Malia Obama's birthday: President's oldest daughter will turn 11 as thousands descend on White House lawn for 4th of July -- chicagotribune.com

So does this little publicity stunt mean Obama's daughters are fair game for crude jokes and ugly rumor-mongering? Perhaps some late night "comedian" can now make disgusting insinuations about Malia and claim it is all fair because the Obamas have put their children in the public spotlight. Perhaps Andrew Sullivan can go on a witch hunt to try to unearth the Truth about whether Malia is really Michelle's daughter or whether she actually gave birth to herself after a brief dalliance twelve years ago.

Or does this standard only apply to the filth that love to grub around on their bellies on the political left?

Labels: liberal stupidity, politics, society and culture

Today you must choose.

Tomorrow you may find yourself on the other side. Once you have passed beyond this side, once you have lost your bodily form, you have passed beyond the ability to choose. You will be carried along by whatever choices you made on this side.

Today you must choose.

Because tomorrow you want to find yourself in the hands of the One who can carry you over, the One who paid the highest price for the privilege of carrying you. Because without him you will just sink into the mire, forever lost. Without him there is no hope, because you have no more power once you have crossed over. Your power to choose, your will, all is left behind when you cross the line.

Today you must choose.

While you live you have the will, while you live you have the strength to choose. Tomorrow is too late. Tomorrow will find you without the ability to change your fate. Your fate is made today, on this side.

Choose.

Labels: spiritual

Mogambo Guru seems a little...disturbed lately...

Home prices post 18.1 percent annual drop in April - Yahoo! News

There is a clear trend home prices declines are moderating — another sign the beleaguered housing market is stabilizing, according to data released Tuesday.

While the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller index of 20 major cities tumbled by 18.1 percent in April from the year before, it marked the third straight month the decline was not a record. And yearly losses in 13 metros improved compared to March.
...
"Prices are still dropping. They're just no longer in freefall," Newport said.

Hardest hit remain Phoenix and Las Vegas, where home prices have lost more than half their value since their peaks.

Hey! Good news! Prices are not screaming earthward propelled by rocket engines anymore. They're just hurtling downward at an easier terminal velocity. Any time now they oughta sprout wings from the bumps on their shoulders and SO-O-OAR!!!
.
.
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Astounding what passes for good news on the highway to hell.

Swine Flu Dominates in U.S. Where 98% Test Positive (Update1) - Bloomberg.com

From my perspective, this is good news. Because it almost certainly means that it was H1N1 that I dealt with over the last month. Yes it can mutate and I may be vulnerable to a mutated version, but I should now have substantial immunity to the current strain and slightly modified future strains.

I am returning to normal. This weekend was not very productive because I took naps whenever I had the urge. I figure it was time better spent finishing up my recovery than time spent pushing myself when I still need rest. But the sore throat and fever have been gone for days, and the cough is gradually lessening.

I will probably take at least the first of the two-part swine flu series when it becomes available this fall--just to be sure I'm covered for any mutations that may arise. Two to four shots will be required for immunity, they are saying. But two shots may not be required for people with prior exposure to similar viruses in the past. I think this lost month of June qualifies me.

One other bit of good news in that linked article is that this virus is *not* immune to Tamiflu as the usual seasonal virus has become. So, first sign of illness get a prescription for Tamiflu from your doctor.

Some Quick Thoughts on Michael Jackson - Jonah Goldberg - The Corner on National Review Online

Calling Michael Jackson an icon doesn’t let him off the hook for anything. But to listen to the news anchors you’d think it absolves him of everything.
...
I know that Michael Jackson wasn’t convicted of the despicable crimes he was accused of. And that’s why he never went to jail. Three cheers for the majesty of the American legal system. But in my own personal view, he wasn’t exonerated either. Nor was he absolved of his crimes because he could sing, moonwalk, or sell 10 million records. (Though many of us suspect the money and fame he made from those things is precisely what kept him out of jail).

And, while I merely think he was a pedophile, I know he was not someone responsible parents should applaud, healthy children emulate, nor society celebrate.

And while we’re at it, his relatively early death wasn’t “tragic.” He was one of the richest people in the world. He spent his money on perpetual childhood and he was perpetually with children not his own.

Meanwhile in the last ten days, we’ve seen or heard of remarkable people who’ve given their lives for freedom in Iran. We’ve heard of innocents killed because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. In the last decade, America has lost thousands of heroes in noble causes and thousands of innocent bystanders who were denied the simple joys of life through no fault of their own. Those deaths are tragic, and we’re hard pressed to think of more than a handful of names to put with the long line of the dead.

If anything, Michael Jackson’s life, not his death, was tragic.

