Loose Lips Sink Ships

Yesterday, there was a story that an Iranian scientist had been executed. He supposedly had been "kidnapped" by the CIA who interrogated him about their nuclear program, but later returned to his own country.

So why execute him? The rumor was that the Mullahs read Hillary's emails.

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an unrelated item is that Trump mentioned countries with terrorism who needed to have their immigrants screened, and the Philippines was on the list, making the local papers and trolls up in arms against him.

Well, except for the Philippine links to the Trade Center Bombing, the OKC bombing, and of course 9-11, there should be no problem with the Philippines.... after all, those links were with terrorists from other lands living in Makati, not locals. Just ignore the "revert" muslim terrorist network in the Tagalog areas, not to mention ISIS starting a franchise here, or that the Mexican cartel is using us to ship drugs.

and no most locals are not upset at Duterte's war on drugs...only the professional church and "civil rights" types, you know: from the elites, whose relatives get rich from corruption...

The Invasion of the Giant Pikachus

King Arthur update

The legend is that King Arthur was born in Tintagal castle... the castle there was, however built a couple centuries later.

Now the UKIndependent reviews archeological evidence that there was indeed a castle dating from that time: it was quite large and had evidence of trade from the Mediterranean.

(I should note that Cornwall was one of the sources of tin so was on the trade routes since ancient times).

alas, it wasn't just the Saxons who caused the decline:

The whole complex appears to have come into existence some time in the 5th or the early 6th century AD – but was probably in decline by the early 7th. So far, no evidence of any catastrophic destruction has been found. However, the latter half of the 6th century and the 7th century were notorious for a terrible plague pandemic (an early version of the later medieval Black Death) which almost certainly devastated parts of Britain after having killed millions throughout the Mediterranean world. 

that would be the Plague of Justinian which decimated the Mediterranean world in 541

The Anglo Saxons had started working as mercenaries after the Romans left in 410, but it wasn't like today, a general takeover but a gradual takeover of the south west and then spread.

Although eastern and much of central Britain had been taken over by Germanic (ie, Anglo-Saxon) conquerors and settlers from what is now Germany and Denmark, much of the west of Britain (including Cornwall) remained under native British control.

The UK, or England for that matter, is not a monolith, which is why some areas wanted Brexit and some areas did not.

Nope. It's a blip, not the god particle

remember all those stories last year insisting that that expensive European machine found the god particle and now can explain the universe? from USA today, in 2013:

Physicists announced Thursday they believe they have discovered the subatomic particle predicted nearly a half-century ago, which will go a long way toward explaining what gives electrons and all matter in the universe size and shape. The elusive particle, called a Higgs boson, was predicted in 1964 to help fill in our understanding of the creation of the universe, which many theorize occurred in a massive explosion known as the Big Bang. The particle was named for Peter Higgs, one of the physicists who proposed its existence, but it later became popularly known as the "God particle.

fast forward and.... uh oh:

Tech Times 2014:
they found a new particle that made them want to rewrite the science books

And voila today, NYTimes report on the Particle that wasn't. It was a blip.

One of the dirty little secret about this is that many of the theories floating out there are more in line with philosophical speculation than with hard data.

David Warren calls these "zombie theories": Instead of observing something and then trying to figure out how it could be explained we have big complicated theories that are based on nothing and scientists claim they are true before there is evidence to prove they are real.

this is not science: This is philosophy.

Video discussions on the problem HERE.

Cat item of the day

How to hold a protest

LesFemmes reports on a BLM demonstration. Read the whole thing.

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my only comment is that she seems unaware that most Muslims are not radicals, but people with a personal relationship to God, i.e. Sufi Islam. although the Saudi trained immans are trying to reeducate them to hate.

The Tears of San Lorenzo

We are having the local fiesta in honor of St Lawrence, so I went to mass last evening at the local neighborhood chapel instead of the larger church in town.

The local Philipino saint is Lorenzo Ruiz, who got martyred when he went to Japan with the Jesuits in medieval times, but our St Lawrence is the deacon who got roasted to death because he refused to tell local officials where he was hiding the church's wealth. When they asked him to point out the riches of the church, he took them into the slums and pointed to the poor people there. As Deacon, in those days his job was that described in Acts: To administer the charitable work so that the apostles could preach and hold the eucharistic services.

So when t the Pope spreads confusion by deciding to "investigate" deconesses, one has to remember that female deacons back then did a similar work of charity, not liturgical work... unless you think dressing  women being immersed for baptism is a work of baptism.

The deaconate gradually evolved, with "brothers" and monks taking over the job of caring for the poor, while deacons became a half step into the priest hood. After Vatican II, deacons were local married men who could hold weddings and funerals and prayer services and baptisms in areas where there was a priest shortage.

The pantssuited new age nuns who are evolving to a higher power, of course, want to be priests, which makes most laypeople shudder. Don't mix them up with the pious nuns who actually do serve the poor. ((Andrew Greeley's satirical novel Virgin and Martyr has a nice picture on the nun fads, but if you read it closely he does include one quiet nun who simply does her work while the main characters are having dramatic stuff going on... I think he is reminding one that these faddish nuns are not the real backbone of the church, even though he wouldn't have a problem with wimen priests who were pious.)

Well, anyway, the feast of St Lawrence is at the same time as the Perseid meteor shower, hence the name "St Lawrence's tears". from the Times of Malta:

Saviour Grech, public relations officer of the Astronomical Society, explained to The Times how a meteor shower is formed: "As night settles this evening our planet silently plunges through the orbit of the comet Swift-Tuttle, encountering debris left over by the comet each time it approaches the sun, every 130 years. This debris rams into the upper atmosphere at speeds of 60 kilometres per second, causing the air to ionise and shed bright streaks of light as the grain sized particles vaporise. This is what we see as meteors or shooting stars. This meteor shower has been observed for a long time and is known as the Perseid Meteor Shower or Dmugh Ta' San Lawrenz (St Lawrence's tears) in Maltese.

Worth watching if it's not overcast.

And the award winning film "night of the Shooting Stars" is named after this phenomenum. Alas, I heard it was a great movie, but when I watched it I found it was mainly people on all sides busy trying to kill each other  even though the war was almost at an end... or maybe because the war was almost at an end. A pretty film but don't watch it unless you want to be depressed.

YUM! Pigweed

Quinoa is one of the "superfood" fads for the affluent foodies who are now into "paleo" stuff.

Amarathus is a related genus of plant and was actually domesticated by the Paleo Indians in North America.

