PragerU interrogates beachgoers about 4th of July

This is Will Witt. We like to think they asked scores of people then edited out the ones that answered knowledgeably.

To scare dogs. 

I heard nearby fireworks last night and dogs even more close went nuts, and I thought, come on, take care of your dogs. Surely, you hear both those things.

One day in the backyard I was reading (Aztec, Gary Jennings) and nearly sleeping when a firecracker went off a few blocks away and I think that I heard the report like a dog does. I was startled by two sounds it makes, and my immediate thought was, so that's how she hears it. And I understood the how "kapow" is the onomatopoeia, I could almost see the sound waves, the precise point of origin like a pin on a map exploding nearby then the wall of sound suddenly RIGHT ON YOU, an extremely aggressive assault in sound with palpable physical quality, and I understood why my dog is so terrified. There is no escaping the attack. It's the sound of an overpowering direct attack, right at you. I felt tremendous sympathy for my dog who felt so helpless. I had to create a safe place for her, a shelter for her to hide, deeply as she could go but still home. For several days. The cool basement was farthest she could go, with her security blanket and toys and a radio set to the classic station, KVOD, and just hope they didn't play Sousa.

Kim Jong-un has high-rankng officer killed by firing squad.

Daily Mail whose commenters are perfectly idiotic. And I mean perfect. I hate going there, but they have good pictures.

This is a product of their internal politics. The guy who was killed worked for the area that launched satellites. He thought there is no further need for belt-tightening. He distributed extra rations and that was considered a crime against the party. He said,

We no longer have to suffer and tighten our belts to make rockets or nuclear weapons.

He gave instructions to send out 1 ton of fuel, 580 kg of rice, and 750 kg of corn to military officers at the Launching Station and their families.

[That doesn't sound like very much]

This was considered an anti-Party act violating the Ten Principles for the Establishment of the Party's One Ideology System.

He was feeling too good too soon about his world changing for the better and that's destabilizing. We're told all the anti-American posters were taken down. To keep power they have to keep everyone in line or the changes will be chaos.

#walkaway

It's a thing. Link goes to Twitter page that collects the hashtags.

A guy uploaded a video explaining all the reasons he's liberal. The video is available everywhere, including at the top of the link, redirects here.

(I got 10 seconds into it and go, Dude, you're wearing me out.) Since you're so smart, what took so long?

Pluth he thpeakth with a lithp. Stop judging me, I can't help it. I hear thomeone thpeak and the retht of the day I'm thpeaking like they do.

Tenderhearted people are noticing the party they've sworn their fealty is actually malevolent at its core. The reasons they've joined it are the reasons they're turning their backs to it. The left is breaking apart and the pieces are explaining themselves across social media. So then, if you are not Democrat, then what are you? Trumpsters, that's what. MAGA.

The Epoch Times.  Isn't the epoch/times an oxymoron?

It's interesting. It's a movement away from the Democrat party and it's picking up steam. It's all the things that we've told them now being discovered on their own.

DOJ testifying to Congress

Victory Girls says bring your popcorn. Because Trey Gowdy is interrogating Rod Rosenstein and Christopher Wray and the girls like that.  But that's the thing, it's a show.

And I've lost interest. It's a show for somebody else. They are actors, and very bad actors at that. The shows are 100% inconsequential. The rest of us live in real life, so either censure these people, impeach them, or imprison them, take away their income, prevent them from going elsewhere to thrive in the swamp,  or just shut the f up. Do something.

Trey Gowdy is great to watch but only for his polemic skill. That's it. He wins the argument. So what.  That's not actually worth popcorn.

Pfft.

Here's something possibly more interesting than men in suits playacting. If you are using microwave bags for popcorn, then when it's done, it's better to use scissors and cut a large patch from the side of the bag turning it into a bowl, rather than opening its top. It's a lot less messy that way because you're not sticking your hand into a bag. Seen on microwave popcorn hacks.

And here's some very good salt. I tried a lot of different types salt and I like this one the best. This has a strong mineral quality. It doesn't taste so strongly of sodium chloride. Comes in different granule sizes. I buy the large chunks then run them through the coffee mill that turns it to powder for popcorn. If you sit there and eat the chunks one-by-one, you go wow, this is different, then after a few chunks, zoink, it suddenly hits you right in the gills, pow, KNOCK IT OFF WITH THE SALT! It's a weird physical phenomenon. I just gave away a half pound bag of it, and it was like reaching into the treasury and passing along a gold bar. Those bums better appreciate it. Its color is mineral-gray.

Sundance put up this one yesterday.

And this one.

These people are smug. They know that nothing is going to happen. The anger of a nation means nothing to them because national sentiment is schizophrenic. And they're playing this game for all that it's worth. And that's why ordinary household activities are 10,000 X more interesting than this. Victory Girls can have their popcorn. They like shows. 

George Washington

A plaster model by Antono Canova. Commissioned by Thomas Jefferson who insisted the president be depicted as a Roman general instead of an American one. It was a thing at the time.

Now at the Frick Collection. I didn't catch from the article if they meant it's at The Henry Clay Frick House in N.Y or at the Frick Collection in Pittsburgh.

This was the only bright spot on NYT front page. They are filled to the brim with woe. You should go there for a laugh. It's like a newspaper run by some fer'ner with serious issues. So I didn't stay there. Just glanced.

Then read elsewhere, at the Observer. This photograph was pulled from Duckduckgo photos. The one at the Observer is cropped too much. But they do have one of George Washington nude. Antono Canova did that one too.

Ha ha ha. A Roman. Idealized. The marble version was destroyed in a fire. More deets at the link.

Another wonderful day wrapped up

Sunset:

Got some work done, got covered with white oak sawdust which is always a great experience.

Here is a nice tune, I have posted it before, but it works for this time of day:

Bark or roll.

Sunrise

We got another one - yay!

A now blast from the past - it has it all going on - Hammond B3 with Lesley tone cabinet, guitar solo, thumpin' bass, congas, maracas, more cowbell than is necessary and a blistering, if short, drum solo played by Michael Shrieve, who, you might notice, uses a traditional grip. 

Santana is not Santa Ana.

