Tuesday, 3 September 2013

Diet, Smy-ette....please read this for your own good

     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(this advisory is sent by our reconnaissance agent who hides out in Extreme Central Texas on the Big Sandy Creek.   He, and I, are concerned about your health, but we shall pass no laws against your right to eat and smoke and sky-dive)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
     We are hopeful that you all will at least consider this.  El Gringo Viejo is not a doctor of any kind.   He does not play, nor has he ever played, a doctor on television nor the radio.  He does have certain life experiences and he knows a lot of people who have life experiences.   He also has had people at his little place in the Mexican outback who have had experiences, that quite frankly have surprised them, but that did not surprise El Gringo Viejo in the least.
 
     The OROG is invited to review our webpage for the Quinta Tesoro de la Sierra Madre.   Down and to the right there is a section that deals with the nature of the food we serve.   We urge that each OROG review the menu and the drinks.   No low-cal, no lite, no 2%, etc.  Strictly butter, olive oil, heavy beer, straight Coca Cola, red meat, grilled chicken and other meats.   Each can even see the short menu that suggests the kind of meals one might expect.  There are changes, depending upon the availabilities that might arise at our favourite suppliers, but the plot and theme of the diet remains the same.   No de-caffeinated anything.   Nothing with the word "healthy'' on the label.
 
     Why?   One reason is because El Gringo Viejo is a spoiled, narcissistic jackass in many ways.  The other reason is because I know too many Old Cowboys, too many rural Mexicans of the white race and the mestizo race and the Indian race who all have remained loyal to the heavy beer, heavy Coke, greasy concoctions, corn tortilla ten-per-meal, beans - black and pinto cooked in bacon grease/lard, eggseggseggseggseggs forever and more eggs, fish of all sorts, meats of any sort (including armadillo), churned butter, cheeses of all sorts, and so forth, who are 164 years old and in trouble with their wives because they have four mistresses and who are jumping out of airplanes for fun.  (Well, almost)
 
     My own experience with diet proves one thing to me.  I eat "heavy" food.  I eat everything.  If it does not move on my plate, I eat it.  Sometimes, things that were still moving might have been ingested.  By everything it is meant, everything that is not labelled "healthy" , "country vegetables", "natural", "light", "lite", "lo-cal", "fat-free", "recommended by doctor", "recommended by nutritionists''.
 
     Sugar substitutes and diet drinks cause diabetes and weight gain.  "Healthy" foods cause heart disease and cancers.   Please read this linkage.  It is written by a contrarian doctor.  The lead-in is a very short paragraph quoting the conventional wisdom, placed at the head of the article as a form of sarcasm.  I am not a big fan of the Doctor's sarcastic and condemnatory attitude towards business and the medical community's motivation.  But, he is in the broad-brush sense, very "right-on".
 
 
 
    Please avail yourself of the above link.  It is a fairly long read.  The average OROG will need about seven minutes.  The processes of logic and evidence will change almost everyone to at least the point of considering that their friends, children, relatives, and even their selves are causing a lot of dietary problems that did not exist two generations ago.
     Because of the vaccines and better public health....cures and elimination of diphtheria, polio, tuberculosis, smallpox, malaria, dengue fever, whooping cough and the panoply of childhood diseases have been accomplish. Bin Laden is dead and we are still alive.  Oops that line has already been used.

     So, perhaps we are "living into the maladies of old-age".   But most of our early on-set maladies are caused by our "healthy diets", artificial exercise, and sedentary natures.   A regular, 1954 Eisenhower diet and a thirty-minute walk every day, a happy attitude and understanding of the Beatitudes and Golden Rule, and a serviceable, loaded firearm in an accessible place(out of the reach of children, of course) is probably the best approach to enjoying the bounty of the Lord.
 
    As is written on our webpage, we have had clients who have remarked about how much weight they lost, eating "heavy" old-fashioned grub and rich semi-gourmet French and Mexican grub.   The secret was and is, of course that the person eating is reaching a "full" point more quickly and has better fuel that is ready to expend.  Then, even the least walk....ambling better said...of a mile or so results in the correct tuning of the engine....especially the carburettor  (remember, English English).
 
