The Guy has finally decided who he will endorse for the 2008 presidential primaries.
On the democrat side he will endorse ... Dennis Kucinich.
And on the republican side it's ... Mitt Romney.
Democrats were listed first due to alphabetics.
Justifications:
On the democratic side. I like an underdog. Those other 3 idiots are all scruff, fluff and bother. Plus Dennis keeps a copy of the bill of rights in his pocket. Hillary is just power hungry, B. Hussein Obama is too inexperienced and Edwards just creaps me out.
On the republicans. McCain is a great hero but a poor conservative, what good is it to have a strong military figure if he leaves the borders open? I figure Mitt can push the button as good as anyone plus I've known a lot of Mormons and they're ok. Ultimately Mitt is the least offensive and the most conservative now that Fred has quit.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
22 degrees F
The F is for "Freakin' Cold!" (only I didn't say Freakin')
Cold, dry, frozen harder than a Popsicle. Now I know this aint no Siberian, Alaskan, Canadian or Antarctic (sorry whoever I left out) kinda cold, but I'm used to a 40 degree winter with lots of rain and this stuff just hurts. So cold it's blowing right through my long-johns.
But man is it good for keeping down the pests. Insects and some fungus really get hurt by this sort of weather.
Today will be more pruning and clean-up. Getting ready for a big burn of all the loose branches and scrap fiber leftover from last years farming operation. Will have a couple piece of some new pottery to fire in that as well if I can squeeze a tiny bit more time into making a few more slips and glazes.
Stay warm and be happy.
Cold, dry, frozen harder than a Popsicle. Now I know this aint no Siberian, Alaskan, Canadian or Antarctic (sorry whoever I left out) kinda cold, but I'm used to a 40 degree winter with lots of rain and this stuff just hurts. So cold it's blowing right through my long-johns.
But man is it good for keeping down the pests. Insects and some fungus really get hurt by this sort of weather.
Today will be more pruning and clean-up. Getting ready for a big burn of all the loose branches and scrap fiber leftover from last years farming operation. Will have a couple piece of some new pottery to fire in that as well if I can squeeze a tiny bit more time into making a few more slips and glazes.
Stay warm and be happy.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
2008: World of Tomorrow
So freezing cold, 24F out there with a steady life-sapping breeze. Inside I am and reading the data stream from Google Reader.
Stock markets, Fed interest rates, Russian missile tests, new drugs, new diseases, science discoveries, claims of breakthrough-inventions, political games, political flames, political names, political blames and the weather.
So many forms of tyranny. To use Mr. Putin's retro-cold war military disco dancing as an example. How gauche! How passé! Mr. Amadenijad, Mr. Bush, Mr. Chavez, Mr. Putin; these are all tyrants in the technical sense. They exercise power with their choices over their people and the world, for better or worse. Like most humans their focus of attention is narrowly jammed into their specialty, the use of power. The cost of this narrowed focus is that like the rest of us they will occasionally overlook the storm shift that is coming towards their focus.
There is a distinct knew agent acting in the human world easily overlooked.
It's all the rest of us.
The internet and assorted webs built on it connect more people than any one country is populated by. All of those people have access to the same uniform information resource (except for a few who haven't figured out how to easily and safely circumvent government interdiction). Our responses to this information form an ever growing, involving and evolving zeitgeist wherein we sift, sort and mull the assorted truths.
As hours, days, weeks, months go by this "Internet country" ferments these truths into global policy plans and decisions. These choices are largely indifferent to strident demands of the old tyrant system and since they are taken into affect by a diffuse and ubiquitous membership these policies are largely irresistible. Due to their diffuse and pervasive source, the decision are also largely uninfluencable.
No wonder Putin and the rest are acting all psycho. They've recently been warned and are still getting over the shock of having to change their drawers.
Stock markets, Fed interest rates, Russian missile tests, new drugs, new diseases, science discoveries, claims of breakthrough-inventions, political games, political flames, political names, political blames and the weather.
So many forms of tyranny. To use Mr. Putin's retro-cold war military disco dancing as an example. How gauche! How passé! Mr. Amadenijad, Mr. Bush, Mr. Chavez, Mr. Putin; these are all tyrants in the technical sense. They exercise power with their choices over their people and the world, for better or worse. Like most humans their focus of attention is narrowly jammed into their specialty, the use of power. The cost of this narrowed focus is that like the rest of us they will occasionally overlook the storm shift that is coming towards their focus.
There is a distinct knew agent acting in the human world easily overlooked.
It's all the rest of us.
The internet and assorted webs built on it connect more people than any one country is populated by. All of those people have access to the same uniform information resource (except for a few who haven't figured out how to easily and safely circumvent government interdiction). Our responses to this information form an ever growing, involving and evolving zeitgeist wherein we sift, sort and mull the assorted truths.
