31,072 AGW Skeptics...

From PR Newswire:

Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine (OISM)

Who: Dr. Arthur Robinson of the OISM

What: release of names in OISM "Petition Project"

When: 10 AM, Monday May 19

Where: Holeman Lounge at the National Press Club, 529 14th St., NW, Washington, DC

Why: the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine (OISM) will announce that more than 31,000 scientists have signed a petition rejecting claims of human-caused global warming. The purpose of OISM's Petition Project is to demonstrate that the claim of "settled science" and an overwhelming "consensus" in favor of the hypothesis of human-caused global warming and consequent climate damage is wrong. No such consensus or settled science exists. As indicated by the petition text and signatory list, a very large number of American scientists reject this hypothesis.

It is evident that 31,072 Americans with university degrees in science - including 9,021 PhDs, are not "a few." Moreover, from the clear and strong petition statement that they have signed, it is evident that these 31,072 American scientists are not "skeptics."

CONTACT: Audrey Mullen, +1-703-548-1160, for the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine

Well how about that – it's not just us amateurs who are skeptical about anthropomorphic global warming...

Memories...

If you can identify the device at right, you're (a) at least as old as I am, and (b) probably a geek.

It's a “tube tester” – a device used in prehistoric times to test vacuum tubes. Don't know what vacuum tubes are? Back in ancient times, before transistors were invented, vacuum tubes (“valves” in the U.K.) were the active devices in electronic equipment. There were audio amplifiers, radios, televisions, and even computers that depended on vacuum tubes to function.

Unlike transistors, vacuum tubes were not very reliable. They'd break (usually because the “heater” – an electric heating element – would fail). They'd also change their characteristics for various reasons, causing the equipment they were in to malfunction. Because of this propensity to fail, vacuum tubes were nearly always mounted in sockets; the glass bulb of the vacuum tube had pins sticking out that would plug into these sockets.

But how would you know if you had a bad tube? If the heater was broken, you'd think it would be easy: the tube wouldn't get hot. Unfortunately, manufacturers often used a trick (to save money) that made this not work: all the tubes in a device would have their heaters wired in series, so if one of them broke, all the tubes would go cold (much like some Christmas light sets, where if one light goes out, they all go out). If something else was wrong with the tube, though, there wasn't any possibility of an easy diagnosis. The only thing you could do in such a situation was to pull all the tubes out of your radio or TV, and traipse down to the nearest store that had a vacuum tube tester.

In my early days as an electronics hobbyist (in the '60s), I used to collect broken TVs from the TV repair shops. Those shops were common – TVs broke a lot, and they were expensive; repairing them actually made economic sense. But frequently one of the older TVs would be beyond repair, and the repair shops would give them to me for free. They were a gold mine of valuable parts for me – I'd carefully tear them apart, removing all the individual components, straightening our their leads, and testing them. Except for the vacuum tubes, as I couldn't afford a vacuum tube tester. So every few weeks I'd head down to a local electronics shop that had a vacuum tube tester, with a bushel basket full of vacuum tubes I'd pulled out of dead TVs. I'd stand in front of the tester for a few hours, trying one tube after another, sorting them into “good” and “bad” piles. I got very familiar with these beasts!

Later, in the U.S. Navy, I worked on several older pieces of equipment that had lots and lots of vacuum tubes – and of course they had a vacuum tube tester on board the ship. Most of my fellow technicians had never even seen one of these things, so my expertise came in handy.

The vacuum tube testers were marvels of ingenuity, able to set up the proper heater voltages, bias voltages, and signal voltages for thousands of different types of tubes – all with switches and individual components. The designers of these machines had to be puzzle solvers of the first order to figure out how to do all this with so few components to work with (they were constrained both by the space required and the cost)...

You're So Vain...

One of my favorite bloggers (neo-neocon) has written a new set of lyrics for the Carly Simon hit You're So Vain. They were so short – and so great – I'm reposting the whole thing (neo, please forgive me):

You walked into the Party like you were walking onto a yacht
Your voice strategically sounds like Camelot
Your flag pin had gone to pot
You had one eye on the mirror as you watched yourself, you were hot;
And all the girls dreamed that they’d be your partner
They’d be your partner and…

You’re so vain, you probably think this speech is about you
You’re so vain, I’ll bet you think this speech is about you
Don’t you? Don’t you?

You won states several months ago when we were still quite naive
When you said that you’d bring us all change and love
And that we should just believe
But with Wright and Ayers and Ahmadinejad, you think we must be naive
And all those dreams are just clouds in your coffee
Clouds in your coffee, and…

You’re so vain, you probably think this speech is about you
You’re so vain, I’ll bet you think this speech is about you
Don’t you? Don’t you?

Well I hear you went down to Carolina and you just naturally won
Then you flew your Lear Jet from West Virginia
To flee the total eclipse of your run
Well you’re where you should be all the time
And when you’re not you’re with
Some journalist pal who is now your real close friend
Now your real close friend, and…

You’re so vain, you probably think this speech is about you
You’re so vain, I’ll bet you think this speech is about you
Don’t you? Don’t you?

Consider this: if you're not reading neo-neocon every day, then you're missing great commentary, and great humor (e.g., the “jello series”). Go pay her a visit!

Don Tarbell...

The very first programming I ever did for money was done for a guy named Don Tarbell. If you're old enough to remember the early, heady days of microcomputers, you'll know that name – he manufactured an S-100 board that became the gold standard of cassette tape data storage. He also made one of the first affordable floppy disk interface boards, also for the S-100 bus.

He's got a special place in my memory for a different reason, though: way back in 1976 or 1977, he published an RFQ (request for quote) for someone to write a Basic interpreter. He wanted something with better features than could be found on the then-standard Microsoft Basic, and he wanted to sell it at a low price. I answered that RFQ with an absurdly low bid (and and even more absurdly fast delivery) and absolutely nothing else to recommend me. At the time, I was still in the U.S. Navy (I didn't know it, but it was against regulations for me to engage in a contract!). I had never written any software for money before. I had no education in software engineering. I had no references. I had no samples of my work. And I had never even seen a Basic program before. Don talked with me on the phone, and ended up giving me a contract.

Later he told me that all the other quotes he'd received were 25 or more times the price I had quoted, and all the delivery times were 4 or more times what I quoted. So he figured he didn't really have much to lose by trying me out; if I failed (something he thought was a high probability), he could still go with another contractor. Well, I didn't fail – I delivered it on time, collected my hard-earned payment, and then went on to have a very good relationship with Don, delivering many enhancements over the next couple of years. That contract was the start of my career in software engineering.

Something like 15 years ago, when trying to reconnect with Don, I heard that he had committed suicide. This was shocking to me, as the Don I knew was full of life and enthusiasm, and I had trouble even imagining him being depressed enough to take his own life. After that, of course, I stopped looking for him.

