Tag Archives: music

The Long Watch

Posted on December 27, 2011 by | 12 comments

 

Lot’s of high-powered rifle ammunition flying around the surrounding ranches this morning. But I don’t think it’s a government SWAT team come all the way out here to shoot my face off between breaths this fine morning.

In fact, I think it’s deer hunters out trying to squeeze in a last-minute set of antlers on an umpty-ump-point-buck to take home and put on the wall.

I only mention this because a few of you readers and a particular slice of the population of preparedness blogs I read are taking the “Come in and get me coppers!” approach to reflecting on what the US Congress has been doing lately.  There’s a high-anxiety factor leading people to say things on blogs suggesting they think if the government wants them it’s going to have a tough job on its hands getting them. 

Anyone who stops to think about this concept a moment ought to be able to figure out that’s not how it’s going to play out.  Even if they’re correct in thinking someone thinks they’re important enough to send in the cavalry to get them. 

No matter how good you guys who’ve been collecting a thousand different great knives and 200 each calibers of weaponry and ammunition anticipating what you believe is happening, if they want you, they’re going to get you.  If you’ve been shouting challenges at them from your blogs, they’ll most likely do it to your face between two breaths from a distance of a quarter-mile while you take an outdoor leak.

This isn’t the best moment in history to be talking about going to war with the US government.  Even in a whisper.  They’ve spent the last decade developing tactics, strategies, surveillance gear and weaponry intended to deal with people a lot uglier, smarter, sneakier and more highly motivated than any US citizen is likely to be.

I’m not saying what the US Congress did over the past couple of weeks won’t change a lot of things in ways you’ve come to see as your ‘rights’.  I believe it probably will.  I’m just saying you might be well advised to think things through more carefully than you’ve been doing.  You’re all dressed up to play checkers but the game has changed to chess.

Thinks I. 

Old Jules

 

12 Comments

Posted in 2011, America, Communication, Country Life, Politics, Survival, The Lone Psychiatrist

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When Pigs Fly – US Drone or Chinese Space Launch?

Posted on December 23, 2011 by | 20 comments

“Space ball” drops on Namibia

http://tinyurl.com/7s3ovud

A large metallic ball fell out of the sky on a remote grassland in Namibia, prompting baffled authorities to contact NASA and the European space agency.

The hollow ball with a circumference of 1.1 metres (43 inches) was found near a village in the north of the country some 750 kilometres (480 miles) from the capital Windhoek, according to police forensics director Paul Ludik.

Unnamed Pentagon sources were adamant this is not a US drone.  “We’ve made a list of all our drones and checked it twice.  We are not missing any drones.”  He went on to observe, “The workmanship and metal quality appear to be Chinese in origin.  Unless we discover we’ve miscounted our drones we’ll continue to operate on the premise this object is a Chinese Space Program launch intended for Harbor Freight.”

Some skeptics are less certain.  A news release from a popular UFO debunking site offered the following analysis:  “It’s obviously the planet Venus or a weather balloon.  People who aren’t trained to carefully observe and think clearly are always making these kinds of mistakes.”

Old Jules 

 

20 Comments

Posted in 2011, Adventure, Astronomy, Science, UFOs

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Sundragons and Other Serious Stuff

Posted on December 20, 2011 by | 15 comments

Good morning readers.  I’m gratified you came by for a read.  There’s a lot going on in the Universe this morning, but most of it is too big, or too little to get a gander at, so I’m going to give you an opportunity to shrug it all off as I’m doing.

If you’re the sort of person who sees herds of cattle, naked women, elephants, alligators and stagecoaches in clouds, mountains and whatnot you’ll see immediately what was on Old Sol’s mind yesterday:

Which doesn’t require any further discussion except to say:

Which also speaks for itself.  Enough said about that.

 

Unless you want to hear it in song.

But if you’re feeling more in the serious and unsmiling turn-of-mind this morning you probably won’t grasp the implications and ramifications of that.

Instead you’d probably prefer something you can’t shrug off.  For you, I suggest you have a look at the comet Lovejoy as it passed away from the sun:

http://spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=19&month=12&year=2011

http://spaceweather.com/images2011/18dec11/spiraltail_strip.jpg

All that wiggling and wagging it’s doing with the tail might be the most interesting thing human beings have had an opportunity to view since the invention of the camera, the rocketship, the atom and other genius gadgetry of modern life including toasters.

Lovejoy is telling you something it might take human beings a longish time to hear, if they ever get around to hearing it at all.  Which seems about equally likely.

With the possible exception of the cats, chickens, and the occasional folks out there who see it but ain’t about to say anything.

But I’m not going to say any of that.  Instead, I’ll just say I’m figuring I might post something later along more interesting lines.

