PN:
“There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect.” – Ronald Regan
“Don’t waste time or time will waste you.” – Muse
Let the Sun Shine In
Joe and I are unadulterated sun worshipers. That doesn’t mean we lie in the sun all summer, or go on vacation to sunny tropic locales to bake our skin.
We love daylight.
We love warmth, green grass, blue skies.
On the Winter Solstice this year the official “daylight hours” were 7:53 in our home town.
On New Year’s day, the daylight hour count was 8:00. That’s 7 minutes more!
The calculation is complicated because of the inclination of the earth’s axis and the shape of the orbit around the sun – the number of seconds and minutes per day increase (or decrease) is not a linear plot or constant number.
When our Bday comes around this year, the expected daylight hours are 11:26!!!! A website with an easy to understand graphic presentation is here. Let the sun shine in!
Well, well, what have we played?
In defense of the above music, the harmonies are fabulous. So what if the message is kumbaya. It felt good in 1969……. I think. They tell me I was there……..
More akin to Joe’s spirit, here’s this:
To all you diamonds, you family and friends, crazy or not, 2016 is beckoning. Why not let’s do it……
Reflections of 2015
Joe and i have months to sort out the 2015 “pros” and “cons”. The need for speedy analysis is not a priority. Others who get paid to do some serious (and not so serious) analyzing are Johnny on the spot with their opinions. Some of which will permeate Joe’s Sunday rants for weeks to come.
Bill Whittle has a quick run-down of 2015 that appeals to us. Here’s Mr. Whittle on the good, bad, and ugly of last year:
The history of our New Year’s resolutions is long and storied. The telling of, and doing not of…..
Traditionally, our theme is much more of the good, way less of the bad, and the hope we’ll have the sense to tell the difference when necessary.
As the years pile up, 66 trips around the sun, unavoidable eventualities become statistically more probable.
Even more years shift the probabilities to the actuality column, one after another.
Isn’t life strange that the negative actualities prevail…… eventually
Sounds so fatalistic. Almost Russian-novelist depressing. Indulgence, one tune worth.
A melancholy glimpse back, a reminiscence of yesteryear, perhaps Mary Hopkins. God, I love her nose! The line “my friend, we’re older, but no wiser” rings across the years:
Changing perspective, looking to the future, humor will be the key-note of Joe and my 2016. When you can find stuff like this –
what else is there to say? Humans – the infinitely mutable super adaptoids – humans will have to do until something better comes along………
Humor and a good dose of practicality for 2016 –
And an attitude adjustment. That should give us a hefty load of change for the year –
Joe also suggests that I get a grip on reality. I thought I was doing so well…… he’s one to talk…….
The Climate and You
Joe and I are going to start out strong this year with arguments that are beyond reproach. Here are 10 facts (ten is always a popular grouping) collated by Mike Van Biezen which assault the “consensus” house of cards propping up the scare tactics employed to “prove” man-made global climate disruption. You can view the article here. For the link challenged, I offer up one example (#7) of the rationality Mr. Biezen proffers –
“7. The CO2 cannot, from a scientific perspective, be the cause of significant global temperature changes:
The CO2 molecule is a linear molecule and thus only has limited natural vibrational frequencies, which in turn give this molecule only limited capability of absorbing radiation that is radiated from the Earth’s surface. The three main wavelengths that can be absorbed by CO2 are 4.26 micrometers, 7.2 micrometers, and 15.0 micrometers. Of those 3, only the 15-micrometer is significant because it falls right in range of the infrared frequencies emitted by Earth. However, the H2O molecule which is much more prevalent in the Earth’s atmosphere, and which is a bend molecule, thus having many more vibrational modes, absorbs many more frequencies emitted by the Earth, including to some extent the radiation absorbed by CO2. It turns out that between water vapor and CO2, nearly all of the radiation that can be absorbed by CO2 is already being absorbed. Thus increasing the CO2 levels should have very minimal impact on the atmosphere’s ability to retain heat radiated from the Earth. That explains why there appears to be a very weak correlation at best between CO2 levels and global temperatures and why after the CO2 levels have increased by 40% since the beginning of the industrial revolution the global average temperature has increased only 0.8 degrees centigrade, even if we want to contribute all of that increase to atmospheric CO2 increases and none of it to natural causes.”
