The Zimmerman/Martin Trial By BILL WHITTLE Pt 1

Wow.
Watch Bill Whittle use "actual facts" to explain the Zimmerman case.
It's amazing how hard the press had to work to not report the truth.

Bill Whittle on The Narrative: The origins of Political Correctness

A brilliant breakdown of the roots of American liberal politics and "the narrative" and how it used to debase and shame opponents.

In what should shock absolutely no one, it turns out that the quotes made by Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy were heavily edited to make him look the most racist and bigoted.
His comments before and after the ones heavily printed in just about every news outlet were left out completely.  Together as a whole, as he spoke them, his point was the exact opposite of what most news org.s would have you believe.
______________________________________________________________________________

http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/unedited-tape-bundy-emerges-sheds-light-racist-remarks

An unedited version of comments by Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy has emerged, and it sheds some light on the context of his remarks, universally condemned on Thursday as horrifically racist.

The 67-year-old Bundy, battling the U.S. government after federal agents stormed his ranch to confiscate his cattle in a dispute over grazing fees, said far more than what appeared in the New York Times and most other news accounts. While his grammar is pretty bad -- and his use of "negro" and "colored" considered politically incorrect (although they were both once preferred terms chosen by blacks) -- he actually was making a larger point, not simply deriding blacks.

In a YouTube video, he is filmed already in mid-sentence. 

... and so what I've testified to you -- I was in the Watts riot, I seen the beginning fire and I seen that last fire. What I seen is civil disturbance. People are not happy, people are thinking they don't have their freedoms, they didn't have these things, and they didn't have them.

We've progressed quite a bit from that day until now, and we sure don't want to go back. We sure don't want the colored people to go back to that point. We sure don't want these Mexican people to go back to that point. And we can make a difference right now by taking care of some of these bureaucracies, and do it in a peaceful way.

Those comments appear to change the context of the next section, which was quoted in the New York Times. One clear point the rancher made: America has progressed since the 1965 race riots and "we sure don't want to go back." 

Here are the heavily quoted comments from Bundy that followed the above section edited out by most news organizations.

Let me tell, talk to you about the Mexicans, and these are just things I know about the negroes. I want to tell you one more thing I know about the negro. When I go, went, go to Las Vegas, North Las Vegas, and I would see these little government houses, and in front of that government house the door was usually open and the older people and the kids -- and there's always at least a half a dozen people sitting on the porch. They didn’t have nothing to do. They didn’t have nothing for their kids to do. They didn’t have nothing for their young girls to do.

And because they were basically on government subsidy -- so now what do they do? They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never, they never learned how to pick cotton. And I’ve often wondered are they were better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things? Or are they better off under government subsidy?

You know they didn’t get more freedom, they got less freedom -- they got less family life, and their happiness -- you could see it in their faces -- they wasn't happy sitting on that concrete sidewalk. Down there they was probably growing their turnips -- so that’s all government, that’s not freedom.

But Bundy went on after saying that -- and again, his comments were edited out of most reports.

Now, let me talk about the Spanish people. You know, I understand that they come over here against our Constitution and cross our borders. But they’re here and they’re people -- and I’ve worked side by side a lot of them.

Don’t tell me they don’t work, and don’t tell me they don’t pay taxes. And don’t tell me they don’t have better family structures than most of us white people. When you see those Mexican families, they’re together, they picnic together, they’re spending their time together, and I’ll tell you in my way of thinking they’re awful nice people. And we need to have those people join us and be with us not, not come to our party.

So, Bundy thinks Hispanics are hard-working family people, and laments the current plight of American blacks under the federal welfare system while saying there has been much progress and that "we sure don't want to go back." As always, there's more to the story than what the New York Times says.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Here, a CNN reporter, tries the whole "how does it feel to work with a racist" routine.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2014/04/25/black_bundy_bodyguard_hes_not_a_racist_id_take_a_bullet_for_that_man.html



CNN REPORTER: You're protecting this man and he's wondering whether African-Americans would be better off as slaves. How does that strike you?

JASON BULLOCK, BODYGUARD FOR CLIVEN BUNDY: It doesn't strike me any kind of way. This is still the same old Mr. Bundy I met from the first day of all this happening.

CNN REPORTER: But aren't those offensive comments to you

BULLOCK: Not at all.

CNN REPORTER: Not offensive?

BULLOCK: Because Mr. Bundy is not a racist. Ever since I've been here he's treated me with nothing but hospitality. He's pretty much treated me like his own family.

###

BULLOCK: I would take a bullet for that man, if need be. I look up to him just like I do my own grandfather.

CNN REPORTER: Why?

BULLOCK: Because I believe in his cause and after having met Mr. Bundy a few times, I have a really good feel about him and I'm a pretty good judge of character.

A Deer Migration You Have to See to Believe

A short but beautiful doc. on deer migration in Wyoming.

In order to travel 150 miles to their wintering grounds the deer cross 3 major highways, over 100 fences, and many river/reservoir crossings.

"Do you know why I pulled you over?"
Hic-no, Sir.  hic.
"You appeared to be swerving.  Have you had anything to drink, sir?"
I can-hic-tbe drunk ocifferrr, hic.  I'm an ele-hic, a hic-ephant, an elephant.  hic.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/drunken-elephants-sleep-hangovers-article-1.1767309

Football Ghost video- Phantom caught on camera freaks out fans by glidin...

Yikes!

A ghost runs thru the stands at a soccer game.

