Israel serves Japanese Prime Minster dessert in a shoe?

Chocolate selection from the world 🌎 by #SegevArt ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ / A metal shoe by @tomdixonstudio

A post shared by segevmoshe (@segevmoshe) on May 6, 2018 at 10:57pm PDT

Shinzo Abel and Benjamin Netanyahu. Washington Post/AFP

I saw this and I figured I had to share it. Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu hosted Japanese Prime Minster Shinzo Abe at a state dinner. Everything went fine until the dessert, which was served in a leather shoe. The Japanese were, predictably, mortified by the dessert. Japan is famous for being an anti-shoe culture where even at work people take their shoes off and it is considered incredibly rude to walk inside someone's house while wearing a shoe. (incidentally, when I visited there as a child, that was an adjustment for me as I regularly wore shoes inside at home) Serving a meal out of a shoe? Well I am guessing that will go over about as well as this did...

It's such an obvious faux pas that it is amazing to me that the chef didn't realize it and that the people that hired the chef, the Israeli government, didn't realize it either. I doubt it was intentionally insulting, after all, creative types can be somewhat silly, but you would think that someone would have saw this and figured out that it was probably a bad idea to serve this to a Japanese politician. Hell, if they had served it to an American one, I'd probably be wondering if it was an insult. 

Anyways, I thought the whole incident was funny and I though I would share it. I don't think anything serious will come from this and it will probably be one of those dumb facts you see repeated in listicles and trivia in the future. Just a funny footnote in history.  

And yes, I purposely avoided using a "foot in mouth pun" since everyone else was doing it! 

A Russian Ka-52 Helicopter crashed in Syria, killing two pilots.

A pair of Russian Ka-52 Alligator.

A Russian Ka-52 helicopter has crashed in Syria, killing both of the pilots. RT. The attack helicopter was destroyed during a "routine flight" in eastern Syria. Both pilots were killed in the crash, but their bodies have been recovered. The Russian military says it was due to a malfunction and not enemy action, though the results are preliminary. The crash was the 2nd deadly incident in a week, as Russia also lost an advanced Su-30SM to a probable bird strike, killing both the pilots. 

My Comment:

Rough couple of weeks for Russian aviation. They are losing some of their most advanced planes and helicopters there, not to mention the four pilots lost in action as well. And it's important to note that these are top of the line vehicles. The Ka-52 isn't the most advanced helicopter the Russians field, that would be the Mi-28 Havoc, but it is up there. And the SU-30SM is one of their newest and advanced fighter craft. 

How they are losing these vehicles is probably frustrating too. Of course these kinds of accidents always happen, even in peacetime. But it is always frustrating to lose lives over something as stupid as a birdstrike. Perhaps it is just me, but I would rather die in combat than to some stupid accident. 

Of course there is always a chance that these weren't accidents but were actually combat losses. Russia would probably hate to admit that one of their top of the line helicopters or a new fighter jet were taken down by ground fire from rebels. They would have a major motivation to lie about it. 

That being said, I think they are telling the truth. Why? Well like I said, these kinds of things happen all the time during war and even peace. Helicopters have performance issues and when they fail they tend to fail spectacularly. And jets suck birds into their engines all the time. Both of those explanations are entirely plausible. 

Not much else to say on this one. The main reason I posted about it is because I thought the Ka-52 is a cool looking helicopter and I really liked the picture on the RT article. I am generally interested in military aviation so whenever I get a chance to write a little bit about it, I will. 

Singapore likely location of US/North Korea meeting.

Kim  Jong Un and Donald Trump. VOA/AP.

South Korean news outlets are reporting that the location where Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un will meet is Singapore. VOA. The meeting is expected to happen during the third week of June. President Trump will meet with South Korean President Moon Jae-in later this month to coordinate the talks. President Trump said that a time and place has been chosen after previously suggesting a meeting at the DMZ. 

My Comment:

Most of the news recently on the Korea issue has been over the semi-war of words between Trump and Kim, but I don't put too much stock in those complaints. That's just North Korea trying to save a little face and will do nothing to derail the peace talks. 