Justice Kennedy retiring

Statement on Justice Anthony Kennedy. #SCOTUS pic.twitter.com/8aWJ6fWemA

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 27, 2018

That wasn't very informative.

Analysis all over the place.

Mitch McConnell: We will vote on Kennedy’s replacement this Fall. Commenters are suggesting this is because of goons mobbing his wife, at least in part. 

Victory Girls, Dems want their filibuster back.

Diogenes' Middle Finger, That popping noise you hear are liberal heads exploding.

Power Line, Breaking: “Chief Justice” Anthony Kennedy to retire. [They are saying as swing vote on a court long divided 5-4 on key issues Kennedy has been effectively "Chief Justice."

News Busters, Matthews Meltdown: Dems Must ‘Reap Vengeance’ on Trump Court Pick.

Pffft. Who cares? Matthews is irrelevant.

Whizbang If only RGB would follow his example.

Or she can be her own example and die of decrepitude. Just carry off her mummified carcass still seated. 

Daily Signal Podcast: What Justice Kennedy's retirement means.

Daily Wire, Shapiro suggests a replacement.

Thank you, Ben. Trump already has his list of replacements. When he wants your 2¢ he'll thwap your ear.

Judicial Watch, JW president Tom Fitton issued a statement.

It's prosaic as hell. Another opportunity, honor the Constitution, rule of law, Trump should ..., US Senate should ..., founding fathers. 

Bleh. Written by his high school daughter?

IOT, no analysis, comments are common. Nothing insightful.

Daily Caller, hilarious liberal meltdown over Kennedy. A list of tweets from liberal journalists and activists. 

* f-u-u-u-u-u-c-k

* abortion rights are more imperiled, so too gay rights

* we must organize, strategize, vote and act. Ambivalence not an option. All civil and human rights are at sake. What side are you on? 

I like that. You're American! You don't have a choice not to act. What a dope. (Sharpton) I'm on the side of sanity, you freak.

* As a member of the LGBTQ community, Justice Kennedy being replaced threatens my rights. 

Do, tell us about your sexual life. The details, please. The ups and down, the in and outs, the tops and bottoms, the doms and subs. Your rights as citizen of US are not threatened, you f'k'n moron. Now go have ten cocktails. 

Make 'em smart cocktails.

* How very cool of Justice Kennedy to pour kerosene on the current dumpster fire that is America.

Your precious world is going up in flames. The world you call garbage.

* Fuck. You. Justice. Kennedy.

Sentiment returned. With interest. Really hard. Without protection. Or lube.

* we may have just left the point at which we could rely on democratic norms to fix our government, and are now on the road to literal revolution! 

You have it reversed. Completely. Your poor worn out mind is addled.

* Mark November 6, 2018, on your calendar if you care about working people. And mark every day until then to organize and stop the theft of our democracy.

You're witnessing the return of democracy. Organize all that you like.

* Dont be surprised to see Judge Jeanine Pirro on the shortlist. 

This is fucking scary.

And so on. The whole thing is very funny. And this is how we like to see them. This is the preferred state. Because when they're in power they turn this nation on its head and make a complete muck of all that they say. They lust for power. The power to make everyone else miserable. And when they don't have it, they're perfectly insane. So that's how we prefer them. 

Here is a visual depiction of liberal Twitter.

Grow the f up already.

That's it for me. I've had enough reaction. Just hire another guy and put him/her in place and sort all this crap, so we can do whatever it is we do while these worked up crackpot noise monkeys "organize!"

That reminds me. Toy monkey band organized. Ernie Kovacs, Solfeggio.

Miso soup

Sixty-Grit said the doc told him to try to get more fermented food in his diet.

Let's learn from that and beat doc to the punch.

I already showed how miso is made traditionally from rice and beans and a rice mold, Aspergillus oryzae.

But what do you do with it?

For the longest time I thought that you just mix miso paste (similar in texture to peanut butter) with water and I couldn't figure out why mine compared poorly with the first course served in Japanese restaurants. Then the internet came and told me that my version was missing dashi.

I noticed certain similarities between restaurants. The tofu they add is a tiny. Just a few itty-bitty squares. They always have a few slivers of green onion stem sliced on the diagonal, and sometimes a few bits of wakame seaweed. And most often a single slice of mushroom. Very meager on the additions. More as a work of art than nutrition, but still very well balanced.

The tofu that I add is gigantic. The wakame fills the bowl and sliced mushrooms stuff the whole thing with onion all over the place. I like to add broccoli, asparagus, zucchini, yellow squash, sweet potato, russet potato, whatever I have on hand. It's ridiculous. I get carried away. The restrained Japanese versions always taste better than mine.

This woman's version is abbreviated. Her dashi does not have kombu kelp, her soup does not have mushroom or wakame. But hers is still probably better than mine.

These videos taught me how to add the miso. Their technique is better than mine.

You can also take miso and spread it over vegetables. It changes everything nicely.

I just now saw a video of a Japanese chocolatier who combines chocolate with miso. His premise is both chocolate and miso are fermented foods. The judges in France responded strongly and positively. It's a new chocolate experience.

Other people use miso as salad dressing while others use it as pasta sauce. But you must consume it right away. The live miso begins consuming the pasta immediately eventually turning it to mush. You want it to do that after you eat it, not before.

Amazon books [miso recipes]

Ha ha ha. I just now read the worst review for Fermentation on Wheels: road stories, food ramblings, and do-it-yourself recipes.

It's long.

Military pilots use the Mach Loop to practice low-level flying

Practice low-level flying through terrain. And that practice affords a stunning air show available to plane-spotters for free.

British military pilots are training in American-built F-15E Strike Eagles. They fly low as 250 feet at high speed, putting them below the line of sight of spectators positioned higher on the hills. That's exceptionally low. The whole thing is to train to fly low to avoid radar.

Daily Mail, several more photos at the link.

Comments from people with military interests are always reliably a bit whacked.

Oh yeah?

Yeah.

Let's see.

