Saturday Links

It's Holy Saturday and the end of March.  Here are some things going on (with my own two cents thrown in):

From the Bel Air Patch, the start of April in Maryland might bring some snow.

From The Blaze, the Parkland kids have caught the attention of a very loud NRA member.

From The American Conservative, a discussion of religious literacy and brown M&Ms.

From NPR, 100 Iranians seeking asylum in the United States are still stranded in Austria.

From BizPac Review, self-appointed anti-gun crusader David Hogg appears to have boosted sales at Arby's.

From BBC News, the United Kingdom's top police officer blames violence on social media.

From Voice Of Europe, almost 75 percent of the children in Antwerp, Belgium have a migrant background.

From the Express, French President Emanuel Macron warns that artificial intelligence could threaten democracy.  (Have the Cylons arrived yet?)

From Reuters, Italy protests the entry by French police into an NGO-run clinic that cares for migrants.

From Flanders News, Belgian police detain 74 transit migrants in Zeebrugge.  (I don't know precisely what is meant by "transit migrants".  Are these people trying migrate through Belgium as opposed to those attempting to settle there?)

From the Evening Standard, mourners pay their last respects to Stephen Hawking, led by an actor who once portrayed him.

From Deutsche Welle, German officials defend using a former U.S. military base as a reception center for migrants.

From Breitbart London, two captured members of the terror cell led by "Jihadi John" complain about losing their U.K. citizenship.  (Get out your smallest violin and play something for them.)

From Sputnik International, Greek legislators prepare a bill to speed up their country's asylum processing.

From Russia Today, the U.N. Security Council meets over the recent Israel-Gaza border clash.

From The Express Tribune, a Pakistani couple were allegedly killed for marrying against their families' wishes.

From Fox News, Turkish President Erdoğan prays at the Hagia Sophia.  (This building was originally a church, was later a mosque, and is currently a museum.)

From AhlulBayt News Agency, an Israeli spy drone reportedly crashes in Lebanon.

From Al Jazeera, church bells will once again ring in Nineveh, Iraq.  (via Assyrian International News Agency)

From The Daily Signal, Mary Magdalene was not a "Me Too" figure.

From Townhall, there's a very young gubernatorial candidate in Vermont.

From MSN, an Atlanta Braves sideline reporter suffers a fractured eye socket from a foul ball.

From the New York Post, two legendary New York Yankees "were torn apart by women".

And from The West Australian, some weird things get intercepted at the Perth airport.

Thoughts On Good Friday And Crucifixion

As I wrote earlier, today is Good Friday, which recalls the death of Jesus on a cross.  In past years, I would be traveling to Virginia to visit my parents for Easter weekend.  But as regular readers know, my parents are no longer here, so I no longer have my main reason for making the trip.  I have siblings in the same general area, but I can see them at various other times.  This means that for the first time in decades, I will not be traveling for Easter.

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One subject related to Good Friday that I've been wanting to address is the so-called "swoon theory", which is the idea that Jesus did not really die on the cross, but instead merely passed out or "swooned".  Since I don't believe this theory, I thought that it might be the subject of a "things I don't believe" post.  For some time, I thought that refuting the swoon theory would be easy.  According to a common but not universally accepted idea, a person nailed to a cross would have a very difficult time breathing due to his weight being supported by his arms which were extended out to his sides.  In order to breath, so the notion goes, the victim would have to straighten his legs a little, shifting his weight onto them and to some degree away from his arms.  This would explain why the Roman soldiers broke the legs of the two thieves crucified with Jesus, so as to hasten their deaths.  Since shifting your weight onto your legs to purportedly enable yourself to breath can only be done if you're conscious, if you swooned, you'd die anyway.

Links For Good Friday

Today is Good Friday, when Christians solemnize the death of Jesus by crucifixion.  This method of execution, commonly used by the Roman Empire, involved affixing the condemned to a tree or wooden structure, usually by nails, but sometimes also with ropes.  The victim would die a slow and painful death, and serve as a warning to anyone else who might be tempted to get out of line.  I have some thoughts related to Good Friday and crucifixion that I will write about later today.  For the time being, here are some things in the news:

From Voice Of Europe, a student is suspended for telling the truth about migrant sex crimes in Sweden.

From Russia Today, the real Big Brother is not Facebook.

From Breitbart London, in Pompeii, Italy, anti-vehicle bollards do their job.

From BBC News, Israeli troops defend their border fence.

From Sputnik International, according to a German financial analyst, the Euro is doomed.

From Dutch News, the Dutch cabinet wants to send asylum seekers back to Belgium or Germany.

From the NL Times, a "special database" has stored the passwords of 3.3 million Dutch internet users.

From France24, Kurdistan Workers Party fighters kill six Turkish soldiers.

From the Metro, after Brexit, users of Netflix UK will not be able to access it outside of the U.K.

