Uranius: Space Cadets

Tonight I decided to track down the legend of the "flying saucer" lady of Lawson Valley. Debbie and I once saw a car with a model flying saucer on top driving out in our area. We could hardly believe our eyes — it looked like a cheap prop from a really, really low-budget movie. A little bit of googling and I had the answer: the flying saucer lady is part of Uranius, an organization based in El Cajon and owning 67 acres in Lawson Valley. The Uranians apparently believe that space aliens will land at this site, prepared for them by members of the organization, at some ill-defined (and mis-predicted on several occasions already) time in the future. The photo at right is of a ceremony the Uranians once held at the Lawson Valley site, with the car leading a procession of...Uranians.

Well. Ain't that something?

On a quest for more knowledge (I know, I know — it pays to be careful on such a quest), I visited the organization's web site. It was not comforting. On the home page, you'll find this statement right at the beginning:

Unarius is a teaching of the interdimensional psychodynamics of the mind.

Since I had no clue what "interdimensional psychodynamics" might be, I sought assistance from the handy page provided at the same site:

When we speak of the new paradigm in science, Interdimensional Physics, as contrasted to atomic physics, it is to all intents and purposes the recognition and perception of the art and science of life.This new science unites atomic physics with the true author, the nonatomic or radiant energy that is the true unified field equation, which is being sought by the scientific community, particularly by physicist, cosmologists, astronomers, and astrophysicists.Interdimensional physics can be thus seen as the language, which is infinite in its translation and that plays a spiritual symphony, music that touches the heart, the mind, and the soul of the individual.The scientific statement of life is, in reality, an understanding of the human being and his or her interactive relationship with the evolutionary physics of life, death and immortality. In this respect, the teachings espoused by the Academy embody a 'person-centered' science, which is fourth dimensional in its design.

Aren't you glad to have that cleared up? I know I am!

I looked for more help, as I was having trouble understanding. I found this video, which you really don't want to miss — check out the snazzy flying saucer with flashing lights in the background, right behind Cosmic Visionary Uriel. Oh, my. Oh, oh, my oh my. Spooky.

At this point, I was reeling. I googled some more and ran across this disciple's web site. He's very careful not to associate himself in any official way with the Uranius organization, but he's clearly a believer. He advises (on his home page):

Various other symbolic forms should be abandoned, such as Yogi breathing, different postures, diets. Throw into the ash can, along with your Bible, any other symbologies, such as astrological charts and begin to replace them with a more intelligent, constructive and life-giving, life-preserving science. Start looking at the Infinite Creator, not as a white-robed Santa Claus ruling through emotional vicissitudes and supposedly creating through hocus-pocus abracadabra—but rather, view the Infinite Creator as the Master Scientist who not only created all things, but which is the substance and form of all things—an unemotional Creator who presents the same opportunity on the same basic plan of evolution to any human who can and will learn of this Creator, its Creative Principle. And in the learning, you will find the Principle in action, for such is Immortal life—a direct and personal continuity with the Infinite Creator which is expressing this same infinite creative thought and action with you, thus supporting and giving you life in your inter-dimensional world.

Holy something-or-other! Look what I've been missing!

Not that I could figure it out from this gobbledegook.

I googled further, seeking something more understandable. I found it here, here, here, and here. This is commentary about Uranius I can understand:

Sanctuary from the sun was short-lived; apparently the ‘Interplanetary Banner Procession’ was about to take place. Several Unariuns, using the tone usually reserved for senile but obstinate grandparents, made a futile attempted to persuade Spiegel to don a hat. A Cadillac led the parade, its roof adorned with a model flying saucer. Goose-stepping behind the saucer mobile were four trumpet-carrying heralds, all dressed in the same science fiction garb as the gatekeeper. Last came the 33 banner carriers, acting as surrogates for extraterrestrial leaders and the planets over which they preside. A white tuxedo’ed MC announced each of the living effigies as they lined up before the audience: “Hello, Namir from Serrena. Welcome, Tal from Rallium. Denios from Planet Ray, welcome…” One banner stood out from the spacey litany; “Welcome, Ruth Norman of Planet Earth”. Finally, as the four Jetson clones mimed blowing their horns to the blaring PA system, 33 white doves were released from a scaled-down replica of a flying saucer.

The article excerpted above was the most useful (and entertaining) one I found. It includes this brief description of what Unarius is all about:

WHAT IS UNARIUS?

Unarius is one of the oldest and most-successful UFO contactee groups. Strictly speaking, the Unarius Academy of Science is a tax-exempt, non-profit educational foundation centred in El Cajon, California. The word Unarius is an acronym for Universal Articulate Interdimensional Understanding of Science. Members call themselves ‘Unariuns’.

What do they believe?

Unarius teaches that humankind is being prepared for a momentous change in consciousness, at which point Earth will be invited to join the Interplanetary Federation as the 33rd planet. Earth, it seems, is a prison planet where beings who have done terrible things in previous lives on other planets are incarnated. Unariuns are encouraged to confess their past-life sins – often in costumed pageants – in order to advance themselves spiritually. To aid them, the Unarius leaders have channelled teachings from ‘advanced beings’ (ascended masters, rulers of higher planets, archangels and interdimensional scientists) explaining consciousness, the origin of life and our connection with galactic intelligence.

There's more, and it's worth reading — both to be forewarned about exactly what the flying saucer people are actually up to the next time they visit "Landing Zone One" (the 67 acres of Lawson Valley they've prepared for aliens), and for the entertainment (and photos!). The author was apparently a history student when he wrote this piece (in 2002) for the Fortean Times.

I'll end this post with my favorite line from all the Uranic reading I've done tonight, from one of the sites I linked above:

But alas, these facts don't fully convey the Unarius style, which was personified by Ruth Norman, a true American original who combined the couture sensibilities of a drag queen with the joi de vivre of a Frisbee-chasing Irish Setter.

APOD

APOD brings us...

Typically, views from Mauna Kea are up and dark. That's because the famous dormant volcano in Hawaii is arguably Earth's premier observing platform of the complex and ever changing night sky. However, this daytime view is across and bright. White snow and white clouds seem to blend together to make an alien landscape. Cinder cones from extinct volcanic outbursts dominate the foreground. Scrolling right will reveal structures visually incongruous even here: an armada of the largest optical telescopes on Earth. The observatories seen include Subaru and Keck. In the distance on the far left is Mauna Loa, Earth's largest volcano.

Click on the picture for a larger view.

Deep Impact!

Late last night, at 10:52 PM PST, NASA's "Deep Impact" mission was completed in a spectacularly successful fashion. I stayed up (very late for me!) to watch it live on NASA TV, which was a fascinating experience. I'm used to hearing NASA and JPL folks calling things "nominal", by which they mean that things are proceeding as they expected. In this case, they repeatedly got results that bested "nominal", and you could see the satisfaction, excitement, and pride in the surprisingly large team and one milestone after another was passed with complete success.

In the photos to the right, the left photo is from the high-resolution camera on the flyby spacecraft. You'll recall that yesterday Deep Impact released a separate spacecraft (the "Impactor"). That left photo is showing the result of the Impactor doing its job; it was taken a few seconds after the Impactor impacted. The bright "ejecta" is all the stuff thrown up by the heat and force of Impactor striking the comet's nucleus. It was clear from the reaction of the scientists that the ejecta was much brighter and much more obvious than they were expecting. Getting unexpected results is the hallmark of good science in progress! The right photo was taken from the Impactor just 60 seconds before it struck the cometary nucleus at a relative speed of 23,000 MPH.

Click on either photo for a larger view.

It will be very interesting over the next few days, weeks, and months to see the discoveries made as the extraordinary data from this mission are analyzed. You can stay informed about this directly from NASA's Deep Impact web site.

Lawson Valley weather

Well, it's only taken me six months to get the information from my WeatherHawk weather station (photo at right; click for a larger view) hooked up to my web site...but it is up there at last. You'll see this page evolve over time, but for now the basics are up there. You can see current conditions as well as the past week's history...

If you're curious about the WeatherHawk itself, you can read about it here. From their website:

WeatherHawk is a system composed of weather monitoring meteorological instruments with data loggers to store measurements. Discover how the WeatherHawk wireless personal weather station combines high reliability sensors, powerful spread spectrum radios, and display software options to create a family of easy-to-use weather stations. Look at our partial customer list of companies and government agencies that have selected a WeatherHawk weather station for their requirements.

