Quote:The Liberty Manifesto

May 6, 1993 • Speeches
By P.J. O’Rourke

The Cato Institute has an unusual political cause — which is no political cause whatsoever. We are here tonight to dedicate ourselves to that cause, to dedicate ourselves, in other words, to … nothing.

We have no ideology, no agenda, no catechism, no dialectic, no plan for humanity. We have no “vision thing,” as our ex‐president would say, or, as our current president would say, we have no Hillary.

All we have is the belief that people should do what people want to do, unless it causes harm to other people. And that had better be clear and provable harm. No nonsense about second‐hand smoke or hurtful, insensitive language, please.

I don’t know what’s good for you. You don’t know what’s good for me. We don’t know what’s good for mankind. And it sometimes seems as though we’re the only people who don’t. It may well be that, gathered right here in this room tonight,are all the people in the world who don’t want to tell all the people in the world what to do.

This is because we believe in freedom. Freedom — what this country was established upon, what the Constitution was written to defend, what the Civil War was fought to perfect.

Freedom is not empowerment. Empowerment is what the Serbs have in Bosnia. Anybody can grab a gun and be empowered. It’s not entitlement. An entitlement is what people on welfare get, and how free are they? It’s not an endlessly expanding list of rights — the “right” to education, the “right” to health care, the “right” to food and housing. That’s not freedom, that’s dependency. Those aren’t rights, those are the rations of slavery — hay and a barn for human cattle.

There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.

So we are here tonight in a kind of anti‐matter protest — an unpolitical undemonstration by deeply uncommitted inactivists. We are part of a huge invisible picket line that circles the White House twenty‐four hours a day. We are participants in an enormous non‐march on Washington — millions and millions of Americans not descending upon the nation’s capital in order to demand nothing from the United States government. To demand nothing, that is, except the one thing which no government in history has been able to do — leave us alone.

There are just two rules of governance in a free society:

• Mind your own business.
  
• Keep your hands to yourself.
  

Bill, keep your hands to yourself. Hillary, mind your own business.

We have a group of incredibly silly people in the White House right now, people who think government works. Or that government would work, if you got some real bright young kids from Yale to run it.

We’re being governed by dorm room bull session. The Clinton administration is over there right now pulling an all‐nighter in the West Wing. They think that, if they can just stay up late enough, they can create a healthy economy and bring peace to former Yugoslavia.

The Clinton administration is going to decrease government spending by increasing the amount of money we give to the government to spend.

Health care is too expensive, so the Clinton administration is putting a high‐powered corporate lawyer in charge of making it cheaper. (This is what I always do when I want to spend less money — hire a lawyer from Yale.) If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it’s free.

The Clinton administration is putting together a program so that college graduates can work to pay off their school tuition. As if this were some genius idea. It’s called getting a job. Most folks do that when they get out of college, unless, of course, they happen to become governor of Arkansas.

And the Clinton administration launched an attack on people in Texas because those people were religious nuts with guns. Hell, this country was founded by religious nuts with guns. Who does Bill Clinton think stepped ashore on Plymouth Rock? Peace Corps volunteers? Or maybe the people in Texas were attacked because of child abuse. But, if child abuse was the issue, why didn’t Janet Reno tear‐gas Woody Allen?

You know, if government were a product, selling it would be illegal.

Government is a health hazard. Governments have killed many more people than cigarettes or unbuckled seat belts ever have.

Government contains impure ingredients — as anybody who’s looked at Congress can tell you.

On the basis of Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign promises, I think we can say government practices deceptive advertising.

And the merest glance at the federal budget is enough to convict the government of perjury, extortion, and fraud.
There, ladies and gentlemen, you have the Cato Institute’s program in a nutshell: government should be against the law.

Term limits aren’t enough. We need jail.

The Liberty Manifesto

Quote:Patrick Jake O'Rourke (November 14, 1947 – February 15, 2022) was an American libertarian political satirist and journalist. O'Rourke was the H. L. Mencken Research Fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute and a regular correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, The American Spectator, and The Weekly Standard, and frequent panelist on National Public Radio's game show Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! He was a columnist at The Daily Beast from 2011 to 2016.

From 1990 to 1993, O'Rourke was married to Amy Lumet, a daughter of movie director Sidney Lumet and a granddaughter of Lena Mary Calhoun Horne.

Lena was reportedly descended from the John C. Calhoun family; his nephew, Dr Andrew Bonaparte Calhoun, "owned the slaves whose descendants include... Horne".

There's a place between England and Scotland where the eternal need to grab a neighbour's
land doesn't need to use pew-pews.

Might have a modern day 'Patton' as an Air Force General or psychological Go-Pills.

Quote:The head of the U.S. Air Force's Air Mobility Command, Gen. Mike Minihan, has issued an ominous warning about a looming future high-end conflict against China, likely over Taiwan. In response, he is ordering leadership under his command to work to ensure their units are as prepared as they can be for this potentiality. This goes right down to demanding that various personnel visit the shooting range to make clear that "unrepentant lethality matters most," with Minihan imploring them to "aim for the head."

