PsyClops Lair

The Cost of Obama Care or Just More Taxes

2010-08-02T11:28:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago our accounting department told us that we had received word from our current insurer that our rates were going to to up 40% to 60%, that this was a result of Obama Care and that this cost increase would hit every insurer across the nation.

Just now I received the following e-mail from our accounting department:

Attached: Health Insurance Premium Costs for 2009 and 2010.

Also attached: Current Summary of Insurance Coverage.

[EMPLOYER] has been notified that our health insurance premiums will be increased by 53.8% effective September 1, 2010.

We sent all employees health statements for Premera and ODS on July 22nd. It is imperative that completed statements

be emailed to [insurance broker's e-mail addy] so that we are able to “shop” for a reduced premium.

Employees eligible but insured under our plan must complete forms and submit them to the [Agency Name].

September 1, 2010 is open enrollment for eligible employees not previously enrolled.

[Accountant]

That's almost a 54% increase in cost next month for something that won't exist for years.

I work at a small enough company where we know what's going on. I suspect those working for larger employers may not yet be aware this is coming, but it's coming.

Government Health Care

2010-06-30T11:49:00.000-07:00

Need I say more?

No, but I will anyway: If the Federal Government can't give decent health care to a small group of people who have earned it, how can we think it'll be any better when it's spread over the whole nation? What government program gets better when it's expanded?

Good Presidenting

2010-05-21T12:09:00.000-07:00

I want to be incensed by the hypocrisy of Mexico's immigration laws and what Felipe Calderón asks of the US, but he's only fulfilling his duty as President of Mexico. He's looking out for the best interests of his country. Simple. Easy as that. That's what he's supposed to do. That's good presidenting.

Shame on the President who isn't working for the best interests of his country. Shame on him!

Do Process

2010-05-19T09:29:00.000-07:00

I'm guessing The Antenna is half the length of one of my dominant thought wavelengths, cause her latest post seemed to resonate with me. I started what I thought was a short comment and it just spewed out till I got busy.

You can either read it there, or below:

I hear you.

It seems that most people are shocked that the inept NY bomber was able to buy guns while his name was on the terrorist watch list. The ones I've heard seem to be of the opinion that being on that list should have prevented him from buying firearms.

There are over 2 million people on the terrorist watch list. I suspect that the vast majority of them are not a threat and when I say the vast majority, I'm talking greater than 99.95% who are probably not a threat, yet there seems to be a consensus that believes having a name on a list should have deprived them of a Constitutional right.

Now that's a dangerous mindset for America. Have your name put on a secret list and no longer be able to protect yourself. If that becomes policy, how long till there will be lists that prevent you from assembling with who you chose, speaking your opinion, moving, buying a house or car, ect.?

Hearing the progressives talk about 'redistribution of speech' suggests that our freedom of speech may be coming under assaults more restrictive than McCain-Feingold.

I've also seen that certain criminals are looking at indefinite jail time after their sentence. The undesirables in this case are sex offenders and while I think child molesters should have a $5,000 bounty on their head and rapists half that, the idea of keeping people imprisoned indefinately without due process violates the spirit of the Constitution as well as the letter of the Constitution.

I had started this paragraph "A worst case scenario would be..." but it's not really worst case. Oppressive governments in the past and currently around the world arbitrarily imprison people. It's only natural for an entity to remove threats and therein lies the conflict. What is the priority, right of the individual or rights of the state?

It seems that some people get confused at this point, but the way I see it, 'rights of the state' is really 'rights of the ruling class at the expense of everyone else' and is somehow camoflagued as 'equality'. In that light I can only devalue the rights of the state till they are less than the rights of the individual.

The many headed, multi-tentacled beast in my life known as work is awake and hungry. I must go feed it.

You'll Be Glad to Know...

2010-01-29T11:18:00.001-08:00

...that the Grim Reaper has been keeping up with technology. I know cause I caught a glimpse of him the other day.

The scythe is gone. He's now got a 12 gauge. It wasn't pointed at me, yet, though the narrow black ellipse of the muzzle was growing circular as it swung towards me, slow enough that I knew I'd have time for my life to flash before my eyes, twice, maybe 3 times.

Yea, that was what turning 46 was like, knowing that 50 is coming.

The Poster Boy for Leftist Policies at Work...

2009-12-28T12:03:00.001-08:00

Blunk Droggong at it's Best

2009-12-24T00:51:00.000-08:00

2 run and cokes, Im not drunk, but I though the title was cool.

I'm playing Eve Online and am harvesting a semi-rare gas in quantities that make me think there is a mistake somewhere. I've got 3 times the amount of this gas that I expected and it's still coming, but as you can expect, it it kinda boring, so the rum & cokes and this posting (after I read all the news and some blogs).

As for the direction this nation is taking, I fully hope and expect a Constitutional Convention (hereafter referred to as 'CC') after the next election cycle will eliminate many undesirable (and unConstitutional) steps the current administration has made. I used to fear a CC since I expected the left to use it to change the country, now I see Mainstream America using it to clarify the Constitution. Just imagine an Amendment clearly stating that a single payer system is illegal

That's about the time I expect the peace protesters to use the methods of the religion of peace and obama, or maybe Rahm, to promise us 7 years of peace.

Go see Avatar!! You'll enjoy the move and be amazed at the 3-D.

This is the season where the celebration of our Lord's birth has united people in worse conditions than we'll ever face.

Movie Reviews

2009-12-21T08:40:00.000-08:00

Transformers II: Revenge of the Fallen
Didn't meet the standard of the first one. I won't bore you with my criticisms.

Star Trek
Go see it. It's as good, if not better, then you've heard it is (assuming you read the same blogs I read).

Avatar
The 3-D isn't 3-D. 3-D movies look flat with visual distortions that try to twist your brain into saying "oh, that mop handle is poking out of the screen". The 3-D in Avatar is more like realism in which there is is rich texture and you can't even begin to fathom where the flat screen is. Everything, boulders, ferns, you name it has a true presence of depth throughout the movie.

I hadn't expected Avatar to live up to it's revolutionary industry changing status, but having seen it, I think it may. After all, for the theater industry to succeed, they need to offer us something that we can't get at home. I think they've found it.

It was also nice seeing aliens that didn't look like humans in costume. Even though they were human enough to relate to and like.

Go see it. You will enjoy it. I plan to see it again, in the theater and that is the best compliment I can give a movie.

Loss of Respect

2009-12-10T10:44:00.001-08:00

World Net Daily continues to lose my respect.

The other day I was reading an article by one of their named columnists. At the time I had no time to comment on it. I don't recall his name. But it continues to bother me, so I come here and vent.

President Obama is not stopping Congress from investigating the events surrounding Major Nidal Hasan as stated. Sure there is hypocrisy where the White House involves itself in a reported breaking and entering in Cambridge, but refuses to get involved in a much larger crime. What I want to point out is the articles author's lack of understanding of how the US Federal Government works, mainly the separation of powers.

The US Federal Government is made up of 3 distinct branches of power. Two of which are Congress and the President. While Congress has the direct power to remove the President while the President doesn't have the direct power to remove Congressmen tells me that Congress has more power than the President.

The President can't tell Congress what to do. Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and their crüe are happily cooperating with the President. They are all complicit in the danger the PC environment presents.

I've had the same argument with a local am talk show host who fancies himself a conservative. I'm just sick of hearing it.

Update:
Searching WND for 'Cambridge' I found the article.

Everyone is Missing the Point...

2009-10-09T10:36:00.001-07:00

...of the current Liberal theology.

The awarding of the Nobel Peace prize isn't really for anything Obama's done. It's to help raise his self esteem.

I bet he gets a little trophy every time he plays basketball too.

Microbiology

2009-09-14T14:07:00.001-07:00

This will activate your dancing gene.

Don't Judge a Movie by the Promo

2009-08-20T10:10:00.000-07:00

This looks like it could be a sappy romance wrapped in CGI and sci-fi, but I'm hoping it's a ripping good yarn. I'll have to see it before I pass judgment on it.

James Cameron gave us Titantic as well as Terminator. It could go either way.

Sometimes a Theory is Just a Theory

2009-08-18T12:04:00.000-07:00

So they are putting theories in my game?

I think that getting Eyjol on board, getting a proper economist to look at that part of the game and see how we could improve it - but also see if real-world economic theories actually work in-game - was good.

Some of the popular real-world economic theories don't even work in the real world.

Biting the Hand

2009-07-16T11:10:00.000-07:00

Why would the police criticize something that causes people to drive the speed limit and stop at red lights.

Police talk about 'saving lives' while collecting revenue. I believe that all their talk of saving lives is just a red herring, a noble herring indeed, but as red as Karl Marx's blood. Here's a system that saves lives. The police tell us that red light cameras are a good idea because they save lives. Now if that's true, why do they complain about a system that reminds us to stop at red lights? Isn't saving lives their top priority?

Or does this system that reminds us to stop at red lights and reminds us to slow down cut into their revenue stream?

They are biting the hand that helps them simply because it wont feed them.

The New Logo

2009-06-16T11:11:00.000-07:00

You saw it here first:

The Onion Takes Over Drudge

2009-06-16T11:02:00.000-07:00

That's all I can figure this is.

It's gotta be a parody, making fun of the brown-nosing media, right?

Meet My Brother in Law

2009-06-12T17:16:00.000-07:00

Warning

2009-06-10T18:00:00.001-07:00

Graphic content.

Crazy Wild Fight

2009-06-09T09:08:00.000-07:00

This is just fun to watch.

10June09: Broken link fixed.

¿Nada Differencio?

2009-05-29T08:41:00.000-07:00

I'm sure we've all heard Sonia Sotomayor's comment:

"I would hope that a wise Latina woman, with the richness of her experiences, would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life,"

I woke this morning and have been in the habit of getting dressed downstairs so I don't wake any one. Usually I turn on the tv and try to catch some news. This morning, the story was Justice Alito saying that he takes his experience with discrimination into account on discrimination cases. That may parallel part of what Sonia Sotomayor says, but she goes on to say something that he doesn't even hint at. At no time does he imply that anyone of any race would make a superior choice compared to anyone of any other race. Sonya does. I see a big big difference in his position and what she's saying.

Everyone has been discriminated against. Some more than others. We all have that in common and it's an easy hook for the liberals to try to use to unite us, but it is not the issue here.

Paki won't last the summer

2009-04-23T11:10:00.000-07:00

That's my prediction based on this.

Long before the Taliban takes over the nuclear power, it will be disassembled so that it's nuclear capability no longer exists.

Meanwhile, Neville Chamberlain (where ever he is), is saying "See, everyone does it."

I'm Jealous Too

2009-03-16T15:01:00.000-07:00

I really wish I could get a million dollar bonus. Really. Maybe a couple. I'd buy more guns, and a few airplanes and then I'd live the Alaskan dream of running my own gold mine. You know, the kind where you end up with a small fortune, provided that you started with a big one.

I'll probably never get one. And I'm a little jealous of those who do, but I don't begrudge them anything. I wouldn't take it from them, even if I had the legal ability to do so (Shh, I'll get back to that in a minute).

Now we have executives at AIG who are getting million dollar bonuses. So? Are they breaking any laws? Or, are they somehow worth it? I suspect that they are those rare individuals who can manage hundreds of millions of dollars and handle the stress. I suspect that they are worth the bonuses and have saved AIG more than they're being paid.

On the radio, I just heard a sound bite of Obama saying that he'd use his full legal powers to address the issue of their bonuses and I wonder, what legal authority does he have to interfere with a legal contract or a private individuals salary? He has no legal power's to do anything about this.

What's he going to do, set salaries and make the law retroactive?

More Gummint Science...

2009-03-10T09:22:00.000-07:00

...less stimulus.

In his reversal of the Bush policy on embryonic STEM cell research, the only thing that has changed is there is now one more avenue for Federal money to be wasted.

Private industry has always been permitted to use embryonic STEM cells in research. The only stipulation was that they use their own dollars. Basic business, invest your money and if it was invested wisely, reap the rewards.

Now imagine what the rewards would be for curing cancer, curing diabetes, or letting the paralyzed walk? If there was any potential for success in these fields, there would be entrepreneurs funding research. But there's not. Why? Because there has been little to no success in using embryonic STEM cell compared to using adult STEM cells. Entrepreneurs are funding adult STEM cell research because that is where the advancements are being made.

What this means is that Obama is now funding the destruction of human embryos for research with a low likelihood of any success. Federal money that could/should be used to stimulate the recover will instead be wasted and manpower that could/should be working towards reviving American industry will instead be tied up in what will most likely be fruitless work.

At least our current administration is being consistent.

As for banning cloning, what's so bad about cloning? Does the ban extend to the cloning of individual organs? If so, it looks like they are denying us life saving technology that doesn't cross any ethical lines I can see.

I Know What Bane Would Have Said

2009-03-02T13:05:00.000-08:00

"Fu*k him"

And he'd have linked the 'him' to some obit.

I've heard the dead yakker praise Castro for providing healthcare for everyone (yea, that's why Americans flock to Cuba on the weekends (Like Canadians with medical or dental needs flock to Detroit on Saturday)) and I've also heard praise for Chavaz as he brought his country's financial situation into line (no mention that stealing the oil industry was how he did it).

Yea, I too miss the wiley curmudgeon but I won't miss the golden voice that nonchalantly spoke evil.

No Discrimination Here

2009-02-02T11:27:00.000-08:00

So Barack Obama's top two tax cheats get off with paying back taxes and fines or jail time?

I'd like to see the next person in tax court who doesn't get the same treatment file a discrimination suit.

I bet there are lawyers and tax protesters already researching this.

An Explanation...

2009-01-06T17:28:00.001-08:00

...that Bane might have liked.

But I doubt that he'd of thought much of the medium it was conveyed through.

Do as They Say...

2008-10-10T10:59:00.000-07:00

AIG received bailout money and shortly after that, executives went on an expensive junket and Congress, along with the rest of the country, was irate. I'm sure we've all heard the story.

There's two things in this that are ridiculous:

The AIG executives had a history of mismanagement. That they were left in place and no incentives were made to correct their actions, no one should be surprised that they kept on doing what they've been doing. The underlying message was clearly "You've done everything right, sometimes these things just happen, let us fix that for you."

Except that wasn't the case. They had done things wrong. They had violated good banking practices and thrown proven lending practices to the wind for short term profits. The banks are legal entities that will outlive, if managed, any executive. While the bailout was wrong, I can't believe that a change of management wasn't part of the package, though I think there is a reason for this.
Our government runs a deficit, then raises taxes to cover it. They bail themselves out, constantly, all the while going on junkets and 'fact finding' trips. The hypocrisy of Congress being irate over the AIG executives is missed by most.

So why didn't Congress mandate part of the bailout package being a change in management? I think something like that would have hit a little to close to home. Last thing they want, a month before elections, is to point out that a change in leadership is necessary to fix the problem.

Unbelievable

2008-10-06T14:10:00.001-07:00

If I saw a giant spider do this in a movie, I'd think the writers had gone to far:

The Truth Doesn't Change.

2008-10-03T17:47:00.000-07:00

In fact, if you aren't in a hurry, the test of time is a good way to see what belief hold up and what beliefs fold. That this was written in 1969 should tell you that it's true as well as the bailout was the worst thing they could have done.

The Root Cause

2008-09-26T16:20:00.000-07:00

Bad mortgages caused the banking failure.
The housing bubble was created from bad mortgages.
What caused the housing bubble?

