Tuesday, 26 July 2016

By on July 26th, 2016 in personal, science kits

09:03 – Yesterday morning, Barbara commented that the air conditioning had been running all night. We had the thermostat set to 75 and it was showing 78. There was also a little “Stage 2” icon, which I hadn’t seen before. A quick Internet search told me what that icon meant. I assumed that our air conditioning was just having a hard time keeping up with the extreme heat we’ve been having recently. But it just kept getting warmer and warmer in here as the day went on. When Barbara returned from Winston yesterday afternoon, she said she thought maybe we were low on Freon. So I called the HVAC folks who’d checked out our system right after we moved in here last December. They were, unsurprisingly, booked up yesterday and today. He said the soonest they could make it out here was Wednesday, so we set up an appointment.

Yesterday afternoon, we opened several windows for some cross ventilation, brought the oscillating fan in from the garage and set it up in the den, and turned on the ceiling fan in the master bedroom. Ordinarily, Barbara hates to have air blowing on her, but as warm as it was (and is) in the house, she made an exception. I closed the windows and drapes this morning to keep the cooler air in and the hotter air out. Our high today should be several degrees cooler than yesterday. By next week, our highs are to be in the 70’s (~25C), which is more usual for high summer in Sparta.

We’ll manage for another day or so until the AC is up and running again. As I said to Barbara last night, this is the way people used to live all the time. When Barbara was growing up, their house didn’t have air conditioning until she was in high school. I think I was in junior high when we had a serious heat wave in New Castle, PA. My dad came home one day with a huge window air conditioner, which we installed in the den. For the duration of the heat wave, we all slept downstairs. I take comfort in the fact that Sparta is experiencing extraordinary high temperatures right now. Our highs have been up in the low 90’s F (~ 33C), which almost never happens. (I blame it on global warming…) If this is the worst it gets, we could live with it even in a long-term power failure. Winter cold is the threat here; summer heat isn’t a real problem.

While she was down in Winston yesterday, Barbara picked up another 6-foot folding table. We’ll use that out in the garage to assemble small-parts bags, build science kits, and so on. We have a 5-foot folding table out there now, along with three other small folding tables. Those, we’ll fold up and store in the attic. The new table is identical to the existing one, but a foot longer. That gives us 11 feet of work surface, which is enough to bin bags four dozen at a time or build kits three dozen at a time.

I’m getting very tired of the MSM’s maniacal focus on the political conventions. Who cares? I mean, if there was a riot or someone set off a bomb, that’d be news. But the outcomes of both the RNC and the DNC were pretty much known in advance, so what’s the point to covering them in exhaustive detail? This stuff isn’t news: it’s features. I just did a quick scan of the CNN and FoxNews home pages yesterday. Both were about 5% actual news stories and 95% features or human interest. That stuff doesn’t belong on the front page. Hell, it doesn’t belong in the front section. One might almost think that the goal of US MSM is to distract people from real news. Oh, look. A squirrel! It’s a sad commentary on the state of US “journalism” that when I want some US news I go to the UK newspaper websites to get it. Geez.




56 Comments and discussion on "Tuesday, 26 July 2016"

  1. Dave says:

    The major city near me has been spared much of the protesting the police crap that other parts of the country seem to be having. Yesterday morning I read about a police shooting in a small city the other side of the nearby major city. Suspect wounded in a shootout but expected to survive. This morning I read about a shooting in the nearby major city, officer shot and suspect killed. I definitely don’t like that trend.

  2. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    Barbara is watching S4 of House of Cards (the US version) on Netflix streaming. The other day, I noticed that the president of the US on the show was undergoing surgery.

    As a cardiothoracic surgeon, I would love to perform surgery on the candidates of the two main political parties, whether they wanted it or not. Of course, a lay observer watching me straddling their supine forms on the operating table stabbing them in the chest maniacally with a very large Bowie knife might misunderstand my purpose, but I really would be doing it for their own good. As well as our own good.

  3. DadCooks says:

    If any of you have watched any of the DNC, have you noticed the conspicuous absence of something, the American Flag.

    http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/07/no_american_flags_visible_at_dnc_on_day_1.html#ixzz4FWXQnm00
    http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/07/dnc-convention-2016-soviet-flags-palestinian-flag-no-us-flags/

    BTW, even the MSM is complaining about the filth in their hotel rooms and in the convention hall. What do you expect from pond scum.