From Deutsche Welle, can the children of ISIS fighters return to Europe?

From FrontpageMag, the worst anti-Semitic hate this year in the United States was committed by a Muslim immigrant.

From Local 10 News, the widow of the Pulse nightclub terrorist has been acquitted of aiding his actions.

From Coconuts, in Malaysia, a female emcee was allegedly barred from speaking "for Islamic reasons".

From the Malay Mail Online, a member of the Malaysian parliament is under fire for using the phrase "if I were God".

From Egypt Today, Saudi Arabia's crown prince calls the Muslim Brotherhood "an incubator for all terrorists".

From National Review, "you can't repeal history".

From the New York Post, Russian ships might be spying undersea cables.

And from Eos, five weird things that scientists can use to study climatic history.

Thirty Three Things For Thursday

Assuming I counted right, here are 33 things going on out there:

From CNN, Russia goes tit-for-tat on diplomats.

From LifeNews, the Supreme Court will decide if videos exposing Planned Avoidance Of Parenthood can be censored.

From The Daily Caller, a Trump Attorney faults the Senate for not holding a vote on Ric Grenell, nominee for U.S. Ambassador to Germany.

From Politico, a judge denies a motion from Stormy Daniels to depose President Trump and his personal lawyer.

From ZeroHedge, a publication put out by UC-Berkeley blames gun violence on the usual suspects.

The Daily Signal interviews a man who Jennered himself, and later un-Jennered herself.

From Fox News, a California judge rules that coffee companies need to put a cancer warming on their products in that state.

From the Express, U.K. politician Nigel Farage mocks former U.K. politician Tony Blair.

From the Evening Standard, Farage and Blair speak at an Article 50 conference.

From Russia Today, Trump announces a withdrawal from Syria.

From Voice Of Europe, a study shows 70 percent of Europeans from 28 E.U. countries regard Muslim population growth as a threat.

From I Am Tommy, British journalist Tommy Robinson talks about his ban from Twitter.

From The Old Continent, after it had generated some outrage, Sweden retracts their "adults married to a child" brochure.

From Flanders News, a Belgian accomplish of British ISIS terrorist known as "Jihadi John" gets a 30-year prison term.

From the NL Times, in a referendum, a Dutch majority votes against a proposed data mining law.

From BBC News, former French President Nicolas Sarkozy will face trial for alleged corruption and influence peddling.

From the Morning Star, the E.U. announces plans for the free movement of armies.

From Sputnik International, the Serbian parliament is evacuated due to a man in the area threatening to blow himself up.

From Arutz Sheva, "anti-Semitism is running rampant in Turkey".

From France24, the obstacle to forming a new Italian government lies with their former prime minister.

From The Local FR, in France, a driver allegedly tried to ram soldiers with his vehicle.

From Ekathimerini, 295 more migrants reach Lesvos.

From The Chronicle, a former ally of Osama bin Laden moves freely in Pakistan.

From The Wire, for the first time since she was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman, Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai returns to Pakistan.

From The Express Tribune, garbagemen in Lahore, Pakistan save their city from accusations of blasphemy.  (It seems to be a good day to report news from Pakistan.)

From the Business Standard, the leader of Jamaat-ud-Dawa wants to wage holy war against India.

From Gatestone Institute, "the secret world of the Palestinian Authority".

From FrontpageMag, leftists don't like the reinstatement of the citizen question on the census.  (The relevant parts of the Constitution refer to "Persons" - which is indeed capitalized - instead of "citizens", so they may have a point.  However, the question was present on past census forms, so if it was legitimate then, it's legitimate now.)

From National Review, the police shooting of Stephon Clark may have been legal, but it's still "deeply problematic".

From Townhall, jobless claims have hit their lowest level since the presidency of Tricky Dick.

From The Undefeated, major league baseball is back and in a weird spot.

From The Spectator, the strange phenomenon known as "hapax legomenon".

From the New York Post, Rusty Staub, who played for five major league teams, goes to the baseball stadium in the sky.

Wednesday Links

Here are some things going on, but starting with things that are no longer going on:

From The Daily Signal, 25 influential women in American history.

From The American Conservative, the American president with the best national security policy of the 20th century shared his name with a vacuum cleaner.

From LifeNews, a U.S. district judge rules against the Obamacare abortion coverage mandate.

From Space Daily, it's good for North Korea and China to talk.

From Fox News, China has reportedly reminded Rocket Man about who's boss.

From The Washington Times, senate candidate Chris McDaniel (R-Miss) shows a PAC that turnabout is fair play.

From Voice Of Europe, Germany has its highest birth rate since 1973, mostly due to migrants.

From France24, E.U. lawmakers call the promotion of European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker's top aide "coup-like".

From the NL Times, a man in Amsterdam stabs people who won't let him steal their motor scooters.

