Stuff written elsewhere

I haven't written on BNN for awhile, mainly because the brownouts mess up the internet connection and I tended to post there later in the afternoon. Also the fact my laptop only works when plugged in (And crashes if there is a brownout or if the cat plays with the wire) But over at my medical blog:

NANOPARTICLE DANGER?

MomJones article on nanoparticles, which have been introduced into a lot of stuff without checking if they can cause problems.

bad science study of the day

Anti psychotic medicines increase diabetes in pregnancy.

Well, actually most older antipsychotics result in obesity (either by increasing appetite or by slowing down movement because they induce mild parkinsonian side effects and slow the general thinking/acting/moving of the patient).

I see fat people

LATimes laments 2.1 billion people are fat.

blame modern agriculture, the green revolution, and of course, the fact that modern capitalism spreads wealth.

Trying to stop the psychotic

killing by the psychotic delusional paranoids who can't be stopped due to laws

Who needs death panels when the doctor will do it for you?

NotDeadYet discusses when docs try to override caretaker's wishes to give ORDINARY treatment to the disabled.

Rabies

BBC article on Rabies. for later reading.

MERS in the US: DUH

so one of the Americans who treated MERS patients in Saudi got flu like symptoms and sat in the ER for 8 hours before admitted.

And NOW they will be screening at airports, as they have been doing for over a week here since a suspected case arrived here back then.

for later reading

Uncle Orson book review this week includes musing on the LOTR and The Hobbit. (the books)

and in another essay on modern art/literature etc he links to the Art Renewal Center.
if you enjoy traditional art, check it ot.

Google car

Toxel has photos.

I thought it was a bad idea, but on Coast to Coast AM a few days ago, they interviewed a guy who told them why it was a good idea, especially helpful for old folks who have trouble driving. (or drunks, or people who want to work on the long drive to work).

butterfly

I guess no one told the butterfly that the next step is for the dog to flip his snout and catch the "food" on the way down.

WTF quote of the day

LATimes laments 2.1 billion people are fat

Perhaps this was the most depressing finding in the entire 16-page report: “No countries had significant decreases in obesity in the past 33 years.”

yeah. Let's get back to the good old days of famine.

Experts have a good idea of what needs to be done, but there is simply no political will to make such radical changes. “Where is the international will to act decisively in a way that might restrict economic growth in a competitive world, for the public’s health?” McPerson wrote. “Nowhere yet...

 no, you can't make this stuff up....

non literal bible interpretations? We haz that

Father L points out why Catholics shrug when hit by the strawman arguments about literal Bible quotes.

The point being that all Christians do not take the Bible literally. They pick and choose what they believe and obey in the Bible. Catholics do too, it’s just that we acknowledge the fact and have a reliable authority to help us discern the way forward and interpret the Bible correctly.

Catholics (and Orthodox) Christians actually predate the Bible; in Acts, it is related how Christians decided not to follow all those petty rules which Jesus often criticized because the rules became more important than compassion and an actual change of heart.

The Pope is trying to point out the same thing, but the sociopaths who want to form their own NWO utopias, be they Calvin's Geneva, the French revolution, Hitler, or Mao's Great leap forward or the present whisperings at Davos or the UN

Whoops

there are ongoing investigations into corruption here: Somebody tried to erase files that proved corruption. And when caught, he pleaded:
1 they weren't deleted
2 I didn't delete them
3 well, maybe they weren't deleted deliberately but accidentally
4 the files are not evidence
5 the files even if they are evidence were only notes, not requests
6 even if the files contain evidence of fraud, they shouldn't be allowed in court.
7 The fact that they were deleted proves I am innocent because I am not so stupid not to know they can be undeleted.

The Inquirer notes:

Deleted entries

Asked about it, Baligod could not say who deleted the entries from Luy’s files.

He said that if it was true that entries had been deleted from the files, the deletion could have been “inadvertent.”

“It could be me, Benhur or the NBI, in the process of summarizing the contents of the voluminous files,” Baligod said.

Impossible to delete

He said it was impossible that someone deleted those files expecting them never to be retrieved.

“Anyone who has a knowledge of computers knows that even if you delete a file, particularly in this case, it will remain there and can be retrieved by a special software,” Baligod said.  “If files were really deleted, it was just carelessness.”

Read more: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/607022/luys-files-remain-intact#ixzz33F4GrPpv
Follow us: @inquirerdotnet on Twitter | inquirerdotnet on Facebook

oh yes: The Inqurer was allowed to copy the hard drive just in case someone tried to tamper with evidence.


update: that old leftie Archbishop Crus (ret) sardonically reminds these politicians Thou Shalt Not Steal.
and he reminds the bishops/priests to stop taking money from crooked politicians.

I've told the story before about the mayor behind our nephew's murder sitting in front of church for the fiesta (the place of honor) and when our niece Chona took up her donation, she shook her fist in his face and shouted "you...YOU!".

true at the time, he hadn't been indicted, but everyone knew he was the one who ordered the hit (indeed, our nephew had been warned week before the by his sister not to associate with his friend, the son of the target, who was running against the mayor)

That is why the US commentators, even the "catholic" ones get the Pope's pronunciations on crony capitalism wrong: it's not about honest businessmen, but about corruption.

