September 30, 2014

Donald Trump Got Tricked Into Retweeting an Image of Serial Killers

Donald Trump is always happy to retweet a glowing compliment.

So when Philip Bradbury sent along a picture of two people he claimed were his parents, asking Trump to share it, he quickly did so — to his nearly 3 million followers. The only problem: The image in question was not of Bradbury's parents. It was a picture of notorious serial killers Fred and Rosemary West.


Other users were quick to point out Trump's mistake, requesting retweets for their own villainous "family members."

Hi @realDonaldTrump. My parents who passed away always said you were a big inspiration. Can you RT for their memory?
8:24 AM - 29 Sep 2014
<snip>
More:
http://mashable.com/2014/09/29/donald-trump-twitter/#:eyJzIjoidCIsImkiOiJfaWJ5MDRvejYyNjNnYzV2ZiJ9

He is such a smug jackass especially on Twitter. He actually tweeted that he might sue because of this.
In one of previous tweets he endorsed McConnell. HA!

September 22, 2014

Lindsey Graham is hysterical and blubbering about ISIS

blowing up Charleston or whatever.
He needs to calm down.
If I was going to worry about somebody blowing up Charleston it would be Citadel cadets.

September 21, 2014

Get off my tractor! Get out of my barn and fields! Get off my porch!

I like country music. I realize some of you don't. There are genres of music I don't care for. However to dismiss all of it is short-sighted and trashes a culture that deserves better.

Not all of country music screams about 'Merica' and love it or leave it. Looking at you Lee Greenwood, Hank Williams Jr and Toby Keith. Beyond the jingoism, there is a long history of people and songs worth keeping.

That said, popular country music these days is populated by cute boys singing about beer, trucks, farms, screwing, and not necessarily in that order. I have nothing against any of those things. However, the songs are lacking in creativity and sound the same. Looking at you Luke Bryan.

The distaff side is better with such performers as Kacey Musgraves, Miranda Lambert and others. However after watching one truly noxious song called 'God Made Girls' I was ready to shoot my teevee. It was singularly the worst thing I have ever seen or heard. That's saying a lot considering I'm a boomer and have witnessed a lot whether I remember it or not.

There are other people worth watching but you have to wade through a lot of dreck to find them. I have no doubt that people don't like country as it's presented on country channels or in the award shows.

There are several good acts off the beaten path, but I am waiting for this horrible wave of Palmetto Bug Boys to subside. I would like to see the better side of country music being presented again.

So get off my land! Leave the beer!

PS Take Taylor Swift with you. She has never really gotten past songs about breaking up with whoever.

September 18, 2014

Sicilian Town on Migrants’ Route Cares for the Living and the Dead. (well worth your time!)

POZZALLO, Sicily — The 18 coffins were placed in two neat rows beneath the late-afternoon sun as the mayor and other dignitaries took their seats inside the hilltop cemetery. A Catholic vicar-general offered a homily. A Muslim imam unfurled a small rug and knelt in prayer, his singsong voice rising above the stone mausoleums toward the blue of the Mediterranean.

They had come to mourn strangers. Inside the coffins were the bodies of Africans who died in August, collected from the smuggler boats that were carrying them into Europe. Eight of the coffins bore small plaques that stated, simply, “Sconosciuto,” or “Unknown.”

“The opposite of love is not hatred,” Msgr. Angelo Giurdanella said toward the end of his homily, “but indifference.”

No one could accuse Pozzallo of indifference. This small Sicilian town, like Italy itself, has staggered its way through a skyrocketing migration crisis in the Mediterranean that has seen roughly 120,000 migrants rescued by Italian ships this year, almost triple last year’s figure, while nearly 2,800 have died in shipwrecks or in transit, a fourfold increase. And more bodies may be coming. Rescuers are searching in the waters near Malta after reports this week that more than 750 people may have died in two shipwrecks in recent days.

Over the past three years, Italian authorities have swung from a hard-line policy to “push back” migrant vessels to Libya, to a search-and-rescue program to deliver them safely to Italian ports like this one. Migrants still keep coming.
<snip>
Much more: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/18/world/europe/sicilian-town-on-migrants-route-cares-for-the-living-and-the-dead.html#

Love in action.
Good on you people of Pozzallo!

September 17, 2014

Whether you care for Miss America and the hooha, the present winner needs your support.

Kira Kazansev is being attacked for her work with Planned Parenthood.
I imagine they will try to get her to give up her crown or for it to be taken from her. It will get ugly.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/16/miss-america-planned-parenthood_n_5829314.html

September 14, 2014

I was switched all the time as a kid.

My cousins were too. I am not defending it. It's another form of violence couched in a regional definition.

We had to pick our own switches. You learned to pick stiffer, less supple branches. They hurt less than the sting of the others which could act like whips. You survived less lashes if you hollered and acted as if it hurt like hell. It did hurt, but if you somehow conveyed you were oh so sorry by acting horribly wounded at the first blow and pleading, then it seemed to satisfy the elders most of the time.

