cow milk

Amusing Planet has an article about Japanese milk delivery boxes. They're wooden boxes nailed to the outside of homes for delivery of dairy products.

Of course we have our own milk delivery boxes. Ours are metal with a bit of insulation and they're no less decorated than the Japanese boxes but somehow Amusing Planet finds Japanese milk delivery boxes more charming. Their photography indicates the surrounding architecture is part of the alluring charm.

But so is ours. I imagine our surrounding home architecture and landscaping is interesting to Japanese.

Our delivery boxes are so charming and so useful beyond milk deliveries that one summer, when I was in kindergarten, at early evening through dusk when the fireflies were active in Bethlehem Pennsylvania, where Jesus was born, so I thought at the time, I caught a dozen or so lightning bugs and saved them in the milk box on the porch. I thought they'd be fun to keep and that was the handiest container. Pretty good plan. Don't you think? The next morning to my dismay the bugs were all dead.

What a bummer!

Oh, some were still kind of alive, sort of, but they weren't lighting up like they did the evening before.

The Japanese boxes are okay. But Amusing Planet neglected to tell us what the words on the boxes mean. That's a big part of their alluring decoration. Just as our lettering is to them. If anything, after this you'll be able to recognize the kanji characters for "cow, beef, and the like," and for "milk."

Not everything is kanji. You'll see it on packages and signs. The other systems of writing are symbols for sounds. Sometimes they're mixed. Just like Egyptian hieroglyphs. Sometimes they stand for the thing and sometimes they stand for the sound of the word for the thing. So you must speak the language to write it. The sound systems have a lot fewer characters. One such system is called hiragana. And the place name on one of the boxes is Hirogano. The hiragana system is designated with a character shaped like a U. See this. An abbreviation. They don't bother writing the remaining sounds for their word for the system of sounds. And that's an odd shape in Kanji right off. The place name Hirogano, a ski resort, I think, such as Alta, but not nearly so spectacular, begins with the same character.

More Japanese wooden home delivery milk boxes and more words describing the milk delivery industry at Amusing Planet. 

White House Halloween 2017

This is long. But not the longest. The longer one is forty-one minutes.  You can change the speed if you like then everyone moves right along. My favorite are the very little kids. Betsy Devos shows up dressed as Mrs Frizzle. Sara Huckabee's little kids are adorable.

Titanic Failure At HuffPost

Headline at The Huffington Post: "Cruising on the Trump Titanic:"*

link to original

The gist of the HuffPo article is that Paul Ryan is not at all plussed by today's (yesterday's for EST readers) indictments. Consequently, HuffPo exhorts:

Meanwhile, I have some advice for Americans, and specifically Wisconsinites. Check out an honest, caring ironworker from Racine named Randy Bryce, who’s running against Ryan in 2018. Let’s make America America again.

Let's do that -- let's check out Randy Bryce. The first Google result that pops into my browser concerns a smear tweet by Bryce accusing Ivanka Trump of having an affair with Justin Trudeau [ed. note: Google, get this search result under control!!].

Like that shit's gonna fly in Wisconsin. It might fly among the female jealousy-fueled, Ivanka-hating nooks and grannies of the NYT, where the butt sisters also conspired to bring down Sarah Palin -- but I have serious doubts about Wisconsin. Well except for Madison.  I'd say that HuffPo just destroyed Bryce's chances.
_____________________
*I don't actually read The Huffington Post. I found this topic via a Google alert set to "Titanic" and this popped up just a few hours ago.

Halloween

The seventh episode in season three of The Twilight Zone is a very good one - it is the retelling of an age-old fable, this time set in the old west. Appearing in this version is Lee Marvin, Strother Martin, Lee Van Cleef and various other players. The story is a good one, well told. For those who have not seen it, go watch it now. 

Are you back? Good, otherwise what follows might be a spoiler. That Twilight Zone epi reminded me of something that actually happened to me on Halloween evening back in 1990. In those days I lived in a town that had over 60 miles of paved trails through the neighborhoods - the trails went uphill and down, all around through the woods, and you could get to any part of town without riding on the road. Sure, you would cross various streets, but there wasn't much traffic, so sometimes I would hop on my mountain bike and get some miles in after work but before it got too dark.

This particular Halloween it was a dark and non-stormy night, with Halloween stuff all over the place - ghosts hanging in trees, pumpkins carved into hideous visages glowing from some ungodly internal light, skeletons lounging about, spider webs draped everywhere, and some of the webs were not made by the spiders in the woods, doncha know.

So there I was riding along, minding my own business, riding fast so I could get home before it got pitch black out in the forest and while climbing a short rise that led up to a cul-de-sac, the strangest thing happened. A thing I had never experienced in my tens of thousands of miles of bicycling. As I cranked up the hill my right ankle was gripped by a bony hand. How can this be, I thought? I mean something had grabbed my lower leg, front and back and it was not letting go. I glanced down to my right, thinking that perhaps a dog had come out of the woods and latched on to my tender ankle with his sharp teeth. Nope, no dog. Maybe it was a Dwayyo? Nope, no Dwayyo. What the hey?

