I hope we have a remote off switch for all those tanks

I spent the day watching fox news and playing Napoleon's
campaign in Egypt. I'm making the crossing to Palestine,
and I'd bet the same invasion will be happening soon enough
if the wrong people end up in charge of Egypt.

Egypt deserves to be a republic. A good percentage of the
people in the oilfield are egyptian, and they are some of
the best educated, smartest people, switching from french
to english to arabic at the drop of a hat. Instead, according
to the pols in this article, it's going to be an Islamist
revolution.

But what do Egyptians really think? According to a recent Pew poll, they are extremely radical even in comparison to Jordan or Lebanon. When asked whether they preferred “Islamists” or “modernizers,” the score was 59% to 27% in favor of the Islamists. In addition, 20 percent said they liked al-Qaeda; 30 percent, Hezbollah; 49 percent, Hamas. And this was at a time that their government daily propagandized against these groups.

How about religious views? Egyptian Muslims said the following: 82 percent want adulterers punished with stoning; 77 percent want robbers to be whipped and have their hands amputated; 84 percent favor the death penalty for any Muslim who changes his religion.

If that's the case, I'd bet their first item on their agenda
will be taking all the rage on the streets and pointing it to
Israel. Who knows how that would go if it's M1 tank against M1 tank?

Yikes. That curse of 'may you live in interesting times' is very true,
I wish it was the end of history again

End of Weekend humor

Not a very effective weekend. I had to re-revise the revisions
of the edited version of the paper I'm writing.
Apparently I'm the worst user of Word version tracking in the world,
I ended up turning off all the editing popups so I could see what
words were there. I got that sent off, and instead of jogging
around the lagito here, or doing some other work I spent the
rest of the weekend playing Total War Napolean and surfing the
web.

The game isn't too bad, not as good as Rome, and it must require
windows 7 and 32 gigs of ram, because with the 3 GB that xp32 can
use it crashes at every big battle, a couple of times saving me
from humiliation as my last few calvary got chased around the
screen.

I surfed the web and watched some movies too, since my family is
off visiting relatives. One very funny writer is on Altucher Confidential.
His writing is so open that one of the commenters suggested he must
have a brain tumor (cue Arnold "It's not a tuma").
Super funny though. Including stories about his dot-com companies, where he lost millions after making millions. It's good that he can joke about it, I lost a crapload of money but nothing like millions, and if I think too hard about it I'll have to go drink a relief beer.

Here's a clip from his story today about beginner yoga classes:

Chanting. At the beginning of class there’s a chant. It starts off with a big “Ommmm”. I can handle that. But then it goes into something else that I can’t understand. Everyone else is doing the chant. For some reason I blush and I try to hum along with it but then blush more because why am I even humming?

there's a scott adams (dilbert) rule that chanting is always funny.
Dogbert asking a prospective cult member "can you chant" is funny, humming
while pretending to chant is double funny.

The world turned upside down

The funny video showing Chairman Hu in washington like
the new owner was even truer than I thought. One of the
songs the piano player played at the presidential reception
is a song from a movie about the korean war.

Linked from Althouse to the paper the epoch times:

The song Lang Lang played describes how beautiful China is and then near the end has this verse, “When friends are here, there is fine wine /But if the jackal comes /What greets it is the hunting rifle.” The “jackal” in the song is the United States....

Just from reading James Clavell novels about china and the orient it's
easy to know that they have no respect for westerners, and if this happened
in china it wouldn't surprise me at all. But this was a piano player the
USA paid for, and he provided the list of songs he was going to play to
the state department and the Chinese. Our state department doesn't have
a single person who would recognize that song and squelch it. Maybe we deserve
their disrespect.

Hey, nice stealth jet

Just Dang

Apparently Steve Jobs is still sick and will take
a leave of absence. I hope he gets well not just for
the sake of my apple stock, but because he seems to
create things that I really like (iPod, Pixar, iphone
and itunes). Some jerkwad in bucharest stole my iphone,
but itunes is still a big source our entertainment, for
the times when we've been tvless like the first couple of
months in Italy and before we got skytv here.

