- It is surprisingly easy to do even the most difficult task when you go back and do the basic prep work properly.
- I love the way the wind smells when there’s one heck of a thunderstorm up wind from me.
- Stopping me from working to tell me I ought not to eat my lunch at my desk is part of the reason I feel it necessary to work while I eat.
- Here’s a hint: If I keep turning my back on you to click some menu choice that will run while you talk to me, that means I really don’t have time to gab at the moment.
- I really need to stop being so critical while watching children’s movies. We’re watching WallE and I’m pointing out the problems with how the ship is run and how wasteful they are for being self-sufficient after 700 years.
- I have a wonderful wife. She was informed by her bank that she had 13,000 ‘points’ on her account , and that she needed to use them or they would expire. She passed on spa days, clothing, even electronics, and used them to get gift cards at the local hardware store.
- Now I have fewer excuses to not build all the things she thinks I’m capable of building.
- Boo needs to learn that when I drop my voice a couple of octaves and start enunciating very carefully, it’s time to freeze and figure out what he’s doing that is wrong.
- And if I’m growling like a bear and not smiling, that’s a hint and a half.
- Apparently I need to acquire plans for a “pergola“, which I think is the Greek work for “big pain in the ass”.
- The thing that keeps going through my mind as we discuss this ‘project’ is the Finnish word “perkele”. Coincidence? I think not!
Thoughts on the Day
Posted by daddybear71 on August 9, 2012
https://daddybearsden.com/2012/08/09/thoughts-on-the-day-44/
30 Days of Abraham Lincoln – Day 6
A house divided against itself cannot stand.” I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. — 1858
My Take – Politically, our situation in this country has many similarities to what it had in 1858. The southern slave states held roughly 50% of the votes in Congress and the electoral college votes for president, with the non-slave Northern states holding the other roughly 50%. The stalemate made a victory of any kind by either side look like the thing that would pull down the Republic, and the invective on both sides only grew stronger as the elections grew closer. In our day, national elections are won based on only a few thousand votes in a few key districts, with everything else pretty much being cut right down the middle. The two sides are making nice in the middle of the political soccer pitch, but the wings of the parties are becoming more strident and militant, and all it takes is the right spark at the right time for all this to blow up.
We cannot stay this way. Getting even normal business like a federal budget is being put on hold in order to score political points, and this is an untenable situation. Both major parties are to blame for how we got here and for the fact that little to nothing is being done to get out of this morasse. I’m not saying that we are moving toward a shooting war between the red and the blue, but we cannot stay where we are. We will either choose to become a socialistic nanny state where those who choose to work are squeezed for every possible dollar to pay for those who ch0ose not to, or we can force our country to stand upright and get on with business as a nation of workers, not thieves.
Posted by daddybear71 on August 9, 2012
https://daddybearsden.com/2012/08/09/30-days-of-abraham-lincoln-day-6/
Thoughts on the Day
- I need a time machine so I can go back about a year and slap myself for not writing down the solution to a problem that I thought I would never see again, but which still crept up this morning.
- Seriously, at least if it was a zombie, this problem could be neutralized with a shot to the head. This thing just won’t die!
- Call me a coward, but when I pull up to the local stop-n-stab and there are four police cruisers parked at the front door, and that is not a normal situation, I go somewhere else for my drive-home refreshment.
- I must remember to not characterise Girlie Bear’s high school course schedule as “3 AP classes, a math class, JROTC, a computer class, and a bullsh** Choir class.”
- No, I did not say that to Girlie Bear
- No, I do not really believe that fine arts classes are BS. I just don’t know why they’re mandatory.
- If you’re going to blow through red lights after dark and don’t want to become my hood ornament, turn on your bleeding headlights!
- Had an in-depth discussion of the AR build project with Irish Woman over dinner tonight. Apparently she thought I was talking about something else when I told her I bought the stripped lower. Luckily, once I explained what I was talking about, she admitted that I made a good faith effort to inform her of the purchase, so I’m not on the couch over an unauthorized boomstick acquisition.
- To the lady who was singing along to Journey at the top of her lungs with the windows down at the off-ramp tonight, you rock!
