General Discussion, Tuesday, April 4, 2017

Posted on April 4, 2017 by Stella

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305 Responses to General Discussion, Tuesday, April 4, 2017

  1. texan59 says:
    April 4, 2017 at 12:06 am

    Quite a bit of intrigue over the last few days. The Benghazi Big-Mouth has been outed as a traitor to this Country. Gorsuch might be setting off a nukular blast any day now, and my pea’s are growin’ like crazy in Mrs. T’s garden. Lot’s of good goings-on. Now, y’all better get the juices flowing, as we’ve still got a lot of work to do. Coffee up.

    Liked by 7 people

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  2. Wooly Phlox says:
    April 4, 2017 at 12:16 am

    They keep getting better, Stella. Thank you.

    This for Ausmom, Stella, and Jeans because I’m late as ever.

    Security best practices should be heeded.

    When you own four restaurants and your general manager, with the keys to all buildings, and the passwords to all the relevant distributor sites, cloud data, and everything else, quits or gets fired, change all your locks, and all your passwords. I told the bossman that and he did it all. This guy, after quitting, erased all our Google Cloud data, which was a very useful tool for a lot of things, from employment, employees, to inventory to financials. And he probably copied it all, too.
    Whoops, bossman, you should have changed that password before the back door slammed shut behind him.

    When I quit, after 9 years, a few months ago (and I’m still friends with him, he’s like family)? They changed all the locks. Good. I never made duplicate keys, but thank God they’re thinking now.

    Liked by 7 people

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    • stella says:
      April 4, 2017 at 8:43 am

      We used to change all passwords/delete accounts/nullify door lock fobs/cancel credit cards etc before the person was out the door, if possible, or as quickly as possible. The key is having a list in their personnel file of all of the above so it can be done quickly.

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      • Wooly Phlox says:
        April 4, 2017 at 2:02 pm

        Indeed. And no, I wasn’t offended, I was pleased, when they did that after I left.

        A friend of mine owns a restaurant in town, and another in another town north of here. One of his employees, a general manager, embezzled him for around $30k. He fired him a month or so ago. Yesterday he got a call from his new manager at that northern establishment, “OSHA is here!”. OSHA investigator was in his restaurant for four hours.

        Why? The guy he fired and is having the police investigate for embezzlement decided to call every single regulatory agency he could and make claims against this business owner. OSHA. IRS. Dept. of Labor. EPA. all of them.

        He was on the horn with the OSHA guy for an hour, and the guy basically told him, after investigating all the bogus claims by the ex-GM, “I’m wasting my time here. I found nothing at all wrong, except the lack of a posted OSHA poster.” No citations at all.

        He’s ragged from lack of sleep right now, and from working his a** off, because half his employees (I think they were also in on the embezzlement, because….) also suddenly quit when this GM got fired, for some strange reason, and now he has to open, work, run, manage, and own two restaurants in two far-removed locations.

        It’s the worst ex-employee story I’ve heard in a while. He’s getting out of it. Selling both of his restaurants. 25 years of hard labor and dealing with juvenile delinquents who think the cash register is their own personal till, and embezzling GMs, and nonwhite employees trying to poison white people because they are white (me, for instance). I don’t blame him. I never want to have employees. Too many horror stories.

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        • czarowniczy says:
          April 4, 2017 at 5:06 pm

          Story being quietly passes around my old Federal facility was that a well-known employee was caught embezzling funds supposed to be deposited in the agency’s account. Amount was told to be in the mid-5-figure amount but embezzler was not prosecuted, just forced to pay back the money, and reportedly was not fired. Must have been some…special…circumstances, not the least of which would have been the supervisory embarassment over not catching such a clumsy and ongoing series of thefts.

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    • auscitizenmom says:
      April 4, 2017 at 10:15 am

      I’m glad you didn’t take that has an insult, but as proof that they were listening to your good advice. 🙂

      Liked by 2 people

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    • John Denney says:
      April 4, 2017 at 1:36 pm

      In 2001, while I was in a meeting being told it had been a bad year and those of us present were being laid off, all my security access was removed.

      Liked by 1 person

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    • jeans2nd says:
      April 4, 2017 at 2:48 pm

      Always protect your network against yourself. Good advice.

      Until you are the guy who walks, or is laid off. One place where I did this thing that time…ok, a couple. Three. Places, diff things. Hard to find the guy who changes ports, several times, daily. Ah well, any safe port in a storm, they say.

      Really liked that Bobby McFarrin guy, btw. Great music, thx.

      Liked by 1 person

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  3. czarowniczy says:
    April 4, 2017 at 12:21 am

    Yeah! Tuesday!!! Another chance to win the Mega Milliobs and become lazy in style!

    Liked by 6 people

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  4. Wooly Phlox says:
    April 4, 2017 at 12:39 am

    Not a post-April-Fools-Day joke, but an actual, serious wargame that took place.

    This is sad. Vox Day said yesterday that the Western powers are probably not going to win the next major war, because of the lack of interest or skill at warfighting, and because of the posturing and image-making that is involved.

    https://dailyreckoning.com/iran-sinks-u-s-fleet/

    https://voxday.blogspot.com/2017/04/unserious-about-war.htm

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    • patternpuzzler says:
      April 4, 2017 at 1:31 am

      I started to do a rant on valuing true warriors and it turned a little incoherent.

      It’s terribly foolish to be too civilized for your own damned good.

      Liked by 4 people

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    • czarowniczy says:
      April 4, 2017 at 1:40 am

      I can remember the nattering nabobs of negatism in Desert Storm. We were practicing in full MOPP gear, mortuary units were readying for thousands of deaths…Fast forward to Iraq in 2003 where we were hit with the same gloom and doom predictions.
      Iraq and Iran fought an eight year war and all they did was kill thousands of each others’ troops without settling anything.
      Russia’s partnering with Iran has made it more modern and powerful and it has learned a lot about US tactics through its interfering in our Afghanistan operations and helping kill US soldiers there BUT to think it can attack a US battle group and not only succeed but survive is science fiction,
      Note that no obe mentioned the submarines that accompany and screen a battle fleet, and the pure hell they could rain down on anyone who attacks the fleet. The fleet’s vulnerability in the Straits of Hormuz transit’s well known, we ran that scensrio in the late 80s and Iran bragged about how it’s loaded hundreds of small boats with explosives and smaller missiles while studding the shore and islands around the Straits with ASMs. So what?
      Does anyone believe that the fleet would transit into the Gulf in a gaggle, unprotected and without a lot of aerial surveillance? Who doesn’t think these lessons are all digested and included into the flert’s defense plan? It’s been over 15 years since this exercise and our surveillance and intel’s grown in leaps and you don’t get to be a fleet or AC carrier commander by being dumb.
      Another thing – many of these ‘exercises are scripted, they are meant to test do a certain thing or set of things, not an entire war. I’d like to see the script for that exercise, but just out of curiosity as by now it’s ancient history. I’m sure thst were Iran to dare attack a US battle fleet, of which we have a number, such hell would rain down on them from multiple sources thst they’d yearn for the days when their national economy revolved around goats.

      Liked by 8 people

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      • Wooly Phlox says:
        April 4, 2017 at 1:54 am

        Agreed about the SSBNs, and all the strategy points you made thereafter.

        The point being made was that TPTB made a decision to scrap the results of this wargame and make another one, by loading the dice, because they weren’t satisfied with the outcome. So he stepped down. Good for him. Hopefully after the swamp is drained we’ll hire him again.

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        • czarowniczy says:
          April 4, 2017 at 11:14 am

          Sometimes people get hung up on the Kobayashi Maru concept. We used to go on Red Flag games with the AF as peripheral players. Some of their scenarios were interesting, at best. Ditto with our Korea-test games ( I loved the winter ones but then I’m strange) where two obvious NK scenarios were totally ignored. It’s all about testing one contingency to game-out problems.
          We could have totalled the entire exercise at any time by throwing in either of the two ‘mass attack’ possibilities but the game was about more than that, it was testing LOCs, troop deployments, sustainment, the entire mix. I’m sure that at some point, as would be done every now and then to just end an exercise period, someone could use the ‘nuclear Option’ and just toss a nuclear round into the battle fleet…something I’m betting has already been done.