Irony, meet stupidity. Stupidity, say hello to Irony.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_BIOFUELS_GLOBAL_WARMING?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-04-21-04-02-59

"Quacka-ass quacka!"

More funny pics at:

http://www.funnyordie.com/slideshows/53da67bfd2/21-best-pics-of-all-time-of-the-week-volume-18

Scientists declare, "women now completely obsolete!"

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/woman-engineered-vagina-normal-life/story?id=23386752

How Many Peeps Can A .50 Cal Go Through? Part 2

Adam Carolla & Bill Maher smack down Tavis Smiley

Adam and crew do a brilliant summation of liberal American politics.

Best. Video. Evar.

Guess what happens when you decide to stand so close to a train that the conductor can reach out and touch you with his foot?

Instead of focusing their ire on guns and gun owners, those folks might better take a look at the American pharmacologists who prescribe scary mood modifiers to kids, knowing that one of the side effects of some of these drugs is "psychotic episodes".

http://downtrend.com/71superb/top-ten-spree-killers-that-were-taking-psychiatric-drugs/


Yesterday at the Fort Hood Army base in Killeen, Texas, Ivan lopez opened fire with a .45-cal handgun, killing 3 and wounding 16 before taking his own life. Gun grabbers like Piers Morgan are already waiving the bloody shirt, blaming the gun and calling for further restrictions. Gun rights supporters put the onus on the fact that the base, like most locations of mass shootings, was a gun free zone and the victims had no chance to protect themselves.

I agree that places that ban guns make attractive targets for madmen, but there is another thing we should look at. Army officials admitted that Ivan was being treated for depression and taking psychiatric drugs. It turns out that nearly all of the recent high-profile spree killers were on mood-altering prescription drugs. Before we go blaming the gun, maybe we ought to consider the pills.

Antidepressants and anti-anxiety medications have a long history of inciting violence. Here’s a list of killers with connections to psychiatric drug use:

10. Erik Harris – Columbine Shooting: Along with Dylan Klebold, Harris killed 13 and wounded 23 before killing themselves at their Littleton, CO highschool in 1999. Harris was on Zoloff andLuvox. Klebold’s medical records have never been made public.

9. Jeff Weise – Red Lake Shooting: Weise shot his grandfather and a friend before taking a gun to his Minnesota high school. His 2005 rampage killed 9 and wounded 12 before turning the gun on himself. Weise was 16, but was prescribed an adult dosage of Prozak.

8. Kip Kinkel – Oregon School Shooting: In 1998 the 15-year old shot his parents while the slept. He then went to his school in Springfield, OR and killed 2 classmates, injuring another 22. Kinkle was on both Ritalin and Prozak.

7. Michael Carneal – Kentucky School Shooting: In 1997 this 14-year old opened fire on students at a prayer meeting in West Paducah, KY, killing two, wounding 5. Carneal was onRitalin.

6. Andrew Golden and Richard Mitchell Johnson – Arkansas Massacre: Responsible for a 1998 middle-school shooting near Jonesboro, AR that killed four students, one teacher, and wounded 10 others. Both of the boys were taking Ritalin.

5. Bufford O. Furrow Jr. – Jewish School Shooting: Opened fire on a Los Angeles Jewsish Community Center in 1999. Five children were wounded. Later in the day, Furrow killed a mail carrier. Furrow was under court order to take Prozac.


4. Steven Kazmierczak – Northern Illinois University Shooting: Kazmierczak shot and killed five people and wounded 21 others before killing himself in a Northern Illinois University auditorium in 2008. Prior to the shooting he had been taking Prozac, Xanax and Ambien. Toxicology results showed that he still had trace amounts of Xanax in his system.

3. James Holmes – Movie Theater Shooting:Shot and killed twelve people and wounded another 70 in an Aurora, CO movie theater in 2013. Holmes was being treated for depression and was prescribed the anti-anxiety drug clonazepam and the antidepressant sertraline, the generic version of the antidepressant Zoloft.

2. Aaron Alexis – Navy Yard Shooting: The Washington DC Navy Yard shooting took the lives of 12 people and wounded 3 more in 2013. Alexis was under the influence of the antidepressantTrazodone.

1. Cho Seung-Hui – VA Tech Shooting: Killed 32 and wounded 17 before committing suicide on the Virginia Tech campus in 2007. Seung-Hui was being treated for depression and had at various times in his life been prescribed Zoloft, Paxil, and Prozak. The New York Times reported that he took a pill just prior to the shooting.

Honorable Mention:

Adam Lanza – Sandy Hook Shooting: Killed his mother, then shot and killed 26 at an elementary school in Newton, CT in 2012. Lanza was diagnosed with asperger Syndrome and OCD. He was at one point on the antidepressant Celexa. The secrecy around him and his medical records keeps us from knowing if he was on any medication at the time of the shooting.

Jared Lee Laughner – Gabrielle Giffords Shooting: Killed 6 and wounded 13 others including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords at a shopping center in Tuscon, AZ in 2011. Laughner had a long history of drug abuse and depression. It has been reported that he was being treated for depression and may have been taking a prescription medication, but like Lanza, there is secrecy in his medical history.

The old saying that “guns don’t kill people; people kill people” should be changed to “guns don’t kill people; prescription drugs kill people.” 100,000 people die every year from prescription medications and that doesn’t include the thousands of suicides and murders attributed to antidepressants and anti-anxiety drugs.

