Lamestream Lies

Reading the news this morning (my usual practice, with a cup of wonderul Pannikin Kenya AA coffee in my hand), I came across this startling headline and lead paragraph:

From the (consistently lame) Washington Post: Libby Testified He Was Told To Leak Data About Iraq

Vice President Cheney’s former chief of staff testified that his bosses instructed him to leak information to reporters from a high-level intelligence report that suggested Iraq was trying to obtain weapons of mass destruction, according to court records in the CIA leak case.

Now from all I think I know about Libby and Cheney, this is a most unlikely story. So I read on, until I got to the key part:

In a letter written in January and released in court papers filed by Libby’s defense Monday, Fitzgerald wrote that Libby testified that his “superiors” authorized him to disclose information from the National Intelligence Estimate to reporters in the summer of 2003.

Just in case it’s not obvious to you what the WAPO has done, let me spell it out. Libby (presumably in response to someone’s request) sought authorization from his bosses (including Cheney) to release the answer — from the already declassified National Intelligence Estimate. There’s no smoke and no fire here, folks — that’s just a bureaucrat doing his job. And the WAPO attempting to twist that into something sinister.

Their headline clearly implies that Libby testified that he was told to deliberately leak some information, presumably for political reasons. But when you look at what he actually testified to, you find that it was something else altogether. This is exactly the sort of thing that occurs when a reporter’s own political agenda runs into the facts: the facts get twisted, stretched, and distorted so that they fit into the reporter’s preconceived notions — and hardly resemble reality any more. You really have to work at it to find out what really happened, instead of what the reporter wants us to believe happened…

How lame is that?

Classic Democrat?

Not to be found on the news anywhere (of course) is this story: former Congressman Robert Livingston (Louisiana) was asked by his Democratic colleagues to join them in criticizing President Bush for exercising too much power in the war on terror — and he refused:

Via (the excellent and essential) PowerLine:

... I have always considered you as a good friend, and I continue to do so. But since you raised it, I must tell you … I am emphatically on the other side of this issue.

The President of the United States is the Commander in Chief of our Armed Forces. He is Constitutionally obligated to do everything possible in time of war to safeguard the American People. This tempest in a teapot about treatment of cowardly un-uniformed mass murderers and terror mongers, as well as restriction of his ability to monitor conversations of potential terrorists is in my view asinine, and I will have nothing to do with any effort that might be used to undermine his ability to keep us free from terrorism.

Indeed, we are at war with a most formidable and intractable enemy. He is insidious, cowardly, and bent on the destruction of all civilized society. Innocent men, women and children are cannon fodder in his eyes, and efforts such as the one you are sponsoring will be unappreciated by practitioners of his cause. This effort would have looked insane in Lincoln’s day, and he was far more intrusive in his practice than anything that has been envisioned today. Frankly, some Members of Congress and self-appointed leakers in the Executive Branch have put this country in grave danger with this very discussion. I have seen no evidence at all that American citizens have had their Constitutional 4th Amendment rights infringed upon (as they were in the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon eras). Until such evidence is shown, I shall do nothing to keep this President from protecting American citizens from harm’s way.

PowerLine doesn’t say where they got the copy of the Mr. Livingston’s response, but given its complete absence on the news, I assume one of their readers sent it along.

Isn’t that response just magnificent?

But isn’t it sad that only Livingston, Miller, and Lieberman — out of the entire federal Democratic establishment — understand that the nation’s security is more important than partisan politics?

This leads me to an idea, though… I’d love to see the three of them spearhead a new national political party: the “Classic Democratic Party", as opposed to the “New Democratic Party” of Pelosi, Kennedy, Schumer, Daschle, Reid, Clinton, and Carville. It would be so nice to have a real political debate with serious Classic Democrats such as these three men — and I would worry a lot less about the consequences of a Classic Democratic electoral victory than I do about the consequences of a New Democratic electoral victory…

Deutsch Resigns

In the news last night was this little tidbit: George C. Deutsch, the NASA PR guy at the center of the controversy I posted about a few days ago, has resigned. But not, it seems, because of pressure from his boss for his completely inappropriate behavior. No, young George apparently is resigning because of the discovery that his claim to have graduated from Texas A & M was false.

And this discovery was made by a (very anti-Bush) blogger!

More information here, here, here, and here.

This story is interesting on several levels. There’s the angle that (yet again!) the blogosphere beat out the lamestream media at on-the-ground journalism. There’s the removal of a voice of insanity (from a scientist’s or a rationalist’s perspective) from a position of influence at NASA. And finally there’s the troublesome indication that Deutsch was pressured to resign not because of his efforts to get NASA to present science’s results as a “theory” on equal standing with other theories such as “intelligent design", but instead because of a lie on his job application.

Fraud on job applications is almost unbelievably common; I know this on a personal level from decades of hiring experience. And I do not excuse it in the slightest; I think dismissal for job application fraud is not only appropriate, but should be mandatory policy at any employer. But…inappropriate behavior such as that Mr. Deutsch has displayed should also lead to either dismissal or effective correction. And in the case of something so public as Mr. Deutsch’s transgressions, that corrective action should also be made public, even if just for the reason of reassuring the public that the behavior would not be repeated by the PR flack that replaces Mr. Deutsch.

For now, I feel no such assurance. I can but hope that underlying Mr. Deutsch’s resignation is a realization by NASA that his behavior was inappropriate, and for some reason the NASA brass think their realization should be a secret. Doesn’t sound all that likely, does it?

Hiiumaa House

Hiiumaa is the second-largest of the many islands off the coast of Estonia, in the Baltic Sea. Of the islands I have visited, Hiiumaa is my favorite. It’s still relatively undeveloped (despite the land boom from moneyed Finns), I suspect because of the relatively long ferry ride to get there. The only ferry currently servicing Hiiumaa leaves from Rohuküla, on the west coast of mainland Estonia and over an hour’s drive from Tallinn (the main city and port of entry to Estonia).

Estonia has hundreds of islands, but only four major ones, of which Hiiumaa is the second-largest, at about 300 square miles. At its highest point, Hiiumaa rises only 200 feet out of the Baltic sea; like the rest of Estonia, it is essentially low and flat. It’s located in the far west of the country, about 15 miles off the coast of the Estonian mainland. The western reaches of Estonia, including Hiiumaa and Saaremaa, are on an area of the earth’s crust that is rising at the rate of about 1/8 inch per year. Hiiumaa emerged from the Baltic sea about 8500 years ago (rising as the weight of the retreating glaciers came off), and has been occupied by humans for about 7000 years. The island is basically composed of limestone, with a large number of erratic boulders (mainly granite) deposited by the melting and retreating glaciers.

On this particular trip, after the 90 minute ferry voyage that deposited me in Heltermaa, I headed first toward Kärdla, the largest town on the island. I took the main road at first, then diverted toward Hellamaa to get off the main track a bit. The countryside is very pretty everywhere on the island, with small farms and forests dominating the landscape. Near Kuri I spotted this particularly nice farmhouse, built mainly of granite blocks from erratic boulders. Many of the farmhouses incorporate some erratic boulders, and I’ve seen others that were entirely built of them (like this one), but none quite so fine as this.

These erratic boulders fascinate me, as they look so out of place compared to the rest of the geology of Estonia. You can see a fine picture of a large erratic boulder here, but most of them that I’ve seen are much smaller. They are mainly granitic rock, almost all of them a reddish or pinkish color — very attractive. On my many hikes around Estonia, I’ve run into them just about everywhere — even in the bottom of meteorite craters (another interesting phenomenon of Estonia geology that I’ll write about on another day).

The history of these erratic boulders is really quite simple, once you discover the mechanism. The granite outcroppings occur naturally far to the north, in what is today Finland. During the ice age, when great sheets of thick, heavy ice pushed southward, they scraped chunks of this Finnish granite off. As the glaciers ground their way southward, the chunks were abraded and crushed, forming the rounded boulders we see today. Some of them worked their way up from the bottom of the glacier as the ice itself was crushed and melted as it moved. Eventually those boulders made it to modern-day Estonia, and considerably further south. But when the ice age ended and the glaciers melted, those boulders in or below the ice sheet in Estonia found themselves on dry land there — and untold numbers of them, of all sizes, then littered the landscape.

