Wednesday, November 30, 2016

Sometimes You Don't Want An Old Dog To Learn New Tricks

... particularly when that trick is howling at sirens.

Howling in harmony? No. Just howling.
Bodie, the older and larger Catican Guard never used to howl at sirens. He's a really laid-back dog unless you come into our yard and he doesn't know you. Then things can get ugly. In any case, our new Catican Guards, the chihuahua sisters, Leah and Lily, both howl at sirens. Bodie has decided this is a good idea.

Sigh.

I mean, it's funny and all, particularly when you watch a little chihuahua really put her back into it and she lets rip with a tiny yet ferocious howl, but I can see how this could get old. Luckily, we don't hear sirens all that often.

Tuesday, November 29, 2016

It Might Be Time To Start A New Politics-Only Blog

... except that this one would deal with things in the distant past. The 1890s, say. Here's how it would work.

Take all of your current favorite hobby horses and pet peeves and apply them to newspaper articles from your chosen era. Walk through the events on a daily basis and write screeds and rants about all of the things you discover. Use quotes from the politicians of the day, mocking those who disagree with you unmercifully. Make predictions of boom or bust based on the way you see the world right now.

After a year or so of this, go forward 5 years and see how well you fared. Did things collapse as you said they would? Were there uprisings and riots like you said? Did the right nations prosper? What fun!

Best of all, you could rant and rave with wild accusations and slanderous assertions and no one would respond with rage and vitriol.

Mostly because no one would have any idea at all what you were talking about.

At the very least, we should all agree that Paul Krueger was a toolbox.
Whoever he was.

Monday, November 28, 2016

What The World Needs Now

... is a fun, rowdy Catholic podcast.

I've tried a bunch of Catholic podcasts and they're all so serious or mild or prayerful. No, what we need is an Irish Catholic podcast where we drink beer and shout. Kind of like this.


Or maybe one where we mix Catholicism and Van Halen. Hey, God loves us and he made men and women so they were, err, compatible, right? He also gave us the intellect required to brew IPAs and build airplanes that can take us to the Caribbean for diving vacations. What's not to celebrate loudly about that?

I would love it. A Catholic podcast that opened with David Lee Roth singing Beautiful Girls and went downhill, more or less, from there.

Hmmm.

Sunday, November 27, 2016

The Fake Outrage Over Fake News

Elections are won or lost at the margins. Given that Hillary Clinton was in favor of having the government fund any and every gruesome late-term abortion technique, probably including dropping living babies into Cuisinarts as they were delivered, there was no way on Earth I was going to vote for Ms. Abbatoir. If Instapundit ran a story telling me that Hillary was Elvis' love child and I swallowed it hook, line and sinker, it would have made no difference.

Similarly, if the Huffington Post had run story after story telling me that ObamaCare was going to lower costs and provide awesome coverage, I wouldn't have ... oh, wait. They did.

In any case, the HufPo didn't change my opinion at all.

Most of us live in intellectual bubbles, reading stories and columns from people and sites that agree with us. The actual impact of "fake news" stories is probably pretty minimal as they just reinforce opinions that are already set in concrete. The only way a "fake news" story could effect things would be if they appeared on sites who hold positions contrary to the point of the story.

If HuffPo carried the Elvis-Hillary story or Glenn Reynolds told me ObamaCare was fantabulous, it would at least have a prayer of making an effect. As it was, I can't see how any "fake news" stories did anything at all to impact the election.

Another mechanism would be to have the thin sliver of undecideds exposed to sufficient amounts of "fake news" to change their minds. How this would differ from the major news networks going all-in to stop Trump, I'm sure I don't know.

Saturday, November 26, 2016

"It's Our Most Festive Christmas Ever!"

On Pandora, from time to time I hear an ad for Disneyland that talks about their Christmas celebrations with the line, "It's our most festive Christmas ever!" Those "best one yet" things always get me because they imply that last year's was worse. When I hear this ad, I mentally finish it like so.