From the Express, due to Italian parties failing to form a government, the country might need a new election.

From The Local FR, the gendarme who traded himself for a hostage and was later killed in the Trèbes terror attack is honored and eulogized at Les Invalides.

From Breitbart Jerusalem, thousands of French march against anti-semitism.

From Radio Poland, Poland agrees to buy Patriot missile systems from the United States.  (via Voice Of Europe)

From Russia Today, U.K. schools go into lockdown over a threat to run children over.

From ANSA, Italian police arrest an Italo-Moroccan suspected terrorist, who allegedly is a member of ISIS.

From The Local IT, more on the suspected Italo-Moroccan terrorist.

From the Daily Sabah, Turkey and the E.U. try to overcome discord as they talk in Varna, Bulgaria.

From Sputnik International, Germany can't expel about 65,000 migrants because they have no papers.

From Step Feed, hashtags on Arabic Twitter liken women to animals.

From Jewish News Syndicate, a South African imam calls for supporting jihad in Palestine.

From Crux, the death of a Catholic priest in the Central African Republic demonstrates how fragile the peace in that country is.

From AhlulBayt News Agency, Turkey's incursion into Syria could lead to a quagmire.

From FrontpageMag, why the "two-state" solution would be a disaster.

From National Review, a women-only social club in New York and Washington might be illegal.

From Townhall, opinion: the gun control movement is the opposite of the civil rights movement.

From the New York Post, Border Patrol agents arrest a truck driver after 10 illegal migrants are found inside his trailer.

From Chemical & Engineering News, a "theory-defying effect" in magnetic devices could lead to better computer memory.

And from the Babylon Bee, seven future progressive Disney princesses.

Things For Tuesday

Another Tuesday, another list of things going on:

From The Washington Times, a retired Supreme Court Justice thinks that the Second Amendment should be repealed.

From PoliZette, why the left opposes bringing back an old Census question.

From the Washington Examiner, Al Sharpton's half-brother, after participating in the March For Our Lives, is charged with murder.

From WTOP, a man has been arrested in connection with suspicious packages left at military and government installations.

From Russia Today, in Catalonia, riot police crack down on pro-Puigdemont protesters blocking roads.  (Whether it's these Catalans, or Black Lies Matter in the U.S., or anyone else, blocking roads is never a good idea.)

From the Evening Standard, a teacher who plotted to train an army of child terrorists goes to jail.

From the Express, a Danish minister tells migrants to learn Danish or pay for their own interpreters.

From The Old Continent, the Denmark's Social Democrat party reportedly reverses itself on immigration and integration.

From The New Arab, French President Emanuel Macron meets with Denmark's first female imam.

From Breitbart London, firefighters were not allowed to go to the Manchester Arena for two hours after the suicide bombing occurred.

From Ekathimerini, migrants in Greece set fires to protest their transfer from hotels to a reception center.

From the NL Times, there has been no investigation into the Avatar ideology in Dutch schools.

From The Local DE, Germany has seen an increase in knife crime, often committed by teenage refugees.

From The Local IT, Italian authorities arrest a man suspected of having ties with ISIS.

From The Local ES, pictures of the above-mentioned Catalan protesters.

From Breitbart London, a deported asylum seeker returns to Britain and is jailed for raping a teenager.

From the Mirror, the latest expulsion of Russian diplomats comes from down under.

From Euractive, a Serbian official travels to Mitrovica, Kosovo and gets arrested.

From Voice Of Europe, migrants from Pakistan stab a Greek truck driver who found them hiding in his trailer.

From Al Arabiya, a Qatari man on a terror watch list is allowed to run a marathon.

From Gatestone Institute, is ISIS again surging in Syria?

From Arutz Sheva, antisemitism by Muslims surges in France.

From the South China Morning Post, jaywalkers in Shenzhen, China better watch out.  (via the New York Post)

From the New York Post, a coyote has been captured at a museum in Albany.  (Whether he was in pursuit of a roadrunner has not been reported.)

From the Metro, why is wanting to be single weird?

And from the Huffington Post, noted accordionist Weird Al Yankovic switches to guitar.

Random Musings #8

It's been a year since I've put up this type of post, so away I go.  As usual, I'll try to link some relevant information.
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After learning that Joseph Kennedy III gave the Democratic response to President Trump's State of the Union address, I found myself thinking about something I've long believed about the Kennedys.  This family is noted, besides their longtime involvement in politics, for the womanizing by their men and for enduring a series of tragic deaths.  In a more superstitious age, people would put two and two together, and have the idea that some kind of karma or divine retribution might be at work.

I've found a four-word phrase that is somehow beyond the comprehension of telemarketers, which is "please leave a message".

There has been quite a bit of commentary from the right about the official portraits of President Barrack and First Lady Michelle Obama.  What strikes me as strange about his portrait is that he is shown sitting in an indoors chair in what is otherwise an outdoor setting.

