Arabian chaos

Posted on 2017-12-13 by TPOL Nathan

By Nathan Barton
Deutsche Well reports from Yemen that the on-going war has shifted as Saudi invaders back Saleh loyalists against Houthis.

It is more than a bit confusing: “A military coalition led by Saudi Arabia launched airstrikes against Shiite rebel targets on the outskirts of Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, on Sunday in an apparent move to bolster forces loyal to ex-President Ali Abdullah Saleh against their former allies, the Houthis. On Saturday, Saleh said he is open to discussing the conflict with Saudi leaders, after his alliance with Iran-aligned Shiite rebels known as Houthis collapsed earlier this week, marking a major turning point in the conflict. … Saudi Arabia entered the conflict in March 2015 to prop up [the Saudi puppet regime] of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.”

Is anyone else reminded of the bizarre switches in alliances (and the propaganda) from the novel 1984?

Or perhaps I should compare it to a basketball game, where at half-time, the coaches trade half their players to each other for the second half – but don’t bother to have the players change their uniforms? “You can’t tell the players without a scorecard,” indeed! Continue reading →

Posted in Commentary on the News, Nathan's Rants | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Welfare scientists “flee” to France

Posted on 2017-12-13 by TPOL Nathan

By Nathan Barton

According to the Guardian, President Macron of France is crowing over the fact that American scientists are “fleeing” the Fifty States and the tyranny of Donald Trump in order to enjoy freedom to research man made global warming in their new home-in-exile in France.

“Eighteen climate scientists from the US and elsewhere have hit the jackpot as France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, awarded them millions of euros in grants to relocate to France for the rest of Donald Trump’s presidential term. … More than 5,000 people from about 100 countries expressed interest in the grants. Most of the applicants – and 13 of the 18 winners – were US-based researchers.”

This is, of course, just one more slam by the Tranzis and their allies in the science and media and international community.

But this is NOT “about freedom.”  These 13 scientists are not and have never been denied any freedom to research global warming, by Trump or anyone else. Continue reading →

Posted in Commentary on the News, Nathan's Rants, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Philadelphia – demonstrate brotherly love by making crime easier for the disadvantaged to commit

Posted on 2017-12-10 by TPOL Nathan

By Nathan Barton
Thanks to Scott for passing this one on.

Information Liberation (seriously, that’s the website’s name!) tells us that Democrats who are “people of color” (and their allies and supporters and instigators) are demanding that bulletproof Plexiglas barriers in stores must be removed as they are demeaning and disrespectful to the majority African-American population of the city.

Indeed, a law mandating their removal has already been approved by a City Council committee.

These barriers are installed in shops and stores in high-crime areas, to protect clerks from physical attack (including being shot, stabbed, and grabbed and pulled over the counter by robbers) and to protect items for sale from being stolen. Continue reading →

Posted in Commentary on the News, Nathan's Rants | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

Privacy and shopping

Posted on 2017-12-09 by TPOL Nathan

By Nathan Barton

Both Mike and “Slave Larry” make some excellent observations about privacy, tracking, and stores – and as Mama Liberty pointed out, all the others who can use that data being collected. (see the commentary “Cashless society and privacy.”

Larry, there are several ways that your friend could have gotten that message from Dollar General.  They are not all totally invasive of privacy, but they can be.

First, she probably had the DG app on her phone.  In installing that app, almost certainly she voluntarily allowed them to collect her location data – that is, to track her whereabouts.  It may have been Bluetooth that connected: it may also have been the store’s wifi hotspot.  (More on that in a moment.)

If she didn’t have the DG app, she very well may have had her phone set to automatically detect and connect to a wifi hotspot, like more and more stores have. Again, that is an option she can select (or turn off), which is designed to improve reception, save data usage, and – frankly – share info that can be mined from your phone. Continue reading →

Posted in Nathan's Rants | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Doomed, doomed, I say

Posted on 2017-12-08 by TPOL Nathan

By Nathan Barton

An interesting article was posted at The American Conservative once again proclaiming the death of the American fleet carrier.

To many of us, that comes as no news at all. The vulnerability of flattops has been known for decades. Military planners and officers have studied and addressed it and possible tactics to counter it since at least the 1970s.

This vulnerability – and the incredible cost AND impact of losing one (or more) has been obvious, but few feasible solutions have emerged. Indeed, that may be a major factor in the decision of other major powers (particularly the UK, France, Russia, China, and India) to have a token one or two of the monster (targets) for prestige and training purposes, but to avoid even a modest fleet of them. Continue reading →

Posted in Nathan's Rants | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Cashless society and privacy?