Thanks for coming by.

Old Jules

15 Comments

Posted in 2011, Animals, Astronomy, Music, Science

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I’d Sure Like to Have Me One of Them Drones

Posted on December 17, 2011 by | 17 comments

Morning readers.  I’m obliged you came by for a read.

I’ve been studying on that picture of the pretty little airplane those whatchallit, Iraning people found in the sky and captured.  I’m fairly impressed and would sure like to have me one, even though I haven’t figured out exactly how it works.

 

That airplane doesn’t have much in the way of control surfaces and weight-and-balance might be tricky.  Not as much rudder on it as a person might wish.

I’m wondering if a person might lure one down with an orange jump suit, Helicopters and Orange Jump Suits.  If those things are flying around some silly-assed place like whatchallit, Irang, where there’s nothing to see but a bunch of Persians, seems to me they’re bound to be flying around here where there’s really good stuff.

Anyway, they can’t be that hard to catch.  A man with a CB radio might be able to snag one, I’m thinking, if the orange jump suit didn’t do the trick.

I’ll have to study on it after I’ve got it to decide whether it’s best to put a harness underneath of the hang-glider variety, or mount a saddle on top.  I don’t like the idea of riding it bareback the way Slim Pickens rode that bomb.  Until a person got the feel for it, that thing might just buck some.

Besides, I’m used to more rudder than that and I’ve never flown anything without a tail section.  Likely I’d want to fly it around treetop level a while so I didn’t have too far to fall at first.

If I’m good maybe old Santy will bring me one.

Old Jules

 

17 Comments

Posted in 2011, America, Flying

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Barbed-Wire Utopia

Posted on December 15, 2011 by | 10 comments

Abundant grass pastoral bliss
Hills and arroyos
Of cow-price scowls
Beyond their ken
Herd grazes reverie
Pond and hay mollified
 
Bicker snort sling slobber push
For turns at salt and mineral block
While even forked branch
Fence stretchers fatten
 
For foam tray
And clear-plastic
Heaven
 
Of beef futures

Old Jules
Copyright NineLives Press

 

10 Comments

Posted in 2011, Poetry, Politics

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Scenes and Platforms – 2012 Election Campaign Trail in Movie and Song

Posted on December 14, 2011 by | 8 comments

A bit of fun on a December afternoon.

THE CANDIDATES [BOTH PARTIES]:

 

Am I JFK? Ronald Reagan?  FDR?  George Wallace?

 

 

Democrats:

 

Republicans:

 

ECONOMY:

Democrats:

 

Republicans:

 

TRADE AND BUDGET DEFICITS [BOTH PARTIES]

The pretense:

 

The reality: 

 

FOREIGN POLICY:

Democrats:

 

Republicans:

 

Old Jules

8 Comments

Posted in 2011, America, Human Behavior, Politics

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Muddy muddy muddy etcetera

Posted on December 13, 2011 by | 4 comments

You’ll be happy to know Old Sol’s finally getting things under control up there.

http://spaceweather.com/
 
That line of misbehaving sunspots that were marching across above the equator so long finally got its comeuppance.  Today there are only three honest-to-goodness ones and the litter of little peckerwoods just coming around the horizon. 
 
Astrophysicists aren’t in agreement about what was getting out of hand up there, but many now assert it might be mud and all this rain that finally got it under control.  There’s been so much rain lately every stick of firewood here’s been soaked, and even though cooling down Old Sol with wet firewood would be a big job of work, eventually it was bound to happen.  Probably the reason for this cold snap, too.
 
But the other line of thinking among Hopi Elders, surviving Mayan track-of-time keepers, and the folks at BUREAU INTERNATIONAL DES POIDS ET MESURES, ORGANISATION INTERGOUVERNEMENTALE DE LA CONVENTION DU METRE, believe there’s a more novel reason that line of sunspots dwindled.  They couldn’t stay in step. 
 
Time, they assert, is so screwed up it’s impossible to keep anything going with any regularity and the sunspots finally just got too frustrated to keep trying.
 
There might be a lot to that.  I get the email reports from the Hawaii Konate folk, and the circular always starts off with the caveat:
 
“Coordinated Universal Time UTC and its local realizations UTC(k). Computed values of [UTC-UTC(k)]   and uncertainties valid for the period of this Circular. From 2009 January 1, 0h UTC, TAI-UTC = 34 s.”
 
Those uncertainties cover a lot of ground all over the planet and the people making a living trying to keep track of what time it is send out the Circular to advise interested parties of what time it wasn’t, mostly, any given day in cities of clockwatchers.  But even telling what time it wasn’t has a considerable uncertainty factor, which they aren’t ashamed to admit.
 