This was the start. Carter signed the Community Reinvestment Act, Clinton enlarged the program, and Bush has had his hand in the mess to.

Then we have Fanni Mae getting mortgages and selling them to banks. They made money off each mortgage they sold, so to make more money, they moved down the income ladder and started pursuing subprime loans.

In 2003 the housing bubble was identified and President Bush did attempt to address it, but the Democrats stopped it.

Then in 2005, John McCain created The Housing Enterprise Regulatory Act of 2005. This bill was going to regulate Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. The Democrats stopped this one too.

Now the crazy thing is everyone wanted to get poor people into housing they could afford. What the housing bubble did was drive prices up much faster than inflation. All this did was move affordable housing further away from the poor.

Then again in 2007 the bill came back, but Chris Dodd (D) blocked it. Barack Obama also held the bill back. Seems they both, and others, got some sweet mortgages out of it. Probably better deals than the work that has Ted Stevens in Federal Court today.

All the above is a summary of the first half of this. It's packed with information, all of which will probably have no bearing on anyone since I figure about now, everyone has made up their minds.

I was surprised to see that the Republicans tried putting some controls in the mechanism that created the housing bubble as early as 2003. I was pleased and surprised.

Now I'm going to go and watch the rest of the video.

He's Still Right

2008-09-25T10:35:00.001-07:00

government price fixing never works and always leads to failure.

Crisis or no crises. Though, it's easy to sell the first few times in as a fix, if the people are scared enough.

I think parts of the real estate industry are scams. I've paid $500 for a drive by appraisal. Now how do I get a job like that? I've also offered $227,500 on a house and had the appraisal come back at $227,500. Amazing how the appraisals always come back at the value I've offered to buy the house at.

The way I think it works is this: The appraiser figures that if I'm willing to spend an amount of money on a house, then it must be worth the amount of money that I'm willing to spend. But isn't that how it works? At object is worth what someone is willing to pay for it.

How many people bought houses with the intent of flipping it? What do you call someone who makes a bad investment?

Isn't it the homeowners who are upsidedown on their mortgages that are in trouble? More trouble than the banks who've made bad loans? What do you call someone who loans money to a risky proposition?

If we, as a nation, were upsidedown on our car loans, would the Fed Gov't bail out the auto industry? Does that make sense? That is what they are doing.

Now I'm starting to deviate from my original point, that Government price fixing never works and always leads to failure, and want to go off on how the homeowners who made bad choices are worse off than the banks, but since they don't have the organization or lobbying power that the banking industry has, they'll never get gov't action to save them.

Dr. Paul offered to address the issues that make for a weak financial environment and most everyone ignored him. The proposed gov't bailout is, at best, a bandaid, and, at worst, a double whammy for us, more gov't debt that we'll have to pay back with a weaker dollar. Kind of like a man, bleeding to death, trying to give himself a transfusion, figuring that if he can water down his blood, enough, he'll have enough to survive.

What's in a Name

2008-09-23T10:54:00.000-07:00

Maier stood back and watched Heiki feel the heft of his newly acquired sword.

With his feet in a swordsman's stance, where powerful thrusts, cleaving slices, parrys, blocks, or tactical repositioning were all equally likely Heiki transitioned from one position to another. Many Maier recognized as classic techniques and positions, executed to perfection, but some seemed a bit unorthodox.

An adjacent fruit tree in blossom offered shade, but only the drunken bees who buzzed somnolently took notice of it. Heiki practiced atop a small grassy hill, nearby, enjoying the sun and the breeze that brought the scent of the blossoms.

When Heiki began to put the positions together, transitioning from one to another, Maier realized that the postures he hadn't recognized were transistion states that allowed more choices for the swordsman than traditional technique. His natural grace and agility became more apparent as the speed of his forms increased till he appeared to be dancing.

Heiki hadn't been encumbered by emotions, but he recognized them in others. Wistfully, Maier was looking off into the distance, lost to his thoughts, and it wasn't till Heiki pitched one of his boots (which he refused to wear) and hit him in the shoulder, did he realize that his charge had stopped and been watching him.

"The way you move, the skill and speed, you reminded me of a good friend I'd lost a long time ago" Maier explained.

"Dead?"

Maier nodded.

"Battle." The obvious answer.

With a shake of his head, Maier replied, "No, a choice. Shiva once held that sword when he was my friend, but that was when I knew him by a different name."

"Shiva" a grim smile spread across Heiki's face, his eyes narrowed till he could only see death and he began his forms again, this time with a deadly air of commitment.

An age passed, the last form ended and Heiki held his sword between him and Maier as he examined it. The burneshed blade spoke of strength and quality, the edge was honed razer sharp, the hilt had a presence that guaranteed protection for the hand, the twisted double wire wound grip stuck to his hand in such a way that he knew it would never slip if drenched in blood, and, a pommel that seemed lacking some ornate features.

"Why is it called 'Mine'?"

"There is a relationship between the word and the sword."

Heiki turned his wrist and examined the other side of the blade, nodding as to say "go on".

"Speak a verse and slash."

With a sardonic smile, as if he was going to prove him wrong, and a flick of his wrist, Heiki executed a minute feignt with the smallest verse he knew "and Jesus wept".

When Heiki was 5, his father let him drive the car. He was small enough to sit on his fathers lap and big enough to see over the dash and steer. He was surprised at the power he felt and the control of the control of the car as it went down a country dirt road less than 10 mph. It overwhelmed him and if not for the comfort and security his dad's presence offered, it would have terrified him.

And he felt a child, timeless; when you could live a lifetime in a summers day, the warm sun shining, the smell of the country, and more power in his hands than he ever imagined as he spoke words anchored in the voice that created the universe.

"But why the name?"

"Know the verse 'Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord'?"

With a nod, Heiki understood the relationship between the Word and the sword.

"He's talking about the sword. It's His instrument of vengeance."

Again, Heiki began a series of forms, this time quoting verse "There will be no more night..."

Keep Your Friends Close...

2008-08-26T08:55:00.000-07:00

...and your enemies closer.

With that in mind, I watched the opening show of the Democratic Convention. Not all of it, but I did catch Michelle Obama's speech, most of it at least.

I'll sum her up as an attractive woman with a small angry mouth. As often as she purses her lips and juts her jaw forward I think "ticking timebomb" to myself.

She did a good job delivering the speech the speech writer's wrote for her. Nice family stories, both hers and her husbands.

What got me was her closing line about how "together we can shape the world as it ought to be." That may not be word for word, but that does sum up her statement.

Last I checked, it was not the place of the US Gov't to shape the world. Nor do we have the money to shape the world. I don't want them to tax me so they can shape the world. Besides, who's vision are they going to shape the world, according to? Theirs or mine? They've never listened to me and I really doubt they they'll listen to you.

But there we have it, a man running for President of the United States and his wife is telling us that he wants to shape the world.

Feeding Frenzy

2008-06-16T14:28:00.000-07:00

Tim Russert's dead. I suppose that's a news story. The relationship living reporters had with isn't.

Notice how it took less than a day for the tone of all the Tim Russert stories to be "My Last Interview with Tim Russert", or "My Last Conversation with Tim Russert"? It's not stories about Tim Russert, it's his fellow journalists, climbing over each others backs, so they can stand on top of his gravestone and yell, "Look at Me!"

That's the media.

Do Not Look Behind the Curtain

2008-06-12T14:30:00.000-07:00

Like the weatherpocked gargoyle on the ancient building, she's been there so long, no one notices her anymore. There's the Muslim extremist posing as an Illinois Congressman, the Were-Lizard from Arkansas going dormant (presumably to digest some child who's picture will adorn milk jugs), and the rising price of gas getting all our attention, or at least the majority of the MSM's bandwidth. Amongst that, I fear this will slip by, silently, except for those of exercising the Free Speech that some think we have to much of.

Who's Driving the Bus...

2008-06-12T09:08:00.000-07:00

...I hope it's not the man in the turban.

Al-Sadr has been labeled as leaving Iraq. Yea, sure.

He offered Muslim 'peace', for a price, to Bush who paid up and this isn't the first time Al-Sadr has milked the Washington cow. Washington thinks they have him on a string. Everytime he makes them an offer, they react and pay up, and he does what he offered. Who's in charge here?

Think back to Vox's comment where, talking about the male/female dynamic, he said that when the male reacts to the female, he's lost control of the situation. When you boil it down to it's base element, it's that simple.

Now for the funny part: What Al Sadr offered and what Washington thinks it bought are not the same thing. At least it's funny if you're Al-Sadr.

Heiki Ruitta Died in His Sleep

2008-06-10T08:53:00.000-07:00

In another time, half a world away, military commanders waited for the Time of the Horn, the early morning when the predawn light let the herdsmen begin to make out the horns on their cattle, to launch their two pronged attack. It was a time of death that Maier knew well for he had been there to slay and sort the angelyk and the spirits of men.

Now death had been industrialized. There were no solemn times for reverence as something crafted by the Creator was destroyed. What ovens, crematoriums, and labor camps had begun, mockeries of worship had completed. Just as a time of stillness was removed from the day, the day of worship was removed from the week and replaced with a workday, in all but name.

Not far away, the lights of a small city shown on the clouds, but from the train tracks on, out past Heiki's house, the power was out. All was dark, but in the predawn light Maier begin to make out the tops of the trees, the power poles, and the roofs of houses as he flew towards his destination. Reminiscent of seasons past, Maier took the time for quiet reverent thought as his flight terminated on the sun deck of Heiki's house.

Maier took his command to pray unceasingly seriously. Some times it was easier than others to be obedient and while he knew that love did conquer all, he also knew that through obedience, comes relationship. So he prayed, but to the West, the direction of night, waking in the trees and taking flight, curiously early for sparrows are a creature of the day and it was still dark.

Heiki was a lucid dreamer, given to dark and violent dreams, memories of which would usually entertained him upon waking. Other times he'd travel astrally. The morning he died, it made no sense, at first, to him. There was no silver cord connecting him to his body, his anchor in the astral plane, and the guns that were an extension of his arms, projectors of his thoughts, were missing too. Then he understood that he was dead and in the presence of a supernatural being who had been waiting for him. He wasted no time.

"I'm ready" Heiki said, as the swarm of sparrows twisted in the dark, it's numbers growing. "No light?" he pondered, wondering if all he'd heard and believed was false.

"You'll see the Light, soon enough" Maier answered, startling Heiki, for he wasn't sure he had spoken aloud, in a tone that could have been a statement of fact, or a warning. The cloud of sparrows was growing, a darkening cloud contrasting the breaking dawn, as it looped and swirled unnaturally close to the two.

Feeling the hilt of his sword growing warmer, Maier knew that evil was present. In what form, he wasn't sure.

Reaching out with his left hand, Heiki gently caught a sparrow, his thumb and forefinger on the neck, an effortless scooping motion captured a second with his remaining 3 fingers. A quick glance showed 2 sparrows, trapped in a powerful hand, unharmed, ready to take flight.

"I'm ready" repeated Heiki, his tone belaying his impatience. Without an apparent thought, he crushed the sparrows and dropped them in the yard. Overhead the swarm broke and flittered away. Where the crushed birds fell, the grass died in a 2 foot circle. Amongst the anguish and heartache that was soon to awake in the house, it would be days before the dead spot would be noticed. Years would pass before grass would again grow there.

The two spiritual beings passed from the physical to the eternal realm and with a thought, flew to their destination. Reality melded into a long hall, evenly spaced bunks with adjacent cubbyholes with hooks and shelves, told Heiki he was in a barracks. The absence of gear and bedding told that it was vacant.

"I wanted to talk to you before you were judged,"

Heiki nodded in acquiescence, part of him relieved that his understanding of the afterlife could begin to fit with the truth of it.

"To thank you and apologize. I take lives, both the living and the dead. It's never changed, but the people, they've changed, even in the blessed land, they don't pause for death."

What this was about, Heiki couldn't imagine.

"I was there when you held the fetus. The Creator is worthy of the reverence you had for that passing life. That's rare in this age. Thank you."

"That's not what you brought me to a private place to tell me. What is it that you need an abandoned building to talk about?" Demanded Heiki as he zeroed in on the issue.

"The mother's, they are always attacked by Unending Guilts, Relentless Remorses, or even more powerful unclean spirits. Their souls are ripe for infection. I slay the ones that would destroy the mother."

"So?"

"I slayed none that day. The more powerful ones fell into you. I was not expecting it. It's never happened before, or since, I was out of position to do anything about it" and with a look of mature sincere regret "I'm sorry."

"God's will, and all that. You think a couple more of those things will make a difference?" The blow to the shoulder, thought it rocked Maier on his feet, punctuated an absence of blame. It was powerful, but not hostile. "I'm ready, lets go."

"One more thing..."

"No."

"The Heavenly Choir"

"NO."

"You need to hear"

"NO!"

"You'll recognize..."

Heiki grabbed Maier by the back of his tunic and girdle and began for force march him. "I know what I believe. I'll go hear it after I'm judged." After a few steps, it was obvious Maier was done argueing, and Heiki let go of him. Many of the buildings glowed like alabaster held to the sun, but one stood out. It's architecture spoke Temple of the Most High, and it was formed of what looked like molten gold, so hot it was both transparent and reflective. It was towards this building the two headed.

The layout of the Temple told it's one purpose. It was to serve the Most High and therein was a crowd, doing, presumably, just that. On the dais, from three thrones, shone a white light that struck with the power of a tidal current and threatened to wash Heiki away except for the love in the light that held him fast. Stories of how anyone could see the light and not go to it seemed incredulous to him.

The purity of the light contrasted with Heiki's life and memories. Though he had strong faith, he saw that if all that was unclean in him was burned away, there'd be nothing left. Not even ash. He knew that he didn't belong here. He knew something was going on around him, maybe something important, but it was lost to him.

The light faded and a throng became apparent. Their different roles suggested by their wardrobe, priests, military commanders, others unique, but unknown. One stood out, an older distinguished male, unlike the others, wearing clothes Heiki recognized, a pinstripe suit, black with fine white stripes, cut from the best of fabrics, white spats over polished black shoes, one who radiated his own light. However as bright as it seemed to be, it didn't reflect off anything in the room like earlier light did. It didn't even reflect off his glossy shoes.

Standing right next to Heiki, Maier called "Before Judgement is passed, does anyone have anything to say?" but Heiki was lost to his thoughts.

The distinguished gentleman began "Do I really need to list all of his transgressions. Transgressions that grieved you, oh, my most gracious host?" Though the lower case 'host' was an old joke, he still grinned at his mockery. It was all he had.

Lost in his remorse, Heiki forgot his faith. He knew he didn't belong, but neither did the guy now speaking. Heiki knew his name, knew where he belonged, and knew how to put him there.

Standing to his left, Heiki stepped on Maier's left foot with his right, pushed him backwards with his left hand while grasping his sword in a backhanded grip with his right hand, the hilt so hot it seared his hand. With is left foot trapped, Maier reached up for the hand on his chest as he felt his sword draw out. He did have the frame of mind not to try to grab the blade as he went down.

One who was obviously a military commander stepped between Heiki and the man in the suit, his hand raised in a universal gesture of "Halt!" Heiki knew what he had to do. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. A right uppercut caught the commander under the chin, the added mass of the hilt in his fist lifted him off the ground, the blade swinging forward bit into the flesh of the left armpit and continued up and exited just above the right ear.

The oxymoronical foolishness of ceremonial armor caused Heiki to grin.