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      • Col.(R) Ken says:
        April 4, 2017 at 8:06 pm

        Czar, I had forgotten those press persons, telling us about the deadly Republican Guard, the Ghosts of Vietnam, and all of the other BS. I was concerned about the ADA, and Soviet configuration of the defense. I just prayed, and “never took consul of my fears”. After that first night, going in, 20-40K’s behind the FEBA, and just laying the carpet down….returning before sunup..and then the Good News, all personnel/aircraft accounted for……I felt great. Though I knew tough days were ahead………

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    • Col.(R) Ken says:
      April 4, 2017 at 9:04 am

      Wooly, don’t get depressed!!!!!! These simulations happen all of the time within DOD. JIFFY-Com is always thinking up various issues. Then DOD looks for solutions……. That’s the way the big boys play. At the trooper level, shoot, move, and communicate.

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      • Wooly Phlox says:
        April 4, 2017 at 2:22 pm

        Col., I don’t get depressed any more. Those days are long gone.

        That being said, I still don’t think America will win the next major war, without a complete and utter reversal of current war philosophy on the part of those in charge.

        Seems like they don’t want to win any more. Not since Hiroshima. Nope. They just want to fight, and they want the fight to continue forever, so they can preen about fighting the good fight against Eastasia. Orwell was a prophet.

        We could eliminate Islam. We could eliminate North Korea’s regime.

        But we just don’t want to win, these days. Winning is bad, while fighting is good. When America is taken, at least these Secret Kings will be proud that we took the high ground.

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    • lovely says:
      April 4, 2017 at 10:10 am

      Morning Wooly. Remember part of the problem with morale with our troops was that Obama deliberately wanted to demoralize them, treated them as 3rd class citizens and made warfare something akin to bowing your head and apologizing to your enemy.

      Now we have Trump and The Warrior Saint, it will take a while but the warrior mentality is now on the front burner. The spear tips are dipped in poison and our military is going to be unleashed.

      There is a reason the Marines call Mattis the most revered general in a generation.

      “Find the enemy that wants to end this experiment (in American democracy) and kill every one of them until they’re so sick of the killing that they leave us and our freedoms intact.” __Gen. Mattis

      “I’m going to plead with you, do not cross us. Because if you do, the survivors will write about what we do here for 10,000 years.” __Grn. Mattis

      Liked by 4 people

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  5. Wooly Phlox says:
    April 4, 2017 at 1:40 am

    When you look at all the tech around us: our phones which surpass and contain at least 20 technologies from the 1980’s, landing spacecraft on comets, the amazing graphics on the Tee-vee, the burgeoning V.R. game industry, Mars missions, robotics, drones, GMOs, and our PCs and the internet itself, I hear G.K. Chesterton.

    “We are perishing for want of wonder, not for want of wonders.”

    Liked by 3 people

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    • Wooly Phlox says:
      April 4, 2017 at 1:45 am

      I mean, who, WHO, dangit!?? would have thought, 40 years ago, that all this would have come about? Who would have thought that we’d all, even us plebes and proletariats, would be able to call up any texts or any images, songs, or even videos on a whim?

      Wondrous. More people need to realize how wondrous it is.

      Liked by 5 people

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      • MaryfromMarin says:
        April 4, 2017 at 1:48 am

        That is a lovely hymn, Wooly. Have sung it many, many times.

        Liked by 3 people

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        • Wooly Phlox says:
          April 4, 2017 at 1:55 am

          {MaryfromMarin!}

          Good.

          Liked by 3 people

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        • Wooly Phlox says:
          April 4, 2017 at 2:05 am

          Those are my favorites. The ones with substance.

          Not a real big fan of “Our God is an Awesome God”.

          More into stuff from 1883 than current MegaChurch hymnals, if you can call those pop songs that any more. I rockified this one years ago.

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          • Wooly Phlox says:
            April 4, 2017 at 2:09 am

            I actually sang and played this in front of 100 or so people. I did the first verse like a hymn, then the rest like Van Morrison or Mellencamp, much faster tempo, and with more feeling than a monastic chanter.

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          • Wooly Phlox says:
            April 4, 2017 at 2:14 am

            The funny thing.

            Ellen Goreh had a time machine, and got the melody from this.

            She got it perfect, actually.

            Oh wait. The melody was ganked by whoever wrote this karaoke song,

            Liked by 2 people

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          • Wooly Phlox says:
            April 4, 2017 at 2:31 am

            Our God is an awesome God. (repeat 3x)

            Our God is so freakin’ awesome he can throw a boat over a hedge.

            What happened to the intellect of the average American Christian?

            What laid it so low?

            It’s pretty evident in their choice of ecumenical Sunday morning music.

            There’s no meat in the new “hymns” (if you dare call them that).

            Nothing to chew on and digest. Nothing but “Yay! My religion!”

            It sickens me. it really does. I don’t go to church. For this reason.

            Intellect is gone there.

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            • sandandsea2015 says:
              April 4, 2017 at 8:17 am

              Not all churches are like that, Wooly. You should try to see if you can find a small independent bible church.

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            • John Denney says:
              April 4, 2017 at 2:01 pm

              Some places just sing the chorus, but I like the verses, too. It was a favorite of the kids band (3rd, 4th, 5th graders playing drums, piano, guitar, and electric bass, and 3 girls who backed my lead vocals) that I led, leading all the kids in song before Sunday school.

              Playing with heavy overdrive on my electric guitar helped drive home the concept of His power and might.

              “Awesome God”
              (originally by Rich Mullins)

              When He rolls up His sleeves
              He ain’t just puttin’ on the Ritz
              (our God is an Awesome God)
              There is thunder in His footsteps
              And lightning in His fists
              (our God is an Awesome God)
              Well the Lord He wasn’t jokin’
              When He kicked ’em out of Eden
              It wasn’t for no reason that He shed His blood
              His return is very close and so you better be believin’
              That our God is an Awesome God

              [REFRAIN]
              Our God is an Awesome God
              He reigns from heaven above
              With wisdom power and love
              Our God is an Awesome God

              When the sky was starless in the void of the night
              (our God is an awesome God)
              He spoke into the darkness and created the light
              (our God is an awesome God)
              Judgement and wrath He poured out on Sodom
              Mercy and grace He gave us at the cross
              I hope that we have not too quickly forgotten that
              Our God is an Awesome God

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              • auscitizenmom says:
                April 4, 2017 at 2:43 pm

                I don’t like electric type instruments of most kinds. So, I really don’t like hearing them in a church. And, I would definitely not want an electric guitar getting even louder. It is hard to find a church nowadays that doesn’t do that, though.

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                • Wooly Phlox says:
                  April 4, 2017 at 3:04 pm

                  And lasers and multiple big-screen TVs, and smoke and mirrors and spotlights and stage monitor speakers and Marshall™ stack amps.

                  Nope. I’m good. I don’t need that Sunday morning spectacle.

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                • John Denney says:
                  April 4, 2017 at 3:25 pm

                  My wife and I stayed with family in another town for Easter one year. They were not church-goers, so we looked in the paper for a church to attend Easter morning, but got lost driving to it.
                  A fellow carrying a Bible happened to pass in the crosswalk in front of us at a stop sign, so I rolled down the window and asked him where such and so church was.
                  “Oh, that’s clear on the other side of town. Would you like to come to church with me?”
                  So, he hopped in our car and we went to his church, which met in a High School gym.
                  I never saw so many tattoos and piercings, black nail polish, and leather.
                  There was a bowl of complimentary ear plugs at the entrance.
                  The gym was packed, the music was electronic and loud, and it was one of the best Easter services I have ever attended.
                  The Lord said that whoever has been forgiven much, loves much.
                  These people really, really loved the Lord.
                  Their appearance was just the remnants of their former lives.

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                  • auscitizenmom says:
                    April 4, 2017 at 3:48 pm

                    I wear ear plugs at the movies and if I ever go to another concert, will wear ear plugs. I just can’t handle the loud, loud, music.

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                  • Wooly Phlox says:
                    April 4, 2017 at 4:55 pm

                    I have been to churches like that, quite a few times.

                    I just like some meat in my ecclesiastical music, not just dessert.

                    “How can you have any meat, if you don’t eat your pudding!!?” — Pink Floyd

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                  • Wooly Phlox says:
                    April 4, 2017 at 4:55 pm

                    Dang. Got the Floyd quote backward.

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                • John Denney says:
                  April 4, 2017 at 7:05 pm

                  At the other end of the spectrum, I’ve attended Friends Church (Quaker) worship services where we just sat in the presence of the Lord in utter silence for an hour.

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              • Wooly Phlox says:
                April 4, 2017 at 3:08 pm

                I know the lyrics. Still don’t like the song, at all.

                I know nothing about the guy who wrote it, except that he receives a paycheck when churches sing it. ASCAP, FTW. Money!

                I wonder if John Ashcroft receives a monthly check for the real hymns he wrote.

