Author: David

Over-educated Curmudgeon, Bit-Bucket Tuner and Budding Brewmeister.
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Why I Sneer When Writers Bloviate About “Sniper Rifles”

Simo Häyhä. Yeh, he used a everyday garden variety M28/30 Mosin-Nagant with iron sights. “Terminally serviced” 500+ Germans during Finland’s defense against the Nazis in WWII.

My Granddaddy’s Model 1895 30-30 was more of a “sniper rifle” than what Simo Häyhä used. ANY rifle is a “sniper rifle” if that’s what it is used for.

Oh, he also carried a Suomi KP/-31 9×19 Parabellum (handgun cartridge) submachine gun for close defense, juuuust in case. Again: not what contemporary writers describe when writing about “sniper rifles.”

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DEFINITIVE PROOF!

That the Hunter Biden emails are false. STOLEN from a FarceBook comment thread

The laptop had a base plate of prefabulated amulite, surmounted by a malleable logarithmic casing in such a way that the two main spurving bearings were in a direct line with the panametric fan. The latter consisted simply of six hydrocoptic marzlevanes, so fitted to the ambifacient lunar waneshaft that side fumbling was effectively prevented. The main winding was of the normal lotus-o-deltoid type placed in panendermic semi-boloid slots in the stator, every seventh conductor being connected by a nonreversible tremmie pipe to the differential girdlespring on the “up” end of the grammeters.

Thus, the emails are false.

So, there you have it. THE definitive proof from an Internet IT Genius. (Well, Internet Satire Master)

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Car Tips Edition

Helpful Hints from Hairy Helpful

  • Handy-Dandy lil Tip: Eschew “power” windows and always have a sharp knife clipped in a handy place and those specialty “automobile escape tools” become redundant, completely unneeded.
  • Power Tip: Don’t trap yourself in a car wreck to begin with. Drive smart and keep your head on a swivel. 😉
  • Pro Tip: Don’t trust cops. There are easily at least as many corrupt cops are there are a$$h*les in the general population. Have TWO (minimum) car cams and use them. (You have–at the very least–a first amendment right to record cops in the performance of their duty. You may not have had  your due process rights infringed on in your location, so you may be able to legally record them at other times, as well.)
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“Once more into the breach. . . “

I blame Pete Townsend and legions of subliterates who have been “misunderedumacated” in “gummint” schools (A.K.A. “prisons for kids”) for the disgusting spread of “alright” in place of the useful and perfectly good “all right.” Yeh, yeh, so James Joyce wrote “alright” ONCE, as against dozens of uses of “all right.” Big deal. Even if Joyce’s usage had been flipped the other way, he wrote Suckitudinous Fiction that only appeals to sophomoric idiots who feign intellectual pursuits. (Yes, I am completely serious in that assertion.)

Heck, eve with Pete Townsend’s endorsement for the stupid, “alright” only gained any traction at all with the advent of massive “democratic” stupidity inflicted on English by “mass-man” (see Ortega) via the Internet. And even with the promulgation of subliterate stupidity via subliterate writing, editing, and self-publishing, one can be thankful the use of “all right” still VASTLY outweighs the deplorable infliction of “alright” on the English language.

So, if you insist on being a Philistine, a nekulturny subliterate (A.K.A. “trailer trash,” etc.), go ahead and use “alright” in private emails where you might be safe doing so, or in a public form where you can be raucously mocked. No skin off my nose either way. But if you (assuming a reader who wants to be a published writer and expects to be paid for wordsmithery) want to avoid a raucous mocking in, say, an Amazon review, get it right, mmmK?

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Rainy Days and. . . Tuesdays?

Nah, don’t always get me down.

Lil P0106 error code on Son&Heir’s 2010 Jetta (pretty nice car, that) that cleared when new PCV valve installed recurred with a P2178 (idle rich) added. MAF sensor/throttle body problem? MAF sensor connector was cracked. Cleaned out oil after removing, cleaning, checking throttle body, sealed MAF sensor connection after Deoxit cleaning of connectors. So far, no errors, but we’ll see. May need to replace a bit of electrical harness/connectors and MAF sensor, if it recurs. *shrugs* And then, of course, there’s always *tum-dum-tum-DUM!* taking it to the mechanic. *heh*

Methinks I’ll check things under the hood on my Wonder Woman’s 2010 Jetta, too, when I change the oil. *shrugs* Who knows? Maybe at least Deoxit* a few electrical connections there, too.

*I love the various Caig Deoxit products. Solved quite a few problems over the years using them. Their dielectric grease is apparently head and shoulders above similar products, going by the results I have had eliminating household electrical problems using it (solutions implemented a decade ago have held up). Computer and electronic woes dealt with, sound quality improvement from sound equipment. Vehicle woes wiped out. Improved network connections. Nice products, IMO.

