I got robbed by my truck driving school. Pennyless and without friends or family, I am without any power. But the guy decided to change the arrangement whereby I funded my training. I called him on it. He was enraged. He wanted to charge me for any and all make-up time I had. I reminded him that he was the source of my needing make-up time. Now he hates my guts because I pointed out to him just how crappy a human being he was. He kept griping about the money even as he raged at me about money. You gotta love people like that. But I believe I have no recourse.
Life sucks.
Oh,and I would like to thank my family for abandoning me. Robert F. Wiest, Avery
Bennet, Evan Sakamoto, and Wistan Bennet-Sakamoto, thank you all for dumping me. I never ever ever would have done the same to you.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Friday, April 22, 2011
Royally Mad
Wonderful. A "reality show" about idiots. Why is there such an appeal among both Brits and Americans to pay so much attention to idiots?
Who cares that there are three women who shriek and bounce around at the very mention of "the royal wedding"?
Are you watching this crap? Then you are a moron. You're wasting your time on garbage, when you could be investing your time on something good, and it takes just as much energy. Go Read a decent book. Put down the Twilight shit. Step away from the Avatar trash. Pick up the Iliad. Try reading The Inferno. See what good there is in Gulliver. You might even read the Bible. Open your mind and fill it with meaning instead of CRAP.
You come home tired after work? I'm so sorry. But your solution to getting a little rest is to watch this shit? I could slap you.
Widen your horizons. Stop drooling over someone else's life. Get one yourself.
Who cares that there are three women who shriek and bounce around at the very mention of "the royal wedding"?
Are you watching this crap? Then you are a moron. You're wasting your time on garbage, when you could be investing your time on something good, and it takes just as much energy. Go Read a decent book. Put down the Twilight shit. Step away from the Avatar trash. Pick up the Iliad. Try reading The Inferno. See what good there is in Gulliver. You might even read the Bible. Open your mind and fill it with meaning instead of CRAP.
You come home tired after work? I'm so sorry. But your solution to getting a little rest is to watch this shit? I could slap you.
Widen your horizons. Stop drooling over someone else's life. Get one yourself.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
The holodeck
WHY IS THE HOLODECK OPEN FOR PUBLIC SCRUTINY?
Barkley is easing his tensions and making himself happy with a few images of women from the ship adoring him and stroking his hair and holding his head in their laps. This is supposed to be his tension-release moment and he has to let everyone in the ship see him at it?
Who the hell could release their tension this way?
There should be a lock on the door. There should be an emergency override for that lock and anyone who overrides it would have to answer for it to an inquiry, but other than that, people should have some privacy in their fantasies.
Geordie got into a helluva lot of trouble once because he fantasized a famous scientist (yes, a woman) falling in love with him. He was using her program to solve problems and maybe it helped him to think of her assisting his thoughts. He could have thought the same thoughts without the holodeck, so why invade his privacy this way?
Stupid writers, that's all.
Barkley is easing his tensions and making himself happy with a few images of women from the ship adoring him and stroking his hair and holding his head in their laps. This is supposed to be his tension-release moment and he has to let everyone in the ship see him at it?
Who the hell could release their tension this way?
There should be a lock on the door. There should be an emergency override for that lock and anyone who overrides it would have to answer for it to an inquiry, but other than that, people should have some privacy in their fantasies.
Geordie got into a helluva lot of trouble once because he fantasized a famous scientist (yes, a woman) falling in love with him. He was using her program to solve problems and maybe it helped him to think of her assisting his thoughts. He could have thought the same thoughts without the holodeck, so why invade his privacy this way?
Stupid writers, that's all.
Saturday, April 16, 2011
"The Good Book"
This is a new publication written by A.C. Grayling, UK philosopher.
The Good Book: The Humanist Bible
My understanding of humanism is that everyone is free to be human and to make up their own values and to change those values at will. They often brag about not needing anyone or any institution that will tell them what to think. The younger humanists sneer at people who believe in God and refer to their object of worship as the Flying Spaghetti Monster or other pejoratives like "space fairies".
Introducing a book to "tell other people what to think" roundly violates this philosophy.
Of course, Grayling is telling the rest of the world what humanists believe, not ordering humanists to think or to behave in a certain way. The same is true of the Bible; it isn't telling you what to think. It's putting forth its worldview and either you agree or disagree, the same as Grayling's "The Good Book".
The humanist church (a Unitarian-Universalist church) I attended was intensely focused on "We're too smart to need to be told [by the Bible] what to think." If they took that criticism seriously, they now have to apply the same criticism to this book as well.
That is, if they want to be consistent.
The Good Book: The Humanist Bible
My understanding of humanism is that everyone is free to be human and to make up their own values and to change those values at will. They often brag about not needing anyone or any institution that will tell them what to think. The younger humanists sneer at people who believe in God and refer to their object of worship as the Flying Spaghetti Monster or other pejoratives like "space fairies".
Introducing a book to "tell other people what to think" roundly violates this philosophy.
Of course, Grayling is telling the rest of the world what humanists believe, not ordering humanists to think or to behave in a certain way. The same is true of the Bible; it isn't telling you what to think. It's putting forth its worldview and either you agree or disagree, the same as Grayling's "The Good Book".
The humanist church (a Unitarian-Universalist church) I attended was intensely focused on "We're too smart to need to be told [by the Bible] what to think." If they took that criticism seriously, they now have to apply the same criticism to this book as well.
That is, if they want to be consistent.
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Police under fire for pepper spraying 8-year-old boy
A little kid age 8, who actually presents as a pretty nice, well-meaning kid, who knows he has problems controlling himself, exploded at his teachers and besides hitting and spitting and raging at them, also told them, "I'm going to kill you." Thus, when the police arrived, the teachers were hiding, in fear for their lives, and the police, also afraid of whatever might have happened or might be ready to happen, hit him with pepper spray.
The mother and grandmother assure us they want to help the boy with his behavior problem, just can't understand what makes him act like this, checked him into a behavior modification program, and remain baffled that he hasn't been able to improve himself and get the problem under control. And their response to his problems don't seem to include any attempt to make excuses for him. No "his father teased him" or "He's the victim of an oppressive society;" none of that.
Aidan tells us, "I want to be a marine, that's why I'm trying to handle it. But sometimes my body just forces me."
