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The heartless abuse of a victim of a horrible crime, in order to advance a cynical, ideological agenda.

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Remembered one evening, sitting around in my sister's living room:

Great green globs of greasy, grimy gopher guts,
Mutilated monkey meat,
French fried parakeet;
Lukewarm vomit floating in my orange juice,
That's what we're having today!

The 2012 35-Day Hong Kong-Athens Cruise, Oceania ms Nautica, 6 of 6

Text and pictures by Snookums, webification by Filbert

Part Six

(Remember to click "read more" if you're looking at this from the main medary.com page to get the whole article!)

May 11 (Friday, Day 36, Haifa, Israel; 1 ILS = $0.26; $1 = 3.79 ILS) -

Baha'i Gardens

At 8 AM the six of us met Omri to start our day seeing the Christian highlights. We started off by driving to the top of Haifa’s Carmel Mountain for a panoramic view over Haifa bay and the famous Baha'i Gardens. Haifa is Israel’s largest port and third-largest city. The most striking landmark on the mountainside is the gleaming golden dome of the Baha’i Shrine, set amid utterly beautiful circular grass terraces that fill the slopes from top to bottom. Haifa is the world center for the Baha’i faith.

The 2012 35-Day Hong Kong-Athens Cruise, Oceania ms Nautica, 5 of 6

Text and pictures by Snookums, webification by Filbert

Part Five

(Remember to click "read more" if you're looking at this from the main medary.com page to get the whole article!)

May 7 (Monday, Day 32, Safaga, Egypt continued) -

Crossing the Nile

We drove to an air-conditioned alabaster shop in order to drop Donna off since she decided she was kind of done for the day due to the heat and the need for two knee replacements. The rest of us continued on to the Valley of the Kings ($13.25 per person). This is a valley that contains a lot of tombs that were built for the pharaohs and noble from the 16th to 11th centuries BC. It is most famous for the tomb of Tutankhaman. We saw the tombs of Ramses 1, 9 and 4. Of the three, Ramses 1 was buried the farthest underground and there were quite a few steps and then a ramp to navigate to get to it. The ticket puncher at the entrance gave Filbert a flashlight and helped Barbara down all the steps and ramp. Then he pointed at various paintings/figures on the tomb and told us about them. We were pretty glazed over by that time. We started up the stairs and he expected a tip. We walked by him and ignored him. We didn’t ask for the flashlight or the help down the stairs! We forgot that in Egypt just about everyone expects a tip (or baksheesh). Cameras weren’t allowed in the tombs (all underground, but still hot and stuffy) since the colors could be damaged by flash photography. Barbara went back and waited in the visitors’ center after going to the first tomb but Filbert and Snookums saw all three. (A ticket allowed entrance to three tombs.) There are many tombs and our guide chose these three for us to see. Other tourists were seeing other tombs.

The 2012 35-Day Hong Kong-Athens Cruise, Oceania ms Nautica, 4 of 6

Text and pictures by Snookums, webification by Filbert

Part Four

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May 6 (Sunday, Day 31, Aqaba, Jordan; continued) -

We're ships of the desert, you know.

Another major site was the Theatre. It is carved into solid rock and can seat 7,000. Although it looks Roman, the Nabataeans built it in the 1st century AD and each seat has a seat number carved into it. (It was, however, apparently impossible to photograph -- Filbert.)

The 2012 35-Day Hong Kong-Athens Cruise, Oceania ms Nautica, 3 of 6

Text and pictures by Snookums, webification by Filbert

Part Three

(Remember to click "read more" if you're looking at this from the main medary.com page to get the whole article!)

April 28 (Saturday, Day 23, Mumbai, India; 1 INR = $0.02; $1 = 51.66 INR) -

Indian Navy submarine, out for a weekend cruise around Mumbai Harbor

Since we are not that fond of India, we didn’t get off the ship. The ship left Mumbai at 5 PM.

The 2012 35-Day Hong Kong-Athens Cruise, Oceania ms Nautica, 2 of 6

Text and pictures by Snookums, webification by Filbert

Part Two

(Remember to click "read more" if you're looking at this from the main medary.com page to get the whole article!)

April 21 (Saturday, Day 16, Phuket, Thailand; 1 THB = $0.03; $1 = 30.81 THB) -

Shrine

Snookums woke up, showered and almost fainted. She had to sit on the toilet until the bright white lights dimmed. Snookums returned to the doctor at 8 AM for another temperature check and her temperature was normal but her blood pressure was 85/62 which is very low for her. She still didn’t feel well, either, and decided not to go on the Phuket tour. Filbert and Snookums had booked a Phuket tour with six other people and Filbert went since it needed to be paid for and there was nothing he could do for Snookums. Snookums stayed behind and watched movies. (This was the one tour that Snookums really wanted to do on the cruise since it involved riding an elephant.)

The 2012 35-Day Hong Kong-Athens Cruise, Oceania Nautica

April 6 – May 14, 2012

Text by Snookums, Pictures and Webification by Filbert

This is the table of contents for the online version of our trip journal. Here are the chapters:

Part One - Home to Hong Kong and on to Singapore

Part Two - Phuket, Thailand to Mumbai, India

Part Three - Mumbai, India to Aqaba/Petra, Jordan

Part Four - Aqaba, Jordan to Safaga/Luxor, Egypt

Part Five - Safaga, Egypt to Haifa, Israel

Part Six - Haifa, Israel and home.

The 2012 35-Day Hong Kong-Athens Cruise, Oceania ms Nautica, 1 of 6

Text and pictures by Snookums, webification by Filbert

Part One

(Remember to click "read more" if you're looking at this from the main medary.com page to get the whole article!)

April 6 (Friday, Day 1, Flying to Hong Kong) -

Snookums woke up feeling better than yesterday when she had a temperature of 99.5°, felt nauseous and had a headache for most of the day. Super Shuttle picked us up around 9 AM and we got to the airport and enjoyed sitting in the American Airlines lounge for a few minutes before boarding the flight to Chicago. We ate our Target salads that we brought with us and the flight went by quickly. We had to clear security again at O’Hare since our Cathay Pacific flight to Hong Kong was flying out of the international terminal. We spent about one hour in the Swiss Air Lounge since we were flying business class. We used American Airlines miles for our one-way tickets from Kansas City to Hong Kong. Economy class was going to require 40,000 miles per person and business class was 55,000 so we went with the 55,000 mile option (plus $30 per person for taxes). Had we purchased the ticket, it would have cost $3756.90 per person. Flying business class also meant we had lounge access. It was too bad we ate on the flight to Chicago since the spread in the Swiss Air Lounge included oven fried chicken, hot pasta, salad, fresh fruit and packets of Oreos and Fig Newtons.

Item: Democratic Assemblyman Arrested After Allegedly Threatening to Shoot Fellow State Representative

Item: Va. lawmaker who brandished AK-47 during legislative session was disbarred following assault, death threat

These are not your average Democrat-in-the-street. These are elected representatives, for whom your average Democrat-in-the-street voted for and put into positions of power and authority.

The fact is that everything the Democrats and "progressives" think about Republicans and "conservatives" is the result of psychological projection. This is a core cause of the Democrat's excessive, paranoid fear of guns, and their unthinking terror when considering economic freedom in general.

In fact, "conservatives" are more able to understand the motivations of "progressives" than "progressives" are able to understand "conservative's" motivations. This is the plain implication of Jon Haidt's research

If Democrats and "progressives" (which, by the way, includes the overwhelming majority of people working in journalism) want to find the greater part of the problem with political discord today, they need to consult the closest mirror.