Winter Weather

It's not easy to look out the window today and imagine that in a mere three months this scene


will look like this. Spring is coming, though it is hard to believe as we watched the bench seat disappear in the snow.

Don't Forget Valentine's Day

Just One Example

Victor Davis Hanson asks for examples of "Big Brotherism" I have often wanted to see myself:

"If you are a civil libertarian, if you are in the ACLU or a law professor, or a liberal in good standing who swore that George Bush from Texas, with strut and twang and mangled vocabulary, destroyed your liberties with FISA, with the Patriot Act, and with Iraq, then please extend that outrage to Barack Obama, for whom all such shredding of the Constitution suddenly has become merely complex and problematic rather than fascistic. Please list, cite, name just one instance from 2002-8 in which you lost your freedom, or you were censored on the library internet, or you were followed around by the FBI, or your letter to the editor earned a wiretap, or even one instance of the loss of any freedom under Bush—and if so, just one example of how the election of Obama has once again restored your lost liberty. Nothing in the abstract, please—something concrete, an example both real and personal."

Quote Of The Day

"The trouble with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money."
-Margaret Thatcher

Meet The New Boss

We'll be fighting in the streets
With our children at our feet
And the morals that they worship will be gone

And the men who spurred us on
Sit in judgment of all wrong
They decide and the shotgun sings the song

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again

The change, it had to come
We knew it all along
We were liberated from the fold, that's all

And the world looks just the same
And history ain't changed'
Cause the banners, they were all flown in the last war

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
No, no!

I'll move myself and my family aside
If we happen to be left half alive
I'll get all my papers and smile at the sky
Though I know that the hypnotized never lie
Do ya?

Yeah!

There's nothing in the streets
Looks any different to me
And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye

And the parting on the left
Is now parting on the right
And the beards have all grown longer overnight

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
Don't get fooled again
No, no!

Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss

Quote Of The Day

"Things will get better despite our efforts to improve them."
- Will Rogers

Technological Paradigm Shift

I has always enjoyed being on the cutting edge of high tech. My 25 year old daughter does not remember a time when there was not a computer in our house. I am the very embodiment of the term "early adopter".

However, a few years ago I started to become a bit more of a technological Luddite. My main concern shifted from the latest and greatest on the bleeding edge to "Will this damn thing connect, up load, sync and work consistently when I turn it on?" I suppose this might also be viewed as another reasonable tech step forward as these tools have integrated themselves so deeply into my daily life that if one of them refused to work properly it became a major inconvenience. All I wanted from them was reliability. Consequently, if it worked I was content - the only exception to this being cell phone technology with which I have remained relatively current.

Then over the Christmas holidays a few amusing things happened. First, on Christmas Eve I literally tore my study apart looking for our family Christmas CD's. These CD's have been the soundtrack to our holidays for years - and with a house full of relatives imminent I could not find them. After looking high and low a thought suddenly occurred to me. I opened the CD player and, lo and behold, there they were - exactly where they had been since last Christmas! One does not require a CD player to rip CD's to an iPod. Any time I wanted to listen to music I just plugged in my iPod because that was where all of my music was. Apparently I jumped from CD to MP3 without even realizing it.

Next, I was given a Netflix subscription for a gift. After trying it out and finding that the turn around time was quite good, I was delighted that I now had a source other than the library for hard to find movies. I also had the option to watch movies on-line if I chose to.

Then the cable bill came in the mail. It seems that our ex-friends at Time-Warner thought we should pay $780.00 a year for cable service without any premium channels. One phone call later (Time-Warner: "You know, after the middle of February your TV won't work" - Us: "Our TV will work just fine.") and one trip to Micro Center we are now streaming movies from Netflix and TV shows off the Internet for free onto our television. The cable companies might want to re-think their business model.

I then picked up a Garmin GPS for my car after I was briefly lost in a city I don't often frequent. Now with the aid of my Australian girlfriend on the dashboard I am flawlessly directed to all my destinations. Some of the other features such as finding local banks, shops and restaurants are nothing short of amazing.

And finally, the young squire picked up a new SD style card for my digital camera while he was at Micro Center. I can now take 750 of the highest quality setting pictures my camera will take. When I bought the camera they didn't even make cards with this much storage.

