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JamesSavik

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  1. JamesSavik

    Bookcase C

    By JamesSavik,

    C-1alpha
     

     
    Samuel Eliot Morrison's A History of United States Naval Operations in WWII
     
    C-1
     

     
    Naval History
     
    C-2
     

     
    UNIX, Linux and Networking
     
    C-3
     

     
    Networking Technology
  2. JamesSavik
    That Boy with the Far Away Eyes
     
     
    I was drivin’ home late Saturday night
    Through Pearl, Mississippi
    Listening to bluegrass music on the redneck radio station,
    And the cowboy said: “You know you should always have your .45 by your side”
    And I was so pleased to be informed of this
    That I shot twenty stop signs in his honour,
    Thank you Joe-Bob, thank you lord
     
    I had an arrangement to met a boy, and I was kind of late
    And I thought by the time I got there he’d be off,
    He’d be off with the nearest truck driver he could find
    Much to my surprise there he was sittin’ in a corner
    Little bleary, worse for wear and tear
    Eyes bloodshot and stoned stupid
    Was the boy with far away eyes
    Well I tell you
     
    So if you’re down on you’re luck, and you can’t lobotomize
    Find a boy with far away eyes
    And if you’re downright disgusted
    And life ain’t worth a dime
    Get a boy with far away eyes
    Well
     
    Well the cowboy kept right on saying
    That all I had to do was send ten dollars
    To the church of the sacred bleeding heart the NRA,
    Located somewhere in Baton Rouge, Louisiana
    And next week they’d have a word with Charlton Heston
    And all my dreams would come true
    So I did, and next week I got my boy
    Well you know what kind of eyes he's got,
    Well I tell you
     
    So if you’re down on you’re luck, I know you all accessorize
    Find a boy with far away eyes
    And if you’re downright disgusted
    And life ain’t worth a dime
    Get a boy with far away eyes
    So if you’re down on you’re luck, I know you all antagonize
    Get a boy with far away eyes
     
     
     
  3. JamesSavik

    Lou Reed Died Today

    By JamesSavik,

    Unless you're an old hippie or druggie you probably don't remember Lou Reed.
     
    He was a rock and roll bad ass before it was cool. He wrote songs about dope and cross dressers back when Jimmy Morrison was banned from doing concerts because they thought he shook his Johnson at them.
     


     


     
    I'm limited by the number of videos I can post but there's a couple more you can look up:
     
    Sweet Jane, Pale Blue Eyes and Heroin all by the Velvet Underground.
  4. JamesSavik
    You can buy all sorts of BBQ sauce at your local Kroger and lot's of it is pretty good. Most of it is pretty generic but I've yet to find any based on mustard or vinegar outside of a good BBQ house.
     
    If you are up for a culinary adventure try this one on for size:
     
     
    Carolina Style BBQ Sauce
     
    Ingredients:
    1 1/2 cup Yellow Mustard (French's or Heinze)
    1/2 cup Brown Sugar
    3/4 cup cider vinegar
    3/4 cup beer (dark is best)
    1 TBS Chili powder
    1TEA black pepper
    1TEA white pepper
    1/2 TEA cayenne pepper
    1 1/2 TEA Worcestershire Sauce
    2 TBS Butter
    1 1/2 TEA liquid smoke
    1 TEA Louisiana Style hot sauce
     
    Directions:
    1. In a heavy non-reactive sauce pan, stir together the mustard, brown sugar, vinegar and beer. Season with chili powder, black, white and cayenne pepper. Whisk together and simmer over low heat for 20 minutes. Don't boil or you will scorch the sugar.
     
    2. Mix in the Worcestershire, butter, and liquid smoke. Simmer for another 15 or 20 minutes. Season to taste with hot sauce.
     
    3. Store in a Mason jar. Refrigerate overnight after cooling to allow flavors to mix.
     
     
    The sauce has a spicy, tart taste that works well on pulled pork, brisket, chicken or sausage.
  5. JamesSavik
    I know why we did it. I watched. Fear drove it.
     
    We voted for candidates who would get tough and make a difference.
     
    Thirty years ago they said BE AFRAID! We need tougher laws because drugs are out of control.
     
    So we bent the constitution a little and it didn't hurt most people.
     
    Twenty years ago they said BE AFRAID! We need tougher laws because of perverts are out of control.
     
    So we bent the constitution a little and it didn't hurt most people.
     
