Verbal Target Indicator: Yelling without reason in a fight or when someone says something stupid like, "Hey, my gun is not loaded!" in a fight.

From the Greg Hamilton to English Dictionary by Meredith Robinson

There are a couple things that come to mind when I read this:

TORONTO (Reuters) - A group of Canadian residents arrested for "terrorism related offenses" were inspired by al Qaeda, had amassed enough explosives to build huge bombs and were planning to blow up targets in densely populated Ontario, police said on Saturday.

Mike McDonell, assistant commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, said the group had acquired three metric tons of ammonium nitrate -- or three times the amount used in the 1995 bombing in Oklahoma City -- as they sought to "create explosive devices."

The first thing I wonder about is will this cause people to walk up any?  Or will they just figure, "Oh, it's our fault for being in the mid-east, if we weren't there it would have happened."  People can't seem to realize that the Islamic extremists have been trying to convert the world to Islam by force for several hundred years now.  It's not going to stop anytime soon.

The second thing I wonder about is ammonium nitrate readily available in Canada?  If so I wonder if I can pick myself up a 1000 pounds or so for Boomershoot 2010 or whenever it is that I will exhaust my current supply.

There is a jar of red rain water in India that some are speculating may contain alien life:

As bizarre as it may seem, the sample jars brimming with cloudy, reddish rainwater in Godfrey Louis’s laboratory in southern India may hold, well, aliens. In April, Louis, a solid-state physicist at Mahatma Gandhi University, published a paper in the prestigious peer-reviewed journal Astrophysics and Space Science in which he hypothesizes that the samples—water taken from the mysterious blood-colored showers that fell sporadically across Louis’s home state of Kerala in the summer of 2001—contain microbes from outer space.

Specifically, Louis has isolated strange, thick-walled, red-tinted cell-like structures about 10 microns in size. Stranger still, dozens of his experiments suggest that the particles may lack DNA yet still reproduce plentifully, even in water superheated to nearly 600˚F. (The known upper limit for life in water is about 250˚F.) So how to explain them? Louis speculates that the particles could be extraterrestrial bacteria adapted to the harsh conditions of space and that the microbes hitched a ride on a comet or meteorite that later broke apart in the upper atmosphere and mixed with rain clouds above India. If his theory proves correct, the cells would be the first confirmed evidence of alien life and, as such, could yield tantalizing new clues to the origins of life on Earth.

500x magnification

A few years ago I read a book in which the author(s) claimed to prove that intelligent alien life had an extremely small chance of existing.  They went through all kinds of different conditions that were "essential" for intelligent life or life of any sort for that matter.  A good friend of mine had recommended it to support his view that the Milky-way Galaxy and perhaps the entire universe was just waiting for humans to claim--no need to conquer it. 

I eagerly read the book but was extremely annoyed.  They made all these claims like "the temperature must be between X and Y degrees", and the radiation level must be below such and such a level.  Just because life as we know it requires these conditions doesn't mean all life has to require similar conditions.  In fact, why couldn't life have evolved that required high levels of radiation?  Why not life that used radiation as an energy source?  Why not life that thrived in boiling water?  In fact there is life that thrives in "boiling" water.  There are certain organisms that live near geothermal vents on the ocean floor at temperatures above the normal 212 F temperature of boiling water.  The water isn't boiling because of the great pressure but the temperature isn't killing them.  And there are microbes, which evolved rather rapidly by the way, that eat stuff that is toxic to nearly all other life.  So why not alien life that thrives in environments that are impossible all life forms we know of?  No need to just "push the envelope" some in a direction or two.  Life, given enough time, could have evolved that is completely outside our realm of experience.

Think of it this way--We are immersed in an environment with rather tight constraints on it.  The temperature ranges from about -70F to about 120F.  Water is present at least in small quantities nearly everywhere.  Ionizing radiation is rare.  Sunlight of a particular spectral content and intensity is common.  How much experience do we have with conditions outside that realm?  It would be difficult for a water based creature, such as a dolphin or whale, to imagine how life could function on dry land.  They just don't have the experience with it.  Or as one wag put it, "We don't know who discovered water but we know it wasn't a fish."  The same with us and other, totally out of the box, environments.

This jar of red rain water may be enough to break a few boxes.

Mr Blair has murdered more than 100,000 people in Iraq and the Iraqi people are an occupied people, illegally invaded. They have the moral and legal right to resist that occupation.

Why would that right be restricted to the poor, bloody infantry that Mr Blair sent into the streets of Iraq?

If the Iraqis have the right, as they do under international law and under any moral philosophy, to resist foreign invaders of their country (then) that must include the man who is giving the orders.

George Galloway
Friday May 26, 2006
The Guardian
Speaking from Cuba, where he earlier in the week shared a TV stage with President Fidel Castro.
[The irony of it all...happy with Castro while advocating the murder of a leader that helped save so many people from a murderous tyrant.--Joe]

Putting guns back on the street after they've seen the police station is just asking for more trouble.  Every single gun seized by the police should find its end in a furnace.  Anything less is nothing more than a contribution to the gun violence our nation is currently suffering from.

