Rain Braid?

Owing to the lack of a downspout at the lowest corner of the north eaves here at Roseholme Cottage (Don't ask -- or do: I'm pretty sure the present gutters are a lowest-bid special and it's not merely the wrong-way-if-any slope) and the imminent arrival of lotsa-lotsa rain, I drilled a couple holes in the gutter and went to hang a rain-chain instead. I planned to use some plumbers chain that was....let's see...um, it's around here somewhere...maybe?

Only not. And the rain was imminently imminent. Ooooo noes! That left nylon string, which I keep in stock in multiple colors. I did a quick and ugly braid from the gutter down -- and it works!

Falling water bulks up the string to about twice actual diameter, spiraling around it as it falls. That's Tam with the throat-clearing, by the way. Still plenty of pollen.

So, They Whacked Osama bin Laden

It sure looks that way; I must admit to the nightmarish thought that he's gonna pop back up and say it was one of his sons.
I thought it was a pity no one celebrating on TV was singing, "Ding Dong, The Witch Is Dead." Turns out I'm far from the only one.

Life is not an Oz book, or a James Bond film, either; taking out one guy does not mean (as a Congressbeing from New York chortled last night) "Mission accomplished." Still, it's a big, big step.

You will, I hope, excuse me for pondering that Saudi Arabia is still a great big incubator of crazy and money. Wonder what will hatch out next?

Pen vs. Sword

Comments to my posting on the possibility that San Franciscans could find themselves voting on a measure to ban circumcising males has taken an interesting turn: at what point ought the State to intervene?

In broader terms, this is a question of persuasion versus compulsion, of the word and example as opposed to the courtroom and the force of arms. I found myself at an impasse for a useful example until I picked up a biography of automotive pioneer Elwood P. Haynes.

Haynes was a lifelong advocate of both Temperance and Prohibition. In the two, you have about as nice an example of the effects of convincing and those of coercing as anyone could want.

The Temperance movement in the 'States dissuaded a great many persons from the drinking of alcoholic beverages, primarily by rallies, sermons and essays, but also by offering alternatives: Temperance fountains, for one; even healthy sport was put forward as a way to keep young people from drinking, By and large, it was a successful movement; while it didn't run saloons out of existence or put an end to domestic abuse -- it is from that time that stereotype of the drunken wife-beater emerged, not without some justification, and Temperance advocates were quick to take correlation for causation -- it did bring about a general reduction in drinking (or at least the acceptability of drunkeness).

But as happens with many such a movement, it wasn't enough for the group; alcohol was so vile in its effects, advocates argued, it ought to be banned by law. After a long, hard slog, it was banned, state by state at first and ultimately by Constitutional Amendment.

...And somehow, we failed to enter into a new era of peace and happiness; the drunk who might -- might! -- in an earlier time have stumbled to the fore at a Temperance meeting and renounced the bottle "forever" was now doing business with criminals and kept his silence along with his bottle. As time went on, criminality became widespread; by the Roaring Twenties, many a person who might otherwise have barely (if at all) consumed beer, wine or spirits found themselves in a rollicking underground; and if you were going to flout the law to the extent of one drink, why, in for a penny, in for a pound: might as well have six!

Prohibition in the United States was, among other ill effects, the single greatest boon organized crime ever received. A measure that was supposed to make civil society more civilized had precisely the opposite effect.


There's my example; there's what happens when you substitute men with guns for orators, inflexible laws for moral conviction. It's what happens when you screw the valve shut on a pressure cooker: something's going to go POW!

Breakfast: Weekend

Yesterday it was brunch: a half-pound each of lean chorizo (Mexican) and lean, hot Italian sausage, cooked up with fresh shitake mushrooms, brown rice (fried in the spicy red grease, yum!), and chopped green onion, a carrot, poblano, Anaheim and yellow chili peppers, with three eggs scrambled in the center of it at the last minute (just push everything else to the side of the wok and let it cheer the process on) and topped with shredded cheese -- we had some "six-cheese Italian blend," which tamed the fire without putting it out.

The finished dish feeds, I was interested to discover, 3 or 4; with two, there is plenty left over. It needs no additional seasoning.