    And more:
    http://nypost.com/2016/07/26/delegate-slams-dnc-for-not-donating-leftover-food-to-poor/

  4. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    What I noticed was that the DNC has men’s rooms and women’s rooms. Isn’t that supposed to be a no-no?

  5. nick says:

    And the CNN audio (for the brief portion I watched) was in fact much better than the audio for the RNC.

    As a former professional in the field, the difference HAS to be intentional.

    At the RNC, the sound design (and it IS designed) had the harsh and loud ambient sound and announcements from the convention floor mixed at a level that was high enough to drown out the talking heads. The effect was that the “convention” was rudely shouting and talking over the commentators, and in an especially ‘harsh’ sound, reminiscent of the wire recordings of Hitler speeches.

    In contrast, the CNN coverage of the DNC has the ambient barely audible behind the commentators, and the commentators’ own audio was much more full spectrum (warmer and ‘bass-ier’) as was the audio from the podium.

    Folks, you are being lied to and manipulated by experts in the use of media and unconscious persuaders. DON’T LET THEM do it without you consciously and actively looking for it, and countering it.

    nick

  6. Dave Hardy says:

    DNC, DNC, what does that stand for, anyway? I’ll just assume: Douchnozzle Nomenclatura Cretins.

    YMMV.

    Just back from physical therapy initial appointment over in the big “city” of Saint Albans, thanks to the “Veterans Choice” Program, wherein, due to travel distance and/or scheduling issues, a veteran is allowed to receive treatment OUTSIDE the VA system, and this is my second time doing so (first time was for minor eyelid surgery).

    If any of y’all vets out there, lurkers included, find yourselves given a contact number to call to set up a Veterans Choice appointment somewhere, be sure to ask to speak to a “Choice Champion.” This person may not be at your closest facility but will be somewhere not too far from your AO. Mine got more done for me in twenty minutes than I had been able to do on my own or through the regular VA office channels.

    “If any of you have watched any of the DNC, have you noticed the conspicuous absence of something, the American Flag.”

    Nope. Not watching. Tee-vee was last on for the NFL season. But this does not surprise me; the Evil Half of the Party wants to turn the country into a Turd World shit-hole with themselves large and in charge; the Stupid Half is more than willing to go along with that. They fancy themselves remaining in power when communists and/or jihadis take over, but what will be funny is seeing them first against the wall or kneeling under the scimitars (or dull and rusty kitchen knives).

    I don’t expect this stuff to happen for another ten to twenty years, however, and I’ll be either already dead or wheeled out to the firing squad wall eventually. Remember, though; we are NOT revolutionaries but counter-revolutionaries.

    “Folks, you are being lied to and manipulated by experts in the use of media and unconscious persuaders.”

    I am shocked. SHOCKED.

  7. lynn says:

    “Is anyone at Yahoo! paying attention? Probably not.”
    http://www.cringely.com/2016/07/26/15343/

    “So Verizon is buying the heart of old Yahoo! I include the exclamation point because it was always there in the Yahoo! we knew back when the Internet was young. $4.83 billion in cash is a lot of cash, but for Verizon it’s a way of buying into the future while buying what to many of us seems to be the past. So let’s get the business part out of the way: Verizon can see Yahoo! as a bargain because Yahoo! has nearly always been more profitable on a gross margin basis than Verizon, a phone company. Even Yahoo! in decline will pull Verizon up. But that’s not why I’m writing about Yahoo! I’m writing because a reader yesterday more or less suggested I do so. At the risk of my sounding like Donald Trump, the reader suggested I had been right all along about Yahoo!”

  8. SteveF says:

    RBT wrote

    I blame it on global warming

    but that was supposed to be

    I blame it on global warming (which is REAL and we’re all gonna diiiiieeeeee!!)

    Your lapse has been noted and you will be scheduled for re-education.

  9. lynn says:

    “The Dark and Rotten Election”
    http://blog.dilbert.com/post/147998060931/the-dark-and-rotten-election

    “Yesterday I told you why Clinton’s label of “dark” for Trump’s convention speech was such a well-designed linguistic kill shot. It is so good, in fact, that I speculated it was designed by the Godzilla of persuasion – who I did not name.”

