Fighting Fire with Fire

Marco Rubio has suddenly gone super negative against Donald Trump ... sliming him for his makeup, his vanity, the small size of his hands/schlong, his corrupt business practices, accusing him of being a con artist, etc. This is not pretty ... but apparently Rubio's camp has decided that this is the only way that he can counteract Trump's equivalent style of campaigning. This is a shame because Rubio has avoided such tactics throughout the many Republican debates ... until the last one ... but has suffered a volley of such banal attacks from Trump throughout.

Basically Rubio is fighting fire with fire ... and this is too bad because this style of attack seems against his nature and will likely sink his chances for the nomination ... not that he had much of a shot anyway. So, in a way, Rubio is helping out Cruz or possibly even Kasich in the voting to come. He has, by being a lion,  effectively now become a sacrificial lamb ... see: Quote of the Day.

Off with their Heads!

There is a dramatic rift in the chicken-little club of those who have believed that we are doomed by the modestly increasing carbon dioxide levels in our atmosphere which then is supposed to be causing global warming or climate change or some other terrifying global events. What is this rift? Why even Michael Mann, the inventor of the bogus "hockey-stick effect" to dramatize global warming, has now been forced to admit that there has been no significant global warming since before the year 2000. Wow! This is not just a rift ... it is a reformation in this pseudo-religion of the warmists!

It seems that this "settled science" is finally becoming unsettled ... see: Breitbart Article ... and there will be a lot of pompous politicians and loony luminaries such as that rotund fellow called Hanging-Chad Al and that skinny president with the nickname Bathhouse Barry who are in very awkward positions. They have gone balls-out in their pronouncements about this climate science about which they really know very little ... and so they will need either to stage a hasty and humbling retreat, like Michael Mann ... or viciously attack their detractors like the Queen of Hearts in "Alice in Wonderland"... screaming "off with their heads!"

It is going to be very interesting to watch which course each of them takes ... any predictions?

Quote of the Day

"It's better to live one day as Mussolini than 100 years as Barack Obama." -- Donald Trump

Afterward: In case you haven't seen Donald Trump's original re-tweeted quote: "It's better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a lamb -- Mussolini  

Recap

Every so often, to keep my head from exploding, I like to recount the damage that Obummer has done to America ... to remember his numerous failures both accidental and intentional. But this time the Diplomad has somewhat done this job for me and I am grateful ... see: Diplomad Blog. In this argument against the closing of Gitmo, the Diplomad has ticked off these many other disasters of the Obummer administration ... as quoted below:

His past achievements include, of course, unprecedented debt and unemployment; disastrous Obamacare; relentless promotion of gay marriage; "ending" wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; "democratization" of Libya; recognition of the vile and putrid Castro dictatorship; surrender to Iran's ayatollahs; gutting our military; destruction of what remained of our immigration system and laws; exacerbating racial tensions to a level not seen in decades--and, of course, winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Those, of course, are just some of the more successful ones. He also sought to bring down the second amendment through his murderous "Fast and Furious" operation; install the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt; and sell-out Israel. 

To these I would add his many crony-capital give-aways particularly in the green industry, his numerous serious scandals throughout his cabinet -- the IRS, the EPA, the Veterans Administration, etc., his acceding to Russian and Chinese expansionism, his feeble response to the ISIS threat, his "surge" in Afghanistan which accomplished nothing except more American deaths, his inability to significantly improve America's infrastructure despite huge spending outlays, his alienation of numerous American allies in the Mid East, Europe and the Far East, I'm out of breath ...

But then listed above are just Obummer's sins of commission. Neglected there are his many sins of omission ... such as:

- his failure to revamp our tax system to encourage faster economic growth

- his failure to simplify and reduce the many burdensome regulations that are stifling American industry ... particularly small companies

- his failure even to prosecute, let alone convict, any financial industry executives for the criminal speculation that caused our 2008 economic collapsed

- his failure to reform our entitlement systems which is rapidly spelling the doom for our country

- etc., etc.

In summary, Obummer's seven years have not produced many hits to offset these numerous misses. I believe he will be listed in history books as one of our five worst presidents.

reddit Gallery CCCLIII

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!'

