Musical Interlude For Halloween Weekend

The Memento Mori Dance of Death (1493) by Michael Wolgemut, from the Liber chronicarum by Hartmann Schedel

Franz Liszt's Totentanz (Dance Of Death):

About the composer Franz Liszt and the symphonic poem Totentanz (from Musical Musings):

This Week On The Gathering Storm

(For other material, please scroll down)

If you have an interest in the migrant crisis in Europe, listen to The Gathering Storm Radio Show, hosted by WC and me at noon Pacific Time EST, on October 30, 2015, when our guest is UK author and blogger Mark Alexander of A New Dark Age Is Dawning. The show is also available later via podcast.

The RNC Clutches The Reins

Remember when, months ago, Donald Trump said something about the nomination process having to be fair, or he'd give the GOP a lot of grief? The process hasn't been fair for a long time, and we're fooling ourselves if we think otherwise.

From Time (August 8, 2014):

...RNC Chairman Reince Priebus announced a 13-member committee of Republican officials who will set rules for the GOP’s debates during the 2016 cycle, including selecting venues, debate partners, and even moderators. The committee will be led by Priebus ally Steve Duprey of New Hampshire, who was close to both Mitt Romney and John McCain. The committee is dominated by Priebus loyalists.

[...]

Any candidate who participates in a debate that is unsanctioned by the RNC’s committee will be barred from appearing in any of the authorized debates, according to the party’s rules.

The RNC debate committee has yet to determine the qualification standards for candidates to earn a spot on the stage.

Shall we take bets as to whether or not Reince Priebus and Karl Rove are best buddies? See Gestapo Cartel Of Karl Rove, Reince Priebus, and Establishment Republicans (September 10, 2015):

Tales From The Classroom

("Tales from the Classroom" is a feature posted occasionally here at this blog.  All tales are true and present matters about which I have personal knowledge.  The following tale helps to explain why I love working with classes of homeschoolers. The parental support I typically receive is the antithesis of the reactions my public school and private school colleagues often encounter in a similar situation.

The students in my high school Advanced Composition classes write timed essays once a month.  These timed essays are completed in class within 25-30 minutes and are handwritten drafts of approximately 300 words; I mark these essays and provide "suggestions" for improvement.  Five weeks later, the students must submit revisions which require expansion (450-600 words).

On the first day of class this 2015-2016, the students received this timed-essay prompt, used by College Board on January 2015 SAT:

Jean Raspail's The Camp of the Saints

This blog post stuck here until further notice. Please scroll down for other material.

What Jean Raspail wrote about in 1973 is happening now as Europe is being overrun by "migrants."

Raspail out-Orwells Orwell!

READ THE BOOK ONLINE

One review from Amazon:

Modern Life

(For politics, please scroll down)

Biting satire

Phone Slaves by Steve Cutts

Evolution by Steve Cutts

More illustrations by Steve Cutts HERE. Yes, Cutts definitely leans Left, but some of his critiques have validity.

Luxury Hotel Converted Into Housing For Migrants

Chancellor of Germany Angel Merkel posing for a selfie with one of the migrants

I typically do not post subtitled videos. This time, however, I am making an exception. Please make time to watch (read) the video about Maritim Hotel in Halle, Germany (hat tip to Infidel Bloggers Alliance):

The Benghazi Hearings (October 22, 2015)

According to the "journalists" at the Washington Post: GOP lands no solid punches while sparring with Clinton over Benghazi.

Today's New York Times has a similar take in the lead editorial of October 23, 2015.

Apparently, not only the Left wingers are opining as above: Even Conservatives Realize Hillary Clinton's Benghazi Committee Hearing Was Ridiculous: The 11 hours of questions were "a waste of time," one pundit wrote.

From Mediaite's Rep. Jim Jordan Goes After Hillary: ‘Where’d the False Narrative Start? It Started With You’ (emphases mine):

Republican Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan took issue with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton‘s comment that protests had erupted in both Cairo, Egypt and Benghazi, Libya, citing evidence from the House Select Committee’s investigation stating that no protest of any kind had occurred in Benghazi. He then went on to quote from various State Department spokespersons who, in the weeks following the Sept. 11, 2012 attack, claimed that the incident in Benghazi was linked to the Cairo-based protest, which was a reaction to an offensive online video.

