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August 31, 2016
"Praise be to the Stupid Old White Women Choir."
Hillary Clinton's fanatical supporters sing Gospel with "Hillary" replacing "Jesus" in lyrics.Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:43 PM | Your Say (5)
Not Sure How to Vote? Try John Adams’ Advice.
In a word? Read.“We know it to be our Duty, to read, examine and judge for ourselves, even of ourselves what is right. … The English Constitution is founded, tis bottomed And grounded on the Knowledge and good sense of the People. The very Ground of our Liberties, is the freedom of Elections. Every Man has in Politicks as well as Religion, a Right to think and speak and Act for himself. No man either King or Subject, Clergyman or Layman has any Right to dictate to me the Person I shall choose for my Legislator and Ruler. I must judge for myself, but how can I judge, how can any Man judge, unless his Mind has been opened and enlarged by Reading. A Man who can read, will find in his Bible, in the common sermon Books that common People have by them and even in the Almanack and News Papers, Rules and observations, that will enlarge his Range of Thought, and enable him the better to judge who has and who has not that Integrity of Heart, and that Compass of Knowledge and Understanding, which form the Statesman.” | Intellectual Takeout
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:18 PM | Your Say (3)
Then his plane caught fire, but he made it back to base.
plus five 20 mm cannon strikes which punctured a tyre and rendered the flaps inoperative. In the first attack Caldwell suffered bullet wounds to the back, left shoulder, and leg. In the next pass one shot slammed through the canopy, causing splinters which wounded him with perspex in the face and shrapnel in the neck. Two cannon shells also punched their way through the rear fuselage just behind him and the starboard wing was badly damaged. Despite damage to both himself and the aircraft, Caldwell, feeling, as he remembers, “quite hostile” turned on his attackers and sent down one of the Bf 109s in flames. The pilot of the second Messerschmitt, the renowned Leutnant Schroer, shocked by this turn of events, evidently made off in some haste. - - WW2 Today
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:31 PM | Your Say (3)
Tell me how this toothpaste goes back in the tube.
Chicago gangs no longer know or fear the police, and bodies pile up"Every cop saw that video," O'Connor said. "One big difference is that now, on the street, there is no fear. Even in the '90s, with all the killing, the gangs feared the police. When we'd show up, they'd run. But now? Now they don't run. Now, there is no fear."
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:04 AM | Your Say (5)
Central state stimulus funded by debt only creates a brief illusion of prosperity.
The problem is this: after the government funding dries up,we still have a corrupt crony-cartel economy based on predatory privilege, parasitic rackets and central-state enforced fraud.In other words, we still have an economy that strangles productivity that could benefit the many in order to further enrich the few. - -Charles Hugh Smith
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:33 AM | Your Say (0)
In any normal system somebody would have made their own EpiPens and sold them for less.
Why don’t they? They keep trying, and the FDA keeps refusing to approve them for human use. For example, in 2009, a group called Teva Pharmaceuticals announced a plan to sell their own EpiPens in the US. The makers of the original EpiPen sued them, saying that they had patented the idea epinephrine-injecting devices. Teva successfully fended off the challenge and brought its product to the FDA, which rejected it because of “certain major deficiencies”. As far as I know, nobody has ever publicly said what the problem was – we can only hope they at least told Teva. Reverse Voxsplaining: Drugs vs. Chairs | Slate Star Codex
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:30 AM | Your Say (2)
On Santa Cruz Island, they killed the cows, sheep, and bees. Now it’s time to finish the job.
All Queens Must Die!She had Argentines in her backyard, of course, so she began her initial research and development there. Most poisoning systems acted too fast, killing ants either upon contact or soon after. Boser finally hit upon little gel beads, the kind used by florists in watery bouquets. Biodegradable, they soaked up the sugar water cut with poison, and kept their shape long enough, allowing the ants time to swarm and haul them homeward, back to the queens.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:11 AM | Your Say (1)
August 30, 2016
"Here’s a lovely recent shot of Edith and Woodrow Wilson, in matching outfits. "
on some state visit to Yemen or some shithole like that, gets shuffled off to the side, because, let’s face it, the Bangladeshi slave boy that cleans out the pit toilet outranks her on the social precedence scale.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:13 PM | Your Say (8)
In social systems as in mechanical systems, action will always be met by reaction.
The rise of racial animosity among blacks toward whites has evoked an equalbut opposite feeling among whites toward blacks. As American whites are six to seven times as numerous as American blacks, this is not a lever that favors black aspirations, regardless of their nature. Liberty's Torch: Saxons
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:18 PM | Your Say (2)
The news media has collapsed under an avalanche of nonsense they created.
No one believes anything they see reported.Government has approval rates in the teens. We are well into becoming a low-trust society that can only be held together by force. A big cause of that is the daily barrage of nonsense we get through the media. There used to be a time when the responsible made an effort to stem the flow of nonsense, but that’s no more. Instead, we live in a misinformation age. It’s not going to end well. Misinformation Age
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:02 PM | Your Say (0)
“The Modern Liberal was born into a life as close to paradise as any human being since God first created man.
Having come of age in or after the 1960s,virtually everything that virtually every other human being, in literally every other time and in literally every other place, had had to think about – at its most basic, how to avoid things like disease, hunger, poverty and physical pain – had all but been eradicated just prior to the Modern Liberal’s entry into the sentient world.” Evan Sayet, “The Kindergarten of Eden”
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:12 PM | Your Say (0)
It's Probably Nothing:
Report: Czech Government Tells Citizens to ‘Prepare for the Worst’ Warning follows German advisory for citizens to stockpile enough food and water for 10 days.Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:39 PM | Your Say (1)
Linkapalooza (Mit Der Commentary of O'Remus)
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:25 PM | Your Say (1)
John Derbyshire: "Fifty years.... And still they riot."
Because riots work, Derb. They keep the gravy train fueled.No one actually believed all those programs and giveaways were the "right thing to do," nor do they believe it now. Not them, not us. They were, and are, payoffs, the price of peace. As Derb points out, it hasn't worked and it won't work. We've gotten a negative return on half a century of expensive subservience, yet if our attention drifts from their self-inflicted troubles for one waking moment—riots. We're being had. Woodpile Report
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:14 PM | Your Say (1)
Walk into a gun-shop almost anywhere and you are likely to see a picture of Barack Obama on the wall, with the caption “Salesman of the Year”.
A Pew Research Center poll released on August 26 shows that 44 percent of all households now own a gun.This expansion of household gun ownership comes amid an ongoing streak of 15 months of consecutive gun sale background checks and various poll results showing Americans believe gun ownership makes them safer, rather than putting them at risk. According to Pew, 44 percent of all households have a gun, versus 51 percent who said they did not. This same poll showed that 58 percent of respondents viewed gun ownership as something that brings safety, versus 37 percent who believe such ownership increases risk. Defense Makes Sense – waka waka waka
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:01 PM | Your Say (6)
August 29, 2016
Drive-By Tweetings
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:22 PM | Your Say (3)
Lonely Parking Meter
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:47 PM | Your Say (1)
The tempo and drama of war headlines have obscured another significant victory dance: the race to be in at the death of Obamacare.
Dead it is. Even Vox is tolling the funeral bell.
Sarah Kliff writes. "Big insurers have quit Obamacare. That means more shoppers only get one choice. n 2016, there were 182 counties with only one Obamacare insurer. In 2017, there will be 687 counties with only one Obamacare insurer. ...There are fewer competitive Healthcare.gov markets than ever before ... Obamacare's marketplaces have become less competitive since 2014." Accidental Heroes | PJ Media
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:07 PM | Your Say (5)
Gene Wilder: 1933-2016
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:57 PM | Your Say (4)
America Needs a Good, Old-Fashioned Economic Depression
It will make the Great Depression look like a picnic party in the park. Why will it be worse?
Consider just two simple facts: first, supply chains are much longer and considerably more intricate than eighty-five years ago. As they fail (due to bankruptcies and business failures of those in the chain), basic necessities will not get to those in need of them. Second, compared to eighty-five years ago, the world has billions more mouths to feed, and many fewer people, including millions fewer farmers, who actually know how to produce the basic necessities. | The National Interest
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:28 AM | Your Say (3)
Quote Of The Decade
“…All I’m saying is that Team Liberty needs to get a lot better at demonstrating reasons for people to side with it, rather than either dismissing it, or siding against it. The dedicated collectivists are a lost cause, but there are plenty of decent people who can be brought over. Simply offering greater contempt for the average person than do the leaders of the collectivist side just guarantees that most people will end up being more or less antipathetic to the Liberty side.” — WRSA Commenter | Western Rifle Shooters AssociationPosted by gerardvanderleun at 11:15 AM | Your Say (2)
August 28, 2016
A nation mourns
Burkina Faso bans Miss Bim-Bim' - - a big buttocks beauty contest
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:20 PM | Your Say (9)
Kaepernick was born to a destitute black mother in Milwaukee, who put him up for adoption. His father was a deadbeat from the neighborhood
In other words, he was born into the typical black environment, but unlike most black children, he was saved by a nice white couple who adopted him and raised him as their son.This got him into good schools, sports and a middle-class lifestyle. Later, nice white coaches helped him with his sports career, first at college and then in the NFL. Jim Harbaugh madeKaepernick a legitimate NFL player. Kaepernick has decided to respond to this amazing run of good fortune, almost exclusively the result of generouswhite Americans, by giving his middle finger to his fellow Americans. Specifically, he is his flipping the bird to white people so he can pretend to make common cause with the black people from whom he was saved as a baby. I Want A Thank You | The Z Blog
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:05 PM | Your Say (7)
Emergency Theater for Paris Agreement: China, US rush to sham ratification
In the run-up to Paris, China has built so many coal fired stations that as its economy falters it is even closing them but only because it has too many.It has so much coal power there is even discussion that it could sell the excess power to Germany because it can produce electricity so cheaply that even the transmission losses over such a distance don't matter â electricity in Berlin is wildly expensive (thanks to their green obsession). The Chinese have been running full tilt to develop their manufacturing and electricity base - - CO2 be damned. Last time there was a "historic" moment with Obama, China agreed to do nothing different til 2030. It was an unenforceable long term commitment with no consequences. Like all these international agreements, the net effect will be to produce more global CO2 as factories move to China where they produce four times as much CO2 as Western factories. But no one cares about actual CO2, just like they donât care about real air pollution and the 5.5 million deaths from it. Xi Jinping wants the West to sign the Paris agreement â it will hobble the competition, plus China already profits from carbon penance even as it hopes to profit by selling coal fired electricity back to hobbled nations. - - JoNova
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:40 AM | Your Say (1)
August 27, 2016
The prudent will stock a deep larder
using home canning, dehydrating, vacuum dry packing, salting, smoking and a goodly supply of commercial long term storage foods.Regional events elsewhere suggest survival will be a more intense version of life itself, a marathon of hard work and routine, with occasional run-ins with dangerous people. As the well known and obvious truth has it, "there's no long term without the short term". Those who make it through the first year okay, and who use that year well, have the best shot at surviving the storm altogether. Woodpile Report
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:25 PM | Your Say (0)
A red dawn
Todd Savage, who runs Survival Retreat Consulting in Sandpoint, Idaho, works with the more usual sort of client:political migrants who rail against “morally corrupt” nanny government elsewhere. He does a brisk business helping them set up their food-producing fortress-homesteads. Staff train clients in defensive landscaping, how to repel an assault on their property with firearms, and the erection of structures “hardened” to withstand forced entry and chemical, biological, radiological or explosive attack. The last big frontier | The Economist
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:43 AM | Your Say (1)
Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediment. / Love is not love when it alteration finds....
