Where Have I Been ?
In general I’ve spent a great deal of time in bed lately, which is why for the first time in forty forevers there was no Friday Cat Blogging. Because of daily thunderstorms from a stuck cold front the cats are all hiding, and had I managed to take a picture, I doubt I could have processed it for the site.
My coverage of the Tour continues because over the years I have been able to automate the process to a great extent, so it required no more than the minimum of energy I have had available due to the first actual cold I have had in decades. It has really laid me low and I am still dealing with the aftermath.
We finally have our second tropical weather system, but again that is a relatively automated process, so I can deal with it as I regain strength.
I’m aware that Putin screwed up and gave his thugs in the eastern Ukraine an antiaircraft system that they used to take down a civilian airliner, because they are incompetent.
Israel has again decided that the only response to anything bad happening in Israel is the fault of Hamas, which they addressed by bombing and now invading the Gaza Strip.
There is no shortage of murderous stupid people in the world.
31 comments
Staying in bed is a good idea m8. I’ve been doing a lot of that, even after I supposedly got over that nasty lung infection a couple weeks ago.
Hope you feel better real soon. Get your strength back. The cat’s and the crazy murdering bastards will still all be around when you are better. It’s difficult on your own, I know.
Unfortunately. I learned in Cambodia and elsewhere, no matter how many of the bastards you eliminate, there are always more. *sigh*
Glad to hear that you ware starting to feel better!
Thanks, Steve. I hate to let the side down 🙁
Well, Kryten, it isn’t necessarily my idea. I get things done, then I have to take a long break. Part of it is the sinus congestion that messes with my inner ear and ‘situational awareness’. My brain wants a time-out when my eyes says straight and level, but my inner ear says ’tilt’. It’s really annoying waiting for the decongestant to deal with the fluid build-up.
The scum are like cockroaches – no matter how many you exterminate more will be back as soon as the lights go out.
Well, my go to person for these sorts of problems is back in town, so if it gets bad again I can call her.
Here’s hoping you get better very soon! I see that you’ve not had colds for many years, and I expect the recent stress and grief has probably lowered your immune system. Stress can really give a hard hit sometimes.
Sending good thoughts your way! And Kryten’s, too. You guys need to start taking better care of yourself! 🙂
“There is no shortage of murderous stupid people in the world.”
Crazy talk. You clearly are still sick.
Good thoughts are always welcome, Juanita, and you are right about being run down as a caregiver. I wasn’t eating properly and lost a lot of weight that I’m slowly regaining. Bouncing back takes longer the older you are.
NTodd, I know I’m sick of Putin and Netanyahu. Bloody Bibi is upset that commercial airlines don’t want to fly to Israel while there’s a war taking place. It’s costing Israel money because insurance companies frown on flying into places subject to rocket attacks or bombing.
Malaysian Airlines finally decided that being cheap bastards saving fuel costs by flying over the Ukraine was probably a bad idea (given that any savings they made are nothing compared to the cost of being greedy and stupid). So they have now rerouted the flights over Syria. That should work. For some strange reason, passenger numbers have dropped significantly. Although, there are obviously still enough morons willing to take a chance. *shrug*
Thanks Juanita. What we need, is someone with a lot of money to take care of us! Preferably a lady hot enough to make being sick worthwhile! 😉 😆
Hope you are doing well also. 🙂
Hey Bryan… In honor of ‘Friday Cat Blogging’ and because this pic really is worth a thousand words:
😀
The problem with the Malaysian airline and a lot of other national carriers from small countries is that they are underfunded government monopolies that are generally subject to corruption. You have to wonder if they even have insurance, given that they don’t have GPS tracking accounts.
People fly on them because they are cheap.
It’s hard to anticipate insane actions, like Putin giving SA-6 systems to their irregular forces in Ukraine – shoulder-launched, yes – but the SA-6 makes no sense in the face of Ukrainian capabilities.
The cat looks heavier than the kid 🙂
LOL Yeah! It’s a great pic isn’t it? The cat looks completely content. Unusual for a cat around small children in my experience. 🙂 Anyway, I thought it might give you a smile at least. 😀
That SA-6 makes great sense, if you are Putin! Maybe he figured it would be a great marketing strategy? He is trying to sell them to anyone he can! Now the potential buyers (mostly terrorist countries and groups) know they work and can even be used by morons. You have to remember that with Putin, common sense or rationality have no bearing on his decisions. Iran has bought several of them now (not that they are terrorists. At least, until the USA does something really stupid!).
Bouncing back takes longer the older you are
That’s true, but it also has to do with the severity of the stress. I imagine that it’s one thing to bounce back from a difficult and stressful mission that is a part of your job, but the stress is entirely in another category when you’re not eating and sleeping due to losing someone that you love. I can get through job stress and bounce back fairly well, but personal grief is a killer. It’s just not something that I handle very well, anyway.
