Spanish Girl

Things to Worry About

2012-02-15T18:39:00.007+01:00

In 1933, author F. Scott Fitzgerald ended a letter to his 11-year-old daughter, Scottie, with a list of things to worry about, not worry about, and simply think about. It reads as follows.

Things to worry about:

Worry about courage
Worry about cleanliness
Worry about efficiency
Worry about horsemanship

Things not to worry about:

Don’t worry about popular opinion
Don’t worry about dolls
Don’t worry about the past
Don’t worry about the future
Don’t worry about growing up
Don’t worry about anybody getting ahead of you
Don’t worry about triumph
Don’t worry about failure unless it comes through your own fault
Don’t worry about mosquitoes
Don’t worry about flies
Don’t worry about insects in general
Don’t worry about parents
Don’t worry about boys
Don’t worry about disappointments
Don’t worry about pleasures
Don’t worry about satisfactions

Things to think about:

What am I really aiming at?
How good am I really in comparison to my contemporaries in regard to:

(a) Scholarship
(b) Do I really understand about people and am I able to get along with them?
(c) Am I trying to make my body a useful instrument or am I neglecting it?

With dearest love,

Daddy

From Lists of Note

For All Things Girly Within Me

2012-02-13T11:14:00.035+01:00

Heidi of 101 Cookbooks, has some of the most beautiful recipes I've ever seen. Her blog is gentle and sweet, and I absolutely get lost in it. Everything she makse is rich and whole, and looks amazing. And with stunning pictures it's easy to see why she has the Number One rated food blog. My heart's delight, I love this blog!

Look at this Goddess:
Lemony Olive Oil Banana Bread

And as if getting lost in this garden of recipes couldn't get any better, Heidi every month shares something to feed your soul. Such as this 1958 John Steinbeck letter to his son, "On Falling in Love". And this beautiful box of dirt.
Sometimes I love being a girl.

Feliç Aniversari - Happy Birthday

2012-02-11T18:44:00.003+01:00

My dad Diego is celebrating his birthday at the country house. He's reading philosophy, eating rabbits he cooked in the fireplace, and having a nice glass of white wine. My step-brother gave him the DVD, "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" in Spanish. I told him that a really good gift as it's a subtle version of, "The Odyssey" with an awesome soundtrack. He will LOVE the movie. I gave him a copy of a modern Greek poem by Elytis. I hope he likes it! ;)
Feliç Aniversari Diego!
T'estim molt,
La seva filla

A Spanish Poem

2012-02-08T20:02:00.001+01:00

I gave this picture to a friend of mine of the port in Castellon, Spain. When I read this poem recently I thought it would be a good fit to the picture :)

Song, by Rafael Alberti

If my voice dies on land...

If my voice dies on land,
take it down to the sea
and leave it on the shore.

Take it down to the sea
and make it captain
of a white man-of-war.

Honor it with
a sailor’s medal:
over its heart an anchor,
and on the anchor a star,
and on the star the wind,
and on the wind a sail!

Sequence of Events in Meeting Friends :)

2012-02-07T19:19:00.000+01:00

My way awesome aunt, Maria Jose climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro.

At her "Welcome Home, Let's See the Photos Party", I met a really nice girl named Teresa, who turns out had a friend named Rodrigo that needed an English teacher.

Who, in the span of a week, became my student and very good friend, and invited me to his wedding :)

Who now has one of my step-mom's artwork as a gift. And she now has a new fan :) And that is a typical, and lovely way I meet new friends :)

The Full Srory

2012-02-05T21:03:00.000+01:00

My sweet sister-in-law Lydia's story:

Just sending love to Lydia

2012-02-01T12:36:00.003+01:00

Betrayal. Nothing is worse.

My kind, beautiful (Ford Model), and extremely talented sister-in-law's sister Lydia Lange, has had a nightmare of a story. I've known Lyida since she was a young girl, and can only say I am so proud of how she has shown strength and grace through this trial. Sadly my beautiful sister (because she really is!) has been the victim of an impersonator for several months. Lydia's talents have been vicariously lived through that of another -a very sick person who's gain is that of a created false internet life. I will post the full story after it airs.

In her own words, "It's been a terrible and frightening 4 and a half months since I found out I had a stalker/internet impersonator who had been blogging hundreds of stolen photos off my PRIVATE Facebook & that of several close family members. WRAL has given my story a voice. If you are local in Raleigh, NC you can see my story this Thursday, February 2nd at 6pm EST. Watch it or DVR it. If you are not in NC you can watch it live on WRAL.com. This isn't a story about how you should get off the internet--it's a story to bring awareness to the fact that there are NO laws in place to protect you if something similar should happen to you.

Nacho's Corner

2012-01-29T13:04:00.011+01:00

"Where everybody knows your name..."

You know, there's something to be said for that. There's something in feeling like you're a part of a neighborhood, even in the city.
Can I tell you what it's like to walk on my street and have most of my evenings being waved into Nacho's Gourmet Store? I step in and everyone is laughing and teasing Nacho, there's a few double Spanish kisses, a new glass brought out, and more tapas put on the table.

I met Don Carlos, a retired architect who knew more about my iPad and Google Earth than anyone else that night. And I met Maria Jose, friend of a friend of a friend.

This night we had Tomato-Basil Cheese (NOT Watermelon!), and Black Pepper Crusted Salami.

Books are magic This little film is magic*

2012-01-28T20:45:00.005+01:00

The Fantastic Flying Books of Morris Lessmore
An Oscar Nominated Short-Film
From, The Rabbit Room

The Book of Books: What Literature Owes the Bible

2012-01-27T20:40:00.002+01:00

Marilynne Robinson wrote an excellent article in The New York Times to help explain, "Religious Thought" in Literature.

Excerpt:
Old Jonathan Edwards wrote, “It has all along been God’s manner to open new scenes, and to bring forth to view things new and wonderful.” These scenes are the narrative method of the Bible, which assumes a steady march of history, the continuous unfolding of significant event, from the primordial quarrel of two brothers in a field to supper with a stranger at Emmaus. There is a cosmic irony in the veil of insignificance that obscures the new and wonderful. Moments of the highest import pass among people who are so marginal that conventional history would not have noticed them: aliens, the enslaved, people themselves utterly unaware that their lives would have consequence. The great assumption of literary realism is that ordinary lives are invested with a kind of significance that justifies, or requires, its endless iterations of the commonplace, including, of course, crimes and passions and defeats, however minor these might seem in the world’s eyes. This assumption is by no means inevitable. Most cultures have written about demigods and kings and heroes. Whatever the deeper reasons for the realist fascination with the ordinary, it is generous even when it is cruel, simply in the fact of looking as directly as it can at people as they are and insisting that insensitivity or banality matters. The Old Testament prophets did this, too.

I went to my little bridge today

2012-01-26T16:19:00.003+01:00

"Sail on Silver Girl, Sail on by... Your time has come to shine. All your dreams are on their way."

Where the Wild Things Are (as read by Christopher Walken)

2012-01-25T00:45:00.008+01:00

I LOVE THIS!!! I have always loved this book! I have always loved Christopher Walken! Remember Fat Boy Slim's, Weapon of Choice?

Thanks to my friend David B. Wooten

Girls Love Europe

2012-01-24T23:25:00.006+01:00

Girls love Europe because girls like French pastry shops. And this girl was so happy today eating a Kouign-amann.

Reflection

2012-01-23T19:37:00.011+01:00

A friend recently wrote about the stupidity he sees around. And he's right.

But then much later, as is often the case with me when I have way too much free time, I took that topic and added... drama. I started mulling over all the stupidity I see: crassnes, the pretentiousness Europe is so wickedly wonderfully good at...being the winner.

My attitude this morning was to think of this world as such a waste. Open-and-shut, I want heaven. But my longing for heaven wasn't for the right reasons. I was thinking of heaven as, The Less Stupid Place. Those wrong reasons also let me fall into a daydream of how I could literally kick this little lame globe, like the soccer game I was walking past. I wanted to gather everyone I know out of here, and say, "Here Tempter, you wanted it? You can have it, the whole show. Your stupid prize."
As you can read, it's scary-shockingly-fast how I lost sight of the Gospel. My morning was turning into getting very judgmental towards the home God created.

And then I was humbled, glory to God. Because simply put, this home He gave me has reflections of His home. It is a reflection. How could I have lost sight so quickly? He is asking me to see reflections of heaven as the answer for the shallowness. True, we all still see bad things like apathy, and the typical suburban ennui, but also seen is hard work in so many others. I only need to look at my grandpa for example.

I want fall into heavenly reflections as my daydream.
I worship. And it's only God who kicks.

"Full as a Goat, Round and Smooth"

2012-01-23T19:00:00.005+01:00

I've never grown up with pets, so sadly I'm a WIMP with animals. Especially goats. Especially these goats, whom I assume are the kind that like to eat tin cans, or worse... iPads. I'm serious. I was frozen scared when they came out on the path I was walking on today. All of a sudden there were so many, many, of them, and I was all alone. I think they live in a really big shanty town that the path crosses.

Well, the path remains gorgeouspretty, my iPad was NOT eaten, (nor were my shoes, I had a fear about that too), and all the goats certainly reminded me that I'm NOT walking on the middle school track like back at home!

Try not to lick the screen

2012-01-22T16:28:00.014+01:00

Salted Butter Caramel Ice-Cream

My weekend was HOT here in Spain. Tank-top day. On the roof hanging laundry day.

Marry this flavor with a perfect song on a Saturday night in Spain, and let everything... melt.

Song: Closer, by Kings of Leon.

Ice-Cream: Recipe

'My First Hardcore Song' by 8 yr old Juliet

2012-01-20T19:38:00.006+01:00

The rock scene will never be the same! ha ha ha ha!!! Juliet takes you on a BRUTAL track... The girl loves her dog Robert, that's for sure.
And oh my goodness! She reminds me of my little sister, Ginny!

Thanks Nate for the laugh!

In 1957 some negatives were made

2012-01-20T19:33:00.000+01:00

My father recently found boxes and boxes of negatives. I had a good time looking over them with the family. These two are my faves! :) Sooo Spanish!!!
Here is my father as an adorable, COKE-loving kid.
And my grandfather looking quite a lot like His Highness, Mr. Hemingway.

Apuesta: My Lost Bet

2012-01-20T19:15:00.009+01:00

How is it that I always seem to loose silly little bets? I don't think I'm gullible... but I do think I'm pretty hard-headed. And that my friends, may be the very factor.

The set up:
I was out with some friends having tea, when one of them took a napkin on the table and drew a circle. He said, "Behind you is a Roman Numeral clock on the wall. Look up and check it out."
I quickly glanced up and saw a huge clock.
He said, "If you think you know Roman Numerals fill in this circle like that clock. I bet you, you won't get it right."
Thinking he was thinking, "This American girl doesn't know her Roman Numerals" I took that bet.
I started, I II III
...IV
"Wrong!" I heard. "You lost!"
The waiter standing there the whole time starts laughing and laughing.
Huh? How did I loose?
He said, "Look up.".
I looked up at the clock. Four was written, "IIII".
Then my friend wrote on the napkin, "95/5".
Huh?
He said, "Ninety-five percent of people get it wrong".
(And how does he know that? I want to bet him on that!)
He said in Spain, Roman Numeral Clocks are divided into Trisections. To make it esthetically pleasing, the first part is the part of "I", the second the part of "V", and the third, the part of "X".