Every year at the Oscars they show a montage of people who died over the previous year. Invariably, the audience only applauds for the really famous people. This has always offended me. Not necessarily because the famous people don’t deserve praise but because it’s so clear that the audience is clapping for the fame. Michael Jackson had many accomplishments. But the press is sanctifying him because he was famous, deservedly so to be sure, but not because he was good. So much of the coverage seems to miss this fundamental point, as if being famous made him good.

I feel sympathy for Jackson’s family and friends who understandably mourn him. But I can’t bring myself to mourn him any more than I mourn the random dead I read about in the paper everyday. Indeed, I confess to mourning him less.

Every channel says this is a sad day for America. I agree. But not for the same reasons.

To which I add: "Good Riddance!" The worship being lavished on this excreable creep is nauseating.

...accepted on the Tucson house. $75k less than we owe.

Now begins the long hard slog to get the mortgage holders to accept it.

Meanwhile the IRS is stocking up on Vaseline in anticipation...

Labels: financial ponderings, house for sale

My contribution to the "robust debate" occurring in Iran:


This was alleged to have been taken the day the election revolt started. In the end this may become a symbol similar to that "Defiance" poster from the 1970's that featured a mouse flipping off an eagle just before he is destroyed.

BTW, the photo makes me giggle. How totally appropriate for a woman to be flipping off the leader of this corrupt, misogynistic state.

Labels: liberty, politics, statism, women

More on the Global Warming Fraud:
Big chill in Churchill - Winnipeg Free Press

It is the winter that refuses to go away in northern Manitoba and most of the eastern Arctic.

Prolonged cold snowy conditions in the Hudson Bay area are expected to obliterate the breeding season for migratory birds and most other species of wildlife this year.

According to Environment Canada, the spring of 2009 is record-late in the eastern Arctic with virtually 100 per cent snow cover from James Bay north as of June 11.

May temperatures in northern Manitoba were almost four degrees C below the long-term average of -0.7, and in early June, temperatures averaged three degrees below normal.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration images confirm snow and ice blanket all of northern Manitoba, part of northern Ontario and almost all of the eastern Arctic as of June 12. U.S. arieal flight surveys confirm the eastern Arctic has no sign of spring so far.

Remember all of that shrieking and hair-pulling last summer about arctic ice cap loss?

Well.

It seems that good ol' Mother Nature has made up for it.

The worst part is that Obama and the Congress are trying to destroy the economy by imposing a "cap and tax" scheme to purportedly address this NON EXISTENT PROBLEM!!>

Labels: omg teh SCIENCE111, The Failed Obama Presidency

Hey, you want PRESCIENT?! Check out this article--this is James Wesley, Rawles (survivalblog.com) writing on the problem with derivatives back in September 2006

SurvivalBlog.com - Derivatives

When I do radio interviews or lecture presentations, I'm often asked: "Mister Rawles, what do you see as a likely 'worst case scenario'?" People expect me to say "a full scale nuclear exchange in World War III" or, "a stock market crash", or "a flu pandemic", or "a sudden end to the current real estate bubble." But most of them are surprised when I respond: Economic collapse triggered by the popping of the derivatives bubble.
...
The global derivatives universe hums along nicely in times like these--in times like we've had since 1988. There are no nasty LTCM-type headlines. In such times market changes are gradual and incremental. For example, a derivatives trader makes a tidy profit when he bets that the Dow Jones will be 2.2% higher next year instead of the generally expected 1.9% Or another bets that higher fuel costs will put the pinch on bird guano miners in the South Pacific, curtailing their annual profits. What the hedge book boys have never encountered is a market with huge swings--something like the equities markets of the 1929 to 1935 era. If that volatility were to occur today, many derivatives traders would surely be wiped out. Their losses would be monumental. Again, we are talking about somewhere between $300 trillion and $770 trillion presently on the casino table. These are boggling figures. The risks, in absolute terms, are incalculable. Don't forget that directly or indirectly, central ('state') banks and national governments themselves are now inextricably tied to the derivatives trading universe. They are not just 'dabbling in derivatives'. Rather, they are in derivatives up to their necks. If and when the global derivatives bubble ever pops, it may topple not just trading companies like Goldman Sachs, or corporations like GM, Daimler-Chrysler, or RCA, but entire nations. I'm not kidding.

(emphasis mine)

Fancy that. Goldman Sachs *should* have gone down, and GM and Chrysler *did* (for all practical purposes). Watch for nations next.

Labels: financial ponderings, watching the skies

Oh Schwell... Bank Holiday Coming? Prepare?

