Thanks Dave. 🙂
where’s Edith when you need her?
Thanks Dave. 🙂
Category: government
the World hates Trump
Just back from my 3rd trip overseas in 2016, everyone I meet abroad hates Donald Trump.
Paul Thomas – New Zealand Herald in July, 2015
Trump personifies everything the rest of the world despises about America: casual racism, crass materialism, relentless self-aggrandisement, vulgarity on an epic scale. He is the Ugly American in excess. …
Drumpf fans, I expect, are happy when the world hates the USA. And that’s sad. 😦
International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers
A special thanks to all Canadians who have served in this difficult role. Keeping combatants apart.
The “International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers“, May 29, is “a day to pay tribute to all the men and women who have served and continue to serve in United Nations peacekeeping operations for their high level of professionalism, dedication, and courage and to honor the memory of those who have lost their lives in the cause of peace.”
stop North Korea
More needs to be done. Imagine a world where Drumpf – and this even worse egomaniac – both have access to nuclear weapons. 😦
… On Mr Obama’s watch the nuclear-weapons and missile programme of North Korea has become steadily more alarming. Its nuclear missiles already threaten South Korea and Japan. Sometime during the second term of Mr Obama’s successor, they are likely also to be able to strike New York. Mr Obama put North Korea on the back burner. Whoever becomes America’s next president will not have that luxury. …
North Korea is thought to have a stockpile of around 20 devices. Every six weeks or so it adds another. …
A nuclear nightmare
It is past time for the world to get serious about North Korea’s nuclear ambitions
Ideally the world would strike a deal with North Koreans who want Kim gone. Depose him for better leadership.
on racism
A bit hyperbolic, but I like the sentiment.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal …
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
related – Unified Soul Theory VIDEO
WARNING: Video may make you quit your job tomorrow.
The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie
The 5th book in the First Law series world is probably the weakest. But I have to admit the plot is tight. There are few enough key characters you can actually follow the story easily.
Bremer dan Gorst, disgraced master swordsman, has sworn to reclaim his stolen honour on the battlefield. Obsessed with redemption …
Prince Calder isn’t interested in honour, and still less in getting himself killed. All he wants is power, and he’ll tell any lie, use any trick, and betray any friend to get it. Just as long as he doesn’t have to fight for it himself.
Curnden Craw, the last honest man in the North, has gained nothing from a life of warfare but swollen knees and frayed nerves. He hardly even cares who wins any more, he just wants to do the right thing. But can he even tell what that is with the world burning down around him?
Over three bloody days of battle, the fate of the North will be decided. But with both sides riddled by intrigues, follies, feuds and petty jealousies, it is unlikely to be the noblest hearts, or even the strongest arms that prevail…
Three men. One battle. No Heroes.
The most compelling character by far is this oddball.
Whirrun of Bligh – a famous hero from the utmost North, who wields the Father of Swords.
He’s the most philosophical character. Most of the book is man-to-man fighting, while discussing the stupidity of war.
Drumpf would ban gun-free zones
… “There’s no more gun-free zones” in a Trump presidency, the candidate said in Vermont on Thursday evening, singling out schools and military bases. …
He thinks there would be fewer innocent young people killed by fire arms in schools. Obviously that’s wrong.
More guns = more accidents & more suicides & more thefts. That’s statistics. 😦
List of school shootings in the United States
Indigenous peoples in Brazil
At the time of European contact, some of the indigenous people were traditionally mostly semi-nomadic tribes who subsisted on hunting, fishing, gathering, and migrant agriculture. Many of the estimated 2,000 nations and tribes which existed in the 16th century suffered extinction as a consequence of the European settlement, and many were assimilated into the Brazilian population.
The indigenous population was largely killed off by European diseases, declining from a pre-Columbian high of millions to some 300,000 (1997), grouped into some 200 tribes. …
When the Portuguese explorers first arrived in Brazil in April 1500, they found, to their astonishment, a wide coastline rich in resources, teeming with hundreds of thousands of Indigenous people living in a “paradise” of natural riches. …
Measles, smallpox, tuberculosis, and influenza killed tens of thousands. The diseases spread quickly along the indigenous trade routes, and whole tribes were likely annihilated without ever coming in direct contact with Europeans.
When you see a bearded man arrive waving a crucifix, start worrying. 😦
Rio Olympics behind schedule
I’m flying back to Rio today.
Here’s the best summary of the many problems remaining with only 3 months left.
Rio de Janeiro in upheaval with 100 days until the Olympic opening ceremony
woe is Brazil
I’m in an affluent part of Rio hanging out with Olympians. Life is good.
But this nation has big problems.
Economist – Brazil’s crisis – Irredeemable?
A former star of the emerging world faces a lost decade
