Ides of March

Kudos to the both of you Sout' Siders for your generous contributions to the relief efforts in Ukraine; nothing like putting your money where your mouth is!  I'm taking a different path, looking to buy some swag where some of the profits go to help the cause.  First up will be the new postage stamps from Ukraine that tell the Russian warship to go fuck themselves.  A fine souvenir to be sure and I can't wait to get some and do a little guerilla graffiti.  There's a company in the UK that produces t-shirts that say the same thing (in Ukranian, not English), along with a shirt that says "Putin is a dickhead," again in Ukranian with an image that superimposes Hitler's moustache on Putin's face.  I could use some new apparel for strolling around the neighborhood and it's for a good cause.

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I'm glad to see Uncle Ken appreciating some of the virtues of Cheboygan, even if he does come off a little snarky.  I'm not sure if he's trying to be witty or is just a condescending dipstick; I can't tell but it doesn't matter.  Anyhow, I've been lurking in the virtual Cheboygan area since I started posting with the Institute.  Since I've been in that area a few times, going so far back as taking the ferry to the U.P. while the bridge was being built, the memories of the northern US keep flooding back.  Most of the time was spent in the Wisconsin part of the great North Woods but northern Michigan is a lot like it, same trees, same kind of folks living there.  The strongest memory I have is the smell of the forests.  Once you get north of Madison in Wisconsin there is a different smell in the air, very clean and fresh.  You might not notice it a car with the windows rolled up and the air conditioner cranking away but it's very obvious on a motorcycle.  The effect is profound; it killed my desire to smoke cigarettes while I was "up there," smoking less than half of what I smoked in the big city.

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So, I think Mr. Beagles made a good choice in making Cheboygan his home.  A different roll of the dice and I might have done something similar but on the Lake Superior side of the Great Lakes.

It's amusing to me that I find myself in agreement with Mr. Beagles much more frequently than I do with Uncle Ken but I have to call him out on something, one last time and then I'll shut up about it.

I posit that there is no overcrowding in the US, at least not to the extent that it's something to get worked up about.  It's true that our population has more than doubled in our lifetimes but we have plenty of room; most folks are moving to the cities or building cities out of smaller towns.  I'd like to know what evidence Mr. Beagles has and if it is something that he has personally experienced.  This isn't a topic that I'm going to beat to death; agreeing to disagree is fine.  But I did a little digging and I learned that the United States is ranked #174 in population density among global nations.  If it's getting crowded here imagine what it's like everywhere else.  As an added treat, I submit images from Bangladesh, one of the most densely populated areas on the planet.  Make of it what you will; we can move on to other topics.

Like this one:

Fact is all pint glasses, hold fifteen and a half ounces.  Just something they do, and they still call them pint glasses because that's what they do.

And they do it for a reason.  The British fluid ounce is a little smaller than the US fluid ounce, so 16 British fluid ounces (a pint) is only 15.37216 US fluid ounces, not quite a US pint.  My source is the 4th Edition of Thomas J. Glover's Pocket Ref (Wikipedia agrees) if you want to argue, and I don't.  But the British Imperial Pint is 20 of their ounces so now I don't what to think.  Just gimme a beer, barkeep!