Pic of the Day

Breaking News! Time Warp! Romans attack Calcutta!

Ted Cruz For President!

Best idea I've heard in a long time.

Jackhammer Dream

Leather upholstered jackhammer from 1970 Volkswagen Ad. 

I wonder what these guys were smoking.

Dreamed a woman wanted to apply a jackhammer to my foot and I was okay with that except I wasn't sure the jackhammer would work, so we decided to test it on a mattress. The jackhammer wasn't very big, more like a pneumatic nailer that carpenters use. We folded the mattress over and applied the jackhammer but it wouldn't hammer. It would make one puff and then stop. I think it was because the mattress wasn't hard enough to provide any "bounce-back". No matter how hard we compressed the mattress and how hard we pushed down on the jackhammer we couldn't get more than one puff out of it, which kind put the kibosh on our plans for my foot, whatever they were. I have no idea what that plan was. I took a Zyrtec yesterday morning, you don't think that could have anything to do with this, do you?

Afghanistan Bananistan

View of the man-made lake at Band-e Sardeh behind the husk of an abandoned Soviet armored personnel carrier.

Came across this interesting comment by James on Military Photos dot net:

Outside Kabul and Kandahar I recall pre-fab Soviet roads, basically slabs of concrete laid over the desert, maybe a meter thick. I guess it worked for them in Siberia and they did the same in the desert. No shoulders, just the occasional dirt mound of you needed to get off the road.

Couldn't find anything to confirm his story, but I did come across a story from 2011 by C.J. Chivers in The New York Times about the Soviet "Try" in Afghanistan:

Many accounts of the Soviet-Afghan war use military lenses. They emphasize Soviet military tactics and behaviors, including the doctrinal use of heavy weapons, indiscriminate aerial bombing and artillery bombardment, and a reliance on large-scale operations that Afghan guerrillas often easily eluded. But the Soviet Union’s long try in Afghanistan had many other elements. Moscow built schools, roads, airports and dams, and sponsored ministries, too. Soviet officials recruited students and bureaucrats for all manner of training, and invited the country’s elite and its officer-, civil-service and intellectual classes to long periods of study in the Soviet Union. Education, development and modernization — like this dam, which still influences both flood control and irrigation downstream — played no small part in the Kremlin’s Afghan policy, which ultimately failed.

Better Citizenship Test

Last week some students at the Oregon Episcopal School created a new test for citizenship. "Knowing names and dates, the students thought, were the least important things about being a citizen." Here are their questions:

1. What are the essential American values reflected in the Constitution?
2. Why was the absence of religion in the original constitution important?
3. “The Revolution was effected before the War commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments of their duties and obligations. This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people, was the real American Revolution,” John Adams wrote in 1818. Explain the meaning and value of this statement in two or three paragraphs.
4. If you had been at the Constitutional Convention, what one thing would you change about the Constitution?
5. Why is it important to have a checks and balances system in the original form of the government, and why is it important for the constitution to put this system into place?
6. Was the way Native Americans were treated by the 13 colonies and then the United States representative of American ideals? Explain.
7. Thomas Jefferson said in his Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal”, yet slavery was not officially abolished until 1863 when President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, confirmed by the 13th Amendment in 1865. Using your knowledge of history, explain why the Americans were not able to live up to Jefferson's statement until much later.
8. Are factions inevitable, as stated by James Madison in Federalist Paper 10, and if so, how should the citizens of the United States navigate the factions that develop? Are they the best vehicle through which citizens to express their personal opinions?
9. Over time, the Supreme Court has become more and more powerful, based on the Marshall Court's original assertion of "judicial review." Is this consistent with the American ideal of democracy?
10. Is it better for the federal government to have more power, or the states? Why?
11. Why do Americans reject the idea of monarchy? Why are Americans committed to democracy?
12. Which is preferable in a democracy, a multiple party system or single party system? Use examples from American history in your answer.

Unfinished Sky

This review in Variety by Richard Kuipers sums it up pretty well.

A widowed Aussie farmer who’s opted out of the human race and a traumatized Afghani refugee meet in the finely crafted meller “Unfinished Sky.” Writer-director Peter Duncan’s loose remake of the 1998 Dutch hit “The Polish Bride” remains faithful to basics — and even features thesp Monic Hendrickx reworking her earlier role — while wringing satisfying changes to the tale’s romantic and thriller intricacies. An affecting character study for mature viewers, pic won the audience vote at the Brisbane fest and has claims for arthouse exposure. Netherlands release is set for January 2008, with Oz rollout to follow.

Well, I guess it does. I haven't heard of The Polish Bride, and I had to look up meller - it means melodrama, which is I guess is critic-speak for drama.

Saudi Arabia Rejects U.N. Security Council Seat in Protest Move

Amazon

I know the powers-that-be are effing jackasses, but I was still stunned by the news that Saudi Arabia was offered a seat on the United Nations Security Council. Never mind that they rejected the offer. Whose idea was it to propose them for membership in the first place? This news irritated me so much I sent a note to both of my Senators and my Congresswoman:

Whose idea was it to propose Saudi Arabia for membership on the United Nations Security Council? Which half wit thought selling them $7 billion worth of missiles was a good idea? Saudi Arabia is NOT our friend. Saudi Arabia is the source of all jihadist violence. Why are we even talking to them anymore? You want the CIA to do something useful for once? Have them pull down the house of Saud.

From Wikipedia's article on state sponsored terrorism:

Saudi Arabia is said to be the world's largest source of funds for Salafi jihadist terrorist militant groups, such as al-Qaeda, the Afghan Taliban, and Lashkar-e-Taiba in South Asia, and donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide, according to Hillary Clinton.^[110] According to a secret December 2009 paper signed by the US secretary of state, "Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for al-Qaida, the Taliban, LeT and other terrorist groups."^[111]

For your amusement, here's a story from 2009 by Glenn Greenwald that sheds a little light on the whole war on terror thing. Saudis want Jihad? I say we give them some right upside their collective heads.

P.S. Unfortunately the Wikipedia article quotes Hillary, who might be one of the most hated people in the world. I do not understand why that is, other than that she is a Democrat and therefor probably supports gun control. Or I dunno, maybe she is secretly an African Muslim Communist. Well, haters gonna hate.