This one is actually a little easier. Again, the pin is the motif. It’s also more obvious in this position.

…?

Now, you’d think White has the game. White’s up two pawns, his remaining pieces are all lined up on an open file. But that’s a nasty pin Black’s Queen has…an absolute pin. White can’t break the pin unless he spends a tempo moving his King. But it’s not White’s turn.

Black to move and win!

Iran turns to barter for food as sanctions cripple imports

Iran is turning to barter - offering gold bullion in overseas vaults or tankerloads of oil - in return for food as new financial sanctions have hurt its ability to import basic staples for its 74 million people, commodities traders said Thursday.

Difficulty paying for urgent import needs has contributed to sharp rises in the prices of basic foodstuffs, causing hardship for Iranians with just weeks to go before an election seen as a referendum on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s economic policies.

New sanctions imposed by the United States and European Union to punish Iran for its nuclear program do not bar firms from selling Iran food but they make it difficult to carry out the international financial transactions needed to pay for it.

Reuters surveys of commodities traders around the globe show that since the start of the year, Iran has had trouble securing imports of basic staples like rice, cooking oil, animal feed and tea. Grain ships have been held at its ports, refusing to unload until payment can be received for cargo.

With Iran’s rial currency tumbling, the prices of rice, bread and meat in Iranian bazaars have doubled or more in dollar terms in recent months.

You know what would be just awful?? If some huge group of “Somali Pirates” were to suddenly start hijacking cargo ships that were headed to the east side of the Persian Gulf. And then western navies could interdict them at night with lots of pyrotechnic effects ... oh, so sorry, the pirates put up a furious fight, and the ships were scuttled. It wouldn’t be for every ship, just every other. Maybe 2 out of 3. The ones with food and gasoline as cargo. And half of them could escape down to Africa. This could also cure hunger in Somalia at the same time, and Kenya would buy the gas for 10 cents on the dollar. Businesses would keep the gold, because they’d be smart and demand payment in advance with no refunds for piracy.

So I clicked and as I say, just the usual and might not have bothered with it until I started reading some of the comments. Which I found to be interesting.

Brussels: University debate disturbed by Muslim fundamentalists

Islam in Europe 9 February 2012

Yesterday ULB university organized a debate between French journalist Caroline Fourest and Hervé Hasquin on the extreme right. The debate was heckled by niqab-wearing activists who shouted “Burqa, bla bla bla” and accused Fourest of Islamophobia.
The activists were mobilized by Souhail Chichah, an economics researcher and assistant at the university, who is known for his extremist views. The debate moderator, Guy Haarscher, urged him to come on stage to speak. According to Le Soir, Souhail Chichah had called for ‘Burqa pride” on social networks, which was dedicated to the ‘stoning of Caroline Fourest’.

http://islamineurope.blogspot.com/2012/02/brussels-university-debate-disturbed-by.html

There’s a video but it’s in a foreign language so unless you speak French ....  But you will hear the attempted disruption.  And lets face it, that isn’t even news anymore.  Never mind that they haven’t a coherent argument themselves.  Their reason for being is simply to impeded others from speaking.

But as mentioned, I was more interested in the comment section. Here’s a few examples.  Which btw covered another subject which had to do with muzzies and dogs.  I guess what I’m trying to show is that there is resistance to the plague of islam all over Europe.  It just isn’t well enough organized, and I have my doubts it ever will be because the right keeps attacking the wrong targets. 

Here. See what you think.

Dude, here in Sweden the prime minister is suggesting raising the retirement age to 75, allowing those over 54 to qualify for ‘student loans’ (apparently they don’t as it stands) so they can LEARN A NEW TRADE. This is in a country that has a 25% consumer purchase tax on everything & brings retarded Somalians & asylum seeking Afghani’s by the THOUSANDS. And what do they do once they are here? WELL besides mass gang rape, murder, child molestation, drugs, robbery, assault & driving drunk without a license, NOTHING!! Except live on the dole, continue to rain kids down upon us & complain that their free sh*t isn’t good enough or big enough.

I just read one 23 yr old Afghan asylum seeker has already been jailed for assault 4 times (including against a cop) driving no license twice, drunk driving once, drug dealer of steroids, heroin, pills, threatened to kill a 15 yr old girl if she did not sell drugs for him AND was one of 12 men arrested for the gang rape of a 29 year old Swedish mother of 2 at the asylum housing center. They beat her very badly & she was raped by at least a dozen men, him being one. And he has not even been offered up for DEPORTATION! He will never work, and has never worked - he is violent and poses a threat to humanity here, yet WE support him !! Apparently Swedes will have to work until they DIE in their tracks to support a fat hog somalian woman with 10 kids that follow her in a row like ducklings each one 4 inches taller than the last. I saw this one lady, my god, her kids looked like clones of each other - fat cow buying 100 rolls of toilet paper at the store (even though muzzies always say they don’t use toilet paper) and 20 gallons of oil, while I can afford only 1 litre of cooking oil at a time for my family of 5. Because WE WORK.

