Norwegian Forest cats aren’t just any pedestrian pet—they’re the stuff of legend. Norwegian myths tell of the skogkatt, a large, long-haired "mountain-dwelling fairy cat with an ability to climb sheer rock faces that other cats could not manage.” Thanks to their size, coats, and tree-climbing prowess, the Norwegian Forest cat may have served as the real-life inspiration for the skogkatt (which translates to “forest cat”). The skogkatt was beloved by Freya, the Norse goddess of love and beauty, who some say traveled in a feline-drawn chariot. And in one Norwegian tale, Thor loses a contest of strength to the tricky god Jormungand, who’s disguised as a skogkatt. Thanks to these legends, some breeders today refer to the Norwegian Forest cat as the “Norse skogkatt.”
I have two cats and Kuya has two cats upstairs, but the black ninja cats that used to catch mice in the nearby supermarket migrated here when the supermarket closed. So now we end up feeding six "black ninjas" wandering around, all semi feral.
and the guy who is behind the celebration is a rock star (literally).
A celebration of asteroids in space Friday, June 30th has a rock star behind the international awareness that one day the sky will be falling with Solar System interlopers promising, “We will rock you!”
Asteroid Day is a United Nations sanctioned event world-wide that had its start in 2014 with the help of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame guitarist Brian May of the British group Queen. Guitarist May, 69, is an astrophysicist with a PhD from Imperial College, London, completed during 30 years of studying the dust in our Solar System we can see as zodiacal light.
Dr Brian May, CBE, PhD FRAS, is a founding member of Queen, a world-renowned guitarist, songwriter, producer and performer, also a Doctor of Astrophysics
why June 30? It is the anniversary of the Tunguska event. which could have been from a rock meteor air burst or a comet fragment.
This post shows a comet, not a falling star/meteorite, but aside from that it is true:
Babies get a "graduation ceremony when they leave the Intensive care nursery.
The graduation ceremonies were organised by kind-hearted staff at the CaroMont Regional Medical Centre’s Birthplace facility. (located at Gastonia S.C.)
The price of solar energy is falling, meaning that it might be a meaningful solution to generate electricity for poor countries like India. Of course, one reason for the low prices are this:
The secret to these low prices? It turns out that a great way to reduce your soft costs is to pay your labor force and engineers next to nothing. (Markets with low-cost labor are more likely to use fixed-tilt systems, lowering turnkey system prices even more.)
As the report points out, even in China soft costs are 11 cents per watt higher than in India.
wikipedia article on Electricity in the Philippines, but it seems to be a bit out of date (2014 data) and says 43 percent come from coal burning plants...and says we only get ten percent from hydroelectric power: then why do we get so many brownouts in the dry season?
Or maybe it's just here in north central Luzon...
I wonder if the article includes the energy produced by personal generators that most larger businesses and many middle class folks have.
again, this implies that we are our brain and that if we upload our brain information to the cloud we live forever. Ah, but is that true?
because "you" would be dead, but the "you" in the computer essentially would be your twin, not you.
(ancients insisted we were composed of spirit, mind and body... Descarte started the "ghost in the machine" duality).
Whatever the admirable intentions of the leadership of the Pontifical Academy for Life, the real-world effect of appointing a pro-choice member is the same as if they had appointed a pro-slavery advocate: The appearance in the public eye that the Church does not take its teaching against abortion as seriously as it once did. This has a direct impact upon pro-life advocates on the ground, who stand exposed to the accusation of being "more Catholic" than the Vatican.
Austin Bay article on the drug terrorist links, mainly about the Mexican cartel and South America.
Iran has used its network to conduct terror attacks. The "covert presence" of Iranian agents "eventually led to Hezbollah's terrorist attacks against the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1992 and the AMIA Jewish Community Center in the same city two years later."
that bombing was 20 years ago, and families still await justice, and there was probably a government cover up by the lady who later became president. Not surprisingly, the investigator died before anything was done. more HERE.
the Pope, who openly condemned the bombing many times,was bishop there back then... more HERE
June 27, 2017: One type of victim that is not carefully counted in the current outbreak of Islamic terrorism are Islamic clerics (including scholars) who are murdered by the terrorists for preaching against misuse of Islam to justify the violence.
like the priests and ministers killed in Mexico (and in Colombia) for opposing the violent drug gangs, these martyrs are invisible to the press. And publicizing their deaths might show the lie behind the Islamophobes who commonly ask why "no one" (i.e. no Muslim leader) opposes the jihadis .
read the whole thing.
