Dribs and drabs.

Posting in increments tonight.

Alert reader Black Lab on Amphetamines sent me this wonderful picture.

It is from The Telegraph, and I would just link it but they have had pics disappear (July 1, 2013) before and this is priceless.

Dude, you need to go to manual focus, 1/125, ISO 200, and f-stop it around 16. But hey, it’s your shot to screw up.

I was looking for alternate programming since our satellite signal is down. so i hunt through to find LA Story. Cruel Wife says “If we are getting up much earlier to get the kids to school we have to get to bed earlier. i cannot remain this exhausted.”

“Wuss” I said.

She turns throws her right arm high in the air (about 4ft 6in) and says “That’s me! Queen Wuss!”

“May I use that?”

“Very very carefully.”

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Lemur King has a Lemur Subject!

It dawned on me that what I really wanted was a lemur, not a cat.   Lemurs are legal, just not nearly as maintenance-free as cats.  What to do, what to do?

So… with the proper bleaching compounds for most of her fur and select rings around her tail, and a few hair dyes for really accentuating certain parts – viola!  Stage 1 is complete.  Next will come Stage 2, with extra bleaching when the sores on her body from the bleaching solution heal and then Stage 3 where finally frosting will make it all blend in.

Here is Melody after her final rinse.  A bit wet still but looking good all the same – just like a little lemur.  Yes, a faux-lemur but I am ok with it.   I have a few hundred really good scratches from trying to keep her held still while we bleached her and all but it’s worth it, as you can see.

****

If I had to pick the ways that I thought I could nail down a comprehensive “Total Lifetime FAIL Award” strategy, I don’t think I could have done it quite so well.  It’s old news but I haven’t addressed it yet.

Cross-Dressing, Show-Tunes-Loving Connecticut Priest Busted

for Selling Meth and Laundering Money Through His Sex Shop

Okay.  Pretty impressive.  Shows a certain spontaneity.

Following news that one of their former priests was arrested earlier this month for his alleged involvement in a cross-county meth ring, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport, Connecticut, released a statement expressing “shock and concern” for the “gifted, accomplished and compassionate” Monsignor.

His sex shop still seems to be listed.  His diocese stuck by him to the end… my wife would not stick by me through this stuff.

The Diocese stuck by Wallin even after he became the owner of a North Haven sex and smoke shop called Land of Oz & Dorothy’s Place shortly after leaving the priesthood.

For all I know this is what you have to do to leave the priesthood… behave so thoroughly badly that they just finally let you go.  A lot of them put up with ped-priests for far longer than they ever should have (which I deem to be about 15 seconds).

At least Pope Benedict was allowed to say how he felt and then step down.  Hat is off to him for the guts that it took.

****

Now we have tutoring programs where it is ok to say “black kids only” because while we are here for the children, we’re more here for the failing black children than the failing white ones.  Because failing black children need help more than failing white children.

A school principal said no white children were allowed at an after-school tutoring program, and now some parents call it discrimination.

The principal at Mission Viejo Elementary in Aurora sent a letter telling parents the program is only for students of color. Parents CBS4 talked with said they were shocked to see, in this day and age, what they consider to be segregation.

Of course once black principal Andre Pearson got wind that his crappy behavior wasn’t universally loved he quickly sought to contain the damage.

Before Cox could complain to the school, Pearson contacted her directly. His voicemail only seemed to reinforce the segregated tutoring idea.

“This is Andre Pearson. It’s focused for and designed for children of color, but certainly, if we have space for other kids who have needs, we can definitely meet those needs,” Pearson told Cox in the voicemail.

Pearson declined to comment on camera, but a district spokesperson claims it was all just a big misunderstanding.

“I think what the answer is, is that he made a mistake,” Tustin Amole with the Cherry Creek School District told CBS4.

The new tutoring program was started by parents of minority students to help bridge the achievement gap.

The district is now clarifying that the program wasn’t meant to segregate anyone.

“But we have had lots of students sign up for the tutoring. Many of them are white and we will be accepting all of them,” Amole said.

“I just want everybody to be treated equally,” Cox said.

The new tutoring program began Wednesday. CBS4 was told a letter would be going out to parents to clarify the error that was made.

Sorry, but that wasn’t an error.  They fully intended for a coloreds only group.  It was not a mistake or a misunderstanding.  It was yet another case in a long line of folks who think it ain’t racism if it forms their own groups to exclusions of others.

Show me one minority/disadvantaged group that wouldn’t gladly turn the tables if the situation were reversed.  Go on, show me.

 

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Big Bad Evil Ol’ US.

The other day Hackerboy (who is six) was on the Wii playing a game that looked suspiciously like the Tour de France in its layout.  Let’s call it the Tour de Frank.

Anyway, he had moved from 100th place in the beginning to 17th place by the end of Stage 5.  I was making dinner and only marginally paying attention but I was following his progress.  He was clearly excited by his progress and I heard him say loudly:

I was BORN for this!

Where he got that, I’ll never know.

****

I’m not addicted to Red Bull™.  I can quit anytime.  I like the taste.  It is a social thing.  I just don’t want to quit.  I’m not hurting anybody.  I only have a few.  Other people?  They have problems.

Beautifully creative use of Red Bull™ long after the body has eliminated it.

I only wish I had come up with that idea.  It’s elegant.  Beautiful.  Cheaper than taking it to the shop.

****

Note:  I’m tired, cranky, and bitchy.  I’m going to rant.  You might skip over this if you are in a “don’t pop my bubble” mood.

As you know, I listen to NPR to follow the saying “Know thine enemy”.

I end up knowing far too much.

