Showing posts with label Question for the readers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Question for the readers. Show all posts

Monday, February 26, 2024

Lex Anteinternet: Drill sergeant shoots first perfect score at Army ...

Lex Anteinternet: Drill sergeant shoots first perfect score at Army ...:   Drill sergeant shoots first perfect score at Army marksman course

Why can't this be big news in The American Rifleman instead of how we need to all bow to the wishes of Donald Trump or how Stalingrad is going to break out at the Loaf and Jug? 

Thursday, February 8, 2024

When even the Kremlin corrects Carlson

Tucker Carlson claimed that "not a single Western journalist has bothered to interview Putin".

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov:  

Mr. Carlson is not correct. In fact, there’s no way he could know this. We receive numerous requests for interviews with the president, [...] 

Bigger question. Why are Trump and his minions such Putin fanboys? 

Wednesday, November 1, 2023

Lex Anteinternet: Some more Hamas Israeli War observations

Lex Anteinternet: Some more Hamas Israeli War observations: 1. What is "proportionality" in a war with an opponent that's genocidal? So what, exactly, is proportional to people who will ...

As a followup, it's interesting to note that victorious powers of the Second World War are still, nearly 80 years after it ended, occasionally prosecuting people who were young in the early 1940s who had some role with the death camps.  We don't worry about putting these people, now in their high 90s or even over 100, on trial even though it arguably serves no purpose whatsoever now.

Proportional?

Well, perhaps, given the monstrosity of the crime. 

Which leads us back to this, what is proportional to an entity that has committed horrors just as equally vile as that which the Nazis did in the 40s, and which would commit more?

Targeting civilians certainly isn't it, but how do you handle an enemy that hides among civilians, and has encouraged them to stay?

And yet again, what do you do if that population actually supports murder to a large degree, and right now, other than the insistence that they do not, there's not very good evidence that they don't.   They're still civilians, but how do you address that?

Tuesday, May 30, 2023

"How can you represent. . . "


Elk Mountain.

Every lawyer has been asked that question at some point.  Usually it's "how can you represent somebody you know is guilty?"

Usually, amongst lawyers, it's regarded as kind of an eye rolling "oh how naive" type of question.  For lawyers who have a philosophical or introspective bent, and I'd submit that's a distance minority, they may have an answer that's based on, basically, defending a system that defends us all.  Maybe they have something even more sophisticated, such as something along the lines of St. Thomas More's statement in A Man For All Seasons:

William Roper : So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!

Sir Thomas More : Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

William Roper : Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!

Sir Thomas More : Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!

That's about the best answer that there may be, and frankly the only one that applies to civil litigation.  We can console ourselves that in representing the interests of the potentially liable, we protect the interest of everyone.

But what about plaintiff's lawyers?

Frankly, the excuse is wearing thin.  

I.e., I don't believe it for a second.  It's all about cash.

And this is a real problem.

The question is what to do about it.

Well, frankly, the average person can't do much.  But you don't really have to accept it, either.

Shunning has a bad name in our culture.  Indeed, one English language European source states:

More specifically, shunning or ostracising is a form of abuse. It is discrimination and silent bullying. Unfortunately, often people who have been shunned also face other forms of abuse, ranging from death threats and physical assaults to murder.

And there's a lot of truth to that.

At the same time, it was and is something that is often practiced to varying degrees in religious communities.  Indeed, up until the revision of the Code of Canon Law in 1983, Catholic excommunications were of two types, vitandus and toleratus, with vitandus requiring the Faithful to cease all normal connections with the excommunicated.  It was very rare, but it could happen. Since 1983 that distinction does not exist.  Some Amish, however, still have such a practice, and they are not alone.

Realizing this is extreme, I also realize, as I've seen pointed out twice, that land locking rich magnates cannot do it without local help. They always hire somebody, I've heard them referred to as "goons" to be their enforcer, and when they need legal help, they hire a Wyoming licensed attorney.  Indeed, in this instance, remarkably, the plaintiff did not use a Denver attorney, which I thought they likely would have. 

And this has always been the case.  Wyoming Stock Growers Association stock detectives were sometimes enforcers back in the late 19th Century, and they were hired men.  In the trial of the Invaders, a local Cheyenne attorney was used, but then again, that was a criminal case, which I do feel differently about.

Elk Mountain is basically mid-way, and out of the way, between Laramie, Rawlins and Saratoga.  People working for Iron Bar Holdings have to go to one of those places for goods and services.  There's really no reason the excluded locals need to sell them anything.  Keep people off. . .drive to Colorado for services.

And on legal services?  I don't know the lawyers involved, so I'm unlikely to every run into them. But I'm not buying them lunch as we often do as a courtesy while on the road, and if I were a local rancher, and keep in mind that outfits like Iron Bar Holdings don't help local ranchers keep on keeping on, I'd tell that person, if they stopped in to ask to go fishing or hunting, to pound sand.

