Bill Flynn

Valentine's Day is next week, so it's time to think of music for your sweetheart.  The Queen Of The World and I both love this song - the motorcycle accident that really brought us together is perhaps a literal version of the song.

My problem (as long time readers will remember) is that I really don't care much for Rascal Flatts.  So what to do?  Well, as it turns out the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band recorded this twenty years before Rascal Flatts.

The Broken Road (Songwriters: Marcus Hummon, Bobby Boyd, Jeff Hanna)

I set out on a narrow way many years ago
Hoping I would find true love along the broken road
But I got lost a time or two
Wiped my brow and kept pushin' through
I couldn't see how every sign pointed straight to you

Every long lost dream led me to where you are
Others who broke my heart
They were like northern stars
Pointing me on my way into your loving arms
This much I know is true
That God blessed the broken road
That led me straight to you
Yes, He did

I think about the years I spent just passin' through
I'd like to have the time I lost and give it back to you
But you just smile and take my hand
You've been there, you understand
It's all part of a grander plan that is comin' true

Every long lost dream led me to where you are
Others who broke my heart
They were like northern stars
Pointing me on my way into your loving arms
This much I know is true
That God blessed the broken road
That led me straight to you

And now I'm just a rollin' home into my lover's arms

This much I know is true
That God blessed the broken road
That led me straight to you

That God blessed the broken road
That led me straight to you

 

And this

The important caveat here is that there is "little scientific evidence" that biological males have advantages in sport. That merely means that relatively few studies have dared to consider the question, unsurprising in an environment in which studying it would quickly end your career. 

Ann Coulter, conservative commentator and author, described the left-wing subtext of Kyle Rittenhouse's murder trial as a demand for conservatives "to just stand there and be murdered" when attacked by leftists.

I think this is one of the most thought-provoking commentaries from Tucker Carlson so far this year.  He perfectly encapsulates the dilemma confronting the USA in the forthcoming elections.  Will we vote for freedom, and the importance of the individual over the group, and the constitution, and the values held by our Founding Fathers - or will we vote for serfdom, and group dominance over the individual, and political correctness, and the rejection of every value that has helped build this nation?

See and hear for yourselves.  If you'd prefer to read rather than watch, a transcript of Mr. Carlson's comments is provided below the video.




Transcript (source):

CARLSON: Have you been to America lately? A lot of Americans really haven’t. For months, most of us have stayed close to home. We had to.

So the next time you get on a plane and visit a couple of American cities, you may be surprised, especially if you remember those cities well from before the pandemic.

An awful lot has changed in a short time. Many stores and restaurants are closed, you expect that. Churches are locked on Sunday morning. That’s weird.

The streets seem empty, except for the parks which are full of the homeless. When you do see people, they tend to be wearing masks and they won’t get close to you.

It’s a very strange experience. The country has changed a lot. The culture has changed a lot and really not for the better.

So the question is, how long will this last? How long do we have to endure this? When do we get our country back? When can we live like we used to live back in February?

That question is too rarely asked. And in fact, asking it is actively discouraged. At first, you’ll remember, the authorities told us we could resume our lives when hospital admissions tapered off and we flattened the curve. The curve stayed flat, in most places it never bent.

So we get a new benchmark for when we can get back to normal — when we get a vaccine. Everything will be fine once we can vaccinate against COVID-19. Many in authority told us that. They’re still telling us that.

The State of Virginia has announced that when a vaccine finally does arrive, it will be mandatory.

Not all vaccines. Virginia will not require vaccines for hepatitis or HIV. They don’t require a vaccine for meningitis either to fight despite the fact that meningitis kills a lot more say college students than coronavirus does.

But once you get a corona vaccine, they’re telling us, all will be well.

But now they’ve changed that. Not true anymore.

According to a new announcement from the World Health Organization, a vaccine, even if we get one will not be the end of all of this. It will never end.

You can get your injection. They’ll make you get it. But you’ll still be under arrest.

The World Health Organization says that finding a vaccine is not the goal. Reordering society is the goal. Quote, “We will not, we cannot go back to the way things were.” That’s a direct quote from the leader of the World Health Organization, Dr. Tedros, who by the way, is not really a doctor.

