Open Thread - 25 May 2017

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Comments

[Valissa]

“I Am History”: New Orleans Principal Forced Out Of Post For Merely Being Photographed Near Confederate Flag https://jonathanturley.org/2017/05/25/i-am-history-new-orleans-principal-forced-out-of-post-for-merely-being-photographed-near-confederate-flag/

[Fred]

Weather permitting spending some time in Southern Kentucky with a stop or two on the Bourbon Trail, just for sampling of course. Anyone have a recommendation besides the usual mass market stuff?

[Philippe]

The MSM seems to slowly discover the grim reality of Syria, and acknowledge that Assad will be part of the resolution process. A somehow balanced (*) assessment by the NYT ME correspondant.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/24/magazine/aleppo-after-the-fall.html?_r=1

(*) the title of course is "fall", not "liberation", but one could understand, giving the consensus PC narration, that the latter world is still out of reach for these guys. In french we use to say "il faut donner du temps au temps", something like one must give time to the time (to accomplish his work of transformation).

[mauisurfer]

Fisk
Emir Abdelkader – Muslim, Sufi, sheikh, ferocious warrior, humanist, mystic, protector of his people against Western barbarism, protector of Christians against Muslim barbarism, so brave that the Algerian state insisted his bones were brought home from his beloved Damascus, so noble that Abe Lincoln sent him a pair of Colt pistols and the French gave him the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour. He loved education, he admired the Greek philosophers, he forbade his fighters to destroy books, he worshipped a religion which believed – so he thought – in human rights. But hands up all readers who know the name of Abdelkader.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/manchester-attack-muslim-islam-true-meaning-a7754901.html

[confusedponderer]

Fred,
excellent question. Generally, my preferences in whisky terms go by an large to smokeys from Islay.

https://www.homeofmalts.com/14332/islay-s-distilleries-karte-59x42cm-bk?gclid=CJWKkPWpi9QCFYQK0wodu7ENgw

I also like 'irish whiskey', bourbons and rye also, and there are some descent blends around. There is some interesting bourbon out there that ought to be interesting to be tried, some mass market stuff to the more expensive stuff...

* Makers Mark (nice - nice bottles, nice aromatic taste)
* Bulleit standard and Rye (both nice)
* Blaton Barrel stuff (to make it short - all quite nice)
* Basil Haydens 8 years (excellent - very aromatic)
* Elijah Craig 12 years (excellent - very armoatic, mild, a favourite)
* Bookers 8 years (excellent - very armoatic, a favourite)
* Knob Creek Standard and Rye (nice stuff, I like both)
* George Dickel (excellent - I especially like the 12 years version but the Rye is excellent also, and so is the Cascade version (red label - another favourite)
* Woodford Reserve makes quite nice stuff.
* Old Grand-Dad is a nice stuff - very armomatic, rye like, and affordable.
* Basil Hayden 8 years, very nice stuff, very aromatic, not so much affordable
* Wild Turkey, tastes well, and is also especially useful when Erdogan gets one of his whacky days.
* etx. pp.

I want to try new stuff, which would be:

* Michter's US 1 Rye Whiskey
* Sazerac Straight Rye

More goodies, which only fit in because they are 'irish whiskey', not bourbon, are this:

* (Irish) Redbreast Single Pot Still 21-Year (formidable stuff, very armoatic, mild)
* Connemara - unusual design whiskey, which is was iirc the first smokey 'irish whiskey'. Very nice stuff, tastes very well.

[Mokey]

This country is nuts.

[Fred]

What has happened to the NYT:
"As the Syrian civil war turns in favor of the regime, a nation adjusts to a new reality..."
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/24/magazine/aleppo-after-the-fall.html

Does this mean the borg might be seeing the changing foreign policy landscape?

[Babak Makkinejad]

For All Global Warming Alarmists:

https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v544/n7648/full/nature22030.html

"Growth in terrestrial gross primary production (GPP)—the amount of carbon dioxide that is ‘fixed’ into organic material through the photosynthesis of land plants—may provide a negative feedback for climate change."

[Seamus Padraig]

Jeeee-zuss. What next? A ban on Lynard Skynard?

