Guard Dog

Damn straight. I'm going to miss having a garden this year. It's hard work but I always found it peaceful

Ronnie Spector Be my little baby... RIP

It's been near four months since I was last reading a book. I doubt that dry spell broke any records for me but it is unusually long. So... here we go

Apple TV bidding on MLB mid-week games

How Fake Spies Ruin Real Intelligence The NSA & CIA are made up of some very smart, skilled, and unheroic looking people. They are experts in data analysis and languages/culture not hand to hand combat. When it's time to the the "Bond and Bourne" stuff it's usually Green Berets or SEALs who are doing the heavy lifting.

55 watts. Wow, no wonder it was the first thing they shut off in the Odyssey on Apollo 13.

A little early this year but all is gloom and doom in peanut and crackerjack land. The owners have locked out the players. The two sides are not even talking. Spring Training is (supposed to be) 40 days away. Not good. The national pastime is past it's time and games lost due to work stoppage might well put it in the dirt for good. But there is some news that is interesting. New York Yankees name Rachel Balkovec to manage Tampa Tarpons. She will be the first woman to manage in affiliated baseball so congrats to her.

Got Covid booster and didn't die. So that's good. Almost 6 hours now and no side affects at all.

Nah. We almost never discuss politics. She has very little interest it.

More and more I'm coming around to @Gromnir's way of thinking on this.

Let's hope not

Few end well. Fewer still accomplish anything.

I really do not want you to think I'm soft selling the 1/6 riot. I'm not. When you use words like "insurrection" I think of Hugh Henry Brackenridge and his 7k militiamen marching on Pittsburgh and attacking the mail. I think of John Brown. South Carolina seceding and then firing on Fort Sumter. Now THAT was an overreaction to an election. Heck I'd even throw in the Cliven Bundy incident as an insurrection, albeit a bloodless one. But Jan 6, they didn't have a plan. Not the rank and file at least. There were certainly some true villains that day. The worst of which will likely never get his comeuppance. But most of them had to know there was nothing they were going to do that would change anything other than landing them all in prison. Or dead. Maybe I'm giving them too much credit. I don't want to paint them as innocent sheep who were manipulated into doing what they did. Although there is an grain of truth in that. They deserve prison time and most of them are already doing it. Probably less of it than they deserve. But to call it and insurrection? I just can't get there. It was a riot. A mob. If the BLM riots that DID turn violent and burn neighborhoods and attack police were NOT an insurrection how can 1/6 be? Like we've discussed before there are numerous scenarios where I would feel justified turning my guns against my government and countrymen. None of them have happened. None of them are even close! Rioting in the US Capital because you're mad your team lost an election is not rational. Rebellions are rational. They have goals. Actions with expected outcomes. Just criminals doing crime. Am I wrong here?

Haven't been following the news much. But I saw this morning someone actually convinced the Orange Menace that having a press conference about the riot he incited on the anniversary of the day he incited it was a bad idea. I'm surprised actually. He never struck me as a man who took advice.

F...fffff....fffrrreeezzziinngg mmyyy asssss oofffff I am convinced North America is actually uninhabitable north of I-70 in the winter.

The USS Abraham Lincoln is deploying with the first female captain to command a aircraft carrier: In a historic first, aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln deploys under command of female captain I'm actually surprised it hasn't happened yet. I looked on Wikipedia and it seems most other ship categories (not by class but function) have had women commanders. The only other type of ship that has not had a female captain are Gator Freighters.

Galad and Rand had the same mother and Elayne & Gawyn and Galad had the same father IIRC. Tigraine and Morgase were not related right? Other than both being married to the same man at different times. Y'know I just realized. Tarangail Damodred (Elaynes father) was Moiraine's father's nephew. That means Rand and Moiraine were actually second cousins by marriage?

We watched this after the hockey game last night: The movie was pretty bad and more than a little weird and even a little disturbing. But I was just so f----g stoked I could follow the dialogue without the sub-titles. I don't get to use Spanish very much and I'm pretty rusty.

The worst part about the pregnant Aiel fight scene is Rand's mother wasn't Aiel. His FATHER was! That woman was clearly Aiel. Rand's mother was Tigraine and she was Andoran. Ok I'm going to go back to the couch muttering under my breath about how the books were better!

On your first point I do not think the people who paid them to have sex with children (let's call it exactly what it is Bruce) are more dangerous than the mob or the people like Epstein and Maxwell who trap children for that purpose. But there are hundreds more Epstein's lining up for their money right now and the deviants and pedophiles will beat a path to their door. Exposing the names of these, particularly leaders and "prominent citizens" is the only justice those kids are likely to get outside of a longshot civil suit. Now that Maxwell is convicted I'd certainly be amenable to her getting a deal on the length and location of her sentence in exchange for names and dates. As for your second point, I doubt very much the US government would order or be complicit in the murder of a prisoner in US custody. But it still happens all the time. Through error, ill luck, or sometimes the right people looking the other way.

This morning I'm working on my laptop and I keep hearing text messages come in on the phone. I get at least 200 SMS a day for work so I'm not paying much attention. G comes in the room with my phone and says I have like a to of texts. I just laughed and told her she can answer them if she likes. She said she wouldn't know what to say. I said "just make something up". I told I do that more ofthen than you'd believe! So anyway she is flipping through them then comes up to me and gives me a big, passionate kiss... and takes a pic of it. She smiles, walks away and I hear the sound of a SMS being sent. Who did that one go to I asked. "Your ex-wife" she said with a laugh! That WAS funny. But man she does have a serious jealous streak.