Philippine news

My daughter in law was going to visit us and her half sister (who lives in Mindanao) to help with a prison outreach ministry, but with all the headlines her husband (ex military with contacts there) has forbidden it. She is "Anglo" enough looking to be a kidnap risk. So she'll probably visit her son in Korea. No war risk there you know (/s).

however, our area is safe.

I have been too sick to follow a lot of the story, but StrategyPage has a nice summary here, especially why martial law was declared (over the hysteria of our affluent left wing students and SJW's who live in safe guarded communities in Metro Manila)

The activities of BIFF, Maute and several smaller pro-ISIL groups had forced the larger Moslem separatist groups MNLF and MILF to crack down on Moslems who work with the Islamic terrorists. Because of that Abu Sayyaf was soon considered unworthy of local support by the Moslem community and the Abu Sayyaf leaders know that is the worst thing that could happen to them.

The government was hoping for a final (or at least decisive) battle with Abu Sayyaf, BIFF and Maute here and they got it. Martial law enabled the security forces to quickly round up the known or suspected supporters of Hapilon. That is important because Hapilon had lots of allies and contacts in the numerous local drug and smuggling gangs.and smuggling gangs.

The southern Philippines is not majority Muslim except in a few small areas, and as Duterte warns: If the MILF and other "militant groups" who seek peace don't help stop the terrorists, that it could degenerate into a civil war, and that some Christians are stockpiling guns for self defense. This Inquirer article is interesting because the SJW comments are all Anti Duterte, presumably because they prefer echoing the meme instead of remembering the massacres and attacks against Christians in the south before Duterte (like the attack on majority Christian city of Zamboanga).

what is going on now is brutal house to house conflict, with soldiers untrained for this, since  most of the fighting in the past was in rural areas.

 And of course there are human shields, and so there will be lots of propaganda photos of "innocent civilians" killed posted by the usual suspects on the social media.

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SP article also include stuff about China's sea lane grab in the West Philippine Sea, and their propaganda about the new silk road

The key to China’s new sea routes is asserting ownership of the South China Sea. Another feature of Obor is that it offers business relationships that are more acceptable (than Western ones) to most of the nations Obor is investing in. The Chinese can, as they like to put it, be more flexible and respectful of local customs. In other words the Chinese don’t see bribes and corruption as a defect but an opportunity.

 and remember: Drugs go along with that bribe/corruption thing. NYTimes article 1995 knew this, as did the Economist in 2014. This didn't get a lot of publicity, but we docs knew that the heroin trade in central Asia and southern China was the cause of the HIV epidemic there.

you think it's bad in Appalachia? What about the millions of heroin addicts in Iran? or in the numerous central Asia states?

China's opioid type drugs are the cause of the "heroin" overdose epidemic in the US (via Mexican drug lords).

and of course, then there is the meth/"shabu" epidemic, also from China (and North Korea)... Duterte is trying to stop this but this has caused the rich  SJW here and in the US to get their knickers in a knot, and they know that more "innocent" drug dealers will get killed if they allow martial law.

but the dirty little secret is that I am more in danger of being killed in a home invasion robbery by druggies in need of a fix than I am by Abu terrorists.

business/tech Stories below the fold

Trump meets with tech leaders....



he met with them six months ago during the transition. Sounds like businessman discussing business with each other.

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I read an aging Tom Cruise is making Top Gun II...
but the reality is that we don't do that type of stuff anymore.

From 1965-1969, guns accounted for 65% of air-to-air kills, the CSBA says.
But between 1990 and 2002, they accounted for just 5% of kills - with the rest carried out by some kind of missile.
"Modern air combat is almost entirely decided by situational awareness [from radar and other sensors] and missile technology," Bronk says. "All recent air-to-air kills between fast jets were one-sided, quick affairs."Most kills in the last two decades have been against enemy planes too far away to see with the human eye - which means technology often trumps pilot skill.

Via Austnbay at Instapundit.

reminds me of how StarWars used WWII films to imagine their space dogfights.

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Why is this news?

Trump aids joke with each other: Chelsey Clinton is aghast and gets a headline in the BBC.

BBC's anti trump bias is almost as bad as CNN...

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some industrial giants back a new version of the carbon tax on oil/gas companies.

Under the plan, produced by the Climate Leadership Council which includes the oil giants, taxes would start at $40 per ton of CO2 and rise from there, theoretically increasing the price per gallon (3.8 liters) of gasoline by 36 cents but initially generating $200 billion to be paid as "dividends" to households.

whose households will benefit? Not mentioned in the article.


Translation: The poor will pay more for food and transportation and cooking.

The rich politicians will get money to help the poor (and pocket part or all of the money).

here, when LPG or diesel goes up, it harms the ordinary folks: Tricycle drivers get less profit, the poor have trouble buying LPG to cook with (they use wood, leading to fires and asthma in their kids). Using a handplow, thresher, and rice driers get more expensive, so the price of rice goes up. The price of transporting food and rice to the market goes up too, leading to higher prices for everything.

But never mind: The politicians will get rich.

some folks agree: from Wikipedia:

In most instances, firms pass the costs of a carbon price onto consumers. Studies typically find that poor consumers spend a greater proportion of their income on energy-intensive goods and fuel, and cost increases in energy tend to impact the poor worse than the rich.^[238] Therefore, if the revenue from a carbon tax is retained by the government, a price on carbon is expected to be regressive, similar to any policy that increases the cost of fuels and energy.

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losing passwords costs businesses money.
yeah, I have to change them all the time for "safety" then find the business or gov't site has been hacked anyway.

Password joke of the day:.

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The Good news of the day

No, Niburu is not real, assures DavidReneke...

Answer: With apologies to all the fine ladies in the Red Hat Society, this preposterous urban legend of an invisible planet on a collision course with Earth seems to be straight from the Tinfoil Beanie Brigade.

I should know. Back in 2003, an acquaintance started warning me in the spring to get right with my Maker because Nibiru/Planet X was already well into our solar system and bearing down on Earth for a doomsday smashup that fall. During months of exchanging emails, I tried to use my knowledge of astronomy and other logic to try to prove that her “evidence” sounded like a plot from Guardians of the Galaxy.

I finally gave up, and, not surprisingly, I’m here today writing about it. Meanwhile, like all the other predictors of the end times through the centuries, the Nibiru fanatics are once again using Windex to clean their crystal balls and readjust their dates accordingly. Meanwhile, I stand by my conclusion that the closest you’ll ever come to Nibiru is seeing the so-named volcanic planet make a cameo appearance in the very fictional “Star Trek: Into Darkness.”

guess I'll have to go back to worryingabout typhoons, floods, earthquakes and dengue fever...