Arrrgh... there goes my 5 euros!!!
But now I'm in the 5% :)

tiAra

2012-01-17T03:21:00.003+01:00

Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. James 1:12

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. 2 Corinthians 4:16-17

Valencia's Train Station

2012-01-16T18:37:00.007+01:00

I've been taking trains from this station since I was a little girl :) love the lights out front.

Sunday night chill out, or to my brother, Sunday night bore

2012-01-15T21:29:00.004+01:00

After taking a short trip this weekend, being on a train for HOURS, walking so much my Clark's might disintegrate... it's time to "take a chill out". Yes Spanish people say that, and in English! I find it endearing; to me it conjures up, uh... 1994. Exhausted me needed a break. And who wouldn't like this set up? Baking and reading To Kill a Mocking Bird? (Well maybe a lot wouldn't. I can think of my brother David for one, and my brother Stephen for two, and every Spaniard I know for three. But they aren't really the type of people going around reading my blog, so my sentence, stet.)

To Kill a Mocking Bird is set in the Deep South, and reading it made me crave American comfort food. Never more than now do I miss my home in North Carolina, and my friend Jen with her Southern sayings like, "Girl, I could sop you up with a biscuit and eat you up." and her granny who always has Pepsi and Lance Toast Chee Peanut Butter Crackers she calls, "Nabs"out for us. So enough reminiscing, enough reading about Calpurnia making cracklin' bread and butter beans, time to roll up my sleeves and see what's in the fridge... all the stores in Spain close on Sundays so what can I improvise here???

Banana Bread :)

I don't know if it's southern fare like Banana Pudding, but but here in Valencia there aren't any Nilla Wafers. Neither are there pecans for a Hummingbird Cake. But we do have bananas from the Canary Islands, and walnuts from our tree at the country house, so Banana Bread it is :)

My co-worker back home, Miss Rita, taught me to add sour cream to the batter for a slight tang to balance the sweet of the bananas. Unfortunately sour cream is also not found here in Valencia. But our fridge did have some some fancy crème fraîche. Calpurnia would have been proud of me! Happy Sunday "chill out" everyone!

Brian's Surprise Justin Bieber Wedding Dance for Emily

2012-01-14T03:27:00.007+01:00

For you Lindsey! I can't believe you are the biggest fan of The Beiber :)

Thanks to my friend Kelie M!

Spiritu oris ejus: Spirit of Jehovah's mouth

2012-01-13T23:50:00.016+01:00

By the word of the LORD the heavens were made,
and by the breath of his mouth all their host.
Psalm 33:6

By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.
Hebrews 11:3

The host of heaven, the very angels used to protect us, as well as the sun and moon that rule day and night were established not of material being. I am overwhelmed tonight by this. God's word lies at the foundation. My heart is so rebellious, needing to trust The One who speaks and with ease, things fall into His place. Tonight please Spirit, move in me.

My story:
"Owls respond to a circular ruler. Come out Round Eyes, it's your time to plump.
Dots I claim as my map. Yes, it's true. I was taught this.
Nighttime sky. Sturdy stock of trusted flashlights..."

Interruption.

"Hmmm? I'm busy making a poem here about the sky."

-Breath as foundation-
The poem has been written.
-Breath as foundation-

Lunettes de vue

2012-01-13T23:07:00.014+01:00

That "Madame" that is known as Fashion is finally getting cool eyewear right! so pretty.
Paris: Jimmy Fairley.Optique
US: Warby Parker
(Both offer reasonably priced vintage-inspired looks, and 5 pairs for a free home try-on shipped to you. And, I REALLY love they donate a pair to the needy with a purchase.)

Might be time to update mine :)

Thank you David Lebovitz

Chocolates and Flowers

2012-01-13T21:42:00.007+01:00

See how pretty my trip to the post office was? The flower market in front of our post office made me ready for Spring! I hope my family back home is ready for boxes full of the best South American Sampaka Chocolate. Ibiza Salt, Jalapeño Spicy, and 'Mora" Blackberry on the way!

On the shelf...

2012-01-12T13:34:00.009+01:00

Blindness, by José Saramago.
I'm taking some time to travel a bit and brought along, Blindness. It's written by one of my father's favorite Portugese writers - a real master. José Saramago won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998, and I can see why.
Saramago uses an experimental style of writing, chosing to forgo proper nouns, asking the reader to really see "the human condition". Saramago often writes converasations that can be explained as... a juxtaposition. The two ideas moving parallel are:

1. a choppy dialoge, unninterupted by punctuation

2. a flowing dialogue, unninterupted by punctuation.

Saramago uses a sudden epidemic of "white blindness" on "the blind man", "the doctor", and "four blind men" as a way to ask if a society collapsed is still robust. Yet all the while being empathetic to the core.

For fear you think this another Faulkner, themes and points are clear despite timelessness, a country, or the comma. Crystal Clear.

"a whiteness so luminous, so total, that it swallowed up rather than absorbed, not just the colours, but the very things and beings, thus making them twice as invisible."

Barcelona at Night

2012-01-12T12:16:00.011+01:00

La Rambla is a tree-lined pedestrian mall in Barcelona. Here I see it at night, along with Barri Gòtic ( the Gothic Quarter ). Sorry, the one of me is blurry!

~Alive in Christ~

2012-01-12T02:51:00.006+01:00

"Fight for us, O God, that we not drift numb and blind and foolish into vain and empty excitements. Life is too short, too precious, too painful to waste on worldly bubbles that burst. Heaven is too great, hell is too horrible, eternity too long that we should putter around on the porch of eternity." John Piper

Therefore, as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. Colossians 2:6-7

Some things are never easy...

2012-01-11T17:59:00.012+01:00

Sometimes it takes a friend and a poem to get you through a hard night. While teaching English last night, my student a retired doctor, saw sadness. He pulled out a record and started playing a Spanish poem from the Spanish Civil War called, "La Nana para Cebolla". Literally, Onion Lullaby by Miguel Hernàndez.

"Perhaps Hernández's best known poem is "Nanas de cebolla" ("Onion Lullaby"), a reply in verse to a letter from his wife in which she informed him that she was surviving on bread and onions. In the poem, the poet envisions his son breastfeeding on his mother's onion blood (sangre de cebolla), and uses the child's laughter as a counterpoint to the mother's desperation. In this as in other poems, the poet turns his wife's body into a mythic symbol of desperation and hope, of regenerative power desperately needed in a broken Spain."

In the poem I heard Spain was once crying too. I saw the comfort my friend was showing me by giving me a lullaby. Thank you Paco for giving me a little bit of Spain, her once broken heart too, to acknowledge that somethings are just never easy.

La Nana para Cebolla:

The onion is frost
shut in and poor
Frost of your days
and of my nights.
Hunger and onion,
black ice and frost
large and round.

My litte boy
was in hunger's cradle
He was nursed
on onion blood
But your blood
is frosted with sugar,
onion and hunger.

A dark woman
dissolved in moonlight
pours herself thread by thread
into the cradle.
Laugh, son,
you can swallow the moon
when you want to.

Lark of my house,
keep laughing.
The laughter in your eyes
is the light of the world.
Laugh so much
that my soul, hearing you,
will beat in space.

Your laughter frees me,
gives me wings
It sweeps away my loneliness
knocks down my cell.
Mouth that flies,
heart that turns
to lightning on your lips.

America's Cup Port in Valencia, Spain

2012-01-11T13:19:00.013+01:00

The port in Valencia is like a super posh Coney Island. There are yachts, a Ferris Wheel, warm breezes, and also The America's Cup (the premier yachting race). Nearby F1 races are held adding to the glitz and glamour. This night was magical for me, Patrick came to visit me from Zurich and the walk to the port was perfect. Made me want to re-read Dreamland, by Kevin Baker all over again, that zany, delightful Coney Island book.

2012-01-11T12:43:00.005+01:00

Living in Europe I wonder what they would say if they saw this YouTube video. At times extremely funny, but mostly this video makes me want to scoop this baby girl up out of her Roll of Toilet Paper House.
Reminds me of the movie, Little Miss Sunshine. Abigail Breslin plays an adorable pageant contestant who's family roadtrip to the contest restores their bond. Really a fantastic movie where every awkward family member tries so hard...to be normal.

:) How to Fake French. Died Laughing.

2012-01-10T14:17:00.001+01:00

Israel Launches New Spy Satellite; Iran ‘Under the Microscope’

2011-07-26T06:03:00.002+02:00

CNN is reporting that the Turkish airport is restricting airspace for Israel. So Israel decided to just go "higher".

The Ofek, the Hebrew word for “horizon,” weighs about 650 pounds and orbits every 90 minutes. It is the ninth in a series of satellites that Israel has launched with a high success rate and longevity.

The latest craft, with a high resolution camera that can function at night, is the third to be functioning at the present time. One of the satellites it will join is the TecSar, which was launched from India in 2008.

Iran is part of their trajectory, and military intelligence officers have used the satellites to keep track of Iran’s activity in developing its nuclear power program.

Officials have kept secret details of the Ofek and the information that it has obtained.

Scenes from my Spain

2011-04-29T18:36:00.006+02:00

Atlas Struggled

2011-04-29T18:27:00.001+02:00

In an ironic twist, producer John Aglialoro's success in filming Atlas Shrugged is overshadowed by a lawsuit he lost with his company, Cybex.

By JOHN FUND
People have been waiting so long for Ayn Rand's 1957 novel "Atlas Shrugged" to be made into a movie that the original treatment back in the 1970s speculated on Clint Eastwood and Faye Dunaway in the starring roles.

But the 1,200-page tale of how the world's productive people launch a strike against collectivism has faced many obstacles in reaching the big screen, not least of which is its political message, which is not exactly in tune with the It-Takes-a-Village crowd that predominates in Hollywood.

That's why producer John Aglialoro feels like he's crossed a long-awaited finish line. The owner of Cybex, a gym-equipment manufacturer, he bought the rights to make the movie back in 1992 but could never put a studio deal together. With recent headlines featuring government bailouts and takeovers of companies, however, Mr. Aglialoro knew he had a vehicle that spoke to the cultural zeitgeist.

Last summer, with his rights about to expire, he assembled a largely unknown cast and a small budget of $10 million of his own money and shot the film in only 26 days. The film's TV-movie production values and the fact that it's only the first part of a planned trilogy has drawn hoots from movie critics, but Mr. Aglialoro's guerrilla marketing to tea party groups and "Atlas" fans is paying off with solid receipts at the box office. Released April 15 on only 299 screens, it was in 428 theaters this past weekend and will be in 1,000 at the end of the month.