Rodriguez moved to the U.S. with his family when he was 7. He says if he could, he would vote.

“To see people that have that privilege and not take it, and because they don’t take it we have people elected that create laws that hurt me, that hurt my family, that hurt our communities. It can get frustrating,” he says.

“I am practically an American without papers, and because of that I don’t have the power to vote,” says Rodriguez. “So, the best thing I can do now is organize those that can, and make them vote for me.”

Yet another ILLEGAL alien is whinging about the raw deal he’s getting just because he hasn’t gone and become a legal entity in the US.  Like it’s the US’s fault that he’s in the situation he’s in.  It’s his family who is at fault.  They didn’t do a “moved to the US”, they did a “snuck into the country illegally and decided to stay”.

At the end of the evening, Somos America President Daniel Rodriguez took to the podium.

“Raise your hand,” he said in Spanish, “if you know someone who’s not here but needs this information. Raise your hand if you know someone who’s been deported. Raise your hand if you know someone who has the power to vote.”

Across the room, hands shot up at each statement.

“Every question, almost everyone raised their hands, and that just goes to show you that there’s a lot of people that know the pain and the hurt of being deported or having to know someone that was deported,” Rodriguez recounted.

Rodriguez told the crowd of mostly ineligible voters that they need to use that pain and turn it into power by tapping friends and family who can vote.

The pain and hurt of being deported or having to know someone that was deported… I have friends from Germany that were here LEGALLY and they had to go back home.  So a large number of hispanics here illegally feel like they are owed the right to break the law and be given a free pass?  Well, they certainly won’t be disabused of that notion by our Marxist president and the liberal media.

****

Today I heard another thing on NPR.

One of the reporters was interviewing a lady from Yemen.

Turns out a lot of Yemenis hate the US and distrust us.

WHOA!  OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD!  This turns my world UPSIDE DOWN!  Yemenis somewhere in the world hate us.  Oh.  My.  God.

She said it as if we were suddenly going to have to sit up straight and pay attention.  So what?  Big deal.  Let’s have a head count – the number of Yemenis who have been terrorists who have attempted to kill, want to kill, or have killed – innocent civilians.  Ok.  Now let’s take a head count of the number of US terrorists who have the same aspirations to kill Yemenis.  Yeah, there’s a huge network of people organizing to do just that.  Uh-huh.  Sure.

Next, the reporter made mention of either $150 or $170 million dollars being spent on aid programs in Yemen – building things, infrastructure, etc.  He asked her if that is helping the US’s image in Yemen.

Guess what?

Her response was essentially that no, it does nothing because Yemenis see how much we spend on military involvement in Yemen – troops, equipment, training – and see that it is far more.  They also believe that most of that money goes to corrupt individuals in their government.

A corrupt government is a symptom of a corrupt society (the US is not an exception).  But why is the US implicitly to blame for their corruption?  Why do Yemenis still take money from the US?

And better yet, why do we spend money on a country that hates and distrusts us when it does no good and is going to corrupt individuals?  We do it so we can function covertly and overtly in their country.  Let’s not couch it in terms of “aid”, m’kay?  And Yemen – if it is such a distasteful thing, stop claiming the high road while holding out the hands for money.  Clean your house of corruption while you are at it.

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How that Day in Hell Started with a Nightmare.

I was very fuzzy and while I hadn’t quite figured out what was going on I knew I was in a heap of trouble.

I sat slouched in a chair with the officer to my right and sort of behind me.  We were in a cube-aisle with windows like any business that places no value on their employees as humans yet wants their plants to look good to show that the place is a thriving business.

Glass was everywhere and my motorcycle lay partially buried in a mangled mass of cheap chairs and cube dividers.  There was a long stripe of shredded tire leading up to the building where my attempts to stop failed so miserably.  The sun was rising and broken safety glass glittered like the sea.

So much glass…

The officer that was in charge of me was talking but I was still confused enough that I wasn’t catching much.

God he sounds effeminate.

My head cleared a bit more but I wasn’t tracking him well yet.

… you really shouldn’t mix… motor vehicle… just as bad… test impairment…

I am in trouble.  Yeah, that’s a guy all right, but he’s got a deep voice that is so very effeminate.  Every statement sounds like a question with that inflection.  That’s really pretty disturbing.  What in HELL did I do?

I noticed a crushed magnetic paperclip dispenser.  Twisted paperclips were ground into the carpet.

I am going to have to administer a test now, do you understand?  You’ve mixed painkillers with other drugs and alcohol.  You are in a lot of trouble.

I could only just see him peripherally.  He was in terrible shape and his dark blue uniform only reinforced a pear-shaped physique.

What he looks like doesn’t matter.  I really screwed up.

Now embarrassment over what looked like a very bad choice on my part started to wash over me and I tried to keep from being swamped by it.

What is my wife going to say?  How am I going to face Lemurita and Hacker-boy?

 Ok, I’ll put an A here… maybe an X over here… a C here… silly billy… an R there?  No, that’s not right… a J there… yes.  Oh yes, this will be hard…

I turned full on to the officer now and saw that he was building an improvised Word Jumble out of letters he was pulling out of thin air and knew that he was going to test me with it.

Oh God, I’m being tested by Brad Loekle from The Smoking Gun.

And that is when I woke up in a pile of twisted sweaty sheets, panting and feeling nauseous.

As God is my witness, that nightmare woke me up on July 4th.

****

The other night Cruel Wife and I were making a mid-movie snack while watching Harry Potter (Half-Blood Prince).  She nuked some refried beans for my chips and salsa because I had burned the diddly-fork out of my thumb.