Man accused of stealing sex toys and the top half of a mannequin from adult store After entering the building Doyle, police say, “walked around the store and then walked over to the ‘Eva’ mannequin and stripped the clothing off of it and takes the top half of the mannequin and takes a blonde and burgundy wig off a display and placed it on its head and walked out the front door.”Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:05 AM | Your Say (1)
Obama has ordered the Justice Department to use “justice-involved youth” instead of “juvenile delinquent,”
and to cease using the word “Negro.”How this will improve literacy in the ghetto is not clear. He wants schools to suspend black and white students proportionately, being unhappy that blacks are suspended at higher rates. His is the quintessential black point of view: Everything springs from racism, of which blacks don’t have any, and the solution is a federal regulation. Obama never says that black kids ought to study more or that black women ought to behave responsibly in childbearing. He clearly believes them incapable of it, a position is indistinguishable from that of the KKK. Milwaukee | Fred On Everything
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:20 AM | Your Say (2)
The Artificial Horizon and the Earth Path Indicator
Found at Frames Of Reference | The Arts MechanicalWhen people first started to fly, an important question emerged. The question was 'which way was up?' That seems like and easy question to answer, but when you are flying around in an airplane in a fog, it becomes more complicated.
An artificial, or gyro, horizon is the main instrument pilots use to fly through bad weather and low-visibility conditions. It indicates the aircraft's orientation relative to the earth, expressed as pitch, roll, and yaw. This is the first production model, the same type Doolittle used in his historic 1929 "blind flying" test.
The Mercury space capsule carried this device, designed by the Honeywell Corporation, which allowed the astronaut to see his orbital track and heading. For example, it indicated when the spacecraft was passing over a ground station or a landing site. The device was a simple globe, driven by a clockwork mechanism. Once in a stable orbit, the astronaut would wind up the clockwork, and set the position of a tiny scale model of the Mercury capsule, under which the globe would rotate.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:05 AM | Your Say (6)
August 26, 2016
When people realize that they really have no country, only a collection of rapacious interests, history becomes
…creative. In theory, Congress and the President have the well-being of the nation at heart and at least to some extent seek to effect the betterment of the whole.
Really they are carrion birds picking the carcass clean and, perhaps, planning flight to the French Riviera. Mussolini ended as an ornament in the Italian street, hanging upside down from a meat hook. He should have paid more attention. Paris, 1787: It Reaches Manhattan, Doubtless Due to Continental Drift | Fred On Everything
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:38 PM | Your Say (3)
At the other extreme are the "Mount Olympus" preppers,
affluent groups with remote, upscale compounds outfitted to continue their present life style without the annoying inconveniences a civilizational collapse is bound to incur.They're well staffed and elaborately equipped, often underground, with high-tech comms and power generation, huge stores of food, fuel and supplies, good medical facilities, their security entrusted to a cadre of ex-military and a "nine" in every nightstand. It's essentially an all-in bet their capsule will outlast the unpleasantness. There's no Plan B, it would mean settling for second best, so it ain't happenin'. Woodpile Report
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:26 PM | Your Say (0)
On the resurgence of “field guides” in a networked age
A drawing can do much more than a photograph to emphasize field marks. A photograph is a record of a fleeting instant; a drawing is a composite of the artist’s experience. The artist can edit out, show field marks to best advantage, and delete unnecessary clutter. He can choose position and stress basic color and pattern unmodified by transitory light and shade. … The artist has more options and far more control. … Whereas a photograph can have a living immediacy a good drawing is really more instructive. Cloud and Field:
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:35 AM | Your Say (1)
"A whole cellar full of fifteen-hundred-year-old, two-hundred proof Grace"
The Reformation was a time when men went blind, staggering drunk because they had discovered, in the dusty basement of late medievalism, a whole cellar full of fifteen-hundred-year-old, two-hundred proof Grace–bottle after bottle of pure distillate of Scripture, one sip of which would convince anyone that God saves us single-handedly. The word of the Gospel–after all those centuries of trying to lift yourself into heaven by worrying about the perfection of your bootstraps–suddenly turned out to be a flat announcement that the saved were home before they started… Grace has to be drunk straight: no water, no ice, and certainly no ginger ale; neither goodness, nor badness, not the flowers that bloom in the spring of super spirituality could be allowed to enter into the case. — Robert Farrar Capon
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:33 AM | Your Say (3)
Why?
Why would feminists remain silent while the promotion and importation of anti-feminists known for the most severe forms of oppression goes on at an accelerated pace?
Why would homosexuals support the administration's full-throated support of regimes that routinely imprison, burn and toss homosexuals off of buildings? Why would a president encourage the division of the races, inflaming old hatreds and new resentments with the potential to cause massive civil slaughter otherwise only known to places like Rwanda? Why would the media assail and seek the punishment of a lying Olympic swimmer, yet defend with screaming silence the multitude of lies told by a presidential candidate, knowing all the while that her lies are exponentially more dangerous to individuals and society? Christian Mercenary: The Screaming of the Barbarians
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:32 AM | Your Say (4)
So Long, Suckers. Thanks for the Fish.
Why Uber Is Losing Money Faster Than Any Tech Company Ever Eventually, Uber will get rid of the drivers and turn a huge profit.Earlier this month, Uber announced it would begin allowing customers in downtown Pittsburgh to summon self-driving cars from their phones, indicating at least part of the company’s long-term business plan. Uber also acquired self-driving car company Otto for $300 million, showing its eagerness to advance its driverless car technology.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:14 AM | Your Say (2)
Door. Ass. Bang. Gawker Hits the Bricks
Nick Denton, owner, on How Things Work Gawker.com is shutting down today, Monday 22nd August, 2016, some 13 years after it began and two days before the end of my forties.It is the end of an era. The staff will move to new jobs on other properties in Gawker Media Group, which are lively and intact, and the whole operation will continue under new ownership, after being acquired for $135 million by Univision. But I will not be going with my colleagues. The Gawker domain is also being left behind in bankruptcy. This is the last post.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:05 AM | Your Say (0)
You’ll be homeowner in the Bay Area — and nothing says you’ve “made it” like being able to afford a down payment.
Your spouse hurriedly gets ready for work — you are a two income family and you have to be one for now.The spreadsheet shows that with only three more years’ savings, you can finally afford that 2 bedroom condo in San Bruno. So what if the weather is shitty 340 days out of the year? At least you’ll be homeowner in the Bay Area — and nothing says you’ve “made it” like being able to afford a down payment. Besides, San Bruno is “up and coming” — and Youtube has an office there. This is Your Life in Silicon Valley – Medium
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:44 AM | Your Say (2)
It's Probably Nothing....
Yikes — Iranian Boats Play Chicken With U.S. Warships Another few sunny days in the Persian Gulf, and another several days of scarily-close encounters between Iranian boats and U.S. warships. And this time they provoked an American ship into firing warning shots.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:18 AM | Your Say (3)
Muzzled!
The other six-in-six Olympian is a woman from Southern California.She should have been asked to carry the flag at the closing ceremonies in Rio. I have nothing but respect for Simone Biles and her five medals in gymnastics, but this sixth medal in six Olympic Games was not only a once-in-a-century achievement, it was also accomplished by a 37-year-old woman who was fighting injuries, who was struggling against decades of sexism in her sport’s Olympic organization, who has to train by herself while raising a 3-year-old son, and who had to learn a whole new sport halfway through her medal run because the Olympics decided only men could compete in her preferred event. - Joe Bob Briggs
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:58 AM | Your Say (1)
August 25, 2016
Are Rotisserie Chickens a Bargain?
almost always pre-injected, fairly uniform in size, and frequently pre-seasoned, ready to pop into the ovens. Other times, Owens Hanning says, the producers include packages of dry-rub in different seasonings—lemon-pepper is a biggie, along with herb-garlic—for store staff to apply to the chicken skin. It’s a rare store for employees to do the chicken prep from scratch, using their own herbs and seasonings—a fact confirmed by workers behind the counters, who, for the most part, didn’t know what was in or on the chickens. == Priceonomics
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:16 PM | Your Say (2)
In the United States of today, clouds gather as the royalty toast each other with expensive wines.
In numbers that a half century ago would have seemed impossible, the American young live with their parents, being unable to find jobs to support themselves.Waitressing in a good bar pays better in tips than a woman with a college degree can otherwise earn, assuming that she can earn anything at all. Employers having learned to hire them as individual contractors, they move into their thirties with no hope of a pension for their old age. Desperation and hatred are close cousins. Paris, 1787: It Reaches Manhattan, Doubtless Due to Continental Drift | Fred On Everything
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:36 PM | Your Say (3)
The world has become claustrophobic, stifling; limited by our paranoia and our enemies’ great evil.
I travel without a phone, without internet, without whatever the hell ‘Pokemon Go’ is – zombies wandering aimlessly through the dunes,almost stepping on a roadrunner as they look for – well I have no idea really, and I have no energy to try and find out. I drive without that little voice that has replaced our conscience, ‘turn left at the next crossing, continue on interstate eight for one-hundred-miles’. Fear. Fear at being lost, fear at missing something. More probably fear of finding something. Fear of being alone with our thoughts and our families. - - | Joel D. Hirst's Blog
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:40 PM | Your Say (0)
Aldous Huxley Discusses 1984 vs Brave New World with George Orwell
"The philosophy of the ruling minority in Nineteen Eighty-Four is a sadism which has been carried to its logical conclusion by going beyond sex and denying it.Whether in actual fact the policy of the boot-on-the-face can go on indefinitely seems doubtful. My own belief is that the ruling oligarchy will find less arduous and wasteful ways of governing and of satisfying its lust for power, and these ways will resemble those which I described in Brave New World. I have had occasion recently to look into the history of animal magnetism and hypnotism, and have been greatly struck by the way in which, for a hundred and fifty years, the world has refused to take serious cognizance of the discoveries of Mesmer, Braid, Esdaile, and the rest."Letters of Note: 1984 v. Brave New World
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:45 PM | Your Say (1)
To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle.