Since I still had my wits about me and I still had some momentum, I rolled up to the cul-de-sac and stopped to see what the hell was going on. Well, what do you know, the top cap head bolt, a lowly Allen screw, one of the two that secured my water bottle cage to the seat tube, had backed out and was gone, leaving the cage free to rotate and grab my leg like a bony, skeletal hand of death trying to drag me down into the earth. Phew - that was a close one. I retrieved my Allen wrench set from my tool kit and removed the one remaining screw, put the bottle cage in my other pack and rode on, thankful that I had dodged the supernatural for another day. Some day I won't be that lucky.

I rode on gilded splendors.

Tony Podesta discovers he's in the crosshairs of the Special Prosecutor investigation

This item is published on Politico, here.

Reorganization at the Podesta Group has Tony Podesta stepping down from the super-lobbying group that bears his name. Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort worked for the Podesta lobbying group to advance the interests of Ukraine and Russia.

As the virus infected brain affected hoards on Twitter and Reddit and Facebook all self congratulate that Manafort arrest is intended to flip him to get Trump, that is what their media taught them after all, there is reasoned speculation that Manaforts indictment is leading to cooperation with special counsel Mueller to investigate  the Podesta Group.

Federal records show The Podesta Group and the Mercury Group both doing work on behalf of Manafort's Ukraine front group and despite their lobbying activity neither group was disclosed legally as required.

Podesta Group filed paperwork with the Justice Department in April stating that it had done work for the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine that also benefited the same Ukrainian political party that Manafort once advised. Podesta Group said at the time it believed its client was a European think tank untethered to a political party. 

Read more, if you like.

But it will poison your brain and damage your soul if you do.

book review without reading the book

Instapundit has this:

IN THE MAIL: The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing.

Goody gumdrops, this sounds like my sort of thing. Japanese sure are clever about storing things, concealing things, making it look like they've got more space than they do. Let's see if we want to buy this book and use it to declutter our life.

Amazon "Look inside" feature is sometimes somewhat useful. Other times it just shows the preface and other unhelpful publishing related gunk. But yesterday it really was helpful in showing how contents of a book are arranged. That book was Middle Egyptian Literature by Allen. It shows the eight stories really are printed in hieroglyphics even though the originals are in hieratic (handwriting script) and the transliteration (the phonetic sounds for words) and English. That is essential to know about the book. So I bought it. New, from Abe Books for seven dollars less than Amazon. Now that's useful.

Maybe this one will be too.

The "Look inside" feature shows contents.

Why can't I keep my house in order?
* You can't tidy if you've never learned how
* A tidying marathon doesn't cause rebound
* Tidy a little a day and you'll be tidying forever
* Why you should aim for perfection
* The moment you start you reset your life
* Storage experts are hoarders
* Sort by category, not by location
* Don't change the method to suit your personality
* Make tidying a special event, not a daily chore

Finish discarding first
* Start by discarding, all at once, intensely and completely
* Before you start, visualize your destination
* Selection criterion: does it spark joy?
* One category at a time
* Starting with mementos spels certain failure
* Don't let your family see
* If you're mad at your family, your room may be the cause
* What you don't need, your family doesn't either
* Tidying is a dialogue with one's self
* What to do when you can't throw something away

Tidying by category works like magic
* Tidying order follow the correct order of categories
* Clothing: place every item of clothing in the house on the floor
* Loungewear: downgrading to "loungewear" is taboo
* Clothing storage fold it right and solve your storage problems
* How to fold: the best way to fold for perfect appearance
* Arranging clothes: the secret to energizing your closet
* Storing socks: treat your socks and stockings with respect
* Seasonal clothes: eliminate the need to store off-season clothes
* Storing books put all your books on the floor
* Unread books: "sometime" means "never"
* Books to keep those that belong in the hall of fame
* Sorting papers: rule of thumb -- discard everything
* All about papers: how to organize troublesome papers
* Komono (miscellaneous items) keep things because you love them -- not "just because"
* Common types of komono: disposables
* Small change: make "into my wallet" your motto
* Sentimental items: your parents' home is not a haven for mementos
* Photos: cherish who you are now
* Astounding stockpiles I have seen
* Reduce until you reach the point where something clicks
* Follow your intuition and all will be well

Storing your things to make your life shine
* Designate a place for each thing
* Discard first, store later
* Storage: pursue ultimate simplicity
* Dont scatter storage spaces
* Gorget about "flow planning" and "frequency of use"
* Never pile things: vertical storage is the key
* No need for commercial storage items
* The best way to store bags is in another bag
* Empty your bag every day
* Items that usurp floor space belong in the closet
* Keep things out of the bath and the kitchen sink
* Make the top shelf of the bookcase your personal shrine
* Decorage your closet with your secret delights
* Unpack and de-tag new clothes immediately
* Don't underestimate the "noise" of written information
* Appreciate your possessions and gain strong allies

The magic of tidying dramatically transforms your life
* Put your house in order and discover what you really want to do
* The magic effect of tidying
* Gaining confidence in life through the magic of tidying
* An attachment to the past or anxiety about the future
* Learning that you can do without
* Do you greet your house?
* Your possessions want to help you
* Your living space affects your body
* I sit true that tidying increases good fortune?
* How to identify what is truly precious
* Being surrounded by things that spark joy makes you happy
* Your real life begins after putting your house in order

Goodness, I feel like I've read the whole book already.

