Category: Do the Right Thing

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January 20, 2021: A Day That Will Live in Infamy

Recessional

~ Rudyard Kipling, 1897 (though could as easily be 2021 and re: The Fall of the Republic as concerning Britain at the end of the 19th Century)

God of our fathers, known of old,
Lord of our far-flung battle-line,
Beneath whose awful Hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine—
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!

The tumult and the shouting dies;
The Captains and the Kings depart:
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!

Far-called, our navies melt away;
On dune and headland sinks the fire:
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe,
Such boastings as the Gentiles use,
Or lesser breeds without the Law—
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!

For heathen heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard,
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
And guarding, calls not Thee to guard,
For frantic boast and foolish word—
Thy mercy on Thy People, Lord!

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Be of Good Cheer

Take heart! Rome wasn’t destroyed in a day.

(Oh, and Condition Yellow, head on a swivel, watch your six, and all that jazz, too.)

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Always Look on the Bright Side

You know, there is an up side to the stolen election. Finally, no one who has more brains than a kumquat and better morals than a rabid mink can deny that the Dhimmicraps are utterly and completely morally bankrupt. No one (and I do mean no one) who is even remotely honest and ethical can from this point forward ever support another Dhimmicrap. Nope. Not one. Period. Anyone who does classes themselves as completely and totally without any decency whatsoever. Period.

Harsh? Not my fault.

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Mischief Managed?

Well, not quite. More “wood chucking.” Sorta-kinda-almost “good enough” fitness watch buzzed me to say I had been at my optimal heart rate for 20 minutes. *meh* What does it know? Five minutes later, *bzzz* “Relax.” Yeh, says you. A few minutes later: dizzy. OK, OK, I give in.

At least it was nice weather for it. High 40s, still ice on the wood, etc. Maybe this afternoon will be time for more “wood chucking.”

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Why I Am Grateful That I Do Not Have Any “Constitutional Rights”

(A different kind of Thanksgiving post)

“Constitutional rights” implies that rights emanate from the government. They do not. No form of government anywhere, at any time, can or could grant rights. We have natural, inherent rights that the Constitution supposedly obligates the federal government to protect. As the seminal document of our country explicitly and correctly states,

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights. . . ” Government’s only legitimate excuse for existence is to protect those rights. When it does not, it delegitimizes itself.

I believe this is an important distinction, one that should never be compromised or blurred in any way. So-called “rights” granted by a government are nothing but licenses and can be revoked. As Jefferson further said of but one inherent right, so all:

“The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time. The hand of force may destroy but cannot disjoin them.”

The “hand of force” is ONLY ever legitimately deployed in defense of inherent rights, never in attacking them, for attacking inherent rights = attacking the very lives of those to whom they belong. BTW, this is key in understanding the libertarian–lowercase “l”–non-aggression principle: initiating violence against another is wrong. Responding with violence to someone (or some organization) that is violating one’s rights or the rights of another is not wrong; it is just.

So, given the tendency of governments everywhere toward anarcho-tyrrany, or just outright tyranny, I am grateful that it is God and not governments Who grants us our rights.

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Password Management

Is It Worth Paying for a Password Manager?

Maybe. Read what Dave Hatter has to say about it.

I have used Lastpass for quite some time, now, although I also keep an encrypted backup of my passwords (regularly updated with changes, as needed, including the password to my Lastpass account) on a flash drive stored in my safe. The pass phrase for THAT is derived from a 17th Century French art song (so, easy for me to recall), but is, of course, obfuscated/changed from the original lyrics. A separate encrypted file contains just that password, with no reference detailing what it is for, embedded in another text file and available to one person who owns that device but does not have access to the safe w/o a trusted third party.

If I am gone or merely “vegetized,” someone will be able to access my data, close out accounts, etc.

And no, that doesn’t make my data secure, just slightly less accessible.

N.B. You might want to also consider encrypting all your removable devices (flash drives, USB-attached drives, NASes, SIMMs in phones, etc.). Sure, it can be a very small hassle entering pass phrases and decrypting/re-encrypting drives, etc., whenever new sessions are initiated, but do you really want all your data to be “in the clear”? Heck, consider something like Proton email and encouraging family and friends to do likewise so all your email is also encrypted and thus LESS accessible to others. Privacy is your right, but YOU need to at least attempt to enforce it. Assess what you want to keep to yourself and take appropriate steps.

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Proposal for a Sane Society

Code duello: we need to bring it back. The trick would be to ensure one is the challenged party, in order to be able to specify the weapons used. There is a range of weapons I would not mind being able to specify, including pillows on one end of the range. “Death by pillow fight” would be a great thing to have put in a deserving fellow’s obituary.

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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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“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.