Stuff below the fold

Teens launch balloon to the edge of space.

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Catholic newspaper in Cuba shuts down one of the few open speech forums.

and they say the church shut them down:

The former editors of Espacio Laical magazine, Roberto Veiga and Lenier Gonzalez, used the Internet to promote debate on political issues such as the need for a multiparty system, internet expansion, reintegration with the diaspora and the strengths and weaknesses of reforms under President Raul Castro.
They quit last week after 10 years on the job, saying in their resignation letter it was because of pressure from inside the Church hierarchy, not the government, from people who did not want the Church to get involved in politics.

Calling Cardinal Sin...calling Cardinal Sin...

Does this mean the gov't is pressuring the bishops and they caved, or does it mean that the new "vatican" is trying to make nice with the communists, a la John XXIII, rather than oppose tyranny a la JPII?

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On the ground report on Baghdad: The media is getting it wrong.

the Sunni terror groups will have to take on the Shiites if they try to take Baghdad, and the tribal elements who are giving them cover will reap the whirlwind.

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 The Mullahs passed a law banning women politicians, so Dr E is no longer is on the city Council but she is still is active in ecological NGO's...and now she reports that the Iranian team at the world cup has followed her suggestion to use the Persian Cheetah as their mascot.

I formally delivered the ball to the Captain last week , before  their departure to Sao Paulo, Brazil. Our team was named "Persian Cheetah" after these events and the issue recieved much publicity.
Iran is taking part in the World Cup with a message of Peace and Protection of our global environment. We hope that all teams will join us in this campaign and spread the message.

yeah, but just protect yourself against all that radiation when the Mullahs explode their bomb.

on the other hand, the present president is trying to limit the tyranny of the Mullahs.

He also appeared to agree that social rules - in a country where morality police patrol the streets to detain women they deem to be showing too much hair - should be eased, saying: "We can't take people to heaven by force and with a whip."
But reformist Iranians say those words have not been followed by policy changes. "All the nice words have expired," Alinejad said.
With Rouhani pushing for a nuclear deal with the West to lift crushing economic sanctions, and civil wars raging in Iran's regional allies Syria and Iraq, personal freedoms and women's rights are unlikely to be high on his agenda.
But Alinejad doubts Rouhani would ease the hijab rules even if he were able to in a system where the ultimate say lies with the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

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Camouflage only works when you use the right colours, so caterpillars who eat too many different leaves are at risk, reports the LATIMES.

I mainly link for this cute photo.

Caterpillars that feed on a variety of plant species are more likely to get eaten by birds because they lack specialized camouflage, a new study concludes. The tiger swallowtail (Papilio glaucus) pictured here feeds only on black cherry (Prunus serotina). (Michael Singer / Wesleyan University)

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related item:

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the tax hunt against Americans is making more people renounce their citizenship.Yeah, they are now taxing our income here, and asking our banks to report interest income

.Helping boost the exodus, experts say, is a five-year-old U.S. campaign to hunt for undeclared accounts held by Americans abroad. Since 2009, the government campaign has collected more than $6 billion in taxes, interest and penalties from more than 43,000 U.S. taxpayers. Federal prosecutors have filed more than 100 criminal indictments, including the high-profile case of Beanie Babies inventor Ty Warner, who last year pleaded guilty to tax evasion involving secret Swiss bank accounts.The tax dragnet has also swept up many middle-income Americans living abroad, prompting some to give up their U.S. citizenship. While people who renounce aren't freed of taxes due for past years, they don't want to risk sizable taxes and penalties for them and their children in the years ahead, 

 Note however that the numbers are miniscule.

------------------------------

Instapundit on the 18 minute gap:

DESPITE THE “MISSING” EMAILS, NEWS IS STILL COMING OUT: “In fact, the documents showed Lerner wanted to make an example out of someone with charges in order to chill all of the groups in the tea party movement.”I think it’s fair at this point to assume that the “missing” emails are missing because someone in the White House was behind this.

--------------------------------- 

: Sarah Hoyt on the coming economic demise, 

she's a sci fi writer, but irascible enough to say what no one dares to say.

Oh well: Lolo promised me if I move to the Philippines we would always have rice to eat. So most of our money is invested in growing and selling organic brown rice. The bad news is that a typhoon at the wrong time can wipe us out financially as it did last year...

