I'm starting to feel really bad about how much commentary is about the US and our elections, when it's your blog.
We could always speculate about what UK elections/society will look like when Republican tactics leak across the ocean…
I thought they already had?
]]>Two stories from my personal history: One, remembering my father at the sink, doing dishes, and he could be humming the Internationale (told you I was a red diaper baby)... or the triumphal march from Aida.
And the other is guerilla culture. He once told my mom and me about being in the locker room cleaning up, before coming home from work, and he was humming a tune. Another guy tells him that's a nice tune, who wrote it. His answer was "That good Italian songwriter, Joe Green."
]]>From another forum describing a recent heat wave in the UK/Europe:
"Friday a week ago in Belgium, the rattlesnakes crept into our campfire to enjoy the shadow of the frying pan."
Microsoft Flight Simulator has a Data Glitch - a 212 story tower in Melbourne, AU.
It's supposed to be a 2 story building ... apparently a typo in Open Street maps that wasn't caught before the data was imported into the software for Flight Simulator.
And, of course, people are trying to land on it before it gets corrected:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhrGEdO88kE&feature=youtu.be
]]>withroth Actgually Jacinda A cannot be a "saint" - she isn't an egotistical, domineering intolerant & possibly-murdering bastard - as most actual christian saints have turned out to be ....
]]>Really, security theatre would be hilarious if it wasn't so annoying.
A similar story emerged from the early weeks after 9/11 when everyone was running around in circles and nobody had a plan for anything.
Somehow they called up the local National Guard to stand around as extra security at airports, which presumably made sense to someone. The guardsmen showing up to watch people walk by had to go through security themselves, since they were pulling duty in a secure area. Security was very firm with one guy that he wasn't going to be allowed to take his pocketknife into the airport - then handed him back his M-16 and sent him in to stand guard.
]]>All I know is that back in the '90s it wasn't hard to find a used Beetle and putter around Oregon, provided that you didn't really need to go much over 60 mph. When looking around for a used car a few years back the prices on old VWs had at least quadrupled and there weren't many to be had anyway. Pretty much everyone who still had an old Beetle wanted to hang onto it.
How does a VW Type I handle the hills in Edinburgh, anyway? grin
]]>https://mymodernmet.com/volkswagen-bug-camper/
More seriously, I'd like a small campervan suitable for one person for photography trips. Sleeps one, small kitchen (counter, space for a camp stove, food storage), water/sink, toilet, desk/table for eating at/working on. Don't need off-road capability, but poor road capability would be important as I'd like to head into Crown lands for a few days at a time, and that means dirt roads.
Haven't been able to find anything suitable, they are either larger than I want, or too expensive, or both.
]]>Back on usenet in the early 90's, on alt.pagan, we decided our saint was Hypatia, a Librarian of Alexandria, who was attacked by fans of the later sanctified Cyril, pulled from her chariot, and skinned alive using some kind of shells.
]]>whitroth Yes - she is the classic example & Cyril is still as "saint" But then there's Dominic - founder of a religious order & leader of the Albigensian crusade Or Thomas More, who deliberately had people burnt alive ... Or the recent torturer "mother Theresa"
]]>I started that way, and mentioned it a few times, but between "I can't give you advice, you need to hire someone who will tell you what I will allow" and "you can't build a structure on that land" I didn't feel that I was getting anywhere. So rather than buy a block of land then spend the next ten years playing silly buggers at my expense, I gave up early. Unlike Pigeon I don't already have the motorbike/land, so rather than spend time trying to persuade difficult people to give me what I want I can just move on.
Part of the context is Australia's convict heritage. An awful lot of people operate on the principle that it's not what the law says that matters, it's what the law enforcement does. So to some extent the legal system forces everyone to operate that way, by saying things that are completely untrue but are designed to get a more or less lawful outcome after the recipient plays fast and loose with the guidelines they're given. Hence to advice to hire a liar and get them to work the system for me.
]]>https://mymodernmet.com/volkswagen-bug-camper/
More seriously, I'd like a small campervan suitable for one person for photography trips.
I've seen that! The kitchen is cute but I'd rather have someplace to sleep, since for my use cases I can often stop at a restaurant and will eat cold food other times.
And I agree with the camper comment; either a Type II or Vanagon camping van would be everything I'd need for conventions and casual road trips.
Greg: Uphill - no problem, downhill, NOT so good & as for cornering, you don't want to know.
That surprises me, since both of my old Beetles tended to slow to walking speeds going up steep hills. grin
A note on topic drift: I'm capable of nattering on at length about old Volkswagons, various multitools, and possibly repairing Volkswagons with multitools.
]]>0-60: yes. heat: yes....
]]>I recall an anecdote from a column written by an airline pilot during the early post-9/11 years, after the TSA materialized but also US congress legislated that pilots could carry handguns aboard: how the author carried a serrated plastic knife in his flight bag (to open his sandwiches) and had it confiscated ... even though he was about to take the controls of a loaded 767 and could legally have carried a gun on board.
Really, security theatre would be hilarious if it wasn't so annoying.
A similar story emerged from the early weeks after 9/11 when everyone was running around in circles and nobody had a plan for anything.
Somehow they called up the local National Guard to stand around as extra security at airports, which presumably made sense to someone. The guardsmen showing up to watch people walk by had to go through security themselves, since they were pulling duty in a secure area. Security was very firm with one guy that he wasn't going to be allowed to take his pocketknife into the airport - then handed him back his M-16 and sent him in to stand guard.
I guess it depended on a which airport you were at. We didn't even have to go through the scanners.
One of my enduring memories from Desert Storm was a video of National Guard soldiers going through security at Charleston Airport before they boarded a chartered plane taking them over ... the first guy hands off his M-16 to the guy behind him and goes through the metal detector, then has to be wanded because his web gear sets it off.
After he's cleared he walks up to the rope & gets his M-16 & the M-16 from the next guy in line ... and so it goes all the way down the line to the last guy.
Coming home from Iraq, they did make us collect all the knives from people who hadn't got the word to "put them in your duffel bag" into a cardboard box, which was then carried onto the charter flight (where they were promptly redistributed once we got off the ground).
]]>