It’s been a lackluster summer for hummingbirds, until the last few days. Since then a whole flock of Rufus moved in, and now it’s a little scary sometimes.
Until this week that feeder needed filling every four or five days. Now I’m afraid to leave for more than a few hours lest they get mad.
Fortunately they’re not known for their learning ability. Because if they find out I’m a white male…
They say that Louis XIV had the inscription Ultima Ratio Regum cast into all the cannon of the French Army. It means “The Ultimate Argument of Kings,” and that always struck me as one of the most honest and up-front things any ruler or would-be ruler ever said. “We can dress it up prettier than this, but when it comes down to the unvarnished truth this is what it’s about: You’ll do as I say or I’ll send my goons to kill you.”
I thought about that for a long time. If there’s an ultimate argument, it seems only logical that there must be an ultimate answer. For years I thought the ultimate answer must be the bullets in my rifle, but it never seemed quite right. I’ve got bullets – he’s got frigging Cannon Balls. I mean, if there were three hundred million rifles throwing bullets at him, then maybe. But we all know that’s not going to happen. So if there’s an ultimate answer to his ultimate argument, it sure as hell ain’t bullets.
It finally came to me – and that’s when I abandoned the city and most of my stuff, and gave all that was behind me a good stiff Randian Shrug.
The ultimate answer to kings is not a bullet, but a belly laugh.
Little Bear 2009-2018
Laddie the Amazing Torso Boy 2011-2020
"Freedom Outlaw. It’s not what you do; it’s how you do it. It’s an attitude — from which actions always follow. It’s a do-it-yourself occupation. And a lifetime vocation."
- Claire Wolfe, Backwoods Home Companion, 6-07-10
I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite.
- G. K. Chesterton
"If every Jewish and anti-Nazi family in Germany had owned a Mauser rifle and twenty rounds of ammunition and the will to use it, Adolf Hitler would be a little-known footnote to the history of the Weimar Republic."
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"You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs." The sophistry of villains - Bah!
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I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.
- D. H. Lawrence
Aristippus passed Diogenes as he was washing lentils.
He said, “If you could but learn to flatter the king, you would not have to live on lentils.”
Diogenes said, “And if you could learn to live on lentils, you would not have to flatter the king.”
Sandy Hook was a Gun Free Zone. So was the Westroads Mall. And the Aurora Theater. And Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Should I go on? They were all Gun Free Zones.
– Reality
“Political tags — such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth — are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort.”
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"Civilization is the process of setting man free from men."
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If ever a man should ask you
For your business or your name
Tell him to go and fuck himself
Tell his friends to do the same.
For a man who'd trade his liberty
For a safe and dreamless sleep
Doesn't deserve the both of them
And neither shall he keep.
- Frank Turner
Don't be afraid to try something big, just because you're an amateur. The Ark was built by amateurs. The Titanic was built by professionals.
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We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.
- Viktor Frankl
The free man will ask neither what his country can do for him nor what he can do for his country.
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“We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it.”
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There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.
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"Everything the State says is a lie, and everything it has it has stolen."
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John Moses Browning - The most badass Mormon who ever lived.
"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are 'I'm from the government, and I'm here to help.'"
- Ronald Reagan
The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose.
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– Witold Pilecki
Few men desire liberty; most men wish only for a just master.
- Sallust
"Place your clothes and weapons where you can find them in the dark."
- Lazarus Long
Read, every day, something no one else is reading.
Think, every day, something no one else is thinking.
Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do.
It is bad for the mind to continually be part of unanimity.
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“I have found that, to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason. He must be able to detect no inconsistencies in slavery; he must be made to feel that slavery is right; and he can be brought to that only when he ceases to be a man.”
-Frederick Douglass
ESSE QUAM VIDERI –
To be, rather than to seem
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
“A Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black home, and it should be used for that protection which the law refuses to give.”
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Do what thy manhood bid thee do; from none but self expect applause.
He noblest lives and noblest dies, who makes and keeps his self made laws
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Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
– Winston Churchill
“Happiness is a journey, not a destination. Dance as though no one is watching you. Love as though you have never been hurt before. Sing as though no one can hear you. Live as though heaven is on earth.”
― Father Alfred d’Souza
I live up in the Seattle area and have been feeding rufous hummers for at least twenty years. I’ve got a few that winter over but the real crowd starts showing up in April and from then until about the first of July I’m filling that feeder everyday. Then it’s like a switch was thrown and most of them disappear. I always figured the babies were strong enough to travel and they all headed south. I’ve just got a few permanent residents around now and generally have to change it out before it’s empty to keep things fresh. You’re probably feeding little guys that were living at my place three weeks ago.
They can get testy, lol. I call them B52 bombers. : )
Orange lives matter? 🙂 I never appreciated the arrival in early July of the rufuses when they made every effort to run off the rubies that had been our most dependable visitors. Here in town there just aren’t any hummers and it’s so disappointing.
Just don’t wear a hat with flowers on when they’re around unless you have eye protection.
Fortunately I don’t have many flowered hats. Or bright red ones, which are as bad when it comes to close encounters of the hummingbird kind.
Good thing you don’t have the bright coloured hats, it could get ugly…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hplpQt424Ls
JOEL: be glad you aren’t where they breed, up here in central B.C. i have a banding station & typically feed 2-3 thousand per year, 120+ lbs of sugar & up to 130 gallons of syrup per year. you see the babies are like salmon they come back to where they were born so every year we get MORE !! fyi how do you count that many, rule of thumb is 65 birds will go thru 8 ozs. of syrup a day avg.depending on other food sources. up here in the cariboo they are critical pollenators on acct of the few bees we have don’t work in cold weather.been banding here since 2000 & one of our birds was found dead in new orleans just before KATRINA went thru. our version of a message in a bottle. lots of banding stations in the US.kinda cool.whodathunkit ??CHEERS DAN