THE BIG ONE
I finally had a thought about the quake. We've got plenty food in our pantry to
last a lifetime, but water is a problem. I've resolved that as I usually have a
case or two of wine around, so that lasts me several weeks as it does now.
However, no one has ever mentioned how to flush toilets when you have no
water. I’.m not going to flush with my wine but my solution is to piss in a
can, then use that for a no.two flush. I do expect a Nobel piss for that one.
VOTING
We're making progress here. I can vote by mail now but am hoping
to vote via internet before I die. Baby steps. Meanwhile, I have a few
complaints about our ballots.
First off - I don't want
to vote for Controllers, Appraisers, Insurance types. How do their politics
come into play when they are just doing a job like controller? why can’t
they just be appointed by someone who has the power to do so. Junior College member? I don't give a rats
ass about who is capable of running a college. Why do they have to go through
the whole thing of raising money for a job like that? Maybe it pays pretty good but their politics,
forget it. Maybe the whole thing is that you can’t fire the incompetents. But don’;t
get me started on that.
All that
’s
left is lets all vote more school funds every time. Not me! I know about the
obscene amount of money squandered on our wonderful school system. Here
’s
how it works;
Public schools (College
also) do not come under the scrutiny of our Building Dept., they have to be
overseen by the State Architect. In this area, that means your school project
has to be checked
and approved by a
bunch of ass-hole anus loving Chinese engineers & architects who will beat
any tiny amount of creativity you may have inadvertally expressed. But wait! It
doesn
’t
stop there, as now
you have to hire another CONSTRUCTION INSPECTOR to make sure you are spending
an inordinate amount of our hard earned dollars to construct this machine for
learning
Now, I don
’t
believe that I am a Prima Donna,
Private
schools
are weirdly, treated like any
other construction project, by the local jurisdiction. I
’ve done a
few of them and always wonder, are we putting our wealthier kids in danger in
order to eliminate them in the next big one?
I guess that would level the playing field,
eh?
VIDEO ALERT
I came across ‘Generation War’, a video
from Germany, showing a different view of WW2.
Mostly fighting Russians, and not those pesky Americans.
Another good one RESCUE DAWN, a recent video of Vietnam
“Incident”, well done. Kind of like an escape from the Stalag.
QUESTION; Is horrific a word?
KIVA
I mentioned that a couple of years back I loaned $25 to Kiva
Organization. They gave a couple of loans to some motivated people in Kenya and
I got all the loan back recently. It went so well, I donated it to their
management to use to offset expenses.
Kiva, unlike other huge organizations, spends a very small percentage on
managing, but uses local people to do that.
TAKE NO PRISONERS Why
do they always refer to her as Hillary Rodham Clinton? Are there that many Hillary Clintons
around? On the other hand, when talking
about a prisoner, they always use the middle name. Kind of make’s me wonder.
NORTHWEST PASSAGE
It took me longer to find his book than it actually did his
finding of the Pacific.
BOOK REVIEW - I have been searching for a description of
the Pacific Coast by McKenzie in 1778, a Canadian who beat even Lewis and Clark’s
venture. I finally discovered a book
recently as strangely, there doesn’t seem to be much written about his
adventures. Well, that’s no surprise
since I opened up his tome, it was a direct reproduction of his original book
of 1780, but how surprising to find it in OLD ENGLISH, which means that the
letter’ ‘s’ was not used much as it was
substituted by a character that looks like an’‘f’, but subtly altered with part
of ‘f’s’ cross over. Anyway, let me give you an example of what I had gotten
into;
“ My new Conductor(guide)
being very much difcouraged and quite
tired of his fituation, ufed his influence to prevent our proceeding. He had never
been, he faid, at the Benahulla Toe, or White Man’s Lake; and that when he went
to the Efquimaux Lake, which is at no great diftance, he paffed over land from
the place where we found him, and to that part where the Efquimaux pafs the fummer. “
This all went well, except for a couple of spots, like: lefs = less,
the ’s’ is only used on double
‘s’ words.
How about ‘fubfiftence’ or ‘fciffors’? (subsistence,
scissors) that can really slow you down.
Anyway, we all got to the coast above Vancouver and safely
back again.
VIDEO ALERT
I came across ‘Generation War’, a video
from Germany, showing a different view of WW2.
Mostly fighting Russians, and not those pesky Americans.
One of my favorite books is’ The History of Civilization’
which has some nifty insights into not ‘Why are we here’ but more like ‘When we
were here.’ While we are all sitting
around in coffee shops worrying about a change in world temperature of a couple
of degrees, the author describes the
massive fluctuation of world temperatures, fo the past few million years. His enlightening graph shown here is derived
from some drillings in some ice masses that are 3,000 feet thick at least and
calculated from relationship between two distinct isotopes of Oxygen. From 200,000 years ago,
it seems the earth’s temperature varied massively until about 10,000 years ago
(8,000 BC) when it became very stable.
That coincided with the advent of farming and which resulted in the
initial growth of cities. It took a long
time for the climate to get to a point where our ancestors could settle down to
a farming life, and they took the first opportunity to do it. Must have been some of my people.
One of my favorite books is’ The History of Civilization’
which has some nifty insights into not ‘Why are we here’ but more like ‘When we
were here.’ While we are all sitting
around in coffee shops worrying about a change in world temperature of a couple
of degrees, the author describes the
massive fluctuation of world temperatures, fo the past few million years. His enlightening graph shown here is derived
from some drillings in some ice masses that are 3,000 feet thick at least and
calculated from relationship between two distinct isotopes of Oxygen. From 200,000 years ago,
it seems the earth’s temperature varied massively until about 10,000 years ago
(8,000 BC) when it became very stable.
That coincided with the advent of farming and which resulted in the
initial growth of cities. It took a long
time for the climate to get to a point where our ancestors could settle down to
a farming life, and they took the first opportunity to do it. Must have been some of my people.
SWIMMING WITH WARLORDS (Book Review) Kevin Sites
The author, a journalist describes his “Imbedment” with
troops in Afganistan . This war, not
much different than Iraqs’, but we’ve only lost 2,100 of our young people so
far, not counting the ones who are alive but missing legs or arms?
He notices that the
Taliban come from Pakistan. Most of their leaders are not religious, they want
to tax the Afgani’s during the opium harvest and take the money back to
Pakistan. There is no Jihad is their moto!
Here’s a thought for you “”Man-love Thursday” is a phrase
about the Afgani men like to have sex with each other so they will not be distracted
by lustfull thoughts on Friday, the Muslin day of prayer. Sexual relations
between men and boys in Kandahar are notorious. Hmmmm. I’ve never read anything about that in
the newspapers.
Some say 50% of Taliban
are addicted to opium. There are maybe a
million addicts in Afgan, and why not after
20 years of war (don’t forget the Russians).
Bagram is the incredibly expensive
military base in Afganastan, we spent $200 million in 2009 to expand it
to a small city, with a population of 30,000. Bagram is America’s duty-free space station in the war on
terror and may be the most culturally isolated outpost on the planet. The world’s
most effective killing machine has ensconced itself in a hastily constructed
replica of a Mid-west strip mall”.
The author , Site, gives first
hand descriptions of blatant corruption on all levels. He also makes note of the suicides of our troops. In2012, 349 had killed
themselves, while 295 were killed in combat.
Was it all worth it? Sites points out a classified report from
16 U.S. intelligence agencies that chaos will engulf Afganistan without our
aid, even with an ongoing investment of $8 Billion a year, the Taliban
will likely take over the country by 2017. I told you so, doesn’t anyone ever
listen to me? Can't we get some of that 8 Billion to fix our pot-holes in Sonoma County?
Designed by the Norwegian
Architect, Snohetta, One side consists of brilliant colors in a wonderful abstract form, while the other side
contains photos of various activities that are extant in the country.