With his right fist above his left shoulder, Heiki reversed his grip on the sword, letting it's inertia swing the point up as he doubled his and stepped into the downward swing on his target. The old man lost his composure, shrieked like a girl, and as the sword descended, had his bowels fall out of his suitcoat. He'd been mortally wounded, disemboweled, or worse all this time, putting on a front. As the sword bit into his shoulder, he was gone, retreated.

Heiki laid the sword down, looked at the cleaved commander, walked to the dais head in hands, kneeled, and began "He was right about me. I've..."

"Father, I know him." interrupted a voice who's substance gave Heiki understanding into how a spoken word could create the universe.

Epilogue:

Back in the barracks, Maier was explaining that the slain commander had been tasked with defeating the principalities and powers that had claimed Persia and been suffering devastating defeats lately. That a year ago, this very barracks had been full of troops under his command. Troops he had lost in battle.

Heiki knew is instincts were good, just as he knew his faith was good. Maier was still shocked that the Persian Commander's reaction and to who's defense he jumped. That the defeats in Persia were a betrayal was unimaginable.

Second Epilogue:

Later that night, a servant interrupted the two in the barracks to deliver a sword, a decree, and to wash Heiki's feet. While washing his feet, the servant explained that the swords name is "Mine" and he is being offered the command of the Host to retake the Persian realm.

Realizing that the servant washing his feet had the authority to assign commanders to armies, Heiki cried, awash in a love that threatened to wash him away.

Isn't That An Irish Name?

2008-06-04T17:11:00.000-07:00

O'Harris, O'Henry, O'Bama...

Just as our lovely Ann points out, that no one dare apply one of the Left's mantras to the man with the Muslim name, no one is pointing out that the only reason he won was because a number of states pushed forward their caucuses to a time when little, other than he stood for "Change", was known about him.

That's like the wife who leaves her husband for a guy who's promised her everything that can in 200 lines of text. It's just a simple case of fantasy filling in the factual holes.

What I wonder is "who has enough power to reschedule caucuses in a bunch of states?"

Also, I wonder "If the Democratic Primaries were held today, would Obama win?"

Amateur Lawyer Our

2008-05-30T11:55:00.000-07:00

So I can't spell either, but when has that ever stopped anyone?

My understanding of contract law is pretty limited, but I do know that a contract for illegal or unlawful conduct is not binding. So when I keep hearing of latest drug deal in town gone bad, I think I could get the defendant off.

It's an older story, but it's back in the news and I can't find a link, anywhere.

The gist of it is this: a drug buyer approached his dealer in a truck and paid $50 for drugs and the seller failed to providing the illegal product. The buyer, desperate for his drugs, attacked the vehicle and ended up getting dragged, run over, and died.

So what happened? There may have been a verbal contract to conduct an illegal transaction. Clearly not a legally binding contract. Upon receiving the $50, the driver of the truck had no legal obligation to provide an illegal item which the buyer then tried to take by force.

What do you call a person who tries to take something by force? What if deadly force is used to defend yourself from such an attempt and the thief dies? Give the person who was almost robbed a medal. Even if they may be a drug dealer, give them a medal.

Would society benefit or suffer if people gave serious thought to taking part in a drug deal?

Just for the record, I've never been partial to drug users or dealers. I've had friends who've dabbled in both and it's been exclusive to our relationship. I've long been a Libertarian at heart, at least when the issue has been in theory. Now days, though, it's easy to blame the birthmother's daily use of coke and occasional use of alcohol for my son's developmental issues and when I see a drug deal gone bad, I think about it a bit then chuckle.

Back to the topic, I see the driver and his girlfriend getting convicted, not because of any legal action. Our local prosecutor can't even convict a serial killing necropheliac who was caught due to his bragging. Like the dancer (can't find a link either) who was convicted, not because of the case, but because of her immorality (she was engaged to two guys and living with a third when one guy shot the other), I see these two getting convicted, not because of the case, but because of immorality external to the case.

What concerns me is, not, that two drug dealers will go to jail, but that our system is failing to do it's job and in an attempt to (over)compensate, is railroading people.

Boom Town

2008-04-08T14:38:00.001-07:00

Looks like it'll be a good time to be working in Alaska.

For years the State has been trying to make the gas pipeline happen. They've even dangled half a billion dollars (some of it's mine) out there to entice the project. Their conditions scared companies off. Way to many strings attached.

The down side of this project is that once the permitting phase is complete (2-3 years (barring legal action)) and the construction starts, it'll consume more steel than the world produces annually. In other words, buy your car(s) in the next year and hope it lasts.

How Soon They Forget

2008-04-08T12:01:00.000-07:00

Here is a Berkley Professor talking about Saddam's Nuclear Bomb designer.

There is a very big difference between lying and being mistaken.

Geography Game

2008-01-22T13:04:00.000-08:00

I got 21,838 the first time I played.

What did you get?

The Riddle

2008-01-10T11:09:00.000-08:00

On a trip to Great Britain while he was President of the United States, Bill Clinton had a meeting with Queen Elizabeth. During that meeting he asked her, "How does one manage to run a country so smoothly?"

"That's easy," the Queen replied, "You surround yourself with intelligent ministers and advisors."

"But how can I tell whether they are intelligent or not?", asked Bill.

You ask them a riddle," she replied, and with that she pressed a button and said, "Would you please send Tony Blair in." When Blair arrived, the Queen said, "I have a riddle for you to answer for me.

Your parents had a child and it was not your sister and it was not your brother. Who was this child?"

Blair replied, "That's easy. The child was me."

"Very good," said the Queen. "You may go now."

Sizing up his wife's chances in her presidential bid, and thinking back on that meeting, Bill Clinton spoke to Hillary. He said to her, "I have a riddle for you, and the answer is very important. Your parents had a child and it was not your sister and it was not your brother. Who was that child ?"

Hillary replied, "Yes, it is clearly very important that we determine the answer.. Can I deliberate on this for awhile?"

"Yes," said Bill, "I'll give you four hours to come up with the answer."

So Hillary called a meeting of her campaign team, from top to bottom, and asked them the riddle. But after much discussion and many suggestions, none of them had a satisfactory answer. She was quite upset, not knowing what she would tell her husband, the former President. As Hillary was leaving her meeting she ran into her most formable challenger to her presidential nomination, Barack Obama.

So she said, "Mr. Obama, can you answer this riddle for me? Your parents had a child and it was not your sister and it was not your brother. Who was the child?"

"That's seems pretty easy," said Obama, "I think the child would be me."

"Oh thank you," said Hillary. "You may just have ensured my nomination for the democratic candidate for the Presidency of the United States!" So Hillary went back to Bill and said, "I think I know the answer to your riddle.

The child was Barack Obama.!"

"No, you Dumb Moron!" shouted Bill. "The child was Tony Blair"

The bottom line... guess where we're headed with the two of them again running the Country!

Have you been...

2008-01-07T15:50:00.000-08:00

...misinformed?

Always Tell the Truth...

2008-01-04T17:54:00.000-08:00

...it's generally more interesting.

And even fun to sing about (just don't let the YouTube URL let you think the song won't be offensive cause it contains 'Naval words').

Economic Anecdote

2007-12-18T12:20:00.000-08:00

When someone calls Vox Day an Austrian, they are referring to his economic beliefs, they're not calling him a Nazi.

There's a story there, I'd just not rather go into it.

Econ 002, Paradigm Shift, or...

2007-12-18T10:00:00.000-08:00

...how to move from a Super Power to an exploited country without ever crossing a border.

Back when Imperial nations colonized the planet, they would exploit undeveloped and developed lands by taking their natural resources, producing goods, then selling them back. Great Britain took wool and timber from the Colonies, produced ships and textiles, and sold them back. I believe, that for a while, it was illegal to build a textile mill in the colonies so the King could maximize profits for his country.

That's how true wealth is made. You take 20 cents of raw material, wool, plastic, metal, and turn it into a $5 dollar product. Look at Japan today. I can remember 'Japanese junk' in the bubble gum machines at the A&P. The parting lines were so bad a 6 or 7 year old kid could see them and figure out how the stuff was made. That's the stuff Japan today is built on. "Jap crap!" some called it. Might have been junk, but it created wealth that flowed in from across it's borders.

China is doing the same thing, today. They've been doing it for the last decade, if not longer. Japan has a limit on it's max size. It can only get so big. China doesn't have any practical limitations on how big it can get. They're dropping the Communist Ball and Chain and life is getting better for them. They have incentive to prosper. Incentives the average American can relate to.

This post took a turn and didn't even touch the topic that I originally intended to bloviate about. Now I thinking I could go on about:

How nations make wealth
The economic future of the US
Where China is headed
How Economics is not a science with hard and universally accepted rules, but more of a study of philosophies by different schools of thought that are incompatible with each other, to differing degrees.

But I'm really weak in my understanding of econ. As a student, I disliked it because it seemed irrelevant and wrong. But that was because I thought of it as a hard science based on math and not as a philosophy where some approaches ignored history and fact and figured it was just something I didn't get and I wasn't motivated to figure it out.

While I'd like to think I'm older and wiser, the reality is I've just found a good guy who's explained enough econ to me that my understanding has gained the critical mass required for interest and pursuit. Other regular groves in my blog feeding range have offered up a choice morsel (which I just found at my local used book store at a better price than Amazon).

So now I'm of the thought that:

Econ is more interesting than I thought
Econ is more relevant than I thought
The US is economically ailing for a number of reasons (casually related to the above)

The financial system of the US has to many components of a communist system
The US dollar has no stable standard
The US manufacturing base has been exported

China will provide significant economic competition in the years ahead
Iran is waging financial war on the US (only because it can't wage military war)
The Euro-Pact is to lazy and socialist to do much except compete with Boeing

Addressing Item 3, above, will allow us to deal with items 4 & 5 as well as sub-items 1-3. 1 & 2 are personal and 6 is a null item. So how do we do that as a nation? I think the solution is simple: You elect a President with a sound economic plan.

Luckily for us, Ron Paul is just such a candidate.

Out of the closet...

2007-10-04T09:56:00.000-07:00

My fifth grade teacher had to have been a hippy. I didn't know what one was at the time, but looking back, her hair, her dresses the contemporary peacenik songs she taught us, she had to have been a hippy.

Bet she smelled like patchouli too.

One day in class, and I'm guessing that we were doing civics, we had an assignment. We could choose between memorizing the Preamble to the Constitution or write some number of words about something. I forget what it was.

To me, the obvious no-brainer choice was to memorize 52 words for as long as it took to walk up to her desk and recite them and be done. I looked around the classroom to see who was going to be the first person to walk up to her desk and recite the Preamble and was surprised to see everyone bent over a piece of paper, writing. How could they not see the Preamble was the obvious choice?

So I read it 3-4 times, walked up to her desk. On the way there, I looked at the progress of my peers. They weren't even close to being half way done. Perhaps one of the options was to write a page?

At her desk, I recited the Preamble. It is so clear in it's intent, a child can understand it. That's what made memorizing it so easy. I was done with my assignment.

Then it dawned on the class, that what they thought was the best choice for them, wasn't. That there was a better way. A way that though it sounded harder, wasn't.

Now, decades later, not much has changed. As adults, we have many choices, some sounding easier or better, but politically speaking, the Constitution is still the best and only choice.

There's only one man running for President who intends to follow it.

Ron Paul.

If you don't support Hillary, you're probably not happy with the GOP candidates the liberal media highlights, I challenge you to take a serious look at Ron Paul, medical doctor and US Representative. You may realize that he is the best choice, not just for you, but for your country.

Scrubs with racing stripes

2007-09-19T09:51:00.000-07:00

If this didn't give the doctors present racing strips in their scrubs they must have been dead.

My Responce to a Friday Challenge

2007-09-13T15:07:00.000-07:00

When the OC issued this challenge, I couldn't think up a thing, after a few days the story below solidified in my mind:

With a fine embroidered linen napkin, King Philip II wiped the mutton grease from his hands as he surveyed the banquet hall before him. Having limited his drinking this evening, he viewed the party across the void that separates the drunk from the sober, and realized that tonight the royalty of his kingdom, the Dukes and Earls, had more in common with the serving staff, minstrels and jesters since they were all equally drunk.

It dawned on Philip that this is how God sees him when he sins. Isolated from his King, separated by an impassable void, equal with all other sinners and a shade of melancholy crossed his heart as he missed the company of the men who were there to serve him.

His left hand absentmindedly strayed to his Rosary as he began to pray, "Oh, Lord, I praythee thanks for your most gracious forgiveness, that this king's most humble repentance be as divinely acceptable as King David's sincere repentance. I thankthee for Your most holy example of King David's transgressions and Your majestic forgiveness, lest I fear myself to be lost, my position on Earth to great, my sins to vile to You to forgive. Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven."

When rote memorization took over what had started as a heartfelt prayer, the prayer ended, but Philip II's right hand slid into a hidden pocket in his robe, the one with an instrument of his plan to unite the Church on Earth, as it is united in Heaven.

Upon the death of Henry of Portugal and the subsequent capture of the country, uniting all the Iberian Peninsula under a Christian king two years prior, Philip II believed himself to be the servant, sent by God himself, to unite all of Christendom.

A task in which his first step was one of humility. Not to force the Protestants to accept the calendar of the Catholic church, but to accept their Gregorian calendar, for Philip II understood that a calendar, any calendar, was a construct of man and therefore paled in value to the Kingdom of God. The Duke, thought sodden now, had made that clear to him months ago.

Therein was the purpose of the banquet. It was the impatient celebration of a victory, because today, October 4th, 1582 would be the last day of the Julian calendar and tomorrow, October 5th, would the first day Christ's church would be united under the same measure of time, the Gregorian calendar.

Philip II only had to silence one foe of this plan with the question "Can a house divided stand?" to put it into effect.

Rising from his seat, Philip II, beckoned his queen and she rose to follow, though she knew he was following his mystic's request to never be put in a compromising position, even one that could appear compromising, than out of respect for her.

The Queen rose with a smile, she too wanted to see the mystic deep in prayer, for one could often sense the presence of God in those times.

****************************

Commander Elliot Johnston had acquired the services of one 'consultant', though is staff could see no value in an obscure Italian artist. The second and final 'consultant's' services would be acquired as soon as engineering services had a forecasted success rate of 6 sigma on the tachyon vesicle focused on Teresa de Cepeda y Ahumada.

Joachim P. Crittenden, Mission Integrity Specialist, was returning from the head (one of the few hard plumbed locations on the Vengeance), when a threat assessment and management panel on priority override manifested itself before him.

“Elliot” Joachim shouted in the empty corridor “The Ictharny’s found us.” In what was referred to as ‘ships telepathy’ the Vengeance rebroadcast Joachim’s shout to parties addressed and other parties with a high probability of ‘Need to Know’ while keeping a full record as an appendix to the ships log. “Incoming position ordnance!! Integrity override, Go! Go! Go!”

Without thought to the mission, Joachim’s intention was to save the Vengeance, the crew, and himself from an anti-matter implosion. The Vengeance knew better. For the first time in Fleet history, the mission had priority over the ship and crew. The ship ignored the command to flee to safety till the saint, or at least the time/space that enveloped the saint was safely on board.

As far as machines go, the Vengeance wasn’t that smart. It’s greatest AI strength was it was fast and disregarding the solution with the statistically highest success rate, “42”, as being to vague, she implemented the next, best solution and enlarged the tachyon vesicle surrounding the Saint while engaging the BANJO drive unit.

