Puzzler...

Less than half of you got last the correct answer to week's puzzler (and I got one complaint about the obscurity of the question!).

Trofim Lysenko was a biologist working in the Soviet Union from about 1925 through the 1960s (he died in 1976). He promoted the notion of inheritence of acquired characteristics – an idea that was popular prior to the early 1900s, when science started to understand genetics. A simple example of inheritance of acquired characteristics: if you wanted pigs without tails, you'd cut off the tails of a male and female pig, breed them, and their descendants would have shorter tails. Lysenko (and other proponents of the inheritance of acquired characteristics) were not at all put off by the total failure of experiments to produce such results – they had an endless stream of explanations and flawed experiments “proving” the theory.

But Lysenko's main skills weren't scientific at all: they were political. By 1948 he managed to promote his ideas so effectively within Stalin's Soviet Union that he persuaded Stalin to legislate the “correctness” of his theories – outlawing Mendeleevian inheritance (modern genetics) in the process. Thousands of biologists were imprisoned or sent to gulags; hundreds died. Soviet biology, as a direct consequence, was set back decades, and was the laughingstock of the west. Not until 1964 – long after Stalin's death – was the official mandate for Lysenkoism removed, and not until then were Soviet biologist free to pursue modern genetics. It was a disastrous example of politicized science. Think about that, and then consider what has happened over the past few years with respect to the science of global warming. Political suppression of scientific debate is dangerous, and we have a frightening example of why in our recent history…

This week's puzzler is a science question: when wood is burning in a fireplace, you can see yellow or orange flames, sometimes blue flames, and red or orange embers. What is actually causing those yellow or orange flames?

Fly-By Data...

I've posted several times about the MESSENGER robotic explorer's fly-by of the planet Mercury earlier this week. The data (including images) are now safely back here on Earth, and the MESSENGER team has started posting them. It's already clear that the fly-by was a complete success – both for the technology and for the science results.

NASA's prowess with highly-reliable robotics has allowed them to make use of slower but much more efficient courses, leveraging fly-bys of planets as “slingshots” to change the spacecraft's speed without the use of rockets. In the case of MESSENGER, the spacecraft has “fallen” from the dizzying heights of Earth (above the sun) down to the lowly altitude of Mercury, and in the process it picked up a lot of speed (its potential energy converted to kinetic energy). The multiple fly-bys of Mercury are reducing its speed with only trivial use of its rockets (for navigation). The end result of this technique is that the spacecraft itself can be much larger and heavier than it could with any sort of direct-flight course. The earlier missions (such as Cassini-Huygens) that used this slingshot technique were real edge-of-the-seat cliff-hangers, as there was some perfectly reasonable doubt that NASA could pull off the missions that lasted a decade or more, and that required fantastical feats of navigation and course control. They've proven it now, though, and made it seem almost routine...

About the photo above (click on it for a larger version):

Shortly following MESSENGER’s closest approach to Mercury on January 14, 2008, the spacecraft’s Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) on the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS) instrument acquired this image as part of a mosaic that covers much of the sunlit portion of the hemisphere not viewed by Mariner 10. Images such as this one can be read in terms of a sequence of geological events and provide insight into the relative timing of processes that have acted on Mercury's surface in the past.

The double-ringed crater pictured in the lower left of this image appears to be filled with smooth plains material, perhaps volcanic in nature. This crater was subsequently disrupted by the formation of a prominent scarp (cliff), the surface expression of a major crustal fault system, that runs alongside part of its northern rim and may have led to the uplift seen across a portion of the crater’s floor. A smaller crater in the lower right of the image has also been cut by the scarp, showing that the fault beneath the scarp was active after both of these craters had formed. The MESSENGER team is working to combine inferences about the timing of events gained from this image with similar information from the hundreds of other images acquired by MESSENGER to extend and refine the geological history of Mercury previously defined on the basis only of Mariner 10 images.

This MESSENGER image was taken from a distance of about 18,000 kilometers (11,000 miles) from the surface of Mercury, at 20:03 UTC, about 58 minutes after the closest approach point of the flyby. The region shown is about 500 kilometers (300 miles) across, and craters as small as 1 kilometer (0.6 mile) can be seen in this image.

Hats off to the entire MESSENGER team – a fantastic accomplishment!

Quote of the Day...

From Roger Simon of Pajamas Media:

While watching the endless pundit blather on TV tonight after the Republican Michigan Primary and Democratic Nevada Debate and reading the various opinion meisters commentaries online, I had one of those rare zen moments of simplicity. It all comes down to a simple question:

Who would you like to be in the White House if Pakistan fell to al Qaeda and the Islamists gained control of its nuclear arsenal?

Answer that question and you will know your candidate. All the rest, as they say, is commentary.

What he said...

Orlosky Trial...

Just over a year ago (On December 1, 2006), Bob Orlosky shot and killed Charles Crow. Both men lived in Jamul. See these posts for more detailed information from the period immediately following the shooting. Yesterday his trial for murder began:

No one disputes that a heavy-construction contractor opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle on three men who drove onto his Jamul property in December 2006, killing one and wounding another.

In a trial that began Tuesday, a jury in El Cajon Superior Court must decide whether Joseph Robert “Bob” Orlosky shot the men for no real reason, as prosecutors contend, or if he was trying to stop copper thieves who nearly ran him down, as his lawyer maintains.

Just about everybody who's heard about this shooting has speculated on the motives. The speculations range from Bob Orlosky essentially killing for sport all the way to Charles Crow (and the two other men with him) trying to steal valuable scrap metal from Orlosky, and him acting purely in self-defense. Those two extremes are in fact the positions that the defense and prosecution (respectively) seem to have staked out.

From where I sit, the truth is unknowable – I simply don't have some very basic facts available to me. For instance, I still don't know for certain whether The jeep that Crow and his companions were riding in contained any metal stolen from Orlosky's property. So I'm just waiting for some facts to emerge from the trial…

This story has special significance for my wife and I: Bob Orlosky's property is less than a mile from our home, just a short drive away. If the prosecution's portrait of Orlosky is the true one, then we want this murderer safely (or permanently) put away. On the other hand, if the defense has the true story, then we're very concerned about our own rights to defend our life and property. So we're most interested in the outcome of this trial, and the facts that emerge from it…

Cal Johnson, Part IV...

I've posted about Cal Johnson several times before. Eight months ago (last May 22), he was arrested and accused of kidnapping and torturing his wife of 23 years. His wife posted comments on two of my posts (linked above), supporting her husband and painting a story of a good man addled by drugs.

Today Cal Johnson pled not guilty to all 18 charges brought against him:

Judge Allan Preckel found sufficient evidence to bind over Cal C. Johnson, 47, on 18 counts ranging from assault and battery to deadly threats. Johnson is accused of abducting his wife and shocking her with a stun gun because he believed she was having an affair.

I don't have the faintest idea where this case is going to end up, nor do I have a strong idea about where I think it should end up. Read my earlier posts to see why this case is so complex and confusing...

