Friday, April 03, 2015
A guy flies a plane into the Alps and now this
The al-Shabab attack on Garissa University in northeastern Kenya - Should we start studying verses from the Koran at night before we go to bed just in case someone knocks on our door, points a gun in our face and starts doing a terrorist version of "Jeopardy"? Will a Koranic app on our smartphone suffice for the al-Shababster? How long will Obama go on pretending there's no religious dimension to this conflict?
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Not sure of the goals of the various Islamic terror groups. Do they want a nation (ISIL)? Do they want to convert by the sword? (Al Shishkabob)? Do they want
ReplyDeletethe West to stay out of their affairs (Al Quaida)? Are they Shiite? Sunni? Houthi?
..or are they a vicious hobby group for disaffected young guys and gals who live
for violence? What do the Saudis think? the Iranians? the Somalis? Geez, they
got more assault rifles than the NRA.
I think al-Qaeda is partly political, stay out of our affairs as you say. What's weird about Shabab and Boko Haram is their main goal seems to be mow down the infidel even if it means various genocides.
DeleteAs you get to the south of the Sarah, you run into historical tribal violence
Deleteand genocide...almost as endemic there as El Ebola, ya know. Just a
reprise of Charles Taylor, Idi Amin, Bokassa and Mogabe?
What's fascinating to me is the arc of history. So many seriously mentally ill people have run or are running countries esp. in Africa. If Idi Amin lived in Queens and ate a head he would have been in prison and merited a two-day story in the Daily News.
DeleteHow's that new Colonoscopy App doing for ya?
ReplyDeleteIs it available on Google Play? Dunno why you need an app. To cut to the chase the more you starve yourself the better the prep. If you're lucky you might even lose a couple of pounds.
DeleteHere's a question for you gays, and the Leftist loons who support them.. You people believe that the government has the right to force a Christian business owner to act against their conscience. How does anything you said apply to forcing a Christian baker to bake a gay wedding cake? They would have been more than happy to bake a traditional cake, but they lost their business because a couple of perverts wanted a gay cake. Doesn't anyone seen a problem with that? Anyway, here's the question. If you give the government this power, would you trust them to use it wisely?
ReplyDeleteWOW Z-man... I stop by regularly just to see where the conversation is headed and today it looks like you got trolled by some not very wise, or astute owl.
ReplyDeleteRegarding your question as to whether we should start studying the Koran, I'm not sure any amount of study would suffice.
I've found in my work in Mexico, that fundamentalists speak their own language and you can't fake it.
While the Christian side of fundamentalism is not going around killing people, make no mistake, they are just as dogmatic when it comes to guarding against heresy.
Reading some ultratraditionalist pre-Vatican II Catholic sites ain't that the truth. This place has been so slow of late I welcome the occasional visitor.
DeleteZ... Maybe if you mention Bush and Obama, abortion, gays and socialism, you'd get more traffic. Course who wants to spend the whole day sitting in traffic...
ReplyDeleteDo you New Yorkers have any water shortage issues, or just us westerners? Does anyone realize if CA runs short of water, lots of folks' food is going to increase a lot in price? I wonder why the drought out here is not seen as a national issue yet...
Dave when I hit the hot social issues posters come out of the woodwork telling me to shut up. No drought here, if anything we had more than enough snow during February.
DeleteCA has serious problems, using snow pack and the remains of the Colorado River-
ReplyDeleteeven in good years. We suspect they would be looking at
desalinated seawater . Saudi Arabia, a desert surrounded by ocean,
uses 7 billion gallons a day, 4.2 billion of which is desalinated sea water.
"..ultratraditionalist pre-Vatican II Catholic sites..."
ReplyDeleteSuch as?
Catholic Family News, The Fatima Network, Bro. Michael Dimond...they're so traditionalist they have a kind of Gothic vibe to them.
DeleteWell I don't really peruse other than reading The Angelus. I am presently reading "The Spiritual Life".
ReplyDeletehttp://stas.org/en/media/books/spiritual-life-5471
BB... any thoughts on the cost of building a desalination plant? You think the enviros would permit it? Are there issues they would not like?
ReplyDeleteThe downside of desalination is that it requires energy input/cost, Dave. Among the
ReplyDeleteexisting 17,000 desalination plants world wide (Israel, 40% of its domestic water
comes from the sea, for example) the main techniques are ion exchange, vacuum
distillation and reverse osmosis. Like the ancient spread and evaporate methods,
a whole lot of salt gets produced along with fresh water. I understand that 80% of
CA water is used in agriculture, so costs would be critical.
Perhaps, Z-Man, the Opus Dei organization would be of interest. (A little too Scientology in its hierarchic
ReplyDeletestructure for me)
Maybe John Travolta and Tom Cruise can join.
DeleteBB... maybe we could come up with a market for all that salt... like the worlds biggest margaritas...
ReplyDeleteMy thing is why do we have to wait for a severe drought crisis to even begin discussing possible solutions like desalination plants? Animals and other creatures like ants for God's sake are much more provident than we are!
ReplyDeleteWell Z-man, that is the $64,000 question. My guess is that politicians and leaders are loath to exercise leadership, and possibly alienate followers, absent a crisis that demands a response.
