Monday, June 1. 2009
This came in over the transom, I know not whence:
THE ULTIMATE ADVENTURE CRUISE
To The Point is excited to offer the ultimate adventure cruise along the pirate-infested coast of Somalia!
We board our luxury cruise ship in Djibouti on the Gulf of Aden near the entrance to the Red Sea, and disembark in Mombassa, Kenya seven adrenaline-charged days later.
Starting at $5,200 per-person (double occupancy, inside room) and $6,900 (veranda complete with bench rest), you'll relax like never before.
That's because you are welcome to bring your own arsenal with you. If you don't have your own weapons, you can rent them from our onboard Master Gunsmith. Enjoy reloading parties every afternoon with skeet and marksmanship competitions every night!
But the best fun of all, of course, is Pirate Target Practice.
For the object of the cruise is to sail up and down the Somali Coast waiting to get hijacked by pirates. The weapons rental costs are as follows.
Rent a full auto M-16 for only $25/day with ammo attractively priced at $16 per 100 rounds of 5.56 armor-piercing:
On a budget? Rent a full-auto scope-mounted AK-47 for only $9/day with 7.62 ball ammo at $12 per 100 rounds:
Hello! Nothing gets a pirate's attention like a Barrett M-107 .50-cal sniper rifle; only $59/day with 25 rounds of armor-piercing ammo affordably priced at only $29.95.
Need a spotter? Our professional crew members can double as spotters for only $30/hour (spotting scope included, but gratuities are not.)
Want to make a real impact? Rent an RPG for only $175/day with three fragmentation rounds included!
Also included: Free complimentary night vision equipment - and throughout the night, coffee, pastries and snacks are always available on the main deck from 7pm until 6am.
Our deluxe package comes complete with gourmet meals and all rooms offer a mini-bar.
But that's not all! Twin mounted miniguns are available for rental at only $450.00 per 30 seconds of sustained fire!
We guarantee that you will experience at least two hijacking attempts by pirates or you'll receive an instant $1,000 refund upon arrival in Mombassa.
How can we make that guarantee? We operate at 5 knots just beyond 12 nautical miles off the coast of Somalia, thus in international waters where pirates have no rights whatever. In fact, we make three passes through the area's most treacherous waters to ensure maximum visibility by Somali "mother ships".
We repeat this for five days, making three complete passes past the entire Somali Coast. At night, the boat is fully lit and bottle rockets are shot every five minutes with loud disco music directionally beamed shoreside to attract maximum attention.
Testimonials from previous participants in the Somali Cruise:
"Six attacks in 4 days were more than I expected. I bagged three pirates, my wife nailed two, and my 12-year old son sank two boats with the mini-gun. This wonderful cruise was fun for the whole family" -- Fred D., Cincinnati, OH
"Pirates 0, Passengers 32! Well worth the trip! Can't recommend it highly enough!" -- Ben L., Bethesda, MD
"I haven't had this much fun since flying choppers in 'Nam. Don't worry about getting shot by pirates... they never even got close to the ship with the crap they shoot and their lousy aim... reminds me of a drunken juicer door-gunner we picked up from the motor pool in Phu Bai!" -- Dan J. - Denver, CO
Come on board and bag your own clutch of genuine Somali pirates! But cabin space is limited so you need to respond quickly. Reserve your package before May 31st and get a great bonus - 100 rounds of free tracer ammo in the caliber of your choice. So sign up for the Ultimate Somali Coast Adventure Cruise now!
Addendum 9/13/09 - We have just learned that this post came from the fine Doug Ross Journal: http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2009/05/somali-coast-cruise-package.html
PJ O'Rourke on the end of America's love affair with automobiles. (h/t, Env. Repub). One quote:
Politicians, journalists, financial analysts and other purveyors of banality have been looking at cars as if a convertible were a business. Fire the MBAs and hire a poet. The fate of Detroit isn’t a matter of financial crisis, foreign competition, corporate greed, union intransigence, energy costs or measuring the shoe size of the footprints in the carbon. It’s a tragic romance—unleashed passions, titanic clashes, lost love and wild horses.
Read it (link above). Apparently making money from making cars was never an easy thing to do.
Saturday, May 30. 2009
Strong breeze and thus a very fine sail this morning. We passed this handsome old cruiser moored outside a CT harbor:
Friday, May 29. 2009
Sippican sent us the link to the Graham Rust gallery of residential trompe l'oeil. It sure beats wallpaper. Here's one:
 Maggie's Farm is holding its first Engagement Party tomorrow.
Or I think that's what you might call it. But not really - it's actually sorta like a mini-wedding reception with a receiving line and all that, because the actual wedding will be way up in VT in the shadow of the couple's Alma Mater, good old Dartmouth College (also the Alma of the bride's Dad and late Grandpa, and of the groom's late lamented uncle) - and will be just closest family.