This book is rated 4+1/2 stars from 12,568 reviews. I think reading the worst reviews will tell us what we need to know about this book beyond its table of contents. What follows is copy/paste 1 star reviews. It's only 5%

Manafort, Gates surrender to federal authorities

Ugh.

Two rather crooked guys surrender to Federal authorities.

Who are themselves rather crooked. 

None of the online pages specify who these Federal authoritahs are. 

The FBI, I think.

None of them mention how insanely compromised Robert Mueller nor how truly weird this investigation at every point.

None mention the FBI's own complicity with Fusion's Steele document.

None mention the FBI using the Steele dossier to wiretap Mueller and Trump as candidate and to initiate this investigation. None mention Mueller operating with an open checkbook nor his assembling a team of Democrat operatives.

But none of that stops what appears to be entirely left wing news organizations splooging all over YouTube with rushed frenetic videos, slathering with voices that sensible people dismissed years ago over video of two guys walking into a building.

Here's one that's not like that. 

The guilty plea of George Papadopoulos marked the first criminal count citing interactions between Trump campaign associates and Russian intermediaries during the campaign.

The charges ushered Mueller's investigation into a new phase with felony charges for key members of the Trump campaign.

Papadopoulos' plea occurred Oct.5 and was unsealed Monday. He admitted lying about the nature of his interactions with foreign nationals who he thought had close connections to senior Russian government officials with dirt on Hillary Clinton.

Separate charges against Manafort and Rick Gates contend the men acted as unregistered foreign agents for Ukrainian interests with several other financial counts.

The Manafort indictment doesn't reference the Trump campaign or make any allegations about t coordination between the Kremlin and the president's aids to influence the outcome of the eection in Trump's favor. 

Both men were funneling money through foreign companies and bank accounts as part of their political work for Ukraine. 

They face twelve counts including conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, acting as an unregistered foreign agent, making false statements, and several charges related to failing to report foreign bank and financial accounts. 

More deets at Chicago Tribune.

Daniel Greenfield writes on the failure of Globalization

Greenfield is a tremendous writer, fantastic at delineating big picture issues. I cannot understand why he doesn't have a much greater following. Judging by the number of comments left there, so far, only six to this article. I'm guessing people's minds are too blown to comment, or readers have nothing useful to add. Maybe they're intimidated.

He begins by citing Merkel with Obama at her side defending globalism against Trump. They, with Thomas Friedman consider Trump's nationalism tantamount to returning to caves. equating globalization with civilization itself. It doesn't occur to them actual civilizations don't mix as envisioned. They imagine our advances will rub onto them others more than other civilizations lack of development will affect us. They traced the rise of globalization to the fall of the Berlin Wall where Merkel and Obama were talking.

But globalization didn’t bring down the Berlin Wall. Nationalism did. The pro-democracy activists wanted a country where the people had a voice. That’s the opposite of globalization in which there are no nations and only the influential figures of various stripes have any kind of impact. 

By the time that Merkel and Obama grasped the what Trump's victory and Brexit means for globalization, Berlin was already seeing the results of their philosophy. Migrants were supposed to supplement the German workforce. Instead, they aren't working. The refugees came for Germany's generous welfare programs and they're wrecked enough that Merkel wants to pay them to leave.

Globalization moved production to countries with the lowest standards of living and the least human rights and the most government intervention in their economies. At the same time it moved immigrants with the lowest work ethic to America and Germany for welfare programs intended to soften the economic impact of globalization on the native population.

Instead of binding the world closer together, globalization financed a renewed wave of aggression by former failed Communist states and enabled Islamic terrorists to strike deep in the heart of the West. 

The ambitious dreams of globalization that once appeared to unite big government advocates on the left with free marketers on the right have become a nightmare. Their failures have led to a renewed affinity for Socialism and even Communism on the left.  

Globalization interlinks economies and societies often more by their weaknesses than by their strengths. It exports instability more easily than stability and conflict more easily than progress. 

 Sophisticated systems are more vulnerable than primitive ones. It’s why Afghanistan and Iraq made more of an enduring mark on America than the other way around. In a globalized world, colonialism works in reverse with unstable societies exporting their instability to stable societies.

I swiped too much already.

More at Sultan Knish. Recommended.

 

Bruce Maxwell arrested for aiming gun at food deliverer

Well. This is awkward.

Just posted about Bruce Maxwell four days ago claiming to be racially profiled when the story he told was him being recognized as protestor specifically by a proclaimed Trump Supporter. And the whole thing sounded like what really does happen, but in reverse, when police are targeted for non service. Imagine that. Who announces their political orientation and their support while serving others? Bent out of shape young liberals do that. There's a reason conservatives are named conservative and not named outrages. They tend to conserve things worth keeping, like manners.

The only professional baseball player to take a knee during the anthem was arrested for threatening a delivery woman. Who even does that? What in the world could provoke anyone into pulling a gun? Apparently this man has a real problem with the people who serve him his food.

