Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Gobar Gas...

Michael Yon has another excellent dispatch, this time not about war.  As usual, his article is well-researched and lavishly illustrated with his photos.  Go read.

Morning in the Chaparral...

Out with the dogs at 3:30 as usual.  The sky was clear and beautiful once again, with the Milky Way bright and straight overhead.  A quarter moon hung just over the mountains to our northwest, slightly orange.  Just to its right and a little higher, Venus shone, so bright and clear that I imagined I could actually see its disk.  The Big Dipper is now rotated at that hour so that the “dipper” almost sits on the horizon, right-side up.  Just a gorgeous evening sky in the high desert...

The dogs were unperturbed by the chorus of howling, yipping coyotes – there was a pack somewhere quite nearby.  I counted at least five individuals, but there were probably more.  I don't think they were more than 100 yards away from us, off to our west on the flanks of our neighbor's hill.  A dog kennel about a quarter mile north of us joined the coyotes, baying and howling.  It was quite a racket!  But all four of our dogs were just doing their thing, acting as if they didn't even hear all this noise...

In the midst of the canine cacophony, there was one discordant sound: a turkey, giving its occasional gobbling.  Worried, probably, as well he should be.  We have quite a few wild turkeys running around our valley, and I bet one of them would make a very nice meal for a pack of coyotes...

Unix Toolbox...

Nice collection of UNIX/Linux/BSD tools, organized and classified...

Spending More to Save More...

Only a liberal administration could publish this memo with a straight face: the Inspector General reports that the Census Bureau says it that it hired and trained more workers than it actually needed as a “cost savings measure” – and they were serious.  One hardly knows what to say, especially after reading all the details.

Oh, the country is in fine hands!

Are you pissed off yet?  Remember that feeling when you vote today.  Throw out the trash!!!

Political Orientation vs. Knowledge of Economics...

Interesting article by Daniel Klein over at the WSJ.  I'm not surprised at the results: libertarians and conservatives, on average, understand a lot more about basic economics than do progressives and liberals (just look at “Spending More to Save More” nearby)...

North Korea: Tourist Destination?

Well, that's what their tourist bureau thinks.  Here's their advertising video to tell you all about it:




My first reaction on viewing this: it reminded me of the grainy black-and-white movies I saw as kid, showing the Soviet's May Day “celebrations” in Moscow...