North Korea Executes Narcoleptic Military Leader

                 Kim Jong-un, the ‘Supreme Leader’ of ‘the People’s Republic of North Korea,’ recently ordered the execution of the country’s Defense Minister for falling asleep in a meeting of government officials. The execution of Hyon Yong-chol was carried out on April 30^th at the Kanggon Military Training Area north of Pyongyang, as reported by Reuters, the Associated Press and South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency. The information that generated these reports was furnished by the NIS, South Korea’s intelligence service.

                Apparently, in addition to inappropriate napping, the  head of North Korean military forces also may have questioned Kim Jong-un at some point, or even ‘talked back’ to him. No wonder Jong-un had him executed at a range of 100 feet by ZPU-4 anti-aircraft guns with a range of 8,000 yards! He had that coming to him… probably got off lightly.

                The pudgy little dictator has had at least 15 people executed for similar ‘crimes’ already this year. He had his uncle executed in 2013 for ‘treason,’ i.e. not completely agreeing with him on every issue. Now, it appears, he shut up his grieving aunt shortly thereafter in similar fashion, albeit by poisoning.

  

    Dad and grandpa would be proud!

             

                Executions and mass-murders…cherished Kim Jong family traditions.

               

                Family reunions must be a blast!

One Man...A Blast From The Past

                                                          One Man…In The Name Of Love (A re-post of one of my most popular musings from days of yore)

                     America had always been about hope. And liberty.

     Personal, constitutionally enumerated rights, limited government. You own your property, your body and its labor. Government can’t arbitrarily, capriciously take it away. This made us unique among nations. And it led to unique results.

                  For most of 200 years the country believed it could do anything. For most of 200 years, it did. Problem? Bring it on! Here’s a solution! We’re not talking about perfection, no mythical utopia or Heaven on Earth.

                 We’re talking about real problems wrestled with by real people.

                   And the answers they came up with were some of the most beautiful and profound ever crafted by man.

                  The Declaration of Independence (freedom from a repressive, unrepresentative government), the Emancipation Proclamation, the Marshall Plan, etc.

                 “Ask not what your country can do for you…ask what you can do for your country.”

                  “Let all nations know, whether they wish us well or ill, that we will go anywhere and pay any price in defense of freedom!” Duty. Honor. Country.

                  And then…something happened. Some things happened. Did they ever.

                  Berlin Wall, Sputnik, Kruschev…missile crisis…Bay-of-Pigs.

                 Cold war. Bomb shelters.

                   Vietnam. A protracted ‘partial’ but terrible war, run by committee. No total commitment. Cities burning. Riots. Race riots. Looting. Finger pointing. Lies. Kent State. JFK, MLK, RFK…assassinations. Doubt, guilt, embarrassment, loss. Recession, gas lines, OPEC.

     My God.

                    Troops coming home now. Some of our own spit on them. We abandon our friends. Desperate hands slowly losing their grip on the last helicopter out. First loss. Shame.

                   Wage and price controls? W.I.N.? Watergate, resignation, pardon. Recession. Malaise! Billy Beer, 15% interest rates, 11% unemployment, inflation in the teens! A new word must be coined for something thought impossible/oxymoronic…STAGFLATION.

                  It’s over. It’s really over. A  great run by a formerly fine little country with a formerly fine little experiment, but obviously we are truly to be left on the ash heap of history. America is essentially finished thought some in the intelligentsia. Many (most) ‘only’ thought our best days were behind us.

                  Hostage Crisis, 444 days and for the first time America has no effective response when its own are taken prisoner by a foreign nation. Disgrace. Weakness. Indecision. Guilt.

                  World mocks. Russians march. Markets down. Despair. Even the Statue of Liberty seems to shine less brightly. “Give us your tired, your poor…?” Hell, we’re tired and poor!

                 Nuclear winter. Global cooling. Silent Spring. Apocalypse Now. My God, there is no way out of all of this!  Where could the nation…the world…turn for inspiration?

                 Into the void strode one man, brashly declaring it to be, “Morning in America.” HUH?

