Sunday, January 08, 2017

So Are We Bigots If This Makes Us Vomit?

So Are We Bigots If This Makes Us Vomit?:
"So recently Cosmo posted this little nugget:
“It’s a rare condition called genetic sexual attraction.” 
Uh…let’s call it what it is, shall we? 
It’s INCEST. 
I read the whole story and essentially some woman gave her son up for adoption, they were then reunited. 
Now they’re in love and they don’t care who knows! 
NOTHING’S GONNA STOP THEM NOW! 
Other than maybe the law, but whatever.
So of course the lashback on Twitter is strong. 
It’s what you hope it would be, really. 
People are absolutely condemning Cosmo for publishing a story that treats incest as just some run-of-the-mill thing. 
Even their little “genetic sexual attraction” (or GSA for short) aims at taking the icky out of incest.
@Cosmopolitan We have reached the point where the slippery slope has become a vertical 300 foot cliff.
@Cosmopolitan This us the inevitable result of 16yrs of democrat "leadership" and their war on morals.
@Cosmopolitan Don't listen to the haters. Thanks for retweeting this article from last year. GSA is real & consenting adults should be free.
Oh my…here we go. “GSA” is real! 
Consenting adults should be free!”...
Incestophobia! 
It’s the new cool term on the block! 
I can’t wait for people to start accusing conservatives of being “incestophobic...”

Ebony Magazine: Hate Crimes Can't Be Committed Against White People Or Cops

Ebony Magazine: Hate Crimes Can't Be Committed Against White People Or Cops | The Daily Caller:
"On Wednesday, Ebony Magazine’s Jamilah Lemieux criticized the use of the phrase “hate crime” in association with the five white Dallas police officers who were killed claiming that using the phrase with a “majority group… gets into very tricky territory.”
Jamilah Lemieux, Screen Grab CNN, 7-13-2016Appearing on “CNN Newsroom” with guest host Ana Cabrera, Lemieux said, “I have to say, I would not describe hate crime as the most comfortable word choice, considering these circumstances. 
There’s so much that we do not know about what took place, what motivated this person. We only have the one account of law enforcement.
...“When we use a phrase like ‘hate crime,’ we’re typically referring to crimes against people of color, people of various religious groups, LGBT people, people who have been historically attacked, abused or disenfranchised on the basis of their identity.
To now extend that to the majority group and a group of people that have a history with African-Americans that has been abusive, and we can apply that to either police officers or to Caucasians,
I think gets into very tricky territory...”

More on this hero-----Chairlift rescue story from hero Mickey Wilson

Chairlift rescue story from hero Mickey Wilson (column) | SummitDaily.com:
"Twenty-eight-year-old Mickey Wilson already had an impressive resume Wednesday morning when he headed to Arapahoe Basin Ski Area to ski the deep powder.
By noon, he would — reluctantly — add “hero” to a list of scholarly and athletic accomplishments.
Thousands of Facebook video views, amplified by national television news, metro and local dailies’ coverages, tell of Mickey’s lifesaving efforts on the Lenawee Lift in which his friend had become entangled, being literally strangled unconscious by his own backpack strap.
...after graduating from Durango High School, went onto to be a top scholar at the Colorado School of Mines, and in recent years has become one of the world’s best pro slackliners, a form of aerial dare-deviling.
He is also a part-time ski instructor at A-Basin, but was not working Wednesday.
This is Mickey’s take on the day’s events shared on his Facebook page:
“Today, I saved someone’s life..."
READ ON!!!

DNC rejected FBI request to examine hacked email server, law enforcement official says – TheBlaze

DNC rejected FBI request to examine hacked email server, law enforcement official says – TheBlaze:

"The FBI “repeatedly stressed” the importance of accessing the hacked email server of the Democratic National Committee. But one senior law enforcement official now tells TheBlaze that DNC officials rejected its requests.

