El Chapo, the Volcan de Colima, and the days and nights of the Quinta

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     We are back in town after a couple of weeks of hanging around at the Quinta Tesoro de la Sierra Madre.  The drive down and back were uneventful as usual, as was the stay.   With the heat and recent rains, one can imagine the rampage of foliage surrounding our place.   The "land down under" has become impenetrable, literally covered by the thorny tenaza trees that grow in dense grouping up to about 30 feet high.   The huge anaqua tree, with its huge twisted limbs rises above its thorny neighbours.  This part of the property is home to many of my tiny "jellybean shaped" warblers and other birds, as well as the groupings of green jays and occasional flocks of parrots, all depending upon the season.   Sometimes I think that there is some dependence upon the day of the week as well (meaning that predictability is very predictable except when it is unpredictable). 

Green and florid frenzy

     The "high ground" where the manor house of our Duchy is situation is literally canopied by various types of trees and large bushes.   The census includes a large duranta, many shrimp plants of various colours, powderpuff bushes, bouganvillas of six different colours, ebony trees, flamboyant trees, copper and paint-splatter crotons, a two tonne pencil cactus, numerous esperanzas that have changed from bushes to medium sized, ever blooming trees, splashed  with yellow trumpet-form blossom clusters. We throw in a few plumarias that produce the very sedative Hawaiian leigh flowers to the mix, an avacado, several lime and orange trees, and a really nice guayaba, several hennequin maguey (century-type) plants, and we have quite a plant zoo.  

     It has proven to be all very pleasant, impressive, just-what-we-were-

Foreground Plumaria, behind are the maguey
and behind them, the guayaba

working-for, and enjoyable.   The locals and people visiting the area from Ciudad Victoria and other urban places will stop and admire our jumble of green mixed with the spectrum of colours that could tax a crystal prism.  They especially admire the yards and yards of wax-leaf vine that began to produce the peculiar hanging ball of multi-florette blossoms....by the hundreds.

     My daughter's haliconia began blooming prolifically during these past days, and we are publishing a picture of that event.   She bought the plant at a vivero (nursery) about 50 miles to the south of the Quinta seven or eight years ago, and it has had its spurts and fits in terms of blooming, but never quite so much as this.  Efforts to post this picture are continuing.

     In the vein of "unintended consequences" , we noticed that the ability to go outside and watch the lightning bug show, enjoy the bracing 58 degree chill at 02:00 in the early morning, and actually see a perfect full moon, or a moonless night sky with  billions of stars is now very restricted.   One must move to the middle of our little trail to see all of the splendor of the night sky.
     These past several nights, for instance. were essentially moonless.   The Milky Way was extremely impressive and gave that "close enough to touch" impression.   A every-now-and-then meteor would lend a little interest,  but there were no really extra-normal manifestations.   Such "extra-normal" events are actually a normality throughout the domain of the Sierra Madre Oriental.   Special difficult to impossible explain events are seen in this area every seven to twelve days, generally, after ruling out outright fibbing and obvious misinterpretation or poor observation skills by viewers.
     It is a strange pleasure to be able to go out in the depths of the night and enjoy the temperatures and the sounds of the wild when all the world is otherwise quiet and at slumber.  The owls, the giggling snickers of the fox coven running down by the river, the howling perhaps at the lack of a moon by the coyote pack in the back section of the Hacienda de La Vega, all under a bowl filled and lined with a billion pearls is a good description, perhaps.

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      With reference to the debacle produced by the "escape" by Joaquin (El Chapo) Guzman Loera, there is not a lot that is good that can be said.  Suffice to say that the Partido the Accion Nacional (PAN) was better at its worst than the Partido Revolucionario Institutional (PRI) at its best.   One thing that is very probable is that various rumours about the combined commandancy of the Mexican Army and Navy requesting that President Enrique Pena Nieto and his cabinet step down.   The people would be willing to accept three years of military control, leaving the Congress and Supreme Court intact.

     Make no mistake.  The disorganisation of the main structures of the various Cartels has been very significant.  The successes of the previous administration of Felipe Calderon Hinojosa were under-reported and little understood by the American and other foreign observers.  The effects were real, and still remain.   The citizenry desperately wants continued engagement by the military, along with the successful search and destroy methods by the military on all fronts.

     The broad mass of the populace has also tired of the incessant demonstrations, occupations, and low-grade violence heaped upon the face of Mexico by the national teachers' union.  Their never-ending lists of "demands" and "threats" has cheapened the title of "maestra" and/or "profesora" etc.   They have become pretty much something below the clowns and "flame-blowers" at the intersections of major thoroughfares in Mexico City.  "ya! basta!"

      Finally, it has been little reported....perhaps not reported at all in many quarters...but the Volcano of Colima (aka - Volcan del Fuego) has been right at the point of full eruption for several weeks.  For all practical purposes, it is erupting right now, with significant and visible lava flows.   The rivers of molten fire can be seen especially at night, pouring down certain channels from the crater.   With the southwesterly upper flow kicking in every now and then, we could "enjoy" the blow-off of the considerable smoking, hellish emissions all the way to our little place for a few hours on two occasions.  
     Back where it is belching and blowing, one can locate the very active volcano.  It has erupted over 50 times since the arrival of the Spanish in the 1520s.  The peak is situated more in the westernmost part of the State of Jalisco (home to Guadalajara) and a little less in the State of Colima (home to Manzanillo on the Pacific Coast).  It was named for Colima, however, because the volcano began its career entirely in Colima, a long time ago.
     There are slight but significant chances for the smoke and ash material to make it into the American Southwest and/or the Texas area at any time during the next couple of months.

More later.  We appreciate the OROGs' interest and attention.   There will be more reporting and observations to-morrow.
El Gringo Viejo

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Salient Thoughts - Roberts proves shredders were made for Constitutions

Supposedly 16 million people who did not have health care before now have it under Obama/SCOTUS care.  How many people, who did have healthcare before, do not have it now?  John Roberts incorrectly thinks his job is to justify Congress’ intentions, not what the Constitution says.  My friends we are in serious trouble.  The real justices on the SC are time and again overruled by the socialist judges.

What is it with the Chief Justice that he is compelled to keep the ACA regardless of the constitutionality of it?  The Supreme Court needs serious changes, especially in regard to the lifetime appointments.  It is apparent that the Congress will never, through the amendment process, set term limits for justices.  The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution is available to the people and should be one of the foremost issues in the 2016 Presidential campaign.  “The Liberty Amendments” should be read by every concerned American.

When a President makes a mistake or intentionally appoints a subversive to the Court, there has to be a method of recall.  Term limits might be the most reasonable change that would be acceptable to the process of the Fifth Amendment.  That, in addition to a method of removal for cause or abuse are essential to the functioning of the legal system in the U.S.

The Supreme Court has twice kept the ACA alive in contradiction to the law itself.  By bench legislation, John Roberts has blatantly violated his duty to interpret the law’s validity under the Constitution.

The Congress, Republicans notwithstanding, the Supreme Court, and the President are all destructive to the rights of the people and the intent of our fundamental law.

El Zorro

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Stumbling into Gomorra

     Yes, show me the way to the darkest abyss of despair so that I can atone for having been born into the Caucasian race.   There is no health in me, and my inequity is caused by my chromosomes.   I will  praise Ba'al as I pass the graffitied welcome monument and the brave,  iron-resolve stare of the face of Ernesto (Che') Guevara's statue, staring forward, ever forward to the final moment where all are equal and none can want.   I and mine shall pay for our own medical services and for all those who grovel for the farthings left to me.

     The book is of course sealed upon the career of the Hon. Chief Justice.   He is a peculiar mixture  of stupid, ignorant, arrogant, foppish, and mayonnaise.  The only known reason for him to have been appointed to the Supreme Court's top seat is that someone, or several someones knew that Judge John would be "reasonable" and "progressive" in terms of helping everyone finally receive "health care". 

   The German hierarchy during the late 1930s could not have engineered the establishment of National Socialism better.  We have the doors completely opened to the inundation of undesirables (we call them refugees now), and we have control by totally out-of-touch mega-billionaires who want to teach us how to enjoy the taste of styrofoam.

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     With reference to the issue about the effects and accoutrements associated  with the Confederate States of America, we would like to call attention to certain differences to groups who have a catechism and who group around sinners trying to be saints.  This is as opposed to groups who have no family, no order, no reasonable aims who are led by Jeremiah Wright, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and Calypso Louis the acolyte from Jamaica.
     It should be pointed out that where Black Folks have a long history of Churching and more than a semblance of soci0-familial order, and where the entire population is rated by visitors as the friendliest and most helpful people in America by visitors, foreign and domestic, a disaster such as the one just past at the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston does not provoke riots and looting.
     The Obsolete Press has had to go way, way out of its way to show that this insane act of a drunken, druggie thug (also lacking catechism) was inspired by the "Confederate Flag".  In all probability he was given steady doses of ADDGTY-3 due to "hyperactivity" and "male restlessness" from primary school forward.  We assume he made it at least some distance into high school but at this point, what possible difference could it make?