Okay, I think these well-meaning, good-hearted people have a problem. They do not intend at all to make flimsy excuses for this boy's bad behavior, but they don't know how they're covering for him.
Let me present an example from Dr Laura. The caller has a problem, it's his temper and he's tired of losing his. She comes back at him with, "Sir, have you ever hit a cop?" "No, of course not." "So you DO have self-control when the consequences are serious enough." The caller cannot disagree.
Remembering this, I looked at my own children. They fought constantly and all three of them got violent pretty often. For years I tried to terrify them by screaming at them. Occasionally either I or their father would get out a fairly stout yardstick and hit them with it. We gave them times-outs, we did everything everyone else ever recommended. None of it ever worked.
Finally I had an idea: a punishment that was immediate, and so disgustingly distasteful they'd know they were being punished. "From now on, whoever hits his brother, no matter how mean the other one has been, you're cleaning the bathroom."
The eldest one was most prone to hitting. It didn't take long for him to lose control and slug one of his brothers. I had already shown all of them how to clean the bathroom, so I only had to march him to the doorway and snarl.
He did it again a few days later, and a few more times, but by the end of one month, he had learnt to control his temper
The punishment was obviously meaningful, and so thoughts of how bad it would be to hit came to rule the actions of this boy.
I'd strongly recommend all parents to consider this. Or make them pick up dog poop in the back yard. But skip the "you're grounded" junk. Or the "black marks" or "taking away one of your gold stars." They're either not immediate enough, or they're not icky enough.
The mother and grandmother assure us they want to help the boy with his behavior problem, just can't understand what makes him act like this, checked him into a behavior modification program, and remain baffled that he hasn't been able to improve himself and get the problem under control. And their response to his problems don't seem to include any attempt to make excuses for him. No "his father teased him" or "He's the victim of an oppressive society;" none of that.
Aidan tells us, "I want to be a marine, that's why I'm trying to handle it. But sometimes my body just forces me."
Okay, I think these well-meaning, good-hearted people have a problem. They do not intend at all to make flimsy excuses for this boy's bad behavior, but they don't know how they're covering for him.
Let me present an example from Dr Laura. The caller has a problem, it's his temper and he's tired of losing his. She comes back at him with, "Sir, have you ever hit a cop?" "No, of course not." "So you DO have self-control when the consequences are serious enough." The caller cannot disagree.
Remembering this, I looked at my own children. They fought constantly and all three of them got violent pretty often. For years I tried to terrify them by screaming at them. Occasionally either I or their father would get out a fairly stout yardstick and hit them with it. We gave them times-outs, we did everything everyone else ever recommended. None of it ever worked.
Finally I had an idea: a punishment that was immediate, and so disgustingly distasteful they'd know they were being punished. "From now on, whoever hits his brother, no matter how mean the other one has been, you're cleaning the bathroom."
The eldest one was most prone to hitting. It didn't take long for him to lose control and slug one of his brothers. I had already shown all of them how to clean the bathroom, so I only had to march him to the doorway and snarl.
He did it again a few days later, and a few more times, but by the end of one month, he had learnt to control his temper
The punishment was obviously meaningful, and so thoughts of how bad it would be to hit came to rule the actions of this boy.
I'd strongly recommend all parents to consider this. Or make them pick up dog poop in the back yard. But skip the "you're grounded" junk. Or the "black marks" or "taking away one of your gold stars." They're either not immediate enough, or they're not icky enough.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Frisians?!
The draft horse was invented not to pull heavy wagons or ploughs, but to carry a fully armored knight into battle and not tire during the fight. Thus you'd see Percherons or Belgians or Frisians under their knights during the eras of mail and plate. But knights had gave up on plate when it couldn't stop a bullet and they then went light, with cloth, and that meant their horses could be bred for speed.
England saw horses imported bearing names like "barb" and "turk" and "Arabian", sleek, light, and fast, and the Thoroughbred breed was founded.
Mr Darcy never would have sat on a thick, heavy-set, large-hoofed mount, no matter how deliciously thick its mane and forelock were. He would have ridden a Thoroughbred. Everyone rode Thoroughbreds. The mane and forelock were often trimmed anyway, and the thick tails would have caught in the traces and trappings of a carriage; thus the tails would have been docked to 8" at most. And the skinny little legs of the thoroughbred, if they ever had extra hair on them, would have been shaved away.
Hollywood has fallen in love with the Frisian breed. They are quite beautiful. They're all dark, therefore easy to match. They have these lush manes and tails and their lower legs are covered with a great deal of hair. Yet while they are large and built very powerfully, they are still lighter than the draft breeds we usually see, which makes it easy for Hollywood to pretend that they're not. And that's why they're putting these black and near-black beauties everywhere they can. But they're completely out of place. Lord Nelson's coachman never would have hitched Frisians to his carriage. Mr Darcy wouldn't have had a Frisian to ride around the grounds of Pemberly.
Put Mr. Darcy on the only breed he would ever have ridden--the Thoroughbred. And to pull his coach--more Thoroughbreds, most likely "matched greys" which were pretty popular.
England saw horses imported bearing names like "barb" and "turk" and "Arabian", sleek, light, and fast, and the Thoroughbred breed was founded.
Mr Darcy never would have sat on a thick, heavy-set, large-hoofed mount, no matter how deliciously thick its mane and forelock were. He would have ridden a Thoroughbred. Everyone rode Thoroughbreds. The mane and forelock were often trimmed anyway, and the thick tails would have caught in the traces and trappings of a carriage; thus the tails would have been docked to 8" at most. And the skinny little legs of the thoroughbred, if they ever had extra hair on them, would have been shaved away.
Hollywood has fallen in love with the Frisian breed. They are quite beautiful. They're all dark, therefore easy to match. They have these lush manes and tails and their lower legs are covered with a great deal of hair. Yet while they are large and built very powerfully, they are still lighter than the draft breeds we usually see, which makes it easy for Hollywood to pretend that they're not. And that's why they're putting these black and near-black beauties everywhere they can. But they're completely out of place. Lord Nelson's coachman never would have hitched Frisians to his carriage. Mr Darcy wouldn't have had a Frisian to ride around the grounds of Pemberly.