                I’m just tired of dessert, when we should be getting dinner.

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            • Menagerie says:
              April 5, 2017 at 8:07 am

              You are going to the wrong churches if you find that to be true. Sometimes my worry is the opposite. I find that Catholicism has appeal to intellectuals and see few blue collar workers, except for our Hispanic members.

              I’d like to know why I don’t see all the wonderful parishes populated by immigrant families. Poles, Irish, Italian. Where have they all gone? The Church is now filled with many young intellectuals who are once again choosing to have large families, and they are homeschooling them.

              In our parish there are Latin classes for adults, faith formation groups that delve deep, one of the finest choirs you will find anywhere, and they are fully up to singing the Jubilato Deo chants for our masses. The music director has organized a children’s schola and you would be very impressed with the skill of these kids after a few years of the training they have had.

              Most importantly, the people in the parish do something with these talents. We have a lively outreach to the community and the choir and kids groups go out caroling downtown, and on the university campus at Christmas. Our priest, who has one of the most powerful and haunting voices I have ever heard, goes with them, to take the Christmas story to the world.

              Stop making excuses Wooly. Last time we had a big discussion you kept throwing up the importance of the King James Bible as an excuse. Now it is churches. Deal with the fact that churches are populated by humans. I think you need a church community, but I suspect God has people in mind who need you. Go ahead and explain to him one day that you held out because you kept finding people in his churches who didn’t read the Bible you prefer and those churches just weren’t good enough.

              You have the words, the talents, the gifts that are needed in church communities. Yes, I know you use them where you are. You also need to be made better, to be honed by the rock of faith that close contact with your brethren will bring. You need to give and receive fellowship and share the journey, I know how you love your fellow man. I still think more is expected of you. In faith, in love, in knowledge, much has been given you. You know what the next line is.

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              • stella says:
                April 5, 2017 at 9:46 am

                When I was a youngster, we had four choirs in our church. I started in the 2nd grade, and continued through 9th grade, when we moved. We had a very gifted full-time organist/choir director.

                That same church today is lucky if they have 100 members, and NO choirs. They share the church building with another church.

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                • Menagerie says:
                  April 5, 2017 at 9:59 am

                  The Catholic Church is finding out, across the world, but especially here in the US that the more traditional parishes are surviving, rebuilding, thriving. People are bypassing their actual parishes to go where real faith is shared, where the true teachings of the Church are still passed on and treasured.

                  The modernists are aghast, and in denial, but it’s a fact. There are inner city parishes that were slated to be closed and boarded up that saved themselves by beginning to offer the Extraordinary Rite, referred to often as the Latin Mass, which is not a good descriptor, as they are all Latin Masses. Anyhow, the hippy happy orders of nuns have a few elderly members but those such as the Dominican sisters in Nashville are thriving, and further, some orders are now sending nuns and brothers back to Europe to establish ministries.

                  Churches and parishes meant to attract the lukewarm, those who struggle to have identity because, sorry, if you try to be everything to everybody you are nobody and nothing, are dying, falling victim to what Father Z calls “the biological solution.”

                  I think this is being experienced in other denominations too Stella, I just have no concrete knowledge of it.

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          • auscitizenmom says:
            April 4, 2017 at 10:26 am

            I like the old ones best, too. I really like this one. I don’t remember it.

            Liked by 1 person

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      • patternpuzzler says:
        April 5, 2017 at 12:20 am

        Lovely, I hit play on that and let the entire playlist run. Thanks for posting that. In another lifetime I used to listen to that and other chants more than any other music. I had forgotten what a “moving meditation” those sounds can be! I needed that reminder!

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  6. Wooly Phlox says:
    April 4, 2017 at 1:47 am

    Liked by 3 people

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    • Jacqueline Taylor Robson says:
      April 4, 2017 at 1:50 pm

      My DH was a Chief Petty Officer Catering Accountant in The Royal Navy for 22 years. He says this is known as The Caterer’s Hymn, and it is his favorite. It has a sad story about the man who wrote it, and it makes me cry every time I hear it. Beautiful.

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  7. patternpuzzler says:
    April 4, 2017 at 2:20 am

    Interesting Wooly spoke of technology and our PCs. Today’s post includes today the anniversary of the first electric power plant to run on garbage, and the birth of Microsoft, Oh, and “1984” – today is the anniversary of the beginning of Winston Smith’s secret diary.

    This Day in (Mostly) American History: April 4

    1776 Washington begins march to New York After the successful siege of Boston, General George Washington begins marching his unpaid soldiers from their headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, toward New York in anticipation of a British invasion, on this day in 1776.
    In a letter to the president of Congress, General Washington wrote of his intentions in marching to New York and expressed frustration with Congress for failing to send adequate funds to allow him to pay his troops. Washington hoped that, upon his arrival in New York, a sufficient sum will be there ready to pay every claim.
    The Continental Congress’ inability to promptly pay or adequately supply its soldiers persisted throughout the war and continued as a subject of debate following the peace at Yorktown. Two major ramifications of the financial crisis marked the birth of the new nation. First, Congress began to pay soldiers with promises of western lands instead of currency—the same land Congress simultaneously promised to its Indian allies. Secondly, Congress’ inability to pay expenses even after winning the war eventually convinced conservative Patriots that it was necessary to overthrow the Articles of Confederation and draft the Constitution of the United States. The new and more centralized Constitution, with its three branches of government, had greater authority to raise funds and an increased ability to manage the new nation’s finances. Alexander Hamilton, in his role as the first secretary of the treasury under President George Washington, focused his efforts on mimicking British financial institutions, most significantly in his championship of the First Bank of the United States, as a means of stabilizing the new nation’s economy.

    1818 Congress decides on the US flag: 13 red & white stripes & 20 stars

    1841 Vice President John Tyler becomes the 10th President of the United States after the death of President William Henry Harrison. Born in Charles County, Virginia, in 1773, Harrison served in the U.S. Army in the old Northwest Territory and in 1800 was made governor of the Indian Territory, where he proved an able administrator. In 1811, he led U.S. forces against an Indian confederation organized by Shawnee Chief Tecumseh, and victory at the Battle of Tippecanoe brought an end to Tecumseh’s hopes for a united Indian front against U.S. expansion. In the War of 1812, Harrison gained his greatest fame as a military commander, recapturing Detroit from the British and defeating a combined force of British and Native Americans at the Battle of the Thames. In 1816, he was elected to the House of Representatives and in 1825 to the Senate. Gaining the Whig presidential nomination in 1840, he and his running mate, John Tyler, ran a successful campaign under the slogan “Tippecanoe and Tyler, too.” At the inauguration of America’s first Whig president, on March 4, 1841, a bitterly cold day, Harrison declined to wear a jacket or hat, made a two-hour speech, and attended three inauguration balls. Soon afterward, he developed pneumonia. On April 4, President Harrison died in Washington, and Vice President John Tyler ascended to the presidency, becoming the first individual in U.S. history to reach the office through the death of a president.

    1850 City of Los Angeles incorporated
    1862 Battle of Yorktown (US Civil War) begins

    1865 President Lincoln tours Richmond President Abraham Lincoln visits the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, a day after Union forces capture it.
    Lincoln had been in the area for nearly two weeks. He left Washington, D.C., at the invitation of general-in-chief Ulysses S. Grant to visit Grant’s headquarters at City Point, near the lines at Petersburg south of Richmond. The trip was exhilarating for the exhausted president. Worn out by four years of war and stifled by the pressures of Washington, Lincoln enjoyed himself immensely. He conferred with Grant and General William T. Sherman, who took a break from his campaign in North Carolina. He visited soldiers, and even picked up an ax to chop logs in front of the troops.
    Lincoln, accompanied by a small group of soldiers and a growing entourage of freed slaves, walked to the Confederate White House and sat in President Jefferson Davis’s chair. He walked to the Virginia statehouse and saw the chambers of the Confederate Congress. Lincoln even visited Libby Prison, where thousands of Union officers were held during the war. Lincoln remained in Richmond a few more days in hopes that Robert E. Lee’s army would surrender, but on April 8 he headed back to Washington. Six days later, Lincoln was shot as he watched a play at Ford’s Theater

    1870 Golden Gate Park forms by City Order #800
    1887 Susanna Medora Salter elected 1st US woman mayor (Argonia, KS)
    1896 Announcement of Gold in Yukon
    1902 Cecil Rhodes scholarship fund forms with $10 million
    1914 “Perils of Pauline” shown for 1st time in LA (serial silent movie; damsel in distress)
    1915 Germany protests vigorously to the US, claiming it must insist that Britain lifts its blockade and assert American neutrality
    1917 US Senate agrees (82-6) to participate in WW I