Nobody can convince me this isn’t premeditated destruction of our cultures, our countries, and our way of life. By our own governments.

They cannot achieve what they desire until all countries and cultures are the same, and since they cannot raise the rest of the world up to our level, they will bring us down to the rest of the worlds.

Islamonausea, not Islamophobia

Our language needs a term that describes what many critically thinking people feel about Islam according to their own terms, not according to what Muslims wish us to feel or what the PC establishment diagnoses to scare us into allowing more voters for the Left into our countries. We need a term that simultaneously invites Muslims to realize what they need to change about their behavior and religion if they wish to advance from an embarrassing last place in the evolution of civilizations and to earn some real respect among the world community.

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/01/islamonausea-not-islamophobia.html

Islamonausea deserves its own article on Wikipedia. Help get Islamonausea into our dictionaries by using the word on blogs, in articles and in Letters to the Editor, and in everyday speech.

I kind of favor that. It does have a ring to it but might not be acceptable to the left here.  I’d bet it would become another word branded as, “hate speech.”

If the Dutch have to choose between keeping dogs in their country and keeping Moslems, I hope they have the sense to keep the dogs.

How many Dutch have been killed by dogs? How many by Moslems?
How many Dutch have been raped by dogs? How many by Moslems?
How many Dutch have been mugged by dogs? How many by Moslems?
How many arsons in the Netherlands have been set by dogs? How many by Moslems?
I think the answers are clear: the Moslems out-score the dogs by ratios of hundreds to one.
However here’s a question where the scores are probaby about equal:
How many Dutch have been bitten by dogs? How many by Moslems?

The Dutch should not have to be made to choose.
1) Muslims come to their new country
2) Muslims bring their culture...some are stupid, some are idiotic, most are repulsive. (from the hair cover to honor killings)
3) Its not the muslim that changes to suit OUR culkture and traditions,
4) The muslim DEMANDS WE change our culture and traditions to suit them.

5) ..and finally. We grow some balls to tell the muslims “either accept OUR culture and traditions, or get out of the country.

http://www.infideltaskforce.com

Yesterday a hellish day.
Went into town on errands overdue.  Wife fell when she tripped on a part of paving stone (sidewalk) that was not level. I guess the cold had lifted a small corner and it was her luck to catch it.  I only came on the scene after it happened as she’d gone to a market while I continued to the bank.
Nothing broken but banged up a bit.  Fell in an odd way and hit one side of her face but fortunately not full on. Landed on her left hand.  It being very,very cold, she had lots of layers of clothing.  I think they saved her from doing worse. 
I don’t know how she managed to drive us home.  (I don’t drive here) So anyway, I’m playing caregiver but feel bad that I wasn’t right on the spot to catch her or help.  Had to cancel the monthly visit with friends for coffee morning. Just not up to it today.

The Himalayas and nearby peaks have lost no ice in past 10 years, study shows

Meltwater from Asia’s peaks is much less than previously estimated, but lead scientist says the loss of ice caps and glaciers around the world remains a serious concern

Earth’s Polar Ice Melting Less Than Thought

Ocean levels worldwide are rising about six hundredths of an inch per year

0.06” is a hair thicker than a dime, which is 1.35mm or 0.053”. At that rate it would take the oceans 200 years to rise a foot, and more than 1000 years to rise enough to seriously screw with the world’s coastlines.

The GRACE satellite experiment, however, covered the entire globe and found that all the world’s glaciers and ice caps combined, apart for those in Greenland and Antarctica, had lost about 148 billion tonnes of ice, or about 39 cubic miles, annually between 2003 and 2010. The individual glaciers on the fringes of Greenland and Antarctic contributed an additional 80 billion tons over the same period, the study published in Nature found.

“This is the first time anyone has looked at all of the mass loss from all of the Earth’s glaciers and ice caps with GRACE,” said John Wahr, professor of physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder, who was part of the research team that analysed the satellite data.

Surface area of all the open water on the planet: 361,132,000km² = 139,433,844 sq mi.