                  He was right, as he made it right. The promise of a renewed America. Delivered, like almost all the others. Is this a politician? Hostages on the way back home during the inaugural. (“Ronald Reagan is president of your country now? O.K., back you go now, all big MISTAKE. Have nice trip, going to miss you, kiss, kiss!)”

The largest and longest economic expansion in American history. The seventeen ‘Fat Years’ that the Clinton administration benefited from. Interest rates and unemployment rates plummeted with the tax rates. So did inflation. The American Dream…restored. People in houses again, not doghouses. A new term had to be coined for a raging economy without inflation. “Reagan Rally” on Wall Street.

                  The seventeen fat years were proceeded by the thirteen anorexic ones. An incredible amount of time in each case to decide what policies work and don’t work.

                Call it like it is…the “Evil Empire”. Say what you believe. You believe? Give the world clarity…and hope. “Mr. Gorbachev tear down this wall.’

                   America’s back. Let all nations know. Back from the abyss.

                  A November night in Berlin. A wall has come down. A terrible, stark, hulking, soulless wall. Seperating family…humanity…from liberty, hope, dignity. Freedom replaces terror. Hope pushes away despair.

                 And a now former president smiles. History should never forget what you did here…and will remember  what you said here.

                  When the wall finally fell for president Reagan, and he went to that shining city on a hill, much of America was in mourning.

                 President Reagan’s legacy and beliefs are still here for us to follow, if we are wise enough and true enough to our constitution, our history, and our soul, to pull back from the new abyss we’re staring into now. An abyss of the soul. An abyss of character.

                  Mr. president, if we do follow your lead, perhaps it will forevermore be…”Morning in America” for us…as it is for you. Thank you Mr. president, thank you.

     POSTSCRIPT:

                 Ronald Reagan can easily be argued to have faced one of the four or five most difficult sets of problems to encounter any incoming president in American history, as I hope I’ve just illustrated.

                 He won the longest (Cold) war without firing a shot, turned a moribund economy around, gave hope and restored pride to the American people and indeed much of the world. Far from starting wars around the globe or nuking it out with the USSR, he negotiated the first real nuclear arms reduction treaties and hoped to eliminate nuclear arms entirely.

                 George Washington could’ve been king, was the first president and had to chart a course. He set precedents that would resonate throughout history and help define a nation. No pressure.

                 Abraham Lincoln had to keep the country together…through a civil war. “Could a nation so dedicated and so conceived long survive?” Wow. To me, this is obviously the toughest task any president has faced.

                Franklin Delano Roosevelt had an actual depression, as well as the Second World War to entertain him. Financial institutions and the rise of communism in the country were also concerns. Fortunately, he had a good and great buddy overseas. (As did Reagan).

                One can’t project persons or presidents into different eras and situations and proclaim to know exactly what they would have done or not done. And, of course, there is some subjectivity here. However it should be quite clear that these are presidents who faced some of the most daunting challenges in American history. Each of them helped shape a nation by their bold and courageous leadership.

                 If ever a second ‘Mount Rushmore’ is created, here’s hoping that president Reagan’s likeness is on it.

                 May they find a mountain big enough.

                                                                   

                                                                

                                                                

     

Tom Brady, the New England Patriots, and Deflategate

Patriot Games.

The newest crazed attack on the New England Patriots is really just another attack on the “One Percent,” those that are successful enough to bring out the worst in those who aren’t. The “One Percenters” are really a bit higher percentage of the population than that, but those that are so consumed with envy like the term, so I’m not going to try to take it from them.

The Colts, who were one of my favorite teams in the league until recently, are really in cahoots with another team or two and The League Itself to find a way to level the playing field, or, at the least, make the vast majority of NFL fans and teams feel better about themselves. It is always a great feeling to feel morally superior to others, especially others who happen to be successful! That’s a win-win for the allegedly aggrieved! It not only makes them feel superior to others on the face of it, but also explains why they haven’t attained the same level of success. Of course, they themselves would be in the same position as their tormentors if they lowered themselves to cheating! The Colts essentially said, it’s our ball (it’s properly inflated…isn’t it!?), and if we can’t win, we’re going home. So there!

