Love and politics
While I don't see much of them, I do love my brother and sister very much. If one of them were going to run for political office, I'd support them in every way I could. That's what a good "older brother" does. Unless and until they take a position on an issue that I don't agree with. Then while I will still love them, I may choose not to support a political platform that I do not believe in.
That being said, I can't help but feel sad for Mary Cheney. I'm sure she loves her sister Liz a lot. But when her sister took a political position on same-sex marriage that doesn't take into account that her own sister is married to another woman, that's not something she should be expected to support.
The fact that Liz Cheney felt she had to take that position in order to have any hope of her campaign to win the U.S. Senate seat in Wyoming is more than just a bitter family squabble. It shows how the far-right wing of the Republican Party is once again going to cost that party any chance of winning the Presidency in 2016.
That same-sex couples should have the right to marry is only going to continue to gain support. This genie escaped the bottle long ago and any hope of those who oppose same-sex marriage need to recognize they've lost that war.
It's just one in a triumvirate of issues that will ultimately doom whoever winds up winning the Republican nomination to be elected President in 2016. The other two are immigration and abortion rights. The recent Supreme Court decision that says the new law limiting what abortion clinics in Texas can and cannot do is a setback, but in a nation where the ratio of voting age females to voting age males is continuing to move in a way that is increasing the "lead" women have over men in this area. A Republican who takes an anti-choice position is not going to be elected President.
* * *
Congress may try to save it, but for now the Warthog is clearly on the endangered species list. Or perhaps I should say the endangered weapons system list. The Air Force may retire the A-10 Thunderbolt II air-ground attack aircraft. Known affectionately as the "Warthog", it is a proven weapons system with a diminishing mission. Capable of destroying heavily armored tanks with the large GAU-8 Avenger rotary cannon in its nose, the Warthog is the ideal weapon for close-air support missions.
I'm a fan of this aircraft. I don't agree with those who think the F-35 can replace its role. But the question is, do we need to keep this weapons system to provide a capability whose need continues to diminish? I don't think so.
However, thanks to the way our political system works, the danger of the Warthog actually being retired is remote. There are far too many companies connected with providing the munitions (the GAU-8 used depleted uranium shells), parts and technical support to the Warthog and those companies have clout on Capitol Hill. The members of Congress who represent the districts where those jobs and businesses are located will ensure we keep spending money for an aircraft who has more or less outlived its useful life.
Then there is MEADS, an acronym for a missile system that was going to be the replacement for the Patriot missile system. The DOD doesn't want it, the Army doesn't want it and the Senate voted 94-5 to stop funding it. That didn't stop those in Congress who support MEADS and the U.S. company that's part of the group that was formed to build it from finding a way to force another $380 million into the budget for the project. We don't need it, we don't want it and we're spending more money on it. Welcome to weapons system procurement in our government.
* * *
Random Ponderings:
Ever travel by air the day before Thanksgiving? The airports are totally jammed. Well, get used to that kind of crowding, because some airport experts are saying that kind of crowding level will be an everyday occurrence within a decade if we don't improve airport infrastructure. Oh, and LAX will be one of the first to have this happen.
When the players attending the NFL combine are asked "do you like girls", "are you married" and "do you have a girlfriend", the day when a gay man who plays in the NFL will step out of the closet is still a long way off.
How ironic is it that while in jail for alleged domestic violence, George Zimmerman gets served with divorce papers by his estranged wife?
I'd wager that member of Congress who just got busted for buying cocaine isn't the only member of the House and Senate who does illegal drugs.
Only an utter idiot would create an online game to reenact the Sandy Hook shootings and claim he's doing it to encourage stricter gun controls.
http://money.cnn.com/gallery/investing/2013/11/20/rare-coin-auction/index.html shows an image of a 1796 quarter that brought $1.5 million at auction. Its owner had spent around $7,500 more than four decades ago assembling a collection of coins that fetched $23 million at auction. As a coin collector, color me very green with envy. The five coins shown in that gallery are amazing.
