Anza-Borrego Wildflowers...

We're back from our trip out to the Anza-Borrego Desert. How was it?

It was very good, but not quite prime yet. The stretch of S-2 between Ocotillo and the Carrizo Badlands Overlook is nice, with plenty of flowers – but the ocotillos are in bud (at best), and you see more buds and small plants than you do flowers. The overlook it self has a fair number of young and very fresh-looking lupine, and several other wildflowers are also quite abundant. One of the hills at the overlook has a yellow wash. Baby lupine plants are everywhere.

Further north, up the South Carrizo Creek, we found verbena (lots of it), and a few other flowers – including the lovely desert lily (Hesperocallis undulata) above. We found perhaps ten or twelve desert lilies in full bloom, a roughly equal number in bud, and around 100 plants too young to even have buds. That's more desert lilies than I've ever seen on such a brief walk. Desert lily fans (of which I am one) are in for a treat this year, I think.

We walked up a draw that we've been to many times before, but don't know it's name. It's in a wilderness area, on the east side of S-2, a few miles south of the Butterfield RV park. It was also early in the season for it, but there were lots of Mexican poppies and miniature barrel cacti to enchant us.

We ended the trip by four-wheeling up Oriflamme Canyon. In the lower reaches, a blue wildflower was profuse, forming large dense patches of a saturated deep blue color amongst the emerald green foliage of this wet year. Really, really lovely. On the lower hills, usually high on the south or southwest faces, were large patches of California poppies. At this point we didn't have the energy to hike up to them, but I'm planning to go back next week to see them.

I took about 250 photos today; I'll post more tomorrow...

Parambiguity...

Have you ever looked at some unfamiliar source code and found yourself confused about the purpose of some parameters in method invocations? Take the following little snippet:

PuppyBlender pb = new PuppyBlender();
Puppy pup = new Puppy("Fido");
pb.blend(pup, true);

What on earth does that “true” parameter mean? The only way you can find out, given the code above, is to go look at the documentation or source code for the PuppyBlender class.

There's an easy way to write such code without the ambiguity:

PuppyBlender pb = new PuppyBlender();
Puppy pup = new Puppy("Fido");
boolean pulseMode = true;
pb.blend(pup, pulseMode);

One little extra line of code, and now we've made the purpose of that parameter quite clear. Modern compilers will optimize that variable out, so there's no performance impact at all.

Just clarity.

Wildflower Trek...

I am leaving shortly with some friends to drive out to the southern parts of the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park – along state route S2, northwest of Ocotillo, California. Several reports from a week ago say that the wildflowers were just starting, so we're hoping that we hit the beginning of the prime season today. If it really is a good wildflower year, then the next several weeks should be great!

I am going armed with my camera, of course, so you'll know by the photos whether we were successful in our quest...

What Answer?

A crazed gunman – of course, a fundamentalist Islamic radical – runs into a yeshiva (a Jewish school) in Israel, kills seven outright and wounds at least ten others (some of whom are not likely to survive). In Palestine, the streets erupt in celebration, with green Hamas banners sprouting like spring grass, thousands of rounds fired into the air, and candy being handed out in large quantities. Hamas immediately claimed “credit”, calling the actions of the shooter “heroic”.

How should Israel respond?

The state of Israel has basically the only well-functioning government in the entire region. It is the only country whose citizens (including the Arabic citizens!) are free, by virtually any measure one could apply. Ever since the state of Israel was created, they've been more or less continuously attacked by their neighbors and more distant Arabic and Islamic states or their proxies (for example, Iran is the primary sponsor of Hamas). So far as I can tell, there's a small group of the good guys (Israel) – the kind of people and culture we'd like to have as friends – surrounded and attacked on all sides by the bad guys. I sure can't see much to savor or cherish about the people and culture attacking Israel.

So here's how I think Israel should respond: I think they should use their vastly superior and (currrently) voluntarily hobbled military power to deliver a message that couldn't possibly be misinterpreted by even the most primitive, addle-brained adversary. The message should be: if you attack our people, we will respond in an overwhelmingly painful and permanent way. In other words, the response should be as disproportionate as you can possibly make it. For example, in the current situation Hamas has already publicly claimed responsibility for the attack, and then celebrated afterward. Fine. Israel, please wipe out Hamas in Gaza. Kill anyone who resists. Re-occupy Gaza and declare that you are permanently annexing that land. Any citizens of Gaza who don't want to be citizens of Israel get a free trip to the putrid paradise of Palestine. Choose military effectiveness and threat reduction over mercy. Make the Palestinians, your other enemies (and their masters), and the entire world aware of the perilous cost of attacking Israel.

This is, I believe, the only “peace process” with a genuine chance for success. As uncomfortable as this is for any liberal to accept, history teaches us an uncomfortable truth: humiliating defeat is the most common path to a lasting peace.

Patriotic Moment...

Chills. Awe. Shivers. Just go watch this!

Monster Cables, Debunked...

“Monster” is a cable brand, found in nearly every electronic store on the planet. The price of their audio cables – even speaker cables – is simply mind-boggling. It would be easy to pay more for the cables than you did for the speakers!

As an electrical engineer, I could never make any sense from the claims, always expressed in hyperbolic, impressive-sounding pseudo-engineering jargon. The physical principles of a cable, at audio frequencies (things are a lot different at radio frequencies), are really quite straightforward. I have long been skeptical that there was any perceptible difference between cables costing $50/foot and those costing $0.05/foot.

But the folks at Engadget note a test in which some engineer took this skepticism just a bit further:

We've always believed that the perceived quality boost that comes from using high-end cables is really just a trick of the mind (read: justifying the ridiculous cost of premium cables to yourself) -- if you've dropped enough cash, you can probably hear anything you want. Still, our belief is one thing -- cold hard proof is another, and it looks like a group of 12 self-professed "audiophiles" recently couldn't tell the difference between Monster 1000 speaker cables and plain old coat hangers. Yeah, coat hangers. The group was A-Bing different cables, and unbeknownst to them, the engineer running the test swapped out a set of cables for coat hangers with soldered-on speaker connections. Not a single one was then able to tell the difference between the Monster Cable and the hangers, and all agreed that the hangers sounded excellent. No wonder Monster has to rig HD displays. Still, we bet people still fall for the hype -- oh hey, if you're looking for the ultimate in sound, we've got half a meter of oxygen-free, triple-wrapped double-insulated Sonically Shielded AmpliSized Egyptian Llama cable here that we'll part ways with for just a couple grand.

Heh. I have a new-found respect for those coat-hangers!

And case closed, in my book.

Quote of the Day...

From Tim Blair:

Ron Paul (R-Lunar Orbit) is returned to Congress.

Heh. (patented by InstaPundit)

Clinton Hammers Obama...

Well, not quite. But Clinton picked up three badly needed wins (after ten-in-a-row for Obama) that she can talk about. In all three cases (especially Texas) her win was very narrow, and because the Democratic primaries generally apportion delegates proportionally to the vote that means that her delegate gain is slight. Texas (and some other states) have an even more complicated delegate apportionment: some delegates are apportioned proportionally to the primary vote, and others are apportioned based on caucuses (cauci?) held on the same day as the primary.

