Nom de plume: Rivrdog

A Pentecostal WHAT?

Says here that a serpent-handling pastor died from a bite by his serpent, and what's more, that's how his father died. I wonder if the pastor has had children, and will any of them die from snake venom? Is this a Darwin's Law thing?

Inquiring minds need to know this stuff.

Such is the danger of taking a Holy book literally. When I read the Bible (admittedly, not often, and almost always in the Old Testament), I look for the message, not for particular words which might be interpreted to excuse otherwise irrational behaviors (like handling venomous snakes).

Does Criticism equal Terrorism?

Seems like one government agency thinks so.

You NEED to read this post from a conservative blogger. What he experienced has all the trademarks of a government turned into a dictatorship, which means that we've gone through the first three boxes of Liberty*, and are down to the fourth box, speaking hyperbole-style, y'unnerstand.

H/T to Uncle. BTW, Uncle has another such sturmtruppen adventure listed on his blog today.

We are one short, baby-step away from the end of our Constitutional Republic, folks. I guess the only question remaining is when we get the official word it's over, the Constitution has been suspended, etc, will we fight to bring Liberty back? I'm not making any bet that we will. 

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*The boxes of Liberty are the Soap Box, the Jury Box, the Ballot Box and lastly, the Cartridge Box.

Memorial Day - the teachable moment

If you're reading this, you're in the choir, sorry for preaching at you, but as I have just reflected, right after raising Old Glory early this ayem, I have realized that the tragedy of Memorial Day isn't that all those men and women at arms had to die to give us another 3-day weekend to fire up the BBQ on, it's that I'd wager that less than half the people who call themselves citizens of this Nation can properly define what sacrifice means to them.

Were you to ask random people on the street what great sacrifice means to them, they likely will frown, as if you are intruding on their souls, and if they replied at all, it would be something like "what percentage of my income are we talking about sacrificing here?"

If you asked me, or any member of my generation or the previous one (the "greatest generation") what great sacrifice means to them, I and they would unhesitatingly reply, "dying in battle for your country".

I think we've forgotten what sacrifice is, and that is why we have "Memorial Day Creep", that process by which our Government tries to roll Veteran's Day into Memorial Day, a grevious error I see as deliberately trying to take our minds off of the fact that war is a necessary adjunct to public policy, if that policy has as it's Prime Objective the maintenance of Freedom.

Today's teachable moment is to take on of the younger generation aside, and tell them that it's time to be PROUD of those who gave their lives in defense of Freedom. Your objective in this telling is that they walk away with a better personal appreciation of what sacrifice means. 

Saying goodbye...

...to an old friend and mentor in my police career today.

Willard "Mac" MacGregor died last week. He was 80 or so, and had been an active member of the Retiree group to which I belong and meet with weekly.

Mac (you never called him Willard) was hired back in the 50's, when the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office was responsible for policing most of Portland from the Willamette River eastwards, and the southwestern reaches along the river as well as the northwestern reaches along the Tualatin Ridge. It was a large territory to police, with a lot of people in it.

Mac had been a Motor officer, riding bikes back when they were a means of getting patrol done, and not just for traffic enforcement as they are now. On those rare days when I worked Day shift early on in my career, I remember Mac getting dressed near my locker, in his jhodpur-style uniform pants, and the custom-made boots which cost the County more money than the rest of the uniform kit combined. I saw the bike guys as kings then, because they had the patrol-car Deputies as back-up. They could arrest a crud, and never had to take them to jail and book them, one of us did that. They rode those fast Harley Police Solos, which could out run any patrol car up to 120 or so, and few of the cars would make 120.

Mac was a careful guy, and I never remember him ever dumping his bike as other motor officers did, some more than once. He was also a patient investigator, and that rubbed off on me. He could see right through the alibis of felons, and was eventually promoted to Detective, but he always preferred the "Road".

And, Mac could spin a good yarn. He remembered all the bad guys of yesteryear in our area, some of whose grandkids are now pursuing crime. He raised his own kids right, stayed with the same wife all the way through, too, something that few cops manage. I didn't.

We all died a little ourselves when he got Alzheimer's last year, but, it took him quickly as the disease goes. One day earlier this year, he didn't show up for our retiree coffee, and we all knew the end was near.

So, now I go put on my Road Deputy Funeral suit, which is dress slacks and shirt, tie and my Retired Deputy "raid" jacket, and old uniform ball cap, and I will go sit in church and listen to the service, and then go stand in the rain up at Willamette National Cemetery while he is lowered into the ground, and the airmen fire their final salute. That final USAF salute awaits me at that hallowed ground, and I feel closer to it all the time, as I see those I worked with shuck off their mortal coils.

It's going to be a long day.

"Battleship", the failed movie concept

A thought: why did the concept fail? An almost identical concept, "Space Battleship Yamato", has been going strong in both the sci-fi and anime genres for 38 years in Japan.

Could it be...

...that old, rehashed concepts don't fool the fans?

Sic Semper Ignorati

Will someone check my Latin? Ignorati may not be a real Latin word, but since you know what it means, I'll use it anyway. You ignorati who think that because some fool stops playing beer pong long enough to slam some code ought to be supported in his bid to take over the world's information system just got your comeuppance. The stock lost 11% today and would have lost more had it not been propped up, for the second trading day, by Morgan Stanley, which seems to have a penchant for throwing their client's money away (and you KNOW what that means if they trade for you). Were it not for the support of Morgan Stanley, Facebook would likely have been down at least to $30 and maybe it would have collapsed by now.