As hours, days, weeks, months go by this "Internet country" ferments these truths into global policy plans and decisions. These choices are largely indifferent to strident demands of the old tyrant system and since they are taken into affect by a diffuse and ubiquitous membership these policies are largely irresistible. Due to their diffuse and pervasive source, the decision are also largely uninfluencable.
No wonder Putin and the rest are acting all psycho. They've recently been warned and are still getting over the shock of having to change their drawers.
Monday, January 21, 2008
I want my global warming!
Dammit! It is cold out there! After yesterday's promising showers it has frozen back up solid. Climate change my fat white American backside; this is the same freezing cr^p we've been having since I was 4. I'm gonna go burn some coal. Come on China, get with the program and burn some more stuff, I'm chilled to the bone and I want to grow pineapple here.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
A little math puzzle
6, 10, 12, 14, 18...
What is this set of numbers and what is the next in the series? Hint: it isn't defined by a procedure.
What is this set of numbers and what is the next in the series? Hint: it isn't defined by a procedure.
State of the art in war
Here's a little something for (primarily American) people to think about while we watch the housing market, trade imbalances and assorted political caucuses/primaries.
Hope your insomnia is treating you as well as mine.
Hope your insomnia is treating you as well as mine.
Friday, January 18, 2008
Strange melting
Most of the ground remains frozen but odd places around the yard have melted free from their frost. Fog lay low and frigid when the sun came up settling out as thicker layers of frost. But the same fog dispersed the sun and made warm regions and streams of breezes play across the landscape.
The orchard muds are still frozen hard as brick but here and there the frost is gone. The sun is already heading towards the skyline and it seems to me that I can feel the patches of frost waiting hungrily.
Have a great day.
The orchard muds are still frozen hard as brick but here and there the frost is gone. The sun is already heading towards the skyline and it seems to me that I can feel the patches of frost waiting hungrily.
Have a great day.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Winter wander
It was a delightful day beneath a deep blue sky and bright sun. The grass and leaves beneath my boots crunching like bags of chips from being so frozen and covered in frost. A black cat scampered across the pond when he spotted Sparky.
In the shade the frost crystals are growing huge from not melting for 3 days. The brown pick-up looks like it needs a shave.
I got a fair amount of pruning done today despite having a really sore neck. Pulled a muscle or kinked a vertebrae, probably from standing, mouse in hand, for hours last night while reading and designing molecules. Feeling much better now. Work usually helps.
Gotta go batten down for the night. Y'all sleep peaceful and dream happy.
In the shade the frost crystals are growing huge from not melting for 3 days. The brown pick-up looks like it needs a shave.
I got a fair amount of pruning done today despite having a really sore neck. Pulled a muscle or kinked a vertebrae, probably from standing, mouse in hand, for hours last night while reading and designing molecules. Feeling much better now. Work usually helps.
Gotta go batten down for the night. Y'all sleep peaceful and dream happy.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
A Congress induced nightmare
Our illustrious congress is having hearings on the use of steroids in baseball.
I don't even know if I need to write anymore, that sentence alone is sufficiently insane.
One phrase I overheard on the telly my dad was watching:
"Baseball fans find themselves in a drug induced nightmare"
How about Americans in general? We've got a congress that thinks this hearing is actually worth doing. I am forced to wonder, have any of our congressmen or women ever been tested for drug or steroid use?
Because that's the only explanation I can think of for what they are doing. They must be smashed out of their gourds, hallucinating on some mescaline or wired up on crank to think that this is an appropriate use of their attention.
I don't even know if I need to write anymore, that sentence alone is sufficiently insane.
One phrase I overheard on the telly my dad was watching:
"Baseball fans find themselves in a drug induced nightmare"
How about Americans in general? We've got a congress that thinks this hearing is actually worth doing. I am forced to wonder, have any of our congressmen or women ever been tested for drug or steroid use?
Because that's the only explanation I can think of for what they are doing. They must be smashed out of their gourds, hallucinating on some mescaline or wired up on crank to think that this is an appropriate use of their attention.
Monday, January 14, 2008
Odd Monday
My newest desktop computer's hard-drive finally gave up the ghost last night so between runs at the orchard and clean-up trips I was irritated by the re-install of win98 and restoration of my backup files just about all day long. Shouldn't have taken all that long but the only hard drive I have laying around to spare right now is a slow old 10gig. Hopefully I can excavate the files from a newer 60gig my sister's previous computer had in it which will perhaps free me to use that drive. We'll see. Otherwise I've gotta kill something worth 50$ to buy a new 80gig.
