BMEWS
 
Sarah Palin knows how old the Chinese gymnasts are.

calendar   Wednesday - July 18, 2012

our lady of mecca?

It’s very short and maybe not too funny.  You know. They way things are going these days. Who knows?

Whatever, I thought our readers might enjoy this.
It’s the result of a recent report from the school, that says 90% of the kids in this Catholic school are muslims. And so far, no problems or complaints about statues of saints or the cross on display etc.

Is the Pope a Muslim?

By Richard Littlejohn
Daily Mail

The staggering pace of change in the demographics of inner-city Britain as a consequence of mass immigration is there for all to see.

Our population has increased by almost four million in recent years. And for all the talk of ‘celebrating diversity’ and ‘multi-culturalism’, some areas have become more mono-cultural, not less, as newcomers refuse to assimilate.

Look no further than Tower Hamlets or significant parts of our cities, where Islam is now the dominant culture. Not a lot of ‘diversity’ there.

In Birmingham, for instance, at a Catholic primary school which was built for Irish immigrants in the Thirties, fully 90 per cent of the pupils are Muslim.

The local parish priest is confident that the school will still be adhering to Catholic doctrine in 80 years’ time.

He’s perhaps being a tad optimistic, unless he’s planning to change the name to Our Lady of Mecca.


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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 07/18/2012 at 10:11 AM   
Filed Under: • Education •  
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A Sort Of Green Solution

50 tons of litter cleaned from Hawaiian reef

It’s always nice to see the world getting cleaned up a bit.

The crew of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) ship Oscar Elton Sette pulled 50 metric tons of marine debris out of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument off the northwestern Hawaiian Islands last month, part of an ongoing mission since 1996 to clean up the shallow coral reef environment.

“What surprises us is that after many years of marine debris removal in Papahanaumokuakea and more than 700 metric tons of debris later, we are still collecting a significant amount of derelict fishing gear from the shallow coral reefs and shorelines,” Kyle Koyanagi, the chief scientist for the mission, said in a NOAA statement. “The ship was at maximum capacity and we did not have any space for more debris.”

NOAA has been sending out garbage-removing ships every year since 1996. On the mission that ended Saturday (July 14), 17 scientists cleaned up the coastal waters and shorelines of the Kure Atoll, Midway Atoll, Pearl Atoll, Hermes Atoll, Lisianski Island and Laysan Island, all in the northern section of the Hawaiian Islands.

About half of the marine junk was broken fishing gear and plastic from Midway Atoll. Though the researchers looked, they found no evidence of debris from 2011’s tsunami in Japan.

Midway must be a mess, but it sounds like good progress to me. Now how can they recycle this junk or make a good use of it?

The massive amount of garbage pulled from the ocean will now be put to use as fuel for electricity generation. Hawaii’s Nets-to Energy program removes metal from broken-down nets and cuts them up for combustion. The steam from the fires runs a turbine to create energy.

The entire process is done by donated labor, a cooperative effort amongst a dozen or more island businesses. Well done.

OTOH, they’re burning plastic to fire boilers? Horry Clap, doesn’t that pollute the air like mad???

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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 07/18/2012 at 08:41 AM   
Filed Under: • Environment •  
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calendar   Tuesday - July 17, 2012

Tenacious As A Terrier

I Found It: One Parker, Pinned




Oh boy! Yay me! I’m doing the happy dance here.

(all pictures link to much larger versions)

It took me just over a week to locate the bridge I’d seen on TV and posted about here. The one I’d seen on the final episode of the TV show House. Man what a bunch of work it’s been. But I’m 100% certain I’ve got the right one. Not only does it match in style, size, color, and location, it’s right around the proper age. Best yet, recent photos of the bridge match what I saw on TV right down to the Rustoleum™ marks, the turnbuckles, the surrounding trees ... it’s a perfect match. SCORE !!!


