Florida is a very Christmassy place even without all the wonderful freezing cold, snow, slush and frostbite. We even have Christmas spiders; get a bucket full and decorate the house!
Tom’s World – 24DEC2024 – Macro – Christmas Spider
Category: Guest Contributors
Tom’s World – 22DEC2024 – Bokeh
Tom’s World – 20DEC2024 – Feline Pose
Here’s kitten Lorie on the back of my office chair on which she has inflicted hundreds of puncture wounds.
She doesn’t have the guilty look to be expected from such a miscreant.
Update:
Master Diver commented:
My office chair has suffered similar indignities from Queen-Empress Piper and Ladies Florence and Cuddles.
Sweater
Tom’s World – 19DEC2024 – Incarceration; Retribution or Isolation?
Check this link, the subject is about something I can’t remember ever before having seen.
As far as I can remember, I’ve heard of incarceration in the context of the benefit to society, i.e., putting them away so they can’t do more damage. Among reasonable people, there is no dispute as to the truth of that proposition. (Unreasonable people? Who cares, screw ’em)
The link above is about the mass commutation Biden recently issued and how there is a very low chance of recidivism from the individuals freed, therefore not a net negative to society based on the principle of isolation. But the article disagrees with the commutation based on this principle: retribution, some of those people just flat deserved punishment.
The poster boy for this principle is a judge who was receiving $millions in kickbacks from a for-profit-boy’s prison for sentencing boys to that institution and betraying every principle, every person, and the trust (such as it is these days) in the judicial system, all for his personal enrichment.
So the guiding principle behind punishment for crime is now extended from incarceration for isolation from society to also include retribution, or the principle that people who do evil deserve punishment based on society’s perception of right and wrong.
Tom’s World – 14DEC2024 – Capital vs Labor vs Deep State
Stalin (I think) made the statement that capitalists would sell him the rope that he would use to hang them.
Before manufacturing can return en masse to the US, somebody(s) is going to have to go through the 1.75 x 10^9th onerous regulations and delete most. It’s too expensive to manufacture here and because of the lawyers and bureaucrats, too risky too.
How many landmines are there in the mass of employment laws? Family leave, wrongful termination lawsuits, handicap regs, discrimination lawsuits, DEI, Unions, dockworkers perfectly willing and happy to paralyze the nation or to destroy their employer.
There’s a radio station that I listen to down here that has ads for HR services providers. The ad starts with a (supposed) business owner moaning, “I’ve got an employee who never shows up when he is supposed to, What can I do” I almost jump into the radio yelling, “Fire the SOB, you idiot!” But apparently these days, things are so warped by the lawyers and legal environment that the obvious answer isn’t the correct answer any more. And, in that environment, US employment will be restricted.
Guest Contributor – SubVet – 11DEC2024 – Trump’s Return
Well said OCF. I’d like to thing that Trump will take retribution on these aholes around the world and with the deep state, but I think Trump is actually too forgiving much of the time. He’s tough with words, but not always tough in action unlike our enemies who’ll stop at nothing. In that regard, I’m not confident at all that we’ll see accountability for all those who unleashed warfare on Trump and his allies. I want it, but he’s too much of dealmaker and not the dictator they told us he is and will be. In some ways, I’d like him to be a dictator, at least for a little while. No one will be going to jail.
Guest Contributor – War Pig – 09DEC2024 – Machine Efficiency vs Human Boredom
Valid points. However, social credit is not working for the Chinese very well. Imagine a time when you cannot start your car because you offended someone on social media. When AI doesn’t like your choice in blogs, music and political speech. There are oh, so many ways to silently pressure you to conform. Cranky internet speeds, debit card refusals even though you know you have money in the bank. AI will make a wonderful servant, but an awful master.
Yes, people need work, something to do. I agree that idle hands are the devil’s workshop. I can get into trouble if idle too long. I tend to think “what if I do this?”. Like the time I took a 4 bore rifle and changed out the solid slugs for explosive dumdums when the weather had been gray and gloomy for two weeks.
Or the time the blasting boss at a local quarry was on vacation. Then his second came down with something nasty but temporary. That left the rookie in charge of blasting. The owner, whom I know, was worried about this youngster being in charge of that much BOOM, so I said I would “help” him. It was glorious from my prospective and we shifted twice the rock tonnage and kept the quarry on schedule. However, the seismographs at the major university about 50 miles away noticed the sudden change in activity, triangulated it, and the ATF visited. The owner said to please go back to the old method. So we did until the blasting master returned from vacation.
Idle hands.
