stuff below the fold

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

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

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

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

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

this article has more on Hitler's Atlantic wall.

Ianthe Ruthven

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

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

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

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

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

Aid workers have been attacked.

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

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Ten ways to swat a fly.

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

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

/s

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the dark side of Yodel valley.

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it's not just the Pope and Miley Cyrus:

The CIA joins Twitter and Facebook.

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update: From Dustbury:

 

CIAVerified account‏@CIA

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

•  Reply 
•  Retweeted 
•  Favorite 

• RETWEETS204,975
• FAVORITES118,026
• 

Psst: it's a good story

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

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

The really important news story of the day

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

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

Mark your calenders

for next year:

June 5 is dead duck day.

The website explains why.

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

D Day

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

Remembering a time when Honor was not a dirty word.

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related item:

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

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

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

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

Stuff below the fold plus rants

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

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

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

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

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

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David Warren remembers Tiananman square.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hedgehogs

Hedgehogs are now becoming popular pets, according to the CSMonitor

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

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




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

Silk road redux

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

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

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

Racism!

RACISM!

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

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

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

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

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

Viking nicknames

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

Male Norse Nicknames

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

Female Norse Nicknames

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

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

Stuff around the net

MariaElena of TeaAtTrianon has a new book being released.

congratulations.

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

she also has Pinoy roots...

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Eight videos about Beowulf.

all lectures.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Mother jones remembers the Bhophal disaster.

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

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

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was ransomed soldier a CIA agent?

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

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

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

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

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

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update 2 others wonder too.

Gift item of the day

 a "CAMO" bowtie.

but isn't that forest camoflage?

At least Teddy wears the pixalated desert pattern.

VA problems? Yup. There was a film on that

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

Roger Ebert's review here.

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

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

Comments on the news

Cleaning day, so I'll be busy.

My comments/rants on the news.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Plague anyone?

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

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

FAMILY NEWS

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

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

Silk road stuff

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

It's from Scribd.

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

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

Stuff written elsewhere

I haven't written on BNN for awhile, mainly because the brownouts mess up the internet connection and I tended to post there later in the afternoon. Also the fact my laptop only works when plugged in (And crashes if there is a brownout or if the cat plays with the wire) But over at my medical blog:

NANOPARTICLE DANGER?

MomJones article on nanoparticles, which have been introduced into a lot of stuff without checking if they can cause problems.

bad science study of the day

Anti psychotic medicines increase diabetes in pregnancy.

Well, actually most older antipsychotics result in obesity (either by increasing appetite or by slowing down movement because they induce mild parkinsonian side effects and slow the general thinking/acting/moving of the patient).

I see fat people

LATimes laments 2.1 billion people are fat.

blame modern agriculture, the green revolution, and of course, the fact that modern capitalism spreads wealth.

Trying to stop the psychotic

killing by the psychotic delusional paranoids who can't be stopped due to laws

Who needs death panels when the doctor will do it for you?

NotDeadYet discusses when docs try to override caretaker's wishes to give ORDINARY treatment to the disabled.

Rabies

BBC article on Rabies. for later reading.

MERS in the US: DUH

so one of the Americans who treated MERS patients in Saudi got flu like symptoms and sat in the ER for 8 hours before admitted.

And NOW they will be screening at airports, as they have been doing for over a week here since a suspected case arrived here back then.