Panda Ant

Boulder Opal

Bridge in the Forest

Floating Market

Klein Bottle

Food Fight

Civility is just about dead. Almost every issue is a food fight these days. The Oscars. Both party's nomination processes. The replacement for Scalia on the Supreme Court. The immigration issue. Free speech on college campuses. Black Lives Matter activism. The climate.

What is the genesis of all this mud slinging? If one starts connecting the dots back from Donald Trump's brand of playground shenanigans, it is not too surprising that one ends up on the steps of the White House. The public discourse has steadily gone down hill since the 2008 elections when Obummer (yes, I have also been sucked into this base rhetoric) repeatedly gave a not-too-disguised middle finger to his political foes. Or, even further back, when Bill Clinton was using a cigar as a sex toy.

Is there any stopping this downward spiral? My guess is that it must run its evil course. Eventually the public will get disgusted with all this banality ... most likely, if Hellery gets elected, it will be when we choose the next president in 2020. Then, once again we will have to fumigate 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Juxtaposition LIX -- Technobots

Apple's 1984 Ad

Zuckerberg's Zombies

Cheap Suit

Harvard University is folding like a cheap suit ... once again. After protesters targeted Harvard for using the term "house masters" for leaders of its 12 college complexes ... apparently suggesting slavery to these pudding-headed students, Harvard has relented and now changed this title to "faculty deans" ... see: Daily Caller Story.

Once again the richness of the English language is being diluted by the slightest suggestion of past national sins. Is that old British nautical term "master" now banned in any context? Are young boys' salutations on letters now to be "Young Boy" instead of "Master?" What will the finest carpenters, "master carpenters," now be called? What about Master Degrees for heavens sake? Are Harvard and other universities going to relable them as ... "Slaveholder Degrees?" Will the Mona Lisa no longer be called an "art masterpiece?" And, lastly, what will we now call sexual self gratification?

Enough of this linguistic silliness! Shame on you Harvard! You are supposed to be one of the guardians of higher learning ... are you now just the guardian of cheap suits?

More on Apple vs. the FBI

Just heard James Comey, the Director of the FBI, testifying in front of Congress regarding the contretemps between Apple and the FBI about opening up the IPhone of the San Bernardino terrorist ... hoping to find more about possible further plans or accomplices. The interesting aspect of this testimony was that the FBI was not just asking for the simple solution of providing it with the access code (which I previously suggested that they do) but the FBI wanted Apple to disable two functions in this particular IPhone:

- the function that erases everything in memory after ten tries at entering the access code, and
- the function that requires a few second pause between each attempt at entering this access code (thwarting super-computer attempts to try every possible combination)

Now, to me, this request is an around-the-barn way of getting into this particular IPhone vs. my previous recommendation and suggests that the FBI has its eye on bigger fish to fry in the future ... and is probably why Apple is pushing back.

However, Apple's Tim Cook's riposte that all security mechanisms would be futile in the future if Apple relented in this instance is also a little disingenuous. Why not just offer to provide the access code in this instance in the manner I had suggested? And then see what happens.

Dirty Trick Exposed

small problem here

The Daily Caller has a squib about a dirty political trick that was attempted in Nevada against Donald Trump ... purporting to show that the KKK was supporting The Donald ... see: The Daily Caller Article. Unfortunately this article does not include the above picture which I recently found on the reddit Pics site which is clearly a humorous, if not smoking gun. To me, it is doubtful that this stunt was attempted by one of Trump's Republican political rivals as it would also smear the Republican party.

But I am certain that, if Trump goes head to head against Hellery later this year, the dirty tricks then won't be quite so amateurish. The Clinton posse is a bunch of feral pros ...

Affordable Careless Act

Minnesota has experienced almost a 50% rate of fraudulent sign-up eligibility for Obamacare coverage. This represents about 100,000 people who received around $271 million in medical payments in just over five months to which they were not entitled. This is but one disturbing statistic that has been provided by the non-partisan General Accounting Office and other government watchdog agencies  ... see: Americans for Tax Reform Story.. And there were at least nine other instances of careless administration surrounding this unpopular attempt to remake the American health care system. Here is another instance of such sloppiness from thie above story:

A October 23, 2015 report by GAO found that Obamacare exchanges (both state and federal) were failing to verify key enrollment information of applicants including Social Security numbers, household income, and citizenship.

