Category: observations

First, a little background:

Dolchstoßlegende – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

The Dolchstoßlegende, (German “dagger-thrust legend,” often translated in English as “stab-in-the-back legend”) refers to a social mythos and persecution-propaganda theory popular among post-World War I Germany’s nationalists , which claimed that Germany’s defeat was attributable to German citizens who had sabotaged or otherwise ‘lacked dedication to’ the promoted cause for the war effort—ie. “to unify the German nation.”

Then, a look at the modern uses of this once obscure term.

As a lad, I learned that fires need three ingredients: fuel, air, and heat. Heat was the tricky one to get, but that’s what you take away when you throw water on a fire. The fuel and air supply are unchanged, after all.

2 big wildfires merge in S. California – Yahoo! News:

YUCCA VALLEY, Calif. – Thousands of firefighters aided by aircraft worked Friday in fierce heat to keep two big wildfires from gaining a foothold in the heavily populated San Bernardino Mountains, where millions of trees killed by drought and bark beetles could provide explosive fuel.

The lightning-caused fires, covering more than 95 square miles combined, merged Friday afternoon. Wildfires can grow more unpredictable after merging, but the two blazes were moving slowly Friday and U.S. Forest Service officials said it appeared that their combination was unlikely to seriously increase fire activity.

I look at that photo and without knowing anything about the retardants they use, I wonder if dropping CO2 — dry ice — would have any effect. Consider: it would cool the fire (at -109°F), if enough of it were used (and I assume it would be dropped in the heart of the hottest part) and when it sublimated to a gas, it would deprive the fire of oxygen.

Maybe not something you could use on a really large fire, but perhaps it could be used to protect homes or knock a small fire before it gets too large?

ads without products: wwiii +$78.35 = mission accomplished:

Well, we’re paying three bucks a gallon. ExxonMobil is collecting $3 a gallon. There’s a chapter called “Trillion-Dollar Babies.” When Bush came in, we had oil as low as $18 a barrel. It was like water. Bush has successfully built up the price of oil from 18 bucks a barrel to over $70 a barrel. That’s the “mission accomplished.” He didn’t make a mistake here. That’s the “mission accomplished.”

A complicated theory but just complicated enough to a. make sense and b. be too complex to relate in the 30 seconds allotted to headline news stories.

Now of course when the Middle East implodes with 100,000+ US troops stuck in Iraq, unable to leave and unavailable for other objectives, we could be in for some interesting times. From the simple act of ejecting the Taliban and liberating Afghanistan, the corps of ineptitude has managed to reopen hostilities between Israel and Lebanon, empower Iran, and embolden North Korea. Nice work.

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I refer to Mark Pilgrim, the widely-cited switcher who decided he’d rather switch than admit he doesn’t do backups.

Hawk Wings » Blog Archive » Mark Pilgrim and Mail.app’s “Save As…” function:

Mark Pilgrim, who recently switched from OS X to Linux, takes the opportunity to point out that this option doesn’t create a valid mbox. Rather, it is another example of Apple’s wicked addiction to proprietary file formats.

As I noted in my comments over at HawkWings:

Just to be sure I wasn’t as big a whiner as Pilgrim, I

saved a mailbox’s contents (select all->save as -> Raw Message Format),
downloaded Thunderbird
dropped the file I created (it looked like an mbox to me but I figured I’d see if the importer saw it that way) in Thunderbird’s Local Folders directory
and hey presto. It was all there.

I’m more convinced than ever that this whole ‘OS X sux! Linux roXXors!1!’ is just a way to gin up some traffic and rile up the fanboys.

Move on, nothing more to see here.

I think he’s smarter than that, but I’m open to suggestions otherwise. I think poor impulse control might be at work here.

The thread continues over there, as well.

A couple of persistent and annoying bits of spam I have been seeing lately: does anyone really think the US Treasury is going to send you email about a $63 refund? Since a. they have my postal address (as well as a lot of other information about me) but b. they don’t have an email address for me, this seems like it would never work. Which tell me someone is making out like a bandit.

And then we have this, which appears to be legitimate — the headers look right and the links go to where they should — but no less annoying. Does Blockbuster really think I will sign up for their service if they send spam emails to “Mary?”

Life’s little annoyances.

Glenn Greenwald plumbs the depths of the cesspit that is rightwing thought so you don’t have to, and surfaces with this:

The unelected, black-robed tyrants have a long history of not giving a fig about the Constitution if they don’t like what it says, not to mention a long tradition of usurping the powers of the legislative and executive branch by ruling by judicial fiat. . . .

Try doing anything to those mutilating darlings of the Supremes in order to extract life-saving intel from them, and then wait for the Supreme Whores to decide that you were “humiliating” them in doing so.

Five ropes, five robes, five trees.

Some assembly required.

So much for civility and high-mindedness.

Glenn notes that the site where this appears ranks as 42nd most-linked to but Technorati places it a good deal lower.
Continue reading “is calling for the lynching of Supreme Court Justices actionable?”

Add variety meats to your culinary repertoire:

Looking to add more variety meats to your culinary repertoire? Here’s a list of books dedicated to offal. I was thinking about this the other day as I read a recipe for tripe that sounded good. But then I thought, Do I really want the first tripe I ever eat to be prepared by me? Seems like something I should leave to an experienced offal chef, so as to ensure a not awful experience.

Reluctantly categorized under “food.”

Continue reading “is it coincidence that offal rhymes with awful?”

Meg found a grill that combines the best of gas and charcoal: “Seems ideal for those looking to balance the speed and ease of gas with the flavor of wood.”

oook blog: Otium: Gardner’s mot juste:

The fundamental sense of otium is

leisure, ease, peace
…and my Latin dictionary glosses otium as
leisure, free time, relaxation, freedom from public affairs, retirement, peace, quiet, ease, idleness, inactivity

[source]

I installed a newer version of the dd-wrt firmware and despite its pre-release status, it seems to work just fine. Port forwarding works (else you wouldn’t be reading this). And all the other features — like boosting the transmit power — are all there and working.

Now that I have successfully broken apart the webserving stuff from the household bandwidth usage, if the server needs to be rebuilt (it does) or craps out (it could), it won’t affect anything else.