Snow in May?

The Kadizzles have lived in North Dakota since 1976. One reason Lord Kadizzle is a firm believer in Global Warming is the weather he has experienced in North Dakota. Something sure has changed. There used to be three of four real blizzards every winter. We used to cross country ski. Rain used to fall from the sky. No more. Gradually things are getting warmer, and warmer, and dryer and dryer. The lake has been going down for ten years. The same lake that used to freeze three feet thick, and now barely freezes at all. According to The Commander the seasons are shifting. She may be right. Fall seems to go on much longer. I remember hunting in a T shirt in January. Spring seems to be late getting here.

Every time we make a visit to Denver, or Phoenix the smog is amazing. You wonder don't these people notice. The answer is NO. It happened little by little, so they did not notice.They moved there for the clean air. Did they forget? May 10th and it snowed last night? Hmmmm, something has changed.

It Don't Hurt to Ask

A few lessons in life are quite simple. Back in the old days Lord Kadizzle spent many hours riding around the Glenharold mine with the Operations supervisor. Duane had some simple philosophies that worked. One thing Duane taught Lord Kadizzle was "It don't hurt to ask". Put into practice what can be accomplished with this is incredible. The things that are available simply for asking are astounding. Lord Kadizzle had a rental car for three days free in Florida, cubic yards of cement have been poured for Lord Kadizzle free. All you have to do is ask. Yesterday was a classic. Lord Kadizzle walked down the street from city hall about a week ago with the brilliant idea to ask the water board for some money. Lord Kadizzle wants to build some docks in Hazen Bay. Yesterday The Commander and Lord Kadizzle put together a letter for the water board. The Commander presented the letter at 1:30, at 4:00 the Water Board presented her with a check for $3,000 and said another $3,000 was on the way. It don't hurt to ask.

One note on the asking and getting. You must be fair. Almost without exception you can pay back the giver. In just about every case there is an opportunity to do something equally beneficial for the giver. A simple example with free concrete will suffice. The concrete truck driver usually has the problem of disposing of his excess concrete. By asking for and using it, you have solved part of his problem. His next problem is that he has to clean out the truck. This means he needs a place to dump a watery mixture of concrete. You provide him with that place. When he is done, you place a cold six pack of beer in his hand, and more than likely the next time you need a little concrete, it will be obtainable. I cannot begin to list the valuable things people have done for the asking. People in general are nice, generous, and willing to help. I try to live by the pay it forward method, and it has worked out very well.

Without fail when you enter into one of these ventures someone will tell you " Your wasting your time, that will never happen". First remember what you have invested, nothing. My daughter who learned from her dad got that comment when she started her venture. Her mortgage broker told Erin she was wasting her time talking to the bank president. Erin's phone call netted her a 2% reduction in her mortgage. "It don't hurt to ask".

Ray gets it done

Ray Kerns gets more done in his sleep than I do all day awake. Here he is standing beside his second work of art. These canoes are too pretty to use, but Ray plans on going down the Little Missouri in these masterpieces. I hope Ray does not undertake a space flight, believe me he will do it, at half the cost of NASA, and more than likely it will involve a fiberglass space shuttle made from trees he cut on his own property.

I have asked Ray to make me a coffin similar to one of his canoes. He agreed to do it if he could inlay a hazardous waste symbol in ivory on the side.

The Symbols of All that is Wrong in this Country

Rush Limbaugh is the poster child for all that is wrong in America. No other person personifies the piggish self serving politics of the right better than this drug dazed idiot. The fact that he has a following shows more than anything how Nazi Germany came about. If he has a son, it would be Bill O'Rielly. If he had a daughter it would be Ann Coulter. If you could make a new Mount Rush More out of dung, and put these three on it, it would be a true symbol of all that is wrong with our country.

YOU don't appriciate The Erie Canal

Lord Kadizzle spent a large portion of his life in the mining industry. Mining inherently involves moving large quantities of material, such as dirt. However, it was always done with big equipment. Yesterday her ladyship, The Commander, got a bug up a certain orifice that she HAD to have some dirt, immediately. Lord Kadizzle could see no way to dissuade her, so off to get dirt we went. With the neighbors little trailer we backed up to a huge dirt pile, and turned on the Mexican backhoes. Three trips later The Commander finally settled down. Now she had some dirt to play with.

