English (Including British) Spoken Here

Kids hear the darndest things! Brian Williams is taking real metaphorical flak for his assertion that the US dropped a nuclear weapon on Hiroshima "in anger". Let me tie the Washington Free Beacon to the whipping post (another metaphor, possibly slave-related, so who's the hater now?!? I need to de-activate my auto-discredit feature before I trigger someone.)

Brian Williams: We Used Nuclear Weapons Against Japan ‘in Anger’

MSNBC’s Brian Williams said the U.S. used nuclear weapons against Japan “in anger” Friday, an expression sure to upset those who recognize the decision potentially saved hundreds of thousands of lives by bringing about a swift end to World War II.

...

In the clip flagged by NewsBusters, fellow MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell prefaced Williams’ commentary by praising former Sens. Richard Lugar (R., Ind.) and Sam Nunn (D., Ga.) for the bipartisan nuclear threat initiative they spearheaded, saying “I don’t think they get enough credit for it.”

“That they controlled, through a bipartisan act of Congress, controlled the spread of nuclear materials, non-state actors, materials even in this age of terror, all these decades after the end of the Cold War is just remarkable, and I don’t think they get enough credit for it,” Mitchell said.

“It is, and that is still the threat that people worry about, that this material will fall into the wrong hands,” Williams said. “If people have found the U.S. to be preachy in the years since Hiroshima and Nagasaki about the use of nuclear weapons, it’s because we’re the only nation to have used them in anger. Sometimes, I am amazed that the world has been without these weapons all the years since, but it is a point of great pride by the people who have seen to it.”

For heaven's sake - "used in anger" is an old yet not unfamiliar expression, likely of British origin, meaning employing a device for its intended purpose rather than as a training exercise. Bing can bring us home - their first first hit on "used in anger" is a message board chat about that very phrase, with links to other uses, including non-military contexts such as the software industry (OK, who knew?). I am endorsing this origin theory:

From The life, adventures, and opinions of Col. George Hanger: Written by himself, (1801 - the cited passage was written in 1798):

As there are many of our generals, and by far the greatest number of field officers, who never saw a shot fired in anger in their lives; both for the satisfaction of the common soldier, and for the honour and interest of my country, I propose that every general and field officer, who has not seen active service before they be permitted to take upon them the command of a brigade or regiment, shall be commanded to walk backwards and forwards for one quarter of an hour behind a canvas screen, about eight feet high, placed in front of a battalion of infantry, the men firing all the time as quick as possible at the cloth.

Colonel Hanger was a British officer during the American Revolution (or "the recent unpleasantness", as I suppose they call it back in dear old Blighty), but this is definitely not just a British expression; I've been hearing and using it for most of my life, usually ironically.

The second Bing hit is this:

F-22 Used In Anger For The First Time

By Rick Durden  September 24 2014

The oft-maligned but remarkably capable Lockheed Martin F-22A Raptor entered combat for the first time this week when an undisclosed number were used in airstrikes against Islamic State strongholds and facilities in Syria.

The reporting does not discuss the emotional state of the pilots.

Donald Sensing appears in the comments at InstaPundit with a table-pounding (metaphor!) response. A snippet:

Methinks you protest too much.

Most anyone with military experience (I am a retired artillery officer) know that "we’re the only nation to have used them in anger" means nothing but that we are the only nation to have used them in wartime. He was not referring to an emotional state.

Back in the 80s I met a senior infantry NCO who had been awarded the Combat Infantry Badge in Vietnam. But he pretty much never wore it because, he told me, the entire year he was in Vietnam, "I never fired my rifle in anger." I knew what he meant: he never fired his weapon in combat.

Send better Gotchas.

Comments

[Flodigarry]

Primero
?

[Flodigarry]

Williams is a shameless @$$.

He needs a good kicking.

[henry]

Williams has never been on the receiving end of a clue by four, and it shows.

[Captain Hate]

He earned every one of those eighteen credits in classes other than "Words, How Do They Work?"

[Captain Hate]

Late to Rove News Sunday, apparently Lewandowski was on and I caught the end of the panel and only noticed that Susan Page is smart and Ron Fournier is an idiot.