Today, I started with the last of the bacon, fried in black pepper, Mrs. Dash and a little garlic-sesame mix; when done, I poured off all but a dab of grease while retaining all the tiny crunchy bits, because the next step was a five-egg omelet, the eggs beaten with about a third of a teaspoon of curry powder, a few dashes of Worcestershire sauce and a tablespoon (+/-) of cold water. As soon as the bottom seemed set, I sprinkled it with a half-dozen well-diced giant chives and/or green onions Tam salvaged from kitchen-garden volunteers. It didn't want to fold (my flat griddle is at least 15" across and starting to get a bit bowed in the center) but I persevered and it all worked out. Very tasty!

-- I think curry powder, not used to excess, is the very thing for scrambled eggs. This dish is actually pretty; snip some fresh dill and shredded cheese on it and you've got the start of an attractive presentation.


These are vast feasts; five to six days a week, I have oatmeal and juice for breakfast. But you've got to indulge a little, or why even bother to wake up?

Science Fiction News You Can Use

SF writer Michael Z. Williamson offers up a fine list of works-in-progress/works to be released.

Wahoo! Preemption At Last!

...Okay, only if the Governor signs it, all the old "grandfathered" ludicrousities like Speedway's ban on concealed carry will be preempted; when it comes to firearms, cities and towns will have to abide by state law.

SB292 means Tam won't demur when asked to bike-ride on the Monon. (Not taking the trail means missing out on a bridge across busy Kessler Ave.; which meant the no-guns-in-parks ordinance replaced an imaginary risk with a very real one).

Shunned/Interesting Argument

Many readers will remember the outrage when HS Pr3cision ("Women and children first") happily touted an endorsement by infamous FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi. I'm very pleased to say the early reports are that at the extremely crowded NRA convention, at the HS P--- booth, what they're getting are...crickets.

Scanning the comments, I noticed some slightly askew takes on the history and today, Tam read 'em and got to someone complaining the Wikipedia article said ol' ladykiller Lon couldn't see Vickie Weaver, what with her being behind the door and all.

In fact, odds are pretty good he couldn't; he wasn't shooting at her anyway, but at Kevin Harris, which was still a shot determined after the fact to be unlawful.

And here's where we argued; Tam says -- and not without justification -- that shooting Mrs. Weaver should have been charged as "negligent homicide;" I say it was premeditated homicide, "murder 1."

Lookit, if that was a drive-by shooting gone wrong, in which John Doe doth take up arms and attempt to plug Richard Roe in the back, but misses and kills his babysitter, who is behind the door to which Roe was running, the law still looks upon it as a planned act; he doesn't get a lesser charge for being a lousy killer. Why should an FBI agent -- who is presumably far more cognizant of law and morality than a gang member or he wouldn't be in the FBI -- get any more of a break?

Back in the real world, what Lon actually got was time off; and in a slightly better world, Tam's proposed charges (or less, if you click on through) would've had a better chance of victory in court than mine.

But if ever you climb a tree, rifle in hand, with clear intent and plan to kill a man, and you're not at war, if you miss your guy and hit his friend? Don't expect to get a discount for being a klutz.

Which brings me to my last point: how come HS P---- was so happy to receive an endorsement from the Wrong Way Corrigan of snipers?

F. A. Hayek

"Conservatism is only as good as what it conserves."
--Friedrich August Hayek

With Any Luck...

...Or at least industriousness, by the time you read this, I will be on my way to a gathering of the Indiana Historical Radio Society, an organization to which I am unable to devote as much tame time as I'd like.

Someone over Tam's way lauded the British Royal Family (IMO, the nation-state version of purse dogs and I'm much relieved to see they've decided to outcross back to wild stock again, as the breed had got a bit odd-looking in the previous generation) as the "custodians of living history." And maybe they are; other than dragging an entire nation (and a goodly chunk of the rest of the world, at least the parts that speak some flavor of English some of the time) to a standstill every time they get married or crowned or have the poor timing to die, they're a harmless enough affectation. (Not so much in the way of custodians, though -- I doubt a one of them would know how to use a mop bucket, even after it bit them. Um, on second thought the Queen might; she seems sensible enough).

But you know who else is a "custodian of living history?" You are and places like Etsy and eBay are, too. Every time you turn that bedanged Colonial chestnut roaster or the hideous set of matched Art Deco splatchet forks into money by putting them in the hands of some yoik who thinks they are the greatest things evar, you have successfully custodialized some history. I should not be in the least surprised to learn that more of that sort of thing is going on now than has ever gone on before.

And you don't even need blue blood to do it! (This is good -- those horseshoe crabs take a lot of looking after.)