If this sounds extreme, and it actually is, this is what happened with some of the law firms representing Donald Trump in his effort to steal the election.  They backed out after partners in their firms basically, it seems, told Trump's lawyers to chose Trump or the firm.

And there are many other examples.  Lawyers bear no social costs at all for whom they represent in civil suits.  People who regard abortion as murder will sit right down with lawyers representing abortionists, people seeking a radical social change will hire lawyers to advance the change, and the lawyers fellows feel no pressure as a result of that at all.

Maybe they should.

Or is that view fundamentally wrong?

Friday, February 24, 2023

PFC Foley's boots.

This is a well known photograph of PFC Edward J. Foley, 143rd Infantry Regiment of the 36th  Infantry Division near Valletri, Italy, 29 May 1944.  It's an interesting photograph for a variety of reasons, including the number of M1903 Springfields it depicts.

In looking at it, I noticed something odd about Pvt. Foley's boots.  Note that everyone around him is wearing service shoes and leggings.  I figured he'd acquired a pair of paratrooper boots, but that's not what these are.



It looks like the top 3" or so of the boot are a separate leather piece, and they have speed lace hooks, rather than eyelets, in that portion.  They also don't have tapered heels, like paratrooper boots do.

Altered service shoes?


Monday, September 19, 2022

Is this Blog Slow To Load?


Please let me know if you stop in here, if this blog is unusually slow to load.

If so, I may need to make some features adjustments.

Friday, August 26, 2022

A Hundred Years Ago: 1922 Directions for Cooking Hot Breakfast Cereals

My goodness, check out these times:

1922 Directions for Cooking Hot Breakfast Cereals

Thirty minutes for rolled oats?

And I frankly don't know what the preparation methods for some of these cereals are.  Cornmeal?  Is that boiled cornmeal?  Cracked wheat, is that boiled?

Wednesday, January 26, 2022

Flavor of the weather?

Why would a major east coast storm have "an American model" and "a European model"?

Heard on the Today Show's weather report as I headed out the door, just as they were synthesizing the models.

Wednesday, August 4, 2021

"Do you personally know anyone who has had COVID 19?"

So reads an item that's constantly popping up on my Facebook feed right now.

I don't know the original source, but I suspect, without knowing for sure, that this started off as one of those Covid denial things you see around.  I.e., not that many people "really get it" or "it's not that bad".

I replied the first time, as I know the person who was circulating it.  I haven't to the several ones I've seen since then.

But yes, I know a lot of people who have had COVID 19.  I started counting it up in my mind and then simply stopped when I could think of twenty people I know who've had the infection.

Indeed, I know people who had it the very first month that it became a news story and hardly a month has gone by where I haven't learned of somebody else who has had it or, has it.

Offhand, I can think of two people I know who died of it, and one of them definitely didn't die a good death.  That, moreover, was brought about due to a situation in which one person insisted the other come to his office, which was the one time the person broke a self-imposed quarantine.  He died on a ventilator.

I know another whom I suspect had COVID 19 playing a role in his untimely death, due to the impacts it has one some people who get it. And I know another whom I suspect has been severely physically impaired by the disease. 

I got vaccinated as soon as I was able to and all of my family did as well.  But I know people who haven't.  They all have their own reasons for that.  But we're entering a very new phase of this.  The Delta variant is as infections as the chicken pox and the Lambda variant, which just broke out in South America, appears to be more able to break through.  

This virus isn't following the normal path.  Normally, virus evolve towards being less lethal.  We're not seeing that.

Does anyone really know somebody who hasn't had the disease?  I doubt it.

The bigger question may be does anyone out there not know somebody who died?

Friday, June 18, 2021

Friday, April 30, 2021

A question for writers of fiction.

If you are a fiction writer, by which I mean novels, how many significant, or central, characters do you feel is the limit for a novel, assuming you feel there is a limit?


To Kill A Mockingbird, by my recollection, has basically five.  The Killer Angels, on the other hand, has at least seven and probably more like ten, if I recall correctly.  War And Peace has enough of such characters such that keeping them all in mind is a bit difficult, even though it is, in my view, the greatest work of fiction ever written.  The small Irish classic Durango has seven or eight.  McMurtry's magnum opus Lonesome Dove is centered on two, but they interact with a bare minimum of eleven other significant characters, and at least that many minor ones.

Thoughs?

Sunday, January 17, 2021

Something we said in 2016:

We ran a long election post mortem in 2016. . .nothing like for the 2020 Election cycle of course, but pretty long, here:
Lex Anteinternet: The 2016 Election: I didn't see that coming. . . like all of the rest of the pundits. It's been a wild election year. Yesterday, Donald Trum...