At this point, the big investment funds that went out on a limb with FB are looking to cut their losses. It will be a bad week. Normally, when the stock of a IPO hits it's floor, it has nowhere to go but up, but this observer says FB will not go up, because they have nothing to offer for the future. No business model, no long-term loyalty base, no nothing but controversy now. Both Zuckerberg and his minority partner are playing tax-avoidance games which are also responsibility-avoidance moves. The fall of Facebook stock might be slowed by day-traders playing it's options, but those options can't give the stock value, they can only delay the inevitable. Investors bypassed the faults of the company and bought the shares because they believed that they were on an up-elevator. Now that they know that their ride has small ups and big downs, they will get off that ride quickly.

NASDAQ will shelter the stock by the end of the week. Facebook users will use the product, from which Zuckerberg recovers about 20 cents on the recoverable dollar, just until something glitzier comes along, or until some sort of major privacy breach occurs, and I rate that as a strong possibility; given the slapdash way the company is managed for finance, it's probably managed for security the same way.

I don't have a Facebook account, simply because I can get what I want more securely elsewhere. When the current crop of Facebook users come to share my attitude, and they will, Facebook's market penetration will begin a slide from which they will not recover.

Remember MySpace? I didn't jump on that bandwagon, either. I have Twitter accounts, but don't use them personally in my circle, which pretty much relies on email, telephone or personal contact. I occasionally send text messages. I'm connected well enough, and share what I want via my blogs.

As the kids grow up, they will shed Facebook, too.

Now, given those conditions, who the HELL wants to invest in such an enterprise? 

Read it and learn: why you arm yourself

This is a most excellent article by an intelligent woman (chair of the Washington County GOP) on why she armed herself.

In the article, she takes ownership of her most important job as a human, that being to protect herself and her family.

It doesn't get plainer than this, people.

Take charge of your life, and arm up!

FYI, Washington County is on the western edge of Portland.

Thank you, Hillsboro Argus, for printing her op-ed. You have done the entire community, and indeed the country, a favor by doing so. If I wasn't already subscribed to your sister newspaper, the Gresham Outlook, I would subscribe to the Argus.

ZOMG, I'm old!

New definition of old: step smartly out to the mailbox, bring it in, and it contains an ad, adressed personally to me, from the Scooter Store!

Whichever of you wags sent my name to that outfit, I'm gonna git you, sucka!

Wednesday WTFs

A blog in which I communicate my wonderment to the wider world. Contrary to the popular opinion of my other 36 personalities, I do NOT have a total handle on Life, and there ARE a few puzzlements left to me. Here are a few of them.

WTF, category Irony:

 The Secret Service scandal was discovered when a disagreement on how much a prostitute should charge for her services came to light.  

She was asking for $800.00. The Secret Service Agent offered $30.00.

 

How ironic is it that the only person in Washington willing to cut spending gets fired?

(H/T to the Coyote Kid).

WTF, category The Whole Truth:

  "If you are not legally and morally justified in taking someone's life, you have no business whatsoever pointing a lethal weapon at any part of their body."

What Tam said. Enough said. Via Uncle.

WTF, category Whacky Terbaccy:

Advocates of Whacky Terbaccy legalization (and it's already legal, with a few formalities, under Oregon's loose Medical Marijuana laws) just elected the Top Cop in Oregon, Retired Judge Ellen Rosenblum, to be Oregon AG. I served many a time as a Court Deputy in her court when she was a circuit Judge in my county. Good mind, sharp intuition, but it's a little disturbing that she seems to have been funded in the crucial late stages of her campaign almost entirely by money from the potheads. I'm anti-pothead, myself, having seen the problems firsthand that this minor drug causes (same level of problems as alcohol, really). Additionally, the fact that Socialist George Soros has poured tens of millions of dollars into MJ legalization efforts to further his Stalinist ideas of "social justice" tells me that the biggest downside of more MJ smoked by more people won't just be a shortage of Cheetos, it will likely be a "benevolent" Big Government smiling down on the stoned masses, knowing that stoners can't do much mischief, and when they try, they're easily defeated.

WTF, category Zombie Apocalypse:

I'm puzzled by the national fascination with the subject of Zombies, and the only explanation I can offer to end my puzzlement is that the craze is the result of a backlash against Unicorns, and things like Unicorn Dust (like the Big Government, Unicorn Dust falling on things makes them magically free), Unicorn Farts, which like the Green Faeries of AlGore's invention, are a majikal counter to Glow-bull Warmening.

WTF, category Take Down Guns:

Why aren't ALL sporting carbines made in take-down models? Better late than never for this model, though.

 

There's a fine little NAVY war on now...

...against the pirates in Somalia. It looks like the European Union, acting with the services of the French, who have provided a littoral-combat ship, the Dixmude, with it's 16 helos (some are gunships), have taken the pirate nests under fire with combined ops from offshore. Hmmm....looks like that thirty mike-mike chin cannon could make a mess of a pirate ship, and the two pods of folding-fin 2.75" rockets would add to the fray...TOW or HOT missiles in case they meet any Islamic armor protecting a pirate lair...yeppers, littoral combat, all the first-world nations have invested heavily in their shallow-water Navies, and this is what they do.

BTW, if one of the US Navy's ships, such as the LCS-2 USS Independence, were to join that fray, that 120 rounds per minute 75 mm gun could finally see some action, too. 

Now maybe the qat-chewing Somali sea-scum will feel the modern equivalent of the lash...