Page 104 of 445 FirstFirst ... 45494101102103104105106107114154204 ... LastLast
Results 1,546 to 1,560 of 6669

Thread: The Cosmic Emporium

  1. #1546
    Senior Monk Gio's Avatar
    Join Date
    26th September 2016
    Posts
    7,330
    Thanks
    7,958
    Thanked 37,150 Times in 7,345 Posts

    Thumbs Up

    Always check previous pages for missed posted items ...

    ***

    For UFOlogy fans ...

    Richard Dolan Extra-Terrestrial Inter-dimensional (and other UFO theories)

    This was Richard Dolan's first presentation in Australia on UFOs.

    Recorded on November 5, 2016
    Ryde Eastwood Leagues Club
    117 Ryedale Road
    West Ryde, New South Wales 2114

    Published on Jan 30, 2017

    Note: 405:05 minutes


  2. The Following 5 Users Say Thank You to Gio For This Useful Post:

    Aianawa (31st January 2017), Dreamtimer (30th January 2017), JRS (31st January 2017), modwiz (30th January 2017), pointessa (2nd February 2017)

  3. #1547
    Retired Member United States
    Join Date
    7th April 2015
    Location
    Patapsco Valley
    Posts
    14,610
    Thanks
    70,673
    Thanked 62,025 Times in 14,520 Posts
    The Raiments in the second clip are stunning. Is it true that the pope has solid gold carriages?

    Little cliff-hanger at the ending...I imagine him spitting on the slipper.
    Last edited by Dreamtimer, 30th January 2017 at 11:35.

  4. The Following 5 Users Say Thank You to Dreamtimer For This Useful Post:

    Aianawa (31st January 2017), Elen (31st January 2017), Gio (30th January 2017), modwiz (30th January 2017), pointessa (2nd February 2017)

  5. #1548
    Senior Monk Gio's Avatar
    Join Date
    26th September 2016
    Posts
    7,330
    Thanks
    7,958
    Thanked 37,150 Times in 7,345 Posts
    Quote Originally posted by Dreamtimer View Post
    The Raiments in the second clip are stunning. Is it true that the pope has solid gold carriages?
    Yes, though i doubt it would (ever) be used in this day and age ...

    Note, built in 1716 for Pope Clement XI Embassy Coach (of the Oceans),
    I believe it is no longer stored at the Vatican.


    Last edited by Gio, 30th January 2017 at 11:53. Reason: add photo

  6. The Following 5 Users Say Thank You to Gio For This Useful Post:

    Aianawa (31st January 2017), Dreamtimer (30th January 2017), Elen (31st January 2017), modwiz (30th January 2017), pointessa (2nd February 2017)

  7. #1549
    Senior Monk Gio's Avatar
    Join Date
    26th September 2016
    Posts
    7,330
    Thanks
    7,958
    Thanked 37,150 Times in 7,345 Posts
    Quote Originally posted by Dreamtimer View Post

    Little cliff-hanger at the ending...I imagine him spitting on the slipper.
    Note, you don't see the last second of that scene, in which the pope does something
    quite shocking instead to the cardinal secretary of state ...

    giggle

    The Young Pope scene from last night's HBO show segment ...


  8. The Following 5 Users Say Thank You to Gio For This Useful Post:

    Aianawa (31st January 2017), Dreamtimer (30th January 2017), Elen (31st January 2017), modwiz (30th January 2017), pointessa (2nd February 2017)

  9. #1550
    Senior Monk Gio's Avatar
    Join Date
    26th September 2016
    Posts
    7,330
    Thanks
    7,958
    Thanked 37,150 Times in 7,345 Posts
    Wow ...

    This Week in Unnecessary Censorship

    Jimmy Kimmel Live


    "Once again, we've bleeped and blurred all the week's big TV moments whether they need it or not. This week we feature Matt Lauer, Sean Spicer, Arnold Schwarzenegger, President Donald Trump and more" ...