Louis Calderone, in engineering, heard the integrity override for a Panic Flee as he was overseeing the convoluted folding of time and space around Teresa de Cepeda y Ahumada so she could be removed from an unmanipulated existence of time and space to the stable bubble of altered reality that enveloped the Vengeance. Unknowingly, Louis came to the same conclusion as the Vengeance, just a moment later, and as he went to sweep the slider on the holographic controls defining the magnitude of the vesicle that would transport the Saint onboard to maximum size, he saw the slider move ahead of his hand as the Vengeance resized the vesicle to maximize mission success while keeping historic interference at a minimum.

Locus error introduced to the vesicles centroid was less then the mean radial increase in the vesicle and the time and space occupied by Teresa de Cepeda y Ahumada was successfully stretched to a location onboard the Vengeance where it was forced into a semi-stable configuration. Also inside this displaced volume of space and time was the King of Spain and his Queen.

****************************

“How’d they find us?” Elliot asked out loud, knowing the Vengeance would route the question to someone with an answer, if there was one onboard.

“Guess they have similar ‘look ahead/go back’ transchronic tech to us.” Came Louis reply.

Elliot had been thinking the same thing, but the crew of the Vengeance often found themselves thinking out loud when alone, looking for an answer from someone to break the haunting feeling that they were the only person in existence that pervaded the Vengeance when the BANJO drive was engaged.

Moments later, the Vengeance was in the battle space where the overwhelming Ictharnian Fleet had begun their systematic destruction of all things human only to find the alien fleet had retreated to wherever they had come from.

“Seems they saw their destruction, same as we saw, with their ‘look ahead’ tech and decided to run and hide” said Elliot.

“Maybe they were destroyed” Louis added, “the Saint is still praying. Who knows what power she had access to.”

“Either way, it’s all the same. We won!” said Joachim as the network of ships telepathy broadcast the cheers and relief of all humanity as they celebrated their deliverance from certain destruction.

****************************

“Time to return the consultants” Louis said, to no one in particular, relieved that this mission was over.

“I’ll prepare the mindwipe” Joachim added, though all knew this was a requirement.

“Not so fast, guys. There’s one more thing.” Elliot replied. “I’m going to have my portrait painted before we return the consultants.”

Louis couldn’t help but shout “Elliot, was the artist in the authorized roster?” even though he knew the answer was ‘no’.

Joachim, the cold professional, had the solution. “I can mindwipe the collaterals that came with the Saint, but I can’t mindwipe one of your black projects without YOU risking the auditors find out. I can put some subconscious paranoid suggestions in the artist so he’ll hide everything he derives from his forward memories in obscure locations and through cryptic codes, but I can’t guarantee historic integrity.”

“Joe, that’ll be good enough.” came Elliot’s reply.

****************************

The Italian artist took eleven days to nearly create a conceptual portrait of Elliot. In this time, Teresa de Cepeda y Ahumada died and the medical officer surmised it was of shock. Unknown to the crew, Philip II kept his Gregorian calendar up to date by marking off the days as they passed.

At the point where the fear line crossed the greed line, Elliot decided his portrait was complete (enough) and returned all the ‘consultants’ and collaterals to their proper locations and just a few hours forward in time, at a point in night where they’d be sleeping.

Thus it came to be that Commander Elliot Johnston had a portrait painted by Leonardo DaVinci that he kept hidden in his quarters and that that Teresa de Cepeda y Ahumada died on the night that King Philip II of Spain decreed as being October 4th - 15th, 1582 though he never would figure out why 11 days passed in one night.

Heroes

2007-09-06T09:47:00.000-07:00

Watching Hero's, season 1, disks 3 & 4 over the last two nights, some thoughts occurred to me:
1) My guy urge to watch 3-4 programs via channel skipping with the remote is pacified by the way the show(s) skip from one storyline to another. It's a little bit like watching 2-3 different shows simultaneously.

2) It ties into a deep seated frame of mind in this country. A state of fear that a large American city will be hit by a terrible bomb, all the while being politically correct in not fingering the most likely terrorists, but rather suggesting that we'll bring it on ourselves and doing so in a way that will sneak under the radar of most.

This is a feature that I think is a vital ingredient of any successful movie or tv program. It needs to tie into some key factor in the national psyche, some emotional tie that calls to you.

The Japanese were devastated by two nuclear bombs, only to live under their protection two decades later. In movies, their hero was Godzilla, created by radiation, who'd protect them from menaces while destroying cities doing so.

M*A*S*H was anti-war during the Vietnam War while fronting itself as a comedy program.

There's more examples. And lots of non-examples, too, I suppose.

Just this morning I watched "M". The world hasn't really changed that much in 80 years. The thought I had was that Fritz Lang and Peter Lorre, both vocal anti-Hitler till they were forced out of Germany, were tapping into the feeling, that in Germany there was a psychotic madman on the loose and only the regular people could do something to stop him, that this movie while being about a fictional child killer, was referencing the Nazi's. If you watch the movie, don't be surprised if you find yourself agreeing with the criminals and thinking that the drunken lawyer would fit into the 9th Circuit Court.

3) Personally, I could relate with the villain, Sylar. Like him, I have the power to see how things are broken, but I take it a step farther. I can see how to break things, even things that are unbreakable, but just need a slight modification to be rendered vulnerable. People will say that I'm mechanically inclined, but I see these things in more than just mechanisms.

Unlike Sylar, I only use this power for good. I fix things, I design unbreakable things, or I'll protect something from being broken.

1.a) Referring back to item 1, above, the more you watch, the less remote each subplot is. There are more casual ties between characters so it's not like skipping back and forth between a few programs.

Cry of the Banshee

2007-08-15T10:36:00.000-07:00

In Scotland the Banshees are often the spirits of women who have died in childbirth, obliged to perform their ritual of warning others of their impending demise until the day when they themselves should have died.
Highland legends tell us that any man bold enough to creep up behind the Banshee and grab her breast will be granted a wish. It’s not known if any man has succeeded.

The OC says that if looking, a writer gets ideas from everywhere.

Right now my writing floodgates are opened and this little morsel could easily to overwhelm me with stories of bravery, fear and horror, pain and loss. The pot is stocked, set on a fire and being stirred. Lets see if something congeals within it.

UPDATE:
Something definitely taken form. I just don't know when I'll get around to posting it.

A Fiction, Continued (Part B)

2007-08-13T11:15:00.000-07:00

Part 1

It was hunger pains that awoke Louie the following day. Waiting for the cryotechs, he remained motionless, expecting them to arrive when ready.

A sense of Deja Vu overwhelmed him as the question "Do you dream in Cryo?" ran thought his mind and he recalled pondering that same question.

How long has it been since I last thought that? Do I wonder that every trip? Perhaps I've always dreamed in cryo, only to forget as I'm resuscitated.

The irony of a well performed cryogenic entombment and a thorough cryorecovery training program was that while it virtually eliminated frost ruptures, cellular ice crystal damage, and brittle fracture/shattering damage, it could easily lead to death from Ondine's Curse if medical assistance was not present to literally wake the frozen up.

WHUMP.

While his heart was beating, he couldn't feel it. The powerful anesthetic in the permeation jell numbed him to the point where he couldn't feel his heartbeat, couldn't hear his pulse in his ears, nor could he feel the expansion ruptures down the backs of both calves where some sloppy cryoentombment procedures led to freezing expansion differentials between his calf muscles and shinbones that resulted in Class II frost ruptures.

WHUMP.

At first Louie thought it was his heart he was feeling beating and he waited for the familiar feeling of the secondary contraction.

And he waited, but it didn't come.

WHUMP. The singular pulse, all by itself.

I have had stranger dreams.

Again, he waited for the pulse and it didn't come. So he waited and time drew out. The stillness suggesting to Louie that he was frozen, traveling through time and the sense of DejaVu became so immense

WHUMP.

that it imploded as his kinesthetic sense registered motion and his mind realized that it's been awake for some time.

In violation of protocol, all men would cup their genitals in the permeation jell dip and keep themselves protected till they got 'iced'. A good cryotech knew that the statistics showed this pose resulted in less fractures on the male anatomy then the officially accepted pose. Other cryotechs who wanted to follow the procedures to the letter soon learned that one couldn't win a fight with a naked drunk guy covered in permeation jell (Can't wait to see the google hits on this one).

This is how Louie woke. His hands cupping himself and he gently checked to see if he was intact (or perhaps he was just scratching).

Assured that he was OK, he slowly moved his hands up to his eyes to remove the optic cups that protected them from cryodamage. Feeling nothing to cause him concern, he crushed both bulbs, flooding his eyes with the saline based release agent and slowly counted to 200 before mimicking the back and forth motion of REM sleep Then to be safe, he slowly counted to 200 again before pulling on the release tabs and rolling the cups out of each eye.

And then Louie saw something few people see, the inside of a cryopod with the hatch closed, ambient light provided by the ships walls as they maintained the environment for occupied human habitation. The mixture of permeation jell and release agent blurred his vision, distorting it, magnifying the confinement and with it, the sense that he shouldn't be able to breath for long in such a small space. Before the urge to breath, to stave off the threat of suffocation heralded by the cramped space, Louie realized that he wasn't breathing, but instead relying on the respiration nanobots suspended in the permeation jell in his lungs to continue to strip the Carbon atoms off the Carbon Dioxide he was producing to keep the Oxygen levels in his blood high enough to keep him alive.

WHUMP.

Not his heartbeat, Louie realized, but more the heartbeat of the ship. Ships noise. Experienced crew who loved their ships would tell you that it could lull you to sleep like the gentle whispers of a lover or could call for help in times of need. Louie didn't know this ship, but he could recognize a call for help in most any language and this pulse, as much a sound as a motion, spoke of an urgency.

Don't forget to breath.

Permeation jell usually tastes sickly sweet, being rich in sugars to power the respiratory nanobots oxygenating the blood. Louie smacked his lips and licked the top of his mouth looking for the overpowering sweetness he was expecting to taste. Instead a celluloidal aftertaste dominated a slight sweet taste.

It should be sweet. And I should be hungover.

And then Louie realized just how long he'd be conscious. Long enough for the nanobots to nearly run out of sugar, long enough for him to sleep off a frozen hangover.

If it wasn't for the ship shaking him, he'd have slept right through the nanobots powering down as their chemical power source ran out. Since it takes less power to grab a hold of a CO2 molecule than it does to remove the Carbon atom, he knew that there wouldn't have been any free Carbon Dioxide molecules to trigger the air hunger feeling. Ondine's Curse was just probably a few hours away.

Pulling he release handles, opened the hatch and Louie slid out of the cryopod and used the mounting points for the cryotechs gear as hand holds to transition to standing in the corridor.

WHUMP

Feeling the whole ship move under his feet, Louie knew the was an eccentricity between the rotational axis of the ship and the distribution of mass and that a harmonic was being approached.

Louie knew that ships had been lost and analysis of the debris had shown that eccentricities small enough to be ignored by the crew had resulted in catastrophic failure as the stress imbalance was repeatedly cycled across the whole structure till the weakest part failed and that failure cascaded through the whole structure.

Such is the risk of spin induced gravity.

Don't forget to breath.

Louie coughed as deep and as hard as he could in an effort to expel as much jell as he could from his lungs. Out of habit he covered his mouth and was rewarded with a handfull of grayish jell. Looking up and down the corridor, he had few options and flung the goo to the floor as his body took over the task of expelling the jell from his lungs. With racking coughs, blacker and blacker jell was expelled as the nanobot fleet in his lungs communicated mission change and switched to the task of demobilization. First they would attack the jell polymer and break the polymer chains down to a minimal atomic weight, then once that is complete, they'd begin disassembling each other till only a minimal number were left.

When the coughing subsided, Louie's hands, mouth and chin were streaked in black. He half wished someone would appear with clothes and a towel and was partially relieved that no one was there to see him naked and streaked with carbon black, dripping cryojell.

WHUMP.

It was as if the ship nudged him, reminding him that there were bigger issues than his modesty and inconvenience at hand.

Louie picked a direction and headed down the corridor knowing that he'd hit a data station or a radial lift tube sooner or later, with the thought running through his mind that medical advances seem to largely consist of the ability to keep a man alive through a more barbaric procedure.

Lying Bastards

2007-08-10T17:03:00.000-07:00

The State of Alaska says it doesn't penalize businesses, but when they require a business license for you to have a business banking account and then charge you $100/year for it, I'm going to call BS on them.

They provide me no services that I need to conduct business nor do they offer me any sort of protection. Neither do they provide any support, services or protection to my customers.

They just charge me $100/year for a piece of meaningless paper just because they can, socialist bastards!

No Guilt

2007-08-09T11:15:00.001-07:00

I don't really like being bored. I'm probably more a of a creature of habit than I'd like to admit, but give me something new to do, a challenge (well, most any challenge) and I'm off. Maybe that's why I've never worked anywhere more than 5 years. Long enough to get familiar with procedures, techniques, customers and good at the required tasks, and then it's boring.

So I temper it. I'll throw rocks at the lake, left handed, try riding bikes while sitting backwards, take guitar lessons even though I'm convinced I have musical anti-talent. Just little things that push my envelope out. Maybe let me stay at a job that bores me more every month.

Some things like riding the bike while sitting backwards, gets an afternoon of trying and then gets abandoned, most likely, forever. Others I find enjoyable and often repeat them. One is the skill of just blending in and dovetails well with hunting and being out in the woods. I've had squirrels run up me halfway, stop in confusion when the 'bark of the tree' feels wrong, than leap away in panic when the realize what they've done.

Twice I've come up on deer bedded down. Both times the leaves were wet and silent and a light rain covered any noise I've made. The first time I wasn't looking for deer and about jumped out of my skin. The second time I have no excuse. I should have seen it, but wasn't looking and again was startled when the deer bolted.

But that's not really an unusual exercise. It's just part of hunting and walking in the woods. Just being silent and blending in.

**********************************************************************************

Bored with a previous job, I went to attend a function for Professional Engineers. I wasn't ready to change jobs, but I just needed to do something different so I made a day of it. In the city were the function was, there was a dealer for German imports and since mine needed to be serviced, I could make a day of it. Eat lunch while the car got a minor repair and then go be a professional geek.

A few blocks down from the dealer was a restaurant. A clerk at the dealership said it was pretty good, so off I went. It was a few blocks walk, but I'd have to cross a major street. No problem, there was a stop light about half way between so I walked to it and waited to cross.

At the light, afternoon traffic flowed through the intersection. Being the middle of a work day, it was light, but not so light I could cross. Across the road waited a white pickup. No blinker. I looked at the driver and he responded by looking at me. He knew I was here, waiting to cross.

When the light changed, I stepped out, looking left to make sure no one was running the light as I crossed. I then looked right and left again, walking, and saw a large chrome grill bearing down on me.

Then I was on the far corner, aware of a pain in both my legs, looking at the truck stopped in the intersection, knowing that he had hit me. Almost as if he didn't see me. How, I don't know. I'm 6'5" and weighing about 250-255 and wearing a suit and tie. And I can see the look on his face. He can't believe what he just did. What just happened. His brain is on overload.

I know what's going to happen next. He's just a little guy. I can be nice, polite, and smile and still intimidate people. Here, on this corner, I'm grimacing. He's going to run, run scared, run for his life. Self preservation is an instinct.

