Something I had run across a little while back and saved it.  I figured with the Olympics coming up, this will help 'splain a few things.   I guess I will have to ask Old NFO about Australians since I really don't know any and he goes there a lot.

CULTURAL DIFFERENCES EXPLAINED

AUSSIES: Dislike being mistaken for Poms when abroad.
CANADIANS: Are rather indignant about being mistaken for Americans when abroad.
AMERICANS: Encourage being mistaken for Canadians when abroad.
BRITS: Can't possibly be mistaken for anyone else when abroad.

AUSSIES: Believe you should look out for your mates.
BRITS: Believe that you should look out for those people who belong to your club.
AMERICANS: Believe that people should look out for them.
CANADIANS: Believe that that's the government's job.

AUSSIES: Are extremely patriotic to their beer.
AMERICANS: Are flag-waving, anthem-singing, and obsessively patriotic to the point of blindness.
CANADIANS: Can't agree on the words to their anthem, when they can be bothered to sing them.
BRITS: Do not sing at all but prefer a large brass band to perform the anthem.

AMERICANS: Spend most of their lives glued to the idiot box.
CANADIANS: Don't, but only because they can't get more American channels.
BRITS: Pay a tax just so they can watch four channels.
AUSSIES: Export all their crappy programs, which no-one there watches, to Britain, where everybody loves them.

AMERICANS: Will jabber on incessantly about football, baseball, and basketball.
BRITS: Will jabber on incessantly about cricket, soccer, and rugby.
CANADIANS: Will jabber on incessantly about hockey, hockey, hockey, hockey, and how they beat the Americans twice, playing baseball.
AUSSIES: Will jabber on incessantly about how they beat the Poms in everything.

AMERICANS: Spell words differently, but still call it "English".
BRITS: Pronounce their words differently, but still call it "English".
CANADIANS: Spell like the BRITS, pronounce like AMERICANS.
AUSSIES: Add "G'day" "mate" and a heavy accent to everything they say in an attempt to get sex.

BRITS: Shop at home and have goods imported because they live on an island.
AUSSIES: Shop at home and have goods imported because they live on an island.
AMERICANS: Cross the southern border for cheap shopping, gas, and liquor in a backward country.
CANADIANS: Cross the southern border for cheap shopping, gas, and liquor in a backward country.

AMERICANS: Drink weak, pissy-tasting beer.
CANADIANS: Drink strong, pissy-tasting beer.
BRITS: Drink warm, beery-tasting piss.
AUSSIES: Drink anything with alcohol in it.

AMERICANS: Seem to think that poverty and failure are morally suspect.
CANADIANS: Seem to believe that wealth and success are morally suspect.
BRITS: Seem to believe that wealth, poverty, success and failure are inherited things.
AUSSIES: Seem to think that none of this matters after several beers.

New Safety video 80's style

I ran across video that was just released by Delta airlines, and safety video's are...well boring, but Delta did one with an 80's twist.  now anybody that reads my blog know that I am a great fan of the 80's, especially the music.  Some of the other stuff well I could do without.   I was able to come into work, and I had to take it slow, due to the ice and snow.  I have no problem driving in it.  After driving in Germany for 5 years, I picked up a few tricks.
  I tell people there are several rules for driving in the snow...
    1.   Don't speed...you ain't gonna get there any sooner...you will just eat a guard rail or something.
    2.  Don't use the brakes..use the natural compression of the engine to slow down.
    3.  Plan your stops and turns WELL in advance....No sudden movements.
    4.  Use the lowest RPM possible, your tires have contact with the snow and Ice, and sudden changes will           cause the contact to break and you start sliding.
    5.   If you start to slide, turn your front wheels in the direction of the slide, you will be able to maintain a modicum of control on your vehicle...and DON'T slam on the brakes....You will be screwed for sure.   Your car will slow down and you can regain control and continue on your merry way.....Slowly.
    6.  if you have a rear wheel drive car, make sure your gas tank is full, it gives you weight over the axle.  I also rode with 300 pounds of masonry in the trunk of my mustang to give it extra weight so the tires can better handle the snow while I was stationed in Germany.  Today  I used my front wheel drive car today and had no problems.   I still miss the Mustang though.  I traded it back in 1991 for a F150 XLT.
 
   

   Well here is the safety Video.

Monday Music "Eddie and the Cruisers" ON THE DARK SIDE

     Here is another installment of my "Monday Music" that got published on Tuesday...Hey it happens sometimes.   Well a lot actually.   But even though it is on Tuesday, I still call it "Monday Music.......SO there.........;)
I was in Stationed in Germany when I started to hear about "Eddie and the Cruisers".  The way it was played I wasn't sure if "Eddie and the cruisers" were real or a made up band like the ""The Monkees"
 I had a bit of doubts the way the movie was made, to me it made you wonder.   I know that "Eddie and the Cruisers was done by "John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band" that made several popular sound tracks for movies like "Rocky III" among others.   I still enjoyed the music, The album was a good "road trip" cassette for my travels in the Autobahns in my Mustang.   THey later released an album "Eddie and the Cruisers II".  It was a good album, not in my opinion quite as good as the first, but still a very good one.  I took both cassettes with me to the Gulf when we deployed and I played the hell out of my cassette player.  I still have that cassette player, one of the doors are missing and it was full of sand but it still is functional/   One day I will do a post on it.. and include some pictures of the player.

Vance asked Davidson to describe his fictitious band and their music. Initially, Davidson said that the Cruisers sounded like Dion and the Belmonts, but when they meet Frank, they have elements of Jim Morrison and The Doors. However, Davidson did not want to lose sight of the fact that the Cruisers were essentially a Jersey bar band and he thought of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. The filmmaker told Vance to find him someone that could produce music that contained elements of these three bands. Davidson was getting close to rehearsals when Vance called him and said that he had found the band - John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band from Providence, Rhode Island. Davidson met the band and realized that they closely resembled the band as described in the script, right down to a Cape Verdean saxophone player, whom he cast in the film. Initially, Cafferty was hired to write a few songs for the film, but he did such a good job of capturing the feeling of the 1960s and 1980s that Davidson asked him to score the film.
After successful screenings on HBO in 1984, the album suddenly climbed the charts, going quadruple platinum. The studio re-released the soundtrack in the fall of 1984. Nine months after the film was released in theaters, the main song in the film, "On the Dark Side" was the number one song in the country on Billboard's Mainstream, Rock, and Heatseeker charts; and #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Another single from the film, "Tender Years", peaked at #31 on the Billboard Hot 100.
   