    #UnnecessaryCensorship



  10. The Following 5 Users Say Thank You to Gio For This Useful Post:

    Aianawa (31st January 2017), Dreamtimer (30th January 2017), Elen (31st January 2017), modwiz (30th January 2017), pointessa (2nd February 2017)

  11. #1551
    Senior Monk Gio's Avatar
    Join Date
    26th September 2016
    Posts
    7,330
    Thanks
    7,958
    Thanked 37,150 Times in 7,345 Posts
    My motto ...

    Eric Bibb - Don't Let Nobody Drag Your Spirit Down


  12. The Following 8 Users Say Thank You to Gio For This Useful Post:

    Aianawa (31st January 2017), Aragorn (30th January 2017), Dreamtimer (30th January 2017), Elen (31st January 2017), modwiz (30th January 2017), pointessa (2nd February 2017), TimeSensitive (31st January 2017), zendeavor (31st January 2017)

  13. #1552
    Retired Member United States
    Join Date
    7th April 2015
    Location
    Patapsco Valley
    Posts
    14,610
    Thanks
    70,673
    Thanked 62,025 Times in 14,520 Posts
    Quote Originally posted by Dreamtimer View Post
    The Raiments in the second clip are stunning. Is it true that the pope has solid gold carriages?

    Little cliff-hanger at the ending...I imagine him spitting on the slipper.
    A rebuke, then. A kick? The foot pulls away? The cardinal secretary of state is no longer...that man? He's declared gay and made an example of? (that would be pretty diabolical).

    You don't have to tell.

  14. The Following 4 Users Say Thank You to Dreamtimer For This Useful Post:

    Elen (31st January 2017), Gio (30th January 2017), modwiz (30th January 2017), pointessa (2nd February 2017)

  15. #1553
    Senior Monk Gio's Avatar
    Join Date
    26th September 2016
    Posts
    7,330
    Thanks
    7,958
    Thanked 37,150 Times in 7,345 Posts

  16. The Following 7 Users Say Thank You to Gio For This Useful Post:

    Aianawa (31st January 2017), Aragorn (30th January 2017), Dreamtimer (31st January 2017), Elen (31st January 2017), JRS (31st January 2017), modwiz (30th January 2017), zendeavor (31st January 2017)

  17. #1554
    Senior Monk Gio's Avatar
    Join Date
    26th September 2016
    Posts
    7,330
    Thanks
    7,958
    Thanked 37,150 Times in 7,345 Posts

    Lightbulb

    Sounds like a plan ...



    Ron Paul Suggests A Better Solution Than Trump's Border Wall

    "Just one week in office, President Trump is already following through on his pledge to address illegal immigration. His January 25th executive order called for the construction of a wall along the entire length of the US-Mexico border. While he is right to focus on the issue, there are several reasons why his proposed solution will unfortunately not lead us anywhere closer to solving the problem" ...Read the rest
    Last edited by Gio, 31st January 2017 at 04:49.

  18. The Following 8 Users Say Thank You to Gio For This Useful Post:

    Aianawa (31st January 2017), Aragorn (31st January 2017), Dreamtimer (31st January 2017), Elen (31st January 2017), Fred Steeves (31st January 2017), JRS (31st January 2017), modwiz (31st January 2017), zendeavor (31st January 2017)

  19. #1555
    Senior Monk Gio's Avatar
    Join Date
    26th September 2016
    Posts
    7,330
    Thanks
    7,958
    Thanked 37,150 Times in 7,345 Posts

    Question

    Another note worthy read ...

    ***

    Steve Bannon Is Making Sure There’s No White House Paper Trail,
    Says Intel Source


    "The Trump administration’s chief strategist has already taken control
    of both policy and process on national security."



    Steve K. Bannon - Counselor to the President of the United States


    By Kate Brannen
    January 30, 2017

    "If there was any question about who is largely in charge of national security behind the scenes at the White House, the answer is becoming increasingly clear: Steve Bannon, the former head of Breitbart News, a far-right media outlet, and now White House advisor.