Today, purely by accident I stumbled on this forum entry at the Classic Computers site:

My name is Paula Rouse. I worked for the "Famous" Don Tarbell at Tarbell Electronics in Carson, CA from 1976 to 1983. I was his first employee when he began selling cassette interface kits and assembled units. He was a terrific boss and his wife Brenda and I have been best friends for all these years. She called me this evening to say that Don passed away this morning, May 19th, 1998, after a long bout with cancer. I was on the internet tonight, looking for information on old friends who used to come into the shop, hoping to contact them to let them know of his passing. When I typed Don's name into Yahoo's search engine, your page came up. It is not dated, so I do not know when you tried to contact him by e-mail, but Brenda said that he had not been checking his e-mail but once every two or three weeks since he had been so sick. That may be the reason for your not receiving a reply. He was a great guy and he will be sorely missed. It was so much fun being a part of the early years of computing. He was instrumental in shaping my career and there are many good memories of the times spent together.

It's still sad to know that Don has passed away, but somehow I feel ever so much better that it was cancer that took him, and not suicide.

An Estonian Observes Us...

Found in an article bemoaning the erosion of our freedoms by political correctness:

...it leads to Anna from Estonia making it a point to show visiting friends a sight they could never see in the old country. They laugh, they point, they whip out cameras and take pictures. Of the Everglades? No. Of Mount Rushmore or Lady Liberty? No.

Anna said they take pictures of the idiot signs. These she said, crack her friends up. "Caution: Coffee is hot." Apparently, elsewhere in the world, you don't need a sign to know this.

I agree with the notion that political correctness (and it's bastard son, zero tolerance) are threats to our freedom. But the example I excerpted is really something else altogether: it's the notion that we have some kind of “right” to a riskless existence, and the consequent explosion of litigation that as recently as 50 years ago would have seemed just plain silly. Can you imagine an adult in, say, the 1950s even considering the idea of suing a restaurant because they were served coffee that was too hot? I can't...

Of course I was amused to see that it was an Estonian who was doing the observation. For my readers who don't already know this, I have visited Estonia many times, and I know it quite well.

The Estonia that Anna remembers, however, is fast disappearing: ever since they became a member of the European Union, a stifling blanket of political correctness has descended upon them – one can think of it as the price paid for enormous amounts of foreign aid and investment pouring in, and for the removal of a great many trade barriers. Estonia today is far more prosperous than it was before its EU membership, but it is also in many ways a much less attractive place.

My last visit there was several years ago, but even then the character of Estonia was changing – becoming less the unique and quaint place that it was, and more just another location in an almost-homogenous EU. Tourists have poured in, and foriegners have purchased large chunks of the available real estate (especially Finns along the north coast and the western islands, and Scotch farmers in the south central farmlands). My friends there tell me that since my last visit this trend is even more pronounced.

I loved the Estonia I watched emerge from the wreckage of the Soviet Union and morph into an innovative and vibrant democracy. I like the present Estonia less. I'm not entirely sure I want to visit again...my memories may well be more pleasant than current reality...

Arab Culture

Anyone familiar with the history of the Middle East can't help but make this politically-incorrect observation: any Arab military engagement with a non-Arab military is nearly certain to result in the Arabs losing. The Israeli-Arab conflicts are legendary and consistent with this observation, but they are certainly not the only such conflicts. Most recently, of course, Western coalitions have twice demolished the Iraqi military; in both cases the Arab Iraqi military suffered defeats that would have been unthinkable (and unforgivable) in any other military.

What's behind this pattern?

StrategyPage (which is full of all sorts of interesting articles) recently posted a column on exactly this issue. Here's a sample:

At lot has been written about why Arab armies so consistently lose wars with non-Arabs. These reasons also explain why Arab nations, and many other Third World nations as well, also have trouble establishing democratic governments or prosperous economies. A lot of it has to do with culture, especially culture influenced by Islam. Some of the reasons for these failures are:

Most Arab countries are a patchwork of different tribes and groups, and Arab leaders survive by playing one group off against another. Loyalty is to one's group, not the nation. Most countries are dominated by a single group that is usually a minority (Bedouins in Jordan, Alawites in Syria, Sunnis in Iraq, Nejdis in Saudi Arabia). All of which means that officers are assigned not by merit but by loyalty and tribal affiliation.

Islamic schools favor rote memorization, especially of scripture. Most Islamic scholars are hostile to the concept of interpreting the Koran (considered the word of God as given to His prophet Mohammed). This has resulted in looking down on Western troops that will look something up that they don't know. Arabs prefer to fake it, and pretend it's all in their head. Improvisation and innovation is generally discouraged. Arab armies go by the book, Western armies rewrite the book and thus usually win.

There's much more food for thought in this interesting article. While it's not mentioned directly in the article, it's easy to extrapolate from its points that the al Qaeda organization seems almost designed to take advantage of those same Arab traits that make their conventional military forces so ineffective...

Not mentioned in this column, though widely documented elsewhere, is the pervasive corruption in every Arab culture. Commanding bribes and handing out favors are typically considered by Arabs to be natural (and rightful) perquisites of any office. The traits outlined in this post, plus the universal corruption, make enormous challenges for establishing a democracy.

I've noticed that Arabs who have close contact with the West (and most especially those who travel or live in the West) have no trouble understanding Western ideals. Some see the Western ideals as opportunity to be exploited; others (and more than a few) see them as something their cultures would benefit from. The latter viewpoint is loudly expressed on some of the most popular English-language Arab blogs, which gives me much hope for their future. I've read in many places (most especially Michael Yon and Michael Totten) how the Iraqis are watching and learning from Americans – they are most impressed by how much the Americans have been able to accomplish in such a short time, and also by the opportunities that ordinary Americans have. They'd like all that for themselves, of course.

The Iraqi experiment with democracy is (for me, at least) the single most hopeful development in the Middle East ever – and the only one with any hope whatsoever for lasting peace in the region. Some of my readers, I know, won't understand what I'm talking about there – what on earth does Iraq have to do with Israel? It's a big-picture thought, but here's a simplified version: if there is even a single successful, flourishing Arab democracy, there will enormous pressure on the tyrannical regimes (that would be all the other ones) to similarly reform – the example of a successful Iraq will be very difficult to ignore. And Iraq should be able to succeed – it has far more natural resources than Israel, it has a well-educated populace. The only significant obstacles are terrorism and culture, and terrorism is relatively low right now and declining rapidly. I believe the cultural issues are about to become the single major obstacle to the success of Iraqi democracy.

I'd sure like to see this democratic experiment continue. Obama's rhetoric (assuming he actually means what he's saying, which is by no means certain in an election campaign) makes it clear that he'd yank virtually all significant support from the Iraqis – and that would make it virtually certain that it would descend back into tyranny. What form that would take, I don't know; my intuition says we'd get an autonomous Kurdish region up north, and a terrible war between the Shiites and the Sunni, quite possibly involving Iran (on the side of the Shiites) and Saudi Arabia (on the side of the Sunnis). The only certainty is that it would be awful...

What We're Up Against...

Muqtada al Sadr – the firebrand Shiite imam – has been waging a steady guerilla war against the legitimate elected government headed by Maliki, and the U.S.–led coalition aiding the Iraqi government. al Sadr is supported (with money, logistics, weapons, and ammunition) and controlled by Iranian intelligence.