What do fans of the Oakland Raiders think about their team starting an undrafted rookie QB after they blew through four draft choices and $21 million on other QBs?
Alex Rodriguez, who I still refer to as "Pay-Rod", should just shut up and go back to his arbitration hearing. Otherwise he should have settled before getting this far.
I have no problem with Gwyneth Paltrow making her kids speak only Spanish to her at home. Out in public, in front of others who don't speak the language seems kind of out of place to me.
What's with the typos at Yahoo? The bad spelling, improper grammar and incorrect information I'm used to, but not the failure to space properly between words.
After seeing a photo of the world's tallest water slide, I know I would not get on it.
Did famed psychic Sylvia Browne's death come as a surprise to her? No one on the other side let her in on the scheduling?
Bruce Jenner saying he approves of his 18 year old daughter showing off her nipples lowers my opinion of him as a parent. Not that it was all that high to begin with.
* * *
November 20th in History:
284 – Diocletian is chosen as Roman Emperor.
762 – During the An Shi Rebellion, the Tang Dynasty, with the help of Huihe tribe, recaptures Luoyang from the rebels.
1194 – Palermo is conquered by Emperor Henry VI.
1407 – A truce between John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy and Louis of Valois, Duke of Orléans is agreed upon under the auspices of John, Duke of Berry. Orléans would be assassinated three days later by Burgundy.
1695 – Zumbi, the last of the leaders of Quilombo dos Palmares in early Brazil, is executed by the forces of Portuguese bandeirante Domingos Jorge Velho.
1739 – Start of the Battle of Porto Bello between British and Spanish forces during the War of Jenkins' Ear.
1776 – American Revolutionary War: British forces land at the Palisades and then attack Fort Lee. The Continental Army starts to retreat across New Jersey.
1789 – New Jersey becomes the first U.S. state to ratify the Bill of Rights.
1820 – An 80-ton sperm whale attacks the Essex (a whaling ship from Nantucket, Massachusetts) 2,000 miles from the western coast of South America. (Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick is in part inspired by this story.)
1845 – Anglo-French blockade of the Río de la Plata: Battle of Vuelta de Obligado.
1861 – American Civil War: Secession ordinance is filed by Kentucky's Confederate government.
1910 – Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero issues the Plan de San Luis Potosí, denouncing Mexican President Porfirio Díaz, calling for a revolution to overthrow the government of Mexico, effectively starting the Mexican Revolution.
1917 – World War I: Battle of Cambrai begins – British forces make early progress in an attack on German positions but are later pushed back.
1917 – Ukraine is declared a republic.
1936 – José Antonio Primo de Rivera, founder of the Falange, is killed by a republican execution squad.
1940 – World War II: Hungary becomes a signatory of the Tripartite Pact, officially joining the Axis Powers.
1943 – World War II: Battle of Tarawa (Operation Galvanic) begins – United States Marines land on Tarawa Atoll in the Gilbert Islands and suffer heavy fire from Japanese shore guns and machine guns.
1945 – Nuremberg Trials: Trials against 24 Nazi war criminals start at the Palace of Justice at Nuremberg.
1947 – The Princess Elizabeth marries Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten, who becomes the Duke of Edinburgh, at Westminster Abbey in London.
1952 – Slánský trials – a series of Stalinist and anti-Semitic show trials in Czechoslovakia.
1962 – Cuban missile crisis ends: In response to the Soviet Union agreeing to remove its missiles from Cuba, U.S. President John F. Kennedy ends the quarantine of the Caribbean nation.
1968 - A total of 78 miners are killed in an explosion at the Consolidated Coal Company’s No. 9 mine in Farmington, West Virginia in the Farmington Mine disaster
1969 – Vietnam War: The Plain Dealer publishes explicit photographs of dead villagers from the My Lai massacre in Vietnam.
1969 – Occupation of Alcatraz: Native American activists seize control of Alcatraz Island until being ousted by the U.S. Government on June 11, 1971.
