Answer below the fold
Tuesday, February 25, 2025
A Brain-teaser
Maddow is having her Khrushchev moment
You don't tug the mask off the ol' Lone Ranger
and you NEVER try to publicly embarrass your boss. (Apologies to Jim Croce)
Maddow's bosses will see this as a challenge that they cannot afford to lose.
My expectation is that she will be severed from MSNBC within the week due to a "public embarrassment" clause buried on page 47 of her contract.
The Khrushchev joke goes:
One day, a man ran through Red Square in Moscow, shouting at the top of his lungs, "Khrushchev is a fool!"
He was subsequently arrested for revealing state secrets.
Wild boars, "Bring enough Gun"
According to people who live in, and hunt, areas where feral hogs abound, mature boars are endowed with a gristle (cartilage) shield or plate that protects their lower chest.
Another consideration is that the heart-lung area of a hog is very small relative to the animals silhouette. These are not animals that run for miles-and-miles across the prairies. Even if you THINK you got a good hit and used ammo with good penetration, the bullet's path through the body is likely to miss organs that ensure a quick kill or break-bones that will collapse the animal. That can be mildly concerning if the animal is chewing on you or a loved one.
You not only need to bring "enough gun", it needs to "bring enough ammo" to ensure that at least one of the holes you poke in the animal hits the important body-parts.
While the plate is not exactly bulletPROOF, it will stop bullets that are "soft" and highly-expansive before they reach the boar's vitals. Those are exactly the kinds of bullets that are touted as being great man-stoppers. That rules out most pistol hollowpoints (especially the lighter-weight, higher-velocity offerings) and expanding "varmint" bullets in small calibers.
The plate will also stop bullets that don't start out with enough momentum (yes, I wrote momentum, not energy). Examples include .380 ACP and smaller ACP rounds, .38 Special out of short barrels.
These comments only apply to mature boars and does not apply to head-shots. However, in the passion of the moment, in the dark-of-night, one might not be cool enough or have enough time or the "vision" to pick head-shots.
One viable option for those who carry a 9mm (which excels at the "bring enough ammo) is to alternate non-expanding 147grain "Flat-nose" or "Truncated Cone" full-metal-jacket with 147 grain hollow-point bullets.
Buffalo Bore, Federal American Eagle are viable options for the non-expanding, flat-nose bullets. Like all things on the Internet, use your own brain and weigh your options carefully.
Tuesday "Art"
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| Mixed media, i.e. a photo with additional details "Photoshopped" in. |
For historical reasons, today's featured artist is Hunter Biden, born 1970 in Delaware and still alive.
Many of his "paintings" are mixed-media, specifically photographs with other images or textures "photoshopped" into them.
Monday, February 24, 2025
Grab-bag
Two of my children are either in a warm western state or will be flying in that direction in the next 24 hours. I wish them safe travels and productive, renewing time away from their every-day grind.
Hogs
As incredible as it seems, wild hogs are menacing Saskatchewan and some biologists, in all seriousness, suggested importing Siberian Tigers as a method of suppressing their population. The winters of Saskatchewan being on-par with the winters of eastern-Siberia but with less snow depth. Can you imagine Saskatchewan (and North Dakota and Montana and Minnesota) having populations of Siberian Tigers?
Figure-six traps are one of the mainstays of harvesting feral hogs. The smart money jimmies the trap-door open and feeds the hogs within the trap for a few weeks before activating the trap part of the trap-door. You will rarely catch the smartest, oldest hogs but you will catch the best-eating ones. You are well advised to thoroughly cook the meat!
Exercise
I am still working-the-plan: Alternating days on the treadmill and walking 40 minutes with the beautiful Mrs ERJ. Dead-lifting once every three days.
Thaw
We got up to at least 45F today. The snow is disappearing rapidly.
I was able to pry my "transfer cage" out of the ice. It is a dog-crate. God willing, I will pick up a couple of doe rabbits that are California White X New Zealand Blacks and I have need of the transfer cage. While exotic-looking breeds of any species might be "cute", animals that most closely resemble the conformation of their wild progenitors tend to be most resilient in the face of environmental stresses.
For example, dogs with smashed-in noses (pugs, bulldogs, Boston terriers) have breathing issues, issues with rejecting heat and sometimes issues with natural (non-Csection) births while dogs that more closely resemble Coyotes or Wolves don't.
