After the “Life in the Country” Quiz

I’ve been trying to work on a “Have you Ever” on a life in the city quiz. So I turned to Jules (from England) and asked her for suggestions. She came up with a few. And I realized that George Bernard Shaw was right. Britain and the US are two people’s divided by a common language. I had to ask for clarification on each question because I just wasn’t sure.

Regionally the US is so separated that there is a big difference between what people do in warm and cold climates in cities Northern Cities, Southern Cities, Midwestern Cities and Pacific Cities.

Firing off ten rounds (shots) of ammunition in Chicago is normal. So is not hitting the intended target.  In Texas not hitting the target is shameful and ten shots of Yukon Jack in Anchorage is the same and not the same as ten shots of Cuervo (with the necessary lime and salt with a Corona back) in San Diego.

And then shots are cleverly disguised in mojitos or margaritas. And before you know it, you’re a yuppie parrothead and there you sit, in Margaritaville, wasting away.

No, I never did come up with the questions I needed for a “city quiz”.

Ukraine

There is no reason for you to go to Ukraine. They don’t have a thriving tourist industry. Leave it to the John Kerry family, the Pelosi family, the Biden Family and the Romneys.

They don’t serve cheeseburgers there. (I know, I can’t kick the Buffet thing) And you can’t get a decent taco in Ukraine for love nor money.

Troublemaker

It’s good to remember who creates most of the problems in the Middle East. What will the Palestinians do once Iran no longer bankrolls them? Saudi Arabia has stepped back. Since the end of Obamanation, the US is no longer sending them money to buy weapons with.

Now, back to Earth

Current US/Mexico Border Wall – Arizona

Stairway

Roman Army re-enactors demonstrate how to go over a wall. I realize that the activity isn’t being opposed by barbarians, but you don’t need scaling ladders to go over many military walls (such as Hadrian’s Wall in England). Sure, there were towering fortifications and you needed to batter them with artillery or undermine them. But for the average barrier wall, not so tough.

China’s Other Great Wall

(Sixty Minutes – Australia)

The Three Gorges Damn – mean time to failure? It’s already twisting like a snake as the clock ticks. The Sixty Minutes (AUS) piece is worth watching.

The wall to hold back the Yangtze doesn’t seem to be working out these days. When it goes, it will be spectacular.

Fourth Generation Warfare

Clicking the Habit

Islam

If you google things that have to do with Islam, you’ll find that the search engine works actively to block any negative comments about that particular faith. No such filter is applied to a search of Christianity. I wonder why that is?

AntiFA Plans

Presidents and Wars – a tally sheet

POMPEO DECLARES CHINA TO BE GREATEST FOREIGN POWER THREAT TO US: ‘IT’S NOT, FRANKLY, A CLOSE CALL’

The report found that China’s military has overtaken the U.S. military in size, including its navy, which has approximately 350 ships and submarines, compared to about 293 for the U.S. The 2 million-member People’s Liberation Army is the world’s largest standing military.

Secretary Pompeo calls the Chinese Communist Party the single greatest threat to the United States

It also said China has built a considerable arsenal of land-based ballistic and cruise missiles and has one of the world’s largest forces of advanced long-range surface-to-air systems.

After much analysis, the scientists assert that something now alive is the only explanation for the chemical’s source.

The World Holds its Breath

(Daily Mail – UK) Scientists detected traces of phosphine gas that could be coming from MICROBES in clouds swirling high in the planet’s atmosphere. What does this mean?

Experts from the UK, however, found signs of phosphine in Venus’ atmosphere — suggesting the planet must support unknown chemical processes, or even life.

The second-closest planet to the Sun, Venus is inhospitable — with a surface temperature around 867°F (464°C) and pressure 92 times that of on the Earth.

However, its upper cloud deck — 33–38 miles (53–62 kilometres) above the surface — is a more temperate 120°F (50°C), with a pressure equal to that at Earth sea level.

The clouds are also highly acidic — meaning that the phosphine would be broken down very quickly and must therefore be being continually replenished.

(NYTimes) The researchers have cautioned, however, that life is only one possible explanation for the source of the phosphine — with further investigation needed.

NASA is presently considering two missions to Venus that propose to study the planet’s atmosphere and geochemistry — dubbed ‘DAVINCI’ and ‘VERITAS’.

The Minimum Number of Counties Won – Needed To Become the President of the United States of America

Top Map shows 270 Electoral Votes in black.