    1933 Dirigible crash kills 73 On this day in 1933, a dirigible crashes in New Jersey, killing 73 people in one of the first air disasters in history. The Akron was the largest airship built in the United States when it took its first flight in August 1931. In its short life of less than two years, it was involved in two fatal accidents.
    In 1932, the Akron attempted to land in high winds, with three groups of 30 men each assigned to help pull in the blimp and secure it to the ground with ropes. But the Akron, which was filled with helium, began to rise again after the sailors had begun to secure it. Three men held on to their rope; two of the three fell from 200 feet and were killed. The third man, Bud Cowart, managed to hold on at the end of the rope for two hours as the Akron dragged him 2,000 feet above the ground. Finally, the crew managed to pull him up into the airship through a porthole.
    The second accident involving the Akron occurred on April 4, 1933, while the U.S. Navy was using the airship to obtain some technical data over New Jersey. It was well-known that dirigibles could experience problems in bad weather, but despite the violent thunderstorms in the area that day, the Akron was not grounded. While in the air over the Atlantic Ocean, a miscommunication over directions by crew members sent the Akron directly into the storm instead of around it. The storm’s winds caused the ship to plunge nearly 1,000 feet in a few seconds. The crew then made its second mistake: the blimp’s water ballast was dumped in order to make the flying ship rise. However, the ballast dump thrust the Akron up too far, too fast. Critical devices and cables were destroyed and all control was lost. The Akron plunged into the ocean. A rescue airship was sent, but it also crashed, killing 2/7 on board. Only three of the Akron‘s 76 crew members survived the disaster. One of the survivors was the commander who had ordered the fateful ballast dump. [airship disasters list, Wiki: http://tinyurl.com/kh5ysv9 ]

    1944 Allied Bucharest bombings targeting railroads kills 5,000
    1945 Hungary liberated from Nazi occupation (National Day)
    1945 US forces liberated the Nazi death camp Ohrdruf in Germany
    1947 Largest group of sunspots on record
    1947 UN’s International Civil Aviation Organization forms
    1949 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) treaty signed in Washington DC
    1955 British government signs military treaty with Iraq
    1958 1st march against nuclear weapons (Aldermaston, England)
    1958 The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament Peace Symbol displayed in public for the first time in London.

    1960 32nd Academy Awards: “Ben-Hur”, Charlton Heston & Simone Signoret win
    Epic Ben-Hur is the behemoth entry at the 32nd annual Academy Awards ceremony. Setting an Oscar record, the film swept 11 of the 12 categories in which it was nominated. William Wyler’s 1959 film was the latest dramatic adaptation of the mega-bestselling novel “Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, published in 1880 by Lew Wallace. Wallace, a former general in the American Civil War, wrote his most successful novel after experiencing a new awakening of his Christian faith.
    Filmed on location in Italy, on a $15 million budget, this was the most expensive moved made to date. The film’s famous chariot race scene alone took three weeks to shoot and used some 15,000 extras. The setting for the race was constructed on 18 acres of back-lot space at Cinecitta Studios outside Rome. Aside from a few of the most daredevil stunts, Charlton Heston and Stephen Boyd (who played Messala, Judah Ben-Hur’s boyhood friend turned bitter enemy) did most of their own chariot driving. Ben-Hur’s record number of Oscars still stands, although two films (1997’s Titanic and 2003’s The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King) have matched it.

    1964 Beatles’ “Can’t Buy Me Love” single goes #1 & stays #1 for 5 weeks
    1966 Pirate Radio Scotland changes name to Radio Ireland [No. I have no idea why.]

    1968 US civil rights activist Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee
    Head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, King delivers a speech entitled “Beyond Vietnam” in front of 3,000 people at Riverside Church in New York City. In it, he says that there is a common link forming between the civil rights and peace movements. King proposed that the United States stop all bombing of North and South Vietnam; declare a unilateral truce in the hope that it would lead to peace talks; set a date for withdrawal of all troops from Vietnam; and give the National Liberation Front (Viet Cong, who fought against the South Vietnam Government, Wiki: http://tinyurl.com/6nsmnax ] a role in negotiations.

    King had been a solid supporter of President Lyndon B. Johnson and his Great Society, but he became increasingly concerned about U.S. involvement in Vietnam and, as his concerns became more public, his relationship with the Johnson administration deteriorated. King came to view U.S. intervention in Southeast Asia as little more than imperialism. Additionally, he believed that the Vietnam War diverted money and attention from domestic programs created to aid the black poor. Furthermore, he said, ‘the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home…We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem.’” King maintained his antiwar stance and supported peace movements until he was assassinated on April 4, 1968, one year to the day after delivering his Beyond Vietnam speech.

    1972 1st electric power plant fueled by garbage begins operating [Wiki: http://tinyurl.com/n3n8ssu

    1975 [Vietnam] Operation Baby Lift aircraft crashes Operation Baby Lift was designed to bring 2,000 South Vietnamese orphans to the United States for adoption by American parents. Baby Lift lasted for 10 days and was carried out during the final, desperate phase of the war, as North Vietnamese forces closed in on Saigon. The first airlift ended tragically when the Air Force cargo jet crashed shortly after leaving the airbase in Saigon. More than 138 passengers, mostly children, were killed. All following flights of Baby Lift were successful up until the program ended April 14, only 16 days before the fall of Saigon and the end of the war.

    1975 Microsoft is founded as a partnership between Bill Gates and Paul Allen to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800, On this day in 1975, at a time when most Americans use typewriters, childhood friends Bill Gates and Paul Allen found Microsoft. Originally based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Microsoft relocated to Washington State in 1979 and eventually grew into a major multinational technology corporation. In 1987, the year after Microsoft went public, 31-year-old Harvard dropout Gates became the world’s youngest billionaire.
    Gates and Allen started Microsoft—originally called Micro-Soft, for microprocessors and software—in order to produce software for the Altair 8800, an early personal computer. By the end of 1978, Microsoft’s sales topped more than $1 million. The company went on to license its MS-DOS operating system to IBM for its first personal computer, which debuted in 1981. Afterward, other computer companies started licensing MS-DOS, which had no graphical interface and required users to type in commands in order to open a program. Allen quit when he developed Hodgkin’s disease, was treated and then pursued other ventures.
    In 1985, Microsoft released a new operating system, Windows, with a graphical user interface that included drop-down menus, scroll bars and other features. In 1995, amidst skyrocketing purchases of personal computers for home and office use, Windows 95 made its debut. It included such innovations as a graphical user interface (GUI) and the Start menu; 7 million copies of the new product were sold in the first five weeks. During the second half of the 1990s, Internet usage took off, and Microsoft introduced its web browser, Internet Explorer, in 1995. In 1998, the U.S. Department of Justice and 20 state attorneys general charged Microsoft with violating antitrust laws; the 2001’s settlement with the government restricted corporate practices.

    1980 USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
    1981 Henry Cisneros becomes 1st Mexican-American mayor (San Antonio)
    1983 6th space shuttle mission, Challenger 1 launched
    1984 Winston Smith in Orwell’s “1984” begins his secret diary
    1987 Dow Jones up 69.89 points, ending at record 2,390.34 pts
    1988 Eddie Hill becomes the world’s first driver to cover the quarter mile in under 5 seconds
    1990 Security law violator Ivan Boesky is released from federal custody
    1994 Largest Opening Day crowd at Yankee Stadium, 56,706
    1994 Netscape Communications founded as Mosaic Communications
    2007 15 British Royal Navy personnel held in Iran are released by the Iranian President.

    2008 Raid on Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints owned YFZ Ranch in Texas; 401 children and 133 women taken into state custody. [Warren Jeffs, child brides, sexual abuse; Wiki: http://tinyurl.com/kjae628 ]

    2013 Poecilotheria rajaei, a giant tarantula with a 20cm (7.9″) leg span, is discovered in Sri Lanka

    2014 President of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim, claims that climate change will lead to battles over water and food within the next five to ten years

    Stella has suggested Tara Ross’ website for more detailed American History. Ms. Ross is an author and a Constitutionalist who publishes, on her website, “This day in American History”. She writes quite well and I’ve also become a fan. While, because of time issues, I cannot incorporate Ms. Ross’ writings here, I do suggest subscribing to her web newsletter for historical information in depth in your morning email. The signup for her newsletter, and her daily post can be found at at http://www.taraross.com/

    Text in this post may reproduce fully or in part certain websites, primarily history.com and onthisday.com, and is used here under fair use and for educational purposes.

