hornets

Sometime in the spring, a community of hornets took up residence in the mailbox right next to my front door. (perhaps they had first checked with my postmaster, who had long since duly decreed that I must put a box at the bottom of my front steps if I desire to receive mail at my address.)

One time, I lifted up the lid and was promptly stung. It hurt pretty much, for about five minutes, and then I forgot about it as I had other things to deal with.

Obviously, every time that I come in or go out of my front door, I must take special caution not to disturb them, or let any of them inside. I cannot allow myself to be distracted. But beyond that we have a live-and-let-live policy, to wit: they don't mess with me and I don't mess with them. So far both sides have been cooperating and living in peace.

This morning, I got to thinking about the U.S. 5th fleet base in Bahrain. Don't ask me why I thought of them, I just did. But if I were peacefully trying to live out my life in Iran, they just might resemble a bunch of hornets.

Not quite the same, though .... hornets don't go around stinging each other and stinging the flies and the stray cats and the bricks in the neighborhood. Guess its not a good analogy, after all.

rights

I picked out a selection of music off of my hard drive to play this afternoon. It was something that I had not listened to in awhile, I cannot tell you how long. Up pops the error message "You do not have the rights to play this music selection. To gain access to the rights, go here."

f*cking Microsoft. Listen to me cause I am only gonna say this once.

First of all, yes, I DO have the rights to play this music, I purchased it over 15 years ago, I still have the original purchase, I have dutifully maintained the medium and I have made legitimate backup copies as required to maintain it and I have honestly and faithfully translated it whenever "the powers that be" have chosen to upgrade methods of media and playback. I'm sorry that I am not thrilled about your program of suppressing new artists and of periodically changing the dominant media-playing devices and media storage formats for the purpose of attempting to sell and resell the same old creations over and over and over again without ever paying the artists because they are all dead now. Exactly how legitimate do you think you are?

Second, YOU do not have the right to tell me that I do not have the right to play it. You are not the artist, not the composer, and you do not own the copyright. Furthermore, you are not employed by any government as a police organization. As it happens, none of your current or past employees have ever shown one smidgeon of the talent required to produce the kinds of music that I tend to listen to. You can talk about intellectual property rights all you want, but that doesn't mean that you have any intellect.

Stop it.

aspirin reduces colon cancer

I ran across this astounding statement in a book that I am reading currently, written by an M.D.

At least, I found it astounding ... because I have been treated for a simple colon cancer, which the doctors and medical establishment found all sorts of ways to run up the total bill to my insurance company to something north of $50,000. After it was over, they hounded me for a good long time to come back and do colonoscopies, even though I had recognized what I had before any (of the very, very expensive and invasive) diagnostic tests had been performed, and despite the fact that up to 5% of colonoscopies result in damage to the patient's insides, while many many more result in the treatment (and risks, and expenses, and time lost) of a harmless, slow-growing form of carcinoma. Did any of the hundreds of health professionals that I dealt with in the process ever mention anything about this? Do you even need to ask?

I found corroboration here:

link

By FORTY PERCENT!!!!!

I'm really not surprised, its just one more example of how the US medical system jacks up prices while reducing overall health.

cold

Darden Restuarants PO Box 695011 Orlando, FL 32869-5011 Dear Sirs, Last night two young ladies of my acquaintance had occasion to treat me to dinner and they chose your Olive Garden restaurant located near PG Plaza in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D. C. for a venue. As you may be aware, much of the continental U.S. is now incurring a severe heat wave and drought conditions. Even as I write, the temperature is climbing to a higher number than I have ever seen before in living 62 years primarily in this area. To be brief, the ambient temperature inside your establishment was so cold that we were forced to terminate our meal early and exit to the outdoors as quickly as possible. Now I am a long-time investor and trader and often am exceedingly successful at my trade. I trade primarily in energy issues. I consider in general that I profit from the stupidity of others and most specifically from those corporations and businesses which train their customers to act like helpless idiots. Right now I have a very large position in coal which is benefiting substantially from the primary dependence of Americans upon their air conditioning and their misguided perception that this commodity is required for survival. In other periods I have profited from shorting your company stock. So I don't care. I am an old man and I have no children. But do you care, that your policies are helping to destroy this society and possibly this world (in your own little way you may be contributing to global warming, you certainly are not helping.)? I'm just curious..... Sincerely,

Twins

Okay, I am going to put up the pictures here of two different men. I am not even going to tell you who each of them are, if you don't know, please find out for yourself. I will just tell you that one of them is considered to be "black" racially, the other "white". but isn't this a remarkable resemblance?

chemtrails

I got going looking into this subject on the Internet this morning. Here are a few things that I can definitely establish.

First of all its a pretty large controversy. What I mean by that is that quite a lot of people have strong opinions to express about it, on both sides. There are quite elaborate descriptions, dedicated websites and videos on the pro side, mostly suggesting aluminates and barium salts are being deliberately spread into the atmosphere by the US military, possibly for weather control, possibly for radar shielding, or possibly for population control, with attempts at proof. On the denial side there is also a very lot of material, most of it consists of a priori denial and subsequent attempted debunking.

Second of all, it can be pretty well established that aluminum is natural to be found in the body though it serves little purpose, but bodies can uptake enough aluminum to be poisonous and destructive. It is commonly added to municipal water systems during the process of antisepsis. Further aluminum compounds can be uptaken via acidic foods in contact with aluminum cookware. It is also commonly found in medicines and over-the-counter preparations such as antiperspirants. Aluminum poisoning can affect organs, muscles, and especially bones and the brain.

Third, I'm not set up to remove it from my environment. The best way would be to drink and cook only with distilled water, but the only device I have that I could use for distilling is, well, my cast aluminum pressure canner. Oops. Distilling water is quite energy-intensive, that's why its so rare for water systems to employ sea water.

Fourth, I have flown extensively in commercial jetliners over a period of decades, and I always take the window seat because I love to look out and see the different point of view, I love the shapes of clouds from across or above, I also love the aerial views of territories resembling maps, a long-time love of mine. From my own observations I can definitely state that commercial flights are going higher and higher than they used to, that commercial flights never release contrails (its now common to see other commercial planes from cruising altitudes these days), and that wide contrails or "chemtrails" at altitudes slightly above cruising altitudes are something I've only been starting to notice for the last few years.

Finally, I have to unleash stinging criticism for the folks on both sides of this debate. Everything I read and saw appeared to have been produced by people who already had their own minds made up and were attempting to influence other people. Thus there is no science going on at all. Just as a reminder, the first step in the scientific process is observation. Before you make your mind up, go out and do some tests. If there is a definite, recent uptick in chemical spraying then it perforce must be showing up in our rainwater. How about some extensive testing of aluminum and barium concentrations in rainwater over affected areas and then a comparison with rainwater in places where the supposed chemtrails are not happening, such as Addis Ababa or Reykyavik? Lets all find out for sure what's going on before we try to influence others, eh?

snide remark

With the economy going the way it is, Obama needn't worry too much about immigration. If anything, he'll need to build a wall to keep people IN ....