#7
Ah, families playing "the traditional Turkey Bowl game." A nice touch of familiarity, there. Too bad they're not referring to Uncle Jack kicking his college-student-lefty nephew's backside all over the dining room.
I assume it is because they developed in the south and its a long way full of sharks and other nasties that would happily done on a flightless bird unable to escape onto an ice flow. I also assume any that made it to the North Pole didn't fair well against the Polar Bears that reside there.
Penguins occur throughout the SH, even in warmer locations. There are some on an island off Perth. And there penguins on the Galapagos Islands just north of the equator.
They need predator free islands to breed, and the lack of such islands in the eastern Pacific is/was probably the barrier that kept them from getting any further north.
h/t Instapundit
...There are many ways a Trump administration can fail, and the President-elect faces the most challenging international environment since the end of the Cold War, but after so many failed prophecies of Trump failure, it’s at least a worthwhile mental exercise to speculate on how a Trump administration might actually succeed. There have been plenty of presidents in the past who came into office hated and scorned by the establishment who still made a mark on American history: Harry Truman, Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln come to mind. What could make a Trump administration work?
...The Trump administration will double down on shale. Skeptical of climate change, dismissive of most environmentalist handwringing, the Trump administration will view energy production as a simple win. Look for concerted efforts by regulators to open the taps on energy. Trump, never blind to the appeal of pork barrel spending, is unlikely to close down the renewable gravy train completely -- especially the farm-friendly ethanol racket -- but we can expect his administration to do as much as possible to encourage new production, new pipelines and new refineries. Regulations and tax policies are likely to be tweaked in ways that support production.
...Trump’s popularity at home is likely to depend in large part on whether he can revive blue collar jobs. An energy boom offers the best prospect for growth in manufacturing jobs. Much of America’s new energy bounty comes in the form of natural gas; this has significant implications for America’s future industrial development. Natural gas can be exported, but it has to be liquified first -- and that adds significantly to its cost. American manufacturers in energy intensive industries can expect secure supplies of natural gas at lower costs than their competitors in Europe or Asia will pay. That matters to blue collar workers; the energy rich United States is becoming significantly more attractive as a manufacturing site for large, energy (and job) intensive plants.
...If he succeeds, and the outlook for blue collar America improves over the next four years, millions of voters in 2020 are likely to think that Trump has kept the promises that matter most. Since many African American and Hispanic voters would also benefit from rising demand for blue collar workers, Trump might well run stronger with minorities four years from now.
[Free Beacon] Democrats and the media are confused about the meaning of Donald Trump’s pledge to "drain the swamp" in Washington, D.C. The president-elect’s critics say his appointment of wealthy Republicans to cabinet positions is hypocritical and reveals him to be a phony populist. "Hypocrisy at its worst," cry Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. "Trump’s Economic Cabinet Picks Signal Embrace of Wall St. Elite," reads the headline on the New York Times. "Stick a sterling silver fork in Trump’s ’populism,'" reads the title of a Washington Post column.
This is the same sloppy thinking that led practically everyone in politics and media to believe Trump would lose the election. If populist voters despise wealth, then why did they back Trump, the wealthiest man ever to become president, who paid for much of his own campaign and bragged on the trail about using bankruptcy and tax laws to his advantage?
The mark of a populist isn’t his net worth but his relationship to the establishment, his rejection of the ideologies, fashions, clichés, and manners of the political and social and cultural elite, his attitude toward the capacities of ordinary people to manage their daily affairs. Rich as he might be, Donald Trump’s candidacy was an exercise in populist confrontation and polarization. He ran against the eastern establishment of both parties with his opposition to comprehensive immigration reform, criticism of global trade, and repudiation of the foreign policies of the last two presidents. His blunt, uncouth, dramatic, untutored, brash, politically incorrect manner was about as far as one can get from elite habits of deference and groupthink. For decades, the nation’s cultural and political elites treated him with disdain, disgust, or ironic fascination. Trump was the original deplorable. That’s how he forged a gut connection with his base of white voters without college degrees.
Only a liberal could believe that Trump’s pledge to drain the swamp was an attack on the wealthy or on market economics. While he and Bernie Sanders struck similar notes on trade, Trump happily attacked the Vermont senator as a socialist nut. The swamp to which Trump and his audiences refer isn’t Wall Street per se but an interlocking system of major financial institutions and multinational corporations, lobbyists, academics, media, and, most importantly, the consultants and rent-seekers in Washington, D.C., that get rich despite failure after failure in economic, foreign, and domestic policy.