Adam Schiff, looking like he just came from the bathhouse, is defending Rodham's emails and saying Colon Bowel is worse. Wallace is apoplectic and pretty much is calling him a liar. Lankford is saying they're completely different but part of the donk unified strategy.

[Captain Hate]

Schaffer only wants to talk about Powell and Wallace is going crazy over this idiot and refuses to let him talk about Powell. You really have to see this to believe it. Another dunce from Klownifornia.

[Captain Hate]

Schiff.

[Captain Hate]

Lankford is a cool customer. Wallace is openly ridiculing Schiff. I've never seen anything like this.

[peter]

Momentarily delurking to ask if anyone can locate for me the link daddy posted to the Brian Wilson Wrecking crew audio of California Girls

[Man Tran]

Williams has never been on the receiving end of a clue by four, and it shows.

I'm definitely stealing that one, Henry.

[Momto2]

As usual - cBS is on in the other room. I heard this concerning the trip to Japan..."Obama decided it was finally time for a U.S. President to confront history!"

So, I thought you'd all like to know that was what he was doing....confronting history.

[Captain Hate]

Hume: nobody trusts Crooked Rodham and the IG report confirms it. Page: FBI negative reaction will have greater impact than IG. Nobody cares about Powell. Will: makes a bunch of dense statements. Fournier: everyone is lying in this campaign. Hume: worst campaigns ever. Fournier: trust matters. Page: hard to say how this impacts turnout. 404 has no coattails.

And that's a wrap.

[Captain Hate]

CBS: it's like Rather and Mapes never left.

[GUS]

What kind of world is it, where NEWS REPORTERS make up stories involving themselves. Stories designed to give themselves STREET CRED that they haven't earned, yet they keep their talking head jobs and pay checks.
Brian Rodham Williams is getting paid.

[Truthbetold5]

Tales from the Trump University legal vault

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/03/trump-university-lawsuit-documents-220181

[Momto2]

Earlier in the week, in a joint press conference with Obama, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he had no plans to visit Pearl Harbor despite the president's trip to Hiroshima.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/28/politics/donald-trump-criticizes-barack-obama-pearl-harbor/

[Miss Marple 2]

I am watching the Indy 500. Pre-Race just did a good, informative story on Pearl Harbor introduced by former Secretary of Defense Bob Gates. Lots of survivor narratives of where they were when the Japanese struck with black and white footage of the attack.

They are honoring Pearl Harbor survivors, many of whom are guests of the Speedway today.

If that got aired nationally, a lot more people saw it than saw Obama's lame speech.

[GUS]

More people died in the RAPE OF NANKING than in the August 1945 bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
I wonder if the f-wad in chief is aware of this.

[Miss Marple 2]

Gus,

I am sure the Chinese ambassador sent him a message.

[Miss Marple 2]

I am so proud of my city and of the Speedway for their PATRIOTIC opening ceremonies.

[henry]

Just had a formation of 3 historic warbirds fly over... headed north. Perfect weather here.

[Robin in her 10 Square Mile Hell]

I was just reading about the Nanking massacre, Gus, and trying not to lose my mind. This president cannot be gone fast enough.

[GUS]

Robin are you in Madison Wisconsin??

I heard the Japanese once waterboarded someone.

[Beasts of England]

It was very well done, Miss Marple!! Nice to see unabashed patriotism on a grand scale. 'Murica! :)

[JMHanes]

Guess I don't have to make any excuses for going off topic with a little quiz on 10 of America's most misspelled words. With the exception of desert/dessert, which requires contextual clues, the rest confirmed to me just how inadequate the phonetic approach to teaching English is, once you get much beyond dog and cat.

My kids had to learn to spell twice. And in between, they had to un-learn all the incorrect phonetic spellings that came so easily to them. To this day, what errors they do make almost all derive from that early inculcation.

I learned reading & writing the old fashioned way, and I didn't even have to think about the test answers above. In each case, one of the choices simply looked wrong, right off the bat. With the additional exception of February, with a misspelling directly tied to its common mispronunciation, the rest of the correct/incorrect spellings can't be easily sliced and diced phonetically at all. Just imagine penpals from New Orleans and Perth exchanging phonetically generated letters....

