winsor

They deserve it. The hussies.

I'm reminded of advice as to how to use a .357 Magnum in defense against Brown Bears (Grizzlies, Kodiaks et al.). Lubricate the pistol liberally with bacon fat. If a bear approaches, throw the pistol in the vicinity of the bear, and use the time that he is investigating the delicious smelling object to beat feet. One can point out insurgencies where an armed populus edged out a modern fighting force, but in most of them a hell of a lot of the insurgents died. Over 10 Vietcong/NVA died for every American/Aussie/ROK Marine, for example. The best way to survive a firefight is to avoid it completely. Remember, cowardice is a lifesaving skill. BSBD, Winsor

Of course not. Since those women were dressed provocatively, they wanted it, and enjoyed every second it. I'm sure the red hot lovers were a mix of Buddhists, Mormons and Scientologists. You sure are right on top of things, and nothing gets by you. Sharia law does not have any prohibition against molesting women in the street. Since Sharia is God's law, and the only true law, I will have to assume God is okay with it. Gangs of young Christian men would probably engage in similar behavior, if they thought they could get away with it. What is needed here is a firm application of the laws of man, as written in Germany. Some time in jail ought to learn 'em. That's cruel. Since they are taking orders from GOD, it is simple enough to arrange for a personal interview. Having hot and cold running virgins at one's beck and call has to be an improvement over the unclean women who are just begging for it. It's a win-win situation.

Of course not. Since those women were dressed provocatively, they wanted it, and enjoyed every second it. I'm sure the red hot lovers were a mix of Buddhists, Mormons and Scientologists. You sure are right on top of things, and nothing gets by you.

I think he should pick a woman. She definitely has to have Progressive credentials of long standing. Jane Fonda seems like a good choice.

Winsor.......your a smart guy, but I need to tweak your above sentence. Truman did indeed "set the ball rolling" to the tune of billions of USA dollars, and ultimately supplying 80% of the French arms and supplies. However, Truman ignored a report from the field filed by Lt. Col. Dewey (OSS),before he became the first American to die in nam. The report stated "the US ought to clear out of S.E. Asia." It's tragic that Col. Dewey's most accurate analyzes wasn't heeded. Truman's major contribution our Southeast Asian experience was to screw the Viet Minh after they fought alongside us against the Japanese. Truman left the Japanese as 'administrators' until the French returned. Generals S. L. A. Marshall and James M. Gavin reported to Kennedy that we should cut our losses and pull out. Kennedy, according to Barbara Tuchman, chose to let troops continue to die pointlessly until he could sew up the election of 1964. As Joseph P. Kennedy said in 1960, "son, you only need to win by one vote - I can't afford a landslide." Johnson was dropped into the mess without any idea of who was who or what was what, and never got a clue. By the time Tet came along, the best he could muster was "I don't want no damned Dinbinfoo." There is plenty of blame to go around, and rather a few good treatments of the subject. I recommend "The March of Folly - From Troy to Vietnam" by Tuchman: she worked for Jack the Zipper Kennedy, but cut him no slack in her evaluation. BSBD, Winsor

Then print this out and tape it to your helmet or better yet, tape it right beside the lights by the door. In order for this to work the pilot must give you the groundspeed while on jumprun. As has been amply demonstrated, ground speed in and of itself has precisely nothing to do with freefall separation. One can have zero ground speed (jumping from a tethered balloon) and have excellent freefall separation, and one can have great ground speed (jumping from a free balloon) and have ZERO freefall separation. In practice this not as egregious a misconception as is the "45 degree rule," but it is still wrong. BSBD, Winsor

To give LBJ credit for that much planning is a stretch. The Gulf of Tonkin incident was a real mess, and Marine Force Recon wasn't about to take credit for touching the whole thing off. Johnson was out of his league coming and going, and his only concern was to avoid being the first president to lose a war, declared or not. It was Truman that set the ball rolling, and Kennedy who ignored his advisers' recommendation to bug out until after the election. I suspect Bush was convinced there were WMDs, but that hardly constitutes valid casus belli by in accordance with international law. I do not recall any arguments in favor of attacking Korea, China, Britain, France, Pakistan, India, Israel, South Africa or North Dakota, all of whom possess nuclear weapons. Regardless of the supposed reasoning, attacking Iraq was an exercise in stupidity. Obama's stewardship of our activities in that part of the world invokes Hanlon's Razor. One should note that Dunning and Kruger's work was not among the unwashed masses, but Ivy League students. It is often stupid people who are more aware of their limitations than those who are the best and brightest among us. Obama is not cunning - he is an eloquent dullard,

Too much S'mores Schnapps.

