Up, Up, and Away...

Well, OK, not so much up but away at Priestfield retreat center for a few. Because I touched set-up again.

When Father Bill, the director, is further along in recovery I'm going to tell him that I have a friend who has spare legs strewn all over his basement that I'm sure he'd be glad to loan.  Father just lost a leg below the knee to a blood clot and finally came home today.  Unfortunately, his recovery is going to be hampered by the surgery he recently had on his shoulder - he can't use crutches. 

R.I.P. Blu: ?/1998 - 2/23/2015

You were a pain, into everything, destructive.  You left mice in my bed and you did what you knew was against the rules and looked right at me while doing it.  You would walk out of the kitchen with its easily cleaned vinyl floor right over to a rug just to hork all over it.  Because of all your health problems you were hideously expensive. You were mischief personified.

And I've missed that so much as that cantankerous, head-strong personality faded in recent weeks.  I had felt for the last couple weeks that something more than the thyroid problem was going on and as we drove to the vet's today I feared that you wouldn't come home.  The finding of the intestinal tumor ended any hope of you ever coming back.

1 To 3 Inches Predicted

Well, now THAT little round of global warming is going to be fun to dig out tomorrow.  Particularly since it had sleet and ice as a grand finale.  

It Doesn't Take Much

A sudden snow squall, a steep driveway, and you have my neighbor calling his insurance company.

Oddly, I didn't hear it.  Must have just merged the sound with the wind and radio.

All Over Again

History repeats.  It's happening all over again.

The White House says that we need a political solution.  The world is on fire.  The same brutal barbarians that have swarmed it repeatedly since the 7th century are slaughtering their way across the Middle East and Africa, and infiltrating the rest of the world, leaving a blood trail in Europe and America.  A trail that's only going to get bloodier. And we have no Roland, no Richard Lionheart, no Jan Sobieski, no Charles Martel.

Where jihad goes, it slaughters.  Right now what they are showing us are only the images of adults.  Horrific, but adults.

But where jihadists go, they torture, crucify, rape, and murder.  Men, women, children. 

The Yazidi of Iraq cry out: first their men are executed, then the women and children are sold into slavery.  Slavery, Jesse Jackson.  Slavery, Al Sharpton.  Slavery, Barack Obama.  First, though, the girl children are raped.  Eight years old, nine years old.  Eight. Years. Old.  In keeping with islam's founder's tradition, I guess.

For those who have trouble relating, as many must since they are happy to let little brown people take care of problems like drilling for oil rather than take responsibility for it on our own land, this is what an eight year old looks like:

Giver her brown eyes and dark hair.  Make her one of the little brown people.  That's who they are raping.

Now, I realize that things are a little different for women in the U.S. It's clear that the women of the U.S. believe that women are so emotion-driven, so unable to keep their legs from flopping open at the drop of a pair of pants, that they have to demand to be provided with free contraception.  And that that is The Most Important Thing In The World. If they didn't believe that they wouldn't be using the ACA to bludgeon businesses like Hobby Lobby or religious organizations like the Little Sisters of the Poor.  But other cultures are different.  Maybe the women and children taken by the jihadis believe that their bodies are not something to be thrown away.  And maybe American women should think about that as they slavishly support a guy who is watching a repeat of the 30s and says that it can be handled with a political solution.  Between rounds of golf. And selfies.

And oh, by the way, Chris Cuomo, you are a moron.  As is anybody who agrees with you.  Because if our rights come from the government then the Holocaust was justified.  The Reich was the government.  In your world, the Reich was the source of rights for its people. 

So. What's YOUR Plan?

Most of us are scattered hither and yon.  Families no longer live together.  And communities aren't what they once were.  So you and I have to take care of ourselves.  BUT, should something happen and we DO have families, no matter how far flung, what's the plan?

I'm not horribly worried about Russia or China from a military stand-point.  Yes, they can and will do harm to us economically but they aren't horribly inclined to dump large megaton bombs on us.  At lease not right now.  Our warfare with them is different.  But Iran, on the other hand...

The leaders of Iran are of a type of muslim that believes that they need to speed up the Apocalypse.  I can never remember the details, but in their view it requires the world being in conflagration before the Mahdi will come.  Or some such thing.  The critical thing is that they believe that seeding death and destruction in order to hasten that day is OK- dokey.  And what better way to do so than a well-placed nuke?  A lot of Americans don't understand - they don't hate us because we are America, they don't hate us because of our music, or our clothes, or because of our wealth. They hate us just because we are not them.  And they are perfectly happy with lighting up anybody who is not them.  Do a search on "Jordan" and "pilot" and "fire" if you don't think that's true.  It's the same sort of craziness, the same sort of islam that rules Iran.

So.  We have a muslim president.  I don't care what he says.  He's muslim.  He has slipped twice and said so.  This last time George StepOnAllOfUs wasn't there to correct him when he referred to his muslim faith.  And even if he hadn't said so his behavior declares it clearly.  I really wouldn't care, except he's made clear that he hates the Constitution and America.  I'd vote for the current king of Jordan if I thought he really meant the whole "uphold the Constitution" part in the oath of office.  But Obama has made clear that the Constitution is no more than toilet paper to him.   And his actions clearly say that he is a sympathizer with the most extreme of muslims.  He will not stop his fellow muslims in Iran from getting a nuclear bomb.  If pushed, he will surrender the whole damned country to them rather than oppose his fellow islamic whack jobs.

Which means that sometime in the next few years, if there isn't a radical change in policy, an ICBM with Arabic writing and a nuclear warhead on it is going to land on at least one major east coast city.  Boston, New York, Baltimore, D.C. 

The first thing to go down will be communications.  Our cell phones and computers.  Betcha.  So what's the plan?  Do you have an "if this, then that" plan with your far-flung family?  If this we'll hunker down but if that we'll bug out to x?  If communications aren't up in a week I'll meet you here or there?

I have a place in mind that I need to talk to a cousin about.  But I also need to make sure the family understands certain time frames, certain places, certain routes.  Because the whole world may get blacked out for us at some time and we need to know how we are going to reconnect in that blackness.

So Was Two Days Worth 16 Hours of Driving?

You betcha.

Don't Go There

Where your GPS says.  Because when it asks if you want to take the faster route it just found for you it doesn't understand that you are in Detroit.  And that there are places in Detroit that you should not go.  Like where even the churches are burned out.  Like where even with the doors locked and 9 mm at hand you need to be elsewhere.  Soon.

I'm only here for a couple days - grandbaby's second birthday.  But next time my GPS asks me if I want to short cut it I'll sit in traffic, thanks.

Need 'Puter Help

Because there's only so much I can do by cell phone...

My computer refuses to connect to either Chrome or Firefox.  It's not a wi-fi problem because the scanner succesfully sent and image via wi-fi.  Anybody out there have any ideas as to what I should do?