Thursday - September 11, 2014
Is Anybody Listening?
Thomas Sowell from 3 days ago:
If you start from the assumption that Barack Obama wanted to advance America’s interests, this is truly an unbelievable record of failure. But what is there in Obama’s background that would justify the assumption that America’s best interests are his goal?
He has, from childhood on, been mentored by, or allied with, people hostile to the U.S. and to American values. His mentors and allies have all been very much like the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, even if they were not as flamboyant.
Barack Obama has succeeded in reducing America’s military strength while our adversaries are increasing theirs, and reducing our credibility and influence with our allies. That is completely consistent with his vision of how the world ought to be, with the West taken down a peg and humbled.
We are currently at a point where we can either kill as many of the IS terrorists as possible over there — where they are bunched together and visible against a desert background — or else leave the job half done and have them come over here, where they will be hard to find and can start beheading Americans in America.
Everything in Barack Obama’s history suggests that he is going to leave the job half-done, so long as it gets the issue off the front pages and off the TV newscasts.
Can we give him promotion, to Colonel Obvious?
Posted by Drew458
on 09/11/2014 at 06:02 PM
Filed Under: • Obama, The One • War On Terror •
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Permalink • And Another Year Passes
9/11
It’s a Thursday this year. It was a Tuesday that year.
Where two iconic buildings once fell, one iconically named but otherwise forgettable building now rises.
You personally are considerably less free now than you were then, in so many ways. Thanks to your government. Most likely you’re poorer too, but that’s not a subject for today’s post.
Over 8,000 lives of our military have been lost fighting this thing we stopped calling The Global War On Terror years ago. The victories we achieved seem to have turned to ashes. Our borders are meaningless and we are being saturated with disease carrying illegal foreigners by our own government’s hidden plan.
And last night, that flaccid speech by our laughingstock President, laying out a half-baked lightweight plan to fight ISIS that is guaranteed to be ineffective. And all the rest of his inanity, starting with “Islamic State is not Islamic”, when in fact they enact the teachings of the Quran nearly word for word.
And the empty talking heads on the TV news keep saying how tired of war Americans are, when in truth most have forgotten, or never knew, and certainly never felt the slightest bit of impact, of the several wars that we are in.
Sorry Mr. Soldier, you can not enter your son’s school while in uniform. Someone might be offended. We have learned nothing.
Obama’s blithering last night ought to have been a John Paul Jones moment. His words should have been bold enough to get a “damn right” from George Patton. Instead we got ... what the hell was that, anyway? Pusillanimous? Knock-kneed? I’m running out of verbs that mean chicken shit. Fly weight; minimalist.
Tired? Yes, I am tired. Tired of lies, tired of half measures, tired of political correctness, tired of politics. I know who the enemy is, I know what the enemy is, I know where the enemy is, and I know why they feel they must be our enemy forever. So I’m tired of waiting.
Two links that are worth following:
The NY Times tries to put a good light on things, fails
Posted by Drew458
on 09/11/2014 at 08:54 AM
Filed Under: • FREEDOM • USA • War On Terror •
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Permalink • Wednesday - September 10, 2014
Going Asymptotic
Asymptotic growth is the next level of steepness in a mathematical function that has already surpassed exponential growth. The smallest increase on one side of the equation yields huge, nearly infinite results on the other. Since actual infinity can never be reached, the slope of the graph approaches 0 or undefined, depending on whether the function goes “over” or “up”.
This is a catastrophe, and it’s about to explode into a continental calamity. Better close the gates right the heck now, before it’s too too too late.
Yesterday’s News: World Health Organization: Ebola Has Killed 2,288, Nearly Half in Past 21 Days
[ That’s a 50% increase in fatalities in 3 weeks, roughly 55 new deaths per day. ]
Liberia is bracing for an upsurge in Ebola cases, following a grim World Health Organization assessment on Tuesday that the worst is yet to come in the fight against the killer virus.
While the WHO predicted an “exponential increase” in infections across West Africa, it warned that Liberia, which has reaped the lion’s share of misery with half of all fatalities, could initially only hope to slow contagion, not stop it.
The UN’s health arm upped the Ebola death toll Tuesday in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Nigeria to 2,288 out of 4,269 cases, noting nearly half of all infections had occurred in the past 21 days.
The WHO also evacuated its second infected medical expert, a doctor had been working at an Ebola treatment centre in Sierra Leone.
Emory University Hospital in Georgia on Tuesday admitted an American who had contracted Ebola in West Africa, but the hospital has declined to confirm it was the WHO employee.