Breeds of rabbits that are considered "meat rabbits" are not selected for arbitrary, cosmetic traits. Rather, they are selected to be "easy keepers" and to be thrifty in terms of growth/feed.
For the Grammar Nazi
Is a dead Stink Bug most properly referred to as a Stunk Bug?
The wheel turns
What an odd coincidence, a new Administration is sworn in and the first thing they do is that they start poking around, following-the-money.
A month later, (at least) one of the major news networks starts axing staff and payroll as revenue imploded.
Let me suggest that we "zoom out" and look at mass-media in the 1970s, which was before there was any competition from on-line sources.
In the 1970s hosts like Merv Griffin and Art Linkletter invited guests onto his show and he let them do most of the heavy-lifting. He asked questions and then let them sell themselves.
In 2024 the same kind of show has a "panel" of four or five or six "stars" and a supporting cast of affiliate "contributors". They all have their own dressing rooms and make-up artists. They all have their own "writers" pre-digesting the news into factiodal sound-bites. The salaries, not including benefits, for just the talking-heads on The View was almost $19 million in 2022. Only time will tell if this is a sustainable business model in the absence of non-organic, non-grassroots revenue.
It would be very interesting to see the number of square-feet of studio space dedicated to recording the Merv Griffin Show or Art Linkletter and comparing it to the all-in square-footage required for The View of Harris Faulkner.
Chopping at the hamstring in the other leg, there is a very real possibility that advertisements for prescription drugs might be prohibited. That would immediately eliminate about 1/7th the "organic, grass-roots" revenue.
And, in the wings, most people under 50 get most or ALL of their news from on-line sources. How many square-feet do Joe Rogan or Nick Freitas or Joey Swoll use?
Good times are always followed by hard times. Take note and prepare accordingly.
A little East of Paris: An Evil and Fallen World
Jana sat in the shade of the wrap-around porch and watched the swirl of people going by.
They had no sooner arrived than “Sonny” had been leaving with the UTV for a nickel-tour of the ranch. Dr von Tersch had frantically gestured to have Gwain join them.
Jana gave Gwain a wave. “I’ll be fine. After all, how long can it take to drive around the property?”
The afternoon had turned warm and Jana was content to sit in the glider and listen to the babble of happy voices.
A young Black man was passing by and noticed that she didn’t have anything to drink and had no food. Taking in her languid movement and her lack of hair, he asked “Can I get you something to eat?”
“No. No need to bother. I’ll be fine” Jana responded.
The Black man rephrased his question “When I bring you some food, is there anything you CAN’T eat.”
Jana sighed. “Since you insist, bring me something light, and just a little bit of it.”
In a few minutes the Black man unloaded a bewildering load of food. Jana’s plate had just a spoonful of this and a spoonful of that. The young man’s plate also had a modest amount of food, mostly high-protein items.
The man wordlessly handed Jana her silverware, rolled up in a napkin and then the plate. After a mumbled "Your welcome" to Jana's "Thank-you", the man sat next to her and started to eat.
Jana's plate held a little bit of smoked meat. Some mac-n-cheese. A dab of beans. Greens cooked with pork (more pork than greens, by the look of it). Salsa fresca. Some slaw with vinegar dressing. A bit of cornbread. He had also brought her a tumbler of lemonade.
“My name is Jana McCampbell, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart” Jana told him.
“Mine is Otis Grant” the man told her and then returned to eating.
Jana tilted her head a bit as he spoke. “I am guessing that you spent some time in New York City” she speculated.
“Let me guess, you read Pygmalion by Shaw” Otis parried.
“Guilty” Jana admitted. “I grew up in Delaware, so I can hear it in the vowels.”
“Clason Point, Bronx” Otis grudgingly shared.
“Funny how you can go to a big party and find somebody you have things in common with” Jana observed. “Here we are, two East-Coasters in Texas and BAM! We found each other.”
“Yep” Otis laconically noted.
"Do you know many of the people here?" Jana asked. Jana was puzzled that nobody stopped and chatted with him.
Otis briefly raised his eyes and did a quick scan, something he had been doing the whole time they had been talking "Yep. I work with most of them" and then returned his attention to his food.
Pulling words from Otis was like pushing a rope. He wasn't much of a talker.