Then I watch him pull a U-turn and stop in the open lot next to me and get out. He's besides himself, worried that I'm hurt, apologizing that he didn't see me. I had a instant goose egg on my right shin, a purple left knee that hurt. While I was glad that I wasn't hurt worse, my overwhelming thought was one of amazement that this guy put his concern for me over his own safety.

All the while, whispered in my ear was the thought "Go ahead and pummel him. No one would blame you." While I knew that was true, I also knew that that night the guilt of hospitalizing someone who could care so much about someone else (no matter how bad a driver they are) would keep me awake longer than the pain would. I just pretended not to hear the idea, besides I was hungry.

I hobbled off to eat while he waited for the light to change so he could recover the wiper I had pulled off in what must have been a slide across his hood.

*******************************************************************************

Much later I'm in California installing some packaging machinery at a pharmaceutical company in the valley. Normally we have techs do the installs, but this machine was not yet programmed and the customer needed to start the long term FDA shelf life tests. Instead I went to finish the programming and to get some product packaged so our customer can keep to their schedule.

Except their testing schedule was more more intensive than originally stated. I had brought two books to read, figuring I'd be back home in a few days and now I had nothing to read and the thought of sitting in a hotel room, watching tv was the last thing I wanted to do.

The goose egg on my right shin had subsided years ago, but the bruise remained. I'm guessing I suffered a bone bruise when the truck hit me and over time it would fade and I'd think it was fully healed. Then it would darken into the purplish blue of an old bruise.

On this trip the bruise was showing it colors. Not that I needed any reminder. I stopped crossing at crosswalks that day. I can feel my pulse quicken at intersections. I now jaywalk, midpoint between the intersections, if I can. Jaywalking cuts the approaches down by half, compared to an intersection, and gives everyone long clear lines of sight. I think it's safer crossing this way.

With nothing better to do, I'm out walking, just a short walk around the block or down the street, hoping to find store with a magazine rack. Newsweek, US News & World Report, pulp paperbacks, anything. The street was like that, light commercial and services for the adjacent tech corridor/industrial park and residential one street back in both directions. It reminded me a lot of the neighborhood where I got hit, except the property values were probably an order of magnitude higher. Over the trees, I could see some high end houses and that was just a block off the main drag. Further back in the quieter neighborhoods, there may just be some houses that would be worth the walk to see, I thought at the time.

Except the intersection I was approaching was a side street crossing the 4 lane main drag. The similarity of the neighborhood, the reappearance of the bruise, even the curb style reminded me of the day I got hit. I asked myself the question that still boggled me "How could he have not seen me?" and I knew that I'd probably not be crossing any streets that night.

Besides, expecting it to be warm in California, I hadn't brought a jacket and the night was cooler then expected. So I decided to do something I had never done. Be still and quiet in an urban environment. I turned and walked into the parking structure rather than continue walking past it.

The parking deck's open faced architecture would allow me to watch and see what happened and the back and side wall would keep the light wind off me. As a light rain started to fall, I knew that this was better then sitting in a hotel room.

I was outdoors, sort of. There'd be no deer or squirrels, but the smell of rain was the same. The trees, however, smelt different. Something I didn't recognize. From the residences a block back came the smell of their gardens, almost a base of lilac tinted with a multitude of other flowers. Certainly not a smell I'd be enjoying in the hotel.

Sitting on a curb stop, partially cross legged, the oil spot in front of me told me an older vehicle regularly parked here. A thousand tiny drips of oil, accumulated over time, sat there as quietly as I did and I wondered if the vehicle would be back before I left.

Then across the aisle, an ember glowed as a smoker inhaled. I hadn't seen him light it and I had been there long enough that it couldn't have been lit before I sat down. Perhaps he used the dash board lighter to light it. I watched him smoke and he watched me watch him. I wondered if he had a cell phone and would call the police and report a suspicious person. After all I was in California, the land of the chic and affluent and they were the only people who had the luxury of a phone in their car.

My original plan was to leave when my legs fell asleep. Or I got bored. Or I saw him make a call. Then it dawned on me that he could be a dealer waiting for his connection and I'd just be safer if I wasn't there. Just as I decided that it was time to go, I heard a car slow to make a turn. This was the first car to enter this night and I knew that he was here because it was this secluded.

So I sat and was surprised to see the car, dripping from the rain, drive past him and continue to the back of the structure. "Now is a good time to leave" I thought, but instead watched him get out, and walk back towards the back of the parking structure. The way he hesitated, I knew he was bad. Drug dealers are bad, right? That all fits. And she's a Californian and they all do cocaine, right? It all fits. I needed go go, but instead I walked back to the shadowy depths of the ground level of the parking deck.

When I was younger, my curiosity would get me into trouble. I've since learned to hold it in check. I really have.

Her freshly parked car was still dripping and the whole smell of the parking deck had changed. The smell of rain was still prevalent, but gone was the smell of dry aged concrete, trees and lilacs; instead there was a new smell that I thought to be wet concrete, the front road, and hot car engine, but now believe to have been fear and guilt.

In the corner stood an enclosed staircase. Or so the sign said. I knew that opening it was going to be trouble, yet I opened it anyway. I knew my plan was poor, but I'd feign surprise and then leave. I'd see a drug deal and be gone. At best, I knew it was a bad choice, and had no idea why I was doing it. At least not any that I could admit to myself at the time.

Instead I stood there unable to decide what I should do. I felt awkward for failing to be embarrassed for seeing two lovers who couldn't wait for a more comfortable location for coitus. Then she looked at me and the look on her face told me that this was the last place on Earth that she wanted to be, that what was happening, she'd die to avoid. Then I realized that she didn't see me and if I could have thought, I'd have wondered "How can she not see me?", but I couldn't think. What I was seeing went against all that I believed. My mind was rebelling against what I was seeing. I know why some people go catatonic when faced with tragedy.

These are the things that happen in movies and books, bad things that happen to strangers, victims of crimes, but not to people in front of you. That she wasn't fighting or screaming suggested to me that I knew nothing about how life really was. Nothing fit.

If he was committing a crime, a violent crime, would he do it if he knew I was watching him? That I was standing here? That I sat there and watched him smoke cigarettes while he waited? How could he not have seen me?

I seemed to know so little and it all was so one dimensional, everything serially connected to the next thing and yet so confusing. Like a long string all bunched into a ball.

Now we've all had a tangle of string. The first thing we all do is find the ends and pull on them expecting the snarl to come out. Perhaps the hardest part is finding the ends.

Time seemed to stop. Nothing made sense. I didn't even exist. No one could see me. Not him, not her, not the guy who hit me. Perhaps this dream isn't even as dimensional as a string. Perhaps it's nothing and I don't exist.

Nothing seemed real. Maybe nothing is.

Except the guy did run up to me. Concerned that I was hurt. Over the years I've thought about that, knowing that if I had flipped a guy more than twice my size over the hood of a truck and he started walking towards me, I'd have driven off, scared, knowing what was being whispered in his ear, and tell myself that he's OK if he can walk. All the while hating the cowardice that only I knew was inside me.

The fact that he hadn't seen me was of no issue. What mattered was what I did.

Suddenly the snarl of what I understood and what I was seeing had an end, poking out, that I could grab and pull. So I did and what was a mind numbing unacceptance of reality in one instance, turned the word back into reality in another.

With one hand I grabbed his right arm, the other grabbed his neck, my thumb sliding in between the ends of his collar bones, attacking his throat, crushing it against his spine and threw him against the cinderblock wall. No need for prompting to pummel this guy.

It was then that I recognized the woman as she righted herself on the stairs. Maybe this wasn't a random attack, rather her celebrity had drawn a dangerous stalker.

I got no answer when I asked if she was OK.

I could see her countenance beginning to fold and withdraw on itself.

Her attacker laid on the ground, unable to breath. His only goal right now was to get one breath. I knew that he wouldn't be a threat for a bit.

He was fully dressed. She was fully dressed. What had seemed to be an age to me had taken no time at all. I couldn't have been more than a second behind him when he began his attack on her.

What gets me is that while I've know women that had been assaulted, it somehow never was real to me. I realized that when I had been unable to accept what I saw a moment ago, but I do know how it affects a woman and I knew what I was going to say next.

"It is OK to kick a man when he's down." I said.

She looked at me and her lip quivered. I realized that I was a bit jacked up, my adrenaline must have been flowing. My large muscles, my pecs and quads were twitching.

"I'm not going to hurt you. Him maybe, but you're safe. Give him a kick."

I saw a conflicting thought cross her mind. She just needed to get a handle on it.

"A moment ago, he may have been a big scary guy, but now look at him."

With both hands he held his throat and tried to roll over. Maybe he thought it would be easier to breath on his other side.

"Kick him. Kick him now." I was goading her with no effect.

"You do know what he was going to do, don't you" I said as I put my hands on her shoulders and helped her stand up. "You need to kick him."

I turned my voice sterner as I walked her towards him "Kick him. It's OK. He started it."

But it was when I said "He deserves it" that her foot lashed out and before I could say "again" she was on him. Kicks to the ribs and head, but he was already in fetal position, so he just kinda stayed in it. And it was here that she started to scream. I thought it was a bit late, but all I could think at the time was how little I understand women.

Before he got what he deserved, I stepped in to stop her. I wanted to get her back out of kicking range because I had a point to make and I didn't see her elbow coming up till it was to late. Vicious and scything, I knew it was going to hurt when it landed on my jaw. I think we both were a bit surprised when I deflected it with my hand.

She stepped back and I don't think I've ever seen a woman so mad. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes were ablaze, she was panting and I asked her "Do you know why you're so mad?"

At this point I was teasing her. I gave her the opportunity to pummel a guy who deserved it, then I took it away. Or at least she thought I was only teasing her. She had one goal in life and it wasn't to answer me.

There was no confusing the look on her face. She did want to kill him.

"Why are you so mad at him?" I asked again.

With few options, she answered "Because he was going to rape me."

"Wrong!" I corrected her. "You are mad at him because you didn't deserve it."

Hearing that took all the rage out of her. She just began to deflate and tremble in front of me.

The whole dynamic in the stairwell changed and all remained the same. He assailant laid in the corner, his attempts at breathing sounded a bit like a trained seal at feeding time, and she stood there, trembling, shivering perhaps.

For a moment I thought her teeth were chattering. That went with the shivering appearance, but soon I realized that she was chanting something over and over.

"...didn't deserve it. I didn't deserve it. I didn't..."

I had seen pictures of US Troops from Vietnam with the thousand yard stare, distant and vacant. They don't begin to convey the dissociation between the present reality and the mind.

How the human mind can be so fragile and and so strong as to the incredible measures it's capable of to protect itself is beyond me.

STANDARD DISCLAIMER:
The majority of the mundane events in the above text are true in that I have been to California and installed machinery in pharmaceutical plants. Any and all dramatic and thematic elements are works of fiction.

The beating he suffered, her long cry as I drove around the San Francisco Bay and the police officer asking me if I saw any "large suspicious characters" when I checked out were all lost when I last tried to post this. But they are part of the story and since they are covered here, this is now complete.

Muslim President?

2007-07-16T10:15:00.000-07:00

Everyone seems to be thinking about Hillary as president. A lot of people seem to think it's already a done deal, her with her popularity and the Republicans total failure to have a single winnable candidate in the lineup.

So who is Hillary going to have as her running mate? Obama the Muslim? Just how long do you think it would take to get a Muslim President when all it takes is one assassination to make it so.

All you have to do is look up the origin of the word assassin and you can begin to understand the workings of the Muslim and Arab mind. Power in the Middle East is a zero sum game. For someone to gain power, it must be taken from someone who has it. This may just be the nature of a mature and stagnate political environment.

Often, when one Imam takes power from a rival, a life is also taken. This is nothing new to the Muslim power/political dynamic.

Also, how long do you think a Muslim man will stay behind a woman? Can anyone say "Caliph Obama?"

TIE IN
Michael Yon writes of the agression in Iraq:

The terrorists’ main target is not Americans, but other Iraqis.

Why, you may ask?Well, he answers that in his next paragraph.

...Once the terrorists stitch up highways and innumerable roads and entire cities with bombs, they have tremendous clout with the locals...

In Iraq, the holder of the power, Saddam, was killed and now others are rushing in to fill the void.

That's just the nature of the beast in the Middle East. It's how the Muslim mind works

Maybe it's just human nature at it's lowest denominator.

Save Frequently, Save Often if You Use Blogger

2007-07-12T12:41:00.000-07:00

I could be knee deep in the bodies of my enemies, the wails of their women filling the air as the vultures circled above and I'd still feel angry.

Blogger just ate half a monster post. 3,016 words remain, but the last half has been recycled in cyberspace.

ARRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Imagine That?

2007-06-26T16:04:00.000-07:00

Why would someone complain if their propaganda was believed?

Could it be that they're not really like that? That, maybe, they are not just like us? Vote them into office and teach their lifestyles in school, but just don't expect them to live up to the standard that gets them accepted. That's what I hear him saying.

Maybe they are as different as we all believed them to be, psychologists included, in the 70's.

One?

2007-06-10T00:45:00.000-07:00

One would be to many. But then I suspect I've lost track of the cases like this I've personally known. Nevermind the ones I've heard of third (and fourth) hand.

Yea, I think one of the reasons I frequent BaneRants is that, like an older movie, you can count on the bad guy to get shot.

One innocent getting hurt is one to many. Hurting all the bad guys is just right. Nothing less than justice, and by hurt I mean something that would leave them looking like something Bernie Wrightson drew.

Then everything is cast in distant shadows, no matter how their pain and victories stir my heart. My son will be 5 in August and is old enough to show the the effects of his birth mothers daily cocaine use the first 8 months of her pregnancy.

Part of me just wants to climb the highest mountain in sight, shake my fist at God and scream till I'm hoarse. Equal parts of fearing to blaspheme God and knowing it' would be pointless stop me. But still, the inclimation is still there.

Why God, why? Is that a cliche? If so, there is a reason.

And I end this posting, feeling that it is far from complete.

I Want my Phaser

2007-05-24T10:57:00.000-07:00

Just another Star Trek feature that has become common:

At the time, I wondered how the batteries would fit the Lt. Uhura's earpiece.

Yea, that was my critique on her little bit of technology and now, it turns out the real thing is noticeably smaller.

I want a phaser and a tricorder, that would be nice too.

P.S. It's darn near impossible to find an internet picture of a black woman with a bluetooth earpiece. I know, I looked.

Technology Alert

2007-05-15T10:40:00.000-07:00

How your mouse really works.

A Continuation of Sorts...

2007-04-27T15:28:00.000-07:00

This is a continuation, of sorts, of a topic that Vox bitches about and the Difster has blogged on.

My boss had a son born 6 weeks ago and my other coworker has one due in a week. One is breastfeeding and the other will do so as she has done with her other kids.

One of our engineering discussions ended up on the topic of the benefits of breastfeeding. I thought I was aware of all of them, but there is one that makes sense, should be appealing to all women and seems to be unknown.

Every time the baby feeds, about 200 calories of are transferred from the mother to the baby along with all the nutrients. That's about the equivalent of running for half an hour. Imagine running for half an hour, 6-8 times a day? Talk about a weight loss program!

My bosses wife has lost 30 pounds since the baby was born and "she eats like a horse". She's now at a lower weight then when she first got pregnant.

Suddenly the weight gain during pregnancy makes sense to me. The mother's body is gearing up a fat reserve to transfer to the child.

Another thing I didn't know is that in parts of Europe, girlfriends will nurse each other's babies if one will be out for long. They think nothing of it and studies have shown that the babies immune systems benefit from broader spectrum of antibodies that they are ingesting.

