Kicked in the Balls? Kick Back!

Hiroshima. One bomb did this.

My first real job was at NVCC in Annandale, Va.  My boss was George T. and he was from West (by God) Virginia. We got on really well, peer to peer, and one day he was venting over something that CFO had done. He put it exactly like this: “I don’t mind when they shit on my head, but it really pisses me off when they rub it in.” Old West (by God) Virginia saying, he said.

Well, the terrorists have shit on the heads of the free world a lot lately, and now they have rubbed it in. In fact, they have Kicked America in the BALLS and laughed about it. They have executed a Son of the Country in the most brutal way, and threatened more of the same. And they expect us to bow and scrape and go away.

BALLS TO THAT is my opinion. Mr. President, time to show us your “package” and bomb these bastards into oblivion. If you think the liberals of the country won’t back you on this, all I can say is that I am one liberal who would. Boots on the ground? No, I don’t want that. But if it takes an invasion to wipe these Mothers off the Face of the Earth, then the whole of the rest of the world better pony up some invaders. A Crusade would be nice. And not some half-assed crappy punitive raid either. The Full Monty.

Image: http://www.worldwar2database.com/sites/default/files/wwii1228.jpg

Sly.

Sly: Crafty or cunning; or, short for Sylvia or Sylvester.

"Vicki and Me celebrating her remission."

I always wondered why some people were called “Sly” when the connotations were not often thought of as nice. People would say “he is a sly bastard” and mean cunning or tricky. Sly Stallone, was he a cunning and tricky bastard? Sly Matthews, was she a cunning and tricky bastard. No, to me she was a warm woman with a generous streak a mile wide who loved to read and liked good beer from time to time.

I “met” her in a strange way though Nicola Griffith. I read all of Nicola's novels and commented on her web page and subsequently joined a Yahoo group started by Nicola. I shared a few things and Sly and a few others responded. Sly was always good for a book recommendation or a comment on something I had written. One of the early memories of Sly was her explaining how "Sylvia" became "Sly". She told me people constantly misspelled "Sylvia" so she just gave up and became "Sly".

 It is really interesting how meeting people has migrated to include ethereal contacts over vast distances of every imaginable metric, and how some of those met in the cyber sphere are friends like others met in person. Some, indeed, better.
The plan to share an hour or two with Sly and to share a brew are now history, and the friendship is now memory. Fond memories to be sure.

Thanks to NG and KE for keeping the list alive, and to all my friends on the list. Sal and I raised a glass (or two) last night to Sly.  It would be a pleasure to not only raise a glass “to” you all, but with you as well. Who knows, maybe someday?

Image: Sly’s Facebook album

Watching Again, Eh God?

OR YOU CAN LOSE YOUR HEAD.

Foley’s Pastor says “There are no words to describe this kind of inhumanity.” Yes Pastor, there are words, and those words are simply “Where Was Your God?” The answer is “Watching”.  Who needs a god like that?

You see the problem here is that the God of Foley was also the God of the killer. So having a conflict of interest, I guess he/she decided to sit this one out and watch from the sidelines.

The news is full of horror every day. And people of faith, good people, write it off as if they really don’t believe that their god is willing/able/interested in doing anything. So we hear “pray for the families.” If it didn’t help to pray for the victim , why would it help to ask for relief for the families? So maybe it goes like this:

“God, we beseech thee to spare the life of (name here). He/she is a godly person and a good person who doesn’t deserve to be beheaded.” The beheading goes ahead as planned so:

“God, since in your merciful wisdom you chose to not save (name here) from beheading, we beseech you to bless the family of (name here) and relieve their pain and suffering.” The pain and suffering doesn't stop so:

“God, you son-of-a-bitch, where are you?” No answer, so:

Got any booze or drugs?

Image: http://www.nice2knownisha.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/trust.jpg

Expression of God’s Love or Man’s Love?

A group of well-trained amateurs and a vibrant leader put on a “gospel” type show on a street corner, praising “God’s Love”. Joyful and energetic. Uplifting. Even inspiring. But to mistake this putative outpouring of “Human Love” for “God’s Love” is a long stretch.

If I were to sing praises to a rock, to profess love for a rock and to worship a rock, that would be an indication of my love for the rock. Unless the rock did something to reciprocate, I would have no measure of the rock’s love for me. See? The point is this: when something awful happens, and people assemble, sing, dance and pray, that is not an expression of “God’s Love”. That is an expression of the people’s faith. God is absent from these events. One might ask “where was God when the boy was gunned down?” Probably watching. But loving the boy? Loving the hundreds of people injured as a result? Loving mankind so much that millions of Believers are butchered every year?

