Evening Chuckles...

Simi L. passes along this collection of insults and retorts. Most of these I've read before, but they're even better in this highly concentrated form:

The famous exchange between Churchill & Lady Astor:
"If you were my husband I'd give you poison,"
"If you were my wife, I'd drink it."
----
A member of Parliament to Disraeli: "Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease."

"That depends, Sir," said Disraeli, "on whether I embrace your policies or your mistress."
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"He had delusions of adequacy." - Walter Kerr
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"He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire." - Winston Churchill
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"A modest little person, with much to be modest about." - Winston Churchill
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"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." - Clarence Darrow
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"He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary." - William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway).
"Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?" - Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)
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"Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it." - Moses Hadas
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"He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know." - Abraham Lincoln
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"I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I appr oved of it." - Mark Twain
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"He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends." - Oscar Wilde
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"I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend.... if you have one." - George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill.
"Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second... if there is one." - Winston Churchill, in response.
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"I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here." - Stephen Bishop
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"He is a self-made man and worships his creator." - John Bright
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"I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial." - Irvin S. Cobb
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"He is not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness in others." - Samuel Johnson
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"He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up." - Paul Keating
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"There's nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won't cure." - Jack E. Leonard
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"He has the attention span of a lightning bolt." - Robert Redford (one flash & it's gone.)
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"They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge." - Thomas Brackett Reed
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"In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily." - Charles, Count Talleyrand
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"He loves nature in spite of what it did to him." - Forrest Tucker
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"Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?" - Mark Twain
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"His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork." - Mae West
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"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go." - Oscar Wilde
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"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts... for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang (1844-1912)
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"He has Van Gogh's ear for music." - Billy Wilder
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"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening but this wasn't it." - Groucho Marx

Books...

Well, I finally made it back home, on Sunday evening. Naturally I was greeted with a large pile of things to do, both at home and at work. I think my week will be quite busy!

While on the trip (especially on the plane flights), I had time to read four books – all excellent and highly recommended:

• American Patriot by Robert Coram. This is hands-down the best biographical work on a soldier of the Vietnam war that I have read. I was riveted, from the first page to the last. Colonel Bud Day (the subject of the book) is a man well worth knowing about – awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions while in prison in North Vietnam. He was the cellmate of John McCain; he and Mr. McCain helped each other survive that episode with their honor intact. Definitely in the “don't miss” category.
  
  
• Generation Kill by Evan Wright. An excellent and sympathetic portrayal of the Marines of the First Recon Battalion as they invaded Iraq in 2003. This book has been criticized in some quarters for its allegedly biased reporting of civilian casualties in the war, but I think those critiques are more borne of ideological biases of the critics, and not faulty reporting by Mr. Wright – bad things happen in wars to perfectly innocent people, and I'm inclined to believe that's just as true in Iraq as it has been in all the wars of the 20th and 21st centuries. This book is well worth your time, most especially if you'd like to read some inspiring stories about the young men and women in America's military today.
  
  
• Last of the Amazons and Gates of Fire, both by Steven Pressfield. These are the first two novels by Mr. Pressman that I've read, but they will not be the last. As the blurbs proclaim, his battle scenes are some of the most believable I've ever read. I've never been in combat, but I have been in the military – his portrayals of soldiers, especially in their ordinary lives, ring of truth and accuracy. Mr. Pressfield was a Marine (and his books are popular with our U.S. Marines today). Though he is not a professional historian, from everything I've read the historical events depicted in his novels are accurately represented, with some minor exceptions in timing, to improve the flow of the novel. The dialog is sprinkled with terms familiar to modern readers, and almost certainly not to contemporaries of the characters in his novels – the author takes this license to improve modern readers' understanding. I think it works, and brilliantly. Last of the Amazons is set in ancient Greece and its surrounding areas, and mainly is about the Amazon culture of women warriors. Gates of Fire is about the legendary (but real) Battle of Thermopylae, fought by a tiny detachment of Spartans and some allies against hordes of Persians. Both are superb, and highly recommended – and I will be reading the rest of Mr. Pressman's works.

Well, Whattya Know!