1974 – The United States Department of Justice files its final anti-trust suit against AT&T Corporation. This suit later leads to the breakup of AT&T and its Bell System.
1977 – Egyptian President Anwar Sadat becomes the first Arab leader to officially visit Israel, when he meets Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin and speaks before the Knesset in Jerusalem, seeking a permanent peace settlement.
1979 – Grand Mosque Seizure: About 200 Sunni Muslims revolt in Saudi Arabia at the site of the Kaaba in Mecca during the pilgrimage and take about 6000 hostages. The Saudi government receives help from Pakistani special forces to put down the uprising.
1980 – Lake Peigneur drains into an underlying salt deposit. A misplaced Texaco oil probe had been drilled into the Diamond Crystal Salt Mine, causing water to flow down into the mine, eroding the edges of the hole. The resulting whirlpool sucked the drilling platform, several barges, houses and trees thousands of feet down to the bottom of the dissolving salt deposit.
1982 – The General Union of Ecuadorian Workers (UGTE) is founded.
1985 – Microsoft Windows 1.0 is released.
1989 – Velvet Revolution: The number of protesters assembled in Prague, Czechoslovakia swells from 200,000 the day before to an estimated half-million.
1991 – An Azerbaijani MI-8 helicopter carrying 19 peacekeeping mission team with officials and journalists from Russia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan is shot down by Armenian military forces in Khojavend district of Azerbaijan.
1992 – In England, a fire breaks out in Windsor Castle, badly damaging the castle and causing over £50 million worth of damage.
1993 – Savings and loan crisis: The United States Senate Ethics Committee issues a stern censure of California senator Alan Cranston for his "dealings" with savings-and-loan executive Charles Keating.
1994 – The Angolan government and UNITA rebels sign the Lusaka Protocol in Zambia, ending 19 years of civil war. (Localized fighting resumes the next year.)
1998 – A court in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan declares accused terrorist Osama bin Laden "a man without a sin" in regard to the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.
1998 – The first module of the International Space Station, Zarya, is launched.
2001 – In Washington, D.C., U.S. President George W. Bush dedicates the United States Department of Justice headquarters building as the Robert F. Kennedy Justice Building, honoring the late Robert F. Kennedy on what would have been his 76th birthday.
2003 – After the November 15 bombings, a second day of the 2003 Istanbul Bombings occurs in Istanbul, Turkey, destroying the Turkish head office of HSBC Bank AS and the British consulate.
Famous Folk Born on November 20th:
Pope Pius VIII
Kenesaw Mountain Landis
Clark Griffith
James Michael Curley
Alistair Cooke
Emilio Pucci
Robert Byrd
Kaye Ballard
Robert F. Kennedy
John Gardner
Estelle Parsons
Richard Dawson (he was really good in "The Running Man")
Don DeLillo
Joe Biden
Veronica Hamel
Louie Dampier
Rick Monday
George Grantham
Joe Walsh (life's been good to him...so far)
Judy Woodruff
John Bolton
Richard Masur
Sean Young
Ming-Na Wen
Callie Thorne
Dominique Dawes
Today's movie quotes come from 1994's "Streetfighter", the big screen adaptation of the video game, which had Ming-Na Wen in an action role:
Bison: Then defeat is a possibility. Very well. We shall face it together, Dee Jay, with the stoicism of the true warrior.
[Dee Jay quietly leaves as Bison continues to stare at the screen]
#2
Colonel William F. Guile: I guess you've earned your passports home.
Ryu: You can hang onto them.
Ken: Somebody's gonna have to help put this country back together. Maybe a couple of hustlers can help.
Colonel William F. Guile: Ever think of, uh, enlisting?
Ryu, Ken: Oh, no, no, no, no.
#3
Ryu: Vega!
Vega: Where were we?
Ryu: [kicks Vega in the chest] You were losing.