The Sadr militia, like any armed force, has challenges with retention and recruiting. One of their most effective tools is an extremely successful series of pop songs. These were recently outlawed by Maliki, but are still easily available. Here's the lyrics for one of these songs, translated into English:

I am the IED

If an armored vehicle passes, I will blow it up

If I get thirsty, I will drink blood from a Hummer

If an armored vehicle passes, it is suicidal

I will become a volcano if a soldier passes

And if a Hummer passes, I will erase it

If the IED will be added to the [rocket-propelled grenade] launcher, the battle day will be stormy

The IED rises with the ground and the Sadr love goes in my pulse

I will plant my eyes for the country

I will tighten my belt in the difficult days

The Hummer starts crying blood

Nobody can dry the Hummer blood

If the Hummer steps on me, we will reach the stars

To American ears, these lyrics are so ridiculous that one's first reaction is that it's a put-on, a joke that someone is playing. But it is not – and if you read the words carefully, putting yourself in the context of a Sadr militia member who finds these lyrics inspiring, then you'll find them very chilling indeed. You can read more of these lyrics, and even view some music videos.

The first thing I thought of, when reading these lyrics, was some of the poems I've read that the Japanese Kamakazi pilots carried in World War II. They smack of the same sort of fanaticism, the (to Americans) alien notion that suicidal attacks in a war were not only acceptable, but desirable, honorable, and attractive.

Then I reflected, for the upteenth time, on the existential nature of the war on terror. Our enemy wants to kill us. They're not interested in negotiation, compromise, treaties, etc. They just want us dead.

But all too many Americans don't seem to understand that...

Irena Sendler...

A heroine of mine died a few days ago: Irena Sendler of Warsaw, Poland. I never met her (though I certainly would like to have); I only know her through reading on the web. I first learned of her existence when she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. Here's a short version of her story:

Before World War II, Irena was a social worker in Warsaw. During the Nazi occupation of Warsaw (1939 - 1943), she (a Christian) helped over 2,500 otherwise doomed Jewish children escape from the Warsaw ghetto. The Nazis punished such good deeds by death; her activities carried enormous personal risk. She kept the children's names and locations on lists in jars, hoping that after the war she could reunite them with their parents. Very few of the Jewish parents survived the war; most died at concentration camps like Treblinka. In 1943 Irena was arrested by the Gestapo, tortured (suffering awful injuries), and sentenced to be executed. The underground organization she belonged to bribed her guards and she escaped – and went right back to work rescuing more Jewish children. The photo above was taken just after that escape.

A few years ago, a group of American students discovered Irena's story (previously unknown in America) and were inspired to create a play. This play turned into a bigger project to take care of rescuers like Irena, and goes on yet today. I just discovered that they have a DVD out, which I have ordered.

In a 2005 interview, Irena had this to say about her heroism:

We who were rescuing children are not some kind of heroes. That term irritates me greatly. The opposite is true – I continue to have qualms of conscience that I did so little. I could have done more. This regret will follow me to my death.

Such humility is entirely characteristic of almost everyone I know in her generation. I doubt the children she rescued – most of whom are still alive – have any such regrets.

The world could use more like you, Irena. Rest in peace...

Irena didn't win the Nobel Peace Price – the committee decided that Al Gore was a more worthy (if less humble) recipient. That tells you all you need to know about the objectivity, political motivation, and political bias of that body of “worthies”. My contempt for them knows no bounds; this is just one of their many such idiotic selections.

That Evil Bush!

On Thursday, President Bush spoke before the Knesset (Israel's major legislative body). His speech covered the history of Israel, and included this bit:

Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is – the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.

Almost immediately the Obama campaign denounced the speech, in bitter and emotional tones, as a below-the-belt attack on Obama. This denunciation was the first I heard about the speech, and (naturally) I was immediately intrigued – it seemed so un-Bush-like for him to personally attack Obama, especially on such a substantive point. A point, by the way, that I completely agree with – Obama does look, feel, and smell like an appeaser.

So with some eagerness I went online, found transcripts of Bush's speech, and read them. It's a good speech. I liked it. But it doesn't contain any personal attacks on Obama (to my disappointment).

Mark Steyn, in his usual pithy manner, takes Obama to task:

"That's enough. That – that's a show of disrespect to me."

That was Barack Obama, a couple of weeks back, explaining why he was casting the Rev. Jeremiah Wright into outer darkness. It's one thing to wallow in "adolescent grandiosity" (as Scott Johnson of the Powerline Web site called it) when it's a family dispute between you and your pastor of 20 years. It's quite another to do so when it's the 60th anniversary celebrations of one of America's closest allies.

President Bush was in Israel the other day and gave a speech to the Knesset. Its perspective was summed up by his closing anecdote – a departing British officer in May 1948 handing the iron bar to the Zion Gate to a trembling rabbi and telling him it was the first time in 18 centuries that a key to the gates of the Jerusalem was in the hands of a Jew. In other words, it was a big-picture speech, referencing the Holocaust, the pogroms, Masada – and the challenges that lie ahead. Sen. Obama was not mentioned in the text. No Democrat was mentioned, save for President Truman, in the context of his recognition of the new state of Israel when it was a mere 11 minutes old.

Nonetheless, Barack Obama decided that the president's speech was really about him, and he didn't care for it. He didn't put it quite as bluntly as he did with the Rev. Wright, but the message was the same: "That's enough. That's a show of disrespect to me." And, taking their cue from the soon-to-be nominee's weirdly petty narcissism, Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry, Joe Biden and Co. piled on to deplore Bush's outrageous, unacceptable, unpresidential, outrageously unacceptable and unacceptably unpresidential behavior.

Honestly. What a bunch of self-absorbed ninnies. Here's what the president said:

[same clip of Bush's speech as above]

It says something for Democrat touchiness that the minute a guy makes a generalized observation about folks who appease terrorists and dictators the Dems assume: Hey, they're talking about me. Actually, he wasn't – or, to be more precise, he wasn't talking only about you.

Thursday and Friday, the media was full of stories about various Democrats and their red-faced anger about Bush's awful personal attacks. It's easy to see why Democratic political operatives, devoid of any semblance of honesty and shame, would run with this “story” for as long as they could (and Republican political operatives are just as likely to do this). And this is, of course, the sort of thing that our left-leaning media would joyously hype. But what do actual Americans think about such things?

Yesterday I had a chance to talk with several friends and co-workers about this incident, without having to interrogate them on the subject. Mostly I was just curious how they reacted. The five people I spoke with who were aware of the kerfuffle were nearly uniform in their reaction: all five believed Bush had made an indecent personal attack, all five were offended by it, all five thought Obama had every right to be angry about it, all five had not read or heard Bush's speech, and only one voiced any skepticism about the factual underpinning of the story (and even that was only about the tone of Bush's attack).

So, on the basis of my unscientifically small sample, it looks to me like the Democrats have succeeded spectacularly well in manufacturing a piece of anti-Republican propoganda. Their story has, for most Americans, become reality – like a well-executed deception operation in warfare.

