winsor

My main objection to rainbow canopies is the difference in permeability between the colors. It doesn't make as much difference on a 282 sf. 7 cell, but the higher the performance the more you want your flight characteristics to be symmetrical.

FWIW, 'agenda' are plural. So are 'data.'

The album cover came from before the rainbow was synonymous with 'pride.' I can understand why someone whose only exposure to rainbow flags was connected to taking a stance regarding sexual preference might assume that that was the message. Similarly, any previous definitions of 'gay' have been eclipsed by its current usage. I can understand why someone might recoil at the prospect of buying a ticket to a concert and finding themselves being 'educated' in one way or another - whether they agree with the position or not (or care one way or another, for that matter). As Frank Zappa put it, "Shut up 'n play yer guitar." BSBD, Winsor

My abiding reaction to "Q" is that its narrative is remarkably similar to the practice of recreational rumormongering. When on Red Alert, when we were recalled to base, given a series of inoculations, drew weapons and live ammunition and headed to C141s, everyone wanted to know quite what the hell was going on. I only knew what I read in the papers, but was asked what I had heard with my (nonexistent) inside knowledge as a contributor to Stars and Stripes. I'd start off with "look, I really don't want to get in trouble..." and let them 'pry it out of me.' "I was bringing coffee to the Staff Officer meeting, and overheard the Major say...," and spin some combination of flashpoint issues of the day into a skeletal scenario including 'the usual suspects.' I'd then look at my watch to time how long it would take before my narrative came back to me fully embellished, coming from the 'highest authority'. Though I was often reasonably close in my guesses, the story that returned carried my earmarks. What little I know of Q sounds just like someone who assembled a narrative for their own amusement, passing it off to the credulous. From being around spooks on and off throughout my life, I don't take much of anything about their narratives at face value. Some of it is spot on, some of it is sort of close, and some of it is made up of whole cloth. FWIW, John le Carre and Graham Greene were on the job for their whole careers. Anyone who took the 'Q' narrative at face value is, well, the epithet escapes me. Naive? Credulous? A complete idiot? I dunno. There's the story of the guy who came home from his girlfriend, putting chalk on his hands and using whiskey as perfume. To his wife's query regarding his whereabouts, he responded, "uh, with another woman?" She looked him over and said "don't tell me that, you've been out with the guys drinking and shooting pool all night. You can't fool me!" Similarly, if any of the sources claiming to be "Q" actually have inside information, it certainly isn't what is published by them. BSBD, Winsor

I say pardon him. This simply isn't important enough to inflict President Harris on us.

Sounds like a PA to me.

Maybe if he was to choke on a chicken bone, he could be misremembered in a manner beneficial to all. One can only hope.

Gen'l Curtis LeMay's stated intent was to reduce Japan's population 'by half.' If that goal wasn't achieved, it wasn't for the lack of trying.

Kinda bouncing around countries observing rather a broad range of holiday traditions at the moment. Vietnamese Christmas carols aren't as obnoxious as those in the US, with nobody exhorting one to purchase a new Mercedes Benz for the event. Australia does have significant seasonal marketing. Hanukkah is a minor holiday and treated as such in Israel. There's not as much competition with Northern Yule traditions. Having read the news about how ghastly the weather has been stateside (have family in Buffalo), I hope everyone is staying warm and safe through the season. Happy Festivus to all!

It's unfortunate that one effective way to discredit a stance is to have a clueless spokesman support it. Having bushy-tailed, bright-eyed youngsters convinced they are going to "save the planet," tends to dilute the work of people who actually have any idea about the fundamentals involved. Nitwits discussing the radiation heat transfer characteristics of the planet as though it was some kind of holistic exercise is painful to watch. One problem regarding the 'Climate Change' movement is that it has all the trappings of a religion. It is founded on beliefs ('the science is settled...'), is singularly intolerant of heresy ('deniers!') and cherry picks the 'data' used to support its system of belief. When someone comes up with claims of 'cold fusion,' 'perpetual motion' or whatever, physicists typically evaluate the claims using dispassionate challenges before rejecting the claims as unfounded. With 'Climate Change,' anyone who questions much of anything about it is labeled a 'troll' immediately, subject to scorn and abuse. P.A.s that would be be cause for being banned on much of any other topic are not only accepted but put forth by 'moderators.' When I run the numbers it appears that 'Climate Change' is a symptom more than a problem in and of itself. Systems optimization entails the use of a 'cost function,' and this cost function is not set in stone. The cartoon showing a home as seen by the homeowner, tax assessor, insurance adjustor, fire department and so forth is an example of this. The idea that there is one universal set of values regarding much of anything is fundamentally flawed, but is characteristic of most any religion. The conclusions drawn thereby are not necessarily wrong, but they may as well be. BSBD, Winsor

When I was a youngster, I'd think "gee, she's good looking." Somewhat later I found myself thinking "I wonder what her mom looks like." Now it's more along the lines of "I wonder if her grandmother is too young for me."