As I have long contended, Orwell was an optimist. BTW, 'Down and Out in Paris and London' and 'Homage to Catalonia" should be required reading as well.

Like "denier?"

I have never bought a lottery ticket, and lived in a casino for months (when on assignment in Reno, that's the cheapest place to stay) without ever placing a bet. I live with a 5 year old, so there are zero firearms present, loaded or unloaded. The closest he has to a toy gun is a Super Soaker that can't be confused with something that goes bang, and the only time I can think of him touching a toy gun is in the Valley Forge gift shop. If he wants to tell his mates about the bows or crossbows, fine, but none of them could draw one of mine if their lives depended on it. He knows not to screw with any of the knives, since anything in the kitchen tends to be razor sharp and he's squeamish about being badly cut. We do, of course, have an extensive alarm system, including 24 hr. video monitoring. We have a variety of safes hither and yon, easily accessible windows are barred, and we have means of emergency egress from the living quarters. Any avenues of approach are covered by motion-sensing floodlights, so one could mow the lawn at night with adequate lighting, and anyone's arrival is announced. I live across the street from the block containing the police station, so their arrival can be conveniently measured in seconds. The house is situated so that surreptitious egress is as difficult as unannounced arrival. If I was looking for a venue for alternative shopping, I would not pick this one. Firearms are like emergency parachutes, better to have and not need than to need and not have. Also, if you actually require either, you are in pretty deep kimchee and it might not do you much good anyway. BSBD, Winsor

I am reminded of the description of Robert Stroud in Alvin Karpis' memoir. Karpis described 'The Birdman of Alcatraz' as being one seriously evil sonofabitch, and noted that the push to grant clemency was by people wanted Burt Lancaster released, not Robert Stroud. It is an unfortunate reality that our legal system is beyond imperfect. Little in the Judicial system is on a par with Perry Mason or 'Law and Order.' Even when a suspect is caught dead to rights, both the prosecution and defense are often so focused on procedural and legal nuances that the case becomes garbled beyond recognition. Even at the Supreme Court level, the general perspective is that whether or not the defendant acted as claimed by either the prosecution or defense is largely irrelevant. Once something goes to court, whether there is factual guilt or innocence is immaterial. Though there are most certainly people in the system who are entirely beyond redemption, and truly deserve to be put to sleep humanely, the capacity of the legal system to determine when execution is appropriate is nonexistent. As John Edgar Hoover put it, "justice is incidental to law and order." Logic is a branch of mathematics. Faulty logic will render even the most rudimentary computer inoperative. Unfortunately, there is no math requirement to receive a Juris Doctor degree, nor is there one for the Bar. Cases can, and all too often are, based entirely upon classical fallacies of relevance, such that the arguments of both the prosecution and the defense are entirely meaningless. Add to that the typically muddled collection of 'evidence,' such that there is no resemblance to 'CSI' whatsoever, and you have the blind leading the blind through the whole process. The good news is that attorneys of any stripe tend to make TV Weather reporting look like an exact science - and they make a pretty good living while doing so. Back to whether Steven Avery was involved in the demise of the woman in question. I haven't followed the case at all, but from what I can gather A) the woman is dead, B) her remains were apparently burned in a location under Avery's control and C) he was not demonstrably far, far away while all this took place. He is, and most likely will remain, screwed. Given the track record of people who were released for emotional reasons, such as Jack Abbott I would want to see a coherent reevaluation of the case by something along the lines of The Innnocence Project before setting him loose again. One of the charming aspects of our legal system is that, in defense of Truth, Justice and the American Way, we put miscreants in an environment where the conditions are entirely ghastly. Even the most 'innocent' of convicts has to adapt to prison social 'norms' in order to survive, wherein gangs, rape and raw brutality are the rule, not the exception. After a decade or two of daily life wherein the concept of 'fairness' is completely alien, one is badly suited to populating a free society. Thus we have a situation where, after 18 years of incarceration for something that he did not do, there is a nonzero likelihood that he became someone who was quite capable of doing something much worse than that for which he was originally falsely convicted. Did he do it? Opinions vary. Either way, I suspect he knows exactly who DID do it if he didn't. BSBD, Winsor

