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Memorial Day is actually kinda depressing. No one seems to know what it's about.

Today, as I was leaving work, HR came waddling up to me.
"Are you coming to our Memorial Day picnic?" I have a number of reasons why I don't attend company picnics, among them, the fact that I am an asocial asshole.
Me:"No, I'm not going to be there."
HR: "Oh, but we're honoring all of our veterans! You should come!" Welllll - first off, I'm not her veteran, nor the company's veteran. None of us served the fat broad, nor her board of directors. And, second, I resent every time the company collects all the veterans they can, snap a photo, then publish it in the local papers to capitalize on our service.
Me: "Naaahhh, it's to much bother to drive home from work, get a shower, get dressed, then drive another hour to come back for a picnic."
What I SHOULD HAVE SAID, "Memorial Day isn't about those of us who came home. Memorial Day is about our buddies who didn't come home. Memorial Day is about all of my dad's buddies who didn't come home. Memorial Day is about the MILLIONS of people who laid down their lives, so that the rest of us can get on with our lives."

So very, very, VERY few seem to "get it". We veterans already have a day, called "Veteran's Day". On that day, it is appropriate to have a picnic for your favorite veteran(s). Shake their hands, make sure they get a piece of cake, and say "Thank you for your service". That sort of thing is entirely appropriate on Veteran's Day.

On Memorial Day - I like to sit around the house, and reflect. I think about shipmates who are still on patrol. I think about all those sailors, Seabees, and Marines of my dad's generation, all of them still on patrol. I think about the men and women who have served this country since our nation's Declaration of Independence. People who fought the British - twice. People who fought the Indians, many times, rightly and wrongly. Our ancestors who fought the Mexicans, the Spanish, North Koreans, Russians, and more recently, Vietnamese, Iraqis, and Afghans.

So very many never came home.

And, HR wants me to attend a picnic, so that she can "honor" me? WTF? I ain't dead. Someone tried to kill me a few times, sure, but that doesn't count.

Maybe we didn't suffer enough in our wars. Some other countries understand Memorial Day better than we do. Both China and Russia seem to have better observances than we do. Maybe it's because both countries have survived wars in which literally millions of civilians were killed. Much of Europe lost far more than we did, because both the first and second world wars were fought right there. In their town squares, in their schoolyards, in their backyards. Us? All we did was to send a bunch of men and material overseas. Our town halls weren't blown into splinters. Our churches weren't bombed. Our hospitals weren't firebombed. Our women and children didn't watch brigades of foreign troops trying to butcher each other in the streets.

Memorial day. To me, it's just not a time to party. Let us honor our fallen, instead. Even if it might mean a little discomfort for you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARtqpGMkhN4

Maybe - just maybe - I can persuade a few among you to visit a cemetery. Walk around, and find some of the veteran's tomb stones. Many are easily identifiable. Take a few flags with you - some of those little 9 inch flags, on little wooden sticks. Plant those flags beside the tomb stones. Spend a few minutes, and think. And, tell the man beneath that stone, "Thank you for your sacrifice, Sir."

That done, may you enjoy your picnic. And, tell me whether the food tastes even better, for having taken the time and trouble to honor those who deserve honor.

So, I was out smoking and getting my first cup of coffee down this morning when the solution to the skills gap in the U.S. hit me out of the blue.

You know how your ears, nose, and feet keep slowly growing all your life, right? What we need is some lab coat wearing sons of bitches to figure out the mechanism that causes this. Then we need them to figure out a treatment that will cause the same in the penis. Enough guys should then spend what would otherwise go to a degree to pay for the treatment and force them to take up a skilled trade if they want to make a good living.

Problem solved.

While serving as secretary of State, Hillary Clinton disregarded an instruction from the Foreign Affairs Manual directing her to use State Department equipment for day-to-day operations. Clinton almost certainly did this for convenience — since she could not connect her smartphone to the State Department server, the directive made it harder for her to check her email on a mobile device — but the issue somehow became a first-tier national scandal. The bizarre prominence this story took on is worth revisiting given Monday night’s revelation that Donald Trump is doing essentially the same thing.

Trump continues to use personal phone because a secure phone is too inconvenient - LOCK HIM UP!