This little project made old Lord Kadizzle realize the immensity of projects like the first railroads, the canals, and so many other things people used to do by hand. It was total insanity, yet they did it. The way people used to work is something I don't think people in this age can comprehend. I would guess at best we moved perhaps a cubic yard of material. This little project took about an hour. Most of the draglines around here move 120 cubic yard a minute. So it would take the Kadizzles three forty hour weeks to move what a dragline does in a minute.

How much damage can one man do? or What you can do by doing nothing

Tom Friedman fires off a good one in the NYT today. Thanks to the supreme idiot, my esteemed president, freedom has declined all over the world. A very good case could be made that Bush single handily created more problems for more people than anyone who has lived in modern times.

Shop at Easy Ken's

My poor friend Ken has a terrible addiction to garage sales. This is real, and it is a serious disability. Ken just risked his life driving through a terrible storm to get his fix. The Hazen city wide garage sale was Saturday, Ken needed a fix and he was going to get here. It is not unusual for Ken to visit hundreds of garage sales in one weekend. When he finds a bargain, it is like hitting on a slot machine. You can actually put orders in with Ken. In the fall when Ken goes south to Arizona, you just tell Ken what you want. This year I ordered a hydraulic jack. To show how these addictions can spiral out of control let me digress. Ken found a trailer for sale in AZ. Now Ken suddenly had the goal of filling the trailer with previously owned items from garage sales and brining it back to North Dakota. Currently Ken is faced with selling the trailer, and everything in it.

Back to the story. Yesterday Ken called and told Lord Kadizzle to come get his jack. It not that simple with Ken. Like a used car salesmen, he wants to jack up the price with add ons. So when his lordship arrived at the junkatorium, of course there were numerous useful items. Suffice it to say his lordship came home with a birdhouse, a set of drill bits, a grabber, and an electric sander. All for twenty five dollars. This was a bad enough transfer of garbauche as the French would say, but then The Commander shows up. The fumes of bargains quickly overcame her, and now we end up bringing home precious stones, and six sprinklers.

As I told Ken, I would rather have a drug dealer for a neighbor than a garage sale dealer. Ken has a sideline to the garbausche business. Ken gathers buckets of North Dakota flint, which is basically worthless in North Dakota, and trades it to the flint nappers in AZ. There is little question in my mind Ken will be buried in a coffin from a garage sale. There will not be a gate when Ken gets to Heaven, just a big garage door.

The Check is in the mail

Wow, an economic miracle will soon hit the country everyone will get the big check from the government. Nothing could symbolize our countries idiocy better than this silliness. Our government, which I think is us, borrows money from China, and gives it to us, to help us. Something strange about all this. It is very much like going to the bank to borrow money to pay off your credit card. Is there anyone so stupid that would call this progress? Now, what do we do with the money we borrowed from ourself. Some people are going to pay off debt. So we increase national debt to pay off personal debt. I am thinking about buying lottery tickets, it is just as simple minded as the whole scheme was in the first place. Many pundits have pointed out that a lot of this money will be spent at Wal Mart, which is now a distribution system for China. So the economy that gets stimulated is China's not ours. Virtually every American has seen a $1,200 dollar increase in gas prices. The reality is that if the check does anything, it brings you back to neutral. Reality says that you cannot borrow money from yourself to pay yourself. Are we really that stupid. YES

The Commander does not waste time

Had The Commander been present when God made the Earth, it would have been done in two or three days, and God would have needed the rest on the seventh day after The Commander had been bossing him around. Like a fireball she shot out the door into the garden around 6:45 A.M. Sprinklers were going, dirt was flying, and seeds were shooting into the ground. While Lord Kadizzle was stumbling around waiting for his coffee fix to bring him to life, fireball was jumping around in the garden. It wasn't long before poor old Lord Kadizzle was commanded to get his royal cushion out and move some sand. The sand was specially imported from Stanton to grow the turnips. If we get a good crop perhaps we can get enough for a truckload and actually be able to fall off the turnip truck.