Because COVID-19 is not a public health crisis really, or even a mere virus. According to Tedros, COVID-19 is in fact, this may surprise you — COVID-19 is really about global warming.

As he puts it, quote: “The COVID-19 pandemic has given new impetus to the need to accelerate efforts to respond to climate change.” I bet you didn’t see that coming.

Bill Gates did. He agrees to that wholeheartedly. Earlier this month, Gates posted an essay to his personal website, which you probably haven’t seen, arguing that the lesson of the corona pandemic is that the rest of us will have to sacrifice even more to save the Earth from warming.

Now for people who are not billionaire global influencers, this is all pretty confusing. Quick. What does the coronavirus have to do with climate change? Well, for one thing China caused both of them. That’s the obvious link.

But that is definitely not the point Dr. Tedros and Bill Gates are making, both of them bow before China. They would never meaningfully criticize the Chinese government.

So you can be assured that’s not the connection they’re drawing. No.

For Dr. Tedros and Bill Gates, pandemic and climate change share a very different connection. Both are useful pretexts for mass social control. Both are essentially unsolvable crises they can harness to bypass democracy and force powerless populations to obey their commands.

Now it makes sense. Ever wondered why our leaders consider the coronavirus a major public health crisis, but not say, suicides and drug ODs? Well, this is why.

When a 26-year-old mother in New Hampshire drops dead from fentanyl, Bill Gates and Dr. Tedros don’t get more powerful. Her death is useless to them. So they don’t care.

If you actually wanted to improve people’s lives, you would look at things very differently and you would probably reach very different conclusions about the pandemic.

In just a few weeks, a deadly virus spread from central China through Europe to every major city in the West. And as that happened, the World Health Organization did nothing to stop it and in fact, spread disinformation as it was happening. Those are the facts.

So what would a rational person conclude from those facts? Well, the first and most obvious lesson is globalization has risks. It has upsides, of course. Cheaper plastic crap from China, but it also has risks. Pandemics spread very, very fast.

Then, as it happened, our most important international public health organization failed on purpose. It’s corrupt. The W.H.O. is corrupt. That’s a huge problem. That’s the other lesson.

But no one is learning those lessons. When was the last time you heard Bill Gates or Dr. Tedros say those things? Never. They never will say them because they wouldn’t benefit from acknowledging they are true.

This is true about all crises. They only take the lessons that empower them. How about global warming? How would a rational person assess global warming?

If you really believe that carbon emissions were distorting the Earth’s climate, and that’s the claim they make, maybe they’re right, then you would take a very close look at the forces behind those carbon emissions.

You would ask hard questions about the global economy, you’d wonder who is profiting from this system that’s destroying the Earth? How exactly do the richest most powerful people in the world — that would be big finance and the tech monopolies –contribute to carbon emissions? That would be the first question you would ask. That’s the logical way to think about climate change.

And if you began to think that way, you might wind up concluding that people like — I don’t know, Michael Bloomberg were in fact climate criminals. Their private jets alone produce more carbon emissions a year that entire African villages, not to mention more than your neighborhood does, a lot more.

But tellingly, no one on the environmental left ever criticizes Michael Bloomberg. He is considered a leader in the fight against climate change.

On the basis of the numbers that is ludicrous, but they say with a straight face and demand you believe it.

Part of this is human nature. All of us tend to place ourselves at the center, in the heroic center of our own narratives. That’s particularly true of rich people who tend toward the narcissistic.

But in this case, they are evading responsibility. They are profiting directly from a system they claim is unacceptable, but it’s not their fault somehow. You know whose fault it is. Oh, it’s your fault. You’re the one who’s doing it. You’re the one who’s killing humanity. You’re the one who must change.

You’ve got too many kids. You drive a pickup truck. You forgot to wear your little mask. You’re going to hell.

Good luck with your bankruptcies and your opioid crisis and your broken lives, Middle America. We will be at the Yellowstone Club having a drink.

It’s a scam. It’s an obvious scam.

Here’s another data point for you that you won’t see on television. Less than a month ago, on July 31st, the CDC — Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, our primary public health organization funded by the Federal government released guidelines to State Health Department’s about patients infected with the coronavirus. How do you track the spread of this disease?