But Mr. Aglialoro's satisfaction is accompanied by a dark cloud that is hovering over his company from what he views as "a tort system run amok." Just last Thursday, a New York judge formalized a $49.5 million jury award against Cybex in favor of Natalie Barnhard, a 30-year-old woman who was left a quadriplegic after a Cybex leg extension machine fell on her while she was using it to stretch. Ms. Barnhard was a physical therapist at the Amherst Orthopedic Clinic outside of Buffalo, N.Y., at the time. Last December the jury found Cybex 75 percent liable for the accident; the Amherst clinic 20 percent liable; and Ms. Barnhard 5 percent liable. It was the largest personal injury verdict in Western New York's history. Amherst Orthopedic's counsel indicated Cybex will have to pay the entire $66 million judgment before it can seek money from his client.

Mr. Aglialoro says what happened to the young woman is "a tragedy beyond comprehension" but that he now faces ruin because his company's insurance coverage is only $5 million, the typical award judgment in such a liability case. "We actually make our equipment in the U.S., have 600 employees and export to 85 countries," he says. "Now we face disaster as the result of a completely unfair jury award. I emotionally felt like going on strike a la Atlas Shrugged when it happened."

Cybex's lawyers pointed out that warning signs outlining proper use of the leg-extension machine were posted next to it, but an eyewitness who would have testified that Ms. Barnhard improperly used the machine to stretch and caused it to tip over was not allowed to testify. The machine's instructions recommended it be bolted down for maximum safety -- something Amherst Orthopedic had not done.

Ms. Barnhard's attorneys responded that Cybex should have warned users that only 40 pounds of horizontal force was needed to cause the machine to tip and that in the 11 years preceding Barnhard's accident, at least seven tip-over accidents had occurred in the U.S. involving Cybex machines.

The case is now on appeal, and Mr. Aglialoro is confident that the jury award will be reduced. But he says what happened to Cybex is just another reminder of how difficult it is for U.S. companies to survive and employ people. If his company's lawyers can keep its doors open, there is clearly market demand for its products. Last Friday, Cybex announced a 19% increase in sales during the first quarter of this year, and it will introduce two new treadmill models this year.

"I have the tenacity of a Dagny Taggart," says Mr. Aglialoro, referring to the flinty heroine of "Atlas Shrugged." He is already planning to go into production on Part II of the trilogy and says to look for it in theaters early next year.

from WSJ.com

I´m still laughing!

2011-03-24T12:14:00.002+01:00

Spain

2011-03-23T21:39:00.007+01:00

I'm back in Spain visiting family

Will post pics soon :)

:)

2011-03-23T20:36:00.003+01:00

Chavez says capitalism may have ended life on Mars.

Capitalism may be to blame for the lack of life on the planet Mars, Venezuela's socialist President Hugo Chavez said on Tuesday.

story here

Thanks Mike.

The British PoW who broke into Auschwitz — and survived

2011-03-21T15:51:00.003+01:00

In 1944, Denis Avey swapped identities with a Jewish prisoner in Auschwitz. Now, at 91, he reveals why he did it

Avey, born in 1919 on an Essex farm, lived a rough-and-tumble lifestyle and grew into a daredevil. “I once jumped from a branch 45ft high, just for the thrill of it,” he says. “I had a shock of red hair and a temperament to match.”

He also had an affinity for the underdog. As head boy of his school, he used his physical strength to protect the weaker boys. “If there is one thing I’ve always abhorred it is bullying,” he says. “I could dish it out back then. Legislation wouldn’t let me now.”

“Despite the danger, I knew I had to bear witness,” Avey says. “As Albert Einstein said: the world can be an evil place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing. I’ve never been one to do nothing.”

The operation was planned meticulously. Avey found a Dutch Jew with a similar physique and persuaded him to exchange places for a day. Avey knew that they marched past each other at the same time every week. “The Nazis were rigid, you see,” he says. “To them orders were orders, to be carried out exactly. That was what allowed me to find a way round them.”

The rest of the story.

Funny College Application Letter

2011-03-11T04:59:00.002+01:00

This is an actual essay written by a college applicant. The author, Hugh Gallagher, attended NYU. And this really is a picture of him.

Essay: In order for the admissions staff of our college to get to know you, the applicant, better, we ask that you answer the following question: Are there any significant experiences you have had, or accomplishments you have realized, that have helped to define you as a person?

I am a dynamic figure, often seen scaling walls and crushing ice. I have been known to remodel train stations on my lunch breaks, making them more efficient in the area of heat retention. I translate ethnic slurs for Cuban refugees, I write award-winning operas, I manage time efficiently. Occasionally, I tread water for three days in a row.

I woo women with my sensuous and godlike trombone playing, I can pilot bicycles up severe inclines with unflagging speed, and I cook Thirty-Minute Brownies in twenty minutes. I am an expert in stucco, a veteran in love, and an outlaw in Peru.

Using only a hoe and a large glass of water, I once single-handedly defended a small village in the Amazon Basin from a horde of ferocious army ants. I play bluegrass cello, I was scouted by the Mets, I am the subject of numerous documentaries. When I'm bored, I build large suspension bridges in my yard. I enjoy urban hang gliding. On Wednesdays, after school, I repair electrical appliances free of charge.

I am an abstract artist, a concrete analyst, and a ruthless bookie. Critics worldwide swoon over my original line of corduroy evening wear. I don't perspire. I am a private citizen, yet I receive fan mail. I have been caller number nine and have won the weekend passes. Last summer, I toured New Jersey with a traveling centrifugal-force demonstration. I bat .400. My deft floral arrangements have earned me fame in international botany circles. Children trust me.

I can hurl tennis rackets at small moving objects with deadly accuracy. I once read Paradise Lost, Moby Dick, and David Copperfield in one day and still had time to refurbish an entire dining room that evening. I know the exact location of every food item in the supermarket. I have performed several covert operations for the CIA. I sleep once a week; when I do sleep, I sleep in a chair. While on vacation in Canada, I successfully negotiated with a group ofterrorists who had seized a small bakery. The laws of physics do not apply to me.

I balance, I weave, I dodge, I frolic, and my bills are all paid. On weekends, to let off steam, I participate in full-contact origami. Years ago, I discovered the meaning of life but forgot to write it down. I have made extraordinary four course meals using only a mouli and a toaster oven. I breed prizewinning clams. I have won bullfights in San Juan, cliff-diving competitions in Sri Lanka, and spelling bees at the Kremlin. I have played Hamlet, I have performed open-heart surgery, and I have spoken with Elvis.

But I have not yet gone to college.

Banning Fun

2011-03-11T04:47:00.002+01:00

In an effort to preserve the country's "social fabric" Somalia has banned video game playing. This, according to Al Arabiya, was one of the last forms of entertainment left for youth.

Also banned in central and southern Somalia:
-dancing to traditional songs
-trimming beards
-playing football in shorts
-the cinema
-satellite TV

Hezb al-Islam and their insurgency comrades from the Al Qaeda-inspired Shebab group are implementing a very strict form of Sharia (Islamic law) in the areas they control.
"We used to watch movies. They were banned. Now the PlayStations we had fun with are also banned. This country is not for young people like me," said Abdirahman Hirsi, a 19-year-old from Lafole town.

So when the youth are bored, I'm sure the Hezb al-Islam will have no problems enticing the youth to join up with them for excitement under the guise of protecting the "social fabric".

NPR Muslim Brotherhood Investigation Part I

2011-03-10T01:42:00.005+01:00

From Moonbattery.com

Video Smoking Gun: NPR Loathes Normal Americans

Thanks Matthew

Fair or Foul?

2011-03-08T16:06:00.010+01:00

Inflicting payback on your political opponent's children: Fair or foul?

wnd.com

Democrats Attack Republican Candidate's Children

By Art Robinson -- Last year I ran for Congress in Oregon's 4th District against 12-term incumbent, far-left Democrat Peter DeFazio, co-founder of the House Progressive Caucus. I quickly found out that when you stand up for what's right, there's sometimes retribution to be paid...

Read the rest of the article here. My mom's comments below:

Dr. Art Robinson is the author of the homeschooling curriculum my family has been using for the past 9 years. With a heavy concentration in math and science, this unique curriculum's main objective, besides stressing academic excellence, is to teach children to become problem-solvers, to persevere, to organize their own time and resources, to become self-reliant producers and innovators, and to question everything. In a word, to THINK FOR THEMSELVES.

A scientist thinker/innovator himself, and a true libertarian, Dr. Robinson is the kind of man we should all want as a public servant. Nevertheless, Dr. Robinson was defeated last fall when he ran for Congress from Oregon. Oregonians preferred, once again, his Democratic opponent, the entrenched 12-term ultra-liberal Peter DeFazio.

After the election, the triumphant Mr. DeFazio heard that Dr. Robinson had announced his intention to run against DeFazio again in 2012. Mr. DeFazio did not like this, and is now, with the help of his cronies at Oregon State University, taking severe, unjust, strong arm action against the entire Robinson family (three of whom are gifted PhD candidates in the Nuclear Engineering Department at the university), in the hopes of intimidating Dr. Robinson into changing his mind. Just disgusting.

"Sex is the Poor Man's Opera"? Not anymore!

2011-02-18T03:08:00.132+01:00

While the kids were napping and I was enjoying a few minutes of calm babysitting yesterday, I thought I'd try and catch up with what's in the news. I admit I haven't been keeping up with politics or world news much lately. Real life has taken over.

But I had a few minutes and turned on FOX News. The anchor was discussing Italian President Silvio Berlusconi's alleged affairs, and, dismissing the likelihood that Berlusconi had actually solicited prostitutes, he made the argument that a man as powerful as Berlusconi would not need to pay young women to keep him company.

He argued that any affairs Berlusconi may have engaged in must surely have been for romantic reasons only. A man like Berlusconi, he said, with his money, fame, and charisma, would have women flocking to him and would have his choice of willing companions to choose from.

While all that may be true, I can certainly imagine a scenario in which a rich, powerful politician might pay for sex that he could easily have received for free.

What one pays for, one can control. And control is the food of the politician.

Similarly, bought sex is no longer lovemaking intended for each other's pleasure; it's a business deal. And business deals are the drink of the politician.

When sex is a commodity, his pleasure comes from what he bought and paid for; her pleasure comes from the cash. He is under no obligation to provide any further pleasure than meeting her price. It's a shrewd move: no feelings, no promises, no complications.

Powerful men do not like complications.

One of the best moments in Super Bowl History

2011-02-16T16:36:00.001+01:00

WHEN PARENTS TEXT

2011-01-29T03:27:00.002+01:00

-small keypad, old hands-

I'm crying these are so funny.

whenparentstext.com

Why work doesn't happen at work

2011-01-29T03:00:00.004+01:00

Jason Fried

via Ludwig von Mises Institute

Vintage Media Scare

2011-01-25T18:07:00.015+01:00

"In those early days after its involuntary entry into the war,(America's) panic must have been a palpable feature of the nation's mood. While it mobilised for the best, America feared for the worst. In its March 2, 1942 issue, Life magazine distilled that national anxiety into six maps, each portraying a different scenario for Axis invasion."