Lower Map shows 538 Electoral Votes in black.

Caption

Thoughts for the day –

On Listening

On Looking

On Training

Obama Retrospective

And a Russian Cartoon, showing how much they thought of Barack

The Russians don’t have cartoons like that about President Trump. Then again, he’s not Barack. The Russians did a laser show in Moscow, celebrating Barack’s 53rd birthday. Offered below without further comment, except to say that his sexual preferences were not ‘appreciated’ in Russia the way they would have been in a place like San Francisco.

Welcome to the Sunday Sermonette!

Country Life – One point for each thing you’ve done.

Check on all except for forgetting an egg in my pocket. I never did that. (23 points)

And if you want to add bonus points (2 points for each):

• Had sex in a stock tank (full of water) – with another human.
• Had sex in a stock tank (empty) – with another human.
• Cooked the animal that you slaughtered and butchered over a fire.
• Drank horse milk.
• Used baling wire to fix your truck.
• Been lost at night in a place where people are hunting you and doing their best to kill you.
• Been bucked off a horse got on and bucked off again.

I racked up a good score but not a perfect score.

Thoughts on the Political Left

Many of the lemmings who watch CNN and MSNBC and drank the Kool Aid have mastered doublethink. They can simultaneously believe:

• That the riots are peaceful and unobjectionable.
• That the riots are violent, but it’s okay because their cause needs violence to wake people up.
• That the violence was caused by evil infiltrators from the right.

As Andrew Klavan puts it, “The Riots do not exist – and – they are Donald Trump’s fault.”

Leftism is a mental disease. It is a disease of the intellect where one’s fondly favorite fixed idea, theory, or obsession, is rendered immune from fact, immune from correction, because it has become an idol. It is worshipped, not examined.

When the theory fails, that is, when reality fails to perform was theory predicts, instead of stoning the false prophets as religious fanatics would do — because religious fanatics are not all that fanatical, compared with this — an additional theory must be brought in to explain away the failure.

The Left currently claims that systematic racism infects all of our institutions. It is noteworthy that the Left has enjoyed unchallenged hegemony over all our institutions since the late 1960s, four generations of man.

If the systemic racism exists, why tell us? Revise your system.

I might recommend adopting the idea of being colorblind, judging men on the content of their character rather than the color of their skin, and I might recommend promoting, or, least, ceasing so vehemently to denigrate, the idea that all men are created equal.

But, no, the theory does not allow for self-blame or self-doubt. The core of the theory is the theory that the theory cannot be wrong.

So if the Left openly and visibly controls all cultural institutions, from the National News, Hollywood, Washington and Wall Street, Academia, Silicon Valley, to the American Council of Bishops, the additional theory to explain what thwarts utopia must be found in something clandestine and invisible, yet somehow more powerful than all open and visible cultural institutions.

Hence, the additional theory is always a conspiracy theory.

The additional theory is about an anti-utopian and reactionary counterrevolutionary forces, evildoers, invisible witches, saboteurs, wreckers, or some other force of invisible people, as unseen as a glass ceiling, as inaudible as a dog whistle, as undetectable as a micro-aggression, which prevents the utopia from functioning as theory directs.

But who opposes utopia? Who would sabotage it?

The theory demands that no rational person would have a sound reason for opposing utopia. History herself has decreed the evolutionary progress from caveman to superman to be inevitable.

Hence the opposition must be “reaction” that is, thoughtless and bitter clinging to guns and Bibles and all the things evolution has condemned as old fashioned. The motive is power lust, a desire of those currently in power to retain power, because the Leftists have no other motives in their minds, and so can imagine no other motive.

The theory demands that someone, anyone, who is both invisible and inaudible, but somehow all powerful, sabotage the efforts of the utopia. When the utopia fails, or some unexpected event happens — as unexpected as the election of Trump — as unexpected as Americas preferring their national interest, life, liberty and freedom above the poverty and death promised by the globalist One World Order of anarchist totalitarians and socialist plutocrats — the event has to be explained away by inventing groups of reactionary conspirators, racists one and all, who out of malice and power-lust oppose the march of progress.

And if the racism in America is below detectable thresholds, then it must be manufactured — it is for this reason that Tawana Brawley, Duke Lacrosse Team, Covington Catholic school boys, Yasmin Seweid, Amari Allen and Jussie Smollett were all brought to public attention, either falsely accused or falsely accusing.