Incidently, the article I excerpted and linked to above is posted on NBC 39's web site. In that article, they excerpted my earlier blog post (with Mrs. Johnson's comments). In doing so, they excerpted and modified Mrs. Johnson's remarks -- mainly to elide some derogatory things she had to say about a channel 39 reporter! They also neglected to give me credit for the post, or the common courtesy of a link. This is a common practice on the lamestream media, unfortunately – it's happened to me a half-dozen or so times now. In fact, the only time the mainstream media has ever credited my blog was during the Harris Fire, when they published a link to the Lyons Peak cameras whose photos I was enhancing in near-realtime. In my own experience, it's very rare for a blogger to fail to give credit to a source. Who's the more professional lot?

Mercury!

The MESSENGER robotic explorer has completed its first fly-by of Mercury, and is now returning the data it gathered. At right is one of the first images it sent back, including about half the surface of the planet that has never had high-resolution images made of it before. The many instruments on MESSENGER collected a lot of data on this brief fly-by, and it will take some days before it all gets back to Earth and “digested”. Scientists will be studying it for years to come...

More of these, please, NASA – and less of the incredibly expensive and not-very-productive manned missions. Please.

Click on the image at right for a (much) larger version...

Tipping Point...

This one is purely for fun...

Guinness: Tipping Point

MESSENGER Mercury Fly-By Is TODAY!

Just after 11 am Pacific Time today, the MESSENGER robotic space explorer hits a major milestone, with its first fly-by of its target planet: Mercury. This will be the first visit to Mercury by any man-made machine in over 30 years, since a relatively primitive Mariner mission. The image at right was taken yesterday, as the spacecraft approached Mercury.

The MESSENGER team issued this press release today:

Today, January 14, 2008, at 19:04:39 UTC (2:04:39 pm EST), MESSENGER will experience its closest approach to Mercury, passing just 200 kilometers (124 miles) above the planet's surface. As the MESSENGER spacecraft continues to speed toward Mercury, the Narrow Angle Camera, part of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS) instrument, acquired this crescent view of Mercury. The image was taken on January 13, 2008, when the spacecraft was at a distance of about 760,000 kilometers (470,000 miles) from Mercury. Mercury is about 4880 kilometers (about 3030 miles) in diameter, and the smallest feature visible in this image is about 20 kilometers (12 miles) across.

During the historic flyby encounter today, extensive scientific data will be gathered. The MDIS instrument will acquire over 1200 images of Mercury, including images of portions of the surface never before viewed by a spacecraft. The MDIS instrument is just one member of a whole suite of instruments that will be used to study Mercury during the flyby. The Mercury Atmospheric and Surface Composition Spectrometer (MASCS) will observe Mercury's surface as well as its tenuous atmosphere. The MESSENGER Magnetometer (MAG) will accurately measure Mercury's magnetic field, and the Energetic Particle and Plasma Spectrometer (EPPS) will characterize Mercury's space environment and interactions with the solar wind. The Mercury Laser Altimeter (MLA) will sense surface topography along a narrow profile. The Gamma-Ray and Neutron Spectrometer (GRNS) and X-Ray Spectrometer (XRS) will make the first measurements of Mercury’s surface elemental composition.

MESSENGER will begin to transmit the new data to Earth once all of the scientific measurements are completed, about 22 hours after the spacecraft's closest approach to Mercury. These flyby data will shed light on fundamental scientific questions related to the formation and evolution of the planet Mercury. As scientists analyze the data, the MESSENGER spacecraft will continue on its planned journey, which includes two more encounters of Mercury in October 2008 and September 2009, before entering an orbit around Mercury in March 2011.

Visit the fly-by page anytime after the encounter; it will be updated frequently as new images and information are received. Visit the main page to read more about the MESSENGER mission.

Local Hero...

I have not heard of Sgt. Kristopher Kane of El Cajon before I read this story about his actions:

On the morning of Nov. 10 that year, Kane and his platoon, C Company, 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines, were in Fallujah to retake the city from insurgents. While his platoon was resting overnight in a guarded building, the building next door was attacked.

Soon his platoon was in a fierce battle, according to military documents and an account in a Marine Corps newsletter.

Kane protected his fellow Marines from gunfire, including some already wounded. When the grenades Kane threw failed to stop the insurgents, his lieutenant, Dustin Shumney, sent in a bulldozer to take down a portion of the house.

The house fell down around Kane, the rubble crushing his right leg. He continued to fight despite the injury. He was sent to hospitals in Germany and then San Diego before spending a month recuperating at his father's house.

Kane is being honored in a way I haven't seen before:

Kane was decorated for his actions with a Silver Star, the U.S. military's third-highest honor for valor. And his picture is on a downtown El Cajon billboard – part of the year-old Hometown Marines program, which honors military heroes in the towns they are from.

The billboard, unveiled last month, is one of fewer than a dozen nationwide and the first in San Diego County. It can be seen on eastbound East Main Street near the Prescott Promenade.

I am really glad to see this sort of program in place, to give these warriors the recognition they so greatly deserve…

Kudos to Liz Neely and the San Diego Union-Tribune for such positive coverage of this story.

Hiring A Programmer...

Here's an excellent guide to hiring a programmer, full of advice that resonates strongly with my own experience. Here's #2 of 6 indicators, as a sample:

#2 : Self-teaching and love of learning

Programming is the ultimate moving target. Not a year goes by without some new technology robbing an old, established standard blind and changing half the development universe. This is not to say that all good programmers pick up these changes and ride the bleeding edge. However, there’s a class of programmers that will never, ever pick up a new technology unless forced to, because they don’t like learning new stuff. These programmers will typically have learnt programming at university, and expect to get by on whatever skills they picked up there, plus whatever courses their company is willing to send them on.

If you’re thinking of hiring someone as a programmer, and he ever utters the words “I can work with that, just send me on a training course for a week and I’ll be good at it”, don’t hire that guy. A good programmer doesn’t need a training course to learn a new technology. In fact, the great programmer will be the one talking your ear off about a new technology that you haven’t even heard of, explaining to you why you must use it in your business, even if none of your staff knows how to use it. Even if it’s a technology he doesn’t know how to use yet.

Now go read the whole thing!

Giving Thanks...

Some Jamulians found a way to thank some of the firefighters who traveled here from other states to help us this past October:

Grateful to the firefighters who helped protect their community, the couple wanted to give something back. And, as luck would have it, they planned to visit the Pacific Northwest.

They came last month, bearing gifts for the seven agencies that sent firefighters to Southern California. Each received a box of snacks and souvenirs from Jamul and the nearby border town of Tecate, Baja California.

Waller and Weber also wanted to deliver a personal touch. So they brought oversize thank-you cards signed by community members.

To get the signatures, they set up a table at a fundraiser for people who lost their homes. By day's end, 172 people had signed the cards.

"The most poignant signatures were from those who lost their homes," Waller said. "There were six families who still wanted to thank the firefighters, and they had lost everything."

