Mostly Cajun, All American and Opinionated

1863 – American Civil War: U.S. President Abraham Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Address at the military cemetery dedication ceremony at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

1928 – 1st issue of Time magazine, Japanese Emperor Hirohito on cover. Thirteen years later, they’d regret it. Today any America-hating bigmouth is fair game.

1959 – Ford cancels Edsel. Today they’d just double the advertising budget and pass out a few bonuses.

1965 – Kellogg’s Pop Tarts pastries introduced. Quick. Easy. Mediocre, but that’s good enough to sell.

1985 – Cold War: In Geneva, U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev meet for the first time. Reagan doesn’t bow…

Barack HUSSEIN Obama cautions us about a “double-dip” recession. From Reuters:

Obama: Too much debt could fuel double-dip recession
Wed Nov 18, 2009 6:14am EST

BEIJING, Nov 18 (Reuters) – President Barack Obama gave his sternest warning yet about the need to contain rising U.S. deficits, saying on Wednesday that if government debt were to pile up too much, it could lead to a double-dip recession.

This, friends, is called “hedging your bet”. The bright ideas that he and his advisors came up with to put the economy on the right track aren’t working. To you and me that isn’t a surprise. To Barack and his homies it IS a surprise.

He knows that the bigger crash is likely, and he’s already preparing us for it. It’s sort of like the “global warming” bunch changing their tune to “global climate change” because it becomes obvious that “warming” isn’t taking place.

In this case, the recession isn’t going to stop, so we’re being told that a douple-dip recession is a possibility. In a few months, he’ll be telling us that it’s here.

With the U.S. unemployment rate at 10.2 percent, Obama told Fox News his administration faces a delicate balance of trying to boost the economy and spur job creation while putting the economy on a path toward long-term deficit reduction.

Of course when things DO start to go south, his lapdog media will happily report that it’s due to opposition from us conservatives who stood in the way of his enlightened policies.

Why is he telling fox News this, anyway?

His administration was considering ways to accelerate economic growth, with tax measures among the options to give companies incentives to hire, Obama said in the interview with Fox conducted in Beijing during his nine-day trip to Asia.

“Tax measures”, as in we’ll suck all the energy out of the economy with our tax policy, then, if, and only if, you’re one of the targeted industries and you jump through the right hoops, we’ll lighten YOUR load just enough to give us a few faces to put on a “see, we fixed the economy” spot on the evening news.

“It is important though to recognize if we keep on adding to the debt, even in the midst of this recovery, that at some point, people could lose confidence in the U.S. economy in a way that could actually lead to a double-dip recession,” he said.

There ISN’T a recovery. The “rebound” in the stock market is false when viewed in terms of the drop in the dollar’s value. Gold is at an all-time high, which means that the dollar is at an all-time low. Check it against the Euro and yen or other world currencies. At this point I don’t doubt that we’re losing ground on the Zimbabwean dollar. “adding to the debt”? Remember the bunch of Lefties who were hooting about the Bush deficits (which a Dimmo-led congress pushed through)? Heard anything from THEM lately? With Obama’s 1.2 TRILLION deficit? But Barry’s gonna caution us now.

No, what Barry is doing is trying to soften the blow that’s coming…

1307 – According to legend, William Tell shoots an apple off of his son’s head. My brother the bowhunter could have done that with a stinkin’ walnut.

1803 – The Battle of Vertières, the last major battle of the Haitian Revolution, is fought, leading to the establishment of the Republic of Haiti, the first black republic in the Western Hemisphere. And two hundred years later, Haiti STILL hasn’t figured out how to get past the African definition of “republic”.

1805 – Lewis & Clark reach Pacific Ocean, 1st Americans to cross continent.

1883 – American and Canadian railroads institute five standard continental time zones, ending the confusion of thousands of local times.

1913 – Lincoln Beachey performs 1st airplane loop-the-loop (San Diego)

1916 – World War I: First Battle of the Somme ends – In France, British Expeditionary Force commander Douglas Haig calls off the battle which started on July 1, 1916. After 1.5 MILLION casualties, the British are a whole SIX MILES deeper in German territory than when they started.

1928 – Release of the animated short Steamboat Willie, the first fully synchronized sound cartoon, directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks, featuring the third appearances of cartoon stars Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse. This is also considered by the Disney corporation to be Mickey’s birthday. Warner Brothers comes along in following years and shows how it’s supposed to be done. Mickey Mouse is a wimp.

