Useless Information

I have my doubts about some of these…but you know they don’t lie on the net…right?

Everyone should know these facts. You will be tested later.

If you are right handed, you will tend to chew your food on the right side of your mouth.

If you are left handed, you will tend to chew your food on the left side of your mouth.

To make half a kilo of honey, bees must collect nectar from over 2 million individual flowers.

Heroin is the brand name of morphine once marketed by 'Bayer'.

Tourists visiting Iceland should know that tipping at a restaurant is considered an insult!

People in nudist colonies play volleyball more than any other sport.

Albert Einstein was offered the presidency of Israel in 1952, but he declined.

Astronauts can't belch - there is no gravity to separate liquid from gas in their stomachs.

Ancient Roman, Chinese, and German societies often used urine as mouthwash.

The Mona Lisa has no eyebrows. In the Renaissance era, it was the fashion to shave them off!

Because of the speed at which Earth moves around the Sun, it is impossible for a solar eclipse to last more than 7 minutes and 58 seconds.

The night of January 20 is "Saint Agnes's Eve," which is regarded as a time when a young woman dreams of her future husband.

Google is actually the common name for a number with a million zeros.

It takes glass one million years to decompose, which means it never wears out and can be recycled an infinite number of times!

Gold is the only metal that doesn't rust, even if it's buried in the ground for thousands of years.

Your tongue is the only muscle in your body that is attached at only one end.

If you stop getting thirsty, you need to drink more water. When a human body is dehydrated, its thirst mechanism shuts off.

Each year 2,000,000 smokers either quit smoking or die of tobacco-related diseases.

Zero is the only number that cannot be represented by Roman numerals.

Kites were used in the American Civil War to deliver letters and newspapers.

The song, Auld Lang Syne, is sung at the stroke of midnight in almost every English-speaking country in the world to bring in the New Year.

Drinking water after eating reduces the acid in your mouth by 61 percent.

Peanut oil is used for cooking in submarines because it doesn't smoke unless it's heated above 450oF.

The roar that we hear when we place a seashell next to our ear is not the ocean, but rather the sound of blood surging through the veins in the ear.

Nine out of every 10 living things live in the ocean.

The banana cannot reproduce itself. It can be propagated only by the hand of man.

Airports at higher altitudes require a longer airstrip due to lower air density.

The University of Alaska spans four time zones.

The tooth is the only part of the human body that cannot heal itself.

In ancient Greece, tossing an apple to a girl was a traditional proposal of marriage. Catching it meant she accepted.

Warner Communications paid $28 million for the copyright to the song Happy Birthday.

Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.

A comet's tail always points away from the sun.

The Swine Flu vaccine in 1976 caused more death and illness than the disease it was intended to prevent.

Caffeine increases the power of aspirin and other painkillers, which is why it is found in some medicines.

The military salute is a motion that evolved from medieval times, when knights in armor raised their visors to reveal their identity.

If you get into the bottom of a well or a tall chimney and look up, you can see stars, even in the middle of the day.

When a person dies, hearing is the last sense to go. The first sense lost is sight.

In ancient times strangers shook hands to show that they were unarmed.

Strawberries are the only fruits whose seeds grow on the outside.

Avocados have the highest calories of any fruit at 167 calories per 100 grams.

The moon moves about two inches away from the Earth each year.

The Earth gets 100 tons heavier every day due to falling space dust.

Due to earth's gravity it is impossible for mountains to be higher than 15,000 meters (49,213 feet).

Mickey Mouse is known as "Topolino" in Italy.

Soldiers do not march in step when going across bridges because they could set up a vibration which could be sufficient to knock the bridge down.

Everything weighs 1% less at the equator.

For every extra kilogram carried on a space flight, 530 kg of excess fuel are needed at lift-off.

The letter J does not appear anywhere on the periodic table of the elements.

Wordless Wednesday

" "

Mr Scamman

THE MANCHURIAN PRESIDENT

(Peeps, I don't know why the font changes. I didn't do it. But regardless, PLEASE READ THIS)

That's Oliver "Buck" Revell, a former high official in the FBI and, more importantly, a former Marine Officer. He's written an essay, "The Manchurian President", with his thoughts on the upcoming presidential election, and what it means for our country: the ultimate campaign issue is whether we will continue as a democratic society with free market economics or become a socialist society guided, directed and to a large degree controlled by an overriding Federal Bureaucracy with a Messianic leader guiding the nation towards his vision of “Hope and Change”. A society where all good things come from the government and those who have done well are duty bound to spread the wealth more “fairly”.

