Saturday, February 28, 2015
Medical upgate
Dick emails:
The bone seems to be doing pretty well. I've been off the pain meds for over a week, and the X-Rays looked good yesterday. Doctor says another 4 weeks is likely, but thinks that the bone graft is taking.
I got a therapy to do, although it's baby steps. It does get me out of the sling and feels pretty good - my muscles were feeling like they were atrophying, and actually the only pain I've had has been muscle twinges. I'm working on restraining my enthusiasm, but feeling frustrated is a sign that I'm bettter.
The PICC in my chest is a pain in the tail end. I tried to talk the doc into removing it early but she wasn't having a any of that. The cultures have eliminated the really nasty stuff like Mersa, but it's still daily doctor visits. Getting a lot of reading done thought!
UPDATE 28 February 2015 10:22: There's quite a bit of fatigue still, which is making my mental processes dull. You can tell this from the blog post output.
He's not the only one who's asked, so here's the latest.Sorry about the IV stuff.How’s the ‘bone? Started therapy yet?
The bone seems to be doing pretty well. I've been off the pain meds for over a week, and the X-Rays looked good yesterday. Doctor says another 4 weeks is likely, but thinks that the bone graft is taking.
I got a therapy to do, although it's baby steps. It does get me out of the sling and feels pretty good - my muscles were feeling like they were atrophying, and actually the only pain I've had has been muscle twinges. I'm working on restraining my enthusiasm, but feeling frustrated is a sign that I'm bettter.
The PICC in my chest is a pain in the tail end. I tried to talk the doc into removing it early but she wasn't having a any of that. The cultures have eliminated the really nasty stuff like Mersa, but it's still daily doctor visits. Getting a lot of reading done thought!
UPDATE 28 February 2015 10:22: There's quite a bit of fatigue still, which is making my mental processes dull. You can tell this from the blog post output.
Friday, February 27, 2015
Rest In Peace, Col. Paul Green
In all the news about the passing of Leonard Nemoy, take a moment to remember a real hero. Stephen emails to point out the passing of another World War II hero - one who flew P-51 Mustangs over enemy airspace:
I've posted frequently on the Greatest Generation who left home and hearth to fight the Nazi and Imperial Japanese menace. But this one is different. This one left a society that despised Black Americans, to fight that same fight. The story starts out with this:
God speed, Colonel. You saw this Republic with its warts and you stepped up anyway. That's something worth of respect in itself
Green got his chance after he was drafted into the Army and sent to [redacted - Borepatch], for pilot training. Green flew 25 combat missions with the 99th Fighter Squadron in Italy, escorting bombers.
I've posted frequently on the Greatest Generation who left home and hearth to fight the Nazi and Imperial Japanese menace. But this one is different. This one left a society that despised Black Americans, to fight that same fight. The story starts out with this:HIGHLAND, Calif. – Col. Paul L. Green, one of the Tuskegee Airmen — the legendary black pilots who escorted U.S. aircraft during World War II — has died in a Southern California senior care home. He was 91.Col. Green flew 25 sorties against the Nazi ubermensch. Then he came home to 1945 America, as a Black War Veteran. And he continued his career in the Air Force, for 30 more years, serving in Vietnam. He saw the change in Europe, and elsewhere in the world. But most especially here.
God speed, Colonel. You saw this Republic with its warts and you stepped up anyway. That's something worth of respect in itself
Thursday, February 26, 2015
I lauged and laughed
Biker chicks. Grrrr, Baby! Very grrr!
The best reason ever to not have antivirus software.
The theological reason to drink during Lent. I mean, you can't argue with theology.
The best reason ever to not have antivirus software.
The theological reason to drink during Lent. I mean, you can't argue with theology.
Wednesday, February 25, 2015
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
Monday, February 23, 2015
Proof that the NSA despises the courts
NSA steals billions of mobile phone SIM encryption keys:
Me thinks it's time to put some of those people out to pasture.
The Intercept has an extraordinary story: the NSA and/or GCHQ hacked into the Dutch SIM card manufacturer Gemalto, stealing the encryption keys for billions of cell phones. People are still trying to figure out exactly what this means, but it seems to mean that the intelligence agencies have access to both voice and data from all phones using those cards.Now why would they do that? After all, it's trivially easy for them to get a warrant from the lap dog FISA court. But even that is too much interference, and so they hack the GSM companies.
Me in The Register: "We always knew that they would occasionally steal SIM keys. But all of them? The odds that they just attacked this one firm are extraordinarily low and we know the NSA does like to steal keys where it can."
Me thinks it's time to put some of those people out to pasture.