Story all over the place here's a list of results from DuckDuckGo browser. They all say the nearly same bare thing.

He plays for Oakland A's but this happened in Scottsdale AZ.

Booked on charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and disorderly conduct.

The first charge is serious, a class two felony in Arizona and it carries a penalty of 36-150 months in prison depending on circumstances. He's currently in jail waiting his initial appearance before a judge where he will be arraigned and receive bail.

Moreover, the waiter who was cited in the original story about him "racially" profiling Maxwell  but described as merely recognizing his protest disputes Maxwell's account. The waiter says that he didn't even know who Bruce Maxwell is and did not recognize him as a protester and did not racially profile anyone. Instead, the waiter carded a person in Maxwell's group who produced an expired ID so the server refused to serve him a drink which upset the friend who followed him into the kitchen.

“He asked me, don’t you know who Bruce Maxwell is, and told me I was making everyone feel uncomfortable. Nobody was even paying attention to them. I didn’t know anything about him or the kneeling. All I know is a friend of mine 15 years ago lost his job for serving someone a drink who happened to be underage, so if anyone looks under 30, I’m going to card them.”

This bit of the story drawn from NYPost. Where there are more details.

Bruce Maxwell, you dun bin profiled. Again.

Yesterday I read somewhere a liberal disputing the high number of thugs in professional sports, particularly football. They cited statistics pulled from somebody's butt comparing convictions for football players with others. I didn't bother studying it, or responding, but being foremost racist in their thinking and their analysis, I'd think they'd be primarily concerned with breaking it down according to race. It would be more revealing for whatever that's worth to count the number of convicted thugs among the athletes protesting with population at large that includes everyone then be amazed at the startling difference.

KLEM TV

link

The confluence of Halloween and local Dodger-mania led me to post this.

If you watch the full episode,* there is a brief cameo by Elroy "Crazylegs" Hirsch at the very end. Hirsch was a native Wisconsinite who played football for the UW-Badgers and went on to play professionally for the LA Rams. He was then GM for the Rams during the Munster era. He returned to Wisconsin to head athletics at the UW in 1969 up until 1987 which is when (and where) I became familiar with him.
________________
*Needs link

Dawn Wells on Hollywood Treasures.

Trooper's earlier post, "Who's That Girl," (the title that's sung in Annie Lennox's voice) reminded me of seeing Dawn Wells having her keepsakes appraised. That was an easy one, Trooper.  As she showed what she saved I kept thinking what a bunch of kitsch and they kept appraising ephemera at $20,000 and $30,000 and blowing my mind like exploding coconuts, after I kept thinking she's lost none of her charm. She says a lot of men that she meets tell her that they married their own Mary Anne and that means a lot of men fell in love with her character.

I pet my dog

ee cummings on Abe Vigoda

may i feel said he
(i'll squeal said she
just once said he)
it's fun said she


(may i touch said he
how much said she
a lot said he)
why not said she


(let's go said he
not too far said she
what's too far said he
where you are said she)


may i stay said he
(which way said she
like this said he
if you kiss said she


may i move said he
is it love said she)
if you're willing said he
(but you're killing said she


but it's life said he
but your wife said she
now said he)
ow said she

may i touch your tusch
as if i were george bush
yes she said
as his pinch bled

(tiptop said he
don't stop said she
oh no said he)
go slow said she


(cccome?said he
ummm said she)
you're divine!said he
(you are Mine said she)

Whose that Girl?

She was much more know for her relationships with seamen and the girl she is most often paired with was know for her relationships with semen. So to speak.

She is just as much an Indian as Elizabeth Warren but she is definitely on all of our lists.

One of the iconic starlets of the sixties she is still the topic of one vital question that when answered tells you all you need to know.

Whose that girl?

Whose the Boss?

The Yankees  had a decent season this year although it was quite disappointing that they didn't get to the series. I think it was a good idea to fire Joe Giradi. He had more than enough time and resources. Lets face it. He is not enough of an emotional leader to rally the team.

Baseball teams traditionally alternate between an emotional leader and a more technocrat type. The classic example was the Billy Martin/Bob Lemon era. Or bringing in someone like Lou Pinella and then replacing him with a Dusty Baker type.

The list that is in the paper is pretty grim. All minor league types or old coaches like Kevin Long the ex-hitting coach who is coaching the Mets or bench coach Rob Thomson. That would be a big mistake.

I would go with a recent ex-player who knows the pressure of playing in New York and dealing with the media. Reportedly Jason Giambi and Mike Mussina turned it down.

I have my own candidate. An exceptional ex-player. A winner. A warrior. The kind of guy who would crawl over broken glass to win. A guy in the Billy Martin mode.

Paul O'Neil.

WKRLEM: To boldly go where no man has bowled before......

When there was quality TV instead of the crap they have now.

This is what I am watching this week. It calms me.

Cuba says sonic attacks on U.S. diplomats were cricket and cicada noises

Cuban regime published a long report and an hour-long documentary stating that the sonic attacks on US. diplomats that occurred throughout the past year didn't happen, rather, the diplomats mistook insect noises for sonic weapons.