It's hard to believe such a public statement came from a former FBI Official. He must have been speaking as a former Marine Officer. The entire essay is reproduced below.

JULY 24, 2012

THE MANCHURIAN PRESIDENT
Oliver “Buck” Revell

As we prepare to elect a president of the United States in November of this year it has become starkly evident that this will be one of the most important elections in the history of our Republic. For the ultimate campaign issue is whether we will continue as a democratic society with free market economics or become a socialist society guided, directed and to a large degree controlled by an overriding Federal Bureaucracy with a Messianic leader guiding the nation towards his vision of “Hope and Change”. A society where all good things come from the government and those who have done well are duty bound to spread the wealth more “fairly”.

I had a particular insight into what an Obama Administration might bring to the American people due to experience that I gained as the Assistant Special Agent in Charge then as the Acting SAC of the FBI in Chicago in 1975 & 1976. The Mayor was Richard Daley and political corruption and organized crime were rampant. Although these problems were foremost on my priority list there was also a very recent history of New Left Radicalism as evidenced by the so called Chicago Seven Trial. Also active in the Chicago area were William “Bill” Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn leaders of the terrorist wing (the weather underground) of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).

Ayers and Dohrn represented a sizeable number of radicalized youth during the Viet Nam war and personally carried out acts of terrorism to demonstrate their total opposition to U.S. involvement in Viet Nam and South East Asia. They espoused communist doctrine, and also carried on much of the legacy of the most infamous Chicago radical Saul Alinsky.

If one thinks that Ayers and Dohrn, both now respected members of academia, have reformed and support American Democracy, their recent interviews give a different picture. There is ample evidence that Ayers is as radical now as he was then. On September 11, 2011 (a day that makes this interview very ironic). Ayers was profiled by the New York Times in a piece with Ayers saying, “I don’t regret setting bombs, I feel that we didn’t do enough.”

In 2010 Ayers wife Bernadine Dohrn said that she and Bill, “…are radicals today, and we think the real terrorist is the American government”; Ayers is further quoted as saying, “I get up every morning thinking today I’m going to end capitalism”.

Alinsky, a well-known socialist radical, had become famous for his defiant stands against both the U.S. Government and big business. He had led Union activities into an era of direct and often belligerent confrontation with industry, and was an avid opponent of capitalism. Shortly before his death Alinsky authored, in 1971 his seminal book, ‘Rules for Radicals’.

I read the book while in Chicago and it helped me understand the radicalization that was occurring in several segments of American society. Little did I realize that almost forty years later I would witness and be caught up in the rebirth of Alinsky’s philosophy.

Another movement that was very powerful in Chicago at the time was the Nation of Islam under its White hating founder Elijah Muhammad. Although founded in Detroit, the Nation of Islam (NOI) moved its headquarters to Chicago and Louis Farrakhan replaced Muhammad as leader of the militant quasi-military religious order claiming Islam as the true religion and ALLAH as the One God. The NOI was problematic, but not in open revolt against main stream society at the time, but once again the future would bring the NOI back into my life at a later date.

This background in the politics, and social movements of Chicago in the mid-seventies jumped into my consciousness when I first learned that a very junior Senator from Illinois named Barack Hussein Obama was running for the office of President of the United States. I started reading everything I could find on Obama and quickly found out that he was a man with an exceedingly thin resume and very left wing in his espoused political philosophy.

As the primary campaign continued I became more and more aware that Obama had no relevant experience to qualify him for the most difficult and demanding job in the world.

I had been in Washington during the time that Jimmy Carter was president and I knew very well the hazards that our nation would face if we foolishly elected a person to be president about whom we knew next to nothing. When I learned of Obama’s relationship with William Ayers it set off alarms in my mind; if Obama was taking advice and counsel from Bill Ayers then he was either naive or reckless. I also recognized that Obama’s rhetoric was straight out of the Saul Alinsky play book, namely, Rules for Radicals.