“Could you stir them and then put them on for two more minutes?  I’ll cheese them and finish them up when they’re done.”

I said “Okay, but I want to use a number like 1:37, not 2:00.  Three primes, non-sequential.”

“Just put 2:00 on there.”

“No, I can’t do that.”

“Yes you can.  Just put two minutes on there and hit start.  You can overcome your obsession long enough to put time on a microwave.”

“It’s not an obsession.”

“It is.”

“No, it’s not.  It’s a choice.  It’s a lifestyle preference.  I just prefer prime numbers.  Certain numbers are more appealing.”

“That’s an obsession.  For seventeen, no eighteen years that I’ve known you, you refuse to set your alarm clock to even numbers or multiples of five.”

“Don’t forget ‘preferably prime numbers not sequential in ascending or descending order or repeat digits.'”

“That’s an obsession!”

“Are you just screwing with me?  You said seventeen earlier which was a good number.  Then did you purposely change it to eighteen to make it an even number and mess with me?  Seventeen is a nice prime number.  Eighteen is factorable multiple ways.”

“THAT IS AN OBSESSION!”

“Not.”

“Ok, a mania!”

“Not.  Mania implies excitable.  I’m not excitable.  I’m methodical and calm about it.”

“Mania doesn’t mean excitable.  I’m going to check it out.”

“Oh, out comes the iPad.  You talk to me about obsession?  Look at you with the iPad.  ‘Oh I don’t know which cupholder to use, I’ll check the I-PAD!”

“Mmmm-hmm.  THERE.  MAY-NEEE-AAH – ‘an excessive and intense interest in or enthusiasm for something’.  You can have mania without excitability.”

“I don’t have a problem… YOU have a problem.  Okay – split the difference.  I put 1:37 on the timer, you add 23 seconds more when  it is done.”

(walking away) “maniaaaaa… obsession…”

“It’s NOT an obsession and that’s not the right definition for mania!  Let’s just watch the damn movie.”

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A little knowledge is the dumbest thing.

Collecting Cretin Cream (AKA bullshit) in the wild is easy.

Put 30pW of electrical energy into an LED and get out 62pW of photons.

Then, sit back and let the comments section fill up with BS, and scrape off the “cream” that floats to the top.

A commenter said:

I understand the power and light levels we are talking about are vanishingly low. Is there a chance that this technology can be scaled up to more useful, everyday levels, like generating the equivalent light of a 60 watt incandescent bulb,say? If it could be scaled up, my first thought was coupling these LED’s with solar cells to generate more electricity to power more of these lights, potentially creating a heat-fed perpetual-motion machine, but I realize that solar cells would never be efficient enough to make that work.

Yeah, actually uttered and put out there on the internet where it will live forever.

That’s exactly what some of my friends were thinking. Say you’ve got a 1 W electricity source (thus a 2.3 W light output). You only actually need a photocell that is 1/2.3 = ~43.5% efficient in order to have perpetual, self-fed light. Any efficiency above that will effectively be an engine that converts heat into electricity.Note the significant difference here between this engine and normal engines. The normal conception of entropy is based on the assumption that you need a heat DIFFERENCE in order to convert head energy to any other form of energy (ie, you need a reason for heat to flow). However, this new engine would actually break that principle, because no matter how cold the LED is, powering it electrically would induce an endothermic process that would absorb what little heat was available and convert it to light. Suffice it to say, though I’m sure I’m missing some subtlety, it seems that this discovery disproves our classical conception of entropy. With enough of these, one could literally prevent the heat death of the universe.  [emphasis mine – LK]

Wow.  Saving the universe 30pW at a time.  Ingenious.

No, seriously.  The idea that this device violates the first and second laws of thermodynamics has every physics weirdo short-stroking it all over the place but there is no free lunch.  It either works or it doesn’t but don’t for a second run around thinking that thermodynamics is going to get turned on it’s ear.

Go smoke another bowl, dudes, and stay away from science.  Zero-point energy, crystals, and blue babies – that’s where it’s really at.

Our “classical conception” of entropy is safe.

Ok, I’m done now.

****

New word definition from Dr. Lemur:

Planic Attack – n. – The frenzied planning/fear response of management when finally recognizing the project-threatening technical issues extensively documented by engineering at all stages of the project.   Usage:  Management finally realized that they were selling the customer on what is essentially a perpetual motion device and had a planic attack and tried to formulate some sort of damage control.

If you can make a neater/tighter definition and example, I’d love to hear it, because mine is clunky.

****

I had the most irritating mother-in-law experience on Memorial Day.  For fear of disruption of harmony under our roof I will not relay the exact details other than to say that my parting words on the matter to my MiL were “Apology accepted, I understand your feelings, but in communicating them, your delivery sucked.”

Let’s just say that the situation would have tested anyone’s patience unless they were in a vegetative state or were recently lobotomized with a rusty icepick.

****

This is last week’s news but I can’t help fixate on the incongruencies…

On one hand the Kentucky and Arkansas primaries must’ve ended up how they did because of racism.  On the other hand, swing state voters appear to think (correctly) that Joe Biden is a total schmuck.

On the OTHER hand, could it be, just perhaps… put it in the background… could it be that Obama sucks as a president and people have every right to not like him and vote against him without being called racist?

****

I may add more to this later…

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National Savagery.

This is one of those brain metaphor things, where what I’m thinking is not going to be properly captured by writing without lots of trimming and re-reading so I’m going to fine-tune it throughout the evening.  Think of this one as a work-in-progress and don’t leap to judgment – ask me if something seems wrong-headed.  I’m known to **** things up at times.  Yes, it’s happened once or twice.