Monday Links

According to an old saying, "Monday sucks", and that's especially true today if you're a Russian diplomat.  To learn more about this and other matters, keep reading.

From CNN, President Trump orders 60 Russian diplomats expelled from the United States.

From the Winnipeg Sun, Canada kicks out four Russians.

From LifeNews, Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb (R) signs a law mandating improved health and safety standards for abortion facilities.  (He is the successor to our current vice president.)

From Space War, Saudi forces have intercepted seven missiles launched by Yemen rebels.

From Click Orlando, lawyers for the widow of the Orlando night club shooter claim that his father was an FBI informant.  (via CBS News)

From Bloomberg, Rocket Man has reportedly made a visit to the place where rockets were first invented.  (The story comes via HotAir.  For some rocket history, go to Wiki.)

From the Express, the leader of the IMF sees populism and protectionism as threats to the Eurozone economy.

From the NL Times, Turkey investigates a suspected Dutch spy.

From Ekathimerini, Turkish President Erdoğan says that E.U. membership is still a "strategic goal" for his country.

From Breitbart London, British Muslim children as young as two have been indoctrinated into terrorist ideology and hating the west.

From Hürriyet Daily News, the European Commission defends the promoting of President Juncker's top aide.

From AP News, the head of the U.N. food agency warns of another possible migration crisis.  (via Axios)

From Independent Balkan News Agency, only 17 percent of space in Bulgarian refugee centers is occupied.

From The Local DE, a Turkish migrant goes on trial for alleged rape and attempted murder of a female jogger.

From the Daily Mail, in Germany, a woman is in critical condition after being stabbed by a Syrian teenager.

From Sputnik International, in Sweden, the leader of the New Coalition Assembly party is "in hot water" for praising Saddam Hussein.

From Voice Of Europe, an Austrian schoolteacher warns that many of her students favor sharia.

From SwissInfo, in the rape trial of Tariq Ramadan, witness dispute his alibi.

From Arutz Sheva, an Islamic council regards normalizing relations with Israel as being "against Islam".

From The Liberal, Poland continues to say "no" to taking in migrants.  (It seems that here's a liberal, so to speak, with whom I can agree.)

From WestMonster, the Welsh still back Brexit.

From Townhall, "make no mistake" about the gun controllers.

From National Review, "waiting for the smoking gun" in the alleged affair between Trump and Stormy Daniels.  (The article includes a photo of her, which isn't all that flattering.)

From FrontpageMag, the motive of the man who crashed his car, which contained propane tanks, into the front gate of Travis Air Force Base remains a mystery to the FBI.

From The Daily Signal, students at a California high school plan a pro-life walkout, which might be a test for double standards.

From the Chicago Tribune, a man released after a wrongful conviction and serving 23 years returns to his job as a Chicago White Sox groundskeeper.  (via the New York Post)

From the New York Post, a runner aspires to set the record for a backwards marathon.

From Yahoo, a fired waiter appears to use his ethnicity as an excuse.

And from Syfy Wire, scientists figure out the origin of a very weird meteorite.

Links For Palm Sunday And Maryland Day

Today is Palm Sunday, when western Christianity recalls Jesus's entry into Jerusalem on a donkey as the crowd watching him scattered palm branches in front of him.  (Eastern denominations use a different calendar, but in some years the dates coincide.)  In modern times, instead of throwing the branches on the ground in front of someone riding a donkey, we carry them into church and hold them during the service.  Read more at Catholic Online and Crosswalk.

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Today is also Maryland Day, the anniversary of the landing in 1634 of the first European settlers in what became the colony, and later the state, of Maryland.  Read more at Visit Maryland, and if you have the chance, eat some Chesapeake Bay crabs.  I would suggest watching the Baltimore Orioles play a game of baseball, but since the regular season hasn't yet started, they won't be in Baltimore.

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In more recent news and opinion:

From The Daily Signal, teachers in some gun-control states are still able to get firearms training.

From The American Conservative, John Bolton's interview with Radio Free Asia is "alarming".

From PoliZette, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin says that the tariffs on China will go forward.

From the Washington Examiner, former President Obama imagines a million more of himself.  (I can't imagine the sins we'd have to commit in order to be given such a punishment.  The story comes via The Blaze.)

From Philly(dot)com, a priest in Philadelphia is accused of "possible alleged misconduct with minors".

From Independent Balkan News Agency, Turkish President Erdoğan has some harsh words for the E.U.

From Bulgarian News Agency, a Bulgarian opposition party calls Erdoğan's remarks "unacceptable".

From Russia Today, Erdoğan announces more military operations.

From Sputnik International, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsepras demands that Turkey stops their illegal activities in the Aegean Sea.  (Today is the anniversary of Greece's independence from the Ottoman Empire, which came in 1821.)

