Webster

The Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions." --American Statesman Daniel Webster (1782-1852)


Wednesday, November 30, 2016

Chemtrails....Humor and facts...

I work in the aviation industry and a humorous subject for us besides dodging the boss is making jokes about "Chemtrail."   I have run across a lot of meme's on one of the facebook groups that I follow and I saved them.  The information are from "wiki" the pics are wherever I found them:)   Anybody in the aviation industry I hope will enjoy the humor.


The chemtrail conspiracy theory is the unproven belief that long-lasting trails, so-called "chemtrails", are left in the sky by high-flying aircraft and that they consist of chemical or biological agents deliberately sprayed for sinister purposes undisclosed to the general public. Believers in the theory argue that normal contrails dissipate relatively quickly and that contrails that do not dissipate must contain additional substances.These arguments have been dismissed by the scientific community: such trails are normal water-based contrails (condensation trails) that are routinely left by high-flying aircraft under certain atmospheric conditions. Although proponents have attempted to prove that the claimed chemical spraying does take place, their analyses have been flawed or based on misconceptions.

Because of the widespread popularity of the conspiracy theory, official agencies have received many inquiries from people demanding an explanation. Scientists and government officials around the world have repeatedly needed to confirm that supposed chemtrails are in fact normal contrails.
The term chemtrail is a portmanteau of the words chemical and trail, as contrail is a contraction of condensation trail. Believers in the conspiracy theory speculate that the purpose of the claimed chemical release may be solar radiation management,psychological manipulation, human population control, weather modification, or biological or chemical warfare and that the trails are causing respiratory illnesses and other health problems. Contrails are formed at high altitudes (5–10 miles or 8–16 kilometers), and any chemicals released at such a height would disperse harmlessly and fall many hundreds of miles away, or degrade before touching the ground

In the late 1990s, chemtrail conspiracy theories began to circulate when the United States Air Force (USAF) was accused of "spraying the U.S. population with mysterious substances" from aircraft "generating unusual contrail patterns." The theories were posted on internet forums posted by people like Richard Finke and William Thomas; they were also discussed by late-night radio host Art Bell starting in 1999. As the chemtrail conspiracy theory spread, federal officials were flooded with angry calls and letters.
A multi-agency response attempting to dispel the rumors was published in 2000 by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Many chemtrail believers interpreted the fact sheet as further evidence of the existence of a government cover-up.

In the early 2000s the USAF said that the conspiracy theories were a hoax fueled in part by citations to a strategy paper drafted within their Air University entitled Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025. The paper was presented in response to a military directive to outline a future strategic weather modification system for the purpose of maintaining the United States' military dominance in the year 2025, and identified as "fictional representations of future situations/scenarios." The USAF further clarified in 2005 that the paper "does not reflect current military policy, practice, or capability," and that it is "not conducting any weather modification experiments or programs and has no plans to do so in the future." Additionally, the USAF states that the "'Chemtrail' hoax has been investigated and refuted by many established and accredited universities, scientific organizations, and major media publications."

In 2003, in a response to a petition by concerned Canadian citizens regarding "chemicals used in aerial sprayings are adversely affecting the health of Canadians," the Government House Leader responded by stating, "There is no substantiated evidence, scientific or otherwise, to support the allegation that there is high altitude spraying conducted in Canadian airspace. The term 'chemtrails' is a popularised expression, and there is no scientific evidence to support their existence." The house leader went on to say that "it is our belief that the petitioners are seeing regular airplane condensation trails, or contrails."

In the United Kingdom, in 2005 Elliot Morley, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs was asked "what research her Department has undertaken into the polluting effects of chemtrails for aircraft," and responded that "the Department is not researching into chemtrails from aircraft as they are not scientifically recognised phenomena," and that work was being conducted to understand "how contrails are formed and what effects they have on the atmosphere."
Scientists and federal agencies have consistently denied that chemtrails exist, insisting the sky tracks are simply persistent contrails. Official statements on the non-existence of chemtrails have not discouraged the conspiracy theorists. Various versions of the chemtrail conspiracy theory have been propagated via the Internet and radio programs.There are websites dedicated to the conspiracy theory, and it is particularly favored by right-wing groups because it fits well with deep suspicion of government. In a 2011 study of people from the US, Canada, and the UK, 2.6% of the sample entirely believed in the conspiracy theory, and 14% believed it partially.

A 2014 paper in the The Geographical Journal said: "Chemtrail activists frequently attend events and conferences on geoengineering, and indeed many academics working in this area have been subjected to threats and verbal abuse for their alleged role in the conspiracy."
A 2016 study surveying 77 atmospheric scientists concluded that "76 out of 77 (98.7%) of scientists that took part in this study said there was no evidence of a [secret large-scale atmospheric program (SLAP)], and that the data cited as evidence could be explained through other factors, such as typical contrail formation and poor data sampling instructions presented on SLAP websites."
The conspiracy theories are seldom covered by the mainstream media, and when they are, they are usually cast as an example of anti-government paranoia.
Rudimentary chemtrail delivery system from WWII

Proponents of the chemtrail conspiracy theory say that chemtrails can be distinguished from contrails by their long duration, asserting that the chemtrails are those trails left by aircraft that persist for as much as a half day or transform into cirrus-like clouds.The proponents claim that after 1995 contrails had a different chemical composition and lasted a lot longer on the sky; proponents fail to acknowledge evidence of long-lasting contrails shown in World War II era photographs. In some accounts, the chemicals are described as barium and aluminum salts, polymer fibers, thorium, or silicon carbide. Other accounts allege that the skies are being seeded with electrically conductive materials as part of a massive electromagnetic superweapons program based around the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP). Those who believe in the conspiracy say the chemtrails are toxic, but the reasons given by those who believe in the conspiracy vary widely, ranging from military weapons testing to chemical population control to climate control.
Some chemtrail believers adopt the notions of William Reich (1897 – 1957) who devised a "cloudbuster" device from pipework filled with crystals and metal filings: such devices are pointed at the the sky in an attempt to clear it of chemtrails.