Such poor management is what we have come to expect when our government gets involved in our health care ... witness the repeated scandals in veterans' health care at the Veterans Administration..

I suppose that it is clearly time ... ala Bernie Sanders and Hellery Clinton ... for the government to take over everything medical  ...

Gold Star

Bet you didn't know that President Obummer banned all pork products ... bacon, ham, pork chops, barbecue, etc. ... from all menus in our federal prison system starting with the new fiscal year, last October 1st ... see: The Daily Caller Story. I wonder why he did this? Possibly one of Michelle's healthy diet proscriptions? But then one can easily assume that the reason given ... that pork products were universally disliked by the inmates there ... was a transparent canard.

Fortunately, this silly pork ban was reversed very shortly thereafter as a result of a loud protest by America's pork producers. But Obummer did get a gold star for trying ...

Vox Clamantis

Here are some Black Lives Matter voices crying out at Dartmouth College. Please watch these BLM students at this prestigious Ivy League school express their racial frustrations into the Yik Yak camera while reading reactionary posts of their fellow students  ... see: Joe Asch's Dartblog Entry ... and see if you can generalize the gripes that these students are expressing. To me, it doesn't seem to be that black lives are being snuffed out by over-zealous police officers which I thought was the impetus of this BLM movement, but rather that white and Asian fellow students were making them "feel" uncomfortable. I'm not sure how this grievance is going to be remedied to the satisfaction of these "disenfranchised" students ... many of whom still proudly wear their school's name across their chests. A bit of a paradox, no?

I am rather disappointed that my previous thoughts on this BLM movement at Dartmouth were not included in this collective Yik Yak rant ... see: Student Racism.

Desert Bloom

Years ago my wife and I were fortunate enough to visit the desert at Joshua Tree National Park near Palm Springs, California shortly after a heavy rainfall and during a dramatic blooming of desert flowers. It was quite a spectacular and rare experience. The entire landscape there was covered with multi-colored wildflowers. Now the desert at Death Valley in California is experiencing an equivalent super bloom ... see: New York Times Article.

For those of you who covet nature, I heartily recommend that you follow the weather forecasts for desert areas and try to be there when equivalent blooms occur. It should be on everyone's bucket list.

The Smirk vs. The Jerk

Predestined?

Afterward: Donald Trump is a smirking jerk. I just wish he weren't espousing most of the right positions.

reddit Gallery CCCLII -- Wheels

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!

Ralph Lauren's $40M Bugatti

110 Year-old Electric Car

Mustang Love

Blastolene B 702

1980, Citröen Concept Car

Apple vs. the FBI

Apple's dilettante CEO, Tim Cook, to me, is grandstanding about not giving the FBI access to the terrorist Syed Farook's IPhone ... see: ABC News Story. Already the FBI has a court order and, the way I read it, it doesn't want to compromise Apple's security mechanism on this or any other of its devices. This is not magic. I have a little experience in this area. Apple knows exactly how and where the access code is stored in this IPhone's memory ... which is the property of San Bernardino County anyway. All Apple would have to do is to recover this access code ... without revealing its process ... and provide it to San Bernardino County which then would provide it to the FBI.

Problem solved ... and, possibly, a few more terrorists might be caught ... and Tim Cook would have grown a few inches taller in the eyes of the American public. And in the future, this court-order process might be repeated whenever there is a sufficient and compelling need for such access into IPhones. I'm sure that the government might even be willing to pay Apple for their efforts.

Yes, I also realize that Apple might not sell quite as many IPhones to criminals and terrorists ... small price to pay.

Afterward: See how Apple treats digital privacy issues in China: Breitbart Article.

The Dope Pope

I don't think I need to add much to all the criticism being directed toward Pope Francis over his attempt to swim in America's political pool ... clearly without his water wings. He recently held a Catholic mass at the border between Mexico and the United States and said that we Americans should be building bridges and not walls. Then he implied that Donald Trump is not a Christian for his pronouncements about illegal immigration from Mexico and Syria. This is the same man who recently called capitalism "the spawn of the devil."

This current Vicar of Christ has done almost nothing to remedy the repulsive pederast evils that are eroding the foundations of his Church ... nor has he rigorously spoken out against the Christian massacres occurring almost daily in the Middle East and Africa. He obviously has rather set his praying priorities so that his special God might smite carbon dioxide, conservatives and capitalists.

