Well, Well, Well...

...look what the cat drug in...if it isn't "The One We've All Been Waiting For"...

Sure took your own sweet time getting here...where the heck have you been anyway?

What??

Don't give me that...I know what you've been up to...you smell like a brewery for crying out loud.

I don't care if you did bump into St. Patrick's Day along the way...

....just because he drinks til he can't remember his name doesn't mean you have to!

If he jumped off the roof, would you jump, too?

He did??  I hope you were smart enough...

Oh never mind...I'll put on a pot of coffee.

And where are your manners?

Wipe your feet already!  You're tracking in the mud!

You've been hanging out with Old Man Winter again, haven't you?

Well it sure feels like it!

Shut the door, would you?  It's freezing out there.

I thought you were supposed to be all sunshine and flowers!

Well you're a far cry from that let me tell...

What?

Uh...hold on there...no one said you should leave...I mean, you just barely arrived...

Now don't be so sensitive...you're here so you might as well stay.

Yes I know, we just need to have a little patience.

We'll knock off the rough edges in a month or so.

Just settle down and come on in.

Welcome, Spring.

Question for you:

How about a Supreme Court nominee?

Assuming you're a sentient being registering some minimum level of brain activity, you're aware of the recent brouhaha engendered by an innocuous question.

(Note: if you're none of the above, please click here for something closer to your grade level.)

When asked if she could define what a woman is, Ketanji Brown Jackson informed the world she could not, because - wait for it - she's not a biologist.

Hmm.

I admit I’m not a biologist either.

However, thinking back to 9th grade biology class, I have vague recollections about women having two X chromosomes, as opposed to men who have an X and a Y.

There was also something in there about different genitalia.

Seems like a quick trip to the ladies room where she could take a peek would be a simple way to clear up the matter.

Failing that, there's the issue of reproductive organs - she's had kids, right?  That whole ovaries / uterus thing.

Plus different bone structure, testosterone levels and muscle mass...just ask the women competing against Lia Thomas about that.

a victory for the feminists: awarding a women's national championship to a biological male

And of course there's the sole reason she is in fact a Supreme Court nominee:

Rather than consider the entire pool of qualified jurists for the highest court in the land, SloJoe mumbled he would only nominate a black "woman".

That sorta sounds like a clue.

Did she not pick up on that?

So defining what a woman is seems like a pretty simple task, especially for a “Hahvahd” graduate, but evidently it's beyond the reach of her intellectual grasp.

We’d like to think Supreme Court Justices are the best and brightest legal minds in the country, if not the world.

Sadly it now seems the bar for being a Supreme Court Justice has been lowered to somewhere around the level of “moron”.

Besides unintentionally becoming an overnight internet meme star...

...Ms. J also provided us with a surefire method of weaseling out of easy questions...

he : Honey, what's the weather like today?

she: Dear, you know I can't answer that!  I'm not a meteorologist.

he : Isn't that a beautiful dog?

she: Can't comment; not a veterinarian.

Teacher: Johnny, what's 27 divided by 3?

Johnny: Sorry Teach, out of my wheelhouse.  I'm not a mathematician.

And so the race to the bottom continues as we search high and low for the dumbest humans on the planet to fill the most important posts in government.

Ding ding ding!

This is exactly what the Apostle Paul said 2,000 years ago in Romans 1:22 -

"Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools..."

Lord have mercy...

...on this, our sinking ship.

It's that time again folks...after an exhausting exercise in blogging excellence, it's time to unwind with a nice claret...

...and a relaxing stroll through Parting Shots Land...

sunrise, 1st day of Spring

Das Fledermaushaus for our backyard...hoping to draw them away from our eaves

a duck call...admittedly an impulse buy from a local hardware store...but hey, we DO have ducks hanging around our birdfeeder

squirrel acrobatics...when was the last time YOU stood on your head for a meal?

my side of the bed again...they do that on purpose

recent visitor

a whole bunch of us would wake up with nothing

good flick, def worth a look

happy first day of spring, mcm fans...

"What Men Call Peace...

...is the little time necessarily spent...reloading their guns."

    - Robert G. Ingersoll

I don't normally turn to 19th century agnostics for words of wisdom, but sometimes truth is where you find it.

And here we go again with the war drums; this time it's Russia invading Ukraine.

Fortunately we're blessed to have SloJoe and his highly trained associates at the helm during this international crisis.

In a recent one on one with an NBC lapdog, VP Harris was reminded that in spite of SloJoe's empty promises to "shut down the virus", covid was still very much alive and well.

Was a course correction needed?  Was it time?