    Finally, many of our clients who suffer from this or that allergy or allergies notice that in our dusty, pollen-infested, animals everywhere, extreme tropical neo-wilderness, with intense agricultural overtones all very nearby....have no allergy problems.....without taking their medicines.   We have concluded that the many and multiple allergens "kick-start" the immune system into working instead of just hanging around and letting the host take some kind of poison to abate the symptoms. 
 
We end our pontificating with these secret words:  garlic, onions, lemons/limes, heavy beer and soda pops, brown sugar / honey, good appropriate wines at meals or evening's rest, one aspirin /day, two 1,250 fish-oils /week,  complex diet with all vegetables and meats included, four meals per day with three tiny ones and one big one, canned sardines, tuna, and salmon in any presentation, (we eat whole fresh salmon and other fish as well, of course), corn tortillas, and chilis...especially serrano, or jalapen~o if just getting started.   Two small bags of junque food of your choice are permitted per week.
 
Please read the article. And refresh your memory by visiting the webpage for the Quinta Tesoro de la Sierra Madre.   The Linkage is over to your right, right now.
El Gringo Viejo
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Monday, 2 September 2013

A Special Report by an embed with Syrian Rebels (slight amendment to aid and intervention admonition 3 August 2013)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
 
 
Moving ahead with any castigation of the Assad Regime is fraught with moral and military problems.   It is necessary to use pronounced vigour to advise all Representatives and Senators of the Congress of the Central Government to forego all forms of military intervention, perhaps permanently.  El Gringo Viejo, after reviewing many, many different reports from many different points of view, recommends only  the most basic humanitarian aid to the casualties and innocent suffering in Syria.   It would be best to use elements on the ground such as the Red Crescent, and groups such as Docteurs Sans Frontieres, or agencies with a proven record of non-corrupt eleemosynary service.
 
 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
 
 
 
EXCLUSIVE: Syrians In Ghouta Claim Saudi-Supplied Rebels Behind Chemical Attack
Rebels and local residents in Ghouta accuse Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan of providing chemical weapons to an al-Qaida linked rebel group.

Share this article!
    This image provided by by Shaam News Network on Thursday, Aug. 22, 2013, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, purports to show several bodies being buried in a suburb of Damascus, Syria during a funeral on Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2013. Syrian government forces pressed their offensive in eastern Damascus on Thursday, bombing rebel-held suburbs where the opposition said the regime had killed more than 100 people the day before in a chemical weapons attack. The government has denied allegations it used chemical weapons in artillery barrages on the area known as eastern Ghouta on Wednesday as "absolutely baseless." (AP Photo/Shaam News Network)
    This image provided by Shaam News Network on Thursday, Aug. 22, 2013, purports to show several bodies being buried in a suburb of Damascus, Syria during a funeral on Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2013, following allegations of a chemical weapons attack that reportedly killed 355 people. (AP Photo/Shaam News Network)
    Clarification: Dale Gavlak assisted in the research and writing process of this article, but was not on the ground in Syria. Reporter Yahya Ababneh, with whom the report was written in collaboration, was the correspondent on the ground in Ghouta who spoke directly with the rebels, their family members, victims of the chemical weapons attacks and local residents. 
    Gavlak is a MintPress News Middle East correspondent who has been freelancing for the AP as a Amman, Jordan correspondent for nearly a decade. This report is not an Associated Press article; rather it is exclusive to MintPress News. 
    Ghouta, Syria — As the machinery for a U.S.-led military intervention in Syria gathers pace following last week’s chemical weapons attack, the U.S. and its allies may be targeting the wrong culprit.
    Interviews with people in Damascus and Ghouta, a suburb of the Syrian capital, where the humanitarian agency Doctors Without Borders said at least 355 people had died last week from what it believed to be a neurotoxic agent, appear to indicate as much.
    The U.S., Britain, and France as well as the Arab League have accused the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for carrying out the chemical weapons attack, which mainly targeted civilians. U.S. warships are stationed in the Mediterranean Sea to launch military strikes against Syria in punishment for carrying out a massive chemical weapons attack. The U.S. and others are not interested in examining any contrary evidence, with U.S Secretary of State John Kerry saying Monday that Assad’s guilt was “a judgment … already clear to the world.”
    However, from numerous interviews with doctors, Ghouta residents, rebel fighters and their families, a different picture emerges. Many believe that certain rebels received chemical weapons via the Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, and were responsible for carrying out the dealing gas attack.
    “My son came to me two weeks ago asking what I thought the weapons were that he had been asked to carry,” said Abu Abdel-Moneim, the father of a rebel fighting to unseat Assad, who lives in Ghouta.
    Abdel-Moneim said his son and 12 other rebels were killed inside of a tunnel used to store weapons provided by a Saudi militant, known as Abu Ayesha, who was leading a fighting battalion. The father described the weapons as having a “tube-like structure” while others were like a “huge gas bottle.”
    Ghouta townspeople said the rebels were using mosques and private houses to sleep while storing their weapons in tunnels.
    Abdel-Moneim said his son and the others died during the chemical weapons attack. That same day, the militant group Jabhat al-Nusra, which is linked to al-Qaida, announced that it would similarly attack civilians in the Assad regime’s heartland of Latakia on Syria’s western coast, in purported retaliation.
    “They didn’t tell us what these arms were or how to use them,” complained a female fighter named ‘K.’ “We didn’t know they were chemical weapons. We never imagined they were chemical weapons.”
    “When Saudi Prince Bandar gives such weapons to people, he must give them to those who know how to handle and use them,” she warned. She, like other Syrians, do not want to use their full names for fear of retribution.
    A well-known rebel leader in Ghouta named ‘J’ agreed. “Jabhat al-Nusra militants do not cooperate with other rebels, except with fighting on the ground. They do not share secret information. They merely used some ordinary rebels to carry and operate this material,” he said.
    “We were very curious about these arms. And unfortunately, some of the fighters handled the weapons improperly and set off the explosions,” ‘J’ said.
    Doctors who treated the chemical weapons attack victims cautioned interviewers to be careful about asking questions regarding who, exactly, was responsible for the deadly assault.
    The humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders added that health workers aiding 3,600 patients also reported experiencing similar symptoms, including frothing at the mouth, respiratory distress, convulsions and blurry vision. The group has not been able to independently verify the information.
    More than a dozen rebels interviewed reported that their salaries came from the Saudi government.
     

    Saudi involvement

    In a recent article for Business Insider, reporter Geoffrey Ingersoll highlighted Saudi Prince Bandar’s role in the two-and-a-half year Syrian civil war. Many observers believe Bandar, with his close ties to Washington, has been at the very heart of the push for war by the U.S. against Assad.
    Ingersoll referred to an article in the U.K.’s Daily Telegraph about secret Russian-Saudi talks alleging that Bandar offered Russian President Vladimir Putin cheap oil in exchange for dumping Assad.
    “Prince Bandar pledged to safeguard Russia’s naval base in Syria if the Assad regime is toppled, but he also hinted at Chechen terrorist attacks on Russia’s Winter Olympics in Sochi if there is no accord,” Ingersoll wrote.
    “I can give you a guarantee to protect the Winter Olympics next year. The Chechen groups that threaten the security of the games are controlled by us,” Bandar allegedly told the Russians.
    “Along with Saudi officials, the U.S. allegedly gave the Saudi intelligence chief the thumbs up to conduct these talks with Russia, which comes as no surprise,” Ingersoll wrote.
    “Bandar is American-educated, both military and collegiate, served as a highly influential Saudi Ambassador to the U.S., and the CIA totally loves this guy,” he added.
    According to U.K.’s Independent newspaper, it was Prince Bandar’s intelligence agency that first brought allegations of the use of sarin gas by the regime to the attention of Western allies in February.
    The Wall Street Journal recently reported that the CIA realized Saudi Arabia was “serious” about toppling Assad when the Saudi king named Prince Bandar to lead the effort.
    “They believed that Prince Bandar, a veteran of the diplomatic intrigues of Washington and the Arab world, could deliver what the CIA couldn’t: planeloads of money and arms, and, as one U.S. diplomat put it, wasta, Arabic for under-the-table clout,” it said.
    Bandar has been advancing Saudi Arabia’s top foreign policy goal, WSJ reported, of defeating Assad and his Iranian and Hezbollah allies.
    To that aim, Bandar worked Washington to back a program to arm and train rebels out of a planned military base in Jordan.
    The newspaper reports that he met with the “uneasy Jordanians about such a base”:
    His meetings in Amman with Jordan’s King Abdullah sometimes ran to eight hours in a single sitting. “The king would joke: ‘Oh, Bandar’s coming again? Let’s clear two days for the meeting,’ ” said a person familiar with the meetings.
    Jordan’s financial dependence on Saudi Arabia may have given the Saudis strong leverage. An operations center in Jordan started going online in the summer of 2012, including an airstrip and warehouses for arms. Saudi-procured AK-47s and ammunition arrived, WSJ reported, citing Arab officials.
    Although Saudi Arabia has officially maintained that it supported more moderate rebels, the newspaper reported that “funds and arms were being funneled to radicals on the side, simply to counter the influence of rival Islamists backed by Qatar.”
    But rebels interviewed said Prince Bandar is referred to as “al-Habib” or ‘the lover’ by al-Qaida militants fighting in Syria.
    Peter Oborne, writing in the Daily Telegraph on Thursday, has issued a word of caution about Washington’s rush to punish the Assad regime with so-called ‘limited’ strikes not meant to overthrow the Syrian leader but diminish his capacity to use chemical weapons:
    Consider this: the only beneficiaries from the atrocity were the rebels, previously losing the war, who now have Britain and America ready to intervene on their side. While there seems to be little doubt that chemical weapons were used, there is doubt about who deployed them.
    It is important to remember that Assad has been accused of using poison gas against civilians before. But on that occasion, Carla del Ponte, a U.N. commissioner on Syria, concluded that the rebels, not Assad, were probably responsible.
    Some information in this article could not be independently verified. Mint Press News will continue to provide further information and updates . 
    Dale Gavlak is a Middle East correspondent for Mint Press News and has reported from Amman, Jordan, writing for the Associated Press, NPR and BBC. An expert in Middle Eastern affairs, Gavlak covers the Levant region, writing on topics including politics, social issues and economic trends. Dale holds a M.A. in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Chicago. Contact Dale at dgavlak@mintpressnews.com
    Yahya Ababneh is a Jordanian freelance journalist and is currently working on a master’s degree in journalism,  He has covered events in Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Libya. His stories have appeared on Amman Net, Saraya News, Gerasa News and elsewhere.
     
     
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
     
     
     
    These are heavy realities, and we must contemplate that not one mainstream media source has even presented these evidences and/or possibilities.   Fox News has peripherally suggested the possibility.   Overnight radio has openned the book on the issue a little more deeply.   The alphabet press is still 135% committed to protecting Barack Hussein Obama at all costs.   We see no good coming from the near future, for America or Syria or Israel.   Our government works for the government....our military is sliding into a politically correct, effeminate shadow of its former self, and our people want free food, medical service, housing, and automatic college diplomas.  It does not portend well. for the nation that used to be the land of the Free and the home of the Brave.
    El Gringo Viejo

    Democrat Saviours

        ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
     
     
         It is a fairly hopeless issue to try to make the low-information and low-intelligence voter understand the truth and the facts that surround the truth.  For instance, if a person suggests that Teddy Kennedy was a slug who, if in Texas now, had done what he did with Mary Jo Kopechne, would be facing 10 years in prison for felony manslaughter, death resulting from driving while intoxicated.   A case could also have been made that he killed the girl before hand, and then faked the "bridge confusion in the dark" story.   So many rumours swirled at the time, almost all of them  reasonable, given the nature of Kennedy's history of deportment, that we shall never know the true extent and nature of this Slug of Privilege's criminality.   None of Kennedy's explanations were remotely credible.
    Was it you, Bill or was it Hillary
    who took care of McDougall?  Can
    you look that up in your book there?

    
         The same holds true for William Jefferson Blythe Clinton, Hillary Rodham-Clinton, and Barack Hussein Obama.  In the case of the Clintons, the worst can be imagined.   Look at his picture above carefully, and remember that this is his "Jesse Jackson Moment" . Jesse Jackson was "counselling" Billy Jeff at these moments, and it was such a crass, hypocritical gesture that the "regular folks" were both laughing at Billy Jeff and seeing his hypocrisy very clearly.  Of course, Jackson had his own troubles almost precisely at the same time when a former squeeze ratted on Jesse that she was the babymother of Jesse's little girl.   She had been being paid out of Jackson's non-profit "Operation PUSH" funds as part of her support and child maintenance to the tune of about 35,000 USD per year of money other than Jesse's.  Charges? Are we kidding ourselves?
       Case studies and numerous peculiar coincidences more than strongly suggest that the Clintons are guilty of the highest crimes.  There are simply too many bodies pushing up daisies who previously had first or second degree of relativity to the Clintons.   There is simply too much disposition on the part of both of them to lie and/or gloss over any and every aspect of their activities.   That is over and above the blatant disregard for following legal prescription, such as leaving untouched the office of a man whose body was found in a public park, dead from a bullet wound, and with no GSR on either hand. 
        Such an office is obviously an extension of a crime scene, but it was evacuated by Bernie Nussbaum and Maggie Thompson the morning of the discovery of the body, and the office was repeatedly violated, even to the point of planting of extraneous evidence after the first official inspection.   All of these actions would have resulted in prison time for any of the OROGs and certainly the author of this blog.   The idea that a "suicide note" could have been found, days later, in a previously unseen briefcase on top of Foster's desk, is ludicrous.
     
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
     
     
         Fast backwards to the continuous harping at George W, Bush.   El Gringo Viejo is content with the idea that Bush should have been led out of office and retired to Crawford at the very moment that it became apparent that he would allowed the Congress to authorise any amount of money for any amount of whatever, up to and including free pills for Geezers,   The idea of the central government setting up a program for an entitlement for the wealthiest sector of the citizenry (the Geezers) is ridiculous. The idea that a Republican President would throw his veto pen into the Patomac at flood, even with a fully Republican Congress, is astonishing.
     
         Add on to that the notion that he could somehow "buy" with public money the affection of Schumer and (Sir Edmund) Hillary.   We can all remember the Hag cackling en voce forte' on the Senate floor, "BUSH KNEW!  BUSH KNEW!" while rattling a front-page blaring headline from the New York Post announcing that Bush knew that the twin towers were going to be attacked.   That was a week or two after he had notified Schumer and (Sir Edmund) Hillary that they had a "blank check" for the rebuilding of New York.  Affection and gratitude by Democrat Socialists for any type of Republican or conservative is best described in the tale about the scorpion and the Lion.
     
         We move on.   Bush put his plan to deal with Iraq up to not one, but two votes, at the demand of the Democrat minority.   He did not want to be approved twice, but the Democrats wanted a do over so that later they could say, "Well, at least I voted against authorisation before I voted for it."  The best first identifier for the concept of  Democrat office-holder is "focus-group hypocrite".   To reiterate, Bush allowed  for a re-vote, after carrying the first vote heavily to begin with.
         Bush even went before the United Nations Security Council and won a unanimous vote there, authorising the use of force to make Saddam Hussein abide by thirteen different resolutions to abandon his genocide against the Swamp Arabs, the Kurds, and religious groups within Iraq.   The resolutions also dealt with the issues of WMDs up to and including any nuclear weaponry development.   It was known, and well known that he was into all such things.
         Then begins the next drumbeat for the succeeding six years.   Bush lied, and people died.   There were no weapons of mass destruction.  Once again Bush should have been taken out and led to a nice comfortable room in Crawford, because his usefulness as a teacher and a leader of a country was nil.  He thought within himself that there were certain inalienable truths:
             (1)     Of course there were weapons of mass destruction.  They had been used repeatedly by Saddam Hussein during the 1980s war with Iran, with scores of thousands of military and civilian casualties.   They were used against the Iraqi Kurds repeatedly, with estimates of the dead ranging from 12,000 to 30,000 individuals and many more permanently debilitated.

            (2)    They were used against  the Sunni in the east, in Basra and several other cities, at times almost as if it were a test...a practice...on real live human guinea pigs.  Thousands were killed over a period of five or six years.

           (3)     There is that  one particular, gut-wrenching  film that can still be fished out of the web that shows a small community  of about 500 rural people who were obviously frightened literally to death upon seeing Saddam Hussein's convoy pull into their precincts.   A month before this visit, some very stupid men had made gestures and yelled profanities and threats at Saddam.   Saddam, in his charity, had made this second trip out to the community just to show what a nice forgiving guy he was.  The people are jumping up and down, Saddam is standing in a small personnel carrier of some kind, he is smiling and giving them a paternalistic blessing and waving...it is all so pleasant.   He leaves with his convoy.   Another camera view, from further away, but of the same setting comes up on the screen, and suddenly there is a quick series of artillery explosions throughout the  community.   Several score artillery strikes hit in quick succession.  The scene continues as the peculiar smoke clears...very slowly.
         Ali Hassan al Majid, aka "Chemical Ali", the first cousin of Saddam Hussein al Tikriti, is heard to be speaking.   There is some laughter, all of which is off-screen.   Then there is a later set of moving close-ups, as the cameraman documents  scores upon scores of people who essentially died in their tracks....men.....women.....children.....all dead, because some dumboes made obscene gestures at a madman.
          These killings finally, over the years of Saddam Hussein's despotic, psychotic rule, numbered into the scores of thousands.   Precision is something left to a fool, because there is not the remotest way to determine precisely how many people were murdered by Hussein and his thugs.


