"A Socialist is only a Communist without a gun."
Rodger, the Real King of France (as quoted by)
--Dolly
Friday May 23, 2008...
Observation #699 ::.
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Friday May 23, 2008...
As Strange As It May Seem ::.
DA DOLL HAZTA agree with Assrot in comments to this post at Tam's.
You're right. That does sound strange.
Yeah, well... I didn't pick the guy's handle.
But I even have a t-shirt that says -- now picture this stretched across da Doll's bodacious tatas -- "'GUN CONTROL' MEANS 'USE BOTH HANDS.'"
Hardly earth-shattering. Or original.
Yeah, well, the mental-visual is the thing.
Theater of the mind, eh?
Right-o!
Good! 'Cause otherwise, there'd be people demanding pictures.
Gabrielle Francesca East (Dolly) | | |
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Friday May 23, 2008...
Snout Houses! ::.
CHARLES HILL points to this delightful post at Sippican Cottage (a blog I feel remiss in having -- well -- missed). Ten things that should never have been inflicted upon the home buyers of America -- or sentiments to that effect. And the list could have been FAR longer.
SWMBO and I watch a lot of HGTV and DiY Network and constantly snark on the dumb and mistaken stuff they do. The chick on My House Is Worth WHAT?, ferinstance, who doesn't seem to comprehend the difference between increases in equity versus profit.
Well, what do you expect? Most people these days were educated by wolves -- er, communists -- in the public school system. It's amazing the network's standards-and-practices department even lets them broadcast the dirty word "profit."
Yeah. And then there's Designed to Sell. I like the personalities of the show regulars. But the idea that you can stage a quarter-million dollar house for sale on a budget of $2,000.00 is ... well, it is to mort de rire.
But I've thought for decades that modern trends in housing have tended toward fugly ostentation and away from human-scale comfort and function.
And I agree most heartily with SC: I hate -- with an ultraviolet passion -- plastic. As the man says, wood, stone, masonry, and steel, folks. Build for the ages. Plastic looks tatty in two weeks. Wood only gets more beautiful as it ages.
(Hat tip: CG.)
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Friday May 23, 2008...
I Probably Shouldn't Bother ::.
REPLYING TO TICK DURBIN when he asks petro executroids, "Does it bother any of you...?"
Gee, Tick, you bloated bloodsucking parasite, doesn't it bother you when you realize what role government has played in the current price of fuels?
Does he even know?
You saying only someone utterly without self-awareness could be that stupid?
Er... something like that.
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Friday May 23, 2008...
Sunrise July 20-ish, 2006 ::.
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Thursday May 22, 2008...
Observation #698 ::.
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Thursday May 22, 2008...
Word of the Day ::.
PSEUDOEPIGRAPHON. Og, waxes biblical and delivers forth a pseudoepigraphon on the faults and errors of The Fucking Manual, (Read same forthwith). Da Doll ROFLs.
Gabrielle Francesca East (Dolly) | | |
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Thursday May 22, 2008...
Reclaim Conservatism ::.
THE FELLOW WHO authored this post and thereby spurred a dextrospheric groundswell has started a site dedicated to the cause. Hie thee hence and participate.
(Hat tip: GM Roper.)
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Thursday May 22, 2008...
A Very Good Reason ::.
FOR GOVERNMENT TO STAY the hell out of scientific research. Like some perverted Heisenberg principle, the very presence of government money in a field corrupts the field.
So you don't think that we should have funded NASA?
Nope. It's a fool's game to play coulda, shoulda, woulda. We don't know how space exploration and travel might have played out if there hadn't been that 800-ton gorilla keeping all comers out, grabbing it all for itself. I do know this, though: the same people who went to work for NASA because that was where the space was, if NASA had not existed, and if private enterprise were permitted an open field, would probably have pioneered space nonetheless. It was steamboatin' time. The minds, the state of the art, the collective will was there. Those people weren't inspired by John Kennedy or Sputnik. They were inspired by Jules Verne and Hugo Gernsbach and Clarke and Asimov and Heinlein. It would have happened. And it would have happened at something faster than the glacial pace of a government bureaucracy.
Who knows? Maybe by now, the vision of 2001 might have been closer to true. I'd bet on it.
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Thursday May 22, 2008...
Wet Spring ::.
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Wednesday May 21, 2008...
Observation #697 ::.
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Wednesday May 21, 2008...
Whoa, Nellie! ::.
THEY TOLD US THAT there would be cast members leaving NCIS. They did. But did anyone see that coming?
Watch the spoilers, Dolly.
I'm bein' careful!
Just sayin's all.
Gabrielle Francesca East (Dolly) | | |
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Wednesday May 21, 2008...