The Gun Guys
Your Gun Guys Daily Update (daily email)
June 1, 2006
[I understand now. He is in favor of the death penality on the first offense--for the gun instead of the criminal. The "Gun Guys" have mental problems.--Joe]

From Alan Korwin--tactics that work in the fight to defend the right to keep and bear arms.  As he says, "Easy, fun, and it helps save the planet by golly!"

I kept forgetting to post this.  A couple weeks ago Ry told us about a some changes announced at a company meeting at Microsoft.  One of the things he didn't mention that struck me the most was the reason Bill Gates didn't attend the meeting.  Bill had just finished up a CEO summit meeting he had hosted and he and his good friend Warren Buffet were going to play poker that afternoon. 

OMG. 

I wonder what the ante for one of those games is. Would it be $100K, $1M, or a penny?  What would it mean to the future of the world if both of them pushed all their chips into the center of the table?

Canada is resisting the identity card system required by U.S. law to enter our country:

Canada will not embark on an untested identity card system to meet U.S. border concerns, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said yesterday.

His government has told the Americans it prefers not to create such a card and wouldn't do so until the American government has convinced itself it is effective, Harper told reporters.

ID cards are not effective in solving the problems they are claimed to address.  Mandatory ID cards are a bad idea.

New Orleans is sinking.  Anyone who looked at the problem and had more than two brain cells to rub together knew that.  What wasn't known was that parts of the city are sinking at a rate of over one inch per year.

Add in the inability to get pumps installed in a timely matter (it's a tough problem, the Corp of Engineer's has my sympathy) and my advice is they should spend their money on abandoning the city.

Dr. Joe's cure for everything is more sex.  It also works as preventative medicine.  Jamie Fox uses it to prevent obesity:

Jamie Foxx has sex every day for 30 minutes to keep in shape.

The 'Ray' star revealed that daily love making is the best way to stay slim.

He said: "We should all do something for 30 minutes every day to get the heart pumping. I make love to stay in shape."

The discovery of sugar powder was a landmark event in the history of the Benson family.  In total significance, it ranked right up there with Pearl Harbor and catching our first mink.  For my brother and I, it certainly was the moral equivalent of our first piece of ass.

Ragnar Benson
Chapter 7, page 85
Ragnar's Guide to Home and Recreational Use of High Explosives
[Sugar powder is a substitute for black powder made from household sugar and potassium chlorate.--Joe]

I was almost asleep a few minutes ago and the phone rang.  Xenia was calling.  It must be one of three dire emergencies I thought.  Those were, not necessarily in the matter of importance to her: 1) Someone is hurt or is very sick or dead; 2) Her Internet connection is down; 3) Her website is down.

I was wrong.  She wanted to know if I had read her Live Journal recently.  "How recently?"  I had read the posting from yesterday sometime.  Nope that wasn't it.  She wanted to know if I had read it in the last 10 minutes.  "No, why?"  I couldn't imagine what was so important.  She told me she posted the email she got from her English teacher on her anthology that I quoted from the other day.

I was wide awake now.  Did I need to immediately drive home and be ready to dance on the English teachers desk with muddy boots when he showed up tomorrow morning?  I couldn't quite tell from Xenia's tone of voice.  It could be she was very happy with what he said and it could be she was smug with the knowledge that someone was going to get what they deserved for trashing the hard work of Daddy's little girl.

The important part is as follows (emphasis in the original email):

Xenia:

This just may be the most beautiful anthology I've ever read.

It is the boldest.

That's my girl he's talking about!

Update: This is the teachers blog posting on the topic.

Maybe the TV news people left something out that would make things a little more clear but the way it's spelled out now Mayor Kiss doesn't make a lick of sense:

"From the perspective of being mayor," he said, "I haven't looked at public safety in terms of whether there are initiatives we would like to take. At least an element of that is that we've had two recent shootings in which handguns were involved."

Kiss said it was possible that Burlington might seek a charter change related to guns or a member of the Legislature from the city might propose a bill.

...

Despite the likelihood of opposition, Kiss said it was timely to talk about handguns, given the recent shootings. "We could see where that went, without prejudging the process," Kiss said. I don't want to be afraid of bringing up issues that are sensitive."

He doesn't want to be afraid of bring up issues that are sensitive?  Okay then Mister Mayor, why don't you bring up reinstating slavery?  Never mind that should he start pushing for such a thing I would probably be among those looking for a clear shot to put a .30 caliber hole in his cranial vault.  That is if he wasn't almost immediately impeached and unable to get any job with a higher status than shoveling pig manure.  It would make about as much sense.  Vermont has one of the lowest crime rates in the country and among the most relaxed gun laws.  Why would he want to change what is working well?

