... you can talk about whatever you want.
(The photo is from Zion National Park. I didn't include it in my "colors of Zion" post this morning because the blueness of the sky threw all the other colors off.)
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Yesterday Mitch Seavey won his 3rd Iditarod, breaking the speed record and also the age. At 57 he's the oldest winner, surpassing the previous winner ... himself at 53. He and his son Dallas have been swapping 1st position for a few years now. Beautiful scenery, gorgeous dogs, inspiring athleticism. I'm a fan. And it's no fad.
Big Sky Country. That is one view we don't see in Atlanta and environs. But we like our forests.
Yep. 6,000 years old.
Spent two weeks in eastern Kentucky once visiting a friend. Got claustrophobia pretty bad. Couldn't see the sky for those damn trees!
Careful experiments in the weekly wednesday ham contest, mostly high speed morse, reveal that my mostly 10dB weaker signal can't be easily copied by expert operators at 28wpm but it can be at 24wpm (based on probability that they get my call letters wrong from a single try, the difference being half the time vs almost never).
The signal to noise based channel capacity sets in.
I can copy them because they're much stronger signals than me.
There's an etiquette problem when you're not received. If you do the technically correct thing of slowing down, the unwanted implication is that you think the guy can't copy faster morse, but the technical reason is that the channel can't support faster morse.
So you wind up repeating the transmission several more times at the higher speed.
I know you can copy this fast and we'll just beat on the channel.
Family reunion in Phoenix tomorrow for my grandson's birthday. We left California January 15.
They go to Phoenix every year at this time for the Angles' Spring training camp. The baseball team meets with the kids and the whole family are baseball nuts. I think they are mostly annoyed at us for moving because we used to go to his Little League games.
The house is coming along. Going to Home Depot today to look at French doors.
rhhardin said...
There's an etiquette problem
rh, it literally would never have occurred to me that you know the word etiquette, let alone concern yourself with it.
Polarizing filter? They're great for increasing color saturation by removing the slight blue-sky cast of outdoor pictures, but can make the sky come out almost black.
Michael K said: I think they are mostly annoyed at us for moving because we used to go to his Little League games.
Maybe the expectation that the whole family attends every child's games or performances is the most significant "fad"?
Isn't there an old saying: "Distance makes the heart grow fonder?"
John, it's a true story. A guy went to his doctor and said he had a farting problem: his farts make a weird noise.
Doc: "What sort of noise?"
Guy: "Sorta like honda! Honda"
Doc: "Well, have you changed your diet or exercise lately, or anything like that?"
Guy: "Well, I did recently start drinking absinthe."
Doc: "That's it! Absinthe makes the fart go honda."
Bob Ellison, LOL. That sounds like a joke Alexa tells when I can't think of anything to ask her beyond what the temperature is or what music to play...
Ann I wonder if you have seen this:
http://jmp.princeton.edu/statement
It's also printed in the Washington Post today, I believe.
An important statement from academia!
-- Jessica
Jessica-
That statement seems like a positive step in addressing the trend of shutting down different opinions and thought on campuses. I hope it works andd is expanded. It still seems to include many trap-doors that allow 'signers' to slip through when they find it convenient.
Then there's this: "So someone who has not fallen into the idolatry of worshiping his or her own opinions and loving them above truth itself will want to listen to people who see things differently in order to learn what considerations—evidence, reasons, arguments—led them to a place different from where one happens, at least for now, to find oneself.
The groupthink bubble built over the last many years has generated more than a few in academia who one might conisder already in the "idolatry of worshiping his or her own opinions". Most appear as "experts" and "pundits" on "news" channels.
That is a beautiful photo. Thank you Ann.
What route did you drive from Zion through to Colorado? IMO the grandest views in America are on that drive (depending on route)
Maybe the expectation that the whole family attends every child's games or performances is the most significant "fad"?
I would have fainted dead away if my father had gone to a game of mine.
The Preet Bharara story just got a lot more interesting if this is true.
In 2015, Puerto Rico defaulted on $70 billion in municipal bonds. Those involved panicked. There was ample evidence that the issuing agencies were technically bankrupt when they issued the bonds and that they purchased fraudulent credit ratings from Moody’s Fitch and S&P. Wall Street’s biggest banks then knowingly sold junk bonds to innocent investors, labeling them as safe investments. Everyone made a ton of money, except the innocent investors.
The evidence of this massive criminal act was overwhelming. The lawsuits and complaints to the FBI and SEC were streaming in. Dozens of Wall Street executives could go to prison. This was serious.
