Thursday, February 27, 2014

WHat ever happened to those fuel tanks we dropped over Vietnam?

I got this email from my Dad and it had a bunch of pics on what the Vietnamese did with the drop-able fuel tanks that our fighters dropped all over that countryside,   I have heard of the local people making creative uses of the stuff that is discarded by U.S. Forces.






 In case you were wondering what happened to all those fuel tanks our aircraft jettisoned over Southeast Asia ……









Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Why is Chuck Hagel SECDEF?

I saw bits and pieces of this while I was at work.  This was mentioned on Old NFO's Blog, BRM and Murphy's law and many others, the cuts are designed to bring us down to the 1940 level of the service.  They are cutting manpower and benefits to the military.  They are making military service very unattractive to the American people and raising doubts on the viability of the modern volunteer force.  if there were going to return the savings back to the treasury, I can almost accept it, but it will be used to buy more votes from the electorate thereby guaranteeing the democrats a majority in congress and the presidency keeping them in power.  Remember to a democrat, loyalty to party is paramount, all other considerations are secondary.  I keep wondering if this is part of Obama's plan to "lessen" the United States, remember he was raised to view us as "imperialist" and that we caused all the worlds problems.
Back to my original question...Why is Chuck Hagel SecDef?    Was he vetted by congress or did the squishy RINO's roll over for Obama?

you ask? WHY is a member of a "left-wing peace" movement the SecDef?
EXCERPT:  "Washington (AFP) - The Pentagon plans to scale back the US Army by more than an eighth to its lowest level since before World War II, signaling a shift after more than a decade of ground wars. Saying it was time to "reset" for a new era, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel recommended shrinking American forces from 520,000 active duty troops to between 440,000 and 450,000.
WHY?
EXCERPT:  "March 27, 2009: Ploughshares Fund President Joseph Cirincione announced today that Senator Chuck Hagel has joined  the foundation’s Board of Directors. “Senator Hagel is revered by colleagues on both sides of the aisle and around the world,” said Cirincione.  “He has served his country in Vietnam, in the Senate, and now as a champion of global engagement and a new direction in American security policy."
EXCERPT: "April 23, 2009: The Ploughshares Fund welcomes former Sen. Chuck Hagel to the Board of Directors and Jeff Skoll to the Board of Advisors.  Skoll is founding president of eBay, as well as founder of the newly-launched Skoll Urgent Threats Fund.  Sen. Hagel (R-NE) served in the U.S. Senate from 1996 to 2008, and currently serves as chairman of the Atlantic Council of the United States. “Senator Hagel is revered by colleagues on both sides of the aisle and around the world,” said Ploughshares President Joe Cirincione.  “He has served his country in Vietnam, in the Senate, and now as a champion of global engagement and a new direction in American security policy."  Senator Hagel is also a strong supporter of Global Zero, a Ploughshares-funded initiative to eliminate nuclear weapons globally."
WHO IS PLOUGHSHARES FUND? (They are a friend of Code Pink and many other leftist groups.)(http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7156)

The Ploughshares Fund was established in 1981 by the San Francisco-based philanthropist, artist and activist Sally Lilienthal (1919-2006), who had formerly served on the board of the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California during the 1960s and 70s, and had co-founded the Northern California Committee of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund in 1971. From its inception, the Ploughshares Fund's purpose was to support the nuclear-freeze movement, a Soviet-sponsored initiative that sought to further solidify the nuclear and military superiority which the USSR had gained during the post-Vietnam War era. Moreover, Ploughshares adamantly opposed NATO’s decision to place medium-range missiles in Europe, a decision that was made in response to an aggressive Soviet military buildup and to the USSR's then-recent deployment of SS-20 Missiles in Eastern Europe.
Also during the Cold War, Ploughshares claimed that U.S. militarism—particularly that of the Reagan administration—was far likelier to spark a nuclear holocaust than anything the Soviet Union might do. Identifying U.S. belligerence and aggression as the chief source of tensions between America and the USSR, Ploughshares pressured the United States but not the Soviets to initiate disarmament measures. To advance this agenda, Ploughshares pooled donations from a number of wealthy contributors and charitable foundations (including the Rockefeller and Stern Foundations) to bankroll and almost singlehandedly create a left-wing “peace” movement that denounced American defense policies and featured the progressive icon Edward Kennedy as one of its spokesmen.
Early in its history, Ploughshares awarded a grant to fund the efforts of scientists (who were affiliated with the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Soviet Academy of Scientists) seeking to prove that it would be possible for the U.S. and the Soviet Union to both comply with the terms of a nuclear test ban treaty—and that therefore neither side should be reluctant to sign such a pact.

Ploughshares was an original and consistent funder of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which was formed in 1992.

Today Ploughshares describes itself as “a public grantmaking foundation that supports initiatives to prevent the spread and use of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons and other weapons of war, and to prevent conflicts that could lead to the use of weapons of mass destruction.” It also opposes America's development of a missile defense system.

