Cat Barfs on the TOFF!

The morning paper, in its first section, had two articles about the PoT, the TOFF's effect on candidates and the overall threat to demorcracy posed by the TOFF. I set the first section aside, as I just didn't feel like starting off my morning with that bullshit.

So there I was, reading about the Regal bankruptcy, and Chip was lying next to me. He hopped down onto the rug and began the "Urp..Urpp.. Hack" routine. I said to myself "oh, hell no", held him in place and then put that section of the paper in front of him. He wanted to move, but he couldn't, and he barfed onto the newspaper. When he finished, I let him go, folded up the newspaper and threw it into the trash.

Air Bags

There was a car-truck accident outside of my sister's home recently. She called 911 and then ran outside and opened the driver's door to check on the driver. The driver, a teenager, was unconscious. My sister talked to the driver as the driver came out of it, in order to keep the driver calm. (My niece had a bad concussion several years ago, so my sister has some knowledge as to these things.)

As the paramedics were loading the driver up for transport to the ER, my sister became aware that she had breathed in the dust from the air bags' deployment. She could feel it in her lungs and it was also on her face and hands. She asked the paramedics about it and was told that "yep, we all get hit with that stuff, the feeling passes."

Short-term problems with breathing in airbag dust are known.

But I wonder if we're going to see an increase in the rates of lung cancers in first responders as time goes by.

Putting Light On It; Thoughts on Flashlights

Surefire has released a new flashlight. The G2Z puts out 800 lumens and uses two 123A lithium batteries. MSRP is $120.

I have a lot of flashlights. Back when I did a considerable amount of night flying, I had about six mini-maglights in my flight bag, some with red lenses. I had a 2-D-cell flashlight with a traffic-direction diffuser cone that rode in the side pocket as an emergency panel flood. When I walk at night, I sometimes tote a 4-D-cell maglight for both illumination and canine discouragement.

If you want to drop three bills on a flashlight, go ahead. Maybe your line of work requires you to have a high-quality and bright flashlight.

But for most people, there are better choices. I buy these things, or ones like it. They work out to about three bucks per flashlight. I've have in in different rooms of the house, in my car, my desk at the office, and in my purse. Essentially, everywhere that I might need a flashlight, I have one there. If they get dropped or damaged or lost, no big deal. At night, those little things throw enough light to illuminate something a couple of hundred feet away.

Languages

A phrase in one language can associate differently in another.

For instance, in French, "ma petitie aime" means "my girlfriend"

In American English:

Cal Fires

From an email from a relative who likely doesn't live terribly far from a regular reader/commentator of this blog:

You should see it around here, it looks like it’s snowing. We have ash falling and the air quality is incredibly bad. I’ve been having asthma attacks (have never had them before). Walking to work this morning (going in late) but wearing a mask. It’s a fucking mess.

I've come to the conclusion that no matter where you live, at one time or another, it sucks to be there.

Cal Fires

This is a screenshot of the current California fire map:

170,000 acres have burned. That's akin to burning the entirely of El Paso to the ground. Or both Las Vegas and Detroit.

If you live anywhere in fire country, you might want to have your car/truck already packed with essential items. If the fires come your way, you're not going to have time to grab much. Some folks reported that they had about 30 seconds notice to unass their homes. There's nothing one can really grab on the way out with that little amount of time.

5778

I hope that my posts have given you cause to think about different things. But I also hope that I have not given offense to any of you, my Gentle Readers.

If I have, I beg forgiveness. (Not applicable to public figures and politicians. If what I write has offended you, toughen the fuck up or find another line of work.)

May 5778 be a blessing for you and yours.

Irma

The wind sensor at the Naples Airport (KAPF) has apparently failed.

Stay Safe in Texas

Harvey is coming.

(Teabaggers complaining how the Federal government isn't helping them in 3...2...1....)

Historical Antifascist Photo for You

Nuclear Snark

Bastille Day

Watering one's fields with the blood of one's enemies-- now that's an anthem!

Cursing

I was browsing around the local library the other day. They had a copy of Terms of Enlistment in the new book section. Which I thought was very cool.

But I digress

I checked out a copy of Still Life. It's a murder mystery by Louise Penny, set in Quebec province. The fictional town is in the Anglophone area of Quebec, very close to the American border. So the residents are all primarily English speakers and the detectives, who have to come down from Montreal, are Francophones.

One of the cops' favorite curse words is "tabernacle". Which seems odd. But one of the miracles of this modern age is the ability to research almost anything at any time from anywhere. I remember as a kid, having to go to the library and then go through periodical indexes, encyclopedias and then the books on the shelves in order to learn things. It could take hours to find something and then maybe there was some reference that the library didn't have and none of the other works referred to. All that is in the past.

Sorry.

So yes, I looked it up. Quebec French has a whole series of religious-themed curse words that make our use of "Jesus Christ" look amateur. The Catholic Church controlled much of civil life up until the 1960s, when people began to be aware of the fact that the Francophone kids were, in the main, poorly educated compared to the Anglophone kids and that if the Quebecers wanted to control their own destiny, they needed to break the iron hand of the Church. Which they did.

Going back to the early 19th Century, religious-themed profanity was sort of a bit of an act of rebellion. They became very popular. They're even more popular. now, long after the provice has become secularized.

So yes, "tabernacle" is a heavy curse word in Quebec.

"The Mormon Fucking Choir."

This world can be wonderfully strange.