And speaking of murderous radicals: There is an article about the Argentina/Mexican cartel smuggling of cocaine on that site too. Drug smuggling and terrorism are connected (terrorists need money, and smuggling drugs is one way to get rich quick).
Which is why here in the Philippines, the "war on drugs" is connected closely with corruption in politics and business, and with terrorism.
but this was not noticed or denied by the usual suspects (the left leaning Catholic church here, the "human rights" organizations and of course the MSM who have written cookie cutter similar articles all of which seem to relate a similar story about some poor innocent tricycle driver who was killed, ignoring the fact he was caught in the crossfire when they raided a drug den, or was found carrying drugs for the cartels but never mind).
Ignore all that stuff on our "reign of terror". It's propaganda. And ignore the meme about how the "war on drugs" resulted in the terrorists being able to attack in the south, the "meme" being that all the cops were busy fighting all those innocent druggies... nonsense of course.
and the reason for the fight in the south is because the military found one of the big shots was in that city wounded and went to get him. So they decided to make a last stand there (and use "innocent deaths" to pressure the government to stop). This is the only majority Islamic city in the Philippines, which of course means they are harming their own people (along with burning down churches etc.)
Before my trip to the Philippines, I thought that the Marawi City siege was only related to IS.
It is actually a combination of several factors such as the Islamic State influence and narco politics – a defeated Marawi City politician who is allegedly a drug lord with connections with the Maute family.
Read more at http://www.thestar.com.my/opinion/columnists/one-mans-meat/2017/06/24/in-southern-philippines-its-complicated-theres-more-than-one-reason-for-the-violence-and-there-is-a/#bliOXgEKwRrPS5RA.99
Rappler article here (they tend to be anti duterte but also anti corruption). They trace a lot of the backstory (who is related to whom).
The Maute brothers are the first cousins of Azisa Romato, the wife of the late MILF vice chairman for military affairs Abdulaziz Mimbantas. Mohammad Khayyam is also married to a Mimbantas daughter – it was in their house where Sanusi was killed, according to an intelligence report.
In Marawi, son Abdullah Maute is married to a sister of former mayor Pre Salic. Salic and his brother Omar "Solitario" Ali, also a former mayor, are among the politicians the government singled out for helping the Maute Brothers. They are facing charges of rebellion.
The links to influential families grew through marriages with families not only in Butig and Marawi but also in nearby Masiu, where Farhana sought refuge and was arrested at the height of the clashes.
These relations have triggered suspicions against the MILF despite the rebel group having cooperated with the military in its offensives.
To understand the Philippines, you have to realize that clan ties outweigh other stuff... which is why the government is worried about the MILF connection.
alas, most of the headlines in the western press are glamourizing the terrorists, of course.
that wikipedia article doesn't mention the casualties in Egypt...and most of the articles that mention deaths only count the military mortality, not those of the Bedouin guerillas or the civilians in Cairo who rioted against the French.
trying to find the civilian mortality is alas hard to find: And as this article notes, there had been plagues and famines before the invasion, and clashes between the local Mamluk and the Ottoman empire..
The invasion should have been welcomed, but they treated the locals like dirt, so the power vacuum was filled by the local religious leaders.
and then there was the British navy destroying their supplies.
On August 1, 1798, the British fleet under Lord Nelson annihilated the French ships as they lay at anchor at Abu Qir, thus isolating Napoleon's forces in Egypt. On September 11, Sultan Selim III declared war on France.
On October 21, the people of Cairo rioted against the French, whom they regarded as occupying strangers, not as liberators. The rebellion had a religious as well as a national character and centered around Al Azhar mosque. Its leaders were the ulama, religiously trained scholars, whom Napoleon had tried to woo to the French side. During this period, the populace began to regard the ulama not only as moral but also as political leaders.
To forestall an Ottoman invasion, Napoleon invaded Syria, but, unable to take Acre in Palestine, his forces retreated on May 20, 1799.
The Ottomans had been shocked by Bonaparte's invasion of Egypt,[32] and were "spared further military embarrassment" by al-Jazzar's successful defense of Acre, according to historian Bruce Masters.[55] His Muslim and Christian contemporaries both regarded his victory over the French Army as his greatest achievement.[57] Al-Jazzar's victory significantly boosted his prestige.[58] Mass celebrations in Damascus and Aleppo followed his victory,[55] and al-Jazzar became "the defender of the faith" in Muslim public opinion, while being credited by European observers as among the few to have defeated Bonaparte.[59]
there was also a Russian Turkish war going on in the early 1800's that sort of gets overlooked in the "Napoleon only" histories of the time.
