US Army Retired

US Army Retired

Friday, December 27, 2019

The “Secret” behind MyPillow, The Past Decade Has Been The Best In Human History, Digital necromancy: The growing business of resurrecting dead stars, The 10 best PC games of 2019 and a lot more great stuff for December 27, 2019


The Past Decade Has Been The Best In Human History
But we’ve got all these wars! Floods, massive wildfires. Millions displaced because of religious intolerance. How can this be?
Let nobody tell you that the second decade of the 21st century has been a bad time. We are living through the greatest improvement in human living standards in history. Extreme poverty has fallen below 10 percent of the world’s population for the first time. It was 60 percent when I was born. Global inequality has been plunging as Africa and Asia experience faster economic growth than Europe and North America; child mortality has fallen to record low levels; famine virtually went extinct; malaria, polio and heart disease are all in decline.
Little of this made the news, because good news is no news. But I’ve been watching it all closely. Ever since I wrote The Rational Optimist in 2010, I’ve been faced with ‘what about…’ questions: what about the great recession, the euro crisis, Syria, Ukraine, Donald Trump? How can I possibly say that things are getting better, given all that? The answer is: because bad things happen while the world still gets better. Yet get better it does, and it has done so over the course of this decade at a rate that has astonished even starry-eyed me.
I totally agree with the following:
WNU Editor: The above post is from a British prospective. But looking at it from a global vantage spot, there are still many trouble spots, conflicts, widespread poverty, and social upheavals. BUT .... IMHO the world is in a better place today than what it was a decade ago. The reason being is the expansion and availability of education, economic efficiencies, and the benefits of new technologies.

Digital necromancy: The growing business of resurrecting dead stars
They're back! Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia in the Star Wars films, James Dean in a Vietnam War epic, or Amy Winehouse touring as a hologram. But is it always a good idea to digitally resurrect dead celebrities?
Right out of the grave onto your movie or massive TV screen. There are 10 pictures of them here. And they brought back James Dean!
Makes me wonder. Will big-name actors now film stuff that can be used after they croak?

Eating chilies cuts risk of death from heart attack and stroke
First they tell me coffee is good for my heart and now this. What else will they come up with that I truly enjoy.
Did you know that chilis originated in Mexico? Along with corn?
Not everyone is thrilled with the study.
"This type of relationship suggests that chilies may be just a marker for some other dietary or lifestyle factor that hasn't been accounted for but, to be fair, this kind of uncertainty is usually present in epidemiological studies, and the authors do acknowledge this," said Johnson.

Virginia forms active militia to protect sheriffs, citizens from unconstitutional laws
Not just an attack on the Right to Bear Arms, but far worse. Check this out:
Known as SB64, the bill, according to Self Defense Company, would “instantly transform all martial arts instructors into criminal felons.” They also claim that it would criminalize all firearms training classes, including concealed carry classes.
According to SDC, the law would “even criminalize a father teaching his own son how to use a hunting rifle.”
The law, which was initially passed in 1987 relates the following:
A person is guilty of unlawful paramilitary activity, punishable as a Class 5 felony if he:
Teaches, demonstrates to any other person the use, application or making of any firearm, explosive or incendiary device, or technique capable of causing injury or death to persons, knowing or having reason to know or intending that such training will be employed for use in, or in furtherance of, a civil disorder;
Assembles with one or more persons for the purpose of training with, practicing with, or being instructed in the use of any firearm, explosive or incendiary device, or technique capable of causing injury or death to persons, intending to employ such training for use in, or in furtherance of, a civil disorder;
SB 64 adds the following language:
Assembles with one or more persons with the intent of intimidating any person or group of persons by drilling, parading, or marching with any firearm, any explosive or incendiary device, or any components or combination thereof.
How do the citizens of Virginia vote these freedom-hating Leftists into office? I just don’t understand it.
More about this @ fromthetrenchesworldreport
Virginia Now Has 95 Second Amendment Sanctuaries (And More To Come) @ https://bearingarms.com/came/2019/12/17/virginia-now-has-95-second-amendment-sanctuaries-and-more-to-come/