    
Eddie and the Cruisers was originally intended to open during the summer but a scheduling error resulted in a September release when its target audience - teenagers - were back in school. The film had its world premiere at Deauville. Embassy Pictures threw a promotional party for the film at a West Hollywood dance club in September, 1983 where Cafferty and his band played.
The film was a box office flop, receiving many negative to mixed reviews from critics. The film was released into theaters on September 23, 1983 and grossed USD $1.4 million on its opening weekend. It would go on to make a paltry $4.7 million in North America. The film was pulled from theaters after three weeks and all of the promotional ads pulled after one week.
(In the fall of 1984, the single "On the Dark Side" from the soundtrack album suddenly climbed the charts, as the film was rediscovered on cable television and home video, prompting the studio to briefly re-release the album.)

     Eddie and the Cruisers was not well received by critics. Roger Ebert gave the film two out of four stars and wrote, "the ending is so frustrating, so dumb, so unsatisfactory, that it gives a bad reputation to the whole movie". In her review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote, "Some of the details ring uncannily true, like the slick oldies nightclub act that one of the Cruisers is still doing nearly 20 years after Eddie's supposed death. Other aspects of the film are inexplicably wrong. Eddie's music sounds good, but it also sounds a lot like Bruce Springsteen's, and it would not have been the rage in 1963". However, she did praise Pare's performance: "Mr. Pare makes a fine debut; he captures the manner of a hot-blooded young rocker with great conviction, and his lip-synching almost perfect". Gary Arnold, in the Washington Post, wrote, "At any rate, it seemed to me that what Eddie and the Cruisers aspired to do was certainly worth doing. The problem is that it finally lacks the storytelling resources to tell enough of an intriguing story about a musical mystery man"

Something to think about

Several things are going on right now...This is to the bloggers out there.....Have you had a post that was trying to get out and things keep conspiring to keep you away from the keyboards?...Well this is one of those.   Between stuff at home, and going out camping in the COLD with the Boy Scouts I have been very busy.  I am forcing myself to slow down so I can get this post out that has been fermenting in my brain...Cool mental picture ain't it?   Well here it goes....

I have heard from Eric Erickson at RedState.com that the house republicans are planning a revolt against the leadership for supporting Amnesty for the illegals that are here.  Now as much as I would like to deport all of them...realistically that is not an option.  First off secure the borders.  Back when Ronald Reagan was President, there was amnesty for the illegals, and part of the deal was to secure the borders.  Well the party in charge of congress(Heathen godless,amoral,American hating, race baiting Democrats and Tip Oneal said "yep" we will secure the border".  Well it has been what almost 30 years and the border is as porous as before.  And now as part of Obunglercare mandate that was touted by dear leader was the 30 million uninsured Americans and they need to have coverage...Well part of that 30 million was the 12 million illegals that keep coming over the border.  And their numbers are increasing.  

   Part of the problems is that the illegals use the emergency rooms at the hospital for care and they don't pay.  Under federal law I think it is Esserra or something like that, I am going from memory.  The hospitals have to treat the indigent, they can't use "patient dumping" and send the patient to another hospital. 
     Like I stated, sending them all back is an attractive option, but not realistic.  I honestly believe that the best option is that we get a guest worker program in place for them, not a path of citizenship and they can't make use of all the social services...like welfare and Hell to the NO in the Anchor babies.  That is crap.  We cheapen our citizenship by doing this stuff.  No other country in the world just "Gives" their citizenship away like we do.  And they use it to get a lock on all the government freebees that are available.  The people that come over, they have no wish to become American citizens, they believe that they are on a manifest destiny to reconquer the southwest United States and instead of using an armed army, they are using an army of illegals.

     The activist that are helping to push this don't mention this part around "Gringo's"  It might scare them.  They only talk about this amongst themselves.  But there has been enough writings and interviews out there that the veil is lifting on the purpose and they use our own laws against us.  Here in the United States, we have a system of laws, and the rule of law.  Where they come from...There is
 no rule of law....Just the Rule of Man and as corrupt as it is.

 
     Again they have no desire to be American citizens,  they want to keep their own national identity not as Americans, but Mexicans first.  Now I am a student of history, and any culture that lets it be pushed aside doesn't last the test of history.  We will be like the Romans when they let the Visigoths in to provide cheap labor and to staff the legion, for the average Roman, there was no desire to serve, to preserve their culture, they believed that they should get everything because they were Romans and they didn't have to work for it.   Sounds familiar?
Just One State - be sure and read the last part..From the Botox Queen

This is only one State.................If this doesn't open eyes, nothing will!

From the L. A. Times 1. 40% of all workers in L. A. County ( L. A. County    has 10.2 million people) are working for cash and not paying taxes. This is because they are predominantly illegal immigrants working without a green card. 2.  95% of warrants for murder in Los Angeles are for illegal aliens. 3.  75% of people on the most wanted list in Los Angeles are illegal aliens. 4. Over 2/3 of all births in Los Angeles County are to illegal alien Mexicans on Medi-Cal, whose births were paid for by taxpayers. 5. Nearly 35% of all inmates in California detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally. 6. Over 300,000 illegal aliens in   Los Angeles County are living in garages. 7... The FBI reports half of all gang members in Los Angeles are most likely illegal aliens from south of the border. 8 Nearly 60% of all occupants of HUD properties are illegal. 9. 21 radio stations in L. A. are Spanish speaking. 10. In L.. A. County 5.1 million people speak English, 3.9 million speak Spanish.. (There are 10.2 million people in L. A. County ..) (All 10 of the above facts were published in the Los Angeles Times) Less than 2% of illegal aliens are picking our crops, but 29% are on welfare. Over 70% of the  United States ' annual population growth(and over 90% of California , Florida , and New York ) results from immigration. 29% of inmates in federal prisons are illegal aliens . Now What is in for the party of "Gimmedats"  Well Democrats believe that if they can tie the hispanic vote to their standard like they did to the blacks with the civil rights acts, they will have an election proof majority and they will always have the reins of power and never lose an election again.    You gotta understand, when the Democrats lost in 1994 it shocked them to the core and they realized that they have to ensure the survivial of their party above all else.  TO a democrat, it is Party First, then Family, then nation then God...Unless it is Gaia then that one gets moved to 2nd place.   Once you understand that, then you understand the mindset of the Average Democrat.    That is why they are pushing the amnesty wagon so hard.  They want to get a lock on the fastest growing demographic in the nation.       Now the Hispanics that have been here for generations don't like this, They earned their citizenship the old way and they appreciate it.  They loyalty is to this country and the many right as an American they earned through hard work and belief in this country and they see amnesty as cheapening the citizenship process and shortcutting it.