One thing that helps toward it is to keep a diary, or, at any rate, to keep some kind of record of one's opinions about important events.Otherwise, when some particularly absurd belief is exploded by events, one may simply forget that one ever held it. Political predictions are usually wrong. But even when one makes a correct one, to discover why one was right can be very illuminating. In general, one is only right when either wish or fear coincides with reality. If one recognizes this, one cannot, of course, get rid of one's subjective feelings, but one can to some extent insulate them from one's thinking and make predictions cold-bloodedly, by the book of arithmetic. In private life most people are fairly realistic. When one is making out one's weekly budget, two and two invariably make four. Politics, on the other hand, is a sort of sub-atomic or non-Euclidean word where it is quite easy for the part to be greater than the whole or for two objects to be in the same place simultaneously. Hence the contradictions and absurdities I have chronicled above, all finally traceable to a secret belief that one's political opinions, unlike the weekly budget, will not have to be tested against solid reality. George Orwell: In Front of Your Nose
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:18 AM | Your Say (1)
I knew the answer in 1964 but I forgot it by 1965
Shortly after taking the drug, participants who received LSD reported an increase in psychosis-like symptoms, including visual hallucinations, spiritual experiences and paranoia. It was an outcome the researchers had expected. But interestingly, those given LSD were more likely to feel positive, and even ‘blissful’ emotions, as opposed to the negative and ‘anxious’ feelings sometimes associated with psychedelic drugs. What was even more striking was that two weeks after taking LSD, these individuals reported increased optimism and openness, making them more creative and curious, as compared to those who received the placebo.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:44 AM | Your Say (2)
Security experts are always on our televisions telling us about the need for government surveillance of the public.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:41 AM | Your Say (1)
The Benedict Option In the Louisiana Flood
I have NEVER been more proud than to be from Louisiana as I am in these awful days.Look, the national media all found there way down here when Alton Sterling was shot and killed. But now, when thousands of black lives are shattered by catastrophic losses, where are they? If they came, and if they had eyes to see, they would know that what Augustine Amechi says is for real. We are seeing black folks and white folks rescuing each other, and caring for each other in the shelters, and even in each others’ homes. This kind of thing is happening everywhere, all around us. We are even seeing a conservative Southern Baptist man opening his apartment to a transgender man and his boyfriend, because they are strangers who needed a place to go, but also because they are not strangers at all, but neighbors, Louisianians, fellow human beings. | The American Conservative
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:36 AM | Your Say (0)
How a Mathematician Turned an Obscure Number Into a Scary Story
Why Pickover chose Belphegor exactly is unclear. On Pickover’s own site, he warns people not to stare at the number too long, and to look away and take a deep breath, after a few seconds. He also links the number to a symbol from the mysterious Voynich Manuscript, a work that may itself be some sort of massive troll. | Atlas Obscura
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:27 AM | Your Say (2)
August 24, 2016
Trump is running the first high-tech, grassroots presidential campaign in history.
The other election campaign is the Trump barnstorming tour where he does these stadium shows for thousands.
They are not running ads to promote these things. Instead, they are relying on word of mouth via social media. They also get local media coverage. Trump is deliberately banning the big foot media from his events and he is not paying for a plane to ferry around the press like we have seen in prior campaigns. Trump is running the first high-tech, grassroots presidential campaign in history. Estates of the Realm
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:05 PM | Your Say (1)
Fractured Lands: How the Arab World Came Apart
For all their revolutionary rhetoric, the dictators of Libya, Iraq and Syria remained ever mindful that their nations were essentially artificial constructs.What this meant was that many of their subjects’ primary loyalty lay not to the state but to their tribe or, more broadly, to their ethnic group or religious sect. To keep them loyal required both the carrot and the stick. In all three nations, the leaders entered into elaborate and labyrinthine alliances with various tribes and clans. Stay on the dictator’s good side, and your tribe might be given control of a ministry or a lucrative business concession; fall on his bad side, and you’re all out in the cold. The strongmen also carefully forged ties across ethnic and religious divides. In Iraq, even though most all senior Baathist officials were, like Saddam Hussein, of the Sunni minority, he endeavored to sprinkle just enough Shiites and Kurds through his administration to lend it an ecumenical sheen. In Hafez al-Assad’s Sunni-majority Syria, rule by his Alawite minority was augmented by a de facto alliance with the nation’s Christian community, giving another significant minority a stake in the status quo. - - The New York Times
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:08 PM | Your Say (3)
Hillary Clinton Magazine Special
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:47 AM | Your Say (1)
This life is too much trouble, far too strange, to arrive at the end of it
and then to be asked what you make of it and have to answer ‘scientific humanism.’
That won’t do. A poor show. Life is a mystery, love is a delight. Therefore I take it as axiomatic that one should settle for nothing less than the infinite mystery and the infinite delight, i.e. God. In fact I demand it. I refuse to settle for anything less. I don’t see why anyone should settle for less than Jacob, who actually grabbed a hold of God and would not let go until God identified himself and blessed him. — Walker Percy
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:46 AM | Your Say (0)
August 23, 2016
The Latest "Pearl of Great Price"
Working to free his boat, the fisherman dove into the water to pull up the anchor by hand, bringing the shell with him. Inside was the record-breaking pearl. Apparently unaware of the pearl’s true value, the fisherman simply brought it home and put it under his bed as a good luck talisman. There it sat for a full decade. It was only after a fire forced him to move out of the house that he decided to hand the super-sized pearl over to local officials. The pearl measures a foot wide and over two feet long, and has been estimated to be worth somewhere near $100 million dollars.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:32 PM | Your Say (6)
"There was a steady stream of wee coming from the cheeky little bee."
Bee Having A Wee Photo Taken By Grimsby Photographer Mark Parrott
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:39 PM | Your Say (1)
It's Probably Nothing:
Following "Deadliest Month" In A Year, Ukraine President Warns Of "Full-Scale Russian Invasion" | Zero HedgePosted by gerardvanderleun at 10:06 AM | Your Say (3)
There's Another Pile of Wood at the Woodpile
The name meant to suggest an affordable luxury by invoking Manhattan's famous Ritz-Carlton Hotel, at only 19 cents per box. A runaway success in its test market, Ritz was distributed nationally in 1935, then internationally. By 1937 Ritz was the best-selling cracker in the world. Ritz is a "butter cracker" rather than a soda cracker, i.e., it's made with more shortening and no yeast. The holes are an ancient technique, called "docking", to keep the cracker flat while baking so it will be equally crisp edge to edge. Woodpile Report
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:23 AM | Your Say (3)
Self-driving cars aren't a problem to be solved, because there's no problem there.
Why do Millennials want to sit in a booster seat clutching a ziploc bag of Cheerios and a Gameboy until they're ready for a nursing home? Drive your own damn car. It's not that hard if you're not texting. - Maggie's FarmPosted by gerardvanderleun at 9:16 AM | Your Say (4)
"On the sea or on the land / She's got the situation well in hand."
Has vagina.
— Mike Cernovich (@Cernovich) August 23, 2016
Opens (pre-opened, no safety seal pop) jar of pickles.
That's it. That's all she's got. pic.twitter.com/A20jCKiz19
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:14 AM | Your Say (1)
It's probably just a local misunderstanding:
FBI Investigating Possible ISIS-Inspired Knife Attack in Virginia - ABC News During the Saturday stabbing, Farooqui allegedly injured a man and woman at an apartment complex in Roanoke, yelling "Allah Akbar" as he attacked them with a knife, sources told ABC News. Authorities believe he may have been trying to behead the male victim, who was likely picked at random, ABC News was told.Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:05 AM | Your Say (0)
I’m just an insignificant man in a huge country – a country full of people with names written in bold caps across the glossy covers of magazines,
whose insults echo through cyberspace like Kipling’s Zamzama. Nevertheless I am also sure that I’m not alone – that beside me there are a chorus of others who want to remember first that in November it is Thanksgiving, and only second that there is also an election. Who want first to figure out their son’s schooling, and leave the torture of our enemies for another time. Who want to pay off their mortgage before they fret about how to pay for free, well free everything really. Who want to marry, to love their wives and make babies and build for the future; hard work of honor and dignity and sacrifice which has made America strong. - - What’s Right With America | Joel D. Hirst
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:42 AM | Your Say (0)
Gravitational waves will bring the extreme universe into view
The second detection, made on 26 December 2015 and announced this June, firmly established gravitational waves as a new window to the Universe. But even more exciting are the detections yet to come: the thousands of signals that should soon be observed by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and Virgo experiments. They will transform our understanding of black holes, neutron stars, supernova explosions, and perhaps even the origin and fate of the cosmos itself. - - | Aeon Ideas
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:29 AM | Your Say (2)
"Readers of this blog take steps to make sure their employers are unaware that they read sites like this one, for fear the morality police will come calling."
The American college campus is under the control of ideological fanatics, who believe in their causes so deeply they are willing to ruin friends and family on behalf of their cause.Thought crimes have become so common, we take them for granted. Readers ofthis blog take steps to make sure their employers are unaware that they read sites like this one, for fear the morality police will come calling.Supporting a candidate like Trump has become a private act of rebellion. The only thing missing from this toxic stew is an excessive believe in the supernatural, butthe hunt for hate thinkers is really just a modern form of witch hunting. Something Has Gone Wrong
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:23 AM | Your Say (0)
"For most people, wanting to know the cold truth about the world is way, way down the list.”
"The ordinary modes of human thinking are magical, religious, social, and personal.We want our wishes to come true; we want the universe to care about us; we want the approval of those around us; we want to get even with that s.o.b. who insulted us at the last tribal council. For most people, wanting to know the cold truth about the world is way, way down the list.” – - Known Hate Thinker John Derbyshire
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:13 AM | Your Say (2)
August 22, 2016
What Is American Cheese, Anyway?
a slice of Comté, or a crumble of Roquefort on top. But if I had to pick one cheese to stock in my burger joint, you're damn right it's gonna be American. No other cheese in the world can touch its meltability or goo factor, and that's really what it's there for: texture. If I've taken the time to select and grind some great beef, I want that beef flavor to shine, not get covered up by a powerful cheese that would fare better on a cheese plate. | Serious Eats
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:42 PM | Your Say (2)
It's Probably Nothing:
US sends jets to protect forces from Syrian regime strikesWASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. has twice scrambled fighter aircraft to protect American special operations forces and allies after Syrian government warplane attacks near the northeastern Syrian city of Hassakeh, officials said Friday. Navy Capt. Jeff Davis said the U.S. has increased combat air patrols in that area and has warned Syria that America will defend coalition troops. He also said he believes this is the first time the U.S. has scrambled aircraft in response to an incident like this involving Syrian government bombings.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:41 PM | Your Say (3)
In Orwell's view the mutability of the past was the foundation of tyranny.
"Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past." To ensure this the Ministry of Truth was honeycombed with Memory Holes into which any inconvenient fact could be dropped and be disappeared.
But just to illustrate how things have changed for the State we now know that Orwell was wrong. The mathematically dominant method for recording transactions, whether they involve the transfer of financial assets, intellectual property, health records or any type of information is probably going to be the blockchain. It has three important properties. First the entire record can be reproduced by anyone from a Genesis cryptographic starting point such that all records will have the same signature if and only if they are the same. Second, no part of the record can be altered without regenerating the entire block chain from the the branch. Third, it is impossible to rewrite the block chain without incurring enormous real costs in electricity and computing power, as guaranteed by the laws of thermodynamics. The End of the Memory Hole | PJ Media
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:22 PM | Your Say (1)
August 21, 2016
It's Probably Nothing:
Germany to tell people to stockpile food and water in case of attacksPosted by gerardvanderleun at 6:57 PM | Your Say (3)
I would no sooner send my son to a public school than let him walk around uninnoculated from disease.
It is tyranny disguised as liberation, mobocracy as democracy, discrimination as equality, stupidity as wisdom, and cruelty as compassion. -- One Cʘsmos: Liberalism and the Propagation of Mind ParasitesPosted by gerardvanderleun at 4:48 PM | Your Say (1)
The Wine Appreciation Bullshit Reaches Marijuana Sales
"We are proud and Honored to be one of few collectivves carrying Authentic Cookie Family Genetics Sunset Sherbert. Heir to the Girl Scout Cookies throne is Sunset Sherbert, an indica-leaning hybrid with intoxicatingly potent effects. Sunset Sherbert inherits the genetic lineage of its Girl Scout Cookies parent, whose ancestors include the famed OG Kush, Cherry Pie, and Durban Poison. Crossed with an indica known as Pink Panties,Sunset Sherbet exhibits powerful full-body effects elevated by a jolt of cerebral energy. A complex aroma colors with notes of skunky citrus, sweet berry, and that candy-like smell redolent of its Girl Scout Cookies parent. The taste is amazing!!! Just like SunSet Sherbert Ice Cream!!Stress, tension, and sour moods melt away with the carefree mindset and physical relaxation that comes with this rich hybrid." 530GreenTrees Marijuana Delivery | Weedmaps
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:06 PM | Your Say (7)
Olympia’s True Victors
Accounting for something like a sixth of the world’s population, it had not—the last time I looked at the table—won a single medal in any event. This proves that, at least in this regard, it has its priorities right. It has steadfastly refused to measure itself by the number of medals it wins at the Olympics and does nothing whatever to encourage its citizens to devote their lives to trying to jump a quarter of a centimeter longer or higher than anyone else in human history. - - Theodore Dalrymple
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:15 AM | Your Say (2)
"Love that word 'even' "
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:51 AM | Your Say (2)
August 20, 2016
Hard Rain: There's a Storm Coming
Oh, what did you see, my darling young one?
I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it
I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it
I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin’
I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleedin’
I saw a white ladder all covered with water
I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken
I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children
And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:51 AM | Your Say (1)
The vulnerability of post-heroic societies
There is no doubt that Americans and Europeans, including the Swiss, are among the post-heroic societies. They have high regard for the trader, not the hero, according to a distinction made by Werner Sombart. Post-heroic societies have overcome interstate war for the purpose of dispute resolution; patriotic sacrifice and endurance of suffering have been eroded and are only maintained in rhetoric and rituals. Their soldiers are peacekeepers on humanitarian missions; if they fight, they do so without loss to their own side. Their governments assert again and again that they never want to endanger the lives of their own soldiers. Their playing fields are peacekeeping and asymmetric war from a position of strength. Their tools are the satellite-guided cruise missile, the missile submarine, and bombing from high altitudes. - - | Offiziere.ch
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:15 AM | Your Say (3)
August 19, 2016
10 Mind-Boggling Paradoxes
His mother pleads with the crocodile to return him, to which the crocodile replies that he will only return the boy safely if the mother can guess correctly whether or not he will indeed return the boy. There is no problem if the mother guesses that the crocodile will return him—if she is right, he is returned; if she is wrong, the crocodile keeps him. If she answers that the crocodile will not return him, however, we end up with a paradox: if she is right and the crocodile never intended to return her child, then the crocodile has to return him, but in doing so breaks his word and contradicts the mother’s answer. On the other hand, if she is wrong and the crocodile actually did intend to return the boy, the crocodile must then keep him even though he intended not to, thereby also breaking his word. - - | Mental Floss
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:30 PM | Your Say (5)
I don't write the headlines. I just report them.
Sex pigs halt traffic after laser attack on Pokémon teens
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:01 AM | Your Say (0)
What comes after Trump is, if history is a guide, going to be much worse.
Instead of an amateur politician, who still believes in the system, the next guy to rally the troops will be a professional who does not believe in the system.Instead he will be a guy that looks at the system in the same way Turkish strongman ErdoÄan looks at democracy. That is, it is useful only as a vehicle for taking the leader to where he wants to go. "If you must break the law, do it to seize power: in all other cases observe it," said Julius Caesar. On Being Revolting in the Modern Age | The Z Blog
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:57 AM | Your Say (3)
What it’s like to be attacked by the Red Baron:
I did not know it was Richthofen’s. … I endeavoured to get my forward machine gun on the red plane, but Richthofen was too wise a pilot, and his machine was too speedy for mine. He zoomed up again and was on my tail in less than half a minute. Another burst of lead came over my shoulder, and the glass faces of the Company - Futility Closet
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:25 AM | Your Say (0)
Your tax dildos at work.
USDA teams up with Iowa law school and Cyndi Lauper to celebrate lesbian farmersPosted by gerardvanderleun at 8:13 AM | Your Say (2)
August 18, 2016
What's Dennis “The Kuntroller” Kucinich — short, weird looking, skinny, old, liberal kook -- got that other men don't? Besides a genuine red-headed hottie.
Kucinich holds his lady tight and right, drawing her into him and pressing her flesh into his feeble old mannery that does not even lift. Notice too he doesn’t lean into her; if anyone’s leaning adoringly, it’s her. Kucinich’s alpha male body language transmits a loud and clear message: “I take complete ownership of my woman”. -- Chateau Heartiste
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:34 PM | Your Say (6)
Getting a billion people on-line is not unlocking a great store of human potential.
Mostly it allowed a billion dimwits to fill the available space with inane chatter. Spend five minutes watching cable news and you can’t help but long for the days when men got their news from newspapers and the town meeting. That’s not to dismiss the value of having the Library of Alexandria at our fingertips. It’s just that there was not a lot of untapped intellect sitting around in 1975. The Reformation | Z BlogPosted by gerardvanderleun at 4:13 PM | Your Say (1)
ROLE MODEL: Police: Ohio Man, 35, Tried To Have Sex With A Red Van
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 3:23 PM | Your Say (3)
One can't win a gunfight without a gun, and one can't win a cultural war without an ideology.
Conservatism is intellectual nihilism, it is an ideological void.If you are of the Right, stop calling yourself a conservative. It's absurd. Not only has conservatism failed to conserve anything, it was as doomed from the start as the atheists attempting to fight a religious war without a religion. Vox Popoli: The conservative void
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:31 AM | Your Say (0)
Every Joke from ‘Airplane!’ Ranked
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:59 AM | Your Say (0)
August 17, 2016
Men in Chairs: If you dare to click the link and wait 20 seconds for the tugboat you will never be able to unsee this.
You have been warned:Men in Chairs - YouTubePosted by gerardvanderleun at 1:23 PM | Your Say (3)
Illegal immigration ignores the rule of law in favor of freedom.
Closed borders ignores liberty to focus only upon the rule of law.
These two pressures can be viewed as negatives as well: imagine a ship sailing through a narrow channel, with jagged rocks and cliffs on either side, beneath the choppy seas are hidden reefs and shoals.On the port side is the evil of tyranny, in which liberty is destroyed. On the starboard side is anarchy, in which law is abandoned. Charting a course between these two evils that destroy civilization and happiness is a treacherous and dangerous job. Word Around the Net: THE IMPERVIOUS HORRORS
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:38 PM | Your Say (1)
The Japanese: Nuked Too Much or Not Enough?
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:08 PM | Your Say (1)
The Fifth Element
One direction that intrigues Feng is the possibility that this potential fifth force might be joined to the electromagnetic and strong and weak nuclear forces as "manifestations of one grander, more fundamental force." Citing physicists' understanding of the standard model, Feng speculated that there may also be a separate dark sector with its own matter and forces. "It's possible that these two sectors talk to each other and interact with one another through somewhat veiled but fundamental interactions," he said. "This dark sector force may manifest itself as this protophobic force we're seeing as a result of the Hungarian experiment. In a broader sense, it fits in with our original research to understand the nature of dark matter."
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:40 AM | Your Say (4)
Could Gab Finally Be the Free Speech Twitter Alternative?
Many conservatives feel unfairly targeted and believe their viewpoints are being suppressed. Enter Gab.ai, a new social networking platform that hopes to be the answer to these pressing issues. A beta version of the site, which is a lot like Twitter with hints of Reddit, was created in a remarkably short three weeks and has let in a few hundred users for testing. While the site currently only contains basic features, its founder holds lofty goals for the platform. As it stands, the site allows you to write 300-character âtweets,â but also upvote and downvote them like on Reddit. | Heat Street
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:42 AM | Your Say (3)
It's Probably Nothing:
Russia Has Deployed Backfire Bombers to IranPosted by gerardvanderleun at 7:32 AM | Your Say (2)
You can’t trust the judgement of scientists whose future funding depends on their continued optimism.
The cosmological constant isn’t natural. The Higgs mass isn’t natural. The standard model isn’t pretty, and the concordance model isn’t simple. Grand unification failed. It failed again. And yet we haven’t drawn any consequences from this: Particle physicists are still playing today by the same rules as in 1973. For the last ten years you’ve been told that the LHC must see some new physics besides the Higgs because otherwise nature isn’t “natural” – a technical term invented to describe the degree of numerical coincidence of a theory. I’ve been laughed at when I explained that I don’t buy into naturalness because it’s a philosophical criterion, not a scientific one. But on that matter I got the last laugh: Nature, it turns out, doesn’t like to be told what’s presumably natural. Backreaction: The LHC “nightmare scenario” has come true.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:26 AM | Your Say (1)
August 16, 2016
Leftist's last words: “You can’t do this; I treated you like my children.”