I'll look through and pick out a couple. (There's only 423 of them)

* Interesting story. During the 90's as a German Air Force soldier I was stationed in Goodyear, Arizona, close to Luke AFB which was the major training base of the Air Education and Training Command (AETC), training pilots in the F-16 Fighting Falcon. Now home of over 140 F-35's. Due to having German Air Force pilots as Exchange Pilots I was given a 20 min flight as a farewell gift with a F-16 after having served 12 years. I have to admit those were one of the best 20 min of my life. Besides, awesome pics.

** Kant, you can't hide your true identity, you are Sargent Schultz from Stalag 13, "I see Nothing, Nothing" when asked about the EU's Faults.

* I used to watch the RAF doing the very same thing in the same place 30 years ago with Jaguars.

** The Americans learned this after watching RAF Buccaneers doing it at Red Flag and beating their radar.

[Sure. Whatever makes you feel better about yourself in your shrunken empire on your little island watching them practice in American planes and discussing it all in your language of dropped essential consonants and displaced Rs. Whatevs.]

* I was in Belize in 1984 in the jungle on exercise. a harrier put a simulated stick on our coy HQ I swear i felt this plane coming rather than hear it, I turned and if I had been standing on top of the 4 tonner lorry next to me i could have taken a stab at the pilot with my bayonet, white trails coming from the wings cracking like bull whips and the an almighty roar and jet wash bringing branch's down from tree tops. fantastic!

[That was flat. This is terrain. And your bayonet would have to be 500 ft. It just seemed to be close.]

** My husband was with the Harriers in Belize in 1984. He had to carry out an inspection on a plane that had been left in its hangar for about 9 months. He opened the hangar door but it was gloomy so he switched his torch on and swung the light across the plane's wheels. Staring back at him was a spider, with its legs stretched across the wheel. As far as he knows the plane is still in its hangar, waiting for another inspection.

[A spider! Yikes.]

* Not the same, I know, but every day at 3.35 pm we'd hear the crack as Concorde went subsonic over our house. Really miss it.

[Ah, those lovely sonic booms. Yeah, that's not the same as this.]

* Soon as I saw the LN on the vertical stabilator I knew they were from the 48th Fighter Wing at RAF Lakenheath. By the way "top gun" is a term used by the US Navy, not the USAF. The USAF equivalent are graduates of the Fighter Weapons School, run at Nellis AFB, Nevada. The F-15's being used at Lakenheath are actually quite old now. When I was there we had F-100s and those got traded in for F-4s. The blue stripe on the top indicates they were from the 492nd Tactical Fighter Squadron. Mostly these are 1997 to 1999 aircraft, which makes most of them about 20 years old. Makes me proud! I spent two USAF tours at Lakenheath and RAF Alconbury, not long after I became a US citizen. Just so long as Welsh sheep don't make noise complaints, I'd be happy. I worked in Public Affairs, and had to answer complaints from the locals!

[Navy is gay. Their submariners are called "bottom gun." You can buy a hat or a t-shirt, jackets and such, and advertise your preference at gay bars.]

And so on. The comments are actually quite pleasant and civil. But anyone with any military training cannot even talk without using strings of abbreviations of letters and numbers for units, divisions, regiments, specific equipment, armaments, locations that make sense only to other people who've experienced the same thing or studied extensively but they write as if everyone knows what they're talking about. Like Barney Fife.

Pickles

Wikipedia. 

Pickles are cucumbers that have been fermented in a brine or vinegar or some other acidic solution or through souring by lacto-fermentation.

Then a whole bunch of words about:
History
Gherkin
Cornichon
Brined pickles
Kosher dill (US)
Polish and German
Hungarian
Romania
Korean
Lime
Bread and Butter
Cinnamon pickle
Swedish and Danish
Kool-Aid pickles
Nutrition
Serving
Etymology
Gallery of photos of pickles
links to:
List of pickled foods
Pickle soup
Glowing pickle demonstration

The thing is Yelp emailed me with a list of upcoming popular events. One of the events is a nearby pickling place that teaches the craft. Preserve the Harvest: Pickling With the Real Dill.

They also craft puns.

Turns out the place is just a few blocks from where I used to live. And I never noticed a place called the Real Dill.

Pfft. No wonder. The place is so non-descript it isn't even funny. And look at that lawn. Water your grass already. It's embarrassing.

Come on. How can that even be a pickle place?

Their website.

Regular size jars that hold like 5 whole pickles but sliced, are $15.00 each.

They're out of their minds. 

And yet some are sold out.

$60.00 for gift boxes of 3. 

That's $20.00 each instead of $15.00 each, so you're paying $15.00 for the box.

Their selection is intriguing but their prices outrageous. 

We're talking about pickles here, not caviar. There cannot possibly be a good reason for such high prices. They don't even water their lawn. They don't even care about curb appeal. I'm wary.

Their seminar is already over. Too bad. I was busy filling bottles with beer and putting labels on the bottles and teaching two dudes how to make pizza.  But if we did go. 

We'd start with a tour of the place.

Sample fresh ingredients.

Master the art of the perfect pickle in one afternoon.

Lunch and pickled treats to take home included.

A portion of the pickles made will be donated to a charity to support their efforts.

How woke.

Cost is $35.00 - $45.00 

Good of them to narrow it down.

No.

Thank you for offering, but no.

We'll learn this without you and steal your flavor ideas.

I meant to say, we'll be inspired by your impressive creativity.

I saw something about pickle fermentation a long time ago. Like twenty years ago.

This video is not 30 min. They doubled it to fake out the electronic copyright police. I think. And the volume is too low.

That gives the idea, but maybe we can do better than that.

How did dill get the lockdown on pickles? 

Same thing with salmon. 

I can think of a million better flavors for those two things than dill. 

Possibly ten better flavors.

I saved the juice from Bread and Butter pickles, stuck some cucumbers in it and they were great. Why the big fuss about fermenting? 

You can slice cucumbers, soak them in water with vinegar and sugar and scant salt, and have a great sweet/sour pickle salad in less than an hour of soaking. 

What's the big dealio?

Brad is a bit daft.

Chef John with Food Wishes knows what he's doing.

1881 on the LifeBuzz Channel gives straightforward instruction. He uses a commercial flavor mixture. His approach is more careless.