    Today I hit and run – see you guys some time tomorrow afternoon. Morning to all!!!

    Liked by 6 people

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  8. Wooly Phlox says:
    April 4, 2017 at 2:57 am

    Liked by 2 people

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  10. sandandsea2015 says:
    April 4, 2017 at 8:05 am

    Liked by 7 people

    Reply
  11. nyetneetot says:
    April 4, 2017 at 8:07 am

    Mornin’ stella! (Smiter of those that ought to be smote) 😎 🍸 (Long Island Iced Tea)
    Mornin’ WeeWeed! (Master Mixologist Extrodinare) 😎 🍸 (Old Fashioned)
    Mornin’ Menagerie! 😎 |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| (Jack Daniels – Single Barrel )
    Mornin’ Ad rem! (Queen Felis catus) 🐱 🍸 (Flaming Lamborghini)
    Mornin’ Sharon! 😎 🍸 🍸 (earthquake)
    Mornin’ ytz4mee! 😎 🍸 (cosmopolitan)
    Mornin’ waltzingmtilda! 🙂 🍸 (white wine and perrier)
    Mornin’ partyzantski! 🙂 |_| (Tom Collins)
    Mornin’ texan59! 🙂 |_| (Black & Tan)
    Mornin’ ZurichMike! 🙂 🍸 (fuzzy navel)
    Mornin’ Col.(R) Ken! (hand salute) 🙂 |_| (Boilermaker)
    Mornin’ Czarina! 🙂 🍸 (Lynchburg Lemonade)
    Mornin’ czarowniczy! 🙂 |_| (Wild Turkey Rare Breed)
    Mornin’ letjusticeprevail2014! 🙂 |_| (Irish Car Bomb)
    Mornin’ Patriot1783-ctdar! (aka “ctdar”) 🙂 🍸 (grasshopper)
    Mornin’ tessa50! 🙂 🍸 (flaming volcano)
    Mornin’ waltzingmtilda! 🙂 🍸 (sidecar)
    Mornin’ varsityward! 🙂 |_| (Godfather)
    Mornin’ MaryfromMarin! 😀 |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| (Mortlach)
    Mornin’ Wooly Phlox! (aka “taqiyyologist”) 🙂 |_| (Roy Rogers)
    Mornin’ Howie! (aka “doodahdaze”) 🙂 |_| (Classic Daiquiri)
    Mornin’ TwoLaine! 🙂 |_| (Gin & Tonic)
    Mornin’ Sha! 🙂 🍸 (Lemon Drop)
    Mornin’ BigMamaTEA! 🙂 🍸 (Harvey Wallbanger)
    Mornin’ cetera5! (aka “Cetera”) 🙂 |_| (Blackberry wine)
    Mornin’ The Tundra PA! 🙂 🍸 (Baileys Irish Cream on the rocks)
    Mornin’ lovely! 🙂 |_| (Backdraft)
    Mornin’ michellc! 🙂 🍸 (Salty dog)
    Mornin’ auscitizenmom! 🙂 🍸 (Kiss on the Lips)
    Mornin’ Margaret-Ann! 🙂 🍸 (White Russian)
    Mornin’ Auntie Lib! 🙂 🍸 (Tom and Jerry)
    Mornin’ holly100! 🙂 🍸 (Jack & Coke)
    Mornin’ Pam! 🙂 (Not even water)
    Mornin’ Ms.Tee! 🙂 🍸 (Mojito)
    Mornin’ koolkosherkitchen! 🙂 🍸 🍸 (Cuba Libre)
    Mornin’ ImpeachEmAll 🙂 |_| (Flaming Dr. Pepper)
    Mornin’ Monroe! 🙂 |_| (Stinger)
    Mornin’ Les! 🙂 |_| (Rusty Nail)
    Mornin’ shiloh1973! 🙂 |_| (Jack Daniels)
    Mornin’ TexasRanger! 🙂 |_| (Whiskey Smash)
    Mornin’ Ziiggii! 🙂 |_| (B52)
    Mornin’ oldiadguy! 🙂 |_| (Rum & Coke)
    Mornin’ smiley! (“stuck in spambucket”) 🙂 🍸 (Spanish coffee)
    Mornin’ derk! (“Stellars”) 🙂 🍸 (Kamikaze)
    Mornin’ Jacqueline Taylor Robson 🙂 🍸 (Shirley Temple)
    Mornin’ facebkwallflower! 🙂 |_| (Night Train Express)
    Mornin’ Ms. Cindy! (aka “Ms Cynlynn” aka “ms cynlynn”) 🙂 🍸 (1970 ducru beaucaillou)
    Mornin’ sandandsea2015! 🙂 🍸 (1961 Château Montrose)
    Mornin’ amwick! 🙂 🍸 (Blue motorcycle)
    Mornin’ hocuspocus13! 🙂 🍸 (1970 Chateau Latour)
    Mornin’ Sloth1963! 🙂 🍸 (1971 Moulin Touchais)
    Mornin’ MTeresa! (Ex-lurker) 🙂 |_| (Albanian Raki Moskat)
    Mornin’ Rhea Salacia Volans! 🙂 |_| (Hot Buttered Rum)
    Mornin’ joshua! 🙂 |_| (Mudslide)
    Mornin’ John Denney! 🙂 |_| (RumChata)
    Mornin’ litenmaus! 🙂 |_| (Stolichnaya elit, no ice)
    Mornin’ kinthenorthwest! 🙂 🍸 (A Lonely Island Lost in the Middle of a Foggy Sea)
    Mornin’ TwoLaine! 🙂 |_| (Smoking Bishop)
    Mornin’ patternpuzzler! 🙂 🍸 (Old Lady)
    Mornin’ Senatssekretär FREISTAAT DANZIG! 🙂 |_| (Red Russian)
    Mornin’ G-d&Country! 🙂 🍸 (Blind Russian)
    Mornin’ whiners and complainers! 😛 (No drink for you!)
    Mornin’ to people posting that I missed. 😳
    Mornin’ to all you lurkers! 😕

    Also just in case someday; mornin’ to Elvis Chupacabra, F.D.R. in Hell and sundance! :mrgreen:

    Breakfast!

    NEW and IMPROVED breakfast with extra bacon for ZurichMike!

    Pastries for coffee!

    Liked by 9 people

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  12. amwick says:
    April 4, 2017 at 8:41 am

    Good Morning Everyone,
    Big doings at the cabin… The carpenter bee sprayer is coming to treat the exterior. Last year we waited until some time in June, and it was disastrous. We also made the mistake (we meaning me) of washing the windows a day or two before the sprayer slimed them with carpenter bee insecticide. I had to go up on a ladder for some of them, so this was not a nice thing…. Live and learn.

    Liked by 4 people

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  13. G-d&Country says:
    April 4, 2017 at 10:11 am

    Good Morning All! Here is today’s bacon recipe:
    GRILLED STUFFED BACON JALAPENOS

    View post on imgur.com

    Ingredients
    14 jalapeno peppers, halved lengthwise, and seeded
    4 slices bacon (I would like smoked bacon in this recipe)
    1⁄2 cup cream cheese, softened
    1⁄4 cup shredded extra-sharp cheddar cheese, or jalapeno cheddar
    1⁄4 cup minced green onion
    1 teaspoon fresh lime juice
    1⁄4 teaspoon salt (I would leave out salt)
    1 small garlic clove, minced
    2 tablespoons fresh cilantro
    2 tablespoons fresh, chopped seeded tomatoes
    Directions
    Preheat grill to medium-high heat.
    Cook bacon in a skillet over medium heat until done.
    Remove bacon, drain, and then crumble bacon.
    Combine bacon, cheeses, green onion, lime juice, and garlic in a bowl, stirring to combine.
    Divide cheese evenly, and fill pepper halves.
    Place peppers cheese side up on grill, cover and grill peppers 8 minutes, or until bottoms of peppers are charred, and cheese mixture is lightly browned.
    Place peppers on serving platter, and sprinkle with tomato and cilantro.
    Enjoy! 🙂

    Liked by 3 people

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  14. G-d&Country says:
    April 4, 2017 at 10:19 am

    Today’s painting is by JMW Turner, a very talented, famous, and prolific artist. This beauty apparently sold for $35.9 million.

    View post on imgur.com

    This painting has detail you can’t see in such a small image, but I did not want to make it too large for the webpage. Even without the detail, I really like the colors. Hope you enjoy! 🙂

    Liked by 4 people

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  15. lovely says:
    April 4, 2017 at 10:44 am

    Shazam! I saw Paul the Wretch Ryan on Fox a short bit ago, he looked absolutely terrible.