But here in the Philippines, it is the Protestants who emphasize honesty and hard work, traits that will help the poor get jobs and the middle class to start businesses,  and the catholics stress charity for the poor with the implication that a few thousand pesos to the church will get God to forgive the fact that you took bribes to start casinos, diverted aid money from the fertilizer fund for the poor farmers, etc...

Movie sequels

It seems like this year movie sequels and remakes are "in".

Big Brother Alert

Professor Mary Beard discovered that she is being spied on: By her coffee machine.
she discovered this after sending the machine in for repair:

The funny thing was that the machine was returned with a record of use. Somehow, from the inner chip, the excellent engineer was able to tell us that in the last three years we had made 9266 cups of coffee, using 1796 litres of water, and that we had descaled the appliance 28 times (one of the preliminary repair questions had been "do you descale regularly?"; we had said "yes", but now we see that they could have called us out on that.. "sorry our records say that you have only descaled twice in te last x months ..").

Maya Angelou RIP

Poet/author Maya Angelou has died.

I first read her after being given one of her books to read by a nurse who worked with me in Liberia (Maya had lived for awhile in West Africa).

Taps

Video here about the history of the song.

here is the song:



story of the song.

and Blackfive points out that it is usually played at end of day or at funerals, but if you hear it during the daylight, it means a soldier has died.

VA scandal and the bureaucratic mindset

The VA problem is not new, just getting publicized partly due to the increase in their load (WWII and Korean War vets are aging, and new veterans from the various Gulf wars enter the system).

The real problem is the bureaucratic mindset, that puts following the rules as the most important thing.

I remember going to a conference where a representative from the area office of the IHS told us that the IHS was tasked to supply medical care to the Indian people within the limits of the budget. I interrupted her and pointed out that the IHS was supposed to treat the Native Americans, and that the mandate that started the program didn't mention the word, budget. After correcting her (twice) she ignored me and went on with her program.

If you think the VA is bad, try working with the IHS. And yes, they do budget care for "non essentials".

which is why those suggesting single payer care never bother to point out the success of the IHS or VA as examples of why it would work.

Anti Chinese massacre

No, not here: In California.

Lots of comments about the mentally ill college student's killing of women (even though more men were his victims) and the usual stuff about gun control (even though three of his victims were stabbed) but no one has mentioned that three of his victims were Chinese.

The three Chinese American victims were Chen Yuan Hong, 20, from Taiwan, Wihan Wang, 20, a native of Tianjin, China, and George Chen, 19, from Ontario, Canada.

however, these killings were stabbings of his room mates (suggesting the spree started with a quarrel and only later escalated to the shooting) and since the shooter was half Asia (his mother an Indonesian of Chinese ancestry) there is probably not a racial component.

and his "rant" is typical, alas, of the rants of a paranoid schizophrenic or a bipolar person in a manic psychotic phase. It wasn't just autism...although the stress of college life may have been enough to put him over the edge. Austism patients do best in a non threatening environment where there is a strict schedule and limits to having to chose what to do.

Factoid of the day

Abraham Lincoln came down with smallpox after coming home from giving the Gettysburg address.

On the train back to Washington that evening, Lincoln became feverish, weak, and troubled by a headache. His personal servant, William B. Johnson, applied a wet towel to the president’s face to help allay the fever and pain. Back in Washington, Lincoln’s sickness progressed. He had a high fever, severe headaches with back pain, and profound weakness. On the fourth day of illness, a scarlet rash appeared on his body. Lincoln’s physician, Dr. Robert K. Stone, first thought the president had scarlatina (scarlet fever), but when small, widely scattered blisters appeared the next day, he became more concerned. 

the milder version, but the White house doctor placed him in quarrantine and vaccinated all those who lived there, however Lincoln's personal servant died from the disease.

Lincoln may have been correct. Washington, D.C. was in the midst of a widespread smallpox outbreak at the time and no one can be sure when and where Lincoln and Johnson became exposed. In fact, in the week before Lincoln left for Gettysburg, his 10-year-old son, Tad, had been bed-ridden with an illness consisting of a fever and a “scarlet” rash.  History is full of what-ifs. Had the Gettysburg ceremony been held one or two days later than November 19, 1863, Lincoln would likely have been too ill to attend and deliver the Gettysburg Address. Or, if he had succumbed to smallpox as his servant did, how would the remainder of the Civil War have played out? One can only speculate. 

Stuff below the fold

with rolling brownouts and internet/cable outages, these are bookmarked for later reading: (I usually download them to transfer read them later on my tablet)

BoingBoing has an article on John Howe.

Jackson, instead of reinventing the wheel, asked two artists who had painted middle earth for book covers etc. to come help him with the designs.

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In our prayers: The terrible flooding in the Balkans.
To make things worse, the landmines are moving/ and now the danger is worse.

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right wing anti immigrant victories in Europe are a "good news/bad news" story

They are showing the EU that some folks don't like their un-elected masters.

But it also means they don't like our relatives immigrating there. Fine. Get your own folks off of welfare and put them to work.

It's being compared to the teaparty in the US, but the core of the teaparty are the fiscal restraint libertarians: the press usually ignores this to cherry pick idiots to paint them as bigots.