These remarks and others from Minihan are included in a two-page internal memo, seen below, that has emerged on social media. TSgt. Zachary Boyer, a spokesperson for Air Mobility Command (AMC), confirmed to The War Zone that this document, which is future-dated February 1, is indeed authentic. AMC oversees the bulk of the Air Force's aerial refueling tankers and cargo aircraft, among other responsibilities.

"I hope I am wrong. My gut tells me we will fight in 2025. [Chinese President] Xi [Jinping] secured his third term and set his war council in October 2022," Minihan's memo says bluntly by way of introduction. "Taiwan's presidential elections are in 2024 and will offer Xi a reason. [The] United States' presidential elections are in 2024 and will offer Xi a distracted America. Xi's team, reason, and opportunity are all aligned for 2025."

"We spent 2022 setting the foundation for victory," he adds. "We will spend 2023 in crisp operational motion building on that foundation."

Still, AMC needs to "go faster," Minihan continues, adding that this will be the first of at least eight monthly directives from him. "Drive readiness, integration, and agility for ourselves and the Joint Force to deter, and if required, defeat China" (emphasis in the original).

A slide showing the OT&E requirements identified during the Fall PHOENIX Rally event, which took place last year, lists numerous organizational, training, and equipment-related items. Only one item, "Go-Pills," a term used to describe stimulants prescribed to pilots and other aircrew for very long duration missions, is marked with a green check mark, denoting it was already being "Completed / Ready for implementation" at that time. A number of others, including organization efforts to further improve "max endurance" and the acquisition of equipment related to things like "palletized munitions" are marked with yellow checks to indicate "In-Work / Some level has been accomplished."



There are also a number of unchecked boxes. These include a separate mention of palletized munitions operations in the training category, as well as equipment to help with things like "theater ballistic missile awareness" and command and control.

The most intriguing part mentions work on a concept for how to launch around 100 commercial-of-the-shelf drones from a KC-135 aerial refueling tanker. TSgt. Boyer, the AMC spokesperson, told The War Zone that is nothing to add "at this time" about the KC-135 drone launcher concept plans.
...
"I’m not interested in being the best Air Force on the planet," he said in a statement included in the recent 60th Air Mobility Wing's story about personnel training with their M4s. "I’m interested in being the most lethal force the world has ever known."

How inventive is this !!??

Apollo 1, initially designated AS-204, was intended to be the first crewed mission of the Apollo program, the American undertaking to land the first man on the Moon. It was planned to launch on February 21, 1967, as the first low Earth orbital test of the Apollo command and service module. The mission never flew; a cabin fire during a launch rehearsal test at Cape Kennedy Air Force Station Launch Complex 34 on January 27 killed all three crew members. Command Pilot Gus Grissom, Senior Pilot Ed White, and Pilot Roger B. Chaffee, and destroyed the command module (CM). The name Apollo 1, chosen by the crew, was made official by NASA in their honor after the fire.


NY Times, Jan 28, 1967:




(Top) Hours before tragedy, Apollo crew walks to spacecraft, Cape Kennedy, today 1967:


(Bottom) Apollo 1 crew was privately skeptical of the safety of the spacecraft's design and made fun of their skepticism by "praying" in this uncirculated photo, intended to be a joke but now ghastly in light of the tragedy that unfolded.


NASA photograph of Apollo spacecraft after tragedy of tonight 1967:




Patch for planned Apollo 1 mission:



Apollo 1 astronauts Roger Chaffee and Ed White, rehearsing in June 1966 for splashdown:




Horrifying to see in retrospect, Chrysler quality and safety poster featuring Apollo 1 crew:




Note handed to LBJ at White House:



LBJ's condolence letter to Roger Chaffee's parents:




Remember Apollo 1's Grissom, White, Chaffee, who perished today in 1967:




CBS special report announces death of Apollo astronauts in fire, tonight 1967:






NASA DAY OF REMEMBRANCE

Another first from Brien Foerster as Yousef gives him a tour of the square stone shafts carved into stone that are 3 levels deep under the Giza Plateau! 

Yousef explains when he was young he and his friens used to play in these shafts and even swim in some of them ( I assume he meant the parts that are closest to the Sphinx since that was the closest part to water at one time.

They explore the first 2 levels but Bien chickens out when Yousef  offers to take him down to the third (I bet Brien regrets that decision now in hindsight.)  
 

At 19:30 in this video, Yousef explains when he was a child his Father had showed him how the cracks between the blocks on the causeway could swallow sand all day long and never get full, and apparently that is still the case today, as he demonstrates

!

I have watched Bien Foerster videos for several years now as his guide Yousef takes him a lot of interesting places off the beaten path and explains things about famous places not generally known.

In this video he explores the wondrous place called The Serepeum with amaing huge stone boxes.

In this episode he goes into detail about one particular box that displays different level of workmanship on the outside.

At the 10:00 minute mark he points out a clear liquid that has dried that apparently was used to polish the granite.




During one of Briens livestreams I asked him if they had ever had that clear liquid analyzed.

He replied 'it is Bitumen'.

I found that a bit odd because Bitumen is always found as a black viscous liquid. After pondering it for a while the only thing I could conclude was this has to be a very concentrated version of it.

Team member Sander provides us with some very interesting examples of what NASA said were 'Ice Crystals' -