(big) Cat item of the day

According to StrategyPage, the South African AirForce is using cheetahs to lower the incidence of bird strikes on their airplanes.

 cheetahs raised in the breeding programs are comfortable enough around humans to be released onto military air bases so they can hunt (and chase away) large concentrations of birds or small animals who are, if left alone, are a major threat to aircraft landing or taking off. Young male cheetahs are used, because in the wild they will hunt together while the females are generally solitary.

WWJD? or die of food poisoning if you love Jesus

well, first we had the "faith based" outreach to stop using energy, and then we had the Pope play a "green themed" light show on St Peters.

So what is the latest faith based outreach that we will be told we have to embrace if we want to prove we are good people?GetReligion reports on the "faith based" outreach to stop "wasting" food.

"That shalt not toss food."That was the headline on an NPR report this week on the government enlisting religious groups to help fight America's food waste:

Separation of church and state? When it comes to fighting food waste, the U.S. government is looking to partner up with the faithful.

The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday launched the Food Steward's Pledge, an initiative to engage religious groups of all faiths to help redirect the food that ends up in landfills to hungry mouths. It's one piece of the agency'slarger plan to reduce food waste by 50 percent by 2030.

No analysis why or who throws out the food.
Leftovers on plates can not be recycled. Left over food in the main dishes can be refrigerated, but if it was on the table too long, it might give you food poisoning when reheated. Finally, for singles or the elderly, often these food are thrown out.

Many stores and restaurants give away leftovers to staff, sell packaged food at a discount (e.g. over date bread), or send it to nearby food banks or soup kitchens, or send it to local pig farms.

But like a lot of recycling, often the cost is higher than just throwing it out.

Ah, but if it is wasted because it goes into "landfills", then why not just separate food items from paper and plastics, and let it rot into fertilizer? Because of the cost, of course.

So I do have a problem with this being made a moral point, because it is the government trying to hijack religion for what is essentially an economic, not a moral reason.

and before you throw out that leftover food, remember:

And as a doc, it makes me shudder: Eating "old" food is a major cause of food poisoning.

and no, we don't have a lot of leftover food here in the Philippines. The dogs eat it.

stuff around the web

CSMonitor article on Chinese facepaint/cosmetics that are contaminated with heavy metals.

but the consumer advocate group behind the report insists this was "unintentional" but due to  “a lack of manufacturer testing and regulatory oversight.”"

No, it is because the country is corrupt, and either the law is not there, no one bothers to check if the law is followed, or a small bribe will get you a pass: And using these dangerous ingredients is cheaper than using quality control and non toxic ingredients.

Nor is it just with cosmetics:

 In 2007,The Christian Science Monitor’s Peter Ford wrote about a spate of regulatory oversights by China on exports to the US, including pet food contaminated with toxic waste, defective truck tires, lead paint in toys, and even poisonous toothpaste. While Beijing began a concerted effort to crack down on these violators, Ford suggested the real culprit is a lack of free elections, press, and independent courts:

no, it's the corruption stupid: elections and a free press won't stop you if a bribe lets you get away with it.

related link: Poisonous makeup has a long history..

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calling art bell post of the day:
who is that dude in the clouds?
(headsupDaveBarry)
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latest book from the Metropolitan Museum of art LINK masterpieces of painting

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Spiked explains how "transgenderism" evolved from a personal choice that moralists could condemn and ordinary folks disdain, to a medical condition that was outside the moral law, to a right that is backed by the gov't (which will silence you if you dare disagree).

But of course, this is only part of a much larger "gender agenda", which will eliminate the family, make children the enemy, and make women and men the same.

even the Pope knows this and has pointed out the problem:

Sexual differentiation, therefore, exists not for creating conflict or a situation of subordination, but for reciprocity and fruitfulness -- "for communion and generation, always in the image and likeness of God," the pope said.

read the whole thing...

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Out: Schroedinger's cat

In: the quantum Pidgeon.

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did you miss national Squirrel appreciation day ?

Picture: Alamy

(more Photos here).

Quote of the day

From Uncle Orson, who after reviewing a "well I abandoned my kids to follow my dream" and after watching the survival type "reality shows" where the feminists treat those who helped them (and would keep them alive if the situation was real) like dirt, because in reality shows no one dies, comments:

It's like a lovely quote I read the other day (and promptly forgot the source): If everybody thinks outside the box, who's going to take care of the box?We glorify rule-breakers, selfish people who "follow their dream," and prickly self-righteous Offended Ones who allow themselves to become annoyed by trivialities.
And the number of people who tend to the box, who take responsibility for the well-being of others, who absorb many a word and many a harm without lashing out -- those are the people who keep civilization alive.