The Republican primaries, by contrast, are generally winner-take-all affairs. Last night, for example, McCain won Ohio and all of the delegates, even though he took only 60% of the vote. Texas apparently has some other method of delegate apportionment, as the media is reporting that Huckabee has taken some delegates from there (though McCain clearly won the state). Huckabee's delegate win is smaller (percentage-wise) than his vote win, so I'm not sure what their system is.

I think the bottom line here, basically, is good news for the Republicans – Clinton and Obama will continue their battle now, focusing more on each other than they are on McCain. With each day that goes by, they throw more criticism at each other – and all of that will be fodder for the Republicans in the general election. Meanwhile, McCain last night officially sewed up the Republican nomination (though that still may not be enough to get the quixotic Huckabee to cough up a concession speech!) and can spend the rest of the campaign focusing on differentiating himself from the squabbling Democratic candidates.

Advantage: Republicans.

Update: Huckabee conceded last night (I just read about it), and committed to support the Republican ticket (i.e., McCain).

Advantage: Republicans, now unified against a split Democratic party...

AI in San Diego...

Many mornings on my commute (usually around 5:00 or 5:30 am), I listen to Chip Franklin, a local talk show host on KOGO (AM 600). Mostly it's lightweight debate and discussion on the political or other issues of the day. Every week or so, though, he has a particularly fascinating segment called AI – “Arrested Intelligence”. In these segments, Chip walks around on the streets of San Diego, randomly stopping people to ask them a question. Their edited answers (chosen, of course, to be the most shocking or entertaining) end up in his segment.

And I am shocked. Repeatedly. Shocked that he can find more than one or two people who don't have a sensible answer for his ridiculously easy questions. He has dozens of them, on each and every AI segment that I've heard. My fundamental reaction to hearing one of his AI segments is to wonder whether we can prevent these ... specimens ... from contributing to the gene pool. Or maybe we could “donate” them to the radical Islamists. Sheesh!

You can listen to all the AI segments from this web site. Here are some examples of the questions he's asked:

• Should we give citizenship to New Mexicans?
• What is FEMA?
• How many days are there in the 12 days of Christmas?
• Can you spell February?
• What do you know about Thanksgiving?

Listen to a few yourself, and leave your impression in the comments...

Orlosky Acquitted...

Joseph “Bob” Orlosky was acquitted today of murder and attempted murder charges. On several other charges, the jury reached no verdict, and the prosecutor stated his intention to retry. A roundup of all the news stories can be found here. From the San Diego Union-Tribune:

A jury acquitted a Jamul man of murder and attempted murder charges Tuesday in the fatal shooting of a man and the wounding of another in December 2006 as they fled his rural East County ranch.

However, Joseph R. “Bob” Orlosky will be retried on lesser charges the jury was unable to agree upon, including manslaughter and shooting into an occupied vehicle, said Deputy District Attorney Jeff Dusek.

I have posted on this case many times before, and this is one of those stories that has drawn many comments, some quite heated or heartfelt, especially from locals.

I still know very little about the facts of the case, as news reports have been stingy with details. People seem to be mostly drawn to one of two positions: either (a) Orlosky gunned down an innocent Crow in cold blood and should pay the price, or (b) Orlosky legitimately defended his property from thieves (or intended thieves), and Crow's death is regrettable but not criminal. The jury has decided (b).

This is one of those cases where I simply don't know how to react to the verdict. I am not privy to the same information the jury had, so I don't know if I'd agree with their verdict. Crow's family is understandably shocked by the result; his mother appears on some (highly insenstive) news video reacting in a way that I find completely understandable and forgiveable whatever the facts may be – she's lost her son to a violent and senseless death, and the jury just told her that she has no one to hold responsible. Bob Orlosky reportedly reacted very understandably as well, saying that this was a sad outcome for both sides (remember, he still has serious criminal charges standing against him). As a neighbor of Orlosky (I don't know him, but I live just a mile away from him), and as a citizen of Jamul, I'm disappointed that the jury could not make a decision on all the charges, for now we have to go through yet another cycle of justice (unless a plea bargain is reached, which may be the prosecutor's actual objective in announcing that Orlosky would be retried on the remaining charges).

Most of all, though, I'm left wishing that I knew what really happened a mile up the hill from me, on the night of December 1, 2006...

Angry White Men...

A few weeks ago, Gary Hubbell had a commentary piece in the Aspen Times that caught my attention because it captures nicely the essence of quite a few political conversations I've had with friends and co-workers. The first part of the piece defines “Angry White Men” (and I only loosely match it, though I know quite a few people who match it well). The piece concludes:

He might be a Republican and he might be a Democrat; he might be a Libertarian or a Green. He knows that his wife is more emotional than rational, and he guides the family in a rational manner.

He’s not a racist, but he is annoyed and disappointed when people of certain backgrounds exhibit behavior that typifies the worst stereotypes of their race. He’s willing to give everybody a fair chance if they work hard, play by the rules and learn English.

Most important, the Angry White Man is pissed off. When his job site becomes flooded with illegal workers who don’t pay taxes and his wages drop like a stone, he gets righteously angry. When his job gets shipped overseas, and he has to speak to some incomprehensible idiot in India for tech support, he simmers. When Al Sharpton comes on TV, leading some rally for reparations for slavery or some such nonsense, he bites his tongue and he remembers. When a child gets charged with carrying a concealed weapon for mistakenly bringing a penknife to school, he takes note of who the local idiots are in education and law enforcement.

He also votes, and the Angry White Man loathes Hillary Clinton. Her voice reminds him of a shovel scraping a rock. He recoils at the mere sight of her on television. Her very image disgusts him, and he cannot fathom why anyone would want her as their leader. It’s not that she is a woman. It’s that she is who she is. It’s the liberal victim groups she panders to, the “poor me” attitude that she represents, her inability to give a straight answer to an honest question, his tax dollars that she wants to give to people who refuse to do anything for themselves.

There are many millions of Angry White Men. Four million Angry White Men are members of the National Rifle Association, and all of them will vote against Hillary Clinton, just as the great majority of them voted for George Bush.

He hopes that she will be the Democratic nominee for president in 2008, and he will make sure that she gets beaten like a drum.

I think Mr. Hubbell is right – there are a lot of angry white men (by his definition) out there. And none of them are going to vote for Hillary...

Justin's Shame...

Simon M. passes this along:

One day a fourth-grade teacher asked the children what their fathers did for a living. All the typical answers came up – fireman, mechanic, businessman, salesman, doctor, lawyer, and so forth. However, little Justin was being uncharacteristically quiet, so when the teacher prodded him about his father, he replied, 'My father's an exotic dancer in a gay cabaret and takes off all his clothes in front of other men and they put money in his underwear. Sometimes, if the offer is really good, he will go home with some guy and stay with him all night for money.'

The teacher, obviously shaken by this statement, hurriedly set the other children to work on some exercises and then took little Justin aside to ask him, 'Is that really true about your father?'

'No', the boy said, 'He works for the Democratic National Committee and is helping to get Hillary Clinton elected to be our next President, but I was too embarrassed to say that in front of the class.'

On my first reading of this, I was feeling some sympathy for little Justin. But then I realized – it's a joke!

Avalanches!

