Month: September 2017

More Absurd ‘Trump’s Great Wall’ Proposals

Markosun Bizarre, Drugs

Donald Trump Makes Nonsensical Statement About Border Wall, Says It Must Be Transparent So People Aren’t Hurt By Falling Drugs

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Solar wall

Donald Trump said in July his administration is considering equipping his proposed border wall with solar panels to generate electricity, and explained why the border wall must be see-through.

A reporter on board Air Force One on the way to France, asked Trump whether he was joking about building a “solar wall.”

“No, not joking, no. There is a chance that we can do a solar wall. We have major companies looking at that,” replied Trump.

Trump added that “there is a very good chance” a solar wall could be built, and that “there’s no better place for solar than the Mexico border — the southern border.”

Trump said the wall would have to be see-through, a demand that’s been made by some Border Patrol officials who patrol the border.

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Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary John Kelly told Congress in February that officers under his command had asked for a barrier through which they could see the other side.

“You have to be able to see through it. In other words, if you can’t see through that wall — so it could be a steel wall with openings, but you have to have openings because you have to see what’s on the other side of the wall,” said Trump Thursday.

Another see through wall idea

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“And I’ll give you an example,” Trump started. “As horrible as it sounds, when they throw the large sacks of drugs over, and if you have people on the other side of the wall, you don’t see them — they hit you on the head with 60 pounds of stuff? It’s over.”

“As cray (sic) as that sounds, you need transparency through that wall,” Trump concluded. “But we have some incredible designs.”

Trump also admitted that his proposed wall wouldn’t cover the entire 2,000-mile border, an apparent reversal from earlier positions.

“And remember this, it’s a 2,000-mile border, but you don’t need 2,000 miles of wall because you have a lot of natural barriers. You have mountains. You have some rivers that are violent and vicious. You have some areas that are so far away that you don’t really have people crossing. So you don’t need that,” said Trump.

Current real wall in California

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Very Early, and Very Bad Movie Special Effects

Markosun Movies, Science Fiction

Turner Classic Movies had a run of 1950’s and 1960’s science fiction movies. I took a look at Cosmic Monsters, The Green Slime and Queen of Outer Space. They fit into a capital B category for B-movies. Even though the special effects are primitive, in relation to today’s standards, and funny, we have to give the film makers credit for trying. The Green Slime effects are actually pretty good.

Image below is unrelated. But it is so cool.

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North Korea Accuses Trump of Declaring War on Twitter

Markosun Geopolitics

What’s next? Trump is all over the board. Calling world leaders madmen, then flipping back to his war with the NFL.

North Korea’s foreign minister has accused US President Donald Trump of declaring war on his country and said Pyongyang had the right to shoot down US bombers.

Ri Yong-ho said this could apply even if the warplanes were not in North Korea’s airspace.

The White House dismissed the statement as “absurd”. The Pentagon warned Pyongyang to stop provocations.

A UN spokesman said fiery talk could lead to fatal misunderstandings.

Mr Ri’s comments were a response to Mr. Trump’s tweet that the North Korean leadership would not “be around much longer” if they continued their rhetoric.

“The whole world should clearly remember it was the US who first declared war on our country,” Mr Ri told reporters as he was leaving New York, where he had addressed the UN General Assembly on Saturday.

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One little faux pas and it’s off to the hard labor gulag.

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“Since the United States declared war on our country, we will have every right to make counter-measures, including the right to shoot down United States strategic bombers even when they are not inside the airspace border of our country.”

Mr Trump’s tweet followed Mr Ri’s fiery speech to the UN on Saturday, when he described the US president as a “mentally deranged person full of megalomania” on a “suicide mission”.

The latest North Korean threat to shoot down US warplanes comes in the wake of a recent US patrol that took its B1-B Lancer bombers and their accompanying F-15 fighter escorts over waters to the east of North Korea – the furthest north US warplanes have flown for several months, albeit still outside Pyongyang’s airspace.

The US believes it has every right to do this but if one day Pyongyang judges that these aircraft are on an offensive mission – what then?

US Bombers Fly Near Military Demarcation Line Between Two Koreas

Airplane Movie Jive Dudes

Markosun Movies

Airplane! (titled Flying High! in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Japan and the Philippines) is a 1980 American satirical parody film directed and written by David and Jerry Zucker as well as Jim Abrahams, and produced by Jon Davison. It stars Robert Hays and Julie Hagerty and features Leslie Nielsen, Robert Stack, Lloyd Bridges, Peter Graves, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Lorna Patterson. The film is a parody of the disaster film genre, particularly the 1957 Paramount film Zero Hour!, from which it borrows the plot and the central characters, as well as many elements from Airport 1975. The film is known for its use of surreal humor and its fast-paced slapstick comedy, including visual and verbal puns and gags.