Pratt Family Homestead, an enthusiastic long scraggly bearded guy, shows what he learned from a book. He makes sour pickles. He enlists his adorable kids. 

Books:

Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It by Karen Solomon

The Art of Preserving from Williams-Sonoma

The Joy of Pickling by Linda Ziedrich

Several more books  here.

Elaine Cho faces a mob

A small mob of idiotic little dicks.

"How do you sleep at night? How do you sleep at night? How do you sleep at night? How do you sleep at night?

How annoying. No, how do you sleep at night, Tiny Penis, knowing you're Soros' little bitch, and not knowing what you're even talking about? Your sudden concern is quaintly transparent. Unprepared to answer any question yourself, all you have is your chant. And chant precludes dialogue. You don't want an answer.

But since you did ask, it goes like this: I go, go, go, until I drop then boom I'm asleep in two seconds and dreaming fantastic dreamscapes, night, day, whenever. And you?

Glenn Reynolds snarks, and white guys screaming at an Asian woman is good optics for the democrats. Keep it up, Guys. And he updates with a comment from Ann Althouse: "The men probably see themselves as behaving in a mild manner, but thronging around a woman -- a 5'3" 65-year-old woman -- looks terrible, and Chao got a huge advantage out of this, because she looks courageous, posed, and nervy."  Beautifully Althousian. I like that. 

Sundance links the video with another video of Maxine Waters instigating mobs to disrupt the lives of Administration officials. An impulse for media attention that's getting her a whole lot of trouble. Honestly, too stupid to even watch. Trump is having a field day with her. He's tagged her "Low I.Q. Maxine Waters." How rude! And we laugh. She will never live that down. She's ruined. She just doesn't know it yet.

Then a commenter remarked the latest videos from Herself are genuinely insane. Member Liberty Forge wrote:

We are witnessing sheer madness. 

And if you have not seen Hillary’s latest speech on video, I encourage you to watch it. Watch it closely & listen. 

I don’t believe I have ever actually seen (watched/listened/witnessed) insanity before — but I somehow recognized it anyway. 

Hillary Clinton is now truly completely insane — and in the real sense of that word.

Okay. We usually don't bother but since you suggested. 

OMG, I cannot bear it. Wash your hair already. You're ripe for being carted off.

I lasted 5 whole seconds of that crap.

No, wait. Keep talking, because I'd really like to see what happens. A sudden descent in voice modulation from eardrum stabbing icepick sharpness to soft southern feminine tenderness, "Whoever you are, I've always put my trust in strangers." As they toss her like a sack of potatoes into the back of a black unmarked van. Again.

Good Lord, look at those eyes.

As we observe the Democrat party come unglued, slip to insanity as on a waterslide, flailing, and shatter to pieces, we're elevated to good cheer in the knowledge that all is well with the country and improving with each new item of real news, and however awkwardly for all parties, very real balance restored with the world.

She's part of Democrat's problem. And she knows that she's being swept away. That's why her hair is unwashed and why her eyes are red and demented. It's hard keeping yourself up. Even harder for women. Harder yet when you start out ugly. And impossible when you're so ill.

Replace the battery for MacBook Air

You don't have to take the thing to the shop for everything.

This is the least annoying of several videos. In one video the guy said he loves his computer and uses it extensively. It's been two years and it's time to get a new battery. I too use my laptop extensively. And it's been six years when the battery went kaput.

Man, this is just like changing the oil in the truck. They say to do it four times a year and I'm like, that's way too many times. I can't keep up with that.

I'm showing this because I want you to see the battery. It's the size of the keyboard and flat as a piece of cardboard. When you buy a new one they send two little screwdrivers. One for pentalope screws and another fo T5 screws.  Pentalope looks like a flower, instead of a Phillips screw, and T5 are itty bitty security screws with heads that look like a Magen David. (Can you imagine being so religiously bigoted that the shape in tiny screws would set you off and make you hate your laptop?)

The screwdrivers are magnetized so it makes handling those tiny things a lot easier. None of the videos mention this. The points on the screwdrivers are so tiny you cannot even see them without a magnifying glass.

Instructions say this takes fifteen minutes but it only takes five minutes.

This is fun and it makes you feel like a technician.

Tracy Ullman: Woke Will Eat Itself

Ulman is satirizing millennial wokeness for her show called Tracy Breaks the News on BBC One.

When you so woke, you asleep. 😜 pic.twitter.com/USEgKWPExM

— BBC Comedy (@bbccomedy) June 22, 2018

Republican Senate candidate responds to dance video

Reporting by Kemberlee Kaye for Legal Insurrection.

This is a delightful story.

The Maine candidate for Senate used to work in theater before ever even thinking about politics. And that's the way we like them, because this whole born into politics thing brings us the worst dopes. Get some life experience first, encounter things that make you think you could fix and then get into politics. Seven years ago the present candidate was hired for an advertisement that involved him dancing around in his Speedo.

Prancing is more like it. He looks absurd, the man can hardly dance but still enjoys busting his moves. He should have let me take him to a few clubs and he'd up his dance game overnight. I'd show him people 100% uninhibited, just being their silly selves,  and it'd blow his mind. I did this with my brother. We went out to only one club for a cocktail, he never drinks,  and my brother came out a changed man just observing. "Those people just flat don't care what anyone thinks."

"No, they do not."

He took dance lessons after that, but they taught him a whole different thing, classical dancing, and he is very good at it. They taught him how to use his body, how to have confidence, how to lead, but they did not teach how to let go completely. He's still uptight and still formal, stilted. I told him that people who are uninhibited on the dance floor in public are similarly uninhibited sexually privately.

"They are not!"

"They are too."

"Are not."

"Are too."

And so on, back and forth.

It hurt his feelings, affected his self-image because I was telling him since he feels inhibition he'll likewise be sexually inhibited, and he couldn't accept that. It was too cold a blow. I told him, "Get over yourself on the dance floor in front of other people, disallow any presumed judgement, and do this without alcohol, and your sexual life will improve automatically. You'll be more fun. Because it's all play, not some role you must fulfill."

"Hmmmm."

Same thing with this senatorial candidate. His moves are constrained and they show a certain inhibition. But let's not be judgmental ourselves. Let's go with it. For a senator-type, it's still very good.