California Thrasher

California Thrashers (toxostoma redivivum) are very common here, and yet they're a bit of a challenge to photograph. The problem is that they're constantly moving, usually on the ground, with quick, jerky motions that require quite a high shutter speed to capture. This one spent a little time foraging for bugs in the bark of a flowering plum, and then decided to perch for just long enough to fluff up and preen, and for me to take a few pictures.

In the left hand picture, especially, this one looks sort of odd. Normally the thrashers are sleek and buttoned-down, but this one has let it all hang out <smile>. A few seconds after I took these pictures, he hopped down to the ground around our cracked corn feeder, and commenced scratching about a furious pace — and despite the fact that it was but a few feet away from me, I was unable to get a single picture of it. I just couldn't aim and focus fast enough to keep up!

As usual, click on the photos to get a larger view...

Hooded Oriole

This breeding male Hooded Oriole (icterus cucullatus) was taking a break from his feeding in our Liquid Amber tree, sitting in a baby aleppo pine. He appears to have caught something (a tasty bug?) in his beak, but I can't quite make out what it is...

Click on the photo for a larger view.

Spotted Towhee

This is a Spotted Towhee (pipilo maculatus) scratching for cracked corn in our back yard. I believe it's a juvenile — it looks very much like Sibley's drawing of a juvenile of the Great Plains variant (he has no juvenile for the other variants).

Click on the photo for a larger image.

Krauthammer hammers

Conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer recently published an excellent article titled The Neoconservative Convergence, detailing the events and forces leading to the current ascendancy of neoconservative policy in the United States. It's an excellent article, and I highly recommend sitting quietly somewhere for an hour or so to absorb it carefully — for it's quite sobering to realize how close we really came to having a very different reality. One that I'm pretty sure I'd have been quite unhappy about.

Here's an excerpt to give you the flavor of this piece:

In Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and elsewhere in the Arab world, the forces of democratic liberalization have emerged on the political stage in a way that was unimaginable just two years ago. They have been energized and emboldened by the Iraqi example and by American resolve. Until now, it was widely assumed that the only alternative to pan-Arabist autocracy, to the Nassers and the Saddams, was Islamism. We now know, from Iraq and Lebanon, that there is another possibility, and that America has given it life. As the Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, hardly a noted friend of the Bush Doctrine, put it in late February in an interview with David Ignatius of the Washington Post:

"It’s strange for me to say it, but this process of change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq. I was cynical about Iraq. But when I saw the Iraqi people voting three weeks ago, 8 million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world. The Syrian people, the Egyptian people, all say that something is changing. The Berlin Wall has fallen. We can see it."

The Iraqi elections vindicated the two central propositions of the Bush Doctrine. First, that the desire for freedom is indeed universal and not the private preserve of Westerners. Second, that America is genuinely committed to democracy in and of itself. Contrary to the cynics, whether Arab, European, or American, the U.S. did not go into Iraq for oil or hegemony but for liberation—a truth that on January 30 even al Jazeera had to televise. Arabs in particular had had sound historical reason to doubt American sincerity: six decades of U.S. support for Arab dictators, a cynical “realism” that began with FDR’s deal with the House of Saud and reached its apogee with the 1991 betrayal of the anti-Saddam uprising that the elder Bush had encouraged in Iraq. Today, however, they see a different Bush and a different doctrine.

There's much, much more. My favorite Krauthammer line:

In the absence of omnipotence, one must deal with the lesser of two evils.

He's explaining that the Bush doctrine's apparent policy inconsistencies (we topple Hussein, but leave Assad in place) are actually pragmatism at work. But he says it in a much pithier way <smile>. Don't miss this one...

Thoughts of a soldier

Danjel Bout, aka "Thunder6", blogs from Iraq on 365 and a wakeup. His most recent post ends with this thought:

Our country has drawn a line in the sand, and committed her forces to allowing Iraq to choose her own destiny. If we turn our back on that solemn pledge we not only dishonor the memory of the troops that sealed this promise with their very lifeblood, we embolden the jihadists bent on destroying everything we stand for. Do I want to melt under the blistering sun day in and day out? No. Do I want to shuffle off this mortal coil in a foreign land? Again no. Did I want to leave my beautiful bride? A thousand times no. But in the end it comes down to this. I would rather see this through to the end and spend the rest of my days in peace - then leave this country before the mission is through and have these same jihadists attack the fertile soil of home.

The standard line from the left is that the war in Iraq has no connection to the war on terror; worse, that it is a distraction. I believe, as do many others, that in fact the war in Iraq is a key part of the only viable strategy anyone has put forth to actually win the war on terror. One element of that strategy is to engage the enemy (that would be the terrorists) somewhere — anywhere — other than in the United States. For some reason, France comes right to mind, but never mind that <smile>.

It's interesting to see how a soldier in Iraq views this issue that seems to be a bright line of division between the liberal and conservative politics here at home. Danjel comes down very clearly on the conservative side — despite the personal risk and impact. Since this is a position I agree with, I (of course!) find much to admire in this.

But I wonder what the moonbats would make of it?

Chuck meets POTUS

Readers of my blog know that one of my favorite milbloggers, Chuck Ziegenfuss of From My Position... On the way!, was injured a couple of weeks ago in Iraq by an IED. He's back in the U.S. now, and his wife (Carren) has made a few posts to keep everyone updated about Chuck's condition. Bottom line, as I understand it: he's seriously injured, but will recover everything that really matters.

In her latest post (and don't you dare miss it!), Carren writes about President Bush visiting Walter Reed and Chuck:

Yes, we met President Bush today. He is an AMAZING man! As human as we all are... and genuinely cares about the American people. I will not go into detail about what we talked about, that will be up to Chuck. Let's just say it was a day we will never forget. If you do not support Bush, that is your choice... please do not post your opinions (if they are negative) on this blog. I do not want a political debate. My husband met his Commander in Chief - and the honor was all ours.

I'm delighted to be able to say that when I looked at the comments this morning, they were all postive — no moonbat ravings at all...

Carren also posted some comments by Joe, a friend of Chuck's who visited him at Walter Reed. A sample (but don't miss the whole thing):

The reason I asked Carren to post this though, is not so that I can make jokes or give an update on his condition.
Today I got a slap in the face.
Today I saw my friend in a hospital bed in pain.
Today as we drove around Walter Reed I saw men on crutches, mending wounds.
Today I saw men who were missing an arm or a leg or both.
Today I saw a portion of what it costs others, so that I and people like me, can sit in my comfy chair and bitch about the price of gas. So that I don’t have to worry about explosions in my back yard or if the car behind me is full of C4.

Today I saw that they are doing their part and more.
WE NEED TO DO OURS!

Indeed.

O'Connor's replacement

You know there's going to be a fight. You know the moonbat wing of the "Democratic" party — unfortunately in the ascendency — are going to try to block any candidate nominated by Bush, no matter how reasonable. In fact, you can just about predict the kind of rhetoric we're going to hear, can't you?

Scott Ott at ScrappleFace can. And he knows just the fellow to do it:

Kennedy Slams Unnamed Supreme Court Nominee
by Scott Ott

(2005-07-02) -- Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-MA, today criticized President George Bush's as-yet-unnamed replacement for retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor as a "brutal, Bible-thumping, right-wing ideologue who hates minorities, women and cocker spaniels."

Ah, vintage Scott Ott. Guaranteed to nail a point home, and to make you laugh while he does it. He ends this way:

The Senator's office issued a news release to the media documenting the allegations against the potential high court judge, with a convenient blank line allowing reporters to fill in the nominee's name as soon as that information is leaked.

Don't miss the whole thing.

Spotted Towhee

I spotted this Spotted Towhee (pipilo maculatus) early this morning, as I was searching for orioles. He was perched up near the top of a flowering plum that is being taken over by our Chinese wisteria, just catching the rays. He even looks like he needs some coffee to get him started!

When we first moved out to the chapparal, these were one of my favorite birds to try to spot — I thought they were very elusive (and reclusive!). Now we've got scads of them right in our yard, attracted by both the cracked corn (they scratch feed just like chickens) and the waterer. And when we go for a walk, away from the yard, for some reason I no longer find them difficult to spot. The logical explanation is that I've gained some towhee-spotting skill, but what it feels like to me is that the towhee community decided that I was an okay guy, and they all decided (simultaneously) to refrain from hiding from me.

