Thursday - April 23, 2015

Sometimes I can taste her

New Yorkers are used to aggressive advertising. Banners for breast implants. Billboards for condoms. But a federal judge’s ruling has opened the door for far more controversial posters on buses and subways across the city.

“Killing Jews is Worship that draws us close to Allah,” reads one such ad next to the image of a young man in a checkered headscarf. “That’s His Jihad. What’s yours?”

The poster is at the center of heated legal debate over public safety and free speech. On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge John Koeltl ruled that New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) cannot stop the controversial ad from running on scores of subway cars and buses.

The MTA has argued that the ad could incite violence against Jews, but Koeltl rejected that idea.

MTA officials “underestimate the tolerant quality of New Yorkers and overestimate the potential impact of these fleeting advertisements,” he ruled. “Moreover, there is no evidence that seeing one of these advertisements on the back of a bus would be sufficient to trigger a violent reaction. Therefore, these ads — offensive as they may be — are still entitled to First Amendment protection.”

In your face much? Could they make a clearer statement about their beliefs and intentions if they tried?

No.

Except they didn’t make this statement. Well, not in New York City and not in English. The quote is from some big-cheese mullah, and is a direct translation from Arabic of what he said on a Hamas sponsored TV show in Israel/Gaza.  It’s the kind of statement that people like him make all the time in that corner of the world. It’s the kind of statement that the vast majority of US media ignores. Nearly all of them. Such things do not exist! This breaks the “religion of peace” meme we must all swallow with a smile, therefore it can not be. It doesn’t exist if we never report it, so we make sure we never report it. ( If a tree falls in a forest, it makes no sound, because the MSM goes to great lengths to hide the fact that the forest is even there! )

As if you couldn’t tell, this is the work of Atlas Shrug’s “radical Zionist” Pamela Geller, and her group AFDI. The posters are a reality based push-back against the extremely soft “#myjihad” campaign being driven by CAIR, trying to water down the public’s perception of the concept. Granted, CAIR is not actually wrong; it is my understanding that “jihad” really can mean “personal striving” or “personal goal”, but what they portray is NOT the jihad being waged on the world theater.

A new ad campaign by the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) is being rolled out and being met with quite a bit of resistance. What’s the problem? Apparently it’s the exposure of what Islam means by the term “jihad” and the person behind it all is contributor to Freedom Outpost Pamela Geller, who is the founder of AFDI. The ads target the soft peddling of the now popular My Jihad ad campaign.

Geller’s new ads are a response to the #Myjihad ads that are sponsored by the Chicago branch of CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations) which depict several presumed Muslims who are describing their “personal jihad.”

“The purpose of our campaign is to show the reality of Jihad, the root causes of terrorism. Using the exact quotes and text that they use,” Geller said.

Geller’s AFDI has already won two lawsuits under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, including those which referenced Islamists as “savages” back in September 2012.

Each of the ads includes the tagline “That’s his Jihad. What’s yours?” Again, this is simply a response to CAIR’s ads which have similar tagline.

You go Pam.

And a Happy Independence Day to Israel, 67 years young this morning. Yom Haatzmaut they call it, with lots of parties and parades.

Posted by Drew458     on 04/23/2015 at 08:54 AM   
Filed Under: • Israel • Politically Correct B.S. • War On Terror •  
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   Wednesday - April 22, 2015

Be Not Timid, Englsihmen, On This Saint George’s Day

St. George, patron saint of England since forever, has his holiday tomorrow.

St George’s flag is a racist symbol says a quarter of the English
The English feel far more patriotic about the Union Flag than the St George’s Cross, according to a new poll.

The survey found that while 80 per cent linked the British flag with such feelings, only 61 per cent associated them with the English one.

By contrast, the Scottish and the Welsh were far more likely to feel pride in their flag – the St Andrew’s Cross and Red Dragon respectively – than the English in theirs.
...
The report, This Sceptred Isle, shows that only 61 per cent of the English said they associated the St George’s Cross with pride and patriotism, compared to 84 per cent of Scots and 86 per cent of Welsh, when asked about, respectively, the St Andrew’s Cross and the Red Dragon.