From Deutsche Welle, in northeastern Greece along the Evros River, the border patrol finds some migrants while hunters and fishermen find the dead bodies of others.

From Voice Of Europe, the Mayor of The Hague is robbed in her own city, and a Polish woman was raped by Arabs in Sweden, after which the police act like Sgt. Schulz.

From The Local FR, the victims of the terror attack at Trèbes, France.  (via Voice Of Europe)

From the Sunday Express, in Manchester, England, a man attacks a policemen with a sword.

From BBC News, a car drives into a group of children in Glasgow, Scotland.

From Flanders News, Belgian police crack down on long-distance bus travelers.

From Breitbart London, homelessness in London doubles due to deportations of Romanians and Poles being judicially blocked.

From the Mirror, Italian authorities hunt for a suspected terrorist from Tunisia.

From Gatestone Institute, many Palestinian Christians join their Muslim counterparts against Israel.  (via The Religion Of Peace)

From Townhall, how the March For Our Lives shows why leftists can't be trusted on gun control.

From the New York Post, President Trump suggests that the military could build the wall.

From The Bulletin, seven weird museums you can visit.

And from Kotaku, a neural network creates weird creatures for Dungeons & Dragons.

The March For Our Lives, And Other News

 Today, thousands of teenagers and their adult sponsors have participated in the March For Our Lives, in which they are asking for more gun control laws.  In my view, the real name of this event should be the March Against Civil Rights, since gun ownership, except for certain classes of people such as felons, is a civil right, which the marchers wish to restrict.

One argument against gun control is based on the idea that such laws always restrict the rights of people who do not commit gun violence.  It's like trying to stop drunk driving by not allowing people who don't drink to drive cars, so one analogy goes.  It seems that newly-noted activist David Hogg, a student at the high school in Florida where 17 students were killed by a former student, now agrees that people who haven't done anything wrong should not be subject to new rules because of what someone else did - at least when he is among those who are affected by the new rules.  In response to the shooting, his high school in now requiring that all backpacks worn by students are transparent, which he doesn't like.  From HotAir:

So, gun control for an entire country of 300 million people is a reasonable response to the Parkland shooting, but backpack control at one high school is an unreasonable response to the Parkland shooting. How dare authorities impose this one-size-fits-all mandate on everyone, including the vast majority of students who did nothing wrong! Oh…wait.

The young man's hypocrisy is obvious, at least to myself and the HotAir contributor.
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As for what else is new, related to the march or not:

From Twitchy, one MFOL participant asks for a law that already exists.

From The Daily Caller, the brother of a girl who died in the Parkland shooting is not allowed to speak at the MFOL.

From NewBusters, the tingle-up-the-leg guy thinks that we should all expect "basic" restrictions on gun rights.

From The Blaze, the participants in the MFOL are protected by (well, what do you know?) men with guns.

From Breitbart's Big Government, Hogg calls his teachers "very understanding" about his skipping classes.

From Flanders News, Antwerp, Belgium runs out of room to house juvenile delinquents.

From the Express, a German member of the E.U. Parliament thinks that the E.U. must make Britain a new offer.

From Prisonphone, the U.K. now has the highest number of prisoners in the E.U.

From Sputnik International, French authorities have arrested a second man in connection to the attack in Trèbes.

From Russia Today, the French policeman who exchanged himself for one of the hostages taken in Trèbes has died.

From Al Arabiya, French authorities who had monitored the Trèbes attacker thought that he had not been radicalized.

From The Local FR, what we know about the Trèbes terrorist.

From Dawn, a court acquits 20 people accused of lynching and burning a Christian couple in Kot Radha Kishan, Pakistan.

From Breitbart London, the BBC refers to a convicted terrorist from Iraq as a "Surrey teenager".

From Channel NewsAsia, Malaysian authorities have arrested seven suspected terrorists who allegedly plotted to attack non-Muslim places of worship.

From the Mirror, a British Muslim actress defends herself from a troll.

From The National, two policeman are killed in a roadside bombing in Alexandria, Egypt.

From National Review, the Republicans in Congress "still don't get Trump".

From Townhall, the 20 "worst quotes from Louis Farrahkan".

From the New York Post, the U.S. embassy in Thailand exhibits artifacts including a letter from the Thai king in 1861 offering the United States two elephants.  (Perhaps this was before Abraham Lincoln's party adopted the elephant as its symbol.)

And from The Babylon Bee, the top seven replacement words for swearing.

Terrorism In France, And Other Stories

Today in southern France, a man hijacked a car in Carcassonne and later took hostages in a Super U market in Trèbes, before being killed by security forces.  He reportedly killed three people and injured 16 others.  The man was of Moroccan descent and known to French authorities.

