Some good news for the United States to start the new year with.

The oil shale boom is so big, that at least in Texas, you can see it from space.

If there is anything that can pull our economy out of the ditch, cheap and plentiful energy will do it.  Romney would have done everything possible to make that happen.  Obama - well he almost certainly will actively try to defeat it.

Wait, wait! Hold that space shuttle, I'm coming!

The last of the freckles of 2012.  And one giant eyeball.

A spooky report from Bob Owens.

  "I did speak to one harried clerk, briefly.

They didn’t know when they’d be getting anything back in stock, from magazines to rifles to pistols. Manufacturers were running full-bore, but couldn’t come close to keeping up with market demand.It wasn’t just the AR-15s, the AK-pattern rifles, the M1As, and the FALs that were sold out. It really hit me when I realized that the World War-era M1 Garands , M1 carbines, and Enfield .303s were gone, along with every last shell. Ubiquitous Mosin-Nagants—of which every gun store always seems to have 10-20—were gone. So was their ammo. Only a dust free space marked their passing. I’ve never seen anything like it.

Every weapon of military utility designed within the past 100+ years was gone. This isn’t a society stocking up on certain guns because they fear they may be banned. This is a society preparing for war."

Of course, it could have something to do with this attitude among those who presume to rule us:

  "AS the nation teeters at the edge of fiscal chaos, observers are reaching the conclusion that the American system of government is broken. But almost no one blames the culprit: our insistence on obedience to the Constitution, with all its archaic, idiosyncratic and downright evil provisions."

And further, the radical conclusion:

   "If even this change is impossible, perhaps the dream of a country ruled by “We the people” is impossibly utopian. If so, we have to give up on the claim that we are a self-governing people who can settle our disagreements through mature and tolerant debate. But before abandoning our heritage of self-government, we ought to try extricating ourselves from constitutional bondage so that we can give real freedom a chance."

If justice is to truly be served, the first to fertilize the tree of liberty should be all the editors and columnists at the New York Times.

Very weird report from the EU Times, whose reputation I know nothing about, claiming that Hillary Clinton is out of view because she was injured in a plane crash in Iran, during some sort of secret mission.

Sh!t stories like this are completely unbelievable except with an administration like this one, where they are famous for lying, parsing language, and covering up, with the aid of the MSM, the most heinous of behavior.  The very fact that these sorts of things circulate at all shows, if nothing else, what a bad reputation the current government has for a lack of honesty and transparent dealing.

This is what you get when you spend millions to hide your background, as Obama has, or engage in simply unbelievable behavior like arming Mexican drug lords, or leaving Americans to die at the hands of Islamic radicals in Benghazi.

And the story is just plain fun to read, given that no one believes Hillary's stated reasons for not being seen in public recently, even if they are true!

Honestly, if Hill really did have the huevos to go on a secret mission with Seal Team 4 to Iran, I'd have a new respect for her!

Cabin porn

One of the things I'd like to do from now on is sourdough bread, and according to what I hear, the best way to accomplish this is to capture the wild sourdough yeast.

After reading up on how to do that from multiple websites, today I gathered all the needed bait, and prepared the snare.

Below is the whole grain flour, and pineapple juice, which was mixed up in the proper way to make the environment most conducive to the elusive sourdough yeast bugs.

The "mash" ready for the bugs.  I don't really expect this to work the first time, and it takes about a week to know it the right yeast is growing, but you got to start somewhere.  On the other hand, if i can get the starter going, supposedly you can keep it for years as long as you feed it periodically.

How to do it yourself here.  

The adventure begins....

Only in Obama's America could a Russian, writing in the former Soviet propaganda organ, Pravda, urge Americans to be vigilant in protecting their right to keep and bear arms.

Good advice for sure, but still, it's the world turned upside down.

From the article:

For those of us fighting for our traditional rights, the US 2nd Amendment is a rare light in an ever darkening room. Governments will use the excuse of trying to protect the people from maniacs and crime, but are in reality, it is the bureaucrats protecting their power and position. In all cases where guns are banned, gun crime continues and often increases. As for maniacs, be it nuts with cars (NYC, Chapel Hill NC), swords (Japan), knives (China) or home made bombs (everywhere), insane people strike. They throw acid (Pakistan, UK), they throw fire bombs (France), they attack. What is worse, is, that the best way to stop a maniac is not psychology or jail or "talking to them", it is a bullet in the head, that is why they are a maniac, because they are incapable of living in reality or stopping themselves.