Archeoblog includes this article that discusses if North American Indians went from gathering the  seeds while hunters to actually domesticating the seeds as a crop.

awhile back, I checked an article on PaleoIndians in the NE of North America which said the archeologists could identify when this was domesticated because the size of the grain in their archological digs got larger, i.e. men (or more likely women) we selecting the larger seeds to plant for a future crop.

But it seems that at one point, corn was introduced, and corn gives you a lot more calories so the seeds were no longer grown for a major food crop, although it did supplement the diet.

Sort of like when I worked in Africa: Most of the dietary calories were from corn meal mush, and corn was introduced by the Portuguese, but most people had a small field of millet or sorghum because it will give a crop if the rains are poor, and they also use it to make beer... and we often advised them to use this to feed their malnourished babies because it was easier to digest than maize.

There are lots of Amaranth species out there, and Wikipedia lists a lot of different folks that use it for food all over the place.

a foodie discusses the Amaranth vs quinoa here, and includes recipes.

and pigweed is an amaranth that is pesticide resistant and you've probably seen it growing in your garden or in the local vacant lot.

wikipedia commons

wikipedia notes:

 The leaves, stems and seeds of Palmer amaranth, like those of other amaranths, are edible and highly nutritious.[1][3] Palmer amaranth was once widely cultivated and eaten by Native Americans across North America, both for its abundant seeds and as a cooked or dried green vegetable.[3] Other related Amaranthus species have been grown as crops for their greens and seeds for thousands of years in Mexico, South America, the Caribbean, Africa, India, and China.

The plant can be toxic to livestock animals due to the presence of nitrates in the leaves.[4] Palmer amaranth has a tendency to absorb excess soil nitrogen, and if grown in overly fertilized soils, it can contain excessive levels of nitrates, even for humans. Like spinach and many other leafy greens, amaranth leaves also contain oxalic acid, which can be harmful to individuals with kidney problems if consumed in excess,.[5]

the Perdue Famine food website has quite a few amaranth species listed

amaranth species



paleoIndian lectures

So remember, preppers, in case of a zombie apocolypse, pigweed is all over the place.

Yes we have fans and a swamp cooler

I should note that I only started using the Aircon during the day when Lolo got sick and stayed most of the day in bed. Before then, he tended to use it for an hour to nap and then went to the farm, when it was cooler, and I just used the fan.

We also have a "swamp cooler" that evaporates water with a fan, in our dining room.

And the fountain in the center of our compound (plus the palm trees) keeps that area cooler than outside.

However, I found that if I run the Aircon on dehumidify using an extra hepa filter, it filters the air too, so I don't need to take a lot of anti histamines for my allergies: which have gotten worse with the increase in traffic (due to the main street now being one way, so our street is the other way).

Yes, I think businesses etc stay too cool, but many of them do this because of the computers. My desktop used to crash over 90 degrees when I lived in Appalachia (We didn't have an aircon because it rarely got hot there... most folks slept on the porch during August when we had a heat wave).

I am not anti green: I am against rich people bossing around ordinary people and making something that is essentially a good thing seem like it is a completely evil thing. Uh, maybe making more efficient airconditioning is the answer?

You can take away my Aircon remote when you pry it from my cold dead hand..

what is it with greens and airconditioners? They are the latest sin in the church in mother Gaia.

photo source: http://airtronicllc.com/what-to-do-when-your-air-conditioner-stops-blowing-cold-air/

 The Pope hates airconditioning, and now the Methodists insist if you want to go to heaven you have to limit your energy use to the equivalent of one ton of CO2 per year.

Bless me father, for I have sinned. I used my airconditioner five times in the last week...


Hah. I'm safe. According to this calculator, I "only" use 500 kg equivalents of CO2  per year for my airconditioner. So I am not sinning (unless I use the car or microwave).

Sigh. I'm old enough to remember when we fasted and refrained from eating our favorite foods during Lent and gave the money saved to charity.

Prayer has now been replaced with "oom" with belly button gazing, kneeling replaced with yoga, fasting is now dieting, and mortification is not offering one's simple mental and physical sufferings to the Lord, but now we have to increase our daily discomfort by risking heat exhaustion from refraining from using our airconditioning.

Well, anyway, the British green types are getting their knickers in a knot because some there are buying and using airconditioners.

The left wing UKGuardian article of course starts with aiming at their usual target: Those greedy Yanks:

The United States has long consumed more energy each year for air conditioning than the rest of the world combined. In fact, we use more electricity for cooling than the entire continent of Africa, home to a billion people, consumes for all purposes. ...

Uh, I've lived in Africa, and the reason they don't use a lot of energy is that they are poor and don't have a choice in the matter.

Why do I say this? Because as the article points out: Uh oh: Those dang Chinese are getting rich and buying Airconditioners too:

The number of U.S. homes equipped with air conditioning rose from 64 to 100 million between 1993 and 2009, whereas 50 million air-conditioning units were sold in China in 2010 alone. And it is projected that the number of air-conditioned vehicles in China will reach 100 million in 2015, having more than doubled in just five years.

Blame Capitalism.

So what do these folks suggest? Jimmy Carter, in the days of the gas embargo encouraged letting our pipes freeze by keeping the heat down in our homes and wearing a sweater.

So what do we do about keeping cool?

Nowadays, Dustbury notes that the "experts" are encouraging going naked in the home to keep cool.

Ah, but this won't work for Okies, where the average August Temperature is a high of 93 degrees.... as Dustbury quips:

I assure you, here on the Roasted Prairie, nobody’s turning off the air conditioning, whether or not they’re dressed.

The UKGuardian article cited above has a couple paragraphs on the good old days when people went outside and socialized with their neighbors when it was hot out.

yes, and crime went up, old people died of high blood pressure, heart attacks and heat exhaustion.

Aside from keeping people comfortable, cutting down elderly deaths, decreasing crime, and incresasing productivity at work and school, there are other benefits: as MomJones Points out, the reason the US won't have a Zika epidemic is that people in the southern USA tend to stay indoors in the evening (when mosquitoes are most likely to bite) thanks to airconditioning.

The Olympics are on!

And DaveBarry is reporting:

There has been one scary story after another from Brazil.

One of the scariest, of course, is the threat of the Zika virus, which, as I understand it, is a disease you get if you are bitten by a mosquito that is not wearing a condom. I personally am not too worried about Zika, because (a) to the best of my knowledge, I am not currently pregnant; and (b) I live in Miami, which — being a modern, sophisticated, international trendsetter city — already HAS Zika.

But I am worried about the water down here. As the headline above notes, there are dead bodies and human feces floating around. And that’s in the Olympic swimming pool.

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and no, I don't tend to watch sports on TV...