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The mistreatment of migrant workers (or even their existance) is a story few know.
A Kerala (India) TV show now highlights those OFW who went missing: Mainly women who were diverted into the sex industry and often restrained from fleeing or too ashamed to contact their families.

and I know there are at least two million Pinoys in the area, but I wasn't aware that:

An estimated three million Keralans work in the Gulf states.

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heh. I missed it: World Donkey day was May 8

There are over 44 million donkeys worldwide. With over half of them are in Asia, and the remaining are sort of split between Africa and South America. Most are working donkeys, assisting poor families as their means of transportation and source of income. It is estimated that up to 20 people can be dependent on one working equine in some impoverished countries. As pack animals, donkeys are reliable and strong. They are suited for pulling plows, pulling carts, hauling water and supplies, and are cheaper than oxen or horses. They are drought tolerant and perfect for developing countries' climates.

No we don't use them here (carts are pulled by gentle water buffalos or, nowadays, by handplow motors or motorcycles)

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when little things mess up your propaganda presentationn:

The Diplomad remembers dissing the Russians by catching a fake rabbi.

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trivia for today: The Battle of Mabila Alabama.

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Ancient American textiles.

This article claims that the techniques are ancient (date back 30thousand years) and may have been brought with the Clovis migration
history of textiles link


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this is not a joke:

Jim Carey gave a commencement speech at

the Maharishi University school of Management in Fairfield, Iowa this weekend.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/jim-carreys-advice-to-graduates-2014-5#ixzz32rijWY1G

yes, and the rich Saudis fund think tanks at Georgetown and the University of Arkansas. -------------------

Family news

It's very hot but the rains are here and cooling it off in the evening.

I bought a slightly larger "backup" emergency generator because the older one isn't strong enough to run our new airconditioner. I probably should have waited to save enough to buy a larger one to run the entire compound, but the one Chano suggested would have emptied my savings, leaving nothing for emergencies. And of course, he didn't suggest sharing the cost.

Also it's gasoline, gas is more expensive than diesel but the generator is about half the price of a diesel one. Joy suggested a diesel one from one of her friend's shops, but it was cheaply made, and I didn't think the quality was good.

Sigh. Probably both will be mad at me. But as long as we have rolling brownouts, and the large generator that usually runs the backup electricity is at the farm for building the money pit meeting house, I would rather be cool and have them mad at me than sit in the heat and suffer as we have done in the past.

so now we have two small generators for backup (I will probably sell the older one or it can be used for the farm, where it often gets taken anyway).

Lolo is getting weaker, and the heat is not good for his high blood pressure.

HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY

To Lolo and John, thank you.

 and remembering in our prayers all the other veterans in our family who have passed to their reward.




Lyrics:

To fallen soldiers let us sing
where no rockets fly nor bullets wing
Our broken brothers let us bring
to the mansions of the Lord

No more bleeding no more fight
No prayers pleading through the night
just divine embrace, eternal light
in the mansions of the Lord

Where no mothers cry and no children weep
We will stand and guard tho the angels sleep
All through the ages safely keep the mansions of the Lord

Stuff for later reading

What the latest film on Pompeii gets wrong.

No I haven't seen the film (it hasn't come here yet, and with Mt Pinatubo, Mayon Volcano etc. within spitting range of Manila, who needs fiction?)

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Hieropraxis has a series on the evolution debate: She points out the nuances, and that often the creationist stuff is a strawman debate by materialists who demand limited evidence.

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Writer Brian Sibley discusses the films of Frank Capra and includes a link to one of his BBC discussions.

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Drudge reports another shooting by a paranoid schizophrenic whose parents warned the police.

The problem is trying to get such people hospitalized: It's almost impossible, and of course the police can't put you in jail for simple threats, even when the threats are violent (e.g. throwing stones, wandering around at night shouting, threatening parents and family with a gun).

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Expressive hat defends wearer from undesirable actions

a
and dave Barry asks: Does that include laughter?
Read more here: http://blogs.herald.com/dave_barrys_blog/2014/05/does-that-include-laughter.html

Quote of the day

“To live for the moment is the prevailing passion — to live for yourself, not for your predecessors or posterity. We are fast losing the sense of historical continuity, the sense of belonging to a succession of generations originating in the past and stretching into the future. . . .
“Narcissism emerges as the typical form of character structure in a society that has lost interest in the future.”
– Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations(1979)


headsup the other mccain blog

gift item of the day

Smell like a Viking!

from MedievalNet:

What do you get in a bottle of Norse Power Deodorant For Men?

• Mead (imbibed generously by Viking warriors after a hard day’s raiding)

• Blood and gore (spilled on the battlefields as the marauding Vikings conquered all in their path)

• Smoke (from the settlements razed by Vikings during raids)

• Seawater (From the journey by longship to British shores)

• Mud (Vikings often travelled by foot over the sodden terrain)

• Human sweat (which would have been deep soaked into a warrior’s clothes after a hard day’s raiding)

• Animal meat, fruits and nuts (the essential ingredients of a hearty Viking feast)

• Fresh pine (from traversing the many forests of Britain in search of places to conquer)

more HERE.

Libya

strategypage update for later reading.

something must be going on because our OFW have been put on alert.

Lessons for life

I can't remember which blog posted this, but it's a gem:

Beowulf update

Tolkien's translation is being published.