The Wall Street executives went to Senator Schumer and asked for two things: that no criminal investigations or prosecutions be considered and that he somehow limit the bondholders’ rights to keep them from suing.
By this time, all congressmen and senators were made fully aware of the potential fraud that had taken place in Puerto Rico. That didn’t stop Senator Schumer; he put together a small team consisting of himself, Elizabeth Warren, Senator Blumenthal and Senator Feinstein. In January 2016, they submitted a rider to the energy bill that unbelievably would prevent the innocent bondholders from suing. All four politicians were quickly rewarded and the Wall Street contributions flooded in.
Then an understanding was stuck with US Attorney Bharara that investigations would be sidetracked and no prosecutions would take place.
After doing my annual tour of Civil War sites in Atlanta over the weekend I am spending all this week in Chattanooga with my 36 year old son, who had his tonsils removed yesterday morning. Seems like this is a more difficult procedure for an adult than a child. Enjoying spending some father and son time and playing with the dog - a 9 year old yellow lab - and binge watching movies and TV series on Amazon and Netflix while he eats ice cream and popsicles. Also enjoying Chattanooga's gigabit internet service. Wish that was avaialble where I live.
Then an understanding was stuck with US Attorney Bharara that investigations would be sidetracked and no prosecutions would take place.
3/15/17, 2:40 PM
If true, how rotten is that? I would send my mother to jail if she did that.
If true, Bharara was stupid to pipe up, unless maybe he relies on muddying the waters.
If true, is Schumer running again?
I would have fainted dead away if my father had gone to a game of mine.
I think the majority of us over, say 42 yrs old, agree with that.
The Preet Bharara story just got a lot more interesting if this is true.
Then there's this from 2016:
'Puerto Rico pushed a record amount of its bonds toward default by declaring a moratorium on debt payments after President Barack Obama signed a law sheltering the island from bondholder lawsuits as it seeks to arrest a financial collapse.
Two years ago today, I broke my coccyx climbing a portly friend who was seated on a bar stool. It was an old bar trick that never failed to elicit chuckles from my admiring fellow boozers. "Scaling Mt. [portly friend's last name]" I called it. But on my descent, my foot slipped and I wound up spearing my tailbone on the steel, square-tipped stool back brace. This is the sort of physical calamity that's super funny - like hemorrhoids - until you personally experience it. Unfortunately, as I quickly realized, there's nothing funny about it; the pain transcended even that of the ruptured appendix that nearly sent me to Heaven back in ought and three. I went cotton ball white, nearly vomited and staggered back to a booth, where I lay in misery for many minutes while my jag-off pals continued to inhale their alcohol. One of them actually photographed me in my agony. He was, and is, a bastard of the first order. I am not yet fully free of the pain associated with that tavern debacle.
Chronic pain from coccyx fracture sometimes requires it be removed.
Nice to meet you Basil Duke. We need someone around here with better stories to tell.Not that I am laughing.
It's not chronic, Michael K, but rather an intermittent dull, throbbing pain. Honest to God, it seems to flare up when the temperature changes radically and quickly (much like my fiasco of a half-torn rotator cuff*). Thank you, though, for your input.
*Very hard lesson learned here: I had decided to get in some semblance of "good shape," and had worked my way up from five to 20 push-ups at a time. I got prideful, and started envisioning the day when I'd be able to knock off 30, or 40, even. And then it tore: I know exactly when it happened, and swear I heard it. I definitely felt it. The lesson: When you're 51, EASE yourself VERY CAREFULLY into any sort of physical activity to which you're half-century old carcass is unaccustomed. So now I've got the bone shard coccyx, the shredded rotator cuff and a recent root canal and crown to keep the pain evenly distributed. I will welcome the gout like an old and long-overdue friend.
When Aloïs Brandl studied linguistics during the Great War, he used British POW's.
He had their voices recorded, and the recordings were recently discovered in Berlin.
He originally commented on his study: "We sought out the farmers lads from isolated farms, the fishermen from tiny harbors, the shepherd's, and above all, all those who were almost unable to read or write.
Local dialect in the strict sense of the word is restricted to those of low intelligence, and is consequently deficient in intellectual content."
The last sentence being also a modern snark, in that "war" being a highly intelligent pursuit, but used as a benefit to record conscripts who were thought of as having low intelligence.
The funny thing is, that the recordings of these men are actually more interesting than Brandl's lifetime work and career. snark...