But the orchard is really shaping up. Should be done plenty long before spring. Got to set a couple days aside and call George Reeves soon. I promised him I'd prune and spray his trees back at the end of summer and I mean to be a man of my word. Plus it's always fun to work over at George and Jody's.
Also had the privilege today to try out some fascinating new software from Nanorex. It's a molecular modeling package for nanotechnology design purposes called "Nanoengineer-1" or NE1. Didn't have as much time to try it out as I'd like today but did manage to construct some snazy branched hydrocarbons and render one 449 base Rhizobium baterium gene. Sometimes in the next couple days I'll write a review on my NanoGuy blog. Actually terribly cool stuff.
Hope y'all are staying happy and healthy.
But the orchard is really shaping up. Should be done plenty long before spring. Got to set a couple days aside and call George Reeves soon. I promised him I'd prune and spray his trees back at the end of summer and I mean to be a man of my word. Plus it's always fun to work over at George and Jody's.
Also had the privilege today to try out some fascinating new software from Nanorex. It's a molecular modeling package for nanotechnology design purposes called "Nanoengineer-1" or NE1. Didn't have as much time to try it out as I'd like today but did manage to construct some snazy branched hydrocarbons and render one 449 base Rhizobium baterium gene. Sometimes in the next couple days I'll write a review on my NanoGuy blog. Actually terribly cool stuff.
Hope y'all are staying happy and healthy.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Sunny winter day
Clouds blew off around 12. Been quite lovely since. Made a run down to spray copper ammoniate on the nectarine and peach trees. Lots of lovely bird action right now, had a red breasted nuthatch show up at the bird feeder (suet) around lunch time, only the second time we've seen one of those.
All the plants are showing their signs of recognizing that the days are getting longer. Already I can sense the upcoming stresses that will evolve into our first bursts of activity for this year's crop. Specifically, with the good weather, tomorrow. It's Monday after all.
So dad will be working at bro's on some final winter projects and I'll be pruning, cleaning up and doing operational maintenance on equipment here. Gotta have all the spray rigs, blower fans, etc. operating.
Uh-oh, Sparky's barking at something. Gotta go.
All the plants are showing their signs of recognizing that the days are getting longer. Already I can sense the upcoming stresses that will evolve into our first bursts of activity for this year's crop. Specifically, with the good weather, tomorrow. It's Monday after all.
So dad will be working at bro's on some final winter projects and I'll be pruning, cleaning up and doing operational maintenance on equipment here. Gotta have all the spray rigs, blower fans, etc. operating.
Uh-oh, Sparky's barking at something. Gotta go.
1st amendment dies in Oregon
Apparently the separation of church and state is more important than the first amendment in Oregon. I'm baffled as to why NWCN didn't want to even publish the "offending" motto?
No wonder high school students (still) feel disenfranchised by the American system.
No wonder high school students (still) feel disenfranchised by the American system.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
the most red-blooded defense of free speech you've ever seen
I know a lot of liberals fervently hate Hot Air, but totally trust me on this one, go there and watch the video[!]
I don't care if you're an irrational bible thumping conservative or a pot smoking homosexual liberal or any member of the spectrum in between. Every single one of us should agree that this is what free speech is all about.
I don't care if you're an irrational bible thumping conservative or a pot smoking homosexual liberal or any member of the spectrum in between. Every single one of us should agree that this is what free speech is all about.
"This is all hogwash" says head of global warming panel.
Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the U.N. Panel that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, said "this is all hogwash"
I readily admit I've taken the man's words completely out of context, which is no different than what global warming enthusiasts do with their climatological data. So I figure that makes it ok....
I readily admit I've taken the man's words completely out of context, which is no different than what global warming enthusiasts do with their climatological data. So I figure that makes it ok....
Friday, January 11, 2008
A new link in my list
Rogue and Poet has won the coveted and disputable "honor" of being added to my list of blog links. I like the cut of this fellas jib. Jan. 11th poem was pretty darn good.
Orchard Ornithology
Out doing a little more for my fruit trees when suddenly I noticed a bird that was a little different than our usual jays, wood-peckers, flickers, finches, sparrows, gros-beaks, tow-hees, juncos, and chickadees. This one has a swept back tuft on its head. Then it hit me: Cedar Waxwings! Yee-ha, they are back for their mid winter visit. Unfortunately they (a pretty good sized flock) were too far up in the tallest black walnut tree for me to get a good picture.
Wishing a fun, feathery day to you all.
Wishing a fun, feathery day to you all.
Further evidence of Global Warming?
After we in Southern Oregon had the coolest, wettest summer in about 20 years, now it's snowing in Baghdad! Of course some moron climate alarmist is gonna come out and say "This proves the globe is getting warmer!"
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