These were the most chilled out cops ever. I will certainly call out the cops when they are wrong. In this case, they handled this traffic stop in the most professional way.
This entire interaction was due to the US “the customer always gets their way” approach to customer service. These women have learned to just scream for a manager, who will come and kiss their ass, letting them have whatever they are demanding. That doesn’t work on police, and it shouldn’t. If you are on a traffic stop or are getting arrested, the only response people should get when demanding a supervisor is “No”
If you have a problem with your arrest or stop, fix it in court.
The last day of our cruise has arrived. We arrived at Palma, a city on the island of Mallorca, just off the Spanish coast for our last port visit. I have been here ten times from my time with the US Navy, and my wife and I have been here before, back in 2017. This time, we decided not to go ashore, and weather was poor- temperatures in the 40’s (Fahrenheit), winds of 40 miles per hour, and rain were making conditions outside miserable. Combined with the fact that out pier was a long walk to anything we would want to visit, we made the decision to stay on the ship.
It was a good choice. The ship has a glass enclosed pool deck called the solarium, and we spend the majority of the day lounging next to an indoor pool and hot tub. Once the ship got underway, we went to dinner before heading to the sports bar to watch some sports and have a few cocktails. We also enjoyed some jazz musicians before heading back to our cabin to pack our things for an early morning departure.
The next morning, our plan was to begin the land based portion of the vacation, and I knew I would not want to risk connecting to this blog through the Internet, as I am well aware of the European idea of free speech- or lack thereof. More on that tomorrow.
As a side note, I don’t usually post a lot of self-information like this, but to be quite honest, all of the disaster porn of the fall of the US, although my most popular posts, is getting difficult to write. It’s a challenge finding fresh content, and it’s a bit depressing as well. So these posts are a way of escaping the ever expanding list of bad news, reminds me that there are still plenty of upbeat topics out there, and disproves the leftist trope of those on the right being uneducated and untraveled morons.
The last of our room charge was wiped out by this little guy.
Don’t forget that James O’Keefe exposed a plan by US military Generals who were planning on refusing orders from President Trump and overthrowing the government. I believe we are still seeing the fallout from that.
James O’Keefe released a report just before the inauguration, where a former FBI agent was bragging to an undercover reporter about how he had been in the Tank (that is the Pentagon underground command post) meeting with a number of senior military Generals, and they were planning to resist the legitimate orders of the President upon his inauguration. This wasn’t a one time conversation- this FBI agent was a senior advisor to the Pentagon, and also a key player in the efforts to torpedo Trump’s 2016 campaign for the Clinton campaign.
During these meetings, according to the interview, high-level Pentagon officials were discussing in secret meetings defying and potentially overthrowing Trump if he issued orders deemed controversial by military leadership. If that sentence doesn’t send a shiver down your spine, you don’t understand the US military.
I believe that Biden knew about all of this, which is why Milley got a Presidential pardon. After all, we already knew that Milley had staged a coup back in 2021.
A Youtuber who calls his account Flat Circle History has been producing a series called “The Next World War” for the past year. As of now, there are 22 episodes of 10 to 20 minutes each, with one being released every few weeks. For the past 3 days, I have watched all 22 of them and I am waiting for the next one. Check it out- the first episode is below.
We arrived in Cartagena the next morning. That city is the main Mediterranean navy base for Spain. Just down the street from our dock was the main gate for the base.
This was the port where fatigue finally set in. We didn’t take a tour in this town. We decided to just walk around the area for a bit before returning to the ship. The architecture was the same as the other ports, the weather was nice, but we were just a bit tired of all of the walking. We had been walking ten miles or so a day, and this day we just walked out, got some lunch, and returned to the ship. To be honest, we have been eating so much gourmet food and good wine that I was ready for just a regular hamburger and a coke at this point.
I’m not faulting the lunch we had. I love the little restaurants and shops, but sometimes you miss the food from home, and at this point we have been on the move for over two weeks. I did see a cigarette machine in a store. I haven’t seen one of those in years.
There were some Roman ruins that I briefly looked at:
We went back to the ship and took a nap. We were tired and needed it. Dinner was amazing as always. We hit the casino and won big. When you play in the casino, you earn slot machine comps. I decided to use up all of them, as this was the second to last night. I picked a random machine, and the damned thing hit for $1200. My wife then hit on her machine for another $1400. So we walked out of the casino that night with more than $2600. Combined with our winnings from previous nights, we decided to pay our onboard expense account. That way, when we left the ship at the end of the cruise, we wouldn’t be traveling around with so much cash. After 2 weeks on the cruise our tab came to over $4000, so we paid it and still had some cash left over.
The left loves to tell everyone how the US needs to have “free” healthcare, you know, like they do in Canada. Let me illustrate why that’s bull hockey.
