The "O" Word
Conservative by Nature, Christian by Choice
Wait!  Where's the pictures?  They're supposed to be right here!  I swear, you can't find decent help these days...

Thursday Round Up

July 17th, 2008 . by Cary

WordPress wants me to update to version 2.6. Anyone out there done the update yet? Anything I should look out for?

Kathi and Tony went to Arlington for the first time, and they have a slide show up and running of the pictures that Tony took. Well worth the look-see. Kathi also gives a shout out for the Run for the Fallen, going on now.

Brother Johnny T. Helms expounds on the Archbishop of Canterbury’s insistence that islam be included in an interfaith council on religious tolerance with a link to an article explaining the exact opposite should happen on Our Sovereign Joy.

Akinoluna has an observation about death and leave in the Marine Corps.

Richard’s latest entry is on a mother and juvenile Red-bellied Woodpecker. Beautiful photography. Did I mention that Richard is responsible for some of the header photos on this blog?

GuyK is his usual, Charming self today – slow start, but then he gets up a head of steam…

Over on Blackfive is photographic proof of troops purposely mimicking the locals in Iraq. Scandalous, I say!

Samantha (aka Hana Matsushita) continues her love letter to/about/for the 24th MEU in Afghanistan.

The Rogue has a few straight-talking words about Jamie Gorelick. (Don’t know the name? Do a little digging, and find out why Rogue believes she ought to be sitting in the cell next to the Enron folks…) Also check out his essay on Naval ships named after Commanders in Chief

Texas Fred is his usual fun-loving, rose-colored glasses self today. His entry on raising award-winning pansies is excellent. (just kidding, Fred – don’t change a thing!)

A new addition to my blogroll, Andrew Tallman, is a local radio show host. His show is on 1360 KPXQ in Phoenix, Arizona from 5 to 7 pm daily.

Over on The Old Right Daily is Regular Ron’s viewpoint on the World Court’s declaration that the US should delay the execution of five Mexican nationals held in a Texas Jail. Good reading.

The cookie crumb express has information and a link regarding this year’s Milblogging Conference in Las Vegas.

Oddly enough, over on Take a Stand Against Liberals, Jenn points out the hypocrisy and goofiness of the left. Go figure.

SoCalOilMan’s company is being purchased. Will he have a job? Will he be moving soon? If he moves, will he tell his wife, who is in Montana for three months? Stay tuned…

Today we have BZ’s take on the economy. Be sure to scroll down and check out some pictures he found through his exhaustive research…

Gawfer has a few points on this season’s campaign.

Doug has news about the talks in Israel over on Political Pistachio.

Old Soldier’s latest entry is all wet.

Ablur points to an article that shows that all this cleaning up of the pollution and being green has actually lead to a warming trend… on Some Things Just Need To Be Said.

Third Wave Dave has a video posted that answers the question “How did we get to this point?” Good commentary by Judge Napolitano on how the government is breaking it’s own laws with the “not a bailout” of Fannie and Freddie.

Improv Everywhere pulled off a mirror stunt. Only in New York.

I couldn’t access American and Proud of It – I hope that’s not because of WordPress 2.6!

Greybeard has some “recycling” news on Pitchpull.

Amboy Times has news from the Philippines in regards to how appeasement is working out for them. Don’t forget to scroll down a bit so you can be pointed to Blogrolling. I do apologize if you didn’t get mentioned.

A quick side note – my bass guitar developed a nasty little buzz last night, just before service. I need to figure out what went wrong before I can use it again. Meantime, I used the church’s bass. I wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with it, as I started out on that one, but still…

Thank you for stopping by, In God We Trust, God bless you all, Time, Inc. is a bunch of weasels, listen to The O Word on BlogTalkRadio, Wear Red on Fridays, and support Warriors for Innocence!

The Goracle Has Saved Us!

February 27th, 2008 . by Cary

Found this at The Anti-Contrarian after being pointed there by GuyK.

No, it couldn’t possibly be A NATURALLY OCCURRING WEATHER CYCLE – it must be GLOBAL WARMING!!!!

According to the NCDC, the average temperature in January “was -0.3 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average.

China is surviving its most brutal winter in a century. Temperatures in the normally balmy south were so low for so long that some middle-sized cities went days and even weeks without electricity because once power lines had toppled it was too cold or too icy to repair them.

In just the first two weeks of February, Toronto received 70 cm of snow, smashing the record of 66.6 cm for the entire month set back in the pre-SUV, pre-Kyoto, pre-carbon footprint days of 1950. (i love that part about ‘pre-suv, pre-kyoto, pre-carbon footprint’. heh heh heh)

And remember the Arctic Sea ice? The ice we were told so hysterically last fall had melted to its “lowest levels on record? Never mind that those records only date back as far as 1972 and that there is anthropological and geological evidence of much greater melts … the Arctic winter has been so severe the ice has not only recovered, it is actually 10 to 20 cm thicker in many places than at this time last year.