Why are these false accusations never denounced and exploded by the Left? Because the truth or falsehood or this or any other statements means nothing to them. There is no category in Leftwing theology for the truth-value of a statement. Statements are neither true nor false, correct nor incorrect. They are only politically correct or politically incorrect.

It cannot be otherwise. If statements could be judged on their correctness, then so could theories, and the theory, or idol, would have to be compared to the reality — and anyone convinced to do that is no longer possessed by the mental disease called Leftism.

For when you shall know the truth, the truth will make you no longer a Leftist.

Since truth cannot be used by Leftists for judging or discussing the propositions generated by their worldview, the comparison of one statement with another for self consistency, that thing we call a logic, no longer has any application.

It is not so much that Leftists reject logic as false or misleading. They simply do not deal with it at all. We rational adults know that if two statements of fact contradict each other, both cannot both simultaneously and unambiguously be true.

But interjections or expressions of a purely emotional nature do not share this rule. One can yearn for any number of impossible things, or wish for the fruit without the root, the effect without the cause, or regret the cost or hard work earning wealth, prestige, dignities, and so on demand. A cold man can wish for fire without fuel, or an envious woman would regret that she was not born a man, especially when she wishes she could punch someone.

Hence doublethink. Self-contradiction is not an accident, not a byproduct, and not the result of some momentary lapse or oversight afflicting an otherwise sound and sober Leftwing philosophy.

Totalitarian anarchy is a contradiction in terms, as is socialist plutocracy.

In Leftist economics, Marxism is merely the idea that eliminating the laws of cause and effect that underpin economic reasoning will eliminate inequities and injustices produced by the free market.

In Leftist politics, Anarchy is merely the idea that men do not need any coercive restrictions on their behavior due to their natural rationality and camaraderie, ergo coercion must be used to destroy the government, and all institutions of law and order, which are manned by the same men who allegedly need no coercion to compel them. Likewise totalitarianism is the idea that since men can be allowed no freedom whatsoever due to their corruption and ignorance, the men in government service need have no restrictions whatsoever on their freedom to use the force of law as they see fit.

In Leftist metaphysics, Nihilism states that it is true that no statement is true. In Leftist theology, there is no God, no creator, and no objective world, therefore each man is god, and creates his own world.

Somebody thought that they were a good idea.

X-61A Gremlins

The U.S. Air Force has assigned the X-61A designation to the Dynetics Gremlin about five months before the first scheduled flight demonstration of the UAV, which can be recovered in-flight. A Dynetics spokesperson confirmed the experimental designation on 06 August 2019 at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama.

video

Military air operations typically rely on large, manned, robust aircraft, but such missions put these expensive assets and their pilots at risk. While small unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) can reduce or eliminate such risks, they lack the speed, range and endurance of larger aircraft. These complementary traits suggest potential benefits in a blended approach, one in which larger aircraft would carry, launch and recover multiple small UAS. Such an approach could greatly extend the range of UAS operations, enhance overall safety, and cost-effectively enable groundbreaking capabilities for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and other missions.

For decades, U.S. military air operations have relied on increasingly capable multi-function manned aircraft to execute critical combat and non-combat missions. Adversaries abilities to detect and engage those aircraft from longer ranges have improved over time as well, however, driving up the costs for vehicle design, operation and replacement.

An ability to send large numbers of small unmanned air systems (UASs) with coordinated, distributed capabilities could provide U.S. forces with improved operational flexibility at much lower cost than is possible with today’s expensive, all-in-one platforms, especially if those unmanned systems could be retrieved for reuse while airborne. So far, however, the technology to project volleys of low-cost, reusable systems over great distances and retrieve them in mid-air has remained out of reach.

To help make that technology a reality, DARPA launched the Gremlins program. The program envisions launching groups of UASs from existing large aircraft such as bombers or transport aircraft as well as from fighters and other small, fixed-wing platforms while those planes are out of range of adversary defenses. When the gremlins complete their mission, a C-130 transport aircraft would retrieve them in the air and carry them home, where ground crews would prepare them for their next use within 24 hours.