    Ten years ago they said BE AFRAID! We need tougher laws because the terrorists are out of control.
     
    So we bent the constitution a little and it didn't hurt most people.
     
    Now we've got people looking at our socks and underwear at airports, SWAT teams assaulting houses in the suburbs that have an interesting looking greenhouse and the NSA is listening to our phone sex and...
     
    NONE OF THOSE PROBLEMS HAVE IMPROVED.
     
    NONE OF THOSE PROBLEMS HAS EVEN BEEN SERIOUSLY ADDRESSED.
     
    Like a poor doctor, we attack the symptoms and not the disease.
     
    It's time to do something different. It's time to repair the wounds to the constitution.
     
    Otherwise we are just another police state that has a nice Constitution that no one really pays any attention. The Soviets were like that. They had a wonderful Constitution but never bothered to read it.
     
    We must do something different soon. We once worried about the military-industrial complex. Now we have a prison-industrial complex that consumes human beings, eats money and law enforcement is equipped with armored vehicles!
     
    We have lost our way.
     
    Many of us are afraid of the horrific potential for repression of the machine that we have built.
     
    We must find the courage to find another way or we may all find ourselves at the mercy of a machine that can only be described as the bluntest of instruments.
     

     

  6. JamesSavik
    10 Years Clean & Sober
     
    A.K.A What a Long Strange Trip it has Been
     
     
    October 1, 2013 I got this nifty little medallion.
     

     
    It means after years of fucking up with the assistance of various chemicals, I wanted to change the downward trajectory of my life. It means I am no longer the life of the party. I don't have cocaine in my underwear. There's not a bong under the sofa. There aren't any bottles under my bed, in the pantry or under the seat in my truck.
     
    It didn't work out the way I planned. I didn't get back everything I lost. I got back what I needed.
     
    It doesn't mean I grew up. Awe hell no. Like that will ever happen.
     
    It just means that when I fuck up today, it's on me. The chemicals are gone. I don't need them. I am perfectly capable of fucking up in brilliant, unconventional ways all by myself.
     
    Now... Go play some good songs loud.
     


     


  7. JamesSavik

    Shelf B-2: business

    By JamesSavik,

    The Resume Kit
     
    Personal Finance for Dummies
     
    One Minute Manager
     
    Supervisors Big Book of Lists
     
    How to Talk So People Listen
     
    How to Succeed as an Independent Consultant
     
    Entrepreneur's Notebook
     
    What Color is your Parachute
     
    Complete Akido
     
    The Score Takes Care of Itself - Bill Walsh
     
    Corps Business - Business Principles of the Marine Corps
     
    Organize Yourself
     
    The Influence of Sea Power on History
     
    The Art of War
     
    On War - Clausewitz
     
    The Prince by Machiavelli
  8. JamesSavik
    HIV vaccine aces first human trials
     
    First human tests have been declared as a success with patients' antibodies being boosted after treatment
     
    04 September 2013 | By Joe Morgan
     
    http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/hiv-vaccine-aces-first-human-trials040913
     
    An HIV prevention vaccine has aced its first clinical trials.
     
    A team of Canadian researchers, from the Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry at Western University, have said their first tests have been a complete success.
     
    Not only has the vaccine worked, it has boosted the production of antibodies in patients it was tested on.
     
    SAV001, one of only a handful of HIV vaccines in the world, is based on a genetically-modified ‘dead’ version of the virus.
     
    Team leader Dr Chil-Yong Kang told Ontario Business Report they infected the cells with a genetically modified HIV-1.
     
    ‘The infected cells produce lots of virus, which we collect, purify and inactivate so that the vaccine won’t cause AIDS in recipients, but will trigger immune responses.’
     
    Clinical testing in the US began in March 2102, looking at men and women between the ages of 18 and 50.
     
    Half the target group were given a placebo, while the others were given SAV001.
     
    No adverse effects were found in the group given the vaccine.
     
    With the first phase of trials over, the researchers are optimistic about the vaccine’s future.
     
    The next trials will show whether SAV001 will provoke the right immune response, and its power to produce the right effect.
     
    Sumagen, the South Korean biotech firm sponsoring the vaccine, said manufacturing as well as USFDA requirements could be possible hurdles.
     
    But despite this, they were confident they were developing something that could save ‘millions of lives.’ If all goes well, it could be available in 2018.
     
