Again One Thing Leads to Another

Okay, so here's the story I am blogging about. I found it through a link at Instaundit; that lead me here, and then finally to this.

Which story am I blogging about?

Well, MINE of course!

I read Instapundit daily, at least. I consider it the Reader's Digest of the Internets. Not the modern, large format People Magazine wanna be, The Old Reader's Digest. The one that aggregated Stories of Lasting Interest.

Any rate, the tree ring story caught my eye on Instapundit. Interesting reading. But they never do explain how they figured out how old the trees were. I can understand how they fell into the lake, but how do they know which tree is is 20 years old, and which one is 2,000?

And I'd love to know how they can extrapolate the temperature OF THE ENTIRE GLOBE from a bunch of soggy trees in Finland!

That leads me to the second article.
A dungeon, secret passageways, peepholes and lingering ghosts: A young couple paid $395,000 in CASH and might have gotten more than they bargained for by buying castle in Missouri is the headline. But what is the news? They bought an old house, dressed up with a lot of stonework. Yehaw. Here is what I found interesting. They paid cash. $395,000 in cash. What makes that funny?

The buyer is a MORTGAGE BROKER. I didn't realize there were still mortgage brokers. I thought they had disappeared with the property flippers.

And then the last story. This guy spent 40 years looking for a stolen car; and found it. They don't go into details, but from the way the story reads it must have been Dad's car; Dad died and the kids were settling up the estate by selling the car.

Here's my question: How did Dad (assuming I am right) tag and insure a stolen car for over 40 years?

And also: if your car was stolen, how long would you keep the keys and old title?

In the interest of full disclosure, I still have the owner's manual and the key to a car I sold 30 years ago. So maybe I would still have the key and title to one that was stolen.

But; I also admit to being a little odd....

Okay; so here I am kicked back on my porch swing, blogging.
It might make things easier; I'm not sure.
Ot does allow me post a photo I just took, but the lack of a multi- finger keyboard hurts my composition for some reason.
The photo is ip on the hill behind my porch. We have a few targets up there to plink at with air rifles while we're kicked back on the porch.
Yep; Redneck fun at its finest!

ON EDIT:

Okay; so here I am kicked back on my porch swing, blogging.

It might make things easier; I'm not sure.

It does allow me post a photo I just took, but the lack of a multi- finger keyboard hurts my composition for some reason.

The photo is up on the hill behind my porch. We have a few targets up there to plink at with air rifles while we're kicked back on the porch.

Yep; Redneck fun at its finest!

Yeah, I can blog from my phone, but I am better at a keyboard.

Free Tickets to the Ballet! Want 'em?

Certain people enjoy certain things, and will not enjoy certain other things.

Take for instance Opera. I enjoy Classical music, but cannot stand Opera. Maybe because it sounds so much like a bunch of furriners shouting at each other. But that's not my point.

If you did a VENN diagram of the folks who liked Opera overlapped with the folks who liked, say... NASCAR, there would be a very small overlap. I haven't done a study obviously, but the basics are there. Opera represents the highest of culture to most folks. It is the purview of the upper- crust. Along with Ballet, they are considered the highest of performing arts.

And anybody who would consider a Sunday afternoon watching 30 cars speed around a 2 mile track for 500 miles in the broiling heat not just Heaven, but a Heaven he would pay to attend, would also consider 2 hours at the Ballet a torture he (or she) would pay to avoid.

The question then becomes: Nature or Nurture? Are we genetically predisposed to enjoy one or the other, or are we raised that way?

Sports are similar. There are guys who will sleep eat and talk baseball for 12 months out of the year, and not even know what Wimbledon is. Or the Olympics. Is that also a high-brow/low-brow split do you think?

There are always outliers. There will always be the one individual who can discuss tennis as easily as he can football, baseball or soccer. and there will always be the the individual who knows as many stats about NASCAR as he does the various steps in Ballet.

Nature, or Nurture? Or, for the folks with a foot in both worlds, does their Nature pull them one way, and their Nurture push them in another?

Yeah Well, One Thing Leads to Another

Sometimes a blog topic just falls into your lap. The event just happens, or the news story is written in such a way that comments are tripping over each other fighting there way to the keyboard.

And other times...

Not so much.

Then you need to go looking for a topic. I have my set bunch of sites that I visit, for just such an emergency. And of course, the Borderline Sociopathic Blog for Boys is one of those sites. Lots of good stuff there this time. I could have blogged about this, which reminded me of how long its been since I've done that, or maybe this, which also brought back old memories. Or even this, which kinda struck my funny-bone.