I’ve read that the distribution of size versus number is exactly the kind of exponential curve you’d expect: there are an extremely large number of small “boulders” (potato size and smaller), and a quite small number of really large boulders (say, a cubic meter or so, or larger). The larger ones in Estonia have all been named; most are in parks or protected areas, and have well-marked trails leading to them. The excellent maps available in Estonia mark the locations of these “erratic boulders", and I’ve visited many of them. Only on rare occasions have I met anyone at one of these boulders (I once surprised a pair of lovers who, I think, never knew I was there <smile>!). But it’s clear from the well-walked trails that they are nonetheless often visited — I’ve never found one that was neglected.

The farmers on Hiimuaa knew a good building material when they saw it, as this handsome house attests. Thankfully there are plenty more boulders in situ, with the largest and most interesting actively protected.

As usual, click on the photo for a larger view…

Absent Decorum

At the funeral for Coretta Scott King, some Democrats took the opportunity to use this public platform for some Bush-bashing (ex-President Jimmy Carter and Reverend Joseph Lowery, in particular). If your main source of news is the MSM, you probably don’t even know about this. The politicization of Mrs. King’s funeral is all over the blogosphere, however.

On the right side of the blogosphere, the commentary is mostly about the lack of decorum displayed by these Democrats. The feeling is that such political discussion was completely inappropriate at a funeral service. I share this perspective — I believe the eulogies and speeches at a funeral should be about the person who died, and the life that he or she lived. When the funeral is for someone of such accomplishment as Mrs. King, someone held in such high regard by nearly everybody … well, then, appropriate remembrances shouldn’t be hard to come by.

On the left side of the blogosphere, by and large the commentary is more like this example:

From the DailyKos:

Is there anything we do that they do approve of? Besides continuing to give birth to self-hating Toms like the Condoleeza Rices, Clarence Thomases, Kenneth Blackwells, and Lynn Swanns of the world?

Someone not Republican in MSOC’s thread said that folks should have “sat down and been quiet”. Clearly we now must also have white funerals if we are to be accepted as equals.

I’ll alert the media.

In other words, flat-out rejection of the idea that Carter and Lowery said anything inappropriate. On other posts you’ll find outrage at the simple presence of President Bush (whose remarks, by the way, were all about Mrs. King) at the funeral — the general notion is that he is a Republican, and Republicans have no right to be at the funeral of a civil rights leader. As best I understand the logic of these posts, that right is earned only by having participated in civil rights marches in the '60s. Or something like that.

I actually watched the funeral service; I suspect (from their comments) that many writers on both sides of the aisle have not. I was moved by most of the eulogies; shocked by one (the Reverend Lowery), angered by one (Jimmy Carter), and thought several others were quite inappropriate for the occasion.

Once again, my overwhelming reaction is one of sadness for our country, and the state of its political conversation. And in this case, of sadness that the family and friends of the good Mrs. King had to suffer through the politicization of her funeral by Carter, Lowery, and others.

Decorum in our public conversation is a very useful device. The absence of decorum has consequences. Mrs. King’s funeral is one example; in my opinion, we’ve lost forever the chance to celebrate her life publicly and collectively — this is a loss not only for her family, but also for the nation she was a proud citizen of. That chance is not likely to be repeated. In other circumstances, the absence of decorum helps polarize people on opposite sides of a discussion, to the point where a useful, civil debate cannot be held. We all lose on this. There are many positions that liberals hold that I find incomprehensible, and I would love to gain an understanding of how they come to hold those positions. I cherish the unfortunately very rare occasions when I get to take a peek into a liberal’s brain — I always learn something, and sometimes I change my own positions as a result. But the uncivil discussions that dominate our current political context, such occasions remain rare. That’s a sad thing.

So I call for some more decorum, please — knowing that it’s almost certainly a futile gesture. If 9/11 couldn’t shock our political debate into more decorous form, I don’t know what the hell could…

Oops!

For decades, nutritionists, doctors, and others have recommended low-fat diets for their health benefits. In recent decades, this community has attributed reduced rates of cancer (especially colon cancer and breast cancer), heart attacks, and strokes to such a diet. Millions of people have tried, with varying success, to follow the (wildly variable and conflicting) guidelines propounded by these people in an effort to improve their health or simply to lose weight.

Oops.

A just-published, $415M, eight-year federal study of 49,000 women concludes that a low-fat diet in fact does none of these things (at least, not with the study’s target audience of 50 to 79 year old women). Women on low-fat diets had cancer rates, heart attack rates, and stroke rates insignificantly different from those of women who ate whatever the heck they wanted to.

Oops.

And it gets worser: the women on the low-fat diets didn’t even succeed in losing weight.

Oops and double-oops.

Lest you think this study was some light-weight, flaky, fly-by-night sort of thing, consider this:

From the New York Times:

"These studies are revolutionary,” said Dr. Jules Hirsch, physician in chief emeritus at Rockefeller University in New York City, who has spent a lifetime studying the effects of diets on weight and health. “They should put a stop to this era of thinking that we have all the information we need to change the whole national diet and make everybody healthy."

The study, published in today’s issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association, was not just an ordinary study, said Dr. Michael Thun, who directs epidemiological research for the American Cancer Society. It was so large and so expensive, Dr. Thun said, that it was “the Rolls-Royce of studies.” As such, he added, it is likely to be the final word.

"We usually have only one shot at a very large-scale trial on a particular issue,” he said.

Oops.

The way that this study turns preceding consensus belief on its head is a great example of the value of the scientific process. Even the combined education, experience, and intuition of a large group of well-informed people can turn out to be wrong — and has, on countless past occasions. We often mock the ancients for their belief that the universe revolved around the Earth — the the fact is that their beliefs were the consensus of the best-educated, best-informed, most-respected people of their time. We’re no different, and their are other recent medical beliefs to use as illustrations. For instance, just a couple of decades ago, the consensus amongst scientists and medical professionals was the stomach ulcers were caused by stress and excess acid. Oops. It turns out that they’re caused by a bacterium, and they are easily treated. Decades of well-informed consensus turned out to be wrong. Looks like they’re wrong again.

One difference with this particular affair, though, is that there is a multi-billion dollar industry with a vested interest in the belief that low-fat diets are healthy. This industry, it’s easy to predict, will do everything they possibly can to impeach this study. The battle will be interesting to watch…

I’ll leave you with the “money quote” from the NYT article (it’s also how they concluded):

But Dr. Freedman, the Berkeley statistician, said the overall lesson was clear.

"We, in the scientific community, often give strong advice based on flimsy evidence,” he said. “That’s why we have to do experiments."

Oops.

Bush and Science

As many of you know, I’m a strong supporter of our President on many issues, most especially on defense, foreign policy, and the war on terror. But there are also many areas of policy and ideology where I am not a Bush supporter — and one of them is in the area of science and technology.

One of my readers (Larry E. — thanks!) pointed me to this article (in the NY Times, sorry) that highlights some of the problems I have with Bush’s science and technology policy (in this case, with NASA).

This particular article describes a pattern of behavior and effects that, taken all together, are rather disturbing to anyone who thinks of themselves as a rationalist. The pattern implies that the administration believes in magical thinking, and doesn’t understand (or accept) findings made by the scientific process. This is, of course, a common phenomenon with people who are devoutly religious. I carefully said “common” there, because it is certainly not universal. Devoutly religious scientists are particularly interesting in this regard; many of them can simultaneously defend both the scientific process and their religion.

