Monday links

OT, Claire, but (a) thanks for adding an Amazon link for Canadian shoppers, and (b) could you fix the link? It seems to navigate to an associates page.

(I think it needs to be http://www.amazon.ca instead of associates.amazon.ca)

Ammo for speculation about Hillary:

http://www.dangerandplay.com/2016/08/12/hillary-clinton-has-parkinsons-disease-physician-confirms/

If stress is a factor, how would she cope with a debate? A freeze-up would be deadly.

This might be of interest about the NRA and its members:

http://www.ammoland.com/2016/01/the-demographics-of-the-nra/#axzz3y7Qp6JC3

An electric Elio that’s shipping. But the Solo costs twice as much, and has a range of only 100 miles. Still cool, though.

That’s a great article on Hillary, Desertrat. I think it goes far beyond speculation; the author is clear not to claim absolutely that it’s Parkinson’s but notes that it in all likelihood is. The author even explains how there can be swallowing difficulties and the person is at risk for aspiration pneumonia. She now has pneumonia.

i’ve heard the theory that Obama will allow the election to go on and then indict her. Under indictment, she couldn’t become president and he could remain, likely declaring martial law sometime in the process. If the article is correct, and I certainly believe it is, he could find a way to order a medical exam and end up with a similar result.

It’s even more remarkable to me (though it shouldn’t be) that this article, published a month ago, isn’t well known. The MSM clearly is doing their job. What I don’t know is how they’re going to get around the debates. She clearly can’t handle that level of stress. Whatever the chicanery will be, it will be creative.

I don’t believe we live in normal times anymore. It seems like pretty much anything can happen, and no one will stop it. While I certainly don’t understand all the ins and outs of the possibilities, here’s one somewhat dated article on the subject: http://www.commdiginews.com/politics-2/ben-carson-might-obama-cancel-the-2016-election-28523/ I do know that Obama has replaced a record number of generals and has used as a “litmus test” the question of whether or not they would order their troops to fire on non violent citizens who refused to give up their weapons. I just don’t believe we’re that far from possible chaos. I pray that view is incorrect. Several years ago, I asked a German lady who was born in 1930 how what was going on here compared to Germany in the 1093’s. Her immediate response was, “Oh my God. It’s exactly the same. I’m scared to death.”

I hadn’t heard that rumor, but it does seem to me that replacing Clinton would be a smart move. Joe to the rescue?

Shel, I agree that we are not far from possible chaos. But I don’t think our time is really much like Germany in the 1930s (and, frankly, someone born in 1930 wouldn’t really have an understanding of the events around her at the time). If you haven’t read it, there is a fascinating little memoir by Sebastian Haffner called “Defying Hitler”. He was a child in Germany during WWI and witnessed the aftermath (end of the war, several abortive revolutions, the Weimar republic and its hyperinflation, etc.) Here’s a link to the book: https://www.amazon.com/Defying-Hitler-Memoir-Sebastian-Haffner/dp/0312421133/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1473786593&sr=1-1&keywords=sebastian+haffner+defying+hitler

In 1933 Haffner escaped to London, where he lived for the rest of his life. A few years later he wrote this memoir, and since it ends at 1933 it doesn’t chronicle the final stages of Hitler’s rise to power. But it does capture the early parts of it, the foundational elements, and makes for fascinating reading. At the risk of abusing our hostess’ hospitality I’m going to quote several paragraphs, relating to 1924, which seem germane to this discussion:

“The last ten years were forgotten like a bad dream. The Day of Judgment was remote again, and there was no demand for saviors and revolutionaries. The public sector required only competent officials, and the private sector only hardworking businessmen. There was an ample measure of freedom, peace, and order, and everywhere the most well-meaning liberal-mindedness, good wages, good food, and a little political boredom. Everyone was cordially invited to concentrate on their personal lives, to arrange their affairs according to their own tastes, and to find their own paths to happiness.

“Now something strange happened – and with this I believe I am about to reveal one of the most fundamental political events of our time, something that was not reported in any newspaper: by and large that invitation was declined. It was not what was wanted. A whole generation was, it seemed, at a loss as to how to cope with the offer of an unfettered private life.

“A generation of young Germans had become accustomed to having the entire content of their lives delivered gratis, so to speak, by the public sphere, all the raw material for their deeper emotions, for love and hate, joy and sorrow, but also all their sensations and thrills – accompanied though they might be by poverty, hunger, death, chaos and peril. Now that these deliveries suddenly ceased, people were left helpless, impoverished, robbed, and disappointed. They had never learned to live from within themselves, how to make an ordinary private life great, beautiful, and worthwhile, how to enjoy it and make it interesting. So they regarded the end of the political tension and the return of private liberty not as a gift, but as a deprivation. They were bored, their minds strayed to silly thoughts, and they began to sulk. In the end they waited eagerly for the first disturbance, the first setback or incident, so that they could put this period of peace behind them and set out on some new collective adventure. * * * It was at this time that, invisibly and unnoticed, the Germans divided into those who later became Nazis and those who would remain non-Nazis.”

Our era is totally different. But no less perilous.