




There are always three ways; your way, their way, MY WAY. Things will go a lot easier for you if we just do it my way in the first place.
Friend O Mine: How do you know all this? I mean, is there some place where they teach this stuff? (emergency wiring) What are you? A rural electrical something or other?
JACIII: I'm a redneck.
As you can see by the picture below, it is still a frozen world. From where I'm sitting, in front of the wood stove with a generator and furnace purring in the background it's not so bad. Some folks have had a struggle seeking to master the elements without the aid of municipal utility services, and still others are useless as tits on a boar hog and have become beggers after everyone elses time and resources.
I will relate two examples.
Mr. M moved out here a couple years ago and is a highly intelligent bookish sort of substantial academic acheivement and credentials who owns, breeds and cares for livestock. He has been gradually educating himself in the ways of self-sufficiency and aquiring knowledge and skills through the effective method getting his hands dirty and practicing good relations with the natives.
Folks hereabouts, and I suspect thereabouts, will go out of their way to help this kind of fella out. I'll do what I can for him.
Ms Spongebroad (not her real name) is a modern female who gives the impression she is capable, able, and independent. Observable reality reveals another tale. Begger. Unwilling to even run the roads or work the phone to locate items whose possession could literally mean survival. Things are scarce right now, but you can drive to where they are in a reasonable amount of time. Spongebroad is sitting in front of a heater I loaned out to an elderly couple with 'total electric' and no alternative heat source or way to get one with her three kids dumped in the old folks parlor.
Mr M. Was unable to get out of his property to run the roads for two days and I could not bring him a heat source (total electric home) because Spongebroad, who is able bodied, would not contribute through effort or time to the wellbeing of the elderly couple on whom she imposes. I ever see Spongebroad drowning, I will count the bubbles.
JACIII
The trusty Englander wood stove is sitting at a steady 1500 degrees F internal and the old house is basking in its glow. As it turns out, 93 years ago they built houses for this particular mode of climate control.
Barring the power coming back on in the next hou or so, I will have to run the cable from the motorhome generator to cycle the fridge, freezer,and hot water heater.
As the sun comes up I will try to post some pics. This weather is extremely destructive, but also extremely pleasing to the eye. This is. No doubt why nature is charecterized as female.
This blog posted by Treo.
JACIII
Beelzebub 1/27/09 6:14 AM
It's just obvious to anyone who knows enough about human nature that we are not perfect beings. IMO we will never evolve into perfect beings, but since I'm a bit of a transhumanist (not a crazy transhumanist, but a little bit of one) I don't think we will need to. Within a few hudred years we will have the capacity to engineer ourselves beyond human fault and foible. That will include tolerance for those wanting to be "left behind" but in truth, I don't think anyone will want to be.
Origin of The Finger
(This may or may not be true but it is told repeatedly....so here you go)
In 1415, Henry the V took his army of around 6,000 men across the English Channel and into southern France. After cutting trees and preparing large pointed sticks, Henry marched his army northwest for 17 days and over 270 miles. With only one day's rest, the mighty force was haggard and exhausted by the time they reached the flat land between the forest of Agincourt.
The French army, consisting of 25,000 troops, 15,000 of which were mounted knights in armor, arrived on the evening of October 24. Their army was a mishmash of Frenchmen from all over the feudal country. It rained hard that night, and both armies were soaked to the bone my morning. Most French knights slept in the saddle so as not to sully their expensive and ornate armor.
On the morning of October 25, the French and British armies were salty and ready to fight. Henry moved his troops slowly up the 1/2 mile wide passage between the two forests of Agincourt. By 11 Am, the French commanders were still bickering over tactics and whether or not to charge all the while the British were within 400 yards of the French.
Now what made the battle of Agincourt so interesting was the introduction of the Welsh long bow. This weapon could dismount a rider at 300 yards and with top notch arrows, could pierce armor at close range.
The French King had heard of the longbow and smugly claimed that when the fight was over, he would cut the bow finger from every Englishman in France. As the long bow was made from the yew tree, it took great strength to draw the bow back and without the middle finger, this would be impossible.
When Henry had his troops within bowshot of the French, he loosed the first of many volleys of arrows. The French, caught off guard, charged with half their forces. The Duke of Orleans barely made it 200 yards before his knights broke and ran under a hail of deadly wood and steel. Many of the knights sank into the mud and were trampled as the horses and frightened soldiers pummeled them into a fine paste.
Those knights that did make it to the British front lines were let upon by unarmored soldiers carrying short swords, who plunged their blades into the joints of the French armor. All this came after a great number of horses were impaled upon the huge pointed sticks the British had placed in the ground in front of them.
At the end of the day, the French had lost some 10,000 men, and the British mourned only 500 dead. In one day, the Hundred Years War had turned and the long bow had successfully defeated the myth of the invincible knight in armor.
The French nobility stood horrified on a hill over looking the battle when the Englishmen in mass turned to face them, middle finger held high for the French to see.
Shakespeare went on to glorify this battle, and the French, to vilify it. For the next 100 years, every lad over the age of 6 in Britain was required to be instructed in the firing and maintaining of the long bow.
In response to this, the French began cutting off the index and middle fingers of all British men caught in battle or on French land, thus removing the digits that allowed the firing of a bow. This is where the British tradition of waving two fingers at someone as an insult arose. And, the very American middle fingered salute or "the bird," is a descendant of this. As the feathers on the arrow were made of pheasant feathers, the saying “Giving the bird” soon arose.
Giving someone "the finger" is one of the basest violations in modern culture, but its origins date back over 2500 years. The first written record of the insult occurred in ancient Greece, where the playwright Aristophanes (the Adam Sandler of his day) made a crude joke mixing up the middle finger and the penis. Even back then, the bird was considered an aggressive, phallic put-down.
It has been argued by anthropologists that the finger is a a variant of a classic "phallic aggressive" gesture used by primates. By jabbing a threatening phallus at your enemy like a wild animal, you aren't just belittling him, but also making him your sexual inferior. Instead of using a real penis, civilized Janes and Platos called upon the substitute wieners within their own hands to mock, threaten, and humiliate opponents.
And boy, did it. When the Romans imported the art, music, and culture of the Greeks, the finger came along, too. Roman Emperor Caligula, a pioneer in perversity, frequently shocked his citizens by forcing them to kiss his middle finger instead of his hand. One of his subjects, Cassius, who Caligula often taunted as being too effeminate, finally had enough humiliation and assassinated him. Clearly, the bird was not to be taken lightly.
And he will so sharply cut taxes on the middle class and the poor that the number of Americans who pay no federal income tax will rise from the current one-third of all households to more than half. In the process, he will create a permanent electoral majority that does not pay taxes, but counts on ever-expanding welfare checks from the government. The dependency on the dole, formerly limited in pre-Clinton days to 14 million women and children on Aid to Families with Dependent Children, will now grow to a clear majority of the American population.
Without a lot more doctors, nurses, clinics, equipment and hospital beds, health resources will be strained to the breaking point. The people and equipment that now serve 250 million Americans and largely neglect all but the emergency needs of the other 50 million will now have to serve everyone. And, as government imposes ever more Draconian price controls and income limits on doctors, the supply of practitioners and equipment will decline as the demand escalates. Price increases will be out of the question, so the government will impose healthcare rationing, denying the older and sicker among us the care they need and even barring them from paying for it themselves. (Rationing based on income and price will be seen as immoral.)
"As a businessman, it's hard to speak favourably about any new tax, but a carbon tax strikes me as a more direct, more transparent and more effective approach," Rex Tillerson, CEO of the Irving, Texas based company, said Thursday at the Woodrow Wilson international center for scholars in Washington.
At a Dec. 11 event in Chicago, Tillerson, 56, said he preferred a carbon tax to carbon trading programs such as the type used in Europe.
Spacebunny 1/8/09 11:49 AM VD: 1/8/09 11:03 AM:
Do learn how to link, folks. It's not hard and it's easier for people to see what you want them to read.
Bite me. If cocomment was worth it's weight it would make those cut and paste links clickable.
I mean seriously, even haloscan has figured out how to do this.
For some reason I can't read that without hearing a voice-over of "Bubbles" from the Power Puff Girls.