Ebola, transmitted through bodily fluids, leads to haemorrhagic fever and—in over half of cases—death. There is no specific treatment regime and no licensed vaccine.
The fresh WHO figures underscore Ebola’s asymmetric spread, as it rips through densely populated communities with decrepit public health facilities.
And, sad as it is, it is quite literally yesterday’s news.
This is today’s news:
Ebola death toll rises to at least 2,296, WHO says
The death toll from the worst Ebola outbreak in history has jumped by almost 200 in a single day to at least 2,296 and is already likely to be higher than that, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday.
The WHO said it had recorded 4,293 cases in five West African countries as of Sept. 6, a day after its previous update.
But it still did not have new figures for Liberia, the worst-affected country, suggesting the true toll is already much higher. The WHO has said it expects thousands of new cases in Liberia in the next three weeks.
Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said on Tuesday she expects the Ebola crisis gripping her country to worsen in the coming weeks as health workers struggle with inadequate supplies, a lack of outside support and a population in fear.
“It remains a very grave situation,” she told an audience at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, via Skype from Liberia’s capital Monrovia. “It is taking a long time to respond effectively .... We expect it to accelerate for at least another two or three weeks before we can look forward to a decline.”
Liberia’s defense minister told the United Nations Security Council that Ebola posed a mortal threat to the country.
According to the Oxford prediction, these countries are at risk of animal-to-human transmission of Ebola by virtue of their geography: Nigeria, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Angola, Togo, United Republic of Tanzania, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Burundi, Equatorial Guinea, Madagascar and Malawi.
No, the numbers don’t line up because the reports keep getting updated. But the death toll is rising, and growing at a growing rate. That’s what exponential growth means. And asymptotic growth comes right after that. It’s really only a matter of semantics.
55 a day became 200 a day in just over 3 weeks. And that’s with no report from Liberia. How many tomorrow? 400? And 500 by Friday? 1000 a day by Monday? 10,000 by next week?
There isn’t really anything that can be done. That magic vaccine is just in the test phase. It’s not like there are tens of thousands of gallons of it sitting around, which is what you’d need to inoculate a population of ten million people. Maybe there are a couple cups full in all the world.
Eventually there won’t be any more people in Western Africa to get infected. They’ll all be dead, recovering, or naturally immune. And this plague will burn itself out. But first it will infect Central Africa, then Southern Africa. Millions are going to die. And nothing can be done. That’s the horrible truth.
In the meantime, I don’t want anybody coming into my country from anywhere in sub-Saharan Africa. Period. Shut the gates, cancel the flights, turn the ships around. Set up a bunch of tents out on Plum Island, or in Area 54 out in the desert. You’ve been in Africa in the past month, then it’s into the tent with you. Period. You’ve been in Western Africa, and it’s into the tent wearing a space suit. Period. We’ll feed you and assign you a doctor, and if you’re still alive in 30 days you can leave.
We need to institute radical quarantine, and we need to do it 100% and we need to do it right the heck now.
Or we’re all going to die.
Period.
Aren’t you ever so glad that Bush and Obama got the borders secured?
Posted by Drew458
on 09/10/2014 at 01:20 PM
Filed Under: • Health-Medicine •
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Permalink • warm hearted
Posted by Drew458
on 09/10/2014 at 11:29 AM
Filed Under: • Eye-Candy •
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Permalink • Danger, Balti In Progress
I’m going to try my hand at making a Balti curry. Hey, it’s becoming a classic English dish!
Chicken stew in spicy tomato sauce, pretty much. Seems pretty easy, especially since I’ve got a pre-mixed bag of spices.
And I’ll add a slew of vegetables - cauliflower, red and green pepper, broccoli, okra, corn, maybe some mushrooms.
Meanwhile, I’ve got the chicken marinating in the spice mix and some chicken broth, to give things an extra bit of oomph.
So I’m off to the store to get some fresh ginger.
Posted by Drew458
on 09/10/2014 at 11:13 AM
Filed Under: • Fine-Dining •
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Permalink • A New Idea Every 2500 Years Or So
The crossbow has been around since ancient China and Athenian Greece. 5th century BC, if not longer. It’s one of the original Great Ideas, and an obvious one to anyone who has ever drawn a bow and held the draw, and held it, and held it, and ... OMG, my arms are killing me, can’t we find a better way to do this? Hey, how about we put a stick on it, right, with a latch on the back to hold the string, and a little doo-dad thingy to release it? And that worked, mostly. Except that the arrows kept falling off, so Smart Guy #2 turned the bow from vertical to horizontal, carved a groove in the stick to rest the arrow on, and the rest, as they say, was history. Ok, well nearly. Smart Guy #3 found that trying to move about with 3 feet of bow sticking out to your left and your right was a pain, so they went with much heavier bow limbs that were less than half as big. And then the rest was history.
