Can't We All Just Get Along?

While the tension between Russia and Ukraine may be easing a little bit, elbows are being thrown between China and Vietnam.

According to the Epoch Times, "troops, tanks, trucks, artillery, and armored personnel carriers of China’s military were seen heading to the Vietnamese border on May 16 and 17, according to photographs taken by by residents near the border."

[...]The troop movement comes amid growing anti-China protests in Vietnam. They began last week after Chinese state-run oil company CNOOC began setting up an oil rig 120 nautical miles from Vietnam in waters near the disputed Paracel islands.

The protests began with close to 100 people in Ho Chi Minh City last Saturday, grew to more than 1,000 people in Hanoi on Sunday, and later grew into riots. The protesters have since burned foreign-owned factories. An estimated 21 people have been killed, including at least one Chinese worker in a Taiwanese steel mill.

Jane Fonda, where are you when the commies need you?


More here and here.

It Is, Then It Ain't

A key researcher in the free-gluten movement now admits that it's wrong. Actually it's gluten-free. Free-gluten sounds like a demand for somebody's release from prison. Or this...

What do we want?

Free Gluten!

When do we want it?

Now!!

From the Business Insider:

In one of the best examples of science working, a researcher who provided key evidence of (non-celiac disease) gluten sensitivity recently published follow-up papers that show the opposite. 

The first follow-up paper came out last year in the journal Gastroenterology. Here's the backstory that makes us cheer:

The study was a follow up on a 2011 experiment in the lab of Peter Gibson at Monash University. The scientifically sound — but small — study found that gluten-containing diets can cause gastrointestinal distress in people without celiac disease, a well-known autoimmune disorder triggered by gluten.

They called this non-celiac gluten sensitivity.

Gluten is a protein composite found in wheat, barley, and other grains. It gives bread its chewiness and is often used as a meat substitute. If you've ever had "wheat meat," seitan, or mock duck at a Thai restaurant, that's gluten.

More about the study here.

I just went through a whole series of gastrointestinal work ups (I have GERD and a hiatal hernia) and my internist talked about a new book that is out called "Wheat Belly." He said it rocked it his world and wanted me to read it.

So I looked it up and it was written by a cardiologist, Dr. Davis, who says that man was never meant to eat grass - that's what wheat is, and that the genetically modified grass that we eat today is nothing more than fast growing stalks of sugar. Dwarf wheat, as it is called, was engineered to address world hunger but created a whole series of other health problems instead. That sounds about right.

I ordered the book, should get it mid-week.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I am far from being sold on this and I plan to explore it carefully (there are criticisms and counter-claims). Plus I love bread, waffles, bagels, muffins, pancakes, pastries, sandwiches - the whole incredible spectrum of yummy wheaty things.

The science that discovered the benefits of a gluten free diet has now been dealt a severe blow; the same could apply to a grain free diet in a few years.

But let's face it, much most of the research today is supported by government grants and if the mega-agribusiness lobby wants to keep growing wheat, what is your guess will happen?

In any event I'll keep you posted.

Ready To Rumble

Iran's navy is writing checks that it can't cash ... unless Obama has his way.

A top Iranian naval commander said that he is prepared to order suicide attacks, drone strikes, and missile technology to “destroy the U.S. Navy” in any upcoming confrontation, according to an interview printed in Iran’s state-run media.

Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi points out the precise location where Allah has

stockpiled thousands of virgins awaiting those who attack the US Navy.

Iranian Naval Commander Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi, a member of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), said that Iran is constantly training and preparing for a clash with the United States,according to a recounting of his remarks provided by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

Standing by the navy's newest frigate, The Festering Goat, Iran's Supreme Moral Purity Minister turns his back and 

tweets his office - #BringMeRope - as one of the crew performs the ancient Irani 'you're my bunkmate' grab ass ritual.

Fadavi revealed that Iran “compensates for its technological inferiority to the United States with a strategy of asymmetrical warfare, including suicide attacks and the use of speedboat and its missile capability,” according to MEMRI.

Someone really needs to swat these people... hard.

Revenge Of The Jalapenos

H/T Sober in a Nightclub

The Invisible Hood

New technology from Land Rover probably creates another distraction while driving.

Talent, Yeah

At the Columbus College of Art talent is alive and well where:

[...]two senior ad & graphic design students known collectively as Dangerdust, have been sneaking into classes after hours to covertly create spellbinding works with chalk, bringing alive some of the greatest advice of our time.

The weekly works, typically done on a Sunday or Monday, range from the advice of Mark Twain,fantasy imagery of J.M Barrie's Peter Pan, to a host of intricately detailed classic book covers.

Story here.


H/T iOTW.

Well, That Escalated Quickly

From Zero Hedge:

Late last week, in what should not have been a surprise to anyone (because supposedly it was announced "far in advance") but was a major shock due to its intensity and expansiveness, Russia held a massive "simulated massive nuclear attack" drill, coming at a time just ahead of the Donetsk referendum, which may have been pre-scheduled and for foreign policy reasons was hailed as a "non-event", but judging by the amount of production that went into the accompanying video clip, this particular drill was dripping with symbolism aimed squarely at NATO and the US.

So now it is America's turn to retaliate. As the U.S. Strategic Command reported earlier, the US will conduct Exercise Global Lightning 14 from May 12-16 in coordination with other combatant commands, services, and appropriate U.S. government agencies "to deter and detect strategic attacks against the U.S. and its allies."