One thing I find marvelously ironic is that Hillary makes Dick Nixon seem like a pillar of virtue by comparison - quite an accomplishment in and of itself. All things being said, the sonofabitch was possessed of more honesty and integrity than she has ever shown. It speaks badly that we should put forth such evil people to be commanders in chief. Every time I have thought "we can't do worse than this," someone comes along and proves me wrong. Hillary is but a case in point. When she first came to the White House and ordered the staff to dress in mufti since she found military uniforms "offensive" (a position from which she rapidly backtracked), she alienated me forever. Off the record anecdotes from acquaintances who worked in her immediate vicinity have painted a uniform picture of an entirely odious person. If she ever behaved in a manner that was not reprehensible, it would give me pause. That has yet to happen. It is said that a people get the government they deserve. Given the roster of malevolent cretins from which we may choose, it can only be concluded that we suck out loud. I will vote this time around, but will likely need some Dramamine or whatever to quell the nausea while doing so. BSBD, Winsor

That assessment is overly optimistic.

Of course they have delivery capability. All they need to do is put a gizmo aboard the Pueblo and send her home.

The Holocaust sure as hell did.

Anyway, it's not a porch, it's a Ferrari.

How can you say that about the multi-award winning, Nobel laureate star of the seminal film "Inconvenient Truth"? Why is it that when it comes to Al Gore capitalists all of a sudden don't like capitalism? Capitalism is fine, it's morons like Al Gore who engender such distaste.

Is that what you think Jesus would do? Don Jesus saves. Moses invests. Jesus was a Jew, so he would not pass up a bargain. "Thank God for goyim - who else would pay retail?"

Given this writeup, I think the balance has tipped rather against Cosby. It's a pity that any good points he ever may have made are now subject to ad hominem (circumstantial) dismissal. In a sense, many of his rants are actually substantiated by his track record as much as Bernie Madoff noting that the outrage against him was unfounded, given that the Government was a Ponzi scheme. The old 'it takes one to know one.' When he said that fucking anything in sight was not a good thing, I don't think he excepted himself from that observation. I have met women who claimed that no meant yes, that it was just teasing and playing hard to get, and those who claimed to have rape fantasies, but all that seems to be a fucked-up flip side of the same coin. The very existence of that mindset (rare though it may be) only seems to bolster the self-image your average rapist as being the last of the red hot lovers, and the illusion that their objects of affection actually love every second of it. One writer pointed out that Cosby is as much a necrophiliac as a rapist. Getting aroused by a someone who is completely unresponsive is as incomprehensible as is getting aroused by someone who is screaming in terror. I don't get either. In any event, Cosby is pretty much toast at this point. BSBD, Winsor

Okay, so the climate change heretics are shitheads, we get it. This does not, however, mean that the climate change true believers are shitheads to any lesser extent. Al Gore is a both a classic case of von Moeltke's energetic and stupid officer and a poster child for the Dunning Kruger effect. Does humanity have an effect on climate? Most assuredly. Is climate change the most significant issue we face? Not by a long shot. If climate change was the worst of our problems, we would be in fantastic shape, relatively speaking. Touting climate change as the penultimate challenge to our species is on a par with focusing on hemorrhoids among hospice patients. It is a sign of terminal cluelessness. BSBD, Winsor

Dunning and Kruger strike again. I am an excellent driver.

So Teslas and solar panels can't save the planet? They already have. We're in the clear.

Thanks for the update; I do appreciate the info. Now, just maybe, with more 'Pot Tax' the price of my booze may come down. NOT!!!!!! Jerry Baumchen PS) I don't have a dog in the pot fight as I've never used it; now booze, well that is a whole different story. Rather nice to know that the proposed tax numbers are turning out to be as hoped or better. I don't drink, smoke or take recreational drugs of any type, nor do I recommend doing so. Having said that, marijuana is like a Gift from God (tm) compared to ethanol. While narcotics get all the press, one is more likely to become addicted to alcohol after tasting their first beer than to become addicted to narcotics after their first puff of opium or whatever. One is also more likely to die of alcohol than of narcotics. The lethal dose of marijuana is basically being under a bale that breaks loose from the loading sling and lands on your head. People drink themselves to death all the time. Smoking much of anything is not good for your lungs, but the damage to the liver and other internal organs effected by alcohol can be amazing. Long term consumption of marijuana has documented psychological effects, but there is no marijuana analog to 'wet brain,' or any of the other devastating neurological effects that are all too common with alcohol consumption. All things considered, I'd rather be on the highway with someone in the oncoming lane who had smoked pot than one who had polished off a six pack or more. I find it much more frightening to realize that there are people in traffic around me who have consumed alcohol than have consumed marijuana. The 'War on Drugs' has been describe as the 'Defense Attorneys' Full Employment Act.' BSBD, Winsor P.S.: what ever happened to the resident attorneys who used to post here?