This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: “Truth or fiction?”

  • Will the Real Secret Squirrel Please Stand Up

     

    Either someone does not know that April Fool’s Day is 6 months behind us, or there is trouble, my friends, trouble right here in Foggy Bottom. Someone is stirring the pot in an odd way.

    From WaPo:

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/09/22/white-house-distances-itself-reports-that-trump-could-target-facebook-google-twitter-with-new-executive-order/?utm_term=.14bfc0495582

    The White House sought to distance itself Saturday from reports that President Trump is considering an executive order that would subject tech giants like Facebook, Google and Twitter to federal investigations into alleged political bias.

    For weeks, top tech com­panies have been on edge, fearing that the Trump administration could seek to regulate the industry in response to the president’s tweets attacking social media sites for silencing conservatives online. Their worst suspicions seemed to come true Friday night, with the emergence of a draft executive order that called for nearly every federal agency to study how companies like Facebook police their platforms and refer instances of “bias” to the Justice Department for further study.

    But three White House aides soon insisted they didn’t write the draft order, didn’t know where it came from and generally found it to be unworkable policy. One senior White House official confirmed the document had been floating around the White House but had not gone through the formal process, which is controlled by the staff secretary.

    Asked about the document, Lindsay Walters, the deputy White House press secretary, said of the digital age ‘who dun it’ on Saturday: “Although the White House is concerned about the conduct of online platforms and their impact on society, this document is not the result of an official White House policymaking process.” – Washington Post article

    CNBC also has an article here:

    https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/22/white-house-prepares-order-directing-antitrust-probe-of-tech-companies-report.html

    • The White House is reportedly working on a memorandum for President Donald Trump to sign that would direct government agencies to “thoroughly investigate” whether social media companies such as Google or Facebook have violated U.S. antitrust laws, Bloomberg reported Saturday.
    • Social media company leaders, including Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter chief Jack Dorsey have denied that their platforms are politically biased.

    The White House is reportedly working on a memorandum for President Donald Trump to sign that would direct government agencies to “thoroughly investigate” big tech companies like Google and Facebook, Bloomberg News reported on Saturday, who have fended off accusations of political bias against conservatives. – CNBC article.

    In the WaPo article, is this: “Aides at the White House said all week that the National Economic Council – which would have been tasked under the draft order to help agencies probe online bias – didn’t write it and didn’t know where it came from. Likewise, the Office of Science and Technology Policy had nothing to do with creating this draft.”

    The document has been floated to tech companies, e.g., Book of Face and Giggles, as well as attorneys at so-called “white shoe firms” in Washington, DC.

    In the WaPo article, there is a statement that the first anyone had heard of it at all came from an e-mail sent by or through Yelp.

    You can draw your own conclusions about this.

    However, since Bloomberg News reported it first and it subsequently appeared elsewhere in WaPo and CNBC’s newsfeeds, then in my humble opinion it does not land the production of this “draft” in the laps of the people at Bloomberg News or any of the other news feeds.

    If it was done as a joke, it is in the same poor taste that is frequently manifested by the idiots on the lefthand side of the Mugwump fence. If it was done by any news source and forwarded to the media feeds through Yelp, it just compounds the fact that it is a lie.

    In view of this attempt at forging a White House document, I will add that I now suspect whoever created this “draft document” is the same person, self-described as part of The Resistance, who created the so-called “op-ed” published by the New York Times.

    If that is the case, then the media have just been hosed but good. The joke is on them.

    I hope they enjoy baloney sandwiches.

  • No, Threats Don’t Work Very Well

    The dirty tricks of the leftreds never stop, do they?

    Sen. Susan Collins’ (R-ME) office issued a statement to Breitbart News rebuking threats and other attempts to bully her into opposing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh

    https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/09/12/susan-collins-rebukes-threats-attempts-bully-vote-against-scotus-nominee-brett-kavanaugh/

    Last month, progressive activist Ady Barkan pledged to make a $1.3 million donation to Sen. Collins’ 2020 opponent if the Republican senator decides to vote to confirm Judge Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court. The Maine senator has faced increasing threats as she continues her vetting process to decide if she will support Kavanaugh.

    Annie Clark, Collins’ spokeswoman, told Breitbart News that Sen. Collins will make her decision independent of threats or attempts to bribe her with donations.

    Clark said in a statement:  Bribery will not work on Senator Collins. Extortion will not work on Senator Collins. And anybody who thinks these tactics would work on Senator Collins, obviously doesn’t know her. This crowdfunded money to pressure her is based on a quid pro quo — you vote the way we want and we will keep more than a million dollars away from your opponent — vote against us and we give her the money. It is basically a bribe.

