Category: Do the Right Thing

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Little Blessings

So, early on the morning of the coldest day in a year, “someone” (*cough*not gonna say who but you know who you are) let our lil rescue kitty out into the cold, shortly before 4” of snow began to fall. By 0500, she had. . . disappeared. So, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, through Thursday AM, with snow on the ground and temps in negative numbers overnight (and not above freezing during the day), lil Pixel. . . dealt with it.

I kept putting food out. Her fav bed was in her cat carrier with bags of “donation clothing” over the carrier for insulation and a heating pad inside the bed cover. Food kept disappearing but kept not seeing Pixel and got no response to calls. Saw tracks that looked like they were hers, but no cat.

Last checkup “yesterday” was ~0100 this morning. Again, food was gone but no cat. Refilled the food container.

Got up this AM and went out with food to check, and food was gone. Saw movement to the south. Pixel. Called, she came. Pet her. Tried picking her up and she ran. Called again, and the second time was the charm.

Seems no worse for wear, though she did demolish a large bowl of water.

Yeh, yeh, it’s just a cat, and a “stray” cat at that. But still, small blessings.

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War on Poverty? #gagamaggot

This has no particular scriptural inspiration in back of it, but for some reason it occurred to me sometime w/in the last hour or so. So, FWIW,

The so-called “War on Poverty” has, it seems–if the record of the last 50 years is simply invoked with an eye to looking at the data honestly–resulted in more of the same and even more violence mostly isolated in pockets of “War on Poverty”-created micro-societies. So, why not make it a REAL war on poverty by devoting at least some of the wasted “welfare” funds on REAL welfare, and arming all the folks being oppressed by both “gummint bureaucraps” and gangs/thugs in their ghettos? Maybe if we as a society simply ceded the problem to Darwin. . .

😉

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The Essence of Good Manners and Polite Behavior

“Your rights end where the other fella’s nose begins.” Conversely, the other fella’s rights end where your nose begins. That is to say, mind your own business, do not infringe on others’ rights and vigorously defend your own.

That does not, BTW, mean one can be excused for standing by while an aggressor assaults the rights of a person just acting innocently within their rights. Rights come with responsibilities (many) and one of them is to NOT merely stand by and watch someone being assaulted or having their rights infringed upon. That does NOT mean that one should automatically escalate to physical violence. Prudence is also one of those responsibilities of exercising one’s rights and duties.

Example, back 40-*mumble* years ago, my college roomie and I lived in a downstairs apartment off campus. It was one of eight apartments in two separate buildings. At one time, we had an upstairs “neighbor” who thought it a good idea to place his stereo speakers directly above our bedroom and crank ’em up to “pound the floor” levels late at night.

That was definitely impinging on our “noses.” We asked politely. We asked more firmly. We appealed to the buildings’ owner.

No joy.

So, one late night, I was awakened by his floor-pounding speakers yet again. I banged back on the ceiling. He took offense, and pounded down the stairs and then on our door. My roommate, who was still awake pulling a late cram session, answered the door to physical and verbal abuse from a guy nearly twice his size. I wandered in wearing my typical sleep wear (nothing), walked up between them and decked the guy. Most authoritatively. While he was trying to regain his breath, I told him to turn his stereo OFF and leave it off at night or he could expect to see me again, and I would NOT be so gentle next time.

He moved out.

Now, I am not a big guy, certainly not as big as the jock (he was on one of the university’s sports teams) asshat, but I do NOT long suffer fools, as it were.

And that is how we all should be, but no. We must meekly accept the Norms of a society that would have us all simply bend over and beg, “Please. May I have another?”

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Only the Stupid, Lazy, Illiterate or (and?) Disingenuous Deride So-Called “Grammar Nazis”

Yeh, I said it, and I mean it.

Grammar is the internal logic of a language. Deriding those who espouse good grammar and point out bad grammar is equivalent to deriding logic, indeed reasoning.

Most who vomit up stupid comments about “grammar Nazis” also claim English is inconsistent and illogical in its grammar and, indeed, in its spelling of words, massive numbers of words that either look (when written) or sound alike but mean different things, etc. *meh* That’s either because they are butt-lazy illiterates or want to encourage butt-lazy illiteracy for their own nefarious purposes.