Learning things by rote is not a categorical evil! Memorization can also be a powerful tool. Maybe it's time for educators to revisit approaching it as a skill worth developing, in its own right.

Musings for another day: Cellphone spelling would be the ultimate expression of phonetics, no? When you eliminate all redundancy in the name of efficiency, how does that affect both conceptual complexity and specifity? Or does it only really work because cellphone communication is generally limited to a relatively narrow range of exchanges?

[Robin in her 10 Square Mile Hell]

My husband's grandfather was imprisoned in a POW camp in the Philippines during WW2. He had the great fortune to be part of an exchange of prisoners, when a man dying of cancer offered up his spot to this young man with a young family. What he suffered at the hands of the Japanese left him unable physically to work again. My husband's father was under house arrest in Shanghai along with his mother and younger siblings. When the war ended, the children travelled alone on a Naval ship to San Diego to join their father.

My grandfather, his brothers and cousins all fought in the Pacific theater. Every one of them was so grateful for the bomb that ended the war. Not one expected to survive if the war continued.

I despise our president for not considering the context of Truman's decision.

[GUS]

Just saw the warbirds Henry.

[Robin in her 10 Square Mile Hell]

JMH,

When I was in 4th or 5th grade a friend mentioned the easy way to remember the dessert/desert spelling was you want more dessert, hence the extra "s." I've never forgotten it.

[Robin in her 10 Square Mile Hell]

Gus,

Ithaca, NY. Madison's sister city.

[Captain Hate]

Learning things by rote is not a categorical evil!

Multiplication tables.

[lyle]

I despise our president for _______________________.

Fill in the blank.

[Beasts of England]

Thanks for sharing that, Robin. Our clown president is so clueless about this country and its history that it hurts each time he opens his pie hole. He doesn't have one-percent the character of your relatives...

[cheerleader]

I'm glad to see more Corey sightings. He's kept a very low profile.

Did Brit actually say "Crooked" about Rodham? I thought the establishment wasn't allowed to use words like that, unless they are talking about Mr. Trump.

Mr. Trump's speech at Rolling Thunder is going to be live streamed in about two hours. Just type "Trump", today's date, and "live stream" into the you tube search box and all the streams should appear. Fox 10 and ABC are usually the best streams but I don't think Fox 10 streams on weekends.

[cheerleader]

GUS your 11:01 about NEWS REPORTERS making themselves part of the story applies to Kelly Megyn, whom Mr. Trump has called a "bimbo".

[GUS]

Robin, my Grandfather took a machine gun bullet through both of his ankles at El Alemein, Egypt in WWII, he was taken prisoner by the Germans for 2 years. He weighed less than 100lbs when he was liberated. Crippled for life.
Obama is a (redacted) disgrace, furthermore, the sycophants that write his tripe are equally clueless. Obama is an ignorant fool. This country STOPPED the WAR, we did not start it.

[cheerleader]

Robin, yup, 2 esses means two helpings. That one always helps me.

[Miss Marple 2]

Hugh Hewitt went to visit the Columbia School of Journalism. I don't think we are going to see any improvement in the profession.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/the-medias-ancien-rgime/article/7805

[cheerleader]

I once posted that someone got their "just deserts", and was kindly corrected that it was supposed to be spelled with two esses :-) I then shared the rule to correct the corrector, because I was talking about justice, not strawberries and sour cream.

[Buckeye]

MM

The national coverage included the veterans, fly-over, etc. Just like you described.

[Miss Marple 2]

Buckeye,

Thanks! I am so glad! I love the Speedway, even though I have only been to the race twice. It's such a part of the city's history and tradition.

I miss Jim Nabors, though. He used to sing "Back Home Again in Indiana" every year. He was a very popular visitor every year.

[Buckeye]

The kid that sang it today was very good.

[Miss Marple 2]

JMHanes,

Phonetic reading and spelling are 2 different skills. I used to coach the Spell Bowl team and my grandkids' grade school.

