printing money =/= creating wealth.

Proving once again that our leaders have no grasp of elementary mathematics or economics, the Super Pork Bill has passed the House of Representatives.  It’s supposed to revitalize the economy by (among other things) pumping a few billion dollars into Amtrak, which hasn’t turned a profit in decades.  Only ten percent of the stimulus package will actually be spent to improve the infrastructure, but most of it is basically a combination of pork barrel bonanza, and election gratitude reach-around for labor unions.

Trying to stimulate the economy by injecting it with taxpayer dollars and borrowed money is like trying to raise the water level of the shallow end of a swimming pool by transferring bucketfuls of water from the deep end.

One of my VP buddies said it best in a Twitter conversation when he said the following:

“Mmmm….bacon. If only it wasn’t coming from my pig.”

in soviet russia, snow blows you.

 

I have temporarily defeated Gaia.  The storm dropped a foot and a half of snow onto Castle Frostbite, but Mr. Snowblower was made for those kinds of conditions.  It blows the fresh new snow a good thirty feet, and it’ll barely slow down even when the white stuff is piled twenty inches high.  The waist-high berm of compacted snow at the bottom of the driveway, thoughtfully put into place by the Publick Workes elves and their mechanick contraption, was a bit more tricky to remove, but I prevailed in the end.

They say that winter storms drive up the occurrence of heart attacks, because people overwork themselves shoveling snow.  I have no trouble believing that.  It took me about an hour to clear the property (driveway, parking and turnaround spots in front of the house, mailbox, and alternate parking at the bottom of the hill) with a self-propelled 9HP two-stage snowblower that carves a 28″ wide path into knee-high snow right down to the gravel.  With a snow shovel, it would take me a day or two to move that much snow, and I’d collapse from exhaustion and/or a cardiac event halfway through.

Technology is your friend.  I wonder how they ever managed to clear their driveways in neolithic times…

I’ll tell you this: if they ever pass legislation banning personal snow-removal equipment powered by eeeevil combustion engines, I’ll start selling bumper stickers that say “You Can Have My Snowblower When You Pry it From My Cold, Wet Hands”.

a customer service announcement.

A notice to the regular Avian-American customers of the popular “Seedery” bistro in Enfield, New Hampshire:

The establishment will be closed for the rest of the week due to inclement weather.

we’re schtuck in ze schnow.

The snow is falling.  The weather people are telling us to expect 12-24″ locally.  My snowblower is gassed up and ready to do battle with Nature McHitlergaia.

I found just the thing for fetching groceries in a New England winter storm:

Now I just need to convince Robin to let me trade the minivan in on one of those.  I’d hug it and squeeze it, and call it my Goremobile.

typecast #3.

 

news from the literary world.

Neil Gaiman has won the 2009 Newbery Medal for The Graveyard Book.

When I grow up, I want to be like Neil Gaiman.  I’ve been following his blog and Twitter feed for a while now, and he seems like a genuinely nice sort of fellow.  He can string words together pretty well, too.

heroes and villains.

People have a tendency to excuse atrocities when they’re committed either a.) in the service of a cause they support, or b.) against someone they greatly dislike.  On the flip side, people tend to be much more harsh in judgment of the very same act when it’s committed by someone in the service of a “bad” cause, or against someone in the service of a “good” one.

A comparative study: the tales of Ernesto “Che” Guevara, and South Vietnamese police chief Nguyen Ngoc Loan.  One is famous for being a Marxist revolutionary, the other is famous for having summarily executed a Vietcong team leader in front of Eddie Adams’ camera.

Now, Che Guevara has killed a whole lot more people than Nguyen Ngoc Loan.  Che not only presided over revolutionary kangaroo courts that ended with lots of people being put up against the wall and summarily shot, but he also personally executed suspected defectors.  In addition, he spent a great deal of time traveling to other countries and instigating bloody revolutions.

Ngyen Ngoc Loan shot a Vietcong in the head.  The Vietcong in question, Nguyen Văn Lém, was the leader of an “assassination and revenge platoon”, which had been targeting South Vietnamese police officers and their families.  The execution was not a violation of the Geneva Conventions, because Nguyen Văn Lém was neither wearing a uniform, nor fighting enemy soldiers.

When General Loan moved to the U.S. after the Vietnam War, he was the target of a campaign to have him deported for his actions.  Later in life, he opened a pizza restaurant in Virginia, but was forced into retirement when people discovered his identity and started targeting his business, spray-painting “We know who you are” on the walls.