              (4)   The Isralites  were just walking around one day and decided to go over and bomb a "secret" Iraqi nuclear reactor and weaponisation plant in 1981.




      

          
     So we can reasonably believe that, twenty years later, active measures had been taken to better protect and to re-activate the Iraqi nuclear program.   It is known, even by "ambassador" Joe Wilson's report and admission, that Iraqi agents were already combing through Africa, looking for somebody willing to sell yellow-cake uranium for enhancement.    Gas and chemical resources were no doubt.   They had been used, and used repeatedly.
     
              (5)      We are forced to include a form of geographic/cultural genocide, in that Saddam  Hussein and his goons also drained major parts of the marshes that had been used by the "Swamp Arabs" since the days of the Sumerians.   Legendary vegetables, dates, figs, other fruit....each morsel hand raised and delivered into markets that made wealthy people blush with their envy.  Colours and flavours that were without rival for 4,000 years at least.....drained of life.   What do people do, when their chromosomes are programmed for such a time to do something perhaps better than any other group of people...and suddenly find their "factory" destroyed?
     
     
           So, finally to make a long story longer, Bush did not lie....the Obsolete Press said that Bush lied so much, that finally it became a part of Mount Rushmore.   The unthinking parroted the phrase, and it became true.   Hitler said that it was a wondrous thing how easy it is to govern stupid people who choose to be ignorant.
         Bush was a dumboe because he did not come out and vigorously demonstrate the evidence at hand.   The issue of the transfer of much of the stocks of gasses and chemicals over to the control of Damascus is also less and less of an improbability.    Bush did not fail, but he did either wimpily or arrogantly say, inside of himself, "To hell with those idiots.  I know and have seen the existence of, the application of, and the effects of Hussein's WMD stockpiles."  I am afraid that a bit of his Prescott was showing and he was defensive and arrogant.
           He also has refrained from stating the obvious point that under his watch, the United States military and special operations people essentially won two complicated and difficult wars....and said victories have been squandered by a poseur who has demonstrated repeatedly that he is either incompetent or anti-American, or both.

         To the previous President's credit, he has consistently demonstrated the class of a person who is genuinely secure unto himself and at charity with almost all men.   El Gringo Viejo cannot believe, even though George W. Bush is just another variety of the liberal Republican....reasonable compromiser, that he could possibly have any respect for the anti-American, Linskyite in the White House at this time.   Bush has refrained from any meddling or second guessing of his successor, at least in  public, and that is the mark of a person of high degree.

        These past 96 hours have proven beyond any doubt that Benghazi was an Obama / Rodham disaster.   The delivery of Egypt to the Muslim Brotherhood in return for the head of Mubarak was another disaster.  The coming re-meltdown in Tunisia is another disaster.  The general degeneration of northern Africa and other places in the Arab and non-Arab Middle East that was caused by dreamy, pointless anti-American humming of the Beatle song, "Imagine"...just doesn't make good foreign or domestic policy in the real world.
     
     

     
     
    We shall do our own imagining without cue-cards from the Beatles or Yoko.
    Thanks for your time and interest. 
    El Gringo Viejo
     
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Italians solve the problem of no Mosques in Venice

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


     
     
     
    The rabbi says, "politically incorrect - but funny!"

    Because there are no mosques in Venice,
    The Italian Government has allowed Muslims to pray in the streets.
     
     
     

    Leave it to the Italians to work
    out a solution!
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Sunday, 1 September 2013

    Santa Moves to the Equator

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



    
    A woman walks along a snowy road on the outskirts of La Paz, Bolivia on 25 August 2013
    Al Gore always comes to mind when these events occur.
    Something like, "AlGore, about 100 people died in South
    America the last couple of days, because of extreme low
    temperatures, heavy snows, and record setting snows
    and other Winter type weather, although they are going
    into Springtime down there.  What sayest thou?"
         AlGore responds, "Do you have the record of studies
    and contribution to humanity that I have?  Do you know
    anything about the greater interrelationship between
    Cold Swells in the Pacific and the dry adiabatic rates of
    upslope temperature divergence on the east coast of
    Greenland?  Huh?  Huh?  Sheesh!  There's one born
    every minute."




