I listen to Michael Savage’s show as I drive home on some nights.  Honestly, some nights he just irritates the hell out of me because he’s got an even bigger ego than I do.

He had Jeff Kuhner guest-hosting last night and Kuhner was doing a big buildup to (savaging) Obama’s upcoming speech from Afghanistan.  Kuhner is just not my favorite radio host.  He has some fawning-over-Savage behaviors that annoy the hell out of me and actually make me embarrassed for him.  And while it is his right and his job to voice his opinion, he said a few things that were troubling.  Maybe I feel different about the subject matter now that it is a year later and am going to contradict what I said then.  I went back through old posts and didn’t find anything along the lines of tonight’s critique (I’m not fond of hypocrisy and hate it in myself) and so I’m cautiously venturing an opinion on this.

First, Kuhner was supportive of the notion that we should all have been dancing in the streets when Osama bin Laden was killed and made mention of people at ball games and other events cheering and dancing and drinking.

Isn’t that awful reminiscent of the Palestinians dancing in the street on 9/11 and Iraqis abusing and burning the bodies of four American contractors and then hanging them up in 2004?  Should we be publiclygleeful?  Or, upon news of the death of a vermin like ObL should we say in a very statesmanlike way “About time, good riddance, you evil pox on humanity”?

Do you see the difference?  I went out and bought two different newspapers the day ObL was erased.  Did I dance in the street and fire weapons in the air?  Uh, no.  Was I satisfied that the guy who purposely targeted innocent people was terminated with prejudice?  Yes.  Yes, I was.  Immensely satisfied, because a form of justice had been done.  There can be no denying that I thought it was fitting that his last moments were in fear.

Maybe it’s just a matter of decorum.  I don’t much care for Occupy idiots who get all hippy-dippy and love themselves when they crap in the street like they’re entitled in some way to act in that manner.  Tea Party folks on the other hand have been well-mannered and self-policing to a much higher degree.  Their relative actions speak for themselves even if many thumbsuckers and fence-sitters seem unable to rationally work through those stark differences.  Think of it as the contrast between receiving a kindergarden diploma vs. finishing a real degree, summa cum laude.  I don’t think I can stress that enough.

Second, Kuhner heaped scorn and coals on Obama for his personal acceptance of our troop’s heavy lifting as his own accomplishment in getting rid of ObL.  I agree with Kuhner, scorn and coals should be heaped on Obama’s head.  But then Kuhner said our soldiers deserve the public recognition and praise.

Well, look… if our SEALS were the type of guys that needed to be in the spotlight I truly doubt they’d be there in the first place.  I imagine that something as simple as a “Thank you for what you did” from their CiC and knowing that there are Americans who appreciate them would be adequate.  They did a good job.  There were some scary moments and they lost a helicopter but they went in – mission accomplished.  And the SEALS – as one – are perfectly within their rights to be pissed with Obama for his peacock strutting while he sat there looking like a proud toddler who has just had a bowel movement in a real potty.  The guy is nowhere near leadership material, the Democrat’s ludicrous ad with Bill Clinton’s glowing praise be damned.

But do the special ops guys want a ticker-tape parade and medals and real public recognition?  I’m kind of thinking not.  They are selected for their expertise in not being seen and getting sh*t done when no one else can do it – because you’ve done a good job when no one has noticed you were there while you were doing what you did.   Yes, we have other special forces that are as capable, and it is not my point to elevate one over another, because all of our special forces and armed forces deserve a lot of respect.

I’ve mentioned this before but I make it a point to try to say to every veteran I run into, at least once in my crossing paths with them, “Thanks.  Really.”  I made it a point to turn to my dad and say exactly that once I was old enough that there was no denying that I could only mean it because it stemmed from thought and experience, and sincere appreciation.  And I always mean it and I hope to hell it says enough.  I was a proud daddy when my little girl (Lemurita) went out in the 4th of July parade to personally thank one of the vets marching down the street.  I’d like to think it made his day, too.  I think it did.

I’m babbling.  It’s the hangover from the dry-erase marker sniffing all day, I’m sure.

****

One would think Stoaty at sweasel.com must’ve done this.  She’d do this kind of awesome.  But no, this was from the 50’s.  Fun to look at them, and scary.

Even the “Weasels Ripped My Flesh” line at the bottom smacks of Stoaty but it isn’t her.  Wow.

I found it because of Brockway at Cracked-dot-com.  Damn them.

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Product Identity Confusion.

Lamborghini making an SUV.

No, that is not an SUV, it is a FWIT (F***ing What Is That?).

This is like surgically altering a cat to be an alligator that is vegan.  It fails on every single level measurable to mankind.

****

William Kristol is not perfect but (a) I like him, and (b) I respect his opinion.  It’s no secret that Romney isn’t the guy I’d pick to be president but in a choice between him and Obama I’ll take Romney and dance in the streets (while still hoping for that giant asteroid strike, but still happier than I would otherwise be).

I do believe his take on what it will take to beat Obama.  Act like a president… like a LEADER.  He’s quite correct that to get down in the mud and poo-flinging trenches with the dems is a losing battle since they are much better at petty sh*t.

But if he allows the race to degenerate into name-calling and gotcha gimmicks, he could lose. Democrats are better than Republicans at the small and nasty stuff.  – William Kristol

I agree.  I have run into this firsthand with several liberals.  When you try to have an intellectual debate and they find themselves confronted with a well reasoned argument that they don’t like they storm away angrily and offended at your gall for your un-compassionate misanthropic world-view.  This happened one day at work as I discussed Global Warming with a liberal co-worker.  Every statement he uttered was a textbook bullet-point.  When he claimed that only 3% of scientists held views counter to AGW, I looked at him with utter disbelief and flat out told him that he needs to stop reading the propaganda and actually research rather than parrot off things that are completely false.  He then stormed away muttering “Well, maybe YOU don’t care about destroying your children’s world but I won’t do that to MY children.”

