08:18 – Barbara is off with our friend Bonnie Richardson to the craft show in Greensboro.
I finally got around to reading One Second After, the 2009 TEOTWAWKI novel that put EMP on most preppers’ radar. It’s basically a mediocre writer’s attempt to rewrite Pournelle’s and Niven’s Lucifer’s Hammer, relocating it from the California mountains to the North Carolina mountains and recasting the threat to an EMP attack from an asteroid impact. The book could have used a decent editor. Or perhaps I should say “could of used”. By about the 20th time the author used “of” rather than “have” I was ready to scream; by the 100th time I was ready to track down and strangle the author. Despite nearly 3,900 Amazon reviews averaging 4.4 stars and despite being on the NYT bestseller list for three months and despite the foreward by Newt Gingrich, this is a bad book. Bad science, bad plotting, bad dialog, and to say the characters are cardboard is an insult to cardboard. Apparently there is a sequel in the works. I won’t bother to read it.
You know what is going to happen: the language will change, and in 10 years “should of” and “could of” will be accepted English.
Being somewhat isolated from linguistic changes for the past 20 years, I still say “The lawn needs mown” whereas the language has dropped this special conjugation and everyone now apparently says “The lawn needs mowed”. There are piles of these: I have shown/proven/etc…all gone, and I still twitch every time I read one of the new “ed” words.
Pittsburghese victorious!
In Western Pennsylvania, like/need/want + past participle is standard usage. “The lawn needs mowed” rather than the usual US “needs mowing” or “needs to be mowed”. The “needs mowing” construct still sounds odd to my ear.
As to the “n” versus “ed” for past participles, either sounds fine to me and I used both interchangeably.
We speak the King’s English here, in the lands originally settled by English people and accept no substitutes.
Of course English is like unto the Borg and will assimilate whatever is useful and allow to fade whatever is not; I like to play with both ends.
Stahted out sunny today but overcast again now, no wind; temp at 27 but “feels like” 19 and supposed to drop to 17 tonight and then rise to 40 on Sunday.
All our belated T-Day dinner plans for today have, as I could have predicted, been moved back several hours, due to various situations, conflicts and monkey wrenches with the fem branch of the family. I am so used to this stuff now it fazes me not a whit.
Note the use of “faze” instead of the cretins using “phase”. And using “homeless” as a noun. Etc., etc. Also when they want to increase or raise something they “up” it. It would take a bile specialist…
All this talk about “proper” English is a waste of time. It won’t be long before we have to “press 2 for English”. Have you tried applying for a job recently, one of the first questions asked is if you can speak Spanglish đ
I like to observe people and I find it interesting that the Hispanics who have been here for many years and who have assimilated into the USofA scowl as much if not more than I do when these wet-backs (mostly train-butts now) only talk in slang-mexican, flash their EBT cards, and play their 2000 watt “stereos” like everyone must like their “music?”.
Our local Hispanic population is very small, mostly migrant farm workers, for whom we must have “peace and justice,” etc., or so say the rich libruls constantly. Rarely seen, they have Spanish masses for them at one of the two Roman Catholic churches in town.
Biggest minority here are Franco-Americans and locally settled Quebecois. After that, First Nations folks, Western Abenaki. Everybody speaks English in public and I hear that a lot of the Frenchies speak their lingo at home.
Mrs. OFD just now, at 1:24, heading up to Montreal to retrieve Princess; original plan was to leave by 10 AM. This is how these things work here. Whatever time the fems say, just add two, three or four hours to it, good as clockwork. Fine by me, whatever; I used to flip out, ’cause I’d have had the food set up and cooking and timed for the original hour, but I’ve learned a few things since then. Do most of it in advance, if possible, so it just has to be popped into the oven. One of the advantages of this climate is we can keep stuff out on the porch and leave room in the nice, newly cleaned fridge. So now instead of Belated Thanksgiving Dinner at 3 or so, it will most likely be at 5 or 6. Why today and not yesterday?
Because apparently McGill, if not other Canadian universities, likes to schedule exams for the Murkan Thanksgiving, so Murkan kids can’t go home for it. They were doing this when Mrs. OFD was a student there forty years ago and they’re still doing it.
Whatever; OFD is hip to the program and has all his ducks line up nicely today.
OFD, a friend called me out on “faze” just a couple days ago and I thanked her.
She also corrected me on “shepherd’s pie”, which I had spelt ‘shepard’s pie’.
I find as I get older I *like* being corrected, but will put up one hell of a fight if I disagree.
Does willingness to admit that one is wrong attributable to age, or wisdom?