Posted by daddybear71 on August 8, 2012
https://daddybearsden.com/2012/08/08/thoughts-on-the-day-43/
30 Days of Abraham Lincoln – Day 5
While I do not expect, upon this occasion, or on any occasion, till after I get to Washington, to attempt any lengthy speech, I will only say that to the salvation of this Union there needs but one single thing—the hearts of a people like yours. When the people rise in masses in behalf of the Union and the liberties of their country, truly may it be said, “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” In all the trying positions in which I shall be placed, and doubtless I shall be placed in many trying ones, my reliance will be placed upon you and the people of the United States—and I wish you to remember now and forever, that it is your business, and not mine; that if the union of these States, and the liberties of this people, shall be lost, it is but little to any one man of fifty-two years of age, but a great deal to the thirty millions of people who inhabit these United States, and to their posterity in all coming time. It is your business to rise up and preserve the Union and liberty, for yourselves, and not for me. I desire they shall be constitutionally preserved. I, as already intimated, am but an accidental instrument, temporary, and to serve but for a limited time, but I appeal to you again to constantly bear in mind that with you, and not with politicians, not with Presidents, not with office-seekers, but with you, is the question, “Shall the Union and shall the liberties of this country be preserved to the latest generation?“ — 1861
My Take – We don’t need a leader, we need an executive to fulfill our will. The power of the United States is not in Washington. It is in every home and heart, and so long as those who want freedom are willing to work for it. we will survive.
Posted by daddybear71 on August 8, 2012
https://daddybearsden.com/2012/08/08/30-days-of-abraham-lincoln-day-5/
Well, Why the Heck Not?
I’d like to say that I was surprised to read that the genocidal regime of Sudan is being elected to the Human Rights Council at the United Nations, but I can’t. The U.N. has long been a debate club for dictators and murdering kleptocrats, and my shocked face is starting to cramp up after years of watching its shenanigans. Honestly, the election of any bad actor to a place of power and prestige at the U.N. fails to surprise me anymore.
But really, what’s next? If you’re going to put a government whose leader has been indicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity on the U.N. board that looks after human rights, where do you draw the line?
- Is Jerry Sandusky going to be given a high level position at UNICEF?
- Is the Lord’s Resistance Army going to be given a place at the table on the commission that is looking into the problem of child soldiers?
- Are the geniuses at the U.N going to put Bill Clinton and Larry Flint on a woman’s rights committee?
- Maybe Paul Helmke could be a voting member of the committee trying to draft the next small arms treaty?
- How about we get Michael Vick on the job to advise the animal welfare working group?
- You know, Ben Bernanke would make a perfect chairman for the fiscal reform commission.
If any of these questions offended you or you think I’m using hyperbole, congratulations, you’re doing it right. All of these are indeed ridiculous and a bit offensive, but so is putting a dictator, who used gangs of men to ethnically cleanse his country through rape and murder, on a human rights commission.
Honestly, if the African states want to get one of their own on the human rights commission, then couldn’t they have come up with a better candidate? Is there no regime on the entire continent with a decent human rights record, or at least doesn’t have its dictator up on warrants from the I.C.C?
Posted by daddybear71 on August 8, 2012
https://daddybearsden.com/2012/08/08/well-why-the-heck-not/
Thought for the Day
You know you’ve grown into the role of parenting a young boy when you find a pair of galoshes, a superman cape, a plastic battle axe, and a viking shield in the bathtub and all that runs through your mind is “Where am I going to put these?” when you go to take your shower.
Posted by daddybear71 on August 7, 2012
https://daddybearsden.com/2012/08/07/thought-for-the-day-161/
Cold Calculus
On August 6, 1945, a lone B-29 of the American Army Air Force dropped a uranium fueled atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Thousands of people died both in the immediate bombing and in the months to follow. President Truman hoped to use the destruction of Hiroshima to convince the Japanese government that continued resistance would only lead to untold suffering by the Japanese people, as well as the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Allied soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen in the inevitable invasion of the Japanese main islands.
The first attempt failed in that regard, so a second bombing happened at Nagasaki on August 8. Another city was annhilated and its population was decimated, which led to the surrender of Japanese forces on August 15.
Ever since, we have been debating the decision to kill so many people using such a terrible weapon. The cold calculus of millions of dead and wounded in an invasion versus the death and suffering of hundreds of thousands may make sense, but it only brings home to me that in a total war, there are few truly moral options open to leaders. Every decision leads to someone suffering; the trick is to choose the one with the least amount of death and pain.
Those who want to cast the bombing of Japan as an evil act by immoral men need to study their own history. Truman was given no good options, a situation every leader faces at one time or another. Few decisions are as momentous as whether or not to utilize the most destructive weapons in history, but they are all important. A leader who refuses to take the best of a set of bad options is not a leader, he is a pretender.
Posted by daddybear71 on August 7, 2012
https://daddybearsden.com/2012/08/07/cold-calculus/
30 Days of Abraham Lincoln – Day 4
The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves – in their separate, and individual capacities. In all that the people can individually do as well for themselves, government ought not to interfere. — 1854
My Take – Ladies and gentlemen, there you have the best definition of my personal political viewpoint. The government that governs least governs best. Get the government out of our bedrooms, bodies, and paths, and we will do wonders.