Sunday, February 22, 2015
Forgot my damn book
It will be 3 1/2 hours of boredom getting the antibiotics. Not happy.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Richard Strauss - Also sprach Zarathustra
The problem with cliches is that they distil the most easily memorable and discard 90% that remains. In the case of Strauss' Also spracht Zarathustra, the cliche is here:
So what does the cliche leave behind? Lots.
To start with, Strauss composed this as a tone poem, inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche's novel of the same name. The score included the text of "Zarathustra's Prologue" from Nietzsche, which is worth a read to get the feel of the German mysticism of the day (1896).
The music above is only the beginning of the piece, more properly called Einleitung, oder Sonnenaufgang (Introduction, or Sunrise); actually, Stanley Kubrick caught this mood very well indeed. But it's only the opening 90 seconds of a 30 minute piece, which is a delight.
The cliche of Strauss himself was that he was a Nazi, and in fact Hitler's favorite opretaist. This isn't true. In fact, Josef Goebels (Propaganda and Culture Minister) considered him decadent and partly jewish. Strauss survived the war, and conducted one of the first HiFi versions of this, available on the Vanguard label.
Bootnote: Kubrick also included a Strauss Waltz in 2001: A Space Opera. It was by Josef Strauss, not Richard Strauss.
So what does the cliche leave behind? Lots.
To start with, Strauss composed this as a tone poem, inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche's novel of the same name. The score included the text of "Zarathustra's Prologue" from Nietzsche, which is worth a read to get the feel of the German mysticism of the day (1896).
The music above is only the beginning of the piece, more properly called Einleitung, oder Sonnenaufgang (Introduction, or Sunrise); actually, Stanley Kubrick caught this mood very well indeed. But it's only the opening 90 seconds of a 30 minute piece, which is a delight.
The cliche of Strauss himself was that he was a Nazi, and in fact Hitler's favorite opretaist. This isn't true. In fact, Josef Goebels (Propaganda and Culture Minister) considered him decadent and partly jewish. Strauss survived the war, and conducted one of the first HiFi versions of this, available on the Vanguard label.
Bootnote: Kubrick also included a Strauss Waltz in 2001: A Space Opera. It was by Josef Strauss, not Richard Strauss.
Saturday, February 21, 2015
Global Warming didn't get the memo
Record cold is supposed to be somewhere remote and exotic, not New York City.
Friday, February 20, 2015
Could be worse, I guess
This could be my driveway.
From Rick, via email.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
From Rick, via email.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
Oh boy
Potential bone infection. Looks like I'll have daily I/V antibiotics for six weeks.
Get a motorcycle, they said.
It will be fun, they said.
Harrumph.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Get a motorcycle, they said.
It will be fun, they said.
Harrumph.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Monday, February 16, 2015
The best (and worst) Presidents
This is from three years ago, but since people are taught red, white, and blue cardboard for history, this is a public service.
It's not a real President's birthday (Lincoln was the 12th, Washington is the 22nd), but everyone wants a day off, so sorry Abe and George, but we're taking it today. But in the spirit intended for the holiday, let me offer up Borepatch's bestest and worstest lists for Presidents.
Top Five:
#5: Calvin Coolidge
Nothing To Report is a fine epitaph for a President, in this day of unbridled expansion of Leviathan.
#4. Thomas Jefferson.
Jefferson is perhaps the last (and first) President who exercised extra-Constitutional power in a manner that was unambiguously beneficial for the Republic (the Louisiana Purchase). He repealed Adam's noxious Alien and Sedition Acts and pardoned those convicted under them.
#3. Grover Cleveland.
He didn't like the pomp and circumstance of the office, and he hated the payoffs so common then and now. He continually vetoed pork spending (including for veterans of the War Between the States), so much so that he was defeated for re-election, but unusually won a second term later. This quote is priceless (would that Latter Day Presidents rise so high), on vetoing a farm relief bill: "Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the Government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character."
#2. Ronald Reagan
He at least tried to slow down the growth of Leviathan, the first President to do so in over half a century (see entry #5, above). He would have reduced it further, except that his opposition to the Soviet fascist state and determination to end it cost boatloads of cash. It also caused outrage among the home grown fascists in the Media and Universities, but was wildly popular among the general population which was (and hopefully still remains) sane.
#1. George Washington
Could have been King. Wasn't. Q.E.D.
Bottom Five:
#5. John Adams.
There's no way to read the Alien and Sedition Acts as anything other than a blatant violation of the First Amendment. It's a sad statement that the first violation of a Presidential Oath of Office was with President #2.
#4. Woodrow Wilson.