ReplyDeleteJust made a list of GOP presidential hopefuls that spoke at the NRA convention.
ReplyDeleteThat eliminated them from my list. If they are afraid of Wayne Lapierre, ISIL et al.
would reduce them to babbling, IMO. Huckagun, Lindsay Sig-Saur Graham, Rick
(shoot away, but don't abort) Santorum, Rick (I think I can name three gun Mfgs)
Perry, Scott (deerslayer) Walker and even Jeb(Hey, I'm the normal one) Bush and
WTF was Donald Trump doing there?
Jeb Bush the normal one kinda like the blond woman on "The Munsters."
DeleteNever thought of it that way, but that seems to nail it.
DeleteIf you had to choose would you rather suffer from narcolepsy or insomnia? That's a tough one but I'd go with being a narco. I'd give up driving first though.
ReplyDeleteBack in the day, I was up 72 hours straight in Chemical Officer school; company commander, first day, night recon patrol that night, radiation assessment next day, night guard duty that night, smoke screen supervisor the next day. Sort of built up, because that night I fell asleep in my foxhole
Deleteduring a thunderstorm and almost drowned. But insomnia/narcolepsy is a tough choice: insomnia makes you too tired to pick up a chick, and falling
asleep while dating is never good.
At least with narcolepsy you're getting sleep. Lack of sleep is at the top of my list of most annoying things in life. Why are the assholes at work never tired?
DeleteGetting back to the non-Jeb Bush Republican presidential field since they love guns so much maybe they can skip the caucuses and primaries and just have a shootout. Set up a Western theme, maybe Huck meets Walker in a saloon. Gunfight at the GOP Corrall.
ReplyDeleteProbably all better shots than Shotgun Cheney. Political wags say you have to play to the base in the primaries: GOP base includes NRA folk,
DeleteFundy-Evangies, FiscalCons & war-loving Neos. My guess, the GOP corral
gunfight would feature assault weapons (but cheap and cost effective), a
crucifix or bible in the vest pocket and free tickets to rich businessmen.
Trump would go down first, shot in the hair.
I think the anti-vaxxers are on their own unless they're part of the Alex Jones base.
DeleteHeard the anti-vaxxers are supporting Jennie McCarthy, campaign slogan
Delete"Keep the needles where they belong...in heroin"
Alex Jones says vaccines contain aluminum and mercury. Fine but what is his alternative for preventing the next measles outbreak?
DeleteI see that Microsoft had an April Fools ad that announced MS-DOS for smartphones.
ReplyDeleteElegant and simple (as in C:\A: DOS.exe: run\ C:outfile). Like that is an improvement over an app? Then, there is that Apple wristwatch that controls your
world, but how the heck do you find the correct time?
It's something I don't need in my life. Waiting for the first major train crash because the conductor had to look at his new Dick Tracy watch.
DeleteWe have had odd recurences of a faded old blue car going by with two young guys in it. Real slow, and one has some sort of laptop. They circle a three block area for
ReplyDeleteabout an hour. Before my curiosity gets the best of me and I go out and flag them down to find out what they are up to, do you think it is some sort of WI-FI thing, or
are they just a couple of Ghost Buster wannabees?
As of now I can't come up with a theory. Lots of strange folks around. Many times you'll see some guy sittin' in his car at a rather crowded shopping parking lot. He ain't eating, reading and seems a long time to be waiting for someone. You feel like going up with a "are you all right?"
DeleteIf its an old guy smoking a pipe, he is waiting for his wife to buy up half
Deletethe craft store. Believe me.
If it's Anthony Weiner sitting in that car we both know what he's doing.
DeleteWell did Obama have a Cuban cigar yet?
ReplyDeleteDunno- probably one of those exploding ones like in the Three Stooges.
DeleteI guess nothing really matters in the long run. Stephen Hawking says the Higgs Boson could destroy the universe.
ReplyDeleteDang! If Hawking comes up with a precise date for the speed of light vacuum bubble event ,
Deletelet me know. I'll double my pastry intake.
Think of Hawking as Einstein on acid.
DeleteIt is said that you can do the Higgs Field calculations on the new Apple Smartwatch,
ReplyDeletebut it won't give you the time of day. My Timex survived a fall into the toilet, its battery has never run out and it still gives the time of day. Just sayin.
Related to this with all the distracted driving out there should we really be encouraging sales of new cars with wifi? Back in the day distracted driving meant looking at a woman's posterior. However a man is likely tomiss a nice posterior because he's been texting.
DeleteI'm kind of a train guy myself. One time in Mpls, I drove under a RR bridge that had a pair of rare Rock Island diesels going over. As I was
Deletelooking backwards at them, I drove through a speed trap. *sigh*
My weakness is red-tailed hawks although a turkey vulture will do.
DeleteBirds of prey
Deleteare fascination all right. A few years and a small fortune back, we spent
a lot of time at WSU vet center with our kitten, Mikey and all bonded with
Dr. Schneider, the vet opthamologist. Invariably in the big waiting room
among the guys with bluetick hounds and old ladies with Pomeranians or
Cockatoos, there were two or three young coeds walking around with huge hawks, owls and eagles on their gloved hands. How come injured
birds and horses like girls and vice versa?