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:23 PM | Your Say (9)
Truth, lies and stereotypes: when scientists ignore evidence
Subsequent researchers could declare stereotypes inaccurate and could create the appearance of scientific support by citing articles that also made the claim. Only if one looked for the empirical research underlying such claims did one discover that there was nothing there; just a black hole. | Aeon Essays
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:15 PM | Your Say (0)
For The Love Of God, Show Me The Way Out Of This IKEA.
He stared off into the distance, his eyes unfocused. “Well, there’s no easy answer to that question…”I waited for the end of that sentence and the end of my IKEA purgatory. But the expected directions never came. The yellow-vested crusher of dreams continued to stare silently into space until I gave up and left, the first inklings of despair beginning to creep into my soul. I’ve been wandering ever since. I used to try to follow other people out, but they would get lost too and then, out of fear, they’d purposely lose me in the Living Room section. McSweeney’s Internet Tendency
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:36 PM | Your Say (1)
Keeping the younger generation dumb and happy—it’s working!
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:06 PM | Your Say (3)
The conservative and the establishment Republican have one thing in common: the hearts of losers.
The reason Republicans have always been derided as merely slowing down the left is they never believed victory could ever be theirs, to begin with.
Jeb Bush, who has the heart, mind, body, and soul of a loser, was just the tip of the iceberg. It turns out that the Republican Party is Jeb Bushes all the way down. Hearts of Losers
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:38 AM | Your Say (1)
You think Millennials are spoiled brats? Just wait
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:27 AM | Your Say (4)
"I Ain't No Ways Tired"
Exhausted Hillary Is Taking Weekends Off. Clinton took the weekend of August 6th and 7th off and she decided to take three days off this past weekend August 12th through 14th. She also has no events scheduled to participate in this coming Thursday through Saturday August 18th through 20th. MObama's Mirror
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:27 AM | Your Say (10)
August 15, 2016
In Today's Complex World, 'We Have No Idea What War Is'
I was both impressed and somewhat terrified by the dawning awareness that the Pentagon does everything.
If you go in with a bit of a stereotype of, the military shoots guns and blows stuff up, and then you find yourself in meetings with military officials who are talking about running a program to prevent sexual violence in the Congo, and doing a big research project on how you most effectively dissuade foreign militaries from using sexual violence during conflict, and then you walk into another meeting and people are talking about how to promote micro-enterprise among Afghan women, it’s both kind of amazing and inspiring—that there’s this unbelievably diverse set of talents and people [and] projects. It’s amazing that the U.S. can still marshal so much talent and idealism. At the same time, it’s kind of scary, because you think, “Wait, whoa, is this the right place? Do we know what we’re doing? And what happens to the military as an institution when we’re asking it and expecting it to be all things to all people?”- Defense One
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:43 AM | Your Say (11)
Butt Print
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:54 AM | Your Say (0)
It's probably nothing...
The unfamiliar nature of these items obscured a more salient fact, which has alarmed even the New York Times: China has been turning a vast expanse of water into a fortified island zone on a scale unseen since World War 2. "China has been feverishly piling sand onto reefs in the South China Sea, creating seven new islets in the region and straining already taut geopolitical tensions. " The Riddle of the Sands | PJ Media
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:31 AM | Your Say (2)
August 14, 2016
Numero Uno in the 2016 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest
"Even from the hall, the overpowering stench told me the dingy caramel glow in his office would be from a ten-thousand-cigarette layer of nicotine baked on a naked bulb hanging from a frayed wire in the center of a likely cracked and water-stained ceiling, but I was broke, he was cheap, and I had to find her." The Winners - NeatoramaPosted by gerardvanderleun at 4:26 PM | Your Say (3)
Is Islam Really The Biggest Threat To The West?
What the West is feeling is not simply anger and fear,but sadness and grief at a loss of culture, of values and of traditions that we in the West have allowed to let go. We have no one to blame but ourselves for this loss. Muslims and Islam are simply a reminder of what we once were—proud, distinct and morally grounded in a belief in God, truth and justice. -- Return of Kings
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 3:26 PM | Your Say (2)
In this particular election the Narrative shapes you, and the Narrative is:
Look how much the American public hates the fucking Media.
Seriously. I’m no Nostradamus, but I can read the news and work a google machine, and it’s pretty obvious what Trump’s response to all this is going to be: “When are you going to be asking Hillary these questions?” And then the Media will get all outraged — how dare you question our objectivity?!? — and then Trump’s poll numbers will rise 10 more points like they do every time he tells the Media to go fuck themselves. Details, Details | Rotten Chestnuts
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:15 AM | Your Say (0)
“To timidly avoid going where just about everyone else has already been.”
Star Trek is having trouble because it’s in denial of the worthiness of the instinct of self-preservation.What it really needs is good old-fashioned submarine warfare — which Wrath of Khan did have, and which elevated at least one old episode to true greatness. The producers, in their current mindset, won’t green-light this. It would shrug off the hipster mentality that says all life forms are equally worthy, and sometimes the gazelle should stumble so the lion can have a decent meal. That’s not the way it used to work. It used to be, “They’re coming for us, it’s us or them” was sufficient to establish the roles of good guy and bad guy. Today you can’t do that. The lives that are at stake have to be truly innocent, at a distance, multiple in number, and most important of all…strangers. The bad guy’s not coming for you, he’s coming for Boston, or London, or Africa or India, or that solar system over there, or Earth, or the Yorktown, or… House of Eratosthenes
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:07 AM | Your Say (0)
“The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity.”
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:49 AM | Your Say (2)
August 13, 2016
It's probably nothing...
Is Beijing Preparing to Wage a ‘People’s War’ in the South China Sea? Last week China’s defense minister, Gen. Chang Wanquan, implored the nation to ready itself for a “people’s war at sea.” The purpose of such a campaign?To “safeguard sovereignty” after an adverse ruling from the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. The tribunal upheld the plain meaning of the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, ruling that Beijing’s claims to “indisputable sovereignty” spanning some 80–90 percent of the South China Sea are bunk.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:35 AM | Your Say (1)
A good reason to vote for Trump, a very good reason whatever his other intentions, is that he does not want a war with Russia.
Hillary, Trump, and War with Russia: The Goddamdest Stupid Idea I Have Ever Heard, and I Have Lived in WashingtonHillary and her elite ventriloquists threaten just that. Note the anti-Russian hysteria coming from her and her remoras. Such a war would be yet another example of the utter control of America by rich insiders. No normal American has anything at all to gain by such a war. And no normal American has the slightest influence over whether such a war takes place, except by voting for Trump. The military has become entirely the plaything of unaccountable elites.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:30 AM | Your Say (5)
It's probably nothing...
It’s an extraordinary show of force in the Pacific region, because for the first time ever, America has based all three heavy bomber types on the island at once. Deborah Lee James, the Air Force secretary, described the deployments as providing a “valuable opportunity for our bomber crews to integrate and train together, as well as with our allies and partners through the region in a variety of missions.”
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:20 AM | Your Say (6)
I saw a big, dark shape moving in the cul-de-sac across the street, but didn't really think much of it.
I walked over to the window. I paused. I looked again.... Paused... And then it hit me... There is a fucking elephant outside.In Canada. In my neighbourhood. For about 30 seconds, I stared at this thing lumbering around slowly. It was picking at trees with it's trunk, but generally not doing much. I can't really describe the feeling of seeing something so out of place. It's funny, but also a little anxiety inducing. My first thought was "who do I call for an elephant on my street?" - - What is a true story that nobody believes?
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:10 AM | Your Say (1)
Evil Buildings
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:36 AM | Your Say (1)
Musical Alexander Hamilton:
Proud immigrant who sings together with Lafayette about how “immigrants get the job done”.Real-world Alexander Hamilton: “The United States have already felt the evils of incorporating a large number of foreigners into their national mass…to admit foreigners indiscriminately to the rights of citizens, the moment they put foot in our country, as recommended in the Message, would be nothing less, than to admit the Grecian Horse into the Citadel of our Liberty and Sovereignty.” The Examination Number VIII, [12 January 1802]
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:18 AM | Your Say (2)
August 12, 2016
The US has not faced a real enemy in a long time.
In that time the armed forces have been feminized and social-justice warriorified, with countless officials having been appointed by Obama for reasons of race and sex.Training has been watered down to benefit girl soldiers, physical standards lowered, and the ranks of general officers filled with perfumed political princes. Russia is right there at the Baltic borders: location, location, location. Somebody said, “Amateurs think strategy, professionals think logistics.” Uh-huh. The Russians are not pansies and they are not primitive. Hillary, Trump, and War with Russia: The Goddamdest Stupid Idea I Have Ever Heard, and I Have Lived in Washington | Fred On Everything
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:42 PM | Your Say (2)
“This is Idaho—you can shoot pretty much anywhere away from buildings.”
That is one reason why the sparsely populated state is attracting a growing number of “political refugees”keen to slip free from bureaucrats in America’s liberal states, says James Wesley, Rawles (yes, with a comma), an author of bestselling survivalist novels. In a widely read manifesto posted in 2011 on his survivalblog.com, Mr Rawles, a former army intelligence officer, urged libertarian-leaning Christians and Jews to move to Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and a strip of eastern Oregon and Washington states, a haven he called the “American Redoubt”. The last big frontier | The Economist
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:46 AM | Your Say (8)
Which stall should I use in the nearest public bathroom?
Research suggests you should avoid the middle stalls at all costs.
Nicholas Christenfeld presented a series of short experiments in centrality preference. For one of them, he examined the habits of beachgoers in a coastal Californian public washroom. It would have been at the very least impolite to stand around in there all day with a notebook recording which stalls people used. So Christenfeld came up with a useful proxy: toilet paper use. He enlisted the help of the bathroom's custodian, who kept track of how often toilet paper needed changing in each of the four stalls for 10 weeks. The results: Far more people used the middle stalls than random chance would predict â 60% of finished rolls came from the central stalls, with only 40% from the end stalls. - Business Insider
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:50 AM | Your Say (2)
All Things Must Pass
Or you could say it's been yanked, depending on your pun preference. Either way, you won't have the 22-inch horseshoe shaped bratwurst in a house-made bun topped by crispy fried sauerkraut, mustard and beer cheese sauce to kick around anymore at Lambeau Field. Yes, the bratwurst gods have taken it away.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:41 AM | Your Say (0)
The Olympics Needs to Get Its Shit Together
The actual sports are just background noise that give Bob Costas something to blather on about, and for every other glorified blogger to cherry pick stories from that fit their little agendas.I think the most viral Olympics video so far this year is from 24 years ago, and it’s a highlight of a sprinter coming in last place due to an injury—but it’s a moment we can all learn something from, I guess. This regressive trajectory will soon celebrate the last place finishers, praising them for their courage in the face of oppression against the weak—and frowning upon the gold medalists, since they’re the best anyways so they don’t need anymore accolades. - - STREET CARNAGE
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:38 AM | Your Say (2)
Why The Media Disinformation Campaign Against Donald Trump Will Fail
The simple fact of the matter is that this is still a very close race and the media is falling over themselves to try and trip up Donald. The same tactics were employed in the primary by 17 very qualified opponents, and all I really need to say is—where are they today? (Jeb Bush spotted this week carrying a box down a dark cobblestone street in Boston.) - - Return of Kings
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:21 AM | Your Say (2)
August 11, 2016
The War
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:53 PM | Your Say (1)
The basic principle of all types of primogeniture is the same: the eldest son inherits the lot.
