New Things

It is Thursday and while all is not right in the world, all is pretty OK by me.

I had a really good time at the Stammtisch meeting on Monday - maybe I already talked about that.

Tuesday, the Moto Guzzi motorcycle I got via eBay arrived at home via uShip just as it should have, on time and in good condition. The culmination of a week of waiting and wondering, but as of today, it is all good.

It took a lot of Wednesday to get the inspection, insurance, tags and request for new title accomplished and it wasn't cheap - but when Wednesday was over, there were tags on the motorcycle, I had ridden it enough to know I was going to like it, and I even rode it to a pretty good choir rehearsal, after which I came home and died. Apparently I  moved around more on Wednesday taking care of Bike Things than I usually do and wore myself out.  It is becoming apparent that the healing from the broken leg and perforated ulcer is not anywhere near complete. I had allowed half a day to get that all done, and it took almost the whole day, but now it is done.

Bu now everyone knows that, between Congress  and the President are doing their best to  make their little pissing contest affect everyone. I can't believe that they would close a park that is open space and needs no guards, but apparently everyone is going to get hammered while congress and the president come to grips with the fact that they won't always get what they want.

Meanwhile, a judge n Maryland used a specious circumstance to get petulant with folks that are concerned about the gradual dilution of the Second Amendment, and denied a request for an unreasonable reason, thus falling in like with King-wannabe Marty.

I suspect that most folks who wander by here know what I think about guns, gun control, and folks who would tell me what I need, and why I should bow to their imagined possibilities of this'n'that - and probably also know that I don't have a whole lot of patience with those who harbor an irrational fear of an object that without a human to operate it mostly just stays where it is put.  If anyone doesn't know, I would suggest starting with the essay(s) found here:   http://lneilsmith.org/

I do own a motorcycle or two, a gun or two, a television or two, a computer or two and an automobile or two.  It is my opinion that just how many of each of these items I own is between myself and my wife and should be of profound indifference to anyone else.

Likewise if someone should ask why I need more than one gun I shall point out that if I were in charge of what folks need, well, nobody would have more than 1 car, 1 television, 1 house - you get the idea. If it gets as far as my daughter's shoes, well, I'll have to move to a new universe to get out of the way of invective that will surely be coming my way.

I did not intend this to turn into a polemic, but it looks like it might. Those easily offended would be well advised to go and watch The Price is Right or some similar twaddle on the TeeVee.

Speaking of TeeVee, Amazon had a hell of a sale a while back on TV Series, and I picked up Firefly, which has to be about the best show aside from maybe Roswell, NCIS, Eureka and the early Law & Order.  One of the few benefits of having a broken leg is that folks will leave you alone about parking yr arse in front of the TeeVee and watching all the episodes of a show in one sitting.  Firefly is just great!

I just heard someone tried to drive a car through the white house gate - wonder what that was about, and how that person missed knowing that there were no tours....

Someone's looking for me, so I really need to go and do something useful.  Y'all come back, y'hear?

"Gay Marriage"

This one will draw rocks, so let me preface it with a few notes.

• I have nothing against homosexual people of either sex - as long as they do not try to convince me that their way is right and mine is wrong.
• I have transgendered friends.  We don't talk about why or how - we just talk.
• I abhor the misuse of the word "gay".  I think that right now it has too many uses, rendering it meaningless.  I used to be sure I knew what it meant - now I have to think - a lot before reacting to it.

All that having been said, the issue of homosexual "marriage" is my hot button today.  With the foregoing in mind, I object to using words to mean too many things - because they end up meaning nothing.

I know what marriage is to me, my wife and our children.  I know that homosexual behavior is a biological dead end - they cannot reproduce wit assistance of those that they abjure - the "breeders" otherwise known as heterosexual (or, by some, Normal.)

I believe that parents matter - that is to say, parents as my generation understands them, one of each.  Sometimes we are not perfect; sometimes we are not even good - life is a huge crapshoot, and we don't always get what we want.  I don't believe that two mommies or two daddies can prepare a child for a world that largely consists of mommies and daddies and their kids - and I believe that suggestible kids are easy to convince that two mommies or two daddies is the normal circumstance and the kids will grow up inclined to homosexuality as a learned behavior.  I've seen it - I don't believe that it happens every time, but I know it does happen that way.

With the best of wills I can find no body of research suggesting that homosexuality has a genetic component. I do know that there is a body of research suggesting that family environment can help push a confused child in that direction.  That having been said, I recognize that there are many people who are homosexual who are also very valuable, functional people from whom everyone could learn much - and they are not mostly artists, musicians, etc, but are found in all professions, trades, walks of life, faiths - everywhere people are found. But, unlike the rest of us, they cannot make new people without outside help.

And therein lies the rub - they seek 'equality' and to some of them, equality means marriage, please do not ask me why.

I am told that love and commitment are found in heterosexual couples and in homosexual couples, which I can understand.  But there is more to marriage than that - and I do not mean the bearing and raising of children - there are heterosexual couple who cannot make children or will not make children - but that's not the same as not being equipped with the matching parts.

When I suggest a civil union statute (which is all a state-supplied marriage license gives anybody anyhow, for all of its being called a marriage license.) I am told that equal but separate isn't equal, what they want is sameness.  The only way it can be the same is if it is completely the same; partly the same is not identical, but different.  For a same-sex couple, the only way to make it really the same is for one to become a transgender person - then there will be matching parts (if artificially constructed.) Somehow I do not think that this will be well received, and anyhow among the transgendered folks I know (admittedly not many) the males who had married and had children and subsequently became 'female', they still want women for companions.  Does that mean that even though they have had a physical change that they are still male, or that in the process they have become homosexual?  I don't know, and really do not want to ask - I'm pretty old and don't dodge so well any more.

Perhaps I could get over the issue of calling it 'marriage' - but I can't get past 'it's not the same' - because it is not the same, and nothing will make it the same.

I am tired of being diminished, called names, and generally abused by the militant homosexuals because I will not agree to the idea of 'sameness' - because 'same' is another one of those words I see becoming meaningless - 'the same only different.'

That's what I think.  Notice I didn't say 'feel' - apparently the world nowadays is composed more of folks who 'feel' than folks who'think' - and in my opinion it is a great loss for the world.  Self-esteem has replaced self-respect - and the deterioration in many areas shows the consequences.

I'll discuss the current occupant in another rant.

SPAM

The email variety, of course.

I hate it.

I don't know where some of these folks are finding me.

Some, I know, are filtering newsgroups looking for anything they can turn into an email address.

Some have no doubt phished address books from friends and family.

Some have even got the phone book from local government Exchange servers - I know this just because of the header info in some of what I get - some emails are copied to folks at a totally different government agency.

I finally had to tell my own mail server not to accept anything from Brazil. Even using blacklists and exclusion lists nd several RBL excluders, I still get a ton of crap every day.

Here at work I get at least three messages a day from Russia. Now, this might be interesting, but it comes in in cyrillics, which I can 'read' but no longer possess the vocabulary to actually understand - so it is frustrating, because while I can make out parts, I can make no sense of it. Worse yet, I get it via a blind copy, and don't want to filter the whole nation just to get rid of these annoyances.

I wish I had a simple answer - there are tools (SpamAssasin to name but one) that will trim this stuff back, hide it, or make it Go Away - but there is always the risk it will deep-six something about which I care, so I tend not to use them all that much, and then to go back and verify their choices - and let the Bayesian filters "learn" some more - but it all takes time.

Now, if I was getting Spam from Germany, I'd at least be able to read it - but I haven't hit any German spam lists yet.

I guess it is time to get yet another email address, and use those that I already have for SPAM sinks. AAARRRRRRRGGGG!

BMW Drivers redux

With regard to a previously bitched-about driver of a large and expensive BMW, it looks like he's gonna skate, at least as far as the police department is concerned. IID has ruled that it is a civil matter, which means that Internal Investigations has decided it is OK for a cop to park in someone else's parking place and destroy the steering mechanism of a vehicle that is parked there blocking him - in effect that malicious destruction of another's property is only important if the destroyer happens not to be a cop driving a BMW that cost $85,000.

Maybe next time he'll do it to a cop that outranks him - but this civilian isn't interesting enough for the department to want to charge him with anything - although I can call a States' Attorney and have charges pressed - if I want to take a chance on becoming unemployed for my efforts.

Some days just plain suck!