Almost a quarter (24 per cent), of the English said they considered their flag to be racist, compared to 10 per cent of Scots and seven per cent of Welsh, when asked about their own flags.

The report blames the “extreme street hooligans of the English Defence League” for “toxifying” the St George’s Cross, although it says politicians should also take responsibility for failing to “speak up for the inclusive patriotism of the English majority”.

It draws a clear parallel with the situation in Scotland and Wales, where civic leaders have done more to “counter rejectionist or exclusive versions of national identity”.

Sounds like pure cowardly bullshit to me. I’d say the one and only reason pride isn’t universal is because political correctness has trained several generations to hate themselves, their nation, and their history. Plus the place is wall to immigrants these days, with Johnny bloody raghead Foreigner behind every rock and hedge.

It’s St George’s Day – but not too many flags are flying over Stoke-on-Trent this year. Richard Ault looks at why celebrations are more muted than in the past

More than 1,700 years ago a Roman soldier spoke out against the persecution of Christians – and was tortured and ultimately beheaded for refusing to give up his own convictions.

So ended the life of George of Lydda – but so began the legend of St George, the Christian martyr and brave slayer of dragons.

Now, about 17 centuries later, the Patron Saint of England continues to be celebrated on this day, April 23, every year, but celebrations are perhaps more muted than they used to be.

St George embodies the very idea of Englishness – at least of how we would like to see ourselves on a national scale – valiant defenders of the weak, opposers of injustice, gallant, brave.

St George’s Day is a time to celebrate England, our heritage, culture and history. Yet how many red and white English flags bearing the Cross of St George will be seen flying over Stoke-on-Trent today?

While across Europe and, indeed, in Scotland, Wales and Ireland, other nations are free to fly the flag of patriotic pride, many in England feel uncomfortable with that kind of tub-thumping fervour.

More links on the saint and his celebrations:
http://www.timeanddate.com/holidays/uk/st-george-day
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/whats-on/whats-on-news/st-georges-day-how-manchester-9096043
http://www.stgeorgesday.com/

The medieval legend of St George and the dragon is over a thousand years old. The tale goes that the dragon made it’s nest by the fresh water spring near the town of Silene in Libya. When people came to collect water, they inadvertently disturbed the dragon and so offered sheep as a distraction.

After time, there were simply no sheep left to offer the dragon and so the people of Silene decided to chose a maiden from the town by drawing lots. When the results were read, it was revealed that the princess was to be the dragon’s next victim. Despite the Monarch’s protest his daughter Cleolinda was offered to the dragon…

However, at the moment of offering, a knight from the Crusades came riding by on his white stallion. St George dismounted and drew his sword, protecting himself with the sign of the cross. He fought the dragon on foot and managed to slay the beast and saved the princess. The people of Silene were exceptionally grateful and abandoned their pagan beliefs to convert to Christianity.

So while St. George may not have killed an actual dragon, he could have killed a massive crocodile. In Libya. And they had big ones, even according to Herodotus. I doubt if people knew the difference then, and I understand them completely even today.

Posted by Drew458     on 04/22/2015 at 03:48 PM   
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vamp it up a notch

Just a bite ...

  

Posted by Drew458     on 04/22/2015 at 02:26 PM   
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forward

No, nothing to do with Teh Won. Just chugging through another day. Had another dental appointment, got the last mercury based amalgam filling removed and replaced with poly-resin. Oh boy.  So now the only thing left to do is get a post implanted so I can get a permanent crown put in where I had that tooth pulled last year.

Dentistry is expensive, but I have a great guy. And his staff is wonderful. But the best part is, we’re all up here in the Conservative red corner of True Blue New Jersey. So when I complain a bit (I’m not the best dental patient, but I try. And I haven’t bitten anyone yet.) that the new exam chair doesn’t have any arms, and how there’s no longer a spit bowl, and they tell me it’s because of OSHA rules which demand a sanitary area around the patient and that chair arms and spit bowls are such a pain to keep clean ... and I gripe about government intrusiveness into my life ... the conversation quickly turns to government waste, high taxes, and what a lying untrustworthy unqualified SOFS Hillary Clinton is, nearly as bad as Obama. And that’s music to my ears as the Novacaine takes effect. 