Whether it was a slight shift in the angle of the light or the fact that she looked downward to better spear the food on her plate, Jana’s brain finally registered the fact that many of the men were wearing guns on their belts.
Tension edged Jana’s voice when she said to Otis in a low voice “Otis...did you happen to notice all of the guns.”
Otis said “It's a barbecue. This is Texas. What did you expect?”
“It’s not a big deal to you?” Jana asked.
“Nope. In fact, I am wearing one too.”
Jana’s eyes shot to Otis’s waist and sure enough he was carrying one of those boxy-looking guns in an ornate, leather holster with a basket-weave pattern embossed in its surface.
“Isn’t that one of those automatic pistols like the Cartels use?” Jana asked, aghast.
“It is a semi-automatic, not an automatic. All the difference in the world” Otis stated with finality.
“What is the difference?” Jana asked.
“For one thing, I can hit my target with a semi-auto. With a full-auto, maybe your first one or two shots will hit the target but then most of them fly off god-knows-where because the muzzle climbs" Otis said.
“So you are saying that a semi-auto is even more deadly than a full-auto, which makes it even more evil, right?” Jana pointed out, sure she had found a flaw in Otis’s logic.
“A semi-auto is more deadly to my enemies and less deadly to innocent people...at least in MY hands” Otis said.
“I don’t get it. Why would a grown, mature man feel a need to carry a gun?” Jana asked, bewildered.
“We live in an evil and fallen world” Otis said.
Jana shrugged in disbelief and gestured around her. “Look around you. This is a happy place. There is no evil here. There is absolutely no need for anybody to carry guns.”
“Nova Music Festival” was all Otis said.
“What?” Jana said.
“I was in Israel working on my thesis when Hamas attacked the Nova Music Festival. Minutes before it happened, everybody was happy. They were listening to anti-war folk-music and dancing. They saw no evil. Nobody had any guns. That was on October 7, 2023” Otis said.
“But there is nothing like that here” Jana insisted.
“The Israeli were sure that Iran, which was a 1000 miles away, was their biggest enemy. They couldn’t see the enemies right under their noses.” Otis said. “The attack killed over a thousand people.”
“So you are saying that if everybody was carrying a gun that it wouldn’t have happened?” Jana challenged.
“I am saying that if 10% of the men had been carrying a gun that they knew how to use and if each man had two spare magazines, that Hamas would not have dared to carry out the attack” Otis said.
They ate in stony silence, neither conceding their views. Nevertheless, Otis didn't leave, either.
Twenty minutes later, Gwain joined them.
“Well, that was ugly” Gwain said.
“What was ugly?” Jana asked.
“It is calving season and some wild hogs tore apart a day-old calf. Sonny insisted on setting some snares and hauling away what was left of the dead calf” Gwain said. “Messy business.”
“What do you mean, ‘wild hogs’? You mean like Russian boars?” Jana asked.
“Yes. More or less” Gwain agreed. “They live in the woods near the river* and come out in packs to forage when it is dark.”
Jana shivered. “Sounds horrible.”
Otis nodded in agreement and muttered in a soft voice “Another reason to carry a gun.”
(C) 2025 Eaton Rapids Joe, All Rights Reserved
*The wild hog population in Lamar county is primarily found in the wooded/brushy areas floodplains of the Red River on the north and the Sulphur river that forms the southern boundary of the county. Mature wild sows in Texas produce over 4 female "replacements" per year.
Sunday, February 23, 2025
Creeping loss of privacy
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| Source |
Some search-engines you probably never heard of
www.refseek.com - Academic Resource Search. More than a billion sources: encyclopedia, monographies, magazines.
www.worldcat.org - a search for the contents of 20 thousand worldwide libraries. Find out where lies the nearest rare book you need.
https://link.springer.com - access to more than 10 million scientific documents: books, articles, research protocols.
www.bioline.org.br is a library of scientific bioscience journals published in developing countries.
http://repec.org - volunteers from 102 countries have collected almost 4 million publications on economics and related science.
www.science.gov is an American state search engine on 2200+ scientific sites. More than 200 million articles are indexed.
www.base-search.net
is one of the most powerful researches on academic studies texts. More
than 100 million scientific documents, 70% of them are free
A big tip-of-the-hat to Lucas Machias to shared this information with me.
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