Just this morning I posted (below) about the remarkable imagery from the MRO's HiRISE instrument. Now this afternoon they've released these spectacular images that HiRISE made of avalanches in action! Either these avalanches are frequent occurences, or the science teams had a rare stroke of luck in catching these. From the MRO HiRISE web site:

All images are false color. Material, likely including fine-grained ice and dust and possibly including large blocks, has detached from a towering cliff and cascaded to the gentler slopes below. The occurrence of the avalanches is spectacularly revealed by the accompanying clouds of fine material that continue to settle out of the air. The largest cloud (upper images) traces the path of the debris as it fell down the slope, hit the lower slope, and continues downhill, forming a billowing cloud front. This cloud is about 180 meters (590 feet) across and extends about 190 meters (625 feet) from the base of the steep cliff. Shadows to the lower left of each cloud illustrate further that these are three dimensional features hanging in the air in front of the cliff face, and not markings on the ground. Sunlight is from the upper right.

Cameras orbiting Mars have taken thousands of images that have enabled scientists to put together pieces of Mars' geologic history. However, most of them reveal landscapes that haven't changed much in millions of years. Some images taken at different times of year do show seasonal changes from one image to the next, however, it is extremely rare to catch such a dramatic event in action. (Another, unrelated, active process that has been captured by Mars cameras are dust devils.) Observing currently active processes is often a useful tool in unlocking puzzles of the past for scientists studying the Earth. Working from primarily still images, it is harder for scientists studying Mars to rely on this tool. The HiRISE image of avalanching debris is a very rare opportunity to directly do so.

Amazing stuff!

Martian Matters...

As I write this there are several robotic explorers on and orbiting around Mars, and another is approaching quickly (the Phoenix lander). Rarely do these missions make the news, even though (from most perspectives, anyway) they are far more important to mankind than, say, Britney's latest calamity or over-exposure.

At right is a recent photo of an alluvial fan on Mars, taken by one of these explorers: the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), and more specifically, the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) imager it has onboard. You can click on this photo to enlarge it, or you can get the full resolution version (of this or any other of the tens of thousands of HiRISE images) from the HiRISE instrument site.

Quietly, every day, these robots (and the teams of scientists, engineers, and technicians who control and use them) are doing first-class science work. Our remarkable technology and their efforts are steadily advancing mankind's knowledge of the universe. I'm reasonably certain that the progress of these explorers will have more impact on our future than 90% (or more!) of the pap and crap that fills the front pages of our newspapers, or that leads on the news “shows” – and yet it is very seldom that the heroes of this work get any recognition at all...

Harvard Beets...

I cooked on my own tonight, as Debbie is a million miles away at that agility meet. Usually when she's gone I just scrounge my meals from whatever we happen to have lying about. But for some reason yesterday I went grocery shopping for some simple treats. Tonight I had some excellent sausage and boiled cabbage as a main course. I had picked up some lovely fresh beets, and decided to make a dish I'd never made before: Harvard beets. When I was a kid it was a favorite, but I've had it only rarely since then.

I could guess (from the flavor and texture) most of the ingredients other than beets: sugar, vinegar, and cornstarch. But one ingredient I don't think I'd ever have guessed – cloves. And the salt was a bit unexpected as well.

Cleaning and dicing the beets was a bit of a chore, but the sauce was easy. The recipe calls for making the sauce in the top of a double-boiler, but I used a small saucepan over extremely low heat, and this worked just fine. And what a treat the result was! The fresh beets had that wonderful earthy aroma and flavor, and the sweet-and-sour sauce was exactly as I remembered it, and a perfect complement. Now I'm barely able to move, stuffed with such excellent food. And it was so easy to do!

Double Qs!

Debbie is off at an agility meet in Silverado, California. She's competing with Mo'i, but she also has Miki along – he needs to get accustomed to crowds, noise, and the random events of a show.

A few minutes ago, a very happy and excited Debbie called with the news that she and Mo'i had “Double-Q'd” today. That's agility competition jargon for having qualified on each of their two runs today. To qualify at the level of competition that Mo'i is in, they have to run the obstacle course perfectly – all the designated obstacles in the correct sequence, without hesitating, without knocking anything over, and without missing any of the “contact points” they're required to touch. In addition, they have to run it at least as fast as the official time for the course. She and Mo'i did that twice today, on two different courses! Between the two courses, they were seven seconds ahead of the course time – so they earned 27 points today: 20 for the double-Q, and 7 for their speed.

Woo-hoo!

I'm told they celebrated afterwards by sharing a barbequed chicken sandwich. I suspect this was more profound and meaningful for Mo'i than it was for Debbie <smile>...

Dissing "Disproportionate Response"...

Over the past few years a recurring plaint from liberals, their lamestream media lapdogs, and the losing side of a war (fascinating how that particular combination is seen so often!) is the notion of “disproportionate response”. The American military and most especially the Israeli military have often been accused of this. The general idea, apparently, is that when one country is attacked, it is under some kind of obligation to respond with a level of military intensity that is “proportionate” (by which they really mean “roughly equal”) to that of that attack that provoked it.

I've always dismissed such criticism as utter nonsense on the face of it, and really just aimed at trying to pressure the attacked country into not defending itself. In fact, I believe an overwhelmingly disproportionate response is often the very best military strategy. For example, in the current conflict between Israel and Hamas (operating out of Gaza), Hamas is attacking an Israeli city with missiles. Israel is being accused of disproportionate response because it has started military operations inside Gaza to rid themselves of the Hamas attackers. I think it would be very smart of them to rampage all through Gaza, capturing all the cached Hamas weaponry (especially those damned missiles) and killing every last one of those Hamas fighters and their sympathizers and supporters. But the lamestream media (and Hamas, of course) seems to believe that what Israel really ought to do is to lob a few missiles back at Hamas. How dumb is that?

This morning I read a post by Tigerhawk that says it much better than I could. Here's his conclusion (which is actually about half the short post):

If law or morality or God were to require that retaliation for an attack be commensurate with the attack itself, then attackers would essentially dictate the force that could be used against them. The attacker could then calmly decide whether it was more able or willing to absorb losses than the defender and structure the attack accordingly, all with the comfort of knowing in advance that law, morality, or God would not allow the defender to inflict losses that the attacker was not able or willing to sustain.

In other words, if the attacker can control the extent of the retaliation against him, he will not be deterred from attacking in the first place. Effective deterrance requires that the attacker not be able to predict the losses he will suffer in retaliation. A prospective attacker will only be deterred if he know that there is at least the possibility of massive retaliation out of proportion with the original attack. This is why, for example, Dwight Eisenhower loudly declared that any nuclear attack on the United States, no matter how limited, would be met with massive, unconditional, and total retaliation. Anything less might not have deterred such an attack in the first place.

So, the next time you hear some fool bleating witlessly about the Israelis -- or anybody else -- responding to an attack "disproportionately," take the time to point out to them that the morality they propose would result in more war rather than less.

What he said!

60 Minutes Takedown!

Last Sunday, the 60 Minutes show broadcast a segment that made a case for a Republican conspiracy (conspicuously led by Karl Rove) to falsely accuse and convict Alabama governor Don Siegelman of mail fraud and bribery. The network's case was almost entirely based on a story told by one Jill Simpson, an otherwise unremarkable lawyer from Alabama. I did not see this segment (I rarely watch television at all), but I'm nonetheless very familiar with it because of the uproar it created in the press and blogosphere.