[Jov]

For those interested in WW2 history regarding the atrocities committed, this is a link to a documentary in English which documents the genocide of Serbs in the 1941. formed Independent State of Croatia (NDH), with focus on the organized murder of Serbian children (at that time both Jews and Gypsies, including their children, suffered the same fate).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5r1JNnFjgag

Although, this documentary wasn't made according to the principle ''audiatur et altera pars'' and the official Croat historians would have their arguments (just as Nazi commanders had their justifications of more or less every crime), the saddest part is that the documentary depicts true crimes often incomprehensible to a normal human mind, as well as the bloody role of many in the Roman Catholic Church clergy in Croatia and Vatican.

The only thing equally disturbing is that the mindset of most of the Croats (including politicians, catholic clergy,etc.) hasn't changed, until today, especially after they got everything they wanted in the 1990s (murder of few thousand Serbs and and ethnic cleansing and banishing of 250.000,00 people in Krajina, Slavonija, Baranja and many other parts of today's Croatia) and nobody did answer for the crimes during the 1940s as well as the crimes in 1990s.

Here is a picture of a poster distributed and put on public surfaces a few months ago, in several Croatian cities (just google ''Serbian family tree Vukovar'')
http://cdn.tf.rs/2017/02/24/Serbian-famili-tree-670x447.jpg

And here is a video of the current Croatian president Ms Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic singing just a few days ago the song "Lijepa li si" (meaning beautiful you are) whose author and interpreter is Marko Perkovic Thompson.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YouDUhR-d_o

This singer is ''famous'' for singing songs like ''Jasenovac and Gradiska Stara to je kuca Maskovih mesara'' - meaning Jasenovac and Gradsiska Stara (those were two death camps in which Croats slaughtered predominantly Serbs, but Jews and Gypsies as well in WW2) that's the house of Max buthers (Max meaning Vhekoslav Maks Luburic,commander of the Jasenovac extermination camp and other extermination camp in the Indepent state of Croatia). Of course, as time passes, these songs and their parts disappear, and only the clean ones which don't expressly brag about genocide stay.

[Jack]

Fred

You may want to taste Pappy's bourbon. SWMBO got me a bottle for my birthday some years back.

http://www.oldripvanwinkle.com

[asx]

Open thread is more suitable to discuss "Radical Protestantism"

Col. and others have rightly pointed out the rationale for Saudi-led investment. They are envious and desirous of having the same levels of influence as their fellow hater of the Shia arc. Expect their investments to further the transition of our political identity from a Judeo-Christian construct to an Abrahamic one.

History defintely rhymes. The Judeo-Christian self view of America was carefully constructed papering over real differences at the end of WW2 as a means of tempering anti-semitism. Noble as it was and fairly successful in that goal, it later took a life of its own and morphed into Radical Protestantism.

What if the Saudis are playing the long game here? A few thousand Americans will be directly employed as a result of the Saudi largesse with associated PR. Countering Islamophobia will be the given reason to promote an Abrahamic political identity. There will be more high profile political marriages like Weiner-Abedin. CAIR will become as palatable as AIPAC. And in a couple of generations when the oil has run dry, it will be the evolved Radical Protestantism which comes to the rescue of its Abrahamic brethern, whether or not it serves the national interest. And why not the leader of the free world also explicitly take the mantle of the protector of the two holy places. Playing monarchs and controlling natural resources is exhausting work fraught with dangers. The Gulfies would rather be accepted into the pantheon of overlords who rule over us. Consider their investments as an initiation fee.

[Heros]

Few Americans have any idea what challenges a US expat faces living overseas, with FBAR's, FATCA, IRS 8834, and US Indicia being matters of daily life.

What even fewer are aware of is what can happen when a US green card holder tries to relinquish his green card:

http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2017/05/12/perils-pitfalls-of-being-a-green-card-holder/

"Even after paying the exit tax on the “deemed sale” of everything you own worldwide, you will have to pay actual capital gains when you do actually sell since no tax treaty provides a credit for a deemed sale of anything. Outright double taxation. For example, if I own a house in Toronto and sell under normal conditions, I will pay capital gains tax on any profit in Canada. When filing my US tax return I will get a credit for the tax paid to Canada resulting in a single tax bite. However, if I own the Toronto property on the day of expatriation, the US taxes me on any paper profit. Since I have not actually sold the property, there is nothing to declare to Canada’s Revenue Agency (CRA) at that time. When I do eventually sell, CRA will then tax the actual profit, but there is no ability to get a credit from the IRS since expatriation is a terminating event."

...