A self-defined “venture funder,” Ploughshares specializes in “giving start-up funding to promising new endeavors, and then helping to leverage more substantial support from other sources.” The organization's grantmaking strategy is to “proactively select grantees and knit them together into a collaborative network” that strives to “build comprehensive campaigns aimed at winning key policy victories.” After such groundwork has been laid, the Ploughshares network “can unlock a more ambitious strategic agenda.” Specifically, Ploughshares gives grants that are designed to do three major things:

* Promote the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons: “Building a consensus among the world’s leaders creates a global norm against nuclear weapons and increases the momentum toward zero. Along the way, concrete steps to limit and reduce current arsenals must be realized as well.”

* Prevent the Emergence of New Nuclear States: “We focus on the two most significant threats to the global nonproliferation regime – Iran and North Korea. We believe that ... solutions are possible through effective diplomacy and engagement …”

* Build Regional Peace and Security: “South Asia represents perhaps the most dangerous region on earth given the long-standing conflict between India and Pakistan and the fact that both nations possess substantial nuclear arsenals. Our investments support fact-finding missions, on-the-ground analysis, high-level dialogue, confidence-building measures, policy advocacy and media outreach to advance the transformation of conflicts in South and Southwest Asia.”

Professing to be “the largest grantmaking foundation in the U.S. focusing exclusively on peace and security issues,” Ploughshares from 1981 to 2011 awarded many hundreds of grants whose aggregate value exceeded $60 million.”

Among the organizations that have received grants from Ploughshares over the years are the Agape Foundation, the American Friends Service Committee, Americans for Peace Now, The American Prospect, the Arms Control Association, the Aspen Institute, the Berghof Institute for Conflict Studies, the Brookings Institution, the Center for American Progress, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Christic Institute, Church Women United, Citizen Action, the Connect US Fund, the Constitution Project, the Council for a Livable World, the Economic Policy Institute, Environmental Defense, Environmental Media Services, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, the Fourth Freedom Forum, Friends of the Earth, Global Green USA, Greenpeace USA, Human Rights Watch, the Independent Media Institute, the Institute for America's Future, the Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies, the Institute for Policy Studies, the International Crisis Group, J Street, the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy, the League of United Latin American Citizens, the Nation Institute, the National Priorities Project, National Public Radio, the National Security Archive, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Netroots Nation, the New America Foundation, the Nonviolent Peaceforce, the Nuclear Age Peace FoundationPeace Action, Physicians for Human Rights, Physicians for Social Responsibility, the WashPIRG Foundation, the Proteus Fund, Public Citizen, September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, the Sierra Club, TechRocks, the Tides Foundation, True Majority, the Union of Concerned Scientists, the United Nations Association of USA, Win Without War, Women's Action for New Directions, and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.

To view a list of additional noteworthy grantees of the Ploughshares Fund, click here.

In addition, Ploughshares is the parent organization of, and a major funder of, the Peace and Security Funders Group. The latter operates as a “special project” of Ploughshares.

Individual recipients of Ploughshares grants include such notables as Robert Edgar and Jonathan Schell.

Ploughshares identifies itself as a partner of such groups as Code Pink, Demos, the Institute for Policy Studies, the National Priorities Project, United for Peace & Justice, and the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation.

Ploughshares' worldview regarding military and nuclear issues is closely aligned with that of the Democratic Party. During the Iraq War, for instance, Ploughshares joined congressional Democrats in branding the American invasion a strategic blunder and an unjustified act of aggression.

In an effort to attract new supporters to its cause, Ploughshares in 2007 hired Fenton Communications to create and administer the “Peace Primary,” an online contest where Ploughshares grantees developed their own “peace platforms” on a wide range of topics such as the Iraq War and the genocide in Darfur. A special panel, chaired by actor Martin Sheen, selected 12 finalists. The public was then invited to vote online for the ultimate winner; participants donated money along with their votes for the organizations they deemed deserving of the $100,000 grand prize. All told, the Peace Primary raised more than $327,000, with TrueMajority taking first place.

When the Obama Administration in September 2009 canceled U.S. plans for the deployment of a missile defense shield in Central Europe—a decision that pleased Moscow but angered America's allies in Eastern Europe—Ploughshares boasted that its influence had “informed the decision” by the Administration.

In 2010 Ploughshares led a successful campaign by more than fifty non-governmental organizations to persuade the Senate to approve the New START Treaty (a nuclear arms reduction pact) between the United States and Russia.

Ploughshares advocates a policy of containment regarding Iran's nuclear program, and seeks to discredit the notion that using American military power to derail that program would be either prudent or practical. Toward that end, the organization in 2010 gave $150,000 to National Public Radio to fund “increased coverage of U.S. nuclear policy issues and the proliferation risks from North Korea and Iran.” Coinciding with that grant was the publication of numerous NPR articles and reports that largely echoed Ploughshares’ policy recommendations. One NPR piece, written by Stephen Walt, asserted that the United States was “too secure,” and praised the New START Treaty (which required the U.S., but not Russia, to cut its nuclear forces to levels that were within the treaty limits). In November 2010, just days after the Walt piece had been published, NPR correspondent Peter Kenyon delivered an on-air report calling for the U.S. to negotiate with Iran and asserting that “[m]any analysts believe there’s more time for diplomacy than had previously been thought.” In February 2011, Ploughshares gave NPR an additional $150,000 to cover “Iran, U.S. nuclear weapons policy, and nonproliferation issues.”

