Replies

Just cleaned up a few overlooked duplicates, and plan to dump a bunch of these links soon.

Add this page to your FreeRepublic bookmarks (thanks Swordmaker)

America:

Astronomy:

Blogs:

Catastrophism:

Civ:

Civil War:

Climate:

Cryptobiology:

Election 1964:

Democratic Debacle -- 1964 convention, repercussions today (I started it)

Election 2000:

Roger Ebert on the 2000 Election (I started it)

Election 2004:

RatherGate and the corrupt Kerry campaign

Election 2006:

Mandy Grunwald’s Involvement in Rove/Plame Controversy (Vanity)

Election 2008:

Energy:

Europe:

Malta raises alarm over illegal immigration (I started it)

Fiction:

FReepers:

Genes:

GGG:

Health:

Resources:

Help:

Islam:

Keyword:

Mac:

Magazines:

American Spectator, from R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.

Obit:

John Mack 1929-2004

Personals:

Philosophy:

Physics:

Ping Lists:

Politics:

Space:

Technology:

UFOs:

Unclassified:


	Wednesday June 20 2007	That hit counter works nicely. It started at 1958, and is up to 1995. And I've only been in here to use a link a few times. Anyway, I plan to keep off FR as much as practical, because this is the summer, and the summer is my favorite time. You know those people who say they'd miss the changing of the seasons? I hate all those people. Thanks for all the recent FReepmail. There's been a lot of it from unexpected sources. Thanks also for all the great topics you've pinged me to, GGG or otherwise. I've found that, to find out if something has been posted, it requires A) a Google search, B) an FR search, and C) a browse on various keyword choices. A fourth method, which I'll call D), involves waiting for someone to post a reply with a pointer to the earlier topic on the same thing. Tomorrow is the longest day, also known as the summer solstice, also known as the first day of summer, also known as midsummer's day. Friday, July 6 will be aphelion day, when the Earth is furthest from the Sun. Earth is closest to the Sun on Jan 3rd, that's known as perihelion. Personally, I always have to look up those terms to keep 'em straight.


	Saturday June 23 2007	Since the 15th, my My Amazon reviewer rank has risen to 1284. Thanks to all for the help, and keep it comin'. The longest day has gone by, which means, alas, that the days are again growing shorter. Summer is my time of the year. So, why am I sitting here? I'm going offline now, and headed to some friends' house. [...some time passes...] I had a good time. We stuffed our faces, then took a nice long nature walk, then watched some show called "America Has Talent", which turned out to be true sometimes.


	Wednesday June 27 2007	Almost a year ago (Monday, July 3, 2006) I made a moderately angry (one little F-bomb), non-public complaint about some Jew-hating bastard's post from some time back (found it while searching for something else), which had never been deleted (and was a non-sequitur in the thread), and got bounced within a few minutes. That was my first (so far, only) suspension, and it gave me three days off, just in time for the Independence Day holiday. The mod added, "Have a Happy 4th" which was much appreciated (seriously). I still have only one FR id, have only had one, and plan to keep it all that way. :') Since the 23rd, my My Amazon reviewer rank has slid to 1287. Thanks to all for the help so far, but I'll be needing more. My hit counter for this page has reached 2029. I plan to try swimming in the Big Lake tomorrow. Temps look good.


	Thursday June 28 2007	Since yesterday, my My Amazon reviewer rank has risen to 1286. That's one more favorable vote. More, more, I'm still not satisfied! The hit counter here has reached 2040. It cooled off a little from time to time yesterday. I prefer hot weather, and we get very little of it, really. The worst part of course is how everyone always says they don't mind the heat, but can't stand the humidity. If that isn't the world's most oft-repeated cliche', I'd be very surprised. Anyway, I haven't made it to Lake Michigan., and I'd imagine I won't be doing it today. There is an outside chance, however. I really need to do some yard work, but hey, if God didn't want 'em to grow that tall, he wouldn't have made 'em that way. On Tuesday the 26th I edited a small bit of a Wikipedia entry, "Magnetic field reversals". My only previous foray into Wikipedia editing was back in March, regarding the Menkaure coffin/sarcophagus.