Windfall Tax on Retirement Income Adding a tax to your retirement is simply another way of saying to the American people, you're so darn stupid that we're going to keep doing this until we drain every cent from you. Nancy Pelosi wants a Windfall Tax on Retirement Income.  In other words tax what you have made by investing toward your retirement. This woman is a nut case! You aren't going to believe this. Nancy Pelosi wants to put a Windfall Tax on all stock market profits (including Retirement fund, 401K and Mutual Funds! She quotes...' We need to work toward the goal of equalizing income, (didn't Marx say something like this?), in our country and at the same time limiting the amount the rich can invest.'  When asked how these new tax dollars would be spent, she replied: 'We need to raise the standard of living of our poor, unemployed and minorities. For example, we have an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in our country who need our help along with millions of unemployed minorities. Stock market windfall profits taxes could go a long way to guarantee these people the standard of living they would like to have as 'Americans'.' (Read that quote again and again and let it sink in.)  'Lower your retirement, give it to others who have not worked as you have for it'.  I have a major problem with this.  I and my wife scrimp and save rather than have the latest and greatest because we know "Nobody takes better care of the OLD you than the YOUNG you." as a friend of mine at work would say.  And the idea of having our money seized and redistributed to lazy people to give them more money that THEY didn't earn by taking advantage of the opportunities of this country that abound, but rather than work, they took the slacker path then look to the government to provide for them because they are too lazy to do so?  Then they look at disdain at we the producers because they think they have it figured out.  Then people wonder why there is an undercurrent of anger in the country where the producers are going Galt in a big way.  The Exodus from California to the surround states is unreal, the looters move in from Mexico where you have Obama touting Food Stamps" in Mexican radio stations in Mexico and businesses fleeing the regulatory, legislative, judicial environment of California and then you have Botox Nancy whom is a millionaire by the way touting seizing more money from you and me to give to illegals and other slackers and I guarantee that whatever law they push through, THEY will be exempt from.

Mainstream Media kisses Obama's Posterior

I am vary busy right now so I can't do a rant myself, but I ran across this one from Neal Boortz and shamelessly ripped it off.  The pictures are compliments of my folder of political pics.

Right now the media owes 0bama and the Democrats.  Considering the scope of the 0bamacare roll-out cluster&#@k the media simply had to report on it or all semblance of credibility would be lost.  Now it’s payback time.  Now it’s time for the media to pay 0bama and the Democrats back for this insurrection, and they’re coming around big time.
            How?  Just how is the media paying 0bama back for their offensive 0bamacare reporting?  How do we know the media is back on track promoting the Democrat big-government mantra?  Look at the reporting on income equality --- and there you have it.
            Virtually everywhere you turn you’ll see stories in newspapers, on television and on radio about the scourge of income inequality.  Toss in the mindless Hollywood crowd and academia – professor-types generally unprepared to earn a living in the private sector – and you have one of the most intensive efforts to carry the Democrat’s message I’ve seen in decades.

            And why have the Democrats turned to this income inequality message?  Why do millionaire Democrat Senators and Congressmen stand in the well of the Senate and the House to piss and moan about how bad inequality is?  Come on now, this isn’t all that hard.  They are doing this for two reasons:  First, it gets the conversation away from the disaster that is 0bamacare.  Secondly, it works; and it works very, very well.
            Now we know the Democrats plan for this year’s mid-term elections, and we know just how the media is going to do what it has done for decades – help the Democrats add up the votes.   The dumb masses are going to be told that the reason they don’t have as much money as they might like is because evil rich people – who vote Republican – are taking all the money for themselves.  They will be told that the only way they’re ever going to have more money is if they elect more Democrats so that the Democrats can beat down these evil, greedy Republicans in congress and take more of that money away from the rich – money that was stolen from “working class” Americans – and give it to the poor.  One way to do this will be to raise the minimum wage.  These rich bastards are keeping that money for themselves when they should be paying it to their workers – and if you just elect enough Democrats they’ll put a stop to this greedy behavior.

            Again … let’s get back to education.  If it weren’t for the hideous quality of our state schools, this line of economic Bolshoi would never work.  Democrats absolutely depend on the economic ignorance of their voters to maintain power.  Right now you should be saying “Ah ha!  Of course!  THAT’S why Democrats are so dedicated to government education!”  See how easy this is to figure out when a little logic is applied?
            Here’s how easy this is.  There’s an economic pie out there.  A big pizza.  Some people have a bigger slice of that pizza than others.  The people with the smaller slices want more pizza.  That’s understandable.  Who doesn’t want more pizza?  Here’s where it gets so hard for the dumb masses.  Just how do you get more pizza?  Well … you could take pizza away from the people with the bigger slices and give it to the people with the smaller slices.  That way you get rid of all this pizza slice inequality.  One of the problems there might be that those people with the bigger slices might not work as hard to be able to afford their pizza if they’re just going to have it taken away from them.  Maybe they should just sit on their butts and wait for someone to take pizza away from someone else to give to them!
            But consider this!  What would happen if you just baked a bigger pizza?  If you had a bigger pizza then everyone could get a bigger slice!  What’s more, you could get a bigger slice without asking the government to take pizza away from someone else!
            The pizza, of course, is our economy.  If you want the poor to have more money you can either seize and redistribute income, or you can build a bigger economy.   The fact is that Democrats just suck at building a bigger, more prosperous economy.  They sick at the local level – most (if not all) cities in bankruptcy are Democrat-run.  They suck at the state level – states with the strongest economic growth by and large do not have Democrat legislatures and governors.  And they suck at the federal level.  0bama has been a complete and unmitigated disaster when it comes to economic growth.  Even with the growth in our population there are fewer people in this country with jobs right now than there were when 0bama took office.  I guess that’s the price we pay when we elect an anti-capitalist to be our Dear Ruler.