We have the old place sorta spruced up (finally moved the old broke fridges and generators off the front porch, for one thing, got the old duck boat off the front yard, yanked out the saplings growing out of the roof, threw out three year's worth of garbage, and cleaned most of the skeletons out of the coat closets), and I finally even warshed my overhalls, which I hated to do seein as they were just getting comfortable. Might even take a shower if the Missus insists, but I been told that dihydrogen monoxide is bad for you unless it has Cape Cod ocean mixed with it - which is the only dihydrogen monoxide solution I happily enter- and only if it is as cold as hell. (Soap and shampoo are chemical poisons too: consensus science tell us that, and everybody knows it.)
So we got the champagne and the other good booze like bourbon such as Grandpa's Overhalls and the crab cakes and scallop n' bacon thingies and barbecue sliders with dippin sauce (gotta have them) and the required basil-goat cheese tartlets and the apple-onion tartlets, hot mini-tortillas, and a bunch of other tasties on the way. Plus a couple of bartenders and a number of good wait staff, and a couple of off-duty cops to organize the parking because, despite the global warming crisis, most folks still insist on driving automobiles to get where they want to go (horses are too slow, and emit noise-polluting and criminal volumes of methane from their hindquarters).
As a last minute addition, I added a case of Chalk Hill cab to the mix because Gwynnie forced some on me last night against my will, and the fragrance of it blew me away (can be cellared for 15 years? Are you kidding me? How about for three weeks?). Hardly have to bother drinking it, it smells so good. The fragrance is a meal in itself. Why bother with the drinking part, which only makes you stupider than you already were?
The fortunate heir has all four of his grandparents coming, too, along with closest family friends and the whole darn family - including the bride-to-be's family who all flew up to Yankeeland from Birmingham, Alabama in the rain last night.
I hope it don't rain tomorry, because we planned mostly for outdoors, without any silly tent.
Do we love the gal? Yes indeedy we do. She is a peach.
Thursday, May 28. 2009
Via Coyote, who links to more of them.
From Harsanyi in the Denver Post.
His personal piece caused me to ponder how those who seek social changes strategize to "normalize" those changes so that we stop thinking about them. I remain deeply conflicted about the idea of abortion.
I can't resist noting that Mary Roach, whose TED video on orgasms we linked yesterday, is the author of both Stiff: The Curious Life of Human Cadavers and Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex - and thus she is the only author I can think of for whom the interview question "What got you interested in this topic?" would be deeply stupid.
Tuesday, May 26. 2009
 TigerHawk agreed with what I have said here many times: Retirement is over-rated. What is your number? The false promise of idle retirement.
He doesn't get to all of the important considerations, though.
First, many have no option but to retire. Laid-off career guys in their 50s have a tough time finding employment. Some (esp government) jobs offer pensions after x years which make continuing in the job economically silly. OK, they can do something else - and many do.
Second, as Tiger notes, many have jobs which they do not particularly enjoy or with which they have become bored - yet have life responsibilities to fulfill. An "attitude adjustment" might be nice, but it ain't so easy. The main reward of many if not most jobs is the sense of fulfilling a family responsibility rather than the work itself.
Third, many value the notion of being "idle." "Idle" may be the wrong word, though, because most retired folks seem to stay pretty busy, from what I see. It can mean more time for hobbies, for fishing and hunting and boating and mowing your own lawns and fields, doing your own home repairs, spending more time with friends, volunteering, and maybe more trips.
Fourth, I think "the number" is important. If you hit your number (which few can say they have right now), work can be more enjoyable because it seems more optional. You know you can say "Take this job and shove it" whenever you want.
Monday, May 25. 2009
 Here's something worthwhile and wonderful.
Vitruvius at SDA recommends the highly enjoyable and accessible MIT required freshman year intro Physics courses - Classical Mechanics and Electricity and Magnetism. Prof. Walter Lewin, who teaches both, says his goal is to make the student love Physics, and to see the beauty in it. He succeeds. (If you fail one of the required courses, you are sent home.)
I don't know why any college would bother lecturing on these topics when they can use Dr. Lewin's recordings. Both entire series of lectures are on YouTube, for those of us who could not have gotten into MIT with an H-bomb because of our B+ in BC Calc:
MIT Physics 8.01, Classical mechanics
MIT Physics 8.02, Electricity and magnetism
Prof. Lewin makes it all vivid, clear, and entertaining, and the math is straightforward and clear as a bell. Plus no exams, so it's a wonderful way to get some free education, or to refresh your old, fading memories.
For me, Physics, Music (which is Physics + a twist by the human soul), and Religion merge into one sublime cosmic entity which is the awe-inspiring, terrifying, love-inspiring miracle of Creation. I have never understood how anyone can feel like they can feel close to God without knowing all the Physics they are capable of, but I know that is stupid of me.
Photo is Prof. Lewin. Here's his bio.
Saturday, May 23. 2009
 Nantucket summer rental prices are getting reasonable this year. Recession pricing. Places that were $55,000/week now $45,000/week.
Polpis cottage in upper photo now available for only $20,000/week in August.
Lower cottage only $2700/week and available now in August. Seems a lot more reasonable to me, and less pretentious. But outdoor shower "not enclosed"? What? OK, watch me shower in the sun if you want to.
Once you have showered outdoors, you never want to shower indoors again.
Apparently. Who'd a thunk it? h/t, Neptunus. The world has gone mad.
 Surely all agree that Hunt for Red October is the best movie of the past 20 years.
The poll is "Who is your favorite character in this movie?" (in which the casting is astonishingly good - Brit quality, and in which the detail and subtlety of the acting is endlessly interesting. Just the way the head of the Russian Navy drops his teacup, echoing the spilled tea when Ramius kills the KGB guy)
We aren't going to bother with that voting software. Just let us know whether you are able to decide.
Mrs. BD votes for Bart Mancuso, after agonizing over the cynically amusing pol Jeffrey Pelt, the Russian Ambassador, and, of course, Captain Ramius. I vote for Jonesie, but Alec Baldwin, one must admit, was fantastic as Jack Ryan. As was Fred Thompson as the Admiral, and James Earl Jones, and ... everybody else in this wonderfully engaging movie which holds up well after many, many viewings.
Thursday, May 21. 2009
We linked Stanley Fish's God Talk, Part 2, earlier this week. Thanks, reader, for pointing out the discussion of Fish and Eagelton at Augean Stables.
It's a rich and impressive discussion. One quote:
One of the things that always struck me about “post-modernism” was the combination of ignorance and hubris embedded in the name. We don’t know what we are, but we do know that we’ve superseded modernity, that we’re well beyond that period. I always thought of modernity – that is, the liberal project of trying to establish a society run according to the basic rule of equality before the law for all citizens — as a long and difficult process. Indeed, it sometimes takes decades, even centuries to confront some of the difficulties that arise in such an endeavor – letting women and other races vote, de-imperializing, creating a safety net for citizens, figuring out how to treat other nations decently.
What is the gap, across countries, between what people feel their ideal number of kids is, compared to the number they actually have? Gene Expressions
Tuesday, May 19. 2009
From Stanley Fish's God Talk, Part 2, in the NYT, a quote:
Pking gets it right. “To torpedo faith is to destroy the roots of . . . any system of knowledge . . . I challenge anyone to construct an argument proving reason’s legitimacy without presupposing it . . . Faith is the base, completely unavoidable. Get used to it. It’s the human condition.” (All of us, not just believers, see through a glass darkly.) Religious thought may be vulnerable on any number of fronts, but it is not vulnerable to the criticism that in contrast to scientific or empirical thought, it rests on mere faith.
 There’s a new gang in town. They’re not trying to act tough. They don’t have to. They’ve already proven they are. They’re not trying to look tough. They look like your neighbors. They’re not teenagers. They have become worthy adults by passing difficult hurdles.
But, they do have colors. They’re red, white and blue.
The new gang is called the Warrior Legacy Foundation. The warriors are not just military veterans but anyone who reveres the contributions and sacrifices of veterans, and wants to see their commitment honored and passed on to coming generations, whether serving in the military or not.
The binding commitment is to the military code of conduct: “I will never forget that I am an American, fighting for freedom, responsible for my actions, and dedicated to the principles which made my country free.”
As one of the founders remarks, “Veterans make the community in which they live a better place.” That community ranges from their block to the world. Think for a moment about how your community would be lacking if not for veterans.
To me, what makes a warrior, in any walk of life, is the willingness to give 110%, more than they themselves thought they were capable of, donating comforts not for glory but for being the best and furthering the betterment of others. Those are the traits that distinguish a worthy life and neighbor and citizen.
The Warrior Legacy Foundation is not out to make claims for government benefits. It is focused on raising the profile of the warrior class as a guide to what we all need to be and raise our children to be. Go to the above link and sign up to be part of this important mission. Be a neighbor and not just a bystander.
Some more info here.
The words for the Mauldin toon are "...forever, Amen. Hit the dirt."
The man likes to sail:
You have nowhere to go, and nowhere to be, and after the second time you take them your sailing companions must lose the urge to talk about the process of sailing in an enthusiastic fashion and simply enjoy it, and the company. And with the sky arrayed overhead, and the sea below, you are content to examine the world dispassionately. And the beauty and simplicity of the clouds that drift, the terns that swoop, the wavelets that tap their gentle knuckles on the windward side, the feeling of motion snatched without struggle from the endless breezes that massage your cheek and sail alike allow you to enjoy the world and all its wonders, and everybody in it, if just for a moment.
Monday, May 18. 2009
A nice email from a friend who came from Russia with his family to work in the US:
Special thanks for the introduction of the Maggie’s Farm. I don’t go to bed unless I read something there. I hope that you are going to survive the Bolsheviks intervention in this country.
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