Saturday 28 February 2015

More detail and filling in as the Siege of the Alamo begins more than in earnest

____________________________________________


     The events pertaining to the Battle of the Alamo, and the six months prior up to the year after, have absorbed analysts, historians, demagogues, archaeologists, run-of-the-mill Texians (if there be such a thing), and all manner of person starting around 1880, especially.   The popular perception is not all that bad, but it is also, frequently, not all that good.

     For instance in the posting two back from this one, we have a sign off song by Marty Robbins, the "Ballad of the Alamo" that is very good and inspiring.  Marty did not make much, if any, crummy work.  But, the song and its back up graphics have a few weak spots.

      For instance, it speaks to the fact that 185 men were going to face down 5,000 soldiers from the Mexican Centralist government.  Well....close, but no cigar.  The 185 might have been a few more, because there has been talk about a number of extra of the Tejanos coming in from the Yorktown area of Texas (south of San Antonio by a 100 miles) who were not tabulated into the roster of effectives due to their late arrival.   There were a few other of the Latin group who literally crawled into the Alamo through a window at night during the last days before the final assaults.   Still, and true enough, although it is probably true, there would have been only another 20 or so to have joined the ranks in defence of the noble old chapel.    So let us say that  there were 200 or so, plus two Negroes, and a large number of mainly Latin women (wives of Anglo and Latin Texians) and a fairly significant gaggle of children, possibly totally as many as forty.



     The entire Mexican Centralist combined armies under Lopez de Santa Anna, along with the Messrs. Gen. Pedro Urrea coming from the Matamoros to San Felipe along the coast,  the Italian Filisola coming up on Lopez de Santa Anna's right along what would become closely related to what is now Texas Highway 16 (an excellent wildflower highway with very little traffic....a delight in March and April), along with Reserves and special action battalions associated with General Pefecto de Cos (Lopez de Santa Anna's brother-in-law), Colonel Juan Almonte who had many friends among the Anglo-Texians, and the likes of Gen. Pedro Ampudia, a Cuban who was afraid of nothing and a cunningly brilliant tactician.....did not total 10,000 effectives.   Those arriving at the outskirts of San Antonio de Bexar did not exceed 1,800 combatants.

     So, when Marty sings about the Texians holding back 5,000, that could be construed as factual if one interpolates the value of distant troops lending doubly indirect assistance to the main body travelling with the Generalissimo Presidente Santa Anna.  That group directly involved however with the siege and final solution of the problems presented by the Alamo were never more than 1,800 effectives.
     And while it is not my wish to diverge widely, it must be pointed out that under reasonable conditions, any investigating body would have been correct in convening a courts martial action against both William Barret Travis, Colonel Commanding, the Alamo and Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, General Commanding, for defending and attacking the Alamo.   It was folly for both.  Neither could win, and in the final analysis both lost, but the Ghosts of the Alamo had the last laugh.

     Another of the problems presented by the graphics and lyrics of the song is that there is one scene that shows the Alamo with a Texas Lone Star Flag.  No such flag existed at that time.  Further, the flag as it is depicted is unfurled up-side-down.   The white field must be atop the red.
     We have that continuing issue with the flags.  Still, as last year, we must admit that there are several researchers who adamantly deny the existence of a Mexican tri-colour with the gold numbers 1824 on the middle white field.  While I give them deference, it is necessary that they should be disposed of their useless pretences by the following:


Phillip Dimmit's Flag

      During the first few months of the Revolution, many of the Texian leaders were simply trying to lend their part in the larger Federalist Revolution that was being waged against the Centralist Regime of Santa Anna in other parts of Mexico. The first reference to a banner resembling the 1824 Flag is one which appears in a letter from Philip Dimmit, commanding the garrison at Goliad, to General Stephen F. Austin, Commander in Chief of the Army of the People, dated October 27th 1835. Dimmit writes:

    "I have had a flag made - the colours, and their arrangement the same as the old one - with the words and figures, 'Constitution of 1824,' displayed on the white, in the centre."
    Later, Philip Dimmit left Goliad to take part in the Storming of Bexar in late 1835. I think we can safely assume that he had his "Constitution of 1824" flag with him. Even during the Storming of Bexar, Dimmit was an ardent supporter of Restoration.

   The next reference to an 1824 Flag can be found in the proceedings of the General Council of the Provisional Government of Texas. I believe that from the Dimmit design, evolved the design that was adopted by this General Council for the banner which was to be flown by ships bearing "Letters of Marque and Reprisal". These were privately owned and operated ships that were granted permission by the government to attack and seize enemy ships and cargo. In return for this license the government received a percentage of the value of the seized property. On November 29, 1835 the General Council passed an ordinance which reads in part:

    "...Sec. 2. Be it further ordained and decreed, That all vessels sailing under Licenses, as Letters of Marque and Reprisal, which have been, or may be hereafter granted by the Governor and Council, or by the Governor, as provided in this supplementary Ordinance, or under any register or license of this Government, shall carry the flag of the Republic of the United States of Mexico, and shall have the figures 1, 8, 2, 4, cyphered in large Arabics on the white ground thereof....Passed at San Felipe de Austin, Nov. 29, 1835."
      