Psst: Looking for dirt on Bill Clinton?

Alamogirl has more stuff than you can read, most of it from MSM articles gathered and posted by the Freepers back in the 1990's.

Tolkien podcast of the week

I can't find the RSS feed, but Professor Potts latest class includes lectures on Tolkien's books.

I listened to his earlier classes on children's literature awhile back and he is a good teacher.

And USCSD has lots of podcasts, but alas they are starting to lock some of them down...

Family News

I have contracted with one of our workers to finish the shelter over my husband's grave. I had a contract, but after the second payment (for supplies) they didn't do any work, so the place is half finished.

I really can't afford it, but if construction is to be done, it needs to be done now, during the dry season.

In the meanwhile, the apartment/small house in Manila that my husband willed to my granddaughter will have to be repaired so we can put in a new tenant (the old one's lease expired, and the roof is now leaking). Sigh. Goodbye savings. I should be okay if I don't get sick.

Joy is working with the Dept of Agriculture to develop organic rice etc. in other areas, so she is at another meeting.

Chano will do regular rice planting on our own fields.

Today is another brown out, but we got the large generator on so the internet is now working.

Some locals men came over and asked if they could trim the leaves and remove the half ripe coconuts from our tree, since the electricity is off and since the older branches could fall and cut the electric lines in a storm they are a danger.

So we said yes, paid them a small tip, and then fed them some cocacola and crackers and let them have most of the coconuts they removed.

we used to have a lot of such trees, but once they get tall (30 feet) they are a danger, and then the city removed those along the side road when they widened the irrigation ditch there. Did I tell you the new ditch is covered? An improvement.

The new puppie is still crying at night, so I put him in the back yard, and later our watchman brought him in for company where he sleeps in the front room. After everyone left, he again was put in the front yard, but when I looked for him, he wasn't there...he had fallen into a small hole and was sleeping quietly... and had to be rescued.

Stories against the talking points

a lot of the pundits are wondering why Sarah Palin, who they hate and have caricatured as a rabid conservative, would back a nutty pragmatic businessman like Trump.

Well, maybe because her caricature is at odds with her actual record.

From the Oregonian in 2011 on her taking on the entrenched Alaskan oil companies.

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ReasonBlog notes that an upcoming Newsweek article will blow apart the main witness as a known liar in the Philadelphia altar boy scandal that put several priests in jail.

headsup Instapundit

reminds me of a case we had in central PA: the accuser was known to be lying, but was coached by his older brother, who had met the priest in a local gay bar and saw a suit as a way to get easy money.

The jury knew this (the entire diocese knew this) but they gave them money anyway, knowing that the bishop had left other priests off the hook for real crimes because they persuaded the families not to report.

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re previous post: SenseOfEvents discusses the US gov't classification system, and what it means.

There are three classification labels. From lowest to highest they are Confidential, Secret and Top Secret.
Each label is a notice as to what level of physical (think, "lock and key") security the document or material is required to receive. That is, a TS document must be maintained under stricter physical security than a Secret document, which in turn must be maintained under stricter physical security than a Confidential document. And the same applies for electronic security.
And that is really all that classification labels do: require certain levels of physical or electronic security.

this is basic stuff, and why a lot of folks are upset at Hillary's lack of security for her private email system.

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StrategyPage says ISIS is sucessful partly because they hired Sadam's old administrators.

after Petreus managed to turn them around to stop the terrorists, it was thrown away:

That effort (Sunni insurgency) was crushed by 2008 but the corrupt Shia government forced the Americans out in 2011 and, ignoring U.S. advice, froze out the Sunni Arabs and drove many right back to the Islamic terrorist groups

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The Chinese landed a plane on one of their artificial islands in the West Philippine sea, sending a shudder not only to us but to Korea and Japan, who use the sealanes to get much of their oil etc.

  but the real reason for the sealane grab is this: oil.
Ha   the Vietnamese call the area the East Vietanamese sea.

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HIV mystery: Few HIV cases in the Philippines, but a recent upsurge in cases.

Along with India and Pakistan, the Philippines is seeing new infections and AIDS-related deaths sharply rise among men who have sex with men and among transgender women, sex workers and people who inject drugs.

My opinion? low number because of "tuli" and Catholicism. Local gays are integrated into village society but pretty well limit their activity.

Upsurge: the pro gay (pro promiscuity) pressure form the US gov't and media: the bar scene in Makati is pretty "rough", similar to that in the USA... and the increase in gay sex tourism...