Who Needs Stoplights?

2007-04-06T17:28:00.001-07:00

I found this interesting:

UPDATE:
What I see here is difference in cultures. Some asians have a reputation as being pushy. In the video, I see cars and people going as far as they can, safely and then stopping and waiting till it is OK to proceed.

There is a pedestrian who stops between two moving cars and then proceeds as if nothing has happened. For him, nothing significant has happened.

The difference, I think, is that my culture has a much larger personal space that cannot be infringed upon without feeling like we're being 'pushed'.

I suspect that the asians who "are so pushy" don't intend to, but rather, are following their customs and going as far as they can which causes some Americans to back up allowing the asians to advance.

Finally

2007-03-26T10:34:00.000-07:00

Saturday we took our son skiing for the first time. We figured that at 4 and a half, he was ready.

He has some sensory integration issues and can have a picker, tag in his shirt, or wrinkle in his sock that can be the worst thing in the world, at least for him, at that moment in time. I figured the biggest potential obstacle to fun was going to be his ski boots that need to be tight. Tight enough to stimulate some sort of negative response. I foresaw issues and knew going home was always an option.

My wife knew that he has a healthy respect for heights and that the chairlift could be very scary for him. I hadn't thought of that, but the moment she mentioned it to me, I realized there was more, much more, that could rise up and send us home early.

The socks from last summers soccer league extend above his knees and always stay up. The foot part is loose and baggy, but with a little pulling, never wrinkle when a shoe or boot is put on. How such a baggy sock can always be wrinkle free continues to boggle me.

Without an issue he was soon booted and in the bindings, ready to ski. The rest of us had to boot ourselves up and bundle some extra winter clothing a bit. He just stood there and waited, relaxed. The pictures show a comfortable body language, as if he'd done this many times before.

I had time to run over and get our lift tickets while everyone else geared up. Then it was time to walk to the lift, towing a 4 year old on skis. He held on the grip end of a pole and just plowed along. My wife and I took turns getting tired.

On the way to the chair lift, I asked him if he was "ready to ride the flying chairs" He just looked at me with his big blue eyes and smiled.

The lower lift operator slowed the chairs for us and we were in and off up the hill. "Look at those people, they look like dolls" was his first comment as we were hoisted up the hill. It was later that night, reading Curious George, that I realized it was a line plagerized from George as he was flying over town on a bunch of balloons he accidentally stole from the balloon man.

The upper lift operator slowed the chairs for us to exit which we did without any falls. It just couldn't be going any better.

It took some experimentation, but without a training harness, we found the best way for [son] to ski was between our legs with us holding his coat, guiding him, as he giggled and vibrated with excitement.

After 4-5 runs we ate lunch with some extended family, nieces and nephews in an RV one of them owned. Potluck, homemade baked beans, brats, fresh fruit were the order of the day.

[Son] ate and played in the master suite up over the cab with his cousins then we were back out on the hill till he started to show signs of wearyness induced crankyness. Then it was time to go and off we went. Home was calling.

A little dinner of skiing leftovers, a little Spongebob on the Nintendo, then he was off to bed with only token resistence.

This was probably one of the best days we've had as a family.

Later that night, [wife] looked me in the eyes and said "Know how long I've waited to do that?" Knowing that [son] is 4, I was tempted to say "4", but that seemed to obvious so I answered "4" anyway.

"No, 27 years" she corrected me, the warmth and joy flowing as a long held dream was realized. The talk turning to more days of skiing as a family.

60's Technology

2007-03-16T17:06:00.000-07:00

By far, there was one man I learned more electronics from than I did in college or anywhere else combined. He was doing this in the 60's, as a prank in the dorms during his Freshman year.

Makes me wonder how many of the other stories he's told have market potential today.

A Rebel and...

2007-03-16T09:03:00.000-07:00

He was a Rebel and the only officer to ever graduate from West Point with never having earned a demerit. From an unverified e-mail I see things haven't changed in 145 years.

"It appears we have appointed our worst generals to command forces, and our most gifted and brilliant to edit newspapers! In fact, I discovered by reading newspapers that these editor/geniuses plainly saw all my strategic defects from the start, yet failed to inform me until It was too late.

Accordingly, I'm readily willing to yield my command to these obviously superior intellects, and I'll, in turn, do my best for the Cause by writing editorials - after the fact."

Robert E. Lee, 1863

Buried under dust and ash in Sparta, there's probably a clay tablet with a critical analysis of Leonidas.

Some things never change.

Dinosaur, Dinotheory

2007-03-15T10:40:00.000-07:00

I love reading articles like this, but when I hit lines like:

The scientific argument was that as cold-blooded creatures, dinosaurs would not have stood a chance of surviving an ice age.

I can't help but look at all the crocodiles and alligators that survived the ice age and think that there is a major disconnect somewhere.

How can big dumb lizards like gators, crocs and iguana survive an ice age and the evolution capable, adaptable, problem solving troodon didn't can't?

To bad it's not Conspiracy Wednesday, I think I just identified the origin of the Reptilians. They have had 65 to 99 million years to grow larger brains and develop time travel, warp drive, and mind control since the end of the Late Cretaceous Period.

About 80% of my postings never go where I think they are initially headed. Case in point, I thought I was going to post a serious thought above and instead I got silly. Oh well.

Not Hier

2007-03-13T09:27:00.000-07:00

I have a grievance against Worldnetdaily.com. Occasionally I see them sensationalize a topic by taking something unacceptable that happens half way around the world and implying that it happened locally. For example, take this article listed today.

Personally, everyone I know who homeschools their children are quality people with exceptional children. Statistically I'll let the data on homeschooled children speak for itself. Yet we still see the best option available to teach under increasing attack.

The attacks come because liberals can't stand honest competition, be it in politics, education, national defense, or any other issues. Teachers, their union, and even their adversarial managers tend to lean towards Harvard.

Then reading the article, I see that it took place in Germany, a continent away, separated by an ocean. Perhaps the fault it mine. Worldnetdaily's name certainly implies that it is a global newsmedia. I am in error, assuming that every article it posts pertains to the United States. After all, that couldn't happen here, we're nothing like the Germans. We'd never put our citizens in concentration camps, would we?

Not as Wacky as She Seems

2007-03-07T09:25:00.000-08:00

What did you think when a pop icon left rehab and shaved he head? Probably the same as the rest of us "She's a loon!" or something similar. Right?

Now take a step back and look at her. She's fighting for custody of her children in what I can only guess is a bitter battle (I'm not following this, other than the collateral bits of information I get from the media). I'm sure any evidence that can be used against her will be. Especially evidence of drug use.

Her hair keeps a chemical log of the state of her body at the time it was growing. If she was doing drugs, it's recorded in her hair.

Shaving her head wasn't the act of a crazy person, it was the act of a thinking person destroying evidence. Maybe in a panic, but far from crazy.

UPDATE (just to clarify my position):
A mother doing drugs? No way should she have custody of the child. At least until she goes through rehab and gets herself to a stable functional level. And I'm sure her husband isn't any better. Birds of a feather...

Poor kid. If there wasn't a 5 or 6 figure annual child support payment on the table, I'm sure the kid would be in the foster care system.

Now if only Brittany can put the commitment and dedication to destroying the evidence so she can get her child to living sober and straight so she can be there to raise her child will she succeed. But all I'm seeing is it's about what Brittany wants other than what is best for the kid.

Hey Troll

2007-01-26T10:11:00.000-08:00

I had some real good friends in Boulder. Met lots of nice people.

Boulder was a lot like Anchorage in that most everyone is there from somewhere else and is as open to talking to strangers as you are. There's usually a bit of activity in their lifestyle and some outdoor action too.

You have me intrigued. Who are you? Click on my yahoo e-mail link and e-mail me if you don't want to tell all of blogdom who you are.

Oh, Say Can You See...

2007-01-22T09:39:00.000-08:00

Friday night I went to a collegiate hockey game. When the teams lined up to sing the national anthem, the wireless mic the singer had failed.

The crowd waited, but soon the impatient started singing. Soon the whole stadium was singing the national anthem with no overpowering PA burying the voice of the people.

I still get goosebumps thinking about it. Holy is not the right word to describe the atmosphere but it comes close. Some people seemed hesitant to sing, but our voice carried and grew, as those of us who knew the words led those near us who didn't. I believed I glimpsed the strength of America, the goodness that unites us, the joy that comes from personally lifting this country up as we remind ourselves of things usually taken for granted.

Then the PA system kicked in and some mediocre singer on a stadium sound system drowned us out. Busy life took over. The media wonks should have just left it off.

Rapatronic Photos

2006-12-01T17:20:00.000-08:00

A millionth of a second exposure in the first ten millionth of a second of a nuclear explosion looks like this:

That's what you can do with a solid state shutter. Wow.

Go here to see more.

Got Time?

2006-12-01T17:16:00.000-08:00

Just when you think you've heard all the possible conspiracy theories, you realize that you haven't, yet.

Middle East and the Empires that Controlled it

2006-10-05T09:34:00.000-07:00

From a Friend:

Drunk Bollgging or I don't get it

2006-08-17T01:53:00.000-07:00

My ideal woman has long black hair with blue eyes and yet I've always seen Charlize Theron as a beauty from the 1940's. A beauty with no compare. Every Allied bomber, B-17's, B-24's, B-25's, B-26's , even A-20'S should have her, wearing a small piece of lace, bearing bombs, on their nose. Put her nekked on the B-29, a Fat Boy straddled between her legs, her head thrust back, a rictus of finality on her face. Her beauth is timeless. I don't get it why they don't.

Rosenrot oh Rosenrot, Tiefe Wasser sind nicht still

I'm watching Aeo Flux and the worst part is Charlize Theron has short hair and it's dyed black. Sci-Fi, rebels fighting an opressive gov't, Charlize Theron, it should be the perfect ovie for me, ritht?

As an aside, your first drink of Gin will get you as drunk as the the half full bottle of 750 mL of Gin will. Even if drinking Ginguaratias because a half full bottle of Gilby's Gin and some Hose Cuervo Marguitia mix is all I have in the house to drink. Or so it feels on glass 3. I may be wrong. Guzzling the last 2 sips of Gin a4re taking me back to a drunken place I have';t been since collecge.

Where was I?

...So ist es Brauch

My dream women, once was dark haired and blue eyed and I now find my self married to a geeen eyed red head. Red heads usually had a smell that disguisted me. At least most of them and now I find the love of my life is one.

I don't get it.

And Charlize Theron is just plain with her dark short hair.

wenn man klares Wasser will, Rosenrot oh Rosenrot

I grew up in a community where blondes were a dime a dozen. My blackheated first wife was a blond. Asians, some at least, seem blessed by God to appeal to me.

ehr ist kleinen kliegen doch

And the love of my life is a redhead.

I don't get it.

Maybe fantasies don't hold up to real life when the rubber hits the road?

Could that be it?

I think so.

And my wife is gone now for a week or so.

Off to see her brother with cancer in his brain, lungs, spine, and liver. Could be in more places, but he's stopped seeing the oncologist, as well as the Chemo and radiation therapy. I'd have gone also, if I could have afforded it.

Tiefe Brunnen muss man graben, wenn man klares Wasser will

Have I mentioned that I have Rammstein's Rosenrot on endless loop? It seems to fit the mood.

So war es und so wird es immer sein

There's a couple of Rammstein songs that I thought I liked, but when I went from head phone to speaker, I found them lacking. Rosenrot passed that test with flying colours. The video is distrbing, don't watch it. It speaks of the frailities and the evil of human nature while it sings of Goethe's tale told in Ohne DichCrosscut.

The separations and deviations, I just don't get. They tell the same story.

So my wife is off to see her dying brother. She was scheduled to fly out Thursday night, but got a phone call today that if she wants to see him, she better come down as soon as possible.

So war es und so wird es immer sein

And she's off. Gone to see her brother, dying way to soon.

I thank God that she is traveling with her twin. That she's not alone at this time.

The other day her brother apologized to his children for being to hard on them. His oldest son runs his own small construction business, his youngest son, a Marine, is studying geology in college and loves it, his oldest daughter is happily married to a phycian's assistant who graduated from Harvard (and no, I doubt that he's a communist), while his youngist daughter has yet to make her mark upon the world.

Could I do worse?

I'm raising my son as I wish I had been raised. Who's the guy on Vox's site with the obnoxious comment format? He once said he treat's his children like his men and his men like his children. I give my son targets within his reach, but outside of his comfort zone while being physically and emotionally present in his life.

I wonder if my wife thinks I'm to hard on him.

Hat das Röslein nur im Sinn

My son is adopted. He's built exactly like me and looks more like his maternal grandfather's baby pictures that any of his maternal grandfather's 17 biological grandchildren. At least that is what my in-laws tell me.

This I get. God has clearly stated that he is my son.

On that point I'll end this posting. That and a fervent prayer that my wife bear the hardships to come and make it safely home. I miss her already and wish I could be there for her.

A Fiction

2006-08-02T11:45:00.000-07:00

Loius Calderone had been awake for some time. How long, he wasn't sure, but he knew he was awake.

Can you dream in cryo?

Loius's last memory was puking as the stasis-techs manhandled him into the barrier solution. To keep his thermal mass down, he hadn't eaten anything in the previous 18 hours (the scripted laxitives had achived their goal hours earlier) and had nothing to offer the gods of retch.

The gods, angry at the insolence of one who denied them their right, took their vengeance. Each heave started low in the gut, like a case of Mexican food poisoning, and pulled in a contraction of pain. Through peristaltic forces, his stomach tryed to exit the locus of pain, and would have, except it was anchored by the small intestine, or so it felt. His lungs, to avoid notice of the angry gods, got small and refused to breathe, each one afraid it would be noticed as a first born.

He wanted one last breath before he drowned in the barrier solution. Just one breath. The statis-operators called it "supercessation of atmospheric oxygenation process" or something similar. Loius had been here before. He knew what was coming. They were going to drown him.

But that was a long time ago.

Now his training took over.

I'm still drunk. Go back to sleep.

Cryo-stasis exit procedures called for the subject to remain motionless till fully revived. Lest frozen tissues get damaged. Microscopic ice crystals will slice through fragile and tender cell walls as easily as tissues frozen solid can fracture.

Lack of attention to his revival led Louis to believe that he was still in stasis and that stasis-techs would be tending to him when he was sufficiently thawed and revived. He was wrong.

Loius willed himself into a deep sleep believing that assistance would be coming at the appropriate time.

American Blond vs. Liberal Brit

2006-08-02T09:57:00.000-07:00

For those of you who missed the Ann Coulter interview, you can find it here.

A Pediatric Neurologists Opinion

2006-07-17T10:22:00.000-07:00

We have two foster children. Ages 12 weeks and 2 years old. Same mom, different dads.

The infant is on phenobarb to prevent seizures. Just one of the effects of her moms drug use, but not the worst.

While we had the good doctor's ear we asked him about our son. Seems his good biological mother wasn't being totally honest when she swore to us that she was clean during her pregnancy. Well anyway, I think we all lucked out. He doesn't seem to have suffered any of the effects of prenatal drug use.

I love him more than I ever thought I could and see him as a regular boy, just a bit on the active side at times. That's how I treat him. When he starts bouncing or vibrating (literally) with extra energy, I just run him with a game or physical activity. Any combination of tireing him out, feeding him, or a nap will resolve the problem most of the time, if not all the time.