The reason for the uproar is a simple and all-too-familiar one: it didn't look like their was much basis for the allegation, and the timing (during a Presidential campaign season) made it look like a hit piece. The suspicion is that the 60 Minutes show has an agenda, and that agenda includes knocking Republicans at every opportunity. Remember “RatherGate”? This looks like more of the same.

Amongst the many bloggers who successfully debunked the story behind RatherGate was John Hinderaker (of the PowerLine blog). His debunking stood out for its clarity, completeness, and persuasiveness. Now he's done it again, for the segment broadcast last Sunday. Here's his conclusion, but don't miss the whole thing (you just wouldn't want to miss seeing a competent journalist do the job that the lamestream media just can't seem to do):

... Jill Simpson is a sad case, but she's not the only one. The world is full of mildly deranged people who are convinced that they alone have stumbled onto the great conspiracy of their time, or that they themselves have played a key role in events, unaccountably unacknowledged by anyone else. There once was a time when journalists tried, at least, to avoid being led down blind alleys by such sad cases.

What is surprising is not that Jill Simpson exists, but that CBS chose to put her forward on 60 Minutes as a credible witness, without disclosing the many facts that would have enabled the network's viewers to draw their own conclusions about Simpson's story. It seems fair to wonder whether, at some level, the people who run CBS and 60 Minutes are as deranged as Jill Simpson when it comes to Karl Rove and the Republican Party.

If I were an executive at CBS (the studio that produces 60 Minutes), and I read the entirety of John Hinderaker's takedown, I'd be looking for new “talent” at 60 Minutes. And I'd be wondering if I could possibly entice John Hinderaker out of his legal career into a position where he could better inform the public, and help restore the credibility of a show whose tarnish now outweighs its substance...

Daffodils...

... in our yard.

What cheerful things they are!

Weird Stuff...

While on my walk this morning, I found this stuff near the bottom of a fairly large oak tree. I've never seen anything like it before. It seems to be made of very fine fibers, something like very sparse cotton. In the photos it is covered with heavy “dew” from the mists of the morning. The photo at upper right is a close-up of one piece of the larger mass, all of which is visible in the lower photo.

I didn't want to touch it, as I was afraid I'd damage it – it looks very fragile. I have two thoughts about its nature: (1) it could be a filamentous fungus of some kind, or (2) it might have been produced by an insect. Whatever it is, it's strange. And quite beautiful, when it's covered by dew.

If you're reading this, and you can identify what this is, please leave a comment!

Odd Stones...

On our neighbor's property, there's a hill that lies due west of our home. Near the top of this hill, on its eastern slope (facing our home), there's a sloped expanse of exposed granite with a peculiar collection of rocks on it. The oddest one is in the foreground of both photos; it actually has a sort of “tripod” that it rests upon.

I don't actually how these rocks were formed, or how they came to be where they are. I can imagine both an entirely natural process (boulder falls from above, rolls to a stop where it is today, then erodes into this odd shape) and an entirely anthropomorphic process (a gang of kids or adults rolls a nearby boulder into place, then shapes it with sledges). I'm inclined to favor the natural process, as there's nothing about this rock that looks “manufactured” to me. But who knows? Maybe the perpetrators were drunk!

In any case, this exposed stretch of granite with its odd sculptures is a place we often stop at the mid-point of one of our walks. There's a fine view from here, including one of our home seen from a perspective that's very different than our usual one. In the photo above, you can see Gaskill Peak (to the left) and the several peaks that form Lawson Peak (to the right). The hill in the middle distance (with some large pines jutting up from it) is the hill we live on, below and to the left of what's visible in the photo, on the north face.

A couple of years ago, I heard (and I've forgotten where) about a fascinating study done of balanced rocks in our area. Some geologist had a very bright idea: that the balanced rocks could be used as a sort of recording seismograph. It's possible to compute the force (and therefore the size of the earthquake) required to dislodge a balanced rock. From other evidence, one can make a good estimate of when a rock was dislodged. On the other hand, one can also infer the absence of earthquakes from balanced rocks that have not been dislodged. By studying thousands of these rocks all over the southern California and northern Mexico, the geologist was able to develop maps of major earthquakes over the past 150,000 years. The connection: the two rocks above were part of that study.

Algae, Lichens, and Mosses...

These three families of organisms all live in the chaparral, and they either disappear or are dormant anytime the chaparral is dry. The lichen (which are fungus and a symbiote, either an algae or a cyanobacterium) mostly shrivel and change color (often to black) when it's dry. The algae completely disappears. The mosses shrivel and turn black or a very dark brown. The bright, vigorous greens you see in these photos only appears for a short while – a few weeks at most – during and just after our rains.

In the lower left of the photo at right, you can see a bright green blob of algae, growing with great enthusiasm in a trickle of water from a seep just a few feet above it. Just to its right is a rich green moss, growing from sopping wet soil watered by that same seep. If I come back to this same spot in a couple of weeks, most likely there will be little sign that either of them ever existed.

At right is a fine example of the most common lichen in this area. It grows prolifically on the exposed granite of our hills. Most of the year, its colors are muted and its structure is dry and brittle. Now those lichens are leathery and strong, and sometimes I think I can actually see them growing. A time-lapse series of one of these would be interesting to watch...

For someone like me, used to the dehydrated appearance of the chaparral most times, these few weeks of wetness are full of beauty and surprises. This is especially true, I suppose, in the first wet year after a prolonged drought...

Here are a few more photos of these short-lived jewels:

Signs of Spring...

It's only the first of March, but here in the chaparral we're already seeing some plants acting springy. At right are the flowerbuds of a plant commonly called the “lemonade berry”, a member of the sumac family. This is one of the few chaparral plants whose leaves remain a rich green color even in the worst drought. Of course this is not an issue this year, with all the rains we've had.

Below, on the right, is the flowerbud from another native evergreen: a ceanothus, commonly called a “lilac” (but it's not a true lilac at all). Finally, the photo at left below is new growth on an eight foot tall manzanita. This is notable mainly for its size – we're seeing an inch to two inches of new growth on many manzanitas (and as much as four inches on some individuals), more than we've seen for years. I hadn't realized before just how dependent the new growth of a manzanita was on water. This spring's heavy rains are proving the point!

Patriot Plumbing...

When you've been a consumer for as many years as I have, you know that you need to remember and cherish a vendor who delivers good service and good products at a fair price. When you find a vendor like that, you tell your friends about him.

That's what I'm doing here. We've used Patriot Plumbing several times over the past few years. They've fixed a leaking shower fixture, unclogged our sewer line (twice!), and (most recently) replaced our water heater after it sprang a leak.

Each time they've been out here, they did everything right: they were fast (especially refreshing for us, as we live a long way from town), they fixed the problem right the first time, they made smart suggestions (such as replacing the shower valve while repairing the leak in the wall) but didn't try to sell us things we didn't want or need, they installed quality parts, their people were very pleasant to work with, and the price was very fair, without even a hint of taking that extra pound of flesh from you when you're desparate.

