Day: March 25, 2005

…but some of these dishes at Carnival of the Recpies #32 are looking awefully good…

(Parenthetically, after THREE attempts to post this, I am beginning to hate blogger)

I had all kindsa nice stuff to say bout this week’s Carnival of the Recipes, but Blogger seems to want to lose it all. Again and again… Just go here and see all the goodies. Still gonna have Mac n Cheese tonight, but I can see a couple of the recipes from this week’s carnival making the list for this weekend’s meals.

Well, an old gig in new clothing, perhaps…

Back to curmudgeon mode.

I’m thinking of beginning a new consulting firm. People can call me up and ask if their boss/co-worker/spouse/neighbor is a jerk. I’ll be happy to listen to the circumstances, pronounce my diagnosis (naturally, they’re all jerks—at least there’s a vanishingly small chance they are not) and charge my fee. ($75/15 minute call? Sounds about right.)

Sounds like a winner: “Wah-Wahs for Whiners” I think I’ll call it. Whadda ya think?

Addendum: I just placed a call to myself to test this out. Griped a while about some jerk in a WallyWorld parking lot who decided to drive the wrong way up an aisle in the parking lot. What? The “U.S. Mail” sign on his pickup gave him the right to do so? Not in my book. I laid on my horn until he backed on out. Jerk. Next step? A call/letter/fax to the postmaster in that town complaining about the unsafe driving and rude behavior of this jerk. Then, a lil phone call to my congrsscritter asking what can be done to get this jerk hung by the short and curlies. Hey! And if he can’t tell which way to drive in a WallyWorld parking lot, maybe he’s impersonating a typical oh-so-bright and “professional” USPS part-time rural mail carrier. After all, don’t they have to take some kinda civil service exam (like that’s harder than reading a comic book)? Maybe this guy’s a terrorist or something. Yeh, the feebs ougghta investigate his sorry… a-hem… Yeh, that’s the ticket….

So, after griping to myself on my $75/15-minute phone call (nice to have 2 lines so I can do that), I told myself that this part-time rural mail carrier was indeed a jerk.

Money well spent.

*heh*

It’s Good Friday. Have a nice trip. (Do you know your destination?)

See the first (Good Friday) half of “Cruci-fix”.

Joe Schembrie marks the 100th anniversary of the death of Jules Verne

I missed it yesterday, but March 24 was the 100th anniversary of the death of Jules Verne. If you’re thinking “Huh?!?” right now, just go read Joe Schembrie’s essay, “Jules Who?”

An excerpt:

“…Verne’s two novels of space travel, From Earth to the Moon and Around the Moon… foretold of NASA’s actual lunar voyage a century later with surreal accuracy. For example, Verne’s space-shell resembles the Apollo 8 Command Module and even weighs the same. Both real and fictional vehicles carried a crew of three. Verne’s space-shell was launched from a location in Florida just one hundred and fifty miles from where Apollo 8 was launched, and the actual mission splashed down in the South Pacific just two and a half miles from where Verne’s fictional mission returned. “

Heck, don’t just read Schembrie’s essay, go read (or re-read) some of Verne’s prescient 19th Century novels.

Jerry Pournelle on Terri Schiavo, again

In Chaos Manor Musing‘s Current View, Thursday, this comment from Jerry Pournelle:

She is unfortunate. She is a white female Catholic innocent of any crime. Were she Black, or Hispanic, then she would have her defenders and the more her brain damage the more insistent the ACLU would be on defending her rights. As it is, she has no one to defend her but some people who actually believe in law and justice and are not raising a rebellion in her aid.

Esmerelda had her beggars as defenders. But she was hanged quickly even so. Along with her goat.

One is tempted to add, “Of course.” But then, one always attempts to resist such temptations. Not. Further, were she a confessed monster, convicted of horrible acts of brutality and justifiably sentenced to death after all due process of law, she would be the poster child of the Left as they sought every means to prevent her death.

This isn’t irony. It’s the “logic” of monsters, Satan-spawn. Once can almost hear the dialog between Wormtwood and Screwtape…

You DO have a dog in this fight.

First they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me.

–Martin Niemöller