    At the link, the full article includes some of the heinous threats toward Sen. Collins as well as providing us with the information that some blighted idiot sent 3,000 coathangers to Sen. Collins’s office, implying that women would again have to resort to back alley abortions, which says that Roe v. Wade will automatically be overturned if Kavanaugh is on the bench.  It hasn’t been overturned in 50+ years, but it’s telling that a bunch of those moronic bitches dressed up in costumes from The Handmaid’s Tale and picketed Collins’ office. It means that those imbeciles know nothing about Atwood’s intent, nor do they understand the meaning of that story, which she self-published in the 1970s.

    The more they rattle their gourds, the more people will lose sympathy for them.

  • 38 Simulated Combat Drops?? Yeah, We’re Dead!

    I love the first two movies in this bunch. “Alien” was a spook show, with more McGuffins than Hitchcock ever dreamed of. If you had a date with you, I’m sure that afterwards, you had some kind of reward for your effort.

    The second one, simply titled ‘Aliens’ put poor old Ripley right back into her worst nightmare in the company of Colonial Marines led by a greenhorn 2nd Lieutenant who had a record of 38 simulated combat drops (whoopee!), and a crusty, grumpy, sarcastic, cigar-chomping Sergeant Apone who would start his day with a cigar before breakfast. He was  played by Al Matthews, who had 13 years of Marine Corps AD life, a good portion of it in Vietnam. Now, he’s a musician and composer.

    https://www.wearethemighty.com/articles/marine-infantry-life-aliens

    I’m just going to leave this here and let you Marines tell me if you think the assessment of the movie’s Colonial Marines is close to the mark.

    Do the Marines always get the junk the Army doesn’t want or like?

    Is there only one whiny private in a unit?

    Is every 2nd Lieutenant an idiot with a poker up his backside until he’s been shot at a bunch of times?

    Are all boot Hershey Bar Lieutenants so dumb they’d get lost in a shoebox, even with a map, a compass, and a flashlight?

    Are the pranks as harmless as the one in the movie?

    Do the Marines get the MREs that nobody else wants? That mealtime scene, where Drake asks ‘What is this?” referring to the yellow block on his tray, and Hicks, “It’s supposed to be cornbread. It’s good for you. Eat it.” I figure a full carton of MREs with fish that no one will eat would be an Army reject.

    Anything you want to add to that is fine by me.  There’s other stuff, too, but those are a start.

    If you haven’t seen those two movies, I have to ask “What planet are you from?”

     

  • Nikki Haley Responds to Anonymous’s Op-ed

    Nikki Haley, whom we all know as an outspoken representative of the United States at the UN, one who neither minces words nor speaks in unclear euphemisms, has written a response to the op-ed piece penned by ‘Anonymous’ earlier this week for the New York Times.

    Nikki Haley is the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.

    We have enough issues to deal with in the world, so it’s unfortunate to have to take time to write this, but I feel compelled to address the claims in the anonymous “resistance” op-ed published this week in the New York Times. The author might think he or she is doing a service to the country. I strongly disagree. What this “senior official in the Trump administration” has done, and is apparently intent on continuing to do, is a serious disservice — not just to the president but to the country.

    I, too, am a senior Trump administration official. I proudly serve in this administration, and I enthusiastically support most of its decisions and the direction it is taking the country. But I don’t agree with the president on everything. When there is disagreement, there is a right way and a wrong way to address it. I pick up the phone and call him or meet with him in person.

    Like my colleagues in the Cabinet and on the National Security Council, I have very open access to the president. He does not shut out his advisers, and he does not demand that everyone agree with him. I can talk to him most any time, and I frequently do. If I disagree with something and believe it is important enough to raise with the president, I do it. And he listens. Sometimes he changes course, sometimes he doesn’t. That’s the way the system should work. And the American people should be comfortable knowing that’s the way the system does work in this administration.

    [These officials have denied writing the Trump ‘resistance’ op-ed]

    Dissent is as American as apple pie. If you don’t like this president, you are free to say so, and people do that quite frequently and loudly. But in the spirit of civility that the anonymous author claims to support, every American should want to see this administration succeed. If it does, it’s a win for the American people.

    The entire article is here:  https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/when-i-challenge-the-president-i-do-it-directly-my-anonymous-colleague-should-have-too/2018/09/07/d453eaf6-b2ae-11e8-9a6a-565d92a3585d_story.html?utm_term=.0220af6593c3

    The final paragraph is as direct as one can get:

    To Mr. or Ms. Anonymous, I say: Step up and help the administration do great things for the country. If you disagree with some policies, make your case directly to the president. If that doesn’t work, and you are truly bothered by the direction of the administration, then resign on principle. There is no shame in that. But do not stay in your position and secretly undermine the president and the rest of our team. It is cowardly, it is anti-democratic, and it is a disservice to our country.