One thing that I particularly appreciated: on the first occasion we used Patriot, I wasn't at home, and my wife (who knows absolutely nothing about plumbing) had to handle it. The plumber who came out here could easily have taken advantage of her ignorance to sell us all manner of things we didn't need – but he didn't.

So my recommendation for a plumber (if you live anywhere in San Diego County) is, without reservation, Patriot Plumbing. Their little refrigerator magnet is on our microwave. You can call them at 619/579-8929.

Puzzler...

Last week's puzzler had more wrong answers than I usually see &ndash; chaparral esoterica must not be the repertoire of most of my readers! But, having said that, I must also say that more than half (about 57%) of you got it right: chaparral plants are generally of uniform size because they're all about the same age. They're all the same age because many of the chaparral plants require fire for their seeds to germinate &ndash; so they all sprouted in the year or two following the last fire that burned over the area. In the case of Lawson Valley, where I live, that last happened in 1973.

This week's puzzler is on a technology phenomena. There are only a few choices of technology that can light your home in the absence of sunlight: flames (candles, gas lights), materials heated to incandescence (incandescent bulbs, halogen lamps), fluorescence (fluorescent lamps, CFLs), photonic emission from plasma (neon lamps), and light-emitting semiconductors (LED lamps). All of these technologies produce light, but the light produced is not all the same.

This is something anyone can readily observe, without any instruments: observe any ordinary, multi-colored object under the various kinds of lighting and they look different under each kind, even if the brightnesses are the same. Women know that their makeup looks different under incandescent lighting than it does under fluorescent lighting. Similarly, photographers and painters are picky about their lighting sources, because their subjects will look different under different kinds of lights.

When people can freely choose the type of lighting they want, without being constrained by cost or considerations of efficiency, they will almost always choose high-brightness incandescent lighting (such as halogen lamps). Several studies have tested thousands of subjects in side-by-side tests. The study that most impressed me put people in a room where light was “piped in” in such a way that they could not determine its source. The test subjects were given a switch and a dimmer control that let them choose between incadescent bulbs, halogen bulbs, CFLs, traditional fluorescent lamps, and LED lamps (though the test subjects didn't know which kind of lighting corresponded to which position of the switch). They were asked to choose the kind of lighting and the lighting level that they though was most pleasing. The room contained furniture, pictures on the wall, and a table full of magazines. Over 98% of the test subjects chose halogen lighting at within 10% of maximum brightness.

Here's the question: what exactly is it that makes one lighting technology more pleasing to the eye than another?

For Once, the Students Win...

If you've been reading this blog for a while, then you know how I despair about the state of the American education system (both primary schools and secondary schools). One of the major contributing causes to the sorry state of our primary (K-12) schools is the way that the teacher's unions have turned our schools from places that concentrate on teaching kids into places that concentrate on delivering benefits to teachers and the enormous bureaucracy they've managed to build. By any metric one can imagine, the performance of kids coming out of our private schools is just plain awful. If you want proof that it's the schools fault, just look at any alternative to the public schools: Catholic schools, charter schools, private schools, home schooling ... in every case, the students graduating from those alternative schools humiliate the public school graduates – and on average, they do it for a small fraction of what we spend (per student, per year) in our public schools.

Obviously, there something badly broken in our public schools. Reason TV (hosted by Drew Carey) recently published a short documentary on the web that explores one particular example of a failing public school. Like most such stories, if you have any interest in seeing our kids well-educated, your blood will boil as you listen to teacher's representatives fighting hard for their interests – and not at all for the kids' interests. But unlike most such stories, this one has a happy ending. Go watch it. If you have kids in public schools, think about the real hope for change that story demonstrates.

Obama, that self-proclaimed minister of changeyness, unconditionally rules out the sort of positive change happening in the school that Reason profiles. I guess he likes the support of the teacher's unions (which he has) more than he cares about our kids' interests. Of course, those kids (a) can't contribute money to his campaign, and (b) can't vote, which leaves them pretty vulnerable to being out-lobbied by the rich and powerful teacher's unions...

A Baby!

Pictured at right is something we don't have very many of in our area: baby manzanita. This particular one appears to be about three years old, and is perhaps 3 inches (8 cm) tall. It's growing in a bare, sunny patch along the side of a seldom-used footpath. Compare it to the big one that's in my back yard.

The reason that we don't have many baby manzanitas is that normally their seeds only germinate after a fire has burned over an area. The heat and smoke of the fire are a trigger to the seed, telling it that now is a good opportunity – lots of sunshine, very little competition, so go!

I have just five young manzanitas (their age varies) on 3.5 acres of cleared area on my property. Apparently a few seeds germinate even without a fire, though the rate must be very low. There are several dozen adult manzanitas in that same cleared area, each producing thousands upon thousands of berries each year. All those seeds, accumulated for the past 35 years, are in the topsoil of my yard. Sometimes I think about starting a small fire somewhere in my yard, just to see if a bazillion manzanitas pop up afterward!

Webs in the Mist...

This morning we were in the clouds – the sun didn't burn them off until about 9 am. Just a few minutes after the sunshine broke out, I went for a walk (with our oldest field spaniel, Lea) in the hills behind our home.

The chaparral is home to a great many spider species, most of which are specifically adapted for the dry climate. We often see their webs, especially those of the many species that build webs to trap insects near ground level. Even without being misted, these webs stand out brightly – but today they sparkled and glinted like diamonds cast on the earth. The display only lasted about 30 minutes, as by that time the warmth of the sun (and the suddenly arid air) had evaporated every trace of the droplets left by the morning's mist.

But for that brief period we had a real visual treat! My favorite effect is captured (poorly, I'm afraid) in the photo at upper right. We saw this when looking at a web near the shadow of our head: a sort of rainbow effect, with all the colors from purple through red showing up across the web...

Poetic Truth...

WOMAN'S LOVE POEM

Before I lay me down to sleep,
I pray for a man, who's not a creep,
One who's handsome, smart and strong,
One who loves to listen long.
One who thinks before he speaks,
One who'll call, not wait for weeks.
I pray he's gainfully employed,
When I spend his cash, won't be annoyed.
Pulls out my chair and opens my door,
Massages my back and begs to do more.
Oh! Send me a man who'll make love to my mind,
Knows what to answer to "how big is my behind?"
I pray that this man will love me to no end,
And always be my very best friend.


MAN'S LOVE POEM

I pray for a deaf-mute nymphomaniac with
Huge boobs who owns a bar on a golf course,
And loves to send me fishing and hunting. This
Doesn't rhyme and I don't give a shit

Definition of the Day...

Electile Dysfunction: the inability to become aroused over any of the choices for president.

I have this condition.

Global Cooling...

Over the past few months, evidence has been accumulating that temperatures declined sharply this past year (especially in the last four months), over the entire globe. Several readers sent me this link to a very recent report, with evidence that January 2008 was the coldest since 1966; however, when I went there this morning, the web site wasn't working properly.

Do you remember just a few months ago (last fall), when the news was full of dire predictions from climatologists? They predicted (amongst other things): low snowfall in the northern hemisphere, the warmest winter on record, further receding of the Arctic ice pack, and further retreat of glaciers in Canada, Alaska, and Greenland. They warned us that we were about to be shown the awful consequences of anthropmorphic global warming.

