Blog Heap of Links for the day 1 April 2015

Links in this view: 11
1

Wars and Rumors

…Having simmered and spat for over a decade now, Sunni-Shia hostilities seem to be rushing to the surface in every country in the Dar es Salaam. Despite the likely cost of a such civil war, no Western policy seems capable of arresting it, and the process has an energy detached from all economic or political consideration.

[Shias, Sunnis, and where we should stand]
Before looking at where we, in the West, should stand on all this, let us first look at the military, or civilizational balance between the two sides. …

2:02pm CDT Wed 2015 Apr 1 :MW
Crazyface

A Coptic church being built to commemorate local victims of Isis in the southern Minya Province has been attacked by scores of young Muslims, some throwing petrol bombs. At least seven people were wounded, three of them seriously, the church and grounds damaged and a car burnt out.

The church was being built in the village of al-Our, where 13 of the 21 victims beheaded by Isis in Libya originated. Coptic citizens had bought suitable land, but the construction of the church was controversial, with some local Muslims objecting to its being built at the entrance to the village. …

1:58pm CDT Wed 2015 Apr 1 :MW

Humans can be Dangerous

Moore OK - …They said the man yanked Lucy off her nest, and then broke her neck, killing her over the very eggs she watched. … “(I) tried to tell the guy to stop. … He picked her up and threw her in the back of the truck and drove off.” … [Male Goose] “was standing right out there for about an hour just looking down that road waiting for her to come back….” another female knew to step in, as impromptu step mom. …

4:58pm CDT Wed 2015 Apr 1 :MW

Know the Enemy

The frightening plot to kill 150 National Guard members that unraveled last week when FBI agents nabbed two Chicago-area cousins was the 64th case since 9/11 of Islamist terrorists plotting to strike on American soil, according to a new report that warns the radicalizing influence of ISIS must be dealt with in the U.S. and abroad. …

[Emphasis added]

7:03pm CDT Wed 2015 Apr 1 :MW
2

April Foolishness

Hillary Faced

A copy of the private email server that was operated by Hillary Clinton when she was Secretary of State has turned up at a thrift shop in New York City. …

5:07pm CDT Wed 2015 Apr 1 :MW

[I'm only halfway through reading the list, but there's so many great ones, I rush to post this. Here's a great one, considering today's "outrage industry":]

#42: Viewers Take Offense
In early 1960, a TV viewer complained to a network about seeing a black man kiss a white woman on one of their shows. The network, eager not to offend, flew an account executive down to meet with the viewer and explain to him that the actor was actually white, but that the local station had accidentally broadcast the show at a high contrast ratio, making him appear dark-skinned. When Paul Krassner (editor of the satirical underground magazine The Realist) heard about this he was outraged that a TV network would be so afraid of offending a racist. So he designed a prank to serve as payback. He asked his readers to write to the network after the April 1st airing of the celebrity panel show Masquerade Party (a completely unexceptionable show), and to complain that they had been offended by something on it, but not to specify what it was that had offended them. Hundreds of his readers obliged. The result was panic at the network. Reportedly the TV executives watched the tape of the show repeatedly, desperately trying to figure out what could have offended so many people.

4:26pm CDT Wed 2015 Apr 1 :MW

Pop Culture

Gary Dahl who in 1975 invented the Pet Rock died last week at age 78. From the New York Times:

…The bar talk turned to pets, and to the onus of feeding, walking and cleaning up after them.

His pet, Mr. Dahl announced in a flash of bibulous inspiration, caused him no such trouble. The reason?

“I have a pet rock….”

7:38pm CDT Wed 2015 Apr 1 :MW
3

Post-Racist World

Okla Flag

BARTLESVILLE – The Descendants of Freedmen of the Five Civilized Tribes Association and the African Indians of the 5 Civilized Tribes Foundation will co-host the Fourth Treaty Celebration banquet on Friday, April 17, in Bartlesville [OK]. … The freedmen and their descendants – former slaves of Indians or free mixed African Indians – received tribal citizenship rights through 1866 treaties signed by tribal leaders and the U.S. government. …

2:06pm CDT Wed 2015 Apr 1 :MW

Breitbart is Here

Cube in Hand

On this day, 1 April 2015, the People's Cube is celebrating ten glorious years of unstoppable revolutions. Jubilant masses of correctly educated workers, peasants, and unwashed toiling intelligentsia are coming together in towns and villages around the world, carrying People's Cube posters, peacefully hurling red cubes at the capitalist classes, and spontaneously chanting Party-approved slogans….

[Congratulations, Comrades!]

8:41pm CDT Wed 2015 Apr 1 :MW

For ridiculous reasons, show was renamed from “An atheist, a hillbilly & God” [Joe Dan Gorman's latest entry in the contest to get shipped first to the happy adult camps]

[Video, 20:09, on Vimeo]
[on YouTube]

5:04pm CDT Wed 2015 Apr 1 :MW
Geezer

Morning thread starts right off with Vic's Views and News today.

"…The big news last year on this date was that the Michigan Legislature passed a resolution calling for an Art V convention for a balanced budget. There was some question on whether or not it was binding because some of the States who had called for the convention had voted to recall their vote. I guess that question was answered because there has been none called. The idea scares the crap out of Congress."

9:53am CDT Wed 2015 Apr 1 :MW