1978 – Jonestown incident: In Guyana, Jim Jones leads his Peoples Temple cult in a mass murder-suicide that claims 918 lives in all, 909 of them at Jonestown itself, including over 270 children. Congressman Leo J. Ryan is assassinated by members of Peoples Temple shortly beforehand. Nutcase preacher with a socialist message disguised as Gospel leads people to their doom. Hmmm…

It’s apparently quite the rage in active foreign policy for many nations these days.

For those who slept through English Lit. in bygone days, here’s the reference from the inestimable Rudyard Kipling, poet of REAL men:

IT IS always a temptation to an armed and agile nation,
To call upon a neighbour and to say:
“We invaded you last night – we are quite prepared to fight,
Unless you pay us cash to go away.”

And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
And the people who ask it explain
That you’ve only to pay ’em the Dane-geld
And then you’ll get rid of the Dane!

It is always a temptation to a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say:
“Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away.”

And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we’ve proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.

It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
For fear they should succumb and go astray,
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
You will find it better policy to say:

“We never pay any one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost,
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that plays it is lost!”

So, MC, where are you headed with this ramble??

Sit, grasshopper, and attend my words, for they are the words of ages, not the inane pratings of the denizen of an academic greehouse-raised pointy-headed kumbayah liberal.

Here’s a story from Breitbart:

Somali pirate: $3.3M ransom paid, 36 hostages free
Nov 17 09:59 AM US/Eastern
By MOHAMED OLAD HASSAN
Associated Press Writer

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) – Pirates freed 36 crew members from a Spanish trawler Tuesday after holding them for more than six weeks. A self-proclaimed pirate said the hostage-takers were paid $3.3 million in ransom, while Spain’s prime minister said the country did what it had to do.

That’s just this time.

That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.

Because before that, there was THIS:

In April 2008, the Spanish government reportedly paid a ransom of $1.2 million to win the release of another Spanish trawler seized by pirates off Somalia, that time with a crew of 26. The ordeal lasted a week.

It’s time for the sort of moves that put “to the shores of Tripoli” in the Marines’ Hymn. Piracy used to be a crime instantly punishable by death.

It will be interesting to see how this incident is handled:

The pirates attacked a chemical tanker named the MV Theresa with the 28 crew members on board, the European Union’s anti-piracy force said. The vessel, which was operated out of Singapore, had been heading to the Kenyan port town of Mombasa. The EU force did not say what kind of chemicals were on board.

Given North Korea’s financial state (broke), I’d be surprised to see payment forthcoming. However, I’m thinking that their capabilities for long distance force projection ALSO suck, so I don’t expect North Korean invasion to take place. I’m thinking that the UN needs to fix this one, and we all KNOW how effective the UN is at doing anything besides talking and writing letters.

In addition to the capture of the NorK ship on Monday, the pirates tried to pick up another:

In a second incident Monday, pirates attacked a Ukrainian cargo ship with AK-47 rifles and rocket propelled grenades after two small skiffs detached from a mother ship. Harbour, the EU Naval Force spokesman, said that private security guards on board fired on the pirates, wounding two. The pirates then broke off the attack, the force said, Harbour said the Ukrainian ship was not hijacked.

Apparently somebody’s been reading their Kipling:

We never pay any one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost,
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that plays it is lost!

Perhaps the saddest line in the article:

An international flotilla of warships now patrols the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden, but pirates continue to carry out attacks because of the millions of dollars that can be made from a successful hijacking.

Don’t know history? Doomed to repeat it.

OJ Simpson killed two people. The media turned his trial into a circus. Michael Jackson diddled a few kids. The media turned his trial into a circus. Do you honestly THINK that this will be anything less? Any lefty lawyer with an agenda is pulling every string he has to get in on this one. It’s the key to future fame and fortune for them, and it’s the administration’s Big Stage to point fingers at the Bush/Cheney/Rove handling of everything after 9/11.

1800 – The United States Congress holds its first session in Washington, D.C. And it starts slowly sliding downhill…

1820 – Captain Nathaniel Palmer becomes the first American to see Antarctica (the Palmer Peninsula was later named after him). Explorer? No. Scientist? No. What, then? Seal hunter…

1871 – The National Rifle Association is granted a charter by the state of New York.

1917 – Ralph Johnstone become the first American pilot to die in a plane crash when he failed to pull out of a dive in Denver. There were earlier fatalities, but they were passengers.

1970 – Douglas Engelbart receives the patent for the first computer mouse.

1992 – Dateline NBC airs a demonstration show General Motors trucks, blowing up on impact, later revealed NBC rigged test. It’s the mainstream media, making up news as they go along. Now they’ve made up a President.