    This flag and another, the Coahuila y Texas Dos Estrellas, celebrated the region of the two States that had been combined into one by statute of the Mexico City central Congress.  The two States had a common political understanding and both were anti-centralists, pro-federalist, States' Rights places, and the "Two - Star Flag" flew over the Alamo most of the time during the siege.  The following analysis is presented:
     

    DeWitt Colonists lived under the State Flag of Coahuila y Tejas in the 1820’s and 1830’s. The two stars signified the two regions that comprised the State of Coahuila and Texas. Col. Juan Almonte, aid to Santa Anna, states "the enemy, as soon as the march of the division was seen, hoisted the tri-colored flag with two stars, designed to represent Coahuila and Texas" in his journal entry about the Siege and Battle of the Alamo. Mexican officer and engineer Carlos Sanchez-Navarro, who participated in the siege of the Alamo in Mar 1836 in his memoirs, La Guerra de Tejas, Memorias de un Soldado, shows in a illustration the flag of Coahuila y Tejas flying over the Alamo. It has also been speculated that this banner may have been carried by Capt. Juan Seguin's company at the Battle of Bexar and taken with them to the Alamo garrison.
     
          There was another, the banner of the New Orleans Greys, a body of two companies of infantry totalling about 120 men, well-supplied and trained, relatively.  They had a banner on grey-blue silk, and a group of those men left La Bahia del Espiritu Santo and entered the Alamo after the Texian victory in December that expulsed the garrison of Pefecto de Cos, and remained until they were killed-in-action on the 6th of March.   One last banner may have been the "bonny blue flag's" first appearance on a battlefield. It has been said that there was a "blue field flag with a single five pointed star in the centre" at the Alamo, but it is our opinion that it is confused with the first efforts of establishing an official standard for the new Republic of Texas, and one of the first of those was such a standard.
     Another depiction of the three big cheeses, Crockett, Bowie, and Travis, is okay for a glamour shot or a marquis poster, but Bowie, after 12th of February, could barely walk across his tiny cloister room.  So, the "crossing of the line in the sand, made by Travis's army sabre" if it occurred would have required Bowie to have been carried across said line.   The song's lyrics also indicate that "not a soldier crossed that line"....when supposedly Travis's admonition was to cross the line, if the soldier intended to stay to the death.

    The "crossing the line" matter is also disputed by some historians who say that it was fanciful, romanticism at best, and that none of those surviving souls saw the event or testified to it.  That is not exactly true, because the women and children and the two Negroes, one a slave the other a runaway "extralegal" from Louisiana, were kept inside the great room so as to be away from any harassing canon fire from Lopez de Santa Anna's ever tightening ring of six-pounders.

     These matters can go on and on....they become more interesting and riveting, not less, as the years go by.  We shall continue our communion with the Ghosts of the Alamo to-morrow, along with other things.  Thank one and all for your kind attention and time.

El Gringo Viejo
_______________________________________

Friday 27 February 2015

A bit of a warning - We begin the March and April Recognition of the Events between The Alamo and San Jacinto (inclusive)

     During the next few days we shall be re-publishing a few articles we have done about the times and events that pertain to the Thirteen Days of Glory and to the actual taking control of the reins of self-government and self-determination from a tyrant worthy of the name.   Much that is said and written about the period from 6 December, 1835 through 22 April 1836 is un-necessarily hyperbolic.
     There is plenty of stupidity and brilliance, cowardice and bravery, dedication and vacillation, and all the emotions humankind could ever evoke surrounding the events of that period.  There is no need to inflate any of it.
     We shall submit that further research has been done and another very excellent treatise has been read and digested to add onto the many hundreds of articles and scores of books we have tried to intellectually digest over the years.   We shall continue to have an even hand, favouring neither side in particular, although we do give short shrift to one person who is certainly in the running as the most useless, horrid, and evil personality to have ever existed on the North American Continent, that estimable fellow Antonio de Padua Maria Severino López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón.....a huge name for a small man who did immense damage everywhere he went.

     In the lyrics and the depictions that accompany this opening anthem, there are a minimum of 12 major errors and several omissions that might be considered lamentable....but we shall attempt to repair the leaks, and shoe the unshod mounts at this incredible episode unfolds.   We remember that admonition of the professor who pleads, "Just search for the bare-boned truth, for its value almost always has greater weight than an inflated legend."


  
    More later.  We shall probably post our first comments during the late hours, to-night.   Also, be aware that we shall also try to do some commentary about the current state of affairs in Washington, District of Columbia.
El Gringo Viejo
__________________________________________

   

Thursday 26 February 2015

No truer words were ever spoken: the pledge of a tyrant.

    One must truly consider the weight of the words:

“What we’ve done is we’ve expanded my authorities under executive action and prosecutorial discretion as far as we can legally under the existing statute, the existing law.  And so now the question is, how can we get a law passed.”
 
     These are the words of every person who dreams of being a dictator, unbounded by the constraints that the republican, constitutional form of government require of any head of state.  The notion that executive authority is the solution to how far apart to place the parking metres in Mentone, Texas is popular in places such as Cuba and Venezuela.