Nearly every team in every professional sports league has done everything it could to find an advantage somewhere, whether it is clearly cheating or just a gray area. Grounds crews in most outdoor baseball parks cut the grass short if they had a speed team and let the grass grow long if they had a power team. Teams such as the Atlanta Falcons pumped artificial crowd noise into their stadiums at opportune times. The Twins are solidly accused of turning the air-conditioning up when their opponents were batting in the old Metrodome…and turning it off when the hometown squad was at the plate. Teams routinely give their opponents the colder, windier sideline, and the smaller locker rooms. Even in college, the Iowa Hawkeyes painted their opponent’s locker room pink…in order to make them feel less aggressive.

How many thugs, punks, wife and/or child abusers, thieves, attempted rapists, and the like, will be playing in their team’s first four games next season while Tom Brady isn’t allowed in the stadium?

Does this not seem bizarre to people?

Jameis Winston will be playing…assuming he doesn’t get another urge for free top-end seafood… or worse.

The evidence against Brady is circumstantial at best. Even if “guilty,” we’re talking about slightly deflating a football…maybe 1 or 2 psi! This leads off the national newscasts of all three network television stations?! Another earthquake in Nepal? North Korea launching missiles towards South Korea? Those stories will have to wait! And they accuse Fox News of having an agenda??!!

Many pitchers in baseball have “doctored” the ball over the years. Gaylord Perry used to put petroleum jelly on balls. Indian’s president Gabe Paul defended him by stating, “Gaylord  is a very honorable man. He only calls for the spitter when he needs it.” Phil Niekro, while with the Minnesota Twins, famously used an emory board and sand-paper to cut into the ball so that its flight was unpredictable. The ball would dip and flutter and do odd things in the manner of a really great knuckleball, yet was much easier to throw. This was actually dangerous to the batter, as well. (Unlike softer, less inflated footballs). He was suspended for 10 games, went on the Tonight Show wearing a tool-belt, and laughs were had all around!

Yet, I’ve heard local- and national- talking heads gloat over Brady’s suspension, literally saying things like, “Okay, Mr. Successful pretty-boy with the smug smile and the gorgeous wife, how do you like maybe having to play by the rules?” Several embarrassed themselves in a big way, on-air, their comments dripping with sheer envy and hatred.

For his misbehavior, Niekro was suspended for 6.2% of his team’s season. Brady is being suspended for 25% of New England’s 2015 season.

As always, this is about the NFL saving face and making money. They don’t want questions about the league’s clear and consistent rules and regulations for the handling and checking of footballs prior to game-time.

Because there aren’t any.

They do want parity- and to appeal to “the 99%.”

No matter how unfair it is.

One In Six Species Could Be Wiped Out By Climate Change

             So states a study published in the journal Science. Author Mark Urban (really?), an “evolutionary biologist” at the University of Connecticut, based his calculation on a meta-analysis of 131 previous studies that made predictions about how various species would fare in a warmer world.

An article in the Los Angeles Times about the study reported, “If current trends continue, the Earth’s temperature will wind up 4.3 degrees Celsius higher than it was before the onset of the industrial era.” Yes, and if current trends continue,  soon it will never be dark again in the northern hemisphere. For months on end now, it has been staying light later by a minute or two every night and getting light earlier in the morning, as well! I fear there will be little or no need for lighting of any sort soon. This would cause the lighting industry to collapse and might be the death knell for many owl species. Bats could face extinction, as well.

Too short a time period to extrapolate and make predictions, you say? Back in the 1970’s experts were shouting that, if current trends continue, the Earth was facing another ice age. Still too short? Over the course of the Pleistocene Era, starting about 1.8 million years ago, glacial ice sheets thickened and advanced, pushing their way across much of the land mass of the Earth. This “ice age” lasted until about 11,700 years ago, although many scientists claim that we are technically still in it. Primitive homo sapiens of the time surely were thinking, over the course of hundreds or thousands of years, “If current trends continue, we are so totally screwed. The whole damn planet will be covered in ice.”

As it was, many large mammals and other vertebrates died off during this time, due to the brutally harsh conditions. How many more species would have died off if those present trends continued and the ice sheets just kept expanding?

