Giant Cicada Killer Wasp

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Hi, Mr. Nature here. And some people will do just about anything to be on youtube, including serving as a launching pad for a cicada killer wasp.

They call ’em cicada killers because that’s what they do. The woman in the video isn’t taking a chance on being stung: these wasps hardly ever sting humans. I guess if you grabbed one and abused it, it would sting you. But that’s about it.

We have one of these babies in our garden this morning. Imagine a hornet as big as a big man’s thumb, maybe even just a little bigger, and you’ve got it. They hunt cicadas as food for their larvae, and in the air, they can hover and even fly backwards.

When a female cicada killer stings a cicada to paralyze it, she’ll drag it to her burrow, if nearby. If not, she lugs the cicada up a tree because it’s too heavy to permit her to take off from the ground.

So don’t freak out if you see one of these. They mean you no harm.

The Agony of Reading Books by the Wrong Color People

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Source: The Agony of Reading Books by the Wrong Color People

‘Gone On Before’

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

By way of my “Playground Player” page on chessgames.com, courtesy of our esteemed colleague, <OhioChessFan>, here’s Larry Cordle with a bluegrass offering to the Lord’s praise, Gone on Before. Listen to the lyrics: this is what we believe.

Cats and Fizzy Water

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

If you were a cat, what would you make of a glassful of carbonated water? Water’s not supposed to hiss at you. It shouldn’t spray tiny drops into your face, either. This water does not behave as water should. Certainly it calls for further investigation…

New! Self-Esteem Golf

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Image result for images of hole in one

Patzer Products proudly announces a new line of hi-tech golf balls specially designed to raise and reinforce the golfer’s self-esteem.

Outwardly, Patzer’s Tru-Flite balls look just like any other golf balls. But thanks to a miniaturized digital proactive guidance system on the inside, Tru-Flite will give you a hole in one every time you hit the ball! All you have to do is hit it; the ball will do the rest. Right into the cup, every single time!

Imagine a PGA tournament which everybody wins! In which every golfer hits a hole in one, every time he swings the club! Imagine someone who really stinks at golf suddenly finishing every course 70 strokes under par!

Especially recommended for today’s college students, Tru-Flite balls really do cost a lot–but that’s okay, because The Rich are going to be forced to pay for them.

Memory Lane: Not Quite Built for Two

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

One of the fun things we could do in the summer was modify our bicycles. My friends across the street, Bobby and Ellen, modified two bikes, combining them into a tandem bicycle built for two.

The folks who appear in this video seem to have followed exactly the same easy method of turning two bikes into one. Simply remove the front wheel from Bike A and place its fork over the back wheel of Bike B. You’ll have to tighten the nuts good and tight or the blamed thing will fall apart. Bobby and Ellen’s home-made tandem bike never fell apart, and I think it turned better than this one in the video.

Anyhow, that old double bike looked way cool and we all took turns riding it. But eventually Ellen wanted her front wheel back, so that was the end of that.

Faith and Reason

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Image result for images of happy winston churchill

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen…    –Hebrews 11:1

As I continue to read about Winston Churchill, I encounter many attempts to claim him as an atheist, or at least an agnostic: certainly not a believing Christian. Most of these claims rest on the argument, “Oh, he had too much trust in reason to be a believer!”

For “trust” read faith. As in, he had too much faith to have any faith.

Thing is, you can’t get away from faith. It’s part of you, and you have to put it somewhere. Even an atheist has faith. He just withholds it from God and puts it somewhere else.

Why not put our faith in reason?

First, reason is the gift of God. He put it there, and means for us to use it.

But second, because reason is upset and misdirected by so many things. By prejudice, misinformation, incomplete knowledge, lies, and wishful thinking, just to name a few. We can train ourselves to reason better than we do, but can never train ourselves away from being human (despite the best efforts of secular humanists in that direction). Human reason is inadequate; it cannot stand alone. It’s a good thing, but it’s not everything.

And third, there are things that we hope for, and there are things that we cannot see–and those things are real. We can’t even approach them without faith. Probably can’t even talk about them.

Even a communist has faith, no matter how strenuously he denies it.

 

A Reminiscence of My Father

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Source: A Reminiscence of My Father

‘All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name’

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

This is the hymn I had in me this morning: All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name, by Edward Perronet in 1780. This hymn was sung, I remember vividly, at our open-air hilltop chapel at Y camp, one Sunday morning; and the counselors’ choir sang it with a will. I will never forget what a beautiful day that was, with fields and woodlands spread out below us in every direction. How wonderful are the works of your hands, O Lord!

Cat vs. Books

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

I have a lot of paperback books with these little round holes in the covers. No, it didn’t puzzle me: Robbie bites the covers while I’m reading them.

Whoever shot this video got off easy. All this cat wants to do is pull out the bookmark so you lose your place. Notice that there are no books written by me on the bookshelf. That is disheartening. Not a single one. Betcha the cat would leave those alone, if there were any.