February 28, 2022

A view from Ukraine. This is not going to be the affair Putin wanted.

https://twitter.com/christogrozev/status/1497941632209108992?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1497941632209108992%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.businessinsider.com%2Fukraine-hypes-bayraktar-drone-as-videos-show-destroyed-russia-tanks-2022-2

February 28, 2022

For Ukraine's citizenry.

“This is My Song” sung to the melody of Finlandia, with lyrics by Lloyd Stone, offers more than hints of calming perspective: “This is my song, O God of all the nations, a song of peace for lands afar and mine. This is my home, the country where my heart is; here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine. But other hearts in other lands are beating with hopes and dreams as true and high as mine. My country's skies are bluer than the ocean, and sunlight beams on cloverleaf and pine. But other lands have sunlight too and clover. And skies are everywhere as blue as mine. Oh, hear my song, O God of all the nations, a song of peace for their land and for mine.”

February 27, 2022

1883 finale/. OMG

I won't say anything else for now to avoid spoilers. It was well done.

February 25, 2022

Russia by Sting

February 25, 2022

The War Prayer for those not familiar...

Mark Twain, “The War Prayer” (ca.1904-5)


It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism … on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun … nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener. …

Sunday morning came — next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their young faces alight with martial dreams — visions of the stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! Then home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! … The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said …

…

Then came the “long” prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work….

An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. … he ascended to the preacher’s side and stood there waiting. …

The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside — which the startled minister did — and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said:

“I come from the Throne — bearing a message from Almighty God!” …

“God’s servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two — one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this — keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor’s crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.

“You have heard your servant’s prayer — the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it — that part which the pastor — and also you in your hearts — fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: ‘Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!’ … When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory–must follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!

“O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle — be Thou near them! With them — in spirit — we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it — for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.

(After a pause.) “Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits!”

It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.



Source: Mark Twain, “The War Prayer.”

Damn you, Putin.

February 24, 2022

Seems strangely appropriate today.

February 24, 2022

3 Men Plead Guilty in Plot to Attack U.S. Power Grid

Source: NYT

Three men pleaded guilty on Wednesday in a plot to attack power grids in the United States, which they believed could lead to economic and civil unrest and create the opportunity for white leaders to rise, federal prosecutors said.

The men, Christopher Brenner Cook, 20, of Columbus, Ohio; Jonathan Allen Frost, 24, of West Lafayette, Ind., and of Katy, Texas; and Jackson Matthew Sawall, 22, of Oshkosh, Wis., each pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Columbus on Wednesday to one count of conspiring to provide material support to terrorists.

They will each face up to 15 years in prison when they are sentenced. A date has not been scheduled.

Kenneth Parker, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, said in a statement on Wednesday that the three men “conspired to use violence to sow hate, create chaos, and endanger the safety of the American people.”
/snip



Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/23/us/power-grid-plot-race-war.html?fbclid=IwAR0PqFL4aZsPp5PQcN5bAMfI1e-vS_JZ_wzkoZVxrvHx7y8A6rDRyCMmHVY

February 22, 2022

Father faces charges for encouraging 4-year-old to shoot at police at a McDonald's

https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/22/us/child-shoots-at-police-utah-mcdonalds/index.html?fbclid=IwAR0SgNDExDaKLePrUCVpoJBKYXMsMtno5vE5o5XSB2ANWTheRWyGK69uGGg

A 4-year-old child in Utah fired a weapon from the back seat of a car toward a police officer, after allegedly being instructed to do so by his father, authorities said. Police were initially called to a McDonald's in Midvale on Monday when restaurant workers reported a man "brandished" a gun at drive-thru employees after receiving the wrong order, according to a news release from the Unified Police Department of Greater Salt Lake (UPD). Employees told police they asked the man to pull to the front of the restaurant and wait for the correct order, then called for police.

When officers arrived, they asked the man to get out of the vehicle several times, but he did not comply, the UPD release said. Officers pulled him out of the vehicle. While the man was being taken into custody, an officer turned around and saw a gun pointing out the back window, the release said. The officer told others there was a gun, and as he swiped the gun to the side a round was fired. The release said their investigation indicates the father of the child instructed the child to shoot at the officers. They gave no details about supporting evidence for that allegation.

The 4-year-old was in the back seat of the car with a 3-year-old sibling, according to UPD, and when the officer realized how young the person with the gun was, he yelled, "Kid."

The officer sustained a minor injury to his arm, but there were no additional injuries, according to the release. /snip

February 15, 2022

Judge tosses Zimmerman's lawsuit against Trayvon Martin's parents

Source: Axios

A judge in Florida dismissed a defamation and conspiracy lawsuit George Zimmerman filed against the parents of Trayvon Martin, the Black 17-year-old he fatally shot in the state nearly 10 years ago, per AP.

Driving the news: The former neighborhood watch volunteer alleged in the lawsuit seeking $100 million in damages that Martin's parents, Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, and their book publishers HarperCollins, smeared him as a racist.

But Judge John Cooper in Tallahassee said in his ruling rejecting all of Zimmerman's counts, "There can be no claim for conspiracy to defraud if there is no adequately stated claim for fraud," local outlets report.

The big picture: Zimmerman was in 2013 acquitted of homicide charges over Martin's Feb. 26, 2012 killing.

Read more: https://www.axios.com/judge-tosses-zimmerman-lawsuit-trayvon-martin-parents-f4d50803-64f9-4475-b81f-448feff18d12.html?fbclid=IwAR0_5fTeG8MR1BEdu-MyZ2AGaEPnhDyrLpWq2GZoe_w87v2fIjfVlRs_3ik

February 15, 2022

Sandy Hook families settle with Remington marking 1st time gun maker is held liable for mass shootin

Source: ABC

Remington Arms agreed Tuesday to settle liability claims from the families of five adults and four children killed in the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, according to a new court filing, marking the first time a gun manufacturer has been held liable for a mass shooting in the U.S.

The settlement comes nearly eight years after the families sued the maker of the Bushmaster XM15-E2S semiautomatic rifle that was used in the 2012 mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.

"The plaintiffs in this action hereby give Notice that a settlement agreement has been executed between the parties," the filing said.

More details are expected to be announced at a news conference from the families. /snip

Read more: https://abcnews.go.com/US/sandy-hook-families-settle-remington-marking-1st-time/story?id=82881639&fbclid=IwAR3isU7pgXlgs2M5lmJpGBpFRTO5zk17WtatzgcIUPYECWgxpxQpzwwRRLk