    I have watched Ryan. I remember seeing him stand on stage and cry in front of thousands of people when they made the official announcement that he was Mitt’s running mate. He really was humbled by the moment. About a month later he was coming back to WI to give a speech. I was happy to go see him.

    Then I saw him.

    Paul was gone. Literally. The Paul Ryan who was respected and had at least some respect for something bigger better and more important than himself in America was gone. It was like seeing a Stepford wife. Then well Paul became the arrogant, self interested, oligarchs first, Paul Ryan that I have come to loath.

    Today at the presser all of Paul’s arrogance was gone, he was pale, shaky and unsure. I have known him (not personally but through politics) and observed Paul for a long time so I’m not sure of how apparent it will be to others but I can guarantee that Paul has been put in his place. Something has shaken him to his core. I’ll bet a dollar to a donut on this guess.

    Liked by 6 people

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    • auscitizenmom says:
      April 4, 2017 at 10:49 am

      I think he knows he’s been had.

      Liked by 4 people

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      • lovely says:
        April 4, 2017 at 10:53 am

        Ryan really looked terrible. Maybe he has the flu 😜. I didn’t catch the whole presser, probably only 5 minutes of it, but I was shocked. The problem with getting away with self serving evil behavior for years is that you think your facade is impenetrable, it must come as quite a shock to all the emperors that the kid with the funny hair just keeps screaming about their nakedness and that a whole lot of people are saying “By George! The kid with the funny hair is right!”

        Liked by 3 people

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    • Wooly Phlox says:
      April 4, 2017 at 3:25 pm

      I think that everyone, even Tea Party favorites, who gets to D.C. by skill or good fortune, gets brought to a basement in D.C. somewhere, probably under Comet Ping Pong or somewhere similar, maybe Foggy Bottom. Then they get shown 8×10 glossies, pictures of their wife and their mistresses, and kids playing in the park with the friendly Men In Black who are looking at the camera and winking and smiling, and the implication is that you do what we tell you to do, from now on. I don’t know what gives me that impression other than watching every single Tea Party candidate who wins become Establishment within a month.

      WELCOME TO WASHINGTON, D.C. WE OWN YOU, NOW.

      Congrats on your election “victory”.

      All the Tea Party favorites became owned. For some strange reason.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply
  17. auscitizenmom says:
    April 4, 2017 at 12:01 pm

    Wow, how you ask a question can determine what the answer is. On Happening Now, on FOX, the talking head asked two lawyers if it was legal for ICE to ask local authorities to hold someone while they checked on their status to see if he is legal. Hm. My understanding is that ICE already knows these people are illegal and criminal and ready for deportation. Of course, the lawyers’ answer was “no”.

    Liked by 2 people

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    • auscitizenmom says:
      April 4, 2017 at 12:02 pm

      Oh, and the other point was about the cost of holding them for a day or two more. I thought that was what all this money they are going to lose was about. To cover that expense. Hm.

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply
    • G-d&Country says:
      April 4, 2017 at 12:15 pm

      I stopped watching everything on Fox years ago, and this year stopped watching Fox Business except sometimes Lou Dobbs. Fox is just a more subtle (and more dangerous) form of brainwashing. They are all there for the ratings, money, and to get their face in the camera. The head of Fox – what’s his name – is no friend of Trump, us, or the US. He is a globalist.

      Liked by 1 person

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      • auscitizenmom says:
        April 4, 2017 at 1:28 pm

        Yes, I read this over and over in these threads, but there are more shows than Lou that are pro-Trump or that try to get to the truth. Tucker Carlson’s show is one, Judge Jeanine is another. FOX and FRIENDS in the mornings lean toward Trump and the truth. Futures with Maria Barteroma is pretty straightforward. However, avoid Shephard Smith like the plague.

        Liked by 2 people

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      • amwick says:
        April 4, 2017 at 3:03 pm

        Fox is like a box of chocolates…. Some are terrific, others not so much…

        Liked by 3 people

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    • czarowniczy says:
      April 4, 2017 at 11:26 pm

      How ’bout dat Multnomah County courtvreferee who let an illegal use a private exit from her court to keep the illegal from running i to ICE?
      How ’bout dem judges complaining that ICE hassling illegals in courthouses discourages illegals from coming into court to answer unrelated charges, meaning they’ll have bench warrants issued. But wait…if there’s a bench warrant on file then any LEA who stops the offender can arrest him on that warrant and the judge has become party to that illegal’s arrest….ohohohoh…my head hurts.

      Like

      Reply
  18. michellc says:
    April 4, 2017 at 12:10 pm

    Sometimes I really don’t understand the world we live in today. I miss the good ol’ days when people had a little respect and thieves weren’t running around everywhere. Even in the country now your stuff isn’t safe, in the past few days I’ve heard of trucks, utvs, saddles, livestock being stolen and houses being broken into.

    Not sure if it’s made national news as I’ve been too busy to look at anything, but it’s all over the local news about a young man who shot and killed three teens who broke into is house in the middle of the day. The local folks are playing up how “tragic” is that three teens were killed for a “mistake.” One of the teen boys’ grandfather is making the rounds crying and complaining his grandson should not have been killed for making a mistake and how the law needed to be changed on allowing intruders to be shot because the poor little boys were good kids who just made a mistake and the homeowner’s son should not have felt his life was threatened because they only were armed with knives and brass knuckles and didn’t have a chance against an AR-15. They held a vigil for the three dead felons and have set up go fund me for all of them. The idiot 21 year old girl who was the supposed master mind behind their break ins and it wasn’t their first as she told police, “it wasn’t their first rodeo,” is whining that she can’t see her children. She won’t be raising her children as she is charged with 3 counts of 1st degree murder.

    When did society become so screwed up? I don’t feel sorry for the three dead kids or the get away driver who will be in jail for the rest of her life. I feel sorry for the families, but then they also share in the blame if they were like the grandpa who taught them breaking in and stealing is a mistake instead of a crime, a crime that could get you killed. Obviously grandpa didn’t teach grandson that as he also is saying they knew they could be punished but they should not have been killed.

    One good thing about being so busy is not knowing about all the crazy. 🙂

    Liked by 7 people

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    • Rhea Salacia Volans says:
      April 4, 2017 at 12:25 pm

      Yeah, sorry to say it but I’ve heard this story before, ad nauseam. “He a good boy! He never done noffin wrong.” Etc, etc.

      I don’t even feel bad for the families. Maybe they should have taught their children not to behave like thugs and criminals. I know that even in the best families, some children turn out bad, but I doubt that this was one of the stories where the families were trying to raise good kids.

      I feel bad for the victim. He doesn’t deserve to be at the center of this. I would be suing the families that raised the criminals, actually, or talking to a lawyer about doing it. These people need to be hit where it hurts, and I don’t think the death of their kids actually hurt them.

      What can I say? I’ve gotten cynical since the days of the Trayvon Martin fiasco.

      Liked by 6 people

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      • Wooly Phlox says:
        April 4, 2017 at 5:03 pm

        +1,000,000,000

        Liked by 2 people

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      • michellc says:
        April 4, 2017 at 7:20 pm

        I don’t understand the grandfather of one of these boys. If it was my son or grandson of course I’d be heartbroken that my son/grandson was dead, but I would also feel like a failure as a parent/grandparent that my son/grandson thought it was fine to break into a house or that it was fine to take what was not theirs. I would keep my mouth shut and certainly wouldn’t say he made a mistake or he didn’t have a chance with a knife and brass knuckles against a gun. He had a chance at life before he made the decision to participate in breaking down doors and robbing people and once he made that decision he deserved what happened to him.
        I didn’t have to teach my kids they might be killed for breaking into houses, they were taught to respect others’ property and that you don’t take what is not yours. The grandpa and all of the idiots saying they were kids who made a mistake are just that, “idiots.” Breaking into houses and stealing is not a mistake, it is a felony, one they had plenty of time to think about before they did it.

