Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Iran Strikes Back: Ooh Burn!

Posted: January 5, 2020 by datechguy in Always look at the bright side of Trump, middle east, News/opinion, Uncategorized
Tags: , ,

Amy: [storming into Leonard & Sheldon’s apt] Sheldon Cooper, I’ve got a bone to pick with you, and I’m about to do it in front of all your friends!

Penny: Yeah, you pick that bone. You pick that bone clean!

Amy: I’m gonna publicly shame you, and then sit back as societal pressure compels you to modify your behavior.

Penny: Ooh, burn!

The Big Bang Theory The Weekend Vortex 2012

I had to laugh when I saw this story at PJ Media about Iran’s big retaliation:

At around 8 p.m. Saturday, hackers breached and defaced the website of the U.S. Federal Depository Library (USFDL), posting a graphic image of President Trump being punched in the face and announcing, “This is a message from Islamic Republic of Iran.”

U.S. officials have not confirmed that the attack on the website of USFDL, a program created to make federal government publications available to the public at no cost, came from Iran, but the hackers claim to be avenging the death of Qasem Soleimani, the brutal Iranian terrorist who was killed in a U.S. airstrike at the Bahrain Airport in Iraq early Friday morning.

About an hour after the attack on the little-known USFDL website, the Iranian propaganda had been removed and the website was offline

I like to think of myself as well informed but I’d never heard of USEDL and I’ll wager that if you asked 1000 Americans 999 wouldn’t have any idea who there were either.

But if you read what the Iranians are saying this is a big deal.

“Martyrdom was his (Shahid Soleymani) reward for years of implacable efforts. With his departure and with God’s power, his work and path will not cease and severe revenge awaits those criminals who have tainted their filthy hands with his blood and the blood of the other martyrs of last night’s incident,” the message read. “Hacked By Iran Cyber Security Group HackerS…  This is only small part of Iran’s cyber ability! We’re always ready… to be continues… We Are: Iranian Hackers… #Hard revenge… #ICG – #SpadSecurityGroup.”

But that’s not all guess what they’re chanting in the Iranian parliament:

“Death to America,” almost all of the 290 members of the Iranian parliament chanted over the weekend.

“Mr. Trump! This is the voice of the Iranian nation. Listen!” Parliament speaker Ali Larijani said as lawmakers chanted.

Oh NO! You mean the Iranians instead of chanting “death to America” like they were doing before are now doing it for a completely different reason! But it gets worse!

Iranian state television reports that Iran will no longer abide by any of the limits of its 2015 nuclear deal.

The announcement came Sunday night after another Iranian official said it would consider taking even-harsher steps over the U.S. killing of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani on Friday in Baghdad.

OMG you mean the Iranians are now publicly declaring that they will ignore a deal they likely didn’t keep anyways and might do something even harsher! If that’s not bad enough here is the corker:

Iran has placed an $80 million bounty on Donald Trump’s head and threatened to attack the White House in response to the president’s warning that any strike on American interests in the region will bring massive retaliation.

An organizer for a funeral procession for General Qassem Soleimani called on all Iranians to donate $1 each ‘in order to gather an $80million bounty on President Trump’s head’. 

The organizer made the remarks during the procession in Mashad.

emphasis mine

They’ve got to raise that bounty a buck at a time, I guess pallets of cash don’t stretch as far as they used to.

So let me get this straight, for all the bluster that Iran is making their big retaliation is a web hack, a telethon a bunch of chanting jihadist “lawmakers” & ignoring a deal we didn’t trust them to keep?

What is this: South Park?

Now here in the west such “retaliation” might bring the following reaction:

But I expect Iran to play it up big internally (and further more I expect our media to do so too along with this meaningless vote) because if all this stuff is a big deal and fitting revenge then there is absolutely no need to do anything that might get any of the leader of Iran, or their navy or their air-force or their oil refineries blown up.

It will be just one more face saving lie that they tell to themselves and President Trump will be happy to allow them to do so because that lie will inform the entire Middle East who is running the show.

Hint It’s not the Mullahs anymore.

Now in fairness it is possible that the Iranians will decide to risk destruction either by misjudging Donald Trump or because culturally they believe in it (think Japan just before the end of WW 2) so we should be alert and not be reckless.

But make no mistake the initiative has now shifted and as long as Donald Trump is president it will remain so.

Please Make Your BS Logical

Posted: January 5, 2020 by julietteochieng in Uncategorized

by baldilocks

It’s frustrating to read as people comment on topics about which they know next to nothing, or worse, twist the topic – especially if I’m close to those people. I do what I can to assist; here, at my own blog, and on my social media accounts. It would be foolish of me to expect everyone to agree with my opinions, but is it too difficult to expect others whose opinions are different from mine to base their opinions on fact?

I’m not even talking about complicated matters; people can’t even be bothered to type simple things into a search engine.

Also, when people are being led by their emotions or their gut feelings – or when they haven’t done their homework, why can’t they at least say so?

Example: I’ve got people on my media who hate the president and are saying that he ginned up this Iran-Iraq situation with the intention of distracting the public from the impeachment.

Now, I don’t put it past any president to wag the dog, as it were, but this “distraction” would be neat trick — i.e. USELESS — toward that purpose since no impeachment actions can go forth until Congress reconvenes following its holiday break. That happens on Tuesday, January 7.  Therefore, there’s no impeachment from which to be distracted.

Leaving aside that I believe that President Trump intentionally goaded the House Democrats into impeaching him, I mentioned Congress’s return date to the person in question. I don’t even think he read it.

Could people merely make their conspiracy theories make sense? That’s what I always try to do with mine. I consider it a courtesy.