	Tuesday July 3 2007	Since the 28th, my My Amazon reviewer rank had fallen to 1288, then to 1291, but someone unknown to me has come through and in a matter of a couple of days, well, since yesterday, has pushed me up to 1272! Many thanks, only 273 yes votes to go. ;') The hit counter on this page (as of yesterday) had hit 2079, and actually I think it's in the 2080s. Yes, it's 2088. Meanwhile, Lake Michigan fell into the 50s, then rose a bit into the low 60s. When I checked yesterday the latest sat image was from 7-1. I've spiffed up the citations in that little paragraph I've re-edited on Wikipedia, "Magnetic field reversals". To do this I searched for and found more than just information (which was cryptic anyway), I found something called a Reference Generator, one of Magnus' toys (it says). Anyway, though brief, my edit looks nice. It's almost as if I have a life. Today is the 144th anniversary of Pickett's Charge, a sort of midpoint as well as turning point of the Civil War. It was Lee's great error, and Meade's finest hour. Meade was a counterpuncher and definitely had the right idea. Lee had pretty much the best matchup he was ever to have, but made a boneheaded mistake from which his army never recovered. The next day the Confederate garrison at Vicksburg surrendered, and didn't celebrate the 4th again until the 1940s. "That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." Abraham Lincoln Gettysburg, Nov. 19, 1863. Ordinarily I'd go to a July 4th party at the home of some friends of friends (and they've got a pool, and I've bought a new suit appropriate for this whole Mister Potatohead physique I'm workin' on at age 49). I have not, alas, been invited. I have the day off, and need to do some stuff around the house. And, as that line I stole from Night Court goes, "and the Elephant Man had a little puffiness around the eyes." I hope everyone (even Dhimmicrats) have a great 4th of July, and I hope our armed forces put bin Laden's head on a pole -- anytime would be fine, but tomorrow would be a great time to have that happen. God bless our troops, and God bless the United States of America.


	Wednesday July 4 2007	Corrected the entry for the 3rd, said "yesterday" instead of "June 28". Also removed a double BR which I had following a close blockquote, also in yesterday's entry. I too suffer from cranial-rectal inversion syndrome, a.k.a. CRIS. Happy 4th of July! Still doing nothing but being online, although I did go to two stores, and ran a quick errand. I also plan to take a long walk a bit later. It rained for a few hours, beginning late last night, but for some reason I couldn't get to sleep -- not a usual problem -- and watched "The Big Easy" for the first time in a long while. This morning I watched about 45 minutes of "Ben Hur" -- the part I usually watch, which begins with Heston's captivity and "death march", through his adoption by Jack's character. It isn't my favorite movie, but oh, the sets, the costuming, the battle scene, the chariot race, and of course, the denouement. Today at Sam's Club I succumbed to the temptation of an under-$18 copy of Seasons 1 and 2 of "Seinfeld".


	Friday July 6 2007	My Amazon reviewer rank had risen to 1272, thanks to the efforts of parties unknown. As of this moment it has fallen back to 1273, but as I'm sure the efforts will continue -- as will my gratitude -- the number will continue to rise. I've got about five reviews I wish to write, plus I'm still reading, uh, three or four other books. My reading of actual books falls off once in a while, and has really taken a pounding since I was led here to FR. I've polished off the box set of "Seinfeld" and enjoyed it more than I feared I might. I still hate that before-and-after monologue, and am grateful that the episodes have bands so I can skip over those. Jerry Seinfeld, whatever his merits, is not a funny comic -- at least, not the snips concocted for the shows. Eventually this was figured out and the monologues weren't used after, hmm, I think, season five. I hate passing on rumors, but I read someplace that JS was offered $10 million an episode by NBC if he would agree to a tenth season. And he turned it down. I remember the night of the finale -- I was picking up a pizza on the north end of this city, and the neighborhood was quiet. There were no cars on the street. The nearby US-131 was quiet, literally no cars on it. Ironically, the finale was, overall, one of the weakest episodes. Another review I want to write is for this six month old combo DVD-VHS deck. I really hate this thing, in large part because of the @#$%^y remote control. There's no zoom, there's no separate FF/RW buttons (just track skip buttons, which are supposed to turn into FF/RW if I hold them down just right). Imbecilic. I'm going to return to using the old (1990s) Toshiba deck which has the remote control almost the same size as the entire new DVD-VHS deck. So much for the brilliant engineering at Samsung. I'd say that I'll never buy another Samsung product, but I know how gullible I am when faced with A) just the correct mix of needed features and B) a low price. I got this deck at Sam's Club, and it was cheap, and had this supposedly great brand name. I've experienced mixed success with cheap DVD-only decks (y'know, the $20 ones), and don't want to waste any more money when I can just use the good old reliable Toshiba. The only complaint I've ever had with that one is that it won't play burned disks (or at least, it won't play most burned disks) such as anthology CDs that I make under the Fair Use Doctrine. But I can live with that problem.


