Memorial Day

(Cartoon credit: Townhall.com)

What-cha-ma-call-it

Tonight's horse race commentary - Tom Durkin does the call at Hialeah Park:

On sacrifice

On this Memorial Day weekend, when we honor the full last measure of sacrifice of our military men and women, comes these thoughts [via Pursuing Holiness] from Desiring God on another selfless sacrifice:

Twice Jesus was offered wine while on the cross. He refused the first, but took the second. Why so?

Read it here.

Winscape

Tonight's nerd-tech:

Moon over Yusufiyah

Via The Anchoress, comes this story of adversity and strength from the Mudville Gazette:

The Stokely family sat in a football stadium on a warm Friday night just before Memorial Day 2001 to watch Mike Stokely graduate high school. He already had boot camp / basic training and a year in the National Guard under his belt and would be heading off for Advanced Individual Training at Ft. Gordon in a few weeks. His little sister, Abbey, almost nine, couldn't let go of him, even to have a photo taken with Mike and their brother, Wes. yus1.jpg She swung on his arm adoringly - her look of love says it all.

On the morning of August 16, 2005, as my wife Retta and I sat with Wes and Abbey just after breaking the news to them of Mikes death earler that morning, then 13 year old Abbey buried her head into my shoulder, sobbing these words: "he was supposed to chase away my first boyfriend, he was supposed to cheer at my graduation from high school, he was supposed to be an uncle to my children..." These words seared my heart, broken as it was. I shall never forget them. She lost her oldest brother that day, her "Bubs" which she called him short for his nickname, Bubba. ...

Read it here, and as Anchoress advises, ponder grace.

Logorama

Tonight's animated short - Logorama:

Milkman vs. Mailman

Tonight's smackdown, 1950's retro edition:

Up There

Tonight's short documentary:

Marxist-in-Chief won't honor fallen at Arlington on Memorial Day; going on vacation instead

From Jammie Wearing Fool, comes this Washington Post report:

With the long Memorial Day weekend on the horizon, President Obama is finally addressing one of the great broken promises of his administration: his early pledge to return home to Chicago every six weeks or so. [emphasis added]

In 16 months at the White House, the Obamas have been back home just once - in February of 2009. But they plan to make the trip over Memorial Day weekend, an official said. After arriving on Thursday night, they will visit with friends and participate in private events.

On Monday, Obama will make remarks at the Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery, south of Chicago - missing the usual tradition of presidents speaking at Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day.

Vice President Biden and his wife will appear in Obama's place, laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, as well as holding a breakfast for Gold Star families -- families whose loved ones died in military service -- at the White House earlier that day.

It's not like we have men and women fighting and dying in a war in far off lands, or anything, right? I can't tell whether the reporter is being sarcastic or serious when she says that returning to Chicago every six weeks is "one of the great broken promises" of President ObamBam's administration.

Imagine if President Bush had blown off Memorial Day observances to go back home to Crawford, TX? Actually, for all his faults, I can't imagine Bush would ever have been so disrespectful of the sacrifice of our fallen military men and women.

On the plus side, our military should now have no doubt where the Narcissist-in-Chief stands when it comes to them, and how little their lives and sacrifices mean to him. Perhaps our military men and women will remember this if he ever orders them to brutalize and turn against their fellow citizens.

Twenty four rooms in one

Tonight's space saving apartment:

Wet wool sweater

Tonight's surfing sheep:

The making of Florida One

Tonight's fast aircraft assembly -- Southwest Airlines' Florida One:

News fail

Tonight's news bloopers:

Of Fiscal Crises and Imperial Collapses

Today's video, Harvard historian Niall Ferguson's Ninth Annual Niarchos Lecture at the Peterson Institute, entitled Fiscal Crises and Imperial Collapses: Historical Perspective on Current Predicaments:



About 55 minutes long; takes a while to get going, and it's a little dry, but interesting nonetheless for the historical perspective of the likely coming collapse (barring some improbable and dramatic course change). Also interesting is the comparison between countries like Greece and the United States and the UK, and what countries historically do (and don't do) when they end up in such situations. Mr. Ferguson starts his lecture around 8:30 minutes into the video for those who wish to skip the introductory speakers and their remarks.