In a footnote in the release, the CDC acknowledged that researchers lacked evidence that, quote: “Masks offer any protection against coronavirus,” any at all.

As health officials work to track the spread of the virus, the CDC suggested that they ignore whether or not people were wearing masks.

In other words, wearing a mask may be completely irrelevant to the spread of the virus. So there is still no proof that masks protect us against COVID-19? That is apparently the conclusion the CDC reached. It’s not something Trump tweeted. The CDC put that in a release to the states. It seems like a blockbuster story.

Why isn’t that on page one of The New York Times? Why is the entire media, the entire leadership class of the United States of America ignoring this? Masks are obligatory. They’re mandatory everywhere.

Just the other day, Joe Biden announced that if he is elected, you will be required to wear a mask when you’re alone outside. What is going on? You know what’s going on? Fear works.

The more afraid you are, the more you will accept. Again, a feature of human nature. The more cut off you are from your family and your friends, the more power they have to control you.

This is an election year. Democrats want to win in November. The virus is their main shot to win. Nobody disputes that who’s looked at the numbers.

They’re using fear of the coronavirus to achieve that. For example, polling places. They would like to close more of them. Why? To force a vote by mail.

Why? Because vote by mail is more easy to manipulate.

The latest Coronavirus Relief Bill the Democrats are pushing would bring ballot harvesting to every state. What does that have to do with defeating the virus? Nothing. It’s not science, it’s politics.

But here’s the key thing to remember. All of us are assuming and on the right, it is gospel. This will end if Joe Biden wins. On Inauguration Day, no more lockdowns. Yes, don’t bet on it. This isn’t ending.

The Wuhan pandemic has made our leadership class more powerful than they had have ever been. Why would they relinquish that? The only politician in America who has ever given up power voluntarily is George Washington and they’re toppling his statues.

If you agree with me that Mr. Carlson's message is important, please circulate this video and/or transcript, and spread the word about it among your friends and social media contacts.  Let's make it go viral.

"When do we get our country back?"  One way or another, Mr. Carlson's question will be answered in November, and the events that follow our elections.

Peter

Coils of steel are really fucking heavy and trailers are designed to have most of the weight placed over the axles.

That’s why there are 3 of them right next to each other.

Almost forgot, new trailers are really fucking expensive too.

Class dismissed.

WOW: USAF Gunship Crew Awarded Medals For Nine-Hour Battle With ISIS That Saved 15 Wounded In Afghanistan.

In need of assistance, the Special Tactics operators on the ground called for an AC-130U “Spooky” Gunship, (Callsign Spooky 41) who arrived to suppress the enemy located in close proximity to the group.

As the gunship fired down on the enemy, at times less than 140 meters from the group, three medical-evacuation helicopters hovered more than an hour to safely rescue all 15 patients. The enemy was not able to get a single shot off at the MEDEVAC helicopters, due to the precise airpower strikes of Spooky 41’s aircrew.

U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Jim Slife, commander of Air Force Special Operations Command, presented two Distinguished Flying Crosses with “C” device and 12 Single Event Air Medals with “C” device to 4th Special Operations Squadron Airmen, March 2, 2020, here, for their actions in April.

“The most lethal part of any gunship is not the 25 mm, the 40 mm, or the 105 mm [weapons] sticking out of the side of this big beautiful airplane,” said Slife during the ceremony. “The most lethal part of the gunship is the crew.”

What a crew. Read the whole thing.

The event will take place at the Rose Garden at the White House on Friday and is scheduled for 3:30 p.m. EST.

On Saturday’s broadcast of Fox News Channel’s “Justice,” host Jeanine Pirro slammed Democrats and the media for proclaiming a “constitutional crisis” given the Trump administration was willing to succumb to the demands of congressional Democrats regarding the Mueller investigation. During

What is the "Classical Music" of Ireland? It's not (Italian) Opera, or (German) symphonies, or even an (English) homage to Ralph Vaughan Williams (who studied under an Irish music professor) "countryside music" in the concert hall. Instead, we find something ancient. 

Image via Wik féin

We find something that easily might not have been.  Turlough O'Carolan (1670 – 25 March 1738) was the son of a blacksmith.  His father took a job for the MacDermot Roe family; Mrs. MacDermot Roe gave the young lad some basic schooling and saw in him a talent for poetry; when a few years later the 18 year old Turlough went blind after a bout of smallpox, she had him apprenticed to a harpist.  He soon was travelling the land, composing and singing.

