"Speaking at “The Gift of Life Banquet” fundraiser for First Choice Pregnancy Center in Las Vegas, Carson argued that the “culture of death” was accepted in America because of “peer pressure.”
“Someone has tried to make this into an issue of women’s rights,” the GOP hopeful told the crowd.
“What about the baby? You know, it’s one of the most sacred relationships in the universe, a mother and that child inside of her. How have we become so distorted that we have managed to convince women that that baby inside of her is her enemy and that she has a right.”"
http://www.rawstory.com/2015/11/ben-carson-tells-anti-choice-group-abortion-is-like-slavery-not-an-issue-of-womens-rights/
-----------------
This, for me, goes to the heart of the question of abortion. At the center of the decision to abort is the woman's choice to kill not just an individual, but also part of herself, based on societal reasons.
Wednesday, November 25, 2015
Tuesday, November 24, 2015
An historic rocket landing
Blue Origin is a privately-funded aerospace developer and manufacturer established by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos. The company launched a rocket straight up to low earth orbit and landed again upright for the first time ever. Nailing the landing is what makes the launch a first ever success, the flight trajectory less impressive as it was flown straight up and down basically.
Comments on YouTube are useful if there is some confusion with this launch and other private space related efforts.
Comments on YouTube are useful if there is some confusion with this launch and other private space related efforts.
Henry Hook
Today I opened a puzzled saved from two laptops ago. When it opened on the screen I looked at its size first, a large one, 21 X 21, not quite Sunday-size but this isn't going to be fast, not within minutes, and its shape, attractive with nice wide open areas with double barrels all over both horizontal and vertical, that is where the theme entries will be and there are a lot of them to help suss the thing out, the title next, "flip the bird," what? That is very uncrossword-like, who did that? Henry Hook. Oh. Well. It's all become clear
Henry would do that, remind us of something foul. It's why we love him so.
"Flip the bird" will mean something different in Wordlandia than it does in the world at large. It can mean an actual bird will be flipped. When it comes to words, and codes, and tricks, and Henry Hook Tomfoolery we can expect birds to be spelled backwards. We can expect this in the large open areas and since it is Henry Hook we are assured it will be genius. It will be entertaining. It will be deviantly clever. It will be cute, and terribly astute. That is Henry Hook.
Yes. Exactly. We see it right off, regular words clued deviantly, "composes" is the misdirecting clue for "calms."
The red square starting the long entry is
17a the clue: World capital since 1923
22a the clue: Advice in case of nuclear attack?
The question mark implies a goofy answer.
I do not know the 1923 capital out of hand. Israel was after that. So is Alaska I had A and N and K so I thought of birds instead of places with those letters, AWK and the like Auckland perhaps, I need a place, a capital, and a bird maybe backwards. Toucan is looking nice but doesn't work as anagram. I move along to other areas fill in other certain letters, past tenses, plurals, that sort of thing, keep looking back at the corner and see ANKARA. The bird is not an anagram for Ankara, and it's not just another bird, Turkey spelled backwards. Not just the clue, the whole puzzle is now solved.
I had KC for the start of the entry below it but that combination does not start words in English that I know. If only it were backwards then it could end in CK instead, and the common sense answer "duck and cover" can become "kcud and cover" boom, the whole puzzle solved and confirmed, just like that.
Really, it is. The theme is cracked and completely understood. The whole point of Henry Hook's mission is keep his theme secret for long as possible, to hold off that "aha" moment for a point of frustration. He wants solvers to be stumped. He wants them to put the puzzle down and come back to it with a fresh start, and none of that is going to happen because this thing is cracked. It's just a matter now of going through and discovering which birds Henry Hook spelled backwards throughout and see how clever Henry Hook is with his bird related phrases, how funny all that is and how entertaining Henry Hook is when he set his mind to being funny. Truly, the man is a riot. And beyond that the puzzle is all fill. The whole puzzle is fill to hold together Henry Hook's collection of backward spelled birds so that common words and phrases like "Ankara Turkey" and "duck and cover" are rendered to spellings with flipped birds.
If you understand him, the man is a riot. And if you do not understand him, he is rude as can be, bus terminal rude, muttering fallen down drunk homeless malcontent rude, banned from polite society in fact, banned from the competitions, for awhile until rehabilitated. It was not that everybody could not handle Henry so much as Henry could not handle polite people, genius in their own right so much thicker than he. He can't stand it. He has precious few friends. Henry is quite good at compiling crossword puzzles. He was the lad who stunned Eugene Maleska by responding personally to a message hidden inside a crossword that is read separately once completely solved by holding the puzzle and turning it around like a wheel, "You have just finished the world's most remarkable crossword." At age fourteen Henry Hook wrote a puzzle with its own hidden message specifically for Eugene Maleska, editor of NYT Crossword puzzles, "What makes you think your puzzle is so amazing?"