What I Saw On TV:
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What I Found Online
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So what and where is this thing? It is the Rinconada Las Pilitas Bridge, a pinned Parker truss bridge built in 1917 by the Gutleben Brothers bridge company of San Francisco. The bridge is located in San Luis Obispo County California. It crosses the Salinas River about a mile northwest of Santa Margarita Lake. The bridge underwent a bit of restoration and got a new paint job in 1996. Since a new concrete bridge was built just 150 feet away, the old Parker is no longer open to car traffic and is reserved for hikers and bikers. And the occasional TV show motorcycle it seems.

decimal lat/long: 35.348784,-120.513052

Status:  Closed to vehicles, roadway has been realigned with new bridge
History:  Built 1917
Builder:  Austin F. Parsons (County Engineer Designer)
Design:  Pratt Through truss
Dimensions
Length of largest span: 149.9 ft.
Total length: 231.0 ft.
Deck width: 15.4 ft.
Vertical clearance above deck: 13.9 ft.
Recognition:  Eligible for the National Register of Historic Places
Also called:  Rinconada Las Pilitas Bridge

“Las Pilitas Road is only one lane wide and climbs over a rocky spur. The land turns distinctly drier and there are signs of recent bush fires. After reaching a crest the road then descends quickly to reach the Salinas River ... containing the outflow from Santa Margarita Lake. Crossing the river is an elegant metal lattice bridge constructed in 1917. The bridge is now reserved for cyclists and walkers ... vehicles use a new concrete bridge some 50 meters upstream.”

There does seem to be a little confusion on when the thing was built and by whom, which is not unusual for bridges this old

The Salinas River Bridge was formerly identified as Bridge No. 49-106. It was designed by San Luis Obispo County Surveyor A. F. Parsons and constructed by the Henderson Bridge Company in 1914. A bridge rating sheet completed in 1985 as part of Caltrans statewide Historic Bridge Inventory described it as an “excellent example of its type in its region, and [it] has served as a locally important crossing of the Salinas River for more than seventy years.”

Parsons seems to have worn several hats at the county government, but I doubt he was a bridge designer. He may have specified a bridge of a certain size and type, but that’s about it. And it’s still standing 96 years later, so it seems he chose well. Somewhere I read that WWI got in the way, and work on the bridge was halted until the war was nearly over. That could just be rumor, although during the war there was such a steel shortage that ships were made out of concrete.

The first “official” public road coming into Las Pilitas canyon was surveyed in 1886 by then county surveyor E. Carpenter. This dirt road forded the Salinas River at a crossing very close to the spot where the present new million dollar concrete bridge exists today.

This road was officially called the “Rinconada and Pilitas Public Road”. ... The Salinas River crossing proved to be hazardous due to a soft channel bottom and high water during winter. So, in 1898 a group of early resident pioneers petitioned the board of supervisors for a new road with a better crossing location farther upstream where the riverbed was rocky. ... The second road (1898) was surveyed by then county surveyor V. H. Woods. This road was proposed as a 60 foot wide dirt road, and the new crossing was an apparent improvement. Then, in 1916 plans were made to bridge the river for year-around access, and a steel bridge was designed and engineered by then county surveyor Austin Frank Parsons ... In 1916, along with the steel bridge, Parsons also surveyed a new (third) road on higher ground and westerly of the previous two roads. This is the present road today (2010).
...
In 2006, the present poured concrete bridge was built at a cost of over one million dollars. The funds came from a federal bridge grant established only for really old bridge replacements. When the county received the grant funds, they then wanted to use the money for other bridge replacements that they considered more urgent, but the Las Pilitas had the only bridge that met the grant requirements, and so we got our new bridge.

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Several things made it quite difficult to locate. While there is a National Register of Historic Places, the database is very hard to use, and worthless if you don’t already know the name or location of what you’re searching for. Your tax dollars at work! I searched through hundreds of Parker truss bridges at the various bridge web sites, like bridgehunter.com. No luck. Finally I tried looking for some kind of national bridge registry. There is not a government one, but I did find http://nationalbridges.com/ . Cool. Knowing that House was filmed in LA, I plugged in CA for the state, chose “Through Truss” as the bridge type, “steel” as the material, and guessed a Status of “Structurally Deficient” because the bridge I was looking for was around 100 years old. Back came the results, lots of them. So I sorted them by descending size, knowing that the House bridge was at least 120 feet long, and then went down the result looking for old ones. “Salinas River” was the 5th entry, so I opened up a Google tab and searched for “Salinas River Bridge”. Las Pilitas was the first hit, and for images ... the first one shown was a Parker. I had a feeling right then that it was Happy Dance time, but it took opening a number of the other resultant web pages to find my ultimate jackpot: pictures taken this spring of the bridge showing the same Rustoleum™ spray marks on the green paint. Woo hoo!!! Pure. Adrenaline.