St Anthony's fire

A different St Anthony, (the hermit) but the disease was caused by ergot fungus growing on rye.

from medievalistblog:

The Annales Xantenses reports that in the year 857 “a great plague of swollen blisters consumed the people by a loathsome rot, so that their limbs were loosened and fell off before death.” Ina Lipkowitz explains that the
victims suffered from hallucinations, insanity, vomiting, and gangrene of the hands and feet due to constriction of blood flow to the extremities. Those afflicted felt as if they were being burned at the stake as their fingers and toes split open and dropped off, one by one. A late medieval chronicler wrote of an “invisible fire that separated the flesh from the bones and consumed it.”It was said that 40 000 people in northern Germany were killed by the disease in the year 994. In the eleventh-century a group of lay people created an order to take care of people afflicted by the disease. They declared Saint Anthony of Egypt to be the patron saint of the order, and the disease became known as St.Anthony’s Fire. Ergotism is much rarer in the modern world, but outbreaks have occurred in less developed countries even in recent years

Ode to the fishies

St Anthony's fiast day was a few days ago, and here is his sermon to the fishies, put to song by Mahler



headsup ThePlough.

 One story tells how, disgusted by the obduracy of his listeners, Saint Anthony went to the mouth of the Marecchia river and called the fish, who all swam to the surface and formed ranks to hear his sermon. The Little Flowers of Saint Francis includes this account of his message:

My brothers the fishes, you are bound, as much as is in your power, to return thanks to your Creator, who has given you so noble an element for your dwelling; for you have at your choice both sweet water and salt; you have many places of refuge from the tempest; you have likewise a pure and transparent element for your nourishment. God, your bountiful and kind Creator, when he made you, ordered you to increase and multiply, and gave you his blessing. In the universal deluge, all other creatures perished; you alone did God preserve from all harm. 

Stories below the fold

 The backstory of what's going on in Iraq can be found on StrategyPage, 

summary: A mile wide and an inch deep. They won't win because both the Saudis and the Iranians will help defeat them. The American policy is mainly to stop the Shiites from ethnic cleansing to drain the swamp (the innocent Sunni civilians). And many of the fighters are non Iraqis, mainly from Saudi.

one of the few places that actually note the malignant strain in Islam that is being pushed via Saudi "Charity" money". And one of the few sites that actually reports on the corrosive effect of corruption.

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Professor Mary Beard has a new book, this one on Greece. I doubt I can afford the book, but usually they make miniseries on her stuff.

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Peter Burger has a long analysis of China's Christian problem.

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Epilog has an article on "weird Ice Cream flavors" now available in the US. Some of the flavors originated in Japan: Altogether now: WASABI

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Is BPA making you fat? MomJones says uh oh: other plastics do it too.

and it's not just plastic bottles.

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Mummies of folks who died from the Plague of Cyprian have been found in Egypt\\ 

Known as the “Plague of Cyprian,” the series of epidemics, thought to be some form of smallpox or measles, is credited with weakening the Roman Empire and hastening its fall,

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3D printing of human organs? BBC Horizon has a series of short reports.

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IRS Scadal emails were "lost" when the computer crashed?

This is as obvious a lie as Nixon's 18 minute gap...but don't expect the press to notice.

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 From Wired: Ten fun facts about seapigs.

Happy Father's day

this is from Father Vega's church in Pampanga.

Hobbit Metaphors

At the OneRingNet:

nine visual metaphors in the Hobbit: including:
Blind mice and lesser lives.From the cat to the mouse. We have something of a double metaphor here: Beorn uses the word “blind” just as we see the mouse (as in “Blind Mice”); then picks up the mouse when he says that Dwarves are blind to those whose lives they deem “lesser than their own”.

And the lake will shine and burn.As Bard speaks this line from the prophecy, we see the sunlight shining on the lake, making it look on fire. 

Family News

We took Lolo and Joy's parents to a restaurant for Father's day. We went to the favorite restaurant, but it was packed by the time we got there, so we went to the Philippino food restaurant in the mall.

Later, Ruby's church had an opening party for their new hall, so we lent them our "swamp cooler" for the party (but we stayed home). It remains hot, but not as bad as before.

Family news

With the onset of Monsoon season, it's a little cooler, and Lolo has more energy.

So yesterday we went to the lawyers for him to sign a waiver so I can get my pension. Afterward, we went to Waltermart to eat at McDonalds. Yes, not a big deal, you say? Well, they are clean and fast and the burgers are the same as in the USA (although they also sell rice instead of fries on some meals, and have spaghetti meals).

Lots of deliveries in Manila, so we are short of help. Luckily, we now have a little man pushing a large bin who collects our trash every morning, so we don't have to haul it up to the county dump or even to the dump near the Palenke. When I see him, I give him 20 pesos (about fifty cents), and sometimes he will clean out the trashcans if I ask him to do it.

Ruby is busy with school, and her church is putting on an extension so on holidays (e.g. Independence day last Thursday) the kids are there helping build it.

The pastor is a good guy, but I worry because it's pentecostal and don't want too much religious influence...but luckily their religion is singing and dancing for the Lord, and one in awhile speaking in tongues. Nothing hard like helping care for the poor or cleaning up the house or helping Lolo. Those things are left to the help all of whom are non believers like me (read Catholics who think doing a good days' work and caring for family is more important than speaking in tongues or sprouting bible verses, or even not stealing little things from their rich employers).

