I have seen two . . .

. . . monumental tragedies as they happened.

9/11, and this.

The first was monsters believing they would reach heaven. May their souls rot in hell.

The second was brave men and women on their way to the heavens. May their souls rest in peace.

Another good way . . .

. . . to thin out the Democrat party

Tuesday night after the speech, Obama adviser David Plouffe said to NBC News that the president would not let the moment after the Arizona shootings pass without pushing for some change in the law, to prevent another similar incident. “It’s a very important issue, and one I know there’s going to be debate about on the Hill.”

"Never let a good crisis go to waste."- Rahm Emanuel, Barry buddy and non-resident of Chicago

The White House said that to avoid being accused of capitalizing on the Arizona shootings for political gain, Obama will address the gun issue in a separate speech, likely early next month.

Rephrased: "Let's capitalize on it, but avoid being accused of it."

Do it. The last time your party tried, they had their collective arses handed to them.

Suggestion: when you're deep in a hole, stop digging.

It's that time of year . . .

. . . buy some cookies from this girl

Or, maybe her daughter.

You have to love an army . . .

. . . with pink minis and go-go boots

It is not only spoken . . .

. . . it is also written.

The first thing you will wanna get out is a sauce pan and heat it on a medium low flame.

Is it not bad enough that our speech has become terribly sloppy? Does our writing also have to be this undisciplined? I understand that "wanna" and "gonna" roll off the tongue easier than "going to" and "want to," but it is lazy speech.

It also seems that a new style has emerged.

Why use 10 words when 50 will do?

Perhaps: "In a sauce pan on medium heat . . ."

Yes, I'm grumpy today.

Deal with it.

Cold enough . . .

. . . to freeze the balls off of a brass monkey.

Cannon balls aboard Navy ships were once stored on brass racks. Since brass contracts under cold temperatures, an extremely cold night would cause the brass racks to shrink enough to actually pop out any iron cannon balls they contained.

Heard that one?

Civil war reenactors and military types like to show how much they know by quoting this old saw.

Taint true, McGee.

The differential between the coefficients of thermal expansion of brass and iron are not sufficient to cause this metallic primate castration.

This science moment has been brought to you by my lack of anthing intelligent to write.

Dude . . .

. . . Do you have to bow to everyone?

Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.
Proverbs 16:18 KJV

When is the last time your heard that correctly quoted - and correctly attributed? By the way, said fall should occur ca. 201 - with any luck, that is.

Sneak thieves . . .

. . . tried to burgle two houses about 125 meters up the street from us.

At one casa, they put out the night lights and broke the judas gate, but could not get inside. At the casa next door, they tried the same approach, but the occupants were at home and frightened them away.

We are concerned, but not overly so. These arseholes are are opportunists, not home invaders.

In addition to electronic countermeasures connected to the carabinieri, (which I will not describe here), we have other physical security.

I don't mind showing them, because they are common knowledge in Italy.

All our doors and windows have heavy-gauge steel shutters that have shot pins into the marble sills and concrete headers.

We also have bank vault-type deadbolts on all of the exterior doors, which are shot into solid steel frames.

It's a bit sad that folks in this part of Italy have to live in fortified housing, but that's the way it is, so we adapt.

What's even worse is that Italian - and most European - laws do not allow us to protect ourselves. We are allowed to use only "sufficient force" to stop a robbery, or even an assault. Play Whack-a-Mole with a burglar in Italy, and you're on your way to jail.

I differ with that theory. I believe that my house is my castle, and that anyone who breaks in intends to do me harm. I also believe that I have the right to use whatever force I deem necessary to rectifiy the situation.

My definition of "sufficent force" is 230 grains of copper-clad lead moving at 900 feet per second.

This brought . . .

. . . a tear to my eye

Listen to elizabeth's crystal clear voice. Notice her total composure when the microphone failed. Hear the audience back her up and finish the Anthem.

With all the vitriol being spouted by the talking heads on television and the politicians everywhere, moments like this are wonderful, simply wonderful.

A little hypocricy . . .

. . . goes a long way

The liberal left is all up in arms about this map, because Sarah Palin undoubtably was the proximate cause of Rep. Giffords' assination attempt.

Now, would you care to guess which party paraded this map? Not a hard guess, is it?

Lefty columnists and mainstream media are unabashedly using this tragedy for political gain.

It's reprehensible.

Maybe . . .

. . .I'm too picky

But, I expect quality novelists to have some ability to check facts - or have them checked.

I'm currently reading "The Death Trust" by David Rollins. It has a good start, but there are an unexpected number of errors.