State Of Ninnies

It's a beautiful place, with no shortage of natural wonders or clever and productive people; but the trouble with a place where you can get anything on the ballot is that there are plenty of persons -- or tallish, hairless/featherless bipeds that have (mostly) learned to not make messes in the house -- who have absolutely no grasp of "none of your business!"

And this time 'round, out in the Golden Pear State (look it up), in San Franciso, where happy, smiling people covered in tattoos and scarifications, with piercings through every bit that's pierceable, will greet you and politely ignore your goggling eyes, they've put a proposal to outlaw (male) circumcision on the ballot.

I haven't got a dog in that fight, bein' female and not a mother, nor livin' in Cally-forn-i-a; but I find myself goggling not at the innocent folks who have gone in for heavy decoration but the sheer, ignorant effrontery of the sort of shaved ape who thinks his personal prejudices and whims outweigh, gee, decades of custom, centuries of religious practice and, f'pity's sake, deals made with G-d?

--Sure, you can tell me I'm an agnostic -- but the parties to the cited arrangement are not.

Right about now, you prolly think I'll go Godwin; but I shan't. I don't have to. I just wonder when San Franciscans will move on up to the year 1290 and put an Edict of Expulsion up for vote?

The tyranny of the mob, sooooo much better than the tyranny of a single man. And so very much more wise, too. You betcha.

"One-Party Nation"

From the Could Not Have Said It Better Myself Dep't, Wick Allison:

When people tell me we need a third political party in America, I tell them they are wrong. What we need is a second party in America.

...The difference being, Wick voted for Mr. Obama (and endorsed him in print) -- the linked article being subtitled, "Why I am recanting my 2008 endorsement of Barack Obama." (We can, finally, be pretty sure that it's not over his birth certificate).

Semi-relatedly, The Week offers five takes on why he-who-must-not-be-named (R0n P@u1) is running for Prez again. Who knows, maybe this time his own party'll let him say a few words at their convention?

Bloggage

Or the lack thereof. A huge headache is drillin' in via my left ear. It's just the weather getting synerjiggy with my normal migraine but it has fair driven most thoughts from my head.

I'm not polit-blogging quite as much as I have in the past, largely because I think at the Federal level the system is unfixably broke, in both the "not working" and "no money" senses. Between the Party of Spending and the Party of Spending Even More,* the FedGov is at this point in time running on bad checks and (relatively) good reputation and as Larry Correia pointed out back on the 15th, the finances are so unprecedentedly far out of whack, there is no tellin' how it will fall when it falls, let alone what form it will take. (And do not even talk to me about planned collapse; whle there are plenty of rats gnawing away at the foundations, their contributions are barely a patch on the huge damage done by elected and appointed officials who refuse to believe water runs downhill -- and by majorities who vote for the voteable fools and liars.)

One thing's for sure, the superbigsavings budget Congress came up with is a bad joke; it replaces a cowflop with...a cowflop with a ribbon it! Dig in, kids. If you don't like that, there's a proposal to jack up the taxes on the companies and people who employ us, which, as any simpleton know, could not possibly result in even more bankruptcies, layoffs and offshoring. Oh heavens no. And meantime, the party that was chanting No Blood For Oil elected their Own Very Special Peace-Loving Guy who got us in another war in oil country! Oh, hurrah. Meanwhile, our other wars sputter on, all of 'em producing the FedGov's primary tangible product, maimed young people.

The collapse, when it comes, may look a bit like the fall of the old Soviet Union. We are fortunate in the U.S. that we've got State governments (at least, if you like governments). Many of them are even solvent, or nearly so and when -- not if, when -- the Federal Government of The United States of America augers in, the States will likely be able to cobble something together. If they can manage to dodge debt collectors after the Feds, there may be a path out.

But the clock is ticking. I hope things hold together long enough for the Golden Age of Commercial Space Travel to really get cranking but I have my doubts. It's a pity -- there is wealth enough up there to even prop up the bloated monstrosity headquartered in the District of Columbia; but do you want that? Perhaps the best we can hope for is that it falls slowly.

It's sad. I never thought things would take this sort of a turn, not in this country; but we are within a few years of internal passports (if I don't hurry up and get a passport so I can get a RealID driver's license, I won't even be able to travel far), government is getting back into the business of tellin' businesses what to do (after FDR and Nixon's efforts mostly landed in the toxic waste dump of history reeking quietly as a warning) the wheels keep spinning and spinning as the country sinks into the mud while grinning politicians call it "progress."

Gah! A pox on 'em all!
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* Interchangeable, if you don't mind repainting.