"It's our most festive Christmas ever! I mean, it could hardly help but improve on last year's when the parade ground to a halt because one of the floats burst into flames, scorching those orphans. Man, that was pretty horrible. We're really trying to avoid a repeat of that disaster. And don't get us started on the time those lions escaped in 1973. What a mess! Anyway, if you come up this year, we promise to try not to kill or maim any of you."

Friday, November 25, 2016

Water Lilly

While in Augusta, we saw this water lily in a pond by the Savannah River. My point-and-shoot camera took a great shot and I decided to over crop it for artistic reasons. I left the image large, so it might be worth a click. Enjoy!

Thursday, November 24, 2016

Separation Of Thanksgiving And State

Happy Thanksgiving to all y'all! Here, we're celebrating with the traditional turkey at mom's. Hoorah!

Elsewhen, George Washington kicked this whole thing off with his Thanksgiving Proclamation of 1789. Here's the opening bit.
By the President of the United States of America, a Proclamation.

Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and—Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me “to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:”
Read, as they say, the whole thing. It's worth a little such reflection once in a while.

Wednesday, November 23, 2016

Innocent? Nope. Dangerous.

Our new Maximum Leader, Maddi*, has a habit of sprinting for the bedroom where her food is kept whenever anyone makes a move in that direction. My wife was walking down the hallway away from that room the other day when Maddi, streaking for the food dish, ran between her legs and tripped her. My wife fell and ended up with a severely sprained thumb.

It's a hard life caring for a Maximum Leader sometimes.

Oh, sure, she looks like she's snoozing, but in reality, she's like a cocked gun, waiting to zip off to the noms. Don't get in her way!
* - Her full name is now Maddi Nomeater von Dangercat

Tuesday, November 22, 2016

A Confession

... from the deepest, darkest regions of my sin-tortured soul.

I like chick bubblegum music.

There! I said it! It's out now and I feel so much better.

When I need a pick me up, sometimes I turn to ZoeGirl, Britt Nicole, Mandisa or even (gasp!) Jamie Grace. In my pre-Jesus Music days, I liked the Go-Gos, the Bangles and bands like that. Not exclusively, mind you, it gets tiresome after a bit, but any good mix has to have some chick bubblegum in it. You need to add in Van Halen, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Benny Goodman, Dixieland jazz and Confederate Railroad as well ... OK, not all in the same mix, that would be eclectic to an insane degree, but I think you get the idea,

And yes, I know the music was written for 11-year-old girls. So sue me.

And you? What horrible music do you like?



You bet I'm dead serious.

Monday, November 21, 2016

So What?

One more post on the mysteries of racism / sexism / blah bah blah. Sorry if this is getting monotonous, but I'm trying to step back and understand this. In today's episode, we wonder just what the point of it all is.

Here's a paragraph from Charles Blow's latest screed.
Increasingly, as he picks his cabinet from among his fawning loyalists, it is becoming clear that by “Make America Great Again,” he actually meant some version of “Make America a White, Racist, Misogynistic Patriarchy Again.” It would be hard to send a clearer message to women and minorities that this administration will be hostile to their interests than the cabinet he is assembling.
OK, I guess. What if it's all true? What if we had elected Hillary Clinton and ridden a wave of racial comity to the sunny uplands of freedom and diversity?
  • We'd still owe $20T and my kids would still have this gorilla on their backs
  • The Middle East would still be in flames
  • Iran and Russia would still be trying to form a regional hegemony
  • Iran would still get nukes while it shouts "Death to America"
  • Dittos for regional hegemony in Asia with China
  • Illegitimacy would still be at civilization-destroying levels in almost all, err, diversity groups 
  • Cities like Los Angeles and Chicago would still be facing fiscal meltdowns over insolvent pension plans
  • As would states like California and Illinois
  • And so on
Driving around Savannah last week, I saw some morbidly obese people of all races*. The primary problem in their lives wasn't racism, it was their weight. Similarly, the people that lived in run-down houses with beer cans in the yard had major problems with the way they spent their disposable income. The safest space in the world isn't going to help students who don't learn the material before a test.