     The Black Folks of the Charleston in particular and South Carolina in general can be typified as being able to withstand the torture of being forced to endure statues, monuments, banners, and relics that recall to the viewer the images of the Old South and the episode of the Confederacy.
     In Ferguson, a bully Bear who, by the age of 18 could be proud of his criminal accomplishments and record, is killed by a cop in a manner that is ruled justifiable, and the result is the near destruction of a entire city by looters and rioters.   Even before the Body of the Bear is buried, the various roots of his family tree and busy setting up shop to cast lots to the "Chaos Tourism" community and other undocumented shoppers so as to see how clothes commemorating anarchy could be sold profitably.   Such is the case almost anywhere there is no Confederate reliquary.   Charleston has (or had) the reliquary, but there are no riots.  Everywhere else....there is anarchy.
     So much for the Obsolete Press Construct.

     And so much for the Brave New Republicans who did the Black Friday Christmas Shopping Door Storming Act, trampling over one another to show how much more they hated the Confederacy than the other politicians.  Real class.  Also a pitiable lack of understanding of the true history of the Confederate movement.   They understand the issue only in two dimensions.  The whole story about the North - South Inconvenience did have to do with the "Peculiar Institution", but there were scores of other fundamental disagreements between the two regions.

More Later.
El Gringo Veijo

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We have returned....neat trip

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     We returned yesterday amid a bit of rain, some heavy, and some light.  It seems as if Global Climate Change keeps changing on an almost daily basis.  I did notice that Global Warming was actually taking place more during the afternoon while Global Cooling was confined  to the nighttime hours and pre-dawn early morning hours.   We are working on the models to see if there is a tendency that can be extrapolated into a working forecast.   Then, we shall be able to tell exactly how much George Bush is to blame and how much the Confederate Flag Stress Syndrome (CFSS) plays into the matter.

     We shall be trying to rest up for a few days.  To-morrow we shall attempt to give a bit of a description to our last episode down at the Quinta, and perhaps even have a few pictures that we can post for you.  The trip was a bit tiring due to a nagging throat - sinus problem  that kept El Gringo Viejo up during the last few nights.  

More later,

El Gringo Viejo

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Dumbo Goulash - Who reads the New York Times?

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"Terror of 10th Street"
A perfect look-alike of my first ride.
And yes, Virginia, it really only had 36
horsepower.   El Zorro had a Studebaker
Lark with a V-8, three on the column, and
over 170 horses in those days - 1963 . 64

 We are treated to the New York Times yukking it up about the wild traffic history of the Pareja Rubio de la Florida.  Allow me, first to gloat, and then explain.   During my first years as a driver, terrorising people throughout the South of Texas, with a 36 horsepower Karmann Ghia Volkswagen.

     There was a policeman who followed me up and down 10th Street which was and remains the main drag of McAllen.   He pulled me over a couple of times just to do it, and then he would remind me that just because I was a "rich kid with a fancy European hotrod" that he could clip my wings faster than I could spread them.

 It was always my ardent wish that he could learn a different line, but it was always the same.  I had a few incidents from 1964 through 1970, none for a speeding offense over 5 miles over the limit, and a couple for much less.  Two incidents with a couple of different drunks totalled one Karmann and hurt a Corvair pretty bad.   But, since 1970...now 45 years....El Gringo Viejo has not had a traffic citation of any kind.   The better three/quarters has had only one, and that was at a newly established speed zone being used as a convenient trap for drivers overly familiar with the route.

     In any regard the smearing of Marco Rubio was a sight to behold, gushing forth from the New York Times, word-for-word from a broadside prepared by that favourite turncoat among the marxists, David Brock.  The NYT reporter seemed willing to serve as a kind of convenience, printing the article about how during 19 years Marco Rubio was a clear and present danger to mankind because there were all these high-speed, double-parking and incongruent registration tags on vehicles, etc.   Jeannette Dousdebes Rubio has a majority of the moving violation citations...which altogether, moving and documentational and parking violations all assembled come up to fewer than 1 citation per year person.    And some were dismissed!!

     Next, since this did not work even on the stupid and the low-information voter types, the next "scandalous revelations" about Marcos's family will be the story about Marco Rubio's drug trafficking brother-in-law.   No kidding....it is very old news....nowhere near as bad as Hill and Billary's siblings who are veritable criminals, tried and convicted in various cases.

    Hillary's brother is again newly involved bit of nefariousness.   He is in fact  in a totally suspect gold mining concession agreement  in Haiti...a place where Billy Jeff has been so very active with his foundation, restoring normalcy after the Great Earthquake.   The entire project is a kickback to the Clintons and a rip-off to the Haitian people of their national patrimony.        

