Tuesday Tidings

On a warm sunny Tuesday, here are some things going on:

From National Review, the experiment with ending standardizes tests has failed.

From FrontpageMag, President Biden's complicity in Iran's attack on Israel.

From Townhall, another Republican congresscritter is siding with Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) about vacating the speakership.

From The Washington Free Beacon, NPR suspends the editor who pointed out its left-wing bias.

From the Washington Examiner, an Arkansas audit finds that Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R) violated state law by purchasing a $19,000 lecturn.

From The Federalist, according to a poll, securing the U.S. border is more important than sending money to Ukraine.

From American Thinker, Hamas wants Israel's land, and more.

From MRCTV, illegal aliens rally outside City Hall in New York and demand housing and jobs.

From NewsBusters, ABC News hides pro-Hamas protests in various American cities.

From Canada Free Press, taxpayers get to foot the bill for a "freak" who wants to be both a man and a woman.

From TeleSUR, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador points out that the attack on Mexico's embassy in Quito, Ecuador is "not" a "frivolous matter".

From TCW Defending Freedom, four years of dealing with governmental coronavirus policy.

From EuroNews, the Old Stock Exchange in Copenhagen, Denmark goes up in flames.

From ReMix, a Georgian man goes on trial for allegedly trying to smuggle 35 illegal aliens out of Hungary and engaging in a high-speed chase with police.

From Balkan Insight and the "you can't make this up" department, Greece's governing New Democracy Party nominates for europarliamentcritter an ethnic Greek man now behind bars in Albania.

From The North Africa Post, the company BlueBird sets up a drone production facility in Morocco.

From The New Arab, according to the U.N., cholera is spreading in parts of Yemen controlled by the Houthis.

From The Advertiser, the teenager who allegedly stabbed a priest has a history of knife-related crimes.  (This site is based in Adelaide, Australia.)

From Gatestone Institute, Christians would rather live in Israel than under the Palestinian Authority.

From The Stream, in a new "word salad", the Vatican calls deportation as evil as slavery.

From The Daily Signal, two articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas are delivered by the House to the Senate.

From The American Conservative, central planning comes for a vacation town in Michigan.

From The Western Journal, according to a "shocking" poll, almost 1 in 3 Americans would vote illegally if it helped their preferred candidate.

From BizPac Review, rocker John Mellencamp walks off the stage when his audience pushes back against his political rant.  (I saw Mellencamp, then using the stage name "John Cougar", open for Heart back in the 1980s.  He had no political things to day, but the next day, I had the mother of all headaches.)

From The Daily Wire, Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark) urges Americans to "take matters into your own hands" against protesters who block roads.

From the Daily Caller, a panel on the MSNBC show Morning Joe doesn't agree with Senator Cotton.

From Breitbart, according to Republican National Committee Co-Chair Lara Trump, her brother-in-law Barron Trump is "incredibly smart".

From Newsmax, Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) calls on the Senate to reject a motion to dismiss the aforementioned articles of impeachment against Secretary Mayorkas.

And from the New York Post, the sons of John Lennon and Paul McCartney come out with a new song, released by the latter.

Tax Day Links

According to a certain joke, conservatives think that every day is July 4th and liberals think that every day is April 15th.  Well, like it or not, today is April 15th.  So while you're paying your taxes (if you haven't already done so), here are some things going on:

From National Review, President Biden hides his plans to reinstate a housing regulation from then-President Obama.

From FrontpageMag, since Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson called for a ceasefire in Gaza, 126 have been killed in his city.

From Townhall, the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore has now caught the attention of the FBI.

From The Washington Free Beacon, former President Trump's hush money trial starts in New York City.

From the Washington Examiner, three roadblocks Biden faces if he wants to improve security at the southern border.

From The Federalist, no, coronavirus-related health care was not racist as claimed by leftists.

From American Thinker, a good example of a politician who is a hypocrite.  (As I've said before, the only difference between the hypocrisy of one politician and another is a matter of degree.)

From MRCTV, five things which Biden could do right now that would decrease your grocery bill.

From NewsBusters, presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (I) reveals some startling details about the collusion between the Biden administration and Big Tech.

From Canada Free Press, live-streamed violence has become part of everyday life.

From TeleSUR, Colombia and Venezuela earn the top places in the Bolivarian Youth Games.

From TCW Defending Freedom, 2,000 elderly women in Switzerland become pawns of the "eco-nutters".

From Snouts in the Trough, the U.K.'s spendthrift National Health Service makes fools of all the British.

From EuroNews, could the River Seine in France be too polluted to be used for swimming events in the upcoming Olympics in Paris?

From Voice Of Europe, violence against Dutch police decreases, but remains high enough to draw concern.  (If you read Dutch, read the story at NOS.)

From ReMix, French actress Audrey Lamy declines to press charges against three alleged burglars when she learns that they are illegal aliens.  (The article uses the euphemism "illegal immigrants".  I don't.  If you think the term "illegal aliens" is racist, please note that the article describes the men as being "of Italian-Bosnian origin", which makes them just as white as Lamy.  If you read French, read the story at PurePeople.)

From Balkan Insight, an exhibition at a communist-era labor camp in Spac, Albania focuses on its former inmates.

From The North Africa Post, Algeria investigates and expels a journalist for the Jeune Afrique.  (What is this "freedom of the press" you speak of?)

From The New Arab, Jordanians get angry that their government shot down Iranian missiles and drones aimed at Israel.

From Arutz Sheva, according to U.S. officials, about half of the Iranian missiles aimed at Israel either failed to launch or crashed before reaching their targets.

From Gatestone Institute, Hamas destroys Gaza and now claims that it's a "victory" for them.

From The Stream, our young people are joining a very old religion.

From The Daily Signal, a legal expert explains why the aforementioned hush money case against Trump is bogus.

From The American Conservative, will Israel roll out the N-word against Iran?

From The Western Journal, seven things that Trump, if brought back into the White House, can do to revive the economy.

From BizPac Review, an illegal alien stabs two other illegal aliens, gets shot by a National Guardsman, and escapes back into Mexico.  (He'll have quite a story to tell down there.)

From The Daily Wire, at his hush money trial, Trump comes out swinging.

From the Daily Caller, according to Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett, Trump's alleged actions weren't too different from those of candidate Hillary Clinton (D) in 2016.

From the New York Post, videos show Israeli fighter jets and warships shooting down Iranian missiles and drones.

From Breitbart, Scottish Conservatives call for the repeal of Scotland's new hate speech law.

From Newsmax, your tax refund might be a bit bigger this year.

And from The Babylon Bee, congresscritter Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) condemns the violence against those innocent Iranian missiles.

Some Sunday Stuff

Now that I've been back home for over a whole, it's about time that I made a somewhat regular post.  On a warm sunny Sunday, here are some things going on:

From The Times Of Israel, Iranian state media tries to pass off video footage of a fire in Chile as destruction in Israel inflicted by Iranian rockets.

From Arutz Sheva, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman points out that one Iranian rocket was targeted at the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.

From The Jerusalem Post, pro-HamasPalestinian activists in Chicago applaud Iran's attack on Israel, and so do similar activists in Toronto, Canada.

From Gatestone Institute, Israel was completely justified in destroying Iran's terror facilities in Damascus, Syria.

From The Stream, after Israel successfully defends itself against Iran's attack, U.S. President Biden urges Israel to not respond.

From The American Conservative, a former fare hopper on the D.C. Metro makes his confessions.

From TCW Defending Freedom, the Britain of the thatchers.  (These thatchers should not be confused with the family of a certain late U.K. prime minister.)

From Canada Free Press, the choice faced by the U.S. this coming November.

From National Review, the Biden doctrine of "don't" isn't working.

From FrontpageMag, former Speaker Pelosi (D-Cal) claims to support Israel after calling for an arms embargo against it.

From Townhall, unlike Biden, Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) will support Israel if it retaliates against Iran.

From The Washington Free Beacon, a review of a book about Republican foreign policy showing parallels between Presidents Reagan and Trump.

From the Washington Examiner, Fetterman advises Trump to "focus on his time in court" instead of on Pennsylvania.  (It's interesting that the man whose brain some of us were wondering about has apparently become the most reasonable Democrat in the U.S.)

From American Thinker, leftists push for gun control after every mass shooting, but miss their real cause.

From NewsBusters, when the media went after the Tea Party movement.

And from SFGATE, at this year's Coachella music festival, the band No Doubt had the best set, which only took them 30 years.

A Park Named What?

There are some things which are so strange that you realize that if you discuss them, you won't be believed if you don't provide any evidence.  While driving back to Maryland from Indiana, I decided to go through southern Ohio and see for myself something I had learned about on the interwebz.  It's a park east of Circleville, OH with an ominous-sounding name that in a sense shouldn't be.

One Last Look

Today I drove all the way back from southern Indiana to my home in Maryland.  Just north of French Lick, where I stayed, is another small town called West Baden Springs.  After passing this statue of a tatanka a number of times, I decided that I must take a picture of it on my way out of the area.

After I took the pic, it was time to get back on the road again.

Thursday Things

On a day that's rather cool and rainy in southern Indiana, here are some things going on:

From National Review, Teh Stoopidt^TM is alive and well in America.

From FrontpageMag, how Democrats in Chicago tried to steal an election - in 1864.

From Townhall, former NFL Hall of Famer, actor, Hertz spokesman, and acquitted murder suspect O.J. Simpson has passed away from cancer.  (When his trial for the murder of his ex-wife Nicole and her friend Ron Goldman was starting up, I wondered what sort of people would constitute his peers, for the purpose of being on his jury.  I figured that his jury should have consisted of professional athletes worthy of Hall of Fame status, and mediocre actors.)

From The Washington Free Beacon, now that the coronavirus pandemic is over with, Harvard University brings back standard testing.

From the Washington Examiner, according to Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO), Code Pink "astroturf wackos" should be called out.

From The Federalist, eight ways to make sure that all legitimate votes are counted and no illegitimate votes get counted.

From American Thinker, a salute to two female authors.

From MRCTV, congresscritter Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) doesn't like people laughing at her laughable comment that the moon is mostly made of gasses.  (Would Buzz Aldrin care to comment?)

From NewsBusters, ABC, CBS and NBC ignore the victims killed allegedly by illegal aliens.

From Canada Free Press, Pope Benedict XVI's biographer blasts Pope Francis's description of him as being "transitional".

From TeleSUR, Mexico asks the International Court of Justice to suspend Ecuador from the U.N.

From TCW Defending Freedom, don't panic about all that water.

From EuroNews, Russian forces knock out a major power plant near Kyiv, Ukraine.

From Voice Of Europe, German parliamentcritters will reduce their use of electricity and travel.  (If you read German, read the story at Spiegel.)

From ReMix, French President Emmanuel Macron's actions toward Russia this year might just be seen as inconsistent.

From Balkan Insight, talks between Serbian political parties over conditions for elections fail again.

From The North Africa Post, Interpol arrests a wanted French citizen in Marrakech, Morocco.

From The New Arab, Russia advises its citizens to avoid traveling to the Middle East.

From Gatestone Institute, how to define "jihadism".

From The Stream, according to a "landmark" study, "transgender" kids really suffer from other mental health conditions.

From The Daily Signal, Miami Beach, Florida successfully breaks up with spring breakers.

From The American Conservative, is the Senate seat most likely to flip from Democrat to Republican one of those in my state?

From The Western Journal, President Biden is in danger of being left off the ballot in two states.

From BizPac Review, a British TV show host refuses to use "they/them" pronouns.

From The Daily Wire, Yale University students threaten to stage a hunger strike if their anti-Israel demands are not met.

From the Daily Caller, Donald Trump the Younger joins the board of the hunting advocacy group Hunter Nation.  (This group should not be confused with any fan club for Trump's successor as First Son.)

From Battleground Wisconsin, left-wing Wisconsin state Supreme Court Justice Ann Walsh Bradley (D) decides against running for reelection in 2025.  (via the Daily Caller)

From Breitbart, according to Senator Spartacus (D-NJ), former President Trump has created unimaginable "chaos and suffering" in the U.S.

From Newsmax, congresscritter Elise Stefanik (R-NY) blasts Harvard over its failure to discipline two students who allegedly assaulted and harassed an Israeli student.

And from the New York Post, a Dutch airplane pilot reveals why passengers "should not be scared" of turbulence.

Angel Mounds

It's getting late, but I'd better report on the second place which I visited earlier today.  East of Evansville, Indiana is the Angel Mounds State Historic Site, which was inhabited by Native Americans from the Mississippian Culture from roughly 1,000 to 1,450 AD.  The park includes a museum which is currently undergoing renovation, but the mounds themselves were open.  Fortunately, the rain with which I had been dealing off-and-on for most of the day decided to hold off before I arrived.

After I entered the site, I noticed this reconstructed stockade, including openings through which arrows could have been shot.

The Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial

Today I went on another road trip here in Indiana, this time toward the southwest, and visited two places, the first of which is the Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial, near an unincorporated place called Lincoln City.  Next to the parking lot near the visitor center is this plaque, which is dedicated to Abraham Lincoln's mother Nancy Hanks Lincoln.  She died when the future president was nine years old.  A flagpole is in the background behind the stairways along the two paths see here.

On The Road Again In Indiana

Today I set out to explore some more of Indiana, and made a return visit to a place where I stopped in about five years ago.  I was driving northward through the town of Orleans and came upon a small unidentified park, which includes this war memorial.

The Eclipse Of 2024

Seven years ago, in eastern Tennessee, I got to experience firsthand the words of the noted British astronomer Roger Waters, "Everything under the sun is in tune, but the sun is eclipsed by the moon", from the Pink Floyd song Eclipse.  Today, in French Lick, Indiana, I got to repeat that experience.  I even got to use the same protective glasses that a fellow eclipse-watcher gave me back then in 2017.  As with that earlier eclipse, this one involved the sun appearing to be "turned down" while still casting distinct shadows during that last minute or so before totality began, with sunlight gradually returning to normal brightness afterwards.  Also as with the 2017 eclipse, the weather was nice.

The place where I'm staying extends to the top of a hill, where a gathering was held for the eclipse.  Someone in the crowd who knows his astronomy well called out various times before the moon completely covered the sun.  Looking eastward, the hilltop was shared with a golf course hole, I believe, to the right.