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Come on bro. $35.00 to learn how to change your oil on a motorcycle where both the drain plug and fill plug are in easy sight? I think that's worthy of a little ridicule. Of course, $35.00 isn't bad when you have to pay $15.00 a quart for the genuine Harley-Davidson Motor Oil. You need a very special oil to keep that cutting edge technology lubed and in tip top shape.
I have a Harley rider/friend who still uses straight 50w in cool weather and
actually uses 90w gear lube in the crankcase when it gets hot out. Keeps it
from leaking out as fast. He also carries a drip cup to catch the oil that
leaks out and pours it back in the bike before he starts it up. (I'm not
joking)
Dave B
One day, three international bloggers were comparing their swordmanship:
Vox says, "When I've a finished a makina da love withah my wife, I go down and gently tickle the back of her knees, She floats 6 inches above a da bed in ecstasy."
Nate replies, "Zat is noting, when Ah've finished making ze love with ze wife, Ah kiss all ze way down her body and zen Ah lick za soles of her feet wiz mah tongue and she floats 12 inches above ze bed in pure ecstasy." (editors note: Nate really does talk this way.)
Gary says, "That ain't nothing buddy. When I've finished pokin the ole lady, I git out of bed, walk over to the winder and wipe my wiener on the curtains. She hits the freakin ceiling.
JACIII
"Nice guys don't finish last. They take extra laps while the cool guys blow up and crash out of the game. Lead thee not into temptation. Into the valley of death rode nobody sane. Take a step back from the edge, ride home and kiss your family.You have been warned.
Sometimes I don't. The devil stands behind me wearing toe-cleavage pumps an designer decolletage. She strokes my hair while I bet, laughing at pot limits while I flop sweat, addled and hoopy and tracking like a scud.
Those are the times I have to push in the whole stack. On the day that I lose - and everybody loses, a chip at a time or the whole pile at a single throw - she'll laugh again and raise an eyebrow at the Dealer"
BUT! Bunny (ahem...) Tree Hugger policies have turned national and state forests into tinder boxes resulting frequent emission of hundreds of tons of evil (says they) carbon dioxide.
3) Diversity and Tolerance are everything! They worship at the Church of the Progressive Utopian every day.
BUT! Taxes, cost of living, general standard of living, violent crime get worse every day.
4) The Gub'mnt Knows Best and will take care of everything 'cause they are real smart and stuff.
BUT! The ignorant hillbillies have reliable electricity and Kalifornians often don't.
"All I can tell you is this, I have a very good relationship with my neighbors," Coverely said. "I mow my lawn. The only thing that has changed is I have two McCain signs in my front yard."
Coverely said he has taken about 300 calls concerning stolen or vandalized McCain signs in the area.
"It says this campaign is getting vicious," Coverely said.
Coverely said it appears Democrats are becoming more aggressive in the county.
"The low-hanging fruit, ie idiots whose parents paid for prep school, Yale and then the Harvard MBA, was there for the taking," he wrote. "These people who were (often) truly not worthy of the education they received (or supposedly received) rose to the top of companies such as AIG, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and all levels of our government," he said.
"All of this behaviour supporting the aristocracy only ended up making it easier for me to find people stupid enough to take the other side of my trades. God bless America."
Most of us reaching middle age have seen friends be able to bridge periods of unemployment to save their houses and families with government benefits, and thought that good. We have seen aunts and uncles diagnosed with disease and have had Medicaid or Medicare provide the coverage to allow them to live, and thought that good. Or have become aware that the cure to most diseases has been the result of government financed research, and thought that good.
I also agree that if you vote in this country you are doing so only on the margins. However, included in those margins is the right to worship as you wish (cross burning being allowed), join a union, marry whoever the hell you want (even if they have the same genitals), let your daughter choose her way in the world, make sure your folks can go to the doctor (or nurse if they prefer) and not get bankrupted by that decision, etc.
Finally, and in a response to your initial response to kenpatirot, it is not the kid from podunk that the rest of the world views as a "bare foot toothless hillbiliy", it is the cartoon character that you portray of the small clan in the cave, with the trap door covered with a big "bars and stars", food for six months, ammo aplenty, ready for the invasion. Again, I apologize for initially assuming that wasn't you.