The news comes just hours after it was reported the FBI never examined the DNC server, which the bureau and multiple other U.S. intelligence agencies say was hacked by the Russian government"

Colorado snow country stuff

Waiting for the bus to return us from Copper Mtn back to the Frisco bus lot we chatted with an old geezer in a Copper Mtn. Ambassador outfit.
They're the volunteers who help skiers and others on the mountain.
He made mention that he was once a pilot and Honeybumps bugged me to get more info.
We sat together on the bus so I asked about his life.
Jack was typically modest but admitted he'd retired from the US Army decades ago.
I bugged him for more.
Joined Army in 1950s.
Saw all of Viet Nam.
82nd airborne.
Then a Huey pilot in Nam.
Finished as officer in Office of Inspector General.
85 now.
Quit skiing a couple of years ago after his 2nd bionic part, a new shoulder, but enjoys helping out people at Copper.
Keeps him young, he says.
Wife still an Ambassador and skis like a maniac.
Says they call her the "Silver Tornado".
I imagine they're quite a couple.
It was an honor to sit with this American.
Lots of 'em here.
Lots of 'em all over America.

AM Fruitcake

Ain't seein' no CNN, MSNBC, CNBC there!

History for January 8


History for January 8 - On-This-Day.com:
James Longstreet 1821 - U.S. Civil War general, Soupy Sales (Milton Hines) 1926 - Comedian (Host: The Soupy Sales Show), Elvis Presley 1935 - Musician, known as "the King of rock 'n' roll"


Yvette Mimieux 1941 - Actress ("The Time Machine", "The Most Deadly Game"), Stephen Hawking 1942 - Theoretical physicist, writer ("A Brief History of Time"), David Bowie (David Robert Jones) 1947 Singer, movies ("The Man Who Fell to Earth", "Labyrinth", "Basquiat"), Broadway ("The Elephant Man")


1642 - Astronomer Galileo Galilei died in Arcetri, Italy.


1815 - The Battle of New Orleans began. The War of 1812 had officially ended on December 24, 1814, with the signing of the Treaty of Ghent. The news of the signing had not reached British troops in time to prevent their attack on New Orleans.


1889 - The tabulating machine was patented by Dr. Herman Hollerith. His firm, Tabulating Machine Company, later became International Business Machines Corporation (IBM).


1918 - U.S. President Woodrow Wilson announced his Fourteen Points as the basis for peace upon the end of World War I.


1958 - Bobby Fisher, at the age of 14, won the United States Chess Championship for the first time.


1964 - U.S. President Lyndon Johnson declared a "War on Poverty."







1994 - Tonya Harding won the ladies' U.S. Figure Skating Championship in Detroit, MI, a day after Nancy Kerrigan dropped out because of a clubbing attack that injured her right knee. The U.S. Figure Skating Association later took the title from Harding because of her involvement in the attack.


1998 - Ramzi Yousef was sentenced to life in prison for his role of mastermind behind the World Trade Center bombing in New York.

Saturday, January 07, 2017

Obama responds to Chicago torture video by saying race relations are not worsening – TheBlaze

Obama responds to Chicago torture video by saying race relations are not worsening – TheBlaze:

"Many may disagree with Obama, as groups such as Black Lives Matter have gained traction throughout the country, which has a bad reputation for elevating people such as Malik Shabazz, who is known to advocate for race wars in America. It’s been reported that members also teach their students that white people are inherently evil, "

Anti-Trumpers Hyperventilate Over Nothingburger Story About U.S. Ambassadors Leaving After Inauguration Day

Anti-Trumpers Hyperventilate Over Nothingburger Story About U.S. Ambassadors Leaving After Inauguration Day - Hit & Run : Reason.com:
"...The New York Times needs to breathe into a paper bag.
Last night, The Paper of Record dropped this bit of alarmism into the anti-Trump slipstream. 
Here's how Times columnist Charles M. Blow shared the news on Twitter:


