Sunday, December 31, 2006

Unedited Video of Saddam Hanging

-
This is a link to the unedited video taken on a cellphone showing the worst dictator and war criminal in the last 100 years being hanged. It has audio too, so you can hear the hangmen taunting him.
-
Using poison gas to mass-murder his own citizens. Invading Kuwait and then burning all their oil wells. ---Invading Iran.
-
Intentionally lying to the UN weapons inspectors, trying to pretend that he did still have WOMD.
-
Duh. --The stupid asshole got what he deserved. -
-
Well maybe not. If you are a Kurd you probably think correctly that he got off far too easy.
--
Link to The Video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5543085919122001921&q=saddam+hanging
-
The same video but from the BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6220829.stm

-
-
-
-

Saturday, December 30, 2006

Happy Hogmanay!


the following is in part from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

-

Hogmanay, which is pronounced with the main stress on the last syllable (hog-muh-NAY), is the Scottish word for the last day of the year. It is synonymous with the New Year's celebrations.

It's official date is December 31, however this is normally only the start of the celebrations which generally last until the morning of January 1 or in many cases even until January 2.

The roots of Hogmanay go back to the pagan celebration of the winter solstice.
-
In Europe this evolved into the ancient celebration of Saturnalia, which was a great Roman winter festival where people celebrated completely free of inhibitions and restraints.
-
The Vikings celebrated Yule, which later became the twelve days of Christmas, or the "Daft Days" as they were sometimes called in Scotland. The winter festival went underground with the coming of the Protestant Reformation but re-emerged near the end of the 17th century.

The beautiful and exciting city of Edinburg, Scotland (pronounced Edinborough) is world renowned for having the very finest Hogmanay celebrations.



-

Its A Run On Old Men Dying

-
It is now several years since the doctors diagnosed me with an incurable form of malignant cancer which affects the bone marrow, blood, and gradually reduces the effectiveness of one's immune system.
-
After getting their diagnosis I did a shit load of research on the disease. Then I flew over to England and got a second opinion from one of the world's top doctors who is specialized in this type of cancer. It is a type of leukemia, the same type which snuffed Ed Bradley (the really nice black guy on 60 Minutes).
-
It sort of changes your attitude towards life after you think about it a bit. One thing it does is makes you be very aware of other old men dying. It also makes you a lot hungrier to enjoy whatever time you do have left.
-
Lots of old men sure have been dying recently. I'd be happy as shit to live as old as any of these guys:
-

Ed Bradley
--Gerald Ford
----James Brown
------Augosto Pinochet
--------Saddam Hussein
-
-

-
This is a quote from Juan Espinosa:

Didn't 2006 end kind of weird? Reminds me of a setup for one of those Pearly Gate stories:
-
James Brown, Gerald Ford and Saddam Hussein arrive at St. Peter's Gate at exactly the same time.
-
In his haste to get to the front of the line, Saddam bumps into Ford and blurts out, "Pardon me!"
-
To which St. Peter quickly says, "No way, the last time he did that, we had to let Richard Nixon in."
-
-

Uffington White Horse


In the southern part of Britain, just a little bit north of Stonehenge and northeast of the massive Avebury stone circles just off Dragon Hill Road on White Horse Hill there is a famous relic from the bronze age, about 1,000 B.C. In Google Earth look at 51.578920,-1.568262
-
For some reason the Celts dug away the top soil (thus exposing the chalk underlaying it) and made a beautiful abstract modern-art image of a horse. The horse is really big, measuring in at 110 meters long (374 feet).


In fact there are many other white horses both in Wiltshire, UK and even a few abroad.
Link: http://wiltshirewhitehorses.org.uk/foreign.html

Without any doubt the most famous white horse is this one at Uffington.

The largest one anywhere in the world is the one painted on the desert mountain in the southwest part of Juarez, Mexico just a few kilometers away from El Paso, Texas.
-
The local architect Hector Garcia Acosta has made a copy of the reverse image of this famous Uffington horse using whitewash. This one in Mexico is 960 meters long, or more than a half-mile long.

In Google Earth look at 31.662032,-106.588063


-

Friday, December 29, 2006

Prostitution & Smoking Marijuana is Legal in Holland

-

Here in Nederland prostitution is legal. There is even a Whore's Trade Union to protect their rights as sex workers. This trade union has 20,000 prostitutes as members; and that's in a little country that is about the size of some of the counties in West Texas.
-
You can go into any coffee shop (there are several within 2 or 3 miles of my house) and they will hand you a menu which shows all the varieties of marijuana and hashish they sell. You can smoke your dope there, and you are permitted to buy a certain amount to "take away" kind of like you would with Chinese Food. Much like a combination bar and liquor store, except for soft drugs.

You are well within your legal rights if you sit in a lawn chair on your front yard and openly light up a joint, right in front of the police. Mind you, I don't do drugs. At all. Honest. --I think both drugs and alcohol make one stupid, and you do and say foolish things when you are intoxicated on either. --And after three divorces I am a bit of an expert at doing foolish things.

And the Dutch government provides needles free of charge to their heroin addicts.

