Cittadella, Italy

On the way to Cittadella, I eye-spied an interesting structure.

The Villa Valmarana (also known as Valmarana Scagnolari Zen) is a Renaissance villa situated in Lisiera, a locality of Bolzano Vicentino, Province of Vicenza, northern Italy. Designed by Andrea Palladio, it was originally built in the 1560s.[1]

The villa was nearly totally destroyed during World War II, but has been rebuilt. Even before the war damage, the building did not closely resemble the plan which Palladio published in his I Quattro Libri dell'Architettura (The Four Books of Architecture) of 1570, possibly because Gianfrancesco Valmarana, the architect's client, died while his house was being built.

Here is what it looked like in better days.

Cittadella is a medieval walled city in the province of Padua, northern Italy, founded in the 13th century as a military outpost of Padua. The surrounding wall has been restored and is 1,461 meters (4,793 ft) in circumference with a diameter of around 450 meters (1,480 ft). There are four gates which roughly correspond the points of the compass.

A house on the outside, taken from the wall. Just thought it looked pretty cool. 

Hard to see, but poppies growing along the outer embankment. On Memorial Day. 

Just who do you have to be to on and mansion inside of the walled town of Cittadella? Yes, that's a car elevator on the right  side.

Kicking around Northern Italy

Two weeks in northern Italy, with a long weekend and a rental car...what to do...what to do. Why, I'm going to drink wine and see old shit.

The Teatro Olimpico is a theatre in Vicenza, northern Italy, constructed in 1580-1585. It's a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and is the oldest surviving stage set still in existence. 

The Teatro Olympico courtyard.

La Torre Bissara, also known as Tower Square, is a municipal tower overlooking Piazza dei Signori , alongside the famous Palladian Basilica. The tower dates back to 1174.

The Bastion guards Riva del Garda and is one of the emblems of the town. The grey stone bastion located at the foot of Monte Rocchetta is one of the symbols of Riva del Garda, and overlooks both the city and the lake. The bastion was built at the beginning of the 16th century to protect the town as well as its inhabitants right after the Venetian domination of Riva had come to an end. 

View of Riva del Garda from the Bastion.

The Church of Saint Barbara, is visible from the town of Riva del Garda, on the mountain, just above the old Bastion. The church was built during the construction of the hydroelectric plant in 1925 and it is dedicated to the patron saint of the miners.

The view of Riva del Garda from Saint Barbara.

Well, no kidding....

The memo to Mr. Stephanopoulos, who was then a senior adviser to Mr. Clinton and is now an ABC News host who is currently under fire for $75,000 in contributions he made to the Clinton Foundation, warns of the potential electoral consequences an aggressive gun control push could bring.

“As much as I hate to say it, the NRA is effective primarily because it is largely right when it claims that most gun control laws inconvenience and threaten the law-abiding while having little or no impact on violent crime or criminals,” wrote Jody Powell, the former Carter press aide. 

“I support registration in principle,” the memo reads. “But two questions need to be asked. Are the people causing the problem going to comply voluntarily? If not, do you have a way to effectively enforce compliance? If the answer is ‘no’ in both cases, consider whether the benefits are worth making Bob Dole majority leader.”

Washington Times

Wait.....you mean gun control only legally affects the law abiding??? Who knew?

The gun control camp knows this....so what are they really after? We can see the shape of the strategy to come, if Hillary Clinton moves into 1600 Penn.

“We cannot let a minority of people — and that’s what it is, it is a minority of people — hold a viewpoint that terrorizes the majority of people,” she said at a CNN town hall event last year.

Translation: peoples ignorant fear of something they don't understand....should trump Constitutional and civil rights.....because it will make them feel better.

Never Again.....

My visit to Dachau the weekend after the 70th anniversary of it's Liberation by Allied Forces.

Bernie Sanders, 2nd Amendment Advocate?

An article penned at Slate, takes presidential candidate [and admitted Socialist] to task for supporting common sense 2nd Amendment protections. Yes, that’s right…..I used the same framing that the gun control camp uses: “common sense”. Since the term has no defined metric, no meaning beyond personal bias….it’s just as applicable if the gun rights camp were to employ it. I won’t be continuing to use it…..as it’s a lazy tactic lost on the gun control cabal, but the point is made.

What’s interesting beyond the fact that Sanders doesn’t buy into the empty gun control narrative, writ large anyway……is that Slate uses this article to rail against a 2005 piece of legislation that they would not support were it directed against any other lawful industry. That legislation is the “Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA)”. This bill protects firearm manufacturers against lawsuits and punitive damages stemming from the criminal use of its products.

The PLCAA was the No. 1 legislative priority of the National Rifle Association for years, because it shields gun makers and dealers from most liability when their firearms are used criminally. It is one of the most noxious pieces of pro-gun legislation ever passed. And Bernie Sanders voted for it.

This, apparently, is a bad thing. The author attempts to bolster his disdain for this protection by citing invented examples of other industries that he sees as analogous.