Whatever is, is good...

your philosophy lesson for today

Family news

We had a bad thunderstorm last night, and the roof leaked into the bedroom and into my bathroom.

And this morning, there is no water.

Joy and Ruby are going to a meeting in Manila today but haven't left yet: Luckily I had a bucket of water in my bathroom so they can wash.

The pump is pumping, but no pressure. Either it is not pushing up or the tank isn't filled yet and there is an air bubble that need to be bled out. Sigh.

ah, life in a tropical paradise!

update: 8am the tank is filled enough that I could bleed out the air block so we have water again. AHHH...wonderful

When Anti Catholics get things mixed up

Drudge has a link to the daily beast about a satanic exorcist cult trying to take down the pope, or something like that.

I stopped at paragraph five, when the poorly written article connects this tiny splinter offshoot with Cardinal Burke and the Dubia bishops.

Burks' sin? questioning if the latest Pope letter that he claims was supported by the bishops meeting (despite the fact that it wasn't) to normalize adultary and divorce and make the holy reception of the Euchrist only a feel good exercize for anyone who wants it.

Paul said the sae thing, but never mind. This is a serious item and is threatenig schism in the church, and presuming any Catholic who agrees with Paul (the apostle not the pope) is a devil worshipping cultist is a bid absurd.

In other wrods, a smear article against catholics who are catholics. Using a "straw man" argument.

And the Daily beast's editor once wrote an editorial lamenting she would be leaving New York City and living in Washington, where she might have to actually meet (shudder shudder) "Christians".

If a good Catholic site actually reads and analyzes this nonsense, I'll link to it later.

Duck cam

Visiting survivors

Opioid crisis meeting

The opioid crisis long predates the present Adminstration, but I wasn't aware that President Trump has a commission to investigate the problem.

I only became aware of this in today's NYTimes article whining he needs to "act" not just have meetings.... But there has been a lot of stuff being done (closing the borders, arresting the drug gangs, reigining in doctors prescriptions)....and the crisis continues. So it is time for a commission to try to see if other things will work.

in other words, it didn't get in the headlines except to whine? Give me a break.

From the pain news network.

“Most terrifying is the reality that nothing we are doing today has been able to halt the spread of opioid addiction. Controlling prescription opioid medication has not done so. Prescription monitoring programs, strict limits on the number of pills physicians can prescribe, and the CDC pain management guidelines seem to have capped usage of prescribed opioid medications. But overdose deaths from heroin and highly potent synthetics like fentanyl have gone through the roof.”

but no pain patient adviser on the panel, but it does include Patrick Kennedy, whose fight with substance abuse is well known. More here:

The White House announced Wednesday that the president intended to appoint Republican Governor Charlie Baker of Massachusetts and Democratic Governor Roy Cooper of North Carolina to the Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis.
The other new members are Patrick Kennedy, a former Rhode Island congressman who has spoken of his own addiction issues, and Bertha Madras, a researcher at Harvard Medical School and McLean Hospital in Massachusetts.
Trump tapped Christie, who has earned plaudits for his work on the opioid epidemic as governor, back in March to lead the commission, which did not have any other members until now. Cooper and Baker are both from states hard hit by addiction.

Medicaid is the "elephant in the room" here, says Kennedy.

Well, yes. But the real elephant in the room is the culture wars.

there are tens of thousands of churches in the US: How many have outreaches and how many preach on this? Some Catholic churches sponsor AA type programs, on the other hand, I have never ever heard a sermon on the moral aspect of the problem...WWJD

Tolkien post of the day

The Journal of Tolkien Research has some of their articles available for download. LINK

and Mythmoot is on line at YOUTUBE. Here is one example:



in a related item:

and Mythgard academy continues the Boethius lecture series.

Everyday heroes stopped a massacre

In the kerfuffle about the terrible shooting of a Congressman, the police who stopped the gunman need to be remembered.

the two police were agent Griner and Agent Bailey.

Agent Griner playing bbasketball in college

She was shot in the ankle after tellnig him to drop the weapon.

Agent Bailey

And Trum vitited Griner and her wife at the hospital, giving them flowers.

Civil wars and other "WAGD" stuff

I am starting to read stuff on my non political blogsites that worry a shooting civil war is nigh in the US. Even my non political sites are worrying about this.

No it's not because racists hated Obama, which is the meme, but goes back to the demonization of Barry Goldwater, the passage of Roe V Wade, where the courts started to pusth the elite agenda on people,  and got worse when go't regulations without being passed by congress started interfering with life.



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the Muslim extremists killed a lot of Christians, terrorized a lot of folks in the south and are dug in without a lot of press coverage of these atroities, but hey, the press and "human rights" folks are blaming the gov't when they try to remove them house by house. And Ruby relates the SJW on the "social media" are too busy hyperventillating about worry of "martial law" than they are about the threat.


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the really bad worry is that this Pope is trying to change the Church into Episcopal lite, and we are now reading bishops are pushing his "who am I to judge" ideas.

However, it won't stop at adultary or gay sex: Now he is adding a pro abortion non catholic philosopher to the Pontifical academy of life"

The Pope iappointing tagle like cardinals, who will presumably elect his successor in his own image, as Obama pushed Hillary.

And the only weapon that we ordinary lay people have is our rosaries to oppose this.

Malachy Martin call your office.

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That terrible London fire resembles something we could easily  have in Manila. What went wrong?

was the "cladding" bad because it was Chinese counterfeit goods, or was it just eco friendly so they ignored that it could burn?

UKGuardian article here blames "sustainable" agenda for allowing flammable products to be used on buildings. I guess we will learn a lot about insulation and "cladding" after this investigation is done.

some people were discussing that it started when an "eco friendly" refrigertor that used propane as a refrigerant blew up, but why did it spread so quickly.

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StrategyPage article on Nigeria. The war against Christians and modernity there.

corruption is part of the issue, and locals are starting to form vigilante protection groups.

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The UN is being asked to stop "cultural appropriation".

Presumably this means the Ingarot can't sell Objibwe dream catchers as a souvenir in their store.

and presumably it means that the primitive natives of Kentucky can stop this type of thing... the first Filipino Colonel.



they are going against Jolibee, who serves traditional Pinoy dishes like kentucky style chicken, Pinoy Spahgetti, and of course hamburgers.

Strories that ignore the meme

GetReligion points out that two Chinese workers killed by terrorists in Pakistan might have been Christians. They link to the sponsoring church organization's webpage.

and the article includes this factoid:

Pakistan is expending huge amounts of energy guarding some 14,000 Chinese workers in the country. 