Click on the link. Read all ten excellent talking points. Broaden your knowledge. Bolster your argument. Be cool and level-headed but oh so assertive in disassembling the false belief that man is the primary cause of any climate change.
And stop frightening the children.
It really serves no noble purpose.
Indeed, it is most sinister and cowardly.
Smart Dads
This video is a visual proof that men perceive, process, and solve problems from the uniquely male perspective. Not with it? Watch this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VH6ruTQnnk
Speaking of Smarts
Those bloody British. Always showing off their intelligence. Scientists at Imperial College London are hot on the trail of gene networks which determine aspects of intelligence such as better memory, attention, processing speed, reasoning skills. The scientists believe that this network of genes has a control mechanism, a “master switch”, which turns the network on and off. As of the writing of the article, the master switch has not been found. Read all about it here.
The question being begged is what if they find the master switch but you don’t have the network?
Left vs Right
Prager University has a number of excellent short videos on key topics of our time, of our history, of our species (that would be Western culture human). Here Dennis Prager himself explains the way painful truths are addressed by people on the left vs on the right. Number 4 in a series:
Gender Comment o’ the Week
Ancient Quote o’ the Week
Political Comment o’ the Week
Joe’s Garage
My oh my the Internet provides endless hours of entertainment. The website that caught Joe’s eye this week is called “Go Away Garage“. Joe and I haven’t seen so many pictures of rare vehicles, especially motorcycles, some of which we have never heard of, with so many diverse designs and configurations. Premium viewing, no cover charge –
BEWARE!
Joe spent 2 hours in a fascinated glazed-eye scroll binge before (reluctantly) putting on boots and going outside. Here’s a picture of the T-shirts promoting this blog –
POLITICS, POLITICIANS, WACKJOBBERY, HUMOROUS, STUPID
SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, SMART STUFF
Radiation is a fact of life. There is much misinformation about what it is, how long it lasts, and how harmful it is.
More in future rants. Until then, digest this pie chart –
GUNS, GUNNERS, GUNNERY
Joe and I stumbled upon this article entitled “Why Would Anyone Want a Firearm?“, written by Charles C. W. Cooke. It seems incredulous to us that anyone WOULDN’T want a firearm. A quality firearm is a piece of technological wizardry that has evolved over the centuries. Indeed, firearm technology has been the deciding factor in many disputes which have altered the course of human history. That aside, for anyone who holds the view that firearms are best controlled by the government and prohibited to the civilians of whichever fine (or not so fine) country, we suggest a thorough reading of the article linked above. For the link-click handicapped, quotes from the article –
[……]
“A five-foot-tall, 110-pound woman is in a certain sense “armed” if she has a kitchen knife or a baseball bat at her disposal. But if the six-foot-four, 250-pound man who has broken into her apartment has one, too, she is not likely to overwhelm him. If that same woman has a nine-millimeter Glock, however? Well, then there is a good chance of her walking out unharmed. From the perspective of our petite woman, there is really no way for the state to endorse her right to defend herself if it deprives her of the tools she needs for the job.
[…..]
To peruse the explanatory strictures of the Founders’ era is to discover just how seriously the right to protect oneself was taken in the early Anglo-American world. Writing in his 1768 Commentaries on the Laws of England, the great jurist William Blackstone contended that “self-defence” was “justly called the primary law of nature” and confirmed the Lockean contention that it could not be “taken away by the law of society.” In most instances, Blackstone observed, injuries inflicted by one citizen on another could wait to be mediated by the “future process of law.” But if those “injuries [are] accompanied with force . . . it is impossible to say, to what wanton lengths of rapine or cruelty outrages of this sort might be carried, unless it were permitted a man immediately to oppose one violence with another.”
[…..]