The American Physical Society (APS, a group of physicists) has reversed its previous position supporting the notion of anthropomorphic global warming (AGW), and has now declared that there is considerable skepticism about AGW within its ranks. Here's their rather direct conclusion:

Even if temperature had risen above natural variability, the recent solar Grand Maximum may have been chiefly responsible. Even if the sun were not chiefly to blame for the past half-century’s warming, the IPCC has not demonstrated that, since CO2 occupies only one-ten-thousandth part more of the atmosphere that it did in 1750, it has contributed more than a small fraction of the warming. Even if carbon dioxide were chiefly responsible for the warming that ceased in 1998 and may not resume until 2015, the distinctive, projected fingerprint of anthropogenic “greenhouse-gas” warming is entirely absent from the observed record. Even if the fingerprint were present, computer models are long proven to be inherently incapable of providing projections of the future state of the climate that are sound enough for policymaking. Even if per impossibilethe models could ever become reliable, the present paper demonstrates that it is not at all likely that the world will warm as much as the IPCC imagines. Even if the world were to warm that much, the overwhelming majority of the scientific, peer-reviewed literature does not predict that catastrophe would ensue. Even if catastrophe might ensue, even the most drastic proposals to mitigate future climate change by reducing emissions of carbon dioxide would make very little difference to the climate. Even if mitigation were likely to be effective, it would do more harm than good: already millions face starvation as the dash for biofuels takes agricultural land out of essential food production: a warning that taking precautions, “just in case”, can do untold harm unless there is a sound, scientific basis for them. Finally, even if mitigation might do more good than harm, adaptation as (and if) necessary would be far more cost-effective and less likely to be harmful.

In short, we must get the science right, or we shall get the policy wrong. If the concluding equation in this analysis (Eqn. 30) is correct, the IPCC’s estimates of climate sensitivity must have been very much exaggerated. There may, therefore, be a good reason why, contrary to the projections of the models on which the IPCC relies, temperatures have not risen for a decade and have been falling since the phase-transition in global temperature trends that occurred in late 2001. Perhaps real-world climate sensitivity is very much below the IPCC’s estimates. Perhaps, therefore, there is no “climate crisis” at all. At present, then, in policy terms there is no case for doing anything. The correct policy approach to a non-problem is to have the courage to do nothing.

This paper is consistent with multiple earlier statements by Freeman Dyson, a prominent physicist. In far more technical terms than I have expressed, it is also consistent with my own observations.

Debates within the science community are common (and also an important part of the scientific process). But it is relatively unusual for a debate to remain unresolved until it reaches the level of the AGW debate.

I'm really glad to see this development. To me, it looks like a little bit of sanity shining on a real mess in the world of science. More here, here, and here...

Patio Project...

Debbie and I spent the better part of the day working on our patio “garden” – very enjoyable and relaxing for me, in between two back-to-back business trips. We traipsed down to Simpson's Nursery (a Jamulian institution known all over the city) and collected several more nice plants to join the collection we already have. The prize aquisition today: a 5 foot high, 4 foot broad strawberry guava (Psidium littorale). The photo at right is not mine, but shows why we bought this plant: very attractive, dark green leaves, nice flowers, and a bright red fruit that looks like a giant berry. From our reading, it grows well in our climate (assuming you water it regularly), it tolerates container growing, and it likes full sun. Perfect for our patio!

We also picked up a few annuals for color, and a couple of prostrate rosemary plants. Those we put in big pots on top of the low wall that forms one boundary of our patio; we're hoping it will creep nicely along the top and south side of the wall (the side we see from the patio).

Below are a few lousy photos from my cell phone. I was too lazy to break out the real camera. The third photo shows our new strawberry guava tree...

Uncomfortable Truthiness...

At right is a graph (click to enlarge) that you won't find in the data from the global warming catastrophists. They don't like this graph, because it doesn't support their notion that mankind's activities are causing our Earth to heat up...