Of a piece with Ploughshares' Iran policy is the organization's support for the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), the Iranian regime’s principal lobbyist in the United States. A few facts about NIAC:

  • NIAC was established in 2002 by Trita Parsi and Siamak Namazi (a member of the Iranian regime’s inner circle and a major figure in that country's oil industry), to act as a counter-balance to the Jewish lobby AIPAC.
  • NIAC has a strong relationship with the Barack Obama administration, as indicated by Andrew C. McCarthy's report in National Review: "[NIAC's] top official, Trita Parsi, visits the White House, consults with Valerie Jarrett, briefs Secretary of State [Hillary] Clinton, lectures the CIA, and so on."
  • NIAC's advisory board features University of Michigan professor Juan Cole.
  • Utilizing the services of public-relations specialist David Fenton and his firm, Fenton Communications, NIAC seeks to convince the American public that U.S. sanctions punishing Iran for its suspected nuclear ambitions would be “counterproductive,” and that the use of military action against Tehran would be a grave mistake.
In November 2011, Ploughshares gave NIAC $125,000 “to shape the debate among policymakers and in the media on credible, non-military approaches to resolving the impasse over Iran’s nuclear program.”

Similarly, in 2011 Ploughshares gave the Center for American Progress (CAP) at least $150,000 “to hire two researchers for an expanded initiative on Iran aimed at countering support for military action.” In October 2011, CAP policy analyst Matthew Duss produced a report that praised the Obama Administration for pursuing a diplomatic approach to Iran’s nuclear program. Moreover, CAP's blog, Think Progress, regularly condemned what it characterized as neoconservative war mongering against Iran.

In November 2011, Ploughshares gave $25,000 to J Street “to support congressional advocacy and education against the use of a military resolution to the impasse over Iran’s nuclear program.” Two months later, J Street released a web video and policy campaign that counseled against the use of military force against Iran.

The Ploughshares Fund is supported by annual contributions from approximately 2,000 individuals and a small number of foundations. Among its benefactors are the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Compton Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Minneapolis Foundation, George Soros’s Open Society Institute, the Prospect Hill Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Scherman Foundation, the Turner Foundation, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

To view a list of additional noteworthy supporters of the Ploughshares Fund, click here.

Since 2008, the president of the Ploughshares Fund has been Joseph Cirincione, author of the 2007 book Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons and a former senior vice president at the Center for American Progress. A vocal opponent of the Iraq War, Cirincione in 2004 co-authored a paper that not only dismissed the Bush Administration’s case for war as “dubious,” but also asserted that the United States had violated international law by attacking Iraq. In 2007 Cirincione charged, falsely, that Bush Administration officials had “repeatedly misled the press” and manipulated intelligence reports in order to justify the U.S. invasion—an allegation that was echoed by Democratic politicians. That same year, Cirincione angrily rejected news reports claiming that Syria was building a nuclear reactor with assistance from North Korea. By Cirincione's reckoning, such stories were nothing more than propaganda disseminated by the U.S. and Israel. (Intelligence officials later produced video evidence definitively establishing the Syrian-North Korean collaboration.) In 2008 Cirincione served as an advisor on nuclear policy to presidential candidate Barack Obama.

The executive director of the Ploughshares Fund is Naila Bolus, who also serves as co-chair of the Peace and Security Funders Group. Bolus is a former co-director of the environmentalist and anti-war group 20/20 Vision, and she co-founded the Women Legislators' Lobby, whose goal is to “persuade Congress to redirect excessive military spending toward unmet human and environmental needs.”

Notable advisors to the Ploughshares Fund include Hal Harvey, president and CEO of the ClimateWorks Foundation; Steven Kirsch, chairman of the Steven and Michele Kirsch Foundation; and Lawrence J. Korb, senior fellow with the Center for American Progress. Key members of the Ploughshares board of directors include the film actor Michael Douglas (a member since 2004) and former U.S. Senator Chuck Hagel.


NOTE:
[1] Paul Hollander, Political Pilgrims: Western Intellectuals in Search of the Good Society (Transaction Publishers, 1981).

