Category: Blogroll

I’ve just recently begun brewing my own beers. No, I’ve not yet reached the point of cracking open a swingtop bottle of one of my own brews, but I do have two very different beers brewing now, and for my Wonder Woman, I’ve already brewed a gallon of completely non-alcoholic root beer that blows away ANY commercial root beer I’ve ever tasted.

All that to say that my interest in learing how to brew my own beverages–alcholic and non-alcoholic both–has brought me into contact with some interesting folks. Following a link at Strange Brew (where I picked up a modified recipe for George Washington’s Molasses Small Beer, which I further modified based on reading other molasses beer recipes and the equipment I had on hand *heh*), I found this gem that reminded me why “all politics is local” and why I take those things which politicians *spit* at the national level do that affect me very, very personally:

Some version of “caring about the health of the consumer” surely appears in the mission statements of all the major food corporations, including the most egregious violators of the public trust. In other words, it is hard to genuinely care about someone you don’t even know. Compassion in the abstract is almost always a self-deception. Much more reliable is the goodwill and mutual sense of responsibility that exists among neighbors who are bound together into a community, their good intentions enforced by social pressure and the intimacy of long association. [emphasis added–ed]

When the political elite take steps attempting to make outlaws “okey-dokey” via mass amnesties; when the political elite treats the tax dollars they extort from me as their personal funds; when the political elite pass laws that curtail my freedoms and powers as a citizen, I take it very personally. Because it’s not just some guy in Akron, Ohio that’s affected, it has direct and indirect impact on my life, the lives of my family and friends.

So pardon me just a little when I become outraged the next time a politician takes some of the money extorted from me, my family, my neighbors and friends (as an example) and hands it to someone else instead of handing it back to the people it was stolen from, with a heartfelt apology for the theft.

[Note: Yes, I know the quoted material addresses only commercial vs. home produced “artisan” foods, but the priciple (“it is hard to genuinely care about someone you don’t even know”–or events that do not impact someone you know) does dovetail with my assertion that politics is only genuinely significant at the personal level.]

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Jerry Pournelle comments on how democracies fail:

If anyone wants to know how democracies fail, look at our energy policy, or lack thereof. We have invested a trillion dollars in a war to stabilize oil supplies — does anyone sane or insane suppose that we would have put the entire might of the empire into Iraq if it weren’t for Middle East oil? — when a fraction of that invested domestically would have given us energy independence. I said all this back before the invasion when the costs were thought to be about $300 billion. Three hundred billion is a lot of money, and that much invested in nuclear power, developing domestic oil resources, and sponsoring X-Projects on efficient transportation using electricity would have given the US energy independence; and if $300 billion wouldn’t do it, the $1,000,000,000,000 — one trillion dollars — the war actually cost certainly would have. We’d also have Solar Power Satellites and a Moon Colony (you build the Lunar Colony on weekends and third shifts while constructing Solar Power Satellites)…

…If that isn’t depressing enough, think about what’s happening with the Great Global Warming Scam. We can’t just establish a Technocracy. Science generates bureaucracies, and Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy governs there too. The bureaucrats will always run the show, and the scientists and technologists will be subordinate to them. The Great Global Warming Scam coupled with the Great Ethanol Scam to make some people (think ADL) very, very rich. It also enriches those who sell carbon offsets.

Read more at the link.

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So, I wanted to d/l and burn a copy of the newest Ubuntu, 7,10 “Gutsy Gibbon” but only had an old Win2K (with, it must be noted, the best and fastest DVD-RW/CD-RW drive and a respectable–for Win2K–512 MB memory, etc.) comp and another old comp running Puppy Linux booted. Wht to do?

Let’s see, use the comp with the fastest CDRW speed, plenty of physical memory and a relatively capable CD writing software or…

Use the comp with less memory and whatever came with the Puppy Linux CD.

Keep in mind, the only apps “installed” on the Puppy Linux box are those that came bundled with the less than 100MB FULL version of Puppy (oh, and Opera, which I added), and all the apps I run in a Puppy session–INCLUDING the OS are all loaded into memory/swap file off a CD on booting, so the built-in CD writing software is necessarily a teensy lil program,

I went with d/l-ing the latest Ybuntu distro and then burning the ISO file on the Puppy box. The builtin app–ingeniously named, cdrecord–just automagically recognizes the format of whatever one is burning (in this case, an ISO file) and burns it in the proper manner. Have to jump through twice as many (at least) hoops using the Win2K machine.

Simple, fast, easy-peasy. Just a joy to work with.

And after I reboot and do a fresh install of Ubuntu “Gutsy Gibbon” on that machine? No problem. Just save the pup.sys file to USB key and when I next want to boot Puppy on that machine, I can have all of my customization on that USB key.

As I said, what’s not to like?

🙂

Now, if only I could get Encore (music transcription software) to run under WINE on one of these Linux installs…

Is this what our veterans fought and bled and died to preserve?