#4
Chun Li: [derisively referring to Cammy's hairstyle] Pigtails?
Cammy: [referring to Chun Li's double hair buns] Well look who's talking!
That being said, I can't help but feel sad for Mary Cheney. I'm sure she loves her sister Liz a lot. But when her sister took a political position on same-sex marriage that doesn't take into account that her own sister is married to another woman, that's not something she should be expected to support.
The fact that Liz Cheney felt she had to take that position in order to have any hope of her campaign to win the U.S. Senate seat in Wyoming is more than just a bitter family squabble. It shows how the far-right wing of the Republican Party is once again going to cost that party any chance of winning the Presidency in 2016.
That same-sex couples should have the right to marry is only going to continue to gain support. This genie escaped the bottle long ago and any hope of those who oppose same-sex marriage need to recognize they've lost that war.
It's just one in a triumvirate of issues that will ultimately doom whoever winds up winning the Republican nomination to be elected President in 2016. The other two are immigration and abortion rights. The recent Supreme Court decision that says the new law limiting what abortion clinics in Texas can and cannot do is a setback, but in a nation where the ratio of voting age females to voting age males is continuing to move in a way that is increasing the "lead" women have over men in this area. A Republican who takes an anti-choice position is not going to be elected President.
* * *
Congress may try to save it, but for now the Warthog is clearly on the endangered species list. Or perhaps I should say the endangered weapons system list. The Air Force may retire the A-10 Thunderbolt II air-ground attack aircraft. Known affectionately as the "Warthog", it is a proven weapons system with a diminishing mission. Capable of destroying heavily armored tanks with the large GAU-8 Avenger rotary cannon in its nose, the Warthog is the ideal weapon for close-air support missions.
I'm a fan of this aircraft. I don't agree with those who think the F-35 can replace its role. But the question is, do we need to keep this weapons system to provide a capability whose need continues to diminish? I don't think so.
However, thanks to the way our political system works, the danger of the Warthog actually being retired is remote. There are far too many companies connected with providing the munitions (the GAU-8 used depleted uranium shells), parts and technical support to the Warthog and those companies have clout on Capitol Hill. The members of Congress who represent the districts where those jobs and businesses are located will ensure we keep spending money for an aircraft who has more or less outlived its useful life.
Then there is MEADS, an acronym for a missile system that was going to be the replacement for the Patriot missile system. The DOD doesn't want it, the Army doesn't want it and the Senate voted 94-5 to stop funding it. That didn't stop those in Congress who support MEADS and the U.S. company that's part of the group that was formed to build it from finding a way to force another $380 million into the budget for the project. We don't need it, we don't want it and we're spending more money on it. Welcome to weapons system procurement in our government.
* * *
Random Ponderings:
Ever travel by air the day before Thanksgiving? The airports are totally jammed. Well, get used to that kind of crowding, because some airport experts are saying that kind of crowding level will be an everyday occurrence within a decade if we don't improve airport infrastructure. Oh, and LAX will be one of the first to have this happen.
When the players attending the NFL combine are asked "do you like girls", "are you married" and "do you have a girlfriend", the day when a gay man who plays in the NFL will step out of the closet is still a long way off.
How ironic is it that while in jail for alleged domestic violence, George Zimmerman gets served with divorce papers by his estranged wife?
I'd wager that member of Congress who just got busted for buying cocaine isn't the only member of the House and Senate who does illegal drugs.
Only an utter idiot would create an online game to reenact the Sandy Hook shootings and claim he's doing it to encourage stricter gun controls.
http://money.cnn.com/gallery/investing/2013/11/20/rare-coin-auction/index.html shows an image of a 1796 quarter that brought $1.5 million at auction. Its owner had spent around $7,500 more than four decades ago assembling a collection of coins that fetched $23 million at auction. As a coin collector, color me very green with envy. The five coins shown in that gallery are amazing.
What do fans of the Oakland Raiders think about their team starting an undrafted rookie QB after they blew through four draft choices and $21 million on other QBs?