(Information on grantees and monetary amounts courtesy of The Foundation Center, GuideStar, ActivistCash, the Capital Research Center and undue influence


Monday, February 24, 2014

Monday Music "Paradise by a dashboard light"

This is a continuation of my Monday Music.  I usually decide on the way into work or on the way home from work which song I will use.  I have a large collection of songs on my phone that I play through the car radio.  I was at work and walked into the leads office and this song was playing through the leads IPAD and I decided I would use this song.  I do like Meat Loaf a.k.a. Marvin Lee Aday. and he has a wide range of musical talent, but he is best known for rock ballads.  I went to a concert back in 1994 when I was dating the spousal unit and I had commented that "MeatLoaf" was coming to Lakewood Amphitheater in Atlanta.  This was in support of his "Bat Out of hell II Back into Hell" album.  I had wanted to go but we were as poor as Church mice(They had more money then we did actually). She had gotten me a card and asked me to open it and I did, and 2 tickets to Meatloaf fell out.  They were the "lawn seats"  The cheapest ones you can get.  I was very happy and touched that she was able to get them.  Well we went to the concert and Meat Loaf threw a hell of a show.  At the end of it, he stood in front of the fans and told them "Thank you for supporting me all these years even through the bad times and I really appreciated it."   Meatloaf is a class act.
    Well anyway I decided to roll with "Paradise in a dashboard Light".  Even now we would sing exerpts of this song to each other, especially about the stanza "The end of time to hurry up and arrive"  it is done tongue in cheek.
     "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" is a song written by Jim Steinman. It was first released in 1977 on the album Bat Out of Hell, with vocals by the American musician Meat Loaf alongside Ellen Foley. It is most notable for its unique structure and length, and has become a classic rock radio staple.
     
"Paradise by the Dashboard Light" is one of the longest songs to be released uncut on one side of a 45 RPM record. The only difference is the song fades out almost immediately after the final line is sung. In some countries a shorter 5:32 edit was released. The largest change is the complete removal of the "baseball play-by-play" section.
According to Meat Loaf on VH1 Storytellers, the original length of the track was to be 27 minutes.
       


The song is divided into three parts:
Part I. Paradise
The song opens with the characters reminiscing about days as a young high school couple on a date. They are parking by a lake and having fun, experiencing "paradise by the dashboard light", and the boy insists they're "gonna go all the way tonight."
Baseball broadcast
His pushing the matter is mirrored by New York Yankees announcer Phil Rizzuto broadcasting a portion of a baseball game that serves as a metaphor for his attempts to achieve his goal, accompanied by funk instrumentation.
Rizzuto's baseball play-by-play call was recorded in 1976 at The Hit Factory in New York City by producer Todd Rundgren, Meat Loaf and Steinman. Rizzuto publicly maintained he was unaware that his contribution would be equated with sex in the finished song, but Meat Loaf asserts that Rizzuto only feigned ignorance to stifle some criticism from a priest and was fully aware of the context of what he was recording.
In a nod to the Yankees – Red Sox rivalry, some radio stations in Boston created a version where Rizzuto's part was substituted with Red Sox announcer Dick Stockton describing the baseball play.
Part II. Let Me Sleep on It
Just as the boy is about to "steal home base", the girl bursts out, telling him to "Stop right there!" She refuses to go any further unless the boy first promises to love her forever and marry her. Reluctant to make such a long-term commitment, the boy repeatedly asks her to continue on for the time being and promises to give his answer in the morning. However, as she is not giving in that easily, so that he finally cracks and gives his promise: "I started swearing to my God and on my mother's grave/That I would love you to the end of time".
Part III. Praying for the End of Time
Back in the present, the characters can no longer stand each others presence. However, the male character cannot possibly break his vow and hence is now praying for the end of time to relieve him from his obligation. The song fades out on the situation, juxtaposing his gloomy "It was long ago, it was far away, it was so much better than it is today!" with her joyous "It never felt so good, it never felt so right, we're glowing like the metal on the edge of a knife."

Although Ellen Foley is recorded on the album, another woman, Karla DeVito, was used for the music video and for live performances. This would also happen for Meat Loaf's 1993 hit "I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)", where Dana Patrick mimed to Lorraine Crosby's vocals.
In the original video as released to TV and in 35mm prints, the male/female "Hot Summer Night" prologue from "You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth" was spoken live by Jim Steinman and Karla DeVito before the song performance. On the Hits Out of Hell music video compilation, the prologue was removed and spliced in front of the video for "You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth," ostensibly to properly replicate the Bat Out of Hell album, and the video for "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" goes right into the performance. The 35mm version of "Paradise" is used by some theaters as a short subject presentation that is shown before The Rocky Horror Picture Show during midnight screenings.
Additionally, an altered version of the song was used in a 2008 AT&T commercial for the Go-Phone, in which a father and mother (Meat Loaf and singer Tiffany) argue over buying their son a phone.


The single had modest success in the United States, peaking at number 39 in the Billboard Hot 100. However, the song is very well known and is a classic rock staple. In the United Kingdom, it did not chart at all. However, in the Netherlands, the single became Meat Loaf's biggest all-time hit, reaching number one at the end of 1978. "Paradise" became a hit again in 1988. In various all time charts, such as the Radio 2 Top 2000 or Radio Veronica's All Time Top 1000, it consistently charts inside the top ten.
This song is featured as downloadable content for the Rock Band series.



Sunday, February 23, 2014

Annoying Movie Cliche's........and dunuts

I ram across this while surfing around and figured my readers would get a kick out of it.  Some of them are pretty good.
   Since I have some police mentioned in this cliche post.  There are people that want to ban certain weapons except for the police. I figured I would change it up from Assault rifles to "Donuts" So I had this pic sitting around in my "blog folder" that I have where I pull out these pics I seem to come up with.  I will use it.

