09:46 – We started watching series 7 of Heartland last night, which we’ll binge-watch over the next few days. Once we finish that, I’ll go back and start watching series 1 again. I figure I’ll have time to make it through all seven series maybe two or three more times before series 8 finishes broadcasting next May. At seven years and 122 episodes, Heartland is already the longest-running one-hour drama ever on Canadian TV. With the team they have, it might be good for another ten or twenty seasons, assuming that Amber Marshall Turner is willing to stick around.
When we started watching Heartland last night, Barbara said I should order the official series 7 DVD set as a birthday present for myself. I told her I would have done that already, but that set won’t be available until this autumn. I suggested that as an alternative, Barbara should tolerate me buying whatever I want when we visit the LDS store later this month. She agreed–she has no problem storing food–but asked me please to stock up only on stuff that we actually eat. She said she doesn’t want a bunch of wheat or pinto beans stored. That’s fine with me. I intend to store a lot of canned goods, with reasonable amounts of dry goods like flour, sugar, rice, dry milk, pasta, cocoa mix, spices, and so on.
Smile for the NSA! “Smile: Your Selfie Is A Mugshot For The NSA”:
http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/01/nsa-facial-recognition/
One is beginning to wonder if each person in the USA has a hard drive dedicated to them.
It’s stuff like this that makes me wonder if we should eventually relocate to the North Carolina mountains, or if Alberta would be a better idea.
Wouldn’t make any diff as far as stuff like that is concerned; we are all of us “made” by now, one way or another, in various databases maintained by the cities, states and Fed leviathan. Being in the mountains of NC or Alberta would be one end of the surveillance spectrum in place already; if they wanna monitor you, they will, from space if need be. The other end of the spectrum is a place like Londonistan, which now has cameras about every six inches watching all the time. Wat Tyler, Jack Ball, and William Blake are spinning in their graves.
Here in northern Megalopolis, we’re sort of in the middle; cameras in stores and gummint buildings but not necessarily out on the streets. Yet. Drones overhead? Probably; we’re just minutes from an international border, as they like to keep reminding us.
I’d seriously consider getting out of where you are anyway, either to those Appalachian mountains down there or Alberta, while recognizing it’s a whole different culture and geography and people do things differently, plus you can’t just run down to Costco every other month to stock up on Diet Coke. Picture being without motor transportation for months at a crack, for one reason or another, plus severe weather stranding you, and the power out. The power company crews may take a while to get to you; that’s the way it is even here for rural areas just a few miles to our east; after the last big storm knocked out power locally, the locals got theirs back up within hours or a day or two. Those folks out in the little burgs in the valleys and mountains just a few miles from us waited weeks. Also some of them are still on party-line phones and dial-up internet. And a surprising percentage of roads are still unpaved in this state, just a few hours from Boston and NYC depending on where you actually live.
Another beeyoootifull day here; did a VA appointment and now running errands and chores, as Mrs. OFD and daughter prepare to head out to the wonderful SF Bay area for a week, then daughter spends a week in Santa Barbara with friends, while we pay for rail and air tickets for the start of what better not be a lovely endless summer of travel for her. Then wife does a week in Colorado; she won’t be back here until the first day of summuh.
I’ll be toiling like a navvy on house stuff, doing the usual job search PITA crap, and watching the grrls go by dressed in their summuh clothes again…
That story of Lynn’s is only one of many today. I thought Bush was a dictator; he is a mere wimp compared to NObama. Really! What is the difference between NObama and Fidel?
From NYTimes:
NObama orders an end to coal while doing an end-run around Congress
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/02/reaction-to-obama-administration-carbon-emissions-proposal/
NObama supports jailing reporters for not revealing sources and the Supremes agree with him
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/03/us/james-risen-faces-jail-time-for-refusing-to-identify-a-confidential-source.html
On that last one, they point out that the NObama administration has prosecuted 8 people for not revealing sources, when from the beginning of the country until NObama, there were only 3 such prosecutions.
Pew also finds that a majority of Americans now believe Global Warming is real, but I’m out of links.
Geez. And you guys continually slam the EU when it is they who made Facebook abide by EU privacy rules and neither the US nor its citizens give a fig about privacy — and don’t have it!
Did we just swap five Taliban prisoners for a Army deserter?
http://nypost.com/2014/05/31/the-bizarre-tale-of-americas-last-known-pow/
This story is getting weirder by the minute. I’ll bet you though that number of kidnapping attempts of servicemen is going to jump.