Then I went back to bridgehunter and found that they had listed the bridge as a Pratt truss, and didn’t have any pictures. That isn’t exactly wrong, because this is a Pratt truss bridge. One with polygonal top chords ... which makes it a PARKER.

Grrrr.  LOL

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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 07/17/2012 at 03:47 PM   
Filed Under: • Bridges •  
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calendar   Monday - July 16, 2012

Free-range tofu?

I’m not going to bore you with the whole discussion. But somebody suggested to another friend of mine that he hug a tree and eat some free-range tofu.

Of course, I had to stir the pot: ‘Where can I find free-range tofu?’

The friend in question replied: ‘Probably at a Whole Foods Market.’

I typed back: ‘Give it a try ____. Let me know what they say, assuming they don’t die laughing!’


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Posted by Christopher   United States  on 07/16/2012 at 04:46 PM   
Filed Under: • Fun-Stuff •  
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Poor Obama

Somebody just posted this on my Facebook page. Don’t you feel sorry for him?

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Posted by Christopher   United States  on 07/16/2012 at 12:56 PM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat LeftistsObama, The One •  
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can’t wait for the olympic shooting event

OK, let me be honest. I think much of this story is farcical.  But it’s still on the funny side cos it shows ya how phony some things can be and the lengths some folks will go to to get their way.
Now understand I do have sympathy with Mr. Mark.  After all, who would want to share a bedroom with this fellow, olympic shooter Michael Diamond,
he’s the one on the left, instead of a room with a view like the one on the right. Her name is Lauryn. She’s Mr. Mark’s wife.

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They are both sport shooters.  But there’s a fly in the ointment.
Apparently the sexes have separate sleeping quarters and Mr. Mark is very unhappy about that. He wants to sleep with his wife. Now that’s a novel idea.  How’s that work? 
So he’s raising the issue of “discrimination” claiming that he knows there are “gays” sharing rooms. But it isn’t about sex, it’s to do with gender sleeping arrangements.  It’s all a non issue really. And who cares anyway, beside he and the wife.
However, the wife did pose for a very raunchy magazine called Zoo, and she has a gun.
Now I ask you, what more could we ask for?
A woman in a bikini with a gun.  Hey.  How do we resist posting this story?  Silly as it may be. Or not so silly if you happen to be Mr. Mark.

Shooter upset by Olympics sleeping plans
Radio Australia

Australian shooting champion Russell Mark says he is frustrated at being denied the opportunity to share a room at the Olympic village in London with his wife and fellow competitor Lauryn.

Lauryn Mark is also representing the Australian team in shooting, but husband Russell says officials have banned them from staying in the same accommodation.
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“I’ve been trying to get a resolution on this for several months,” Mark told ABC Radio.

“You’d be pretty naive to think there aren’t other athletes in other females’ or males’ rooms at the Olympic Games.”

Mark has been told to share a room with fellow men’s shooter Michael Diamond.

But the six-time Olympian says he wants to maintain his usual routine ahead of the trap shooting competition in London.

“I just want to keep the same normal routine that I keep in every other competition that I compete in all over the world, and I guess so does Lauryn,” he said.

“I wouldn’t have thought this was going to be the issue that it has become because at the Commonwealth Games, before I was married to Lauryn, they let us room together.

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“That didn’t seem to be an issue in 2002.”

Mark says that despite the request being investigated by a number of agencies, a final resolution is yet to be announced.

“Everyone’s blaming everyone else now,” he said.

“The Australian Shooting Association are blaming the Australian Olympic Committee. And the Australian Olympic Committee are saying we don’t have a problem with it if the Shooting Association can find you a room.

“I mean we put a man on the moon in 1969. Finding a room in the Olympic village can’t be that difficult, surely.”

The double-trap gold medallist at the 1996 Atlanta Games recently spoke out in support of athletes using sleeping tablets, after Mark himself admitted to using Temazepam in competition.

“I don’t want to be made a scapegoat because I’m publicly saying I’m using them and I know other people are,” Mark said.

“Don’t make us out to be criminals.”

And the 48-year-old says he is keen for his sleeping arrangement in London to be confirmed.

“I was told on Wednesday morning at 9:00am that my room-mate would be Michael Diamond,” Mark said.

“Nothing against Michael ... I’ve roomed with him before but he doesn’t wear a pink nightie the same way that Lauryn wears it.

“And he’s not as cuddly and he doesn’t shave enough and I’ve had enough of him.”