Posted by Drew458     on 04/22/2015 at 02:04 PM   
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   Tuesday - April 21, 2015

doing stuff, Yemen

Ok. Got her down to the dealership to pick up her car. Apparently I solved whatever the issue was, because the mechanics took her little buzz buggy out for 4 test drives and gave it 4 sessions with the magic meter reader, and they came up with nothing. So she’s off shopping. I ran a couple of errands, drove past the locomotive shed of the BR&W RR on the way back to see if Engine 60 was out in the sun - it wasn’t - and then got a refill on the propane tank for the grill. Toasted a few dogs for lunch, and I’ve got some chicken thighs marinating for later, to make some grilled Buffalo thighs. Better than wings, twice as much meat, and actually less expensive.

So let’s see what’s new in the news ... oh look, might be a naval battle shaping up off of Yemen, with us against the Iranians. And them having just shown off their carrier destroying missile system a couple weeks ago. Oh boy!

American warships are prepared to intercept a convoy of Iranian ships suspected of carrying weapons to Houthi rebel forces in Yemen, senior defense and military officials told NBC News on Monday.

An Iranian convoy of freighters, escorted by warships from the Iranian military and Revolutionary Guard forces, appears headed for Yemen, the officials said.

They emphasized that while the USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier group would be in position to intercept the convoy, an intercept could also be carried out by Saudi Arabia, Egypt or the United Arab Emirates, which are patrolling the waters off Yemen.

Supported by the United States, Saudi Arabia has led Sunni Arab countries in carrying out more than three weeks of airstrikes targeting the rebels, who are backed by Iran and have seized parts of Yemen.

There is no indication that U.S. or other coalition warships have been in contact with the Iranians, but one official told NBC News, “They know we’re there.”

Some U.S. officials are concerned that the leak of the information is not good, coming at the same time as the United States and other countries try to reach a final agreement on Iran’s nuclear program.

“Since this is now public, the Iranians may feel they’ve been backed into a corner” and attempt to run through any blockade set up by the coalition warships, one official said.

The deployment comes after a U.N. Security Council resolution approved last week imposed an arms embargo on leaders of the Iranian-backed Shiite Houthi rebels, who have taken over much of Yemen.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest would not comment specifically on any Navy movements in Yemeni waters, but said the U.S. has concerns about Iran’s “continued support for the Houthis.

“We have seen evidence that the Iranians are supplying weapons and other armed support to the Houthis in Yemen,” Earnest said Monday. “That support will only contribute to greater violence in that country. These are exactly the kind of destabilizing activities that we have in mind when we raise concerns about Iran’s destabilizing activities in the Middle East.”

He added, “Iranians are acutely aware of our concerns for their continued support of the Houthis by sending them large shipments of weapons.”

In a stepped-up response to Iranian backing of Shiite rebels in Yemen, the Navy aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt is steaming toward the waters off Yemen to beef up security and join other American ships that are prepared to intercept any Iranian vessels carrying weapons to the Houthi rebels.

The deployment comes after a U.N. Security Council resolution approved last week imposed an arms embargo on leaders of the Iranian-backed Shiite Houthi rebels. The resolution passed in a 14-0 vote with Russia abstaining.

Navy officials said Monday that the Roosevelt was moving through the Arabian Sea. A massive ship that carries F/A-18 fighter jets, the Roosevelt is seen more of a deterrent and show of force in the region.

So we will continue to fight another proxy war with Iran in Yemen, or we will now duke it out with them directly? Either way, I’m just ever so glad our great god-king Emperor Obama reached a semi-secret agreement with these nutjobs, who are going to ignore it anyway, and that the whole slew of Republican legislators we HAD TO elect to stop this (and Obamacare too!) rolled over and played dead so fast they got carpet burns. Way to go Team Weasel.