But I have the advantage of a 9 hour break during the day, 5 days a week, at a place called work.

Anyway the good doc, while blaming George Bush and No Child Left Behind for this, said that the worst thing going on in schools for boys is the elimination of physical activity designed to burn off the excess energy that they have. In his opinion, pharmacological solutions for excess energy should be the last resort and he lamented that it was often the first choice.

He even went on to mention how boys should have male teachers since men know what boys need in a way that a woman could never. He also said that some boys just wont listen to women in the way that they will listen to a male.

His recommendation for our son was lots of physical activity, team sports when possible, and a routine. I never expected to hear a liberal reinforce what I believe, but there it was. He said it was true for a lot of boys.

I don't know if he is a conservative that was brainwashed into the ways of the cultural elite while in college and medical school or if he is a liberal who is seeing the light breaking around the edges of the conglomerated pack of liberal groupthought and just doesn't know it.

Anyway, when a pediatric neurologist says that boys need physical activity and drugs should be a last resort I give it some credence.

Not a Clue

2006-07-17T09:43:00.000-07:00

Not that I support the protesters, but in this article, the following line just jumped out at me.

Today, if guys dressed as Mohawk Indians dumped tea in Boston Harbor as a protest, guess which side the administration would be on?

Doesn't the author know which side the administration was on at the time?

Lebanon

2006-07-14T09:21:00.000-07:00

I'm watching Isreal cut of Lebanon from the outside world. Airports and roads are being systematically destroyed.

I'm thinking this is in preparation to a major ground offensive so Lebanon cannot be supplied or reinforced from outside.

I think it's going to get worse before it gets better. Watch the price of crude to quadruple in the next month.

The New Star Trek

2006-06-28T09:53:00.000-07:00

If you liked the original Star Trek, you'll like this. It's campy in some places and well done in others. Overall there is a retro atmosphere that'll take a true fan back.

There is a little challenge to finding all the pieces and viewing them in order, but if you follow the numbering scheme, you'll do just fine.

I'm just not sure if they were paying a tribute to Star Trek or poking fun at it. I think it was a little of both.

AIDS Awareness

2006-06-27T10:00:00.000-07:00

What total BS!!

I've been watching tv now that I have cable. I'm watching the History Channel and good Westerns. Possibly, I'm tolerating a home improvement or gardening show with my cuter half (let me say The Iron Chef is better than I ever thought it could be). The Sci-Fi channel seems to have really gone downhill and hasn't had anything worth watching other than Alien. Fox hasn't held my attention for more the 20 seconds. I'll turn off Alan Colmes the moment I see his face.

Then I see it, every half hour. The AIDS awareness advertisement. People walking around labelled. Some of the labels read "Status: Positive" or "Status: Negative" and are in a cool, safe blue color. Then there are the people walking around with "Status: Unknown" on them in a danger ridden red color.

Yea sure. The 65 year old guy, who happens to be married, and doesn't know his status is a threat to me. Big red "Status: Unknown" for him. Not unless he's involved in high risk activities which is highly unlikely.

I fugure the biggest threat to me is tainted blood if I'm ever in a medical emergency and the blood supply is pretty well screened.

What riles me up the most about this is how money is wasted to make a vocal and well organized minority feel good while there are legitimate health issues that get neglected.

RIP Uncle Dave

2006-06-23T16:20:00.000-07:00

This morning they pulled him off of the ventilator and provided him with medication to comfort him. At least one of the docs on the team has been a friend of his for over 10 years.

He continued to breath on his own for about 7 hours, then he was done.

All this after 9 weeks in the ICU. It's not like it snuck up on us.

I should be relieved for him, but as I write this, hiding in my little cubicle, I feel like crying. I am crying.

I can't imagine what it's like for his wife and kids. I'll be calling them tomorrow.

POSTSCRIPT:
To everyone who commented or prayed for me and/or my uncle's family, it is appreciated. Thank you.

Sincerely,
Andy

Neglected Intentions

2006-06-15T09:44:00.000-07:00

When I first started this blog, I though one of the regularily covered subjects would be life in Alaska. It's different enough from the lower 48 that I still find things remarkable here after 5 years. Endless blog fodder I thought.

I think this is my second or third posting that mentions life here. Oh well.

I have extended invitations to all my friends to come up and go fishing. Between time and money, raising kids, nursing starting businesses along, no one has made it.

There are 3 brothers I grew up with, the youngest is in Iraq. When he comes back, the plan is for all of them to come up here and go fishing. Just one more US Troop I pray for every day, the only difference is I know his name.

Now he warrants a posting himself. It turned out that he married a wicked unfaithful bitch and after a bitter divorce he reupped for the Navy (Naval Reserves?) I suspect that he went someplace where he knew there were people he could trust and rely on while his wound healed. If that doesn't speak volumes about the quality of people in our military I don't know what does.

A vet may understand this better than me.

He's old enough that most would wonder what he's doing there and I have to laugh at the cosmic humor of his position there. He comes from a Navy family that upholds the finest Naval tradition of hating all things Gyrene and Leatherneck. So what's he doing? He's a combat medic travelling with Marine convoys.

Yea, he's travelling on moving targets with men he 'hates' so he can save their lives.

I look forward to the day that he, his brothers, and I all get to romp about the state in the bush and on boats hauling in obscene amounts of fish.

Back to the original topic...

About 3 months ago, a buddy from Michigan who lives to fish e-mailed me and said "I have half off airfare to anywhere in North America and though this is the time to go fishing in Alaska. I'll never go otherwise." I told him to come on up and we'd go fishing.

A few calls to some charters and he had a week of fishing laid out. Two of the days I was supposed to go with him. It was all planned.

Some work and life pass by and soon he's walking out of the secure area at Ted Steven's Interational Airport at about 5pm sporting a big old grin and looking better than he did when I last saw him 5 years ago.

Between getting the rental car, driving him around Lake Hood, the worlds largest/busiest float plane airport (just to set the mood), buying fishing licenses and Salmon stamps and eating at the only sushi place open past 10pm (and the best sushi either of us had ever eaten) I had him out till after midnight, 4am his time.

He spent a month in Japan for work and was impressed with Sushi Ya. I need to take my wife there on a date when we get the time alone and the money!!!

One of his floatplane fishing charters had trouble with the plane so they put him on what must have been Plan "B". They offered a ride on a Otter out to Kodiak Island. He took it an got to ride in the copilot's seat on the way out. When he told me about it he sounded like a kid, not a 50 year old guy. That's Alaska.

The next two days I was supposed to go with him, but I got hit by the flu, hard. I had a day of heaving and puking, the violent heaving where you can taste the bitterness of the bile from past the stomach, not just the sour stomach contents. Every muscle that attached to a rib was left sore. That was followed by two days of diarrhea.

And I know it wasn't food poisoning since I got it two days after my wife and our son had it as well as our two foster kids, all starting on separate days. A Roman vomitorium had nothing on us. Our babysitter even caught it and she assured us that she was immune since she already had the flu.

I missed out on the King Salmon fishing on the Kenai River and the Hallibut fishing out of Seward.

My buddy ended up mailing 57 pounds of frozen King Salmon back to his dad's house and has more Halibut than he can check on the plane. His total take was 2 Kings on Kodiak, 1 King on the Kenai, and 2 Halibut at 30 and 70 pounds.

He's giving me the extra Halibut and I want to show him how to cook it up so I suggested to my wife we have a Halibut Smorgasboard for him Friday night which led to the following conversation:

ME: We should have Rich over for a Halibut Smorgasboard Friday night and show him your 3 favorite recipies.

HER: [baleful glare]

ME: Otherwise he won't really know how to cook it.

HER: [baleful glare] And the three are?

ME: Halibut Olympia, the butter-potato chip one, and your fancy one.

HER: [baleful glare] And who's going to do all the cooking?

ME: Well, the Halibut Olympia is just mayo, cheese, bacon and Halibut mixed up and baked. That's easy, isn't it?

HER: [head nodding] yea...

ME: and the butter potato-chip one is even easier...

HER: [smiling] yea...

ME: and your fancy one is so good, how can we not make that?

HER: ...and I can buy some premade pesto for that one....

My buddy will get back to Michigan, start cooking his fish for friends he has over so he can share his Alaskan experience and find that it is all gone sooner than expected. And this will make no sense to him. He'll leave Alaska with over 100 pounds of fish, even with the airline restrictions, which by MIchigan standards is a lot of fish and eat it like an Alaskan (it's that good!). It'll be gone before he knows it.

Now the guy who thought he'd never make it to Alaska, except for some half priced airfare, is telling me he'll be back. I think his time here exceeded anything he could have imagined. Well, that's Alaska.

Lastly, he thinks he's dropped some weight. Up here, he'll eat a light breakfast, have lunch and be on the go till he's bushed. A light dinner and he's catching 4-6 hours sleep till the next day starts. All in all, just a great trip for him.

The sun was dangling up in the sky at 12:30am and he asked me "Andy, when do you sleep?"

"In the winter" was my answer.

I got an understanding laugh. "The sun does give you energy." He got it. He gets Alaska. He'll be back.

I Had a Dream...

2006-05-30T11:58:00.000-07:00

I stood in The Showers. It was my dream so I should know if I was clothed or not, but I don't. Besides what I'm wearing isn't an issue. I've got my determination. Nothing is going to stop me from finding my son and flaying the bastard to took him. Nothing in my heart but love and hate and they are both working towards the same goal. Maybe compatable goals in this case.

Whatever string of logic or clues had led me there was gone. I had lost the scent so I stood taking it all in, searching for some spoor, some scent or sound that I could follow.

At first I thought everything had been cleaned with German efficiency. There wasn't a spot on the white (offwhite, maybe the color of bleached bone?) tiling, the grout was all clean. The bronze floordrains sparkled, some big old German word prominent in the casting. "Fussilschluss" or something very similar.

The first two letters were a message to me. "FU". Maybe I was, but at this point it was just another moot point. I'll deal with that later. The "SS" was appropriate to. Nazi gas chambers with cast bronze SS's prominint on the floor. All you had to do was look at them and there they were. That's when I realized what this was. A whole level of Hell as a tribute to Hitler's final solution and I was in the middle of it, looking for a clue.

SS is also the last two letters of my name. It also occurred to me that this was a message, "FU, it's the end of you". Not yet. This is my dream and I'm not dead, not yet. I need to find my son.

The bronze floor drains were about 18 inches in diameter with 1-1/2" openings in it. Probably all the better to wash away any waste or vomit the gassed made while convulsing on the Zyklon B.

So there I stood, looking in all directions for a clue where my son was taken. Nothing but a tribute to mankind's most documented and villified act. The miasma of oppression and misery was so thick, it obscured my vision in the distance. This I knew was product of where I was, not the recreated atmosphere of the actual gas chambers.

Ever wonder what would happen if you were in hell and "things went to hell"?

From the floor grates came gurgling, burgling sounds. Seemed that hells sewers had backed up and were going to flood the gas chambers.

The gas chambers are kind of dreary. Greyscale is all you need to see a Nazi gas chamber. The gore that come up throught the grates reminded me that I dream in color. At each floor grate grew a pile of gore. Chopped flesh, no chunk larger than 3/8 of an inch. Romero could have learned how to flow blood from these piles.

In the piles I noticed details. Finger tips and teeth seemed to be the only things small enough to make it through the grinders. Children's finger with small child sized nails and juvenile teeth.

I knew what was coming next. Then a pile drew my attention as it became top heavy and a side collapsed and avalanched down into an aluvial fan on the floor at my feet. A finger tip who's every curve I know laid there, eye level with me. I picked it up, knowing what it ment.

The curve of the nail, the full roundness of the tip, the profile of the cuticle. It was the tip of the middle finger of the right hand of my son. I clip and file his nails at least once a week. It's either that or rename him Wolverine.

I started to have an emotional reaction, then some voice of reason seemed to call out, in my mind. While I was in a tribute to the Nazi gas chambers, it made no sense to not use them. Why not use them?

Then it hit me. There were no corporeal bodies here in hell. There was no one to kill. Everyone was already dead and judged.

Then what was I looking at in my hand? It was such a bloody mess, I couldn't tell.

Next thing I knew the fingertip was clean and I could taste blood in my mouth. It wasn't till I woke up that I figured out how I cleaned the gore off the fingertip.

Looking at it now, clean, I could see that the nail was more flat, the edge more jagged, the whole color was just a hue to yellow to me my son's and I realized that my son was not being held in hell for if he was, they'd know exactly what he looked like.

It was here that I woke up, disoriented. The clock said 4:08 and the sunlight coming through the window could have been am or pm here in Alaska in the summer. The blood in my mouth from cleaning the finger tip still tasted real and there it was, blood in my spit. The tip of my tonge was sore, seems I had bitten and sliced it. Probably during my 'emotional' reaction when I thought all was lost.

And there he slept, inthe classic pose, palms together, hands under his cheek between my wife and I, he having crept into bed with us sometime earlier in the night.

My dreams are usually mundane. This one by far being the goriest ever.

Having written this, I think I now know two of the orgins of it and what it means, but I'm sure there is more.

Act of War?

2006-05-09T15:04:00.000-07:00

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran has recently stated that he wants to see oil at $170/barrel (or was it $190/barrel?) since at that price he believes the economy of the United States will fail. He's been doing a good job of raising the price of oil so far. Only time will tell just how high it'll go. But is it an Act of War?.

Some will argue that the US is an empire. Not a military empire, but a financial empire with a military arm. It makes sense that one would attack a financial entity with a financial weapon.

Then I see stuff like this and this and wonder if the guy knows what he's talking about or if he's just spouting inflammatory speech.

I suspect that while the US does have the "strongest economy in the world" it does have a fair share of vulnerabilities. I also suspect that the little economies, like those found in Europe, will suffer far more than ours.

If oil goes high enough that we start to suffer, and I'm talking more than paying a few more bucks at the pump, that countries with Arms (and that's a capital "A") and armies will be hurting. I'm guessing that the French will be threatening to do something (again) and the Whermacht will shake the dust off it's boots and cause some to argue that Clauswitz is still applicable.

So I wonder how far Iran has to go with it's financial attacks for one to be considered an act of war. I've read that WWI was fought because the Brits were loosing ground to the German colonization of the New World and the Brits figured they'd have the advantage in a military conflict since they didn't like the competition in a financial/territorial one. It don't know how true that is, but it does make one think and wonder about the parallels today.

Is a financial attack an act of war? Probably depends on who the President/Chancellor/Prime Minister/King is.

Ugly Bags of Mostly Pus

2006-05-09T14:25:00.000-07:00

I'm reading the first book I've read in months. I needed to read. I was having withdrawl. Bad withdrawl.

It's The Demon in the Freezer, a non-fiction telling of the recent history of smallpox, from just before it's eradication from the general population to the present day.

Richard Preston mostly writes about hazardous diseases and genetic engineering of weapons. His fiction is as good as his non-fiction.

Probably the most disgusting thing I've ever read was his multi-page synopsis of how ebola kills a person. Depending on the aggressiveness of the smallpox, it can come in anywhere from a close second to a distant second. There are hemorrhagic strains of the disease.

It's brutal. In a severe case, the pustules can overlap each other till your skin seperates from your body (it's as painful as you can imagine) and your skin holds a sea of pus that your body floats in.

I could post 20 blog entries on this. Every few pages of the book, I just have to shake my head and take a deep breath.