This year (2012) is the 200th anniversary of Napoleon’s fateful invasion of Russia. No doubt much will be written about the 1812 campaign this year with vivid pictures of the terrible retreat from Moscow etc.
1812 is also the 200th anniversary of the Treaty of Bucharest that ended the Russo-Turkish War that had been raging intermittently since 1806. This treaty meant that Russian troops were free to join the main Russian armies facing Napoleon. Perhaps equally important they gained the services of Mikhail Kutuzov who was the Russian commander in the south.
and the Russian/Ottoman wars (except for the Crimean war) are usually overlooked in the history books written by western Europeans, but are remembered by those in Eastern Europe... the hated Ottoman occupation of those countries are part of the backstory of why some Eastern European countries won't take Muslim "refugees", why Russia is helping out Syria, and of course, why the Serbs hated the Bosnians during the civil war in the former Yugoslavia.
these links are for my further reading, since I know little about this area.
LINK1 is a paraphrase of Professor Bulliet's history of the Ottoman/Middle East at that time, and one of his lectures is here:
when you read about the mess in Syria and the Middle East, remember that it's not new: Indeed, the mess goes back to the Bronze age (battle of Meggido anyone?)
Gen. Alexandre Dumas, the son of a black slave who led more than 50,000 men at the height of the French Revolution and then stood up to the megalomaniacal Corsican in the deserts of Egypt. (The "famous" Alexandre Dumas is the general's son – the author of The Three Musketeers.) Letters and eyewitness accounts show that Napoleon came to hate Dumas not only for his stubborn defense of principle but for his swagger and stature – over six feet tall and handsome as a matinee idol – and for the fact that he was a black man idolized by the white French army. (I found that Napoleon's destruction of Dumas coincided with his destruction of one of the greatest accomplishments of the French Revolution – racial equality – a legacy he also did his best to bury.)
But I don't remember anyone mentioning General Dumas, who clashed with Napoleon and went home (and was shipwrecked, ending up in a dungeon for two years, hence inspiring the Count of Monte Cristo).
and one of his first assignments was to the uprising in the Vendee.. a little covered genocide of those who revolted against the persecution/takeover of the Catholic faith (hence the massacres are ignored...the Wikipedia article insists they were too ignorant to understand the wonderfulness of the revolution of reason)... the podcast insists he tried to stop the over killing of the innocent (i.e. those not really soldiers) and given his stubbornness and willingness to oppose authorities this is probably true, although he was arrested for refusing to do risky military maneuvers not for defending civilians, one suspects that his dislike of murdering civilians might be one reason that his military judgement was interpreted as "treason", not a difference of opinion.
Tea at Trianon links to an article on Salt making in the Adriatic sea.
The Adriatic, having a higher salinity due to its shallow depth, had more productive solar ponds compared with those of the Tyrrhenian Sea, much closer to Rome
alas the article isn't at the link, but the site is very interesting for history buffs.
I always note the presence of women soldiers or women accompanying armies that often are overlooked, from the Amazon princess killed by Achilles (not in the Iliad but in another lost epic) to how Xenophon's men marched to the sea trying to protect his camp followers, to Peter the Great's wife (later Czarina) who accompanied him to the wars.
When the Spanish trying to conquer the Aztecs were attacked, one of the European woman got a sword out and scared a lot of the attackers, who thought she was the Virgin Mary.
But apparently this wasn't the only lady among the Conquistadors: SP reviews a new book that notes the histories written by South American soldiers, whose writings are often overlooked by historians, and they include her there:
... Catalina de Erauso (1592-1650), a former nun who wrote an autobiography of her years soldiering for the Crown, initially disguised as a man and later openly as a woman..
well, actually she wasn't a nun, but one of those girls placed into a convent as a small kid by her parents and who escaped at age 15 without taking vows, (i.e. a "novice") but never mind. After her escape, she dressed as a man and had many adventures, which she related in her autobiography...or what was reported to be her autobiography, since although she existed a lot of the facts seem to be exaggerated.
and a racier version is found on the rejectedprincesses site, which admits: She was not a very nice person.
In fact, it was through her usage of the church as a “get out of jail free” card that her secret came out. After killing several more cops (at this point it’s hard to even keep track of why) and taking sanctuary again, she realized she was in deep trouble this time. So she confessed to the bishop that she was actually a woman, and gave him a somewhat sanitized account of her life. Somewhat skeptical, the bishop called in some old women to, uh, verify her claims. Not only did they do so – but they reported back that she was still a virgin. This was, evidently, a big deal. Erauso’s intact hymen somehow wiped clean the previous two decades of murder, and the 35-year-old was declared a blessed individual, provided she devote herself to god. She did so, eventually even making her way to Pope Urban VIII, who gave her special leave to pursue her life in mens’ clothing. He did, however, chide her to not harm anyone else, taking special time to remind her of the Do Not Kill commandment.