Remembering victims of terrorism

another day, another vigil for those who were killed by a terrorist

People offer flowers for the victims at the Tsukui Yamayuri En care facility in Sagamihara, Kanagawa Prefecture, on Sunday. | KYODO

the killer had been hospitalized for mental illness and had been a heavy drug user.


Wikipedia report.


NDY reports Disability advocates in the US are holding an "on line" vigil to remember those who died.

the murderer released a letter insisting that it should be legal to kill such people, echoing the coming PC propaganda that so far has been subtle.

Buddhism sometimes sees disability as a punishment for past lives, and will gain merit by patient endurance of their suffering, but also sees caring for the disabled as a good deed that will release you from the cycle of reincarnation.

The letter from the murderer, however, used the language of some modern bioethicists, that society would be better off without them. from dailyLife(au)

A man prays at a makeshift altar in front of the Tsukui Yamayuri En care centre for the disabled in Sagamihara, Japan.Photo: The Asahi Shimbun

Part of his chilling letter read: My reasoning is that I may be able to revitalise the world economy and I thought it may be possible to prevent World War III. I envision a world where a person with multiple disabilities can be euthanised, with an agreement from the guardians, when it is difficult for the person to carry out household and social activities.I believe there is still no answer about the way of life for individuals with multiple disabilities. The disabled can only create misery. I think now is the time to carry out a revolution and to make the inevitable but tough decision for the sake of all mankind. Let Japan take the first big step.

but the author notes that this is an opinion that is increasingly popular in modern society:

Disability activist Sam Connor noticed, too. "In the wake of other mass murders and hate crimes, there were outpourings of public grief, rallying of communities, shows of solidarity. After Japan - perhaps the only mass hate crime where the killer had clearly signalled his intention to 'euthanise' hundreds of disabled people prior to the event - there was nothing," she said. "Nobody is speculating whether views like those of Peter Singer, who advocates for infanticide against disabled babies and the killing of disabled people, have contributed to this tragedy and whether this is the inevitable conclusion of expressing views about disability genocide."

Is this why the story tends to be ignored in the west? Because they are disabled, or because only murderers with politically incorrect motives are demonized by the MSM?

 Connor also speculates on the way the victims have not been mentioned - perhaps because in Japan, disability is considered as shameful. "It's almost worse that nobody is speaking about it. No names, no mass laying of flowers. It's disability erasure. Those victims, it is like they never existed", she said. The idea that the lives of disabled people are worthless is not a new one. The media may be tempted to portray this attack as a random incident; something that, unlike the lone wolf inspired by ISIS, is not part of a broader ideology or pattern. Not something we need to worry about. 

except a lot of people are encouraged to off themselves, and one suspects many more are killed than are reported to the police.

People with disability are at greater risk of violence than the general population, in Australia and internationally. Most of my friends with disabilities have been told we should kill ourselves at some point of my life. I've even been told this on a date. Others are told this by strangers. Disabled people are scared. And we have every reason to be.

This HastingsCenter report shows how the attitude that the disabled are better off dead is alas getting to be more common, albeit usually as pressure toward "non treatment" decisions for a a person who is merely disabled, not dying.

Non treatment at the end of life is a subtle thing: you chose not to kill, but to keep the person in comfort while avoiding extraordinary and painful medical treatment.

But "offering" this to a person who is merely sick or disabled actually is a way to pressure them into suicide. Often they are already tired, depressed, and discouraged, and see this as telling them they should die because no  one wants them to live.

But of course, behind it is all that money you can save... just google about all that money spent on disability payments.

One is reminded of the quip: They know the price of everything but the value of nothing...

Yes, but behind each disability payment is a story.

the only answer to this is religious: The idea that life is precious to the one "whose eye is on the sparrow", but also the idea that everything happens for a purpose, even suffering...

Family news

we just got back from the funeral mass for the cook's son, a teacher at the local high school.

The church was packed with kids and relatives and friends.

I used my age as an excuse to leave toward the end of the service. Actually, I tend to faint in hot crowded churches, and it's not age, it's been that way all my life.

After church, everyone will go to the gravesite for a short ceremony. Most folks march on the street with the coffin, and some will take cars or tricycles to the cemetery. A sad day for the family.

Instead of going to the cemetery, we went to a restaurant for a snack then home. The custom here is to eat on the way home from a funeral (The custom started with a superstition that if the dead spirit follows you, he'll stop off at the restaurant and bother them instead of following you home).

Ruby has class pictures and a party to go to at her school tomorrow, so they will leave later this afternoon for Manila. She is dressing up as Mary Poppins for the party. She had planned to dress up as one of the Suicide Squad, but decided she'd better not, since it is a strict Christian school.

The Suicide Squad is the next big thing for teenagers: Another one of the Marvel/comic book universe, but the movie plot seems to be a makeover of the Dirty Dozen meets the punks.

On the other hand, most plots are not original. I was just reading Ibsen's play The Enemy of the People, and realized the reason that the plot sounded familiar was that it was essentially Jaws. Of course, punishing the one warning a town of danger goes back to Laocoon,...

In other news, we will now have a curfew here for kids: It is to stop drugs and violence.

Do they still have this in the USA? I am old enough to remember when we had to be home by midnight unless we had an adult with us, and we couldn't drive after midnight if we were under 18.

Well, the critics are getting up in arms over the druggies being killed, often by vigilanties who seek "pay back" against those who harmed a relative, but the policy remains popular.

And although most of the drugs kingpins were linked to China, we are also a transshipment site for the Mexican cartels, because they viewed it safe to export via the Philippines than through the US due to the drug war there.

Finally, I read the gov't, who sponsors organic rice and veggies (note: we grow there) is now planning to push organic chicken.

This would be good, if the prices stay high enough to make a profit. In the early 1990's we got into the broiler chicken business, but rarely made a profit due to cheaper imports from VietNam etc. Then our chicken houses were flattened by the typhoon that ruined our rice crop a few years ago. Luckily the farmer had just harvested the chickens so we didn't have to bury 5000 dead chickens. But we decided not to rebuild the chicken houses, So we are no longer in the "chicken" business. Instead we use that land (which is on a hill and not good for growing rice) to process our rice (drier, rice mill, and store palay/fertilizer etc).

We had a house up on the hill and Lolo and I used to stay there a lot, until our nephew was killed by a rogue NPA unit hired by the ex mayor. When we left, we held a dinner that included neighbors and those with NPA connections to show we knew they weren't behind the murder. But later that year, the government sent the military to the area, inspected everyone on the road, arrested some and killed a fewe others, so since then they have been quiet (I think). Actually, I have avoided the farm for years, because Lolo's son was busy wasting money in constructing a house/conference center there that is rarely used, and I just had to hold my tongue in wrath to see the money wasted. Sigh..