Mentone, Texas
Downtown Mentone, Texas
pop. about 60

 
   The fact is that Obama is not doing these things because of the obvious good will be met by his justifiable audacity.  He is doing these things out of the instinct of point-blank, overwhelming desire to debase the quality of the body politic of the Republic for which  he does not stand.
    It is a fundamental tactic of a communist enemy to create terror and dislocation so as to force floods of people into areas that they, in their ignorance and/or despair, feel will provide safety, and perhaps even various forms of public assistance.
    Democrats know that as of this writing, about one-half of the people who vote for the Democrat national or State-wide candidates are receiving public assistance.  This does not include Social Security or military pensions.  It does include Supplemental Security Income, (SSI).   It follows that, during these days, the people who come out of Mexico, Central America, and frequently elsewhere around the world are not arriving to obtain the glory and wonder of American citizenship.  They are arriving to America to obtain free money.
     This is not to overlook the true immigrant who is actually arriving to breathe the air and adopt a new nationality of a country he/she can admire.   There are still many of those.  But in these days, if the legal entrant and the illegal aliens are compared in raw numbers,  the illegal aliens far outnumber the legal alien supplicant.
     Furthermore, in years past.....especially before 1970....the illegal aliens who would "sneak or swim" into Texas and/or other points along the southern border, would general work hard and store up money to either send back home or to take back home.  Ninety per cent would return to Mexico because usually they had something there that made it worth the returning.

     As an added benefit is a demographic change that has already occurred and continues to become more notable.   The Democrat vote engineers picked up on this about 8 or 9 years ago.  The fact is that there is a labour shortage in Mexico.  It affects all levels of employment, all classes, all natures of people, rich and otherwise. This has been caused by a steadily declining population growth rate.   This has been accompanied by a very significant increase in economic activity, including all sectors even the anaemic agricultural sector that had languished for three-score years from 1920 due to the "Agrarian Reform".

  "MXPopgrowth"
This graph shows the columns indicating
increasing population over the decades.
The blue like shows the rate of increase of
the population.  One notices the first fall in
the rate of population increase during the
decade between 1970 and 1980.  The actual
figure for the 2010 census analysis revealed
that the growth rate continues to edge lower.

. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
/File:MXPopgrowth.jpg#mediaviewer/File:MXPopgrowth.jpg

     This is the reason for the anxiety among the Democrat - Acorn vote turnout engineers.  It is simply a matter of the warm body count.  The next, and better, source for warm bodies who can be folded into the electorate, perhaps more easily than the Mexican (perhaps not) is the Central American.  It would follow to a political boss mentality that "If I give you AFDC, food stamps, a place to live, free school, free medical attention, then you will vote the way I tell you to vote."   But, with Central Americans it is not quite that way.   The ones who have been coming across into Texas and elsewhere in the United States have been notoriously apathetic in terms of "community organisation".  The Mexican cohort tired of it early on, and worse for the Democrat-Socialist coalition, the third and fourth generation Texian of Mexican ancestry, both blue and white collar, have tended to steadily move to the right....into the Elephant Corral....especially during the past 15 - 20 years.
      The Honduran and El Salvadoran cohort to the new wave of illegals coming in are adept at playing the victim, and they are well practiced in their tales of woe.  Sometimes it is true what they say, sometimes...they are simply describing what their life was like while being involved in various forms of social deception and criminal activity.   Much anecdotal example will be presented by Mary Knoll "nuns" and other "helpers" of the liberation theology strain of Roman Catholicism and other Christian denominations that will depict the poor mothers and their frail and starving children as victims in all cases.  But such is truly not the case.
     The most dangerous barrios in Houston and Harris County, Texas are those where the greatest concentrations of the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) are found in abundance.  The MS-13 is the yin while the M-18 (the 18th Street Gang) is the yan and they spend 30 hours of every day of their miserable, filthy, STD-studded short lives dealing in death and senseless violence.  They are the ideal for the Democrat "community organiser" because they procreate abundantly for those seeking to be anchorbabymothers.   The babies they have also are delivered by the stork of opportunity, because they have all kinds of "conditions" and "learning disabilities" which can increase the size of the AFDC allocation and gain preferential position in the lines for free this and free that.


     The further problems that the Democrat "community organisers" have is that the group is younger and disinterested, and they are very few in numbers.   They are especially few when one considers that the disgusting, old useless people increase in numbers and generally increase in their conservative dispositions.   So, demographics wind up being a net neutral to even a slight positive for the Elephants.
__________________________________________

    There is another matter that is somewhat related, but related nonetheless.  The people who one finds raving and cheering for Ted Cruz on the Facebook screeds and other such fountains of social inspiration are filled with people of Latin origin who are adamantly supporting him as a presidential candidate.
     The Latin group is ever more present in the camps of all the significant, potential candidates for the job as Top Dog.   This curls the hair of Carville and Jarrett.   The weakest performer so far, has been Brother Jeb, although his son, who took on an almost Tea Party Personna, led all candidates for elective office across the Republic of Texas.

