Morning Coffee (149)

Good day to you friends. How about we meet for some Coffee...? Little different format today, with plenty o'links and a more bitter Brew.

"There is a pleasure, sure in being mad, which none but madmen know."
I made a picture which should illustrate the above quote beautifully. It is a screen shot from Drudge, taken at 1210 on 19 January 2009. I did not edit it, but added the boxes to point your eyes to the pertinent. (Above quote by John Dryden.)

More evidence of madness? (This is MADNESS!! Madness? THIS IS SPARTA!!) (Amatuer, Amatuer Historian Note: 300 really annoys me.) Take a gander at this bit of...well, I don't know. I can't come up with an appropriate adjective. Just take a look. It's a video, made by Ashton Kutcher and it features all sorts of famous people, most of whom I no longer respect due to the obscene levels of sheepishness in their being. I challenge you to watch the entire thing. Watching the whole thing without turning a gun on myself was my pledge. What's YOUR pledge, fellow Kool-aid drinkers? (I find it funny that comments have been disabled for that vid. Dissent will not be tolerated.)

Global Warming: Myth or Fact:
Speaking of Kool-aid (Oh YEAH!), I just read an article by John Tomlinson that I find to be the perfect cap to my theory that Global Warming is a religious cult. Tomlinson says that we'd better pray for warming, because we just might be heading into another ice age. And speaking of perfect caps, Arctic ice seems to be back to 1979 levels, and Antarctic ice has increased by 5% since 1980. Oh, and global temperatures have dropped from a high in 1998 back to 1980 levels. Warming? I don't know. But atmospheric CO2 levels are rising, so warming it must be, despite all the evidence to the contrary.

Insha'Allah? I guess...?:
It appears that the Algerian franchise of al-Qaida, al-Qaida in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb have been plagued by a particular problem that can only be described as divinely inspired. (GWOT Note: "The Base" does business like a McDonald's - you apply for a franchise and you can then use the name so long as you qualify it with "in the Land of" or something similar.) Yes, THE Plague, as in the Black Death. The Sun (yes, not most reputable of sources) reports that 40 al-Qaida fighters, who lack proper medical facilities and cleanliness in their training camps (i.e. caves), have died from the plague, which can be cured by the horrifically painful and exceedingly rare, nay, MYTHICAL, antibiotic. Despite praying five times a day, fasting during Ramadan, and pledging to kill infidels by the bunches, Allah appears to be generally unimpressed with AQLIM members.

Maybe it'll spread to Afghanistan.

Never fear, this will not become the Morning Coffee's style. I just wanted a break from the work-intensive nature of most MCs while still being able to throw out some information that you all might find interesting and/or humorous. Believe me, I'd miss the more cerebral style; it's far more scholarly than this.

Word of the Day: Narcolepsy (noun): A disorder characterized by uncontrollable bouts of sleepiness during the daytime, occasional loss of muscle power and paralysis, and hallucinations during sleep. (I thought they were called dreams.)

On This Day in History: The first electric lighting system using overhead wires begins service in Roselle, NJ. It is built by Thomas Edison (1883). Georges Claude patents the neon discharge tube (1915). German zeppelins bomb Great Yarmouth and King's Lyn in the UK, making it the first major aerial bombardment of a civilian target in history (1915). German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmermann sends his telegram to Mexico, proposing an alliance against the US (1917). The US votes against joining the League of Nations (1920). Sixy-eight percent of all TVs in the US tune in to watch Lucy give birth on I Love Lucy (1953). Gerald Ford pardons Tokyo Rose (1977). The Apple Lisa, the first personal computer from Apple to have a graphical user interface and a mouse, is announced (1983).

"The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane." - Marcus Aurelius.

Morning Coffee (100)

You’ve waited with impatiently, with baited breath, as a day turned into days and those days turned into a week and longer. But here it is, our 100th Morning Coffee together. It’s been over a year since we began having Coffee together, and I hope that I’m able to continue to join you in your mornings for a long time; for as long as I’m capable of Brewing. I had planned on doing some grand bit to celebrate the 100th, but other things got in the way day after day, so I think I’ll just see where it goes this morning.

