Independence Day 2025

 

Here's wishing everyone a happy, relaxed, upbeat Fourth of July celebration this year.  When I think back to how things were last year, there's a vast difference, isn't there?  We have a President who may not suit everyone, but is doing his job the best way he knows how, and a Congress and Senate that are - however shakily - working together to move forward his agenda.  I think that beats stalemate, and I think most of the Founding Fathers would have approved.

May our Republic grow stronger every year, and become a land whose citizens may live in liberty and prosperity under the grace of God.

Peter

A travel tip I wouldn't have considered

 

I've never thought that wrapping up my vehicle might be a worthwhile precaution before hiking a trail, but it turns out that in parts of this country, it's not a bad idea.

From the awe-inspiring views of the Grand Canyon to the geysers of Yellowstone, millions of people travel to national parks across the United States every year. The parks are home to countless animals, including one mountain-dwelling critter that can ruin a day in the great outdoors.

Marmots will pillage backpacks left unattended in search for a snack, and at Sequoia National Park's Mineral King trail, the rodents have been known to chew on tubes and wiring on the underside of vehicles.

To prevent damage in such a remote location, officials recommend hikers wrap their vehicles in a large tarp, which looks unusual, but deters marmots from chomping on a radiator hose or a brake line.

. . .

In the past, hikers used to surround their vehicles with chicken wire, but over time, the marmots learned how to evade the wire and reach the vehicles.

"On several occasions, marmots have not escaped the engine compartment quickly enough and unsuspecting drivers have given them rides to other parts of the parks; several have ridden as far as Southern California," the NPS explained.

There's more at the link.

I'm not familiar with US marmots, but I've had lots of encounters with the very similar species that South Africans familiarly refer to as dassies (actually a species of hyrax).  They're endemic on Table Mountain in Cape Town, and have "colonized" the area around the upper cable car station.  They unashamedly beg food from patrons at the restaurant there, so much so that they're typically so rotund and corpulent that they can't move in a hurry.  That provides the local eagles with a plentiful meat diet, but there are so many dassies waiting their turn at the tourist buffet that the numbers never seem to drop.

No need to tarp your vehicles there - for a start, they're 3,000 feet below, parked on the road leading past the lower cable car station, and besides, the dassies are so well fed by tourists that they'd turn up their noses at engine cables and wires.

Be that as it may, I suppose marmots, hyrax and similar critters have developed all over the world to fill a specific ecological niche.  We're simply supplementing their diet by parking nearby.  Does that mean that tarping one's car to keep them out is interfering with natural selection?

Peter

An amazing, interesting and sometimes amusing history lesson

 

Did you know that Noah's Ark had a Mesopotamian counterpart?  Not only were the Ark narratives very similar between the two cultures, but a replica of the Mesopotamian "ark" - in reality a very large coracle-type design - was actually built and launched.

The project was the brainchild of Irving Finkel.  He describes it in the video below.  I highly recommend making time to watch it if you have any interest in history, sacred writings, or early ships.  It's a fascinating story, and Finkel is a very absorbing lecturer.

Prof. Finkel wrote a book about the project titled "The Ark Before Noah".  After viewing the video above, it's on my must-read list.

Fascinating!

Peter

The ambulance chasers lose at last

 

I was pleased to read that a manifestly unjust court verdict has finally been overturned by the Texas Supreme Court.

The Texas Supreme Court has ruled in favor of Werner Enterprises, reversing a $100 million jury verdict against the motor carrier upheld by an appellate court in a 2014 fatal crash in which a pickup truck lost control on a slick interstate, traveled across the highway median and collided with a Werner tractor traveling on the opposite stretch of road.

. . .

“This awful accident happened because an out-of-control vehicle suddenly skidded across a wide median and struck the defendant’s truck, before he had time to react, as he drove below the speed limit in his proper lane of traffic,” the court wrote. “That singular and robustly explanatory fact fully explains why the accident happened and who is responsible for the resulting injuries. Because no further explanation is reasonably necessary to substantially explain the origins of this accident or to assign responsibility for the plaintiffs’ injuries, the rule of ‘proximate causation’ does not permit a fact finder to search for other, subordinate actors in the causal chain and assign liability to them.”

The high court said that nothing the Werner driver, Shiraz Ali, did or didn’t do contributed to the pickup truck hitting ice, losing control, veering into the median and entering oncoming traffic on an interstate highway.

However Ali was driving, the presence of his 18-wheeler in its proper lane of traffic on the other side of Interstate 20 at the precise moment the pickup truck lost control is just the kind of “happenstance of place and time” that cannot reasonably be considered a substantial factor in causing injuries to the plaintiffs.

There's more at the link.