In an awe inspiring display of brilliant analysis, Harris summoned the full measure of her impressive intellect, leaned in to her softball pitching faux adversary...

...and with a deadly serious look left us with this gem of a response:

"It is time for us to do what we have been doing.

"And that time is every day."

There you have it.  No wonder the secret service nickname for her is DeepThought.

Equally reassuring is our always relevant Climate Czar, John Kerry...

"Teresa still hasn't told me what all 57 varieties are..."

...whose one notable achievement in life has been marrying into the Heinz fortune.

Now - when he's not lounging around his wife's enormous mansion or sailing on her luxurious yacht - he spends his days crisscrossing the globe in a private jet, preaching about the evils of carbon emissions.

You might think this would make Lurch feel just a teeny bit guilty since, you know, he's personally responsible for a whole crap ton of carbon emissions, but not to worry.

While the covid so-called "vaccine" can't prevent you from getting or spreading the virus, the elites in this country have apparently found a real vaccine against self-awareness that's 100% effective.

Money, privilege, power perhaps?

Whatever it is, it definitely works.

And so, when the hot war began and images of exploding buildings and injured Ukrainians filled our TV screens...

...the obliviously self-assured Lurch sat down for an interview and gave us the full benefit of his timeless wisdom:

"I think hopefully, President Putin would realize that in the northern part of his country, they used to live on 66% of … frozen land.  Now it’s thawing and his infrastructure is at risk, and the people of Russia are at risk.”

So it’s true...arrogance does make you stupid.

No doubt, right near the top of Vlad The Destroyer’s priority list, perhaps just a notch or two below "overrunning neighboring countries, controlling western europe and restoring Russia to its Soviet Union glory", is a deep and abiding concern for the climate.

And then there's the Walking Lie Factory, white house press secretary Jen Psaki.

A reporter reminded her that SloJoe remarked a week before, he knew Russia was going to invade Ukraine and nobody expected sanctions would stop him.

The reporter then asked the obvious question: in that case, what have you actually done ?

The woman who's giving redheads everywhere a bad name reached down, grasped the wooden handle of the starter cord, gave it a brisk tug and cranked up the propaganda machine.

"We've rallied world support," she blathered as yet another noxious cloud of lies filled the room, "and built a global coaliton!"

Ah, of course...a global coalition.

We're now in day four of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Maybe Jen should trot on over to Kyiv and conduct some "man on the street" - or more realistically, "man huddled in a bomb shelter" - interviews with terrified Ukrainians to assess how well her mythical coalition is working.

Lord, please help us.

In this most serious time, these are not serious people.

In 2020 America was energy independent, exporting our excess, and oil was $40 to $50 per barrel.

We're a little more than a year into the SloJoe Show, during which time he shut down the energy sector of this country, and we are now back to begging OPEC, China and Russia to sell us more oil.

Not surprisingly, the price of oil has risen to over $100 per barrel.

Our enemies have been enriched, strengthened and emboldened.

We have become poorer, battling runaway inflation and are reduced to pleading with China to help us deter Russia.

Predictably, they rebuffed our pathetic requests.

SloJoe's chickens are coming home to roost...

...and sadly, thousands, if not millions - here and abroad - will pay the price for his weakness, stupidity and incompetence.

In the meantime - here, anyway - life goes on, and one of the small blessings for which I'm thankful is this last weekend of February.

Finally slogging through the shortest / longest month in the year stirs hope for warmer days ahead.

The time change...

...St. Patrick's Day...

...and then glorious Spring...

life is better down that old dirt road

...all occur during the next three weeks.

In addition, Karen and I have made a stuttering start on bowling again (i.e., we've been twice)...

...with enjoyable if not spectacular results.

It's the plight of the serial beginner.

If we bowled regularly - once or twice a week - we'd develop muscle memory and endurance, and would probably see some improvement...but right now that's not going to happen.

Once summer rolls around and I'm taking Fridays off again, I may combine my golf outing with bowling on the way home.

Dad?  Is that you?

That's as long as we haven't gotten into a shooting war with Russia by then.

Enough already!  Time to actually do something instead of just bloviating on this blog.

I leave you with this happy thought:

later, mcm fans...

February Got Off...

...to a rousing start...with Happy Birthday greetings to my beautiful wife...

...seen here celebrating at Red Robin.

Do we know how to par-tay or what?

We all know what February 14th is, right?

 

Well yeah, there's that whole Valentine's Day thing, which any man with an iota of common sense - not to mention, the instinct for self-preservation - intuitively understands he'd best not forget.

You didn't, did you?

in the doghouse again

But February 14th is also "The Pale Blue Dot" day...