Americans who are paying attention to the political discourse have no problem getting information about this issue – the political blogs and web sites are full of outrage about the Democrats deception. Unfortunately, this is a very small percentage of Americans – 5% of eligible-to-vote adults at best, and probably much less. One easily identifiable culprit is our media – a more balanced (politically) media would have had at least half of them all over this story, condemning the Democrats for their fabrication. If we had such a balanced media, those Americans listening to the news would have heard both sides of it. Yet another culprit is the appalling immorality of our political operatives – but I don't think there's much new under the sun on that score, nor does it seem likely we can do much about it. Finally, there's the big culprit: the masses of apathetic, ignorant Americans – the ones who have no idea what's happening in the real world (as opposed to the Britney Spears world), or who listen to the breathless news stories and just assume those stories are accurate and complete.

What scares me is the thought that the voters who will elect our next Congress and President (not to mention all the state and local contests) will be mostly of the ilk of those five people I spoke with. They are the “likely voters” the pollsters and political analysts love to talk about. Their picture of the world is spotty, and comprised mainly of what they've seen or heard from our left-leaning media.

I sure hope I'm wrong...

Polar Bears...

As I'm sure you've heard by now, a few days ago our federal government decided to list polar bears as an endangered species. This decision was widely lauded by environmentalists as the beginning of the effort to “save the polar bear from extinction”.

What are they talking about? The current polar bear population is at its peak in recorded history, with about 25,000 animals in the wild. The population has been continuously increasing for at least 15 years, and probably more. So why, suddenly, does the polar bear need protection?

Here's the scoop. First, the polar bear itself isn't the real issue, despite all the rhetoric you read and hear. The actual issue is that the environmentalist lobby desperately needs a wedge issue if they're to stop any further development in Alaska. They see development of Alaska's oil and mineral resources as evil, and they want a way to stop it. What better than the polar bear? The only place it lives in the U.S. is Alaska.

But then there's the inconvenient fact that the polar bear is thriving, with large and healthy populations. How in the world do you get the government to list such a species as “endangered”? Well, you wave your magic wand and produce some polar bear population forecasts that show disastrous population declines. Yup, you read that right: the polar bear endangered species listing is based entirely on population forecasts.

But wait, there's even more. Well before the decision was made, numerous scientists thoroughly demolished that polar bear population forecast. They pointed out its numerous flaws, mistaken assumptions, and obviously incorrect calculations. Put bluntly, that forecast is bogus and appears to be deliberately manipulated to produce the outcome that environmentalists wanted and needed. Had the assumptions and calculations in that forecast been used on the polar bear data from ten years ago, it would have predicted that today the polar bear would be nearly extinct. This is called “back-testing” and is a standard way to test a forecast model. Basically you're just testing to see if a model would have correctly predicted what's happening today, using old data – and this model spectacularly fails that test. Oops!

But the government bureaucracy that makes the endangered species decisions is itself larded with environmentalist wackos, and they decided to completely ignore the objections to the bogus forecast. Instead, they treated it as if it were proven fact – the only “fact” supporting the notion of listing the polar bears as endangered.

So now they've got their wedge issue, and now there's another (large) obstacle to exploiting Alaskan oil reserves.

We live in a loony bin, and the madmen are running the place...

Let's Hear It For America...

In The Australian today, there's an interesting opinion piece by Janet Albrechtsen, called Credit Where It's Due. Here's the conclusion:

The need to paint Americans as a greedy, selfish, war-mongering superpower cannot be disturbed by facts. It matters not that, in the year before the tsunami, the US provided $2.4 billion in humanitarian relief: 40per cent of all the relief aid given to the world in 2003. Never mind that development and emergency relief rose from $10 billion during the last year of Bill Clinton's administration to $24 billion under George W. Bush in 2003. Or that, according to a German study, Americans contribute to charities nearly seven times as much a head as Germans do. Or that, adjusted for population, American philanthropy is more than two-thirds more than British giving.

There is a teenaged immaturity about the rest of the world's relationship with the US. Whenever a serious crisis erupts somewhere, our dependence on the US becomes obvious, and many hate the US because of it. That the hatred is irrational is beside the point.

We can denounce the Yanks for being Muslim-hating flouters of international law while demanding the US rescue Bosnian Muslims from Serbia without UN authority. We can be disgusted by crass American materialism and ridiculous stockpiling of worldly goods yet also be the first to demand material help from the US when disaster strikes.

The really unfortunate part about this adolescent love-hate relationship with the US is that, unlike most teenagers, many never seem to grow out of it. Within each new generation is a vicious strain of irrational anti-Americanism. But unlike a parent, the US could just get sick of it all and walk away.

The US has had isolationist periods in the past and it must be enormously tempted sometimes to have another one soon. The consequences of that possibility deserve some serious thought. If the neighbours worry about Russian bullying over oil and gas, just imagine a Russia unfettered by a US military presence in Europe. How long would South Korea, Israel or Taiwan last if the US decided it wanted to spend on itself the money it presently devotes to military spending in the Middle East and Asia?

None of this is to say the US does not deserve loud and frequent criticism. No country has as many or as strident critics - internally and externally - as the US. The US actually promotes such debate. But just occasionally we should moderate that criticism when circumstances demand a dose of fairness.

Indeed, why not break into a standing ovation every now and again? As more US C-130s and helicopters stand waiting on Burma's doorstep, desperate to help a shattered populace and stymied only by an appalling anti-US regime, this is one of those times.

Let's hear it for America.

Nice to see this level-headed and sober view. I've emailed Janet a thank you note. You'll find it well worth your while to read the whole thing.

Sentimental Journey...

I'm back from what seemed like a very long trip, though in actuality it was just a week. The highlight of the trip was a visit with my parents, at their home near Wrightstown, New Jersey. We didn't really do much in particular, and that wasn't the point – we just had a chance to spend a few days together.

One thing I did was to handle a short list of problems and questions they had (mostly about their computers); it's become part of the routine when I visit them. I am my family's IT department . We had an interesting challenge getting the 802.11G network to operate over a distance of just 40 feet; it turned out that there was a steel “modesty panel” in a desk that was directly between the WAP and my father's computer – once we figured it out, it was a simple matter to relocate the WAP. This time there was something very different on the list, too: a listing dishwasher that needed to be leveled (this turned out to be easy).

And of course I had my mom's cooking to enjoy! In the space of three days I had clam chowder, blueberry pancakes, lamb, creamed spinach, a memorable strawberry pie, and much more. I was not hungry !

My mom was longing to hear some of her old, favorite music, and we spent a few hours locating a copy on the web, and either bookmarking it (usually in YouTube) or downloading it. This was great fun. Even my father had a request or two, and one in particular that he remembered very fondly: “Sentimental Journey” by Doris Day. After the war (World War II) was over in Europe, he traveled back home on a troop ship – and that song was playing non-stop all the way back. One can only try to imagine the feelings of the men on board, especially those who had been in combat.

My journey was a sentimental one, as well, so this song resonated with me (though I don't recall ever hearing it before):

Blog Update...