This tradition was already ancient by the early 1700s.  it was undeniably Celtic, dating back through the Middle Ages, through the Dark Ages, through Roman times to a barbarous Gaul.  There bards travelled the lands playing for their supper on the harp.

This was O'Carolan's stock in trade.  He rapidly became the most famous singer in the Emerald Isle.  It is said that weddings and funerals were delayed until he was in the vicinity.  One of his most famous compositions - if you have spent any time at all listening to Irish music, you know this tune - was considered too "new fangled" by the other harpists of his day.  Fortunately, he didn't listen to their criticisms.



He married very late, at 50, and had many children.  But his first love was Brigid, daughter of the Schoolmaster at a school for the blind.  He always seemed to have carried a torch for her.



So why is this post in the normal slot reserved for Classical Music?  Listen to this composition of his, and you see the bridge from the archaic Celts to Baroque harpsichord.



And keep in mind how this brilliance might never have blazed, had Mrs. MacDermot Roe not seen the talent in a blind Irish boy and set him upon a path trod by many equally unexpected geniuses, all the way back to St. Patrick.  It is truly said that we never know what our own path will be until we set our foot down on it.

But his was an ancient path and he inherited much from those who trod it before him.  His "Farewell to Music" is said to be more in the traditional mold, and might have been appreciated at a feast held by Vercingetorix before the battle of Alesia.



This music is a bridge between modern and the ancient that disappears into the mists of legend.  Perhaps more importantly, it is a music that is still alive today, after a run of perhaps two and a half millenia.  You don't get more classical than that.

And it is a music where you still hear the yearning of a young blind man for his muse, Brigid.  That is a vitality that should not be exiled to a single day of celebration, even if it is for as illustrious a Saint as Patrick.  On this Feast Day, remember just how deep the roots of our civilization run.

(Originally posted March 16, 2014)

on Lake Erie.  More here

Solar energy jobs have doubled in just five years. http://ofa.bo/i9fY #ActOnClimate

@BarackObama

“Solar energy profits doubled too. So… still zero.”

Today the President of the United States gave a speech about gun control measures. I don't intend to critique those measures. Nor do I mean to critique his rhetoric about gun violence. I do intend to critique his language about rights, because how our leaders discuss rights can have a powerful impact on how Americans understand rights.

Here we go.

Now, I want to be absolutely clear at the start. I have said this over and over again — this also becomes routine. There is a ritual about this whole thing that I have to do. I believe in the Second Amendment. It is there, written on the paper, it guarantees a right to bear arms. No matter how many times people try to my words around, I taught constitutional law, I know a little bit about this.

The President is invoking my Trope Eight, appeal to the authority of a law professor. Here's the problem: law professors have a habit of taking what they think the law should be and portraying it as what the law is. There are many principled law professors who make a sincere effort to avoid such disguised advocacy. But the fact that the President is a law professor doesn't make his views on the contours of rights reliable.

I get it. But I also believe we can find ways to reduce gun violence consistent with the Second Amendment. I mean, think about it — we all believe in the First Amendment, the guarantee of free speech. But we accept that you cannot yell "fire," in a theater. We understand there are some constraints on our freedom in order to protect innocent people.

Here the President invokes two tropes. There's Trope Three, "rights aren't absolute." This is perfectly true. Moreover, at the risk of calling down ten thousand butthurt commenters, there's no colorable basis to view the Second Amendment as absolute when courts have recognized exceptions to the rights conferred in other amendments. The Supreme Court only very recently recognized that Second Amendment rights are individual rights, and jurisprudence exploring the boundaries of those rights is therefore decades behind.

But observing that rights aren't absolute doesn't establish that any given law is constitutional. It's at best a start to the discussion, not an end.