Before we go infringing upon the 2nd Amendment rights of honest people, maybe we should take a look at the drug-fueled insanity behind these terrible massacres.

Honest Trailers - The Wolf of Wall Street

Esp. worth watching until the end to see all of the people who have Oscars instead of DiCaprio.

Anthropomorphic metaphor form fun!!!

I can't possibly be the only person to note the irony of the NYC announcement that they are going to stop spying on the Muslim community occurring on the one year anniversary of the last Islamic terrorist attack on American soil, right?

http://espn.go.com/boston/story/_/id/10786467/solemn-tributes-mark-anniversary-boston-marathon-bombing

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/4/15/nypd-muslim-spy.html

FYI, multicultural suicide.
Nice job NYC.

Why don't we put this in anthropomorphic metaphor form for fun!!!

Let's pretend that we're all beautiful sparrows or friendly woodchucks or even handsome tortoises. And let's also pretend that the American Muslim community is represented by elephants.
Most of the elephants just wander around in herds and splash in the watering holes or roam about grazing and just generally doing elephant stuff.
No problem.
But on occasion, something frightens or angers the elephant herd and it tramples a few turtles or badgers.
Like last year at the Boston Marathon when the elephants killed 3 and injured an estimated 264 others.
And that one time 10 years ago when some very angry elephants killed nearly 3,000 buffalo and squirrels by flying planes into a very large building.

Now the mayor of NYC has decided:
"We're cool!  There's no reason at all that we should keep an eye on that herd of elephants - we just wanna be friends and, since friends don't spy on friends, we're just gonna assume that those elephants are just being elephants and will never trample any of our little bunnies again!"

Neat!
But since the best predictor of future actions of a given person and/or persons is their past actions, you can go ahead and bet on many more elephant tramplings.

_______________________________________________________________________________

Update fun!!!

(But be sure to read the fine print to see how and who terrorists are counted.)

CNN's Peter Bergen: Right Wing Extremists Have Killed More than Jihadists Since 9/11

On the anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing, CNN's national security analyst Peter Bergen has published a story claiming right-wing extremists have killed more Americans than have jihadists since 9/11.

Bergen writes "According to a count by the New America Foundation, right wing extremists have killed 34 people in the United States for political reasons since 9/11...By contrast, terrorists motivated by al Qaeda's ideology have killed 23 people in the United States since 9/11."

In addition to his role at CNN, Bergen is a Director of the International Security Program at The New America Foundation. In fact, he helped put together the dataset on which his article is based. The list of murders by jihadists and right-wing extremists can be found here.

Part of the gimmick here is the limitations Bergen and NAF have drawn around this comparison, starting with the decision to only look at attacks since 9/11. Obviously if you leave out the deadliest terror attack on U.S. soil that helps the outcome. NAF also excludes Americans killed abroad so, for instance, the four Americans killed by jihadists in Benghazi don't count.

But even when restricted to attacks inside the U.S., NAF's list seems to have made some questionable choices. For instance, NAF includes Joshua Cartwright on the list. In 2009, Cartwright was reported to police after beating his wife. Police attempted to arrest him for domestic violence at a local shooting range. A shootout ensued in which two police officers were killed. NAF apparently includes Cartwright on its list of terrorists because his wife remarked that he was"severely disturbed" by the election of Barack Obama.

NAF's list of right-wink attacks also includes Andrew Joseph Stack, who flew a plane into an IRS office in 2010. This is surprising given that Stack's manifesto/suicide note included attacks on the "monsters of organized religion," GM executives, health insurance companies, wealthy bankers, "presidential puppet GW Bush," the "American nightmare" and, finally, capitalism itself with a positive nod to the communist credo.

On the other hand, the NAF list fails to include a number of attacks which seem connected to radical Islam. For instance, this 2004 murder of a Jewish student by a Saudi who had become more religiously conservative prior to the attack. After slicing the victim's throat, the killer fled to a mosque.

The list also omits several honor-killing style murders, such as a Muslim man in New York who beheaded his wife when she announced she wanted a divorce. It also omits the case of Yaser Said who was suspected to have murdered his two teenage daughters for dating non-Muslim men. Said is still wanted by the FBI. In a similar case, Chaudhry Rashid allegedly strangled his 25-year-old daughter when she tried to end her arranged marriage.

Granted these attacks weren't terrorism since they were directed at family members. Then again, NAF includes David Pedersen and Holly Grigsby's murderof Pedersen's father and stepmother on the list of right-wing attacks. Why should these personal crimes be included?

The most striking omission from the NAF list of jihadist attacks is John Allen Muhammad, the Muslim sniper who killed 10 strangers in the DC metro area back in 2002. While no definite motive for the killing spree was ever determined, Muhammad's accomplice Lee Malvo made numerous references to Osama bin Laden and jihad in writings he made in prison after the killings. According to the NY Times, Muhammad was eligible for the death penalty in Virginia because the jury agreed he had committed an "act of terrorism."

In 2002, one commentator connected Muhammad to a series of attacks inspired by al Qaeda. He wrote "John Allen Muhammad, the Washington DC sniper, who has reportedly expressed admiration for the al Qaeda hijackers, also seems to fit this worrisome new pattern." The author of that piece on "Al Qaeda 2.0" was Peter Bergen.

Peter Berg may want to look at this list of Islamic attacks over the last month and decide that he's a horrible, partisan, asshat, who is wrong and stupid to defend Islam since that would be the equivalent of defending the KKK.