            But … these facts are lost on the dumb masses, and the media is going to make sure they don’t learn all that much between now and the election.  Sure, there are some outlets – Fox News, for instance – and talk show hosts who might try to spread the painful truth, but the Democrats and their media myrmidons will simply brand them as racists and brush them aside.
            In the meantime the voters are going to continue to be savaged by 0bamacare.  They’re going to face increases in their health insurance premiums for the government’s “one size fits all” medical insurance policies, and then they’ll pay their $5000 (or more)deductibles.  The outrage is going to grow, but the media will work to calm things down by hammering the income inequality line. Yeah … the dumb masses voters will love this income inequality campaign.  They’ll sit back in their government-educated stupor and vote for the politicians who tell them that they’re going to take money away from those hated rich people and give it to them.
            The media will make it so.

Monday Music..."Who made Who" from AC/DC

I first heard this song on the "Maximum overdrive " movie.  Yeah I know the critics killed the movie, but we GI's loved the movie partly for the sound track that featured AC/DC whom had several songs on this movie. the kind of music you wanted to play LOUD.  Even now I know that it is cheesy but I still like it.   I was overseas and the area that it was filmed reminded me of "home" it was filmed in the south.  One of my favorite lines from the movie was : A disclaimer in the final shot reveals that two days later a Soviet ‘weather satellite’ destroyed a large UFO orbiting Earth with a laser cannon and several nuclear missiles.   Neil a fellow blogger wanted me to do something from AC/DC on my next Monday Music.

"Who Made Who" is a song and a single by the Australian hard rock band AC/DC, taken from their 1986 album, Who Made Who. The 12-inch single format of the single features an extended mix of the song and can be found in the Deluxe Edition of AC/DC's Backtracks Boxset, on Disc 1, Studio Rarities. It was one of only three new tracks on Who Made Who, because the album is not only a soundtrack to Stephen King's Maximum Overdrive, but a compilation album featuring tracks from previous albums. The other two new tracks were instrumentals.

In the video to this song, directed by David Mallet, fans and radio contest winners were dressed like Angus Young, and carried red cardboard guitars similar to Angus's Gibson SG. The video's plot features scientists replicating Angus by means of science fiction technology; the lookalikes are shown en masse, marching in time to the song and raising their heads to chant the title phrase along with the chorus. A photo of Angus standing amid a group of his counterparts can be found inside the 2003 Digipak release of Who Made Who. A couple of AC/DC shows had some look alike Anguses on the stage with them. One show was at the Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale New York, six to be exact.
In addition to the song itself, "Who Made Who" has also been played live, mostly throughout the subsequent world tour and the Blow Up Your Video World Tour. It was also played live with replacement drummer Chris Slade throughout The Razors Edge World Tour, and with drummer Phil Rudd (who returned to the band in 1994 after being fired from the group 11 years prior) for only one gig at the opening night of the Ballbreaker World Tour in Greensboro, North Carolina, after which the song was dropped and has not been played live since. A live version was released on the 1992 album AC/DC Live.

     

Maximum Overdrive is a 1986 American action-disaster-horror-science fiction film written and directed by novelist Stephen King. The film starred Emilio Estevez, Pat Hingle, Laura Harrington and Yeardley Smith. The screenplay was inspired by and loosely based on King's short story, Trucks, which was included in King's first collection of short stories, Night Shift.
Maximum Overdrive is Stephen King's only directorial effort, though dozens of films have been based on King's novels. The film contained black humor elements and a generally camp tone, which contrasts with King's sombre subject matter in books. The film has a mid-1980s hard rock soundtrack composed entirely by the group AC/DC, Stephen King's favorite band. AC/DC's album, Who Made Who, was released as the Maximum Overdrive soundtrack. It includes the best-selling singles "Who Made Who", "You Shook Me All Night Long", and "Hells Bells".

The film was nominated for two Golden Raspberry Awards including Worst Director for Stephen King and Worst Actor for Emilio Estevez in 1987, but both lost against Prince for Under the Cherry Moon. In 1988, Maximum Overdrive was nominated for "Best Film" at The International Fantasy Film Awards. King himself described the film as a "moron movie" and stated his intention to never direct again soon after. In a 2002 interview with Tony Magistrale for the book Hollywood's Stephen King, King stated that he was "coked out of [his] mind all through its production, and [he] really didn't know what [he] was doing." In spite of this, King stated in the same interview that he "learned a lot from the experience," and would "like to try directing again sometime."

Bloggers have 1st amendment protection in defamation suits..

     I have blogged about this several times, I am a student of history, and I believe that Patrick Henry, Thomas Pain and others would have been classified as "bloggers" if such a thing existed back then.  I remembered where Senator Dianne Feinsterin from the peoples republic of California

Yep the same person that doesn't like those nasty old assault rifles....except the ones her security detail uses.  Well anyway, she is trying to push a bill through that basically said that only "established media" has certain protections under the law...you know the establishment media...the ones that are overwhelming democrat, carries the water for the President, and will not say anything derogatory about the president or anybody else connected with the liberal elite.  The same ones she wants to grant protection.  Remember it was a blogger that broke "Fast and Furious"  the establishment media would not touch the story because they support the agenda, the establishment media has become the party organ for the democratic party like "Pravda" was the organ for the communist party of the Soviet Union.  They regurgitate the talking points straight off the printout from the DNC, there is no attempt to be "unbiased", then they wonder why soo many people don't trust the established media.
     Now bloggers are getting the same protection as the dead tree media, that is good thing.