But I reached this post and just had to give it a wider distribution. Well, assuming my readership is greater than his, or at least that I have a couple of readers he doesn't.

If I have ever seen a greater example of folks with too much time on their hands I don't know what it is. Well, maybe people who watch golf on TV. At least these guys are a little creative.

This also reminds me of an old game called 'Beer Hunter', that if memory serves, was a SCTV skit  featuring Bob and Doug McKenzie.

Anyway, the premise of Beer Hunter was to take a 6 pack of beer and shake one up (I mean REALLY shake one up) and then through it in the cooler with the other 6. Of course the loser was the one who opened the exploding beer.

Well, it was funny when I was younger.

And drank cheap beer.

Well, You Didn't Hear it From Me

So yesterday I went to a family reunion and had a great time.

Listening to the old family stories and jokes; looking at the old pictures and eating watermelon.

The best part?

It wasn't my family.

I have a a long standing commitment to a work related extra curricular, and yesterday part of my job was to attend another family's reunion.

Obviously I can't say too much, or go into too much detail, but it was a great time. I found out some fantastic information to help with my project and met some absolutely fabulous folks.

And there something about being a relative outsider at what is, very basically, a very insider function. It's not like they sell tickets to those things you know.

I was a very honored guest, and very honored to be that guest.

This is killing me. I hate having this 'secret life' that is incredibly interesting, and I can't (usually) talk about it.

I feel like I am in the CIA or the FBI.

Or maybe the Witness Protection Program.

But I swear you all will be on the mailing list when the book comes out!

The Heat Ain't Just From Miami

What is there to blog about?

Obamacare; The Heat; Libyan Elections; THE HEAT; the Zimmerman deal down in Florida; THE HEAT; the Western wild fires; THE HEAT; Unemployment; THE....

But I guess you get the idea.

I have about as much interest in stepping out ot my air conditioning as I do voting for Obama.

Twice.

On the same day.

But what can you say about the Heat? More importantly, what can you do about the Heat?

Well, nothing that ain't been said already, and flat nuthin'.

Interestingly enough, did you know that you cannot make cold? Cold is simply the absence of heat, and is created by using the Law of Convection (heat will always travel from a warmer to a cooler object).

Basically, you chill a refrigerator, or a room, by using something cold to suck the heat out, and them dumping that heat somewhere else.

Where am I going with this?

Elephino (say it real slow). The heat blew me off my train of thought five paragraphs ago.

I just got home from a work related function, and I am toasted already. I stopped at McDonalds for a cup of their ice tea, and I don't know what happened, but the guy in front of me took forever to pick up his food. So I sat and fried and got madder and madder.

I have got to get the AC fixed in that car.

Damn this heat wave. It's uncomfortable, dangerous for man and beast, and worst of all it's ammunition for the damn Global Warming idiots.

That's it. I'm done. I need to find a cold beer and a cool seat in front of a few dozen fans.

And maybe a good John Wayne movie. One where its cold.

Island in the Sky might just be the ticket.

Well, So Much For That Promise

Today is July 6th, and this will be only my 4th post.

In my defense, I did take on a project for work that has eaten into my time more than I expected. And the 4th of July was a day long affair.

Literally.

My oldest boy and the #1 grandson showed up at 9:30 on the 4th. And they weren't the first guests.

Some folks came on the 3rd and camped out. So, technically, we had company on the 4th at 12:00 midnight.

Folks came and went all day long, right through the last of the fireworks about 10:00.

It's kinda hard to leave your own party to do a blog post.

The Young'un asked what was so special about July 4th. So I started reciting the Declaration of Independence. She looked at me a little sideways and said: "Really?".

It made me realize how hard it is to explain our freedom to somebody who has never known any other way of life. And it is equally as hard to explain what we are losing to the youngsters who never had it.

I guess that's because so much of what used to a FREEDOM has been redefined as a RISK. Like smoking inside and actual building. Or riding a bike without a helmet. Or not wearing a seatbelt. Or riding in the bed of a pickup truck.

Each of these activities is a risk, but a calculated one. Yes you can get hurt, but what are the odds?

And individual behavior would moderate the risk. Like riding in the bed of a pickup. Sitting with your back to the cab while the truck is in motion minimizes the risk involved. Walking around with a beer in your hand while on the entrance ramp to the expressway tends to increase the risk.

Guess whose activities were cited when making this activity illegal? So the millions of folks who minimized the risk are criminals, and the idiots with the beer are still dying. Sure, they're dying as criminals, but the law has not modified their behavior, just the behavior of the folks who were modifying the risk anyway.

And now we have a precedent for the next step.

