sweasel.com

Well, given the lousy political news this week, and the various crappy weather fronts making folk’s lives miserable, etc, not to mention the scurrilous powdered and coiffed Rhode Island Lumber Bug or whatever – I would think that there would be much drinking of strong spirits tonight. I’ve been sick so I will refrain…but I must confess to momentarily eying the opiate bottle a bit wistfully.

Damn it. Forgot to close italics. It goes after the word “Bug”, Weaz – if you feel like messing with it.

Pesky Italians.

There was a prudent drinking of strong spirits, McGoo. I’m depending on strong spirits to get me through these various ordeals so a steady, measured drunkenness is key.

I, too, cast the occasional glance at the opiate bottle. I ibuprofened my way through a grim dental procedure last year just to have a few on hand. It’s not that bad…yet.

Sounds wise, Stoaty. Numb yourself just enough so you can ignore the temporary bruises that reality inflicts along the way. These too will pass.

Thanks for fixing my italics: good thing I didn’t use bold.

Hey, where’s the…oh. Yeah. Okay, I got it.

Well, the Arkansas Dept. of Health has issues a calm-down statement about the leprosy there. Seems they’ve been tracking these cases in AR for a couple of years.

http://www.kfsm.com/Global/story.asp?S=7845322

Oh! Well! That make it all OK, then!

Leprosy in Arkansas. Geez.

According to Google (the name we can trust sometimes, on occasion, within limits, and depending on the subject), only about 5-10% of the world population can even catch the shit. Ya gotta have the right genes for it, although no scientist has definitively tested that hypothesis. Volunteers?

Make that “Wikki”, not Google. Geez again.

WTF are they allowing them to come or stay here if that has been a problem where they are from? Oh…I forget…it is all about ‘tolerance’. Since we are so advanced and have such wonderful drugs, you are not allowed to feel creeped out with the thought that VD, TB, and lepered folks, with third world hygiene habits, could possibly be sneezing on your chicken parts.

And if anyone is out San Fran way, either take Lysol wipes with you or don’t sit in certain zip codes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/15/health/15infe.html?_r=4&oref=slogin&ref=science&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin

The AR news story is a whitewash – read the Lonewacko article and the links:

http://lonewacko.com/blog/archives/007464.html

The US apparently has a deal with the Marshall Island folks.

The whole thing sucks – except for Tyson Foods.

Just stay away from the area where Arkansas, MO, OK, and TX meet. You know – south of Joplin.

I was reassured by the Wiki (one k, one k) article that said only about 5-10% of folks can even get it. The reast of us can bathe in leper pus and not get it.

Um…theoretically.

See! This is where Scientific Experiments on child molesters would be really handy. Then we’d know.

The recent AR leprosy news release becomes clearer. Or, rather, the politics become clearer free healthcare for the diseased non-citizens:

http://www.nwaonline.net/articles/2007/12/10/news/121107lrmarshalleseimmig.txt

Nice. They shouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t have a problem if some of that AIDS money Bush wants to give to the turd world despots, can go to them on their Island for treatment and health and hygiene education.
When they eradicate their little problems, then they can be allowed to emigrate.

Up in the wee hours. Ugh. Somebody just found sweasel.com doing a Google search of “what do weasels eat and why.”

What: mice, bird eggs, baby rabbits and the like.

Why: really, Sir or Madam, I would’ve thought this one perfectly fucking obvious.

Hell, I feel guilty for getting sleep for a change. It’s like I was falling down on the job, or sumpin. You two were up during prime Denny’s hours. Saturday night, too! Woot.

Weasels eat scotch and runnybabbits – because they’re there. I don’t know what PnB eats. The diet of the typical free-range northern-hemisphere porknpean escapes me.

You forgot the peanut M&Ms.

Got back to sleep (a miracle! I never get back to sleep without chemical assist) and just crawling out of bed now.

THAT’s better.

Badger! I was afraid Weasel had done you in or sumpin.

The only thing I know about M&M peanuts is that they taste good and make excellent slingshot ammo.

How’s the garden and the septic? When last we saw M’lord Hero, he was mastering the electronic controls for the ceptic poo pummelator, and eyeing a rusted piece of WWII boomenwerke.

He’s in gardening mode, McGoo. He’s lost to us for a while. Spends his days buying extremely expensive sticks and twigs with poncy Latin names and burying them in the ground.

So who stole your stuff, Weaz – and what’s on the sammich?

It’s that shit sammich we’re being instructed to eat, McGoo…and I thought somebody else might want to express a distaste for it.

Actually, I’ve been meaning to put up the Steal My Stuff banner for a while. Back when I coded websites from scratch, I used to carry on a running commentary in my code to anyone who happened to peek at it. I try to be careful where I snag the photos I Photoshop, but I personally don’t mind people snagging my code or my graphics or whatever. I figure it’s all ephemera, and that’s what the internet is all about.

Oh, good! I thought ya might be pissed at someone. Other than those who expect us to get in line, that is.