In short, what's the big deal? Whether or not the US is a White, Racist, Misogynistic Patriarchy or an Eden of Equality, when the pension crises hit, racism isn't going to overcome the math. If Iran decides to nuke someone, having an Eskimo, Tolerant Matriarchy isn't going to stop the place from being incinerated.

I've read several people claim that screaming "Racism!" is a substitute for cogent argument and I quite agree. I'd add that obsessing over it is simply intellectual chaff. It has no value. I don't care if you have a Black Panthers flag or a Confederate flag in your yard. Whatever your bent, it's not going to change the fact that we all owe $60K per person on the national debt and once you remove those who can't pay, it's more like $240K per person. That's a recipe for disaster.

Thought experiment: Go through a day's worth of political tweets and editorials from progressives and remove all references to diversity and see what you get. My bet is that it's pretty thin stuff.

* - On our Savannah trip, deep in Dixie, we didn't see any evidence of racism. We all seemed to be getting along pretty well. Maybe the average American is actually a pretty decent sort.

Sunday, November 20, 2016

January 20 Could Be Really Interesting For Sanctuary City Mayors

Dig these tidbits from 8 USC 1324.
a-1-A-iii: Any person who — knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that an alien has come to, entered, or remains in the United States in violation of law, conceals, harbors, or shields from detection, or attempts to conceal, harbor, or shield from detection, such alien in any place, including any building or any means of transportation shall be punished as provided in subparagraph (B).

a-1-B-ii: in the case of a violation of subparagraph (A)(ii), (iii), (iv), or (v)(II), be fined under title 18, imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both.
Well OK then.

Saturday, November 19, 2016

Racism Is Full Of Conundrums

I was browsing Twitter the other night when I clicked onto the stream of some actress or model or whatever. She had over 2 million followers and was spazzing out over Trump. By this time, she was howling about his cabinet appointments. Everyone was a racist. Going back through her timeline, every political tweet charged someone with racism or sexism.

I have no idea what these terms mean any more. Here are some puzzlements for me.
  • How does she know she's not a racist? She could claim she wasn't, but the people she was shouting about would say the same thing. If you can't tell whether or not you're a racist, then who can? Shouldn't we just assume you are one to be on the safe side?
  • As I understand it, if you are a minority, you can't be racist. That means that if Jose Hernandez hates white people, he's not a racist. However, the moment he sets foot in Mexico, he is one, right?
  • Or maybe it's about power. Can Barack Obama be a racist? He's a minority, but he also has plenty of power.
  • If President Obama can't be racist because he's black, then can't he become one when he touches down in, say, Kenya for a diplomatic trip? 
    • Since we must assume he's a racist, this is a real problem.
    • Do we want a racist representing us in Kenya?
      • Wouldn't it be a better idea to send only white guys to Kenya just to make sure we weren't sending any racists?
I think you can see where this all leads. No American white person can reliably know if they are racist, but if they move to a country where they are in the minority, they stop being racist.

How to end racism


This is obvious. All white people should move to Kenya. then none of them will be racist. All black people should move to the US. Then they can't be racist, either. All Hispanics should move to China and all Chinese should move to Mexico.

Wait, what?


Hmm. That's not going to solve anything. As soon as those moves take place, everyone becomes a member of the majority in their new country. That will make them all racists.

Sacrificial lambs


Clearly, we can't end racism. However, we can minimize it in a mathematical sense. If Chinese move to Mexico so that Mexicans are 50%+1 of the population and Chinese are 50%-1, that would seem to minimize racism on a per capita basis. Of course, the remaining Mexicans would still be racists, but you can't make a racism omelette without breaking a few brown eggs. Maybe they could hold a lottery in Mexico and the losers have to stay and be racists.