There was a conference here awhile back teaching OFW's on how to present Christianity to their fellow workers in the Middle East.... so that is not the only group doing this work. and many are also preaching to their fellow overeas workers.

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The rich elites either laugh at poor rural whites overdosing on opioids, or blame the doctors (ignore that the fentanyl comes from Mexico, with help from Chinese chemicals).

But what about the opioid crisis in Native Americans?

more at the IHS webpage.

IHS data indicate that the rate of drug-related deaths among American Indians and Alaska Natives increased from five per 100,000 population (adjusted) in 1989-1991 to 22.7 per 100,000 in 2007-2009. The rate among American Indian and Alaska Native people is almost twice that of the general population;

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AustinBay: Starvation as a weapon of war.

most famine today is caused by war. Most of it is in refugees fleeing the war, the disruption of crops and lack of transportation systems. But some is deliberate.

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London apartment fire: In our prayers.

Geoff Wilkinson, a fire and building inspector, told the BBC that the Grenfell Tower block "didn't perform in the way you'd expect a building to perform" once it caught fire as "you'd expect it to be contained to an individual apartment". "Something has gone dramatically wrong here," he said.

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the afternoon "congressional hearings" soap opera here were discussing the Casino shooter. Alas, my Tagalog is not good enough to follow the arguments. The real question: Where were the security guards? Were the casino floor's exits locked? Was there a sprinkler system? were people failing to flee because they thought it was a terrorist attack, so they stayed put?

Developing...

______________________

when you read stuff about Qatar, just remember that 88 percent of those living there are from other countries.

this SP article is mainly about Russia, but it includes this fact:

Qatar is also seen as siding with Iran in the current struggle between Shia Iran and the Sunni Arab nations led by Saudi Arabia. This sort of behavior is not uncommon in the region and the small Arab Gulf states like Qatar, Kuwait and the member states of the UAE have survived for centuries using these methods. One could say Qatar has been too successful and the current unpleasantness is the price of that success. As is the local custom secret meetings will be held, demands discussed and agreements made. How long this takes will depend on how long Qatar can last without its usual providers of all the food and just about everything else. The expulsion cut off half of that immediately and a naval blockade would be disastrous. About 40 percent of imports came via Saudi Arabia

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Suicide chic update

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awhile back, I mentioned my granddaughter told me about a "suicide game" that pressured kids to kill themselves.

AnnAlthouse links to the story of the hacker behind the game who was just arrested in Russia

luckily they caught him, and will punish him, unlike the writers behind the 13 reasons why series which also pushes teens to think suicide is cool...

Hacks and apps and Siberia oh my

For later reading:

Dilbert analyzes the Putin stole the election meme and points out it doesn't pass the sniff test.

Summary: Lots of hackers were stealing lots stuff from "insecure servers".. And lots of countries were trying to influence the election. So what else is new?

related item: AnnAlthouse links to Oliver Stone's interview about his Showtime special on Putin... leftist Stone meets a hostile audience for not obeying the meme. Heh.

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StrategyPage notes China is are taking over all the sea routes and possibly the land routes, which means they could have a stranglehold on trade in the near future.

and note the neo colonialism aspects of their investments, which encourage local corruption.

if you read the whole thing, it mentions the Philippines.
May 20, 2017: President Duterte says China threatened war if the Philippines went ahead with plans to drill for oil in offshore areas that international law recognizes as Filipino but that China claims actually belongs to them. Duterte openly criticizes other nations for not confronting China. All the South China Sea nations facing territorial losses because of Chinese claims have backed down. He points out that even the United States is unwilling to go up against China. Meanwhile the Chinese are openly moving more weapons to bases in the South China Sea as well as their main naval base in southern China (Hainan Island). When pressed a few Chinese officials would admit that in recent talks between Duterte and Chinese leaders it was mentioned that war was a possibility if other nations sought to take possession of Chinese territory. In other words (that non-Chinese can understand). Back off or die. Duterte later said he may have exaggerated a bit.

Remember that President Obama told the Philippines not to be "aggressive" against China when they dredged up the sea floor to build their artificial islands. Did money change hands here? Anyone?

I mean China tried to "buy" the area by bribing a previous Philippine president in 2005... 2011 story here.
and here.

this lovely ex president was released from house arrest after Clinton Ally Clooney took her case to the UN and insisted it was a political prosecution.

(The bribes were given to her husband, not her, ergo she never took a bribe).

and Bill Clinton's helping China get missile technology is an old story...What about all those lovely gifts  in the past?

But the good news is that people just noticed Trumpie boy owns businesses and that is a potential conflict of interest.

Well, yes, and this should have been investigated during the campaign, but wasn't...

in the meanwhile, despite what you read about China being buddies with Putin, the dirty little secret is that China will eventually try to take over eastern Siberia, (NYTime story 2014)..which they also claim they own somehow... and eastern Siberia has lots of economic ties with Chinese with lots of Chinese moving there who could be fifth columnists.

in other words, there is a lot more going on than you think, and Putin is a potentially ally in many of these potential war zones.


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Exscuse my denseness, but this sounds like they are trying to set a trap

The dirty little secret is that a lot of people in "scandals" go to jail for getting mixed up or forgetful and then get convicted of telling "lies" to the FBI... even when they are never convicted of a crime.

One remembers Martha Stewart, for example, who was convicted for a 'lie' at a time when the Enron scandal was around (and those guys stayed out of jail) or the Valarie Plame scandal where someone was convicted of a lie who had nothing to do with her name being leaked (and the guy who leaked her name was never punished).

This is a fishing expedition to destroy someone, while larger crimes go unpunished.

Does anyone in their right mind think that Trumpie boy sent someone to arrange the Russians to expose Hillary's dirty tricks against Bernie, which is one reason she lost the election? (The other reason is because she called the union Democratic blue collar workers "deplorables".. Joe Biden is right: He would have won these votes and the election).

From John Batchlor podcast:

Democrats plan to ask about his contacts during the 2016 campaign with the Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak, which the attorney general failed to disclose fully during his confirmation hearing.

Give me a break: Even I, a lowly grandmom (with a simple Secret clearance) know you don't openly meet with the ambassador to discuss such thing. You send a low level person to a low level KGB agent who is under cover to do this.

Translation: They are trying to catch someone in a "lie" so they can be prosecuted, in the same way the Plame case was aimed at Bush.

No crime here, but a fishing expedition to harm the president.

And this, along with the leaks (known and suspected) and along with the failure to properly investigate and prosecute Hillary's illegal email server and misuse of secret files, is a good reason to fire Comey.