Destruction Of The Family
The U.S. Has The Highest Rate Of Children Living With A Single Parent In The Entire World
The following comes from Pew Research…
For decades, the share of U.S. children living with a single parent has been rising, accompanied by a decline in marriage rates and a rise in births outside of marriage. A new Pew Research Center study of 130 countries and territories shows that the U.S. has the world’s highest rate of children living in single-parent households.
Almost a quarter of U.S. children under the age of 18 live with one parent and no other adults (23%), more than three times the share of children around the world who do so (7%).
And here comes an interesting point:
Of course it wasn’t always this way. If you go back to 1960, less than 10 percent of all American children lived with a single parent…
And then, it asks, “What happened?”
My response...Women’s Lib!
Well, this article claims television, movies, the education system, and most politicians assure us that it’s okay to run around like wild animals doing whatever we like doing.
The end results are discouraging. Children raised in poverty and lower educational goals. And a lower fertility rate.
There is no future for any society that does not value children, marriage and family. You can’t show me one example in human history of any society that has ever thrived for an extended period of time without cherishing those institutions.
So, what do we do to turn it around?

The Middle East ‘peace process’ has been a sham from the beginning”
So it’s a plug for a new book. Could it be that the author finally gets the whole thing right?
“Spencer shows that the so-called Middle East ‘peace process,’ often championed by the United States, has been a sham from the beginning because most of the Arab-Muslim world has refused to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a nation.”
Of course it’s been a sham. Is there any sane person anywhere in the world who doesn’t know that?
Spencer claims that there are no such people as Palestinians; they are not the indigenous people of the area that they claim to be. “There is no trace of support for such an idea in history,” he writes. “No archeological evidence, or evidence of any other kind has been found to substantiate a link between the ancient Canaanites or Jebusites and the modern-day Palestinians.”
Instead, Spencer continues, “[t]he land that is now the State of Israel corresponds roughly to the lands known in ancient times as Judea, Samaria, Idumea, and Galilee, and was inhabited by Jews.”
The Palestinians, according to Spencer, are an “invented people.” The term “Palestinians,” he writes, was invented by the Soviet KGB and its Arab allies in the 1960s to use as a weapon against Israel. Indeed, prior to Israel’s takeover of the West Bank of the Jordan River in the Six Day War of 1967, few if any Arab leaders championed the “rights” of the Palestinians to statehood.
That’s also nothing new. Informed people have been claiming this for endless decades.

New Army 70km+ range super cannon
Leaked photos show the new self-propelled howitzer that will be designated M1299.
And then, it comes up with this:
 

Obama Wanted To Know Everything His Trump Spies Were Doing,
And It Looks Like He Did
There’s no way under the sun that the Chief Executive of the United States did not know that senior DOJ and FBI personnel were spying on the Trump Campaign. Especially when he saw it to be such a serious threat to his hand-picked successor.
There’s a whole lot to the article but it points to too many senior Obama advisors knowing about the spying for him to be left in the dark.
Comey’s FBI and The Legacy of Corruption @ https://www.judicialwatch.org/in-the-news/127245/

There are more than 40 million enslaved people across the world.
This is not exactly news. It’s just that the world’s media chooses to underplay or ignore it.
Of the 40.3 million people considered to be modern slaves, 24.9 million are exploited through forced labor, while 15.4 million are the victims of forced marriage, the vast majority of whom are women and children, who live in servitude through inherited debts.
The first group is made up of women and men who are forced into prostitution, unpaid domestic workers and child laborers (4.3 million).
Women and girls are also disproportionately affected by modern slavery, accounting for 71 percent of the overall total.
I note tht the article assumes that slavery in the Anericas is not that statistically important. But, it exists, even right here in the USA. Massage parlors holding women in a form of servitude. Just one of many ways women and children are slaves.