I like this photo mostly because it is showing off that distinctive red eye very clearly. Once I espied that eye (and how could I miss it?), there was no doubt that this was a Spotted Towhee.

Click on the photo for a larger view.

California Quail

California Quail (callipepla californica) are one of the delights of living out in the chapparal. We encourage these beautiful birds with cracked corn; rather large quantities of it, as a matter of fact. As a direct consequence of the corn (and a nearby waterer), we have dozens — maybe hundreds — of quail who include our yard as part of their daily routine. They've grown quite accustomed to us, usually ignoring us when we're at the window as little as 10 feet away, even when we open the window to see them more clearly. And sometimes, when we walk outside, they don't flee until we're a few short feet away from them.

In the picture is an adult male, caught in very early morning light. He was standing about 15 feet from me as I shot this, using a stabliized 1280mm lens, handheld, with ASA 800 and 1/60th second. The picture on the right caught him with his eye closed purely accidentally; I just thought it gave him a cute expression (if you'll forgive the anthropomorphism).

Click on the photos for a larger view.

Oriole

This is a male Hooded Oriole (icterus cucullatus), a breeding adult of the Western variant. For the past week or so, we've had two (and possibly three) pairs of Hooded Orioles feeding from the blossoms of our two Liquid Amber trees. They seem to favor these over all other food sources when they're in bloom, which makes spotting them a much easier problem. Their behavior, generally, is to stay in the Liquid Amber tree (which has broad leaves, densely packed, offering great cover), coming out just once in a while (perhaps three or four times per hour).

At left above, he's perched in an aleppo pine about 20 feet from the Liquid Amber tree; this was his most frequent maneuver. Just once in the early morning, I saw him drop to the ground, right under the Liquid Amber tree (right photo above). I've never seen them on the ground before, so this has to be a fairly unusual behavior. I speculate that he dropped a blossom or two and was retrieving it, but I never did see him pick up anything in his 90 seconds or so on the ground. Just toward the camera from the Hooded Oriole you can see a California Towhee — who got into a dust-up with the oriole, causing him to fly away...

That right photo above, by the way, was taken with a 1280mm stabilized telephoto, handheld, at 1/30th second, at 1600 ASA (the morning light was very dim). This modern equipment is amazing!

As usual, click on the photos for a larger view...

Rabbit

I caught this young rabbit in the early morning light, looking over the offerings in our back yard.

Actually, it's most likely a hare — specifically a Black-Tailed Hare or Black-Tailed Jackrabbit (lepus californicus). According to our books on local natural history, that's the most likely candidate for these things.

Since we started putting out cracked corn for the quail a few years ago, we've become the home for an ever-expanding colony of these hares — so many that we're probably going to have to do something to control the population someday soon, as they're eating everything in sight (including the majority of our cracked corn!).

I keep thinking of a nice rabbit stew, but Debbie can't bear the thought of eating the "cute little bunnies". As usual, click on the picture for a larger view...

Western Scrub-Jay

The Western Scrub-Jay (aphelocoma californica) is a common chapparal denizen. We have dozens of them on our property, which is mostly covered with the manzanita-chemise chapparal that is so characteristic of San Diego County's foothills. Almost any direction you might choose to look, and at almost any time of day, you're sure to see one of these fellows perched, sentry-fashion, in the top of a manzanita or other good lookout spot. You're also quite likely to hear him, as he scolds you for having the unmitigated gall to occupy his territory!

There's actually no simple way to know the gender of these birds, as they are not sexually dimorphic. There are two variants, according to Sibley: a "Pacific" and a "Interior"; ours match the "Interior" variant best in appearance, but in behavior (bold and conspicuous) they more closely match the "Pacific" variant. We suspect ours are just all mixed up.

Our feeders attract the jays, most especially the cracked corn and the oil sunflower seed. In fact, we had to get some special feeders to keep the jays out in order to give any other birds a shot at the oil sunflower seeds!

Click on the picture for a larger view...

APOD

APOD brings us...

Venus, Mercury, and Saturn wandered close together in western evening skies last week. On Saturnday, June 25, astronomer R. Jay GaBany recorded this snapshot of their eye-catching planetary conjunction, from historic Lick Observatory on Mt. Hamilton, California, USA. The view looks toward the Pacific shortly after sunset with the lights of San Jose and the southern San Francisco Bay area in the foreground. Of course, Venus is the brightest of the trio. Mercury is nearby on the right and Saturn is below and left, closest to the horizon. Farther to the right of the planetary triangle are Pollux and Castor, twin stars of Gemini, with Regulus, bright star of the constellation Leo, at the very upper left corner of the picture. In the coming days, Venus and Mercury remain close, while Saturn continues to drop below them, toward the horizon.

Click on the picture for a larger view.

Four dead in Jamul: update

A van full of illegal aliens crashed head-on with a local's pickup truck, on Route 94 not far from the Bravo Cafe and the feed store. At least four people in the van died; the driver of the pickup (a 79 year old — and apparently very tough — woman) survived the crash with moderate injuries.

The Union-Tribune picked up the story; an excerpt:

At least eight people were injured, six of them critically. One was still trapped in a vehicle a half-hour after the wreck and Heartland Fire personnel were trying to rescue him, a dispatcher said.

The Chrysler minivan had 11 undocumented immigrants in it, said California Highway Patrol Officer Brian Pennings. He said the driver avoided a Border Patrol checkpoint near Otay Lakes Road, southeast of the crash, by swerving into opposite lanes.

The Border Patrol was not pursuing the van when the collision occurred, Pennings said.

This accident plays right into one of the things that really scares me — the idea that my life might be ended (or drastically changed through some awful injury) by the actions of someone else, over which I have absolutely no control. What happened to the illegal aliens is horrible enough, but the fact is that they go into that situation through their own actions. Think of that tough 79 year old woman — through no fault of her own, and probably without any option on her part, she became a victim of this situation. I hope she's going to be ok; I'm not really sure what "moderate injuries" means. Yikes!

Update: Since the early reports, apparently another one of the injured has died, making a total of five deaths. The injured woman was 69 years old, not 79 as reported earlier. Her name is Floella Jones, but I've not been able to find any information to contact her, including the hospital.

Update 2 (and bump): A reader (thanks, Lissa) emailed to tell me about Floella:

I am a friend of Floella Jones; and I have recently visited her. She is doing fine. She's still in some pain but is recovering remarkably quickly. At the time of the accident, she was overwhelmed with grief for those who were not as fortunate as she was and is praying for the full recovery of those who were injured and survived. She is also praying for the comfort of the families and friends of those who perished. And she apparently holds no grudge towards the driver who caused the accident. In fact, she laments that he has ruined his life so much at such a young age. And she is praying for his complete physical, emotional and spiritual healing. Mrs. Jones is also recovering remarkably from the emotional pain that the accident caused her, even though those wounds are likely to take her the rest of her life to fully recover from.

Floella sounds like a remarkable lady, blessed with grace and strength.

Slimy Mollusc

Well, it's happened again — my blog has jumped up another couple of notches in the TTLB (The Truth Laid Bear) Ecosystem. In a couple of earlier posts (here and here) on the same subject, I noted the blog's rise from "Insignificant Microbe" to "Crunchy Crustacean". Well, now it has advanced to "Slimy Mollusc", ranked at #18,255 out of 32,207.

According to TTLB's FAQ, the way the ecosystem works is that it counts all the links from other blogs to the blog being ranked. It can't be quite that simple, though, as my blog's ranking changes even when the number of links doesn't. And...the number of links is very small. I suspect that both traffic and longevity enter into the rankings in some manner as well. But that's just my suspicion!

Anyway, for now I'm just enjoying my blog's rapid climbing of the TTLB Ecosystem's evolutionary ladder. From "Insignificant Microbe" to "Slimy Mollusc" in two weeks! Hooray!

Hmmm... Now if we could just get politicians and their institutions to evolve at a similar rate, maybe we'd make some progress in this world...

