Vitriol Espresso "I come in peace. I didn't bring artillery. But I'm pleading with you, with tears in my eyes: If you fuck with me, I'll kill you all." General James Mattis

Massachusetts proposing legislation that would allow police to forcefully quarantine residents and even impose martial law without a warrant. Could that possibly be constitutional?

Is it possible to do this at all? To force people to take the vaccine or toss them in jail? Forcibly take their children and vaccinate them as well? I honestly have no hope of avoiding it. If I don't take the flu shot I'll lose my insurance and I can't afford for that to happen. This is absolutely mind boggling.

Putin calls US missile U-turn a good start; Now in addition...

Coincidence he decided to announce this on the anniversary of the Russians rolling over Poland? No...really?

Obama is a dick.

Goodbye Dommine. I'm sorry I was too old. RIP

Why not repeal the 22nd Amendment so you can! (H. J. Res. 5) Coming to a Hill near you, brought to you by the wonderful Democrat from New York, Representative Jose Serrano. Repeal the 22nd Amendment and be the next Hugo Chavez!!

What is the 22nd Amendment, you might ask? Here you go:

1. No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this Article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President, when this Article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this Article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.

2. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission to the States by the Congress.

Got designs on the top office there, Jose? Think you got the cojones to fool the people of this country twice over? Or are you just an Obama fluffywuffy asslicking lapdog? I'd bet on the latter.

Check out some of the other things your congress is bringing to the table:

H.R.45 - To make firearm licensing mandatory.
H.R.675 - Amend Title 10 of the US code to give civilians the authority to execute warrants, make arrests and carry firearms. That means ACORN, people. A-FUCKING-CORN.
H.R.875 - Makes organic farming ILLEGAL.
H.R.1444 - Civil conscription.
S.729 - Allows illegal aliens to bring up to 7 members of their family to the US. And then makes them citizens.
S.787 - Gives the Federal Government the power over all water resources in the US.
S.1261 - REAL ID, giving everyone a national ID card and recording all identifiable information.

There's a ton more, too. Go look around for a while. Some of this stuff is straight out of Orwell's brain.

A photo of what's happening in my front yard. Took this with my cell camera. I'm told once it's time to put down the concrete slab for my new porch that I'll be unable to leave for at least 8 hours. The work continues later today (it's early morning) extending the trench under my front windows to where the quasi sinkhole was fixed a couple years ago.




That's directly in front of my drawbridge. You can see it here, this is from when the moat wasn't filled with sand and I had no screen door. But it's still there all the same. Only now it's got a bunch of gravel and dirt from where they hurriedly filled in the path out so I can pay the rent later today.



That's my life for the summer. And they're not done. They still have to give me a new porch, sidewalk, and sodded lawn. This should continue to be amusing.

And I still don't have to mow.

People around here and everywhere else I notice have gone completely apeshit over the swine flu. H1N1 or something like that. Finally I got tired of the speculation and tossing out of random numbers to go and have a closer looksee at what is going on. What I found is a bit amazing, a little frightening, and kinda stupid.

First, let's look at what H1N1 actually means. So many bandy about that little phrase without even knowing what they're talking about. It's scary because it has a couple of ones in it? Please. What this phrase is, is what's called a 'Nomenclature.' They are a designation for the names in which they represent.

H = Hemagglutinin
N = Neuraminidase

These are proteins that are in every influenza A virus. However, they can change over time, or mutate from strain to strain. The number after each letter determines what strain we're talking about.

So ignoring the letters, we get 1 and 1. Which flu strain are those, you might ask? Well, let's have a look at the numbers and what they designate.

Hemagglutinin comes in 16 strains (or subtypes). Each subtype varies slightly from the other and that variation determines what living creature the virus infects. Only H1 through H3 commonly infect humans, but H5, or the bird flu, is known to infect at a very very low rate. [1]

Neuraminidase comes in 9 subtypes. Unlike the above, each number here designates the antibody that each virus neutralizes. Think about it! Viruses with this protein in any designation is designed to completely neutralize the antibodies that will kill it. Neato, huh? Nature kicks balls. Each of these subtypes can be in any particular type of influenza, but when they mix up with a host that matches their strain it can cause a crapton of problems. [2]

Okay, then. What makes H1N1 so damn scary? Why is it different from, say, H2N3? Well, to be totally honest not all strains of H1N1 are particularly deadly. Most of them are the normal flu that anyone gets every so often. The only reason they call it the 'swine flu' is because it has been found infecting pigs. Big whoop. What is scary about H1N1 is that H and N. Even though the strain is 1 (human), slight variations in that 1 (human and how they attack YOU) can cause the virus to be more virulent. To paraphrase Forrest Gump, "H1N1 is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get."

If someone tells you that you've caught the flu it's wise to take precautions, to be sure. But it is completely UNWISE to panic and lock yourself away from assistance. Call your doctor. Do what you would normally do for a flu (drink liquids, stay in bed, chicken soup) and if it gets to the point where you say 'wow, this flu is worse than any other I've ever had' it's time to go to a hospital.

And there you go. Completely demystified. Congrats, you now know more about Influenza A Swine Flu than most newscasters. Go you!


[1] April 2006 Molecule of the Month; RCSB Protein Data Bank
[2] May 2009 Molecule of the Month; RCSB Protein Data Bank