    Jung-Gee Cho, the CEO of Sumagen, said: ‘We are opening the gate to pharmaceutical companies, government, and charity organization for collaboration to be one step closer to the first commercialized HIV vaccine.’
  9. JamesSavik
    After seeing an article that was embarrassingly and egregiously full of crap, I created a much more relevant 10 tips...
     
     
     
    James Savik's 10 tips for young men
     
    1. Pull up your pants so you don't look like a prison punk.
     
    2. Know exactly what those Chinese characters mean before they become your tattoo. Unless you read and write Mandarin, you really wouldn't know the difference between "wisdom and strength" and "little bitch".
     
    3. Know what to do in a fight. Kick balls or clock somebody with a brick. The object is to get away without scars, not to win an MMA trophy.
     
    4. Know how long to take shit and when to say "up yours".
     
    5. Own a knife.
     
    6. Know the basics of handguns. Ignorance kills.
     
    7. Have some idea of what you will do if the shit hits the fan. Don't wait until you are covered in it and the fan is sitting there slinging it across the room.
     
    8. Wear the right shoes in the right size. Looking Cool doesn't mean SQUAT when you are on your feet all day.
     
    9. Sometimes you just have to have the steak.
     
    10. Never, ever, even accidentally have sex with one of your significant other's siblings.
  10. JamesSavik
    Usually when you buy the rights to a book, you assume that the movie is going to be based on the book. Hollyweird is known for taking liberties but in this case they threw away the book and rewrote it.
     
    The only thing that the two have in common are zombies, a mysterious plague that causes them and the United Nations. That's it.
     

     
     
    Max Brooks originally wrote World War Z in the style of Studs Terkel's The Good War. It was a collection of stories told by the veterans of World War II. It had their voice and was an oral history. A critically acclaimed history told by the people that had fought in the war and survived. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good_War
     
    Brook's book followed this design. It took place in the future. It interviewed survivors of the zombie war and told their story. It was collected by a minor functionary of the UN.
     

     
    Of course that was apparently too difficult for Hollywood. They threw it all out the window. They made a zombie apocalypse movie that shared the name World War Z.
     
    Of course in its own right, it's not a bad movie. Brad Pitt stars as a retired United Nations troubleshooter. When the zombie apocalypse breaks out, he goes back to his old job. He travels the zombie infested world in search of answers. As a movie, I give it a C+.
     
    However- it loses the entirety of what made the book special. You don't get the characters voice. You don't get the characters. All you get is your typical Hollywood adrenalin-pumping thriller with little or no message or staying power.
     
    Read the book. You'll get more out of it. Wait for the movie to hit NetFlix.
  11. JamesSavik
    CD players arrived on the scene in the 1980s and quickly supplanted vinyl as the dominate audio-media. Unlike cassettes and LPs, CDs are a purely digital media. They reproduce sound with complete fidelity.
     
    Compact Disks (CD) are optical disks which are read by IR laser. Data stored on audio CDs follow formats defined by the Rainbow books. Prior to 1988, the audio standard was defined by the Red Book. It was superseded by the Red Book in 1988 and by the Orange Book in 1990. There have been other standards but they deal with other CD technologies more applicable to data applications.
     
    The first generation of CD players were very much like cassette players. They played one CD at a time. They connect to the amplifier by a pair of RCA cables.
     

     
    This old Pioneer unit is ~ 20 years old and still working. Its operation is very, very simple: put in the CD, play, pause, track forward or back.
     

     
    Note the simplicity of the back. There is a power cable and a hookup for a pair of RCA cables. That's it.
  12. JamesSavik
    CD players took off fast. Their advantages, especially in car stereo, pushed them forward and the prices down. Compared to cassette players they were a quantum leap forward in sound and reliability.
     
    On the home audio front, the first and loudest voices were for multi-disk CD players. As the first generation players could only deal with one CD at a time, they were inconvenient and people wanted to play their CDs in batch.
     
    The first answer to multi-CD players was the CD magazine or cartridge. They typically could hold 6 CDs and could play for hours. They often came with remote controls making them much more convenient than single disk players.
     

     
    This Pioneer CD player holds its disk in a magazine or cartridge. The problem here is with long term reliability. With extended use, the moving parts can wear out and malfunction in rather spectacular acts of mechanical suicide.
     

