More Linky Links

 More stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- Could Turkey's move on Greece's Aegean islands blow up NATO? Interesting.

- Jonathan Turley: Supreme Court delivers blow to transgender cases.

- Physics is stranger then you can imagine.

- Peter Attia: What are the benefits of fasting?

Turkey Lifts Objections to Finland and Sweden Joining NATO

Turkey on Tuesday after negotiations lifted its objection to Finland and Sweden joining NATO. Any support for the Kurdish people in Turkey was the price of admission. When the full details of the negotiations are known I wonder how history will judge this transaction?

As for me - I would have agreed to let Norway and Sweden in but only if we got to kick Canada out as long as they have Justin Trudeau as PM.

Trump, the Democrats, Syria and Iran

Interesting article that claims that President Trump may have prevented a war with Iran by withdrawing our troops from Syria. This paragraph really got my attention (and my blood pressure up):

"People should remember that in the height of the Nixon Watergate Impeachment tumult during late 1973/early 1974 culminating in Nixon's resignation in August 1974, the North Vietnamese reneged on the Nixon Paris Peace Accords, and Saigon fell soon thereafter, in April 1975. G-d only knows what will happen because of Democrats' paralyzing of an American President while the world is in flames."

Now I hesitate to draw any comparisons between Trump and Nixon and I would also hesitate to use the description that "the world is in flames" but there's a special place in hell for those of either political party who claim to be acting on behalf of world peace or downtrodden folks in foreign lands when they are only acting in the interests of their own domestic political agenda. A special place in hell!

Do you remember the plight of the "boat people"?

Remember how eager the press was to hear from General Mattis prior to his recent book tour when they thought he was going to speak badly about President Trump? Remember how quickly they dropped any interest in him when they learned it was President Obama who was slammed in the new book?

Remember the 24/7 news cycle about how "Trump was abandoning the Kurds" and the predicted horrors that awaited those poor people? Can you remember any of those horrors coming to pass? And you know if they did come to pass it would have been an orgy of coverage. Instead we got fake news footage from a  Kentucky shooting range. 

Remember how Libya is now a failed nation-state because of the actions of President Obama and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton? Slavery is now an accepted practice in what used to be Libya! Talk about horrors (horrors you won't learn about on the MSM).

I remember! And I hope you do too! A SPECIAL PLACE IN HELL!

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- Shut Up and Soldier. All I can say to this is Amen

- The Beat Daddys cover of the Beverly Hillbillies. Love this!

- Victor Davis Hanson with a sobering look at our alliance with Turkey

- How to look and sound confident during a presentation.

- Analysis - True!

- 12 Management Thoughts. Numbers 8, 9, and 10 really resonated with me.

- China now burns more coal than all other countries combined. But they signed on to the Paris Accords so I guess everything's OK.

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- Good for Shaq. "Daryl Morey was right."

- Interesting perspective on the situation in Syria and our handling of Turkey.

- CRISPR gene editing just got a major upgrade (but it's still not perfect)

- Interesting - what it's like to take an investment meeting with Naval Ravikant

- Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin announces plan to get back to the Moon by 2024. In my opinion the USA only gets back to the Moon in a timely fashion if Blue Origin or Elon Musk's SpaceX is involved.

- 15 habits of "lucky" people.

- So how close are we to the almost unlimited energy of nuclear fusion - at least 15-years away.

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- "Get up! Begin your day!" Steven Pressfield

- The woke NBA keeps looking worse and worse. The Trailblazers bow to anti-Semitic pressure.

- Heh Heh

- The situation with China would effect both the owners and players in the NBA since potential loss of the Chinese revenue would negatively impact the salary cap.

- WTF? I don't want to believe in UFO's but I also don't want to ignore the evidence

- What's the latest in poker's biggest cheating scandal? A $10 million lawsuit.

- Turkey and the Kurds: Its more complicated than you think

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- This actually looks pretty cool (and what great free advertising for AirBnB)

- Interesting man. Interesting story. Interesting history.

- Thanks a lot Canada! Canadian senator's report accidentally reveals locations of US nuclear weapons in Europe. Or maybe the information was leaked to pressure the US to get those nukes out of unstable Turkey? So - thanks Canada?

-  Your obligatory will Rob Gronkowski un-retire speculation.

- The lone Mustang pilot who held off 30 fighters from attacking B-17's for over half an hour. "It was a case of what seemed to be one lone American against the entire Luftwaffe." Where do we find such men?

- Richard Feynman explains math.

- Why can't we be more like the Swiss?

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- NATO turns 70-years old this week. Austin Bay has a nice summary of what NATO means today. He doesn't mention Turkey and I'm not sure if Turkey still belongs in NATO

- China's economy is hurting and a trade deal with the US can't come soon enough. Keep in mind that an agreement for North Korea to give up their nukes will probably be part of such a deal.

- Israel becomes just the 7th nation to orbit the moon. The Beresheet spacecraft is not only in orbit but on April 11th it will attempt to land on the moon which would make it the first privately funded craft to do so. Only the US, Russia and China have landed a craft on the surface of the moon before.