Put Mr. Darcy on the only breed he would ever have ridden--the Thoroughbred. And to pull his coach--more Thoroughbreds, most likely "matched greys" which were pretty popular.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Does Hollywood have just ONE bird call in its library?
You've seen hawks on McGyver. They always screech, the call is extremely familiar. One note, a bit raspy, starting at G above middle C, and then dropping a couple of notes, lasting about one second.
They use this call for the red-tailed hawks they love so much to use. They also use this call for larger hawks. Then I saw them using this call for bald eagles. Now I'm seeing them use this call for vultures ?!?!?!?!? What the hell!
So stupid. Sooooo stupid.
They use this call for the red-tailed hawks they love so much to use. They also use this call for larger hawks. Then I saw them using this call for bald eagles. Now I'm seeing them use this call for vultures ?!?!?!?!? What the hell!
So stupid. Sooooo stupid.
Monday, March 7, 2011
TOTUS
That's the Teleprompter that Obama uses, the Teleprompter of the United States. To some people it looks like a crutch and a few people laugh about it.
To liberals is seems perfectly natural for him to be so heavily reliant on the thing, certainly it's nothing to joke about, and only jerks would make fun of POTUS over the TOTUS.
Does anyone remember the vicious attacks against Reagan for using a teleprompter? He was called an idiot or at best a simpleton for using it. Why isn't use of the teleprompter proof that Obama is an idiot and a simpleton?
Ah, our dear, loving Left wing.
To liberals is seems perfectly natural for him to be so heavily reliant on the thing, certainly it's nothing to joke about, and only jerks would make fun of POTUS over the TOTUS.
Does anyone remember the vicious attacks against Reagan for using a teleprompter? He was called an idiot or at best a simpleton for using it. Why isn't use of the teleprompter proof that Obama is an idiot and a simpleton?
Ah, our dear, loving Left wing.
Every clue is not a lead.
"Every clue is not a lead."
This line says that the set of all clues does not include as a subset nor as an intersecting set those things which belong to the set of leads.
This is patently not true. The set of a clues does indeed intersect with the set of all leads. There are some leads in the set of all leads which are not included in the set of all clues.
The sentence should read, "Not every clue is a lead." This sentence isn't even less dramatic or less intelligent than the original. The original is just dumb but so many Americans are guilty of this kind of wording.
"Bob, you have to understand, you can't paint your living room pink. Everyone doesn't like pink." They mean that there are a lot of people who don't like pink, but they have said that every person doesn't like pink. There is nothing wrong with saying it correctly, "not everyone likes pink." It's even the same number of words.
This line says that the set of all clues does not include as a subset nor as an intersecting set those things which belong to the set of leads.
This is patently not true. The set of a clues does indeed intersect with the set of all leads. There are some leads in the set of all leads which are not included in the set of all clues.
The sentence should read, "Not every clue is a lead." This sentence isn't even less dramatic or less intelligent than the original. The original is just dumb but so many Americans are guilty of this kind of wording.
"Bob, you have to understand, you can't paint your living room pink. Everyone doesn't like pink." They mean that there are a lot of people who don't like pink, but they have said that every person doesn't like pink. There is nothing wrong with saying it correctly, "not everyone likes pink." It's even the same number of words.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Republicans finally get a clue
Not that I ever liked what Democrats do. Ramming a bill through at two in the morning, which time there are few of the opposition in attendance, is a disgusting and childish way to get legislation passed. But you have never ever ever ever ever heard ONE SINGLE Democrat criticize Congressional Democrats for doing it. What's more, no Democrat has ever, to my knowledge, claimed that a bill so passed was less legitimate than one passed in the civilzed and traditional manner.
So why are they now shouting "Shame! Shame!" at Republicans? How dare they?
Will they be held to account for their hypocricy? Does anyone think they will receive hate mail from people claiming to be Democrats but surreptitiously damning their behavior as evil?
Don't hold your breath!
Meanwhile, I can't say I like what the republicans did, but how else were they going to deal with the fleebaggers?
Which brings up another issue. Who will criticize the fleebaggers for running from the vote? Or any of the other several instances when democrats fled from a vote so that it couldn't be held. Again, don't hold your breath.
Oh, and I have a suggestion for legislatures all across the country: pass laws that will make it possible to get bills passed even if the opposition bails out.
Editing to add:
Mary Magdalen Moser, daughter of a former Wisconsin "top democrat" (possibly the party leader in WI? I missed hearing her father's name), is angry about the missing legislators and is speaking up on this issue. She calls what they're doing "cheating", and says that just because you don't like an issue doesn't mean you run away from it. Bless her heart!
So why are they now shouting "Shame! Shame!" at Republicans? How dare they?
Will they be held to account for their hypocricy? Does anyone think they will receive hate mail from people claiming to be Democrats but surreptitiously damning their behavior as evil?
Don't hold your breath!
Meanwhile, I can't say I like what the republicans did, but how else were they going to deal with the fleebaggers?
Which brings up another issue. Who will criticize the fleebaggers for running from the vote? Or any of the other several instances when democrats fled from a vote so that it couldn't be held. Again, don't hold your breath.
Oh, and I have a suggestion for legislatures all across the country: pass laws that will make it possible to get bills passed even if the opposition bails out.
Editing to add:
Mary Magdalen Moser, daughter of a former Wisconsin "top democrat" (possibly the party leader in WI? I missed hearing her father's name), is angry about the missing legislators and is speaking up on this issue. She calls what they're doing "cheating", and says that just because you don't like an issue doesn't mean you run away from it. Bless her heart!
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Top Gear
One of the things I like most about this show is the way the fellows keep making fun of Global Warming.
"It's the coldest winter ever recorded [at suchandso site], thanks to global warming."
Ha ha.
The first claims about human-driven climate change began in the Sixties (haha, when else would anything that stupid have started?) when a steady drop in temperatures had been observed for the previous two decades. That was when the great global climate hysteria began. "The planet is going to freeze," they wailed.
As for myself, I had grown up in the Sixties. I taught myself to read at the age of two (just by "picking it up" and learning the rules), so I was an avid reader from a very young age. Almost all my education came at home, years before I was exposed to it in school, hence my name, Autodidact. I skipped two grades in school and still found myself to be ahead of the other kids, but since I refused to do homework in subjects I already knew, I was a horrible student and never learned to discipline my use of time.
