From the Caer

This Isn't a Good Idea

2012-02-22T06:27:00.000-08:00

So once upon a time - about 30,000 years ago - a squirrel buried seeds in what would become Siberia. Scientists have been able to use tissue from plants found in that squirrel burrow to resurrect a viable plant, Sylene stenophylla.

Pretty. Also still extant in the Russian tundra, so in this case it's not the rebirth of an extinct species. But folks are all excited - this could be the path to bringing back Ice Age creatures like the wooly mammoth and mastodon.

They shouldn't. Yes, it would have major, major WOW! factor. But this isn't their world anymore. Extinction is perfectly normal. It always amazes me that the same folks who tout a nature-focused religion completely ignore some of the rules that are imbedded in nature. Extinction is nature's way of saying that a creature doesn't fit in anymore. That's true whether it's T. Rex or the dodo - they couldn't survive in the world that developed around them. And any creature that has gone extinct that is brought back will immediately be non-native species.

We've had lots of experience with non-native species:

Rabbits were introduced to Australia as food in the 19th century - they are enormously destructive, creating "the grey blanket" over Australia with their numbers.

Kudzu, the "vine that ate the south", was introduced as an ornamental and for erosion control - now it suffocates the forests of the American South and has been found in Canada.

Nutria were brought into the country as fur animals - they are a major destruction force in American wetlands.

Brown tree snakes were accidentally introduced into Guam in the early 1950s - they have now wiped out at least 12 endemic bird species and are hitching rides into other islands.

The water hyacinth, an ornamental plant from South America, has choked waterways all over the globe, killing fish and other plants, and causing native peoples to starve to death because they can't get through the waterways that act as their roads to food.

I'd love to see a mastodon, a saber-toothed cat, a giant sloth. But this isn't their world anymore, and no matter how well meaning the actions that would bring them back into it, that action would eventually have repercussions. We've had enough examples of those sorts of repercussions that we should know better by now.

Range Therapy

2012-02-21T12:02:00.000-08:00

Any other old folks out there remember this?

Me and you and you and me

No matter how they toss the dice, it has to be

The only one for me is you, and you for me

So happy together

Well, my M1 and I are VERY happy together:

Muddy but ha ha the possible storm for Sunday missed us completely and Monday was nice and clear and warmer than expected - a great day for shooting. Murphy's Law ran me through move and shoot drills with the M1 - you can see the shot pairs on the target. That was fun - add a couple days a week of heavy yard work and who the heck needs a gym? And if ML's bowling pin thought it had a hard life being knocked down by bowling balls, it needed to rethink because life as a target for a shotgun and a rifle definitely isn't easier.

And just when we thought 340 Defense had some class, some mutual friends showed up.

With a whole bunch of .45 caliber ammunition and a couple 1911s. Which they generously allowed me to shoot. Somebody who shall remain nameless had shot up all the 9 mm so I couldn't try the Glock 19 he was using. I think it was in revenge for the spotting thing...

Then off for wings and beer. And for me at least an evening of cleaning guns. As well as contemplation of the idea that I need more guns. And bigger caliber ones.

Harumph

2012-02-15T11:26:00.000-08:00

Despite it being a lovely day and my having spent lunch break taking an axe to trees and branches knocked down by our freak snow storm last October I still feel... grumpy. Annoyed. Aggravated. Pissy. Quarrelsome.

Trying some Mark Knopfler therapy now. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

PSA For Those Considering Mixed-Race Adoptions

2012-02-14T05:25:00.000-08:00

Just so you know how it works:

Judenrein Alert

2012-02-13T09:27:00.000-08:00

CNN's Israeli branch, located in Jerusalem, has "down sized". And by an odd coincidence, the downsizing means that all of its Jewish reporters have been fired, and only Arab journalists retained. The office is now officially Judenfrei. If only Haj Amin al-Husseini and Uncle Adolph could see them now - they'd be so pleased!

Al-Husseini, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, met with Hitler in 1941 to discuss extending the Nazis anti-Jewish program to the Arab world

Prophetic

2012-02-12T10:48:00.000-08:00

Does this sound familiar, given the news of the last couple weeks?

Finally, careful consideration should be given to the danger of this power passing into the hands of those public authorities who care little for the precepts of the moral law. Who will blame a government which in its attempt to resolve the problems affecting an entire country resorts to the same measures as are regarded as lawful by married people in the solution of a particular family difficulty? Who will prevent public authorities from favoring those contraceptive methods which they consider more effective? Should they regard this as necessary, they may even impose their use on everyone. It could well happen, therefore, that when people, either individually or in family or social life, experience the inherent difficulties of the divine law and are determined to avoid them, they may give into the hands of public authorities the power to intervene in the most personal and intimate responsibility of husband and wife.

So wrote Pope Paul VI in his encyclical concerning contraception Humane Vitae in 1968.

Few people today realize that until 1930 ALL Christian denominations condemned birth control. Indeed, Martin Luther roundly condemned the contraceptive mentality of his own time as an “inhuman attitude, which is worse than barbarous”:

How great, therefore, the wickedness of human nature is! How many girls there are who prevent conception and kill and expel tender fetuses, although procreation is the work of God!

But the 1930 Lambeth Conference of the Anglican Church declared that contraception was acceptable in SOME cases. Societal pressure turned some cases into ALL cases soon enough, and one by one churches relinquished the ancient Christian teachings on procreation, until of the major denominations only the Catholic Church was left to declare contraception as a deliberate violation of the design of God.

In 1968, Pope Paul VI released his encyclical Humana Vitae, a thoughtful and prayerful declaration of the teachings of the Church concerning contraception. Far from just a blunt statement of its sinfulness, the document reflects on such issues as moral law and responsible parenthood. It also reflects on consequences. When I first read the document 20 years ago, I was particularly struck by this passage, especially the last sentence:

Let them first consider how easily this course of action could open wide the way for marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards. Not much experience is needed to be fully aware of human weakness and to understand that human beings—and especially the young, who are so exposed to temptation—need incentives to keep the moral law, and it is an evil thing to make it easy for them to break that law. Another effect that gives cause for alarm is that a man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection.

We now live in a society rife with divorce and abuse and desperately unhappy people who have been convinced that sex is a game which will bring them happiness. We live in a society in which a child is a disease for which prevention has been mandated by the government. How can we read Paul VI's words, and not say that the Church was prophetic?

The full text of Humanae Vitae can be read here. I highly recommend it; it is not long or particularly difficult.

The Roots of Freedom of Religion

2012-02-09T05:59:00.000-08:00

It’s amazing how quickly people will toss away the lessons of generations. Amazing how much the media and a desire to fit in with a particular group influences that. I get a mental picture of a bobble head sometimes, and I want to say “Polly want a cracker?” because all someone can do is quote the latest media-ocraty and if I poke around a bit it’s clear that all they have is that quote and a belief that repeating it often enough makes it so. There’s actually no substance behind it, just emotion and catch phrases. Which is why I don’t bother to talk to people much anymore. Right now I am inclined to be bluntly honest. And I know from experience that people who can’t articulate an argument on subjects just get angry and nasty with me. Right now I’d just be nasty right back.

I can’t even comment at length on Obama’s attack on freedom of religion. It just makes me too tired and sad. No one should be surprised that he’s doing it – a tyrannical regime always has to take down the religion of the people and replace it with the worship of the state. And of course the bobbleheads that supported the Park 51 project in New York on the basis of freedom of religion are quite happy to see the iniquitous Catholic Church get her comeuppance.

Since history isn’t taught, the bobbleheads might be surprised at some of the roots of freedom of religion in this country. True, the Founding Fathers did not want to be forced to support a national church as citizens of Britain were. But our melting pot had brought the concepts with them generations before the Constitution was written. I don’t think any story reflects that better than that of the Dutch and of the arrival of the first permanent Jewish settlers in New Amsterdam.

The Dutch owners of the East India Company dreamed of a short cut to Asian wealth when they sent English navigator Henry Hudson across the Atlantic in 1609 to search for a passage above or through the land mass of North America that would allow a ship access to the Pacific and to the eastern coast of Asia. Hudson didn’t find the riches of spices and silk but he did write to his employers of finding “as fine a river as can be found, wide and deep, with good anchoring ground on both sides” and he promised them “many skins and peltries, martins, foxes, and many other commodities.”

So the Dutch swallowed whatever disappointment they may have had and claimed an area for trade that comprised all or parts of what became New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, created the Dutch West India Company in 1623, and established a transportation hub for the shipment of timber and furs at the mouth of the Hudson. The first Dutch colonists arrived in the area of “Manahatta” in 1624.

The settlers for New Netherlands came out of a Europe that had suffered through generations of upheaval and wars of religion. In 1579 the Protestant provinces of the Low Country - Holland, Zeeland, Groningen, Friesland, Utrecht, Overijssle, and Gelre – united as the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands under the Union of Utrecht. They declared their independence from the House of Hapsburg and their Spanish overlords with the Act of Repudiation in 1581. The Protestantism of the Dutch was of the Calvinist kind as embodied in the Dutch Reformed Church. In theory, this was the official church of the Netherlands. However, the Union of Utrecht, which acted as a de-facto constitution, contained a declaration that was revolutionary for its time: “Each person shall remain free, especially in his religion…no one shall be persecuted or investigated because of their religion.” In an era when state religions were brutally enforced, when one Protestant sect battled another, and when Catholic monarchs waged war on everybody else, this was a welcome breath of fresh and free air. The Netherlands became a refuge for Brownings, Baptists, Walloons, Huguenots, Puritans, and Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jews. At the same time, Dutch merchants were expanding into the New World, fiercely competing with other European powers. Eventually, among the Dutch holdings was the richest part of the sugar producing areas in the northeast and coastal districts of Brazil. But the Dutch were abrasive towards the Brazilians, and the Brazilians in turn didn’t think much of Dutch Protestantism. A revolt ensued - unofficially supported by the Portuguese with men and arms. The Portuguese did not have the same free-wheeling attitude towards religion and philosophy as the Dutch, and when Recife, Brazil, fell in January of 1654 the Jews of the city fled, fearing that the Portuguese Inquisition was right behind advancing Portuguese troops.

Most of the Jews of Brazil returned to Holland. Six families, including 13 children, did not. Perhaps too poor to afford passage back to their homeland, they sailed into the Caribbean instead. The Spanish authorities wanted no part of them in Jamaica and Cuba. Barred from those islands, their captain took advantage of the situation and demanded an exorbitant fee to carry them north to the Dutch colony of New Netherlands. The Dutch Jews had no choice, and if they were poor before then, they were deeply impoverished now. That alone was excuse enough for the governor of New Netherlands, Peter Stuyvesant, to try to bar their entry when they sailed into the capital of New Netherlands, the port of New Amsterdam.

New Netherlands had defied the standard Dutch pattern of simple outposts and roots had been put down. The upriver settlement of New Orange, later named Albany, sent furs, timber, and, eventually, tobacco down to the port at New Amsterdam, but lack of good oversight and leadership left New Amsterdam in periodic danger of collapse. One ill-advised attack on the local Native Americans in the 1640s led to a tribal confederation that quickly destroyed many years worth of work and drove all into the safety of Fort Amsterdam at the south end of Manhattan. The colonists demanded a new governor. The Company obliged in 1647 by sending Peter Stuyvesant, a Frieslander who had lost his right leg while fighting the Spanish in the Caribbean and who had years of experience in hard-headed colonial management.

New Amsterdam was a hub through which cargo laden ships passed and paid dues and through it access to a rich interior was provided. The population became ever more polyglot as trade cycled from the Netherlands to West Africa to the Caribbean to New Amsterdam and back to Europe. Inheriting the tolerance of its parent country, the colony attracted Baptists, Anabaptists, and Familists. Mennonites, having found the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay Plantation no more welcoming than European countries had been, fled south into the more welcoming population of New Netherlands. Eventually, the company ordered Stuyvesant to form a municipal government based on the laws of Amsterdam. New Amsterdam incorporated as a city. Roads were cobbled, brick houses built, tile roofs installed, a proper wharf was built. Fear of British incursion led to the building of a palisade along the northern perimeter of the community: Wall Street ran along it, a roadway now synonymous with business that was built to protect businesses 360 years ago.

All in all, the New Amsterdam of 1654 must have looked a lot like any village of Holland. But despite the Dutch reputation for tolerance and the rambunctious history of the trading port, the Jews were not exactly welcome. To begin with, they were broke. The captain of the St. Catherine had brought them north “on spec”, and he wanted 2,500 guilders for his trouble. Fortunately, the leader of the local Dutch Reformed Church, Johannes Megapolensis, had pity on them. He was not happy at their arrival but he kept them from starving. Still, the captain wanted his pay, and after furniture and belongings were sold several of the newcomers were thrown in jail until the required amount could be raised.