Why Vitamin Pills Don’t Work, and May Be Bad for You
I gave up using multivitamins and other specific ones like C years ago and haven’t noticed a difference. One doesn’t know how they’re produced or how much to trust the vendor. 
Here’s how it works. The process starts with mitochondria, those tiny combustion engines that sit within our cells. Inside their internal membranes food and oxygen are converted into water, carbon dioxide, and energy. This is respiration, a mechanism that fuels all complex life.
Far from protecting us from disease, one study found that vitamin supplements increased the incidence of lung cancer among smokers. Credit: Alamy.
Dosing up on vitamin C does not even help us fight the common cold. Credit: Alamy.
Few would dispute that a balanced diet is essential for good health, but most of us don't need supplements to meet our nutritional needs. Credit: Getty Images.

The “Secret” behind MyPillow
It came to Mike Lindell – you know that guy on TV with the mustache? - in a dream.
He worked with his sons to find the right mix for a pillow that would keep its shape during the night. When he found it, a friend suggested he use a hammermill to pound the filling into the right shape. He found an old one in a field, got it running, and used it to make what was then stuffed into his MyPillow.
Workers stuff pillows by hand. Photographer: Matthew Hintz for Bloomberg Businessweek.
There’s an amazing lot more about Lindell and his drug addiction, divorces, and other down to include turning his life around and becoming a devout Christian. He also ponders on his life going from The Crack House to The White House.\

These Two Words from Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch Have Liberals Up in Arms
Here’s how The Daily Caller explained it:
Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch set off a minor social media frenzy Tuesday after appearing on “Fox & Friends” and wishing host Ainsley Earhardt “Merry Christmas” during an interview promoting his book.
And the Left goes nuts on social media

Another Success Story for UN Peacekeepers
Not!
The UN has admitted that MINUSTAH peacekeepers introduced cholera into Haiti, causing the infection of 800,000 Haitians, 10,000 of whom died as a result. The organization has also previously admitted that over 100 Sri Lankan peacekeepers were involved in a sex ring between 2004 and 2007, most of whom were returned to Sri Lanka without punishment.
And then, there’s this:
The authors of the report issued recommendations for the UN to train its peacekeepers in “cultural awareness” and to punish peacekeepers found to have committed sexual offenses instead of simply sending them back to their home country. There is a long history of complaints of sexual offenses against UN peacekeepers, including in Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bosnia, and the Central African Republic.
They had sex with 11 and 12 year old girls just for the cost of a meal.

Hugh Hefner’s son enlists in Air Force
He married an actress from the Harry Potter series and is estimated to be worth up to $110 million.
How’d you like to have him for a Basic Training bunkmate?
I wonder if he has any idea what faces him or how to be the member of a team.
Cooper Hefner, 28, officially joined the United States Air Force on Tuesday, months after stepping down from his inherited role as chief of global partnerships at his late father's Playboy Enterprise empire.
He’s gonna spend 8 weeks at Lackland AFB, in San Antonio, TX. After a short leave, he’ll be sent somewhere for advanced training.
Bet his little wife won’t be far away from him.

The 10 best PC games of 2019
If your favorite didn't make it, believe me, it pained us just as much to make the cuts. 2019's been a hell of a year.
Other than PAC-Man and Pong, I’ve never been into computer games other than Solitaire and a couple of other card games. Thus, I have no way of telling how accurate this is.
Resident Evil 2
Heaven’s Vault

Control

Planet Zoo

Baba is You

Hypnospace Outlaw

Metro Exodus

Observation

Outer Wilds

Best Game of 2019: Disco Elysium

Age of Empires II - Honorable Mention

Yakuza Kiwami - Honorable Mention

Red Dead Redemption 2 - Honorable Mention

With current animation and coding, I expected a whole lot better graphics than showed in some of the trailers.

Some New Commissary Shoppers Will Be Able to Use This Letter for Base Access
Being able to shop at the commissary and exchange is one thing – getting on to the base is another.
Some veterans who don't have a Veteran Health Identification Card, or VHIC, from the Department of Veterans Affairs will be able to use a VA benefits eligibility letter to get on base instead, according to new guidance presented Friday during a Military OneSource Facebook live video.
They will also need a passport or verified driver’s license.

Trump to deliver State of the Union address on Feb. 4
What the hell does he need an invitation from Pelosi?
It’s a constitutional requirement!
The address fulfills the requirement in Article II, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution for the President to periodically "give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient
I’m sure that if she didn’t invite him to make the address in the House, McConnell would’ve invited him to do so in the Senate.
An aside. If she plans on sending the Articles of Impeachment to the Senate, why would she pick this date if the Senate is in full, closed session for the trial?