This process would then be repeated around the world until racism was minimized globally.

Or something like that.

You're welcome.

Friday, November 18, 2016

CNN Is Totes Dorbs

That's "totally adorable" for you non-Internet-abbreviation types.

Going through one of the airports I was in yesterday, I saw Wolf Blitzer interviewing some CNN chick about Trump and his failure to blah blah blah. It was so cute! Little Wolf was pretending to be part of a "news" organization while the girl was pretending to be a "journalist." I wanted to pat their little heads and tousle their hair, the sweeties.

One of the best things about this election and the WikiLeaks stuff, the MSM's frantic efforts to drag Hillary's dessicated, limp body across the finish line and their endless fixation on racism, sexism and homophobia is that after Trump's win, their powers are almost completely gone. We can see them for what they are, children playing make-believe, imitating competent and trustworthy newspeople.

So next time you see someone on ABC, CBS, NBC or CNN "reporting," just smile and shake your head and say, "Well bless your little hearts. You're so precious!"
Seeing Wolf Blitzer makes me think of a child playing with this as mommy drives the car.
"Beep! Beep! Vroom! Mommy, I'm a real driver!"
"Yes you are, sweetheart. And you're doing such a good job, too!"

Thursday, November 17, 2016

Low Country Zombies

I'm in Houston Airport on the way home, but neither snow nor sleet nor travel shall keep this blogger from his appointed blather!

We rented a boat in Savannah and cruised around the marsh waterways for a while. As I looked across the endless tracts of swamp, it occurred to me that this would be a perfect zombie barrier.

It's nearly impossible to walk through the low country marshes even for healthy people. Zombies, with rotting, misshapen limbs would be practically immobilized. Pick an island that could be isolated with a drawbridge and voila! A zombie-proof fortress with plenty of delicious seafood!

Wednesday, November 16, 2016

Tuesday, November 15, 2016

The Supreme Court Means Never Having To Say You're Sorry

Does anyone still get that reference? It's from the ghastly 1970s movie, Love Story, a rancid, gooey, teen-date movie if ever there was one. Lots of guys endured it because it practically guaranteed a make out session.

But I digress.

Better title: The Supreme Court Means Never Having To Campaign For Votes.

Dig this map of state government trifectas. Red means the state has a Republican governor and both legislatures. Blue is Democrat, grey is split.

Transgendered rights, it turned out, wasn't a winning argument.
Imagine trying to get a constitutional amendment passed recognizing gay marriage in that environment. Not. Gonna. Happen. However, the Supreme Court blew right past that hoary tradition and simply decreed what was effectively the same thing.

And you rubes thought you were allowed to vote for things. Ha ha ha. What a laugh.

See also: Constitutional amendment legalizing abortion, chances of passage of.

Of course, we've got an opening on the Supreme Court now and a bunch of geriatric liberals as well. Ted Cruz and a few like-minded individdles might push the country back towards a real democracy where if you want to remake the culture, you'll have to, you know, like, convince the people that it's a good idea.

Gasp! The horror! No wonder they're rioting in Portland.

Monday, November 14, 2016

Savannah Report

Anon recommended a few places in Savannah for us to visit, among them Vic's By The River. Well, we went to Mass at the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist (stunning photo below, left large, worth a click) and then took a walk to the Savannah River for brunch.


We ended up at Tubby's instead of Vic's because it had a second-story veranda overlooking the river. We later stopped at Vic's for some coffee, just for anon. It was great, by the way.


Tubby's has a special deal that if a container ship goes by while you're sitting on the veranda, you get a free shot.


And thank you Wallenius Wilhelmsen! Drinks all around!

Savannah is gorgeous. It's not very large, so you can get a feel for the whole place in a couple of days, but it has an undeniable grace which far outstrips most other American cities.

Yes, Southern charm is a real thing.

Sunday, November 13, 2016

Want

An auto paint and body shop in Augusta, Georgia bought a panel van and painted it like this.


