Jimmy was having problems in English class, so his teacher decided to stop by on her way home to speak with his parents. When she rang the bell, Jimmy answered.
"I'd like to talk to your mother or father," said the teacher.
"Sorry, but they ain't here," he told her.
"Jimmy!" she said, "what is it with your grammar?"
"Beats me," Jimmy replied, "but dad sure was mad that they had t'go bail her out again!"
*.*
Navy Captain Fired After Leading Unauthorized Whaling Expedition
SAN DIEGO, Calif. — The Navy announced it had relieved the captain of the USS Mustin (DDG-89) following an unauthorized whaling expedition during a training exercise off the coast of Antarctica, sources confirmed Tuesday.
Capt. Hikaru Yamamoto led his crew on a modified version of a traditional Japanese whaling expedition in celebration of Asian-American heritage, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said.
Yamamoto, who is Japanese-American, allegedly taught his sailors to sing ancient coastal fishing songs “while directing his Fire Control Center to unleash a pair of RUM-139 VL-ASROC anti-submarine missiles into a pod of sperm whales,” a Navy investigator told Duffel Blog, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The skipper’s relief is just the latest in a string of high-profile firings of Navy officers, to include a captain and master chief being relieved after raising money from strip clubs, and a master chief and executive officer being fired after making their sailors carry around their own feces along the pier.
Navy investigators said the Mustin’s crew were encouraged to pick through the blood-red sea for the choicest bits of whale flesh, while Yamamoto used the 1MC to regale them with the story of legendary whaler Yoshi Tatsuka while brandishing a replica harpoon, identical to the type used by the Ainu people in pre-feudal Japan.
Unfortunately, during the post-hunt feast preparations, the Greenpeace anti-whaling vessel Harmony arrived on the scene. Activists began to hurl insults at the blood-soaked sailors and demand retribution for their crimes. The event quickly escalated after the Harmony began to use high-intensity focused speakers to bombard the Navy crew with Bob Marley and Beatles hits.
After four zodiac boats launched from the Harmony tried to spray the decks of the Mustin with foul-smelling debris and entangle its propeller with industrial grade netting — tactics similar to those used against modern whaling ships — Capt. Yamamoto initiated defensive procedures and ordered one of the ship’s Phalanx guns turned on the activists.
In less than seven seconds all of the smaller craft had been destroyed, and their crews reduced to a fine pink mist by a torrent of 20mm shells. As the last boat sank beneath the waves, Yamamoto turned his destroyer towards the Harmony, sinking her with a Mk46 torpedo and killing all 136 onboard.
Unfortunately for Yamamoto, a sailor on the bridge heard the Captain refer to the Greenpeace activists as “hippy faggots” after the sinking, and immediately reported it to the ship’s Equal Opportunity Advisor.
The report led to a full investigation by the Navy, and he was fired soon after.
*.*
A famous art collector is walking through the city when he notices a mangy cat lapping milk from a saucer in the doorway of a store and he does a double take. He recognizes that the saucer is extremely old and very valuable, so he walks casually into the store and offers to buy the cat for two dollars.
The storeowner replies "I'm sorry, but the cat isn't for sale.
The collector says, "Please, I need a hungry cat around the house to catch mice. I'll pay you twenty dollars for that cat."
The owner says "Sold," and hands over the cat.
The collector continues, "Hey, for the twenty bucks I wonder if you could throw in that old saucer. The cat's used to it and it'll save me from having to get a dish."
And the owner says, "Sorry buddy, but that's my lucky saucer.
So far this week I've sold sixty-eight cats."
*.*
Cat Quotes
"Managing senior programmers is like herding cats." --Dave Platt
"Do not meddle in the affairs of cats, for they are subtle and will piss on your computer." --Bruce Graham
"There is no snooze button on a cat who wants breakfast." --Unknown
"Thousands of years ago, cats were worshipped as gods. Cats have never forgotten this." --Anonymous
"Cats are smarter than dogs. You can't get eight cats to pull a sled through the snow." --Jeff Valdez
"In a cat's eye, all things belong to cats." -- English proverb
"As every cat owner knows, nobody owns a cat." -- Ellen Perry Berkeley
"One cat just leads to another." --Ernest Hemmingway
"Dogs come when they're called; cats take a message and get back to you later." --Mary Bly
"Cats are rather delicate creatures and they are subject to a good many ailments, but I never heard of one who suffered from insomnia." --Joseph Wood Krutch
"People that hate cats, will come back as mice in their next life." --Faith Resnick
"I have studied many philosophers and many cats. The wisdom of cats is infinitely superior." --Hippolyte Taine
"No heaven will not ever Heaven be; Unless my cats are there to welcome me." --Unknown
"There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats." --Albert Schweitzer
"The cat has too much spirit to have no heart." -- Ernest Menaul
"Dogs believe they are human. Cats believe they are God."
"Time spent with cats is never wasted." --Colette
"Some people say that cats are sneaky, evil, and cruel. True, and they have many other fine qualities as well." --Missy Dizick
"You will always be lucky if you know how to make friends with strange cats." --Colonial American proverb
"Cats seem to go on the principle that it never does any harm to ask for what you want." --Joseph Wood Krutch
"My husband said it was either him or the cat ... I miss him sometimes."
*.*
Living on the moon would be fun.
But it would sure suck having to walk a mile every time you missed a Frisbee.
Quote of the Times;
“I support honest citizens who protest against a governing president [who is] against his people,” said the Italian deputy prime minister.... In December, Salvini mocked the French president as a “lab mouse elected to keep the elitist political system in place.”
Link of the Times;
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-01-05/how-china-colonized-entire-continent-without-firing-single-shot
Issue of the Times;
Disparities Galore by Walter E. Williams
Much is made about observed differences between sexes and among races. The nation's academic and legal elite try to sell us on the notion that men and women and people of all races should be proportionally represented in socio-economic characteristics. They make statements such as "Though African Americans and Hispanics make up approximately 32 percent of the US population, they (constituted) 56 percent of all incarcerated people in 2015" and "20 percent of Congress is women. Only 5 percent of CEOs are."
These differences are frequently referred to as disparities. Legal professionals, judges, politicians, academics and others often operate under the assumption that we are all equal. Therefore, inequalities and disparities are seen as probative of injustice. Thus, government must intervene, find the cause and engineer a policy or law to eliminate the injustice. Such a vision borders on lunacy. There's no evidence anywhere or at any time in human history that shows that but for some kind of social injustice, people would be proportionally represented across a range of socio-economic attributes by race and sex.
Indeed, if there is a dominant feature of mankind, it's that we differ significantly over a host of socio-economic characteristics by race, sex, ethnicity and nationality. The differences have little or nothing to do with any sort of social injustice or unfair treatment. Let's examine some racial, ethnic and sex disparities with an eye toward identifying the injustice involved. We might also ponder what kind of policy recommendation is necessary to correct the disparity.
Jews constitute no more than 3 percent of the U.S. population but are 35 percent of American Nobel Prize winners. As of 2017, Nobel Prizes had been awarded to 902 individuals worldwide. Though Jews are less than 2 percent of the world's population, 203, or 22.5 percent, of the Nobel Prizes were awarded to Jews. Proportionality would have created 18 Jewish Nobel laureates instead of an "unfair" 203. What should Congress and the United Nations do to "correct" such a disparity? Should the Nobel committees be charged with racism?