This graph comes from Dr. Roy Spencer, a meterologist who is very skeptical of anthropomorphic global warming. This piece of data is one that I find very convincing. It shows the raw data for temperature measurements made across the entire globe, by satellites, from 1979 through the present. The satellite observations are not biased by poor placement of the sensors (as ground-based stations are), and there are multiple satellites making the same observations (thereby cross-checking each other), something that does not happen on ground-based measurements. Dr. Spencer has circled a couple of interesting pieces, showing the correlation with natural events.

Note the lack of any clear upward trend. Note the temperature dropping rather dramatically over the past year.

And note how the anthropomorphic global warming proponents ignore this data, preferring instead their data from ground stations – which is known to be biased, and which they fudge the heck out of.

Home Briefly...

I returned home late last night from a three day trip to Boise, Idaho. Monday I take off again, this time to Wheeling, West Virginia. The city of Boise is a customer of the company I work for. The IT team works in an annex to the City Hall, and as I arrived on Wednesday, at right is what I saw as I approached. The annex is attached to the City Hall, directly behind it and out of sight in this photo.

I had a enjoyable time in Boise – the people were very pleasant to deal with; everybody always seems to be cheerful there. They were delighted with our product, which of course made it all the more fun for me. Outside of the work, there were several memorable things about the trip.

Each evening I was there, I had my dinner at Emilio's, a restaurant located in the hotel (The Grove) I was staying in. All of the meals were good, but Wednesday night's feast was nothing short of spectacular. The entree was sea scallops and jumbo shrimp (both perfectly cooked), covered with a mound of chopped vegetables and oyster scallops in an absolutely heavenly sauce. The portion was huge, and my first reaction was that I'd never be able to finish it – but it was so good, that I forced every last morsel down. And the last morsel tasted just as wonderful as the first!

For lunch on Friday, I went to a little cafe that's actually inside the annex (but it is privately run). I ordered the special: two fish tacos for $6. When I got back to the office with my tacos and opened them up, I could scarcely believe it – these folks (obviously not from California, and probably never visited there) had done just about everything wrong. The tacos were cheap grocery-store flour tacos. The fish was (horrors!) ordinary fish sticks. The sauce was a sweet, heavy tomato-based salsa, awful on its own and even worse on the fish. There was a heavy dose of shredded fake cheddar on top. Oh, those tacos were hideous! I took one bite, quickly determined that they were even worse than they looked, and into the trash they went. Ugh!

My taxi driver back to the airport was a very talkative fellow; he appeared to be about 60 or so. He was tall and thin, with a grizzled, leathery face and several evident scars (on his face, one ear, and both hands and forearms). Very friendly, he was – invited me to sit up front with him, and we chatted amiably all the way to the airport. At one point I asked him how he got the scars, and that launched him into a series of stories. I can't tell how many of them were tall tales, or whether they were all real – but he was a convincing raconteur.

The most interesting story was one of several about his years in the Special Forces. He was an Army Ranger, an enlisted EOD (Explosive Ordinance Disposal) technician. Just prior to the famous Blackhawk Down incident in Mogodishu, Somalia, he was assigned to a team there. He told the story of one mission in which they had to traverse part of the city that was controlled by the gangs. He was carrying a satellite phone, and right in the middle of a firefight the phone rang. It was his girlfriend, worried about him because she'd seen news reports of the increasing tensions and violence there. Just as he said hello, the building they were in came under fierce attack – and he just dropped the phone and started shooting. His girlfriend hit the record button on a tape recorder she kept attached to the phone, and listened to about ten minutes of intense firefight. Soldiers on both sides yelled out in pain when they were hit, bullets were smacking and ricocheting; his girlfriend was terrified for him. Then the bad guys succeeded in entering the building, and my driver and his comrades beat a hasty retreat – leaving the satellite phone on the ground. His girlfriend heard a bit of foriegn language and then a short crunch, and then no more. Apparently one of the bad guys crushed the phone under his heel. My taxi driver said that the tape ended up being played on Fox news, and I can easily imagine that would have made for some dramatic television. I searched for the file on line, but in vain – that was quite a few years ago, long before the ubiquitous posting of news on the web that we have today.

