Saturday, April 25, 2015

And Then There's This


I guess it all depends on what part of the country you're in. (A tip of the hat to Maggie's Farm)

And then there's this — from Ramirez:

Thursday, April 23, 2015

I Identify As A ....

Meanwhile, an Albuquerque eighth-grader identifies himself as "gender fluid" — which he defines as "sometimes as a boy, sometimes as a girl."

He decided he wanted to wear a dress to the school's end of the year dance. He says the principal told him he'd be sent home if he showed up dressed that way. He says "The girls are allowed to cross-dress, so why can't I?"

The school says the boy's story isn't so. It says he will be able to attend the dance in a dress if that's what he chooses — so maybe the whole story is made up, a publicity stunt. As of now, we don't know. But he got himself on the TV news.

This would be really funny if there weren't a bunch of folks taking stuff like this so seriously.

Monday, April 20, 2015

Great New Bumper Sticker

I saw a new bumper sticker on a web site. It is reproduced here without further comment.

Sunday, April 12, 2015

U.S. Citizens in Yemen

Yemen has descended into chaos since Houthi rebels backed by Iran fought and then overthrew the Yemeni government. As a result, a number of countries have been removing their citizens from the country. Among those countries are India, France, Russia, Canada, and China.

And the U.S.? This headline says it all: "U.S. Gov’t to Americans Trapped in Yemen: Call India". That is, in part, because India has gone above and beyond the call of duty, evacuating citizens of at least 26 countries (in addition to their own) from Yemen. The other part is because the U.S. government has been unwilling to evacuate the U.S. citizens remaining in Yemen. The Obama Administration has tried to explain its decision this way:

Marie Harf, a spokesperson for the State Department, said last week, “Doing something like sending in military assets, even for an evacuation, could put U.S. citizen lives at greater risk.” The State Department’s website currently states that, “There are no plans for a U.S. government-coordinated evacuation of U.S. citizens at this time.”

Further down, the same article states

The U.S. Embassy in Yemen was evacuated in February, with American personnel flying out of the country on private jets provided by the nation of Oman. Marines guarding the embassy personnel were not permitted to bring their sidearms on board these aircraft, and were ordered to disable and abandon their weapons before leaving the country. A U.S. special operations training mission assisting the Yemeni government in its fight against al Qaeda withdrew from the country last month. [emphasis added]
In other words, the U.S. wasn't willing to use U.S. assets to evacuate even those citizens the U.S. government was willing to assist.

One of the sites that reported this news summarized it this way:

We only rescue deserters who commit treason. Everyone else can just lump it. India is doing a bang up job of evacuating and rescuing people. Other countries, when they pulled out, evacuated their people with them. Us? Not so much.
As the Washington Free Beacon article says in its sub-headline
"U.S. abandons its own".

Saturday, April 11, 2015

Supreme Self-Centeredness

President Barack Obama has gone to the Summit of the Americas, being held now in Panama City, Panama. There he has had conversations with the leaders of various Western Hemisphere nations, including (reportedly) a private meeting with Cuban dictator Raul Castro. Some of that meeting looks like this.

There's another story coming out of this summit, though. The headline is

Obama On Cuba: History Before I Was Born Isn’t Interesting Or Relevant…
citing a story in The Hill. Both stories quote Obama as saying
I’m not interested in having battles that frankly started before I was born.
This fits in with his statement last year calling his own actions "American leadership at its best."

It's because of self-revelatory statements like this that another writer called Obama

A rarely seen merging of supreme arrogance and ignorance (see shovel-ready-jobs, Obamacare, US economic malaise, massive US debt, illegals rushing across our borders and sinking our economy and government infrastructure, etc).
That ignorance apparently includes the events in Cuba leading up to the Castro dictatorship. (It's amazing to realize that Cuba under Fulgencio Batista was significantly freer than under the Castro Brothers!)

My own thought is that Obama's statements and behavior demonstrate a supreme self-centeredness. That also goes with him having an exceptionally thin skin for any criticism — in fact, for any statements that are not laudatory. An overall assessment?

Obama has delusions of adequacy, an adequacy he sees as supreme excellence.

Sunday, April 5, 2015

Easter!

New Mexico is a land of traditions. One of them is the pilgrimage on Good Friday.

There are actually several. The pilgrimage to Chimayo is perhaps the most famous, with people walking long distances to the small church in that small village. But there is also one closer to home, winding down Highway 47 near Los Lunas and up the hill called Tomé.


The crest of Tomé Hill at dawn

They start arriving in the early morning and keep coming through much of the day. They climb the hill to arrive at the three crosses on its crest. Some come with family members or close friends. Some come in groups from various churches. Some come to fulfill personal vows. In all cases, however, the pilgrims' actions commemorate events on another hill, half a world away and almost two thousand years ago.


Pilgrims at the top of Tomé Hill on Good Friday

Those events were on the original Good Friday, and were the precursors to the first Easter. Today we commemorate that first Easter and all it represents. And we remember that Easter would not have been possible without Good Friday.


Wishing you all a happy and blessed Easter!

Friday, April 3, 2015

Two Pointed Cartoons (updated)

These two images make some very sharp points. Further commentary is almost superfluous. So, with (almost) no additional commentary, here are the images.

One image is rather political

UPDATE: Here's a later related image.

End update.

The other is more social.

I think they speak for themselves without further commentary.