ABC AUSTRALIA

MAIL ON LINE

As long as I have spent an hour or more putting this together, Drew’d have done it in minutes, I should have sent it all to him. LOL.
I may as well add some stuff for those of you who are less refined and would prefer to see some arty stuff below the fold. Kind of stuff me and Drew wouldn’t bother looking at. I had no choice looking cos I had to post it all.  Oh what sacrifices we make for BMEWS.

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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 07/16/2012 at 08:15 AM   
Filed Under: • Eye-CandyGuns and Gun ControlSports •  
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Obama In A Nutshell

I try not to be one of the Samizdat blogs too often, but this one I can’t let slip past. Here is an excerpt from a campaign speech by President Obama given in Roanoke Virginia on July 13. I included a few paragraphs more than other bloggers did, so that his remarks are more in context. But the core remains the same. Fearless Reader is at heart


A Childlike Socialist



THE PRESIDENT:  ... Now, one last thing—one of the biggest differences is how we pay down our debt and our deficit.  My opponent, Mr. Romney’s plan is he wants to cut taxes another $5 trillion on top of the Bush tax cuts.

AUDIENCE:  Booo --

THE PRESIDENT:  Well, first of all, like I said, the only way you can pay for that—if you’re actually saying you’re bringing down the deficit—is to cut transportation, cut education, cut basic research, voucherize Medicare, and you’re still going to end up having to raise taxes on middle-class families to pay for this $5 trillion tax cut.  That’s not a deficit reduction plan.  That’s a deficit expansion plan.

I’ve got a different idea.  I do believe we can cut—we’ve already made a trillion dollars’ worth of cuts.  We can make some more cuts in programs that don’t work, and make government work more efficiently.  (Applause.) Not every government program works the way it’s supposed to.  And frankly, government can’t solve every problem.  If somebody doesn’t want to be helped, government can’t always help them.  Parents—we can put more money into schools, but if your kids don’t want to learn it’s hard to teach them.  (Applause.)

But you know what, I’m not going to see us gut the investments that grow our economy to give tax breaks to me or Mr. Romney or folks who don’t need them.  So I’m going to reduce the deficit in a balanced way.  We’ve already made a trillion dollars’ worth of cuts.  We can make another trillion or trillion-two, and what we then do is ask for the wealthy to pay a little bit more.  (Applause.) And, by the way, we’ve tried that before—a guy named Bill Clinton did it.  We created 23 million new jobs, turned a deficit into a surplus, and rich people did just fine.  We created a lot of millionaires.

There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me—because they want to give something back.  They know they didn’t—look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own.  You didn’t get there on your own.  I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart.  There are a lot of smart people out there.  It must be because I worked harder than everybody else.  Let me tell you something—there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.  (Applause.)

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help.  There was a great teacher somewhere in your life.  Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive.  Somebody invested in roads and bridges.  If you’ve got a business—you didn’t build that.  Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own.  Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together.  There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don’t do on our own.  I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service.  That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires.

So we say to ourselves, ever since the founding of this country, you know what, there are some things we do better together.  That’s how we funded the GI Bill.  That’s how we created the middle class.  That’s how we built the Golden Gate Bridge or the Hoover Dam.  That’s how we invented the Internet.  That’s how we sent a man to the moon.  We rise or fall together as one nation and as one people, and that’s the reason I’m running for President—because I still believe in that idea.  You’re not on your own, we’re in this together.  (Applause.)



Is it really necessary to give this a Fisking? I’m certain my readers can see what I’m talking about. The true Obama peeking out again. The Socialist who wants all the (what did the Democrats start calling them the week before last? Oh yes ...) free riders to have a bigger slice of your pie. The Collectivist who plans to take even more of your hard earned income and spread the wealth around to the less fortunate and to those who shouldn’t even be here. Not to mention all his crony contributors who need another 50 billion to set up shell Green Energy companies designed to go bankrupt.

But worse than that is the naivete of this guy. What a childlike worldview he has. How simple, how wrong his outlook is. Which is no surprise. The guy has never held a paying job that he got by his own merit and then had to work at. Any paycheck he or his Klingon war bride ever had came from political connections, Affirmative Action, or reaping the profits from a couple of books full of lies that were largely written by someone else.

I mean, come on. Aside from the other two dozen people on the entire planet who are rich and famous for being rich and famous, everyone else got where they are from their own endless hard work. Don’t forget that the deadbeats and bums get just as much benefit from the infrastructure and public education system as the rest of us.