I predict that he shall forevermore be known as the Dope Pope ...

Afterward: And he is for Castro, condoms and communism ...

Our Midget President

Obummer seldom misses an opportunity to show us what a spiteful puerile person he really is. I do know that the word "midget" is now verboten in polite company, but our fearless leader is seldom polite. Why is he such a peewee? Or course, among many other things, it is because he is the first president in American history not to attend the funeral of a sitting Supreme Court justice ... in this case Antonin Scalia ... see: Politico Story.

And this is not the only time that Obummer has shown his infantile partisan contempt for some justices on our highest court ... those justices who don't toe his political line. He had previously embarrassed them as they sat in the front row for his first State of the Union address and petulantly dressed them down publicly for one of their decisions ... see: New York Times Article. What a dwarfish and unpresidential snit! If Obummer were any smaller, he might disappear altogether.

January 20, 2017 can't come soon enough ...

Political Loyalty

The untimely passing of Antonin Scalia has got me to thinking about political loyalty ... primarily because this is a key element in the picking of Supreme Court justices. There seems to be a very strange divergence between liberals and conservatives insofar as their loyalty to their party's causes. Has there ever been a lefty Supreme Court justice who has suddenly ruled for the right in an important case? Whereas the opposite has frequently happened ... most recently David Souter, Earl Warren, William Brennan and some would even include John Roberts.

This can't be accidental ... only because it so consistent a divergence. The question then is why do these turncoats (from the right to the left) so often happen? It must be peer pressure. Our social scene and media bias is consistently left-leaning ... and, one must assume that turncoat justices feel and then fail to resist this force.

There is one other, less-likely possibility ... perhaps conservatives are more suseptible to blackmail than liberals?

Pop-Culture Presidency

Donald Trump has taken up residence inside my head ... and he is a messy tenant ... leaving dirty socks and his pajamas on the floor and cookie crumbs in the bed, And apparently he has also gotten to President Obummer, as he has repeatedly said that Trump won't replace him in the White House because he is just a "reality show host" ... see: ABC News Story. This is rather ironic coming from a man who has repeatedly used pop-culture media himself to burnish his hip image ... remember "Between the Palms?"

Actually, The Donald and our current selfie-stick president are two sides of the same coin. They both are glittering flotsam in the roiled stream of mindless entertainment that our pop-media culture has created. They both have forsaken what once was the gravitas associated with the presidency for the allure of social-media fluffery. This is why Trump can't be bothered to say exactly how he is going to "make America great again." And Obummer's strategy for defeating ISIS seems constructed out of "hope and change" Twitter posts. This is what their publics apparently want.

There is a karmic parallel between Obummer's number one priority, his golf game ... and The Donald's current investment obsession, golf courses.

Warp

Einstein postulated in his Theory of General Relativity that there were something he called "gravitational waves." Now scientists have detected such animals in a highly, highly refined experiment that is likely to win the Nobel Prize in physics ... see: New York Times Article. If you, like I, are a little confounded by such ephemera, then you might need a little insight into the importance of this discovery.

Einstein wavered about the existence of these gravity waves, but once did describe them as a "warp in the space-time continuum." But exactly what does this mean? Well a warp is a bending or a change ... and is frequently depicted in the image above. However, to me, this warping is more "dimension like." Knowing that the three dimensions of space is changed by the forth dimension of time, then these four dimensions of space-time are changed by what I had postulate to be another dimension which was gravity ... see: Gravity's Rainbow.

So, just as trying to depict the notion of time in a strictly three dimensional world is difficult, this depiction of gravity as a "warp in the space-time continuum" seems to me a little strained. I think we should just imagine it as it is ... another dimension to our existence. If you want my thoughts about what some of the other dimensions might be see : Speed Limit ... or for an earlier take, see: Brought to You by the Number 10. (Note that in both of my theories, gravity is indicated as a dimension.)

Does your brain hurt yet?

Robots

I recently suggested in jest that, because robots are taking over most manufacturing jobs,  they be required to pay taxes ... see: A Disconnect. New predictions now have half of the world unemployed by 2050 due to robots taking our jobs ... see: The Guardian Article. Clearly, if this replacement of humans with machines continues, then these robots will also be required to pay union dues.