Go read the whole thing. Very nice, Cris and Mike. Very nice indeed…

2007 Darwin Awards...

The Darwin Awards are given each year to

“…salute the improvement of the human genome by honoring those who accidentally remove themselves from it…”.

This year's awards were just announced. It's “don't miss” reading – but be darned sure you're sitting down and don't have any liquid in your mouth when you go there...

Moral Relativism...

Neo-Neocon has a fascinating post up today on moral relativism. The lead:

Moral relativism is the idea that there is no absolute good and evil, but that all customs and practices of mankind must be evaluated in terms of their function in the society where they are found. Any attempt to make moral judgments about other cultures merely reflects our own cultural prejudices.

Some tolerance, doubt, and perspective is good. But this is the notion of tolerance taken to its ultimate—and ultimately, absurd and destructive—conclusion. Not only does it handicap our ability to make moral judgments within our own culture by weakening our convictions, but it handicaps our ability to see true evil as well as our ability to fight against it, and paradoxically can lead to the triumph of a very intolerant society.

As always, her post is insightful and full of interesting notions and perspective…

Double Standard...

If you're not familiar with the issue, this story is going to seem really odd: Ms. magazine refuses to run the ad at right. You'd think the magazine would find an ad bragging about the success of women in a culture or country a very comfortable addition to its pages – which are, after all, mostly devoted to advocacy of women's issues.

You would be wrong, though. You see, these aren't the right kind of women. These women are (gasp!) Israeli – and the liberal narrative to which Ms. magazine tightly adheres says that Israel (and Israelis) are evil! Never mind the rather obvious fact that Israeli society is one of the least gender-biased in the world, living side-by-side with the Muslim Palestinians, whose society is one of the most gender-biased. The standard liberal narrative says that those Palestinians are to be admired, and the Israelis to be loathed … and Ms. magazine sticks to the playbook.

The American Jewish Congress (who tried to place this ad) has issued a press release telling the whole sad story. Do go read the whole thing, as it's an interesting piece of commentary. Here's the lead:

NEW YORK, Jan. 10 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Ms. Magazine has long been in the forefront of the fight for equal rights and equal opportunities for women. Apparently that is not the case if the women happen to be Israeli.

The magazine has turned down an AJCongress advertisement that did nothing more controversial than call attention to the fact that women currently occupy three of the most significant positions of power in Israeli public life. The proposed ad included a text that merely said, "This is Israel," under photographs of President of the Supreme Court Dorit Beinish, Vice Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs Tzipi Livni and Knesset Speaker Dalia Itzik.

"What other conclusion can we reach," asked Richard Gordon, President of AJCongress, "except that the publishers − and if the publishers are right, a significant number of Ms. Magazine readers − are so hostile to Israel that they do not even want to see an ad that says something positive about Israel?"

When Director of AJCongress' Commission for Women's Empowerment Harriet Kurlander tried to place the ad, she was told that publishing the ad "will set off a firestorm" and that "there are very strong opinions" on the subject − the subject presumably being whether or not one can say anything positive about Israel. Ms. Magazine publisher Eleanor Smeal failed to respond to a signed-for certified letter with a copy of the ad as well as numerous calls by Mr. Gordon over a period of weeks.

A Ms. Magazine representative, Susie Gilligan, whom the Ms. Magazine masthead lists under the publisher's office, told Ms. Kurlander that the magazine "would love to have an ad from you on women's empowerment, or reproductive freedom, but not on this." Ms. Gilligan failed to elaborate what "this" is.

"The only conclusion that one can reach from this behavior is that Ms. Magazine feels that an ad highlighting the accomplishments of three incredibly talented and dedicated women would offend their readership. Since there is nothing about the ad itself that is offensive, it is obviously the nationality of the women pictured that the management of Ms. fears their readership would find objectionable. For a publication that holds itself out to be in the forefront of the Women's Movement, this is nothing short of disgusting and despicable," stated Mr. Gordon.

The feminist movement and its mouthpieces are capable of some amazing mental juggling. This is one example; others include their fawning over Bill Clinton and their deafening silence on the miserable plight of women in fundamentalist Muslim societies. The latter reached its nadir when fashion magazines featured the burka in laudatory articles. This seemingly inexplicable hypocrisy is actually a marvelously clear window into the true motives of many of the most influential leaders of the feminist movement – what drives them isn't feminism at all (notwithstanding their words), but rather liberalism – in a particularly arrogant and obnoxious form.

The publishers and editors of Ms. magazine ought to be ashamed of themselves. I imagine that instead they're feeling rather smug and proud. Despicable.

Double Einstein Ring...

The Hubble telescope has discovered something most unlikely: a double Einstein ring. A single Einstein ring is caused by a pair of galaxies in the same line of sight from Earth, with the gravity of the nearer one causing the light from the further one to bend, much like an ordinary lens – and the result is that the further galaxy looks like a ring to us. This effect is known as “gravitational lensing”. The photo's story:

The double ring captured here is caused by three galaxies all in the same line of sight from Earth (an improbable event all by itself). Gravitational lensing makes a ring from each of the two further galaxies.
Image of gravitational lens system SDSSJ0946+1006 as photographed by Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys. The gravitational field of an elliptical galaxy warps the light of two galaxies exactly behind it. The massive foreground galaxy is almost perfectly aligned in the sky with two background galaxies at different distances. The foreground galaxy is 3 billion light-years away, the inner ring and outer ring are comprised of multiple images of two galaxies at a distance of 6 and approximately 11 billion light-years. (Credit: NASA, ESA, and R. Gavazzi and T. Treu of University of California, Santa Barbara)

Solid science delivered by the amazing Hubble telescope, yet another in the amazing series of accomplishments of NASA's largely unheralded robotic space exploration program...

A Free Lunch...

Of sorts, anyway. The Wall Street Journal has opened up a large part of its web site to everybody, for free. This is a direct consquence of Rupert Murdoch's recent acquisition of Dow Jones (the owner of the Wall Street Journal) and his personal vision of the future of the news business. The lead of their announcement:

Everyone knows that Joseph Schumpeter's "creative destruction" is roiling the newspaper world, and today we'd like to announce something on the creative side. We're rolling out a new destination for the Journal editorial page offering free access to all of our editorials and op-eds, video interviews and commentary. It's as close as we'll get to conceding there is such a thing as a free lunch.

Since 2000, we've operated in a dual world on the Web. The majority of our daily editorial offerings have remained behind a paid subscription wall at wsj.com/opinion, while our free site, OpinionJournal.com, offered select stories plus a few Web-only features. As of today, those two sites will merge and become a single free site for all Journal opinion, both in the U.S. and overseas editions, book reviews and leisure and arts.

You can access their editorial page at this link. In my opinion, it's one of the best sources of English-language informed commentary and political perspective in the world.

Puzzler...

Well, 11 of 14 people got last week's puzzler right – you can build an entire computer using nothing more than two-input NAND gates (and actually, you can build one from two-input NOR gates as well). The fact that so many of my readers knew this answer certifies my audience as being mostly comprised of fairly extreme geeks...