Jews are not the only people taking more than their "fair share" of things. Blacks are 13 percent of the U.S. population but, in some seasons, have been as high as 84 percent of NBA players. Compounding that "injustice," blacks are the highest-paid basketball players and win nearly all of the MVP prizes. Blacks are also guilty of taking 67 percent, an "unfair" share, of professional football jobs. Blacks are in the top salary category in every offensive and defensive position except quarterback. But let's not lull ourselves into complacency. How often do you see a black NFL kicker or punter?
Laotian, Samoan and Vietnamese women have the highest cervical cancer rates in the United States. The Pima Indians of Arizona have the highest reported prevalence of diabetes of any population in the world. Tay-Sachs disease favors Ashkenazi Jews. Cystic fibrosis haunts white people. Blacks of West African ethnic origin have the highest incidence of sickle cell anemia. The prevalence of prostate cancer is lower in men of South Asian ethnicity than in the general population. Black American men have the highest prostate cancer rates of any racial or ethnic group in the United States. Black males are also 30 percent likelier to die from heart disease than white men.
There are loads of other disparities based upon physical characteristics, but it would take a fool to believe that we are all equal and any difference between us is a result of some kind of social injustice that begs for a societal remedy. The only kind of equality consistent with liberty is equality before the law — which doesn't require that people be in fact equal.
Galore?
Discovery?
A Texan lands in Sydney, and is picked up by a taxi. After requesting a tour of the city, he starts into a tirade about the small town airport and how in Texas they have larger runways on their ranches.
They are soon crossing the Sydney Harbor bridge, and the man is further unimpressed; "I have a duck pond bigger than that harbor, and an ornamental bridge to span it that makes this look like a toy".
The Sydney-Newcastle expressway also gets his scorn, "Is this a road, or a track?"
So when a kangaroo jumped out in front of the cab, causing the sudden and severe application of the brakes, the driver couldn't help himself; "Stupid grass hoppers!"
*.*
A young Arab boy asks his father “What is that strange hat you are wearing?”
The father said: "Why, my son, it is a 'chechia.' In the desert it protects our heads from the intense heat of the sun.”
"And what is the long flowing robe you are wearing?” asked the boy.
“Oh, my son!” exclaimed the father “It is very simple. This is a 'djbellah.' As I have told you, in the desert it
is not only very hot, but the sand is always blowing. My djbellah protects the entire body.”
The son then asked: "But Father, what about those ugly shoes you have on your feet?”
"These are 'babouches' my son,” the father replied. You must understand that although the desert sands are
very beautiful, they are also extremely hot. These babouches' keep us from burning our feet.”
"So tell me then," added the boy.
"Yes, my son…”
"Why are you living in Minnesota and still wearing all this shit?
*.*
Seattle, WA - Seattle becomes the first major U.S. city to ban plastic straws and utensils in all restaurants.
San Francisco, sensing a threat to its status as front-runner in the Progressivelympics, has responded by completely banning all food and beverages in restaurants city wide starting 2020.
*.*
In similar news…
House Democrats Draft Legislation That Would Make It A Hate Crime To Eat At Chick-Fil-A
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Under intense pressure from their left-leaning constituents to do something about the dangerous, Christian-founded restaurant chain, Democrats in the House of Representatives unveiled legislation Friday that would make it a hate crime to eat at Chick-fil-A.
The CFAHATE Act Of 2019 would make it a hate crime punishable by federal law to dine at the restaurant or use its drive-thru, with extra punishments for people who post that they’re eating at the restaurant on their social media accounts. The legislation would also impose heftier penalties for anyone who patronizes the extremist hate group’s chicken sandwich establishments during Pride Month.
“We want people making fast-food dining choices to think carefully about a restaurant’s background,” House Minority Leader and bill co-sponsor Nancy Pelosi said in a video posted to her official YouTube account. “If a restaurant’s leadership is associated with Christian values in any way, frequenting their locations amounts to literal violence against minorities, women, and the LGBTQ+ community.”
According to Pelosi, the legislation was rushed into motion after Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey posted that he was eating at Chick-fil-A on his Twitter account last weekend, and was later forced to apologize after weathering severe criticism by progressives. Federal agents found they were unable to prosecute him, since eating at a Christian-owned restaurant wasn’t “technically” defined as a hate crime under United States law.
“It’s 2019. It’s time to put intolerance behind us by making any association with Christians in the public sphere simply intolerable,” Pelosi concluded.
*.*
My upstairs neighbor called me at work today to tell me she heard several men in my place making a lot of noise and laughing loudly.
How come this stuff never happens when I'm home?
Quote of the Times;
“We’re gonna go in there and we’re gonna impeach the motherfucker.” - Representative Rashida Tlaib
Link of the Times;
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1080510898601639936.html
Issue of the Times;
The Zeller-Nikolov climate discovery may turn the world upside down by Christopher Calder
Nature created the fundamental mathematical relationship now known as E=mc2. A mathematical finding, if proven valid, is a real phenomenon; as real as finding a diamond in a river bed. Nature creates fundamental mathematical relationships; humans only discover them.
The straightforward and crystal-clear mathematical discovery by Dr. Karl Zeller and Dr. Ned Nikolov has many enemies. If their finding is proven accurate, it could bankrupt the wind and solar industries and put heavy pressure on politicians to end biofuel mandates. It would embarrass most politicians and almost all climate scientists, even those who believe carbon dioxide has no significant effect on Earth temperatures.
The Zeller-Nikolov climate finding uses official NASA data to quantify the average temperatures of the hard-surfaced satellite bodies orbiting our Sun. The formula is not applicable to the gas planets: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Zeller and Nikolov claim to be able to determine the long-term average temperature of Venus, Earth, Mars, Titan (a moon of Saturn), and Triton (a moon of Neptune) by using just two informational values: their distance from the Sun and their atmospheric pressure.
Zeller and Nikolov have found that the gaseous composition of atmospheres is immaterial to determining long-term average temperatures. For example, the atmosphere of Venus is composed of 96.5% carbon dioxide, while Earth's atmosphere contains only .04% carbon dioxide, yet those vast differences are irrelevant to the mathematical calculations required to determine average temperatures. This mathematical proof tells us that even though Venus has 2,412 times more carbon dioxide than Earth measured as a percentage of its atmosphere, that CO2 has no measurable effects on its average long-term temperature. Zeller and Nikolov claim that carbon dioxide and all the other atmospheric gases only contribute to temperature by their physical mass and resultant atmospheric pressure. They point out that their predictions for planets and moons are accurate to within one degree Celsius, a confidence-inspiring finding so precise that coincidence can reasonably be ruled out.
The Zeller-Nikolov discovery means that Earth's atmosphere keeps us warm via gas-compression heating under the weight of Earth's approximately 300-mile-thick atmosphere, not by the greenhouse effect. An actual greenhouse has a glass wall enclosing it. Earth has no enclosure and is open to space, so the two scientists suggest that the term "greenhouse effect" be replaced by "atmospheric thermal enhancement." Heat is created by compressing atmospheric gases through the pull of gravity. Similarly, in a diesel engine a piston is used to compress gases to generate enough heat to eliminate the need for a spark plug. The tremendous gravitational pull on the enormous mass of Earth's atmosphere combined with solar radiation warms our planet just enough to allow carbon-based life forms to flourish.