On a more serious note, here are a few possible implications if robots do become so ubiquitous:

- A four- or even three-day work week might become a reality
- The industries that should prosper would be entertainment, leisure time, travel and robots/artificial intelligence.
- Some of the ideas and apparatus shown in that old cartoon series, "The Jetsons," might come to pass ... particularly around the home.
- Terrorist threats might upset many of these possibilities

Furthermore, I have another question ... why are countries like Germany, because of their declining populations, opening up their borders to unvetted immigrants to fill out their work force? Why not just build more robots? At least they are unlikely to cut off one's head.

My Cat

Norah is really my wife's and my cat, but she tends to favor me ... to my wife's eternal chagrin. When we first got this shelter kitten, she would sleep between our pillows in bed. But now that we, because of my recent back surgery, are sleeping in separate beds, the much older Norah bunks in with me. My wife, for a while, tried to alter this arrangement by kidnapping her and closing doors to preserve this nocturnal separation, but has since given up ... and now Norah is with me the whole night. (In case you are wondering, Norah was named for Norah Jones who was singing on the radio when our new kitten was being brought home.)

Anyhow there is a reason for this blog post ... and that is to try to understand the idiosyncrasies of life. One of the reasons Norah favors me is that I scratch under her chin and between her ears where she obviously can't groom herself. So multiple times a night I perform this ritual to a crescendo of her purring. However, occasionally, for reasons I have never been able to decipher, Norah will resist this favor and bite me. Not drawing blood, but a bite nevertheless ... which pisses me off to the point where I won't pet her again for quite a while. I also think that I am using Pavlovian conditioning to stop this annoying trait ... but no ... even after all these years she still occasionally does it.

I also equate this idiosyncrasy to that incident in Las Vegas where, after years of performing on stage, one of the tigers in Siegfred and Roy's act attacked and almost killed Roy.Why did this tiger do this? It is just one of the mysteries of life ... like why did a mother strap her two children inside a car and push it into a South Carolina lake? Perhaps this is all because civilization has not totally tamed the feral past of all animals ... even humans. This is certainly evident in some of the gruesome events seen daily in the Middle East.

So, back to Norah ... will she some night suddenly decide to rip my face off? This possibility keeps me on my toes.

reddit Gallery CCCLI -- Drama

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!

Withdrawing Cash in Thailand

You Looking at Me?

Sky Drama

Ötzi, the 5,300-year-old Iceman

More Sky Drama

The Professors Are Winning

Ivory Tower

The drip, drip, drip of liberal teaching in our colleges and universities is finally winning out. In a recent survey 43% of millennials view socialism more favorably than capitalism (with under 33% favorable) ... see: Breitbart Article. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary ... where country after country which has gone down the Bernie Sanders path ... most recently Venezuela ... have ended up economic hellholes, our capitalist-spoiled children would throw it all away for that nirvana of "to each according to his need, from each according to his ability."

In a way you can't fault these tyro thinkers. They believe that they are being idealistic ... and that is good ... but they have no clue as to the consequences of this misguided idealism. Their preaching professors have lived in the cocoon of capitalist largess all their adult lives and the current leader of the Catholic church says that capitalism is "the spawn of the devil." while enjoying the lush luxury created by capitalism. Yes, capitalism is based on economic self interest which is easily misrepresented as greed. But it is the striving for wealth through innovative thought and action that has created our societies of wealth unimagined in the Middle Ages ... a period of widespread repressive poverty to which our current breed of Socialist professors and politicians would have us return.

Yet it would be foolish to aver that greed never is bred under capitalism ... witness Martin Shkreli of Turing Pharmaceuticals whose price gouging has jeopardized his company ... and made him a social pariah. Adam Smith pointed out that the invisible hand of capitalism tends to punish such avaricious entrepreneurs. So when greed exists within capitalism, it tends to be self-defeating. However, unfortunately inequities have also crept into the American tax system and, due to its huge complexity, this system has often become regressive. This needs to be corrected ... but not to a Bernie Sanders degree which would snuff out capitalism alltogether (his intent?) And, if our idealistic youths don't understand that equivalent greed also exists within government, their professors have been criminally derelict.

No wonder both Hellery and Bernie, using free tuition, want to make our public citadels of lower learning even more extensive propaganda factories. That way they can guarantee a steady supply of mind-numbed youthful supplicants.

