Bill's Notes

Patrick is a cocker spaniel who I've gotten to know and love over the years. His story is here. He had emergency surgery Friday and we're waiting for some test results related to that. Patrick could use prayers for his health right now.

Regarding this.


OK, Barbie is not even remotely Jewish. Not even a little bit. She's as WASPy as they come.

The Saudis have a serious problem.

Cox and Forkum give the Saudis the proper level of ridicule here.

I admit to being a bit mercurial. I've had lunch and feel better. America is not doomed. We will overcome our problems and continue to live in our messy, chaotic way, for at least a few more years.

Meanwhile, the hurricane winds are starting, complete with all the negative ions and low pressure, which is always kind of neat. But we know what's coming. Glad I live in a concrete-and-steel structure apartment building.

Good luck everyone. Isabel is coming!

Remember Hitchhiker's Guide: Don't panic. And remember your towel.

With Hurricane Isabel closing in, I'm completely in a different realm. I'm having one of my "state of the nation" crises, that is, upset about things I have no control over.

The general sense I have is the United States is becoming the victim of "petty tyrannies" because of expansion of the federal, state and local governments, insurance companies, litigious attorneys, and a public that wants a perfectly safe world. It's not just hate crimes laws, or speech codes in colleges, or hostile workplace law, or child services meddling, or the capture of our colleges and schools by leftists, or restaurants that serve hamburgers only medium well or well done. All those things are upsetting.

But bothers me is that the United States, especially in the blue states, has become a nation of busybodies who are steadily stripping away our enjoyable freedoms in an effort, it seems, to create lives that are safe, but joyless, humorless and risk-free.

Plus, we now have a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that has said that if vote-counting methods differ from county to county, the election is unconstitutional and must be postponed until it's absolutely fair. And that it's better to not have an election than to have one that's unfair.

The court's postponing elections is a very dangerous sign in a republic. Granted, there will still be elections, but we can now see the day when the courts will simply scuttle them altogether in the name of some vague concept of "fairness."

Anyway, I'm just having one of those "hell in a handbasket" moments. I probably just need to eat lunch.

I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres,
Thy knotted and combined locks to part
And each particular hair to stand on end,
Like quills upon the fretful porpentine:
But this eternal blazon must not be
To ears of flesh and blood.

P.G. Wodehouse used the part about the "fretful porpentine," that is, porcupine, at least three times in his work. Amazing that Wodehouse made such terrific jokes (take my word for it) out of such a harrowing passage from Shakespeare. The lines are from Hamlet's father's ghost, and he is describing what he can't say about hell.

I thought of these lines during a debate on another blog, where a commenter made a series of rather jumbled remarks a la Bertie Wooster in three of Wodehouse's novels, and gave a serious subject a silly turn.

Here is a great parody of Wodehouse that demonstrates the "fretful porpentine" thing.

Right now, I've buggered the contact info. So if you want to email me, you need to write to industrialblog at hotmail dot com. Obviously I've spelled it out to avoid bastard bots and spiders and such harvesting the name.

My old blog is here.

If you've been following the story thus far, you know that this summer I'd been looking for a house. Outraged at the prices, I gave up and decided to purchase some land in the Poconos. I close next week or the week after.

The lot is an acre and a half about five miles north of Blue Mountain. You can see Mahoning Valley and Blue Mountain from the back yard, so you have an idea of the view. It's probably about 120 degrees of view, facing southwest to due north, of farmland, woods, valleys, rolling hills. Looks like something out of a painting by Pieter Brueghel. Or even more like this.

OK, there's no lakes in my view or icy peak in the background, but you have the idea.

Anyway, I'm facing 40 in a few months, and it will be nice to have something of my own. This land is a good start.

I'm thinking of building a bungalow on the property ... probably log, with some big picture windows toward that view, a deck, a fireplace, and a small office in a loft, you know, beautiful, artsy and priapic all at the same time ... the kind of place really smart women, without being completely aware of it, suddenly will feel that their clothes are terribly constricting ...

Moving around here trying to figure out the new blogging interface. Pretty nice. Lot of features that are new to me, but I suppose I'll figure them out here at PowerBlogs.

One good thing about getting off blogspot is linking and getting direct links. For some reason, people had a hell of a time linking directly to my posts, and then they'd just shoot me an e-mail telling me to get the hell off blogspot.

Don't get me wrong. I'm grateful to blogspot for providing me nearly a year of free blogging. But definitely was time for an upgrade.

Wow! I'm digging this. Thanks again, Chris!

Thanks to Chris for setting this up for me.

I appreciate the new digs for Industrial Blog. I'll be trying to clean things up in coming weeks so that this will a nice, comfortable, well-lighted place from which to throw stones.