	Monday July 9 2007	After falling to 1274, my Amazon reviewer rank has risen to 1271, thanks to the efforts of a party or parties unknown. Many thanks! This page counter has reached 2137, nearly 200 hits since installation. Syria pushed into Lebanon around a main ingress point at their border, and has told all Syrian nationals to leave Lebanon. By this time next week it appears the next round of the decades-long Lebanese civil war will begin. Some terrorists were kicked out of one of the squatter slums euphemistically known as "Palestinian refugee camps", as the legitimate government of independent Lebanon has been trying to crack down on lawlessness, paramilitary forces, and sovereignty-killing foreign agents working for Syria and Iran. I'll make a guess that the UN will finally do something substantial about Iran, perhaps imposing an embargo on gasoline, which Iran can't make enough of for its own use. Of course, the UN may just scratch its ass and then smell its finger, which is what it usually does. Putin has been trying to put the USSR back together, has been selling advanced fighters, kalishnikov factories, and now submarines to Venezuela. He does this because he is the enemy of the United States, and by going along with it, Russia has joined him in that category. When the UN gets around to debating about this coming war in Lebanon, Russia will oppose any kind of action that hurts Iran, one of its nuclear technology customers. To defeat al-Qaeda, we should make them an offer -- either we kill you, or you turn yourself in and we send you off to Chechnya and give you a new gun. Lake Michigan has reached the 60s, but I'm not going to drive forty miles to find out that it's too cold to swim. It feels like it feels like it's in the 90s here, the thermometer says it's 81. I think I'll take a walk in a few minutes.


	Tuesday July 10 2007	The festivities in the terrorists' war against humanity and civilization will be found in the following keywords: · Lebanon · Pakistan · Somalia · Sudan · Syria · My Amazon reviewer rank remains at 1271. Many thanks! This page counter has reached 2151, nearly 200 hits since installation. I'll probably tone down the page counter coverage after this. ;')


	Thursday July 12 2007 1267 2162	Additional keywords: · Afghanistan · Iraq · Iran · Israel · Turkey · Starting now, I'm going to track my Amazon reviewer rank and the hit counter in blog entry date column.


	Friday the 13th July 2007 1268 2166	While at Best Buy yesterday I grabbed a freebie -- a Showtime sampler which has the first two episodes of "The Tudors", a really smutty and violent dramatization of that English dynasty, beginning with Henry VIII et al (the first Tudor was Henry VII, a sneaky bastard, usurper, and murderer, but he was twice as sporty as the Fordors. Old joke.). I watched both episodes, and I liked 'em. I'm not going to get cable though. New subject -- don't get me wrong, I've been using Apple products since the mid-1980s. But I've also seen the so-called fanboy attitude in action, such as when Mac OS X wouldn't allow me to delete a certain file which I'd just installed myself. It wouldn't let me do it from Root. It wouldn't delete, even using a number of different utilities recommended by various devotees. I finally was successful by moving the file to the OS 9 Trash folder from the OS X side, then booting back into OS 9, and emptied the Trash. The method just described won't work on newer versions because OS 9 only runs as an environment (or not at all, I suspect, in the newest versions, particularly not in the Intel version of OS X). Before I figured that out, when I sought help, what I got more than half the time was the accusation that I'd done something wrong (I moved a file to the Trash, oh, no, call the Inquisition!), or that something must be wrong with the machine and I should get it serviced. The possibility that the OS had a problem was steadfastly denied. Yet the problem was real enough and commonplace enough to warrant a specific help page on the Apple website. It seems to me that the only American entity which has more apologists than Apple, Inc. is Robert E. Lee. Oh, by the way, get an Apple. I've got three Macs here, along with a couple of Apple IIgs systems. · Macintosh / Apple blog · This file has reached 80K, which is small by modern standards -- I came of cyber-age back when 300 baud modems were backwardly compatible with 110 baud -- so I'm considering retiring the older entries which were ad hoc when I made up this blog-style format. My Amazon reviewer rank is the top number on the left (currently 1268) and the hit counter is the other one. :')


