Big Ass Hornet Update

The 2 or 3 of you who actually look at this blog may have wondered about that picture of a hornet over there to the right. Back when I first started this blog, I was having a problem with those monsters around my house. They scare the shit out of me, since I have a mild allergy to stinging insects and do not care to find out if getting hit by one of these fuckers might shift that allergy from mild to life-threatening, so I have waged an ongoing battle with them. They scored one on me late last summer when my dog stepped on one and couldn't put her foot down for two days.

The original post is here and there was an update here.

Anyway, I thought I was rid of them since I didn't see any for a long time, until about a month ago. So, the battle is on again and I have found an unlikely weapon. The compact fluorescent light bulb that is the threat to all freedom. It is a turbo hornet killing machine. See, they are attracted to light, like a moth with a big electric prod in its ass. But with the CFL, they can actually get up inside the coils of the CFL. Which is where I find one or two every morning, toasted. I guess the CFL gives off just enough heat to bake a hornet.

In the meantime, the conventional hornet/wasp trap has caught about 200 yellow jackets and three hornets. CFL 20, hornet trap 3.

Really, New York Times?

So, suddenly, losing our AAA rating is no big deal? Fuck you. Fuck you hard. You spent the last month trying to scare the country into avoiding the loss of AAA and now, suddenly, it's no big deal?

Assholes.

In Which I Drive a Lib Nuts

Bumper sticker belief systems do not hold up under fire.

Justice

Burn in hell, you rat bastard motherfucker.

To our men and women in uniform, well done. Well done.

Something You Don't See Every Day

How Many 5 Year Olds Could You Take?

Be ruthless and you will get a score like this:

29

Created by OnePlusYou - Free Dating Sites

Click the image to take the test for yourself.

One Last Followup on Local Temperature

Today is probably the coldest day of the year so far here at 6:30 in the morning in beautiful central North Carolina.  And yet, things are relatively toasty over on the Okeeweemee Creek in Montgomery County:

That's an average temperature in this little area of 23.5 degrees.  Take out the 36 reading, and the average drops to 19.3, a difference of 4.2 degrees, or about how much the temperature is supposed to change as we wend our way inexorably towards global boiling.  And this temperature is showing up in the early morning hours when it was still dark out, so no solar heating for it yet today.

Unless and until the warmists begin to clean up their data and correct what must be thousands of errors like this, we should continue to ignore them as much as possible.

Of Bludgeons and Innovation

Yesterday, I got an email from the White House's propaganda wing, signed by O.  In it, he trumpets the fact that insurance companies "... will be required to spend at least 80 percent of the health insurance premiums you pay on your health care, instead of overhead costs like advertising and executive compensation."

The dolt, and the other dolts up there, seem to believe that these two things are unnecessary to the proper conduct of business.  He stopped short of saying that reform is meant to eliminate profits at insurance companies, but truly, that is the intent.  Since forever, insurance companies spent about 65% of revenues on payouts, using the other 35% for operating the business, so O has more or less appropriated 15% of the insurance companies' revenue.  (Hmmmm....is that an illegal taking?  Probably not, but it is, in effect.)

O's version of health care reform, if it goes fully into effect, will ultimately destroy our health care industry.  We will be left with a system of primary care with little capacity to meet higher level needs and will be bereft of innovation.  It will eventually be used to bludgeon us into compliance, just as TSA is being used right now.  The level of innovation will be governed by that engine of innovation that is our federal government.  You know, the organization that gave us the Post Office, the IRS, the government procurement process, the TSA and the EPA, among others.

Will You Listen Now, Cap'n Oblivious?

Back in September, I posted about Paul Otellini, CEO of Intel and his comments about investing in the US.  He ain't.

Well, OK, he is.  But most of their investment in new plants is happening overseas.  Note that the Vietnamese plant is expected to:  "...expected to create thousands of skilled jobs as the nation moves from low to hi-tech."


Vietnam is becoming hi-tech.  Viet-f'n-nam is becoming hi-tech.  


If O (and the rest of our governmental leaders) doesn't get it through his shellacked head that we compete globally for jobs, we are doomed.  Because our business leaders have figured it out.

Weather Station Update

Ok, if you saw last night’s post, I have gone to the weather station in question.  Here is what I found:

 

I took this about 11:25 this morning and as you can see, the weather station is south-facing, in full sun.  Now, I don’t know the rules governing how these things are sited, but you can see from last night’s post that the way this one is sited is clearly affecting its results.  I’m sure that the sun heats that cinder block tower up during the day and radiates heat well into the evening.  Also, the way this station is oriented, it will continue to get direct sun well into the afternoon and when the leaves drop here in the next month or so, it will get sunlight for even more time each day.

This location is on one end of a bridge over a decent-sized creek with a pretty good flow.  I would imagine that the creek and the surrounding forest would actually provide a cooling effect in the area.  Except, of course, on the side of a cinder block building in direct sunlight.  Oddly enough, the current conditions look like this:

Right now, about 2:30 pm, it’s the coolest spot in the area.  Out of data points like this, we are supposed to wail and gnash our teeth and spend batrillions of dollars to stop global warming.  Dumb.

How do you think this affects the global warming calculations?

 

This is the part of North Carolina that I live in:

 

Seriously, what the hell is going on over there in Montgomery County?  I see that anomaly all the time.  For whatever reason, the light bulb went off in my head.

I think I will drive over there tomorrow and see what I can find out.

One of the Giants Speaks

Bernie Marcus is one of the founders of Home Depot, one of the most remarkable businesses to spring to life in the last 30 years.  He and his co-founders, Arthur Blank and Ken Langone started from nothing back in the late ‘70’s and built a huge, successful business that redefined an entire industry.  In short, Marcus is the sort of man you would want to listen to about creating jobs, since he had a big hand in creating over 300,000 of them.

Being the evil rich man that he is (he’s worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $2 billion), a few years ago he single-handedly kicked in $200 million to the city of Atlanta to build what is now the world’s largest aquarium and has also signed on with Warren Buffett and Bill Gates at The Giving Pledge, (read his nasty letter at the link) where he has pledged to give most of his fortune to their foundation upon his death.

Mr. Marcus was on CNBC today and, well, he ain’t happy.  This is a little over 15 minutes long and worth every minute.  (I tried mightily with my puny HTML skilz to embed the video here, but it is apparently the video that will not be embedded.)

Are you listening up there in your Ivory Tower, Mr. President?