"Maybe it's the benefit of hindsight, but each of these scenarios now looks highly improbable, and more reflective of the acute necessity, for the benefit of the war effort, to transform American angst into American anger. The Japanese taking the Galapagos Archipelago, establishing air bases in Ecuador? Really? A Nazi armada taking New Orleans and trundling up north through the Mississippi valley? Really? A fifth column, supposedly composed of German-Americans and/or Japanese-Americans, aiding the enemy? Really?"

more maps here: Strange Maps

Я Ξ √ Ω L U T ↑ ☼ N

2011-01-25T17:57:00.001+01:00

Something my mom wanted me to watch and think about.

In Defense of Inflamed Rhetoric

2011-01-10T21:53:00.010+01:00

I have never recommended a Slate article before, but this has to be one of the best opinion pieces I've read -- no, THE best -- on the shooting in AZ and the subsequent blaming for it, by the MSM and others, of "vitriolic" and "heated" speech on the right (the left gets a pass), and the call to "tone it down". Libertarian Jack Shafer's having none of it. Well written, and well, well said.

In Defense of Inflamed Rhetoric
The awesome stupidity of the calls to tamp down political speech in the wake of the Giffords shooting.
slate.com

Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik

The attempted assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., and the killing of six innocents outside a Tucson Safeway has bolstered the ongoing argument that when speaking of things political, we should all avoid using inflammatory rhetoric and violent imagery.

"Shooting Throws Spotlight on State of U.S. Political Rhetoric," reports CNN. "Bloodshed Puts New Focus on Vitriol in Politics," states the New York Times. Keith Olbermann clocked overtime on Saturday to deliver a commentary subtitled "The political rhetoric of the country must be changed to prevent acts of domestic terrorism." The home page of the Washington Post offered this headline to its story about the shooting: "Rampage Casts Grim Light on U.S. Political Discord."

The lead spokesman for the anti-inflammatory movement, however, was Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, whose jurisdiction includes Tucson. Said Dupnik at a Jan. 8 press conference in answer to questions about the criminal investigation:

I'd just like to say that when you look at unbalanced people, how they are—how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths, about tearing down the government, the anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous. And unfortunately, Arizona, I think, has become sort of the capital. We have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry.

Embedded in Sheriff Dupnik's ad hoc wisdom were several assumptions. First, that strident, anti-government political views can be easily categorized as vitriolic, bigoted, and prejudicial. Second, that those voicing strident political views are guilty of issuing Manchurian Candidate-style instructions to commit murder and mayhem to the "unbalanced." Third, that the Tucson shooter was inspired to kill by political debate or by Sarah Palin's "target" map or other inflammatory outbursts. Fourth, that we should calibrate our political speech in such a manner that we do not awaken the Manchurian candidates among us.

And, fifth, that it's a cop's role to set the proper dimensions of our political debate. Hey, Dupnik, if you've got spare time on your hands, go write somebody a ticket.

Sheriff Dupnik's political sermon came before any conclusive or even circumstantial proof had been offered that the shooter had been incited by anything except the gas music from Jupiter playing inside his head.

For as long as I've been alive, crosshairs and bull's-eyes have been an accepted part of the graphical lexicon when it comes to political debates. Such "inflammatory" words as targeting, attacking, destroying, blasting, crushing, burying, knee-capping, and others have similarly guided political thought and action. Not once have the use of these images or words tempted me or anybody else I know to kill. I've listened to, read—and even written!—vicious attacks on government without reaching for my gun. I've even gotten angry, for goodness' sake, without coming close to assassinating a politician or a judge.

From what I can tell, I'm not an outlier. Only the tiniest handful of people—most of whom are already behind bars, in psychiatric institutions, or on psycho-meds—can be driven to kill by political whispers or shouts. Asking us to forever hold our tongues lest we awake their deeper demons infantilizes and neuters us and makes politicians no safer.

The call by Sheriff Dupnik and others to take our political conversation down a few notches might make sense if anybody had been calling for the assassination in the first place, which they hadn't. And if they had, there are effective laws to prosecute those who move language outside of the metaphorical. I can't be overly critical of the sheriff. After all, he's the one who has spent his career witnessing how threats can turn into violence: gang wars, contract killings, neighborhood rows, domestic disputes, bar arguments, and all the rest.

The great miracle of American politics is that although it can tend toward the cutthroat and thuggish, it is almost devoid of genuine violence outside of a few scuffles and busted lips now and again. With the exception of Saturday's slaughter, I'd wager that in the last 30 years there have been more acts of physical violence in the stands at Philadelphia Eagles home games than in American politics.

Any call to cool "inflammatory" speech is a call to police all speech, and I can't think of anybody in government, politics, business, or the press that I would trust with that power. As Jonathan Rauch wrote brilliantly in Harper's in 1995, "The vocabulary of hate is potentially as rich as your dictionary, and all you do by banning language used by cretins is to let them decide what the rest of us may say." Rauch added, "Trap the racists and anti-Semites, and you lay a trap for me too. Hunt for them with eradication in your mind, and you have brought dissent itself within your sights."

Our spirited political discourse, complete with name-calling, vilification—and, yes, violent imagery—is a good thing. Better that angry people unload their fury in public than let it fester and turn septic in private. The wicked direction the American debate often takes is not a sign of danger but of freedom. And I'll punch out the lights of anybody who tries to take it away from me.

posted by SB

Winter in Spain

2011-01-02T21:25:00.021+01:00

I'm posting some pictures of my life in Spain.

With my step-mom Teresa

My Christmas Day view. A yard of oranges, dates, olives, almonds, pomegranates

My dad, Spanish to the core.

This is Europe!

My friend from the US came over for some paella.

What Economic Crisis in Spain?

This is my Uncle Juan with some delicious Jamón serrano .

Friedrich Hayek's 'The Road to Serfdom' in 5 Minutes

2011-01-02T21:23:00.002+01:00

"Short series of cartoons and text summing up the message of Friedrich Hayek's classic book 'The Road to Serfdom' - that socialism and economic planning unwittingly yet inevitably lead to…"

Where's Waldo?

2010-12-27T22:33:00.006+01:00

Try and find the artist in this picture. Amazing.

“The situation for artists in China is very difficult and the forced removal of the artist’s studio is in fact my direct inspiration of this series of photographs, Hiding In The City…I am standing, but there is a silent protest, the protest against the environment for the survival, the protest against the state.”

See more here.

circuit diagram

2010-12-27T21:44:00.001+01:00

Masterpiece of Animation: Hedgehog in the Fog

2010-12-25T22:06:00.007+01:00

Classic Russian animated short film from 1975. Based on a story by Sergei Kozlov, directed by Yuri Norstein.

In 2003 "Hedgehog in the Fog" won the "№1 Animated film of all the time" at "All time animation best 150 in Japan and Worldwide" contest in Tokyo, Japan.

Or, you can teach your kids to enjoy lovely EURO-TRASH TECHNO music. Thanks Nick Jr.!

I'm in Love with Friedrich Hayek

2010-12-20T15:49:00.005+01:00

(sadly she does a better cartwheel than me!)

sketches

2010-12-15T13:34:00.010+01:00

From xkcd: A Webcomic of Romance, Sarcasm, Math and Language.
and Arutz Sheva: Israel National News

Assange's Dating Profile Leaked on Wax-Lips

2010-12-14T14:47:00.007+01:00

Assange's OKCupid profile: You're not good enough
Full article on NBC.com

Gap Yah (Gap Year)

2010-12-13T13:40:00.008+01:00

Top UK YouTube Comedy Video of the Year

Posh twit Orlando calls his friend on his "Gap Yah".

Gap Yah 2

Top YouTube video of 2010. (I'll first post the Story of Antoine Dodson, then the music video.)

Third watched video on YouTube. Grayson Chance sings at his 6th grade Festival.

Dec. 7, 1941

2010-12-07T16:01:00.002+01:00

The Greatest Generation

Another Goal for Islam

2010-12-05T19:48:00.006+01:00

Qataris and foreigners residing in Doha celebrate in the Qatari capital

Extremists are ablaze with the news Qatar will hold the 2022 FIFA Championship. They have been posting some real "celebratory" comments on forums.

-"You fools, know that Al-Qaeda is on the threshold of establishing the shariah (Islamic law) of Allah the Almighty," a user who went by the name Hafeed posted on al-Hussein al-Islam Shumukh the online forum, according to the US-based, SITE Intelligence Group.

-"By 2022, Qatar will not exist with permission from Allah. Instead, there will be the Islamic State of Qatar under the Islamic Caliphate ESTABLISHED by Sheikh Osama bin Laden in 2017," al-Irhabi Juleibib wrote.

-"We will win the cup and medals, and we will seize some heads of the cross and apostates. maybe there will be captives," the post added.

-Another Khubeib Abu al-Khorasani said, 2022 will be the "most exciting" World Cup final, predicting Portuguese player Cristiano Ronaldo would be kidnapped and Al-Qaeda Would win the tournament.

Maybe Ronaldo will have retired by then.

AFP

Hmm...

2010-11-25T20:52:00.005+01:00

It's kinda like looking at a Constellation

"Detailed analysis of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel frescoes reveals a secret that’s been hidden for 500 years: an image of the human brainstem in a panel showing God at the beginning of Creation, according to an article in the May issue of Neurosurgery, official journal of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons."

more here

:0)

2010-11-24T11:11:00.017+01:00

I guess we're going into the dark abyss.

Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends

Is this what Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu really thinks?

Bashar al-Assad, President of Syria, Opthamologist, and now farmer

One of these things is not like the others,
One of these things just doesn't belong,
Can you tell which thing is not like the others
By the time I finish my song?

The Jack I Knew: A Tribute to C.S. Lewis by his step-son

2010-11-24T04:30:00.007+01:00

The Jack I Knew

By Douglas Gresham

There have been books (many books, of which I have perpetrated two), plays, movies and even songs written about my late stepfather, CS Lewis. They vary between good, bad, and ugly, most of them written by people who either barely knew him or never knew him at all. They can tell you (with varying degrees of inaccuracy) what he was, where he was, when he was, and what he did, but almost none of them are able to tell you who he was.

While he was alive, I never knew “CS Lewis”, the name on the spines of the books, for the living, breathing, delightfully talking man who filled my young life with his presence was “Jack”. My first encounter with him was extra-ordinary. I was an eight-year-old American schoolboy, “straight off the boat”, brought to Oxford a short while after arriving in this strange land of England, where the people dressed so oddly, spoke so oddly, and ate strange and unlikely foods. I was being taken to meet the man who, as far as I was concerned, actually knew High King Peter of Narnia and the great lion Aslan; a man who, for all I knew, might be a member of King Arthur’s court. I almost expected a tall, stalwart figure in armour, carrying a broadsword, but the reality was very different. In the kitchen of his house, The Kilns, we were greeted by a slightly stooped, balding, round-shouldered being with long nicotine-stained fingers and teeth, dressed in the shabbiest clothes I had ever seen. This was no knight, this was a don. An Oxford don at the time.