I would like to be able to say "this needs corroboration", except that we have heard this before, and it turned out (as in September of last year) that we had indeed been on the very brink of a total banking collapse.

Speaking of having cash on hand and/or barterable supplies, here is your forewarning. Click the link above and read the details.

God help us all...

Labels: financial ponderings, preparedness, watching the skies

How many of you think the economy is stabilizing, that there are "green shoots"--signs of recovery--to be found, and that everything will be gradually returning to normal over the next year or so?

Insiders Exit Shares at the Fastest Pace in Two Years (Update3) - Bloomberg.com

June 22 (Bloomberg) -- Executives at U.S. companies are taking advantage of the biggest stock-market rally in 71 years to sell their shares at the fastest pace since credit markets started to seize up two years ago.

Insiders of Standard & Poor’s 500 Index companies were net sellers for 14 straight weeks as the gauge rose 36 percent, data compiled by InsiderScore.com show.

Well...the people who *ought* to know are betting against you.

Don't be duped. There is at least one more sharp contraction yet to come before this catastrophe is over. Don't buy *anything* yet--stocks, bonds, cars, houses--don't take on *any* new debt, scrimp if you must to reduce the debt you currently have, unless you are spending the difference on preparedness measures.

Labels: financial ponderings, preparedness, watching the skies

Bloody chunks, Whee!
Bloody chunks, Whee!
I love horking bloody chunks!

Hey Ma! The Cat's gone wack again...

The back of my throat was a murder scene this morning, complete with pools of coagulated blood and gristly decomposing corpuscles. I set to work clearing the scene, gargling with hydrogen peroxide until all of the frothing bloody mess had been transferred to the evidence room (bathroom sink bowl). Once cleaned up with multiple flushes of oxidizer, the underlying tissues are actually looking better today.

This weekend was a total loss. After pushing myself through last week at work, I stopped at the Tucson crash pad Thursday evening long enough to pick up one more yard cat and headed home. I woke up Friday morning, took a shower, and went right back to bed, not rousing until noon. Saturday was little better, and at midday, wobbly from a fever that aspirin and acetaminophen together were unable to tamp down, I decided to head back into town to an urgent care clinic. This had gone beyond the usual viral symptoms. I was fighting a bacterial infection in my throat and a nasty one at that.

Not strep, as it turned out. But what matter? It was consuming the back of my throat whatever it was. But now on day three of my antibiotic regimen, progress is evident.

This has been a disturbing episode to me. Not because of my own suffering, but because it has hammered home again how dependent we all are on the grid staying up. Antibiotics are not going to be available in a SHTF scenario unless one has somehow managed to stock up ahead of time. And with antibiotics a prescription-only item, that is not an option for most people. I am going to be researching this topic on survivalblog to see what I need to do. I know the first answer is to talk to my doctor and somehow convince him to prescribe me a slew of antibiotics ahead of time that I can store in the freezer for when the need arises. Trouble is, one needs a preparedness-minded doctor to get anywhere with that approach. And I'm not sure my PCP is going to be that open to the idea.

My colloidal silver seemed powerless in the face of this infection, primarily because I was unable to effectively flood the affected area as I am able to with nasal or sinus infections. If I could have beat it with silver I would have. And the sage tea Mom made for me wasn't doing it either.

Options. I need options.

------------------------------

Update: Of course the good folks at Survivalblog have certainly pondered this question many times over and they have some options. Here is a link to a search of the site, which reveals many articles and letters on the topic: Antibiotics--Survivalblog.

Like many topics, what is discussed therein must be strictly limited to post-SHTF scenarios. As long as things remain relatively "normal" the correct and legal procedures for obtaining and utilizing prescription drugs must be followed. In other words, DO NOT SELF DIAGNOSE OR TREAT! Go to a doctor, get a prescription. The information at the link is only to prepare for the possibility that a doctor may not be available nor the necessary medications to treat serious and/or life-threatening conditions in a grid-down SHTF scenario. In the best case, you may be able to hook up with a doctor post-SHTF who can use your store of medications to save lives.

Another very good resource is the book Where There Is No Doctor, a book designed to be used in areas of the world where the kind of medical care we take for granted is simply not available. The link leads you to a page where the entire book may be downloaded in sections. I have this book downloaded, printed out in hardcopy, and stored with my preps. You can also purchase the book through that website or through Amazon.com or other retail outlets.