I'm off this morning for St. Louis, and then on Friday home to visit my folks (the only reason I would even think about visiting New Jersey). Blogging will be spotty-to-nonexistant for the next week. Small possibility of some spring photos from New Jersey, if I can keep the chemical film from occluding my camera lens for a few minutes...

Well Said...

I know nothing about this Englishman, but I sure like his attitude.



Would that England had a few million more as clearheaded as he...

Around The Bend...

The Swiss government has an organization known as ECNH (in English, the Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology). Recently they published a paper (available in English) entitled “The Dignity of Living Beings With Regard to Plants”. The 24-page document is full of photographs, fancy diagrams and other graphics, and some stunning blather. Here's one of their conclusions:

The Committee members unanimously consider an arbitrary harm caused to plants to be morally impermissible. This kind of treatment would include, e.g. decapitation of wild flowers at the roadside without rational reason.

In other words, it's immoral to pick roadside wildflowers.

Read the whole thing for a disquieting view of the Euro-looniness the American Left would like us to emulate.

You just can't make this stuff up...

Apologies...

...for the nearly non-existent blogging. For the past few weeks, my “real” life has been very full: taxes, exciting times at work (but with long, long hours), weeds, and business travel have all conspired to keep my attention elsewhere. And I'm afraid it's going to continue for at least a couple more weeks; starting this coming Tuesday I'm on the road for a week, after which I'll be way behind on everything I need to do at home.

Smoking Gun...

I've ranted many times about the flimsy-to-nonexistant evidence supporting the notion of anthropomorphic global warming (AGW), or global warming of any kind. Now comes some word that looks like a smoking gun to me – evidence that NASA's climate group has systematically manufactured the key evidence they offer up to prove global warming.

Basically this evidence looks at three sources of temperature data: two from satellites, and two from surface stations. Three of the sources are in good agreement. The fourth source (from NASA) shows lower temperatures before 1998, and higher temperatures after 1998 – precisely what you'd need to make a case for AGW.

The conclusion from the article linked above:

NASA staff have done some recent bookkeeping and refined the data from 1930-1999. The issues has been discussed extensively at science blog Climate Audit. So what is the probability of this effort consistently increasing recent temperatures and decreasing older temperatures? From a statistical viewpoint, data recalculation should cause each year to have a 50/50 probability of going either up or down - thus the odds of all 70 adjusted years working in concert to increase the slope of the graph (as seen in the combined version) are an astronomical 2 raised to the power of 70. That is one-thousand-billion-billion to one. This isn't an exact representation of the odds because for some of the years (less than 15) the revisions went against the trend - but even a 55/15 split is about as likely as a room full of chimpanzees eventually typing Hamlet. That would be equivalent to flipping a penny 70 times and having it come up heads 55 times. It will never happen - one trillion to one odds (2 raised to the power 40.)

Particularly troubling are the years from 1986-1998. In the 2007 version of the graph, the 1986 data was adjusted upwards by 0.4 degrees relative to the 1999 graph. In fact, every year except one from 1986-1998 was adjusted upwards, by an average of 0.2 degrees. If someone wanted to present a case for a lot of recent warming, adjusting data upwards would be an excellent way to do it.

Looking at the NASA website, we can see that the person in charge of the temperature data is the eminent Dr. James Hansen - Al Gore's science advisor and the world's leading long-term advocate of global warming.

If you've been paying attention to this issue at all, you won't be surprised to see Jim Hansen's name associated with this. He's a believer, like Al Gore, and it seems that no amount of factual evidence will dissuade him (a peculiar attitude for someone who is allegedly a scientist).

Who are you going to believe: Jim Hansen or your lyin’ eyes?

You May Be Taliban, If...

1. You refine heroin for a living, but you have a moral objection to beer.


2. You own a $3,000 machine gun and $5,000 rocket launcher, but you can't afford shoes.


3. You have more wives than teeth.


4. You wipe your butt with your bare left hand, but consider bacon 'unclean.'


5. You think vests come in two styles: bullet-proof and suicide.


6. You can't think of anyone you HAVEN'T declared Jihad against.


7. You consider television dangerous, but routinely carry explosives in your clothing.


8. You were amazed to discover that cell phones have uses other than setting off roadside bombs.


9. You've often uttered the phrase, 'I love what you've done with your cave.'


10. You have nothing against women and think every man should own at least one.


11. You bathe at least monthly whether necessary or not.


12. You've ever had a crush on your neighbor's goat.

Ohhhh - Bama...

Currently going viral...

Oh, wicked!

This campaign might just be more entertaining than I imagined...

Quote of the Day...

President George W. Bush, at last night's Correspondent's Dinner

"Hillary Clinton couldn't get in because of sniper fire, and Senator Obama's at church."

Whatever else you think of the man, you have to admit he's got a wicked sense of humor...

Uncertain Blogging Alert!

I'm about to leave on a business trip, and I won't return until late Friday night. My destination is in the far north: Vancouver, British Columbia (on the west coast of Canada, for the geography-challenged amongst you). I have no idea whether I'll have Internet access up there, so I'm not sure if I'll be blogging or not. No camera on this trip, as I'm traveling very light...

Quote of the Day...

From a 2005 interview:

“Most software today is very much like an Egyptian pyramid with millions of bricks piled on top of each other, with no structural integrity, but just done by brute force and thousands of slaves.”

Alan Kay

Oh, how right he is. Much personal experience verifies this.

What's even more interesting to me is that there isn't much correlation (and maybe none at all!) between software systems a competent engineer would consider well-designed and commercial success. This strikes me as one of the biggest differences between software engineering and other kinds of engineering. I can't think of another engineering discipline where the shoddiness that is the norm in software engineering would be acceptable. Can you imagine the outcry if (just to pick one example) buildings fell down with fair regularity because of their poor design? Certainly the company responsible for such engineering would not enjoy commercial success. But with software it's different, much different. People are willing to put up with shoddiness to get the features and functions they want – even if they only work sometimes, or work in obscure or unobvious ways...

If you don't know Alan Kay, he's one of the more interesting characters from the early days of personal computing. I first ran into him as one of the inventors of the notion of object-oriented programming and windows-based GUIs. He's worked at PARC, was an Apple Fellow, a Disney Fellow, and worked at Atari, Applied Minds, and HP. More recently, he's one of the movers behind the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project. Last I heard, he's now teaching at UCLA...

The Wisdom of Kittens...

Sent by my mom:

Little Suzy had a box of very small kittens that she was trying to give away, so she had them out on the street corner with a sign "FREE KITTENS" next to them.

Suddenly a big line of big black cars came up with a policeman on a motorcycle in front. The cars all stopped and a tall man stepped out from the Biggest car.

"Hi, little girl, what do you have there in the box?" he asked.

"Kittens" Little Suzy says. "They're so small, their eyes are not even open yet."

"What kind of kittens are they?" he asked.

"Democrats" says Little Suzy.

The tall man smiled, returned to his car and they drove away.

Sensing a good photo opportunity, Sen. Obama called his campaign manager and told him about the little girl and the kittens.

It was planned that they would return the next day, have all the media there and tell everyone about these great kittens.