     We shall recycle some of our writings pertaining to the period surrounding the period from before the Fall of the Alamo to the time of the vanquishing of the "Napoleon od the West" at the Battle of San Jacinto (Hah - SEEN - toh).
     T0-day is also the Boss's birthday.  I am trying to convince her to take me out to Whataburger or something, but it might be too cold, and to-night is the night for Transgendered Lumberjacks Who are Children of Extraterrestrials Reality Show.

We'll see how things work out.
El Gringo Viejo
_______________________________________________

Tuesday 24 February 2015

Been Here, Done This: Or...Why do country club and big business Republicans choose to be stupid and chicken?

     One of the remarkable things about the big powerful control poobahs of Industry...the veritable magnates...is to see them do really stupid things.   Marrying girls younger than their daughters, for instance.   Another characteristic is settling for a free ticket to the gulag for the pleasure of strutting around for a few years, acting just as if the "high position" was granting control over one's own destiny.
     One brings to mind, always, the German Industrialist class and their Conservative Party buddies in the German Bundestag during the early years of Adolf  Schicklgruber's political dominance.
Adolf Schicklgruber
Yes, Virginia, we know that Schicklgruber's surname was
not Schicklgruber, but it's fun to say, and Schicklgruber
should have been his surname.
So there!
______________________________________________________



     The thing is, the Conservatives made deals with Adolf and they represented the interests of the potent industrialists who were situated in various parts of Germany, but especially in the Ruhr Valley and the maritime zones.   It would be a deal made in some Teutonic Paradise, with the Capitalists telling Adolf how things would be run, and finally Germany could, after Hindenburg's death, have a modern government, no monarchical traditional bologna, no communists, a disciplined Lutheran / Roman Catholic religious construct (not too demanding), and a scientific community second to none.   Now! They could teach the rest of Europe and whatever else the rest of the Earth was called, a few lessons about production and prosperity.
     Of course, by the time 12 pages of the calendar had been turned, all German industry was busy doing whatever Schicklgruber wanted or demanded.  The Austrian Corporal was off to succeed where the Corciscan Corporal (pictured above - not bad duds for a corporal) had failed.
______________________________________________
FAST FORWARD TO THE PRESENT:
     And so now we have the problem.  We have the "correct and respectable" Republicans telling us that we must go ahead and bite the bullet this time, just this once.
    If not, and  if we insist on cutting out part of the "homeland security" sham department, there will be another government shutdown.   The press will say bad things about us and the retarded Easter Island  and text-while-you drive communities will gather at their next Gruber & Co. Focus Group and tell the moderator that the Republicans should compromise so that the people don't lose government things and everything.   And the children.
     HELLOOOooooo!!!   The parasitical zombie community and their controllers in the Democrat National Socialist Workers' Party have already played that card....thrice....during this current regime.   The first time if worked, but not as well as is remembered.  The second time it began to unravel due to the notion that the President had to stop visits to the White House by "common" tourists because the Secret Service (?) told him he had to because of "sequestration and budget  gutting. Other things like prohibiting people from taking pictures of Mount Rushmore or visiting War Memorials were obvious blackmail manoeuvres that Valerie Jarrett thought would work, but did not.  In fact the entire clunky, flunky soap-opera backfired.
     Please remember, dear Grand Poobahs of the exclusive Grand Excelsior Country Club and the Magnates of the Corner Office, the Republicans destroyed the Democrats in the past election.  Eric Cantor lost his renomination to his Virginia House  seat.  Maryland has a Republican Governor.....remember?   remember?


     Do we remember that we lost the Presidential in 2012 because Romney would not fight through the last debate tag-match, and because he said he agreed with much of Obama's foreign policy and that he wanted to repeal and REPLACE the Obama Socialised Medicine Initiative?   The foot-washer, and the snake handler, and the right-wing crazy communities suddenly went "Yawn"....and went fishing.  Romney also, essentially stopped campaigning because it was a very nasty business, not suited for the upper crust.
    Simply and finally stated, it would be best to push a vote through on the DHS funding, en toto, minus the provision for the implantation of Obama's amnesty initiative.   Takes some testosterone supplement and do what we sent you all up there to do, McConnell, McCain, etc.   Remember where Christi is running in the preliminary beauty-contests for the Republican nomination.
Thanks for the time and interest.
El Gringo Viejo
_______________________________________


Monday 23 February 2015

Why One and Not the Other? Bergdahl's Legacy and the grounds for impeachment and conviction.

___________________________________________________
 
     
     We try to avoid the useless and even ill-advised call for the impeachment of a sitting public official.  Our first, but not final, impulse concerning the punishment of high crime and/or misdemeanour by highly placed elected and appointed persons is to allow them to stew in their juices until their terms of employment conclude.   Usually the miscreants will stew in their own juices, committing more and more acts of hubris and self-indulgence until finally they are consumed by their own rot, as in the case of Mayor Nagin and a thousand other petty self-worshippers.
 
     But, what we have here is a failure to communicate among ourselves something that is very obvious. 
     The point is that we have a situation where "Sergeant" Bergdahl was traded out for five general officer level murdering thugs of the al Qaeda grouping was stunning enough.   We were then treated to one lying explanation and one insulting explanation from the inner offices of Valerie Jarrett after another.   All the explanations and justifications were vetted before the drooling stooges of the dull-normal Democrat-base focus-group community.  Such an astute government advisory body is ideal for an anti-American Regency and All the King's Persons motives and intents.
 
