07:49 – I just checked, and I’m still here. What with the government “shut down” and all, I figured I might be missing. Everyone else I’ve checked with is still here as well.
What scares the federal government, of course, is that old hippie question: “What if the government shut down and no one noticed?” So the feds are doing everything possible, as always, to make sure the impact is felt by ordinary people. I mean, shutting down the PandaCam? Way to save a few cents, guys. The feds could have RIFd a million faceless bureaucrats, but hardly anyone would have noticed for years, if ever. Instead, they close down the national parks and so on, actions calculated to have the maximum visible impact. And they make a big point about furloughing 845,000 federal employees who are not “essential”. Since no one else is apparently asking, I’ll do it: if these 845,000 employees aren’t essential, why were they employed in the first place?
This guy is being affected, an Aussie in Australia. He doesn’t even know when he’ll be able to get back in to the US:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-02/australian-researcher-hit-by-us-government-shutdown/4994306
Former researcher at Melbourne’s La Trobe University, Michael Lazarou, now works for the National Institutes of Health in Washington where he is researching Parkinson’s disease.
This week he travelled to Perth to present some of his findings at the ComBio science conference being held in the city.
But, just hours before he was due to speak he was advised by the NIH that his presentation couldn’t go ahead.
“Almost a total of 30 hours travel time to come to Perth and I got some emails from the NIH alerting me that I’m no longer allowed to present my work because the government has shut down,” Mr Lazarou said.
“It’s actually a federal offence if I do go ahead and give the talk or even continue attending the conference so I have to keep away basically, I can’t even listen to everyone else’s work.”
More silly bullshit, of course, and gee, it got on the nooz. Like Bob sez, maximum visibility so everyone will “know” what heartless miserable bastards the Scrooge Repub ass-hats are; imagine, shutting off the PandaCam so the little children can’t see it. Why do they hate children? Etc.
In any case, again as Bob has said, the responsibility lies exclusively with Barack Hussein and Harry Reid and Plastic-Face Pelosi, the lapsed Catholic who is about to be censured by Holy Mother Church at long last, praise be to God. And as the Dems say, why should Barry & Co. cave on this; they hold all the cards, politically. It’s all moot anyway; they’ll ram this mess down our throats and then things will continue to get worse here.
60 in Retroville this morning and overcast; I have always held that the autumn foliage stands out more against dahk skies. Many projects around the house today, now that Mrs. OFD is home for a coupla weeks. But she informed me last night that she has beaucoups gigs coming up later this month and next; she’ll be gone again for roughly six weeks, two weeks at a crack, all around the country. I’m gonna put her on national intel recon duty accordingly, gauge the mood of the population, see what’s what here and there. Check a few gun stores for their ammo supplies; find out the Homeland Insecurity information, etc.
So, what’s happening to Pelosi?
Little Miss Nancy has been told repeatedly, most recently this past summer and early fall, by the bishops, to either get with the program or consider leaving the Church, i.e., renouncing her supposed faith. This may or may not include denial of communion at mass to excommunication. And before anyone gets on their high horse about the mean, cruel and dictatorial Church, let it be known that excommunicates basically excommunicate themselves. Which she has been doing for decades. She represents a radical left district in SF and reflects them, but to do that and be a faithful Roman Catholic in good standing is impossible.
The bishops should have long been reading the riot act to politicians in the West.
Meanwhile Holy Mother Church has been studying how to gradually integrate women into ordained orders, such as a revival of the deaconesses, and eventually a step up to cardinal. As I predicted to Mrs. OFD before, and also wish that if that happens, they pick someone from the southern hemisphere regions and not some middle-aged frowzy old divorced bat who hates men, such has been the case for years in the mainstream Christian denominations, with the Episcopal church being the most notorious for this. Their “divinity school” in Cambridge, MA years ago featured a nude female Christ on the cross. That’s the kind of shit they do, when they’re not practicing Wicca.
(I realize all this must sound pretty quaint and/or bizarre to atheists and agnostics,but there it is.)
“Windows 7 outpacing Windows 8 adoption”
http://www.zdnet.com/windows-7-outpacing-windows-8-adoption-shows-latest-figures-7000021383/
Amazing!
What scares the federal government, of course, is that old hippie question: “What if the government shut down and no one noticed?” So the feds are doing everything possible, as always, to make sure the impact is felt by ordinary people. I mean, shutting down the PandaCam? Way to save a few cents, guys.
Our President is without honor.
Our President is without honor.
And yes, I do realize that I have relegated myself to the future gulag in Buffalo with those words.
Again, our President is without honor. He is a petulant man-child who is not worthy of the office.
