Category Archives: Outside the box

Daniel Hannan speaks on US trends under Obama.

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Vladtepesblog actively seeks not to be partisan as the issues of irrational leftism and Islam are, or at least should be, non partisan and of equal concern to all. Now and again however, a president or a party will make decisions which are in conflict with the basic principles VLadtepesblog seeks to defend.

Daniel Hannan, one of the world’s few politicians who is worth hearing all that they say, perhaps along with the Czech Republic’s Vaclav Klaus, speaks critically for the first time of the USA.

For an interesting look at the Canadian experience with public health, please see the quirky film, ‘The Barbarian Invasion‘ which deals with a component of this issue which Daniel does not mention. That of union take over of health care, resulting in massive cost increases and decrease in service as well as corruption.

h/t jdamn and kitmanTV

First smoking ban killing.

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Not sure how I feel about this. If you do not fight for freedom it gets taken away from you one at a time and recently several at a time. The choice to allow smoking should be the bar owners. The choice to pay for health care or no should be everyone’s. I could go on and on. One thing is for sure, it will be interesting if several more killings happen in Turkey and the smoking ban is overturned. Who manages to get these enforced anyway when no one really wants them? how do these laws get passed? It costs everyone a fortune.

From Alarabiya

Man shot dead in Turkey over smoking ban
>A new law in Turkey forbids smoking indoors (File)

A new law in Turkey forbids smoking indoors (File)>

ISTANBUL (Reuters)

A restaurant owner in southwest Turkey was shot dead after he tried to prevent his customers from smoking to comply with a new law on the use of tobacco indoors, Hurriyet daily said on Thursday.

A fight broke out after Hidir Karayigit, 46, ordered a group of customers to extinguish their cigarettes when they began smoking at his “meyhane,” a traditional restaurant that serves alcohol, in the town of Saruhanli, Hurriyet said.

” They either shouldn’t have outlawed smoking or they should have outlawed alcohol along with smoking “
Saruhanli Mayor Veli Yalcin
One of the customers shot Karayigit four times after he took away the group’s cigarettes, said witness Hamza Havutcu, Karayigit’s business partner who was also shot and wounded.

Turkey’s government on July 19 introduced a nationwide ban on indoor smoking, including bars and restaurants, despite the fact that half of Turks aged between the ages of 15 and 49 smoke; one of the highest rates in the world.

“I’m deeply saddened that the first smoking-ban murder occurred in our town,” Saruhanli Mayor Veli Yalcin told Hurriyet. “They either shouldn’t have outlawed smoking or they should have outlawed alcohol along with smoking.”

Horse and buggery.

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I guess the neigh’s have it.

h/t jdamn


Stable owner catches man having sex with horse

Associated Press

July 29, 2009, 3:44PM

photo

Horry County Detention Center AP

Rodell Vereen is 50 years old.
COLUMBIA, S.C. — A South Carolina man was charged with having sex with a horse after the animal’s owner caught the act on videotape, then staked out the stable and caught him at shotgun point, authorities said Wednesday.

But this wasn’t the first time Rodell Vereen has been charged. He pleaded guilty last year to having sex with the same horse after owner Barbara Kenley found him in the same stable. Then he was sentenced to probation and placed on the state’s sex offender list.

Kenley said she noticed several weeks ago that her 21-year-old horse Sugar was acting strange and getting infections. She noticed things in the barn had been moved around — dirt piled up and bales of hay stacked near the horse’s stall at her Lazy B Stables in Longs, about 20 miles northeast of Myrtle Beach.

“Police kept telling me it couldn’t be the same guy,” Kenley said Wednesday. “I couldn’t believe that there were two guys going around doing this to the same horse.”

She spent several nights at the stables, which are about 4 miles from her home, but didn’t find anything. So she installed surveillance cameras, and when she reviewed the footage from July 19, she couldn’t believe she was seeing the same man doing the same thing to her horse.

Kenley didn’t call police because she was certain the man would come back to the stable, and she wanted to make sure he was arrested. So she staked out the barn and caught Vereen inside Monday night, chasing him to his truck and holding him with her shotgun until police came.