I've long been angered by the "sue-at-all-costs" approach by so-called "ambulance-chasers":  lawyers who'll hunt down anyone who might conceivably have any case of any kind against another after an accident, then sue on their behalf for often ridiculous sums in damages, hoping that the defendant will settle rather than go to the trouble and expense of an often long-drawn-out trial.  They're an entire sub-culture in the legal "industry".  During our recent travels, both my wife and I commented on the huge number of billboards in economically depressed areas through which we traveled, advertising the services of lawyers to sue anybody whom they could persuade you had "wronged" or "harmed" or "damaged" you.  It appeared to be the major economic activity in those areas, if one judged only by the billboards alongside the roads.

This case is a classic example.  The truck was doing everything legally, traveling in its lane at a lawful speed, and nowhere near traffic coming the other way:  yet the ambulance-chasers tried (and, at first, succeeded) to paint it, its driver and its owner as guilty parties, responsible for the accident and subsequent injuries and expenses.  That they succeeded in a lower court is a black mark against that court, which really should have known better.  Fortunately, in this case, a higher court was able to put a stop to that nonsense:  but how many times does that happen?  How many times can the defendant not afford to take the case to an appeal, and is therefore forced to bear the costs of a settlement?

Shakespeare's prescription for lawyers might have been in jest, but it sometimes seems more than appropriate in the light of how they conduct themselves . . .

Peter

"The nature of the enemy"

 

HMS Defiant warns us that our fundamentalist enemies in the Middle East and elsewhere are very likely to take advantage of public celebrations to attack those attending.

The deranged lunatics who make up the foot soldiers of the enemy invasion do not need to turn to guns and mass shootings in order to slaughter thousands of innocent people who are out enjoying the 4th of July, they merely have to get behind the wheel of a big SUV or a truck and drive endlessly through an unwary and completely unprotected crowd so this year, protect yourselves and your families.

If you line a parade route as I did for so many years, make sure the barricades preventing vehicle access are meaningful and placed with care and attention to detail by a man who KNOWS that they are the only thing that will stop a maniac from driving into a peaceful crowd looking the wrong way.*

Make sure that you have a safe haven selected for you and your family and that you can get to it safely when the entire crowd bursts into panic and flight. Be ready to deal with avoiding trampling and keeping safe from the panicked crowd.

Know that the enemy we have in the middle east is one that really and truly does like to strike back on days that are already memorialized in one way or another and they will take days like the 4th of July in a heartbeat over even attacking on 9/11 or Christmas or New Years and take note that none of them are holidays in their religion. 

Evil doesn't take holidays.

There's more at the link.

He's absolutely right, of course.  We've all seen such attacks in Europe, and a few that came close in our own country (although, thanks be to God, most of what we've seen here has been smaller-scale and/or less motivated).  There are a lot of raw, humiliated, angry people in the fundamentalist Islamic community right now, furious that Israel has destroyed their compatriots in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran, and outraged that the USA has supported Israel in its efforts.  As far as they're concerned, we all share the guilt for such actions, and they're entitled to seek revenge against us.

Bear in mind, too, that a firearm is often far from the most useful response.  Sometimes it can help defend one's life and loved ones, but if a wannabe terrorist martyr is barreling towards a crowd in a heavy truck, gunfire is unlikely to stop him before he runs right over you.  By all means carry a gun - I do, almost all the time - but having a head on a swivel, constantly evaluating the situation around you, looking for potential choke points and escape routes, and watching for suspicious behavior, will do more to save you in most situations than pulling out a gun and starting shooting.  That's even more true when you consider that, if such a situation goes down, the authorities - and many other armed civilians such as yourself - are highly likely to regard anyone waving a gun around as part of the problem, not the solution.  They may start shooting at you on general principles (i.e. the modified Golden Rule:  "Do unto others before they have a chance to do unto you, only do it first").  There are seldom happy endings to that.

Fair warning, folks.

Peter

Was the Idaho shooter just another victim of trans derangement syndrome?

 

All his social media accounts have been "mysteriously" wiped clean by a person or persons unknown . . . but not before someone retrieved and saved his Instagram account.  Example:

There have been so many of these . . . somebody gets a trans bee in their bonnet, and proceeds to turn homicidal.  Was the Idaho shooter just another one of them?  You be the judge - because the official line is, at this point, deafening silence.

Peter

The fun - and pain - of fact-checking and research

 

During our recent perambulations around parts of the Civil War South, my wife and I enjoyed new scenery, new restaurants (hey, gotta sample the local cuisine to get the local "flavor"!), and new people.  We also were reminded - forcibly - that our bodies are older than they were when we last did this sort of thing, and quite a bit more decrepit.  I hadn't expected it to be so painful to spend so much time on foot.  If this goes on, I'll be exploring in a mobility scooter!

Savannah, Georgia was a pleasant surprise in many ways, the first being the weather.  Inland, Georgia was hot and muggy, very unpleasantly so, but on the coast it was a lot cooler and more pleasant.  The Savannah River runs through town, just off the old business and now tourist district, which adds to the cooling.  There are lots of old buildings, some almost as old as the American Revolution and many dating back to the Civil War period.  They've been done up as shops, restaurants and artsy touristy places, leaving the exteriors unchanged but updating the interiors.  Many of the streets are still cobbled rather than tarred, some of them very uncomfortable even in a modern SUV, forcing one to drive at little more than walking pace;  and the traffic through the tourist areas is very heavy, again slowing one down a lot.  On the other hand, the tourist zone is probably no more than a mile or two square, so everything is reasonably accessible.  Those who have land available for parking are doing a land-office business, with everything being run by text messaging or QR codes and visitors' cellphones, so the overhead is minimal.

