Bad Lip Reading!
I do enjoy good humor. And the guys at Bad Lip Reading do humor so well.
We all have heard the MSM go on and on about the Press Briefings….all the antics and all the drama behind them….so the guys at BLR had to do a video on that very subject…..
If you cannot appreciate good humor than I suggest that you turn your boob tube to A&E and watch the latest BS on “Naked and Afraid”…..
See you guys later……be well, be safe…..chuq
This will be my last tribute to the memory of John McCain…..Me I seldom agreed with this man on policy….he was a neocon and too pro war for my book…..however he was a man that met his obligation to the country by his military service. He was loved by the GOP as well as hated by the same…..most people that “hated” the man had NO idea what he was about…..and the ones that speak the most vile crap are those that stayed home during war and hide behind deferments….
This is the last post I will write to John McCain…..
In my dictionary, a “hero” is 1) an illustrious warrior; 2) a man admired for his noble qualities;or 3) one who shows great courage. John McCain met all the criteria.
As a United States Navy pilot, McCain was daring to the point of recklessness, determined always to be in the thick of the fight. His conduct during a long and brutal captivity in Vietnam was the definition of nobility and courage.
His Senate career demonstrated courage of a different sort, as he staked out independent positions on issues ranging from immigration to torture to campaign finance.
In his final days, McCain was one of the few leaders of his party to directly challenge the Trump administration, calling for a restoration of civility in our politics, and integrity in our public life.
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2018/08/27/john_mccain_death_of_a_hero_113747.html
His last words to the country and its people…….
Before he died, John McCain wrote a farewell letter to Americans in which he expressed thanks for the privilege of serving and said the nation’s “present difficulties” would pass. See the full text at the Atlantic. Here are four excerpts:
- “I’ve tried to serve our country honorably. I’ve made mistakes but I hope my love for America will be weighed favorably against them. I’ve often observed that I am the luckiest person on earth. I feel that way even now, as I prepare for the end of my life. I’ve loved my life, all of it.”
- “We weaken our greatness when we confuse our patriotism with tribal rivalries that have sown resentment, and hatred and violence in all the corners of the globe. We weaken it when we hide behind walls, rather than tear them down …”
- Our public debates can be nasty, but “we have always had so much more in common with each other than in disagreement. If only we remember that and give each other the benefit of the presumption that we all love our country, we will get through these challenging times.”
“Do not despair of our present difficulties. We believe always in the promise and greatness of America because nothing is inevitable here. Americans never quit, we never surrender, we never hide from history. We make history. Farewell fellow Americans, God bless you, and God bless America.”
Once again in case it was missed…..See the full text at the Atlantic.
And that my friends is how a true American hero makes a speech.
Senator John McCain may you Rest In Peace.
Nope this not another post about the Russian meddling into our elections….this is about the state machine that the US used to meddling in elections around the world…..I have tried to keep my readers thinking….
https://lobotero.com/2018/03/12/when-is-meddling-not-meddling/
https://lobotero.com/2018/08/17/when-is-tampering-tampering/
the US government-funded National Endowment for Democracy presented its 2018 Democracy Award to a collection of Korean activists who aim to topple the communist government of North Korea.
The event was timed to coincide with President Donald Trump’s peace summit in Singapore with Kim Jong-Un. The ceremony appeared to be the opening shot of a massive public relations effort aimed at stifling normalized relations with North Korea.
The US is not guilt free….people whine about the Russian meddling…..and unfortunately…..”what goes around comes around”……the US has always had the attitude that they may do as they wish with no penalty.
A short history of foreign entities that have meddled in US elections…..
Like I said earlier in this post….”karma is a bitch”!
Yes I am a staunch antiwar person….I may write about war but it is for understanding not policy……and for 17 years I have been saying that the war we started in 2001 in Afghanistan is costing too many American lives for the horrible results that it achieves……
It may be a surprise to some that I read the American Conservative……I find myself agreeing with most of what they publish……but not all…..and I find myself agreeing with them yet again…this time on our war in Afghanistan….
There is no prospect for any kind of American victory in the war against the Afghan Taliban that would correspond to what U.S. officials have been promising throughout the 17-year struggle. As if any rational observer needed further evidence of this fundamental reality, the Taliban a week ago attacked the strategic city of Ghazni, located barely 100 miles from the Afghan capital of Kabul, and laid waste to major parts of it. The insurgents killed dozens of Afghan soldiers and police officials, seized strategic points in the city, and cut the central artery between Kabul and important southern regions.