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Archery as a whole has seen a revitalization in the past 3 or 4 decades with the invention of the eccentric cam (aka nautilus wheel), which allows bows to be made shorter and stiffer, reduces the effort needed to draw them, and results in considerable increase in arrow speed. And that means lots more power. Modern “compound” bows can zip an arrow downrange at about 350 feet per second (fps), which is nearly 100 fps than traditional bows. Crossbows also adopted this technology, and these days it is hard to find a crossbow on the market that isn’t a compound design, with split limbs and big cams on the ends, and wires criss-crossing all over the place. But it works. And now nearly all the problems of crossbows have been solved. Except two. Because the short heavy bow is still attached out at the front end of the stick, they are still front heavy. And the short limb design still forces them to use tiny arrows, which on crossbows are called bolts or quarrels. From which we get the old expressions “you’ve shot your bolt” (crossbows being notoriously slow to reload) and “are you trying to pick a quarrel with me?”. Ok, maybe not so much the last one.
Welcome to the future. A company called Scorpyd has just ( 2009-ish ) reinvented the crossbow. By building one backwards. It looks like a joke, like an inept child’s drawing brought to life. But it works. They put the bow limbs on backwards and towards the back for balance, and the thing draws inward not outward. Duh!! But this gives the bowstring lots more travel distance, and that lets them shoot much longer bolts, nearly as long as regular arrows. And they shoot much faster. Way faster. Pushing 450 fps with a 400 grain bolt. Which makes this the fastest bit of archery kit on earth. It’s wicked accurate too.
Naturally, all it takes is money. Lots of money. These radical new crossbows sell for over $1500.
Posted by Drew458
on 09/10/2014 at 08:22 AM
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous • Sports •
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Permalink • HOUSE DIVIDED CONTINUED
The views from The Telegraph on Scot independence.
The comments at the Telegraph are quite interesting and very articulate.
Even if the subject matter isn’t of any interest to anyone except those of us living here, the opinions various ppl voice make for some good reading.
I have always felt that the Scots were hard headed and it was us English who were the creative dreamers. This is why so many Scots have done well in finance and banking. Presumably many of the thinking Scots are down here which is why Salmond has disenfranchised them. However for the Scots not to see that all their major institutions (especially UK Government ones) will move to England along with all their wealthy Scottish residents, who won’t want be soaked a la Hollande in France, has amazed me. After the upheaval we English will have the Tory Government we will need to sort out the remaining UK, assuming Wales and NI stay with us, so we will be OK. Salmond has been very badly advised, as much of the oil/gas he assumes is Scottish is in fact English, under International law, plus the desertions will leave Scotland in a dire position. No currency control, no membership of the EU until re-negotiation with the euro, no Barnett formula, no UK Government jobs; only Scottish Government ones etc.. Personally I will be better off without Scotland but I genuinely feel sorry that they are being lead to doom by their terrible Politicians in the SNP.
Salmond will certainly be creating jobs.
The only problem for him is that they will be in England.
I can see why the idea of independence is so attractive to the Scots.
But the idea of handing the reins over to someone who doesn’t even know what currency the country will be using is, well, truly nuts.
Posted by peiper
on 09/10/2014 at 08:06 AM
Filed Under: • UK •
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Permalink • on the brink of becoming a house divided against itself
To be or not to be. That’s the question. Yup.
Whether to be part of Briton and keep the United Kingdom united, or say up yours we’re going our own way.
The answer my friends await us in Scotland and I guess we will know on Thursday of next week, Sept. 18.
The people who support No to a break with Scotland are quite panicked and all three heads of the major parties are in Scotland with a last minute appeal to the Scots to remain in the UK. Or there won’t be a UK anymore.
And that’s not all. As Simon Heffer has written in the Daily Mail Fail, the parties are falling all over themselves making promises of more power to Scotland and concessions and they are going begging. Maybe not exactly his words as quoted but that’s the sum of them. And I didn’t need Mr. Heffer to sus that out on my own. Nobody would it was so embarrassingly clear.
At first, going back some months ago when people began talking about it more and more, I ignored it cos it is not any of my business or concern. And speeches by most politicians leave me cold and bored, like jokes that pass for wit.
Anyway, as things get closer to next Thurs., things become a lot more interesting. There are dozens of question and many more predictions of doom for some and salvation (it’s thought) for others.
