Bullet Points
** Jordan Peterson on Science and Religion.
** Ecclesiastes 10:2 The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left. (NIV) Your Scripture-of-the-Day
** A Jewish man went to his rabbi and said, “You’ll never believe what happened to me; my son moved out and became a Christian.”
The rabbi said, “Oy, you’ll never believe it, but the same thing happened to me. Let’s pray to God and hear what he tells us.”
So they prayed to God, and God said, “You’ll never believe what happened to me…”
** If a meteor fell on Davos, Switzerland, today, we’d all own everything and be happy.
** The US has tumbled in its math educational standings. Maybe this is why:
** At Peterson Space Force Base (Colorado) – a coming event if you served at Thule AFB or Pituffik (same base in Greenland) Space Force Base.
3rd Annual Thule (Pituffik) Reunion Thurs 22 Feb 24 / 4 pm
There is a better-than-even chance that I’ll end up at Pituffik SFB this coming year for a week or so. I’ll have a sense of the schedule next month and a go/no go on the trip.
There isn’t much there outside of the base.
** “Beware of overconcern for money, or position, or glory. Someday, you will meet a man who cares for none of these things. Then you will know how poor you are.” – Kipling
** Cartoon Sermonette:
** ** **
The Sermonette
The Woke Crowd is Puzzled (New Yorker) – In the past few years, accounts of San Francisco’s unraveling—less like a tired sweater than a ball of yarn caught in a boat propeller—have spread with the authority of gossip or folklore. As the pandemic recedes, nearly a quarter of offices downtown are said to be vacant, the worst rate in the nation. Drug overdose deaths are surging; reports of theft on downtown streets, including an almost two-hundred-per-cent increase in car break-ins in 2021, have crossed the national media to the censorious response. “They took down the guardrails around personal responsibility,” the Wall Street Journal columnist Daniel Henninger declared on Fox News. In May, a local pet owner claimed that her Himalayan sheepdog began “wobbling” after eating feces possibly containing opioids and marijuana. Throughout the summer, Presidential hopefuls came to town to stand on grim street corners and record their horror for the cameras. (“It’s collapsed because of leftist policies,” Ron DeSantis replied in his spot. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., lamented the many Americans who “are on the precipice of ending up on a corner like this.”) Nine years ago, when HBO premièred the series “Silicon Valley,” a deadpan comedy lampooning the Bay Area’s lifestyle blandishments and hapless global power, the city seemed to exist in a helium balloon, floating ever upward. Now, the same place is viewed as an emblem of American collapse.
The change has been unsettling because the city’s broad project is widely shared. Since the end of the industrial period, the U.S. metropolis’s main path has been urban renewal: transforming old frameworks into beautiful, dynamic settings for prosperous middle-class life. No city excelled at the assignment more than San Francisco. It invested in lush, landscaped parks, tree-lined boulevards, and world-class museums where none existed. It grew rich and seemed to climb out of the Great Recession with influence and a mandate. “There’s a lot of pent-up envy of San Francisco from many other cities that think of themselves as more important,” one local told me recently. For a long time, that envy inspired mostly emulation. Universities spent millions to reorient themselves around the Bay Area’s thinking style. Success across industries today is measured by virality, optimization, and unceasing growth. In San Francisco, the nation saw its dreams and now thinks it sees its nightmares. The question is, what caused such a swift change?
Yes, the left is perplexed at San Francisco’s collapse despite an influx of other people’s money to keep it going. Nobody else is. It’s all predictable and inevitable when you behave the way they did.
Rollin’ on the River
ID the class of riverboat circa 1970 – Cue CCR
1
ID the Ships
2
3
Hint: and yes, it’s a genuine hint. I’ve been aboard this ship at Chinhae, Republic of Korea. You can explain why that might have been an important hint…
Extra credit for three VM points: ID the ‘Russian’ Officer
For the three extra VM points im going to say the fake Russian is none other than Mr Larry Lambert himself.
Well done, keep those points handy to exchange for valuable whatevers.
The face dirt was a good touch…but still a handsome guy underneath.
And what rank was that Russian?
They’re OPFOR ranks, maybe a lieutenant?
Is this from when you guys were catching Russians on their border-crossing graduation exercises? Or something like that? A better cause than Jeffrey Epstein (who totally killed himself — I’m rehabilitating myself 😌) dressed as SEAL Commander.
“The heart of the wise inclines to the right”
Back in the day we had a janitor who had isolated dextrocardia (not complete situs inversus). One of the faculty teaching “Art of the physical exam” to first-year med students somehow found out about this. He hired her to be a patient/model. The student (uninformed about her right-sided heart) would be directed to listen to her heart. The professor would then ask “did you hear her murmur?” Of course not, because a) no murmur, b) they were listening to the wrong side of her chest. I’m told it was fascinating how many students bobbed their lying heads and said they’d heard the murmur.
She was a good janitor too. Bit of a drinking problem though. About every two weeks she’d go on a bender and not show up at work the following day. She was fired by the head of “housekeeping” though we tried like hell to retain her. I’ll take nine out of 10 days of spotless everything, AND good with patients and staff, vs her unending string of replacements who were terrible with everyone and would leave excrement on the underside of the toilet seat (how does that even happen?) and things like used IV lines on the floor in patient areas.