A recently published book on Alinsky and Obama, The Evil Genius Behind Obama, by historian and political commentator Dr. Jerome R. Corsi makes very clear the influence that Alinsky’s radical ideology has on Obama. An honest review of Alinsky’s life and his writing makes clear that Barack Obama has lifted his divisive power-politics tactics from Saul Alinsky so completely that the class warfare themes Obama articulates in his speeches running for reelection in 2012 come almost word for word from the Saul Alinsky ‘rules for radicals’ playbook.

Another very troubling aspect of Obama’s adult life was his long time association with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. In opening his speeches to black church groups Obama would state, “I bring you greetings from my pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright”. Until Obama married Michelle Robinson in 1991, when he was thirty years old, his most significant adult relationship was with Jeremiah Wright. His connection to Wright ran long and deep, and went back further than has been generally reported. It started well before Obama joined Wright’s congregation, Trinity United Church of Christ, where the pastor’s sermons on Black Liberation Theology encouraged a victimization mentality among his black parishioners.

Among all of the controversial comments by Jeremiah Wright, the idea of massive wealth redistribution is the most alarming. The code language ‘economic parity’ and references to ‘mal-distribution’ is nothing more than channeling the twisted economic views of Karl Marx.

“Black Liberation theologians have explicitly stated a preference for Marxism as an ethic framework for the black church because Marxist thought is predicated on a system of oppressor class (whites) versus victim class (blacks). Echoes of Wright’s Marxist ideology can be found in many of Obama’s remarks. For instance, when Obama says, “I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody,” he is channeling Rev. Wright. This should come as no surprise, since Wright’s influence on Obama was unrivaled for more than twenty years. And those were Obama’s formative years when his core beliefs took shape.

“Not even Michelle Obama held such intellectual sway over her husband. It was Wright that encouraged Obama to make a career of politics and offered to hook up Obama with members of the Trinity United Church of Christ who had money and important connections. The church was an integral part of Barack’s politics because he needed that black base.” (The Amateur: Edward Klein, 2012).

It was also reported that Obama had a friendly relationship with Louis Farrakhan and that the Nation of Islam was working very diligently in Black communities across the country to get out the vote for Obama. I have no recollection of the NOI ever supporting any other candidate for President of the United States.

An additional area of concern for me was the apparent close business and personal relationship between Obama and his neighbor Tony Rezko. Rezko is alleged to have assisted Obama in obtaining property at an extremely discounted price and to have introduced Obama to many of his friends as potential campaign contributors. Rezko was a member of Obama’s State Senate Campaign committee and is credited with raising approximately $250,000 for Obama, his largest single contributor. Rezko is currently serving a 10 year term in prison for fraud and bribery.

Former Governor Rod Blagojevich was a friend and business associate of Tony Rezko and Rezko was one of the Governor’s largest contributors and fund raisers. The impeachment and trial of Governor Blagojevich again raised the specter of rampant corruption in Chicago politics. Particularly disturbing was Obama’s insistence that he hardly knew Blagojevich and had only met him a few times. Evidence of many meeting and consultations has shown this statement to be false.

It has also been determined that Obama lobbied Blagojevich to appoint his friend and close confident, Valerie Jarrett, to be his (Obama’s) successor as a U.S. Senator for Illinois. Blagojevich was discovered to be attempting to obtain something of value, either a Federal appointment or cash donations in return for nominating Jarrett. Jarrett did not get the appointment largely due to the revelations in the Blagojevich investigation. Jarrett currently serves as a top advisor to President Obama and his wife Michele.

Last December, former Governor Rod Blagojevich was sentenced to fourteen years in Federal prison, thereby ending one of the most bizarre episodes in Chicago corruption annals.

Perhaps one of the most telling pre-election disclosures that disturbed me was the revelation that Obama had earmarked an appropriations bill for $1,000,000 soon after he took office for construction of a pavilion at the University Of Chicago Hospital, a private institution. It was also determined that Mrs. Obama worked at this facility and shortly after this earmark was passed she was promoted and given a $200,000 raise to a salary of $316,962. Reports were also received that she only ‘worked at this job’ on a part time basis. If I had still been in the Bureau I would have opened an investigation of the University of Chicago for bribery. I couldn’t have opened a case against Senator Obama because Senators and Representatives are immune from investigation and prosecution for legislative actions, but the University is not.