“He said he wasn’t there to do anything, and I said, ‘I know you were. I have you on tape.’ And then he said he was sorry if he hurt me,” Kenley said.

Vereen, 50, was first charged with trespassing, but police added a buggery charge after watching the surveillance tape.

He faces up to five years if convicted. Vereen was already on probation after pleading guilty to buggery last year and was sentenced to three years of probation, ordered to stay away from the Lazy B Stables and declared a sex offender.

He remains in jail, awaiting a hearing Monday to determine if he violated his probation.

Vereen has had mental problems for several years, but seemed to get better after getting court-ordered treatment last year, said his brother, the Rev. James Vereen, who lives just down the street from his brother and the stables.

“He’s done all right when he was on the medicine. I don’t know if he is still taking it,” said James Vereen, who added his brother has kept to himself a lot in the last few months.

Kenley pointed out that she caught Vereen in 2007, too. him then too. She stopped by her stable on Thanksgiving Day and found a man asleep in the hay by her horse, who had been locked in her stall, a mound of dirt and a stool behind her.

She said she thought about shooting Vereen both times, but didn’t want to go to prison.

“Everyone around here has horses,” Kenley said. “And they all said the same thing. You should have shot him.”

An anniversary that really does matter.

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It is forty years now since humanity achieved something truly unimaginably stupendous. A moment I cannot think of without being covered in goosebumps. I do not know if any future generation will ever get to experience what I did when I was a boy just old enough to understand what was going on and remember it. One of my species, a human being rode a rocket ship, walked down a ladder, stepped on to Earth’s moon, got back on that ship and came home.

Until then, the idea of ever being able to actually go to the moon was thought to be impossible. When it did happen, it was perhaps the most unifying moment in all of human history. This was a moment when New York City policemen, some of the toughest people alive where in tears, and again during the parade for the Apollo 11 astronauts when they returned home. We, human beings led mostly by the United States and the vision of JFK, united the world. People from New Zealand to Karachi where all watching TV at the same moment with a profound sense of amazement that our view of our world and its neighbor satellite was about to change forever. That perhaps there was nothing humanity could not do if we just pulled together. Science could answer all questions and solve all problems. Superstition and its horrors where a thing of the past.

As I write I am trying to remove any trace of an agenda other than simply trying to express the wonder and the unity that was July 16 1969. This could be said to be the greatest moment of all human history and like perhaps all scientific achievement becomes the background of our lives and taken for granted after the fact.

If we land a man on mars it will not have the impact that the first moon landing did. We did not know if we could do it then. Anything natural or supernatural could have prevented it. Don’t laugh, many people felt secretly or not that something would happen to prevent man from landing on the moon. If you are at all able, try and rent or download the Australian film, ‘The Dish’.  This movie always brings back the magic of that moment for me. I do not know if people too young to remember the moon landing will get that feeling from this movie but I hope you do. In a simple naive way, this movie shows how Australia’s role in bringing the world the TV pictures from the landing was a major accomplishment in itself. The back story showing how major the front story was. Please do rent the Dish. If it gives you one tenth the pride and joy it does me, you will feel it well worth it.

As I think back on this day, perhaps the chance to have seen all humanity glow with a rare pride, as one people, led by the United States, basking in an accomplishment of proportions humanity barely dared dream of, is worth other less noble sights in this life.

May we find a way to a new moment like this, through accomplishment and unity instead of the more likely regret.

From Boston.com (click the link to see the pictures un squished)


The view from the Apollo 11 Command and Service Module (CSM) “Columbia” shows the Earth rising above the Moon’s horizon on July 20th, 1969. The lunar terrain pictured is in the area of Smyth’s Sea on the nearside. (NASA)


2
German scientist Dr. Wernher von Braun explains the Saturn Launch System to President John F. Kennedy during a visit. NASA Deputy Administrator Robert Seamans is to the left of von Braun. (NASA) #

3
Astronaut Neil Armstrong on a one-day Gemini VIII mission in March of 1966. Gemini was a stepping-stone project, working toward the upcoming Apollo missions. (NASA/Space Frontiers/Getty Images) #