-
I like beautiful women and sex a lot, and I'm pretty open minded about it. I was as promiscuous as I could be when I was younger, so I've had sex with my share of women in my life. But I never screwed around while I was married. I was always "true" to my wives. Really.
--
The late 1960's was a really interesting time historically. --""Free Love" was the order of the day.
-
The timing was post-invention of the birth control pill, but pre-AIDS. So most people who were in their teens in these years used soft drugs recreationally and got lots of sex. In the history of the planet it was truly a unique period. It was a great time to choose to be a teenager.
-
It was after WWII and at least in Europe and America most folks had enough money to get by. We really believed that we were going to make a difference, that we were going to improve the planet and the ethical behavior of our species.
-
-
Peace, Love, Freedom, Happiness, Civil Rights, and an ------a -----------------The End to World Hunger
-
-
Instead we ended up with Islamic Terrorists, AIDS, silicon implants, and Global Warming. And materialistic, arrogant children who are completely apathetic politically.
-
Oh well...could be worse. ---At least we got lots of sex.
-
-
Growing up in El Paso I got drunk in Juarez countless times as a teenager. There were no age restrictions at all. If you had enough money (and things were really cheap in Mexico) you could buy virtually anything you wanted. I watched some pretty extreme sex shows in Juarez too. Dogs and chicks, etc.
-
The whore houses over in Juarez (sometimes referred to as Whorez) operated very openly. In fact there were uniformed policemen with guns standing just inside the doors of the good ones just to make sure that everyone remained happy and peaceful. The biggest crime was not underage sex or drinking, it was not paying. No shit.
-
One time I saw one of my friends get chased out and down the street by a crowbar wielding, scantilly dressed young whore.
-
But having lived most of my life within just a few miles of Whore Houses, I've never exactly directly paid for sex. Came close a few times, but never quite all the way. - - -Honest.
-
Each of my ex-wives cost me dearly though, and probably if I had paid high-class, young, big-breasted, professional prostitutes for sex rather than depending upon my wives for it, I would have saved a lot of money. And in many cases I don't doubt that the whores would have been a bit nicer, more gracious, and more courteous to me than my wives were.

I've been completely sober for years now. Not even one little sip of alcohol.-- And I gave up recreational drug use years ago. The strongest chemical I do now is cappucinno. I'm so old now that the only women who come on to me anymore are the Grandmother types with blue hair. So it goes without saying that I'm not getting any. But I am no prude.
-

Even though I'm really open minded about sex and don't find paid-sex to be sinful I'm opposed to overt prostitution. In my opinion prostitution demeans women. And when you demean women you demean humanity in general. Prostitution is a profession that can only be pursued by the young and pretty, so it is a serious put-down to all women who are older and/or somewhat more rotund than would profitably work out for a hooker.
-
It works the other way around too. Hence the saying, "The man who marries for money ends up earning his money many times over."
-
Selling one's body is often the option of last resort for young women who are so stupid that they get themselves addicted to hard drugs. I am told that condom usage apparently is not universal among prostitutes so the growth and proliferation of the AIDS/HIV epidemic is certainly a valid concern.
-
Thus in general I am opposed to prostitution.
-
Now Get This: --Up in Sweden there are women who argue that men's opposition to prostitution is just another form of male domination and male violence against women. Have these dumb Sweedish chicks been smoking those funny little yellow cigarettes? Or maybe their syphilis has affected their intelligence. On the other hand what can you expect from a country which refused to oppose Hitler or support the allies during WWII? --Ok, I know that the primary fame of the entire little country comes from their second-rate porn industry, but this contention by the Sweedish whores is absurd. --
-
I oppose prostitution (very gently mind you) not because it is either sinful or inherently unethical, rather because in most cases it harms the women doing it. And harming women is harmful to humanity in general.

The natives here in Europe don't find any of this to be the slightest bit strange. Even after living here in the Netherlands for 15 years I must admit that I still find the attitude here in Old Europe to be a little bit odd. ---A nice place. ---Really. --But a wee bit strange.
-
On the other hand, here in Holland they do have a much lower percentage of teenage pregnancy than we do in America or England. --And drug abuse/addiciton is a far worse problem in America than it is here in Holland. Maybe this is only because the Dutch have a very small country that historically has been relatively homogenous ethnically and culturally.
-
Or maybe the Dutch dike-finger-pluggers do indeed have a more effective approach to dealing with sex and drugs than we do. I still can't make up my mind. Probably the answer is somewhere in between.
-
-
This is a link to the web site of the Dutch Prostitution Information Center: http://www.pic-amsterdam.com/html/english.html

This is a link to a good BBC article on the subject:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6216801.stm

-

-

-

Monday, December 25, 2006

You Can't Go Home Again

In Thomas Wolfe’s famous book “You can’t go home again” his character George Webber really cannot go home.

There have been a lot of smart people think about the issue of “going home again.” Generally it is not considered possible or at least not advisable, because the home and friends you remember are no longer there. They have changed. And so have you.

I’m really not in any way attempting to go home again. Rather, I’m moving to a place where I can live a satisfactory lifestyle on a modest income. I have grown and changed so much over the years that it really is like going to live in a completely new place.

Not only that, the part of town that I’ll probably end up living in, the modern suburbia out on the East side, is the one part of town that I really don’t know all that well.

In general I think it will be just like most other suburbs in America. Most folks are pretty anonymous and probably don’t even know their next door neighbor’s full name, certainly not the people two doors away. Less than five miles away there will be a Wal-Mart Superstore, a Home Depot, and probably two McDonalds. And a big supermarket that is open 24 hours a day, a Walgreen’s drug store, a bank or two, and several strip malls all within less than a ten minute drive.

More than half the people will be a little too fat for their own good, and they will hate themselves because of it. But they will continue taking their car to go to the convenience store that is only a block or two away.

A lot of people will be Hispanic. Their credit card debt will be so big that it is just right on the verge of being too much for them to handle. They work really long hours and get almost no vacation. Even when they do have a little time off work they don’t have enough money to go anywhere nice. They are buying their car on at least a 48 month loan, they drink more than they should, and they may even be addicted to prescription tranquilizers or other physician-prescribed mood enhancers. Their kids do not respect them, and the kids are this much short of being totally out of control. Their spouse at best sort of sullenly tolerates their existence.

Viewed in this context it really doesn’t matter that much what city I live in. Far more important is to make sure that the structure I live in is quiet, well insulated from outside noise and temperature swings, and that I can be very happy living on the inside of it. Its kind of like now. I don’t view myself as living in Holland. I really see myself at the moment as living in Europe. Same with where I am going.

I am moving to America, and whether my house is located in Tucson, Albuquerque, Las Cruces, Fabens, Horizon City, or El Paso is just almost irrelevant. Its not like I’m hoping to develop close friendships with any of my neighbors. Frankly if they will smile vaguely and sort or nod, that is as close as I want to get.

And its not like I can afford to buy a million dollar apartment near Central Park in New York City, or have a place that looks out over the bay in San Francisco. Or live in London or Paris or Berlin.

No, El Paso is just fine. Really. 40% of the adults there don’t even have health insurance it is such a poor place. A great many drivers are completely uninsured due to poverty. The situation in El Paso is much closer to the reality of most of the world than in many other places in America or Europe. And if you are really poor in El Paso you can always go over to Juarez and buy your food and medication (like I intend to).

And if you have half way decent broadband internet service, physically the location of where you live becomes much less important.

The climate does matter. If you live in Northern Sweden or Norway it sucks. Big time. Or North Dakota. But other than the wind and the dust storms in the spring, El Paso really has pretty decent weather. Its kind of hot in the summer but at least the humidity is low. People used to move there to try and cure their tuberculosis because of the pleasant and healthy climate.

El Paso is just the place I will be based out of. Kind of like now South Limburg is where I generally return at night to sleep.

I showed a friend of mine a map of the cellular phone coverage around El Paso the other day. He was amazed at how much of the area did not have service. Here in Europe almost 95% of the terrain has cell phone coverage. It is really amazing how much land there is near to El Paso that is really wild. So wild there are no people and you do not even have cell phone service.

Ok, it is very very dry indeed, but if you can’t see the beauty of the high Chihuahua desert this is your problem. Not mine. I found it beautiful as a young man, and now that I have seen some of the rest of the world I know that in fact I was right. It is a beautiful place.

My friend knows me pretty well and knows what a gadget monkey I am. He said I probably would end up buying a satellite phone. I hadn’t thought about it before his suggestion, but sure enough today I did some research and it really may be practical.

In one week and three days I will say goodbye to this wonderful place that I have lived in for the last 15 years, and I will begin the journey on to another wonderful new place. Living out of a suitcase for the next few months. How utterly exciting!

Richard Hammond Interview


After he crashed the jet car and came out with near fatal brain injuries, people all over the world suddenly realized that one of their most favorite people anywhere was the BBC presenter Richard Hammond.
-
If he ran for Parliament or Prime Minister I feel confident that Richard would get elected easily. Last Friday he was interviewed publicly for the first time since the accident on the Jonathan Ross Friday Night Live show on BBC1. I watched it live. It was a really enjoyable interview.
-
From You Tube here is almost all of Richard Hammond interview part one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqWFK8GB1Hc

Part two of the interview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=772KpokzjdE&mode=related&search=

Sunday, December 24, 2006

Oxymoron - Polite French society

-
-
There is a really cute article by a female BBC correspondent who is assigned to Paris. If you've got a few minutes this really is funny: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/6205403.stm
-
-
-

European Lighting Pre-Electric Times




-


I thought that what with it being really foggy, cold as shit, and Christmas Eve, that the large flea market in Tongeren, Belgium would probably not be open today. I went over anyway just to see. It was only about 1/3 the normal size, and just the really hard core were there today, but it was open.


I picked up three nice lanterns from the late 1800's or early 1900's. One is just the shell of a calcium carbide bicycle lantern with the name Vitaphare enbossed on the top of it. The other two are very nice little hand-held, candle powered lanterns.
-
Link to more pictures of early bicycle lanterns: http://new.photos.yahoo.com/h_paul_garland/album/576460762375571786


-


-


-


TOYOTAS RULE!

I heard on the news that in 2007 Toyota will surpass General Motors as the world’s largest automobile maker. Good. Serves them right. It reaffirms my faith in the marketplace. Consumers (and voters) are a lot smarter than businessmen (and politicians) give them credit for.

I’ve had lots of cars over the years. I got my first car at age 14 and just like J.K. Rowling’s friend it was a little English Ford called an Anglia. I also had a British motorcycle that was a clone of the Triumph Bonnevelle a 650 BSA. I rode the BSA non-stop from El Paso to Southern California, which is a distance of 1,325 kilometers (829 miles) one-way.

From General Motors in America I’ve had three outstanding Chevy’s including a '56 Chevey hot rod with two four barrel carburetors, a really nice 1965 Impala that my Sister and Brother-In-Law gave to me absolutely free because I was poor, and later a beautiful Corvette Stingray which was painted in yellow polyurethane and was called the Sun Vette (I bought it from a beautiful young lady named Suzie who later became the mayor of El Paso). Then I had a beige, six cylinder, 3-speed-manual-on-the-column GMC ½ ton pick-up truck with a camper shell. My Dad was a "Ford Man." So I also tried three cars from Ford including a top-of-the-line black Ford LTD with a vinyl top and a massive 429 cubic inch displacement V8 with a compression ratio of 12.5 to 1. It ran on either gasoline or LPG. In 1967 I owned a classic 289 cubic inch 1965 Mustang. A few years later I had an Indianapolis Pace car Mustang that was the hottest car I ever owned. On my way to Austin, Texas I once got it up to just over 140 mph (225 kph).

From France I’ve driven a couple of Renaults, a Simca, and a Peugeot. In general my perception is that French cars are really innovative and equally poorly engineered. So they are not very reliable. The Italians made my Fiat Uno (the same model that was responsible for the death of Princess Diana) and they also made the wonderful little Vespa moped that I drove all over the place in Europe. Motor vehicles that are made in Italy certainly have Bling!

From the frozen wastelands in the far north of Europe I had the misfortune to own a Vulva. This is the only car I have ever had that developed corossion problems inside of the engine block, so the coolant began contaminating the lubricating oil. So another urban myth was dispelled for me. This one about how well engineered Volvos are. And now due to a combination of arrogance and generalized Sweedish incompetence they have had to sell out to General Motors.


From Germany I owned a classic air cooled Volkswagen when I was in graduate school. I recently had a really fine black V8 Mercedes Gelaendewagen with heated leather seats and satellite navigation which cost in excess of $100,000-. One time I drove it to England and got some off-road driving instruction from the top instructor for the British Land Rover Society. Unfortunately it was somewhat poorly engineered. So I got to know the mechanics at the Mercedes garage over in Aachen, Germany a good bit better than I would have liked. This G500 is the same model of Merc that Bill Cosby, Macy Grey, Arnold Schwartzenager, and Kenneth Lay had. I bought my third (and final) ex-wife a cute little BMW which I ended up driving a lot. Beemers are a little bit overpriced for what you get, but they sure are well designed and they are a genuine pleasure to drive.

From Japan I’ve owned a lot of vehicles including a 350 cc Yamaha motorcycle with a two cycle engine and a red hatchback Mitsubishi which my first ex-wife got. To pull the horse trailer to the dressage competitions here in Europe over time I owned five different Nissan four-wheel-drive sport utility vehicles. Good cars, for sure.
The longest-term girl friend I ever had drove a Honda which I had the pleasure of driving thousands of miles. Another lady I knew was going through a divorce and was heavily medicated, so she asked me to drive her the 2,289 kilometers (1,419 miles) from El Paso to Atlanta in her Mazda with the Wankel rotary engine.

In the Toyota brand I’ve had a white Tercel, a white van (which the second ex-wife got), and two white Celica GTs both of which I loved dearly. I ended up shipping the second Celica over the pond to Europe when I moved over here. Here in Europe I bought the so-called "executive model" of Toyota Avensis. It was just perfectly happy to roll along in cruise-control at 130 mph on the German freeways. Yes that is miles per hour, not kilometers per hour. And really perfectly safe too. The freeways in Germany are designed for high speed travel. They have a road bed which is more than double the thickness of the American Interstate Highways, and the curves have a far longer and gentler radius.
-
The final Toyota I bought in Europe was a Prius which usually got around 50 miles per gallon. The Prius was comfortable, quiet, and had a great sound system. When you put the pedal-to-the-metal both the gasoline engine and the electric motor joined together making it surprisingly fast for short bursts of acceleration. I have nothing but the highest praise for the Prius. If you were to do a full accounting for the environmental cost of mining for the minerals, building the batteries, and later recycling them it is a little less green than it appears on the surface, but it still is the most green vehicle one can currently buy.
-
Back in the late 1970's when I was working for Concorde Insurance (between wives No. 1 and No. 2) I had a beautiful blonde girl friend who worked for Aetna insurance in El Paso. She was originally from Abilene and had fine hooters. Her name was Carolla and she owned a yellow Toyota Corolla. While it was parked in the garage of her house in the upper valley we reclined the seats fully in her Corolla, and Carolla and I made wonderful passionate love together. It seemed appropriate to me getting Carolla off in her Corolla. She thought I was maybe being just a wee bit strange, but she was perfectly happy to give it a try. And she ended up really enjoying herself. Me too.

All of the car companies make pretty darn good cars nowadays. Really. And Toyotas do cost a bit more than other cars. So why would any fool pay these prices?
-
Well there must be some reason since Toyotas are now both the most popular brand of cars in America and also among Islamo-Terrorists all over the 3d world. It is because Toyotas are better. That's why. Hands down, no comparison. Honest Injun. Or as we say using the Texas dialect, No Shit! Toyotas generally get pretty good fuel economy, and they really are more reliable and dependable than the cars made by any of the other car brands.
-
This is a link to a really fun video from the BBC's Top Gear which studies the reliability of Toyotas: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRZzkrLSXj0 and here is the second part of their analysis: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0Fzrsf4G2I
-
There may be only one thing that both Islamic Terrorists with AK-47s and us well-fed Americans agree upon. As Jeremy Clarkson puts it Automotive Greatness...
--

----------.......- TOYOTAS .RULE!!

-
-
-

Thursday, December 21, 2006

The Gaza Strip 2,000 years ago


=
I was reading about Tudor England and it led me to read about King Henry The VIII, which led me to read about the Buggery Act of 1533. Somehow this took me in the direction of reading about the Anglican Church, which of course led me towards the Carpenter from Nazareth.
=
There I found a very interesting map of Palestine from roughly 2,000 years ago. Take a look at it.
-
Especially look at the bottom left of the map, where the Gaza Strip is today. And in essentially the same location 2,000 years ago was Philistia.
-
This boggles the mind.
-

J.K. Rowling





In my opinion J.K. Rowling ranks right up there with Mother Teresa and Golda Meir (the 4th Prime Minister of Israel). And for sure one hell-of-a-lot higher than Maggie Thatcher.
-
She is one really neat person.

I am not a catholic, but I always thought that John Paul was a really good hearted human being. And if he can qualify for sainthood, then J.K. Rowling should fit in quite nicely.


I happened upon her web site today. What a lot of fun! http://www.jkrowling.com/

These are some pictures from my last trip to Edinburg, Scotland which is one of the greatest cities in the world. Ask anyone who has been there. They will tell you, no question about it!

She wrote parts of the first Harry Potter book sitting in her brother's restaurant here.

And just over the border into England south of there is Hogwarts (know to muggles as Alnwick Castle).


-


Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Wedding







-


Weddings are such joyous events. Everyone is happy and looking towards a wonderful future.


-


My nephew Greg Cannon just got married. His wife is beautiful, and her family sure do look like nice people.


-




-


-


Sunday, December 17, 2006

Sony Ericsson GSM Cellphone


For the last several years I have used the top of the line Sony cellphone which has an organizer, opens and modifies PDF, word, and excel files, plays MP3s, takes VGA pictures. I've had a P900 and two P910s. The latest P910 no longer will recognize the memory card, so I looked at buying the new P990. But here their very most fancy and expensive model is only a tri band, not a quad band. I really like most Sony products, but them making the P990 only a triband was not at all wise.

So instead I bought a w810i quad band phone. It is tiny and it was a heck of a lot cheaper. With a 4 GB memory card in it I still have more than 2 gb of available memory even with 1,500 songs stored in it and just over 4,000 pictures also. It does nice slide shows and also a wonderful job as an MP3 walkman. Oh, it has a good FM radio built in to it too.
-
It communicates very well with my lap top via bluetooth. It synchronizes my calendar, notes, to do list, list of contacts, etc. with no problems at all from M.S. Outlook. And M.S. Outlook synchronizes quite easily with my calendar in Yahoo too. The w810i has a speaker phone built it, and instead of just a VGA camera it has a 2 megapixel camera with true autofocus, macro function, and a strobe light for low light conditions. The camera light can be used as a flashlight (a torch for my British friends), battery life is really quite good, it takes nice and relatively high quality videos, and it will send and receive e-mail or surf the web.