I’ve heard scientists say, time and again, that the tropics are home to the most plant and animal species and are a “treasured laboratory of diversity.” Are there more species on land and in the seas around the equator or in the arctic and Antarctic?

The 131 studies that were…studied…in this study, admittedly didn’t take into account “complex” factors such as how climate change may alter the way species interact with each other, nor did they attempt to predict how species might evolve and adapt to the changes.

Despite the admitted uncertainties faced in making these types of dramatic predictions, many scientists purport to believe we must act immediately to try to limit global warming/climate change, usually by drastically reducing emissions. Ready…Fire!!...Aim. Always a good plan!

Many dates in the Midwest have a record low temperature that is 60, 80 or even 90-plus degrees colder than their record high. Often times the records were only a few years apart, with some of the record cold temps in the last few years. Plants and animals managed to survive.

 This year, a lake I fish often had its  ice go out  35 days earlier than two years ago. And that date of two years past was the latest ever recorded. The lakes fish and the region’s flora and fauna are doing nicely, thank you.

I know that many “experts” will claim that I’m simply…well…not an expert and am not fully cognizant of the various complexities of planetary life. Well, most, if not all, of them aren’t either…and at least some admit it.

I will go with the historical record and logic- every time- over the catastrophic “predictions” of the experts. There is now and always will be climate change. (If there wasn’t, we’d be in trouble. That would mean, for example, that the sun expired or the Earth stopped rotating).  It is not, however, largely “man-caused.”

A temperature increase of one or two degrees- or even 3 or 4.3 degrees- is not going to be the end of the world.  The planet’s temperature has risen- and fallen- by that much, almost cyclically, at various times in the past.

If, however, the sun expired… so would we.

                

Pollen-Deprived Bees Are Poor Dancers!

                Thus read the headline of the article in the Science + Health section of the local paper this past Sunday, April 26^th. I was tragically unaware of this problem, as, I suspect, many of you reading this were as well.

                Heather Mattila, a biologist at Wellesley College, and an undergraduate student, also from Wellesley, conducted a study that led to this important finding. The study was published in PLOS One (Public Library of Science One). PLOS One claims to be the world’s largest journal by numbers of papers published….and it’s easy to see why.

                The study heads raised one group of bees with limited access to pollen and another with adequate pollen access. They then combined the bees in one hive and observed them.

                Worker bees without access to adequate pollen early in life turn out to be poor foragers  and dancers  as adults, the study found. The bees “waggle dance,” a figure-eight movement, is used to communicate to other members of the colony how far and in what direction to fly to find flowers. Pollen-deprived bees that went out to forage often did not return.

                “Pollen-stressed workers were less likely to waggle dance, and if they danced, the information they conveyed was less precise,” according to Mattila.

                I couldn’t help noticing that, just like with humans, it was the worker bees that were pollen-deprived. I’m sure the One-Percent were rolling in the stuff, probably wrenched from the pollen-baskets of the workers that collected it. We all know the Queen Bee wasn’t suffering from pollen-deprivation!

                As a first step in eliminating this imbalance, the hives should be forced into implementing a more progressive pollen-tax structure. Perhaps President Obama could accomplish this via executive fiat.

                I would like to see public television hold a telethon for these forgotten heroes. It’s too bad Jerry Lewis isn’t with us anymore, as I’m sure he could have waxed poetic on their behalf. “These guys are the bees-knees…well actually, they are whole bees and they need your help! Please, please give all you can to the Thriving Hives Foundation. Won’t you help feed those who feed us? Your donation will help to raise the self-esteem of those in need by ensuring they can dance as often, and as well, as any other bee in their hive!”

                Pollen levels, of course, have declined dramatically due to climate change. To make things worse, the budget for helping bees has recently been cut due to the sequester and Congressional Republican’s intolerance, bigotry, and general disdain for bees.

                If you’d like to help, please go to the following websites:

                WeCanDanceIfWeWantTo.com or BeeSomebody.org

Clumsy Spiders? Clumsy Science?

                This just in! From the Journal of Experimental Biology (sounds a little “Third Reichish” for my tastes) comes results of a study to determine how global warming affects spider locomotion. I don’t want to keep you waiting breathlessly, so let’s get right to the findings, shall we?