Once the debt was taken care of the little group began to look for housing. This was horrifying to Stuyvesant; he protested to the Company and asked to be allowed to expel them. To be fair, it wasn’t just that Stuyvesant was an anti-Semite. He didn’t like Lutherans, either. Or Catholics, or Quakers. Indeed, his determination to stop Quakers from settling around the town of Vlissingan (Flushing) earned him the rebuke of the Flushing Remonstrance in 1658: “God is a consuming fire, and it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” the good fathers of Vlissingan wrote. And further, “we desire therefore in the case not to judge lest we be judged, neither to condemn lest we be condemned, but rather let every man stand and fall to his own…our desire is not to offend one of his little ones in whatsoever form, name or title he appears in, whether Presbyterian, Independent, Baptist, or Quaker; but shall be glad to see anything of God in any of them.” The Quakers stayed.

Megapolensis was willing to keep the Jews from starving, but was not willing to keep them.

His protests were shrugged off. The West India Company replied that those Jews had suffered “considerable loss … in the taking of Brazil.” Further, “To effectuate and fulfill your wishes…. Would be somewhat unreasonable and unfair… because of the large amount of capital which they still have invested in the shares of this company.” The Jews were to be allowed to “travel and trade to and in New Netherlands and live and remain there.” This must have been a shock: Stuyvesant had already ordered the Jews expelled. The Jews stayed instead. Initially, they were forbidden to own land or houses, open retail stores, trade with Indians, or conduct public prayer services. Nor were they allowed to join the city militia. Within a year, however, the directors of the Company had made it clear that they were displeased and many of the restrictions were dropped.

New Netherlands existed as a Dutch colony for another decade. In September of 1664 an overwhelming force of British ships and soldiers forced Stuyvesant, outgunned and surrounded by colonists who refused to fight, to surrender the colony without a fight. It gained a new name, New York, in honor of King Charles II’s brother, James, Duke of York. Life went on, now as British citizens.

The Jewish population in the British colony grew very slowly. By the Revolution they numbered only around 2,000 – 2,500 out of a total population of 2.5 million. But Jewish businessmen resented taxation without representation just as much as their Christian counterparts did. The Jewish community embraced the cause of Liberty and served readily, and surely they must have rejoiced in 1787 at the words of Article VI of the new Constitution: “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States” The First Amendment of the Bill of Rights further cemented religious liberty with “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Finally, after 2,000 years, a small part of an ancient Diaspora was not just tolerated. They had the same right to worship as everyone else and no one could take that away from them.

It took 2,000 years of suffering for one group of religious to have their right to worship according to the dictates of their consciences codified in a national constitution. And now so many in the country whose constitution had to be won at an enormous cost of lives so that that step could be taken, that freedom guaranteed, are ready to just throw that away because they neither understand nor care that religion is more than something you do for an hour on Sunday.

I Guess It Has Some Use

2012-02-08T12:37:00.000-08:00

Snow, that is. The bird feeders are busy today.

Liebstered!

2012-02-08T05:41:00.000-08:00

Quizikle and Murphy's Law have honored me with a Liebster:

I am much honored!

And it's hard as heck to just pick 5 to send it on to. I know some have already gotten Liebsters, but, well... Anyway, here goes:

Lagniappe's Lair - My bud, my teacher, and the first blog I read.

Nobody Asked Me

Way Up North

Guffaw in AZ

Standing Outside Looking In

So now I gotta find everybody's e-mail....

The Democrat Platform

2012-02-07T04:35:00.000-08:00

'Nuff said.

Judged - And Found Wanting

2012-02-06T05:29:00.000-08:00

Turns out this is from last August, but it still was entertaining.

Seems one Justin Newberry was driving with his Taurus Judge floating around loaded and unsecured under his car seat. He stopped suddenly, which caused it to slide out. As he was rumaging around for it he managed to grab the trigger. Put a .410 slug through one leg and into the other.

Not to worry - Justin got help quickly enough. But it wasn't his best day. A quick look in the car by responding police found marijuana, drug paraphernalia, and several stolen i.d.s.

Several levels of dumbness going on there...

The whole story is here.

Unexpected Friday

2012-02-03T16:08:00.000-08:00

Dear Mom -

When you took this pic last week you had no idea that today would be a long and expensive day at the vet's. Good thing you love me lots.

Love and kisses on your nose,

Perrry (aka your big eyed baby boy)

Groundhogs and Candlemas Day

2012-02-02T08:26:00.000-08:00

So Phil saw his shadow. Oh well. A couple years ago he bit the guy that pulled him out - I sympathized with Phil.

"You woke me up for THIS?!"

David over at Musings Over a Pint reminded readers yesterday that Feb. 1 is St. Brigid of Ireland's Feast Day. Groundhog Day also has roots in Christian tradition - it is also Candlemas Day.

From an article at Accuweather today:

At least as early as the 4th century A.D., Christians in Jerusalem were celebrating the ritual purification of Mary on Feb. 2, 40 days after the birth of Jesus. By the 5th century A.D., it was custom to light candles on this day. On Feb. 2, the clergy would bless candles - symbols of Christ and His association with light - and distribute them to the faithful, who placed one in each window of their home. This important Christian holiday came to be known as Candlemas Day. Not surprisingly, early Christians were well aware that Candlemas Day fell midway between the winter solstice and the vernal equinox. The weather on this day was as important to them as it was to the ancient Celts.

American Origins

When German settlers arrived in America in the 1700s, they brought with them their Old World beliefs about Candlemas Day, including the idea that if a hibernating animal saw its shadow on Feb. 2, winter would last another six weeks. German settlers in Pennsylvania - known as the Pennsylvania Dutch - found groundhogs living in burrows all over the countryside. These winter hibernators were considered as knowledgeable about the weather as the badgers and hedgehogs of Germany. The earliest American reference to Groundhog Day was written on Feb. 4, 1841, by a Pennsylvania storekeeper named James Morris. In his diary he wrote, "Last Tuesday, the 2nd, was Candlemas Day, the day on which, according to the Germans, the groundhog peeps out of his winter quarters, and if he sees his shadow, he pops back for another six-weeks nap, but if the day be cloudy, he remains out, as the weather is to be moderate." There was also a popular American saying in the 1800s that went, "If the sun shines on Groundhog Day, half the fuel and half the hay." This means that if the weather is fair on Feb. 2, the second half of winter will be as long and cold as the first, so if you don't have at least half your wood and hay left, there will be lean times ahead for your family and livestock.

So happy Candlemas Day to all!

Psalm 23 in the Obama Age

2012-02-01T05:46:00.000-08:00

Obama is the shepherd I did not want.

He leadeth me beside the still factories.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the bread line,
I shall fear no hunger, for his bailouts are with me.

He has anointed my income with taxes,
My expenses runneth over.

Surely, poverty and hard living will follow me all the days of my life,
And I will live in a mortgaged home forever.

A Carol Appropriate to Any Season

2012-01-31T05:47:00.000-08:00

In celebration of the return of my taste buds.

Ahhhhh-choo!

2012-01-27T12:31:00.000-08:00

I've left the caer just twice this week and yet I woke up this morning with a very unpleasant bug. The cats are happy to have me on the sofa to drape themselves over, except the sneezing and coughing thing.

Excuse me while I return to contemplating how it is that my head can be so completely stuffed up and still produce so much snot...

Something Fishy

2012-01-26T04:00:00.000-08:00

It's cold and dark and I'm in the midst of my seasonal morph into Homo sapiens ursus - like the bear that ursus refers to I don't want to do anything but hunker down, eat, and sleep until someone tells the days that they need to be longer so I can play outside after work. Trouble is, my weight and cholesterol say that I need to be more careful of the eating part, and move my office job body more.

I've been on a sort of binge on burgers in recent months but normally I don't eat a lot of meat. That's not because I object to the eating of meat - it's because of the conditions of factory farming. But it's a nuisance to have to go someplace out of the way to get a humanely raised piece of whatever I'm craving and then wait for the frozen-brick-hard thing to thaw in the fridge. And they won't let hunters sell game meat - I've got no objections to eating something that was alive one moment doing whatever it naturally does and dead the next. We tend to eat too much protein in our culture, but we do need some. So I've been trying to learn more about fish - how to choose it, how to cook it, and how to eat it.

For most of my life, I didn't like fish unless it involved batter and deep frying - I thought fish tasted fishy otherwise. That's still yummy, but, again, there's the excess calories and fat thing. My opinion of fish started to change when I had my first taste of really excellent seared tuna with ponzu sauce. Well alrighty - let's re-think this! It occurred to me that my family didn't come from a place where fish were readily available - a poor mountain-top farm serves up chicken, pork, and beef, and the nearest stream of any size was a good ways away and contaminated with mine run-off. And who has time to fish when you are trying scrape a living off a small farm, anyway? So the rare occasions when we did have fish may not have reflected a particularly broad or skillful understanding of it. Maybe there could be something beyond deep frying and Mrs. Paul's fish sticks.

It's my nephew's fault that I cook much at all - several years ago he gave me The Cook's Encyclopedia of Thai Cooking for Christmas, and that led me out of the darkness of canned, frozen, and processed products into the world of fresh and carefully balanced flavors. A new cookbook has followed every year, and this year's hit the jackpot - For Cod and Country, a collection of simple but delicious recipes for fish and shellfish that is focused on fresh and sustainable.

My culinary adventures with fish have a lot of assistance from the fish counter manager at our local grocery store - she has a passion for her product, so a morning run for ingredients for dinner presents me with an immaculate cooler full of fresh fillets and whole fish just received that morning. The end result since New Years Day has been dishes such as stewed catfish and black-eyed peas with chunks of catfish so light they dissolved in the mouth; tilapia with roasted spaghetti squash, caper yogurt, and a smoky balsamic reduction that is excellent on other roasted veges; eggplant stuffed with smoky tomato-anchovy ratatouille; and this week's crowning glory of trout and autumn squash with roast garlic and toasted pecans. All far more easy to make than the names sound, and all delicious.

Since I make two servings at a time, my freezer is full now, so I need to subsist on that for a while before my next cooking adventure so that things don't sit in there too long. I may switch cook books next, too - I'm thinking maybe Goan style clams and mussels from my Fresh Indian book may be next. I have to say that it's all WAY better than anything I ever tossed onto a baking sheet out of a box. And not a bit fishy.

Keystone Pipeline Problems

2012-01-25T04:20:00.000-08:00

'Nuff said.

Today's Diversity Lesson

2012-01-24T04:58:00.000-08:00

Is from Andrew Klavan. As a conservative, I know I'm responsible for everything from bad weather (I don't drive anything that involves the word "compact" because I'd lose it in my street's potholes) to Gabby Gifford's shooting (because somehow I made Jared Loughner crazy, I guess). So a lesson in cultural sensitivity may be helpful in my quest to not make people who are nut-ball fanatics not be nut-ball fanatics. Oh. 'Scuse me. Did I say that?

Morning Giggle

2012-01-23T06:12:00.000-08:00

From my in box this morning, some of them made me laugh. The one at the end definitely: Occasional violation of the 4 safety rules involved.

"Best Of" Gun Accidents 2011

Flaming idiots use flaming....

2012-01-20T05:06:00.000-08:00

Well, you can read it at The Smoking Gun. Gotta say, I wouldn't have thought of this use for this particular object. Guess I'm just not drunk enough.

Well, they are definitely full of it.

2012-01-20T05:00:00.000-08:00

Lest anyone think that the Occupy folks aren't costing us anything - remember police overtime. The occupiers have to be protected from the truly homeless who want them to share the food the unions are providing. Not to mention the future costs of repairing the damage of the areas they've been squatting in. And apparently in Baltimore they've seen fit to just take over someone's house. I have a solution for that but it's the socialist state of Maryland so I doubt it would fly.

The latest addition to the American taxpayer's bill for this is quite appropriate. According to the U.S. New and World Report's "Washington Whispers", we get to pay for their port-a-potties. I guess we should just be grateful that an alternative to a police car is being provided.

No more cookies.

2012-01-19T05:00:00.000-08:00

Granted, I try not to eat a lot of sweets - I have enough problems with weight without that. But every once in a while a box of Thin Mints seems like a good idea, especially when proffered by cute little girls outside the local grocery store. But as of today, no more Girl Scout cookies. And the problem isn't my blood sugar level. It's my blood pressure level after reading Cathy Ruse's "Say No to Girl Scout Cookies".

I hadn't thought about how much of the money goes back to the kids who work so hard to raise it - 10%. Well, I guess that's more than 1 %, so the Occupy folks won't fuss. But 90% goes to the Girl Scout business itself, and that seems like prime Evil Corporation territory so I'm waiting to hear from the Companies Are Bad folks. All those parents who take time out of their days to make sure the girls have their meetings, projects, and sales are all volunteering their time to make sure the bureaucracy gets a regular pay day.