        Liked by 2 people

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    • czarowniczy says:
      April 4, 2017 at 12:30 pm

      I’d pisted on this when it was brand new and hadn’t gained legs yet. It was already being seasoned by the press as a ‘can’t we charge the shooter’ case as the trespassers were only ‘carrying’ knives and brass knuckles.
      Our standard reply to folks whining about shooting attackers armed ‘only with a kinfe’ was: ‘OK, just how much stabbing, slashing, cutting to YOURSELF do you consider acceptable before you’d shoot in your own defense?”. These foljs have never been cut worse than a kitchen cut, nor have they evervseen exactly what a knife can do to a person. Many years ago we had a knife class on the offensive use of a knife and the demonstration would, even now, give the observer the cold chills. I still carry a specislized folding knife as my ‘OH sh*t go-to back-up’ tool.
      As for brass knuckles, the same hods true. Dear apologist commentator, again, how many times eould you allow an sttacker to smack the **** out of your face and bidy with brass knuckles before you said “ENOUGH” and shot him?
      The crime apologists who have long given up on expecting even minimal civilized behavior from their charges are down to trying to blame the victims and decriminalize what’s obviously criminal behavior. They are against self defense, against castle laws and for blaming victims for their own victimization. I suggest we license each and every apologist andnpublish a list containing their addresses and personal possessions so that their charges can get to know each and every one personally.

      Liked by 3 people

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      • michellc says:
        April 4, 2017 at 4:47 pm

        From what little I’ve seen in the papers, heard on the radio and saw on local news, from the get go the media was playing it as if it’s fair or right to shoot three kids. Why didn’t the homeowner’s son just scare them away instead of killing all of them, they weren’t a huge threat, just three kids making a mistake and asking the question if our laws should be looked at. It was known from the beginning he wasn’t going to be charged and just waiting on the DA to confirm that, they were in his house wearing masks and had just busted in the back door, not exactly making a friendly visit. As soon as the 911 call was released they headlined it as, “he was calm after shooting them.” Yet when you actually listened to the 911 call you could hear the breathing and tone to know he wasn’t so calm, just not hysterical. He thought he had only shot two of them.

        He’s a young man who now has to live with it the rest of his life that he did take three lives because they forced him to take their lives.
        It really pisses me off that now even if they break into your house they want to make you the bad guy for killing the poor little babies. Poor little babies who had all dropped out of school, been in trouble with the law and broke in to steal.

        Liked by 4 people

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      • Wooly Phlox says:
        April 4, 2017 at 5:11 pm

        ‘OK, just how much stabbing, slashing, cutting to YOURSELF do you consider acceptable before you’d shoot in your own defense?’

        Amen. “Can you give me a number? How many times must your head be smashed into the concrete while you are being MMA-style Ground & Pounded, before you draw and fire? All I want is a number. How many punches and kicks to your body and face? Is there a line you can draw? If not, then you believe that any other person has the right to murder you, because you’re a noble defeatist.”

        The Noble Defeatist is like the Conservative-side analogue to the Special Snowflake.

        “George Zimmerman should have just let himself be killed.” — The Entire Left

        Liked by 3 people

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        • michellc says:
          April 4, 2017 at 7:10 pm

          If someone busts down my door, I’m not going to stop and wonder what they may want or if they have weapons and certainly not going to wonder how old they are. Someone busting down your door have already revealed they aren’t making a social call.

          Liked by 4 people

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          • sandandsea2015 says:
            April 4, 2017 at 8:11 pm

            Nope! Shoot first, ask questions later.

            Liked by 2 people

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          • Col.(R) Ken says:
            April 4, 2017 at 8:50 pm

            Good to see you post…. and yes it is crazy out in the country. Ask yourself this, why I do carry a saddle rifle on my tractor? And a 9mm with 3-4 magazines in the truck? And all of the doors are locked, alarm is on whether I’m home or not…….
            This young man not only saved his life, and maybe another…… I glad he shot, save the state some money…….
            There was an article on AT, entitled “Crime is Now Black Privilege”.

            Liked by 2 people

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            • michellc says:
              April 6, 2017 at 8:31 am

              2 of these boys looked white, although knowing the name of the grandfather I suspect one of the boys was part Indian and then the 3rd boy looked black or at least half black and the woman has a Hispanic name.

              I don’t think race was the guiding factor in all the wringing of hands, I think it’s more about big bad guns and not wanting us to have the right to defend ourselves or our property. Them all being teens just helped them play it up. Plus there’s some anti-male in it all imho because another shooting happened recently and it was a woman who shot the intruders and the media labeled her a hero.

              Like

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        • patternpuzzler says:
          April 4, 2017 at 8:15 pm

          “Noble Defeatist.” I like it. The term, I mean.

          Liked by 1 person

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    • lovely says:
      April 4, 2017 at 12:48 pm

      So according to liberal logic the young man supposed to ask the felons to wait until he grabbed a knife and found or bought some brass knuckles plus called a couple friends so that it was a three on three fair fight? Good gravy.

      Liked by 3 people

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      • czarowniczy says:
        April 4, 2017 at 1:05 pm

        Ya gotta go to a number of sources to get the truth as each has a seperate agenda. Seems the young woman who planbed it was an acquaintance of the honeowner, they’d stolen booze and electronics from a garage apartment at the house earlier in the day and had returned, dressed in black and wearing masks, to rob the house and homeowner.
        I’m working on my apology now, telling the world how sorry I am for accumulating so much property that I lured these poor, downtrodden and opportunity deprived victims of capitalist…..you see where this is headed.

        Liked by 4 people

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        • michellc says:
          April 4, 2017 at 4:55 pm

          That is a new play to lay more blame on the victim. Heard that on the radio earlier that she knew them or of them so somehow that was them asking to be broke into so why shoot them.
          They’re playing down the fact that several homes in the neighborhood had been broken into recently and they are suspected as the ones who had been doing it. It’s so much better for the story to play them up as poor little teens who made a mistake by being led by the older woman, but they meant no harm.

          Liked by 3 people

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      • michellc says:
        April 4, 2017 at 4:50 pm

        Yep, he should have asked them to take off their masks so he could determine their age and ask what weapons they had on them before shooting them or that is how it is being played.

        Liked by 3 people

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        • czarowniczy says:
          April 4, 2017 at 5:12 pm

          We regularly get stories of po’ innocent innercity chirruns as young as ten being seduced by those evuh gunseses, were it not fo’ the circe call of the gunses they’d be on the way to choir practice and MIT prep classes.
          Then there’s that lure of excess consumption by the greedy, privileged working class who, instead of buying luxury irems, should be taking those excess monies and graciously passing them to the non-working class.

          Liked by 2 people

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  19. lovely says:
    April 4, 2017 at 12:55 pm

    “I leaked nothing to nobody,” Susan Rice.

    A little sloppy language or a well crafted truth?

    Liked by 2 people

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    • czarowniczy says:
      April 4, 2017 at 1:22 pm

      Any country the Russians serviced can reasonably be expected to possess chemical weapons with Russian (or Bloc) fingerprints all over them.
      Chlorine’s a favorite, phosgene a second so, as their use can be excused as an accidental industrial release. Nerve gasses, with the ALLEGED exception of some Russian ones, are harder to BS your way thru.
      The US has been reluctant to call the Russians out on chem weapon use, even during Afghanistan, instead choosing to use contorted language to excuse and explain away the evidence. During the first Gulf War numerous US and allied service personnel were, as either a criminal or civil court would rule, gassed by Russia but even in the face of a mountain of probable cause the US won’t step up to the plate even forbits own injured military personnel. And no, it’s not Our Favorite Arizona Senstor leading the charge to screw our troops….at leadt I think so.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply
  21. stella says:
    April 4, 2017 at 1:07 pm

    Victor Davis Hanson …

    Journey to the Center of the Country

    http://www.nationalreview.com/article/446384/trump-centrist-moderate-course-correction-after-obama-era-radicalism

    Nonetheless, the media and the Left, in their respective arenas, howled that these modest corrections back to the center by Eisenhower, Nixon, and now Trump were nihilistic and extreme. True to form, we are now hearing those same end-of-days accusations — even as Trump seeks to bring the U.S. back to about where it was between 1980 and 1992. Note that this endless cycle of change and counter-change is not a static phenomenon but incrementally (and over time radically) takes government and the culture ever more leftward.

    Liked by 3 people

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    • stella says:
      April 4, 2017 at 1:18 pm

      Hillary Clinton pandered more to working-class whites in 2008 than Trump did in 2016. The latter never said something akin to Hillary’s overt boasts about her white support in the 2008 primaries. “I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on,” she told USA Today, adding that an AP story “found how Senator Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in [Indiana and North Carolina] who had not completed college were supporting me.”

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply
  22. Rhea Salacia Volans says:
    April 4, 2017 at 1:24 pm

    Intelligent, rational discussion continues to decline. Has anyone else noticed that libs on Twitter these days seem to think that posting a gif is a valid counterargument?