Then there was one more memorable event, this time in the airport. Like any airport, Boise's has a P.A. system for announcements. Unlike most, Boise's airport has a decent quality system – all the announcers voices were easy to hear over the normal din of the airport. There were many announcements, but one series of them really stood out. It started with a sweet-voiced female announcer saying "Mr. John Delfs, please pick up any courtesy phone for a message." This was repeated several times, with increasing urgency in the announcer's tone. Then came this announcement: "John Delfs, get off your butt and pick up a courtesy phone! Your wife will never speak to you again unless you do!" One could hear lots of chuckles around the terminal over that message. A minute or so later, a new message: a laconic "Thank you, John." That brought the house down, so to speak!

Ceftobiprole...

Here's a name to keep an eye on: ceftobiprole. This is a new antibiotic that is particularly effective against antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Furthermore, the developers believe that bacteria will not develop resistance to ceftobiprole:

The research, to be published in the August 2008 issue of the journal Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy and available online now, looked at how well Ceftobiprole worked against bacterial clones that had already developed resistance to other drugs. In every case, Ceftobiprole won. "It just knocked out the cells 100 percent," says the study's lead investigator, Alexander Tomasz, head of the Laboratory of Microbiology at Rockefeller.

Previous research had already shown that -- in general -- Ceftobiprole was highly effective against most clinical isolates of S. aureus. "Instead, we looked more carefully at the highly resistant cells that already occur in such clinical isolates at very low frequency -- maybe in one bacterium in every 1,000," says Tomasz. Ceftobiprole was able to kill these resistant cells.

Never before has an antibiotic been tested this way. "In the history of antibiotic development, an antibiotic arrives on the scene, and sooner or later resistant bacteria emerge," Tomasz says. "We sought to test in advance which would win this particular chess game: the new drug, or the bacteria that now cause human deaths."

If the immunity from drug resistance proves to be true, then ceftobiprole is the Holy Grail of antibiotic developers. Let's hope they're right!

Hmmm... I wonder if Johnson & Johnson stock might be a good buy?

More information here and here.

Quote of the Day...

From Kathy Shaidle, via Rachel Lucas:

If your religion thinks dogs are unclean, your religion is fucking retarded.

What she said!

Bill Mesa Dies in Motorcyle Accident...

Yesterday evening, shortly before 5 PM, William C. Mesa (pictured at right) was killed at the scene of a motorcycle accident. Apparently Bill lost control of his motorcycle and crashed into a utility pole. His passenger, Crystal Roberts-Mesa (Bill Mesa's son's wife), died while being transported in an ambulance for emergency care. Bill Mesa was 57; Crystal was 29. The accident occured on Lyons Valley Road, a short distance east of the stop-sign junction with Skyline Truck Trail.

The California Highway Patrol is hinting that alcohol is likely involved in the accident, though they're not saying why they think that.

Bill Mesa was a long-time leader of the Jamul Indian Tribe, and was the key advocate and activist behind the notion of the Jamul Indian Casino project – a forceful, effective, and dogged proponent who had worked for many years to push the project as far as it has gone. My readers will know that I am an opponent of the Jamul Casino project. While I had this rather intense disagreement with Bill (whom I have seen speaking a few times, but never actually met), I mourn this awful loss of life. My first thoughts are for the surviving families Bill and Crystal leave behind...

Slam the Racist!

An Australian college student who posts commentaries on YouTube got some emails with very racist content. Here's her response:


Hah! Revenge will be hers...

Miki and the Tennis Ball...

Miki is our two-year old field spaniel, the youngest of our gaggle; we still call him the “puppy.” He's still in the early phases of his training for agility competitions. One of the drills that Debbie uses to build drive and focus is also one of Miki's favorites. It's a simple game – Debbie puts Miki in a sit at her side, tells him to “stay.” Then she tosses the ball across the room, while Miki waits for permission to go. Once he's released, he tears off after the ball, brings it back, and gives it to Debbie. Then (and only then!) he gets his reward.

Watch the video to see Miki in action on the first part of this drill.

BTW, this little video was taken on my cell phone. I'm still having trouble wrapping my brain around that...

Something For Nothing...