    “Dark is a fresh, unusual word (for politics). And it lets you fill in the details with whatever scares you the most about Trump while conveying a general tone of evil and negativity. Dark is no common insult. It originated from a master persuader.”

    Linguistic kill shots ? It is getting weird out there.

  10. Dave Hardy says:

    “Linguistic kill shots ? It is getting weird out there.”

    They’ve been used in politics since ancient Greece. But they’re especially poisonous now with a population addicted to pixels and noise in real time.

    Speaking of which, Mr. nick’s observations on the blatant audio manipulations is also important.

    In essence they wanted to convey that the whole Trump thing is a coming dark dictatorship reminiscent of HITLER, which is a button they push constantly, partly due to a preponderance of certain surnames in the controlling media. Worked OK on Mrs. OFD, apparently, and she’s highly educated and very literate, though not “hyper-literate” like her addled and decrepit old husband.

  11. Dave Hardy says:

    In other entertainment nooz, I finished watching “Shot Through the Heart” last night, based on the early 90s mess in the former Yugoslavia, with two best friends who become snipers on opposite sides.

    Takeaways: old rules of war etiquette and sparing women, children and old folks are long gone.

    Water is a fabulously valuable resource, esp. in the city where services are now kaput.

    Medical assistance and hospital services are sorely stretched to the breaking point hourly.

    OPSEC and Situational Awareness (Condition Orange) is crucial.

    NV spotting and rifle scopes are worth their weight in gold.

    Get away from and avoid cities and crowds at all costs.

  12. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    Did the RNC have the 20-story tall flags and Leni Riefenstahl like the Nazis did at the Nuremberg Rallies?

  13. nick says:

    @lynn – here so you don’t have to keep flipping back and forth-

    Matt Bracken ordered this fanny pack,

    http://www.hawkepaks.com/prod.itml/icOid/133

    and it looks like a good choice mainly because it doesn’t look like most of the CC fanny packs.

    This is the bag I use when I need off body carry. mine is black.

    http://www.ebay.com/itm/371581630918

    Like almost all of my stuff, it was what I had and not something I searched out….

    That said, works great.

    nick

  14. Miles_Teg says:

    RBT wrote:

    “What I noticed was that the DNC has men’s rooms and women’s rooms. Isn’t that supposed to be a no-no?”

    No, you’re mistaken. It only has Wimminz Rooms. Men have to go outside and find a tree to go behind.

  15. Dave Hardy says:

    “Did the RNC have the 20-story tall flags and Leni Riefenstahl like the Nazis did at the Nuremberg Rallies?”

    I’ve no idea but suspect not. They’re not called the Stupid Party for nothing, and their operators should have made sure that their audio and visual stuff was up to par. Unless, of course, they simply don’t care and have already long since thrown in their lot with the Evil Party. What surprises me, sorta, is that the media commies didn’t photo-shop or insert Nazi imagery somehow into the RNC proceedings, but I reckon toxic linguistic kill shots worked fine as was.

    To top it off, I witnessed the old veteran bugger next to me at the med center today chatting about Trump with the frumpy middle-aged clerk, and they both had a good laugh about the idea of sneaking up behind him and bashing him over the head, and then they waxed nostalgic about the Bern. These morons can’t have the “democratic socialist” old batshit imbecile so they’ll gladly vote for Cankles with the idea that will somehow stop the evil Hitler-Trump person. What’s extra-sad for ol’ OFD is that wife and daughter will do likewise.

    “Like almost all of my stuff, it was what I had and not something I searched out….”

    Given a choice between the two; I’d pick your Eagle Creek bag as it looks less like an obvious gun bag than the one Bracken got. And any color but black or cammo, of course. But I won’t do off-body carry anyway.

  16. lynn says:

    In other entertainment nooz, I finished watching “Shot Through the Heart” last night, based on the early 90s mess in the former Yugoslavia, with two best friends who become snipers on opposite sides.

