caucus99percent

free-range politics, organic community

It's been months since I posted any of the dozens of bot-mails from various member-leaders of The Grand Old Party. They were amusing and modestly informative about where the Republicans want to go. Most of all, the messages have been risible.

The latest is nice and goofy:

We reviewed your response — and it raised a few eyebrows.
NRSC HQ
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Friend,

Riding Trump's War and Peace Seesaw

The week began with bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran (John McCain's wet dream), then suddenly the mantra shifted to we have a peace deal. Interesting this happened Thursday as the markets were about to close on Friday. There's been plenty of market manipulation and profit taking during this absurd war of choice. Russia continues its advance in Ukraine as the Ukrainians continue lobbing drones at civilian targets. The question is does Russia strike those drone making facilities in the EU which are supplying them to Ukraine? This week also saw the removal of Trump's name on the Kennedy Center, and at least a hold on Kushner's Epstein Island 2.0 in Albania. And then we have the World Cup games in the US where we are really flying our racist flag. The treatment of the Iranians, the Somalians, and other countries has been horrid and shameful. All that and more below the fold...

Afternoon folks!

This week it's a grab bag of blues and other stuff. I'm on my way out the door, so I'll trust you all to figure it all out rather than providing a narrative.

You all have a great weekend and enjoy the tunes!

B.B. King ~ Blues n Jazz

On youtube

Good morning, good people!

I hope you are all enjoying your weekend!

I wanted to give an update of sorts about the local woman who mysteriously committed suicide. Rumors on FB, coming from a county commissioner, say the autopsy is in, the husband is now a suspect. Such a roar of rumors, I called the sheriff, discovered he is out of state, but protocol says he is to be notified of the autopsy. He agreed with me the commissioner needs to shut up before a jury next year or the next, is tainted beyond redemption. Not to mention, the husband, not yet a person of interest, disappears.

Happy Friday everyone. Welcome to Friday Night Photos your once a week escape from the day to day insanity of the world we live in. Post any photos, memes, music or whatever else you find of interest that helps tune out the madness.

Not only is an aircraft carrier a floating city it is also a mobile military airfield carrying 70-75 aircraft. Due to the limited space, navy aircraft have to be able to fold their wings or rotor blades in order to fit as many aircraft onboard as the limited space will allow. The different types of aircraft include attack aircraft, fighter aircraft, anti submarine aircraft, airborne early warning radar aircraft, and transport aircraft.

Aircraft are shown in chronological order during the Midways active duty from the mid 1940s to the early 1990s.
F4F Wildcat. Fighter

War is nothing new, humans have used violent conflict to settle differences since the advent of bludgeons made from rocks and sticks. War, it's what we are, it's what we do. How much more evidence needs to be provided to prove that point? Stating mankind as civilized has been proven, time and time again, to be empty rhetoric. Are we really that far removed from the animal kingdom? Evidently not.

Has there ever been peace without first fighting a war? The concept of peace would be an abstract without the concept of war.

Peace works until cooperation breaks down and a tribe covets something that a neighboring tribe possesses. For early man it was arable land, now it's mostly for resources. That is the essence of empire and conquest.

It's a sad testament to our species, but there it is.

Vaccinations - Small Pox
I recently went down a rabbit hole I never expected. I was reading a bit on Quora, and came across an article about how, 250 years ago, 'a 52 year old Massachusetts doctor turned major general died screaming and blind in a tent on the Richelieu River, and the United States lost its best shot at making Canada the fourteenth state.' Hmm, interesting.

General John Thomas, a country physician from Kingston, Massachusetts died in that tent, of smallpox. His death, and the huge losses the army was suffering due to smallpox, led George Washington to have the entire Continental army inoculated, in secret, 8 months later.

Ok, so, ummm, I didn't know the history of smallpox, that there were inoculations before and during the Revolutionary War, and I didn't know about the difference between inoculations and vaccinations (which were developed in the late 1700s and early 1800s). Wanting to learn more led me further down the rabbit hole.

Inoculation or variolation (from the article on history.com)