“Where’d the false narrative start? It started with you, Madame Secretary,” said Jordan, adding that a statement released by Clinton the night of the attack suggests as much. “At 10:08, with no evidence. At 10:08, before the attack is over. At 10:08, when Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty are still on the roof of the annex fighting for their lives, the official statement of the State Department blames a video. Why?”

Clinton proceeded to emphasize her official statement’s use of the phrase “some have sought,” which described the efforts of a small group to use the video as a means of inciting anti-American sentiments in Egypt, Libya and elsewhere in the region. “I used those words deliberately. Not to ascribe a motive to every attacker, but as a warning to those across the region that there was no justification for further attacks.”

However, Jordan just couldn’t let the discrepancy go, citing additional emails and calls made to the Libyan president, the Egyptian prime minister and her own family. In all three messages, Clinton said that the State Department knew that “the attack in Libya had nothing to do with the film. It was a planned attack — not a protest.”

When Clinton again reference her statement’s language, Jordan erupted.

“Calling it an attack is like saying the sky is blue. Of course it was an attack! We want to know the truth. The statement you sent out was a statement on Benghazi, and you say ‘vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material on the Internet.’ If that’s not pointing at its motive being the video, I don’t know what is. And that’s certainly how the American people saw it.”

“There was a lot of conflicting information that we were trying to make sense of,” said Clinton. “The situation was fluid. It was fast-moving.”

Jordan pressed on, repeating his previous comments and criticizing Clinton’s attempted answers to them. Two bantered back and forth for a few minutes, but when the congressman had to wrap up, he reiterated his main line of argument — that Clinton was able to “tell the truth” to her own family and foreign diplomats, but not the American people. When chairman Trey Gowdy asked Clinton whether or not she wanted to respond, she plugged her book.

“I wrote a whole chapter about this in my book, Hard Choices. I’d be glad to send it to you, congressman.”

More HERE, including video clips.

Yes, yes, there was a lot of speechifying yesterday, just as there was during the Watergate Hearings. And, yes, there is partisanship in play now, just as there was during the Watergate Hearings.

Was or was not the exchange between Rep. Jordan and Hillary Clinton a gotcha moment?

Eurabia!

Bleeding hearts and those living in denial will disregard the following:



Related reading:

(1) The Hijrah Into Europe: “Refugees” colonize a continent

(2) German nurse shocked after being forced out of flat to make way for refugees

(3) Mob of Afghans attack new arrivals at over-crowded Lesbos camp with sticks as Europe's worsening weather and tighter border controls force more migrants to head for Greece

A History Lesson

Is America a nation with a heritage of racist imperialism?

Please watch the following video even though doing so requires about thirty minutes:


Your thoughts?

Clock Boy's Award

CAIR's Muslim of the Year Award (2015) for Clock Boy Ahmed Mohamed. The award includes a gold clock on the right panel:

Clock Boy will be participating in Astronomy Night at the White House tonight by special invitation from Barack Hussein Obama. Astronomy Night honors top scientists.

Clock Boy's "invention" ("cool clock," according to Obama):

Debate Synopsis

About the October 14, 2015 Democratic Party Presidential debate:

Open Thread

So, what's on your mind?

Here's a link to get this thread started and a story illustrating that all cultures are not equal: Albino teen attacked for her limbs.

Enough from me for now. Please opine on the topic of your choice according to the parameters below:

The Truth About Common Core

by Sam Huntington

Common Core is a global (voluntary) initiative designed to standardize educational standards in mathematics and the English Language Arts.  It sounds tame enough, so why then are (some) parents alarmed about a Common Core-Islam connection?  It is because school districts have incorporated school-sponsored programs of Islamic indoctrination, which include but are not limited to:

• Visits to mosques at taxpayer expense
• Requiring girls to wear head scarfs in the Islamic tradition
• Diminishing the Holocaust as a political scheme
• Offering allegiance to the United States in Arabic
• Adopting observances of Islamic holy days
• Introducing Islamic vocabulary to students who are barely able to speak proper English, introducing Islamic cultural studies
• Proselytizing Islam by creating pamphlets about Islam
• Reciting the Shahada, which proclaims Allah as the one true god and renounces the God of Abraham

White House Invitations

Who is the real hero?