	Wednesday July 18 2007 1271 2185	The many (at least 21) fragments of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 began to rain down on Jupiter on July 16, 1994. Happy anniversary, or whatever. Here's the Levy homepage. Thanks and welcome to all who have joined the various ping lists I manage or co-manage. My Amazon reviewer rank has been sitting at 1271 for a little while. That's an improvement over "steadily falling". Thanks for voting. I fixed a little typo in the Friday the 13th entry, and changed its date header to be drolly amusing. Also, I did a search/replace on all links on this page which point to FR locations, just to reduce the size and speed loading. Some internal links open in new windows (or tabs, if you're using a decent browser, and tabs in the background if you're using a very decent one), some don't. Oh, and this is the third draft of this entry, so you may have missed really important changes. Ha! We've made it a whole week without an uptick in the Lebanese civil war. I should have known that it would take the Syrians more than a week to get mobilized. I think the Hizzies, the mullahcracy in Iran, and Syria are going to find out they don't have a French doormat after all, with Nicolas Sarkozy as the president of France. Lebanon will still be a great big mess for a while, IOW, nothing much new. Until Lebanon starts bulldozing these terrorist camps (there are no Palestinian "refugees", merely ethnically undifferentiated Arab squatters), they can expect more of the same as has been going on for two months. Looks like Senator John McCain is just about out of the race for the Republican nomination. Frankly, I'd be pretty surprised if he suddenly went independent and continued to run for the presidency, not least because he'd have difficulty finding competent people who could run the campaign and be willing to work for him. The only likely candidate IMHO would be James Carville, whose earlier career was as a photo double in the original version of "The Hills Have Eyes". Back in November, a few weeks after the election, a left wing blogger wrote that "Carville wants Dean out and suggests replacing him with 'bible-thumping' Harold Ford." Confuse, mystify, evade, divide, conquer, oh, and lie, cheat, steal, etc etc. McCain would still caucus with the Pubbies (seems awfully easy lately, eh John?), of course, but he and Lieberman could join forces for a White House run, were it not for the fact that Lieberman has already run as second fiddle on the ticket, and McCain wouldn't want to run for VP. Also I think Lieberman is quite a bit more stable than McCain, and last but not least, they aren't very much alike from a political standpoint, even though both parties have a broad spectrum of different political views. That happens around FreeRepublic as well, sometimes not in a good way (preemptive Zot! message to all newbie troll topics).


	Saturday July 21 2007 1273 2204	I'm about to work on the first issue of the fourth year of the GGG Digest. Lake Michigan turns out to be a bit too cold yet for my taste, but being the man in demand, I've got stuff to do with actual people this weekend. Trappings of an actual life! Odds were low, but it's working out. Yesterday, a young woman, who in another context might have been somewhat attractive, wondered how old I was, and then suggested I date her mother, who is a year younger than me. Thattagirl. Since Wednesday My Amazon reviewer rank has declined two spots to 1273. Oh, and by the way...