    I thought that you were talking about the Bon Jovi song at first. But I see that is also a movie:
    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0171741/

    Sounds like a later version of “Enemy At The Gates”:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enemy_at_the_Gates

  17. Dave Hardy says:

    “Sounds like a later version of “Enemy At The Gates””

    Sort of. Dueling snipers amid smoking urban slag heap wreckage, but in the newer flick the two guys are snipers at first only by virtue of their status as Olympic team rifle athletes heading to Barcelona when the SHTF. And it is shown/told more from the perspective of the muslim guy and his family and friends rather than the obviously evil Serbs.

  18. Dave Hardy says:

    “gaslighting” defined:

    http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/53547.html

    Sound familiar?

  19. lynn says:

    Matt Bracken ordered this fanny pack,

    http://www.hawkepaks.com/prod.itml/icOid/133

    and it looks like a good choice mainly because it doesn’t look like most of the CC fanny packs.

    Ok, that is cool. Too bad it is not waterproof. And it comes with a 70 inch belt, I should be able to get that around my waist.

    I found this smaller water resistant bag on AZ:
    https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01BSMEHKM/

    Did I mention that I am frugal ? Yup, that is another word for CHEAP !

  20. MrAtoz says:

    I just got back from therapy, after multiple mentions of “HIIIIITLER” on the this blog. Where is the safe space? The safe space I say!

  21. MrAtoz says:

    Comment after DNC put a “All Gender” sign over the ladies room sign by the Media tent (convenient photo op location):

    JFK put man on the moon and the modern Democratic Party has put man in girls bathroom. amazing how far that party has come

  22. Dave Hardy says:

    “Comment after DNC put a “All Gender” sign over the ladies room sign by the Media tent (convenient photo op location)”

    Yet another courageous blow struck for liberte, egalite et fraternitie, etc., etc. What a bunch of screwball bozos.

    “Where is the safe space? The safe space I say!”

    Inside your murse, Chief.

  23. Denis says:

    Snipers duelling? Older than ex-Yugoslavia…

    http://www.classicshorts.com/stories/sniper.html

    An octogenarian priest was beheaded today in a French church… expect to see footage tomorrow of burnt-out mosques. Maybe a few bombs in time for Friday prayers too.

  24. DadCooks says:

    @Dave Hardy: “DNC, DNC, what does that stand for, anyway? I’ll just assume: Douchnozzle Nomenclatura Cretins.”

    Because I am married to a nurse, my daughter is a medical coder, and my other was a nurse, every time I hear or see DNC I think of D&C: http://www.acog.org/Patients/FAQs/Dilation-and-Curettage-DandC

    And every time I see or hear Debbie Wasserman-Schultz I think of a syphilis test: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wassermann_test

    I consider those definitions to be totally applicable and right to be associated with the democrat party (BTW, it is correctly the democrat party, not democratic, they are icky enough without inappropriately adding it to their party name).

    At the gaveling in of today’s dnc, they had a few American Flags on the stage. Just now looked up, 20-minutes in and all the American Flags have been removed.

  25. MrAtoz says:

    Don’t worry, Obuttwad has the misunderstood practioners of peace (ie, Moooooslims) on the run. No more beheading will occur. Especially after Lurch starts dropping ‘fridges and A/C units on them.

  26. Dave Hardy says:

    I’ll have more “respect” for musloid “warriors” when instead of chopping elderly priests and unarmed prisoners and hostages, or burning alive Christian women in cages, shooting up nightclubs crammed with drunken homosexual Hispanics, and flying planes full of defenseless passengers into buildings full of defenseless office workers, when they begin attacking Western military units in force. Let’s see them hit the SAS training base or the Mossad HQ or Ramstein AFB. Hell, the VC and Khmer Rouge had more ballz.

  27. Spook says:

    “”I started on an IBM 360 in 1972 as a Junior in HS. FORTRAN, punch cards, etc.
    I was never a professional programmer or IT guy like many here. “”

    (I got behind in my reading.)

    I did some punch-cards on, I think, an IBM 360, FORTRAN II-D iirc,
    in 1969, as an engineering major at the Polytechnic.
    That was pretty much my only professional computer experience or education.
    Next step: Commodore 64.
    . . .
    Recent addition: Raspberry Pi.

    Get off my carefully maintained semi-wild non-lawn property !

  28. lynn says:

    I must admit, one does not expect to have Christian martyrs in France. Iran, Syria, Algeria, yes but not in France. And I was staying down the road from that Church just seven years ago for a few days.