     
     
    
    An unusual cold spell has hit Peru and its neighbour Bolivia as well as Paraguay.
     
     
    These events, to be sure are occurring at higher to very high elevations, but for whatever reason, they are occurring.  We should remember that in the zones affected, most of them are in the Southern Hemisphere. Most but not all.
     
    The particular place pictured here is fairly close to the Pacific Ocean, perhaps 50 miles by straight line.  But it is also in a zone of 12,000 to 14,500 fasl, high in the Andes.  This abnormally cold zone does, however, extend over, under, around, and through the highlands all the way to the southeast into the upper Pampas of Argentina, where record cold has killed as many as 50 people in rural areas.
     
       The overall death toll for the last four or five days, updated through my own research of various news fountains in the region, seem to be indicating as many as 300 fatalities directly related to the frigid conditions, and heavy snows are preventing access by relief agencies and organisations to the large affected area.   Peru, Ecuador, Chile, Paraguay, and Argentina have been affected, along with the extreme upper reaches of the Amazonia drainage area in western Brazil.
     
          This would be a worthwhile  event to recall up to good ole' Al Gore the next time you see him down at The Old Saloon.   Some people might even call it "a teachable moment".
        We might ask him if his love-nest on the California coast is underwater, as he said it would be, by 1996.   He bought the place back around 2007, and El Gringo Viejo has never figured out why he would want to buy a house that was underwater for almost 15 years now.
       We guess he must have been willing to do anything to get away from his frumpy, old wife (the one he smooched on stage at the Democrat Convention in 2000).  But who knows how the dufus new wife likes having to dress like a frogman just to go into the kitchen and make underwater coffee in the morning.
     
        Just can't figure that boy out.
     
    El Gringo Viejo
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Mexico City Held Hostage - The Perpertual Gift from the Left That Just Keeps on Giving




    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


        One of the many hallmarks of the Left is the ability to essentially take possession of the commons.  Streets, Boulevards, the grounds and/or interiors of public buildings, Plazas both of minor and major social importance, anything that is easily accessible is fair game.   It is of no importance to the leadership or the participants in whatever event is being celebrated, protested, or attended, just who is inconvenienced or damaged.   There is not the slightest concern about damages to property or persons in the wake of the  human tsunami.  Such damages even in a perfectly passive "march" or "occupation" or "protest gathering" can total 100,000,000 pesos when all is said and done.
     
         Traffic tie-ups of gargantuan proportions, especially in huge cities such as Mexico City, are the norm when leftists labour unions and university "students" and professors are left loose from their keepers. 





    This is the layout at the Zocalo. one
    of the 3 main centres of central-most
    Mexico City.   60,000  "teachers", of
    whom half are union thugs, are camped
    on the public's common, in front of the
    Metropolitan Cathedral and the Palacio
    Presidential. 
       
             Traffic counts at the intersection of Insurgentes and Paseo de la Reforma, in another centre of Mexico City can and do regularly exceed 300,000 units per 24 hour period.    So one can imagine when 10,000 union thugs and Public Worker dullards decide to sit down in the middle of where those two streets and a couple of other lesser feeders meet in the round "glorieta" of a wild carousel of urban vehicular mayhem.
            The various leftist groups have everything worked down to a fine art.   Lawyers very similar to our own pro-communist ACLU, thugs carrying their videography devices, other thugs lurking around to see if police or private parties are filming or photographing anything that ought not to be seen and recorded.    When marching, the people, frequently dolts brought in from the marginal areas on the edge of town, are admonished by the monitor to "...keep three metres between you.   Walk more slowly.  We are here to be noticed!  We are here to make the bourgeoisie angry and uncomfortable!.Let them wait on us!"
         It now makes two weeks that the Sindicato National de Trabajadores en la Educacion have occupied the totality of the Zocalo.   That is no mean feat.  When I was there a month ago, the "strike" had just started and they had about one-fifth of the  Zocalo filled.   Now it is everything, with a warm body count of about 30,000 daily, and 20,000 at any given time.   If they were to be bottling cologne, it would have to be named Eau de Septique.
     
