Little Things–Good Music

One of the weaknesses of “indie” music is sometimes a lack of good editing or perhaps a too narrow creative view. Of course, that can also be a strength if the artist can look at their own work both with a passion that allows for some creative fire and a dispassion that can allow serious criticism. As an example I’d like to offer perhaps my fav from Heather Alexander, March of Cambreath. It has really stirring lyrics, a great driving beat and… a weak melody and a wee weakness in prosody, which Alexander almost overcomes with a very, very strong performance:

[audio:March_of_Cambreadth.mp3]

By the last verse, she very nearly repairs the prosody problem by anticipating the beat with “How” in “How many of them can we make die,” but never quite makes it into a stronger line by placing the “how” directly on a pickup to “many”. And the melody itself is still very nearly boring, and would be absolutely boring without her strong performance of it (which is as I asserted above, very, very strong).

Still, as I said, it’s my fav of her work, and it is very good, even though I don’t view it as among her best musically. And it has a worthy place in the martial repertoire of modern soldier/warriors, IMO, especially since the boring melody probably wouldn’t get in the way at all, at all of any “hell runs” in PT. *heh*

Disgust Redux

I’ve said it before, but I’m giving into the temptation to reiterate what runs through my mind every time I hear or read the phrase, “It’s only semantics”.

Semantics is the single most important thing about language. Without it, spoken language becomes nothing but (tautology alert!) meaningless whistles and clicks and moans and grunts and written language becomes nothing but weird squiggles, signifying nothing.

Now there abide these three:

Phonemes (sounds and their and written phoneme analogs)
Syntax (structure) and
Semantics (MEANING), and the greatest of these is semantics.

“It’s only (or just) semantics” is an utterance by an idiot, full of sound (and whimpering), signifying nothing* (at least nothing useful, save for confirming that the one saying it has no argument or defensible position).

Insincere apologies to The Bard and all that…


* Aside: For something with much,much more sense than the “nothing (useful) conveyed by the idiotic “It’s just semantics” try this disquisition on Nothing. Not all that edifying, but it did keep me in stitches for days after I first read it. Imagine breaking out in laughter in the middle of a Greek class. The prof was understanding once I had explained and shared the article with him. Nice guy.

I’m Not Complaining… Honest!

The Joplin tornado event took down our ISP for a couple of days. Seriously. Only a couple of days. A tornado plowed right through the infrastructure it uses (cable) and took out tons and tons of essential infrastructure, and it was back online in a couple of days’ time.

Not bad.

So when I post the access speeds below, I’m NOT complaining. Heck, they still beat the heck out of DSL “speeds” from our local baling wire and tin cup telco–and at lower cost–so I have nothing to complain about, but I still can hardly wait for stutterless video feeds, etc…


OK, I am going to bitch a bit about these “speeds”:

*sigh* Gag me.

Hot-Cha-Cha!

Well, the (only) four habanero plants I put out this year are getting some great growth (all this rain, I suppose) but not yet flowering. OTOH, one (of the 28 *heh*) jalapeño plants has not only flowered but is bringing on peppers, already. Hot-cha-cha! (You really have to envision Jimmy Durante’s slightly different utterance for that to work properly. 🙂 OK, here…)

The tomato plants are just getting huge; no flowering or fruiting yet. But growing like gangbusters.

And my amaranth, sown from seed–the same seed I cook up for a “cereal”? REALLY growing, fast! Like it! We’ll just have to see how that stuff produces. I’ll likely have to thin the plants out quite a bit, but that just means greens and shoots (and stems to use sorta like rhubarb).

Not much of a garden, but it has things that please us. Oh, and mixed in are marigolds (also a lovely plant) and my Wonder Woman’s impatiens (and the morning glory she loves that I’m letting come back a little). Gone is almost all the mint and finally nearly all the Virginia Creeper. Sadly, our dandelion crop has been sparse this year. I don’t know why. Plenty of wild onion, though. Yum.

Now, how to make best use of all the “yard vine” in the back yard… hmmm… it’s said to make a nice topical analgesic, so…

Slim Pickin’s*

Here it is not even halfway through 2011 and names are being thrown about, tossed in the hat (and thrown back out; Newt, I’m talking to you, you jackass) and bruited about for potential presidential runs. Republican/Repugnican’t names only, of course, as The Zero has said, according to Billary, that he intends to win in 2012 “And then we’re done.” (Would that make the Biden presidency begin the day after the election? *heh*) But choices of decent candidates from the supposed “Right” are slim pickin’s*.

