- Irish Woman has had a spring head cold these past few days, and I finally got her to go to the doctor on Friday. His advice was to consume honey, drink more water, and rest.
- You know, I never thought I’d hear advice like that from a civilian doctor. Only thing he missed was a 90 day supply of Motrin.
- Somehow, I don’t think this is what he meant, but it seems to be working.
- It takes real talent to talk to me about making a donation to your semi-political cause, and have me come away convinced that I need to make a donation to your opposition.
- I can build strong, and I can build ugly. Apparently, I cannot yet build something that is easy to disassemble.
- Removing fence staples that have been properly hammered into posts is not fun, in case anyone was wondering.
- I’m lucky in my choice of mate. It isn’t every woman who would be pleased with a galvanized stock tank for Mother’s Day.
Musings
Posted by daddybear71 on May 10, 2015
https://daddybearsden.com/2015/05/10/musings-137/
100 Years On – Lusitania
On May 7, 1915, the Lusitania, a large passenger ship of the British Cunard line, sunk off the coast of Ireland. She had been struck by a torpedo, without warning, from a German submarine, and went down in a matter of minutes. Of the 1,959 people aboard her, 1,195 perished, including 128 Americans. The furor over the attack and loss of life was instant and thunderous.
Germany declared the waters around the British Isles a war zone in March, and had warned neutrals and belligerents alike that any ship near Britain or Ireland was liable to be attacked. In fact, Germany made two attempts to specifically warn passengers of the Lusitania, including purchasing advertisements in over 50 newspapers that ran next to the advertisements for the Lusitania. Even though Britain denied it at first, Lusitania was carrying war materials in the form of over four million rifle cartridges, which would probably make her a legitimate target.
Their protestations justifying the actions of U-20 fell, for the most part, on deaf ears. Allies like Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire were unhappy with the sinking, and even German newspapers spoke out against it. The sinking of the Lusitania risked bringing the United States into the war, and in fact has been sited as one of the contributing factors to our eventual entry in 1917.
The question of what is and what is not a legitimate target bedevils militaries across the globe to this day. Is the image on your screen a command bunker or an air raid shelter? Do the presence of known terrorists justify the bombing of a civilian facility?
Now, imagine making those kinds of decisions, in the middle of the ocean, when all you can see of your target is a grainy, blurry outline on the horizon. If you can find a way to justify the loss of civilian life in furtherance of a military goal in recent wars, can you condemn the same decision made by a young officer, under trying circumstances, without the aid of modern intelligence?
Posted by daddybear71 on May 7, 2015
https://daddybearsden.com/2015/05/07/100-years-on-lusitania/
Musings
- During his latest installment of “Hardcore History“, Dan Carlin apologizes for using the term “Middle East”, because apparently it harkens back to a colonial time. I can see where he comes from, and I support this effort to rid people and places of the stain of colonialism. From now on, I pledge to forever call the country I live in by its proper, pre-colonial name: South Vinland.
- I am no longer allowed to use the term “I’m your huckleberry.” when telling someone I will be their point of contact for planned work.
- Dear paint company – saying “Strip it off and start over” is not an acceptable solution to the problem of your non-oil-based deck stain not being dry after 96 hours. “We apologize and here are gift certificates to the hardware store to rent and/orpurchase a method to strip the deck and redo your porch” is the correct answer.
- It’s amazing how quickly “We need to redo this right now” becomes “Screw it, we’ll do it in the fall” when the temperature approaches 90.
- When I finally do my coat of arms, the motto will probably be “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth re-doing”.
- It is exceedingly difficult to diagnose a server problem when someone on another ssh shell accidentally finds reboot in their command history and executes it.
- For you non-geeks out there, imagine you’re elbows deep in a toilet, trying to diagnose an issue, and somebody keeps flushing it.
- Someday I need to read the Aeneid in the original Vulcan.
- Boo lost another tooth tonight. If he keeps this up, all our vacation pictures this summer are going to look like he did 15 rounds with Leon Spinks.
- There is a demonstrable relationship to the amount of banana pudding I eat after dinner and how early I need to go to bed.
Posted by daddybear71 on May 6, 2015
https://daddybearsden.com/2015/05/06/musings-136/
Musings
- If soaking hot-from-the-oven banana bread in bourbon is wrong, then I don’t want to be right.
- By the way, hot bourbon fumes up the nose isn’t the most pleasant sensation I’ve ever experienced.
- Girlie Bear got her yearly inoculation against alcohol and stupidity this weekend when she joined her JROTC group and a few hundred other teenagers in cleaning up Churchill Downs after the Kentucky Derby. Apparently it was as disgusting as I hoped.
