We live on the sloping south side of a valley, a hundred feet or so higher than the valley floor. In the mornings we have often noticed a s...

Starchild had this interesting comment on my earlier immigration post “ Wretched Refuse ": Good comments, I largely agree. I also favor...

My father is here for a visit for the next two weeks, so blogging will be light…

A biker stops by the local Harley Shop to have his bike fixed. They couldn’t do it while he waited, so he said he would walk home as he did...

When you live (as we do) in chaparral country, you tend to be more conscious of wildfires than most people — for wildfires are an integral p...

I received this spam today: Subject: did you see that on the news? From: Vince V. Edwardsd, III <drNOshockertxef@zoznam.sk> Tired of w...

On a bronze plaque inside the base of the Statue of Liberty, this poem by Emma Lazarus is graven: Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, W...

Yesterday we — Vera and Konstantin Stankevich , Jim Barnick, and myself — spent the whole day on a grand tour of the Cuyamaca mountain area ...

Global warming, in the sense that most people I know understand it, is the notion that the Earth is getting catastrophically hotter, and it’...

My mom reports on birdly goings-ons in the remote nether regions of New Jersey (yes, that New Jersey): Want to share a 'fun' thing ...

I’m headed off into our local mountains and down to the Anza-Borrego desert for a day of sightseeing with three good friends. If we have an...

Well, it looks like the Jamul Indian Tribe has secured financing to build their casino: Lakes Entertainment, Inc. Announces Signing Developm...

Certainly I won’t argue that crossing the U.S. border without permission isn’t illegal. An interesting fraction — the more rabid — of the a...

I have mostly stayed out of this debate, mainly because I can’t think of much to contribute beyond some more whining. There’s one piece I w...

Unless you’ve been in a coma for the past year, you know that Iran has been aggressively pursuing nuclear weapons, all the while noisily den...

The other day I ran across an interesting statement in a technical article — the author asserted that recent power cost hikes had made the ...

I came home Monday to a house full of puppies. :-) Debbie is on spring break this week and drove over to return the puppies and Picabo. T...

One of the delights of living in the chaparral is the abundant bird life — dozens of species, ten or so of which are very common here. For ...

This morning’s Wall Street Journal (and its free Opinion Journal site) carries a column by Amir Taheri. Mr. Taheri describes in vivid prose...

If you’re one of the (very few) people who read my blog regularly, you may recall my previous bemused ramblings about the strange things tha...