Astronaut Neil Armstrong, Apollo 11 mission commander, floats safely to the ground after an accident during a training session on May 6th, 1968. The Lunar Landing Research Vehicle (LLRV) exploded only seconds before while Armstrong was rehearsing a lunar landing at Ellington Air Force Base near the Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC). This photo is an enlargement of a frame from a 16mm documentary motion picture recorded during the mishap. (NASA) #

5
Neil Armstrong (left) watches Buzz Aldrin take a documentary photo of a sample during a training session on February 24th, 1969. (NASA) #

6
Michael Collins works in a Command Module simulator (with an assistant beside him). (NASA) #


7

Neil Armstrong poses for a photograph at the Lunar Landing Research Facility at NASA Langley in Virginia on February 12, 1969. (NASA) #

8
An official NASA portrait of astronaut Buzz Aldrin. (NASA) #

9
An aerial view of the 363 foot-tall (111 m) Apollo 11 Saturn V rocket rollout from the Kennedy Space Center’s Vehicle Assembly Building in Florida on May 20th, 1969. (NASA) #

10
The Apollo 11 crew and Donald K. “Deke” Slayton look over charts during the traditional launch day breakfast of steak and eggs on July 16, 1969. (NASA) #

11
A technician works atop the white room, through which the astronauts will enter the spacecraft, while other technicians look on from the launch tower at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on July 11, 1969. (NASA) #

12
Every console was manned in firing room 1 of the Kennedy Space Flight Center (KSC) control center during the launch countdown for Apollo 11. (NASA). #


13
Lift-off of the Saturn V rocket, carrying astronauts Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin Jr, along with 6,700,000 pounds (3,039,000 kg) of fuel and equipment into the Florida sky, bound for the Moon, on July 16th, 1969. (NASA) #

14
A 70mm Airborne Lightweight Optical Tracking System (ALOTS) camera, mounted in a pod on a cargo door of a U.S. Air Force EC-135N aircraft photographed this event in the early moments of the Apollo 11 launch. The mated Saturn V second and third stages pull away from the expended first stage. Separation occurred at an altitude of about 38 miles, some 55 miles downrange from Cape Kennedy. (NASA) #

15
A view of Earth from orbit shortly after launch, July, 1969. (NASA) #


16
Lunar module pilot Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, inside the module as it makes its way toward the Moon, July, 1969. (NASA) #


17
Looking back over their shoulder, an Apollo astronaut takes a photograph of the Earth during the long translunar coast. The body and some thruster nozzles of the Lunar Module are visible in the foreground. (NASA) #

18
Most of Africa and portions of Europe and Asia can be seen in this photograph taken from the Apollo 11 spacecraft during its translunar coast toward the moon. Apollo 11 was already 98,000 nautical miles from Earth when this picture was made on July 17th, 1969. (NASA) #


19
Arriving and entering into Lunar orbit. Seen below are craters Sabine and Ritter, and mountains stretching back to the horizon on July 19th, 1969. (NASA) #

20
Looking down at the Command and Service Module (center), with the Moon’s surface below, as seen from the now-separated Lunar Module (LM), on its way to the surface. The proiminent crater is Schmidt crater. This is the last photo taken from the LM prior to the powered descent, and eventually the landing one orbit later. (NASA) #

21
Television footage of the first human footstep on Lunar soil on July 20, 1969. Astronaut Neil Armstrong took these first steps, followed shortly by Buzz Aldrin. This is a reproduction of the television image that was transmitted to the world on July 20th, 1969. (NASA) #

22
A close-up view of astronaut Buzz Aldrin’s boot and bootprint in the lunar soil, photographed with a 70mm lunar surface camera during the Apollo 11 lunar surface extravehicular activity (EVA) on July 20th, 1969. (NASA) #


23
Astronaut Buzz Aldrin on his way to the Lunar surface for the LM on July 20th, 1969. (NASA) #
24
Buzz Aldrin took this picture of Neil Armstrong in the cabin after the completion of the first EVA. This is the face of the first man to set foot on the Moon, just hours earlier, on July 20th, 1969. (NASA) #