Fidel Castro: murderous, America-hating Communist dictator, trained as a lawyer, who was neither born nor raised in the United States.
Barack Obama: murderous, America-hating Communist dictator, trained as a lawyer, who was neither born nor raised in the United States.
Hmm…
Yes, we gave up five “top Taliban commanders” who were/are a “high security risk” for an apparent deserter (like that dude in “Homeland”) who took off and then was all buddied up with the hadjis until some kind of scam got worked. Then the dude’s parents appeared with Dear Leader and the weird hadji-looking dad praised Allah. Now I would hope that our boyz out there would have these Taliban guys lined up and targeted for termination on their various arrivals wherever, but I would be dreaming, wouldn’t I?
I happen to think Barry was actually born in the U.S. but he lied about his birthplace to get his application treated more favorably at Columbia. That’s why we can’t seem to find any actual birth records or his academic records from there. So right from the git-go, with his rich Paki friends, smoking pot and doing no actual studies, he disavowed his own country. Which is worse, actually, than having been born somewhere else.
You’ll note also that Barry and the Mooch attended Rev. Wright’s little church for twenty years straight and got the full monty of anti-white hate rhetoric and anti-American agitprop.
Another similarity: both Castro and Stalin began as Christian seminarians. But Koba at least made an effort to be an actual criminal and robbed banks, or more accurately, set up his friends to rob banks and then dimed them out to the Tsar’s secret police. And when he and Lenin and the other top Bolshies were actually imprisoned or exiled under that regime, they lived pretty darn well, almost as though nothing had been done to them at all. Later their regime had to make use of ex-Tsarist military and police officials just to be able to get through the day. Until they weren’t needed anymore, of course; then they became “counter-revolutionaries,” saboteurs and “wreckers.”
Barry Gibb — the last Bee Gee
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pUa91AaXGg
Barry was just in the Northeast here, Boston and/or NYC, I forget which or both. He apparently had the crowd in the palm of his hand and they all had several good cries together, along with some laughs. I was never big on them, though; more into the British blues during that time and still, actually.
Now I have “Stayin Alive” running through my head. Thanks. Thanks a lot.
Sadly that is also the first song I think of whenever the BeeGees are mentioned now. Prior to that it was “Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress.”
Small discovery made recently via our local “album station;” we’ve all heard Cream’s “Sunshine of Your Love” a zillion times, I’m sure; check out the version by Santana; holy shit! Face-melting guitar work.
I would give up every Talifuck in Gitmo for an E-1 Spoon with no problem. But, it looks more and more and more like Berdgahl is a deserter. Obummer has Bergdahl’s weirdo Dad in the Rose Garden. Rice out saying he’s a “hero.” Dems touting how great Obuttwad is doing this. But his unit buddies saying he’s a scumbag. The article on the Daily Beast is damming. Looks like an AR 15-6 investigation is taking place. It also looks like the Army is white washing this like they did with Tillman. He’ll either get a dishonorable or a Silver Star. I hope the Army shows some backbone. Do a real 15-6 and tell the Pols to suck it. Of course, OdouchBag will do whatever he wants as CinC. Not the he would politicize this.
The active-duty guys have already been told to STFU; not a lot they can do about guys who are out now. To wit, the series of tales told by former Seals and Green Berets about the crap that’s gone on.
Pretty clear right from the start that this guy is bad news; if they wash this and by the way, he’s already been promoted to sergeant, then things have gone pretty much down the toilet as far as military service is concerned.
Apparently, Bergdahl’s father claimed the White House for Islam in Arabic as the first words out of his mouth — in front of POTUS.
http://allenbwest.com/2014/06/bombshell-first-words-bergdahls-father-white-house-arabic/#sVe7teLs7OFWlBU4.99
That’s truly weird. I just posted a bit on the allegation that Bergdahl’s father claimed the White House for Islam in Arabic in front of POTUS, and it did not show up after I hit “Post Comment”.
I like all the early Bee Gee’s stuff: Holiday, Words, Lonely Days, New York Mining Disaster of 1941, I’ve Gotta Get a Message to You. Could not wait for their next record to come out. All the disco era stuff was just too commercial, IMO, but I did like Jive Talkin’, which preceded disco by a few years.
