Chuck Norris 1940-2026

Martial artist, actor and author Chuck Norris passed away yesterday after a medical emergency while on the island of Kauai in Hawaii.  He was 86.

Carlos Ray Norris was born in Ryan, Oklahoma to Ray Dee Norris and the former Wilma Lee Scarberry, and was the oldest of three brothers.  Has named after his father's minister Carlos Berry.  When he was 16, his parents divorced.  He moved with his mother and brothers to Prairie Village, Kansas and later to Torrance, California.

In 1958, Norris joined the Air Force and started training in the Korean martial art Tang Soo Do.  He eventually earned black belts in five different arts.  He won several karate tournaments between 1967 and 1969.  He developed two martial arts forms, first American Tang Soo Do and later Chun Kuk Do, which is now known as the Chuck Norris System.  During one of his competitions, he met fellow martial artist Bruce Lee, with whom he developed a friendship and working relationship.

In 1972, Norris portrayed Lee's opponent in his film Way of the Dragon.  He went on to star in movies such as Breaker! Breaker!, Good Guys Wear Black, A Force of One, The Octagon, Forced Vengeance, Lone Wolf McQuade, Missing in Action, Code of Silence, The Delta Force, Sidekicks, and Forest Warrior.  He also played the title role in the TV series Walker, Texas Ranger.

In 2005, the interwebz broke out with numerous "Chuck Norris facts", which humorously exaggerated his toughness, masculinity and abilities, sometimes to impossible degrees.  For example, Norris was allegedly able to divide by zero, slam a revolving door, and push the earth down when he did push-ups.  The discovery of such "facts" has continued since that year.

Politically, Norris was a conservative Republican, and wrote for the right-wing website World Net Daily.  He wrote nine books, the most recent one being a compilation of his favorite "Chuck Norris facts".

Norris married his high school classmate Dianne Kay Holechek in December 1958.  They had two sons, and divorced in 1989.  In November 1998, he married model Gena O'Kelley.  They had fraternal twins.  He also a daughter from an extramarital affair while married to Holechek.  He is survived by his second wife, his five children, and his 17 grandchildren.

Read more at KTVB, AP News, The Hollywood Reporter, People and the Los Angeles Times.

Friday Fuss

On a sunny and mild Friday, as I take it easy for a while, here are some things going on:

From National Review, Russian oil tankers have a rough week.

From FrontpageMag, the sex offenses of labor activist Cesar Chavez.

From Townhall, CBS News Radio calls it a day.

From The Washington Free Beacon, two anti-Israel academics who resigned from Harvard are hired by the Columbia-affiliated Union Theological Seminary.

From the Washington Examiner, why Democrats love gun control and violent criminals.

From American Thinker, how President Trump's strategy, as set out in a speech he made in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, is boxing in Iran.

From NewsBusters, NBC goes Sergeant Schultz on new photos showing the destruction inside a synagogue in West Bloomfield, Michigan from an attack by a radical Muslim.

From Canada Free Press, rising beef prices bring back the "where's the beef?" question.

From TeleSUR, International Court of Justice authorizes Guatemala to intervene in a dispute between Belize and Honduras over the island group Sapodilla Cayes.

From TCW Defending Freedom, U.K. energy minister wants U.K. citizens to pay for more solar panels.

From Snouts in the Trough, was there a major error in the film Titanic?

From EuroNews, the Strava fitness app reportedly reveals the location of a French aircraft carrier.

From Free West Media, Israel is allegedly at war with its neighbors and wants to annex them.

From ReMix, Polish authorities arrest six suspects allegedly involved in the illegal employment of foreigners.

From Balkan Insight, the Romanian parliament adopts a cost-cutting budget despite tensions within the governing coalition.

From The North Africa Post, the two sides in the Sudanese civil war blame each other for a drone strike that killed 17 civilians in Al-Tina, Chad.

From The New Arab, despite devastation by Israeli forces, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip celebrate Eid al-Fitr.

From News(dot)com(dot)au, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese blames the backlash over the banning of the Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir for heckling at Australia's largest mosque.

From Gatestone Institute, Pakistan steps up its persecution of religious minorities.

From The Daily Signal, how the media erased then-President Obama's confession about the attack in Benghazi, Libya.

From The American Conservative and the "you can't make this up" department, the U.K. finds a way to tax its people for paying taxes.

From The Western Journal, the U.S. is reportedly sending more troops and ships to the Middle East.