Alex Rodriguez, who I still refer to as "Pay-Rod", should just shut up and go back to his arbitration hearing. Otherwise he should have settled before getting this far.
I have no problem with Gwyneth Paltrow making her kids speak only Spanish to her at home. Out in public, in front of others who don't speak the language seems kind of out of place to me.
What's with the typos at Yahoo? The bad spelling, improper grammar and incorrect information I'm used to, but not the failure to space properly between words.
After seeing a photo of the world's tallest water slide, I know I would not get on it.
Did famed psychic Sylvia Browne's death come as a surprise to her? No one on the other side let her in on the scheduling?
Bruce Jenner saying he approves of his 18 year old daughter showing off her nipples lowers my opinion of him as a parent. Not that it was all that high to begin with.
* * *
November 20th in History:
284 – Diocletian is chosen as Roman Emperor.
762 – During the An Shi Rebellion, the Tang Dynasty, with the help of Huihe tribe, recaptures Luoyang from the rebels.
1194 – Palermo is conquered by Emperor Henry VI.
1407 – A truce between John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy and Louis of Valois, Duke of Orléans is agreed upon under the auspices of John, Duke of Berry. Orléans would be assassinated three days later by Burgundy.
1695 – Zumbi, the last of the leaders of Quilombo dos Palmares in early Brazil, is executed by the forces of Portuguese bandeirante Domingos Jorge Velho.
1739 – Start of the Battle of Porto Bello between British and Spanish forces during the War of Jenkins' Ear.
1776 – American Revolutionary War: British forces land at the Palisades and then attack Fort Lee. The Continental Army starts to retreat across New Jersey.
1789 – New Jersey becomes the first U.S. state to ratify the Bill of Rights.
1820 – An 80-ton sperm whale attacks the Essex (a whaling ship from Nantucket, Massachusetts) 2,000 miles from the western coast of South America. (Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick is in part inspired by this story.)
1845 – Anglo-French blockade of the Río de la Plata: Battle of Vuelta de Obligado.
1861 – American Civil War: Secession ordinance is filed by Kentucky's Confederate government.
1910 – Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero issues the Plan de San Luis Potosí, denouncing Mexican President Porfirio Díaz, calling for a revolution to overthrow the government of Mexico, effectively starting the Mexican Revolution.
1917 – World War I: Battle of Cambrai begins – British forces make early progress in an attack on German positions but are later pushed back.
1917 – Ukraine is declared a republic.
1936 – José Antonio Primo de Rivera, founder of the Falange, is killed by a republican execution squad.
1940 – World War II: Hungary becomes a signatory of the Tripartite Pact, officially joining the Axis Powers.
1943 – World War II: Battle of Tarawa (Operation Galvanic) begins – United States Marines land on Tarawa Atoll in the Gilbert Islands and suffer heavy fire from Japanese shore guns and machine guns.
1945 – Nuremberg Trials: Trials against 24 Nazi war criminals start at the Palace of Justice at Nuremberg.
1947 – The Princess Elizabeth marries Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten, who becomes the Duke of Edinburgh, at Westminster Abbey in London.
1952 – Slánský trials – a series of Stalinist and anti-Semitic show trials in Czechoslovakia.
1962 – Cuban missile crisis ends: In response to the Soviet Union agreeing to remove its missiles from Cuba, U.S. President John F. Kennedy ends the quarantine of the Caribbean nation.
1968 - A total of 78 miners are killed in an explosion at the Consolidated Coal Company’s No. 9 mine in Farmington, West Virginia in the Farmington Mine disaster
1969 – Vietnam War: The Plain Dealer publishes explicit photographs of dead villagers from the My Lai massacre in Vietnam.
1969 – Occupation of Alcatraz: Native American activists seize control of Alcatraz Island until being ousted by the U.S. Government on June 11, 1971.
1974 – The United States Department of Justice files its final anti-trust suit against AT&T Corporation. This suit later leads to the breakup of AT&T and its Bell System.