So, a little off the top first, so no one can claim I’m taking things out of context:
Romney wants to but taxes another $5 trillion? Imagine that. The federal government doesn’t bring in $5 trillion in a year. So Romney’s idea, which I haven’t heard about because I live under a rock, has to be a $5 trillion tax reduction over several years. Like 10 or 20 or even 50. So he really isn’t talking about more than $500 billion per year, and probably less. And that’s IF Obama’s statement is accurate - doubtful - and not a “mathomagic” Democrat bending of his ideas.  And hey, let’s poke everyone in the eye again with the Evil Bush Tax Cuts For The Rich. You know, the ones that actually cut the income tax rates for low income workers by a full third. The ones reanimated by Obama’s own signature ... twice now? At least once. Empty rhetoric and misdirection to get the crowd riled up. Smoke and mirrors, the only two products that Obama actually excels at creating.

Cuts in programs that don’t work? Hey brainwave: CANCEL programs that don’t work. Just reducing their budgets isn’t going to make them suddenly efficient and functional. STOP WASTING OUR MONEY.

A balanced deficit reduction? Tax the rich even more? There he goes again. We already have a highly progressive income tax system in place. The top 10% pay in many times more than just 10% of the taxes. It’s something like 80%. Go look it up. It’s severe. Contrast that with the 50% of the population at the other end who isn’t paying a cent in taxes. Can we call them free riders now? And not only are they not paying in anything, they’re the group that is getting the most in direct benefits from the government. I don’t want to expand this group. I want to shrink their numbers, and one way to do that is to flatten the tax structure so that they aren’t demotivated to go out and earn more. At the other end of the wealth spectrum, I ran a post the other day about another really rich Democrat renouncing her citizenship to avoid paying millions in taxes. Tax the rich too much and they leave. They can afford to! And without them, who will pay for Obama’s solution? Another recycled Democrat idea that just doesn’t work. Remember when the idea was to fund the education system by raising taxes on cigarettes and booze? Now almost everyone has quit smoking. How’s that plan doing these days?

Another recycle: Clinton balanced the budget and ran a surplus. Ok, props go to the man in charge at the time, and that man was Slick Willy. But it was the Republican controlled Legislature that made the balanced budget for him to sign. Newt and his gang. After fighting Clinton tooth and nail because he was dead set against it. And I seem to recall that a HUGE piece of the pie was from the “Peace Dividend” that came from gutting the military and the military industrial complex once Reagan won the Cold War. And a large part of the rest of the pie came from Welfare Reform, slowing down the perpetual free ride and kicking off some cheaters. But Clinton gets the credit, so be it.

I’m not sure where Obama’s claim of 23 million jobs created (or saved?) at that point comes from. I was living in upstate NY at the time, and I remember McDonnell-Douglas laying off thousands, and then seeing local businesses die, malls close, real estate prices tank, and people flee the area. There was a lot of defense contractor work going on in the Binghamton area, lots of high tech stuff right on up to a 3D Space Shuttle simulator. That one is still around, but cut to the bone. Pretty sure it used to employ 10 times as many folks.

Al Gore must be rolling in his grave: the government created the internet so that Amazon could thrive. Oy vey. Two lies in one, perhaps three. Read a history book once in a while please. It was CERN who created the visual internet so that everyone could get easy access to porn. Because it turns out that Rule 34 really is Rule 1. Porn drove the video tape revolution, and porn drove the digital revolution. Before that all we had was CompuServe and a bunch of BBSes. Dial up 1200 baud modems. It took forever to download that .gif file of Zoe showing off her boobs ( a file format that CompuServe invented by the way ). Hmm, what’s that? Al Gore isn’t dead yet? He should be.



And now to the heart of it:
if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own There it is. Every last bit of effort you’ve put into yourself to get where you are today is NOT yours. It’s because Mrs. McGarvey taught you what a verb was in second grade, and because paved roads exist between where you live and where you work. Your success is owed to everyone else. Period.

If you’ve got a business—you didn’t build that.  Somebody else made that happen. Holy smokes. I can’t believe what I’m reading, can you? Let’s read it again:
If you’ve got a business—you didn’t build that.  Somebody else made that happen.

crazy  rolleyes  wtf  rolleyes  crazy

All you’ll ever need to know about Obama in just 14 words. At his very core, he is against what America is all about. PERIOD.