Hey, if he truly believes that, I can commend him on his principles and devotion to his children.  But I can also call him out for making arguments that are outlandish and supposedly are self-evident and self-supporting, needing no defense or foundation.

Update:  Climate Alarmist Calls for Burning Down Skeptic’s Homes

See the thought process there?  “Well, why not?  If they won’t listen to me, I have every right to burn down their homes.”   Lot of ego wrapped up in that broken toy.

So Romney needs to ignore every damn thing Obama says.  He needs to talk about what he will do and not once attack Obama.  He needs to be of the mindset that he can say something that cuts his opponent deeply and gives them pause about pulling such crap while staying classy and move right along to the important things.

He doesn’t have the luxury for getting bogged down in the childish antics of the buffoon that currently holds the office that I admire.  I once got to see Clinton speak and it was an honor to see the President, it was repulsive to see Clinton.  The two can co-exist.  I don’t know if I could pull it off so easily if Obama had been in that place at that time.  At least Clinton has brains.  He actually did know how to lead.  I disagreed with damn near everything he stood for but I’d take him over what we have now.

****

There are some things that are just so weird that when you try to dress it up and claim that the condition needs “acceptance” I don’t even consider the notion, such as with liberalism.  Also, phantom genitalia fall under that rainbow-colored umbrella of bizzarro-ness.  Thank you, FARK.

’I sometimes wake up thinking I have a penis…’

As do many men, then they either speak to their wives or they go to work.   (Joking about the first one)

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Quizzicality.

I am still not quite up to snuff.  It’s nothing bad, I am just taking less painkillers by pure choice and feeling the effects of post-surgery more.

I’m told to stop doing this as being all tensed up and such makes it take that much longer to heal but dammit I’m sick and tired of being drugged.  I know people pay good money for that but I value my brain.

Don’t you worry, I give in when I’ve got no other choice.  I’m a control freak.  What do you want to hear?

I did get out with Cruel Wife and toured her company.

Some roads around Detroit are better than I remember.  Some still suck ass, and those range from feeling like the cobblestones at the end of the Tour de France to feeling like a Hare Scramble in Baja, Mexico.

Slice it any way you like, Detroit roads are hell on neck fusions and it is a LONG drive.  On the ride out there I tensed up, gritted my teeth, made sudden hissing noises.  Sensing that it would be better to distract Cruel Wife and myself from these sounds and thoughts, I struck up a conversation.

LK:  Hey.

CW: What?

LK:  When I meet your new boss, can I screw with his head?

CW:  No.

LK:  Can I subtly push him off balance?

CW:  No.

LK:  Can I plant the seeds for screwing with his head the next time I meet him?

CW:  NO!  No no no no – NO.  Leave him alone.  Wait until you and I both know him better.

LK:  (Pouting)  Man, I enjoy messing with people’s heads.

CW:  I know you do, and so does he in an overt way.  You like to do it stealthily so they don’t get it at first…

LK:  And then, reveal it to them when it will have maximal impact.  Yes.  Yes, I do. 

LK:  (Pause while thinking about it.)  Huh huh huh.

(That’s the laugh women can’t do because they don’t have the right equipment.)

CW:  No, you cannot mess with his head.  Leave him alone.

Sensing it would be better to go back to tensing up, gritting my teeth, and making sudden hissing noises I started doing so.

About 30 long minutes later we had dim-sum with her boss and co-workers.  It was great.  I waddled out of there totally stuffed, loosened the neck brace a few buttons, steadied myself mightily with my walking stick, and we set off for the rest of the day.

Went by her company and got to see all the cool lab testing equipment and this one thing called a magnaflux.

You spray the part you want to look at with this solvent containing a crapload of colloidal magnetic particles.  Then you put the test part in this giant hoop and put a 2000A-5000A pulse through it with a *BANG*.  The part jumps (presumably to let you know that it is fully cooked) and then when you look at it under a black light you can see fluorescing cracks where the particles are aligned with the induced B-field.  It’s really quite cool.   It helps greatly if you believe in electrons when explaining the large-current part but if we just assume that the magnetic field was let out of a bottle of magnetism† then everyone walks away happy.

† Yes, I believe in electrons.  I just can’t see them so they kind of piss me off.  What can I say?  I was attacked by a clown as a child and my dad was an electrician, opening me up for getting the feces zapped out of me a few times.  The evil clown probably isn’t relevant but I thought I’d throw it in there.  Dad argued that it was my fault (sure, blame the victim) and I pointed my unburned fingers at the electrons which unsurprisingly didn’t show themselves any more, acting all innocent-ey.

Oh, the quiz part… Are you scientifically literate?

I got a 92% (missed 4).  I don’t feel too badly about it because the ones I missed had to do with planetary moons around gas giants (why clutter my brain with useless stuff that I can always go look up?), the whole “Pluto isn’t a planet” idiocy (like I give a sh*t), heaviest noble gas of which I never once used for anything (I’m partial to Helium, Xenon, Argon, Krypton, thank you), and one on cellular growth.   I have nothing to be ashamed of.

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Fads

Yes, I could say something about 9/11.  But there’s nothing I can say that isn’t already said many times over.   We were all angered and heartbroken.  I think many of us had thoughts of firebombing and cobalt-salting the middle east.  Scorched earth policies went through my head and to hell with anyone who said “Oh, but that would make you no better than them.”  I’m more than tired of that kind of person.