In reporting on this turn of events, reporter Mujib Mashal of The New York Times wrote, “The Ghazni assault has demonstrated a stunning display of Taliban tenacity that belies the official Afghan and U.S. narrative of progress in the war….” The Wall Street Journal dispatch, by three reporters filing from Kabul, put it similarly, saying the the drawn-out confrontation, “requiring at least 1,500 government forces backed with U.S. firepower to put down a far smaller and more lightly armed number of insurgents,” has “cast doubt over the progress of the U.S. military in building security forces in Afghanistan.”
Time for the US to claim victory and bring our tired, overworked troops home to their families….we should demand….”Not One More Death”!
Closing Thought–27Aug18
50 years ago this August history was being made the Dem Convention and the riots that followed…..the drama had everything needed to be a blockbuster…..love-hate, war-peace, old-new, etc…..
We’re taking another look back at the year 1968 this morning, remembering the political earthquake that was the Democratic National Convention. Chicago-born Scott Simon, of NPR, is our guide:
Worlds collided at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago: young and old, war and peace, law and order.
“The whole world is watching, the whole world is watching…”
“You can’t take that week in isolation,” said Bill Daley. “’68, one of the most dramatic and traumatic years in the nation’s history. And it kind of all rolled to Chicago, and you could feel it coming.”
Daley, who would become President Obama’s chief of staff, was a college student in 1968, and spent the convention at the side of his father, Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/remembering-1968-chicagos-bloody-democratic-convention/
In 1968 I missed these protests for I was a bit preoccupied in Vietnam…..if I had been stateside I would have been there…
This for you younguns……
If you would like a more detailed account of those bloody days in American political history……
Our young needs to know these history of how a people took to the street to make a difference…yes it turned violent and it is a matter of opinion on who started the trouble…..
Over the weekend we got the sad news that Sen.John McCain had passed away…..as a radical I seldom agreed with the man on policy…..as a Vietnam vet I respected the man……and I am sure that my reader will be seeing many tributes to McCain’s memory and his legacy…..
I share one that I read to his memory….
I did not join in the rather ghoulish anticipation of John McCain’s death indulged in by some war opponents. On Twitter, one aspiring attention-seeking pundit was suspended for her tasteless display of disdain for a dying man, and while there was an outcry (she was reinstated) I was not among the out-criers. For once I agreed with @jack, although I’m sure this meeting of the minds was purely coincidental and not likely to happen again: a little old-fashioned respect for the dying never hurt anyone. Far be it from me to cheer on the effects of cancer on a human being: I won’t do it, no matter who is involved. This disrespectful rudeness was also indulged in by our President, another class act, who has more in common with his left-wing enemies than either is ready to acknowledge. (Trump eventually did his duty, however, albeit laconically.)
In his person, and his public pronouncements, McCain was the perfect representative of the nascent imperial class: born in the Panama Canal zone, the son of an Admiral, he was almost fated to become what he did indeed become – the archetypal Praetorian, the veritable embodiment of America’s post-World War II empire. A paladin of the cold war while it lasted, and a tireless advocate of post-cold war hegemonism, his favorite phrase was “boots on the ground,” and he championed this as a policy option for virtually every foreign policy problem confronted by US policymakers.
In these days to stupid a man of logic and truth will be sorely missed.
Good bye John and thanx for everything. chuq
These days NATO makes the news almost weekly…thanx mainly to Our Dear Leader and his feud with the organization over money…..
NATO came into being after WW2 in an attempt to help prevent another World War….but it was always going to be a thing for the world and it all began in 1941……
Ever heard of the Atlantic Charter?
Take about 7 minutes to learn……
That is right……NATO had its birth with the signing of the Atlantic Charter…..so how about a little more history of the attempt…..
The Atlantic Charter is hailed by some as Churchill and Roosevelt’s vision of a more peaceful and egalitarian post-war world: a world where countries would not seek territorial expansion, aggressors would be disarmed, all nations would have the right to govern themselves and there would be social and economic welfare for all.
The Atlantic Charter is considered by some to be a logical successor document to Woodrow Wilson’s 14 Points. In a way it was. Just as Wilson’s 14 Points were turned into a bitter fraud by the Versailles Treaty, so too would the following promises of England and America be turned into a grim charade. Almost every one of the promises made in the charter were broken by the Allies both during and after the war.
Therefore we must ask, was the Charter actually created for the goal of establishing a more peaceful world? Or was there a different goal in mind? There are some troubling questions about this Charter that need to be addressed.
https://primevalvoid.com/written_essays/atlanticcharter.html
Now you know so others will know…..as I wrote before….a NATO was always the plan.
So I Have Written!
Class Dismissed!
