Paraphrasing – Transcending the great Bartlett’s in the sky

  • Mao Tse Tung:  “We’ve got to find an alternative to marching four-abreast into the sea.  Four abreast would take forever.”
  • Jeff Chandler: White man speak with forked tongue.”
  • Walter Brennon:  “Them God damned Shoshones just kept a’comin’.  I’ve got five arrows in my chest and it HURTS!  They just kept a’comin’.”
  • John Wayne: Fill your hand you son of a bitch!”
  • Standing Badger Running:  “You guys serve whiskey to Indians in here?”
  • GI Joe:  “For me this war isn’t about killing Japanese or Germans, or protecting our freedoms.  It’s about NOT shovelling shit in Louisiana or burying bodies in the Solomon Islands.”

Hi readers. Thanks for coming by for a read.

I’d imagine most of you will agree the dew has just about fallen from the lily with all these quotations flying around the Internet.  Pick any subject, do a quickie websearch, and someone somewhere said a wise inspiring soul shattering sentence about it in some context. 

Pop it up and give the world a thrill.  Make their day.  You don’t even have to know who the person was who said it, nor why they said it, nor to whom.  Just shoot it out there and everyone who reads it will suddenly possess a new and enlightened viewpoint on the subject.

One suggested means of making sure everyone toes the line has been put forward by some other folks who’ve about got a belly full of what Talouse le Trec said about rock and roll.  It involves putting a “INSERT QUOTE FROM FAMOUS PERSON HERE” button on all Internet posts. 

Scans the rest of the words by the person making the post, searches the web for anything someone who once lived said on the subject,  and inserts a poignant touching few words with a name someone might recognize.

Seems to me that’s a bit too macho robbing.  The way to get humanity back on track is for Internet posters to contemplate what famous people might have said, whether they said it or not.  Or probably would have said if they’d thought about it.  Or sort of said when they were playing the part of someone else in a movie.

But the main thing is, someone has to do something before this thing wears so thin it won’t hold water.  Otherwise people might quit coming to the Internet to get their thoughts to make their day.

Old Jules

Getting back to the basics

Hi readers. Nice calm little world we’ve got here this morning. Nothing much happening anywhere now that the US government’s gone back to work.

Yesterday I was working on the Communist trailer door trying to get it to close despite having bolt-heads obstructing closure.  They were ramming up against a bumper-like surface between the hole the door fits into and the rest of the Universe. 

Dug out the angle grinder and plugged it in, thought about how an angle grinder could solve so many problems of the world.  Not much 20,000 rpms of abrasive wheel won’t fix when it starts making a nuisance of itself.

In fact, if you readers are like me you’re probably always looking for ways to rid yourself of some of those extra appendages on your body your DNA provided you with.  I’d suggest you look into getting yourself an angle grinder, take the guard off, and put an oversized wheel on it, then go to work on losing some of those ugly pounds you’re carrying around.

Nothing much on the human body that thing won’t go through quicker than the human mind can catch up to events.  And absolutely painless, briefly.  During the space of time between it happening and the mind registering the event there’s no sensation at all.

But I’ve digressed.  I was going to tell you about some ideas I had yesterday about how to get regular people back producing things in this country by reinstating the Homesteading laws of the late 1800s.  People who can’t find jobs, who’d consider subsistence farms an improvement over drawing government food stamps and out-of-work benefits.

But I’m going to have to save that for another time.

Old Jules

Earlier Versions of MICA Software if you can use them

These are still available if anyone wants them.

So Far From Heaven

Over the years this compulsive project of mine chasing what isn’t happening and when it isn’t has led me into ownership of several versions I ceased using after upgrades were released.   Salt Cedar Latillas for Erosion Control

 Even the earliest versions are better than the next-best off-the-shelf software intended to do what it does.

So I’ve got three versions of the CDs and 120 page hardback handbooks lying around drawing dust.  They’d serve for most folks who aren’t being fanatic about the kinds of issues I’m fanatic about.

If any of you readers are into what’s going on in the sky in a way that might allow you to benefit from owning a not-quite-up-to-date version, these are available for the cost of postage getting them to you.

Feel free to email me at josephusminimus@hotmail.com if you’d savor a copy.

Old Jules

An easy-to-use astronomical almanac from the U.S. Naval Observatory

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Microfilm of Yankee Army Civil War correspondence

Packing up things I came across a box containing 30-some spools of microfilm I bought from the US Archives 20 years ago.  All the US military correspondence in the Department of New Mexico and Arizona, 1856 [I think] through 1866.  Includes California Volunteers after they crossed the Yuma River headed for the Rio Grande, also the Apache campaign and Navajo 1863-64 business.  And the late-1850s Bonneville campaign against the Apache with the occasional Navajo thrown in to spice it up.