So quickly, thanks to the many heroes that day and sorrows to those who had their lives taken from them.   And may the fires of Hell burn a little bit hotter for the participants in a bombing that targeted innocent people.

*****

Those online fads.  You gotta love ’em, right?

Planking, Owling, and Batmanning is passe.

Now it is Fenceposting.

Planking involved having your picture taken while you laid out flat, Owling had people perched on high places, and Batmanning had people hanging upside down with their toes.   All were difficult to do and had people getting seriously injured when attempting to be the next coolest stunt performer.  But “Fenceposting” is far more challenging.

A group of junior-high school students claim to have started the new slowly growing fad last week.  They made a video that shows them standing upright like adults and carrying on face-to-face conversations with complete sentences.

It is considered extremely difficult by many, including those who are technically legally adult.  Most people opt for the orders-of-magnitude easier version which involves consumption of alcohol  (Google “panty-peeler” and “leg-spreader“, or go to Roger’s Profanisaurus † for examples of pillow-talk).

Some fear the side-effects could destroy the ability to text and tweet and lead to mature relationships.  There have been reports of students making friends with others based solely on getting to know the other person without friending or following others online.

A video posted by the young students has gone viral, with over 40 views and has inspired some to embrace meatspace life over online, or at least pursue a healthy balance.

“If you do a Google search there’s two articles (about the video), from Johnny Rottan (he’s a ninth-grader) and from my aunt Mimi. It’s definitely gone further than we thought it might,” says student Suzy Hildebrandt and seconded by student Cory Hackman.

† Note:  I don’t know what is on Roger’s Profanisaurus beyond the single page linked there, nor am I going to look.  I’m not responsible for other people’s pages.  Just sayin’, because some of the entries on the Profanisaurus make a prudent individual think these things.

****

Canadian not allowed into the US because of her “mental illness”.  If you don’t think that this will be a likely story all over the US if we move to Obamacare, then you are truly unable to perceive reality.

****

Paul Krugman needs to have the everloving stuffing beaten out of him.  And I mean that like I’ve never meant it before.

The Years of Shame

Is it just me, or are the 9/11 commemorations oddly subdued?

Actually, I don’t think it’s me, and it’s not really that odd.

What happened after 9/11 — and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not — was deeply shameful. Te atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue. Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify an unrelated war the neocons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons.

A lot of other people behaved badly. How many of our professional pundits — people who should have understood very well what was happening — took the easy way out, turning a blind eye to the corruption and lending their support to the hijacking of the atrocity?

The memory of 9/11 has been irrevocably poisoned; it has become an occasion for shame. And in its heart, the nation knows it.

I’m not going to allow comments on this post, for obvious reasons.

Yes, it’s pretty obviously why you wouldn’t allow comments.  Because you are a chickenshit bastard who wants to re-write history and engage in a little self-fellatio.

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Secondborn Children.

Update:  Coworker Black Lab on Meth got this at a local fair.   Here it is shown in my office about ready to take a crap on my desk.  A few nuts, bolts, and washers per crapload, which no one is going to notice amongst all the nuts, bolts, and washers on my desk already.

*****

Frankenboy as I may have mentioned before is a pretty high-end (functioning) autistic kid.  He has his mannerisms, some of which drives one nuts, some which are kind of cute, and some that leave you scratching your head.

But in other ways, he’s Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes.

I had a less-than-zero sleep last night and by 7:45am I was hearing the sounds of Cruel Wife rushing to get out the door.  I could hear her brushing hair, doing the makeup, and the pfffft of a quick shot of hair spray.

Still 3/4ths asleep I noted it and resolved to lay back down until when my alarms were set, at 7:59am and 8:03am (I have this thing about wanting prime numbers, no repeat numbers, and not liking increments of five in my alarm clock settings).

Some time later, I smelled hair spray – very strongly.  I threw the covers over my head while thinking “Jeez that is ridiculous”.  A minute later I threw the covers off my head to get some fresh air and gagged at the smell which was an order of magnitude worse.   Covers went back over my head and I said to myself “Damn, CW, that’s over the top.  Must be a bad hair day to rival Bill Clinton’s”.

A few minutes later I was looking for fresh air and it was just as bad – hair spray fumes were making stratified layers of haze across the room.  I closed my eyes and ducked under the covers again, resolving to get some more shut-eye.

The alarm clock went off.  I smacked it with my foot and it turned off the alarm.  I closed my eyes again and almost immediately the thing went off again, this time to a radio station, which told me that it was the second alarm.  I stomped on it with my foot and it, too, turned off.

At least the hair spray smell was abating a bit.  I went back under the covers and resolved to get up in a few minutes.

Fast-forward 37 minutes – I looked at the clock and realized I was late.  I leapt out of bed, got on my fuzzy robe, and realized that the sitter had already arrived and was on the couch reading her paper as I dashed to shower.  Did all the appropriate get-ready-for-work things, picked up all my pocket stuff (change, keys, smartphone), and realized I had no hair spray.  So I ran to the other bathroom where CW keeps hers and… she was out.  The can was gone and there was only some kiwi-scented (flavored?) gel stuff, which I was not going to use.

On the way to work I called her and said “So, you ran out of hairspray this morning, huh?”

“No, I have been running low but I still had a decent amount.”

And it dawned on both of us at the same time that Frankenboy must have imitated Dear Old Mom and hosed himself with spray to the point of exhausting every last bit of propellant and toxic hair spray glue that was left in the can.   Which means that everything in the house will be tacky for a while and that the cats may hork up next week’s hairballs tonight because of the aerosolized glue.