I love it. What a great idea! You know that it gets looks wherever it goes. A terrific, cheerful advertisement for the business. Brilliant!

Now I want one.

Saturday, November 12, 2016

Reacting To Trump

Say you lived in the 1500 block of Campbell St. in Oakland.

Maybe this is your house.
City Hall in Oakland, where Democrat mayor Libby Schaaf runs the show, is 1.4 miles or 5 minutes drive away. The place is pretty darn Democrat all the way around. Wikipedia says, "The Cook Partisan Voting Index of Congressional District 13, which includes Oakland and Berkeley, is D+37, making it the most Democratic congressional district in California and the fourth most Democratic district in the US."

San Francisco County, managed by a board of supervisors, all 12 of which are Democrats, has County Clerk offices 9.2 miles or 15 minutes away from your house. Only 8.6% of all registered voters in San Francisco County are Republicans. Meeting 20 people at random in the street, on average, you will encounter only 1-2 Republicans.

Sacramento is the home of the California State government. The State Capital Building is 79 miles away or a little over an hour's drive if there's no traffic. The state government is managed by Democrat Jerry Brown and a super-majority of Democrats in both chambers of the legislature.

If you live in Oakland, every appointed government official, from top to bottom, has been appointed by a Democrat, save for a few possible holdouts from Governor Schwarzenegger's administration which ended in 2010 or from George W. Bush's administration which ended in 2008.

The congressional delegation from the state of California is made up of 39 Democrats and 14 Republicans. That's 73% Democrat. Both US senators from California are Democrats.

The White House is 2,814 miles away or about 40 driving hours by car. Starting in January of 2017, the fellow occupying that position will be a Republican.

That many Republicans in positions of power in my world and that close to me would make me lose my mind, too.

Friday, November 11, 2016

Thursday, November 10, 2016

How I Will Measure The Trump Administration

When Hillary Clinton was not recommended for indictment by James Comey, I took down the American flag at our house and replaced it with a Vatican flag. I could stomach Obama's imperial presidency and the Supreme Court nullifying perfectly legal election results, but Hillary breaking the law with impunity was too much. She and her henchmen now belonged to a distinct class of Americans, one I could never aspire to join, one that was above all laws. They had money and respect and power and adulation. They made a mockery of this:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.
Without that, this is no longer the United States of America. It's something new and different, something profoundly evil. Yes, I know, the rich have always gotten away with things, yada yada yada, but to me, this was villainy of a new and completely different type. This was the utter corruption of the legal system from the very top.

Now to the point of this post. Dig this, something I hadn't noticed in the NY Post story about Hillary's maid printing out classified documents.
Santos also had access to a highly secure room called an SCIF (sensitive compartmented information facility) that diplomatic security agents set up at Whitehaven, according to FBI notes from an interview with Abedin.

From within the SCIF, Santos — who had no clearance — “collected documents from the secure facsimile machine for Clinton,” the FBI notes revealed.

Just how sensitive were the papers Santos presumably handled? The FBI noted Clinton periodically received the Presidential Daily Brief — a top-secret document prepared by the CIA and other US intelligence agencies — via the secure fax.
People need to go to jail over this. Lots of people. At all levels. I don't know if I expect Hillary to end up behind bars, but there had better be a wave of arrests, convictions and jail sentences. Dittos for the Clinton Foundation's fraud of a charity wherein Hillary traded favors for monstrous payoffs.

If the Trump Administration's Justice Department pursues these criminals and puts them behind bars, I can probably take anything else that happens. If it doesn't, then it really won't be making things worse if we discover that Trump was using the presidency to line his own pockets to the tune of 9 figures. After all, Bill and Hillary did.

Wednesday, November 09, 2016

A Perfectly Engineered Defeat

I'm in Georgia on vacation and don't have much time for blogging, but here's something that struck me from last night's Trump stunner.