Think that quote through and see what it implies, and your deduction can only be one thing: the guy is a Communist. All your efforts, all your ideas, all the scrimping and saving and long hours and investment put in to start a business and make it go: none of this is yours. It’s OURS. Because of a streetlamp or some other bit of infrastructure. Because Juan pumped some gas in your tank so you could drive there. So YOU OWE US for your success. And of course, the underlying perpetual Leftist core concept that no one can get ahead without exploiting everyone else. Which is straight out of Karl Marx.

Sometimes Obama lets the curtain down a bit and we can see the little man hiding behind it. And it’s important that we pay plenty of attention to him. Because it really matters.  And at heart, he’s an anti-Capitalist. A statist wealth-spreader-arounder. In other words, a Communist. Ok, maybe he’s merely a Fascist. I’ll be kind and use the softer label Socialist. From the viewpoint of freedom, those are just shades of difference.

UPDATE: Want to be even less impressed? Mr. Owonderful cribbed darn near all of this from Fauxcahontas - Elizabeth Warren, the pretend indian from Harvard. From 10 months ago. His former advisor. Same concept, nearly the same words. Watch the video and read the smack-down at Rush ... and the conclusion is the same: COMMIE. He adds the obvious for those still asleep: government spending originates in tax money taken from the private sector. Whatever good that any government might create is no more than private wealth redistributed. I add that their overhead is usually staggering, absorbing a huge part of that money before it actually gets redistributed, often to cronies and no-bid contracts awarded to friends.

This is the kind of stuff they believe: Total collectivism. It’s all found in Marx. It’s all there, and it’s all based on the presumption that all success is illegitimate, including the success of the country. No, no, no, no. We all don’t share in the failure when the factory collapses. That’s a celebration! But according to Ms. Warren we’ve all got skin in the game, that factory owner wouldn’t be anywhere without us.
...
This is exactly how Obama looks at this country, the same way she looks at factory owner is how he looks at this country and the rest of the world.  And not just Obama, but all the people he surrounds himself with.  The factory owner, illegitimate.  The business owner, illegitimate.  Nothing special about him.  Nothing special about somebody who built something from nothing because he really didn’t.  He couldn’t have done it without screwing a bunch of other people along the way.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 07/16/2012 at 06:57 AM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat LeftistsObama, The One •  
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calendar   Sunday - July 15, 2012

BMEWS World Domination

I think I’ve got the full set now




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I check the little flag counter widget down at the very bottom of the blog every once in a while, just to see who’s been visiting. I’m not sure if the Vatican counts as a country to it, but pretty much everywhere else on earth has stopped by BMEWS in the past couple of months. Thank you, world, and keep on coming!

I think I have them all ... let’s see:
Tuvalu, 1 visitor ... check!
Alan Islands, 22 visitors ... check!
San Marino, 8 visitors ... check!
Faroe Islands, 50 visitors ... check!
Saint Pierre and Miquelon, 3 visitors ... check!

Meh, I might be missing Tahiti, unless it’s part of French Polynesia? And there are a few small islands in the far southern Indian Ocean ... that counts as France though, doesn’t it? Or is that just an economic exclusion zone?

North Korea, 1 visitor ... check!
Sri Lanka, 943 visitors ... check!
New Caledonia, 41 visitors ... check!
Timor-Leste, 2 visitors ... check!

Wait, what? WHAT???
No visitors ever from Wallis and Futuna?
No visitors ever from Nauru?
No visitors ever from Niue?? Come on, just because there are only 1311 of them left and they speak a language unlike any other on the planet - that’s no excuse!
And nobody from the Vatican, and nobody from the Pitcairn Islands. And I mentioned them just a couple weeks ago. Mr. Christian, help! Damn Mutineers.

That settles it. I’m gonna hafta do something rash.

So the Pope goes on vacation to the South Pacific.
And he meets this beautiful island girl from Wallis and Futuna ... grin



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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 07/15/2012 at 10:13 PM   
Filed Under: • Blog Stuff •  
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Protest Like An Egyptian

US Secretary Of State Gets No Respect In Egypt

CAIRO (Reuters) - Protesters threw tomatoes and shoes at Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s motorcade on Sunday during her first visit to Egypt since the election of Islamist President Mohamed Mursi.

A tomato struck an Egyptian official in the face, and shoes and a water bottle landed near the armored cars carrying Clinton’s delegation in the port city of Alexandria.

A senior state department official said that neither Clinton nor her vehicle, which were around the corner from the incident, were struck by any of the projectiles.