         Why are the "teachers" blocking up the main square and holding spot marches at the bottleneck in Mexico City, causing people to miss flights, long-distance deluxe bus connections...appointments...ambulances....fire engines,  who cares..."We have grievances!!!   We are us!!! You are only you!!!   and of course the famous, "Si Ud. no es parte de la solucion, entonces Ud. es parte del problema!!!" 
     
        The problems with the national teachers' union and several of its State Directorates of said union seem to be that they do not want any reforms that would re-establish the enforced order scheme of deportment, evaluations of the teachers on a bi-annual basis, assessment of time and attendance (critical if one is expected to be at the front of a class instead of marching for the labour rights of the proletariat).   They do not want to "advance" the curriculum to where it had been 20 years ago, in terms of math, science, foreign language, world/Mexican history, and world/Mexican geography.
         The previous leader of the Union, pictured on the left, Esther Gordillo, is a hideous hag who ruled the union with an iron fist, starting slowly at first and then especially in the last 12 years.   Now, however, she is making license plates for the central government, charged, convicted, and remanded in short order  for having several mansions including one in the Mt. Carmel by the Sea area of California, another in Miami-Dade somewhere, and over 100,000,000 USD in liquid assets and negotiable instruments stolen from the teachers' union.   She is a true practitioner of the diabolical Santaria pseudo-religion, and she looks it.
         So, without the head witch around, there is some lack of direction at the top. There is also the latent Marxist hostility to either the old  corrupt government party, or to the rightwing governments that replaced the old corrupt government party for two presidential terms.   The Co-ordinacion Nacional de Trabajadores en la Educacion (CNTE), the governing body for the Teachers' Union ( the largest in Latin America) is locked into a death struggle with the Central Government...as Ernest Pen~a Nieto advances the plans of the previous regimen ( a centre-right government of the Partido de Accion Nacional - PAN) to cancel the authority of the union (STNTE) to do the hiring, firing, qualification, and advancement of teachers and administrators.   The plan would be to turn the personnel and curriculum matters over to a Central Education Administration that would be more accessible to the citizenry, in keeping with the slightly to significantly better  record the central government has had in terms of transparency and efficiency during the previous 12 years of PAN governance.
        The populace is ready to change the old system by an almost 7 to 1 margin.  So, these occupations and blockages will stale very quickly, and it almost certain that police/demonstrator confrontation will begin soon to clear the Zocalo and the other public parks of protestors.  An injunction will finally be applied for and granted, sooner rather than later, and that will give the police the opportunity to unblock any intersections, highways, toll-booths, and/or accesses to sub-way, train, bus, or airport facilities.
     
         The left....a useless bunch at best....is also afraid that if the sanctity of existence of self-rule by the union falls, the union will die.  Further, it will hasten that moment that allows the national oil company, the only show in town will be able to permit foreign investment and partnership arrangements since 1938, when all foreign interests in oil production, refining, and marketing were expropriated.   For these reasons and several other irrational notions, the left will dig in hard for the next 18 months, trying to save the wasteful, useless demagoguery-induced programs that the Mexican left, and even hard-leftists throughout the world thought would save Mexico and Latin America from American hegemony and the exploitation of the downtrodden.
         The case is clear.   Mexico with 9 times the population of Cuba has a GNP that is 220 times the output of Cuba.   A good comparison of a nation mired in communist dictatorship (emphasis on the dictatorship) and a nation emerging and evolving from nationalistic socialism to common law and free market/production/consumption economic policy.
     
    More later.   There will likely be additional material entered on this screed.
    We genuinely appreciate you time and attention.  We are still disturbed by the reconnaissance report from the Big Sandy Creek agent and the observation and comments of El Zorro....If all OROGs will take note, if we were to take those writings and wad them up and throw them into the air...it would have come back down exactly like an incompetent buffoon acting like he was Mr. Toughguy with lots of red line and Tomahawk Cruise missiles and no need to consult wit' nuttin' o nobody!  That same buffoon lets his Secretary of State go out and pronounce the beginning of the new era of bellicosity against Bad Leaders, only to be contradicted within 12 in diametrical fashion...just before heading out to play a little golf....with Joe Biden????????????????????
     
    Tell me if A Gringo in Rural Mexico doesn't have the best analysts and commentators!!
    El Gringo Viejo
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~