In the meanwhile, I would like to ask Mr Comey and his minions: Who they hell hacked my Federal personnel file a couple years back?

who is worried about the North Korean hack that shut down a lot of sites all over the world last week?

Anyone? Anyone?

StrategyPage on the cyberwar on THADD.

the NSA is supposed to be about major hacking problems, not the hacking of dirty tricks. And if hacking by Wikileaks was so terrible and enough to harass Trumpie boy and threaten to impeach him, then someone please tell me why President Obama pardoned Pvt Manning, who did leak a lot of critical stuff about the war on terror?

Or am I missing something?

Let them eat cake post of the day

The problem with bread in space? Breadcrumbs.

On March 23, 1965 astronaut John Young launched to Earth’s orbit aboard the Gemini 3. With him were crewmate Gus Grissom and a two-day-old corn beef sandwich, smuggled without permission on the spacecraft....

The two might have had some laughs, but when they got back home no one was laughing. 

Grissom put the sandwich away after a bite or two, but even that was enough to litter the cabin in a myriad of floating breadcrumbs. ...

However, NASA et al are trying to solve the bread problem.

To bake the space bread, most likely a low-energy convection oven will be used to bake a special dough that produces a crumb-free bread. The challenge is to make a crumb-free bread tasty too since this property often means baking tough and chewy bread. According to Bake In Space, the food produced will be an adapted type of weekend German bread rolls. The hope is the fresh bread will not only offer sustenance but psychological comfort too.

more at Gizmodo

and here is how to make a peanut butter sandwich in space



headsup DaveBarry

Sam Gamgee

Two articles on Sam: LINK  about encountering Faerie

LINK2 about the "simplicity" of the choice in Cirith Ungol

Sam, in the book, is the batman/servant of Frodo and they have a protective relationship for each other (I think of the character who cares for the Lord in Downtown Abbey). It was based on Tolkien's batman in WWI (who did the laundry etc for him) and on the ordinary working class "tommies" in his regiment, who he admired for their courage and "stiff upper lip). The haracter is not 'cockney" but a country man, maybe a country man who now worked in the factories of the north: i.e. like the neighbor's that Tolkien knew as a child.

In the movie, of course, it was changed. Sam is now a working class stiff (Sean Astin played him similar to the character "RUDY!": a loyal friend and hard worker who would stick at what he started no matter what).This changed it to a "buddy movie", where the characters were different but equal...

But that change was probably needed, because few modern folk have personal servants anymore and of course the "stiff upper lip" has been replaced by teddie bears and instructions to flee terrorist attacks, not fight back.

Luckily for some on one British Restaurant, not everyone got that message.

The terrorists ran into a football fan (these thugs have a bad reputation in Europe) who fought them off and gave the folks time to flee:

 “Like an idiot,” he told the newspaper, “I shouted back at them. I thought, ‘I need to take the p*** out of these b******s’.” “I took a few steps towards them and said, ‘F*** you, I’m Millwall’. So they started attacking me.” Mr Larner added: “I stood in front of them trying to fight them off. Everyone else ran to the back.

Fans of the south London club have long prided themselves on their refusal to duck a fight, celebrating their intimidating reputation with the chant: “No-one likes us, we don’t care.”

Poldark's back

season three

Elizabeth has her "8 month" baby (but doesn't fool Aunt Agatha or Demelza).
Dr Ennis gets married and goes to war. (but no honeymoon for him)... this is a slight change from the book.

Presumably the later episodes will have Ross rescuing him from his POW camp.
The episode is based on the book "Black Moon" which I am rereading at Scribd...

but someone has reecently reposted the audiobook on youtube, so you can listen to it (before the copyright cops find it) LINK  link2

Cat post of the day

link

Family news

I amover my chest cold. The medicine to control my asthma makes me fuzzy minded, so I have gotten behind in my blogging and even my reading the headlines etc. Oh well. Things continue to be crazy.

Joy and Ruby are at an "evangelical outreach" from their church overnight somewhere. They are all self congratulatory christians who want to convert we lazy Catholics to their cultlike "in" group. Sorry for being snotty, because of course they are good people.

But Ruby's in the "worship group" that sings and dances, and spends a lot of time with this.

Silly me, but when I was her age, I was a hospital volunteer working at an inner city hospital. WWJD?

so I am alone here downstairs at night, with only George the killer Labrador to keep me safe...

In the meanwhile the puppies are eating so will be taken home soon by new owners. I keep objecting to this, since they still need mama's milk, but here they take them as soon as they are weaned, and anyway, mama Spot doesn't feed them often.

so anyway, one of these days I will get back to ranting about politics instead of family...

in the meanwhile I am busy watching some of the old films I brought with me to the Philippines...I just rewatched Oliver Stone's movie JFK...
All this stuff about the "Deep state" Vs Trump reminds me of the Donald Sutherland speech in that film...

Food factoid of the week

the BBC reports that Hawaiian pizza inventor Sam Panopoulos has died.

no, Hawaiian pizza was not Hawaiian: It was invented in Canada by a Greek immigrant.

From the BBC:

They were then owners of the Satellite Restaurant in Chatham, a southwestern Ontario town about 290km (180 miles) from Toronto and 80km from Detroit.

"We just put it on, just for the fun of it, see how it was going to taste," Panopoulos told the BBC. "We were young in the business and we were doing a lot of experiments."

Customers ended up loving the savoury sweetness of the dish. The creation also capitalised on the mid-century tiki trend, which popularised Polynesian culture in North America.

and the recipe on how to make it can be found HERE

Catching up on stuff

I have pretty well been flat in bed with asthma and a chest cold for a week, so am ignoring the Comey kerfuffle, which seems to be politics as usual, with the conspiracy theories being shot down by a reality check

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However as Insapundit notes: Fake news continues with some TV talking head quoting a source saying Trumpie boy doesn't know US troops are in Qatar.
Uh, I don't think so: He is a businessman, and can parse a dollar, and his family company has a lot of investments in the Gulf. 


and of course, one wonders why this point wasn't discussed during the campaign, for better or for worse.

one wonders if the press realizes that some of his "problems" with the State Dept is because he has other sources of information than they do, and he is acting like a CEO not a president, and that confuses them. And of course he yells and screams like a NewYorker, not the quiet smiles of the back stabbers of Washington...

we docs have to be sensitive to cross cultural communication styles, but apparently the press not so much.

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I don't know if I will get to see Wonder Woman here (Ruby has lots of friends now so I don't have to go to the films with her, but might ask to tag along).

I was surprised to find the film takes place in World War I, since the comic book is about World War II...