Under the Gremlin program, Defense Advanced Research Project Agency [DARPA] envisions a swarm of approximately 20 high performance unmanned aerial vehicles that are deployed by an inflight aircraft, and are later recovered, inflight, by an aircraft. DARPA planned a demonstration for 2019 of their ability to shoot out swarms of drones from larger transport aircraft and recover them mid-flight, according to a new report. The drones are part of the Gremlin program, which seeks to deploy and retrieve small unmanned aerial vehicles launched from US Air Force C-130 aircraft that are capable of flying 300 nautical miles and carrying 60 pounds of electronic equipment.

The gremlins expected lifetime of about 20 uses could provide significant cost advantages over expendable systems by reducing payload and airframe costs and by having lower mission and maintenance costs than conventional platforms, which are designed to operate for decades.

President Trump announces Bahrain joining UAE in normalizing ties with Israel

Today, the White House announced that Bahrain is joining the United Arab Emirates in normalizing ties with Israel.

In a phone call between President Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Bahrain’s King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa, Israeli and Bahraini leaders agreed to establish full diplomatic relations between the two countries.

Over the last two weeks, the White House has been pressing Bahrain to follow the UAE, which announced last month that it would open full diplomatic relations with Israel.

The deal is a win for the Trump administration and the American people as well as Israel. Steadily improved relations in the Gulf, largely due to mutual antipathy toward Iran is driving the initiative. Saudi Arabia is a tougher nut to crack because of the Wahabbists, but they are leaning in the same direction.

The Obama-Biden years oversaw chaos in the Middle East and the Trump (first term) saw a stark reversal of that trend.

Israeli PM Netanyahu thanked President Trump, saying in a statement that “it took Israel 26 years to reach peace with a third Arab country – the United Arab Emirates. Now it took 29 days to reach peace with a forth Arab country – Bahrain.” The Israeli prime minister added that more normalization agreements with other Arab countries will follow.

Will the Nobel Committee grant President Trump his Peace Prize?

California’s Agenda

There’s a lot of Green New Deal blended into the mix.

And an idle mind is the Devil’s workshop.

Cars

I’m still casting about for the new vehicle for the White Wolf Mine to replace a Honda Accord (nice ride, but I need my daily driver to be a  4×4 for bad weather). I looked at the new Ford Bronco…maybe…but my skirt is not blown up. Keep in mind that this will be my new travel ride, so it’s not just a mountain rig, but I want a comfortable road trip as well.

Next week, I have to pick up new suits that I was fitted for in Scottsdale and I’m going to drop by the Land Rover dealership and look at their new Defender. Range Rover is a bit too corporate for me, but the Defender might be more along the line of what I need. Keep in mind that I have my highly customized 2007 Toyota FJC 4×4, and a Ford Raptor that I use to haul/tow with. I don’t beat the Raptor up on extreme off-roading. It’s not been relegated to ‘mall crawler’, but it’s driven mostly on hardball roads.

I’m not in a rush to buy something new, but I’m shopping around. And just when I thought the Land Rover might be the ticket, I see this.

Never Forget

ALL Enemies, both foreign AND domestic…

I’ll let you decide which is which.

Before

The attack

Rebuilding

On September 12, 2001, what would you have given in the way of odds that President George W. Bush would be succeeded by a Muslim-affiliated, half negro, sexually ambiguous, child of communists from Chicago, that he’d do two terms and be followed into office by Donald J. Trump?

Some say that Barack Obama wasn’t a Muslim, though he was raised as one – for a while, anyway. He had a definite affinity toward Iran. But that he’d follow the 9/11 attack and take office during the Global War on Terror is one of the political paradoxes of our time.

Congress authorized CIA to engage in war against Islamic terror groups and then ruthlessly crushed that effort when Barack swept into office with Democrat majorities in the legislature.

The cause and effect of political turmoil (and international intrigue) in America is one of trying to maintain a republic in the face of serious enemies in the infrastructure.

___

I remember when Barack wanted to change the 9/11 Memorial Date to a celebration of community agitators (like himself) rather than recalling radical Islam.

___

Moving on

Biden could issue a retraction blaming his handlers for the misstatement of facts, but then his handlers would be blaming themselves because Biden can only say what he’s told to say.

Against ALL enemies, both foreign and domestic.

China In Focus (youtube)

–Disney’s $200M live-action ‘Mulan’ is facing global backlash. Its star publicly supported Hong Kong police during pro-democracy protests, and its producer thanked the Public Security Bureau of Xinjiang region, where millions of Uyghurs are being held in camps. Disney lost all credibility with me when they pulled out of Georgia because of abortion laws. The Disney philosophy is abortion on demand up to the moment of birth. I thought that it was a pro-family company. It was once, when Walt was alive. A lot changed since then. The Communist Chinese market is lucrative so Disney is in their pocket for the cash. Sort of like Creepy, Corrupt Joe Biden and friends.