A 2014 paper presented results of reviewing 20 chemtrial websites and found that chemtrail believers generally hold that chemtrails are evidence of a global conspiracy; the goals of the conspiracy vary among different people or groups but include profit (for example, manipulating futures prices or making people sick to benefit drug companies), population control, or weapons testing (use of weather as a weapon, or testing bioweapons). It found that chemtrail believers generally hold that every person is under attack and often express fear, anxiety, sadness and anger about this. It found that believers often narrate an experience akin to a religious conversion experience when they first "woke up" and became aware of chemtrails. It also found that believers appeal to science on the one hand, but don't believe what academic or government-employed scientists say.

Photographs of barrels installed in the passenger space of an aircraft for flight test purposes have been claimed to show aerosol dispersion systems. The real purpose of the barrels is to simulate the weight of passengers or cargo. The barrels are filled with water, and the water can be pumped from barrel to barrel in order to test different centers of gravity while the aircraft is in flight.
Jim Marrs has cited a 2007 Louisiana television station report as evidence for chemtrails. In the report the air underneath a crosshatch of supposed chemtrails was measured and apparently found to contain unsafe levels of barium: at 6.8 parts per million, three times the US nationally recommended limit. A subsequent analysis of the footage showed, however, that the equipment had been misused, and the reading exaggerated by a factor of 100—the true level of barium measured was both usual and safe.

In May 2014 a video that went viral showed a commercial passenger airplane landing on a foggy night, which was described as emitting chemtrails.  Discovery News pointed out that passengers sitting behind the wings would clearly see anything being sprayed, which would defeat any intent to be secretive, and that the purported chemical emission was normal air disruption caused by the wings, visible due to the fog. In October 2014, Englishman Chris Bovey filmed a video of a plane jettisoning fuel on a flight from Buenos Aires to London, which had to dump fuel to lighten its load for an emergency landing in São Paulo. The clip went viral on Facebook, with nearly 3 million views and over 47,000 shares, cited as evidence of chemtrails.

In 2001, US Congressman Dennis Kucinich introduced (but did not author) H.R. 2977 (107th), the Space Preservation Act of 2001 that would have permanently prohibited the basing of weapons in space, listing chemtrails as one of a number of "exotic weapons" that would be banned." Proponents have interpreted this explicit reference to chemtrails as official government acknowledgment of their existence.  Skeptics note that the bill in question also mentions "extraterrestrial weapons" and "environmental, climate, or tectonic weapons." The bill received an unfavorable evaluation from the United States Department of Defense and died in committee, with no mention of chemtrails appearing in the text of any of the three subsequent failed attempts by Kucinich to enact a Space Preservation Act.

Contrails, or condensation trails, are "streaks of condensed water vapor created in the air by an airplane or rocket at high altitudes." They are the result of normal emissions of water vapor from piston and jet engines at high altitudes in which the water vapor condenses into visible clouds. They are formed when hot humid air from the engines mixes with the colder surrounding air. The rate at which contrails dissipate is entirely dependent on weather conditions and altitude. If the atmosphere is near saturation, the contrail may exist for some time. Conversely, if the atmosphere is dry, the contrail will dissipate quickly.
Exhaust gases and emissions
Wingtip condensation trails
It is well established by atmospheric scientists that contrails can persist for hours, and that it is a perfectly normal characteristic for them to spread out into cirrus sheets. The different-sized ice crystals in contrails descend at different rates, which spreads the contrail vertically. Then the differential in wind speeds between altitudes (wind shear) results in the spreading of the contrail across many miles/kilometers in the sky. This mechanism is similar to the formation of cirrus uncinus clouds. Contrails between 25,000 and 40,000 feet (7,600 and 12,200 m) can often merge into an "almost solid" interlaced sheet. Contrails can have a lateral spread of several kilometers, and given sufficient air traffic, it is possible for contrails to create an entirely overcast sky that increases the ice budget of individual contrails and persists for hours.
Experts on atmospheric phenomena say chemtrails do not exist, and that the characteristics attributed to them are simply features of contrails responding differently in diverse conditions in terms of the sunlight, temperature, horizontal and vertical wind shear, and humidity levels present at the aircraft's altitude. In the US, the gridlike nature of the National Airspace System's flight lanes tends to cause crosshatched contrails, and in general it is hard to discern from the ground whether overlapping contrails are at similar altitudes or not. The jointly published fact sheet produced by NASA, the EPA, the FAA, and NOAA in 2000 in response to alarms over chemtrails details the science of contrail formation, and outlines both the known and potential impacts contrails have on temperature and climate. The USAF produced a fact sheet as well that described these contrail phenomena as observed and analyzed since at least 1953. It also rebutted chemtrail theories more directly by identifying the theories as a hoax and disproving the existence of chemtrails.

Contrail testing being carried out on an Airbus A340 and much older Boeing 707
Patrick Minnis, an atmospheric scientist with NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, is quoted in USA Today as saying that logic does not dissuade most chemtrail proponents: "If you try to pin these people down and refute things, it's, 'Well, you're just part of the conspiracy'," he said.
Analysis of the use of commercial aircraft tracks for climate engineering has shown them to be generally unsuitable.
Proponents of the theory of the existence of chemtrails characterize these phenomena as streams that persist for hours and that, with their criss-cross, grid-like or parallel stripe patterns, eventually blend to form large clouds. Proponents view the presence of visible color spectra in the streams, unusual concentrations of sky tracks in a single area, or lingering tracks left by unmarked or military airplanes flying at atypical altitudes or locations as markers of chemtrails.
Astronomer Bob Berman has characterized the chemtrail conspiracy theory as a classic example of failure to apply Occam's razor, writing in 2009 that instead of adopting the long-established "simple solution" that the trails consist of frozen water vapour, "the conspiracy web sites think the phenomenon started only a decade ago and involves an evil scheme in which 40,000 commercial pilots and air traffic controllers are in on the plot to poison their own children."