Despite my initial dismay, Jack soon emerged from someone I knew only as CS Lewis to becoming a real figure in my life. I lost an illusion, gained a friend, and later a much-loved stepfather.

Within a short time Jack, “Warnie” (Jack’s brother Major Warren H Lewis), and I were sawing up a heap of branches into firewood. Jack and Warnie, though academics both, were not above putting their hands to such menial tasks. Jack showed me the woods and the lake behind The Kilns, and taught me to look for fauns and dryads among the glowing sycamores and shimmering beeches. I learned a respect for plants, such as the giant horsetails in the marsh above the lake; I learned a love of fields, forests and animals; I learned a delight in weather, from roaring winds to calm stillness, from pouring rain to bright sunshine. All have their place in my heart, and this I learned from Jack.

Jack taught me to read too. I don’t mean to read as one learns in primary school, but to read for the love of reading and learning, for all the world’s wisdom is to be found in books. Jack taught me that. The house was full of books, and none was barred to me.

At first, I lived in London and visited The Kilns infrequently, but within a brief time we had moved to Headington a mile or so away, and Jack made it clear that I was a welcome guest. Some of the myths about Jack, and there are many, have come from his own pen. “Not good with children,” he said of himself, and yet I rarely met a man who was better with children. I think perhaps he meant that he was never at ease with them, but then we are not meant to be entirely at ease with children other than our own. A misogynist some have libelously labeled him, and yet I never knew a man so considerate of women, nor one more charming and entertaining in their company.

I think that in today’s sad and dark world, many people will have difficulty in believing in the real Jack. He was a man who had grown up with the thinking of the 19th century. He believed in honesty, personal responsibility, commitment, duty, courtesy, courage, chivalry and all those great qualities that society in its wisdom dispensed within the 20th century on the grounds that they were somehow outdated, and now needs so desperately to recall and recover. Jack also had come to understand a great deal about humanity and the nature of the species. He was no stranger to suffering: he lost his own mother at the age of nine, and experienced the horrors of one school that was Dickensian to say the least, and others of varying degrees of worth. Jack had fought in the First World War, and lived through the second one, losing friends and colleagues in both. He lived out his eve-of-battle commitment to fellow soldier Paddy Moore, taking care of that man’s family for more than 30 years. Jack had learned to love and to lose, and had suffered the agonies of both. No one could have blamed him had he closed himself off and become (as he is often depicted) an isolated scholar surrounded by cloisters. Instead, released from his burden of caring for Mrs. Moore after her death, he plunged once more into love and pain by marrying my mother, who was already dying at the time. He faced the pain of loving one whom he knew was unlikely to be with him very long, and also took on the responsibility for her sons, my brother and myself. Not an easy task under the best of circumstances, but under those with which he was faced, a task for a veritable hero.

My mother was an American, and had come to the truth of Christ through reading Jack’s Mere Christianity and his other works. She had written to him with her questions, for all highly intelligent people had questions. And she was delighted when he dealt with her questions and objections in masterful and economic style, and a lively correspondence soon grew up. Mother visited England in 1952, and she, Jack, and Warnie were soon fast friends. Mother was intellectually Jack’s equal, the only one I have ever met, and Jack was delighted when, as they debated and sparred, she would correct him in some minor error of quotation or detail. Mother was slightly more widely read than Jack, for she had read what he had read but also the more modern American writers. She also had travelled further, having been to America and returned to England with her progeny in 1953 when her marriage to my father ended. Jack and she married at her deathbed but the hand of God intervened and she rallied, going into a remission of several years, when they had the happiest years of their lives. It was during this time that the physical courage they both possessed was made evident to me. We were walking up the hill into the woods, my mother carrying her little “garden gun”, which she used to scare pigeons off our vegetables and trespassers out of our woods, when the two of them, some distance ahead of me, were accosted by a young man with a bow and a quiver of arrows. “Excuse me,” said Jack politely, “this is private land and you really shouldn’t be here. Would you please leave?” The young man’s response was to nock an arrow to the string and draw the bow, pointing it at them. Jack stepped in front of my mother to shield her, and stood there for a few seconds until he heard her say, in tones of chilled steel: “God damn it, Jack, get out of my line of fire!” Whereupon Jack stepped swiftly sideways, leaving the young man staring down the barrel of a gun. He took off rapidly. They were brave, and Jack thereafter needed to be, for Mother went on before him, leaving him alone to deal with her absence.

In The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Aslan tells Lucy and Edmund, “This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better [in your world].” Now that some of CS Lewis’ stories have moved into the medium of film (including the upcoming Voyage of the Dawn Treader), he continues to become better known throughout the world, greatly accelerating a trend that has been slowly happening over the 40 years since his death. Like all great men, CS Lewis left behind a legacy; one that will live on in the stories he has written.

Was CS Lewis a great scholar? Undoubtedly. Was he a great writer? No honest scholar today can doubt that for a moment. Was CS Lewis a great teacher? That, I think, is also unquestionable: he taught at Oxford and Cambridge universities, and teaches on today through his books. Was he a great theologian? Many of today’s finest Christian scholars strongly believe so. Although he would never have laid claim to any of those titles, nor perhaps even have accepted them from others, he was all of those things and a great deal more besides.

You see, while CS Lewis was a great scholar, a great writer (in many genres), a great teacher and a great theologian, Jack was a great man.

From NarniaFaith.com

It's not a grope. It's a freedom pat.

2010-11-23T22:59:00.001+01:00

Quantitative Easing Explained

2010-11-15T06:47:00.007+01:00

via Ludwig von Mises Institute

Big Bottle

2010-11-12T14:10:00.054+01:00

Well friends, it's getting to be about that time for me. Time to get serious about my life. Is it time to go back to school? No, not really. Is it time to buy a house and put some roots down? Not there yet either. Ok, so not quite that serious! I mean time to go back to Spain and end this 5 month Stateside vaycay.

And do you know one odd thing I'll miss the most about being here in the states? The calm, drunkard-free sidewalks. Huh? Yeah...refined, sophisticated Europe has a little secret...there are drunk kids everywhere! Especially in Spain and especially in the city and beaches of Valencia. And most especially in the spaces around me wherever I happen to be: sidewalks, beach paseos, plazas... Actually, getting drunk out in the streets is so common it has a name Botellón, Big Bottle. In Granada, as well, over 15, 000 people came out for Botellon one Friday. It ended up costing the good citizens of the city 34,000 Euros to clean up the mess. This really is a serious problem. And after the Botellon, there’s always Balconing -- kids get drunk, and jump off balconies. So why do kids -- and I mean THOUSANDS of them – flock to the streets each night and act this way? I don’t know for sure, but I've been thinking about why it might be.

1. Modern family life. The culture of Spain used to be to have family time at the table. Being Catholic meant there was time "to enjoy the gifts of wheat, oil, and wine". To feast on these gifts was common every Sunday, when there would be a family feast, followed by a rest. This way, at least once a week children were at the table, learning the art of conversation, learning to drink a bit of wine with a meal and not abuse it, and learning the joys of communal, multi-generational happiness. How beautiful. With the loss of Catholicism (as has been happening with the secularization of Europe from north to south) came the loss of celebrating baptisms, First Communions, and weddings, as well as the holidays, with a big family meal. A meal that had socializing benefits.

2. Cheap booze. Ad copy that must be on the travel posters throughout the rest of Europe: "Want cheap beer? Come to Spain!" The alcohol in Spain is so cheap, thousands of tourists come to Spain on school break specifically to binge drink and get trashed. The streets are full of these kids who are left free to do wild stunts, make Botellon, and roam wild. I know, because some of these students are my acquaintances. I met them in Spanish class over the summer. They convinced their parents to pay for them to go to Spain under the guise of learning Spanish. But what I saw happening all too often, is the kids get wasted every night and don't show up for class. If they do, they’re mostly so hung-over they leave early.
See the full article:
Shame in Spain! British student hordes cause outrage on five-day drink rampage through resort

3. The Spanish mindset of babying young adults who should be acting like adults. Because the economy is so bad in Spain, out off necessity young adults still live at home. Many of them either have some sort of part-time job or collect long-term generous unemployment checks, so they also have some spending money to blow. And what do these young adults like to blow it on? Well, with responsibilities taken care of by mom and dad, it all goes to drinks at the clubs. There are “early morning” clubs that open at 5 am for the people who still want to party after the real clubs close. And then there “late morning” clubs that open at 9am for the people who STILL want to club. All this morning and night partying is easy to do when you don't have to pay rent or raise a family.
4. Socialism. Where to start? How about with how dependency on the government stifles the drive to work hard. Or to work at all. For those unemployed, this leads to the situation of no external “push”, no hard work, no motivation, no feeling productive. What’s left? Despair, depression, hopelessness. Who needs to work to support the kids? Let the state do it! It's very convenient to stay out late when you don't need to go into work. And for those who do have work, there’s the opposite reaction: why worry about anything? Get to bed at a reasonable hour so I’ll be refreshed and ready to work to support my family in the morning? Let the state do it! I’ll just kick back and spend the time getting drunk. My kids’ll eat one way or the other.

I take hope in the story of the prodigal son, where, in the end, old and young embrace and share a family feast, and the son finds himself begging for the opportunity to do some old fashioned hard work. I'd like to see Spain come home like that.

Here's a link to a slideshow that better shows the problem of the macro-Botellon.

Thank you on Veteran's Day

2010-11-11T18:54:00.010+01:00

Thank you to my Gramps Jerry, my Uncle/Tio Jorge, and my brother David for their service.

My Boy Jack
Rudyard Kipling

“Have you news of my boy Jack?”
Not this tide.
“When d’you think that he’ll come back?”
Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.

“Has any one else had word of him?”
Not this tide.
For what is sunk will hardly swim,
Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.

“Oh, dear, what comfort can I find?”
None this tide,
Nor any tide,
Except he did not shame his kind —
Not even with that wind blowing, and that tide.

Then hold your head up all the more,
This tide,
And every tide;
Because he was the son you bore,
And gave to that wind blowing and that tide!

"My Boy Jack is a 1915 poem by Rudyard Kipling. Kipling wrote it after his beloved son, John (called Jack) went missing in the Battle of Loos, during World War I."

Acts 17 Apologetics

2010-11-11T05:26:00.003+01:00

2010-11-09T05:38:00.010+01:00

A recoil against liberalism

My mom thinks Mr. Will outdid himself with this article in The Washington Post. I think she's right on.

News from Around Europe

2010-11-09T04:33:00.034+01:00

Catch up with what's going on across the pond.

Poland

Spain

Switzerland

Germany

France

Denmark

England

Is it November 2nd Yet?