Yes, three hail marys for me for being snotty.

Mark your calenders

Grumpy cat the movie premiers at Christmas time.

Family news

Rain all night... a low pressure area is going through. Hopefully we'll have enough water for rice planting, and the local hydroelectric dams will fill up so no more brownouts.

Chano is still waiting for payment for a large Christmas delivery. Which is why the Philippines isn't yet a good place to invest.
most of the headlines are about pork (investigating all the diverted money, bribes, kickbacks, fake NGOs. smuggling etc)

 If they jail everyone who is guilty, they won't be able to run the country. Sigh.

Lolo is okay, and I am fine, but my arthritis kicks in when it rains. Oh well.

Stuff below the fold

Plough magazine is back.

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Snide remark of the day (From Anne Althouse):

Samantha Power lets slip the hashtags of war.

presumably hashtags are the civilized way of confronting warmongers, replacing that Nasty letter (see Team America World Police).

---------------------------------

Brian Sibley has several posts on Ray Bradbury, and links to his short stories on the BBC to download.

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Spiked has a book review on UKIP's rise as a grassroots revolt against the elites.

just as this social stratum has come to dominate British public life, to fill public space with its sense of progressive self-righteousness, so other sections of society, from older generations of Britain’s working class to shire Tories, have experienced a shutting out, a quick-quick-slow assault on their values, attitudes and experiences... And not only do they feel under cultural attack, not only do they feel that even raising the issue of immigration, for example, is ‘politically incorrect’, not only do they feel that they are constantly being told that their values and beliefs are wrong, or backward; politically they have no representation, no voice.

Sounds like the problems of the working class Reagan democrats, who are no longer welcome in the Democratic party: Which is why demonizing the republicans is their only hope of keeping us voting correctly.

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It's not just the NSA: Google takes over the world.

did I tell you that our house is easy to find on Google Earth? Just look up the city square...

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Antarctic ice melt might be due to volcanic activity.

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the WAGD post of the day: blame bird flu links here.

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for your eating pleasure: Chocolate chip cookie recipes.

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YUM! deviled ostich eggs...

actually, Chano knows a local farmer who raises ostriches for food and eggs.

When Idiots are smarter than the experts.

Joe Biden was right: It would be better to divide Iraq into three separate countries.

So now, not only could the Kurds get their own country, but Iran is helping the Iraqi government. Well, what do you expect? Obama turned them down when they requested airstrikes on the bad guys last month.

on the other hand, this could unite another Shiite/Sunni war, or another Persian/Arab war, complete with massacres.

Uh, Sarah Palin was right too? drill baby drill? North Dakota to the rescue?

maybe if the MSM wasn't so busy ridiculing these working class politicians, they might actually ANALYZE if they were making sense.

Insomnia downloads of the day

A Guide to Modern Cookery (Le Guide Culinaire) Part I: Fundamental Elements

Auguste ESCOFFIER (1846 - 1935), 

• Title
  

  Chocolate and Cocoa Recipes and Home Made Candy Recipes

  Maria PARLOA (1843 - 1909) and Janet McKenzie HILL (1852 - 1933)

  Complete | Solo | English
  Download76MB
• Title
  

  Selected Recipes (in Coffee Break Collection 004 - Hodge Podge )

  VARIOUS ( - )

  Complete | Collaborative | English
  Download49.4MB
• Title
  

  Joe Tilden's Recipes for Epicures

  Joe TILDEN ( - )

  Complete | Solo | English
  Download45.3MB
• Title
  

  Selections from Chocolate and Cocoa Recipes (in Short Nonfiction Collection Vol. 004 )

  VARIOUS ( - )

  Complete | Collaborative | English

For Later reading

Housecleaning day today, so I'll link to articles I want to read in depth (via my tablet. My computer's battery is kaput so I have to let it plugged in to use, and if the cat/dog/myself accidentally jigs the wire, it crashes).

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TeaAtTrianon links to several articles debunking the the Irish orphanage scandal. The press lied? No, but it was very bad reporting and one suspects it was deliberate to follow the meme.

Spiked! has their sarcastic take on the feeding frenzy, and notes other overblown stories that turned out to be only mildly true.

I was going to make a rant about third world country orphanages today, and the high mortality in any institution that housed the poor before the days of penicillin but never mind.

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Iraq has a problem thanks to the Syrian rebels funneling money and terrorists there. Who wudda thot?
Ah, but it could help the Kurds regain Mosul, which was their city before Saddam threw them out.
StrategyPage has a long analysis here.

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The Diplomad2.0 has a multipart series on corruption in American embassies.
Hmm...maybe they should make a movie about it.

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So smartphones affect sperm?

Yes, but wait til they find so do chemicals.

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How to persuade kids to become atheists.