The kicker is looking at them at 5:00 in the morning after posting it contemplating a dunut run......Durn it.

-It does not matter if you are heavily outnumbered in a fight involving martial arts: your enemies will wait patiently to attack you one by one, dancing around in a threatening manner until you have knocked out their predecessors.
-Honest and hard-working policemen are traditionally gunned down three days before their retirement.
-Incompetent police officers are inevitably corrupt.
-All beds have special L-shaped sheets that reach the armpit level of a woman, but only the waist level of the man lying beside her.
-At least one of a pair of identical twins is born evil.
-Most laptop computers are powerful enough to override the communications system of any invading alien society.
-All grocery bags contain at least one stick of French bread.
-Rather than wasting bullets, megalomaniacs prefer to kill their arch enemies using complicated machinery involving fuses, pulley systems, deadly gasses, lasers, and man-eating sharks, which will allow their captives at least a half-hour to escape.
-You're very likely to survive any battle in any war unless you make the mistake of showing someone a picture of your sweetheart back home.
-A man will show no pain while taking the most ferocious beating, but will wince when a woman tries to clean his wounds.
-If a large pane of glass is visible, someone will be thrown through it before long.
-If in a haunted house, any strange noises should be investigated by women in their most revealing underwear.
-Even when driving down a perfectly straight road, it is necessary to turn the steering wheel vigorously from left to right every few moments.
-All bombs are fitted with electronic timing devices with large red readouts so you know exactly when they're going to go off, but luckily no matter which wire you cut it will always be the right one.
-A detective can only solve a case once he has been suspended from duty.
-Police departments give their officers personality tests to make sure they are deliberately assigned a partner who is their total opposite.
-Babysitters are doomed.
-All the 'teenagers' in a school are in reality well past their teenage years.
-Everyone splits up to hunt for the ghost/monster/serial killer.
-There's nothing better than running through the woods in the dark, waving torches and shouting Dave, where are you? all the time followed by the serial killer.
-Whenever you go into a bar in a film, the bartender is always polishing glasses. Doesn't matter if it's a posh bar or a dodgy one, that's all he does all the time, polishing glasses.
-When paying for a taxi, do not look at your wallet as you take out a note. Just grab one out at random and hand it over. It will always be the exact fare.
-Creepy music (or satanic chanting) coming from a graveyard should always be closely investigated.
-The Protagonist can always find inspiration/motivation for the big challenge from dead best friends or dead family members.
-Single parents usually lose their spouse to cancer (and they're still not over it).
-James Bond never gets an STD.
-James Bond also never seems badly affected by the amount of alcohol he drinks - sexual, gambling and driving prowess's remain intact.
-Dogs and children know immediately that someone is the bad guy.
-Good guys never get shot in the face and no matter how grievously injured, always live long enough to say a few words.
-All gratings covering the entry to a ventilation system will come off with only a tug (no screws), and the shaft is always horizontal and big enough for adults to crawl through.
-Any group of pathetically inept losers with a boozy but lovable old coach will eventually win the championship.
-No one ever forgets a telephone number, even if it was only communicated in the middle of a gunfight or car chase.
-At least one scientist is from an oriental background.
-People hack into computers by incessantly typing on the keyboard. Even though they don't appear to be working in DOS mode, they never use the mouse.
-Sadistic killers are also witty stand-up comedians specializing in one-liners.
-Bombs are always defused within the last three seconds, never at twelve or twenty seven. NOTE: This doesn't apply in James Bond, in Gold Finger. He stops it at 007 seconds to go.
-Detectives hunches are always correct.
-Any fight at a wedding reception will always result in someone crashing into the wedding cake.
-There is always a gun in reach when you fall onto the ground.
-When the hero is running and the bad guys are shooting at him with a machine gun, the bullets will consistently hit the ground just behind his feet. This is because it's impossible to swivel a machine gun as quickly as the hero is running.
-In car chases the hero car just avoids the woman pushing the pram across the road. Then it crashes through lots of market stalls (usually fruit and vegetable stalls), destroying the livelihoods of perfectly innocent hard-working people but never actually killing any of them.
-A photo and newspaper clippings wall, containing all the villain's crimes and killings, is always stumbled across by the hero, typically under a bare light bulb in the killer's basement.
-When the lead detective has a meeting with his team, it is always productive and completed in seconds or minutes. Every one contributes vital pieces of information and the conversation flows flawlessly with everyone possessing super intelligence and quick thinking abilities.
-Just as the hero and villains fight ends, with the hero winning, about a dozen police cars show up.
-When about to have sex, clothes melt seamlessly off bodies. No one ever needs to sit down and take off shoes and socks.
-Whenever anyone receives a phone call in the middle of the night, it's always 2, 3 or 4am. Exactly.
-The Eiffel Tower can be seen from any window of any building in Paris.
-Getaway cars never start first time. But all cop cars do and they will also slide to a dramatic stop in the middle of a crime scene. Unfortunately they crash more than any others cars too.
-On a police stake-out, the action will only ever take place when food is being consumed and scalding hot coffees are perched precariously on the dashboard.
-Cars never need fuel (unless they are involved in a pursuit).
-Inspiring speeches almost always end in that character being immediately and horrifically killed. 