25

From Wikipedia contributor Rufus330Ci: “This is a picture of my mother holding the Washington News Paper on Monday, July 21st 1969 stating ‘The Eagle Has Landed Two Men Walk on the Moon’. The photo was taken by my grandfather Jack Weir (1928-2005)” #

During their 2 1/2 hour EVA, Astronauts deployed a number of science experiments. Here, Buzz Aldrin is seen carrying the Laser Ranging Retroreflector Experiment (LRRR) and a seismometer to measure Moonquakes. (NASA) #

Close-up of the north footpad of the Lunar Module, with some lunar soil piled up beneath, evidence of a tiny amount of drift during the landing. (NASA) #

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin, photographed by Neil Armstrong (visible in reflection). Buzz Aldrin: “As I walked away from the Eagle Lunar Module, Neil said ‘Hold it, Buzz’, so I stopped and turned around, and then he took what has become known as the ‘Visor’ photo. I like this photo because it captures the moment of a solitary human figure against the horizon of the Moon, along with a reflection in my helmet’s visor of our home away from home, the Eagle, and of Neil snapping the photo. Here we were, farther away from the rest of humanity than any two humans had ever ventured. Yet, in another sense, we became inextricably connected to the hundreds of millions watching us more than 240,000 miles away. In this one moment, the world came together in peace for all mankind.” (quoted with permission from Apollo Through the Eyes of the Astronauts). (NASA) #

Post-deployment documentation photo of the Laser Ranging Retroreflector Experiment (LRRR). For the past 40 years, the retroreflectors were used in conjunction with a dedicated facility at the McDondald Observatory in Texas to accurately measure the distance to the Moon. These experiments discovered, among other things, that the moon is moving away from Earth at a rate of 2.5 inches per year. The National Science Foundation recently terminated funding for the McDonald Laser ranging station, with continued measuements to be made by two other facilities. (NASA) #

View of Earth above the Lunar Module on July 20th, 1969. (NASA). #

Interior view of the Mission Operations Control Room (MOCR) in the Mission Control Center (MCC), Building 30, during the Apollo 11 lunar extravehicular activity (EVA). The television monitor shows astronauts Neil A. Armstrong and Edwin E. Aldrin Jr. on the surface of the moon, July 20, 1969. (NASA) #

Panorama of the view out Buzz Aldrin’s window over the thrusters after the EVA. (NASA) #

A memorial plaque, attached to a leg of the Lunar Module. The plaque reads: “Here Men From The Planet Earth First Set Foot Upon the Moon, July 1969 A.D. We Came in Peace For All Mankind.” (NASA) #

A bright halo around the shadow of Buzz Aldrin’s helmet, the sun directly behind his head. (NASA) #

After lifting off from the Moon, Eagle approaches the Command Module during rendezvous. Astronaut Michael Collins, who remained on board the Command Module for the entire trip, remembers taking this photograph: “Little by little, they grew closer, steady, as if on rails, and I thought ‘What a beautiful sight,’one that had to be recorded. As I reached for my Hasselblad, suddenly the Earth popped up over the horizon, directly behind Eagle. I could not have staged it any better, but the alignment was not of my doing, just a happy coincidence. I suspect a lot of good photography is like that, some serendipitous happenstance beyond the control of the photographer. But at any rate, as I clicked away, I realized that for the first time, in one frame, appeared three billion earthlings, two explorers, and one moon. The photographer, of course, was discreetly out of view.” (quoted with permission from Apollo Through the Eyes of the Astronauts) (NASA) #

This view of the whole full moon was photographed from the Apollo 11 spacecraft during its trans-Earth journey homeward. When this picture was taken, the spacecraft was already 10,000 nautical miles away, on July 21st, 1969. (NASA) #

A black and white photograph of the Earth taken during the trip home from the Moon. (NASA) #

Apollo 11 crew and a Navy diver await pickup after a safe splashdown east of Wake Island in the Pacific Ocean on July 24th, 1969. (NASA) #

Astronauts Armstrong, Collins, and Aldrin (left to right) in their isolation van on-board the recovery ship U.S.S Hornet are greeted by U.S. President Richard M. Nixon on July 24th, 1969. (NASA) #