-A Chinese military scientist claims her vaccine can handle all virus mutations. Good, let the Chinese take it. 

-Free Hong Kong no more – is moving more heavily under Beijing’s boot. As expected. Anyone with the means and capacity needs to leave. In that, it’s not unlike New York where people are fleeing the new communist donkey administration. At least New York can vote the creeps out. Not in China or Hong Kong. There is only one party.

-And amid tense relations between Australia and China, two Australian correspondents were rushed out of China Monday night. One of them said, ‘it’s a relief to be back in a country with genuine rule of law.’

-2.5 miles of dead fish.

Manipulating America: The Chinese Communist Playbook https://bit.ly/2NfcjHN

The Concentration of Hispanic-Americans by State

Median Housing Price by State

Despite the Global Warming Narrative

The data is remarkably consistent. I wonder why that is?

Navy Moments

Donna

Donna Tobias, the first female hard hat diver in the US Navy, 1976. It took a lot of guts to do that.

Breeches Buoy

Into the Modern

The Plague of Californication

Destination states for people fleeing California… and all too often, they vote to keep what they had in the Golden State. The new destinations are Tennessee and Idaho.

It’s easier to be a crook if you’re in office.

We really dodged a bullet when Hillary spiraled down to defeat. The last four years were a good start to rebuilding, but we need another 20 years of Republican presidents and legislatures.

Epstein Island was the tip of the iceberg

Oprah: Cancelled. Magazine caput.

Ellen: Cancelled.

Jimmy Kimmel: Taking a break.

Joe Biden: Democrats pick a candidate so senile that he can barely read a teleprompter.

Kamala Harris: Democrat VP is essentially a whore.

Piers Morgan: Taking a break.

Tom Hanks: Became a Greek citizen.

Chrissy Tiegen: Made twitter private, deleted 60,000 tweets, blocked 1,000,000+.

Jenna Jameson: Went public about being raped, conditioned, and trafficked in Hollywood as a child.

Justin Beiber: Released music video “Yummy” confirming being a victim of pizzagate as a child.

Isaac Kappy: Repeatedly named Hanks as pedophile. “Committed suicide” on Route 66 just after Hanks tweeted about road kill on Route 66.

Avicii: “Commited suicide” days after releasing video (‘For a Better Day’) highlighting child sex trafficking.

Chris Cornell: “Committed suicide” while working on child sex trafficking documentary.

Chester Bennington: “Committed suicide” while working on child sex trafficking documentary.

Anthony Bourdain: “Committed suicide” while working on child sex trafficking documentary.

Epstein: Didn’t kill himself.

Maxwell: Judge will eventually make private documents public (fears for her life).

Judge appointed to Maxwell/Epstein case: Son is murdered. Husband shot.

Hollywood: SILENT.

Media: <CRICKETS>.

COVID: 99.99% US population survival rate but talked about by all of Hollywood, media, and social media platforms 24/7.

Doctors with different views: Silenced, blocked, mocked, censored, fired.

1,600+ CEOs suddenly “retire”.

MEDIA: “Golly, what will be the new name of the Washington Football Team?”

Martin Aviation – Concept Aircraft (retro)

They never got off the drawing board. Maybe that’s a good thing.

Crepe Tacos

Drizzle a little maple syrup instead of hot sauce. The chives are not just a garnish. You need them to complete the flavor profile.

Shocking Poll Numbers

Donkeys Vow to Fight On if they Loose

There is a very real scenario where the Democrat Party loses the executive, and control of both houses of Congress. They’ve been vowing to burn the nation down if that becomes the case.

Nancy Pelosi and others will be diminished in their irrelevance if that happens. But it will be the break that America needs.

Slow Joe Biden has been talking about “proud boys” in the context of white people. I am well read and I get around but I’d never heard that. Not unlike when he called a lady a “lying dog faced pony soldier.” Apparently the term was created by somebody at the VICE network (just one more liberal media company). I’m sure that Joe’s handlers put it on his teleprompter and he dutifully read it off.

So I researched the term further. It’s a fictional white men’s anarchist group named after a terrible song that was cut from the movie version of Aladdin but is still present in the Broadway show.