Whether she was transgender or merely a lesbian is another question.
since she is reported as ugly and large, one wonders if she had PCO or another medical cause of hyperandrogenism, either from the ovary or her adrenal gland.
Strategypage has a post on the cellphone revolution: read the whole thing. A lot of it is about why cellphones are everywhere, and then they go on to note how this has changed war by changing the way you gather information. (i.e. pissed off civilians can now report where the bad guys are hiding).
of course, it also allows the bad guys to post misinformation, and I won't even go into Trumpie's twets, which are taken literally by the press who hyperventillates, but we ordinary folks recognize he is trolling the press, and just laugh.
well, anyway, SP notes that 5 billion people now have a cellphone, and modern cellphones are in effect mini computers. Landlines are expensive, but put up a tower and voila, instant coverage... and texting is cheap even for the poor (here, you can buy a "load" for 25 pesos, i.e. fifty cents, and do a lot of texting to your friends and family)..
I got my first cellphone in 1988, and was amazed when I visited the Philippines in 1991 and saw a sign in the village near our farm: Cellphone here: Calls to Saudi available.
And my friend in Africa has had one for about six years, so I can now send her money via Western Union and she can pick it up quickly instead of waiting three weeks for the snailmail for the number so she can pick it up.
and of course, cellphones are mini banks and let rural people buy stuff on line (which is why Jack Ma and AliBaba is so rich: he has revolutionized how rural Chinese buy stuff).
At approximately 565 degrees F, nitrous oxide separates into two parts oxygen and one part nitrogen. This added oxygen speeds up the combustion process. If extra fuel is added during nitrous injection, the result is similar to a supercharger. Extra fuel is needed, otherwise disastrous, damaging results will happen to an engine.
Nitrous oxide has this effect because a cubic foot of it contains 2.3 times as much oxygen as a cubic foot of air. By substituting nitrous oxide for the air going into the engine, more horsepower is created. We installed a BoonDocker kit on our 2005 Ski-Doo Mach Z demo snowmobile.
What are the principal applications of nitrous oxide?
Nitrous oxide finds beneficial use in a number of legitimate applications such as:
Medical/dental anesthesia and analgesia
Food processing propellant
Semiconductor manufacturing
Analytical chemistry
Chemical manufacturing
Auto racing engine injection
the danger is of course that it will be inhaled for a "high", and if you read the entire article it discusses the problem of theft and diversion of the gas.
We sometimes use it to help pain relief during labor etc, without putting the lady to sleep, but when abused, often the person doesn't realize it doesn't contain oxygen so they can pass out and die...
There were a few deaths years ago in a hospital where someone mixed up the N2O outlet with the O2 outlet.... usually this didn't matter, since most masks or nose prongs are not completely sealed and mix oxygen with room air, but it did alas kill some people who had low oxygen levels to begin with before they noticed.
the CDC puts it in the list of "inhalant" abuse LINK
sigh. we often saw "huffers" of gasoline or other inhalants by young teens.
Although the medical problems are real, the real problem is some of these kids don't use it just a couple times as experimentation, but end up using it and other drugs to get high and they never grow up... in the worst case scenario, they kill themselves by overdosing or in a car wreck, or maybe they end up in jail for stealing to buy the drugs.
I often remark that the Catholics here are into leftist memes and ecology, but the hard working middle class convert to Protestantism with it's idea to live clean and work hard... and are seen as less likely to be corrupt...
Well, looks like the same thing is happening in Brazil, where in contrast to the huge scandals at the federal level, and a lot of debt and financial problems, the city of Rio elected a protestant mayor. and Voila:
an
he has since halved public funding for each of Rio’s 13 leading samba schools, who now say the budget cuts make it financially unviable to organise next year’s parades....
Mr Crivella has said he will use the money saved - one million reais (about £250,000) for each school - to fund meals for children at public daycare centres.
of course, these "schools" could probably raise money on their own, as do the Mummers or the Mardi Gras clubs, but never mind.
In Burger’s case, however, the dispenser seems to have malfunctioned and exploded, sending one of these cartridges into her thorax, or chest (according to the description posted by her family).
Pressurizing an air-tight container can turn it into a rocket, since the condensed gas inside will rapidly spill out of any available opening.
