Category Archives: Scribbles

Say a prayer

Posted on December 26, 2006 | Comments Off on Say a prayer

Give a thought and a prayer for Alan Sullivan, the seablogger at Fresh Bilge, who is struggling to win a second remission from cancer. Meanwhile, stop by and read his eclectic thoughts between bouts of applying fresh varnish to his oceangoing home.

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A modest proposal

Posted on December 26, 2006 | Comments Off on A modest proposal

"Everyone bemoans the commercialization of Christmas but no one does anything about it, as Mark Twain famously didn’t say."

So Akaky Bashmachkin, of the Passing Parade, proposes a solution: instead of Xmas every year, how about making it every five years? Works for me, although Mom and Mr. Boy, the Christmas-addicted here at the Rancho, might strenously object.

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Still no room at the inn

Posted on December 23, 2006 | Comments Off on Still no room at the inn

Israeli cartoonist Yaakov Kirschen laments the transformation of Jesus’ birthplace as Christians flee Muslim control:

"Sadly, after the Palestinian takeover of Bethlehem there was no room for a Jewish visitor. Apparently there’s not much room left for the Christians either. The Christian population has dropped from 85 – 90% to a shocking 15-20%! My friend and his family and probably most of my other Bethlehemite friends have emigrated. Santa won’t find their stockings and Christmas trees in the little Christian town of their birth…The Palestinian Authority blames the flight of Christians on Israel. It’s the story that will probably play on your TV screens next week."

Undoubtedly. When has the MSM played fair with Israel lately? Only in Jimmy Carter’s fantasies.

UPDATE  Dec. 24: Blaming Israel has already begun. 

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Posted in Israel, Scribbles, The War

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Vanishing lake

Posted on December 23, 2006 | Comments Off on Vanishing lake

VanishingLake.JPG

Anderson Mill marina at Lake Travis where the water is forty feet lower than it should be due to a long drought. That’s the lowest the lake-reservoir has been since 1964. The marina is half its normal size because half the boats and their docks have been moved into deeper water closer to the main basin. All that brown land and white rock on the left and brown vegetation and white rock in the foreground normally is underwater. Meanwhile, the drought gets more savage by the week, despite the El Nino that’s supposed to bring us beaucoup rain this winter. Hasn’t yet, although an inch or so is predicted with the passage of a cold front tonight. 

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Posted in Rancho Roly Poly, Scribbles, Weather/Climate

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Open Season on jihadis

Posted on December 19, 2006 | Comments Off on Open Season on jihadis

I usually ignore rap, unless I’m stuck at a stoplight with some clown with big bass speakers in his car. They always seem to be playing the stuff. But I may actually break down and buy one for the first time. As one of the commenters at Op-For says, this Stuck Mojo rap-metal outfit may have produced the first post 9/11 anti-jihadi rap number. The video, which features footage of what look to be Palestinian terrorists in their usual KKK drag, is as pounding as rap usually is, but with the unmistakable (and appropriate) message that it’s "open season" on jihadi punks. Get some!

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Posted in Scribbles, The War

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The inseminated child

Posted on December 18, 2006 | Comments Off on The inseminated child

I’ve never had any problem with responsible gay men adopting, or lesbians using sperm donors to conceive, as Vice President Cheney’s daughter Mary apparently has done. But Akaky at The Passing Parade is surely correct when he notes that any child is sure to question any notion that her mother’s lesbian partner might have of being "the father":

"This, of course, is nonsense on stilts. If Ms. Poe thinks that she is something other than a stepparent, Ms. Cheney’s progeny will rudely disabuse her of this delusion sometime in 2022, especially if said progeny is female and she’s been out all night and put a ding in the new car’s fender in the process."

Meanwhile, comes this poignant piece by an 18-year-old conceived by insemination to underscore that it is a rare person who does not wish to know (or at least know of) their real parents, plural. Hopefully Ms. Cheney and her partner have prepared for the probability that the child will want to know who the father is, or was. It would be the wise, indeed the humane, thing to do.

Via No Left Turns

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Posted in Science/Engineering, Scribbles

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Dit, dah dit, dah dit dit, that’s it

Posted on December 16, 2006 | Comments Off on Dit, dah dit, dah dit dit, that’s it

When I was in scouts, two shortwave amateurs who ran their rigs out of their basements–via tall towers looming over their back yards–taught Morse code for the shortave radio merit badge. It looked too hard to me, so I went for something else. First Aid, I think it was, or maybe canoeing.

Only needed to wait about fifty more years, until Friday’s ruling.

"In an historic move, the FCC has acted to drop the Morse code requirement for all Amateur Radio license classes…Currently, Amateur Radio applicants for General and higher class licenses have to pass a 5 [words per minute] Morse code test to operate on [High Frequency]. Today’s [Report & Order] will eliminate that requirement all around."

Dit dah, dit dah, dit dah, that’s all, folks. (Translations here)

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