For almost all of American history, this idea remained uncontroversial. When, in the early 19th century, certain large cities took it upon themselves to establish police forces, they presented their initiatives as complementary to, not in lieu of, the status quo. Likewise, when the architects of Reconstruction wondered aloud how free blacks would defend themselves against the hostile white majority, their first instinct, to paraphrase Yale law professor Akhil Reed Amar, was to make minutemen out of freedmen. Today, the Supreme Court continues to affirm the right to defend oneself, refusing to hand that task over exclusively to the armed agents of the state, even in the age of the standing army and militarized police departments. Despite progressivism’s endless march, the spirit of John Locke is alive and well.”
THE RELIGION OF PEACE (ON ALL OF US)
What is at the heart of “Islamic extremist terror jihadi non-moderate savagery”?
After all, you have been told time and again that it is only the extremists who have “kidnapped” the religion.
How valid is that argument?
The fool in the White House has blamed it on the weather, on an obscure video, on the slumped economy, on lack of jobs, on an unsympathetic Western world, even on gun control, which is the last best hope of the individual to protect themselves and their families. Obambi and his administration have affixed blame to anything other than the core values of Islam, the flawed documents from which the “faith”was founded, and to which it remains tethered/imprisoned. Of the three recognized “monotheistic” “religions” spawned in the Middle East, it is the rancid evil one, the unthinking unfeeling unholy horror unleashed. If George Orwell were alive to chose only one religion of evil among those existing, this would be his choice.
Daniel Greenfield, of Sultan Knish, has a clear mind and lucid pen. He has no illusions of what Islam is. In a recent oped titled “The Islam Terror Truthers“, he lays out a clear analysis of the existing situation. A few quotes from the article to whet your interest –
“Each and every act of Muslim terrorism is followed by a wave of denial. The politicians who have done the most to cause the latest disaster are the eagerest to blame it on something, anything else.
[…..]
The San Bernardino Muslim massacre was blamed on postpartum depression at CNN. Bill Nye blamed the latest Paris attacks on Global Warming. According to Hillary Clinton, Benghazi was a movie review with artillery. Islamic terrorism was blamed by the State Department on a lack of jobs, but Syed Farook had a good government job and his wife was the daughter of a wealthy family.
After rummaging through their big brass chest of excuses, Obama and his media allies have settled on gun control as their latest weapon of mass distraction.
[…..]
Today Muslim terrorists are attacking us because of the NRA. Yesterday it was because it was too hot. Before that, it was because of Israel. And before that, it was because of Bush.
But what if Muslim terrorists are attacking us because they’re Muslim terrorists?
What if we can’t beat them by banning guns, changing the weather, supporting Islamists or any of the other magical answers that completely fall apart at even the most casual examination?
The left’s response to Islamic terrorism has been built around a frantic effort to distract and divert us from exactly that question, blaming anything and everything but Islam, while sharply denouncing anyone who ignores the distractions and addresses that central question.
[…..]
Islamic terrorism isn’t caused by a thousand different problems, conditions, conspiracies and excuses. It’s caused by Islam. Every attempt to distract from that is Denialism and Trutherism.
And we owe it to the victims of the latest attack and all the attacks to end the denial and the lies.”
Joe and I agree that Mr. Greenfield has his head on straight. Our rational, logical mind (and the emotional mind, too) sees the problem as a clash of ideologies. One is based on the power of the individual exercising his natural (or God given, if you must) rights, the other total “submission” to a colony mind-set that forbids discussion of it’s authority or right to impose its will on others, primarily by force because the “logic” of their “missionaries” is violence.
No rocket science here.
SUNDAY SERMON
Joe and I are constantly surprised at how much stays the same as everything changes around us. Today’s sermon features Alan Bloome, being interviewed in 1987. The topic is his novel of the time, “The Closing of the American Mind”, in three segments
WEATHER (OR NOT)
A week of cold weather. And snow. Winter has arrived in Vernon. Joe and I are not impressed. We are so NOT impressed, a few words are in order to accurately describe our intimate feeling about this time of year.
Picture taken at 5:00 p.m. MST on New Year’s Eve. Any questions?
Joe (Idling) Mekanic
p.s. Ramirez gets the blood flowing – from Investor’s Business Daily –
: