No, We Don't...

Need more smarm 'n schmalz in '17.  

I just read "Here's to more LOVE this year."  I just about tossed my cookies.  If there's ONE thing we need less of, it's FlowerChildism-Gone-To-Seed.  What we need MORE of is realism:  facing facts, facing reality, dealing with what's really true.

Down with PollyAnnaism.  Down with Disneyism.   Because those, ultimately, are nothing more than debilitating spiritual and political crack.  Let's detoxify from them this coming year.  Make the world a better place that way.

Don't It Always Seem To Be...

Missed the Boat? Your Own Fault!

1 + 0 = 1

Makeshift's Not Me

As Ever, Facts Left Out

Found this @ CBS News (re George Michael's death): 

“Very few things cause healthy people to die suddenly. I suspect he may have had a serious underlying health issue that led to his acute heart issue,” said Bensimhon [medical director of the Advanced Heart Failure & Mechanical Circulatory Support Program at Cone Health System in Greensboro, North Carolina], who also had no involvement in Michael’s case. 

“People don’t typically die suddenly from heart failure. Progressive heart failure is a slow, insidious process through which people are very symptomatic with shortness of breath, weakness and swelling,” Bensimhon explained. “That said, people with weak hearts which cause heart failure are predisposed to dangerous heart rhythms which can kill them suddenly and that is why we place implantable defibrillators (ICDs) in these patients. I suspect the announcement that he died from heart failure is not the complete story.” 

His former "lover" died of AIDs-related complications.

AIDS makes heart disease more likely...

Never Heard Of Him {Shrugs}

I participate daily @ a writing site that sort of doubles as a forum.  They always immediately post about any famous musician/singer who dies, so just now, it was this Michael George guy.  I never even was exposed to his name, much less have I heard anything he performed.  Sounds like his death might've been a rerun of "Prince's" (another guy I'd never heard of either, till the writing pack went on and on about his demise).

Personally speaking, none of these "greats" made music worth beans.  So whhhhat's all the snivelling about?  Sheesh!

Addressing Some Fine Print

So, if you've been mulling over the "may/might" issue (isn't that the sort of thing people love to do on Christmas Eve?), you might've come up with a scenario something like this:

A friend is way overdue to arrive at your Christmas Eve party up in the mountains.  You and all your friends who did arrive OK are worried he might've had a mishap on icy roads.

"Ya think he might've crashed?" 

"He may have simply decided to turn back."

"Ah, he might still show up:  he may just be taking it real slow on those treacherous roads."

So, on that 2nd possibility, you're objecting, "I thought you said, Verbi, that 'may' is verboten in the past tense?" (Refer back to the previous entry, and the "definite past" reference.)  Great question!  I'm glad you asked.

Notice that in the 2nd example, the speaker is in the present, talking about a possible/hypothetical action in the past.  So it's not the definite past (i.e. it hasn't been established yet. Maybe a day later, or a month later, they'll find out what really happened, and then, the whole episode will lie in the definite past.)  The speaker is conjecturing about something that's still in limbo. In such a case, you may use "may."  (But you could also use "might" there.)

Major Calamity! "No" Whipped Cream!

When I first read the headlines about this shortage, I thought, "WHAT?!?  Did the cows all take a long Christmas vacation?  Or did they all have to be slaughtered for health reasons (a la the chickens a year or two ago)?"  Turns out, it's merely the canned whipped cream that's "endangered"  (the kind as a gradeschooler, I used to put on my Christmas wish list, and spray directly into my mouth with gusto, much to my mother's hilarity).

So, when I proposed to a fellow writer that she simply beat her own from the liquid version, the reply was, "That takes too much effort to beat the liquid kind."  Ah, these life-threatening First World problems!  (Never mind that she spends ALL her free time---and then some---jetskiing or snowskiing {snort}.)

So, if you're not averse to taking some of your daily workout in the form of beating some cream, *you can easily make stabilised whipped cream that will hold in the fridge for up to 3 days. No drooping, no separation and it's actually just a little stiffer than regular whipped cream, so it's great to pipe into fancy shapes on desserts.