    I have no idea of the raw numbers but my preacher says that there have been more Christian martyrs in the last hundred years than in the sum total of the previous nineteen hundred years.

  29. Dave Hardy says:

    “I have no idea of the raw numbers but my preacher says that there have been more Christian martyrs in the last hundred years than in the sum total of the previous nineteen hundred years.”

    I believe he is correct, but it also depends on how he defines martyrs. Imprisonment, torture and murder, yes, but what about forced exiles, displacement, destruction of homes, destruction of churches and desecration of graves, etc., etc.? And most of it goes unreported by Western media and governments. As do musloid attacks right here at home in this country, beyond the major atrocities.

    We can expect much more of this; recent analysis and research in a current issue of Chronicles indicates that probably one in five musloids ALREADY HERE is willing and able to commit violent acts against civilians and still remain entirely within the boundaries of their so-called faith. And Field Marshal Rodham wants to bring in hundreds of thousands more, as Obola is doing now.

    Any musloid who violently busts into a Catholic mass here where I’m attending will get tackled immediately and/or shot on the spot.

  30. SteveF says:

    there have been more Christian martyrs in the last hundred years than in the sum total of the previous nineteen hundred years.

    Citation needed. Sounds highly implausible, unless you play games with the definition of martyr.

    Get off my carefully maintained semi-wild non-lawn property !

    I despise the perfectly-even, immaculate green lawn beloved of American suburbia. It’s expensive in terms of time and resources, it’s a vast desert so far as most insects and small critters are concerned, it’s boring, and it’s ugly.

  31. Dave Hardy says:

    “…unless you play games with the definition of martyr.”

    A point I sorta made.

    Simple def from Webster’s: “a person who is killed or who suffers greatly for a religion, cause, etc.”

    Full def from Webster’s: “a person who voluntarily suffers death as the penalty of witnessing to and refusing to renounce a religion”

    And the hundred years mentioned would leave out the Turkish genocide of a couple of million Armenian Christians, to the extent of throwing infants into the air to catch on bayonets and crucifying women.

  32. Dave Hardy says:

    “it’s expensive in terms of time and resources, it’s a vast desert so far as most insects and small critters are concerned, it’s boring, and it’s ugly.”

    We got us some lawns up here, usually on McMansion-type properties, that are like unto fucking putting greens, absolutely flawless. The only time I dig that is seeing the actual grass tennis courts, and there were, last I knew, a couple of them at Longwood, down in Chestnut Hill, MA. Saw a match there in ancient times with the first wife.

  33. Dave Hardy says:

    “The secular West has been looking the other way for a very long time. Even the average church-going Christian is not likely to know that 45.5 million of the estimated 70 million Christians who have died for Christ did so in the last century. For this reason, scholars such as Robert Royal, president of the Faith and Reason Institute in Washington, D.C., and author of The Catholic Martyrs of the Twentieth Century, refer to the past century as one of the darkest periods of martyrdom since the birth of Christianity.”

    http://www.catholic.org/news/national/story.php?id=30882

  34. lynn says:

    there have been more Christian martyrs in the last hundred years than in the sum total of the previous nineteen hundred years.

    Citation needed. Sounds highly implausible, unless you play games with the definition of martyr.

    “The data, attributed to the late researcher David B Barrett, puts the number of Christians martyred since the time of Jesus at 70 million.”

    “It puts the number of Christians systematically exterminated in Nazi Germany at a million, while the number of Orthodox Christians and others murdered in Russia between 1917 and 1950 at 15 million.”

    “In China, at least 200,000 Christians and foreigners were killed in the Boxer Rebellion of 1898 to 1900. Another 700,000 were killed in communist China between 1950 and 1980.”

    “The number of Catholics killed in Mexico from the late 1800s to 1930 is estimated at 107,000, while 300,000 Christians are believed to have been killed under Idi Amin in Uganda between 1971 and 1979.”

    “Estimates of the number of Christians killed annually for their faith today differ massively. Todd Johnson, of the Center for the Study of Global Christianity, puts the number of Christians martyred annually at 100,000. By stark contrast, Christof Saure, of the International Institute for Religious Freedom, puts the figure far lower at 8,000 to 9,000 a year.”

