"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."
From Forward the Mage by by Eric Flint, Richard Roach and Jim Baen: How to deal with enemies:
Whenever you can, stab ’em in the back.
Better yet, stab ’em in the back in the dead of night.
Best of all, stab ’em in the back in the dead of night while they’re asleep.
If you’ve got to stab ’em in the front, try a low blow.
If none of that works, then use all your skills as best you can, you stupid dummy.
Git ‘er done.
*heh*
Pretty much, here in America’s Third World County, yep: rural, all right. Purdue University has applied an “Index of Relative Rurality” to stats from American counties that illustrates the point pretty well.
A recently introduced, continuous, multidimensional measure of rurality, the Index of Relative Rurality (IRR), avoids the confusing effects of inclusion in metro boundaries. (2) It does not answer the question “Is a county rural or urban?” but instead addresses the question “What is a county’s degree of rurality?”
The IRR is based on four dimensions of rurality: population, population density, extent of urbanized area and distance to the nearest metro area. These dimensions are unquestioned in terms of their contribution to rurality and are incorporated implicitly in many existing rurality definitions. The index is scaled from 0 to 1, with 0 representing the most urban place and 1 representing the most rural place
(CLEEK to Embeegan, as TWC’s–relatively–vast alien invasion population might say *sigh*)
See that color code next to the bottom? That’s us. We’re not completely devoid of human habitation, and we do have access to–sort of–“urban” areas, but da “piney woods” is our “back yard” (and for many their front yard too), and there are parts of the county where YOU DO NOT GO even if you aren’t a terminally stupid “revenooer”.
A good place for a “bug out location”. Just sayin’.
Oh, you’ll notice I gave no further indication of which of those counties color-coded with the next-to-most-rural coding is America’s Third World County. Long time readers of this blog can pick it out right away, anyway.
I have an amazing lip-reading ability. For example, I do watch Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind “news” programs every now and then, but I mute the sound when I do. That way, when, say, The Zero is featured in a clip, I can amaze others present with my lip-reading ability. For example, in the clip the following graphic was extracted from…
“Lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie.”
See? Amazing.
(BTW, I also have the ability to read minds. I know this because I got absolutely nothin’ from Biden.)
I used to use another product that’s almost as good to clean post n pans, coffee and hard water “stained” glasses and mugs, etc., but this stuff is less expensive and better:
While I mostly use it nowadays to shine up my “stainless” steel pots and pans, it has tons more uses. Gottaloveit. Just sayin’.
(Titled with insincere apologies to Twain.)
After perusing the text*, I think summing up all the lies The Zero’s phony “State of the Union” address (more like, “State of the Election” campaign speech?) would simply, for the most part, be a repeat of the text. Is there any substantive portion of the text that could stand as an example of an honest reflection of actual fact? No.
And this is what we have come to as a society: this bald-faced liar is viewed by 40% or more (in many polls, a majority!) of those polled as someone worthy of re-election. If such polls are to be believed, then America deserves to be placed on the ash heap of history.
Second thought… the text presented at the link is presented as, “Full text of President Obama’s State of the Union Address, as provided by the White House”–something that doesn’t necessarily inspire any confidence that it really is an actual transcript, and in fact almost assures that it is not, given the serial deceptions this administration is infamous for. But still, I have no desire to watch a video of it and be simultaneously bored to tears by the typical lackluster, lame, awful lack of oratorical skills The Zero genuinely possesses in place of the myth of his oratorical genius, AND infuriated by bald-faced lies issuing from his pie hole.
BTW, before anyone cites The Zero’s credit-hogging on the matter of the Bin Laden execution operation as a truthful statement, I’ll just flatly state that his claim of credit for Bin Laden’s death is so highly exaggerated as to make a lie of the thin facts it depends upon. And that, as any thinking person well knows, is how one constructs “competent” lies: out of a few facts comprising thinly applied lipstick on the pig the liar wants idiots to miss seeing.
Who, me? Watch the State of the (Dys)Union Lies? Nah. The lies will be much easier to spot reading a transcript. For one thing, confronting the lies that way is less likely to result in vomit on the floor and a RCOB* evening.
*RCOB=”red curtain of blood” referring to what would likely descend over my eyes as I went berserker. Just sayin’. I am able to be a wee tad more dispassionately analytical–or at least able to almost fake the dispassion–when confronted with lies in print.
I saw an article on building a Linux-controlled “Corretto” coffee roaster and thought, “Cool, but where would I put everything in our kitchen? I’d have to build on an addition!”
*heh*
Still, one of the things that gives Henry Ward Beecher a claim to historical immortality that rival’s his sister’s is his appreciation of good coffee:
“A cup of coffee – real coffee – home-browned, home ground, home made, that comes to you dark as a hazel-eye, but changes to a golden bronze as you temper it with cream that never cheated, but was real cream from its birth, thick, tenderly yellow, perfectly sweet, neither lumpy nor frothing on the Java: such a cup of coffee is a match for twenty blue devils and will exorcise them all.” – Henry Ward Beecher
And, after reading the above paean to a good cuppa joe and singing a few verses of O Blessed Holy Caffeine Tree i9n appreciation of The Holy Brew (#1) myself, almost the article cited above persuadeth me to do a “Linux Coffee Roaster” build of my own… Almost. I’d still need to build that addition onto the house.
I can recall a time well over half a century ago (OK, I was four years old) when I went around “touching” things with an imaginary eleven foot pole that I “wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole”.
And then I read recently,
They’d be fools to touch it with a 40 foot pole.