I agree, one cold winter does not mean we are headed into an ice age. But several warmer-than-normal summers does not mean we are having an affect on the global climate, either. I remember winters so cold it would hurt to breathe, and winters so mild you could play outside in shirtsleeves. I also remember summers that the snow wouldn’t melt on the high peaks until June, and snow would reappear in September; other summers where the snow wouldn’t appear at all for an entire CYCLE.

Last month, Oleg Sorokhtin, a fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, shrugged off manmade climate change as “a drop in the bucket.” Showing that solar activity has entered an inactive phase, Prof. Sorokhtin advised people to “stock up on fur coats.”

I’ve still got my parka. People here in Phoenix laugh when they see it hanging in my front hall closet. I just smile, and repeat the Boy Scout motto to them.

Thank you for stopping by, God bless you all, Wear Red on Fridays, and support Warriors for Innocence!

Give Me A Break

February 25th, 2008 . by Cary

Oh, my aching head. (link may require a bit of information from you. tell them you are male, born in 1932, and live in 86001. that should throw them off…)

At 2000 hours, on March 28th, 2008, we are told that the city of Phoenix and all Valley residents “who care to join in” will turn off their lights for one hour.

Give me a freakin’ break. The “organizers” are saying this is mostly a “symbolic gesture” meant to show that “each person” can “contribute” to “reducing” their “carbon-dioxide” “emissions”.

So will not breathing for an hour. And, if you buy into this whole “man has caused the earth to become overheated” claptrap, perhaps you, too, should join in the “not breathing” crowd. That way, the seeohtwo emissions will be GREATLY reduced, and the rest of us can continue to live on this earth without being bombarded by the media panic-du-jour. (early 1970’s – global cooling and the ice age; mid 1970’s – population boom and an overpowering of earth’s resources, which lead to 1970’s – “energy crisis” – etc., etc., ad nauseum …)

Look, I’m not saying you shouldn’t do your part to reduce your energy consumption, but for crying out loud, let’s have some common sense here. Turn off your lights when there is sufficient outdoor light to illuminate your area. Turn off lights that aren’t being used (you know, like in the room you just left). Unplug electrical zombies that aren’t being used – like the microwave, the stereo, the TV, your cell phone wall charger, your electric rechargeable razor after it’s charged – they suck power even when you aren’t actively “using” them, and that would certainly reduce energy consumption.

(nuh uh, cary – my tv doesn’t use any power when it’s “off” – that’s why it’s called “off”!)

(really? how does it know when the remote tells it to turn on? it’s called a “wait state”, when it’s just sitting there, “waiting” for a signal from the remote)

*sigh*

So, Cary – (you ask, hoping i don’t drop back into snark mode) how do you save energy?

I’ve outlined several ways above. Mostly, I try to avoid using electricity where and when possible. But, there are times when I have to use it – like on the computer, or when I’m working in the shop, or when the sun goes down. Other than that, I try to keep my use to a minimum. I do leave my DISH receiver plugged in all the time, though – otherwise the schedule doesn’t get updated, and I can’t find my favorite races…

I think the number one thing that we, as a people, can do to reduce energy consumption (notice I didn’t say anything about impacting the globe here…) is to unplug the “convenience” appliances – the chargers – that come with the mobile technology that is our life now. Just doing that will make a bigger impact than turning your lights off and sitting in the dark for an hour.

clarification: leaving your phone plugged into the charger after it is fully charged is when the electricity is vampired. any electronic item that can be controlled by a remote control device sits in a “wait” state; that is, it uses electricity while scanning for the signal that tells it to turn on. while I have some cfl bulbs in use, i have been reading nasty things about these bulbs – it can take up to ten minutes to reach the brightness of the incandescent it replaced, they contain amounts of mercury so if they break you have a hazmat situation on your hands (according to federal regs, anyway – i remember playing with mercury in science class), also when they break they can send shards farther than an incandescent will, simply because instead of the vacuum in the incandescent the cfl bulbs are pressurized. just thought i’d clear a few things up. thanks for listening.

Thank you for stopping by, God bless you all, Wear Red on Fridays, and support Warriors for Innocence!

Good For A Giggle

February 16th, 2007 . by Cary

Check this out. Talk about an inconvenient truth, eh, Mr. Algorerunningforpresidentin2008?.

Global Warming is Trash Science.

Thank you for stopping by, God bless you all, Wear Red on Fridays, and write in Cary Cartter for President in 2008!

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