...for on that date back in 1990, the Voyager 1 spacecraft took the above photograph from 3.7 billion miles away as it was leaving our solar system...

...and that pale blue dot you see in the 1st image is planet earth.

Carl Sagan, atheist and astronomer, made it (in)famous with this quote:

“Look again at that dot.

"That's here. That's home. That's us.

"On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives...on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam...

"Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.

"Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark.

"In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves..."

Sagan argues our diminutive size equates to utter insignificance, and yet from our total irrelevance in the universe springs the necessity and ability to save ourselves.

Riiiight.

If we're meaningless, why bother?  Who in the uncaring universe would notice if we were gone?

Beyond that, anyone with even a rudimentary grasp of history knows how well mankind has done at spreading peace, love and happiness down through the ages.

Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot anyone?

The Scriptures, however, take a distinctly different view of our world:

"The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork.

"Day unto day uttereth speech and night unto night showeth knowledge.

"There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard."

    - Psalm 19: 1-3

It's not about us; it's about God's glory.

Not surprisingly, the Scriptures also have something to say about people who actually believe mankind sits atop the apex:

"The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God."

    - Psalm 14:1

Rather than underscoring our insignificance, that picture does exactly the opposite:

It proves God cared for us enough to create our world and then sustain us in the midst of His immense universe.

We are important to God.

How do we know this?

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."

    - John 3:16

Rejoice that you're a resident of God's Pale Blue Dot.

As a bonus, it comes with a free revolution around the sun every year, along with the opportunity to do good and be kind to your fellow sojourners.

Make the most of it.

This past week we watched The Aeronauts...

...a movie set in 1862 and claiming to be "inspired by true events" (translation: any resemblance to reality will be purely accidental).

The historical event in question is the record setting balloon ascent made by English meteorologist James Glaisher and aeronaut Henry Coxwell.

that's Glaisher on the left, Coxwell on the right

On September 5th, 1862, these 2 ascended to the incredible height of 35,000 feet above sea level, smashing the previous record of 23,000 feet.

Unfortunately, Glaisher lost consciousness around 29,000 feet, and Coxwell lost the use of both hands shortly thereafter.

When he couldn't get the valve-line to release gas from the balloon so they could descend, Coxwell had to climb the rigging to the top of the balloon and ultimately released the vent with his teeth.

Try doing that sometime at 35,000 ft when you can't feel your hands.

He then lost consciousness, but he had heroically saved their lives: they did descend and land safely.

Giving the movie its due, it does tell the basics of the story pretty much as it happened, but with one truly inexplicable change.

This is Henry Coxwell in real life:

...and this is who plays his part in the movie:

That's actress Felicity Jones, and in the movie she's "Amelia Wren".

Who, in history, was Amelia Wren?

Well, no one as far as this story goes.

She's been conjured out of thin air, which I suppose was in keeping with the balloon motif.

Ok, Miss Jones is easier on the eyes than the bearded Mr. Coxwell, but if you're going to change not just the name but also the gender of the actual hero of this incredible event, why not go whole hog and drop kick James Glaisher as well?

Sorry Eddie, but we're dumping you in favor of oh, I don't know, how about Lady Gaga?

I'll never eat meat again

Lessee, staying with the ornithology theme -

get it?  common birds flying high in the sky?

- in the movie she can be "Ophelia Finch".  (What?  I could have gone with Tufted Titmouse.)

"So Wren and Finch, see, they get this balloon, and they fly it, like, really really high, and then..."

Well, you get the idea.

Did Director Harper have a run in with someone named Coxwell back in the day, so he just couldn't bring himself to film the actual story?

Was he virtue signaling that even though it was a couple of dudes a hundred sixty years ago, you do realize it could have been a dude and woman because women are like, you know, equal and all.  No, really.  They are.

Or maybe he failed history class in high school and hasn't been able to deal with what actually happened ever since.

Who knows?  It's just weird.

It does have cool scenery though.

hey, where's Ophelia Finch?

There are worse ways to give up a couple of hours of your life.

There are better ways, too.

Ok, let's all hold hands as we enjoy a brisk walk through the Parting Shots department, shall we?

If you're a germaphobe and the thought of holding someone's hand makes you physically ill, please see the gentleman in the suit for the special exit designed just for you...

For the rest of you, tally ho...

Larry / Skeletor was up north at the Red Bull Snow Scramble this weekend...

...serving as Pit Boss for a friend...

cool car...expensive, too

those were the days my friend, we thought they'd never end...

caught red handed…um, hooved 

home sweet home

a winter sunset

You can't tell by looking out the window, but...

later, mcm fans...