The post describes an unofficial website supporting his opposition that put together a video looping the clip of the candidate in the earlier advertisement to make it uncomfortably long and to make the candidate look ridiculous.

Instead of protesting, the candidate used the same clip for his own video that includes his own supporters busting their best moves. It's a lovely video.

Brakey Dance from rob+vimeo@cando.com on Vimeo.

There are several official statements that go along with this you can read at the link.

Then in comments at Legal Insurrection the discussion goes to Achy-Breaky Heart dances and videos. Then onto discussion about dance videos put up by military service people. One commenter said, she loves the following video so much that she played it several times everyday. You have to admit, it's pretty funny.

Supreme Court upholds Trump travel ban.

Let's read.

Duckduckgo [Supreme Court upholds Trump travel ban.]

* Supreme Court upholds travel ban - CNNPolitics
nope

* Supreme Court upholds Trump travel ban - The Washington Post
nope

* Supreme Court Upholds Trump's Travel Ban - The New York Times
nope

* Supreme Court upholds President Trump's travel ban against .. USA Today
nope

* Live: Supreme Court upholds Trump's travel ban - CNNPolitics
I said, NO!

* Supreme Court upholds Trump travel ban, president tweets: 'Wow!"
F.O.

* Supreme Court upholds Trump travel ban on some Muslim ... Fox
nope

* NBC News
* WSJ
* Fox2now
* ABC News
* LA Times
* Variety
* The Guardian
* Chicago Tribune
* CBS News
* Huffington Post
* AP News
* Bloomberg
* Business Insider
* The Hill
* Breitbart
* BBC
* Global News

* KMBC. Fine. I'll try them. Although we already have the crux of it and no need to read more.  Let's see if they can do this without adding their own propaganda.

More than a year after President Donald Trump stunned the world and caused chaos in airports by restricting travel from several Muslim-majority countries, the Supreme Court has decided on the legality of the third version of the ban.

Need we go further?

* 5-4 decision

* Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, joined by his four conservative colleagues.

[It's all the conservatives fault.]

* Roberts wrote that presidents have substantial power to regulate immigration.

* Trump gloated though Twitter.

* Then W.H. issued a formal statement.

* History of the ban.

* History of challenges.

Female betta hunting flakes

Here's the thing. I'm losing a lot of fish. Every day I'm pulling out four or five, some days more. And that leaves drips on the glass. I'd be wiping the glass all day long if I kept up.

You see *strikes a professorial pose* the tank is freshly set up, new water, new gravel, new canister filter, there is nothing established about it except for the plants with no snails. Aquarium shops do not sell newly arrived fish. Too many are disrupted by transit. The biologic filter is not ready to handle the waste that the fish produce. The filter must be populated with bacteria to begin processing the ammonia to less harmful nitrate which can be removed by regular water changes. That ammonia is stressful to fish, especially the delicate ones. All my new ones are delicate types. Except for the betta. In the natural world, bettas swim around in stale little mud puddles. It's why they breathe so much through their mouths. They've evolved labyrinth organs similar to lungs.

Sometimes hobbyists use goldfish to break in their tank. I took the risk and failed fairly badly.

The plants were all cultivated in petri dishes from plant tissue. They're clones. In my aquarium they grew without the filter turned on. Dead, non-moving water. They became covered with a type of black algae that is coating their natural beauty. That happened quickly.  I'll probably pull them all out and start over now that I know what happens and now that I know how quickly they grow.

I'm surprised I sat there for 7.5 minutes videoing this. It didn't seem that long. I wanted to show the fish exploring its environment. It seems interested in every little thing. It wedges itself in among the plants, squeezing through them and resting from the current. It examines everything in there. Every inch. The fish is interesting to watch. But here I just fed them and it's chasing down the flakes. It doesn't like its betta pellets. It did taste a few but then spit them out. Maybe it will eventually turn on to its pellets, but for now it prefers the flakes. And it's very good at catching them.

The red dot is from the cell phone camera.

She seems like a great breeding fish, and actually ready to go. I thought they would send me a baby.

I'd hate to breed her because they so often die right after that. It's a fascinating process. Takes its own tank filled to half way. Male and female separated by glass. Or possibly the female in a jar. 

The male builds a bubble nest in still water. He literally wraps his body around her body and squeezes the eggs out. Then as the eggs sink to the bottom he releases her and swims down and scoops up the eggs in his mouth and places them in the bubble nest. 

He cares for the nest and the eggs until they hatch. He cares for the fry until he gets tired of the whole project and eats them all. So you have to manage them. First remove the female then later remove the male.

And you end up with a 100 little baby bettas and now what are you going to do with them? 

You cannot keep them all in little jars. It's a fun thing to watch, and educational too. But that's all. After that it's a gigantic pain in the butt. 

Trump in West Columbia, South Carolina campaigning for Henry McMaster, and the National Anthem

I've never seen anything like this. I've seen plenty of presidents campaigning for their majority but I've never seen anything like this. Trump is fascinating to observe in action. He is a walking master's class in salesmanship. And it's weird, the two impressively successful salesmen that I know both hate his guts. It's like they both despise one of their own, one better at what they both do. Did, actually, they're both retired. Both comfortably wealthy. Both of them behave similarly but not nearly at this level or to this extreme degree. Still, they both made a ton of money behaving very much like this. He has the crowd wrapped around his finger, and it's obvious Trump loves what he's doing. And that's why the crowd loves him back.

So that's that.

The National Anthem gets me pow right in the chest. It is an unusual anthem. It compares favorably with anthems of other nations, so many are just plain stupid and others are ridiculously arrogant.

I wonder if presidents get sick of hearing Hail to the Chief all the time as leitmotif, and all those John Philip Sousa songs all the time, as if the president is band master. Over and over and over, day in, day out. The National Anthem gets me. Every single time. I know the tune originated as a British pub song, but I don’t care. The lyrics are great. They’re humble because Britain was kicking our ass. They burned down our capitol! Bastards.

I will not forgive them for that. And I tell their descendants directly, shut up about America’s gun “fetish” as you put it, you must know, it’s because of you that amendment is written into our constitution, you effete little pricks who speak like retards.