The Democrats engineered this whole thing. The party, the media, the academy, the artists, almost everyone was 100% in on Hillary. This wasn't a contest between two candidates who wrestled their way through primaries, uncertain from the start if they might win. This was one such candidate and one who had been chosen and crowned by a machine not just of her own making, but deliberately constructed for precisely this purpose.

And it failed to beat a dreadful candidate.

Don't expect them to change. Don't expect them to learn that screaming at whites that they're racists is a bad idea. Don't expect anything but doubling down on what failed. They're a religious movement as much as a political one, true believers all. They were certain they could feed us a steady diet of racism, sexism, homophobia, islamophobia, transgendered rights and we'd eat it up.

It reminds me of the old joke about the dog food company that came up with a new flavor and marketed it with tons of advertising money, but no matter what they did, it just wouldn't sell. Finally, some young executive said, "Maybe the dogs just don't like the taste of it."

Tuesday, November 08, 2016

About A Year From Now

... I want to see the airwaves filled with ads for the propositions we're voting on today, created by the people on the losing ends. They'd all be something like this:

"Oh, sure, you thought you knew better, didn't you? We told you not to vote for Proposition 56, but you went ahead and did it anyway. Now look. Everything we said was true. The state is another $400M in debt, the price of tuition has skyrocketed and the elm trees are all barren. Well, we hope you're satisfied with yourselves."

Sometimes I think weird things.

Monday, November 07, 2016

Sales Success Tip: Always Know What Your Customers Want

In the case of CNN, their customers are the Democratic Party.

So Wikileaks has turned up a batch of emails showing collusion between CNN and the DNC, specifically in regards to questions to ask Republican presidential primary candidates in interviews. Note that this was during the primaries, not after Trump had won, so using "OMIGODITSTRUMP!" to excuse CNN's obeisance to their political masters doesn't work here.

A couple of thoughts.

  • I'm clearly not the audience for CNN. I couldn't care less what the DNC wants asked. I'm all about the Federal debt load on my children and cultural collapse.
  • If I was trying to sell my product to the general public, I'd, you know, like, kind of find out what they wanted to hear. CNN has a polling company under contract, why couldn't they have queried, say, 500 Americans at random to come up with questions. 
  • Why did they need to ask for help with the questions in the first place? Is it really that hard to come up with interesting questions for presidential candidates? Those questions answer themselves, of course with the following thought.
  • They weren't interested in questions, they were interested in logic traps. "So, Jeb, you said you are against whaling, but the Inuit still hunt whales. Why are you so full of hate for Native Americans?"
Most noteworthy of all is how this election and Wikileaks have completely obliterated the media's claims of being non-partisan. That will never fly again, no matter who wins.

Sigh.

Sunday, November 06, 2016

Making A Mockery Of Deep Thought Blog Posts

What's the point any more? I've been blogging daily for almost 11 years now and I've made a concerted effort to share my learning as I pull various threads in all kinds of different subjects. Oh sure, I sometimes get pressed for time and toss up some filler, but I try to make even that worth your visit.

And then I read things like this.
As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton routinely asked her maid to print out sensitive government e-mails and documents — including ones containing classified information — from her house in Washington, DC, e-mails and FBI memos show. But the housekeeper lacked the security clearance to handle such material.

In fact, Marina Santos was called on so frequently to receive e-mails that she may hold the secrets to E-mailgate — if only the FBI and Congress would subpoena her and the equipment she used.
My God, what is going on with this country? I feel like I looked away for a little while, my nose buried in a theology book and when I looked up, the academic, cultural and political elite had been replaced by mentally-challenged 8-year-olds. This woman is an Ivy League graduate, for heaven's sake and she's having her Filipino maid print out sensitive documents? What, was the gardener busy?

Look, the rest of us need to get serious about this. The Ivy League is the source for almost all of our judges, politicians, top bureaucrats and more. This has got to be stopped and stopped with utter finality. I propose we make an example of the troubled children who run and attend these schools, an example on the order of the Roman sack of Carthage.