Ahmed Mohamed has been invited to the White House for October 19, an astronomy night the White House is hosting for top scientists.

No word yet on a White House invitation for Army veteran Chris Mintz.

Related reading: There is now a Halloween costume of Ahmed Mohamed, the 'clock bomb boy'.

Video: Boy arrested for clock had prior suspensions:

ObamaCare Comes Up Short

Get ready for major hikes in health-insurance premiums — despite all the promises from "The One."

From Obamacare shorts health insurers $2.5 billion:

Insurers will get far less money than promised from the federal government this year — and a few billion dollars less than they requested — to help pay for their sickest customers.

Insurers learned late Thursday [October 1, 2015] that they'll receive just $362 million out of the $2.9 billion in requested for 2014 for the program, according to an announcement by the Department of Health and Human Services.

That's because a program created under the 2010 Affordable Care Act hasn't brought in nearly as much money as it needs to pay out. As insurers enrolled more older, sicker Americans under the new healthcare law, they were promised some federal money to help cover their new costs, through a program known as risk corridors.

This shortage in funding ObamaCare was totally predictable, of course.

 People with chronic health conditions typically cost more in healthcare dollars.

The cycle of life.

All the utopianism in the world can't change the natural order of the universe.

Quiz Time

A little something different for Columbus Day 2015:

Question 1

CLICK HERE to take the quiz Can You Guess the Invention Based on These Patent Illustrations? Hint: They are all part of the National Museum of American History’s collection.

My quiz results below the fold.

Open Thread

Note: If you're inclined to weigh in on the previous post, FEATURED QUESTION: 2016 Election, please do so.

So, what's on your mind?

Here's a link to get this thread started: Ivy League prof. calls Ben Carson a 'coon'.

BTW, on Sunday, October 11, Steve Kroft will "grill" Obama on 60 Minutes. Here's a preview of that episode of 60 Minutes:


Enough from me for now. Please opine on the topic of your choice according to the parameters below:

FEATURED QUESTION: 2016 Election

If you could have your druthers, whom would you choose as the GOP candidate for President of the United States? Explain the reason for your choice(s).

Hitler And Islam

Hitler believed that Islam was a religion perfectly suited to the German temperament: "It's been our misfortune to have the wrong religion."

Hitler and the Mufti al-Husseini

From page 96 of Inside the Third Reich (Click directly on the image below to enlarge it):

(hat tip to Infidel Bloggers Alliance)

Recommended Reading

Once in a while, along comes a moment of jaw-dropping clarity, albeit during an episode of a popular cable-television series. See It's all in the book by my good friend Jason Pappas, who tells us what Homeland's CIA Agent Peter Quinn had to say about ISIS and Islam after the agent's two-year stint Syria.

Money quote below the fold.

Musical Interlude

(For politics, please scroll down)

Arvo Pärt's Spiegel im Spiegel (translation = "mirror in the mirror"), herewith dedicated to the victims of the October 1, 2015 massacre at Umpqua Community College:


About Spiegel im Spiegel (essential material for an understanding of the piece and why it is a fitting tribute for what happened on October 1, 2015):

Open Thread

(I've made a significant dent in grading a huge stack of essays and now offer an open thread. I'll peek in from time to time)

So, what's on your mind?

A video to get this thread started:



Please opine on the topic of your choice according to the parameters below:

We welcome civil dialogue at Always on Watch. Comments that include any of the following are subject to deletion:
1. Any use of profanity or abusive language
2. Off topic comments and spam
3. Use of personal invective

Note: comments consisting of blog gossip will be deleted as soon as an administrator of this blog becomes aware of such comments.