It is said that the civilized man seeks out good and intelligent company, so that by learned discourse, he may rise above the savage, and be closer to God. Personally however, I like to start the day with a total dickhead to remind me that I'm best. - Edmund Blackadder.
Hat tip to Sagacious Iconoclast for unearthing this bit of deep wisdom.
It would have been more timely if I’d noticed this before the election but better late than never. It’s a Kenny Rodgers parody that makes fun of the President so how could I not post it?
Philip Ransome is law abiding citizen. His van backfired.
When this van acted uppity, the Kansas City cops put a cap in it's ass. Is this the vehicular version of a no knock raid at the wrong address? Or just the high quality police work we've grown to expect from America's finest?
A neighbor (reasonably) thought it was a gunshot and (reasonably) called the police. The police (unreasonably) decided to re-enact an action movie. Fortunately the only fatality was the van.
Kansan City’s finest did the following:
Fortunately the police could barely hit the van and Mr. Ransome (being smaller than a van) was unharmed. If I made it up you wouldn’t believe me. If I saw it on TV it would be the Simpsons.
Mr. Ransome, who was innocently driving a van and got the A-Team treatment, is hereby added to my list of the Shafted.
Hat tip to View From The Porch for this heartening story of Kansas City’s professional and highly trained police officers. Additional hat tip to The Ultimate Answer to Kings who added my favorite DEA video to his commentary about the event. Click here to see it on the Kansas City Star because there’s no point in believing such galactic incompetence without second source verification. (Note: View From The Porch and The Ultimate Answer to Kings have been added to my blogroll.)
“Every single great idea that has marked the 21st century, the 20th century and the 19th century has required government vision and government incentive.”
Joe Biden, October 26, 2010
I want to know just two things. First; how can a grown man, who presumably has at least enough brain function to exceed vegetative or comatose, make such a statement? Second; who let him speak aloud without adult supervision?
Pull my finger.
I’d comment further on Al Gore’s Internet but I’ll have to stop because it’s dark. Apparently Tomas Edison’s private R & D funds couldn’t have made electric lights. Like reason and forethought they must not exist in Joe Biden’s world.
(Note: I refused to believe anyone would say such a dumbass thing without verification. Sadly, I found references in the New York Times and the Washington Post (in a delightful article by George Will) so it’s not a hoax. Amusingly, Biden predicted that the Democrats would win the House in the November 2nd elections in the same speech…way to swing for the bleachers brainiac.)
(Note: Photo from an unrelated blog article describing another of Biden’s brilliant statements in 2009. Click the link to dissuade you of any notion that Biden’s recent stupidity was a one off event.)
…and I haven’t bought any of the cheap plastic shit that stores squat and expel into the gaping mouths of well trained consumers nationwide. I did not go to the mall. Nobody cut me off in traffic. I did not see advertisements or read the fine print that explained that the good deal was not as good as I thought. Nobody dinged my car in the parking lot. No kids threw tantrums in my vicinity. I did not use a credit card. I did not eat shitty fast food. I did not pay sales tax. I’m an economic black hole and proud of it!
Now for a series of images to illustrate my attitude about Black Friday:
Photo 1: See this line? Don't be in it.
Photo 2: See this line. Don't be in it.
Photo 3: See this line. Don't be in it.
Of course the road from anxious flakes desperately queuing up in the pre-dawn snow of 2010 to buy a new iDevice to a soup kitchen in 1930 is a long and winding one. But I heartily recommend a policy of never ever standing in line to buy any physical object. In theory, if the object is priced so low that rational people stand in line at dawn to get it…then the price is irrational and likely an indication that your estimate of the object’s value is…horseshit. Conversely if the price is rational you can buy it in a reasonable time frame and standing around like groupie trying to score free concert tickets is irrational. There are exceptions of course; if you need more ammo after the zombie horde has somehow destroyed your stash/civilization/and your reloading press…well ok maybe prices could get elastic. Beyond that, if you’re waiting in line for a consumer good you’re either in Russia circa 1973 or a deluded yahoo. Don’t go quietly into that dark night!
The timing also galls me. What hideous monsters would encourage a materialistic orgy so near to the sacred Thanksgiving holiday? My family is safe and healthy, the larder is sufficiently stocked, the snow is pretty outside and it’s staying outside because our house is sufficiently (if barely) sound, the chickadees are chirpy as ever, and two playful mousers in training kittens are chewing happily on my shoelaces. This is what we give thanks for. The newest iCrap at Best Buy is unimaginably trivial.