_______________________________________________________________________________

Islamic terror attacks on American soil.
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/pages/americanattacks.htm

Photographer Asher Svidensky captured these images of a young girl hunting with a Golden Eagle in Mongolia last year.

More pictures at:  http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26969150

Best part:  the eagles are not bred in captivity but are captured in the wild as eaglets.  

When the eagles are mature they are re-released into the wild to ensure future generations and given a slaughtered sheep as a parting gift and thanks for their hard work.

Photographer's website:  http://www.svidensky.com/

The Homesman Official International Trailer #1 (2014) - Hilary Swank, To...

This could be good.

Jesse Parent - "To the Boys Who May One Day Date My Daughter"

I didn't realize that "dad poetry" was a genre but this guy does it exceptionally well.

Jim Morrison on Why Fat is Beautiful | Blank on Blank | PBS Digital Studios

I don't know why but for some reason listening to Jim Morrison debate on what to have for lunch - sandwhiches or chicken delight - is endlessly entertaining.

Lyle Lovett - "That's Right, You're Not From Texas"

A great song written by Lyle Lovett after ditched that Smyrna tramp Julia Roberts.

Love those horns in the opening.

Francine Reed - Wild women don't get the blues

I don't want to brag here on my little blog-o-rama and I would certainly never kiss and tell but I'm pretty sure I've got Francine Reed on "lockdown".

I went to see her perform last night at The Family Dog - she was great as she always is.

She finished her set a copula minus a microphone.  Just her belting it out as she strolled amongst loyal followers.  Pretty amazing to see someone sing like that.

As she was leaving she saw my bike outside and and asked who owned it.

"That's an awesome looking bike.  I love that look."

To which I piped up, "I've got a spare helmet, Francine.  I'm not afraid to put you on that thing and take you for a ride."   (Double entendre intended.)

Watching her get a little flushed was well worth any possible embarrassment.

We had a little laugh and I'll be seeing her next Sunday (when she plays at The Family Dog again.)

If you have trouble reaching me on Sunday evenings this summer.....

It's just good science.

Islamic Cleric Warns Offering Girls Physical Education Classes Could Lead to ‘Prostitution’

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/04/10/islamic-cleric-warns-offering-girls-physical-education-classes-could-lead-to-prostitution/

But if they get their PE classes and do become prostitutes, just remember:

Women having sex including rape victims should be hanged ,says SP leader Abu Azmi

http://www.saharasamay.com/nation-news/676551351/women-having-sex-including-rape-victims-should-be-hanged-says-sp.html

Exactly the same as we do it here in the south:
You get raped, you get hung.
(or hanged if you prefer).
No exceptions, no excuses.
That applies to everyone across the board.
Except for men because they have to live long enough to get all jihady and then get those virgins.
At least those ladies had the common decency to die before they had sex so they could be whores in the afterlife where Mohammed is cool with it.
Anything goes there - one big heavenly orgy.
But not down here by God!
That would be wrong and not right.

The cherry trees are blooming again in Japan.
If you ever have the chance it is definitely worth your time to get over to Kyoto and take a long quiet walk along The Philosopher's Path amidst the trees.
It's remarkable to see in person.
I did it back in spring of 2007 - just gorgeous.

 More pictures at:
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3906.html

Look, it's wrong to throw things at women.
And it's wrong to throw things at people with whom you have political disagreements.
Buuuuuttt, if you HAD to throw something at a female lady politician.
I mean, let's just say you had a gun to your head and you absolutely HAD to throw a shoe at a somebody........

Hateship Loveship Official Trailer #1 (2014) - Kristen Wiig, Guy Pearce ...

This looks good!

For No Good Reason Official Trailer 2 2013 Johnny Depp, Ralph Steadman...

One of the trailers at the theater last night was for this new documentary, For No Good Reason, about artist Ralph Steadman.

You may not know his name but you have probably seen his work.

Looks like good stuff.

The Lunchbox | Official Trailer | Irrfan Khan | Nimrat Kaur | Nawazuddin

I saw the new movie, The Lunchbox, last night and just loved it.

A great story that follows the beginning of a relationship between a widower and a housewife trying to get the attention of her tuned out husband when the lunchbox she sends for him mistakenly goes to the widower.

Irffan Khan and Nimrat Kaur are both magnificent.  Khan played the titular role in The Life of Pi which was a huge hit last year and one of my all time favorite books.

Both he and Kaur, who is just gorgeous btw, possess an amazing talent for displaying incredible, subtle, and complex emotions with just their expressions and posture.

Often Khan will gaze off into the distance and you know at once that he has gone somewhere deep into his own psyche and you quite nearly feel his joys and pains with him.

They are both great actors and deserve much praise.

I hope this movie will propel both to new international heights as they are both huge stars in their native India.

Go see the movie - it's worth your time!

This story has everything!

Including but not limited to:

• Scantily clad attractive French women
• Rampaging death machines
• Angry neighbors
• Aforementioned rampaging death machines flying thru windows
• Aforementioned angry neighbors making unscheduled angry visitations
• Successful sales meetings in distant cities 
• The inside world of Museums and Art Galleries
• Your favorite Pirata and/or Pirata Personality
• Copyright infringement and/or plagiarism 

No.  Seriously!

This story has all of these things and more.

But, wait that's not all!

If you read now you can also purchase one of these:

The shirt is for sale. (You're a weirdo and I'm concerned that you even thought that.)