How are those predictions holding up? Well, lets see. Low snowfall? Nope. The western U.S. has unusually high snow accumulations this year, in some places (especially Colorado) the highest on record, and the area covered with snow in North America is the highest since satellites first starting tracking this in the 1960s. I haven't read about Scandanavia. Warmest winter on record? Uh, nope. Not even in the top 10. Or top 50. Or top 100. In fact, this winter is already distinctly colder than the average winter for the past 400 years – and February is shaping up to be even colder. Further Arctic ice pack recession? Nope. The ice pack is expanding, and in many places has already expanded beyond the average winter extents. Polar bear habitat has expanded uncomfortably close to some inhabited areas, and some biologists are alarmed now about how far south polar bears are roaming. Glaciers retreating further in norther areas? Oops -- the darned things are expanding again. Some research outposts in Greenland have been greatly inconvenienced as the roads to their shelters have been overrun by the “shrinking” glaciers.

My readers know that I've long been convinced that the climatologists' models, full of fudge-factors and hand-fitting to back-testing data, are unreliable as predictors of anything other than winning grants. This year's cooling trend just confirms the notion. Just a few months ago, confident climatologists told us how their models were predicting an unusually warm winter (and active hurricane season, but that's another story). Their predictions were wrong – not just in degree, but in direction. In nearly any other branch of science, such results would immediately lead to (a) caution about further predictions based on those models, and (b) active and contentious debates amongst the scientists about the basis of those models. In climatology, sadly, neither seems to be occurring with much vigor. I blame corruption – corruption in the form of scientists suckling from the teat of
public funding awarded on a political basis.

I wouldn't be very concerned about this phenomenon if it weren't for the vast sums of public money (read: my tax dollars) politicians of almost every stripe are proposing to spend on global warming mitigation. In addition to my skepticism about the need for such mitigation, the schemes being proposed range from merely ineffective to totally hare-brained. About the only thing we can say for sure about any of them is that they would be incredibly expensive – so expensive that they risk economic development all around the world...

Busy, Busy, Busy...

Posting for the next couple of days will be light-to-non-existent, as your humble blogger will be traveling on business. I'm headed up to Santa Monica with several of my co-workers, to visit with a couple of our customers who are going to use the part of our products that I've been working on for the past five months.

To answer some questions from my readers, here's where I work. And yes, they actually let me write code. And no, I don't think my boss suffers from some serious mental deficiency (one working hypothesis for the preceding statement)...

Some Local Notes...

Yesterday (Sunday), Debbie and I took a drive through our local mountains – a drive that turned out to be full of surprises. Most of the surprises involved water. We knew, of course, that we've had good rainfall this year – and normally, the mountains get even more rainfall than we do. But the difference between how the Cuyamaca Lake area looked two weeks ago and how it looks now is simply stunning. The lake itself has expanded so that its northern and eastern extents nearly meet the Sunrise Highway. We haven't seen this for years and years. My guess is that it's just 4 to 6 feet below the spillway.

Furthermore, everywhere we went (which included the entire length of Boulder Creek Road), we saw every stream running, most ponds full or nearly full, and standing water in places that we don't remember ever seeing standing water before. We could be in for a beautiful wildflower season this year, even if we don't get any more rain – and we're almost certain to get more!

This evening, in the dwindling light as I write this, our hummingbird feeders are chock-full-of-hummers – about 20 in all right now. It won't be long now until we are back to our 20+ pounds of sugar per month!

Puzzler...

Well, not very many people attempted to answer last week's puzzler – but everyone who did got it right. What is the middle name of a former U.S. Senator who started his career as a gambling judge, and ended it as a shamed, alcoholic Senator? The answer is Raymond, as in Senator Joseph Raymond McCarthy.

This week's puzzler is back to science. In the chaparral where I live, it's very common – normal, in fact – to find large areas where most of the commonest plants (manzanita, ceonothus, etc.) have a very narrow distribution of size. For instance, where I live nearly all of the manzanita specimens are between 4 and 8 feet high. In most other plant communities, you'll find a much broader distribution of sizes. Why are chaparral plants so uniform in size?

In The Clouds...

That's where we are this morning – and no, we haven't gone on a trip. The latest rain storm has apparently arrived, and our house is now in the clouds. We can just barely see across the valley, and a heavy mist is wetting everything in sight. Sometimes it's drizzling very softly. Every leaf is covered with droplets; very beautiful.

Chaparral in the mist...

Spring Birds...

Walking into our driveway this morning (after a delightful walk into our local hills) we spotted two pairs of bluebirds. They're here two or three weeks early this year; I've no idea why. Just a couple of weeks ago I hung six new bluebird houses up on our pine trees. With any luck at all, we'll have a few families this year (had two last year).

Over the past few days, we've spotted both male and female Anna's hummingbirds at our feeders. That's also a few weeks earlier than usual...

Rain Report...

The storm that ended yesterday dropped a total of 1.6 inches of rain on us – just as the spring growth is starting to push up in cleared areas. Another storm – possibly even larger – is due in tonight and tomorrow. I just checked the desert wildflower reports, and they are reporting that green shoots of wildflower plants are up to 5 inches tall. Very few flowers yet, but it looks like we could have an unusually prolific show this year...

A Parable...

Via my mom:

The Haircut

One day a florist goes to a barber for a haircut. After the cut he asked about his bill and the barber replies, 'I cannot accept money from you. I'm doing community service this week.' The florist was pleased and left the shop.

When the barber goes to open his shop the next morning there is a 'thank you' card and a dozen roses waiting for him at his door.

Later, a cop comes in for a haircut, and when he tries to pay his bill, the barber again replies, 'I cannot accept money from you. I'm doing community service this week.' The cop is happy and leaves the shop.

The next morning when the barber goes to open up there is a 'thank you' card and a dozen donuts waiting for him at his door.

Later that day, a college professor comes in for a haircut, and when he tries to pay his bill, the barber again replies, 'I cannot accept money from you. I'm doing community service this week.' The professor is very happy and leaves the shop.

The next morning when the barber opens his shop, there is a 'thank you' card and a dozen different books, such as 'How to Improve Your Business' and 'Becoming More Successful'.

Then, a Congressman comes in for a haircut, and when he goes to pay his bill the barber again replies, 'I cannot accept money from you. I'm doing community service this week.' The Congressman is very happy and leaves the shop.

The next morning when the barber goes to open up, there are a dozen Congressmen lined up waiting for a free haircut.

And that, my friends, illustrates the fundamental difference between the citizens of our country and the members of our Congress.

Vote carefully this year.

As the Instapundit would say: heh.

Rain!!!

Our unusually wet rainy season continues. In the past few hours, we've had nearly another half inch of rain, and it's still raining now. I just took a short drive to see what the condition of the roads and the creeks is. The creeks are already rising, just a few hours after the rain commenced – this tells us that our ground is quite saturated, and even a small amount of rain immediately runs off. The road edges are full of running water, and in several places we have mud and gravel deposits. When we first moved out here, nearly ten years ago, such events were quite routine. Now they seem novel...but very welcome...

Where Obama Would Take Us...

My readers know well how I detest the thought of a government-run healthcare system. So, in the interest of balance, I bring you an article from a news organization with the opposite view (the New York Times):

Although the government is reluctant to discuss the issue, hopscotching back and forth between private and public care has long been standard here for those who can afford it. But a few recent cases have exposed fundamental contradictions between policy and practice in the system, and tested its founding philosophy to its very limits.