Trump’s clear double standard between Hillary Clinton’s emails and his own cell phones
Trump's Unsecured iPhones Make Clinton's Basement Server Look Like Fort Knox

More VRAM and cores, less memory bandwidth:

NVIDIA Officially Launches GeForce GTX 1050 With 3 GB VRAM – Improved Core Specifications Along With A Cut Down Memory Interface

Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 (3GB) has a 96-bit memory bus

The school shooting near Houston on Friday bolstered a stunning statistic: More people have been killed at schools this year than have been killed while serving in the military.

Initial estimates put the number killed at Santa Fe High School at eight, but, even without those deaths, nearly twice as many people were killed at schools than in the military. (The figures for the military were compiled from Defense Department news releases and include both combat and noncombat deaths.) Including only students who died in school shootings (excluding, for example, teachers) the total still exceeds military casualties.

2018 has been deadlier for schoolchildren than service members

Lars von Trier's 'gross' and 'torturous' film prompts walkout

Provocateur Lars von Trier is under fire again after a screening of his film, The House That Jack Built, prompted dozens to walk out.

Starring Matt Dillon as a serial killer, one reporter, Roger Friedman said it was a "vile movie. Should not have been made. Actors also culpable". Another tweeted: "Gross. Pretentious. Vomitive. Torturous. Pathetic."

Dillon plays an architect who kills several women and children in gruesome fashion. Uma Thurman also stars.

Von Trier had been banned from the festival for seven years for comments he made in a press conference for his sci-fi film Melancholia. The Danish film-maker pushed organisers too far when he said (as a joke it was later assumed) he was a Nazi.

Now, with The House That Jack Built, the offence has gone further - into the throng of the gathered press. In one scene, as the killer Jack mutilates a girlfriend, he says: "Why is it always the man's fault... If you are born male you are born to be guilty. Think of the injustice of that."

IMDB. Film is 2h35m. It doesn't appear to have been widely released, so streaming/downloading it isn't possible yet.

No, Octopuses Don't Come From Outer Space

Disputed study:

Cause of Cambrian Explosion - Terrestrial or Cosmic? (open, DOI: 10.1016/j.pbiomolbio.2018.03.004) (DX)

https://www.rt.com/news/426774-crimea-bridge-opening-ceremony/

Europe’s longest: Putin leads column of trucks at Crimean bridge opening ceremony (VIDEO)
Published time: 15 May, 2018 11:36
Edited time: 16 May, 2018 12:31

  A new 19km bridge connecting the mainland with the Crimean Peninsula has been officially opened, making Russia the host of Europe’s longest bridge. President Vladimir Putin personally drove a truck across it to mark the occasion.

The opening of the bridge was all about the people, who created the massive construction in record time. A column of dozens of heavy-duty vehicles including hauler trucks, construction cranes and cement-mixers buzzed along, occasionally tooting their horns. Putin, who showed up for the ceremonial trip unusually dressed in casual style, drove one of the two Kamaz trucks in the front of the motorcade. His usual entourage was literally sidelined, keeping at a distance on the other half of the road.

The column arrived to the Crimean side of the bridge, where Putin spoke a few 'thank you' words to the thousands of people who contributed to the project – from underwater explosives specialists, who helped sweep the seabed for bombs left from World War II, and archeologists to the many construction workers who made the bridge possible.

“10,000 people work at this construction site, 15,000 during peak load. Almost 220 companies were involved. In fact, the entire country worked on it. The result is wonderful. It makes Crimea and the legendary Sevastopol stronger and brings us all closer together,” he said.

The bridge has two parts – one for automobile traffic, which is opening this week, and one for trains – which is to be finished next year. For several more months, trucks will not be allowed through, giving extra time to check all the safety measures and engineering quality. The parade of heavy vehicles on Tuesday apparently aims at dispersing any speculation about the strength of the bridge.

A direct path connecting the Crimean Peninsula to the Krasnodar region on mainland Russia is a significant achievement. Building one was considered as early as the late 19th century. The invading Nazi Germany started constructing a bridge, but the project was cut short by advancing Soviet Union.