600 dead in 2 years

Ever since 9/11, I've done a lot of reading about politics worldwide, with a special emphasis on terrorist activity, the war on terror, and the spread of secular democracy (which I think is the only good strategy on the table for countering terror sponsored or justified by religion). I think of myself as reasonably well-informed on these topics. So I've read quite a few stories about Islamic terror activity in Thailand...but somehow I've managed (until this morning) to be oblivious to this fact:

Over 600 people have died in southern Thailand at the hands of these terrorists in just the past two years.

Can you imagine any modern, developed country sustaining this level of casualties from terrorist activity, and not having it reported in the news? What the heck is going on here? Hat tip to Kate at small dead animals, who says (after reading the same news):

I did not know that.

While I appreciate that they have their hands full pursuing the Self-Fulfilling Prophesy Project in Iraq, one would think that our khaki-clad friends covering the international "militancy" beat might have mentioned it in passing.

Of course, without US involvement second tier terrorist zones like Thailand have nearly no hope of breaking into the international news.

I'm sure she's right about this additional bias, which I'll call the "bubble-headed celebrity bias", to go along with the well-understood liberal bias. Just what we all need. And it's another reason to avoid the MSM. Kate goes on to say much more on this topic.

Hapless but lovable???

If I didn't see all the news coverage of this, I'd have trouble believing it. A blackface-like caricature, an old comic character, being "celebrated" on a series of stamps. From the Mexican government. For real. The last time I saw anything like this was Amos and Andy reruns from the '50s.

How on earth could any official in Mexico have allowed this to happen, much less the whole string of them it must actually have taken? It seems easier to believe that this was driven, top-down, over the objections of a slew cover-your-butt bureaucrats. Or could it actually be an accurate reflection of the state of Mexican culture and sensitivities? Anyway you look at it, I just can hardly believe it...

La Shawn Barber is not happy about this:

Dark-skinned people of African descent are subjected to this in Mexico? They have a big Negro problem down there, do they?
...
To see it in 2005 coming from any country or anyone raises my blood pressure.

The "hapless but lovable" phrase is lifted right from the CNN story's text:

The series of five stamps released for general use Wednesday depicts a child character from a comic book started in the 1940s that is still published in Mexico.

The boy, hapless but lovable, is drawn with exaggerated features, thick lips and wide-open eyes. His appearance, speech and mannerisms are the subject of kidding by white characters in the comic book….Activists said the stamp was offensive, though officials denied it.

To which La Shawn replies:

Hapless but lovable? Who wrote this garbage? Probably some white, American, liberal journalist. Before my whole day is ruined, I need to stop writing.

I'm sure she's right, sadly. Which makes me wonder if some of might righteous indignation ought to be directed at institutions a little closer to home...

What is wrong with them?

Peggy Noonan has a new column up, wherein she asks "What is wrong with them?" She's speaking of our political representatives in Washington.

Peggy picks on several recent examples of politico self-absorption (a bit of an oxymoron, that), starting with Barack Obama's recent comparision of Abraham Lincoln to, well, himself:

Actually Lincoln's life is a lot like Mr. Obama's. Lincoln came from a lean-to in the backwoods. His mother died when he was 9. The Lincolns had no money, no standing. Lincoln educated himself, reading law on his own, working as a field hand, a store clerk and a raft hand on the Mississippi. He also split some rails. He entered politics, knew more defeat than victory, and went on to lead the nation through its greatest trauma, the Civil War, and past its greatest sin, slavery.

Barack Obama, the son of two University of Hawaii students, went to Columbia and Harvard Law after attending a private academy that taught the children of the Hawaiian royal family. He made his name in politics as an aggressive Chicago vote hustler in Bill Clinton's first campaign for the presidency.

You see the similarities.

She concludes with this:

What is in the air there in Washington, what is in the water?

What is wrong with them? This is not a rhetorical question. I think it is unspoken question No. 1 as Americans look at so many of the individuals in our government. What is wrong with them?

Is she right? Is this something that most Americans feel? Trying to think of counter-examples myself, I mostly come up with more outrageous examples of her point: McCain, Pelosi, Reid, Kennedy, Byrd all immediately come to mind as examples of precisely what Peggy is talking about. But I can think of at least a few counter-examples: Bush (G.W.), Zell Miller, Newt Gingrich (most of the time), Duncan Hunter. That's a very short list. Ok, so Peggy's at least asking a question about a real phenomenon. Is it really so mysterious what's wrong with them? Color me cynical, but I don't think it's very mysterious at all. They're corrupt...not in the legal sense, but in the moral sense. I believe that by and large, their principles are driven fairly directly by what generates campaign contributions. So...if Peggy is right, either I'm wrong, or most people haven't yet figured out that I'm right. I wonder what Peggy believes; she doesn't say...

You can read her whole column on Opinion Journal.

Mark Steyn, again

Here's how his latest column starts:

A couple of months ago, on our Letters page, Mr Tony Roberts of Cheltenham responded to my column on the Pope's death as follows: "Presumably Mr Steyn has never had casual sex, or, if he has, maybe his sensitivity to the 'splendour of truth' prevented him from deriving any pleasure from the experience."

I resisted the urge to respond, confident that within 48 hours the Daily Telegraph mailroom would be deluged by the maidenhood (if that's the appropriate term) of Britain rising to my defence, pointing out that memorable 20 minutes - well, okay, six - in the back of my second-hand Austin Princess in the lay-by on the B47932 just after the mini-roundabout for the industrial estate back in 1987.

Alas, there was only a deafening silence, as readers remained unaccountably preoccupied with war, elections and other trivia. It seemed faintly unbecoming for a Daily Telegraph columnist to protest about how much action he's getting, but, had I run into Mr Roberts in the Cheltenham singles bar, I would have endeavoured to explain that what's at issue is not which of us is getting more and better casual sex but whether it's an appropriate organising principle for society. Or at any rate whether a cult of non-procreative self-gratification is, as the eco-crazies like to say, "sustainable".

Read the rest here.

The column is about the prospects for the EU, and the money line in the conclusion is this:

A political entity hostile to the three principal building blocks of functioning societies - religion, family and wealth creation - was never a likely bet for the long term.

My own observation of Europe over the past few years, which has been very skewed simply because of where my business took me, is that the great hope for Europe lies in its east — in the new democracies, where I can see entrepreneurs hard at work building economies. Mark seems to think the hope for Europe lies in its west, with the United Kingdom. Hmmm....maybe we've got a pincer maneuver going there, and I didn't realize it!

Chuck hit, but ok

Chuck Ziegenfuss is a 'milblogger' — an active-duty soldier who was, until very recently, deployed in Iraq. He's been posting regularly from Iraq, and his blog ("From My Position... On the way!") has long been on my daily reading list. Around June 20th (I'm not sure of the exact date), Chuck was injured by an IED; badly but not life-threatening. He was evacuated immediately to Germany, and a few days later to Walter Reed, where he is now. He's started the series of surgeries to repair the damage done, and he's being visited by his family, including his wife Carren.

Though I found myself reacting very strongly to the fact of Chuck's injury (because I "know" him through his blogging), I haven't posted about it before — too many other people were saying the same things that I would have, and better. And that's largely still true. But over the past few days, Chuck's blog is still being updated — not by him (his injuries, of course, prevent that), but instead by his wife. Carren has made several posts since Chuck's injury, and they are both inspiring and interesting for their content, and for the straightforward view they provide into what happens when one of our soldiers is injured. Reading her posts, you just can't help admiring her pluck and positive attitude.

Go read Carren here and at the blog everyday.

And please don't forget to include Chuck and all our injured warriors in your thoughts, prayers, and actions (including some of Carren's suggestions)...

Patches

A dog story with a happy ending...

This past Monday morning, Jim visited us (as usual) at 4:30 am for his morning cup of coffee. But this time, he had a dog on his doorstep (and he doesn't own a dog). It was a female mutt, mostly black with a few patches of white, and appeared to have a bit of German shepard in her. She was a very sweet dog, obviously cared for. She had a collar, but no tags.