	Monday July 23 2007 1274 2229	Yesterday Renfield posted one of the hottest off the mark GGG topics ever. I'd probably be consumed with jealousy, but then norton posted this reply and made it all better. :') Many thanks to Renfield and to Norton, and to all who have contributed to that thread, or will in the future. This got a few laughs today. The July 22nd Digest issue was late, because I wound up having plans Saturday evening, and also wound up getting a free, older, 500 Mhz, G4 tower with keyboard, mouse, and Sony monitor. Earlier in the week I had dinner with some cousins I'd not seen in years. I wound up having to work Sunday night, which sucked a bit, but I'm making up for it by loafing more than usual today. Actually, I guess that's not really possible. Peter Weller hosts Engineering an Empire from The History Channel, and I've watched it multiple times since getting it a week or so ago. It's a kick, Weller was a great choice, and although the various episodes (12 of them) aren't arranged chronologically, it all rolls along nicely, with very little PC BS. I plan to Amazon review it soon. Since Saturday My Amazon reviewer rank has declined to 1274.


	Monday July 23 2007 1274 2234	I forgot to mention that I'd changed a few target tags on this page, not a big deal. But in between checking the hit counter value while writing the first 23rd entry and getting it posted, the value had gone up by five. :')


	Thursday July 26 2007 1275 2250	Sarcasm alert. Apple's finished. They've been at death's door since MicroSoft bailed them out years ago. Steve Jobs is going to prison for backdating corporate documents. The only reason viruses haven't hit yet is because there were only a few thousand Macs in use until recently. Mac OS security is terrible and getting worse, and Macs lock up and can't be restarted. Greenpeace has proved that Apple is completely responsible for all high tech landfill and 78% of last year’s global warming, as well as the upcoming ice age, because Al Gore is on the Apple board. Last but not least, Mac fanboys are all gay Democrat hairdressers who hire illegal alien doctors to perform late term abortions with implements made in China and tainted with dangerous chemicals. [1 and 2, thanks Swordmaker for the necessary additions]


	Monday July 30 2007 1277 2287	My hearty thanks go to at least two FReepers who have sent me FReepmail (ever feel like you've awakened in the Kingdom of the Smurfs?) regarding stuff they'd read here in my pseudo-blog profile. That was unexpected. For that matter, my curiousity led me to put in a hit counter not long ago, and it's gone up by over three hundred already. That was surprising. This past week I noticed more ugliness on FR than I had in a long time. Someone returned to FR (by their own account) after a few years, and signed up again under a different ID. They then complained to me that posts had to be previewed -- a reference I believe to the editor, which gives you a preview of the post before you click "Post" -- and meanwhile referred to GGG manager, Blam as a "rapist of historical truth". While I'm bemoaning things, let me return to one of my personal least-favorites -- to all those who have posted public excoriations for my having used Comic Sans MS font (see the March 6, 2006 entry here), consider that there have been great advances in psychoactive medication. Same advice goes out to that [characterization deleted] who used to be around who not only complained about the font (and wasn't on any ping list that I keep), but also kept sending FReepmail and public posts to me complaining about my "harassment" of him (her?). I remember one post by that [different characterization deleted], asking in an open thread how to make the <BLINK> code stop blinking in his (her?) browser. In open answer, I'd suggest selling your computer and concentrating on Sudoku. There's also Wordoku now, which uses letters -- but at least they don't <BLINK>. As I noted here on November 16, 2006, I don't care to hear about how the use of B.C.E. and C.E. are evil. It's been done, okay? The same goes for the frequent idiocy -- used ironically and mockingly by DCers -- that the world is only 6,000 years old or whatever. Knock it the hell off! At least the much more frequent appearance of Helen Thomas pics is done with some elan and dash, and is drolly amusing. Reference Romeo and Juliet, III, i, 94. Al-Qaeda has suffered more hits recently than Elvis enjoyed in his heyday. I just like to picture what's left of a turban unreeling upward faster than a roll of Charmin pitched at the home of some victim of teenaged pranks. Hey, that's almost a Dennis Miller. I found that I'd missed a topic about an allegation from a Likud MP that Egypt was going to abrogate its treaty with, and was scheming to bring on a massive, multi-national attack on, Israel. My nonstop interest in the arts was satisfied this weekend by the viewing of a couple of John Wayne flicks, "Hellfighters" (on VHS, yuck) and "True Grit": Ned Pepper: I call that bold talk for a one-eyed fat man! Marshall Rooster Cogburn: Fill your hand, you son of a bitch! That's one of those I've always wanted to use in some situation or other, and have never got the chance. Instead, I'd probably say, "Try to enjoy Hell, bin Laden." And then kick out the trapdoor. But I get like that sometimes. I just changed a bunch of "target" tags in links on this page so they are more consistent with, uh, each other, and fixed a couple of typos in this entry. My Amazon rank has fallen another two spots. I guess you just don't love me anymore. ;')


