Preeeeesent ....... Arms!

Or what's hanging off the ends of them.

This pic has been showing up all over the 'net. 

Can't understand why.....

Flood Insurance - The Old Fashioned Way

Dutch carpenter builds full-scale replica of Noah's Ark… and he plans to sail it up the Thames for the Olympics

From the UK Daily Mail:

A Dutch creationist is putting the finishing touches on a full-size replica of Noah's Ark, which he has built according to a blueprint set out in the Bible.

Johan Huibers spent three years and more than £1.03 million constructing the gigantic wooden boat - and now has his sights set on sailing it up the Thames for the Olympics.

This feat of true biblical proportions was inspired by a dream Mr Huibers had 20 years ago, in which he saw part of his native Netherlands submerged in a flood like the one featured in the Book of Genesis.

It is made of Swedish pine, it's 450 feet long and weighs three thousand tons.

Obama's Phony SSN

From iOTW

This information keeps surfacing. Maricopa County Sheriff Joe's Posse has also a lot of work on this. Sooner or later the bricks will come tumbling down. Unlike the false faxes and Back To The Future fonts of Bush's Texas ANG faux scandal, this one to all intents and purposes has legs based in reality. Unfortunately the media has determined that this is too bad to be true.

The Declaration Of Independence Was Written By Englishmen?

From the UK Telegraph comes an interesting read:

What is the best thing England ever gave the world? Cricket? Boring. Parliamentary democracy? I think the Icelandics got there first. Capitalism? We just copied the Dutch.

How about the Declaration of Independence, ratified this day in 1776 by the Continental Congress, two days after the rebel colonies had declared independence from Great Britain. It has become so successful and universal that no one is even aware how English it was.

Today we live in a world where people assume that the ideals they hold dear are natural, universal human values; we think of human rights or religious tolerance or equality between the sexes as given.

But many of the ideas that were declared universal after the devastation of the Second World War stem from particular American ideals that were themselves a product of English political culture, and no other culture, except perhaps the Netherlands, could have produced it.

Read the rest of it here:

Throgs Neck And Summer Projects

It's been a busy summer so far and it's going to get busier. We just got back from a wedding in Smithtown, Long Island, and then Soldier Girl drove up from Ft. Bragg for some home cooking. Did you know that the Army takes $300/month from her pay for the slop they serve at the chow hall (or DFAC as they call it now)? She refuses to eat there very often as the meals are awful IHHO.

I have started several projects;  first - remodeling the kitchen. I've decided to hang the cabinets myself instead of paying crazy money to have a contractor  do it. I've already done the framing and some of the electrical work. Might as well continue.

Next is transcribing my grandfather's journals from WWII. My Dad joined the navy in November of 1943. He was 17 had had to get Grandma's permission. Pop-Pop started the journal just before Dad enlisted and kept it until the end of the war. My mom never told us about the journals until last year. Dad has been gone for over twenty years now and I guess when he died she just forgot about it until she sold the house on Long Island and found them. The journals are odd sizes and we tried scanning them but it did not turn out well. I am not a typist and this will take some time. Thank the Lord Pop-Pop had good handwriting. I will eventually post them, which leads to the next item on my summer agenda.

My third project is to switch to Wordpress. I am sick of blogger and want to try something different.

The picture above is of the Throgs Neck Bridge, first opened in January of 1961. I have been using this bridge since 1967 when I moved Upstate. After forty plus years of crossing this span of steel and concrete, I finally decided to look something up - just what the heck is a Throgs Neck?

From Wikipedia:

Throggs Neck (also known as Throgs Neck) is a narrow spit of land in the southeastern portion of the borough of the Bronx in New York City. It demarcates the passage between the East River (an estuary), and Long Island Sound. "Throggs Neck" is also the name of the neighborhood of the peninsula, bounded on the north by East Tremont Avenue and Baisley Avenue, on the west by Westchester Creek, and on the other sides by the River and the Sound. Throggs Neck was largely exempt from the severe urban decay that affected much of the Bronx in the 1970s.

Throggs Neck is at the northern approach to the Throgs Neck Bridge, which connects the Bronx with the neighborhood of Bay Terrace in the borough of Queens on Long Island. The Throgs Neck Lighthouse formerly stood at its southern tip. Historically, the correct spelling is with two "g's," and while NYC Parks Commissioner and Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority Chairman Robert Moses officially shortened it to one "g" after deciding that two would not fit on many of the street signs, residents continue to recognize the traditional spelling.

In the 17th century it was known as Frockes Neck. George Washington referred to it as Frogs Neck during the Revolutionary War when Gen. Howe tried to land British troops there.

The current name, Throgs Neck, comes from an English immigrant, John Throckmorton, who settled there in 1642 with about 35 other people. The Indians killed off most of them the next year and Throckmorton took off to safer parts of the Colonies. I guess we should be thankful that it is not called Throckmorton's Neck, although that's what was saved when he skedaddled to Rhode Island.

The Throgs Neck peninsula is the site of the State University of New York Maritime College, formerly Fort Schuyler.

And this, Gentle Reader, is the little spit of land known as Throgs Neck. It costs $5 to cross over to Queens on this bridge.
Each.
Way.