The PC Wusses rule the roost and exact danegeld from their subjects in a town ruled by wusses who claim to fear the nonexistant and oppress the masses with their convenient “fear.”

Headline:

Men Cleared Of Charges In Flour Anthrax Scare

[Set aside the fact that those charged were a brother and sister; apparently, The Morning News–an Arkansas paper–cannot discern any differences in the sexes *heh*]

Here’s the background. Since 1938, Hash House Harriers have provided a social context for like-minded folk who like to gather–usually in pubs–for a few sociable beers after a game of hounds and hares. Many HHH’s characterize their clubs as “drinking clubs with a running problem”. *heh* The best description of HHHs is probably the one found at the link above:

“…the world’s most eccentric running club, the Hash House Harriers. Now with 1843 hash groups registered in the world directory located in almost every major city in the world and 178 countries, it is easier than ever for you to find fun, trail, and friendship where you live. The Hash House Harriers is a more social version of Hare and Hounds, where you join the pack of hounds (runners) to chase down the trail set by the hare or hares (other runners), then gather together for a bit of social activity known as the On In or Down Down with refreshment, humor, song and sometimes a feast.”

So, what does this have to do with the idiot tyrants of New haven Connecticut? Well, it seems that in August, a group of HHHs had a hounds and hare event on in New Haven and a brother and sister team were tasked as the “hares”. So, off they went laying a trail for the “hounds” to follow. Now, naturally, the “hounds” couldn’t follow by scent like real hounds would, so the “hares” laid the trail with a strange white substance that has been used for something like 70 years in these games: flour.

The New Haven Nutcakes went cukoo, and when Daniel Salchow–the brother–heard about all the fuss and went by to identify the substance, he (and his sister, visiting from Germany) were arrested and charged with “first-degree breach of peace”–a felony.

After a couple of months of legal wrangling (during which Dorothee Salchow “fled” for the relative sanity of Hamburg, Germany *heh*) the charges were dropped. When Daniel Salchow paid $4,000 extortion money to the New Haven People’s Board of Anarcho-Tyranny.

Funny thing: last month, Fayetteville, AR–not usually a bedrock of sanity itself–had a lil kerfuffle when another HHH group laid a flour trail (as they have done for decades) that included lil piles of flour, one of which was deposited in front of the Federal Building in downtown Fayetteville.

No arrests. No big tizzy. The flour was identified as flour and life went on.

But in the People’s Republic of New Haven, the Board of Anarcho-Tyranny had another agenda…

BTW–in an appropriate rabbit trail–something like 40 years ago, I wrote a piece for whistler choir and symphonic band in honor of the Hash House Harriers. Sad to see an American town now so scared of shadows that tyrannical rule is simply accepted at face value. All a part of the lessons taught by Homeland (In)Security, TSA goons, et al. Maybe a revival of the Hounds and Hares March performed by a local high school band–at every public function of City government for a year, perhaps?–would do New Haven’s tyrants some good…

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Trackposted to Stop the ACLU, Nuke’s, Perri Nelson’s Website, Rosemary’s Thoughts, A Blog For All, The Uncooperative Radio Show!, Stix Blog, Right Truth, The World According to Carl, Grizzly Groundswell, Stuck On Stupid, The Pink Flamingo, Big Dog’s Weblog, Adeline and Hazel, and Right Voices, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Torquing me off.

Turning my crank… counter-clockwise.

It’s that time of year again: the time when I see/hear such subliterate claptrap as I recntly recieved in email from a “traditional values” group that doesn’t know enough about the traditions they hold dear to even refer to them correctly.

“A Sunday School class from a church near Mrs. Arnold’s apartment comes every year to host a Hanging of the Greens…”

Yeh, and my thought is always, “What did the Greens do to merit being hung?” Or, “Oh, dear. Folks’d be better off eating their kale and spinach than hanging it… ”

The proper term is “Hanging of the Green” NO PLURAL “s”! *sigh* Cultural illiterates “protecting” so-called “traditional values that they do not know enough about can do as much harm as (sometimes more than) others who deliberately attack “traditional values” (whatever that term means).

As a small demonstration of the destructive nature of large numbers of cultural illiterates coupled with the proliferation of their dimwits via the internet, the correct phrase, “Hanging of the Green” tallies only 741 hits on Google, while the triumph of cultural illiteracy brings in over 28,000 for “Hanging of the Greens.”

Probably the same idiots who say/write “Daylight SavingS Time.”

*profound sigh*

That comes to about 38 dumbasses for each moderately literate person on the internet, by this measure. A remarkably better ratio than I run into in meat space on a day-to-day basis.