Hope you are still following
http://laudatortemporisacti.blogspot.com/
“Because apparently McGill, if not other Canadian universities, likes to schedule exams for the Murkan Thanksgiving, so Murkan kids canât go home for it. ”
Why should a Canadian university schedule based on an American holiday? Does Hahvahd give Canadians July 1 off?
Spent Thanksgiving celebrating with an American friend. Wow. Ok. That’s one hell of a holiday. I’m doing this again next year…
It would take a bile specialistâŚ
OFD, you left out the losers who use loose…
Does willingness to admit that one is wrong attributable to age, or wisdom?
Jim`, in my case it’s just being too old and tired to expend the energy to be stubborn.
Despite nearly 3,900 Amazon reviews averaging 4.4 stars and despite being on the NYT bestseller list for three months and despite the foreward by Newt Gingrich, this is a bad book.
So did you give it one star?
I am reading “The Survivalist (Frontier Justice)” right now. It is set in Boone, North Carolina. The book is based on a engineered superpox virus that kills 90% of the world population in four weeks.
http://www.amazon.com/Survivalist-Frontier-Justice-Arthur-Bradley/dp/148274631X/
Hey OFD, here is your sign. We are nowhere near peak oil for the USA nor the world. In fact, we are entering a period of an oil glut:
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/billions-wiped-off-energy-shares-investors-rush-exit-155006943–finance.html
Within two years, Texas is expected to be producing seven million barrels of oil per day. We may be producing ten million barrels of oil per day in five years from the Permian Basin alone. The USA may be producing fourteen million barrels per day by then.
We may be exporting crude oil very soon from the USA again. We are already exporting two million barrels of refined products from the USA now to Mexico, Europe, etc. Or not, the price of oil may start to crash. Experts predict that if the cost of crude oil in the USA hits $40/bbl then the oil industry will suffer a major event (layoffs!). I am already seeing signification cost cuts in the industry and expect more to come in December.
$40/bbl is the current rock bottom price to produce a well using fracking and horizontal drilling in the USA. I thought it was $65/bbl but Halliburton and Schlumberger have said that they are getting their costs in line.
That old bumper sticker âPlease God, Just Give Me One More Oil Boom. I Promise Not to Blow It Next Time.â may be coming back to haunt us here in The Great State of Texas.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/11/28/opec-keeps-oil-output-steady-despite-falling-prices/
” Does Hahvahd give Canadians July 1 off?”
Mrs. OFD tells me that some Murkan universities and colleges do the same thing in reverse to Canadian students here, i.e., schedule exams for their holidays. And some don’t, as I’m sure some Canadian colleges don’t. But we’re sure about McGill.
All turned out well here, mainly ’cause wily old bastid OFD had everything lined up in advance in such a way as to be able to whip it all out at whatever damn time. All had a good time and ate really well and a few laughs. First time in a while that somebody or other wasn’t messed up or pissed or whatever. Small blessings…
“We are nowhere near peak oil for the USA nor the world. In fact, we are entering a period of an oil glut…”
You may well be right; but my thinking is that even if this is so, the globalist elites will find a way to screw it up and tank our economy and the Grid anyway. This stuff may have ruined some of their major plans for now but I bet they have a Plan B. But we’ll have to watch and see.
Happy Thanksgiving, belatedly, to all in the Great Lone Star State and everywhere else in what’s left of the Republic and environs.
Back at ya Mr. OFD. Glad things are going well. The Atoz family had a great Thanks Giving. A lot to give thanks for.
From what I’ve seen, the current boom is already being thoroughly screwed up.
I’ve already ranted about burning off methane – in 20 or 30 or 40 years, one will regret having wasted such a natural resource. That’s one area where I could envision that a reasonable government (which the US hasn’t got) could come up with a reasonable regulation prohibiting deliberate wastage on such a massive scale.
The “boom or bust” cycle is the other aspect that is a real problem, though I’m not sure there’s anything to be done. At the moment, money is flowing like water in certain areas. In a few years, it will move elsewhere; a few years later it will be gone. Typical short-term business thinking – which ties into the burnoff wastage as well.
Government attempts to control boom-bust cycles usually make things worse. I’m tempted to say “always”, but there might be some exceptions. All the attempts do is remove the feedback which would put an end to a boom, making the bust (I’m tempted to say “inevitable bust”, but there might be some exceptions) worse. That’s been free market mantra for decades. A decade ago, government lovers had been pointing at the modern, enlightened management of the US economy as a sign that the boom-bust cycle had been ended by the modern, enlightened social and economic architects leading us. Yah, how’s that working out for you, guys?