If carbon dioxide was the powerful greenhouse gas alarmists claim it to be, the calculations for Venus would have to be dramatically different than the calculations for Earth, but they are the same. This tells us that CO2 has no measurable direct effect on planetary temperature, which makes perfect sense as the Earth has experienced severe ice ages when atmospheric CO2 levels were many times higher than they are today.
The carbon dioxide-driven greenhouse gas theory Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius first proposed in 1896 has never been proven valid by empirical testing. Svante's ideas sounded plausible, so people accepted them without proof. More recently, American politicians literally ordered the IPCC to burn through enormous amounts of taxpayer dollars concocting wild and fanciful computer-model projections based on Svante's assumptions. As the old computer-programming saying goes, "garbage in, garbage out" (GIGO).
All of the IPCC's doomsday climate predictions have failed to materialize despite our heavily biased media's best efforts to distort and exaggerate. Ordinary summer heat waves and winter storm activity has been falsely portrayed as precursors to the end of the world, which will certainly come unless we elect more Democrats. Climate gurus keep pushing the date of catastrophe into the future because the global doom they keep predicting never arrives. What has arrived are ordinary and expected minor fluctuations in Earth's climate that have been going on since Earth was formed. Ask yourself, when did the Earth have a climate that was more pleasant and beneficial to mankind than the climate we have today? The honest answer is simply never.
Despite multiple technical reviews by scientists around the world, no one has found error in Zeller and Nikolov's mathematical formulas and specific computations. Objections raised against their discovery are largely that it does not fit accepted climate theories that are professionally and politically popular. Climate science has become an Orwellian tool of political power and an enormous money-making profession for scientists, professors, universities, state and federal government employees, and a thousand and one green-scam businesses. Just think of all the billions of dollars being spent on "global warming" and the mandated false remedies. No doom equals no costly remedies and no profits for those selling fear.
Real scientists know that you cannot control the weather with windmills and solar panels any more than you can control the weather with bowling balls and statues of dead politicians, yet the costly and impractical renewable-energy fad continues. Crony capitalists and ambitious but scientifically naive politicians from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, to Beto O'Rourke, to billionaire Michael Bloomberg want taxpayers to spend trillions of dollars on energy schemes that have already raised the cost of food and energy all over the world. This has harmed the world's poor far more than the wealthy, the very opposite of what liberals are supposed to stand for. Now they want us to dramatically escalate our war against the carbon atom, the very element all our food and our own bodies are made of. Carbon creatures fighting carbon; human events rarely get more twisted and surreal than this.
They are soon crossing the Sydney Harbor bridge, and the man is further unimpressed; "I have a duck pond bigger than that harbor, and an ornamental bridge to span it that makes this look like a toy".
The Sydney-Newcastle expressway also gets his scorn, "Is this a road, or a track?"
So when a kangaroo jumped out in front of the cab, causing the sudden and severe application of the brakes, the driver couldn't help himself; "Stupid grass hoppers!"
*.*
A young Arab boy asks his father “What is that strange hat you are wearing?”
The father said: "Why, my son, it is a 'chechia.' In the desert it protects our heads from the intense heat of the sun.”
"And what is the long flowing robe you are wearing?” asked the boy.
“Oh, my son!” exclaimed the father “It is very simple. This is a 'djbellah.' As I have told you, in the desert it
is not only very hot, but the sand is always blowing. My djbellah protects the entire body.”
The son then asked: "But Father, what about those ugly shoes you have on your feet?”
"These are 'babouches' my son,” the father replied. You must understand that although the desert sands are
very beautiful, they are also extremely hot. These babouches' keep us from burning our feet.”
"So tell me then," added the boy.
"Yes, my son…”
"Why are you living in Minnesota and still wearing all this shit?
*.*
Seattle, WA - Seattle becomes the first major U.S. city to ban plastic straws and utensils in all restaurants.
San Francisco, sensing a threat to its status as front-runner in the Progressivelympics, has responded by completely banning all food and beverages in restaurants city wide starting 2020.
*.*
In similar news…
House Democrats Draft Legislation That Would Make It A Hate Crime To Eat At Chick-Fil-A
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Under intense pressure from their left-leaning constituents to do something about the dangerous, Christian-founded restaurant chain, Democrats in the House of Representatives unveiled legislation Friday that would make it a hate crime to eat at Chick-fil-A.
The CFAHATE Act Of 2019 would make it a hate crime punishable by federal law to dine at the restaurant or use its drive-thru, with extra punishments for people who post that they’re eating at the restaurant on their social media accounts. The legislation would also impose heftier penalties for anyone who patronizes the extremist hate group’s chicken sandwich establishments during Pride Month.
“We want people making fast-food dining choices to think carefully about a restaurant’s background,” House Minority Leader and bill co-sponsor Nancy Pelosi said in a video posted to her official YouTube account. “If a restaurant’s leadership is associated with Christian values in any way, frequenting their locations amounts to literal violence against minorities, women, and the LGBTQ+ community.”
According to Pelosi, the legislation was rushed into motion after Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey posted that he was eating at Chick-fil-A on his Twitter account last weekend, and was later forced to apologize after weathering severe criticism by progressives. Federal agents found they were unable to prosecute him, since eating at a Christian-owned restaurant wasn’t “technically” defined as a hate crime under United States law.
“It’s 2019. It’s time to put intolerance behind us by making any association with Christians in the public sphere simply intolerable,” Pelosi concluded.
*.*
My upstairs neighbor called me at work today to tell me she heard several men in my place making a lot of noise and laughing loudly.
How come this stuff never happens when I'm home?
Quote of the Times;
“We’re gonna go in there and we’re gonna impeach the motherfucker.” - Representative Rashida Tlaib
Link of the Times;
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1080510898601639936.html
Issue of the Times;
The Zeller-Nikolov climate discovery may turn the world upside down by Christopher Calder
Nature created the fundamental mathematical relationship now known as E=mc2. A mathematical finding, if proven valid, is a real phenomenon; as real as finding a diamond in a river bed. Nature creates fundamental mathematical relationships; humans only discover them.
The straightforward and crystal-clear mathematical discovery by Dr. Karl Zeller and Dr. Ned Nikolov has many enemies. If their finding is proven accurate, it could bankrupt the wind and solar industries and put heavy pressure on politicians to end biofuel mandates. It would embarrass most politicians and almost all climate scientists, even those who believe carbon dioxide has no significant effect on Earth temperatures.
The Zeller-Nikolov climate finding uses official NASA data to quantify the average temperatures of the hard-surfaced satellite bodies orbiting our Sun. The formula is not applicable to the gas planets: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Zeller and Nikolov claim to be able to determine the long-term average temperature of Venus, Earth, Mars, Titan (a moon of Saturn), and Triton (a moon of Neptune) by using just two informational values: their distance from the Sun and their atmospheric pressure.
Zeller and Nikolov have found that the gaseous composition of atmospheres is immaterial to determining long-term average temperatures. For example, the atmosphere of Venus is composed of 96.5% carbon dioxide, while Earth's atmosphere contains only .04% carbon dioxide, yet those vast differences are irrelevant to the mathematical calculations required to determine average temperatures. This mathematical proof tells us that even though Venus has 2,412 times more carbon dioxide than Earth measured as a percentage of its atmosphere, that CO2 has no measurable effects on its average long-term temperature. Zeller and Nikolov claim that carbon dioxide and all the other atmospheric gases only contribute to temperature by their physical mass and resultant atmospheric pressure. They point out that their predictions for planets and moons are accurate to within one degree Celsius, a confidence-inspiring finding so precise that coincidence can reasonably be ruled out.