Not having had a little girl in the house for many years, I haven't paid attention. I didn't realize that a decision had been made to let boys who dress as girls in. Bad enough there are parents who encourage gender confusion at a young age - this isn't the same as a tomboy in jeans, but little boys who think they are little girls. No matter what some fool psychologist says, little boys and little girls most definitely have different parts. Not to mention different genetic structures - there's that whole x and y chromosome thing. That's called nature, and those who attack my opinions on this as the rantings of a religious nut can please explain to me how I am scientifically inaccurate when I observe that nature built male and female structures that serve different functions. So little boys with their little boy parts belong in Boy Scouts. If their parents think that's an issue then they can get off their media-seeking butts and form a Gender Confused Scouts if they want.

Even that is not the kicker. The kicker is Planned Parenthood's involvement. You know, the people who make statements like "young people understand that they are entitled to sexual pleasure and how to experience different forms of sexual pleasure is important for their health and well-being." And then they make a lot of money killing the inconvenient end result of an act that has as its primary function the survival of the species. They have particularly excelled in making sure brown skinned varieties of Homo sapiens don't survive, a policy they've had since the group's founding.

100 Questions for the Girl Scouts has just that, and plenty more. Unfortunately. And while the slime hasn't worked its way into all Girl Scout councils, it is most definitely there and spreading. Enough that there will be no more Thin Mints in this house.

Oh, and, before anybody protests, that's my choice. Planned Parenthood is all about choice, isn't it?

And they want a bailout?

2012-01-13T09:18:00.000-08:00

Apparently, Greece hasn't learned a thing from it's current financial troubles. And they've just taken a step that should eliminate all possibility of any bail-out. According to the AP, the Greek government has now extended the category of "disabled" to pedophiles. Also exhibitionists, kleptomaniacs, pyromaniacs, compulsive gamblers, fetishists and sadomasochists. According to the Greek Labor Ministry, the categories were included for purposes of medical assessment and "allocating financial assistance."

Get that? A country already facing financial ruin and and begging for help from other countries has now decided that people who prey on children deserve as much financial assistance as, say, a person born blind.

Time to turn off the money spigot, and to make it clear why. Let them burn down the whole country.

California man shoots intruder and is called ... a hero.

2012-01-12T06:23:00.000-08:00

From KMPH, Fox 26 in California:

KINGSBURG, Calif. (KMPH) - A Kingsburg man opens fire, and now the father of four is being called a hero.
Deputies say he shot a man who broke into his home.
It happened at a house in Kingsburg, just after midnight, last Friday morning.
39-year-old Adan Duran says the intruder first broke into his truck, took a hammer out of his own tool box and tried to break in through the garage. When he couldn't, he went to the front of the house where he was confronted by two dogs that bit him.
Duran says he attacked the dogs and kept going.
He used the hammer to break the living room window, where Duran was waiting.
"When I see him come to me, I shoot at him," said Duran.
He fired one round from his .357 magnum revolver in an effort to protect his four children and his wife, who were all home.
"I don't like somebody to put one finger on anyone in my family," said Duran.
The intruder was hit in the thigh.
"I never think about killing him. I want to stop him," said Duran.
And he did.
The intruder fell back, and the father of four stood over him, holding a gun to his head while waiting for deputies to arrive.
"He told me ‘I want to kill people.' I told him, you move one finger, I'm going to shoot you on your head," said Duran.
His wife and kids had all locked themselves inside a bedroom - and stayed safe.
Duran says this is the first time he's ever aimed his gun at a person.
"This guy want to kill my family. I don't want that," said Duran.
Tulare County Sheriff's Deputies say the man that broke into this house, is 21-year-old Zaiven Ridley.
Deputies say he's from the Sacramento are but he walked to the Kingsburg home where he was shot.
He's still in the hospital, and deputies are still trying to figure out how he got to the Valley, and why he targeted the house.
No charges will be filed against Duran, deputies say, in this case, it was legal for him to shoot the person who broke into his home and threatened to hurt him and his family.

Looks like not all of California is terminally infected by anti-gun liberalism.

I'm in love.

2012-01-10T17:12:00.000-08:00

It’s come late in life for me, but it has happened none the less. And I had to have help – I don’t know enough about such things to deal with this completely on my own. So Murphy’s Law stepped in and made the introductions. And I was immediately pretty sure that This Was The One.

Handsome. Elegant. Perfectly proportioned in relationship to my short self. A second date at Occupy Peacemaker, and I was sure. Once again Murphy’s Law stepped in, and he returned from his Christmas trip home with my new love:

Absolutely beautiful M-1 carbine made by Plainfield Machine Co. Wood in perfect condition. Barely used. Feels wonderful, like it was made just for me. Shoots like a dream.

Today was range day, a perfect day for it, and I took possession of my new love. Much pistol work first, with some training from ML on close encounters of the drawing your concealed weapon kind, as well as a lesson in retention. (Note to self - purchase real leather belt this weekend. This imitation crap can't take the stress.) I am not a good multi-tasker; pushing away with left hand and stepping back while sweeping shirt/jacket back and drawing and firing is going to require practice. And yes, yes I can draw the .38 and find it in my hand with my shirt still wrapped around it. In real life I hope I would have enough presence of mind (or enough sense of self preservation) to fire anyway but I wasn't going to put a hole in a perfectly good shirt for training. ML had also repaired the H&R .22 and it is amazing how different it feels after several months of using firearms - it feels fine now whereas at first I didn't like it. I still can't use it double action - I can pull that trigger way back but not quite far enough. But single action feels good.

Finally, the M-1. First time up - 25 yards:

50 yards:

100 yards (the shot in the 7 ring at about 11 o'clock is from ML's Springfield, which he was sighting):

And, finally, I finished messing up Murphy's Law's target at the 200 yard line - a cluster to the lower right and then I got the range:

I'm happy and excited - it was a terrific day at the range. Thanks, Murphy's Law, for bringing my baby home and showing me how to properly use it. Thanks, Aaron of the Shekel, for parting with such a fine gun.

Now I gotta go clean a bunch of guns...

D.C.'s Occupy Gets Schooled

2012-01-09T13:35:00.000-08:00

I think I'm in love...

Yaawwwnnn...

2012-01-09T06:07:00.000-08:00

I've been around, but when not working busy with other stuff. A good friend's mother died unexpectedly last Thursday, and my friend and her hubby, saturated with all the stuff the aftermath of such things requires, stopped by last night. They just needed someone other than family to talk to for a while. So we talked about whatever they wanted to talk about and killed rather more than a bottle of wine and they left just before midnight.

Seemed I had just crawled into bed when my cats were all climbing all over me and demanding breakfast. It was getting light so I staggered down and filled the bowls. At which point my head had cleared enough to realize that the light wasn't coming from the east. Moonlight. Flippin' moonlight from the mostly full moon. It was 4 am.

I am SO too old for this...

Santorum speaks up.

2012-01-05T07:09:00.000-08:00

If I haven't made it obvious yet, I am pro-life. No, let me change that. I am PRO-LIFE. I believe that every abortion takes the life of an innocent human being. There is nothing, no reasoning (or lack thereof) that changes that. No proof without a reasonable doubt that what is being killed is not human. No proof that both a woman AND a man were not involved (in vitro included - there is still a biological father). And no one can say to me that I don't know what it's like to be in a crisis pregnancy - been there, done that. And helped others being encouraged to abort get through their own pregnancies.

Thing is, I was pro-life when I called myself an atheist. Scientifically, the idea that no human was killed failed. Culturally, the idea that we could call that a choice, let that get ingrained into our society, then not develop a more violent society failed. To allow it and then be surprised when people make choices that are harmful to others is ridiculous. It fails logically.

Along the way, Bernie Nathanson, may he rest in peace, saw the light, and turned away from the monster he had helped create, using his own film, "The Silent Scream", to demonstrate the humanity of what is slaughtered. "Roe", of Roe v Wade, became pro-life, as did "Doe" of Doe v Bolton, the case that really opened Pandora's box on the innocent, creating abortion on demand. More and more women who worked for groups like Planned Parenthood have spoken out and published their memoirs of what they saw there. More and more women who have had abortions are speaking out. And more and more death certificates of those who were killed by these "safe and legal" procedures have become available on-line.

So I am a single issue voter. I will not cast my vote for a pro-abortion candidate. The famous trilogy is "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness". If the government does not protect innocent life, then the other two don't matter, for they become impossible to achieve.

So this bit of commentary by George Will, courtesy of Creative Minority Report, heavily influences my thoughts on who to vote for. I've copied both the Will excerpt and CMR's comments:

I find it hard to believe I am writing these words. But the following is an excerpt from a column extolling the virtues of Rick Santorum written by, are you sitting down? George Will.
They (ordinary Republicans) crave fun. Supporting Mitt Romney still seems to many like a duty, the responsible thing to do. Suddenly, supporting Santorum seems like a lark, partly because a week or so ago he could quit complaining about media neglect and start having fun, which is infectious.

He can, of course, be tenaciously serious. On Sept. 26, 1996, the Senate was debating whether to ban partial-birth abortion, the procedure whereby the baby to be killed is almost delivered, feet first, until only a few inches of its skull remain in the birth canal, and then the skull is punctured, emptied and collapsed. Santorum asked two pro-choice senators opposed to the ban, Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) and Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), this: Suppose the baby slips out of the birth canal before it can be killed. Should killing it even then be a permissible choice? Neither senator would say no.

On Oct. 20, 1999, during another such debate, Santorum had a colloquy with pro-choice Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.):

Santorum: “You agree that, once the child is born, separated from the mother, that that child is protected by the Constitution and cannot be killed. Do you agree with that?”

Boxer: “I think that when you bring your baby home . . . .”

Santorum is not, however, a one-dimensional social conservative. He was Senate floor manager of the most important domestic legislation since the 1960s, the 1996 welfare reform.
It was Rick Santorum who took the fight over partial-birth abortion to the Dems. It was Rick Santorum who exposed the monstrous logic of the pro-aborts in Congress. It was Rick Santorum. He has made his mistakes, mistakes he admits, but that is the Rick Santorum I know. That is the Rick Santorum I support. That is the Rick Santorum you should support too.

Oh, by the way. Did you see that Boxer quote above? Your life is not protected by the Constitution until they bring you home. M.O.N.S.T.E.R.S.

Yes. They are monsters. And they've been voted into office by those who accept monstrous beliefs. We will have no true freedom as long as these beliefs remain.

Top 10 Most Corrupt

2012-01-04T08:34:00.000-08:00

Judicial Watch has released its 2011 Top 10 list for most corrupt politicians in Washington, D.C. A lot of the usual suspects are there:

Dishonorable Mentions for 2011 include:

To tell the truth, I expected several that were merely dishonorable mention to rank higher. Just goes to show that there's a lot of competition that Top 10 slot.

Mail Box

2012-01-03T10:52:00.000-08:00

From a friend. My mother was a mail carrier for 26 years, but she never mentioned delivering to a mail box as unique as this one. (The neighborhood kids would, however, on occasion stick a frog in a mail box.)

New Years

2012-01-03T05:37:00.000-08:00

And I'm feeling a bit brain dead...

Spent New Years Eve on duty at the local cold weather shelter. Got home from church New Years Day to find a tree down on the lines and no electricity, so I retreated to a favorite local restaurant/bar, where I found other refugees from the street watching the Redskins game. Been working on raking up leaves and putting down mulch. Other than that, I got nuttin to report - haven't even been paying attention to the news.

Christmas

2011-12-27T14:51:00.000-08:00

I'm not used to having company. I am in particular not used to having more than one or two people at my house at one time. So Christmas this year was an adventure. It was also, despite the stress of getting the house ready, planning meals, wondering how to keep people who are used to way too much TV entertained without cable, etc., one of the most enjoyable Christmases I've had.

Granted, it is also only the third time in 21 years that I haven't had to drive to/from NC for Christmas - our folks had followed my sister down there when they retired in 1990. I sure didn't miss sitting in traffic on US 95. And being in NC never guaranteed good weather - in fact we got iced in once and last year got up the day after to find snow pounding down and 8 inches already on the ground. I found it ironic that my new tire chains got their first use in NC rather than on my mountain in WV. I know that my staying put meant others had to go through all the travel stresses, but I'm not feeling horribly guilty about it.

Dinner was yummy. I had help - Angie at So Angelina's prepared the cheese manicotti, caponata, and Italian pound cake, and my daughter prepared the citrus green beans and the pumpkin-chai quickbread that we had for breakfast. I highly recommend the quickbread paired with an apple compote parfait as a special breakfast - layers of homemade apple sauce, vanilla yogurt, and crunchy cinnamon-butter bread crumbs:

Mine wasn't so pretty, but it did the job.