I am an insomniac……constant pain keeps me awake and on the computer….plus I do drink a lot of coffee….remember a for years ago coffee was the leading cause of liver ailments? Then another report comes out and tells me that coffee has no bad side effects when drank in moderation….and the tug of war goes on…..Is coffee good for you? Well, if you’re reading this article with your phone in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other, we have some fantastic scientific news for you about the potential health benefits of coffee.
Researchers funded by the American Heart Association and the University of Colorado School of Medicine say they’ve uncovered an association between increased coffee consumption and better heart health.
In fact, the link was so strong that for every additional cup of coffee people drank, their risk of suffering heart failure or stroke went down 8 percent, compared to non-coffee drinkers. Here’s the study, the context, what it tells us–and where more research is needed. https://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/love-coffee-science-just-gave-you-a-really-healthy-reason-to-have-another-cup.html
If that news does not appeal to you maybe this one will…..
It’s eight in the morning and you can barely keep your eyes open, much less engage in the activities that constitute productive participation in the glorious neoliberal machinery of our economy. Maybe it’s because of the sleep you gave up to spend hours gazing through a rectangular portal into a glowing, bottomless pit you were lured into by the entrails of your own teased apart tastes and beliefs, or because you slept on your friend’s waveform of a sofa while your slightly cooler-than-you-can-afford apartment played host to European Airbnb users.
https://www.eater.com/2016/6/8/11883828/dont-drink-coffee-single-origin-beans-aeropress-starbucks
There is always more research needed…is that for accuracy or for the extension of grant money?
I like coffee….black no sugar…..like eggs I shall continue my life long relationship…..
How is your day going so far?
Some sad news on this Sunday morn…..Republican senator from Arizona has died from brain cancer just days after deciding not to continue his treatments……
John McCain has died of brain cancer at age 81, per the AP. An aide said the war hero, longtime Arizona senator, and one-time presidential candidate died Saturday. In more than three decades in Congress, McCain became known as a political maverick willing to stick to his convictions rather than go along with party leaders—an independent streak that has drawn a mix of respect and ire. Most recently, he has been a thorn in the side of President Trump, keeping up his criticism of the White House even while undergoing severe medical treatment in Arizona. The son and grandson of Navy admirals, McCain is a former Navy pilot. He was elected to Congress in 1982 and to the Senate four years later, replacing the retired Barry Goldwater.
Prior to his political career, McCain served in Vietnam. In 1967, his plane was shot down on a bombing mission over North Vietnam. He was severely injured and spent more than five years as a prisoner of war. Years later, after establishing his name in the Senate, McCain ran unsuccessfully for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000, then won it in 2008. But he and running mate Sarah Palin lost to Barack Obama. When Republicans took control of the Senate in 2015, McCain embraced his new influence as chairman of the Armed Services Committee, pushing for aggressive US military intervention overseas and eager to contribute to “defeating the forces of radical Islam that want to destroy America.” Asked how he wanted to be remembered, McCain said: “That I made a major contribution to the defense of the nation.”
I wish his family all the sympathies I can…..John will be sorely missed in DC….his voice was one that had served the country well……
John McCain dead at 81….R.I.P.
I apologize for the short postings yesterday…I went to work in the yard and got overheated….not a good feeling…..
I try to give my readers info that they have missed during the week or so….an FYI sort of thing.
We hear about the destruction of the environment almost day….and prediction have been forthcoming since the first A-bomb test….there was even an attempt to try a living within a self-contained, the Biosphere…..http://biosphere2.org/
Since those days there have been other ideas to try and limit a person carbon footprint….the newest one is in Minnesota and an abandoned Ford factory…https://www.wired.com/story/ford-st-paul-development-housing-cities-yimby-nimby/
Not to be out done by us Colonials……the Nederlands has a new approach…..
A half-hour commute from Amsterdam, a piece of farmland is slated to become a new kind of neighborhood. Vertical farms, along with traditional fields and orchards surrounding homes, will supply food to people living there. Food waste will turn into fish feed for on-site aquaculture. Houses will filter rainwater, but won’t have driveways. A “village OS” tech platform will use AI to simultaneously manage systems for renewable energy, food production, water supply, and waste.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90207375/the-worlds-first-high-tech-eco-village-will-reinvent-suburbs
Human attempts to change the direction of the planet……will these attempts just be something “novel” for B roll news reports? Or will this help our understanding of what we are doing to our home?
I am old and will not be here to see the destruction first hand…..but my granddaughter will be and I try to let her know what we are doing to this blue marble of wonder.
I am stilling fighting my bout with the heat so I will take it easy this weekend…..hopefully that will correct the damage I may have done.
Let the weekend begin!