For later reading

the anthropology of China.

and an article on China's expansion here.

We only stand to lose our fishing (oil/gas) rights off the coast, but Vietnam was once part of a greater China, and remembers they could be coopted similar to what happened in Tibet.

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I remember when Carter said they would allow any Cuban who got to the US to stay, and 100 thousand plus arrived, including a lot of criminals freed by Castro from their jails.

So now Obama stopped deporting arrivals from Mexico, and said the "dream children" would have a pass. So guess what?

Presumably they will open the closed military bases to house and integrate them, as they did with the Cubans or with the Vietnamese mass influx after the fall of Saigon.

One story not picked up: Mexico's economy is booming so many Mexicans are returning home, and many of those arriving are women and children from central America.

Now, if they would only let my son get a visa to visit his brother in Florida...and I wonder if local Pinoys have figured out how to get in the rush...

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News you can use

What Can You Do About Bed Bugs in Your Laptop?

Factoid of the day

HOPS!

London drinkers initially resisted beer, as they preferred ale’s familiar sweet flavor to the bitter taste added by hops. The social perception of beer as a foreign import also worked to its disadvantage. Over time, taste preferences changed and beer grew in popularity, but it was the brew‟s greater marketability that allowed it to gain superiority over ale. Hops not only imparted the bitter flavor, but the resins contained within hops provided protection against bacterial infection, resulting in a more durable brew.

Family news

Lolo got up and took a shower to go to church, but by the time he was finished, it was already 7:20 and since it is now 82 degrees and church started at 7 am, I suggested we skip it until next week.

We now have three yellow kitties: all from the same litter but found separated in the vacant lot (by our dog George, but I stopped him before he could kill them). There is a yellow cat that makes her home there, so I figure they are hers. They can't quite figure how to eat, but are almost old enough to be on their own. Lots of dogs visit the lot, so if I didn't get them out of there they'd be dead. No names, but I call them Mukha (face, for a scar on her face), tail (a full tail) and half tail (there is a genetic half tail in some local feral cats).

Ruby visited a theme part on Friday and has the photos on her face book page.

The dogs got their rabies vaccine yesterday: I had to chase a couple of them who didn't like the sound of the upset dogs downstairs. We now have seven dogs, three of whom bite a lot, and two who have bitten but usually are okay.

there are feral dogs and rabies here, so any one bitten by a dog gets the vaccine, and the city vaccinates for free at certain times....but it's hard to get 7 dogs into the car.

The Heroic quest

 I downloaded Professor Hughes lectures on Greek mythology awhile back via iTunesU, but now he has a new course, LLT 180 The Heroic Quest, that should be good.

Joe Kieyoomia

A couple posts down, I discussed the death of the original code talkers, Chester Nez. LINK

and mentioned a Navajo who was a NMNG POW who refused to help them break the code.

His name was Joe Kieyoomia. From Wikipedia.

When the "Navajo Code" had the Japanese baffled, Kieyoomia was questioned and then tortured, although he could only understand bits and pieces of what trained Navajo Code Talkers were saying, the code was so sophisticated that he eventually told the Japanese that it sounded like nonsense to him.
Kieyoomia was not trained as a code talker and did not know about the code. Stripped naked and made to stand for hours in deep snow until he talked, Joe Kieyoomia's feet froze to the ground. Finally allowed to return to his cell, a guard shoved him, causing the soles of his feet to tear.
After surviving the prison camps, the "hell ships" and the torture, Kieyoomia was a prisoner in Nagasaki when that city was the target of the second atomic bomb dropped by the U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF). Kieyoomia survived the attack saying he was protected by the concrete walls of his cell. After 3½ years as a prisoner of war, he was abandoned for three days after the bombing, but says a Japanese officer finally freed him. He returned to the United States.

stuff below the fold

Instapundit reports that the Pope has upset the cat ladies at the daily beast, whose editor once wrote she loved NYC because she didn't have to meet any Christians (just ignore the butcher, the baker, the cop on the beat, the fireman, your maid, and the local nannies and nurses. Of course, the taxi driver is probably Muslim so you're safe there).

Yes, it's all about me me me, and the feministas are upset that he pointed this out.

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Ryan's classic book and DDay film The Longest Day, got the Pointe de Huc part wrong, implying that there were no guns there so it was a useless attack,  but Reagan reminded people of the Ranger's heroism. Austin Bay has details of  why Ryan's gaff overlooked something very important.

Even if allied bombing raids and naval gunfire eliminated the big guns, professional soldiers understood that Pointe du Hoc was decisive operational terrain. German mobile artillery might occupy the position after the pre-invasion bombardment lifted. Allied and German planners also identified the hard-surfaced road cutting across the plateau's southern base as a vital communications and high-speed movement route for German forces operating on the exposed flanks of the beach zones.
On June 6, 1944, Pointe du Hoc had to be taken, and it then had to be held — denied to German counter-attackers — until relief forces arrived.