Posted by Drew458     on 04/21/2015 at 12:26 PM   
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   Monday - April 20, 2015

stuck inside these four walls

I had to give her my car today while hers is in the shop. So I’m stuck here, and it’s a rainy cold and windy day.

Kinda dull. Well, I’m sure there’s still laundry to do, or something equally as exciting.

Looks like another boat full of Africans sunk. Too bad. A tragedy perhaps, but not Italy’s fault, nor the EU’s. Don’t pile 900 people into a tiny fishing boat and head out to sea. Don’t disable the boat and plan on getting rescued. Stay home. Fix your own country. Europe doesn’t want you.

major rescue operation is underway in the Mediterranean Sea, north of Libya and south of the Italian island of Lampedusa, after a migrant ship carrying as many as 950 people capsized Sunday.

Italian prosecutors said a Bangladeshi survivor flown to Sicily for treatment told them 950 people were aboard, including hundreds who had been locked in the hold by smugglers. Earlier, authorities said a survivor told them 700 migrants were on board.

#AfricanLivesDontMatter not even to Africans. No stop being stupid.

Posted by Drew458     on 04/20/2015 at 09:58 AM   
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The Origin of The Islamic State

From Der Spiegel in Germany, we have an excellent article detailing the origins and methodology of The Islamic State.  It’s a jaw dropper.  The roots of IS actually date back to…

...when Paul Bremer, then head of the US occupational authority in Baghdad, “dissolved the army by decree in May 2003.

That tidbit doesn’t show up until you’re about 40% through an 11 page article.  (In 12 pt type.  I’ve also downloaded it to my hard drive)

Read and think about this one.  There’s a lot here, from a master plan for surveillance and terror, to the underlying secularism of the organizers of the Islamic State and how they organized and control the Sharia courts.

The Terror Strategist: Secret Files Reveal the Structure of Islamic State

Hat Tip:  The Daily Mail

Doc

Posted by Dr. Jeff     on 04/20/2015 at 02:53 AM   
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For All Who Love Hillary

They might even be able to get indictments from this.  From The New York Times:

“Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich,” by Peter Schweizer — a 186-page investigation of donations made to the Clinton Foundation by foreign entities — is proving the most anticipated and feared book of a presidential cycle still in its infancy.

Sometimes, even the Main Stream Media gets it right.  Is the New York Times an acceptable news source for liberals?  The Washington Post and Fox News are on the hunt as well. 

But “Clinton Cash” is potentially more unsettling, both because of its focused reporting and because major news organizations including The Times, The Washington Post and Fox News have exclusive agreements with the author to pursue the story lines found in the book.

Here’s the link to The New York Times.  Hat Tip:  The Daily Mail

New Book, ‘Clinton Cash,’ Questions Foreign Donations to Foundation

Good hunting all, the Hildebeast may stay out of jail, but after this, are the American People still dumb enough to vote for her?  I’m losing track of how many different kinds of impropriety she’s been linked to now.  Gee, you think someone might be out to get her?  Or is she just so corrupt and egotistical that even the Liberals’ own media can’t cover her ass anymore?

Doc

Posted by Dr. Jeff     on 04/20/2015 at 02:28 AM   
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   Sunday - April 19, 2015

a few things to look at … sorry. no eye candy.

Some news in brief that may be of interest.

Heard on the news.

Police in Sicily report that muslim migrants have thrown 12 Christians overboard during a recent crossing from Libya, and that aid groups say 41 more are feared drowned in a separate incident.

Other news of not particular surprise but does raise a grin.
After all, there is a no touching rule ya know.

MORE THAN 200 PREGNANT SOLDIERS SENT HOME FROM AFGHANISTAN AND IRAQ
Nearly 100 female British soldiers were sent home from Afghanistan after finding out they were pregnant.
Ninety-nine servicewomen on operations were flown back to the UK between January 2006 and December 2013, a Freedom of Information request revealed.
Sixteen women were removed from Afghanistan in 2013 due to pregnancy while 18 were sent home in 2011, the data showed. A further 102 women were evacuated from Iraq.

In other news it’s the same old same old.  ISIS as usual.

