hello

On the subway ballet -

I did finally read all the comments and I can see Stugis's points now. Plus full speed with this stuff would be scary to me in real life, as I'm fragile on my feet in a lot of conditions - not crossing a floor or a straight sidewalk, or walking down the middle of our street as many do in my small neighborhood, but yes, fragile, in speeding busses, on messed up sidewalks, need railings around when I am on steps.

The other side of me liked the ballet of it.

Gotcha.

Diane and I went to a fabulous book store yesterday.
We are both crazed about it.

I had my usual sorts of troubles getting in there. This is not a non problematic place for the person with access difficulties.

I loved it.

Actually, this, on more thought, reminded me of a fantasy of my childhood.

We had, girl group, the Secret Pine Club. I pictured a drop down, to a room with mattresses and books and a refrigerator, under our pine tree.

I was an odd child, eh.



Anyway, a zillion years later, that store reminds me of my old fantasy.

I don't remember anything before puberty.

Somewhere, I think here but too lazy to check, there was a reference to High Virtuecrat, Bill Bennett. Bill has long been convinced, apparently, that his moral compass was set precisely to the God-Pole and that the rest of us ought to orient in line with his visions or it's curtains for all that is Good in the world. Here is he in 1989...

http://lat.ms/1toYjwC
Isn't he just special.

I'm further to the right than you on this, I feel.

I'd put their feet in a fire until death occurred, or manufacture some kind of human-sized ham slicer which they could observe working on them, slice by thin slice, from the bottom up.

That appears to be a fair statement.

But I posted that for two specific reasons: 1) the right wing freak out on the barbarity of beheadings (they are barbarous, in all instances) and 2) the idiot's claim that his moral argument sits as a non-contestable truth ("I taught an ethics course"). He's a despicable douchebag. I'll lay money on it.

He's a politician? So....

They ain't all the same, McTag.

Okay. I was trying to be smart and funny. It never works.

Mc(I didn't really mean it with the meat-slicer idea either)Tag

You retired too soon. Weve seen this thing prowling about the Gulf of Maine. I think its undergoing trials. Goofy lookin boat too eh? Then with a name of ZUMWALT.

I thought it agreeably picturesque.

Admiral Zumwalt was a Chief of Naval Operations in the 1970s, and he engineered a number of post Vietnam cultural changes in the Navy, some long overdue, some merely stupid. In any event his name is associated with significant change, much like our current President, and in some quarters with similar implications.

The ship is evidently designed with a reduced radar signature in mind. I'm not sure how much that will help in a North Atlantic storm, the summer monsoon in the Indian Ocean or large, long swells in the Pacific. The ocean, I've learned doesn't give a **** about our concerns. That said, the damn thing might work.

Do you feel that way about the "Progressive Pole" as a reference to contemporary politics? In short, is it his values you fault or his dogmatism?

My understanding of the origins of the stealth concept arose when a Navy officer's wife was at a cocktail party and in the middle of a conversation with a gay gentlemen, he reached up and fondled one of her breasts. She told her husband later and exclaimed, "Boy, I did not see that coming"

His self-certainty regarding proper or "natural" morality. He frames his own preference (re drugs and optimal legislation and penalties) as a given in the philosophy of morals/ethics. Though this is an obvious falsehood (all moral philosophy does not concur) he's probably not lying in this case, he probably thinks that way. His ideology has made him stupid and unhumble. You commonly bemoan "elitists". This guy is the paradigmatic example of the thing.

The drug "problem" is socially and morally complex, precisely as is the "problem" of alcohol production and sales.

Edit: As I think you may be aware, many voices on the right haven't agreed with Bennett on this, including George Shultz and William Buckley, to name just two.

Edit 2: That's not even to get into the beheading thing. I truly despise this guy.

Actually the first deliberate application was with the SR 71 in the late 1960s. However, the plywood British Mosquito in WWII had a very low radar cross section (except for head on where the propellers were highly reflective) and that was known and exploited late in the war.

That plane is a scary looking beggar. Have you noticed that automotive design over the last decade has been influenced by design features of the stealth aircraft, particularly in the more exotic vehicles?

Re plywood... I once owned a Lada. Honest. It was given to me. I seriously considered nailing a plywood wing on the trunk and would have done it but for safety concerns. I bet I could have got that car up to 40 or even 50.