Protesters chanted: “Monica, Monica”, a reference to Former President Bill Clinton’s extra-marital affair. Some chanted: “leave, Clinton”, Egyptian security officials said.

It was not clear who the protesters were or what political affiliations they had.

Hey, maybe they’re all Romney supporters.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 07/15/2012 at 05:45 PM   
Filed Under: • Middle-EastNews-Briefs •  
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A DECAYING AMERICAN CITY.

Not much for posting today but could not help but see something that stopped me cold.
It was this from Gary, Ind.

City of the Century that became a ghost town: Tragic portraits from the decaying world of America’s industrial heartlands
By JAMES NYE

The photos alone are worth seeing.  It isn’t the first time the Daily Mail has done a story on decaying American cities.  I don’t know why the focus on us but what I always find more then interesting are the comments by readers.  And it was these two that caused me to stop and post and throw the subject open to our readers here.
First though, take a look at the link and the sad, sad pix.  Hate to see this, and don’t want to believe what the writer of the second comment says.  But it might very well be true.  You decide.

Sad to see. America needs to stop saying, its the Best country in the World. We all know its not true. -
mary elizabeth, london, 15/7/2012 5:26

As much as I have enjoyed a good life here in my adopted country, it is true. Most Americans are not ready to admit this. As difficult as it was starting in the early 1900’s to see the British Empire change and evolve to what it is today; I believe it’s just as difficult for the next empire of America to see it too is in it’s waning days… and has been for some time. The BRIC nations will be next on the superpower stage, those with money usually are. Brazil, Russia, India and China are well on their way financing and buying out much of the United States as I type this. Brazil owns most of the highrises that were left to rot in the housing bubble along with houses, yachts, high end cars, etc. Money is power! Having the largest most expensive military in the world will not change this.
- Terry, Proud UK Expat, Washington State, Wisbech, Cambs. England, 15/7/2012 14:20

And then there was this letter and I believe we can all agree about McKinney.
Jeesh, and here I happily thought she had died since we had not heard from the turd in so long.  No such luck I suppose.

Look up whom the author chose as his lone quote on the condition of the US — Cynthia McKinney — and perhaps you will understand the bias of the writer. Gary is NOT a representative of the condition of our country. We don’t revere the old here perhaps because nothing here really is; we abandon it, and move on to what is vital. We could do a better job of clearing out the trash though, starting with Cynthia McKinney.
- Roguewave, Texas, 15/7/2012 15:31


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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 07/15/2012 at 10:08 AM   
Filed Under: • ArchitectureArt-PhotographyUSA •  
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pc as a way of life. for many it is and they want us there too.

Found in a Peter Hitchens column today at the Sunday Mail and worth sharing.
It isn’t that conservatives don’t already know, but I believe constant reminding can’t hurt. But I haven’t seen an example quite like this one.

PC… two deadly serious letters

I have always loathed the expression ‘Political Correctness Gone Mad’. PC is not a joke, or an accident, or the work of irrational people.

It is a chilly, deadly-serious project to turn this country into somewhere else, by scaring conservative patriots into a defeated silence. Every so often, it reveals its true face.

Here is an example. In a Fostering Handbook (The Good Practice Guide) published in 2010 by Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council, I found the following words: ‘Because the UK is institutionally racist, all white people are implicated unless they actively oppose racism.’

There it is. That’s what they think. We are all guilty until proven innocent. The entire country is infused by a form of wickedness. So they, the Equality and Diversity Commissars, must have full powers to stamp it out.

Similarly frightening thoughts were found in the Macpherson Report into the Stephen Lawrence murder. But I have never before seen the totalitarian brutality of PC thinking expressed so clearly in an official document. And note that it is about fostering children.

When I asked Sandwell Council to confirm it was theirs, they went through several hours of foot-dragging, pointlessly demanding a copy though I had given them its full title and the relevant page number.

Eventually they said that it had been withdrawn more than a year ago. They have yet to explain why.

What concerns me is that, while the document may have been withdrawn, the thinking behind it persists in thousands of government and local authority offices throughout our country.


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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 07/15/2012 at 09:09 AM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists •  
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calendar   Saturday - July 14, 2012

Free Health Care

image


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Posted by Christopher   United States  on 07/14/2012 at 07:18 PM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat LeftistsHealth-MedicineObama, The One •  
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Double Secret Zombie Engineering

Another one of my local bridge spotting posts. The Rockafellows Mills Bridge is a Pratt through truss, built in 1900. It’s only 3 miles away from the bunch of local bridges I wrote about the other day.  Click any of the pictures for much larger versions.