This week's puzzler is back to history – science history...

What was the last name of the scientist who (in the early 1900s) was notoriously associated with the notion that acquired characteristics of an organism could be inherited? This scientist's views persuaded the leader of a major country, and caused Darwinian inheritance to be officially banned there for many years.

No fair googling!

Be Afraid: PCTs...

From the anti-market liberal minds that control the California Assembly comes this nanny-state gem of a proposal:

What should be controversial in the proposed revisions to Title 24 is the requirement for what is called a "programmable communicating thermostat" or PCT. Every new home and every change to existing homes' central heating and air conditioning systems will required to be fitted with a PCT beginning next year following the issuance of the revision. Each PCT will be fitted with a "non-removable " FM receiver that will allow the power authorities to increase your air conditioning temperature setpoint or decrease your heater temperature setpoint to any value they chose. During "price events" those changes are limited to +/- four degrees F and you would be able to manually override the changes. During "emergency events" the new setpoints can be whatever the power authority desires and you would not be able to alter them.

In other words, the temperature of your home will no longer be yours to control. Your desires and needs can and will be overridden by the state of California through its public and private utility organizations. All this is for the common good, of course.

Some further research I did shows that these proposed changes would apply even to homes running “off-grid” (on their own electricity, from solar or otherwise). If this actually makes it into the building codes, the part of California where I live (the chaparral of San Diego County) could be rendered practically uninhabitable in the summertime – temperatures here routinely cross 100°F, and we commonly exceed 105°F.

This proposal is the direct consequence of the anti-market politics in Sacremento. Our government insists on regulating the electrical market, and on impeding the construction of new generating capacity. The result is very predictable: artificially low electricity prices have encouraged greater consumption – and the lack of new generating capacity means that the demand now exceed the supply. The nanny-state solution: enforced restrictions, in the form of PCTs, rolling blackouts, and other such draconian “solutions”. The market, if they just left it alone, would take care of this very nicely: increased consumption would encourage new generating capacity, and if demand exceeded supply prices would rise until that stopped. That's how markets work – if they're left alone by the flippin' government.

I'm getting really, really tired of the government telling me how to live my life and how to spend my money…

Dumbing Down California...

Some wags would say it isn't possible to dumb down California any more than it already is. And others (including myself) would argue that the surest way to stop any useful neural activity in a young American is to send them off to college. Nonetheless, I find this quite disturbing (WSJ$):

The world gets more competitive every day, so why would California's education elites want to dumb down their public university admissions standards? The answer is to serve the modern liberal piety known as "diversity" while potentially thwarting the will of the voters.

The University of California Board of Admissions is proposing to lower to 2.8 from 3.0 the minimum grade point average for admission to a UC school. That 3.0 GPA standard has been in place for 40 years. Students would also no longer be required to take the SAT exams that test for knowledge of specific subjects, such as history and science.

UC Board of Admissions Chairman Mark Rashid says that, under this new system of "comprehensive review," the schools "can make a better and more fair determination of academic merit by looking at all the students' achievements." And it is true that test scores and grades do not take full account of the special talents of certain students. But the current system already leaves slots for students with specific skills, so if you think this change is about admitting more linebackers or piccolo players, you don't understand modern academic politics.

This is just one more example of how American liberals are chipping away at what has made America the world's greatest democracy. Personally I can't fathom it, but somehow merit and responsibility have become anathema to American liberals, and symbol is everything. In this case, the symbol of a college degree – even if rendered worthless by being dumbed down – is more important to them than any actual accomplishment.

And they don't mind defying American voters to impose their ideology. As the WSJ article later points out, this action is clearly an attempt to circumvent the voters of California, who overwhelmingly approved Proposition 209, restoring academic merit as the admission standard to the UC system.

Hillary is right: it's time for a change. But not the change she has in mind. We need to throw all the entrenched politicians out, and start over with a new bunch. It's hard to imagine how the new ones could be any worse than those we have now…

Technical Note...

As previously noted, my web server (which hosts the Lawson Valley Weather page and the Lyons Peak Camera sites, amongst many others) is down. I had a chance to troubleshoot it yesterday, and the prognosis is grim: the computer the web server runs on is as dead as the proverbial doornail.

So I have a choice: I can either buy and configure a new computer (a pain in the patoot and expensive), or I can use a hosting service (easier, but expensive and with limitations on capabilities), or I can use a new-fangled approach called “HaaS” (Hardware as a Service). I've been reading a lot recently about one particular Haas (Amazon Web Services), and I've decided to go that route. The cost will be about the same as my current DSL cost, and I won't have to purchase, maintain, or configure any hardware.

That's the good news. The bad news is that I have a lot of things to learn about, and some code to write, and all in my none-too-abundant spare time – so this project is going to take a while, probably a couple of months. And those web sites will be down in the meantime…

You Decide...

I hope Warren at Climate Skeptic will forgive me for stealing his entire post:

The chart below is from the Cryosphere Today and shows the sea ice anomaly for the short period of time (since 1979) we have been able to observe it by satellite. The chart is large so you need to click the thumbnail below to really see it:

OK, now looking at the anomaly in red, what do you see:

1. A trend in sea ice consistent with a 100+ year warming trend?
2. A sea ice extent that is remarkably stable except for an anomaly over the last three years which now appears to be returning to normal?

The media can only see #1. I may be crazy, but it sure looks like #2 to me.

The question of whether Warren is crazy is, of course, completely separate from this question. But on this one, I agree with him completely…

More Guns, Less Crime...

One of the more consistent liberal memes is the idea that gun control will lead to more crimes. The consistent conservative/libertarian response has been that if guns are illegal, only the criminals will have guns. The preponderance of the evidence favors the conservative/libertarian position: in every jurisdiction where ordinary citizens are free (or relatively free) to carry concealed weapons, crime rates – including death and injury by gunfire – are lower than otherwise.

Michigan's experience now joins that evidence:

Six years after new rules made it much easier to get a license to carry concealed weapons, the number of Michiganders legally packing heat has increased more than six-fold.

But dire predictions about increased violence and bloodshed have largely gone unfulfilled, according to law enforcement officials and, to the extent they can be measured, crime statistics.

The incidence of violent crime in Michigan in the six years since the law went into effect has been, on average, below the rate of the previous six years. The overall incidence of death from firearms, including suicide and accidents, also has declined.

San Diego County Sheriff Bill Kolendar has made it nearly impossible for ordinary citizens to get concealed carry permits. A new sheriff will be elected this year – let's make certain that the sheriff we elect commits to start issuing concealed carry permits again in San Diego County, with only reasonable restrictions.

The criminals in San Diego County need to understand that the people around them are carrying weapons…

Misreporting...

Several of my readers have recently sent me a link to a very interesting report (American War and Military Operations Casualties: Lists and Statistics) by the Congressional Research Service (CRS). These CRS reports are not usually available to the public (that's a whole 'nother story!), but the Federation of American Scientists makes a large number of them available on a section of its web site, without permission (and hurrah for them!).