Not only did he revive the spirit of Adams' Sedition Acts, he caused a Presidential opponent to be imprisoned under the terms of his grotesque Sedition Act of 1918. He was Progressivism incarnate: he lied us into war, he jailed the anti-war opposition, he instituted a draft, and he was entirely soft-headed when it came to foreign policy. The fact that Progressives love him (and hate George W. Bush) says all you need to know about them.
#3 Lyndon Johnson.
An able legislator who was able to get bills passed without having any real idea what they would do once enacted, he is responsible for more Americans living in poverty and despair than any occupant of the White House, and that says a lot.
#2. Franklin Roosevelt.
America's Mussolini - ruling extra-Constitutionally fixing wages and prices, packing the Supreme Court, and transforming the country into a bunch of takers who would sell their votes for a trifle. At least Mussolini met an honorable end.
#1. Abraham Lincoln.
There's no doubt that the Constitution never would have been ratified if the States hadn't thought they could leave if they needed to. Lincoln saw to it that 10% of the military-age male population was killed or wounded preventing that in an extra-Constitutional debacle unequaled in the Republic's history. Along the way, he suspended Habeas Corpus, instituted the first ever draft on these shores, and jailed political opponents as he saw fit. Needless to say, Progressives adore him.
So happy President's Day. Thankfully, the recent occupants of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue haven't gotten this bad. Yet.
It's not a real President's birthday (Lincoln was the 12th, Washington is the 22nd), but everyone wants a day off, so sorry Abe and George, but we're taking it today. But in the spirit intended for the holiday, let me offer up Borepatch's bestest and worstest lists for Presidents.
Top Five:
#5: Calvin Coolidge
Nothing To Report is a fine epitaph for a President, in this day of unbridled expansion of Leviathan.
#4. Thomas Jefferson.
Jefferson is perhaps the last (and first) President who exercised extra-Constitutional power in a manner that was unambiguously beneficial for the Republic (the Louisiana Purchase). He repealed Adam's noxious Alien and Sedition Acts and pardoned those convicted under them.
#3. Grover Cleveland.
He didn't like the pomp and circumstance of the office, and he hated the payoffs so common then and now. He continually vetoed pork spending (including for veterans of the War Between the States), so much so that he was defeated for re-election, but unusually won a second term later. This quote is priceless (would that Latter Day Presidents rise so high), on vetoing a farm relief bill: "Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the Government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character."
#2. Ronald Reagan
He at least tried to slow down the growth of Leviathan, the first President to do so in over half a century (see entry #5, above). He would have reduced it further, except that his opposition to the Soviet fascist state and determination to end it cost boatloads of cash. It also caused outrage among the home grown fascists in the Media and Universities, but was wildly popular among the general population which was (and hopefully still remains) sane.
#1. George Washington
Could have been King. Wasn't. Q.E.D.
Bottom Five:
#5. John Adams.
There's no way to read the Alien and Sedition Acts as anything other than a blatant violation of the First Amendment. It's a sad statement that the first violation of a Presidential Oath of Office was with President #2.
#4. Woodrow Wilson.
Not only did he revive the spirit of Adams' Sedition Acts, he caused a Presidential opponent to be imprisoned under the terms of his grotesque Sedition Act of 1918. He was Progressivism incarnate: he lied us into war, he jailed the anti-war opposition, he instituted a draft, and he was entirely soft-headed when it came to foreign policy. The fact that Progressives love him (and hate George W. Bush) says all you need to know about them.
#3 Lyndon Johnson.
An able legislator who was able to get bills passed without having any real idea what they would do once enacted, he is responsible for more Americans living in poverty and despair than any occupant of the White House, and that says a lot.
#2. Franklin Roosevelt.
America's Mussolini - ruling extra-Constitutionally fixing wages and prices, packing the Supreme Court, and transforming the country into a bunch of takers who would sell their votes for a trifle. At least Mussolini met an honorable end.
#1. Abraham Lincoln.
There's no doubt that the Constitution never would have been ratified if the States hadn't thought they could leave if they needed to. Lincoln saw to it that 10% of the military-age male population was killed or wounded preventing that in an extra-Constitutional debacle unequaled in the Republic's history. Along the way, he suspended Habeas Corpus, instituted the first ever draft on these shores, and jailed political opponents as he saw fit. Needless to say, Progressives adore him.
So happy President's Day. Thankfully, the recent occupants of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue haven't gotten this bad. Yet.
Sunday, February 15, 2015
Heh
This is for all y'all in New England, shoveling out again. It could be worse.
Hat tip: A Large Regular who might be shoveling out today.
Hat tip: A Large Regular who might be shoveling out today.
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