Slaughter on the beach: ISIS behead and shoot Ethiopian Christians in sickening new propaganda video

· Video seems to show militants in Libya holding one group of at least 16 captive on a beach and 12 others in a desert
· Before the killings a masked fighter in black brandishes a pistol as he vows to kill Christians if they do not convert

source for all stories

However .... Not all the news is bad.
There’s some good in the mix as for example, well see for yourself.

From a Peter Hitchens column today in the Sunday Mail

A wave of human misery is now heading to Europe – and eventually to Britain – from the fiery chaos of post-Cameron Libya.

In one week, at least 10,000 migrants have been ferried to Italy by greedy criminal traffickers.

Traffickers put only enough fuel in the tanks of their boats to get them halfway across. Then they call the Italian coastguard to tell them to pick up the drifting victims before they drown or die of exposure.

And of course civilised Europe does pick them up. What choice do we have? It goes against centuries of Christianity to leave them (as the ruthless traffickers happily do) to their fate, and hope that this will discourage them.

Well Pete old boy, Europe does have a clear choice but would rather commit national and racial suicide cos it’s the liberal thing to do. And while all Europe sinks under a black tide you will all hold hands and sing we are the world.

And how can we send them back to the failed and lawless state which has already driven them out after robbing them? So it will not be long before they arrive at Calais and join the queue to be smuggled into Britain.

I can see no obvious solution to this. It reminds me of the great illegal migration of Latin Americans that utterly transformed the USA in the 1990s, and continues to do so.

Should we have listened more carefully to Colonel Gaddafi, whom we drove from power and left to be murdered in a ditch? By assisting in his overthrow, have we replaced the terrible with the horrible?

Back in August 2010, the Libyan despot went to Rome and made a blackmailing offer which many Italian politicians must now be wishing they had accepted.

Gaddafi said: ‘Italy needs to convince her European allies to accept this Libyan proposal – €5 billion [then about £4 billion] to Libya to stop illegal immigration. ‘Europe runs the risk of turning black from illegal immigration, it could turn into Africa. We need support from the European Union to stop this army trying to get across from Libya, which is their entry point.

‘At the moment there is a dangerous level of immigration from Africa into Europe and we don’t know what will happen.

‘What will be the reaction of the white Christian Europeans to this mass of hungry, uneducated Africans?’

You will have to look up what he said next as it is simply too shocking and unpleasant for me to reproduce.

That’s the problem. While we won’t think about it, the unthinkable is actually happening, and we have no idea what to do.

I haven’t a clue what else Gaddafi may have said that Hitchens could not print. It’s late here, I haven’t time to try and find one comment and anyway, what I’ve read so far doesn’t change anything with regard to the very serious threat of this mass influx of sub species into Europe and the UK.
Anyway ... nobody doubts Gaddafi was a bad guy.  But bad guys do not always get things wrong, and if he spoke the above as Hitchens quotes, he had it right. The level of immigration is dangerous.

Posted by peiper     on 04/19/2015 at 01:17 PM   
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   Saturday - April 18, 2015

Mr Fixit, Again

A great big WTF shout out to all things automotive ...

When I made the coil swap Friday afternoon from cylinder #2 to cylinder #4, the car ran great. Perfectly. Smooth as a jeweled watch.  For a 10 minute test drive, and later for about a 20 minute drive up to the bowling alley for Friday Fun League. Hooray!!!

And then all Hell broke lose on the drive home. The car didn’t want to start, ran super rough, had no power, wouldn’t rev, lit up the warning lights, etc. It was not a happy ride. And of course, of course!!, we had to get stuck in a bit of late night traffic jam, sitting still and trying to inch uphill, as the county dingdongs did some pothole patching on the piece of road they just spent nearly 3 years building. And we’re moving a foot, stop. Two feet, stop. Wait for several minutes. With an engine that’s popping and stuttering all over the place. Good times for all!

Enough of this. We finally got home - the car never actually stalled, amazingly - and decided to call the dealership. Which we did this morning. Oh, bring it right in, but maybe we can’t look at it until Monday. Fine. Whatever. So I wrote up a detailed note about everything that had happened and how I’d tried to fix them.