I was at work, and a man brought his 17 year old son in, after the son fell off of his dirt bike a week before, injuring his shoulder. X-ray showed no broken bones. The dad asked if we could see any tendon or muscle damage, and we informed him that an x-ray can’t see that, he would need more testing. At this point, it is no longer in the scope of emergency care. The doctor and I advised them they would need to go to the child’s doctor’s office to get an order for an MRI, because only an MRI could see with that kind of detail.
The dad then asked if we could write the order for the MRI. The doctor explained that ER doctors can’t write an order like that, because the doctor writing an order for tests has to be the same doctor who treats the patient’s conditions exposed by that test. The man explained that the child’s doctor wanted him to have an MRI. So we asked him why he doesn’t get his own doctor to write the order. Even if insurance won’t pay for it, it’s only about $200.
We are from Canada and are returning home in the next couple of days. I can’t believe you won’t just give me an order. This is ridiculous, not only do we have to pay almost $300 for this ER visit, you can’t even write us the order to get the MRI. Now you want us to pay for a local doctor and pay $200 for an MRI? The health care system here in the US is so broken.
We asked, “If you can get it done for free back home, then why don’t you get it done when you get there?” His reply was gold:
We specifically came here to the US get an MRI because there is a year long wait for one back home. We tried to get one at the place down the street, but the MRI place said we need a doctor’s order. All I need is an order from a US doctor so we can get one while we are here in the states.
That’s the state of Canadian healthcare. It’s free, but you can’t have any. Rather than wait, this dad bundles his kid up, flies to the US, then trashes our medical care because it won’t do it now, and won’t do it for free.
The morning after we were in Gibraltar, we stopped in Malaga, Spain. This city has been in existence for over 2800 years. It always amazes me just how old European cities are. I really think that’s one of the reasons why Americans are not so aware of history- to us, it exists only as words in a book, but to Europeans, they are surrounded by it. You can walk around towns like this and see old Roman columns and Moorish castles scatter about neighborhoods. In the US, we don’t really get that. To Europeans, buildings that are hundreds of years old are commonplace.
For example, this cathedral in the town has in it’s basement a relic that is simply unbelievable- a piece of the true cross. Catholics claim this is a piece of the cross whereupon Jesus was crucified. Even if that isn’t something you believe in, the fact that this relic has been within this church for over 1400 years old is simply incredible.
I absolutely love to see the extreme amount of craftsmanship and work that went into these old cathedrals. The art in here is preciously valuable. There are objects in this cathedral that weigh hundreds of pounds, are made of solid gold and silver. The melt value is in the millions, and they are priceless works of art.
Moving on, there is also a large bullfighting ring in the city.
The streets here are simply beautiful. They paved these older cities with marble tile.
Then it was back to the ship for a lovely dinner. First was the butter poached lobster salad.
Then some filet mignon.
Finished by a delicious piece of strawberry cheesecake.
We went to a brief concert from the house band before winning a bit of money in the casino. Still down about $3000 at this point, but slowly winning some of it back.
After leaving Cadiz, our next stop was Gibraltar. It’s an outpost of Britain, the currency is the pound, the language English, and people born here of Gibraltar parents are considered to be British citizens. Note that, like every country except the USA, being born in Britain doesn’t automatically confer citizenship. There are 34,000 people living here, and another 100,000 or so come into the city from Spain to work in the city’s shipyards and shops. For this reason, most of the people here also speak Spanish. This isn’t uncommon in Europe, with many people speaking 2, 3, or as many as 5 different languages due to the close proximity of so many different peoples.
There are a couple of legends about the cave: one being that the cave has no bottom, and the other that it is attached to a cave system that stretches across the straits to Africa and is how the monkeys got to the European side. Military officers attempted to see how far the caves went and were never seen again. The cave has since been extensively explored, and no remains or recent cave ins were found, so the men remain missing to this day.
During World War 2, the caves were used as a bomb shelter and hospital. Today, it’s used as a concert hall for musical performances and as a tourist attraction. There are some spots where you can look down and it appears as though the cave stretches down to the center of the planet. It DOES look quite deep.
As I was walking down a trail near the top of the mountain, one of them reached out and grabbed my shoulder. My wife was attempting to take a picture, and the little guy jumped on to my back and began grooming my hair. We continued to walk, and he stayed on my shoulders for a good bit. People walking by were taking my picture and also giving me advice on how to get rid of him. He wasn’t hurting me or anything, so I let him stay there until he decided we had walked far enough.
From the top of the Rock, I was above the clouds and got this picture of a mountain on the African side
After that, we went to a cliff overlooking the Straits of Gibraltar, where we could get a good look at Africa.
Back to the ship for dinner, and as the rock sailed out of sight, we also saw a US destroyer. It was the USS Roosevelt, heading westward to the Atlantic, and I presume to her homeport in Rota, Spain.
We went to a concert. The singer was Nicola Ward, a well known British woman, and she sang an absolutely beautiful rendition of Con te partirò.
After that, we spent some time in the casino, and I walked out of there up $1000 for the night, thanks to some great shooters at the craps table.
