Massive Dust Devil Spotted on Mars

Lucky NASA boffins have captured an image of a massive dust devil on Mars, much larger than it is on earth.

The photo of the enormous whirling dust storm was caught by NASA's Opportunity rover as it trundled across the red planet's Meridiani Planum, and it left scientists excited.

Dust Devil

"This is one of the best dust devils that we have seen in Meridiani Planum," said lead investigator Ray Arvidson, "We are lucky to have captured this one in an image!"

Dust Devils form when hot air connects with wind sheer, producing a swirling mass of airborne grit, sand and dust.

Aerial View of a Dust Devil

The Anglican Consultative Council was unavailable for comment.

LSP

Annunciation

It's the Feast of the Annunciation, so here's a prayer:

WE beseech thee, O Lord, pour thy grace into our hearts; that, as we have known the incarnation of thy Son Jesus Christ by the message of an angel, so by his cross and passion we may be brought unto the glory of his resurrection; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

God bless,

LSP

Cooking, Yet Again, With LSP

Glock & Salmon

What, you cook with LSP? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard! You say incredulously. But it's true, a lot of cooking goes on at the Compound because the Team's got to eat and they want to improve their marksmanship. That's where quail and venison come in.

Everyone knows that quail and venison make you a better shot, it's settled science, but how do you cook these two aids to ballistic excellence? It's not hard.

Quail & Sig

Make yourself a Glock and Salmon starter, then get some quail that you or one of your pals has shot. Salt and pepper the diminutive birds, fill their cavity with a lemon wedge, then wrap them in bacon. Put the finished result on a baking tray and preheat your oven to 500*. That's right, get that oven hot.

Quail

As you master this tricky task, skin some potatoes and carrots, put them in pots of water and boil them. It's easy, when you know how. Veg on, wait for a while, there's no rush, then put some spicy venison sausage into an iron skillet and apply heat. 

Oven Ready

About 30 minutes from the time you put the veg on, put the quail in the oven for 12 or 13 minutes, no longer. Take the birds out, cover them with foil and let them rest; they're just fine, don't mess with them. As they're finishing off, mash the potatoes, remove the sausage from the skillet and make some gravy in it. I like chopped garlic, white wine, chicken stock and flour. That's one way to do it.

A Knife And Some Garlic

Simmer the gravy and enjoy the aroma, reflect upon the perfidy of Shillary and the GOP establishment, whatever, play some Motorhead; if needs be, reheat the veg. Then put it all together. Two birds a person, extra bacon on the side, sausage, veg and gravy.

Then eat your scoff like a hero and congratulate yourself on a job well done. You'll shoot better the next day, it's been proven, settled science. And that's cooking.

With,

LSP

Oculus Rift

This is what you think you see.

Mantoid

This is the reality.

Drones in the Hive

Take. The. Goggles. Off.

God bless,

LSP

Catch The Fish

About time, LSP! And to be fair to you, yes, it was. Fishing, for me lately, has been more of a matter of casting away into the watery depths and losing lures on snags than actually catching anything. But that changed today.

There we were, just me, Blue Texas Rig and a lake, not too far from Maypearl, in Ellis County. Off I cast with a green worm, thinking "you can't lose with chartreuse" and sure enough, within a few minutes of slow retrieve, there was a strike. The rod bent double and the line played out, big excitement. Fish on. 

We fought, the fish and I, and the fish won, but at least something was biting. Sure enough, 10 minutes later the same scene played out and up thrashed a mighty Leviathan, lured by the enticing qualities of a sparkly green plastic worm.

The dog was fascinated and so was I. Go fishing and actually catch a fish. Remarkable. I put the monster of the deep back in the lake; who knows, maybe it'll gain a few pounds and fight again another day.

Fish on,

LSP

Glasgow PD Goes Full Rainbow Nazi

Nothing quite like a knock on the door at 4 am, is there, and let's hope your family doesn't mind paying for the bullet. But maybe that won't be necessary, there's plenty of room in Scotland for gulags. You know, for all those people who post unkind thoughts on the internet.

Obey Your Rulers!

Glasgow PD, you win the NWO Illuminati drivel prize for safe space, cry baby, dropped-on-head-as-infant, rainbow unicorn fascism. You are now scorned.

And that's kind,

LSP

Behold Your Rulers

Look at our rulers. They're responsible for our security, the preservation of liberty and the common good.

Dumbass

Here's the most powerful one. Inspiring, isn't he.

No Comment

And here's Trudeau's boy. He'll make sure Canada's safe from attack.

Now You're Safe

But what about Great Britain? The Free World is safe for gay marriage with Dave!

Nice One, Shillary

Maybe the next Nuclear Security Summit will be hosted by the famous NWO Illuminati Powershill, Hillary Clinton. What can we say, the genius of Yoko?

Kick out the JAMS.

LSP

The Diocese of New Westminster Crashes in Pershore!

Residents of a sleepy market town in Worcestershire, England, got a rude awakening when the Diocese of New Westminster fell to earth early this morning.

Pershore High Street

The piece of space junk crashed onto Pershore's Church Walk, near the toney farming community's historic abbey, narrowly missing cars and startling locals.

"I was on my way to buy some smoked salmon and pheasant," stated Annabelle Harley-Ffoulkes, "when there was an appalling noise. I thought it was one of those beastly women vicars at the Abbey, but it was just the Diocese of New Westminster. I was pretty relieved, I can tell you."

Typical Pershore Street Scene

The Diocese of New Westminster went into orbit in the early 1990s, along with the Anglican Church of Canada (ACoC), and communicated sporadically with earth until it crash landed in the prosperous farming community.

