Cab Thoughts 1/17/15

A man's admiration for absolute government is proportionate to the contempt he feels for those around him.--deTocqueville

Director Oliver Stone believes the CIA contributed to violence at February protests in Ukraine that left more than 100 dead. "It seems clear that the so-called 'shooters' who killed 14 police men, wounded some 85, and killed 45 protesting civilians, were outside third-party agitators," he wrote."Many witnesses, including Yanukovych and police officials, believe these foreign elements were introduced by pro-Western factions — with CIA fingerprints on it," Stone continued.
He might be right but I wouldn't believe him if he said "Force equals mass times acceleration." Mr. Stone's insightfulness and intellectual honesty can be confirmed by anyone who is concerned by simply referring to his famous work "JFK," a virtual monument to predatory and toxic capitalism unfettered by either probity or social responsibility.
Free speech can be a problem when it is exercised by known idiots.

A fascinating study of an American made missile found that 30% of the computer chips used were counterfeit.

Lake Abbe (aka Lake Abhe Bad) is a saline lake, lying on the border between Ethiopia and Djibouti. The Lake is found in the central area of the Afar Depression – a sunken landform forming as a result of the African plate splitting into the Nubian and Somalian plates. This depressions draws water from the African heartland via the Awash River to a chain of six connected lakes, with Lake Abbe representing the final destination for the river. Rising Magma oozes out onto the surface through thin cracks in the dry ground. The intruding magma also causes another interesting above-ground effect by heating underground springs rich in minerals. The heating of the underwater springs causes boiling water to bubble up to the surface, where it deposits dissolved calcium carbonates, creating towering chimneys, some of which can reach heights exceeding 50 meters. The director Charlton Heston shot his 1968 film “The Planet of the Apes” on the shores of Lake Abbe.

Golden oldie:

http://steeleydock.blogspot.com/2011/10/notes-from-lee-hood.html

Saudia, Saudi Arabia's national airline, is reportedly planning to begin segregating their flights by gender. The move, first reported by Arabic-language news agency Ajel, is in response to male passengers complaining about their wives and daughters being seated next strange men. El Al, Israel's national airline, has faced similar grumpiness from haredi (ultra-Orthodox) flyers who refuse to sit next to women they aren't related to.

Seven years ago, in November 2007, the aggregate balance in the federal direct student loan program was only $98,529,000,000. Since then, it has grown by $708,032,000,000.

40.2 percent of students attending a postsecondary school had a federal student loan.The percentages were higher for full-time students and those who attended four-year colleges. Fifty-five percent of students attending college full-time had a federal loan, 58.1 percent of those attending a four-year doctorate-granting institution had a federal loan, and 61.4 percent of those attending a four-year non-doctorate granting institution had a federal loan.
Even the nation's wealthiest universities now charge students more than they and their families can pay without going into debt. That is a wealth transfer of terrific proportion.

Who was...Pol Pot?

Debate about the origin of epics include the Eastern Europe storytellers who add and subtract verse for ease of telling and remembering. So ancient epics may be composites of many performers. Against this is the storytelling of people like the stonemason and storyteller, Duncan Macdonald: In 1953, he recited an hour-long tale almost word for word as he had delivered it three years earlier.

A man who tried to set a Guinness world record for the "Fastest Time to Jump Through 10 Panes of Tempered Glass" sued truTV, claiming it tampered with his equipment, then as he lay hospitalized, had him sign a waiver which it misrepresented as insurance papers.

The Feds require statements on ingredients and nutritional value on all foodstuff. Here is the declaration from a new hot sauce, Gringo Bandito, printed on the label:

"Ingredients: Vinegar, Water, Habanero Peppers, Jalapeño Peppers, Red Japanese Chili Peppers, More Peppers, Salt, Mojo, Spices, and Xanthan Gum. Hot Sauce really doesn’t have nutritional value. It’s vinegar and peppers, for God’s sake. What did you expect? Why are you even trying to determine the nutritional value of hot sauce? Just enjoy it!"

The singing group The Weavers helped spark a tremendous resurgence in interest in American folk traditions and folk songs when they burst onto the popular scene with "Goodnight Irene," a #1 record for 13 weeks in the summer and fall of 1950. It is a song I remember well as a child. The group was formed by Pete Seeger and Lee Hays and is believed to be responsible for the eventual development of the sound of Bob Dylan, Peter, Paul and Mary and that type. To show how much the country has changed, during the early 1960s it was revealed the group--despite their rather mild song content--was affiliated with labor and communist groups in the 1940s. They had a TV show cancelled because they refused to take a loyalty oath. 

A recent study found just 46 percent of American children now live in homes with their married, heterosexual parents. Five percent have no parents at home. They most likely live with grandparents, says the study.

These figures contrast with the year 1960, when 73 percent of American children lived in traditional families.

In the Pacific Islands in WWII, American soldier deaths was about 20%. Japanese deaths were 90%. There are a number of explanations but the Japanese warrior cult is certainly one. One island, Saipan, became a Mandate of Japan by the League of Nations after World War I, and thus a large number of Japanese civilians lived there — at least 25,000. At the end of June, 1944, Hirohito sent out an imperial order encouraging the civilians of Saipan to commit suicide. The order authorized the commander of Saipan to promise civilians who died there an equal spiritual status in the afterlife with those of soldiers perishing in combat. 1,000 Japanese civilians committed suicide in the last days of the battle to take the offered privileged place in the afterlife, some jumping from "Suicide Cliff" and "Banzai Cliff". (There is a horrifying YouTube of military films on it. I do not recommend it.)

Kumbh Mela is a Hindu pilgrimage which attracts, each year, the greatest peaceful get together of people in the world.  The  Maha Kumbh Mela of 2013 saw over 100 million people gather to bathe at dawn in the sacred Ganges River.

An explanation of the term "White Elephant" from Wikipedia: A white elephant is a possession which its owner cannot dispose of and whose cost, particularly that of maintenance, is out of proportion to its usefulness. The term derives from the story that the kings of Siam, now Thailand, were accustomed to make a present of one of these animals to courtiers who had rendered themselves obnoxious in order to ruin the recipient by the cost of its maintenance. In modern usage, it is an object, scheme, business venture, facility, etc., considered without use or value.

Pol Pot was a Cambodian communist revolutionary who led the Khmer Rouge from 1963 until 1997. He wanted to create a society of equals, undistorted by birth or education or technology. He pursued his dream by killing all those with an education and moving city dwellers to farm communes, where many died of malnutrition. The total deaths in the nation during his reign was about 25-30 percent of the population. The equality of the grave.

It would be interesting to analyze the U.S. decision on dropping the Cuba embargo. The original intent was to hurt Cuba and make it pay for its agreements, military and intelligence, with Russia. But that threat faded with the demise of the Soviet state. (Interestingly, now with Putin struggling back, Cuba is reopening some of its espionage facilities to the Russians.) Yet the U.S. has been the only nation to be so difficult with the Cubans. The decision to open up with the Cubans was not negotiated, it was declared, so there was no give and take, no quid pro quo. It was by fiat. Without domestic stimulus or pressure. One man's vision of the right thing to do.

AAAaaaaannnnnnddddd..... pictures of Lake Abbe:

 

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