Stories below the fold

Space junk is a problem, but there is a plan to clean it up. From DavidReneke'sblog:

Funded by the European commission to the tune of around €13m (£10.9m), the RemoveDebris mission is set to be one of the world’s first mission to test systems for capturing junk in space. While a full-scale mission is likely to cost significantly more, Forshaw believes it is a necessary expense. “The reality is you are spending a small amount now to prevent huge disasters from occurring in the future,” he said. Source:  The Guardian

an alternative to MegaMaid:




hmm... in the background there is a corrider with a big sign "Area 6"... No, it's not referring to the Drone testing secret airbase in Nevada, but the Hollywood Hills area of LA where a lot of film types live.
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The Good News:
StrategyPage says: No, men returning to Europe after fighting with ISIS don't commit terrorism.

The bad news: The train and recruit locals to commit terrorism.

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The "Ich Klage An"/MeBeforeYou propaganda deluge continues:

Follow the money: Caring for elderly stroke victims costs (the US) 40 billion dollars. states an article in the UKMail based on a US university expert's opinion.

How did they get this figure? They estimate 11 thousand dollars a week is the price of caregiving each person.

According to numbers crunched by the University of Michigan, each of America's 6.5 million stroke survivors need around $11,000 in care and treatment each week. That accounts for 22.3 hours of help eating, bathing, cooking, cleaning, and having doctors appointments. It is a dramatic leap in cost compared to previous estimates. 

If that number sounds a bit high, it is because it calculates to over $400 dollars an hour for the caregivers.

Reality check:

Nursing homes coast about 200 dollars a day, plus more for rehab, which of course is stopped after a set time.

So that amount might be true for the acute care and rehab of a recent stroke in a nursing home, but not for chronic care, and especially not for the people cared for by family or friends at home.


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I just rescued three kittens from the vacant lot, and then one of the feral cats had three kittens in the spare bedroom.

Oh well.

Cats rule.

Follow the money

The Cardinal who was cleaning up the Vatican bank got fired and now is being "investigated" for 20 year old accusations he covered up pedophilia, which he denies. An Australian paper reports:

Vatican efforts to put its finances in order initially accelerated after Pope Francis’s election in 2013. But an economic reform commission he established has since been disbanded and three of its members are currently on trial with the journalists.

Moves to have all the Vatican books externally audited have also been a start-stop affair. PricewaterhouseCoopers were appointed in December to do the job by powerful Australian cardinal George Pell, the head of the Vatican’s economic secretariat.

But PwC’s $3 million contract was suspended last week on the orders of a rival department, the secretariat of state, leaving Pell “a little surprised.”

I don't know if the child abuse accusations are true, but they do come at a convenient time.

The corruption of the Vatican Bank is a major scandal no one is covering... maybe because it is a "MEGO" type story where "facts" are not available, whistleblowers are suicided, and of course, only C2C am (link2) will cover the unsubstantiated rumors.

Ah, but that is the tip of the iceburg.


 What is the Clinton foundation, and where does the money go?

SenseofEvents posts this:

Right wing editorial says they launder money, and ironically, in Snopes the only correction is to say an email about the foundation was not written by Charles Krauthammar, but no facts on the claim itself.

WaPost article from January on the Haitian mess: a lot of the wasted/mis spent money was from taxpayers, not the CF.

NPR Summary here. actually mainly quotes the foundation folks explaining they might have made minor mistakes, but hey everyone makes similar mistakes, so just ignore that Reuter's report.

The Atlantic has an article on the foundation's political fingers:

Republicans and Democrats have their respective (if sometimes overlapping) fundraising bases. Very rich individuals sometimes support a given candidate. And then there's Hillary Clinton, whose relationship to money is even more complicated.

Her family's foundation is one complicating factor. "The Clinton Foundation accepted millions of dollars from seven foreign governments during Hillary Rodham Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state, including one donation that violated its ethics agreement with the Obama administration," the Washington Post reported last month.
That conflict of interest was inappropriate for a cabinet secretary

My summary: All the political parties get money from rich guys/corporations, so why worry if the legal bribes and kickbacks go through the Clinton foundation instead of direct contributions that the MSM ignores anyway?

Again check out c2c clone for this summary.
Also Fox news Business dared to cover it.



oh look: Trump insulted a Democratic operative who promotes sharia law and Muslim Immigration
A gold star parents whose son died a hero.

presumably Trump will soon be attacked by other Democratic operatives mothers of military heroes.
so the press can continue their propaganda flood fair and balanced coverage of the campaign while
Pat Smith can be insulted by Hillary and this story ignored by the press.

Just another "cecil the lion" story to hype as the two minute hate on facebook..

A lot of Hillary's shenanigans resemble a certain lovely ex president, a class mate of Bill Clinton, who will remain nameless...

The elites take care of their own, of course: notice that when she got into trouble, the lawyer wife of a certain movie star and Clinton supporter went to the UN to get her off.

 .. no they couldn't prove anything, maybe because a lot of the money was given to her husband, witnesses are threatened, and remember, most "whistle blowers" also have taken bribes in the past so would be prosecuted themselves if they spill the bean.

what is that expression: she came to do good and did very well indeed.

or as Lolo used to say: They're all crooks.

as for Jesus' opinion: He'd say: been there, done that:

The important stories behind the headlines

An Asian "herbal" medicine is being abused by kids as an opiate substitute:

CDC Report. suggests the problem is with overdoses and when mixed with alcohol or other drugs.

more on Mitragyna at wikipedia.
It is commonly used in Thailand and Malaysia

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Darth Vader: A role model for Navy Commanders?

... (In The Empire Strikes Back) Darth Vader solves all the biggest bureaucratic problems that face our Navy today. In fact, we should all strive to be more like this Dark Lord of the Sith. 
 After reviewing constant Galactic Internet content about why his Imperial Officers were leaving service early to go be nerf herders or moisture farmers, Darth Vader made it fun to be in the Imperial Navy again. 
 Despite his unnatural inclinations towards the Dark Side of the Force, Darth Vader leaves us with valuable lessons on how to properly solve problems facing today's Navy.

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LATimes reports many homeowners are trying to be "Green" by replacing their lawns with gravel and desert plants.

UH OH:

some experts warned that Angelenos’ zeal to use less water in the backyard would ultimately make the city warmer.

“Gardens and lawns act as air conditioning for L.A., which is only getting hotter with climate change,” landscape designers Mia Lehrer, Claire Latané and Margot Jacobs wrote in a 2015 op-ed in the Los Angeles Times. “Plants and trees provide shade and transpire moisture to cool the air; gravel and artificial turf don't.

