Monday, October 9, 2017

En Brer Fox, He Lay Low

 

Another Southern city with a rich history has fallen into the wallow of political pus. Who knows who represents the final word on the subject, although when it comes to these miscreants, these political poltroons, it is difficult to rummage through the dung of their dogmatic house to reveal any one germ.

Now Memphis’ Orepheum Theatre Group has banned Gone With the Wind. No surprise really. Like self-important Pharisees the “powers-to-be” raise their self-righteousness beyond levels that angels can reach.  These crabbing, pitiful, unlaborious protestors (or just as unlaborious—politicians) must show their care for some group of mankind’s  maligned people of some special group of color or trait or position or whatever; though these same Pharisees-claimants insist on the people of the world’s equality.

If all are equal how can there be differences in treatment i.e. how to tell which equal is not equal. But this is the kind of reasoning (or lack of) one is faced with in contemporary society e.g. public education. NOW, I see where Orwell came up with his fairy-tale-farm idea.

One of my personal collection of movies, Song of the South, I watched the other night for the “several-th” time. (my wonderful Louisiana wife of 43 years and I used to love to watch it together).

Arab Slave-Catching Caravans

 https://themuslimissue.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/christian-slaves.jpg?w=350&h=200&crop=1

In addition to ending the piracy emanating from Tripoli, the US victory over Yusaf Bashaw (bashaw is the equivalent of “pasha”) brought an end to the latter’s white Christian slave trade. The British sent Dr. Joseph Ritchie and British naval officer George Lyon to Tripoli for the possibility of commerce and the extirpation of the slave trade, which Africans and Arabs alike would not cease on their own. Dr. Ritchie died on the expedition related below.
Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa1865.com   The Great American Political Divide

Arab Slave-Catching Caravans

“Yusaf Karamanli . . . held Tripoli’s throne . . . [and] ruled Tripoli from 1795 to 1835, extending his authority southward with bloody wars against nomadic tribes. One explorer, watching Yusaf Bashaw’s army returning after a campaign in the hinterlands, counted two thousand human heads on the tips of Cologhi spears. These grisly trophies belonged to rebellious Tuareg whose decapitated bodies were burned in the desert.

The basaw realized that the age of piracy was ending. Under his reign, piratical practices had already been the cause of war in 1805 between Tripolitania and the United States. It was . . . a huge financial blow to the bashaw. No longer could his treasury be supported by ransoms and the sale of stolen ships and booty.

By 1825, the bashaw found that all sources of revenue from the old trade of piracy and Christian slavery had dried up.

On March 18, 1819, the bashaw received [Dr. Joseph] Ritchie and [George] Lyon at an official audience with their consul, telling them they could head south with his ally, the newly-appointed bey of Fezzan, Mohammed El Mukni, was soon to leave Tripoli on a slave raiding campaign. El Mukno . . . was collecting a force of armed Arabs to attack African villages.

[They saw enroute] members of the fierce Tebu tribe, parties of whom occasionally descended from the Tibesti Mountains to plunder passing caravans. These tall and handsome people, veiled like the Tuareg and wary of strangers, were black Africans, not Berbers, the northernmost part of a larger group of Tebu people whose territory extended to what we know today as Chad, Niger and Sudan.

Though the Tuareg and Tebu nominally espoused Islam, they were fiercely independent and deviated from accepted Muslim norms when it suited them.

On February 9, 1820, Lyon . . . joining company with a slaving caravan, set out on the journey back to Tripoli. Day after day . . . he watched twelve hundred slaves [who were captured], most of them women and children, shepherded painfully across the hilly wastes. Mounted [Arab] overseers battered this mass of wretched humanity with whips and sticks; sick slaves were thrown by the road and left to die. Nauseated by the spectacle, Lyon took notes:

“These poor, oppressed beings were, many of them, so exhausted as to be scarcely able to walk; their legs and feet were much swelled and by their enormous size formed a striking contrast with their emaciated bodies. They were all borne down with loads of firewood; and even poor little children, worn to skeletons by fatigue and hardship, were obliged to bear their burthen, while many of their inhuman masters rode on camels, with the dreaded whip suspended from their wrists.”

Exhausted by his own hardships, Lyon was haunted by memories of the brutalized slaves. He went to the slave market [in Tripoli] to say good-bye to them. Recognizing him, they greeted him with smiles, some with tears.”

(The Race for Timbuktu, In Search of Africa’s City of Gold, Frank T. Kryza, HarperCollins, 2006, excerpts, pp. 68-72; 77-79)

$PLC: Pirates, Poverty, and Wealth in the Caribbean

Via Cousin John


The Southern Poverty Law Center likes to boast about its mission to "destroy" the groups it labels as "hate groups" -- groups that now include mainstream conservative and Judeo-Christian organizations.

But thankfully it appears the only thing being destroyed is their own credibility. Credibility that's hitting a near all-time low last week after the Department of Defense became the latest government entity to publicly distance itself from a group that's been connected in federal court to domestic terrorism.