     
    The second approach to the multi-disk CD player is the carousel. The carousel usually allows six CDs to play with an ability to program them or play random selections. Once again, this is a design with moving part that can fail with use.
     
    This particular CD carousel can play DVDs as well.
  13. JamesSavik
    One of my many hobbies is that I like to play with something called vintage audio.
     
    This is the collection of old stereo components and the attempt to make it all work. It may sound expensive but it's not that bad. Speakers are expensive but you can find some REALLY neat old components on e-bay.
     
    At the moment my current stereo configuration is playing and doing a great job with David Bowie's Greatest Hits.
     


     
     
    So.. let's get into it.
     
    The number 1 component that you need is called an amp. That's an old term but it is fairly accurate. Since the 70s most have been integrated with a am/fm receiver. Some have 5 band equalizers built in but my advice is to steer clear of them.
     
    What you need out of an amp is:
     
    Watts per channel: this is the power that you have to drive speakers. ~100 watts is usually powerful enough. More if you want to host events, less for a smaller room.
     
    Speaker channels: speakers come in pairs with the exception of a center speaker (called a thumper or sub-woofer). Most of the time you want at least two pairs and a center speaker channel if you can find one.
     
    Component channels: These are the different components that you will be using to feed your amp. Typically these are CD players, turntables, cassette decks, video/tv audio, or an am/fm receiver if your amp doesn't have one built in. Other items you might be trying to integrate with your system might be a satellite radio hook up, mp3 player, etc. This can get complicated FAST and there are big differences in amps and their capabilities.
     
    ALL Digital- the very newest amps are all singing, all dancing and ALL DIGITAL. This is cool, very cool. Digital components run cooler and have a longer life. There is a drawback. All digital components leave behind some of you older components like turntables.
     
    Hybrid amps- have digital and analog features. Most amps built since the eighties fall in this category. Their strength is their versatility in coping with both legacy (old) and new digital components.
     
    Analog- true analog amps have tubes and transistors. There is a snobbish minority that insists that the true analog sound off vinyl is the only way to go. There's a lot to be said for that. However- the really good new analog amps costs thousands. The old ones are just as pricy and you had better know what you are doing if you go that direction. Some electronics knowledge is a must. I suggest that beginners work their way up to analog systems.
     
    What components you must have for an amp:
    These are most common, must have:
    -CD player
    -tape 1
    -tape 2
    -tv/video audio
    -aux
    You might want:
    -turntable
    -extra video channels
    -extra aux channels
     

    Mitsubish M-VR600 c.1999 This is a good all around hybrid amp. You can get one from 50-120$ depending on condition. Be sure to pay attention to the sellers reputation!!!
     

    Detail of the front panel. Note the buttons for the component input + controls for various speaker set ups and surround sound modes.
  14. JamesSavik
    National InSecurity
     

     
     
    In the last week a whistle-blower exposed embarrassing revelations about the NSA. The National Security Agency is so secret that many federal workers that saw references to the "NSA" were told in no uncertain terms that as far as they were concerned that stood for "No Such Agency".
     
    NSA's bailiwick is an obscure branch of spook-dom called signals intelligence which has been around since people used to splice into telegraph lines and listen to the message traffic. In World War I, various parties wanted to listen to trans-Atlantic traffic bound for interesting embassies. Later, in World War II US codebreakers turned the Pacific War when they discovered that an attack was imminent on Midway island. Armed with that information, the US Navy was able to surprise the Japanese fleet and sink four of the six carriers that had attacked Pearl Harbor six months before. In the Atlantic the capture of a German Enigma machine cracked the German Navy's codes which were used to coordinate U-boat activity. This gave the Allies a tremendous advantage and turned the Battle of the Atlantic.
     
    It was scoops like the Midway signals intercepts and breaking the Enigma codes that showed the Allies the real war-winning advantages of signals intelligence. Churchill, Roosevelt, Eisenhower and Nimitz all made special efforts to expand and improve this vital capability.
     
    In the post war world, the US and the UK both knew the inestimable value of intelligence derived by signals analysis. Military and civilian leaders on both sides of the Atlantic knew and understood how vitally important these capabilities were. Even in the post-war build downs, they found the money necessary to retain and improve these capabilities. Once the the Cold War heated up, SIGINT became one of the very hottest areas of intelligence.
     