@Kryten. Preferably a lady hot enough to make being sick worthwhile!
🙂 That sort of falls in the stereotype that a man is never too sick for certain things. Too funny.
Love the photo. Both kid and cat look so self-satisfied! Their expression is like: “Hey people, we do this all the time! No biggie.”
What you say about stress is true Juanita. 🙂
They do look pretty comfortable in that pic! Self-satisfied is a good description. 😀
Want to see the Happiest animal in the World? 😉 It’s not a cat… But it is cat sized, and has soft fur and is adorable! It’s Aussie, of course! LOL 😉
They are an attraction at various Wildlife sanctuaries, where they usually roam freely. 🙂 They are very curious and generally unafraid of humans. If you have a piece of fruit, they will come up to you for a treat and let you pat them. 🙂 They are always smiling! LOL
More photo’s of the cheeky Quokka on BuzzFeed:
Meet The Happiest Animal In The World. Look at it smile!!!
Love those little guys! 😀
Cheerful times.
About the stereotype, Juanita, when I had pneumonia the second time I was at Indiana University. It was a school break for the regular students, but not the Air Force course, so I was the only patient on the floor. I have reliable reports from my classmates that I was taken care of by the best looking nurse in the hospital for the first 5 days. I knew who they were taking about, but had absolutely no real memory of anything that happened because my fever was so high. If you are sick enough, you don’t care or even notice. When my roommate marched me to the hospital I thought I had a cold, but they had me in a room almost as soon as I walked through the door.
I have an electronic thermometer, and a blood oxygen monitor, so I knew it was just a bad chest cold. If the readings for either device had been off, I would have been in the hospital immediately. I keep my pneumonia shot up to date, because I don’t want to do that again.
Kryten, the cat must have grown up with the child, and was used to it. If you don’t make it part of the cat’s routine in the third month of its life, you can usually forget about a cat tolerating small children.
As for the Quokka – it is an Australian animal and I want to know why it’s smiling. Just because no one knows how it kills people doesn’t mean it doesn’t kill people. How many died finding out about the poison spurs of the Platypus or the ramming of the Wombat? Why isn’t it afraid of people? What does it know that makes it smile?
That is too true, Badtux.
What are you implying Bryan? 😉 It’s not that bad here really! Well, not for Aussies anyway. Tourists, on the other hand… We have plenty of signs for them to ignore! Like this one:
LOL
More here Bryan on my Aussie pin board, for a laugh! 😀
Australia. The Good and Bad!
Badtux… Don’t get me started on Grumpy Cat! I have hundreds! LOL I’ve started a pin board that’s popular! 😀 Like this:
LOL
Regarding the little Quokka… It seems to be a rather smart little marsupial. 🙂 It uses it’s paws a lot. It’s quite curious, it will pick things up that catch it’s eye and examine it. If you have some fruit in your hand and offer it to one, they will take it with their paws, unlike most fauna that will simple snap it with their mouth and don’t care if you loose skin in the process! 🙂
I’ve met a few at Sanctuaries. 🙂 One of my favorite animals. 🙂
Maybe they were smart enough to figure out that Humans are gullible and can be useful if you act all cute and lovable! LOL
The Quokka may be just running a con on gullible humans, but it took a long time for people to figure out that To Serve Humans was a cookbook. They are just too cute by half and I used to think the Platypus, Wombat, and Koala were cute.
Survival school makes you question the obvious. 😉
The local campus of the university I taught at down here has signs warning people about the alligators in the retention ponds, black bears on campus, and rattlesnakes in the weeds, so it isn’t just Australia.
LOL They are too cute! Well, so are kittens! And we know about them! 😉 😀 I’ve never thought of Koala’s as cute after I read about how insane they are when off their med’s (Eucalyptus leaves) when I was a kid!
Here’s an honest sign erected by the Bellingen Shire Council in NSW after the State Gov decided to *fix* the roads before a State election. It didn’t help. LOL
And this is a pretty common sign around Aus! This is on the famous Oodnadatta track. 😀
Bit of the story from the guy who posted the pic of the sign:
People have actually died because of that dust! See… Everything here can kill you! Even the bull dust! LOL
A lot of young animals are designed to look cute with eyes, ears, and paws to large for their bodies. It is a survival thing, as most adult animals are hard-wired to protect them, or at least not kill them. Being friendly with humans is not a reliable survival skill – it is usually the path to extinction.
That is like the AlCan Highway, which was the only way of driving from the Lower 48 to Alaska for years. It was a gravel two-lane road originally built in World War II to supply the military in Alaska. I understand that it is now paved, but when I was in Alaska, you built a wire cage around your car so you would have windows and a paint job when you arrived, and had to carry at least 10 gallons of extra fuel plus food and water to make it between the villages where fuel and supplies were available. You were camping out for a week to make the trip to Fairbanks. Dust wasn’t a problem, but that gravel was not kind to tires and you definitely didn’t want to meet a large truck going the other way.