Unfortunately, the current administration does not seem to share this capability. Sometimes their missteps in science and technology policy can be traced back to this science-versus-magical-thinking issue (the Deutsch memo discussed in the article is a great example of this). Sometimes it can be traced back to politics, such as the administration’s support for expanded manned space flight, including a return to the moon and an objective of a manned mission to Mars. In general, I find the Bush administration’s science and technology policies (and the resulting budget requests) very disappointing.

In the recent State of the Union speech, Bush outlined an energy plan that reflects muddled thinking and (I suspect) a belief in magic. Really only one element is something I can find some hope in: builing nuclear power plants. As an example of the problems with the rest, consider his ethanol initiative: he’d like to see us use ethanol to help displace foreign oil. The ethanol would be made not only from corn, but also from other bio-material, such as wood chips. Sounds great, makes all the greenies happy, but … the underlying science says there are lots of problems with this approach. The biggest problem is that it takes almost a gallon of oil to produce the ethanol that would replace a gallon of oil. And that’s the most optimistic assessment I could find — most scientists believe that ethanol will take even more oil! Now we can hope for a scientific breakthrough, or we can believe in magic — but it strikes me as sheer folly to start a major program, spending billions of dollars, on that basis. I could support a program to search for that breakthrough, but that’s not what’s on the table…

Well, this is a sort of rambly post, isn’t it? I really just wanted to make the point about where President Bush and I part company: science and technology policies is one of the main ones.

Some other day I’ll dig into another one: immigration and border control.

Blog Problems

Final update: (I hope!) The filters I’ve installed in my router seem to be doing the trick, though I am still occasionally having a minor problem. My site is being attacked (for sure) by the usual suspects, especially the Sasser worm and variants at the moment. But it also appears that my site is getting some DoS (denial of service) attacks that are out of the ordinary, and I suspect related to the cartoon posts. I’m taking this off “sticky” for the moment…

Update 2: Just had a server crash shortly after a new blast of a gazillion bad packets. I will keep this post at the top until the problems/attacks subside…

Update: I put filters in my firewall to block the offending traffic, and for the past hour everything has been working just fine. This is a little bit short of proof of an attack, but it’s darned close to it, and I’m now operating under the assumption that my site is being attacked. Of course I can only speculate that the motivation was the post mentioned below, but I think it’s a reasonable speculation: the links from Michelle Malkin and Captain’s Quarters have greatly increased by my site’s traffic and its exposure. Also the number of visitors to my site from the Middle East has gone up by a factor of 10.

Original post: For the past couple of hours I’ve been having intermittent problems with my blog server. Investigation so far shows heavy traffic from my earlier cartoons post, and a whole lot of bad requests. The heavy traffic is due to links from Michelle Malkin and Captain’s Quarter blogs (and a big thank you for that!). The bad requests may — emphasize may — be an attack of some sort. And the only reason I can think of for that is that same cartoons post…

Ouch!

Don’t you dare call them unpatriotic, but … to many libertarians and Conservatives that’s exactly what some liberals appear to be. In particular, some liberals appear to support positions that are exactly the same positions that Al Qaeda would like us to support: they oppose the NSA wiretaps, they want to arbitrarily end the fight in Iraq and “bring the troops home” (instead of waiting for victory), etc.

Strata-Sphere came up with an interesting notion, fueled by an idea heard on the Rush Limbaugh show. He figures that the Democrats needs a unifying concept as powerful as the Republicans had in the 90s with Newt Gingrich’s “Contract With America…

From Strata-Sphere: Contract With Al Qaeda

As Democrat Members of the House of Representatives, and as citizens seeking to join that body, we propose not just to change current policies, but even more important, to restore the bonds of trust between the people and their elected representatives.

That is why, in this era of official evasion and posturing, we offer instead a detailed agenda for national renewal, a written commitment with no fine print. We call this our Contract With Al Qaeda”

This year’s election offers the chance, after 4 years of one-party control, to bring to the House a new majority that will transform the Nation’s policies towards Al Qaeda. That historic change would be the end of government that is too focused in Iraq, too intrusive, and too obsessed with possible terrorist attacks. It can be the beginning of a Congress that respects the privacy of all peoples, including members of Al Qaeda here in the US.

Read the whole thing (as someone once said). It goes on to propose eight specific legislative objectives, each of them a clear articulation of recent liberal/Democratic posturings and rants. For example:

SEVENTH, in an effort to demonstrate our sincere apologies for the actions of President Bush towards Al Qaeda, we plan to return the State of Iraq to the despot dictator of Al Qaeda’s choice by calling for the immediate withdrawal of our military forces to the safety of European soil. We encourage Al Qaeda to do what they please with the Iraqi people.

Strata-Sphere is now on my daily read list!

Mars Rocks

From the official Mars Rovers web site:

Hardened Lava Meets Wind on Mars

NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Spirit used its microscopic imager to capture this spectacular, jagged mini-landscape on a rock called “GongGong.” Measuring only 3 centimeters (1.2 inches) across, this surface records two of the most important and violent forces in the history of Mars — volcanoes and wind.

GongGong formed billions of years ago in a seething, stirring mass of molten rock. It captured bubbles of gases that were trapped at great depth but had separated from the main body of lava as it rose to the surface. Like taffy being stretched and tumbled, the molten rock was deformed as it moved across an ancient Martian landscape. The tiny bubbles of gas were deformed as well, becoming elongated. When the molten lava solidified, the rock looked like a frozen sponge.

Far from finished with its life, the rock then withstood billions of years of pelting by small sand grains carried by Martian dust storms that sometimes blanketed the planet. The sand wore away the surface until, little by little, the delicate strands that enclosed the bubbles of gas were breached and the spiny texture we see today emerged.

Even now, wind continues to deposit sand and dust in the holes and crevices of the rock.

Similar rocks can be found on Earth where the same complex interplay of volcanoes and weathering occur, whether it be the pelting of rocks by sand grains in the Mojave desert or by ice crystals in the frigid Antarctic.

GongGong is one of a group of rocks studied by Spirit and informally named by the Athena Science Team to honor the Chinese New Year (the Year of the Dog). In Chinese mythology, GongGong was the god-king of water in the North Land. When he sacrificed his life to knock down Mount BuZhou, he defeated the bad Emperor in Heaven, freed the sun, moon and stars to go from east to west, and caused all the rivers in China to flow from west to east.

Spirit’s microscopic imager took this image during on the rover’s 736th day, or sol, of exploring Mars (Jan. 28, 2006). The rock lies in the “Inner Basin” between “Husband Hill” and “McCool Hill” in Gusev Crater. Spirit acquired the image while the rock was fully shadowed, with diffuse illumination mostly from the top in this view.

As usual, click on the thumbnail for a larger view of this remarkable micrograph…

Rules for Life

These rules for life come from Charles J. Sykes, author of the book Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why American Children Feel Good About Themselves But Can’t Read, Write, Or Add. In emails they are often incorrectly attributed to Bill Gates or Kurt Vonnegut — though they don’t sound like anything either of them would ever say.

Rule No. 1: Life is not fair. Get used to it. The average teen-ager uses the phrase “It’s not fair” 8.6 times a day. You got it from your parents, who said it so often you decided they must be the most idealistic generation ever. When they started hearing it from their own kids, they realized Rule No. 1.

Rule No. 2: The real world won’t care as much about your self-esteem as much as your school does. It’ll expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself. This may come as a shock. Usually, when inflated self-esteem meets reality, kids complain that it’s not fair. (See Rule No. 1)

Rule No. 3: Sorry, you won’t make $40,000 a year right out of high school. And you won’t be a vice president or have a car phone either. You may even have to wear a uniform that doesn’t have a Gap label.

Rule No. 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait 'til you get a boss. He doesn’t have tenure, so he tends to be a bit edgier. When you screw up, he’s not going to ask you how you feel about it.

Rule No. 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping. They called it opportunity. They weren’t embarrassed making minimum wage either. They would have been embarrassed to sit around talking about Kurt Cobain all weekend.