This is for Old NFO

NO, I’m not buying him the car, just posting the picture.

President Trump (MAGA)

Donald J. Trump was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on the brokered peace deal between Israel and the UAE. Liberal heads are exploding across America.

Barack Obama received the same prize for being half black and being in office for two months.

(Fox News) “For his merit, I think he has done more trying to create peace between nations than most other Peace Prize nominees,” Tybring-Gjedde, a four-term member of Parliament who also serves as chairman of the Norwegian delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, told Fox News in an exclusive interview.

Also cited in the letter was the president’s “key role in facilitating contact between conflicting parties and … creating new dynamics in other protracted conflicts, such as the Kashmir border dispute between India and Pakistan, and the conflict between North and South Korea, as well as dealing with the nuclear capabilities of North Korea.”

Tybring-Gjedde, further, praised Trump for withdrawing a large number of troops from the Middle East. “Indeed, Trump has broken a 39-year-old streak of American Presidents either starting a war or bringing the United States into an international armed conflict. The last president to avoid doing so was Peace Prize laureate Jimmy Carter,” he wrote.

Modern male society is largely emasculated. There has been a concerted effort to do that since the 1960’s and when we look at the response people have to rioting and looting, I’d say that they’ve been largely successful. Look at the young men that universities turn out. Not all, but by in large – metrosexuals who are terrified of the very thought of drinking from an enemy’s skull. And what do women really think of that? Many have a difficult time finding a man – but there are a lot of biological males out there.

The trend needs to be reversed if we are to survive as a society.

I know that there are those of you who don’t believe that Valkyrie will take you to the Corpse hall when you die an honorable death (holding a weapon). But nobody is forcing you to believe one way or the other. Since few men die in battle (by percentage), the valkyrie business must be slow these days.

How many men call for a weapon to be placed in their hand at the moment of their passing these days?

That’s my point.

Maybe Ed, Camperfixer and LSP can address the issue, but I’m concerned that there will be too many girly men and wimps in the Christian heaven. It’s unlikely that I’ll see the pearly gates, but if I do?  (back to the Saga of Bjorn)

One of Odin’s Shield Maidens fishing in her off hours

In the Modern World, who is worthy of the Corpse Hall? 

In our world, punks, petty criminals, arsonists and black lives have become the wolves? Really? It’s a little pathetic, wouldn’t you say?

Maybe the modern world has bred the warrior out of people?

Parting Thought

Landscape

Is it a red star, rising over an alien world, or is it the Sun, trying to burn through cloud cover at the White Wolf Mine? Yes, you know the answer, photo taken from my deck. I just couldn’t capture the weirdness digitally. But trust me, it looked weird.

The first winter storm is coming. We expect rain but Colorado will be getting snow. Batten down the hatches, DRJIM, WSF and Camperfixer. At least it will put out the fires that Colorado is experiencing and will clear the air.

Fun with Gravitational Waves

For all its vast emptiness, the universe is humming with activity in the form of gravitational waves. Produced by extreme astrophysical phenomena, these reverberations ripple forth and shake the fabric of space-time, like the clang of a cosmic bell.

Now researchers have detected a signal from what may be the most massive black hole merger yet observed in gravitational waves. The product of the merger is the first clear detection of an “intermediate-mass” black hole, with a mass between 100 and 1,000 times that of the sun.

They detected the signal, which they have labeled GW190521, on May 21, 2019, with the National Science Foundation’s Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO), a pair of identical, 4-kilometer-long interferometers in the United States; and Virgo, a 3-kilometer-long detector in Italy.

The signal, resembling about four short wiggles, is extremely brief in duration, lasting less than one-tenth of a second. From what the researchers can tell, GW190521 was generated by a source that is roughly 5 gigaparsecs away, when the universe was about half its age, making it one of the most distant gravitational-wave sources detected so far.

Almost every confirmed gravitational-wave signal to date has been from a binary merger, either between two black holes or two neutron stars. This newest merger appears to be the most massive yet, involving two inspiraling black holes with masses about 85 and 66 times the mass of the sun.

Hunting in a dry Forest with a Flintlock

Photo of firing a flintlock at night.

Willingness of EU Countries to Defend Greece/Turkey If They Were Under Military Attack.