A lot of spelling is using tricks to remember the correct spelling (the extra s in dessert, i before e except after c, etc.)

We had a list of 1000 words from which the kids would be quizzed, which changed each year. I used to take the words of French derivation and pull those out for extra work, since they don't follow phonetics very much. Proper nouns like Des Moines and Baton Rogue were often on the list so it was necessary to do that.

I think spelling and other forms of memorization are good for mental agility. Yes, you can look up the capital of Kentucky, but if you already know that it's Frankfort, look at how much time you save!

I also think it's why the Chinese are good in some areas of academia. They have to memorize the characters in their language as they are not phonetic, and I think it trains their brains in other areas like math.

[Captain Hate]

Hume didn't say Crooked Rodham; that was just my standard editorializing. Here's the transcript:

http://www.foxnews.com/transcript/2016/05/29/corey-lewandowski-previews-trump-general-election-strategy-key-lawmakers-on/

[Texas Liberty Gal]

MM - Need your advice on Ebay sales. Do you have any idea if the original mini ipad - in perfect condition - is fetching much on Ebay?

Thanks so much and I hope I'm not taking advantage of your professional expertise.

[Miss Marple 2]

Texas Liberty Gal,

Here is a completed search for the iPad mini. I have only included sold items. As you can see, they sort of get glommed together (3 and 4's show up as well). Highest prices plus shipping are at the top:

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_sacat=0&LH_Sold=1&_udlo=&_udhi=&_samilow=&_samihi=&_sadis=15&_stpos=46142&_dmd=1&_ipg=50&LH_Complete=1&_nkw=original+mini+iPad&_sop=16

Scrolling down through it, looks like if yours is in good condition you might be able to get a couple of hundred dollars.

Caution about selling electronics on eBay, though. This is one of the areas most prone to fraud. I would not auction it but sell it as "fixed price or make offer". This way you can sort of control who you sell to, checking offers against feedback.

There are people who will buy electronics, claim you sold them something defective, and demand their money back and will return broken stuff or a box of junk to you. Also, I would not sell it to international customers.

[Dr Weevil]

lyle (12:26pm):
I'm sure we all appreciate the blank space, but most of us are going to need a much larger one.

[Texas Liberty Gal]

MM-Thanks so very much!! Most helpful!!!!

[buccaneer morgan]

Do we hate, or merely pity the fool, but despise his teachers.

[Manuel Transmission]

MM,

I also think it's why the Chinese are good in some areas of academia. They have to memorize the characters in their language as they are not phonetic, and I think it trains their brains in other areas like math.

In my years of interacting with the Chinese, I have concluded that they burn up about 10-15 points of their superior IQ in processing overhead handling their language. I've routinely watched them spend five minutes haggling over the meaning and context of some minor question I posed. The dozens of regional dialects will leave a cab fare transaction stalled over some obscure language harange. As if we spent all our time nitpicking Beasts or Stephanie on the proper use of the Queen's English and never got around to their elegant point being made. Heh.

[Momto2]

clarice - I hope you are enjoying your poke and tropical fruit. It doesn't seem like Sunday without your Pieces! :)

[lyle]

I pondered that, Dr. W.

[Stephanie]

Hey nayow! We make elegayant poants all the time and y'all mean to say y'all are missin theyem most ofthe time? Dayum.

[buccaneer morgan]

Its a perfectly craumint phrosing.

[Miss Marple 2]

Everyone not at the Race apparently decided to go to Menard's today.

Never seen it so crowded.

[Miss Marple 2]

Product recommendation:

Dura Zone by Bayer. Comes in a blue container.

Kills weeds AND prevents them from coming back for up to 6 months. This is a Godsend for me as I do not have time to hoe and weed around trees and shrubs. It's also good for pavement joints and cracks.

I used it last year and it absolutely works.

[Miss Marple 2]

The Honda cars are really doing well in the race. At one time they were 1, 2, and 3.

[JMHanes]

Don’t tell the guy who complained that kids whose parents read to them have an unfair advantage, but if he really wants to even things up, he’s going to have to get rid of books completely: Children who grow up surrounded by books ‘earn more as adults’.