For stabilised whipped cream:

*1 teaspoon unflavoured gelatine
*4 teaspoons cold water
*1 cup double (also called heavy or whipping) cream
*sugar and/or other flavourants to taste

Put cold water into a microwaveable dish and sprinkle the dry gelatine over the top. When the gelatine has completely melted (about 5 minutes), put into the microwave and zap in 10 second bursts until the gelatine melts into a smooth fluid.

Whip cream until it starts to form mounds. Add the sugar and/or flavourants and then start whipping again as you dribble in the melted gelatine. Continue whipping until it forms stiff peaks.

This does not change the flavour of the whipped cream and it can be piped and will hold any shape that a more conventional piped frosting like buttercream will hold. It withstands being left out in a warm room longer than whipped cream does, for instance if you put it on the side table at the beginning of serving the meal.

It will keep in the fridge for at least 3 days.

[*All info from that asterisk on borrowed from a commenter at a whipped cream dearth article online.]

Might Want To Avoid "May" In The Past ;)

"Had he treated her with respect and dignity, she may not have cut him off."  "May" is incorrect here.  Notice that the cutting off lies in the definite past, as does his not having treated her right.  So, the correct verb is "might."

Here are examples where "may" is correct:

If he treats her with respect and dignity, she may put up with some of his quirks.

If they built that nuclear power station near the military facility, in the event of war, it may easily become the target of an attack.

Contrast that 2nd example with this:  If they had built that nuclear power station near the military facility, in the event of war, it might have easily become the target of an attack.  

Justifying Their Existence? Or Worse?

Ever since the unnerving vape shooting incident (which happened not too many blocks from my house), I've had the pohleece send me any and all of their notifications.  The latest one just exponentially "increased" my holiday cheer.  I'm all for cops nabbing offenders, but as one of my fellow bloggers has repeatedly pointed out, THIS sort of behavior is utterly unconstitutional.

The Leftist Virus Is More Pervasive Than Syphilis

"According to a recent report by the Wall Street Journal, since Obama took office, Google representatives have visited the White House ten times as frequently as representatives from comparable companies—once a week, on average."  (source)

And you think your Google searches are gonna be objective?

Lay Off The PollyAnna Kool-ade, Lady

"May 2017 bring healing and unite us in a common vision for our world. "  

This is just one of countless smarmy comments that writer has made over the past 16 months.  Now, don't get me wrong, I don't advocate sowing terror and misery.  But the moronic rosy-lensed misperception that a common vision is possible for humanity short of a total reformatting of the race (and the planet) is sheer lunacy.  

How're you going to achieve a "common vision" for people who believe, variously, Mohammed, Christ, Krishna, Marx and sundry other "prophets"?  How will there ever be peace in a nation where one side thinks that the various putrid behaviors of perversion should be foisted on even kindergartners, while the other side is appalled, and rightly seeks to protect youngsters from any and all intellectual and moral carrion?

Truth divides.

Insanity At the Steering Wheel

Well, gee, ya don't say! I've been maintaining for decades that women have no biz being soldiers (& ***I'm*** a woman)!

Things that neither feelings, nor hormones, nor surgery can change:

"The differences between the sexes affect all kinds of major and minor components about our bodies. Men have stronger bones than women, as well as stronger tendons and ligaments. Males have more muscle fibers, and because of this have greater muscle mass. Men have about 40 percent more muscle mass than women. Things like calorie intake also affect the sexes differently: men tend to convert extra calories into muscle and energy reserves. Females tend to convert them into fat deposits.

Men also have higher levels of testosterone that allow a greater capacity for hypertrophy (muscle growth). While testosterone exists in both men and women, most men produce 6-8 mg of testosterone daily, while women might produce 0.5 mg at the same rate. Because of this, high-T females are nowhere near the testosterone level of even low-T males. Your average female’s T range is from 8-60 ng/dL, while adult males range from 240-950 ng/dL.

Men are bathed in testosterone from the womb. Exposure to higher amounts of testosterone over a lifetime is why men are the way they are (the same can be said for women and estrogen). Higher testosterone levels in men make them more aggressive. Higher testosterone also allows men to endure greater amounts of, and recover faster from, physically strenuous activities. They can do all of this at much higher rates than women can."