As for the gas flares, I agree in principle that “something should be done”. Govt regulation is the obvious answer, but any government regulation is inevitably the camel’s nose under the tent. Public pressure and shaming might conceivably work, but the whack-job self-proclaimed environmentalists and conservationists have overplayed their hands drastically since, well, about as long as I’ve been alive. They have almost no credibility with anyone who can actually do math.
@SteveF: I agree 100%. Government intervention in boom-bust usually seems to extend the “boom” phase, making the bust immensely more painful. Re burnoffs, indeed, responsible environmentalists could play an important role here, if only such a thing existed.
“Environmentalists” and “Math”: Just as a recent example: on some other blogs and news sources I frequent, there has been a flood of references to articles on producing methane from sewage. These are naturally lauded by all the environmentalists. Looking into the articles, there’s nothing new – it’s always the standard anaerobic fermentation of organic waste. Somehow we are supposed to be surprised that sewage counts as organic, that the resulting methane doesn’t cause disease since it comes from sewage, and – my favorite – since methane can be used in rockets, this is a way to turn sewage into “rocket fuel”. Not only are the programs nothing new, but the only “commercial” project produces barely enough energy to run it’s own plant, so it’s really just an overly expensive (certainly subsidized) sewage treatment facility.
Brad, FYI: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/11/29/london-mayors-unpaid-tax-bill-shows-why-some-people-dont-want-to-be-americans-anymore/?tid=HP_more?tid=HP_more
Hey, I would vote for Johnson as President. Based on his performance as Lord Mayor of London, at least his tenure would be entertaining. And you can be sure he would fix the ex-pat situation.
@SteveF: Hadn’t seen that article, thanks. Geez, they’ve increased the expatriation fee again, this time by a factor of five: $2350 to say “no thanks”. Make it too expensive, so people won’t leave? Dutch boy with his finger in the dike?
Given how complicated the reporting requirements are – all the usual IRS stuff, but a whole ‘nother layer on top – you are really at risk if you don’t get a tax preparer. Who will charge several hundred bucks, both because he knows he can, and because it is just incredibly complicated.
This hasn’t bitten my boys yet – they are still under the IRS filing threshold. But that whopping fee is going to make us regret not getting them out along with us. #@$%$%^@$#@ or words to that effect
As the Sovereign Man guys have been reporting, the IRS and our regime apparently believe they can rob and kill U.S. citizens all over the world now, even when they’ve never even set foot here, let alone treasonous guys like brad who’ve absconded with their billions, which of course rightfully belongs to DOD and the Treasury. That Mr. Chuck guy out in Tiny Town makes a lot of seditious noises like this, too, and bears watching.
Sovereign Man Guy also points out those few remaining places around the planet where one might park one’s funds and buy property and live a life free of the increasingly draconian crap that our regime imposes on us, but one would have to already have significant hard assets to accomplish that. Which we don’t, so we’ll just have to hunker down here and make the best of it.
Luckily or not, we still have that cottage way up in northern Nouveau Brunswick right on the north Atlantic, thanks to Provincial officials and (mainly) locals, who scurried to put up that rock seawall. Only a twelve-hour drive away to our northeast. Or ten days to two weeks hump through forest, bog, countless wottuh hazards, and ravenous coywolves, cougars and bears.
Or ten days to two weeks hump through forest, bog, countless wottuh hazards, and ravenous coywolves, cougars and bears.
You forgot the ravenous moose.
The moose are horny, not ravenous. And I’m not talkin’ ’bout their antlers.
As for the gas flares, I agree in principle that âsomething should be doneâ. Govt regulation is the obvious answer, but any government regulation is inevitably the camelâs nose under the tent.
The USA government is way ahead of you here. Most wells have one to four products: hydrocarbon liquids, aqueous liquids, solids (sand and clay), and vapors (primarily hydrocarbon but there is usually carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, nitrogen, oxygen and water there). Of these, the liquids can be put into tanks, separated and the hydrocarbon liquids can be sold for a pretty penny and the aqueous liquids can be carted off to an injection well (lots of pennies for the injector). The solids can be land filled if they are not hydrogen sulfide impregnated (vary bad stuff) in which they must be burned before land filling.
That leaves us with the vapors (hydrocarbon, carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, nitrogen, oxygen and water). The well producer would love to reinject these into the well but that requires a compressor and stainless steel piping. A high pressure surge tank, about the size of a train locomotive, would be nice also as compressors do not like variable flowrates. Plus a reinjection permit from the state and the feddies (not easy to get).
So, installing all those on a timely basis (including the 50,000 hp gas turbine to turn the compressor, another permit or five), is difficult at best. So the easiest, and safest, thing to do is to install a flare about 100 to 300 ft away from the well. That way all those nasty combustibles get converted into not so nasty air. And, that H2S gets converted into SO2, a much safer version. And, you have to have a flare no matter what for emergencies.