Jim loaded the dog-stranger into his pickup and drove over to our house with her. Debbie, a serial animal rescuer, then went to work on repatriating the dog while Jim and I traveled to work. I got updates during the day on Monday that went roughly like this:

— talked with the neighbors; nobody ever saw her before
— put up signs all over the neighborhood
— nobody called about the dog
— nobody called about the dog
— nobody called about the dog

Then the breakthrough: on examining her more closely, Debbie discovered that our visitor had a 'chip' (a microchip, injected under the skin, that has a code number identifying the dog). Debbie knew that one of our neighbors (a Rottweiler breeder named Paula) had a "wand" for reading 'chips', so she hauled our dogly visitor down there and got the number read. Then she called our friend and vet (Jo) to find out where to call to find out who owned the dog with that code. Then she called that number, and a little while later got a call back with the owner's name and phone number. Finally, she called the actual owner's number...and got a woman who, when she figured out why Debbie was calling, burst into tears of joy to hear that her dog was safe and sound, and that she had just a few minutes drive to be reunited. Her husband came by a few minutes later, and Debbie reports (and I wish I'd seen it) that our visiting dog was over-the-top joyful to see him. And he was very happy to see her. He told Debbie that he and his wife had steeled themselves for the worst when their dog was missing overnight and they heard the coyotes baying (as they do every night). They really didn't expect a happy outcome...

It turns out that our visitor was named "Patches", and that she had escaped by opening a patio door into an unfenced yard. The owners live a mile or so away from us, as the dog runs, but much further (perhaps 10 miles) by road, so even though they are actually quite close neighbors (by our standards out here), we don't think of them as such.

This was the first direct experience we've had with the effectiveness of those 'chips' (which we have in all our animals). It was actually pretty comforting to know that this very small piece of modern technology can make such a difference...

APOD

APOD brings us...

Are the nearest galaxies distributed randomly? A plot of over one million of the brightest "extended sources" detected by the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) shows that they are not. The vast majority of these infrared extended sources are galaxies. Visible above is an incredible tapestry of structure that provides limits on how the universe formed and evolved. Many galaxies are gravitationally bound together to form clusters, which themselves are loosely bound into superclusters, which in turn are sometimes seen to align over even larger scale structures. In contrast, very bright stars inside our own Milky Way Galaxy cause the vertical blue sash.

Click on the picture for a larger view.

Sunset on Mars

From NASA, via the Spirit rover on Mars:

A Moment Frozen in Time

On May 19th, 2005, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit captured this stunning view as the Sun sank below the rim of Gusev crater on Mars. This Panoramic Camera (Pancam) mosaic was taken around 6:07 in the evening of the rover's 489th martian day, or sol. Spirit was commanded to stay awake briefly after sending that sol's data to the Mars Odyssey orbiter just before sunset. This small panorama of the western sky was obtained using Pancam's 750-nanometer, 530-nanometer and 430-nanometer color filters. This filter combination allows false color images to be generated that are similar to what a human would see, but with the colors slightly exaggerated. In this image, the bluish glow in the sky above the Sun would be visible to us if we were there, but an artifact of the Pancam's infrared imaging capabilities is that with this filter combination the redness of the sky farther from the sunset is exaggerated compared to the daytime colors of the martian sky. Because Mars is farther from the Sun than the Earth is, the Sun appears only about two-thirds the size that it appears in a sunset seen from the Earth. The terrain in the foreground is the rock outcrop "Jibsheet", a feature that Spirit has been investigating for several weeks (rover tracks are dimly visible leading up to Jibsheet). The floor of Gusev crater is visible in the distance, and the Sun is setting behind the wall of Gusev some 80 km (50 miles) in the distance.

This mosaic is yet another example from MER of a beautiful, sublime martian scene that also captures some important scientific information. Specifically, sunset and twilight images are occasionally acquired by the science team to determine how high into the atmosphere the martian dust extends, and to look for dust or ice clouds. Other images have shown that the twilight glow remains visible, but increasingly fainter, for up to two hours before sunrise or after sunset. The long martian twilight (compared to Earth's) is caused by sunlight scattered around to the night side of the planet by abundant high altitude dust. Similar long twilights or extra-colorful sunrises and sunsets sometimes occur on Earth when tiny dust grains that are erupted from powerful volcanoes scatter light high in the atmosphere.

Heinlein quotes

Hat tip to Instapundit for the pointer to this great collection of Robert A. Heinlein quotes. The following examples, and many more, can be found here.

One man’s “magic” is another man’s engineering. “Supernatural” is a null word.
  -Lazarus Long, Time Enough for Love

An armed society is a polite society.
  -Beyond This Horizon

The supreme irony of life is that no one gets out of it alive.

Being intelligent is not a felony. But most societies evaluate it as at least a misdemeanor.
  -Lazarus Long, Time Enough For Love

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
  -Lazarus Long, Time Enough For Love

“Love” is the condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.
  -Jubal Harshaw, Stranger in a Strange Land

Does history record any case in which the majority was right?
  -Lazarus Long, Time Enough for Love

Listen up!

The National Guard Experience has Ten Golden Rules for Returning Home for Guardsmen returning from deployment, and their families. It's very funny...but practical and open as well. One sample (but got read the rest!):

I. Wives, Listen up. Seriously, if I could only list one rule, this would technically be it. BE PREPARED. Uhh, intimately. If you know what I mean. Even if your husband's deployment was only three months to six months, be prepared. If his deployment was a year, God Help you.

As Jean-Paul says: "Anyone who doesn't read these rules, deserves to be a punching bag."

Alice

Arthur Chrenkoff has move vote for "Best Line of the Day":

By the way, you have to be worried when a guy with too much mascara and a snake wrapped around his neck has a keener grasp of basic new millennium geopolitics than so many leading lights of the Democratic Party.

Delicious. Go read the interview with Alice that Chrenkoff posted. A sample:

INTERVIEWER: A lot of people in rock and roll, it's very fashionable to despise George W. Bush. That's not a view you subscribe to, is it?

ALICE COOPER: Well, I think if you're in a war, you don't want a poodle in there, you want a pit bull. I don't think that you want a guy in there going, "Gee, I don't know. Maybe. Could be." I think you want a guy in there who's either going to win it or lose it.

Hail, Alice, indeed!

Future of Iran

From Big Pharaoh (a new blog to me!), courtesy of TigerHawk, some commentary on the recent conservative win in Iran:

Now, ever since the youth of Iran brought Khatami to power, apathy started to contaminate the political veins of those youth who are the only ones capable of bringing the regime down. The youth were busy enjoying the few freedoms that Khatami brought (nail polish, pop music, lax dress codes, etc) and they were busy searching for jobs and getting stoned on mountains around Tehran. The protests of the late 90s seemed to be something of the past. I am hoping that AJ and his radical way of governing will shake the people up again...

I know that what I am saying sounds cruel and inhumane. In fact, who am I to say that the Iranian people have to endure the rule of a hardliner so that they might rise up and usher in another people revolution? However, I just cannot help but think that way even though I know that I would have voted for Rafsanjani to avoid an AJ term if I were an Iranian. Let us hope that... we'll see this one good thing in Ahmadinejad's Iran.

Big Pharaoh's post also includes a pointer to this article, which basically says that Iranian exiles agree with his assessment.

TigerHawk isn't nearly as optimistic; he thinks the conservative win signals the end of gradual (and improving) change. I'm sure TigerHawk is right about the end of gradual change, but I sure hope he's wrong (and Big Pharaoh is right) about the impact of this election on the probability of near-term revolution in Iran. I'm reminded, ever-so-slightly, of the history of the United States: it was a series of "conservative" moves by the British to clamp down on the upstart Americans the was the immediate provocation for the American Revolution. I'd like to believe that something similar may result in Iran...

Update: This is what I get for posting before I've completed my morning reading — I missed this post by Arthur Chrenkoff on the same topic (his conclusion):

Rafsanjani's ambitious plan could not compete, however, with Ahmadinejad's cure-all: increase pensions, raise health insurance, offer farmers interest-free loans, and push up minimum wages - that is, handouts for all. Now watch the mullah-approved brave economic program raise millions out of poverty and revive Iran's stagnating economy.

Iran's economy, already in bad shape, is heading for a meltdown under Ahmadinejad's theo-socialism. The poor might have given him the edge this time, but how happy are they going to be when the promised economic sunshine proves to be a mirage?

Sounds like he's on the same wavelength as Big Pharaoh and I...

Conjunction

Went outside about a half hour after sunset tonight to view the unusual three-planet (Venus, Mercury, Saturn) conjunction that starts tonight, gets better tomorrow night, and Monday is the best of all. It looked pretty good tonight, with all three planet easily visible, once we spotted Venus. There's a good article about the conjunction here.