So here’s where we are today. Where might we be when next Friday, Sept 19 dawns?
Oh if only we could have had a referendum and voted on separation in 1861.
Or maybe not.
Images used are from the Daily Mail
Posted by peiper
on 09/10/2014 at 06:35 AM
Filed Under: • UK •
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Permalink • Tuesday - September 09, 2014
Guess Who?
A 22-year-old man lost his life in Detroit on Monday after he crashed his speeding motorcycle into a car. However, what appears to have happened after the accident is leaving people disgusted.
As the driver of the motorcycle lay dying in the street, an male who claimed to be the man’s cousin drove off with the motorcycle that was still running.
Further, a woman who claimed to be his girlfriend got out of a car and took the man’s belongings, including a tablet and a phone.
But he was nearly already dead! He didn’t need none of that stuff no more!
Video at the link. And at The Blaze.
Posted by Drew458
on 09/09/2014 at 10:45 PM
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •
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Permalink • Stupefied
Jacob loves playing dress-up, when he can be anything he wants to be. Some kids at school say he can’t wear “girl” clothes, but Jacob wants to wear a dress to school. Can he convince his parents to let him wear what he wants? This heartwarming story speaks to the unique challenges faced by boys who don’t identify with traditional gender roles.
“Three cheers for Jacob’s New Dress! This is a wonderful story that shows us all that there are many different ways to be in the world. Like Marcus Ewert’s 10,000 Dresses, this book has the ability to save lives and change the world. Everyone should read it.”
-- Leslea Newman, “The Boy Who Cried Fabulous” and “Heather Has Two Mommies”
Posted by Drew458
on 09/09/2014 at 09:40 PM
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •
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Permalink • ERmehGawd, Crowder!
It’s been more than a year, but heeeeere’s Stevie!
Posted by Drew458
on 09/09/2014 at 06:29 PM
Filed Under: • Humor • The New Conservatives •
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Permalink • Wholesome
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Posted by Drew458
on 09/09/2014 at 06:12 PM
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Permalink • Book excerpt:
He stopped. The cadre were looking at him as if he was mad. He stared at their young, keen faces, and felt very, very old.
“But there are causes worth dying for,” said Butterfly.
“No, there aren’t! Because you’ve only got one life but you can pick up another five causes on any street corner!”
“Good grief, how can you live with a philosophy like that?”
Rincewind took a deep breath. “Continuously!”
Excerpt From: Terry Pratchett. “Interesting Times.” iBooks.
How about an ‘excerpt’ tag?
Posted by Christopher
on 09/09/2014 at 05:40 PM
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Permalink • A Week of Annoyance
Well, it got to be that time again. Time for me to go on the attack, and unsubscribe from as many emailers as possible. It seems I have to do this every 2 or 3 years, or else my inbox gets buried in garbage.
It took me a few minutes a day for about a week or 10 days. Every time I had a junk mail, I looked through it until I found the Unsubscribe button down at the bottom. They all worked, except for the Orbitz one I think it was.
So I’ve drastically reduced my daily email volume. Good. Who has the time to waste? Personally, I don’t care if Yahoo or whoever is willing to let me have a Tb for free. I don’t want to have 53,000 emails. I’ve used the same home email address since 1999, and my main Inbox has just one page of opened emails in it. Everything else either gets filed in its own folder if it’s significant, or else gets the toss. Sure, I read the stuff friends and relatives send. And I reply to them. And sometimes refer back. But after a couple weeks, the “well the crops are a-growin’ here down on the farm. If’n we had a bit more rain things’d be lookin’ a mite more hopeful, but as long as Jinny the mule is still with us...” emails loose their urgency, and can get tossed. File the ones with recipes, needed phone numbers, and pictures.
Got to avoid being under the digital avalanche.
One of these days I’ll have to do the same with the BMEWS mailboxes. I get an awful lot of junk mail and spam there too.
Posted by Drew458
on 09/09/2014 at 12:43 PM
Filed Under: • Computers and Cyberspace •
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Permalink • Five Most Recent Trackbacks:
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Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:
It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.
- Keep a firm grasp of Right and Wrong
- Stay involved with government on every level and don't let those bastards get away with a thing
- Use every legal means to defend yourself in the event of real internal trouble, and, most importantly:
- Keep talking to each other, whether here or elsewhere
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Oh, and here's some kind of visitor flag counter thingy. Hey, all the cool blogs have one, so I should too. The Visitors Online thingy up at the top doesn't count anything, but it looks neat. It had better, since I paid actual money for it.
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