This amused and impressed Eugene Maleska.
Adult Henry would sit down and in just a few minutes, ten maximum, he'd have his puzzles for the Boston Globe written for the week. He just thinks them and writes them. A week's work in just a few minutes. And he cheats. He misspells to force things to fit, breaks other rules of symmetry, just to have three or four extra but fantastic thematic entries crammed in illegally. Solvers forgave him because he is so entertaining. Turns out, straight up genius or not, writing puzzles is the only thing Henry Hook ever could do. He is incapable of any work. He is a social disaster.
Was. I am dismayed to see his Wikipedia page says that Henry Hook died a few weeks ago, October 27th 2015. Rest in peace, Henry Hook, you mad genius. I'll go back now and check out the rest of your flipped birds. I'm certain they're all very amusing. Thank you for a lifetime of cheerful and impressive puzzles.
Henry would do that, remind us of something foul. It's why we love him so.
"Flip the bird" will mean something different in Wordlandia than it does in the world at large. It can mean an actual bird will be flipped. When it comes to words, and codes, and tricks, and Henry Hook Tomfoolery we can expect birds to be spelled backwards. We can expect this in the large open areas and since it is Henry Hook we are assured it will be genius. It will be entertaining. It will be deviantly clever. It will be cute, and terribly astute. That is Henry Hook.
Yes. Exactly. We see it right off, regular words clued deviantly, "composes" is the misdirecting clue for "calms."
17a the clue: World capital since 1923
22a the clue: Advice in case of nuclear attack?
The question mark implies a goofy answer.
I do not know the 1923 capital out of hand. Israel was after that. So is Alaska I had A and N and K so I thought of birds instead of places with those letters, AWK and the like Auckland perhaps, I need a place, a capital, and a bird maybe backwards. Toucan is looking nice but doesn't work as anagram. I move along to other areas fill in other certain letters, past tenses, plurals, that sort of thing, keep looking back at the corner and see ANKARA. The bird is not an anagram for Ankara, and it's not just another bird, Turkey spelled backwards. Not just the clue, the whole puzzle is now solved.
I had KC for the start of the entry below it but that combination does not start words in English that I know. If only it were backwards then it could end in CK instead, and the common sense answer "duck and cover" can become "kcud and cover" boom, the whole puzzle solved and confirmed, just like that.
Really, it is. The theme is cracked and completely understood. The whole point of Henry Hook's mission is keep his theme secret for long as possible, to hold off that "aha" moment for a point of frustration. He wants solvers to be stumped. He wants them to put the puzzle down and come back to it with a fresh start, and none of that is going to happen because this thing is cracked. It's just a matter now of going through and discovering which birds Henry Hook spelled backwards throughout and see how clever Henry Hook is with his bird related phrases, how funny all that is and how entertaining Henry Hook is when he set his mind to being funny. Truly, the man is a riot. And beyond that the puzzle is all fill. The whole puzzle is fill to hold together Henry Hook's collection of backward spelled birds so that common words and phrases like "Ankara Turkey" and "duck and cover" are rendered to spellings with flipped birds.
If you understand him, the man is a riot. And if you do not understand him, he is rude as can be, bus terminal rude, muttering fallen down drunk homeless malcontent rude, banned from polite society in fact, banned from the competitions, for awhile until rehabilitated. It was not that everybody could not handle Henry so much as Henry could not handle polite people, genius in their own right so much thicker than he. He can't stand it. He has precious few friends. Henry is quite good at compiling crossword puzzles. He was the lad who stunned Eugene Maleska by responding personally to a message hidden inside a crossword that is read separately once completely solved by holding the puzzle and turning it around like a wheel, "You have just finished the world's most remarkable crossword." At age fourteen Henry Hook wrote a puzzle with its own hidden message specifically for Eugene Maleska, editor of NYT Crossword puzzles, "What makes you think your puzzle is so amazing?"
This amused and impressed Eugene Maleska.
Adult Henry would sit down and in just a few minutes, ten maximum, he'd have his puzzles for the Boston Globe written for the week. He just thinks them and writes them. A week's work in just a few minutes. And he cheats. He misspells to force things to fit, breaks other rules of symmetry, just to have three or four extra but fantastic thematic entries crammed in illegally. Solvers forgave him because he is so entertaining. Turns out, straight up genius or not, writing puzzles is the only thing Henry Hook ever could do. He is incapable of any work. He is a social disaster.
