NFL CONCEDES

TESTS NEW SAFETY EQUIPMENT

Which reminded me of this important lesson

Biblical Prophesy has been fulfilled

The meek have inherited the earth

We're all a bunch of pussies

Please leave your male genitalia 

at the box next to the nearest exit.

Leftwing Bedwetter Outs Himself

Atlanta Hawks owner Bruce Levenson admitted to sending out a racist e-mail in 2012, and leftwing loons are stepping all over themselves in the latest Pavlovian PC stampede.

Only one problem... The e-mail was not racist. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who is becoming my favorite social commentator, explains:

I read Levenson’s email. Here’s what I concluded: Levenson is a businessman asking reasonable questions about how to put customers in seats.[...] Levenson wonders whether (according to his observations) the emphasis on hip-hop and gospel music and the fact that the cheerleaders are black, the bars are filled with 90% blacks, kiss cams focus on black fans and time-out contestants are always black has an effect on keeping away white fans.

Seems reasonable to ask those questions. If his arena was filled mostly with whites and he wanted to attract blacks, wouldn’t he be asking how they could de-emphasize white culture and bias toward white contestants and cheerleaders? Don’t you think every corporation in America that is trying to attract a more diverse customer base is discussing how to feature more blacks or Asians or Latinos in their TV ads? (Time - Kareem Abdul-Jabbar)

All I can add is, Amen!

I have two simple questions for you:

Do you think the e-mail was hateful or racist?

If so, which parts?

On a related note, when you compare TMZ and other US outlets’ superficial and sensational coverage to that of London’s Daily Mail (which I understand enjoys quasi-tabloid status... Someone from Britain can correct me if I’m wrong), American ignorance becomes more understandable.

Alba gu bràth September 18, 2014

Photo: Jean-Pol Grandmont

Tiocfaidh ár lá

 

IT IS NOT THE MISSION

 

Of the Department of Defense to fight Ebola

Not one soldier, sailor or airman swore to protect and defend the people of Liberia from all viruses foreign or domestic.

Barack Obama on Tuesday called West Africa's deadly Ebola outbreak a looming threat to global security and announced a major expansion of the U.S. role in trying to halt its spread, including deployment of 3,000 troops to the region. ~Yahoo

To date we have spent more than $100 million to address this challenge, USAID also has announced plans to make available up to $75 million in additional funding.  DoD also has requested to reprogram $500 million in Fiscal Year 2014 Overseas Contingency Operations funds for humanitarian assistance.  White House

National Security vs Global Security

It is the duty and responsibility of the President to ensure US national security, not to guarantee the world global security. 

According to a senior military official, Dempsey said at a recent meeting: “The Department of Defense’s number one priority is combating Ebola.” ~ W.J

Really? In that case General Dempsey ought to be court-martialed and the President impeached for this extra-constitutional abuse of power and dereliction of duty.   If one American soldier dies of ebola his blood is on the President's hands.

Ebola is Serious Business

Don't get me wrong, something needs to be done, but it is not for the Department of Defense or for the American soldier to be ordered to do so.  One would have to seriously question the legality of that order within the context of the Constitution of the United States. Frankly, it's not even the responsibility of the US Public Health Service:

The mission of the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps is to protect, promote, and advance the health and safety of our Nation. ~ USPHS

And before you start lecturing me on the epidemiological hazards to national security know that a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, I was a medical technologist.  I'm not saying we ought to do nothing, I am saying the President has no more authority to order US troops into the midst of a peacetime viral outbreak in a foreign country than he has to order the staff of Massachusetts General there.

You can't argue the President is concerned about national security when anyone with ebola can simply waltz across our southern border.  You can't have your cake and eat it too.

Thoughts?

The Digital Lynch Mob

Adrian Peterson, Ray Rice, Donald Sterling, Brendan Eich, Vivian Schiller, well you get the idea and the actual list is long.  In some cases it involves a violation of the law, in others it is no more than a contrary opinion, in all cases the subjects were tried, convicted, and sentenced in the court of public opinion. One could call it a mob, or more accurately it should be referred to as a pack, a pack of rabid ravenous wolves.