   Now some humorous pics that I also located.

also this one.....

And another one for Pilots....

Monday, November 28, 2016

Monday Music "Learn to Fly" by the Foo Fighters

This song was one of the first songs I ever did with my "Monday Music" back in early 2012 and back then I did no background on the band or the video.  I always liked the music of the Foo Fighters, and this song came out and the video was hilarious!  I was surprised when I was doing my research on Nirvana a couple of weeks ago that Dave Grohl was part of Nirvana and I though it was funny in a ironic way that Dave felt totally intimidated by Kurt and his musical abilities.  Imagine if Dave and Kurt had written music together how awesome it would have been, or on the flipside with Kurt passing on it gave Dave a chance to shine, funny how life rolls.   I took a mini-break during the Thanksgiving Holiday to digitally detox as they say. 

Foo Fighters is an American rock band, formed in Seattle, Washington in 1994. It was founded by Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl as a one-man project following the death of Kurt Cobain and the resulting dissolution of his previous band. The group got its name from the UFOs and various aerial phenomena that were reported by Allied aircraft pilots in World War II, which were known collectively as foo fighters

Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl joined the grunge group Nirvana as its drummer in 1990. During tours, he took a guitar with him and wrote songs. Grohl held back these songs from the rest of the band; he said in 1997, "I was in awe of [frontman Kurt Cobain's songs], and [I was] intimidated. I thought it was best that I kept my songs to myself."

Foo Fighters has been described as alternative rock, post-grunge and hard rock. When Grohl first started the band, its music was often compared to that of his previous group, Nirvana. Grohl acknowledged that Nirvana singer/guitarist Kurt Cobain was a major influence on his songwriting. Grohl said, "Through Kurt, I saw the beauty of minimalism and the importance of music that's stripped down". Foo Fighters also utilized the technique of shifting between quiet verses and loud choruses, which Grohl said was influenced by the members of Nirvana "liking The Knack, Bay City Rollers, Beatles, and ABBA as much as we liked Flipper and Black Flag, I suppose". Writing and recording songs for the first Foo Fighters album by himself, Grohl wrote the guitar riffs to be as rhythmic as possible. He approached the guitar in a similar manner to his playing a drumkit, assigning different drum parts to different strings on the instrument. This allowed him to piece together songs easily; he said, "I could hear the song in my head before it was finished."

There Is Nothing Left to Lose is the third studio album by American rock band Foo Fighters, released November 2, 1999. The album marks the first appearance of drummer Taylor Hawkins, and is often seen as a departure from the band's previous work, showcasing a softer, more experimental sound. In a 2006 interview, Dave Grohl states that the album is "totally based on melody" and that it "might be his favorite album that they've ever done."


There Is Nothing Left to Lose won the Grammy Award for Best Rock Album in 2001, marking the group's first ever Grammy Award. The band would go on to win the Grammy for Best Rock Album for three of their next four studio releases (One by One, Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace, and Wasting Light).

The music video for the song was directed by Jesse Peretz and won the 2000 Grammy Award for Best Short Form Music Video.
The music video for the song takes place on an commercial airliner, parodying the movie Airplane!, and by extension, the films Airport 1975 and its sequel Airport '77. Two airline mechanics (played by Jack Black and Kyle Gass from Tenacious D) smuggle and hide their narcotic known as "World Domination brand 'Erotic' Sleeping Powder" in the coffee-maker. This ends up incapacitating everyone who drinks the coffee. The take-off sequence, in addition to the crew members hiding ulterior criminal motives, are a near shot-by-shot homage to the film Airport '77. The band, having avoided the coffee (choosing liquor instead), mirroring Karen Black's role in Airport 1975, find themselves forced to land the plane. For the video, each band member (Dave Grohl, Nate Mendel, and Taylor Hawkins) portrays himself as well as several other roles, including an FBI agent who arrests the two mechanics.

Saturday, November 26, 2016

Light posting and some pithy comments...

My posting has been light this week as I have been spending time with the family rather than crawling around the internet looking for news.   Well we have had a couple of famous people pass or shed their moral coil as they say...We had  Florence Henderson A.K.A. "Mom" from the Brady Bunch pass to her heavenly reward..
From everything I have heard  about Florence was that she was a class act on and off the screen.   Now we have a different side of the coin....We have the very popular head of the Cuba Communist Party croaked.  In my mind  it would have been better for Castro to have either died of rope burns or lead poisoning.  He has poisoned the minds of generations of Americans with his ideology and has spread misery and despair in Africa where Cuban troops acting as Soviet Proxies tried to subvert several countries including Angola, South Africa and a few other countries not including the mayhem he pushed in South America.

And finally it seems that Jill Stein of the Green Party has succeeded in getting the money together, shocker there, how much was Soro's money to pay for a recount in 3 battleground states.  Now we have the Hillary camp glomming on it hoping to overturn the states that called it for Trump.  If they are successful, it will cause a lot of problems especially because we are getting news reports of electors getting death threats if they don't change their votes from Trump to Clinton.   The Gutter techniques of the democrats don't cease to amaze me.


Thursday, November 24, 2016

Happy Thanksgiving and reading a new book...

First off, Happy Thanksgiving, enjoy time with your family, that is why the holiday is important..