Rule No. 6: It’s not your parents' fault. If you screw up, you are responsible. This is the flip side of “It’s my life,” and “You’re not the boss of me,” and other eloquent proclamations of your generation. When you turn 18, it’s on your dime. Don’t whine about it, or you’ll sound like a baby boomer.

Rule No. 7: Before you were born your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way paying your bills, cleaning up your room and listening to you tell them how idealistic you are. And by the way, before you save the rain forest from the blood-sucking parasites of your parents' generation, try delousing the closet in your bedroom.

Rule No. 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers. Life hasn’t. In some schools, they’ll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. Failing grades have been abolished and class valedictorians scrapped, lest anyone’s feelings be hurt. Effort is as important as results. This, of course, bears not the slightest resemblance to anything in real life. (See Rule No. 1, Rule No. 2 and Rule No. 4.)

Rule No. 9: Life is not divided into semesters, and you don’t get summers off. Not even Easter break. They expect you to show up every day. For eight hours. And you don’t get a new life every 10 weeks. It just goes on and on. While we’re at it, very few jobs are interested in fostering your self-expression or helping you find yourself. Fewer still lead to self-realization. (See Rule No. 1 and Rule No. 2.)

Rule No. 10: Television is not real life. Your life is not a sitcom. Your problems will not all be solved in 30 minutes, minus time for commercials. In real life, people actually have to leave the coffee shop to go to jobs. Your friends will not be as perky or pliable as Jennifer Aniston.

Rule No. 11: Be nice to nerds. You may end up working for them. We all could.

Rule No. 12: Smoking does not make you look cool. It makes you look moronic. Next time you’re out cruising, watch an 11-year-old with a butt in his mouth. That’s what you look like to anyone over 20. Ditto for “expressing yourself” with purple hair and/or pierced body parts.

Rule No. 13: You are not immortal. (See Rule No. 12.) If you are under the impression that living fast, dying young and leaving a beautiful corpse is romantic, you obviously haven’t seen one of your peers at room temperature lately.

Rule No. 14: Enjoy this while you can. Sure parents are a pain, school’s a bother, and life is depressing. But someday you’ll realize how wonderful it was to be a kid. Maybe you should start now. You’re welcome.

Moonbats with BDS

Are you familiar with Democrats.com? It’s one of the top two or three liberal sites on the web, along with MoveOn and DailyKos. For anyone with a libertarian or conservative mindset, a visit to these sites is like a visit to a lunatic asylum. Rarely do you see any well-reasoned arguments or interesting debates; mainly these are places where liberals go to rant and rave, and to share fevered and fantastic delusions. Every time I visit one of these sites, I come away worried about the future of mankind — and I mean that quite seriously. My fear stems from the apparent fact that people who “reason” like the ones posting on these sites appear to be in the ascendancy in the Democratic Party — one of the two great political parties of this nation. And the leaders of that party don’t seem to be far removed from this crowd (think Howard Dean).

What does that say about our future? I have trouble coming up with any likely good consequences. Mostly, it’s just scary.

If you accuse me of overreacting, I offer you this example, spotted in a visit this morning:

From Democrats.com:

Is Rove Planning a Terror Attack on the Super Bowl?

Submitted by Bob Fertik on February 3, 2006

The White House is being way too quiet today, and the silence is eerie.

Sure, Bush is on the road talking about “competitiveness.” But he might as well be talking about Mah Jong for all anyone cares.

Bad things happen when Bush is babbling about things he cares nothing about - sometimes very bad things.

Remember 9/11? That morning, Bush was babbling about education in a Florida classroom, as if Mr. “Is Our Children Learning?” gave a crap. He learned about the first plane crashing into the WTC at 8:46 a.m. - he twice said he saw it live, which of course no one else did - yet at 9:00 a.m. he walked right into the classroom as scheduled. And right after the second plane hit at 9:05 a.m. - which everyone except Bush saw live on TV - Andy Card whispered in Bush’s ear that “America is under attack.” Yet Bush didn’t flinch; he just kept reading “My Pet Goat” with the kids for another 10-20 minutes. He then gave a horrible TV statement and flew as far from Washington as he could. But a few days later, Karl Rove put him before the cameras with rescue workers on Ground Zero, put a bullhorn in his hand, and instantly transformed him from a clueless coward to a “hero."

...

But security preparations for this Super Bowl are getting a lot less media coverage than the last 3 did.

Which leads me to ask: is Karl Rove planning a terrorist attack during the Super Bowl, in order to set the stage for building towards war with Iran over the coming year?

...

If Rove wants a war with Iran, he will have to manufacture it, because Iran (like Iraq in 2002) is not trying to provoke a war.

And how better to manufacture a war than to manufacture a terrorist attack on the Super Bowl right while the whole world is watching - and blame it on Iran?

Of course, Rove will have to be very creative this time, beyond even painting a U.S. plane in the colors of the U.N. (Perhaps a “Canadian” submarine will float up the Detroit River? Watch it live!) The FBI is prepared for just about anything - Special Agent William Kowalski says “there are no credible threats against the Super Bowl” - and does not want to be humiliated yet again. Rove’s plan would have to be so evil as to justify yet one more farcical White House claim that “no one could possibly have imagined” such a horrendous thing.

I pray that I am wrong. But ever since Karl Rove plucked Bush out of his drunken stupor to groom him for a career delivering speeches fed to him through an earpiece, just about everything I feared has come true.

The ellipses (…) in the excerpt above indicate places where I’ve deleted some content I thought irrelevant. Please follow the link in the header to read the unedited version, as originally posted on Democrats.com.

How far gone with BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome) does someone have to be in order to actually believe something like this? So far as I can tell, the author of this piece has completely lost his ability to think and to reason. He appears to accept as facts obvious falsehoods, and to reflexively dismiss as false anything asserted by a Republican.

I am certainly not a mental health expert, but I believe it is the case that one of the major diagnostic indications for severe mental disturbance is a disconnection between objective reality and an individual’s perceptions of reality. And that seems to me to be exactly what’s going on here.

The really frightening thing is how many of these folks there are. Visit the three sites I’ve linked to see for yourself. Advice: I find this much more tolerable after a drink or three.

The real ponder: are the inmates on display at these sites going to take over the asylum?

Hillary

An Associated Press photographer captured this image of Hillary Clinton as she greeted people before President Bush’s State of the Union address earlier this week.

I spotted this a few days ago, and saved it. I find myself revisiting it from time-to-time. There’s something about this photograph that compels me to examine it carefully, looking for … what?

I think I’m looking for reassurance that Hillary is a relatively normal human being, and I’m not finding it. We’ve all had many moments where a candid picture would have caught us in an embarrassing or inappropriate pose — so I guard against reading too much into this photo. Nevertheless, as I view this picture I find myself fearing that Hillary really is as unhinged and disturbed as she appears in this photo (and in others before it). And that’s kinda chilling, as she’s one of — perhaps the — leading Democratic candidate for president in 2008. She might win.

That oughta keep you up at night…

Pole Dancer

Isn’t she gorgeous?

<smile>

As usual, click for a larger view…

The Cartoons

As you have probably heard on the news, some cartoons published by a Danish newspaper (Jyllands-Posten) have created quite a ruckus all over the world. It seems that some Muslims find the cartoons offensive, and they’ve reacted with anything from condemnation to organized boycotts to threats of violence. And the reaction of the MSM — worldwide, almost without exception — is to cave in to the Muslim demands by refraining from publishing these cartoons. This response, from a media that doesn’t hesitate in the slightest to publish images or movies that are offensive to Christians or Jews. Interesting bit of hypocrisy, that…

Can you imagine the MSM reaction if (let’s say) a Christian group threatened to burn down a newspaper’s offices and to kill its reporters because it published a Maplethorpe photo? Or the MSM reaction if thousands of Jews worldwide demonstrated demanding the execution of Danish politicians because a Danish newspaper ran cartoons mocking God? You know that isn’t going to happen, and you know darned well the MSM would react by running more such images — and not by caving in. But look at them with these cartoons! It’s disgusting and depressing to watch them so humiliate and debase themselves. The rare exceptions are heartening, but even those are proving short-lived (as in the French newspaper that published the cartoons, but then fired their editor the next day).