In contrast, Che’s mug graces t-shirts on ever college campus in the country, he’s considered a righteous hero of the working class, Nelson Mandela calls him “an inspiration for every lover of freedom”, and Jean-Paul Sartre says he’s “not only an intellectual but also the most complete human being of our age.”  If Che were still alive, and had he emigrated to the U.S. just like General Loan, he’d probably be a tenured professor at an American university now, and a heavyweight political voice.

Remember, kids: shooting people, kicking off violent revolutions, and putting your enemies in front of firing squads are only good and righteous actions when you fight for the oppressed working class, and against the capitalist pig dogs and their local cronies…

monday search term safari XXXVII.

chick holding a gun

Here you go:

(Shamelessly lifted from Breda once again.)

van that good in snow

The best minivan for snow conditions would be one with a 4WD/AWD system.  Chrysler’s Town & Country comes in a 4WD version, and a few of the Japanese-built ones do, too.

comme on ass

Hmmm…your query isn’t spelled correctly, but I’m guessing that you want to get a Che Guevara tattoo on your butt.  That’s a good place for one, actually.

upgrading memory “4 gigabytes” nc10

The Samsung NC10 Netbook only supports a grand total of 2GB RAM.  It also sports only a single memory slot, so any upgrade will necessitate pulling out the old memory.  It’s plenty zippy with 1GB, though, since the little thing runs XP.  Mine’s fast enough to run World of Warcraft in just 1GB, so I don’t see a pressing need to put in another gigabyte.

german word for fountain pen?

The German word for fountain pen is Füllfederhalter, which is a compound word that translates to “fillable quill holder”.  In common use, it’s abbreviated to Füller.

morgan creek theme music

Morgan Creek’s theme music is the first part of the theme music to “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves”, which features a Robin Hood who slips from an English into a Midwestern accent on occasion.

lord of the dance 2005 knoxville tennessee

I was in Knoxville in 2005, but I have never claimed my dancing skills to be exceptional, much less Lord-like.  (Side note: I can’t hear or read the term “Lord of the Dance” anymore without thinking of Denis Leary’s stand-up bit about Michael Flatley.  “Lord of the fucking dance. Give me a break! That’s not how Irish people dance.  Ever seen an Irish guy dance at a wedding?” <mimics drunken stumbling and flailing>)

jeff cooper why the gun is civilization

Wow, that’s a new one…someone attributing my essay to the late Colonel Cooper.  That’s actually pretty flattering.  Someone thinks the essay is so good that the Colonel could have written it.

the munchkin humbug

That was the alternate title for this blog, actually.

how much is a smith and wesson 30.06 worth

That’s like asking “How much is a Ford with a V-8 engine worth?”  It depends entirely on the model, year of manufacture, and overall condition of your rifle.  But since you asked, I’ll give you a rough estimate based on the information you provide: anywhere between $75 and $10,000.

cavemen+football+tribalism

That’s pretty much any college football stadium in the country on game day. (Cue enraged indignation from college football fans in three…two…one…)

basic word processor

Here’s a really basic one:

 

yo quiero dog treats

Any dog that walks up to me and utters that request won’t have to do any “sit” or “shake” for his treat, because I’ll stuff him with Milk Bones all the way to the Today Show studio.

wrangler o’fortuna

That sounds like a really corny name for a Jedi Knight in a really crummy Star Wars fanfic novel.  (Or am I mistaken, and Carl Orff wrote Carmina Burana about an Irish guy named O’Fortuna?)

simple 1st birthday cake

Anything that’s easy to clean up–pound cake is perfect.  Avoid creamy fillings and/or toppings, unless you’re angling for the oh-so-adorable “look at that mess” photo.  (Around here, we’re pragmatists, and believe me when I tell you that we have plenty of photographic evidence of first-year mess-making.)

 

That’s it for this week, friends and neighbors.  See you again next Monday for another round of Search! Term! Safari!

inkcast #2.

 

plumbing emergency at castle frostbite.

The industrious elves from the village beyond the lake are currently hard at work on Castle Frostbite, restoring the plumbing system to proper operation.  They’ve been here for two full days, and the Castle has been rent asunder.  There’s a new hatch in the laundry room floor that wasn’t there before, the front yard resembles a freshly plowed field, several dozen square feet of siding have been removed from the castle wall, and strange mechanick contraptions have been brought to the scene by gnome helpers wearing goggles.

That sucking sound you hear is the coinage being sucked right out of the Castle treasury at an alarming rate.  (It seems the insolent elves and gnomes expect to be paid in coin for their labor.)

On the plus side, maybe tonight the lord and lady of the Castle will be able to use the Royal Privy again, instead of  having to brave the wolves and ents of the Forbidden Forest outside…