One of my favorite books was a Golden Books publication (not "Little Golden Books") on geology and geography. It discussed rocks and the construction of the earth from the core on outward, volcano morphology, fossils, the ancient ages of the planet, and on and on. This was a large book, around 8 x 10, a couple of hundred pages long, written I think at a middle school level, loaded with information and good pictures. If you home school, get that book for your kids and you won't need any other Earth Science books. If you think they should have Earth Science at a high school level, skip the high school texts and send them to the local community college to take introductory Earth Science.
Published around 1964, it came out when the theory on plate tectonics was somewhat new; it also mentioned glaciers and the ice ages. Their thesis was, "The most recent ice age ended only ten thousand years ago, so the earth will continue to get warmer and warmer till the next ice age begins in about fifty thousand years."
From this I learned at age 10 to think of global temperatures in terms of tens of thousands of years. Anything less than that was a pitifully short-sighted. Ten years? forty years? even a hundred or five hundred years? What a joke!
I ignored politics around the time I came of age. Not because I didn't want to know anything but because I didn't bother with the main sources of information. As a seventeen-year-old living on her own, I was too poor to subscribe to newspapers or magazines. I didn't watch TV because I had given mine away. But in 1974 I entered college at the advanced age of 21 and was inundated with political information. It all came from the left. As enlightened human beings, we didn't want to hear anything the evil right wing had to say. They were, after all, filthy, racist bastards who were rich as hell and wanted to keep it all for themselves. Who could listen to such demons?
I'm not joking. We did think that way, if you can call making conclusions of false stereotypes "thinking". We believed that our beliefs were difficult but kind-hearted and well-meaning, because our intentions were to do the most good to the most people. Holding these beliefs made us the good people, and opposing our beliefs meant the opponent was bad, or worse, was evil. That's the most we needed to know. To think any deeper than that, and justify what we stood for, or to explain it to one another, was absurd. Therefore we had no apologetic.*
(*If you don't know the word, it means "offering an explanation for what you believe." It's a good word, write it down.)
We were suckers for social issues. For example, we had been told by our hysterical teachers that both Russia and the U.S. were going to unleash nuclear holocaust on one another and we would all die from radiation poisoning. Not everyone in America believed this, but a lot of the Left sure did. Introduce any idea, frame it as a crisis, a desperate situation needing a rescuer, and instantly a large percentage of us would come running, singing "Here am I, Lord, use me!" because it was the good thing to do. The saviors of the world, we were.
In the Seventies the issue of the day was Global Cooling. Some feared the global cooling would be caused by Nuclear Winter as caused by all the shading ash those nukes were going to cause when they all went off together. Others just assumed that all the dirt we were pumping into the air was going to shade the surface of the planet enough to let it cool. Many figured we were going to destroy the ozone layer (do school children get taught about that today?). In any scenario they came up with, it was an immediate disaster needing immediate remedies.
This endured right into the Eighties. I remember around 1998 finding a certain book listed on amazon.com titled, "The Coming Global Winter (and what you can do about it)" published in 1978, but the author's name I have forgotten. Right next to it was "Coming Global Warming* (and what you can do about it)" It was published in 1991 by the same author. (*I have to admit I have forgotten the exact title, "warming" could have been "thermal holocaust" or "heat disaster" for all I know; regardless, it was about AGW.)
Not one of these people has the depth of knowledge or the ability to see a larger picture, both of which are needed to understand climate change. Of course the climate of planet earth changes. It always has changed. And of course for the last 100 years it has changed a tiny bit. So what? The average temperature of the earth could climb five degrees C and you still wouldn't have a global disaster. Our planet has been a lot warmer and for a longer time than a puny hundred years in the past. Crocodiles once walked on Greenland.
Where do we even get the idea that we have the right (even if we could) to force the Earth to be cooler than it wants to be, if not from human chutzpa? The same source tells us we could change the earth on such a scale. From my experience, it is beyond the scope even of a very powerful human brain to fathom just how much energy goes into a common earthquake or a cold front, never mind turning a hurricane to some new direction or causing the earthquake at a certain time.
But don't underestimate the skill of the Left to change their minds at the drop of a hat and re-define any debate in any way they choose. They never meant JUST global warming, they meant that our actions are changing global climate patterns and making summer and winter more severe, hence "global climate change".
Baloney.
The world has USUALLY been warmer than it is now. We are pouring a lot of CO2 into the atmosphere, but is it more than the trees and algae can convert back to O2 ? Is having less than 1% of the atmosphere as CO2 bad for the status quo? Venus has a 100% CO2 atmosphere and is hotter than it should be, when mathematically considering the amount of sunlight that falls on its surface. But does that mean that a 1%-CO2 atmosphere is also a greenhouse?
And look what fools our pro-AGW lobby are. After denying for 20 years that a century of temperature readings was meaningless, suddenly such short-term temperature variations ARE irrelevant and the bigger picture DOES count.
And they're still belitting and eviscerating the naysayers who have always maintained that the big picture is what counts.
"It's the coldest winter ever recorded [at suchandso site], thanks to global warming."
Ha ha.
The first claims about human-driven climate change began in the Sixties (haha, when else would anything that stupid have started?) when a steady drop in temperatures had been observed for the previous two decades. That was when the great global climate hysteria began. "The planet is going to freeze," they wailed.
As for myself, I had grown up in the Sixties. I taught myself to read at the age of two (just by "picking it up" and learning the rules), so I was an avid reader from a very young age. Almost all my education came at home, years before I was exposed to it in school, hence my name, Autodidact. I skipped two grades in school and still found myself to be ahead of the other kids, but since I refused to do homework in subjects I already knew, I was a horrible student and never learned to discipline my use of time.
One of my favorite books was a Golden Books publication (not "Little Golden Books") on geology and geography. It discussed rocks and the construction of the earth from the core on outward, volcano morphology, fossils, the ancient ages of the planet, and on and on. This was a large book, around 8 x 10, a couple of hundred pages long, written I think at a middle school level, loaded with information and good pictures. If you home school, get that book for your kids and you won't need any other Earth Science books. If you think they should have Earth Science at a high school level, skip the high school texts and send them to the local community college to take introductory Earth Science.
