Fringe Pope

Found this in a link from AH discussion, Why Papal Conclave is an affront to Catholic theology and a pathetic electoral system, posted by Enigmajones. Pope Michael, who has about "30 "solid" followers" is one of two existing American anti-popes, there were 2 others but they resigned or died.

Storing Cowboy Hats and Police Headgear In Vegas Late 50's

Vegas S01E08

This is exactly the sort of picky historical detail that is  probably accurate  because it seems so weird. However the problem with depending on the  historical research on the makers of historical drama is the that there was no Russian roulette in Vietnam despite the depiction in The Deer Hunter.

A Communist, Evil, Faithful, Deluded or Stupid

On Marketplace today there was a story,  An old friend of the party assesses China's new leaders, about an American member of the Chinese Communist party, or as I like to call them the "ChiComs", An old friend of the party, the First American member, assesses China's new leaders. Sidney Rittenberg is over 90 at this point and has spent more than a sixth of his life in ChiCom gulags. He is still a committed communist. That takes faith. After the Cultural Revolution he got out jail and was repatriated to the US. But he still believes.

The message of his life and Johnny Walker Lindh is that some religious/political conversions should be considered the equivalent of voluntary abandonment of citizenship. 

Buy Your own Reproduction Panzer on Ebay

Earlier this year I posted a story about a Russian built Panzer replica, Modern Day Russians Build German Panzer. The above is from Ebay, German Panzer V "Panther" Ausf A Full Size Tank - MAKE AN OFFER! There is a number of videos attached which are listed below. 

However you have only 9 days, or less, to buy this Panzer.

Look how this video seems to be from an alternate timeline.

50 50 Florida

Screen scrape from Real Clear Politics election night coverage at 21:40 

The South will NOT "Rise Again"

Deeply depressing overview of the American South, that is their South East, by someone who currently lives there.

"It will never, ever occur to this person that the causation just might work the other way: if you live in a blue state, with all its high taxes and regulations to try to protect people, you might be more likely to be poor.

Anyone who thinks small towns and rural areas are a "social Darwinist's paradise" doesn't deserve to be read any further than that."

I'm trying to curtail the length of my posts on this site, so maybe this won't be as complete as it should.

I am from the South, and currently live there again. Probably I'm going to leave again one day, and never go back, but that is a story for another day.

Additionally I am from the rural south. Now let me say what this post is all about:

There is literally nothing left in the rural south that is economically viable. The world of even 50 years ago is gone. Agriculture is a game that takes serious funds to operate now. You still see some guys do the little watermelon farming and whatnot, but essentially they are playing at it. The mills are gone now, and the other assorted factories that were once there are gone as well.

There are still some agriculture jobs, but not many. Mechanized agriculture has totally destroyed the world that existed as short a time ago as the 50's.

If it weren't for transfer payments like Social Security, Welfare, Food Stamps and the like it would not be financially possible to support yourself in these areas, let alone pay for things like schools (and football teams).

Even if you got the land for free.

The sad fact is that essentially no one is interested in these areas enough to even be Darwinian about it anymore.

sunbeam / Cail Corashev on Steve Sailer's 

post Dept. of Not Getting Moynihan's Joke

  about the Canadian Border.

Cheney Not Darth Vader - Mark Hamill

Here is Mark Hamill discussing which various Star Wars characters most resemble which various American political figures. He discounts any resemblance between Darth Vader and Dick Cheney, see previous post How Cheney Can't be Darth Vader. Hamill then suggests that Indonesian citizen Barry Soetoro most resembles Obi-wan Kenobi.

"Ben" Kenobi was a man in the figurative and actual wilderness. Obama on the other hand has not had a political career long enough to include time in wilderness, unlike Nixon and Churchill. Thinking back on those two, Winnie and Dick, history has proven that Communism and Nazism are both very bad ideas and those that appease or collaborate with the proponents of such political systems are traitors. Obama will probably be looked in disgust for his appeasement of jihad.

Fake Craiglist Ad About Barry Soetoro

(screen scrape of Craig list Ad)

Manure Spreader - $1 (Washington D.C.)

Date: 2012-10-02, 4:25PM EDT

wfwss-3311853951@sale.craigslist.org [Errors when replying to ads?]

Fifty-year old manure spreader. Not sure of brand. Said to have been produced in Kenya. Used for a few years in Indonesia before being smuggled into the US via Hawaii. Of questionable pedigree. Does not appear to have ever been worked hard. Apparently, it was pampered by various owners over the years. It doesn't work very often, but when it does it can sling shit for amazing distances. I am hoping to retire the manure spreader this November. I really don't want it hanging around getting in the way. I would prefer a foreign buyer to relocate the manure spreader out of the country. I would be willing to trade it for a nicely framed copy of the United States Constitution.

Location: Currently being stored in a big white house in Washington, D.C.

From a link posted by revereridesagain in thread about the Muslim Brotherhood Congressman. Completely different than a story about the Muslim Brotherhood president.

The Great Man Theory and American Economic History

History has gone through many twists and turns over the past the century. The Great Man Theory has now been mostly discredited as historians of the annales school and others have examined the socio-economic conditions that give rise to the "great men" and the sea they swim in. That said it is useful to examine the captains of industry that made our near modern world and primordial ooze they crawled out of. This series seems, according to promo and this video, to be about a bunch of American "robber barons". As an aside the term "robber baron" is like "creeping barrage", it is term which is made of two synonyms.  The series is about the people who in the generations between the US Civil War an d the Great War built the industrial and technological capacity of the US.

Lately thinking of the recent Florida incarceration of Conrad Black I think how unlovable are all the press barons I have ever learned about. It made me think at first the interest in news corrupted and ink stained one's soul. Press Barons were creeps not because they saw newspapers as avenue of profit or as a venue of information but as a means of power. Using such a definition Lenin and Hitler were also Press Lords.