I was very glad to be able to see the Civil War side of Savannah for myself.  It's all very well to read about what it was like, but to actually see the steps leading up from the river, and the buildings that housed ship chandleries and shops and warehouses dating back that far, and old Civil War forts and jetty pilings, and see old pictures of sailing ships lining the river bank to load and unload . . . it makes it much more real in my mind, and hence I can write about it much more realistically.  It was a very worthwhile visit from that perspective.

The Interstates and regional roads were in pretty decent condition, but traffic was very heavy at times east of the Mississippi River.  I didn't enjoy driving through it, particularly when traffic backed up near cities like Atlanta or Chattanooga.  It confirmed me in my belief that we needed to live west of the Mississippi, where there's room to breathe and space to maneuver.  We acted on that belief when we moved to Texas in 2016, and we were very happy to get back here when the journeying was done.  How all those people will cope - let alone move - if a really bad disaster hits, such as struck North Carolina last year, I hate to think.  (We wanted to visit North Carolina this trip, to see our friends at Killer Bees Honey, but so many of the roads, hotels, etc. in that area are still closed or heavily restricted due to hurricane damage that we gave up on that idea.)

Our cats, of course, were ecstatic to greet us . . . for about ten seconds.  Then the guilt trip started.  "You went away!  Without us!  Where were you?  Why did you abandon us?"  And so on, and so forth, ad nauseam - all while demanding, and getting, treats, petting and attention.  Cats are very good like that.  They forgave us in time to cuddle up with us that night, purring at us to reassure us that even though we didn't deserve it, they still love us.  Sound familiar?

Now we settle back into our normal routine.  I'll be preparing for surgery in a few weeks (of which more later), and must transcribe notes and observations from the trip into a usable format for writing.  My wife went back to work today, and found plenty waiting for her.  She has to get a root canal treatment do-over tomorrow, so she's not real happy about that - and who can blame her!  Me, I'll try to get some more blogging done after I take her in and bring her home.

Thanks to everyone who prayed for traveling safety for us.  Your prayers came in handy a couple of times, I can tell you - and they worked!

Peter

"The Ford moves in mysterious ways"

 

That was the observation of a commenter at Zero Hedge, playing on the Biblical phrase "The Lord moves in mysterious ways", following the news that a deacon had run over a wannabe church shooter with his Ford F-150 pickup.  A volunteer security guard then emptied his handgun into the shooter, killing him.  Station WXYZ Detroit reports:

Deacon Richard Pryor is the first one who came into contact with the shooter, hitting the shooter with his truck.

Pryor opened up for the first time about making the split-second decision to run over the gunman with his pickup truck.

“Soon as he got out, I saw the fatigues and gun on his hip. He pulled his weapon out of the vehicle," Pryor said.

But, he said his first memory of an attempted mass shooting on Sunday is of an eerie conversation he had with the shooter before the gunman started firing.

“I verbally pulled up and said, 'Are you OK?' He doesn’t respond. Just kind of looked at me," Pryor said.

Seconds later, with no prior police or military training, Pryor said he felt a calling to jump into action. He hit the gas and ran over the shooter, who would eventually fire numerous rounds on Sunday.

“Do you recall feeling, if you didn’t intervene, people would die?" I asked.

"I knew but I didn’t know," he said.

That action temporarily stopped the shooter, who responded by shooting into Pryor's truck. Moments later, the shooter was killed by a security guard.

“I’ve realized how much damage he came to do. Especially after the fact. Generations of families were in this church," Pryor said.

Although another guard was wounded, Pryor said he's thankful more people weren't hurt, or worse yet, killed.

“I’m not a hero. That’s the security staff, Jay, John and others that eliminated this man," Pryor said.

As a result of the violent scene, Pryor's truck was destroyed, a vehicle he used to deliver bread for a day job. Thankfully, a GoFundMe has surpassed $25,000 to help him get a replacement.

There's more at the link, including video interviews with Pryor and other security personnel and witnesses to the shooting.  They make interesting viewing.

One can only thank God that the church was alert to the possibility of trouble from whatever source, and had instituted an armed and trained security team to deal with such problems when they arose.  Many churches have still not done so, and remain at high risk.

I'm pleased to add that the fund-raiser has so far raised more than $47,000 to buy Mr. Pryor a new truck.  Heck, after valuable publicity like that - a Ford truck stopped a mass killing - I'm surprised Ford hasn't offered him a new truck free of charge!

Well done, that man.

Peter

Memes that made me laugh 267

 

Gathered from around the Internet over the past couple of weeks, as and when I could take time from book research.  Click any image for a larger view.