But the act’s primary purpose is as simple as it is cold-blooded. Every state imposes liability on manufacturers who are negligent in their production and sale of products. If I crash my Prius because its accelerator malfunctions, I can sue Toyota for negligently manufacturing a faulty pedal. If my child dismembers himself with a blender at Sears, I can sue Sears for negligently leaving that blender within a child’s reach.

The glaring hole in his assertion however, is that he cites negligent faults in the product themselves, or negligence on the part of the intermediary, the retailer. He thinks you, the reader, are too stupid to see the difference. Firearms manufactures are protected….as are other industries…..from tort liability in cases where a person takes a lawful, and lawfully procured item…and uses it in a criminal act. If the author were correct, or had journalistic integrity, he would assert that because Sears left a blender within reach of a child…one could sue the manufacturer of the blender. But since cannot, he concoct a fantasy where he would have you believe that the firearm industry has been granted special protections, because…….eeevill NRA.

To recap, gun control supporters such as this author, would advocate for punitive liability judgements against the manufacturer of a non-defective lawful item, lawfully distributed to a lawful retailer, [presumably] lawfully sold to an appropriate consumer........but only if the item is a firearm. A legal product. Wow.

That idiocy aside…..I might actually watch a debate between Sanders and Clinton, if gun control is on the agenda. No, Sanders is not a champion for individual liberty, writ large….he’s a collectivist….but he’s an interesting cat.

Meme's of the so-called "Culture Wars"

The National Organization for Straight Marriage has released an ever-so-helpful guide to using politically correct talking points. But the cognitive dissonance is strong in this one.....

I. THE MOST EFFECTIVE SINGLE SENTENCE.

Extensive and repeated polling agrees that the single most effective message is the following:

“Gays and lesbians have a right to live as they choose;
they don’t have the right to redefine marriage for all of us.”

This allows people to express support for tolerance while opposing gay marriage. 

So let's take a closer look; Gays and Lesbians have a right to live as they choose....unless they wish to partake in the same social customs and privileges as every other citizen. If they cross that line, the loving members of organizations such as NOM, will attempt to use the force of law to keep them second class citizens, while folks like NOM get to retain the special rights that they so dearly love.

NOM claims that nobody has the right to "redefine" marriage.....yet NOM would deign to "define" marriage on the first place. Let us not forget that marriage has undergone many redefinitions, as women have slowly attained equal rights as full citizens over time; women are no longer chattel to be used as bargaining or brokering by wealthy males and families; and we do not allow the polygamy that we read about in the Bible.

Finally, a marriage means something special, yet with different qualities to each person and couple. If allowing gays to partake in the same civil contract [because marriage is a civil contract under our system of laws], causes such extreme anguish with folks such as NOM....then perhaps that says something about their marriage......

This....is what your college-age children are learning....

Approximately 50 student protesters marched into Barton Hall Friday afternoon to disrupt Cornell President David Skorton’s farewell party.

The protesters marched across the gymnasium floor–filled with over 500 students, employees, and locals–waving signs and chanting various slogans, until ultimately settling upon the stage where a four-piece jazz band was playing to deliver their grievances against Cornell, Skorton, administrators, the Board of Trustees, Cornell Police and the NYPD, the KKK, Israel, and the jazz band. 

The protesters had earlier marched across campus and sat in the intersection of East Avenue and Campus Road outside Duffield Hall for over an hour, despite the “system-wide delays” reported by the local bus system and the dismay expressed delivery truck drivers. The undergrad, graduate, and faculty members sitting on the road took turns standing in the middle of their circle to deliver speeches regarding a variety of topics including, but not limited to, the following: systematic racism, sexism, rape culture, the riots in Baltimore, microaggressions, Cornell’s occupation of indigenous lands, capitalism, oil companies, patriarchy, masculinity, and straightness. 

One student, whose jumbled speech was to the effect of “we’re all fucking racists,” blurted the N-word out at one point and was later reprimanded by another speaker. Later, the offender returned to the middle of the circle to apologize for his choice of words, saying something to the effect of “I’m sorry, I’m a fucking racist, fuck me, fuck America.” 

 Link

Nobody is a more ardent supporter of civil and Constitutional liberties than I......but our academia writ large....has morphed into Clown College.

I'm saddened by the world I will leave my daughters.

The Stupid....it burns.....

While ironically reporting on former President GW Bush talking about "chaos in the middle east, and the current Administration's policies", 'Outnumbered' intellectual luminary Stacey Dash said the following:

“When George W. Bush was president, the most important thing to him was not to be liked, but to be respected; And you better believe no one would have been beheaded when he was president.”

Perhaps Ms. Dash would be well served to remember the large number of foreign citizens who were beheaded in Iraq...a practice catalyzed by the beheading of Daniel Pearl in 2002. All during the Administration of GW Bush.


Speaking of flaming stupid....

Fox & Friends attacks Miami’s history-making black woman cop because she could be a flag-hating Muslim

Yep...I could watch this forever

h/t Knuckledraggin My Life Away

USMC v. Army......Epic rap battle