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Open thread 5/5/23

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  • ghostsniper May 5, 2023, 8:02 AM
  • Casey Klahn May 5, 2023, 9:25 AM

    Ralph Kramden promised: “one of these days, Alice!”

    The immutable law of inevetability.

  • ghostsniper May 5, 2023, 2:25 PM

    Saw this over at wirecutters place https://ogdaa.blogspot.com/ a day or 2 ago and thought it wasn’t going to turn out good even though good was what happened. The parameter was flawed do to the times. A white dood stifled a negro dood. BTW, what is it with all these negro doods lately where when the going gets tough they self bail?

    https://nypost.com/2023/05/05/marine-who-put-jordan-neely-in-chokehold-identified-as-daniel-penny/

    The only thing I can say is to follow the Remus rule and keep as much distance as possible between yourself and ALL negro’s. If, luck is not in your favor and you find yourself in a predicament, you better have more than enough firepower and have your PF Flyers honed and ready to place a big bunch of freedom between you and the trash as quickly as possible. FWIW, this poor csonk is gonna get fried.

    • DT May 5, 2023, 4:47 PM

      to say nothing of Scott Adams
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6TnAn7qV1s

      • Mike Seyle May 6, 2023, 12:02 PM

        Madness. Madness all around. So I would say this: My dad (now deceased) built a milking stool when he was young. I’d guess about 85 years ago. In the past, I’ve stood on it to pour diesel into the tractor, and more recently used it to help me up when I’m on the ground, and to sit on when planting things. If you want to leave something to the kids, build a milking stool.

        • ghostsniper May 6, 2023, 1:37 PM

          I watched about 2 minutes, that’s all I could stand. The dood just irks me, and I see no value in what he has to say.

          I made a milking stool out of pine in 7th grade shop class when I was 11, 1966. My mother was short, maybe 5′-2″ and kept it in a bottom kitchen cabinet and used it to reach stuff in the upper wall cabinets. 20 years later, beaten and abused, it came back to us and our son used it to stand at the bathroom vanity to wash up and brush his teeth. At that time my wife sanded it down and repainted it. Light blue, with little flowers and vines all over it. Few years later it went to my sister and her kids used it the same way. Then to my youngest brothers 3 kids. That brother died 3 years ago and his youngest kid is not 26 and I have no idea where that little milk stool with thousands of miles of usage is at. Hopefully it is still being used somewhere.

          That stool had 3 legs evenly spaced, which meant trisecting a 360 degree circle into even increments. Additionally each leg had to have a hole drilled into the seat bottom at a slight angle. Fairly easy stuff if you use a drill press but in 7th grade we were not allowed to use any tools with motors. So a wood wedge was hand cut to the proper angle and clamped to the bottom of the seat. Then a hand powered square shank auger, brace drill was used to drill the holes. It was difficult to hold the auger just so while rotating the handle on the brace.

          Speaking of old tools. Last summer I purchased a vintage brace on Etsy that was built in 1868. Thats not a typo, and it was in pretty good shape. Over the winter I tore it down and inspected everything. Cleaned it up, put the jewelers files to all the mating suraces in the chuck jaws and elsewhere, lightly sanded the wood, then stained the wood in “ebony”, 30 weight oiled everything and put it back together, better than new.

          To create the ebony I put a 4-0 steel wool pad in a small container of vinegar and lidded it for a week. When I opened it a week later the pad was gone and vinegar was black, with lots of sediment. I strained the vinegar through a cheese cloth then applied it with a 2″ foam brush to the handles of the brace. Let it dry for 2 days, sanded with 600 and applied the vinegar again. Back and forth 6 times til the color of the “stain” was deep enough that I felt it was right. I chucked the 2 handles into my lathe and burnished them with a handful of maple curls. Then I sprayed them with satin poly, 3 coats with light sanding in between. That 155 year old brace looks better than new and is ready for another 155 years of service. Now I’m searching for a set of 13 auger bits at a reasonable price. That is, $200 or less. They are rare, and spensive.

          • DT May 6, 2023, 3:54 PM

            I agree with you most of the time about SA – I should have mentioned the segment I wanted to refer to starts about 13:25. The money quote at about 16:02: “the best advice I can give white people is to stay the hell away from black people, just get the f* away”

            • ghostsniper May 6, 2023, 5:32 PM

              Thanks DT, I’ll go back and check it out.
              He can hit a right note now and then if you can stand his shtick.