FAQ on the the product. They use N2O, aka "laughing gas" for the whipped cream because it stablizes the cream bubbles... CO2 is used for selzer water...
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40 disabled protesters removed, many from their wheel chairs for protesting Republican health care bill. that would cut Medicaid funding that allows them to live independently at home.
hello! it is cheaper than putting them in nursing homes...
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Electric vehicles are not really "Green"....
more HERE. it allows manufacturers to 'even out" their carbon footprint so they can manufacture the larger cars that people actually want to buy instead of these expensive cars that are mainly bought by the rich.
and this doesn't even go into the pollution of the battery manufacturing or that it means more electric plants to generate more electricity for them... and a lot of these plants use coal.
ah, but this will be a problem. Lots of articles in green sites happily explain they will be recycled by the manufacturers, but since it isn't cost effective, it make me wonder why none of the articles seem to explain how and where this will be done. The last article in the NYTimes that worried about this is dated 2011...
More here....(athough this is about computer/cellphone etc electronic waste)
Although it is legal to export discarded goods to poor countries if they can be reused or refurbished, much is being sent to Africa or Asia under false pretenses, says Interpol. “Much is falsely classified as ‘used goods’ although in reality it is non-functional. It is often diverted to the black market and disguised as used goods to avoid the costs associated with legitimate recycling,” said a spokesman. “A substantial proportion of e-waste exports go to countries outside Europe, including west African countries. Treatment in these countries usually occurs in the informal sector, causing significant environmental pollution and health risks for local populations,” he said.
dirty little secret: A small bribe will allow you to dump it into the local landfill instead of paying locals to recycle it safely.
so what will happen with the huge electric car batteries? Will they really be "recycled"?
StrategyPage has an article on Colombia: FARC is disbanding, meaning their hard core will just go direectly into narcogangs and the military can go after ELF and the Narco gang criminals.
But in the meanwhile, there is a major refugee crisis there, with folks fleeing Venezuela.
Unofficially it is believed nearly a million Venezuelan refugees are now in Colombia. Since late 2016 most of them were not looking to resume careers but to escape death from hunger, disease and a growing number of other problems. While many go to Brazil or North America over 90 percent now head for Colombia because it is all they can afford.
How bad is it? Even Russia and China are pulling out...
I have a son in Colombia, but not in this area. His main danger is from the nearby volcano, which has been quiet for the last ten years.
It is a rerun but my maid/laundress can't start work until the show is over.
a rags to riches Cinderella story, where the poor young lady becomes a nanny, heals the family, and then studies to become an airline stewardess, her dream job, before melting the heart of her employer.
My daughter in law was going to visit us and her half sister (who lives in Mindanao) to help with a prison outreach ministry, but with all the headlines her husband (ex military with contacts there) has forbidden it. She is "Anglo" enough looking to be a kidnap risk. So she'll probably visit her son in Korea. No war risk there you know (/s).
however, our area is safe.
I have been too sick to follow a lot of the story, but StrategyPage has a nice summary here, especially why martial law was declared (over the hysteria of our affluent left wing students and SJW's who live in safe guarded communities in Metro Manila)
The activities of BIFF, Maute and several smaller pro-ISIL groups had forced the larger Moslem separatist groups MNLF and MILF to crack down on Moslems who work with the Islamic terrorists. Because of that Abu Sayyaf was soon considered unworthy of local support by the Moslem community and the Abu Sayyaf leaders know that is the worst thing that could happen to them.
The government was hoping for a final (or at least decisive) battle with Abu Sayyaf, BIFF and Maute here and they got it. Martial law enabled the security forces to quickly round up the known or suspected supporters of Hapilon. That is important because Hapilon had lots of allies and contacts in the numerous local drug and smuggling gangs.and smuggling gangs.
The southern Philippines is not majority Muslim except in a few small areas, and as Duterte warns: If the MILF and other "militant groups" who seek peace don't help stop the terrorists, that it could degenerate into a civil war, and that some Christians are stockpiling guns for self defense. This Inquirer article is interesting because the SJW comments are all Anti Duterte, presumably because they prefer echoing the meme instead of remembering the massacres and attacks against Christians in the south before Duterte (like the attack on majority Christian city of Zamboanga).
And of course there are human shields, and so there will be lots of propaganda photos of "innocent civilians" killed posted by the usual suspects on the social media.