The excuse that people will start shooting each other is also plain and silly. So it is our politicians saying that our society is full of incapable adolescents who can never be trusted? Then, please explain how we can trust them or the police, who themselves grew up and came from the same culture?

No it is about power and a total power over the people. There is a lot of desire to bad mouth the Tsar, particularly by the Communists, who claim he was a tyrant, and yet under him we were armed and under the progressives disarmed. Do not be fooled by a belief that progressives, leftists hate guns. Oh, no, they do not. What they hate is guns in the hands of those who are not marching in lock step of their ideology. They hate guns in the hands of those who think for themselves and do not obey without question. They hate guns in those whom they have slated for a barrel to the back of the ear.

So, do not fall for the false promises and do not extinguish the light that is left to allow humanity a measure of self respect.

If you're like me, there is a tendency to use the Christmas season as an excuse to buy yourself presents.

This year, I went overboard, but the "Man tools" I picked up will be useful and fun for years to come.

First, on impulse I saw this Estwing mini wood splitter ( they call it a "Fireside Friend) at the hardware store, and couldn't help myself.  The size of wood I'm normally cutting up for the fireplace is just right for this tool, and it has already been put to good use.  Much better than the hatchet I was using.

I swore off buying any more guns last year, but that lasted until I saw this little beauty, a Ruger SR-22.  Tin cans and pinecones will never be safe again, cause I'm going to make them dance, and dance again with this.

Finally, I found this enormous Lodge cast iron skillet, which I think is the biggest they make due to it's weight.  With five people to feed, it's actually the right size, even though it's a two hander.   Already, as you can see, We've put it to good use, using bacon thick cut from the local butcher, and a recipe from this gal.  Yum!

Cold and quiet

And probably about 15 degrees.

Brrrr.

What, huh?

Yeah!  This is somehow very calming, resulting in a slow smile spreading across the face.

Watch full screen for sure.

Mondays, they're like that.

Does that ice cream smell good?

It was a beautiful Sunday here in Central California.  The two younger kids clamored to go to the mountains, and of course it doesn't take too much encouragement to get me to go. 

Below, the road east toward the Sierras.  The grass is green, and the sun is shining.

It didn't take long, or much elevation gain, to hit snow line, and then it just got thicker and thicker.  Here, we had about a three and a half foot berm to climb over to get above the road.  Bear River Reservoir is down in the hole below.  The temp here was about 20 degrees.  Cold but not crazy cold.

On to Carson Pass.  At about Caples lake it clouded over and began to snow lightly.  At the pass, it was a balmy 12 degrees, with very light snow falling.  A big difference from the sunny central valley below where we started.

The cabin at the pass was deeply buried in nice snow.  They say we have about 140% of the normal snow pack for this time of year.  Looks like that would be accurate.

Here we are at the top, ready to retreat to the warmer land below.  Great fun for young and old.

Whatever she's shooting is nasty!

Via Orbitup

Great gif showing the unbelievable movement on well thrown knuckleball.  Try and hit that!

Busty cabin porn.

Too cool not to post.

The window of opportunity to take this shot was probably ninety seconds.

Firewood art, via Lloyd Kahn.

Thank God there are some folks who just can't help but be creative, even with the most prosaic of things!

Via Ace, a compilation of the best local news bloopers of the year.

Today's offering to the Gods of the open road

Nice

I'd say that this is a spot of good news to start the weekend:

More than 450 teachers and other school employees from around Ohio have applied for 24 spots in a free firearms-training program being offered by the Buckeye Firearms Association. 

Chew on that Diane Feinstein.

In other news from the formerly Great Britain, some advice from the liberal government there on how you are permitted to deal with violence:

“The BBC offers this advice for anyone in Britain who is attacked on the street: You are permitted to protect yourself with a briefcase, a handbag, or keys. You should shout ‘Call the Police’ rather than ‘Help.’ Bystanders are not to help. They have been taught to leave such matters to the professionals. If you manage to knock your attacker down, you must not hit him again or you risk being charged with assault.” 

Pure, unadulterated insanity, which is exactly where the liberals in our country would like to take us.  Buy a gun and some ammo this weekend.

Via Zero Hedge, Google auto suggest gives us a clue about what America is really thinking.