May have been the link, which had some crazy characters in it. Lemme try again without the code-looking stuff at the end
http://allenbwest.com/2014/06/bombshell-first-words-bergdahls-father-white-house-arabic/
Two attempts to post on the Bergdahl accusation failed.
Google this:
Clare Lopez none of these media is reporting
and pick the first link, which should be a link to “allenbwest dot com”
3 attempts to post about Bergdahl failed. In the last one, I put no links in it at all, but just instructions on how to google for the article I have tried to link to.
Very, very strange, as my Bee Gees comments posted just fine.
Lemme try editing this comment.
http://allenbwest.com/2014/06/bombshell-first-words-bergdahls-father-white-house-arabic/
Cannot even edit the previous post to put in the link. “This comment is marked as spam and cannot be edited.”
Now, even the previous post that was there before I tried to edit it, has disappeared.
NSA at work — apparently.
Let me try one more time.
go to:
allen
a
west
dot com
(connect the dots above and change the letter “a” to a “b” (no spaces); then choose the article that says something like “bombshell first words of …”
MrChuck, sir, please exit the vehicle….slowly now…slowly…keeping your hands in plain sight…very slowly….now stand up….slowly….keep those hands up, sir…..turn around and place your hands on the roof of the vehicle….very slow….say, is that a rice-burner or a new Murkan car you got there? I kinda like it…how bout if we just forget this little arrest thing and you just hand me the keys…’kay? That your laptop in there, too? What’d you say, it’s not a Windows laptop? Ima gon have to take you in after all, sir…
Granted, the guy’s a fruitcake. But as the article itself says, those are the words that open every chapter of the Quran. Seems rather like a Christian evangelistic stepping up to a microphone and saying “praise god” before starting in on a prepared speech.
Anyone remember how the Shrub invoked god constantly in his speeches? It was downright grating…
I just hope the anti-coal people (i) turn off their heating, air-cond, lights, etc, etc and (ii) support nuclear power.
SteveF wrote:
“Fidel Castro … Barack Obama”
Oh COME ON! Fidel isn’t *that* bad.
Chuck wrote:
“Barry Gibb — the last Bee Gee
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pUa91AaXGg”
The uploader has not made this video available in your country.
So I just went and got my “Living Eyes” fix.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0z-dwj3SN8
Chuck, men in black helicopters playing Tina Charles’ Dance Little Lady, Dance and Maxine Nightingale’s Love Hit Me are on their way to Tiny Town. Hope you enjoy your 30 year sentence in Florence.
Brad wrote:
“Anyone remember Shrub? It was downright grating…”
There, fixed that for you.
I remember our host being a bit sensitive to foreign criticism of Bush way back then. Said something like “he may be an idiot, but he’s *our* idiot.”
Bergdahl is hitting the news cycle here – about half of the stories mention that he is probably a deserter. One, more cynical, says that it is best if he is a hero, since that is how the government is treating him.
Even so: promoted twice in absentia? Once I can, see, but twice is weird – since a prisoner clearly isn’t gaining experience. Is this normal?
Sorry. I just went in and un-spammed and approved four of your posts. Unfortunately, there’s no good way to sort out real messages from spam. Akismet flags what it thinks is spam and moves it to a holding area. On a slow day, I might end up with 100 spam messages awaiting deletion. On a heavy day, I might end up with 1,000. They’re displayed 10 per page, most recent first. All I have time to do is click the Empty Spam icon, which sometimes loses a real comment or two.
That was when I was expecting him to do something. In the same situation, I’d say the same thing about Obama that I said about Bush, which IIRC was, “He may be an asshole, but he’s our asshole.”
Sorry. I just went in and un-spammed and approved four of your posts.
I knew I wasn’t crazy. I would have been if I started testing what phrase it was banning. I’m guessing “allenawest” (change that middle initial to “b”). Not sure why he would be banned; my conservative friends on Facebook link to him a lot and those do not get banned.
And that saved me from having to go with OFD. I might have learned something there, and that’s scary at my age.
Back up near Chicago tomorrow, with my Windoughzless computer. After Mint finally included a display size I can read, I am really liking that little netbook. Hate the tiny drive, however. It will not accept anything but those slim drives, and they do not hold enough. Hate lugging around an external drive.
Babysitting the radio station in person all next week, so I will be scarce around here.
I think you can buy 640GB to 1TB 7mm SSDs.
That’s why we can’t seem to find any actual birth records or his academic records from there.