    The Soviets began looking for nuclear secrets well before the end of WWII. Stalin wanted nuclear weapons and was willing and able to flood the US and the UK with spies. In 1946 the US and UK broke a code used by Soviet embassies and discovered how big the Soviet spying effort really was. The project was known as Verona and was a joint US-UK effort.
     
    In 1947 the US and the UK signed a secret treaty where they cooperated in monitoring trans-Atlantic cables which became the first widespread surveillance of public communications media in peace time.
     
    There was a lot to like about Signals Intelligence. You don't have double agents. You don't have to bribe anybody. You don't have all of the problems that you do when you are running human assets. SigInt never sleeps. It doesn't lie and it never takes a holiday. A great deal of money was spent and it became the West's most powerful and durable strategic intelligence asset.
     
    The NSA's ancestor was the Armed Forces Security Agency. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) played a major role in the development of computer, networking technology and eventually even the Internet itself. Billions and BILLIONS of dollars were spent on R&D and the development of new capabilities and technologies. This even included the design, launch and operation of spy satellites with various capabilities like photographic recon, IR recon and the capture of faint radio signals.
     
    In fact in 1959 the US launched the Vela series of satellites to detect nuclear detonations. These satellites discovered by chance Gamma Ray Bursters in the distant universe and inadvertently gave birth to orbital observatories and astronomy beyond the visible spectra.
     
    In the mid eighties the US and UK brought a system online called Echelon which have the capabilities that we are now collectively freaking out over. It could electronically "listen" to signals and pick up on keywords and focus on individuals. These capabilities have only been improved and upgraded over the years.
     
    These systems did not arrive on 9/11. They did not creep out of the Patriot Act. They have been growing and evolving in the shadows for decades funded by literally trillions of dollars in black budgets that your congressman has never heard of.
     
    The reliance on SigInt has consequences. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, US intelligence agencies have become dependent on SigInt and allowed their human intelligence capabilities to atrophy. They called it "the Peace Dividend". There were huge defense and intelligence cuts and the US intelligence establishment had to chose. They hung onto their SigInt capabilities at the expense of allowing their human intelligence assets to dry up and blow away.
     
    It was human assets that we blew off in Afghanistan that turned around and bit us on 9/11. It was SigInt that was completely blind to hand delivered messages and couriers that Osama bin Laden used to run his networks. It is those human assets that the US has had to develop to fight the war on terrorism.
     
     
    We have purchased the capability with trillions of dollars and concentrated effort over many decades. There have been many, many technological spin-offs that have sparked our economy. Reacting hysterically is simple idiocy. This technological terror has been here for decades. Those of us in the tech business quit talking about it years ago because people labeled us conspiracy nuts and invited us to don tin hats.
     
    Our task is to find a middle way to live with the beast but refuse to allow it to devour us. That requires oversight and that's just the sort of thing that spooks hate.
  17. JamesSavik
    For the first time a baby is cured of HIV
    http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/first-time-baby-cured-hiv030313
     
    Doctors announce newborn was cured of HIV infection
     
    03 March 2013
     
    -James Withers
     
    The doctors of an HIV infected baby have announced they have cured the child.
     
    As reported by the New York Times, the infant was born in rural Mississippi (a southern US state). Antiretroviral drugs were administered approximately 30 hours after birth. This type of procedure is uncommon with newborns, but could turn into standard procedure if the case is confirmed.
     
    This is the second case of a patient cured of HIV. The first was Timothy Brown, called the 'Berlin Patient' in medical literature. The middle-aged man, who had leukemia, received a bone-marrow transplant from someone who was genetically resistant to HIV.
     
    'For pediatrics, this is our Timothy Brown,' Dr. Deborah Persaud, associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center and lead author of the report on the baby said to the New York Times. 'It’s proof of principle that we can cure HIV. infection if we can replicate this case.'
     
    The mother gave birth prematurely, in a rural hospital, in 2010. She had no medical care during the pregnancy and did not know she was HIV. Initial tests showed the child might be infected and treatment was started approximately a day later. Virus levels quickly dropped and were nearly undetectable a month later.
     
    Some researchers are skeptical, wondering if the patient actually had the virus.
     
    'The one uncertainty is really definitive evidence that the child was indeed infected, Dr. Daniel R. Kuritzkes, chief of infectious diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, said to the newspaper.
     
    The unmanned child's physicians will report their findings tomorrow, 4 March, at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections.
  18. JamesSavik
    The Doors released LA Woman in 1971. No one could have know that it would be their last album.
     
