We have to admit that the election of 2016 is anything but normal….it has gotten damn right wacky. So wacky that I am tuning most of it out. There is only so much manure can be spread before my eyes glaze over and I turn to more interesting events and situations.
I have been looking for some historical perspective much to the chagrin of my readers….in the past their have been outsider candidates, convention fights and the atypical candidate…….and then I found a good piece in Consortium News….sure saved me a lot of headache trying to write something…..
The year was 1968 and it is a good one too……
Longtime observers of American politics have noted striking parallels between the unpredictable wartime election of 1968 and the bizarre presidential contest of 2016, another time of war and distress, as Michael Winship recalls.
Watching the mad, mad, mad, mad world that is the 2016 presidential campaign, I was trying to remember a presidential campaign that was as jaw-dropping, at least in my lifetime, and easily settled on 1968.
For those too young to remember, imagine: As fighting in Vietnam rages on and the Tet Offensive makes us all too aware of the futility of our Southeast Asian military fiasco, Minnesota Sen. Eugene McCarthy decides to run as an antiwar candidate against incumbent President Lyndon Johnson.
This country is always having a debate about taxes….do we need more….or maybe it should be less…..In reality if people would pay attention to where their taxes go I think the conversation would change considerably….
If you are one of the lucky few that makes $50,000 a year your taxes can be broken down thusly…
For about a year Saudi Arabia with the help of the US has been bombing the crap out of a small country called Yemen.
The most popular reason for this “war” is that the Sunni Saudis were concerned about the rise of the Shia Houthi militias….once the Houthi started having success against the government of Yemen the Saudis felt they had to intercede to protect themselves and the Holy Shrines of the peninsula…..and the only way to do that was to start an all over invasion of the country….but mostly through an air campaign…..
After a year….the Houthi are still fighting and the only major deaths have been those of Yemeni civilians….
But is there more to this war than the protection of some sites?
A recent PBS report about the war in Yemen exposed the secret connection between the U.S.-Saudi alliance and Al Qaeda, a reality that also underscores the jihadist violence in Syria, writes Daniel Lazare.
PBS Frontline’s “Yemen Under Siege,” which aired on May 3, makes for powerful viewing. A first-hand look at the devastation that the U.S., Saudi Arabia, and other powers have visited on one of the poorest countries in the Middle East, the 35-minute documentary shows families struggling amid the rubble, children dying from mortar attacks, surgeons operating without anesthesia, and other such horrors.
But the most important revelation comes almost as an aside. Interviewing pro-Saudi fighters near the central Yemeni city of Taiz, journalist Safa Al Ahmad suddenly hears shouting. “What’s wrong?” she asks. “Who are they? They don’t want me to be here?”
I love to use the 4 most beautiful words in the English language…..”I told you so”…..
I have written en op-ed for my friends at Legationes about the region in question…..which is a paper that I researched several years ago……and it is good to see that my predictions are getting close to realization…..well not good but rather interesting……(read more)…..
There is a theory in international relations called the linchpin theory….basically, it is an occurrence, a small occurrence, that could explode into a society ending situation……a couple of good examples are WW1 and the Arab Spring…..
By Brandon Turbeville Regardless of which side you choose to listen to in the Armenian/Azeri conflict, one thing everyone can agree on is that the ceasefire is not holding. The regularly ignited di…
The events in this situation are starting to accelerate…..the question is….how much damage will this event do? Could this becoming a wider conflict? Will the major powers become involved?
Could this be the linchpin I have been looking for or is it just a minor thing that will get worked out in the end?
A Sunday and pleasant weather and a granddaughter that kicked my butt in Dominoes……she is out for revenge….
We Americans are suckers……we will fall for every gimmick and fad around. You jumped all over the kale BS….the juicer BS and the idea of a “slider”…..back during the mid to late 19th century we had traveling salesmen that sold “snake oil”….a cure for everything that ailed one…..pimples, hemis, liver, heart and STDs…..
I recall my youth and my grandmother that thought all health came from regular bowel movements…..an apple a day sort of thing……that brings me to the con job sold to us about probiotics……we have special pills….special yogurt…..special probiotic diets…..so on and so on….blah blah……
Is it possible that all this probiotic rhetoric is just so much noise?
Probiotics are all the rage—the so-called “good bacteria” teeming naturally in foods such as yogurt and sauerkraut or worked into drinks and pills comprise a growing industry that Fortune reports posted more than $1 billion in annual sales in the US last year. It’s expected to grow a whopping 15% this year alone. But the science of studying how billions of good and bad bacteria alike interact in our bodies is obviously complicated and slow, and critics argue that there isn’t sufficient evidence to market probiotics as having any positive health benefits—some even suggest that these bacteria are killed by stomach acids before reaching the intestine. Now a meta study out of Denmark published in the journal Genome Medicine reflects this skepticism.