It's fatuous to ignore basic scientific realities.  Worse, it's DANNNNNgerous!  Will this society ever recover from careening around in relativistic space outside the safety of truth's gravity?  Have we passed the point of no return?

MB Types & Talking

Totally Agree

Not Even Math-Related???

You'd think google search, based as it is on complicated math, would recognize something as simple as a geometrical figure---would be able to distinguish between, say, a circle and an oblong.  Right?  Nope.

I plugged this in to find some more shapes like it:

I even provided a clue by naming the image "pentagonal kite."  No use, google image search i.d.'d it as

Of course, the ultimate irony is, right THERE, in the first textual hit, it describes a triangle.  It can't even count the sides on the pentagon.  {face/palm}

The Perennial Terrible Twoers

Typical liberal magic thinking: For nearly 230 years, presidential elections have been determined by Article II, Section 1 of the United States Constitution. No effort was made to amend this section of the Constitution, even after 2000, the last time the Democrats "won" the popular vote but lost the election. Sixteen years transpired; nothing. 

 Elections were held in 2004, 2008, and 2012, all under the same rules that governed presidential elections since the ratification of the Constitution. Campaign strategies were formulated, candidates' travel and appearances were scheduled, and campaign funds were allocated, all with the express goal of winning a majority of electoral votes. 

 The election of 2016 was no exception. But because the Democrat candidate failed to win a majority of the electoral votes, and because her supporters really, really don't like the winner (even more than they disliked George W. Bush in 2000), well, then, all  they have to do is change the rules (retroactively and without the benefit of a constitutional amendment) and voila! Problem solved: SHE WON!

 Too bad Chris Wallace didn't ask Hillary if SHE would abide by the results of the election! But that wouldn't matter to her loyal supporters. After all, that was then; this is now. Heads we win; tails you lose. Like I said, typical liberal magic thinking.  (From a friend's FB post)

A Fascinating Read!

"The inner world of the gifted is very well-developed. They are quickly and easily hurt, and so tend to keep others at a distance. Some avoid parties and other social gatherings because the topics of conversation bore them or because they have been rejected for being “different” in the past. People with high IQs also have trouble finding others who are like them, which can lead them to become even more isolated."

Find the whole eye-opening article here.

Careful You Don't Miss Out!

Collecting stones, he lost a diamond.

Google Gets Another F In Accuracy

But an A in imagination.  (Is that progress?)

I found this guy at the shore the other day.  I have ZERO idea what he is (looks like a pig's ear variation, tho more realistically, maybe some sort of coral?  It's not a slug, since they don't attach to rocks {snort}).

Running him thru the "faithful" google image search function, I was greeted by this result.

First They Came For...

The babies in the womb...and eventually it escalated into the Holocaust.  

It puzzles me to no end how seemingly highly intelligent and insightful thinkers are ignorant of legal precedent.  If you say that the MOST HELPLESS humans on the planet are not human and therefore not covered by the Constitutional promise of the right to LIFE, then you are setting up a precedent of allowing the feds, sooner or later, to do what happened in Germany between '33 and '45.  There, it started in 1920 with legalization of prenatal slaughter, followed by the Hungerhaeuser (starvation institutes) that whole decade, followed in the mid-30's by Hitler's penal labor camps (not yet the death camps of the '40's), followed by his euthanasia program, culminating in the Shoah.

If you truly care about liberty, then you should also care about the slaughter of unborn babes.

PS:  Imagine this happening to Christina.

Buff Might Be Greener

"Fashion is a complicated business involving long and varied supply chains of production, raw material, textile manufacture, clothing construction, shipping, retail, use and ultimately disposal of the garment.

While Fisher's assessment that fashion is the second largest polluter is likely impossible to know, what is certain is that the fashion carbon footprint is tremendous …

A general assessment must take into account not only obvious pollutants — the pesticides used in cotton farming, the toxic dyes used in manufacturing and the great amount of waste discarded clothing creates — but also the extravagant amount of natural resources used in extraction, farming, harvesting, processing, manufacturing and shipping.

