Bye-bye 2020 II...

 

Battle of Lepanto post, R.I.P.

In case you  missed it, I made a post yesterday about the Battle of Lepanto, October 7, 1571. It had a link to the Wikipedia page (that link) and another to G.K. Chesterton's poem "Lepanto" with some excerpts from the latter. 

There was also a meme making a joke about putting your feet up on an ottoman while saying your rosary. (Link. It might work.)

Now I had a devil of a time with stray code showing up in that blog post, screwing up the formatting but I thought I finally had the stray code stripped out. However, when I checked this morning I saw that I had a couple big white bars there indicating there were some stray "div" references, so I went to edit them out.

And somehow screwed up the layout of the entire blog so that my let sidebar was just gone, and only some of the right sidebar was there; what there was, was at the bottom of the page.

I tried several things, but finally deleted that post, and viola! Sidebars are back. So for the eight or nine people that even know this blog exists, that's the story of how I lost a really entertaining, informative post, but also how I came to have a new theme on the page.

News of the Obscure

 Just deleted my Twitter account.

Stopped using Facebook long ago, and the only reason I don't ditch Blogger is that I'm not quite ready to completely give up the blog, but the alternatives I know of all are all for pay. I see no reason to shell out $$$ for a non-monetized blog as, well, obscure as this one. (Or even ¢¢¢.)

Unfortunately, if you want a smart phone these days, you options are to get involved with one of two evil Commifornia Big Tech outfits. 

Somebody -- Kevin Baker at Gun Blogger Rendezvous, maybe -- had a t-shirt that was lamenting to the effect of having been a science fiction fan all his life, and getting the dark dystopian future of his teen aged years.

Heinlein's Crazy Years aren't even fully launched yet, and I'm already tired of them.

Isn't that interesting... -- An Update

 So, what with all the news about Hunter Biden and the while sleazy, corrupt Biden clan, and the CSPAN "journalist" confessing to lying about sending that tweet and all, it has been an interesting day or two in social media, especially if one is part of the leftist/progressive/media/DNC persuasion, and I mean "interesting" in the Chinese curse sense. 

Or, of you prefer, in the US Senate accusing you of interfering with an election, and the FEC  being out for blood sense.

So I go into Twitter and I see John "Oh No!" Ringo has tweeted as follows:

(I took a "snip" and copied it in, instead of embedding the tweet, because embedding the tweet these days is... messy. Stray code all over the place. Link to the tweet here.)

So I attempted to tweet as follows: "Their brain is full?" and got:

Note the pink bar at the top...

I can't even tweet "Testing". 

Have I finally reached the level of deplorableness where I am worthy of having Twitter shut me down?

Or is Twitter just so all upgefukt over the mess it has made the least few days that it is melting down?

Stay tuned!

UPDATE: apparently it was everybody, everywhere. They're "investigating." 

Just coincidence it hit right as they were discovering the Streisand Effect? 

Sure, let's go with that.

"I'm walkin' heah!"

About a year ago I started making a concerted effort to "get my steps in" every day.

Fun fact: "10,000 steps a day" is marketing, not supported by scientific/medical research. (Not directly, that is. No research says "10,000 steps a day is the key to health!" Or any other count.)

So it turns out that, as of my last visit to the doc (for what turned out to be the flu, a month or so ago) I had lost 30 pounds in a year. Which isn't a lot, but as long as I keep moving, and watching what I eat, is also not likely to reappear...

Anyway. I have figured out how to get those 10,000 steps in while at work -- if I can, I simply do two "tours" of the Salt Mines, but if it comes down to it, I know how often I need to make a quick tour of the closest sections.

I have an app on the smartphone, and last year for my birthday Mrs. Drang got me a smartwatch, so I track my steps, and heart rate, that way.

So I was off yesterday, and decided to go for a walk on one of the local walking trails. (It's named for a major local power company, and the trail runs along the course of some high tension lines.) (Imagine my flabbergastedenss -- I'm telling you, my gast is downright flabbered! -- to learn that the BPA Trail has a Wikipedia page...)

Anyhoo.

I was walking over to the start of the trail.  Now, I have to cross a major 4-lane surface street to get to the trail, and there are three places I can do so conveniently; one is the intersection at the end of my street, one is a couple blocks down in front of the library (the site of a modern, American take on a  Belisha Beacon) and another is down the street further, a major intersection, the site of an apartment complex, and commercial development across the street.

Mrs. Drang swears that the only safe place to make the crossing is down by the shops -- Safeway, among others -- so I headed down, got to the intersection, and hit the button to let the traffic lights know that there was a pedestrian waiting to cross...