- America F*ck Yeah!

- The miracle that is the smartphone

- So basically agreeing to do one of those ancestry DNA tests is the same as agreeing to giving your DNA to the FBI

- Janties? WTF

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- Is Oumuamua an ancient alien solar sail visiting our solar system?

-  Heh Heh

- Limiting factors: what's holding you back?

- AI surveillance in China is already going beyond any Big Brother imaginings in 1984

- History will not be kind to the FBI investigation of Trump

- Old time hockey!

- Serious question - why is Turkey still  member of NATO? Read this and tell me it isn't time to cut ties with this regime.

What's Going on in Syria?

President Trump announced that he plans to pull US military forces out of Syria. The critics immediately speculated that this will create a power vacuum that will be filled by Russia, Iran or Turkey - all outcomes with negative connotations for US interests. The withdrawal from Syria also seemed to be the final straw for General Mattis who announced his resignation.

But into the vacuum caused by the US's impending withdrawal is stepping Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. France is also vowing to send troops to protect the Kurds in Syria.

To my untrained eye this seems to be good developments. The US troops are taken out of harms way in a country where the US doesn't seem to have any national interests at stake.

Saudi Arabian and UAE troops counterbalance Russia in that the Russian economy is based on petrodollars and creating wider issues with two of the largest oil producing nations is in no way in Russian national interest, especially over Syria. Meanwhile French troop counterbalance Turkey because both are NATO members and if Turkish and French troops engage each other it in no ways obligates the US into action.

That's the way my untrained eye sees it.

Some pundits seem to see it similarly. 

Others argue that the wider struggle is against Iran and pulling out of Syria is harmful to our success in that struggle. I cannot say that this is incorrect. Iran is our enemy.

A complicated situation to say the least.

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- Where do we find such men

- Why alcohol is the secret to humanity's success (long read)

- Socialism and autocratic rule by one man, first Chavez and now Maduro, have turned Venezuela into a shithole.

- And it looks like Turkey wants to follow the same path. Except of course they'll blame the Jews when the economy tanks.

- Organic solar cells the next big thing?

- Zdeno Chara is still the Bruins best defensemen. He's the 3rd best defenseman in Boston's history and a sure Hall of Famer. And even at 40 - there's nobody in the NHL who wants to fight Chara.

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- Slack is raising $400 million with a projected post money valuation of $7 billion. I feel so stupid for not knowing anything about Slack.

- Cool - looks like the opening to a John Carpenter film

- The country of Turkey is not in a good place right now. We should also cancel their order of new F-35 fighters.

- This story on Sean Young just makes my soul ache. I hope she's able to put her life together.

- An economist does a mea culpa. Good for him.

- New cloaking technology getting closer to reality. Hurry please because our Space Force is going to need this to fight galactic Predators

- Heh Heh

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- Anyone familiar with this browser called Brave? Tim Ferris is trying it out but curious if anyone else has (I hesitate to move off of Google Chrome)

- How can you not like Tim Tebow?

- New study says fracking does not impact water supplies.

- Space trash is one of my secret concerns.

- Interesting

- Knick's center Enes Kanter's father indicted in Turkey on "terrorism" charges. Enos Kanter is prohibited from returning to Turkey. Terrorism is in scare quotes because this looks to be politically motivated charges.

- Good to know!

Heroes Who Walk the Earth

Abdullah Shrim has helped free hundreds held by ISIS. You can't help but be full of admiration for this man. A man who risks his life doing what he think is right and what his conscience tells him he MUST do.

"But I think my life is worth nothing compared to a tear from the eye of a 12-year-old girl who has been raped." - Abdullah Shrim

ISIS must and will be destroyed. Our nation also must re-evaluate our relationship with Turkey who either is turning a blind eye to this human slavery or is assisting it.

The United States should be helping people like Abdullah Shrim. And our help MUST be much more tangible than pathetically frowning and holding signs.

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- Interesting - why the turtle developed his shell (and it wasn't for defense)

- If you play Pokemon Go please give this some consideration

- Pretty sobering statistics

- Good description of the failed coup in Turkey

- The Patriots press release regarding the end of Deflategate

- Good business advice from Mark Cuban

Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.

For the next few weeks I'm purposefully going to be that super annoying guy who keeps asking, "So got your Christmas shopping done yet?"... This is true - Turkey remembers... Who knew? Great Britain was once the world champion of ice hockey. They won the Gold Medal in hockey at the 1936 Winter Olympics...  Just a reminder - Russia and Turkey have a quite a history of not getting along... Barack Obama - Less Competent than Carter and More Paranoid than Nixon". Wish that could fit on a bumper sticker... Heh heh - "Revis Island"... I think LSU would be crazy to fire Les Miles. If he wins this weekend he'll have pretty much the exact same record that Nick Saban had at LSU (49-15 for Miles vs 48-16 for Saban). If anything get the man better coordinators. Where's Les Miles version of Lane Kiffen on offense?... Cool quick cartoon explanation of Einstein's Theory of General Relativity...