On the other hand, apple stock was the last best chance
for us to get rich. I bought it with the remainder of
my dot-bomb account when apple was $15/share. I heard
the first ipod playing in the cubicle next door...how
in the heck did so much music play without repeats I asked?
I put the 2k that hadn't boogered away during the crash
into apple.

I stupidly sold off most of it when it quadrupled, but the
remainder still has gone up 10 times. Fear and greed made
me sell at the wrong time and now hold too long. Tomorrow
the stock will probably go down $50, of course fear will
probably keep me from buying it tomorrow morning. doh.

here's what zerohedge has to say:

Below we present the top 200 holders of AAPL stock. The holdings of the smallest one in the group amount to $133 million. We are confident they will all exit the theater in a calm, collected fashion.

Past is prologue

I just watched "Full Metal Jacket" for the first time since I saw
it in the theater in 1987. I watched it the first time at the BX
theatre at Chanute AFB during AF tech school. They probably should
have chosen a different movie to show there, since the whole base
was full of airmen fresh out of basic training. My main thought
after watching that was 'thank goodness I didn't join the Marine
Corp, since the crazy guy at Paris Island was playing me. I started
Basic training as the fattest slowest guy there. It took every bit
of running around for 6 weeks to burn all the fat off, not a chance
I could have made it through anything more rigorous.

Anyway, it's kind of weird the way the past is telescoping behind us.
When full metal jacket came out it was only 14 years after US combat
troops left Vietnam, and Vietnam seemed like an eternity in the past
at the time. Now it's nearly twice as long back to 1987, and really
just a blink of an eye has passed. (or as the wife says, like 10 minutes,
under water.

Kind of weird too that 20 years ago this week I started in the oilfield,
and that time definitely passed as if I was underwater. But I wouldn't
change anything, working here allowed me to meet my wife and have a
family, without the oilfield I'd probably still be turning wrenches as a jet
mech, drinking 40 oz miller lites every night. doh.

Killer Greens

Over at EU referendum they point to the floods in
Australia whose effects were entirely preventable
and predictable. Similar floods have happened in the past
and flood control projects were shelved in favor of
desalination plants to deliver fresh water to a global
warming parched land.

Good irony. Here's the killer quote:

But the real story is bizarre, another classic example of the greenies forcing major distortions in policy which cost money we haven't got and eventually kill people. Increasingly we see that the obsession with global warming is not a risk-free option. It costs money we can't afford, and lives. This must stop.

Economics says we can't have everything. Choices have to be
made in order to provide shelter, water, heat and power
efficiently. Instead of choosing the most cost effective option
we're choosing the global warming mitigating option:

Windmills, solar, etc. Solar PV in germany when an insolation map would say
there is no point. Talking about windmills in the gulf of mexico
when half the year there's no wind, the other half it's too strong.
In a poor country like mexico they are talking about outlawing
incandescent bulbs so the poor people can't even have a reasonably
priced light at night.

Decision making is so terrible in all levels of government in every country.
People don't understand, when they choose something it almost always
eliminates the other options (Tanstaafl) Choose wisely, or we'll be
spending future winters in the dark and cold.

Pour encourager les autras?

I didn't get to see much news this weekend, I got to
go to a bbq at a fellow gringo's house and attempted to
kill off my various stomach problems with beer and grilled
meat. Didn't work but I had fun.

I missed the ruckus over in TJICistan when after the congresswoman
got shot, TJIC snarkily said one down and 534 to go. Not LOL, but pretty clever.
Half of the libtardosphere went there and commented, what
terrible people they are that inhabit Tjicistan. (A similar situation
happened at work, a coworker pointed out an article from africa where
a guy got eaten by a lion when he went out of camp to take a leak and
I laughed. I even gave permission to laugh at me if I'm ever eaten
while taking a dump, or hang myself with a rope tied to my nuts.) Little
girl shot by nut, tragedy, not funny. Gringo killed in Army/narco crossfire,
not funny. 1 down and 534 to go is not in good taste, but is pretty funny.

It's a terrible thing that happened, but snark is always allowed.
and snarky comments shouldn't cause a visit from the FBI as some of
the commenters are hyperventilating.

After listening to libtards talking about assassinating bush
for 8 years, their gnashing of teeth over this tragedy and pinning
the blame on Palin is pretty fucking rich.