"Oh my God, you are such a weasel!": Things pols say to each other behind the scenes
"The audio recording is a conversation between two political candidates trying to schedule a meeting with each other. But at times, it sounds more like a Hollywood thriller — an especially melodramatic one."
Greitens: “I'm going to ask you one more time, John . . . when we sit down . . . I want you to look in my eye and I want you to tell me the truth.”
Brunner (laughing): “Listen, Eric, you don't need to tell me how to look in a person's eye. All right? . . .”
Greitens: “I want you to look in my eye – ”
Brunner: “Who do you think I am, telling me to look in your eye? (Laughing)
Greitens: “You won't answer.”
Brunner: “. . . You think I'm a kid? Let's have a decent respect for each other . . .”
Greitens: “A decent respect for each other? A decent respect for each other is not hiding.”
Brunner: “Eric, I've never hidden in my life . . . ”
Greitens: “. . . It's very clear, John, to everyone, that this (negative campaigning) is you. . . .”
Brunner: (Laughs) “Well, Eric, that is nice that you can draw all these conclusions . . .”
Greitens: “You won't deny it. You won't deny it.”
Woman's voice, whispering to Brunner (at 8:37): “Just deny it. Deny it. Deny it.”
Brunner: “Eric, listen, the truth will come out when you and I sit down and talk, and I don't take accusations over the phone, I don't take people yelling at me, I don't take people insinuating anything, and frankly I think it's disgusting the way you've handled this phone call and the way you've handled this whole situation.”Both campaigns confirmed this week that the recording is genuine, and Brunner's campaign confirmed it made the recording.
Reason Number 659 why I love Donald Trump and you Rhinos can suck it!
Trump on waterboarding: “If it doesn’t work, they deserve it anyway”
POSTED AT 11:21 AM ON NOVEMBER 24, 2015 BY ALLAHPUNDIT (Hot air)
Pretty risky. The number of Republican primary voters who agree with this can’t be more than, what? 80-85 percent?
The actual figure is a little lower, although only a little. From a CBS poll last December:
Forty-nine percent of Americans think waterboarding and other aggressive interrogation tactics are sometimes justified to get information from suspected terrorists, but just over a third — 36 percent — think they are never justified. The percentage who thinks these tactics are justified has risen slightly from three years ago.More than seven in 10 Republicans (73 percent) and half of independents (50 percent) think these tactics are sometimes justified. Most Democrats (54 percent) do not. Those who have heard or read a lot about the report are even more likely than Americans overall to say these tactics are justified.One of the techniques highlighted in the report is the use of waterboarding, in which the sensation of drowning is created by either dunking a restrained prisoner in water or pouring water over the prisoner’s face. As they did five years ago, most Americans consider this technique to be torture, including majorities of Democrats (83 percent), independents (67 percent), and half of Republicans. The percentage of Americans who do not consider waterboarding torture is unchanged, at 26 percent.
Fifty-one percent of Republicans think waterboarding is torture but 73 percent say it and other “aggressive interrogation tactics” are justified at least some of the time. And the trendline is upward, not downward, which feels counterintuitive as we get farther away from 9/11.FiveThirtyEight crunched some data from Pew late last year:
Carlyle Begay, Arizona Democrat Senator switches to Republican party
Carlyle Begay says a lot of people are going to be unhappy but he finds Republican party more suitable to the needs of his tribes citing unemployment and infrastructure high suicide rates in his two minute video explaining himself and his decision.
What more is there to say? Sensible fellow.
Are we more afraid of PC than afraid of the terrorist?
"A local (Revere, Mass) high school cheerleading captain was disciplined after she sent out a tweet about illegal immigrants."
She says it was a political statement, not a racial one. FOX25 spoke with the teen who says she was taking a page from Donald Trump. Caley Godino is a senior at Revere High School and she says part of their homework is to watch these presidential debates and her tweet was simply about a hot button issue in the headlines.
"When only 10 percent of Revere votes for mayor cause the other 90 percent isn't legal," Godino said in the tweet.
She says it was a response to a tweet from her teacher about the low voter turnout for November's mayoral race. Caley says she meant her tweet as a political comment, not a racial one.
But after other students complained, the school stepped in. Revere Superintendent Dianne Kelly says the district believes in freedom of speech, but cannot support what she calls insensitive language. (read more and watch video at the link)
What does Obama want to hear?
