Thursday, March 08, 2012
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Errata
Ron Paul for President! It's sure as death and taxes nothing much will change with the election of any of the bankster candidates. May as well support the only candidate who isn't proposing more of the same, only less. I've sent a few bucks Paul's way. He's not likely to win the nomination, but I haven't been happy with a Repugnicon candidate in many years now. 2012 probably won't be any different.
Much as I detest Barack Obama, I'll pull the lever for the Jackass-in-Chief just for spite if Romney is the Republican candidate. If it's Newt, I'll probaly go Constitution Party again.
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Sons of Anarchy is my newest guilty TV pleasure. Thank God for for Netlix.
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Update on my prior Roku review - I now have two of the amazing little boxes. Love 'em to death.
Update on my prior Verizon comments. Still hate 'em. Will switch when the current contract ends. Love my Samsung Convoy phone though. Simply superb.
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Here's hoping Jim Irsay isn't channeling Al Davis. You'd think grownups would know better than to play Tweet Wars. Yeesh.
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The Hoosiers and Pacers are back to respectable. The weather has been simply awesome for winter so far at least. The Super Bowl is in Indy. Ain't God good to Indiana? Yay!
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I rarely feel the urge to post on this blog. I'd very much rather be on a motorcycle going nowhere in particular. Now you know why. Life is Good. God is Great. Live well and prosper, good reader!
Labels: errata
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Wednesday, March 02, 2011
Classic!
Many of the stories have been adapted to film, among them The Last Mimsy (Mimsy Were the Borogoves), Arena and Charlie (Flowers for Algernon.) These are classic stories in every sense of the word. Whether you like Science Fiction as a genre or not, these stories are must-reads.
Labels: books
Thursday, February 17, 2011
I have - finally - signed up for Facebook...
and am unimpressed.
Signed up for Skype and part of the signup process was a pitch for Facebook, to which I succumbed. My family have all adopted the social network and so I decided to take the plunge and give it a try. It has all the depth of a Yahoo! comments page with the ability to at least filter the commenters, but the lack of depth which seems to be a hallmark of the site is annoying, at least to me. My wall is covered with graffiti and the sheer volume generated by just 9 friends is amazing.
I suspect that that at least two of them are professional content providers. How they find the time to post so much is beyond me.
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60 degrees and the mid-winter thaw is well under way, as is my annual bout with hacking pain in the posterior lung problem I got this year, now entering its third month. Every year it gets harder to kick it and this year has been a real bitch. I've managed to stay out of the hospital this time - at least so far - but almost caved the night before last as I couldn't get my breath and my chest hurt from trying to hack up the latest hairball. Sleeping is the biggest problem. I'm tired all the time. I've begun medication, so we'll see how that works out.
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I've been hard presssed not to drag the bike out for a ride, however brief, but, Lord, the last couple of days have been glorious. My last ride was on New Year's Eve (probably why I have pneumonia or something now) and the road calls. I have maintenance to perform before I will allow myself to get the bike out, and I mean to get it done before I talk myself out of doing it. Once the bike comess out, I'd rather ride than work on it. As my garage is not heated, if it's nice enough to ride, it's nice enough to work.
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October was my last post, huh?
Huh.
Labels: Facebook, motorcycles
Monday, October 04, 2010
Wow! October already?
Barefoot through the frost, you ask? The dogs wanted out and the one of the tie out cables was wrapped around a tree - stupid dog! - and whoever let the dog in didn't bother to untangle it, leaving the cable well out of reach. I was far too impatient to hunt for my shoes, so off I went across the frozen tundra to retrieve the cable. I did manage to find my shoes - no socks though - to walk my grandson to the bus stop later, but I didn't wear a jacket.
I'm sure the I made a pretty picture for the bus driver - middle-aged fat man in sneakers, no socks, sweatpants and a t-shirt drinking a cup of coffee at the bus stop. Come to think of it, thats pretty much my uniform of the day anyway. Poor bus driver! I note she was wearing a coat. Wimp!
Fall is my favorite time of year, even though it sucks that riding season is about done. Short day trips and saddlebags loaded with cold weather apparel are the order of the day, and I wear the helmet more and more often to keep the ears warm. Hard to believe that I was swimming in Lake Michigan a mere two weeks ago - I have pics to prove it. A long warmish Fall like last year would be a wonderful treat - thanks God! - so here's to a long Indian summer.