The Zeller-Nikolov discovery means that Earth's atmosphere keeps us warm via gas-compression heating under the weight of Earth's approximately 300-mile-thick atmosphere, not by the greenhouse effect. An actual greenhouse has a glass wall enclosing it. Earth has no enclosure and is open to space, so the two scientists suggest that the term "greenhouse effect" be replaced by "atmospheric thermal enhancement." Heat is created by compressing atmospheric gases through the pull of gravity. Similarly, in a diesel engine a piston is used to compress gases to generate enough heat to eliminate the need for a spark plug. The tremendous gravitational pull on the enormous mass of Earth's atmosphere combined with solar radiation warms our planet just enough to allow carbon-based life forms to flourish.
If carbon dioxide was the powerful greenhouse gas alarmists claim it to be, the calculations for Venus would have to be dramatically different than the calculations for Earth, but they are the same. This tells us that CO2 has no measurable direct effect on planetary temperature, which makes perfect sense as the Earth has experienced severe ice ages when atmospheric CO2 levels were many times higher than they are today.
The carbon dioxide-driven greenhouse gas theory Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius first proposed in 1896 has never been proven valid by empirical testing. Svante's ideas sounded plausible, so people accepted them without proof. More recently, American politicians literally ordered the IPCC to burn through enormous amounts of taxpayer dollars concocting wild and fanciful computer-model projections based on Svante's assumptions. As the old computer-programming saying goes, "garbage in, garbage out" (GIGO).
All of the IPCC's doomsday climate predictions have failed to materialize despite our heavily biased media's best efforts to distort and exaggerate. Ordinary summer heat waves and winter storm activity has been falsely portrayed as precursors to the end of the world, which will certainly come unless we elect more Democrats. Climate gurus keep pushing the date of catastrophe into the future because the global doom they keep predicting never arrives. What has arrived are ordinary and expected minor fluctuations in Earth's climate that have been going on since Earth was formed. Ask yourself, when did the Earth have a climate that was more pleasant and beneficial to mankind than the climate we have today? The honest answer is simply never.
Despite multiple technical reviews by scientists around the world, no one has found error in Zeller and Nikolov's mathematical formulas and specific computations. Objections raised against their discovery are largely that it does not fit accepted climate theories that are professionally and politically popular. Climate science has become an Orwellian tool of political power and an enormous money-making profession for scientists, professors, universities, state and federal government employees, and a thousand and one green-scam businesses. Just think of all the billions of dollars being spent on "global warming" and the mandated false remedies. No doom equals no costly remedies and no profits for those selling fear.
Real scientists know that you cannot control the weather with windmills and solar panels any more than you can control the weather with bowling balls and statues of dead politicians, yet the costly and impractical renewable-energy fad continues. Crony capitalists and ambitious but scientifically naive politicians from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, to Beto O'Rourke, to billionaire Michael Bloomberg want taxpayers to spend trillions of dollars on energy schemes that have already raised the cost of food and energy all over the world. This has harmed the world's poor far more than the wealthy, the very opposite of what liberals are supposed to stand for. Now they want us to dramatically escalate our war against the carbon atom, the very element all our food and our own bodies are made of. Carbon creatures fighting carbon; human events rarely get more twisted and surreal than this.
Wonder?
My wife and I had no idea what happiness meant until we had kids.
By then, it was too late.
*.*
In what’s being called a miraculous breakthrough, researchers at the University of Washington announced Monday a promising new treatment for the unfortunate male hairstyle known as a “man bun.”
The cure is reportedly comprised an inexpensive operation using a pair of shears, coupled with a psychiatric follow-up administered by a medical professional designed to help the victim come to the conclusion that they need to make better decisions about their life.
“In early clinical trials, our aggressive treatment plan has shown a nearly 98% success rate,” Dr. Ivan E. Orlov told reporters excitedly. “While a small number of patients later relapsed into gathering their unkempt, sometimes thinning hair into a malformed growth near the back of their head, the vast majority enjoyed sustained recovery and a happy post-man-bun life.”
According to Orlov, early experimental treatments like making fun of the subject, covering the deformed lump with a hat or beanie, and waiting for the patient to come to his senses proved ineffective.
“We found that the malicious growth had to be attacked from the root in order to see a marked recovery in the patient,” Orlov said.
University researchers are confident the treatment will be approved by the FDA in coming months, along with similar treatments for people who still wear fanny packs.
*.*
Oneliners:
You aren’t actually afraid of being left alone in your house, or in the forest; You’re afraid that you AREN’T alone.
If phones warned that listening at a high volume may cause damage to headphones instead of hearing, more people would probably keep their volume lower.
Cops saying “if you lawyer up, you look guilty” is like saying ” if you wear your seatbelt, you look like your going to get in a car accident”
It’d be horrifying if babies could scream from inside the womb instead of just wiggle and kick.
Anxiety is like when video game combat music is playing but you can’t find any enemies.
It kinda makes sense that the target audience for fidget spinners lost interest in them so quickly.
Watching a graduation ceremony is like sitting through a movie that’s entirely end credits.
Your future self is talking shit about you.
The first person who inhaled helium must have been so relieved when the effects wore off.
If race horses could comprehend that victory meant a lifetime of leisure and sex they’d probably run even faster.
If you’re no longer covered by your parent’s health insurance, your manufacturer’s warranty is over.
Sleeping in is considered lazy, but going to bed early is not.
You know you’ve reached adulthood when your bed is in the middle of the wall instead of in the corner.
A different version of you exists in the minds of everyone who knows you.
When you introduce two different groups of friends to each other, it’s like your own life’s crossover episode.
*.*
The Coast Guard “a.k.a. Baby Navy” begins reselling seized cocaine amid government shutdown
SAN DIEGO — With the Coast Guard being the only branch of the military whose members may go without during the current government shutdown, the service has decided to resell the nearly $1 billion dollars worth of cocaine seized in the past six months to supplement pay for the 42,000 men and women on active duty.
With Coast Guardsman needing to pay mortgages, rent, food, and travel expenses, the service weighed various options to cover the services many costs, such as a GoFundMe campaign, mandatory intermittent fasting, bread-lines at military galleys, and turning the Coast Guard’s small boats into party boats and their cutters into cruise liners.
Officials said that since the Coast Guard was the only part of the military under the Department of Homeland Security, it left them as the only military service not being paid as other branches continued to receive funding during the shutdown. Nevertheless, those other services don’t have over 20 tons of pure uncut cocaine in storage to sell to the highest bidder, according to multiple sources.
Besides the federal drug sale, Navy Federal Credit Union has announced a relief program offering a zero-interest loan to qualified affected members, while USAA has offered a free sponsored coffee mug to use while members panhandle outside of all Coast Guard bases.
*.*
Least Likely Names for the New NHL Team in Seattle:
1. The Grande Double-Shot No Foam Soy Milk Lattes
2. The Not-the-Mariners
3. The Amazon Prime Free Shippers
4. The Frozen Sonics
5. Oh!, For Puck's Sakes
Quote of the Times;
"Huge corporations have displaced the blue-collar proletariat in the hearts of elites. Corporations embrace a progressive agenda that costs them nothing. In exchange, they get to maintain the economic status quo that has made them billions. The company's affluent customers get to imagine they're fighting the power by purchasing the products, even as they make a tiny group of people richer and more powerful." – Carlson
Link of the Times;
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1051230784986714112.html
Issue of the Times;
Muslim Doctor Admits Deliberately Giving Jews the “Wrong Meds”; Media Ignores by Paul Watson
Imagine if the roles were reversed?