One doubt that it will be more readable for the average lowbrow than Heaney's, which is excellent, but since it includes notes from his lectures it is probably worth reading.

Heaney's version is on youtube, until the copyright cops find it there.

Family news

Ruby and Joy went to Manila for a delivery and to sign her up for her homeschool classes.

One brownout so far today.

Lolo up and down all night wheezing...cardiac asthma I think. I gave him a lasix this morning. I also am keeping the aircon on since he wheezes when it's off, so maybe it's just asthma.f

Stuff below the fold plus rants.

Headline suggests it is workers protesting at the Chicago headquarters of McDonalds, but the article reveals otherwise:

About 2,000 protesters, including about 325 McDonald’s workers in restaurant uniforms,

bussed in, of course,from outside, by the union...

Can you say "Astroturfing" children?

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The Book of Lost tales lectures are starting at Mythgard. I left the book at home, but will probably listen in anyway.

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PJBlog: One of the first Benghazi telephone calls was to YOUTUBE...

Hillary shouldn't have listened to Huma about how the Islamic extremists loved America...

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Not much new in mudslinging: trying to stop the anti slavery movement by Mudslinging and blackmail against Wilberforce

(via TeaAtTrianon)

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O'Keefe strikes again:

Fracking film folks accept money aimed to stop the Americans from becoming free from needing Middle Eastern oil.. green Hollywood types say:ok but keep it quiet.

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Was Mgt Sanger a eugenist or just hated poor people? More eugenics history via Mrs. Gay Caswell. As a metis she is well aware of the eugenics influence in Canada against the First Nations...and if you think she is exaggerating, I could tell you similar stories from my time working "on the res" in the USA...

I just finished a book about Lindburgh and his friend Nobel prize winner Dr. Carrel, both of whom suported eugenics and the idea that the superior should run the world: it wasn't just the Nazis pushing this back then (and when the English talked about inferior races, they meant the Irish, of course). Ironically, what ultimately changed :Lindburg's mind about the beautiful German utopia was the horror of visiting the German rocket site after the war and seeing how the Nazis worked thousands of workers to death to build it..and later, he changed his mind about non Caucasions after making friends with a Masai leader. So then he went bonkers about environmentalism, but that's another story.

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Pope Francis just excommunicated a liberal who for years has been pushing heresy for years...the anchoress updates and say it was actually the local bishop, but someone upstairs put a bee in his bonnet to get him to act like a pastor not a wimp.

What's next? telling Georgetown to take the "catholic" off their logo?

The speech by Princeton's Professor George doesn't give one much hope for the future of Catholicism. YOUTUBE LINK

The days of socially acceptable Christianity are over, the days of comfortable Catholicism are past… Powerful forces and currents in our society press us to be ashamed of the Gospel—ashamed of the good, ashamed of our faith’s teachings on the sanctity of human life in all stages and conditions, ashamed of our faith’s teachings on marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife. These forces insist that the Church’s teachings are out of date, retrograde, insensitive, uncompassionate, illiberal, bigoted, even hateful. —National Catholic Prayer Breakfast, May 15th, 2014

and the US State department (and the UN and some EU countries are pushing a similar agenda on small poor countries, under the threat of losing foreign aide)...

This has huge implications, both for US politics and for international affairs, but of course don't expect the NYTimes to cover it...

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made up or true? fox, via Gateway pundit  says that the 911 museum mounted the steel cross upside down...

and looks like they took the "shroud" off too.

 the cross, which gave many of the (mainly Catholic) firefighters and construction workers working on the rescue comfort...was opposed by atheists. SNOPES report here.

Stuff below the fold

Energy wars.

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Nigeria's solution: arm the peasants.

well it is working in Mexico.

Of course, when they shoot back, we will see the headlines change from "Christian Muslim violence" (when Islamic groups attack Christians and Muslims they dislike) to "Christian violence against the innocent Muslims"...and a lot of private payback against the innocent or along tribal (not religious) lines, between the cattle herding mainly Muslim tribes and the better educated Bantu farmers.

as the song says: The farmer and the cowman should be friends....but they're  not.

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FYI: Iraq held an election...

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A summary of China's cyberwar.

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latest MERS case in the US infected by a MERS patient.

well, duh. but the guy he caught it from wasn't sick enough to see a doctor for awhile, suggesting the "high mortality" is because the mild cases aren't diagnosed.

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prevent HIV by giving medicine to protect the patient.

Lots of questions if this is a good reason: for a person with a stable HIV positive partner, it makes sense, but if the "morning after" pill and birth control pills are any clue, the promiscuous are often not as organized and will miss the pills, but will think they are protected so will have unprotected sex, making them vulnerable to other STD's.

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related item (no link) The CIA said they won't use medical people and vaccine programs to spy anymore.
But the dirty little secret is that the crazies opposed vaccines long before the Osama bust made them aware that this was being done.

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Yes, there are Tagalog masses in Tel Aviv.

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technocrats are the real danger?
(for later reading)

and The crusades fact or fiction
Via TeaatTrianon

the real Muslim killer was Genghis Khan, not the wimpy Crusaders....and if China gets too feisty with the western withdrawal, the Caliphate will remember that.

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Stuff below the fold

Stratford Caldecott: In our prayers.

superheroes send their love...

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Coming of age in Samoa is now on line for your ebook collection.