Michelle Malkin and Ed Morrisey have excellent coverage and commentary.

If you’re curious what’s actually causing the flap, here are the cartoons so you can see for yourself:

Tax Reduction

Way back when, in 2003, Bush’s package of tax reductions passed. One of the most controversial of these was the reduction of capital gains taxes from 20% to 15% — a hefty and very welcome 25% rate reduction.

You may recall the furious response from the liberals (Democrats, for the most part): red-faced, vein-bulging rhetoric about how the Bush administration was handing out favors to its rich patrons (as if the rest of us don’t pay capital gains tax!). Most especially the liberals screamed about how the tax revenues would decline, creating a larger deficit.

Well, guess what? The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reported yesterday that federal revenues from capital gains taxes are up by 45% since the tax reduction took effect. Up, not down as the liberals predicted. Up, as the economists and supply-siders predicted. Up, not down as the MSM confidently predicted (the New York Times editorials, especially).

Now some of the increase certainly comes from increased average stock valuations since 2003 — but that increase only accounts for a fraction of the increased tax revenues. The rest of it comes from the dynamic and adaptive capital markets, where stock owners quickly figured out that when taxes are lower, selling stock makes sense in many more situations than otherwise. In other words, the old, higher tax rates encouraged investors not to sell one stock and buy another (and this is where the taxable event occurs), and the lower tax reduces that effect. A lot. So much so that while the tax rate was lower, so much more stock turned over that overall taxes collected were higher.

Any shopkeeper or businessman can identify with this observation, because it is just another manifestation of a maxim of capitalism: lower prices mean increased demand. And by lowering the capital tax rate, the federal government effectively lowered the price of every long-term stock transaction — so the demand for those transactions increased.

Does this seem obvious to you? It does to me. But year after year, the Democrats (along with some Republicans!) insist on static analysis of tax changes — meaning that they refuse to take market effects into account when forecasting the result of a tax increase or decrease. And year after year they are proved wrong. Many tax rate increases have resulted in lower tax revenues, and vice versa. The examples are numerous, and yet these dinosaurs insist on static analysis. Why is this?

I can only think of two reasons why: either our politicians are all awesomely stupid, or there is political advantage in static analysis.

So is there a political advantage in static analysis? If so, I can’t find it. How is it to either party’s advantage to be wrong about tax revenue forecasts? From the Democratic perspective, if you assume (as I must, from observation) that their objective is to extract as much money as possible from the American taxpayer, then you would think that they would be best served by finding the “sweet spot” in the tax rate that resulted in the most tax revenues. For capital gains, that’s clearly somewhere south of 20%, and (I suspect) south of 15% as well. You’d think that the Democrats would be jumping for joy at the effects of the capital gains tax reductions, as their most fevered dreams are coming true: more and more money is being extracted from those “rich” taxpayers. But in fact they are lamenting the reduction of the tax rate, and they would like to see it go back up to 20% — or even higher, if you listen to the likes of Kennedy or Kerry. Even though the higher tax rate would lead to lower tax revenues.

Sigh.

State of the Union

I hope you watched President Bush deliver his State of the Union speech last night. There weren’t many surprises, and (thankfully) no huge new entitlements announced. For me, the most interesting new program announced was the initiative to wean us from our oil addiction. In particular I welcome the support for nuclear power plants, carefully mentioned only after some more politically palatable options (such as zero-emission coal-fired plants). The ethanol initiative I’m much more skeptical about, though I’d be very happy to have my skepticism proved wrong. And I am completetly unconvinced on hydrogen-powered transportation unless it is coupled with some renewable energy source (such as nuclear power).

My reaction right after watching the (FOX) television coverage of the speech was that the most striking thing about the coverage was Hillary Clinton. A comment by John Hinderaker says it better than I could:

From PowerLine:

The most interesting audience shots, I thought, were of Hillary Clinton, and she didn’t come across well. In fact, the phrase “tone deaf” comes to mind. She was completely stone-faced when Bush made his friendly joke about his father’s two favorite people (Bill Clinton and “W” himself) turning 60. I would have thought she’d want to be in on a joke about successive presidents from two families. On the other hand, she smiled rapturously when Bush noted the failure of social security reform, and grinned dismissively while shaking her head slightly when Bush, at the conclusion of his discussion of the NSA intercept program, said “we will not sit back and wait to be hit again.” In sum, Hillary looked anything but presidential.

That moment after President Bush spoke about the NSA intercepts was particularly striking to me. I believe any dispassionate observer would would conclude that Hillary was displaying a smug belief in the superiority of her position (whatever that might be), and completely dismissing President Bush’s well-articulated position. And I think that’s most likely a really stupid move on her part, because I don’t think many Americans believe the President is wrong on this one. I came away with the impression that whatever Hillary’s position is, it doesn’t include surveillance of people in America contacting Al Qaida members overseas — and how dumb (and “tone deaf") is that?

The other striking image, for me, was a brief shot of Senator John Kerry, sitting there in a contemplative pose, with his facial expression exuding that same kind of smug superiority that Hillary was showing. He looks like a guy I went to high school with, who was completely convinced that his own understanding (of everything and anything!) was so far advanced over anyone else’s that there was no need for him to even listen to another view, much less consider it. A very annoying character flaw, and, I think, incredibly dangerous in a President. It gives me chills to think how close we came to electing this clown.

While there was little that was remarkable about President Bush’s speech, it seemed to me to be dead on target; just right for the moment. Daniel Casse nails my reaction — after a riff about the weird Democratic reactions, he said:

From NRO:

...For all these reasons, the SOU has to be considered a success. Even at his most conciliatory, Bush continues to annoy all the right people.

Mr. Casse has it exactly right: President Bush continues to annoy all the right people. Forget the details, as this is truly the important point; the indicator that tells us he is right on target…

Bear Hunting

Tip of the hat to Rick P…

Bear Hunting

The Pope took a couple of days off to visit the mountains for some sight-seeing.

He was cruising along the campground in the Popemobile when there was frantic commotion just at the edge of the woods.

A helpless Democrat, wearing sandals, shorts, a “Save the Whales” / “Bush Lied” T-shirt and a tree hugger hat, was screaming while struggling frantically, thrashing around trying to free himself from the jaws of a 10 foot grizzly.

As the Pope watched horrified, a group of Republican loggers came racing up. One quickly fired a 44 magnum into the bear’s chest. The other two reached up and pulled the bleeding semi-conscious Democrat from the bear’s grasp. Then using long clubs, the three loggers finished off the bear and two of them threw it onto the bed of their truck while the other tenderly placed the injured Democrat in the back seat.

As they prepared to leave, the Pope summoned them to come over. “I give you my blessing for your brave actions!” he told them. “I heard there was a bitter hatred between Republican loggers and Democratic environmental activists but now I’ve seen with my own eyes that this is not true."

As the Pope drove off, one of the loggers asked his buddies “Who was that guy?"

"It was the Pope", another replied, “He’s in direct contact with God and has access to all God’s wisdom.” “Well,” the logger said, “he may have access to all God’s wisdom but he sure doesn’t know anything about bear hunting!! By the way, is the bait holding up, or do we need to go back to town and snatch another one?"

Cabinet Blogging

The two pictures at right show the equipment cabinet that is now serving up this blog. The picture at right shows the equipment cabinet with its doors open. You can see the server, and if you expand it, the routers, DSL modem, and the custom controller board I built. The picture at left shows me alongside the cabinet all buttoned up. Note the environment it’s in: two air compressors are in close proximity!

Both pictures were taken by my friend who is allowing me to host this stuff in his basement. As usual, click on the small pictures to get a larger view…

History of Mankind

Tip of the hat to Jim Mundy!

A Short History of Mankind

Humans existed as members of small bands of nomadic hunter/gatherers. They lived on deer in the mountains during the summer & would go to the coast and live on fish and lobster in winter.