One such case was Debbie Hirst’s. Her breast cancer had metastasized, and the health service would not provide her with Avastin, a drug that is widely used in the United States and Europe to keep such cancers at bay. So, with her oncologist’s support, she decided last year to try to pay the $120,000 cost herself, while continuing with the rest of her publicly financed treatment.

By December, she had raised $20,000 and was preparing to sell her house to raise more. But then the government, which had tacitly allowed such arrangements before, put its foot down. Mrs. Hirst heard the news from her doctor.

“He looked at me and said: ‘I’m so sorry, Debbie. I’ve had my wrists slapped from the people upstairs, and I can no longer offer you that service,’ ” Mrs. Hirst said in an interview.

This describes one of the many inevitable problems with a non-competitive healthcare system. In short, in England you have a choice: you can either have free government-supplied healthcare (but you have to live – or die – with their restrictions and limitations), or you can pay for all of your healthcare yourself. You can't participate in the national healthcare system, but pay for your own extras. Oh, no. That would be so unfair – to have better healthcare simply because you can afford it!

The commonly-held notion that healthcare would be better if the government ran it is so risible on its face that I stumble trying to rebut it. Can you think of anything that the government runs better than private industry? Let's see...

Post Office? I don't think so!

Education? Gimmee a break!

Street repair? Surely you jest...

(add your own 35 examples – it isn't hard to do!)

So why does anyone believe that government-run healthcare would be better? I just don't get it...

The End Days...

I never thought of this as a consquence of Hillary losing the Democratic nomination:

How does Supreme Court Justice Hillary Clinton sound?

It sounds superb to us. Freed of the constraints of "triangulating" political considerations that have hobbled and severely compromised her progressive values, a seat on the Supreme Court would be an ideal way for Clinton to help steer our Constitution back to its original moorings. Without having to worry about voting based on future campaign strategy, she would be liberated to impact America in a profoundly positive way.

Via BuzzFlash (a prominent liberal news/opinion site).

This is profoundly disturbing on way too many levels. The worst part is that as a Supreme Court Justice, she would actually have real power to influence this nation's future. I can't believe I'm saying this, but...if I had to choose between President Hillary and Justice Hillary, the former sounds ever so much safer.

Sheesh. I need a drink!

Shootdown!

Via the WSJ:

A Navy missile soaring 130 miles above the Pacific Ocean smashed a dying U.S. spy satellite late Wednesday night and appears to have destroyed a tank carrying 1,000 pounds of potentially lethal rocket fuel, bringing a dramatic end to a weeks-long controversy over the military's unusual decision to shoot down one of its own satellites.

Pentagon officials said they were optimistic that the missile had struck the satellite, which had stopped working almost immediately after entering earth orbit in December 2006. But they said that U.S. officials needed time to assess whether the strike had also destroyed the satellite's supply of hydrazine, a toxic fuel that causes lung damage and can be lethal if inhaled in large enough quantities.

"A network of land-, air-, sea- and spaced-based sensors confirms that the U.S. military intercepted a non-functioning National Reconnaissance Office satellite which was in its final orbits before entering the earth's atmosphere," the Pentagon said in a written statement. "Confirmation that the fuel tank has been fragmented should be available within 24 hours."

The technology involved in this shootdown is really quite amazing. The “warhead” on this missile was a “kinetic interceptor” – a fancy term that just means that a small, heavy object rammed into the target at a very high relative speed. All the energy needed to destroy the target came from the impact of the kinetic interceptor – no explosives or shrapnel was invovled. To pull this off, the intercepting missile had to steer its warhead with astonishing accuracy directly into the refrigerator-sized target at a closing speed of many thousands of feet per second.

The Russians have accused the U.S. of using this event as a way to conduct a veiled test of the missile system. It would be absurd to think that we wasted a satellite worth hundreds of millions of dollars simply to provide a test target. But if the Russians are accusing us of taking advantage of an opportunity that presented itself, well, they're probably right. But so what? Do they expect us to believe that they would refrain from taking advantage of a similar opportunity? Hah!

The only thing going on here is that Putin's beligerent Russia is taking advantage of a propaganda opportunity, with the willing assistance of the despicable Western lamestream media...

Obama versus McCain...

The 2008 Presidential race is starting to firm up as being a Obama versus McCain faceoff. Early in the race (I'm talking about, oh, four whole months ago!), I'd have estimated the probability of this particular ballot as vanishingly small. Now it appears to be our reality.

From where I sit, that looks like a race with little to recommend either candidate. The overriding issue for me remains the war on terror (meaning, more precisely, the worldwide struggle between secular free democracies and radical fundamentalist Islamists). On this issue there is a clear difference in the candidates' articulated positions, though I'm not so sure they'd be much different in practice.

McCain has consistently advocated a robust reaction to any affront by the terrorists, and has shown zero inclination to appease them. The only concern I have about him is his apparent squeamishness about aggressive interrogations, but this is a small nit in the grand scheme.

Obama, on the other hand, has consistently advocated withdrawal from any foreign entanglements, the use of international organizations (especially the U.N.) in consensus actions, the treatment of terrorism as a police problem, and appeasement on nearly all fronts.

From my perspective, Obama's stated positions are, in effect, a set of blueprints for moving the United States from a superpower and a force for good in the world to a second-rate, overwhelmed power and a beggar for the world's help. But would Obama actually behave the way he talks? First of all, his ability to actually effect the positions he espouses are constrained rather tightly by this document we have called the Constitution. All Presidents have, actually, very limited power. President Bush didn't go into Iraq on his own -- people forget, but he actually had the backing of an overwhelming majority of Congress. Then, perhaps even more importantly, once a President Obama was in office, his political calculus (and I'm certain that's what drives both he and McCain) would change dramatically. Now he's trying to get himself selected as the Democratic candidate, so his rhetoric is tuned to that left-leaning group. Once he was in office, his actions are more important than his rhetoric, and he'll be trying to gain the approval of the entire United States electorate, not just the Democrats. It seems unlikely that he would even want to match his future actions to his current rhetoric, even if he was permitted that luxury by Congress.

Once I get past the war on terror, the articulated positions (and track record, in the case of McCain) would have me lean toward McCain -- if it wasn't for my impression of the man's personality and power hunger. He strikes me as borderline insane and profoundly corrupt in the normal political sense (that is, his positions are held less from an actual belief in something than from a belief they'd get him votes). Obama, on the other hand, seems to be practically all talk and almost no substance. And what little “substance” we've been allowed to see is of a socialist nature, somewhere off to the left of Teddy Kennedy. I suspect it's entirely insincere and almost entirely impossible to pay for. In other words, it's the same profound corruption in the normal political sense: he says whatever he thinks he needs to say in order to get elected.

So what will I do when faced with a choice between McCain and Obama? I'm not 100% sure yet, but my inclination at the moment is to stay home and play my favorite music as my country takes a step off the path of greatness...

Anyone Still Having Blog Problem?

It's been working reliably for me now, for about four days straight. I haven't had any reports of problems since Monday. My reader statistics are back up to normal (they were almost zero for two weeks). If anybody has had problems since Monday, please let me know in the comments.