The swamp to which Trump and his audiences refer isn’t Wall Street per se but an interlocking system of major financial institutions and multinational corporations, lobbyists, academics, media, and, most importantly, the consultants and rent-seekers in Washington, D.C., that get rich despite failure after failure in economic, foreign, and domestic policy.
[Breitbart] On Thursday’s Breitbart News Daily, SiriusXM host Raheem Kassam asked former U.N. Ambassador and AEI Senior Fellow John Bolton if he thought investigators were likely to find a radical mosque lurking in the past of Ohio State University attacker Abdul Razak Ali Artan.
"I presume that’s what the police should be doing," Bolton said. "It’s important to discuss this idea of ’lone wolf’ terrorist activities ‐ somebody’s perfectly normal one day, and then overnight, by spontaneous combustion or something, they become a terrorist."
"It’s a subject of grave concern that ISIS has perfected the use of social media, through very aggressive propaganda efforts, that it can recruit people, convert them, mobilize them, and train them, and then deploy them," he continued. "This is something that we’ve never seen before. So the fact that ISIS operates without a corporate organization chart shouldn’t make us relax; it should make us much more concerned. I think it is more likely that there are networks of people who help reinforce what somebody may be reading over the Internet, and it shows why the terrorist threat remains pervasive."
"But why don’t people want to talk about it? Because then you’d have to admit there’s a terrorist threat, and if you’re Barack Obama, you don’t think a terrorist threat exists. That’s just fundamentally wrong, but that’s the attitude that’s driving it," Bolton said.
As during his conversation the previous day with Breitbart News National Security Editor Dr. Sebastian Gorka, Kassam asked Bolton about the enduring influence of the late jihadi cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who has been cited as an inspiration by nearly all "lone wolf" terrorists.
"You can say it’s analogous ‐ it’s certainly not a perfect analogy, but analogous to Che Guevara, whom almost nobody had heard of until he was killed in the Bolivian jungle, trying to foment a revolution there," Bolton observed. "This is, I think, evidence of ISIS’ success in propagandizing their particular view. It’s a way of dramatizing the struggle, and it’s a way of conveying the revolutionary radical terrorist fervor that they want to convey. I think that until you can have a discussion about how ISIS, al-Qaeda, hell, other terrorist groups recruit converts, you can’t have a strategy to combat it seriously."
"And the notion that somehow there’s not a fundamental radical ideology here, I think is self-defeating for the West," he warned. "I think this is something that King Abdullah of Jordan has said repeatedly. He’s talked about a civil war within Islam. And let’s remember, he’s not just the Muslim king of a Muslim country; he’s the descendants of the sharifs of the Hijaz, the keepers of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. So if he talks about this civil war ‐ it’s good enough for him ‐ then it ought to be good enough for us."
#3
You live in an environment in which stuff may not be widely celebrated but at least tolerated and excused and you wonder why humans get an inkling that its OK. Golly gee whiz. That doesn't include swimming in a culture that is brimming with a lot of self hatred for its historical success, why should anyone be surprised.
[Allen West] This is why it’s a strategic imperative that the Trump national security and foreign policy teams have a strategy to implement from day one. He cannot take his eye off the ball.
I’ve shared this story with y’all on previous occasions, but it warrants repeating.
Back in August 2011 during a Congressional delegation visit to Israel, we had the distinct honor and pleasure to sit with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his cabinet chamber. It was there that PM Netanyahu advised us against the complete withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq.
He carefully articulated that there would be a vacuum created, something would fill that space and there would be immense and detrimental consequences not just for America, but for the Middle East and the world.
You see, leadership is about prescient vision, not just fulfilling empty rhetorical campaign promises and becoming wedded to an intransigent ideological perspective. PM Netanyahu represented the former, Barack Obama the latter.
And Obama’s ill-conceived and insidious decision in Iraq has led to two phenomena: the creation of ISIS (actually a regeneration of al-Qaida in Iraq, just a more virulent strain) and the regional hegemonic dominance of Iran. Both of those foreign policy missteps have led to the current situation in the Middle East -- one that has immediate effects on PM Netanyahu and Israel.
#3
Chip and Joanna give the Missus and I something to do together. Also the Property Brothers. But we are done with renovations and hire out lots of things I used to do.