The President also invoked my least favorite trope, Trope Two, "shouting fire in a crowded theater." He didn't even fully invoke it, only mentioning "fire in a theater," calling to mind a malicious effort to disrupt a showing of Glitter or something. The important thing is that the trope is just a rhetorical flourish used to repeat that not all speech is protected, culled from a case in which the Supreme Court contemptibly approved of jailing a man for protesting the draft in World War One. It's a throwaway line from a case that is now universally recognized as wrongly decided. It's a line about rhetoric, not law. Using it doesn't send the signal "I will propose principled, text- and history-based exceptions to the rights conferred by this amendment." It signals "exceptions to rights can be shaped by the whims of the majority and by the fears of the moment." That's a foolish message in this instance.

We cherish our right to privacy, but we accept that you have to go through metal detectors before being allowed to board a plane. It's not because people like doing that, but we understand that is part of the price of living in a civilized society. And what's often ignored in this debate is that the majority of gun owners actually agree — a majority of gun owners agree that we can respect the Second Amendment while keeping an irresponsible, lawbreaking feud from inflicting harm on a massive scale.

Here the President is again invoking "rights are not absolute" with another example. And it's a terrible example. The TSA offers security theater, not security. When we give up our right to privacy to be groped and scanned, we're giving it up so that politicians can say they are doing something, not to make ourselves safer. It's therefore a poor comparison to use to support a gun control program already being criticized as mere window-dressing.

The President also offers an appeal to the masses, citing the constitutional wisdom of a majority of gun owners. I should find a First Amendment example and add that to my trope list. Rights protect us from the majority; they aren't curtailed by the views of the majority, thank God.

All of us should be able to work together to find a balance that declares the rest of our rights are also important. Second Amendment rights are important, but there are other rights that we care about as well. And we have to be able to balance them, because our right to worship freely and safely — that right was denied to Christians in Charleston, South Carolina.

And that was denied Jews in Kansas city, and that was denied Muslims in Chapel Hill and Sikhs in Oak Creek. They had rights too.

Our right to peaceful assembly, that right was robbed from moviegoers in Aurora and Lafayette. Our inalienable right to life, and liberty and the pursuit of happiness, those rights were stripped from college kids in Blacksburg and Santa Barbara, and from high- schoolers in Columbine, and from first graders in Newtown.

Here the President is invoking the Second Amendment equivalent of Trope Five, saying that Second Amendment rights must be balanced with other rights. If he said that about the First Amendment, I'd say he's flat wrong. Is he wrong with respect to the Second Amendment? That's too big a question for this post. I'll just point out that it's rhetorical move that you should notice — that the proposition that we determine individual rights by balancing them with other interests is not true of at least some rights and not self-evidently true about Second Amendment rights.

The President's invocation of the rights of crime victims is a variation on the "balancing" trope. He accomplishes it by deliberately conflating different meanings of the word "rights." A constitutional right — like the one recognized by the Second Amendment — is a right to be free of government interference, a negative right. The right not to be subjected to criminal behavior by non-government actors is something else. It's not just invoked as a negative right — that is, President Obama isn't saying "you have the right to sue the estates of the killers because you had the right not to have your loved ones murdered by them." It's an ambiguous kind of positive right — the purported right to have the government do something to other people. In that sense it's like a right not to be offended, which must necessarily be enforced by the government silencing people who offend you. It's also familiar to criminal defense lawyers, who have seen it in the guise of "victim's rights."

What do you have the right for the government to do to support your right not to be attacked by crazed killers? I submit that there's no way to tell, and that the purported right impacts many parts of the constitution. Does your right not to be killed mean you have a right to demand that the government prevent me from having a gun, because (as I've discussed openly) I fight depression? Does your right to life create an obligation for the government to sentence criminals to longer sentences and not to let them out on parole? Does your right to life mean that more mentally ill people should be involuntarily confined and treated? I don't know, and I don't think that you know, either — because I think the right to have the government do things to other people for you is made up.

How broad is the individual right recognized by the Second Amendment? I don't know. I don't pretend to be a Second Amendment scholar, and we're starting nearly from scratch with the analysis. I suspect that the courts will find that the Second Amendment doesn't let you do whatever you want in connection with weapons, that it allows some forms of regulation of their ownership and use, and that both gun control advocates and Second Amendment advocates won't like the result.

But rights matter. The way we talk about them matters. You can't engage in unprincipled analysis of one amendment and expect it won't impact our rights under another amendment. The President's rhetoric was moving and heartfelt and, as a matter of what policy should be, ably argued. But it wasn't a good discussion of rights.