Uncivil liberals

The moonbats are twittering again, disgusting everybody whose social and emotional development is anything approaching normal. Hat tip to Michelle Malkin, though I'm feeling a little ill after wading through the swamp she pointed out:

Death would be to good for Cheney....... Now, if God would leave him in a vegitative state, that would be awesome!!!

The weight of his lies is causing Cheney his physical heart problems. If his death will bring back any semblence democracy to America, then I have no problem with it. However, I'd much rather see him tried and convicted of war crimes.

And so begins the Conservatives plan to remove Cheney from the VP spot and put someone else on deck to be President. This will also distract everyone from Iraq, DSM, and give them a much needed bump in the polls.
I dont know if its sad, brilliant, or one of the most frightening things our country will ever face. Will the power machine ever be stopped?

It's OK Dick; you won't have to fight in the war. Your too old now, so take a deep breath,we have young poor men to do that just like the ones who took the bullits for you in Vietnam tough guy.....

Whenever Cheney draws his last foul breath on this earth, and can deceive the American people no longer, I bet we'll all get to see HIS flag-draped coffin.

Doesn't this just make you feel like taking a long, hot shower with antibacterial soap?

I can't help but be worried about the unthinking, knee-jerk raw hatred illustrated by these posts. If the political debate in this country is essentially two-sided (conserverative vs. liberal), and one side is heavily tainted by such non-thought, what does that mean for the country's future? Certainly my premise about the debate being essentially two-sided is over-simplified. But the notion of the liberal side being "heavily tainted" is, if anything, understated. And so I do worry...

Update: By the (low) standards of this blog, it's being subjected to something of a "Huffalanche", apparently all due to the trackback I made for this post. Something tells me I'm very glad right now that comments are disabled here...though I suppose I should thank them for the increase in traffic the blog experiencing. If this keeps up, I may have to consider blog ads <smile>...

Update 2: As best I can tell, the twittering on the Huffington Post was all caused by this (AP):

Cheney visits orthopedist in Colorado

June 25, 2005

VAIL, Colo. (AP) -- Vice President Dick Cheney visited a renowned orthopedist Friday while in town for a forum held by a conservative think tank, his spokeswoman said.

Cheney met with Dr. Richard Steadman to evaluate an old football injury to his knee, Cheney spokeswoman Lea Anne McBride said.

Which of course the twitterers mainly dismiss as a lie (see the comments linked above; a little vaseline under your nose will make the stench more bearable).

Update 3: Somebody seems to have wiped out all the comments on this post (around noon Pacific time), though the trackbacks are still there. If this is evidence of maturity and/or good taste on the part of someone over at the Huffington Post, then I commend them for this action. These were just awful...

Update 4: Found this post by Arianna. I commend her. Thank you, Arianna!

Some of the comments posted to the Cheney news story are highly offensive, and we will therefore delete them. While we at the Huffington Post believe that the public has the right to know what the Vice President was at the Vail hospital for, we only wish him the best of health.

Hardliner wins in Iran

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the hard-line mayor of Tehran, has won the runoff election for president of Iran. Based on all the reading I've been doing about the Iran situation, I believe the most likely meaning of this is that the mullahs (who are really the rulers of Iran, both in practical terms and in legal terms) have had enough of "placating" the West with reformist politicians, and have decided to go back to basics (as they see them).

At first blush, this may sound like a terrible development, a big setback for reform in Iran. Now some may accuse me of being cynical, but...I suspect this is actually the best thing that could have happened for the reformist cause. Think about it...all those people, frustrated with the slow pace of reform in Iran, now being told that even that was too much! I think the mullahs have most likely overplayed their hand. If they don't fear dissension, they certainly should — they and their hardline supporters are vastly outnumbered by the more reform-minded and secular-leaning public...

Update:It seems that Ed Morrisey at Captain's Quarters is having similar thoughts:

The mullahs fear dissension more than anything else. Unfortunately for them, they have chosen the course that almost guarantees a revolution, and probably sooner rather than later.

Update 2:Robert Mayer at Publius Pundit weighs in, and he's not optimistic at all:

To those of us who know Rafsanjani’s background, we know that he isn’t the “centrist” that he has been portrayed as being. But because of the mass coverage to the rest of the world, Rafsanjani was the pragmatic, “moderate” face of the Iranian regime. What is so scary is that Khamenei, realizing that the gravest and closest threat to the regime is coming from the inside, is ready to pull off the mask and take off the gloves by choosing Ahmadinejad. You want pragmatic? Khamenei now openly controls all elected functions of the government; headed by the most extreme, fascistic few in Iranian society. This is a battle for all-out totalitarian survival, and it is beginning anew with the revival of the Islamic revolution.

It’s only a matter of time now before the liberal forces inside of Iran are cut off at the knees and shot in the head. This election alone has determined the future of hundreds of thousands of families; willingly escape, or unwillingly be trapped.

But make no mistake. Ahmadinejad was not selected by accident.

Update 2:TigerHawk has some interesting thoughts on the same topic:

In many cases, a defeat in a context like this could lead to rejectionism and even insurgency by the defeated. Unfortunately, it may well be that the hard-line position in Iraq is the populist one, even if its election victory is built on an entirely unreprepresentative foundation. Populists are particularly good at fending off civil resistance to their rule.

This election also forecloses Western options in its dealings with Iran. The problem with Iran's nuclear weapons programs is not that Iranians or even Muslims per se will control the launch codes, but that people who specifically advocate war with the United States and Israel by suicidal means will control the launch codes. A moderate government bent on rolling back the power of the mullahs and building a consumerist economy in Iran would have been deterrable as all governments who look to the future are. Unfortunately, our enemies inside Iran have consolidated their control. Any failure of the new government will morph into rage at the United States, and pressure will increase on the West to do something about it.

Roadrunner

Debi let out a quiet yell this afternoon, shaking me loose from the office to go see, of all things, a Greater Roadrunner (geococcyx californianus) sitting just outside our outdoor cattery, teasing the two cats out there.

It stayed in one place long enough for me to grab my camera, mount the telephoto, and get this shot (right through a window, so I'm surprised it came out as well as it did).

From About.com:

Found in folklore to cartoons, the Greater Roadrunner is somewhat of a legend. Preferring to run rather than fly, this bird is part of the Cuckoo family, Cuculidae. This species, Geococcyx californianus, is found mainly throughout the Southwest. Look for it in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, California as well as Nevada, southern Utah, Mexico, Arkansas and western Louisiana.

Roadrunners do not migrate but instead establish territories where both the male and female birds live year-round. These monogamous birds have an interesting way of courting: the male will dance about in front of his prospective mate, fanning his tail and alternately raising and dropping his wings. He then will prance back and forth with his wings and tail dropped low.

Once the female and male decide to become a pair, a nest is made in a short tree, bush or even cactus, with the nest off the ground but no higher than 12 feet normally. The pale yellow eggs are laid and incubated by both birds, although the male will usually do more of the nest-sitting. The baby birds will hatch in about 20 days, staying in the nest for 18 days before fledging. Both parents are kept busy, feeding the hungry young birds.

Greater Roadrunners are fairly large birds, being about 20-24 inches in length with a wingspan of around 32 inches. A long tail, long pale legs and feet, with brown, black, tan and white streaks on its neck, wings and back with a buffy underside, these birds are camoflagued in the brush, sand, and dirt. Roadrunners have a shaggy, spotted dark crest and a thick black hooked beak.

Although they certainly can fly, they normally do not, and then only for short distances, for instance up to a barbed wire fence from the ground. Their preferred mode of travel is to sprint about, running up to 15 miles per hour. They may flap their wings to get going, then run smoothly and swiftly with their head held low. Dining on a gourmet diet of snakes, insects, lizards, mice, rats and even some small birds, these birds will also eat fruit and seeds. Spying a lizard sunning itself on a rock, the Roadrunner will quickly run over and gobble up that tasty snack. Afterwards, they may take over sunning themselves on a fence post or even that same rock the unluckly lizard once occupied.

As usual, click on the thumbnail for a larger photo.

I am a statistic

If you're a blogger, help these guys out (click on the picture).

Take my property?