    ——Finis——

    I will add here that I continue to believe the so-called op-ed to be concocted by someone at the New York Times, based on the coincidental timing of its release following the review of Woodward’s non-fiction novel inaptly titled “Fear”.  I believe, and will stand by my belief, that these are simply attempts to cast aspersions on a U.S. President who has succeeded at bringing this country back to its status as an international leader, rather than let it continue to slide into oblivion.

    If, as Ms. Haley indicates may be, it is an Administration official, then s/he should have enough cojones to step up and say “I did that.”  Otherwise, I will continue to believe this is just another of the nonsensical schoolyard tricks by those whose disappointment at losing the 2016 election is painfully obvious.

    I may not agree with what “Anonymous” says but I will certainly defend to his right to say it. (Rev. version of Evelyn Beatrice Hall’s aphorism in her 1960 biography of Voltaire.) It is past time s/he stepped forward.

     

  • Desperation….?

     

    And we wake to the news that the Trump administration is either in Turmoil, or – well, WHAT?????

    http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/09/05/wh-official-pens-anonymous-ny-times-op-ed-calling-trump-anti-democratic-petty-and-ineffective.html

    The allegedly anonymous 0p-ed piece, allegedly written by a White House staffer, appears to be another attempt on the part of the media to discredit someone they don’t like because he isn’t The One and he isn’t The Other One.

    Here goes, with Fox News quoting the NYT article:

    “From the White House to executive branch departments and agencies, senior officials will privately admit their daily disbelief at the commander in chief’s comments and actions,” the official wrote.

    “Meetings with him veer off topic and off the rails, he engages in repetitive rants, and his impulsiveness results in half-baked, ill-informed and occasionally reckless decisions that have to be walked back.”

    The author specifically noted Trump’s reluctance to take action against the Russian government after a former Russian spy-turned-double agent and his daughter were poisoned with a nerve agent earlier this year in the U.K.

    “He complained for weeks about senior staff members letting him get boxed into further confrontation with Russia, and he expressed frustration that the United States continued to impose sanctions on the country for its malign behavior,” the official writes. “But his national security team knew better — such actions had to be taken, to hold Moscow accountable.”

    WH Press Secretary Sanders has this to say: “We are disappointed, but not surprised, that the paper chose to publish this pathetic, reckless, and selfish op-ed. This is a new low for the so-called ‘paper of record,’ and it should issue an apology,” said Sanders, adding: “The individual behind this piece has chosen to deceive, rather than support, the duly elected President of the United States. He is not putting country first, but putting himself and his ego ahead of the will of the American people. This coward should do the right thing and resign.”

    In my view, it is made up out of wishful thinking, dust bunnies, and fishnet stocking (lots of holes) in a very vapid attempt to unseat a legitimately elected President who is an independent thinker.  I realize that the libertreds don’t like him because he didn’t stay on their side of the political fence. But I do feel that they are scrambling now, grasping desperately at straws and making up scheisse to do so.

    If this person exists, I believe it is either a NYT staff writer trying to make a name for itself, or someone like Bob Woodward concocting this bag of air.

     

    If it is someone on the WH staff, like this**: 

    s/he/it should quit her/his/its job now and go write books before s/he/it is indicted for security violations.

    Unfortunately for these weasels, dTrump has hinted at another run after this one.

    People, The They are desperate when They stoop to this kind of trash. Remember when your mother told you to stop slamming your head on the wall?

    If you can find the entire article online without having to fork over some donuts and coffee to the NYT’s coffers, do a copy/paste to Word, with the date and the news source included. Apparently, that newsrag is losing advertising revenues because their online access used to be free.

    **Sorry, could not resist!

  • 1974 Redux? Not Remotely

    SecDef J. Mattis is calling Bob Woodward’s new book about Pres. Trump a work of fiction.

    https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2018/09/04/mattis-calls-revelations-about-president-trump-in-woodwards-new-book-fiction/

    Among the revelations in veteran journalist Bob Woodward’s new book, “Fear: Trump in the White House,” Trump allegedly called for the assassination of Syrian president Bashar Assad after the 2017 chemical strike.

    “Trump called Mattis and said he wanted to assassinate the dictator,” according to a passage from the book, which will be released Sept. 11.