     First of all, it was known by the White House that the person being liberated was a deserter in the face of the enemy during time of hostility, engagement, and active combat. 
    Second, it was known that the deserter had defected to the enemy and made himself available for all nature of vile purpose.
     Third, it was known that American and allied combat personnel were killed and wounded in the attempt to ascertain the condition and location of, and the recovery of, "Sergeant" Bergdahl.
     Fourth, it was known that the Presidency was flailing about, searching for any straw in the wind that could be used to justify the advance of the objective of emptying out Guantanamo Bay's terrorist detention facility.
     Fifth, the manoeuver of releasing such prisoners in any military style exchange, at that level, require Congressional participation, and none was requested nor given.   Further, Congressional members in neither the Upper House nor Lower were approached or informed of the intention of the White House to make this illegal exchange. 
 
    So, after all the above, an exchange was made, delivering "Sergeant" Bergdahl back into the hands of the American military.  It is understood that as much as two to five million dollars may have been paid from un-known sources to the terrorists who had held the "Sergeant" for several years.
     Particularly telling is that the president of the United States went out of his way to have the parents of the deserter - collaborator come to the White House, go before the national and international press, with the president, and send a message more to "Sergeant" Bergdahl than to America.   The father went into an incoherent blather about extraneous issues finally ending with a blurb in Arabic that made certain that Bergdahl's parents were grateful, not to America, but to Islam and the terrorist captors.  President Barry was very pleased with this, and went back to the inner sanctum with his two friends to plot more ways to degrade the value of America and Americanism.

     Curmudgeons and doubters thought to themselves, "Did we actually see what we just saw?"
      Reasonable people wondered if this action would cause an immediate and unreasonable increase in the price for the possible liberation of other captives, American and other than American.  Why would not the Islamic nut-case terrorist not think, "Wow!  The Gringos really are stupider than a drunk camel.  Five big cheeses for one stinking, retarded, deserting traitor.  They'll give a billion dollars for a female aid-worker."
kayla jean mueller, american female isis hostage
Kayla Jean Mueller
 

      But there was one problem.  The female American aid-worker was not a Muslim, nor was anyone in her family.  So, she was of a lower order of concern, plus there was nothing really anti-American in her background that would make her more of a sympathetic figure to Valerie Jarrett, or to Michelle Robinson's magic hashtag solution machine.   So, not even a smidgen of a selfie could be wasted on the girl who brought her captivity on to herself, said Barry to himself, as he adjusted the focus on his next selfie.
     It is not just El Gringo Viejo who declares these things to the OROG community and to the Cosmos.  The parents and the brother of Kayla spoke with Barry, and registered the above observations with Barry, apparently without apology or regret or any particular due respects.  The father pointed out, apparently, that the paying and trading out for a scumbag like Bergdahl, essentially for the benefit of his Muslimised, anti-American parents, raised the cost of liberating any and all European and "incorrect" Muslims being held by the sub-human jackals who rape and behead eight year old Arab Christian girls. 

     All of the above is true.  My concern is for the parents and the brother of Kayla.  My next concerns are for the fact that these manoeuvers  were done, accepted, and glossed over by the Obsolete Media, and then disregarded by an electorate that becomes ever less qualified for self-governance.
Governor Walker thanks maintenance workers at the La Crosse rest stop while there to encourage tourism and announce construction of a new rest area.  7/21/14
     It is more important that the Obsolete Media remind us how much Her Antique Bovinity Queen Hillary had to fly, in an airplane no less.  The Obsolete Media has to attack Hizzoner Giuliani for speaking the Truth about Barry, the Nephew of Zietuni and Omar.  And then, since there is nothing of import to report, they have to trundle on to attack Scott Walker because of some truth that was said by an ex-mayor of New York City.   Does this make sense to someone who thinks that a transgendered female can marry his washing machine and an elephant and demand that I call such a thing a family.   Probably so, but it does not make sense to me.  What in the Jumping Jehoshaphat does Scott Walker have to do with what Mayor Giuliani says?

     Could not the Obsolete Press have checked just a bit into the matter of Bergdahl?  Or into any of several score of the high crimes and misdemeanours of this horrid administration?  The answer, of course, is no.  It is an administration of their own creation, and they feel quite certain that it is a perfect administration.  The worse it becomes and the more corrupt is becomes, the more it is worth the defending.  They measure a Democrat Socialist administration not so much even by the socialist bills that they can pass or rules they can impose without authority.   They measure the success of a Democrat administration by how much that administration can get away with in terms of violation of rules and existing law.

     So, we can solve the problem by shipping the entire American and most of the foreign press to Maduro's Brave New World once known as The Venezuelan Disaster Chavez left behind, or maybe to a wondrous magical land like Cristina's Menagerie of Madness once named the Argentine Disaster Peron and Evita left behind.   There are so many places where the American Obsolete Media would be so much happier....imagine....unflushable toilets,  socialised medicine where everybody doesn't receive any service equally, and the wealthy go to Spain, Mexico, France, or the United States for medical attention....ooops...Fidel and Raul already have that under control.
 