One things, of many, we said there:

The voters who revolted are, no doubt, going to be accused of being racist.  But to desire the America they grew up in, which was more Christian, more employed, and more rural, doesn't make them that way.  The Democrats have been offering them Greenwich Village, the Republicans the Houston suburbs.  It turns out they like the old Port Arthur, Kansas City or Lincoln Nebraska better, and want to go back. That's not irrational.

 
Port Arthur Texas.  I listed to people discuss the upcoming election two weeks ago at the Port Arthur Starbucks and thought they'd really be surprised when Clinton was elected. Turns out, they were much more on the mark than I was.  And it turns out that people in Port Arthur like Port Arthur the way it was twenty or thirty years ago, and they don't like a lot of big, hip trendy urban areas that they're supposed to.

Will Trump be able to do that?

Well, any way you look at it, it's going to be an interesting four years.

Trump will have to act on his populist world view.  I'm certain that it will be only momentarily before the pundits will start opining about how Trump, now that he is the President Elect, will moderate his views, etc., but there is no reason whatsoever to believe that. So far, his entire behavior has been true to what appears to be his basic character. We can anticipate that he will continue to act that way. And an electorate that, essentially, voted to rip everything down wants it down.  I suspect, therefore, that's what we will get.

I also, quite frankly don't think that this is universally bad. As noted, I never supported Trump, and I did not vote for him yesterday.  I'm in the camp so disgusted by both political parties and their candidates that I could not bring myself to hold my note and vote like so many others did. But I do think that Trump will listen to the blue collar element of American society, and somebody needs to.  I do not think that this segment, which knows its being forced out of work by a combination of forces that are not of its own making, but which are more than a little the fault of policies favoring the wealthy, will be quiet.  Clinton would not really have done anything for those people other than to lament their status, Trump will have to do something.  And I also think that Trump will actually nominate justices to the Supreme Court who do not feel compelled to stick to it, such as Justice Anthony Kennedy or who have a social agenda that colors and informs their decisions.  Justices who decide the law are needed on the Court and I think they'll actually be appointed.

Did I get it right?

Wednesday, December 9, 2020

Am I the only one who finds Korean boy bands to be super creepy?

As in really creepy?

Frankly, I find Korean girl bands to be pretty creepy also.  

The other day an issue of People was laying around and I thumbed through it and found an article on a Korean K Pop girl band.  Really creepy. They're obviously the Bubble Gum of their day in a decade people will look back on them laughingly, with their assembled personalities and westernized pink hair, etc.  Indeed, people will probably find them uncomfortable.

But the boy bands?  Really creepy.

Thursday, November 12, 2020

Sunday, August 2, 2020

Cooking Stoves in the 1910s

So, following up on this item:
Lex Anteinternet: Blog Mirror/ A Hundred Years Ago: 1920 Direction...: Nice coal burning stove.  This highly modern AGA stove wasn't introduced until 1922 and they're still being made. This is just ...
In the 1910-1920 time frame what would have been the most common fuel for cooking stoves?

My guess is wood, but until the other day, I hadn't contemplated coal fire cook stoves even existing.

Looking into this, I found an interesting article on this on a site called On Line Old House.  Another interesting one appears here, in an article called Foodways in 1910.  Both articles make similiar points, but this one noted:

Coal became more and more popular through the 19th century as railroads brought it from distant mines and as forests near cities were cut down. By 1900 it had replaced wood as the main source of home energy. More and more, the household was becoming dependent on spending money in the market rather than upon family members’ labor. People switched to coal because it took less work than wood. It was a more concentrated energy source, so less of it needed to be hauled. Also, it burned longer and more evenly. Cooking was easier and tending the fire took less time.

Yet another interesting article appears here, noting how technologically advanced stoves were actually becoming, and some were supposedly capable of burning gas, coal or wood.  And, by that time, electric stoves had appeared.  On the same site, another article appears, that notes:

The typical cookstove in the 1880s was cast iron or steel and “was a wood- or coal-burning monstrosity” (Cohen, 1982, p. 19). The typical urban house in the 1880s used a coal-burning stove, although it might have had a gas range if it was very modern (Cohen, 1982, p. 5). In the 1890s, housewives across America most likely continued to cook on a coal or wood-burning stove (Cowan, 1983, p. 155). Cooks brought in wood or coal, fed the fuel into the stove by hand, and had to carry ashes away, which made it hard to keep the kitchen clean. Temperatures were hard to regulate (Cohen, 1982, pp. 19-21). During the nineteenth century, coal became more popular than wood because of availability and price, and the fact that coal was a more concentrated fuel that burned longer (Strasser, 1983, pp. 40-41).

All of this is really a surprise to me as I've simply never thought of coal as being a primary cooking fuel.  Apparently in urban areas it was.

Yet I still feel like I'm missing part of the picture here for some reason.

So, if a person lived in the Rocky Mountain West in 1910-20, would they have been firing their stoves with wood, or coal, to heat up that pot of coffee in the morning.