Ed Driscoll is just tearing it up over at his site today.

First up, Ed discusses the demise of the lefty rag Newsweek.  Back in the day, when people still read it, apparently everyone worked drunk after lunch.

MEDIA What was Newsweek like in its glory days? Full of drunks, apparently. You’d turn in your copy, it would be edited and laid out, then a senior editor would come back from a three-martooni lunch and tear it all up. But it was great because there was lots of money and no one ever questioned your expense account.

Goldman: Way, way back in the day, Newsweek commissioned the Maysles Brothers, who were famous documentary filmmakers, to do a promotional film for the magazine. They hung out with cameras around the offices, followed the whole editorial process. Toward the end of the film there was a scene of the Wallenda dinner, and the Wallies were just hammered. And they still used the film to promote the magazine. I was astonished.

 Thomas: Eventually they moved the dinners indoors, up to Top of the Week [the Newsweek dining room], as a way of keeping everybody from getting drunk and disappearing into the night.

 Hackett: It was also much cheaper.

 Goldman: Russ Chapell was a Nation writer when I arrived in ‘62, not long pre-Graham. He was the best newsmagazine writer I think I’ve ever known. He told me something early in my career. “This is a great job,” he said. “You can do it drunk.” And a lot of Newsweek people did.

I guess after everyone sobered up, the quality went down and then they went out of business.  No loss, really.

Next Driscoll rips into the media idiot of the week, David Gregory, who managed to beclown himself publicly while trying to ambush NRA head Wayne LaPierre.  Let's go direct to the good stuff:

Don Knotts’ Barney Fife character was a fictional television deputy sheriff who famously carried only one bullet in his shirt pocket, so that he could do the least amount of harm to criminals, the citizens of Mayberry RFD, and not least of which, himself.

Starring on a television network that’s become increasingly famous in recent years for its fictionalized news, David Gregory is a journalist who goes Barney Fife one better, becoming the first man to shoot himself in the foot with an empty gun magazine.

“David Gregory intended to demonstrate on Meet The Press what he regards as the absurdity of America’s lax gun laws,” Mark Steyn writes in his latest column. “Instead, he’s demonstrating the ever-greater absurdity of America’s non-lax laws:”

A week ago on NBC’s “Meet The Press,” David Gregory brandished on screen a high-capacity magazine. To most media experts, a “high-capacity magazine” means an ad-stuffed double-issue of Vanity Fair with the triple-page perfume-scented pullouts. But apparently in America’s gun-nut gun culture of gun-crazed gun kooks, it’s something else entirely, and it was this latter kind that Mr. Gregory produced in order to taunt Wayne LaPierre of the NRA. As the poster child for America’s gun-crazed gun-kook gun culture, Mr. LaPierre would probably have been more scared by the host waving around a headily perfumed Vanity Fair. But that was merely NBC’s first miscalculation. It seems a high-capacity magazine is illegal in the District of Columbia, and the flagrant breach of D.C. gun laws is now under investigation by the police.

This is, declared NYU professor Jay Rosen, “the dumbest media story of 2012.” Why? Because, as CNN’s Howard Kurtz breezily put it, everybody knows David Gregory wasn’t “planning to commit any crimes.”

So what? Neither are the overwhelming majority of his fellow high-capacity-magazine-owning Americans. Yet they’re expected to know, as they drive around visiting friends and family over Christmas, the various and contradictory gun laws in different jurisdictions. “Ignorantia juris non excusat” is one of the oldest concepts in civilized society: ignorance of the law is no excuse. Back when there was a modest and proportionate number of laws, that was just about do-able. But in today’s America there are laws against everything, and any one of us at any time is unknowingly in breach of dozens of them. And, in this case, NBC was informed by the D.C. police that it would be illegal to show the thing on TV, and they went ahead and did it, anyway: You’ll never take me alive, copper! You’ll have to pry my high-capacity magazine from my cold dead fingers! When the D.C. SWAT team, the FBI and the ATF take out NBC News, and the whole building goes up in one almighty fireball, David Gregory will be the crazed loon up on the roof like Jimmy Cagney in “White Heat”: “Made it, Ma! Top of the world!” At last, some actual must-see TV on that lousy network.