    Even before he was given a formal seat on the National Security Council’s “principals committee” this weekend by President Donald Trump, Bannon was calling the shots and doing so with little to no input from the National Security Council staff, according to an intelligence official who asked not to be named out of fear of retribution.

    “He is running a cabal, almost like a shadow NSC,” the official said. He described a work environment where there is little appetite for dissenting opinions, shockingly no paper trail of what’s being discussed and agreed upon at meetings, and no guidance or encouragement so far from above about how the National Security Council staff should be organized.

    The intelligence official, who said he was willing to give the Trump administration the benefit of the doubt when it took office, is now deeply troubled by how things are being run.

    “They ran all of these executive orders outside of the normal construct,” he said, referring to last week’s flurry of draft executive orders on everything from immigration to the return of CIA “black sites.”

    After the controversial draft orders were written, the Trump team was very selective in how they routed them through the internal White House review process, the official said.

    Under previous administrations, if someone thought another person or directorate had a stake in the issue at hand or expertise in a subject area, he or she was free to share the papers as long as the recipient had proper clearance.

    With that standard in mind, when some officials saw Trump’s draft executive orders, they felt they had broad impact and shared them more widely for staffing and comments.

    That did not sit well with Bannon or his staff, according to the official. More stringent guidelines for handling and routing were then instituted, and the National Security Council staff was largely cut out of the process.

    By the end of the week, they weren’t the only ones left in the dark. Retired Marine Gen. John Kelly, the secretary of homeland security, was being briefed on the executive order, which called for immediately shutting the borders to nationals from seven largely Muslim countries and all refugees, while Trump was in the midst of signing the measure, the New York Times reported.

    The White House did not respond in time to a request for comment.

    The lack of a paper trail documenting the decision-making process is also troubling, the intelligence official said. For example, under previous administrations, after a principals or deputies meeting of the National Security Council, the discussion, the final agreement, and the recommendations would be written up in what’s called a “summary of conclusions” — or SOC in government-speak.

    “Under [President George W. Bush], the National Security Council was quite strict about recording SOCs,” said Matthew Waxman, a law professor at Columbia University who served on Bush’s National Security Council. “There was often a high level of generality, and there may have been some exceptions, but they were carefully crafted.”

    These summaries also provided a record to refer back to, especially important if a debate over an issue came up again, including among agencies that needed to implement the conclusions reached.

    If someone thought the discussion was mischaracterized, he or she would call for a correction to be issued to set the record straight, said Loren DeJonge Schulman, who previously served in former President Barack Obama’s administration as a senior advisor to National Security Advisor Susan Rice. Schulman is now a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security.

    “People took the document seriously,” she said.

    During the first week of the Trump administration, there were no SOCs, the intelligence official said. In fact, according to him, there is surprisingly very little paper being generated, and whatever paper there is, the NSC staff is not privy to it. He sees this as a deterioration of transparency and accountability.

    “It would worry me if written records of these meeting were eliminated, because they contribute to good governance,” Waxman said.

    It is equally important that NSC staff be the ones drafting the issue papers going into meetings, too, said Schulman. “The idea is to share with everyone a fair and balanced take on the issue, with the range of viewpoints captured in that document,” she said.

    If those papers are now being generated by political staff, she added, it corrupts the whole process.

    It could also contribute to Bannon’s centralization of power.

    “He who has the pen has the authority to shape outcomes,” the intelligence official said.

    Now Bannon’s role in the shadows is being formalized thanks to an executive order signed Saturday by Trump that formally gives Bannon a seat on the National Security Council’s principals committee. The same executive order removed from that group the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the director of national intelligence, and the secretary of energy. Their new diminished role is not unprecedented, but some still find it a troubling piece of this larger picture.

    For example, former Defense Secretary Robert Gates — who served under both Bush and Obama — told ABC News this weekend that sidelining the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the director of national intelligence was a “big mistake.” Every president can benefit from their “perspective, judgment, and experience,” Gates said.