Read more at The Local FR, France24, RTÉ, BBC News, the Daily Mail and the Independent.
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In other stories:

From Voice Of Europe, in Hungary, beware the "Soros puppets".

From Breitbart London, up to 2/3 of sub-Saharan Africans want to move to the E.U. or America.

From Sputnik International, according to French politician Marine Le Pen, the E.U. is waging a "cold war" against Russia.

From iNews, the E.U. ambassador to Moscow is recalled.

From the Express, a young supporter of Brexit defends older generations.

From Dutch News, the boss of Unilever makes 292 times the average salary of his company's workers.

From the NL Times, a university in Amsterdam ignored complaints of sexual harassment by one lecturer for years.

From Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, a suicide car bomber kills 12 at a wrestling match in Helmand, Afghanistan.

From The Express Tribune, animals compete in a beauty pageant in Jugaitpir, Pakistan.

From CBN News, jihadists hunt Syrian Christians.  (via Assyrian International News Agency)

From National Review, a play exposes left-wing hypocrisy.

From FrontpageMag, in Texas, the SJP turn out to be neo-nazis.

From Townhall, what happened which led up to police shooting Stephon Clark.

And from the New York Post, when ordering at McDonald's, don't ride a horse.

The Omnibus Is Horrid

Yesterday the House of Representatives passed an omnibus spending bill which now goes to the Senate.  What's wrong with this bill?  First, let me allow Stephan Molyneux, a neighbor to the north, to explain.  I'm not sure that calling it "Trump's" bill is entirely fair, since the president didn't write it, but he's certainly going to have to deal with it.


For more details, go to National Review, who write:

The omnibus spending bill was crafted in secret and will be passed under pressure; raises discretionary spending as the national debt grows; and fails to deliver on any major GOP priorities except increased defense spending. What might turn out to be the signature achievement of unified Republican government this year is the sort of legislation that would have been right at home in the Obama administration.

If you ask me, the title of the bill should be "The Swamp Strikes Back".  You can also watch Molyneux's speech directly on YouTube.

UPDATE:  (I was about to get off the computer, but then ran across this related item.)  From AOL, President Trump threatens to veto the bill.

UPDATE 2:  From the New York Post, Trump signed the bill.  Thus, my complaint above of possible unfairness by Mr. Molyneux is hereby withdrawn.

Links For A Thursday Meltdown

Today has brought some milder temperatures, which reminds me of what the witch in The Wizard Of Oz said after being doused with water, "I'm melting!", because that's what's been going on around here.  So here are some other things going on:

From Handelsblatt Global, the E.U. gets a temporary reprieve on President Trump's tariffs.

From the Express, E.U. chief Donald Tusk is accused of misleading European leader about the effect of Brexit on U.K. citizens living in other countries.

From Reuters, according to one Polish lawmaker, Poland plans to offer the E.U. some concessions concerning its judicial reforms.

From The Local FR, French railroad and public service workers go on strike.

From the Dutch News, a man tried to commit suicide by jumping from a balcony in the Dutch parliament.

From Voice Of Europe, the leader of a Belgian youth group speaks of a "huge silent majority that’s starting to get a voice".

From the Pew Research Center, since 2010, at least a million people from sub-Saharan Africa have moved to Europe.

From Prospect, between 2007 and 2017, over three million people have left Romania.

From Russia Today, Russia is offering money for people to extract precious metals from their old ICBMs.

From Breitbart London, German Chancellor Angela Merkel lays out a six-point plan for a common E.U. asylum system.

From the Mirror, a look at the Iraqi asylum seeker who attacked Britain First leader Paul Golding in prison.

From the NL Times, the party led by Dutch politician Geert Wilders wins city council seats in 30 municipalities.

From the Metro, U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May tells E.U. leaders that they must "stand together".

From Sputnik International, Belgrade, Serbia offers to host a meeting between Trump and Putin.

From Politics Nigeria, the father of the only Dapchi girl not released by Boko Haram says that she's still being held because she won't convert to Islam.

From Al Arabiya, a photo of a woman getting out of a Mercedes in front of a German food bank causes outrage.  (Did she actually go into the food bank in an attempt to obtain food?  Is she really rich enough to own a Mercedes, or was someone else giving her a lift?)

From OPIndia, a Muslim group tries to ban a TV show that discusses triple talaq.

From Gatestone Institute, has the U.K. become an Islamist colony?

From The Guardian, it would be good for Christianity to go underground.  (via The American Conservative)

From AhlulBayt News Agency, according to the Russian Defense Ministry, 40 tons of chemical weapons have been found in Syria.

From National Review, why refugees are going from the U.S. to Canada.

From Townhall, one GOP representative compares the recently pass omnibus spending bill to former Speaker Pelosi's push for Obamacare.

From The Daily Signal, two GOP lawmakers discuss the president's call for the death penalty for some drug offenders.

