Everyone is born a virgin.
Thatisall.
Killing Little Grey Cells
OK, so I started reading a novel. The premise: a “rogue” archeologist makes an amazing discovery. Yeh, Dan Brown-ish, but maybe it’ll get better. Problem #1: this “brilliant” archeologist is a moron. I find myself almost immediately wanting to take her by the scruff of her neck and shake some sense into her. Dislike much? Yeh, much.
So, enter another character: the archeologist’s estranged husband who is supposedly some sort of mountain climber of note. Yeh, problem #2: he’s a dislikable moron, too. Within about a page and a half of this character’s entrance, I wanted the writer to kill him off–quickly! Dislike much? Yeh, much.
Asked myself if I were willing to put up with the crap I’d have to in order to read a book built around two characters who’d be better written out of the story so it could be transformed into a much more pleasing story about Jack the Ripper’s rebirth or some such. Answer: nah. These are “people” whose story I do not want to know. Buh-bye!
What little I read was better than a similar sample of Dan Brown dreck, but that’s damning with no praise at all. At least it was free, even if I may never recover from the brain cells it killed.
Just In Case You DO GARA. . .
New Year’s Resolution for any American who does give a rat’s ass about how government impacts his life: resolve to read Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville in 2016. . . and then do something about the disconnect between the America he wrote about and what exists today.
Volume I: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/815
Volume II: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/816
Go. Read. Learn. Do.
Interesting Times. . .
A very brief (~2 seconds) look at the small creek out back of Third World County Central™ shows that, an hour ago, it was still about 6-7 feet below overflowing our neighbor’s property, allowing another 2 feet or so before the lowest portion of our property would experience an inflow.
Grammar Matters
Seen various places:
A well tailored suit, being necessary to the appearance of a sharply dressed gentleman, the right of the people to keep and wear clothes, shall not be infringed.
So, according to the “understandings” applied to the Second Amendment by (wilfully) illiterate leftards, only “sharply dressed gentlemen” have a right to “keep and wear clothes”? That would certainly chap a few misandrists’ gizzards. . . (not to mention leading to some interesting sunburns and other such things. . . )
Things Like This Tick Me Off
. . . And by now, y’all should know how hard it is to tick me off. *heh*
Apparently, USA cable is running an NCIS “marathon.” I walked in on an episode where a volunteer first responder–known almost universally in state laws as a “Good Samaritan” and in the federal Volunteer Protection Act that is similar to state Good Samaritan laws simply as a volunteer–is threatened with charges for giving first aid to three people involved in an automobile wreck where one she attempted to aid died.
I throw the bullshit flag on the whole premise. Good Samaritan Laws and the “feddle gummint’s” own VPA protect good faith efforts by volunteers from such bogus persecution.
Of course, nowadays, law enFARCEment and “persecutors'” offices regularly sneer at actual legal restrictions on their misbehavior, so I can understand how lame-a$$ed, ill-informed writers could come up with the story line, but since some states Good Samaritan laws go even further and require bystanders to give aid, programs like this that assert ONLY certified medical personnel could give trauma first aid could get folks in some serious trouble.
And the Survey Says. . .
“44 Percent Of Democrats Support Taking Refugees From A Fictional Country”
Much sneering and finger-pointing by leftards about the results of a “gotcha” question in a Public Policy Polling survey directed toward Republicans that had 30% of Republican voters polled supporting bombing Agrabah, a fictional country in the Disney film Aladdin.
Hmmm, not much in the Hivemind about a WPA Research poll that discovered that 44% of polled Dhimmicrappic voters would happily accept “refugees” from the same fictional country. (66% in the key Dhimmicrappic 18-34 y/o age range.)
Yeh, everyone knows Republicans have a lot of uninformed voters. Poll after poll demonstrates that Dhimmicraps just have a lot more dimwitted boobies.
“With thankful hearts and joyful minds. . . “
Fundamentals: Ethics v. Morality
“The ethical man knows it is not right to cheat on his wife; the moral man will not.”~Ducky Mallard
Parenthetically, I’d say remaining faithful to one’s wife is easier when one loves her and is convinced God has definitely joined one with one’s wife. Nearly four decades with my Wonder Woman has deepened my understanding of her beauty and irreplaceability.
The Joys of “Not Getting Lost”
Nah, this isn’t some think piece with the “directionally challenged”/”directionally gifted” as metaphors for anything. This is just about NSEW orienteering. 🙂
“Not getting lost” in America’s Third World County™ is more fun than not getting lost in Boston or Dallas or wherever. For the first ten years after we moved to America’s Third World County™,navigating the back roads was. . . interesting. No names apart from informal names that could (and did) change according to family or neighborhood tradition, or simply an individual’s idiosyncratic choice. The road “system” also reflects the fact that this is a geographically rugged area (Ozarks, and all the hills, valleys, streams, creeks and rivers that implies) that was settled (more or less) before the idea of section lines really took hold, so, while other rural areas in other parts of the country might give directions by section line, etc., not so here. NSEW and geographical features were the primary means of providing directions to places within the county that fell off the map of state roads.
The official county map was not a lot of help, either. Many roads didn’t even appear on the map of county-maintained roads and the roads that did had designations not acknowledged by those who lived on them. Rural postal routes were more useful as directions than the official county designations. Made my “hobby” of driving the back roads more fun.
Then, when the county began instituting a 911 system, roads started getting names (including the street in town that we had lived on for 10 years with no address), names that usually reflected longstanding tradition. Now, Gobbler’s Knob, Granny’s Branch and Pine Log Road (which Internet mapping services still often get laughably wrong, despite more than a decade having passed since it was formally named) are all easily found on a 911 map, though I know lifelong residents who have NO idea where they are located. Not their neighborhoods.
I’d like the gig of being The County Guide. *sigh* 😉