The next day, Little Suzy is standing out on the corner with her box of kittens with the "FREE KITTENS" sign and the big motorcade of black cars pulled up with all the vans and trucks from ABC, NBC, CBS and CNN.

Everyone had their cameras ready and then, Sen. Obama got out of his limo and walked up to Little Suzy.

"Now, don't be frightened," he said, "I just want you to tell all these nice news people just what kind of kittens you're giving away today."

"Yes sir, "Suzy said, "they're REPUBLICAN kittens."

Taken by surprise, Sen. Obama said, "But yesterday, you said that they were DEMOCRATS."

Little Suzy says, "Yes, I know. But today, they have their eyes open."

As the puppy-blender would say: heh!

Moment of Truth in Iraq...

I finished this book a couple of days ago.

Near the end Yon writes these words that resonate strongly with me:

“We can win. But we can still lose.

And if we lose, Iraq will be the worst foriegn policy disaster in our history. Imagine Vietnam, then multiply it by al Qaeda and Iran.”

His book is fascinating and full of informed perspective that's almost entirely missing from the mainstream media. It's a book written by someone who is an unabashed supporter of the war in Iraq – but who is also an unabashed critic of how it has been conducted (most especially before General Petraeus took over). Michael Yon is a warrior himself (Green Berets), and has the professional soldier's ingrained habit of seeing the world pragmatically, honestly – you won't get a less biased view of Iraq from anyone else I've ever heard of.

Run, don't walk, to buy his book. Whatever your view of the war in Iraq, you'll come away more informed.

Political Action I Can Support...

Normally the very best thing politicians can do (so far as I am concerned) is nothing at all. I like the infamous “gridlock” – it makes it much less likely the bastards will pick my pocket for more money than they already have.

Yes, I'm still smarting from April 15th.

But every once in a great while, some politician proposes action that's noble, not self-serving, and not motivated by a grab for money or power. The last such action I can remember (at the national level) was Zell Miller's speech at the Republican convention.

This morning I read of another, by a politician I have never heard of before (but whose name I will now watch for!): Representative Sue Myrick, Republican from North Carolina's District 9. Here's the lead of a press release she put out yesterday:

Today, Rep. Sue Myrick (NC-9) called on Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to revoke former President Jimmy Carter’s passport. This is in response to the former President traveling to Syria to meet with Hamas, an organization officially designated by the United States as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.

“Former President Carter has acted in contradiction of international agreements to isolate Hamas. He has acted in defiance of both United States policy and international policy. His actions reward terrorists, lend support, and provide legitimacy to their belief that violence will eventually get them what they want,” said Rep. Myrick.

That is simply brilliant!

Most recently, our most excreble ex-President was seen hugging Hamas leaders and expressing his reverence for Yasser Arafat. At right he is putting a wreath on Arafat's grave, instead of dancing a jig on the gravestone as would have been much more appropriate.

Taking away this man's (I use the term in its loosest sense) passport seems completely appropriate. He has been acting against his own country's interests, and worse, for the interests of our enemies. He's an embarrassment to us all. In the good old days, we'd have quietly shuffled him off to a “clinic” where he could babble to himself harmlessly. Taking away his passport would hobble him nearly as well, and would help hide our most embarrassing ex-President from our neighbors.

Kudos to Ms. Myrick for such a wonderful idea! I'm sure it will never happen, but for once, a Washington politician has proffered an idea that I can support – something to celebrate!

Guide To Cats...

A geekly guide to the common cat:


I love the Internet <smile>...

Rant of the Day...

I have no idea who this guy is, but I sure love his rant:

Quote of the Day...

Via Megan McArdle:

I like to think that, every time i listen to a WSJ podcast, a hippie loses his wings.

As the puppy blender would say: heh!

Jamul and the Real Estate Crunch...

For months now, the news has been full of doom and gloom on the real estate front, and indeed in some areas the price declines have been dramatic. My informal reading of the price impacts leads to an undoubtedly simplistic conclusion: the areas with the worst impact appear to be the same areas that attracted the most questionable loan practices. If I'm right on that score, then areas like Eastlake, Temecula, and the other fast-growing “bedroom communities” would be hardest hit. On the other hand, backcountry areas like Jamul should be relatively immune; the folks out here trend strongly to the conservative and old-fashioned (at least when it comes to financial matters).

So I was very interested to see this study of the asking price (normalized to the price per square foot) of houses in various San Diego County neighborhoods over the past year. The east county year-over-year numbers are in the screen grab at right. Jamul fared very well, showing just a 3% decline in the past year – knowing the volume out here is low, I'd guess that's well within the statistical margin of error from a wash. In general, my theory seems to be a reasonably good fit for the data, with some notable exceptions (some of which the study authors caution on due to lack of data).

We've got no plans to sell our place, but it's still comforting somehow to see that the apparent market value of our property hasn't disappeared...

Moment of Truth in Iraq...

As I write this post, Moment of Truth in Iraq, by Michael Yon, is #29 on Amazon's list. My readers already know how much I admire Yon's work, so it will be no surprise that I ordered this book. Last night I started reading it, and made it about halfway through. It has far exceeded my high expectations (high because I've read so much of Yon's work). The book is an in depth look – from a soldier's perspective – of the conditions that led to us having a second chance to win in Iraq, and of General Petraeus' successful exploitation of that chance. Yon makes it clear that we're not done, and we still could blow it – but his objective and honest assessments give me great hope that we won't.

The publisher of this book makes an extraordinary statement, the likes of which I've never seen before:

I HAVE NEVER BEEN PROUDER TO PUBLISH A BOOK

Michael Yon changed my mind about the war in Iraq, by making me understand it for the first time.

From the very beginning I was against the war. I thought it would be a disaster, another Vietnam. And until I had the privilege of working on this book with Michael I was always for immediate pull-out: why should one more American die for a doomed effort?

Michael--who is as close to totally non-political as anyone I know--showed me two things. First, because I judged by Vietnam, the war of my youth, I had radically underestimated what American soldiers could do. I knew they could blow away any regular opponent on any battlefield. But wage a counterinsurgency against an enemy with broad support in the population? Win the "hearts and minds," to use the Vietnam era phrase that now can be used only ironically? That was asking too much, I thought.

I was 100 percent wrong. Today's American soldiers excel at counterinsurgency, because they excel at the most important thing: winning over the people by inspiring them with their own courage and compassion, discipline and determination. Reading this book is like watching the movie Apocalypse Now, but in an alternate universe in which the opposite always happens. Every time our soldiers get into an incredibly tense situation with some Iraqis who might be friends or might be enemies or murderers, some situation in which what's needed is amazing calm and courage to keep things from blowing up and ending in a blood bath, our guys pull it off!

Just wait until you read the Chapter "High Noon" (my favorite), the story of the American soldiers who have to arrest a corrupt but politically popular Iraqi police chief we had put in office in the first place because he had been a real hero in fighting the terrorists. He had to be removed by Americans to show the Iraqis we really did believe in the rule of law. The whole thing could have blown up into a one-town civil war with hundreds dead on both sides. Won't tell you how it ends, but you will be amazed and very proud.