Moma didn't raise no fool. Knowing the whip would be cracking and lightening bolts would be plentiful if The Commander came in and saw his lordship plunked in front of the computer, his lordship took some precautionary measures. Quickly he did the dishes, cleaned off the counters, and did a half job of making the bed. The Commander has not yet come in, but she could at any moment kick the door down, and throw a stun grenade into the kitchen, if she is not happy with Lord Kaddizzle. Pray for me.

What is Parkour?

Lord Kadizzle often does his Parkour before coffee. First he jumps over his socks.

Gravity Dust

Being the physicist he is Lord Kadizzle is always exploring the universe. If you have been a faithful, and longtime reader of this blog you may recall discussions on gravity waves. These are the waves that knock you onto the couch and cause snore naps.

Lately Lord Kadizzle has been feeling tired and a bit worn down. Lord Kadizzle suspects he may have inhaled gravity dust. Modern science tells us there are places in the cosmos where matter is so dense that something the size of a BB would weigh forty or fifty tons. Now imagine if that BB got ground into dust. What if you inhaled the dust or otherwise ingested it? You would feel heavy, old, and fat. Surely this is what happened to his lordship. For some strange reason coffee seems to temporarily offset the effect of gravity dust. Yesterday his lordship was sanding the boat all day. Needless to say he did not wear a mask. This could be how he inhaled the gravity dust.

Medical research seems to indicate gravity dust will accumulate in the ambition gland. For years Lord Kadizzle has suffered from a plugged ambition gland. As we all know dust settles. Recent findings seem to indicate this is why people who have inhaled gravity dust settle. Settling is a symptom. People may settle in front of the television, a computer, or even settle in bed. Rays apparently cause the settling, warm rays from the sun, the rays from a computer, or television. One of the saddest things about the victims of gravity dust is that they are often mistaken for fat, lazy people with no ambition. The next time you see someone in this condition don't berate them, offer to cut their grass, or go get them a sandwich from the kitchen, remember it is not their fault.

Synchronization

This takes a minute or two, but it may explain how we end up with mindless conformity in this country. The physics of this is very interesting.

The Sailing Season is just about here

Its the polish and sand time of year. The bigger the boat the bigger the headache. Lord Kadizzle has undertaken the task of sanding the teak rail that surrounds the boat. That means 68 feet of sanding an awkward piece of wood that just doesn't want to cooperate.

Home Work Assignment Tom Friedman

Be sure to read Tom Friedman's article in the NYT today. The article is titled Lost Greatness
Its a good slap in the face and a wake up call we desperately need.

McCain admits, it is all about oil

The big buzz on the news yesterday was that McCain said straight out, the Iraq was is about oil. Did anyone buy the party line "We just wanted to bring these guys a little freedom"? The part that sends flames out my rectum is the fact that old George Bush said the war would be paid for with oil revenue. What happened to that game? Iraq now has thirty billion in the bank from guess what? Oil Revenue. Who is being paid back for the freedom party?

Today's Question: How many horsepower in a megawatt?

The wind blew all night last night. The house groaned at times from the heavy wind loads. Lying in bed unable to sleep the brain, what little is left, needed something to ponder. Over near the town of Center we now have a new wind farm. Most of the windmills are about 1.5 megawatts. The blades probably sweep an area of one hundred fifty feet or more. How much horsepower is one of these machines drawing from the air,or more precisely wind? If no one proposes an answer, Lord Kadizzle will result to a google search. My curiosity got the best of me so I looked it up. There are about 1,350 horsepower in a megawatt. So that means each of those machines is drawing about two thousand horsepower from the area it sweeps. Of course the machine is not one hundred percent efficient, so that means there is actually more horsepower there. So it might be fair to say there is the equivalent of a three thousand horsepower fan blowing across our yard while I lay in bed unable to sleep. Just did more homework. A German physicist calculated a wind turbine at best can only get sisty percent of power from air, therefore I need to revise my estimate of the power running across our yard to a higher number. Six thousand horsepower now seems reasonable. Translate that into a oil driven system, and multiply that times three fifty per gallon, and you are talking some big bucks blowing all over the yard. If my car runs on a gallon an hour and produces one hundred horsepower, then the wind going through my yard must be worth about eighteen hundred dollars per hour. This is just a mental calculation, and could be way off.