The dust sounds like the stuff that was killing vehicles in Iraq until they finally got some decent air filters for the engines. It also reduced the service life of jet engines and downed helicopters. It’s like getting sand blasted if you drive at anything above a crawl.
We have that kind of dust here in our Western deserts too. And yeah, nothing seems to keep it out. I kept my Jeep sealed and the air conditioner on “Recirculate” (with cabin air filters in the air conditioning intake ducts, no less!) last time I was out, and still ended up with a fine layer of dust everywhere inside the Jeep. Opening the front windows / dropping the rear windows (when I have the soft top on) doesn’t help, it kinda piles up in sand drifts on every horizontal surface then despite the wind whipping around which you’d expect would whip it on out. But especially alarming is when I get home and change the engine air filter (duh). I look down the throat of the intake manifold and there’s streaks of dust along its insides. EEEP! Hope my oil filter got everything that made it past the rings!
Yes, my windshield is pretty well sandblasted by the dust…
The AlCan is almost civilized now that it’s (mostly) paved and a number of road stations have been opened, but there’s a reason why the most popular motorcycle to ride the AlCan is the Kawasaki KLR 650 with its giant 6.5 gallon gas tank. Having a 300 mile range is pretty much a requirement. Even so, most KLR riders who ride the AlCan pack an extra gallon of gas on the back of their bike.
There has been a big industry here for many decades making open frame ATV’s that can survive anything here. They generally have big fuel and water tanks and a flatbed for supplies. The tires are either solid or specially designed pneumatics for off-road and very tough. They also have efficient 2- or 4-stroke engines designed for off-road bikes & ATV’s. Most of the medium to big Homesteads and Cattle Stations use them, as well as horses, camel’s and choppers. 😀 Like this one:
Here! I have to show this! A rare weather event called a ‘Firenado’ or ‘Fire Devils’! 😀
Australian Geographic has some amazing video of one caught by a Videographer who was location scouting. 🙂
‘Firenadoes’ are rare weather events that occur when a unique set of conditions come together.
The Quokka originated on Rottnest Island in WA. They were discovered by a Dutchman, Volkersen, in 1658. In 1696 another Dutchman, de Vlamingh (who must have been blind!) described them as a kind of big rat, and called the island Rotte nest (Rat’s nest). As well as being cute and smart, they are very adaptable. 🙂 They are in a few wildlife sanctuaries, and they generally roam free. Visitors are given a pamphlet with very strict guidelines for them including feeding! And fines will be imposed if you don’t follow them (Many stupid visitors have been fined).
Well, seems that the Australian government has squashed public reporting on a massive corruption case involving Australians bribing members of multiple Southeast Asian governments on “national security” grounds:
https://wikileaks.org/aus-suppression-order/
Current government seems to be embracing Asian values, quite ironic, eh?
Yes, Badtux, you see a lot of sandblasted cars coming in from the desert. There’s no rust and they are primer ready if there is enough metal left to paint.
The oil bath air cleaners on VW bugs worked well for dust, although you had to clean them after a trip to Baja Sud. You can’t keep the dust out, even in a generally air tight Bug.
Big fires generate their own weather, and we have the ‘Firenados’ in some of our big wildfires. They play hell with the aerial operations, tossing the aircraft around in the powerful localized updrafts. We even have the eucalyptus explosions in San Diego county as the Santa Fe Railway planted forests of them to use as railway ties, but they twist in our soil rather than growing straight like the Australian trees and were worthless for the purpose.
They have a conservative government now, Badtux, and are running government like a corporation for the benefit of other corporations.
Not really. We all knew that Abbott was a tea party wannabe. I said all this would happen before the election. Whatever the USA does, will be good enough for Abbott. *shrug* “Monkey see, monkey do!”
I was just catching up on TDS & the recent ‘This Week Tonight’ (John Oliver). TDS was pretty much more of the usual dumb shit the USA is doing, but TWT had a shocker! I knew the US infrastructure was a dog’s breakfast, and I know the USA loves to make jokes about the Russian Nuclear arsenal being woeful… but the USA’s is at least as bad, and probably a lot worse!
You all really should watch the segment, if you haven’t already!
John Oliver on the Terrifying State of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Security on ‘This Week Tonight’
This was John’s summary, but you really need to watch the whole clip to get the full horour of the jabs.
And speaking of near total annihilation… The BBC is doing a documentary (and about time!) On this Russian who essentially saved the World by being rational and sane! When pretty much the rest of the USA and Russia were near batshit crazy! 😉 🙂
From the Guardian:
Problem with oil bath filters is that Jeeps tend to drive at attitudes where the oil bath would slosh out (eep!). Still, I’m considering an oiled foam postfilter if I can figure out how to do it, because the paper filter clearly isn’t catching the fine dust…
Too bad that people like Arkhipov couldn’t have been celebrated while alive, eh? Funny how that works. Seems we like our heros dead before we celebrate them :(.