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Follow the money: BLM is not about justice, it's about the activists who supervise the program getting rich.

Of course, maybe the money won't be funneled through the "activist" organizations: it might merely be another huge bureaucracy handing out money.

Given that the BLM (bureau of land management) stole almost a billion dollars from Native Americans, from the compensations to Native Americans, maybe the BLM (black lives matter) activists should notice such a program might not help those who are supposed to get the loot.



Ironically, President Obama shouldn't be eligible: His African ancestors never were slaves in the US, but both his American and African ancestors did own slaves...

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My nasty comment of the day:

Yes, I'll pay slavery reparations as soon as I get back the family farm in County Mayo...

related comment: Did I tell you that when I visited County Mayo, that much of the area has gone back to oak forest. So I guess the greens are happy. Just ignore the one million deaths from disease and starvation.

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and forget the threat that Russian hackers or Isis terrorists might shut down the power grid:

The real enemy is hiding in plain sight:

Dave Barry notes:

THEY ARE OPENLY MOCKING US As of July of this year we squirrels (and our fellow animal operatives) have conducted over 1,400 unclassified operations that have resulted in aggregate of more than 67 days without power, affecting over 3.6 million people.

Mindfulness or hypnosis

The gurus of "mind body" medicine are essentially pushing hypnosis to cure people. 

When I learned medical hypnosis, we were taught that "Mindfulness", yoga, jogging, the prayer of quiet, painting, playing music, acting,and watching a movie are all forms of "deep concentration" that is physiologically related to hypnosis.

And various people have different abilities to be hypnotized. And a person's ability to be hypnotized can be measured by having them look up while closing their eyes: The amount of "white" seen during this exercize correlates with one's ability to enter into a trance state.

Artistic people tend to be easily hynotized; nerds with concrete scientific thinking are not. Most people fall into the middle catagory, where deep concentration can be taught so one can increase one's ability to use this technique.

Next time you watch a movie, check out the eyes of the actors: Many actors essentially "become" the part they play by entering into deep concentration/ trance/ "as if"...
"

NYTimes article on hypnosis suggests it is a neurophysiological s"betate. This has been know for years, but now the scans prove it.

a good article, but doesn't mention that the ability differs in different people.

Yup. The Beeb is biased

I;m reviewing the headlines on the newsfeed of the BBC and I see four eight anti Trump headlines. And no pro Trump headlines.

Check out this analysis, which purports to be an analysis of foreign policy of both candidates but is actually a dump job against Trump:

 It is hard to remember a candidate as out of step with the existing foreign policy mainstream as the Republican contender Donald Trump.His views on Russia, on Nato, on Muslims, Mexico - you name it - are at variance with the policies that have dominated US foreign policy thinking for decades.

Yeah. Democracy is a bitch, ain't it.

But then I am old enough to remember when the British press painted Reagan as dumb and a warmonger who would cause WWIII.

The BBC also have articles on some shootings in Austin: Nothing big, just the usual Saturday night fights that every major city sees and has seen since I became a doc.

So why publicize two Austin murders and ignore the carnage in Chicago? I think it has to do with the open carry law in Texas...

Nothing there about the war games in the west Philippine sea, or about their sabre rattling. But they do note the problems with Chinese construction of a nuclear plant in the UK

China will not tolerate "unwanted accusations" about its investments in the UK after the delay of the Hinkley nuclear power project, the country's state-run news agency has said. Xinhua said it could not understand the "suspicious approach that comes from nowhere to Chinese investment".

It follows reports suggesting the UK PM has national security concerns about China's role in the project. Officially the Chinese government said it hoped for a speedy resolution.

Uh, isn't this a Chinese private company being accused, so why is the government threatening the UK?

 and if you read the article you find this Trump like quote:

Carrie Gracie, the BBC's China editor, said the Chinese government "is on the horns of a dilemma".
"It is frustrated by the uncertainty over its future in the UK's nuclear energy industry and it is angered by suggestions that the reason for the delay may be the prime minister's reported concerns about the national security implications of a Chinese role in critical infrastructure," she said

.

Putting the UK first? ya think?

Oil Wars: The hungry people you didn't read about

There is an oil price war going on in the world, and it is partly a plan (Saudis overpumping to bankrupt Iran and to bankrupt the shale oil industry in the USA) but it is also affecting the economies of a lot of poor countries, from Iran to Russia to Venezuela to Nigeria.

(it is also helping economies that use oil, like the Philippines, where prices are low and mean the poor can cook with LPG and gas for threshers/handplows/transport is cheaper for rice growers like ourselves).

But one of the negative problems that hasn't hit the headlines yet is the recent cut backs in oil production in Saudi, resulting in a lot of foreign workers being laid off.

From MigrantRights:

In what is dubbed a ‘humanitarian crisis’, there are at least 10,000 stranded Indians who work for Saudi Oger company. Latheef Thechy, an Indian social worker in Riyadh, and his friends are carrying out extensive relief work, using Whatsapp groups to coordinate food collection and follow up the cases. Indian Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj has appealed to the 30,00,000 (3 million)-strong Indian community in Saudi to help the stranded workers.

more HERE.
heh: Breitbart is there too...

And yes, this will affect the Philippines:

CNN Philippines article from Feb 2016 notes that 50 thousand OFW could lose their jobs.

and Interaksyon (July 2016) says many are asking for gov't help to get out

Thousands of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), who lost their jobs after mass layoffs in Saudi Arabia, appealed to President Rodrigo Duterte for their repatriation. Due to the negligence suffered by the stranded Filipino workers, the labor attaches of Riyadh and Jeddah were relieved from their posts.

Most of the distressed OFWs have not received their wages for many months. Some had received exit visas but were unable to return to the Philippines due to lack of plane fare. Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) Secretary Silvestre Bello III, together with other government officials, flew into the Arab kingdom last week to assess the situation of the OFWs, most of whom are packed in a temporary shelter set up by DOLE.

this article estimates the number as 11 thousand OFW's, but  notes most of them hope to stay in Saudi and get another job.

Reality check: If they come home, there are no jobs.

Duterte was elected in hopes to clean up corruption (and drugs, since they are related). If corruption is decreased, then industry will move here, and many skilled workers will return home.

Quotes of the day

Algore and the Pope don't like Airconditioning,  but MomJones notes that it may be one reason Zika won't stpread in the USA

Compared with, say, Puerto Ricans, mainland Americans are also protected by our lifestyle. People in the Deep South tend to have air conditioning and screens on their windows. ..... We spend more time indoors, out of the heat. And all of this helps minimize contact with the mosquitoes.

(Italics mine) yeah, in Oklahoma, even my poor patients had at least one Airconditioner.