Copyright 2016 by the named Popehat author.

So if Yale and Amherst are institutionally racist despite giving African-Americans (on average) a 100+ point break on SAT requirements for entry, why aren't Asian Americans exploding given they start in a 100+ point hole?  And can anyone imagine a college president turning around from her trip to London (as did Biddy Martin of Amherst) to talk to a group of aggrieved Asian students?  I would contend that Asian Americans get stereotyped and discriminated against in far more meaningful ways on major college campuses than do Blacks and Hispanics.

Bonus:  watch Asian student get crushed by "tolerant" and "diversity-minded" protesters at Claremont McKenna.

Using "diversity" to justify totalitarianism, and "tolerance" to justify speech restrictions.

WASHINGTON – Jumping on the social media “challenge” bandwagon, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter last week released a Vine video of himself doing nothing stupid, reckless, dangerous, or in any way interesting, and challenged the men and the women of the armed forces to do likewise. He specifically called out a Navy Skipper who faces a DUI […]

The post When Canadians get bored appeared first on Knuckledraggin My Life Away.

Captain Rescorla in action at Ia Drang, Republic of Vietnam, 15 November 1965.
photograph: Peter Arnett/AP.

Born in Hayle, Cornwall, May 27, 1939, to a working-class family, Rescorla joined the British Army in 1957, serving three years in Cyprus. Still eager for adventure, after army service, Rescorla enlisted in the Northern Rhodesia Police.

Ultimately finding few prospects for advancement in Britain or her few remaining colonies, Rescorla moved to the United States, and joined the US Army in 1963. After graduating from Officers’ Candidate School at Fort Benning, Georgia in 1964, he was assigned as a platoon leader to Bravo Company of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry, Third Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile). Rescorla’s serious approach to training and his commitment to excellence led to his men to apply to him the nickname “Hard Corps.”

The 2nd Battalion of the 7th Cavalry was sent to Vietnam in 1965, where it soon engaged in the first major battle between American forces and the North Vietnamese Army at Ia Drang.

The photograph above was used on the cover of Colonel Harold Moore’s 1992 memoir We Were Soldiers Once… and Young, made into a film starring Mel Gibson in 2002. Rescorla was omitted from the cast of characters in the film, which nonetheless made prominent use of his actual exploits, including the capture of the French bugle and the elimination of a North Vietnamese machine gun using a grenade.

For his actions in Vietnam, Rescorla was awarded the Silver Star, the Bronze Star (twice), the Purple Heart, and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry. After Vietnam, he continued to serve in the Army Reserve, rising to the rank of Colonel by the time of his retirement in 1990.

Rick Rescorla became a US citizen in 1967. He subsequently earned bachelor’s, master’s, and law degrees from the University of Oklahoma, and proceeded to teach criminal law at the University of South Carolina from 1972-1976, before he moved to Chicago to become Director of Security for Continental Illinois Bank and Trust.

In 1985, Rescorla moved to New York to become Director of Security for Dean Witter, supervising a staff of 200 protecting 40 floors in the South Tower of the World Trade Center. (Morgan Stanley and Dean Witter merged in 1997.) Rescorla produced a report addressed to New York’s Port Authority identifying the vulnerability of the Tower’s central load-bearing columns to attacks from the complex’s insecure underground levels, used for parking and deliveries. It was ignored.

On February 26, 1993, Islamic terrorists detonated a car bomb in the underground garage located below the North Tower. Six people were killed, and over a thousand injured. Rescorla took personal charge of the evacuation, and got everyone out of the building. After a final sweep to make certain that no one was left behind, Rick Rescorla was the last to step outside.

—————————————-

Directing the evacuation on September 11th.
Security Guards Jorge Velasquez and Godwin Forde are on the right.
photograph: Eileen Mayer Hillock.

Rescorla was 62 years old, and suffering from prostate cancer on September 11, 2001. Nonetheless, he successfully evacuated all but 6 of Morgan Stanley’s 2800 employees. (Four of the six lost included Rescorla himself and three members of his own security staff, including both the two security guards who appear in the above photo and Vice President of Corporate Security Wesley Mercer, Rescorla’s deputy.) Rescorla travelled personally, bullhorn in hand, as low as the 10th floor and as high as the 78th floor, encouraging people to stay calm and make their way down the stairs in an orderly fashion. He is reported by many witnesses to have sung “God Bless America,” “Men of Harlech, ” and favorites from Gilbert & Sullivan operettas. “Today is a day to be proud to be an American,” he told evacuees.