But also possibly the man and definitely the beer (or one like it.)

It's a bargain bonanza, folks!

You'd be crazy NOT to buy!!!

_______________________________________________________________________________

Thursday, September 27, 2012

This dog is on probation.



Although you can't tell from these pictures, Mike is in big trouble this morning.

Last night, apparently fed up with spending the day alone whilst I was in Chicago for a meeting with the good folks at The Art Institute and despite the best efforts of "The Source of the Trouble", The 29, the landlord, and Neighbor Fred to keep him company, this animal decided to take himself over to across the street for a little visit with the attractive French woman who lives there.

Twice.

But this was only accomplished after he went thru the window.

Twice.

Once thru the bedroom window.

And, once thru the living room window.

So when I got home at 10:00 last night, Neighbor Fred was sitting on the couch looking all stern and serious and concerned about how MY DOG had escaped on 2 SEPARATE OCCASIONS and caused quite a stir here in the neighborhood, roaming hither and yon, all willy-nilly, and how the tall, thin, blonde, French lady across the street had come to Fred's house for help, in the dark of night, wearing only a black, silk nighty, all dewey with a sheen of sweat glistening on her heaving bosom, because MY DOG had gone to her house AGAIN, and Neighbor Fred was only gonna tolerate this tall, thin, blonde, in her black silk nighty, and her heaving bosoms banging away on his door, looking only for the consolation and consideration of strangers, in the dark of night, ten or twelve more times before he would really have to put a stop to this clearly unacceptable behavior.

Neighbor Fred is right and I am really sorry.

What man wants to deal with this sort of shenanigans?

There he was, trying to relax after spending several days in Boston whoopin' it up with friends. Just sitting there trying to watch America's Next Top Garbage Truck Driver and such, and the next thing you know a tall, thin, blonde woman with a thick French accent and heaving, glistening bosoms, all dewey in the moonlight and whatnot, is breathlessly calling your name.

I can see how that would get downright annoying and I'm surprised that both Mike and I weren't shot on sight.
I'm sure there's a red mark on our permanent records enshrined in some secret NSA filing cabinet.

But the point is, Mike is in really, REALLY big trouble.
I can't have dogs flying thru my windows at all hours of the night, even if the aforementioned dog comes home attached to dewey breasted French wom.......


Wait............

Never mind.

We're good.
Nothing to see here.
No, no. Problem solved.



(Good boy)
(Goooooooood Boy)


With many thanks to Stephen Wright:

"I bought a dog the other day. I named him Stay. It's fun to call him. "Come here, Stay! Come here, Stay!" He went insane. Now he just ignores me and keeps typing. He's an East German Shepherd."


___________________________________________________________________________

Also, apparently I have a big fan in India (just guessing by the name)!!!

http://elpinchepirataa.blogspot.com/2012/09/this-dog-is-on-probation.html#.U0Wa7a1dX-U

Raju Sharma seems to have a fondness for re-posting my stuff under his name with the special benefit of lots of pop-up windows!

It's win all the way 'round!!!

It's a compliment of sorts and helps to explain why I have so many readers in India.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus looks pretty dang fantastic on the new cover of The Rolling Stone which is both encouraging and depressing.

Encouraging because, at 53, she still looks this great.

Depressing because 53 year old woman are in my "age appropriate" dating bracket.

Damn You AGE!!!

I'm confused, hurt, and a little turned on.

(Live with it.)

John Mellencamp Theo and Weird Henry

Earlier this week I posted a John Mellencamp song, Martha Say, off his under-rated album

Big Daddy.

This is another favorite from that record and always reminds me of the good times I shared with some of my good friends back in Middleburg, FL.

W/ Wes Hastings working on the old Chevy at the Johns' house.

With Gary Weyandt at "Ma & Pa's" house.

With High School Sweetheart Fred.

 With Steve Tope and Michael Miller at the late Natalie Findley's house.

Wow.  That hair is so awful I'm starting to sympathize with the dean of students.

One of my longest serving friends, Derek Fowler, at his mom's house down on Black Creek.

I still have the drums and PA system.

(Derek is expected to be released on good behavior soon.))

Keith and Wes at my former boss Phillip Tremblay's wedding.

A timely article from Elite Daily.

http://elitedaily.com/life/why-the-friends-you-grew-up-with-will-be-the-best-friends-youll-ever-have/

I already wrote a couple lines about this story but their headline is much better than mine.
This is exemplative of a growing trend in the university system of silencing opposition voices in the name of political correctness.  It's a bit disturbing that these institutions seemed to be doing so much to silence freedom of expression instead of encouraging it.

http://www.universityherald.com/articles/8698/20140409/brandeis-honor-muslim-women-critical-islam-commencement.htm

(Also, I may have just made up the word "exemplative".) (Or misspelled it.)

Brandeis Not To Honor Muslim Woman for Being Critical of Islam

By Stephen Adkins, University Herald Reporter

 Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Brandeis University in Boston, Massachusetts, has decided not to grant an honorary degree to a Muslim woman and a supporter of women's rights at its May 18 commencement ceremony for making critical comments on Islam.

Somali-born Ayaan Hirsi Ali has been a member of the Dutch Parliament from 2003 to 2006 and is a public figure. The university said that it admired and recognized her work to defend the rights of women and girls worldwide. However, Ali's earlier statements conflicting with Brandeis University's core values could not be ignored, said university officials in a statement, Tuesday.