IIRRC, the diplomats were not complaining about noises. They suspected inaudible sonic attacks. You know when cicadas and crickets annoy you. The diplomats and other American travelers did not know the source of their weird headaches. Plus the reasoning explains the headaches only during the cicada season. That's why they included crickets.

And that's what makes Cuban reasoning funny.

More detailed Cuban dissimilation at Breitbart. The more detailed they get, the funnier they get.

I've read several pages online about cicadas, they all say the same things, but alas, after all that I'm still not an expert. I have one unanswered question. Their cycle is 13 or 17 years and the bugs emerge all at once. Fine. That's 17 years for each round of bugs. But do those places get rounds every year? Are all cicadas in the same round, or are the groups staged, each with their 17 year cycle? None of the pages I've read state outright that a location gets cicadas every year, and they're all 17 years old when they emerge each year. I heard these bugs in Japan. They are impressively loud. And I believe that I heard them each year. Can't at least one of the pages say that?

Let's keep looking.

Some cicadas emerge every year.

Of all places, Slate has the answer. Thank you Slate.

Then why does it feel like I hear about them all the damn time? 

Because you do. Different broods are staggered over time and scattered across the United States. That means that while a particular brood may only emerge in the upper East Coast once every 17 (or 13) years, a brood is almost certainly emerging somewhere during most of those off years. Most likely, you’re hearing about different broods every year.

We cicada expert types call the cicada rounds "broods." So we say "brood" to prove that we're expert.

So if a brood emerges somewhere every year, then what’s so special about this year? 

An excellent question. This year we are seeing the emergence of Brood V, which has been sleeping since 1999. Brood V happens to be spread out across many populous areas of the United States, including Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland and Long Island, New York. (Due to an especially cool spring, we expect to see them around May 23.) But honestly, it’s a medium-size brood. Much of the to-do is just media hype.

Screaming Cicada, Cuban sonic weapon.

Well, I can tell you, as a boy these bugs sure were fun. The bugs hide from you as you approach them, but they're not very good at it. They shift to the opposite side of the branch as squirrels do so you can't see them. But when your brother is there then they cannot hide completely from both of you, and it's a lame attempt at hiding. And they're clumsy. They fall in water and become helpless. Everything around becomes predator and picks them off and they get eaten in vast numbers until all predators are stuffed with them and can't eat any more cicadas, and still there are millions of cicadas screaming in the trees. 

Often we'd find their molted exoskeletons and mistake those for their adult form. We thought their adult form died and shriveled up inside there and just disappeared leaving a material ghost. And we did find a lot of dried dead adult forms. The guy in the video is brave for holding a screaming bug. That would have been to much back then at that age. I never held a live screaming bug. 

American in Cuba during cicada season.

First charges filed in Mueller investigation

Per CNN Politics, here. So it could be a banana for all we can count on accurate reporting via unnamed sources.

A federal grand jury in Washington, DC, on Friday approved the first charges in the investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller, according to sources briefed on the matter.

The charges are still sealed under orders from a federal judge. Plans were prepared Friday for anyone charged to be taken into custody as soon as Monday, the sources said. It is unclear what the charges are. 

A spokesman for the special counsel's office declined to comment.

More words at the link but it's all fluff.

So people are guessing, wildly, especially on Twitter. They think Trump's family will be taken down and Trump will be impeached.

Trump Halloween gravestone divides Cortland neighbors

This is #2 on PJ Media's 5 most inappropriate Halloween displays of 2017 collected by Debra Heine. Better ones are a peeping tom mask and hands that you put outside of windows to scare people inside, I think, and another of a guy being smashed by a garage door, and another of a man smashed against a tree and a bloody automobile that hit him. The last two resulted in calls to the police because they look rather real. And there is a better anti-Trump display done by a professor worked up to display his full dismay at Trump being elected, but with enough humor to include Hillary holding the book she's been pimping. Incidentally, did you ever go to or even hear of a book promotion event that charges an entrance fee of $200 at the low end and then doesn't discuss the book, rather, complains and blames about losing an election, and the system that allows it? Grifter to the bitter end, squeezing the last dollars from the dopes still interested in hearing her voice. Now, that's a great Halloween display.

The Connecticut professor thinks that Trump and his gang are pillaging the United States like pirates. So naturally he voted for the saintly clean-hands Hillary Clinton, I assume, or even worse, for Bernie Sanders. See, he's a professor so he knows what he's talking about because all professors are intellectuals and very smart. One of his goals is to always educate people.

Wouldn't you love to tie him to a chair, stuff a sock in his mouth and explain in detail over a period of days why he is wrong about everything?

No? Neither would I.

If you can stand the accent describing it, his display is still rather good.

And more. So much more than than what's been covered by blogs.

The ship again.

There is a male version also.

And many more costumes. 

To all the right wing bloggers complaining about this, who feel this is terribly inappropriate and no class. Just shut up. 

The conservatives give as good as they take. And with even less class.

WKRLEM Lets give them something to post about tomorrow!