With the background information I had at this time it was not difficult for me to answer an inquiry from a representative of a national news organization. The inquiry was simple: based upon what I knew or had learned up to that time would Senator Obama be able to get a top secret clearance from the FBI.

I had to explain to the caller that neither the FBI nor any other Federal agency does background investigations on candidates for the offices of President, Vice President or members of Congress. The caller was somewhat incredulous and asked, “well how do they get clearances”, my response was that it was the responsibility of the American public and the news media to determine the qualifications of candidates running for these offices.

The reporter then posed a difficult question that caused me some hesitation to answer; he asked if Obama was an applicant for a position in the FBI would he be able to get a Top Secret Clearance. I paused and thought for a minute pondering whether I should answer such a volatile question; then I decided that my responsibility was to tell the truth and not be concerned about possible negative reactions by others.

My honest answer was with what I had learned about Obama during the campaign and if these associations and allegations were determined to be true, in my opinion, Barack Obama would not be hired or given a security clearance by the FBI, at least not while I was in the Bureau.

Although the story of my comments was run it did not stir any particular controversy and apparently the American News Media and public were not concerned with Obama’s questionable background and associations.

Even now, some four years after many of the questions and allegations concerning Obama were first raised there are still major gaps in our knowledge of his background and accomplishments. “Researchers have discovered that Obama’s autobiographical books are little more than PR stunts, as they have little to do with the actual events of his life. The fact is we know less about President Obama than perhaps any other president in American history and much of this is due to actual efforts to hide his records.”

We have no access to his school records, passport documents, scholarship or financial support data, prior to his running for public office. Who supported his attendance at some of America’s most prestigious schools and universities?

Did he apply for a foreign student scholarship and if so, what did he claim as his native country?

Was his education paid for by foreign governments or officials, and if so by whom?

Where are the papers that he had to write to graduate from Columbia and Harvard Law School?

What about the various Social Security numbers that he is alleged to have utilized, and his Selective Service registration?

How did Obama go to Pakistan when no Americans were being issued visas for travel to that country and who paid for his trip?

There may be legitimate answers to these and the other questions that have been raised about President Obama, but until he is open and forthright with the American public we just won’t know what we need to know about our president.

There are many other issues about this president such as his use of Executive Orders to bypass the Congress, his economic policies which make no fiscal sense, and his Imperial style of governance.

But those will be the subject of another paper as we are likely to be discussing and debating President Barack Obama for some time to come.

J-Man's Birthday Present

On August 1^st my grandson, J-Man, turned 17.

HOW?

Just last week he was a little baby sleeping on my chest in the recliner. It was last week, wasn’t it? Seems like it.

Anygrowingup, we didn’t know what to get him because he has everything (who needs Santa? He has MeMaw and Paw Paw.) Everything except a car!

Well, it just so happens our old car, a 04 Hyundai Sonata, was in the market for a new owner, so Judy and I introduced them to each other. We did this at his Birthday luncheon a couple of weeks ago.

He was given a gift-wrapped box with a picture of the car and the car keys in it..

At first he was a little confused, then the light came on and his face lit up.

(J-Man driving with me for the fist time. The smile left soon afterward)

He has driven the car for the past year with his learners permit under his parents, Bug's harassing, Judy's and/or my directions…poor guy held up well with my screaming, crying and banging on the dash…uh…grandfatherly directions. And he loves driving the car…even better than driving my truck. But he doesn’t have his driver’s license yet. He had to complete a driving course first.

And he is scheduled to get his driver’s license this Wednesday; then he will be the newest driver on the road. So why am I so apprehensive? He is a great kid…uh…guy and a great driver. But there are other dumb-asses out there. They had better leave my grandson alone. They haven’t ever had a can of grandpa whoop ass poured on them like they will get if they fuck with my boy.

J-Man and Judy

(Does he look kinda happy?)

At any rate, we delivered the car to him on Saturday (see the bow).
He was all smiles (that’s our new Nissan Altima behind his car, too.)

And since we were gonna stay for a while and play some board games with them, HE thought it would be a good idea for him and Marni (his mom - my daughter) to go pick up a pizza order instead of having it delivered. See? I told you he was all heart.

Anybirthdaypresent, J-Man is worth it. We are crazy about him and his sister, Bug.

OMG, what are we gonna get her for her 17^th birthday (in three years?) Wonder if she would like a Ford F150 picemup truck?