There have been power hungry men through out history.  They trundle over the earth exercising petty tyrannies extending over a some few generations. At certain hinge points their power can be magnified and men like Caesar, Genghis Khan and Cortez change the world forever.

Why Americans Don't Vote

Americans hate politics because the people who are passionately involved tend to be such contemptible assholes.

Philo Vaihinger in  thread

 Reza Aslan calls for fascist vandalism

 of AFDI pro-freedom ads.

Project Trinity - Complete Film

Years and years ago I saw Project Trinity at tiff. I mentioned this documentary in an earlier post, Nuclear Testing as Art/Astronomy. The above is a complete copy of Project Trinity.

How Criminals Die of Natural Causes

Coroner: These two men died of natural causes.
Police: What do you mean? They were both shot.
Coroner: Yes, natural to their line of work.

Joke left by RunningMacon in

 Macon police searching for man in double-slaying case.

It's sad that the 90% bad ones make the other 10% look bad.

comment by "John" in 

Long Island Wedding Guest

 Charged For Trying To Steal Gifts.

Taxes Versus Charity

I was listening to NPR coverage of the US Republican convention, while playing Civilization V. In a speech by Mike Huckabee he contrasted Obama's and Romney's charitable giving. In Huckabee's numbers Obama gave 2% versus Romney's 16%. Admittedly in the tax returns that Romney released showed he pay taxes at a rate of 15%. More of Obama's income is "earned" than Romney. However the idea to replace public sources of welfare with private sources of charity is a nonstarter. It has already been tried in the 18th and 19th century, read Dickens et al. 

"Here in North America"

"We are blessed with energy resources"

Condolezza Rice at the US Republican convention glossing over the fact that not all North America resources are American resources.

NPR News Host (Vacation Replacemnet) Doesn't Recognize Political Terms/Argot/Slang

RUDIN:...Eric Hovde and Mark Neumann backed by conservatives, Tea Party Express, Club for Growth, but they kind of split the anti-Thompson vote. Thompson's seen as kind of like a moderate, a squish - you know, squishy RINO, as some conservatives have called him. But he won the nomination narrowly, but he will be the Republican nominee against Tammy Baldwin, a very liberal congresswoman from Madison, Wisconsin.

DONVAN: Squishy RINO is - what's the allusion there?

RUDIN: Well, no, no, just the fact that he's not as strong. Like he backed some Obama stuff, he supported some...

DONVAN: He's not an elephant.

RUDIN: Well, he's a RINO not as in rhinoceros but RINO as in Republican in name only, not the rhinoceros.

How Ryan Will Shift Campaign Strategy In Florida

John Donavon is the summer replacement host at Talk of the Nation filling in for Neal Conan. Ken Rudin is a long term political editor at NPR.

Here is information on the Picard face palm meme from Know your Meme, part of the Cheez Burger Network.

Smokey the Bear's Google Map Hack

Came across an interesting Google Map hack that maps forest fires, US wildfires. Unfortunately it only maps American forest fires.I would like something that ties together all world wide forest fires.

Remember what evil Smokey the Bear says, only you can prevent forests.

Multiserver Map Server - ACME Mapserver 2.0

Lately I have been using ACME Mapper 2.0. It is a combination of 8 different servers. Half of the options come come directly from Google. The other options are varied and  and interesting.

There is an option that provides topographic in varying resolutions.Below you can see Mono Lake as it looks on three different scaled maps. This map server zooms in on one map and then changes to a different map as zoom in and out. The setback for this map server is that there is not complete coverage everywhere in the world.

Here are images grabbed from topographic server at ACME Mapper 2.0 of  Mono Lake in three different resolutions using three different maps.

DOQ is also available but it is limited to the US. It looks interesting from a technical point, the curve of the earth is adjusted to create flat images.

There is a feature to tie into weather data. It is part of a system called NEXRAD, it is another American funded system however there is some limited coverage into Canada. Here are two images of a storm system in Lake Ontario taken about 40 minutes apart.

1:02 AM 6/19/2012

1:32 AM 6/19/2012

Mapnik is an open source mapping program, as such it can be uneven. Take a look at this region in Silicon Valley near the intersection of the Union Pacific and the Bay Shore Freeway. This area has the buildings outlines and driveways marked. Nearby neighbourhoods are not so extensively mapped.

Mapnik also allows for mapping of pedestrian pathways. Look at this image of downtown Toronto where the sidewalks, pavement in a park and underground passageways are all marked.

Obama = White Guy in Blackface

Obama...basically a smart, middle class white guy with dark skin and an unusual life story who reinvented himself as a black guy for reasons of political opportunism and self-fulfillment. 

anonymous 

What Do We Do Now? - Seen This Movie Before

And let me remind you of Obama’s ideas of success in the presidency:

“…if Barack was going to run, he had to decide quickly, a point the group made by laying out primary schedules and game plans for fund-raising and building an organization. Insights were offered from around the room.

It was Michelle, Axelrod remembers, who stopped the show. “You need to ask yourself, Why do you want to do this?” she said directly. “What are hoping to uniquely accomplish, Barack?”

Obama sat quietly for a moment, and everyone waited. “This I know: When I raise my hand and take that oath of office, I think the world will look at us differently,” he said. “And millions of kids across this country will look at themselves differently.””

From a link in the comments at PJMedia.

KodaChromes of Rosie The Riveter et al

A selection of 4X5 Kodachrome from a Russian photographer 's blog, Pavel Kosenko's blog, of Americans doing different sorts of war work.Came up in the discussion of the thread United American Flight 817 2.0 on Ah.com.