‘Course you know a bunch of us use (with your given permission) the precious AoS moronblogger graphic – whose equal is not to be found on the Net.

And you bring an ancient memory to mind: I used to put offensive comments (surprise!) into my source code (’cause I hated writing it, mainly) until a section went awry and fell into a customers hands uncompiled. Then everything changed…

Funny you should say that, McGoo. I’ve been meaning to do a post about styles of commenting code. It came up in conversation the other day at work. Somebody mentioned that one of our mild-mannered multimedia programmers frequently drops the f-bomb in his code. Surprised me lots.

Probably won’t surprise you to learn that I crack jokes in my code. Mostly because I’m such an awful coder, I feel compelled to apologized to anyone who comes after me who has to touch my crap.

Huh. That was me. Wonder why it logged me out?

Because it feels we’re talkin’ behind its back.

Weaz! That’s the reason I commented my code the way I did: I’put in stuff like:

(codecodecodecode): “This it the friggin line that’ll fuck up on me later because I never understood pivot tables!”

and,

(codecodecodecode): “This is really screwed – but I was interrupted by (fill in blank), the utter dickhead”

My favorite thing to stick on an horrible, kludgy piece of code:

“If you can think of a better way to exchange long protein strings, I’d like to hear it!”

From my favorite ever fragment of a Simpsons episode:

A Democratic National Committee van pulls up, and George
Stephanopoulos pokes his head out.

George: Uh, Mr. President, Sir. People are becoming a bit… confused by
the way your and your opponent are, well, constantly holding
hands.
Kang: We are merely exchanging long protein strings. If you can think
of a simpler way, I’d like to hear it.
— “Treehouse of Horror VII”

hee hee….mine went like this…

(codecodecodecode): “This really sucks and there is no way I am going to spend the rest of my life doing this shit.”

Then I got up and changed my major.

I don’t know what PnB eats.

Clean mountain spring water and fertilizer. No dairy, it gives me something worse than gas.

Changing majors from Code Monkey is usually not regretted.

According to Russ at Winterfest (over at AoS), there is a Bacon-Eating Contest somewhere.

http://www.baconunwrapped.com/2008/01/blue-ribbon-bacon-festival.html

(sigh) Bacon.

Yknow that commercial with the dog that goes, “baconbaconbacon…!!”, ad nauseam?

That’s me.

And it keeps the whole house Muslim-free all year long!

Yes, apologies for my absence, the Weasel wasn’t fibbing, I’ve been spending a lot of time out digging these past few days because it has finally stopped raining, the sun is shining and it’s quite warm.

I also prefer it to working.

The Weasel also wasn’t fibbing about her bewilderment when faced with the vegetable kingdom.

It’s mutual, of course; your average Ilex Aquifolium Argentia Marginata just looks at you blankly when you mention Mustela Nivalis.

Weasel’s preferred recreation? I offer the following http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/wildfacts/factfiles/202.shtml Click on the video. But not in the presence of small children.

“The smallest carnivore.”

Aww. That’s cute.

Didja see the cute way it just mercilessly killed and ate that mouse?

Well, it seem s like a good division of labour – Badger can plant the sticks and eat selected parts of sheep (hear about the geep? Created by an act of depravity by a sexually deranged goat.), and Weaz can eat the voles and mice. And do any annotated coding that needs done.

They always say that, but I think they’re giving the schrew short schrift.

Okay, I am NEVER going to try to say “shrew short schrift” out loud. That made the imaginary tongue in my brain hurt.

That coulda damaged your sinuses, Weaz. I’d suggest a good single-malt – but its early.

Badger – my advice (unsolicited, I know, and with good reason) is for Great Britain it institute Scientific Experiments – starting with that Large-mouthed Archbishop.

it=to

It’s proving to be a great laugh, McGoo. Liberal C of E apologists have been trying to spin this today by saying all people have seen is the tabloid version of his speech and that it was said at a very growed-up occasion, where clever people used Big Words so, naturally, ordinary people like us wouldn’t understand what he really meant and have got completely the wrong idea.

Sadly for them, the previous occupant of the Mouthpiece of Sky Fairy position has come out excoriating the fool, as have some other devotees of the Sky Fairy (C of E branch).

One way and another, Mozzies aren’t having a good time over here at present and the Left is all of a dither. Yesterday, a Labour (for which read neo-communist) minister finally dared to say what has been common knowledge for a decade in North of England towns colonised by Pakistanis: that their routine 1st cousin interbreeding has resulted in unheard of levels of genetic birth defects.

Previously this fact was only whispered among consenting paediatricians, in case anyone overheard what they were talking about and started screaming ‘Racist!’

The Left is in a hole over this one. They are the ones who opened the doors to uncontrolled immigration, now they find they’ve invited in a homophobic, misogynistic rabble of religious lunatics and don’t know what to do to put the djinn back in the bottle.

A lot of normal people do, of course. It involves a lot of boats and one-way tickets. But nobody listens to us. They just pick our pockets.