Update 23 Jan - "I Am TJIC"

Apparently his guns were taken away by the local sheriff because he's
a threat. What kind of bullshit is that? So much for free speech.

The best cracker ever

I'm eating the best cracker ever, a slightly burnt saltine,
and the salty/smoky flavors are rolling across my tongue.
It's the first solid I've eaten in two days, which was the
continuation of a really sucky week. I got sick new years
eve, so sick I had to leave a party with free booze and lots
of good food. New years day every doctor in town was closed,
so I went to the emergency room and the guy there told me I have
the flu and gave me an antiviral with decongestant and Tylenol
mixed in (big honging pills that have to be taken for 10 days)

Stayed home all week, still feeling like crap, I went to an ENT
to see what was really going on, and he declared a bacterial infection
and gave me 10 giant antibiotic pills that have to be taken one
per day. I was feeling overmedicated, but better, until those
pills reacted, I ate something bad or someone gave me poison and
my digestive system as they say in the oilfield, reversed out.

The only thing comparable is being seasick on a boat for 15 hours;
with the flu; a hangover and 'irregularity'. I felt like that
point in the movie The Fly, when jeff goldblum holds the shotgun up
to his head.

Everything finally stabilized last night, and I slept like the kind
of sleep where I didn't blink awake or dream a dream, just an instant
of deep dark rest, followed a moment later by waking up in the morning
light, with my family looking at me like, "hey, you're alive". Now
I'm drinking changua caballo soup (onions and salt) and eating the best
cracker ever baked.

Chilly weather

Not much to blog about lately, I have a limited scope of work for
blogging because I don't blog about the most important things in life:
family, work etc, and lately I don't really care about politics (we're
firmly on the 'we're going to have to nuke them from orbit path', so,
down the hatch!). All that leaves is travel blogging, the weather and
scatological topics, and I've been hesitant to write about where I'm at,
especially if I am north of Veracruz, up in eruption of sudden machine
gun battle territory.

That just leaves scatological themes, such as the ever insightful TJIC
being out of action due to as they say on tv; irregularity. The key
insight I could suggest was whatever you do, don't take medicine for
stomach problems, just go somewhere you have line of sight access to
a bathroom, drink liquids and rest. Also, enjoy the weight loss, the
only way I've been able to lose any weight the past few years is to
dance with Monteczuma.

So blogging will probably continue being light, until I get some
insight into some other topic, or a muse comes to visit, but lately
I've been fairly unamused.

Bucket List

If taking a dump on a mexican bus while riding from Poza Rica
to Veracruz was on my bucket list, it's scratched off now. I
made the mistake of ordering something for lunch that wasn't
what I thought it was.

I asked for Steak Pimientado, which I translated as pepper
steak, a piece of hamburger with pepper. In Poza Rica, that
is translated as flank steak with black pepper, plus enough
spicy pepper that I was sweating on the back of my head. I
dove into the baked potato for some relief, it was just as
spicy if not spicier.

All in all, a very mistaken lunch, especially since I had
to take a 5 hour bus ride back to Veracruz. Not a good place
to have a tumultuous stomach, but I survived. The strange
thing is the toilet seat on the bus is spring loaded, so it
does a "no time for sargeants" salute when you get up. Adding
in the bumps on the road, the net acceleration wanted to turn me
into a toilet launched projectile.

The buses in Mexico are pretty good, the ADO Platinium
and GL buses are nicer than most planes now, and bus frequency is
similar to a good train system. There were no nice buses available
for this trip, I expected to be seated on a 1950's era school bus
with people carrying chickens, but in reality it was just the same,
slightly more crowded and without free headphones. I took a coworker's
advice and bought a 2nd child ticket for half price, and that gave me
enough room to take a nap.
buses available

Tubing the interwebs

The weather down here in southern Mexico has been very cool,
lows down around 14-15 deg C. The houses here are just cinder-block
boxes with a thin film of paint and stucco, so the weather inside
feels remarkably similar to the weather outside with a time delay
due to the thermal capacity of the building. Last night it was
warm until 1 am even though it was pretty cool outside by then, but
by 6 am it felt pretty frosty inside.

I've got several presentations for work this week, plus lots of stuff
to write, but I can't seem to drink enough tea to clear out the cobwebs
today, so I'm pretty much just tubing the interwebs. A poor sort of tubing
without a 2nd tube containing an icechest of beer.

Reading Sharon over at smART, she's poetic even when describing getting out
of the hospital.

On the ride home I just looked out the window and watched the lights from the chemical plants shimmering in the dark across the Ohio River. When I was a little kid coming home from North Hills Passavant finally, I remember having the same thoughts…

What is it like to be just one light shining across the water like that, at night

It's always scary reading about being in the hospital. I hope she gets better soon.

....It's now 30 minutes later and I haven't even managed to open powerpoint.
Apart from the bitter cold 60 degree temps last night, we got a good scare
coming in the door. We opened the gate to the carport/patio area when we
arrived home and found the skytv remote inside by the gate. I was pretty
certain it meant we had been robbed of our few meager possessions (everything
is still in the shipment) and they dropped the remote when trying to lift the
tv over the wall.

I crept around the house turning on lights, with my finger ready to be
extended into pistol position (bang bang, take that fargin iceholes).
Everything was still there, unassembled sams club desk, undecorated
charlie brown christmas tree, crappiest borrowed sofa in the world
(borderline better than nothing, but thanks!) and satelitte tv/sams club
LCD TV. It turned out that a friend visiting yesterday had accidentally
picked up the remote in her purse, returning it
on a late-night ninja through the gate mission.

Houston Parking trap - Mexican Consulate

We had to go to the Mexican consulate in Houston a couple of times
this week. The rules for going to the Mexican consulate are: don't
bring any electronics or cell phones, the begging guy outside wants
money not food and most importantly, don't park in the Houston City
Parking lot at the corner.

The first time I went, I didn't see the entrance to the public lot,
and there are 5 or 6 people flagging to park in private lots. I grudgingly
paid $8 to park in one, and I had to make a trip back to the lot to bring
out a handful of cell phones and gadgets.

The next day we made attempt number two for the visa and I parked in
the public lot for 50 cents per hour. I paid an hour, we went in and
came out 45 minutes later to find a ticket. They gave me a ticket because
I had reversed into the spot (as I almost always do). I saved $8 on
the flag wavers, but paid $35 to the cocksuckers at the city.

Since there is a faggot meter maid parked in the lot, I'd assume almost everyone
gets a ticket for something. I paid the ticket, but I liberally sprinkled
bad karma on the check.

Medal of Honor

One good side-effect of President Obama being in
charge is the press is less in the tank against
the military. The American network (mostly cbs+Oprah)
showed a 60 minutes interview with SSgt Giunta, the
Medal of Honor winner.

If you get a chance to watch it you should. SSgt
Giunta was very modest, he said 'I haven't given
anything, Sgt Brennan gave everything.'

Where do we get such men?

Good luck America

I couldn't vote today, as an expat without any local residence
it doesn't seem possible to absentee vote anywhere, but my good
wishes go with those in the tea party that seem to agree with what
I want; as small a federal government as possible, almost all government
should be within rock throwing distance.

I've tried explaining to foreigners our political system, how
America really was better than most places, and that's not just
nationalism. Unfortunately our current government isn't better,
it's not any better than Europe, and really just the dollar being
the reserve currency separates us from Mexico, where most of the
population lives in un-airconditioned cinderblock shacks, and are
the hardest working people in the world because if they don't work
they won't eat.

Our only hope is to try to dial back the clock as far back as possible.
People have to be self reliant. The government should be as the founding
fathers intended, small and mostly powerless. If most of the power and
the rights are reserved for the people, then they will be self sufficient
or starve.

The founding fathers were an amazing group, they had been educated post-
enlightenment, but still classically educated so that they knew the
dangers of too much central power. That their system worked until the
20th century as intended shows how smart they were. We don't need another
revolution, or another constitution, we just need to follow the one we have
more closely, without interpretation from liberal judges.

The first step on that road are the tea partiers running for election right
now, and people like Governor Christie in New Jersey. Hopefully the
great country of the usa will rise from it's current problems, and I won't have
to spend my declining years shaking a wrinkled fist at the CNN on the TV
from somewhere far south of I-10.

Multivax

I signed up last year for emails from Casey Research, they
send out a monthly email called "conversations with Casey".
It's mostly on investing in gold and commodities, and diversifying
into other countries before the fit hits the shan.

Always interesting and they've been right so far, gold I bought last
year is up 30%...even more interesting this month they mentioned their
interest in scifi writing and linked to Speculator's Fiction

They included a link to an Isaac Asimov short story, from the 50's but
still excellent and it's called the Last Question.

You can go read it and access the MultiVax at the same site.

All your factories are belong to us

Over at the Belmont Club, wretchard points out the chinese
professor ad.
It's a pretty effective ad for me, it brings to mind the book "The Good Earth",
one generation builds, the next generation squanders.

This was all predicted before. The politician I most agreed with
was Ross Perot. He often sounded crazy to average people because
he presented things in a way that required a knowledge about how business,
systems and history work. His craziness has proved prescient. That
great sucking sound of jobs leaving happened, the jobs first went to
Mexico, then to China.

Other countries are playing mercantilism chess
while the USA is playing hope and change checkers, and we're
most likely fucked. I doubt the outcome will be like the chinese ad because
even though we owe more than we can ever repay the idea of
strategic default is slowly percolating up from the worst deadbeats,
to not so deadbeats, to middle class people caught in the housing
bubble and in 5 years it will be national policy.

If we default against a weaker rival that is powerless it won't be
a big deal. If we default against the most populous and powerful country
in the world it will be more a pimp/ho situation of "where's my money
bitch?" Probably better to strategically default now and start over
while we've got the military strength to stop angry collection agents.
Sort of a My Bodyguard technique. I don't have your money now, but if you'd like to complain please
speak to my friend the US Navy.

Thankfully here in Mexico we're able to watch some usa channels,
but we don't have to watch any political adds. it's all too depressing
for me.

You can't go to waffle house again

I'm stuck in houston, i missed a flight back south
when the connecting flight had a mechanical problem.
Continental gave me a hotel voucher for a hotel, but
a shuttle from a different hotel came cruising up and asked
me if I have a voucher, if so I could use it there. Pretty
creepy, but sounded like a good deal and meant i wouldn't have
to stand on the curb anymore like a cheap hooker.

Continental gave me vouchers for meals tool
Since there's a waffle house in front of the hotel, and
when I worked in north lafayette 20 years ago, I ate
there almost every day that I wasn't offshore. Unfortunately
it wasn't too great, not as good as I remember. Doh, I wasted
a continental voucher.

Not too bad though I guess, compared to the book "the Road",
a waffle house sandwich would be much appreciated in post apocalyptic
america. I read that book on the flight up, and it scared the shit
out of me. worse than "IT" from stephen king. Made me miss
a night's sleep scary. Great book though.

New country song

I was just passing through the security theater line
here in IAH, where everyone goes through the motions of being
safer, but a 4 year old could think of ways to get a weapon
through. The guy behind me grabbed his stuff off the conveyor,
and holding his shoes and his belt in one hand, a plastic bag and
a computer in the other and supporting his other bags under his
arms. He dropped it all on a chair and said "Fuck it. I ain't
gonna fly anymore."

Which hit exactly what everyone in the line was feeling too, and
would make a really terrific country song:

I got my belt and my boots in a grey plastic tray
my bag's in another one, sent on it's way
an overpaid security guard is telling me to wait,
I used to like traveling, but I'm beginning to hate
Fuck it. I aint gonna fly anymore.

Crappy little seats that are too small to sit
It's raining hard outside my cigarette won't stay lit
Six dollars a drink for stale old beer
the pilots up front probably too drunk to steer.
fuck it...etc.

Keep Looking Up!

Watts up with that had a post pointing out that
Jupiter will be at opposition and at the closest approach to earth for
the next 12 years on the night of the 21st/22nd. He dedicated the post
to Jack Horkheimer who apparently died last month.

Dang.

When I was in school I always tuned in to whatever show was on
pbs at 10 pm so that I could see the Stargazer show at 10:30.

Jack Horkheimer's enthusiasm got me to learn most of the northern
hemisphere sky and always look up when I walk outside at night.
It's a comforting feeling that no matter where I am in the world I can
look up at night and see familiar stars and constellations.

...always, keep looking up!