The chart at above right is drawn from the report; it compares casualties from various conflicts the U.S. has fought in since 1900. This chart shows clearly just how low the casualties from the war on terror have been, as compared to every other previous conflict – something you never would have guessed if you are too young to have lived through any of them, hadn't read much history, and believed what the lamestream media told you over the past four years.

Table after table in this report put the lie to many of the allegations and insinuations of the lamestream media's reporting on the war on terror – the idea that minorities are disproportionately represented in the casualties, the notion that casualty rates were unreasonably high, the smear that our volunteer forces are stupid and uneducated, and the lie that America's poor are bearing the brunt of the war's casualties. Read the report. Think about what the lamestream media has been feeding you. Then cancel your newspaper subscriptions, your magazine subscriptions, and stop watching the boob tube – for they are lying to you every single day, by commission or omission…

Wet Chaparral...

At right is a graph showing the rainfall in Lawson Valley over the past few days. The storm total of 5.85" (about 15 cm) is still hard for us to believe – it's been five or six years since we've seen anything like that here.

Yesterday as I drove to work, I was delighted to see that Lawson Creek was flowing, and flowing strongly, with muddy water because of all the new sediment eroded by the heavy rain. On the way home, the water was still flowing strongly (though abated slightly), but now almost clear. Our creeks are all intermittent, drying up every summer. But the past few years have been very dry, and even in our rainy season the creeks have hardly flowed at all. I hope this is a portent of a very wet year, as we surely could use it...

The rains lasted for about 50 hours, with an average rate of just over a tenth inch per hour. That's actually quite intense for this area, though it might not sound like it to someone from another part of the world. Debbie and I once experienced a rain storm that averaged two inches per hour for six hours (in Hilo, Hawai'i) – now that was an intense rain storm!

Random Notes...

No, I have not disappeared from the face of the earth – I've just been busy!

The current rain storm has brought us sustained gentle rain, exactly what we've been needing so badly. I just checked my rain gauge – we're at 3.27 inches for storm total so far, and the forecast still calls for another 30 hours or so of possible rain. Wahoo!

Yes, I know that my web sites for Lawson Valley weather and the Lyons Peak cameras are down (along with several others). They're all on a server located at a friend's house some 30 miles away, and I need to physically go there to see what's wrong. No ETA for getting it fixed, as I don't know what's wrong...

And to all those people who want to know what I thought of the results from the Iowa caucuses (cauci?): I think they're irrelevant, and mostly what they did for me was to illustrate for the umpteenth time the many reasons I don't like any of the candidates. Except maybe Thompson; the more I hear from him, the more I find to like (though I've still got major reservations about him, too – most especially his support of McCain-Feingold). A pox on the whole lot!

I once read about a proposed system of voting that would give each voter the choice of either voting for the voter's favorite candidate, or against the voter's least favorite candidate. The result for each candidate would be the sum of all the for votes, minus the sum of all the against votes. The candidate with the highest score would be the winner. If that system were actually in place in the U.S., this year I'd definitely be choosing an against vote – no matter which Democratic candidate wins the primary, I'd be more worried about that candidate winning than I would be passionate about the Republican candidate (whether it was McCain, Guiliani, or Romney).

The only time I'd be in a bit of a quandary would be if somehow Huckabee or Paul got the Republican nod – but if that happened, I might be thinking about emigration. For example, suppose it turned out to be Ron Paul vs. Barack Obama? Just entertaining that thought for a moment make my head feel like exploding!

Puzzler...

Last week's puzzler asked this: at about what altitude is the air pressure half that of sea level? The answer is 18,000 feet, which almost half of the respondents got right (5 of 12), as you can see at right.

Something you may not know is that the air pressure declines exponentially as the altitude increases. For about every 18,000 feet of altitude gain, the air pressure halves – so at 36,000 feet the air pressure is about 1/4 that at sea level, at 54,000 feet it's about 1/8 of sea level, and so on.

This week's puzzler is about the early history of a technology that is ubiquitous today: the digital computer. It is entirely possible to build a digital computer from a single logic component. Before integrated circuits made all sorts of logic components cheap and easy, there were some advantages (especially for maintenance) in having a computer built from such a simple set of components. One of the small computers I worked on in the Navy was made this way. What is one of the logic components from which you can build an entire computer?

Quote of the Day...

From Coyote Blog:

First and foremost, the state of California demonstrates itself to be just as financially incompetent as any condo-flipping doctor who now finds himself stuck with a bunch of mortgages he can't pay.

He's talking about this list of figures, showing how much money the state of California has spent annually, in 2007 dollars, per citizen:

1990-1991: $2,755
1995-1996: $2,470
2000-2001: $3,558
2005-2006: $3,416
2007-2008: $3,767

Just since 1990, state spending has increased by some 37% – a huge expansion of state government, and the financial engine behind “Nannifornia”. Schwarzenegger – who campaigned as a fiscal conservative – is trying to break all records for raising state expenditures. He's on the verge of succeeding in this effort.

Maybe Jamul should secede...

Needless Complexity...

One of the many challenges in software development is avoiding complexity that serves no good purpose. As a particular program matures, and more programmers work on it, the almost inescapable tendency is for more and more of this needless complexity to be introduced. This happens for lots of reasons – new programmers working on code that they don't understand well (and therefore don't realize that there are simple ways to do things), programmers thinking in complex ways about problems that are actually simple, programmers not thinking a design through, etc. There are some patterns: sophisticated programmers with heads full of academic knowledge about algorithms and systems analysis will often make complexity mountains out of complexity molehills; their deep understanding somehow leads them to ignore (or miss) opportunities for simplification. Mind you, I'm as vulnerable to these things as the next programmer – I'm observing here a phenomenon that is almost universal in my own experience. However, the “strength” of the tendency varies radically from individual to individual – some engineers have a real talent for finding simple solutions; others have a real talent for finding complexity even in areas where most engineers see the simple solution.

I just read an interesting essay on this very subject, by Ryan Tomayko. It's called Insects and Entropy, and here's a sample (but do go read the whole thing!):

Right before the class ended the dumb kid asked Jon to take a look at his insect. Jon had to fight the urge to laugh out loud when he saw that the entire insect was a mere 25 lines of code that barely made it through the compiler and with some lines having no chance of even being executed. The dumb kid had not even configured his insect's basic set of traits but had left them at the professor provided defaults.

Looking more closely, Jon found that the insect was programmed to do the same thing every time it had a turn to move:

1. Rotate 90 degrees.
2. Attack.

Turn and then attack. That's it? Jon asked, to which the dumb kid replied, Do you think I'll pass?

Jon tried to give the dumb kid some ideas on making his insect more advanced but the dumb kid wasn't interested. Jon decided that the dumb kid would most assuredly not pass.

The next day the competition was on. The professor loaded up the simulation program and everyone hooked their insects into the system. The dumb kid was late and then couldn't figure out how to get his insect loaded up. Jon helped him out while mumbling something about futility...

Benazir Bhutto...