...and the lights changed, I started across, and some little old lady in a Caddy plowed right through the intersection, taking a left and passing within a foot or so of me.

This, by the way, is not only extremely unsafe, but also (and therefore) illegal.

Here in the 9-8-double-ought-3 it will come as little surprise, but up in Seattle I'm sure it would come as a shock to learn that the 9mm in my holster didn't even think about jumping out of it's holster and teaching her a lesson.

Huh

I have no idea why only the previous post is showing up on the home page.

At least on my computer, with any browser I've tried, I have to click "older posts" to see any older post, but those posts are displayed 10 to a screen, per the Blog's settings.

UPDATE: This post and the previous post from today both display on the home page, no older ones.

In case you're interested in older blatherings of mine, click "Older Posts" below.

I Ain't'nt Ded Yet

So it's been almost three months since I posted a post here. When I got started, they said you should post every day if you wanted your blog to be successful.
I guess I must not have been interested in a successful blog.

Anyway, yes, I'm still here, and if any of those spam comments were really from people, well, sign your comment next time. And make sure it makes sense.

Reasons for not posting are various, personal and general. The personal doesn't seem like it would be of interest to anyone, assuming I wanted to share outside family and very close friends, and the general... well, you know why Tom Lehrer* allegedly gave up his singing career and went back to being a math professor, right? 

Not that I make any claim to being on a par with Tom Lehrer. (Despite having a related MOS in the Army.)

Anyhoo. I'm still here, if anyone cares, and I'll probably start posting again Real Soon Now...



*He denies it, basically says he got bored with it. And there's a thought: Better to die in  obscurity, or have your obit read "Author of 'Poisoning Pigeons In The Park' and inventor of the jello shot"?

Stop The Bleed, Part 2

The Defense Health Agency maintains a web site called Deployed Medicine here: Deployed Medicine --  which includes includes links to their app on both the Apple and Android Stores.

Free.

The Deployed Medicine  website includes several sections, including Tactical Combat Casualty Care , curated by (not surprisingly) The Committee on Tactical Combat Casualty Care. Understandably, these folks are on the cutting edge of trauma care, so this can be considered the source.That page includes manuals, videos, and reference documents.

Also, Greg Ellefritz has an excellent post up (The Best Tourniquets- A Research Review | Active Response Training) on the latest release from the CoTCCC, regarding recommended procedures, practices, and equipment for trauma care


This includes ratings of several tourniquets recommended for use in trauma care. Link to that is here: CoTCCC Recommended Devices & Adjuncts, click on the "View Book" button to read and/or download it as a .pdf.


Again, better to have it and not need it, than to need it and be waiting for the paramedics or a passing  Combat Lifesaver...

Stop The Bleed Month

May is Stop the Bleed Month. And May 23rd is National STOP THE BLEED Day.

(Yes, those seem to be "rival" web sites...)

Perhaps with that in mind, Tamara had a post yesterday (The largest window for error...) in which she linked to an article about gun safety vis à vis administrative gun handling, and said that, if you're going to carry a gun, you should have a "blow out kit" with you. (SayUncle linked, and, this being the Internet, predictably, derp ensured in comments.)

I've written about first aid and (especially) trauma care and training before, and on this very topic in The Clue Meter: Tourniquets Save Lives.

In that post I included some videos of how to apply a tourniquet, including one I reproduce here, how to apply a field expedient tourniquet:


As to which tourniquet to carry, the two standards seem to be the CAT (Gen 7+) and the SOF-T (Gen 4+); the advantages of one over the other seem be minor and due as much to personal preference of the professional you are speaking to, as well as to incremental improvements in one or the other. Similar tourniquets are likely to mimic the style or design, but use cheaper materials.

There is at least one "bargain" tourniquet that is essentially a long rubber band; in formal testing it was rated as better than nothing -- barely. (The sales pitch is cool, "Tighten until the diamonds are squares and the ovals are circles"; just doesn't seem to work as well in real application.)

Research:

• Efficacy of Pre-hospital Application of Tourniquets and Hemostatic Dressings to Control Traumatic External Hemorrhage. Opens a .pdf document from EMS.gov, a site at the National Institutes of Health.

GET TRAINING!

You need to take classes; even if you master applying a tourniquet by watching YouTube videos, there are other things you'll need to know. So where do you find such training? After all, you might not know a handy Ambulance Driver who happens to be conducting a class on the subject.

