"In a democracy (‘rule by mob’), those who refuse to learn from history will be the majority and will dictate that everyone else suffer for their ignorance."
…almost all my Grolsch swingtops that I used in putting up the “Xmas Tree” pictured below are in use (that’s “filled with beer”), so I won’t be assembling the lil “Xmas Tree” we had in 2010 this year but will decorate using the materials we used last year.
Oh, well. I guess I’ll just have to live with having a few gallons of homebrew this year.
🙂
This A.M., during our M-Th-F “carpool”, my Wonder Woman and I had one of those “partner telepathy” things that have become more and more frequent over the years. Windshield just looked dewy, not frosted, so I just flipped the wipers for a one-wipe. Nope. “Hmm, looks like it’s a little frosty. I may have to rename today.” Pause. “Maybe I’ll call it ‘Robert'”.
“Funny,” she said, “I thought I’d say ‘Jack’ but then thought ‘Robert’ myself.”
Married long enough yet?
I’ve taken to putting a water-soluble dietary fiber powder in my coffee. No discernible difference in taste or texture, but I do have a rather moving experience several hours later… 😉 Maybe I should also have some jalapeño ice cream with it?
What’s the deal with The Zero? Trying out a new comedy routine or an IQ test for Republicans? “So here’s the deal: you give me $1.2 Trillion in tax hikes and I give you bupkis. Pretty good deal, eh? *wink-wink-nudge-nudge*”
If Repugnican’ts were to get brain transplants (so they can qualify as real Republicans) they’d all voice their severe disapproval of his proposals and then abstain from votes on The Zero’s them and let the Dhimmicraps OWN the resultant disasters. “See? we didn’t stand in the way of The Zero getting what he wanted, while we voiced our disapproval with abstentions. It’s not OUR mess. It’s all on The Zero and his cronies. It’s THEIR policies that have created what we have and you can blame them, not us. So there. Nanny-nanny-boo-boo.”
I usually do a sort of semi-mini-micro-nano “deeper” than usual post for Thanksgiving. After all, our wedding was the day after, back in the day (specifically planned that way to make travel for family easier to effect), 14 years ago, around this time, my Wonder Woman was just a month and a scooch back from the dead (no, really; but not “Zombie Wonder Woman”–no), etc.
But today, I’d like to point out a little thing I am grateful for.
When I was a kid, starting sometime in grade school, everywhere we were for Thanksgiving, the B&W TVs were tuned to the Thanksgiving parades and, when food wasn’t being consumed or music being made, likely a football game or two (except my maternal grandmother’s house; she forbade the thing during such family gatherings; kids? Outside to play. Grownups? I have no idea. I was a kid. Outside. Playing.)
So, lotsa watching parades as a kid (except at Grandmother’s House!). For me, that meant, “blah-blah-blah-blah-blah–HORSES. blah-blah-blah-blah-blah–HORSES. blah-blah-blah-blah-blah–HORSES.” When I got into high school, parades meant something different: “Play-play-play-play-play–HORSESHIT! Play-play-play-play-play–HORSESHIT!”
I am thankful today that we’re going by Grandmother’s House Rules. NO PARADES.
The headline from the subliterate British idiot (well,he’s either subliterate or deliberately deceptive, although I wouldn’t rule out both at once, yet), Nick Squires, tries to sensationalize a yawner:
Seriously, is there any literate person anywhere in the world who didn’t already know this? No, really. The error in a sixth century monk’s calculations has absolutely no impact whatsoever on the NT record of Jesus’ birth. None. Zilch. A big zero with the rim kicked off. It’s nothing more or less than a moderately interesting piece of trivia about one small aspect of one of the relatively early stages in the development of the most common Western calendar.
The article makes clear that the “years earlier” in the headline (leading people astray right there) is around two to maybe as many as seven years’ difference between Dennis the Small’s erroneous calculation and Jesus’ probable birth (most scholarship settles around four years). Oh, but do notice the idiocy in the lede:
The ‘mistake’ was made by a sixth century monk known as Dionysius Exiguus or in English Dennis the Small, the 85-year-old pontiff claims in the book ‘Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives’, published on Wednesday.
WTF? Why is “mistake” in sneer quotes? And why “claims”? And why–citing the sub-title of the article, “The entire Christian calendar is based on a miscalculation… “–try to cast doubts about the “entire Christian calendar”?
It’s all about the Hivemind’s anti-Christian narrative, folks. File the information somewhere for a trivia game and move along. Nothing to see here (unless you are a history buff).