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SP article also include stuff about China's sea lane grab in the West Philippine Sea, and their propaganda about the new silk road
The key to China’s new sea routes is asserting ownership of the South China Sea. Another feature of Obor is that it offers business relationships that are more acceptable (than Western ones) to most of the nations Obor is investing in. The Chinese can, as they like to put it, be more flexible and respectful of local customs. In other words the Chinese don’t see bribes and corruption as a defect but an opportunity.
and of course, then there is the meth/"shabu" epidemic, also from China (and North Korea)... Duterte is trying to stop this but this has caused the rich SJW here and in the US to get their knickers in a knot, and they know that more "innocent" drug dealers will get killed if they allow martial law.
but the dirty little secret is that I am more in danger of being killed in a home invasion robbery by druggies in need of a fix than I am by Abu terrorists.
From 1965-1969, guns accounted for 65% of air-to-air kills, the CSBA says.
But between 1990 and 2002, they accounted for just 5% of kills - with the rest carried out by some kind of missile.
"Modern air combat is almost entirely decided by situational awareness [from radar and other sensors] and missile technology," Bronk says. "All recent air-to-air kills between fast jets were one-sided, quick affairs."Most kills in the last two decades have been against enemy planes too far away to see with the human eye - which means technology often trumps pilot skill.
Under the plan, produced by the Climate Leadership Council which includes the oil giants, taxes would start at $40 per ton of CO2 and rise from there, theoretically increasing the price per gallon (3.8 liters) of gasoline by 36 cents but initially generating $200 billion to be paid as "dividends" to households.
whose households will benefit? Not mentioned in the article.
Translation: The poor will pay more for food and transportation and cooking.
The rich politicians will get money to help the poor (and pocket part or all of the money).
here, when LPG or diesel goes up, it harms the ordinary folks: Tricycle drivers get less profit, the poor have trouble buying LPG to cook with (they use wood, leading to fires and asthma in their kids). Using a handplow, thresher, and rice driers get more expensive, so the price of rice goes up. The price of transporting food and rice to the market goes up too, leading to higher prices for everything.
In most instances, firms pass the costs of a carbon price onto consumers. Studies typically find that poor consumers spend a greater proportion of their income on energy-intensive goods and fuel, and cost increases in energy tend to impact the poor worse than the rich.[238] Therefore, if the revenue from a carbon tax is retained by the government, a price on carbon is expected to be regressive, similar to any policy that increases the cost of fuels and energy.
Answer: With apologies to all the fine ladies in the Red Hat Society, this preposterous urban legend of an invisible planet on a collision course with Earth seems to be straight from the Tinfoil Beanie Brigade.
I should know. Back in 2003, an acquaintance started warning me in the spring to get right with my Maker because Nibiru/Planet X was already well into our solar system and bearing down on Earth for a doomsday smashup that fall. During months of exchanging emails, I tried to use my knowledge of astronomy and other logic to try to prove that her “evidence” sounded like a plot from Guardians of the Galaxy.
I finally gave up, and, not surprisingly, I’m here today writing about it. Meanwhile, like all the other predictors of the end times through the centuries, the Nibiru fanatics are once again using Windex to clean their crystal balls and readjust their dates accordingly. Meanwhile, I stand by my conclusion that the closest you’ll ever come to Nibiru is seeing the so-named volcanic planet make a cameo appearance in the very fictional “Star Trek: Into Darkness.”
guess I'll have to go back to worryingabout typhoons, floods, earthquakes and dengue fever...
We had a bad thunderstorm last night, and the roof leaked into the bedroom and into my bathroom.
And this morning, there is no water.
Joy and Ruby are going to a meeting in Manila today but haven't left yet: Luckily I had a bucket of water in my bathroom so they can wash.
The pump is pumping, but no pressure. Either it is not pushing up or the tank isn't filled yet and there is an air bubble that need to be bled out. Sigh.
ah, life in a tropical paradise!
update: 8am the tank is filled enough that I could bleed out the air block so we have water again. AHHH...wonderful
Drudge has a link to the daily beast about a satanic exorcist cult trying to take down the pope, or something like that.
I stopped at paragraph five, when the poorly written article connects this tiny splinter offshoot with Cardinal Burke and the Dubia bishops.
Burks' sin? questioning if the latest Pope letter that he claims was supported by the bishops meeting (despite the fact that it wasn't) to normalize adultary and divorce and make the holy reception of the Euchrist only a feel good exercize for anyone who wants it.
Paul said the sae thing, but never mind. This is a serious item and is threatenig schism in the church, and presuming any Catholic who agrees with Paul (the apostle not the pope) is a devil worshipping cultist is a bid absurd.
In other wrods, a smear article against catholics who are catholics. Using a "straw man" argument.