Q&A with Mr. Ferguson (about 38 mminutes long):



Watch / listen to both, if you have the time.

Avatar: The Sequel

Tonight's spoofy trailer:

Utah Guardsmen refused to confiscate guns during Katrina

From Oath Keepers:

Surf's up!

Tonight's big wave:

Candlelight illusion

Tonight's illusion:

Iceland volcano eruption, part deux?

Via Modern Survival Blog, comes this news:

On May 17, 2010 08:32 UTC, The Iceland Met office indicates that a small earthquake has occurred at the Katla location. In what could be an early indication of the event that is expected to occur (an eruption of Katla), a small earthquake is reported at the site. Although a single earthquake is not a precursor of an eminent eruption, it could be the first ’sigh’ of the awakening powerful giant.

Historically, Katla has erupted after the eruption of it’s close neighbor, Eyjafjallajokull, which first erupted on April 14, 2010 and is ongoing at this moment. Magma channels beneath the two volcanoes are thought to be interconnected. A Katla eruption would likely be about ten times as powerful at the Eyjafjallajokull eruption and could cause worldwide disruption while expelling huge volumes of volcanic ash into the stratosphere which would circle the globe potentially for years, depending upon the magnitude of the eruption. [emphasis added] ...

If such a large eruption does occur, expect food prices to large, as harvest yields plummet. Some more info on Katla's previous eruptions is available here. How's that food storage plan coming along?

Iceland volcano timelapse

Today's timelapse video - of Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano eruption, from May 1st and 2nd, 2010:

Baseball gymnastics

Tonight's baseball gymnastics -- Fordham's Brian Kownacki leaps the catcher to score in an incredible comeback win against Iona:

Melt up

Today's preview of economic disaster:

The New Ben Franklin

Tonight's new currency introduction, the redesigned $100 bill:

We have liftoff

Tonight's slow motion video, from the Apollo 11 launch on July 16, 1969 from Kennedy Space Center. The camera is running at 500 frames per second, so the approx. 8 minute video represents about 30 seconds of actual time:

I guess it's Diversity, of a sort

Today's quote of the day, from Radley Balko over at Reason Magazine:

With Kagan, Supreme Court will get yet more diverse: It will have Catholics from Harvard or Yale, an African-American from Harvard or Yale, women from Harvard or Yale, a Hispanic from Harvard or Yale, and a Jew from Harvard or Yale.

Abba

Tonight's musical interlude - Abba's Money, Money, Money:

The Internet stars go viral

Tonight's musical video collage:

Only four chords

Tonight's musical comedic interlude - Australian comedy group 'Axis Of Awesome' perform at the 2009 Melbourne International Comedy Festival [language warning]:

Unemployment, the hotel you didn't know you owned, and the 72 year cycle

More "Green Shoots", huh? Unemployment insurance checks starting to run out:

WASHINGTON — Xernna Nieves, her four children and her sister, Sara, have for the past eight months lived in a single, cramped hotel room just outside of Atlanta.

(Credit: McClatchy Newspapers)

Nieves, her sister and the two youngest children, both girls, sleep four to a bed. The boys, 15 and 12, sleep on the floor. In such close quarters, "We're getting on each others' nerves," Nieves said.

After nearly two years without a job, about the only thing that Nieves, 41, a former accounting worker, can count on is her unemployment insurance check; a $330-a-week lifeline that pays the rent, fills her gas tank and feeds her family when their $300-a-month food-stamp benefit runs out in mid month.

Barring any further action from Congress, however, Nieves' "lifeline" will be cut at the end of June.

That's when she's slated to join hundreds of thousands of jobless workers nationwide who've exhausted their maximum 99 weeks of unemployment benefits and face life with no meaningful income. ...

Next up, via Mish, on the hotel chain you now own:



Maybe Ms. Nieves should ask to stay at the Red Roof Inn.


And Randall Hoven over at American Thinker predicts the collapse of entitlement spending in two years:

What we have here is the failure of the unfree market. That means the failure of Greece. And the other PIGS (Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain). And Europe. And it means the U.S., too. It even includes the Great Recession. The modern welfare state is collapsing around us.