    Some critics think that it may have been their best. It had a unique blend of blues and rock sounds that sold millions of albums and continues to sell.
     
    See more here:>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L.A._Woman
     
    Experience it HERE!
     

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-wgIht3roA
     

     

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qRJIBtbc2c
     

  19. JamesSavik

    Seven Layer Dip

    By JamesSavik,

    A favorite recipe for Stupor Bowl parties.
    Who cares who wins or what the clever commercials are selling?
    It's all about the food!
     
    Eat seven layer dips with tortilla chips.
     
    Warning: you may eat the whole thing.
     
     
    Version 1
     
    Ingredients
     
    1 can (16 oz.) TACO BELL® HOME ORIGINALS® Refried Beans
    1 Tbsp. TACO BELL® HOME ORIGINALS® Taco Seasoning Mix
    1 cup BREAKSTONE'S or KNUDSEN Sour Cream
    1 cup TACO BELL® HOME ORIGINALS® Thick 'N Chunky Salsa
    1 cup shredded lettuce
    1 cup KRAFT Mexican Style Finely Shredded Four Cheese
    4 green onions, sliced
    2 Tbsp. sliced black olives
    RITZ Toasted Chips Original
     
    Make It
     
    MIX beans and seasoning mix; spread onto bottom of pie plate.
    TOP with layers of all remaining ingredients except chips. Refrigerate several hours or until chilled.
    SERVE with chips.
     
     
    Version 2
     
    Ingredients
    1 (15-ounce) can refried beans
    2 tablespoons hot sauce
    Extra-virgin olive oil, for drizzling
    4 scallions, cut into 1 inch pieces
    1 (16 to 18 ounce) jar green chili or tomatillo salsa
    2 tablespoons chopped cilantro, a palm full, chopped
    1 (15-ounce) can black beans
    2 teaspoons ground cumin, 2/3 palm full
    1 (16 to 18 ounce) jar chipotle salsa
    2 cups sour cream
    1 lime, zested and juiced
    2 ripe avocados
    2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
    1 lemon, juiced
    1 jalapeno, seeded and finely chopped
    Salt
    2 plum tomatoes, diced
    Pimiento stuffed jumbo Spanish olives, chopped
    Tortilla chips, buy 2 sacks in 2 different colors/varieties

    Directions
     
    Heat refried beans in small nonstick pan over medium heat and season with hot sauce. Transfer the beans to a small, deep casserole dish. Scrape pan clean with rubber spatula and return to heat.
    Add a little extra-virgin olive oil to the pan and raise heat to high. When the oil smokes, add the scallions and sear them, 2 to 3 minutes. Add green salsa to scallions and heat through. Add cilantro, remove salsa from heat, and layer on top of the beans.
    Return the same pan to the stove, lower heat to medium and add black beans, heat through and season with cumin, layer on top of the green salsa.
    Top the black beans with a layer of chipotle salsa. Mix sour cream the lime zest and juice and spread on top of the chipotle salsa.
    Combine the meat of 2 ripe avocados with garlic, lemon juice, jalapeno and salt to form a chunky guacamole. Top the salsa with guacamole. Garnish the dip with the final layer of diced tomatoes and sliced olives.
     
     
     
    Version 3
     
     
    Ingredients:
    1 (16 ounce) can refried beans
    1 cup guacamole
    1/4 cup mayonnaise
    1 (8 ounce) container sour cream
    1 (1 ounce) package taco seasoning mix
    2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese
    1 tomato, chopped
    1/4 cup chopped green onions
    1/4 cup black olives, drained
     
    Directions: 1. In a large serving dish, spread the refried beans. Layer the guacamole on top of the beans. 2. In a medium bowl, mix the mayonnaise, sour cream and taco seasoning mix. Spread over the layer of guacamole. 3. Sprinkle a layer of Cheddar cheese over the mayonnaise mixture layer. Sprinkle tomato, green onions and black olives over the cheese.
     
     
    Sometimes you can find these pre-made in the deli section of your supermarket but that's cheating.
  20. JamesSavik
    One of the most nasty and difficult to treat persistent infections is Lyme Disease. It is caused by bacteria spread by the deer tick. There really no sense in running away. The damn things are everywhere.
     
    the deer tick, geneus Ixodes
     
    the "bull eye" pattern that appears soon after a tick bite that is common in lyme cases
     
    Lyme disease is pretty nasty (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyme_disease). It's not fatal but it is debilitating. For years doctors have wondered- why does lyme disease respond so well to anti-biotics sometimes and so poorly in other cases?
     