Assistant U.S. attorney Brian Field stated in response to a Freedom of Information Request that "all references to the SPLC have been removed from any current {Department of Defense} training."

More @ FRC

RNC to support Roy Moore in Senate race, predicts he'll beat Doug Jones

Via Billy

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Avx4osbbFik/hqdefault.jpg

The head of the Republican Party said Monday the GOP will support Roy Moore in Alabama's special election and predicted that the former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice will defeat Democrat Doug Jones in the Dec. 12 contest.

"We're going to keep that seat," Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said in an interview with Sinclair Broadcasting Group. "The RNC is going to work with the Moore campaign.

We want him to be the next senator from Alabama and we have this. You have primaries where ideas are put forward, you have different candidates, and its passionate and they come out and then in the end, our purpose unites us. And as Republicans we know what we need to get done. We know that we need to support President Trump and his agenda, and that's only going to be done if we have a Republican senator from Alabama."

More @ AL

Paul Craig Roberts: Military Surgeon Says Videos of Las Vegas Gunshot Victims Are Fake

Via comment by Anonymous on Police ‘Confident’ No One Else in Shooter’s Room B...



It looks like readers are not going to let me let go of the Las Vegas shooting. Some tell me that it is my fault for having alerted them in previous articles to anomalies in other shootings and terrorist events, so now they are more skeptical and pay more attention. Others say that as I emphasize that this is their website supported with their money, I have to see this through to the end. They say it is a cop-out when I say that there are too many disparate accounts for us to know.

One reader made an excellent point. According to mainstream media reports, 59 people were immediately killed in the shooting and 527 were wounded. Among those 527 wounded, wouldn’t some of them have died from complications, blood loss, trauma? How come none of the wounded, people allegedly hit with military rounds, succumbed?

I agree. This does seem to be inexplicable.

YouTube bans gun conversion tutorials

Via Billy

YouTube bans gun conversion tutorials
......... conversion devices and bump stocks — both of which allow semi-automatic guns to fire more similarly to automatic ones. 
 Amazing!  The first description of 'bump' stocks that is correct. :)

********************

YouTube is banning videos that show viewers how to modify guns to make them more deadly like bump stocks, one week after the deadly mass shooting in Las Vegas. 

The company says that the decision is an expansion of a pre-existing policy it has against “harmful and dangerous content."

More @ The Hill

Trump "wants someone along the lines of David Clarke" for DHS

Via Billy

 Image result for Trump allies worry new Cabinet-level vacancies will go unfilled for months

Some of President Trump's staunchest allies have lost confidence in the administration's ability to fill several high-level vacancies that remain within the government, already casting doubt on whether the White House will decide on replacements for Tom Price at Health and Human Services and John Kelly at the Department of Homeland Security by the end of the year.

Price resigned last month after his penchant for taxpayer-funded private planes over commercial flights was revealed in a series of reports. Last week, the Senate confirmed Eric Hargan, a former HHS appointee under President Bush, to be deputy secretary of the agency in a 57-38 vote.
Hargan will serve at the helm of the agency while White House officials search for a permanent successor to Price.

The 2nd Amendment is special, not because it protects guns, but because its violation signals a government with the intention to oppress its people.

 https://i.pinimg.com/236x/dc/2c/c9/dc2cc98ee8d21a8b6fb3c6dbba2732e2--thomas-jefferson-quotes-glock-guns.jpg

Here is the danger with the second amendment debate at this point in time, there are no good advocates, who truly understand the issues at hand. Over at the National Review we have some half-spineless humanoid making the argument for an armed citizenry resisting government tyranny. His writing is half-hearted and apologetic about supporting the view that, yes, a determined minority of gun owners could dispel a tyrannical government.

That doesn't help, in fact it undermines the whole concept of the Second Amendment. We really don't need some guy who sounds like he would be frightened at the sight of a 1911 laying on the table to argue the merits and utility of the Second Amendment. It was as if the duty had fallen to him, but that he didn't really buy any of it or support anything about it. Hey, National Review, maybe hire a competent writer with knowledge of the issues rather than pick on some spineless dolt to do the work.

The Second Amendment was never written to enable a sport like hunting or target shooting; it was written and understood from a deadly serious point of view about the security and nature of a free state. It was written to debilitate a tyrannical government and keep it in check until it could be overthrown. Nothing that has transpired in the 20th or 21st Centuries so far has refuted the utility or importance of the Second Amendment.

Tom Cotton on Tillerson and Mattis: If you can’t get with the Trump program, quit.

 Bridget Mulcahy/POLITICO

This is a moment of truth for President Trump’s national security team. He is set to overrule both his secretaries of State and Defense on the Iran nuclear deal this week, declaring it no longer in the U.S. “national interest” in explicit contradiction to their public position. And if they don’t like it, Senator Tom Cotton says, then they should get out.