Germination

A few years ago lightning struck my neighbor's giant red oak tree. It had to be taken down as it loomed over the house and it was shedding limbs. The tree guys did a remarkable job limbing it and getting the log on the ground. And there it was, over 10 tons of sound red oak. I did what I could to make the most of the situation - sawed off all the callouses that had grown over limb stumps, sawed up some of the smaller branches into bowl blanks. But the prize was the butt end of the log - close to 6 feet in diameter. I took my biggest saw and cut some quarter sawn slabs out of it. It was very dangerous sawing as the tip of the bar was buried in the log while I was ripping out the pieces. Kickback was always a possibility, and while other than one real good bruise I managed to get 'er done without injury. I didn't die.

My dog looking watchful beside the downed tree:

A bowl I made from a callous, detail showing Starry Night swirls:

I hauled the slabs home and after letting them dry for a few years I started making things. First table was based on an idea I developed playing with blocks:

That table consists of three live edge slabs held together with domino floating tenons.

Recently I had another idea - a bit more high style. Who knows where ideas come from - perhaps they sprout like red oak acorns. 

The top has waves on both faces, the base has tapered legs, square in section, that flare out at 8 degrees in the elevation view and 6 degrees when viewed from the end of the table. Medullary rays are prominent on the top, and the top measures 19-1/2" in width by 32" long.      

There is much more to this story, obviously, but I was reading some letters to the editor in an old woodworking magazine and a guy was complaining about someone stealing his design for a 4 legged stool with a rectangular top. Yeah, okay bub - you were the first guy to ever build one of those in the history of furniture making. The idea for the top of this table came from several sources, but this one is different in that I milled the top out of one thick slab of wood. Other, similar tops were glued up from smaller pieces and the wave patterns were very different. Take that, other furniture makers - I can hear your laminations from here.

But the real point of this story is that from the loss of one tree can come many useful objects that will last for years. 

On that note...

Edit - added because edutcher mentioned it, Bou sphinx, also from 2013.

DNC chairman thinks the Electoral is not written in the U.S. Constitution

Word came out of the mouth and through these teeth evolved to hold prey from wiggling free for a oneway trip through the mouse-pie hole.

Apologies. Got that wrong again. Words came through these teeth in the mouth of Tom Perez.

Chairman of the Democrat National Committee. I wonder if Tom Perez knows the first world has professional people called dentists. That mouth can be fixed even if the mind producing the words that fly through them cannot.

Good Lord. A fiery, easily cranked up man possessed of a deeply addled mind.

Why does DNC do this? There's something wrong with this man. Hired, no doubt, for his viciousness and not for his intellect. Do they work their way up like slashing gladiators, or what? Just like Debbie Wasserface. Tom Perez delivering a lecture to law students at Indiana University Law School told them, "The Electoral College is not a creation of the Constitution. It doesn't have to be there." 

And the right side blogs go nuts.

He's almost right. 

The Electoral College was not created by the founders. It was invented much earlier than that. It was actually created in ancient times because elites through history never did trust the popular vote.  

And if you were a youth just learning, then presently almost everything you'll encounter  online will mislead you. In college your professors will affect your opinion. Check it out. [history electoral college] Without even specifying the United States. See, unlike Tom Perez, the framers were familiar with history. They chose the electoral college type of elections because they didn't trust the popular vote either. Our framers were themselves elitists. But that doesn't stop anti-electoral college writers from misleading their readers in other ways. Original elitism is not part of their argument. Their immense biases and their aggravation at losing elections allow them to distort, since their own minds are distorted. Since Hillary lost to Trump via Electoral College and Gore lost to Bush via electoral college liberals are hyped up about eliminating electoral college from our Constitution. But Tom Perez is even dumber than that. They just cannot let it through their thick skulls that their regional populations superior in number cannot rule supreme over the whole nation. And that's the way we want it. So they wildly pull out all the stops to change minds to fit their conceits and have things their way. 

Let's pull just one from search results just see how they talk.

* Washington Post writer George C Edwards III, ewww, the third, how patriarchal. He must have a deadly serious mind. Come on. Only very serious people give their sons the same name through generations. Even as a IIIrd guy with the same name and an obviously serious mind George Edwards will contradict fact, and in explaining contradict himself. The party of slavery, the party of Jim Crow, the party that resisted civil rights until they they realized they can use civil rights for delivering lagniappes and keep their modern day analog to slaves on their analog political plantation are constantly thinking in terms of slavery even today. They're nothing if not slave-minded. Even as they insist on importing more slave labor and have them them beholden to their Party plantation. Watch how George Edwards perverts delicate forming minds. 

Myth 1. The framers created the electoral college to protect small states.

The delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention had a variety of reasons for settling on the electoral college format, but protecting smaller states was not among them. Some delegates feared direct democracy, but that was only one factor in the debate. 

Remember what the country looked like in 1787: The important division was between states that relied on slavery and those that didn’t, not between large and small states. A direct election for president did not sit well with most delegates from the slave states, which had large populations but far fewer eligible voters. They gravitated toward the electoral college as a compromise because it was based on population. The convention had agreed to count each slave as three-fifths of a person for the purpose of calculating each state’s allotment of seats in Congress. For Virginia, which had the largest population among the original 13 states, that meant more clout in choosing the president. 