Indeed, short of something completely insane happening, I don't see how this meeting has happened. Both sides are committed now and I doubt Kim would throw away the chance of his country surviving long term over something as irrelevant as Trump taking credit for the peace effort. 

I am surprised that Singapore was the place that was chosen. Trump had hinted very publicly on Twitter that a meeting at the DMZ. Such a meeting would be historic and one that would show quite a bit of trust towards the North Koreans. I kinda thought it was set in stone. 

However, perhaps neutral ground would be a better option. Kim would gain prestige for traveling to another country and neither side would have home field advantage. Singapore would probably be better able to handle the logistic and security concerns having two world leaders in the same place. It's not a bad choice at all. 

I am somewhat disappointed that this meeting isn't happening until June. I was hoping it would be this month but perhaps that would be to quick. Still, ending the Korean War,getting rid of North Korea's nukes and having peace break out is something I am excited for. Sure, there are a million and one things that could happen that could derail the peace process, but I am hopeful that it will work out. 

Rosie O'Donnell broke campaign finance laws to fund Democratic candidates.

Rosie O'Donnell. David Shankbone.

Rosie O'Donnell broke campaign finance laws to fund Democratic candidates for Congress. Fox News. The Federal Election Commission says that no person is allowed to donate more than $2700 per person per election. O'Donnell exceeded that limit several times, with multiple candidates. Doug Jones in Alabama received $4700, Conner Lamb in Pennsylvania got $3600, Adam Schiff got $2950 and Lauren Underwood, a candidate in Illinois, got $4200. O'Donnell claimed that she thought the onus was on the campaigns to return any money that was over the legal limit. 

My Comment:

It's been a fairly slow news weekend otherwise I wouldn't cover this. That being said, I dislike Rosie O'Donnell and I am pretty angry with the double standard here. It's not even about Donald Trump, I disliked her before that feud erupted. She's just another holier than thou c-list celebrity that gets way more attention than she deserves. 

From what I have been able to gather, Rosie's legal jeopardy is limited here. It seems as though donating over the limit is not a criminal offense but a civil one. The typical punishment is having the money returned, an investigation and then either a fine or confiscating the money. For someone as wealthy as Rosie O'Donnell, that is a slap on the wrist. 

Do I buy her excuse that she didn't know that she was going over the limit? Perhaps. She doesn't seem that bright to me and probably didn't run this by anyone. On the other hand she also doesn't seem that stable so knowingly going over the limit isn't outside the realm of possible behavior. She certainly hates Trump and the GOP, and the people that vote for them, enough to do some very reckless things. 

That being said the real issue is that she was able to get away with this until now. Many of the election she donated to were extremely close. The Doug Jones vs Roy Moore election, for example, was decided by 20,000 votes. The extra $2000 probably didn't swing the election to Moore, but if there were a lot of other people donating illegally it might have pushed Jones over the edge he needed. Punishing her for it now after the election is over doesn't really help things. 

The most infuriating thing about this is how blatant it is. There are a million and one ways to donate in support of candidates other than giving them money directly. She could have given to the Democrats in general or any of the hundreds of SuperPacs, charities and organizations that champion candidates and causes she supports. To completely ignore that and just give more money than legally allowed is fairly disgusting in it's audacity, even if she wasn't aware of what she was doing. 

Finally, I'm also disgusted that someone like Rosie O'Donnell can throw her money around like that. For someone like me, who is obviously much less wealthy than here, I can't hope to match her pocket book. I could probably max out for one candidate in one race but that would be it. 

Thankfully, there are other avenues available to help your candidates win besides donations. I personally use this blog, social media and even face to face conversations to try and get people on my side. Doing so requires much more effort than sending a check but it's an option available to anyone  regardless of their income. 

Video: Donald Trump and Mike Pence speak at the NRA convention.

Don't have much time to talk about this one but I thought I would post the video anyways. It's President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence speaking at the NRA convention. Best moment is when Donald Trump said the famous Texas slogan, "come and take it". Though I am still somewhat disappointed Trump decided to go with the bumpstock ban (without getting anything in return) I think people's fear that Trump was turning into anti-gun politician was not at all justified.