And Still I Persist

Gaius at Blue Crab Boulevard has a link to a wonderful set of archives: the complete scanned (and searchable) archives of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle (a newspaper) from 1841 to 1902. I love sources of information like this: they remind us both of how different life was back then and, simultaneously, how similar it was.

And when I read an article from page 2 of the December 31, 1902 edition about a boy shooting out the windows of a church with an air rifle, my first thought was, “I didn’t do it, Mom!”  (I had both a BB gun and an air pistol as a young boy, and in retrospect I often wonder just what my parents were thinking when they gave them to me.)  ..bruce..

The low pressure system causing this storm has shifted east and south, limiting the blizzard impact to the eastern and southern portions of Colorado — which means at this point, we’re not going to get much more in the way of snow. I spent two hours snowblowing the driveway early yesterday evening, and it’s stayed relatively clear of new snow. This is the 3rd time I’ve done it during this storm, so the snow hasn’t had much of a chance to build up like last time. But I’ve got to get things more cleared off since we’re doing an open house/BBQ on New Year’s Day. Oh, and I’m in the middle of several cases as well.

[UPDATED 12/30/06 - 2:30 pm] This being Colorado, the sun came out, even though it’s supposed to be snowing some today. Here’s the front of the house — the thing to keep in mind is that the area to the left of that tree is our front lawn, which is roughly the same level as the cleared driveway:

Last night, I started clearing a path from the driveway to the lower entrance of the house, but halted when the snow started getting over 3′ deep; that’s the notch to the right there:

More digging to do. ..bruce..

In which a woman reminisces about how her (former Marine) father taught her to stand up to some bullies when she was six years old:

My Mother balked at this idea. She didn’t think little girls should be fighting. Little girls were supposed to have tea parties and then play dress up. Fighting was for little boys.

“What if someday a vicious serial killer kidnaps her?” my Father asked, “Do you want her to die weeping and begging for her life? Or would you rather she have the courage to wrench the knife from the killer’s hand and stab him in the throat?”

He paused, mid tirade, and said to me, “If that ever happens, V, stab and twist. Stab and twist.”

I wish all my girls were six years old again so I could teach them the phrase, “I’ll eat your eyes!” Hat tip to The Consumerist. ..bruce..

[Updated 12/30/06] A thought just hit me: I wonder how many Americans will see the flags at half-mast for the death of Pres. Gerald Ford and think instead that they have been lowered for Saddam Hussein? (As a side note, I’ve cleaned up the formatting of the comments below.)

Saddam Hussein, one of the worst mass murderers of the past 25 years, is executed by his own country…and this is how the Kossacks respond:

Or [on?] the tip of WWIII

It may seem like a gross exaggeration, but world wars or long protracted wars are built on events such as these.

Millions are going to be outraged. Even those like myself who thought Hussein was one of the worst dictators on the planet are angry.

Of course, there will be those who are delusional and believe a man who was responsible for 9/11 was executed today (of course Bush will continue making connections to that fallacy.”

Or the ones cheering are those that really get a kick out of murder/executions/war or killing darker skin people because somehow it makes them feel they are winning the war on terror.

This may be the night darkness slowly creeps across our planet.

because we are going to hit the 3.000

mark tomorrow.
and they want to preempt the news about that.

There is more than an element of truth in

what you say … plus it tries to take some of the air out of John Edwards announcing for president, highlighting the fiasco in New Orleans …
The war for air dominance of TV is underway again, as the drumbeats grow for a war the US doesn’t want …

It only took 148 deaths for Saddam.

Pinochet was only convicted on a handful of murders.But how many hundreds did Bush personally order torture and death for?And how many hundreds of thousands of civilians did he kill in an illegal war? And what about Fallujah? It goes on and on. 148 instances of wrongful death in Iraq is a non-issue at this point.Bush is as guilty as Saddam apparently, and quite personally so.

The death penalty is a reality in America, and from where I stand, that’s what Justice looks like for Bush; so long as we are killing poor blacks and latinos in South Texas, I can’t see any other path to Justice in the case of this man’s war crimes.

If Bush is found guilty, I hope he is the last man executed in America, and that after him, we can put this barbaric practice in our past.

Let’s see … Saddam’s execution will trigger World War III and it was timed to take the air out of John Edwards’ announcement that he’s running for president?

Read it all here.

I did go out last night and spent an hour or so getting the driveway cleared off — it’s much easier and faster when you only have 2″ to 8″ of snow on the driveway instead of 2′ to 5′. Getting up this morning, I see there isn’t that much more new snow — only a few inches — and the weather reports are all indicating that the worst of the on-going storm is hitting the eastern plains of Colorado rather than the Denver corridor. So we here in Parker will probably get only another 8″ or so of snow through Saturday afternoon, for a storm total of roughly 16″, or about half of what we got last week. Of course, last week’s storm was so bad and so concentrated (twice the amount of snow in half the time) that this seems like a cakewalk in comparison. It’s supposed to be sunny by Sunday, with sunshine and highs in the 40s through most of next week.

I’ll post some pictures once the sun comes up. ..bruce..