	Tuesday July 31 2007 1279 2302	I've watched side one of Gettysburg this morning. Technically, I didn't watch most of it, just put it on to play while I was doing other things (mostly surfing). I went back in for the Little Round Top reenactment. I'll probably do something similar with side two and the Pickett's Charge reenactment. It's pretty sad when a few thousand extras who have as a hobby Civil War reenactments do a better acting job than 90+ per cent of the professionals involved onscreen. So far during July 21 people have joined the Gods, Graves, Glyphs ping list, and only one member that I know of has left (same day, and banned from FR not long thereafter). I also had two new members for the Catastrophism ping list, and one who took a break for now. I did a bit more housekeeping on this page, revising the "target" tags for some of the links, and editing a few URLs. Links to FR pages seem to load faster when they're subdomain (or whatever it's called), and I'm all for that. My Amazon rank has fallen yet another two spots.


	Thursday August 2 2007 1281 2320	If The Bush Administration Lied About WMD, So Did These People by John Hawkins, can still be found on the Right Wing News site. Germany and John Edwards -- along with a host of op-ed writers, including one for a monumentally important newspaper in Barbados -- are dead set against further US arms sales, specifically to Saudi Arabia. So, there must be something good about it. The Germans are worried about US inroads into another of their markets (since Iraq is no longer in the picture), and Saudi Arabia hasn't wound up with more weapons than population for just no reason. Silky Pony is running for President (or so he claims). On another FReeper's links page I found a link to a link to a link for a sound file (3.2mb, mp3, speeded up tenfold) recorded underwater of the Indonesian Quake which caused that tsunami that killed 100s of 1000s of people a few years ago. Listed as "Eerie", I found it a little bit on the boring side. Not to make light of such a disaster, this recording, looped, could make a nice "environments" type background. I watched the rest of Gettysburg, or at least played it while I was in the house. Melodrama sums it up nicely. The next night I put on Eating Raoul. Last night I put in The Spartans and konked out ten minutes into it. Last week I picked up garlic tablets. On the 25th, Scythian recommended a garlic extract, and while at the wholesale club for other things I hunted down what they had. The only thing I've noticed is the faint taste of garlic a while after popping the capsule. I may head over to the health food store to look for the specific brand. Yesterday Starter used the phrase Fortean Republic, which would make a great ping list name. But I'm not going to do it. Four is my limit. Well, four and a half. This is the second version of this entry, the first one didn't have the specific garlic links. :') Also, as usual, I haven't changed my tagline to reflect the revision date, and have posted once. Whoops, make that twice. And now we're up to the third revision of this entry, I screwed up the hit counter change and put in on the previous day. [blush] This page is getting unwieldy, so the plan is to offload / archive entries / versions in a blogger topic, and link to that. I figure that once a month should do it. Have a great August, everyone.


	Monday August 6 2007 1281 2367	I know some people actually read this, and dynachrome actually admitted it in public. That's never a good idea. ;') On the 3rd I corrected a typo in the July 31st entry, where I'd said my Amazon rank had fallen yet another four spots. It was only two spots. Of course, that just points up the fact that no one votes "helpful" on my reviews with any regularity. And my whining here hasn't been particularly effective. If you think that means I'm going to stop, forget it. The Internet Archive Wayback Machine pays close attention to my profile here. It's kinda sweet, really. :') Yes, I'm an attention whore. That'll be $20. Feel free to use PayPal.