There is no way that Obama is ever going to send any significant or effective number of troops to Iraq, or initiate any policy that has a prayer of being effective, no matter what ISIS does.
His back is turned—and they know it.
Thinking about moving to statcounter
From the responses to this post, I’ve concluded that there are enough problems generated by sitemeter that I’m going to look into moving to statcounter. I used to have statcounter long ago and preferred sitemeter, but I don’t like this redirecting business and it’s probably worth the annoyance of making the move for the plus of eliminating the problem. It may take me a few days for me to get around to it, though.
As they say, thanks for your patience.
Anyone having problems with a redicrect to vindicosuite?
A couple of people have commented that they’ve been having problems with this blog—or links on this blog—redirecting them to a site known as vindicosuite. I did some research on this, and apparently this blog is not the only one are having this difficulty and it seems to have something to do with sitemeter. Sitemeter has been the traffic counter here for years and years and has done a good job, and I’m loathe to remove it and start looking for a substitute unless this continues.
Here’s an article that explains what’s probably going on. Another site indicate that it also may be occurring more on computers that don’t have adblocker.
So my question is: how many of you are having problems with this (and do you have adblocker), how long has it been happening, and how often? When it happens, does it stop you from coming here, or can you get around it?
Spambot of the day
Stream-of-consciousness bot:
The Rufous-tailed Hummingbird is about four inches long and
weights only one-fifth of an ounce. People make themselves basic furniture such as bed, blankets, and kitchen. While I slept, my ex had done his usual exploration and scope of the place.
So, how do you “make” a kitchen?
All health insurance…
I know from personal experience. For years I had a $10,000 deductible, and the insurance cost me plenty, too.
Hey, she was just asking
Shirley Maclaine speculates:
In her memoir, the 80-year-old, who won an Oscar for Terms Of Endearment, writes: “What if most Holocaust victims were balancing their karma from ages before, when they were Roman soldiers putting Christians to death, the Crusaders who murdered millions in the name of Christianity, soldiers with Hannibal, or those who stormed across the Near East with Alexander? The energy of killing is endless and will be experienced by the killer and the killee.”
I guess if you believe in karma plus reincarnation, you could be led to that sort of thinking. It certainly does away with the problem and/or the riddle of evil. If karma is always fair and just, then when bad things happen to good people it’s really because the people were bad in a past life. Payback’s a bitch.
Maclaine’s choices are interesting, though, aren’t they? So let’s see: those Crusaders who killed some Jews on their way to the Holy Land are paid back by becoming Jews killed by Hitler in the Holocaust. Just to add to the cyclical symmetry, Germany was central to both events. According to Maclaine’s theory, those Jews killed in the Holocaust could have been the crusader perpetrators of the Worms massacre. And those 800 Jews of Worms who were killed, they probably were the perpetrators in some earlier—well, you get the idea :
The Worms massacre refers to the murder of 800 Jews of Worms, Germany, at the hands of crusaders headed by Count Emicho during May 1096.
The massacre at Worms was one of number of attacks against Jewish communities perpetrated during the First Crusade (1096”“1099). Followers of Count Emicho arrived at Worms on May 18, 1096. Soon after a rumour spread that the Jews had drowned a Christian and used contaminated water to poison the town’s wells. The local populace later joined forces with Emicho and launched a savage attack on the town’s Jews. Every Jew that was captured was slain. Bishop Adalbert intervened and allowed his palace to serve as a refuge, but eight days later the mob broke in and slaughtered those seeking asylum there. They were in the midst of reciting the Hallel prayer for Rosh Chodesh Sivan.
More:
According to David Nirenberg, the events of 1096 in the Rhineland (such as in Worms) “occupy a significant place in modern Jewish historiography and are often presented as the first instance of an antisemitism that would henceforth never be forgotten and whose climax was the Holocaust.”
Who knew that the Jews were on one side at the beginning and the other at the end?
Look, I know Shirley Maclaine’s a twit, but I hesitate to apply the term “evil” to her. What she says demonstrates a built-in problem with that particular belief system—reincarnation and karma. Talk about blaming the victim! The problem is certainly not just Maclaine;
The free will controversy [connected with the idea of karma] can be outlined in three parts: (1) A person who kills, rapes or commits any other unjust act, can claim all his bad actions were a product of his karma, he is devoid of free will, he can not make a choice, he is an agent of karma, and that he merely delivering necessary punishments his “wicked” victims deserved for their own karma in past lives. Are crimes and unjust actions due to free will, or because of forces of karma? (2) Does a person who suffers from the unnatural death of a loved one, or rape or any other unjust act, assume a moral agent, gratuitous harm and seek justice? Or, should one blame oneself for bad karma over past lives, assume that the unjust suffering is fate? (3) Does the karma doctrine undermine the incentive for moral-education because all suffering is deserved and consequence of past lives, why learn anything when the balance sheet of karma from past lives will determine one’s action and sufferings?