A substantial portion of the South Tower’s workforce had already gotten out, thanks to Rescorla’s efforts, by the time the second plane, United Airlines Flight 175, struck the South Tower at 9:02:59 AM. Just under an hour later, as the stream of evacuees came to an end, Rescorla called his best friend Daniel Hill on his cell phone, and told him that he was going to make a final sweep. Then the South Tower collapsed.

Rescorla had observed a few months earlier to Hill, “Men like us shouldn’t go out like this.” (Referring to his cancer.) “We’re supposed to die in some desperate battle performing great deeds.” And he did.

—————————————-

His hometown of Hayle in Cornwall has erected a memorial.

—————————————-

2,996 was a project put together by blogger Dale Roe to honor each victim of the September 11, 2001 attacks. 3,061 blogs committed to posting tributes to each victim. Never Yet Melted’s tribute was to Rick Rescorla, and is republished annually.

A DELUSIONAL Wateford woman is still clinging to her claims of being a ‘strawberry blonde’, some 34 years after being born a ginger.

Natalie Healy has been sporting a long and luscious mane of ginger hair for the majority of her life, but chooses to self-identify as a strawberry blonde much to the amusement of members of the local community.

While Natalie’s parents encouraged her to be proud of her ginger roots growing up, the 34-year-old engineer would always correct any compliments she received by adding ‘thanks, but I’m actually a strawberry blonde’.

Natalie also recently denied claims that she has regularly put subtle blonde highlights in her hair to boost her claims, even though this is quite clearly something she has done.

“Honestly, I don’t get the fuss. I’m very clearly a blonde who has strawberry inflections in my hair, so therefore, I’m a strawberry blonde,” Natalie told WWN, fooling absolutely no one.

A further blow to Natalie’s follicle delusions came earlier this year when the UN refused to recognise ‘strawberry blonde’ as an official hair colour which enjoys ‘protected status’, with the report into the hair colour concluding ‘come on now, stop wasting everyone’s time, it’s red or ginger but that’s it’.

“She’s redder than a Cork jersey made entirely of tomato ketchup, but God love her, she’s still on about strawberry blonde even though that’s not even a thing,”

vocal hair critic and husband to Natalie, Eoin Healy told WWN.

This is funnier than heck, and I had tears running down my face.  Well played, sir.  So very well played.



May not be entirely safe for work, at least if you have the speakers too loud.  Only a little naughty, but we live in the End Times ...

It’s Japanese, no subtitles available or needed. You can, if you’d like, just jump to the 3 minute mark, where the repair process begins.

[The Fascinating Repairmen. #005 “The Watch”] (Viewer #71,152)

In Iraq, Shiite militias dominated by Iran now outnumber the formal army by at least 2:1. As the Washington Post reports:

With an estimated 100,000 to 120,000 armed men, the militias are rapidly eclipsing the depleted and demoralized Iraqi army, whose fighting strength has dwindled to about 48,000 troops since the government forces were routed in the northern city of Mosul last summer, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials.

According to the Jerusalem Post, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah also revealed this week that his Iran-backed group is operating within Iraq.

Needless to say, none of these groups are operating within the U.S. Uniform Code of Military Justice. And they are not only alleged to be butchering Sunni tribesmen, but also achieving success that will pave the way for an Iran-dominated Iraq. And U.S. airpower is assisting them.

The current Administration may be convinced it can cut a hegemony-for-no-nukes deal with Iran. But most Americans, of both parties, will be less than thrilled to think we’re driving ISIS out of Iraq just to create a wholly-owned province of Iran.

SO THE BEST AIRPLANE FOR ATTACKING ISIS IS THE A-10, and the Pentagon is scrapping them.

You know, Robert Conquest once wrote, “The behavior of any bureaucratic organization can best be understood by assuming that it is controlled by a secret cabal of its enemies,” but that statement is striking a little too close to home lately.