To conclude, please remember that envy (as well as greed) is also one of the seven deadly sins.

Buy High, Sell Low

The United States just has it backwards (again). It is now planning to sell off millions of barrels of oil from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve just when oil prices are at rock-bottom levels ... see: Daily Caller Article. With the backing of Republican lawmakers, the Obummer administration plans to sell off 266 million barrels of oil starting in 2018 to help fund our bloated government. This is about 40% of these reserves, much of it bought at much higher prices when OPEC had turned down the spigot on this commodity and we were panicked.

Of course the signaling of this intention can do nothing but keep oil prices low ... just when this pressure on prices is savaging the oil industry in the United States. Donald Trump actually has it right on this count ... our government is stupid. Obviously we should be buying oil to put in this reserve when prices are low ... and selling it when prices are high. But no, we are doing just the opposite ... and helping to kill off a major domestic industry in the process.

Perhaps if Obummer or any of his lickspittles had just taken a course in free-market economics in college instead of  Socialism 101?

Smoke-filled Rooms

Hellery Clinton, it can be argued, has lost both Iowa by an eyelash and New Hampshire by a country mile. So how does the delegate count now stack up? As it turns out, that notorious deck-stacker, Debbie Washerwoman Schultz, has fixed it so that Hellery now has 394 delegates whereas The Bern has gotten only 42  ... see: US Presidential Election News. (You might bookmark this site for reference throughout the rest of the primary schedule .) How do these strange delegate counts happen? There is something called Democrat super delegates and Hellery has received 362 of these undemocratic Democrats in their smoked-filled rooms ... whereas The Bern has gotten only 8.

Seems fair to me ...

Potty Mouth

Donald Trump is certainly unique in his approach to political campaigning. He is now matching his puerile insults directed to his rivals with a non-presidential parcel of potty talk ... using  the f-word, the p-word, the s-word and who knows how many more guttural utterances. There have been numerous presidents who have brought dignity to this position -- Ronald Reagan, Harry Truman, both George Bush's, Dwight Eisenhower, Jimmy Carter, etc. And there were a few who have sullied this office ... to the point where the fumigators needed to be called in after they left ... you know who they were (one of whom now wants to be the First Husband.)

If The Donald ends up in the White House, perhaps one of the jobs of the Secret Service will be to keep a bar of Fels Naptha soap close at hand.

Afterward: HST was included in the above list ... however, I forgot that one time President Truman referred to "manure" in a speech. A reporter asked Bess Truman if she couldn't get him to say "ferterlizer." She responded that she had only recently got him to say "manure."

More Hazing

As anticipated, Obummer has added another hazing ritual to his last year in office ... his Hell Year as I had predicted. Now the Defense Department has been ordered to respond to and resist the effects of climate change in all of their military planning and operations ... see; Washington Times Article. Can anyone imagine anything more insulting and degrading than this bit of ideological claptrap?

If you didn't follow the above link, let me give you a taste of the meaningless word salad that the military brass is required to serve up in order to stay in favor with the armed-forces antagonists running our country. The speaker is Dakota Wood, a Central Command planner who knows how to woo the White House with these bureaucratic wet kisses:

By equating tactical actions of immediate or short-term utility with large-scale, strategic-level issues of profound importance, the issue of climate change and its potential impact on national security interests is undermined,

Imagine the humiliation that must be felt at the highest level of our military when they are forced into this political straight jacket. Obummer is using them for everything except what they were built and trained to do. He is displaying our proud military like he uses those humiliated stooges standing behind him for many of his Teleprompter speeches ...suggesting the equivalent of approving wallpaper.

I believe this does nothing but show in what low regard our Commander in Chief holds our military.

reddit Gallery CCCL

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!

Slice of Rhodochrosite Stalagtite

Modern Times

Among the Orcas

Empty 787,

Napoleon Death Mask

Bon Mot

The forgettable Congressman Darrell Issa was on Fox News today commenting on Hillary Clinton's paranoia that inspired her to have her own private e-mail server ... risking foreign operatives hacking into a cornucopia of top-secret intelligence. Issa then said do we really need another "Nixon in a skirt" back in the White House. With this bon mot, Issa may have just found his political voice and reversed his previous PR flubs.