If you had believed in the 72-Year Rule, you would have seen this coming. The 72-Year Rule says the lifetime of any social order or governing paradigm is about 72 years. For example, how long was it from the adoption of our original Constitution (1789), which sanctioned slavery, to the Civil War (1861)? Call it 72 years. And from then until the New Deal in 1933? Another 72 years. How about from the Bolshevik Revolution (1917) to the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989)? That would be 72 years again.

Do you know when the first Social Security check was issued? January 31, 1940. If my guess is right, Social Security has maybe two more years left.

Generally, the modern welfare states were born in the 1930s. So the 72-Year Rule says the modern welfare states will collapse and/or turn into something else in the 2002-2012 time frame.

Kinda makes you believe in the 72-Year Rule, doesn't it? ...

For those that haven't read The Fourth Turning, by economic historians William Strauss and Neil Howe, those authors make a similar case, though on an 80 year generational cycle.

That's a big mug handle you've got

Tonight's unintentionally suggestive video - making a ceramic mug handle, with Emily Owen:

Shipping container cellar

Tonight's how-to video:

Ladies and Gentlemen, the President of the United States

Tonight's comedy impression, by comedian Steve Bridges:

Part 1:




Part 2:

Ron Paul: "There is going to be riots in the streets"

Today's video interview - Ron Paul on Fox with Megyn Kelly:

Nine word riddle

Tonight's English language riddle:

Larry Pratt speech at RTC rally

Today's video, Gunowners of America's Larry Pratt's speech at the Restore the Constitution rally in Virginia last month:




Do you know where your sheriff stands?

The Hand Skills Game

Tonight's prank:

Olde English Folk Song

Tonight's folk song, by Bob Saget [language warning at end]:

A mother's choice

From Shannon Love, writing over at Chicago Boyz, comes this piece from May Day:

I just watched a documentary on Stalin which showed a old Ukrainian woman telling the story of the horrors her family faced when Stalin pushed them onto the collectives, stole their grain and sold it abroad to fund his industrial dreams.

She said that their house had the only nearby well and neighbors came there to fetch water. No one had any food. Everyone was starving.

Her mother had three children. The youngest was a boy around five. He had taken ill so they had put him in the warmest place, a bunk bed over the stove. The mother had nothing to feed her children save a single turnip. She boiled it up and divided it between the two oldest children. The youngest child, smelling the turnip from his bed over the stove ask for some. The woman refused. The child climbed down from his sick bed, crying, grabbing at her skirts and begging for just a bite of turnip. Seeing this, the neighbors told the woman to give the starving child just a bite of turnip.

“No,” she said, “I have to save the food for my healthy children.”

Hearing this, the boy sagged. He gave up begging and weeping bitterly, struggled back into his bed. He cried until he died the next day.

When a child dies slowly, such as from starvation, they often begin to make a particular rhythmic, low, mewing cry in their final hours.

Those unfortunate enough to have heard it describe it as being like no other sound a human makes. It’s sad and pathetic and tugs at the adult heart like nothing else. Deep in our genetic core it calls us to do something, anything, to save the child.

Did the woman have to listen to her son make that sound? Did his weeping slowly turn to that mindless mewing? Did she have to sit in her one room peasant house, listening to him for hours until he finally stilled?

The horror of this story defies quantification. What could be worse than having to decide to withhold food from your own starving child? From your own youngest child? What could be worse than seeing his face when you told him not that you couldn’t feed him but that you wouldn’t? ...

Read the rest here. Then consider that the policies of our own collectivist elite -- the same collectivist scum who worship the policies of Stalin, and Mao, and Castro -- would, if allowed to reach their natural, manifestly evil, conclusion, force that same choice upon American mothers.

Then listen to this interview of Mike Vanderboegh by Pajama TV's Scott Ott: here (MP3)

We continue on our wretched path to a horrific and bloody showdown between these two fundamentally incompatible worldviews.

Look! Up in the sky, it's a ... boat?

Tonight's remote-controlled toy:

Another Inconvenient Truth

From the Los Angeles Times we learn that Al "Globally Green" Gore has added yet another mansion to his holdings, which will no doubt further expand his already Sasquatch-like energy footprint:

Former Vice President Al Gore and his wife, Tipper, have added a Montecito-area property to their real estate holdings, reports the Montecito Journal.