Castro Resigns...

Here's an excerpt from his letter to the people:

To my dearest compatriots, who have recently honored me so much by electing me a member of the Parliament where so many agreements should be adopted of utmost importance to the destiny of our Revolution, I am saying that I will neither aspire to nor accept — I repeat, I will neither aspire to nor accept — the positions of President of the State Council and Commander in Chief.

You can read the whole thing here.

He'll still be a looming presence over the Cuban body politic, and it's almost certain that his younger brother Raul will be selected to replace him. I'm not expecting any dramatic changes, unless somehow Castro's resignation motivates the Cuban people to revolt. At this point, after over fifty years of heavy-handed Communist rule, the state's instruments of power are stable institutions – and therefore very difficult to remove. Without external help, it would take something of a miracle for a democratic state to emerge...

Wartime Letters...

Not from the Iraq War – but from World War II. This is a fascinating series of letters written by Edward Ryan, who was an engineer in Patton's Third Army. They make very interesting reading for anyone curious about those times...

Fixed?

I hesitate to even say this out loud, but…I haven't had a problem accessing my blog for 48 hours now. I've still had no feedback from Google, so I can't be certain that a problem was actually found and fixed. However, this is the first time in two weeks that I've gone two entire days without having trouble accessing the blog, so I'm hopeful that something has actually changed for the better…

Americans On The Move...

Every year, United Van Lines publishes a study of internal American migration patterns, using the data from their own moving jobs. The map at right is their own cut at analysis for 2007, showing states with the high inbound moves and high outbound moves, by percentage. This is an interesting view, but not the only one.

So I grabbed the raw data (which United Van Lines makes available at the link above) and did a slightly different analysis, based on absolute numbers. Here's the result:

The top five states that people are moving into (by the actual number of people), in order: North Carolina, Texas, Arizona, Oregon, South Carolina.

The top five states that people are moving out of (by the actual number of people), in order: Michigan, New York, Illinois, New Jersey, Ohio.

These data are biased in a couple of known ways: it excludes all immigration, and it excludes many people who can't afford to move via moving companies (especially younger people). Until the last few years, illegal immigration (which is far larger than legal immigration) was predominantly into the southern border states; that has changed, as many illegal immigrants are now heading to the midwest and the east coast.

Nevertheless, these data show an interesting cut at American migration patterns. If what you really want to see is where Americans go to live when they have a choice (that is, when they can afford it), there's probably no better set of data to look at.

And if you look at these data through a political prism, there's an interesting trend: people are moving out of areas dominated by liberals, and into areas dominated by conservatives (with the single exception of Oregon).

A Valentine's Day to Remember...

Debbie and I have been married for almost 27 years. At this point, I'm a fairly well-trained husband when it comes to Valentine's Day – I know that if I don't come up with some hugs, kisses, whispered sweet nothings, a nice box of candy and some flowers, I'm a dead man (or will wish I was). I've also learned that I should expect the day to be all about the woman in my life, and not about me. And that's ok with me, because I've never had any particular expectations of the day.

So I was very surprised when I arrived home on Valentine's Day. First of all, the day was dramatic: it was snowing as I pulled into the driveway, and a blanket of white covered our house and yard. But when I walked in the door, I saw a spectacularly set table, with a bottle of champagne icing, rose petals strewn over the table cloth (I'm serious!), and a beautiful appetizer of fresh mozzerella, basil, and tomatoes – and a loaf of potato rosemary bread, with olive oil and basalmic vinegar. On our woodstove was a gigantic bouquet of fresh flowers, with some especially beautiful red gladiolas. Wow!

And it got even better. I had stopped at a fish market to get some fresh scallops, and Debbie made her signature broiled scallop appetizer, which we ate along with steamed young asparagus. And as if that wasn't enough, she made a spectacular bread pudding, all custardy on the inside and covered with a crust of pecans, brown sugar, and cinnamon. Double wow!

I suspect this may be a once-in-twenty-years sort of event, but if not I might learn to actually look forward to Valentine's Day!

Quote of the Day...

In referece to Hillary Clinton:

At a minimum, a head of state should have a head.

So says Vladimir Putin.

Well. You can't really disagree with him, can you?

All the same, that's a little more crude and direct than heads of state usually are...

Nightmare...

Circulating via email right now:

Last night I had the strangest dream. It was so real, so life-like and so vivid I woke up in a cold sweat and said "Not On Sunday".

Let me describe it to you briefly...

1. Hillary wins the Democratic Party nomination for President of the United States

2. Naturally, she wants to choose as her running mate someone with a lot of knowledge and experience in government and foreign affairs, someone who is a seasoned campaigner who could bring a lot of strength to the ticket. Who better than Bill, her husband?!!?

3. Hill and Bill go on to win the election in November and the Democrats maintain control of the House and the Senate.

4. Hillary is sworn in as President on January 20, 2009. The next day, after all the inauguration parties are over, she calls a press conference to make an announcement: she is resigning as President!!! Bill, as the Vice President, immediately becomes President!!! This is all perfectly legal under the 22nd Amendment the Constitution, for it states that no person "may be elected as President more than twice". Bill is not being elected for a third term but is merely serving out the remainder of Hillary's term --- all 4 years of it.

5. But wait! There's more! The following day Bill calls a press conference to make an announcement. He has chosen someone to fill the now vacant Vice President Position. Guess who he picks? Why, Hillary, of course!!!

Now you stay awake and let me get some sleep !!!!!!!

As best I can tell, the scenario described above is, in fact, completely legal. There's a good discussion of the issues on Snopes; it looks to me as though Bill as VP is technically legal but quite likely to be unacceptable to the electorate (I hope!), Hillary resigning is certainly legal, but unlikely if my perceptions about her desire for power are correct, and the notion of Hillary being appointed VP is legal but exceedingly unlikely.

But all of this is probably moot, given the current political winds – Obama looks like he's going to win the Democratic nomination in a landslide. You might think I'd be happy about that, but Obama's apparent emptiness scares me. I'm afraid he's all show and no substance – and he's unabashedly a proponent of pulling out of Iraq unconditionally and immediately, and of treating the war on terror as a “police operation”. These are not comforting or hopeful positions to me, and the change they represent is not a positive one...

Rain and Snow...

Yesterday a storm hit the San Diego area, dropping 3/4" of rain on us, along with some sleet and even snow. As I arrived home from work, big sloppy-wet snowflakes were falling, and our yard was covered in a thin sheet of white. This morning the temperature is hovering around the freezing point, and much of the thin snow blanket is still there.

The most interesting thing about this storm was how it caught the weather forecasters completely by surprise. Even 24 hours before the storm hit, there was no hint of precipitation at all in the forecast.

If the weather forecasters can't even get tomorrow's forecast right, how much confidence should I have in those who forecast global warming over the next few decades?

Blogger Problems -- NOT Getting Better!

For just a couple of days, it seemed like Blogger was working better, and that you could usually get to my blog. Then for the past couple of days, it's been almost always failing.

I have posted my problem at the Blogger help forum, but I haven't gotten any response yet from Google's folks. It's a free service, so it's pretty hard to make demands for better service levels. But...if it keeps up much longer, I'll be forced to transition to another service, which I really, really don't want to do.

Sigh.