  And if you have any liberal relatives...be nice to them...they have had a hard time watching the "chosen one" go down in flames like a gazelle in front of a pride of lions.
Also I am reading my blog buddy's book Tom Rogneby who also operates a blog called "DaddyBear's Den".  I remembered when he started a few years ago turning daily events into a Norse Saga from picking up the kids from school or dueling some marauder in a grocery store, they were always funny and showed imagination.  A couple of years ago he published the first of the "Minivanians" series.  They are a good read and they get better and better.  I believe that rather than slay the annoying co-workers at his job like his blood calls out for, he writes instead...keeps the legal fees down, Lol.  Go read and he will tell you of tall tales when Norsemen ruled and traveled to far away lands for glory and treasure instead of looking for a parking spot in a grocery store.   Go read and hear the tales of Yore when mighty men and women rode into battle for glory and Honor, Go read tales of the Mighty Minivanians


Monday, November 21, 2016

Monday Music "How do you Do" by Mouth and MacNeal.

You have a song that you first remember singing to and playing all the time....well this one was mine...I remember playing the mess out of this song on my little 45 record player
                                                        It looked kinda like this one....
  I no longer have the record player, it vanished in the mist of time but I still have the .45 record that I played the crap out of.  I got it from my Mom's house a couple of years ago.   I was surprised that she still had it.  It is with all my other records that reside in my bonus room. I really liked this song when I was about 7 years old and it was awesome to a 7 year old's perspective.  I recently downloaded the song on my phone.  Yes the song is corny...very corny but it reminds me of my childhood and I had a good childhood so I can't complain. 

"How Do You Do" released in 1971 was an international hit single for Dutch duo Mouth & MacNeal. It was #1 in the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Switzerland, and New Zealand. It also spent 19 weeks in the Billboard Hot 100 a year later, and a cover version by Scots-German duo Die Windows (later Windows) reached #1 in Germany. The single earned Mouth & MacNeal, and its composers Hans van Hemert and Harry van Hoof, the 1972 Buma Export Award for the most records sold abroad by a Dutch musical act in that year.


They were formed in 1971 when record producer Hans van Hemert brought together the solo talent of Big Mouth (born Willem Duyn) and Maggie MacNeal (born Sjoukje van't Spijker). Big Mouth had previously sung in a number of 1960s bands, including Speedway. MacNeal had released one solo single before teaming up with Big Mouth, a cover of Marvin Gaye's "I Heard It Through the Grapevine", also produced by van Hemert.
The duo released their first single, "Hey You Love", which reached #5 in the Dutch Top 40, while the next two singles "How Do You Do" and "Hello-A" both reached #1 in the Netherlands. In 1972, "How Do You Do" reached the top of the charts throughout Continental Europe and Scandinavia. "How Do You Do" was made popular in the United States by radio personality Jim Connors and the song eventually reached #8 in the U.S. in July 1972. "How Do You Do" spent 19 weeks in the Billboard Hot 100 and won the R.I.A.A. gold disc on 2 August 1972. Selling over a million copies in the U.S. alone, global sales exceeded two million.
This propelled their 1972 album Hey You Love / How Do You Do into the Billboard 200 (US #77). More hit singles followed in 1973, and in 1974 Mouth & MacNeal represented the Netherlands in the Eurovision Song Contest with their song "I See a Star", placing third to ABBA and Gigliola Cinquetti. The song became a UK top ten hit, peaking at #8.
In December 1974, shortly after their success with "I See a Star", Mouth and MacNeal split up. Big Mouth continued with Ingrid Kup (who would later become his wife) as "Big Mouth & Little Eve", whereas MacNeal resumed her solo career. MacNeal went on to represent the Netherlands again at the Eurovision Song Contest 1980 held in The Hague, singing "Amsterdam", finishing fifth in a field of nineteen.
By then, Big Mouth was also pursuing a solo career; under his own name he charted with Dutch-language versions of Frankie Miller's "Darlin" (the song was renamed "Willem") and "Chattanooga Choo Choo" (based on German singer Udo Lindenberg's adaptation). In 1992 Duyn joined forces with rural-conscious rockers Normaal for Tenpole Tudor's Wünderbar while their own frontman Bennie Jolink recovered from a motorcycle-accident.
Duyn died from a heart attack in his hometown of Roswinkel on December 4, 2004 at the age of 67.
MacNeal dropped her pseudonym and performed as Sjoukje Smit; in 2008 she reformed Mouth & MacNeal with Arie Ribbens replacing Duyn, but with no success.
On March 21, 2012, Roel Smit published the Mouth & MacNeal biography; Mouth & MacNeal, duo tegen wil en dank.

Sunday, November 20, 2016

Back from Camping and a brilliant comment I saw...

I came back from camping, was supposed to go through my Vigil ceremony but it got cancelled because the state govorner banned "recreational fires" until the extra dry conditions have left.  They are talking around February.   I came back and ran across this comment when somebody made the comment that all Trump supporters "need to die".   I saw this comment posted and it really was good.  


    
Had a liberal who wanted to play the "I watched as Obama did great things" speech game with me.
So I gave him a we watched list.
He blocked me
Here is my list
We watched as your president said "elections have consequences, and I won"
We watched, as he began the systematic destabilization of the world.
We watched, as he began with his "pen and phone" to systematically ram through his agenda and degrade our country.
We watched, as our jobs left, as what few were left began to be filled by illegal immigrants.
We watched, as our veterans and service members died waiting for medical treatment from the VA.
We listened as he promised to fix it, and yet did nothing.
We watched as he turned our police into enemies and thugs into saints.
We watched, as he bailed out wall street, as wall street execs got multi million dollar bonuses paid by the dollars we scraped together.
We watched as he bailed out the automakers, but forced them to repay the money, which he didn't do for wall street.
We watched as the housing market collapsed.
We watched, as the economy barely scraped by with 1.6% growth, stagnant at best.
We watched, as radical islamic terrorists murdered thousands, those terrorists created by him.
We listened as he refused to call them what they were.
We watched, as you put us in safe spaces rather than engage in dialogue with opposing view points.
We watched as racist groups like black lives matter advocated for the murder of police officers.
We watched as the liberal agenda went into overdrive, and began attacking being white as if it were a crime.
We watched as you mad pumpkin spice lattes white privilege (seriously, minorities couldn't enjoy that?)
We watched as minority supremacy ran rampant
We watched, as you began the most divisive, most hateful, most disgusting rhetoric.
We watched reverse racism take hold. And then grow like a wildfire.
We watched all of it. And then we staged our protest, at the ballots.
And then you cried, and the a tantrum, and passed out safety pins.
The country has spoken, and he is your president.
We have spoken, with ballots.
Don't make us speak with bullets.