From BizPac Review, homelessness goes out of control in some blue states.

From the Daily Caller, degenerates use pretzel logic to justify sleeping around.

From Breitbart, First Lady Melania Trump will host the leaders of nearly 50 nations at the "Fostering the Future Together" summit at the White House.

From Newsmax, Trump calls NATO a "paper tiger" when it comes to the Straits of Hormuz.

And from the New York Post, for over $2 million, you can buy a home in a trailer park in the Hamptons on Long Island.

Traveler's Rest State Historic Site

After driving through South Carolina, I turned westward and went into Georgia.  Just on the Georgia side of the border along U.S. route 123 is the Traveler's Rest State Historic Site.  From what I can gather from the interwebz, it was originally an inn and later the main house for a plantation.  It's open only on weekends, but I still explored the grounds.  Here's the front of the old inn.

On The Road In South Carolina

Today I ventured southward from my undisclosed location into South Carolina.  Somewhere along S.C. route 107, I unexpectedly came across this monument to a military plane crash that happened in 1943.  On top of it are coins, mostly pennies, left by various people who likewise stopped at this place.

Music Break

It's once again about time that I put up a musical post.  I have planned this one for a while, and finally found the time to go through with it.  The first song is an original version of one that I used to hear back in the 1970s by a band called Black Oak Arkansas, named after their place of origin.  Their lead singer Jim Mangrum even used the song's title as a stage name.  But in reality, Jim Dandy (to the Rescue) was first sung by R&B singer LaVern Baker in 1955.

Return To Judaculla Rock

Almost 11 years ago in April of 2015, I visited Judaculla Rock, near Cullowhee, North Carolina.  Since it's not too far from my current undisclosed location, I decided to return to the place.  The rock is named after the "slant-eyed giant" Judaculla, who according to Cherokee folklore had seven fingers on each hand and could jump from one mountain to another.  In one story, he landed on the rock but had to steady himself with one hand, resulting in his fingers digging out some petroglyphs.  The rock is partially surrounded by a viewing platform, as seen in this shot looking down from the adjacent road.

Stories For Saint Patrick's Day

Top o' the afternoon to all youz out there.  In other words, happy Saint Patrick's Day.  As I've noted on this date in previous years, his name wasn't really Patrick, and he wasn't even Irish, but none of that stops us from putting on some green clothes and drinking green beer.  Here in the hills of North Carolina, it's sunny but cold, and we even had a dusting of snow last night.  But in any event, here are some things going on:

From National Review, the upcoming blue-on-blue carnage in Illinois, and other items.

From FrontpageMag, the U.N. Human Rights Council refuses to defend the human rights of women victimized by sharia.

From Townhall, we're learning more and more about the terrorist who drove his truck into a synagogue in West Bloomfield Township, Michigan.

From The Washington Free Beacon, an Iranian leader who threatened to assassinate President Trump is sent to his virgins by the IDF.

From the Washington Examiner, Trump says that the U.S. no longer needs the help of NATO allies in the war against Iran.

From The Federalist, recycled lies from Democrats about the SAVE America Act are so lazy that they're racist.

From American Thinker, it's time to throw "political correctness" into the trash can.

From NewsBusters, MS NOW co-host Jonathan Capehart tries to connect recent acts of terror by Muslims to comments by Republicans.

From Canada Free Press, why the U.S. can't have honest elections, and how to fix that.

From TeleSUR, what are Cuba's new policies intended to increase foreign investment?

From TCW Defending Freedom, Islamization reaches the U.K. Scouts movement.

From EuroNews, Ukrainian President Zelensky says that he's willing to talk to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu about drone interceptors.

From ReMix, residents of the San Lorenzo district in Rome demand action against violence by migrants.

From Balkan Insight, the Albanian parliament adopts a resolution calling Iran a "state sponsor of terrorism".

From The North Africa Post, Sudan raises its limits on small-scale lending to ease inflationary pressures.

From The New Arab, Kuwaiti authorities say that they have arrest 16 people affiliated with Hezbollah over an alleged "sabotage plot".

From The Jerusalem Post, the Rabbi of the Western Wall condemns Iran's firing of missiles toward holy sites in Jerusalem.

From the Daily Mail, more on the aforementioned Iranian leader killed by the IDF.

From Gatestone Institute, why treating Iran like Venezuela would be a terrible mistake.

From The Daily Signal, White House counterterrorism chief Joe Kent resigns due to his disagreement with the war against Iran.