The electoral college distorts the political process by providing a huge incentive to visit competitive states, especially large ones with hefty numbers of electoral votes. That’s why Obama and Romney have spent so much time this year in states like Ohio and Florida. In the 2008 general election, Obama and John McCain personally campaigned in only five of the 29 smallest states. 

The framers protected the interests of smaller states by creating the Senate, which gives each state two votes regardless of population. There is no need for additional protection. Do we really want a presidency responsive to parochial interests in a system already prone to gridlock? The framers didn’t. 

He's saying the South didn't trust the majority of their popular voters, since they were slaves and that's true. Neither did the northern aristocratic framers trust their popular voters either, since they were farmers and craftsmen. And the division between large and small states was as important to the framers as slavery, but not as important to George Edwards the third who dwells in the world darkened by slavery and abides there and needs to have you there too.

They gravitated toward the Electoral College because it was based on population. And? George, if your candidate has widespread national support and not mere concentrated crackpot regional support then you're right back to dealing with the popular vote. You just said the Electoral college is based on the popular vote. You are chasing your tail.

George says, "the framers protected the interests of smaller states by creating the Senate, there is no need for additional protection." If the president were chosen by the Senate then that would make sense. But the president is not chosen by the Senate so it doesn't. Face it, George, your candidate must appeal to the entire country and not your precious enclaves and your states importing slave labor contrary to U.S. national laws. You're dead wrong in your discussion.

George's highly debatable myth 2 through 5. He's agitating, he's a crackpot, he's not worth the time or trouble to dispute.

2) The electoral college ensures that the winner has broad support.

That's broader support than the loser, George. No one expects you and your buds to be happy.

3) The electoral college preserves stability in our political system by discouraging third parties.

Pffft. See George Washington's farewell address.

4)  In direct elections, candidates would campaign only in large cities.

Yes they would. There's be no point in doing otherwise, and George knows it.

5) Electors must vote for the candidate who wins their state.

They do if they want to keep their heads on their necks.

You know, this whole exercise is aggravating. Reading pages and pages and pages of disgruntled unhappy liberal writers perverting precious minds to their silly stupid malevolent partisan wrenched positions just isn't cutting it. Sometimes the internet is not a good place.

The Summer of Boo Boo

Brother Bear really went off the rails when the new family moved into Jellystone. They were mixed. They said they were Chinese but they didn't look yellow. They were half white and half black. Sort of like Puerto Ricans. Maybe they thought being Chinese was better or something..

Brother started hanging out with them. The girl Ling Ling was a real tease. She used to read Charles Bukowski poems and finger herself in front of him but she never let him touch her. It just made him crazier than ever.

So he decided to take things into his own hands. I mean he always had his thing in his hand but now he decided to get revenge against all women. So he went looking for white girls with dark hair. It was his compulsion. It was the Summer of Boo Boo.

 (Stan and Jan Berenstain "Son of Boo Boo", The E True Hollywood Story of the Berenstain Bears)

I thought he had a raspberry beret?

Prince Thun : Ming is merciless and all-powerful. He can only be taken by surprise. 
Flash Gordon: He'll be surprised alright
Prince Thun: He seduced my consort Appolonia. I mean I was banging Shelia E at the time and I traded her in for the bald headed Irish skank but still. The dude is merciless.
Flash Gordon: I have only one question.
Prince Thun: What’s that Flash?
Flash Gordon: Where the hell did you get a purple space suit? Nice fucking hat by the way. I thought you wore a raspberry beret?
Prince Thun : This is all outdated nonsense. After all I am dead. Now a wear a crown of worms.
Flash Gordon: Cool.

Laura Bush's Diary

October 25, 2017

Oh boy just what we needed.

It seems some crappy actress wants to jump on the bandwagon and accused Poppy Bush of grabbing her ass when they had a photo opp to pump a crappy TV show about the American Revolution. Great. Now they are Wienstiening an old man just to get some publicity.

Look I underestand. Of course he grabbed her ass. That's what he does. That is all he can do. The  man is stroked out and his wife is a miserable harridan who has tortured his life for the last fifty years. It's not like Babs gives a shit. I mean she has been messing around with midget wrestlers for decades. She was the on who milked Sky Low Low so much that he died from it for crying out loud. So if Poppy wanted to grab onto a little strange now and again she didn't care. Babs would just grab a bag of pork rinds and go watch the WWE and plot Jeb's next run for President.

Holder DOJ aggressively excluded conservative groups from bank and financial institution settlement

Representative Bob Goodlatte, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee claims to have a "smoking gun" email proving that Barak Obama's DOJ directed funds from settlements away from conservative groups.

That was used for rapid response by Congress.

This was done by then-Associate Attorney General Tony West's team that went out of its way to exclude conservative groups from Bank of America and Citigroup settlement. Emails between Tony West and Principal Deputy Associate Attorney, emphasize the importance of not allowing Citigroup to pick a statewide intermediary like the Pacific Legal Foundation because that group handles conservative property-rights free legal services."

Instead, much of the DOJ settlement money went to avowedly left-wing groups like the National Urban League and to Unidos US (onetime La Raza).