Yeah. Unfortunately, hero’s such as these are immensely embarrassing to *World leaders*. But when they are dead, the hypocrites can say how wonderful the hero was, without said hero calling them a bunch of hypocrites. *shrug*
The disastrous US Nuclear arsenal isn’t the only problem. It seems the USA is now incapable of building rocket engines. The Atlas V rockets use the Russian RC-180 engines. They mainly launch “National Security” satellite payloads. After the NSA scandal and the threats to Russia over Snowden, Russia has cancelled all future shipments of RD-180’s if used for any military or national security purpose. The USA has enough left for launches planned until 2017. After that… They are screwed. 🙂
Russian rockets: the US Government’s RD-180 conundrum
I find the irony absolutely hilarious!! LMAO
It’s not just that the USA is facing the consequences of it’s usual arrogant thoughtless stupidity, but that they can’t make a rocket engine and have to but them from Russia! LOL
This is a case in point showing what I mean with Abbott’s “Monkey see, Monkey do!” attitude. Seriously, it’s getting so when you read the news here, you’d think we were living in the USA!
WikiLeaks Reveals Secret Suppression Order Involving International Figures
Absolutely disgusting.
Many thanks to WikiLeaks! Don’t let any of the bastards get away with this shit! Keep it up! 🙂
Actually UTC has the complete plans to the RD-180 (part of the requirement before they were allowed to sell the engines to the military) and for a price could set up a US assembly line for the engines. But the operative word is “for a price”. Russians work for cheaper than Americans, so that’d hurt UTC’s profits, having to pay Americans to build the engines, unless they charged more for the engines. And one of the reasons they have such a monopoly is because they’re getting the engines so cheap from the Russians, charging more would hurt their volume which in turn would hurt their gross margins.
So no, it’s not that the US can’t build rocket engines. It’s that it’s more profit to outsource manufacturing rocket engines. Until it isn’t. It’s that whole blind pursuit of profit at any cost thing. It’s the same reason everything else in America has been outsourced overseas, leaving behind only McJobs and a few professional jobs. Which is why our politics has taken a dive into the cellar — when what you have is a 3rd world country with nukes, people are already scared and predisposed to listen to anybody who claims to have their salvation.
Which is why the US is so fscked….
When they reordered the Air Force and eliminated the Strategic Air Command as a separate entity, they lost the absolute control and elaborate systems of oversight and control that SAC was famous for. A SAC ORI [operational readiness inspection] was like the arrival of the Spanish Inquisition – you either maintained maximum standards or you would be guarding aircraft in the Arctic. The nuclear weapons systems were considered the most important jobs in SAC and the major route for promotion. They have become just another job, and with training funds slashed, a really boring job with no obvious career path.
The corporate move to maximize profits and to hell with anything else has hollowed out US manufacturing as it has been out-sourced to boost the bottom line. There were once laws and policies that required military hardware to be American made, but that was dumped with the enactment of ‘free trade’ treaties which allow the out-sourcing of US jobs to the lowest bidder.
We are screwed with the assistance of a corporate friendly political system.
Yes. Sadly, that’s true Bryan. When I was with GD in the USA ’85, we went to a couple SAC bases for a tour, and the security was very intense! One was Pease AFB (from memory) to view the FB-111 wing there (the 320th?) They were pretty proud, winning the Fairchild 3 years straight! The next year it was won by another FB-111 wing. The 4 year winning streak ended the year I visited, won by a B-52 wing. I hope I didn’t break their winning streak! 😉 😀 None of the shit today would have been tolerated a second back then!
Did you watch the vid? It’s really pathetic and bloody insane! If I were living in the USA right now, I’d be seriously considering moving far away! And not because of any ‘terrorist’ (except domestic ones) or any external threat. The USA is now it’s true worst enemy! And thanks to our own morons, we are getting there. At least we don’t have nuclear weapons to worry about. Oh. Wait… Well, we don’t have multi-megaton ICBM’s anyway.*sigh*
Kryten, the list is even longer because he didn’t include the nuclear-tipped cruise missiles that were not removed from a B-52 that was flown to another base for maintenance work. I have no idea how a crew chief and aircraft commander can pre-flight a B-52 and miss the cruise missiles on the wing hard-points. They were ‘discovered’ by the ground crew at the maintenance base which had no one qualified to even remove them from the wings if they had had the ground carriers for them.
SAC would have exiled everyone even marginally connected to a screw-up like that – Base commander and wing commander included.
The good news is that it is highly probable that neither Russian or US land-based nuclear weapons are in good enough shape to actually launch.