“There is little, if any, evidence of an effect of probiotic treatment in circumstances where the microbiota is unperturbed,” researchers write. There are, however, some caveats. First, all studies reviewed were extremely small, with sample sizes ranging from 21 to 81, which calls into question any results, reports the Guardian. And while there doesn’t appear to be any change in the fecal matter of healthy adults using probiotics, some effect was observed in people with “perturbed” microbiota, including “alleviation of gastrointestinal symptoms.” People on antibiotics, for instance, may reap some benefits from eating yogurt. But until better studies are done, the researchers conclude that if you’re healthy, you shouldn’t waste your money.
People…..eat a balanced diet and your bowel should be fine……
But why not? We have a pill for everything from sleep to sex….better living through chemistry….”there are suckers born every minute”….and the consumer is more gullible than most.
This will be my only post today as my weekend begins and I am feeling my oats….wink wink. My granddaughter will be by today for a rematch in Dominoes……I am teaching her backgammon….she will be good at it as soon as she gets all the stuff down……I am also tutoring her in history……especially the early years of civilization….she is an excellent student….very inquisitive.
The garden is doing good….tomatoes are starting to come in almost daily…..the peaches and pears are maturing and the grapes are graping….pain has made the last week a bitch….but I take my pain out on those people that try to anger me with BS instead of facts…..made the best pork roast ever! It was a honey mustard crusted roast…..absolutely yummy.
Enough with the niceties….move on and get it out of the way…..
I admit that I also have guilty pleasures when it comes to TV….some watch the mind numbing reality crap others want something else….me? My guilty pleasure is a bowl of popcorn and the History Channel’s “Ancient Aliens”……in case you have not seen this piece of work…..for 5 or 6 season there has been some dudue with wild hair giving his theories that all antiquity is thanx to ETs visits in our past….the pyramids, Mayas, Stonehenge……well you get the idea. These visitors came to the Fertile crescent to mine gold and started civilization…..no this is not some tongue in cheek thing these people believe that….gold….in Iraq……and it gets stranger like the dinos were killed to make room for their experiment (humans)……the Black Death was an alien situation….on and on……
But first….a little music interlude……
I bring this up because I read something that will give them ammo for at least 2 more seasons……
The odds of us being the first technological civilization the universe has ever seen are similar to those of Elvis and the Loch Ness monster sharing a Powerball jackpot, according to a new study. In a paper published in Astrobiology, researchers updated the famous 1961 Drake equation on the probability of alien civilizations to include what we know now about the prevalence of possibly habitable planets, and concluded that there have almost certainly been billions of other civilizations. Lead researcher Adam Frank, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Rochester, says that even if civilization arose on just one in a trillion planets, which he calls a very pessimistic estimate, there would have been more than 10 billion civilizations since the universe began, reports LiveScience.
Frank, who estimates the odds of us being the first technological civilization to arise are in the neighborhood of one in 10 billion trillion, calls his calculations the “archaeological form” of the Drake equation, since billions of other intelligent species have presumably become extinct over the universe’s 13 billion-year history, Discovery reports. With only our 10,000-year history to go on, how long alien civilizations last is one of the big remaining unknowns, he says—and we should “begin exploring the problem using simulations to get a sense of what leads to long-lived civilizations and what doesn’t.”
If you want a good chuckle then I suggest you watch this program and see how they want to re-write our history……as a history geek I love to watch and point out the crap from the facts……
Please start your weekend on a happy note and enjoy your time off…….
“Live long and prosper” civilization….remember…”life here began out there” Immortal words of Battlestar Galactica
My last post of the day will be a little history (I can hear the sighs and see the eye rolls…..buck up….you will get over it)
I am always going on about the Military-Industrial Complex (M-IC)….basically it is the defense industry and all their contracts……and it has destroyed the fabric of our society….
I will admit that I did like Ike….while I am NO Republican or conservative by any stretch of the imagination there was something about Ike and his policies that I can appreciate. I am not saying that I agreed with everything that he set about doing just there were some parts of his admin policies that I can appreciate.
But mostly I appreciate his warning about the M-IC back in 1961 in his speech to the nation……
But thanx to the magic of social media…..you do not have to take my word for it….instead you can watch the speech for yourself……
Sadly no one would heed his warning and look what we have done today…..perpetual war.
Another thing….how did the Republicans go from Ike to the morons they have today?
But if you are still confused on what Ike was speaking about….I can help with that…….
There are the news stories that genuinely surprise you, and then there are the ones that you could write in your sleep before they happen. Let me concoct an example for you:“Top American and European military leaders are weighing options to step up the fight against the Islamic State in the Mideast, including possibly sending more U.S. forces into Iraq, Syria, and Libya, just as Washington confirmed the second American combat casualty in Iraq in as many months.”