First Jive Dude: Shiiiiit, maaaaan. That honky muf’ be messin’ mah old lady… got to be runnin’ cold upside down his head, you know?
Second Jive Dude: Hey home’, I can dig it. Know ain’t gonna lay no mo’ big rap up on you, man!
First Jive Dude: I say hey, sky… subba say I wan’ see…
Second Jive Dude: Uh-huh.
First Jive Dude: …pray to J I did the same ol’ same ol’!
Second Jive Dude: Hey… knock a self a pro, Slick! That gray matter backlot perform us DOWN, I take TCB-in’, man!
First Jive Dude: Hey, you know what they say: see a broad to get dat booty yak ’em…
First Jive Dude, Second Jive Dude: …leg ‘er down a smack ’em yak ’em!
First Jive Dude: COL’ got to be! Y’know? Shiiiiit.

Randy: Can I get you something?
Second Jive Dude: ‘S’mofo butter layin’ me to da’ BONE! Jackin’ me up… tight me!
Randy: I’m sorry, I don’t understand.
First Jive Dude: Cutty say ‘e can’t HANG!
Jive Lady: Oh stewardess! I speak jive.
Randy: Oh, good.
Jive Lady: He said that he’s in great pain and he wants to know if you can help him.
Randy: All right. Would you tell him to just relax and I’ll be back as soon as I can with some medicine?
Jive Lady: Jus’ hang loose, blood. She gonna catch ya up on da’ rebound on da’ med side.
Second Jive Dude: What it is, big mama? My mama no raise no dummies. I dug her rap!
Jive Lady: Cut me some slack, Jack! Chump don’ want no help, chump don’t GET da’ help!
First Jive Dude: Say ‘e can’t hang, say seven up!
Jive Lady: Jive ass dude don’t got no brains anyhow! Hmmph!

Kids from around the World with their favourite Toys

Markosun World

Italian photographer Gabriele Galimberti is always traveling the world in search of adventure, good stories, and interesting people. For his latest project entitled “Toy Stories”, Galimberti photographed children from around the world with their most prized possesion. He did not expect to uncover much we did not already know. “At their age, they are pretty all much the same,” is his conclusion after 18 months working on the project. “They just want to play.”

But it’s how they play that seemed to differ from country to country. Galimberti found that children in richer countries were more possessive with their toys. “At the beginning, they wouldn’t want me to touch their toys, and I would need more time before they would let me play with them,” says the Italian photographer. “In poor countries, it was much easier. Even if they only had two or three toys, they didn’t really care. In Africa, the kids would mostly play with their friends outside.”

However, there are many similarities in which the kids regard their toys, especially when it comes to their function. Galimberti met a six-year-old boy in Texas and a four-year-old girl in Malawi who both maintained their plastic dinosaurs would protect them from the dangers that await them at night. More common was how the toys reflected the world each child was born into – the girl from an affluent Mumbai family loves Monopoly, because she likes the idea of building houses and hotels, while the boy from rural Mexico loves trucks, because he sees them rumbling through his village to the nearby sugar plantation every day. A Lativian kid plays with miniature cars because his mother drove a taxi, while the daughter of an Italian farmer has an assortment of plastic rakes, hoes and spades.

Working for Toy Stories, Galimberti learned as much about the parents as he learned about the children. Parents from the Middle East and Asia, he found, would push their children to be photographed even if they were initially nervous or upset, while South American parents were “really relaxed, and said I could do whatever I wanted as long as their child didn’t mind”.

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Watcharapom – Bangkok, Thailand

 

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Stella – Montecchio, Italy

 

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Ralf – Riga, Latvia

 

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Botlhe – Maun, Botswana

 

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Orly – Brownsville, Texas

 

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Noel – Dallas, Texas

 

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Maudy – Kalulushi, Zambia

 

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Li Yi Chen – Shenyang, China

 

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Chiwa – Mchinji, Malawi

 

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Davide – La Valletta, Malta

 

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Cun Zi Yi – Chongqing, China

 

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Arafa & Aisha – Bububu, Zanzibar

 

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Tyra – Stockholm, Sweden

Trump and Kim call each other mad

Markosun Geopolitics

Kim Jong-un has said remarks by “mentally deranged dotard” US President Donald Trump have convinced him he is right to develop weapons for North Korea.

In an unprecedented personal statement, Mr Kim said Mr Trump would “pay dearly” for a UN speech where he threatened to “totally destroy” the North if the US was forced to defend itself.

Mr Trump responded that the “madman… will be tested like never before”.

The two countries have engaged in ever more heated rhetoric in recent months.

China responded to the war of words, warning that the situation was “complicated and sensitive”.

“All relevant parties should exercise restraint instead of provoking each other,” said Foreign Minister spokesman Lu Kang.

Russia also urged restraint. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow was “deeply concerned by an escalation of tensions”.

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