And figured I’d play another quick game of Fool The Car’s Computer for the ride down to Nissan, so I swapped the coil from the #4 cylinder to the #3 cylinder. That’s less than a minute’s work, and it’s only a 20 minute drive to the dealership. And the car ran smoother than silk. Zoom zoom.

Whatever the problem is, it’s upstream of the physical engine and the ignition electronics mounted thereon. Which means, let the dealership figure it out. What else can I do?

Posted by Drew458     on 04/18/2015 at 02:08 PM   
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Al Collins ----- KFI --- chess and my wife and one could say, much better days

More major work to be done at our house next Wednesday.  So things have to get started on Monday moving things little by little into other rooms.

Tuesday the computer and everything in this corner get taken apart or disconnected and moved in prep for Wed. workmen due about 8:30am.
Judging by last years project with the windows, we’ll be lucky if they’re done by four.  So no way late in day will I try and put things back in place.
I’m hoping I don’t have to unplug the router and wi-fi connection and then have to re-enter info etc and codes.

But on to today.

In the 1930s, the building below had huge movie like neon lights. Or is that fluorescent?  Google KFI building images and scroll and you’ll see what I mean. In those days, it hosted major movie and radio stars of the time. The theater had less than 100 seats and the station broadcast major shows across country via recording for a different time zone. The celebs of their time were here. So the building in the 30s was decked out to reflect the glitz and glamour.
By my time there, the flashy lights were gone and so were the trolley tracks that ran down the center of Vermont Ave.

And btw ... across the street and down one block was the famed Palamar Ballroom where in August of 1935, The Swing Era began with the broadcast of Benny Goodman and his band.  Last I saw of the corner, it was a Kroger market.

April 18, 2015

I have been so out of touch with my past for so long, now when I learn about changes I’m either in shock or depression.

I only learned late yesterday, if what I read was correct, that my beloved KFI radio moved to new quarters quite a while ago from the original bldg. on Vermont Ave. in LA. Built in 1936 it was so splendid but I guess …. heck. I don’t know what to guess.

Anyone reading this will think I’ve lost the rest of my marbles, having already lost most of what I had to begin with.  But you’d have to understand how much that station and that bldg. came to mean to me. I ate, slept, dreamed was totally dedicated to them. KFI and that building were in a manner of speaking, my life’s blood.

It all changed of course. The station was sold off long ago, the format changed, and from once having the largest listening radio audience in all America, and that reader included any of New York’s largest stations, at one point KFI dropped to number 28.
A stab to my heart to learn that.  And now I read of the move.
What does that mean?

Odds are but I will not know until I call Calif. and soon I probably will. Or maybe I’ll just pretend the opposite of what I am sure has or will happen.
That beautiful bldg. and the old original radio theater inside, will be demolished.
Crushed to nothingness, rubble to be carted away. They may as well take me with em.
Bring out your dead.

I was sent a link to Wikipedia that told the story of KFI.  But they missed a thing or two that I know about cos I was there.  So I signed up to be able to edit but I must say that is a difficult site to work with. Of course, I was trying at four in the morning on a tablet. But after getting the welcome email and told I could now edit, I did after many glitches and Firefox crashes.  But I do not see it there today.

No word about the transmitter that Mr. Anthony built on his mom’s breadboard that broadcast for three blocks.
And when they listed past air personalities, not one word mentioning the king of Jazz DJs, my friend and mentor and guide, the very great Al “Jazzbeaux” Collins. Not a word.
The photo on the right here with Al and the flowers, was I am sure, his very last LP. This was the cover and I had it.

He had a couple of albums I remember, I had one of them from the great man himself, called, A lovely bunch of Al Collins, (above).  It was a collection of kid’s fairy tales for grown hipsters done to a jazzy background. I recall Terry Gibbs on vibes and the late Steve Allen (yeah, the TV comic) on cool jazz piano with Al telling the stories. 
Oh, and they never mentioned Scott Ellsworth who late night also did some jazz and interviewed some Jazz greats in conversation, those who were at the time still with us. 