The 2 most important events in all of history were the invention of beer and the invention of the wheel. The wheel was invented to get man to the beer. These were the foundation of modern civilization and together were the catalyst for the splitting of humanity into 2 distinct subgroups: Liberals and Conservatives.

Once beer was discovered it required grain and that was the beginning of agriculture. Neither the glass bottle nor the aluminum can were invented yet, so while our early human ancestors were sitting around waiting for them to be invented, they just stayed close to the brewery. That’s how villages were formed.

Some men spent their days tracking and killing animals to B-B-Q at night while they were drinking beer. This was the beginning of what is known as “the Conservative movement."

Other men who were weaker and less skilled at hunting learned to live off the conservatives by showing up for the nightly B-B-Q’s and doing the sewing, fetching and hair dressing. This was the beginning of the Liberal movement. Some of these liberal men eventually evolved into women. The rest became known as 'girliemen.'

Some noteworthy liberal achievements include the domestication of cats, the invention of group therapy and group hugs and the concept of Democratic voting to decide how to divide the meat and beer that conservatives provided.

Over the years conservatives came to be symbolized by the largest, most powerful land animal on earth, the elephant. Liberals are symbolized by the jackass.

Modern liberals like imported beer (with lime added), but most prefer white wine or imported bottled water. They eat raw fish but like their beef well done. Sushi, tofu, and French food are standard liberal fare. Another interesting revolutionary side note: most of their women have higher testosterone levels than their men. Most social workers, personal injury attorneys, journalists, dreamers in Hollywood and group therapists are liberals. Liberals invented the designated hitter rule because it wasn’t “fair” to make the pitcher also bat.

Conservatives drink domestic beer. They eat red meat and still provide for their women. Conservatives are big-game hunters, rodeo cowboys, lumberjacks, construction workers, firemen, medical doctors, police officers, corporate executives, Marines, athletes and generally anyone who works productively. Conservatives who own companies hire other conservatives who want to work for a living.

Liberals produce little or nothing. They like to “govern” the producers and decide what to do with the production. Liberals believe Europeans are more enlightened than Americans. That is why most of the liberals remained in Europe when conservatives were coming to America. They crept in after the Wild West was tame and created a business of trying to get MORE for nothing.

Here ends today’s lesson in world history: It should be noted that a Liberal may have a momentary urge to respond to the above before simply laughing and forwarding it. A Conservative will be so convinced of the absolute truth of this history that it will be forwarded immediately.

Done!

Well, the great blog server move has been accomplished — the new “blog cabinet” is up and running. You should notice a major improvement in the speed of the blog.

Comments welcome!

Bobcat

Ever since the big Cedar fire just over two years ago, our once-abundant local bobcats have been very scarce — and in our valley, almost non-existant. This is very sad for us, as these bobcats used to be one of our favorite things to spot as we were walking.

In the past few days, we’ve had two bobcat sightings. First, a few days ago Debbie spotted one while driving through Lyons valley. This is one valley over from ours, about two or three miles from our home. Then yesterday we had a much closer encounter. Debbie was sitting in our living room, reading, when she glanced up and saw a feline silhouette against our patio door, about 30' from her. She called to me (I was in the next room), but by the time I got there it had gone. She was sure it was a bobcat. I crept out as quietly as I could, hoping to catch a glimpse. When I went through the doorway where Debbie had originally spotted it, I couldn’t see a thing. So I walked around to the side of the house, in the direction she thought it had moved, and when I looked around the corner — there it was! It was loping away, not looking all that concerned. At the moment I spotted it, the bobcat was about 25' from me — but it was only about 6' from the window Debbie had moved to, so she got a terrific view of it, from the side. I had the butt view <smile>. The bobcat was a male, roughly the size of Lea (our female field spaniel); I’d guess it was 25 to 30 pounds. It’s color was a little unusual — more pale than most of the bobcats we’ve seen here. So far as I could tell, it was in good health.

I sure hope this is a portent of things to come…

Dogs and Cats

Mo’i (the field spaniel) and Boots (the cat) are enjoying some late afternoon sunshine streaming in our livingroom window. The dark-furred animals can really absorb some heat — put you hand on them while they’re sunbathing, and you’ll feel as if you’ve been burnt! Mo’i could just barely work up the energy to open one eye to look at me, as I took this picture. Boots is a little scaredy-cat, so she was watching me warily, as always…

These three images are of Halala Pala, our most photogenic of cats. We think he’s a Maine Coon, from his looks, behavior, and ridiculously tiny and squeaky voice (as compared to the magnificence of his size). His belly fur is particularly curly and unkempt; in this upside-down pose (which he loves to adopt), it’s sometimes hard to tell where anything is. As I took these pictures (and about 20 more just like them!), he twisted and turned, posing for me as if he was a supermodel. The moment I stopped taking pictures, he stopped and went to sleep…

These three guys are the best of buddies, and they like to hang out in this cat tree together. The fellow on the right is Halala Pala, in a more normal pose. The other big fellow on the left is Alika — our biggest cat by far, and also the most afraid of people. Only rarely am I able to touch him, and he hates it when I do. The little guy in the middle is Maka Le’a, who only recently has learned to climb to high places (much to Debbie’s distress, as she imagines he’ll launch himself to a bad fall).

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

Cats and Cookies

Baking cookies with your cat — a step-by-step guide:

1. Look in cookbook for cookie recipe.

2. Get cup of coffee.

3. Get cat off of cookbook.

4. Find that special recipe.

5. Get cat’s nose out of coffee mug.

6. Go to fridge and get eggs.

7. Get dry ingredients from cupboard.

8. Break eggs in small bowl.

9. Sift dry ingredients in large bowl.

10. Answer the phone.

11. Cat ate eggs; get more from fridge.

12. Get cat out of flour bowl and dust cat off.

13. Get Band-Aids for scratches on hands.

14. Throw flour out and get more.

15. Preheat oven for cookies.

16. Looking at cat & wanting to bake cat now. Cat runs for cover into bathroom.

17. Flour the counter to roll out cookie dough.

18. Big crash in bathroom; run to see what happened.

19. Cat has TP all over floor; stuff spilled and knocked over on top of bathroom counter.

20. Yell at cat. Cat falls in toilet bowl.

21. Can sense cat is angry.

22. Take cat out of toilet to dry cat off.

23. Get bandages to cover more scratches on arms and legs.

24. Clean up bathroom.

25. Hear a thump in kitchen …Oh Golly … now what?

26. Get cat off floured counter in kitchen.

27. Try to pick out cat hairs from flour.

28. Step on cat’s tail and get bitten.

29. Get coat, car keys, and go to store to buy cookies!!!

Cabinet Blogging

If you’re wondering why my blogging has been light recently, there are two main reasons: I’ve been sick as the proverbial dog for the past few days (but now I’m recovering nicely), and I’ve been working on a humongous project. The guts of the project are pictured at right, and I’m sure nobody could figure out what’s going on from that little bit of a clue <smile>!

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

The general point of this project is to upgrade the pitifully slow bandwidth of our Internet connection. Way out here in the boondocks of Jamul, the only choices we’ve got are dial-up and satellite. Dial-up is doggone slow, and satellite is just terrible for almost everything other than file downloading (it’s great at that!).

And there are two parts to this problem: the bandwidth that we experience, sitting in Jamul, suring the web or picking up email — and the bandwidth that our web site visitors experience. This project addresses both issues.

First, I’m locating two servers at a friend’s house (this maniac has oh-so-graciously allowed me to put all this stuff in his home!). My friend lives in El Cajon — a real city, with real services. I’ve installed a high-speed DSL connection to his home, and my two servers will be connected to that. This means that you, dear reader, should experience simply stunning speed improvements when reading this blog. This operation is scheduled to take place next Sunday, January 29th.

Second, in addition to the DSL I ran to my friend’s home, I also ran a pair of dedicated phone lines. Also in his home will be a special kind of router that will accept a pair of connections over the phone lines (doubling the normal dial-up speed) and relaying them to the DSL. At our home in Jamul, I’ve also installed two phone lines, and these will be connected full time to our friend’s home.

Saying it all like that makes it sound pretty easy — but there are some tricks here. First of all, the place my friend made available is in a somewhat dirty basement, not air conditioned. That dictates putting the equipment in a cabinet with a filtered air supply. Then when you start adding up what I mean by “equipment", you see some challenges: two servers, two routers, one dual modem router, two network switches, a DSL modem, and a UPS. Yikes!

But wait — it gets worser.

This cabinet full of tightly packed equipment will be located about a half-hour’s drive from my home. It’s not really practical to drive that far to reset a server whenever I make some change in my blog code that causes a crash. Or when any other of a zillion things happen. So I needed a way to remotely reset the servers. And taking that same thought to a (very) slightly more extreme level, I also needed to be able to power cycle the servers (sometimes a reset just doesn’t do the trick). Plus I needed to automatically manage the server shutdown and startup in the event of a power outage. And then I also need to manage the fan speeds — rather than just run them at full blast all the time (reducing their lifetime), I thought I’d monitor temperatures in the cabinet, and adjust the fan speeds automatically.

Oh, this got complicated really fast…

One saving grace: my friend’s son is a most excellent cabinet maker, just by happenstance. And he very graciously allowed me to use his shop and his skills to build a custom cabinet of my own design, just the right size to fit all my gear. Without his help (and his fantastic computer-controlled MDF-cutting machine!), this project would have been much more difficult.

The lower three pictures are various views of the controller board that I built to run the cabinet. It’s based on a Z-World Jackrabbit BL1810 board (with prototyping board), which has a processor that’s basically a seriously souped-up Z80 (and I wrote a lot of Z80 code in my day!). The pair of stacked PC boards visible in the lower-right photo are the Jackrabbit.

The rest of that mess is a piece of vectorboard with a bunch of circuitry that I designed on it. There are switches to turn the fans on and off, digitil potentiometers to control the fan’s speed, and a tachometer mux to allow all the fans to be individually monitored for speed. Temperature measurement is handled by eight digital temperature sensors, which are scattered throughout the cabinet and inside the two servers. Power control is handled by a pair of miniature hard-contact relays (with drivers); reset is handled by a pair of digital switches. The controller has its own sensing of the power mains, separately from the UPS. And of course there are LEDs (couldn’t build something like this without 'em!), and just for grins, a pair of optoelectronic reflective infrared door-open sensors. Finally, the controller has a pair of serial ports that I’m using for communications between the controller and the servers.

Whew! Just building all that hardware was a pretty big project. But then came the firmware for the controller… There’s some fairly tricky stuff in there, like a few interrupt service routines that really had to be done in assembly language (for speed) — and it’s been a few years, folks, since I’ve written any assembly language. Fortunately the old saw about never forgetting how to ride a bicycle appears to apply to assembly language coding as well. I had to re-familiarize myself with the Z80’s architecture, but within a few hours of starting I had the first ISR going. The rest of the firmware I wrote in “Dynamic C", supplied by the Z-World folks. This is a very modern and very friendly environment compared to the primitive tools I used way back when. It’s full of snazzy features and unexpected conveniences. But … it ain’t Java, and this ancient and venerable software engineer has gotten very comfortable with the cushy, safe, protected world of Java. I’ll give you just one example, which the techies amongst you will appreciate. In Java, if you intend to compare a variable 'i' with 2, you might write this code: if( i = 2 ). But that would be wrong, and it wouldn’t compile (so you’d know it immediately and fix it before you ever tried to run the program). With the C language, that code compiles just fine, and when it runs, that code will set i equal to 2 and then tell you it was equal. Yikes! I did that three times in 5,600 lines of code, and each of those took me quite a while to find. Sheesh! I miss Java!

But now the whole darned thing is working. All the hardware, all the wiring, and all the firmware — it’s all up and chunking along. Yee hah! All that’s left is configuring the network gear and servers, and that, my friends, is truly trivial compared to what I just went through with the rest of this project.

My wife is absolutely overjoyed to have this project come to an end — I believe she’s marked next Sunday on her calendar. The reason for her abundance of joy is one that I’m sure many of you will be sympathetic with: this project is being built in our livingroom. We simply have no other place to build something this large, so there it had to be. Oh, Debbie will be very, very happy to see that cabinet depart…

And so will I…

The Thing

Hah! Here’s a short post from The Big Pharaoh (a most excellent blog, BTW) that I’ve taken the liberty of posting in its entirety:

The THING!

An old Arab lived close to *New York* City for more than 40 years. One day he decided that he would love to plant potatoes and herbs in his garden, but he knew he was alone and too old and weak. His son was in college in Paris, so the old man sent him an e-mail explaining the problem:

"Beloved son, I am very sad, because I can’t plant potatoes in my garden. I am sure, if only you were here, that you would help me and dig up the garden for me. I love you, your father."

The following day, the old man received a response e-mail from his son:

"Beloved father, please don’t touch the garden. That is where I have hidden 'the *THING*.' I love you, too, Ahmed."

At 4pm the FBI and the Rangers visited the house of the old man and took the whole garden apart, searching every inch. But they couldn’t find anything. Disappointed, they left the house.

The next day, the old man received another e-mail from his son:

"Beloved father, I hope the garden is dug up by now and you can plant your potatoes, that is all I could do for you from here; Your loving son Ahmed.

We can only hope that the NSA and DHS have this much on the ball…

A Son's Farewell

Lt. Hank Harding died on March 27, 1961 when his Navy FJ-4 “Fury” crashed into the side of Otay Mountain. Bad weather and confusion at the Brown Field control tower take the blame.

Yesterday Marc Harding — Lt. Harding’s son — visited the wreckage that he only recently found out had been discovered in 1998. Read the whole thing.

From the San Diego Union-Tribune:

Harding knelt beside it, alone, for several minutes. Chunks of the plane were remarkably well preserved with the original paint, still bright, stenciled writing, clearly visible.

Eventually, the group found another large chunk of airplane wing. As they huddled around it, Harding took out of his backpack a small plaque. It had his father’s name and rank, his birthday and date of death.

"To our loving son, brother, husband, father,” it read. “We miss you so much. We will forever love you. We will never forget you."

He held it in place carefully while Dave Schurhammer, who also works with the Macha family on wreck sites, screwed it into place.

Later, after the long hike out, Harding reflected on the day’s events. He had said that placing the plaque did not necessarily close a circle for him, but after coming down from the mountain he said the effort was worth it.

"When my Dad died, he was doing something honorable,” he said. “And I wanted to honor that."

Otay Mountain is about 8 miles southwest of our home.

French Flag

What could I add to this?

Click on the little picture to see this clearly…

Random Thought

This morning’s news of the Al Qaida leaders killed in the Pakistan strike a few days ago got me to thinking about the internal reactions of the Al Qaida leadership. Such a successful demonstration of our intelligence gathering capability must be sobering. Not to mention our ability to drop a few bombs with pinpoint accuracy at one of the most remote sites in the world, on very short notice.

But on the flip side, imagine what it must be like for the Al Qaida leadership to watch CNN’s reporting of American politics. What do you suppose is going through Osama Bin Laden’s mind as he’s watching (say) Ted Kennedy bloviating? On one level, I’d imagine he’s quite amused at the silliness of his enemies. On another level — and this is disturbing — the moonbats in powerful positions must be very encouraging to him. Seen from Al Qaida-land, the moonbats are basically on Al Qaida’s side of the global war on terror, opposing just about any effective tactic that comes along. Al Gore’s recent speech on the NSA wiretapping is a terrific example of this. Here’s a formerly-secret program that’s been effective stopping Al Qaida attacks — and the moonbat Democrats have not only revealed the program’s existence (remember, moonbat political beliefs were at the core of the leaker’s motivation), but they’re now actively trying to stop the program.