Space Junk

There are an estimated 500,000 pieces of man made debris, or space junk, orbiting the earth at speeds of up to 17,500 mph. Pershore is home to 8000 people.

LSP

It's Bushcraft Wednesday!

Everyone knows the famous Bushcraft classic, Guy on a Buffalo, but here's the genius that started it all. Sit back, tan some buckskin, sharpen your Puuko knife, light a fire using flint and steel, and enjoy the show.

Your Outdoors Friend,

LSP

You Plinker!

Some say that a dinner of roast quail and venison sausage, rifle to table, helps you shoot better the next day at the range. I drove out into the Texan countryside with my philisophical pal, GWB, to find out.

We took along a couple of scoped Ruger .22s, an American and a 10/22, representing the bolt and the semi side of the rimfire world. And a couple of pistols, a Sig and a Glock, chambered for 9mm and .45. But what about the quail and venison theory of marksmanship, how did that stand up, in the real world?

If a metal kettle, a plastic Folgers container, steel plates and turkey, at 75 and 100 yards, are anything to go by, the theory holds true. Down went the opposition, with a vengeance. I claim the best pistol shot of the day, hitting the kettle at 75 yards with the Glock. Sorry, kettle, you lose. I never much liked you anyway.

Shoot over, GWB wanted to check out the land behind the range for what he calls "native Texan grasses." That excitement over, I spotted a piece of metal, shining in the hot spring sun. "Look at that, you see it, glinting in the sun?" I asked my Wittgensteinian ally, "Maybe it's a piece of UFO debris. Let's have a look."

It wasn't a bit of space junk, annoyingly, just an old air conditioner that someone had dumped. And as I reflected on the higher implications of that, a long rattlesnake uncoiled silently from beneath the rusting metal and made its way, gliding and deadly, into a nearby pipe. Moral of the story?

Quail and venison help you shoot. This is now settled science. Also, don't be a dimwit when you go for a nature ramble in Texas, it's not Devon, or the Cotswolds. Take a gun, you might need it, and be careful poking around in space junk, who knows what killers might lurk within.

Shoot straight,

LSP

Don't Forget The Battle of Towton

You may have forgotten, like me, that yesterday was the 555th anniversary of the Battle of Towton, in Yorkshire, England. Something like 28,000 men died on that day, or 1% of the population, making it one of England's bloodiest actions.

Here's a description of the battle, in which Edward, soon to be Edward IV, fought with 48,000 men against Queen Margaret of Anjou's army of 60,000, in a blizzard:

Soon they were being driven into a wetland that swiftly became a deathly pool of blood: their only escape was to scramble uphill from the left flank and attempt to flee. Doing so, however, meant climbing up wet and churned-up turf with the blizzard on their backs. As they tried to run they were mown down by the Yorkist cavalry, who swept over the open ground, cudgelling and lancing their enemies with abandon. Even those who made it past Towton suddenly found themselves trapped once more: before the battle the Lancastrians had broken the wooden bridge further up Cock Beck, and they were now penned in at the far end of the battle-site. As the cavalry closed in on them, men threw off their armour and tried to wade or swim through the brisk water. Weary, wounded or half-frozen, they drowned by the dozen, until eventually the beck was so dammed with corpses that their colleagues could scramble to safety over what became known as the Bridge of Bodies.

The Lancastrian defeat turned into a slaughterous frenzy of killing and mutilation:

With men dying in their thousands, the Lancastrian line dissolved by midafternoon, and the leaders took flight. Behind them, defeat became a devastating rout. On Edward’s orders, no mercy was shown in victory. Skulls later found on the battlefield showed the most horrific injuries: faces split down the bone, heads cut in half, holes punched straight through foreheads. Some men died with more than 20 wounds to their head: the signs of frenzied slaughter by men whipped into a state of barbaric bloodlust. Some victims were mutilated: their noses and ears ripped off, fingers snipped from hands to remove rings and jewellery in the plunder of the dying.

Edward went on to become King of England and Margaret fled to France, returning to England to lead an army against Yorkist forces in 1471, at the battle of Tewkesbury. She was defeated and her son, Edward, was killed. The fierce Queen was imprisoned, her spirit broken, and eventually ransomed by her cousin, Louis XI of France.

Margaret lived the last 7 years of her life in France, dying at the age of 52 in Anjou. She was buried in Angers Cathedral next to her parents and remained there until her tomb was desecrated by revolutionaries who pillaged the cathedral in the French Revolution.

Here endeth the lesson,

LSP

Europe at War?

The prescient Rod Dreher comments on Europe's response to being attacked by Islamic terrorists, and though he doesn't mention rousing choruses of Imagine, he might just as well have done:

One of these days — sooner rather than later — Europeans will tire of hashtags, candles in the square, and diversity-is-our-strength lectures from their leaders. Then what?

The Jihad Runs From a Peace Sign. In Candles.

Then what. Dreher hints at an outcome earlier on in his blog piece, after hearing a list of potential Jihad targets from an Italian intelligence source:

If those Islamic terror cells activate themselves, Europe is not only going to have to worry about its train stations and airports. This would be all-out guerrilla war, and nobody would be safe.

Get Used to a Lot More of This

With that, the boom would come down on Europe's post-war liberal society, and its freedom, to say nothing of Aleppo coming to a city near you.

Aleppo

One major power, Russia, appears to take this seriously, perhaps because the Jihad's on its borders, but in Western Europe that border's blurred, if it's there at all. And after the hashtags, peace signs and John Lennon songs have bitten the dust, what then?

I'm not a betting man, but I wager the result won't be a whole lot of peace, love and music. You can read the whole thing here.

ISIS Laughs.

LSP