    I ripped this off from Patriot USA blog
      

Bloggers have 1st Amendment 'protection' in defamation suits

Posted by PatriotUSA at 1:56 AM

In a decision released by the 9th Circuit Court Of Appeals:

The protections of the First Amendment do not turn on whether the defendant was a trained journalist, formally affiliated with traditional news entities, engaged in conflict-of-interest disclosure, went beyond just assembling others’ writings, or tried to get both sides of a story.
 

As the Supreme Court has accurately warned, a First Amendment distinction between the institutional press and other speakers is unworkable: “With the advent of the Internet and the decline of print and broadcast media . . . the line between the media and others who wish to comment on political and social issues becomes far more blurred.” Citizens United, 558 U.S. at 352. In defamation cases, the public-figure status of a plaintiff and the public importance of the statement at issue—not the identity of the speaker—provide the First Amendment touchstones…."

We therefore hold that the Gertz negligence requirement for private defamation actions is not limited to cases with institutional media defendants. Obsidian Finance Group LLC et al v. Crystal Cox (9th Cir. Jan. 17, 2014), pp. 11-12.

As stated by Eugene Volokh (the Volokh Conspiracy) who represented Crystal Cox against Obsidian Finance Group LLC :

… I think that’s right, not just as a matter of First Amendment principle but also as a matter of history and precedent (as I documented at length in Freedom for the Press as an Industry, or for the Press as a Technology? From the Framing to Today, 160 U. Pa. L. Rev. 459 (2012))….

http://www.volokh.com/2014/01/17/bloggers-media-first-amendment-libel-law-purposes/

----------------

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

First Amendment To The United States Constitution

This is a fair and just ruling coming from one of, if not the most liberal appeals court in our country. Maybe the 6th Circuit Court Of Appeals is more liberal? At any rate, this ruling gives 1st Amendment protection to those NOT from the media. This means to the public and bloggers, writers,you and me. The mode of publication, paper, internet, blog, mass media was not a determining factor in this ruling. It was taken under consideration but this ruling gives the public and bloggers equal protection under the 1st amendment. While I want to feel 'secure' and safe with this ruling, I do not. My reasoning is simple. It is what this and past administrations have done to chip away at our freedom and liberty. The 1st Amendment is the cornerstone of our Constitution, just my opinion. Without it, what do we have? Do not take this the wrong way and I am not an expert on the Constitution or Constitutional law. I have read the Constitution, The Bill Of Rights, The Federalist Papers, and many books relating to our Constitution.

Eugene Volokh is the attorney who represented the plaintiff, Crystal Cox in the case that was appealed to the 9th Circuit Court Of Appeals. If you have the time, use the links I have shared at the top of the post. It is very interesting reading and Mr. Volokh has done an excellent job. Still, the times being what they are, the arming of our Law enforcement agencies with massive and heavy weapons, the way many (not all) LEO and government agents dismiss, run over our 1st Amendment rights every day is of grave concern to me. It has been for years and I will be the first one to admit, I have a jaded, politically INCORRECT, very conservative view that has been formed over the course of my lifetime. The details of why and how I became very conservative are not important, at least not right now. Let me just say this: I am the conservative backlash to a very liberal upbringing.

The 9th is not the first Circuit Court Of Appeals to rule on this but it is very noteworthy that it came from the 9th, which is based in San Francisco. The 9th has typical upheld 1st Amendment individual, group, employee rights, especially when it has been in cases that were against corporations. Will the 9th pull reversal on this ruling? It has a track record of doing so and it would be a huge miscarriage of justice and a further erosion of our freedom if the 9th does reverse the ruling.

I see this as some good news and time will tell if this ruling stands up or not. The current regime has proven time after time they could care less about our rights, freedom or liberties, as the Founding Fathers set them forth in our Constitution.

None of us should be standing still or silent.

UFO (1970) British TV Series

I spent quite a few hours watching "youtube" on our new TV, We got a 55" TV from Sams as a joint Christmas Present from us to us.  Well We were told to get the "smart TV" option.  And I found "youtube" and it plays through wireless feature of the TV.  I basically jump on my house network and look at video's.  Well I looked up the series "UFO" that I remembered watching when I was 6 years old.  I really liked that series and a lot of people during that time didn't know what to make of it.  I had a couple of the toys, from the interceptor in Green and the Mobile.

 Well the toys didn't survive my childhood.  I wish in retrospect that I still had them, but kids are kids.

Well I spend a lot of time this morning watching "UFO" episodes and it was an enjoyable trip down memory lane for me....but Something I noticed.....Man they SMOKE in the series.......And they called it the Future....I guess the PC and the health police didn't survive in that future.  Some of the information is compliments of "Wiki", the pics are from "google" and I found another website that talks about it in much more detail
     Here is a exerpt from Wiki on it:

    
UFO is a 1970 British television science fiction series about an alien invasion of Earth, created by Gerry Anderson and Sylvia Anderson with Reg Hill, and produced by the Andersons and Lew Grade's Century 21 Productions for Grade's ITC Entertainment company.
UFO first aired in the UK and Canada in 1970 and in US syndication over the next two years. In all, 26 episodes, including the pilot, were filmed over the course of more than a year, with a five-month production break caused by the closure of the MGM-British Studios in Borehamwood, where the show was initially made.
The Andersons had previously made a number of very successful children's science fiction series using marionettes, including Supercar, Fireball XL5, Stingray, Thunderbirds, and Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. They had also made one live-action science fiction movie, Doppelgänger, also known as Journey to the Far Side of the Sun, and now felt ready to move into live-action television and aim at a more adult market.
UFO was the Andersons' first totally live-action TV series. Despite the assumption of many TV station executives, the series was not aimed at children but was intended for an older audience; many episodes featured adult themes such as adultery, divorce, and drug use. Most of the cast were newcomers to Century 21 although star Ed Bishop had previously worked with the Andersons as a voice actor on Captain Scarlet and The Mysterons.
      The show's basic premise is that in the near future – a fictional version of 1980 (a date indicated in the opening credits) – Earth is being visited and attacked by aliens from a dying planet and humans are being covertly harvested for their organs by the aliens. The show's main cast of characters are members of a secret, high-technology international agency called SHADO (an acronym for Supreme Headquarters, Alien Defence Organisation) established to defend Earth and humanity against the mysterious aliens and learn more about them.