The mainstream media in America has completely ignored a bombshell story about a Muslim doctor in in Ohio who admitted to deliberately giving Jewish people the wrong medications.
27-year-old Lara Kollab was fired from her position as an Internal Medicine Resident at the Cleveland Clinic, Ohio, after tweets were uncovered in which she spread anti-Semitic hatred on Twitter for at least 6 years.
The tweets, collected by the Canary Mission website, include trivialization of the Holocaust, open support for terrorist groups and comparisons of Israel to Nazi Germany.
However, by far the most disturbing tweet was her response to another Twitter user when she remarked, “Hahha ewww..ill purposely give all the yahood the wrong meds.”
“Yahood” is a derogatory term that Muslims use to refer to Jews.
The only media outlet in the United States to pick up the story was the Hill. Outside of America, only RT and the Daily Mail have covered it so far.
Every major television news network and newspaper in the country has otherwise ignored it.
One wonders what the media reaction would have been if a right-wing Christian doctor had admitted to giving Muslims or black people the wrong medication – probably national outrage.
As for this story – it’s nothing but crickets.
By then, it was too late.
*.*
In what’s being called a miraculous breakthrough, researchers at the University of Washington announced Monday a promising new treatment for the unfortunate male hairstyle known as a “man bun.”
The cure is reportedly comprised an inexpensive operation using a pair of shears, coupled with a psychiatric follow-up administered by a medical professional designed to help the victim come to the conclusion that they need to make better decisions about their life.
“In early clinical trials, our aggressive treatment plan has shown a nearly 98% success rate,” Dr. Ivan E. Orlov told reporters excitedly. “While a small number of patients later relapsed into gathering their unkempt, sometimes thinning hair into a malformed growth near the back of their head, the vast majority enjoyed sustained recovery and a happy post-man-bun life.”
According to Orlov, early experimental treatments like making fun of the subject, covering the deformed lump with a hat or beanie, and waiting for the patient to come to his senses proved ineffective.
“We found that the malicious growth had to be attacked from the root in order to see a marked recovery in the patient,” Orlov said.
University researchers are confident the treatment will be approved by the FDA in coming months, along with similar treatments for people who still wear fanny packs.
*.*
Oneliners:
You aren’t actually afraid of being left alone in your house, or in the forest; You’re afraid that you AREN’T alone.
If phones warned that listening at a high volume may cause damage to headphones instead of hearing, more people would probably keep their volume lower.
Cops saying “if you lawyer up, you look guilty” is like saying ” if you wear your seatbelt, you look like your going to get in a car accident”
It’d be horrifying if babies could scream from inside the womb instead of just wiggle and kick.
Anxiety is like when video game combat music is playing but you can’t find any enemies.
It kinda makes sense that the target audience for fidget spinners lost interest in them so quickly.
Watching a graduation ceremony is like sitting through a movie that’s entirely end credits.
Your future self is talking shit about you.
The first person who inhaled helium must have been so relieved when the effects wore off.
If race horses could comprehend that victory meant a lifetime of leisure and sex they’d probably run even faster.
If you’re no longer covered by your parent’s health insurance, your manufacturer’s warranty is over.
Sleeping in is considered lazy, but going to bed early is not.
You know you’ve reached adulthood when your bed is in the middle of the wall instead of in the corner.
A different version of you exists in the minds of everyone who knows you.
When you introduce two different groups of friends to each other, it’s like your own life’s crossover episode.
*.*
The Coast Guard “a.k.a. Baby Navy” begins reselling seized cocaine amid government shutdown
SAN DIEGO — With the Coast Guard being the only branch of the military whose members may go without during the current government shutdown, the service has decided to resell the nearly $1 billion dollars worth of cocaine seized in the past six months to supplement pay for the 42,000 men and women on active duty.
With Coast Guardsman needing to pay mortgages, rent, food, and travel expenses, the service weighed various options to cover the services many costs, such as a GoFundMe campaign, mandatory intermittent fasting, bread-lines at military galleys, and turning the Coast Guard’s small boats into party boats and their cutters into cruise liners.
Officials said that since the Coast Guard was the only part of the military under the Department of Homeland Security, it left them as the only military service not being paid as other branches continued to receive funding during the shutdown. Nevertheless, those other services don’t have over 20 tons of pure uncut cocaine in storage to sell to the highest bidder, according to multiple sources.
Besides the federal drug sale, Navy Federal Credit Union has announced a relief program offering a zero-interest loan to qualified affected members, while USAA has offered a free sponsored coffee mug to use while members panhandle outside of all Coast Guard bases.
*.*
Least Likely Names for the New NHL Team in Seattle:
1. The Grande Double-Shot No Foam Soy Milk Lattes
2. The Not-the-Mariners
3. The Amazon Prime Free Shippers
4. The Frozen Sonics
5. Oh!, For Puck's Sakes
Quote of the Times;
"Huge corporations have displaced the blue-collar proletariat in the hearts of elites. Corporations embrace a progressive agenda that costs them nothing. In exchange, they get to maintain the economic status quo that has made them billions. The company's affluent customers get to imagine they're fighting the power by purchasing the products, even as they make a tiny group of people richer and more powerful." – Carlson
Link of the Times;
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1051230784986714112.html
Issue of the Times;
Muslim Doctor Admits Deliberately Giving Jews the “Wrong Meds”; Media Ignores by Paul Watson
Imagine if the roles were reversed?
The mainstream media in America has completely ignored a bombshell story about a Muslim doctor in in Ohio who admitted to deliberately giving Jewish people the wrong medications.
27-year-old Lara Kollab was fired from her position as an Internal Medicine Resident at the Cleveland Clinic, Ohio, after tweets were uncovered in which she spread anti-Semitic hatred on Twitter for at least 6 years.
The tweets, collected by the Canary Mission website, include trivialization of the Holocaust, open support for terrorist groups and comparisons of Israel to Nazi Germany.
However, by far the most disturbing tweet was her response to another Twitter user when she remarked, “Hahha ewww..ill purposely give all the yahood the wrong meds.”
“Yahood” is a derogatory term that Muslims use to refer to Jews.
The only media outlet in the United States to pick up the story was the Hill. Outside of America, only RT and the Daily Mail have covered it so far.
Every major television news network and newspaper in the country has otherwise ignored it.
One wonders what the media reaction would have been if a right-wing Christian doctor had admitted to giving Muslims or black people the wrong medication – probably national outrage.
As for this story – it’s nothing but crickets.
Object?
Thanks to the Mueller investigation, the #1 most popular Christmas gift this year is Hush Money.
*.*
Lindsay Buckingham says that Stevie Nicks was behind him getting kicked out of Fleetwood Mac. He can still hear her saying, "You can go your own way."
Lindsay always wanted to be the best.
Now he's the Pete Best of Fleetwood Mac.
*.*
One night, an 87-year-old woman came home from Bingo to find her husband in bed with another woman.
Angry, she became violent and ended up pushing him off the balcony of their apartment, killing him.
When brought before the court on charges of murder, she was asked if she had anything to say to defend herself.