Labels: minutiae, preparedness

Web of Debt - THE RETREAT OF THE SHADOW LENDERS: WHY DEFLATION, NOT INFLATION, IS THE ORDER OF THE DAY

If Ben Bernanke stands by his word and refuses to monetize the federal debt, Congress should consider issuing the money itself, as the U.S. Constitution provides. The “full faith and credit of the United States” is an asset of the United States, and it should properly be issued and lent by the United States rather than by unaccountable private banks and shadow lenders. The true path to economic recovery – the path from an economy strangled in debt to one blooming in prosperity – is to reclaim money and credit as public resources, transforming money from private master to public servant.

If we cannot have a free market in currencies, with valuations and interest rates set by market forces, then I would actually prefer that the power to create and regulate money be wrested away from this current cartel of oligarchs and returned to Congress. As many have pointed out, the "Federal Reserve" has as much to do with the Federal government as does Federal Express. It is a private monopoly that has it's own interests (not the nation's interests) as it's top priority.

Labels: financial ponderings

Daily Kos: State of the Nation--This week President Obama's address contains lies...

I actually agree with a fair amount of the criticisms contained herein. I am as disgusted with the shenanigans of the banksters and their congressional and White House enablers as these Kossacks. But I have the added pleasure of watching them grit their teeth in rage that it is **their** president who continues to enable this outrage.

Here's one to get your juices flowing:
Thomas R. Horn -- Read it Before It's Banned by the US Government, Part 10

Blammo!
Fund My Mutual Fund: Peter Schiff on The Daily Show
Peter Schiff is my hero.

The Saga Of The Bearer Bonds - The Market Ticker

Remember that $130 billion in US treasury bonds that were caught being smuggled through Italy by two Japanese individuals?

Well.

That story dropped quickly off the radar, didn't it? Hmm... Click the story above to follow some of the ongoing saga and what the implications could be.

Dayum was that cathartic!

Labels: bizzaro, catharsis, financial ponderings, misanthropy, politics, watching the skies

Why set it up so perfectly and not expect it to be knocked out of the park?
The Associated Press: Barack Obama: The human flyswatter

"Hasn't he got someone to brush away blue-tail flies for him now?"


The Blue-tail Fly

When I was young I used to wait
On master and hand him his plate
Pass him the bottle when he got dry
And brush away the blue-tail fly

Chorus
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Jimmy crack corn, and I don't care
Jimmy crack corn, and I don't care
Jimmy crack corn, and I don't care
My master's gone away
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

So sue me.

I mean, on the other hand, why the heck does AP deem this newsworthy unless they are trying to push this caricature themselves? Hmm?

I question their motives.

Labels: felicity and jocularity

Chickies!

These are some six-week old Buff Orpingtons that Daisycat bought at a feed store:


And this weekend there was a hatch of chicks from the eggs laid by the current flock of hens!

These peeps are one day old.

Ain't they tha cutest darn thaings?

Tragedy struck the Orpingtons the first night though. They were kept in what we thought was a good secure cage. Overnight somehow a coatimundi was able to pull apart a corner of fencing and reach wa-ay in and grab one. The details are more gruesome than I want to go into, but suffice to say we hastily relocated the domicile of the remaining four to a more secure location *inside* the coop until they can be integrated with the rest of the flock.

Update: Jazzy and Sammy holding hands...

These two need each other, like Punch needs Judy, like Flo needs Mel. Sam was the last indoor cat from Tucson to come out here. He arrived last week. This recent weekend the first outdoor cat arrived. Rumsfeld has been napping under the house, generally pleased as can be about his new surroundings.

Labels: cats, San Pedro homestead

"...why are you blogging randomly instead of posting progress pics?"

The Plague

Still. Today was spent in bed in an effort to beat it finally. I *am* feeling a mite better now, but without a whole lot of NRG for doing stuff. My task today would have been carving out a niche next to the furnace to mount the solar electric equipment.

Next week...

This better have been H1N1! Why? 1)Because if H1N1 were actually *worse* than this, I can't imagine... 2) Because I'd just as soon deal with it, get the immunity, and thereafter not have to worry when the pandemic hits full-force next winter.

Labels: blogospheric navel-gazing, minutiae

Often though, I can't remember where the class is being held or what time it actually meets, because I haven't been attending class since the beginning of the semester.

Whassup wit dis?

Labels: cartoon, ponderings

Sunny gets his revenge on Rachel Lucas...

Labels: felicity and jocularity

On my way to (almost) energy-free cooling, the evaporator cell is installed and functional.


Temporarily it is being driven by an ordinary fan. As it is right now this is just a basic evaporative cooler setup. The fan will be removed later when the solar towers are built and online.

That's a cat condo in the foreground.

Meanwhile Mom and Daisycat taped and plastered seams in the west bedroom walls today. The house came with the usual mobile home tacky little trim strips everywhere. They are all coming off and either being replaced with proper trim where appropriate or taped seams elsewhere. Daisycat wants to texture the walls. I'd be perfectly content to make them smooth. So we'll see. If she's willing to put forth some of the texturing effort then they'll probably be textured.

