Author: David

Over-educated Curmudgeon, Bit-Bucket Tuner and Budding Brewmeister.
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Playing Christmas Music Already?

For most of my life, until recently, Christmas music began at least mid-October, if not a bit earlier, because that’s when rehearsals for performances of Christmas music began in the volunteer music groups I have been a part of since early childhood. For a large part of my life, Christmas music began even earlier–sometimes soon after Easter, in fact–because in many cases I was responsible for the selection of material, rehearsal, production and direction of such programs, often for several different groups, and sometimes even in different venues with different organizations in the same year.

And a few times, such preparation begged for new music, or new arrangements suited to a particular program, which also fell to me to write or arrange.

So, folks who rail against Christmas music played before Thanksgiving really amuse me. I now listen to Christmas music for enjoyment, enrichment, and sometimes () with an ear to performance all throughout the year, whenever the mood strikes, for while Easter is definitely the single most important Holy Day for Christians, the celebration of the Incarnation is a celebration of the promise that Easter fullfills.

And so, when I listen to Christmas music–real Christmas music, not pop pap, these words always echo in the back of my mind somewhere:

Trees and lights and bells and carols,
Bright-wrapped packages piled high;
Winter’s sharp blow joins the heralds:
“Christmastime is nigh!”

Mailmen hurry; shoppers scurry;
Time is fleeing – Oh! So fast!
Parties gather, loud and merry,
Grander than in Christmas’ past.

Pause a moment to remember
That a Savior’s simple birth
Still stirs angel wings in susur’ –
“Peace to men; good will on earth!”

Now the Father’s hands that molded
The first Adam in the clay,
Gently ’round a manger folded,
Cradle a Baby in the hay.

So the Greatest Gift extended,
Gift of love and peace to all,
“God’s great love to man descended”
Calls us to a manger stall.

— “The Gift” ©1990 David W Needham

So, yeh, if it’s not pop pap (or pop crap like “Merry Christmas Baby” or other such crap songs), I’m all in for Christmas music year-round.

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I Don’t Really Care That it’s Your Money, but. . .

. . .since it’s mine, too. . .

Some folks from a state government agency dropped by today as a part of state efforts to check up on people who may have been impacted by the April 30 floods and the aftermath. I suppose that’s a legitimate state concern (though I’d bridle at the effort were it a fedgov dealio), but a followup six mpnths after the event seems a bit laggardly, if it’sto be done at all.

When I had adequately perssuaded them that though we had experienced some flood damage, I had been able to do mold erradication and repairs myself, they simply gave me a bundle of handouts all dealing with basic emergency preparedness. We were outside on the front stoop, so I walked over and popped the hatch on my lil car to display my EDC bag, mentioned the bugout bags stored at the front door (including a “pet go bag”), and the well-packed pantry (including stored potable and wash water).

They then asked me to give the materials to someone who might benefit from them.

Pretty simple stuff: checklists for med info (not needed: have the med info we might need emergency personnel to have tied to scannable bracelets and on USB flash drives connected to our EDC bags, along with scans/pdfs of our essential docs on the same flash drives), pet supply preparedness, and personal “go bags,” etc. Very basic stuff.

Nice that the info is getting out, but I have to wonder at the delivery mechanism, both in effectiveness and in cost. Apparently, they’ve been going around trying to make contact during normal working hours. . . when most folks are at work, leaving Olde Phartes as their most likely contacts,and Olde Phartes, by and large, are better-equipped than young folks to deal with emergencies, in my experience (well, up to an age of disability, I suppose). *shrugs*

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Wondrous Advances in Tools

Finally! After many years of using paper clips to release optical media from powerless optical drives, I’ve acquired a new lil a mini-tool set that has a special tool just for that. WhatEVer did I do before this was available? Oh, right. USED A PAPER CLIP.

Oh, well.When I mislay this special lil tool, I’ll still have paper clips to use (cos I stocked up on those years ago. *heh*)

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Grand Theft Under Color of Law

Civil Asset Forfeiture: a procedure by which government thugs can seize the property of citizens who have NOT been convicted of a crime, and especially NOT of any crime in any way associated with the use of that property/asset.

It’s nothing but government-sponsored theft, and those who practice it should

  1. Have their assets seized–all of them
  2. Be horsewhipped through the streets of whatever jurisdiction they committed the theft in
  3. Serve a real life sentence on a chain gang manually making gravel from BIG rocks.

Should, but in our corrupt society, instead they are rewarded with sinecures, jobs protected by a so-called “qualified immunity” that amounts to a functional immunity that is little other than a license to bully, steal, and–if they can get a wink and a nudge–kill.

Anyone have a solution short of bringing such vile, despicable, completely depraved individuals before their Final Judgment? Since the PTB have made self-defense and the defense of one’s property rights unlawful in today’s Amerika *sigh*, I’d very much appreciate someone smarter than me to offer a lawful solution to this kind of rampant brigandage.
____________________________________

N.B. Apart from “thought crimes” (wishing ill of these evil people), I know of no laws I have broken that would open me up to such brigandage, and nor do I own assets that would make seizing such amount to much more than petty theft, but since these corrupt law enFARCEment looters DGARA about any such thing, I have to assume I could be put out on the street any time some petty bureaucrap wants. *sigh*

One term for what these people do is “anarcho-tyranny.”

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Well, At Least the Writer Is Trying

Reading a book today that is. . . amusing. It’s supposed to be an action-packed “thriller” set “25 Years from now” (whenever THAT is) that’s chock full of “advanced tech” and “cutting edge science.”

That’s really funny. The “advanced tech” still relies on USB cables, and the “cutting edge science” is a “Dan Brown stupidity level” misunderstanding of everything from string theory to tachyons to time travel.

If it weren’t for lotsa laughs, I’d say the writer isn’t just trying but very trying. *heh*

Oh, on top of that, the writer pads the word count by having much of the dialog in both French and English (the English for the illiterates who either don’t own any French vocabulary or can’t work the meanings out via linguistic roots, I suppose).

More laughs.

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Educating Medical “Professionals”

Annual “permission slip” Dr. visit last week: ears so plugged up with gunk I almost didn’t mind having the same questions asked again. . . and again. . . by two different forms and three different people. #gagamaggot

At least something educational came of the visit, though. Nurse dropped in to ask the SAME QUESTIONS as on the form in her hand that I had just filled out and noted that she didn’t have to ask if I were depressed, because she assumed that anyone whistling a “happy” tune was in fine spirits.

“That’s a fallacious assumption,” I told her. “I’m simply whistling a tune I am listening to ‘between my ears’ in order to drown out the dreck y’all are playing on your sound system. It doesn’t mean I am ‘happy’ but that I’m listening to something better than that stuff that would gag a maggot.”

“Oh. So do you have feelings of depression?”

“Oh, yeh. That ‘music’ y’all arer playing makes me want to end it all.”

“Oh, OK. I’ll see if we can turn it down then.”

“Thank you. Now THAT makes me happy.”

*heh*

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Transitive Property

The old “Prepper” adage that “Two is one and one is none” makes some sort of sense, I suppose, in that if one only has one of a particular thing–tool, equipment, whatever–and that “one” is lost, broken, or stolen, then “none” is what one is left with.

But consider the transitive property of the adage. IF 2 = 1 and 1 = 0, then 2 = 0. Therefore, one could as easily say “n. . . is 2 is one is none,” and so no matter how large a number of [whatever] one has, it is equal to. . . nothing.

This is a principle that escapes hoarders.

🙂

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Known Knowns, Known Unknowns, and Unknown Unknowns

[I’m still not commenting about facts known/unknown about the LV shootings, mmmK?]

I’ve seen some folks blustering about how they would have reacted had they been in the target area in LV while shots were being fired. Unless you have previously been a “live target,” or in another situation threatened with legitimate (REAL) sudden threat of imminent death, just shut up.

Thatisall.

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Semi-Auto Manual vs. Bump Fire

OK, a bump fire stock might be useful in a “Red Dawn” scenario (assuming a LARGE ammo supply), for suppressive fire on an objective, but apart from that, it’s just a (fun, from the looks of it) ammo-waster.

Saw a comment (sans clear reference to a transcript to an NPR segment that apparently aired in the past couple of days delineating the differences between bump fire-enabled and full auto firearms. No details in the comment; just a wee bit of amazement that such a thing would air on NPR. . .

Interesting comment elsewhere (Quora) that I immediately juxtaposed with visual evidence:

“Bump fire allows you to keep your finger in place while the gun moves. However, it is still only firing a single shot per pull of the trigger. The trigger is just being pulled faster than a person could manually do without bump-fire.”

The visual evidence I juxtaposed with it? A video of Jerry Miculek firing an AR-15 vs “some guy” (I dunno/can’t recall who, although I’ll post the video and we’ll all know then *heh*) firing a bump fire equipped AR-15. The bumpfire weapon did “outrun” Miculek by a split second, but Miculek’s shots were all on target and better-grouped. No one who’s not in a very elite group of shooters can do that, but no one–even the fastest finger in the world, if such can be definitively determined ;-)–can come even that close to even the slowest genuine full-auto.

And every example of bumpfired weapons I have seen shows that accuracy suffers a great deal. Just sayin’. If it comes to a “Red Dawn” scenario, use your handgun to get to your shotgun to get to your rifle, and use your rifle to “capture” more advanced weapons and ammunition. *heh*

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddPTyoV-Irc