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“Why doest thou plague me so?”

I have thought about just why such things as comma splices committed by writers who expect to be paid for their writing irk me so. It all comes down to their sheer laziness and lack of respect for their readers. They appear to be either too lazy to either use a semi-colon or a conjunction (or, in many cases the better option, a simple period followed by a new sentence), or they are and have been too lazy to learn rather simple standards of orthography. Either way, it shows a lack of respect for any reader with at least a fifth grade reading level. *shrugs* Is it too much to expect someone who wants to be paid for his work to take the trouble to do it right?

And yeh, this holds for the lazy, disrespectful habits of some wannabe writers (and, admittedly, some well-established writers *sigh*) who have never bothered to become literate enough to know they are misusing words/terms, committing asinine grammar errors, irredeemably stupid failures to do their research on facts (or the math on their “research” or whatever), and all sorts of other completely unnecessary stupidities that distract from whatever they are attempting to convey, whether that is a research paper, a “news” story, an opinion piece, or a novel. If they want to be paid for their work, they should actually do the work.

Sterling #gagamaggot example from. . . just now: a writer with a character whose first person narrative presents him as exceptionally literate, former English teacher, Deep Thinker, always spouting “erudite” quotations, etc. CONSTANTLY committing egregious grammar errors, misusing words, and more. Kills suspension of disbelief.

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A Conspiracy of Dunces?

I have now participated in three Decennial Census efforts as an enumerator. 2000 and 2010, and now 2020. I worked in each of them for a couple of reasons:

1. The Census is one of the very few things the “feddle gummint” does that have a clear, unequivocal constitutional mandate, and as much as I gripe about the feds exceeding their constitutional limits, I do appreciate any of the few opportunities I have to support legitimate exercises of federal power.
2. In the first two, I got paid (admittedly not much) to simply add a bit of “side business” to a hobby of mine: driving the back roads of America’s Third World County™. 2020? Notsomuch.

This time, the whole thing was so very screwed up from the very beginning that every new screwup simply made the whole thing a real drag. You know the old saying, “Once is happenstance; twiceis coincidence; three times is enemy action”? Yeh, that. *sigh* I thought at first, as the “training” began, “Oh, this is just incompetence.” But then as “training” continued and continued to worsen I started to wonder how the actual field work might go. I mean, after all, there were a few mapping problems in 2000 and 2010, but surely the GPS positioning and such like used by the mapping crews that supposedly worked in 2019 and who had their work checked in the update operation at the beginning of 2020 would make things better there? Right?

No. Mapping problems from 2000 that had been corrected for the 2010 Census were inexplicably re-introduced in 2020, and naturally even more were introduced, to the point that roughly half of the work was just saying, “THERE IS NO SUCH ADDRESS, NOTHING HAS EVER BEEN THERE. EVER!” or variations on that theme. And then new things like retail businesses that have been in existence for 30-40 years listed as housing units (NEVER have been, and were not so listed in previous censuses). Housing units listed with THREE DIFFERENT ADDRESSES, at least one of which was physically impossible. And more, much, much more.

And then there were things like specific instructions via updates to handheld devices (iPhones with software provided by an obvious low bidder) issued for all interviews, reporting, etc., instructions to do such and so that when followed led back to management wusses who had no clue whatsoever how to perform their part of the instructions.

Cases dropped when reported. Reporting devices (yes, I asked other enumerators) frequently “borked,” even losing a days’ worth of work. Obscurantist case reporting parameters within the software that worked. . . inconsistently. Re-re-re-re-interviews of cases already completed, reported, submitted, and accepted.

It goes on. And on. And on.

It is almost as though a conspiracy of dunces set out to sabotage the entire effort. Well, that and apparently blatant fraud, especially on the part of the mapping operations. (NO ONE could honestly have “mapped” some of the locations listed. Period.)

Ad so the Census asked a federal judge to extend the deadline for submitting data. And the (Chicago area?) federal judge acquiesced. Thankfully, the SCOTUS has said, “Fugetaboutit,” and shut the thing down. Could not have happened to a better bureaucrappic monster, IMO.

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Self-Made Morons

#gagamaggot Every time I see someone blowing off about “Marshall Law” (and yes, it is almost always inappropriately capitalized) I just *smh* at such stupidity. Irritating to think that someone could be a putative adult in today’s America and be illiterate. (Yes, illiterate. Someone can string together a bunch of text w/o being really literate. OK, maybe just subliterate, but the sheer lack of comprehension of basic English that leads someone to type “Marshall Law” in place of “martial law” really does indicate a serious lack of literacy. And it’s not all the fault of schools. Monumental laziness is required to achieve that level of subliteracy.)