Author: David

Over-educated Curmudgeon, Bit-Bucket Tuner and Budding Brewmeister.
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Disunity in the Body Politic and Society as a Whole

Many folks bemoan the obviously divided state of our society, but that’s really just either a thoughtless dismay or a disingenuous appeal to rally around destructive values. Mankind (yes, I use the time-honored term; I am not a Child of Darkness–at least in that regard) has always been divided into Children of Light and Children of Darkness, always has been for all of recorded time. I prefer to view the obvious divisions now in plain view as clarifying a time to choose which side one is on: Light or Darkness.

If you should decide to choose Light, then recall also these things:

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”? Edmund Burke (in a letter addressed to Thomas Mercer).

And

“The light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.”

And

“What fellowship does light have with darkness?”

Division should be a Very Good Thing, but it depends on the children of Light not hiding that Light but shining it into the Darkness.

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Math. It’s Not Just for Homework

Lame. Of course, from available evidence (ballot box, successful entertainers, best selling novelists–I’m looking at you, Dan Brown–etc.), most people can’t (or refuse to) think well enough IRL to be _able_ to use math in ways that would enhance their lives. JMO, of course, but I’m right.

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Santa Claus?

He’s always been a little hinky, but the “naughty-nice” list is an invasion of privacy that even the NSA would quail at.

As I recall it, when I was six, it was a relief when my eight-year-old sister explained that Santa Claus wasn’t real. Oh, I uttered the obligatory defenses, as I recall it, but I’d had my suspicions. . .

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Happy Discovery: Issues and Answers

So, a while back I began installing new laminate flooring on one floor of the house. It was planned (and purchased for) to cover the living room (where we really do “live”–spend most of our time), dining room, kitchen (with precautions against water damage), and two bedrooms. When I got to the hallway to the two bedrooms on this floor and pulled the carpet and padding, I discovered oak flooring underneath. Sadly, it would take too much work to reclaim it because the moron who installed the carpet glued down the padding! (In addition to stapling it to the oak flooring.)

#gagamaggot

But. . . when I got to the bedrooms, I discovered that the padding was apparently NOT glued down there. *shrugs* I dunno. Maybe the moron thought traffic in the hallway would cause the padding to move. Oh, the carpet pad is still stapled, which means a LOT of fiddly bits to carefully remove, but the flooring itself looks to be in really nice condition. So, removing the carpet and padding a bit at a time (makes removing it from the house easier, anyway) and getting the staples dealt with looks like it will give us back some nice hardwoood flooring we didn’t even know was there.

Oh, transition from the “bronzed acacia” look laminate to the oak flooring will be. . . interesting, but we decided we can live with that pretty easily. I’m using actual oak baseboard trim to make transition from the hallway to the bedrooms, and I decided to stain it “red oak”–different from both the laminate and the oak in the bedrooms. Why? Because the laminate is 3/8” “taller” than the oak floor. The trim I’m using to make transition with tapers down from 3/8”. The different oak stain will provide an almost subliminal cue to the transition in height, hopefully making the (very small) height differential marginally safer to navigate, kind of like those yellow/black warning strips for stairs and shallow ramps. *shrugs* We’ll see.

But then there’s the fact that we’ll be stuck with several hundred square feet of extra laminate. Oh, well. Maybe I will eventually end up doing a garage conversion. Really nice laminate on a workshop/crafts room. *heh*

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“Gunsplaining,” “Mansplaining,” and Other Lame Excuses for Ignorance

Any time I see “[Whatever]-splaining” used by someone to dismiss an argument, I know the person using the term is really saying, “I don’t have an argument, and I just don’t want to listen, so I’ll use this nonsense term instead of putting my fingers in my ears and chanting, ‘na-na-na-na. . .’ and maybe the horrible person using facts and reason will just go away and leave me with my chosen, ignorant opinions.”

At that point, I realize that the only proper response is raucous mocking.

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2018 Polls: The Stupid Vote Gains Ground

In future, vote all red, folks. (*sigh* Lesser evil and all that.) You will have all the years after you die to vote blue.

At least there’s one good thing out of the Repugnican’ts losing the House: hopefully it will gridlock Congress. I say hopefully, because

  1. When Congress isn’t passing laws, at least it’s not making things horribly worse and
  2. MAYBE it will gridlock. . . if the Repugnican’ts in Congress can overcome their predilection for bending over and begging, “Please. May I have another?”

It could happen. . .

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A General Summary (Voting Guide) from Six Years Ago

These are just a few examples from which to generalize. Not all will have any direct application to any one election.

This year, again, I’m voting primarily against stupidity and evil.

Stupid or evil? (Or both?)

“Pro-choice” (which is really, “Deny ANY choice to the unborn”)
The Thugs Standing Around program of full employment for goons and petty tyrants
“feddle gummint” tyrannical meddling in citizens’ lives while actively enabling outlaws
The Cult of Anthropogenic Climate Scare-ism
Enablers and apologists for the hate cult of the Butcher of Medina evil
One can select any issue dominated by the lies of the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind, politicians *gag-spew*
and Academia Nut Fruitcakes and plug it right into the “Stupid or Evil” matrix for consideration.
Punishing job producers for success
Encouraging sloth and greed by robbing those who are productive to give to those who are not (including cronies of politicians who milk the public purse and abscond with our grandchildren’s futures)
You get the drift.

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For the Polls Tomorrow. . .

Do NOT encourage everyone you meet/know to vote! The Founders were justly leery of too much democracy (which is why they designed the Constitution to create a representative republic with some democratic elements). Always remember Third World County™’s corollary to Santayana’s Axiom:

“In a democracy (‘rule by mob’), those who refuse to learn from history will be the majority and will dictate that everyone else suffer for their ignorance”

ONLY encourage those who are well-informed and who have a rational bent to vote. Actively discourage the ignorant, misinformed, DISinformed, and notably brainwashed from voting. Their influence is uniformly negative, no matter their unthinking, uncritical, ignorant political bent.

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Honey, I’m Home!

(Do read that title in the iconic Jack Nicholson tone. *heh*)

Well, after some time off–and discovering a login issue (and having Vishmitha with BlueHost discover it was a WP version issue ‘n’ fix that), here I am again. No world-shattering observations right now, but I’ll have something up shortly for both of my readers. . . 😉