    Meanwhile, Bannon’s new role is unprecedented. Under Obama, it wasn’t unheard of for his chief political advisors, John Podesta and David Axelrod, to attend NSC meetings, but they were never guaranteed a seat at the table. Under Bush, the line between national security and domestic political considerations was even clearer. Top aides have said they never saw Karl Rove or “anyone from his shop” in NSC meetings, and that’s because Bush told him explicitly not to attend.

    The signal Bush “especially wanted to send to the military is that, ‘The decisions I’m making that involve life and death for the people in uniform will not be tainted by any political decisions,’” former White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten said last September.

    Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) called Bannon’s appointment to the council as a permanent member a “radical departure” from how the decision-making body was organized in the past, adding that he found the change “concerning.”

    Inside and outside of government, there are also deep reservations about Bannon’s alignment with the far right and white nationalism, thanks to his previous leadership of Breitbart. One Bannon quote making the rounds this weekend: “Lenin wanted to destroy the state, and that’s my goal, too. I want to bring everything crashing down and destroy all of today’s establishment.”

    There are new questions about where retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Trump’s national security advisor, fits into all of this. Internally, it remains unclear what his role is, the intelligence official said. “He has a voice at the table, but he’s overshadowed by Bannon.”

    Meanwhile, Tom Bossert, a former Bush national security aide whom Trump picked to serve as the White House’s homeland security advisor, is not “one of Bannon’s,” so he is also on the outside looking in, according to the official. However, in Saturday’s executive order, Bossert was also given a permanent seat on the NSC principals committee.

    But there is not a lot of infighting right now, because to have infighting, there needs to be a power struggle, and there is no struggle, the intelligence official said.

    However, there is an effort to crack down on leaking. Last week, a draft executive order, which raised the prospect of bringing back CIA “black sites” and reopening the debate on torture, leaked to the press. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said it was “not a White House document” and that he had “no idea where it came from.” But according to the New York Times, “the White House had circulated it among National Security Council staff members for review on Tuesday morning.” The Times was even provided with the details of the email chain that showed “the draft order’s movements through the White House bureaucracy.”

    “They’re doing a witch hunt now to find out how that got out,” the intelligence official said. “There is zero room for dissenting opinion.”

    Trump did say publicly that he would defer to Defense Secretary James Mattis for now on the question of torture, which would suggest that disagreement is OK. But while publicly the president is allowing for different opinions, there is unhappiness about what is permitted behind the scenes, according to the official. If you take a stand against the White House, you might find yourself frozen out of future meetings, he said.

    The NSC staff is mostly in shock after last week, the intelligence official said. For now, no one knows what each day will bring. There is no organizational chart yet for the NSC, meaning there has been no internal guidance yet about which portfolios still exist and to whom they report, the official said. The Washington Post reported Sunday on some of the changes being made, including that “some offices such as cyber have been expanded, while others have been collapsed.” The directorates on Europe and Russia, which were separate under Obama, have now been combined.

    It’s possible that the current chaos and lack of bureaucratic process is a result of the Trump administration still going through growing pains and figuring out how best to run things. But former NSC officials said an organizational chart for the NSC is the kind of thing you have in place weeks before taking office.

    Only time will tell if the way things are currently being done is deliberate or part of a new administration learning on the job how best to provide advice to the president and communicate with the relevant agencies.

    Trump’s management style is known to be highly unstructured, if not chaotic. The Post reported in May that he was running his presidential campaign like he ran his business — “fond of promoting rivalries among subordinates, wary of delegating major decisions, scornful of convention and fiercely insistent on a culture of loyalty around him.”

    “While this may have worked for his company, it is certainly not a way to run a country,” the official said."