Um. Obama has a real, authentic birth certificate from Hawaii. He was born there. No real doubt about it left. There are pictures of it available from when it was shown to the press.
Been visiting the UK for a while, Edinburgh, Orkneys, and now London. Food, esp. meat, is expensive here. Petrol is very expensive. CCTV cameras all over.* But the cask-conditioned beer is very tasty. No local TV stations means that the news is national/international in content. (Reporting on the Taliban release has caught up with the desertion allegations, btw.)
* I know, they are SCORPION STARE installations for CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN.
Wow. Admittedly, I have not checked for a while, but nothing bigger than 750gb was available when I bought the thing — almost 2 years ago now. I have the OS on the SSD that is glued to the motherboard, and use the spinning drive for /home. Although it boots in under 10 seconds, I cannot say it is so fast that it wows me. It is incrementally faster than with everything on the spinning drive, but not shockingly speedier.
I AM wowed by how little drive space Linux installations need. I have all the programs I need installed and it uses less than half of a 14gb partition. The Program Files folder alone on the Windoughz machine is about twice that — although admittedly, there are many programs there that I do not use anymore. One thing: Libre Office works SO much better on Linux than in Windows. I am wowed by that.
Guess what I really need is a VPN to access stuff away from home. There is probably way too much administration and supervision involved in that, though. All the lawyers I work with from large firms with have VPN to the office, so they can access anything from anywhere, just as if they were at their desk in the office. One change this has meant, is that they used to just sit around listening and writing notes in depositions. Now they are connected to the office and writing, responding, and researching while the depo goes on. That has happened just since 2011. There really have been great advances in computing during the last several years — probably matching all the progress from when I first had a terminal on my desk in 1987 to around 2010/11.
“Sorry. I just went in and un-spammed and approved four of your posts. Unfortunately, there’s no good way to sort out real messages from spam.”
Is it not possible to put regulars in a pre-approved list that exempts them from being labeled spammers? Seems like an obvious feature.
There’s no such option that I know of.
CCTV cameras all over.
Apparently, we are now being photographed every time we make a purchase at most retail stores. Indianapolis has had a raft of pictures in the media of alleged criminal perpetrators photographed from a POV behind and above the checkout clerk. And it IS resulting in those people being recognized and caught.
Enjoy London. London is better than Disneyland for me. So easy to get around. There was a fantastic Indian place across from the Hilton near Marble Arch a few years back. It was actually the Hilton restaurant, but the trend in Europe is to locate the hotel restaurant near to, but not in, the hotel, so more people will eat there, and not be intimidated by having to enter the hotel. One of the best Indian restaurants I ever supped at. It was not well marked and was downstairs in the basement. Not seeing it at the moment in Google Street View.
Hmm. My recollection was that the building was white stone, but this might be it: Roti Chai at 3 Portman Mews. Dress up for supper; everyone else will be.
https://maps.google.com/maps?q=indian+restaurant+near+Marble+Arch+London&ll=51.514612,-0.155337&spn=0.000654,0.00184&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-beta&channel=sb&fb=1&gl=us&hq=indian+restaurant&hnear=Marble+Arch,+London,+United+Kingdom&t=m&fll=51.514555,-0.155807&fspn=0.000648,0.00184&z=19&layer=c&cbll=51.514635,-0.155709&panoid=5ahGBZI1JEx493qmCtCkDg&cbp=12,197.87,,0,7.31
Is it not possible to put regulars in a pre-approved list that exempts them from being labeled spammers? Seems like an obvious feature.
Heh. I suspect quite the opposite might be true.
Quoth Chuck:
Whoa, whoa, whoa… I don’t know that anyone can be drawing that conclusion from the available evidence.
Followed by this cryptic utterance:
“…And that saved me from having to go with OFD.”
Forgot or missed the context, something about conservatives on FaceCrack; I am probably not considered a conservative there but a fascist maniac and dangerous entity to be avoided. Except by my fascist maniac friends, of course.
A friend of mine describes another mutual friend of ours as a communist. This is based on the attitude often expressed: “we’re all equal here, but I’m the boss.”
Ha! The Bolshevik philosophy in one sentence.
…and some animals are more equal than others…natch.
All Nazis are dead or close to it.
Communism lives.
Islam lives.
But the Left still has its panties in a wet knot over the former and sees it in every closet and under every bed.