     Finally, we genuinely think the American public would probably support vigorous action against this horrid administration simply by leaking, spilling, and disgorging all the known material that contrasts the treatment of the "sergeant" with the young woman Karla Jean.   It would infuriate the most hardened Democrat who is still remotely sane.
 
El Gringo Viejo.
_______________________________ 

Sunday 22 February 2015

The New Martyrs of Libya added to the Coptic Synaxarium 


New Martyrs of Libya
 
His Holiness Pope Tawadros II announced the inclusion of the 21 Coptic New Martyrs of Libya in the Synaxarium of the Coptic Orthodox Church today. Every year, they will be commemorated on 8 Amshir in the Coptic calendar, which corresponds to 15 February in the Gregorian calendar, the same day as the Feast of the Presentation of our Lord in the Temple.
Axios, Axios, Axios!
 
 
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 
All OROGs will remember that there was one Black man in the group of Martyrs, and one will noticed that he is depicted in the middle of the group of the included in the Coptic Synaxarium.   That is correct in the truest sense, because that was his placement in the group that was senselessly murdered by the ISIS monsters solely because these men would not renounce their Christianity.

Worthy, Worthy, Worthy!

Amen.

_______________________________________________________

Saturday 21 February 2015

Obama: Devil or Angel? Christian or Muslim? Good or Bad? Atheist Marxist or Muslim? Pathological Liar or Golfer?





Barack Obama: 20 Quotes on Islam; 20 quotes on Christianity–So Which is He?


Obama serious



OBAMA on ISLAM:


1. “The future must not belong to those who slander the Prophet of Islam”

2. “The sweetest sound I know is the Muslim "call to prayer”,

3. “We will convey our deep appreciation for the Islamic faith, which has done so much over the centuries to shape the world – including in my own country.”

4. “As a student of history, I also know civilization’s debt to Islam.”

5. “Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance.”

6. “Islam has always been part of America”

7. “we will encourage more Americans to study in Muslim communities”

8. “These rituals remind us of the principles that we hold in common, and Islam’s role in advancing justice, progress, tolerance, and the dignity of all human beings.”

9. “America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles of justice and progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.”

10. “I made clear that America is not – and never will be – at war with Islam.”

11. “Islam is not part of the problem in combating violent extremism – it is an important part of promoting peace.”

12. “So I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed”

13. “In ancient times and in our times, Muslim communities have been at the forefront of innovation and education.”

14. “throughout history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality.”

15. “Ramadan is a celebration of a faith known for great diversity and racial equality”

16. “The Holy Koran tells us, ‘O mankind! We have created you male and a female; and we have made you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another.'”

17. “I look forward to hosting an Iftar dinner celebrating Ramadan here at the White House later this week, and wish you a blessed month.”

18. “We’ve seen those results in generations of Muslim immigrants – farmers and factory workers, helping to lay the railroads and build our cities, the Muslim innovators who helped build some of our highest skyscrapers and who helped unlock the secrets of our universe.”

19. “That experience guides my conviction that partnership between America and Islam must be based on what Islam is, not what it isn’t. And I consider it part of my responsibility as president of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.”

20. “I also know that Islam has always been a part of America’s story.”
___________________________________________





Barack Obama on Christianity:



1. “Whatever we once were, we are no longer a Christian nation”

2. “We do not consider ourselves a Christian nation.”

3. “Which passages of scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is OK and that eating shellfish is an abomination? Or we could go with Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith?”

4. “Even those who claim the Bible’s inerrancy make distinctions between Scriptural edicts, sensing that some passages – the Ten Commandments, say, or a belief in Christ’s divinity – are central to Christian faith, while others are more culturally specific and may be modified to accommodate modern life.”

5. “The American people intuitively understand this, which is why the majority of Catholics practice birth control and some of those opposed to gay marriage nevertheless are opposed to a Constitutional amendment to ban it. Religious leadership need not accept such wisdom in counselling their flocks, but they should recognize this wisdom in their politics.”

6. From Obama’s book, The Audacity of Hope: “I am not willing to have the state deny American citizens a civil union that confers equivalent rights on such basic matters as hospital visitation or health insurance coverage simply because the people they love are of the same sex-nor am I willing to accept a reading of the Bible that considers an obscure line in Romans to be more defining of Christianity than the Sermon on the Mount.”

7.  Obama’s response when asked what his definition of sin is: “Being out of alignment with my values.”

8. “If all it took was someone proclaiming I believe Jesus Christ and that he died for my sins, and that was all there was to it, people wouldn’t have to keep coming to church, would they.”

9. “This is something that I’m sure I’d have serious debates with my fellow Christians about. I think that the difficult thing about any religion, including Christianity, is that at some level there is a call to evangelize and proselytize. There’s the belief, certainly in some quarters, that people haven’t embraced Jesus Christ as their personal savior that they’re going to hell.”

10. “I find it hard to believe that my God would consign four-fifths of the world to hell. I can’t imagine that my God would allow some little Hindu kid in India who never interacts with the Christian faith to somehow burn for all eternity. That’s just not part of my religious makeup.”