While most American ignore what's going on in Europe, John McCain is working hard to start the next war. This war will engulf the whole continent, and pretty much end with cities so radioactive, that only wild boars will roam for centuries.
“You are achieving the objectives of Vladimir Putin...trying to dismember this small country which has already been the subject of an attempted coup,” McCain said.
Rand Paul then voted no to a Senate "unanimous consent request" to support Montenegro’s bid to join NATO.
Most Americans can't even find Montenegro on a map.
American soldiers are now on the Russian border in Norway. Blackhawk helicopters were just sent to shore up the baltic states, and NATO artillery is in range of Saint Petersberg.
And yet, McCain says we should fear Putin. Nope, I fear McCain who is the worst kind of politician. The ones who have never had a job in their life, and failed every task handed them.
Thanks Rand Paul.
EASE yourself VERY CAREFULLY into any sort of physical activity to which you're half-century old carcass is unaccustomed.
Also, don't eat grapefruit if you are on statins.
I fear McCain who is the worst kind of politician. The ones who have never had a job in their life, and failed every task handed them.
I tend to agree. I don't know what is happening with him, maybe senility.
Trump's not having a good day today. His 2nd Travel Ban was just blocked by a Hawaiian judge. TrumpCare is floundering. There's no evidence that Trump was wiretapped per Senators Nunes and Schiff.
Mike K -
Re Puerto Rico's defaulted $70B - (last number I saw was $78B)
PROMESA bill - signed June 30 2016
Sets up a negotiation board with creditors and bars lawsuits.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-bill/2328
Very bipartisan as these things go these days.
A great deal about the Puerto Rico debt situation smells.
"After doing my annual tour of Civil War sites in Atlanta over the weekend I am spending all this week in Chattanooga with my 36 year old son,"
Next to Gettysburg, Lookout Mountain is the coolest Civil War site. Chickamauga battlefield is well preserved but all the trees make it hard to make sense of the battle. Of course, the battle itself was a complete mess.
We need to encourage Puerto Rico to join the British Empire.
They're obviously smarter than half of America.
"Dutch elections: Wilders' far-right party defeated, exit polls show"
(CNN)Conservative Dutch Prime Minster Mark Rutte has defeated a challenge from his far-right rival in an election widely seen as an indicator of populist sentiment in Europe, exit polls indicated Wednesday.
The anti-immigrant firebrand Geert Wilders, who had promised to "de-Islamise" the Netherlands, was on course for a poorer than expected performance. In exit polls for the national broadcaster NOS, his Freedom Party tied for second place with two other parties."
rcocean:
Two of my great uncles, brothers born in Ireland, died at Chickamauga. One was KIA while serving in an Illinois volunteer regiment that was part of Thomas's rear guard. The other died a few days later of diptheria in a field hospital near the battlefield. Both were buried in unmarked graves in the nearby cemetery.
Neither lad was older than 25 and they spoke American with Irish accents; Gaelic was their first language. They were Dublin-born and came to America, and Illinois, in 1849, driven to immigrate by "An Gorta Mor," the Great Hunger. They hadn't been in America but 12 years when the Civil War broke out and they answered the call to the colors immediately, as volunteers, along with all the other young Irishmen in the community (Decatur, Illinois). I have all their service records including their enlistment papers.
All those young Irishmen in their community enlisted on the same day, together: what a scene that must have been. The older brother, Theophilis Luttrell, 24, already had two children. I have the original photograph of the younger brother, Alexander, posing proudly in his brand new uniform and holding his brand new Springfield rifle; and, he's smiling!
Another Luttrell brother survived the war but suffered a wound that troubled him for the rest of his life; he died of complications from it in the early 1900s. Their youngest sibling, Lizzie (there were ended nine children in all), eventually up marrying the man who became my great-grandfather, William Burke, also born in Ireland, a Catholic Ulsterman. He served in the Union Cavalry and was wounded and invalided out the army shortly before the end of the war. He died in 1906, also from complications from his wound.
Sure, I'll raise a glass to the boys on St. Patrick's day, brave and true sons of Erin, loyal Americans who gave the last full measure of devotion to their adopted country. Raise a glass to great-grandma Lizzie too, God rest her.
"Sure, I'll raise a glass to the boys on St. Patrick's day, brave and true sons of Erin, loyal Americans who gave the last full measure of devotion to their adopted country."
Roughcoat: Great comment! I'll raise my glass to them, and to all the others who answered their countries call to duty - North or South.