That’s OPFOR against the Marines at Camp Pendleton in one of the combat towns. I think it was Area #25 but my memory may be faulty.
You can see the safety pin holding the rank sleeve in place.
Breaking: According to NBC News, Ron DeSantis has abruptly CANCELLED his interviews on both Meet The Press and CNN this weekend. Speculation is running that he’s out of the race, just leaving Tricky Nickki and President Trump to battle for the Republican nomination. We’ll have to wait and see if this is the case.
Nikki the neocon thinks she’ll get elected after they jail Trump? Or she’s going to do like so many and keep a few million left over in the campaign account after she finally quits?
It’s very profitable to run so long as you don’t deplete your war chest on election-related stuff.
A bunch of staff bailed after Iowa, handwriting-wall. Nimrata is out as VEEP according PDJT yesterday at his NH rally. She has snowballs chance for nothing regardless her Swamp backers.
Dropping like flies. Have to hand it to Vivek, had class to drop out when he did then place his support behind The Donald. Let’s see what Squinty-Eyed Joe does as TPTB running things prop up Harris as a decoy.
Read somewhere else that DeSantis was looking for a fat lady. Is there a song in the future?
He pulled the plug and endorsed Trump.
Potential VP run?
ID the class of riverboat circa 1970:
1. Assault Support Patrol Boat (ASPB)
ID the Ships:
2. USS Wright (CC-2)
3. USS Blue Ridge (LCC-19)
Yes.
It’s difficult to distinguish between the USS Blue Ridge and her sister ship, the USS Mount Whitney. The USS Blue Ridge is the command and control ship for the Pacific Fleet (and would be in Korean waters). The USS Mount Whitney would not.
#2 is for practicing carrier landings. If you can dodge a pole you can land on rough seas.
Friends don’t let friends vote for neocons.
X2…Unfortunately there can be no changing a set or uninformed mind. How many were or still are ignorant of “The Laptop” and the Corrupt Biden Family business? Almost as if they can’t allow their illusions to be shattered, like it’s too much to admit ignorance or failure.
I was on a C-130 from Egypt to Savanah GA and we had a 16 hour layover at Thule AFB. It was a miserable place
I heard a slightly different version of that joke :
Moishe and Zvi met outside the temple . Zvi asks Moishe, ” Why so sad ? ”
Moishe replies, ” I’ve got troubles – I sent my son to the Holy Land, and he became a Catholic ! ”
Zvi answers, ” You think you got problems ? I sent my son to the Holy Land, and he not only became a Catholic, he’s studying to be a priest ! ”
Suddenlt, the ground rumbles, and a deep voice comes out of the temple – ” ” Moishe, Zvi, you think you have problems ? I, too, sent my son to the Holy Land – and look what happened ! “
I like your version better.
Thank you !
Ah yes, Thule… And Danish employees who were ‘spies’ for the USSR… including the telephone operator! She used to disconnect our calls when we went secure because she couldn’t listen in. Been aboard both Blue Ridge and Mt. Witney more than once. Busy ships!!! Also was aboard Coronado when she was both C6F and C3F.
Old NFO has pissed more salt water than I’ve sailed over.
How was I to know, LL was with the Russians, too?
OPFOR, ambushing imperialist lackey running dogs, and so forth.
A Warren Zevon reference is ALWAYS appropriate. I need to start working some into random work conversations. Last week at a “social event” which of course was continuation of work by other means, I was dropping Bugs Bunny quotes and no one under 40 was getting ANY of them. We are doomed as a society when the kids don’t learn the classics. ☹️
My thought as well…now send lawyers, guns, and money…dad, get us out of this!
When Disney was fun and used classical music in cartoons. Just be glad you weren’t referencing Foghorn Leghorn or VM fav, Johnny Quest…eye glaze-over would have even more instantaneous.
Mike_C Johnny Quest quotes or “According to Dr. Benton Quest” attributions would be interesting. “You know Dr. Quest, right (insert MD here), and his bodyguard Race Bannon, Race’s girlfriend Jezebel Jade…” His boy, John has made quite a name for himself at MIT.
Of course you realize… this means WAR!
Bring me a victim, or you’ll be the next victim!
Classics, indeed. Up there with space travel and Stonehenge.
Marvin-the-Martian quotes are very close to the top of my list.
“Have you seen my Illudium Q-36 explosive space modulator?”
“Where’s the kaboom? There was supposed to be an Earth-shattering kaboom!”
“There is a growing tendency to think of man as a rational thinking being, which is absurd.”
I have a friend who always quotes Yosemite Sam, and he’s quite mad. His insanity, as evidenced by all the Cluster B personality disorders, doesn’t keep him from quoting either Sam or Foghorn Leghorn, complete with accent.
My lovely wife got in trouble (okay, stayed in trouble) with her fundamentalist father after she converted to Judaism. After he was harassing her for hours about her choice, she finally turned to him and asked, “So you want me to be like Jesus? To live a Christ-like life?”
He said, “Yes!”
“Okay, I’ll be Jewish to the day I die and then you can tell everyone I was a Christian.”
Did not go well.
Then she converted to Catholicism for to please my mother (in case of kids) and… that didn’t go over well because FIL thought Catholics were more worse than muslims.
The last picture is quite problematic. Black face is not okay.
I remember the USS Wright. It was used as an example of how important HF communications are.