On the way out, Frankenboy said “I want to play on the Playstation.”  I told him “No, I have taken it away for a week, remember?”

He ran over and beat up the couch.   I told him that I understood that he was angry and that was ok, but he still doesn’t get the Playstation.   He looked at me and then beat up the couch again.   We repeated that once more and I told him to go to his room and be angry there.

He ignored me until I hit a count of “two” and then did it, and slammed his door.   Then I heard another door slam.  Then a third.

I thought “But their room only has two doors…?”

SLAM…. SLAM…. SLAM….

He was making his point to keep slamming the door until I fully understood That He Was Angry.

I went in and told him he was making the perfect case for losing the Playstation for another week or two.  That resulted in a major pouting session but by then I really had to go to work.

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Of Tickets and Getting Punched.

If you’ve been following here and there you know about my blunder, not having proof of insurance and proof of my registration in my truck.  (To Detroit Death Comes Astride His Pale Horse)

And you know how I ultimately have been fined $700.

With cursory examination we saw the paperwork saying how much I owed and decided to wait a bit – I was feeling lazy, less than enthusiastic, and in my mind payday was coming up and it made more sense to do it then.

I got another letter and this time it made mention of the fact that I never showed up and my tickets defaulted before I sent the letter.

Okay… first, I sent that letter on the second day after being ticketed (Sept 15), with proof that I had both items up to date and had all along.

Second, the judgment was made on October 13.  And “YOUR TICKETS ALREADY DEFAULTED BEFORE YOU SENT THE LETTER” was in bold type.

Well, that was peculiar.

So I called up the Clerk, who I will call Roz (not her real name).  I said “Roz, my name is Lemur King and I talked to you on the 14th of September, the day after I received my tickets.”

Roz pulled up the file on her computer.

“Yes, no proof of insurance and no proof of registration.”

“I’m confused, Roz, because I sent a letter the day after I talked to you, to Magistrate Ecks as you instructed, with proof that I had always had that paperwork and policy up-to-date, just not with me.  I want to understand what is going on here because $700 is a lot of money to me.  When I got the first stubs I thought it was judged based on my letter.  Then I got another one yesterday that says you got a letter but too late.”

“Well, it says it wasn’t received until October 8.”

Hell and damnation.  What am I going to do at this point, unload on this gal who did nothing to me?  Nah.

“Rats.  Is it entirely too late to do anything about this?  I didn’t know that it got there too late to be of any good.”

“You can show up here M-Tu-W at 8:30am and ask to go before a judge and explain the case – a judge is the only one who can change anything now.”

“Ok, thanks for your time and assistance, Roz.”

I hung up and hung my head in resignation.

Had I sent it certified mail, this wouldn’t be a problem!  My bad.  But WAIT A MINUTE!

I called Roz back up.

“Roz, it’s me, Lemur King again, and I’m sorry to have spaced this out earlier, but do you have the postmarked envelope still… or is it (gulp) gone?”

“After we talked I was thinking and went and pulled your file.  Your letter was received in a timely manner.  I’m going to put a note on this and give it to a judge.  Likely what he’ll do is re-set the case and review your letter and paperwork again.  If I don’t get back to you tomorrow or Monday, call me back, ok?”

“Thank you, Roz – you are the best.”

I could tell that she doesn’t get that kind of treatment very often because of the way she said “Have a nice day.”  She said it with sincerity.

Here’s the kicker.  We were just going to pay it and not contest it since we figured I was hosed by a cranky judge the first time around.  Never would have known something was amiss until I dug around.

How many people just pay these things and get nailed for huge sums of money because they are resigned to having to fight the system for every dime or assumed that the system worked?  This is the exact same thing with insurance companies – they live on your sufference of their behavior.

Luckily I found one of the few clerks willing to exercise initiative and free-thought.

I may still get screwed but at least I have a shred of hope.

****

I make no bones that I don’t like Juan Williams because of his very liberal attitudes.  I respect him, however, for having a brain.

But I totally support him with respect to NPR.  He was calling it as he sees it.

Surprising though, isn’t it, that totally apolitical and balanced NPR should take a politically-correct stance?

Juan also commented, “I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I’ve got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.”

I find this humorous in a way because we’re seeing the same response that whites normally get when they say “Hey, I feel [some_situation] is just not right” and are branded racist.  It gets old to have the racial/bigot card played on you for voicing a valid/legitimate disagreement.

More power to him on this topic.

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The Boy of the Cast Iron Alimentary Canal.

I love Pulp Fiction.  Laconic pup sent me a link to youtube movie that is a compilation of all snippets where the world “****’ is used in the movie Pulp Fiction.  If you are at work or have little kids, only play this if you have headphones.

Who the hell posted this or sent it to me recently?  Who came up with it?   I can just see Hobbes saying:

I been saying that sh*t for years. And if you heard it, that meant your ass. I never gave much thought to what it meant. I just thought it was some cold-blooded shit to say to a motherf*cker ‘fore I plunged a tooth in his ass. But I saw some shit this mornin’ made me think twice.

****

My son, who is four – named Frankenboy because his run-in with a several hundreds-of-pounds fountain last year that tried to crush his skull left him with a hell of a scar – has made me proud.

It all started when I brought home two bags of Doritos Second-Degree Burn chips.  I like them a lot.  They are not the most flavorful of chips but they have some flavor and I like them.  They are also hot enough that Cruel Wife won’t eat them ( based on the folks I know, she’s probably somewhere in the top 5 percentile in heat-tolerance) and Zoe-pup now fears them after eating half a bag one night.  To give you an idea, they don’t sell them in the big bags – they only sell them in single-serving bags.