Like most ancient laws surviving to this day, it’s wise.In fact, ancient laws survive to this day specifically because they’re wise. It’s obvious that inheritance through all siblings regardless of sex will eventually reduce the family to powerless penury. With no primogeniture existing, as it didn’t exist, for example, in Russia, big estates were fractured to a point where they could no longer generate a living. Thus in Leo Tolstoy’s will his estate was equally divided among his wife and nine surviving children. That was about four hundred acres each – another generation, and there would not have been enough left to feed a family. Mercifully, the Bolsheviks preempted that problem by confiscating the lot in 1918. King Clovis, meet the Duke of Westminster – Alexander Boot
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:36 AM | Your Say (0)
Our mass media culture is mostly fabricated nonsense.
Most of what the news people “report” is made up.As soon as you see the word “sources” you know what follows is invented. Even when someone is named as a source, nine times out of ten we learn that the named source did not actually say what he was claimed to have said. The other day, the news people were claiming Trump got in a fight with a baby at one of his events. It turns out he made some harmless jokes about a crying baby. The Misinformation Age | The Z Blog
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:09 AM | Your Say (0)
August 10, 2016
So long suckers, thanks for the fish, the multi-million dollar book deal, and the +$100K speaking fees
Bernie Sanders Buys a Summer Home in North HeroThe Burlington resident last week plopped down nearly $600,000 on a lakefront camp in North Hero. Sanders’ new crib has four bedrooms and 500 feet of Lake Champlain beachfront on the east side of the island — facing Vermont, not New York. The Bern will keep his home in Burlington and use the new camp seasonally.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:55 AM | Your Say (10)
The second reason it takes four days to check out at CVS is because they’re now forcing us to use that little computer chip on the credit card.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:25 AM | Your Say (4)
The Establishment is freaking out about Donald Trump for one reason: they didn't pick him.
The utter cluelessness of the professional apologists and punditry would be laughable if it wasn't so pathetic:the more you fume and rage that Trump is unqualified, narcissistic, singularly inappropriate, etc. etc. etc., the more appealing he becomes to everyone who isn't inside the protective walls of your neofeudal castle. The people outside the cozy walls of the protected elites don't care if he is unqualified (by the standards of those who get to pick our presidents for us) narcissistic, singularly inappropriate, and so on--they are cheering him on because you, the multitudes of water-carriers for the Imperial elites, the teeming hordes of well-paid, I-got-mine-so-shut-the-heck-up pundits, flacks, hacks, sycophants, apparatchiks, toadies, lackeys, functionaries, leeches and apologists, are so visibly afraid that your perks, wealth, influence and power might drain away if the 80% actually get a say. oftwominds-Charles Hugh Smith: The More the Establishment Freaks Out Over Trump, the More Attractive He Becomes
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:09 AM | Your Say (5)
In a real revolution, the best characters do not come to the front.
Afterwards come the turn of all the pretentious intellectual failures of the time. Such are the chiefs and the leaders. You will notice that I have left out the mere rogues. The scrupulous and the just, the noble, humane and devoted natures, the unselfish and the intelligent may begin a movement, but it passes away from them. They are not the leaders of a revolution. They are its victims: the victims of disgust, disenchantment–often of remorse. Hopes grotesquely betrayed, ideals caricatured–that is the definition of revolutionary success. There have been in every revolution hearts broken by such successes. — Joseph Conrad Via Western Rifle Shooters Association
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:05 AM | Your Say (2)
August 9, 2016
You're Next: Hackers show how they tricked a Tesla into hitting objects in its path
"Normally the car will not move. However, when we jam the sensor it moves," Chen Yan said in a talk on Friday while playing a demo video of a Tesla Model S attack. "It hit me," he added, to audience laughter. - - Business InsiderPosted by gerardvanderleun at 12:46 PM | Your Say (0)
AD Commenter ahem on Trump: "A choice, not an echo."
is in the pocket of our deadly enemy, the Saudis, the wellspring of 9/11, from whom she has accepted over $20 million in campaign funds; has employed as her right hand a woman whose parents are influential members of the Muslim Brotherhood; is promoting and enforcing 7th-century Shari'ah law over the Constitution in the United States (See Robert Spencer's illuminating video below); devised and managed the disastrous foreign policy that abandoned all our former allies---Israel especially---and led to the consolidation of ISIS, the rise of the new Caliphate, and the genocide of hundreds of thousands of Christians in Syria and Iraq (She and Obama are up to their ears in blood); sold 20% of America's strategic uranium ore to Russia and stashed millions of dollars from the sale into her personal slush fund(Clinton Foundation); is bought and paid for by he big business and the banks (See below); supports 'Globalization', that is, the abandonment of America's national borders, sovereignty and superior and enlightened body of Constitutional law to rule by the nameless, faceless, technocrats of totalitarian Globalism, who are appointed---not elected, not responsible to the average citizen
And, then, When I consider that Trump supports Israel and our hard-won, traditional alliances 100%; that he is fighting against Globalist totalitarianism and for America's safety, sovereignty, and ability to continue living under Constitutional law---you know, all those things the president is supposed to be sworn to uphold; that he recognizes the Islamic Revival for the existential danger to western civilization that it is, and rejects it, and seeks to protect Americans from its medieval madness (stabbings, bombings, hostages, torture, murder of gays, pedophilia, FGM, stoning, limb-chopping) before it can take hold here; and that he continues fighting the literal tsunami of lies about him and his positions propagated by an unhinged leftist media; that he continues to campaign despite his life being in grave danger from any number of vicious sources opposed to him--and opposed to my personal welfare---then thechoice is crystal-clear to me.
IOW, I think neo, and those like her, are out of their minds. They're not really rational, although they can give a good imitation of it. Posted by: ahem in Predicting the future: another post from your friendly Trump-hating media shill
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:34 PM | Your Say (2)
Greatest moment in modern marketing since "Debbie Does Dallas."
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:32 PM | Your Say (1)
It's probably nothing...
China issues Australia a blunt warning over South China SeaIn an aggressive and pointed warning to Australia, the China state-run Global Times called for military strikes on any Australian ships that may undertake “freedom-of-navigation” activities in the area.Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:03 PM | Your Say (2)
It's probably nothing...
Japan orders military to be ready for North Korea missile launch at any time | ReutersPosted by gerardvanderleun at 12:01 PM | Your Say (1)
Seems most articles, no matter how they start out, veer off into election politics.
Someone wrote, Z Man I think, when you get more than a few years behind you, life gets to be the same movie, same script with different actors.But you never get to see the end. It just cross-fades and starts all over again. In the movie, this time is always different. This time we're at a crossroads, a hinge of history, a time of decision unlike any other. This time it's not just a movie, it's a Major Motion Picture. It's stupendous, it's colossal. No. It isn't. A big meteor punching into Ohio is stupendous and colossal. An EMP that boils every transformer on the grid is stupendous and colossal. It's not even stupendous and colossal if Trump gets JFK'd or Hillary is taken to hospice in a straightjacket. Woodpile Report
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:15 AM | Your Say (0)
Could the Deep State Be Sabotaging Hillary?
It's widely accepted that the Deep State fully supports Hillary Clinton's bid for the presidency and will move heaven and earth to get her elected.While this is a logical premise, I suspect it's overly simplistic. I suspect major power centers in the Deep State are actively sabotaging Hillary because they've concluded she is a poisoned chalice who would severely damage the interests of the Deep State and the U.S.A. - -Charles Hugh Smith:
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:55 AM | Your Say (1)
August 8, 2016
Predicting the future: another post from your friendly Trump-hating media shill
“My intellect and my gut tell me that BOTH [Clinton and Trump] would be terrible presidents, in different terrible ways.I’m trying to sort out who would be worse, the criminal or the loose cannon. The answer is not the least bit obvious to me. neo-neocon
Did you ever have to make up your mind
Pick up on one and leave the other behind
It’s not often easy and not often kind
Did you ever have to make up your mind
Did you ever have to finally decide
Say yes to one and let the other one ride
There’s so many changes and tears you must hide
Did you ever have to finally decide….
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:40 AM | Your Say (5)
The Internet has brought back something that we thought was dead and that is rentier capitalism.
This is the economic practice of monopolizing access to any kind of property, and gaining significant amounts of profit without contribution to society.Cable operators are a good example. In my youth, TV was free. It made it’s money from commercials. Today, you pay the monopolist a fee to get access to TV shows, that still run ads. In fact, they run even more ads than when I was a kid. In the case of kid’s shows, the programs are just ads to sell toys. The Tragedy of the Google | The Z Blog
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:36 AM | Your Say (3)
The King's Letters
One was that many of the shapes of the consonant symbols were meant to imitate what the tongue and the lips do in producing the corresponding sounds. For instance, ᄆ stands for the sound /m/, with the lips pressed together.ᄂ is /n/, with the tip of the tongue reaching upwards behind the top teeth; ᄀ is /k/, with the back of the tongue pressing upwards and briefly stopping the airflow. Consonants that share a tongue position were given related shapes. For instance, because /p/ is made with the lips together the same way /m/ is, it was assigned ᄇ. And because /t/ is produced with the tongue pressed behind the top teeth as /n/ is, it got the symbol ᄃ. • Damn Interesting
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:27 AM | Your Say (1)
Choking Portland with Light Rail
The last new highway built in Portland opened in 1975.Since then, the city’s population has grown by nearly 60 percent, and the region’s population has more than doubled. Rather than build the transportation infrastructure needed to accommodate these people, Portland has built five light-rail lines and two streetcar lines. As of 2014, these rail lines carried just 8,500 of the city’s 301,000 commuters to work. | The Antiplanner
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:48 AM | Your Say (4)
"The new elites, the professional classes in particular, regard the masses with mingled scorn and apprehension....