I feel as if we have taken a whole series of tech steps in the last three weeks. What really drove the point home was watching the first season of "Life On Mars" yesterday since the weather wasn't fit for man nor beast and made the option of sitting in front of the TV quite viable. The basic premise of the show is that a detective is transported from 2008 back to 1973 - don't ask, just watch - the soundtrack alone is worth it and the beginning of episode one is fantastic. But one of the underlying themes of the show is that all of the technology we take for granted today existed only in science fiction a mere 35 years ago.

More please. Faster. Give me back my beanie.

A "Friendly" Discussion

The other day I was attempting to have a friendly political discussion with an acquaintance who is as liberal as I am conservative. The discussion became progressively more heated as he continued to lose ground so he decided on another tact and began enumerating the issues we agreed on by saying "It's not like we're "diabolically" opposed to one another."

After I finished having a wonderful laugh at his Freudian slip I assured him that while our world views were, in many ways, "diametrically" opposed, anyone that was in favor of building a new wing onto a federal prison to house everyone that ever worked for the Bush administration was, indeed, "diabolically" opposed to me.

It's Cold Outside

Well, the kitchen thermometer said minus 10 degrees F. this morning which is the same thing it said yesterday morning. My car started reluctantly and while I was waiting for it to warm up a bit I noticed that there was frost inside the vehicle. The digital car thermometer displayed minus 13. And you know it's cold outside when the snow squeaks like styrofoam when you walk on it.

We all just suck it up and keep on moving with the certain knowledge that pretty soon it'll be 95 and humid.

You got to be tough if you want to live around here.

Kind Of Says It All

Quote Of The Day

"You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don’t ever count on having both at once."
—Lazarus Long

Quote Of The Day

You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot help small men by tearing down big men.
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot lift the wage-earner by pulling down the wage-payer.
You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich.
You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
You cannot establish security on borrowed money.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away men's initiative and independence.
You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.
-Rev. William Boetcker, 1873 - 1962

At Least One Sector Of The Economy Is Booming

Below is a memo that was sent to all FFL's about the lack of 4473 forms. For the uninitiated, this is the form everyone must fill out when buying a gun.


U.S. Department of Justice
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives
Assistant Director

Washington, DC 20226

January 6, 2009

Notice to All Federal Firearms Licensees Regarding ATF Form 4473 Shortage

As a result of an unprecedented increase in demand for ATF Forms 4473 (5300.9) Part I Revised August 2008, inventory of the form at the ATF Distribution Center is running low.

As a temporary measure, ATF is allowing FFLs to photocopy the form 4473 in it’s entirety until they receive their orders from the ATF Distribution Center. A notice will be posted at the expiration of this temporary authorized change.

The Fourth Estate

Health News You Can Use

From NewScientist:

IF YOU are frying a steak and mindful of your health, then marinate it in either beer or red wine. So say food scientists who measured amounts of a family of carcinogens found in fried steaks after steeping them in booze.

Cooking food increases levels of cancer-causing compounds called heterocyclic amines (HAs). Fried and grilled meat are particularly high in these compounds, because fiery temperatures convert the sugars and amino acids in muscle tissue into HAs. Various substances can reduce HA content: an olive oil, lemon juice and garlic marinade cut HAs in grilled chicken by 90 per cent, while red wine reduced HAs in fried chicken.

Now Isabel Ferreira and colleagues at the University of Porto in Portugal have looked at the effects of beer and red wine marinades on fried steak. Six hours of marinating in beer or red wine slashed levels of two types of HA by up to 90 per cent compared with unmarinated steak (Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, DOI: 10.1021/jf801837s).

For a third type of HA, beer was more efficient at reducing its content than wine, cutting levels significantly in 4 hours, while wine took 6. Beer contains more water-retaining sugars than wine and Ferreira says that may hinder the transport of water-soluble molecules to the steak's surface, where high heat converts them into HAs. Tasters also preferred the smell, taste and appearance of beer-marinated steak.

CWCID: TigerHawk

The Differences Between Men And Women

I love Cassandra over at Villainous Company. Dennis Prager recently wrote some articles about "When A Woman Isn't In The Mood" that have sparked just a bit of commentary on these here Innertubes. Leave it to Cassandra to put her own unique, common sense spin on this topic. Caution - this article and many of the comments make waaaay too much sense.