Cars will explode instantly when struck by a single bullet.
-Cars always have a set of spare keys in the glove box.
-Prostitutes always look like Julia Roberts or Jamie Lee Curtis. They have expensive clothes and nice apartments but no pimps. None of their clients -rich or poor- beat them, or abuse them etc. They aren't heroin addicts nor have STDs. They are friendly with the shopkeepers in their neighborhood who do not mind at all what the girl does for a living.
-A single match is usually sufficient to light up a room the size of a football stadium.
-One man shooting at 20 men with a handgun has a better chance of killing them all than 20 men firing at once with machine guns.
-When you turn out the light to go to bed, everything in you room will still be visible, just slightly bluish.
-Plain or even ugly girls can become movie star pretty simply by removing their glasses and rearranging their hair.
-Anyone can land a 747 as long as there is someone in the control tower to talk you down.
-During all police investigations it will be necessary to visit a strip club at least once.
-In all martial art movies the hero can beat up 30 ninjas and martial art masters in 5 minutes. But if he smart mouths to his 100 year old grandma, she has the speed to slap him.
-If there is a pool, someone will end up falling into it.
-If you get hit in the leg or arm with a bullet, even a small caliber one, you just swear briefly, then carry on fighting for ages and walking around without any pain at all, nor do you seem to lose blood. When 12 hours later you go to the doctor, he takes the bullet out instantly, you don't need the limb amputated or even bandaged.
- Any couple that fights in the beginning is bound to end up together.
-The protagonist has a minimalist apartment in a skyscraper with full window walls. He wakes up and stands nude, contemplating the city vista.
- The crazy old aunt/bum is actually very intelligent and provides key insight at the last minute.
-If you ever need to hide a child while you go off to battle your enemies, there's always a long lost relative who lives somewhere remote that will be more than happy to receive them in the middle of the night.
-Subway/Elevator doors close just as the character reaches them in a mad dash.
-It is always possible to park directly outside any building you are visiting.
-No one ever has to take a shit. Ever.
-If you decide to start dancing in the street, everyone you bump into will know all the steps.
-When a person is knocked unconscious by a blow to the head, they will never suffer a concussion or brain damage.
-No one involved in a car chase, hijacking, explosion, volcanic eruption or alien invasion will ever go into shock.
-When they are alone, all foreigners prefer to speak English to each other.
-You can always find a chainsaw when you need one.
-Any lock can be picked by a credit card or a paper clip in seconds, unless it's the door to a burning building with a child trapped inside.
-An electric fence, powerful enough to kill a dinosaur will cause no lasting damage to an eight-year-old child.
-Television news bulletins and radio programmed usually contain a story that affects you personally at that precise moment you turn the television on.
-People having conversation in a cafe never seem to finish their food and just take off after their conversation is over.
-Everybody carries around flip phones which can be broken like a pencil and thrown away.
-There is no limit to which a street camera can be zoomed and apparently they are present everywhere.
-The protagonist can jump over rooftops with ease and can save himself from falling even if he gets the tip of his finger over the wall.
-Women turn into martial arts experts whenever they are dressed in tight suits.
-It doesn't matter what kind of job you have in NYC, you can afford a spacious brownstone house in a good neighborhood.
-If you are an evil mastermind, then all bad news is the mistake of the messenger and it makes perfect sense to shoot/kill/maim/hurt them.
-Any car that is wrecked will catch fire and burn. People who have suffered head and neck injuries in car accidents are needlessly harmed by well-intentioned would-be rescuers who believe this.
-Mobile phones only work until you really need them then you will either be unable to get a signal or the battery will be flat.
-A defibrillator can revive dead people. In fact, you would use heart massage on a dead person.
-People can be knocked out for hours with one punch and with no long term health issues, when in reality if you are knocked unconscious for longer than a few seconds you will probably experience fairly serious brain damage.
-In any dangerous situation the good guy will leave the pretty girl in a safe place, where the bad guy will kidnap or kill her.
-In any situation involving a group of people the natural leader will get everything so screwed up that only the most worthless member can save the day.
-The bad guy will always be shot/stabbed from the back just as he goes to pull the trigger or bring down a knife on the good guy.
-Your six-shot revolver can fire 17 times without reloading. and 19 Indians fall down.
-A professor is always interrupted in the middle of a lecture by the bell or when something important is about to be told. The same goes in any detective film. Just as someone is about to tell the detective who the murderer is, after they keep stalling, as the open their mouth to say who it is, someone shoots them.
-No-one ever says 'bye' at the end of a phone call; one person will just terminate the call without the other thinking this rude.
-People can hold their breath underwater for ages, especially in panicky situations.
-The sound from an explosion in space can propagate through the vacuum and be heard and felt, sometimes violently, by an observer in a distant spacecraft. The travel time of the sound is also instantaneous regardless of how many millions of kilometers away the observer is located.