As you have most likely seen on the news by now, the US Supreme Court has decided (in Kelo vs. New London) that it is perfectly acceptable for a city to use its power of eminent domain to take property from some private citizens and then transfer it to other private citizens — so long as a "public purpose" is served in doing so. The kicker is, if I'm reading this correctly (and I'm no lawyer!), that the city in question gets to determine whether a public purpose is being served.

Talk about letting the fox into the henhouse! The starry-eyed liberals on our highest court apparently believe in the inherent goodness of governments and the officials that form them. And apparently they don't often read the newspapers, or at least not when they carry the depressingly frequent stories about municipal corruption scandals. We're going through a couple of them in nearby San Diego right now: one involving over a billion dollars in unfunded pension benefits, and the other involving several city councilmen being bribed to loosen up the regulations on strip joints. Tasty. And, in the light of this Supreme Court decision, these shenanigans should scare the daylights out of any property holders within the San Diego City limits. And I would think this new threat hanging over everyone's heads would have a depressing effect on those property values as well...

I take some solace in the fact that this was a close vote (5-4, with O'Connor, Renquist, Scalia, and Thomas dissenting), allowing some hope that this misguided decision might be reversed in the future. Some further hope is that if enough citizens get provoked by this decision, some legislative changes might limit this power (and the opinion appears to support such legislation as controlling). But mostly I'm just very saddened that one of my country's central premises — the property rights of its citizens — has been so violated, and by the Supreme Court, no less. And I am very thankful that I live far out in an unincorporated area where the exercise of eminent domain appears to be exceedingly unlikely — for having the government seize my home (which I have a lot of "sweat equity" in) would be difficult for me to bear...

The dissenting opinion, written by O'Connor, is brilliant. It opens:

JUSTICE O’CONNOR, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE, JUSTICE SCALIA, and JUSTICE THOMAS join, dissenting.

Over two centuries ago, just after the Bill of Rights wasratified, Justice Chase wrote:

“An ACT of the Legislature (for I cannot call it a law) contrary to the great first principles of the social compact,cannot be considered a rightful exercise of legislativeauthority . . . . A few instances will suffice to explain what I mean. . . . [A] law that takes property from A. and gives it to B: It is against all reason and justice, for a people to entrust a Legislature with SUCH powers; and, therefore, it cannot be presumed that they have done it.” Calder v. Bull, 3 Dall. 386, 388 (1798) (emphasis deleted).

Today the Court abandons this long-held, basic limitation on government power. Under the banner of economic development, all private property is now vulnerable to being taken and transferred to another private owner, so long as it might be upgraded—i.e., given to an owner whowill use it in a way that the legislature deems more beneficialto the public—in the process. To reason, as the Court does, that the incidental public benefits resulting from the subsequent ordinary use of private property render economic development takings “for public use” is to wash out any distinction between private and public use of property—and thereby effectively to delete the words “for public use” from the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment.Accordingly I respectfully dissent.

In a particularly pithy part of her dissent, she writes:

Any property may now be taken for the benefit of anotherprivate party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random. The beneficiaries are likely to be thoseCite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 13O’CONNOR, J., dissentingcitizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and developmentfirms. As for the victims, the government now has license to transfer property from those with fewer resourcesto those with more. The Founders cannot have intended this perverse result. “[T]hat alone is a just government,”wrote James Madison, “which impartially securesto every man, whatever is his own.” For the NationalGazette, Property, (Mar. 29, 1792), reprinted in 14 Papers of James Madison 266 (R. Rutland et al. eds. 1983).

Thomas adds his own powerful dissent, including this summary and tie-in to civil rights:

The consequences of today’s decision are not difficult to predict, and promise to be harmful. So-called “urban renewal” programs provide some compensation for the properties they take, but no compensation is possible for the subjective value of these lands to the individuals displaced and the indignity inflicted by uprooting them from their homes. Allowing the government to take propertysolely for public purposes is bad enough, but extendingthe concept of public purpose to encompass any economicallybeneficial goal guarantees that these losses will fall disproportionately on poor communities. Those communitiesare not only systematically less likely to puttheir lands to the highest and best social use, but are alsothe least politically powerful. If ever there were justificationfor intrusive judicial review of constitutional provisionsthat protect “discrete and insular minorities,” United States v. Carolene Products Co., 304 U. S. 144, 152, n. 4 (1938), surely that principle would apply with great forceto the powerless groups and individuals the Public UseClause protects. The deferential standard this Court has adopted for the Public Use Clause is therefore deeply perverse. It encourages “those citizens with disproportionateinfluence and power in the political pro- cess, including large corporations and developmentfirms” to victimize the weak. Ante, at 11 (O’CONNOR, J., dissenting).

Those incentives have made the legacy of this Court’s “public purpose” test an unhappy one. In the 1950’s, no doubt emboldened in part by the expansive understanding of “public use” this Court adopted in Berman, cities “rushed to draw plans” for downtown development. B. Frieden & L. Sagalayn, Downtown, Inc. How America Rebuilds Cities 17 (1989). “Of all the families displaced by urban renewal from 1949 through 1963, 63 percent of those whose race was known were nonwhite, and of these families, 56 percent of nonwhites and 38 percent of whiteshad incomes low enough to qualify for public housing, which, however, was seldom available to them.” Id., at 28. Public works projects in the 1950’s and 1960’s destroyed predominantly minority communities in St. Paul, Minnesota,and Baltimore, Maryland. Id., at 28–29. In 1981, urban planners in Detroit, Michigan, uprooted the largely “lower-income and elderly” Poletown neighborhood for thebenefit of the General Motors Corporation. J. Wylie,Poletown: Community Betrayed 58 (1989). Urban renewal projects have long been associated with the displacement of blacks; “[i]n cities across the country, urban renewal came to be known as ‘Negro removal.’ ” Pritchett, The “Public Menace” of Blight: Urban Renewal and the PrivateUses of Eminent Domain, 21 Yale L. & Pol’y Rev. 1, 47 (2003). Over 97 percent of the individuals forcibly removedfrom their homes by the “slum-clearance” project upheld by this Court in Berman were black. 348 U. S., at 30. Regrettably, the predictable consequence of the Court’s decision will be to exacerbate these effects.

You can download a PDF copy of the decision here.

Update: Randy Barnett at the Volokh Conspiracy has my favorite comment so far on this subject:

In his dissent in Kelo (buried on page 14), Justice Thomas may well have written my all-time-favorite line of any constitutional opinion (perhaps, in part, because it does not seem to be written to be famous):

"Something has gone seriously awry with this Court’'s interpretation of the Constitution."

Had this quote been available at the time, I would have led with it in Restoring the Lost Constitution (which began: "Had judges done their job, this book would not need to be written.") One day, it may be added to such "greatest" lines as "The Fourteenth Amendment does not enact Mr. Herbert Spencer's Social Statics."

Defined by what we do

Each time I read a Mark Steyn column, I am again astonished (and envious of) the man's prodigous talents. The moment I see his name on the byline, I prepare myself for an adventure in reading.

His latest column is no exception. This time he compares several real-world examples of the ineffective, "feel good", politically correct actions of the liberals with the direct, immediate, unilateral actions of the U.S. led by President Bush. An example:

For example, I’d be far more amenable to criticism of American policy in Iraq if it weren’t being levelled by the same folks — notably Do-Nothin’ Doug Hurd — who fiddled transnationally while Yugoslavia burned. Bosnia is, in fact, everything the anti-war crowd predicted Iraq would be: 250,000 people were killed, which is what the more modest doom-mongers estimated would happen in Iraq, and that’s 250,000 out of a population a fifth the size of Iraq’s. We were told that toppling Saddam would do nothing but create thousands more radical Islamists across the Middle East. In fact, it’s Bosnia where, under the nose of its EU viceroy, Wahabist infiltration is recruiting tomorrow’s jihadi. Week after week, we’ve seen sob stories on the TV news in which some hapless Baathist clerk from the Department of Genital Severing reveals that he’s been out of work now for two years, but when was the last time you read a piece on unemployment rates in Paddy Ashdown’s Bosnia? It’s officially 45 per cent, and it’s only the drug-dealing, child sex and white slave trade that boom around every UN mission that’s holding it down that low. However Iraq turns out, it’s already a hundred times healthier than Bosnia, and its effects are rolling on through Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Kuwait, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. But because Bosnia is the quintessential expression of international lack of will, it will always get a better press than Bush’s ‘war for oil’.