• BleedingControl.org has a Find A Class page.
• The Stop the Bleed Monthweb site does too: Find Training.
• As does the National STOP THE BLEED Day web site: Get Trained.
• FEMA also has some suggestions: Stop the Bleed | Homeland Security
• The Firearms Training Hub has a page listing Medical classes; among others, Dark Angel Medical has classes nationwide. Including one local to me next week...

If you're not comfortable buying  emergency medical/trauma care supplies off of Amazon -- and stories of counterfeit merchandise abound -- some reputable sources include:

• Chinook Medical Gear, Inc.
• Tactical Medical Solutions for Military and First Responders
• First Aid Kits | First Aid Supplies | MyMedic
• Adventure® Medical Kits

This is another item in the "Better to have it (and know how to use it!) but never need it, than to need it and not have it and/or not know how to use it" category.

Going and Coming

Sort of an NRAAM post, pics on the way there and on the way back...

All photographs © 2019 D.W. Drang and The Cluemeter.

On climb out from SEA

It got a bit hazy once we made altitude, but this gives you an idea of the local terrain.
(Click to embiggenate.)
I was on the wrong side of the plane for shots of Mt. Rainier.
Too far south for Mt. Adams, Mt. Baker, or Glacier Peak.

Somewhere over the Mississippi weather started to close in.
Last 45 minutes or so of the flight into IND was rough.

On final into SEA, sunset over the Olympics 1

On final into SEA, sunset over the Olympics 2

On final into SEA, sunset over the Olympics 3

SEA has airplanes hanging from the ceilings, so naturally, IND displays race cars...

Obligatory local color/architecture shots:

The buildings in that part of town are all connected by a series of skywalks.
Most of them are not this fancy.

"Sick of the NRA? Read this."

Breach/Bang/Clear: Sick of the NRA? Read this. | Duane Liptak with a reality check

...people bash the NRA a lot without understanding the reality of how the silly reindeer games get played on the hill. Try to at least understand the value that the organization provides because it is big and very real, and critically important. I want a live tank in my front yard and mail order Solothurn S-18/1000’s from Bannerman’s. But the path to get there isn’t exactly a clear one in the current legislative environment. Without the strength of the NRA helping to pack the courts, shape elections the best we can, fight off bad legislation wherever possible and pave the way to improve rights through the judiciary (we’ve confirmed 85 federal judges in addition to the 2 Supremes with 130 more to go), I fear we won’t have a path to it at all. That’s why I’m a member, and helping to make the organization as right as we can get it is why I got involved.

I get the frustration. I’m mad that we’re even in this situation. How could we, a republic, born from free men taking up arms against oppression, even be considering some of this nonsense? It baffles me. And, I used to be super frustrated with the NRA, also. Until…I was forced into being involved in politics and seeing how this whole mess works. Now I know what I have to do, and I hope everyone out there who cares about gun rights can get on board, too.

So, if you want to support GOA or FPC or FPC, or JPFO…that’s fantastic. Join your state organization, also. Be active locally. Let your elected representatives know how you feel on these issues regularly. But…be a member of the NRA, and be active. Vote. Let the board and the staff know where you stand on issues. Help to be a part of the solution. If we, as gun owners, can’t stick together and take advantage of the strengths of all of our organizations where they can do the most good, we will lose this fight. I’m not willing to lose.

 This is the last three paragraphs. Go read the whole thing.

A Review Which Should Not Be Necessary

I hear Ted Cruz has introduced a bill to impose term limits on congresscritters.

Must be the beard.

Meanwhile, the ignorance on display daily among voters (or non-voters, if they make that choice) is bad enough, but the media should know better, and anyone in government, whether hired, appointed, or elected...!

Anyway.

So Nancy Pelosi claims that according to the Constitution, she is the equal of the President.



Meanwhile, I keep being told it's the President's fault that a Democratic senator filibustered the budget bill the House sent there, or that the house has since failed to send a clean bill to the Senate, so that body can send it to the President...



While we're at it...

"Darmok"

In my previous post, LOL of the Day, I shared a meme which, quite frankly, I knew a lot of people wouldn't get.

And that's OK. I even know some Star Trek fans who had forgotten the episode "Darmok".

Now, that particular episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation happens to be my favorite for several reasons.

A quick synopsis, for anyone not familiar with the episode:

• The Enterprise is dispatched to meet an alien race. 
• Picard is beamed off the ship as the aliens cast a "scattering field" which prevents Enterprises transporter from beaming Picard back up.
• Picard discovers that the intent of the alien captain is that he and Picard cooperate to fight a creature.
• Slowly, Picard realizes that the reason that the Federation has never been able to communicate with this alien race is that they only speak in allegory and metaphor; likewise, they find straightforward speech baffling.
• The alien captain dies, but Picard is now able to communicate with the aliens, so Everything's Fine.