I don't think I can bear one more "Shooting people is bad: now I've got that bit out of the way, here's the REAL ISSUE" article

— Padraig Reidy (@mePadraigReidy) January 9, 2015

It's disturbing that when we see a man's mustache fall off we assume it's an identity theft situation and not a medical emergency

— Nice Hippo (@NicestHippo) January 9, 2015

Called my young employee Doogie Howser. Then had to explain who that is, and so we watched the Pilot instead of having a meeting.

— Cee Angi (@CeeAngi) January 9, 2015

Netflix: Are you still watching? Me: Yes. Netflix: You're sure you're watching? Me: Yes! [Netflix cannonballs off the high dive]

— Brandon (@UNTRESOR) January 9, 2015

Dear Bullies: technically it should be called 'de-pantsing,' if u 'pantsed' someone it we be putting pants on them which wd be nice actually

— refriend beans (@pharmasean) January 9, 2015

Why do the call them Christian TV networks and not stations of the cross?

— Fun_Beard (@Fun_Beard) January 10, 2015

[playing video games with son] "I don't think there is one, dad" *pauses game* there has to be a button for turn signals, son

— Brent (@murrman5) January 10, 2015

Whenever a pundit uses the term "the real victims" that's your cue to ignore them. Forever.

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) January 10, 2015

I just realized "You can't spell socialism without Cialis" but I have no idea what to do with this information

— Arthur Chu (@arthur_affect) January 10, 2015

why aren't female mailmen called femalewomen

— Beard Spice (@BeardSpice) January 12, 2015

May you for one moment in your life feel half as pleased with yourself as Ricky Gervais does every second of every day.

— Sean Thomason (@TheThomason) January 12, 2015

i've never watched a foreign language movie i refuse to do it i think its stupid there's plenty of english ones #GoldenGlobes

— Retirement Pog (@HumanPog) January 12, 2015

All week I’ve been hearing this awful noise that sounds like the hurk-hurk-bork of a cat throwing up, and so I’d run through the house to find the guilty kitty so I could put him on tile rather than have him throw up on the harder-to-clean carpet, but each time I’d find all of the cats in the hall, just staring at me like they were totally innocent and wondering why I’d interrupted their meeting.  And then I finally was like, “Fuck this, cats.  I’m just gonna stand here until one of you fuckers tries it again.  I’VE GOT ALL DAY.”   But then they just looked at me, because turns out they have all day too.

And then I heard it again and turns out it wasn’t the cats.  

It was the toilet.

The toilet was gurgling and making noises like a cat vomiting, and I thought that seemed odd because toilets don’t vomit and are more likely vomited into, but that noise was definitely coming from the toilet and that’s when I realized that my toilet is probably haunted.

Seriously.  I can hear it even now.  It’s like the ghost of someone who ate a bad burrito is in there.  Or maybe it’s the spirit of a long-dead dog who is drinking from the toilet,  Frankly, I have no idea how to handle this and I don’t know whether to call a plumber or an exorcist.

I tried to research it and google was like, “Way ahead of you.  Here’s what other people are searching for:”

Conclusion:  Toilet poltergeist are fucking everywhere.

It’s getting louder and now I’m officially scared of the toilet.  I’ve just regressed back to age 3.  Awesome.  I blame the toilet.

I told Victor we need to call an old priest and a young priest and he said I was being ridiculous and that “it’s probably  just air in the lines”, which is just as scary as toilet ghosts because if there’s air in the lines that means that toilet snakes and sewer alligators now have the oxygen necessary to crawl up our toilet pipes without drowning.  So now I can’t sit on the toilet without first screaming and kicking the toilet a few times to scare off any snakes that might be near the surface, which is going to be difficult to explain when we have company over.  Thanks a lot, Victor.  

Victor said that if it kept happening he’d call a plumber to “snake the lines” and I just stared at him because that’s the exact opposite of what I want.  If anything I want someone to de-snake the lines.  Then Victor explained that “snaking the lines” doesn’t have anything to do with real snakes but after this summer’s “We need to expand the fire-pipes under your house” confusion I just don’t trust anything.  I’m considering changing out the toilets for small buckets, and now I know why everyone used chamber pots in the Victorian ages.  It was probably because of all the alligators.

These are the things they never cover on the History Channel.