Belgian army spends €31mn to upgrade APCs
Now, 65% of the soldiers can’t fit into them They’re too big and the vehicle’s interior is too small.
Great planning.
Belgium is reportedly spending €31 million ($34.4mn) on a safety upgrade for its fleet of 44 Pandur Armored Personnel Carriers (APCs) according to Belgian media citing Ministry of Defense documents. The vehicles are to be used as reconnaissance units or as a medevacs, and were built to carry nine people. There is, however, one glaring catch.
“Four of the five crew members must be smaller than 1.70 meters to be able to work with the vehicle,” said Belgian Green politician Wouter De Vriendt, highlighting that the upgrade essentially excludes 85 percent of the country’s soldiers from operating it, while calling it a “fiasco” and a waste of taxpayer money.
The maximum driver or gunner height is now restricted to 1.70m (5ft 7in) as a result of the alterations, but the average height among Belgian men, frequently listed among the world’s tallest, is 1.81m.

Not satisfied with President Trump, Schiff is going after VP Pence
A twisted plot to make Pelosi president?
Pence’s Russia adviser Jennifer Williams testified last month about the vice president’s September 18 phone call with Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Schiff requested ten days later that Pence declassify her testimony, contained in a November 26 letter from her lawyer, but Pence last week declined to do so in a letter to Schiff.
On Tuesday, Schiff sent a letter to Pence alleging that the testimony given by Williams “raises profound questions about your knowledge of the President’s scheme to solicit Ukraine’s interference in the 2020 U.S. presidential election”.
In other words, Schiff is inferring that Vice-President Pence “abused his power” just like Trump supposedly did.
Do you think this will actually wake up the majority of Americans how the Dims are determined to negate the 2016 election?
They’re already attacking the Electoral College.
Rep Nadler had avowed to do everything possible to keep Trump from being reelected – cheating if necessary.
Where does it stop?

Michigan County Threatens To Demolish Amish Homes If They Don’t Give Up Their Religious Beliefs
Such an outright attack on a religious group right here in the United States of America? How can it be?
Where are the county and state authorities on this? Why hasn’t the county sheriff or state police stepped in to put a stop to this?
Over a dozen Amish families are being threatened by Lenawee County Michigan regarding their water supply and disposal. The threats stem from the county health department condemning their homes, saying they are “unfit for human habitation” and filing lawsuits against 14 families in November.
If the county is successful in its pursuit to demolish the homes, which apparently are fit for human habitation as the families are living there, it would result in the loss of these families’ homes, but it should be noted that it is also an attempt to bend their consciences against what they believe to be right, whether you agree or disagree with them or not.
They hand pump water from wells and use outhouses. They don’t use electricity, cell phones, or cars.
So, who are they hurting?
I have a gut feeling that it has something to do with money. Someone’s standing by to make a killing if the families are forced to leave their homes. Who will get the property?

Babylon Bee
Retail Worker Institutionalized After Hearing One Too Many Christmas Songs @ https://babylonbee.com/news/retail-worker-institutionalized-after-hearing-one-too-many-christmas-songs

Millions Of Voices Cry Out In Terror As Liberals Wake Up And Realize Trump Is Still President @ https://babylonbee.com/news/millions-of-voices-cry-out-in-terror-after-waking-up-and-realizing-trump-is-still-president

The Babylon Bee Editorial Board Calls On All Of Washington To Resign @ https://babylonbee.com/news/the-babylon-bee-editorial-board-calls-on-all-of-washington-to-resign
They also awarded President Trump Christian of the Year