Politics in Pakistan are amongst the most bizarre in the world; even the locals appear amazed at the twists and turns it takes. This morning one of the most visible people in Pakistani politics was assassinated: Benazir Bhutto. Herself the daughter of a Pakistani prime minister (executed after being convicted of ordering the killing of a political opponent), she was twice elected Pakistan's prime minister – and twice ejected from office and sent into exile. She had returned to Pakistan just two months ago, to run for a third term as prime minister, against current prime minister (and thugocrat) Musharrif. You can read much more about her on Wikipedia.

I don't have any knowledge of who is responsible for her assassination, but she had plenty of enemies who might want her out of the way. For starters, there's Musharrif, a thugocrat who is quite used to employing violence as a political tool, and who has many powerful supporters greatly indebted to him. Then there's the Muslim hardliners, with which Pakistan abounds – they detested Ms. Bhutto, both for her “bad example” for Muslim women (she was far too uppity and independent for them), and for her stated intent of running Al Qaeda, Bin Laden, and any other mad mullahs out of Pakistan on the proverbial rail. It seems likely that one of these two groups carried out the assassination…

Where does this leave Pakistan? So far as I know, Ms. Bhutto was the only credible opposition to Musharrif – so barring some political miracle, the thug-in-chief will likely be re-elected. Not good, from our perspective. But the martyrdom of Ms. Bhutto may, in fact, lead to some political miracle. Great swaths of the Pakistani public supported her, heart and soul. Who can predict how they will react to her assassination?

The region has had more than it's share of instability and uncertainty, violence and despots. Sadly, Ms. Bhutto's assassination seems of a piece with many other elements of recent history there. It would be wonderful if somehow this provoked a popular revolution that tossed both the thugs and Al Qaeda out on their ears, but I'm not holding my breath on that one. It seems much more likely, unfortunately, that what gets provoked is more violence and heartache in a region that has all too much of it already…

Christmas Torture...

It's a Christmas tradition around here – it's the day we torture our dogs by dressing them up in humiliating dog costumes and force them to stand still for what must seem like hours to them, just so we can take a few photos. But it's just possible that the dog treats afterwards make it all worthwhile for them…

Today our long-suffering pooches were all asleep in the livingroom, which is all warm and cozy because of the fire in the woodstove. They were roused from their lazy, happy naps and forced into these silly costumes. How rude!

The looks on their faces says it all. Mo'i (the rightmost in the group photos) is particularly aggreived. Miki (the leftmost in the group photos, and the one in all the single photos) was the star of today's photo shoot. He was exceptionally good – Debbie would tell him to “sit!” and “stay!”, and for 10 or 15 minutes at a time, that's exactly what he would do. His face is also very expressive, with his little confused and wondering expression…

Merry Christmas, everyone, from the tortured dogs in the chaparral!

Christmas Eve Dinner...

Debbie and I love to cook, and of course the holidays provide us with a nice opportunity to go overboard. This evening we'll be dining with our close friends Jim and Michelle, and we've been working on our feast all day long. Today was the “day of chopping” – everything we made required several herbs or vegetables to be chopped!

For our appetizers, we'll be having crab cakes made with Dungeness crab and a southwestern-style recipe with fresh thyme, Italian parsley, and ripe red bell pepper adding flavor and color. The crab cakes are chilling in the refrigerator as I post this entry. We also made an herbed tartar sauce to accompany it, and this turned out really well – both Debbie and I like this better than any tartar sauce we've ever had.

Our second course is a lovely soup; it's all done, we just have to heat it up. The soup is based on chicken stock, butternut squash, apples, and onions. It's heavily flavored with herbs, especially fresh thyme. We're planning to serve this with a dollop of sour cream in each bowl...

The entrée is smoked ham with a honey-citrus glaze. We bought a ten pound ham, so we'll have plenty of leftover sandwich meat! Along with the ham we'll have sautéed mushrooms (oyster, shiitake, and browntops) in an herbed wine sauce; the primary flavors are from fresh rosemary and thyme. For “bread”, we'll have something new to us: an odd kind of bread called “spoon bread”, based on corn meal and flavored with leeks and gruyére cheese, along with basil and thyme. We'll have champagne with the meal.

If we can possibly manage a dessert after all that, we'll be having creme brulée – a simple, plain, and outrageously rich custard flavored with vanilla beans. These are supposed to have a carmelized sugar covering; you use a blow-torch to heat the sugar to just the right point. But I just discovered that I have no propane for my blow-torch, so we may be forgoing the cover, darn it…

Merry Christmas!

What He Said...

It turns out that the following is actually the distorted work of a stand-up comedian:

T. Bubba Bechtel, a part-time City Councilman from Midland , TX , was asked on a local live radio talk show the other day just what he thought of the allegations of torture of the Iraqi prisoners. His reply prompted his ejection from the studio, but to thunderous applause from the audience:

"If hooking up an Iraqi prisoner's balls to a car's battery cables will save one U.S. Marine's life, then I have just two things to say: red is positive, black is negative!"

Whatever the source, I say: “What he said!”

Given the behavior of our enemy (the fundamentalist Islamic terrorists), to me the usual arguments against torture (which I can see great merit in) don't seem to apply. They really only make sense when there is some reasonable probability that your enemy would reciprocate. In the current case, our enemy is already violating every conceivable standard of conduct in war, and shows no signs of abating. Under these circumstances, our refraining from the use of torture (however you define it) seems quite pointless to me – most especially if doing so lends our enemy any advantage whatsoever.

Undermining Jihad...

The New York Sun is reporting a fascinating development:

One of Al Qaeda's senior theologians is calling on his followers to end their military jihad and saying the attacks of September 11, 2001, were a "catastrophe for all Muslims."

In a serialized manifesto written from prison in Egypt, Sayyed Imam al-Sharif is blasting Osama bin Laden for deceiving the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, and for insulting the Prophet Muhammad by comparing the September 11 attacks to the early raids of the Ansar warriors. The lapsed jihadist even calls for the formation of a special Islamic court to try Osama bin Laden and his old comrade Ayman al-Zawahri.

What happens to Al Qaeda when their philosophical underpinnings are yanked out? I'm not sure, but it's hard to see any way that this is bad news – and one could easily spin a very nice-sounding scenario (Al Qaeda foot-soldiers departing en masse, etc.)…

Scientific Suppression?

Here's the introduction to a report just submitted to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works:

Over 400 prominent scientists from more than two dozen countries recently voiced significant objections to major aspects of the so-called "consensus" on man-made global warming. These scientists, many of whom are current and former participants in the UN IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), criticized the climate claims made by the UN IPCC and former Vice President Al Gore.

The new report issued by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee’s office of the GOP Ranking Member details the views of the scientists, the overwhelming majority of whom spoke out in 2007. Even the some in the establishment media now appears to be taking notice of the growing number of skeptical scientists.