Of course, the subject of Christmases past came up, favorite stories and reminisces, of fun events and of strange or hideous gifts that had to be greeted with faked enthusiasm. Uncle Harold always gave us the most awful colored fuzzy slippers - I remember a bright lime green pair in particular. And there was a seriously ugly pink and purple jacket that fortunately didn't fit me and had to be returned. Not to mention Mom's ugly flower sweater phase. But our favorite was the year Mom gave my sister and I matching necklaces. It would have been around 1970, and we were teens and children of the 60s. Our parents were, um, sort of unaware. My sister and I opened our boxes at the same time. And immediately looked at each other. Which was almost a mistake, because it made keeping a straight face really hard. The necklaces were very pretty - Mom so admired the turquoise inlay over silver. Buuuut... well, I can't find mine, but this is something like:

Yes, well. I think we finally told her what it was many years later, to her horrified "I didn't know!". My sister still has hers and I thought I had kept mine - they were a source of much laughter for my sister and I.

Everybody had to leave by Monday morning. And now I have a problem. I have two new cookbooks...

...and I have to eat up leftovers before I can play with them.
...

Belated

2011-12-27T05:10:00.000-08:00

To all, Merry Christmas!

When I get my head together, back to blogging.

Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring

2011-12-25T05:14:00.000-08:00

Gaudete! May you have a blessed, holy, and joyful Christmas Day!

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men".
Luke 2: 11-14

Christus Es Natus!

2011-12-24T04:00:00.000-08:00

In the midst of our hurry and distraction today and tonight, a few minutes music break to remember what Christmas Eve really means.

Gaudete, Gaudete! Christus et natus Ex maria virgine, Gaudete!	Rejoice, Rejoice! Christ is born Of the virgin Mary, Rejoice!
Tempus ad est gratiae, Hoc quod optabamus; Carmina laetitiae, Devote redamus.	It is now the time of grace That we have desired; Let us sing songs of joy, Let us give devotion.
Deus homo factus est, Natura mirante; Mundus renovatus est A Christo regnante.	God was made man, And nature marvels; The world was renewed By Christ who is King.
Ezechiellis porta Clausa pertransitur; Unde lux est orta Salus invenitur.	The closed gate of Ezechiel Has been passed through; From where the light rises Salvation is found.
Ergo nostra cantio, Psallat iam in lustro; Benedicat Domino: Salus Regi nostro.	Therefore let our assembly now sing, Sing the Psalms to purify us; Let it praise the Lord: Greetings to our King.

Gluttony

2011-12-22T04:02:00.000-08:00

'Tis the season for over-eating, so after yesterday's menu, maybe Ormie the Pig is appropriate:

I'm hoping I don't make eating this challenging for my guests this weekend.

Obama's 12 Days of Christmas

2011-12-21T10:43:00.000-08:00

Because I can't resist tossing out at least one political comment this week:

Finally getting the menu together. Our big meal this year will be Christmas Eve due to some of the family needing to leave Christmas Day. Tradition has dictated that we do the ham and mashed potatoes thing, but with everybody leaving by Monday, that would leave me with a lot of leftovers of things that, while I like them well enough, I get bored with quickly. So I was mulling over a change. And happened to run into the owner/chef of the new Italian catering establishment that just opened up when I stopped for a beer at a favorite spot. She had suggestions. I liked the suggestions. So the menu now is combo Greek/Italian and looks like this:

Shrimp with tomatoes and feta cheese

Cheese manicotti

Caponata

Citrus green beans with pine nuts

Of course there will be a lot of crusty bread

And Italian pound cake, probably with raspberries and ice cream to finish

Yeah, I think that'll do. That'll do nicely.

Up

2011-12-20T05:01:00.000-08:00

The tree is. Up. Finally. Oh, and decorated, too. I had lots of help, of course.

I gave up on having real trees a few years ago - it's just too much of a nuisance for one person to get a real tree set up by themselves. Plus, I've only spent one Christmas in my own home - I'd no sooner get it up than I'd have to pedal down to NC. At which point the tree would dry out and start losing needles. This year, though, Christmas is at my house (panic carefully swallowed down...), so I even paid a lot of attention to getting the limbs well straightened out.

The one problem - my artificial tree is in three pieces:

The pieces themselves aren't the problem - it's finding and connecting up all the cords for the built in lights. Which is the reason I keep a short green extension cord with it. It comes in handy when my patience with groping around and following lines along the trunk runs out.

I had even more help with putting on the ornaments.

Fortunately, none of the Mischiefs have shown any interest in un-decorating the lower limbs this year. Although Perry did try to eat some of the plastic needles.

So it's up. But I dare not put presents under it yet because Blu will open them.

And while I'm on the subject of Up - the antique pharmacy case is finally done, as well. I wish I had taken more before and after pics, but the best I can do is that this:

...is finally this...

Not bad for a freebie.

Accidents Happen

2011-12-19T06:09:00.000-08:00

Even Santa can have a bad day:

Wonder if insurance will cover?

Putting the Christ back in Christmas Shopping

2011-12-18T05:00:00.000-08:00

Made me smile.

Feeling better...

2011-12-17T04:50:00.000-08:00

...about my mere 61 inches in height.

18 yrs old and 24.7 inches tall. And I thought I had problems finding jeans that are short enough!

Done

2011-12-16T04:41:00.000-08:00

So, as I mentioned in an earlier post, I felt the need to abuse myself by painting the downstairs bathroom. Did I mention that it wasn't just painting, but a general facelift? Did I mention that despite a great deal of experience in the reality that such projects ALWAYS take longer than I plan for, I was thinking "I can knock that out in a weekend"?

Well, it's finally done, as far as it's going to be done before Christmas. The blah white...

...now has some color...

And contractor fixtures...

... have been replaced with something I like a little better...

And of course when I took down the old light I discovered that the electrical box wasn't centered over the vanity. I will connect white wire to white wire, black wire to black wire, ground to ground, but I'm not going to tackle moving an electrical box - I'll get an electrician in to do that. So the light isn't up there as well as I'd like right now but I probably am the only one that notices. And one of the stop cocks under the sink isn't working so I had to cut the water off at the pressure pump, which left enough water in the pipe that until I got the hose connected to the new faucet set I had a steady trickle of cold water running down my arm into my armpit. And even though the house is new enough that the connections are straightforward, they haven't been loosened for 7 years and so there were a few minutes of concern that I wasn't going to be able to get the old out so that the new could go in. But it finally let loose. So far no signs of leaks. I'll replace the stopcock another day. As well as the silver shower fixture - I wasn't going to get into that right now, either.

And as I was laying under the sink a couple questions occured to me: 1) Why do bathroom cabinets have to be raised high enough off the floor that you have to assume a completely unatural position in order to work under the sink? and 2) Why is it that every time you reach for a tool after you have crawled in and assumed that unatural position the one that comes to hand is the wrong one?

So now to get the Christmas tree and decorations up. Finally.

Two Places at Once

2011-12-15T10:53:00.000-08:00

Guffaw's reflection on blogger drop off brought me back to an issue I've been aggravated with all week. It occurs to me that maybe some more 'puter minded bloggers who pass by have an answer.

On Monday my agency switched to Google Mail from Thunderbird. Previously, I just stayed signed in on Blogger and gmail and would periodically take a break and post or work on my own blog. Now, I can't be in two places at once - I can't be signed into my work account and my personal account at the same time. In order to post anywhere I have to sign out of my work account, sign in my personal account, do what I want to do, sign out, sign back in my work account, etc.

Anybody know a way around this so I can keep two accounts open on the same machine at the same time?

Droopy

2011-12-13T04:34:00.000-08:00

Well, now. There are some fashion styles that one just wishes would go away, and that whole "my pants are down around my knees" thing is one of them. The only good thing I can think about it is that if someone who is making that particular fashion statement runs from the poh-lice they are likely to be seriously hampered by a waistband riding at mid-thigh.

Apparently, one school in South Carolina is tired of droopy-drawered students and now keeps spare belts around, offering an option of belting up or being referred for discipline for dress code violation. One hopes that catching the sagging early will prevent more serious infractions later in life.

Article can be read here.

Hate it.

2011-12-12T05:38:00.000-08:00

I hate painting. I hate every moment of it. I hate prepping. I hate edging. I hate rolling. I particularly hate having to put on two coats.

And because the family is spending Christmas here this year I decided to finally, finally, paint the one room left in the house that was still the original off white bland that the rest of the house was when I bought it. So my weekend was spent remembering why that bathroom wasn't done yet.

Yep. I hate painting.

And what about that whole freedom of speech thing?

2011-12-09T09:09:00.000-08:00

The blood-boiler of a headline is "Criticism of Islam Could Soon be a Crime in America". Ms Clinton is to get a visit from the head of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) this month. On the agenda - how the US can implement the OIC agenda to criminalize criticism of Islam. This would be the same OIC that adopted the Cairo Declaration +20 years ago, said Cairo Declaration exempting Muslim countries from compliance with the UN Universal Declaration on Human Rights. Not surprising - rights aren't a big concern in the dream of an Islamic Caliphate ruled under shariah law.

As Salmon Rushdie found out, "slander" is a big deal in shariah. And since the OIC views anything a Muslim doesn't like to hear as slander and therefore as Islamophobia, it wants the U.N. to "...adopt an international resolution to counter Islamophobia" and to "call upon all States to enact laws to counter it, including deterrent punishments."

Let's see now: on Nov. 5, 2009, one Major Hasan, who had been in regular contact with terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki, yelled "ALLAHU AKHBAR" as he slaughtered 13 and wounded 32 at Ft. Hood, TX. The administration has classified that event as "workplace violence". Think the head of the OIC will have a warm welcome when he knocks on Hillary's door?

Victim of "work place violence" at Ft. Hood

The article aptly closes:

A phobia is an irrational fear. It is not irrational to give warning of an ideology resolutely committed to eradication of free belief, expression, speech, and even thought. It is suicidal for a free society willingly to collaborate with those, like the Muslim Brotherhood and the OIC, which are determined to destroy Western civilization from within—and have told us so, repeatedly, consistently, and publicly. Further, collaboration in such an anti-freedom campaign represents abrogation of the professional oath of office of every federal official who has sworn to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Silencing those who would warn of impending catastrophe only ensures victory to the enemy and loss of our most rare and precious inheritance: the American love of liberty.

I'm sorry, but if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then I'm going to call it a duck, no matter what some p.c. nimnul declares.

The full article can be read here.

Heeeere's your sign....

2011-12-08T04:43:00.000-08:00

The headline - "Thieves Pawned Camera with their Photos". Story is here.

I remain firm in my belief that there should be added penalties for stupid. In other words, when these pics are identified, the perps should get a penalty for robbery, and then a penalty for being stupid enough to take pictures of themselves with a stolen camera and then pawning it without erasing the memory. That's worth at least an extra 30 days.

Brrrrrrr in the Middle East

2011-12-07T05:13:00.000-08:00

As Vacationer in Chief gets ready to go off on another vacay - Rome burns while Nero fiddles comes to mind - the Arab Spring that we knew wouldn't be has gotten rather chilly.

New Addict

2011-12-06T06:54:00.000-08:00

In honor of kx59's discovery of Firefly, but from a female perspective of appreciation of the show's many merits:

We Occupied

2011-12-05T06:13:00.000-08:00

I'm slow, I know...

Saturday's blog shoot was a hoot, enjoyed myself thoroughly. Many thanks to Murphy's Law for arranging it, for manufacturing ammo for my Arisaka and getting the spring it needed to make it a five shot again. Bet that old gun's going BANG for the first time in +60 years would have made Dad happy. And thanks to everyone for letting me test out various guns and shoot up your ammo.

It was great meeting folks that have only existed electronically up until now - hope we can do it again and get even more folks together. Peacemaker is a great range, with the added plus of glorious views of the mountains. And we could not have ordered better weather.

Despite the number of guns I handled (and how tired my hands and arms got doing it), Saturday actually allowed me to narrow things down a bit. I always practice with the S&W Airlite because that's the one I've got right now and I need to be used to it. I always take my Browning 1922 because it's fun to shoot, though I need more magazines because I spend more time reloading the one I have than I do shooting. But the baby Kahr and Glock that Old NFO brought, and the middle size Glock that ML brought suited me particularly well. And an M-1 carbine is so at the top of my rifle want list.

I think I finally understand what "in the pocket" feels like - no bruises this time. But my little arms and hands were tired by the end of the shoot. And somehow I started the day with the total delusion that I was going to spend a whole day outside in crisp, cool air shooting, eat, then come home and work on the house. Yeah. No. I came home and crawled in the shower, put my p.j.s on, and fired up Netflix. Started a documentary about the history of the Greeks and realized that I had no ability to absorb it so switched over to an old George Burns movie.

So Occupy Peacemaker (or Occupy Right to Keep and Bear Arms, as the sign said) was a success in my book - a lot of fun, some learning, and money going off to a good cause. See everybody at the next one!

When in doubt, punt. Gun, that is.