The soviets went as far as erecting a bridge themselves, but it quickly failed due to difficult seabed terrain and harsh winter weather. Eventually a ferry connection was deemed a more viable alternative. In modern times Russia and Ukraine were trying to negotiate a joint project to create a bridge with modern technology, but it didn’t take off.

Tables turned in 2014, when an armed coup in Kiev put a fiercely anti-Russian government in power in Ukraine. Frightened by threats of nationalist pogroms and a rollback of autonomy, the predominantly Russian population of Crimea voted in a referendum to break up from Ukraine and ask Russia to take the peninsula back as part of the country, which Moscow did. Kiev responded by trying to isolate the region, disrupting supplies of freshwater and electricity and restricting travel to Crimea.

The Crimean bridge project was Russia’s response to the situation – a permanent overland link between the peninsula and the rest of the country. The work on the project started in 2015 in parallel with creating necessary infrastructure on both sides of the Kerch Strait.

In 2016, the actual work on the bridge started in earnest, with workers building temporary constructions and driving pillars into the seabed. Year 2017 was marked by arguably the trickiest part of the construction – towing, rising and putting in place two arches under which ships can pass. The steel constructions weighted 6,000 tons and 5,500 tons for the railroad and automobile parts of the bridge respectively.

Previously the title of Europe’s longest bridge was held by the Vasco da Gama Bridge in Portugal, which has a total length of over 12km. Trailing shortly behind it is the Lezíria Bridge located in the same country. European bridges however pale before their Asian counterparts. The world’s longest bridge is a 164.8km monster connecting China’s cities of Danyang and Kunshan, which opened in 2010.

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        Europe’s longest: Putin leads column of trucks at Crimean bridge opening ceremony (VIDEO)

Nine-year-old Instagram star Lil Tay’s ‘flexing’ got her mom fired — that’s only the beginning of her reign of terror

"flex" = show off wealth

Jake Paul’s influencer circle begins to crumble as his dad comes aboard

China is slick, there's no getting around that. They have a maturity that all Western nations lack. It comes with their 5000 years of history.

http://www.apfn.org/THEWINDS/1997/05/favored_china.html

Most Favored Nation (MFN) status was granted to the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1979 and has been renewed on a yearly basis ever since. MFN allows the PRC access to U.S. markets at tariff rates that average six percent. Nations without the designation face a forty-four percent tariff. Most nations have MFN with the exception of six including Vietnam, Cuba and North Korea. Clinton has until June 3 to formally notify Congress of his decision. From that point, Congress has 90 days to reverse his decision. (The Washington Post, 5-20-97).

"I am moving, therefore, to de-link human rights from the annual extension of Most Favored Nation trading status for China." --President Bill Clinton, announcing MFN status for China, White House, 5-26-94.

I have wondered, from to time, where that term came from. "Most Favored Nation". What does that even mean?

I stumbled over an explanation, in a seemingly unrelated article.

https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/opium-war-1857.htm

The agreements reached between the Western powers and China following the Opium Wars came to be known as the "unequal treaties" because in practice they gave foreigners privileged status and extracted concessions from the Chinese. Ironically, the Qing Government had fully supported the clauses on extraterritoriality and most-favored nation status in the first treaties in order to keep the foreigners in line.

WTF? MFN, or Most Favored Nation was forced upon China, by the US and UK, almost 150 years ago. We fought the First Opium War, and then the Second Opium War to establish that we can trade wherever we want, in whatever manner suits us. China was required to grant MFN status to the US and the UK, and then later, to any European nation requesting said status.

So - a status that was forced down China's throat, at the point of a sword, we grant to China more than a hundred years later.

For such an intelligent son of a bitch, Clinton was pretty damned stupid. Not only did he give military tech to China, for free, but he kowtowed to the Chinese leadership with the choice of terms. Most Favored Nation.

I wonder if Clinton and Obama are related? Both like to grovel at the feet of foreign rulers . . .

In effect, that title validates any demands, any claims, that China might make upon the US. We GAVE a foreign power privileged status, and we GAVE them concessions, repeatedly. And, they didn't even have to bring a sword to the negotiations, because Bill Clinton was so eager to betray the United States of America.