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Tuesday, December 11, 2018
A Pet's Dogged Devotion
That's the title at the hard-copy paper yesterday, and that is some darned devotion, dang!
At LAT, "Despite the devastation all around him, Camp fire dog waited for his owners to return home":
At LAT, "Despite the devastation all around him, Camp fire dog waited for his owners to return home":
As a wall of flames from the Camp fire moved toward their home, a Paradise couple had to flee with nothing. When they came back a month later, they discovered their dog Madison had been hard at work, guarding their home the entire time. https://t.co/JS3LqOpr7G
— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) December 11, 2018
At first, Bill Gaylord didn’t think much of the black smoke that loomed across the horizon near his home on the morning of Nov. 8. As his neighbors prepared to flee, Gaylord hopped in his silver Chevy Blazer and drove to a nearby cafe to grab coffee.Still more.
After all, the stubborn 75-year-old Gaylord had lived his entire life in Paradise. Why would this fire be any different than so many others? he thought.
But by the time he got home about 7:15 a.m., all hell had broken loose.
Gaylord looked out his kitchen window and saw black embers sprinkling across the canyon. The dry brush instantly caught fire. He heard the flames roar as they raced toward his home.
Gaylord alerted his wife of 50 years, Andrea, who had just awakened, that they needed to leave. Fast.
Andrea, still in her pajamas, grabbed three pairs of underwear and some pants, hopped in her Nissan and left.
Bill didn’t grab anything.
As the flames approached, he parked his car on top of a hill, and focused on trying to save his two 8-year-old half-Anatolian shepherd, half-Pyrenees guard dogs, Madison and Miguel.
But the dogs were confused, and with black smoke surrounding them and the noise of first responders shouting in loudspeakers, the dogs refused to let Bill lift them into his car.
He was left with two choices: Stay and risk their lives or leave.
As Bill drove off that day, he felt a lump in his stomach. It wasn’t because he was worried that his house would burn down or that he wished he had grabbed his belongings.
It was because he had abandoned the dogs that had spent their lives protecting the Gaylords. When it came to Bill’s turn to protect his cherished canines, he felt as if he had failed.
Surely the dogs wouldn’t survive, he thought, as he saw a wall of flames in his rearview mirror.
In that moment, Gaylord felt like a captain who abandoned ship before his crew.
But a series of unlikely events not only led the Gaylords to a reunion with their beloved dogs nearly one month after the deadly Camp fire raged through Paradise and the neighboring communities of Magalia and Concow, but also helped forge a new friendship.
It was 11 days after the fire, on Nov. 19, when Shayla Sullivan, a volunteer with the animal rescue group Cowboy 911, returned to Paradise to try to find Madison and Miguel.
She was assigned to help the Gaylords and several other homeowners who had left their pets behind.
She knew Camp fire victims had had little time to escape the flames and were forced to leave their pets. She wanted to help and try to reunite evacuees with their animals.
But it was nearly impossible to find the Gaylords’ property. The entire city was flattened by the fire, and without cellphone service, Sullivan had to rely on maps to navigate through the destruction.
She called Andrea to make sure she was looking in the right place. That was the first time they had talked.
Sullivan returned the next day. There was no sign that Madison and Miguel were alive. She left food and water anyway, hoping the small gesture would provide some comfort to the Gaylords.
On the third day, Sullivan had a breakthrough. As she peered down the canyon she spotted a small pond. Then she saw what appeared to be a white ball of fluff.
It disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.
Sullivan knew the dog wouldn’t approach her. The breed is known to be protective.
Nevertheless, she called Andrea and Bill to tell them the good news.
The Gaylords were ecstatic. But what about their second dog? And which dog had Sullivan seen? Was it Madison or Miguel?
Andrea, 75, started searching online to see if she could spot a picture of any of her dogs and whether they had been rescued. On Nov. 24, several weeks after the fire, she came across a picture that looked like Miguel.
Andrea, who has difficulty walking, called Sullivan and asked for help.
Sullivan found out Miguel was being kept in Citrus Heights, more than 80 miles from Paradise.
With the help of a volunteer, Sullivan loaded the 150-pound dog into her truck and drove to Oroville, where Andrea and Bill were staying in a trailer house at the River Reflections RV park...
Google Employees Targeted Breitbart's Ad Revenue in 2017
The left's tech monopolies are waging war on conservatives. Twitter has been banning right-wingers like there's no tomorrow (see Gateway Pundit, "MUST SEE VIDEO–> The Gateway Pundit’s Jim Hoft: “How the left will Ensure Donald Trump loses in 2020 by eliminating pro-Trump voices”").