I don’t know why they even keep those people on the payroll if they can’t tell us what time it wasn’t.
 
I’m going to kick this around with the cats and chickens.  See if we can’t figure out a way to get a piece of the action on this timekeeping racket.
 
Old Jules
 

4 Comments

Posted in 2011, Astronomy, Hawaii, Science

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What’s with the pointy nightcaps? Sensible Sleep Headgear

Posted on December 12, 2011 by | 25 comments

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 and I haven’t gotten around to fixing it.  The temperature has to be not-too-warm or it becomes a cranial sweat lodge and not-too-cold because it doesn’t provide any protection to the exposed part of the neck.

A balaclava solves some of that, but it’s only one layer thick, somewhat expensive, and tends to wear out at the chin.  When the ambient temperature gets down around freezing it needs some help.

They make those fleece caps for women and I find them in thrift stores for a buck frequently.  When I find them, I buy them and wear them a lot, outdoors, indoors and as sleeping caps when the weather’s cold, but not cold enough for something more extreme.

During this last cold snap when the water froze inside the house I came up with this, and I like it a lot.  It’s a fleece blanket folded four times lengthwise, wrapped around the head and tucked into/zipped in to the fleece vest.  It stays in place and is warmer than anything I’ve ever found.  It’s tempting to drag out the scissors, needle and thread and cut it down to a four-layer balaclava, but I hate to mess up that fleece blanket.  The “don’t fix it if it ain’t broke” school of winter headgear might apply here.

When the weather’s cool but not cold, the stocking cap is a seductive option, even though they don’t ride out the night well.  I keep a stack of a dozen of them on the bookshelf above the bed so I can reach up and find one for a quick reload without turning on the light.  Same concept as a fresh clip of ammo for a rifle near at hand.

Pointee hats are talk.  As Tuco observed in The Good, Bad and Ugly, “When you’re going to shoot, shoot.  Don’t talk.”

Old Jules

 

25 Comments

Posted in 2011, America, Country Life, Music, Outdoors, Senior Citizens, Survival, Thrift Stores

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Guide: Adopt Selective ‘Remember’ BS Rhetoric With Surgical Precision

Posted on December 7, 2011 by | 20 comments

Alive and safe, the brutal Japanese soldiers who butchered 20,000 Allied seamen in cold blood

Just keep it safe and simple pretending to remember something about the ‘fighting’ by Allied troops across the planet.  Hug yourself with some feelgood to help you feel sensitive and patriotic.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-491548/Alive-safe-brutal-Japanese-soldiers-butchered-20-000-Allied-seamen-cold-blood.html

Carefully remember today ONLY the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor carrying some vague message we should remain prepared against similar future events. 

Carefully do NOT remember the Rape of Nanking, the Bataan Death March, the savage treatment of Allied POWs and civilians in occupied territories of The Greater-East-Asian-Co-Prosperity Sphere.

Carefully do NOT remember the beheading of hundreds, maybe thousands of prisoners, the starvation and death by disease of a huge percentage of other prisoners compared to elsewhere, almost anywhere among the armies of either side.

Carefully do NOT remember  the overwhelming percentage of that conduct was perpetrated by enlisted men and officers below the rank of captain.  Men who returned to their homes to be accepted within a couple of years as allies and fast friends of the US and other nations they fought, invaded, raped, pillaged and slaughtered only months earlier.

Carefully do NOT remember the Marshall Plan and the rebuilding of Japanese industry and infrastructure destroyed by the war, rendering much of US industry obsolete or absolescent.  DON’T remember the 20,000 suicide-before-surrender Japanese cliff-jumps at Okinawa.

And while you’re at it see if you can find a feelgood argument with someone  about the ethical and moral side of the atomic bomb, Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Better to forget all of it than pretend to remember some of it.  Crank up your Mazda, turn on the FM and listen to some oldies while you remember what it was like to have a job.  What happened 1941 – 1945 had nothing at all to do with anything happening today.

You don’t remember a damned thing about anything that happened to other people.  Just remember Santy’s coming to town.

Old Jules

 

20 Comments

Posted in 1940's, 2011, America, Hawaii, History

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I can’t forget but I can’t remember what – December 7, 2011

Posted on December 7, 2011 by | 13 comments

Middling cold here and I’m trying to thaw some water for the cats and chickens, along with thawing my fingers enough to type.

There was something I was supposed to remember this morning but I can’t recall what it was even though I started the post and put that pic on it to remind me.  That, and a pic of the Toyota sitting out across the meadow.

Tora tora tora!

 

Maybe it will come to me later in the day.

Old Jules

13 Comments

Posted in 1940's, 2011, America, History, Human Behavior

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