A bit controversial, since she had an agenda, (see her subtitle "a psychological study of primitive youth for western culture"i.e. let your kids be promiscuous and we wouldn't have crime) and the local folks happily lied/exaggerated to her what she wanted to hear.

This is not unusual: When I worked with the Navajo, I asked what (anthropology) book I should read, and the nurses laughed and said a lot of them were inaccurate, because the locals got annoyed at these nosy outsiders, and told them tall tales. They told me to read Tony Hillerman instead...

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Android vs Apple in the military

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The Philippines pulled back when China "stole" our off seas fishing grounds (and there is a question if Obama will let the US stop them from stealing more) but Vietnam is fighting back: Because they once were part of China, and if they don't stop China now they might end up as part of that empire again.

Heh: factories with US flags were left alone.

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conspiracy theory of the day: Justice Roberts was blackmailed via NSA information.

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Humanity, as defined by who? Headline of the day

The Neuroscientist Who Wants To Upload Humanity To A Computer

somehow I don't think he is aiming at downloading the minds of our farmers in Santa Cruz, yet one suspects their grandkids and great grandkids might change the world, especially if they are given an education and a chance to succeed...

FAMILY NEWS

Rolling brownouts and internet outages for the weekend.

I turn off the laptop ( because the battery is no good) when there brownouts, but I can use my newer tablet when the internet runs since it's battery life is six hours. Ruby is using the new laptop for now since hers got destroyed in the truck when they got caught in a flood during the typhoon.

Lolo is fine, but I am keeping him in the room most of the day because of the heat. Usually we get a thunderstorm and brownout late in the afternoon, and that helps the heat. The dams that supply hydroelectric to the Manila area and our area are very low in water, and the monsoon is due any time now (we hope).

We had a party last weekend for one of the grandneice's 13th birthday. Like our granddaughter Madeline, she is tall and husky: if Rubenesque beauties come back in style, we're set. Ruby however takes after her mom, not the Reyes half, so is small and petit.

Family news

stillvery hot and an on and off internet connection.

Right now, I'm reading Giles on China, from internet archives (also part of his writings are at librivox). Interesting view from 1910

Asking the really important question of the day

from Wired:

Could Godzilla Ice Skate?

Musical interlude of the day

Another Chinese war against VietNam?

It predates the invasion/takeover of the Crimea, but China is being aggressive again in the west Philippine sea.

Austin bay reports that VietNam is fighting back.

Obama was here last week and signed an agreement for joint defense, except when questioned by our vigorous press, he refused to say point blank he would defend our bordering ocean...sending a message to the Chinese that he wouldn't (I did link to that Chinese news in a previous post).

One doubts the Philippines has the money or ships to fight back, but for the past three days there have been A1 planes, Apache helicopters and small Cessna type airplanes flying in and out of Ft Magsaysay which is near here.

local news report that it could be a joint area if they deploy US troops (who train there for jungle warfare under our special forces types). and that a bigshot US general visited there last week.

or maybe it's just local training...

The locals just shrug and point out that if it came to war, well the Manila elites that run the place all are part Chinese, and many, including PNoy's grandpop, backed the Japs when they took over.

But this area is traditionally rebellious and hates the Manila elites, so I don't know if that is what everyone thinks.

Family news

the pump is on the blink again (the pump head needs replacing). This should take five minutes if we had a spare, which we don't, and if it were easy to do, which for some reason it's not (you practially have to take the dang thing apart to do it).

And today is supposed to be washing day. Sigh.

I should explain that we have our own water pump, put in back when the city water tended to drip in low pressure. The city now has a huge water tank nearby, and usually is good pressure, but we usually don't use it because it is expensive.... When the pump dies, which it does about once a year, we have to connect to city water.

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unrelated note: Europe discovered google keeps all their searches in a cache and the courts there ordered them to erase them..

Well, when I adjusted my new android, I found all of my google searches there. I erased a year's worth, but if you want to know what I was searching for in February 2013, you are welcome to hack it. And the page with the cache assures me that the information is confidential.

Podcasts of the week

If you check the archives, the British History podcast has a lot of stuff on Roman Brittain and also the Anglo Saxon period.

and, semi related, the History of the English Language goes back to the time of Indo European and the influenes on how English evolved.

both are well done, but technical.

reading stuff

Awhile back, I ran into these books by Abbe Huc  link2 and this book on internet archives, about the history of (Nestorian) Christianity in Asia.

Now I found that Jenkin's book on it can be read on Scribd, where I paid for a subscription awhile back.

I have one of Jenkin's books on the lost gospels "discovery" with me: it sort of debunks the modern scholars in the headlines who pretend they discovered something that scholars have known for a century.

His expertise is the history of religion.

Many of these churches were "heretics" because they emphazed Jesus as God, sometimes to the extend of seeing him as what we would call an avatar, where the deity just wore a human body, but was not really human. when exaggerated, this led to the "Simon Stylite" types or the naked holy men in India or the completely detached Buddhists: A rejection of the material world as part of holiness, but also a detachment from the worries and sufferings of ordinary folks.

Yes, most of the wise in these churches didn't believe such things (either here or in Hinduism) but you can see how a minor emphasis can go wrong.