"Well, Your Honour," she replied coolly. "I figured that at 92, if he could make love to another woman, he could fly!"
*.*
Outside a pharmacy, in a busy street, a poor man is clutching onto a pole for dear life, not breathing, not moving, not twitching a muscle. He was just standing there, frozen.
The pharmacist, seeing this strange sight in front of his shop, goes up to his assistant and asks, "What's the matter with that guy? Wasn't he in here earlier?"
Assistant replies, "Yes he was. He had a terrible cough and none of my prescriptions seemed to help."
Pharmacist says, "He seems to be fine now."
Assistant says, "Sure he does. I gave him a box of our strongest laxatives on the market. Now he won't dare cough."
*.*
There were over a dozen vegetable recalls in 2018.
Not a single recall on bacon.
Just sayin'...
Quote of the Times;
The price of gold is over $1200 per ounce. 80 hours of work per ounce. Henry Ford paid his workers $5 a day when gold was $20 per ounce. Four eight-hour days of work per ounce. If wages had risen with inflation, the average wage for low-skilled labor would be around $30 per hour.
Link of the Times;
https://moonbattery.com/postcards-from-san-francisco/
Issue of the Times;
Trump's Success Reflects Conservative Failures by Andrew Klavan
Donald Trump is a mirror that drives men mad.
There are plenty of legitimate reasons to dislike Trump the man. He can be rude and unkind — as when he publicly tormented his loyal supporter Jeff Sessions. He can play fast and loose with the truth — as when he declared he made no money in Saudi Arabia after bragging about all the money he made in Saudi Arabia. And he’s often lived badly, so that his former escapades sometimes rise up to stain the presidency — as with Stormy Daniels.
But for all that, he is doing an excellent job as President of the United States. Lower taxes and wiser regulations are spurring the economy. ISIS is scattered. Excellent judges are being appointed. Sanity is being restored to our Middle East policy. And — as opposed to the dark days of the Obama administration — the White House seems to be acting within the Constitution and the law.
No conservative who cares about fending off the left’s assault on our founding principles — especially the First and Second Amendments that Hillary Clinton so openly despised — can be wholly displeased with Trump’s first two years in office. And yet some on the right, or at least ostensibly on the right, continue to hate the man with a passion, and seek to foil him both in Congress and the press.
The reason for this, I think, is more psychological than political. Through his flawed character, Trump reflects our political failures back at us. We ask ourselves: Why did we need such a man to accomplish what he has accomplished? It’s easier to blame him than to face the real answer: we failed to do it ourselves.
On the left this is obvious. Barack Obama hates Trump because Trump reflects the failure of his policies and his vision. The press hates Trump because he reflects their failure to do their job in covering Obama’s incompetence and corruption. Left-leaning women hate Trump because he reflects their failure to expose and condemn the hideous treatment of women by the Clinton-led Democratic party.
But Trump reflects failures of conservatism as well.
The appeal of his America First policy reflects the failure of the neo-conservative freedom agenda, an over-ambitious over-reaction to 9/11 that cost an unpaid-for fortune and left the Middle East in a shambles.
The appeal of his belligerence on trade and his focus on jobs reflects the conservative failure to serve the suffering heartland. Too many conservative intellectuals thought that fine theories about globalization and high disdain for the need and dysfunction of dying communities were somehow supposed to replace useful strategies. They forgot what James Madison called "the object of government, which is the happiness of the people."
Maybe most importantly, the appeal of Trump’s battles with the press, celebrities and the NFL reflects the conservative failure to mount an effective counter-offensive against the left’s domination of our culture. It was we conservatives who allowed the left to take over Hollywood, the news business and academia, and they have used those powerful tools to colonize our manners and our minds. They have divided the races and stoked rage and bitterness among us. They have made men afraid to speak their minds and taught women to despise their own natures. They have steeped the young in ignorance about the glories and responsibilities of freedom. It took a man like Trump, who doesn’t care about good manners, to give back to the left the shoddy and uncivil treatment they have given the rest of us for so long.
There is nothing wrong with conservatives criticizing the president’s policies when we disagree with them. But on the right, the ceaseless disdain for his largely successful administration, and the attempts to grandstand and virtue signal at the expense of his effectiveness, reveal a neurotic refusal to assess where conservatism went wrong and what Trump got right.
What we hate about him is that, with all his flaws, he’s doing what we couldn’t do. He’s a mirror of our failures, and it drives us insane.
*.*
Lindsay Buckingham says that Stevie Nicks was behind him getting kicked out of Fleetwood Mac. He can still hear her saying, "You can go your own way."
Lindsay always wanted to be the best.
Now he's the Pete Best of Fleetwood Mac.
*.*
One night, an 87-year-old woman came home from Bingo to find her husband in bed with another woman.
Angry, she became violent and ended up pushing him off the balcony of their apartment, killing him.
When brought before the court on charges of murder, she was asked if she had anything to say to defend herself.
"Well, Your Honour," she replied coolly. "I figured that at 92, if he could make love to another woman, he could fly!"
*.*
Outside a pharmacy, in a busy street, a poor man is clutching onto a pole for dear life, not breathing, not moving, not twitching a muscle. He was just standing there, frozen.
The pharmacist, seeing this strange sight in front of his shop, goes up to his assistant and asks, "What's the matter with that guy? Wasn't he in here earlier?"
Assistant replies, "Yes he was. He had a terrible cough and none of my prescriptions seemed to help."
Pharmacist says, "He seems to be fine now."
Assistant says, "Sure he does. I gave him a box of our strongest laxatives on the market. Now he won't dare cough."
*.*
There were over a dozen vegetable recalls in 2018.
Not a single recall on bacon.
Just sayin'...
Quote of the Times;
The price of gold is over $1200 per ounce. 80 hours of work per ounce. Henry Ford paid his workers $5 a day when gold was $20 per ounce. Four eight-hour days of work per ounce. If wages had risen with inflation, the average wage for low-skilled labor would be around $30 per hour.
Link of the Times;
https://moonbattery.com/postcards-from-san-francisco/
Issue of the Times;
Trump's Success Reflects Conservative Failures by Andrew Klavan
Donald Trump is a mirror that drives men mad.
There are plenty of legitimate reasons to dislike Trump the man. He can be rude and unkind — as when he publicly tormented his loyal supporter Jeff Sessions. He can play fast and loose with the truth — as when he declared he made no money in Saudi Arabia after bragging about all the money he made in Saudi Arabia. And he’s often lived badly, so that his former escapades sometimes rise up to stain the presidency — as with Stormy Daniels.
But for all that, he is doing an excellent job as President of the United States. Lower taxes and wiser regulations are spurring the economy. ISIS is scattered. Excellent judges are being appointed. Sanity is being restored to our Middle East policy. And — as opposed to the dark days of the Obama administration — the White House seems to be acting within the Constitution and the law.
No conservative who cares about fending off the left’s assault on our founding principles — especially the First and Second Amendments that Hillary Clinton so openly despised — can be wholly displeased with Trump’s first two years in office. And yet some on the right, or at least ostensibly on the right, continue to hate the man with a passion, and seek to foil him both in Congress and the press.
The reason for this, I think, is more psychological than political. Through his flawed character, Trump reflects our political failures back at us. We ask ourselves: Why did we need such a man to accomplish what he has accomplished? It’s easier to blame him than to face the real answer: we failed to do it ourselves.