2011-12-01T06:10:00.000-08:00

So Kead's question as to what I was interested in trying got me to thinking about my leg-stretch stop at Gander Mountain just north of Richmond on my way home Sunday afternoon. I wandered around a while and of course I had to go back and see what they have that goes "Bang!" The first two guns I saw sure got my attention, but a gentleman was standing right there being an actual customer, so I didn't get to read their labels. They were the honkin'est biggest revolvers I've ever seen. So big that I thought "I'd probably never be able to fire them but they'd make a heck of a club." I swear the barrels looked 2 ft long. Then yesterday I mused on the fact that there are calibers that would probably knock me on my butt, and wandering around Youtube turned up this:

Explaining that my shoulder is bruised because of a shotgun - not embarrassing. That my nose is bruised because of a pistol - yeah that would be embarrassing.

Then my mind took a trip on the way-back machine. Thirty-five or so years ago I read James Michner's Chesapeake. Loved it, but I never knew what the heck a punt gun was until I went to the museum in St. Michael's, MD. Ah. A punt gun is a cannon disguised as a shotgun:

I'm thinking that's probably too big for me even tied down on a boat.

Blog Shoot!

2011-11-29T18:20:00.000-08:00

I've been remiss, but better late than never: BLOG SHOOT SATURDAY, DEC 3!!!

Not too far from Charles Town, and it's supposed to be a nice place. Murphy's Law has made the arrangements so I'm taking that as a guarantee. I only have two pistols, a shotgun, and a Japanese rifle to play with, but I'll buy ammo if folks will let me play with their toys too.

We have a new Irish pub opening on Dec. 1 - I'm going to give it an official inspection on opening day (It will probably take me several hours to ensure that all their beer is good...) and check on space. Mayhap we will end up back there to also inspect their food offerings. Local friends of mine have been involved in its establishment and I have high hopes for it. In any case, we will bang away at various targets from 9 to 2 and then thoroughly inspect SOMEBODIES food and drink offerings!

P.S. to Canada Jenn lurker - I live just down the street and I have a spare room if you really want to make the trip!

Lost

2011-11-29T08:13:00.000-08:00

Shtoopid phone. And shtoopid memory. I took some pics while away last week. I want to post them as part of a blog. I can't find the shtoopid chip that I need to copy them to my computer. Until then, I thought this might entertain:

And a-waaaaaayyyyy I go

2011-11-21T06:27:00.000-08:00

Disappearing for a while - Holiday stuff.

Victorian Cholera, Global Warming, Settled Science

2011-11-17T14:29:00.000-08:00

I like well written histories. When I'm sick, I have a perverse tendency to read well written histories about illness: bubonic plague, Spanish flu. Or disasters: the Johnstown Flood, the great London fire of 1666 (which followed the plague outbreak of 1665 - Charles II just couldn't catch a break). Last Saturday's selection was The Ghost Map, by Steven Johnson - a tale of Victorian epidemiology.

This was one of my random grabs on one of the last days before Borders closed. It got my attention because it was about a map I had heard of but never seen. Created from carefully collected disease data, it provided a clear visual indication of the source of the disease. Common enough now, with computer GIS programs handily generating confirmation of the old saying "A picture is worth a thousand words." This map, however, was painstakingly created in 1854.

London of 1854 was a nasty place a-swim in muck. The Great Stink had not yet caused the engineering marvel of the London sewer system to be built. Way too many humans and animals were crammed into way too small an area without a sanitation infrastructure and their garbage and effluvia was just dumped - in cellars, yards, alleys, streets, the river. Mounds of what was euphemistically called "night soil" were piled high under houses, and when the mounds grew too high it was loaded up and carted to the Thames, which served as a very large open sewer.

There were some sewage systems, but they were piecemeal and scattered, and so dangerous that occasionally methane gas would build up enough that some poor sewer scavenger would blow himself up with the flame of his kerosene lamp. Such a feces-saturated environment is, of course,a perfect breeding ground for disease, and one of the diseases that loves it best is cholera.

Cholera is a nasty bacteria that works by a cycle of ingestion, reproduction, then production of a toxin that causes the host to violently and rapidly expel the fluids in its body. With the fluids go new bacteria, re-introducing the disease into the water source to start the cycle again. It kills by dehydration caused by fierce diarrhea. Even today, it's only treatment is re-hydration and food - there is no antibiotic for it.

In August of 1854, a five month old baby in Soho came down with cholera. She survived nearly a week - surprising for an infant with a disease that can kill in a day's time. Her mother did as was always done, washing the baby's soiled clothes in a bucket and tossing the water into the cistern in front of their tenement on Broad Street. It must have been awful for the woman - her husband came down with it too, and in the end she lost both of them. Within three days, 127 people had died - by the time the outbreak ran its course 616 people were dead.

We live in an environment where we don't even think about the availability of water - it's just there for the turning on of a tap. We don't much think about its cleanliness, either. Neither did the people of that era - water was just water. It might smell, it might be cloudy, but it was just water. It didn't come to the house, though - the source was the public pumps scattered throughout the area.

Disease was known to be spread through miasma - contaminated air. Combating an outbreak consisted of burning pots of tar and other smoky fuels. That had long been known - the science was settled. There was an annoying gad fly by the name of Dr. John Snow who was suggesting that it was passed through water, but the authorities knew better. In truth, the local health officials did go into the area in an attempt to find the source of the outbreak. But here's the thing - all of their research was geared towards a predetermined answer. The science was settled - disease spread through bad air - so their research was skewed to find that answer.

Dr. Snow, on the other hand, suspected that the disease was traveling through the water, and he carefully overlayed the cholera deaths on a street map that also showed the community pumps.

Snow's map, the map of ghosts, clearly showed the outbreak centered around the Broad Street pump. And as it turned out, the crumbling cistern into which the mother had thrown the wash water from her dying baby's clothes was just a few feet away from the pump.

Legend has it that removal of the Broad Street pump handle finally stopped the outbreak, but in truth it was probably burning itself out already - too many hosts dead or fled. But that's not the important part of the story. What got my attention was the well-meaning health officials trying to deal with it. They were so convinced that they already knew what was happening that their research couldn't help but find it. How many of our climate scientists have unwittingly fallen into the same sort of trap of believing that the science of one thing is so settled that their research is unwittingly geared to find more evidence of it? How many times have we heard the circular arguments: if it's hot it's global warming, and if it's cold it's global warming?

Unfortunately, we tend to think of those in the past as less intelligent and more flawed than we are, thinking that we don't make the same mistakes. Truth is, human nature has remained the same, and the researchers of the past just dressed differently and had different tools, just as the researchers of the future will. And thinking that any science is settled is just as liable to lead to bad science now as it was 150 years ago.

They're Scaring Folks

2011-11-17T04:46:00.000-08:00

As noted by Guffaw, the administration is trying to squeeze out hunters and target shooters on public lands. From the "Washington Whispers" blog at www.usnews.com:

Gun owners who have historically been able to use public lands for target practice would be barred from potentially millions of acres under new rules drafted by the Interior Department, the first major move by the Obama administration to impose limits on firearms.

Officials say the administration is concerned about the potential clash between gun owners and encroaching urban populations who like to use same land for hiking and dog walking.

Bad enough, but here's the kicker (bolding is mine):

"It's not so much a safety issue. It's a social conflict issue," said Frank Jenks, a natural resource specialist with Interior's Bureau of Land Management, which oversees 245 million acres. He adds that urbanites "freak out" when they hear shooting on public lands.

It's not a safety issue. It just scares city folks. Next thing you know they'll be whining because they got some nature on their shoes.

And as to their discussion of trash, I have just two words: Zuccotti Park.

What this administration can't get one way, they'll go for another way.

The full story can be read here.

And I'm not a hunter. But I have sense enough to check the hunting seasons if I'm thinking of hiking in certain places at certain times of the year.

Mus musculus

2011-11-16T07:19:00.000-08:00

From Wikipedia:

A mouse (plural: mice) is a small mammal belonging to the order of rodents. The best known mouse species is the common house mouse (Mus musculus). It is also a popular pet. In some places, certain kinds of field mice are also common. This rodent is eaten by large birds such as hawks and eagles. They are known to invade homes for food and occasionally shelter.

Being laid up has certain advantages: cats get extra snuggling (I've got 3 - it does get crowded on the sofa), books get read (The Ghost Map, Lampiere's Dictionary), the Netflix queue gets attention (thumbs up to both "The Last Lovecraft" and the original "The Taking of Pelham 123"). And you notice things that you might not otherwise. Like the flick of a tail as a mouse slips out from the laundry room and behind the tv stand and the pitter patter of little feet in the ceiling. Perry has nabbed one since someone left me Sunday's gift, but I've seen and heard at least two more since then. That's a bit above the norm for the seasonal influx.

A couple years ago I ran into an very large, very fat copperhead as I was clearing brush next to my house. I let him be and just keep an eye out when I'm working outside. This boom in the mouse population makes me wonder if that version of the better mousetrap has moved on or died.

Thoughtful Kitties

2011-11-14T08:53:00.000-08:00

Diagnosis - bacterial infection of throat. Doc said something about it being like having bronchitis in the throat. I really didn't care about the details. At that point I was at the "Just make it better pleeeeeaaaasssseee!" stage. Although I couldn't say that because I pretty much completely lost my voice for two days. Thanks to antibiotics, I'm feeling better today. Not ready to dance a jig, but better.

The cats have been happy to have me to cuddle with for hours on end, and apparently they are aware enough of something being wrong that they felt they should help with my care. So when I woke up yesterday morning I found that they very thoughtfully had left breakfast in bed next to me:

I really was appreciative. They were probably somewhat puzzled by my tossing their gift out the door, though.

Hack, wheeze

2011-11-12T07:16:00.000-08:00

And I'm thinking maybe strep - a trip to the urgent care may be in order. Back when my groggy brain, much jostled by coughing, begins functioning again.

Thank You

2011-11-11T07:38:00.000-08:00

At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month I offer my sincere thanks to all those, living and dead, who have served.

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie,

In Flanders Fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders Fields.

Occupy Wall Street and Antisemitism

2011-11-10T10:24:00.000-08:00

Update 2:38 pm -

I give up on the links. If you can get out to www.youtube.com/user/encounterbooks watch their videos. They are great.

And because I went to the trouble of making a pretty picture for it when I was trying to link through www.wcbm.com:

Wizard Free

2011-11-10T04:44:00.000-08:00

So over time we've been treated to things like this:

There are white niggers. I've seen a lot of white niggers in my time; I'm going to use that word. Sen. Robert Byrd (D) WV, 2001

Didn't hear much about it from liberals, although if you bring up Byrd's past, they tell you he left his racist past behind. OK, I accept that - people do reform. Except that his bigotry apparently still wasn't left completely behind in 2001, and he was a liberal darling then.

Occupy Wall Street has presented us with a stereotype of rich greedy Jews...

....that is reminiscent of pre-WWII German anti-Jewish propaganda:

And so far the only liberal discussion of it is how it doesn't exist, despite video after video showing it does.

Then I'm pretty sure I heard comments this past week about Republican women being fascinated by black men:

No, no discussion of that. I won't even go where that full discussion, once considered an ignorant stereotype of two different groups of people, goes.

And now David Gregory appears to have lamented that there's no Grand Wizard in the Republican party to push Herman Cain out:

Doesn't seem to be much in the way of horror at stereotyping a whole group of people as akin to Klan members.

Um, could somebody explain to me again how it is that I, as a conservative, am the bigot?

It Hadda Happen

2011-11-09T08:01:00.000-08:00

Of course the Administration that thinks the answer to all things is meetings and taxes had to come up with this right at the Christmas Season - a board to study live Christmas tree use and a tax on the trees to fund the board. The full story can be read at The Hill.

It's one of those things where I don't know whether to laugh or cry...

Memorial

2011-11-08T09:19:00.000-08:00

I have to say, as annoyed as I am with this administration's treatment of Christianity, I can't get worked up about the refusal of the BLM to add FDR's D-Day prayer to the National WW II Memorial. The memorial has been open for several years, and the design went through a process of approval for some time before that. This should have been taken care of at jump - "Why didn't you take care of that before we left the house?"

No Bang

2011-11-07T06:09:00.000-08:00

After non-stop yard work at church and at home this weekend - FINALLY a gorgeous weekend and me home at the same time - I loaded up a movie and decided to mess around with the old Browning last night. As usual, pain in patoot to disassemble. And to reassemble. And once reassembled, disinclined to dry fire. This is something that has been happening intermittently. I'm not a gunsmith and I'm not about to take an old gun like that apart beyond a point without knowing what I'm doing. But I did notice something after repeated fiddlings - slide and barrel assembly off, dry fires. Slide and barrel assembly back on, nada. So I'm thinking that once assembled there is pressure being put on something that shouldn't have pressure on it or the other way around - pressure is NOT being put where is SHOULD be put. I went to bed with it still not being functional, but it flashed through my mind after I had turned the lights out that the firing pin assembly tends to pop out without being asked. Tonight's job is to see if maybe it's the way the firing pin and spring are seating that's causing the problem.