   
To defend against the aliens, a secret organisation called SHADO, the Supreme Headquarters, Alien Defence Organisation, is established. Operating behind the cover of the Harlington-Straker Studios movie studio in England, SHADO is headed by Commander Edward Straker (Ed Bishop), a former United States Air Force colonel and astronaut who poses as the studio's chief executive.
Establishing the main character as a studio executive was a cost-saving move by the producers: the studio was the actual studio where the series was being filmed, originally the MGM-British Studios and later Pinewood Studios – although the Harlington-Straker studio office block seen throughout the series was actually Neptune House, a building at the former British National Studios in Borehamwood that was owned by ATV. Pinewood's studio buildings and streetscapes were used extensively in later episodes, particularly "Timelash" and "Mindbender", the latter featuring scenes that showed the behind-the-scenes workings of the UFO sets when Straker briefly finds himself hallucinating that he is an actor on a TV series and all his SHADO colleagues are likewise actors.
Typical of Anderson productions, the studio-as-cover idea was both practical and cost-effective for the production and provided a ready-made vehicle for the viewer's suspension of disbelief. It removed the need to build an expensive exterior set for the SHADO base and combined the all-important "secret" cover (concealment and secrecy are always central themes in Anderson dramas) with the trademark ring of at least nominal plausibility. A studio was a business where unusual events and routines would not be remarkable or even noticed. Comings and goings at odd times, the movement of vehicles, equipment, people and material would not excite undue interest and could easily be explained away as "sets", "props", or "extras".

 Here is the link for more Information

Explaining everything using cows...

     I saw this while surfing around, and I snagged them.  Atlanta is the home of Chicfila and we have the cows all over the billboards in the metro area.   I have eaten at the original Chic-fil-a in Hapeville in many occasions.  They are across the street from where the Ford plant used to be and not far from where I work at now.  So I go there regularly.  The pic of the cow is compliments of "google"

EVERYTHING EXPLAINED WITH COWS

ALTERNATIVE CULTURE: Wow, dude, there's like... these two cows man. You got to have some of this milk.

ANARCHO-INDIVIDUALISM: You have two cows. The cows decide you have no right to do anything with their milk and leave to form their own society.

ANARCHO-CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.

ANARCHO-COMMUNISM: You have two cows. Either you sell the milk at a fair price or your neighbours try to take the cows and kill you.

ANARCHO-COMMUNISM: You have two cows. Your neighbours help you take care of them, and you all share the milk.

ANARCHO-SYNDICALISM: You have two cows. Your neighbours riot and kill you for trying to sell the milk.

ANARCHO-CHRISTIANISM: You have two cows. God takes care of them and gives you the milk.

ANOMIE: You have two cows. Your neighbour on your left takes one cow, and the one on the right takes the other; while your backyard neighbour takes the milk, the bucket and the stool.

ARISTOCRATISM: You have two cows. You sell both and buy one really big cow - with a pedigree.

ARTIST [VISUAL]: You have two cows. You stuff them and put them in glass display boxes. In London.

AUSTRALIA: You have two cows. They arrived illegally by boat.

BRITISH: You have two cows. They are both mad. They both have bad teeth. You try to sell them in Europe.

BUREAUCRACY: You have two cows. To register them, you fill in 17 forms in triplicate and don't have time to milk them.

CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You take care of them and sell the extra milk.

CAPITALISM [SWEDISH]: You have two cows. You bought them from IKEA and assembled them yourself (it was cheaper). The Volvo cows last a lot longer but don't look as trendy.

CAPITALISM [JAPANESE]: You have two cows. You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk. They learn to travel on unbelievably crowded trains. Almost all graduated in the top 10 percent of their class. You then create clever cow cartoon images called Cowkimon and market them World-Wide.

CAPITALISM [SWISS]: You have 5000 cows, none of which belongs to you. You charge for storing them for others. If they give milk, you tell no one.

CAPITALISM [WALL STREET]: You have two cows. You sell one, lease it back to yourself and do an IPO on the 2nd one. You force the 2 cows to produce the milk of four cows. You are surprised when one cow drops dead. You spin an announcement to the analysts that you have reduced your expenses. Your stock goes up.

CAPITALISM [ITALIAN]: You have two cows but you don't know where they are. While ambling around looking for the cows, you see a beautiful woman. You break for lunch. Life is good.

CAPITALISM [FRENCH]: You have two cows. You go on strike because you want three cows. You go to lunch and drink wine. Life is good.

CAPITALISM [DEMOCRAT]: You have two cows. Your neighbour has none. You feel guilty for being successful. You vote people into office who tax your cows, forcing you to sell one to raise money to pay the tax. The people you voted for then take the tax money and buy a cow and give it to your neighbour. You feel righteous. Barbara Streisand sings for you.

CAPITALISM [REPUBLICAN]: You have two cows. Your neighbour has none. So?

CENTRALISM: You have two cows. And a problem finding them in the middle of the field with 100,000,000 other cows.

CONSERVATIVISM: You have two cows. You freeze the milk and embalm the cows.

COMMUNISM: You have two cows. The government seizes both and provides you with milk. You wait in line for hours to get it. It is expensive and sour.

COOPERATION: You have two cows. The government taxes you to the point that you have to sell both. Your tax is used to support a man in a foreign country who has only one cow, which was originally one of yours, a free gift from your government.

CHRISTIAN-DEMOCRATISM: You have two cows. You keep one and give one to your neighbour. Then you covet it.

DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. Your neighbours decide who gets the milk.

DICTATORSHIP: You have two cows. The government orders you to drink their milk.

EDUCATIONALISM: You have two cows. You pay for them to go to university. They come home as philosophy graduates and want to debate "The Morality Of Milk In A Cross-Species Society". Giving milk is now beneath their station in life anyway.

ENVIRONMENTALISM: You have two cows. The government bans you from milking or killing them.

EUROPEAN UNIONISM: You have two cows. The EU develops a quota system that "limits the gas emissions from flatulent cows". You sell your carbon allotment, not the milk.

EUGENISM: You have two cows. You re-engineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and milk themselves.

FASCISM: You have two cows. You give the milk to the government and the government sells it.

FEUDALISM: You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.

FAMILISM: You have two cows. You get married and your partner milks them.

FEMINISM: You have two cows. They refuse to wear bras.

FRISBEETARIANISM: You have two cows. One of them flies up on the roof and gets stuck. You hope the government provides cow ladders.

INDIA: You have two cows. You worship them.

IDEALISM: You have two cows. You give one to your neighbour. He then steals your cow and kills you.

INDUSTRIALISM: You have two cows. You dissect them both and figure out how to build a milk-factory instead.

LAWYERISM: You see two cows and note that their milk has not been labelled "Contains lactose". You find 20 lactose-intolerant people, start a class action suit against the owner of the cows, the regional dairy co-operative, the distributor and the retailer. You settle out of court for $1M. Lactose intolerant milk drinkers get five dollars each. You get the rest and call it a victory for innocent milk drinkers.

LIBERTARIANISM: Go away. What I do with my cows is none of your business.

MEXICO: You think you have two cows, but you don't know what a cow looks like. You take a nap.

MONARCHISM: You have two cows. You give some milk to the King/Queen.

NAZISM: You have two cows. You reengineer them so they are all blond, drink lots of beer, give excellent quality milk which they milk themselves, and run a hundred miles an hour. Unfortunately they also demand 13 weeks of vacation per year.

NIHILISM: You have two cows. You let them do what they want.

NEW DEALISM: You have two cows. The government takes both, shoots one, milks the other, and pours the milk down the sink. The government insists there is a giant storage tank where all the milk goes.

PACIFISM: You have two cows. They stampede you.

PEROTISM: You have two cows. You aren't allowed to sell the milk to Mexico.

PERESTROIKA: You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the Mafia takes all the milk. You steal back as much milk as you can and sell it on the "free" market.

PLATONISM: You have two cows. You look for two other cows to milk.

PLATONISM: You have a reflection of two perfect cows. Their milk tastes like water. You look for two real cows to milk.

POLITICAL CORRECTNESSISM: You are associated with (the concept of "ownership" is a symbol of the phallocentric, warmongering, intolerant past) two differently aged (but no less valuable to society) bovines of no specified gender.

PROTECTIONISM: You have two cows. You can't buy a bull from another country.

REALISATIONALISM: You have two cows. They are for their calves, their milk was never meant for human consumption.

REDISTRIBUTIONISM: You have two cows. Everyone should have the same amount of cow. The government takes both cows, cuts them up, and spends more than the cows are worth giving everyone a little piece of cow.

SOCIAL-DEMOCRATISM: You have two cows. You give away one cow and get the government to give you a new cow. Then you give them both away.

SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The government takes one of them and gives it to your neighbour.

SOCIALISM [BUREAUCRATIC]: You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else's cows. They are cared for by ex-chicken farmers. You have to take care of the chickens the government took from the chicken farmers. The government gives you as much milk and eggs as the regulations say you should need.

SURREALISM: You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.

TALIBANISM: You have all the cows in Afghanistan, which is two. You don't milk them because you cannot touch any creature's private parts. At night when no one is looking, you have sex with both of them.

TOTATITARIANISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and denies they ever existed. Milk is banned.

THEOCRACY: You have two cows. The priest takes all your milk to offer it to God and drinks it.

UNITED NATIONISM: You have two cows. France vetoes you from milking them. The United States and Britain veto the cows from milking you. New Zealand abstains.

UTOPIANISM: You have two cows. Mother Nature zaps the cows, turning their udders into eternal milk-shake dispensers.

The Dash 80 and THE BARREL ROLL

I was at work taking a break on working the latest 757 we got for a PSV(Packaged Service Visit)  Basically scheduled maintenance plus anything that the inspectors locate that is wrong and we fix.  They usually last about 10 days.  Well we got talking about airplanes and the "Dash 80" was mentioned and one of the guys pulled up "THE BARREL ROLL".  Basically in a nutshell the Senior test pilot "Tex Johnson" performed 2 barrel rolls in front of a bunch of prospective customers.  Boeing had built the -80 that became the 707 in production.  The dash 80 was all hand built and Tex Johnson had such faith in the airplane he rolled it in front of customers.  There were no orders for this airplane, everybody was happy with the piston airplanes of the period and the first jet airliner the ill fated De Havilland Comet had hull issues that got fixed later. Because of this, there were no orders for the new jetliner. 
    
By the late 1940s two developments encouraged Boeing to begin considering building a passenger jet. The first was the maiden flight in 1947 of the B-47 Stratojet. The second was the maiden flight in 1949 of the world’s first jet airliner, the de Havilland Comet. Boeing President Bill Allen led a company delegation to Britain in summer 1950 where they saw the Comet fly at the Farnborough Airshow, and also visited the de Havilland factory at Hatfield, Hertfordshire where the Comets were being built. Boeing felt it had mastered the swept wing and podded engines which it saw as key technologies that would enable it to improve on the Comet.

The Boeing 367-80 during its roll-out in May 1954

In 1950 Boeing tentatively produced a specification for a jet airliner dubbed the Model 473-60C. The airlines were unconvinced because they had no experience with jet transports and were enjoying success with piston engined aircraft such as the Douglas DC-4, DC-6, Boeing Stratocruiser and Lockheed Constellation.
Boeing was experienced at selling to the military but had not enjoyed the same success with civil airliners. This market was dominated by Douglas which was adept at meeting the needs of airlines by refining and developing its range of propeller-driven aircraft, and in 1950 was marketing the forthcoming DC-7. Boeing decided the only way to overcome the airlines' suspicion of the jet – and of itself – was to show them a completed aircraft.

