Fake News

It seems like everyone, including mainstream media, is getting into the "fake news" business. Not wanting to be left out of a growing trend in the publishing industry, I feel pressured to make my own contributions...

Hillary Caught Telling The Truth: In a surprising and utterly shocking development, Hillary Clinton was caught telling a bold-face truth to reporters. In the past, she has done this only when under oath and threat of perjury. Even her steadfast and most zealous supporters were caught off-guard. Nancy Pelosi (we must pass this bill in order to know what's in it) commented "this is not our party's way...clearly, her major health problems have impaired her judgement".

CNN Registers As Lobbyist: CNN has announced that it is giving up all pretense of being an independent, fact based news organization and has registered with the government as a lobbyist organization. CEO, Jeff Zucker, stated that "we have lost so much trust with the American public by way of our false and biased reporting that we felt we could make more money as lobbyist... plus, we no longer have to worry about all that journalistic integrity nonsense such as having two sources confirm a story".

Trump Quits Twitter: White House Press Secretary, Sean Spencer, told reporters that President Trump feels so badly about by-passing the mainstream media via his Twitter account that he will no longer 'tweet'. There is some concern that this move may give the media less to report and therefore lead to job losses within the industry which ironically, is the opposite of Trump's goal of creating more jobs in America.

Mexico To Build A Border Wall: Mexico has announced that due to a massive influx of illegal immigrants from Guatemala and Belize, they will build a wall on their southern border and America will pay for it. Although there were no specifics on how the USA will pay for it, speculation is there will be a border tax on all illegal drugs smuggled into the country.

As I once told Mark Twain, "The difference between nonfiction and fiction is that fiction must be believable".

London Bridge Locks

Occasionally in my travels, I come across something that I find interesting but have no clue as to why it is there. On the east side of the London Bridge, there is an iron railing that is covered with dozens of locks...

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Is it art? Is it a way to keep people from stealing the bridge? Let me know what you think in the comment section below.

Fisherman Intaglio

The Fisherman Intaglio, a stick figure carved in the ground by early Native Americans, depicts a man holding a spear with two fish shown below and a sun and serpent above. It is located between Bouse and Quartzsite, AZ off the Plomosa Road. It is not well marked and you have to hike a ways to get to it.

I recently bought a DJI Mavic drone and thought this would be a good way to view the complete figure from the air. Due to recent inclement weather and high winds, I have not had much time to practice flying my new toy so the video is not as professional as I would have liked. Still, you can see the potential and with time, I hope to shoot some amazing videos.

Click on image to enlarge

FYI - In order to achieve the drone's compact size, they gave it a short landing gear so you need to have a relatively flat surface for takeoff and landing to keep from damaging the propellers.

Illegal Voting

There has been much discussion in the media about illegal votes cast in the national election. Some believe it was in the millions, others believe it was much less. President Trump has called for an investigation into the matter. I am for such an inquiry, assuming it can be done in a fair and non-partisan manner, as Americans need to have faith in our election system.

In my opinion, there are some cases of dead people voting along with people who are registered in two or more states. However, I suspect those numbers are rather small compared to the total number of votes cast. What I believe to be a much more significant problem is illegal immigrants voting.

There are currently 12 States and Washington, DC that allow driver's licenses to be issued to people in the country Illegally. These licenses can in turn be used as identification for people to vote in a number of states. Add-in fraudulent documents such as counterfeit Social Security cards, fake “green cards,” and phony birth certificates and you can see that a determined individual would have no problem voting.

According to the Pew Research Center, there were 11.1 million unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. in 2014. California has the largest number of illegal immigrants with an estimated 2.4 million unauthorized immigrants making up about 6.3 percent of the state's total population. 

Common sense suggests that some illegals voted in the national election. The question is... how many?