     Of course, 99% of the devastation remains and the quality of life in Haiti remains the lowest in the Americas.   The Clinton Administrations in Little Rock and Washington, D.C. were easily the most corrupt political in the history of the Republic.   In spite of that, the Obsolete Press of the United States and the world in general, seem content to accept the Clintons as the necessary price to pay if one truly wants to forward abortion, perversion, totalitarian socialism, corruption, and American decay.

More in a few days,

El Gringo Viejo

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El Zorro watches SCOTUS from behind the curtains, and reports:

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 (from the pen of El Zorro)

This is pretty disgusting.  No edification is necessary except to say:  This is another example of how Obama has infected all branches of Government and the damage may not be reversible.

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“(1) Zivotofsky v. Kerry

Date Filed: June 8, 2015

Case #: 13–628.

KENNEDY, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which GINSBURG, BREYER, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ., joined. BREYER, J., filed a concurring opinion. THOMAS, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part. ROBERTS, C. J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which ALITO, J., joined. SCALIA, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and ALITO, J., joined.

Full Text Opinion: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/13-628_l5gm.pdf

CONSTITUTIONAL LAW: The Constitution grants the Executive Branch alone the power to determine national policy on the status or recognition of foreign sovereigns.

Petitioner's son was born in Jerusalem and Petitioner requested that the son’s place of birth be listed as “Israel.” The American Embassy refused to grant the request because of the Executive Branch’s policy to not acknowledge any country’s sovereignty over Jerusalem. Petitioner sued, arguing that the Foreign Relations Authorization Act (FRAA) §214(d) permits the son’s place of birth to be listed as “Israel” on his passport. The FRAA grants authority to the Secretary of State to list the place of birth for a US citizen born in Jerusalem as “Israel.”

The D.C. circuit found this statute unconstitutional because it conflicts with the powers granted to the Executive Branch in the Constitution to determine the status of foreign sovereigns.  U.S. Supreme Court affirmed, reasoning that this national policy determination is granted to the Executive Branch because of the Reception Clause, combined with the Article II foreign policy powers. The Court held that this power is both exclusively and conclusively delegated to the Executive Branch and Congress does not have the authority to require contradictory foreign policy.”

 

Dissenting opinions:

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/576/13-628/dissent6.html

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     Of course, if in fact there are two points that allow this wide discretion on the part of the Executive, there are several more that point to the ability of a sovereign, be he/she foreign or domestic to perceive of him/her self in a rational way that can reasonably be considered truthful.

     An Israeli born in Jerusalem can obviously declare such to be the case, if in fact he is an Israeli born in Jerusalem.  As well, there are obviously several, even many, places where an Israeli could have been born in Jerusalem.   And it is indisputable that Jerusalem is within the effective territory of Israel, and it is also indisputable that, being in the control of the Israelis, it is materially and spiritually in better condition than were it to be under the control of the dual mafias of Hezbollah and Hamas.

      Wherever seated, in Congrefs or in Court or in the halls of Colleges and Universities laden with undeserved tenure or World Councils ,  this matter of the Leftists always seeking to either kill, humiliate, injure or denigrate the Jew is a sad commentary on the moral bankruptcy of the Left...worldwide. 

     We urge the OROG to read Justice Thomas's concurrence and affirmation arguments.   In that he both concurred and dissented, his vote would have been (and was, I believe), counted as a dissenting vote.   Chief Justice Roberts wrote a very strongly worded paragraph in his dissent included below.   We do urge a reading of the entire summary of the dissent, it is mercifully brief:

       "Resolving the status of Jerusalem may be vexing, but resolving this case is not. Whatever recognition power the President may have, exclusive or otherwise, is not implicated by §214(d). It has not been necessary over the past 225 years to definitively resolve a dispute between Congress and the President over the recognition power. Perhaps we could have waited another 225 years. But instead the majority strains to reach the question based on the mere possibility that observers overseas might misperceive the significance of the birthplace designation at issue in this case. And in the process, the Court takes the perilous step—for the first time in our history—of allowing the President to defy an Act of Congress in the field of foreign affairs.

I respectfully dissent...."

     We concur and agree with the Chief Justice in that, even if it were the United Kingdom, Mexico, Canada, and Japan telling us not to recognise Jerusalem as a true entity within the nation of Israel, the United States and the individual Israeli(s) concerned, coupled with the facts - not fantasies - on the ground trump the majority's arguments in this case.  There are other arguments, but please read the brief summary of dissents.

El Gringo Viejo

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