Understanding the internal logic of English (its grammar) requires something more than a “literacy” comprised of the ability to laboriously puzzle out what words those funny lil squiggles are and assign (often incorrect) simplistic meanings to them; it requires the reading of a lot (no, much more than you think “a lot” means!) of well-written text, an interest in what the words in that text actually mean or meant when the writer committed them to paper, and a cultivated ability to actually think.

Those three conditions are not met by at least 99.999. . .n% of the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind who are the primary corrupters of English nowadays. Let one very small example from a CNN chiron this morning stand as a typical example. Referring to Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe:

“. . .his own party said they will move to impeach him if he didn’t [sic] resign by the deadline.”

When someone cannot even keep past-present-future clear, one is safe to assume that that “someone” is a self-made moron. And such is the nature of the influence on the English language that the Hivemind exerts: teaching a-rational thought processes, by inundation with example after example.

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No, It’s “Warm Kitty, Soft Kitty”

My only problem with the shirt is that it’s based on the “Big Bang Theory” corruption of the copyrighted song by Edith Newlin, which is an adaptation of a Polish folk song, “Wlaz kotek na plotek.” Some not-so-smart writer, writing characters supposed to be smarter than he is (or some stupid lawyer thinking to avoid paying royalties?) screwed up the lyrics and mis-taught a generation of the less-than-literate.

And, of course, Newlin’s lyrics ordering the adjectives as first “warm” then “soft” follow the adjective order “rule” that any literate person simply knows from having read a lot of text written by literate writers:

Quantity, Value/opinion, Size, Temperature [warm], Age, Shape, Colour, Origin, Material [soft]

Hence, to any moderately well-read person (or person who is simply fluent in well-spoken English), Newlin’s “Warm kitty, soft kitty does not grate the way the “Big Bang Theory’s” corruption of her lyrics do. . . in a way that makes the characters who use the BBT’s corruption sound “Dumber than the average 5th grader.”

But apart from that I like the shirt. Oh, and Big Bang Theory’s not a bad show, apart from its laughable depiction of “smarter than the writers” characters. In fact, that alone sometimes makes it worth viewing for laughs.

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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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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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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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Wouldn’t It Be Nice?

It’d be nice if someone, somewhere, would allow capitalism to actually be tried out for once. . . From another forum, a comment by the “resident genius” seems apropos:

If you understand that Communism wasn’t actually a reaction against capitalism, it was an attempt to replace what was the then quite modern notion of state mercantilism (which actually was as exploitative as they claim… they just improperly called it capitalism), by going back to an older form of governance… state feudalism… with the “intellectual revolutionary elite” as the nobility… it makes a lot more sense.

It does seem that one sort of “feudalism” or another (Master?slave; Chieftain?underlings; King?subjects, in all sorts of less bad to completely evil variations of the fides covenant) has been the norm for much of history. Heck, mercantilism was just a different form of pseudo-feudalist wolf in carnivorous sheep’s clothing, with much less of the “noblesse oblige” and more of the abusive (nearly or actual–much as with H1B visas nowadays) “slave wages/conditions,” indentured servitude, etc., “serfdom” (without even the “privileges” of serfs).

Fallen man just has to embrace the most exploitative, abusive government available, it seems, and if an exploitative/abusive government doesn’t exist (if that were possible), a society will create it, ex nihilo, if necessary.

Wouldn’t it be nice of if people in large groups didn’t have to be gargantually stupid?

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Names, Places Obscured to Protect the Innocent. . .

. . . (But I Sure Wish I Knew the Name of the Guilty Party)

Store worker on break, sitting on toilet. Customer comes in and stands juuust outside the stall door: “Is there a cell phone in there?”

Store worker looks around. “No.”

Guy doesn’t leave. “Are you sure there isn’t a cell phone in there?”

“I’m sure. There’s no cell phone in here.”

Guy leaves.

Guy comes back in and stands right outside the stall.

“Is there a cell phone in there?”

“No. I sold it on eBay and a portal opened up under my butt. I delivered it to the buyer via the swirlies. Now let me take a crap in peace, OK?”

OK, I made up the last part. What the store worker actaully said was, “No.” Again.

Brainless wonder replied, “Oh, sorry.”

#gagamaggot