2010-11-01T22:31:00.006+01:00

From Iowahawk

Thanks Mom!

2010-10-22T00:02:00.011+02:00

from WSJ

Stop Bashing Business, Mr. President

If we tried to start The Home Depot today, it's a stone cold certainty that it would never have gotten off the ground.

By KEN LANGONE
Although I was glad that you answered a question of mine at the Sept. 20 town-hall meeting you hosted in Washington, D.C., Mr. President, I must say that the event seemed more like a lecture than a dialogue. For more than two years the country has listened to your sharp rhetoric about how American businesses are short-changing workers, fleecing customers, cheating borrowers, and generally "driving the economy into a ditch," to borrow your oft-repeated phrase.

My question to you was why, during a time when investment and dynamism are so critical to our country, was it necessary to vilify the very people who deliver that growth? Instead of offering a straight answer, you informed me that I was part of a "reckless" group that had made "bad decisions" and now required your guidance, if only I'd stop "resisting" it.

I'm sure that kind of argument draws cheers from the partisan faithful. But to my ears it sounded patronizing. Of course, one of the chief conceits of centralized economic planning is that the planners know better than everybody else.

But there's a much deeper problem than whether I am personally irked or not. Your insistence that your policies are necessary and beneficial to business is utterly at odds with what you and your administration are saying elsewhere. You pick a fight with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, accusing it of using foreign money to influence congressional elections, something the chamber adamantly denies. Your U.S. attorney in New York, Preet Bahrara, compares investment firms to Mexican drug cartels and says he wants the power to wiretap Wall Street when he sees fit. And you drew guffaws of approving laughter with your car-wreck metaphor, recently telling a crowd that those who differ with your approach are "standing up on the road, sipping a Slurpee" while you are "shoving" and "sweating" to fix the broken-down jalopy of state.

That short-sighted wavering—between condescending encouragement one day and hostile disparagement the next—creates uncertainty that, as any investor could tell you, causes economic paralysis. That's because no one can tell what to expect next.

A little more than 30 years ago, Bernie Marcus, Arthur Blank, Pat Farrah and I got together and founded The Home Depot. Our dream was to create (memo to DNC activists: that's build, not take or coerce) a new kind of home-improvement center catering to do-it-yourselfers. The concept was to have a wide assortment, a high level of service, and the lowest pricing possible.

We opened the front door in 1979, also a time of severe economic slowdown. Yet today, Home Depot is staffed by more than 325,000 dedicated, well-trained, and highly motivated people offering outstanding service and knowledge to millions of consumers.

If we tried to start Home Depot today, under the kind of onerous regulatory controls that you have advocated, it's a stone cold certainty that our business would never get off the ground, much less thrive. Rules against providing stock options would have prevented us from incentivizing worthy employees in the start-up phase—never mind the incredibly high cost of regulatory compliance overall and mandatory health insurance. Still worse are the ever-rapacious trial lawyers.

Meantime, you seem obsessed with repealing tax cuts for "millionaires and billionaires." Contrary to what you might assume, I didn't start with any advantages and neither did most of the successful people I know. I am the grandson of immigrants who came to this country seeking basic economic and personal liberty. My parents worked tirelessly to build on that opportunity. My first job was as a day laborer on the construction of the Long Island Expressway more than 50 years ago. The wealth that was created by my investments wasn't put into a giant swimming pool as so many elected demagogues seem to imagine. Instead it benefitted our employees, their families and our community at large.

I stand behind no one in my enthusiasm and dedication to improving our society and especially our health care. It's worth adding that it makes little sense to send Treasury checks to high net-worth people in the form of Social Security. That includes you, me and scores of members of Congress. Why not cut through that red tape, Mr. President, and apply a basic means test to that program? Just make sure that money actually reduces federal spending and isn't simply shifted elsewhere. I guarantee you that many millionaires and billionaires will gladly forego it—as my wife and I already do when we forward those checks each month to charity.

It's not too late to include the voices of experienced business people in your efforts, small business owners in particular. Americans would be right to wonder why you haven't already.

Mr. Langone, a former director of the New York Stock Exchange and co-founder of Home Depot, is chairman of Invemed Associate

Thanks to my brother David.

For the Ayn Rand Fans

2010-10-19T03:29:00.010+02:00

Did you know? Mozart Was a Red!

Murray N. Rothbard (1926–1995) who wrote the play, was an economist, economic historian, and libertarian political philosopher, and one of the first and best known propounders of what's called the "Austrian School of Economics".

Ayn (she pronounced her name as if it were written with a long i, but the students performing the play above call her "Ann") Rand (1905-1982) was a Russian-American novelist (Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead), and political philosopher who originated the rationalist-libertarian political theory of "Objectivism".

For full script of this humorous one-act play click the picture of Mozart.

Halal Cat Food?

2010-10-17T21:59:00.008+02:00

Good marketing strategy. Somebody in the UK is going to make a mint with this idea.

Cartographers Joke

2010-10-13T23:56:00.023+02:00

The Great European Shouting Match
by Frank Jacobs

Europe as seen by the Germans

Europe as seen by the Italians

Europe as seen by the Bulgarians

Europe as seen by the French

Europe as seen by the British

Europe as seen by the Americans

And the Wax-Lips Academy Award goes to...

2010-10-06T03:37:00.015+02:00

..."The Norton Project"
Category: Best Tear Jerker Bike Movie 2010

(15 minutes, stick around to the end)

El negocio es El Negocio.

2010-09-25T19:07:00.003+02:00

Think the Mosque near Ground Zero isn't political?

Business is Business

"Now you can put batteries in Zaragoza because this is going to be fat, we're not talking about a simple mosque where they pray and teach the Qur'an. It is a large Islamic center in a crowded neighborhood in the city located in an area with potential for growth. The consequences will be disastrous.

Islam is advancing unstoppable throughout Spain. The latest news reaching us from the Muslim community in Zaragoza, which is negotiating for several months, the acquisition of Lestonnac school. The Society of Mary, the owner of the school, which sold for three million euros to build facilities in a mosque. Business is business.

"Seven months ago we are in negotiations with the Society of Mary to buy the school," recognized the Imam Fawaz Nahhas (President of the Islamic Community of Zaragoza).

Nahhas said that the idea is to target the Muslim college community to house Lestonnac Islamic cultural center and other facilities, [we] will have a mosque.

"This is a project that will benefit not only Muslims but the entire city of Zaragoza and Aragon as a whole," said the imam.

The Muslim community representative explained that the construction of an Islamic cultural center "in a large and visible [area] ", is a consequence of the rapid growth of the Muslim community in Zaragoza.

"When we opened the first mosque, a few years ago, we were 1,500 in Zaragoza, and now we are 22,000," said the imam. Among them, he said, include many immigrants and Aragon who profess the Muslim religion. "However, many Muslims believe that Aragon is our land and the cultural center is a way of showing it."

La Yijad en Eurabia

This from Georgia

2010-09-25T18:58:00.002+02:00

Thanks to my buddy Chris!

Mind Control

2010-09-24T11:22:00.000+02:00

I just heard a story Sunday on NPR that chilled me. I'll try and re-tell it in the style of Paul Harvey's "The Rest of the Story".

In 1943, the OSS, Office of Strategic Services, a precursor to the CIA, wanted to psychologically analyze Hitler. They hired Dr. Henry A. Murray, pre-war Director of the Harvard Psychological Clinic to head the project. He used every analysis resource he could to predict the actions of Hitler and the response of the German people. Cornell Law Library says, "From these resources and his "needs theory" of personality, Dr. Murray created a psychological profile that correctly predicted the Nazi leader's suicide in the face of Germany's defeat."

Dr. Murray was a brilliant analyst. During World War II, his testing techniques on human subjects were also used on some high level pilots. Only those who survived the ordeal still psychologically intact were allowed to fly certain missions.

Then, post-war, in 1953, Dr. Murray's psychoanalysis expertise was needed again. This time he was to be paired with a chemist, Sidney Gottlieb, under the direction of Allen Dulles, the head of the CIA. Murray and Gottlieb would work together to come up with a better understanding of mind-control and how governments might put mind-control to use. Called MKULTRA, the project was "...largely in response to alleged Soviet, Chinese, and North Korean use of mind-control techniques on U.S. prisoners of war in Korea. The CIA wanted to use similar methods on their own captives. The CIA was also interested in being able to manipulate foreign leaders with such techniques, and would later invent several schemes to drug Fidel Castro." (Wkipedia)

Project MKULTRA involved many intense techniques, including the use of LSD and other chemicals, verbal and sexual abuse, and other mind-altering techniques. What Gottlieb and Murray came up with, in the end, were new ways to destroy people.

When the project was finished, Dr. Murray took his very effective MKULTRA methods back to Harvard for further testing -- this time on his unsuspecting students. The first step was to ask the students in his class to write a journal about their childhood and their hopes and dreams, and to describe their accomplishments through life, as well as their failures. Then he asked them to write a little about their adult fantasies. Finally, he collected the journals, and the real nightmare began.

The students were told that they would be paired up with someone to discuss the notes they had written in their journals. Then, systematically, over the course of several years, the "volunteer" students were regularly put in a dark room with a light shining down in their faces, where they did not actually discuss their journals with a peer, but with an unknown man, who, unbeknownst to the students, used Project MKULTRA techniques on them. The goal, just as it was in the military tests, was to psychologically break each student subject, and ultimately control his mind.

Everything the students had written in their journals was dissected, piece by piece, and used to psychologically torture the students. They were hooked up to heart monitors and had "test" after "test" done on them. It was all filmed. More than a few of them broke.

Each student in the experiment was given a code name. One of these students, a bright young math prodigy only sixteen years old, was given the code name "Lawful": he seemed like the kind of kid who followed the rules and would never get into trouble. He was a loner at Harvard, and a brilliant mathematician. In his journal, "Lawful" had written that he just wanted to be left alone, and that his dream was to someday live in a cabin somewhere out West. But, like all the others', his journal entries were used against him, and, being young and not psychologically strong,"Lawful" was one of the ones who broke. He was ridiculed about what he had written in his journal, for "not being a man", for his still child-like whiskers, ... Records show that "Lawful's" heart rate was often three times higher than the others going through the exams. He did not survive this stress-testing psychologically intact.

But "Lawful" did go on to graduate Harvard, as well as earn a PhD in Mathematics from the University of Michigan. He was made Assistant Professor of Mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley at age 25, although he resigned his post two years later, to live out his dream of living alone in a cabin out West, writing papers on "the erosion of human freedom necessitated by modern technologies requiring large-scale organization" (Wikipedia). Eventually he decided action needed to be taken to draw attention to these problems, giving rise to a second moniker, the one we know him by today.

This brilliant, broken man, is.....

Ted Kaczynski, The Unabomber.

For another story like this on Wax-Lips, read here.