The explanations and replies to the above free will problem vary by the specific school of Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. The schools of Hinduism, such as Yoga and Advaita Vedanta, that have emphasized current life over the dynamics of karma residue moving across past lives, allow free will. Their argument, as well of other schools, are threefold: (1) The theory of karma includes both the action and the intent behind that action. Not only is one affected by past karma, one creates new karma whenever one acts with intent – good or bad. If intent and act can be proven beyond reasonable doubt, new karma can be proven, and the process of justice can proceed against this new karma. The actor who kills, rapes or commits any other unjust act, must be considered as the moral agent for this new karma, and tried. Life forms not only receive and reap the consequence of their past karma, together they are the means to initiate, evaluate, judge, give and deliver consequence of karma to others…Karma is a theory that explains some evils, not all ….
My guess is that most Americans who dabble in the idea of karmic punishment for past lives don’t think it through to the extent Maclaine has. They don’t go there, but she does. The religions themselves (Hinduism, for example) have certainly thought it through, but I bet a lot of people who say they believe in reincarnation wouldn’t especially like the answers those religions have given.
Democrats stand by their woman
They’ll stick with Hillary, because she’s the only candidate they’ve got:
“She’s a bad mama-jama,” said Kiendra, 36, a librarian. “She’s a strong, competent woman. She knows what she’s doing. She’s not afraid to step up. She’s not afraid to take advice and she’s not afraid to say, ”˜No, I don’t want to do it that way. I’m going to do it this way.’”
Kiendra rejected any suggestion that Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, think they can operate by a different set of rules from other people. “I think they just play the game well,” she said.
“She’s not perfect,” said Charlie, 24, a graphic designer. “She’s been in the eye for a long time, in the public’s eye, and you’re going to have some stuff on her. But she has great policies and she knows how to get stuff done.”
“There’s definitely some trust issues there,” added Bill, 55, a chef. “But like everybody else has said, her record pretty much speaks for itself. She is eminently qualified to run this country, and I think she’d probably do a pretty good job.”
Cynicism combined with party loyalty combined with desperation at the thought of the lack of other candidates produces the type of reasoning you see above. Hillary is now the “what difference does it make” candidate. People don’t like her, but I guess (as Obama so famously said) that she’s “likeable enough” for Democrats, who cite her accomplishments but can’t name any.
It seems having had a number of titles is good enough. After all, she’s had more of them than Obama had when he was elected president, right? And look how well that’s gone:
While the group agreed that Clinton possessed the experience and policy positions required to be elected president, the participants were less confident when it came to naming the former secretary of state’s actual accomplishments.
“I really can’t name anything off the top of my head,” said Ryan, the event planner.
Following a brief silence, a 22-year-old student named Amanda added, “I honestly can’t say I followed along [with] everything that was going on.”
I believe that is probably a very honest statement.
[NOTE: I couldn’t resist the title of this post; I think that’s the main reason I decided to write it.
In case you need a memory refresh:
Interesting to watch that now, isn’t it?]
Hillary’s troubles continue
There’s a lot of turmoil roiling around Hillary Clinton today, so much that she actually deigned to answer a few questions for a change.
One piece of news was a ruling re the release of her emails by the State Department:
Hillary Clinton and the State Department on Tuesday insisted they are not slow-walking the public release of her emails during her time as secretary of state, while a federal judge ordered up a plan for a rolling release of the hotly anticipated documents.
“Nobody has a bigger interest in getting them released than I do,” Clinton said…
Shades of Whitewater, OJ seeking his wife’s killer, and Obama being the last to find out about everything bad that he’s done.
She says she has no control over the emails because they’re not hers any more. Of course, she made sure of that by destroying the ones she felt like destroying and turning over to State the ones she felt like sharing:
Clinton has said she turned over all messages that were arguably work-related, but decided to delete a roughly equal number of messages that her lawyers determined were personal or private in nature.
What a charade.
But does the public care? Stalwart Democrats will support her no matter what. The question is whether there are enough distrustful swing voters (especially women) to make a difference.