  • ghostsniper May 6, 2023, 1:57 PM

    Sometimes I think a certain amount of the human population is insane.
    How else can you account for it?
    This time it’s Guinness. Yeah, them people.
    Watch the vid, if you can.
    https://thefederalistpapers.org/opinion/watch-makers-guinness-release-weird-ad-featuring-grandpa-shows-grandson-makeup

    It’s getting where the only buzz you can get is that which you make yourself or barter for from local folks you know and trust. Fortunately I have a connection for moon. Wish I had one for weed.

    • Casey Klahn May 7, 2023, 12:17 PM

      I look forward to the videos of guys shooting bottles of Guinness, and running them over with tractors. Now I gotta look up what brands of Whiskey they sell. May be a dry Summer for me…

  • Anne May 6, 2023, 3:39 PM

    When the Irish lose their voice. Here is an excerpt that just showed up. I can’t read the whole thing, but maybe someone here can.
    https://mail.google.com/mail/u/2/#inbox/FMfcgzGsmWrDZpMXTSncGGfnWPPHnFTm

    • ghostsniper May 8, 2023, 3:35 AM

      It opened gmail and sported this banner across the bottom:
      “The conversation that you requested cannot be loaded.”

  • Anne May 6, 2023, 3:43 PM

    I just posted a comment that has not yet shown up. Maybe it will follow this one?
    Regarding the Dirty Boys and Girls promoting the gay agenda via the sale of their alcohol, I see they own Ketel One. Oh dear, I guess I will have to give up that one and go with the French, or a very nice Icelandic Gin! 🙂

  • Casey Klahn May 6, 2023, 9:56 PM

    I give you: King Charles.

    If you can only choose one, with no exceptions or mitigations, choose between: our current Biden government, or a Christian Monarchy.

    Discuss.

    • ThisIsNotNutella May 6, 2023, 10:51 PM

      Given a choice between a kiddy sniffer and a semi-expired monarch who took it up the bum from time to time and when he does resort women favours one with the visage of an equine posterior…

      *scratching muh haieddddd*

      Long Live King Charles III!

      Except I’m a Jacobin. So there’s that.

      • Casey Klahn May 7, 2023, 9:42 AM

        Certainly Charles is also a man of the Left. He’s a tree hugger, and I suppose goes for any Knotty hole.

        For a reasonable debate on this topic, I think we need to leave Jill, Camilla, and Diana out of it. As fun as all of that would be.

        • Zaphod May 7, 2023, 7:07 PM

          Please don’t be Reasonable.

          • Casey Klahn May 8, 2023, 5:10 AM

            Princess Diana, Queen Consort Camilla, and Dr Jill Biden walk into a bar.

            • ghostsniper May 8, 2023, 6:40 AM

              The whiskey tenders mouth drops open and he stops polishing that glass. The piano player stops raz-ma-nazzin’ the ivories. The dancin’ gurls stop dead in their tracks. The card sharp stops dealin’. All eyes turn toward the swingin’ saloon doors, at the gov’t horz standin’ there. In unison all 3 say, “We’re lookin’ for our 2 legged vegetables.”

            • ThisIsNotNutella May 8, 2023, 3:46 PM

              Cowboy at the bar looks them up and down carefully. It’s been a long, dry spell.

              “I reckon I’ll try my luck with the horses you rode in on.”

  • Richard G. May 6, 2023, 10:57 PM

    In honor of my daughter who just passed through White Horse, hard by Lake Laberge, in route to Palmer: a little Robert Service.

    The Cremation of Sam McGee

    There are strange things done in the midnight sun
    By the men who moil for gold;
    The Arctic trails have their secret tales
    That would make your blood run cold;
    The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
    But the queerest they ever did see
    Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
    I cremated Sam McGee.

    Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.
    Why he left his home in the South to roam ’round the Pole, God only knows.
    He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;
    Though he’d often say in his homely way that “he’d sooner live in hell.”

    On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.
    Talk of your cold! through the parka’s fold it stabbed like a driven nail.
    If our eyes we’d close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn’t see;
    It wasn’t much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee.

    And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow,
    And the dogs were fed, and the stars o’erhead were dancing heel and toe,
    He turned to me, and “Cap,” says he, “I’ll cash in this trip, I guess;
    And if I do, I’m asking that you won’t refuse my last request.”

    Well, he seemed so low that I couldn’t say no; then he says with a sort of moan:
    “It’s the cursed cold, and it’s got right hold till I’m chilled clean through to the bone.
    Yet ‘taint being dead–it’s my awful dread of the icy grave that pains;
    So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you’ll cremate my last remains.”

    A pal’s last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail;
    And we started on at the streak of dawn; but God! he looked ghastly pale.
    He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee;
    And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.

    There wasn’t a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven,
    With a corpse half hid that I couldn’t get rid, because of a promise given;
    It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: “You may tax your brawn and brains,
    But you promised true, and it’s up to you to cremate those last remains.”

    Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code.
    In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load.
    In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring,
    Howled out their woes to the homeless snows—O God! how I loathed the thing.

    And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow;
    And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low;
    The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in;
    And I’d often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin.

    Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay;
    It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the “Alice May.”
    And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum;
    Then “Here,” said I, with a sudden cry, “is my cre-ma-tor-eum.”

    Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire;
    Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher;
    The flames just soared, and the furnace roared—such a blaze you seldom see;
    And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee.

    Then I made a hike, for I didn’t like to hear him sizzle so;
    And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow.
    It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don’t know why;
    And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky.

    I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear;
    But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near;
    I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: “I’ll just take a peep inside.
    I guess he’s cooked, and it’s time I looked;” . . . then the door I opened wide.

    And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;
    And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: “Please close that door.
    It’s fine in here, but I greatly fear you’ll let in the cold and storm—
    Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it’s the first time I’ve been warm.”

    There are strange things done in the midnight sun
    By the men who moil for gold;
    The Arctic trails have their secret tales
    That would make your blood run cold;
    The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
    But the queerest they ever did see
    Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
    I cremated Sam McGee.

    • ghostsniper May 7, 2023, 4:32 AM

      neat little story

    • Casey Klahn May 7, 2023, 9:45 AM

      I once heard Big Jim Whittaker recite this from memory.

  • SK May 7, 2023, 10:16 AM

    And there’s also Dangerous Dan McGrew, that made us howl with laughter when our Scottish Canadian father recited it to as children. Clever funny poems. Thanks for jogging happy memories.

    • ghostsniper May 7, 2023, 12:17 PM

      Never heard of it so I looked it up.

      The Shooting of Dan McGrew
      BY ROBERT W. SERVICE
      A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon;
      The kid that handles the music-box was hitting a jag-time tune;
      Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew,
      And watching his luck was his light-o’-love, the lady that’s known as Lou.

      When out of the night, which was fifty below, and into the din and the glare,
      There stumbled a miner fresh from the creeks, dog-dirty, and loaded for bear.
      He looked like a man with a foot in the grave and scarcely the strength of a louse,
      Yet he tilted a poke of dust on the bar, and he called for drinks for the house.
      There was none could place the stranger’s face, though we searched ourselves for a clue;
      But we drank his health, and the last to drink was Dangerous Dan McGrew.

      There’s men that somehow just grip your eyes, and hold them hard like a spell;
      And such was he, and he looked to me like a man who had lived in hell;
      With a face most hair, and the dreary stare of a dog whose day is done,
      As he watered the green stuff in his glass, and the drops fell one by one.
      Then I got to figgering who he was, and wondering what he’d do,
      And I turned my head — and there watching him was the lady that’s known as Lou.

      His eyes went rubbering round the room, and he seemed in a kind of daze,
      Till at last that old piano fell in the way of his wandering gaze.
      The rag-time kid was having a drink; there was no one else on the stool,
      So the stranger stumbles across the room, and flops down there like a fool.
      In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway;
      Then he clutched the keys with his talon hands — my God! but that man could play.

      Were you ever out in the Great Alone, when the moon was awful clear,
      And the icy mountains hemmed you in with a silence you most could hear;
      With only the howl of a timber wolf, and you camped there in the cold,
      A half-dead thing in a stark, dead world, clean mad for the muck called gold;
      While high overhead, green, yellow and red, the North Lights swept in bars? —
      Then you’ve a hunch what the music meant. . . hunger and night and the stars.

      And hunger not of the belly kind, that’s banished with bacon and beans,
      But the gnawing hunger of lonely men for a home and all that it means;
      For a fireside far from the cares that are, four walls and a roof above;
      But oh! so cramful of cosy joy, and crowned with a woman’s love —
      A woman dearer than all the world, and true as Heaven is true —
      (God! how ghastly she looks through her rouge, — the lady that’s known as Lou.)

      Then on a sudden the music changed, so soft that you scarce could hear;
      But you felt that your life had been looted clean of all that it once held dear;
      That someone had stolen the woman you loved; that her love was a devil’s lie;
      That your guts were gone, and the best for you was to crawl away and die.
      ‘Twas the crowning cry of a heart’s despair, and it thrilled you through and through —
      “I guess I’ll make it a spread misere”, said Dangerous Dan McGrew.