That is the interesting thing about Freedom; we win it all at once, and lose it one little piece at a time.

The Magna Carta was in some respects a Declaration of Independence for English Noblemen. Those freedoms eventually migrated down, as the noble class increased in size and their descendents became less noble and more common. And then they started disappearing. Especially in the colonies. Freedoms that were once held as inviolate, became violate.

The trouble was, at least for the King, was that the people KNEW what they losing, and fought to keep the Freedom they had.

A percentage of the Founding Fathers did not want to found a new country. They wanted to stay a part of Britain, but as an equal partner, not a slave state. The King had a choice, and he choose unwisely.

And over the last 70 years those hard won Freedoms have been chipped away at. Always for good reasons (remember- Never Let a GOOD Crisis Go To Waste), and but never, in my opinion, is there a reason good enough to stifle Liberty.

Well, maybe next year we will have more reason to Celebrate.

Or, possibly, won't be able to celebrate at all.

Hot Enough Fer Ya?

I mowed my lawn today.

Well, I ran my mower around the yard anyway. About all I really did was knock down some tall weeds, clip the heads off of a bunch of white clover  and vacuumed up the leaves.

Yeah, all of the boxwood trees are starting to drop leaves already. About the only way I knew where I had traveled with the mower was the track of missing leaves.

I has been hot. This is I think our 8th day in a row of over 90 degrees. And July just started. This is August weather, not June weather.

I said all winter that we would pay for the mild winter we had; I just wasn't sure how we would pay for it.

I think I know how now.

We are planning on having a little family get together here on the Fourth, and the last few days of getting things ready has been pure Hell. I am getting about half of what I wanted to get done accomplished, because I am spending half my time recuperating from heat stroke.

But we will be party ready, come party time.

At noon tomorrow the preparation stops and the party begins, I won't have everything done, but I'll be the only person that knows that.

Unless I tell the Young'un.

Then EVERYBODY will know what didn't get done.

Changing Times

Last weekend the wife and I took the Young'un down to Fort Boonesboro for a day trip. On the ride down we decided to take a few back roads, and stay off the expressway if we could.

It was a beautiful ride through North Central Kentucky. Two lane blacktop road through fields and farms,  dotted with farmhouses and barns, both old and new, and the occasional house trailer surrounded by a jacked up car or two.

The one thing I did not see was a tobacco field. I saw cattle pastures and corn fields, hay fields and soybeans.

But not a single stalk of tobacco.

It was rather sad. Tobacco used to put a lot of money into the Commonwealth of Kentucky; money that worked its way down through the entire economy. Local Merchant charge accounts and bank loans were payable "when the tobacco sold'. Many a youngster bought his first car with tobacco money, money earned by planting; hoeing; cutting, housing and stripping tobacco. At first for pay, and later by renting a tobacco base and being responsible for the crop himself, and the business of hiring workers, paying the expense of seed. fertilizer and fuel, and being responsible for profit or loss of the crop. A lot of responsibility when you are 17-18 years old.

And another loss for today's youth.

There are probably similar opportunities today in the agricultural world, but I haven't been involved in farming for a while, so I don't know for sure, but I doubt it. Tobacco is a very labor intensive crop, and most of the others, like corn, grains or beans, as far as cash crops go, are not. They have had entire systems developed to make the production of these crops as labor free as possible. Tobacco never did, or probably could.

One thing we did see that was new were the vineyards. I'll bet we saw 3 or 4 vineyards on the way south. This is interesting for two reasons, to me anyway.

One, this is kind of a throw back to the 1860's- '90's, when this area was a major wine producer.

Two, apparently the farmers in Kentucky have just traded the production of one vice for another.

And, if memory serves, another labor intensive one, plus one with the disadvantage of long lead times and investment before any income can be realized.

I wish them luck.

The world is changing, and I suppose we need to change with it. It just seems like to much is changing too soon.

But then my grandparents were born before the Wright Brothers flew, and saw men land on the moon.

That was some CHANGE.

And I'm worried about grapes replacing tobacco.

And I don't even farm.

Cheers to a New Beginning! again...

Late last month I decided I would try to do 31 posts in July. Yesterday I wrote a excellent post.

And then forgot to post it.

Yeah, life is like that.

Any rate, here is yesterday's post. Today's will go up later today.

I figure its a good time to pick up blogging again. Times are becoming interesting.

The election coming up will without a doubt be the most important of the last 60 years. It will determine whether we will remain a (semi) free country or descend into socialism.

I am hoping the pendulum will reverse its 70 year swing to the left and start back right again.