*heh*

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Trackposted to Perri Nelson’s Website, The Virtuous Republic, Rosemary’s Thoughts, Adam’s Blog, The Populist, Leaning Straight Up, Cao’s Blog, The Bullwinkle Blog, Pursuing Holiness, Allie Is Wired, Woman Honor Thyself, The World According to Carl, Blue Star Chronicles, Pirate’s Cove, The Pink Flamingo, Wolf Pangloss, The Yankee Sailor, Church and State, and Gone Hollywood, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe

Steve Bass recently touted the video embedded below as a humorous example of the response Windows Vista has garnered. My own experience with Vista has been on computers of folks wanting to “downgrade” to XP, so it pretty much mirrors the views expressed in the video (Warning to neo-victorian prissie wusses–some vulgarity* included in the video):

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*for those who cannot differentiate between vulgarity, obscenity and profanity, well, *sigh*, such folks are, I fear, beyond hope…

Just a quick note: do drop by fred08.com for a view of his White Papers on Federalism and Immigration and such. Such a relief that Fred’s not Huckabee “I’m from the government; I’m here to help” Leftard Lite–wants the government in everyone’s refrigerator, etc. or Rudy (Right on One issue only) or Ron Paul (#1: I can’t trust someone who won’t reveal his last name *heh* #2: Birds of a feather–all the 9-11 “truthers” (translation: believers of whacked-out lies) who support him… and his own whacked out views on Iraq). Who else is there? Romney, the “I’m-a-slicker-model-wooden-indian-than-Algore” Stepford Candidate? Hunter, the Establishment Republican’t? *sheesh*

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Jerry Pournelle posted the following early this a.m. (late last night on his Left Coast Time):

A recent survey in England asked the following question:
Are there too many foreigners in this country now ?
Answer:
20%: YES
10% : NO
70% :معهد الأمن العالمي بواشنط

Always a good idea to drop by every now and then and see what’s posted over at Chaos Manor Musings.

As the old dialogue goes,

“I talk with the voices in my head.”

“Yeh? What do they say?”

“They say I’m crazy? Me?!? Crazy?!? They’re the ones in! my! head!“

*heh*

I may be crazy, though, and if so, this may be why:

Brain imaging study find sleep loss leads to mental disorders

Harvard University Medical School and University of California-Berkeley researchers have explained through their study that sleep deprivation leads to irrational behavior, what is associated with psychiatric (mental) disorders.

According to the researchers, the emotional center of the brain—located in the amygdala (within the medial temporal lobes)—may stop its function (to deal with emotional reactions and feelings, such as aggression and fear) when a person is severely sleep deprived. When this happens, people find it much more difficult to control their emotions.

Yeh, well, this is just dotting the “is” and crossing the “ts” in what real world p-sychs have known for a very, very long time: sleep deprivation can literally drive folks around the bend–or at least cause folks to evidence all the signs of serious mental disorders, such as auditory and visual hallucinations, etc.

But this doesn’t explain how well-rested Loony Left Moonbats, Academia Nut Fruitcakes, politicians *spit* and Mass Media Podpeople come up with their wacked out worldviews… That’s going to require exploration much deeper into the thicket of human insanity.

Anyway, I need a nap. Continually.

🙂

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ALthough I have boxes running Ubuntu and Puppy Linux (the latter on nearly any box in the house at any given time–exceptiing only Bubba’s Box and his XBox 360) and even PC-BSD, for many reasons, much of my day-to-day stuff is done on an old box running Win2KPro, which, yeh, I prefer to the WinXP boxes (in fact, I scrubbed WinXP off a hard drive recently in favor of having a fresh hard drive and Puppy Linux running in memory on that box, using the hard drive solely for storing the pup.sys file and data files–no OS on the drive at all).

The only things keeping me on this box for much of my browsing and other activities are

• continued familiarity with typical Windows behavior (mousing, windowing, etc.) since most of my clients still use Windows.
• inertia: so many apps have format-specific data saved on that machine and even were I to run ’em using WINE under Linux, the app-specific tweaks necessary to do so are creating a mental logjam of “Nuh-uh–don’t wanna do that just yet.” *heh*

But that may come to a screeching halt, soon. Recently, I had the opportunity to make the switch complete on this machine and let the inertia of data-associated apps sway me to stick with Win2K. Yup. A physical hard drive crash (some of y’all may recall the incident) resulted in a moment or two of waffling… but then I mirrored the crashed drive onto another one (presription: freeze drive; install as slave; mirror–quickly! before it warms too much and starts sticking again! *heh*). All data and configs since the last backup nicely saved to new drive. Repair install of Windows and all that was needed was… *sigh* twaeking of install cos program registration of some installed programs screwed up, naturally (all this took much longer than it sounds like–actually involved TWO “new” hard drives, but that’s another story).

In the time I took to have a functioning Win2K system back up and working as I wanted it to, I coulda had an Ubuntu system up, my data transferred over and WINE installed for those apps I really don’t want to do without.

But I let M$ inertia take over for that machine.

However…

As Windows keeps bugging me, I may just set that machine aside as a Windoze Buggy Box and do all the scut work of getting my data (and those apps I don’t find near enough open source Linux/BSD equivalents for to suit me) working on either an Ubuntu or PC-BSD box. In fact, the chief deterrent to doing that NOW is just some time crunch on other projects. Not the only deterrent, mind you; I’m still at least partially in the clutches of inertia, but those grasping hands are slipping.

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