Oh wait, that was actually the lead sentence in a May 3rd Washington Timespiece by Carlo Muñoz. Honestly, though, it could have been written anytime in the last few months by just about anyone paying any attention whatsoever, and it surely will prove reusable in the months to come (with casualty figures altered, of course). The sad truth is that across the Greater Middle East and expanding parts of Africa, a similar set of lines could be written ahead of time about the use of Special Operations forces, drones, advisers, whatever, as could the sorry results of making such moves in [add the name of your country of choice here].
Sounds like something Donald Trump would say, right? Well, not this time.
A few months back a couple Naval boats strayed into Iranian waters and were captured….of course the normal outrage at such an act….but for me I found it strange that it occurred and ask some questions that others failed to ask….How did both boats get lost? If one boat broke down why did not the other come to their rescue and tow them to international waters? What happened to both boat’s GPS system?
There was more to the incident than a simple confusion on navigation.
I mention all this because it seems that the Navy has found its scapegoat for this incident……
The commanding officer responsible for 10 sailors captured by Iran is no longer commanding anybody. The Navy says Cmdr. Eric Rasch of Coastal Riverine Squadron 3 has been fired because of a “loss of confidence” in his ability to command after the embarrassing international incident in January, the Navy Times reports. Sources tell Reuters that other sailors involved in the incident have also been disciplined.
The sailors were held overnight and interrogated after their two vessels ended up in Iranian waters around Farsi Island when they were supposed to be going from Bahrain to Kuwait. Officials blamed a navigational blunder, along with some serious errors in judgment, possibly including a decision to take an unauthorized shortcut. The Navy has yet to release its official report on the incident.
And even with the investigation more questions arise.
Like was the short cut authorized? If not then why not discipline the sailors on the boats.
My guess is this will be the last we hear of this incident (except when the lunatics want to use it to further a conspiracy)……..we will probably not get to see just what the investigation revealed……
The big story….not that the media wants to report it……is those 28 pages of the 9/11 investigation…..the story is that there is a debate on whether the American people should know the extent that the Saudis may have been involved in the attacks on that fateful day.
The question is…..should the American people know the whole story? Should there be total transparency?
A member of the original investigation team has voiced his opinion…..
A member of the official commission that investigated the 9/11 attacks is ratcheting up pressure on the White House to make public 28 pages of a congressional report dealing with suspected Saudi involvement. In an interview with the Guardian, former Navy secretary John Lehman lays it out in blunt terms: “There was an awful lot of participation by Saudi individuals in supporting the hijackers, and some of those people worked in the Saudi government,” he says. “Our report should never have been read as an exoneration of Saudi Arabia.” Lehman adds that he’s not implicating members of the Saudi royal family or top civilian officials, but rather lower-echelon employees, perhaps in the Saudi ministry of Islamic affairs.
Last month, the leaders of the commission—former GOP Gov. Tom Kean of New Jersey and former Democratic congressman Lee Hamilton of Indiana—cautioned against releasing the 28 pages and noted that just one Saudi official had been implicated in the plot. (That was diplomat Fahad al-Thumairy, who was deported and remains a “person of interest,” notes the New York Times.) But Lehman says he knows of at least five other Saudi employees who were under suspicion. “They may not have been indicted, but they were certainly implicated,” he says. “There was an awful lot of circumstantial evidence.”
What say you? Should we know the full extent of any participation by the Saudis in that horrendous attack? Or should we just forget it because they are a valued “buddy”?
If you can recall as far back as January of this year you will remember the media story of the gang that was raping people in Germany…..Hamburg, I believe…..and as one would expect the mental midget jumped on this to be an indicator that ALL refugees are rapists, thugs and terrorists….
This story fed their hatred and their conspiracy theory……and I wanted to see if if there were other incidents, from reliable sources, of any further criminal activity……I found one but it will not feed the paradigm of hatred that most of the morons push….
Thirty Syrian children were raped for months at a Turkish refugee camp and government authorities failed to notice, according to BirGün newspaper. It comes amid allegations that Turkey is not a safe country for asylum seekers.
The 30 boys were raped by a cleaner at Nizip Refugee Camp in Antep, from September 2015 until the beginning of 2016.
The rapist, identified only as E.E., has confessed that he lured children between the ages of eight and 12 to have sex with him in return for 2 to 5 Turkish Lira (US$.70-1.80). He is now in pre-trial detention.
I cannot wait to see how the morons on the Right spin this story…..my guess is we will not hear much about this from them for you see it does not fit well in their hateful mindset.
It is pathetic that reports like this fall through the cracks of the MSM……