BTW, again: “Little Monk Dennis'” placement of the birth year of Jesus is an anomaly. Very, very few authorities, from the early church Fathers on, before and after Lil Denny, agreed with his placement, and by far the majority have come down on a placement anywhere from 4-6 B.C., by Lil Denny reckoning. So, for darned near a couple of millenia, any literate person knew what is being trumpeted in the article as “news”. Only incurious subliterates will find this to be news.
I’ve not written anything here until now, though I have responded very, very briefly to email and to comments in other fora about what is now almost a capitalized event: The Petraeus Affair.
Look,
2. If the “nookie calls” began while he was still in military service–as yet not actually determined–it was a criminal offense under the UMCJ.
3. Regardless, his actions while serving in a sensitive security post were malfeasance in office. Any patzer in the security field is aware of the dangers of a “honeypot” and Petraeus was no patzer. “Unprofessional”? No, incompetent, and possibly criminally so.
If he can repair his relationship with his family, it will only be due to his family’s generosity, because nothing he can do would earn forgiveness.
BTW, for those slamming Holly Petraeus: grow up. My wife’s [an indeterminate age, but one almost indistinguishable from Holly Petraeus’ age *cough*]. She doesn’t look like she did in her 20s. Doesn’t matter. And, frankly, that sort of thing doesn’t really matter to any real man. Age happens. Grow up and deal with it.
But that leads to a more fundamental issue: the steady, inexorable destruction of honor and decency in our society, of which the general acceptance of infidelity and divorce are but one example. One hears the mantra, “50% of marriages end in divorce” all the time as though that were some sort of excuse for a false oath, a dishonorable statement of commitment. It’s also a lie, using a partial truth. Think: how many people do you know who have been divorced? How many of those have been divorced more than once? Besides, the 50% number is a chimera. The best surveys on the issue are all over the map, coming up with figures between 11% and 34% of marriages that HAVE ended in divorce.
But the meme is there and used constantly as an excuse for people being unfaithful… and as a way to lower expectations, erode commitment. But it’s just one of many excuses the termites of society put forth to excuse unfaithfulness. Go ahead. Pause a moment and come up with your own list of excuses for a married person having an “affair” or pursuing a divorce.
Now, I’m not asserting there are not legitimate grounds for divorce–there are (physical abuse, unfaithfulness*, desertion just about complete the list**). But there are NO excuses for being unfaithful to one’s wedding vows, one’s spouse that I will ever accept. Period.
For a couple of years now, I’ve been tempted to post a version of this with a brief commentary. It’s time. Our culture is so debased, now, that this is one of the BEST pieces of music to have been written recently. As music, it stands head and shoulders above ANYTHING else I’ve heard from contemporary pop culture manufactured “music” industry.
Why, the “hamster” can even reproduce pitches better than 99% (plus) of contemporary pop “music” so-called “artists”. Is it any wonder that a culture so debased that THIS would be among the best music that it produces has chosen to inflict the national government such as we now have on everyone?
‘Nuff said.
Every now and then, our fairly high dollar Bosch dishwasher (which we really, really like, otherwise) will just lose its mind. Turn on. Seems to cycle and… about 90 seconds later beeps to tell us the wash cycle is finished, when it never really began. None of the troubleshooting instructions from Bosch affect it at all, but if I throw the breaker for the circuit the dishwasher is on, wait about a minute and turn the circuit back on–effectively performing a hard reset of its tiny lil brain–the thing works like a champ.
Must be an embedded Windows OS. *heh*
Dialog from a smartphone ad:
“When you build an aircraft, you want it to go up and stay up.”
Really?!? Anyone “flying” it, and any passengers, would at best starve to death (unless they were able to get in flight provisioning).
*pplpplpplpplpplpplppl*
Not bad, but rather loosey-goosey generic. Of course, he says a large part of the problem is “people of faith who stayed behind church doors” instead of speaking out, becoming active against the evils around us.
No, “Wild Bill”, those are not “people of faith” but for the most part a people of comfort, people of fear, people of the sick culture they live in FAKING a faith they do not possess while living a faith in a secular America–political, economic–that is antithetical to the faith they profess.
Of course, “Wild Bill” simply mentions the Bible and refers to a generic “people of faith” and some generic “churches”–another thing that chaps my gizzard along the lines of gizzard-chapping from nonsense phrases like “traditional values”.
But that’s another rant.