Always keep the high ground. Which is why knowing the geography of  Little Round Top and the Golan heights is important.

this article has more on Hitler's Atlantic wall.

Ianthe Ruthven

The German gun battery at Pointe du Hoc, midway between the D-Day beaches Utah and Omaha

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Related item: Veteran escapes his nursing home to attend the ceremony.

and the BBC reports on body language of the VIPs, with all the talking points intact, but the French tweetosphere is aghast.

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Nitrogen facts. It's the latest global warming threat.

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The Rohingya crisis. an epidemic waiting to happen.
Refugees in a land where they have lived for 200 plus years.

Aid workers have been attacked.

China is the main backer of the Burmese dictators, and it is unusual that they left reporters in to see what's going on.
On the other hand, conditions are not as bad as other places in the world.

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Ten ways to swat a fly.

One way: spray window cleaner. or use a chopstick (/s)

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Google ignored D Day.
Yes, they tend to ignore most "controversial" stuff, like Easter (at least since 2000), Christmas (as opposed to a generic "holiday", Memorial day... more here

/s

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the dark side of Yodel valley.

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it's not just the Pope and Miley Cyrus:

The CIA joins Twitter and Facebook.

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update: From Dustbury:

 

CIAVerified account‏@CIA

We can neither confirm nor deny that this is our first tweet.

•  Reply 
•  Retweeted 
•  Favorite 

• RETWEETS204,975
• FAVORITES118,026
• 

Psst: it's a good story

Hollywood just noticed that a small movie based on a teenaged romance between cancer patients has gotten more people watching it than the latest Tom Cruz sci fi/special effects film.

Heh. Ruby is a fan so I am aware of the book and film. Maybe Hollywood needs more teenaged consultants. Or maybe they just should tell stories, as they used  to do in the good old days.

The really important news story of the day

Dave Barry says: THERE'S NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS

A man who played a dancing hamster in Kia car commercials and was a backup dancer for Madonna has been charged with California disability fraud.

Mark your calenders

for next year:

June 5 is dead duck day.

The website explains why.

I have no problem with this joke of a holiday, yet I wonder how many celebrating it will remember those who died on DDay...

D Day

We're here to mark that day in history when the Allied armies joined in battle to reclaim this continent to liberty. For 4 long years, much of Europe had been under a terrible shadow. Free nations had fallen, Jews cried out in the camps, millions cried out for liberation. Europe was enslaved, and the world prayed for its rescue. Here in Normandy the rescue began. Here the Allies stood and fought against tyranny in a giant undertaking unparalleled in human history.We stand on a lonely, windswept point on the northern shore of France. The air is soft, but 40 years ago at this moment, the air was dense with smoke and the cries of men, and the air was filled with the crack of rifle fire and the roar of cannon. At dawn, on the morning of the 6th of June, 1944, 225 Rangers jumped off the British landing craft and ran to the bottom of these cliffs. Their mission was one of the most difficult and daring of the invasion: to climb these sheer and desolate cliffs and take out the enemy guns. The Allies had been told that some of the mightiest of these guns were here and they would be trained on the beaches to stop the Allied advance.The Rangers looked up and saw the enemy soldiers -- the edge of the cliffs shooting down at them with machineguns and throwing grenades. And the American Rangers began to climb. They shot rope ladders over the face of these cliffs and began to pull themselves up. When one Ranger fell, another would take his place. When one rope was cut, a Ranger would grab another and begin his climb again. They climbed, shot back, and held their footing. Soon, one by one, the Rangers pulled themselves over the top, and in seizing the firm land at the top of these cliffs, they began to seize back the continent of Europe. Two hundred and twenty-five came here. After 2 days of fighting, only 90 could still bear arms.Behind me is a memorial that symbolizes the Ranger daggers that were thrust into the top of these cliffs. And before me are the men who put them there.These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. These are the heroes who helped end a war.Gentlemen, I look at you and I think of the words of Stephen Spender's poem. You are men who in your ``lives fought for life . . . and left the vivid air signed with your honor.''

Remembering a time when Honor was not a dirty word.

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related item:

Chester Nez, the last of the original code talkers, has died.

A lot of people think that the code talkers merely spoke Navajo (or other Indian languages) to confuse those listening in, but it was a double code: Using Navajo words to replace another word.

Few outside of New Mexico know that the "rainbow" division of their National Guard included at least one Navajo (three of our Mescalero Apaches and the local priest were also in the unit) were POW's by the time the code talkers were used.

The NewMexico division was posted to Manila to strengthen the anti aircraft batteries, and many ended up dead in the death march or in concentration camps. One Navajo was actually tortured in Japan in order to break the code, but he said it was jibberish.