                You could probably have guessed that previous studies have found that global warming will indeed have a profound effect on spiders. There will be lots more of them! Yes, researchers claim warmer weather will lead to more spiders… and bigger ones! They also believe that a warming planet will “likely” have the effect of making poisonous spiders more common. Of course.

                But the new study claims that spiders will get faster, too. Since spiders rely on fluid to move their (previously) little limbs, researchers for the study wanted to test how temperature changes their ability to move. They found that at 59 degrees Fahrenheit, the spiders moved no faster than 20 centimeters a second. At the highest temperature tested, however, they nearly tripled that speed. Yet, they weren’t taking bigger steps…just more of them. They went from four steps a second to a high of ten steps a second.

              This led to the study’s second blockbuster finding: the higher temperatures made the spiders clumsier.  The researchers posit that the fluid that controls their limb movement just can’t keep up with the high speeds that come with high temperatures. Therefore, the arachnid’s joints weren’t as coordinated as they were at lower temperatures.

                This reporter felt it his duty to make you all aware of the nightmare that’s surely coming: throngs of rapidly traveling spiders pin-balling off each other and careening drunkenly off of inanimate objects all around.

                Come to think of it, just watching Daddy-Long-Legs spiders tumble all over will be worth the price of admission!

                Yes, scientists say we are soon to face an onslaught unlike any other. Earth will essentially become one big arachnid mosh pit.

 So be on the lookout for vast hordes of giant, poisonous spiders. They will be moving fast.

And stumbling into everything in sight.

                

The Rising Oceans Can Solve Our Water Shortage Problems: Kismet!

    

                Even if it were true that the oceans are inexorably rising due to the melting of glaciers caused by global warming and that mankind’s freshwater  resources are rapidly dwindling (as evidenced, for example, by the severe drought in California), therein lies our salvation! The first “problem” can alleviate the latter one!

                Just as liberals are worried about dwindling water resources and drought, they are terrified about the prospect of rising sea-levels.  Why? Use your imagination, lefties! The one "man-caused" problem can cure the other. Before we all die of thirst, or see our heavily-populated coastal areas completely submerged, we can simply utilize the supposedly swelling ocean. Let’s suck up the rising sea-water and run it through desalinization plants to provide the water for us to drink and utilize in agriculture, etc. Surely, utilizing this expanding water resource world-wide, for all 7- plus billion of us, would help check the rising of the oceans even as it alleviated the (fresh) water shortage on the continents. Crisis? What crisis?

                Truthfully, the planet has an inherent and almost mystical ability to heal itself. It’s almost as if it were intelligently designed.

              

The Answer To Any Question?: It's The U.S.'s Fault!

                I get tired of people blaming the United States for the number of Somali, and other “Middle-Eastern-Americans,” that have gone back to the deserts to fight for ISIL, Al-Quada and the like. “We need to do a better job of reaching out to the Somali (or fill-in-the-blank)-American community” is the cry of the day among liberal elitists.

                Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton recently opined in an interview, “I think we need to do a better job, all of us, in providing a lot of good reasons for young Somali youth to see their better future here in Minnesota.”

And I thought that pursuit of a better future was why they made the decision to leave home and come here in the first place!

 Dayton has promised that his office would do more to reach out to Somali community leaders, promote Somali-American appointments to state leadership positions and explore ways to boost job opportunities for young Somalis. “We pledged whatever assistance we could,” he said. A Minnesota House panel voted to increase state funding tenfold to that end.

Incredibly, Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison claims that there are a number of Somali-American kids so disaffected with life in the U.S. that they think they would have a better life and a better chance at influencing U.S. foreign policy by fighting there than voting here. Ellison appears concerned about this because of all the efforts he and others have already  made to let kids know there are other options when they feel disenchanted.

We are constantly bombarded with assertions that the vast majority of Muslim Somali (fill-in-the-blank)-Americans are peaceful and polite and law-abiding and hard-working and detest the gross misinterpretations of the Koran by extremists, etc., etc. Yet, when one informant from the community helped lead law enforcement to six men who were indicted recently, many in the community openly complained about his “betrayal.”