How many Standard Star Trek Tropes did you spot in that executive summary of a synopsis?  (More at Darmok - Wikipedia and Star Trek One Trek Mind: Deciphering "Darmok".)

One of the reasons I like this episode is that it is one of the few examples of science fiction in media where there was an honest attempt to live up to SF's nickname "The Literature of Ideas." While any literature can be described as starting from the question "What if...?" -- "What if the teenage children of two feuding families of Verona fell in love and secretly married?" -- in Speculative Fiction the "What if?" gets to be (one might argue should be) more out of the ordinary.

In this case, "What if we met a race/culture that only communicated in metaphor and allegory?"

This is cool.

Mind you, it is also absurd, because, as is pointed out in the article "Deciphering 'Darmok'" I linked above,

Yet there's one annoying thing about “Darmok.” If the Tamarians only speak in these metaphors, how did they ever learn the words that later came to be used in the phrases? How did they know that walls fell around Shaka if they need a phrase to symbolize the word “wall?”

They had words for stuff, but they couldn't just use a word? They couldn't say "Here", meaning "take this", they had to say "Temba, his arms open"? How did they learn what "arm" or "arms" or "open" were? Or "his"?

Not to mention, how does a race that only speaks in metaphor develop the science and math needed to become a space-faring race?

My assumption has always been that there were certain ceremonial occasions on which it is an unbreachable imperative that one speak in these metaphors, not unlike a Vulcan's dedication to logic. We know Vulcans are actually susceptible to emotion and illogic, and that they must fight to maintain their control, so perhaps this alien outreach mission would be regarded as a failure if they didn't play by their own internal rules. ("Deciphering 'Darmok'" posits a race that is partially telepathic.)

Another thing I liked about the episode is that they routinely broke every other magic double-talk generator device on the show, but this is the only episode I remember where Universal Translator failed.

Given Roddenberry's known utopian vision for the future -- routinely ignored on the show, when it was convenient, but don't dare suggest to him that he was full of shit! -- he probably had some Chomskian notion of a "language organ"...

Photography Bleg

Just unearthed a box full of photographs going back to the mid-70s.

The oldest photos are from my Colorado Outward Bound experience in... '75?

These were taken with a Kodak 110 pocket camera, and not only are the prints faded (no surprise there) but the negatives have all taken on a green hue, which is present in the photos when I scan them with the negative/slide scanner Mrs. Drang got me for Christmas a year or two ago. Some of the 35mm negatives I have also need some color correction.

I'm looking for a reasonably priced software package that will allow me to restore these to normal colors, i.e., blue sky, white snow, instead of both being shades of green. Bonuses for being able to just click a button and have it be done...

Thanks in advance.

GDPR Statment

I keep getting told the Euro-Weenies say I have to make a statement about Euro-Weenie privacy. (The first syllable of which is probably supposed to rhyme with "privy.")

Randall Munroe of XKCD.com has done a masterful job of summing the situation up, I believe:

©2018 Randall Munroe, XKCD,com
"This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License."

Seriously, the only data I could be considered to be keeping is if you leave a comment here, and the fact is I delete most comments I get as spam.

What Google, Blogger, and/or Blogspot (assuming there's a difference, which I doubt) may do with incidental data they scoop up as you surf blogs, I can't say. Ask them.

Happy Cultural Appropriation Day! (EDIT)

Not a topic I thought I'd be citing CNN for, but...
Cinco de Mayo: What it is, and what it isn't - CNN
Includes this fact-bomb:

When was the Cinco de Mayo war?

There was no Cinco de Mayo war.

The holiday celebrates Mexico's victory over France in the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. It was a relatively minor battle -- the French reclaimed Puebla a year later -- but a symbolic one because a small Mexican army defeated a larger occupying force. By 1867, Mexican troops had driven France from the country.

Many Americans assume Cinco de Mayo is Mexico's Independence Day. It's not. That holiday falls on September 16 and commemorates the Grito de Dolores, a priest's ringing of a church bell in the town of Dolores in 1810 that triggered Mexico's War of Independence from Spain.

This is a slightly less face-palmingly stupid question, what with a commercial currently running for a Mexican cerveza that refers to "The Battle of Cinco de Mayo." Complete with footage of a bartender polishing glasses in the middle of the battle. (If there was a bartender at the Battle of Puebla, he was a French quartermaster doling out the vin ordinaire ration to les soldats.)