Just look at the proud American  nuns so busy evolving to a higher power in the US that they ignore drugs, sex, and abortion issues that are destroying the lives of ordinary folks in favor of liturgical dance and evolving to a higher power. Sheesh.


Right now, I am into the history of "Dark ages": What happened in Europe after the fall of Rome including barbarians who kidnapped girls like the Bokoharum types to sell as slave.

But this was not everywhere ...and not in the history books is what happened in Russia, the eastern Roman Empire (where most history books seem only to notice the pecadillos of the Byzantin empereors) and in Central Asia/the silk road, which flourished until Genghis Khan and Tamerlane destroyed those civilizations (and why some modern writers praise GK I have no idea. They killed 30 million people by war and by destroying irrigation systems, and spread the black plague, but they improved commercial links with China? Hello: those links go back to the time of ancient Egypt, but never mind..

The previous film link about Jason is from the Penn Museum, which has lectures on the silk road including how religions,ideas, and disease spread down it. I listened to them a year ago, and will have to redownload and listen again now that I have read up a bit on the subject.

Jenkins blog is here, if you are interested in the subject of Christianity in the first milleneum but also about the spread of Christianity in today's world outside of Europe/America.

The "WAGD" headline of the day

KITTY LITTER EXPLORED IN NUKE DUMP RADIATION LEAK

Jason: Going where no man had gone before (at least no Greek)

the excellent Michael Woods BBC on this is here:

Family news

One short brownout this morning...I guess we are having rolling brownouts.

So blogging and surfing the net will be light: I can use the computer during brownouts if the generator is on but often I turn it off because the power fluctuates and the internet doesn't work.

Stories below the fold

13,500 year old tools from Northern Idaho come from far away, and hint at a double migration of Native Americans

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Conspiracy theory of the week: Uh, Indie, they're looking in the wrong place.

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Lessons from Snow White.

 What was the poison that paralyzed the princess? No fairytale here – there are real world possibilities to consider, toxins known back in the days that people were spinning such tales of magic and murder. Could it have been a plant poison like hemlock? That poison, used in the 399 B.C. execution of the Greek philosopher Socrates, caused a creeping paralytic numbness in his body as he died. Or an extract from the black henbane plant, known since the 1st century A.D. to induce sleep and numb pain. A pinch of opium, a dusting of mandrake root, that twisted member of the deadly nightshade family?

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Guppies! Incestuous Guppies!

repeat after me:

The Guppy by Ogden Nash

Whales have calves,
Cats have kittens,
Bears have cubs,
Bats have bittens,
Swans have cygnets,
Seals have puppies,
But guppies just have little guppies.

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from Wired:

local news

the headline on the paper edition of the Manila Bulletin: bracing for atack, showing US/Phil military on boats.

presumably this is why China attacked Viet Nam instead: sort of like beating up one dog to show the other one what you can do.

put things into perspective

The press is hinting the pope is a socialist for noting countries should have a way to redistribute the wealth to the poor.

However, his remarks, when seen in the eyes of those of us in the third world, are a bit differnt: It means not stealing, not diverting funds for the poor into your pockets, not buying elections so you can loot tax money, and paying an honest day's wages for an honest day's work.

Old leftie Archbishop Cruz discusses the corruption dancing in the Philippines (without naming names, since to do so is to be open to a libel lawsuit, as he well knows).

The break is over. The Holy Week has ended. The horrible looking effigies were burned. The EDCA was signed. The Obama visit is done. Now back to the rather old normal. The PDAF galore. The PDAF plunder. The PDAF queen and her cohorts. The PDAF queen’s hospitalization. The same PDAF queen on her confession prior to her operation. 

The drama goes on. The public is watching closely. The media outlets are eagerly waiting. People remain angry; so much of their private resources became public funds. Public funds went to private pockets; so much graft and very corrupt practices repeatedly and nonchalantly passed by the “Matuwid na Daan.” 

Who are all the PDAF beneficiaries among the honorable public officials in the country? Why is that only but three names are repeatedly mentioned and heard? Are the suspects only those not politically associated with Malacañang? Are all others holy men and women? What about the other members of the Senate? What about the members of Congress? What about the members of the Executive Department? And what about the lower public officials who either actively participated or played deaf and dumb by allowing themselves to be used for the big success of the PDAF scam?

he has more, but you get the idea...
as one local wag put it: bribes here are under the table...and over the table...and WITH the table.

and I doubt that the MSM will notice this remark by the dear Pope included reminding them that the unborn (and elderly and inconvenient handicapped) are out brothers and sisters.

Report from Turtlebayblog notes that a lot of that money is going to NGO's and bigshots to push abortion for poor people.

Billions of dollars in development aid will be spent on the priorities that find their way into the post-2015 development agenda, and everyone wants a piece of the pie.

Governments, NGOs, pharmaceutical companies, private foundations and international organizations that make up the sexual and reproductive health (SRH) establishment have their sights set on getting some of that money, and they want to use it for abortions.
Pope Francis, like his predecessors had no qualms about saying where his priorities are.

…an awareness of the dignity of each of our brothers and sisters whose life is sacred and inviolable from conception to natural death must lead us to share with complete freedom the goods which God’s providence has placed in our hands, material goods but also intellectual and spiritual ones, and to give back generously and lavishly whatever we may have earlier unjustly refused to others.