I don’t think I’m going back to a place in my life where I’m staring at microfilm reader screens anymore.  If any of you have any interest in owning those spools, or know anyone who’d like to have them for the price of parcel post sending them, contact me at josephusminimus@hotmail.com.

Or if you have any ideas about some research library might like to own them under those conditions.  Or any other ideas how I can find someone who might get some use out of them.  Scads of interesting, intriguing, baffling stuff in there.

I’m not carrying them around with me anymore.

Old Jules

Love affair with demons

Hi readers.

I spent a lot of time on the phone with a guy I barely know last night.  He called me to talk about the chronic determination he has to kill this body he lives in.  Old guy, mutual friends with some friends of mine who are concerned about him, suggested we talk.

The guy lives in California, seems to occupy a situation so similar to my own it’s unsettling to me, hearing how unhappy he is with it, how much he thinks he hasn’t got that he wishes he had.  Me listening as he describes it, thinking, wow, that sounds cool.  Sheeze, I could stand some of THAT.

But I was lucky enough to have been where he is long enough ago so’s when he tells me about the abyss he’s looking into I know what he’s speaking of.  Even though it’s foreign country to me.

I know how I climbed out of it, probably even understand why I managed it.  And telling him doesn’t help him a bit so far as I can discern.  The only help I can be is listening to him, same as the friends who arranged for us to talk listen to him and can’t actually help.

I am what I’d call an expert on me being happy, damned good at the job.  But I do recall having a nest of demons living in my head, a self-sustaining fluctuating feed-on-itself hell that seemed to leave self-destruction as the only alternative that made sense.

Listening to the echo of that so long ago in my past from an old guy who lives so nearly to the way I live today skates along the edge of bizarre.  And as nearly as I can tell there’s not one thing I can tell him that will provide a means for him to escape.

Because I came away with the feeling he’s in love with that nest of demons or gives them more room to talk with him listening than he gives anyone else who’s talking to him, cares about him.  And they’re telling him the only escape is killing the body he lives in.

After we finished talking I was lying there scratching a cat behind the ears awed how he and I managed to get to opposite ends of the spectrum, how the Universe can manage having room for both of us.

Old Jules

More for you Bedini-guys

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

It’s almost a shame we humans tend to be such liars, hoaxes and flimflam artists on the one hand, and gullible fools on the other.  Almost a shame, because if we weren’t life would be a lot less entertaining.

And, of course there’s the wild cards in the deck to spice things up.  The wild-assed claims that come along that spang turn out to be legitimate and [at least] seeds opening whole new doors.  

The temptation is to just kneejerk a protective wall, discount it out of hand so’s to be elevated into the position of not being a gullible fool.  And usually we can come out the other end patting ourselves on the back with what savvy SOBs we are.

I’ve been following the Bedini Monopole generator groups for several years on those Yahoo groups, watching hundreds of people going to a lot of trouble to build and test and post their projects sharing their testing and methods with others working on the same goal.  Been following it enough years so I can’t remember when I began doing it.  Hundreds of people spending their not-watching-tv time building mechanisms, machines intended to generate more energy than it required to run them. 

And posting it, sharing it.  On John Bedini group sites.  I’m betting if Bedini’s actually come up with something that works he got a lot of help seeing what all those others were building, testing, changing, testing, throwing aside or changing again.

I hope he’s got it.  Because at the back of it all I always had a faint suspicion John Bedini’s a flimflam man who might just be onto something anyway.

Old Jules

Energy Times Newsletter

From: energytimes@aweber.com on behalf of Energy Times Newsletter (info@save-on-home-energy.com)
Sent: Fri 10/18/13 3:42 AM
To:  Jack Purcell

Hello Jack,
 
If you’ve been following John Bedini’s work, you may be familiar with the 14 foot high energizer he was demonstrating at a conference a couple years ago. That machine had a COP of 3.0, which means there was 3 times as much work done compared to what left the input battery.
 
In front of hundreds of people, this ran all weekend and the front batteries never went down. The output of the machine charge up capacitors with a very tricky circuit that has come to be known as his inverted comparator capacitor discharge circuit.
 
Many people have wanted access to this circuit so they can use it on their own Bedini SG’s – that moment is finally here!
 
Get all the details here: http://www.teslachargers.com/bedinisg.html#cap
 
John is doing a production run on these right now so get yours while you can because we can’t guarantee when the next production run will be. This is probably the most highly anticipated circuit/device in the Free Energy world that people can actually get their hands on besides the Bedini SG.
 