    From
    http://www.christiantoday.com/article/70.million.christians.martyred.faith.since.jesus.walked.earth/38403.htm

  35. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    I used to love playing on grass. The only thing better was wood.

  36. Spook says:

    “” Get off my carefully maintained semi-wild non-lawn property !

    I despise the perfectly-even, immaculate green lawn beloved of American suburbia. It’s expensive in terms of time and resources, it’s a vast desert so far as most insects and small critters are concerned, it’s boring, and it’s ugly.””

    Dude! Thanks for backing me up on that.
    Suggestion: Point out that the lawn jockey is a slave to African grasses!

  37. SteveF says:

    Lynn and Dave, you’re citing essentially the same source, which appears to be a SWAG on top of a lie. Just to grab the first item that comes to hand, it beggars the imagination to suppose that the 15 million Orthodox Christians killed under Lenin and Stalin were all martyrs. They were killed specifically for their religion, and not for their ethnic origin, social class, or political leanings? They each were given the choice to renounce their faith, but they accepted death rather than give it up? Pull the other one; it’s got bells on it.

  38. Dave Hardy says:

    From what I’ve read in the multiple volumes by the late Solzhenitsyn, they were mainly rounded up for being Christians, especially the “Old Believers,” and sure, they would also be charged with the other stuff, capitalist roaders, kulaks, counter-revolutionaries, reactionaries, Trotskyites (many of whom in this country later became neocons). In any case, I’d be pretty safe in the claim that, like Mr. Lynn’s preacher said, more Christians have been genuinely martyred in the last century than in the last twenty centuries, if only by virtue of the massive increases in population across the board.

    Boffo laffs here on the DNC’s quotas and other tomfoolery:

    http://thepeoplescube.com/peoples-blog/dnc-transphobic-t18233.html

  39. MrAtoz says:

    I used to love playing on grass. The only thing better was wood.

    Do you mean you *swing* both ways?

  40. Dave Hardy says:

    Bumper stickers up here: “GOT WOOD?”

    But nowhere near as many as “EAT MORE KALE”

    Surprisingly not too many Bernie stickers, and most of those, as might be expected, are in the big “cities” and college towns. Which is not surprising. And most of the lawn signs so far are for local political candidates for selectboards and state reps.

  41. ech says:

    so what’s the point to covering them in exhaustive detail?

    Coverage is much sparser than in the past. One hour of speeches in the 9 PM CDT hour is it for the major networks. It used be gavel t0 gavel.

  42. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    I’ve never watched it. We don’t even have TV, other than streaming video.

  43. Dave Hardy says:

    “I’ve never watched it. We don’t even have TV, other than streaming video.”

    Ditto, plus NFL season. The conventions and other Party garbage is a complete waste of time and bandwidth. The rulers pretty much gave us the two candidates, and we pick one, just like the old Soviet Union. A nasty bitch-on-wheels from Hell and the orange-haired wrestling promoter and bankruptcy expert.

  44. SteveF says:

    We have three TVs. One had been used as a secondary monitor for my laptop, until the laptop’s external VGA port died. One’s been moved from place to place when it gets in the way, and hasn’t been plugged in for a year or more. The third is regularly used for the Wii, occasionally with the DVD player, and occasionally as a computer display if my wife’s fellowship group meets at our house.

  45. lynn says:

    the orange-haired wrestling promoter and bankruptcy expert.

    Sounds just like what the USA needs. Lets see, $4 trillion in income per year, $20 trillion in revolving debt, and $300 trillion in unfunded liabilities. Plus an aging infrastructure that needs $50 trillion in repairs and expansions but the USA is putting that on the card rather than raising the use taxes to pay for it.

    Yup, sounds like a great job for a huckster and bankruptcy expert.

    I have no idea what to do with the bribery expert who has presold her presidency already to George Soros. Seems to me, we would be better shipping his old butt to merry old England who might bring a headsman out of retirement for his sins against the crown.

  46. lynn says:

    “Petition To Remove Air Conditioning From State Department Has Over 1,800 Signatures”
    http://dailycaller.com/2016/07/25/petition-to-remove-air-conditioning-from-state-department-has-over-1800-signatures/

    “An online petition to remove all air conditioning from Department of State property has gotten more than 1,800 signatures since it was posted online Sunday.”

