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