Any man forced to venture to a mall today gets my full sympathies based on the assumption that it was simultaneously involuntary and painful. (Like passing a gall stone.) As for any man who went to the mall on Black Friday because they wanted to…sorry but you’re not a man. Just sayin’.
And because I didn’t say it yesterday…Happy Thanksgiving to all of us. We have much to be thankful for and shouldn’t let slip the opportunity to reflect on the transitory nature of fortune and celebrate the blessings which have come our way.
A liquor commercial featuring a man in a top hat and an exploding alligator. I can dig it.
A follow up commercial that tells the PETA crowd to fuck off? That turns the awesome dial to eleven.
Extra points for the memorable yet inexplicable phrase “gone off like a frog in a sock“.
Hat tip to Skippy’s List. Note: Photo links to Bundaberg…go there and reward their creativity by spending your rent money.
Apparently Russia was in Afghanistan for 110 months. Apparently the US is fast closing in on our 110 month “anniversary” with Afghanistan. It would seem a wise time for introspection about what that means.
I sniffed around the interwebs looking for both verification of this fact and possibly some reaction to it. Alas the press is still busy either dry humping their hand picked leader or engaged in diversion. Oh look it’s shiny…over here look this way…
Where was I? Oh yeah… History, repeating itself and all that. Or not?
Presumably Bush Jr. would have been hounded relentlessly for such an anniversary by a rabid press. Which wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing. For Obama I’m seeing nothing about Afghanistan but the same thing I’ve been seeing for years; rosy predictions for about 18 months in the future. The thing about 18 months in the future is that technically it never arrives and therefore it’s unaccountable.
So is this “anniversary” something or is it nothing?
(Note: The 103 month anniversary, marking a deployment longer than that of the U.S. in Vietnam, passed this June. I’m shocked that I never saw a story about that milestone either. What gives?)
I have a cold. It feels like a hybrid of the Bubonic Plague and Ebola. It came quickly. Saturday afternoon I was on a ladder installing a ceiling (and making good progress I might add). By dinner I was a train wreck. I’m using the cure perfected by the ages; sitting directly in front of a huge fire slowly cooking myself. Plus lots of sleep and liquids. My dog is worried about me but I’ll pull through.
Time to vent about germs (and/or viruses). Fuck them all! A healthy organism can do things; create, build, grow, etc… Pile on a cold (or whatever the hell I’ve got) and suddenly you’ve got a useless loser sitting on the couch doing nothing productive. Germs are useless. A hindrance. They’re friction and inefficiency which turn hard working people into bums. The sheer arrogance of something microscopic bringing low a full grown human is appalling. The bastards!
I won’t stand for it. A useless entity that hinders the process of a useful entity is a disservice to humanity and a blight on the planet. Things which hinder our health and wellbeing with their pestilent interference should be exposed to the light and destroyed. They should be hounded from our homes, our bodies, and our lives so that we can get back to work.
We should never tolerate things which harm an otherwise healthy host merely for their self perpetuation.
Today’s post may be a bit philosophical which is something I tend to avoid. Further, I’ve had a crazy morning and I haven’t finished my coffee yet so it may devolve into a mess. Stay with me as I try to say something worth reading. If it doesn’t make sense just chalk it up to smoke inhalation (I’ll explain later).
To begin; I’m too lazy to look up the source but a quote I like goes like this:
“In theory there’s not much difference between theory and practice. In practice the difference is huge.”
It’s not a deep koan that’ll solve all your problems but it is indeed true. Park that on a synapse somewhere and add my next idea.
“In many things there is a spectrum of options. You’re on that spectrum whether you like it or not. Where you want to be and where you are don’t necessarily match.”
I can’t define it precisely in a short post but (among other things) I tend to obsess about the spectrum of options defining how integrated my world is with society at large. At one end is the city dweller who’s so utterly enmeshed in society that they never control anything because the bus brings them to work, their boss tells them which cubicle they should sit in, and food is delivered by the guy who works for the pizza joint. At the other end is the much rarer person who tries to stay “off grid” from much of the world. It’s mostly a smattering of hippies, back to the landers, Amish types, bunker dwelling survivalists, and the occasional hermit. They need to fix the truck when it breaks or walk. They must feed their family when the corn crop sucks and slop the hogs at dawn. They wouldn’t have a pizza delivered if their life depended on it. I suppose I could express it more poetically but I’m not going to. Suck it up because I don’t do poetics until after the second pot of coffee.