The officials said that they were not aware of Ali's past statements.

Speaking about the religion in a 2007 interview with Reason Magazine, Ali said, "Once it's defeated, it can mutate into something peaceful. It's very difficult to even talk about peace now. They're not interested in peace. I think that we are at war with Islam. And there's no middle ground in wars," abc reports.

Ali, brought up in a conservative Muslim family, survived a civil war, genital mutilation and physical abuse.

In a separate letter, more than 85 of 350 faculty members requested Brandeis to remove Ali's name from the list of honorary degree recipients. Meanwhile, students created an online petition Monday, seeking her removal from the list too and have gathered thousands of signatures as of Tuesday afternoon.

"This is a real slap in the face to Muslim students," said senior Sarah Fahmy, a member of the Muslim Student Association who created the petition. "But it's not just the Muslim community that is upset but students and faculty of all religious beliefs. A university that prides itself on social justice and equality should not hold up someone who is an outright Islamophobic."

In a letter to Brandeis President Frederick M. Lawrence, Council on American-Islamic Relations' National Executive Director Nihad Awad said that presenting an award to an advocate of religious discrimination like Ali is similar to encouraging work of "white supremacists and anti-Semites."

"Granting her an honorary degree is unworthy of the American tradition of civil liberty and religious freedom represented by Justice Louis Brandeis and the great university that carries his name," Awad said in the letter, PR Newswire reports.

Thomas Doherty, chairman of American studies, declined to sign the faculty letter. He said that it would have been fantastic for the university to honor a strong believer in human freedom and women's rights.

Are You A Hipster? | Idea Channel | PBS Digital Studios

Future Hipsters

The Story of Keep Calm and Carry On

This great little video gives a brief history of the now iconic poster "Keep Calm and Carry On."
I found the video on Messy Nessy's blog within an article about wonderful little bookshops around the world.

It's worth your time.

http://www.messynessychic.com/2013/08/28/10-inspiring-bookshops-around-the-world/

HD - Saving Face Trailer (Documentary)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/non_fictionreviews/10748667/The-game-is-up-for-climate-change-believers.html

A good article about "climate change" and an obvious and often overlooked but simple way to tell that global warming/change predictions are so wrong:

______________________________________________________________________________
By Charles Moore

Most of us pay some attention to the weather forecast. If it says it will rain in your area tomorrow, it probably will. But if it says the same for a month, let alone a year, later, it is much less likely to be right. There are too many imponderables.

The theory of global warming is a gigantic weather forecast for a century or more. However interesting the scientific inquiries involved, therefore, it can have almost no value as a prediction. Yet it is as a prediction that global warming (or, as we are now ordered to call it in the face of a stubbornly parky 21st century, “global weirding”) has captured the political and bureaucratic elites. All the action plans, taxes, green levies, protocols and carbon-emitting flights to massive summit meetings, after all, are not because of what its supporters call “The Science”. Proper science studies what is – which is, in principle, knowable – and is consequently very cautious about the future – which isn’t. No, they are the result of a belief that something big and bad is going to hit us one of these days.

Some of the utterances of the warmists are preposterously specific. In March 2009, the Prince of Wales declared that the world had “only 100 months to avert irretrievable climate and ecosystem collapse”. How could he possibly calculate such a thing? Similarly, in his 2006 report on the economic consequences of climate change, Sir Nicholas Stern wrote that, “If we don’t act, the overall costs and risks of climate change will be equivalent to losing at least five per cent of global GDP each year, now and forever.” To the extent that this sentence means anything, it is clearly wrong (how are we losing five per cent GDP “now”, before most of the bad things have happened? How can he put a percentage on “forever”?). It is charlatanry.

Like most of those on both sides of the debate, Rupert Darwall is not a scientist. He is a wonderfully lucid historian of intellectual and political movements, which is just the job to explain what has been inflicted on us over the past 30 years or so in the name of saving the planet.

The origins of warmism lie in a cocktail of ideas which includes anti-industrial nature worship, post-colonial guilt, a post-Enlightenment belief in scientists as a new priesthood of the truth, a hatred of population growth, a revulsion against the widespread increase in wealth and a belief in world government. It involves a fondness for predicting that energy supplies won’t last much longer (as early as 1909, the US National Conservation Commission reported to Congress that America’s natural gas would be gone in 25 years and its oil by the middle of the century), protest movements which involve dressing up and disappearing into woods (the Kindred of the Kibbo Kift, the Mosleyite Blackshirts who believed in reafforestation) and a dislike of the human race (The Club of Rome’s work Mankind at the Turning-Point said: “The world has cancer and the cancer is man.”).

These beliefs began to take organised, international, political form in the 1970s. One of the greatest problems, however, was that the ecologists’ attacks on economic growth were unwelcome to the nations they most idolised – the poor ones. The eternal Green paradox is that the concept of the simple, natural life appeals only to countries with tons of money. By a brilliant stroke, the founding fathers developed the concept of “sustainable development”. This meant that poor countries would not have to restrain their own growth, but could force restraint upon the rich ones. This formula was propagated at the first global environmental conference in Stockholm in 1972.

The G7 Summit in Toronto in 1988 endorsed the theory of global warming. In the same year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was set up. The capture of the world’s elites was under way. Its high point was the Kyoto Summit in 1998, which enabled the entire world to yell at the United States for not signing up, while also exempting developing nations, such as China and India, from its rigours.