Was I really sorry? I was sorry I got caught and was going to be switched. We all learned to be more devious and careful. AND you never narced on anybody if you got hurt in some way. You just planned your payback instead of turning the perpetrator over to the elders.

What was worse for me was the 'game' my Mama played. If she got real mad at me, she wouldn't talk to me and pretended not to know me. She would also act like she was going to leave me wherever we were at that moment. It could be a store, a friend's house, at a relative's, or by the side of a road. You want to terrify a little kid then try that. I still have nightmares occasionally about that.

Neither method is right. However, a branch from a bush is not embedded in my psyche.

September 10, 2014

Don't let the NFL snow you about not getting the Ray Rice video.

For one, they have many ex-law enforcement people on their payroll. They range from ex-FBI agents to police chiefs and more. Many of them have extensive contacts that they regularly use. It is bullshit that they couldn't get that video.

Everybody and gawd knew their was an elevator video. Casinos have more video cameras than chips. They see everything.

I hate that the video has put Janay back in the spotlight. However, it had to be shown. I watch ESPN and follow many people on Twitter. What I kept hearing after the first video was released was 'Well we don't know the whole story.' Rice's attorneys and even the Raven's GM hinted that there were two sides to the story. This gave rise to the meme that she did something horrible that nobody had seen yet.

Even after the elevator video was released, there are still people defending Rice. However, their numbers have shrunk. In addition, this wasn't a mistake. It was felony assault.

When the NFL and its teams gets ready to draft players, they pull out all the stops. They conduct investigations that would make the FBI look like amateurs. That's why it's total bullshit that they didn't see or get the video because of whatever.

I don't know what's worse. The NFL did see it and gave Rice only a 2 game suspension or that they never got it for whatever excuse they peddle.

September 8, 2014

The video of Ray Rice punching his fianceé when they were in the elevator:

http://www.tmz.com/videos/0_ekaflcqq/

A lot of people kept saying they'd wait until they saw the video to say anything. I guess they thought she did something to deserve being knocked out. I'm sure they will defend him even after seeing this video.
He should have gotten suspended for a year.

September 7, 2014

How a German soldier-artist saved Dutch Jews from the Nazis

BERLIN — This is the story of how a beloved German children’s book illustrator, while serving in the army of Nazi Germany, saved the lives of hundreds of Jews from Adolf Hitler’s death machine.

It’s a story from before Werner Klemke was deeply beloved for his drawings of the Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales, which made their way to every East German child’s bookshelf, and his hundreds of often lightheartedly erotic magazine covers, which were eagerly snapped up upon publication. It’s a story from before the creation of the communist state in which he managed to build an artistic career despite being occasionally at odds with the repressive government.

It’s also a story that the artist, who died 20 years ago, never told. The story surfaced only when Dutch documentary filmmaker Annet Betsalel asked whether she could poke around in the long-shuttered archives of the Jewish community of Bussum, the Netherlands.

“They told me the archives only really had financial data in them,” Betsalel said in an interview. “But I thought, well, financial records can be interesting.”

What she found was the story of a network set up by a Jewish businessman, Sam van Perlstein, who knew in 1942 that Jews were living on borrowed time under Nazi occupation and that if they were going to survive they were going to need some help.
<snip>
Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/2014/09/06/3663193/how-a-german-soldier-artist-saved.html

Once upon a time, there were real heroes.....

September 3, 2014

If you think the NFL isn't homophobic,read this column by a veteran pro football sport's columnist:

First, let's get this out of the way: When it comes to the Michael Sam story, well, we in the media partially screwed up.

It is true that we turned Sam into a nonstop melodrama. The story was unprecedented and historic and deserved a massive amount of attention, but some in the media took it too far.

It's all too easy to blame ESPN, but the larger truth is that the Sam story was a collision of storm fronts. Many in the media had a sincere desire to see progress in one of the last bastions of homophobia: professional sports.

That factor, partnered with the massive, coagulating, blob-ified social media, led to Sam becoming a spectacle. This was no fault of Sam's. This was on us.

This was also partly a sign of modern-day America. This story was bound to leapfrog sports and land on Maddow and Meet the Press. That intensified the overcoverage, the way heat creates a larger hurricane.

So the media deserves part of the blame for Sam not playing in the NFL now. We made him a marked man. We Tebow-ed him. Each time Sam went to the field, there was a media marching band in pursuit.

But let's also make this clear: Sam not being signed with a team isn't solely because of the media. Or even mostly. Him not being signed is because of fear, shameful excuse-making and old-fashioned bigotry.
<snip>
More:
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2183720-michael-sam-not-being-signed-on-the-media-excuse-making-and-homophobia

'Distraction' is the new code word. As Freeman points out, his not being signed was way out of the ordinary.
Now the line is that Jerry Jones will sign him because he has great jersey sales. MEH! I have never heard such drivel and degrading remarks before. He deserves a chance on a roster.