It’s better than Cats

Maryland Elections Board sued for hiding voter registration records
Nadler claims they will cheat if President Trump isn’t removed.
Well, it appears that someone is setting out to make that very difficult for him and his minions.
The Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), an Indiana-based election integrity group, filed a complaint Dec. 16 against several individuals with Maryland’s state board of elections for alleged violations of the National Voter Registration Act’s public disclosure provision. The group sought a copy of the statewide voter registration list on Nov. 13 and offered to pay the required fees for the records. Two days later, an individual with the board of elections denied PILF’s request, stating that only Maryland residents can obtain voter data.
“Maryland stood to make at least $250 from selling their voter data like usual, but decided to flaunt a recent court decision against them and refused PILF’s application,” Logan Churchwell, communications director at PILF, told the Washington Free Beacon. “Now, they have to defend a second federal lawsuit and risk paying attorneys’ fees. It doesn’t pay to hide public records—and here, it’s actually profitable to disclose them.”
Why do they want to hide the records?
The lawsuit comes as PILF has found instances across the country of duplicate registrations, deceased individuals still registered to vote, and voter rolls that contain more individuals than there are eligible voters.
PILF is an “associate member” of The State Policy Network that is purported to have an annual budget of $120 million. A list of donors is @ https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=State_Policy_Network#Who_Funds_SPN.3F
While I can’t find a link, I would not be surprised to learn that some money is coming from the Trump Campaign or the RNC in their efforts to “clean up” voter roles and ensure a fair election in 2020.

Dem Impeachment Debacle Is Like Watching A ‘Bunch Of Monkeys Trying To Hump A Doorknob’
Wow! I’ve read hundreds, if not thousands, a description of the current impeachment circus but this is, by far, the best!
Only on Tucker Carlson.
“I almost feel bad for Pelosi, because I don’t think she’s an idiot, I think politically she knows what she’s doing. And she basically got bullied into this by her own caucus. She was trying to avoid it for years, even though Dems wanted this from the beginning, and I think she finally lost control,” Davis said.

6 holiday gift ideas for those who have everything
Okay so it goes for a mere $26.9k. Just think what fun you can have driving it.
But, for someone who really has everything:
A nice necklace locket and it will rain 50 tiny diamonds for only $85k.
And, if you really want something useless, here’s the following for only $894.

$10M Peruvian Green New Deal, Frog Mating and Cheese:
Rand Paul Exposes Wasteful US Spending
We see reports like this so often that they lack impact. Just $10 million? Give us something that really counts. A billion or two.
“I am highlighting a whopping $50,463,462,292.35 of waste, including a study of Panamanian frog mating calls, sending low-quality textbooks to Afghan students, and a grant to fund a Peruvian Green New Deal. It must need exporting after the Senate unanimously opposed it! So, before we get to the Feats of Strength, it’s time for my Airing of (spending) Grievances! ” he wrote.
A few million to educate some weird sub-group while ignoring out system here at home.

Western armor gets creamed by hand-held rockets
Makes no difference whether it was Russian T-90. US M1 Abrams, or the feared German Leopards, all suffered massive defeats at the hands of rebels with missiles.
TOW missiles used by Syrian rebels blew holes through Russia's armored tanks.
The interconnected conflicts raging across the Middle East today have amounted to a dreadful human catastrophe with spiraling global consequence. One of their lesser effects has been to deflate the reputations of Western main battle tanks mistakenly thought to be night-invulnerable in the popular imagination.
Iraqi M1 Abrams tanks not only failed to prevent he capture of Mosul in 2014, but they were captured and turned against their owners. In Yemen, numerous Saudi M1s were knocked out by Houthi rebels. Turkey, which had lost a number of M60 Pattons and upgrade M60T Sabra tanks to Kurdish and ISIS fighters eventually deployed its fearsome German-built Leopard 2A4 tanks. ISIS destroyed eight to ten in a matter of days.
We build these massive steel boxes to fight one another and they never face off. It makes no difference whether it’s the heavy stuff or APCs, missiles seems to nullify their very reason for being.