It was sort of a big deal today when I said goodby and finally packed away the P910i, but this represents real progress. Change is good when it results in improvement.
-
-

Saturday, December 16, 2006

German Flea Market

It is just over one week until Christmas.
-
The weather is grey, drizziling lightly, and fairly cold.
-
I went to a flea market over in Germany this morning.

It seems that the combination of factors has encouraged lots of people to convert their old "stuff" to cash and to accept very reasonable prices.

-

I bought an East German soldier's winter hat in exactly my size that was made in 1968 for $10,

-

a little religious book printed in the French language in Brussels, Belgium in 1867 for $5,

-

an East German 5 pfennig coin that was minted in 1949 (the same year I was minted) for $2,

-

and a 5 French Franc coin dated 1875 for $17.50
-
I've already packed up both of my 8 megapixel cameras, so I took these pictures with the 2 megapixel camera in my cell phone. Other that the fact that I was a little shakey, I'm reasonably satisfied with the quality.

-

-

Friday, December 15, 2006

Its Not Easy Being Green



ppppp' '''''''''''''' Its not easy being green!


For the last 1/2 a century I’ve been concerned about the environment. I can remember 50 years ago looking at the air pollution in El Paso, Texas and being concerned. And the first time I flew coast-to-coast in an airplane I remember being amazed that even the really remote locations were fairly heavily air polluted. Over the years I have done what I can to help the environment. I've been described many times by my right wing friends as a "tree hugger". I've also done my share of damage and wasted my share of the earth's resources by driving high performance V8 vehicles and other foolish nonesense.

I'm really lucky at age 58 to have the time and the financial wherewithall to actually make some changes to my lifestyle. So after giving it a great deal of thought and research, I have decided that when I move back to El Paso I’m going to make every reasonable attempt to reduce my carbon footprint. In other words to reduce my energy consumption from non-renewable sources like oil, gas, and coal. And also from those horribly dangerous and polluting sources like nuclear energy.

Most of the recommendations listed below are both good for society and the long term survivability of our species and the planet. They also make your lifestyle a lot nicer by making your house quieter and feel much more comfortable.


There is a certain amount of financial payback, but you certainly cannot expect anywhere near 100% payback, even over a farily long period of time. Not even with tax credits. Don't even dream of doing all these things just to save money. That is self delusional.




TRANSPORTATION: For sure the more mass you haul around with you, the more carbon you burn. So smaller and lighter is better.

In America I’ve bought a Toyota Corolla with a 1.8 liter 4 cylinder engine and a 5 speed manual transmission. In Europe I had a Toyota Prius which is a very nice car. I drove it all over Europe and most of the time got in the neighborhood of 50 miles per gallon. Of course in Europe you buy in liters and measure your distance in kilometers, but its really quite easy to translate this to MPG. The Dutch think in terms of liters fuel required to travel one hundred kilometers. The German-collaborating arrogant Swedes use kilometers per liter. So much for harmonizing and the one-big-happy-family European Onion. (Think about the analogy. Just under the surface it stinks so bad it almost makes you cry)


When you do an ecological accounting of the cost to mine and process the raw materials, then build the batteries in the Prius, then later to recycle these batteries, the Prius becomes a little less green. But its still a really wonderful car.

The plan is also for me to buy and use a motorscooter. Probably a 125 cc. Any smaller and it really is a safety hazard driving on busy streets like Dyer, Montana, or Mesa. Larger engines than about a 125cc or a 150cc and you are sacrificing a lot of fuel economy for unnecessary high performance.

Dick Strawbridge sold his car & bought a an old Land Rover that he has adapted to run on bio diesel. He needs a 4 wheel drive car sometimes, for sure. So do I. But just to pop out to the store he should have a second vehicle that weighs much less and gets far better fuel economy. The bio diesel thing is a neat trick, running your car off of used cooking oil that originally fried french fries. But still when you oxidize it by burning it in an internal combustion engine it creates carbon dioxide. Where I am going to be living it is 4,000 feet above sea level (more than 1,000 meters), but for much of Great Britain rising sea levels will be a genuine problem.

-





HOUSING: Long term one’s house is probably the second largest consumer of fossil fuels after your car. The same thing applies about size. Smaller is better. You have less space to heat in the winter and cool in the summer. And less space to dust and keep clean too!

All over the world in the more technologically advanced societies like Europe, Japan, and America each year there are more and more one-person households. Sociologists have spent a lot of time and have gotten many government grants to study this increasing phenomenon. There are lots of issues that they are looking at, such as loneliness and isolation. But the fact that the trend line is leading towards more and more single person housholds is undeniable.

One person does not need 1,500 or 2,000 square feet of living space. Well under that is ideal. Certainly 1,000 sq ft or less. And one person does not need 3 or 4 bedrooms. Two bedrooms is ideal. One to sleep in and the other to turn into your office and computer room. If you have spare bedrooms then leaches and moochers tend to want to come and visit at your expense.

While a garage is not 100% essential, it sure is desirable and useful. Garages help creature comforts when it is cold or snowy, and a garage sure helps to keep your car cool in the hot summer sun. When you are carrying your groceries from the car to the kitchen it sure is nice if the car is not parked very far away. A garage helps a little with security and preventing your car from getting vandalized or stolen. Garages are a good place to keep your tools and to store all the various things that you think you might need one day. And once you have lived in places that have a garage for most of your life, it is rather sad after a lifetime of hard work to retire and find that you not only do not have a garage but that you actually have to be agressive and obnoxious and fight for a frigging parking place.

So a condo or a townhouse without a garage is unsavory.

Likewise most Baby Boomers are relatively well educated and demand a fair amount of service during the purchasing process of anything expensive. For example they know that the government FHA loan process demands a certain minimum level of insulation in a house. And that over the years several things have been happening concurrently: Prices for energy have continued to rise, the amount of insulation required by both the FHA and VA have increased greatly, and energy efficiency standards for devices like furnaces, water heaters, and refrigerated air conditioners have gone way up.

Multi-family dwellings like condos, duplexes, quadraplexes, and townhoues mean that you have to give up a certain amount of privacy and freedom. For example you have to abide by certain restrictions regarding what you can do to the outside of your structure (paint colours, shutters, satellite TV dishes, etc.). While you are trying to sleep you may be able to hear people walking by and talking, or driving up in the parking lot, drunk or fighting (or having sex), or playing their stereos loudly.

When a Boomer retires a condo or townhouse looks fine because that means there won't be any more lawns to mow or houses to paint on the outside or roofs to repair. But if the only condos available were built back in the 1970's and 1980's when insulation standards were much lower, do not have a garage, are electrically heated, cooled by refrigerated air conditioning built to 1970s energy standards, and have single pane windows, and then on top of that insanity have Homeowner's Association Fees (HOA) of $200- to $400- per month this just does not compute!

Even if you bought one of these condos or townhouses outright (rather than borrowing the money and having a mortgage) you would still have lots of monthly housing expenses: Property taxes, utilities, insurance, cable TV, phone, and internet access. If you re-read the paragraph directly above this regarding high utility bills and then you have to also add on HOA fees buying a condo or townhouse becomes less attractive than just buying a small little single person house.

So what does the single person retired Boomer need? A small little 2 bedoom house with a garage, which is energy efficient and has a zero maintenance lawn (i.e. gravel). Ideally it would located in a part of the planet where one can live relatively cheaply, the property taxes are low, the crime rate is low, and the climate is pleasant.


Wasting water in the desert is absolutely socially irresponsible.

This is not just kind of intellectual or philosphical issue. It couldn't be more real. So the landscaping around your property needs to fit in and be logical with the desert, i.e. not grass or any plants that you have to artifically water. Gravel and desert plants that don’t need irrigation are far wiser. And a hell-of-a lot lower maintenance too.

Pretty much all of the incandescent light bulbs in the house need to be replaced with compact fluorescent bulbs.

-

Sealing up the structural leaks is vital. While it is theoretically possible to seal up a structure excessively, and thus make the air inside the house unhealthy, this is very rarely the case. Most houses are drafty, let a lot of dust in, and waste a great deal of the money you spend to heat and cool the place.

This is a link to a really excellent explanation of how to seal up your house: http://www.energystar.gov/ia/home_improvement/home_sealing/DIY_COLOR_100_dpi.pdf



In the attic there usually are large leaks around the vent for the toilet(s), the various exhaust vents such as from the kitchen hood above the stove, around the exhaust vents for the hot water heater, the furnace, and the fireplace if you have one. Entrance holes for wiring and piping also need to caulked and sealed up. And from the attic, where the space between the interior walls intersects with the attic. The vent for the toilet(s) may need to be sealed with spray foam.

Improving the insulation is next, after one gets the leaks sealed up. First seal up and insulate the ducts for the heater/cooler. Use mastic to seal the joints and then insulate them with at least R-6 insulation.

Put bats of fiberglass insulation with a reflective layer facing the outside between the rafters under the roof. Even R-11 bats can do a tremendous amount of good in helping to keep the sun’s heat out in the summer and the roof cool in the winter.

Heat and Cold is transmitted by Conduction, Convection, and Radiation.

Blow in additional fiberglass in the floor of the attic (on top of the ceiling). Make sure that you properly keep from blocking the vents in the sofits at the eaves of the house, and also that you properly keep the insulation from coming in contact with the hot vents for the water heater, the furnace, and the fireplace. This is a fire hazard and is vital. Also keep the new insulation from coming into contact with any recessed light fixtures which are not rated for this. Another fire hazard.


Make sure that the additional insulation you add does not create either a fire hazard, a toxic smoke hazard in the event of a fire, or a health hazard due to fire retardants or formaldehyde. Vermiculite may contain asbestos. So before buying any insulation look into these health and safety issues.

End up with AT LEAST a minimum of R-38 insulation in the attic. More is better. R-50 is not at all out of line. Honest.

Insulate the little wooden door leading to the attic. Weather strip it. Seal it up just like any hole leading to the outside. Put latches on it to compress the weather stripping.

Inside the house caulk around the crack between the outside of the metal boxes for the outlets and the switches, and the sheetrock. Also caulk inside the boxes filling the holes where the wires come in to the box. Same applies in the ceiling with lighting fixtures, although you may need to do this from the attic.

Caulk around the doors and windows both inside and out. Caulk anywhere else that you think air may possibly be leaking in.

Add roll-down shutters to the outside of the windows for sound and temperature insulation as well as for keeping the house dark in the evening in the summer. These really are wonderful. Both of the times that I have lived in Europe my house has had these, and I am a real fan of them.

At least do those windows in your bedroom (sleeping) and the living room to increase the pleasure of watching DVD movies on your big flat screen, high reolution Dolby 5.1 home cinema system in the middle of the day. And for sure add exterior roll down shutters to any windows that get afternoon sun in the summer. This way the shutters can be used to keep out the heat instead of adding awnings (which might blow off during high winds).

Look into coating the inside of the windows with a light coating of 3M reflective film for any of the windows that get direct sun in the afternoon or in the summer. The 3M model P-18ARL is their most effective film at reducing airconditioning load from the sun's rays.

http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/WF/3MWindowFilms/Solutions/Residential/

In addition to the existing windows, add a second set of windows on the inside of the house. Double glazed low emissivity energy star windows, so that you end up with 3 layers of glass. Caulk inside and out of the new double pane windows. Adding these additional layers of glass will do remarkable things for the house in comfort, quietness, and also energy effeciency. Normal single pane windows may have a R rating as low as 1. Really. Think about all the energy that wastes. And one pane of glass lets in all the sound of passing trucks and airplanes, kids screaming, boom boxes, low riders with worn out mufflers, etc.

A cheap and easy (but not quite as good) alternative is the addition of 1/8 or ¼ inch thick plexiglass using magnetic refrigerator door moulding to attach it to the wall around the windows. The thickness doesn’t really matter that much from an energy standpoint, but the ¼ inch thick acrylic does keep the outside sound out much better than the 1/8 inch material. Any thinner than this and the acrylic may warp and screw up your view through the window.

This PDF file from the Candadian energy agency does a good job of discussing window options: http://oee.nrcan.gc.ca/publications/infosource/pub/renovate/windowefficiency/windowefficiency.pdf

Add a storm door to the front door. If possible get one with double pane glass in it. Even if you have to special order it. But if the front door gets lots of direct sunlight be cautious. Adding a glass storm door may end up damaging the outside of your front door. So consider applying some 3M reflective film to the glass in the storm door.

Add a sweep to help seal up the bottom of the front door, and add appropriate weather stripping to the font door.

Another thing to look into is a garage door that is laminated metal-insulation-metal. Overhead door company sells these.

Change the thermostat to an energy efficient one that is programmable. Set it a little cooler in the winter and a little hotter in the summer than is normal. You will get used to it and will save a lot of energy.

Sliding Patio Doors are a big problem, thats for sure! From the standpoints of security, energy, dust, and sound. In addition to the existing single pane sliding glass door, add a complete second sliding glass door that contains double pane energy effecient glass, i.e. energy star rated.

Brick veneer is a much better insulator for noise and heat/cold than stucco. But if the exterior wall gets really hot from the sun's rays, some of this heat will be transmitted into the house through the typical R-11 insulation between the 2 x 4 rafters in your walls. How do you make the brick veneer reflect the summer sun's powerful rays, rather than soak them up? Paint the brick white (fairly cheap but an ongoing maintenance item) or have it stuccoed in white.

Look into having a roofing or roof-coating contractor apply a thick coating of white colored reflective material to the exterior of the roof to help reflect singlight. http://www.energy.wsu.edu/documents/building/res/roof_coat.pdf

Concrete slab floors get pretty cold in the winter. Two thousand years ago the Romans solved this problem in their villas and bath houses by circulating hot air under the floors (which are supported by terracotta hypocaust tiles) and up and out via the hollow interior of the walls (terracotta box tiles). I've seen these Roman hypocausts all over Europe. And in my collection I've even got a few Roman terracotta hypocaust tiles and portions of wall box tiles. Heated floors and walls. In some ways more luxurious even than we have it today.



In Europe it is currently very common to install electrical resistance heating or warm water heating under the surface of the ground floor. My house in Holland has this feature, with a thermostat, and a timer that only lets it operate during the evening hours when electricity is much cheaper. These solutions are not terribly wise in terms of energy conservation, but they sure do make the house a lot more pleasant to live in during the winter.

A better way to deal with the problem is by insulating your feet from the cold floor. A rather expensive but nice option is to coat the floor with a thin layer of cork laminated to wood. Look into this. Large, thick wool throw rugs are also nice. Where feasible your wool wall hangings should be hung on the exterior walls rather than on the interior walls.

I've read that one’s refrigerator typically consumes 20% of the total household electrical consumption. This may be a little high, but for sure your refigerator is a big consumer of electricity. Within the last 5 years or so refigerators have been made much more energy effecient. So replacing your old one with a new Energy Star refrigerator is a good investment. This may actually have a fairly rapid payback financially.

If it is necessary to add a mini split refrigerated air conditioning unit to the bedroom, they are energy efficiency rated nowadays, so make sure that the system you buy is as energy efficient as possible.

Insulate the sides of the hot water heater and then turn the temperature down. Drain some of the gunk out of the bottom.

After you finish the above measures you may want to play with a passive solar hot water heater, or maybe putting photovoltaic cells up on the roof. Or perhaps generating your own electricty from a wind turbine. These are all rather expensive toys but fun to play with nonetheless.
-
Probably a PV system that is not connected up with the grid is the easiest way to begin. Maybe a 500 watt PV panel with batteries and an inverter. This system can be used to power lighting, or maybe even the refrigerator if you have a fairly small one.
-
The most difficult part about doing these solar projects is finding reliable products and reputable suppliers. There are many people trying to get by doing consulting work, but if you just want to buy cost effective and reliable products this is hard. If you want to buy insulation, or plumbing supplies, or a fuel effecient motor vehicle, it is easy to find out which is the most reliable or most cost effective. But this absolutely is not so with PV cells, charge controllers, wind turbines, or solar hot water heaters.

This is a link to the El Paso Solar Energy Association's web site. They have a nice article on a quick and easy way to make a passive solar water heater from an old electric hot water heater, some 2 x 4's, some insultation, and a sheet of non-E rated double pane glass. http://www.epsea.org/wtr.html


My dearest French friend Christophe Guillame sold his grain processing business and then used the proceeds to build a number of large commercial wind turbine generators which are connected to the grid in the Champagne district of France.

In Europe there are tax incentives to encourage wind generation of electricity. It is out of my league financially but I sure admire him for doing this. He is also involved in a biomass project. http://www.noria-energie.com/


-

FOOD: After you have done what you can to reduce your carbon footprint and your direct consumption of energy from fossil fuels, then you need to take a hard look at your secondary usage of energy and the waste stream that you are generating.

Are you flying in large jet airplanes when it really is not necessary?

Is there a way to buy food that is produced locally or nearby, rather than half way around the globe?

When possible begin choosing the product with less packaging, etc.

Are you actively separating out your trash so that you can recycle?





LINK to the BBC TV Show: http://www.itsnoteasybeinggreen.org/

A quote from the song: "Green's the color of Spring. And green can be cool and friendly-like. And green can be big like an ocean, or important like a mountain, or tall like a tree." LINK to Kermit The Frog's Lyrics to the Song: http://www.disgalaxy.addr.com/Muppets/kermit.htm









Thursday, December 14, 2006

Politically Correct Chocolate Santa


-

I was getting a haircut yesterday and I happened to notice this chocolate Santa in a store window. He looked so cute with the dark face that I bought him and took him home.

-

-

-

Sunday, December 10, 2006

Is Church Only For Old People?




I haven’t attended many church services in the last half a century or so. I’ve been in churches because they were historical, or for the archaeology. But not actually going to church. This morning at 10:00 (its Sunday) I put on my white shirt, coat, and tie and actually attended the service at the 1,200 year old church that Carolus Magnus, King of the Franks, Karl The Great, or as us Anglophiles call him Charlemagne built in about 800 AD in Aachen, Germany.

This church is now an Episcopal Church (and a world heritage site). I was baptised as an Episcopalian, and almost a half a century ago I went to the classes and got confirmed in the church. So I figured it would be OK for me to attend the church service there.

Charlemagne was the first Holy Roman Emperor, and he was the first person to unite all of Europe. They sometimes call him the Father of Europe. Amazingly this wonderful cathedral he built largely survived over the years, including the massive bombing of the allied forces in WWII.

Before this morning, except for weddings and deaths, the last church service I had actually
attended was in Westminster Cathedral in London about 10 years ago. And before that it was 30 years ago in the Church of the Nativity, built by Constantine the Great (330 AD), which stands in the center of Bethlehem.

The service this morning was really great. Although the place feels small and intimate, it actually seats between 300 and 400 people. And it was standing room only this morning. Looking out over the crowd one could mostly see grey with some bald heads poking though here and there. I’ll bet less than 10% of the congregation was under the age of 50. The service consisted of lots of standing up and sitting down. By about 45 minutes into the service maybe a quarter of the people were no longer bothering to stand up in the get-it-up parts. Not out of any sort of rudeness, but just because they were old and their legs were tired of all this standing and getting up and down.

It was a real multi-media show. And a good one too!

The candles and the stained glass windows. The gold tomb housing Charlemagne’s bones, the Blessed Virgin Mary looking over us. I was sitting right under the famous chandelier which Emperor Barbarossa donated to the church in 1020 in honor of his distant relative Charlemagne being made a saint. The official church people were all dressed up in their fancy robes and gowns. Us old men had on conservative ties and dark overcoats, and the little old ladies with the blue hair had on black dresses and hats.

The Padre and his Helper-Boy would swing the incense burner, the church has one of the most magnificent pipe organs anywhere, the Aachen DOM choir is really world renowned (and I can see why), they had a group doing Gregorian Chants, the massive church bells outside would ring, and then at certain places the congregation would also join in where everyone was belting out this really loud and wonderfully uplifting music.

At one point during one of the stand-up parts of the service you turned to the person next to
you, smiled, murmured some vague pleasantries about how sexy she looked in her black dress, and shook hands.

I’m almost 60 years old, and I’ve never drank the blood of Christ or eaten him either. But today I got to. It seemed rather pagan, vampire like, and cannibalistic but as Mike would say, “What the Hey?” You only live once. And life is a terminal adventure after all. Thank heavens you no longer have to share the same cup with 400 other sneezing, sniffling, and coughing, immune system suppressed old folks. It took them almost 2,000 years but they’ve finally figured it out about germs, bacteria, and viruses. So at least in this church, you no longer drink his blood, you only eat him. But the Padre sure does belt down his share of that Holy Wine early on a Sunday morning. He gives a good healthy swig to his Helper-Boy too.

You don’t really get to eat Jesus. Not like one Gay guy would eat another one, or like my lesbian wife used to eat her girl friends (actually 2 of my 3 wives liked to have an occasional girl mixed in just to keep it interesting). No, this is more symbolic and ritualistic. And it has something to do with the concept of Faith’s Triumph Over Reason.

Supposedly a couple of days after the carpenter from Nazareth was executed for opposing the rich folks and the power structure, he came back to life for a brief period. And he shot the breeze with his girl friend. But she wasn’t allowed to touch him. Not even a little hug or a peck on the cheek. And certainly not a good old vigorous, sweaty, heavy breathing, nasty sex act. Nope, nothing at all.

And now one celebrates this wonderful event by drinking His blood and eating His flesh. Honest! This is not some kind of a joke. And in many churches there is even a large statue of him looking down at you, nailed to the cross, bleeding profusely, and a wearing a cactus on his head. He’s thirsty and he’s dying. But this is not sadistic. No. It is religion. And family values, and it is all a good thing.

To participate in the cannibalistic ritual you gradually work your way forward in a long line that sort of reminds me of the way that a Conga line snakes side to side. The old folks are none too steady on their feet. When you finally get to the front of the line the Father murmurs some stuff
over the cracker, makes the sign of the bloody crucifix that Jesus was executed on, then he gives the little round unleavened bread to you. You sort of bow and scrape a little, and you say some sort of ritualistic crap. Then you put the little thin cookie in your mouth and let it slowly dissolve.

About 60 minutes into the event some guys in suits passed around wicker baskets that were full of money! This seemed really nice of them to me, but since I’m doing OK financially at the moment I didn’t take any. Instead I put in $20 and passed the buck on down the line.

The service was performed in German, but honestly I got about as much out of it as any service I’ve ever heard in Latin, Spanish, or English. At one point I was staring straight up overhead
wondering how the chandelier was suspended from the dome maybe 150 or 200 feet directly above my head. I noticed that there was a mural of the Prince of Peace on the ceiling.

I got to thinking. Religion can be a good thing when it (somewhat rarely) focuses on Peace, and helping the poor, and concepts like The Meek Shall Inherit The Earth.

In my view religion is mostly negative. And harmful.

In so many cases religion allows me to think I’m better than you are, simply because I go to a different church. Taken to its logical extreme it allows me to kill you, once again simply because you believe in a different set of “mystical faith crap” than I do. Just ask the Catholics and the Protestants of Northern Ireland, or the Jew and the Moslems in the middle east. It has gotten so normal for some poorly educated Muslim cleric to issue a religious death sentence on someone, just because of what they said or what they believe, that it is no longer even news.
But just let a white person mention the word Crusades and bloody, fucking hell breaks loose.

But I gotta tell you. Once you get so damn old that you can’t drink or stay up late partying anymore, a good church service like the one this morning in Aachen is a very entertaining multimedia experience. Something to do, some place to go. And its cheap too.