    “Trump called Mattis and said he wanted to assassinate the dictator,” according to a passage from the book, which will be released Sept. 11.

    “Let’s f**king kill him! Let’s go in. Let’s kill the f**king lot of them,” Trump said, according to Woodward.

    Mattis told the president that he would get right on it.

    But after hanging up the phone, he told a senior aide: “We’re not going to do any of that. We’re going to be much more measured.”

    The national security team then developed options for the more conventional airstrike that Trump ultimately ordered.

    “The contemptuous words about the President attributed to me in Woodward’s book were never uttered by me or in my presence,” Mattis said in a statement. “While I generally enjoy reading fiction, this is a uniquely Washington brand of literature, and his anonymous sources do not lend credibility.”

    Retired Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly, the White House chief of staff, is quoted as saying the president is an idiot, and that it’s the worst job he’s ever had.

    Kelly issued a similar denial through the White House.

    “The idea I ever called the President an idiot is not true,” Kelly said in a statement.

    He called the book passage “another pathetic attempt to smear people close to President Trump and distract from the administration’s many successes.” (All passages are from the Miitary Times article, at the link above.)

    Okay, I get that Woodward doesn’t like Trump. A lot of people don’t like Trump. So what? Is this supposed to be news? But putting words in his mouth? Should I put some words in your mouth, Woodward?

    Bob Woodward did his best to get Nixon removed from office and with his coauthor Carl Bernstein, the two of them succeeded. But Woodward is still living on the glamour from those Glory Days at WaPo, the intrigue of Deep Throat, and exposing classified information about the war in Vietnam from Ellsberg, who should have been thrown into jail to share a cell with Nixon, for what he did. And frankly, both Woodward and Bernstein, and Kathryn Graham, who ran WaPo back then, should all have been thrown into jail for publishing that stuff.  It heinously jeopardized American lives over there in Southeast Asia. It was inexcusable.

    Watergate has become a metaphor for dirty dog doings in Foggy Bottom. I get that. I was there, watching that crap transpire on live television during the Congressional hearings.

    But this ain’t 1974, Woodward, and you don’t have a story. Try to understand that, for once.

    There is no collusion going on in WDC. There’s no interference from the Soviet Union, now known as Russia but still the same old-same old Spy vs. Spy game. There is none of the conspiracy to make Trump look bad that you want so desperately to invent, no matter how much you want it to happen. As much as I’d like to go back to gas prices at $.50/gallon for regular (there was no unleaded at that period in history), unlike you, I have no desire to live in the past on faded glory, and watch a non-story turned into nothing more than some bored, retired reporter’s notion that he can again destabilize this country and create trouble where there is none.

    There is NO Watergate here, you sap.

    Get over yourself, Woodward. There is nothing – zero – zilch – nada – rien going on here except what you’ve tried to cook up out of whole cloth in your pissy mind. If you don’t have anything better to do than create a Tall Tale From Foggy Bottom out of dust bunnies, leftover bubble gum and stale soda crackers, then I suggest you retire to your domicile away from Washington and get over yourself.

    Making up fictitious quotes alluded to people whom you did not interview means that you have nothing. Either provide their information or admit that you’re lying.

    You have nothing.

    You couldn’t write a believable novel if your life depended on it. How do I know that? Because you just had this one published, you sap. As for people in the administration (like John Kelly) calling dTrump an idiot, you should know most of us have said similar things ourselves but we’d rather have Trump in the Oval Office than whatever it was that ran against him.

    You have nothing.

    What’s the big deal? Trump’s smarter than you are. And while he is a lot of things, he is NOT Richard Nixon, who was also smarter then you have ever been.

    I have spent a good deal of time cleaning horse stalls. I know horse shit when I see it. You’ve created quite a pile of it, Bob.

    Enjoy the sales while they last, Bob, because – well, while even baloney has a market as sandwich filler, after a while, people want another flavor in their lives. And Watergate means nothing to the generations which are following mine.

    And, no – your wishful thinking is not going to get this President unseated. This ain’t the 1970s, like I said. You should pay attention to such things.

    What a maroon…..

  • Winter will be ‘teeth-chattering’ cold, have plenty of snow

    snow

    Over the sweltering heat and steamy humidity that’s blanketed much of the country this summer? Get ready for a rough, snowy winter.

    Fox News is reporting the Farmer’s Almanac is predicting a “colder-than-normal” winter from the Continental Divide on eastward, with bitter cold arriving in mid-February in the Northeast, Great Lakes, and even into the Southeast.

