Greetings, mighty Fatster! Your roundup today fills me with hope and dread. The Michigan and Fiscal stories makes me wish for bad things upon all politicians. Reading that Argentina got their ship back swells me with pride.

My offering to you:

Abandoned Southern Right Whale Calf Adopted By Nursing Mother, Calf.

Most Wanted Deadbeat Dad Arrested In L.A.

10 Weirdest Animal Discoveries Of 2012.

The Strange Journey Of Henry Walton Jones Jr.’s Diary!

Another Possible Habital Planet, This One’s Only 12 Light Years Away.

Daughter Of South Korea’s Former Dictator Elected President.

Compounding Pharmacies Focus Of All Day Hearing.

Goodness gracious me, Gothrykke, but you do bring many riches to the old Roundup. Yay on the baby whale and the arrest of the deadbeat dad.

Do you think the (relatively) near suspected ‘habital’ planet is of interest to members of TPTB who’ve contributed so much to making ours uninhabitable?

As for those 10 animal discoveries, I must say I’ve never really trusted lemurs–and those people at the Smithsonian seem to need something better to do.

Really relieved to see the news about the interest in getting proper oversight and control over those compounding pharmacies. I’d wondered what was going on, and this news is very encouraging.

Many thanks, Gothrykke.

Do you think the (relatively) near suspected ‘habital’ planet is of interest to members of TPTB who’ve contributed so much to making ours uninhabitable?

Not hardly. Those people hardly believe in gravity until they mandate it to exist.

I know of something they can do. Figure out why turds float to the top in every election, then figure out a way to flush them forever.

A side note, I’ve seen stories of Obama looking into oversight on guns, speaking out against Rwanda, such and such and so on. I wonder how much of this is to provide a subtle tick in his favor in the ‘fiscal cliff’ pissing match and how much he really intends to act. I already know the huffing and puffing about Israel is all bullshit.

Another story on his bald-faced lies to his base. This one from the same people who named him person of the year.

President Obama, Commander And Driller In Chief.

Save us, oh great Atheismo!

Here’s Mt Everest on two billion pixels. When you’re done ouunting them, you may report back. . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2012/12/18/photo-mount-everest-in-two-billion-pixels/

Click on the link below the low res picture to see all on ‘em.

Re: #5

Some sticky keys here. . . sorry

Very surprised and delighted by that Time article, Gothrykke. Driller in Chief, Fracker in Chief. Yep. The old talk-the-talk/walk-the-walk challenge. Many thanks to you for letting us know about the article.

Regarding five x one star problems. . .

“. . .violating what’s known as General Order No. 1 — possessing alcohol in a war zone. . .”

Is that a new rule? I don’t recall such at DaNang in the early 70s. Or in Thailand, which was in the theater, too.

Whoo-boy, maa8722! I went all the way to the very top of Chomolunga, and lived to tell about it, thanks to your virtual conveyance. Sent it to all my peeps so they can enjoy it, too. Many thanks for a great thrill.

Your question is answered (I think, anyway): http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/19/when-alcohol-invades-a-war-zone/

Shades of Ulysses S.!

Actually, it was first implemented during the first Gulf War soiree, which pissed off a whole bunch of us, mostly because The House of Saud demanded it, but, it’s still in effect to this day…!

Aloha, fatster, another great job…! I just posted a new one…! ;-)

What Really Happened To Richard Engel?

Regarding income inequality in MA. . .

I’ve lived in MA since 1984 after short sojourns in several other states.

It was pretty obvious to me from the gitgo that this state could exist as both very blue and with a large income gap simply due to the enormous amount of money concentrated here. That is, the large gap does not generate the expected cognitive dissonance among the body politic — I think that’s due to quite high living standards overall notwithstanding the gap.

It would seem counterintuitive. Yet most locals here, especially native Bay Staters, if confronted that way, would point out how much better off a low income MA resident is when compared with a low income resident in some other state. Which isn’t really the point, is it?

The state seems quite balkanized among the 351 cities and towns, as well as neighborhoods. There are provincial aspects everywhere, many of which aren’t even tied to income. But then I grew up in the 50s-60s in a transient state, New Jersey, and got acclimated differently there.

To distill that Atlantic link to what should be done, I’d say there’s not enough MA state aid sent to the low income communities, and far too much given to the wealthier enclaves. That has been tempered somewhat over the years, but there’s still a long way to go. I don’t think the trends Atlantic shows will change going forward.

Aloha to you, too, CTuttle and thanks for the link to your interesting post. I sure hope we know what happened to Engle–and soon. Seems like games within games within games. Perplexing, insulting and deadly.

As usual, maa8722, thanks so much for your insights. Helps clarify things.

Re”blue boar inn”

maybe we should go back to making war this way:

“· August 22, 1485 – Richard III was killed at the Battle of Bosworth. His body is thought to have been returned to Leicester and buried at the Grey Friars church. Richard’s bed is said to have remained at the Inn.”

Benghazi! Benghazi! Benghazi! as Joe Scarborough and Lindsey Graham failed to get an Impeachment. At least they got a consolation prize, Susan Rice.