New York City welcomes Apollo 11 crewmen in a showering of ticker tape down Broadway and Park Avenue in a parade termed as the largest in the city’s history on August 13, 1969. Pictured in the lead car, from the right, are astronauts Neil A. Armstrong, commander; Michael Collins, command module pilot; and Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin Jr., lunar module pilot. (NASA) #

Off topic: The iphone and why it must be avoided like the black death

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Well I did it. I foolishly listened to the excited childish burbling of all my friends who had bought an iphone 3G and where so excited I actually caught the bug, sold my existing phone contract with a great company that was inexpensive good service and reliable (Telus) and got an expensive program where the service has been dishonest but supported the iphone (Rogers) and failed to notice that none of my friends who had iphones had actually ever had a smart phone before.

To my horror, the iphone does a million useless things and no actual important things anyone actually needs from a portable computer and things that for instance the ITC touch has been doing for years. Examples:

1. The iphone rings so quietly you cannot hear it in most situations if it is in your pocket such as a restaurant on the street or at work anywhere other than a quiet home or office.

2. The iphone has no real GPS. Just some kind of crappy map thing that no one can figure out how to actually navigate with.

3. The iphone does not shoot video just stills which are inferior to the average smart phone.

4. You cannot search emails with your iphone. You would be surprised how often you do that and you dont notice till you are looking for information in an email and you have to scroll through every one of them.

5. You cannot cut and paste which makes the iphone useless for nearly all internet applications.

6. you cannot attach anything to an email. If you want to send a picture (you can only send one per email) you have to do it arse backwards and select the picture then hit send as email. So you cannot add a second picture and build an email around them. Useless to any salespeople who want to send a photo essay of a product or products.

7. The battery life really sucks compared to any other cell phone.

8. the iphone has NO practical voice recognition whatsoever. all apps available for it are worse than scrolling through all your contacts as they need specific one way only training. its much worse than none while MS voice command is instantly usable and operates all programs as well.

9. Blue tooth is utterly pointless. It has blue tooth on it but you cant actually USE it for ANYTHING. You cannot sync with it as you can any HTC phone or other smart phone, you cant send files back and forth between the iphone and the computer. Not pictures not audio not anything.

10. You cant easily make your own ringtones. Apple wants you to BUY songs from them and then BUY the conversion to a ring tone. You could be Mick Jagger and want to use your own new song as a ring tone and you have to get it all through apple. There is a way around all this with Garage Band but it a royal pain in the arse compared to ANY other phone where you can upload an mp3 of whatever you want and select it as a ring tone.

On the up side, it does sound great as a music player. If you do not rely on your phone as an actual communications device then by all means get an iphone and enjoy its entertainment value however I would suggest an ipod and a real phone as the cost of having an iphone is large given what you cannot do with it and consequent lost opportunities.

Now out comes the new iphone 3Gs, one which after much hype looks like it may do nearly as much as a real smart phone. Frankly, I would be tempted to give my money and trust to a company who has been making phones that do these things properly already and have for years. The HTC series of phones do all a smart phone should do more or less reliably but it actually does do cut and paste and all the other things you would expect from a smart phone including decent video and photo and blue tooth exchange. The Blackberry series are a true business machine. All the people I know who actually need real comm systems swear by their blackberries while I so far have only sworn at my iphone.

Ultimately, the iphone 3g is like a brick but with much worse battery life.

Really people, this is a toy. Give your money to a company that actually makes something you need. I now have the new OS 3.0. It does make the iphone suck less but does not address all of these issues by a long shot. This is one of the worst phones on the market of it’s kind.

The above post was written before the OS 3.0 upgrade which addressed one or two issues such as cut and paste but the rest are the same. Ultimatly the iphone 3G with OS3.0 sucks a little bit less. Avoid like the plague. These phones are simply not for anyone who actually relies on it as a business tool.

Thank you for decades of great entertainment.

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A post mortem thank you to Mr. M. Jackson and Ms. Majors, both of whom gave decades of entertainment to the public. Mr. Jackson in fact was one of the greatest pop music artists of all time. His contribution to pop art, dance song and the art of writing pop tunes will stand the test of time. May they know the peace in the grave that so eluded them in life.

Eeyore