      The music almost died away … then it burst like a pent-up flood;
      And it seemed to say, “Repay, repay,” and my eyes were blind with blood.
      The thought came back of an ancient wrong, and it stung like a frozen lash,
      And the lust awoke to kill, to kill … then the music stopped with a crash,
      And the stranger turned, and his eyes they burned in a most peculiar way;
      In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway;
      Then his lips went in in a kind of grin, and he spoke, and his voice was calm,
      And “Boys,” says he, “you don’t know me, and none of you care a damn;
      But I want to state, and my words are straight, and I’ll bet my poke they’re true,
      That one of you is a hound of hell. . .and that one is Dan McGrew.”

      Then I ducked my head, and the lights went out, and two guns blazed in the dark,
      And a woman screamed, and the lights went up, and two men lay stiff and stark.
      Pitched on his head, and pumped full of lead, was Dangerous Dan McGrew,
      While the man from the creeks lay clutched to the breast of the lady that’s known as Lou.

      These are the simple facts of the case, and I guess I ought to know.
      They say that the stranger was crazed with “hooch,” and I’m not denying it’s so.
      I’m not so wise as the lawyer guys, but strictly between us two —
      The woman that kissed him and — pinched his poke — was the lady that’s known as Lou.

  • John A. Fleming May 7, 2023, 10:03 PM

    We might be getting to the inflection point between “slowly, and then all at once”.
    1. California is thinking it should pay hundreds of billions for reparations, but just welshed on a $28B debt to the Federals for unemployment insurance. So all the California businesses now have to pay higher unemployment insurance taxes.
    2. The Southern border invasion is about to start in earnest this next week with a complete loss of border integrity. The Feds are completely ignoring the Article 4 obligation to “… and [the United States] shall protect each of them [the States] against Invasion; …” What’s weird is the complete silence of the Nation’s Governors, who ought to get together and declare the U.S. Federal Government to be derelict in its duty, and call for the dissolution of the Legislature and Executive, and immediate elections with none of the current members being able to stand for re-election. It’s time to replace the 535 + 2. They have proven themselves to be unfit for office.
    2.5 And where’s all the money going to come from to absorb another 1+ million no-accounts, foreigners with no jobs and no prospects?
    3. The bank failures are becoming more frequent.
    4. Texas wants to start a Gold and Silver Depositary and issue digital banknotes.
    5. The military thinks it future lies in attracting “non-traditional” soldiers.
    6. Our munition stocks are being depleted, and our ships are rusting.
    7. The Feds are gearing up for an explosion of money-printing and debt.
    8. All the businesses think their role is to declare allegiance to DIE and ESG and perversion, instead of selling a product that people want and shut up about all that other stuff.
    9. And the people in the cities are spoiling for more race riots, while attempting to deny the right of self defense to the law-abiding.
    10. The Fraudulent thinks he doesn’t even have to campaign or create a campaign organization, that the election is already in the bag, and as many votes as are needed will be created.
    11. The mass-murdering crazies are becoming more bold and more frequent.

    It all doesn’t look good.

    • John A. Fleming May 8, 2023, 12:32 AM

      Oops, re #1: that’s $18.6B in welshed debt, not 28. And $800B for reparations. Seems like they are setting up a situation that could get out of hand. Sheesh, the air of unreality. Oh, what do they say? Just before the collapse, the last guys loot the Treasury and then get out of Dodge. Yeah, that’s it. Getting closer now.

    • ghostsniper May 8, 2023, 3:47 AM

      The 24 tomato and 24 bell pepper plants that were generated in the Aerogardens ( https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07CKNWHPQ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1 ) are going in the ground this morning if the rain holds off. My Craftsman garden tractor is supposed to be picked up for repair around noon, to have the governor replaced. The new 24″ pedestal shop fan will be delivered today so that there might be some comfort out there over the summer. And if the temp gets up to 75, and still no rain, the mutt is going to get a much needed scrub down.

      See, I really have no time for all the silliness that goes on outside our property lines because of all the real world stuff going on. Oh yeah, after supper tonight I’m going to get started on the flintlock pistol kit that I ordered a month ago.

      The children can keep playing their silly little games and us adults will do what we always have done.

      • Anonymous May 8, 2023, 3:39 PM

        1) Need to keep track of what the enemy is up to
        2) Make sure to save time for commenting herein

      • Anne May 8, 2023, 9:52 PM

        Is a garden tractor better than a UTV? I have a small hill to deal with, but most of the terrain is flat. Wondering if it would be easier to rent tools for the UTV (with a pin hitch) or just get the garden tractor and try to get up and down the trail? Would a Kubota tractor be less troublesome, or is there another brand maybe John Deere?

  • ThisIsNotNutella May 9, 2023, 2:35 AM

    As is my wont every year on May 9:

    Russia’s Victory Day parade 2023
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAhtGOjJ_FE

    A Serious Country. A Serious People.

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