The Boeing 367-80 undergoing taxi tests at Boeing Field in Washington

As the first of a new generation of passenger jets, Boeing wanted the aircraft's model number to emphasize the difference from its previous propeller-driven aircraft which bore 300-series numbers. The 400-, 500- and 600-series were already used by missiles and other products, so Boeing decided that the jets would bear 700-series numbers, and the first would be the 707. Boeing had studied developments of its existing Model 367 (the KC-97 Stratotanker) incorporating swept wings and podded engines; and chose to build the 367-80, which retained little of the KC-97 except the upper fuselage diameter (and the possibility of building some of the fuselage with existing tooling). Although the design was announced publicly as the Model 707 the prototype was referred to within Boeing simply as the "-80", or Dash 80.
The -80 fuselage was wide enough at 132 inches (3.35 m) for five-abreast seating; two on one side of the aisle and three on the other. The fuselage diameter for the production KC-135 was widened to 144 inches (3.66 m) and Boeing originally hoped to build the 707 fuselage with that width. By the time the Boeing company committed to production, the decision had been made to design the production model 707 as a six-abreast design, with a larger 148 inches (3.76 m) diameter fuselage, after C.R. Smith, CEO of American Airlines, told Boeing he wouldn't buy the 707 unless it was an inch wider than the then-proposed Douglas DC-8 passenger jet. This decision did not unduly delay introduction of the production model since the -80 had been largely hand-built, using little production tooling.
   

    I had taken this picture when I had taken my son to the museum, it is 15 minutes away from Dulles via shuttle and it is well worth the trip.  We had gone back in 2012
    
By early 1952 the designs were complete and in April the Boeing board approved the program. Construction of the Dash 80 started in November in a walled-off section of Boeing's Renton plant.^[6] As a proof of concept prototype there was no certification and no production line and most of the parts were custom built. The aircraft was not fitted with an airline cabin; a plywood lining housed the instrumentation for the flight test program.

Boeing 367-80 (N70700) prototype in a NASA archive photo

The Dash 80 rolled out of the factory on May 15, 1954, two years after the project was approved and 18 months after construction had started. During a series of taxi trials the port landing gear collapsed on May 22; the damage was quickly repaired and the first flight was on July 15, 1954.
Following flights revealed a propensity to "Dutch roll" - an alternating yawing and rolling motion. Boeing already had experience with this on the B-47 Stratojet and B-52 Stratofortress and had developed a yaw damper system on the B-47 that could be adapted to the Dash 80. Other problems were found with the engines and brakes, the latter once failing completely on landing causing the aircraft to overshoot the runway.
Boeing used the Dash 80 on demonstration flights for airline executives and other industry figures. These focused attention on the question of what the cabin of a passenger jet should look like. In a departure from its usual practice Boeing hired industrial design firm Walter Dorwin Teague to create a cabin as radical as the aircraft itself.
Prior to demonstration for passenger airlines, Dash 80 was fitted with Boeing's Flying Boom for aerial refueling which served as a prototype for the KC-135 Stratotanker and its later derivatives

   Another pic of the "Dash 80" at the museum,   This pic was taken with my older smart phone and the pictures are a bit lacking.
    
As part of the Dash 80's demonstration program, Bill Allen invited representatives of the Aircraft Industries Association (AIA) and International Air Transport Association (IATA) to the Seattle's 1955 Seafair and Gold Cup Hydroplane Races held on Lake Washington on August 6, 1955. The Dash-80 was scheduled to perform a simple flyover, but Boeing test pilot Alvin "Tex" Johnston instead performed two barrel rolls to show off the jet airliner.
The next day, Allen summoned Johnston to his office and told him not to perform such a maneuver again, to which Johnston replied that he was simply "selling airplanes" and asserted that doing so was completely safe. The barrel roll story appears on a video called Frontiers of Flight – The Jet Airliner, produced by the National Air and Space Museum in association with the Smithsonian Institution in 1992.
Boeing Chief Test Pilot John Cashman stated that just before he piloted the maiden flight of the Boeing 777 on June 12, 1994, his last instructions from then-Boeing President Phil Condit were "No rolls."

"THE BARREL ROLL"

After the arrival of the first production 707 in 1957 the Dash 80 was adapted into a general experimental aircraft and used by Boeing to test a variety of new technologies and systems. One of its most important tasks during the late 1950s was to test systems for the new Boeing 727. These tests required the fitting of a fifth engine on the rear fuselage as part of tests for the 727. Other tests included experiments with different airfoil shapes and a number of high lift devices such as blown flaps in which compressed air bled from the engines is directed over the flaps to increase lift during takeoff and landing.

 After 2,350 hours and 1,691 flights the aircraft was withdrawn from use in 1969 and placed in storage. On May 26, 1972 Boeing donated the 367-80 to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, which had designated it one of the 12 most significant aircraft of all time. For the next 18 years the aircraft was stored at a "desert boneyard" now called the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group (AMARG) at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base near Tucson, Arizona before being retrieved by Boeing in 1990 for restoration. The Dash 80's final flight was to Dulles International Airport near Washington, D.C. on August 27, 2003. Repainted to its original yellow and brown Boeing livery, it was put on display at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, an annex of the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum, located adjacent to Dulles Airport in Chantilly, Virginia.

General characteristics

• Crew: 3
• Length: 127 ft 10 in (39.97 m)
• Wingspan: 129 ft 8 in (39.88 m)
• Height: 38 ft (11.59 m)
• Wing area: 2,400 ft² (223 m²)
• Empty weight: 92,120 lb (41,870 kg)
• Loaded weight: 190,000 lb (86,360 kg)
• Powerplant: 4 × Pratt & Whitney JT3C turbojets, 10,000 lbf (44.5 kN) each

Performance

• Maximum speed: 582 mph (506 knots, 937 km/h) at 25,000 ft (7,600 m)
• Cruise speed: 550 mph (478 knots, 886 km/h)
• Range: 3,530 mi (3,070 nmi, 5,683 km)
• Service ceiling: 43,000 ft (13,110 m)
• Rate of climb: 2,500 ft/min (12.7 m/s)

A pic of my son enjoying the Museum.   It is 15 minutes shuttle bus ride that cost .50 per person per way so it cost us $2.00 plus there is a mcdonalds inside the museum and a gift shop(of course).  If you are an aviation junkie...it is worth the flight and ride out there.  One of the Space shuttles is also out there.

Here is a link to the Museum