I have Just One Question for you Mayor Kiss.

The felons at PNNL didn't allow me to see the evidence against me, confront my accusers, or present a defense of any sort but I didn't know such things existed in criminal courts of law of modern countries.  So this, from Ireland, really surprised me:

His lawyers had sought to have his conviction quashed after the Supreme Court last week overturned a 1935 law that made it an indefensible crime for any man to have sex with a girl under the age of 15.

I can see the point but one should always be allowed to defend themselves.  They could have been framed for example.  Their DNA could have been planted by someone else, the pictures could have been edited, whatever evidence is used should be subject to question.

Something like this even happens in the U.S. under certain circumstances.  The freedoms we take for granted are not as secure as you might think.

No greater wrong can ever be done than to put a good man at the mercy of a bad, while telling him not to defend himself or his fellows; in no way can the success of evil be made surer or quicker.

Theodore Roosevelt
[England, Chicago, Washington D.C., New Jersey, San Francisco, etc. please take note.--Joe]

The "armed populace at large" becomes the libertarian fantasy of some people, arrested in political adolescence, who have an extreme difficulty accommodating to public authority and giving the "consent of the governed". The fantasy is that this is a viable concept. The right to be armed outside of the law is a right and a fantasy that has to be maintained by defeating legislation. It succeeds because everyone else fails.

The Potowmack Institute
As revised on November 11, 2005
[They completely neglect to consider the concept of inalienable rights such as freedom of speech and other rights guaranteed by our Bill of Rights so it's no wonder they arrive at the wrong conclusion in regards to firearms.  Thanks to Lyle for pointing these guys out.--Joe]

We walked from our motel to the Ponderosa and had breakfast.  Then walked up the street to the church where we got married:

From our motel room balcony we watch the VFW do a 21-gun salute on the bridege for Memorial Day.  Then we drove to my parents place and said hi before driving back to Moscow.

It has been a wonderful weekend.

We got up a little earlier on Sunday and drove up the Lochsa river:

We stopped to watch the rafters going through the white water:

Even though it was raining we hiked up the trail to Jerry Johnson Hotsprings:

We expected that because of the rain we would be the only ones there.  There were six people in the first pool and eight in the second.  We sat in the first pool for several hours and talked and talked to a couple from Montanna that come to the springs several times a year.  People came and went but mostly came and about 17:30 there must have been 15 people in the pool and standing around.  The other couple, Marty and Cheryl, invited us back to their camper for dinner.  We hiked back down the trail with them:

We ate with them and talked and talked and finally about 22:00 we left on our two hour drive back to Orofino and our motel room.

The 30th day of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet church-yard in the land. In this observance no form of ceremony is prescribed, but posts and comrades will in their own way arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit.

John A. Logan
Commander-in-Chief
N.P. CHIPMAN
Adjutant General General Orders No.11
WASHINGTON, D.C.
May 5, 1868

I quietly declare war with the State, after my fashion, though I will still make use and get advantage of her as I can, as is usual in such cases.

Henry David Thoreau
(1817-62), U.S. philosopher, author, naturalist.
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience (1849).

We drove down to Orofino last night (after my five hour drive from the Seattle area) and checked into the Lodge at River's Edge.  It is, literally, on the rivers edge.  This is the view from our balcony:

I looked around at the other balconies, but mine was the only one with a beautiful woman on it.

I didn't look in the other rooms but my bed had a woman it in.  Although I doubt most rooms were furnished as well as this one I was pleased with my good fortune:

It rained today which meant that going for the walk didn't quite work out as we had planned.  We ended up telling housekeeping to go away and not come back and we didn't leave the motel until almost 1:00 PM.

We drove to the Dent campground to eat our picnic lunch.  But the rain hadn't stopped and the wind was picking up.  We ate in the Jeep as the rain came down:

On the way back we stopped at Canyon Creek Campground and walked out to the water's edge.  We saw a trail to go hiking on but it was too wet and we left after taking a few pictures:

We drove back to our motel and then had dinner at the nearby restaurant.  Excellent food, the waitress was the daughter of one of our high school classmates (Danny Reed), and we had a wonderful view from our table:

After dinner we went to Lisa's graduation.

Update: I forgot to add the following picture and explanation.  We stopped at the pullout and took some pictures in the road where we first kissed each other--over 30 years ago:

Our niece, Lisa Huffman, graduated tonight from the same school Barb and I graduated from 33 years ago.  And 30 years ago, to the day, her parents graduated from the same school.  Lisa, being validictorian, gave a very nice speech and mentioned her parents graduating 30 years ago.  She said quite a bit about her parents and I saw her mother wiping tears from her eyes.

Here are a couple pictures taken with my crappy camera phone:

Mom, Lisa's grandmother, is looking at the camera with her dad and mom (red and white) just to the right.

Lisa in the center of the picture.