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Instapundit links to a CNN article claiming if you eat more meat, you have a shorter life.

and comments: That's just what the cows want us to think.

But actually, it was based on a population study of American health care professionals, with more woman than men, presumably who have more education and a different ethnic bias than the general population. In other words, a snapshot of nutrition but may not prove anything because of population bias.

I dropped out of that study because I found I couldn't remember what I ate and tended to "guess", and realized I was biasing my answers not on what I ate but what I was supposed to eat. So presumably there might be a reporting bias, or a bias toward those with OCD who actually remember and document these things accurately.

But you know, in Africa, you could tell the educated, because they were taller than their cohorts thanks to school meals. And my sons were taller than their Colombian raised siblings, and the contrast was even more stark when we visited a Ecuador a couple miles away from where they lived. We see a similar height disparity among our farmers vs their kids.

This is due to increase protein in the diet, of course.

 And another dirty little secret: People with low protein diets don't get heart disease, don't live long enough to get cancer, and die a lot easier of infectious diseases, especially the children.

BBC article on the history of how tall people are. notes the disease/nutrition changes that led to taller people.
However, when they discuss very very tall people as if they were healthy variants (most of them have diseases such as pituitary malfunctions) they are obscuring the discussion. and their Darwinian bias about short short poor people having too many kids is just that: Bias. The dirty little secret is that countries where there is enough to eat, that babies live tend to live and grow taller than mom....and that moms knowing this tend to choose to have fewer babies..., and even in the Philippines, in the last generation, the birth rate has gone down from six to almost 2.


==============================

DavidWarren has the "globalization is good for you" quote of the day:

 “Any one reading the chronicles will find that since the birth of Christ there is nothing that can compare with what has happened in our world during the last hundred years. Never in any country have people seen so much building, so much cultivation of the soil. Never has such good drink, such abundant and delicate food, been within the reach of so many. Dress has become so rich that it cannot in this respect be improved. Who has ever heard of commerce such as we see it today? It circles the globe; it embraces the whole world! Painting, engraving — all the arts — have progressed and are still improving. More than all, we have men so capable, and so learned, that their wit penetrates everything in such a way, that nowadays a youth of twenty knows more than twenty doctors did in days gone by.” 

and he notes dryly:

 This paean to globalization was (purportedly) written by Martin Luther...

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Will "Me before you" inspire copycat suicides? Of course: That's the idea. Think of all the money you will save!

MBY is not about living with quadriplegia, as quadriplegic John Kelly points out:

 “Book and screenplay author JoJo Moyes admits she knows nothing about quadriplegics,” said Kelly, “yet her ignorance is allowed to promote the idea that people like me are better off dead. 

Italics mine.
and he adds:

No one’s suicide should be treated noble and inspirational. Our suicides should be viewed as tragedies like anyone else’s.”s should be viewed as tragedies like anyone else’s.”

Ah, but not in Hollywood, where it will get you an academy award.

Doctors have warned for years that press and media stories that paint sympathetic stories of suicide actually increase the suicide rate. (The same thing could be said about terrorist attacks of course).

But the real danger is that it will inspire crazies to kill the disabled because they think they are better off dead, as was done last week in Japan, or worse, to make it normal to put a disabled or elderly person on a death pathway because the doctor decides an disabled person is better off dead, (as opposed to those who are truly dying, where comfort care with lots of narcotics and non treatment decisions are appropriate)...

Follow the money: From the UKMail article on the abuse of the terminal care protocol (aka the Liverpool pathway) in the UK.

and follow the money:

We also revealed how some hospitals were being paid six-figure ‘bribes’ to meet targets about the numbers of patients on the LCP – leading to fears that doctors were put under pressure to use the pathway. 

another sign that TEOTWAWKI is nigh

Paradise Helicopters

LINK

headsup DaveBarry

Family news

the tropical cyclone that was supposed to hit us turned north before turning east to cause havoc in China. So all we had was some rain. And it is still overcast here.

Since the Philippine averages 12 typhoons each year, we await the next one.

The cook's son will be buried Thursday. We visited yesterday before school left out, since a lot of the students will be there to visit after school hours.

Another day, another typhoon

Heavy rain showers this morning.  It's not really a typhoon yet, just a "tropical cyclone".

we are Signal One. Mainly heavy rains. The roads will probably flood and Joy has a meeting in Manila but I haven't checked if she is still going.

Hope th roof doesn't leak...

and it must be wet outside: The feral cats are all inside avoiding the weather.., not just in the kitchen but in the spare bedroom.

Should we clone Neanderthals?

Long discussion at Archeology.com

Cloning a Neanderthal will take a lot more than just an accurately reconstructed genome. Artificially assembling an exact copy of the Neanderthal DNA sequence could be done easily and cheaply with current technology, but a free-floating strand of DNA isn't much good to a cell. "The bigger challenge is--how do you assemble a genome without a cell?" asks James Noonan, a geneticist at Yale University. "How do you package DNA into chromosomes, and get that into a nucleus? We don't know how to do that." The shape of the DNA within the chromosomes affects the way that genes interact with chemicals inside the cell

they write another way would be to take a human cell and make the thousands of necessary  changes into that cell's DNA....

Or to insert Neaderthal DNA into a human blastocyst. (early human embryo).


Experimenting on human beings used to be considered ethically wrong, until the bioethicists decided that early human embryos were not really human persons. Since the ultimate goal is to call anyone not meeting the "criteria for personhood" (including infants and brain damaged adults) as a human being with rights, you can see where this is going.

ah, but are Neaderthals human?





Genetically, since there is evidence that humans and Neanderthals did interbreed, it would mean yes, one is making a human being.


of course, in a world where religious voices are sidelines and "secular" bioethicists often are "apologists for death" (to use Nat Hentoff's phrase), why stop at experimenting with Neanderthal/human clones?

Well, awhile back the Brits were discussing if a genetically altered pig (a chimera manufactured to get organs to donate), with a large amount of DNA, could be self aware or considered human.

And the British bishops said: Well, better to err on the side of the good and treat them so.

The bishops, who believe that life begins at conception, said that they opposed the creation of any embryo solely for research, but they were also anxious to limit the destruction of such life once it had been brought into existence. In their submission to the committee, they said: “At the very least, embryos with a preponderance of human genes should be assumed to be embryonic human beings, and should be treated accordingly.

so, would you adopt him as a human being, or use him to experiment on?

Encino man or Never Let Me Go....

Another day, another typhoon

Typhoon supposed to hit south of here, but the weather is dark and overcast so I suspect we'll get rain.

Family news

Joy and Ruby are back from Manila.