On the left this is obvious. Barack Obama hates Trump because Trump reflects the failure of his policies and his vision. The press hates Trump because he reflects their failure to do their job in covering Obama’s incompetence and corruption. Left-leaning women hate Trump because he reflects their failure to expose and condemn the hideous treatment of women by the Clinton-led Democratic party.
But Trump reflects failures of conservatism as well.
The appeal of his America First policy reflects the failure of the neo-conservative freedom agenda, an over-ambitious over-reaction to 9/11 that cost an unpaid-for fortune and left the Middle East in a shambles.
The appeal of his belligerence on trade and his focus on jobs reflects the conservative failure to serve the suffering heartland. Too many conservative intellectuals thought that fine theories about globalization and high disdain for the need and dysfunction of dying communities were somehow supposed to replace useful strategies. They forgot what James Madison called "the object of government, which is the happiness of the people."
Maybe most importantly, the appeal of Trump’s battles with the press, celebrities and the NFL reflects the conservative failure to mount an effective counter-offensive against the left’s domination of our culture. It was we conservatives who allowed the left to take over Hollywood, the news business and academia, and they have used those powerful tools to colonize our manners and our minds. They have divided the races and stoked rage and bitterness among us. They have made men afraid to speak their minds and taught women to despise their own natures. They have steeped the young in ignorance about the glories and responsibilities of freedom. It took a man like Trump, who doesn’t care about good manners, to give back to the left the shoddy and uncivil treatment they have given the rest of us for so long.
There is nothing wrong with conservatives criticizing the president’s policies when we disagree with them. But on the right, the ceaseless disdain for his largely successful administration, and the attempts to grandstand and virtue signal at the expense of his effectiveness, reveal a neurotic refusal to assess where conservatism went wrong and what Trump got right.
What we hate about him is that, with all his flaws, he’s doing what we couldn’t do. He’s a mirror of our failures, and it drives us insane.
Belloc?
One day, an Englishman, a Scotsman, and an Irishman walked into a pub together. They proceed to each buy a pint of Guinness. Just as they were about to enjoy their creamy beverage, three flies landed in each of their pints and got stuck in the thick head. The Englishman pushed his beer away from him in disgust.
The Scotsman fished the offending fly out of his beer and continued drinking it as if nothing had happened.
The Irishman, too, picked the fly out of his drink, held it out over the beer and then started yelling. "SPIT IT OUT, SPIT IT OUT, YOU BASTARD!"
*.*
A frog goes to have his fortune told. The swami looks at his little webbed palm and says, "Aha! You're about to meet a beautiful young lady who is going to want to know everything about you."
The frog says, "Thanks! I'm going to run right back to the pond so I won't miss her."
The swami says, "You won't meet her at the pond. You're going to meet her in her freshman biology class."
*.*
Murphy showed up at Mass one Sunday and the priest almost fell down when he saw him. Murphy had never been seen in church in his life.
After Mass, the priest caught Murphy and said, "Murphy, I am so glad you decided to come to Mass. What made you come?"
Murphy said, "I got to be honest with you Father, a while back, I misplaced me hat and I really, really love that hat. I know that McGlynn had a hat just like me hat, and I knew that McGlynn come to church every Sunday.
I also knew that McGlynn had to take off his hat during Mass and I figured he would leave it in the back of church. So, I was going to leave after Communion and steal McGlynn's hat."
The priest said, "Well, Murphy, I notice that you didn't steal McGlynn's hat. What changed your mind?"
Murphy said, "Well, after I heard your sermon on the 10 commandments, I decided that I didn't need to steal McGlynn's hat."
The priest gave Murphy a big smile and said; "After I talked about 'Thou Shalt Not Steal' you decided you would rather do without your hat than burn in Hell, right?"
Murphy shook his head and said, "No, Father. After you talked about 'Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery', I remembered where I left me hat."
*.*
An attorney was sitting in his office late one night, when the Devil appeared before him. The Devil told the lawyer, "I have a proposition for you. You can win every case you try, for the rest of your life. Your clients will adore you, your colleagues will stand in awe of you, and you will make embarrassing sums of money. All I want in exchange is your soul, your wife's soul, your children's souls, the souls of your parents, grandparents, and parents-in-law, and the souls of all of your friends and law partners."
The lawyer thought about this for a moment, then asked, "So, what's the catch?"
*.*
A guy bought his wife a beautiful diamond ring for Christmas.
After hearing about this extravagant gift, a friend of his said, "I thought she wanted one of those sporty four-wheel-drive vehicles."
"She did," he replied. "But where the hell was I going to find a fake Jeep?"
Quote of the Times;
“We are happy when we are growing.” - Yeats
Link of the Times;
http://stuartschneiderman.blogspot.com/
Issue of the Times;
Belloc’s Prophecy by Joseph Sobran
Back in the 1930s, when white men were preparing for another round of mutual slaughter, few of them paid any attention to the Muslim world. They assumed it to be a backward region that history had long since passed by.
One man saw it differently. The great Catholic polemicist Hilaire Belloc, an Englishman of French ancestry, remembered Islam’s past and predicted, in his book The Great Heresies, that it would one day challenge the West again. As late as 1683 its armies had threatened to conquer Europe, penetrating all the way to Vienna; Belloc believed that a great Islamic revival, even in the twentieth century, was altogether possible.
Belloc saw Islam not as an alien religion, but in its origins as a Christian heresy, adopting and adapting certain Christian doctrines (monotheism, the immortality of the soul, final judgment) and rejecting others (original sin, the Incarnation and divinity of Christ, the sacraments). Its simple, rational creed had a powerful appeal to Arabs who had known only the arbitrary gods of grim pagan religions. It swept the Arab world, then made converts — and conquests — far beyond Arabia.
Islam was a militant religion from the start. Mohammed himself conquered the entire Arabian Peninsula in just a few years. The new faith was torn by violent internal divisions even as it continued to spread. But spread it did, with incredible rapidity.
Christians had good reason to fear Islam, which soon conquered Spain and held it for centuries. But because Islam has little attraction for Christians, the West has generally failed to grasp its appeal for others, its profound and permanent hold on the minds of believers. Unlike the Christian West, the Muslim world has never had crises of faith like the Reformation and the Enlightenment.
Islam is a simple religion, easily understood by ordinary people. Its commandments are rigorous but few. When it conquered, its subjugated people often felt more liberated than enslaved, because it often replaced burdensome old bureaucratic governments with relatively undemanding regimes — and low taxes. As long as its authority was respected, Islamic rule was comparatively libertarian. It offered millions relief from their traditional oppression; for example, no Muslim could be a slave.
Belloc distinguishes sharply between Islam and such barbarous conquerors as the Mongol hordes of Genghis Khan. The Mongols were purely destructive; they were known for slaughtering whole cities and making huge pyramids of severed heads.
Such savagery was alien to the Muslims. Where they conquered, daily life usually went on much as before and culture thrived. In many respects the Muslim world was far more civilized than Christian Europe for centuries. The West hated and dreaded Islam, but nobody would have thought of calling it backward.
That contemptuous image came much later, when modern Europe’s science, technology, and — above all — weaponry had eclipsed those of the Arabs. We are apt to forget how recently this development occurred; and, as Belloc warned, it is not irreversible.
Man, especially irreligious man, is apt to equate power and progress. Many of those who say America is “the greatest country on earth” really mean only that America has fantastic military might, capable of annihilating any other country — and some of them, at the moment, are in the mood to do some annihilating.