And the Daily beast's editor once wrote an editorial lamenting she would be leaving New York City and living in Washington, where she might have to actually meet (shudder shudder) "Christians".
If a good Catholic site actually reads and analyzes this nonsense, I'll link to it later.
The opioid crisis long predates the present Adminstration, but I wasn't aware that President Trump has a commission to investigate the problem.
I only became aware of this in today's NYTimes article whining he needs to "act" not just have meetings.... But there has been a lot of stuff being done (closing the borders, arresting the drug gangs, reigining in doctors prescriptions)....and the crisis continues. So it is time for a commission to try to see if other things will work.
in other words, it didn't get in the headlines except to whine? Give me a break.
“Most terrifying is the reality that nothing we are doing today has been able to halt the spread of opioid addiction. Controlling prescription opioid medication has not done so. Prescription monitoring programs, strict limits on the number of pills physicians can prescribe, and the CDC pain management guidelines seem to have capped usage of prescribed opioid medications. But overdose deaths from heroin and highly potent synthetics like fentanyl have gone through the roof.”
but no pain patient adviser on the panel, but it does include Patrick Kennedy, whose fight with substance abuse is well known. More here:
The White House announced Wednesday that the president intended to appoint Republican Governor Charlie Baker of Massachusetts and Democratic Governor Roy Cooper of North Carolina to the Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis.
The other new members are Patrick Kennedy, a former Rhode Island congressman who has spoken of his own addiction issues, and Bertha Madras, a researcher at Harvard Medical School and McLean Hospital in Massachusetts.
Trump tapped Christie, who has earned plaudits for his work on the opioid epidemic as governor, back in March to lead the commission, which did not have any other members until now. Cooper and Baker are both from states hard hit by addiction.
Medicaid is the "elephant in the room" here, says Kennedy.
Well, yes. But the real elephant in the room is the culture wars.
there are tens of thousands of churches in the US: How many have outreaches and how many preach on this? Some Catholic churches sponsor AA type programs, on the other hand, I have never ever heard a sermon on the moral aspect of the problem...WWJD
I am starting to read stuff on my non political blogsites that worry a shooting civil war is nigh in the US. Even my non political sites are worrying about this.
No it's not because racists hated Obama, which is the meme, but goes back to the demonization of Barry Goldwater, the passage of Roe V Wade, where the courts started to pusth the elite agenda on people, and got worse when go't regulations without being passed by congress started interfering with life.
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the Muslim extremists killed a lot of Christians, terrorized a lot of folks in the south and are dug in without a lot of press coverage of these atroities, but hey, the press and "human rights" folks are blaming the gov't when they try to remove them house by house. And Ruby relates the SJW on the "social media" are too busy hyperventillating about worry of "martial law" than they are about the threat.
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the really bad worry is that this Pope is trying to change the Church into Episcopal lite, and we are now reading bishops are pushing his "who am I to judge" ideas.
That terrible London fire resembles something we could easily have in Manila. What went wrong?
was the "cladding" bad because it was Chinese counterfeit goods, or was it just eco friendly so they ignored that it could burn?
UKGuardian article here blames "sustainable" agenda for allowing flammable products to be used on buildings. I guess we will learn a lot about insulation and "cladding" after this investigation is done.
some people were discussing that it started when an "eco friendly" refrigertor that used propane as a refrigerant blew up, but why did it spread so quickly.
There was a conference here awhile back teaching OFW's on how to present Christianity to their fellow workers in the Middle East.... so that is not the only group doing this work. and many are also preaching to their fellow overeas workers.
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The rich elites either laugh at poor rural whites overdosing on opioids, or blame the doctors (ignore that the fentanyl comes from Mexico, with help from Chinese chemicals).
IHS data indicate that the rate of drug-related deaths among American Indians and Alaska Natives increased from five per 100,000 population (adjusted) in 1989-1991 to 22.7 per 100,000 in 2007-2009. The rate among American Indian and Alaska Native people is almost twice that of the general population;
most famine today is caused by war. Most of it is in refugees fleeing the war, the disruption of crops and lack of transportation systems. But some is deliberate.
Geoff Wilkinson, a fire and building inspector, told the BBC that the Grenfell Tower block "didn't perform in the way you'd expect a building to perform" once it caught fire as "you'd expect it to be contained to an individual apartment".
"Something has gone dramatically wrong here," he said.