Our cook's youngest son died of a heart attack. He has been having trouble for about two years, and even had a near death episode a year ago. He had chest pain and went to see his doctor, but when the ambulance arrived, it was too late.

Alas, this was her educated son, a teacher.He had a wife and two kids...

Teachers are respected, but the pay is not that good, so he was trying to get a job overseas, first in Canada before the oil shale business slowed down, and then to work in a factory in Malaysia, but had trouble with that too (lots of jobs are fake, or they recruit too many and then won't hire).

As a teenager guarded our home when Lolo had his first stroke, so we are very sad about this.

I told the cook to take a week off, but she is here this morning anyway.... she will cook and then her daughter will come and serve/do the dishes... money is short, and I suspect she would rather stay busy...

Wanna be a Francis Catholic? There's an app for that.

The Pope is pushing "yutes" to be SJW at WYD 2016.

yes, instead of pushing the necessity for prayer, repentence and serving God in your daily life, you should be a SJW "FrancisCatholic" ala Kaine, whose one year as a lay missionary lets him say he is a good Catholic despite being a supporter of the Culture of Death party in the USA.

and yes, according to this article, there is an App for that.

YOUCAT, the Catechism and the Compendium of Catholic Social Teaching, and features a foreword by Pope Francis 

As part of the release, a DOCAT app has been made available to all World Youth Day participants. The app helps readers to start groups, participate in discussions, and do acts of justice as a present to the pope, who, in writing the foreword to DOCAT, shared his dream with youth on how to change the world.

So there you have it. Personal piety, bleh. Prayer bleh. Living an ethical life, nah. Support Hillary's pro abortion party? YES! Attend conferences on how to use twitter: YES!

Yes, I should talk: but since I spent much of my life working as a doc among the poor, I figure I can point out the problem:

Jesus didn't call everyone to "sell what you have, give to the poor, and follow me". He also told others to "go and sin no more", and even sent the man he cured of demons to go home to his family when he wanted to join the apostles.

The SJW meme of Catholicism is important, but Francis' emphasis on this as the only way to be a good Catholic marginalizes normal people who have a life to lead, a family to care for, physical or mental handicaps that make such a move impossible. It also neglects to acknowledge  ordinary Catholics, who are no longer be taught how to find holiness in the duties of their daily life.

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The Pope cites Mother Teresa. Great saint, of course.

But I am reminded when Mother Teresa attended a Eucharistic Congress in an American city, and was asked by her taxi driver: What should I do (to serve God)? He expected her to say: give money. Or volunteer for a ministry.

What she actually told him was "Smile at your wife more often".


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

so I laughed when I read "Eccles is saved" Blog:

Welcome to World Oldies day

Listening attentively to Pope Francis.

Yup. Works for me.

War on Drugs

The local News notes that 400+ drug pushers on a list gave themselves up and signed a pledge not to sell drugs. So no cop killing of drug pushers here so far.

Of course, if you read the whole news site, there  have been quite a few "vigilante" type murders.

The main headline is about a ghost corporation where money was spent for "livelihood kits" for the poor... but no kits were delivered, and a lot of the documentation was forged. More information here at GMA

How much money was this about? The project was funded 14 million pesos. (about $300 000) but no note about how much may have ended up in someone's pocket.

Eugenics? Whoopie

I am aghast at this article on Mom Jones, that interviews a guy who lauds the selection of embryos to get your perfect baby.

Greely believes embryo selection will become popular in the United States. "My guess is more than half of babies are likely to be conceived this way," he predicts.

Uh, fellahs: To get an egg, mom has to take medicines that make her ovulate (and get emotional and fat). Then she needs an operation to remove the eggs. Then she needs to go to the office and get them implanted. And one to two thirds of the babies won't "take". If you implant a couple, yes there is a higher chance of getting a kid, but sometimes you get two (or three).

Infertile women will do this, of course. But it's a dirty little secret that a lot of IVF is done when less "intrusive" treatments might work...but IVF makes docs rich, and moms happy, because it's quicker.

But routinely? Nope.

And what about all those discarded embryos? This is a major ethical problem no one wants to discuss...

I was surprised that Mom Jones, who usually opposes artificial GM food, artificial fertilizers, herbicides, chemicals and all sorts of artificial interventions into human life seems to be pushing artificial manipulation of human beings. (Probably they interview him without editorializing, but the writer gets fuzzy on why anyone would oppose this practice).


Catholics, of course object to IVF because of the reason he posits: His book is called "the end of sex" meaning that now you can have a kid without making love.

Separating sex from reproduction is a no no, be it by the pill that gives you sex without a baby, or IVF that gives you a baby without sex. (and I won't even go into the lucrative baby making that uses desperatly poor women to carry someone else's baby to term.).

Like marriage, they stress the biological basis of family, lovemaking, and baby making, as God's gift to humans.

But the summary of how this guy and many others have lost the moral vocabulary to even discuss the moral issues can be found in this quote

After all, he says, "You want to get the best car. Why don't you want to get the best baby?"

Well, maybe because a because a baby is not a "thing" to be bought, but a person to be loved and cherished. By not seeing babies as persons, it is implied that you can return them if defective (which is what is done by discarding embryos, and has been done by parents who refuse to accept an imperfect baby or twins etc. gestated by a pay-for surrogate mother)

And, of course, I'm old enough to remember that when one grew up and married, that babies weren't planned, but just came along and were accepted and welcomed. Kids were considered part of one's vocation of being married, and even among the non "religious", there was the idea that well, God had a plan for the kid even if he/she came at an inconvenient time.

Eugenics rears it's ugly head.

Is Facebook a Potemkin village?

When I surf the web, I see a lot of "sign up for facebook" ads, as if they are seeking new members.

But what has annoyed me in the past weeks is that when I use Chrome, all of a sudden, a tab with Facebook opens when I didn't request it to be opened.

This  is now happening when I used a different browser that I don't use for my mail and haven't used to open Facebook...

This seems to be an old problem: This discussion claims it is because you have the facebook messanger for Windows and that they solved the problem in 2014...

Uh, no, I don't use Facebook messenger.

Mozilla support says run TDDS KILLER to stop this.

I'll put a followup post if this works.

But I wonder:

Question: Is facebook paid for the number of times people open their page?

Martyrs, we haz that

TeaatTrianon has a link to several essays saying that the priest murdered by ISIS in France should be acclaimed a martyr.

 more HERE. and HERE.

I have no problem with that.

My only criticism is that this is not exactly new, nor is it, alas rare.

But then the 37 plus missionaries killed when I worked in Africa were killed, not by Muslims, but by a group of "insurgents" funded by the World Council of Churches, so probably no one wants to write those murders up as martyrs or saints, because it might embarass the PC...