Well, GetReligion blog discusses if Wonder Woman is white, since the lead actress is Israeli.

well, I'm old enough to remember when Jews and Catholic ethnics were not considered "white", so don't ask me.

But I did notice that they recast Dr Poison has been recast as a "Spanish", but her costume makes her resembles the hijab rather than a hood as in the comic, and she reminds me of Dr Death of Pakistani, aka "Lady Al quaeda" fame...

most of this will go over the heads of Asians, so I expect it to make a lot of money here.

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AustinBay has an article up on SouthEast Asia as a possible trigger point for war.

In July 2016, The Hague's Permanent Court of Arbitration ruled that China had violated the Philippines' EEZ and there was no legal basis for China's claims.
Chinese claims extend to Indonesia and the Strait of Malacca, where Singapore is located -- and the site of the Shangri-La summit Secretary Mattis addressed.

and it's not just the Philippines: Vietnam, which was once part of China and had a war with them in recent times, is also part of the mix:

But Mattis didn't shy from confronting China's South China Sea aggression. He declared the 2016 arbitration court ruling "is binding" and serves as a diplomatic "starting point" to peacefully manage regional disputes. That's careful, measured language --let's play by the rules and respect each other.
However, Mattis mentioned, as if in passing, that for the first time the U.S. is giving Vietnam a retired U.S. Coast Guard cutter. That's a small but forceful stick waved at Beijing. He also said America will continue to support Taiwan. That's a bigger stick. 

and President Obama sat back and presssured the Philippines not to defend out territory, so the islands are now built in our economic zone, and a threat to freedom of the seas.

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when is the Pope going to start insisting that we don't kill grandmom (or approve of those who push it on the eldrly)?  Father Z reports. it is splitting Canada's church.

Some conservative websites are already calling some newly appointed bishops "Francisbishops", and more faithful sites are just telling Catholics that we don't have an anti pope, so don't schism out yet: We just have a lousy pope, and we've had plenty of them in the past.

you know, in the culture wars, pious Muslims have more in common with Pious Catholics and Pious Jews than with the rabid secular orthodoxy that runs the institutions.

Ruby ran into a book with a pious Muslim man who like her prayed to God and was honest in his lifestyle (in contrast to the rebellious Muslim girl heroine who was flaunting tradition and ruining her life), and she was surprise at this fact.

But those of us who worked in Africa and Asia already know this.  and is why Pinay caretakers often feel comfortable in good Muslim homes in the Middle East.

as for the nut jobs: I am reminded of Jimmy Breslin's take on the IRA vs the Orangemen: It's Catholic atheists vs the Prostestant atheists.

And as Dilbert points out, the press makes the life seem glamourous for men without jobs who are losers...

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Qatar

I am sure Qatar is looking the other way when it's citizens give oodles of money to terrorists, but hey, so do the other countries in the region. Their real sin is being friendly with Iran.

 Of course, allowing AlJ to print stories about their own corruption and human rights problems etc. is the real sin (and as a Yank, I should add they have lots of left wing journalists covering the US: a bit to the left of the NYTimes or BBC so yes, their "human rights" coverage tends to be one sided).

And now "ISIS" has attacked Iran, who just had another election. Although I wonder if this was ISIS, a Saudi attack, local minorities who are mad, or a false flag attack on that country. In our prayers.

However, one thing about Qatar: Most folks who live there are not locals, but overseas workers, often Pinoys, Indians, Nepalis, Egyptians, Bengali's, or Sri Lankans.

Right now, they are essentially under siege, and things could go downhill quickly since they import most of their food.



GMS News points out:

If the crisis continues for months, and supply of cement and other raw materials remains severely restricted, the Qatari economy could dramatically slowdown. This could undermine mega-projects ahead of the 2022 World Cup, among other ambitious infrastructure plans in the country; affect banking, travel and tourism industries; undermine consumer confidence and even lead to a recessionary spiral.

There are as many as 250,000 Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) in the country, who are responsible for almost $300 million in remittances. Employment opportunities for them and other prospective Filipino employees are bound to shrink dramatically.

The  Philippine gov't has lifted the ban on going there, but is limiting new workers unless they have a contract.

so there are interrnational aspects to this that could indirectly affect millions.

The US has a huge base in Qatar, but no plans to leave.

Jane Austin post of the week

TeaAtTrianon links to a RadioTimes article about Jane Austen's time as a poor relation.

In Austen’s story, (Mansfield Park), Fanny, a poor relation, gets adopted by her wealthy aunt and uncle, and goes to live with them in their grand but unwelcoming mansion.

One of Austen’s brothers was likewise adopted by rich relations, which catapulted him out of the family of a country clergyman, and into the landed gentry far above. Austen would often go to stay with her brother Edward in his new home, the magnificent Godmersham Park in Kent. ... But there are hints that she felt out of place at Godmersham Park. A travelling hairdresser who came to the house, for example, would charge Austen only half-price for a cut, because of her “poverty”.

In return, members of the Godmersham family described Austen as “very much below par as to good society & its ways”

 see this film for more:

My Eyes Glaze over: Hacking

As the press degenerates into innuendo, from what I am gathering it seems the NSA or other gov't agencies were spying on everyone.

Ah, but now "The Russians ate my vote" are the rabid way the Hillarycrats are trying to destroy the election, never mind that the way you figure out if someone hacked the machine is the same way you figure out that someone had pre marked paper ballots in the back room: lots and lots of votes for one candidate.

Our Hello Garci? scandal shows how that was done (And it was revealed when someone who had taped the conversation illegally released it to the public... the gov't tried to make copies illegal, but by then the illegal CD kiosks had sold a lot of copies of the conversation).

it is this last item that made the Philippines decide to change to electronic voting: They knew the machines could be hacked, but figured the crooked politicians would take a few years to catch up.

the fact that individual voting machines in individual precincts could be hacked is  not new: Hacking Democracy discussed this a couple of years ago.

The film investigates the flawed integrity of electronic voting machines, particularly those made by Diebold Election Systems, exposing previously unknown backdoors in the Diebold trade secret computer software. The film culminates dramatically in the on-camera hacking of the in-use / working Diebold election system in Leon County, Florida - the same computer voting system which has been used in actual American elections across thirty-three states, and which still counts tens of millions of America's votes today.

Politico had an article last August about "russia" hacking the Democrats. (revealing a lot of dirty tricks against Bernie).

The authors then took a big stretch to declare the idea that "russia" hacked the voting machines, which of course is a different question.