In Adrian Peterson and Ray Rice's cases they've committed acts defined as criminal by society, acts that if and when committed and convicted result in punishment defined by law and limited by the constitution.  The lynch mob is different, the end results often extreme, far exceeding the crime in terms of viciousness and brutality and certainly in excess of the limits imposed on the state in the administration of punishment.  

In the other cases they're guilty of a far more heinous crime, holding a contrary opinion.  Ask yourself, is Vivian Schiller's crime half as bad as Hester Prynne's? Aided and abetted by the paparazzi, social media and the internet is the whiskey that fires this mob complete with digital torches and pitchforks.

Is this the society you want to live in?  Is this the path to civilization or to bedlam? Left or Right, no one is safe from the inquisition. Ray Rice punched his fiance, Adrian Peterson whipped his child with a switch, both abhorable acts, but who should decide punishment? The State or the Mob?

What are your thoughts?

 

Did he really say that?

“I was not here in the run-up to Iraq in 2003,” he told a group of visitors who met with him in the White House before his televised speech to the nation, according to several people who were in the meeting. “It would have been fascinating to see the momentum and how it builds.” NYT

Yeah, fascinating.

What's fascinating is how inept he comes across when he doesn't have a teleprompter in front of him, speaks volumes.

HEV-D68

Rossman

A Simple Question

Is there a correlation between increasing cases of Enterovirus D68 and the influx of undocument, unaccompanied minors from Central America flooding into our communities and schools?

Enterovirus sickens more than a dozen in New York
15 kids in Kings County may have Enterovirus D68
Rare virus has sickened hundreds more children

You may never know

As the federal government refuses to disclose the locations to which the majority of undocumented minors are being sent.

Nebraska's governor says 200 children who entered the country illegally were sent to his state without warning and that federal officials are refusing to identify them or their locations. WSJ

Human rhinoviruses and enteroviruses in influenza-like illness in Latin America.

We collected nasopharyngeal swabs at clinics located in eight Latin American countries from 3,375 subjects aged 25 years or younger who presented with influenza-like illness.

Our subjects had a median age of 3 years and a 1.2:1.0 male:female ratio. HRV was identified in 16% and HEV was identified in 3%.

Limited data is available from Latin America regarding the clinical presentation and strains of these viruses in respiratory disease.  

 

National Institute of Health

 

EV-D68 infections are thought to occur less commonly than infections with other enteroviruses. It first was identified in California in 1962. Compared with other enteroviruses, EV-D68 has been rarely reported in the U.S. in the past 40 years. ChildrensMN

Back to my first question:

Is there a correlation between increasing cases of HEV-D68 and the increasing number of undocumented, unaccompanied minors from Central America?

Or better yet: Do you think your government would tell you if there were? 

Saturday Sessions: Scottish?

On September 18th the Scots vote for or against independence from the United Kingdom. Here are some bands you may or may not have known were Scottish.

No Glassholes Allowed

 

And the fight begins.  

There is a script available to knock Google Glasses off your local network and a device called Cyborg Unplug that can knock selected devices off your network... or apparently (shhhh) any network. 

CNN

As wearable devices and audio/video recording becomes miniaturized and widespread many questions are raised regarding the legality and propriety of using such devices.  Laws vary widely from state to state and country to country.  What do you think?

9-11, ISIS, Terrorism

 

 

Every attempt to make war easy and safe will result in humiliation and disaster.

War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.

This war differs from other wars, in this particular. We are not fighting armies but a hostile people, and must make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war.

If the people raise a great howl against my barbarity and cruelty, I will answer that war is war, and not popularity seeking.

My aim, then, was to whip the rebels, to humble their pride, to follow them to their inmost recesses, and make them fear and dread us. Fear is the beginning of wisdom.

William Tecumseh Sherman

Doomed by Mindless Stupidity

Photo: Bjørn Christian Tørrissen

A recent Washington Post/ABC News poll revealed a serious flaw in the way we Americans think.   Setting aside the presidential ratings:

65% of us think we are "seriously off on the wrong track" while only 31% of us think we are "generally heading in the right direction".

77% of us disapprove of the way congress is doing its job.

61% of us disapprove of Democrats in congress.

72% of us disapprove of Republicans in congress.

Yet 45% of us approve of the job our own representative is doing vs. 41% that disapprove.

Let's face facts... it can't be everyone else's representative  that's screwing things up.

There may be a slim margin of hope in the result that only 23% say that they will reelect their current representative and 67% are "inclined to look around".  But honestly, how many of you think that voters are going to cross party lines or seek an independent or third party instead of just voting how they've always voted from sheer inertia?

World's Oldest Hashtag

Photo: John Cummings

In Gorham's Cave...

... on the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar has been discovered what is believed to be a Neanderthal abstract engraving in the rock under 39,000 years of detritus amid a collection of some 300 Neanderthal tools.

Photo: Stewart Finlayson, Gibraltar Museum

The experts that know such things say that it is an intentional carving, not the byproduct of some other activity like cutting meat.

“The production of purposely made painted or engraved designs on cave walls is recognised as a major cognitive step in human evolution, considered exclusive to modern humans.” National Academy of Sciences

This discovery is forcing academics to rethink our perception of Neanderthals as is the discovery that anywhere from 1-4% of the DNA in Eurasians is Neanderthal DNA. Live Science   The last interbreeding between modern humans and Neanderthals is believed to have occurred perhaps as recently as 37,000 years ago.

Cadillac anounces self driving car

A little late to the game, eh?

GM, the largest U.S. automaker, will introduce a Cadillac model in two years that can travel on the highway without the driver holding the steering wheel or putting a foot on a pedal. The 2017 Cadillac model will feature “Super Cruise” technology that takes control of steering, acceleration and braking at highway speeds of 70 miles per hour or in stop-and-go congested traffic.  

Self driving Cadillac 

That puts it what, three years behind Infiniti and Mercedes?  I guess you don't have to be a technology leader when you know Uncle Sammie will bail your butt out with taxpayer dollars.

If you think he's steering with his knees in the video, he climbs into the back seat at about 1:30.

And the soda can is a reference to Mercedes, which disables active lane control if you take your hands off the wheel for more than a few seconds.  Taping a soda can to the steering wheel fools the sensor into thinking your holding onto the wheel.

Too close to call

Scottish Independence Vote too close to call

The YouGov research for the Sunday Times found 51% supported independence, compared to 49% who wanted to remain in the UK.
The results are the latest evidence of a dramatic surge for the Yes Scotland campaign, which has seen the gap between the sides - once regularly in double digits - vanish in a matter of months.

 Scotsman

Saturday Sessions: George Thorogood and the Destroyers

One Bourbon, one Scotch, and one Beer from the debut album George Thorogood and the Destroyers is a Rudy Toombs song first recorded by Amos Milburn in 1953:

Move it on over, from the second album "Move It On Over" is a 12-Bar Blues song from Hank Williams 1947

Bad to the Bone from the 1982 album Bad to the Bone is a GT &D original tune:

And for those of you that live in Colorado, or close by:

Pikes Peak Center

 

Joan Rivers 1933-2014

Saber Rattling

The USS Ross, an Arleigh Burke class guided missile destroyer enters the Black Sea.  Washington Times

This will be joined by the French Commandant Birot, the Canadian HMCS Toronto, and the Spanish Almirante Juan de Borbon.  RT

NATO plans to go ahead with the Rapid Trident exercise in western Ukraine as Russia plans to go ahead with a strategic nuclear exercise in Altai.

Meanwhile France suspends delivery of the Vladivostok, a Mistrel Class Helicopter Carrier.

Simon Ghesquiere/Marine Nationale

 

Uh... yeah.

Photo: Victor Soares/ABr

Our Chavez who art in heaven, the earth, the sea and we delegates, Hallowed be your name, may your legacy come to us so we can spread it to people here and elsewhere. Give us your light to guide us every day, Lead us not into the temptation of capitalism, deliver us from the evil of the oligarchy, like the crime of contraband, because ours is the homeland, the peace and life forever and ever. Amen. Viva Chavez!    Yahoo

Just when you thought it couldn't get any sillier

KEEP OUT

I present here a snarl of news, commentary and advice on what to do about ISIS, specifically in light of developments in Syria. Usually, I like excerpting key points of the links I provide, but the Middle East is the world’s nuthouse, and it drives me crazy to read and write about it.

Experts insist Basher Assad encouraged ISIS to attack him in a very cynical game that resulted in ISIS swallowing whole the legitimate, non-jihadi opposition, thereby making his enemy the enemy of the west as well. I’ve seen comments poo pooing this from incredulous readers, but knowing what I know about dictatorships and about the Middle East, I believe it:

Assad is Laying a Deadly Trap in Syria

Attacking the Islamic State is Attacking Assad

Our invasion of Iraq was a colossal blunder of biblical proportions, and the jihadis learned much more from the debacle than we did:

What ISIS Learned from the US

A Tangled Nest of Snakes and Scorpions

There are no good guys in any of this, and they all hate us. The convoluted alliances further confound any understanding of what is going on. Kurdistan, a rare wellspring of goodwill toward the US, has allied with Iran to protect themselves. Qatar has broken with Saudi Arabia and UAE and is supporting ISIS. Why, I don’t know, but we cannot punish Qatar. It is the world’s #1 exporter of LNG, and it also hosts some very important US military command centers.

We need to stay out of this. Sure, drop some bombs, do some surveillance and pass along some intel if we must, but Middle Eastern nations need to throw their troops into that meat grinder. That shit-smeared hell-hole and its execrable inhabitants are not worth one more US cent or one more drop of American blood. It is a grotesque theater of bloody torture; a charnel house where ululating death cultists never tire of the stonings, beheadings, burnings, bombings and piles of dead bodies, all cheered on by the grubby populace.

Fence it off, stay away, and machinegun any jihadis who try to escape.

Close the Gates

Also, sorry legitimate refugees, but we need to cut off all immigration and visits from the world’s anal sphincter known as the Islamic world. We can’t sort the good from the bad, so bar them all. No Saudi Princes going to the hospital and enjoying shopping trips, no young men and women attending our universities, no refugees who, like the Boston bombers’ family feared for their lives so much that they repeatedly returned to the homeland we granted them refuge from. End it all, throw up a wall between Western Civilization and Muslim barbarity. Maybe this will make the good ones sort it out and snuff the poisonous snakes in their midst.

Even if we slam the gates, we still have a serious problem here in the west, where we are growing our own jihadis:

The Making of a Disaster

“American” Dies fighting for ISIS

According to NBC, an “American” named, oddly enough, Douglas MacArthur McCain has died fighting in Syria. As usual, they get it wrong. He was not an American. He was an anti-American jihadi POS whose death we should all celebrate. The US government knows of many others like him over there. They should all be tried in absentia, sentenced to death, stripped of their citizenship and then tracked down and smoked by drone, leaving nothing but a grease stain as an example to others. Any of them stupid enough to try and return should be seized at the border and unceremoniously executed.


Related: US Should Bomb ISIS, and Assad

It's Labor Day

I come from a long line of blue collar workers and was in the IBEW myself many years ago.  Just south of where I live is the site of the Ludlow Massacre

Stop for a moment on this day and think about the American labor movement and the sacrifices they made that got us where we are today.  If you're a union member or former member, or familyof a union member give them a shout out here this Labor Day.