I’m not writing today to suggest where you should be on that spectrum. That’s an individual decision and fodder for plenty of ranting later. What I want to say is that where you want to be on that spectrum is probably not where you are.
Happy commuters freed of the hassle of driving their own car enjoy a relaxing morning commute.
For example; if your car conks out and interrupts your commute you could look at it as a deviation between where you belong on the spectrum and where you are. You could be pissed off with the hassle of owning and maintaining a car and wish you could just take a bus. You could be pissed off with the mechanic reaming you whenever you need to maintain your car and wish you could fix it yourself. Different directions but reasonable solutions.
A self reliant commuter relishes the simple joy of screwing around with shorted out wiring harnesses by the side of the road.
If each person is somewhere on the spectrum and wants to be somewhere else what’s the solution to making the two match? Get off your ass and do it. Several years ago I was living in “the city built entirely on debt”. Lots of people liked that city but it was pissing me off. Now I’m living on my farm/homestead/dump and much happier. It’s not without drawbacks. There are days when it’s an uphill climb. Why? Because the theory of shifting on the spectrum smacks hard into the practice of actually doing it.
Which brings me to why I’m sitting in my smoke filled living room sipping coffee after a frenetic morning that could have been relaxing. Cold breezes blow through a scandalously open window (open windows in winter are verboten) and a fan assaults me with the noise of trying to shove smoke out the window. On the other hand, a cheery fire radiantly heats my vicinity and the coffee is good. Everything is mixed up and that’s just how it goes sometimes.
It was a crazy morning because I heat (mostly) with wood. Most people heat with electricity or various fossil fuels. Turn a dial on the wall and a magic metal box in the basement blows warm air. That’s what I used to do too. It’s effortless but I didn’t like where it put me on my imaginary spectrum.
A significant portion of modern industrial output is dedicated to keeping your house warm. Put on a damned sweater.
Every month I’d get my heating bill and feel like I’d been raped by Halliburton. I viscerally loathe watching my hard earned salary get wrapped into a check and sent to someone’s evil corporate headquarters.
This asshole doesn't need any more of my money. Screw him!
Now I burn wood. Wood I cut myself with my own saw from trees I own that grow on my land. Cool! I have a top flight woodstove. Most of the time it’s very efficient and makes the house feel charming and warm. This morning I screwed up. I was low on kindling but tried to start the fire anyway. Instead of generating the efficient draft I expect I got a reverse flow and smoke poured into the house. Yuck! I got my lesson (which I suppose I needed); “get off your ass and chop up enough kindling to do it right”.
When I talk about choices (like the woodstove) folks imagine a cheery fire that’s high efficiency, eco-green, carbon neutral, pretty and comfy, etc… That’s the theory.
Yeah...just like that.
They don’t imagine the day I skimp on kindling and make a mess. That’s practice.
Cut some damned kindling you lazy bastard!
And that’s why most people stay where they are on my imaginary spectrum. Because the theory is easy but practice is hard. On the other hand, I’ve fixed the error and the the fire is burning in it’s usual high efficiency manner. The house is warm, the smoke has cleared, and there will be no monthly heat bill.
That's right sucker! I call the shots and I've kicked your ass to the curb.
Every month without a bill is priceless. That’s the payoff for moving on the spectrum from where you are to where you want to be. It’s not without hassles but it’s better than spinning your wheels.
I’ve been using wordpress.com because I’m a cheap, unmotivated, lazy bastard. Unfortunately my posts are living somewhere in cyberspace (possibly somewhere near Jimmi Hoffa’s storage site) and I have the kind of slow connection that makes geeks all over the planet weep in despair. Sometimes I just plain disappear from the “net” for a while.
I’m used to it (actually I like it) but I’ve decided to fiddle with setting to try and back it up before the NSA blackballs my blog and deletes it. As usual I haven’t a clue how anything works. (Which has never stopped me before.)
If the blog goes down for a while be patient…I’m sure I’ll figure it out as soon as I get the smoke to stop coming out of my wifi hub.