First Class Work

Renovated 110 year old bridge is now 500% stronger



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Prior to renovation the Rockafellows Mills Bridge had a 3 ton weight limit. Now it’s 15 tons. What happened?




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At the turn of the 20th Century, the Wrought Iron Bridge Company of Canton Ohio was going gangbusters. There were building bridges everywhere across America. They had developed a line of cost effective and reliable steel bridges that were easy to assemble and maintain, and towns and states were lining up to give them business. There wasn’t much of any truck or car traffic in those days; the world still ran on horses. But what there was, was thousands of poorly made, rotting, old wooden bridges nearing the end of their useful lives. And it was the Iron Era, so it was time for the wood ones to go.

Hunterdon County NJ bought several bridges from these guys. We still have most of them. The Rockafellows Mills bridge above is practically a kit bridge. It’s 140 feet across and about 18 feet wide. It’s a one lane job, and could handle a 3 ton load. It was put together with pins and rivets: no welding. It was the “Chevy Malibu” of it’s day: plus or minus some decoration, this bridge had hundreds of sisters all across the country.  Here’s pretty much the exact same bridge in Arkansas:

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Fryer’s Ford Bridge: same Pratt through truss, same size, same builders, same original 3 ton load rating

So what’s the big deal? Their bridge is dead. Ours is in glowing health.

And double secret zombie engineering is going to keep it that way.

Ok Drew, WTFF is “double secret zombie engineering”? It’s a special hitherto unknown bridge builder’s term that I just invented, that describes the hidden art of shifting the load from the dead to the live. Get a load of that.

More below the fold, including a redneck Pratt-fall.

See More Below The Fold

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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 07/14/2012 at 04:02 PM   
Filed Under: • Bridges •  
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at least on this issue …. President Putin has it right

Less from me today then I’d like but circumstances don’t permit much today.
Very difficult being at the puter today, taking medication and soon to bed.

Anyway, there was an article that especially caught my eye that has to be shared.

I know Putin of Russia is not the favorite with many of you although I’m at a loss to know why.  I just haven’t followed his doings and only know some are saying he’s a dictator.  Maybe so but don’t know why I should be troubled by that. Perhaps his country can’t be ruled any other way.
Please don’t misunderstand.  I am not banging any drums here. Just saying that generally I don’t have any opinion one way or another.
Except for today. On this issue which I’ve written about here more then once over the last couple of years.

As some will recall I hope, a drum I have been banging on a lot happens to be foreign orgs. operating in the USA and as far as I am concerned, they work to undermine our way of life and would like to change things from top to bottom.  Things that should be none of their god damn business, that they are working to change. 

I have found legitimate articles and sources in the past and brought to your attention, if anyone was listening, that one ‘human rights’ group funded by the EU, has been donating money (lots of it) and has “activists” (how I despise that word) working inside the USA to bring an end to the death penalty in America.  They do not approve and so they think we should not either. Now that gets my fuckin goat big time.  I get angry just thinking about it.  And that is only one example of what I consider foreign intrusion into our domestic affairs.

So it follows that I would be in support of President Putin and the latest move by his government to restrict or keep a very close eye on “organizations working in Russia but funded from abroad.” Bravo President Putin. Well done. So far. And you’d better keep a very, very close eye on them as well any Russian citizen working closely with a foreign funded civil rights group especially.  Perhaps it’s well that a former KGB man is in charge.

As for anything else his govt. is doing, such as their libel laws, has nothing to do with this subject and I could care less.  But forcing foreign agencies to ID themselves as such, is something we should give much serious thought followed by action to.
Why indeed shouldn’t Americans be aware and knowledgeable as to who is behind initiatives that could bring changes to our country?  You can bet your ass that the powers that be among the left in the USA know.  So why shouldn’t you?
That’s reasonable.  Isn’t it?

Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party pushed two controversial laws through the lower house of parliament yesterday, in what critics said was the latest sign of a crackdown at the beginning of the President’s new term in office.

The Duma passed a law that will force any organisation operating in Russia but funded from abroad to brand itself a “foreign agent” on its website and promotional materials.

SOURCE


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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 07/14/2012 at 11:02 AM   
Filed Under: • Editorials •  
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