With the help of a Photoshop of Gregory (which I won’t spoil for you, click over to see it), Ann Althouse writes, “I finally figured out what David Gregory displaying that prop reminds me of:”

The plan was for LaPierre to babble lamely, scrambling to explain it away, like the kid trying to concoct some cockamamie reason why that (whatever) got into his room. He’d look foolish and guilty, as Dad continues to hold up the item which the kid knows will be the defeat of every idea that flashes through his stupid, stupid brain.

The scenario didn’t play out as scripted. LaPierre is a stolid veteran of many a confrontational interview. He’s not going to let the interviewer get the upper hand that easily. Somebody needs to tell Gregory: We all want the hand. Hand is tough to get.

Driscoll's place is truly a steak dinner with dessert, coffee, and a blond.   He's got it all.

When seconds count, the police are only minutes away.

Too bad in this case for the thugs, the kids who were home alone but knew where their dad's AR was and how to use it.

Justice was served up at 3200 feet per second, a la carte.

Marcelo Domingues from Brazil snapped this incredible picture of the planet Jupiter as it peeked over the shoulder of the Moon. 

This makes the giant planet look a lot closer than it probably is.

Find the critter in these pictures.

This one's pretty obvious, but it's still amazing just how well the owl's feather pattern allows it to blend in to the tree trunk.

Danger close.  If you were a gazelle, you'd better be able to see what's lurking in the tall grass.

A little gun porn for a Thursday, featuring a Ruger Old Army and stag grips by Sack Peterson.

Beautiful!

Unintentionally ironic headline of the day:

NARAL president quitting - cites lack of young abortion activists.

NARAL is of course the organization that seeks to promote the widespread and frequent use of abortion.

Ideological Darwinism at work.

Via The Other McCain.

A very relevant historical point from Ten Smith, via Free North Carolina:

   "Pretty sure American History isn’t being taught today the same as way 

back when my generation had to learn that stuff.  So here it is, in one 

lesson, just so we all know what we’re talking about.  Remember the 

Battle of Lexington, where the seventy Minutemen of Captain Parker met 

the 800 man advance guard of Major Pitcairn, and the “shot heard ’round

 the world” took place in that early morning in April 1775?   Well, that was 

all about gun confiscation. " 

Perhaps we ought to remind our liberal friends about that little fact, and that they are currently playing the part of King George and the Redcoats.  Those same liberal friends support a leviathan government that controls every aspect of our live, which is not much different than what the king was doing with his redcoats so long ago. 

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

After a long day at work, I found this laugh out loud funny.

NASA better have it's calculations right, as a large asteroid that was only discovered recently will come so close to earth in February that it will pass between the earth and the point at which satellites are placed in geosynchronous orbit.  The NASA people act very certain that there is no risk of an impact, or that earth's gravity will unexpectedly suck the large asteroid in.  I wonder what the margin of error is in the scientist's math?

Looks like a reasonably good snow pack in the Sierras this morning.  However, I have seen that snow bank on the bottom right grow to completely obscure the picture frame.

Better put my snowshoes in the truck!

Professor Jacobson over at Legal Insurrection has reminded us of a post he did back in 2008 whose message is perhaps more relevant now than ever before.

Given that the Republicans under Boehner can't seem to negotiate themselves and the country out of a wet paper bag, might not the best strategy be one that famous Soviet political prisoner of conscience Natan Sharansky employed when he had no power against his jailers, other than the ability to refuse to cooperate.

After all, the Democrats won't follow the law and pass a budget, will they?  They refuse to recognize the truth of the financial crisis, don't they?  Why should we cooperate at all in their calamitous rush to destroy the country?

From the article:

  "Conservatives face a choice. Yield to “progressive” policies which, once implemented will take a generation to undo, or stand on principles of free enterprise, individual liberty, and capitalism? Giving in is much easier, but in the long run more costly. We can learn a lot about the power of standing on principle from Anatoly Sharansky (see my earlier Post).

Sharansky spend almost a decade in Soviet prison because of his activities on behalf of Jews who wanted to emigrate to Israel. Sharansky was subjected to torture and other indignities, but never lost his spirit.Sharansky notoriously refused to obey even the most mundane orders from his captors. Sharansky understood that to compromise even a little would lead to compromising a lot. Throughout his ordeal, Sharansky kept his spirits alive by reading a small book of psalms.