V = H*L*W = H * area, therefore V/area = H. Substituting in the values, 39 cubic miles ÷ 139,433,844 sq mi. = 0.0000002797” , which is a hair more than a quarter of a ten millionth of an inch. Don’t forget that most manual static measuring tools lose precision after 0.0001”; you simply can not measure less than a ten thousandth with any kind of accuracy outside of a laboratory. In a dynamic environment, like the surface of an ocean, it would take untold zillions of measurements over time - oodleplexes of them - to calculate this kind of delta.

So 39 cubic miles sounds like a lot, but the earth is a big place, and if you spread it out over all the existing water surface, it amounts to nothing.

Is the climate changing? Sure. That’s it’s job. It’s always changing. Can we say for sure whether the long term trend is hotter or colder? No. Precision recording thermometers have existed for perhaps a century, and have been in widespread use for perhaps half that time. Actual global climate - not current weather patterns in a semi-local area - runs on a geologic time scale, and 50 years of data barely scratches the surface of that. Assuming of course that the data is accurate, which it often isn’t. Assuming even further that we can trust the published GRACE data, and that is debatable. Climate scientists have lied to us so many times now that I wouldn’t believe them if they cried wolf and there were lupine teeth biting my leg.

Los Angeles - The Board of Supervisors this week agreed to raise fines to up to $1,000 for anyone who throws a football or a Frisbee on any beach in Los Angeles County.

In passing the 37-page ordinance on Tuesday, officials sought to outline responsibilities for law enforcement and other public agencies while also providing clarification on beach-goer activities that could potentially disrupt or even injure the public.

The updated rules now prohibit “any person to cast, toss, throw, kick or roll” any object other than a beach ball or volleyball “upon or over any beach” between Memorial Day and Labor Day.

Exceptions allow for ball-throwing in predesignated areas, when a person obtains a permit, or playing water polo “in or over the Pacific Ocean”.

That’s one way to balance the budget: make just about anything illegal and then fine the daylights out of the citizens left and right. But it’s for the chiiiiiildren! And for your own good!!!  Sure, because little kids are being maimed for life all the time by Frisbees. Sure. Riiight.

A permit ($$$) for throwing a football only in a predesignated area of public land. Uh huh. What’s next, Free Speech Zones on college campuses? Oh wait. Nevermind.

Also, just to remind everyone: if it says ‘?’ it’s White to move and win; if it says ‘…?’ it’s Black to move and win.

?

Yes, that’s a ‘?’, which means White to move and win.

Taken from Combination Challenge by Lou Hayes and USCF Senior Master John Hall (2520)

Two and a half miles beneath Antarctica‘s ice lies Lake Vostok, a mysterious body of water, 160 miles long and 30 miles wide, that is believed to have been sealed off from the rest of the world for 20 million years.

Now, the Russians, who run the Vostok research station at the surface, say they may have reached the lake with a drill bit, though they are still checking their data. The plan was for the drill to break through the ice into the hidden lake, and automatically withdraw so as not to contaminate the water below.

How did you spend your summer holidays? It’s the middle of summer there, in the Cold Zone, the coldest spot on earth. Summer temperatures are a mere -40. In winter it can get down to -129°F!!!

Lake Vostok, seen so far only on radar, is believed to be warmed by geothermal energy. But why drill to it, beyond feeling the tug of mystery?

“According to our research, the quantity of oxygen there exceeds that on other parts of our planet by 10 to 20 times. Any life forms that we find are likely to be unique on Earth,” said Sergey Bulat, the chief scientist of Russia’s Antarctic Expedition, as quoted by Russian Reporter magazine.

There are other scientists who are doubtful. Too much oxygen, they argue, could actually be toxic to life. So Lake Vostok could turn out to be unique — the first place found on Earth where there is water in liquid form but nothing living.

These are the same bunch of guys who were out of radio contact for the past 5 days. Guess they were just too busy to chat.

Earlier, worry mounted as days passed without word from the scientists on whether or not they had managed to drill deep enough to reach the surface of the lake. The drilling expedition, which has been ongoing for 14 years, took place under brutal, life-threatening weather conditions, including temperatures well below zero.

“Yesterday, our scientists stopped drilling at the depth of 3,768 meters and reached the surface of the sub-glacial lake,” the [official Russian science news] source said.

A further statement in Russian, translated by Google:

Today, the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute has received the following official statement from the chief station of the East 57th RAE AM Yelagin and Chief glaciological-drilling detachment of the 57th NI RAE Vasiliev.