Stratcom was quick to point out that Exercise Global Lightning 14 has been planned for more than a year and is based on a notional scenario. It also added that the "timing of the exercise is unrelated to real-world events" but only those who believed that Russia massive nuclear drill was also unrelated to world will fall for this particular embellishment. As Defense One observes, according to Mark Schneider, a former U.S. Defense Department nuclear strategy official, told the Washington Free Beacon that Russia’s drill last week seemed aimed at sending a message of “nuclear intimidation” to the United States and NATO over Ukraine. He noted that Moscow typically stages its atomic exercises in the fall.

The closest I ever got to a B-52 was while driving by Rome AFB back in the early 80's. One of them was coming in for a landing.Wow, that's a big bird...

More here and here.

Things That Make You Go Hmmmm

Photoshopped? You tell me....

The Abomination And The Beast

Some interesting ideas on who the Beast, the Anti-Christ, will be and how Solomon's Temple will be rebuilt.

Pray God you're no longer here when this hits the fan.

I'll Stick With The NFL

Soccer game in Athens, Greece.

Cassette Resurrection

They're coming back. 

Back with a vengeance.

185 terabytes of vengeance.

Way down deep in your hearts, you always knew they would...

From Gizmodo:

Sony's technique, which will be discussed at today's International Magnetics Conference in Dresden, uses a vacuum-forming technique called sputter deposition to create a layer of magnetic crystals by shooting argon ions at a polymer film substrate. The crystals, measuring just 7.7 nanometers on average, pack together more densely than any other previous method.

The result: three Blu-Rays' worth of data can fit on one square inch of Sony's new wonder-tape.

Naturally, that kind of memory isn't going to go in the cassette deck on your ancient boom box any time soon. Sony developed the technology for long-term, industrial-sized data backup, a field where tape's slow write times and the time it takes to scroll through yards and yards of tape to find a single file aren't crippling problems.

It's Time For Impeachment

Hell, impeach them all, every lying, grandstanding, treasonous SOB.

Where are the survivors? What do they say about this?

Nevermind, I'll just bring the rope; there are trees aplenty in DC.

H/T iOTW.

Butterfly Wings

Throughout the ages men have looked at the accomplishments of artists and marveled at their creativity and their use of materials to produce objects of great beauty and complexity. But we are created in the image of God and are simply reflecting His divine nature. Nothing we can do achieves the level of beauty and complexity as revealed in His Creation.

Butterflies are produced by a process in which a caterpillar encases itself in a sack, digests itself and uses it's DNA to reassemble its proteins to produce a completely different creature. It would be like stuffing a wart hog into an acid filled bathtub and three months later out pops Sophia Loren. With wings.

That in itself is pretty amazing, but lets look at the wings and see what makes them so pretty...







H/T iOTW

Grab A Hanky

It's been busy. I am scheduled for my other knee replacement in less than six weeks; had to get a new computer when the old one died (only 3 years old!); a root canal and medical probes for just about everything above my knees (one is a colonoscopy and endoscopy at the same time - I'll be a rotisserie chicken); our daughter finally returned from selection (she passed the process but she didn't get selected - we also found out that she was actually competing against SF soldiers for "operator" status for Lord knows what or where); my oldest daughter's recent wedding anniversary (nineteen years God Bless 'em), my wedding anniversary was yesterday - 32 years ... And we still got a whole bunch of birthdays coming up in the next three weeks and the shopping process for having our bathroom remodeled.

I need something to get me out of the now. Now is a pita, now is stress and IT projects and meetings and $1.5 million in new contracts to monitor and I'm limping again.

I found it.

Teenager takes his great-grandmother to prom

Delores Dennison never went to her high school prom.

Times were tough. Money was scarce -- just enough for the necessities.

But if she had gone to the prom, Delores might have imagined wearing a lovely dress and promenading through a sea of balloons and dancing with a handsome young man on a crisp April evening. She might have imagined the band playing the Frank Sinatra song, “How I love the kisses of Delores.”

But the days of promenades have long passed for Delores, now 89-years-old. Youth and vigor have given way to heart trouble and a stroke. And the handsome young man who became the love of her life – the man who used to sing to her that Frank Sinatra song, passed away many years ago.

But the days of promenades have long passed for Delores, now 89-years-old. Youth and vigor have given way to heart trouble and a stroke. And the handsome young man who became the love of her life – the man who used to sing to her that Frank Sinatra song, passed away many years ago.

The rest of the story here.

H/T to iOTW

Good Time Girl

From Syracuse.com comes a story about criminal defecation:

Oswego, NY -- An Oswego woman accused of falsely reporting being sprayed in the eyes with Pine Sol later defecated on herself and smeared feces inside the police station, deputies said.

Angel Lackey, 34, of 5350 State Route 104, Lot 29, was charged with misdemeanor falsely reporting and incident and criminal tampering, deputies said.

Thursday afternoon, Oswego County deputies went to investigate Lackey's complaint that someone sprayed her with Pine Sol during a disturbance in Scriba. Deputies say that wasn't true.

As Lackey was being interviewed about the incident, she defecated on herself, deputies said.

She then smeared her feces on the window of the interview room at the Public Safety Building, deputies said.

She was arraigned on both charges and sent to the Oswego County jail with bail set at $1,000 cash or $2,000 bond.

Angel is also available for parties.