Published around 1964, it came out when the theory on plate tectonics was somewhat new; it also mentioned glaciers and the ice ages. Their thesis was, "The most recent ice age ended only ten thousand years ago, so the earth will continue to get warmer and warmer till the next ice age begins in about fifty thousand years."
From this I learned at age 10 to think of global temperatures in terms of tens of thousands of years. Anything less than that was a pitifully short-sighted. Ten years? forty years? even a hundred or five hundred years? What a joke!
I ignored politics around the time I came of age. Not because I didn't want to know anything but because I didn't bother with the main sources of information. As a seventeen-year-old living on her own, I was too poor to subscribe to newspapers or magazines. I didn't watch TV because I had given mine away. But in 1974 I entered college at the advanced age of 21 and was inundated with political information. It all came from the left. As enlightened human beings, we didn't want to hear anything the evil right wing had to say. They were, after all, filthy, racist bastards who were rich as hell and wanted to keep it all for themselves. Who could listen to such demons?
I'm not joking. We did think that way, if you can call making conclusions of false stereotypes "thinking". We believed that our beliefs were difficult but kind-hearted and well-meaning, because our intentions were to do the most good to the most people. Holding these beliefs made us the good people, and opposing our beliefs meant the opponent was bad, or worse, was evil. That's the most we needed to know. To think any deeper than that, and justify what we stood for, or to explain it to one another, was absurd. Therefore we had no apologetic.*
(*If you don't know the word, it means "offering an explanation for what you believe." It's a good word, write it down.)
We were suckers for social issues. For example, we had been told by our hysterical teachers that both Russia and the U.S. were going to unleash nuclear holocaust on one another and we would all die from radiation poisoning. Not everyone in America believed this, but a lot of the Left sure did. Introduce any idea, frame it as a crisis, a desperate situation needing a rescuer, and instantly a large percentage of us would come running, singing "Here am I, Lord, use me!" because it was the good thing to do. The saviors of the world, we were.
In the Seventies the issue of the day was Global Cooling. Some feared the global cooling would be caused by Nuclear Winter as caused by all the shading ash those nukes were going to cause when they all went off together. Others just assumed that all the dirt we were pumping into the air was going to shade the surface of the planet enough to let it cool. Many figured we were going to destroy the ozone layer (do school children get taught about that today?). In any scenario they came up with, it was an immediate disaster needing immediate remedies.
This endured right into the Eighties. I remember around 1998 finding a certain book listed on amazon.com titled, "The Coming Global Winter (and what you can do about it)" published in 1978, but the author's name I have forgotten. Right next to it was "Coming Global Warming* (and what you can do about it)" It was published in 1991 by the same author. (*I have to admit I have forgotten the exact title, "warming" could have been "thermal holocaust" or "heat disaster" for all I know; regardless, it was about AGW.)
Not one of these people has the depth of knowledge or the ability to see a larger picture, both of which are needed to understand climate change. Of course the climate of planet earth changes. It always has changed. And of course for the last 100 years it has changed a tiny bit. So what? The average temperature of the earth could climb five degrees C and you still wouldn't have a global disaster. Our planet has been a lot warmer and for a longer time than a puny hundred years in the past. Crocodiles once walked on Greenland.
Where do we even get the idea that we have the right (even if we could) to force the Earth to be cooler than it wants to be, if not from human chutzpa? The same source tells us we could change the earth on such a scale. From my experience, it is beyond the scope even of a very powerful human brain to fathom just how much energy goes into a common earthquake or a cold front, never mind turning a hurricane to some new direction or causing the earthquake at a certain time.
But don't underestimate the skill of the Left to change their minds at the drop of a hat and re-define any debate in any way they choose. They never meant JUST global warming, they meant that our actions are changing global climate patterns and making summer and winter more severe, hence "global climate change".
Baloney.
The world has USUALLY been warmer than it is now. We are pouring a lot of CO2 into the atmosphere, but is it more than the trees and algae can convert back to O2 ? Is having less than 1% of the atmosphere as CO2 bad for the status quo? Venus has a 100% CO2 atmosphere and is hotter than it should be, when mathematically considering the amount of sunlight that falls on its surface. But does that mean that a 1%-CO2 atmosphere is also a greenhouse?
And look what fools our pro-AGW lobby are. After denying for 20 years that a century of temperature readings was meaningless, suddenly such short-term temperature variations ARE irrelevant and the bigger picture DOES count.
And they're still belitting and eviscerating the naysayers who have always maintained that the big picture is what counts.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Columbia U
Wow, is it not amazing what Columbia is doing for the horizons of its stupid students?
Universities are supposed to be doing better than this. We teach you to "understand" ther culure, but dare to have a dissenting opinion right here in our own culture, and watch out.
Heckling speakers? I wouldn't eve heckle an idiot like Jimmy Carter. Or Al Gore, come to think of it. And I can't imagine a guest speaker who has less to offer than those two buffoons--in fact, I think what they've been saying is genuinely destructive--but I sure as hell wouldn't try to shout either of them down and keep them from being heard.
Universities are supposed to be doing better than this. We teach you to "understand" ther culure, but dare to have a dissenting opinion right here in our own culture, and watch out.
Heckling speakers? I wouldn't eve heckle an idiot like Jimmy Carter. Or Al Gore, come to think of it. And I can't imagine a guest speaker who has less to offer than those two buffoons--in fact, I think what they've been saying is genuinely destructive--but I sure as hell wouldn't try to shout either of them down and keep them from being heard.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Dog breeders
I love dogs. I always have. I love cats, too, but while cats can be friendly and even affectionate, it's petty generally held that their love is a different kind of love from what dogs pour out. As one poet put it, in the words of the cat: "...And if I thought for a moment the lady next door would feed me one grain more than you do, I'd be out of here so fast your head would spin."
Dog love, on the other hand, is mushy, unquestioning, unconditional, nonjudgemental, and constant. So when I was a young bride, my husband and I decided we wanted a dog.
We scoured the papers looking for an inexpensive dog and didn't have a whole lot of luck. There were dozens of pit bulls, doberman pinschers, chihuahuas, golden retrievers, german shepherds (YES, DAMMIT, IT'S SHEPHERD, NOT SHEPARD), and poodles.