"Politics Man, Politics…!":

So much has happened since our last get together that it’s hard to know where to begin. Politically, it seems as though we’re light years from where we were a week or so ago, but at the same time, it feels as though we haven’t moved an inch. We’ve had a Democratic debate and Super Tuesday, neither of which have done much to solve the Left side of the political race. Super Tuesday seemed pretty lame, actually. You know, it’s hard to imagine any lasting, substantive changes in our political system (due to a variety of reasons), but I would love to see many changes implemented. Finding an alternative nomination process would be one of many.

Once nominations are confirmed, presidential politics today (and perhaps politics at all levels) is like watching the Kansas City Royals and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays play a baseball game. Both teams, like both candidates, suck but at the end of the day, one of them is absolutely, positively going to be the winner no matter how ugly the game is played by both teams. The main difference is that in this game, the crowd (fans) must vote on who wins, and the crowd rarely votes on what matters (though one could argue when you’re talking about these two teams, what matters?). Instead of winning because they have a better pitching staff or a nasty lineup, the Devil Rays have cooler uniforms, so they should win. Or, the Royals are an older team, and thus more experienced, so they should win. The Rays might have a pitcher who is terrible year in and year out, but happens to have a good year and picks up a fat contract; the Rays are the frontrunners because now they’re richer. Never mind the fact that this guy will probably still be terrible. Then you’ve got the sports commentators telling you who you should vote for as the winner. No candidate will ever be perfect, nor will any baseball team ever go an entire season without losing. But can’t we find better “teams” than the political equivalent to the Royals and Rays?

Okay, now that I’ve gotten the obligatory analogy off my chest, I’ll conclude this tirade by summing up Super Tuesday. It did end with McCain being the clear Republican front runner. But on the Democrat side, little was decided. Huckabee, about whom you might have first heard in an earlier edition of the MC, did surprisingly well and may have positioned himself nicely for the VP slot on McCain’s ticket. I, for one, was not terribly surprised by Huck’s showing, as I stated earlier that the man might very well be the Republican nominee. I didn’t think he was as out of the race as virtually every pundit suggested. The evangelical base is too strong, and that’s where he has appeal. He probably won’t win the nomination, and that’s probably a good thing, but he’s still right there. And if McCain were to win the Presidency, Huckster could end up our President through succession.

Conservatives Worse Fear: A Republican Nominee:

It sounds strange that conservatives fear a McCain nomination. He is, after all, a Republican, and Republicans are generally conservative. They don’t fear a McCain nomination because they think he’ll lose. Instead, they fear it because they fear he’ll win. That’s mind-blowing. Conservative pundits like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter and others dislike McCain so much that they’ve proclaimed that they’d vote for Hillary Clinton before they would vote for McCain. And the sentiment is trickling down to the masses (which is quite sad because it indicates clearly that a majority of people get their opinions from people on the radio). Several people have come up to me stating that they’d vote for Clinton before McCain. They can’t really articulate why, exactly. But they know they don’t like him for some reason. I actually asked the first person to say this to me if his name was Rush Limbaugh. His reply to me was something about McCain being a POW and that POWs learn to live by telling people whatever they want to hear and that they’ll lie and etc, etc. I was quite taken aback by this, and called him on the fact that such a sentiment would mark all POWs as liars and thus unworthy of listening to in any capacity. Weird.

My question to conservatives is this: which would you rather have name Supreme Court Justices, McCain or Clinton? Remember that the Supreme Court makes rulings on Constitutional matters…like Roe v. Wade. I know how obscenely important a person’s choice is to you (or more accurately your revocation of that choice), so you might want to remember the fact that our next President might have the chance to nominate three Justices. McCain is pretty much pro-life whereas Clinton is pro-choice. It seems that on this issue, which is oftentimes the most important consideration for conservatives, McCain is the clear winner. But because conservatives dislike McCain’s stance on immigration and campaign finance reform (which they irrationally view as a usurpation of the 1^st Amendment right to free speech), they would vote for someone who, in their view, tacitly supports the murder of unborn children. Amazing, isn’t it, the herd mentality of these people, bleating the catch phrases and opinions of their radio gods.