You folks who’ve had the patience to hang around here for very long know that I like to talk about how things work. You know, what the inside of things looks like. Here’s a rare view: Continue reading The Inner Workings

This is how the Left “protects” us. Lawyers and courtrooms are how they come to power. Lawyers and courtrooms are, in their minds the ONLY tool to get anything done. Naturally they think that lawyers and courtrooms will protect this country, that killing 3000 is the same as whacking Jerome, the Undocumented Pharmacist on the local street corner.

Lawyers and courtrooms are the only tool the left has, and as the saying goes, “when your only tool is a hammer, every problem is a nail.”

Lefty lawyers are lining up for a chance to get on the Big Stage with this trial, to tell the world exactly how horrible America is.

That way they (the lawyers) can tell the world how horrible America is for capturing and imprisoning the people who killed an (in your words previously) statistically insignificant number of Americans and how the Eeeeeevil McChimpyBushitler and ubervillain Carl Rove and Darth Cheney deprived those poor misunderstood Muslims of the practice of the WRITTEN tenets of their religion.

I want to protect America, not treat the enemies like Jerome the Undocumented pharmacist who capped his competition on the street corner.

The trial will be a circus. America under Obama’s wise and compassionate care will look weak and ineffectual, and our enemies will rejoice at yet another method of sapping the nation’s strength and will. America is NOT going to be more safe because of this bone-headed move.

In my younger days I was in the Army too, and I WASN’T a REMF. I joined in 1968 and gave Uncle Sam a blank check for my country to fill in the amount, up to and inclusive of MY LIFE. I’m old and grey now, but it’s still my country and I’d still take up arms so people can go to work without some Muslim whack-job deciding to kill them.

My commanders weren’t perfect then, and commanders aren’t perfect now, and we left Viet Nam because people like this administration were so very smart that they thought we could sit down at the table and reason with our enemies.

“Give peace a chance” they said, and we did, and after thousands of Vietnamese died in “re-education camps” and thousands died in little boats trying to escape kindly Uncle Ho and then the Khmer Rouge killed a couple million, SOME of us saw what your “Sit together and reason” and “give peace a chance” is good for in an imperfect world.

Today the enemy overseas doesn’t wear a red star or black pajamas, and unlike Uncle Ho this enemy is not happy with confining his killing to some faraway land, but there’s an enemy just the same, and no “sit down and reason” is going to work against an ideology that specifically says “convert by sword”.

You don’t afford these people the trappings of a civilization they do not recognize. You keep after them, affording them no solace and no shelter, knowing that the war may never end, but you keep their victories small and costly.

Or you can bring them in here, treat them like they got caught robbing a convenience store, provide them with lawyers and a forum to air their wrongs…

• I think part of a best friend’s job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die
• Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you’re wrong
• I totally take back all those times I didn’t want to nap when I was younger
• There is great need for a sarcasm font
• How the he** are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?
• Was learning cursive really necessary?
• Map Quest really needs to start their directions on #5. Pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood
• Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died
• I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t at least kind of tired
• Bad decisions make good stories
• You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you know that you just aren’t going to do anything productive for the rest of the day
• Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after Blue Ray? I don’t want to have to restart my collection…again.
• I’m always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten page research paper that I swear I did not make any changes to
• “Do not machine wash or tumble dry” means I will never wash this — ever
• I hate when I just miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello? Damn it!), but when I immediately call back, it rings nine times and goes to voicemail. What’d you do after I didn’t answer? Drop the phone and run away?
• I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.
• I keep some people’s phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.
• I think the freezer deserves a light as well
• I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday or Saturday night more kisses begin with Miller Lites than Kay

(From a post on CSP Gun Talk’s Political Page by “BillD”)

Over at Cranky’s place, she talks about a new cost saving rule from on high wherein they are not supposed to have and use coffee pots and electric kettles. It’s a cost-saving measure on the part of “management”.

A few years ago when I was a field service engineer I worked almost exclusively inside one of the largest refineries on the Gulf Coast. I had a good reputation there and as a consequence it was not unusual for one of several people in the plant’s electrical department to call me off a job to go help them solve any of several problems in various parts of their electrical system. My normal venue was high voltage power and this place had fifty substations from 480 to 230,000 volts, a couple of generators, etc., etc., just a whole lot of fun stuff to play with.

So on a Monday, mid-morningish, when I got his call, that’s what I was expecting, not, “Uh, we need to get you to look at a lighting panel.” Lighting panels in an industrial setting are pretty much the same as the one you have in your home, 240 and 120 volts, or slightly more common in the plants, 208 three-phase and 120 volts single phase. So there I was in the basement of one of the administration buildings looking at one of these.