The other thing Michael helped me understand is the difference between terrorists we just have to kill (often foreigners, or local criminals) and local insurgents we should have been working with all along. For almost five years I could not tell from watching the news--and certainly not from listening to the Administration--who the enemy was, what they wanted or why they were fighting. Not surprisingly it turns out that understanding the various people we were fighting--some of whom have since become great allies--was the key to winning the war, which we are now clearly doing.

I am convinced that everything I once thought about the war was wrong. The truth is we are doing a great thing in Iraq, most of the Iraqi people really do want to be a united democratic nation and already consider America their greatest friend and ally. It would be a crime to turn tail now and abandon them now.

I owe all that to Michael's book, which is why I believe publishing Moment of Truth in Iraq may be the best thing I have ever done for my country.

I can hardly wait to finish this book tonight. If you don't already have a copy, stop whatever you're doing now and order one – you won't be sorry you did, whatever your views on the war in Iraq. Even if the only thing you get out of it is the pleasure of reading some inspiring stories of Americans at their best, it's well worth the price. And remember that the proceeds will help Yon – one of the world's finest independent journalists – keep up his good work...

Words of (Technical) Wisdom...

Spoken by Travis Corcoran (CEO and Founder of SmartFlix), on software development (by inference, specifically of large systems that will be maintained and extended by programmers other than the original authors):

You should build the majority of your machine from Erector Set parts, but it’s OK to make the core of it from the heart of an orphan child.

In other words, it's ok to have key components be internally complex and abstruse, either because the algorithm is inherently complex or because it is highly tuned for performance. Sounds about right to me...but go read his entire (very short) post to see the rest of the story!

A New Kind of War?

From an email forwarded by my mom:

New Direction for any war: Send Service Vets over 60!

I am over 60 and the Armed Forces thinks I'm too old to track down terrorists. You can't be older than 42 to join the military. They've got the whole thing ass-backwards. Instead of sending 18-year olds off to fight, they ought to take us old guys. You shouldn't be able to join a military unit until you're at least 35.

For starters:

Researchers say 18-year-olds think about sex every 10 seconds. Old guys only think about sex a couple of times a day, leaving us more than 28,000 additional seconds per day to concentrate on the enemy.

Young guys haven't lived long enough to be cranky, and a cranky soldier is a dangerous soldier. "My back hurts! I can't sleep, I'm tired and hungry" We are impatient and maybe letting us kill some asshole that desperately deserves it will make us feel better and shut us up for a while.

An 18-year-old doesn't even like to get up before 10 a.m. Old guys always get up early to pee so what the hell. Besides, like I said, "I'm tired and can't sleep and since I'm already up, I may as well be up killing some fanatical son-of-a-bitch.

If captured we couldn't spill the beans because we'd forget where we put them. In fact, name, rank, and serial number would be a real brainteaser.

Boot camp would be easier for old guys. We're used to getting screamed and yelled at and we're used to soft food. We've also developed an appreciation for guns. We've been using them for years as an excuse to get out of the house, away from the screaming and yelling.

They could lighten up on the obstacle course however. I've been in combat and didn't see a single 20-foot wall with rope hanging over the side, nor did I ever do any pushups after completing basic training.

Actually, the running part is kind of a waste of energy, too. I've never seen anyone out run a bullet.

An 18-year-old has the whole world ahead of him. He's still learning to shave, to start up a conversation with a pretty girl. He still hasn't figured out that a baseball cap has a brim to shade his eyes, not the back of his head.

These are all great reasons to keep our kids at home to learn a little more about life before sending them off into harm's way.

Let us old guys track down those dirty rotten coward terrorists. The last thing an enemy would want to see is a couple of million pissed off old farts with attitudes and automatic weapons who know that their best years are already behind them.

If nothing else, put us on border patrol....we will have it secured the first night!

Though I'm sure this was intended purely as humor, there's a germ of truth in this, as well. The notion was explored in a science fiction novel I read recently (Old Man's War by John Scalzi). The sheer physicality of combat ensures that it's a young man's profession – but the technology of modern warfare is making some dents in that requirement. I suspect that wars of the future will be less and less fought by the young, an military organizations will increasingly need brains over brawn...

Hummingbirds!

All of our normal hummingbird species are back, though not in full numbers yet. Right at the moment, they're eating 3 to 4 quarts of “hummer juice” a day, up from a pint or less in mid-winter. In the peak of the hot summer, we'll probably get up to 7 to 10 quarts a day.

The little lady at right, looking at me as I snapped her picture, is (I think) a female Anna's hummingbird (Calypte anna). She's got her make-up on: a dusting of golden pollen clearly visible just behind er bill, between her eyes. The males of all the hummingbird species are much more showy, but the females are beautiful, too, in their own way...

Trying to capture these absurdly zippy little creatures on film is a real challenge. These photos are about 10% of the photos I took. Back in the bad old days of silver-halide film, this would have been an expensive morning! The series of male black-chinned hummingbird (Archilochus alexandri) below is a good example. These sorry excuses for photos are the very best of about 40 that I took over a period of about 30 minutes. During that entire period, there was no moment when there were less than a dozen or so of these gorgeous birds buzzing around me to get to the feeders – so there was no lack of opportunity. But these little guys move so fast, and so rarely hover for more than a second, and flash their purple band so infrequently, that to get it all right (in flight, in focus, and showing purple) approaches impossibility. I've never done it yet, in several years of attempts...

The fellow at right is a male Anna's hummingbird, not fully in mating plumage yet (this develops over the period of a few weeks each spring). The males don't all develop their mating plumage at exactly the same time; some individuals in our area look like they're already finished, and some others have barely started.

I couldn't identify the female at left, below, but I enjoyed the way she was watching my reflection in the feeders.

What do we feed our hummers? That's easy: a mixture of 4 parts water to 1 part ordinary cane sugar (by volume, in both cases). We put orange food coloring in because it helps attract orioles to the feeders (they are noticably partial to the color orange). Sometime last year it dawned on us that the food coloring was actually the most expensive part of making hummer juice – so I went a-googlin’, and found several online sources for bulk food coloring. We bought a gallon, along with a nice dispenser that makes it simple to measure (2 squirts per quart!) as well. This has worked out great.

In addition, once the volume the hummers are eating picks up a bit we will start making hummer juice in 5 gallon batches. Last year this greatly reduced the labor for us to keep the feeders full; we only needed to make a batch about once every three days. The large batch also cuts down on another problem: when we made the hummer juice a feeder or two at a time, there would inevitably be small differences in the sugar content at each feeder – and the hummers would show a clear preference for one (I'm guessing the one with the highest sugar content). They'd abandon all the other feeders until their preferred feeder ran dry, and they they'd go to the next best one. Now with all the feeders filled from the same batch, they spread out more evenly amongst the feeders (we have as many as nine up at a time).

The little lady at right is one I can't identify Her chin is strikingly white, and she's got a distinctive dark patch in front of her eye – both of which features don't match any of the hummingbirds in Sibley's. Sigh...