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the afternoon "congressional hearings" soap opera here were discussing the Casino shooter. Alas, my Tagalog is not good enough to follow the arguments. The real question: Where were the security guards? Were the casino floor's exits locked? Was there a sprinkler system? were people failing to flee because they thought it was a terrorist attack, so they stayed put?
this SP article is mainly about Russia, but it includes this fact:
Qatar is also seen as siding with Iran in the current struggle between Shia Iran and the Sunni Arab nations led by Saudi Arabia. This sort of behavior is not uncommon in the region and the small Arab Gulf states like Qatar, Kuwait and the member states of the UAE have survived for centuries using these methods. One could say Qatar has been too successful and the current unpleasantness is the price of that success. As is the local custom secret meetings will be held, demands discussed and agreements made. How long this takes will depend on how long Qatar can last without its usual providers of all the food and just about everything else. The expulsion cut off half of that immediately and a naval blockade would be disastrous. About 40 percent of imports came via Saudi Arabia
Summary: Lots of hackers were stealing lots stuff from "insecure servers".. And lots of countries were trying to influence the election. So what else is new?
--------------- StrategyPage notes China is are taking over all the sea routes and possibly the land routes, which means they could have a stranglehold on trade in the near future.
and note the neo colonialism aspects of their investments, which encourage local corruption.
if you read the whole thing, it mentions the Philippines. May 20, 2017: President Duterte says China threatened war if the Philippines went ahead with plans to drill for oil in offshore areas that international law recognizes as Filipino but that China claims actually belongs to them. Duterte openly criticizes other nations for not confronting China. All the South China Sea nations facing territorial losses because of Chinese claims have backed down. He points out that even the United States is unwilling to go up against China. Meanwhile the Chinese are openly moving more weapons to bases in the South China Sea as well as their main naval base in southern China (Hainan Island). When pressed a few Chinese officials would admit that in recent talks between Duterte and Chinese leaders it was mentioned that war was a possibility if other nations sought to take possession of Chinese territory. In other words (that non-Chinese can understand). Back off or die. Duterte later said he may have exaggerated a bit.
Remember that President Obama told the Philippines not to be "aggressive" against China when they dredged up the sea floor to build their artificial islands. Did money change hands here? Anyone?
I mean China tried to "buy" the area by bribing a previous Philippine president in 2005... 2011 story here.
and here.
But the good news is that people just noticed Trumpie boy owns businesses and that is a potential conflict of interest.
Well, yes, and this should have been investigated during the campaign, but wasn't...
in the meanwhile, despite what you read about China being buddies with Putin, the dirty little secret is that China will eventually try to take over eastern Siberia, (NYTime story 2014)..which they also claim they own somehow... and eastern Siberia has lots of economic ties with Chinese with lots of Chinese moving there who could be fifth columnists.
in other words, there is a lot more going on than you think, and Putin is a potentially ally in many of these potential war zones.
The dirty little secret is that a lot of people in "scandals" go to jail for getting mixed up or forgetful and then get convicted of telling "lies" to the FBI... even when they are never convicted of a crime.
One remembers Martha Stewart, for example, who was convicted for a 'lie' at a time when the Enron scandal was around (and those guys stayed out of jail) or the Valarie Plame scandal where someone was convicted of a lie who had nothing to do with her name being leaked (and the guy who leaked her name was never punished).
This is a fishing expedition to destroy someone, while larger crimes go unpunished.
Does anyone in their right mind think that Trumpie boy sent someone to arrange the Russians to expose Hillary's dirty tricks against Bernie, which is one reason she lost the election? (The other reason is because she called the union Democratic blue collar workers "deplorables".. Joe Biden is right: He would have won these votes and the election).
Democrats plan to ask about his contacts during the 2016 campaign with the Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak, which the attorney general failed to disclose fully during his confirmation hearing.
Give me a break: Even I, a lowly grandmom (with a simple Secret clearance) know you don't openly meet with the ambassador to discuss such thing. You send a low level person to a low level KGB agent who is under cover to do this.
Translation: They are trying to catch someone in a "lie" so they can be prosecuted, in the same way the Plame case was aimed at Bush.
No crime here, but a fishing expedition to harm the president.
And this, along with the leaks (known and suspected) and along with the failure to properly investigate and prosecute Hillary's illegal email server and misuse of secret files, is a good reason to fire Comey.
In the meanwhile, I would like to ask Mr Comey and his minions: Who they hell hacked my Federal personnel file a couple years back?
who is worried about the North Korean hack that shut down a lot of sites all over the world last week?
the NSA is supposed to be about major hacking problems, not the hacking of dirty tricks. And if hacking by Wikileaks was so terrible and enough to harass Trumpie boy and threaten to impeach him, then someone please tell me why President Obama pardoned Pvt Manning, who did leak a lot of critical stuff about the war on terror?
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