I really should check the comments on my posts from time to time. What threw me off for a while was that I would get to the bottom of the page and see "posted such and such a date, with 0 comments", and figure that meant there were no comments.
Hmpph. That's not the bottom of the page, and if I had just scrolled down a leeetle
further, I would have seen that there were people trying to talk to me. Comment after comment after comment. The last one a few days old now.
Something similar happened to me last summer after I got the PPD website up and going. I had been checking it religiously every day for a month and a half, but it was a complete blank as far as incoming, but since I hadn't advertised the site, the only possible contacts would have come from someone who accidentally stumbled across it. So I quit checking so regularly, and sure enough, a potential customer logged on with a question that I didn't see for a week. Said pot. cust. evaporated into the internet ether, despite my frantic belated efforts to contact her, and who could blame her?
Hope that doesn't happen here, though.
Ah, gardening. Sizewise, I  may have bitten off more than I can chew this year. There are not enough hours in the day to get everything planted; or at least, not enough hours that I'm willing to devote to planting.
All the cole starts are finally in the ground, mostly looking healthy, and some brussels sprouts and broccoli plated from seed are sprouting. Not the carrots, though, and not the beans. Fifteen 50-foot rows planted 4/30 and 5/1, and not a single bean sprouting; 10-14 days for germination, supposedly. Oh, well, maybe as it gets a little warmer.
The good news is the corn is beginning to sprout, a few more asparagus spears are showing, the tomato transplants are holding up well, the onions are doing great, all but the latest-planted potatoes are up, squash seeds (and one start) and melon seeds (and two starts) are in the ground, 1/2 the pepper starts went in yesterday.
As things begin to look pickable, I'll try an ad or two in the newspapers to see if it brings any traffic to the PPD website, which I have modified to alert me through my regular e-mail ao as not to lose any more pot. custs. due to late response.
Well, back to the garden to see what I can get done before the rain hits.
See you later.

This is disgusting.

You put a lot of thought , time, and revision into writing a post,

then, not quite done, go off to do something else for a while,

come back and the post is gone.

Not still there in the Add Post composition page screen.

Not sitting in Unpublished Posts.

Just ...gone.

Soda Tart, please send your email address to pgculater@turbousa.com.

I'm going out to work off my frustrations in the garden

Well, the feeling of loneliness is starting to dissipate. Some bloggers and columnists are expressing the view that was my initial reaction to the news at the beginning of Egypt's "revolution": i.e., it is not a good thing.

Sure, the goodhearted folks who wanted to end tyranny in their country massed peacefully in Tahrir Square. Yes, the weight of public opinion, combined with the weight of international condemnation forced the autocrat to resign. And the success of these demonstrations encouraged folks in other Islamic-majority countries ruled by dictators to copy the tactics in the hope of similar success.

And now what? In Egypt, where there has always been a subdued persecution of the 2000 year old Coptic Christian community, the persecution is intensifying. The Muslim Brotherhood, the root from which all Islamic terrorist groups have sprung, has cut a deal with the military to take over the country, the mechanism being the calling of early elections, which will give the MB, the largest organized group, more than an edge in winning a majority. Kiss the "peace "treaty with Israel goodbye.

In the Ivory Coast, on the southern edge of Africa's westward bulge, there was a dispute regarding the recent elections. The Ivorian Election Commission's investigation found massive vote fraud in the mainly Muslim north of the country and declared the sitting president, Laurent Gbagbo, the winner. In steps the United Nations, dragging "international condemnation" along, and without even the pretense of an investigation, declares the Muslim candidate from the north the winner. As the UN's "preferred" president sweeps southward with his army, massacring non-supporters (mainly Christian, as it happens) along the way, the French, with "international approval" sweep in from the coast, strafing the "former" president's compound, and any loyalist army elements (mainly Christian, as it happens) along the way. Did they capture him and spirit him out of the country? If so, it may have been a humanitarian act, however unintended, considering the "new, un-approved" oops, I mean "UN-approved" president's supporters' treatment of non-combatant non-supporters. (Read: innocent civilians.)

Innocent civilians, coincidentally, are the target of the UN's protectionist intervention in Libya. This necessitates that their humanitarian efforts be spent assisting the Al-Qaida and Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated armed rebels in their push to kill Khadaffy (Qadafi, whatever), a tyrant, to be sure, but no friend of AQ, MB, and their ilk. Assuming the succesful (in their view) outcome of this endeavor, the strain on the principle of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" will be intense, as AQ and MB will owe their victory completely to US-UN-NATO's "humanitarian efforts". Oh, and goodbye Libyan Christians. Civilians you may be, but, being Christians, innocent you are not.

But enough of Africa. The story repeats, with variations, across the Middle East. Yemen's uprising stands a good chance of success, as the International Community (UN is so much easier to type) condemns the dictator's efforts to defend himself. (Variation: the Christian community is so small as to have escaped the media's notice, and there are damn few (("not few enough!!")) Jews, perhaps none of either, or there soon will be). Bahrain's dictator will survive for the foreseeable future thanks to the interplay of Sunni vs. Shi'ia tension. The Obama administration, typically, comes down on the wrong side of the matter, with Ms. Clinton objecting to the use of nightsticks to quell the insurrection. (Variation: Monarch is the preferred term for the dictator here, and the main irritant is Iran, though AQ & MB are in the initial stages of jockeying for position; not much of a peep from the UN.) Syria and Iran, good buddies that they are, will  have learned from China's Tianamen Square and the Iraq "shock and awe" campaigns that ovewhelming brute force will usually win the day. (Variation: The US and UN will keep out of it: "innocent civilians", since in these cases they really are pushing for democracy, don't stand much chance of a "Good Luck" from those two.)

Oh, yes, indeed. I think some Chinese guy must have cursed us, because we really do "live in interesting times". Can you say "TEOTWAWKI"?

Jesus is coming, by my guess pretty soon.

Happy Easter!

 

Blast off!

This is the place to post my thoughts on the things that interest me. It may turn out to be a thoroughly solipsistic bit of self-indulgence, of interest to no one else. But it will be the place I go to develop my thoughts about current events, politics, people, and passions.
Expect to see categories like Islam, CultureWars, the Police State, Global Warming,
Gardening, TheLawIsAnAss (h/t:C.Dickens), Compost (both political and the good kind), or anything else that interests me at the moment.

If something you see here piques your interest, leave a comment, or start an argument
(by leaving a comment, but N.B.: intellectual integrity and civility are requisites!)

And so, off we go into the wild blue yonder...