At least one odd lay missionary killed during those time is considered a saint by the local people. And when I say "odd", I mean shellshocked guy. a hanger-on, whom the Jesuits found a job to keep him busy. And I found it interesting that the locals decided he, not the bishop or priests or nuns killed, was the one worthy of being proclaimed a saint. I suspect it was his humility, since we professional do gooders tended to be arrogant SOB's.

I often criticize the Pope and his SJW minions for talking of "mercy" for sociopaths instead of trying to reach out and preach repentence to ordinary people caught in the culture of sin, as many Pentecostal etc. churches are doing.

But of course, this does not mean we do not have good priests and layworkers who do risk their lives doing  just that. And I do know that telling people there is mercy and forgiveness for their (often horrendous) sins is the first step to encourage them to reform.

Reuters has an article about a Catholic outreach to gang members in Mexico. Go read the whole thing.

It's been 50 years since this type of evangelism has gotten attention in the media (the cross and the switchblade was the story back then), even though many pastors and priests are active in this type of ministry.

But now that type of outreach is probably more dangerous.

It's not just ISIS: As Borderlandbeat notes: dozens of Catholic priests have been murdered in Mexico (and this doesn't include those priests, laypeople and pastors killed in Colombia, where FARC once kidnapped an entire church congregation).

the lost heep badly need a shepherd, and yes, there are shepherds trying to find them, (although alas they are too few).

And when they are killed, the world doesn't go out and say: Martyr.

The martyred French priest seems to be a humble guy willing to work after retirement in a parish that mainly served immigrants from Senegal. I am sure he is a saint, and not just because he met martyrdom at the hands of two mixed up kids.

Yes, mixed up kids.

as David Warren noted:

Hardly to my surprise, I learn that the latest murderous adolescents were problems for the state’s social services long before they were “radicalized.” ... His confusion is exacerbated by the deconstruction of all cultures in the contemporary West: the loss of continuity in custom and governing norms. He becomes a different kind of Muslim from his parents, who can’t understand him. In many mosques, financed by the oil-monied Wahabis, the worst features of Islam are emphasized. The Islamists do much recruiting there, and also in prisons: like the Communists before them, they are looking for psychoses to exploit. And of course, the Internet is a great boon, to all of satanic tendency.

The same thing could be said about kids joining gangs, be they Mexico or Los Angeles CA... or the kids on the Res for that matter (our res had a major school shooting after I moved to a warmer climate: The kid was into NeoNazi stuff on the internet, but his history of abuse and family breakdown were the real reason behind the murders).

The scarred and broken are the lost sheep to be healed.

But I do hope there is a hell, not for the mixed up kids seduced by the culture of murder, but for those who push the idea that it is okay to kill in the name of "Good", and those who applaud these architects of death (did I read right, that a woman proclaimed she had an abortion and was applauded at the DNC? ).

and those who push murder as something good, while sitting in their comfortable offices, are the ones who deserve punishment, but instead will die in their beds hailed as heroes.

Question: Will the author and director of "Me before you" take responsibility for the mass murders in Japan, by a guy who thinks they are "better off dead"? NDY knows the handicapped who are murdered are not called martyrs by the MSM, who instead publishes sympathetic peons to those who kill them...

Memo to DNC: firewalls are your friend

 Note to DNC: Stop Blaming Putin, YOU Wrote the Emails.

Via Instapundit:

better to blame Trump and Russia than to acknowledge they had a problem with computer security, or to discuss  what was in the released emails...

Memo to Pope:discuss martyrdom

JohnAllen at Crux notes: Forget program at WYD: Teach youth about the martyrs

There are places where anti-Christian violence has become stunningly routine, including North Korea, Eritrea, Iraq and Syria, Nigeria, and India. The Global Council for Indian Christians, a largely Protestant body in India, estimates for the last decade, there has been an average of one violent assault on a Christian in their country every other day.

this doesn't include places like the Philippines, where terrorists attack Christian villages and caused thousands of people in a mainly Christian town to flee, and where Christian activists defending civil rights and the environment are killed. (often these are linked since the rich want to exploit the land owned by the poor or indigenous people)

And I suspect this doesn't include those, especially clergy in Mexico and Colombia who were killed for opposing the drug cartels and gangs. Heck, I suspect it doesn't even include those in the US who are killed by gangs because they preach Jesus, or because robbing churches/church workers, are easy targets.

Finally, I should ass tat the priest killed was French, but the pastor of the church, and many who attended the church, were African immigrants. The press is not noting this, but it may be the backstory on why that church was chosen.

Maybe the pope needs to stress the importance of immigrants to evangelize their new countries...

Memo to demonstators:

Nylon doesn't burn 

... (one) man amicably described himself as an anarcho-communist and said he was disappointed that whoever brought the flags had purchased nylon banners rather than cotton. He said experienced activists should know better.

For later reading

The priest killed in France was helping out the pastor, who is African and was visiting family in the Congo. Apparently it was a multicultural parish in a town with lots of ethnics and immigrants.


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Quote of the day:

Air conditioners and refrigerators pose as big a threat to "life on the planet" as the threat of terrorism, Secretary of State John Kerry said Friday.

well, you can have my Aircon remote when you pry it from my cold dead fingers.

Unless there is a viable alternative, people will die of heat stroke and heat related disease and food poisoning.

Best quote of the day about this comes from ProfP:

It is a great consolation as one’s throat is being cut that the government is focused on global warming.

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I hate to be sarcastic, but probably more people are killed in Chicago than have been killed by ISIS, but it's not PC to mention that because:

the majority of the violence is gang-related, with 50 percent of the murder victims identified as known gang members. He says shootings are often a result of personal petty disputes that are fueled by social media.

and the BLM makes the witnesses hostile to the cops, so gangs can literally get away with murder.

===================
  StrategyPage discusses the problem of NGO's. Lots of money diverted into the pockets of the corrupt or of bad guys.

and then there are the NGO's pushing the hedonism of America as part of the deal, and wondering why the conservatives of all faiths get upset.

and lots more. Read the whole thing.

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 Rev Sensing asks: Who would Jesus vote for when there is no Christian running for president?

for both the Republicans and the Democrats it is about money and power: Who will receive the largess they will use tax dollars to provide? Whom will be the class they plunder to get it? And how will they spend it to suborn, corrupt or crush so they can keep power?

as for bioethical issues: I agree with WSmith: The courts and propaganda deluge in the MSM etc. will make sure the slide into the culture of death continues: but there is a small difference between the candidates:

Trump won't see stopping it as a priority, but Hillary will help push it along.

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