Wednesday, July 29, 2009

God Bless the USA, Ponies, the Northeast

and, as Gus would say "Mr. Adamses!"

Saratoga's beauty is rivaled only by it's history.

A journey is in order, and much sooner rather than any later.

He Would Get My Vote

Peter Davies.

Outstanding. Read and savor.

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Saturday, July 25, 2009

I Want

I really really want several.

Variegated
.

I really want an M1a dangit.

I saw the 100th anniversary Camp Perry Springfield the other day.




But the White Feather...now that has to be used!

Springfield M25 308 Tactical, White Feather Edition

spr_sa9502.jpg

This for no other reason than that I have .308 on my mind. Don't know why...

Friday, July 24, 2009

Can't Sleep







Well...

Crap.

Somehow these colors remind me of the Great Gatsby

UPDATE:

http://bigread08.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/the-great-gatsby2.jpg

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Where are They Now?

Safe Deposit boxes seized during the bank failures of the Great Depression:

"As of October, 1981, there were 1605 cardboard cartons in the basement of the Treasury each containing the contents of an unclaimed safe deposit box."

I did not know of Executive Order 6102

Bob, Lefty and Righty

Here is a parable stunning in it's clarity, simplicity and verisimilitude.

From Chicago Boyz:

Leftists very commonly assert that that non-leftists have to offer a fully fleshed-out alternative to the status quo before they can offer criticisms of the current faddish idea of the Left. When you try to explain to them that the validity of an idea has nothing to do with the validity of any competing ideas, they stare at you blankly. Therefore, to try and explain matters to leftists, I offer the following parable.

Three friends, Bob, Lefty and Righty are standing on the edge of a dam’s overflow channel watching the swirling, churning water flowing out of the dam in the concrete channel 30ft below.

Suddenly, Bob falls into the water and gets caught in a giant eddy that whips him around and around beneath the horrified gaze of his friends. He’s obviously going down.

Lefty and Righty immediately cast about for solutions for rescuing their friend. Jumping in themselves will buy them nothing. It’s too far to make a chain of their clothes. The area around them is devoid of branches they could use to make a reach pole. There’s no one around to help and Bob will have drowned before any emergency personnel they call can reach them.

Suddenly, Lefty makes a discovery.

Lefty: “I found a boat anchor! We can throw it to Bob!”

Righty: ”Don’t be stupid.”

Lefty: “You always do this, shooting down my ideas! At least I have an idea! Do you even have an idea?”

Righty: “No, but I know throwing a drowning man an anchor is a bad idea.”

Lefty: “If you can’t offer your own solution just shut up and let me try my solution.”

Righty: “Based on a long history of experience with boat anchors I don’t need to offer an alternative to observe that the idea is, in complete isolation from all other factors, a bad idea.”

Lefty: “You’re just afraid to try anything new! I’ve thought about this real hard and have come up with a complex set of arguments for how I can throw the boat anchor in such a way that it will function as a flotation device!”

Righty: “Are these arguments produced by the same methodology that convinced you that the people of Cambodia would be better off under the Khmer Rouge? Or the same methodology that led you to believe in 1971 that wage and price controls could control inflation?”

Lefty: “Well, yes but I have another set of arguments explaining why those were innocent mistakes and why none of the mistakes I have made in the past have any bearing on my new boat-anchor idea.”

Righty: “But I remember that several states have previously attempted anchors-as-flotation-devices ideas and they all failed.”

Lefty: “That’s because individual states don’t have enough money and power to buy big enough anchors! The bigger anchors are, the better they float!”

Righty: “You’re nuts.”

Lefty: “Look I have an idea and you don’t. I have been indoctrinated to believe that any new idea is superior to the status quo, and that therefore the burden of proof always lies on the person arguing against the new idea to prove it wrong before we try it.”

Righty: “Look, history is very clear that the vast majority of new ideas don’t work. We go through thousands of new ideas just to find one new one that works better than the status quo. You just believe that new ideas are always correct because you only read the history of the successful ideas while ignoring the greater context of their many contemporaneous failed ideas. You’re especially bad about forgetting the many failed ideas you’ve had in the past.”