We should burn Harvard, Yale, Brown, Columbia and the rest to the ground. We should put their administrators and faculty in forced labor camps where they will be made to clean rotting leaves from roof gutters and scrub storm drains. The male students should be drafted into the US Army Infantry and the female students sent to boarding schools in the deep South where they will learn traditional home economics and how to dress, speak and act like a proper lady.

Anyone who has received a degree from one of these dens of dingbattery in the past 20 years should be immediately fired from their jobs. They should be forced to wear pink or blue robes (according to their sex, not their gender) emblazoned with the crests of their schools that we might identify them easily so to avoid making the mistake of placing them in a position of power or influence ever again.

We need to wreak a vengeance on our self-styled "leaders" that will be spoken of for thousands of years. Only then will the country be safe for bloggers to return to their normal lives.

Seriously, I am so over the stupidity and ignorance of the elites. We need to take drastic steps and soon. Her freaking maid was printing out sensitive documents?!?

Saturday, November 05, 2016

I Voted

... by mail. I willingly cast my presidential ballot for Gary Johnson, as imperfect as he is. In this moment of despair as we wonder which of the two monsters from the big parties might end up president, it might be a good time to recall some of Gary's words of wisdom.

(Long toke...)
(Slow exhale ...)

"Duuuude."

Friday, November 04, 2016

They're Very Tolerant, You Know

At least that's what I keep being told by Very Smart People who attended Top Flight Universities. This must be another example of their tolerance. Or maybe I've got it all backwards and it's an indication that Christianity is on the wrong side of history.
JAKARTA, Indonesia—The biggest street protest in years shook this sprawling capital on Friday in a stark display of the more conservative, militant strain of Islam taking hold in the world’s largest Muslim country.

Police said an estimated 100,000 people turned out for a rally called by hard-line Muslim groups against the capital’s Christian governor, whom they accuse of having committed blasphemy.

Thursday, November 03, 2016

Tarantino

I'm at Adobe MAX this week and just got to hear from Quentin Tarantino. I'm not a fan of his movies, but after hearing him talk, I respect him as a craftsman much more. He's modest even as he acknowledges his own success. His modesty is revealed in his love for the work required to master his art.

Pretty cool.

Wednesday, November 02, 2016

Hillary Must Win

... or she and her cronies are doomed.

Face it, the only shield protecting herself and her henchcreatures is the threat of her in power. The entire Democratic Party has lined up behind the Clinton Machine. Party bigwigs rigged the primaries, journalists colluded with campaign operatives, pundits have assumed highly technical yoga positions trying to defend her latest scandal excuses, the list goes on and on. Everyone has sold their souls, not to the Devil, but to Hillary. If she doesn't come through with the payments, they will have burned their reputations to ashes for nothing.

Try to think just who will defend her from a Trump FBI. Imagine which of these stranded geniuses would take daily marching orders from her staff in response to Congressional inquiries.With no payoff in the form of bribes, power or positions near the throne, it will be every progressive for themselves, like the hysterically exaggerated scenes near the end of Titanic.

It might be worth a Trumpian Catastrophe to see Paul Krugman in a dress, being lowered into the frigid waters of Democrat despair, his face turned up towards the camera with a knowing look in his eyes of utter humiliation.

Sadly, should Trump lose, there will be no such abandonment on the right. Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Chris Christie, Newt Gingrich and the rest will never learn nor admit failure. Instead, they will wail and grind their teeth in the darkness, striving to keep as many of their deluded followers as they possibly can.

It's almost like we're seeing new circles of Hell under construction in Dante's Inferno.

Tuesday, November 01, 2016

This Is A Bad Sign

I walked out of our front door today and found this on the ground.


It looks like the Catican Guards jumped their Paymaster, wrestled him to the ground and tore their pay to shreds.

This is what comes from paying dogs in US currency instead of dog food.