If he’s wondering where to start, the article also included a helpful list of the 10 Bestselling Books of all time (excluding the Bible):

Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes: 500 million
A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens: 200 million
The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien: 150 million
The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien: 140.6 million
The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupery: 140 million
Harry Potter/Philosopher's Stone - JK Rowling: 107 million
And Then There Were None - Agatha Christie: 100 million
Dream of the Red Chamber - Cao Xueqin: 100 million
She: A History of Adventure - H Rider Haggard: 100 million
The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe - CS Lewis: 85 million

I'm really pretty amazed that sales of Don Quixote dwarf the others by that much, and I'm embarrassed to say that I've never even heard of She... before! I only happened upon Dream of the Red Chamber in the course of my recent oriental peregrinations.

Speaking of Chinese characters, Miss Marple and ManTran, it also seems relevant here:

The novel is composed in written vernacular (baihua) rather than Classical Chinese (wenyan). Cao Xueqin was well versed in Chinese poetry and in Classical Chinese, having written tracts in the semi-wenyan style, while the novel's dialogue is written in the Beijing Mandarin dialect, which was to become the basis of modern spoken Chinese. In the early 20th century, lexicographers used the text to establish the vocabulary of the new standardized language and reformers used the novel to promote the written vernacular.

What intrigues me about Chinese characters, is that since the individual elements (or stroke combinations) all have individual meanings, the resulting compound characters have a whole panoply of both fixed and unfixed meanings -- which seems to add whole new dimensions to the concept of wordplay.

[Miss Marple 2]

JMHanes,

I am a fan of H. Rider Haggard, who wrote some darn fine adventure books, including King Solomon's Mines.

I ran across him when I ran out of Tarzan books when I was in middle school. She was made into a movie starring Ursula Andress.

[Miss Marple 2]

http://www.mediaite.com/online/wsjs-bret-stephens-trump-must-lose-so-badly-that-the-gop-voters-learn-their-lesson/

Tell me again how their aren't any elitists.

I hope Trump wins so decisively that Bret Stepehens winds up eating out of a trash can.

[Janet S.]

MM's link - "Speaking to CNN’s Fareed Zakaria Sunday afternoon, Wall Street Journal‘s Bret Stephens said that it was important for Donald Trump to lose the general election so utterly that the Republican party and its voters “learn their lesson” and never nominate someone like him ever again."

Fareed Zakaria - plagiarist

[Porchlight]

Children who grow up surrounded by books ‘earn more as adults’.

That is not because they are surrounded by books. It's because they are children of readers, who are more likely to be intelligent, whose children are more likely to inherit that intelligence, and who are thus more likely to grow up to earn more.

You can't beat nature that easily. :)

[Buckeye]

I think the "lesson I am learning" is that spending $500/year for the WSJ is something I don't want to do "ever again".

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

Rats, I was planning on sitting on a pile of Guns and Ammos and Archie comics and wait for the bills to start dropping in my lap.

[JMHanes]

You'd think the folks on Stephens' end of the equation might have learned a little something from Trump's amazing progress, themselves, but no. Most of them can't even accurately describe his appeal, beyond the most obvious anti-PC sentiments, or his constituency. I've been sorely disappointed in several former favorites who don't even seem to be trying. I'm not exactly a Trump fan, but that's no excuse for the kind of anti-Trump talking points being uncritically repeated ad nauseum by people who really owe us better. I think the nascent facist one was some of the worst muddled thinking I've read in a long time.

[Captain Hate]

Don Quixote has been around forever as the progenitor of the modern novel and still seems fresh and adventurous today. I'm not the biggest Dickens fan but thoroughly enjoyed Tale of Two Cities recently.

[Manuel Transmission]

Stephanie, was that pluperfect? :) Enquiring minds presumably want to know.

[lyle]

Buck Fret Stephens.

[Captain Hate]

Stephens was the most relentlessly infuriating of Rupert's oped stable before I had enough. Even on the rare occasion when I agreed with him, he made his case poorly compared to Strassel, for example.

[Miss Marple 2]

Captain Hate,

I have a list like the Squire in "The Quiet Man."