But that posed a problem. Ever since my mother bought and sold a few poodle puppies to supplement the family income, I have been leery of the most popular breeds. At the tender age of eight I had learnt that people who know nothing about breeding, genetics, or dog husbandry but who happened to have an ugly, displastic, pet-quality bitch at home would get the brilliant idea to mate her to the ugly, dysplastic dog up the street. Of course the 12 puppies the poor bitch gave birth to were going to make them rich rich rich! Sadly, usually nine of those puppies end up in the pound, posing for the ASPCA Sadness Shots for their next ad. A few of them get adopted and half of those end up back in the cycle of get adopted, breed, pass on your very bad genes, send the puppies to the pound.
Half the dog owners around here are engaged in this irresponsible crap. Four months ago the eldest daughter adopted a miniature poodle that was one of a litter of four. Here eyes run, her ears flop open, her legs are so long (very unusual for a poodle to have over-long legs, usually they're too short and look like furry dachshunds) her legs are so long she looks like one of the stilt walkers in the Mardi Gras parade. Her coat, instead of being a good, stiff water-dog quality, is soft and silky. Her teeth are bad, and God knows what internal problems she may have. She's sweet but she shouldn't be on this planet because she doubtless got all these faults from her mother, who is ready to produce another litter.
Please, people, this is a job for professionals, not for your incompetent, uninformed hobby. When my mom bought poodles, she bought them already born and instead of buying the long-legged, runny-eyed messes she looked at their conformation, and only bought the best. When she bred Westies, she bought a show-quality bitch and bred her to a champion recommended by an established breeder.
You should do the same. Stop breeding your physical wrecks; you're unlikely to make any money doing it, your puppies will be garbage, and you will be hurting the per world. Resist the lure of money you will probably never see. Stop. JUST STOP.
Dog love, on the other hand, is mushy, unquestioning, unconditional, nonjudgemental, and constant. So when I was a young bride, my husband and I decided we wanted a dog.
We scoured the papers looking for an inexpensive dog and didn't have a whole lot of luck. There were dozens of pit bulls, doberman pinschers, chihuahuas, golden retrievers, german shepherds (YES, DAMMIT, IT'S SHEPHERD, NOT SHEPARD), and poodles.
But that posed a problem. Ever since my mother bought and sold a few poodle puppies to supplement the family income, I have been leery of the most popular breeds. At the tender age of eight I had learnt that people who know nothing about breeding, genetics, or dog husbandry but who happened to have an ugly, displastic, pet-quality bitch at home would get the brilliant idea to mate her to the ugly, dysplastic dog up the street. Of course the 12 puppies the poor bitch gave birth to were going to make them rich rich rich! Sadly, usually nine of those puppies end up in the pound, posing for the ASPCA Sadness Shots for their next ad. A few of them get adopted and half of those end up back in the cycle of get adopted, breed, pass on your very bad genes, send the puppies to the pound.
Half the dog owners around here are engaged in this irresponsible crap. Four months ago the eldest daughter adopted a miniature poodle that was one of a litter of four. Here eyes run, her ears flop open, her legs are so long (very unusual for a poodle to have over-long legs, usually they're too short and look like furry dachshunds) her legs are so long she looks like one of the stilt walkers in the Mardi Gras parade. Her coat, instead of being a good, stiff water-dog quality, is soft and silky. Her teeth are bad, and God knows what internal problems she may have. She's sweet but she shouldn't be on this planet because she doubtless got all these faults from her mother, who is ready to produce another litter.
Please, people, this is a job for professionals, not for your incompetent, uninformed hobby. When my mom bought poodles, she bought them already born and instead of buying the long-legged, runny-eyed messes she looked at their conformation, and only bought the best. When she bred Westies, she bought a show-quality bitch and bred her to a champion recommended by an established breeder.
You should do the same. Stop breeding your physical wrecks; you're unlikely to make any money doing it, your puppies will be garbage, and you will be hurting the per world. Resist the lure of money you will probably never see. Stop. JUST STOP.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
"Well," said the character in "Murder 101", "if it's going to cause trouble between my husband and I..."
I want to throw up!!!! No, I want to run around the room screaming and tearing my hair out.
Yah, that would be real smart, in a household with people who normally go to bed at 10 and I can't spare the hair.
Doesn't matter. They who wrote this line are idiots. "Between" is a preposition. All objects of prepositions are in the OBJECTIVE case, duh?
Between us. Between you and me. Between him and me. Between my husband and me.
HONEST!!!! LEARN IT!!!!
Does it sound funny to you, that "between him and me" part? That's because some imbecile taught you garbage in elementary school. "Sound eddicated. The nominative always sounds more eddicated than the objective."
Get Warriner's "English Grammar and Composition", and get an old edition (nope, grammar hasn't changed that much in fifty years) and save the money. The new editions are up around a hundred dollars now. Get the old one.
I should put in an Amazon link so I can make a few cents if someone actually gets interested.
Yah, that would be real smart, in a household with people who normally go to bed at 10 and I can't spare the hair.
Doesn't matter. They who wrote this line are idiots. "Between" is a preposition. All objects of prepositions are in the OBJECTIVE case, duh?
Between us. Between you and me. Between him and me. Between my husband and me.
HONEST!!!! LEARN IT!!!!
Does it sound funny to you, that "between him and me" part? That's because some imbecile taught you garbage in elementary school. "Sound eddicated. The nominative always sounds more eddicated than the objective."
Get Warriner's "English Grammar and Composition", and get an old edition (nope, grammar hasn't changed that much in fifty years) and save the money. The new editions are up around a hundred dollars now. Get the old one.
I should put in an Amazon link so I can make a few cents if someone actually gets interested.
Speaking of social trends...
The last post came in response to my feelings about this item on the TV.
I am watching "Rescue Renovation" on the DIY Network. Here is a young family in their objectionable home. Pretty wife, pretty husband, two daughters. They move into this repo house and decide the master bath needs fixing. Since they started doing it themselves without having researched bath remodeling first, they tore and tore and tore it up and only when they had all the pieces in the dumpster did they realize they didn't know how to rebuild it.
The shredding lasted a year. During that entire year they had to share the little bathroom with their two daughters.
The show's host represents this as a disaster.