Glad It's Friday...

2011-11-04T14:48:00.000-07:00

Up late, missed train. Drove 75 miles to office. Just as I'm turning into garage my mind flashes on a memory. Or, rather, a lack thereof. As a teleworker I have a laptop on which my work life resides and which goes to-from the office. The memory that's lacking is one of said laptop and bag being put into the suv as I dashed out the door. Quick flopping of hand behind seat finds no bag and no computer. #$%*!!!!

Fortunately there was an open shared computer and I had work I could do without my own files, but of course my own computer has a history of the websites I regularly use and the shared computer doesn't. And having become reliant on my computer to pop up URLs I don't remember them. I had to go to Rev. Paul's site and click on a reply I made in order to get over here to my own blog.

Brewpub here I come...

I'm Offended

2011-11-03T05:08:00.000-07:00

Your offense offends me. I’ve gone along all my life remaining unoffended by the religious practices of others, even when I called myself an atheist. The tassels of a prayer shawl peeking out from a business suit, prayers facing Mecca, the iconography of Buddhists, the careful vegetarianism of Jains, the consumption of peyote have never offended me. But you see a cross, and your world has ended. You hear the words “Jesus Christ”, and it is catastrophic for you. Like a water-splashed Wicked Witch of the West you melt, screaming. Rather than do what millions of us have done as we’ve shared this land with people who have different beliefs, you feel compelled to be offended. And not just that, you feel compelled to behave in ways that you have protested as evil when Christians behaved that way – you seek to have Christian religious expression suppressed and removed from view. You have given Saudi Arabia a run for its money as far as religious intolerance.

Since the reasoning behind this offensive behavior is avoidance of offending, stop offending me by being offended. And go do some reading on the human rights record of officially atheistic governments in the 20th century - the death toll is pretty offensive. Or would that take time away from your being personally offended?

Scandal Drums

2011-11-02T05:22:00.000-07:00

Soooo... why is everybody assuming that the scandal attacks on Herman Cain are actually originating from the Democrats?

Cain is off the Business as Usual plantation, and that's enough to make any of the Massas mad enough to send the patterrollers after him.

Beee-a-utiful!

2011-11-01T13:06:00.000-07:00

I'm not a pilot, and don't play one on TV. But this looks to me to be an absolutely beautiful landing. Particularly considering the alternative. Hats off to the pilot's steady hands.

Yeesh!

2011-10-31T08:54:00.000-07:00

So I'm still drinking my morning coffee when the power goes out Saturday morning. Before I got a chance to fill the tubs or do any of those useful preparedness things. And it's still out. My telework today is curtesy Panera and I'm sharing a corner with a bunch of neighbors. Current estimation of return of power - Wednesday night.

What I have learned:

1) FILL THE STUPID TUBS THE NIGHT BEFORE!

2) The regulator for the camping stove is flooey and needs replaced.

3) Need a new back pack stove. The old one worked OK for a couple days and then this morning it got tossed out into the snow because fuel started spraying out from one of the connections and things got way too firey for the kitchen.

4) After a while, I hate the smell of kerosene. I have a dandy heater - keeps the whole house pretty reasonable. I can even, with patience, heat water enough to cook noodles and such on it. But it stinks. And I've got a pile of clothes covered with kerosene tossed out in the garage because of it. Need to put in a wood stove.

5) The batteries in the radio had died.

Fortunately, I hadn't been grocery shopping yet - I've plenty of dried and canned foods but the fridge itself was pretty bare. I won't loose much.

OW and the Rich

2011-10-29T04:27:00.000-07:00

Being a history buff often leads to my shaking my head at folks. So often they think that they've got a bright new idea and I think "Been there. Done that." The latest to cause this are the Occupy Wall Street groups. There are multiple reasons for this, of which these are but a few:

1) There seems to be a desire for that vague entity known as "the government" to pay for everything. That, of course, requires that the government take from one person to pay for "stuff" for someone else. Witness the current turmoil in various countries in Europe (not to mention the food lines of the Soviet Union and the death by starvation of millions in China) - eventually the government runs out of people to take from and the system breaks down. Been there, done that.

2) Particularly ironic with the Oakland group - In 1899 a ship out of Hong Kong arrived in San Francisco with more than just a standard cargo. It brought one of the most terrifying diseases history has ever known - bubonic plague. The disease took root particularly in the shambling wooden structures of Chinatown, which provided good hiding places for the rats and their disease carrying fleas. The city fathers battled to keep it out of the news, fearing that if the world knew about the outbreak it would damage city trade and tourism. Eventually the disease was beaten back by killing as many rats as could be found and destroying rat habitats by such actions as replacing wooden porches with poured concrete, closing foundations, and enforcing hygiene throughout the city. Then came the great quake of 1906, and the city was filled with tent cities for months, providing a perfect breeding ground for rats. The rat population boomed, and plague returned, this time entering the ground squirrel population, and then spreading to other rodents. As a consequence, it is now endemic to the American southwest. If the OW folks do not get themselves together and monitor hygiene they are inviting the same sort of disease outbreaks that cities saw a hundred years ago. And I suppose no history class touches on the fact that we lost more soldiers to disease caused by communal living during the Revolution and Civil War than we did to combat. Been there, done that.

3) I just finished Chesterton's "The Man Who Was Thursday", and one paragraph in particular grabbed my attention. In a nutshell, the story follows a man, Syme, who has infiltrated a group of anarchists. It has been a puzzle to me as to why folks like Soros would fund anarchic (is that a real word?) behavior. After all, why would the rich call for their own money to be taken away? Why would they call for the very structures that have allowed them to become rich to be destroyed? At one point, Syme and a fellow infiltrator are fleeing the anarchists through the countryside, looking for shelter, and this bit of conversation takes place:

"What can you mean by all this?" cried Syme. "They can't be running the real world in that way. Surely not many working men are anarchists, and surely if they were, mere mobs could not beat modern armies and police."

"Mere mobs!" repeated his new friend with a snort of scorn. "So you talk about mobs and the working classes as if they were the question. You've got that eternal idiotic idea that if anarchy came it would come from the poor. Why should it? The poor have been rebels, but they have never been anarchists; they have more interest than any one else in there being some decent government. The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all. Aristocrats were always anarchists..."

This was written in 1907. So to the OW folks I say - you are being used by people who have no real stake in the outcome except power over you. Been there. Done that. Is this really what you want?

Boo!

2011-10-28T05:31:00.000-07:00

Since different areas have their trick-or-treat nights on different days, I thought I'd get this up a little early in preparation.

I don't gamble, but....

2011-10-27T05:00:00.000-07:00

James Taylor has proposed a virtually sure-fire betting scheme at www.forbes.com:

With the economy as tough as it is, Al Gore shouldn’t be the only person to make money off of global warming fears. In an effort to spread the wealth, I am offering a number of tips for readers to similarly grow wealthy from supposed global warming crises.

First, identify prominent purveyors of global warming doom-and-gloom. The bigger the media ham, the better. For a jumping-off list, I suggest Al Gore, James Hansen, Michael Mann, Gavin Schmidt and Joe Romm. Second, whenever the purveyors of doom make ridiculous predictions about global warming, ask them to put their money where their mouths are. After all, if Al Gore can so fervently urge government to force us to spend our hard-earned money complying with his global warming predictions, he should certainly be willing to risk his own millions backing up his global warming claims.

Sometimes you might get lucky and discover a deluded alarmist who has beat you to the punch and offered such a bet on his or her own volition. For example, I just stumbled across this blog post from Joe Romm offering to bet even money that the Arctic Ocean will be ice-free by the year 2020. Talk about taking candy from a baby! I will be contacting Joe immediately. I urge all readers of this column to do the same.
A word of caution is appropriate here. It would be wise to insist that both parties hand over their money in advance to a third-party referee. Maybe I’m being overly suspicious, but I wouldn’t trust alarmists not to welch on their bets. As Ronald Reagan would say, trust but verify.

Also, feel free to forum-shop. If I’m in Las Vegas and I want to bet on Sunday’s Falcons-Lions game, why would I bet my money on the Falcons in a casino where the Falcons are only three point underdogs when I can bet the Falcons in another casino that is giving four points? The same applies regarding global warming bets. Joe Romm is laying bets on an ice-free Arctic by 2020. However, Professor Wieslaw Maslowski of the Naval Postgraduate School predicted an ice-free Arctic by 2013. Betting with Romm is pretty darn close to free money, but why not shave off an additional seven years if you can get them?

An ice-free Arctic is just one of the myriad money-making opportunities available. Alarmists love to fill the media with over-the-top predictions about hurricanes, floods, droughts, rapid temperature increases, etc. With so many topics and alarmists to choose from, a sharp, motivated global warming skeptic can soon be lighting cigars with $100 bills while the rest of the nation continues to drown in our ongoing Great Recession. Don’t feel guilty about your newfound riches. You can always donate them to charity or send them to Occupy Wall Street protesters if you acquire more $100 bills than cigars to light.

Of course, all of this is dependent on alarmists actually putting their money where their mouths are. You may meet some resistance at first, but don’t underestimate the power of public pressure. When an alarmist makes a ridiculous prediction in a newspaper article but refuses to back up his or her prediction with cold, hard cash, send a letter-to-the-editor pointing out the alarmist’s lack of faith regarding his or her own prediction. When an alarmist is on a talk radio program making a ridiculous global warming claim, call in and publicly propose a wager on the prediction.

I cannot overemphasize the importance of selecting and appointing a neutral arbitrator and pre-approved objective data. For example, so long as James Hansen has a free hand to doctor the Goddard Institute surface-station temperature data sets, ice sheets can reclaim New York Harbor during the next decade yet Hansen would still likely claim “the hottest decade in recorded history.” Insist upon objective data such as NASA satellite data for global temperatures, sea level rise, etc. Failing to do so is as naïve and foolish as Clark W. Griswold (Chevy Chase) going into a Vegas casino and taking on the House in a game of “I’m thinking of a number between one and ten.”

Finally, feel free to be creative and think outside the box about adding more people to your list of potential wager victims, even if it means straying from the media ham list. For example, your strident-yet-uninformed neighbor or perhaps your child’s middle school science teacher might make for some easy pickings. Either way, there is a great deal of low-hanging fruit just waiting to be plucked.

Sir John Franklin and his crew will probably be pissed, though. That whole arctic ice thing didn't work out for them, and 150 years later they are still looking a bit chilly.

Tuesday Lesson

2011-10-26T05:00:00.000-07:00

...with Murphy's Law at the Izaak Walton League range involved one handed shooting. My little .38 has a fairly heavy trigger pull, making up for the lack of a safety. I was amazed at how much difference there is in trying to shoot one-handed - how much less steady and how much harder it is to pull the trigger. I absolutely can't do it with my left hand - need to work on building strength there. Right hand is hard but mostly I think I did OK. Somebody else arrived and was a bit nit-picky about details of various rules, which made shooting uncomfortable and was distracting so I didn't think to try with the .32, which has a much easier trigger.

Also got to try ML's H&K P7. Interesting the way the gun cocks, feels nice, aims nice, fires nice. Nice and flat - it would be easy to carry concealed. Very satisfying to chew up the center circle of the target with it.

I was actually standing further back today, and while there were some fliers I felt that most of the time I was doing reasonably well. Mostly, I worked with the .38. It's not a fun gun, per se, but since it's the current self defense weapon I need to be able to handle it well. In some ways it is fun, though, because it presents a challenge - hard trigger pull, light gun so it kicks. Makes it satisfying when I'm able to send rounds where I want them to go.

Retreating

2011-10-24T15:31:00.000-07:00

So after four incredibly busy and wonderful days as part of the team conducting a prayer retreat, I walked in, dropped my bag on the floor, vaguely said night prayers, and picked up a book to read for a few minutes before turning out the light. That’s the last I remember until I was awakened by Perry’s insistent licking of my nose this morning. Teeth didn’t even get brushed.

My “position” was that of behind the scenes gopher, a pair of hands and feet, and except for those times when team was required at certain talks, morning and night prayers, and Mass, my feet were kept busy running all over Priestfield Pastoral Center from 6 am until midnight and sometimes later. Me feets was tired, and I was getting pretty fuzzy by yesterday, but it's a gorgeous place to be running around.

Priestfield offers individual rooms, cabins, and dormitories. Since part of the retreat was the experience of living in community, most of us were in dormitories - that’s certainly different when you are well past the girl scout age. And all but two people who acted as emergency contacts were required to leave behind watches and cell phones, so the pace of the day from rising to end was kept by a bell ringer. Said bell was repeatedly stolen and hidden - there was definitely a lot of community action on that point - reappearing in the kitchen freezer at one point.