From The American Conservative, "right-sizing" the terror threat from Iran.

From The Western Journal, "how Irish Christianity saved the world".

From BizPac Review, Trump torches the lawmakers who might vote against the aforementioned SAVE America Act.

From the Daily Caller, small businesses still feel a squeeze from Trump's tariffs.

From the New York Post, if you want tickets to the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, you'd better act fast.

From Breitbart, the Gemini AI platform on Google calls some Republican Senators "hate speech" violators.

From Newsmax, more on the aforementioned new Cuban policies, which invite exiles to invest in Cuban businesses.

And from the Genesius Times, a woman outraged by $3 per gallon gasoline was happy to pay $5 per gallon under then-President Biden.

A Few Monday Things From A Traveling Sasquatch

After visiting and reporting on two waterfalls here in western North Carolina, I didn't think that I would also make a regular post linking various stories.  But after reading a few things on the interwebz, I decided that I had to relay them to all youz out there.  On a formerly cool but now cold and cloudy Monday, here are some things going on:

From Gatestone Institute, the crimes committed by Hamas that nobody talks about.

From the Daily Mail, according to some reports, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei has flown to Russia for medical treatment.

From Jewish News Syndicate, to whom does "stolen land" belong to, anyway?

From The American Conservative, yes, President Trump can end the war against Iran.

From The Western Journal, Republican Senators are set to inflict "pain" on their Democratic colleagues in the battle over the "SAVE American Act".

From TCW Defending Freedom, coronavirus vaccines and a connection to the late Jeffrey Epstein.

From Snouts in the Trough, they're coming for our money, and we can't do much about it.

From TeleSUR, teachers at Argentina's public universities go on strike.

From Canada Free Press, Trump is trying to build a Pax Americana.

From American Thinker, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) and California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) try to sabotage the American Dream.

From The Federalist, California seeks to examine men for cervical cancer.

From the Washington Examiner, why do many Americans believe that the Trump administration has not explained the aims for the war against Iran?

From The Washington Free Beacon, the Department of Justice's Religious Liberty Commission has a productive meeting without former member Carrie Prejean Boller

From Townhall, the Trump administration starts terminating commercial driver's licenses given to foreign drivers.

From FrontpageMag, an American diplomat was killed by a Muslim mob in Tehran, Iran in 1924.

From National Review, President Trump (U.S.) is finally playing hardball with President Xi (China).

And from The Babylon Bee, nine clear signs that the aforementioned Ayatollah Khamenei the Younger is gay.

Two Waterfalls In Western North Carolina

Today I set out from my undisclosed location to find two waterfalls along U.S. route 64, both a few miles west of Highlands, North Carolina.  The topography in this area makes the roads hilly and curvy, but also turns creeks and rivers into waterfalls.  The first is Bridal Veil Falls, which should not be confused with other waterfalls having the same name.  Here's the falls seen from its south side.  At one time, you could drive behind it.

A Few Ides Of March Things From A Traveling Sasquatch

Today is the Ides of March, the day that Julius Caesar was told to beware of.  After two days of driving, I have arrived at my undisclosed location in western North Carolina.  This place is so out in the boondocks that I had to literally drive through an area called Transylvania to get here.  But don't worry, neither Dracula nor the Ottoman Turks whom he fought against have bothered me.

Now that I've settled on a cool and cloudy Sunday, here are a few things going on:

From Jewish News Syndicate, antisemitic graffiti is found on the campus of San Jose State University.

From the Daily Mail, a victim the late Jeffrey Epstein claims that she was trafficked to Harrods business executive Mohamed Al Fayed, who allegedly abused her on his yacht.  (His son Dodi was Princess Diana's boyfriend after she divorced then-Prince Charles, and died with her in the infamous car crash in Paris.)

From Gatestone Institute, U.S. President Trump's war against Iran is ending Chinese President Xi Jinping's "China dream".

From The American Conservative, senatorial candidate James Talarico's (D-TX) two-step.

From TCW Defending Freedom, in the world of U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, "lawyers rule and Christians are pariahs".

From American Thinker, Mr. Bill's stains on charity.

From The Washington Free Beacon, a review of a book calling for rebooting the U.S. industrial base.

From Townhall, an election official in Minnesota finally admits what we've known about illegal aliens voting.

From FrontpageMag, the media tries to humanize Islamic terrorists.

And from CBS Sports, the teams from the United States and the Dominican Republic meet in the semifinals of the World Baseball Classic, but let's imagine if we could combine them.