February 5 at 20.25 Moscow time on the Russian Antarctic station Vostok inland event occurred, which is kept waiting in suspense the last few months, the international scientific community and many local and foreign mass media: experts glaciological-drilling detachment of the 57th Russian Antarctic Expedition was committed penetration in a relict subglacial Lake Vostok water through deep ice borehole 5G. On the eve of February 4, at around 3766 m depth of the well there was a contact drill with a water lens. Evidence of this was the lower portion of the ice core recovered from this depth - the surface of the lower 70 cm of core was otglazirovana as if in front of the lift, he was immersed in water. However, no channels or capillaries in the body core is not visually observed. It is this contact with the lens in the well water was mistakenly perceived by some media for real insight into the aqueous layer of the lake.

Concerns about polluting the lake with the freon/kerosene drilling fluid were unfounded, the Russians say:

Less dense than lake water, drilling fluid, consisting of a mixture of kerosene and Freon, was rapidly up the borehole. As a result, about one and a half cubic meters of liquid poured through the top surface of the wells in special trays installed in the drilling complex, and then it rolled back into the barrel. Thus, the theoretically predicted 11 years ago, the results have been fully proven in practice.

So it seems a job well done! The hole was capped off for now, and the scientists will be back next year to get some water samples and see what is to be seen.

This achievement of Russian polar researchers and engineers has been a wonderful gift for the Day of Russian science, which our country celebrates on 8 February.

Head of the Russian Antarctic Expedition

Vladimir Lukin

Is banner day for Russian Sciences!! Da darlink, but what about moose and squirrel??

1. Santorum Takes 3 Red States. Good. At least they can spot the closest thing to an actual Conservative.


2. The future of the military? Obama’s favorite weapon system is a pneumatic marshmallow shooter.


3. California, crazy as ever. Court to decide if SeaWorld critters are slaves. After this, all the chickens will be issued Che Gueverra berets and we’ll have a poultry revolution.


4. Don’t you hate it when folks adhere to their stereotype? If only she’d been driving an Escalade and was named LaShanda it would have been 100%. Toddler with gun, Mom busted.


5. No evidence, no favoritism, no rape charges. Charges dropped against Fox News anchor who is NYPD Commissioner’s son.


6. “Halftime in America” ad controversy deepens? Gosh, I guess I have more in common with Karl Rove than just the hair style and the weight problem. Turns out the Superbowl ad was put together by Obama supporters. I didn’t see Obama’s pre-game speech, and I didn’t even know of the controversy until yesterday afternoon, but I saw the ad at halftime and said “damn, this is a push to re-elect Obama isn’t it? After all, the government owns Chrsyler, and I refuse to believe Detroit is on much of a comeback. They may have slowed their vertical descent into Hell, but that’s all.” I didn’t know that O’s minions seized the ad theme either, until this morning. And now we find out a bit about the art team behind things. OTOH, a) what artsy types aren’t Obama supporters, and b) is their work really all that good? Here’s two of their “famous” Obama creations, which I had never seen before this morning:

   

   top:
   a) Obama the Great Uniter, or a pointy headed geek who’s half this and half that?
   b) Also, the image looks too much like a famous credit card, and look at how the public debt has been run up. Priceless!

   bottom:
   a) Think this one through: the Obama sneakers say “A black man runs and nothing is behind him.” We know all about Obama’s record before his election, and no truer words were ever imprinted on our souls soles!
   b) Given that a huge part of the population thinks this guy is at least a maybe-muslim, and what we know about them and shoes, isn’t it a major insult to be slapping his face to the pavement with a sneaker at every step?

   looks like a double double backfire to me
   

Update: Looking at a larger picture of those sneakers I realize that the one says “A black man runs and a nation is behind him”. Which brings to mind images of angry villagers with torches and pitchforks, doesn’t it?

I only have minutes to spare and being rushed as we have to go into town very early.

I HAD to boot and pass this on as soon as I brought in the paper.  The headline screamed insanity at me and I knew this must be shared.
No doubt LyndonB has seen this and may even as I type, be pulling out what hair he has left if he has any. Along with lots of others here.

You will recall a post with this vermin only yesterday.

Well take a look at this from the morning paper.

BBC tells its staff: don’t call Qatada extremist

The BBC has told its journalists not to call Abu Qatada, the al-Qaeda preacher, an “extremist”.

By Neil Midgley and James Kirkup

In order to avoid making a “value judgment”, the corporation’s managers have ruled that he can only be described as “radical”.
Journalists were also cautioned against using images suggesting the preacher is overweight.

A judge ruled this week that the Muslim preacher, once described as “Osama bin Laden’s right-hand man in Europe”, should be released from a British jail, angering ministers and MPs.