Whenever the National Anthem is played I see it. My arms twerk in incipient signs. It's reflexive. Autonomic. I’ve seen it a million times. And it just now occurred to me to see how interpreters handle it. So I do. And they all disgust me. They are NOT doing what I’ve seen for fifty years.

Come on!

How can they leave out so much? How can they be so grandiose and omit so many crucial elements?

“Hail” means greet. Salute will work. All translators say “honor.” That’s the two “H” signs parallel and pushed upward together in an arc toward an object or toward a person. It’s similar to respect done with two “R” signs that originate from the forehead. That's not my interpretation.

And it’s pissing me off

They’re all grandiose, and overly poetic. As if showing the song poorly to people with bad eyesight and without need for real comprehension. I hate them. All of them. They’re not doing what I see in my mind. Their stripes are regular strips not particularly broad stripes. Their stars are not spangled just plain dots and regular stars of the night, but the they’re arranged as a modern flag, not as a 15-star flag of 1812. Their bombs bursting in air are misunderstood as mere July 4th fireworks, not actual bombs launched from British ships. There is no recognition of the joy of them missing their targets and exploding randomly thus saving the fort.

None of them say “gleaming” where I always see shining. Their dawn is regular morning sun coming up, not an early light, and their twilights are standard afternoons, not specifically awesome last gleaming of twilight and it doesn’t give proof, it’s simply evident. Eh, still there. Their’s are red rockets shooting up, not red glares from whistling bombs, there is no heart-felt recognition of the flag still being there. Their “home” goes w-a-a-a-a-y out, as if a gigantic home, not a humble home, where the sign is the fingers clustered at the side of the mouth moved directly backward to the middle of the cheek. It’s a diminutive sign, not a broadly executed sign as if yelling the word “H-O-O-O-O-O-M-E.”

Ew, I hate them all now. I wish I hadn’t seen them mess up this song so badly. I’m not even going to show them because they’re too embarrassing. Have a look if you care to see what I mean, YouTube [star spangled banner asl.]

This song is not about, "Oh here I am on stage showing a song broadly so the people in the last tiers can see me." We have cameras for that. It's about being under attack by the most awesome naval force on earth. Our tiny country under attack. It's about weather. About atmosphere, smoke, rain, hardship, very real fear, bombs being shot at us, our country being brand new, our entire experiment being attacked. It's about flaring rockets, exploding bombs, sparkling stars, darkness, and glistening morning light. It's about joy. It's about humility.

This guy, Robert DeMayo, gets it.  He’s a very good explainer. I wish all the other silly interpreters would learn from him. He knows what he’s doing and he explains the song to deaf people. Have a look. I'll bet you ten dollars, that smart as you are, you'll see something you didn't already know.

Here he is showing the song. You know the words. For fun, see if you can recognize them without the music. After he already explained it.

Bad food

The photos posted to Red Hen Yelp page are killing me. Some of the food-related photos are things that were left to rot or grow mold. Others are genuine food seen in Asia that repulsed western visitors. Others are purposefully made to look gross, while still others are real food failures such as made by people with faint cooking skills. I didn't notice until halfway through that some are the types of things people contrive by scrounging but without knowing what elements combine, or down to the very last items in their pantry. Those half-hearted efforts cracked me up. The first is where I took notice.

This is real food.

There are very many more bad food photos that are actual attempts at combining ingredients, and not parody pictures. 

Cheese out of an pressurized can. Who would even think of that? But then use so much of it on a cracker.

Although I did just recently buy sour cream in a squeeze tube. That seemed like a great idea to keep it from getting blue stuff growing on it. 

And while at the grocery I stopped at the seafood counter where king crab legs were displayed stuck in ice upright like an macabre orange forest designed by Tim Burton, and another display of frogs' legs. Except both legs still together along with the frogs' hips. Hips and legs. Like you could put little pants on them. I felt a bit ill. And intrigued. Then I sort of wanted to try them, like, with 1% curiosity. I told the young woman working behind the counter, "Those frog legs with hips are freaking me out." She said, "Hey, I work here, and honestly, they freak me out too." 

Like this: (Photoshop)

Red Hen photos

Trump disparaged the Red Hen saying the windows are dirty and the place needs new paint and the awnings look bad, so I looked in browser images. The place seems fine in browser search photographs. He was just making that up to put them on the defensive. (Or to force them to wash their windows and paint the whole place and replace the awning.) We're getting to know how Trump operates, he doesn't care that they'll call him a liar.

[Don't look with safety turned off, the results devolve to photos of interracial orgies.]

The place looks tiny. Why would you even go there? It's not a destination. It looks like a random choice. It looks like any of the little places you see in, say, Estes Park, or Durango, Breckenridge, or Cap Cod, a dinky little house turned into a restaurant.

But with serious political attitude.

The Treehouse has a post up about the owner's family shown wearing pink pussy hats, even the husband and teenage son. They're adorable. Apparently they gathered a mob and somehow followed Sanders and her party to their next restaurant to harass them. Bad show.

Tiny house restaurant, built oddly somewhat rickety on a slope, crackpot owners, that made me wonder what the food looks like. As we know, Yelp is monitoring reviews because of this recent upheaval, but oddly, Yelp hasn't yet monitored uploaded photographs. Now, you cannot even check out photographs to see what their tourist-town food looks like because the section is inundated with unrelated photos put up by conservative activists.

Conservative activists is an oxymoron.

Text on pictures, Inspection reports, photos of poo with and without sprinkles, photos of strange food, deep-fried mice, dung beetle presented as bouche amuse. Simple political messages, support for Trump. Political messaging. Mouse hamburger. Statement by Lexington offices disowning Red Hen actions, Mao, cockroaches, food truck offering on styrofoam plates and hash on tortilla in tinfoil wrap, human hand in bird configuration and so on to fourteen hundred so far.

Some are actually creative.

