Quick Post, 10.13.15; Will Wapo's Dana Milbank eat his words?

Dana Milbank says that Trump will lose out on the GOP nomination.  If he is wrong about that, Milbank says he will eat the column on which the article is printed.

The day Trump clinches the nomination I will eat the page on which this column is printed in Sunday’s Post.---Dana Milbank, Washington Post Op-Ed, Oct. 2, 2015

 Anybody taking bets on this one?  How much to bet if he's wrong, and how much to bet that he will really eat his own words?

I'd say he's got a good chance of being wrong, but not likely that he will carry out his promise to actually eat his own words.

Obligatory, 10.13.15; What kind of world do we live in?

Trying to keep a sense of humor about things.  I'm reminded a scene in the movie Batman 1989, where the Joker ( Jack Nicholson) complains about a 'batman' who is getting all of his press.  The incongruity of it was bizarre.  Such is my own case and why it needs to be kept in perspective.

Here I am putting together some ideas that I think might work, criticizing those of society's ideas that are failing, and I'm like the Joker character wondering about my press coverage.  What kind of world do we live in when something good is shunned and something bad is embraced?

Brainstorm: Use a dolly's "blade" to remove soil

Got this idea while out on deliveries today.  I set the dolly down on some dirt and it dug into it pretty good.  A light bulb, as a manner of speaking, lit up in my mind.  Since I may want to remove dirt and some pesky little scrub bushes from the surface where I'm working at the ranch, I can use this idea to scrape it all off without too much trouble nor expense.  At least, I hope so.

The blade could be a couple feet wide, which is okay.  I don't necessarily need a big one.  I have plenty of old dollies around the place, and I was thinking of how to get rid of them.  Maybe that was a bit hasty.  These things can come in handy out there.

Now I need to rig up a system where it could be practical.  It needs to slide along the ground with the blade jutting a few inches into the soil.  As you pull it along, the blade will scrape off the soil and the scrubs.  I'm thinking of using my little electric scooter as a motive device that will pull this thing along.  ( You didn't think I was going to do that myself, did you?)

If it works really well, I could use it to make some useful tanks that can collect water, and also have a deeper portion in the tank, where it will be easy for water to collect and to pump out.

Since this involves water, it will go into the water subseries of the off-the-grid main series of posts.

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Mapping the quonset greenhouse to the self-watering container gardening system, alternative system

Prev  Next  [ food subseries in off-the-grid main series of posts]

In this version, the quonset would consist of a single cattle panel that connects with another cattle panel coming from the opposite direction and meeting in the center.  This makes a long and skinny quonset.

The containers would be serviced from outside the quonset.  This gets rid of the walkway inside, which was wasting space.  There's no telling how many containers could go in.  May be able to stagger the containers and put as many as 20 of them in there.  If double-stacked, that could mean as many as 40 containers.  If 20 plants go into each container, that means as many as 800 plants can be grown in one greenhouse.  Whoa!

There should be plenty of water since the tank isn't subdivided and wasting space with the walkway.

The drawing below isn't proportional.  It should show a skinny looking floor plan.  No doors were included in the floor plan.  The gutters are on the side.  If the doors were there, it would be on the top and bottom of the drawing.

Need to figure a way to cover the water so that algae doesn't grow in the tank.  Also, could include a water plumbing feature that allows the containers to be screened off from the water supply.  May want this water for personal use!

Obligatory, 10.12.15; Who gets to decide what's in the news?

It seems strange that a large majority in the House cannot elect a Speaker.

It seems strange that a president that is said to have increased gun sales in this country by his insistence on gun-control could single handedly enact gun-control measures.

It seems strange that the guy ever got elected in the first place.  Even stranger still that he got re-elected after bragging about Al-Qaeda being on the run, and then having one of his outposts overrun by Al-Qaeda.

It should be easy for the GOP to oppose this guy, but they can't manage an opposition.  It should be easy for the GOP to rein him in, but they can't.

I am incredulous.  There's really no explaining any of this.  None of this makes any sense.

All of this should be front row and center.  Instead, the news gets dictated by somebody behind the scenes.

The public is confused and knows something is wrong, but nobody seems to know what it is.  That ignorance must be planned.

"Gun-free" zones aren't

American Thinker



Interesting article.  The writer probes the liberal mindset in order to explain the attraction of liberals for this type of policy.



When I think of liberalism, I think of the saying that there's two reasons for doing a thing:

1. One that sounds good,
2. And the real one.

What's the real reason the liberals want gun-free zones?  The one that sounds good is that it is supposed to stop gun deaths.  The real one is much uglier.

You can't tell the truth about it though, because it is too ugly.  We can't have that kind of ugliness out there.



The truth is that the liberals want your guns because it makes you utterly dependent upon them.  It is a political motivation.  It empowers them forever and leaves you powerless, which is what they like.



The ugliness of that last sentence would cause them to howl in protest.  They are good people.  You are just so mean to say it.

The process of moving out

This is going to be a big job.  There are so very many things around here that just won't fit into a very limited space.

There's three desktop computers ( old, but still functional ) that cannot go.  Even the newest one is a tweener.  In the end, even that one may have to go.

There aren't that many furnishings here, but those that are will have to go.  A couple of desks have to go.  Lots of chairs.  My big recliner?!?  Oh, my.  My books???  There's no place to put 'em.  The TV?  Now, that may have some use even though I don't use it very much anymore.  You can connect it to the computer (if I keep it).  You can connect it to the DVD player.  But all of these draw power, so they won't be useful out in the countryside.

If everything has to fit into the van and the overhead I'll have to build, it doesn't leave much room.

In order to make the cut, it has to be something I cannot live without.  But, but, but...  Not buts.

Actually, this move has to start here and now because there's so much to do.

Update:

Getting a bit ahead of myself.  The first move should take place with all my stuff, so I don't have to get rid of everything until then.  That move can take place as much as a year from now.  No need to rush.  Not to mention that I'll have a year from then to get rid of the stuff that I can't take with me when I move out on to the property for good.