As Sharansky was being led to the airplane that would take him from the Soviet Union to East Germany for the exchange, the Soviets confiscated his book of psalms.It would have been easy for Sharansky simply to keep walking towards the plane and freedom. But Sharansky understood that the Soviets confiscated his book of psalms not because they wanted the book, but because they wanted to show that even in this last moment, they were in control.

In front of reporters covering his departure, Sharansky sat in the snow refusing to move unless the Soviets gave him back his book of psalms. Here was this diminutive man, after 10 years in prison, on the verge of freedom, refusing to budge unless one of the world’s two superpowers gave him back his book. And give him back his book of psalms they did. Sharansky proceeded to the plane, where he read Psalm 30: “I will extol thee, O Lord; for thou hast lifted me up, and hast not made my foes to rejoice over me.”

Jay Nordlinger’s 2005 interview with Sharansky recounts not only the episode in the snow, but also the final moments when Sharansky walked to the car for the exchange:

Sharansky spent nine years in the Gulag, a harrowing time in which he demonstrated what resistance is. More than 400 of those days were spent in punishment cells; more than 200 were spent on hunger strikes. His refusal to concede anything to the Soviet state was almost superhuman. This was true to the very last. When they relinquished him to the East Germans, they told him to walk straight to a waiting car — “Don’t make any turns.” Sharansky zig-zagged his way to that car.

Isn’t it time for conservatives and supporters of free enterprise, individual liberty, and capitalism in the Congress and elsewhere to do the political equivalent of sitting down in the snow? When told by the new administration, the majority party in Congress, and the mainstream media to walk straight, isn’t it time to zig and zag?"

Actor Charles Durning died this week at age 89.  We all remember him from his many roles as an actor, but what I at least didn't know was that the man was awarded three Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star, and a Silver Star for what he did during WWII.

Three Purple Hearts!

Unlike John Kerry, Durning earned his fair and square.

What did he do during WWII?  Read on:

Durning participated in the landing at Omaha Beach on D Day, but his glider overshot the beach and his unit had to fight their way back. He killed seven German soldiers to do it, and was the only member of his unit to survive.

   In late June 1944, Charles was seriously wounded by a mine at Les Mare des Mares, France but refused to seek a military discharge and spent almost 6 months recovering .

   Months later in Belgium, he was stabbed eight times by a German teenage soldier wielding a bayonet; Durning eventually bludgeoned him to death with a rock.  He was released from the hospital in time to fight in the Battle of the Bulge, where he was taken prisoner. After escaping a subsequent massacre of the other prisoners, he was obliged by American forces to return to the scene and help identify bodies. Finally, a bullet in the chest a few months later ended his relentless tour of duty – and began four years of repeated hospitalizations for his physical and psychological injuries.

During his career as an actor, he won a Tony award, and was nominated for two Oscars and four Emmys.

Wow.

Over in China, where they claim to be manufacturing geniuses, a 33 ton shark tank at a shopping mall suddenly shattered, sending three lemon sharks surfing into the facility and injuring 13 people.   The plexiglass was 6 inches thick.  Wonder what happened here?

Frog jewelry  

Beard level: Industrial Strength

The Great One calls it again.

By the way, you and I are the bird in the cage.  Obama and the Democrats are the ones feeding us through the bars.

Time to break the cage.

Cabin porn

What if you were clean out your grandparents barn, and you came across this hidden in a corner.

Holy grail!!

The sixteen year old is making me proud this morning. He got out the cast iron skillet, and cooked himself up a heap of bacon for breakfast. He's not sharing.

Mancard, punched.

Now, I'll work on teaching him how to field strip and reassemble a Colt 1911, blindfolded, with gloves on.  ;-)

The State Department employees who were disciplined for the Benghazi debacle actually aren't being disciplined at all.  That makes sense, given that they were only the fall guys for those higher up who bore the real responsibility.

A State Department security chief who was said to have resigned last week after the release of a scathing report about security lapses at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi in the run-up to the terror attack that killed four Americans reportedly is still on the department’s payroll.

The New York Post reports that Eric Boswell, the assistant secretary of state for diplomatic security, has not resigned from the department, as a State Department spokeswoman indicated Dec. 19. Boswell is instead just “switching desks,” according to the report.

Three other State Department officials, including Charlene Lamb, the deputy assistant secretary responsible for embassy security, were placed on administrative leave after the release of the report. However, according to the Post they are expected to return.