    Liked by 2 people

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    • G-d&Coutry says:
      April 4, 2017 at 1:48 pm

      I don’t do twitter. I would not expect intelligent debate on twitter. Intelligent, thoughtful, polite comments are the reason I am here, and sometimes next door. What worries me are the lack of properly educated people in important jobs such as, but not limited to medicine, law, propane drivers and installers, car mechanics (don’t want the brakes or steering to fail) etc, etc. I wonder how many people saying they are computer experts understand computers only “know” whether or not an electrical current is present or not – which is programmed as 1’s and 0’s (a mind numbing programming course I took in college in the 70’s). I have had many young people look at me totally clueless when I say this.

      Liked by 2 people

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    • amwick says:
      April 4, 2017 at 3:11 pm

      Twitter is crooked… I still don’t get it… our President might have75000 likes on a tweet and the only comments are almost all negative… I tried importing the block list that Katica made, but it only helped a little

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply
  23. stella says:
    April 4, 2017 at 1:41 pm

    For our tea drinkers (and book lovers):

    Liked by 4 people

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    • G-d&Coutry says:
      April 4, 2017 at 1:49 pm

      🙂 Big Smile Very nice

      Liked by 2 people

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    • Wooly Phlox says:
      April 4, 2017 at 4:12 pm

      I have a friend at work who doesn’t know how to have an actual conversation. He interjects at my every pause in my speaking with him. Commas, parentheses, semicolons all mean it’s his turn to speak. There is no conversation when the person you are speaking with is responding verbally to your every clause.

      I tried to explain why me and him cannot talk about atheism vs. Christianity. Stupid me. I love the guy, and I said, if we are to do this, we will do it in E-mail, because you are incapable of actual conversation, and then I tried in vain (because, paradox) to explain to him how the Inklings, comprised of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkein, and other Oxford professors who disagreed very widely and wildly on a great variety of subjects, could sit around and have actual conversation, while drinking tea and smoking cigars, and that the art has been lost. This was lost on him as he interjected at my every comma, excitedly, and in terms that always suggested that I’m wrong. Every clause.

      Give me some duct tape. When I’m done making my point, I’ll rip it off your lips.

      He proved me right even while I was trying in vain to explain this to him. There can be no live, in-person discussion with somebody who is hard wired to make it so there is no “dead air”, someone who is always and only thinking about what to say next, at the next tiny pause. Our “conversations” don’t even rise to the level of “banter” or “chit-chat”.

      Liked by 4 people

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      • lovely says:
        April 4, 2017 at 4:24 pm

        Hmmm… Could he be is a prolific texter and he thinks a pause of any type means he must respond? Probably not. It sounds like someone who isn’t listening but just waiting to tell you why you are wrong, one of those incurious people who digest nothing for educational value but rather just to spit it out in an unrecognizable form.

        Liked by 1 person

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        • Wooly Phlox says:
          April 4, 2017 at 4:36 pm

          No, I blame TV.

          Dude is a biologist. He named about 15 Michigan wild mushrooms yesterday, some which are coming up now and some which would begin to come up in a month.

          He’s just, I dunno, “staccato”. Just “this! THIS! THIS!!!” all the time. No pauses.

          Liked by 2 people

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      • auscitizenmom says:
        April 4, 2017 at 5:49 pm

        Sounds like my ex. In the middle of a sentence, he would just start talking about something he was thinking about, usually a totally different subject that he had pontificated on earlier perhaps. I finally realized he never listened to a thing I said.

        Liked by 1 person

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      • John Denney says:
        April 4, 2017 at 7:28 pm

        I have a friend like that. Doesn’t drink, smoke, do drugs, or drink coffee, but he’s just very intent and hyperactive.
        Bright guy, Lieutenant in Civil Air Patrol, flying search planes and teaching classes on radio direction finding to track down emergency beacons carried in airplanes that begin transmitting when jarred, like in a crash, or when someone tosses an old one into an empty dumpster.
        We agree politically, and he’s not inimical to Christianity, having moved from being an atheist to agnostic deist since I’ve known him.
        He and I and another friend meet for lunch, and I have a difficult time getting a word in edgewise.
        Even if it’s just the two of us, I’ll start speaking and he’ll pick up the gist of it and start verbally running on ahead of me in the direction he thinks I was going.
        He has my honor, respect, and friendship, but he makes me crazy sometimes.
        If we were dogs, I’d be a lumbering Basset hound and he a high strung Yorkie.

        Liked by 2 people

        Reply
  24. G-d&Coutry says:
    April 4, 2017 at 1:59 pm

    Had to put Drudge headline here – it’s so funny!

    View post on imgur.com

    BOILED RICE

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply
    • Wooly Phlox says:
      April 4, 2017 at 5:31 pm

      How long ago did I suggest Cernovich for Trump’s cabinet?

      His SF/F writing is also great.

      Gorilla Mindset

      MAGA Mindset: Making YOU and America Great Again

      Castalia House. The new publisher that will bury the rest.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply
      • Wooly Phlox says:
        April 4, 2017 at 5:34 pm

        He doesn’t actually write SF/F. My bad.

        Via Infogalactic
        “Castalia House publishes a number of critically-acclaimed and bestselling authors, including Jerry Pournelle, Tom Kratman, John C. Wright, Martin van Creveld, William S. Lind, Mike Cernovich, Nick Cole, David VanDyke, Sarah Salviander, Peter Grant, David The Good, Rod Walker, and Vox Day.”

        A lotta these guys do.

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply
        • Wooly Phlox says:
          April 4, 2017 at 5:35 pm

          Czar and Col. Ken would be very interested in van Crevald’s work.

          Liked by 1 person

          Reply
          • Col.(R) Ken says:
            April 4, 2017 at 9:06 pm

            Sounds like this guy had read my Masters thesis; War has Improved Civilization. Though we in the West have always sought a technical solution for improvement……I may had read some about this guy long ago……Jedi Knight school…….

            Like

            Reply
  26. Wooly Phlox says:
    April 4, 2017 at 6:28 pm

    I was a comma with no cause, a rebel with no clause…

    Rap is not dead. Just an underused tool.

    http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/sagefrancis/thankyou.html

    Open ’em both in separate windows.

    Intelligent Rap. I never thought I would utter that phrase.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
  27. stella says:
    April 4, 2017 at 8:55 pm

    I think you will like this.

    Still Not A Bro, Still Not A Russian Agent, Still Glad Hillary Lost

    View at Medium.com

    It’s different!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
    • lovely says:
      April 4, 2017 at 10:05 pm

      So stop. It’s easy: all you have to do is realize that you’ve been lied to your entire life by everyone you respect and admire.

      Stop trusting these monsters. Stop believing the lies.

      Always good to see someone wake up and smell the tea leaves. I wonder how long it will be before she is called every name in the book by her loyal liberal readers.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply
      • stella says:
        April 4, 2017 at 10:07 pm

        She’s in Australia, so maybe it won’t be too bad. She says she’s far left.

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply
        • lovely says:
          April 4, 2017 at 10:11 pm

          I saw that. I suspect she will still be attacked by her readers, maybe though not as bad as if she were an American with a largely liberal American readership.

          By the way Cher said the democrats shouldn’t block Gorsuch, that’s all I know I just saw the headline didn’t read the article. But I was shocked. I never thought Cher was dumb just damaged, indoctrinated, and loud.

          Like

          Reply
  28. auscitizenmom says:
    April 4, 2017 at 9:00 pm

    lilbirdee12’s prayer:

    Our Heavenly Father, Your children come to you tonight to ask for healing and peace throughout our country so that we may return to being One Nation Under God. Guide us to be leaders in Your Kingdom, spreading Your Love and Salvation to all. Forgive us our sins and deliver us from evil.

    Lord, we ask for a blanket of protection over all our troops and law enforcement who serve to defend and protect us. Bless our representatives with the strength and wisdom they need to achieve the path You have chosen for us.

    Please place Your Guardian Angels of Protection around Donald Trump and Mike Pence and their families as they seek to lead America back to You.

    Grant us patience, Lord, as the evil ones try to anger us and cause us to fall.
    Spread blessings over Israel and Netanyahu.

    We humbly ask that You please comfort those who are grieving and in pain.
    Thank you Father, for Your Love and the gift of Life.

    In Jesus name, we pray. Amen

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply
  29. lovely says:
    April 4, 2017 at 10:16 pm

    Is anyone reading about the Russian subway bombing? I’ve read that it is being portrayed as a single suicide bomber even though one bomb was found and defused. If that is true and this is really surveillance of the guy that they claim blew himself up, where the heck is the second bomb?

    Liked by 1 person

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