It's "...only the drug-dealing, child sex and white slave trade that boom around every UN mission..." Ouch and heh. Don't miss this one...

Quote for the day

A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.

   Oscar Wilde

Lileks on Gitmo

James Lileks has a new column out — a wonderfully sarcastic FAQ on Gitmo for the under-informed. An example:

Q: History is boring. C'mon. Why do they hate us?

A: Because our women wear thongs, our media are naughty, our homosexuals walk around unstoned, and we refuse to let them finish Hitler's plans for the Jews. Because we are the infidel sons of monkeys and pigs who do not believe that most holy of books, "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion." Also because we had something to do with Afghanistan.

Q: Afghana-what?

A: Afghanistan is a large, mountainous country that suffered an unimaginable geographical calamity a few years ago, when the entire nation slid off the front pages of the newspapers. Poor country: not a single runaway Caucasian bride to interest the media.

Our women wear thongs, and we refuse to let them finish Hitler's plans. Heh.

Quote for the day

Anyone who isn't confused really doesn't understand the situation.

   Edward R. Murrow

Crunchy crustacean

Just a few short days ago, I was surprised to discover that my blog had reached the status of "Multicellular Microorganism" in the Truth Laid Bear blogospheric ecosystem. And I said, optimistically, onward and upward to the next stage of "Wiggly Wormhood". Well... Now something very unexpected has happened — for reasons that I do not understand at all, my blog has rocketed past Wiggly Wormhood and right into the "Crunchy Crustacean" neighborhood!

The complete Truth Laid Bear ecosystem:

Higher Beings
Mortal Humans
Playful Primates
Large Mammals
Marauding Marsupials
Adorable Rodents
Flappy Birds
Slithering Reptiles
Crawly Amphibians
Flippery Fish
Slimy Molluscs
Lowly Insects
Crunchy Crustaceans
Wiggly Worms
Multicellular Microorganisms
Insignificant Microbes

I'm even more puzzled now than I was on my blog's last evolutionary jump. But...I can't help but gloat over the way my blog is zipping up through the ecosystem's hierarchy! It's moved up three levels in a week — if I could keep up this rate, I might actually live long enough to see my blog make "Slithering Reptile", or (gasp) "Adorable Rodent"!

Now if only I understood why this was happening, so I could do more of the "right thing"!

Black-headed Grosbeak

Black-headed grosbeaks (pheucticus melanocephalus) migrate to our area and stay here spring through fall every year. The first time we saw them, we only saw an occasional bird; now there are several pairs who are regular visitors to our feeders. I've never seen them eat anything but oil sunflower seeds, but perhaps we're spoiling them.

One thing that strikes me as odd about these birds is that they are quite timid, even though they're quite large (jay-sized) and have very sturdy-looking beaks (I'll bet they could do some damage to my ears with those!). And yet they are amongst the first birds to fly as we approach the feeders, or even our windows. About the only bird species we have that's more timid is the hooded oriole...

The center picture is a non-breeding (juvenile?) female; the others are breeding males.

As usual, click on a picture for a larger view.

House finches

There are three common finch species in our area, according to Sibley: Purple Finch (carpodacus purpureus, Cassin's Finch (carpodacus cassinii, and the House Finch (carpodacus mexicanus. And they're challenging to tell apart, even with Sibley's excellent paintings and descriptions. But...we believe these are House Finches, judging mostly by the female's appearance. Whatever flavor of finch these are, they are the single most common songbird to visit our feeders. Often we have twenty or more of them feeding at once, mainly on oil sunflower seed and on safflower seed (which the finches love, but the jays don't).

These finches have been on our feeders since about 30 seconds after we first put them out. They're here year round, with their beautiful song (especially in the spring!) cheering us every time we hear them. Which is most of the time . They pore through prodigous quantities of sunflower and safflower seed, most evidenced by the thickness of the hulls they leave under the feeders. Their beaks are strong enough to crack the hulls directly, so they can eat very efficiently.

As usual, you can click on any picture for a larger view.

Lesser Goldfinches

Over the past few years, lesser goldfinches (carduelis psaltria) have become one of the most frequent visitors to our feeders. They particularly love the Nyjer thistle seed, which we have out in a half-dozen or so feeders. They're amongst the bravest of the visiting birds we have, sometimes lighting on the feeder even when we're carrying it back after refilling it.

What makes this especially delightful for us is that for the first five years or so that we lived here, we couldn't entice these little birds to our feeders. We hung a thistle seed feeder out for all those years, moving it around various places in our yard to attract them. Finally, about three years ago I placed the feeder on a pole in an area of our yard that was far removed from our house — and our feeder was discovered! Within a few weeks, we were being visited by dozens of goldfinches a day. Then we started putting up more feeders near the house, and the goldfinches figured it out. Now we're going through 40 to 50 pounds of thistle seed every month (and that stuff is expensive!), but we're rewarded by an all-day display of dozens of birds. It's not at all unusual for every single one of the perches on every thistle seed feeder to be occupied — sometimes by two birds! In the springtime the golden-yellow color of the males is something to behold; they're considerably more muted now...

Click on any picture for a larger view...

The first draft

Scott Ott at Scrappleface has a wonderful post on the Durbin apology, in which he posits the existence of a first draft that was considerably different than what Durbin actually delivered. An example:

Durbin: "I offer my apology for those offended by my words. I promise to speak out on the issues that I think are important to the people of Illinois and to the nation."
First Draft: "I offer my resignation from the U.S. Senate. I plan to seek a non-political job so I can get back in touch with real Americans and find out why they love this country so much."

Don't miss the whole thing!

Aligned moons

The Cassini probe, in orbit around Saturn, continues delivering outstanding scientific results day in and day out. It's a largely unheralded hero of space exploration; I hardly ever see a mention of it in the MSM. 'Tis a shame, because it's a terrific example of an international team of scientists and engineers focusing on real science results instead of romantic human exploration "results".

I sure would like to see us spending less on manned exploration and more on things like Cassini-Huygens...

Anyway, here's what the official Cassini site says about this magnificent photo (click for a larger view):

Cassini looks toward Saturn's night side in this view, capturing a glimpse of Dione's tortured surface in the foreground and a far-off view of Epimetheus beyond Saturn. The spacecraft was just a 10th of a degree above the ringplane when this image was taken.

Parts of Dione's surface have been stretched and ripped apart by tectonic forces. Some of these faults are visible here, as is a large impact basin (not seen in NASA Voyager spacecraft images) near the moon's south pole. Although this crater's diameter has not yet been measured by imaging scientists, it appears to be wider than 250 kilometers (155 miles), which would make it the largest impact structure yet identified on this moon. Dione is 1,118 kilometers (695 miles) across.

Epimetheus (116 kilometers, or 72 miles across) presents a similar face here to that revealed in a spectacular false-color view from March, 2005 (see Epimetheus: Up-Close and Colorful ).

The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on May 5, 2005, at a distance of approximately 910,000 kilometers (570,000 miles) from Dione, 1.28 million kilometers (800,000 miles) from Epimetheus and 1.42 million kilometers (880,000 miles) from Saturn. The image scale is 5 kilometers (3 miles) per pixel on Dione and 9 kilometers (6 miles) per pixel on Epimetheus.

APOD

APOD brings us...

What do Saturn's rings look like from the other side? From Earth, we usually see Saturn's rings from the same side of the ring plane that the Sun illuminates them. Geometrically, in the above picture taken in April by the robot Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn, the Sun is behind the camera but on the other side of the ring plane. Such a vantage point gives a breathtaking views of the most splendid ring system in the Solar System. Strangely, the rings have similarities to a photographic negative of a front view. For example, the dark band in the middle is actually the normally bright B-ring. The ring brightness as recorded from different angles indicates ring thickness and particle density of ring particles. Images like these are also interesting for what they do not show: spokes. The unexpected shadowy regions once recorded by the Voyager missions when they passed Saturn in the early 1980s are not, so far, being seen by Cassini. Extra credit: Can you spot the small moon (Prometheus) among the rings?

Click on the picture for a larger view.

Quote for the day

When we are born, we cry that we are come
To this great stage of fools.

   William Shakespeare (King Lear)