Saturday, February 22, 2014

"Bitter Clingers" and various other thoughts.

Well I am down with the "Crud" like BRM discussed a few days ago.

I was going to do a posting on the new play floated by the FCC to put monitors in the newsrooms to make sure that people get the news they "need to have"....Funny question..."Need to have" by whose defination?...A government hack that will make sure the party line is adhered to and nothing embarrassing of the regime makes it out?    But apparently that quickly died after the news broke.  The bad thing is that none of the major news organs complained about it.  

    So I decided to roll out with a few pics that I had saved for a while and figured I would throw them out just to chum the waters.
 Y'all noticed that he made that comment a few years ago, but he only tries to disarm the people over here.  Overseas, he funnels guns and money to the various Muslim groups including the Muslim brotherhood that tried to take over Egypt.   
     Here is another pic of the same kind of thing that I have had in my folder for a few years.

   Now since I ain't feeling up to snuff, I will add a few other pics......No Rule 5 stuff, my son reads my blog and I would catch hell from the spousal unit for that one.   I have another pic that I saved, I in a past life was a Domino's Pizza Manager for about 3 years.  I did this after I got out of the service in 1991.  It was a thankless job and it was dangerous.  I and several of my drivers have been robbed, and I have the stitches on my head from the 15 year old black kid that did it.  I know that corporate policy was " no guns, and don't resist a robbery. Give them what they want."  The policy was put in place not for the safety of the driver, but to keep the company from getting sued if a driver shoots a robber.  That policy might have worked back when I was delivering back in the mid 80's, but you now have kids out there trying to build their Street Cred or Street Cred , they would "put a cap in yo ass".   I carried as did 3/4 of my drivers.  I had told them" Corporate policy is don't resist, but it is better to be tried by 12 than to be carried by 6. You can get another job, you can't get another life."
I also told them, that if I heard of them flashing a gun around, I would have to can them.  "It wouldn't be personal, it was business."  The drivers understood where I was coming from.  The last time I delivered was when I was working at Papa Johns for 6 months after the Ford Plant closed before my present employer hired me.  I will not do it again unless the wolf is at my door and I have no other options.
     Now off to some Saturday morning cartoons:)

    

Well let me go looking on youtube for some gratuitous Saturday morning cartoons.


Enjoy your Saturdays...   

Thursday, February 20, 2014

The 4 boxes of the American Political system.

I have published this back when I first started blogging and I figured I would dust it out and see how it goes.  I have been busier than Obama sucking up to Liberals, LGBT,eco-radicals, unions,Hollywood Celebrities,muslims,communist,socialist, vacations, playing golf. 


I will explain them to the best of my ability,

   The soap box,   You can say whatever you want against the government and they can't lock you up, and send you to a gulag.
    The Ballot Box:  You can vote for whomever you want and not be threatened to be sent to a camp or have a tire wrapped around your neck if you don't support the Junta.
    The Jury Box:  The rules apply to everybody equally, there is no set of laws for average people and 1 set of laws for the elitist.  unlike some countries.

    The Cartridge box, We open it when the government takes the other rights and we have ballot 308, some have 30-06 and a lot of them have ballot 5.56/  We open this box to get the others back

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Can we be saved?

I am going to use the scheduling thingie on this again, so it will post on tuesday.

     What prompted the title of this post is the realization "Will we survive?"   I made a comment I think on either Old NFO's blog, Murphys place or at Peters place, that we have had our last free elections in 2012.  People voted for Santa Claus instead of Scrooge.  Let me 'splain more of what I am talking about.
     The democrats promise free stuff in exchange for votes,
There are programs for food stamps, EBT, heating oil,SNAP, Section 8 housing, and some more with a quick "Google" search

Social Security Retirement

Social Security retirement benefits paid to retired workers who have earned enough Social Security credits.

Supplemental Security Income (SSI)

Supplemental Security Income (SSI) is a federal government benefit program providing cash to meet basic needs for food, clothing, and shelter to persons who are blind or otherwise disabled and have little or no other income.

Medicare

Medicare is a health insurance program for people 65 years of age or older, some disabled people under 65 years, and people with End-Stage Renal Disease (permanent kidney failure treated with dialysis or a transplant).

Medicare Prescription Drug Program

Everyone with Medicare can get this coverage benefit that may help lower prescription drug costs and help protect against higher costs in the future.

Medicaid

The Medicaid Program provides medical benefits to low-income people who have no medical insurance or have inadequate medical insurance.

Stafford Student Loans

Stafford Student Loans are available for undergraduate and graduate students at virtually every college and university in America.

Food Stamps

The Food Stamp Program provides benefits to low-income people that they can use to buy food to improve their diets.

Emergency Food Assistance

The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) is a Federal program that helps supplement the diets of low-income needy individuals and families, including elderly people, by providing them with emergency food assistance at no cost.

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) is federally funded – state administered – financial assistance program for low income families with dependent children and for pregnant women in their last three months of pregnancy. TANF provides temporary financial assistance while also helping recipients find jobs that will allow them to support themselves.