I had met Steve Allen briefly one time when he came into KFI. He was as likeable in person as he was on TV.  Dave Garroway on the other hand, was kind of weird in a way. He was brought into KFI on the strength of his name and former national early morning TV show. But he didn’t last too long. He insisted that shades be installed in the studio so that nobody would come by and stare or watch him at work.  He was a very shy man.

A major high rated former Rock Jock from KHJ (I’m sure it was that station) was lured away by KFI which was strange, since KFI was not a rocker in any sense.
Dave Hull one of the majors back then along with Casey Kasem, who sadly passed away last year. 
Well, back to Dave Hull.

(PHOTO TAKEN AT KFI BY AL COX, A KFI ENGINEER)

He wasn’t too thrilled with my wife ( shown here) who wiped the floor with him playing chess.

He saw Jenn and I playing a game during our off time and issued a challenge, which I passed on but my wife picked up.

She nailed him in not too many moves. He said something about playing in a hurry or some kind of reasoning other than he was up against a very young (24 at the time) English girl who could outplay him.  So they played again, and again she cleaned his clock.

I don’t think he ever said as much as hello to her after that.
Imagine, having your chess socks beat off by …. a girl? 
Oh the shame of it. Life is sooooo hard.

Perhaps I should have warned him that she once played tournament chess, and came within a point or however they score things, of a champion player in England.

That’s one reason I married her.

I couldn’t stand the idea of anyone outside my own family that could beat me so consistently.  So I married her. LOL. 

-end-

Posted by peiper     on 04/18/2015 at 03:59 AM   
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   Friday - April 17, 2015

Signs And Portents

Meteorologists and biologists have been left baffled by earthworms raining from the sky over Southern Norway.

According to Norwegian news service The Local, the most recent phenomenon was discovered by biology teacher Karstein Erstad while he was skiing in the mountains.

“I saw thousands of earthworms on the surface of the snow,” he said.

“When I found them on the snow they seemed to be dead, but when I put them in my hand I found that they were alive.”

He thought they might have crawled through the snow, but rejected this idea, as the snow was over half a metre thick across the mountains.

This is not the only time an area experiencing worms raining from the sky in Norway, with other cases found in Molde and Bergen, both in the south of the country.

This rain of worms isn’t confined to Norway either, with a similar case reported at a Scottish Academy secondary school in 2011.

According to a report by STV, a teacher and his students had to take cover during a game of football after worms started falling from the sky.

Posted by Drew458     on 04/17/2015 at 02:53 PM   
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mr. fixit

Wife comes in last night, “My car is acting up. It’s been running roughly when I try to accelerate, and the yellow light was flickering. Now the light is on all the time. What do we do?”

I love that “we” bit.

So I go out there this morning, with my OBDC-II trouble code reader. These things are indispensable in this day and age of computer controlled cars. And it gives me back a good old P0302 code, which means a misfire in Cylinder #2. Ah ha, I’ve been down this road before. It means a bad spark plug, or a bad spark plug wire. Or, worse case, a bad ignition coil. But coils last forever, right? And I know I put in those expensive Bosch Iridium multi-fire plugs just last year. So I’m guessing it’s the spark plug wire.

So I look under the hood, and nothing. Her Nissan 2.5 engine is totally covered over with some big plastic shield. Get out the 10mm socket wrench. Zip zip zip. Huh? Her engine doesn’t have spark plug wires. Nissan built the coils right into the plug boots, and they bolt to the top of the engine. So this could be cool. Zip out that 10mm bolt. Pull the spark plug. It looks brand new. Hey, for the $8 it cost, it darn well better. Put it back in. Now, what to do? Um, um, um, right! So I swap the #2 coil with the #4 coil, and bolt everything back together. Clear the engine codes; let’s go for a drive.