I marvel at people who get worked up about adults with other lifestyles. I guess I spent too much time in art colonies/gay Meccas, but I'm a lot more concerned about True Believers of any stripe than I am drag queens. Religious fanatics have a long track record of killing those with whom they disagree; drag queens not so much. I very much prefer cultures where other people's preferences are a matter of indifference, so long as everyone is of the age of consent, no animals are harmed and so forth. Then again, I'm not going to hebbin, so my opinion doesn't count for much. BSBD, Winsor

Russians that don't invade Ukraine are left alone. What's your point?

Your standpoint is as charming as the recommendation that, if rape is inevitable, to relax and enjoy it. First off, the presence of Russian speakers is largely the result of resettlement into areas devastated by the Holodomor (look it up). Russians who don't attack Ukraine are safe from Ukrainians. Since losing to Russia means that Ukraine will cease to exist, seeking peace by expelling Russian military forces from Ukrainian territory is the only option. You seem to think there is a Plan B, but there isn't. I know rather a few Ukrainians, Russians from Ukraine, Jews from Ukraine and combinations thereof, and can assure you that everything you think you know is wrong. BSBD, Winsor

Two weeks in prison that equals a life sentence guarantees no chance of parole.

Gee, and here I had been trying to school you on the evils of racism and Marxism. If racism is evil, there is no 'good' or 'bad' racism, it's all evil. Same goes for sexism. For all Karl's bitching about how one 'class' is better than another, recognizing classes is fundamental to the problem. 'Equality' comes down to equal rights and equal responsibilities, no more and no less. To push for anything else is reprehensible. BSBD, Winsor

I couldn't agree more. We have a legal system, rather than a system of justice. Execution is a problem, since there is no way of which I am aware to handle it in an effective manner. Like it or not, there are some people whose sole benefit to society and the planet at large is their ability to push up daisies, the sooner the better. Having said that, tasking the legal system with sorting out quite who these people are is too much to ask. The number of people on death row who have been definitively cleared by such technologies as DNA analysis is substantial. OTOH, if it is deemed that an individual is too significant a threat to anyone around them to stay on the green side of the sod, euthanizing them in the most humane manner possible is advisable. BSBD, Winsor

Agreed, using 100% nitrogen for, say, 1 hour is much more effective. Anyone who has been in a high altitude chamber can attest that the loss of consciousness one experiences due to extreme hypoxia is painless. Unlike a gas chamber, which uses cyanide binding to inhibit hemoglobin, a nitrogen chamber simply removes oxygen from the equation. People who have succumbed to entering a nitrogen environment generally die before they realize what's happening. The whole idea of execution as 'punishment' is flawed. There are people who are a threat to anyone around them, regardless of where they are. Rather than having them rape, maim and murder such prisoners as are slated to rejoin society, removing them from the equation in a humane fashion is much more beneficial overall. 'Lethal injection' is a poor approach - unless it amounts to an intercranial injection of 230 grains of lead, and oxygen deprivation does not require earplugs. BSBD, Winsor

The economics of fantasy and drivel are well established in the world of religion. Suspension of disbelief is routinely the basis of a lucrative business model. A couple of examples that come to mind are LDS and Scientology. A dispassionate analysis of the literature behind each of those ideologies reveals their bases to be demonstrable, unadulterated nonsense. In both cases, they bring in money hand over fist. The darlings of the Woke movement similarly put forth blather and bring in millions. The bottom line is that attempting to correlate economic success with the validity of underlying principles is a fool's errand. BSBD, Winsor

I followed the recommendation to get a Twitter account a decade and a half ago or thereabouts. After maybe a month I realized that the "must follow" feed was entirely uninteresting after checking it a couple of times, and that I had zero interest in either posting or reading what the twits had to say. I canceled and haven't missed if for a second.

On the one hand I am dismayed by people who appear to think that the planet can support 10 billion people eating organic granola with all energy needs powered by unicorn farts. A quick run of the numbers doesn't quite support that paradigm. The fact that 'renewables' are anything but a panacea that requires nothing more than the the decision to use them has been noted by a professional Thermodynamicist of my acquaintance. I'd love it if all of our food and energy requirements could be met in full and forever without having to dip into our backlog of fossil fuels, but the nasty reality is that they can't. The bad news is that: A) Fossil fuels are a finite resource and their use will be curtailed by us running out. The only question is quite when, and that doesn't change much. There really is no Plan B for their use in the interim, as you have noted. C) Given that our population is increasing inexorably, and is guaranteed to outstrip any supply of food and energy at some point in the unfortunately near future, we're fucked any way you cut it. It was fun while it lasted. Back to everyone bickering about the crappy details, Winsor

He didn't lie, he's clueless.

IIRC, Freakonomics reviewed the correlation between mindless violence and abortion. The bottom line was that the correlation between unwanted children and active viciousness is inescapable. We are given to to perseverating on symptoms when the cause is a third rail. "Climate Change!" is a shining example. BSBD, Winsor

The Mango Mussolini makes Tricky Dick Nixon look like a shining example of dignity, integrity, honesty and decency by comparison. 40 years ago I would have doubted that such a thing was possible.

Look, it's not so much Putin worship as it is throwing him a bone so that we can have Peace For Our Time (tm). Go home and have a good night's sleep.