Posted on 2017-12-07 by TPOL Nathan

By Nathan Barton

A friend recently complained about how the ads he sees on-line are more and more targeted to him, personally. He clicked on a link on one website that led him to an Amazon page (where he could have, but declined, to buy the book). Then, a few days later, he visited Amazon to look up and buy something else, and lo and behold, there was an icon showing that book from the other site.

As I told him, frankly, having books I looked up on Amazon appear the next time I go to Amazon doesn’t bother me. They know what I was looking at. That is just providing customer service and checking to see if I was still interested.

What bothers me is this: When I look up something on one site and then go to another site and find an ad for that item or some comparable item. Or start getting e-mails from third parties trying to sell me that item or something similar. That means that either the original website or Amazon sold the information about my inquiry to some other different company. Continue reading →

Posted in Nathan's Rants | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Charity and Responsibility

Posted on 2017-12-06 by MamaLiberty

By MamaLiberty

As a home heath nurse for many years, before I went into hospice care, I visited the homes of people all over So. Calif. I saw patients in almost every socioeconomic situation, and people of every race and creed. I have so many memories of those times, but will (at least try) to concentrate on some related to charity.

We hear a lot about the “poor,” and even are told that some “children” (more about that later) don’t have enough to eat and need charity to provide toys and games because they don’t have any. Therefore, every church and community I know of tries to collect food and toys to give to these poor folks, especially during holidays. They sincerely think that this is “charity” and that they are doing good deeds.

But what is the truth? I offer for your consideration a tiny bit of what I saw in the homes of so many of these “poor” people.

Disclaimer! Remember that all of these people have a perfect right to live however they please, eating whatever they want, and ignoring the teaching of anyone they don’t want to bother with. But that right does not include demanding (and getting) someone else to take responsibility, or pay the price. Continue reading →

Posted in Mama's Rants | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments

Fame, wealth, and power, and the greatest of these is… (Part 2 – dealing with predators)

Posted on 2017-12-06 by TPOL Nathan

By Nathan Barton

In part 1, I tried to dissect this current rash of exposing and (supposedly) punishing sexual predators. Although sexual predation (and abuse) are endemic in human society, those in power, with wealth and influence, and who are celebrities, seem to have more opportunity to prey on others, AND perhaps more likely to do so.

All levels of society – socioeconomic, religion, profession, etc. – seem to have SOME predators. But there seems to be some correlation between the “elite” and the number of incidents. For instance, a small city of 10,000 might have a couple of such cases a year. But the top tier of media (for example, professional sports or Hollywood or broadcast media) has less than 10,000 top names, yet hundreds of incidents involving dozens or scores of predators are being reported.

As I’ve pointed out, it is exactly what we should expect, and I am sure that the true extent of the situation is far from public, even yet. Looking back just a few years, we can remember such names as Bill Cosby. Anyone remember Gary Hart, the presidential contender? The list is long, and seemingly getting longer by the day. More were denounced over the first weekend in December. Continue reading →

Posted in Commentary on the News, Nathan's Rants | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Predator alert or witch hunt? (Part 1 – dealing with predators)

Posted on 2017-12-05 by TPOL Nathan

By Nathan Barton

As we’ve discussed before, the sudden explosion of reports, action, and admission of sexual predation against children and women is notable. It is also continuing. Indeed, it can be characterized as being a matter of hysteria. Is it really hunting down and “eliminating” predators? Or is it a witch hunt? And/or a distraction from other things? That question is still unanswered.

But it does indeed seem that many of the accusations ARE true – and have been admitted by the predators themselves, or documented (by video, especially) sufficiently to be considered valid.

There seem to be several general types of incidents: Continue reading →

Posted in Commentary on the News, Nathan's Rants | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The approaching doom of human history?

Posted on 2017-12-03 by TPOL Nathan

By Nathan Barton

I4U News has a blaring headline, “Sea Level Rise Could Swallow 13,000 Archeological Sites in US.”  A similar MIC story starts out, “Human history may soon be in serious trouble…”  The stories refer to a technical paper published by PLOS.

For those who don’t know (I didn’t), PLOS is the “Public Library of Science” and claims to be a “driving force in the Open Source movement.”  Its journal header announces that PLOS “is a nonprofit publisher, innovator and advocacy organization.” (Note the term “advocacy organization.”)

The paper, published by nine University of Tennessee researchers,  actually lists 13,583 sites between mean sea level and 1 meter (3.3 feet) above mean sea level.  But it also reports 5,762 sites that are “at or below current sea level.”  It clearly assumes that the Al-gor claims of rises in ocean levels (caused by man made global warming) are accurate predictions of the future. (But it does not address the validity of those claims.) Continue reading →

Posted in Commentary on the News, Nathan's Rants | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment