As Usual, Hillary Blames Victim

As anti-Trump rioters violently attack Trump supporters, Hillary Clinton attempts to lay the blame on Donald Trump.

Clinton and her political toadies, either through naivete or ignorance (take your pick) refuse to admit that photos, such as the one above, showing anti-Trumpers carrying Mexican flags and "vote socialist" signs while rioting and destroying private property actually help the Trump campaign.

Not all Democrats appear to be as clueless as Clinton.

A few Democrats and Hispanic activists said Friday that they are increasingly alarmed by a spate of violence at Donald Trump rallies instigated by anti-Trump protesters, fearing that the incidents — widely viewed on television and social media — will only help the GOP candidate and undermine their attempts to defeat him.

It really shouldn't be surprising that Clinton blames Trump, the recipient of the attacks, for the violence directed towards him. She has a history of blaming the victim for the actions of the perpetrator. Juanita Broaddrick - Eileen Wellstone - Paula Jones - Kathleen Willey.

To Market, To Market to Buy a Fat Pig..........

June 13, the feast day of Saint Anthony of Padua is fast approaching. St. Anthony is the patron saint of Sibulan, so, his feast day is a very big deal here. Not only is the work on the bridge between Cangmating and Sibulan expected to be completely finished before the celebration, pig farmers have begun gathering on the roads leading into town in order to sell the critters. Because the feast day is so important to the community, everyone will be having Lechon Baboy (roast pig).

One would think that I'd enjoy lechon. Pork is my favorite meat, and seeing one roasting over charcoals is impressive. Yes, one might think that, but one would be wrong. I've tried Lechon Baboy a number of times, and I've always been sadly disappointed. To my taste, the flavor of the pork leaves a lot to be desired. Perhaps, it's because I imagine a BBQ when I see the pig roasting. What use is BBQ pork without a good, spicy BBQ sauce?

I'm sure I'll have a little taste this year. Maybe I can bring my own sauce.

Shackleton's Last Expedition

In one of his podcasts for his series on World War I, Dan Carlin referenced the British polar explorer Ernest Shackleton and his "Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition" begun in early 1914. The purpose of the expedition was to travel the continent of Antarctica over land from the Weddell Sea to the Ross Sea.

At the outbreak of World War I, Shackelton volunteered his ships and crew to the British war effort. Thinking that the war would be short, First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill directed Shackelton to proceed with the expedition as planned.

On 19 January 1915, Shackelton's ship, Endurance became frozen fast in an ice floe.

From wikipedia.org:

"On 24 February, realising [sic] that she would be trapped until the following spring, Shackleton ordered the abandonment of ship's routine and her conversion to a winter station.She drifted slowly northward with the ice through the following months. When spring arrived in September, the breaking of the ice and its later movements put extreme pressures on the ship's hull."
"Until this point, Shackleton had hoped that the ship, when released from the ice, could work her way back towards Vahsel Bay. On 24 October, however, water began pouring in. After a few days, with the position at 69° 5' S, 51° 30' W, Shackleton gave the order to abandon ship, saying, 'She's going down!'; and men, provisions and equipment were transferred to camps on the ice. On 21 November 1915, the wreck finally slipped beneath the surface."

The time line of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, from Jan.1915 (Endurance trapped in ice) until the crew's rescue from Elephant Island in Aug 1916, is outlined on the map created during "DensityDesign Integrated Course Final Synthesis Studio" at Polytechnic University of Milan, organized by DensityDesign Research Lab in 2015. Image is released under CC-BY-SA licence. Attribution goes to "Luca Ferrario, DensityDesign Research Lab". - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37081379.

Shackleton's book on the expedition [South! The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition, 1914-1917] can be found at Project Gutenberg. At this writing, I've read the first chapter and can highly recommend this book to history buffs.

June 1: Bridge Update

When I wrote two days ago that the end was in sight for the bridge replacement project, the end appears to be even closer than I had suspected.

As can be seen in these photos, work was done on the bridge on both Monday and Tuesday. I wrote that there would need to be a rail on the side of the bridge where the water pipe was laid. The first photo shows that the rail has arrived at the work site.

I also wrote that the bridge needed to be connected to the street. When I wrote that, I believed it would require something or other made of concrete. I was wrong. The cavity between the bridge and the road is being filled in with stones and dirt. This is certainly cheaper than cement, and should there be a problem with the water pipe in the future, it would be easier digging through dirt rather than concrete. There's no shortage of labor, so filling in the space will be relatively easy. It's just a matter of tamping down the soil so that it is compact enough for vehicles to drive across.

I'm confident that the work will be completed before the June 13 festival in Sibulan for St. Anthony of Padua.

Refrigerator Repair Update

Our refrigerator had been down for five days when I published the first post on our wait for the repairmen. As promised, the repairmen arrived the morning of May 24. They were able to diagnose the problem. A part would have to be ordered, of course. We could expect the part to arrive in 4 or 5 days.

The repairman said the part had fried (my word) due to fluctuations in the electrical power supply. He recommended that, while waiting on the part, we should purchase an automatic voltage regulator (AVR) to prevent future fluctuations. He gave us the names of two electrical supply companies in Dumaguete where the AVR could be purchased. We drove to both stores in order to check the prices. We found one that fit our budget - the price difference on the same AVR (Sassin 1500VA) at the two stores was over 500 pesos.

Naturally, we choose the cheaper one - at 2,800 pesos. The attendant at the store where we had decided to purchase the AVR told us that the one we had chosen was made in China and we really should buy the more reliable 6,000 peso AVR.

I was born at night.....but it wasn't last night. We went home with the 2,800 peso AVR.

A phone call to the repair shop yesterday verified that the part had arrived Saturday afternoon after Monday's repair schedule had been made, so it would be today before the repairmen could come here. The men have been here and gone. The part has been replaced, the refrigerator connected to the AVR.

Fortunately, the part and labor was covered under the warranty. We're out the money for the AVR, but you can put that down to the unreliability of the electrical system here.