There are three matters that I have in mind, three topics in the news which every adult American should look up right now before they start talking about them.

  1. Impeachment

It was startling to discover how many people thought that when the House formally voted to impeach President Trump, it was the end of his presidency.

  1. War Powers Act of 1973

Many believe that a president is supposed to get permission from Congress before ordering any combat action. Nope.

  1. Status of Embassies

Many don’t know that all embassies are considered the sovereign property of the country in question.

Regardless of what one thinks of any of the actors in these dramas, you can’t form a coherent opinion about the news of the day without knowing the basics – the topics that are not prone to interpretation.

Of course, we know that baseless conclusions will still be offered all the time, if only for the sake of up-votes.

And the fear mongering.

Juliette Akinyi Ochieng has been blogging since 2003 as baldilocks. Her older blog is here.  She published her first novel, Tale of the Tigers: Love is Not a Game in 2012.

Follow Juliette on Facebook, Twitter, MeWe, Patreon and Social Quodverum.

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Or hit Juliette’s!

 

President Trump Puts the Glove on the floor

Posted: January 4, 2020 by datechguy in middle east, News/opinion, Uncategorized
Tags: , ,

Lawrence Murphy: You have anything to say to that, Mr. Chisum?
John Chisum: I don’t favor talking to vermin, but I’ll talk to you just this once. You’re not just getting started. The line’s been drawn. What Billy did balanced the books so far. But if one of your men cross my land, or even touch one of my cows…or do anything to that store…I’m not going to the Sheriff, the Governor, or the President of the United States. I’m coming to see you.
Lawrence Murphy Mr. Chisum, that sounds like a threat.
John Chisum: [rears back and floors Murphy] Wrong word: Fact.

Chisum 1970

Iran issued a not so veiled threat today:

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

The President noticed the same thing and issued a completely unveiled threat.

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

I read these three tweets to DaWife. she said: “I wish I could go and vote for him right now!”

Update: Cue the video

Losing the weight for the New Year

Posted: January 4, 2020 by ng36b in Uncategorized
Tags: , , ,

A lot of people make New Year’s resolutions. Just this morning my local gym was full of people. At 5:30 in the morning! Normally at that time its me and two other people…and I suspect it will return to that group size again by January 31st.

Yup, that was this week.

But that’s being judgemental. We all know that you will fulfill your New Year’s resolution! You are waaaay better than all those other slobs.

Maybe. Since many of you will make resolutions to lose weight, you should know that I did just that a few years ago. I was weighing in at 225 to 230 pounds. While I would pass the tape test for the Navy, I hated it. For the longest time, I just accepted that I was big, or big boned, or had some fat gene, or some other excuse. And then one day, when I got taped yet again during our semi-annual physical test, I just got mad, and I told myself I would lose weight. One year later, I stepped on the scale at a physical test and didn’t get taped. I nearly hugged the young Petty Officer who was weighing me. It was probably awkward.

So if you said you’d lose weight, read on, because I will walk you through how I made it happen.

Step 1 is admitting that you are overweight and if you don’t fix it, it will kill you. Plenty of people want to lose “5-10” pounds, but that’s hard because your body is happy to sit at your current weight, and your entire schedule makes you that way. Admitting that you are fat, and that it will kill you if you don’t fix it, helps you make the hard choices about changing your habits.

Seriously. Fat will kill you.

Once you admit you’re fat, step 2 is learning how to cook. When I was well over 200 pounds, eating out was a regular thing. I wouldn’t think twice about grabbing a burger, fries and a drink. But eating out is terrible on your diet. You don’t pick ingredients. You get lots of added sugar. It’s more expensive than cooking, which means you buy cheaper crap food for when you do eat at home. Eating out kills your diet, no questions asked.

So learn how to cook. Make a meal plan for the week, buy groceries and stick to it. I used to make a big plate of lasagna and cut it up for lunches during the week. It’s harder to say “I’ll just grab a burger” when your lunch is already packed. When you eat out, skip the appetizer. Also, drop the soda habit. Seriously. It’s empty calories. You get nothing but high fructose corn syrup and other garbage ingredients in soda. Drink water: its free, fills you up and is actually good for you.

Once you start cooking a bit and cutting down on eating out, its time for step 3, actually exercising. Don’t bother with “calorie counting” for exercises. You’ll be dismayed at how few calories you actually burn on a run. Unless you’re a marathoner, you’re not going to burn that super-sized McDonalds off in a 1 mile run. But exercise isn’t really about burning calories during that run. It’s more about building muscle. Just resting, muscle will burn more calories than fat. Exercise boosts your metabolism, so you burn more calories during the day than previous, couch-potato you burned. Plus, with more muscle, you’re more likely to stay active. All those little gains are what makes exercise important in the long run.

So to actually start, get outside and walk. Then get some decent running shoes and jog. Then run a bit. Then, and only then, get a gym membership and start weight lifting. Running or using the elliptical machine might seem like a good idea, but it’ll only get you so far. Lifting weights will build that long term muscle you need. That goes for the girls and the guys. If you’ve never lifted weights, ask for help. Almost every gym has a weight lifting class. Once someone helps you build a routine, download an app to keep track of your exercises and weights. I happen to use Simple Workout Log, but you can use whatever works for you.

The last bit is the simplest and hardest: rinse and repeat. Every day, tell yourself that being fat is going to kill you. Every day, watch your diet, even for those little sugary snacks. Every day, get a bit of exercise in. That’s how you chip away at your weight. That’s how I dropped 30 pounds. It wasn’t overnight, it wasn’t magic, and it didn’t involve a pill. It took discipline and constant little battles to eventually win that large war.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.

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