11. “I don’t presume to have knowledge of what happens after I die. But I feel very strongly that whether the reward is in the here and now or in the hereafter, the aligning myself to my faith and my values is a good thing.”

12. “I’ve said this before, and I know this raises questions in the minds of some evangelicals. I do not believe that my mother, who never formally embraced Christianity as far as I know … I do not believe she went to hell.”

13. “Those opposed to abortion cannot simply invoke God’s will-they have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths.”

14. On his support for civil unions for gay couples: “If people find that controversial then I would just refer them to the Sermon on the Mount.”

15. “You got into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

16. “In our household, the Bible, the Koran and the Bhagavad Gita sat on the shelf alongside books of Greek and Norse and African mythology”

17. “On Easter or Christmas Day, my mother might drag me to church, just as she dragged me to the Buddhist temple, the Chinese New Year celebration, the Shinto shrine, and ancient Hawaiian burial sites.”

18. “we have Jews, Muslims, Hindus, atheists, agnostics, Buddhists, and their own path to grace is one that we have to revere and respect as much as our own”

19. “All of us have a responsibility to work for the day when the mothers of Israelis and Palestinians can see their children grow up without fear; when the Holy Land of the three great faiths is the place of peace that God intended it to be; when Jerusalem is a secure and lasting home for Jews and Christians and Muslims, and a place for all of the children of Abraham to mingle peacefully together as in the story of Isra – (applause) – as in the story of Isra, when Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed, peace be upon them, joined in prayer. (Applause.)”

20. “I believe that there are many paths to the same place, and that is a belief that there is a higher power, a belief that we are connected as a people.”

SOURCE: Clash Daily.
_________________________________________________________________


     This material was forwarded by our forward outpost observer on the north edge of the Frontier of the Republic of Texas.  He and his are facing another bout with Global Warming to-night, with snow, freezing rain, and sleet in the forecast for as much as three different calendar days.  If only Bush had moved aggressively on the Kobe Agreements on Climate Change we would not have to be suffering like this....(?).   You all please light a candle for El Zorro and his people and his ranch.  As he pointed out during my last whining the other day in a family email, our old bones and blood just don't handle cold very well anymore.
     Please spread El Zorro's forwarded mail as far as you might wish, should it seem worthwhile.  I move to do so immediately after this posting.
El Gringo Viejo.
_____________________________________________




Friday 20 February 2015

Fifty Shades of Red - "Patriotic" O'bama

       Much is made of Mayor Giuliani's "insensitivity" demonstrated by his referring to Barry Soetoro as "un-patriotic".  What seems strange is that such a reasonable and provable conclusion would seem to be so controversial.   Hizzoner was only following his normal, Italian, emotional, and reasonable notion that he likewise exhibited during his opposition to public funding for the portrait of the Blessed Virgin Mary covered in elephant dung.  He seemed to take exception as well to the notion that placing a crucifix in a jar of urine was an art-form.

     No man would attend a church where the daily bread was baked up in raving, lunatic hatred of America as the only place in the world where any injustice had ever occurred to anybody, if in fact that man did not agree with the preacher who spewed such vomit.
      Ill-treatment of poor, downtrodden Mexicans?  Try the post-revolutionary administration of Mexico by the marxist cabal that flowed into the vacuum left by the deaths and/or departures of the ghoulish, deranged Marxist-Leninists Carranza and Obregon.   In their efforts to shut down the Catholic Church....exactly in the manner that an Austrian corporal would be shutting down the synagogues of Europe at almost the same time.....over 100,000 Mexican Catholics were murdered.  Another 150,000 died fighting, and finally stalemating, the much superior Mexican official military arrayed against them.


     Present-day, daily reports for genocidal depravity in Africa, by different ethnicities within the black-African cohort are standard fare.  Or slavery
Frank Marshall Davis
being practiced to this day by Arabic and black-African traders?  No problem. Pol Pot, anyone?  We shan't bore the readers with the other two or three hundred thousand recent cases of gross injustice in the world that is not caused, even remotely, by the existence of the Great American Experiment in the making the common man sovereign.
 
     The individual pictured stage-left, is a classic piece of the Red Brick Road that Barry Dunham Soetoro Obama stumbled over during his pot-smoking truancy from responsibility.   Sometimes referred to as Barry's communist god-father, Frank was just your normal perverted porno producer who liked to befriend very young white women and young boys.  He was something like a spiritual counsellor.
 
     He liked to recite his volumes of perverse poetry about underwear, etc. and was a well known member of the very active Kremlin- controlled communist presence in Hawai'i.  He made no bones about his membership in the party.
 
     At every turn, Barry's guides, tutors, advisors, and choir of docents were very far out commies and marxists (same thing), dedicated to the "fundamental transformation" of the only shining city left on the smouldering ruins of the mountainside that used to be Western and European Judeo-Christian Civilisation.
     Obama's biological father, his mother, his grandparents, and once again, the whole choir of the Greek tragedy that performed the acts that brought up Barry the Magnificent to become the greatest single legal, political, and cultural scholar in history gave us this Grand Gift for Eternity.
 