In October, the Washington Post Staff Writer Juliet Eilperin conceded the obvious, writing that climate skeptics "appear to be expanding rather than shrinking." Many scientists from around the world have dubbed 2007 as the year man-made global warming fears “bites the dust.” This blockbuster Senate report lists the scientists by name, country of residence, and academic/institutional affiliation. It also features their own words, biographies, and weblinks to their peer reviewed studies and original source materials as gathered from public statements, various news outlets, and websites in 2007. This new “consensus busters” report is poised to redefine the debate.

Many of the scientists featured in this report consistently stated that numerous colleagues shared their views, but they will not speak out publicly for fear of retribution. Atmospheric scientist Dr. Nathan Paldor, Professor of Dynamical Meteorology and Physical Oceanography at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, author of almost 70 peer-reviewed studies, explains how many of his fellow scientists have been intimidated.

The backlash from skeptical scientists, which I first started to notice just a few months ago, appears to be gathering steam…

Holiday Disorders...

Another one from Mike D. (thanks!):

Holiday Diagnoses:

1) Schizophrenia - Do You Hear What I Hear, the Voices, the Voices?

2) Amnesia - I Don't Remember If I'll Be Home for Christmas

3) Narcissistic - Hark the Herald Angels Sing About Me

4) Manic - Deck The Halls and Walls and House and Lawn and Streets and Stores and Office and Town and Cars and Buses and Trucks and Trees and Fire Hydrants and...

5) Multiple Personality Disorder - We Three Queens Disoriented Are

6) Paranoid - Santa Claus Is Coming to Get Us

7) Borderline Personality Disorder - You Better Watch Out, You Better Not Shout, I'm Gonna Cry, and I'll Not Tell You Why

8) Full Personality Disorder - Thoughts of Roasting You On an Open Fire

9) Obsessive Compulsive Disorder - Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells

10) Agoraphobia - I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day But Wouldn't Leave My House

11) Senile Dementia - Walking In a Winter Wonderland Miles from My House in My Slippers and Robe

12) Oppositional Defiant Disorder - I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus So I Burned Down the House

13) Social Anxiety Disorder - Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas While I Sit Here and Hyperventilate

14) Attention Deficit Disorder - We Wish You......Hey Look!! It's Snowing!!!

Supreme Court Ruling...

Forwarded by Mike D., tongue firmly in cheek (I think):

The Supreme Court has ruled that there cannot be a Nativity Scene in the United States Capital this Christmas season.

This isn't for any religious reason. They simply have not been able to find three wise men and a virgin in the Nation's Capitol.

However, there was no problem finding enough ASSES to fill the stable!

Unarius Videos...

If you've read this blog for a while, you may remember the Unarians – a bizarre cult headquartered in El Cajon, and owning property near our home in Lawson Valley. We “discovered” them shortly after moving to Lawson Valley in 1999, when we sighted a car belonging to the cult. It's unmistakable: a large American sedan with a model flying saucer on top and a crazy lady inside.

Click here if you want to learn more about these fruit loops.

What prompted this post was my discovery of this blog post with lots of Unarius videos (one example is below). This blogger is as amused and incredulous about the Unarians as I am. Watch the Unarian videos with this understanding: there are real people, walking amongst us unrestrained, who study these videos (and other materials distributed by the Unarians). They believe the messages in them.

I don't know about you, but to me, that's scary!

Iraq Movies...

Several movies about Iraq have recently been released: Lions for Lambs, Redacted, and The War. All of them have a distinctly anti-war message. All of them have been flops at the box office.

Meanwhile, modern technology has let troops in combat take their own movies and photos, and post them on the Internet for all to see. Some of this footage has been professionally edited and produced, but much is raw amateur stuff. Some of these have become amongst the most popular video clips on YouTube – the number of views of most of these is hundreds or thousands of times higher than the viewings of the aforementioned Hollywood movies. Some examples (with links to others) here, here, here, and below.

Isn't it interesting that those movies with the anti-war message – all major Hollywood productions, with major stars, heavy marketing, and big-name directors and producers – are all losers in the market? And that the nitty-gritty, real-life combat videos are a smash hit?

What got me going on this topic was reading a note about how the Democratic campaigns are hearing – to their apparent surprise – that American voters are not the anti-war crowd that they assumed. And the campaigns are adjusting their messaging and tactics.

Interesting. I'm just saying.

Puzzler...

Last week's puzzler was this: what caused the “erratic boulders” that are found all over the country of Estonia? Most of you (13 of 17) got it right: the erratic boulders were left by the retreating glaciers. The boulders were originally scraped from the pink granite bedrock exposed in northern and southern Finland, and then carried hundreds of miles south to Estonia. As the glaciers melted, the boulders gradually descended until finally they were left on the bare limestone ground of Estonia. The Vikings carved runes into some of these boulders, and examples of such carved boulders can be seen in many locations in Estonia. In addition, the local cultures paid attention to many of them (especially the larger ones), and many of the boulders have footpaths to them, and ladders to climb them, and these are maintained to this day. A popular roadmap made by an Estonia company has the location of hundreds of these boulders marked, and in my travels around Estonia I have visited dozens of them, just for fun.

This week's puzzler tests your knowledge about the Earth's atmosphere. You most likely know that the atmospheric pressure is highest at sea level (well, actually, at those points on the Earth that are below sea level), and that the pressure falls as you go to higher and higher elevations. But at what altitude does the atmospheric pressure fall to half the pressure at sea level?

No fair Googling until after you answer!

My Grandfather's Son...

I just finished reading this fine memoir by Clarence Thomas (Supreme Court Justice). It was not at all what I was expecting. I knew nothing whatsoever about Clarence Thomas' life other than his years at the helm of the EEOC, the Anita Hill “scandal”, and what I've read of his decisions and opinions on the Supreme Court. So I was expecting surprises, but the book delivered many more than I'd imagined…

The picture of Clarence Thomas that emerges is that of an ordinary human, with all the imperfections and failures that any of us might have. But for all his failings, I also have the impression of a good man, in the old-fashioned sense of that term. I've read quite a few of his legal opinions at this point, and they uniformly impress me with their logic, analysis, and unpretentious style – even when I don't agree with them. After reading his memoir, they seem to me to be evidence of a real victory for civil rights in America – that such a talent might rise to an office like Justice of the Supreme Court, despite having grown up in a nation full of official and enforced prejudice against him simply for being black.

I remember well the confirmation hearings and the Anita Hill debacle. At the time, without being able to hear Clarence Thomas' case in any detail, it just seemed an awful mess to me – I had no idea who was telling the truth, or who to believe. If all of Anita Hill's allegations were true, then Clarence Thomas certainly shouldn't have been confirmed; on the other hand, if the allegations were false (or largely so), then the whole affair made a travesty of the confirmation hearings and Clarence Thomas was being terribly wronged. Having read his memoir now, I've got his side of the – and his version seems to be amply confirmed by independent witnesses. I'm persuaded now that the entire Anita Hill “scandal” was manufactured by Ms. Hill and her Democratic enablers who were so eager for a reason to thwart President Bush's effort to appoint Clarence Thomas. In other words, it was just one more pathetic political charade, fully in character with the disgusting (and equally pathetic) posturings we're already seeing in both the Democratic and the Republican presidential primary races…

Quote of the Day...