Their “job is now to move out and execute,” Cotton, the Arkansas Republican and national security hawk who is one of Trump’s closest remaining congressional advisers on foreign policy, says in a new interview for The Global Politico, our weekly podcast on world affairs. Or, “if you feel strongly enough, then you have to resign.”

More @ Politico

John Wayne 1970 Variety Show Celebrating America's History

Via Mike


Police ‘Confident’ No One Else in Shooter’s Room Before Las Vegas Attack

 Image: Stephen Paddock

Investigators are "confident" that no one else entered the Las Vegas hotel suite before a gunman opened fire on a crowd of thousands of concertgoers, killing 58 people in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Undersheriff Kevin McMahill said Friday in an interview that police don't believe anyone entered the room at Mandalay Bay prior to the shooting carried out by Stephen Paddock Sunday night.

Earlier, senior law enforcement sources said investigators were puzzled by a charger that did not appear to match any of Paddock’s cellphones. Police have now been able to match all of the cell phone chargers found in the room with multiple cell phones that Paddock had with him.

More @ NBC

Spain on edge before possible Catalan secession declaration

Via Billy

https://www.cp24.com/polopoly_fs/1.3625005.1507569531!/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_620/image.jpg

The focus of the deepening clash between Catalan separatists and Spanish authorities is shifting to the regional parliament for a key session likely to include a historic declaration of independence that Spain has pledged to crush.

Catalan president Carles Puigdemont hasn't revealed the precise message he will deliver Tuesday evening with separatist politicians expecting some sort of declaration based on the results of the disputed Oct. 1 referendum on independence.

At stake is the territorial integrity of Spain, threatened by a growing separatist movement that is sorely testing the strength of its constitution and the skill of its national and regional leaders.

Some expect a strictly symbolic declaration, while others believe a risky full-scale break with Spain will be attempted, even as Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy vows he will use all lawful means to keep Spain intact.

More @ Yahoo

The Truth About Columbus

Via Billy


Is this the last time we can celebrate Columbus Day?

A wave of cities have decided to remove the holiday from the calendar and replace it with “Indigenous Peoples’ Day.”

Christopher Columbus, the Italian explorer credited with discovering America, and his legacy are under attack figuratively and, increasingly, literally.

Several Columbus monuments have been attacked and vandalized around the country. The towering Columbus statue at Columbus Circle in New York City now needs 24-hour guards after Mayor Bill de Blasio put it on the list of a commission to review “offensive” memorials.

Christian Pro-Life Group Kicked Out of Seattle Coffee Shop by Gay Owner

Via Billy


LANGUAGE!

A Christian pro-life group was kicked out of a Seattle coffee shop by the owner, Ben Borgman, who told the group, "I'm gay, you have to leave."

The interaction between the owner of Bedlam Coffee and the pro-life group was captured on video by one of the Christian group's members, was posted to Facebook, and has since gone viral.

The abolitionist group stopped in at Borgman's shop after posting and handing out pro-life pamphlets in Seattle, the Washington Times reported.

South Korea developing graphite 'blackout bombs' to paralyse North's electrical grid

Via Billy


South Korea is ready to deploy graphite bombs - also known as "blackout bombs" - that will paralyse North Korea's electrical power plants in the event of war breaking out on the peninsula.

Blackout bombs were first used by the United States in Iraq in the 1990 Gulf War and work by releasing a cloud of extremely fine, chemically treated carbon filaments over electrical components.

The filaments are so fine that they act like a cloud, but cause short circuits in electrical equipment.

South Korea is actively looking to increase its defensive capabilities against the North and has been keen to develop graphite bombs because they are not lethal to civilians in surrounding areas.

Dolphins owner Steve Ross now wants players to stand for anthem, coach Adam Gase makes it a rule

Via  Billy

Image result for Miami Dolphins

Miami Dolphins owner Steve Ross, who had three players — wide receiver Kenny Stills, safety Michael Thomas and tight end Julius Thomas — kneel during the national anthem prior to last week’s game said Sunday he wished they would stand for the anthem. The trio ended up standing in the tunnel during the anthem and running onto the field afterward.

Coach Adam Gase implemented a policy Sunday requiring players to stand for the national anthem. Those who don’t wish to stand must stay in the locker room or in the tunnel.

More @ Sun Sentinel

California Sheriffs Call on Congress to Stop Their ‘Sanctuary’ State

Via Billy

 

Law enforcement: New law could provide safe harbor to MS-13

California’s sheriffs are calling on the GOP-controlled Congress to intervene and pass a federal law to change the state’s sanctuary state status, warning the law that ties their hands too tightly will only increase the chances of another high-profile tragedy.

The sanctuary state law, which Gov. Jerry Brown (D.) signed Thursday but doesn't go into effect until January, is the most far-reaching of its kind in the country and places sharp limits on how local law enforcement agencies can communicate with federal immigration authorities.

James Brown & Luciano Pavarotti - It's a Man's World

Via mind jog by crhubb


Re-post 
 
I wish Mother could have witnessed this.  Luciano  was her favorite.