Lefty: “What failed ideas? Every time we’ve argued in the past, I’ve always been proven correct. History is nothing but the story of me always being correct and you always being wrong. Now, do you have a plan for rescuing Bob?”

Righty:”No, but…”

Lefty: “Since I have a plan and you don’t, that means that I’m absolutely correct and that you are absolutely wrong.”

Lefty throws the anchor. It sinks like, well, an anchor. Fortunately, while Righty delayed Lefty, Bob broke from the eddy and drifted downstream and has climbed out on the flat bank below the concrete channel. Righty takes Bob home to recuperate.

Ignoring Bob’s plight, Lefty uses a small rock to scratch into the concrete an elaborate flow chart explaining why anchors make good flotation devices. He eventually builds an academic career explaining his boat anchor theories to naive college students. The boat anchor industry secretly funnels grants to him.

When non-academics tell Lefty that in their experience anchors do not float, Lefty tells them they simply are not smart enough to understand anything counterintuitive, and besides they’re just a bunch of ignorant, anti-intellectual rednecks blinded by religion. Lefty claims that people who don’t believe that anchors float are simply cruel, selfish people who don’t care if others drown. When people point out that Lefty has never performed a water rescue or that he cannot even swim, Lefty claims this lack of practical experience gives him an unbiased platonic insight into the physics of buoyancy.

Most of his work centers around studying Righty’s presumed culture and psychology in an attempt to explain why Righty refuses to believe that anchors float despite the obvious correctness of Lefty’s abstract arguments. All failures of anchors to float are explained as caused by Righty’s selfish interference.

Righty spends most of the rest of his life giving swimming lessons and attempting to stop Lefty from throwing anchors at children in swimming pools.

Dorset Dinosaur Douches

They stole the man's Dinosaur. He worked hard and provided a fantastic display and they went and hauled it away for "Health and Safety".

via an Englishman'sCastle

20 ft high Tyrannosaurs Rex paddling in Weymouth Bay

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Classic Lamp

Posted by Picasa

The Cover of Newsweek

No comment ought to be necessary.

I am finding it difficult to find the cover anywhere. Even on the Newsweek website.

A "powerful" photo of Ted Kennedy is on the cover with a suggestion to the effect that he has written a piece on the healthcare bill.

I can't imagine that he wrote it, the Newsweek piece.

However, I feel that if I meet someone who wishes to discuss the news I should say:

"First let me state that anyone who does not have their BullshitMeter pegged and all systems associated with Flim Flam reading "TILT!!" each time Barack Hussein Obama generates pulmonary energy is...well..."

Then what?

They are the problem. No matter what happy silly crap is behind the fact that this man has them suckered can save them or our future.

Related:

John Meacham read Newsweek when he was six years old!!!



Pick up a copy.

Defend it.


These people look down on us, they regard us as difficult children.

Tar.

Feathers.

Monday, July 20, 2009

Islamic Shotgun Weddings

I wish that I could condemn every Western "Journalist" to a similar betrothal.

Here is a link to the sharia which already has a foothold in Europe and Canada. Not to mention Detroit and parts of Jersey.

Actually I link to Ms. Althouse instead of directly to the article while giving her the hat tip because she fosters such a wonderful atmosphere for comments. Read her site for long and you will find yourself observing her community far more (time-wise) than reading her links.

I am going to read those comments now. I know it will be worth it.

Classic Cars Continued Again













Classic Cars Continued





Classic Cars






I will link to interesting things tomorrow, I promise. For now, however, some lovely cars.

Max Motors

Buy a car, get an AK 47!

God bless that man. He comported himself articulately and admirably. Watch and decide who came across as more reasoned and intelligent in this CNN piece. Then give him your business:

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Southford Inchworm




This little fella was quite fast and difficult to keep up with, let alone snap.

Southford Falls Day


















Including Todd and Cyn and New England covered bridge!