Friday, November 18, 2016

Gone Camping...

Gone Camping.....
Will be back tomorrow night....

   Read the folks on the sidebar...they are very good :)

Thursday, November 17, 2016

Millennials get a grip....

I cribbed this from one of the UK Newspapers and from Piers Morgan no less.   I didn't care for Piers for his 2nd amendment issues but he is outspoken and has liberal chops and he spoke well in this article.   I have been very busy with work and kid stuff this week so I havn't been able to post like I wanted to.

Cheer up, American millennials!
I mean, seriously, CHEER THE **** UP!
Oh, I know you’ve had a rough week ever since Donald Trump won the election.
But it’s time to get a grip.
STOP crying.
STOP taking personal days off work to ‘process’ what happened.
Millenials need to get a grip. Stop whinging and crying and complaining how unfair life is because Hillary Clinton lost the electoral vote to Donald Trump
Millenials need to get a grip. Stop whinging and crying and complaining how unfair life is because Hillary Clinton lost the electoral vote to Donald Trump
STOP huddling with your equally distraught buddies in Starbucks over your Venti Iced White Chocolate Mocha.
STOP howling away on social media about how unfair life is and how it’s the end of the planet as we know it.
STOP updating the exact number Hillary won the popular vote by, because it doesn’t bloody matter.
STOP marching around screaming your fury at the result when many of you couldn’t even bothered to vote.
STOP retweeting all your favourite celebrities’ own outbursts of pique, rage and anguish.
STOP demanding the Electoral College reverse the decision in December.
In short, STOP being such a faux-tormented bunch of absolutely deluded cretins.
Want to know why Trump is going to be your next president?
It’s because he is what’s called a ‘winner’.
Trump is going to be your next president because he is what’s called a ‘winner’. I know it’s not ‘cool’ to be a winner these days and it's an ugly, dirty word in your PC-crazed universe
Trump is going to be your next president because he is what’s called a ‘winner’. I know it’s not ‘cool’ to be a winner these days and it's an ugly, dirty word in your PC-crazed universe
I know it’s not ‘cool’ to be a winner these days.
It’s become an ugly, dirty word in your PC-crazed universe.
Far better, the social media millennial mob cries, to be a gallant loser who tries their best but comes up short - like Bernie, or now Hillary.
To which I say: bulls**t.
Winning is what life’s really about - whether in sport, politics, or simply producing the best decorated pumpkin in your town’s Thanksgiving parade.
If you don’t strive to be the very best at whatever you do, however big or small, then what’s the point in doing it, or frankly even being alive?
Why wallow in self-induced mediocrity?
Yet that is precisely where so many of America’s 80 million millennials enjoy wallowing, and as a result they have become the most pampered, privileged and selfish members of the human race in history.
America’s 80 million millennials  have become the most pampered, privileged and selfish members of the human race. The NIH reported that 40% of millennials believe they should be promoted every two years regardless of performance. 77% of millenials can’t even name a senator from their home state. Here are University of Chicago students protesting on Tuesday
America’s 80 million millennials have become the most pampered, privileged and selfish members of the human race. The NIH reported that 40% of millennials believe they should be promoted every two years regardless of performance. 77% of millenials can’t even name a senator from their home state. Here are University of Chicago students protesting on Tuesday
Where’s my evidence for such a shocking assertion?
Try the National Institutes of Health, which reported that 40% of millennials believe they should be promoted every two years regardless of performance, and are so fame obsessed that three times as many middle school girls now want to grow up to be the PA to a talentless celebrity like Kim Kardashian as want to be a senator.
(Hardly surprising therefore that 77% of millennials can’t even name a senator from their home state…)
Oh, and 80% of millennials say they’ll be richer than their parents, yet more of them live with their parents than with a spouse, still take cash off their parents, and work half as hard.
The tragic truth is that America’s millennials are a bunch of phone-addicted, selfie-obsessed, hashtagging, snapchatting, kale-munching, twerking, lazy, whining, ill-informed, politically correct, cossetted narcissists who find absolutely everything mortally offensive and believe there are 165 ways to sexually identify.
They don’t understand the concept of ‘losing’ because they’ve never had to experience it.
At school, to avoid any ‘low self-esteem issues’, they were all given endless ‘Participation Prizes’.
It’s hard to think of a more ridiculous, insidious ‘honour’.
What possible pleasure can there be in ‘winning’ a prize for just turning up? What incentive is there to compete in anything if you’re going to ‘win’ anyway?
Participation prizes converted a whole new generation into people with no understanding of what genuine competition actually means.
This, coupled with the advent of social media technology that allowed them to post relentless ‘filtered’ images of themselves, led to staggeringly self-absorbed figments of their own perfection.
The combined effect of these two things has been to create a deep-rooted sense of entitlement that manifested itself in a breakdown of biblical proportions when Trump triumphed last Wednesday.
Well, welcome to the real world, my delicate little Instagrammed snowflakes.
Millenials don’t understand the concept of ‘losing’ because they’ve never had to experience it. They were all given endless ‘Participation Prizes’ at school. This, coupled with the advent of social media that allowed them to post relentless ‘filtered’ images of themselves, has led to a deep sense of entitlement. Here are some DC protesting students Tuesday
Millenials don’t understand the concept of ‘losing’ because they’ve never had to experience it. They were all given endless ‘Participation Prizes’ at school. This, coupled with the advent of social media that allowed them to post relentless ‘filtered’ images of themselves, has led to a deep sense of entitlement. Here are some DC protesting students Tuesday
This is how democracy works…
You all have a chance to vote…
Someone wins, someone loses…
To the winner of a US presidential election goes all the spoils of being the most powerful person on earth...
To the loser, no gold stars for effort.
Winners like Trump don’t believe in ‘participation prizes.’ They believe you either win or lose.
Winners like Trump don’t weep and wail when they lose. They vow to win next time.
Winners like Trump don’t take days off to ‘process’ their loss. They dust themselves down and get on with life.
Winners like Trump don’t assume they’ll win. They do what it takes to win.
Winners like Trump don’t leave anything in the field of competition. They give it 100%.
‘Winning,’ said the great NFL coach Vince Lombardi, ‘is not a sometime thing, it’s an all the time thing. You don’t win once in a while, you don’t do things right once in a while, you do them right all the time. Winning is habit.’
Lombardi further clarified: ‘Winning isn’t everything, but wanting to win is.’
That’s Trump’s life mantra too. It’s why he’s now heading to the White House, and also why he may now surprise people and turn out to be a rather effective president.
The millennials can’t handle it because it wasn’t supposed to be this way.
The millenials can't handle Trump's win as Hillary Clinton was their anointed one, their heroine, their pick for first female president - thought she was a dull, humourless, uninspiring candidate mired in Wall Street greed, Washington dogma, and her dodgy server
The millenials can't handle Trump's win as Hillary Clinton was their anointed one, their heroine, their pick for first female president - thought she was a dull, humourless, uninspiring candidate mired in Wall Street greed, Washington dogma, and her dodgy server
Hillary Clinton was their anointed one, their heroine, their pick for first female president.
No matter that she was a dull, humourless, uninspiring candidate mired in Wall Street greed, Washington dogma, and dodgy email servers.
Trump won because he didn’t even bother trying to conform to this new world order of eggshell-hopping me-me-me millennials who infest places like New York and California.
Instead, he invested his time and effort in America’s rust belt states where such idealistic, sugar-coated nonsense is complete anathema.
The reaction to Trump’s win has been absurdly, dangerously over-the-top.
A San Diego based cyber-security firm founder and CEO millennial named Mark Harrigan resigned this week after posting the following on Facebook:
‘I’m going to kill the president elect. Getting a sniper rifle and perching myself where it counts. Find a bedroom in the whitehouse that suits you motherf***er. I'll find you. In no uncertain terms, f*** you America. Seriously. F*** off.'
Hardly the personification of ‘#LoveTrumpsHates’ is it?
Winners like Trump don’t assume they’ll win and do what it takes and don’t leave anything in the field of competition. They give it 100%. Trump won, fair and square. The moaning millenials may not like it but refusing to accept the result is un-American. Suck it up
Winners like Trump don’t assume they’ll win and do what it takes and don’t leave anything in the field of competition. They give it 100%. Trump won, fair and square. The moaning millenials may not like it but refusing to accept the result is un-American. Suck it up
Today, it emerged that 200 students from a Manhattan high school were allowed to skip lessons to join the protests outside Trump Tower.
Can you imagine the furore if Trump-supporting students had demanded the right to do that if Hillary had become President?
It’s all so pathetic.
The simple fact is that Trump won, fair and square.
The moaning millennials may not like it but refusing to accept the result is not just undemocratic, it’s un-American.
Nobody rioted when Obama won, twice – though feelings ran just as high against him from those who voted for the other side.
As Trump’s rally song by the Rolling Stones so perfectly summed it up: ‘You can’t always get what you want.’
So suck it up you squealing softies, get back to work or college, and if you want to win next time, get a candidate who’s a winner not a loser. 

