Posts from — May 2015

I have been forced to turn on the TV because the WiFi has been flaky and I don’t have the strength yet to fix it.

I was listening to a wing-nut attempting to justify police brutality by repeated references to the dangerous neighborhoods they are forced to work in. If they are looking for dangerous working conditions they should look at rehabbing houses in Southern California. On one show that features buying houses for Hundreds of thousands of dollars and then repairing them to sell them. On the show called “Flip or Flop” the ‘stars’ have had their SUV stolen, the houses looted after some repairs are made, thousands in tools stolen. These middle-class neighborhoods in Orange County are real cess pools

This is a picture from one of the columbariums at the Arlington National Cemetery, the final resting place of many of those who served the United States since the middle of the 19^th century.

That is my Father’s marker. He didn’t know those located around his marker, but they all shared service to their country as part of their life.

The country continues to ask for service and people still respond to that call. As you think about the sacrifices represented by Arlington and other cemeteries, ask yourself if you have done what you could to prevent misuse of the willingness of some to serve.

It is rather for us the living, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us–that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion–that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.

After the fold is the new version of my parents’ marker [Read more →]

Towel Day

You do know where your towel is?

CC Is Annoyed

How about some attention?

[Editor:
CC thinks I should limit my recovery to the essentials – scratching her head..]

Friday Ark

On Thursday I had open surgery to repair an inguinal hernia. This represents the first time I have had surgery of any kind and it definitely wasn’t a lot of fun. I may post a picture of CC later today, but you should expect very low output and possibly very odd sentence structure as a result of the pain medication.

The CBC reports that research has shown that on average, Canadians have a shorter attention span than goldfish. Amazing, I wasn’t aware that goldfish actually had an attention span. 😈

The members of the biker gangs involved in the gun fight in Waco were white and predominately Christian. ‘What,’ you say, ‘I didn’t see that reported anywhere.’ Exactly, which is why you know it is true. If they weren’t white, their race would have been in the headline of the first report on the incident, as would their religion, especially if it involved Islam.

Get real people, if they weren’t white Christians, Texas would have sent in the National Guard and requested air support. They are referred to as bikers, not gangsters, not thugs, not animals. The cops weren’t wearing their black ‘GI Joe’ costumes, and didn’t have their armored personnel carriers deployed, despite the many reports of threats of violence at the meeting and the actual gun fight that broke out.

Imagine what the response would have been if these bikers had been Hispanic or black or Muslims…

The CBC has an interesting and troubling article about a modified brewer’s yeast that can produce morphine and other opiates from sugar.

The yeast is under strict controls, but so is morphine and that hasn’t been terribly effective. If anyone can produce morphine in a home beer system with sugar, it will be rather difficult to stop people from abusing it.

This makes the whole battle about marijuana rather silly. Morphine will be easier and cheaper to obtain.

I’ll be taking a break on Thursday for a medical procedure, so I’ve been busy organizing Real Life™, but there hasn’t been a lot happening.

The biggest story in the US was the “Gunfight At The Twin Peaks Parking Lot”. With 9 dead, 18 wounded and 170 arrested this is obviously a serious and dangerous incident. OTOH, a rumble at a ‘Hooters’ knock-off franchise at a shopping mall with ‘easy Interstate access’? Seriously?

My local motorcycle clubs are noted for partnering with the Marine Reserves in the ‘Toys for Tots’ campaign. Even so they don’t go to Denny’s, they go to small local joints, one club per joint.

Arranging a confrontation at mall is not something Johnny Strabler would have done.

When I rode a motorcycle in West Texas [San Angelo] I was definitely in the minority, and a target for pick-ups. Of course a lot of strange things happen in Whacko, Texas.

The wreckage of a US helicopter that was missing in Nepal has been located. Based on the location and an overview of the wreck, there is little hope that any of the 6 Marines and 2 Nepal soldiers on the craft survived.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the surviving ‘Boston bomber’ has been sentenced to death by a unanimous decision of the jury. This will lead to an automatic appeal.

Pistol and Boo have flown back to the US after being threatened with death in Australia. FYI: all a pet dog needs to enter the US is a veterinarian’s certification that all of standard vaccinations are current. Some airlines want proof of a kennel cough vaccination in addition to the standard rabies, parvo, etc. We took our dog with us when we were moved overseas by the military, and it is no big deal outside of Britain and Australia.

The engineer of the train that crashed in Philadelphia met with investigators to officially state that he doesn’t remember the crash. He has plenty of stitches to attest to the diagnosis of concussion.

Wonder Weeds

Zzz…zzz…zzz

[Editor: My neighbor wanted this picture of Wonder ‘poised to attack his prey’. I didn’t tell him that Wonder was sleeping, not hunting.]

The Friday Ark for lots of animal pictures.

The attorney for the engineer in the Philadelphia train wreck says his client suffered a concussion and doesn’t remember the accident. At the scene an eighth victim was discovered in the wreckage of the first passenger car.

John Ellis Bush [AKA JEB Bush] has spent all week trying out answers to the simple question: “Knowing what we know now, would you have invaded Iraq?” Remember – he is the “smart” brother …

In foreign news, In the Land Down Under they are in the middle of the #WarOnTerrier. This involves a threat by the Minister for Agriculture, Barnaby Joyce, to execute Pistol and Boo, two Yorkshire terriers belonging to Johnny Depp.

This has led to Clive Palmer slamming Joyce for making Australia ‘the laughing stock of the world’ over Johnny Depp dogs. This action by Palmer is sort of like being called a whacko by Congresscritter Louie Gohmert [TX-01], but this time Palmer actually has a point, based on the reaction on social media.

At least 7 people have died, about a dozen people are in critical condition in local hospitals, and a couple of hundred passengers have lesser injuries in a train derailment in Philadelphia.

As everyone is now reporting, the preliminary investigation indicates the train was traveling more than twice the speed limit when it derailed on a curve.

The National Transportation Safety Board used the train’s data recorder, but others were already reporting the over 100 mph speed in the 50 mph zone based on video of the train prior to the curve. The data recorder indicated that the engineer applied the emergency brakes, but the train derailed before the brakes had much effect.

The engineer has gotten a lawyer and has refused to answer questions about the accident. The NTSB has not yet reviewed the video data from the engine.

The BBC reports on a recent poll:US Christians numbers ‘decline sharply’, poll finds

The number of Americans who identify as Christian has fallen nearly eight percentage points in only seven years, according to a new survey.

Pew Research Center found that 71% of Americans identified as Christian in 2014 – down from 78% in 2007.

In the same period, Americans identifying as having no religion grew from 16% to 23%.

Fifty-six million Americans do not observe any religion, the second largest community after Evangelicals.

This just reflects a normal cycle in the US. Every so often since the founding of the United States there is a religious revival movement [‘awakening’] that flourishes and then fades. It generally fades when it turns to politics and leaves spiritual matters behind.

They were just starting to get organized and back to a small degree of normalcy when they got hit with a massive aftershock. The US Geologic Service has a summary of the event: May 12, 2015 M 7.3 Nepal earthquake. The epicenter was 18km (11mi) SE of Kodari, Nepa, well to the east of the April 25, 2015 M 7.8 mainshock. The USGS has logged over 100 aftershocks of 3.0 or greater.

A US helicopter and 6 Marines are listed as missing after today’s event which killed dozens of people and destroyed many of the buildings that had been weakened by the April 25 event.

The monsoon season will start shortly bringing even more misery to a small nation already brought low.