Most states allow the well driller and/or the well producer to flare natural gas for up to one year. Some states are converting to six months. Connecting wells to pipelines is very expensive as the H2S in the natural gas must be reduced to less than 1 ppm, the N2 and CO2 must be reduced to 1%, the oxygen must be reduced to 1 ppm and the water reduced to 0.1%. Plus most of the heavier hydrocarbons such as propane, butane, ethane, hexane, etc must be reduced to a pipeline specific quantity. And then you need to run a pipeline to the nearest compressor station which can be over hill and dale and several hundred miles away.
The price of crude oil dropped 10% yesterday to $67/bbl here in the USA. Further drops are predicted. Here we go! Time to batten down the hatches here in the oil patch.
BTW, I have heard of a well coming in with 55% hydrogen sulfide in the vapors here in The Great State of Texas (north Texas). The well was promptly plugged and capped.
The economic boom/bust situation is restrainable. The last roadblock standing in the way of government and their minions being able to manipulate the value of money and therefore the worth of the assets you hold, was the gold standard. That felonious bastard Tricky Dick Nixon, — who should have rotted in a Federal Penitentiary, insuring a better class of Presidents, — threw that out by closing the teller’s window of monetary convertibility in 1971. Since then, economic aggravations have done nothing but magnify.
With a gold standard in place, countries were forced to reconcile against each other, and therefore within themselves before they were able to reconcile to each other. Those who did not, suffered. It is counter-intuitive, but so-called ‘floating currencies’ is not a free-market mechanism, and is often abused by countries like the US, demanding that other countries like China, actually lower or (in the case of us and China the demand is to) raise the value of their currency to correct for our own damned ignorant faults. Like China is ever going to do that — especially now, when they are in economic trouble. The long explanation of all this is in the late Jude Wanniski’s book, âThe Way the World Worksâ. I have never seen a short explanation of it that I believe is correct, so I will not attempt that here.
As far as oil prices falling — well, that touchstone of value, gold, has fallen almost 20% since March, which means the dollar is worth about 20% more than it was then. (Yea!) No surprise that commodity prices of all kinds are falling. Stock market lags about 2 years behind, so look for a falling Dow as the months roll on, unless the trend in gold reverses itself. This fluctuation will be bad for oil, because it will stifle investment. That will lead to less capacity, demand at lower prices will increase, and eventually prices will rise again, because this fluctuation in the value of the currency, sends the wrong signal to investors and oil companies, causing either overproduction or lack of capacity, depending on which way the currency value swings. That, instead of the constant, correct feedback that existed between WWII and 1971, when gas prices rose only a penny or two at a time, and a can of green beans was 14 cents throughout my entire childhood and through high school.
But do not worry: no matter how low oil prices go now, they will exceed previous highs before the next decade is over. Without the self-correcting economic mechanisms of the gold standard, it will be one wild swing after another.
On the English language front, the self-appointed keepers of the language, Oxford University, long ago decided to accept common usage and not fight for language integrity. On the other side of that coin, I had about 10 years of teaching English as a second language, and tried lots of textbooks in that time. Only Oxford’s actually managed to teach English, and it taught it quickly. There was just the right amount of repetition, and review of grammar rules, with things presented in such a logical order that students were seldom confused as they were with other books. Pearson’s were the worst, even though they actually started as an educational entity creating textbooks. Pearson owns the Financial Times, and used articles as teaching tools. Bad idea; that is just a self-promotion tool; in no way are beginning English learners ready to read the Financial Times. So at least Oxford knows how to teach English, if not ensure language integrity.
What gets to me now that I am back in the US, is the dropping in use of past participles. All around me I hear: âI had saw that alreadyâ; âWe had went to Yogi’s last nightâ; âI had already did that before they got home.â It is all-pervasive. Even university students say this stuff.
Anyway, âanywaysâ — which all young people now use, — is always and anyways annoying.
The other change is using the conventional rules for forming the past tense, or substituting the past participle for the past tense: âI seen him do itâ; âWe been there beforeâ; âHe catched it with his bare handsâ; âHe gived it to them anywayâ; âHe sended it via UPS.â
All of that has become the common parlance around me — even among the so-called ‘educated’.
On the Hispanic invasion issue, I do not think we are going to see English become subordinate to any other language anytime soon. If we do, then that will be an indication that the US has no future. English is the most superior language for communication that ever existed. It has very few extraneous rules (like forcing gender on all things), accommodates new words better than any language ever, and allows for scientific words using any number of rules adopted from other languages or no rules at all, take your pick. Even the so-called perfect language of Esperanto is dead and buried. English grammar can be butchered, but the result is still comprehensible, and the number of descriptive words and phrases exceeds all languages — especially German. A mouse can be under, in, over, or on top of a table, but in German, it is always âauf dem Tischâ.