Tevye and his daughters won't fiddle to this:

2010-09-23T21:03:00.010+02:00

Yisrael Beiteinu Attacks Bill Clinton for Racist Remark
Sept. 22, 2010

Yisrael Beitenu responded to the claims of former United States President Bill Clinton, who said that Russian immigrants to Israel are "a major obstacle to peace" with the American-backed Palestinian Authority. "Clinton's words show he does not know the great contribution the Russian and former USSR aliyah (immigration wave) made to the State of Israel." the party said in a notice issued Wednesday.

"Russian immigrants, like all Israeli citizens, yearn for real peace based on recognition of Israel's right to exist as the nation-state of the Jewish people," the party said. "Unfortunately, it seems Clinton has forgotten that it was in fact [then-PA leader Yassir] Arafat who refused his far-reaching proposal which would have demanded insupportable concessions from Israel."

"El Morro" Fort in San Juan, Puerto Rico

2010-09-22T16:50:00.000+02:00

I used to live in Puerto Rico. Way back when the band Menudo was cool, and nobody would hassle you when you went in at 6 years old to buy a 6-pack for your parents. Luckily, I still have family there and visit often. Menudo is long forgotten -- Ricky Martin and Robi "Draco" Rosa notwithstanding -- and 18 year olds now get carded, but some things never change.

For example, El Morro, a 16th-century citadel located in San Juan is still there, keeping vigil over the harbor. I was in Puerto Rico two weeks ago visiting family, and took a few shots of this beautiful monument where my brother and I flew kites and imagined pirates and cannons, and I thought I'd share them with you. I spent the day there with my cousin Veronica, her husband Pepin, and my sister Annie.

My Brother Got Married!

2010-09-18T06:25:00.007+02:00

David married Rebekah. He couldn't have found a more loving, talented, smart, or kind woman. I'm so lucky to have her as my new sister. (But I knew all along it would work out -that's why I set them up!) I'm happy to have been able to come home from Spain and help them celebrate the big day. I raise my glass to them and wish them years of happines :)

Wedding Picture

Engagement Picture

Salt: More than a Condiment

2010-09-16T05:36:00.005+02:00

Yesterday, Drudge featured an LA Times article, by Andrew Malcolm, covering the speech Mrs. Obama made concerning the intake of salt. You can read the article, and Mrs. Obama's comments about our nation's restaurants and families here.

While I agree that a large amount of sodium is a health risk, I'd prefer to get these warnings from my doctor, not my First Lady. When I hear my government chide me for eating fries with my burger, and not the more healthy and crunchy apple slices, I start half-wondering if this isn't just another clever Liberal guise to get rid of a piece of "Americana" -- the classic, all-American, "Burger and Fries".

It's funny, because in Mark Kurlansky's best-selling book, Salt, we learn about the importance of salt -- the only rock we eat -- throughout history. Not only have wars been fought over access to salt, and Roman soldiers been paid in salt because of its value (the origin of our word salary), but Andrew MacFarland, in reviewing Kurlansky's book, says it "draws our attention to the unrecognised ways in which salt has crystallised into our language. Salad is so named because the Romans liked to salt their vegetables. Salacious is from the Latin salax, meaning a man in love: literally, 'in the salted state'."

Demand for salt is an important reason why there were trade routes; salted fish is what allowed explorers to travel further; and salt allows us to domesticate animals. Even here in the USA, a tax on salt helped pay for the building of the Erie Canal. In India, Gandhi used a salt strike in the overthrow of the British.

Salt also has important religious symbolisms. Ask a Rabbi about the importance of Kosher Salt! Christians, on the other hand, might tell you that, "Salt is a symbol of wisdom and knowledge," and that "it is traditional etiquette to offer bread and salt to visitors." In Islam, it is recommended that one eat salt before and after a meal.

The Salt Institute has published much on the importance of salt from a scientific standpoint. Interestingly, according to the Institute, "Our blood has the same chemical balance of sodium, potassium and calcium found in the oceans."

In her anti-salt crusade, Mrs. Obama faces a formidable foe. One that has stood the test of time over the last few thousand years. Is she really ready to take it on?

Cartoons

2010-09-15T20:30:00.003+02:00

Arutz Sheva

Victory Mosque

2010-09-04T03:20:00.001+02:00

Some say (and I agree with them) that the proposed mosque at Ground Zero is actually a "trophy mosque". Where would such an idea have come from? Well, mostly from history. "Trophy mosques", historically, have been those mosques strategically and purposefully built to symbolize Muslim victory of some sort over the enemies of Islam on that very spot of real estate.

Example after example can be found all over the world of Muslim-captured or confiscated churches, synagogues, and other places of worship razed to the ground in order to accommodate the construction of a mosque on the same site (read about the proposed trophy mosque at the crash site of United Airlines flight 93 in Shanksville, PA, in my 9/11 2009 post here).

Trophy mosques are intended to be testaments to the superiority of Islam, and a symbol of the march of Islam toward the capture or re-capture of all territory around the globe, for Islam.

I haven't been able to verify his claim, but I thought it was interesting that a caller on the Rush Limbaugh show yesterday, who lives in Israel, claimed that when victory mosques are built, a section of the original building is left untouched and roped off, to remind visitors again and again just what the building had originally been used for; so that there would be no mistake what had been replaced, and what progress Islam had made, right there, beneath their feet.

Hagia Sophia, site of an Eastern Orthodox church converted into a mosque on the day of the fall of Constantinople.

Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, one of the first churches converted into a mosque.

Lala Mustafa Pasha Mosque in Cyprus was formerly St. Nicholas Cathedral - it is one of the very few surviving churches of Gothic design that were converted into mosques.

The Aksa mosque in The Hague, Netherlands, formerly a synagogue.

The Great Synagogue of Oran, also confiscated and turned into a mosque.

For further reading:

Hindu Temples - What Happened to Them is a two-volume book by Sita Ram Goel, Arun Shourie, Harsh Narain, Jay Dubashi and Ram Swarup.

The first volume includes a list of 2000 mosques that it is claimed were built on Hindu temples, which it is asserted is based primarily on the books of Muslim historians of the period or the inscriptions of the mosques. The second volume excerpts from medieval histories and chronicles and from inscriptions concerning the destruction of Hindu, Jain and Buddhist temples. The authors claim that the material presented in this book are only the tip of an iceberg.

How inflation ended the Roman Empire

2010-09-03T07:23:00.012+02:00

For you history lovers:

There is a commonly accepted belief that loads the blame of the fall of the Roman Empire on the Germanic tribes, that as barbarous and illiterate as they were, ragged, took, and assaulted a refined society, educated and prosperous. I'm sorry to disappoint those who are convinced of this, but this belief is false.

The real cause of the end of Rome as an Empire and, more importantly, as a civilization were not the barbarians, but the Roman emperors, who blew their own world by applying economic prescriptions that are very familiar to us today.

Link to Fernando Diaz Villanueva's full article

If Saddam Had Stayed

2010-09-02T15:47:00.014+02:00

If Saddam Had Stayed
Saddam would have joined the nuclear bad-boys club with Iran and North Korea.
He would have restarted his nuclear program.

By DANIEL HENNINGER
From the vantage point of history, Barack Obama's prime-time speech announcing the Iraq war's end is less important than the speech he gave eight years ago as a state senator in Illinois. This was the October 2002 "dumb war" speech to an anti-Iraq war rally in Chicago's Federal Plaza. Back then, Mr. Obama had a more complex view of the stakes in Iraq than he does now.

Today, the Iraq war has been reduced to not much more than a long, bloody and honorable gunfight between U.S. troops and various homicidal jihadists and insurgents inside Iraq, a war sustained by George Bush, Dick Cheney and some neocon advisers mainly to "impose" democracy on the Iraqis.

I think it is a profound mistake to confine the war's significance to the borders of Iraq. Mr. Obama himself raised the central question about Iraq in that 2002 speech: Did Saddam Hussein pose a danger beyond his borders, or not?

"Let me be clear," State Senator Obama told the Federal Plaza crowd, "I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. . . . He has repeatedly thwarted U.N. inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons and coveted nuclear capacity. . . . But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States. . . [H]e can be contained."

This is a widely held view. The Economist's editors this week said Mr. Obama was largely right that Iraq was a dumb war. What the war did, they say, was "rid the Middle East of a bloodstained dictator."

It did a lot more than that.

Let us assume that Mr. Obama's "smarter" view had prevailed, that we had left Saddam in power in Iraq. What would the world look like today?

Mr. Obama and others believe that Saddam and his nuclear ambitions could have been contained. I think exactly the opposite was likely.

At the time of Mr. Obama's 2002 antiwar speech, three other significant, non-Iraqi events were occurring: Iran and North Korea were commencing toward a nuclear break-out, and A.Q. Khan was on the move.

In March 2002, Mr. Khan, the notorious Pakistani nuclear materials dealer, moved his production facilities from Pakistan to Malaysia.

In August, an Iranian exile group revealed the existence of a centrifuge factory in Natanz, Iran.

A month later, U.S. intelligence concluded that North Korea had almost completed a "production-scale" centrifuge facility.

It was also believed in 2002 that al Qaeda was shopping for nuclear materials. In The Wall Street Journal this week, Jay Solomon described how two North Korean operatives through this period developed a network to acquire nuclear technologies.

In short, the nuclear bad boys club was on the move in 2002. Can anyone seriously believe that amidst all this Saddam Hussein would have contented himself with administering his torture chambers? This is fanciful.

Saddam was centrifugal. He moved outward, into war with Iran in 1980 and into Kuwait 10 years later. Saddam was a player, and from 2002 onward the biggest game in his orbit was acquiring nuclear capability.

The definitive account of Saddam's WMD ambitions is the Duelfer Report, issued by the Iraq Survey Group in 2005. Yes, the Duelfer Report concluded that Saddam didn't have active WMD. But at numerous points in the 1,000-page document, it asserted (with quotes from Iraqi politicians and scientists) that Saddam's goal was to free himself of U.N. sanctions and restart his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons and other WMD.

The report: "Saddam wanted to recreate Iraq's WMD capability. . . . Saddam aspired to develop a nuclear capability." The Survey Group described Iraqi plans to develop three long-range ballistic missiles.

Saddam was obsessed with Iran. Imagine the effect on the jolly Iraqi's thinking come 2005 and the rise to stardom of Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, publicly mocking the West's efforts to shut his nuclear program and threatening enemies with annihilation. That year Ahmadinejad broke the U.N. seals at the Isfahan uranium enrichment plant. In North Korea, Kim Jong Il was flouting the civilized world, conducting nuclear-weapon tests and test-firing missiles into the Sea of Japan. In such a world, Saddam would have aspired to play in the same league as Iran and NoKo. Would we have "contained" him?

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran and Saddam Hussein in Iraq simultaneously would have incentivized Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Sudan to enter the nuclear marketplace. Pakistan and India would be increasing their nuke-tinged tensions, not trying as now to ease them.