And here's Google's authoritarianism, at Blazing Cat Fur, "GOOGLE‘S ANTI-BREITBART PLOT: Employees Targeted Site‘s Ad Revenue In 2017."
And here's Google's authoritarianism, at Blazing Cat Fur, "GOOGLE‘S ANTI-BREITBART PLOT: Employees Targeted Site‘s Ad Revenue In 2017."
Why a U.S.-Chinese War Could Spiral Out of Control
From Professor Caitlin Talmadge, at Foreign Affairs, "Beijing’s Nuclear Option":
And see, Stephen Biddle and Ivan Oelrich, at International Security, "Future Warfare in the Western Pacific: Chinese Antiaccess/Area Denial, U.S. AirSea Battle, and Command of the Commons in East Asia."
.@ProfTalmadge warns that the U.S. and China’s conventional military styles could put the two countries on a nuclear collision course.https://t.co/Alu38io7Tb
— Foreign Affairs (@ForeignAffairs) December 7, 2018
As China’s power has grown in recent years, so, too, has the risk of war with the United States. Under President Xi Jinping, China has increased its political and economic pressure on Taiwan and built military installations on coral reefs in the South China Sea, fueling Washington’s fears that Chinese expansionism will threaten U.S. allies and influence in the region. U.S. destroyers have transited the Taiwan Strait, to loud protests from Beijing. American policymakers have wondered aloud whether they should send an aircraft carrier through the strait as well. Chinese fighter jets have intercepted U.S. aircraft in the skies above the South China Sea. Meanwhile, U.S. President Donald Trump has brought long-simmering economic disputes to a rolling boil.Keep reading.
A war between the two countries remains unlikely, but the prospect of a military confrontation—resulting, for example, from a Chinese campaign against Taiwan—no longer seems as implausible as it once did. And the odds of such a confrontation going nuclear are higher than most policymakers and analysts think.
Members of China’s strategic community tend to dismiss such concerns. Likewise, U.S. studies of a potential war with China often exclude nuclear weapons from the analysis entirely, treating them as basically irrelevant to the course of a conflict. Asked about the issue in 2015, Dennis Blair, the former commander of U.S. forces in the Indo-Pacific, estimated the likelihood of a U.S.-Chinese nuclear crisis as “somewhere between nil and zero.”
This assurance is misguided. If deployed against China, the Pentagon’s preferred style of conventional warfare would be a potential recipe for nuclear escalation. Since the end of the Cold War, the United States’ signature approach to war has been simple: punch deep into enemy territory in order to rapidly knock out the opponent’s key military assets at minimal cost. But the Pentagon developed this formula in wars against Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Serbia, none of which was a nuclear power.
China, by contrast, not only has nuclear weapons; it has also intermingled them with its conventional military forces, making it difficult to attack one without attacking the other. This means that a major U.S. military campaign targeting China’s conventional forces would likely also threaten its nuclear arsenal. Faced with such a threat, Chinese leaders could decide to use their nuclear weapons while they were still able to.
As U.S. and Chinese leaders navigate a relationship fraught with mutual suspicion, they must come to grips with the fact that a conventional war could skid into a nuclear confrontation. Although this risk is not high in absolute terms, its consequences for the region and the world would be devastating. As long as the United States and China continue to pursue their current grand strategies, the risk is likely to endure. This means that leaders on both sides should dispense with the illusion that they can easily fight a limited war. They should focus instead on managing or resolving the political, economic, and military tensions that might lead to a conflict in the first place.
A NEW KIND OF THREAT
There are some reasons for optimism. For one, China has long stood out for its nonaggressive nuclear doctrine. After its first nuclear test, in 1964, China largely avoided the Cold War arms race, building a much smaller and simpler nuclear arsenal than its resources would have allowed. Chinese leaders have consistently characterized nuclear weapons as useful only for deterring nuclear aggression and coercion. Historically, this narrow purpose required only a handful of nuclear weapons that could ensure Chinese retaliation in the event of an attack. To this day, China maintains a “no first use” pledge, promising that it will never be the first to use nuclear weapons.
The prospect of a nuclear conflict can also seem like a relic of the Cold War. Back then, the United States and its allies lived in fear of a Warsaw Pact offensive rapidly overrunning Europe. NATO stood ready to use nuclear weapons first to stalemate such an attack. Both Washington and Moscow also consistently worried that their nuclear forces could be taken out in a bolt-from-the-blue nuclear strike by the other side. This mutual fear increased the risk that one superpower might rush to launch in the erroneous belief that it was already under attack. Initially, the danger of unauthorized strikes also loomed large. In the 1950s, lax safety procedures for U.S. nuclear weapons stationed on NATO soil, as well as minimal civilian oversight of U.S. military commanders, raised a serious risk that nuclear escalation could have occurred without explicit orders from the U.S. president.