This is why I cannot be a member of a political party. It's contrary to my innocent, pure, angelic child-of-the-universe self. (Shut up.) The vibes are all wrong. Party loyalists are nut cases. They're nuttier than a squirrel's basement inside a walnut orchard. They're nuttier than Jimmy Carter's farm. Nuttier than an explosion at Planter's Peanut factory. Nuttier than a peanut brittle assembly line.

Care to see something horrible, grotesque, totally wrong and hilarious?

Yelp, Red Hen Lexington, photos. Presently 1423 of them and you can tell they're all recent.

Every hundredth photograph might be genuine. Good Lord, conservatives have internalized Alinsky. They're letting it all hang out. They've come completely out of reliable known character. The United States has changed dramatically and is still changing, therefore the world is changing with it, by force, and you're soaking in it.

While I was typing...

… my most recent post a storm blew up. Knocked out my internet connection. I let the machine sit overnight and everything was okay this morning. But for a minute there things were a bit dicey. The dogs started barking to come in - they were soaking wet - I didn't even know it was raining.

Then I heard thunder and saw some lightning very close at hand. The rain was incredibly intense. As I sat here typing I could see a rainbow in the receding storm.

So I grabbed my trusty cellphone and took a couple of pictures. First, the rainbow:

Then I noticed just how localized the storm was:

Click to enlarge - it really was an amazing storm.

People on the other side of town didn't even get any rain while we got a big ol' mess of it.

Ha!

Illegal alien kids, Pledge of Allegiance

Ed Straker notes, writing for American Thinker, not a day goes by without some headline about the suffering of illegal alien children, nearly all of them eating and living better than they have before thanks to U.S. taxpayers. Most of them sent by their parents so we could take care of them.

But now some are unhappy because they're being forced to recite the Pledge of Allegiance and worse, to recite it in English!

Why must they say those words, some of the children ask at the shelter in Brownsville, on the Mexican border in Texas?

The article gets into it from a politically conservative's point of view. Before we read further let's try to imagine what will be said. Imagine what you would say. What could be the response to a foreign child suddenly made to recite the Pledge of Allegiance?

I cast back to that time when I was compelled to recite the Pledge. I was the age of these children. I did not know what the words meant, even after they were explained to me. I couldn't understand doing that, hand on my heart, swearing an oath to a flag. I absolutely did not get it. My questions must have seemed blasphemous as questioning faith, another thing I did not understand. My wonderful Nana flipped the f out when I told her I didn't have anything like that. She scared me. Precious Nana turned into a monster in an instant. Then I couldn't even trust her emotional stability anymore after that. But these were real questions, from a young child, and answering them in adult terms didn't clear anything. I hated reciting the Pledge. It made me feel like I was in Communist Russia or Nazi Germany and not being given a choice. I knew very young, First Grade, that I lived in a land of coercion. And I didn't like it one single bit. Right off, it made me not like my country. Forcing the Pledge is anti-American. The whole thing is paradoxical. Allegiance to a flag! It has nothing to do with true loyalty or true patriotism.  Children don't understand that.

I'm with the kids. Why are you forcing this? Why make this an issue? Explain this to them, and make it good.

The concern is these kids were pushed out of their native countries that suck so badly, are such shitholes that they're literally dumped off by their parents!

Then contrive a new recitation. "I thank America for taking us in, and I thank American taxpayers for covering our cost, for improving our lives where our native country failed due to its political structure, such that I was literally pushed out so that my life would be better."

Okay. I'm ready to read what Ed Straker says and how his commenters respond.

Imagine: kids who illegally come into this country; claim they want to be Americans; and then are forced to learn, in the host's country's language, the pledge of loyalty for the country they claim they want to join. 

This in a nutshell is the problem with illegal aliens.  Most want the benefits of being in America, but most don't want to assimilate.

Fine.

The kids didn't say they do not want to assimilate, they simply asked why they are being compelled to recite your sacred pledge that doesn't make sense to them. If the pledge is required for you to agree to support them, then fine, they'll say it, but that doesn't answer their reasonable question about why they must.

Tell them, their country sucked so badly their parents abandoned their parental obligation and passed the responsibility for their upbringing onto Americans who accepted the challenge. This Pledge of Allegiance is roundabout acknowledgement of that. The Pledge is reaffirming that because of what happened to you individually, that your allegiance has shifted from country that was so craptastic that you were forced to relocate here, and here is more than just a place, it's an ideal, it's a dream, your pledge is acknowledgement that you won the lottery.

Straker goes on to ridicule another report written for the Washington Post that describes the living conditions of the children in fairly uplifting terms; the things they have to eat, birthday celebrations, vaccinations and treatments for various physical ailments, stomach and skin issues and treatments for  lice, English lessons, colors, letters, numbers, playtime, nap time, snack, recess.

But then...

Hair shampoo is rationed by the spoonful.

Oh, God.

[That would be because children will squeeze the whole bottle. First Graders do not know how much to use. They think it's the same as liquid soap. You just keep pouring it on and fill the whole tub with bubbles. Fill the whole room with bubbles. They're simply being taught how much to use.]

These illegals have a higher standard of living than many poor Americans, at no cost to them or their parents.  But the media persist in portraying these places as worse than concentration camps.  When will we ever read an article about the sacrifices taxpayers are making to take care of these foreign kids with a high standard of living?

True. It's insanity time in the U.S. of A. Democrats are desperate, insanely so presently, and this is how that desperation shows. It's actually the preferred state of affairs because when they're in power it's much MUCH MUCH worse. It means things are going well, so be of good cheer.

Then comments.

*  Send them back. All of them. Accompanied or unaccompanied. Problem solved.
Better still - build the Wall and keep them out.

* High, and wide. Any Democrats/liberals that complain, toss them over, too.

* Unlike North Korea, if a person wants to leave the United States of America, they are free to do so. If they want to stay here, they should learn the language and recite the pledge.

* When my mother's family came over from the old country, her father only allowed English to be spoken in the house and always had a picture of the current president on the wall.

* Depends on the family. The U.S cities like New York, St. Louis, Chicago had newspapers, cultural clubs in their native languages. They tried to hold on to "the old country". A relative of mine came from Germany, a farming family - They never nor wanted to learn English. The children spoke only German in the 1st grade. Five sons went into the military and served our country....