    Borrelia burgdorferi- this nasty little spirochete has a double membraned envelope. It is predominate in North America but is also present in Europe.
     
    The answer may well be that there are several infectious agents causing very similar disease.
     
    In the past six months two new infectious agents have been discovered that cause what has been diagnosed as Lyme disease BUT the infectious agent is something altogether different than the Borrelia bacteria (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borrelia_burgdorferi) that causes the vast majority of Lyme disease cases.
     
    The Heartland Virus was identified in August 2012. It presents itself almost identically to Lyme disease (http://www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/news/20120829/new-tick-borne-disease-heartland-virus).
     
    The latest discovery is an as yet unnamed febrile illness very similar to lyme disease but caused by Borrelia miyamotoi which is native to and first identified in central Russia. Of all the cases treated in the study, 3% of them turned out to be caused by the organism. (http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/255152.php)
     
    Hopefully the discovery that lyme disease may be caused by a spectrum of organisms will lead to better diagnostics and treatments.
     
    Ticks are very efficient vectors of zoonotic infections (diseases that pass from animals to man). They should be strenuously avoided. Should you get one, remove it as soon as possible without crushing the body of the tick. Its ability to transmit disease is proportional to how long it stays attached. If you are bitten and see the bullseye pattern around the bite, see a doctor asap. Best to treat it before it gets established.
  21. JamesSavik

    mea culpa

    By JamesSavik,

    I made a mistake. In a post, I used a racial pejorative. "White trash" may be accepted but it no less wrong to use than any other racist language. I apologize to anyone that I may have offended.
  22. JamesSavik

    Gun Nuttery

    By JamesSavik,

    I have learned that there is a significant difference in culture between the cities and the country.
     
    In the country, we are raised around guns. We grow up hunting. A great many of us are veterans. Guns aren't an object of fear. They are simply another tool.
     
    Locally there are two serious nuisance pests: wild hogs (wildpiginfo.msstate.edu) and nutria rat (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coypu). Wild hogs are dangerous and cause huge amounts of crop damage and kill and eat everything in the woods. Nutria rats are serious pests that aren't native to our local ecosystem. They cause a great deal of damage in our sensitive wetlands.
     
    Wild pigs are no joke. They grow tusks and are quite aggressive in the wild. The haven't killed many people lately- we know to look out for them. They "cut" people and kill domestic animals all the time. Their meat is no good because they pick up deadly parasites in the wild. I've got a wicked scar from a wild pig I might show you sometime.
     
    Neither of these rather serious pests have natural predators. It takes a powerful rifle round to kill them. The much vilified AR-15 rifle and its little brother, the Mini-14 are the rifle of choice to kill these beasts. I've fired both.
     
    I want to introduce you to some family history:

    I grew up with this on the mantle. It is a Pennsylvania long rifle that is revolutionary war era. In the late 1700s, one of my ancestors carried one from New York to my state when it was only a territory. It fought in the War of 1812 at the Battle of New Orleans. It is a treasure and it belongs to MY family. It was appraised at being worth $120,000 but it will stay in the family. It sits on my older brother's mantle now.
     

    The Second is a Winchester 1894. It belonged to my great grandfather. It fed the family through hard winters and bad economy.
     

    The last is a M1 Garand carried by my father in Korea. With it, he won a Silver Star and two Bronze Stars (in addition to two more Bronze Stars he won in WWII).
     
    This isn't just my heritage. This is my family, our culture, history and where we came from.
     
    I am completely unwilling to give it up because there are gang-bangers and crazy people and the country is too squeamish to deal with the people that are the real problem.
  25. JamesSavik
    No. I don't want to talk about it.
     
    Baby killing assholes. Losing Roan. I wish I could have called this weekend off as a bad idea.
     
    Times like this it's hard to be clean and sober.
     
    If you've ever been in a fight and you've been hit a few times, you taste blood before it really hurts.
     
    Now I'm going to crawl inside my headphones and listen to good music loud and tune out the world.
     
    I know that I'll have to come up for air sooner or later. Now- I just want to tune it all out.
     

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P60zM2sQ_4o
     
     


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