The couple spent $8,875,000 on an ocean-view villa on 1.5 acres with a swimming pool, spa and fountains, a real estate source familiar with the deal confirms. The Italian-style house has six fireplaces, five bedrooms and nine bathrooms.

You, driving your SUV, are a threat to world climate. Al and his multiple mansions, huge boat(s), private jet travel, and limousine caravans ... not so much.

[Via Brutally Honest]

Shepherd's pie

Tonight's great moments in Irish history:

At least it's not as complicated as ObamaCare

Today's Scourge-of-PowerPoint slide {click image to enlarge):

Its coloured charts, graphs and bullet-points are supposed to make the most incomprehensible data crystal clear.

But even the sharpest military minds in American were left baffled by this PowerPoint slide, a mind-boggling attempt to explain the situation in Afghanistan.

'When we understand that slide, we'll have won the war,' General Stanley McChrystal, the US and NATO force commander, remarked wryly when confronted by the sprawling spaghetti diagram in a briefing. ...

Read it here.

Coming out of the closet, er, safe

Today's video, from the Daily Show with Jon Stewart:

Slow runner

Tonight's slow runner - a funny video clip showing how fast Jacoby Ford and other NFL players run the 40-yard dash compared to, well, an average guy in a suit:

The End of the World as We Know It

Today's interview of Mark Steyn by Peter Robinson on Uncommon Knowledge, on Steyn's book America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It:

Steyn: "Turning this thing around will be hellish work."

Part 1 - Mark Steyn breaks down the numbers and explains why they spell doom for the Western world.

Part 2 - Mark Steyn discusses the unsustainable habits of the West.

Part 3 - Mark Steyn talks about civilizational exhaustion, and how “a suicide bomber may be a weak weapon, but not against a weak culture.”

Part 4 - Mark Steyn responds to critics who have called his America Alone “alarmist.”

Part 5 - Mark Steyn compares and contrasts America and Europe.

Car commercial

Tonight's creative auto commercial, for the Nissan Sentra:

Victims of Communism Day

From Ilya Somin, writing over at Volokh:

Today is May 1, May Day. Back in 2007 and 2008, I advocated the idea of transforming this long-time communist holiday into Victims of Communism Day — a day of remembrance for the victims of history’s bloodiest ideology. This year, several bloggers are joining in an effort to commemorate the occasion. Jonathan Wilde of Distributed Republic deserves credit for organizing this effort.

I think that the rationale I offered for turning May Day into Victims of Communism Day in my first post on the subject still holds true:

May Day began as a holiday for socialists and labor union activists, not just communists. But over time, the date was taken over by the Soviet Union and other communist regimes and used as a propaganda tool to prop up their regimes. I suggest that we instead use it as a day to commemorate those regimes’ millions of victims. The authoritative Black Book of Communism estimates the total at 80 to 100 million dead, greater than that caused by all other twentieth century tyrannies combined. [emphasis added] We appropriately have a Holocaust Memorial Day. It is equally appropriate to commemorate the victims of the twentieth century’s other great totalitarian tyranny. And May Day is the most fitting day to do so. I suggest that May Day be turned into Victims of Communism Day....

The main alternative to May 1 is November 7, the anniversary of the communist coup in Russia. However, choosing that date might be interpreted as focusing exclusively on the Soviet Union, while ignoring the equally horrendous communist mass murders in China, Camobodia, and elsewhere. So May 1 is the best choice.

Read the rest here. A fitting day of mourning, as the United States plunges headlong into our own nightmare of Marxist hell.

[Via Distributed Republic, with links to other commentary]

Smith: A Meditation on the Tea Party

Charles Hugh Smith gives us his thoughts on the Tea Party movement. A snippet:

The status quo political powers are mystified by the Tea Party; we're giving them unemployment, tax credits and healthcare/sickcare coverage; we're buying them off with the same entitlements we offer our other constituencies; why aren't they silent and complicit like everyone else? Why don't they just take the swag and shut up like everyone else?

Lost in their moral rot, the status quo "leadership" cannot understand the Tea Party's anger. The Elites do not understand why the Tea Party rebels don't have the self-serving sense to just take the swag and go back to watching TV. What fires their enthusiasm for rebellion?

The British Parliament was equally confounded in 1773. The Colonists are well-off, and protected by the Empire; what is their problem? ...

Read it here.