There are trails winding through the woods, one of which takes you to the Stranger’s Grave. Priestfield is the site of a major WV ghost story, of which there are several versions. At the core of it is the fact that a Lutheran farmer, sometimes said to have converted, donated the land to the Church in gratitude for having been relieved of a pesky spirit. As a 1904 telling of the story of Wizzard's Clip goes:

A town was laid out by John Smith in 1794, a town on his lands, then in Berkeley county, since in Jefferson, then in Virginia, now West Virginia. This was by Act of 1798 made a town by the name of "Smithfield" with John Packett, Moses Smith, John Smith, Jacob Rees, and Joseph and John Grantham, Trustees.

It has since been known as "Middleway" and it is located about five miles west of Leetown, and has about eight hundred inhabitants.

The earliest record of the story was written by Rev. Demetius A. Galletzen, whose memoirs were prepared in 1797, and about the same time, Mrs. Annella McSherry, wrote letters containing about the same facts, and since then there have been other papers written, all giving about the same facts, and the further fact that for fifty years the original name of the place was lost and it was only known as "Wizzard's Clipp," shows that the people there had no doubt of the facts related. The story gathered from the various publications is as follows:

Adam Livingston, becoming dissatisfied with his residence in Lancaster county, Penn., determined to remove to the State of Virginia, and carried his purpose into effect by the purchase of a house and lot in Smithfield, Va., and seventy acres contiguous thereto. This was about the year 1790. He had the reputation of being an honest and industrious farmer, of fair intelligence, and brought with him his wife and a family of three sons and four daughters, of whom Eve and Catherine are the only daughters and John and Henry the only sons who are referred to in any of these memoirs. Livingston continued to reside there without attracting any particular notice, until 1794, when a stranger, of middle age and of respectable appearance, made a visit to the place and was received as a boarder in his house. In a few days after the arrival of this traveler he was taken sick and as his illness became more threatening he called Livingston to his bedside, informed him that he was a Catholic, and inquired of him if there was not a priest somewhere in his neighborhood whose services he could procure, should his malady prove fatal, which he had reason to then fear it would. Livingston, who was an intensely bigoted member of the Lutheran church, very gruffly replied to him "that he knew of no priest in that neighborhood, and if there was one, he should never pass the threshold of his door.' The dying man repeated his entreaties for the spiritual aid of a Catholic priest, but Livingston was inexorable and refused to countenance his request. The stranger died, his name being unknown to his host, and there being nothing among his papers to throw any light upon his history.

On the night of his death Livingston employed a man by the name of Jacob Foster to sit up with the corpse. But so soon as the candles were lighted in the chamber of the dead, after giving a weak and flickering light, they went out and the room was left in darkness. They were relighted several times, supposing it to result from some remedial defect in the cradle, but with the same result. Livingston then brought two candles into the room which he had been using in his own family room, which were about one-third burnt down and which he knew to be good. But so soon as they were placed in the room with the corpse they became immediately extinguished. This so alarmed Foster that he abandoned his vigils and left the house. Fifty years ago the grave of the stranger could be distinctly pointed out.

On the night succeeding the burial the peace of Livingston was much disturbed by the apparent sound of horses galloping round his house. He frequently rose during the night - which was a beautiful moon-light night - to satisfy his mind. While he could distinctly hear the tramp of steeds, he could see nothing to assure him that it was anything more than a figment of his own imagination. In about a week afterward his barn was burnt and his cattle all died, the crockeryware in his house, without any visible agency, was thrown upon the floor and broken; his money disappeared; the heads of his turkeys and chickens dropped off; and chunks of burning wood would leap from the fireplace several feet out into the floor, endangering the building unless promptly replaced. Soon the annoyances, which were then destroying his peace, assumed a new form. The sound of a large pair of shears could be distinctly heard in his house, clipping in the form of half moons and other curious figures, his blankets, sheets and counterpanes, boots and shoes, clothing, etc. This was all in one night, but the operation of clipping continued for upwards of three months, a small portion of it only being done at a time, but the inexorable shears never being silent twenty-four hours at a time. By this time the news of these strange proceedings was spread through the country for thirty miles around, and attracted in an especial manner the curiosity of the citizens of Smithfield. An old Presbyterian lady of Martinsburg, hearing of the clipping that was going on at Livingston's to satisfy her curiosity, she went to Livingston's house. Before entering the door she took from her head her new silk cap, wrapped it up in her silk handkerchief and put it in her pocket to save it from being clipped. After awhile she stepped out again to go home, and having drawn the handkerchief out of her pocket and opened it, found the cap cut in narrow ribbons.

Many other phenomena are stated and testified to by many witnesses. The long continuance of this mysterious clipping had now aroused the country for many miles around. Three daring and adventurous young men from Winchester came to Smithfield declaring their utter unbelief in the reports and offered to sleep in the house all night and to face the devil himself, if he were the author of these doings. But as soon as they became comfortably seated in the house, a large stone was seen to proceed from the fireplace and to whirl around the floor with great velocity, when they took to their heels and made their escape.

The condition of poor Livingston had become deplorable, he had lost much rest, and his imagination was so worked upon by his nocturnal visitor that his health began visibly to fail. He applied to three professed conjurers, but their incantations were all in vain. Shortly after this Livingston had a dream. He thought he was climbing a high mountain and had great difficulty in the ascent. He had to labor hard, catching at roots and bushes, and moving forward slowly by their aid. Reaching the summit, he saw an imposing personage, "dressed in robes," as he described it. After contemplating for some time the person in view, he heard a voice saying: "This is the man who can relieve you." His wife heard him groaning in his sleep and she waked him, thereupon he communicated to her his dream and said he did not know of any minister who wore robes, but he would make inquiry in the morning. The result of the inquiries led him to visit an Episcopal minister, who then resided in Winchester, but he derived little satisfaction from this visit, and returned home much disappointed. He was then advised to see the MeSherry family, who were Roman Catholics, and who resided in a very fine estate called "Releivement," about on mile each of Leetown, at which place the priest was often in the habit of stopping while discharging his spiritual functions in that neighborhood. Late in the evening of the same day Mrs. MeSherry saw a man coming to her home, she met him at the gate when he told her he wanted "to see the priest." She informed him that the priest was not at her house, but there would be church in Shepherdstown the following Sunday, when he would have an opportunity of seeing him. Mr. and Mrs. McSherry, in company with Mr. Minghini, went to church on the appointed day, and there they saw the man who had inquired for the priest, and who proved to be Livingston. As the priest appeared at the altar, dressed in commicles, Livingston seemed to be perfectly overcome. He wept bitterly, and exclaimed loud enough to be heard by the small congregation: "This is the very man I saw in my dream; he is the one that the voice told me would relieve me from my troubles." When the service was over, he promptly called on the priest and told him his sad story; but the priest, the Rev. Dennis Cahill, laughed at him and told him it must be some of his neighbors who were plaguing him, and that he must go home and keep a strict watch for them. Richard McSherry and Joseph Minghini, who were present at the interview, were much moved by the old man's tears and tried to comfort him. After much urgent persuasion. Father Cahill accompanied by Mr. McSherry and Mr. Minghini, agreed to visit Livingston's house and to inquire into the strange transactions which he had related. They found his story corroborated not only by the family, but by most of the people with whom they conversed in Smithfield. Father Cahill resorted to the remedy of sprinkling the house with holy writer, which did not, however, expel the troublesome visitor from the house, but it was followed by a deposit of the money, which had previously been taken away, on the doorsill. The strange clipping still continuing after that time it was determined by Father Cahill to have mass celebrated in the house, which was done, and Livingston was relieved from all annoyances of his ghostly visitor. From that time until he left Virginia he had frequent communications with the Spiritual world, and many facts are related where those communications were realized in a striking manner; but as these throw no light upon the simple historical fact which it is the purpose of this article to elucidate no further reference need be made to them.

The current spot marked as the grave is for commemorative purposes – all that is known now is that the Stranger is buried somewhere on the property.

Chums

2011-10-17T06:22:00.000-07:00

Well, well, well. The American Nazi Party is liking this Occupy Wall Street stuff and has thrown their support behind it. Not surprising, since the old "Rich Jews are taking over the country" crap seems to have been resurrected by the OWs.

Wonder if the occupiers will be attending the party's White Unity Christmas Party this year?

Full details at The Daily Caller.

So much to do, so little time....

2011-10-17T05:24:00.000-07:00

Leaving again this week and time is scrunched on what I have to do before I disappear for 4 days without computer, so things will be thin here.

At least I got part of the lawn mowed over the weekend.

Jeopardy

2011-10-14T05:58:00.000-07:00

So what's the question that goes with this answer?

Handguns
        Modified Taurus 85
        LeMat Revolver
        Astra 400
        Beretta 92FS
        Browning Hi-Power
        Webley Mk. VI
        Colt M1911A1
        Colt Mustang
        Colt Model 1908 Pocket Hammerless
        Colt Single Action Army
        Colt Python
        Jericho 941
        Desert Eagle Mark VII
        Ruger Mk II Pistol
        Glock 17
        SIG-Sauer P220 Sport
        Smith & Wesson Model 15
        Goncz GA
        Heckler & Koch VP70
        SIG-Sauer P229
        Star Firestar M-45 with Custom Longslide
        LWS Seecamp
        Vektor CP1
        Walther PPK
        Wildey Magnum
        Sphinx AT380

Submachine guns
        Vigneron M2
        MP40
        Mini Uzi
        Heckler & Koch UMP45
        Heckler & Koch MP5SD3
        Heckler & Koch MP5K-PDW
        Beretta PM12S

Rifles
        Heckler & Koch G36K
        L85A1
        Winchester Model 1892 "Mare's Leg"
        Blaser R93 LRS2 Sniper rifle
        AKMSU
        Flux Colt XM177E2
        AKM
        M1 Carbine
        M4A1
        FAMAS
        Henry 1860 Rifle
        Marlin Model 1895 Lever Action Rifle
        Winchester Model 1873 Carbine
        Steyr AUG
        Remington 1858 "Cattleman's Carbine"

Shotguns
        Callahan Fullbore Autolock
        Double Barrel Shotgun
        Benelli M3 Super 90
        Ithaca 37
        Winchester 1300

Machineguns
        Dual Browning M2 Machine Guns
        M60D

Other
        Tru-Flite 37mm Super Long Range Gas Gun

Well Well Well

2011-10-13T14:20:00.000-07:00

Love my well water. Hate city water. Of course, there are certain disadvantages. Contamination is one, of course, but my theory is that any bacterial blooms will be slow enough that my guts will acclimate. As long as nobody visiting gets sick afterwards I know all is good from a bacterial standpoint. Another problem is that well pumps are electric. Power goes out and so does your water. I live near a town. Also near a river and I have chlorine bleach, so that one isn't a biggie to me, either. Plus I know where there is a clean spring up on the mountain. Water is a pain to haul but you do what you need to do.

But then there's the whole pump frying thing. And then you have to haul it up in order to get to it. Which is why my neighbor showered at my house this morning. And why I was over at his place getting muddy with him this afternoon.

His well is around 250 ft deep.

Yeah, well. My well is about 750 feet deep. I am SO hiring machinery if my pump needs pulled.

Idiot.

2011-10-13T11:40:00.000-07:00

Ms. Pelosi, you are an idiot. Of the most flaming sort. In fact, you disgrace the realm of idiots because you aren't even useful.

Freaky

2011-10-13T04:14:00.000-07:00

OK, am I the only one that is given the screaming heebie jeebies by this? I mean, folks joke about zombie attacks but, yeesh!

Familiar. Again.

2011-10-12T14:41:00.000-07:00

Seeing this on our streets ...

... led me to go back and re-read a previous post, Sound Familiar?

Yep. Same-o, same-o. Been there. Done that. Still nonsense.

(pic from Weasel Zippers)

The hill, you say!

2011-10-12T01:31:00.000-07:00

Yeah, hills, with the bike not shifting smoothly. But fun anyway.

My orders were to arrive at my daughter's house by 11:30 on Saturday. And bring something decent to wear. Well, OK. She knows me - "something decent" means "clean and unstained and not a t-shirt". Done, and turns out surprise is a matinee at the Hippodrome in Baltimore. We're addicted to this place - for those who have never been, it's a spectacularly renovated vaudeville theater originally built in 1914:

For more pics go to this a renovation blog

The show - "South Pacific", splendidly done. As a reviewer wrote, the music from this show is virtually coded into our DNA, but it is just as fresh in this revival as when it was first heard.

The show was followed by a spectacular dinner at Alchemy, where I had the duck breast special.

The reason behind matinee rather than evening show was the need for being in Canton by the harbor early for Tour du Port 2011.