- A fried egg and chicken gravy breakfast burrito is low carb, isn’t it?
- Don’t judge me. I was hungry, hung over, and in a hurry.
- Irish Woman began thinking up new variations on the phrase “more than one way to skin a cat” this weekend after Crash walked across her freshly painted porch floor.
- There are days when I walk around the office thinking “I can’t believe they pay me to do this!”. Today was not one of those days.
- Words I never thought I’d hear from my wife: Let’s get up early and watch the meteor shower.
- Doing research for the Romans book this evening. The Romans were quite creative people, especially when it came to torture and execution. Thank goodness they didn’t have access to electricity and explosives.
Posted by daddybear71 on May 5, 2015
https://daddybearsden.com/2015/05/05/musings-135/
Today’s Earworm
Posted by daddybear71 on May 2, 2015
https://daddybearsden.com/2015/05/02/todays-earworm-630/
Today’s Earworm
Posted by daddybear71 on May 1, 2015
https://daddybearsden.com/2015/05/01/todays-earworm-629/
Quote of the Day
I dwell on this prospect with every satisfaction which an ardent love for my Country can inspire: since there is no truth more thoroughly established, than that there exists in the oeconomy and course of nature, an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness, between duty and advantage, between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy, and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity: Since we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven, can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained: And since the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the Republican model of Government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people. — President George Washington, Inaugural Address, April 30, 1789
Posted by daddybear71 on April 30, 2015
https://daddybearsden.com/2015/04/30/quote-of-the-day-153/
Campaign Slogans
Senator Bernie Sanders announced recently that he is seeking the Democratic Parties nomination for president. He joins Hillary Clinton, Rand Paul, and others who also seek to become temporary residents of government housing in a depressed metropolitan district.
Just to boost the political signal a bit, here are the slogans for the various campaigns:
- Bernie Sanders – Hippies of the world unite! You have nothing to lose except your love beads!
- Hillary Clinton – Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!
- Rand Paul – I am not my father! Unless you really like my dad, in which case, wink wink.
- Jeb Bush – Third Bush is the charm!
- Martin O’Malley – Hey, I did a great job with Baltimore!
- Marco Rubio – The Second Coming of Reagan, Without All That Oratory and Junk
- Ted Cruz – Hey, electing a first term senator worked really well last time!
- Rick Perry – It’s my turn, dammit!
- Elizabeth Warren – It’s not really your money, you know that, right?
- Carly Fiorina – I’ve run a major American company into the ground, and now it’s your turn!
- Ben Carson – I like guns now. No, really. Who are you going to believe, me or your lying memory?
- Donald Trump – If elected, I will drive all the poor people from Washington D.C. and build casinos
And finally, there’s this one:
- DaddyBear – Bringing heads and pikes together for America!
Posted by daddybear71 on April 30, 2015
https://daddybearsden.com/2015/04/30/campaign-slogans/
40 Years On – The Last Casualties
40 years ago today, two young men died when the American embassy in Saigon was shelled. Corporal Charles McMahon and Lance Corporal Darwin Judge were the last two American ground casualties in South Vietnam. The final pullout from Saigon happened the next day. These men joined the ranks of 58,303 men and women who died in the Vietnam War.
Gallons of ink and billions of electrons have been spent trying to criticize or justify the war. To this day, those who lived through it, those who watched it from the sidelines, and those who look back at its history can debate endlessly about its causes, conduct, and consequences.
But today, we need to remember these two men, along with their brothers and sisters who died there. Why they were sent and what they did is secondary to remembering that they lived, and died, for all of us.
If you haven’t been to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., or have not visited the Traveling Vietnam Memorial Wall, you should. Recently, a friend sent me a link to the Virtual Wall. Browsing the links to the photographs and other data on these men and women, I was humbled. They come from across the breadth of our nation. They were the children of privilege and of poverty. Some could claim a heritage that included pulling an oar on the Mayflower, while others were immigrants. They came from every race, color, and creed. They were both draftees and volunteers, recent recruits and veterans. They were the best that America had to offer, and we honor them by remembering them.
To those of you who served in Vietnam, thank you.
Posted by daddybear71 on April 29, 2015
https://daddybearsden.com/2015/04/29/40-years-on-the-last-casualties/
Today’s Earworm
Posted by daddybear71 on April 29, 2015
https://daddybearsden.com/2015/04/29/todays-earworm-628/
DaddyBear
DaddyBear’s Den 