To the pious Muslim this attitude seems crass and barbaric. He may conclude from it that the decadent West understands only one thing: force. And would he be far wrong?
Belloc admitted that the idea of a new Muslim challenge to the West seemed “fantastic,” but only because the West was “blinded” by “the immediate past.”
Taking a longer view, he saw Islam, though inferior in material power, as having a great advantage: its religious faith was still strong, while the West was losing its religion and consequently its morale. He thought it entirely possible that Islam would catch up technologically, while he doubted that the West would undergo a spiritual revival.
Are we seeing the beginning of the fulfillment of Belloc’s prophecy? If so, the current uproar over Islamic terrorism may turn out to be a mere superficial symptom of a much larger historical drama. The West is still strong, but it is dying. Islam is still weak, but it is growing. Never mind the terrorists; check the birthrate.
The Scotsman fished the offending fly out of his beer and continued drinking it as if nothing had happened.
The Irishman, too, picked the fly out of his drink, held it out over the beer and then started yelling. "SPIT IT OUT, SPIT IT OUT, YOU BASTARD!"
*.*
A frog goes to have his fortune told. The swami looks at his little webbed palm and says, "Aha! You're about to meet a beautiful young lady who is going to want to know everything about you."
The frog says, "Thanks! I'm going to run right back to the pond so I won't miss her."
The swami says, "You won't meet her at the pond. You're going to meet her in her freshman biology class."
*.*
Murphy showed up at Mass one Sunday and the priest almost fell down when he saw him. Murphy had never been seen in church in his life.
After Mass, the priest caught Murphy and said, "Murphy, I am so glad you decided to come to Mass. What made you come?"
Murphy said, "I got to be honest with you Father, a while back, I misplaced me hat and I really, really love that hat. I know that McGlynn had a hat just like me hat, and I knew that McGlynn come to church every Sunday.
I also knew that McGlynn had to take off his hat during Mass and I figured he would leave it in the back of church. So, I was going to leave after Communion and steal McGlynn's hat."
The priest said, "Well, Murphy, I notice that you didn't steal McGlynn's hat. What changed your mind?"
Murphy said, "Well, after I heard your sermon on the 10 commandments, I decided that I didn't need to steal McGlynn's hat."
The priest gave Murphy a big smile and said; "After I talked about 'Thou Shalt Not Steal' you decided you would rather do without your hat than burn in Hell, right?"
Murphy shook his head and said, "No, Father. After you talked about 'Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery', I remembered where I left me hat."
*.*
An attorney was sitting in his office late one night, when the Devil appeared before him. The Devil told the lawyer, "I have a proposition for you. You can win every case you try, for the rest of your life. Your clients will adore you, your colleagues will stand in awe of you, and you will make embarrassing sums of money. All I want in exchange is your soul, your wife's soul, your children's souls, the souls of your parents, grandparents, and parents-in-law, and the souls of all of your friends and law partners."
The lawyer thought about this for a moment, then asked, "So, what's the catch?"
*.*
A guy bought his wife a beautiful diamond ring for Christmas.
After hearing about this extravagant gift, a friend of his said, "I thought she wanted one of those sporty four-wheel-drive vehicles."
"She did," he replied. "But where the hell was I going to find a fake Jeep?"
Quote of the Times;
“We are happy when we are growing.” - Yeats
Link of the Times;
http://stuartschneiderman.blogspot.com/
Issue of the Times;
Belloc’s Prophecy by Joseph Sobran
Back in the 1930s, when white men were preparing for another round of mutual slaughter, few of them paid any attention to the Muslim world. They assumed it to be a backward region that history had long since passed by.
One man saw it differently. The great Catholic polemicist Hilaire Belloc, an Englishman of French ancestry, remembered Islam’s past and predicted, in his book The Great Heresies, that it would one day challenge the West again. As late as 1683 its armies had threatened to conquer Europe, penetrating all the way to Vienna; Belloc believed that a great Islamic revival, even in the twentieth century, was altogether possible.
Belloc saw Islam not as an alien religion, but in its origins as a Christian heresy, adopting and adapting certain Christian doctrines (monotheism, the immortality of the soul, final judgment) and rejecting others (original sin, the Incarnation and divinity of Christ, the sacraments). Its simple, rational creed had a powerful appeal to Arabs who had known only the arbitrary gods of grim pagan religions. It swept the Arab world, then made converts — and conquests — far beyond Arabia.
Islam was a militant religion from the start. Mohammed himself conquered the entire Arabian Peninsula in just a few years. The new faith was torn by violent internal divisions even as it continued to spread. But spread it did, with incredible rapidity.
Christians had good reason to fear Islam, which soon conquered Spain and held it for centuries. But because Islam has little attraction for Christians, the West has generally failed to grasp its appeal for others, its profound and permanent hold on the minds of believers. Unlike the Christian West, the Muslim world has never had crises of faith like the Reformation and the Enlightenment.
Islam is a simple religion, easily understood by ordinary people. Its commandments are rigorous but few. When it conquered, its subjugated people often felt more liberated than enslaved, because it often replaced burdensome old bureaucratic governments with relatively undemanding regimes — and low taxes. As long as its authority was respected, Islamic rule was comparatively libertarian. It offered millions relief from their traditional oppression; for example, no Muslim could be a slave.
Belloc distinguishes sharply between Islam and such barbarous conquerors as the Mongol hordes of Genghis Khan. The Mongols were purely destructive; they were known for slaughtering whole cities and making huge pyramids of severed heads.
Such savagery was alien to the Muslims. Where they conquered, daily life usually went on much as before and culture thrived. In many respects the Muslim world was far more civilized than Christian Europe for centuries. The West hated and dreaded Islam, but nobody would have thought of calling it backward.
That contemptuous image came much later, when modern Europe’s science, technology, and — above all — weaponry had eclipsed those of the Arabs. We are apt to forget how recently this development occurred; and, as Belloc warned, it is not irreversible.
Man, especially irreligious man, is apt to equate power and progress. Many of those who say America is “the greatest country on earth” really mean only that America has fantastic military might, capable of annihilating any other country — and some of them, at the moment, are in the mood to do some annihilating.
To the pious Muslim this attitude seems crass and barbaric. He may conclude from it that the decadent West understands only one thing: force. And would he be far wrong?
Belloc admitted that the idea of a new Muslim challenge to the West seemed “fantastic,” but only because the West was “blinded” by “the immediate past.”
Taking a longer view, he saw Islam, though inferior in material power, as having a great advantage: its religious faith was still strong, while the West was losing its religion and consequently its morale. He thought it entirely possible that Islam would catch up technologically, while he doubted that the West would undergo a spiritual revival.
Are we seeing the beginning of the fulfillment of Belloc’s prophecy? If so, the current uproar over Islamic terrorism may turn out to be a mere superficial symptom of a much larger historical drama. The West is still strong, but it is dying. Islam is still weak, but it is growing. Never mind the terrorists; check the birthrate.
Several animals were savagely beaten in the making of this page, including but not limited to; kittens, rabbits, zebu, skunks, puppies, and platypus. Also several monkeys where force fed crack to improve their typing skills.
And someone shot a duck.
An Images & Ideas, Inc. Service.
No Vegans were harmed in the making of this site. We're looking for a new provider.
And someone shot a duck.
An Images & Ideas, Inc. Service.
No Vegans were harmed in the making of this site. We're looking for a new provider.