Many years ago I got suckered by warm weather in late October and took off for a long weekend ride. I got back early on a Monday morning having ridden through torrential rain, high winds, and finally snow all in the same day as I worked my way back north to North Muskegon on my '74 Honda 750. I was in the military at the time, and being AWOL come Monday morning wasn't much of an option for me. Considerably younger, I was neither experienced nor equipped to ride in bad weather, and I was miserable by the time I got home. I was actually wearing a trash bag as a poncho! I began bar hopping, stopping every few miles once I got across the Michigan border, to warm up and top up my antifreeze, which doesn't help, by the way. I was too damn cold for whiskey to take the edge off.
I was close to worthless to the Coast Guard that day anyway, although my CO probably didn't notice, me having been the stereotypical drunken sailor of song, early in the morning - Weigh, heigh and up she rises! - on more than one occasion. Luckily the Coast Guard of 1981 was not as inventive at disciplining drunken sailors as was the Royal Navy of 1781!
Today, my bike isn't much bigger (783 cc) but ol' hoosiertoo is much better prepared for fall riding. And I hope do a lot of it yet this year.
Labels: motorcycling
Monday, August 30, 2010
Criminal Cops?
Downsizer Dispatch, from downsizeDC.org, urges that we copy and/or borrow from the following and send to our congress critters. I think that's a wonderful idea! You can too! While you're at it, join downsidedc.org. The more, the merrier and the greater the impact.
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Civil asset forfeiture corrupts our police. It turns cops into robbers.
Civil asset forfeiture is at the heart of government lawlessness:
* It disregards the Bill of Rights.
* It confiscates property from innocent people.The federal government compounds the problem by cutting-in local law enforcement. They've turned the Drug War into a referral program! In a process known as "equitable sharing," local law enforcement can work with the federal government in pursuit of criminals, and keep as much as 80% of the booty. http://www.ij.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3117&Itemid=165
And where does this money go?
* In Texas, a district attorney has been indicted for using $200,000 of forfeiture funds to line his own pockets and pay for trips to casinos http://www.examiner.com/headlines-in-san-antonio/former-texas-county-district-attorney-indicted-for-misusing-200-000-for-extra-pay-and-casino-trips
* In Indiana, where the law requires forfeiture loot to be spent on public education, only one county is complying with the law. In the other counties, law enforcement departments are keeping almost all the money, and the Attorney General doesn't seem to care! http://reason.com/blog/2010/08/18/indianas-attorney-general-on-a
Are you surprised by this corruption? You shouldn't be.
If confiscating property is an institutional mission, one must worry about the people such a group will employ to carry out that mission. If a government tells its employees that they must steal to meet their budgets - that is, engage in asset forfeiture - then some will rationalize that stealing is okay.
And they'll steal from their employer, too.
The Institute for Justice has a tantalizing list of how some local posses have spent the loot. http://www.ij.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3117&Itemid=165
When asset forfeiture (is aboilished) government corruption (will be reduced.) ...Send a message to the people that the police really are there to serve and protect -- not to steal.
Labels: cops and robbers
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Lake Geneva
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Independence Day
I use Yahoo.com mail and My Yahoo as my portal for news, feeds, etc. The other day, I was perusing the headlines and checked into a story and followed up by reading the comments. I hardly ever check the comments at such sites, except for sports stories; I don't expect much from such comments and I'm rarely surprised. Reading the news story comments was a learning experience. Comments are unmoderated and of unusually low quality. Posters are allowed to rate comments (thumbs up or down.) Comments with low ratings are not displayed unless you opt to see them on a case-by-case basis. You would think people who are interested in the news of the day would have a reasonably good grasp on reality. Apparently, such is not the case.
Go to Yahoo.com sometime and look at the numbers of comments that accompany the news articles at the site. You'll find that there are usually far more comments per article than you will find at sites like Townhall.com or PajamasMedia.com. Then, for a truly disheartening experience, read those comments left by the (mostly) drooling imbeciles who congregate in the forums there. For a real treat, post a well-reasoned comment that doesn't toe the mob's PC line. Prepare to be shouted down, or worse, be subjected to the indignity of those same nattering idiots rating your comment so low as to not be seen. Still, they babble on and on, bereft of reason or civility.
These, friends, are the Americans we need to re-educate if we are going to take back America and restore the Republic? Bah. Who wants it?
Find a defensible chunk of real estate and secede from the death cultists? Now we're talking. I just want to know where to sign up.
Labels: Common Sense, errata, politics
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