From the New York Post, cops and kids have a snowball fight.

From NBC News, this weird skeleton is not an alien.

And from Bangor Daily News, a house is invaded by a turkey.

Links For A Wintry Spring Day

This spring's wintry start has continued today with snow, thus providing me with a chance to get some exercise.  As a homeowner, I'm responsible for clearing my section of the adjacent sidewalk, and the walkway which connects it to my front door.  I also cleared off my car as best I could.  My SUV, which is to blame for this weather, will have to wait awhile.  But I think it's fair to say that my shovel got in a respectable amount of use.

If anyone is wondering why I facetiously blame my SUV for winter weather, it's because people who believe that carbon dioxide made by humans is affecting the earth's climate and thus causing unusual weather like to blame such phenomena on SUV's and those of us who drive them, and do so seriously.  I used to hear the occasional report of climate activists burning SUV's, apparently (and ironically) unaware of the fact that this action itself produces carbon dioxide.  More recently, I've learned that China is now producing twice the CO₂ that the United States produces, but I have yet to come across any reports about global warming "believers" (as I like to call them) saying anything about Chinese CO₂.  This apparent selective concern is one reason that I don't take the "believers" too seriously, and why I like to take figurative swipe at them by joking about their hostility toward SUV's.  They can get back to me when they announce a protest in front of the Chinese embassy.
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But enough about the weather.  Here are some other things going on out there:

From KHOU 11, the Austin serial bomber has been identified, after he did himself in.  Police warn that there still could be other bombs in the area.

From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, zookeepers in Oklahoma City have figured out why a female lion grew a mane.  (The AJC cite The Washington Post as their source, but do not provide a current link.  Does this mean we have a transgender lion?)

From ABC News, former Vice President Joe Biden claims that he would have beaten up Donald Trump in high school "for disrespecting women".  (The story comes via Twitchy, who point out that "Uncle Joe" might want to clean up his own act.)

From PopZette, "our freedom of speech is in serious danger".

From The Federalist, a Parkland, Florida high school student claims that CNN cancelled an interview with him because he re-Tweeted an article from The Daily Wire.

From LifeNews, seven "key moments" during the Supreme Court hearing reviewing the California law requiring pro-life pregnancy centers to advertise for abortion.

From CNBC, the CEO of Twitter expects Bitcoin to become the world's single currency.

From The Daily Caller, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu defends his country's wall.

From Fox News, opinion:  the United States must press Saudi Arabia to life their blockade of Yemen.  (via The American Conservative)

From The Local FR, Paris is trying to help the homeless by placing 100 "small bubbles" on its streets.

From Breitbart London, as U.K. police focus on non-politically correct speech, shoplifting doubles.

From the Express, today's election in the Netherlands could cause a "huge collapse" in the Eurozone.

From the NL Times, the Council of State rules that the Netherlands may deport Afghani asylum seekers.

From the Middle East Monitor, according to Eurostat, the number of asylum seekers in the E.U. declined by half in 2017 compared to a year earlier.

From Novonite, during the last 15 years, 25,000 Afghans have sought asylum in Bulgaria.

From France24, the French government introduces tough new measures against sexual misconduct.

From Sputnik International, former French President Sarkozy rejects the accusation that he took Libyan money during one of his campaigns.

From BBC News, at least 31 people have been killed in a suicide bombing near a shrine in Kabul, Afghanistan, and 101 kidnapped schoolgirls from Dapchi, Nigeria have been freed.

From Gatestone Institute, free speech is again on trial in France.

From British Pakistani Christians, stop using the term "Asian" to refer to a certain "ethno-faith group".  (I believe that I can identify the particular "group" to which the article's author refers.)

From FrontpageMag, Paul Joseph Watson tells us "the truth about broken Britain".

From National Review, Donald Trump is not the first American president to congratulate Vladimir Putin for winning a Russian presidential election.

From Townhall, children should not be made into moral authorities.

From the New York Post, the Fed raises interest rates.

From the Financial Times, something weird happened this past February.

And from Forbes, the weirdness lies not with quantum mechanics, but with us.

Spring, Another Shooting, And Other Stories

Today marks the spring equinox, even as the east coast is getting one (hopefully) last blast of wintry weather.  I look outside to see a mixture of rain and sleet (or maybe graupel) falling from the sky and accumulating on my vehicles and the grassy areas in my neighborhood.  Fortunately, the roads have not been affected very much, but that might change due to the precipitation turning to snow later tonight.

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This morning at Great Mills High School in Saint Mary's County in southern Maryland, a student who had armed himself two of his fellow students.  He was later engaged and shot by a school resource officer, and was declared dead just after 10:30 a.m.  The two victims have been hospitalized.

Read more at The Baltimore Sun, NBC Washington, WTOP, WBAL and FOX 5.