Monday, November 14, 2016

Monday Music "Ice, Ice Baby" by Vanilla Ice

 This has been an adventuresome weekend for me, I and another scout leader went to Alabama near Anniston to attend a "NLAT" course or "National Lodge Adviser Training".    we had 3 kids with us attending NLS or "National Leadership Training".   We got there and checked in, we stayed in a Baptist conference center, it looked like a hotel complex, wasn't bad. Our classes started at 8:30 and at 9:00 I was in the way to the  emergency room suffering from nausea and dizziness.  Nothing like spending Friday night in a hospital.  Everything came back good but it really started my weekend off right.  I believe it was dehydration and exhaustion, but I have followups with my Dr.  Anyway enough about my weekend.  

The first time I heard of "Vanilla Ice" was in 1990 and we had gotten a group of new soldiers and they were talking about this thing called "rap" and vanilla ice was their spokesman for lack of a better word, Remember by this time I was 25 years old, been in the green machine 6 years and didn't have the same interest as the younger soldiers.  That was the first time I really experienced "The generation gap".  Seeing a couple of Italian kids trying to rap was hilarious.  I listened to the song..."like I had a choice", it was everywhere!!!.  I did notice that the AFN station would start it off with "under Pressure" by queen then follow it with vanilla Ice or they would reverse it.  It made for an interesting combination.  I have gotten used to the song, it don't grate on me like it used to.  I do know that Vanilla Ice had a hard time with "Street Creed" in the rapper scene.  Being a white guy in basically a black music world was hard and he didn't get the respect he should have gotten.  The later rapper Emimen in my mind had it a bit easier because Vanilla Ice was there before but in a way Eminem had it harder because of the controversy surrounding Vanilla Ice.  Eminem really had "street Creed" in spades, where Vanilla was accused of manufacturing his.  After Vanilla faded out of the mainstream music stream he had to reinvent himself to get away from the image.  From what I have seen he has done a good job, he has a dedicated base to his music and he is "keeping it real".

"Ice Ice Baby" is a hip hop song written by American rapper Vanilla Ice and DJ Earthquake based on the bassline of "Under Pressure" by Queen and David Bowie, who did not initially receive songwriting credit or royalties until after it had become a hit. Originally released on Vanilla Ice's 1989 debut album Hooked and later on his 1990 national debut To the Extreme, it is his most well known song. It has appeared in remixed form on Platinum Underground and Vanilla Ice Is Back! A live version appears on the album Extremely Live, while a rap rock version appears on the album Hard to Swallow, under the title "Too Cold".
"Ice Ice Baby" was initially released as the B-side to Vanilla Ice's cover of "Play That Funky Music", but the single was not initially successful. When disc jockey David Morales played "Ice Ice Baby" instead, it began to gain success. "Ice Ice Baby" was the first hip hop single to top the Billboard Hot 100. Outside the United States, the song topped the charts in Australia, Belgium, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom, thus helping the song diversify hip hop by introducing it to a mainstream audience. The song came fifth in VH1 and Blender's 2004 list of the "50 Most Awesomely Bad Songs Ever."

Robert Van Winkle, better known by his stage name Vanilla Ice, wrote "Ice Ice Baby" in 1983 at the age of 16, basing its lyrics upon his experiences in South Florida. The lyrics describe a shooting and Van Winkle's rhyming skills. The chorus of "Ice Ice Baby" originates from the signature chant of the national African American fraternity Alpha Phi Alpha. Of the song's lyrics, Van Winkle states that "If you released 'Ice Ice Baby' today, it would fit in today's lyrical respect among peers, you know what I'm sayin'? [...] My lyrics aren't, 'Pump it up, go! Go!' At least I'm sayin' somethin'."
The song's hook samples the bassline of the 1981 song "Under Pressure" by Queen and David Bowie who did not receive credit or royalties for the sample. In a 1990 interview, Van Winkle said the two melodies were slightly different because he had added an additional note, an anacrusis ("pickup") between odd-numbered and subsequent even-numbered iterations of the Under Pressure sample.   In later interviews, Van Winkle readily admitted he sampled the song and claimed his 1990 statement was a joke; others, however, suggested he had been serious. Van Winkle later paid Queen and Bowie and as a result, Bowie and all members of Queen have since been given songwriting credit for the sample. In December 1990, Van Winkle told British youth music magazine Smash Hits where he came up with the idea of sampling "Under Pressure":
Van Winkle described himself as the first rapper to cross into the pop market and said that although his pioneer status forced him to "take the heat for a lot of people" for his music's use of samples, the criticism he received over sample use allowed sampling to become acceptable in mainstream hip hop.





Friday, November 11, 2016

Veterans Day 2016

     I and many of my friends have served in the Military, some in the Army, some in the Navy, Marines and Air force but we all have a common thread, we served. We walked the ramparts to use an old phrase.  We trace our lineage back to the Roman legionnaire walking the wall to protect home and hearth from the barbarian horde on the other side of the Danube river.  This holiday was created out of Armistice day, on 11-11-1918 at 11:00 AM the time the war to end all wars ended.  After WWII they renamed "Armistice Day" Veterans Day and it has remained as such.   This is a special day to us veterans because this holiday honors those of us that are alive and carry on the tradition of service to inspire the next generation,  and we veterans remember our fallen brothers on this day. 


"For those that will fight for it...FREEDOM ...has a flavor the protected shall never know."

   I have seen this quote and it has resonated with me since I first patrolled the 1 K zone between East and West Germany, you were scared but you really appreciated the fact that you are alive and serving an honorable service.  To have Freedom to choose your destiny, to choose your path the taste of freedom and the cost of protecting it is something that we veterans can experience.     I had googled the phrase the story how it came to be popped up so I cut and pasted it.  It is a good read.