Riders select from a variety of ride lengths along marked routes through historic Baltimore: Fells Point, Canton, Dundalk, all those neat little communities that the core of Baltimore is made up of. Being Baltimore, there are sections where one prefers to pedal a bit faster and stay with a pack, but part of what makes the city so facinating is how fast you go from gritty slum to gentrified, rust belt to upscale.

The city has so many icons in the harbor area:

The Domino's factory -

Natty Bo on Brewery Hill -

The onion domes of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church -

I admit - I stole most of those pics. We opted for the 25 mile route, and having done the ride before I knew that I didn't want to carry a my camera, which isn't an itty bitty. Baltimore's streets are a challenge to bike on - often decayed, potholed and uneven. And that doesn't include the cobbled streets. And hills. People think that because it's by the water the topography is flat. That would be a "No." And turns out my gears need adjusting - not such a problem going down hill when I could coast and fiddle but a bugger on the long hauls up Federal Hill and up to Patterson Park.

All went well for about 24 1/2 miles. Then, within sight of the end, my daughter misjudged a curb and took a dandy tumble, taking a chunk out of the end of her bike seat as well as several out of herself.

So we limped back together, found the first aid table and cleaned as much of Baltimore city grit out as we could. It was too beautiful to go home, though, so the afternoon was spent poking around Fells Point, having another excellent meal (seated outside - I could barely stand sitting beside stinky, sweaty self let alone ask a restaurant patron to do so), this time at Mezza, a tapas place.

Baltimore has a lot of problems, serious ones. But it is a city full of character and history, art museums and parks, theater venues, and restaurants worthy of the foodie culture. Whether it's Honfest, the Kinetic Sculpture Race, or a music concert going on in some church basement, there's always something going on, and I love to visit with my daughter and wander it with her. But she won't let me drive - she says I scare her.

Mr. President! Mr. President!

2011-10-11T05:56:00.000-07:00

Have fun while I get myself back together from a long weekend in Baltimore.

Captured Summer

2011-10-08T04:32:00.000-07:00

I hope.

This is peach country, and I do love peaches. So this year I decided to see if I could capture a little bit of golden, peachy, summery goodness for a future wintry day. The recipe for peach brandy that I found is simple: peaches, sugar, yeast, water. Cover, stir occasionally.

Decanted it last night. Don't know what the alcohol content is but, hoo boy, those chunks of peaches pack a punch - I'm betting that lighting a match over them would produce a nice blue flame. Couldn't bear to throw them out - I'm thinking they need to go over some really good vanilla ice cream.

The brandy is now bottled and put away. In about 6 months I'll check and see if it has smoothed out and clarified. Maybe I will have managed to capture a little bit of golden summer in a bottle.

They missed their target.

2011-10-07T04:53:00.000-07:00

Erin Bonesteel over at Anti-anti underground is a great political cartoonist, and unlike the administration, she pretty much always hits her target. Yesterday's offering says it all.

Is it time?

2011-10-06T05:55:00.000-07:00

“There will be time for them to make profits, and there will be time for them to get bonuses — now is not that time. And that’s a message that I intend to send directly to them.”

So said the Prez in 2009. Would that whole time to profit and get bonuses thing also apply to sending wifey and kids on a +$400,000 vacation paid for by the American taxpayer?

It's A-comin'

2011-10-05T08:18:00.000-07:00

Guess it could have been worse. While I was grumbling about the rain last weekend, the higher elevations in the state were getting an early dose of winter. Up to 9 inches of it.

I guess I'd better get under the house and fix the insulation. Winter's a-comin'.

I'm not exactly ancient, but I have some memories of winter that are probably a bit unusual compared to those of my contemporaries. We lived on Wilson Hill in the Settlement, and that old farmhouse sits so it gets hit with winds six ways from Sunday. The house leaked air around the windows something fierce. I can remember watching the curtains move in the breeze - when the windows were closed. And it's in the higher elevations of West Virginia, so winters can be a bit crisp and snowy. No such thing as a heat pump or furnace - we depended on coal stoves for cooking and heating. I love coal, love the smell of it burning, but it has the same disadvantage as wood - without regular stoking the fires go out at night. And that house would get COLD. So cold that the contents of the chamber pots under the beds would freeze. At which point the beds were moved downstairs next to to one of the stoves for the winter.

I don't have backup heat other than a big kerosene heater right now. It's on my "to do" list, but it's a part of the "to do" list that's expensive and so I'm saving for it. Eventually a wood stove will go in downstairs. I could probably find a source of coal, but wood is really more sensible here, and a coal fire gets black dust into everything, anyway. But a part of me will always wish it was coal.

The Rain, Rain, Rain

2011-10-04T08:58:00.000-07:00

With the exception of the 5 days at the beach (for which I am grateful), it has been raining forever. Or at least that's what it feels like. Irene, Lee, "the instability in the west" - rain, incessant rain for a good month now. At one point I shot an e-mail to my daughter saying that it was a good thing that there was no wind because we'd be losing trees like crazy if there was. Shortly after that I looked outside just in time to see a tree pass my deck on its way down. The ground is so saturated that it just toppled. Oh, well, at least it will make good firewood for a friend of mine who can't get out and cut her own. If it ever stops raining long enough for me to get to it.

But as my mind bounced around with "STOP!!!! STOP RAINING!!!!" last night I remembered some old friends.

I have Pooh on my bookshelf, too. I used to retreat to the Hundred Acre Wood when the world was seeming a bit too Lovecraftian. Maybe it's time to take a walk with Christopher Robin. Maybe slide through the back of the wardrobe and pay a visit to Narnia as well.

Viva Mexico!

2011-10-03T10:23:00.000-07:00

Last week, the Mexican Supreme Court upheld a law passed by the state of Baja that states that life begins at conception and therefore deserves legal protection by the state. Baja is one of 31 Mexican states that have passed such laws, and more are scheduled to appear before the Court.

I’ve often questioned how a human egg and a human sperm, both carrying human DNA, could come together to form anything other than a human being. I have yet to find anyone who will tell me that at the moment of human conception a chimpanzee is formed, or a giraffe, or a rabbit and that these creatures then evolve into a human baby. In fact, just the asking makes people angry, which leads me to think that they can’t sustain their argument against the existence of nascent humanity. Yet, with the straightest of faces they will require me to render a “not guilty” verdict based on doubt in a jury trial.

In one of his accounts of the marketing of the legal abortion trade in the U.S., Dr. Bernard Nathanson, one of the founders of NARAL, described the motive behind legalized abortion:

A favourite pro-abortion tactic is to insist that the definition of when life begins is impossible; that the question is a theological or moral or philosophical one, anything but a scientific one. Foetology makes it undeniably evident that life begins at conception and requires all the protection and safeguards that any of us enjoy. Why, you may well ask, do some American doctors who are privy to the findings of foetology, discredit themselves by carrying out abortions? Simple arithmetic at $300 a time, 1.55 million abortions means an industry generating $500,000,000 annually, of which most goes into the pocket of the physician doing the abortion.

He also described the tactics that were used:

We persuaded the media that the cause of permissive abortion was a liberal enlightened, sophisticated one. Knowing that if a true poll were taken, we would be soundly defeated, we simply fabricated the results of fictional polls. We announced to the media that we had taken polls and that 60% of Americans were in favour of permissive abortion. This is the tactic of the self-fulfilling lie. Few people care to be in the minority. We aroused enough sympathy to sell our program of permissive abortion by fabricating the number of illegal abortions done annually in the U.S. The actual figure was approaching 100,000 but the figure we gave to the media repeatedly was 1,000,000. Repeating the big lie often enough convinces the public. The number of women dying from illegal abortions was around 200-250 annually. The figure we constantly fed to the media was 10,000. These false figures took root in the consciousness of Americans convincing many that we needed to crack the abortion law. Another myth we fed to the public through the media was that legalising abortion would only mean that the abortions taking place illegally would then be done legally. In fact, of course, abortion is now being used as a primary method of birth control in the U.S. and the annual number of abortions has increased by 1500% since legalisation.

We systematically vilified the Catholic Church and its "socially backward ideas" and picked on the Catholic hierarchy as the villain in opposing abortion. This theme was played endlessly. We fed the media such lies as "we all know that opposition to abortion comes from the hierarchy and not from most Catholics" and "Polls prove time and again that most Catholics want abortion law reform". And the media drum-fired all this into the American people, persuading them that anyone opposing permissive abortion must be under the influence of the Catholic hierarchy and that Catholics in favour of abortion are enlightened and forward-looking. An inference of this tactic was that there were no non-Catholic groups opposing abortion. The fact that other Christian as well as non-Christian religions were {and still are) monolithically opposed to abortion was constantly suppressed, along with pro-life atheists' opinions.

Dr. Nathanson estimated that his abortion mills were responsible for 75,000 abortions. Ironically, in 1996, after repudiating abortion, he converted to Catholicism, baptized and recieved into the Church by one of the very bishops he had so vilified. He passed away earlier this year – may his soul rest in peace.

We may have many issues with Mexico, but the Mexican citizens who are acting through their governments against the core lie behind abortion "rights" deserve to be applauded. And our own country needs to recognize a fundamental truth: the words “Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” are meaningless if the word that precedes them in that famous phrase - “Life” - is not protected.

Dialog

2011-10-01T04:00:00.000-07:00

I figured that any show that had dialog good enough to be traded back and forth on the blogs I read had to be interesting. So I couldn't stand it anymore - I checked Netflix and sure enough they had "Firefly". So much to like about the show, but the dialog is flat out fun - quick and clever and it comes out of characters you can't help liking. So when I came across these examples of not-so-sparkling dialog today the difference was really clear. These are the actual translations used in Kung Fu movies that were translated for English viewers.

1. "I am damn unsatisfied to be killed in this way."

2. "Fatty, you with your thick face have hurt my instep."

3. "Gun wounds again?"

4. "Same old rules: no eyes, no groin."

5. "A normal person wouldn't steal pituitaries."

6. "I'll burn you into a barbecue chicken!"

7. "Who gave you the nerve to get killed here?"

8. "Quiet or I'll blow your throat up."

9. "You always use violence. I should've ordered glutinous rice chicken!"

10. "I'll fire aimlessly if you don't come out!"

11. "You daring lousy guy!"

12. "I got knife scars more than the number of your leg's hair!"

13. "Beware! Your bones are going to be disconnected."

14. "How can you use my intestines as a gift?"

15. "The bullets inside are very hot. Why do I feel so cold?"

16. "Beat him out of recognizable shape."

I actually kinda like #1.

Doggy Laughs

2011-09-30T04:56:00.000-07:00

Ah, boxers. Lovely, lovely dogs. Also providers of giggles. This was forwarded by my daughter, who owns a boxer whom we dearly love. And could picture doing this.

An Excellent Adventure

2011-09-29T04:35:00.000-07:00

Once in a while I hit a book that is so much fun that I plow through it in one or two sittings. Such is Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure, by Matthew Algeo.

When Harry Truman left office in 1953, there was no retirement package for ex-presidents. You just stopped being president - no income, no secret service detail, nada. Truman's income was minimal, just a small pension from his WWI service, but the expenses for a former president were large - office, correspondence, etc. And he and his wife wanted to go to D.C. and New York. How to do it on a small budget? Why, drive yourself, of course. Take a road trip to save money, stay in motels and with friends, eat in diners. So on June 19, 1953, he and Bess loaded up the Chrysler and headed out of their driveway in Independence, MO, eastward bound. What followed probably wasn't quite what they expected. And, as narrated by Algeo, very entertaining.

Needs no caption...

2011-09-28T08:55:00.000-07:00

Ah, the digital age!

2011-09-28T04:04:00.000-07:00

From my Nook-reading daughter: "The problem with reading old books on the Nook is that they are scanned and then digitally converted, so sometimes the conversion is wrong...I wonder what "renioyecl toe towels" meant?"

Dickens probably would, too.

Bulldoze and Build

2011-09-27T04:44:00.000-07:00

A couple years ago I was in New York for the first time in about 30 years. Noticed that the UN complex is getting rather gritty and worn looking. Of course, its "interior" is much, much worse - it has long been a meeting place of thugs, a laughable organization that has placed the likes of Libya at the head of its human rights committees, and a home for vicious antisemitism. It's on U.S. soil, so I have a recommendation for the next U.S. president and Congress: since we want so desperately to be seen as open to other cultures, lets bulldoze those old buildings and build something new on the site. Specifically, an Orthodox Jewish synagogue. I'll even donate towards it.

He gets it.

2011-09-26T05:56:00.000-07:00

This former Marine clearly gets it. But this country will never survive if more don't. Too many people think that their quality of life just exists and if they mouth the popular inanities it will remain.

Granted, this gentleman is divisive, ignorant, yada yada yada (fill in whatever you've been called recently here). But I'd like to shake his hand.

And now a word...

2011-09-25T04:53:00.000-07:00

"After all, crime doesn't pay - even in television. You must have a sponsor."

I love Netflix...