When you pick through the article's alarmist adjectives to get down to the underlying facts, you're left with this nut: 
Politically appointed American ambassadors (i.e., those selected by the president from outside the Foreign Service, usually from a pool that coincidentally overlaps with his biggest donors and bundlers), by tradition, end their terms on Inauguration Day. 
Usually the president grants waivers to extend the terms of those who need a little extra time for stuff like not disrupting kids' school years. 
This time around, the incoming Trump administration has told the political ambassadors that there will be no waivers. 
Among the phrases and quotes used to characterize this move: "quite extraordinary," "exacerbates jitters among allies," "spite and payback," "guillotine," and so on. 
Among the relevant notions the article leaves out: How many ambassadors are "political" (usually about one-third), and how many of them will be impacted by this change. For the latter, let's go to Associated Press diplomatic correspondent Matt Lee:
In the past two inter-party transitions (Clinton-Bush, Bush-Obama) only about 10 political ambos have gotten extensions, per officials. https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/817185679503425536 
I suppose "Trump inconveniences 10 families" isn't a particularly sexy story, so we're left with heavy breathing like this: 
"The directive has…upended the personal lives of many ambassadors, who are scrambling to secure living arrangements and acquire visas allowing them to remain in their countries so their children can remain in school." 
In other words, a handful of very rich people find themselves having to navigate the same disruptions that multiple military families face every damned day. 
(Also, re: "scrambling to…acquire visas," each of the four postings referenced in the article—Costa Rica, the Czech Republic, Belgium, and Switzerland—allow U.S. citizens to visit without a visa for up to 90 days, which means that those dreaded disrupted school years can likely be stitched together via a single trip outside the country on, say, Easter.)
Part of the attempt at controversy here involves an unrealistic notion of what a U.S. ambassador actually does."

How the collapse of the USSR felt from the inside

How the collapse of the USSR felt from the inside:
USA-USSR self-destruction

A reflection by a witness 25 years later
By Oleg Atbashian | First published in FrontPage Mag 12/30/2016

25 years ago George Bush Sr. was still in office, and so was Saddam Hussein. The European Union didn't exist and neither did China's economic powerhouse. The Berlin wall had just come down and Germany had finally reunited. Hillary Clinton was a little-known mouthy First Lady of Arkansas and the media gleefully predicted that Donald Trump would never climb back to the top after his Atlantic City fiasco.

On the other side of the Iron Curtain, the Eastern bloc was in shambles, but the USSR was still standing with Mikhail Gorbachev at the helm. Vladimir Putin dabbled in minor corruption working for the Mayor of Saint Petersburg, which had just been renamed from Leningrad. The KGB meddled in other countries' affairs as usual, spreading "fake news" and helping leftist politicians to win elections with no objections from the Western mainstream media.

Then, all of a sudden, the USSR disappeared from the map. How did that happen? Political scientists have and will continue to write, with varying degree of accuracy, about the details of it. What I'm attempting to do here is describe how it looked and felt from the inside - as seen by me, who at the time happened to be a voiceless, powerless Soviet citizen trying to make sense of the universe..."
Read on!

The Washington Post Needs To Come Clean About Its Russian Hacking Story Fiasco

The Washington Post Needs To Come Clean About Its Russian Hacking Story Fiasco | Stock News & Stock Market Analysis - IBD:
"When a company fails at its basic mission in a way that harms the public, and then tries to mislead the public about it, newspaper reporters can be counted on to immediately swoop in and demand that the company be held to account.
So what happens when the company in question is a major, highly influential newspaper?
Let's see.
On Friday, the Washington Post published an earth-shattering report that Russian hackers had infiltrated the U.S. electricity grid through a Vermont utility.
...This was huge news, and for good reason.
If Russian hackers, or any hackers for that matter, had found their way into the U.S. electricity grid, there would be almost no end to the harm they could cause.
Not surprisingly, the Post story spread like wildfire.
But it turns out that none of it was true.
Zip.
Zero.
Nada.
There was no code, the grid was never at risk, and the "threat," such as it was, had nothing to do with Russia.
In fact, hours after the story posted, it was updated to note that the utility in question said there was only one computer involved — not "computers" — which wasn't in any way connected to the power grid.
Strike one.
Three days later, the story fell apart completely. 
What actually happened: "An employee at Burlington Electric Department was checking his Yahoo email account Friday and triggered an alert indicating that his computer had connected to a suspicious IP address," the Post reported on Monday..."
Read on!