The 10th century mine could be one of King Solomon’s mines. That is super cool.

Ah me. I haven’t got much tonight. But I figure you probably gave up on last night’s long post half-way through. So just go back and finish it. I’ll wait.

Meanwhile, I share this link to a trailer for an independent movie that looks very much like a straight-to-DVD deal. It’s about Vikings. I only know about it because they took out a full-page ad in the last Sons of Norway magazine.

I can’t find any information on the site about how to order the thing, but I have the addresses if you want them. I can send them to you if you e-mail me.

Personally I think I’ll pass it by. I can smell the cheese, even through my computer monitor. Continue reading Vikings and global peace →

Associated Press reports the arrest of two skinheads who planned to go on a killing spree, targeting black people, and finally to assassinate Barack Obama, wearing white tuxedos and top hats.

Way to demonstrate the old racial superiority, there, guys.

This is one of the reasons I vote for the people I do. “More than 600 adults have been arrested and 47 children were rescued in a three-day roundup targeting people who force children into prostitution.” I expect our officials and law enforcers to this very thing, and I worry about certain political leaders/opportunists who actively or passively promote various perversions and immorality in the name of privacy. No one would defend child prostitution, of course, but some people take a few steps down the road to protecting all manner of deviancy and ridiculing morality. These are the kinds of raids I want the feds to being working on, not ripping Elian Gonzales from his family to take him back to Castro.

At least, I doubt I could handle it. I don’t go in for scary movies or haunted houses, though I have done scant but real research into occultic things–I hate all of it. I want to hate it more than I do even. Regardless, if I were the type to seek out scary adventures for Halloween and I lived in Britain, I’d consider the ones pictured here.

I have a full calendar this weekend. Or rather, full by my standards. Quite leisurely compared with the calendars of those of you who are caring for invalid parents or raising two-year-olds. But if God had meant me to have old parents or young children, he wouldn’t have made me me.

In which case somebody else would be taking care of them anyway.

Tomorrow I ride up to Fargo, North Dakota, to St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, where I shall speak to the Georg Sverdrup Society on “Problems in Translating Georg Sverdrup.” I’m sure they could find room for you as a guest, if you find PowerPoint presentations on 19th-Century Norwegian syntax compelling.

And on Sunday I’ll be with the Viking Age Club at the Bloomington Town Hall Museum in Bloomington, MN. We’ll have an outdoor camp. The forecast high temperature is 40°, with high winds.

Vikings wore down-filled parkas, didn’t they? Sure they did.

There are questions about the story of that McCain volunteer who says she was robbed, then beaten up and then had a letter B “carved” into her face. As others have noted, it doesn’t smell right. I could be wrong, but I don’t like it.

Talk show hosts made much yesterday of graffitti painted on the homes of Sen. Coleman and Congresswoman Bachmann here in Minnesota. Some of these stories failed to notice that some Democrats’ houses were also targeted, notably that of my very liberal congressman, Keith Ellison.

When you’re a Republican, winning shouldn’t be everything.

LiveScience reports: “Fishermen have long known that you can drive earthworms to the surface with a strange technique called worm grunting.

The trick involves driving a wooden stake into the ground and then rubbing the top of the stake with a long piece of steel called a rooping iron. It generates a peculiar grunting sound that drives nearby earthworms to the surface where they can be easily collected for fish bait.”

I wonder if something similar could get the worms out of congress.

Got a flu shot tonight. The first of my life.

Flu shots are another of those items that I’ve always categorized as “for old people.” I’ve always figured I’m tough enough to survive the flu.

But I got the flu last winter, and my reasoning changed to, “Yeah, I could survive the flu, but I, uh… would have a problem working it into my busy schedule.”

On the plus side, from all I’ve read over the decades, the flu vaccine seems to only be correctly targeted about once every three years.

More news below, for those of you who never get enough of listening to middle-aged men describing their ills… Continue reading If you’ve got a minute, I’ll show you my surgery scar too! →

The Internet Monk has a great rant on Halloween here.

My position is, basically, I agree with him. But I fear we’ve gotten to a place where it doesn’t matter anymore. The holiday has been coopted by the occultists–largely because we allowed it to be.

Hat tip: The Thinklings.