Crivens, her car is on fumes. Stop in at the gas station and put some premium in the tank. Now chug around the neighborhood for a couple laps, making the engine pull hard from low speed in high gears. And then zooming up the hills once it gets moving. No yellow Check Engine lights. Ha. I’m starting to feel pretty smug. Ha, sometimes all you have to do is take stuff apart, clean it up, and put it back together. Another zero dollar repair. Right on. And the Check Engine light flickers. Crap. So back to the parking spot, read the OBDC. P0304, which means the problem jumped from cylinder #2 to cylinder #4. Which means the coil/boot thingy is bad. A new one is $85 at the NAPA store in town, and it’s a matter of seconds to swap the new part for the old. And clear the OBDC once again.

It’s a nice day, so while I played under the hood she went for a little exercise walk. I’m closing the hood as she gets back. “Did you find the problem?” Yep, fixed it too. So we go for a test drive, and it works just fine.

New cars are made so much better than what we drove around in back in the day. But nothing lasts forever. So these days it’s the sensors that need replacing, and sometimes the ignition parts. I put new spark plugs in her car at 110,000 miles, but the factory plugs I removed looked just as good as new. They hardly even needed gapping.

Posted by Drew458     on 04/17/2015 at 12:33 PM   
Filed Under: • planes, trains, tanks, ships, machines, automobiles •  
• Comments (8) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

now it’s racist cupcakes

Well, I don’t guess you’d mistake them for anything else but African.  But heck, it’s sure spot on descriptive in many cases.

Anyway, I don’t understand why that darkie is bitching about colonialism.  But for the white colonists for all their faults, they brought progress also. And roads and medicines and education. And that last was a mistake. So was the cure for some of their ills.
Can’t help but be reminded of something Kim du Toit said one time.
Let Africa sink.

‘Racist’ cupcakes banned from French pastry shop: Court orders removal of dark chocolate figures with pink lips

Patisserie banned from displaying dark chocolate cakes of naked people
Nice court ruled ‘obscene’ cakes were violation of ‘human dignity’
Anti-racism campaigners denounced them as ‘slave trade caricatures’
Baker said use of dark chocolate was ‘technically necessary’

By Elaine O’flynn For Mailonline

A bakery in the French Riviera has been banned from displaying cupcakes of a naked man and woman made out of dark chocolate - because they were inciting ‘racial hatred’.

The ‘God’ and Goddess’ cakes, which were topped with the chocolate figures of a naked, plump man and woman with pink lips and protruding genitalia, were deemed offensive by a French court after a complaint by a shocked resident.

A judge concluded that treats - sold in a ‘boulangerie’ in the town of Grasse, NIce - showed ‘two people of colour in grotesque and obscene attitudes’, adding they violate ‘human dignity, especially that of the African people or people of African descent.’

The administrative court in Nice ruled while the patisserie can still bake and sell the cakes - which have been made to order for the last 15 years - it said the town’s mayor must ensure that the offending pastries were removed from the shop window.

For every day they were still on show, the town faced a fine of €500 (£360).

The court said it found no ‘malicious will’ on the part of the baker, but also ordered the town to pay a fine of €1,000 (£730) to the Representative Council of Black Association (CRAN), which joined the calls for the cupcakes to be banned.

President of CRAN Louis George-Tin said he was ‘delighted’ with the ruling, made on Thursday, adding it was a warning to the rest of France.

Before the court hearing he told The Local the cakes were ‘pure and simple racism; and denounced it as a ‘obscene slave trade caricatures that tap into the tradition of colonial racism’.

‘We are in a country where the word equality is part of the constitution, which means it doesn’t allow for racism. Does he think these treats adhere to the values of the French Republic?’ he said.

“We must fight this kind of racism. I cannot imagine what would be said (rightly) if an African baker decided to represent Jesus Christ or the Virgin Mary in a similar way.’

Baker Yannick Tavolaro said he makes the cupcakes only on weekends, and often to order. 

He has now made a defamation complaint against CRAN, and said the use of dark chocolate is ‘technically necessary’ to model the figures, which he said were cartoons.

In a post on his Facebook page after the ruling, Mr Tavolaro said he planned to make the cakes asexual, with a sign saying ‘Castrated by Censorship’.

source for more

Posted by peiper     on 04/17/2015 at 07:01 AM   
Filed Under: • Judges-Courts-Lawyers •  
• Comments (5) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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