These photos were all taken with a Canon 10D, using a Canon 100mm macro lens. Most of these were taken at a range of between 2 feet and 4 feet. The hummingbirds at our feeders are quite used to Debbie and I; we can stand directly next to a feeder and have our eyeballs just a few inches from the hummingbirds feeding or buzzing around. Sometimes they even land on us! But the camera – especially the mirror noise as I take a picture – seems to spook them, and they often scoot right out of my photo before the shutter opens...

The batch below are all male Anna's hummingbirds – the showiest of them all right at the moment:

The fellow at right is a male black-chinned hummingbird, in profile with no flash of purple (though it's certainly there, if the light is right). The black-chinned males are the smallest of our male hummingbirds, but they are notably aggressive – routinely chasing larger hummingbirds away from the feeders, sometimes whole groups of them at once.

The black-chinned males also have particularly showy and aggressive display (to court females): they zoom up 50 feet or more high, then fly at full speed nearly straight down. Just before they hit the ground, they do an incredibly tight U-turn – I think in less than a 5 foot radius – and zoom almost straight back up. They make a distinctive sound as they make that U-turn, so it's easy to know when one of them is displaying, so you can watch (they repeat the display many times). Usually the bottom of their course ends up just in front of some manzanitas, in which a gaggle of females will be watching, swivel-headed. It's almost as much fun to spot them as it is to watch the male displaying!

Finally, a couple of females at the feeders...

Phobos!

NASA's Mars Reconnaisance Orbiter (MRO) has an instrument on board called the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE). It's main objective is to produce high resolution images of the Martian surface, but recently the MRO team aimed it at one of Mars two little moons: Phobos. The false color image at right is one of the results; for more see the HiRISE web site.

I remember as a wee lad reading science fiction books that speculated about the nature of the two tiny, strange moons of Mars. The actual nature of the moons was unknown – the instruments of science couldn't see that far in those days. Some authors speculated that they were actually spaceships from some alien civilization; others speculated that they were the current home of Martians who escaped from whatever disaster had befallen their now-dry planet. All of these notions were then at least nominally plausible, as science could not naysay them. Today we have a closeup portrait of the moons, and I'm sure we'll get even better ones in the future...

NASA also released an anaglyph (a stereo “3D” view) that's worth checking out if you own a pair of red/blue viewing spectacles. The anaglyph was made by combining two photos take a few seconds apart, during which time the MRO spacecraft moved enough to provide a slightly different perspective. I had a little trouble fusing the right side of the anaglyph, where the stereo separation was most dramatic – but it was worth some patience with my eyeballs, as the depth effects are stunning...

Pulling Jupiter Out of Orbit...

From James Lileks (who is visiting San Diego) in his Bleat of April 8th, talking about the San Diego newspaper (surely the Union-Tribune):

... I ordered something chickeny and opened the papers.

The papers suck. Pardon the language, but for heaven’s sake, the papers sucked. The papers sucked hard enough to pull Jupiter out of orbit. I had gotten used to the underwhelmingly ordinary Arizona paper, but the LA Times and the San Diego paper were a new level of sucktitudinousness. The SD paper was like a slab of Sominex pounded into thin folded sheets, and I don’t know if it was the lead story – “Sweeping Regulatory Powers Sought,” or something equally deadly – or the cookie-cutter design, but man, that thing was dull; when I finished I felt like I’d put 50 cents into a soda machine, got nothing, and realized I didn’t really want any soda anyway. On to the LA Times, which surprised me – I have almost no experience with the paper, except its reputation, which surely was exaggerated. Well. I blew through it quickly, and when I was finished the only impression it left was astonishment that a market that large had such a weightless, arid, aimless paper. It has the typeface of a better paper, but that’s about it. I finished both before I was halfway through my Ironed Chicken Sandwich – really, it was so thin, that’s probably how they cooked it – and I spent the rest of my time reading the internet on my iPhone.

I wandered down the street to a coffee shop, had some ice cream, and finished my news reading on the iPhone.

If I’d never had one of those “you know, newspaper might be in trouble” moments, that would have been it. Actually, that morning I’d spent a solid half hour at the airport with the Wall Street Journal, which was and is a great paper. Why? Four things: Diversity of subject matter, a focus on subjects not easily given to ideological slants, quantity of stories, and lively writing.

“The papers sucked hard enough to pull Jupiter out of orbit.” Mr. Lileks, there's a reason why your readers love you...

Celebrating in Estonia...

Juri Estam has an interesting article published on Publius Pundit. It's about Estonia and Estonians, and my long-time readers will know that I have a special interest in that land. This description of the end of Estonia's first independent existence is apt:

When I think of Estonia and her forcible incorporation into the USSR by the Soviet Union, I am often reminded of Kitty Genovese, the New York City woman who, in 1964, was stabbed to death near her home in the Kew Gardens section of Queens. The Genovese case became know for the psychological phenomenon called the "bystander effect", in which violence is perpetrated on someone within hearing of neighbors, but the cries are not noticed.

But this is not a bitter article, not at all. It's a brief look back at the journey of independent Estonia, the entire history of which fits into a single person's lifetime – some elderly Estonians today can still remember the Estonia's first declaration of independence. The article's conclusion sounds very, well, American:

Soon, ceremonies will take place in the city of Parnu on the Baltic Sea in Estonia at the place where the Endla Theater -- the birthplace of Estonian independence -- was blown up by a hostile power in 1961. 90 years ago on February 23, Estonians proclaimed to the world in Parnu their desire to be free. Although actual memories of the Endla Theater now live on only in the elderly, Estonians of all ages give thanks that the only soldiers they will see in Parnu on Independence Day, other than the ones accompanying invited dignitaries, are their own. The message to everyone in the world who enjoys freedom is that one really does need to remember to give thanks in a conscious manner for liberty - something that can all too easily be replaced by a life in the absence of freedom.

Take it from the Estonians, we know what we're talking about.

And how very un-European! The majority of the ethnic Estonians I know would largely agree with Juri's sentiments in this article. The Estonian citizens I know who are ethnic Russians are decidedly more mixed in their views, leaning much more strongly towards either pro-Russian or pro-Eurosocialist views.

Estonia ranks as one of world's most free economies. I'm a bit worried about the long haul for them, because of the drag associated with being a member of the European Union (there are benefits as well, of course). Juri Estam, a prolific writer with many articles on the web, seems to share my concerns on that point. But the existence of so many Estonians of like mind with Juri Estam is cause for great hope...

Cure for Intense Desire...

Feeling randy? On the shelves of your local grocery store you will find a product originally invented as a “cure” for intense sexual desire. The inventor was a minister who was convinced that horniness and masturbation (known then as “venereal excess”, “aching sensibility”, or “carnal exercise”) were the source of many of mankind's (and womankind's) problems. Somehow he got from that notion to the need for a special diet to suppress these feelings and, er, activities.

Ponder that the next time you munch on a graham cracker.

Yup, a graham cracker – invented in 1829 by the Presbyterian minister (and nut case) Sylvester Graham. For the above-mentioned purpose.

Read more about Reverend Graham from Cecil and Barbara.