There is constant talk of “adrift” and despondent young Middle-Eastern men in this country with no jobs and no prospects being easily seduced by “extremists” into a (short) life of terror. That is simply bunk. The six men alluded to earlier were friends, had attended high school in Minneapolis and were attending community colleges where they were pursuing majors in everything from computer support to pre-nursing. Some of them were working and attending college at the same time…even going to NBA games. At least one worked multiple jobs and had come up with enough money that he was able to send some back to relatives in Africa. Another’s income helped support his single mother and younger siblings. One had recently proposed to a young woman and is planning to get married after college.

America provides these, and other immigrants, with jobs, health insurance, schooling, food stamps, and opportunities for business… among other things. Such as freedom. Somalia, on the other hand, is a rathole of starvation, repression and death.

Oddly enough, there is another primary reason the Islamo-apologists tout as a factor aiding recruitment of these “vulnerable” immigrant youth. Besides it being a “grand adventure,” some say that those who have integrated into our (U.S.) society feel guilty when they observe the plight of impoverished Muslims in countries with oppressive regimes. The executive director of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism at the University of Maryland (whew!) said, “Meanwhile, you’re sipping a cappuccino and wearing your Adidas. How can you stand to live in such luxury?”

I see. America is at fault by ignoring and discriminating against these noble, innocent, stalwart, peace and freedom loving Muslim immigrants that came here to escape their rathole of starvation, repression and death. They are shunned, “disaffected,” poverty-stricken, and have no chance to succeed here, and therefore are likely to be recruited by Middle-Eastern terror groups.

And also, America is at fault for luring these self-same immigrants into a life of decadent luxury, thereby turning them away from the most noble and equitable notions of their religion of peace!

Detect a pattern here?

And what of all the immigrant groups who’ve come here before?  The Irish faced discrimination, but I don’t recall many of them, feeling disenfranchised, going back home and taking up with the IRA. Millions of Germans came to America over many decades, but I don’t remember seeing any news stories about scores of German-Americans going back overseas to fight for Hitler and the Third Reich.

If it is simply poverty and disenfranchisement, unemployment and lack of prospects that create terrorists, why aren’t there throngs of home-grown terrorists from Appalachia?

The new wave of immigrants is different from those who came here in the past. Previously, all that was desired was a chance. Nothing was demanded. Immigrant’s fondest wish was to become fully American. That is why they came.

It is no longer acceptable to tell certain truths in this country…or in much of the West. Here is one such truth: there is a difference between the Muslim faith and Judeo-Christianity. The latter naturally tends to foster free, open, democratic societies. The former does not.

               

Rising Sea Levels?

                Florida’s sea level rose nearly 9 inches in the 20^th century. (That isn’t even one-tenth of an inch per year, less than the height of two pennies stacked on their sides).  Yet  projections for sea level rise this century are as high as 78 inches, according to a 2014 study by the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences.

                Sea levels have risen and fallen in the past, but now that man-caused-climate-change Kool-Aid drinkers are projecting up to an 867% greater rise this century than last, in order to shock and awe- and instill fear in- the general populace and the low-information voter. Why do you think that is? Are these “men of science” completely  unbiased and agenda-free?

                Really?  867%?

                Even if this were the case, that would put the average yearly sea level rise at just over ¾ of one inch per year for this century. 

                Good thing we have fast cars.

                Of one thing there can be no doubt: “chutzpa” levels among alarmists  are rising faster than the sea.

Governor Behooved To Cancel Study

                Minnesota’s leading moose researchers were involved in a study to find out why wild moose populations are declining in the state. Next month, for the third time, they were to attempt to put tracking collars on newborn calves in a comprehensive study to determine reasons for the decline.

                Unfortunately, the calves’ mothers have abandoned their collared babies at excessively high rates. In fact, about a fourth of all newborn calves collared so far have been left behind by their mothers to starve or wind up in zoos.

                Yes, in true Monty Python-esque fashion, this long-term study to determine why the wild moose population has been declining…  has led to a decline in the wild moose population.

                The Minnesota DNR has now ceased the study by order of the state’s governor.