Posted by daddybear71 on August 7, 2012
https://daddybearsden.com/2012/08/07/30-days-of-abraham-lincoln-day-4/
Thoughts on the Day
- My coffee maker started leaking all over the counter this morning, so no coffee. I’m also out of soda and caffeinated tea, so no other source of caffeine for me. Yeah, the kids are safe, thanks for asking.
- For dinner tonight, I made homemade vegetable beef soup in the crock pot, fresh bread in the bread maker, and strawberry rhubarb cobbler. Just about everything but the meat in the soup came from the garden, as did the fruit in the cobbler. All of it was delicious.
- The look on the neighbor’s face when I went out to the landscaping and started cutting out pieces of what he thought was an ornamental so that I could make dessert with it was priceless. I had to explain rhubarb to him.
- Yes, we landscape with food. Strawberries and pumpkins make better ground cover than petunias, and rhubarb grows big and bushy here. All of our fruit trees are dwarfs that blend in with the flowers quite well, and our garden beds double as retaining walls.
- Warm cobbler with vanilla ice cream may very well be the food of the gods.
- Girlie Bear made an outstanding open field tackle this evening when Bluegrass slipped her leash and made a run for the border. I may have to sign her up for powder puff football this fall.
- It is sometimes difficult to explain the concept of fast drying plaster of Paris to a four-year old, especially when you’re trying to get him to press his hands into it before it gets rock hard.
Posted by daddybear71 on August 6, 2012
https://daddybearsden.com/2012/08/06/thoughts-on-the-day-42/
News Roundup
- From the “Thuggery” Department – The Justice Department announced today that Gibson Guitars would be allowed to pay a $300,000 bribe, I mean, fine, plus a $50,000 kicker to a conservation fund, to make the investigation into whether or not it preferred to have American workers finish the wood in some of its guitar pieces disappear. Justice Department spokesman Carmine “Knuckles” Maldorone is reported to have said about the deal “We told Gibson they had a nice place, and that we would hate for someone to shut them down. Eventually we were able to come to a mutually beneficial agreement. They give us the money and admit that they could have done more to make sure that American craftsmen didn’t get the jobs, and we agree to stop leaning on them so hard.” No word yet on the location of the youngest daughter of the head of Gibson Guitars, who is making wonderful progress in rehab after suffering two broken kneecaps in a lawn gnome accident.
- From the “Burn in Hell” Department – The print and broadcast media is positively frothing at the wonderful (to them) news that the alleged gunman who murdered six people at a Sikh temple in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was formerly a member of the United States Army and a skinhead. Of course, they aren’t talking much about how the moron was a piece of crap who got booted after being busted from Sergeant to Specialist for being drunk on duty, and that he’s gone from one dead-end to another for the past 14 years, and that skinhead pieces of crap aren’t welcome in the Army, but that’s to be expected. I’m sure that the next two weeks will be filled with all of the breathless reporting that they can take about this domestic terrorist who learned to kill on the taxpayer’s dime and whose head was filled with all that hate by the evil military machine. Of course, at the same time, Nidal Hasan will be sitting in a jail cell awaiting trial for an act of workplace violence and reporting about how political correctness kept him in the Army and in contact with his victims for several years will be thin on the ground.
- From the “You First” Department – Secretary of State Clinton is telling Kenya that their next election needs to be clean and fair. I’m pretty sure Mrs. Clinton knows clean and fair elections the same way the Supreme Court knows pornography: She can’t define it, but she’ll know it when she sees it. You ever notice you never hear about a Libertarian or even a Republican machine? Why is it that when you say “Boston” or “Chicago” politics, it always means dirty politics from a Democratic machine? Anyway, I hope that the Kenyans look beyond the track record of Mrs. Clinton and half-Kenyan Barack Obama and do have good elections. Someone in this world ought to.
- From the “Bad Idea” Department – Ladies, if you have overcome bulimia, it is not a good idea to shove a butter knife into your gullet to prove you don’t have a gag reflex. Hopefully, this is the lesson learned from the experience of a woman in Atlanta, who did just that and required surgery to remove the flatware. I looked at this as a case of bad luck when I first read the article, but when her husband admitted that this isn’t her first time down this particular road, I just have to assume that she’s not very bright and move on.
- From the “Pissing Contest” Department – Apple Computers is reported to be pulling the built-in YouTube app that has been on its iPhone line since the first model several years ago. Apple and Google have been sniping at each other since Google came out with a competing operating system for tablets and smart phones. Now that the YouTube app is being taken off of the default build for iOS systems, one wonders what will happen to the lucrative baby animal, drunken teenager, and moron on a skateboard video markets.
Posted by daddybear71 on August 6, 2012
https://daddybearsden.com/2012/08/06/news-roundup-145/
DaddyBear
DaddyBear’s Den 