A Caller On Hannity In ::.
THE FOUR O'CLOCK HOUR on Tuesday -- a real farking idiot, BTW -- makes the assertion that, if you asked any black person, any Asian American, any Native American, they would make the same statements (reflecting a lack of affection for and appreciation of the United States) as Michelle Dumbelle Obama.
Leaving aside the ease with which that (bogus) assertion can be swatted down -- like King Kong bitch-slapping a Sopwith Camel... Am I the only one to whom that smacks of racism? Assuming that a person's feelings for and about his country stem only from his group identity?
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Wednesday May 21, 2008...
And Then Hannity Asks ::.
"WHAT IS A COMMUNITY organizer, anyway?"
C'mon, Sean! You know -- it's a rabblerouser. A trouble-maker. A demagogue.
That's another one of those things you're not allowed to discuss about B. Hussein Obama, the inexperienced, lightweight racist Marxist demagogue junior senator from Chicago.
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Wednesday May 21, 2008...
Oh, And -- Hey, Barry! ::.
IF YA DON'T WANT PEOPLE cappin' on your wife, then shut the bitch up! 'Slong as she's talking trash, she's fair game.
Oh, and it's defin-NITE-ly NO-class to be makin' threats on folks just exercisin' their First Amendment rights. YOU better watch your mouth, Boy, 'r you're not gonna MAKE it to no Big House. Nu-uh!
Oh! Oh! An' are y' sayin' you're ... disowning what she says? That your woman, your baby-mama dosn't speak for you? Izzat why it's WRONG fer people t' call bool-shit on her -- her words don't reFLECT your views? Then why do you have her out there campaignin' fer ya in th' firs' fargin' place?
Gabrielle Francesca East (Dolly) | | |
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Wednesday May 21, 2008...
And the Campaign Ads ::.
JUST KEEP ON WRITING THEMSELVES. You cannot make this shit up.
Barack Obama thinks you should ask the permission of the rest of the world before you exercise your freedom.
As the old song goes...
Get this: fuck that.
I don't owe you fuckers anything
And all I've got to say is, "Fuck yoo-hoo-hoo-oo-oo!
(The sky is bloo-hoo-oo-oo-OO!)
"Magical Misery Tour" from
National Lampoon's Radio Dinner
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Wednesday May 21, 2008...
History Tells Us ::.
THAT WHEN A BAD MAN makes a threat, you are wise to take him at his word. Yet, time and again, certain folks seem bound and determined to give the threat slight credence. When a terrorist says he wants to kill you, accept that as dispositive evidence of his intention and act accordingly. And when an environmentalist points to and decries so-called -- scorn quotes -- "overpopulation," count it as confirmed that he means to reduce world population by any means he can -- by genocide if he can't manage it by attrition.
So, it should come as no surprise to anyone -- anyone who's paying attention, that is -- that, when greens get their way on crop policy, one result is starvation in the poorer countries.
As the saying goes, that's not a bug, that's a feature.
You should be careful how you sling that term "genocide" around. It is a technical term, you know, with a precise definition.
Oh, yeah. Right. I forgot. The Devil gets to define the crimes, so he can skate right up to the edge of the thin ice, so he can go right on encompassing his evil agenda while not technically breaking the law.
Oh great! ::hands in the air; slap the thighs:: Now you're throwing "evil" around!
What? So we're not allowed to call a thing what it is? If a being's deeds result in evil, how is it possible that being can be anything but evil?
Do we not all commit errors?
Don't be so disingenuous, Dolly. I'm not talking about accidental errors. I'm not talking about mistakes. (Though it's telling that evildoers will always claim error and do so in the passive voice -- "Mistakes were made" -- to disclaim fault, even while seeming to own it.) No. I'm talking about purposeful deeds that wisdom militates against, but the being goes on and encompasses them anyway.
But people can make mistakes -- horrible mistakes -- while acting from the best of intentions.
I don't accept statements of intent. Those are unreliable guides. The only true indicators are the fruits of men's deeds. And if wisdom counsels prudence, and a man goes ahead anyway, how are we to judge?
But prudence has counselled against a great many advances in the human condition!
And those who brought those advances about are justly lauded. Should we not condemn equally those whose disregard brings ill results?
But... "evil"?
What else do you call it?
Evil?
Is it not a technical term with a precise definition?
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Wednesday May 21, 2008...
Ol' Ragin' Dave ::.
POKES THIS ONE AT BTB, like the ferrule of an umbrella along the bars of our cage -- with a boyish grin on his literary lips, hoping to rouse a reaction.
Heh.