No, to me the answer is clear: If God there be, then God be watching. Not helping. Not intervening and certainly not loving. You don’t “love” someone and watch them suffer according to some “perfect plan” without helping. If there be God, then God has a funny way of “loving” his adoring masses. Makes absolutely no sense at all to me.

Image: http://37.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_laq19bkC4g1qcc4zuo1_500.jpg

Beam Me Up Scotty or Pseudoscience Strikes Again.

"Scientists Report Teleportation of Physical Objects From One Location To Another" (1). And here is another perfect example of real science being used to “prove” pseudoscientific claims. In a a nutshell, quantum “teleportation” occurs when the characteristics of one atom are transferred to another not in the proximity of the first thorough “quantum entanglement”. No discussion of that here, but there are lots of experimental examples of this. Note that the characteristics of the atom are moved, not that atom itself, resulting in the putative physical transfer of the object.

Now jump to a claim that a series of experiments conducted in China in 1981 (2) that claim children were able to teleport physical objects such as watches and horseflies by using mind power and a “fourth dimension”.  China? In 1981? Unsubstiated and not reproducible? Never been done under controlled contitions anywhere else? These claims are TODAY being used to show that actual teleportation is real.

Yes, wacko pseudoscience using a relatively new discovery to “prove” a debunked old one. There is no end to the crap the human mind can come up with. Sometimes, though, the crap turns to gold. Not in this case though. Pure CRAP.

1. http://www.collective-evolution.com/2014/01/16/scientists-report-teleportation-of-physical-objects-from-one-location-to-another/

2. Ziran Zazhi (Nature Journal) tilted “Some Experiments on the Transfer of Objects Performed by Unusual Abilities of the Human Body” (Shuhuang et al., 1981)

Image: http://www.hayadan.org.il/images/content3/2013/01/ST-TOS-transport-580x411-500x354.jpg

And The World Watches

European invaders promoted genocide on Native American people in the first wave of conquest. “Americans” tried to finish off the genocide on indigenous people from the beginnings of the country. Germany killed more than 8 million civilians, mostly Jews. Russia killed more than 20 million people, many Jews, mostly ethnic Russians. Cambodians killed millions of Cambodians in the “killing fields” of Cambodia. Rwandans killed millions of Rwandans. Bosnian Serbs killed hundreds of thousands of ethnic Croatians. Sudanese militants ethnically cleansed millions of Sudanese civilians. Nigerians  ethnically cleanse Nigerians. The Syrian government is killing Syrian civilians by the thousands.

And now, ISIS is killing thousands of civilians in a move to ethnically cleanse their “Caliphate”.

Any common thread here?  You bet. Genocide.

Any other? Oh Yes!!!!. The world WATCHED AND DID NOTHING. And the world is watching the Middle East now and doing nothing. The murdering Islamic State “soldiers” are killing anyone they want to: Every ethnic or religious group different from them, and any Muslim who is viewed as “moderate” by the uneducated and ignorant “soldiers”.

AND THE WORLD DOES NOTHING.

What should the world do? Get together and stand up for the battered groups and fight against the aggressors. It was never truer than now, that if you don’t prevent some hostile aggressor from taking your neighbor, you will be next on the list, and there will not be a neighbor to help you.

I can’t begin to explain how deeply divided I am over all this. We lost over 4000 lives in Iraq, and left a failed state. Now, the results of that are easily seen: Chaos in the Middle East. A band of Islamic extremists taking over vast parts of 2 countries and looking for more. Next may be Iran or Jordan. Then what? Somewhere a fight must start, and the Nations of the World must win. All the nations. The big powers like Russia, China, the European Union, Great Britain, the USA, Brazil and others.

Like an infestation of rats in an apartment house, everybody has to cooperate to exterminate the problem, and not leave someplace as a safe haven.

And yes, the soldiers of freedom will once again die and families will grieve. The alternative is so much worse it doesn’t bear considering.

These people will not stop until they get the World. Unless they are stopped once and for all times. How? What do you always do with rats? And the world should get rid of the Rats who are paying the bill for the Islamic State to  prosecute a war of terror. I wonder who those Rats are?

Image: http://images.smh.com.au/2009/12/27/1000767/rats1-420x0.jpg