1977 – Egyptian President Anwar Sadat becomes the first Arab leader to officially visit Israel, when he meets Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin and speaks before the Knesset in Jerusalem, seeking a permanent peace settlement.
1979 – Grand Mosque Seizure: About 200 Sunni Muslims revolt in Saudi Arabia at the site of the Kaaba in Mecca during the pilgrimage and take about 6000 hostages. The Saudi government receives help from Pakistani special forces to put down the uprising.
1980 – Lake Peigneur drains into an underlying salt deposit. A misplaced Texaco oil probe had been drilled into the Diamond Crystal Salt Mine, causing water to flow down into the mine, eroding the edges of the hole. The resulting whirlpool sucked the drilling platform, several barges, houses and trees thousands of feet down to the bottom of the dissolving salt deposit.
1982 – The General Union of Ecuadorian Workers (UGTE) is founded.
1985 – Microsoft Windows 1.0 is released.
1989 – Velvet Revolution: The number of protesters assembled in Prague, Czechoslovakia swells from 200,000 the day before to an estimated half-million.
1991 – An Azerbaijani MI-8 helicopter carrying 19 peacekeeping mission team with officials and journalists from Russia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan is shot down by Armenian military forces in Khojavend district of Azerbaijan.
1992 – In England, a fire breaks out in Windsor Castle, badly damaging the castle and causing over £50 million worth of damage.
1993 – Savings and loan crisis: The United States Senate Ethics Committee issues a stern censure of California senator Alan Cranston for his "dealings" with savings-and-loan executive Charles Keating.
1994 – The Angolan government and UNITA rebels sign the Lusaka Protocol in Zambia, ending 19 years of civil war. (Localized fighting resumes the next year.)
1998 – A court in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan declares accused terrorist Osama bin Laden "a man without a sin" in regard to the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.
1998 – The first module of the International Space Station, Zarya, is launched.
2001 – In Washington, D.C., U.S. President George W. Bush dedicates the United States Department of Justice headquarters building as the Robert F. Kennedy Justice Building, honoring the late Robert F. Kennedy on what would have been his 76th birthday.
2003 – After the November 15 bombings, a second day of the 2003 Istanbul Bombings occurs in Istanbul, Turkey, destroying the Turkish head office of HSBC Bank AS and the British consulate.
Famous Folk Born on November 20th:
Pope Pius VIII
Kenesaw Mountain Landis
Clark Griffith
James Michael Curley
Alistair Cooke
Emilio Pucci
Robert Byrd
Kaye Ballard
Robert F. Kennedy
John Gardner
Estelle Parsons
Richard Dawson (he was really good in "The Running Man")
Don DeLillo
Joe Biden
Veronica Hamel
Louie Dampier
Rick Monday
George Grantham
Joe Walsh (life's been good to him...so far)
Judy Woodruff
John Bolton
Richard Masur
Sean Young
Ming-Na Wen
Callie Thorne
Dominique Dawes
Today's movie quotes come from 1994's "Streetfighter", the big screen adaptation of the video game, which had Ming-Na Wen in an action role:
Bison: Then defeat is a possibility. Very well. We shall face it together, Dee Jay, with the stoicism of the true warrior.
[Dee Jay quietly leaves as Bison continues to stare at the screen]
#2
Colonel William F. Guile: I guess you've earned your passports home.
Ryu: You can hang onto them.
Ken: Somebody's gonna have to help put this country back together. Maybe a couple of hustlers can help.
Colonel William F. Guile: Ever think of, uh, enlisting?
Ryu, Ken: Oh, no, no, no, no.
#3
Ryu: Vega!
Vega: Where were we?
Ryu: [kicks Vega in the chest] You were losing.
#4
Chun Li: [derisively referring to Cammy's hairstyle] Pigtails?
Cammy: [referring to Chun Li's double hair buns] Well look who's talking!
posted by me at 5:12 AM
<< Home