He Won, He is the Worst President Ever, Beats out Nixon

Polls today gave the victory to Bush. He has the worst rating of any president in recorded history. A victory celebration of crackers and peanut butter will be served.

A Bunch of Quinn kids

Click on the picture to enlarge and see a bunch of Lord Kadizzles siblings. Now remember there were nine of us. Patty, and Colin must have been too little to be here for the shoot. Lord Kadizzle is almost sure this picture was taken in Ohio at an apple orchard. My brother Tom worked there and he is to my right. Used to get the absolute best apple cider from there. Try to guess which one was his lordship. If you have been following this blog the poster is from a series my sister is doing on our old neighborhood.

The Tipping Point, When teenagers quit spending

Little hints are popping up everywhere. Almost every major country in the world is suffering from inflation. The economy of the world and the U.S. is starting to sour. Normally when things go bad it is attributed to just one component of the economy, but the current mess seems unique. Americans have been spending 103 percent of what they make. To do this they have borrowed from their homes. Now the chickens are coming home to roost. Add the oil problem to the food, and inflation problem, and you have no simple way out. On a worldwide basis the problem stems from the same thing. All the money has gone to the top. Some would argue that is what brought on the depression of 1929. To get things going money had to be put back in the hands of the common people. Bush and his tax structure have made the situation as bad as it could possibly be. Based on Lord Kadizzles reading, the next major set of economic figures are going to be shockers. One thing that has been reported is that teenagers have quit spending. Imagine that. Has there ever been a recession before when the young felt it? It is going to take a little time for gas prices to trickle through the supply chain and effect everything in a bad way. The world is going to be fighting over resources. The saddest thing is that we have had the most do nothing president ever. Bush has done nothing positive for eight years, and certainly has done plenty in the wrong direction. We are going to pay in a bad way for his lack of leadership. I hope I am wrong, for once it would make me delighted.

Maybe Reverend Wright did go too far, but here is some history

An email from Lord Kadizzles liberal sister has forced him to re-examine the Rev Wright story. In retrospect, and looking at it from a different angle, Wright may be a bit more than obsessed with himself. The sad thing will be if he helps put a Republican in office. My sister said he went off the deep end with the HIV comment, he probably did, however it is interesting to see where he was coming from. Often we think some things our government would not stoop to. However, the recent water boarding supported by Bush can make you do a lot of questioning. Here is what happen to a bunch of black men, and this is what got Reverend Wright headed down the road to paranoia.

The Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male[1] also known as the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, Pelkola Syphilis Study, Public Health Service Syphilis Study or the Tuskegee Experiments was a clinical study, conducted between 1932 and 1972 in Tuskegee, Alabama, in which 399 (plus 201 control group without syphilis) poor — and mostly illiterate — African American sharecroppers were used as subjects to observe the natural progression of syphilis without medicine.

This study became very notorious because it was conducted without due care to its subjects, and led to major changes in how patients are protected in clinical studies. Individuals enrolled in the Tuskegee Syphilis Study did not give informed consent and were not informed of their diagnosis; instead they were told they had "bad blood" and could receive free medical treatment, rides to the clinic, meals and burial insurance in case of death in return for participating.[2]

In 1932, when the study started, standard treatments for syphilis were toxic, dangerous, and of questionable effectiveness. Part of the original goal of the study was to determine if patients were better off not being treated with these toxic remedies.

By 1947 penicillin had become the standard treatment for syphilis. Prior to this discovery, syphilis frequently led to a chronic, painful and fatal multisystem disease. Rather than treat all syphilitic subjects with penicillin and close the study, or split off a control group for testing penicillin; the Tuskegee scientists withheld penicillin and information about penicillin, purely to continue to study how the disease spreads and kills. Participants were also prevented from accessing syphilis treatment programs that were available to other people in the area. The study continued until 1972, when a leak to the press resulted in its termination.

The Tuskegee Syphilis Study, cited as "arguably the most infamous biomedical research study in U.S. history",[3] led to the 1979 Belmont Report, the establishment of the National Human Investigation Board, and the requirement for establishment of Institutional Review Boards.