L/Cpl Edwin L. "Tim" Craft, B Co 3rd AT's, Khe Sanh Combat Base, February, 1968


I graduated from High School in 1966, and all of my course studies had been academic. My main interests besides girls were Marching Band and Debate. Having won the Kansas State Oratorical championship in 1964 with a speech topic "Optimism Formula For Freedom", my intentions were to become a lawyer. I was aware of the Viet Nam war, especially when it began to heat up in 1965. Little did I know that before the next year was over that I would take a journey straight into the pits of hell and see the heaviest fighting our country has ever experienced.
After high school, I enrolled in junior college. I paid my own way by also working at night part time for the H. D. Lee Company that made clothing. When I quit college to join the Marines my professors and especially the office tried to get me to reconsider by saying "But your grades are well above average. You will never have to go!" My reply, and my reason for joining, was simply "those guys fighting and dying over there are no more deserving to be there than me, and I can't feel right letting them do something I would not."
My goal was never to be heroic or gallant. That was the last thing on my mind. After joining, I was barely in the states nine months when I was sent to Nam. En route, we landed on Wake Island. It looked like a grain of sand in the middle of the ocean when our commercial flight United 747 Jet pitched downward and aimed at that grain of sand. My thought was "You've got to be kidding me". All of the Marines that fought there became POW's of the Japanese. Later, I met one of them and got to know him well. I spoke at his funeral. His name was Bob Eaton.
Next stop was Okinawa. The next day it was Da Nang, then Dong Ha, then Hell at Con Thien. My first day in the field I met a Marine who would be my Commanding Officer…a fine man. Thirty minutes later, Lt. Dallas Thompson would move in front of me and die from an explosion. He fell right across my lap and died looking into my eyes. We were taking so much incoming that our Platoon Sgt. ordered us off the hill, mainly because they had our little bunker zero'd in. When I found a hole to jump in, the Marine in it mistook me for a corpsman and called me “Doc”. He said, "’Doc’, that is some of the fanciest footwork I have ever seen. They were following you all the way down. You would go right and they would explode left, then you'd go left and they would explode right. You probably saved all of those guys.” I told him, “I'm not a corpsman. I'm a Marine, and I just got here. All I was is scared and following orders. I don't know enough to plan anything!” He just looked at me for a long while and said, "That was still some run Doc!" (Jarheads!!!) Con Thien, by the way means "Place of Angels". We were under siege there for several months and were cut off from food and water for much of it.
Leatherneck Magazine called the siege for Con Thien "Time in the Barrel". We received a minimum of 200 incoming rounds a day, and it was a small place. It felt like they hit every square inch. One thing I quickly learned was how to know the difference in the sounds of incoming. That knowledge was literally a matter of life and death. Mortars made a high arch and the initial blast in the distance was a muffled report. An artillery round has a bassier sound. It gave you slightly more time to find cover, but if it was on you, then you were in deep trouble. The other one was the most terrifying. It was the rocket, and it screamed as it came in. You could not tell where it might come down, and it came fast. They also had recoilless rifles that fired large shells. They went off almost at the same time you heard them fired at you, and they had a flat trajectory.
My second day in the field another Marine and I wiped out an artillery section that had us pinned down. The Phantoms that flew over reported we had killed 162 of the enemy. This was L/Cpl Arthur Kennedy and myself. We went out under direct fire and had to get out and make sure the grunts (infantry) were down before we could fire our Ontos. If we had been in any other branch both of us would have received the Congressional Medal of Honor. The truth I learned over and over is the Marines were too small an outfit to allow its members to go to receive them, and many of the Marines I knew were cheated out of them. During 1967 and 1968 the Marines bore the brunt of the war, and that is a fact. World Book Encyclopedia reported that fact. Don't get me wrong. I am not medal happy and I wasn't then. When I returned I had at least four rows, and the Marines make you earn theirs.
After months of carnage we had a cease fire on Christmas Eve of 1967. I arrived there about the second week of August and saw many good men die. All of us lived with death every second of every day. On this particular Christmas Eve I heard a broadcast on Armed Forces radio and learned the "Clintonites" were marching on our Capitol protesting against us! I could not believe what I was hearing. Here we were fighting for freedom and these low life commies back home were fighting against us. I was dazed. I just could not understand it. I was hurt to my soul, angered, and disgusted. (This motivated me to write a message on a C-Ration case.)
Not very long after that night we got the word that we were going to a resort area called Khe Sanh. It had not seen any of this type of action. It actually had a mess hall and a laundry, and they marched to chow. Wow!!! What unfathomable luxuries. Also, during this time I was on an operation with B Co 1/9 called Kingfisher, where we got the name "Walking Dead", and a new phrase was coined "Thousand yard stare." One of the Marines started cussing one night, and there was a big commotion. The next day we found out a tiger had grabbed him by the arm and was just carrying him off. He was punching it in the snout. It got as far as the Ben Hoa River and didn't know what to do with him, so it just let him go. That story was in Stars and Stripes. (I was afraid to write back home about that one for fear they would think I was nuts.) The Marines just kidded him about being too grisly for the tiger and that it wanted a softer cut of meat.
When I got to Khe Sanh, sure enough, they were marching to chow, had on starched utilities, and what really blew my mind was that all of their bunkers were built above ground!!! What was wrong with these people? We were met by our new CO, whom I had met at Con Thien. I didn't know who he was, just that he was a big wig. Captain James Lea told us in no uncertain terms that we would fall out in the morning clean shaven and in freshly starched utilities, because special arrangements had been made for us. The Junior Officer took over after Captain Lea left and asked if we had any questions. Being an old salt by now I told him, "Sir, with all due respect for your rank you can go ---- yourself, because me and my men are not going to live in any of these above ground bunkers.” He said “Fine, Corporal Craft" (Actually, I was only a L/Cpl, lance corporal). He said “See that wire over there? You just take your merry men and go right out there and pick out any real estate you want because that is enemy territory and they will be glad to have you. But, as long as you are here, you will comply. Is that clear?” I said “Yes sir, perfectly.”
When he turned away and went back to the HQ, we beat feet for the wire and told them we were going to be an LP (listening post). You can bet we would be too! They said “And you're taking an Ontos to an LP?” I just said “You never can be too careful!” We went out and started digging in. We were the diggingest bunch of guys you ever saw. We just dug and filled sand bags. I think they knew they had been had because they ignored us for nearly a week. Then, our Lt was sent out to read us the riot act. En route, the siege began. The enemy hit the ammo dump, and it sounded like Volkswagens flying past us. It was Con Thien all over again. The next day I was sent for and they wanted me to work with some Seabees to show then how to build the new bunkers. (I wonder why?)
This siege lasted for 77 days and was the most intense fighting of our history. Some reports say there were 1,000 of us and as many as 400,000 of the enemy. Other reports show 6,000 Marines at Khe Sanh, but this was not the Combat base. This figure had to include the surrounding hills and supporting units. Khe Sanh Combat base wasn't that big! Essentially, it was a runway. We were taking some 1,600 rounds of incoming per day every day on this tiny piece of real estate. Someone calculated that we had an explosion from an enemy device every 30 seconds day and night for 77 days. I had been called away from my safe hole when they found out my secondary mos was Ammo/Tech. It was during this time that I spotted a reporter and asked him if he would please mind getting a message back to the world for me. He asked "What is it?" I told him and he looked shocked and asked if I would mind writing that down. I said “Sure” and wrote it on a C-Ration case. That message is: "For those that will fight for it...FREEDOM ...has a flavor the protected shall never know."  
Semper Fi!
--- L/Cpl Edwin L. "Tim" Craft, B Co 3rd AT's, Khe Sanh Combat Base, February, 1968