He may be a petulant juvenile delinquent but he is far from dumb and incompetent; he is doing exactly what they mean him to do. Honor is a frivolous feudal concept which means nothing at all to these people. Duty, honor, country? Their duty is to the Party. Honor does not exist. Country, again an ancient concept now long obsolete.
Ofugghead responds to vets walking the WWII Mem by putting up more barricades and fences. Even on places “open 24 hours” that require no maintenance. Can’t the thugs putting up the barricades watch the monuments? At least the Vets are saying fugg you to Hussein and are walking right over his tactics. Is there any doubt left in anyones mind Ofugghead is no leader, no negotiator, and certainly has no honor.
Also, I wish my fugging Senator, Reid, would trip in a gopher hole and break his fugging neck. Oh wait, ObummerCare would save him. Ha! With his 75% subsidy from the taxpayer.
LOL! Weren’t we just talking about these iPads? Give ’em back you little brats!
http://hotair.com/archives/2013/10/02/lausd-to-confiscate-ipads-after-spending-1-billion/
“Pope Francis digs at Vatican’s narcissistic nature, calls for change”
http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/10/01/20769734-pope-francis-digs-at-vaticans-narcissistic-nature-calls-for-change
“Pope Francis, using strong language to condemn a “Vatican-centric view” of the Roman Catholic Church, says that church leaders have too often been narcissists, “flattered and sickeningly excited by their courtiers.””
I must say, I am really liking the new Pope and I am not Catholic. I doubt that he can do anything though, as the Catholic church is one of the inventors of Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Pournelle#Iron_Law_of_Bureaucracy
And yes, Pope Francis is a man of Honor.
Love this pic of the Lincoln Memorial. I wonder how long till some 90 year old vet is shot.
Vet: I’m old and served in WWII. I’d like to see the Memorial before I die.
Cop: Blam! Blam! I was frightened for my life.
https://twitter.com/lachlan/status/385435364363485184/photo/1
Apparently not even this regime is quite ready to have its cops arresting by force 80-90-year-old WWII vets in front of their own memorial in The Nation’s Capital, aka Mordor.
That would have made some interesting footage on the nightly nooz and then viral all over the net. Somebody at the WH must have woke up, though why no one thought of this before the barricades and the cops, I dunno; those honor buses show up all the time from all over the country, bringing vets to DC. I wonder if The Wall was blocked off; I’m betting the cops would have busted ‘Nam vets’ heads left and right.
And I recall there was at least one 90+ vet somewhere in the country that got shot or tased by the cops and died. Can’t remember the location, though, or the month, let alone the day or week. Up here they get killed by tractors; some old guy the other day was walking along a back road and a 56-year-old youngster didn’t see him from his high perch and that was it. Make it that far and get run over by a freaking tractor.
That was in last week or two, OFD. Some 90+ year old vet ended up in a shoot-out with the cops.
Ah yes, that’s right; rooming house, and he was waving a gun around and there was an ongoing dispute in the house with somebody or other. So the cops rolled in and just blew his ass away. Used to be a thing called negotiation. Waiting somebody out. Talking to him. You get the dibs on the guy and his age and condition, how’s he gonna be a threat to ya? Maybe some tear gas, a whiz-bang stun grenade, but a firing squad?
Whoa, there! He’s not my president.
And as I said to a handful of flaming socialist unionized government “workers” (some redundancy may be noted) in early November 2008, I planned to show just as much respect to “their” president as they’d showed to GWB. (I’m neither a Republican nor a conservative, but the yammering and sniping of the progtards got on my nerves.)
“…the yammering and sniping of the progtards got on my nerves.)”
I know the feeling well. I registered as an “Independent” up here in ’98 and have otherwise either voted for, or written in Pat Buchanan for many years now. I don’t vote in national elections at all anymore, of course, and this means that I alone am responsible for another eight or more years of Obama or Clinton or whichever Bolshevik they put in there next time. I’m a paleoconservative, and traditionalist Roman Catholic; there are probably several hundred-thousand of us in CONUS, total. We have a snowball’s chance of ever seeing things the way we would like.
But man, the one-sided hypocritical chattering of the progs, Dems, libruls, et. al. can get on one’s nerves in a hurry; they lambasted the shit out of Nixon, Ford, Reagan and both Bush regimes and nothing was too brutal or savage in their insults. Even now they call for NRA members’ children to be murdered and that they hope this or that Repub would die in agony of a massive heart attack on television. In the UK they sang “ding dong the witch is dead” when Thatcher died. You don’t see a tenth of this vitriol, hate and bigotry on the so-called right. Well, at least not until the Incumbent. Even now, though, it pales next to what they spewed at either Bush.