The problem is finding gainful work for people. Real work. Not the equivalent of counting the hairs on a caterpillar by touch sort of thing. That will be the hard part. You remember why Henry Ford had to pay such high wages for the time? Assembly lines bored people to death. They would quit if he didn’t. Repetitive work is boring as hell, as I found out pulling mess duty as a private. A common punishment for minor infractions while on mess duty was to peel enough potatoes to feed 3,000 Marines each meal. Or onions. Made you shape up pretty quick. Now, modern messes buy bags of peeled, chopped onions and potatoes.
Solving the problem of machine efficiency vs human boredom is going to be tough. Machines don’t get bored. Machines don’t get into trouble when idle. Humans can get into all sorts of mischief if left to their own devices too long.
Tom’s World – 04DEC2024 – Miscellaneous Subjects
No theme this week, just a few shots on misc subjects.
DSC685 One of the cats around here. Sport is as good natured as a cat can get, always calm and affectionate
DSC861 A dining car from the 1940’s. It a part of a railroad museum here in NW Florida.
DSC1296 Keep this around the house as personal defense. I tend to modify my weapons but the only thing I’ve done with this one is to install a decent trigger. For someone who’s been a competition shooter for decades, I simply cannot live with a Milspec AR trigger, they are the equivalent of nails on the blackboard.
DSC264 I 10 over the East Bay. This bridge was built in 2005 to replace the bridge destroyed in the 2004 Hurricane.
DSC1435 I live in farm country in NW Florida and there are two main crops: cotton and peanuts. Peanuts aren’t exactly photogenic.
DSC1408 A transmission line cutting through the North Georgia hills
DSC 1789 Marietta National Cemetery in Marietta, GA. Most of this cemetery is from the Battle of Atlanta though there are some from later years. The graves are almost all Union Soldiers, the Confederates have their own a few miles away. And if this is what the winners got……..
DSC 1613 Another from Marietta National. The was/is a monument to the Minnesota Troops.
DSC0286 An example of the homes of the late 19th century in NW Florida.
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TomD
Tom’s World – 27NOV2024 – The Sailing Ship Juan Sebastian De Alcano
The Sailing Ship Juan Sebastian De Alcano
This ship, the JS De Alcano, is owned and operated by the Escuela De Guardias Marinas, the Spanish equivalent of the US Naval Academy. Each summer, the ship makes what is essentially a world tour stopping at various ports, using the Midshipmen from the Academy as the sailors. Florida, including Pensacola, was a Spanish possession until 1822. Pensacola reflects the Spanish influence in a number of ways including some of the major street names, like Palafox, Cervantes, Cordova, Texar and a bunch of others.
The ship is one of the largest remaining sailing vessels in existence. It was built in Britain (some irony there) in the early 1920’s and has been in continuous operation since. It docks in Pensacola every 5 years or so for a several day stay. It was last here in May 2023 though, several of these pictures were taken in 2009
I think the subject of each shot is obvious and doesn’t need individual descriptions. Though I was amused at the labeling on the engine control.
The Spanish obviously have a loooong history of Maritime Tradition.
TomD
Here’s a shot of a much smaller sailing vessel, a replica of a Spanish Galleon. I’m convinced that a true sailing master of a large sailing vessel needed to be a genuine genius.
There also had to be a designer.
Also, the sailors in the rigging had to be mentally quite a bit above the near retarded levels pictured in historical descriptions of the ships crew. Actually, that’s depressing. We like/need to think of the people subjected to such horrific circumstances/privations/dangers as brutes.
I just noticed two very unusual elements of this galleon design: the sail and an observation platform on the bow sprint. I’ve not seen that before and definitely not on Dutch, British or French designs of the time.
Guest Contributor – War Pig – 24NOV2024 – Thanksgiving 2024
I prefer butter pecan ice cream. Otherwise, sounds wonderful. I’ll be spending Thanksgiving at my brother’s place as my girls and grandson all have to work the day before and after Thanksgiving and one is on call. My sister-in-law makes wonderful turkey & noodles, mashed potatoes, candied sweet potatoes, sage dressing, oyster dressing and cornbread dressing. I bring the pies. Two pumpkin and two chocolate with a small butterscotch pie for my brother. I also bring the butter pecan ice cream, as well as three dozen homemade cinnamon rolls. The pies are chilled but the rolls come out of the oven right before I leave for his place, 15 minutes away. Still very fragrant when I arrive. They are divided up and taken home for coffee and rolls the next day. Big, puffy, tender and covered with royal icing with a slight hint of rum (his butterscotch pie has bourbon in it).
We’ll watch football and talk about his and my childhood. The rest love to hear about our juvenile escapades, then our military stories. His wife wonders aloud she doesn’t see how we’re still alive. Then it’s time for dessert and all pile in. My children and grandson can’t make it, but I send them pics of everyone.