Stuff below the fold plus rants

The "irish babies" report is pure propaganda to persuade Ireland to legalize abortion.

My take? Heh. They had septic tanks in Ireland in the 1920's? (Ireland was a poor third world country at the time, and childhood mortality was high). Then I wondered why no one bothered to clean  the septic tanks out? And finally: Gee, they must have had HUGE pipes.

 update: If I am being sarcastic, it is because these kids had a warm place to stay and were educated.  Compare and contrast to the 1.5 million street kids in the third world today, and the children abandoned at birth to trashcans. And the millions of "sex workers" in the third world often took these jobs because it was the only way they could support their kids born out of wedlock or after the boyfriend/husband took off. The west sees these things as "voluntary" but that just isn't true.

And the Irish moms could start life over: Something that they were unable to do back then if the nuns didn't help them (compare the institutions of Catholic Ireland with the richer UK and I think you might find them comparable).
orphanages/adoption of kids were terrible, but the alternatives were and are worse. I mean, Philomena became a nurse and her son got a college education.

My son once read a story of a child abused by her stepmother: Why is she complaining, he said, she had enough food to eat. Yeah. His perspective is a bit different. He should know: after his parents died, he was on the street working for a living (age 10) until a relative who got tired of caring for his younger brother took them to the local orphange, and denied that they had family nearby, so that they had a chance for adoption. Most of the kids in his orphanage had moms, but didn't get along with her present paramour so ended up on the street until they were rescued. Alas, the majority of the street kids didn't go to this orphange: They stayed on the street, often killed by the shopkeepers, dying of disease or ending up in jail; if they were lucky, they went to the state run reform school after being arrested for petty crimes such as drug use or stealing....
and nowadays, sex abuse is a big problem...

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David Warren remembers Tiananman square.

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Dr. E says the Iranian revolution saw a moderate government advised by Islam as the best solution to Iran's problems, but says radicals are taking over the government.

Today an active reactionary campaign is underway to distort and smear the thoughts and ideas of Imam, they are those who have followed their personal or party  agenda these years and have no regard for God or for the nation.

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StrategyPage discusses the Shia custom of short term marriage, (so the widows etc. could have a legal relationship and financial support at times when soldiers and others would stay in an area for only a short time) and how some European brothel owners are using it to recruit sex workers.
Also they point out how AlQaeda sometimes uses this to obtain women women for sexual relief, adding this sardonic observation:

In combat zones Nika &s717; al Mutah is used by some Islamic terrorist groups, along with drugs and whatever else is required to keep the holy warriors motivated. Islamic scholars are currently debating if it would be halal for Moslem men to have sex with robots as it appears that android prostitutes are only a few decades away.

Before you point fingers, remember all those half American babies still wandering around Asia. Most of them were not kids of prostitutes, but the children of the "hooch women" who lived with soldiers as a temporary wife, often under the illusion that they would marry, and then abandoned.

This is one reason a lot of Filippinos oppose the new "armed forces agreement" with the US. Sex tourism, including child sex and gay sex, are already a social problem, and when farmers migrate to the cities, their kids are in real danger of being recruited.
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Katnis Power

The BBC reports that the opposition in Thailand are using the three finger salute from the Hunger games to signal their opposition to the military coup.

Hedgehogs

Hedgehogs are now becoming popular pets, according to the CSMonitor

Breeders say the trend is partly fueled by the fact that hedgehogs require less maintenance than dogs and cats, and because they emit little odor — in sharp contrast with rodents and rabbits. They are largely hypoallergenic and are solitary, making them ideal for those with a busy lifestyle.

presumably the fad was caused by Sebastion, not the SonicHedgehog...




and no we don't have hedgehogs here in the Philippines.

Silk road redux

StrategyPage has an article on Afghanistan, explaining that a lot of the problems are the Pushtun vs the other tribes, mainly in the north. They also discuss the heroin problems.

Key point: the northern tribes are completely different ethnic groups, and some of these tribes (e.g. Hazara) are Shia. The Taliban is a minority in the Pushtun.

(the Uzbeks are Turks, the Hazara are Mongols and the Tajiks are, like the Pushtuns, cousins to the Iranians, Pakistanis and northern Indians). Thus no matter how successful the Taliban might be in the south, among their fellow Pushtun (many of them anti-Taliban), they still have to face "them"; the northern tribes, who now have powerful foreign allies, a combination that proved invincible in 2001, and can do so again if called on. Without their American allies, the Pushtun believe they can, as they usually do, intimidate the more numerous and divided non-Pushtuns into compliance with Pushtun domination.

Racism!

RACISM!

