A Western Fly Fishing video devoted to Ralph Moon, author, fly tier, bamboo rod builder and conservationist who lived on the banks of the Henry’s Fork River in St Antony, Idaho. He passed away in 2011.

A rather charming short 3:54 video about a Polish brushmaker who still produces his wares personally by hand.

I could use one of those.

“I consider it part of my responsibility as president of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.”

— Barack Obama, Remarks by the President at Cairo University, 04 June 2009.

The nationality of the drone and that of the Muslims is unclear. Some sources identify the video as captured by an Israeli drone and the principals as Hamas fighters in Gaza. Others as a US drone overseeing Taliban supporters in Afghanistan.

There are more references to Israel, but I think it may be Afghanistan.

Back in 2009, Brian Mockenhaupt, in Esquire, wrote of US Predator drone pilots:

[T]hey see many things meant to be secret, like men having sex with sheep and goats in the deep of night. I first heard this from infantry soldiers and took it as rumor, but at Bagram I met a civilian contractor who works in UAV operations. “All the time,” he said. “They just don’t think we can see them.” Which sums up a major allure of UAVs: Though they should know better by now, many insurgents still feel safe working in darkness or in the shelter of distant mountains and valleys, so they are exposed again and again. The unmanned planes have eroded their freedom of movement and simple early-warning systems, two of their few assets when outmatched in weapons, technology, and resources. Helicopters can be heard a mile or more away. Spotters watch vehicles leave bases and follow the slow advance of dismounted patrols. Surprise is a rarity for U. S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. The insurgents almost always know they’re coming, with at least several minutes’ notice. So they toss weapons behind a rock and become, in an instant, civilians. But with a camera parked three miles overhead, last-minute subterfuge doesn’t work.

From Moonbattery via Vanderleun.

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Snopes:

I have heard the exact same story from 3 different national guard servicemen who served in Iraq. They all belong to the same local national guard unit, but served non-overlapping tours. I am not sure if they know each other or not. The story goes that while on duty at night in Iraq, one of the other soldiers using night vision goggles saw an Iraqi man having sex with a goat and then all the other soldiers came and saw with their own night vision goggles. This strikes me as implausible that three different soldiers in three different years, 2003, 2006, and 2007, all saw something so bizarre.

Hat tip to Henry Bernatonis.

Michael Bloomberg and Warren Buffet funded “Everytown for Gun Safety,” a Gun Control agitation group which produced this video pointing out that an armed domestic abuser could be a serious problem and urges that you contact your senator encouraging him to support legislation preventing your angry ex from possessing a gun.

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Liberty Pennsylvania, a grassroots conservative action network, responded with this video, which obviously offers a much more effective solution.

Cacatua galerita

the cast

I’m so old that I can remember when Jane Austen was looked upon as a dusty classic author, whose best-known novel, Pride and Prejudice, was deemed appropriately penitential reading for 12th grade English.

Jane Austen’s virtuous, but critically intelligent young ladies have subsequently proven to represent flattering enough portraits of female-kind to appeal intensely to the modern liberated woman, and Austen’s novels in recent decades made a somewhat startling leap from the worthy-but-neglected category of high brow literature to a comfortable position in popular culture.

The latest incarnation of Pride and Prejudice, amusingly enough, I think, is as a 9-and-a-half hour. on-line, modernized adaptation.

Lizzie Bennet Diaries homepage

Episode 1:

Begins with the famous walking-on-two-legs raccoon sequence.

Hat tip to Kaj Malachowski.

North Korea resumed war against South Korea, the United States, and the United Nations earlier this month when it declared the 1953 armistice that ended Korean War hostilities nullified.

The outbreak of war has attracted little notice in the United States, and North Korea’s efforts at genuine military action have been so far non-existent. North Korean belligerence is, however, expressing itself quite vigorously in propaganda.

in the four-minute video below, loaded by North Korea on to YouTube, ballistic missile carriers are seen, along with artillery firing shells, and “Stalin-organ” Katyusha rocket-launchers pour out endless volleys, all evidently raining “fire storms” upon the “headquarters of war,” i.e. us.

We see crosshairs lining up the White House, but the projectile fired appears actually to blow a large hole in the dome of the US Capitol. That’ll show us!

large size version of 4:09 video

Hat tip to Karen L. Myers.