Put on your red dress, baby
…cause we’re goin’ out tonight. That’s the way the song goes:
We brunettes are aware that red is a very good color for us, but all reds are not created equal. For brunettes, the less orange and the more towards the blue end of the spectrum, the better. Here’s an excellent example that caught my eye, worn by Bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai:
I had a dress of that hue when I was about twelve (not the same style, though!) and I recognized even then that the color was flattering. Aishwarya Rai is well aware of the same thing.
But why, oh why, a dress that hits the woman at the wrong place? The pouffy part of the skirt starts just a mite too low and makes it seem as though the dress started out thinking one thing and then changed its mind at the last minute. And the back is just awful; it looks as though they forgot to put a back on at all and instead left a 1950’s undergarment exposed.
I realize that’s the point, but ugh!:
[NOTE: That lyric in the song about putting on high heeled sneakers and a wig hat makes me wonder what he’s talking about. I was around back in ’63, and I sure don’t remember any high-heeled sneakers, just plain old Keds. And although there were hats galore, I don’t recall a wig hat, but here are some people speculating about what it might mean.
This quirk of lyric was transferred to another dress-color song, “Devil With the Blue Dress On,” which debuted a year later in 1964 (here’s a slightly later version that changed the “the” in the title to an “a”):
Look at Molly now [or look out once again, now], here she comes
Wearin’ her wig hat and shades to match
She’s got high-heel shoes and an alligator hat
Wearin’ her pearls and her diamond rings
She’s got bracelets on her fingers, now, and everything
She’s the devil with the blue dress, blue dress, blue dress,
Devil with the blue dress on…
She’s a little more dressed up in the jewelry department, but the basics of wig hat and high heels are there. The heels are not sneakers, however.
And then there’s the alligator hat. I’ve seen alligator bags, alligator shoes, and alligator belts. But if she had on a hat like this, Mollie needs to consult with a stylist, pronto:
On the other hand, it could have been this:
Better.]
Why have Republican “debates” at all?
I put the word “debates” in scare quotes because they aren’t really debates.
What they are at this point is an opportunity for the MSM to play “gotcha” and elicit a series of sound bites that will make each Republican candidate in turn look bad, as well as a chance to have the candidates tear each other down and weaken the eventual nominee. Why should the Democrats work any harder than they have to?
It’s high time—in fact, way past the time—Republicans learned that making nice to the MSM will get them noting but grief, and that it isn’t even necessary. Both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have successfully thumbed their noses at the media and it has paid off for them. I realize the Republicans are in a position that is the polar opposite because the MSM is on the other side. But that doesn’t change the fact that the MSM has become more openly biased and more and more unnecessary, so why bother?
[NOTE: Drew M. at Ace’s suggests a candidate forum as an alternative.]
Now, here’s a response to the Iraq War question
From Liz Cheney:
When will the media ask @BarackObama & @HillaryClinton key question for 2016- Knowing what we know now, would you still have abandoned Iraq?
Indeed.
Lethal biker brawl
Most of you have probably read about the fight yesterday between two rival motorcycle gangs in Waco, Texas, in which nine people were killed and at least 18 injured.
To call these groups “motorcycle gangs” is a bit like calling Genghis Khan and his Mongol hordes “horseback riders.” A mode of transportation is not a completely adequate description.
Not all the articles about the fight explain who was fighting here. These gangs bear a mild resemblance (although not a stylistic one) to the gangs of the prohibition era (see this, for example), in that they also tussle for control of various criminal operations, and are not at all averse to murdering each other in public or semi-public places. The criminal operation in the case of the earlier groups was mainly alcohol; these days it’s apparently meth. The targets of the violence of both types of group have mostly been each other rather than bystanders.
Here’s an informative article from about a year and a half ago on violent biker gangs. Here’s another article of similar vintage. As for race and ethnic origin—which don’t appear to be large motivating factors here—the protagonists seem to be mostly white with some Hispanics as well. For example, despite its name, the “Banditos” are predominantly white although with some Hispanic members, whereas the “Cossacks” are even more white in makeup.
In summary:
Sgt Swanton…added: “This is not a bunch of doctors and dentists and lawyers riding Harleys. These are criminals on Harley-Davidsons.”
Criminals who have a worldwide reach. The phenomenon and the membership is not limited to the US:
Worldwide, the Bandidos were involved in the “Great Nordic Biker War” with Hells Angels in Scandinavia from 1994 to 1997…
They were also involved in the largest mass killing in the history of Ontario, Canada, when they carried out an “internal cleansing” in 2006. Eight members were found shot dead in cars.