It is, after all, a subject on which I have shot off my mouth -- er, fingers -- a great deal here recently. It would seem a natural for a BTB post.
Ragin' points to a petition which has been so far been met with a response from some 31,000-and-change physicists, chemists, and other degree holders in the sciences -- scientists who do not accept the whole anthropogenic global warming conjecture. The aim of the thing is to counter the whole, "There's a concensus of scientists and the science is settled -- global warming is a fact" lie.
"Lie?" she asks, playing the good little shill.
Yes, lie. You'll notice they don't usually say "anthropogenic" when they say "global warming" in that context. Or they say "climate change" which is kind of stupid when you parse it -- sort of like saying "wet water." Well: DUH! Change is. Climate is change. People getting panicked about that kind of crap is why the Chicken Little story was written in the first place.
No, they say "global warming," which has probably happened (Although I stubbornly maintain that I haven't seen among the data sets presented what I would consider dispositive evidence of that. As I say, we haven't proven warming.), with no claim -- in that context -- as to the causes, leaving it for the listener to fill in the blank with the "man-made" canard.
Yes, lie. You'll notice that they base their claim to authority on the basis of a concensus (implying a unanimous agreement) of scientists, which -- in the face of fact -- means exactly, well -- nothing. Nil. Zip. Zero. Nada. Bupkis. Why would that be necessary if AGW were proven fact?
Nevertheless, I am uncomfortable with the whole notion of mass statements of scientists -- on either side of the argument. Yes, it is maddening that people can be so perverse -- so, yes, evil -- as to turn the truth on its head, seeking to conceal the fact that that is indeed what they are doing. Such mendacity -- such pollution of the dialectic -- must be countered, its proponents smashed ontologically flat, lest their evil strengthen its already-disturbing grip on the public mindeset.
BUT. But. But...
...if their claim of concensus or the weight of opinion is invalid, so is ours. Thus my reserve of comment on the matter thus far. As I wrote in Dave's comments...
Yeah, I saw that.
One of the respondents to the petition wrote back that he found the whole process offensive. Science is decided by facts -- by (here's a concept for the postmodern relativists) THE TRVTH -- not by concensus or general agreement or conventional wisdom or any of that.
But, he continued, he was signing because he found the alternative -- that popular lies should gain currency -- even more odious.
I'm still deciding whether this bitch-slap to the AGW crowd is a good thing, or we should just hang the lying MFCS out-of-hand.
The jury is still out.
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Wednesday May 21, 2008...
As If You Weren't ::.
ALREADY PAYING ATTENTION, but just in case, Bobbi X has the thread up to solicit date input for the next Indy Blogger Bash.
Early returns indicate a bias in favor of the 22nd, but as they say, if you don't vote, you are entrusting your future to somebody too stupid to get out of jury duty.
Double-you. Tee. Eff!!??!1!!
Hey, you know. I'm scrambled but I'm cute; gotta love me!
::sigh:: Yeah, I guess.
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Wednesday May 21, 2008...
"You May Have Heard Earlier ::.
THIS MONTH that global warming is now likely to take break for a decade or more. There will be no more warming until 2015, perhaps later."
So begins an article in the (Canadian) National Post entitled, "So Much for Settled Science." It seems the warmistas want you to believe that a cooling period that wipes out the previous century's rise in global average temperature (whatever that is, and whatever it means), is no more than a pause. In the inexorable and irresistable warming that will burn us all.
"This change is inevitable." Sound familiar?
Karl Marx.
Right in one, Dolly.
This is what leftists do when you catch them in a bald-faced lie. They backpedal. They slither away from the truth on tentacled jets of denial, spewing clouds of inky obfuscation -- anything to keep from admitting the truth and their error. As the author of the above-linked article describes it -- brilliantly, I think -- they backfill.
RTWT.
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Wednesday May 21, 2008...
And Finally, A Recitation ::.
OF THE IMMORALITY of ethanol.
Boosters claim ethanol production doesn't raise food prices, but the numbers tell a different story.
Read. And meditate.
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Wednesday May 21, 2008...
N&W Rails Along Wasson Road ::.
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Tuesday May 20, 2008...
Observation #696 ::.
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Tuesday May 20, 2008...
Is It Just Me ::.
OR DO ALL OF THE scenarios in the Brinks Home Security ads portray helpless victims left -- well -- defenseless by the very institutions and devices they suppose will protect them?
Woman is distracted, getting her kids ready for bed. She looks at the back patio door just in time to see a menacing character break the glass -- only to be chased off by an alarm bell?
