For those of you coming in late to the party, Earth Day” is on Lenin’s Birthday. Not a coincidence, given that the “founder” of Earth Day was much more a “Watermelon” than an actual environmentalist. Watermelon: Thin layer of green of the outside, red to the core.
“Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.” — George Wald, Harvard Biologist
“Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.” — Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist
“By…[1975] some experts feel that food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions. Other experts, more optimistic, think the ultimate food-population collision will not occur until the decade of the 1980s.” — Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist
“It is already too late to avoid mass starvation,” — Denis Hayes, chief organizer for Earth Day
“Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions….By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.” — Peter Gunter, professor, North Texas State University
“Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support…the following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution…by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half….” — Life Magazine, January 1970
“At the present rate of nitrogen buildup, it’s only a matter of time before light will be filtered out of the atmosphere and none of our land will be usable.” — Kenneth Watt, Ecologist
“Air pollution…is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone.” — Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist
Ok, Ehrlich was sorta right on this, if you restrict his predictions to modern Communist China, where they are showing the typical communist/socialist contempt for the environment.
“By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate…that there won’t be any more crude oil. You’ll drive up to the pump and say, `Fill ‘er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say, `I am very sorry, there isn’t any.’” — Kenneth Watt, Ecologist
Now we get to my personal favorite, although probably not Al Gore‘s… “The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years,” he declared. “If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.” — Kenneth Watt, Ecologist
1776 and An American Carol Once again, I’m going with an Independence Day double header. Starting with the 1972 film version of the Broadway musical 1776. It tells the tale of getting the resolution on Independence passed through the Continental Congress in the summer of 1776. William Daniels is quite good as John Adams, but it is Howard Da Silva as Benjamin Franklin who steals the show. The second film was the 4th of July weekend pick for 2009. It is the story of Crocumentary filmmaker Michael Malone (name slightly changed so you will be sure which fat communist bastard it is supposed to be), who wants to ban the “4th of July” and is visited by the Ghost of John F. Kennedy, who tells that he will be visited by three spirits in order to cure him of his un-American ways. Very funny, with a great cast of actors who put their careers at risk by outing themselves as Conservatives in the far left extremist moonbat haven of Hollywood.
“I am for a government rigorously frugal & simple, applying all the possible savings of the public revenue to the discharge of the national debt; and not for a multiplication of officers & salaries merely to make partisans, & for increasing, by every device, the public debt, on the principle of it’s being a public blessing.”
— Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States of America
Not A Good Day to Die by Sean Naylor
For Memorial Day, I’m going with my Monday Book pick for July 28, 2014.
This book tells the story of Operation Anaconda. It starts with the first planning stages in January 2002, through its conclusion in early March 2002. Up to this point, the war in Afghanistan had been conducted mainly by US Special Forces troops working with various Afghanistan groups and calling in US air assets. Anaconda was the first operation to involve large scale use of regular US forces. In this case elements of the 10th Mountain Division and the 101st Airborne Division. The first third of the book covers the planning and the background of the key players. This is fairly dry, but interesting and informative on why and how the fog of war effected the operation. Intelligence said that there were 200-250 Al Qaeda fighters in the intended AO (Area of Operation). The plan was for Afghan forces, with Special Forces ‘advisers’ to confront the enemy, with ‘escape routes’ to be blocked by Afghan forces and elements of the 10th Mountain and 101st Airborne. The motto, ‘no plan survives contact with the enemy’ is often referenced in various forms in this book. There were a lot more than 250 AQ fighters, later estimates put it at 800 or more. They opened up the US forces almost immediately after they got out their helicopters with small arms, heavy machine guns, mortars, and in some cases artillery. The US forces responded with much more accurate fire and air strikes. Lots and lots of air strikes. From the CIA’s armed Predator drones to B-52s dropping JDAM bombs. The most effective though were the Apache helicopters, which got close enough to see the enemy and pour firepower right were it was needed. The fighting continued much longer than expected, in areas were it wasn’t expected, from a well dug in, and well supplied enemy force. Many of which got to see Allah personally. A well written book about a major operation that dispelled the common notion in early 2002, that the war in Afghanistan was almost over.
13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened In Benghazi by Mitchell Zuckoff and the Annex Security Team
Mitchell is a journalism professor at Boston University. This is not a political book. It is a detailed account of what happened on September 11, 2012 in Benghazi. It details what the security arrangement were, including the use of local militia groups, who was where during each of the multiple attacks, who died, who was wounded, and what the responses by the State Department were at the time.