From TigerHawk:

Call me an irony junkie, but I find it hilarious that the pope of the Roman Catholic Church is worried that the "dogma" of the environmental movement is more influential than scientific proof. Not saying I don't agree with him, just that I am highly entertained.

Here's the article about the pope's skepticism.
I share TigerHawk's amusement...

Even More Rain!

This past Friday through Sunday we had a second rain storm, adding about 1.35 inches to our rainfall for the year. Yahoo!

This morning, to the apparent surprise of the weather forecasters, we had some light drizzle – enough to wet the roads, but not enough to accumulate appreciably.

And the weather forecast is calling for another storm to hit on Monday. It's beginning to feel a bit l like our seven-year drought has broken. That would sure be wonderful...

Relativistic Support...

My mother-in-law is a sweet and wonderful person, and I love her dearly. She's also a nearly perfect anti-geek, a technophobe at a level most people would think was surely extinct in, say, 1950. They would be wrong, as they haven't met Kate. She is intimidated by toasters, and I am neither exaggerating nor embellishing.

Kate lives in an old farmhouse outside of Liberty, Indiana – as close to the middle of nowhere as you can get without living in South Dakota. Until earlier this year, she'd made do with rabbit-ear antennae for her televisions. She could just barely pick up signals from Cinncinnati, Ohio or Indianapolis, Indiana – the only television she knew was intermittent and filled with static. So we got her a satellite system as a gift earlier this year. For weeks, Debbie and I spent hours with her on the phone, usually with her crying in frustration – but finally we were able to get her to the point where she could actually use her new system. And now she loves it! There was much pain getting her started, but now we're quite happy we got her this gift, as she clearly is enjoying it.

The number one problem she's had with the system is something most people are very used to. The remote control is “modey” – at any given moment, it's either in “satellite” mode or in “TV” mode. She just can't get this concept into her head, so she's forever trying to do something that requires the remote control to be in a different mode. We got Kate past this roadblock by teaching her some rote instructions, namely to alway press the satellite mode button before she did anything, and to never, ever press the TV mode button. Once she pressed the TV mode button, then she was sure to change the TV channel – and then she'd lose the satellite signal. The next step after that would be to call us, crying. But, as I say, we'd gotten past that.

But last night Kate called us with a new problem. She wasn't upset – the system had been working well for months, and she'd gotten much more comfortable with it. But it wasn't working last night, and she said it stopped working when she accidentally sat on the remote control. Thinking that she had somehow managed to put the remote in TV mode and changed the channel, I talked her through putting the channel back to rights. At one point, I told her “Now press 6, and then 0.”. A few seconds later, I got two touch-tone beeps in my ear, and then Kate came back on and told me that nothing had happened on the TV. Much laughter ensued, which confused Kate until I explained it to her – and when I did, the rest of the people in the room on my end got the joke as well, and there was even more laughter. Kate was quite embarrassed, but finally she laughed at herself as well...

The problem turned out to be more involved than usual. Somehow in sitting on the remote control she had changed it's programming – it no longer knew what brand her TV was, and consequently it was putting out the wrong infrared remote control codes (that is a totally non-standard world). Talking her through entering the proper codes was one of the more difficult support tasks I've ever undertaken, but we finally did get it done, and the TV worked fine after that.

Kate would never forgive me for putting this on the Internet for all to see, but, then, she has no idea that the Internet exists, so I'm safe...

Human Tetris

Offered as evidence to support the assertion that there is no bound to human silliness:

Timeless Political Humor

Simi L. sent these along. Many of these I had heard before, but not all. They're all great – both funny and wise…

If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed.
– Mark Twain

Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But then I repeat myself...
– Mark Twain

I contend that for a Nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
– Winston Churchill

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
– George Bernard Shaw

Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.
– James Bovard, Civil Libertarian (1994)

Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer of money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.
– Douglas Casey

Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.
– Frederic Bastiat, French Economist (1801-1850)

I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.
– Will Rogers

If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free!
– P.J. O'Rourke

In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other.
– Voltaire (1764)

Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you!
– Pericles (430 B.C.)

No man's life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session.
– Mark Twain (1866)

Talk is cheap...except when Congress does it.
– Unknown (but widely attributed to Mark Twain)

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.
– Winston Churchill

The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin.
– Mark Twain

The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.
– Herbert Spencer, English Philosopher (1820-1903)

There is no distinctly native American criminal class … save Congress.
– Mark Twain

What this country needs are more unemployed politicians.
– Edward Langley, Artist (1928 - 1995)

A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.
– Thomas Jefferson

Jamulian Eateries...

By request (of Bob Clay), here are our favorite places to eat in or near Jamul (using Jamul to mean the entire unincorporated area, not just the town). I've listed these starting with the places we frequent the most often, which is probably as good a measure of "favorite" as anything...

Bravo Cafe: we count a stop at Manoli's place as one of our favorite things to do, even without considering the food. The people there are just wonderful folks. These days you'll most often find Manoli with his daughter Esmeralda and his son Milton helping out, along with a couple of employees who fit right into the family's style: friendly, helpful, and just plain nice to be around. And then there's the food: Manoli's superb soups (the chicken rice and meatball soups are my favorites), the sandwiches (huge piles of good stuff on plain-but-good breads), and the salads (simple but fresh, crisp, and plentiful).

Descanso Junction Restaurant: good food, good people, and a home-style atmosphere. Some of their soups are really quite good (the tomato Florentine and chicken and big fat noodle soups are my favorites), the burgers are great, and they have many other delectables to choose from. Yesterday I had an excellent omlet (the “gourmet”) that was classic American fare: a simple plain-egg omlette filled with bacon, sausage, green peppers, onions, and cheese. They are often overwhelmed by motorcycle clubs (of the harmless middle-aged fake biker variety) around lunch on weekends, so watch your timing on visits there.

Yuki Sushi: reliably good sushi at reasonable prices, and very friendly people. Even at reasonable prices, sushi is expensive, so we don't get there as often as we'd really like to. Since Tatsu's closed several years ago, this is our sushi haunt. We've tried the other local places, but don't like them nearly as well.

Behind-the-7/11 Mexican: sorry, but I don't know the name of this place. It's behind the 7/11 at Steele Canyon and 94, in the back of a small Mexican grocery. We go in there to get fresh giant flour tortillas, and often come out with burritos as well. The people there have always been very friendly with us, though we have the occasional language difficulty (some of them speak very little English, and we speak absolutely no Spanish). When I get a craving for carnitas, or some chicken enchiladas, or a carne asada burrito, this is where I go...

A Mellow Couple of Days...

Blogging has been light because I've been having a (tiny) little bit of a life this weekend. My lovely bride and I toured the snow in our local mountains, bought a Christmas tree, decorated it, and had a couple of very pleasant meals in places we love.

To the anonymous jerk who wrote me, complaining about my lack of blogging: get a life!