New! Improved! Lighter! Leaner!

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This is now OBE*, as they say, but I preserve it here as mute testimony to one dark night of my soul--the Night I Lost the Blog (now a major motion picture--coming soon to a theater near you!)

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Yes, folks ... your humble bloghost has fallen victim to one of the most preventable online disasters imaginable. Poor security practices on my part allowed my blog to disappear, leaving only such posts as I had saved in order to transfer from one machine to another, along with my correspondents' comments.

(Have I ever told my audience that I first learned DOS back in the mid-80’s after accidentally killing the main hard drive that stored all the standardization and evaluation records for the 62d and 596th Bomb Squadrons at Barksdale AFB? I thought not. The Chief of Stan/Eval, Major Meador—who could be quite intimidating when he wanted to be, which is why he held that job—was amusedly patient, but made it emphatically clear that my future in Stan/Eval, and perhaps even my upgrade to Aircraft Commander, rode on whether I could “get it back.” I did. Eventually. And I learned DOS. What happened last week was kinda the same thing……I now know some HTML! Some. One must break eggs to make an omelet. And a little knowledge is a dangerous thing…..)

Thank God I still have the comments--most of our conversations can be recreated from them. I think this time around, however, I will respond to your learned and reasonable commentary (and Izmud's, too) either in phrases from the dreaded Necronomicon of the mad Arab poet Abdul Alhazred, or from the infamous Hungarian Phrasebook. Here are some examples:

Chefjef: BTW, UCLA is not a liberal campus. I spent a few years there, and can tell you that in particular, the graduate School of Public Policy and Political Science - where I have several friends, to include a doctoral candidate who was a schoolmate of mine- are filled with conservatives and Republicans.

Monk: Ph'nglui mglw'nafh UCLA m'wah Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl Repflabrikan fhtagn fhtagn!!

[Google translation: Great Cthulhu in dead city R'lyeh sleeping will consume UCLA in large Republican gyro spiced with cumin!]

--Or--

Izmud: Pope John Paul II may have been notable and respected for many of his achievements in his lifetime, most particularly in the international relations realm. However, IMO he also bungled the handling of the priest sex scandal cases, and his hard-line stance on modern social issues has led to a Church-admitted net loss of the faithful averaging 10-15,000 per month worldwide!

Monk: Ya, you great poof! Mine hovercraft is full of eels, but I am no longer infected! Drop your panties, Sir Winston ... I cannot wait 'til lunchtime--my nipples explode with delight!

Until I begin posting again, I will paraphrase the immortal words of Wensleydale and Customer:

Reader: It's ... um ... it's not really much of a blog then, is it?

Monk: Finest in the district, squire!

Reader (annoyed): Explain the logic underlying that conclusion, please.

Monk: Well, it's so clean, sir!

Reader: Yes, it's certainly uncontaminated by blogging...

Monk

* Overcome by events