Public Housing Assistance Program

The HUD Public Housing assistance program was established to provide decent and safe rental housing for eligible low-income families. Public housing comes in all sizes and types, from scattered single family houses to highrise apartments for elderly families.

More Federal Benefit and Assistance Programs

While the Top Federal Benefit Programs may represent the meat-and-potatoes from the buffet of federal assistance programs offered by the U.S. government, there are many more benefit programs that fill out the menu from soup to desert. Here you will find basic program information, eligibility and how to apply for these federal benefit programs.


and  Obamaphones, remember this gem from the last election cycle?
     The Democrats have become the party of "GimmeDats", in exchange for votes, and more and more people are deciding to ride the government gravy train rather than work.  What has happened to our national character?  We as Americans traditionally are known as "Self Reliant Go Getters."  What has happened to our national character?   Could a weak society like we have today survive the great depression, then WWII where we were attacked at Pearl Harbor and had 6 months of bad news, followed by good and bad news until the war was won?  Could today society handle such trials and tribulations?  
       We as a society have gotten too soft, I have a good friend by the name of "ShellDude," back in the 90's have commented that "Man we as a society have too much time on our hands, when we have time to examine our navel lint in great detail, we are too idle."   We had heard something that was soo incredulous involving the burgeoning P.C. movement.   I think of what he said back then and in some ways he is prescient. 
     I am not sure when it changed, was it a continuation of the 60's counterculture movement when all these new commies freshly indoctrinated at Berkley and other places of higher learning started gathering political power and they started using our sense of laws and fairness against us, we have become the nanny state.  When we have a president willing to rule by executive orders and one party gives him a standing ovation despite the oath of office they took, the  threat to the rule of law it shows me that the political process is totally corrupted. 
     We have the democrats, the self professed party of the middle class and the downtrodden, they have claim to large groups of demographics, most of the single women and women with children vote democrats for all the free stuff they get and the promise of security.  We have very large groups of blacks voting democrats because of party and ethnic loyalty, the same with the hispanics and 40% of the white males. 
They got there by promising all sort of stuff for each demographic group,  and people responded by the promise of "Free stuff".  They don't realize that the stuff ain't free, somebody has to pay for it, and due to our joke of an educational system, people don't learn basic economics and the rule of law and the role of government on our society.  Instead all they have learned is stuff on what makes them "feel good". 
      Now I will get to the republicans, the GOP which used to stand for the "Grand Old Party", a holdover I believe from the civil war where many veterans from the North went into politics. and they took that name from the Grand Army of the Republic which was the name most associated with the union army.  The democrats were strong in the south especially after the era of reconstruction and they pushed a lot of Jim Crow Laws to punish the newly freed slaves and keep them in "their place".  Funny how things have turned out.    But the republicans are associated with the party of white males, we are the "Scrooge" party because we talk about fiscal responsibility, debt, and paying your own way.  Such talk is a killjoy for a lot of people because they have gotten used to the "free stuff" and talk of budgets, fiscal restraints and other things makes them fear for "their goodies" and they act in the predictable manner of voting for the democrats to keep the stuff coming.  The idea of running out of money they can't grasp, their attitude is "well take it from the rich bastards, they got rich by screwing somebody over, so somebody needs to screw them over" and your friendly democrat politician step forward to do the job as long as you vote for them.  This is how we got 17 trillion dollars in debt. and I don't see the train slowing down. 
    I don't know what will happen when the train finally derails, I do know that when it does, it will be very messy and a lot of people will be in the street rioting and burning.  What kind of America will my son inherit?  Will he go through his life being nothing but a wage slave and a prole to the government and the elitist?  Will any dreams he have get crushed because he can't follow them because he will inherit a crushing debt and no way out? and be stuck in a country that used to be known as the "Land of the free" and is now known as the land of entitlements and government intrusion?.  What will it take to reverse the course that has been set?  Any course corrections will involve pain and I don't think we as a society is capable assuming that burden.  Will we go into the dustpan of history like Greeks and Romans?  Will the next society that tries the same thing, will they learn from our mistakes and not repeat them?   I don't know...we knew what the Greeks and the Romans did and we would up repeating the same mistakes anyway.  Our founders knew, they were very educated and they had thought they had solved the problem and they did, we did well the first 100+ years, then it changed at the turn of the last century with the advent of Wilson and the progressive movement.  I keep on  thinking that we as a society had squandered our birthright.  There were people here and there that tried to warn the others what was coming, but were called "racist" and "haters" by the uninformed voters,
   All they saw was the gleaming future in the distance that were spun by politicians that promised "Hope" and "Change", they didn't realize the gleaming future was chains for them and their families.  I keep wondering if we can back away from the abyss and save ourselves or will we be destined to walk the desert for 40 years like the Israelite of old, the ones that fled Egypt and had to wander in the deserts of the Sinai until all the ones that were around during the flight from Egypt were gone, and the ones that were left were the ones that only knew freedom and their destiny, not the chains of slavery.  Will we have to do the same?    I don't know.