In discussing the habit of middle easterners to fire their weapons into the air for practically any reason, he says:

"The slugs always came back to earth, and when they did, they were every bit as lethal as aimed rounds fired from the shoulder."

Bzzzzzzzzzzt. Wrong! Old wives' tale.

Take a 5.56 x 45 NATO round for example. It leaves the muzzle at 3,100 feet/sec. When falling back to earth, it's maximum velocity is about 175 feet/sec. That makes the energy at the muzzle about 1,325 ft-lbs, and the energy of the falling bullet is about 5.0 ft-lbs. So, it's about 0.4% as deadly - but that won't make a good story. Something weighing a little over a tenth of an ounce at that speed wouldn't be comfortable, but a good felt hat would be sufficient protection.

Then, there's the general whose glider shed its wings and took him nose-first into the ground.

"General Scott hit the base of a towering pine tree at two hindred and ninety-one miles per hour."

Bzzzzzzzzzzt. Wrong!

While free-fall speeds over 200 mph are possible near sea level, it takes an experienced skydiver, not someone in a broken glider wetting his nappies because he only has seconds to live.

Of course, General Scott was important because of the job he held.

"He was the CO of Ramstein Air Base. A four-star heavy hitter"

Bzzzzzzzzzzt. Wrong!

With very rare exceptions, Commanding officers of American military bases are Army, Air Force or Marine colonels or Navy captains.

And I'm only up to page 15.

Plagarism . . .

. . . . with a purpose.

The purpose, obviously, is to illustrate the fact that ignorance knows no bounds.

And, I do give proper credit, so the plagarism thingy should be de minimus, and I claim fair use. If you follow this link, you have the choice of being frightened out of your wits, or laughing until you need a change of undies.

This particular braniac is at post #19. God help us if he has congregation larger than 2.

This is the proper explanation for the tides, unlike the preposterous theory that the moon is somehow involved. Here are three glaring mistakes in the secular scientist's thinking which makes their precious theory fall apart.

1) How can the moon pull water away from the Earth when the Earth has a stronger gravitational pull? One thing that these secularist idiots kept saying in the 3 experiments thread is that the the Earth is a sphere and gravity pulls everything towards the center. Okay, for argument's sake, let's assume that crazy idea is true. So if the Earth, which is much more massive and stronger than the moon, is pulling water towards its center, how can the moon overcome it? We know the Earth is stronger because the moon revolves around us (according to their theory). If the moon was strong enough to create tides, it would mean that the Earth would have to be revolving around the moon. No secular scientist would admit that.

2) How can the moon overcome the sun's gravity, when the sun is even stronger than the Earth? This just gets even more absurd. The Earth is stronger than the moon, but the Sun is stronger than the Earth. How the heck could the tides be created by the moon and not the sun? The scientists will say "Well because it's only 280,000 miles away." (It's actually only about 500). But okay, even at that, it would be the same idea presented in the first question: We would be revolving around the moon if that were the case.

3) If the moon is strong enough to pull water from a far-away planet, how come there is an absence of gravity on the moon? It cannot contain an atmosphere, and if the Apollo hoax is to be believed, you can jump around like bunny rabbits on pogo sticks. The moon is so weak in gravity it can't even hold a 200 lb man to the surface, let alone weightless air particles. Yet, yet, this same object is somehow able to pull billions and billions of cubic tons of water, hundreds of thousand of miles away, and beat the gravitational field of the Earth!

The problem with the above three mistakes is they try to have it both ways in gravity. If object A is more powerful than B, A will exert influence on B, but not the other way around. A smaller object cannot affect a larger object. They say if you jump out of an airplane, it's the Earth's gravity pulling a smaller object (you) to the ground. Well, why don't we affect the Earth's gravity? Why don't we push the Earth back?

The only logical conclusion is that:
- The Earth is flat, like the Bible says.
- The Sun and Moon are both nearby and small objects, about 500 miles away, which revolve around the Earth
- Tides are caused by the Bathtub Theory.

So sayeth the Rev. Jim Osborne.

It was a Barry day . . .
. . . and my birthday

So, what did my cheeky daughter and her evil English husband send me? Don't strain your cervello. I should have seen it coming.

This is the outside.

Diabolical thinkers that they are, they bought it three months in advance because they were afraid it wouldn't be available after the election.

Diabolical, indeed.

New Year's Eve . . .

. . . in Napoli

I did not expect this, so my camerawork sucks. I had to run to the basement, dig up my camera and put in a charged battery, but I believe I caught it at its peak. It's now 12:45, and it's still going on.

The Italians will launch fireworks on just about any special occasion, but I've never seen anything like this.