"Green card holders are now also face discrimination by their home countries due to FATCA reporting. I am a UK citizen that has held UK Government (Treasury) bonds as a component of a diversified investment portfolio. These have been invested and reinvested through Nationals Savings and Investments (NS&I) for more than 40 years, long before arriving in the US. I received letters from NS&I dated 28 April, 2014 stating that due to the costs and burdens associated with FATCA compliance, NS&I would no longer deal with US Persons (citizens or residents). As each bonds matures, they will distribute the funds as a bank draft with no possibility of reinvestment. My own government is now denying me the ability to invest in its own sovereign bonds due FATCA. It seems I am a pariah everywhere!"

Jared Kushner's company is offering Visa's for $500k investment in their ventures.
All these Chinese and Indian millionaires making these investments or buying properties in Ca and Fl have no idea what kind of tax trap they are stepping into.

[The Beaver]

According to Angry Arab, there is a fight going on between KSA and Qatar.
Now one wonders where the Sultan stands in that on-going dispute through the media. At the same time, the current Pharaoh is angry at the mother of Qatari emir because she is funding a movie on the pyramids of Sudan with Angelina Jolie as the main character.
Not to forget that both KSA and UAE are at odds with each other wrt AQ fighting the Houthis in Yemen.

[jonst]

What, if anything, does the List make of the skirmish between Turkish Security, and....some people? I can't get it straight what happened here, or what should be the proper reaction of the US. I know I don't like what the Turks did. To the extent I can figure out what happened.

[Fred]

Valissa,

The left must erase the cultural memory so that the Black voters of New Orleans will always be victims of those white (southern) people and can only rely on the Federal government.

[Eric Newhill]

Fred,
Woodford Reserve? It's my fav.

[Fred]

Heros,

They are doing it wrong. You do like this guy and get citizenship, then you get special status for all that discrimination you suffered where-ever you were, thus gaining a permanent competitive advantage over those pesky cis-gendered white male Americans who may own a company you are competing with.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahid_Khan

[O'Bryan]

Good news indeed. The study concludes;
"Overall, the sum of biophysical feedbacks related to the greening of the Earth mitigated 12% of the global land-surface warming for the past 30 years"

[scott s.]

Valissa -
Goes to show the value of Charter Schools, which can take action without going though civil service / union rules. Per the New Orleans Times Picayune:

"The podcast host says, "So it's probably fair to say, then, you're not a white supremacist, or some crazy KKK member from the Confederate past?"

Dean responds, "I am not by my definition, absolutely not. But by others', most certainly."

The video shows Dean wearing two rings that have been used as symbols of white nationalism: a German Iron Cross and a skull ring that was awarded to key members of the SS."

[Valissa]

Fred, my husband and I did the Woodford Reserve tour (~10 years ago) and really enjoyed it. It's in Versailles, KY. https://www.woodfordreserve.com/distillery/tours/

Even though Woodford's is now owned by one of the large distilling companies, you wouldn't know it from the tour.

"The Woodford Reserve Distillery, formerly known as the Old Oscar Pepper Distillery and later the Labrot & Graham Distillery, is approximately eight miles from the town of Versailles in north-central Kentucky, off U.S. Route 60 between Interstate 64 and Versailles.

Distilling on the site began in 1780,[citation needed] with today's distillery building erected in 1838. Although the site has not been continuously operational as a distillery since, the structure stands as the oldest of the nine bourbon distilleries in operation in Kentucky as of 2010. In 1995 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and in 2000 was designated a National Historic Landmark."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodford_Reserve

[FB Ali]

Thank you for the link. I seem to recall reading about him long ago, but it was refreshing to read the new Fisk article on him.

A remarkable man, by all counts!

[Tyler]

Nice grouping at 200 yds in medium wind using my .270 T3 yesterday. 130g Federal Power Shok. I pulled 2 an inch or so to the right but regardless, that's a dead elk. Curious to see how 150g works. I need to order that online as the only 150g here is Winchester, which likes to throw too much with no rhyme or reason.

The menu at RTs Restaurant looks amazing. Jealous of you Alexandria folks.

[Tyler]

I see the judiciary decided that overreach isn't good enough and decided that they are the unelected mandarins and we better not forget it.

There hasnt been a case of the judiciary telling the legislative and executive WE WILL TELL YOU WHAT WE WANT since Dred Scott. Good thing we are yanking out all historical references to how THAT went.

[Divadab]

Trees are growing like crazy - and sequestering carbon galore - we just need to leave them to it and harvest them from time to time , lumber is also sequestered carbon!