Etienne, here's the thing. I guess what's happening now is we're redrawing the line of the Iron Curtain. But instead of Berlin being the frontier, Podgorica (Montenegro) or Tbilisi (Georgia) or wherever is on the frontier.
Now, we all know that everybody on their side of the line, in what they think of as their Near Abroad, at a first approximation, will never know freedom. They will forever be locked in the crazy house with Gospodin Jeffrey Dahmer. So there is a commendable impulse to get everybody, everybody who does not want to spend eternity sucking Russian dick at gunpoint, on the other side of the line.
Belarus wants to suck Russian dick, let them. Ossetia wants to suck that dick right off, let them. Serbia probably thinks they can get 69, we'll see. The Stans are probably not possible to save, too far, and they probably don't know the difference, poor bitches. But no freedom loving European should be shut in with Gospodin Dahmer if it can possibly be helped.
So on that basis I'm fine with Montenegro being in the NATO orbit.
Your very rational concern is, can they pull their weight, is Montenegro defensible, is that the hill that Western Civilization wants to die on. For that I don't have answers at the ready. But sometimes the question is not whether a thing is wise but whether it is right.
"Both were buried in unmarked graves in the nearby cemetery. "
My great great uncle William J Kennedy, born in New York died after being wounded at Vicksburg in the last charge before Grant decided on a siege, May 22, 1863. He died June 2 and was also buried in an unmarked grave but the graves, I have been told, were marked with the unit (He was in the 55th Illinois Volunteer Infantry) and the date of death. I'm going to Memphis in June, to the US Military Cemetery and look to see if I can find his grave.
His parents came from Ireland about 1800 and I know the church (Now a pub) where they were married in Antrim in northern Ireland. I probably will not make it there but I do have hopes of finding the grave. I have his letters to his wife, Jane, including th last one telling her he would be OK. Then the one from the sister of the man in the next bed in the Union hospital in Memphis, telling her he had died.
I also have some of his wife's poetry lamenting that she would never be able to visit his grave,. His younger brother died of measles in an army camp the same year.
"Anyone who doesn't want Montenegro to join NATO is Putin's whore"
That encapsulates the McCain McCrazy is one sentence.
Who cares whether Montenegro joins NATO? And why would Putin care? Is Montenegro in danger of a Russian invasion? Look at a fucking map!
McCrazy is 80 years old. He graduated from college when Eisenhower was President. He was 9 years old when Hitler died. He was 30 years old when Color TV became the standard. He was 44 when Reagan was elected.
Why is this crazy old man still in the Senate?
McCain is so old he remembers when Truman beat Dewey.
McCain is so old he listened to Fibber McGee and Molly.
McCain is so old he drove an Edsel.
Mccain is so old he remembers when rock and roll was a "fad"
Why is someone so out of touch with the Modern 21st Century making our laws?
Its McCrazy.
"Anyone who doesn't want Montenegro to join NATO is Putin's whore"
It's a little more complicated than that. Russians have been buying up Montenegro for the last decade, and the Montenegrins have been anxious to sell to them. The Russians now pretty much own all of the resort city of Budva and not an insignificant part of Kotor and areas in between. Their Serbian clients even tried to stage a coup last October, but failed . I was there at the time and, other than causing the cancellation of an election that was supposed to be won by a NATO-centric regime, it seemed to be a non-event, i.e., no one seemed to care. I thought it interesting at the time that there were so many Russian oligarch super yachts anchored in Montenegran waters and there were more Russians in Budva than Montenegrins. Montenegrins are looked down upon by the Croats, Serbs, and Bosnians as being backwards, lazy and corrupt - don't know how accurate that is, but it's definitely the poor sister of the Western Balkans from what I saw, and I seriously doubt its very smart to try to make it a part of NATO. Keeping the Russians out would be nice, but how do you do that when the whole country has already been sold to them?
Montenegrins are looked down upon by the Croats, Serbs, and Bosnians as being backwards, lazy and corrupt - don't know how accurate that is,
Tough fighters in tough terrain, is my understanding. Mountain men. The Russians would not be very wise to invade Montenegro. For that matter they would have to come a long way first. Not a huge flashpoint, ISTM. Not like those frozen conflict areas the Soviets loved to set up everywhere.
Besides, they produced Nero Wolfe, so they must be quite intelligent!
Anonymous said...
http://jmp.princeton.edu/statement
An important statement from academia!
The sad thing is, it's more appropriate for elementary schools: "No screaming when someone is speaking. Don't hit people because they said something you don't like. Use your indoor voice." Etc.
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