There will be a reckoning some day and guess which side has massively the greater firepower?
I find it hilarious that the young people are not signing up for bamacare now that they know that they have to pay for it. I just realized that all of the young people thought it was a new freebie.
The other thing that I am amazed about is how many people only had catastrophic health insurance. It may have been 1/4 of the country and is now illegal as of January 1.
Do y’all read “Coyote Blog”? If not, this is a guy who runs over a hundred national parks, on commission from the federal government. He received no federal money; instead, the feds make money from him. Hence, he is (or should be) unaffected by the shutdown. All his parks are still open. Can’t have that, can we?
Meanwhile, I note that the dollar’s value continues to drop, and is now under CHF 0.90. Oddly, the biggest drop was on Wednesday, Sept 18th. What happened on that day? I don’t find anything particularly alarming. Strange…
Vale Tom Clancy
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-03/tom-clancy-spy-novels-jack-ryan-espionage/4995084
Lynn wrote:
“I must say, I am really liking the new Pope and I am not Catholic. ”
I like some of the Popes and I’m not a Catholic either. A quite conservative fundamentalist Baptist said many years ago that he thought John XXIII was a genuine Christian, a rare accolade from a group of people who damn 99% of Catholics. I also quite liked Pope JP II, but thought he was far too conservative. He enforced far too many rules that don’t make sense, such as enforced celibacy, baring women from the priesthood, and making priests involved in politics retire. (Such as this guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Drinan)
I don’t really have an opinion on the current guy or Ratzi, but if they don’t make some fundamental reforms pretty soon the RC Church will go the way of the dodo.
Lynn wrote:
‘“Windows 7 outpacing Windows 8 adoption”
http://www.zdnet.com/windows-7-outpacing-windows-8-adoption-shows-latest-figures-7000021383/
Amazing!’
Windows 2000 Pro is my all time favourite, followed by XP.
My favorite windows are the ones looking out over the mountains. Failing that, how about DesqView?
Seriously, WindowsXP was probably the best from my point of view, followed by Windows 7. With ME, Vista and 8 Microsoft has continued in the tradition of the Star Trek movies: every second release is utter crap.
My son bought a laptop with Windows 8 about a month ago. We looked at it together, tried to do a couple of things. He (who has never used Linux) said “can you install Ubuntu on this”). That pretty much says it all.
“…the RC Church will go the way of the dodo.”
Right. As people have been saying for 2,000 years. A billion of us aren’t going anywhere. What’s going the way of the dodo are all the “mainstream” liberal Protestant denominations. It’ll be down to fundamentalist Protestants, Catholics and Orthodox. And eventually the Orthodox and Catholics will get back together, maybe in our lifetimes.
The flying spaghetti monster is god, and Dawkins is his prophet.
“Ceiling Cat is god, and Jerry Coyne is its prophet.”
There. Fixed that for you.
OFD wrote:
“Right. As people have been saying for 2,000 years. A billion of us aren’t going anywhere.”
They may not go anywhere but they may become something else. It’s not just priests who do bad stuff, lots of you guys commit numerous mortal sins per day without batting an eyelid. Without priests to keep them in line they’ll become Protestants or atheists.
Which reminds me of a joke…
A teaching sister at an exclusive Catholic girls school asked one of her charges what she wanted to do when she left school.
The student replied “I want to become a prostitute.”
WHAT! screamed the teacher? WHAT DID YOU SAY?
The student replied “I want to become a prostitute.”
This time the teacher heard her correctly, and said with relief “Oh, that’s okay then. I thought you said you wanted to become a Protestant.”
Ha ha, old joke.
The priests are not there to keep us in line; we’re supposed to keep ourselves in line. In any case, you’re sort of correct; the Church is substantially different from country to country and ethnic group to ethnic group, and has made some changes, extremely slowly, over centuries. But you can pretty much bop on into any Catholic church in the world and the basic, bedrock liturgy and theology are gonna be the same.
Many years ago I was persuaded to visit a Catholic church were a charismatic mass was to be held. I was amazed at what went on, it was nothing like what I expected. A Catholic friend (who was an ardent handwaver) said there was nothing in that service that was inconsistent with the mass book. So I have to say it is flexible.
I once paid a visit to a Catholic church with my then girlfriend, who was a devout Catholic. I soon realised that I could never become a Catholic. There was just too much weird stuff going on. (And her father was a Damn-The-Protestants-To-Hell Catholic.)
My father liked to tell the story of how the priest visited one of his relatives to pull them in to line on some issue or other. Big mistake. The priest soon left with a sizable flea in his ear.
