New categories for new things in my corner of the Universe.

There’s now a aquarium.  15 gallons with 11 fish therein. Betta, 4 tetras, 3 cories, and 3 platys. Nobody tries to eat anyone else.

Thanks to Ken getting a membership at the local Y, we played Camp Sloper last weekend. Nice little course. Cutting down on the number of discs in the bag is starting to pay dividends.

To the surprise of pretty much nobody, Francona wasn’t the problem in Boston. Hopefully the GM has had an automatic ass-kicking machine installed in his office.

My main workstation has self-destructed for the last time.  Rather than rebuild it, I’m simply going to make the new laptop play full-time business machine.  I’m putting a new power supply in the micro monolith I built last year so I can run the GTX460 in it.

More details in other posts.  Maybe.

The first thing you notice is that people will actually slap down some of the stupid, but it keeps popping up like a petulant child.

The stupid in this case is that all military personnel are murderers and that if they just didn’t sign up, there would be no more wars.  Oh, and “defending your country” doesn’t involve taking the fight to the enemy.

Let’s follow that last one to its logical conclusion, because in the context of WWII, Pat Buchanan has stated that we shouldn’t have been involved in Europe because Germany didn’t attack us.  Were it not for our involvement, Hitler would have won. You cannot convince me that the world would be a better place if that had happened.

So if you’re going to have stupid opinions, can you at least do the rest of us a favor and think through the implications beyond the first move?

As I keep saying, nobody plays chess any more. Can’t think more than one move into the future.

Pick up a glass.  Wrap your hand with an entire roll of duct tape.

Now let the glass go.  Just let it go.

You can’t.  Yeah, I know – break the glass.  Permanent solution to a temporary problem.

That’s where the drugs come in.  They dissolve the tape, a little at a time.  I’m learning to deal with the anger, now that the trap is being untied.  But it’s going to be a long time before I’m anywhere near “normal”, if I ever get there at all.

But at least now I’m functional and not curled up in a ball in the middle of the floor.

Until THIS time.  now my laptop is whole again, even got the missing foot back on the bottom.  And got a bonus relatively new battery too!

Here are some lessons (from my perspective) for the political class to take from this election.  It was the bloodbath that everyone expected, and for some of the reasons that the pundits expressed; namely distaste at the rate of growth of government, and disgust at the attitude of the political class toward the rest of the nation.

But there are a few others that I see that I haven’t heard any pundits elaborate on (yet).

Number one: Lying about your core beliefs during the campaign is fatal in the Internet age.  We saw a wave of so-called “Blue Dog” Democrats swept into power in 2006 and 2008.  These politicians ran to the right of their Republican counterparts on fiscal matters.  Then, when it mattered the most, these Blue Dogs got right in line and voted with Nancy Pelosi to expand government.  In 2010, they got slaughtered.

Number two: Insulting your constituents is rarely a good idea.  Outright defying them is worse.  When your constituents are telling you to vote against something by a two to one margin, you don’t vote FOR it and then call them names and imply that they aren’t bright enough to understand the legislation.  People tend to recoil at being called stupid.  Democrats that voted for the Health Care debacle got slaughtered whether they ran on it or not.  In most cases, these were the same Democrats as group one.

Number three: Nothing is inevitable.  Barney Frank had to campaign to defend his seat – something he’s never had to do before.

There has been a sea change in America.  This is a majority center-right nation.  Until now, the bulk of us were too busy working, building our businesses and communities, and caring for our families to be much bothered with politics.  As long as the government left us alone, we were fine.  Government is now SO intrusive that we are no longer fine.  The Tea Parties were not a one-off thing.  Nor were they motivated by race or religion.  They were a warning: shrink the government, and shrink it now.

The message to the Democrats: It’ll be a cold day in hell before you wield power in this country again.

To the Republicans?  I think Marco Rubio said it best: This is the very last chance for the Republican party.  Screw it up this time, and you’re done.

There comes a point where one stupid thing after another leads one to conclude that we’re looking at malicious intent.  Third time is enemy action and all that.

After getting slapped down by two courts, the Obama administration has threatened Gulf-based rigs with a new moratorium if they try to drill.  So they’re packing up and leaving.

Regime Uncertainty abounds.  Businesses are hoarding cash for fear of the next Big Thing.  Consumer spending is off a cliff because nobody knows if they’re going to have income.  And the only reason unemployment is down is because they don’t count people who’ve given up looking.

If we don’t purge our governments (local, state, and federal) of the disease that is progressivism, and soon, we may find out what it’s like to live in a failed state.

Can someone please find some intelligent grown-ups who have been in the real world to run for office and clean things up?  Please?

No fog, so I went to visit the ocean. Tide’s coming in. Dog frolics in the surf off in the distance. Sun and moon both in the sky, waving to each other along the horizon. Big wave overtakes small wave and they become one. COLD!

Just one more bucket of Curley’s Fries, ok? Just one, and I’ll be set until next year.

Next year. That was quick.

As a device, in the thirty seconds or so I’ve played with it, it seems pretty cool. Not necessarily something I’d buy, but I can see the appeal.

Spell check and auto-correct is nicer than on the Pre. The keyboard works fine, I don’t know what all the bitching is about.

Maybe I’ll play with it more later.

Although I’m seeing some improvement.  I’m not pulling back on my fairway shots any more, and I’m getting better at controlling the discs I’ve got.  I think my biggest problem last year was thinking that buying all kinds of discs was the solution to my problems rather than learning how to use my body to control any one disc.

With luck, I’ll break 80 within the next few runs.  Maybe 76 (+18) isn’t such an impossible task after all.

It’s because I’m so disgusted and worn out that I just don’t have anything to say any more.  I had very low expectations for this President.  He’s completely failed to meet even those.  I expected worse than Carter, but this is fucking ridiculous.

The only saving grace on the horizon is that the Democrats have set themselves up for a political bloodbath come November.  I don’t think Pelosi understands just how much her gambit is going to fuck her.  She’s the one who engineered the Democratic takeover through blatant fraud — by having “moderate” democrats win in swing states, and then forcing them to the left.  And now all those “moderates” are going to lose their seats.  For her.

Maybe we can get some of these disasters repealed and prevent the government from defaulting.

But I’m not gonna hold my breath.