Please tell me what people did when their budding families moved into those GI Cracker Boxes after WW2. A mother, a father, a baby on the way, which quickly turned into two to four kids. Eight hundred fifty square feet, a dog and a cat, three bedrooms (well, usually two to four bedrooms), and ALWAYS ONE BATHROOM. And no one whined and cried and moaned and groaned about how abused they were for having just one bathroom.
Sure, everyone knew there was such a thing as houses with more than one bathroom. Watch "Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House" and you'll see how much they longed for an extra bath. But did starter families claim they were abused? Deprived? I don't think so. What a bunch of whiny little spoilt brats we have become. Imagine if we had to live with the standards 2/3 of the rest of the world knows. Three miles to the nearest well, carrying both your buckets on a pole across your shoulders ...
Just shut up.
By the way, if you're a democrat, try sending a few hundred dollars to some international development agency, get that other village a well so they can go just a few yards for their water. And shut up about our government sending that money, you whiny bitch.
I am watching "Rescue Renovation" on the DIY Network. Here is a young family in their objectionable home. Pretty wife, pretty husband, two daughters. They move into this repo house and decide the master bath needs fixing. Since they started doing it themselves without having researched bath remodeling first, they tore and tore and tore it up and only when they had all the pieces in the dumpster did they realize they didn't know how to rebuild it.
The shredding lasted a year. During that entire year they had to share the little bathroom with their two daughters.
The show's host represents this as a disaster.
Please tell me what people did when their budding families moved into those GI Cracker Boxes after WW2. A mother, a father, a baby on the way, which quickly turned into two to four kids. Eight hundred fifty square feet, a dog and a cat, three bedrooms (well, usually two to four bedrooms), and ALWAYS ONE BATHROOM. And no one whined and cried and moaned and groaned about how abused they were for having just one bathroom.
Sure, everyone knew there was such a thing as houses with more than one bathroom. Watch "Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House" and you'll see how much they longed for an extra bath. But did starter families claim they were abused? Deprived? I don't think so. What a bunch of whiny little spoilt brats we have become. Imagine if we had to live with the standards 2/3 of the rest of the world knows. Three miles to the nearest well, carrying both your buckets on a pole across your shoulders ...
Just shut up.
By the way, if you're a democrat, try sending a few hundred dollars to some international development agency, get that other village a well so they can go just a few yards for their water. And shut up about our government sending that money, you whiny bitch.
Restaurant fashions? Gud gad.
In 2001 I was having the monthly luncheon with my elderly, rich female friends. Three or four of them had lapsed into a conversation about some popular restaurants in their area, which would be somewhere within five miles of Beverly Hills, on the west side of Los Angeles. To my dismay, they were sharing the news about the latest popular (and probably expensive) restaurant items.
After several exchanges about this or that new restaurant, one of them gushed, "I hear those new Wraps, or is it 'sandwich wraps'? are popular."
These were intelligent, informed women, women I felt so much affinity with that I could be friends with them for the last twenty years. But gushing over the latest restaurant fashions? Please Joe, say it ain't so!
I muttered, "I think this country has too much money," a point immediately agreed upon by a couple of other women there. I'd say I was vindicated but one of the women agreeing with me was one of the rudest, most tactless women you could ever meet.
Shame on me, I guess.
After several exchanges about this or that new restaurant, one of them gushed, "I hear those new Wraps, or is it 'sandwich wraps'? are popular."
These were intelligent, informed women, women I felt so much affinity with that I could be friends with them for the last twenty years. But gushing over the latest restaurant fashions? Please Joe, say it ain't so!
I muttered, "I think this country has too much money," a point immediately agreed upon by a couple of other women there. I'd say I was vindicated but one of the women agreeing with me was one of the rudest, most tactless women you could ever meet.
Shame on me, I guess.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
I have a question
This is about people who give and give and the people who go ahead and accept everything the person has to give.
Let us get this established: the giver is making a choice. Yes, many people do it compulsively. They don't know what else to do, and it's really hard for me to say that they've chosen to give, but yes, indeed, they did. They know that handing over the shirt off their back just because you admired it wasn't absolutely necessary. They know they know they had the option not to do it. But they're afraid; afraid that if they DON'T give you the shirt off their backs they'll lose a potential friend. Some incredible voice inside tells them that to show what a nice person they are, they should give that shirt to the other person (and good things will come of it).
Meanwhile, there is a person who praised the shirt, never expecting the wearer to pull it off and hand it to them. But that's what's happening now. Here's a person they don't even know, giving them a gift. Freely, willingly. Underneath there's a small suspicion that the giver is engaging in "give to get" but you ignore that. Get what? Well, you're supposed to like them when you're accepting and wearing that shirt. They never asked for anything more, did they?
My father was a gift-giver. He gave items worth thousands when it came to his girlfriends. And they took them. Sadly, many of them didn't care about the terms of the exchange. He gave, hoping they'd love him forever; they took, knowing they despised the guy. Eventually they told him they had never really liked him and he should go to hell.
I never heard that any of them gave back the eight thousand dollar sewing machine or the ten thousand dollar antique Turkish carpet.
So now we come to the question.
On the one hand, we have the givers. On the other hand, the takers.
Sure, the givers are making a choice. For some it's even a compulsion, but still they're making a choice. Sometimes it's compelled: "You won't go anywhere at this job unless you put in the extra hours, because we can always find someone who will."
Don't forget, the takers are making a choice, too. They're choosing to accept what's freely offered to them, or what might be offered under compulsion.
My question is, does taking and taking and taking what is usually freely offered, or taking what was coerced by more powerful people or people perceived as more powerful, confer any obligation on the taker? Like maybe ... appreciation, in whatever degree or form you're capable of?
Or is it just fine to say, "Hell, it was your choice, I don't owe you squat"?
I've known people who were capable of taking and taking and taking like this, and even encouraged the giver to commit to more and more work, time, money, whatever, and then smirked and told the giver to get lost. How is this right?
Let us get this established: the giver is making a choice. Yes, many people do it compulsively. They don't know what else to do, and it's really hard for me to say that they've chosen to give, but yes, indeed, they did. They know that handing over the shirt off their back just because you admired it wasn't absolutely necessary. They know they know they had the option not to do it. But they're afraid; afraid that if they DON'T give you the shirt off their backs they'll lose a potential friend. Some incredible voice inside tells them that to show what a nice person they are, they should give that shirt to the other person (and good things will come of it).
