Blog Heap o'Links for October 2017

…Come cold weather, I always think of the book The Door Into Summer. No matter how many inches of snow on the ground or how many degrees below freezing, cats and dogs all believe that the very next time they go out, the sun will be shining, the sky will be blue, the grass will be green, and the temperature will be just perfect for a pleasant snooze in the flower bed.…

…On this day in 1904 the first underground New York City Subway line opened…

…Neither financier seized either weird species of leisure.…

Fats Domino, whose rollicking rhythm and blues piano helped give birth to rock ‘n’ roll, has died in his lifelong home of New Orleans, the coroner said Wednesday. He was 89. …Tuesday morning of natural causes… “He was true to his new Orleans roots and he was a real legend…”

Trump hits back at Scankles and the DNC over the infamous 'Trump Dossier'.…

…On this day in 1854 The Battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War occurred. This battle was made famous by the poem the Charge of the Light Brigade which I am sure all you Morons had to recite in school.…

…“We reached the end of needing passwords maybe seven years ago, but we still use them,” said Steve Winterfeld, Director of Cybersecurity, at clothing retailer Nordstrom. “They’re still the primary layer of defense.”

“It’s hard to kill them,” noted Shalini Mayor, who is a Senior Director at Visa Inc. “The question is what to replace them with.”…

…In a shocking bombshell interview, an academic with close ties to the Chinese government has warned war with North Korea was on the table. …the long-lasting era of Chinese friendship with North Korea has ended. …president Xi Jinping has reportedly become "fed up" with the erratic behaviour of the North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un.… one more missile test would be the move "to push the country off the cliff".…

Looking to open a second headquarters somewhere, the online retailer sets cities and states scrambling to fulfill its contradictory set of demands.…

…applying the criteria to America’s 100 largest cities… list included only one city: Denver…

…"Don't want you to forget."…

…There’s so much that I don’t understand about what’s going on here. Is there an occasion for this strip, in which Hi and Thirsty are suddenly taking the subway home with Leroy Lockhorn, Walt Duncan, Greg Wilkins, Homer Simpson, Mario, and … an Orthodox Jewish (?) character in the foreground I don’t recognize?…

"…a nice illustrated story about photographer and a mother and young daughter who come into his office…" -FS

"Melania wears inappropriate clothes…"

…"For eight long years he didn't speak a word," said George's brother, Jeb Bush. Though his family continued to talk to him, they had no idea whether he understood them. That eased a few days ago, when he began responding to questions with grunts and by blinking his eyes.…

…Try a Harvey Wallbanger. It's a tall vodka and OJ w/ a splash of Galliano. Actually very tasty.

…suddenly, the same people who scoffed at Benghazi are telling us that the death of four American special forces operators in Niger is President Trump’s Benghazi.

Which can only mean it’s Trump’s nothing burger.…

http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/

Bookworm Beat 10/21/17 — the “how to stop a bully” illustrated edition

In this day and age of political bullying, I start with a great video about stopping bullying — and then get to illustrations, both wise and silly.…

The anti-Trump forces, the liberals, the rhinos and other assorted globalists are actually more anti-American than they are anti-Trump, because truth be told—they are opposed ANYONE that’s America First…

…conspiracy mongers on the left are speculating that Melania Trump uses a body double…

It would take a Herculean effort to make Maxine Waters look sane.

But thanks to an utterly despicable performance this week, Frederica Wilson managed it.…

Please clap… for my brother.…

KFC only follows 11 people on Twitter…

Attorney General Jeff Session denounces surge in violent crime during Oklahoma visit…

Former President George W. Bush delivered a public repudiation of President Donald Trump’s political identity, suggesting many aspects of the current administration are fueling division in the United States and around the world.…

Breitbart Texas obtained a leaked internal memo written by the acting chief of the Border Patrol announcing the arrest of Jesus Rosario Favela Astorga. He is reported to be the final suspect in Agent Terry’s murder that occurred on December 14, 2010 in southern Arizona.…

…March 7, 1932 - October 2, 2017…
…His earliest years included a move to California, where the small family briefly shared living quarters in a railroad boxcar with three other families. By the time he started school, the family was back in Oklahoma… married in June 1950, driving to Arkansas so they could wed at an earlier age, shortly before he reported for active duty in the US Army… emergency appendectomy prevented him from shipping out with his unit to Korea… transferred to oversee a typing pool, and later joked, "I'd have (almost) preferred being shipped out." …leaves behind his loving wife of 67 years… three sons… eight grandchildren, who were all his favorites… and eleven great-grandchildren

Nine months after President Trump promised to defeat ISIS "quickly and effectively," U.S.-backed forces captured Raqqa, which until Tuesday had served as the ISIS capital. The battle now is over who deserves credit… the bottom line is that while Obama preached patience, Trump promised a swift end to ISIS, and then delivered on it.