"A number of Centcom analysts say their superiors falsified intelligence assessments, overstating the success of US airstrikes and downplaying ISIS’s growth. Fox News reports the analysts got at least two e-mails ordering them to “cut it out” and “toe the line” after they filed reports on the “rapid rise” of ISIS."
Glen Beck says the Obama policy all along has been ISIS to fight and depose Assad, for him, and later take credit.
Now the Pentagon’s inspector general has seized e-mails and documents from military servers and is adding investigators to the team poring over the evidence. But both Fox and The New York Times report that some of those documents and messages may already have been deleted.
Obama said Sunday that from the moment he took office, he demanded intelligence not be “shaded by politics” or “the desire to tell a feel-good story.”
Hmm. If he’s been getting good intel, he’s ignored it. How else to explain his calling ISIS the “JV team,” or saying it’s been “contained” just hours before the Paris attacks?Obama at the G20 Conference a week ago: I’m Not Interested In ‘American Leadership, Or America Winning’ So, my question is, why wouldn't the people passing on the intelligence to him color it, shifted it, twisted it, to reflect what Obama is interested in?
Glen Beck says the Obama policy all along has been ISIS to fight and depose Assad, for him, and later take credit.
Did World War 3 just start?
Turkey 'downs Russian warplane on Syria border'
Russia's defence ministry said an Su-24 had crashed on Syrian territory after being hit by fire from the ground, and that its pilots had managed to eject.
But Turkish military officials said Turkish F-16s had shot down the plane after repeatedly warning its pilots they were violating Turkish airspace.
"Efforts are being made to ascertain what happened to the pilots. According to preliminary reports, the pilots have managed to self-eject," the [Russian] ministry was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.Turkish news website translation... "Reduced airborne images of the Russian pilots were released"
Turkey is a member of NATO.
Tweet from someone claiming to be an adviser to the Turkey Prime minister...
Monday, November 23, 2015
"Homeland Security Knew Illegal Aliens Falsely Claimed “Credible Fear” to Stay in U.S."
The Obama administration let hundreds of illegal immigrants stay in the U.S. even though federal authorities knew in advance that an open borders group coached them to falsely claim “credible fear” to get asylum, according to documents obtained by Judicial Watch from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
The operation was part of a scam conducted by an immigrant rights organization called the National Immigrant Youth Alliance (NITA), which in recent years has coordinated demonstrations along the Southwest border in Texas and Arizona. In mid-2014 the group orchestrated a racket seeking to bring 250 illegal aliens into the U.S. through the Otay Mesa Port of Entry in San Diego, California. To assure the migrants were allowed to stay in the U.S., the group had them falsely claim that they had a “credible fear” of returning to their native country. Foreigners can claim asylum under five categories, based on fear of persecution over race, religion, nationality, political opinions or membership in a specific social group. (read more)
The operation was part of a scam conducted by an immigrant rights organization called the National Immigrant Youth Alliance (NITA), which in recent years has coordinated demonstrations along the Southwest border in Texas and Arizona. In mid-2014 the group orchestrated a racket seeking to bring 250 illegal aliens into the U.S. through the Otay Mesa Port of Entry in San Diego, California. To assure the migrants were allowed to stay in the U.S., the group had them falsely claim that they had a “credible fear” of returning to their native country. Foreigners can claim asylum under five categories, based on fear of persecution over race, religion, nationality, political opinions or membership in a specific social group. (read more)
Hillary Tweet backfires
Every survivor of sexual assault deserves to be heard, believed, and supported. https://t.co/mkD69RHeBL
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) November 23, 2015
"Facing highest threat alert, Belgians bring out their cats"
What police force would start playing along with a practical joke when the capital is facing its highest state of alert and its most-wanted fugitive is still on the run? Right!
Late Sunday, police asked people to stop commenting on ongoing raids in social media to avoid tipping off suspects.
En masse, they did more than that, becoming mischievous within minutes.
The hashtag #BrusselsLockdown suddenly shifted from serious to humorous, tweeting a flood of pictures of all-too-innocent cats in all kinds of situations — holding their paws up as if captured, posing as police snipers with automatic weapons, and ignoring police warnings to stay away from windows.
One tweet had a cat wearing a bowler hat, the trademark of Rene Magritte, Belgium's greatest surrealist.
Within hours, federal prosecutor Eric Van Der Syp said police wanted to thank "social media users because they took the need of this operation into account."
Police joined the party on Monday, posting a picture of a dish overflowing with dry cat food "For the cats that came to our aid last evening. Serve yourself! #BrusselsLockdown"
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)