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Politicians vs the military

Some of the press is reporting that General Petreus  is being demoted because he "shared classified information" with his girlfriend/reporter while in Afghanistan, implying she had no security clearance and that this was a no no.

But I wondered about that, since she had been in the National Guard, and I know that we officers were checked and given a "secret" clearance (albeit not higher, at least for NG doctors).

But IBD does confirm this.

As CIA director, Petraeus shared classified notebooks with his biographer/mistress, who also had security clearance.

No classified intel appeared in the book, "All In." Petraeus was allowed to plead guilty to unauthorized handling of classified intelligence, fined $100,000 and put on two years' probation. 

so why the witchhunt?

Petreus, with the backing of President Bush who backed him with an increase in soldiers, managed to turn the ordinary Sunni leaders against the radicals (religious and Saddam's bad guys). It was a classic counterinsurgency operation, right out of the Magsaysay playbook (PDF). Link2

And, one wonders if, like Magsaysay, he could have gone on to be a beloved president who rooted out a lot of corruption. Hence the need to destroy him politically.

I haven't read it, but if you want to read it, the US Army's latest counterinsurgency manual is HERE (PDF)...and note who wrote the introduction...

headsup Instapundit 

BBC praises Dubya?!

A BBC article noted how Bush 2 may have saved the planet even though he opposed the Kyoto agreement, because  the proposal he devised a few years later was actually more acceptable for the world.

The Bush team proposed that the major global economies responsible for the vast majority of emissions come together and each publish national plans that would outline the way they would curb carbon from 2012 to 2030. The concept was termed "pledge and review".
Fast forward to December 2015 and 195 nations of the world seems to have signed up to a version of an idea cooked up by the Bush Administration to sidestep the broad based, consensus approach of the UN .
Oh the irony!
An important caveat is the role played by President Obama in taking on the Bush bottom up approach and making it something every country should implement, not just the very big emitters.
"This is sort of a new, neo-liberal way of governing climate change, it's voluntary, it's bottom up and it's not clear that it's going to deliver in the end," said Prof Timmons Roberts from Brown University in the US.
"What has surprised me this year is how much more positive 2015 is, than when this was first brought into the system in Copenhagen by Obama himself and the BASIC countries (Brazil South Africa, India and China), getting this pledge and review system in place and solidified in Cancun in 2010."

summary:

Ask us nicely and tell us we don't have to do it, and everybody falls into line

yes, and maybe ask people with expertise in business and economics, instead of just pushing a green agenda made up by activists who think living a primitive life is the way to go.

Rants and eyerolls

Big kerfuffle because Trump said "two corinthians" instead of "second Corinthians".. it is not a mistake but using the British terminology.

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13 hours is not political per se: It is about technocrats vs those who actually know what is going on, says the NYPost.

It’s the old story of nerds vs. jocks. ....
 ’13 Hours’ dramatizes … what’s going on in the country: bureaucratic indifference on the one side, things going up in flames on the other.
Nerds may be adequate leaders when everything is going smoothly. But when there are jihadis gathering with rocket launchers outside the gate, send for a jock.

And they say that will help Trump.

no, I haven't seen the movie.
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via FatherZ: links to a book review on Cardinal Sarah's new book.

a church of nice..."who am I to judge"

if you live in the third world, where family is the only thing that protects women, children, and the elderly, you realize that these sexual sins that are winked at in the west really do hurt people.


the Pope is busy blasting those who refuse to change, but doesn't define what changes he is talking about.

is he talking about trivia (meat on Friday, wearing a hat in mass) or about important things (the sacredness of marriage, the ten commandments)?

without defining what he means, he is being used by "reformers" to blast the quiet believers who try to do the right thing and have the nerve to judge sinful deeds as sinful.

or as Camus noted:

The evil in the world comes almost always from ignorance, and goodwill can cause as much damage as ill-will if it is not enlightened. 

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update: David Warren's comments on the clueless Francis is much better than mine. And he has links  link2 for theologically minded.

Family news

The Puppy is back from the vet and starting to eat...it cried a lot last night, so I didn't sleep well...I had to keep getting up to comfort it.

Brownout yesterday...city water was off too so we put our pump back on.

water water everywhere

The latest contaminated water problem in the US is in Flint Mi. LINK

from contaminated river water

but a couple years ago, it was in Washington DC

the lead pipe problem

Lead is a major cause of ADHD and mental retardation and we used to screen our 2 year olds for it.

In the past, it was from kids eating flaked paint in older buildings, before they stopped using it in paint. (lead is sweet) and some from leaded gas air pollution.

The Flint problem will be politicized, but it is actually the tip of an iceburg: When I lived in Appalachea, our drinking water was upstream from the mine runoff, but everyone went to springs for water or bought it in the grocery store.

Science news

Why get measles vaccine? Well, if you have ever seen one case of this, you would get your kid the shot.

this kid, who received one dose of the vaccine at 8 months in the Philippines, shows the problem of the vaccine: At 8 months, the child still has some of it's mother's antibodies, so he won't get full protection (which is why MMR is given after one year). And the vaccine is temperature sensative: If it gets too warm (e.g. in a brownout when the refrigerator goes off, or from being left out too long) it is less potent and doesn't work as well.

And of course, in Africa and poor countries, the mortality from measles is high: Measles vaccine has saved17 million lives since the year 2000, according to the WHO.

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Don't get a heart attack above the 16th floor.

they suspect the problem is the slowness in getting there.

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Light activated nano particles might kill superbugs.

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answering the important scientific questions of the day:


Can a pet increase your sex appeal?

yes, but only if it is a dog...

Sigh Pseudoscience on PBS? Say it isn't so

A couple posts back, I linked to the "first peoples" series that was on PBS Nova.

I tend to enjoy such programs, and the main problem is too often these programs on Discovery/History channel morph into pseudoarcheology. Of course, when Smithsonianiand PBS and the BBC get into Jesus stuff, they tend to go off the deep end of printing rumor/gossip as fact ("Jesus" tomb...ossuary of James...jesus in India) so usually I avoid "biblical" programs or take them with a grain of salt.

However,the bad news is that now it seems even simple archeological discussions on PBS is descending into C2C or "history" channel type pseudo science.

You see, a couple minutes into the show, they talk of the discovery of a skeleton deep in a cave, and start discussing why she was buried there.

Fair enough. But since they didn't tell us the proof it was a burial, (position of skeleton, grave goods) (other skeletons were found in nearby caves, as were the remains of large animals) I will have to take that statement with a grain of salt.

But hey, this is TV, not somewhere the discusses the arguments of trivia, right?

But then....

So to find out why she was buried there, they interview a "shaman", who mumbles something about going deep into a cave was the way to be in touch with the spirits or something to that effect...and then we see him smoking frog venom to get a vision. At that point, the film changes the subject, so we won't know if ET or bigfoot put her there.

Uh, since when are 20th century shamans experts at ALL the religions of all the tribes that existed in that are15000 years ago?

and since when is getting a hallucination a scientific way to figure out what went on? Why not just call "psychic hotline" and ask about her?

Finally, the "Shaman" was not a traditional Indian: He was a man with a thick black beard and European features, (or maybe he was metziso). So what tribe was he representing? The Pre-Druid shamans of ancient Hispania?

Note to PBS: If you have a question on why a burial person might be deep in a cave, please check with an expert in comparative religions with expertise in traditional religions of various tribes.

and of course, they don't provide proof she was buried or if she got lost there hiding from someone or if she was just looking for water and got lost, lke Naia

and the PBS series stressed she predated the "clovis people"...

Uh, even I know that the Clovis hypothesis is no longer viable and that maybe Amerindians came down by coastal migrations, not via the hole in the glaciers.

However, a lot of folks might not know that, so I have no problem with that part of the program.

the Wikipedia page for this dead lady suggests that although her skeleton is southern Asian, her DNA is AmerIndian, and they note it supports the coastal migration theory.

Fair enough.

nor is this lady the only skeleton that is questioning the Clovis theory.

Other cave burials include the Luzia woman.. and Naia, who  scientist think was probably buried when she fell fetching water.

I will eventually go back and watch the whole series, but when the report dips into superstition in the first ten minutes, excuse me if I hesitate to believe anything else in the film.

Kipling

With Disney's new version of the Jungle book coming out, it may be a time to remember Kipling, whose imperialistic outlook made him a bit passes, to say the least.

BBC tells the story of Kipling's son, missing in action presumed killed, in WWI, and how it affected his father.

InOurTime podcast on Kipling




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previous version: Jungle Book1942

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the delightful Disney cartoon



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the audiobook at Librivox 

I know he wrote Kim and Just So Stories, but I forgot he wrote Captains Courageous and Gunga Din...

and I always thought the movie "The Man who would be king" was a metaphor for imperialism: Going in to get rich, taking over by accident, and then trying to reform society to be more civilized, only to have the locals object violently: because they think their customs aren't as bad as you think they are, and also because you are a foreigner, and what gave you the right to tell them what to do?
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Family news

The Puppy is still in the vet's, on IV's but has stopped convulsing. If she starts to eat and stops vomiting, I'll bring her home tomorrow.

The Little Know history of salt

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more at Medievalist blog

Conspiracy theory: nothing new here

The libeling of the monarchs by the philosophs etc. before the French Revolution is well known, but the Mad Monarchist wonders how much of the "history" we "know" about Louis XVI is agiprop that was planted by the Brits.

and wonders what would have happened if they had gotten back Canada, reformed SE Asia and forced the Brits to pull back in India etc.

And it notes that the military used by Napoleon was built upon Louis' reforms.

Of course, the backstory of all this was that France was broke, and badly in need of reform, as Mike Duncan relates in his revolutions podcast.

Not my area of expertise...

headsup TeaAtTrianon

Stuff around the web

Professor Mary Beard visits Iceland, swims in a hot pool and eats at an Indian restaurant.

well, it probably tasted better than Hakarl or other yummie Icelandic dishes...

Þorramatur consists of many different foods, including:

• Kæstur hákarl, fermented Greenland shark.
• Súrsaðir hrútspungar, the testicles of rams pressed in blocks, boiled and cured in lactic acid.
• Svið, singed and boiled sheep heads, sometimes cured in lactic acid.
• Sviðasulta, head cheese or brawn made fromsvið, sometimes cured in lactic acid.
• Lifrarpylsa (liver sausage), a pudding made from liver and suet of sheep kneaded with rye flour and oats.
• Blóðmör (blood-suet; also known as slátur lit.'slaughter'), a type of blood pudding made from lamb's blood and suet kneaded with rye flour and oats.
• Harðfiskur, wind-dried fish (often cod,haddock or seawolf), served with butter.
• Rúgbrauð (rye bread), traditional Icelandic rye bread.
• Hangikjöt, (hung meat), smoked and boiled lamb or mutton, sometimes also eaten raw.

no, Lutefisk isn't there.

Guess they don't eat the favorite cuisine of Minnesota...

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On the Beach made a lot of people anti war, but was inaccurate scientifically.
 (Headsup Instapundit)

yes, but Norway/Shute wrote a similar book before WWII, about a family fleeing their town being bombed, so his point was that ordinary people wouldn't panic but would live out their ordinary life til the end.

But I do agree with the writer that the problem was that they accepted the end too quietly (everyone killed themselves) when maybe there were ways to protect themselves and live.

Catholics, of course, would be forbidden to commit suicide....

So in a Canticle for Leibowitz,  not only are the mutants are protected by the church and later the monks are trying to stop euthanasia of those injured by radiation sickness).

NewYorker Book Review from 2014 HERE.



so when the WAGD stuff is being predicted, I remember when a lot of folks thought we'd all be snuffed out by Uncle Joe's bombs before we grew up....and indeed, a weak Kennedy, who only wanted peace, was seen as weak, and brought the world to the edge of war when Russia called his bluff.

Which is why the war in VietNam was started: To show by proxy that the US wouldn't back down.

And those "anti war" folks who pat themselves on the back for their "brave" stance in the land of safety conveniently overlook two things:

One, the massacres, genocides and massive refugee problems that happened when the US withdrew.

Two: That the war did not stop the dominos from hitting Cambodia and Laos, who also had their massacres and tyrannies, but did save Thailand and other nearby countries.

In the Philippines, despite the leftists in the US and the Catholic left from cheering the communists on, they did not win: (the triumph of democracy by Tita Cory is not just about getting rid of Marcos, but about the people at the grass roots choosing democracy over the communist tyranny beloved of local intellectuals).

which was the point of the Iraq war, which essentially was won but the country needed time to stablize, when the pacifists decided that peace through strength was wrong and took the troops out: They figured to bring peace with weakness was the answer.

heh. Guess no one reads history: Wonder what would have happened in Germany in 1950 if no troops were there? Probably the riots and mobs similar to the 1920's...

so Shiite Sunni war redux might be the result, with nukes...

related item from Instapundit:

I SAW THIS YESTERDAY, AND IT’S GOOD ADVICE: General James ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis Email About Being ‘Too Busy To Read’ Is A Must-Read. “The problem with being too busy to read is that you learn by experience (or by your men’s experience), i.e. the hard way. By reading, you learn through others’ experiences, generally a better way to do business, especially in our line of work where the consequences of incompetence are so final for young men. . . . Ultimately, a real understanding of history means that we face NOTHING new under the sun.”

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First known when lost has

poetry and art, and today's poem written in 1939, could be a prophecy of today.

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