The final push, brilliantly described here by Darwall, was the Copenhagen Summit of 2009. Before it, a desperate Gordon Brown warned of “50 days to avoid catastrophe”, but the “catastrophe” came all the same. The warmists’ idea was that the global fight against carbon emissions would work only if the whole world signed up to it. Despite being ordered to by President Obama, who had just collected his Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, the developing countries refused. The Left-wing dream that what used to be called the Third World would finally be emancipated from Western power had come true. The developing countries were perfectly happy for the West to have “the green crap”, but not to have it themselves. The Western goody-goodies were hoist by their own petard.

Since then, the international war against carbon totters on, because Western governments see their green policies, like zombie banks, as too big to fail. The EU, including Britain, continues to inflict expensive pain upon itself. Last week, the latest IPCC report made the usual warnings about climate change, but behind its rhetoric was a huge concession. The answer to the problems of climate change lay in adaptation, not in mitigation, it admitted. So the game is up.

Scientists, Rupert Darwall complains, have been too ready to embrace the “subjectivity” of the future, and too often have a “cultural aversion to learning from the past”. If they read this tremendous book they will see those lessons set out with painful clarity.

The power of editing.

English Teacher Responds to Student’s Profane, Ignorant Letter in Most Amazing Way Possible

Apr. 8, 2014 11:25pm Jason Howerton

An English teacher at McKinley High School (city unknown) reportedly found a profane letter from a student taped to the door of the classroom.
The teacher had a few options: Call some parents, scold her entire class or maybe take the letter to the principal.
Instead, the unidentified teacher did something so much better.
The educator meticulously went through each and every line, correcting a plethora of mistakes using a red pen.
The teacher concluded with a simple message at the bottom of the page: “Please use your education appropriately. Proofreading takes five minutes & keeps you from looking stupid.”
Though the image is going viral on Reddit, there is always a chance that the letter was faked. We just really, really hope it’s 100 percent real.

Fuck The Poor?

Oddly effective.

I took these pictures while walking the doggy this weekend.

I haven't heard anything about little Katie Russell recently.
Here's an interesting follow up on the widow of one of the Boston Marathon bombers.

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/04/accomplice-boston-jihad-murderers-widow-refused-to-cooperate-with-fbi

Special points:
There is a Muslim Jihadi magazine called Inspire.

Extra Special Special Points:
Issue one contains the article, "How to make a bomb in your mother's Kitchen."

* If I wrote that into a SNL skit you would think me ridiculous and bigoted.

"Mozilla believes in equality and freedom of speech."

This quote from the new CEO of Mozilla-Firefox after the old CEO was asked to step down for exercising his own freedom of speech.

No sense of irony from her at all.

Nope.

Nothing to see here.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/04/03/Mozilla-CEO-resigns-after-furor-over-gay-rights

According to Slate magazine, the pro-Prop 8 contingent was incredibly cruel and unusually mean.
But he forgets to mention that President Obama was against gay marriage at that time as well.
Odd that he would forget that.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2014/04/04/brendan_eich_supported_prop_8_which_was_worse_than_you_remember.html

The Slate writer also neglects to talk about the harassment, intimidation, and violence directed at those who supported Prop 8.
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2009/10/the-price-of-prop-8

We've seen a fair amount of this over the past few years.
Almost always it starts with a left leaning person and/or group who finds, steals, or hacks a list of donors or contributors or supporters of some particular cause, and then that list is posted on line so that other left leaning folks can harass and intimidate them.
It rarely happens the other way.
Look at the gun owner databases that were put online in the wake of the Newton shootings.
Or even, Spike Lee tweeting out the address of George Zimmerman's parents - which turned out to be incorrect and very well could have resulted in 2 very innocent people becoming 2 very dead innocent people.

I've remarked several times here that it has seemed to me the most militant, strident, and dangerous people are those on the left who scream loudest for their freedom of speech as they are almost always the first to deny that freedom of speech to their opponents.

I don't often agree with comedian Bill Maher b/c he's an asshat but all of this does seem to prove his point:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2014/04/04/bill_maher_there_is_a_gay_mafia_if_you_cross_them_you_do_get_whacked.html

____________________________________________________________________________
Update:

Last week 2 journalists were shot, one killed, while covering upcoming elections in Afghanistan.
This journalist from the LA Times wants you to know that this woman would still be alive if not for George Bush.  George Bush killed this woman that's the takeaway.
http://www.latimes.com/local/abcarian/la-me-ra-a-photojournalist-who-did-her-best-work-in-george-w-bushs-war-20140404,0,143254.story#axzz2yCSItsxF 


Jay Z seen wearing medallion of The 5 Percent -
http://nypost.com/2014/04/06/jay-zs-medallion-bears-logo-of-five-percent-radical-group/
Just in case you would like to read about what The 5 Percent believe Vice Magazine has an investigative report here:
http://www.vice.com/read/what-i-learned-from-the-five-percenters

"The first lesson I learned from the Five Percent was simple: Fuck white people. Seriously. White people are devils."

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/04/04/Chick-Fil-A-Tops-KFC-as-Nation-s-Biggest-Chicken-Fast-Food-Chain

Good for Chic Fil A!