     And that grand gift is detestable, an insult to all patriots, and more than enough justification for Mayor Rudy to speak out, accurately, about the horrid pretender who presently occupies the White House.   Long will Barry give thanks to Lucifer, the object of Alinsky's dedication of his book "Rules for Radicals" that served as Barry's guidebook for "spreading the wealth" and punishing the traditionalists.
 
    We must speak clearly and not suggest that Barry is somehow a patriot, if only in a different way.   We must not "cut slack" and assume that there is some kind of hidden love-of-country that we are incapable of comprehending because we do not have Barry's superior moral and legal angle or prism of reflexion.  Barry is a fraud.  He is not especially intelligent or even above average in terms of his mental acumen.   He is a liar.  He is immoral and self-indulgent.  He is a poseur.  And, he is, oddly enough, a bully.   In a twist to the concept of Yin-Yan, we note the perfection in the relationship between Barry and (Sir Edmund) Hillary in that each is worse than the other.
 
Thanks for your continued interest.
El Gringo Viejo 

_______________________________________________________

Thursday 19 February 2015

Southern Tier of New York State counties & Fifteen incorporated cities seek to secede from New York and join Pennsylvania

_____________________________________________________________

    

Conklin, NY (WBNG Binghamton) The local economy is pushing one organization in Upstate New York to pose a question: Is it possible to secede to Pennsylvania?

The Upstate New York Towns Association is researching this very topic. The group says a few factors pushing its research are high property taxes, low sales tax revenue and the recent decision to ban hydraulic fracturing in New York.

             

"The Southern Tier is desolate," said Conklin Town Supervisor Jim Finch (R). "We have no jobs and no income. The richest resource we have is in the ground."

Finch said the ground in Conklin is rich with natural gas in the Marcellus Shale. However, that shale is unable to be tapped. He described this ban as a violation of his natural rights as a property owner.

There are 15 towns interested in the secession, according to the Towns Association. These towns are in Broome, Delaware, Tioga and Sullivan counties. The association declined to name the towns without their permission and also declined to comment on specifics at this time. As of now, research is ongoing. The group will be updating Action News with all of their findings in the coming weeks.

The association said it's comparing taxes and the cost of doing business in the two states. It says the facts show there is a huge difference between the two.
Also being considered are things like workers comp, surcharges, unemployment and health insurance. The association's understanding is that the secession would have to be approved by the New York State Legislature, the Pennsylvania State Legislature and the U. S. government.
"We're comparing the taxes in Pennsylvania compared to those in New York," said Finch. "There's a great, great difference. Right now, we are being deprived of work, jobs and incomes."
Action News spoke with two local business owners in Conklin about the proposal. John Gage, owner of Reliable Market, said he fully supports the idea.
"The tax structure in New York is just horrible to do business in," said Gage. "Whether it's fracking, or other reasons to secede, it sounds like a good idea to me."
However, other local owners are taking into account outside factors that could affect their stores. For example, state licensed shops would be at risk if the change were to occur.
"From my standpoint, owning a liquor store, if we were a part of Pennsylvania it would be hard," said Francis Larkin, owner of Spirits of Conklin.


Binghamton, New York is where the
"r" of Montrose is on this map.

Larkin said he isn't sure if he would be able to even own his shop anymore, considering Pennsylvania privatizes all liquor sales.
Sen. Thomas Libous (R) recently sent out a flyer in the mail, asking his constituents what they think about the secession. He sent Action News the following statement:
"After the one-two punch to our community from the recent casino and gas drilling decisions, my office received many emails, phone calls and messages from constituents calling for a Southern Tier secession from New York State. While getting my constituents' opinion on spending the $5 billion surplus was our top priority, I thought a question on secession should also be included in the survey."


Public Avenue in Montrose, Pennsylvania
 Centre-most Montrose and it Court House
 


Civil War Monument - Susquehanna County
Courthouse, Pennsylvania
Commemorates 96th Pennsylvania Volunteer
Infantry Regiment, the outfit in which two of
El Gringo Viejo's Uncles died during
the Summer of 1863, in combat.



 
     The  above article was transmitted over southcentral New York FOX - 2 WBGN - Television News,  Binghamton, New York.  This community, along with a row of the southern-most counties adjacent to Pennsylvania are in a bit of an uproar due to the fact that they see their Pennsylvania neighbours  getting a better shake at life, just across the invisible border.
     We thought the article was interesting because Binghamton is adjacent to Susquehanna County in Pennsylvania whose county seat is  Montrose, the place of my grandfather's birth and my great-grandfather's death.   There are all kinds of Newtons, Bolles, Birchards, and Hastings people born and buried in that neck of the woods.
     The area in and around Montrose and the hilly stretches that extend into the Catskills and Adirondacks to the northeast and then southward all the way to Alabama are somewhat homogenous in terms of peoples.   Many of these people were the "first to go West" and many were involved on both sides during the Revolutionary War.
     Montrose is also not far from where Frederich Johanne Limbaugh came into the New World from eastern Germany back in the 1730s.   That, however is a whole 'nother story.

Secession seems to be all the rage....almost communicable.
El Gringo Viejo
___________________________________________________________