On one key issue, illegal immigration (or, as I prefer, “alien invasion”), Michele Bachman is the only potential candidate whose name has been floated so far who passes muster on this one of my three critical issues. (If Bobby Jindal’s name were to be raised–haven’t seen it so far–he’d make number two.)

Any candidate fielded for any national office who can articulate sensible policies concerning 1. Eliminating–or very nearly so (not controlling or limiting) illegals, or “alien invaders” 2. Revenue and expenditures (big points for balanced budget and FairTax stances) 3. U.S. energy independence will get not just my vote but my enthusiastic support.

Solutions to these issues aren’t exactly rocket science: most are pretty simple and straightforward, requiring only the ability to spit in the eye of the entrenched political elites and their co-conspirators, fellow travelers and useful idiots. The only really tough weed in my three critical issues is expenditures by the feds. So-called “entitlements” (grants of special privilege to gain political power from voting blocks) are the big bugaboo. But even Social Security and Medicare “grants of special privilege” issues can be dealt with. After all, families cared for their aged loved ones for millennia before those programs came around to suck the life from young workers’ paychecks. Positing less “feddle gummint” meddling overall, families could do so again today, especially if American citizens grew up and took responsibility for their own care and feeding back from the “feddle gummint”… or were required to because someone jerked the “safety net” out from under their lazy-assed, greedy, “grasshopper” feet.

Oh, but what to do about the “grants of special privilege” to the locust class (generational welfare “families”)? Screw ’em. While I can grant that States have authority to engage in some sort of charitable efforts to alleviate situational poverty, supposing of course that the particular States’ constitutions provide for such, despite the lies libtards have sold for a generation or more, the federal Constitution does NOT give the “feddle gummint” authority to practice charitable acts with public funds. Let local communities, State agencies, private groups and associations handle the matter. And if “welfare queens” and their courts object, ship ’em to Mexico.


*Orthographic note: No, I did not misuse that apostrophe. And no, I did not mean to make “pickin” possessive, and nor did I mean “pickin is”. As you no doubt rightly inferred, the apostrophe is there because I extracted the “g” from “pickings” simply to effect a colloquial pronunciation in readers’ ears.

🙂


I thought to myself, “Meself, mayhap ‘t’would be a Good Thing to expand on, “not exactly rocket science.” So, herewith the third world county central fixes for the thee Big Issues:

1. Eliminating–or very nearly so (not controlling or limiting but eliminating) illegals, or “alien invaders”

a. Build the damned fence already.
b. Place machine gun nests with interlocking fields of fire and ROE that demands “shoot to kill” on the border
c. Go after those who employ illegals. Seize ALL the assets–including “sheltered” family assets–of ANYONE who employs illegals and cannot PROVE they made BEST faith efforts (not just “good faith”–exhaustive efforts) to eliminate alien invaders from their employ.
d. Pay a bounty to citizens ONLY for ratting out illegals and employers of illegals.
e. Refuse ALL government services, save emergency services for immediately life-threatening health care to any and all illegals and place bureaucraps who circumvent this on chain gangs making little rocks out of big ones.

THEN

Streamline LEGAL immigration for those seeking to enter the country who can demonstrate that they will both not be a burden on society and are likely to benefit our nation.

2. Revenue and expenditures (big points for balanced budget and FairTax stances).

a. Pass a balanced budget amendment, even if it takes working to defeat every spendthrift asswipe politician from now until the Trump of Doom sounds. Never give up. Make one provision of the amendment that politicians *gag-spit* who want to institute programs that exceed revenues must pay for those programs out of their own pockets.
b. Pass the Fairtax already. Any and every argument I’ve seen against it (save one) has been disingenuous to the point of outright lies. The only honest argument I’ve seen against it is that it would remove so much power from the “political elite” that they’d never pass it. So? Work to put their asses on the unemployment line and get some people in who are willing to have less power at their fingertips. Take the brakes off the American economy, aready!
c. Yeh, start being honest with folks about “entitlements”–we can’t afford ’em, and we for sure can’t afford to keep expanding them. For folks already addicted to ’em, let ’em sunset, slowly, but with the two provisions above in place, that’d be possible, because everyone who worked would have more in their pocket to handle such things, either as family or via real charities as opposed to government “charity” which is simply stolen resources bestowed on those who don’t earn them.