    “Contrary to the stories storming the web, our time-tested, long-range formula is pointing toward a very long, cold, and snow-filled winter,” editor Peter Geiger said in a statement on the company’s website. “We stand by our forecast and formula, which accurately predicted the many storms last winter, as well as this summer’s steamy, hot conditions.”

    Included in the frigid outlook is above-average snowfall expected for the Great Lakes and New England, with some snow expected to arrive in the Mid-Atlantic and New England by December.

    As to when the cold may end, the Farmers’ Almanac says that a stormy March could feature a “potent East Coast storm” that could keep snow on the ground into spring.

    The Farmers’ Almanac says it bases its long-range forecast “on a mathematical and astronomical formula developed in 1818.”

    It’s not to be confused with the rival Old Farmers’ Almanac, billed as the oldest periodical in North America, which also issues seasonal weather forecasts.

    If you’re looking for a milder winter ahead, Old Farmers’ Almanac is calling for “above-normal temperatures almost everywhere in the United States,” in addition to more rain instead of snow.

    I miss the crew pre-flight briefs, where the weather guesser would make dire predictions of “Impacted thunder cells along the cold front’s boundary with moderate to severe turbulence from 5000 to 30,000 ft. Have a nice flight!”

    Now what’s winter going to look like? Ask a weather guesser- there’s a 50% chance he’ll get it right. Just like these two Almanacs.

  • The Truth Is Out There

    Where’s Mulder when you need him?

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/the-military-keeps-encountering-ufos-why-doesnt-the-pentagon-care/2018/03/09/242c125c-22ee-11e8-94da-ebf9d112159c_story.html?utm_term=.24b5122b19da

    This is nothing new. This has been going on since before the Lubbock Lights were photographed and the photos appeared in Life magazine in the 1950s.

    I doubt very seriously that it’s either Russia or China, because we know what they do and don’t have, even if they think we don’t. Of course, we’d never tell them that we know what they have, because if they knew that we know that they know that we know that they know that we know what they have, there wouldn’t be any need for them to try to hide it, would there?

    Seriously, the Soviets couldn’t even get nuclear stuff going unless their German spy guy Klaus Fuchs funneled stuff to them from the Manhattan Project, never mind the Rosenbergs, and later on the Walker family selling stuff to the Soviets, so that they could patronize strippers and buy expensive booze. And just because they got Sputnik up in an Earth orbit while we were on vacation in Wisconsin, it does not mean that we were behind. We were just being more careful. And besides, they were getting our stuff funneled to them.

    Really, come on! If the Russians actually had an aviation vehicle that could nose dive from 60,000 feet and stop on a dime and hover at 50 feet, wouldn’t we have had it first? Our Germans were always better than their Germans, anyway. Ask Albert. Ask Heinlein.

    And just think about the physical impact that kind of maneuvering would have on a human pilot.

    This WaPo article is almost like an hysterical teen seeing his/her/its first real UFO, and not much more. UFOs have been around for centuries, even millenia. Ask the NASA engineer who designed an aviation vehicle based on a local guy’s description of one in the Book of Ezekiel in the Old Testament. His conclusion was that yes, it could fly if you could figure out the propulsion system. His book was titled ‘The Chariots of Ezekiel’. The primitive mind is quite literal about a lot of things.

    But I digress.

    The videos in the article are interesting things, but someone who spent a good deal of time investigating such things in the 1970s, with a rather dim view of silliness, came to the conclusion in his book ‘Earth Lights Revelation’ that they are most likely either animate objects generated by piezo discharges, or they are an unclassified lifeform that needs further investigation. Their ability to move about at will, as indicated by those videos, and move both independently aind in groups with at-will control of speeds, suggests a previously unclassified lifeform.

    A piezo discharge, FWIW, behaves a lot like it’s alive, but it is not. It is sometimes referred to as ball lightning, and the majority of it occurs in quake-prone geological areas like the Deccan Traps in India and the Cascades up in the Pacific Northwest. And remember now, the astronauts have recorded electrical discharges generated by the Earth, just like Jupiter does, called elves, red sprites and blue jets.

    It is a strange, but normal and interesting Universe that we live in.

    And the ‘wow’ signal from 1977 picked up by the Big Ear? Well, that’s supposed to be hydrogen gas emissions from comets instead of alien attempts at communicating with us, because comets do emit gases in the hydrogen spectrum. Many of us do the same thing, but we usually apologize for it if we’re in a crowd.

    But what if the hydrogen spectrum is the way an alien race sends long distance communications?

    Now, there’s a thought.

    I have to go. I think an alien species has engaged in a gas attack in my yard. If I’m right, I know what it looks like: it’s black with a white stripe down its back. I should probably report it to NASA, right?