    Source: foreignpolicy.com
    Last edited by Gio, 31st January 2017 at 04:09. Reason: add bio

  20. The Following 6 Users Say Thank You to Gio For This Useful Post:

    Aianawa (31st January 2017), Aragorn (31st January 2017), Dreamtimer (31st January 2017), Elen (31st January 2017), Fred Steeves (31st January 2017), modwiz (31st January 2017)

  21. #1556
    Retired Member United States
    Join Date
    8th November 2015
    Posts
    1,264
    Thanks
    1,691
    Thanked 7,661 Times in 1,264 Posts
    Quote Originally posted by giovonni View Post



    "Just one week in office, President Trump is already following through on his pledge to address illegal immigration. His January 25th executive order called for the construction of a wall along the entire length of the US-Mexico border. While he is right to focus on the issue, there are several reasons why his proposed solution will unfortunately not lead us anywhere closer to solving the problem" ... Read the rest
    Now more than ever

    Donald Trump Robot Apocalyptic vs. Chicken


    Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=um37MyRvrhU

  22. The Following 5 Users Say Thank You to Maggie For This Useful Post:

    Aianawa (31st January 2017), Aragorn (31st January 2017), Dreamtimer (31st January 2017), Elen (31st January 2017), Gio (31st January 2017)

  23. #1557
    Senior Member Morocco modwiz's Avatar
    Join Date
    13th September 2013
    Location
    Nestled in Appalachia
    Posts
    6,720
    Thanks
    40,125
    Thanked 41,242 Times in 6,698 Posts
    Quote Originally posted by giovonni View Post
    Another note worthy read ...

    ***


    Source: foreignpolicy.com
    I would agree.
    "To learn who rules over you simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize" -- Voltaire

    "Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people."-- Eleanor Roosevelt

    "Misery loves company. Wisdom has to look for it." -- Anonymous

  24. The Following 5 Users Say Thank You to modwiz For This Useful Post:

    Aianawa (31st January 2017), Aragorn (31st January 2017), Dreamtimer (31st January 2017), Elen (31st January 2017), Gio (31st January 2017)

  25. #1558
    Senior Monk Gio's Avatar
    Join Date
    26th September 2016
    Posts
    7,330
    Thanks
    7,958
    Thanked 37,150 Times in 7,345 Posts

    Question

    Meanwhile up in the Arctic ...

    Atomic icebreakers Russia and Yamal are seen moored at Atomflot (Rosatomflot) a Russian company
    and service base that maintains the world's only fleet of nuclear-powered icebreakers. ...




    Putin's Russia in biggest Arctic military push since Soviet fall

  26. The Following 4 Users Say Thank You to Gio For This Useful Post:

    Aragorn (31st January 2017), Dreamtimer (31st January 2017), Elen (1st February 2017), modwiz (31st January 2017)

  27. #1559
    Senior Monk Gio's Avatar
    Join Date
    26th September 2016
    Posts
    7,330
    Thanks
    7,958
    Thanked 37,150 Times in 7,345 Posts
    For those who are following this thread ...

    It should be noted here, I do not subscribe to neither the MSM or Alternative press ...
    I go by my instinct as to what should be paid heed to in regards to the goings on ...
    To ignore either would show a lacking in (my) discreetly searching for truth.
    Last edited by Gio, 31st January 2017 at 12:07.

  28. The Following 7 Users Say Thank You to Gio For This Useful Post:

    Aragorn (31st January 2017), Dreamtimer (31st January 2017), Elen (1st February 2017), modwiz (31st January 2017), sandy (1st February 2017), TimeSensitive (1st February 2017), zendeavor (1st February 2017)

  29. #1560
    Retired Member United States
    Join Date
    7th April 2015
    Location
    Patapsco Valley
    Posts
    14,610
    Thanks
    70,673
    Thanked 62,025 Times in 14,520 Posts
    Quote Originally posted by giovonni View Post
    Thank you for posting this. My son can't sleep if he hasn't flossed, this is perfect.

  30. The Following 4 Users Say Thank You to Dreamtimer For This Useful Post:

    Aragorn (31st January 2017), Elen (1st February 2017), Gio (31st January 2017), modwiz (31st January 2017)

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •