Remembrances jogged by PISSED

PISSED commented on What if...?

I have sometimes wondered the what if's? Everything is fate I guess and you just have to go with it.

It's usually the 3-5 second rule I call it. Somebody will mention a fatal car accident and I think what if either party rolled over when the alarm went off, or did or didn't stop for coffee, or stopped at the yellow light earlier rather than run it.

To which I replied:

I should have died many times in my life and your mention of the above reminds me of the time I drove from Northern Virginia to my military school reunion in Lewisburg, WVA in my '65 Hi Po at around midnight after consuming countless beers. At any rate, the divided highway had concrete bridges that went across it at fairly close intervals and I woke up at the bottom of the grassy section exactly between two which enabled me to get back on the highway before certain death. Indeed, a 3-5 second rule.

Then there was the time I ran out of air at around 80 feet chasing a large Sheepshead in California with a bag full of scallops. Well, each time I kicked upwards, I would of course get a little more air to breath and finally there came the time that I said to myself that if I don't hit the top next time, I'm done, but no way in hell I was going to drop my bag of scallops to make it easier! Crazy!:) Anyway on the supposedly last kick I saw the surface and made it. Boy that was the sweetest intake of air I ever had!

Drought Doomed Ancient City of Angkor

Via Survival

The ancient city of Angkor — the most famous monument of which is the breathtaking ruined temple of Angkor Wat — might have collapsed due to valiant but ultimately failed efforts to battle drought, scientists find.

The great city of Angkor in Cambodia, first established in the ninth century, was the capital of the Khmer Empire, the major player in southeast Asia for nearly five centuries. It stretched over more than 385 square miles (1,000 square kilometers), making it the most extensive urban complex of the preindustrial world. In comparison, Philadelphia covers 135 square miles (350 sq. km), while Phoenix sprawls across more than 500 square miles (1,300 sq. km), not including the huge suburbs.

Suggested causes for the fall of the Khmer Empire in the late 14th to early 15th centuries have included war and land overexploitation. However, recent evidence suggests that prolonged droughts might have been linked to the decline of Angkor — for instance, tree rings from Vietnam suggest the region experienced long spans of drought interspersed with unusually heavy rainfall.

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Fred Says Goodbye

Kerry And His Mystical Khmer Dau (Rouge)

Revealed: The priest who changed the course of history ... by rescuing a drowning four-year-old Hitler from death in an icy river

Via Blue

It may be the most devastating act of mercy in history.

A newspaper report chronicling how a boy of four was saved from drowning has surfaced in a German archive.

The child – who historians believe could have been Adolf Hitler – was plucked from the icy waters of the River Inn in Passau, Germany, in January 1894.

According to Max Tremmel, a priest who went on to become one of Europe's most famous organists, his predecessor Johann Kuehberger had rescued the terrified Hitler.

Father Tremmel told before his death in 1980 how Father Kuehberger, around the same age as Hitler, had seen the other boy struggling in the waters of the River Inn and dived in to rescue him.

The story was never verified by Hitler during his lifetime. But now a small cutting from the Donauzeitung - Danube newspaper - of 1894 has been found in Passau.

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Greenspan: ‘True Revolution’ to End Welfare State Impasse

The U.S. welfare state has "run up against a brick wall" of economic reality and fiscal book-keeping and only a "true revolution" involving major entitlement overhaul will improve the economy, says former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan.

In the United States, the rise of the tea party among Republicans coupled with the shift to the left of many Democrats have made it very difficult for the country's leaders to agree on policy.

Look at last year's debt-ceiling fiasco as an example.

"A political tsunami has emerged out of our past in the form of the Tea Party, with its ethos reminiscent of rugged individualism and self-reliance," Greenspan writes in a Financial Times op-ed piece.

The tea party "has so altered the distribution of votes within Republican Party’s House caucus that the party's center has moved closer to the tea party."

Compromise must ensue eventually, and that will likely include reform to entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security, programs that have expanded without funding to match.

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Outdoor Safety and the .22:)

If you spend any time at all outdoors, you are eventually going to come across a wild animal. In that case you have three things you can do, like in any threatening situation. Flee, fight or do absolutely nothing.

Case in Point - there was a hike one time, up in the Rockies with my brother in law, the liberal attorney from California. Suddenly, rushing at us from out of no where, came this HUGE brown bear, and oh boy, was she enraged. We must have been near her cubs and she was out for blood.

I thought about the fleeing part. I could run for it, then considering the animals I can outrun - (moss, caterpillars) decided against it.

I thought about getting up into a tree. Let's see, what animals can I out climb? (Manatee, trout.) No.