Adding to the row, Kenneth Clarke, the Justice Secretary, yesterday insisted that Qatada “has not committed any crime” and said his release has nothing to do with the European Court of Human Rights.
A British court has called Qatada a “truly dangerous individual” and even his defence team has suggested he poses a “grave risk” to national security.

all the rest is here

My wife is pulling out her own hair and having a serious temper tantrum.

I am out of time, car in driveway and engine running. Later.

‘We the People’ Loses Appeal With People Around the World

[some academic study was done comparing every constitution written from 1946 to 2006 with ours. Most were really close to ours until 1980, but it all went to hell after 2000.]

“The turn of the twenty-first century, however, saw the beginning of a steep plunge that continues through the most recent years for which we have data, to the point that the constitutions of the world’s democracies are, on average, less similar to the U.S. Constitution now than they were at the end of World War II.”

There are lots of possible reasons. The United States Constitution is terse and old, and it guarantees relatively few rights. The commitment of some members of the Supreme Court to interpreting the Constitution according to its original meaning in the 18th century may send the signal that it is of little current use to, say, a new African nation. And the Constitution’s waning influence may be part of a general decline in American power and prestige.

Gee, that’s just peachy. We’re losing all our power and prestige ... by never letting our military achieve decisive victory, weak-willed foreign policy, and apologists for leaders? Heck, who needs enemies when we’ve got our own Supreme Court?

In a television interview during a visit to Egypt last week, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the Supreme Court seemed to agree. “I would not look to the United States Constitution if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012,” she said. She recommended, instead, the South African Constitution, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms or the European Convention on Human Rights.

Is this shriveled up old eugenicist commie still with us? Can’t we fire her for this kind of attitude?

But the Constitution is out of step with the rest of the world in failing to protect, at least in so many words, a right to travel, the presumption of innocence and entitlement to food, education and health care.

It has its idiosyncrasies. Only 2 percent of the world’s constitutions protect, as the Second Amendment does, a right to bear arms. (Its brothers in arms are Guatemala and Mexico.)

Now we come down to it! The universal red agenda, and the media’s permanent unwillingness to understand the 10th Amendment. Or the 1st for that matter. Or the 2nd. Or the 3rd, 4th, 5th, ... . “the right of the people peaceably to assemble” does not say where does it? Because it can be anywhere, which means you can go anywhere to do that. Ipso facto, the right to travel.

Presumption of innocence? The 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th Amendments are all about citizen’s rights before, during, and after trials. Half the Bill of Rights focuses on that one aspect, that most of us will never have to contend with. The 5th utterly puts paid to that “missing a presumption of innocence statement” for anyone who can actually understand what they are reading. No, it isn’t spelled out in those exact words, but you can’t get Due Process, no self-incrimination, the necessity of a Grand Jury, etc - in other words, the whole damn 5th - without it. Perhaps the world needs Reading Comprehension 101 instead of Our Annual Constitution 3.12.b? Nor should we forget that this document was written by white people descended from those who came here from England. English Common Law, The Age of Reason, and all that Natural Philosophy stuff. All of it common knowledge at that time. And that right is enshrined there, which any literate person then knew, or any literate person could know now if they made a bit of effort to learn ... because the socialists that run the state run, unconstitutionally federally funded school systems aren’t telling you.

Entitlement to food, education, and health care? Crivens. No, you’re NOT ENTITLED to any such thing in this country, at the federal level. See the catch? These are States issues. Moreover, in a truly free country, it is your right to starve, your right to be stupid, and your right to die of whatever disease you wish. The free citizen is a responsible one, not a line shuffling drone of the state looking for yet another handout.

So, if ours sucks so much, and is so out of step with the times, and so irrelevant, who’s is the model to follow?  Why, Canada’s! That great socialist going-nowhere nation to the north. Holy cats.

Can we get a single lick of common sense in this article please?? Please???

… there is more to a constitution than its words, as Justice Antonin Scalia told the Senate Judiciary Committee in October. “Every banana republic in the world has a bill of rights,” he said.
...
“Of course,” Justice Scalia continued, “it’s just words on paper, what our framers would have called a ‘parchment guarantee.’ ”

Antonin Scalia, FTW, gold medal. Cut through all the BS and get at the truth, John Bolton style.

If you would like more refutations against this kind of leftist drivel, read this page that covers all these “missing” parts and more. They also have a pocket Constitution for $5, in case you lent yours out. I bought one because I had to stop and look up a couple of Amendments to verify that I had the wording right. I ought to be able to quote it all, chapter and verse, and rail on by the hour on what each and every part means.

This post is for you Mr. Woods, wherever you are. (he was my 11th grade teacher for Constitutional Law, the hardest class in my high school. And just about the only one that really mattered in the long run)