Middle Americans, as they appear to the makers of educated opinion, are hopelessly shabby,unfashionable, and provincial, ill informed about changes in taste or intellectual trends, addicted to trashy novels of romance and adventure, and stupefied by prolonged exposure to television. They are at once absurd and vaguely menacing." The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy: Christopher Lasch
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:26 AM | Your Say (0)
August 7, 2016
Millions of acres of corn, across the country, grown to burn.
One the price is going to go up, making things like cow feed and other uses of corn more expensive and 2. farmer are going to, without restraints, plant ever larger amounts of corn, which will 1. push out other crops like wheat and 2. require more land use to plant even more corn. Which is why you can now go from Eastern Colorado to Western NY and essentially see nothing but corn. Millions of acres of corn, across the country, grown to burn.Somehow this was supposed to be environmentally friendly? The Law Of Unintended Consequences Hits Biofuels | The Arts Mechanical
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:44 PM | Your Say (6)
National greatness doesn't appeal to these millennials because they have no idea what it is.
They love their degradation and their evil.They crawl like animals and believe themselves superior to those who came before them and walked upright. They genuinely believe that a descent into a crime-ridden third-world hellhole that can't even teach children how to read, let alone put a man on the Moon, is "how far our society has come". Vox Popoli: Let them go their wicked ways
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:25 PM | Your Say (1)
The Elite's Propaganda Campaign to Norm the Perverse Is Relentless
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:03 PM | Your Say (1)
Steve Jobs became a billionaire with the Iphone, but he did not allow his children to use it.
Elitists Bill Gates and centenarian David Rockefeller(who recently admitted to being part of a secret globalist cabal, of which he proudly stands guilty as charged) eat strict diets free from GMO food. The elitists all have multiple homes, often in warm island environments near the sea. Meanwhile, the hordes of useless eaters are expected to live in compact, unnatural urban environments, where we are more susceptible to disease, crime, mental illness, stress, and dehumanization. - - Return of Kings
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:53 AM | Your Say (0)
Steve Jobs died almost six years ago,
That's it. They added Beats headphones, but that wasn't an innovation and frankly cheapened and divided Apple's simple and singular corporate brand. Their computers and phones are fine but stale. They make nothing new that everybody craves any more. Just lots of stuff that's good and everybody uses. Maybe Apple is Blackberry now
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:53 AM | Your Say (1)
August 6, 2016
#BlackLivesMatter: "We Demand an Education that Will Make Us Even More Stupid!"
Speaking of IQ, Black Lives Matter has issued its demands.One of the demands has to do with access to better education, which introduces an interesting paradox: if they are as educationally deprived as they are suggesting, then they are too stupid to know what they should be demanding. How did they get so stupid? It's certainly not our fault. Republicans have no say in the awful state of our educational system. Is there a majority black school district run by conservatives? Somehow I doubt it. - - One Cʘsmos:
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:13 PM | Your Say (3)
Regarding Socialist Starvation in Venezuyla
And why aren't the Hollywood lefties and others who loved Chavez so much providing food?It's not like they can't afford it. Maybe they should offer to allow some Venezuelan refugees into their homes until the crisis is over? I'm pretty sure these guys could spare a nickel or two (given they're all still alive...I pulled the names of a quickie Internet search):Sean Penn, Noam Chomsky, Jimmy Carter, Jesse Jackson, Kevin Spacey, Harry Belafonte, Danny Glover, Benicio del Toro, Oliver Stone, Barney Frank, John Conyers, Chaka Fattah, Jan Schakowsky, Jose Serrano....I understand China was all lovey-dovey with Venezuela, too. Maybe they can send a few bucks or a freighter or two of food... OldFert in Venezuela Is Heading for the Fourth Circle of Statist Hell
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:06 PM | Your Say (2)
How about the state paying for men to get pregnant?
A civilisation that can countenance such nightmarish practices testifies to its metaphysical collapse.And, if history teaches anything at all (which it probably doesn’t) such a collapse is ineluctably followed by physical catastrophe. When virtue is replaced by decadence and decadence by degeneracy, civilisations die – to this rule there are no known exceptions. He didn’t know the half of it – Alexander Boot
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:01 PM | Your Say (0)
There's a Simple Solution to Every Complex Problem. Which is the Problem.
Obama and Clinton prove the old adage that lying is the essential quality -- for if you're good at lying, then brother, you're good at everything.Thus, Obama's presidency has been a stunning success, and Clinton is the most qualified candidate for president ever. Churchill once remarked that it is sometimes necessary for truth to be protected by a bodyguard of lies. In the case of the left it's the other way around: their lies are protected and propagated by a bodyguard of self-styled "truth tellers," AKA the media. - - One Cʘsmos
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:56 PM | Your Say (1)
"One day the ATF will come to count coup on you & take your head. I promise to take One hundred heads for yours. "
I have no doubt the man means what he says. I also have no doubt that a Marine scout/sniper has the skills to take a hundred heads if, God forbid, this should come to guns. I shared this with a friend yesterday, and he had only this comment: "A hundred heads properly targeted could finish this thing." Indeed. Sipsey Street Irregulars: The Mathematics of Liberty
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:41 PM | Your Say (2)
Heads Up: The Perseid meteor shower is here, and it's going to be twice as good this year
Experts are predicting that, at its peak on August 11-12, we’re going to get twice as many meteors that usual, and when it comes to the Perseids, that’s a hell of a lot. "Forecasters are predicting a Perseid outburst this year with double normal rates on the night of August 11-12," Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environments Office said in a statement. "Under perfect conditions, rates could soar to 200 meteors per hour." - ScienceAlert
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:10 PM | Your Say (2)
Most liberals are not so very concerned with absolving America of guilt
—they continue to think America is very very very guilty, something I hear them saying with great regularity.They are interested in absolving themselves of guilt—for what, I’m not sure, but perhaps for being lucky enough to live here. And so in fact, in their continuing condemnation of America, they are proving their own worthiness. - - neo-neocon
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:36 AM | Your Say (1)
Your priorities suck. And you suck too.
21 Reasons To Never Ever Step Inside A Whole Foods Again
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:26 AM | Your Say (2)
Venezuela Is Heading for the Fourth Circle of Statist Hell
Travelling through the country this month I saw endless queues of people trying to buy food – any food – at supermarkets and other government-run shops.I was stopped at a roadblock in the middle of the countryside by people who said they had eaten nothing but mangoes for three days. I saw the hopeless expression of a mother, who had been eating so little that she was no longer able to breastfeed her baby. - - | International Liberty
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:15 AM | Your Say (7)
"Most transparent administration ever is wrapping up their last year the same way they started...."
Birthday Lollapalooza! We rolled up the carpets and everyone boogied down till the sun came up. And while there was no sit-down dinner, don’t worry; there were enough “snacks” to feed all the starving children in America as well as the rest of the world - for a year. Butt as you know, no pictures. The most transparent administration ever is wrapping up their last year the same way they started: no outsiders, no photographers, no press, and no social media (!?!). Michelle Obama's Mirror: The MO-BETTA MO-Traps
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:52 AM | Your Say (2)
“Thanks for your insights on China, they will help me plan our national strategy.”
There are a number of wealthy people in this country with outsize egos but not much common sense.These people are willing to fork over hundreds of thousands of dollars to political campaigns if politicians and staff will pretend to take them seriously, even for a few minutes at a time. “Thanks for your insights on China, they will help me plan our national strategy.” No, they won’t, and 99.999% of the things that rich donors tell politicians will be laughed at, ignored and trashed—though staffers will be assigned to write letters maintaining the illusion that the donor’s half-educated ramblings have somehow been incorporated in something official. - - The Soul-Sick Leadership Elite in America
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:30 AM | Your Say (0)
August 5, 2016
I also learned how people gamed the welfare system.
They’d buy two dozen packs of soda with food stamps and then sell them at a discount for cash.
They’d ring up their orders separately, buying food with food stamps, and beer, wine, and cigarettes with cash. They’d regularly go through the checkout line speaking on their cell phones. I could never understand why our lives felt like a struggle while those living off of government largesse enjoyed trinkets that I only dreamed about. Seeing Food Stamp Use Changed My Mind About Democrats
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:05 PM | Your Say (1)
Yogi Berra on $400 Million Iran ransom
"It's too coincidental to be a coincidence." - - Sense of EventsPosted by gerardvanderleun at 11:56 AM | Your Say (3)
This is upscale street life in SF, the top 1% of SF street life
- y’know, society’s hidden heroes playing chess among pigeon poop & blowing trash. It’s in countless movies - and we’re trained to get a warm feeling ‘cause it’s colorful & vibrant & diverse. The reality is quite different, there is nothing redeeming here and nothing to be celebrated, this is entropy, deadly to people & societies HappyAcres
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:36 AM | Your Say (0)
Road Trip!
Randal Olson who's a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, decided to mark the occasion by creating a map of the shortest possible road trip through all 47 national parks in the continental United States. The trip spans just a hair under 14,500 miles, from Acadia National Park in Maine to Redwood National and State Parks in California. Olson estimates it would take about two months to run the circuit, depending on your tolerance for long driving days. - - How to visit nearly every national park in one epic road trip
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:58 AM | Your Say (3)
The Fine-Tuning of Nature’s Laws
Or, indeed, anything remotely resembling life. Or even the complexity upon which life relies to store information, gather nutrients, and reproduce. A universe that has just small tweaks in the fundamental constants might not have any of the chemical bonds that give us molecules, so say farewell to DNA, and also to rocks, water, and planets. Other tweaks could make the formation of stars or even atoms impossible. And with some values for the physical constants, the universe would have flickered out of existence in a fraction of a second. That the constants are all arranged in what is, mathematically speaking, the very improbable combination that makes our grand, complex, life-bearing universe possible is what physicists mean when they talk about the “fine-tuning” of the universe for life. - The New Atlantis
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:56 AM | Your Say (0)
Facebook Is Not a Technology Company
“Non-tech titans like Exxon and GE have slipped a bit” in top valuations. Think about that claim for a minute, and reflect on its absurdity:Exxon uses enormous machinery to extract the remains of living creatures from geological antiquity from deep beneath the earth. Then it uses other enormous machinery to refine and distribute that material globally. For its part, GE makes almost everything—from light bulbs to medical imaging devices to wind turbines to locomotives to jet engines. Isn’t it strange to call Facebook, a company that makes websites and mobile apps a “technology” company, but to deny that moniker to firms that make diesel trains, oil-drilling platforms, and airplane engines? - The Atlantic
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:51 AM | Your Say (2)
It turns out that popular opinion is not all that popular with the people in the media.