 Sharyl Attkisson: Full Disclosure: Did Government’s Experiment on Preemies Hide Risks? “They were misled to believe everything being done was in the ‘standard of care’ and therefore posed no predictable risk to the babies. . . . Normally, medical personnel constantly adjust oxygen as preemies’ conditions change, based on their individual needs. But the SUPPORT study was designed to keep infants in their randomly assigned range, despite a baby’s individual needs. And in a decision that one government source says shocked seasoned researchers when they learned of it, the babies’ oxygen monitors intentionally were altered to provide false readings. The reason: so medical staff wouldn’t be tempted to adjust oxygen out of the babies’ study-assigned range.”

this is similar to the Oklahoma city "meningomyelocoel" study, where some parents were advised against life saving treatment, or the Tuskeegee study. Most of those kids were AfroAmericans also. But it's not just with Blacks: The RedLake  strep study involved the Objibwe that proved something docs already knew: That the strep impetigo (common because of a common genetic skin disease in the tribe) caused kidney disease (Acute GN).

Concerning oxygen: Of course, sometimes even the best treatment is bad: When they realized oxygen to premies caused blindness, (e.g. Stevie Wonder) the cut down the oxygen...but in the days before good oxygen monitors, that meant more kids ended up retarded from accidental (not deliberate).

in the "good old days", one could argue that such things happened, but now that oxygen monitors are so cheap that even my GP when I lived in rural New Mexico could check my oxygen level during an acute asthma attack, such things are unethical

Which  is why minorities won't sign "Do not resusitate" orders or papers instructing that they shouldn't be treated. Yes, they might decline extraordinary treatment but the point is that they just don't trust the medical establishment.

Viking nicknames

From Medieval net: it wasn't just Harald Bluetooth or Ivar the boneless.

Male Norse Nicknames

• Asbjorn Muscle of Orrastead
• Audun Thin-Hair
• Eirik Ale-Lover
• Eystein Foul-Fart
• Finni the Dream-Interpreter
• Gunnstein Berserks’-Killer
• Hermund the Bent
• Ketil Flat-Nose
• Kolbjorn the Slighter
• Olaf the Witch-Breaker
• Olvir the Child-Sparer
• Sigtrygg the Fast Sailing
• Thord the Left-Handed
• Thorgeir the Clumsy
• Thorir Leather-Neck
• Thorir the Troll-Burster
• Thorstein Ill-Luck
• Thrand Slender-Leg
• Ulf the Squint-Eyed
• Vemund Word-Master

Female Norse Nicknames

• Astrid Wisdom-Slope
• Gro the Second-Sighted
• Hallgerd Twist-Breeks
• Hlif the Horse-Gelder
• Thora Moss-Neck
• Thorbjorg Ship-Breast
• Thordis the Big
• Thorunn Blue-Cheek
• Thurid Sound-Filler
• Yngvild All-Men’s-Sister

To learn more please read Paul Peterson’s MA thesis on Old Norse Nicknames

Stuff around the net

MariaElena of TeaAtTrianon has a new book being released.

congratulations.

“Elena Maria Vidal’s latest book, The Paradise Tree, is the fictionalized true story of the author’s devoutly Catholic ancestors who immigrated to Canada from Ireland.

she also has Pinoy roots...

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Eight videos about Beowulf.

all lectures.

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The necessity of music. I want to argue that everything we put into our minds, whether we are talking about music, television, movies, books, etc., matters. These things matter because they shape our attitude toward God and reality.

Yes, ordinary people want the arts in their schools. I remember when the elite school board of our small impoverished coal town decided to cut the art teacher, and 200 plus coal miners and their wives protested. One rugged miner told how he still loves making pictures (a part time artist) thanks to the teacher. However, they lost: and to make things worse, the local newspaper dissed them by saying only 200 attended, even though the meeting room only held 100 people and some of us left due to the hot, crowded room, which was packed in the aisles.

Even the turn against liberal arts gets it wrong: A true liberal arts education teaches you to think and recognize how peoples and societies work (which is why China's civil service was based on examinations on Confucian works). The problem is that colleges instead teach cliches and propaganda, so often no one wants to hire these puffed up know it alls.

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Brian Sibley has a post on food photography that looks like classic Still life paintings. Go take a look.

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DavidWarren's essay is about the replacement of the moral order based on Christian ethic and English common law (i.e. traditional Germanic and Roman ideas) with nothing.

“Are Non-Theocratic Regimes Possible?” by Rémi Brague. Here we get to the crux of the matter. There will always be a theocratic order, even if it is an “atheocratic” pastiche. The question is not “whether we should have a theocracy or not,” as the progressives say — defining their own atheocratic order falsely as a non-theocratic order, when it is as arbitrary as any theocratic order the world ever endured. Rather: Which theocratic order should it be? (Shariah? Rabbinical, perhaps? Lamaist? Shinto? Lutheran? Calvinist? Marxist? Feminist? Gaian? Catholic?)... you can’t have everything. You have to choose one, to be morally coherent; or if you choose “none,” … someone else chooses for you.