Median Housing Price By County

Tomorrow we will discuss Valkyries

Fill in the Blanks

Your Plague Guidelines

Fear Russia

Russia’s entire national budget is smaller than the US military budget. That is why the Democrats want you to fear Boris and Natasha. Countries whose entire national expenditure is less than the US military budget are marked in red.

When you elect an Intellectual Lightweight (with a light foot)

The Climate

Celtic Nations

For Beans

Ridin’ the Rope

The Gathering Storm

A British Mk. VIB light tank crew exchanges greetings with a French peasant during the “Phoney War” or “Sitzkrieg.” 1939.

From the News

San Francisco gym owners livid after discovering gyms in government buildings have been opened for months

(Washington Examiner) Gyms within government buildings in San Francisco have been open for months, despite privately owned establishments being ordered to close due to the coronavirus.

“It’s shocking, it’s infuriating,” Daniele Rabkin, of Crossfit Golden Gate, told a local NBC station. “Even though they’re getting exposed, there are no repercussions, no ramifications? It’s shocking.”

The gyms that have been open for government employees include those for police officers, judges, lawyers, bailiffs, and paralegals, according to the report. One such gym, the Hall of Justice gym, has been open since July 1.

The gyms were open and apparently nobody has died. It was two weeks to slow the spread in March… After this revelation and NancyGate, I wonder if the Democrats in San Francisco feel if they’re getting jobbed?

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment II

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

Amendment III

No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Amendment V

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Amendment VI

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

Amendment VII

In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

Amendment VIII

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Amendment IX

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment X

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

Housekeeping – Calling out a typo.

Several of you call out typos in comments. That’s cool and I can and will fix them with edit functions. Sometimes when I create blog posts, I’m jet lagged. Sometimes it’s just late at night and sometimes I’m distracted while I type by phone calls or people. Keeping the blog going is a bit of a chore at times. As a result, proof-reading is not as good as I’d hope that it would be.

So let me know WHERE the typo is rather than just mentioning it in comments. It makes hunting them down easier.

Kermit, the pop-ups are a fact of life that I don’t know how to fix. They’re baked into the software that I struggle with.

Book Review – And commentary

The Perfect Kill: 21 Laws for Assassins, by Robert Baer

This book by Bob Baer (21 years at CIA) provides a window into America’s war with militant Islam, and of the role of assassination as a political tool.

I used to teach a (classified) course on “Planned Political Kidnapping”, which was a how-to course which combined a classroom element and a practical field element. The class began with the explanation that the only difference between a political kidnapping and an assassination was that the subject was supposed to live in a kidnapping, which made it more difficult.

There is a significant difference between criminal kidnapping or criminal murder and planned political kidnapping and political assassination, though the lines can blur to people outside of the business. While Bob Baer’s book is well worth reading and is highly recommended, if you have a deeper interest, I suggest that you research Colonel Boris Theodore Pash, US Army,  (20 June 1900 – 11 May 1995), who was America’s expert on the subject. Today and even more, during the Obama years, political assassination was carried out by General Atomics surveillance aircraft, the MQ-9 Reaper was especially adept at harvesting flesh, precisely. The captioned photo above is Australia’s MQ-9B Sky Guardian, an improved Reaper. Australia has gone big into this capability.

Should President Trump be re-elected, you can expect Iran to look for a path toward rapprochement, if not, expect instability in the Middle East to increase. There are global interests which would like to see that. Hillary Clinton, for example, would have had the US in a shooting war in Syria (forever).

The Israelis, who carry on war-as-politics out of necessity, with a meta-germanic efficiency that is always impressive, will continue doing what they do absent a consensus toward peace.

And now, let’s throw up a few maps:

Largest Source of Foreign-Born Residents by State, in 1900

Sword Song

How Many of you? Would like to take on this shield wall? If you don’t understand what a shield wall is, you could look it up or just take a step back. As for me, my gladius is sharp as an ex-wife’s tongue and I’d travel at my own expense. I’d explain how much their lives mean to me. We just need to disable the local cell towers, and invite the media to leave first. Have the fire department ready for a wash-down.

Size

Of course, Old Blighty doesn’t have a Death Valley or a Mount Whitney. But they have better fish and chips, hands-down. Better roast beef and Yorkshire pudding for sure, but better tacos? I personally love Britain but it’s politics are very close to California’s except that they woke up and elected a conservative and California is still insane.

Barack’s Fantasy

Communist Fantasies come to a town near you.

Come on, Man!