Limbaugh and Beck and their ilk lament over what they see as a slow death of conservatism, but really, their incessant whining merely illuminates the problems with such strict adherence to ideology. They’d sell their souls and their vote to someone they considered a few months ago to be the devil simply because the likely GOP candidate isn’t what they view as the ideal conservative. You will continue to hear about this (if you pay attention to such things). You will continue to hear Limbaugh and Coulter and Beck say that conservatives should cast their votes for Clinton rather than McCain. You’ll hear all sorts of nonsense, like that Clinton is more of a conservative than McCain. My advice to you is to learn what you can about the candidates and then vote for the one that is the least distasteful to you. If that’s Clinton, then vote for her. Just remember, you will always be sacrificing some of your ideals, because no one candidate is going to represent you with 100% fidelity unless you get off your ass and run yourself.

I thank Roland Martin at CNN for providing a good article on this, though it’s been reported on for about a week by various news outlets.

Down with the Sickness:

Al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI) has a new weapon against Coalition forces: women. I know what you’re thinking, but it’s not sexual seductions. And it’s not just any women. These women are highly skilled in the arts of terrorism. Why? Because they have Down’s Syndrome. Last week, two separate women were used in attacks on crowded markets during which 70 people lost their lives. The women probably didn’t even know what they were doing until they spontaneously detonated. They weren’t the only ones surprised by their explosion because their illness likely helped them get past security check points. The explosives were hidden under their traditional garb. This isn’t new, but the use of women as suicide bombers is still fairly novel, so they get past security easier than young men. Add the fact that the women had a severe illness, well, who’s going to stop and vigorously question and/or frisk someone with Down’s? I’m guessing that security details will scrutinize women and disabled people more now. This is the ever-changing game of cat and mouse that the Coalition plays with AQI.

The Loss of National Treasures:

Harry Richard Landis past away. He was 108 years old and only one of two remaining WWI veterans. Landis didn’t see combat in the Great War because he was still in training when the war ended, but he is, like the 4.7 million other US military members of the day, considered a WWI vet. In 1941, Landis tried to sign up to fight the Germans (seeing as though he missed his shot the previous time), but was deemed too old (at 42). This is a man who admits that he didn’t want to fight in WWI, but then volunteered to go fight in WWII. Such honor. His story’s pretty interesting, as he went on to manage S.S. Kresge Co. (later to be named Kmart) all through the northeast.

The last remaining US veteran of that war is Frank Buckles (107). The Canadians have John Babcock (107) as their last remaining vet. The last German veteran, Erich Kaestner, passed away on New Year’s Day at 107. With that in mind, there could be as few as two WWI veterans left on the entire planet.

Raymond Jacobs recently died as well. Jacobs, who you may have never heard of, claimed to be the last living member of the original group of Marines that first raised an American flag on Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima. As you know, the famous photo shows a second flag raising. No records exist which can verify Jacobs’ claim and all his contemporaries are already dead, so we may never know who really was involved in that first flag raising, as Jacobs also disputed the official identifications of the Marines in a picture taken by Louis Lowery.

There is a lot more that I wished to discuss with you during the past week, but much of it is OBE, or overcome by events. As in no longer relevant. So I’ll end now. Until next time.

Word of the Day: Mien (noun): Air, bearing, or demeanor, as showing character, feeling, etc: a man of noble mien.

On This Day in History: The Mongols burn the Russian city of Vladimir (1238). The US bans all Cuban imports and exports (1962). Slim pickings today; see the last few days for some interesting happenings throughout history.

“When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.” – Jonathan Swift.

Morning Coffee (80)

Good day to you. May a thousand vultures peck out your eyes.