*sigh*
I commented the other day on how handy it is to use a stylus with the Kindle Fire, how easy it is to make styli and even briefly described a couple I made for use on the Fire (see update below).
Yep, they all work very well, but… the very (very) nice leather case my Wonder Woman got for me (yes, she was in cahoots with Son&Heir) for the Fire had no good place to store any of he styli I have. Darn. Oh, well, a rubber band sort of “solved” the issue, even if it did look kinda kuldgey. But wait! What’s this? A faux leather zipper case for a mini “legal pad” note pad? Let’s see…
Yep, the notepad switches over to the left side OK. Five lil hook-and-loop (Velcro-type) adhesive-backed “dot” fasteners and… Kindle Fire installed, the nicest of the pen/styli in the storage loop for a pen. Zip up. Secure. Open. Shake the contraption (over my lap). Secure.
Removed the Fire. The hook fastener dots stayed where they should (inside the lil zipper case), as did the loop fastener dots on the Fire, and the Fire reinstalled in the slightly more compact leather case w/o any problems.
Now, I have two different padded cases for the device, each of which work very well. Oh, the cost of the lil faux leather zipper case? $1.00, including the notepad, plus maybe $0.50 for the lil hook-and-loop dots used.
It’s coming together. So far, I use the Fire for
reading eBooks (of course)
watching videos (TV shows, movies)
listening to mp3s
browsing the web (light use)
reading and answering email (light use)
carpentry (!–the lil android bubble level app!)
And a few other things. I’ve not yet used it as I used to use my old Palm M500, for note taking, shopping and to-do lists, and as an addressbook simply because, while it is a small form factor, it’s not small enough to fit in any pockets except on one heavy winter coat I own. That might change if I find a convenient way to safely carry it around with me, but then again it might not. we’ll see.
UPDATE: “easy to make”? Way easy. Just now made another one from an old Saitek lighted stylus (dead batteries) for my (now dead) Palm M500. Removed the plastic point. Cut a thin strip of conductive foam padding. Folded the foam strip and sorta screwed it in where the tip once went. Cut a piece of aluminum tape and wrapped a small portion of the foam strip and the metal body of the stylus together and… new stylus for my capacitive touchscreen. Very nice. Smaller tip than any of the others so far, too, which makes hitting the lil tools icon all the easier.
🙂
In case the source of the post title or the King James English is a puzzle to some, here’s a quote (and reference to the context) and brief commentary before I get to the substance–whatever there may be–of this post:
For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. From 1Corinthians 13
Of course, the “glass” seen “through… darkly” referred to above is a mirror. The “through” instead of “in” (as we would have it today) reflects both changes in language and a particular view of the world–and mirrors ion particular–common for millennia up through at least the time of the court of King James, a view common enough even in the 19th Century to make Lewis Carroll’s use of it immediately accessible to his readers. The “darkly” is a common (in the day) reference to a cloudy mirror whose silvering has become delaminated or tarnished, reflecting *cough* the Greek passage’s reference to a tarnished mirror made of polished metal.
So, “Through a glass darkly” refers to an imperfect reflection of reality.
Simple, right? It ought to be obvious from context, but many people seem today to make the silly assumption that it refers to looking through a window in some manner.
Sidebar: I view anyone who cannot read and grasp the language of the KJV Bible or Shakespeare’s plays and poems in (close to*) Shakespeare’s language to be at best semi-literate. At best. These two bodies of work are simply the best literature in the English language and worthy of being grasped on their own terms.
Now, to whatever scraps of meat there may be in this post.
I was treated this AM to a brief glimpse–on two levels, which led to more that aren’t germane to this post–into the meaning of this excerpt from the famous Pauline passage. First, from this post at Ann Althouse’s blog (go ahead and read it for context if you will), two comments:
Oh, and by the way, as you sit at your COMPUTER to read this, remember what conditions it was produced under & think again about those evil, slave-holding, cotton producing, antebellum Southerners.
That’s you in the mirror.
And
Your computer comes with a mirror?
Strangely, the computer I was sitting at when I read the second comment was–dimmly–acting as a mirror. A 15.6″ glossy notebook screen in a room well-lit by direct sunlight? Mirror. *sigh*
And yes, I could see the semi-validity of the first comment, although the commenter’s analogy was seriously flawed. I’m more in the position of those (often British and Northern) consumers who wore cotton clothing made from slave-produced cotton exported for manufacture into other goods than the position of a slave-owning Antebellum Southerner (of whom the South had relatively few compared to its general population of free persons).
Yes, I benefit from the “Made by slave labor in China” effect, though the computer I was having my face reflected by was not produced with very many “made in China” parts and pretty much contained only a few materials derived from Chinese slave labor–mostly the rare earths materials exported by China and used in products used in America primarily because the “feddle gummint” makes mining and refining our own resources prohibitively expensive.
Still, what are my choices?
Well, at least I won’t be buying any Apple products. *heh*
*OK, so what’s the deal with “Shakespeare’s plays and poems in (close to*) Shakespeare’s language”? Simple. We have editions of Shakespeare’s plays which may or may not reflect accurately what was originally written, and though we have substantial evidence of Shakespeare’s work to go by, even less evidence of his actual work than we have textual evidence concerning differing versions of biblical works. “Close to” is good enough, though, to let us benefit from the richness of Shakespeare’s work, regardless of who the author was (another can of worms that doesn’t matter any more than it matters “which” Homer–if any–wrote Odysseus *heh*).