* Bingo! We have a Bingo over here

* And pull their own weight.

* Change the diet--make them eat per Michelle Obama's school lunch protocol. They'd be begging to go back!

* They get everything for free yet they hate the country and its people that feed, clothe, and house them.
Perfect Democrats.

[Nobody said anything like that]

* Unaccompanied ILLEGAL children should immediately be put on transport planes and flown back to their Country of origin.
.
Accompanied ILLEGAL immigrant families should immediately be put on transport planes and flown back to their Country of origin.
.
ILLEGAL immigrants are not welcome.
Only LEGAL law abiding immigrants are welcome.
.
ILLEGAL immigrants cost the US taxpayers approx. $115 BILLION each year.

And more up to 85 or so comments.

What is better than work?

Well, on a hot, sleepy Sunday, watching others work is much better than doing actual work. My neighbor mentioned the YouTube series Acorn to Arabella, the story of a guy in western Mass who decided to build his own sail boat. I have no idea where this story goes, but I have gotten as far as chapter 22 wherein our protagonist cuts down a spruce tree that his great-grandfather planted. If he succeeds, that will become the mast of his boat.

It has been an interesting story to watch - dude definitely works hard, is a very skilled tree guy and knows boats inside and out. His carpentry skills - well, he hasn't died as a result of his lack of skill when it comes to tools like a table saw, but that's a minor quibble. He does things like fell and mill the logs for all of various pieces parts that make up a wooden boat, shape a massive piece of white oak to form the main keel board, he scrounged up and melted five tons of lead to cast his ballast keel, built a boat house and so on and so on. So he has a strong skill set, inherited well and he is goal oriented enough not to be deterred by pesky things like building inspectors.

Things I have noticed - with simple tools one or two people can accomplish incredible feats that would baffle archeologists, who apparently have never done a lick of work in their lives. Even in places that have been logged repeatedly for 300 years there is an abundance of good trees. Dude has a horrible accent that borders on Canadian and what sounds like a speech impediment. The narrator is an up-talker. Vocal fry is annoying. But setting aside all of that those guys, and occasionally their friends, are working very hard and gittin' 'er done. That's a good thing to see. I have spent way too much time watching this series but now I want to see how it turns out. Does he finish the boat? Is he able to haul it 100 miles to the nearest ocean? Does it float? You know, details.

For those of you who wonder what it is like to top and drop a tall spruce, here is episode 22:

Spruce.

Do not watch this if you have acrophobia.

Nassau, the Bahamas.

Resistance is futile

Don Surber explains why.

Surber begins by describing NYT exceedingly offensive approach to interviewing Trump supporters, "How can you possibly still support him?" (After all that we've said for so long and so harshly and so emotionally to destroy his support, why aren't our coordinated efforts working on you? What's wrong with you anyway?")

One man provided the answer:

1) Economy booming

2) Unemployment down

3) Border security addressed directly

4) Possible end of Korean war started before he was born

Actions are louder than words, and the press are all words, for that matter, so are Democrats.

Then Surber explains why resistance is futile.

1) It's top down, contrasted with Tea Party that was organic, less organized, more sincere.

2) Celebrities are not helping. An actress that sheds her clothing for a film is not credible in explaining why Trump saying "pussies" is disqualifying.

3) Attacks are personal. Obama took personal hits too, but the difference is his attackers feared  government takeover of healthcare while attacks on Trump are on his hair and skin tone. They still call him orange and Cheetos and the like.

4) Resistance is unfocused. They're simply against everything Trump does. Trump now uses that impulse to his advantage by having them oppose tax cuts and oppose peace with North Korea.

[That makes me laugh]

5) Trump proves them wrong. He is not Hitler. Calling him a cock holster and calling his daughter a name that rhymes with runt, bunt, hunt, and punt makes Trump a victim and destroys the argument that he's a despot otherwise today's so-called comedians would all be dead.

6) Tea Party was American, the Resistance was French.

Surber concludes, as part of the Resistance the NYT cannot be objective and that's the reason why they're setting themselves up for another unpleasant November surprise.

Me: It's just the beginning of summer. Can't we enjoy a summer for once, free of political concerns and apprehension and war plans? We have gardens to tend, aquariums to maintain, beer to make and bottle, pizza classes to teach, learning to do.  Can't we have a peaceful summer and fall without being cranked out of shape politically? Must all of life be political year round?

I suppose it must.

But I do enjoy the Star Trek mashup. The Borg is right there at the top of the best writing I've seen in science fiction, and their incredibly imaginative depiction on television and film is outstanding. The whole story device breathtaking. Because of that, A+ for the article. And NYT can wither without my attention.

Paul and George make pizza

Crossposted at Things Wot I Made Then Ate.

Paul and George bottled their beer today. While here they came upstairs to make pizza. Neither of them tried this before. I wanted to show them how simple and how versatile and how much better it is than what you can buy, even from people with brick ovens who make pizza everyday all day long. Both of them never made dough before. They whole bread-making thing was a mystery to them.

I was hoping they'd be like the people I encounter online who disparage ham and pineapple pizza.

They surprised me by both saying, "Great!"

When I told them I was disappointed that they both like pineapple and ham pizza they asked why. I told them because online every time pizza is mentioned someone in comments says,  "I don't care what you say, pineapple doesn't belong on pizza. They don't make pizza themselves, they don't try different things, they're not cooks, they're not even critics, they're just narrow-minded little bitches." I was serious. But they thought that was hilarious. "I was hoping to impose it on you and change your minds." As it was we made their favorite pizza from excellent ingredients; very good ham that tastes great by itself and cut thickly, fresh pineapple, excellent cheeses, an entire Vidalia onion and mushrooms both rolled in olive oil, and serrano chiles in place of jalapeño because the ones at the store were large and fat and sometimes those are too mild. The serranos although not considered very hot, actually burned our tongues and lips and throats. They were very hot.

Although overloaded as Chicago style pizzas are, they made the best pizza the three of us ever tasted and that's no idle brag. We surprised ourselves. And we had a blast.

The ham is delicate so it's protected from intense oven heat by a blanket of mozzarella.

The combination of distinct flavors is excellent. They all worked together very well.