…The security protocol used to protect the vast majority of wifi connections has been broken, potentially exposing wireless internet traffic to malicious eavesdroppers and attacks, according to the researcher who discovered the weakness.…

My desire to stay informed is now running counter to my desire to be sane.

…A study published in the Scientific Reports journal shows that clams, mussels and oysters produce one-tenth of methane and nitrous oxide gases in the Baltic Sea as a result of digestion.

…What we are experiencing, far from a deadly revolutionary upsurge threatening everything of value, is a historically unique situation where, for the first time on record, a leftist movement is in complete and accelerating collapse within a democratic polity.…

…-TPP dead.
-Paris Accord abandoned.
-NAFTA hanging by a thread.
-Dangerous Iran nuclear treaty boondoggle in jeopardy.
-Gorsuch, etc.
-Serial USSC victories on so-called "Muslim ban."
-DOW, record of records.
-GDP growth encouraging.
-ISIS capital has fallen.
-Iraqis retake Mosul with coalition support.
-MOAB.
-Sane ROE restored.
-UN agreements, including historic unanimous agreement on NK.
-DOJ pedophile sweeps and ICE actions apace.
-Sanctuary jurisdictions under assault.
-Obamacare individual mandate not being enforced, insurance company slush fund in danger, and obamacare on the ropes to the point that dems are working with lying GOPe, who never intended a repeal. Working together.
-Wall prototypes being reviewed, and IIRC, house passed $10B in border security spending.
-EPA sue and settle dead.
-CA governor moonbeam agreeing with Devos on Title IX reforms.
-Harveywood's war on women (and possibly soon, on children) under seige.
-DNC is near bankrupt.
-The Left is turning on each other and eating their own. People on the left openly calling for hillary and pelosi to be put out to pasture.
-NFL on the ropes.
-Fake news' propaganda stranglehold on the American conscience virtually eliminated.
-Masks ripped off enemies of the American people left and right.
-And on and on.

Nine months.

Jane Fonda: “I Don’t Regret Going To Vietnam,” “I’m Proud That I Went. It Changed My Life For The Good”…

NRA spokesman Dana Loesch said she is moving after receiving repeated threats from gun control advocates…

Jerry Brown, California's esteemed governor and friend of the people, has responded to North Korea's threat to hit California with nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles by unilaterally pledging 2.5 billion dollars if the North Korean dictator promises not to nuke them.

Jerry Brown's office has released a statement saying that he, too, was tired of being under Trump's control and that the two leaders shared similar political philosophies.…

A candidate for the United States' Congress has said she stands by her claims she was abducted to an alien spaceship at age seven, but that the incident shouldn't detract from what she's done here on Earth since then. … Bettina Rodriguez Aguilera … "I believe it is real. But I was seven years old. It was an experience I had a thousand years ago."…

Service dogs have an important job to do, but that doesn’t make them any less cute. If you want to say hello to or pet a service dog, follow these guidelines to greet them the right way.…

…At first, we were concerned for the welfare of a fellow soldier. When we discovered the nature of his disappearance, it was incredulity. Why would he do that, we wondered. Very soon, it turned to anger.…

…wrote the book, "Starvation Corner" about her life with her family during the Great Depression in Bartlesville and was named the Women's Network Historian of the Year. In the book she talked about her parents, her father serving in WWI in Siberia and working in the garden and tending the animals and raising her children while her husband was off to war.…

…During Desert Storm, her son, Joe wrote that the Iraqi military had destroyed the church in the Christian village of Kani Masi in Northern Iraq. Money was being raised by the American soldiers to help rebuild the church and she took it upon herself to raise money and sent it to her son to help in rebuilding the church. The priest at the church asked for her photo and now it hangs in the rebuilt Kani Masi Church.
After collecting money for the church, she collected medical supplies which were sent to her son in Northern Iraq and were used for the Kurds in Northern Iraq who had been injured by Saddam Hussein's Iraqi Army.…

…I read The Pied Piper in Latin and learned what the word "pied" means. It means clothed in many different colors.

Trump too tough on Iran, North Korea, Clinton says…

Whooping cranes are North America’s tallest and most rare of birds. The last remaining wild flock has been rebuilding for decades; increasing steadily from their lowest point of 16 birds in 1941. This year, the flock continued to grow.…

Most whooping cranes are reported in Oklahoma from mid-October through November. Sightings often come from western Oklahoma, typically east of Guymon and west of Interstate 35.

The bird's final destination, Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, was hard hit by the recent hurricane but biologists are optimistic the cranes will adjust to the new conditions.…

…Noted here that a neighbor is back from 2 weeks there (rig guy and and all that). Says that the cleanup is just astounding - by the time he left (was in the N and E sides - the worst hit) cell service was back, grocery stores open, ATMs running, and primary roads cleared, gas stations open, and the airport is at 100%.

That should be celebrated as a major achievement.…

"Morning Ralph" "Morning Sam"

“I tweeted at the president and the secretary of defense and the defense department. And I basically implored them to send naval assets, including the hospital ship, and it took a few more days and then finally they did…”