Random Rambles

Random post about nothing in particular

Does this Little Girl Look Like a Terrorist to You?

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This was linked on Drudge Today.   Words Fail me.   How idiotic can our “security” procedures in America get? That little girl sure looks like a threat to me. UPDATE: The TSA has posted a response/explanation at their Blog. The best out of context logic in the post is this “Recognizing that terrorists are willing to manipulate societal norms to evade detection”. In the words of some political hack in Washington who I can’t remember, it “requires of suspension of belief” to think this little girl was a terrorist or some kind of threat.

Shout out to 1&1

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I use 1&1 as my host and this past weekend was the first time in my site’s 6 month history that the site went down.   I have to say that once I emailed tech support they got back to me quick and id’d the problem very fast and told me what I needed to do an also told me ow to avoid the same thing in the future.   Apparently I either downloaded a corrupt index.html file when I downloaded the latest WP update or it got corrupted when I FTP’d it to my server.   Regardless 1&1 identified the problem and I had my site up and running … More after the Jump…

Saint John of Nepomuk

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The region of Germany where I live in northeastern Bavaria is locally known as the Oberpfalz or in English the Upper Palatinate. Traditionally, this area was not part of Bavaria but was made up of numerous small separate sovereignties with a regional identity.   This was a relic of the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia that ended the Thrity-Years War. That all changed in 1805 when Napoleon overran Germany and reduced the 350+ sovereign entities in Germany to 39, this is when the Oberpfalz became part of Bavaria. Of note is that the vast majority of the people in the region are Roman Catholic, my town is 95% Catholic for example. The … More after the Jump…

Spam Comments on My Blog

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An update to a previous post Spam Comments on my Blog.   I think I set a new personal record last night.   I got over 46 spam comments on my blog last night.   The vast majority included some garbage link in BBcode, which is not supported on a WordPress site.   WP only uses HTML code.   This is what the average spam looked like: NXwj1S ijecicpmubjv, [url=http://wgfbpiifvfrp.com/]wgfbpiifvfrp[/url], [link=http://hpgadeqvqdmq.com/]hpgadeqvqdmq[/link], http://xbgwsdgsxdaq.com/ NXwj1S ijecicpmubjv, [url=http://wgfbpiifvfrp.com/]wgfbpiifvfrp[/url], [link=http://hpgadeqvqdmq.com/]hpgadeqvqdmq[/link], http://xbgwsdgsxdaq.com/ I have not went down any of the referenced urls for fear of getting a virus on my home machine.   Any of my readers are more than welcome to try although I … More after the Jump…

The Ryan Budget Plan- The GOP Path to Prosperity

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About a month ago I asked when we were going to have a serious conversation about our national debt, it looks like that time might be now if our Republican and Tea Party congressman have the courage to grab the moment with the release of Rep. Paul Ryan‘s budget plan.   Ryan, a Republican from Wisconsin, is the author of the Roadmap for America, and is Chairman of the House Budget Committee. he outlined the new GOP budget proposal today in a piece in the Wall Street Journal titled The GOP Path to Prosperity. It seems to me that the ball is now in the Democrat’s court. They must explain why … More after the Jump…

The Earthquake and Tsunami in Japan

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I had to post something about the earthquake and Tsunami in Japan last Friday.   First off, I hope that the death toll does not go as high as they currently fear.   Second, everything I have seen so far about the Japanese reactions to the quake inspires nothing but admiration and respect for the Japanese people.   My prayers go out to all the victims and their families. I am sure that if this disaster had happened in California the news would be full of stories about how the government is not doing enough and where is all the help people are supposed to be receiving from the government … More after the Jump…

An Interesting Page

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The Five Myths Archive at the Washington Post is an intriguing site that has some very interesting pieces in it of both contemporary and historical significance. none of them are particularly military that I could see though. *sigh*

Bureaucratic Redundancy

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I generally try to avoid posting or saying negative things about work for fear that the fickle-demons of the internet will find out and get me in trouble but I have to share this one. I saw this today at work and just thought it was one of the dumbest things I have ever seen in my 20+ years of government service.   I have to go through all the SOPs at work and ensure they are in the correct format as part of yearly update drudgery.   What did I find that is so stupid you ask?  We actually have a SOP at work about when and who is … More after the Jump…

The Tolerance of the American Left

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Last month, after Rep. Giffords and five others were killed outside of a Safeway store in Tucson, AZ. the opinion pages were full of folks on the left blaming conservatives, the Tea Party, talk radio, and Sarah Palin for rhetoric that led the shooter to target Rep. Giffords.   A month and a half later we now know that rhetoric, political or otherwise, had absolutely nothing to do with why Jared Loughner decided to shoot his congresswoman.   We knew that almost as soon as we knew the shooter’s name;  that did not stop the left from laming conservatives anyway. The left tries to portray themselves as some sort of … More after the Jump…

History, the News, Egypt, and American Foriegn Policy

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Niall Fergusson, one of my favorite current historians recently wrote a piece in Newsweek that perfectly captures what I think is the best way to use history as a guide in determining the best way to act in the present.   Of course, he is slamming the current US Administration in this piece so that rather makes me happy too.   The piece is here.   He also went on “Morning Joe” on MSNBC and expanded on his views.

His biggest point is that the administration blew it with Egypt because they changed their mind so many times.   I love it how he uses a quote from Otto von Bismarck to illustrate what Obama did not do.   Here is the quote from the story:

“The statesman can only wait and listen until he hears the footsteps of God resounding through events; then he must jump up and grasp the hem of His coat, that is all.” Thus Otto von Bismarck, the great Prussian statesman who united Germany and thereby reshaped Europe’s balance of power nearly a century and a half ago.

Last week, for the second time in his presidency, Barack Obama heard those footsteps, jumped up to grasp a historic opportunity … and missed it completely.

More after the Jump…

Little Blue Penguin

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This is a Little Blue Penguin from Australia.   I saw it in a story on Livescience yesterday and since I think Penguins are cool and don’t want to be serious all the time I decided to post the picture and accompanying link.   Unfortunately the Livescience story is down but here is another page with info on them.

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