I am also looking at the weather for blog topics. It is the first of July, and we are August hot and dry. What will August be like? 110 degrees and NO rain?

And then the coming winter the forecast I looked at said to get ready for 77-78 again.

It's not bad enough we have the Carter economy back again, we have to put up with his weather too? And I can't wait to hear the weather wizards explain how 25 below zero and 4 feet of snow all over the Midwest is just more evidence of severe Global Warming.

Interesting times; Interesting times.

I am also looking to make this blog a sort of diary of the next 4 months. My reactions to the things that are happening on the campaign trail, both Presidential and Congressional, the economy as it 'recovers', the housing market, as it 'recovers' and anything else that catches my fancy.

I think it is safe to say that grand changes are on the way. The question is whether they will blow right or left.

Hopefully I'll still be standing when the wind stops in November.

John Roberts Did WHAT!?!?!?!

I'm not sure yet how I feel about yesterdays Supreme Court decision on Obamacare.

One side of me is adamantly, virulently opposed to the very existence of a law that controls a very personal choice. That side says the court made a horrendous mistake yesterday. And just the fact that Roberts joined the Dark Side of Kagan, Sotomayor, Ginsburg and Breyer is kind of disturbing.

But, some of the legal commentators I have been reading say that Roberts' opinion has gutted the power of the Commerce Clause. If that is true, then maybe the whole fargin' Obama Presidency has been worth it.

Barely.

The Commerce Clause is probably the most bastardized clause in the entire Constitution. Second would be the 14th Amendment, which somehow manages to have 'emanations from a penumbra'. But, I digress.

In order to get the Constitution adopted by the several states back in 1787 several of its framers wrote a series of pieces, called, collectively, The Federalist Papers, to be published in the newspapers of the day to explain the reasoning behind the various parts of the new Constitution to aid in its adoption.

One thing not made clear to a lot of folks today is the power the states had at the time. The power of the Crown did not devolve to the Continental Congress; it devolved to the various states. Each state became its own Nation, and adopting the new Constitution would cede some of that power to the new Federal Government.

The European Common Market and the Euro are a modern example, with the exception that countries did not lose their autonomy and the ability to remove themselves from the Common Market. It is solely an economic confederation. The Constitution created an economic and a political country, out of once were independent states. Four score an seven years later it was conclusively proven that the states did not have the power to secede. But again, I digress.

I have a copy of The Federalist Papers. 648 pages in paperback, including the index, notes, a copy of the Constitution, the Articles of Confederation and the Forward. This is the men who WROTE the Commerce Clause explaining what it meant. How many of the 600 pages deal with the Commerce Clause? 8.

Yep. EIGHT. The single most powerful (in modern interpretation) clause in the entire Constitution earns about 1% of the comments.

It goes back to the realities of the post- Revolutionary States. Each was a sovereign country, and each had the powers of a sovereign nation, including the authority to set tariffs and have its own Customs House. Virginia would have its own tariff on goods from Europe, as well as import restrictions on, say, corn from Maryland or North Carolina,

Obviously, if we became a single country there could not be import and export duties between the several states, and the new Federal Government would set the rules for trading with foreign partners.

Like the majority of the (original) Constitution, simple and logical. And it took 140 years for this simple, logical language to become twisted.

And yeah, a Democrat was responsible. In my opinion the second worst President in the history of the Union; Franklin Delano Roosevelt; FDR. (First is of course Obama. Third and Fourth are LBJ and JEC- James Earl Carter). During FDR's 12 years in office he managed to persuade the Supreme Court that a farmer growing grain on his own land to feed his own cattle- in which neither the cattle nor the grain crossed any state lines- had an effect on interstate commerce, and was therefore subject to Federal Regulation.

So much for the plain and simple language of the Constitution.

Well, apparently I have once again taken the long way around the barn.

So, to bring this home; if the commentators I have read are correct, and this is another Pyrrhic victory for Obama, then maybe I can live with this decision.

One blog I read this morning (which I of course found through Instapundit) Five Possible Silver linings in the Obamacare Decision also lists as a Silver Lining the idea that by keeping Obamacare alive will energize the Republican base this election season, and create the perfect climate for its total repeal in Congress.

I guess I am too multi-faceted, because there is one side of me that's wants Congress to do a total repeal. I am totally against the Courts legislating from the bench, so maybe Congress is where the death of Obamacare needs to happen.

Now all we need are the votes to make it happen come next January.

FINALLY!!!! A USEFUL iPad App

The greatest App in the world!

The downside? Now I want a flippin' iPad!

And, well...

It's only the Light Lager.

No Dunkel.

And no pretzels either.