A Disastrous Year For The Main Stream Media
Here’s what the WNU editor has to say:
Media is losing its audience. There are now so many alternatives to getting the news that the old ways of reading a newspaper or watching the news on TV just no longer hold. Twenty-five years ago I would easily go through six major news papers a day and watch the evening news every night. Today .... I get all of my news from the web, and from sources that I trust.
The old “standards” are deep in debt, laying off all sorts of staff. Ratings are in the tank.
Legacy magazine brands that were once considered must-reads, like Sports Illustrated, struggled to find suitors. Magazine titans like Conde Nast are expected to miss their revenue numbers given a bleak advertising forecast.
Univision, one of the largest media companies that serves America's fastest-growing population, is looking for a buyer to help it crawl out of a massive debt hole, driven by a private equity investment gone bad.
The two biggest local newspaper holding groups — New Media (GateHouse and Gannett) and McClatchy, which collectively house over 700 newspapers — had a combined market cap value as of Thursday of less than $800 million. By comparison, Apple, which this year launched its own news product, is worth more than $1.2 trillion.
Meanwhile, several other papers serving major markets closed, like the 150-year-old Vindicator in Youngstown, Ohio and the beloved OC Weekly in California.
And people now routinely surf the web to find news sources unheard of just s few years ago.

Selecting Battalion Commanders – the heart and strength of the Army
We spend weeks selecting privates for Ranger school and an average of 2 minutes selecting a battalion commander.
And it really makes no difference which service they are selected for. An Army or Marine battalion, an Air Force squadron, or a position held by a Navy Commander, they are the very backbone of the military.
They are is trying to get the best candidates by using something called the Battalion Commander Assessment Program. It includes measurements of physical fitness, written and oral communication ability, and cognitive and non-cognitive skills.
And, not all officers want the awesome responsibility of command.
BCAP is not an indictment of the centralized selection process or anyone who is a product of it. BCAP is an acknowledgment that modern data and assessment techniques can and should inform our selection of commanders. Good is not good enough. We must select the best commanders possible, and BCAP is part of how we will do that.
According to General McConville, the US Army Chief of Staff; For all the reasons we have laid out here, we made the decision to have all officers competing for battalion command complete BCAP beginning in January 2020.
I think it’s a good idea.

Cuomo vetoes bill allowing all federal judges to officiate weddings in state
What sour grapes.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo vetoed a bill that would have allowed all federal judges to officiate weddings in the state.
“I cannot in good conscience support legislation that would authorize such actions by federal judges who are appointed by this federal administration,” he said in a statement Friday.
“President Trump does not embody who we are as New Yorkers,” Cuomo, a Democrat, said. “The cornerstones that built our great state are diversity, tolerance, and inclusion. Based on these reasons, I must veto this bill.”

Trump previously held private meetings with Navy SEALs to candidly discuss Afghanistan war

"I want to sit down with some enlisted guys that have been there," Trump told advisers, according to the national-security journalist Peter Bergen's latest book, "Trump and His Generals: The Cost of Chaos."
"I don't want any generals in here. I don't want any officers," Trump added. "I just want enlisted guys."
One of the first group of Afghanistan veterans to speak with Trump were US Navy SEALs who spoke critically of the war.
"It's unwinnable. NATO's a joke. Nobody knows what they're doing," the SEALs said to Trump. "We don't fight to win. The morale is terrible. It's totally corrupt."
This shouldn’t surprise anyone. Here’s what he did as a civilian:
Trump also compared the senior military leaders with a consultant for a Manhattan restaurant from the late 1980s. Instead of heeding the advice of an overpaid consultant who merely suggested expanding a kitchen for renovations, Trump argued that it would have been more prudent, and cheaper, to solicit the advice of waiters from a restaurant.
Now the question is; what’s he going to be able to do now?
Do you think this stirred certain SEAL commanders to attack individuals like Chief Gallagher?

A podiatrist explains heel spurs,
the medical condition Trump said earned him a medical deferment from Vietnam
I have one – maybe two – and can tell you there’s no way in hell I couldn’t served in the Army with one.
People with heel spurs and heel pain, plantar fasciitis, typically have pain when they first get out of bed in the morning. So, shouldn't it feel better when you are resting after a night's sleep? The problem with that and the reason why it happens is because when you're resting, the soft tissue just relaxes and there's a swelling there.
So, then you go to stand up on it with all of your body weight, and it starts that inflammation all over again.
Some people can have heel spurs without heel pain, some people have heel pain without heel spurs, it kind of just is an individual thing and it should be really checked out.
You need an x-ray to diagnose a heel spur.

Posted by Dale Day at 5:20 PM
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