New Castle, PA, where I grew up, had a significant population of Italian Catholics. When I was in high school and college, I did wedding photography to earn money. I’d shot probably half a dozen Protestant weddings before I shot my first Catholic wedding. The Protestant weddings were very strictly controlled. The minister would provide the photographer with a list of Thou Shalt Nots, all of which were intended to make the photographer and photography unobtrusive during the actual ceremony. (They often included, for example, wearing rubber-soled shoes to minimize noise while I was moving around during the ceremony.)
So I was really surprised while I was shooting my first Catholic wedding when the priest stopped the ceremony and yelled to me to come on down. I actually looked over my shoulder, thinking he was addressing someone behind me. But it was me he wanted. Everyone waited while I walked down the aisle, shot a bunch of images of the bride and groom with the priest, the exchanging of rings, and so on. After I’d shot a bunch, the priest asked if I had what I needed. I told him I did. He waved me away and continued with the ceremony.
I guess I prefer the unobtrusive approach.
When my little nephew got married last year their photographer was with them from about 6 am (when the ladies were getting their hair done) ’till about midnight, when the reception ended. I don’t think I could handle such a long, intense day. Must have cost them a motza.
The priest at the Catholic wedding that Bob was at was way outta line and should never have interrupted the ceremony for that. No way. At other weddings I’ve been at the clergy will make a point of telling people not to use their flashes or take pictures while the ceremony is in progress, esp. if inside a church. I would imagine, though Ray can certify this, that with today’s lenses, etc., pictures can be taken very unobtrusively.
Well, I did shoot a couple of other Catholic weddings at other churches and the priests didn’t do that, although they did seem more laid back than the ministers always did. No flash? Hell, I remember one minister telling me specifically no SLRs because they were too loud. So instead of my 2-1/4 SLR I ended up using an old Rollei TLR.
I would imagine, though Ray can certify this, that with today’s lenses, etc., pictures can be taken very unobtrusively.
Indeed. And with cameras ISO approaching 25K that is a speed that was impossible with film. Ektachrome pushed to 1600 was about as high as I went back then. It is not so much the lenses, f1.2 is still f1.2. The difference is the digital sensors and the high ISO. Trick is to avoid the digital noise.
I have done a couple of weddings where I got singled out and it was not my fault. Strict instructions to me, and stated to the audience, no flash. Well a few losers would take a picture with flash. The officiant would automatically assume it was me. Generally get chewed out afterwards until I explain it was not me. Did have one ceremony where I got kicked out for (not) using flash. I found the officiant afterwards and ripped him a new one for tossing me for something I did not do. Not a wise idea but I was pissed.
I remember that despite verbal and written instructions to bridal parties and guests at various wedding ceremonies, usually inside churches, there were always some ass-hats who just HAD to use their loud-ass cameras and flash attachments. And then look brazenly at us as to “yeah, what are ya gonna do about it, fuck you…” Some days I would forget various commandments and wanna just beat the piss out of them. (I should explain here that I saw so many of these because I was a verger in the Episcopal/Anglican church and thus had reason to be at all these things with the clergy.)
I also remember the couples who had been explicitly told many times to make sure they had their dog, I mean, marriage licenses with them on arrival and how many of them did not. The rector that I worked for at the time would then refuse to perform the ceremony, and I backed him up on that and threw the rascals out.
One problem is that many people have no idea how to turn off the flash on their smartphones and compact cameras. There is always some weird button-combination or well-hidden menu-entry, but Joe Knuckledragger ain’t gonna go looking for it.
This needs to be a really, really obvious function. Heck, given how good digital sensors have gotten, the default ought to be no flash.
Seriously, WindowsXP was probably the best from my point of view, followed by Windows 7. With ME, Vista and 8 Microsoft has continued in the tradition of the Star Trek movies: every second release is utter crap.
I consider Windows 7 to be the pinnacle of the Windows operating system to date because of the most excellent x64 version of it. I have been running Windows 7 x64 for several years now, first with 8 GB ram and now with 16 GB of ram. Excellent, just excellent with zero device driver problems.
The only downside is the lack of support for DOS16, DOS32 and Win16 apps. DOS16 and DOS32 apps can be run using the excellent DosBox utility ( http://www.dosbox.com/ ). Win16 apps are just out in the cold unless you want to run Windows XP in a VDM.
I ran the first version of x64, Windows XP x64. Just about unusable due to device driver problems. Vista x64 was very slow but the device drivers were much better. The SP1 version of Vista x64 was much faster. However, Windows 7 x64 fixed all the problems that I was having and is very speedy to boot. I still have to reboot once or twice a month, but I am a software developer after all and we do many stupid things to hose our boxen.