EDIT:
Ugh. I've been making fun of people that think Cinco de Mayo is a huge Mexican holiday for years.

The fun has gone out of that,though, now that I've discovered that the Southern Poverty Law Center (which has precious little to do with either poverty or the law, mostly seeming interested in accusing conservative institutions of being hotbeds of racist terrorism) has condemned Cinco de Mayo as cultural appropriation.

Damned progressives, always ruining everybody's fun...

Word Of The Day: Baizuo

pic.twitter.com/VmgbCGXUwU

— Sage Savage (@SageSavageTV) April 28, 2018

The Word Of the Day is: Baizuo (from Urban Dictionary.)

Baizuo (pronounced "bye-tswaw) is a Chinese epithet meaning naive western educated person who advocates for peace and equality only to satisfy their own feeling of moral superiority. A baizuo only cares about topics such as immigration, minorities, LGBT and the environment while being obsessed with political correctness to the extent that they import backwards Islamic values for the sake of multiculturalism.

The Chinese see the baizuo as ignorant and arrogant westerners who pity the rest of the world and think they are saviours.

Justin Trudeau's worldview is a low-resolution caricature of an adult's worldview.

Baizuo at Wikipedia.

Baizuo (Chinese: 白左, literally "White left(ies)"^[1]) is a derogatory Chinese epithet that came into being in the middle 2010's.^[2][3] The word received attention in Germany where it was seen as criticizing the immigration policies of Angela Merkel.^[4][5][6]

Context and usage

The word baizuo is, according to political scientist Zhang Chenchen, a Chinese word that ridicules Western "Liberal elites".^[7] The term has also been used to refer to perceived double standards of the Western media, such as the alleged bias on reporting about Islamist attacks in Xinjiang.^[8][9][10]
Zhang Chenchen further defined the word "baizuo" with the definition "People who only care about topics such as immigration, minorities, LGBT and the environment" and “have no sense of real problems in the real world”; they are hypocritical humanitarians who advocate for peace and equality only to “satisfy their own feeling of moral superiority”; they are “obsessed with political correctness” to the extent that they “tolerate backwards Islamic values for the sake of multiculturalism”; they believe in the welfare state that “benefits only the idle and the free riders”; they are the “ignorant and arrogant westerners” who “pity the rest of the world and think they are saviours”.^[11]
Baizuo is used as an insult amongst Chinese netizens.

See also

• Social justice warrior
• Regressive left
• Liberal elite
• Clintonian
• Radical Chic
• limousine liberal

Can you say "Baizuo"? I knew you could.

Out and About

Not sure which surprised me more today:

• Safeway sells "Frozen, Pre-cooked Chitlins."* 
• Safeway sells caviar. 
• Trader Joe's was playing Toby Keith and Alan Jackson as muzak. 

Also, this happened semi-locally: Mango Used As Weapon In Bellevue Assault | Bellevue, WA Patch.  (H/t SayUncle.

Mrs. Drang is still disgusted with me because my first reaction was "Come at me with this banana!"



*Yeah, it's probably "supposed" to be spelled "chitterlings." Guess what? Spell check agrees that "chitlins" is also acceptable.

Ignorance, arrogance, and "gunsplaining"

Seen on Twitter:

If I have this right, only climate scientists can have an opinion on climate change, but any jackass can opine on guns even if they don’t know a .22 from a 12 gauge.

— J.R. Salzman (@jrsalzman) March 9, 2018

In all modesty, I believe I have an improvement:

"...don't know an ear plug from a rubber bullet."

— Drang (@DWDrang) March 9, 2018

It is my understanding that this sort of attempt by those of us who are knowledgeable about firearms technology and terminology to correct those who are clueless about same is now derided as "Gunsplaining". Note that the link goes to what might be called a "friendly" site, as opposed to the ones that criticize "gunsplaining" as using "jargon" in "bad faith" to "bully" the gun grabbers...

Because terminological inexactitude is unimportant when The Feelz are at stake.

So, remember, next time you feel the need to correct someone on "Standard Capacity" versus "High Capacity" magazines, or to explain the difference between the independent and dependent clauses in certain articles in The Bill of Rights, or why cosmetic features make little or no difference to the actual functioning of a firearm, or why  certain firearm features are actually safety features...

...Remember, I say, that you are engaging in jargon-based, bad-faith, bullying behavior.

Make sure you capture any progressive tears that ensue, as I am assured that they make excellent firearms lubricant.

'Nuff said