I look at my smallpox vaccination scar. At one time it was in the middle of my upper arm. Now it's faded and on my shoulder. I'm sure my resistance to smallpox has faded much much more than the scare. Would my physician think me paranoid if I asked for smallpox vaccinations for me and my family?

Back when President Ronald Reagan was calling the USSR the "Evil Empire" they had a stockpile of 20 tons of weaponized smallpox while claiming that they only held a small amount for scientific research. Not only were they growing it, they were hardening it and 'heating it up' by brute force methods and genetic engineering. They've also developed and tested aerosol dispersal systems on MIRV vehicles on intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Maybe Reagan knew just how evil they were.

Then when the USSR fell, the smallpox talent followed the money, be it dinars or wons. Some went to Iraq, some went to North Korea. Most of the scientists probably bought samples with them.

It is a documented fact that in 1997, Iraq was working on bioweapons. The Iraqi scientists claim that they were trying to modify camelpox to affect humans, but the inspectors had reason to suspect (some machinery labels read "smallpox").

I don't know what would be worse. A weaponized smallpox or camelpox modified to infect humans. When a virus jumps species, it's usually very fatal to it's new host. For example, AIDS/HIV is carried by green monkeys, but is often fatal to humans.

Evidence suggests the Iraqi smallpox program went back to 72-73, if not longer.

Iraq had WMD. We just gave them time to hide them.

Medical Costs

2006-05-09T14:05:00.000-07:00

What's the saying, Dentists are Doctors who flunked out of medical school and Doctors are all the guys who couldn't make it into vet school? Just don't point this out as you are going in for a root canal...

Who makes more? Vets make more than Docs and Docs make more than Dentists. Kinda explains the priorities.

So you'd expect the vet bills to be higher than the doctor bills for comparable treatments and surgeries, right? Not so. I have a coworker who's German Shephard was crippled by a moose (moose often mistake any big dog for wolves and crush them into the dirt with their antlers). The dog has his hip and knee repaired and a shattered femur wired together. Totla cost was just over $1,200.

The surgeon's bill for a human to get thier knee repaired is $14,000 alone. Add in the anesthesiologist's bill, the rest of the operating team, and you bill is probably between $40-$60K.

No one sues for malpractice for a pet, do they (maybe in Hollywood)? Is that the difference in costs? Is it that simple?

Is it really the lawyers getting rich while we have expensive medical costs?

Is it so hard to imagine a world where a sore arm after a vitamin shot isn't grounds for a malpractice suit and everyone can affort medical costs without needing a $1000 deductable per family member health insurance that costs over $400/month?

Who Knew? UPDATED

2006-04-24T08:54:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago I got a phone call from my Uncle Dave and my first thought was "who died?" He's never called me. In fact I've only seen him twice and those were the only times I've ever spoken to him. Other than that it was just a card on my Birthday and one at Christmas.

I've never understood the distance. I just accepted it.

The first time I ever saw him, he had just flown up to visit us in his 310. He took me for a ride that was much to short and then he was gone.

The second time was at his daughter's wedding. Ever see a doting dad marry his daughter off? It's hard not to share in their joy. I think she had just finished her pediatric residency shortly before. I don't think I spoke to him much there, but I do remember seeing him with a grin plastered across his face.

He was also driving his son's Camaro since the family cars were all allocated to wedding activities. He loved anything that went fast and or had enought horsepower that you could feel it in your chest.

Two years ago, our family Christmas card was a family portrait. He was telling me that every time he walked past his fridge he'd look at it and think "I should call Andy" and that this time he just did what he was thinking. I was relieved that no one had died.

It didn't take us long to cover the weather and general family questions and hit the seven minute lull. The conversation appeared to be over and he was politely excusing himself when I asked him a question about planes.

If you want to get a man to talk, and he's a pilot, ask him something about his plane. A few times he got going and then paused to explain what he had just said since he thought he was talking over my head. I let him know I had always wanted to fly and knew what he was talking about.

We talked pilot talk and planes for almost an hour. It was getting late and more calls were promised by both sides. Over the next few days e-mails were shot back and forth with more aircraft questions and pilot talk.

I suspect that there is an intrinsic love for family. I had just tapped into a huge pocket. I was looking forward to getting to know my uncle.

He had some sinus surgery scheduled for last week. The presurgical checkup brought to light some critical heart conditions and he ended up having open heart surgery last Thursday.

He hasn't woken up from it. In fact his body is shutting down and as of yesterday they give him upto 72 hours till he's completely gone.

If he hadn't of called, my response would have been "Hmmm, better go console my mom" Now it's personal. I was looking forward to getting to know him better and I never will. I feel a deep sense of loss that cannot be explained by one phone call.

I think love is timeless.

I thank God he called me.

Have I loved him my whole life and never known it? Could be that intrinsic family love thing I mentioned earlier. Can you love someone based on a three interractions?

When the age comes and all time has passed, do those two questions become the same one?

Am I waxing sermonic?

I surely am, and I know that I want to spend eternity with the One who loves.

I've got a few friends and family that I've lost touch with. Guys I miss. I need to call them.

UPDATE:
My uncle has stabilized. He's off of dialisis as his kidneys have started functioning again, the seizures have stopped and he's off the seizure meds, and while not real responsive, he is grasping fingers and able to squeeze out responses.

A Dozen Gammas?

2006-04-18T08:36:00.000-07:00

Right now I don't have a lot of time for this. You can see that by my light posting here and light comment volume in my regular feeding grounds.

If I find a large volume of comments at someone's site, I'll read the first dozen, or so, than scan the rest. One of the comments I read/scanned at Vox's the other day stated that "Jesus's disciples were a bunch of gammas". I don't know if others commented in response to that statement. I didn't at the time, but I'll now correct that mistake here:

The most famous and influentual disciple was Paul. Hardly a gamma. Probably the most Alpha disciple of them all.

For those of you who want to ague that he doesn't count because he wasn't one of the original 12, I give you James. Wasn't it James who cut off the ear of one of the soldiers that arrested Jesus? Does that sound like gamma behavior?

How about Thomas who's most famous trait was his doubting? I'm sure he recognized his Lord and leader after the resurrection and yet he challenged and called him to clarify the issue he didn't accept at first. I think a gamma would have just followed suit and not demanded proof.

I think the fact that the miracles and things Thomas saw up to that point enabled him to accept Jesus teachings is a whole sermon in itself.

I know Luke was a physician. Have you ever known a physician to be a gamma?

I want to say that at least one disciple was a tax collector. Knowing the role of tax collector in those times I know he wasn't a gamma.

I'm running out of time, but I'm sure my list is not complete.

"Chilling Testimony"

2006-04-07T09:12:00.000-07:00

Chilling Testimony, that's the headline I looked at on whatever morning MSM "news"show I watched while I ate my breakfast. It seems that they are in the sentencing phase of Zacharias Moussaui's trial. What did they expect?

I expected none of the "inflammatory" footage of Septermber 11th to ever be shown on tv again. They showed the impact of the second plane and other footage of one of the towers collapsing.

I have a friend who says we must pursue the War on Terrorism because of 3000 people, dead, in New York. While I agree that agressive Fundamentalist Islam must be fought, since it is bent on our destruction. There are also 1000 dead, still, in the Arizona, laying on the bottom of Pearl Harbor. How's that any different if we are simply out for vengeance?

That's just it. We, as a nation, are not out for vengeance. The Japanese are no longer a threat. The Fundamentalist Muslims, they are a threat. They still wish our destruction and have (or are developing) the means to deliver it and we are responding to it.

It's not often that I feel my emotions swamp my thought processes, but Sept 11, 2001 still gets me. Stalin said "that a 1000 dead children are a statistic, one dead child is a tragedy" or something very similar. I want to say that watching the towers fall was witness to a disaster, but seeing the pictures of individual people jumping to their deaths, rather than be burnt alive, made it personal, but I'd be dishonest. Why do I want to parrot Stalin? At first I though he was correct with this one statement, but now I think he was wrong.

I remember watching the first Tower fall. The universe stopped. Only the image on the tv moved. I watched myself watch the collapse, not believing that it was happening, knowing that once started, the collapse wouldn't stop. It still gets me, not at much at the people jumping, but it still gets me.

Why does anyone expect the retelling to be any less chilling than watching it for the first time, live? Is anyone suprised that Zacharias Moussaui was prosecuted any less agressively than a Jihadi in Tikrit and that the full extents of his crime were covered in all phases of the trial? Is there any mass murder that doesn't have "Chilling Testimony"?

Chronological Bifurcation Point

2006-04-05T14:24:00.000-07:00

Articles like this predict the coming of an age of peace.

I don't get it. He says that countries with a per-capita GDPs greater than $10,000/year don't go to war with each other but isn't Saudi Arabia a primary funding agent of Wahabi Islam? I'm sure their GDP is greater than ours, even if a large percentage of their population does't see their share (other than free medical and education) but this is probably a moot point since their rulers are well above the $10K/year threshold

That might be a good Rule of Thumb for Western nations, but I don't think it applies to Islamic nations.

It might apply to Mexico though. Nevermind that they speak the foreign language of the agressive Western European nation that colonized them about the same time that North America was colonized by other Western European nations, Mexico does seem bent on annexing the Southwest US.

There was a Japanese General that was terrified of the thought of invading the US. He knew what a population of marksmen would do to a foreign army. I strongly suspect that is a lesson that the Mexicans or Azatlans would soon learn. It may just be a part of our history that will shame us in the eyes of the UNified world but be a source of pride for those who defended their nation.

But I wonder if the ~~indigent~~ indigenous peoples of the Southwest would be any happier if they were poor and living in a larger Mexico? To bad that Spain wasn't either stronger or weaker during the colonial period. If Spain had been stronger would Mexico be comparable to Canada and be a stable strong nation on our border, or would a weak Spain had all it's colonial territory been annexed or bough by the US. If this was the case, there'd be 5 or 6 states south of Texas with a developed infrastructure, economy, and 90% of the wealth wouldn't be held by one family (which I think is the true cause of povery in Mexico, but since blaming Mexican's for Mexico's problems isn't politically correct, you probably won't hear it anywhere but in obscure corners).

So here we are, coming into an age that appears to be one of peace and while I hope for peace, I see the building tensions in the Southwest and know the stated intentions of the Muslim world. Like a ball rolling along the top of a ridge, I see the world condition. The ball could as easily roll left as it could right. All it needs is a little nudge one way or the other. Could the world as easily roll into peace as war? There seems to be to many who want to nudge it to war for peace to be likely.

Besides, wouldn't global conflict make the promise of 7 years of peace all the more appealing?

No Terrorist Threat Here, Either

2006-04-03T12:09:00.000-07:00

It can't be terrorism, it's for the ecology.

It's mindsets like this that scare me. In an ignorant cretin, a view like this is not a real threat, but guys with Ph.D.'s generally know how to make things happen. I've seen guys build optical spectometers in their garage over one weekend with stuff thy bough at a pawn shop (well, everything but the birefringent lens).

Maybe engineering and physics Ph.D.'s are different than theatre major's. Lets just hope his Ph.D. is in French Literature or something equally useless since I suspect the officials will apply a similar effort to restraining his activities as they do to ensure the integrity of the US/Mexican Border.

Total BS

2006-03-20T15:57:00.000-08:00

I just heard on the radio that in response to a number of military personel who had used their personal concealed weapons in self defense, some of the shootings fatal, they will be denied the ~~Constitutional Right~~ privelege of carrying any weapon when off duty.

Let me get this right. They swear to defend the Constitution, then are denied the rights the Constition recognizes that we all are created with? They use a legal product in a legal manner, then are denied the further use of this product? Is this not wrong?

Lastly, we have a group of people who are having issues defending themselves, and the response of their leadership is to deny them the right to defend themselves. Don't the statistics show that they need to defend themselves? Why not just tie a bleating goat to their back and abandon them on the savanna overnight?

The thing that surpises me is that is not a politician screwing them over, but their own leaders (no doubt leaders that are more political than martial, but still) who are not supporting them.

And no, there is no there is no hotbed of anti-military or anti-Americanism here in Alaska. We love our troops, although Anchorage, being a large city, is a Mecca for the Liberal Democrats and their baby killing ways.

Shrooms

2006-03-17T10:08:00.000-08:00

Shrooms, is that you I see looking at me? There is a mighty large red dot over where you live.

ROT

2006-03-17T09:12:00.000-08:00

The old Rule of Thumb is that for every rat you see, there are 10 you don't. I figure that that applies here.

This is the second report like this that I've read recently.

I have to wonder, how hard is it to case a building and not look suspicious? Stick a camcorder in a man's hand and if he's with a bunch of men, they are terrorist suspects, but if he's smiling and with a woman, they're tourists. Maybe I'm a suspicious bastard, but if they stick out like that, they either have to be trying to or are the "B" team (which makes you wonder where the "A" team(s) is).

Give me a woman, pretty and joyful in appearance that appears to be out on vacation and no one would even look at me. I'd have a camcorder and a GPS with an acceptable vertal error (most are accurate in the horizontal but sloppy in the vertical) and I'd map out the target.

Need more accuracy? There are ways, but that is not the subject of this posting.

Back to the ROT that you see 10% of the problem when you are not looking for it.

Can I assume that I see 10% of the articles, nation wide, on suspicious activity? Do 10% of the reports of suspicious activity get reported? Do 10% of the suspicious activities get noticed?

If I see two reports, then there were probably 2,000 suspicious activities that generated them. I guess we now know where the "A" teams are.

The Dog Ate My Post. ...

2006-03-16T17:25:00.000-08:00

For those of you easily entertained, try this. I had fun with it, once.

I Should Have Known

2006-03-16T12:47:00.000-08:00

Along time ago, before the Oceans drank Atlantis, when I believed, or at least wished, that George Bush, Jr. was a conservative, about the time of the 2004 elections I recall there being a buzz on the internet about a tax reform. E-mails were being forwarded, bloggers were blogging, our fearless leader was going to marshall a change. The IRS's days were numbered.

I just had my 2005 Federal Income Taxes prepared and recalled the wishfull dreams, the hint of call tomorrow if I'd only do this one thing tonight, that lay promised over the horizion of the upcoming elections.

I feel the fool. I pay my illegal tax, under threat by a force I can't fight. Would it feel any different if I was a baker in New York paying protection money to some thug?

Quiz: Are You a Survivor?

2006-03-14T18:13:00.000-08:00

I scored 7 out of 19. The animals really savaged me. I survived, but was maimed for life.

How'd you do?

Why I Still Have Hope

2006-03-10T09:57:00.000-08:00

Occasionally, I see ~~children~~ our next generation and the strength and understanding that they have and I know that this country, while it seems to be in a free fall into the abyss, has another generation of citizens, some with strong ties to something much Higher.

I only pray that they are enough to make a difference.

From a comment at Vox's:

A poem written by my 13 yr old when I left on 9/11

This One Man

This one man got married, had kids.
This one man loved God,
Went to church.
This one man had a family who loved him, he loved them.
This one man had a wife, three daughters.

But this one man gave up his perfect life for God and his country.

This one man left his home.
This one man risked his life.
This one man sailed the ocean.
This one man fought the war.

This one man gave up his perfect life for God and his country.

This one man is a father.
This one man is a husband.
This one man is a Christian.
This one man is a daddy.

But this one man gave up his perfect life for God and his country.

This one man I love.
This one man loves me.
This one man changed my life.
This one man is my DADDY.

If this doesn't bring tears to your eyes, I wonder if you have a heart.