Saturday, December 31, 2011

Reminds Me of the Eighties


Oh, I remember too many instances of Soviet submarine horrors, ranging from sub sails held on with a giant rubber band to green glowing subs towed back into harbor. This brings back memories, it does.

"After hours of trying to put out the flames, officials decided to partly submerge the hull of the 18,200-ton submarine at the Roslyakovo dock, one of the main dockyards of Russia’s northern fleet, 900 miles north of Moscow. " The rest of the story is here.
The soviets had a long history of disasters in the submarine force, more than 500 men had died from the inception of nuclear subs to the time I left the US Navy in 1991. Too many more since then. Life at sea is hard and dangerous, but when your main force is conscripted and ill-trained, it becomes criminally hazardous. Fires, reactor incidents, collisions, the causes are many. The result is the same. People suffer and die. Luckily, no one died aboard the Yekaterinburg (a sub that is older than my 25 year old daughter) but they might have.
I still think of the Russians as our adversaries, I suppose I always will. They are still sailors, and I would not wish a horror like that on any sailor. Glad so few were injured.

Saturday, December 24, 2011

What can you do with $40?


Not much if you go to Morimoto Waikiki as President Obama did when he got to the Islands. The self acclaimed Middle Class Warrior is spending quite a bit of taxpayer's money on this vacation... in fact, I would go so far (sticking my neck out here, but not too much) to say he is a 1%er. How about you? Going to spend a couple million on your vacation? Nope, me neither. But then, no one else is paying for mine, just me.

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Spew Alert!


Thanks to the folks at Castle Argghhh!!! for this...

Sunday, December 11, 2011

English Pronunciation.... A Tangled Web



If you think learning another language is a horror, think about the vagaries of English... how did we ever learn it all? Oh wait, some of us didn't....


Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

English Pronunciation by G. Nolst Trenité

From THIS wonderful blog via THIS other terrific blog.

Thursday, December 8, 2011


Yesterday: Obama Preaches Class Warfare To The 99% — Today: Meets With His 1% Backers At $38,500 Per Person Fundraiser…

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama has met with a small number of donors at a Washington fundraiser to benefit his re-election bid.

Democratic Party officials say about 20 people attended the fundraiser at The Jefferson hotel in downtown Washington. Tickets cost $35,800 a person, with the money going to the Obama Victory Fund, a joint fundraising account by the Democratic Party and Obama’s re-election campaign.

The White House says the event was closed to the media because the president wasn’t making formal remarks. Thanks to Weasel Zippers for posting this.