Meanwhile, there is a person who praised the shirt, never expecting the wearer to pull it off and hand it to them. But that's what's happening now. Here's a person they don't even know, giving them a gift. Freely, willingly. Underneath there's a small suspicion that the giver is engaging in "give to get" but you ignore that. Get what? Well, you're supposed to like them when you're accepting and wearing that shirt. They never asked for anything more, did they?
My father was a gift-giver. He gave items worth thousands when it came to his girlfriends. And they took them. Sadly, many of them didn't care about the terms of the exchange. He gave, hoping they'd love him forever; they took, knowing they despised the guy. Eventually they told him they had never really liked him and he should go to hell.
I never heard that any of them gave back the eight thousand dollar sewing machine or the ten thousand dollar antique Turkish carpet.
So now we come to the question.
On the one hand, we have the givers. On the other hand, the takers.
Sure, the givers are making a choice. For some it's even a compulsion, but still they're making a choice. Sometimes it's compelled: "You won't go anywhere at this job unless you put in the extra hours, because we can always find someone who will."
Don't forget, the takers are making a choice, too. They're choosing to accept what's freely offered to them, or what might be offered under compulsion.
My question is, does taking and taking and taking what is usually freely offered, or taking what was coerced by more powerful people or people perceived as more powerful, confer any obligation on the taker? Like maybe ... appreciation, in whatever degree or form you're capable of?
Or is it just fine to say, "Hell, it was your choice, I don't owe you squat"?
I've known people who were capable of taking and taking and taking like this, and even encouraged the giver to commit to more and more work, time, money, whatever, and then smirked and told the giver to get lost. How is this right?
To my dear father
My dear father, Mr. Robert Francis Wiest.
I seem to remember your telling me that it was a terrible idea to sink any money in performance horses. That included even managing the performance horse FARM for people who WANTED to sink their money into performance horses.
Fifteen years later you had eight performance horses.
You're a lying asshole.
I seem to remember your telling me that it was a terrible idea to sink any money in performance horses. That included even managing the performance horse FARM for people who WANTED to sink their money into performance horses.
Fifteen years later you had eight performance horses.
You're a lying asshole.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Thousands of blackbirds fall from the sky in Arkansas
Evidently they believed the "Global Warming" crap and didn't pack their bags to go south for the winter.
Car Chase Underway After Bank Robbery in South FL
Silver car with blackened windows hurtles down FL highways at speeds in excess of 100mph.
No police car is chasing this guy. There's a police helicopter above him, camera trained on the car, that our fleeing driver is not likely to shake any time soon. I hope they have plenty of fuel, or at the least, more than the car they're following.
I thought the use of helicopters was supposed to stop these high speed chases? After all, our liberals have been calling for an end to car on car pursuits (and replacing them with helicopter pursuits) for at least two decades, haven't they? This was supposed to make the world safe for garbage cans and other cars across he nation. Evil, evil cops and their evil old-fashioned ways.
No police car is chasing this guy. There's a police helicopter above him, camera trained on the car, that our fleeing driver is not likely to shake any time soon. I hope they have plenty of fuel, or at the least, more than the car they're following.
I thought the use of helicopters was supposed to stop these high speed chases? After all, our liberals have been calling for an end to car on car pursuits (and replacing them with helicopter pursuits) for at least two decades, haven't they? This was supposed to make the world safe for garbage cans and other cars across he nation. Evil, evil cops and their evil old-fashioned ways.
Wounded Warrior Project
Well, I assume this is a great charity. I assume they spend the money they get properly and that it goes to the right places. Obviously they have a huge fundraising budget, but that's not a problem if it pays off.
Trace Adkins seems to think they're good, and I'll take his word on it.
Now, on another nonte, can you picture a charity of this kind succeeding like this back in the Seventies? Can you picture of charity of this kind at all back in the Seventies? Some of us would have supported it, but in enough numbers to make it worth spending this kind of money on fundraising? Nevah. And this is a good kind of change. We had a lot more wounded military than this during the Vietnam War, it's such a shame we didn't have the love and respect for them that we see here after the Iraq War. Could it be possible that our lefties figured something out? Thirty years ago it was "military personnel are evil" because the idiots couldn't tell the difference between a draftee and his boss or his boss's boss.
Good reason to hate the Left.
Trace Adkins seems to think they're good, and I'll take his word on it.
Now, on another nonte, can you picture a charity of this kind succeeding like this back in the Seventies? Can you picture of charity of this kind at all back in the Seventies? Some of us would have supported it, but in enough numbers to make it worth spending this kind of money on fundraising? Nevah. And this is a good kind of change. We had a lot more wounded military than this during the Vietnam War, it's such a shame we didn't have the love and respect for them that we see here after the Iraq War. Could it be possible that our lefties figured something out? Thirty years ago it was "military personnel are evil" because the idiots couldn't tell the difference between a draftee and his boss or his boss's boss.
Good reason to hate the Left.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
How do you manage to keep taking so much from someone?
You meet someone and it quickly becomes apparent they only want to give to you. It's a disease, they can't help themselves. Give, give, give. They're hoping if they can give enough, you won't hate them. In fact, they'd love it if you loved them.
But you're not one of the people who can respond to this much love in a positive way. You hold this person in contempt. Still, because you're such a narcissist, you think to yourself, "Hey, I didn't make them give and give, it's their choice."
So you feel entitled to take whatever they're giving. And you take. And you take and take and take and take and take.
And then months or years later, BAM!!!! you slug them right in the face with, "I never liked you, I just let you do stuff for me because you wanted to. It was your choice, nobody made you give to me like that."
FUCK YOU
But you're not one of the people who can respond to this much love in a positive way. You hold this person in contempt. Still, because you're such a narcissist, you think to yourself, "Hey, I didn't make them give and give, it's their choice."
So you feel entitled to take whatever they're giving. And you take. And you take and take and take and take and take.
And then months or years later, BAM!!!! you slug them right in the face with, "I never liked you, I just let you do stuff for me because you wanted to. It was your choice, nobody made you give to me like that."
FUCK YOU
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