When John Paul II told Nafis Sadik to keep abortion out of U.N. development plans in 1994 because it was a “heinous crime” he got a lot more attention than Francis. The present media blackout on abortion issues is disquieting. The same happened in the middle of the week in Geneva when the Vatican told U.N. Experts that abortion is a form of torture. It is disquieting when the only voice in the world speaking out for millions of unborn human beings is silenced by the media.

Stories below the fold

Tick Tick Tick Tick:

Saudi has diagnosed 32 more cases of MERS.

Of the new Saudi cases, 11 were in Jeddah, 14 in the capital Riyadh, onite in Najran and one in Taif. There were four new cases in Medina and one in Mecca,,, Cases have also been reported in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, United Arab Emirates, Malaysia, Oman, Tunisia, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Britain.  — Reuters

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The elites plans to make you live a peaceful "green lifestyle" like your ancestors is now on line.

hey it was written by "experts" so don't dare question them. Instead bow down to your unelected masters.

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A hundred full time leftists get the headlines, and Canadian women protesting cheap protein for street kids by parading naked in front of them will always get on the front pates here,  but Iglesia meetings can shut down all the traffic Manila, (as can the Nazarene procession) but won't get a peep in the MSM.

priorities

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Death panels: They didn't start with Obamacare: It's the bioethics "revolution" stupid.

Autistic kid dies of untreated pneumonia after an "ethics" panel pressures the parents to go along with not treating him.

Ethics committees are a prevalent means of giving the illusion of due process in health care decision-making by hospitals and other facilities.  Yet there are virtually no accepted standards for ethics committee composition, procedures or decision-making guidelines.  In some states, these committees have the authority to determine whether life-sustaining treatment can be withdrawn against the will of the person or their surrogate decision maker, often making determinations based on the degree of disability and perceived quality of life.

 I'm reading Dean Koontz, one of the few writers who dare to place what is going on in the subplot of some of his books "one door away from heaven"...His Frankenstein series is about genetic manipulation.

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Instapundit notes a minor kerfuffle as some folks note people dying while waiting for their VA appointments.

Yeah: and wait til they see how the IHS rationed health care. Been there, done that...

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Can a mother forget the child of her womb?

LINK:Egypt Centre curator Carolyn Graves-Brown said: "It is sometimes claimed that because there were so many deaths of young children, as well as miscarriages, in the ancient world, that the ancients became hardened to such tragedies. However, it is clear from the fact that foetuses and infants were buried with care, that such losses were not treated casually.
"We can imagine that the probable foetus represents someone's terrible loss; an occasion of great grief and public mourning."

Read more: http://www.southwales-eveningpost.co.uk/Scans-help-clear-mummy-mystery/story-21061763-detail/story.html#ixzz31ATZZMvC


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I'm not sure if this is good news or bad news: StrategyPage discussing Islamic terrorists who kill other Islamic terrorists in various war torn countries of the Middle East.

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Local news:

Another shooting in the city, supposedly between body guards. Can't find a link..

And the local shrine's 50 year anniversary has a facebook page, if you want to see nice photos of where we live.

yup. the Knights of Columbus were there:

heh. Cellphones all over the place:

photos: Ramon Valmonte.

no, I didn't go: Lolo's having trouble breathing in the heat, and I tend to faint in the heat, so we stayed home except for eating at parties.

Things explode

In the back pages of the Manila Bullletin is a story on an explosion at Ft B. in Manila: apparently some ammo stored there exploded. Nothing going on here, folks, just move along.

And in the back pages and on conspiracy webpages, there is a report of a petrol storage facility that blew up in northern Iran, a city where rumors say that Nuke stuff is going on. It's serious enough that they evacuated locals.
Again, nothing going on here, folks, just move along.

Cat item of the day

From Improbable research:

“A Study of Human Perception of Intonation in Domestic Cat Meows,”

Family news

Thanks to the Philippines policy of "Green" energy, we have rolling brownouts...

We get our electricity from hydro electric dams, and this happens every year at the end of "taginit" (hot season) before the Monsoon hit. Since this year we are supposed to have an "el nino", presumably these brownouts will continue.

So that means everyone who can afford it will turn on their gasoline/diesel generators (and those who can't afford them will be at the mall or outside under a tree).

We stay inside: it's also pollen season and both Lolo and I are wheezing if we stay out too long: I use the Aircon as a dehumidifier/air cleaner, even when it's not that hot.

Stories below the fold

Again, StrategyPage has lots of background for the headlines

The military industrial complex wastes a lot of money (but keeps Congress happy with pork and manufacterers busy). The up side is fewer American military deaths.

Europe relied on the US military while happily mocking it and keeping their own defense spending down. So blame the Ukraine mess on them.

it mentions this too: (about German military recruits)

. It was found that 40 percent of the troops were overweight, compared to 35 percent of their civilian counterparts (of the same gender and age). The investigation also found that the troops exercised less (including participation in sports), and smoked more (70 percent of them) than their civilian counterparts.

remember that when the elite try to cut your hamburgers down.

Logistics logistics logistics.

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Lots of stuff on catholic blogs about St Joseph and the dignity of work. (May 1 was the feast of Joseph the worker).
The trouble is that most of them see him as a craftsman making tables quietly and calmly for the rich inside his home workshop. But carpenters back then, like now, tended to work construction, and there was a nearby GrecoRoman (pagan) city doing a lot of building at the time Christ was being brought up.