“What’s the problem?” I asked.

The building coordinator, not a maintenance guy himself, and certainly not an electrician, says, “Breakers keep tripping.”

Me: “When did it start?”

Him: “Ever since we got to work this morning. I been down here a dozen times.”

Me: “Same breaker?” That would ahve made the job easier.

Him: “No. This one twice.” He pointed at one. “This one once”. As he was pointing it went “CLICK” right in front of us. “There it goes again. And this one, and this one…”

Me: !

Now there are several rules and regulations that state that the circuit breakers in a lighting panel should be plainly identified. This is usually done on a piece of cardboard placed in a pocket with a clear window inside the door. Naturally, the card was missing. That’s going in the report.

Me: “I have a meter in the truck. Let me get it and measure some currents and see what’s going on.”

Him: “Okay.”

In a couple of minutes I was back with the meter and a screwdriver. In today’s kinder, gentler workplace I’d have been donning a quilted Nomex flash suit but at the time we didn’t do that, especially for a stinkin’ dinky-a**ed lighting panel. I unscrewed a few cover screws and exposed the wiring connected to the little breakers. Then I started clamping the meter around some of the outgoing wires to measure loads.

The breakers in this panel that had been tripping were rated for twenty amps. I clamped the first on. Thirty-two amps. No wonder it was tripping. The next breaker he’d identified was twenty something. The one after that, over twenty. And so on. I tracked the wires from the breakers to the conduit that took them out of the panel to various parts of the building. I was halfway expecting them to all go in the same pipe, then I’d find a box further into the system with wet spices or worse, a smoking rat carcass. But such was not the case. They went in TWO pipes, going in two different directions.

So I asked the question: “When the breaker trips, do you see lights going out, or something like that?”

Him: “We lost a couple of computers. A fax machine. Stuff like that.”

Now I’m thinking “okay, these are receptacle circuits.” You know, they go to wall plugs.

Did I mention that the night before, a cold front had come roaring through the area, the first good one of the year, and temperatures today outside were thirty degrees lower than the previous Friday? Can you see where this is heading?

“Let’s go look in one of those offices,” I said. And off we went, up the stairs, down the hall to an office with three desks and three nice ladies with sweaters on. I introduced myself and looked at the first receptacle I could find. There was a heavy black cord plugged in it. And under the desk, a 1500-watt electric heater. Next receptacle, another heater. And a third.

“I’ve seen enough,” I said, walking out into the hall with the building coordinator. After we’d gotten away from the office door, I said, “Your problem is that your thermostat is too low, and every one of those ladies has an electric heater under her desk to keep her feet warm. Raise the thermostat until half of them take their sweaters off, and the heaters will go back in the closets. Or you could be little Hitler and leave the thermostat where it is and issue an edict against the heaters. You know how much fun a bunch of uncomfortable, cranky women could be.”

Him: “I think I’ll raise the thermostat.”

Ten things you learned in school that were wrong….

1. Einstein got bad grades in school
Um… have you heard about this guy Einstein? Famous physicist? Relativity and all that? A genius, even? I’m pretty sure little Albert could handle his business in 4th grade arithmetic. Yes, contrary to popular belief, Einstein was a top student in elementary school, getting mostly top grades on the German grading scale of 1-6, which silly Americans later assumed, backwardly, were “D”s. The idea stuck because everybody loves the idea that their poor student can go on to great things. Sorry, parents, Einstein was teaching himself calculus at age 12. Your little lip-twiddling ‘tard will be working at Hardee’s.

Hah!

1532 – Francisco Pizarro and his men capture Inca Emperor Atahualpa. Yeah, I know it’s about gold, but they also halted the quaint practice of making mummies of living children.

1676 – First colonial prison organized in Nantucket Massachusetts.

1894 – 6,000 Armenians massacred by Turks in Kurdistan. In case you wondered how we ended up with all those Armenian names in the phone book.

1940 – Holocaust: In occupied Poland, the Nazis close off the Warsaw Ghetto from the outside world. Real ghettoes have soldiers who keep the occupants inside. Nobody gets out alive.

1945 – Cold War: Operation Paperclip: The United States Army secretly admits 88 German scientists and engineers to help in the development of rocket technology. These guys helped put us into space.

1963 – Touch-tone telephone introduced. Wonder how many folks still remember having to “dial” a phone? How about “wind” a watch?

1973 – U.S. President Richard Nixon signs the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act into law, authorizing the construction of the Alaska Pipeline.