Another great indictment of Islam:

Who on this entire friggin’ planet doesn’t know by now that 1st cousins should not marry? It’s really not negotiable, idiots! You’re kids will be menagerie-bait.

Geez.

And – by the way – the Left will do what it always does – what feels good or least-bad – and simply externalize fault, blame, guilt, or responsibility.

It’s what children do, after all.

But…but…the Wilkses always marry their cousins!

(Okay, my great grandparents on one side were first cousins. My Uncle Will died cold and alone because he fell in love with his first cousin…and THAT side of the family didn’t DO that).

I have a 1st cousin who in the past I had wished many times….wasn’t. We joke about it now – apparently the feeling was a bit mutual way back then.

And when I was deep into fambly genealogy, I was for several day horrified to find ancestor relatives (3 boys) who married the neighbors (3 girls) and then their kids all intermarried. Gawd! it was a genealogical mess.

Then I found MY branch – which wasn’t that one. Whew!

Comments? In code?

Dense, incomprehensible, and utterly lacking in helpful hints for the next programmer–now that’s fucking programming!

jwp – I was wondering where you were.

Oh, yeah. I knew a guy who coded with NO comments. He even ran multiple lines per pageline, with only the bare minimum of delimiters.

And he used line continuation codes – all the time.

His source code looked like a hex dump. No one liked him much. His argument was, “Well I didn’t know anyone else would ever need the source?”

I don’t think first cousins, marrying on rare occasion, causes much of a genetic fruckus. It’s the constant inbreeding that makes the fruit a bit loopy.

1st cousins is too close. The odds are bad, PnB. If their future kids stay away from their future cousins, then things can meld out in a few generations. but it’s really not a good idea.

*If I remember my elementary genetics correctly*

Sorry, Steam…. I should have noted a year ago that come January-February, I will be spending 4-12 hours a day on a tractor clearing a mile-and-a-quarter of country road the county is uninterested in clearing. During drught years, this is no problem. Unfortunately, the drought is over.

Speaking of coding: I figure any programmer assigned to edit my code has other, far more serious, problems to worry abut than whether it’s commented.

jw – my boo-boo. I seem to recall last Spring(!) you having to worry about roads and horses and snow and such. I remember you mentioning the looonnngg road to jw’s place.

I think the county should clear your road first. Just because…

My parents are cousins. My father’s mother is my mother’s mother’s sister. So maybe they’re first cousins? Dunno. (Explains my idiosyncracies, I suppose.) Such is quite common among Pakistanis. But then quite a lot of people are classified as cousins when some are half-cousins. My paternal grandfather had three wives (one after the other) and my maternal grandmother had three husbands. They were each other’s last spouses.

My parents refuse to let any of us marry a relative. My former wife was my father’s father’s second wife’s son’s wife’s sister’s daughter. Or the daughter of an uncle’s sister-in-law. Or something like that. Except the relation was by marriage and not by blood. (My uncle, my father’s half-brother, married an outsider.)

It has been often that when explaining to me how someone is related to me, I ask them to stop because it hurts my head.

So, the source of Pakistan’s problems: endogamy!

Wasn’t there just an article in Science News or someplace that, for maximum number of offspring, you should marry…I think it was second or third cousins. Not close enough to double up on the bad genes, but close enough that really incompatibly foreign genes aren’t there.

The third-cousin article is here:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080207140855.htm

and some indirect first-cousin info is here:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070925132335.htm

Weaz – I tried the 2-link thingy that used to work – and it doesn’t now. So guess where I ended up? And I have to pee….

Musli’ – your former wife was your second cousin (I think) if your fathers father’s second wife was not your mam&dads mom, and your M&D were from the same mom.

Otherwise, she was your first cousin. I think.

In any event, I believe most geneticists would say “Danger, Will Robinson” to you and your former wife about having kids.

But for god’s sake don’t listen to me. I haven’t even finished my morning cup of java.

Musli – I boo-booed. Ignore all I said. I missed that important “related by marriage” caveat.

<fishing McGoo out of the lint trap>

Really, Steam…. how rude of you not to have recalled something I mentioned in passing a year ago and using it to interpolate my current schedule. It’s obvious you’ve not spent enough time thinking of me. How selfish.

I know, I know, jw. I gots no manners at all.

I notice that – like a reluctant erection – Wardo is slowly dwindling away to his preordained flaccidity and obscurity. But they’re putting up windmills! Then they can crap into them!

Yeah, he’s maintaining a low profile, although his sock puppets (like Means, et al) are doing a bang-up job implementing what he’s been urging all these years.

jw – I’ve been trying to follow the continuing adventures of Et Al, but its confusing.

But I have faith that he’ll rise again to make an ass of himself – and others, probably – eventually.

The Perfesser knows his demographic well, which is why he insists he is correct & proper in all respects despite the mountains of evidence to the contrary. He’s obviously not trying to convince rational, reasonable people; he’s simply preaching to his choir.

Yep. A one-note symphony. Duuuuuuuuuuuh!

But I can’t help but sit and watch the ongoing train wreck.