Sincerely,
A & P Electronic Media
 
POB 713, Liberty Lake, WA 99019

Cargo trailers, self-imposed deadlines and season changes

cargo trailer2

Good morning readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

That cargo trailer’s being a Communist.  Not a Joseph Stalin, more on the order of, say, Fidel Castro.  But enough to force me to think up all the ways I’m grateful for having it, repeating them to myself.

That rear door, the first time I fixed it, decided to show me why it had a problem in the first place.  Explained to me that the bottom frame member and the bottoms of the two vertical side frame members were rotted badly.  Not rotted enough to make them easy to remove once the bottom piece fell off when I opened the door after the first fix.  Just rotten enough to justify another fix.

Been working on that, trying to do it without pulling the door off to make it easier because I figure getting it back on will be a bear if I do.  Lots of hours and needs to remind myself how grateful I am to have that trailer.

Meanwhile the earth reached the place on its circuit around Old Sol, started throwing rain at me.  I’m not one to ever complain about rain, but I do enjoy avoiding working with extension cords and power tools when I’m likely to fry myself.

I’m still thinking I’ll make my self-imposed deadline to get out of here before October takes a bow to the audience, but time’s squeezing up on me, conspiring to make it more a challenge than I figured on.

Old Jules

The Ghost Of America Past — The Sixties

Easy Rider’s a hell of a place to be finding something that makes sense.

Becoming is Superior to Being

Willow Springs Ranch-8228 art I blogThe Ghost of America Past — Image by kenne

Below, I’m sharing one of my favorite passages from the movie, Easy Rider. Isn’t it funny how both the political “left” and the “right” claim they know the meaning of “freedom.” This passage is often referenced by the religious-right and the secular-left, when the movie Easy Rider was a critical statement by a generation about America.

Remember how Bush used the film in his 1988 campaign as a symbol of a discarded American attitude, replaced by Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry, “Go ahead, make my day!”

For me, I still agree with George Hanson, “. . . this use to be a helluva good country.” Just goes to show you that if “objective reality” exist, its definition is defined by each individual, making reality very subjective. Or, put another way, objective reality exist, but our experiences of it are subjective.

— kenne

George Hanson: You know, this used…

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What’s with the pointy nightcaps? Sensible Sleep Headgear

Last night I dug out the lesser furry sleep cap and pulled down the ear-flaps for the first time this year. Just a word to the wise should be sufficient. Jack

So Far From Heaven

Every year I wonder about these pictures of Scrooge and others wearing pointee nightcaps.  It’s a subject dear to my heart because I became an aficionado of sleeping hats when I used to do my slumbering outdoors a lot.

The function of a nightcap is to keep a person from losing his body heat through his exposed scalp and hair.  Besides doing that it needs to stay on the head while you toss and turn.  Those pointed hats do none of that.

I’ve tried a lot of different types of sleeping caps through the years and found it’s not easy to find one that satisfies all the minimum criteria:

This one’s sheepskin and I’ve used it for 30 years when the weather’s cold enough.  But it’s stiff and doesn’t stay on all that well because one of the straps for tying under the chin broke off sometime way back there…

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Reckon where we’d be today if they’d put this on the ballot in 1992

1992,the NBC News/WSJ poll asked whether voters would be willing to check a box on the ballot that would defeat everyone in Congress, including their own representatives. Sixty percent of those surveyed were willing to play 52-card pickup and start all over again with 535 new members of Congress.

Imagining a vibrant third party is a political fantasy that ranks right up there with a deadlocked national convention going to a ninth ballot. But two decades ago, there was the out-of-nowhere emergence of Ross Perot. Before Perot became known for his paranoid claims and his bizarre (and temporary) withdrawal during the 1992 Democratic Convention, he touched off an outsider populist movement with a centrist cut-the-national-debt ideology.

http://news.yahoo.com/why-republicans-should-be-very–very-afraid-192943188.html

Lessee, there’s all the banana wars, the series of gawdawful presidents and the families running US Congress probably wouldn’t have happened they way they did.  Then there’s NAFTA, millions of trainloads of Chinese toasters we’d have to do without, maybe.  Bank bailouts, auto industry bailouts, where does it all stop once you begin trying to digest it all?

Luckily it never made it onto the ballot. 

Might have, though, if anyone found a way past the people who control what goes on ballots.

All I can be certain of is that if it had been on the ballot I’d have voted.  Might even have kept voting in some of the others between then and now.  Saved me one hell of a lot of trouble, them not putting it on the ballot.

Old Jules