So think redneck construction worker when you see St Joseph or Christ the carpenter. Not the effete milquetoast seen in most churches.

and yes, I like Construction workers: My sons did this to get through college and I come from a blue collar background. Many are very holy men, whose "prayer" is doing good, solid day's work for their employers, (not cutting corners) and caring for their families, not meditating on their belly button.



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The Pope has "opened" the "Vatican secret archives". No, not hidden secrets, just the disorganized attic that contains diplomatic correspondence and reports, such as a letter from Genghis Khan's grandson insisting the Pope travel and bow down to him.

one of the backstories of GK is that some of his generals were (Nestorian) Christians, and some urged the Pope to join with him to conquer the eastern part of the Islamic lands (which at the time included many Christians) when GK's grandson tried to conquer Egypt.
However, the Pope recognized that GK was a mass murderer of innocents in his campaigns so encouraged the local crusaders to stop his plan to conquer Egypt. From Wikipedia:

The Mongols, for their part, attempted to form a Franco-Mongol alliance with (or at least, demand the submission of) the remnant of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, now centered on Acre, but Pope Alexander IV had forbidden this...
Though the Mamluks were the traditional enemies of the Franks, the Barons of Acre recognized the Mongols as the more immediate menace, and so the Crusaders opted for a position of cautious neutrality between the two forces.^[7] In an unusual move, they agreed that the Egyptian Mamluks could march north through the Crusader territories unmolested, and even camp to resupply near Acre.

of course, that didn't stop the Malmuks from conquering the crusader territories later.

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PJMedia's yearly Duranty prize goes to the NYTimes for their deceptive spin on Benghazi.

and one of these days the MSM will read Wired or google the internet and discover that Sean Smith told his fellow gamers that an attack was coming several hours before it started (his post was at 12 noon gamer location time)...meaning that they had a lead time to send more protection

.LINK to The Mittani post of 9 11 2012 (the day after the attack)

 Obviously, given the combined attacks in Egypt and in Libya, this was a coordinated act designed for maximum media exposure; rile up a mob, point them at an embassy or consulate on 9/11 in particular, aim for the press. Many were injured in these pointless, reprehensible acts, and one of my closest friends was killed as a result.

(12:54:09 PM) vile_rat: assuming we don't die tonight. We saw one of our 'police' that guard the compound taking pictures

We knew that Vile Rat was in Benghazi; he told us. He commented on how they use guns to celebrate weddings and how there was a constant susurrus of weaponry in the background. He was in situ to provide IT services for the consulate, which meant he was on the net all the time, hanging out with us on Jabber as usual and talking about internet spaceship games.

The last time he did something like this, he was in Baghdad in 2007 or 2008. He would be on jabber, then say something like ‘incoming’ and vanish for a while as the Kayatushas came down from Sadr City - State had been in the former Saddam Hussein palace on the Tigris before they built that $2bn fortress-embassy later. He got out from his Baghdad post physically unscathed and had some more relaxing postings after that. Montreal, then the Hague. He kept asking me to come visit him - we’d hang out in the States a couple of times a year or see each other in Iceland for CSM crap, but I didn’t have the time visit for whatever reason so I would always say ‘next year’. I missed Montreal, but had made real plans for the Hague... fuck.  

 Ah, but few "elites" are gamers or CIA agents or members of the military, so "what does it matter?"

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Some fluffy stuff on Cinco de Mayo

CNN reminds everyone how not to celebrate cinco de Mayo in America. For instance, don't try and celebrate it in Mexico. It isn't a holiday there. 

Don't ask me. My "Hispanic" connections are Pinoy or Colombiano...

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via Instapundit:

The Catastrophe of suicide.

Blame the Enlightenment's war against religion...much of it is about veterans but the dirty little secret is that it is being pushed to encourage the elderly to do away with themselves to save money.
and since the idea is "contagious", every news report that justifies any suicide will inspire copy cat suicides (something known to docs ever since Marilyn Monroe overdosed herself).

and, as EdDriscoll  and Powerline points out, the same could be said about school shootings...
and, of course, Columbine was inspired by the Matrix...

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Factoid of the day:

 in Canada, between 2000 and 2011, 622 babies born alive after an abortion were left to die, and 66 in the United Kingdom in 2005

If it's lower in the US, it's because docs do a risky procedure to kill the kid before it's born (risky to mom, I mean: high doses of medicine to stop the kid's heart that can kill mom if the medicine goes in the wrong tube, or partial birth abortion, that can perforate the uterus or tear the cervix).

Related items:

The man whose wife "died" of an infected abortion in Ireland has left that country. A lot of us have questions about why she had "ruptured membranes" at "17 weeks"(hint....you can diagnose the sex of an infant at 16 weeks) and that the doctors naively missed that fact which would have been a hint that infection would probably result.

also the story of a woman who cheerfully got pregnant in order to have a public abortion...and what's worse is that a US "woman's"magazine let her write up her story...she had an "ultrasound" of her baby, meaning it was far enough along to recognize as a baby...
.
No, I'm NOT going to link the stories.

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and the really really important Chicken Story of the day:

Chickens in the Middle Ages looked different