I suppose that the powers that be in government are actually counting on us sheeple not to notice this, and most certainly the MSM won't report the development in any meaningful way, but heck, we should all at the very least repost this story so it gets as much play in the alternative media as possible. 

Just no way.  Tempting disaster.




Via Bits and Pieces

Everyone is talking about the fiscal cliff, and that's very important, but there is a much bigger cliff approaching that puts the current debate in the shade.

  "The real cliff is the gap between what has been promised and what can plausibly be collected in tax revenues: $86 trillion but one recent estimate, over $120 trillion by other guestimates. The difference is caused by the relative rosiness of the projections to control Medicare and Medicaid spending. Lower estimates assume we can stop the growth of these programs in the long-term, something that has not yet happened for the reason that the system lacks any controls to do so.

This gap widens by $7 trillion a year. That is, the promises to present and future retirees and beneficiaries goes up if we count the promises made not just for 2013 but for the future.

This $7 trillion is twice the entire Federal budget and roughly 50% of the nation's GDP. 

Understood in this way, we can see that raising taxes by $200 billion or cutting expenditures by $200 billion is not going to keep us from hurtling off the real fiscal cliff in a few years.

The fiscal cliff is only one edge we're racing toward; there are others. One is a Constitutional Crisis cliff that is just beyond the fiscal cliff, because the Constitution has failed to limit the power of concentrated wealth (the financial Aristocracy) and failed to resolve the Tyranny of the Majority: 50+% of the voters are now dependent on Federal transfers, while 25% pay 90% of the Federal income taxes. Those collecting benefits will naturally vote for what they perceive as their immediate self-interest, which is raising taxes on the minority until the minority rebels.

The only other option is to print the needed $100 trillion, which will destroy the nation's currency and economy. Either way, the 50+% will find the promises made are empty. Either the oppressed 25% opt out ("when belief in the system fades") and tax revenues collapse or everyone's $1,500 transfer from the Federal government will buy a single loaf of bread. Either way, we will face a political crisis."

Those preparing for TEOTWAWKI have the right idea, short term, but the real preparation should be aimed at the question of who replaces the current system when it all falls down.

Trading scrap silver for food from your bug out retreat will only last a short time, as the vast majority of people will demand that someone come along and fix things.  That will be the critical point, as who that person or group of people is will determine what kind of country we live in from that point forward.

Will we have a return to constitutional small government, with power placed with the people, or will the country divide into regional powers governed by de facto warlords?  

That is in fact the question, and the one we should be organizing to control now.

In the next state sized Detroit, California, we learn that one of it's oldest and largest corporate citizens, Chevron, has sent 800 of it's management staff to Texas. 

That is yet another pulse of high paid folks who will now be living the good life in the great state of Texas, not in the formerly great state of California.

There is no doubt in my mind that a huge factor here is the new cap and trade law that goes into effect next year here that will be aimed directly at companies like this.  Why would they stay when they have to basically pay what is in effect a huge new tax, the amount of which is assessed by faceless bureaucrats whose goal is to raise as much money as possible, while pretending to fight the non existent threat of global warming?

There is nothing so insane as a one party state, if that state is controlled by the Democrats. At least on a personal level these 800 people will be able to make a clean escape to a land where the electorate exhibits some sanity.  Too bad the rest of us are stuck here with the certifiable voters who keep electing the likes of Jerry Brown to power.

Once again, the clear thinking Bill Whittle calls it.

“I no longer see a pathway where the ruination of this country can be blamed on incompetence or even rank stupidity. There’s no other explanation left for me now than a deliberate attempt to destroy this economy.”

Watch Bill tell the truth here, it's worth it as always with him.

Something that has irritated me to no end is the seemingly sudden replacement of the terms "BC" and "AD" in referring to the year with the odd and meaningless terms "CE" and "BCE" that apparently refer to the same thing.

Why create unnecessary confusion by changing terms everyone understands with something they don't?

Well, it turns out that a system that has been in general acceptance since 1000AD just isn't politically correct anymore, so the terms "Anno Domini" and "Before Christ" are now supposed to be "Common Era" and Before Common Era, " even though they still measure from the birth of Christ.

To heck with that.  I suggest we all resolve, for the new year of 2013 AD, if you will, to resist this politically correct idiocy by using the venerable old system whenever possible.   Resist we much!

Freckles, even subtle ones, are good.

Cold and quiet

Beard level: Epic.