Since the 1970 when the Community Reinvestment Act began the practice of requiring banks and financial institutions to  fund community organizations the settlements have been a regular feature of DOJ civil lawsuits.

3% of billions in settlement is designated to victims. Obama's DOJ redirected payments to liberal groups, many of which had nothing to do with the settlement or the issue, and away from conservative groups.

It is a slush fund abused by Obama and Holder DOJ through schemes to undermine Congress's spending authority by transferring money independently to Obama's political allies. Wednesday, the Justice Department announced it will no longer allow prosecutors to strike settlement agreements with big companies directing them to make payouts to outside groups. ending the Obama-era practice that padded the accounts of liberal interest groups.

“When the federal government settles a case against a corporate wrongdoer, any settlement funds should go first to the victims and then to the American people—not to bankroll third-party special interest groups or the political friends of whoever is in power,” Sessions said in a statement.

[Goodlatte, "smoking gun" email] Nearly all sites reporting have the same text and quotes. More detailed information at Legal Insurrection.

Ten seconds of human interaction

And it was pleasant.

Today I had scant ten seconds human interaction. How often does that happen in a city?  It wasn't until later that I thought that might be a little bit odd.

The garden is gone, and I'm glad. I'm tired of dragging the hose out there. So I stopped last week. Yet the weather is still often very nice. Like today. Today was a good day for plants to live. But the season is right for the plants to give up. I thought I would do this in pieces as individual plants departed this world. Parts of the garden are still hanging on and that makes me a bit sad to cut them down while they still struggle for life.

For about two seconds.

I took a kitchen waste bin with a new plastic liner and a storage bin to collect morning glory seeds. Many of the seed pods have not dried yet. Others already dropped their seeds. They're all over the textured concrete deck. I intended to clear about half the containers but I got much farther than that. There are only a few containers left to strip and then dig out the bulbs and rhizomes. The day was glorious. I wish I had started out sooner. I could actually watch the sun going down then continued in darkness by porch light. Just before it darkened a tiny voice, like a peep.

"Looking great up there."

"Wha...? "

"I say, looking great up there."

"Wha...?" He must be down there somewhere. I scan the balconies below mine. Spotted!

"Your garden looked great all summer."

"THANK YOU." This yelling is no way to have a conversation. But I accept the complement from a stranger. This must have been the first time he saw me.

And that was the only human I spoke with all day. A compliment. And the only thing that I spoke all day was one single thank you. I like that.

This could be my template for simplified ideal days. Start with saying only thank you and try to leave it at that.

Bruce Maxwell profile

Profiled.

So he says.

But that forced me to do a Bruce Maxwell profile.

Bruce Maxwell is the only Major League Baseball player to kneel during the national anthem. The report says, "take a knee" but that would force me to do another anim. Take a knee. What a ridiculous phrasing. I hate that phrase. It cannot be transliterated into anything and come out making sense. It's in the same category of nonsense uniquely English phrasing as "taking a poop."

Maxwell goes into a restaurant in his hometown, Harvest Alabama, and was denied service by a Trump supporting waiter.

Ew, those bastards are everywhere.

From The Blaze:

I got racially profiled in my hometown, the day I got home. I wasn’t even home four hours and I got denied service at lunch with a city councilman, who is also African-American and a guy I went to high school with, because the dude recognized me as the guy that took a knee and he voted for Trump and was at that Trump rally in Huntsville, Alabama. So he denied us service at lunch, and they had to go get us another waiter to wait on our table in that same restaurant.

He was like ‘Oh, yeah, you’re that guy huh? You’re the guy who took the knee? I voted for Trump and I stand for everything he stands for.’

Our councilman went and got the manager and had some words with him, and they went and got us another person to serve our table.

That’s where I’m from. Unless you’re subject to it, you won’t understand it and you won’t feel it. I’m 26 years old, I’m very respectful, I’m very educated, but it still happens to this day. So that’s the reason why I’m kneeling. Stuff like that. It’s crazy to talk about it, but it’s real.

Sympathy. For the man being very educated but still mixing his race with his antagonizing protests and with sports. He wasn't racially profiled except for this protests being about race. He was recognized as the one guy in baseball who dishonors the country that the flag and the anthem represent. He was recognized by a waiter (!) with more respect for his country than the guy who tacitly said "fuck this country" before playing that country's popular sport.

Protest rejected. Mischaracterization of racial profiling rejected.

That's how you say "shape." The textbook sign for "profile" is different. But who cares? Words mean what I make them mean. 

Sometimes as I'm typing and words are spilling out of me I wonder, "are these words even working?"

Just as Bruce Maxwell believes racial profiling can be applied to his waiter being pissed off with Maxwell's own racial protests enough to risk the waiter's own job. Maxwell should be cheered that his messaging got through.

And Maxwell did play baseball after he knelt.

Wouldn't it be awesome had the waiter knelt silently with his head bowed for the length of time for the anthem to play, but without it playing, while holding Maxwell's plate full of food? Then he could say that he did serve the table but only after protesting Maxwell's disrespectful protest. Maxwell would be all, WTF? 

Oh well. There goes another sport.