While cotton, especially organic cotton, might seem like a smart choice, it can still take more than 5,000 gallons of water to manufacture just a T-shirt and a pair of jeans.

Synthetic, man-made fibers, while not as water-intensive, often have issues with manufacturing pollution and sustainability. And across all textiles, the manufacturing and dyeing of fabrics is chemically intensive."

So, wow, those naked aborigines were ahead of their time!

Why Indeed?

Deceit Takes Many Forms

I'm getting MORE than fed up with news headlines referring to Olang0 as "unarmed" and "refugee."  The guy was PRETENDING to be armed and TAKING A SHOOTING stance at officers with his pretend gun.  And he had a fat rap sheet.  And authorities had tried to deport him.  Twice.  

So QUIT making him out (again) to be some "poor innocent victim"!!!!

(LOVE the pun!)

If Only Our Nation's People Understood This

"This country is under siege at the hands of vicious lawless Negro  violence. The media is in full partnership with them, promoting daily the mythology of black victimhood. It is now almost impossible to enforce the law among these savages, and you have a professional cultural Marxist terrorist organization actively working for the downfall of society. 

We break the thin blue line at our peril. Cops are the last line of defense against a tidal wave of black lawlessness. If mistakes are made, people have to realize what they are facing in dealing with these people in their environment. Suit up and ride with police in these urban Vietnams and see for yourself."  (Bruce Bucher)

Hilarious (But Amazingly Spot On) Freudian Slip

Seen in FB comments on an article about the El Cajon Olango shooting:

"When is [sic] the violence and corruption going to stop in this Country? I blame our society. nobody will admit fault here instead it is rioting, lewding, [sic] violence."

Footnote:  Gee, ya know fella?  "Society" encompasses everybody... including YOU.  So, are you going to be the first to shoulder the blame, then?

The first thing "society" should maybe do, is teach the likes of you how to spell, capitalize and punctuate properly.

If There Were Open Season On This...

I'd be bagging myself TONS of booty! :(

The Lack Of Logic Is GGGGOBsmacking!

Google has totally lost it!  I'm now convinced it hates its job.  (Or maybe it's in mutiny?)  You tell me how this possibly makes any sense.

There's no accounting for Google's strange synapses.

Wordless But Powerful Refutation

So, if (as the Regressives would force everyone to believe) male and female are so easily interchangeable, and if guns are so bad, (a) why doesn't Shrillery have female body guards, and (b) why do they have to be armed?

Can you say "hypocrite"?

Did Goliath Lose All His Teeth?

Or did he pop too many Chiclets in his mouth?

Actually, these are cave pearls. :)  (Also looks sort of like glazed marshmallows.)

Long Before Us, He Invented Plaid

No Amount of PrepH Will Help ;)

So, inquiring minds would like to know:  is the cuke's rear tunnel totally numb?  That would be hugely practical for humans who suffer from...well, those little pesky "grapes" that have a tendency to grow there...

Typical Reductionist Myopia

[NOTE:  I heavily edited the grammar and spelling mistakes in this quote.]  

"Water: 35 liters, Carbon: 20 kg, Ammonia: 4 liters, Lime:1.5 kg, Phosphorus: 800 g, salt: 250 g, saltpeter:100 g, Sulfur: 80 g, Fluorine: 7.5 g, iron: 5.6 g, Silicon: 3 g, and 15 other elements in small quantities.... that's the total chemical makeup of the average adult body.

Modern science knows all of this, but there has never been a single example of successful human transmutation. It's like there's some missing ingredient..... Scientists have been trying to find it for hundreds of years, pouring tons of money into research, but to this day they don't have a theory.

For that matter, the elements found in a human being are all junk that you can buy in any market with a child's allowance.

Humans are pretty cheaply made."  (Hiromu Arakawa, Fullmetal Alchemist, Vol. 1) 

Well, now, Hiro, if you bothered to see past your materialist lenses, you'd recognize that (a) man is so much richer than his chemical components (just the fact that you're puzzled by it all testifies to that), and (b) transmutations aren't possible bec. of genetic barriers...amongst other things {snort}.