I Curse Thee:

I was thinking about Roman curses this morning and did a little research on them. Romans were incredibly spiteful and jealous and loved their curses, which they generally written down rather than spoken. These were called tabulae defixiones. Apparently the curse lasted only as long as the material upon which it was written, and all of the ones that have been found were written on thin sheets of lead (more accurately pewter) using a stylus (and have thus lasted 2,000 or more years). They were then rolled up with the writing on the inside and placed in a location where the curse would have maximum effect, like the home of the victim. A person could be cursed for innumerable reasons, including theft, murder, shady business deals and even envy. The text on the tabulae defixiones were usually addressed to a god who was to enact the punishment and listed the reasons for the curse and the suspects of the slight if he or she wasn’t known to the curser. The curse itself could be for just about anything; forgetting the words to a speech, sexual impotence, shriveling of limbs and appendages, or becoming dizzy during an important moment. But the language was usually colorful and verbose, often including qualifiers such as, “whoever committed this” or “if he is guilty.” Curses often included nonsensical “curse words” which may have leant some sort of efficacy to the curse and some tabulae defixiones were accompanied by small figurines that were sometimes pierced by nails, similar to a Voodoo doll.

Here’s an excellent example of a Roman curse, found in Bath, England:

“May he who carried off Vilbia from me become liquid as the water; may she who so obscenely ate her lose the power of speech; whether the culprit be Velvinna, Exsupereus, Severinus, Augustalis, Comitanius, Catusminianus, Germinalla or Jovina.”

I wonder what the phrase “ate her” means. In any event, as with most fun things Roman, cursing people died out as Christianity took hold, but the curses that have been found provide keen insight into the hopes, desires, and wishes of every day Romans. I’ll bet life would be more colorful if we had curses today though.

New al-Qaida Production – Straight to Video:

Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaida’s second in command, released a new video tape recently. It’s no Girls Gone Wild, by any means, but it’s still pretty interesting. In this video, al-Zawahiri informs us that the United States is failing (“defeated”) in Iraq and is simply looking for an exit strategy. He says, “The reports from Iraq tell of the growth of the mujahedeen and the collapse of the Americans' circumstances.” By “growth” Ayman means “collapse in numbers”, and by “mujahedeen” he means “guys with American targets painted on their heads.” He’s confused.

Al-Zawahiri also stated that Sunni Arab tribes are traitors who are the recipients of “oceans of bribes” from the Americans. No, they’re not tired of their children being burned alive or their relatives having their heads cut off, they simply like the good old fashioned American dollar (at least someone does nowadays).

Of course, in the same video he says, “We are seeing a triple failure for the Americans in Iraq. No matter how much the gigantic propaganda machine in America tries to deceive the people, the reality is stronger and worse than all the deceptions.” So we’re all clear: do not believe American propaganda machine, believe instead al-Qaida propaganda machine. Got it. Reality is stronger than propaganda, and it’s worse than all the deceptions. Which is why no one believes that the insurgents are presently winning; reality simply doesn’t support that. I’m sure, however, that al-Qaida’s target audience will likely believe Ayman “Honest Injun” al-Zawahiri’s propaganda vice ours.

In the video, al-Zawahiri wore a white robe and turban and sat in front of Islamic theology and law books, i.e. copies of the Quran and various other books full of quoted Quranic verses.

Word of the Day: Unfledged (adjective): 1. Lacking the feathers necessary for flight. 2. Not fully developed; immature. Al-Zawahiri has an unfledged perception of the success of the mujahedeen.

On This Day in History:

Pope Clement establishes a parallel body to the Inquisition in Portugal (1531). General Ulysses S Grant issues General Order No. 11, which expels Jews from Tennessee, Mississippi, and Kentucky (1862).

The Wright Brothers make their first powered flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina (1903). The US Air Force closes out Project Blue Book, stating that UFO sightings were the result of a “mild form of mass hysteria” (1969).

Brigadier General James Dozier was abducted by the Red Brigade in Verona, Italy (1981). He was eventually rescued by Italian anti-terrorist forces after 42 days. I met this guy. He would be the first one to tell you that his force protection methods were grossly negligent and resulted in his relatively easy capture.

The Roman festival Saturnalia, in honor of Saturn, god of agriculture and harvest, began.

“In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery?” – Saint Augustine of Hippo

“That government is best which governs least.” – Thomas Paine“Ancient Rome declined because it had a Senate, now what's going to happen to us with both a House and a Senate?” – Will Rogers