I have personally spent nearly 3.5 million dollars on their sweet tea alone, and having done several large projects at their corporate headquarters, I can honestly say that, from the security guard that greets you out front, to the lunch ladies in the cafeteria, to the suits inside HQ, they all treated me remarkably well.  The entire experience working for them was an A+ and I would gladly do it again.
The criticism they take for having Christian values and not jumping onto the big gay bandwagon is way too exaggerated and unfair.
And the result of the numerous attacks from the left has been to strengthen their base of clientele.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_Genocide

Among the many reasons a person may or may not like former President Bill Clinton, I find the genocide in Rwanda often overlooked.
Clinton was embroiled in the Monica Lewinsky scandal at the time and had little political clout to expend on craziness in a third world country.
And so he did nothing.
Nearly 1,000,000 men, women, and children were hacked to pieces by people who had been their neighbors, while the world stood by and did nothing.
It's one of my biggest reasons for not liking Clinton.
That and the fact that he's always seemed more like a small town, used car salesman than a president to me.
The Rwandan Genocide is also one of many reason I see no use and have little respect for The United Nations.
This type of conflict is what they were designed to stop and yet, after the death of 8 Belgium Peace Keepers, the UN pulled out of Rwandan leaving the civilians to fend for themselves with predictable results.

As April 7th rolls around, marking the 20th "anniversary" of the genocide in Rwanda, the BBC presents UN peacekeeper Capt Mbaye Diagne, who denied orders and saved 600 lives before being killed himself.

All your Gods are dead. Part II.

Is anyone starting to realize that I may actually be on to something when I speak about the media and how it has an agenda?

_________________________________________________________________________________

http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/04/04/Lying-About-Climate-Change-To-Advance-The-Green-Agenda-Is-Good-Says-Peer-Reviewed-Paper

Lying about climate change to advance the environmental agenda is a good idea, say two economists in a peer-reviewed paper published in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics.

The authors, Assistant Professors of Economics Fuhai Hong and Xiaojian Zhao, take it as a given that both the media and the science establishment routinely exaggerate the problem of climate change. But unlike the majority of their colleagues in academe - who primly deny that any such problem exists - they go one step further by actively endorsing dishonesty as a way of forcing through (apparently) desirable public policy.

The abstract of their paper reads:

It appears that news media and some pro-environmental organizations have the tendency to accentuate or even exaggerate the damage caused by climate change. This article provides a rationale for this tendency by using a modified International Environmental Agreement (IEA) model with asymmetric information. We find that the information manipulation has an instrumental value, as it ex post induces more countries to participate in an IEA, which will eventually enhance global welfare. From the ex ante perspective, however, the impact that manipulating information has on the level of participation in an IEA and on welfare is ambiguous.

This paper will be excellent news for climate scientists working at institutions like NASA GISS, the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, and Penn State University.

For many years now, they have faced the huge challenge of trying to maintain their academic credibility and generous government grant funding despite increasing evidence that man-made global warming theory is a busted flush and that really it is about time they all found jobs more suited to their talents, such as enquiring whether sir would like a large fries and McFlurry with his Big Mac.

Now, thanks to the inspired sophistry of their new friends Assistant Professors of Economics Fuhai Hong and Xiaojian Zhao their various data manipulation, decline-hiding, FOI-breaching, scientific-method abusing shenanigans have been made to seem not evil or wrong but actively desirable for the good of mankind.

This is not quite the first time that climate scientists have advocated lying in pursuit of the higher cause of greater global regulation, one world government, economic stagnation and higher energy prices.

First to do so was the late Stephen Schneider who famously argued as early as 1989:

"So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This "double ethical bind" which we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both."

James "Death Trains" Hansen - formerly Chief Alarmist at NASA GISS - too has made the case that "scary scenarios" can be a good way of concentrating the gullible public's mind in the absence of solid evidence.

But no peer-reviewed scientific paper till now has articulated the case for lying quite so brazenly as this one by
Fuhai Hong and Xiaojian Zhao. A Nobel Prize for their sterling service to the cause of Climate Alarmism is surely now a mere formality.

Wow.
I can't believe that someone has even asked the question of whether a group of 10-12 black men nearly beating a white man to death might be a hate crime.
The severe beating of the driver happened in Detroit yesterday after he hit a kid that darted into the street.  I've watched the video and there was 0% chance that he could've avoided hitting the child.  The driver stopped to check on the child who is doing fine with a broken leg and expected to make a complete recovery.
The driver is in a medically induced coma, though.
And someone stole his wallet from the truck.

But I'm sure we'll find out that the driver or truck or both were racist in the coming days.

http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2014/04/04/white-man-beaten-by-mob-in-detroit-after-hitting-boy-with-truck-was-it-a-hate-crime/

Wild Feathers - Hard Times (Bing Lounge)

Another great performance by Wild Feathers.

These guys are really good.

"Sparky, est l'homme qui a tué votre maître dans cette salle aujourd'hui?"
Le Woof.
"Et pouvez-vous dire que l'homme de la cour?"
Le Grrrrrrr.
"Merci Sparky. Vous pouvez prendre votre siège."

http://www.thelocal.fr/20140403/another-dog-testifies-in-french-murder-case

Am I the only one that thinks it's funny/odd that The Huffington Post's article on Scarlett Johansson's new movie, "Under the Skin", continues 102 pictures of the actress?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/03/scarlett-johansson-under-the-skin_n_5083880.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular

Look, I like St. Paddy's Day as much as the next guy but that is no reason to have sex in a dumpster.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/18/couple-caught-sex-video-dumpsters-delaware_n_4985591.html?hpweird=y

"Ummm..., excuse me. Waiter? There seems to be something in my soup."

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26734289