Posted by: Bobby ||
12/02/2016 7:49 Comments ||
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#4
Honey I saw it on TV and it only took a half an hour!
Well, this year its been 9 months not a half an hour, but the labor was free. Then again, there is no senior management to insist on a 'compressed' time schedule. Done right, on budget, on schedule. Yep, you get two out three. I blame HGTV for giving up 'apartment' white living.
#5
Then again, there is no senior management to insist on a 'compressed' time schedule
You ought to come around here during our self-performed projects, P2k. 'Timely Completion' is always part of the ongoing one-way discussions.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
12/02/2016 9:36 Comments ||
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#6
I married an engineer who'd worked in high school on his uncle's construction crew. We had so much fun renovating our first house over several years -- an Edwardian four-square with as much stained glass, woodwork, fireplaces, and an attic in need of being made into a funky, livable space as one could want without dealing with the gingerbread of a true Victorian -- that we bought a few more small houses and redid them, too. As a result we were prepared when the renovation of trailing daughter #2's new husband's adorable 1940's bungalow needed to be finished on a very fast timeline before they were transferred across the country... And as a result td#2 and nh learnt new skills they hadn't realized they didn't have, and discovered they thoroughly loathe doing that kind of work. The house they recently bought on the far side of the country was built in the 1990s; they will eventually paint the rooms in colours more to their taste.
It's important to know one's limits. Chip Gaines is a professional contractor with a professional crew; Joanna Gaines is a professional decorator.
I happen to be an opera (and ballet) lover, so this is important to me.
[NATIONALREVIEW] The University of Bristol, in England, has a musical-theater society. Students in the society voted to put on Aida — not the opera by Verdi but a musical by Elton John and Tim Rice, which is based on the opera. So it was a toy Aida...
More specifically, it is based on a children’s book, telling the story of Aida. That book was written by Leontyne Price, the great American soprano, who is one of the outstanding Aidas of all time. Aida is about an Ethiopian princess — the title character — who is a slave in Egypt. She is in love with an Egyptian officer, who loves her back. Much trouble ensues. But melodiously. Very melodiously. I've got two recordings, both of them videos. One's the San Francisco opera company with Pavarotti as Radames. The other's the Royal Albert Hall.
Bristol’s Aida never got off the ground, because of student protests. The protesters figured that white students would be cast in the musical. And that would be an injustice to Egyptians and Ethiopians. It would be “whitewashing.” So, the musical-theater society canceled the show. “We would not want to cause offense in any way,” they said. But naturellement. It must be painful to be skinless in a sandpaper world, as tw would point out.
Not having any grounding in history or geography or anthropology, the students (what do they study, that doesn't include history, geography, or anthropology?) demanded that the parts go to blacks.
Most Egyptians, as are most North Africans, are of what used to be called Mediterranean type, which is black-hair and olive complexioned, but (dare we say it?) perfectly white. There are also Nilotics in the south, to be found from there south along the coast through Somalia. Their skin color shades from light brown to black and their features are often quite handsome by Western tastes.
Ancient Egyptians really weren't black, regardless of how much American blacks would like to lay claim to the pyramids. They didn't represent themselves in art as black. There's a rather delightful story inscribed in the tomb of the last king of the IV dynasty, with illustrations, about an expedition to Punt that returned with slaves, dancing girls, and a dwarf to entertain the youthful Pharoah. The slaves and the dancing girls and the dwarf are all black, the king and his court aren't. Argue with them all you like, but remember, we have the bodies.
That particular Pharoah, by the way, lived to the ripe old age of ninety six, outliving the people who would have been his heirs and leading to the fall of his dynasty. The V Dynasty was a period of near anarchy. The most notable of its kings was Antef the Great (his own apellation), who was described as "The Most Ferocious Man of his Age." Somebody oughta write an opera about him.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/02/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
Next thing we know the remake of the Al Jolson story will need Snoop Dog in "white face" so the minstral scenes aren't racist. Never mind the concept is racist to start with. From both view points
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/02/2016 7:02 Comments ||
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#3
So again we have white people, this time in Bristol, acting against their own interest because they fear offending someone. Sounds like a good way to become extinct.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/02/2016 10:02 Comments ||
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#4
The pulled a production of the Mikado in Noo Yawk a couple years ago.
"I've got a little list. and I'm sure they'll not be missed!"
Posted by: Fred ||
12/02/2016 11:45 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