Labels: San Pedro homestead

This is just a portion of the components for my solar electric system that arrived yesterday--the charge controller, inverter, the inverter and charge controller interface device, one of the breaker panels and breakers, and surge protectors. The solar panels themselves are languishing in a depot somewhere in Tucson while they decide how they will get them out to me. The main DC electric panel is being drop-shipped from elsewhere. And batteries will be ordered next month when I can afford them.

Labels: San Pedro homestead

Ever dreamed a song--that is, woken up with a song running in your head from the dream you just left? Ever went to look for the song later and found it doesn't exist?

It is not unusual for me to wake up with a song running through my mind. They are usually recognizable songs, often praise/worship songs I am familiar with. This morning I woke up with a Newsboys song running. Only trouble is, the best I can tell from a search of the internet, they've never recorded the song. The only part I remember is the refrain, with simple lyrics as follows, sung in the characteristic Newsboys style:

Thank you, thank you,
Thank you for your love.
I'm going home,
I'm going home!

I guess this qualifies as a "new song in your heart" then...

Update: Here's a real Newsboys song for you.

Labels: spiritual

Yes, there was progress last weekend, though less than I hoped. I was battling the Plague (some damn summer flu virus) and still am. I haven't been sick like this in quite a few years. I have been able to hit back hard at most colds and flu with colloidal silver, reducing them to maybe two or three days of mild symptoms at most. This disease was different in that it snuck up on me without presenting the usual upper respiratory warning signs, and so got established in my system before I knew what was wrong with me. I was severely fatigued last week and had some mild digestive upset. It wasn't until Thursday or Friday that I began to suspect flu and started treating with silver. Yesterday and today I've developed a cough tickle so deep in my lungs and so intense that it feels like my diaphragm is spasming uncontrollably--it sort of feels like a case of reverse hiccups. Dextromethorphan is barely able to suppress it, and if I take enough to actually do the job it makes me loopy. So I'm reduced to snorting and sputtering at unexpected times during meetings.

A-any way, progress pics:

My big accomplishment was cleaning up around last week's concrete pour, and installing the doorknob and door closer on the south garden gate. I also had to reinstall the latch on the north gate. It had fallen off and I needed to reconfigure it to make it stable.

I didn't get very far with the evaporative cooler cell installation. I got it on only to discover that I need to do something differently to allow the top to be removable for maintenance. Either I need to shim it out or I need to cut the top a bit to allow it to be pulled free without shimming. So...next week.

Mom and Daisycat pulled up the last of the old floor covering on the west bedroom and painted the bedroom and bathroom floor with ceramic insulating paint. This layer of insulating paint will help retain heat from the radiant floor system I will be installing.


The last bed of cover crop has sprung up over the week. At least the cowpeas and buckwheat did. I added some wildflower seed that I don't see evidence of yet.


But as for wildflowers, I continue to be amazed at what I have wrought.

This..."meadow" was originally just meant to hold the soil against erosion and satisfy the county grading inspector. Nothing like this appeared last year when I seeded it, spread straw, and irrigated it enough for the grasses to come up and get a start. It was just fescue grass and sweet allysums. Now that I've been watering it a bit more regularly to get the new cover crops up (cowpeas and buckwheat), a carpet of wildflower color has erupted.


Even this spot--the west half of the south half--where things looked so sparse I was planning to buy more cover crop seed to get *something* growing here has magically transformed:


In contrast, when I turn around, this last far southwest corner is outside the reach of the irrigation:

Just add water...

UPDATE: Ooh! I almost forgot to mention that today I placed an order for most of the components of a small solar electric installation for the house. This will be enough to keep us in very basic electric service should the power go out for good when TSHTF. And also to trim a small amount off regular electric usage until then. I configured it to be expandable, though I can't see having funds to expand it for some time to come.

Labels: San Pedro homestead

Dig this graphic:

The portions in blue were created and posted by the Obama Team, ostensibly to show how the "stimulus plan" was supposed to work. The light blue line was supposed to be how unemployment would look if he did nothing (i.e. the part that was Bush's Fault). The dark blue line was supposed to be how the Obama Plan would make things better.

The maroon dots represent the actual results (so far) of the Obama Plan implementation.

Can U say "accelerating disaster"?

I knew U could...

Labels: The Failed Obama Presidency

Training them to use TP may have it's own risks also...


"HOney? Are we out of toilet paper aGain?"

"Frisco..."

Labels: cats, felicity and jocularity