The DNC hack, in a way, has compelled the public to ask the precise question the Princeton group hoped they’d have asked earlier, back when they were turning voting machines into arcade games: If motivated programmers could pull a stunt like this, couldn't they tinker with the results in November through the machines we use to vote?

uh, yes. But it is a bit of a stretch. I could argue the huge percentages given to Hillary in a few urban areas could be the result of a hack, but what about the mid west that went for Trumpie boy by a small percentage in many many different precincts? That would be a bit hard to do, especially since vote by mail is hand counted, and many rural areas use paper ballots.

Policy on voting is decided by each state and, in some cases, each county—a system illustrated vividly by the trench warfare of voter ID laws that pockmark the country. In total, more than 8,000 jurisdictions of varying size and authority administer the country’s elections, almost entirely at the hands of an army of middle-age volunteers. Some would say such a system cries out for security standards.

actually, this system could make it easy to steal local elections but not the presidential election.

the politico article thinks this fact "cries out" to be regulated, but I see it as an advantage: feisty grandmoms who are standing in your way.

Hacking a single machine is not hard: PopSci in 2012 had an article about how to do it the old fashioned "hands on" way.

In other words, the story is real, but fake.

Yes, voting can be hacked. And this includes corrupting machines.

But in a country where votes are done many different ways, please tell me how this could be done?

one answer: fake the reports, not the votes.

and although the paranoia story always points to the Republicans, it says a lot that a common joke is about how dear Uncle Harry voted Democratic last election, even though he died ten years ago.

in other words, lots of finger pointing all around.

Question of the day

Did wonderWoman's mom 

recycle Thorin Oakenshield's crown?

Robotic weed control

They have developed a robot that zaps weeds with a laser.

A robot automatically identifies weeds in a field and combats them with a short laser pulse. Sustainable agriculture, which avoids the use of herbicides as far as possible, could benefit from this smart idea. 

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-06-combatting-weeds-lasers.html#jCp

the problem is, of course, the cost.

In Asia, the traditional weed control for rice is flooding the rice paddies (you flood the weed out then plant the partially grown rice seedlings in the thick mud).

This, however, produces methane, a greenhouse gas.

Herbicides let you flood the fields less, but to grow organic rice you have to weed by hand, which is labor intensive.

But robots? The cost of a robot is a lot higher than hiring a farmer.

No, T Rex didn't have feathers

From WesternDigs: some dinosaurs had feathers, but not T rex:

“What we found is that, as a group, tyrannosaurs got big twice in their history: once early on in in the Cretaceous, in the form of Yutyrannus, and another later episode starting around 110 million years ago in the lead up to T. rex and its kin,” Bell said in an interview. “The weird thing is that they did it differently. “Yutryannus did it with feathers, and T. rex and his lot dropped the feathers in favor of scales. “Why? It’s difficult to say.”

and, of course, TRex didn't have lips either. 

Stories below the fold

Mayor Bloomberg is getting together with other business leaders to implement their own version of the Paris accord.

Well, that will be voluntary, and is good news because unlike the UN, they presumably know something about reality,

They can and should spend their excess money on such things, but when businessmen get huge government subsidies for "green" projects that then go bankrupt (and leave them richer) excuse me for being cynical. IF they had to face their stockholders, and took responsibility for paying their workers decent wages, maybe they might actually develop something practical.

The "activists" seem to like to pontificate (and often make money off of) these things.
Instapundit editorial here. about celebrities and their private jets, and suggests they could teleconfernce instead of going there.

And if they really really  have to attend the conferences, maybe they could sail there, using windpower, and take a small boat up to the city (hey, if the Vikings could get to Paris on their boats, so could Algore).

In the meanwhile, corruption is one problem no one wants to talk about.

Here in the Philippines, the "high roller" who burned the casino during a botched robbery, killing a lot of people worked for the government and is suspected of getting rich from corruption.

The Abus and others are getting money from kidnappings in the south: Awhile back they killed a Canadianbecause the gov't put their foot down about no ransom. The city attack in the south is to get publicyt. to get more money.

So one story that Qatar is being cut off by Egypt and Saudi is because they look the other way at locals funding terrorism. including the pro Iran propaganda, printing often fake news about atrocities of the west etc.

Trump is to blame, of course, and now T Rex and others say the boycott is a bit too much, but it is a start.

Dilbert discusses the power of propaganda in recruiting terrorists.

There is more terrorism in the news, this time in London. So how do the British politicians respond? They do a recruitment ad for more terrorists.

They start by giving the terrorists cool labels, such as “Islamic extremists.” Do you know what sounds like an awesome club for an angry young Muslim to join? I’m thinking “Islamic Extremist” sound about right. That branding should be great for recruitment. The media also helps terror recruitment with their wall-to-wall news about the terrorists’ successes.

very time they mention the body count, the bad guys cheer. A better approach for the media, if they want to be helpful, might involve inviting a continuous line of Muslim scholars and critics to talk about how these “gullible losers” were duped by ISIS to kill themselves and spend eternity in Hell. And we need lots of visual and other persuasion about Hell. I want Photoshopped images of the terrorists burning for eternity.

This is one reason that here in the Philippines, they tend to underplay terrorism attacks.

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another story not usually noted: StrategyPage notes that Deaths in Mexico are almost as bad as Iraq or Afghanistan.

ay 10, 2017: Some analysts are claiming that Mexico is now the second most deadly conflict in the world, behind Syria. That is open to debate. The analysts focus on casualty figures in Afghanistan and Iraq. In 2016 17,000 people were killed in Afghanistan and 16,000 in Iraq. Mexico’s Cartel War had 23,000 fatalities during 2016. Adjusting for population size the Mexican fatalities are less than half those suffered in Afghanistan or Iraq.

quite a few priests have been killed there, and the bishops have now condemned the gov't cooperation with the drug cartels

 The Archdiocese of Mexico said that people working for the national oil company, Petroleos Mexicanos (PEMEX), government officials and some businesspeople are involved in a massive theft operation that costs the government from $780 million to one billion dollars a year. It may be worse. Other analysts estimate PEMEX may lose $1.5 billion a year to fuel theft. Organized theft is a particular problem in Puebla state, but it occurs throughout the country, which is one reason the Catholic Church weighed in on the issue. 

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Sort of related item: SP has a long article on the Congo. The Catholic bishops tried to get an agreement to make the president stand down after two terms, which is required by law, but it didn't work.

Tribal conflict is a major reason for this, and tribal conflict predates colonial times, but corruption is another:

For eleven years the UN peacekeepers managed, at great expense (over a billion dollars a year) to prevent the unrest from turning into a civil war.

Meanwhile more proof emerged that Kabila and his main supporters had stolen billions of dollars’ worth of foreign aid plus making even more from illegal mining and exporting operations. The government also imposed special taxes and fees on legitimate foreign firms and stole most of the money collected. The current government has become so corrupt that foreign aid donors are halting their contributions or insisting on more controls. 

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Chinese corruption is also rarely discussed. Global Voices has a blog post about it.

How air conditioning changed the world

BBC article here.

The boom in air conditioning is good news for many reasons. Studies show that it lowers mortality during heat waves. Heat makes prison inmates fractious - air conditioning pays for itself by reducing fights. When the temperature exceeds 21C or 22C in exam halls, students start to score lower in maths tests. In offices, air conditioning makes us more productive: according to one early study, it made US government typists do 24% more work. Economists have since confirmed that relationship between productivity and keeping cool.

Inconvenient truth William Nordhaus divided the world into cells, by lines of latitude and longitude, and plotted each one's climate, output and population. The hotter the average temperature, he found, the less productive the people.

but airconditioning also causes the outside environment to get hotter:

A study in Phoenix, Arizona, found the hot air pumped out of air conditioning units increased the city's night-time temperature by 2C,

so, instead of being 105 degrees, it is 108 degrees.  On the other hand, the people are cooler.

one major worry of environmentalists is that it will take a lot more electricity to run these airconditioners as they get bought by the growing Asian middle class.

And of course if you are inside a closed bedroom with your air conditioner on, you are less likely to get Dengue fever (or malaria or Zika virus).

Casino was "AMOK" not terrorism

The guy who started a fire that killed several dozen innocent employees and customers at a Manila Casino was a know "high roller" who was deep in financial trouble. He had been banned from several casinos, so he hit at one where he was not known.

When this type of crime happens, usually it is called someone going "amok"... they snap.

The last time this happened, a dozen Chinese tourists were killed by a cop who had been fired for corruption, but usually amoks just kill their family or friends with a machete.

My first question on this was how did he get the gun (Marcos confiscated guns years ago... most people have them illegally of course). Well, apparently he was a gun dealer.

The real question of course is this (in the comments):

J de la Cruz • 2 hours ago Remember their investigations revealed that he rode a taxicab kuno to RWM with bottles of kerosene or gasoline and a long assault rifle. How can you lug all of those to the casino without getting noticed? Their stories has a lot of holes.

uh , yes.

I mean, here you get frisked when you go to the mall, and to get into the bank, you pass a security guard with a shotgun or handgun. They even have a sign that you have to leave your gun with the security guard at the door.

So did the casino lack security?

And at Rappler, the President asked this question: Why were the people trapped inside? 

One question – bakit walang exit na marami (why weren't there many exits)?" the President said on Sunday, June 4.
"The hotel has to explain to us bakit walang mga exit kaagad (why the victims were unable to leave immediately). He hit in the small rooms, [the] storage [area], and in the toilets, in the comfort room, and they died of suffocation. And to think there's only one son of a bitch running a rampage there," Duterte also said.

A lone gunman, identified as former Department of Finance (DOF) employee Jessie Carlos, had stormed Resorts World Manila in Pasay City past midnight on Friday, June 2. Armed with an M4 automatic rifle and a bottle of gasoline, he fired shots and set gaming tables ablaze in the casino.

Crazy world

You know it's crazy when Wikileaks, the heroes of the left, are being morphed into "Russia! stole the election from Hillary!" for their leaks that she stole the primaries from Bernie.

Ah  but now, Climate change is being explained as a economic scam of big corportations: By a very right wing site.

To understand the larger objectives of the global and financial elite it is important to understand the three-decade global financial construct they now seek to protect. Global financial exploitation of national markets:
♦Multinational corporations purchase controlling interests in various national elements of developed industrial western nations.

♦The Multinational Corporations making the purchases are underwritten by massive global financial institutions, multinational banks.
♦The Multinational Banks and the Multinational Corporations then utilize lobbying interests to manipulate the internal political policy of the targeted nation state(s).
♦With control over the targeted national industry or interest, the multinationals then leverage export of the national asset (exfiltration) through trade agreements structured to the benefit of lesser developed nation states – where they have previously established a proactive financial footprint.

The ‘America First’ Trump-Trade Doctrine upsets the entire construct of this multinational export/control dynamic. Team Trump focuses exclusively on bilateral trade deals with specific policy only looking out for the national interests of the United States.

Under President Trump’s Trade positions exfiltration of U.S. national wealth is essentially stopped. This puts multinational corporations, globalists who previously took a stake-hold in the U.S. economy with intention to export the wealth, in a position of holding interest of an asset they can no longer exploit.
Multinational banks have underwritten multinational corporations to own and control U.S. assets and industries.  The multinationals then hire K-Street Lobbyists, Tom Donohue (U.S CoC) etc., to create/write the political policy which allows the exploitation and exfiltration of the U.S. asset and U.S. industry.  Climate change political policy is part of that legislative tool.
President Trump has STOPPED the entire system dead in its tracks.

and h goes on to show how Global warming is just part of this scam.

I'd scoff at this, but you know, the outline of this plan was described by Robert Reich over 20 years ago in his book the work of Nations.

From Library Journal
According to Harvard economist Reich, author of The Resurgent Liberal ( LJ 8/89), we are going through a historic transformation that is rearranging the politics and economics of the 1990s and the 21st century.

Economies are no longer simply national in scope but global, rewarding the most skilled around the world with ever greater wealth while consigning the less skilled to declining standards of living. He sees the global work forces as already divided into three groups: routine producers (e.g., data processors), in-person servers (e.g., librarians), and symbolic analysts who manipulate symbols for large profits (e.g., financial wizards). In 1989, these analysts comprised about one-fifth of the population of the United States, but they earned more than half the income. As the rich get richer and the rest get poorer, Reich urges a national recommitment to the productivity and competitiveness of all citizens. 

Reich, is too naive to include theft, kickbacks, corruption and skimming off the top in all of this, but therea re enough banking, Wall street and political scandals in the US to wonder about this, and remember: The US is a lot more honest than much of the world.  No body dares to notice that third world politicians, not poor people, will be the ones who benefit the most.

Slingshots: It wasn't just King David

SenseOfEvents links to a NatGeo article on Roman slingshots.

Roman soldiers armed with slings used these lead bullets to mow down foes. A skilled slinger could hit a target smaller than a person from 130 yards away.

PHOTOGRAPH BY JOHN REID

it wasn't just Roman soldiers: In Xenaphon's March to the Sea, they were confronted with an enemy who was hitting them with similar weapons. So he asked around and found men who had learned to use the slingshot, and organized them to fight back.



more here oat Wikipedia

and here .at lloydianaspects has an excellent article on why the sling is such a great weapon and why it is underrated: it's not macho.

The sling seems to be something of an under-rated weapon. Many wargamers see the bow as the ancient missile weapon, used by competent soldiers, whereas ignorant barbarian peasants use slings.

In truth, the sling is an effective weapon, and has many distinct advantages over the bow. The item itself is much smaller than the bow, easier to carry and conceal. I have made a few slings, and find that when folded and bound up by their own strings, they become a soft tiny bundle which can be slipped into a pocket and forgotten about. To do this with a bow, one would need special pockets.

most of th stuff on line about slingshots are rubber type modern weapons, but this film shows how to make one fron scratch... literally, starting with getting fiber from leaves.

To use it, the loop is slipped over the finger and the knot is held down with the thumb. A stone is placed in the pouch and the sling swung over head. At the appropriate time the sling is swung forward in a throwing action and the knot held in the hand is let go. This causes the pouch to open and the stone to fly (hopefully) towards the target.

Family news

Joy went to Bulacan, and Ruby is with a church seminar for young people in Manila.

A couple of days, all the cats disappeared from the cats' room: no, not dead, they just moved into the storage room upstairs where there are no dogs.

Turning on my computer at 5 am I found that Windows said I had to reboot it for updates... that took two hour, so no blogging right now, since most of my surfing is done early in the AM.

Thunderstorms every evening discourage using the internet: I once got a "blue screen of death" when I forgot to unplug my computer, and now the roof is leading again in the area of the chair where I usually sit to blog. Sigh. Oh well: It keeps me from going crazy with paranoia over the state of the world.

Mushroom poisoning

A lot of naive city folk think herbs and mushrooms from nature are wonderful to eat.

CDC report on mushroom poisoning in Northern California.

I lost a few patients with this when I worked in rural Africa, where presumably people knew mushrooms because they lived close to the land. Nevertheless, sometimes they too made a mistake in identification.: Their livers shut down and there is nothing you can do.

However, a few of the patients in California survived, thanks to liver transplants.

News and other things

I've been at the dentist all morning, and came home to find the dog ate my electric wire to the computer. ( time this happened: But this was another dog). Why just that wire? I's a Chinese computer so maybe it tastes differently.

The attack in Manila is now reported as a robbery gone wrong, but usually they underreport terror attacks, and there is a real worry about Tagalog ethnics being radicalized while working in Saudi, so  my take is that it is a "lone wolf" attack. No report if the dead were locals or tourists, but most died from the fire.

we have the drug rehab center down the street, and the halal meat shop around the corner, but no problem. The main danger is violent robbery.

The president left the Paris accord. It was a treaty that President Obama signed without allowing congress to vote on it, as the constitution insists they need to do. I preferred he put it to the vote, but hey, live ty the unilateral presidential pen, die by the unilateral presidential pen.

A lot of the "reparations" would of course go to crooked politicians, in the same way we see the money sent to the typhoon victims, the rice for the poor, or the fertilizer for poor farmers ended up in the bank accounts of politicians.... and we aren't even the most corrupt nation in the world.



of course, you will only watch sound bites. He makes a lot of good points. I was under the impression he was nuts and unorganized, but this speech like a few other recent ones, seem to make sense. Fracking and natural gas is one thing that changes things. Poverty and unemployment kills too.

I'd better watch it: I seem to be morphing from a Bernie Bro to a Trumpette. And I'm not the only one.

Audiobook of the week

quick, before the copyright cops find it: Someone has posted a bunch of Janet Evanovich audiobooks on Youtube.



Hint: Grandmom Mazur pulls a Dirty Harry at 8:45





and warning: Put down coffee before listening.

Actually, I have the series with me, up to number 16...

Fresco in catecomb restored

UKTelegraph has story and photos.

Christian frescos, with pagan motifs. And frescos of grain shipments.

Stories below the fold

For later reading on my tablet, after my second cup of coffee:

StrategyPage on Syria.

. Another embarrassment is the success of Russian air power and ground forces (mainly special operations and artillery) to help the Assad forces win back territory. Until 2016 Iranian forces were seen as the key to Assad survival and the Assads were not shy about praising their Iranian saviors. But that changed in 2017 as the Iranian alliance with Turkey and Russia began to come apart. Iran blames this on Israel which, in this case, is partially correct.

Israel knows that Iran wants to establish a pro-Iranian militia in Syria similar to Hezbollah in Lebanon. The Assads know this would mean they would have to share power in Syria with Iran. Most Syrians don’t care for this, just as most Lebanese don’t care for the Hezbollah presence since the 1980s. No one, including Russia, Turkey and Israel, want another Hezbollah established in Syria. Iran will not back down on this and that has damaged their relationships with their allies.

Meanwhile Iran continues to suffer embarrassing setbacks in Syria.

Didn't  Obama back the Iranians, the State Dept backed the Sunni rebels (who morphed into ISIS) and now Trumpie boy is backing the Sunni/Israeli anti ISIS axis...

One of these days I'll get things right.

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I was watching a video yesterday on the Sahara desert, and they mentioned the earth's wobble, that caused the monsoon rain cycle to move south.



Wikipedia on the Milankovitch cycle.

More here at Space.com

related item at richochet,  via  Instapundit.

there is a difference between being a science denier and distrusting computer simulations that might not have all the variables into account.


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Did Obama hack the election? Watergate redux,

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The Great Reef is dying. Global warming is the cause. The Crown of thorn starfish is to blame.

Key points: Crown-of-thorns starfish can strip a reef of coral during an outbreak when the number of predators explodes Analysis of their DNA and proteins in water-borne plumes when they spawn reveals the molecules they use to attract other starfish Researchers say the molecules could be used to make baits to control the predator's spread

these cycles occur every 17 years.

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battle of the artists.

Charging bull was a symbol of the aggressive free market..

fearless girl changed that theme to make the bull a symbol of toxic masculinity, essentially changing the art work's message.

The original artist sued but will likely not win due to free speech.

So round three: Pissing dog.

So here comes another sculptor Alex Gardega adding another sculpture to the Bull + Girl set. He's installed "Pissing Pug" at the girl's feet:

“I decided to build this dog and make it crappy to downgrade the statue, exactly how the girl is a downgrade on the bull,” said Gardega....

my only comment is that "fearless girl" is dressed in a 1950's style dress. Why?

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Family news

Ruby and Joy got back from Korea (via Manila and Baguio side trips) last night. I'll get the full reports later,.