I can do nothing. That keeps the carnage contained, easier for the coroner to pick up.

No, I will fight. That's why I carry a gun.

People always talk about taking large caliber ammo loads while hiking in case of bears.

A 12 gauge Express Magnum loaded with slugs perhaps. The.45 Colt Ruger with 21.5 grs H-110/325 gr Keith or LBT bullet recipes. Maybe a Browning 45-70 1886 carbine with heavy loads, a .44 Magnum or a .45 Colt (in Ruger persuasion for hot loads) both stoked with heavy (240-300 gr) hard-cast lead Keith-style bullets. Another option, the LBT series of bullets, such as the 325gr LBT WFN over 21.5gr of H110 for the .45 Colt bruiser.

But no, I learned I should just stick with my little .22.

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Women are a mystery to British physicist Hawking

Via The Feral Irishman

The biggest mystery in the universe perplexing one of the world's best known scientists is -- women.

When New Scientist magazine asked "Brief History of Time" author Stephen Hawking what he thinks about most, the Cambridge University professor renowned for unravelling some of the most complex questions in modern physics answered: "Women. They are a complete mystery."

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Rick Santorum: Sharia 'is evil'

Rick Santorum on Friday asserted that Sharia law has no place in America.

“Jihadism is evil and we need to say what it is,” he said at the Strafford County Lincoln-Reagan dinner, remarks that show how the former Pennsylvania senator continues to establish himself as the candidate most-aligned with the Republican Party’s conservative base.

“We need to define it and say what it is. And it is evil. Sharia law is incompatible with American jurisprudence and our Constitution.”

Santorum, invoking New York Rep. Peter King’s hearing this week on the alleged radicalization of American Muslims, said that the “vast majority” of Muslims don’t want to it either.

“They left because of Sharia law,” he said, referring to why he believes Muslim immigrants left their home countries to come to the United States.

Santorum added, “Sharia law is not just a religious code. It is also a governmental code. It happens to be both religious in nature an origin, but it is a civil code. And it is incompatible with the civil code of the United States.”

The audience loudly applauded.

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Judge rules Muslim attack on Jewish girl ‘free speech’

A judge has stated that Muslim students who allegedly harassed Jewish students and even assaulted a woman with a cart was engaging in protected political speech.

Jessica Felber claimed in a lawsuit against the University of Berkeley that a leader of a pro-Palestinian group rammed her with a shopping cart as she staged a counter-protest to the anti-Israel “Apartheid Week” conducted by the Muslim Student Association and Students for Justice in Palestine in 2010.

Felber and another Jewish student claimed the University did not do enough to prevent the harassment which included the Muslim group conducting checkpoints around the campus. Students were asked if they were Jewish while passing the checkpoints.

On Thursday U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg said the harassment, even if true, constituted protected political speech and dismissed the case against the university.

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Titanic items to be sold 100 years after sinking

Via Jeanie

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Items as small as a hairpin and as big as a chunk of the Titanic's hull are among 5,000 artifacts from the world's most famous shipwreck that are to be auctioned in April, close to the 100th anniversary of the disaster.

Nearly a century after the April 15, 1912, sinking of the ocean liner that hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic, a New York City auction is being readied by Guernsey's Auctioneers & Brokers.

That auction house has garnered headlines in the past by selling off such historical curiosities as prized Beatles photos, famous jewels of the late Princess Diana, beloved Jerry Garcia guitars and a police motorcycle used in the Texas motorcade when John F. Kennedy was slain. But nothing as titanic as the so-called Titanic collection.

On April 11, all of the salvaged items are to be sold as one lot in what Guernsey's President Arlan Ettinger describes as the most significant auction ever handled by that house.

"Who on this planet doesn't know the story of the Titanic and isn't fascinated by it?" he asked. "Could Hollywood have scripted a more tragic or goose-bump-raising story than what actually happened on that ship?"

"It is as poignant to my 12-year-old son as it is to me and generations before me. There's no end to the fascination about it."

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THE REAL REASON WHY COMMANDANT OF ARMY DRILL SERGEANT SCHOOL AT FORT JACKSON SUSPENDED

Via Billy

COMMAND SGT MAJ TERESA KING UNDER INVESTIGATION FOR DRINKING AND SEXUAL RELATIONSHIP WITHLOWER-RANKING SOLDIER - WE ALSO FIND OUT KING'S MASTERS AND DOCTOR OF DIVINITY DEGREES CAME FROM UNACCREDITED DIPLOMA MILLS - CASH FOR COLLEGE CREDITS $CAM

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