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In other news:

From the Los Angeles Times, congressional negotiators haggle over abortion coverage and health care.  (via LifeNews)

From The American Conservative, after a Republican loses the popular vote but wins the presidential election, Democrats try everything to obstruct the new president - Rutherford B. Hayes.

From Space War, Chinese President Xi Jinping says that his country is ready to fight a "bloody battle".

From Philly(dot)com, the president of Penn State pushes for a national database of fraternity violations.

From the Star Tribune, the Minneapolis police officer who killed an Australian woman has been charged, and has turned himself in.  (via the New York Post)

From PopZette, restaurants are removing the likenesses of disgraced celebrities from their walls.

From Breitbart, a Scottish court finds YouTuber Count Dankula guilty of a hate crime, for posting a video of his girlfriend's dog making a nazi salute.

From Voice Of Europe, the newly formed party Alternative for Sweden asks Americans for help.

From the Express, the Brexit could come "crashing down" over the issue of the U.K.-Ireland border.

From Euractive, more on the U.K.-Ireland border issue.

From Ekathimerini, Greece comes under fire for allegedly undermining an agreement on migration between the E.U. and Turkey.

From Business Insider, numbers of asylum applications have dropped to pre-immigration wave levels.

From the NL Times, a suspect in an alleged gang rape in Antwerp, Belgium confesses.

From Russia Today, Palestinian President Abbas seems to regard the U.S. ambassador to Israel as a young canine.

From Sputnik International, a Swedish rapper wonders what happened to his country.

From The Record, opponents of a Muslim center in Ontario cannot remain anonymous.

From The Times Of India, a teacher causes outrage by comparing women's chests to sliced watermelon.

From the Daily Mail, a German court rules against a Muslim woman's attempt to overturn Germany's ban on driving while wearing face coverings.

From Gatestone Institute, the migrant rape crisis in Germany is still going on.

From National Review, "the Confederate mind" is alive and well.

From FrontpageMag, watch out for the government fusion centers.

From the New York Post, according to astronomers, the object known as Oumuamua likely came from a binary star system.

From Page Six, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle choose their wedding cake.

From the Journal Sentinel, five weird things up for auction at the bar Von Trier.

And from The Babylon Bee, a man on a Holy Land tour is befuddled that he is not in the United States.

Monday Mania

It's just another manic Monday, so I must report some of the bah-DAH-bah-dah-Dah-duh.  Oh wait, that's mixing my Monday musical metaphors.  But whether you're a fan of the Bangles (or Prince, who wrote that one) or of the Mamas and the Papas, here are some things going on:

From NBC News, a woman in Tuscon, Arizona has been killed by a self-driving Uber.

From the Rockville Patch, it looks like snow is headed for yours truly, right here in Maryland.  (Well, since SUVs such as mine are to blame, I guess I had it coming.)

From Fox News, the explosions which have gone off around Austin, Texas may be the work of a serial bomber.  (The Red Fox Blogger put this into the chatroom of her BTR show.)

From Townhall, it's good to drive the left nuts.

From Politico, the U.K. and the E.U. reach a transitional Brexit deal.  (via Voice Of Europe)

From Business Insider, Scottish Tories threaten to vote against the Brexit deal over fishing rights.

From Voice Of Europe, hospital nurses in Bielefeld, Germany have been attacked and verbally abused by migrants.  (If you read German, read the story at Neue Westfälische.)

From Breitbart London, a British woman who went to Syria to fight against ISIS has been killed in an airstrike believed to have been carried out by Turkish forces.

From Deutsche Welle, Germany talks to refugees about sex.

From El País, 33 Spanish provinces are expecting snow.  (Is someone over there driving an SUV?)

From Sputnik International, the leader of Denmark's Social Democratic Party is criticized for suggesting that a Somalian-Danish Facebook commenter should be grateful for being in Denmark.

From The Local SE, thousands of refugee children in the process of being deported from Sweden have gone missing.

From ZeroHedge, Germany's new interior minister wants the Schengen Agreement to be suspended.

From Euractiv, Germany's chancellor will meet today with Poland's president and prime minister.  (Due to the time difference, this has probably already happened by the time I post this.)

From National Review, contrary to popular opinion, recently fired FBI director McCabe will not lose his pension.

From FrontpageMag, Robert Spencer explains why Muslim persecution of Christians has recently gotten worse.

From Kent Online, a man who drove his car into a nightclub in Gravesend, England has been charged with attempted murder.

From Gatestone Institute, France slouches toward Islam and away from free speech.

From the New York Post, Maryland authorities seize horses left alive on a farm where others had died or were starving.

From Page Six, singer Selena Gomez enjoys her post-Bieber life.

From NBC12, if you're willing to lecture about white chocolate, you'll be paid in bagels.  (Getting hungry yet?)

And from Newsweek, on an airplane, orgies are not allowed.