-capital debacle in its thoughtless pursuit of clean green energy ... see:  Breitbart Story. This time the will-o-the-wisp was biofuels and the cost to U.S. taxpayers looks like it will total something like $2.34 billion. The rat hole down which these funds were pored was Abengoa Bioenergy ... a Spanish firm ... showing that our government's poor financial judgement shows no national boundaries.

The project on which so much was squandered was cellulosic biofuels to be produced at the Hugoton, Kansas plant and six other U.S. locations. The Hugoton plant had a projected production capacity of 25 million barrels of ethanol. So far it has yet to sell its first barrel.

Of course this is not this Energy Department's first financial disaster. I have written in the past about a series of other bile green investments ... see: Frugal Green Energy. I choose not to add up the total taxpayer losses from the 13 failed green projects mentioned  ... for I am afraid my head would explode. However, my best guess is that it is north of $50 billion dollars.

Perhaps, if the Department of Energy could have found 97% of all climate scientists (the magic number) to agreed on these investments, it might have had a better batting average ... but I doubt it.

Sad Day

Russia is accusing the United States of covering up ISIS's smuggling of oil through Turkey to pay for its worldwide terrorist actions ... see: Yahoo News. It is a sad day when one (me) is tempted to believe Putin's propaganda over what the White House is avowing ... a sad, sad, very sad day.

Battle Lines

The political battle lines have formed as a result of the San Bernardino jihadi terrorist shootings last week that killed 14 and wounded 21.

The Democrats are desperate to misdirect the conversation away from this latest terrorism embarrassment to that of more gun control. Seemingly taking its cue from the White House, the New York Times published a rare front page editorial yesterday decrying the ability of Americans to buy and own rifles. And like the typical liberal (mis)use of language ... the term it blared was "assault rifles" ... which pretty much covers the gambit of what you would be able to purchase if you went into a gun store today.

Most uninformed Americans think this means fully-automatic military-style weapons designed to kill people. This is not the case. Yes, the current marketing trend for rifles means that what are sold are, in fact, more machismo-looking than in olden days, but they are not true fully-automatic military weapons. In fact the rifles used in this terrorist attack were purchased legally in California ... a state with the strictest gun laws in the United States.

On the other hand, the Republicans are focusing on rampant Muslim immigration and their increasing terrorism ... pointing out that the California female shooter, Tashleen Malik, is a Muslim and had been recently fully vetted as a new immigrant. This suggests that the vetting process so lauded by Obummer, is a sham ... and that, for safety's sake,  a pause needs to be taken in this Muslim immigration surge. It seems that the Republicans also recognize that "guns don't kill people all by themselves."

And as to the selling of guns to people on the "no fly" list. This again is a Democrat red herring. The no-fly list is not constructed by due process ... 72 employees of the Department of Homeland Security are on this list. This means that the government could keep people from buying guns just by putting their names on this list ... and, in an unfortunate era when our government is not to be trusted, this is why this bill was voted down by the Republicans.

President Obummer is going on national television tonight to tell us what the government is doing to protect us from the likes of the San Bernardino shooters. If his talk is as full of half-truths as was his assurances last year that we were going to "degrade and destroy" ISIS, I think I will switch channels to a football game.

reddit Gallery CCCXL

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!

Cruise Ships

Bryce Canyon

Goodnight Lupines

Masuleh, Iran

Raindrops on Peacock Feathers