All over, news and opinion sites are clamping down on comments. They are heavily policed or they are shut down entirely. Twitter has allowed a band ofangrylesbians to take over the moderation duties. Reddit hired Chinese grifter Ellen Pao to chase off the bad thinkers. Faceberg, of course, is run by howling lunatics, who ban people for any deviation from the orthodoxy. The media is slowly shutting down public comment in a rather deliberate effort to shut down dissent. This started a couple of years ago, but the process has been accelerating. The claim from the media is the comment sections are revolting. Coincidentally, it is happening just when the public is revolting. It also coincides with a sudden solidarity among the media. They no longer seem to be divided along ideological lines. Now, they are quite unified. Read National Review, for example, and you could be forgiven for thinking it is New YorkMagazine or Salon. Glenn Beck, once the scourge of the Left, is now getting a sex change and supporting Clinton. The Revolt of the Media | The Z Blog
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:35 AM | Your Say (0)
No such thing as moderate Islam
no Islam where Jihad is not as Islamic as motherhood and apple pie are American. There is no Islam that fails to provide a favorable environment for terror. Terror is so fundamental and intrinsic to Islam, that any supposedly Muslim religion that seriously disengages from terror really is not Muslim, and any Muslim monarchy that fails to support terror gets assailed as inauthentically Muslim, as not taking Islam seriously, and it is transparently apparent that any nominally Muslim monarchy that fails to support terror is inauthentically Muslim, does not take Islam seriously. - - Jim's Blog
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:21 AM | Your Say (2)
August 4, 2016
Consider the Source
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:03 PM | Your Say (1)
It's probably nothing...
“The B-1 units bring a unique perspective and years of repeated combat and operational experience from the Central Command theater to the Pacific,” the release said. “They will provide a significant rapid global strike capability that enables our readiness and commitment to deterrence, offers assurance to our allies, and strengthens regional security and stability in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region.”
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:27 AM | Your Say (5)
It's probably nothing...
Analysts recommend 2nd US aircraft carrier for Far EastChina’s growing assertiveness and increasingly capable air, naval and missile forces reinforce the need for more U.S. Naval forces in the region, especially carrier strike groups, the report said. “A larger demonstration of U.S. will and capability is necessary for deterrence and reassurance purposes,” said the report, which added the Navy should examine the steps needed to move a second carrier strike group to the Far East. One possible location would be Yokosuka Naval Base in Japan.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:21 AM | Your Say (1)
It's probably nothing...
Why Is the U.S. Air Force Dismantling Some of Its Stored A-10s?As the A-10 continues to attack ISIS in the Middle East, it strains credulity that the Air Force would consider destroying the newer, upgraded A-10C. But culture is a strong, and even when faced with a threat like ISIS, the moral imperative to reduce the probability of Army soldier dying from lack of close air support is not enough to make the Air Force put American lives before its doctrine.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:14 AM | Your Say (5)
It's probably nothing...
Eventually, Moscow will have to replace its bomber fleet. The replacement aircraft may not be the PAK-DA, Kofman said. Rather, a new Tu-160M2 variant is the most likely candidate. Using a new version of the Tu-160 airframe would save the Russians a huge amount of development money since most of the upgrades would focus on mission systems and weapons.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:07 AM | Your Say (3)
It's probably nothing...
Russia beefs up military on southwestern flank as NATO approaches |Moscow has deployed more air defense systems in the southwest and has also deployed a "self-sufficient" contingent of troops in Crimea, Shoigu told a meeting at the Defence Ministry broadcast on state television. "Since 2013 ... we have formed four divisions, nine brigades and 22 regiments," he said. "They include two missile brigades armed with Iskander missile complexes, which has allowed to boost fire power to destroy the potential adversary."
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:04 AM | Your Say (1)
It's probably nothing: "We regard this thrice-cursed crime as a declaration of war."
N. Korea: US has crossed red line, relations on war footing"The Obama administration went so far to have the impudence to challenge the supreme dignity of the DPRK in order to get rid of its unfavorable position during the political and military showdown with the DPRK," Han said, using the acronym for North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:02 AM | Your Say (2)
There's Gold in Them Thar Hills
After Mary noticed the can, John bent down to pick it up, but found that it was stuck in the dirt. He began to use a piece of wood to pry it from the ground. On their walk back to their house, struggling to carry the weight of the find, the lid of the can cracked open, revealing the edge of a single gold coin. They returned to the site with some hand tools to see if they could find anything else. They found another can about a foot away from where the first can was discovered. Although it was partially decomposed due to rust, it held several more coins. They continued to return to the site to look for more coins, primarily digging in the ground and eventually using a metal detector. Their work eventually resulted in the discovery of eight cans filled with 1,427 coins.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:35 AM | Your Say (1)
August 3, 2016
Clint Eastwood: The Esquire Interview
CLINT EASTWOOD: Maybe. But he's onto something, because secretly everybody's getting tired of political correctness, kissing up. That's the kiss-ass generation we're in right now. We're really in a pussy generation. Everybody's walking on eggshells. We see people accusing people of being racist and all kinds of stuff. When I grew up, those things weren't called racist. And then when I did Gran Torino, even my associate said, "This is a really good script, but it's politically incorrect." And I said, "Good. Let me read it tonight." The next morning, I came in and I threw it on his desk and I said, "We're starting this immediately." - - Esquire
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:59 PM | Your Say (2)
Applicants for every U.C. Berkeley graduate program must provide
"evidence of how you have come to understand the barriers faced by others,evidence of your academic service to advance equitable access to higher education for women, racial minorities and individuals from other groups that have been historically underrepresented in higher education, evidence of your research focusing on underserved populations or related issues of inequality, or evidence of your leadership among such groups." The Creepy Consequences of Oppression Chic | RealClearPolitics
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:01 AM | Your Say (4)
There are people, who no matter what the job is, put their whole heart and soul into it.
If they are a street sweeper, well you could eat of their street, it was so clean.These people define their jobs. These are the people that show up in Mike Rowe’s programs. Whatever they are doing, they pursue excellence. Whether it’s living on a barge, picking up the trash or climbing rock to make sure that nothing falls on traffic. Or the seemingly weird guy at the museum who makes the whole thing understandable and entertaining. For that matter, the Wal Mart greeter. You can always tell the good ones. Who Are You? | The Arts Mechanical
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:44 AM | Your Say (0)
“Almost everything he saw he was the first human ever to see.”
For whatever reason, Yong reports, Leeuwenhoek’s discoveries, so exciting at first, gradually faded from public memory. Even scholars fell away from microscopic life, so by the 1730s, when the Swedish biologist Carl Linnaeus decided to classify all life, he dumped all of Leeuwenhoek’s very different animalcules into the phylum Vermes (for worms), genus Chaos (meaning formless). It’s as though what he’d seen went back to unseen. Wonder, it seems, was not enough.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:22 AM | Your Say (0)
"Today drum circles, tomorrow inviting Somali colonists to displace them."
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:16 AM | Your Say (5)
We now have a low unemployment rate, but, astonishingly, fewer people who don’t have jobs
– aren’t even looking for jobs, so they aren’t counted as unemployed.
They just don’t work for a living. They aren’t trying to. The remedy to this, we are told, is more regulations to make work safer, higher minimum wages to make work more attractive, and more welfare benefits for those who aren’t working. This makes investing in new manufacturing enterprises hideously expensive. – Jerry Pournelle
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:15 AM | Your Say (3)
The dark web is not a happy place for most people.
But what happens if, like in my case, the dark web becomes a mechanism for doing injury. I didn’t want to participate in the darknet, I was extorted and forced to go there. They Need To Remember To Keep The Web Light | The Arts Mechanical
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:11 AM | Your Say (0)
August 2, 2016
But... but.... don't #SlugLivesMatter ?
Norway’s Socialist Left Party calls for 'Slug Hour' to beat mollusc peril which will see people in Norway hunt and destroy the invasive Spanish Slug.Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:25 PM | Your Say (1)
People in the cognitive sciences, when drunk or outside the wire, will tell you that you need an average IQ of about 94
Pakistan with an average IQ of 84 is never going to leave the Iron Age because they lack the human capital. They have some very bright people, but not enough of them. Those smart people are overwhelmed by the teeming hordes of low-IQ hyper-violent mouth breathers from the hills, which is why those bright people flee to Europe. The End Times | The Z Blog
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:06 AM | Your Say (3)
Good Question:
Is the Pope Catholic? “I believe that in every religion there is always a little fundamentalist group,” explained the Pope.
That’s God’s own truth, but this particular God’s own truth is irrelevant to the argument – unless His Holiness can demonstrate that, say, fundamentalist Lutherans also murder thousands by acts of terror. The Pope can’t do that, but he can lump his fellow Catholics together with Muslim suicide bombers. “If I speak of Islamic violence, then I have to speak of Catholic violence… this man who kills his girlfriend, another who kills his mother-in-law… and these are baptised Catholics.”
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:55 AM | Your Say (4)
It's probably nothing...
Chinese Mole Uncovered Inside the FBI | ObserverChun, who went by “Joey,” worked for nearly two decades as an electronics technician with the FBI’s huge New York field office, where ten percent of the Bureau is assigned. He held Top Secret security clearances since 1998. Part of his job, as one of the legions of technical personnel who support the FBI’s storied special agents, included accessing classified information. It seems safe to assume that was what Chun was sharing with Beijing.[No problem finding "intent" there.]
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:14 AM | Your Say (3)
August 1, 2016
1 But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:44 PM | Your Say (3)
Russians Vs Muslim Terrorists
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:51 AM | Your Say (3)
How archaeologists found the lost medieval megacity of Angkor
There was "a complex urban grid system that extended outside the walls of Angkor Thom and other large temple complexes such as Angkor Wat, Preah Khan, and Ta Prohm," he said. With the new data, scientists had solid evidence that the city of Angkor sprawled over an area of at least 40 to 50 square km. It was home to almost a million people. The scattered, moated complexes like Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom were merely the most enduring features of what we now know was the biggest city on Earth during the 12th and 13th centuries. | Ars Technica
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:25 AM | Your Say (1)
Post convention polling bumps are really weird.
Apparently a bunch of people who were planning on voting for Hillary watched the RNC, said “Oh, I guess these Republicans make some good points”, and switched to supporting Trump. And then a few weeks later, they were like “Wait, Hillary can hold a convention too!?!?! This changes everything!” and switched to supporting her. Slate Star ScratchpadPosted by gerardvanderleun at 10:16 AM | Your Say (0)
Smithsonian seeks beer historian
The Smithsonian Food History project at the National Museum of American History, in Washington, DC, is seeking a professional historian / scholar to conduct archival and field research for a new initiative on American brewing history, with special emphasis on the craft industry. The History Blog
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:10 AM | Your Say (0)
As Clinton orated in her inimitably shrill, scraping-vagina-dentata-on-a-blackboard style for about an hour,
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:04 AM | Your Say (7)