PS:  the "missing ingredient" you're so flummoxed by is openly identified in this text.  And if you really want to challenge your alchemist mind, get a load of THIS!  

"In Jesus Christ all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities—all things were created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.

In Case Of Utter Bafflement

...you can always simply revert to the preschool level of basic colors.

I stumbled on this luscious scallop, which looked like it was made of the most scrumptious candy, but it had zero identifier.  I hoped to find its name.

So, dutifully (tho by now skeptically), I clicked on the "search by image" button RIGHT next to it.  Google, flummoxed as ever, quickly attempted a lame CYA in the form of

When In Doubt...

...simply default to imagination.  Even if you're Google.

I was hoping to find some more photographs along this line (it's some abalone nacre)

so I consulted good old Artificial "Intelligence" (perhaps not the most intelligent thing to do, considering A."I."s stellar record {snort}).  Since it evidently couldn't figure out what this was, it resorted to next best guess:

Hilarity & Amazement, All In One

Ever since I first set foot on barnacles, I've hated the darned things:  they puncture & slash your feet like you were their most egregious enemy.  But recently, I found Siamese twin ones attached to a sand dollar 

(which in itself is new this year:  in all my decades of life, I've NEVER seen barnacles choose sand dollars as a squatting spot; not sure what that signifies), with an obvious divorce having taken place, so I wanted to understand barnacle anatomy better.  

I've always viewed barnacles as perhaps 1mm up the totem pole from rocks.  But then I found this schematic, which totally blew me away...and at the same time, caused a massive abs workout from guffawing.  Notice how complex this creature in fact is!  He's even got certain {ahem} appendages and cavities!

Here's a magnificent view of a live one:

And for a bit more mirth, watch this unbelievable snippet.

Maybe Sand's Doubly Elusive?

I again clicked on the "search by image" button right next to this picture (which is again a sand design):

Google could only figure it out as:

But hey, at least Google got the rhyme right!

It Fails On This Count, Too.

If I have worked with a picture file in MSPaint which is later closed, but where the MSPaint screen is still up,  A."I." afterwards can't tell that the file has been "tucked away." Against all reason, it stubbornly continues to insist that the file is still "in use," and then refuses to allow me to do anything with that file in the way of moving it.

Dumb artificial "intelligence" is bad enough, but rebellious dumb artificial "intelligence"?!?  That really takes the cake.

I'm voting for renaming artificial "intelligence."

Artificial "Intelligence" Is Lousy At Guessing Games

Struck out twice within an hour, no less!

I wanted to find more pictures like this, so I clicked on the "search by image" function RIGHT next to the image in question (which usually gives Google a clue as to what kind of image is involved).

Now, most folks would recognize this as a water and sand pattern.  Not Google!  Even tho the pattern is NOT pointing upward (which would make the mistake slightly more understandable), Google came up with this result:

With this picture, I did the exact same thing:

This is another water-carved sand pattern (albeit no longer underwater).  Google couldn't make it out, so just tossed it into this "bin":

Yes, Google, in the broadest sense, sand is indeed a "material," but not the type you've selected here, aka "fabric."

And in the face of this kind of incompetence, there're folks who worry that computers'll take over the world?!?

This Really Burns Me Up

[Disclaimer:  Blogger is at fault for the whacky sizing below.]

RESPONSIBLE DRONE USE: While drones have not been seen over the Bluecut Fire, fire managers would like to remind the public that hobby drones, or unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), pose a major safety threat to firefighting pilots and firefighters. When a hobby drone is flown into a fire area, incident commanders have no choice but to suspend air operations and ground aircraft until the drone is removed from the area.

The authorities should have permission to shoot down a UAS in that kind of situation.  I can not beLEEEEve that those things are allowed to hamper life and property saving activities!!!!!

Yes, It's That Kind of Hunt Indeed!

Google's been flaunting its prowess again.  I put this image of Haliotis K. Assimilis (aka a type of abalone found prolifically in the Baja area) in its image search.

Google thought it was this, ROTFL!