But for Benghazi, actual information is in lockdown. Blame the State Dept. Forget about the CIA Annex, prison, lost weapons, lost classified documents. And they lost an Ambassador. That is, our brave intelligence officers, receive no blame because their dedicated heroics and successes must not be publicized. More enemies, more wars, more war profiteering.

Forget about it. Nothing to see here.

You’ll eat simpson-bowles and like it. That seems to be what Obama is saying.

Good morning Pups, and thank you Fatster and Gotthryke for the roundups. I’ve been having a hard time logging in lately. Don’t know if it’s just me or something in the system.

On teen suicides. Until recently Quebec had one of the highest rates in the world, but it seems to have fallen dramatically over the past ten years or so, as one reads nothing about it, unless death by speeding and drunk driving by teens and early 20s are factored in. The economy has improved enormously, and one sees hoards of young mothers (and young fathers)pushing baby carriages on the streets in our neighborhood. I think a sense of hope has a lot to do with the fall. But I’m sure there are statistics to prove me wrong.

On the Obama cave (if it is one). It is a mystery to me, as I think it is to just about everyone else here, why Obama is so obsessed about ‘reforming’ (i.e., gutting) Social Security. He doesn’t seem to be particularly venal, which would explain why Romney would do it; he’s not stupid and ideologically obsessed, which explained Bush’s feeble attempt to privatize the system. He’s too smart not to know that it doesn’t do a damn thing for the deficit (wrongly assuming that cutting the deficit matters). His financial future is assured, and this doesn’t seem to be the kind of thing (unlike control or closing Guantanamo) that could get him assassinated.

In other words, it just doesn’t make sense. The only thing I can come up with is that he’s got a bee in his bonnet. We all know people who have one (or more); you can’t talk them out of it. Perhaps his self-identity is tied up in wrecking the system. I dunno. He obviously thinks he is smarter than everybody else on this matter,which is consistent with pure ego. But remains a damned mystery. There is no reason why the Democrats should cater to his ego.

Interesting history of “gun rights” (a contemporary invention) in the US in today’s CS Monitor. Notes that many states had gun laws in the late 1800′s, including Texas, and that the Texas governor once said that “the mission of the concealed weapon is murder. To check it is the duty of every self-respecting, law abiding man.”

http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2012/1218/Sandy-Hook-massacre-The-NRA-s-gun-rights-are-a-fabrication-of-modern-times

“Founded in 1871 as a hunting organization,” the article notes, “the National Rifle Association supported waiting periods for handgun buyers and a wide array of other state restrictions. It also backed the first major federal gun regulation, the 1934 National Firearms Act, which was upheld by the Supreme Court in a unanimous decision five years later.”

I think it’s that all the really cool people in Washington support cutting entitlements, and he wants to be the hero that wins the big game.

This is in reply to Knut.

It would be a mistake to assume that because Obama is smart that he is not also the thought-prisoner of the system that surrounds him. How else to explain a “civil rights and community activist” spending Tuesdays deciding which poor brown people he will bomb, aided by many of our best and brightest? They all came out of elite slavery institutions as well. Being part of the club and proving it was the price of his admission.

I lived in Cambridge and Somerville after college; my girlfriend’s family were Brahmins, and I ended up teaching English in a school for court-appointed “acting out” adolescents for several years. I was always struck by the powerfu disconnection between the liberal/academic community and Boston and the incredible poverty that I saw in Roxbury, Southie, and other nearby towns, their lack of any sense of responsibility to address such problems as they nattered on in generally idealistic terms about them. (Even then, “freedom” to most liberals just meant getting the gubmint out of your waterbed.) Maybe it has changed, but there was very deep and severe poverty in the Boston environs during that period (the late 80s/early 90s).

Watching the party scenes at Harvard (where my uncle taught) in “The Social Network” brought some of those sentiments back to me. Talk about a narcissistic sense of entitlement–it’s a hideous joke they way social conservatives want to pin that on the poor. . . I really thought that I learned something about how paper-thin any alliance between the Boomer generation/liberals and the poor was during that period; it’s no surprise at all that these people give not the tiniest sh*t about the poor.

Cool idea for others to add their morning links, pancakes, and OJ here. :)

If any of you saw the dashcam video of the Texas State Trooper mentioned above here, wew take littering verrrry seriously hre in Texas.

Granted, some of our female state troopers, perhaps a little too seriously.
I can only hope and pray that she stops ME some day.

I am a rare visitor here, specifically.
Interesting bunch of friends you have here fatster.

I wish we’d just make the “leaders” who want to go to war fight it out, hand-to-hand combat, in an arena somewhere, thus ensuring their lust for war could be entirely satiated by their intimate involvement in it and no other beings or resources would be sacrificed for their egos and pursuits.

More immediately, I’d really like a pink unicorn for Christmas.

Thnx for the info on Richard, mafr and . . . Good Morning!

Wonderful to know the young folks of Quebec seem to be hopeful once again, Knut. That news will no doubt put that “extra spring” into our steps today. Such a good feeling. Many thnx.

That is interesting, Matthew Detroit, good history and a keeper for that very reason. Thanks so much!

Made even more interesting by your appearance, newcarguy, which I’m taking as a very good sign, indeed.