Translation: Get rid of those old fashioned laws, and you end up with the non elected experts (i.e. bioethicists, the courts) telling you what to do.

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Mother jones remembers the Bhophal disaster.

 In 2010, the disaster site still contained 425 tons of uncleared waste. An estimated 120,000 to 150,000 survivors still struggle with serious medical conditions including nerve damage, growth problems, gynecological disorders, respiratory issues, birth defects, and elevated rates of cancer and tuberculosis, explains Colin Toogood, spokesperson for the Bhopal Medical Appeal, which runs free health clinics for survivors. And tens of thousands of families continue to rely on heavily contaminated water from around the abandoned factory.

one needs to remember that this happened when someone wasn't careful. THAT is the reason I hesitate to want Nuclear Power: We have a plant in Bataan that could easily be put on line, but it was built on an earthquake fault and too many worry that someone will make a mistake and ruin Luzon. You know: like three mile island or Chernobyl?

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was ransomed soldier a CIA agent?

Lots of complaints about the ransomed soldier being a deserter and traitor, including complaints by the CIA.

So either Obama is a complete incompetent, or the soldier "deserted" to place a spy among the Taliban.

Remember how Clinton's actions as a student in Europe was ignored (leading anti war demonstrations, not attending class, visiting Russia/Eastern Europe paid for by a communist organization)? Want to bet he (like others in the anti war movement) were on the Cia payroll.
So I wonder if this is the same here.

And given that the Benghazi coverup was to hide the CIA there hunting bad guys and that the US was funneling captured weapons to Syria rebels via Turkey, (which is why Romney didn't make a fuss about it) one wonders about this "gaffe".

Of course, incompetence is rife in the Obama administration so maybe he's just stupid.
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update: When NPR quotes the CIA, my poop detecter goes into high gear...--

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update 2 others wonder too.

Gift item of the day

 a "CAMO" bowtie.

but isn't that forest camoflage?

At least Teddy wears the pixalated desert pattern.

VA problems? Yup. There was a film on that

Article99 was a film about the problems in the VA Hospitals...and was released in 1992...

Roger Ebert's review here.

The movie is set in a Veteran's Administration hospital in Kansas City, where the overworked staff deals with an inadequate budget, outmoded facilities, and a Neanderthal boss who is concerned only with his government career. The patients - many of them decorated heroes - are shunted from one ward to another. The dedicated young doctors try to outsmart the bureaucracy while saving lives...The message of "Article 99" is not new, but will give no comfort in Washington, where funds for VA hospitals have been slashed to the bone. Veterans who were promised lifetime medical care in return for risking their lives in battle are now treated as pawns, under federal policies that penalize the powerless in order to reward the rich. This is an urgent message, but "Article 99" treats it as such a facile story gimmick that the movie feels wrong anyway.

 Article 99 refers to the military reg: misbehavior toward the enemy...

Comments on the news

Cleaning day, so I'll be busy.

My comments/rants on the news.

Obama's giving high profile terrorists for a POW has sent a message that if you kidnap a yank, you can profit.

Here in the Philippines, the rule is no ransom (although Italy and locals usually pay them off) and the terrorists know that if they kidnap a yank, they risk having their camps raided by the Pinoy armed forces, with help from the yanks.

That ups my chance of being kidnapped, although here the NPA are pretty well quiet and the exNPA who kidnap for money were caught (probably other groups around though).

Thanks, Obama. Which is why when I shop I usually travel with my cook or maid: no, they can't fight much but they are related to half the tricycle drivers in town, so know who to hire.

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similarly, the VA kerfuffle has scapegoated the head of the department, but the problems with the VA are twofold: one, a bureaucracy that puts rule following over patient care, and two lack of money and enough personnel (and when you follow rules to hire, it takes forever to hire someone to fill the empty slot: meaning most docs, at least, will find a job elsewhere. I mean, who has enough money to sit and wait six months to be hired?

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this is TiaMaria, with her son my cousing John, in case you are wondering who sends me the "kitty emails that go around the world". She just turned 80.

Plague anyone?

I am on a "dark ages" kick but actually while Alfred was fighting the Vikings, the middle east and east were full of civilization.

And then came ghengis khan...and the  black plague.

FAMILY NEWS

hot again this morning so we didn't go to church. I have no one to go with (they are protestant here), and going alone is hard for me in the heat, not to mention I prefer to stay with Lolo and get him up in the morning, and no one will keep an eye on him because they are too busy going to their pentecostal church to praise god and plan how they will make "Christian converts" out of all the local pagans (read Catholics)

Yes, I'm feeling like a B-----this morning,

Silk road stuff

I am reading Jenkin's book on lost Christianities: the eastern Nestorian churches of the middle east and central asia.

It's from Scribd.

I got interested after the Penn Museum's lecture series on youtube about this.

If you are interested, the silk road blog has lots of videos on the side bar.