Regarding Hispanic motivation, I have only lived in two areas where the immigration has been significant — here in Indiana, and in Boston. In both places, I have never known Hispanics who were the least bit lazy. They usually live with extended families together, pooling resources; all of them go to work every day, including grandparents; they do high quality work; and yet they are the least expensive labor in town. Here in Tiny Town, one extended family does roof work. They will start on a summer’s day with about 8 to 10 guys on the job, have the old roof stripped and cleared from the property by noon, and the new roof on and finished before quitting time. Another family does yard work and gardening, and the places that use them are the best-looking in town. Again, they do not waste time with 3 or 4 guys on the crew, finishing a large yard and all the trimming and cleanup in a half hour.
Down at the education capital of the known universe, home of my alma mater, everyone working in every kitchen of every restaurant is Mexican, be it Mickey D’s, Indian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese, Tibetan, — you name it, the kitchen help is Mexican. Having talked to a couple of the managers of those places, they say the best thing about Mexican help is that they will stay with you for years before moving on. Hire a US native, and they are outta there in 3 months, tops.
Every Mexican I have encountered speaks quite acceptable English — often better than the natives, — but they really love you if you speak Spanish with them. My son has lived in South America a couple times for stints of a year or longer, and is quite fluent in Spanish. He always speaks in Spanish when we go to Mexican places. And we always get extra-special attention from that.
So I read about all this trouble with shiftless, lazy Mexicans in Southern California, but I sure do not see the same thing around here, nor did I in Boston/Framingham. They flocked to Framingham after the GM plant there closed and property values dropped to immigrant-affordable. One of the Framingham radio stations went Spanish language, otherwise the only change was a lot of new Mexican mom and pop restaurants. And geez I miss those.
Saw sumthin on the net today ’bout gas prices gon be droppin’ to two bucks a gallon in some states Real Soon Now. I agree wid Mr. Chuck in Tiny Town; we in fo’ boom-and-bust cycles fo’ da foreseeable few-chah. One ting assured: reg-lah folks ain’t gon be makin’ out wid it all. Workin’ stiffs and da so-called Middle Class and us up here in, laughably, the top 10% of the country, be eatin’ shit from now on. We jus’ treadin’ wottuh here. Barely.
Framingham, Maffachufetts; OFD moved there in circa 1965-66 at ages 12-13, just up the street from the MassPike and a mile or so to the junior high/high skool and beautiful Saxonville. All in the north end of town and not fah from Shopper’s World, the Natick Mall and Lake Cochituate. South end of town was downtown, and much more DIVERSE. There were Latinos but the big influx over the past several decades have been the Brazilians; complete with Brazilian-language-only signs on the stores and their flags. Next-younger brother commutes a couple of days/nights a week to a part-time Winblows job down there (after thirty years as a UNIX guy) and has remarked on the increased decrepitude and danger areas. When we were kids we could walk and bike all over but I wouldn’t let a kid down there now alone, not at night anyway.
I haven’t seen or heard Mr. Chuck’s experience around here with the butchering of the English language but I used to see it all the time as an English instructor and TA down in MA and NJ over twenty years ago. And I certainly see it online all the time.
Re: Mexican kitchen help. The experience around here seems to be that if you hire a Mexican, and schedule him/her to be at work at 7AM, he/she is actually on the premises, ready to go to work, at 7AM. This distinguishes them from the vast majority of the native born workers. And if you tell a Mexican, at 3PM, that you need them to work an extra hour today, their response is “Thank you, boss.” rather than “F you, boss.” .
And the local grammar error that grinds my ears most if all is the use of ‘seen’ as a past tense of ‘see’ – “I seen the movie yesterday.”
My own experience matches those others have mentioned. Mexicans are hard-working. I would have no hesitation in hiring one.
I do think this bodes ill for blacks. From what I’ve seen, Mexicans and blacks really don’t like each other. As Mexicans continue taking jobs away from lower-class blacks, I think things are going to get a lot worse. And if the Democrats aren’t careful, they’re going to find that the Mexicans are a natural constituency of Republicans.
So fah, though, I seen that the Mexicans are still, and probably for a long time to come, guaranteed Dem votes. And more so with the recent waves of immigrants.
And I have personally experienced having to work with/supervise several younger generation IT drones in recent years, all Murkan-born, and their attitudes and commitment sucked. At least the single males, anyway.