We ought to be a lot prouder of our troops coming home from Iraq than we are showing this week. They deserve a monument. That war wasn't just about helping Iraq. It was about us. The march across the nuclear threshold by lunatic regimes is a clear and present danger. The sacrifice made by the United States in Iraq took one of these nuclear-obsessed madmen off the table and gave the world more margin to deal with the threat that remains, if the world's leadership is up to it. A big if.

Daniel Henninger is deputy editor of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page.

:o)

2010-08-25T14:10:00.003+02:00

Sleeping With The ...

2010-08-25T14:06:00.008+02:00

Investor's Business Daily:

Politics: President Obama hit a new low in using a recess appointment to name Maria del Carmen Aponte as U.S. envoy to El Salvador. The radical has consorted with Cuban spies but will be taking no questions.

Dismissing three congressional holds on Aponte's ambassadorial confirmation as "playing politics," Obama used his vacation to slip Aponte through to represent the U.S. to the strategic Central American country, without a vote in Congress.

That gives Aponte, a campaign contributor aligned to the immigration lobby, access to top-secret information as a political reward.

But Aponte's past is one big red flag. From 1982 to 1994 Aponte lived with a man who worked closely with the Cuban Mission to the U.N. and allegedly was a spy.

Aponte claims her ties to the Cubans were just "social," but Cuban spies working in the surveillance hotbed of New York don't waste time on things "social."

They trawl left-wing community groups for potential agents of influence, seeking ideological affinity and common interests. That's how they recruited another Puerto Rican of similar background, Ana Montes, who was convicted of spying in 2002.

The FBI spotted this problem in Aponte's resume in 1994 when she made conflicting statements to the agency and refused to take a polygraph. As a result, she withdrew her nomination as ambassador to the Dominican Republic during the Clinton administration.

Now that Aponte's off to El Salvador without questions, whether she's an ideological soul mate with Cuba or Cuba knows enough about her to blackmail her won't be known.

One thing is likely: Obama wanted her there for something important to ram through such an appointment. Her past again may offer clues: Aponte served on the board of La Raza and the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (now Latino Justice), which hauled the U.S. into the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights for violating Latino human rights in 2008.

As an administrator of Puerto Rico's government in 2004, Aponte launched a registration of 300,000 new voters to, as she said, influence the 2004 U.S. election, which Puerto Ricans didn't vote in.

With El Salvador the second-biggest U.S. supplier of illegal immigrants to the U.S., she may be there to help facilitate Obama's amnesty plans and create a Democratic voting bloc there as well.

If so, U.S. voters won't know because she's just slipped scrutiny.

As with Van Jones, Obama shoved her through on a recess appointment because she probably wouldn't pass muster.That's how an activist of questionable ties became U.S. envoy to a key nation.

Thanks Matthew!

Childhood in Spain

2010-08-22T05:47:00.002+02:00

I could make a Spanish tortilla at four, or so my dad says.

Growing up in Valencia, Spain, until the age of five, of a Spanish father and American mother, as a toddler I spoke Spanish, English, and the native dialect, Valenciano. ¨No he fet res de dolent.¨ ¨I didn´t do anything wrong!¨ Or so my father says.

My first word was, ¨'pete¨, for chupete (pacifier). According to my mother.

I ate flan, and paella, sucked on rabbit bones after a nice fricassee, had cafe con leche and Maria cookies or madalenas for breakfast each morning, snacked on fartons dunked in horchata, cheeses from all over Europe, and occasionally just a warm milk with honey, and yogurt. Lots of yogurt. Or so they say.

I begged my Iaia (Grandma) to learn English and, told her how easy it was, and to please make an effort! Or so she says.

I dressed like this, too. Or so I'm told. But if I did, I guarantee you, it was not my fault.

(I'm on the left in the blue.)

At least that's my story, and I'm stickin' to it!

Lingo Kid

2010-08-22T05:07:00.011+02:00

Ravi the "Lingo Kid" and his 10+ languages. This is a salesman!

Little Ravi

Ravi now

Jerusalem Removes 300 Phony Muslim Tombstones

2010-08-13T12:32:00.004+02:00

The Jerusalem Municipality has thus far removed 300 false tombstones that were built in the course of the past few weeks at the Mamilla Muslim cemetery in central Jerusalem. The tombs were built by Muslim elements who took advantage of the fact that the Jerusalem Municipality's Health Department granted them a permit to clean up and fix existing tombstones. Instead of just cleaning graves, however, the Muslims hired workers to try and grab land from the adjoining Independence Park (Gan HaAtzmaut).

Each new tombstone is dismantled only after an expert from the Antiquities Authority inspects it and confirms that it is indeed a new tombstone.

The new tombstones had no graves or human remains beneath them. Plastic bottles, cigarette packs and irrigation pipes were found beneath some of them. Others were built atop a sewage pipe.

Read more at Arutz Sheva

Yummy Mummies

2010-08-13T12:16:00.015+02:00

Vending Machine Stocks Pregnancy Tests

Hungry commuters have been baffled by new vending machines selling pregnancy testing kits along with sandwiches and crisps. The machines - which went on a month's trial in Swiss railway stations this week - mean women don't have to risk being embarrassed by buying the tester from a chemist, say makers Maybe Baby.

"We've had a few demands for refunds where people thought they were getting chocolate but they seem to be very popular," a rail worker told the Austrian Times.

Swiss chocolate is the best... how many people would risk getting a pregnancy test for some? :)

AustrianTimes.at

Toyota News

2010-08-13T12:06:00.006+02:00

Toyota stops car exports to Iran

Tokyo, Japan (CNN) -- Toyota Motors said Wednesday it's halting shipments to Iran following international moves to put financial and commercial pressure on Tehran to curb its nuclear ambitions.

"It is true that Toyota has stopped exports of vehicles bound for Iran," Toyota spokesman Keisuke Kirimoto said in Tokyo.

The company says the hold on shipments of its popular Land Cruiser, and other cars and trucks is indefinite at this point.

"We plan to continue to closely monitor this sensitive international situation," Kirimoto said.

The world's largest automaker made the move in light of U.S. and United Nations sanctions slapped on Tehran in June.

Creo Mundi

2010-08-13T09:52:00.005+02:00

I'm on my third passport, and they are full of stamps. So with all this traveling, I am quite embarrassed to tell you that I still have no idea really what ¨duty-free¨ means. I see it posted, and I see people with their bags of cologne, and cartons of cigarettes. And ads for "duty-free" products like this:

So why is it, if I don't know what it means, that I've never cared to look into it? I'll take Arthur Spooner's (The King of Queens) definition: ¨'Duty Free', what is it? Some kind of internatioanl lingo?¨ Yes, Arthur, I think that's what I believe too.

Bio-Bug

2010-08-11T12:32:00.007+02:00

British Engineers Develop Feces-Powered Car

This new British car blows the opposition away - it's powered by human poo.

The Bio-Bug has been converted by UK engineers to run on methane gas.

Excrement flushed down the loos (toilets) of just 70 homes is enough to drive it 10,000 miles - a year's average motoring.

From FOXNews.com

1980

2010-08-10T09:35:00.004+02:00

I turn 30 today.

In the last decade I've learned to hang out with people for no other reason than that I like them, how to hail a cab, make an Amaretto Sour, swallow my pride, travel alone, give blood, handle a classroom full of kids, drive a manual car, get over a broken heart, show my family how much I love them, and be thankful.

This next decade I want to learn how to change a flat tire, master Spanish, listen to better music, find "The One", tell a joke well, finish those short stories, stay on budget, control my frizzy hair, tip better, vote smarter, and love more.

I think I'll live my 30's like there's no 40!

For fun here are some stats:

-At age 30, you're older than 42 percent of Americans.

-You're 26 percent less likely to make a New Year's resolution in your 30s... but if you do make one, you're 26 percent more likely to stick to it.

-45 percent of people will own a firearm in their 30s.

-0.036 percent of people are in elementary school at age 30.

-81 percent of women and 71 percent of men have been married by age 30 (and 16 percent of each have been divorced).

-The most common way to die at age 30 is by accident.

-30 is the average age of retirement for NFL players.

-The odds you'll make it to your late 30s are 99,003 out of 100,000, or 99.003 percent.

From 11 Points

For the Anthropologist

2010-08-10T09:30:00.003+02:00

If your ancestors were from Europe, you might want to see if your physical characteristics fall into any of these categories:

Anthroeurope

Spanish Girl

Things to Worry About

For All Things Girly Within Me

Feliç Aniversari - Happy Birthday

A Spanish Poem

Sequence of Events in Meeting Friends :)

The Full Srory

Just sending love to Lydia

Nacho's Corner

*Books are magic* This little film is magic*

The Book of Books: What Literature Owes the Bible

I went to my little bridge today

Where the Wild Things Are (as read by Christopher Walken)

Girls Love Europe

Reflection

"Full as a Goat, Round and Smooth"

Try not to lick the screen

'My First Hardcore Song' by 8 yr old Juliet

In 1957 some negatives were made

Apuesta: My Lost Bet

tiAra

Valencia's Train Station

Sunday night chill out, or to my brother, Sunday night bore

Brian's Surprise Justin Bieber Wedding Dance for Emily

Spiritu oris ejus: Spirit of Jehovah's mouth

Lunettes de vue

Chocolates and Flowers

On the shelf...

Barcelona at Night

~Alive in Christ~

Some things are never easy...

America's Cup Port in Valencia, Spain

:) How to Fake French. Died Laughing.

Israel Launches New Spy Satellite; Iran ‘Under the Microscope’

Scenes from my Spain

Atlas Struggled

I´m still laughing!

Spain

:)

The British PoW who broke into Auschwitz — and survived

Funny College Application Letter

Banning Fun

NPR Muslim Brotherhood Investigation Part I

Fair or Foul?

"Sex is the Poor Man's Opera"? Not anymore!

One of the best moments in Super Bowl History

WHEN PARENTS TEXT

Why work doesn't happen at work

Vintage Media Scare

Я Ξ﻿ √ Ω L U T ↑ ☼ N

In Defense of Inflamed Rhetoric

Winter in Spain

Friedrich Hayek's 'The Road to Serfdom' in 5 Minutes

Where's Waldo?

circuit diagram

Masterpiece of Animation: Hedgehog in the Fog

I'm in Love with Friedrich Hayek

sketches

Assange's Dating Profile Leaked on Wax-Lips

Gap Yah (Gap Year)

Dec. 7, 1941

Another Goal for Islam

Hmm...

:0)

The Jack I Knew: A Tribute to C.S. Lewis by his step-son

It's not a grope. It's a freedom pat.

Quantitative Easing Explained

Big Bottle

Thank you on Veteran's Day

Acts 17 Apologetics

News from Around Europe

Is it November 2nd Yet?

For the Ayn Rand Fans

Halal Cat Food?

Cartographers Joke

And the Wax-Lips Academy Award goes to...

El negocio es El Negocio.

This from Georgia

Mind Control

Tevye and his daughters won't fiddle to this:

Books are magic This little film is magic*

Я Ξ √ Ω L U T ↑ ☼ N