Put 'em on the list, and draw a line through it!

[Tonto]

"'She' was made into a movie starring Ursula Andress."

And Rumpole's constant reference to his wife as "She who must be obeyed" was from Haggard's novel.

[Miss Marple 2]

CBS4 Indy ‏@CBS4Indy 1m1 minute ago

#BREAKING: Rookie Alexander Rossi rallies to win the 100th Running of Indianapolis 500 http://via.cbs4indy.com/luogb
0 retweets 0 likes

[windansea]

a couple of nice polls for Trump

A recent Clout Research poll from the State of Oregon, not exactly well known as a bastion of all things republican, shows candidate Donald Trump beating Hillary Clinton 44 to 42%.

However, with Independent Voters, Donald Trump is CRUSHING Hillary Clinton by 27 points 53% to 26%.

and

A new poll by ABC-The Washington Post found that 20% of Bernie Sanders supporters will support Donald Trump in the general election in November.

[JMHanes]

Miss Marple:

I remember when the Ursula Andress movie came out, but I don't remember actually seeing it.

Is that where the expression "she, who must be obeyed," comes from?

[JMHanes]

I should have refreshed before posting, Tonto!

[Miss Marple 2]

JMHanes,

Indeed it does. I saw it on TV; it's probably on Netflix if you look.

It's got a really creepy ending where she steps into the area which rejuvenates her and she gets all dead in a lovely special effects thing where she turns into an old woman and then dead and then skeleton and then dust.

LOL!

I love trash movies.

[Janet S.]

the clip Captain Hate was talking about earlier - http://freebeacon.com/politics/wallace-tell-schiff-expected-more/

[The Gipper Lives]

Williams didn't mean anything by "used in anger"--but I had no idea he piloted the Enola Gay.

[Miss Marple 2]

The guy who won the 500 is only 24 years old. He moved to Europe to do Formula One and came back here for the 500. Born in California.

Honda engine, I think.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

Alexander Rossi is from just north of DocJ as well.
Last year he was backbenching in Formula 1 where the car is nearly everything.
Nice to have an actual American win the 100th 500.

[Manuel Transmission]

I was reminded during the race that Bobby Ray Hall, as the NASCAR guys called him, won in 86. He moved in on the other end of our little office building a couple of years later. Drove a newer version of the Bummer we drove. Never gave it a second thought about whether to schmooze him. Glad to see how many of the old timers have stayed relevant with their kids/teams.

My only other connection with Indy was a buddy of mine who I competed with in local sporty car events, built the engine that Mario won with. The funny thing about that was the engine ran hot and Mario, who ordinarily won or broke his car, drove with one eye on the temp gauge and that slowed him down enough to win. (It was their backup car, too.)

[Janet S.]

posts are disappearing...will try without the link -

I agree with Ace about Brian Williams ::spit::

"So we have these rich smug people, smiling smugly who have the World All Figured Out, ready to drop their Truth Bombs and Life Wisdom on at the slightest non-prompting.

Katie Couric has so much wisdom to share with you about Responsible Gun Laws.

Brian Williams has so much deep thinking to share with you about the shame we should feel at using the nuclear bomb on Japan.

And what, precisely, gives these people moral authority to lecture the rest of us?

Nothing."

[Miss Marple 2]

Man Tran,

My dad's cousin was a riding mechanic back in the day. I remember going out to the track when I was a kid, but my only real memory of that trip was the orange-ade bubbling dispenser. HA!

My ex brother-in-law's uncle worked for Foyt's pit crew as a mechanic. This is where my nephew gets his love of the race. He used to go out there when he was in high school and hang around the garages.

Alas, we no longer have "30 days in May" like we used to. There used to be 2 full weekends of qualifications but due to pressures of NASCAR and other races, the track reduced qualifications to one weekend, which shortened the time of the 500 Festival, too.

[Miss Marple 2]

How Trump Beat Fox News

http://truthfeed.com/?p=4560

[daddy]

Peter: 'California Girls' -Unsurpassed Masters-

[Jack is Back!]

We had a member at our club in Florida who was a Indy car owner: Mo Nunn. Also owned the Ensign F! team. Played a number of rounds with him - good golfer. One time we played in a regular Saturday 4 ball at our Creek Course. No strokes. He shot a 72 and eagled the tough 14th.

We were subs for that weekly game and one of the regulars was so upset that Mo won all the money including most of the skins he threatened to never play that game again if Mo did.

But he and wife moved out to California. Rancho Mirage IIRC.

[Art in Newport]

.. if everything seems under control, you're not going fast enough...

Mario Andretti

[Miss Marple 2]

http://www.weaselzippers.us/274153-the-man-who-seduced-the-seventh-fleet/

[sbw]

MT, thanks for your experience on the 686. It is calling me.

[Jack is Back!]

MM,

Your 4:24 reminds me that on every military base around the world, ours, the Brits, the Frogs, etc. there are guys like that right outside the gate. They have more ways than HoJo has ice cream flavors to tempt, intice and make money off the lowly private to the naive General.

Nothing new here except he and the brass got caught.

/Air Force Brats see it all.

[Miss Marple 2]

Jack,

Indeed. I am reminded of West Berlin and the guys who loaned money and ran bars and restaurants. Air Force wives see a lot, too.

[Miss Marple 2]

http://www.historyextra.com/article/culture/virtuous-viking-medieval-legend-havelok-dane?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=twitter%20referal&utm_campaign=bitly

I like this because my heritage is mixed Dane and Scot.

Interesting backwater of history.

[Jack is Back!]

JMH,

I read everyone of those Top Ten books as a kid with the exception of She and have no idea who the hell read that to make it into the top ten. We have multiple libraries in both of our homes and in Mrs. JiB's parent's home in Belgium. I can always tell if I am among smart, intellectual people when I visit their homes and see their libraries.

Of course, this day and age those people could easily live without the timber killers due to Kindle and such. Notice in a lot of photos of millenial's homes not many books so i assume they are totally digital.

Frederick is an insaitable reader but tends to run through books just to get back to his iPad and Minecraft:)

[GUS]

I own an Al Unser racing suit. A fellow on my block, where I grew up, was his crew chief. I used to wear the suit when my band played. Lord did I get offers to buy it from me.

[Jack is Back!]

Please allow me to amend my 4:48 to note that there are a lot of very smart people like daddy who take advantage of Sire Carnegie's generosity known as libraries here in America. My problem with community libraries is that when I first started using them, they either didn't have the book I was looking for or I would forget to return it and amass unfair penalties worth more than the book itself.

I do not have a library card but support our Southampton Library financially since my family was one of its founders.

[MaryD]

Gus, I would KILL for a picture of you in the racing suit! The mind boggles!

XXOO

[Jack is Back!]

Is there any doubt that Spieth is the best putter on tour? Unbelievable.

[Captain Hate]

The next time between now and November when Powell appears on a gab show and loftily declares that the GOP needs him more than vice versa, I hope somebody points out how the donks tried to use him as an example of Repubs being the same as Rodham when it comes to playing fast and loose with confidential data.

[Miss Marple 2]

Jack,

My problem is my local library, which has a head librarian very far left. Sample of the inventory of new books:

Books on dealing with diseases and drug addiction: 157
Books on gardening: 2
Books on European history: 1
Books on social justice and lefty causes: 200
New mystery novels: 3
New depressing novels by hipsters: 54

Etc. etc.

Oh, and gobs of free VIDEO rentals.

[Manuel Transmission]

I just remembered after thinking about this old Indy stuff that my mom babysat the Unser kids when the Bobby and Al came to Phx for the PIR race. This would have been mid-late 60s. I was off to school on the other end of the valley, so there was never any crossover.

I also remember that the few stock cars that raced at PIR back when they tried turning right on roughly half the turns, the desert got well scrubbed due to their natural tendency to straighten out the turns. Us sporty car types colored inside the lines.

[GUS]

I'm sure Oblahblah's library has 100 books in it.
50 copies of Dreams from my Polygamist drunken Kenyan Daddy
and 50 copies of The Audacity of Jeremiah Wright.