The good news is that these Cold War worries have little bearing on U.S.-Chinese relations today. Neither country could rapidly overrun the other’s territory in a conventional war. Neither seems worried about a nuclear bolt from the blue. And civilian political control of nuclear weapons is relatively strong in both countries. What remains, in theory, is the comforting logic of mutual deterrence: in a war between two nuclear powers, neither side will launch a nuclear strike for fear that its enemy will respond in kind.
The bad news is that one other trigger remains: a conventional war that threatens China’s nuclear arsenal...
And see, Stephen Biddle and Ivan Oelrich, at International Security, "Future Warfare in the Western Pacific: Chinese Antiaccess/Area Denial, U.S. AirSea Battle, and Command of the Commons in East Asia."
Crazy Emily Ratajkowski
Gawd this women never ceases to amaze.
Laundry day pic.twitter.com/Mw5GqgRDWq
— Emily Ratajkowski (@emrata) November 5, 2018
Checking in on boo @KingJames pic.twitter.com/4sxPU3hlMs
— Emily Ratajkowski (@emrata) November 8, 2018
Also FYI TOMORROW: use code MONDAZE at checkout @inamorataswim for 20% off your entire order for any of our year 1 styles pic.twitter.com/KnqTo5H7kr
— Emily Ratajkowski (@emrata) November 25, 2018
Kendall Jenner Wears Skimpy Thong and No Bra Under Sheer Gold-Beaded Gown at British Fashion Awards
She's at the top of her game now.
At London's Daily Mail.
At London's Daily Mail.
.@KendallJenner arrives at the 2018 #FashionAwards in partnership with @swarovski pic.twitter.com/qq9xspzScP
— BFC (@BFC) December 10, 2018
America's Bureaucratic Mandarins
It's Professor Philip Hamburger, who argues that our all-powerful bureaucratic mandarins constitute a new monarchical elite in America.
An interesting video:
An interesting video:
Eiza Gonzalez is Bikini Bombshell
At London's Daily Mail, "Eiza Gonzalez is a bikini bombshell as she walks around in Daisy Dukes while soaking up the sun in Honolulu."
Eiza Gonzalez is a bikini bombshell as she walks around in Daisy Dukes while soaking up the sun in Honolulu https://t.co/InVckCvGhr
— Daily Mail Celebrity (@DailyMailCeleb) December 9, 2018
Monday, December 10, 2018
Alexis Ren Topless on Instagram
At Drunken Stepfather, "Alexis Ren Topless of the Day":
Alexis Ren is topless on instagram – dancing in her underwear because she wants to teach her new Dancing With the Stars fans that she has from being on dancing with the stars, what her success is all about…getting naked on instagram…which is that website that they’ve heard of, maybe their grand kids have it, because no one watches TV anymore…unless they live in the trailer park in some hick town in the south…
There is no way anyone under 75 is into watching Dancing with the Stars. It is not possible...
Oh hey there 😜 pic.twitter.com/2YQrMgZ8Q5
— Alexis Ren (@AlexisRenG) December 4, 2018
Padma Lakshmi is Hot
At Drunken Stepfather, "Padma Lakshmi Got Them Titties out of the Day."
And at Celeb Jihad, "PADMA LAKSHMI NUDE PHOTOS COLLECTION (NSFW Site)."
And at Celeb Jihad, "PADMA LAKSHMI NUDE PHOTOS COLLECTION (NSFW Site)."
Sunday, December 9, 2018
Emmanuel Macron's Nightmare
The worst riots in France in a couple of generations. Folks are being reminded of 1968.
At the Economist, "Emmanuel Macron’s problems are more with presentation than policy."
At the Economist, "Emmanuel Macron’s problems are more with presentation than policy."
Emmanuel Macron’s problems are more with presentation than policy
— Sunchartist (@Sunchartist) December 7, 2018
So not a nightmare just a bump pic.twitter.com/m3pN2tZdBy
Jennifer Aniston for Elle Magazine
At Drunken Stepfather, "JENNIFER ANISTON STILL GOT HER NIPPLES OUT OF THE DAY."
And at Elle:
And at Elle:
“We live in a society that messages women: By this age, you should be married; by this age, you should have children,” Jennifer Aniston told ELLE. “That’s a fairy tale." Read the full interview with our January 2019 cover star: https://t.co/1evC4bBOFb
— ELLE Magazine (US) (@ELLEmagazine) December 8, 2018
Jennifer Delacruz's Weekend Forecast (Late)
I'm late getting to this, but as you know, I just love Ms. Jennifer.
At ABC 10 News San Diego:
At ABC 10 News San Diego:
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