3. U.S. energy independence.

a. Put all the whining greenies that bitch and moan about how awful nuclear power is and place roadblocks to oil, gas and coal development and play NIMBY with new refineries out in the wilderness with a fishhook and a pocket knife and leave ’em to starve. (Feel free to go ahead and pity the wildlife.)
b. Go ahead and drill baby drill, build a few (hundred) pebble bed reactors (or any of the other exciting new nuclear reactor designs), put a thermal depolymerization plant in every tiny lil community that wants to actually MAKE MONEY via turning their sewage into oil, open up exploration and development of ALL hydrocarbon energy supplies, oh, and go ahead and remove roadblocks (as if there were any) along with artificial supports to development of “alternative energy sources”.

Oh, and as to the “drill baby drill” meme, check this:

There. Third world county central’s prescription for three big issues (we’ll leave The Biggest** for the Second Coming or perhaps the Twelfth of Never (sigh*) that face us.


**The Biggest: *@^^^3* politicians who either stupidly and ignorantly OR wittingly and venally violate the Constitution… just because they can, all the while either lying about what they want to do being constitutional or just not caring at all whether it is or isn’t (Yeh, Newt, I’m looking at you, too).

Third World County Flood Updates

First two pics from a town ~12 miles south-southwest [of twc central–ed.]. Keep in mind that the clearance between the river and the bridge is usually 15′ or more. One of four ways into town, and two others are flooded out as well. So, that’s one town in the county where most of the kids can’t get to the schools… IF they can get out to go, as pics further down illustrate. Fortunately, given the river’s use for recreation, there are a lot of boats in the area:

Oh, and do keep in mind that the routes in as far as these pics were taken are also still flooded in several places. Pics below are of a road washed out nowhere near low land areas, in fact in an area elevated above one of those other accesses to the same town that’s closed due to flooding. The dirt/gravel road, one of many here in America’s Third World County, is THE access to a group of about 30 homes on a rise above a (very minor) state highway:

Most of the folks in the county do NOT live in the towns but out, mostly away off paved roads. ANY place with “Hollow” (e.g., Thief Hollow) or “Creek” (e.g., Buffalo Creek) in its name is sure to feature several washouts or flooded areas similar to those pictured above. Most of the photos I have access to (lots more than these) are from school bus drivers attempting their routes in 4X4s.

I’ve driven most of the county over the years–it’s a great “mini-vacation” to explore a new-to-me area on a weekend afternoon, for example–and there are more than a few areas that I know folks are breaking out the emergency generators and feelin’ pretty good about the root cellar being well-stocked, because, 4X4 or not, they are NOT getting out for a while.

Wild Hare…

While chasing down the rabbit trail that comprises my mental processes, this wild hare jumped out at me.

1. Term limits for politicians: two terms at any one political office, then they must leave and work at a minimum wage job at manual labor, with NO OTHER RESOURCES allowed for a period equal to whatever public office terms they have served, with NO money r benefits or perquisites whatsoever (including welfare or tax refunds or whatever) from ANY government source or any source dealing with any aspect of their former office. This would perhaps tend to focus their attention while in office a bit closer on the effects their policies have on common folk.

2. Every seven years, anyone in so-called “Civil Service” would be required to take two years off under similar circumstances.

3. ALL Civil Service employees and elective offices to have their retirements limited to EXACTLY whatever common folks might have–Social Security and retirement plans individuals have actually paid their own money into.

4. Health care? Whatever they can pay for themselves, either in cash or via self-funded health insurance.

5. Military gets a bye. There’s not a politician or Civil Service employee that’s worth the lowest, faithful grunt. No, not one. Period. Full stop. End of story. Some may be worthwhile, but until they volunteer to literally lay down their lives to defend the Constitution and their fellow citizens, politicians and Civil Service employees aren’t worthy to carry the slop bucket of the lowest-ranking, faithfully serving enlisted man.

It’d be a start.

Earth Day 2011

While I’m in favor of conservation and good natural resource management practices, “Earth Day” just gives me a rash. It’s nothing but an excuse for enviro nazis to celebrate their victories over civilization and pound more lies into the heads of dumbass, self-lobotomized sheeple.

Today, on Earth Day 2011, crank up the lights–and anything else electrical that you can. Burn some meat over some charcoal. Mow your lawn with a 2-cycle mower that spews hydrocarbons. Drive a lot. Turn up the AC. Get a big cigar and blow smoke, preferably in the face of some local greenie. AnNd at the end of the day, build a bonfire of green wood and smoke up the neighborhood.

F’n greenies.