    “A Change.org user named Hopalong Ginsberg created the petition in response to remarks made by Secretary of State John Kerry claiming air conditioning and refrigerants are as much of a threat to the world as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The petition garnered 1,869 signatures by Monday afternoon.”

  47. JimL says:

    I despise the perfectly-even, immaculate green lawn beloved of American suburbia. It’s expensive in terms of time and resources, it’s a vast desert so far as most insects and small critters are concerned, it’s boring, and it’s ugly.

    Agreed. Our lawn gets mowed when we get to it, and parts of it are allowed to grow a little long to encourage insects to alight. The orchard is the part that grows long, and the barn swallows are entertaining as heck to watch. We also get more fireflies (it seems) this way. When it is mowed, it’s on the highest setting right now to maintain as much habitat as possible.

    Our lawn is part grass, part clover, part chicory, and part weed. The only time I’ll put grass seed down is when I do something to kill the grass (like getting stuck) or take out a stump. Otherwise, nature rules. I’ll note that our lawn is green year-round and is never watered, while neighbors spend plenty of $ on theirs, and is mostly brown right now.

  48. DadCooks says:

    WRT air conditioning:

    Think about it, what happened when the gooberment air conditioned the halls of congress? Instead of meeting just a few months of the year they started meeting all year, with a few “vacations” to maintain “touch” with the folks back home.

    So I blame air conditioning for the rapid ramp-up of gooberment.

    Best thing that could happen to D.C., and all gooberment building for that matter, is to abolish all air conditioning in all gooberment buildings. Make that all federal and state gooberment buildings.

    (My lack of normal capitalization above is my small protest and show of disrespect for our totalitarian gooberment that no longer has the consent of the governed)

  49. Dave Hardy says:

    “Best thing that could happen to D.C., and all gooberment building for that matter, is to abolish all air conditioning in all gooberment buildings.”

    That might take too long, esp. if it is initiated during the cold months there; why not also have snipers set up around the area taking random pot shots at them as they show up for work every morning, too? Bonus points/cash for lawyers and lobbyists bagged.

  50. SteveF says:

    Just shooting at the lawyers, lobbyists, bureaucrats, politicians, and other scum isn’t enough. How do we know how much to pay the snipers? No, we need to set up a bounty system. For every tongue brought in, pay the sniper. Pay a higher rate if the tongue was cut out while the scum was still alive.

  51. MrAtoz says:

    Make that all federal and state gooberment buildings.

    The Military already does that in many places. During several TDY trips to Virginia I either froze my ass off or fried in transient quarters based on cooling/heating schedules. I stayed in a nice BOQ with a kitchen that was so cold, I turned on the oven and burners (all electric) and put a fan in the kitchen so I wouldn’t freeze. Perfect for Congress.

  52. Ray Thompson says:

    based on cooling/heating schedules

    Experienced that while stationed at Randolph AFB. Heating or cooling would only be turned on based on a calendar schedule. If it hit 100 on March 11 but the schedule did not specify cooling could be activated until March 15, well too bad. Yet taking a stroll across the base through the officer quarter’s area all the A/C units were running. Not so for the enlisted scum. A friend how lived in enlisted housing said the base maintenance people actually removed the fuses for the units.

    Wrote a letter to the base paper asking why the discrepancy and the official reply from the base commander is the non of the A/C units in the officers area were running. I wonder what those units with spinning fans outside the units that stated “Carrier” were doing. I guess just making noise.

  53. Dave Hardy says:

    lol. That “discrepancy” was also in effect at various bases in SEA during my time there; officers lived in A-C trailers with maid service and enlisted scum had barracks and racks and did their own janitorial stuff. I hasten to add that infantry and Marine platoon officers and sometimes above traveled off the bases with their units and were subject to the same shitty conditions. When I could, I lived off-base, on the local economies. No A-C, but usually had fans. You can get used to anything, including 110+ heat with 100% humidity, venomous reptiles close by all the time, and guys trying to kill you. It helps if you’re a teenager who thinks you’re never gonna die and you still have loads of testosterone, aggression and hostility stoked up. With basically carte-blanche to do whatever during some operations.

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