Al Qaida has friends in high places.

How depressing.

Wolf or Hamster?

Ahhh … there’s nothing quite like the sting of a Mark Steyn piece in the morning…

From “Ham-handed Dems didn’t lay a glove on Alito":

Even smear tactics require a certain plausibility. When you damn someone as a big scary mega-troubling racist misogynist homophobe and he seems to any rational observer perfectly non-scary and non-troubling, eventually you make yourself ridiculous. The boy who cried “Wolf!” at least took the precaution of doing so when there was no alleged predator in view. If he’d stood there crying “Wolf!” while pointing at a hamster, he’d have been led away for counseling. That’s the stage the Senate Democrats are at.

Racist misogynist homophobe, indeed. That’s a hamster you’re pointing at, you damned stupid bloviating Democrats! You’re ridiculous!

I wonder if this performance will wake the apparently hibernating voters in Massachusetts, so they’ll vote ABT (anyone besides Ted) next time around? Or are they all bought and paid for?

A Wife's Tears

Watching Mrs. Alito quietly crying during Senator Graham’s apology for the behavior of Senators Ted Kennedy and Chuck Schumer was one of the most painful political events I’ve endured. Anybody with a even a vestigal human heart left can’t help but sympathize with her. And anyone with even a shred of common sense, listening to the two champion democratic bloviators thunder on, realizes that their ad hominem attacks are completely without substance and all about perceived political gain (mostly blatantly pandering to their base).

Meanwhile, in a display of illogic and over-the-top spinning that has even this curmudgeonly political watcher simply stunned, the lefties are positioning this sad incident as having been caused by Senator Graham’s apology. If this is (as I suspect) 100% spin that not a one of them actually believes, then it’s yet another watermark in a the past few year’s series of new records for political bottom-seeking. On the other hand, if the lefties actually believe this drivel they’re pushing, then I am truly beginning to believe that there are two species here: homo sapiens (rightus) and homo sapiens (leftus)…

Meanwhile, I’m left with a sense of sadness — not just for Sam Alito and his family, but also for the country. That our political “discourse” descends to the levels it did in yesterday’s hearings is to nobody’s credit. What Ted Kennedy and Chuck Schumer did was outrageous and reprehensible. But so too was the fact that the rest of their colleagues didn’t shout them down, didn’t immediately condemn them, didn’t shut down the hearings in protest, didn’t get up and walk out, escorting the Alitos with them. The near-silence (Graham excepted) of the other members of the committee speaks volumes about what has become acceptable in today’s politics.

A pox on them all, but on Ted Kennedy and Chuck Schumer first, please.

Don't Miss This

If you’re as tired as I am of the way that most Democrats are now opposing everything about the Iraq War, giving comfort to our enemies, and the incessant “Bush Lied!” chants — then you’re going to love this new TV ad (this is a fast link, not the usual snail’s pace thing from my blog) that the GOP has put together. Don’t miss it!

Tip o' the hat to John and Grayle for passing this along!

Troubling Words

Today’s Wall Street Journal has an op-ed piece by Sergei Ivanov, the deputy prime minister and minister of defense of the Russian Federation.

From “Russia Must Be Strong ($)” by Sergei Ivanov…

We have seen a steady trend pointing at a broader scope of use of military force recently, not least because more challenges to national security have emerged. Chief among them is interference in Russia’s internal affairs by foreign states — either directly or through structures that they support — and the attempts of some countries, coalitions and extremist terrorist organizations to develop or gain access to weapons of mass destruction. We must also be prepared for the possibility of a violent assault on the constitutional order of some post-Soviet states and the border instability that might ensue from that. Arms and drugs trafficking and other kinds of cross-border criminal activity must be closely watched.

None of these threats shows any sign of abating. Everyone knows that when it comes to war and conflict-prevention, Russia always goes first for political, diplomatic, economic and other nonmilitary means. But maintaining a robust military capability is clearly in our national interests.

The primary task for the armed forces is to prevent conventional and nuclear aggression against Russia. Hence our firm commitment to the principle of pre-emption. We define pre-emption not only as a capability to deliver strikes on terrorist groups but as other measures designed to prevent a threat from emerging long before there is a need to confront it. This is the guiding principle of the profound and comprehensive modernization of our armed forces. The actual level of combat readiness and effectiveness hinges on how successful this upgrade will be.

Most troubling to me: “…We must also be prepared for the possibility of a violent assault on the constitutional order of some post-Soviet states and the border instability that might ensue from that.” Taken at face value, this is not unreasonable — it is, in fact, probably something the U.S. would say in response to (for example) a serious threat to take down Mexico’s democracy (if that’s the right thing to call their government). The trouble is that it sounds remarkably like the doublespeak of the Soviet era, and I no longer have must trust left in Putin’s good intentions. So I mentally reword that statement to something like this: “…We don’t like the new governments in the Ukraine, or the Baltics, or the 'stans, and if we feel like it we’re just going to swoop in their with our military and put things back the way they belong.” Kind of like Stalin in the post-WWII era, who used similar justifications for overunning the eastern European states that lay helpless before the Red Army.

Kind of scary, really…

Anagrams

These very clever anagrams were sent to me by a friend…

DORMITORY — DIRTY ROOM

PRESBYTERIAN — BEST IN PRAYER

ASTRONOMER — MOON STARER

DESPERATION — A ROPE ENDS IT

THE EYES — THEY SEE

GEORGE BUSH — HE BUGS GORE

THE MORSE CODE — HERE COME DOTS

SLOT MACHINES — CASH LOST IN ME

ANIMOSITY — IS NO AMITY

ELECTION RESULTS — LIES - LET’S RECOUNT

SNOOZE ALARMS — ALAS! NO MORE Z 'S

A DECIMAL POINT — IM A DOT IN PLACE

THE EARTHQUAKES — THAT QUEER SHAKE

ELEVEN PLUS TWO — TWELVE PLUS ONE

MOTHER-IN-LAW — WOMAN HITLER

Just Weird!

I ran across this on BoingBoing, where they showed the picture of the girl at right. Not a real girl, BTW — just a little photoshopping. The weird part is how this affects one’s perceptual system. When I look at those pictures (especially the girl, for some reason), I feel a bit like I’m cross-eyed, and no matter how long I stare at it, I don’t feel like I’ve actually clearly seeing the picture. It’s a very strange feeling, hard to put into words.

Click on either thumbnail to get a larger image. And if you’re intrigued by these, there are many more here.

I speculate that the slightly alarming visual effects are caused by the special sensitivity of our perceptual system to human faces; that somehow these faces are “wrong” in a way that our perceptual system just cannot handle. Kind of like what happens when you get dizzy, because your perception (the combination of spatial and visual, in that case) is getting conflicting inputs.

Saturn

This photo looks like something right out of one of the pulp science fiction novels I devoured as a kid:

From the official Cassini website:

In this magnificent view, delicate haze layers high in the atmosphere encircle the oblate figure of Saturn. A special combination of spectral filters used for this image makes the high haze become visible. A methane-sensitive filter (centered at 889 nanometers) makes high altitude features stand out, while a polarizing filter makes small haze particles appear bright.

Methane in the atmosphere absorbs light with wavelengths around 889 nanometers as it travels deeper into the gas planet, thus bright areas in this image must represent reflective material at higher altitudes. Small particles or individual molecules scatter light quite effectively to a polarization of 90 degrees, which this polarizing filter is sensitive to. Thus, high altitude haze layers appear bright in this view.

The small blob of light at far right is Dione (1,126 kilometers, or 700 miles across).

The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Dec. 5, 2005, at a distance of approximately 2.9 million kilometers (1.8 million miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 100 degrees. The image scale is 169 kilometers (105 miles) per pixel.

Think about that last little bit. If you click on the small picture above right to get the larger view, each dot on that photo is an area 105 miles square on Saturn. That’s a big place! Saturn’s surface area is about 84 times that of our Earth’s. Much more information on Saturn at Wikipedia…