I was sitting there with my fresh-made reuben sandwich – loaded with kraut, swiss cheese, dripping with dressing, and piled high with meat – and munching on these chips.

My boy was sitting to my left and I heard his little voice say “I want some chips, please.”

I said “No, buddy, these are hot and you wouldn’t like them.”

Just then I felt a puff of air on my hand as he was blowing on the chip to cool it off.

“Bud, these are spicy hot – they aren’t hot-hot.  They would hurt your mouth.”

More puffs of air wafted over my hand and little bits of chili powder dusted my reuben.

I tried again, figuring repetition would enhance understanding.  “Bud, they aren’t hot but they are spicy hot and they would hurt your mouth…”

Sayeth the boy, “I want some chips” and he reached over to pinch the chip to see if it was truly hot to the touch.

I looked at Cruel Wife resignedly, “You know, he’s just not going to get it unless he experiences it.”   She wearily nodded in agreement. “Let him have one.”

He took the chip, crammed half of it in his mouth, took three munches… and immediately grabbed his juice and drained the container by three-quarters many times faster than I thought a fluid could actually flow.  His eyes were open a bit more and he was sucking air.

“See, pal?  They’re spicy hot.”

He nodded and took another bite.  Then he grabbed Cruel Wife’s ice-water and drained it of two inches worth of water with efficiency that would make Dracula moan with admiration.

He nodded, glassy-eyed, as if to some unspoken wisdom – and then asked for another chip.  Still shaking my head I complied with his request.

Chomp… nom nom nom… crunch crunch crunch…

SLUUUUURRRRRRRRRRP.   SLUUUUURRRRRP. <burp> <excuse me>

“Can I have another chip please?”

Chomp… nom nom nom… crunch crunch crunch…

SLUUUUURRRRRRRRRRP.   SLUUUUURRRRRP. <burp> <excuse me>

I made up my mind that I just could not make up my mind as to whether I should be proud or write him off as an idiot.  Being a chili-head, I eventually opted for pride.

He ate three chips.

Twenty minutes later I hear a scream from the other room, “I NEED THE BATHROOOOOM!”   Apparently all that liquid must go somewhere.

Lest you think that I bullshitteth thee, take a look.

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Intellectually Erect.

Subtitled:  Gravity Sucks

Steamboat McGoo passed on a link to this paper.  Here’s the abstract:

On the Origin of Gravity and the Laws of Newton

Erik Verlinde

Starting from first principles and general assumptions Newton’s law of gravitation is shown to arise naturally and unavoidably in a theory in which space is emergent through a holographic scenario. Gravity is explained as an entropic force caused by changes in the information associated with the positions of material bodies. A relativistic generalization of the presented arguments directly leads to the Einstein equations. When space is emergent even Newton’s law of inertia needs to be explained. The equivalence principle leads us to conclude that it is actually this law of inertia whose origin is entropic.

Note the end of the abstract.  Where it says “The equivalence principle leads us to conclude that it is actually this law of inertia whose origin is entropic.”

I have always hated the non-explanation of inertia.  To me it makes no sense to not explain why something tends to move the way it does.  Every other thing in the universe tends towards entropy, why is the movement of a mass not behaving similarly?

I’m only ten pages into the paper but I’m having a blast reading it.

The reality?  Awful lots of “if we assume” arguments get used to build up to “first principles” and so I find my self at 11 pages saying to myself that while it’s fun and all it’s probably mostly B.S.  But I’ll finish it out anyway.  If nothing else it’s fun to entertain different ideas.

****

How badly can they miss the point?

“If this is all about surviving politically, then we’re missing the whole purpose of what we’re supposed to be doing… – Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd

In this case “surviving politically” entails doing the will of your constituents.  It entails trusting that the constituents are big boys and girls and can be allowed self-determination.  But apparently the elite of the elected aristocracy (no one else wants the damn job) don’t feel that voters should be allowed to have a say in matters.  That’s the lesson we take home from Reid, Pelosi, and Obama, who are content to keep the legislation from being open and transparent.

Lying liars.

****

Coffee remarks now?

The Rev. Al Sharpton on Monday said he was disturbed by condescending remarks reportedly made by former President Bill Clinton about Barack Obama during the 2008 campaign.

Sharpton was referring to a passage in the new book, “Game Change,” which recounts the conversation Clinton had with the late Sen. Ted Kennedy when he was trying to convince the liberal lion of the Senate to endorse his wife for president.

“A few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee,” Clinton told Kennedy, according to the book — a comment that angered Kennedy, who later endorsed Obama.

Sharpton, speaking on Fox News, defended Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid over a passage in the book in which he said Obama doesn’t have a “Negro dialect” unless he wants one. But the reverend would not give Clinton such a pass for his remark.

“I think that’s far more disturbing because this is someone seeking to stop Mr. Obama’s campaign and making a direct reference — I don’t know the context in which he said it — but that is far more disturbing to me than even the comments that were made by Mr. Reid,” Sharpton said.

But it’s ok for the first black president to say such things, right?  It’s only the first black president talking about the not-quite-but-soon second black president, right?

Sharpton admits he doesn’t know the context but opens his mouth anyway.  Will someone just shut the man up?

****

This guy needs to get a date.  Oh, that’s right, he couldn’t get one so he made one.

Cherry 3000.  Ok, Cherry 2462.  Ok, Kiwi 2300… no?  Kumquat 2100?  Uh…. Jackfruit 2020.  Running out of models we can drop down to here, folks.  Cherry 3000 she ain’t, is my point.

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