Couple in bed in their new house in the wee-smalls is awakened by a sound. Wife is all, "What's that?" heart pounding. Husband puffs his chest and strides off, saying, "It's the first night in a new house. It's probably nothing." Cut to bad guy stumbling over the as-yet-still-packed moving crates in the living room. Cut back to the wife on her cell phone (they don't even have the landline hooked up yet), "We heard a noise downstairs. My husband has gone to look."
Does anybody else yell at the TV, "Where's your gun, idiot!?!!"
Law Dawgie has a meditation up on the wishful-thinking uselessness of any means of defense other than the considered ability and willingness to counter threat with force.
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Tuesday May 20, 2008...
Railroad Landscape ::.
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Monday May 19, 2008...
Observation #695 ::.
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Monday May 19, 2008...
Dunes ::.
AT CASA D'ALGER in a manner reminiscent of -- for all two of you who were readers back then -- our old Ellipses style of blog entry, which was killed by the perceived necessity of permalinking individual items. Or so commenters complained.
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I'M SEMI-FAMOUS FOR MY ABILITY to procrastinate very nearly anything and over-think it to death at the same time. Comes of being a lazy perfectionist with mild ADD and OCD.
"Mild," eh?
Yes, mild.
When we gutted the front bedroom at Casa d'Alger preparatory to turning it into The Study (hence the name The Great Study Project), I had no intention of putting trim around doors and windows. I wanted to bring the sides of bookcases and built-in cabinets right up to the casement reveals. The room is small enough as it is. No point in giving up (calculates furiously on fingers and toes) a good 23 and 3/4 feet of potential shelf space to mere fripperies like trim molding.
So, as I started to say, when we gutted the room, I didn't save any of the trim molding.
Not, as your wife observed, that any of it was worth saving.
Possibly.
In addition, when we drywalled, I took no care to ensure that the drywall met or even stood proud of the casings, to make re-trimming easier. As a matter of fact, knowing that the whole mess was going to be covered with built-in cabinets -- I told myself cavalierly -- I didn't even take that much care to make sure the walls were flat, plumb, square, or much more than rigid and well-sealed around the various openings (like outlet boxes).
Which meant (I'm sure you can see this coming), when SWMBO put her foot down and insisted on moldings, the problem thus presented was somewhat... sticky.
The front entry door, for example... The jam was made for the old plaster walls and stands (nominally) 7/8" proud of the present gypsum board wall. Lean hard on that "nominally" button, there. It actually varies from 15/16" to one of Dolly's short-and-curlies shy of a half inch.
For those of you in Rio Linda, that's a red mmfpph m,fpph...
OW! You didn't have to bite!
You didn't have to clap your hand over my mouth, either.
Clap?! Who says, "Clap?"
Well, there's me, for one. Your urologist, for another.
Not mine!
Uh-huh.
Anyway. I stalled and stewed trying to figure out THE best way to solve this problem. You see, the trim boards are 3/4" thick and 3 1/4" wide and subject to a bit of their own twist and shout. So if the surfaces to which they are to be nailed aren't level to each other, you're magnifying the problem. And, ordinarily, shims aren't going to be the answer.
And, to compound matters, SWMBO and I determined that a bookcase which was previously going to stop about 7" from the molding is now planned to butt up to it. So, in battening the East Wall, I nailed a batten right next to the door jamb.
Long short, I figured it out and on Sunday began cutting blocks, shimming the trim, and nailing stuff up. I got as far as the first actual casing molding board before I had to quit for the day.
Yay, me.
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IT'S A GIRL! SWMBO sent out a blank email with that as the subject line earlier. Younger Sister bit. Tee-heee.
New member of the family is herewith revealed to be this young lady...
...name of Belle. This picture was taken in the examining room at The Animal Clinic where SWMBO is gainfully employed. Belle was just spayed last week and is in recuperative care. She may or may not get to come home to Casa d'Alger before a new course of surgery to render her less of a threat to the furniture. That's under discussion.
She is a stray, but not feral, and the doc estimates her age at around two. She is quite affectionate and, as best we can tell under the odd circumstances of visiting in cages and suchlike, appears to be daddy's girl.
Can't help wondering what the boys -- Murphy and Indo -- will think of this. I'm sure it will resemble the Warsaw Ghetto uprising in its ferocity. Or not.
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IN RESPONSE TO THE recent untempling of the Gods of Republicanism, Our Curmudgeon has posted a call to revolt. And links therein to a righteous bitch-slapping of a GOP official by myriad several blog commentors. That will leave a mark. But one wonders if it will be visible amid all the other scars and bruises administered of late to no apparent change in behavior. I can't say I disagree -- however it saddens me -- with Our Curmudgeon's conclusion, either.
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Monday May 19, 2008...
Attic Blowstorm ::.
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IS 