This book covers an important piece of American history, the first foreign war fought by the United States. The Barbary nations associated with the Ottoman Empire practiced piracy and enslaved captured crews of any Nation that could not defend its merchant fleet or could not afford the “tributes” the leaders of the Barbary Coast nations demanded as the price to not have ships, cargos, and crews captured and sold. It was President Jefferson (the third President) who decided that continuing to pay foreign nations who held US citizens for ransom (while forcing them to perform hard labor as slaves), and continuing to raid US flagged merchant vessels, was bad policy. President Jefferson persuaded Congress to fund new Naval construction and personnel to take the fight to the Barbary pirate nations. This well researched book details the diplomatic front, as well as the battles fought by the US Navy and Marines.
The third part of a Bernie Sanders speech is pure socialist class warfare, income redistribution rhetoric. Nonsense which the useful idiots who support him swallow whole because they have no understanding of economics, and are either ignorant of or willfully ignore history.
Bernie is remarkably light on details on just how he is going to pay for his vision of a socialist workers paradise. The math isn’t hard. The Wall Street Journal put the price tag at $18 trillion, which is the current federal debt. Bernie denied the WSJ numbers, but refused to present any of his own. That is because he doesn’t have any plans based in reality. Socialism has failed each and every time it has been tried. It has resulted in economic collapse or has had to kill off large chunks of the population. Usually both. Socialist countries killed over a 100 million of their own citizens in the 20th Century. Remind any useful idiot who babbles about “feel the Bern” of this fact. Odds are it won’t make any difference. They will probably either ignore or deny it.
It’s an Independence Day double header. I’m going once again go with the 1972 film version of the Broadway musical 1776. Based on the Broadway play, it tells the tale of getting the resolution on Independence passed through the Continental Congress in the summer of 1776. William Daniels is quite good as John Adams, but it is Howard Da Silva as Benjamin Franklin who steals the show. The second film was the 4th of July weekend pick for 2009. It is the story of Crocumentary filmmaker Michael Malone (name slightly changed so you will be sure which fat communist bastard it is supposed to be), who wants to ban the “4th of July” and is visited by the Ghost of John F. Kennedy, who tells that he will be visited by three spirits. Very funny, and a great cast, and of course the ghost of General Patton slaps the fat bastard!
This flick takes you back to the heady days of Disco, complete with the obligatory Studio 54 scene. It is based on an actual historic advent called “Abscam.” For those of you who were not alive in the 1970’s, Abscam resulted in a bunch of democrat congressmen and other democrat politicians getting arrested on corruption charges. So things really haven’t changed much. This a well crafted movie, so play attention to the details, like the political party of the corrupt politicians never getting mentioned. You will have to watch in in High Def, so you can fully appreciate the carefully crafted difference between the con man’s comb over and the federal agent’s perm induced curls. It points out that the con man was more honest than the government officials. You’ll also want the high def view of Amy Adams’ breasts. Seriously, she wears those outfits with the neckline down to her waist for a reason. She’s a con artist too, and wants the mark’s attention anywhere except what she is saying. Those tits are certainly playing a bigger role than they did in a previous B-Movie pick, “The Wedding Date.”
If you depended on the MSM for your news, you probably never heard of Leland Yee. OK, he was on Piers Morgan’s show a lot, but given the ratings his recently cancelled CNN show had, I’ll stand by my statement. Leland Yee is a California State Senator, and like the majority of that body, a democrat. He was a very prominent and influential member of the California democrat party. He was running for the position of Secretary of State, and was considered a ‘shoe in’ for the position. He was also one of the state senate’s most vocal proponents for massive restrictions of the Constitutional rights of Californians.
Then he was arrested, along with numerous other democrat politicians, on charges of fraud and corruption. Leland Yee had an additional charge brought against him, gun running. This prominent California democrat, who was very vocal in his stance that law abiding citizens had no rights to legally own firearms, was trying to smuggle fully automatic firearms and shoulder fired missiles from Islamic terrorists, which he was then going to give to his contacts in the Tong (Chinese organized crime).
Mr. Yee wanted the law abiding citizens to be disarmed, while his friends the Tong had the firepower to destroy armored police vehicles. Mr. Yee’s actions were keeping with the established traditions of the democrat party. No wonder he was so popular with the heavily democrat California electorate.
Popular Mechanics has a story entitled:Who’s Packing What: The Weapons in the Leland Yee Scandal. Here is bit of information that shouldn’t be a spoiler. Yee didn’t want law abiding citizens to own any of the weapons listed in that article.