Earlier this week, I ordered a new flash RAM card for our new cell phones. The best deal turned out to be a 2 GB card for a mere $17 – astonishingly cheap to this gray-bearded geek. And even though this was the best price I found for the card, it came with three freebies: an adapter so the tiny microSD chip could be read in a normal SD reader, a USB SD reader and a “cell phone antenna booster.” The first two things sounded at least possibly useful; the last thing I didn't even know what it was.

So when I received my package, it was with some interest that I looked for the cell antenna booster. When I finally found it, I could scarcely believe it – the entire thing was on a single little slip of paper, about 1.5 inches wide by 3.5 inches tall (see photo at right).

On the blue face of this paper were some, er, extravagant claims. First, it claims to work with all cell phones, walkie talkies, pagers, and cordless phones – devices that operate on a large number of different frequencies (and the frequency is critical to the design of any antenna or component). Second, it claims to help cell phones operate in tunnels, elevators, buildings – areas where cell phones often have some difficulty. A blurb at the top of the paper yells “IT'S LIKE HAVING A FOUR FOOT ANTENNA ON YOUR PHONE!” The back has a paragraph on the cell antenna booster's theory of operation, plus installation instructions. The theory of operation is a single sentence:

The cell antenna is a passive device designed to capture stray radiation in the body of the phone and to re-radiate the signal to improve the phone's performance.

Finally I figured out that the odd gold pattern on the bottom of the face of the slip was the cell antenna booster. The gold pattern is stamped onto a piece of clear plastic with a sticky back, and that is stuck to the small piece of white cardboard at the bottom in the photo above. A close-up of the gold stamping, still mounted on its cardboard, is at right.

If you've been reading my blog for any length of time, you know I'm a technical guy, with a background in electronics and software. I knew within a few minutes that this gadget was an utter and complete fraud – but it's easy to see how that might not be so apparent to someone with no technical background. I've got more detail that proves this is a fraud below.

What's most surprising to me is just how credible this looks. It's obviously mass-produced, the text is full of marketing-speak, and it's very slick – not something produced in someone's garage. Some careful examination reveals (in tiny text on the back) that it is made in China. The front has a suggested price of $19.99 – pretty darned pricy for some paper and a teensy bit of what appears to be gold foil stamping, though perhaps not out of line if it actually performed as advertised.

But “perform” is one thing that this gadget will never do. Here are the fatal flaws I observed in the gadget, in the order I observed them:

1. The theory of operation describes an actually kind of device, called a “resonator.” In certain very restricted circumstances, a resonator can in fact boost an antenna's performance. One of the requirements for a resonator is that it be tuned extremely precisely for the exact frequency being received. The gold foil stamping forms five shapes that could conceivably be called resonators, but actually only three different shapes are involved. That means that if all other issues were removed, this device could resonate on only three different frequencies (or multiples of them) – nowhere near enough to cover all types of cell phones, let alone all the other devices it claims to work with.
   
   
2. The theory of operation claims to work by capturing stray radiation inside the cell phone's body. This is just nonsense; any stray radiation there was wouldn't help you receive an actual signal. Positioning the gadget inside the body of a metal cell phone (which is what the instructions tell you to do) is a particularly useless exercise, as the metal body shields the gadget from any signal radiation – which is the only kind of radiation that would actually do any good.
   
   
3. The coup de grace for the gadget's claims: any resonator (or any other conceivable passive antenna boosting technology) would need to be conductive. The most common conductors are metals, such as copper, aluminum, gold, etc. My first impression of the gold stamping was that it actually was gold – but on closer inspection, it didn't look precisely right. Ah, but there's a very simple test for conductivity: an ohm-meter. By strange coincidence, I own a very nice digital multimeter that can directly measure conductivity. So I broke out the multimeter and tested the conductivity of the gold stampings. More precisely, I measured the electrical resistance of the gold stampings, which is the inverse of conductivity – the higher the resistance, the lower the conductivity (and vice versa). If the gold stampings were conductive enough to be useful as a resonater, I'd expect them to have a resistance of less than one ohm, and probably less than one milliohm (a thousandth of an ohm). What I actually measured was a resistance of over 200 million ohms (that's the highest resistance my instrument can measure). That means the gold stampings are a very high-grade insulator (probably just garden-variety ink) – the exact opposite of a conductor, and totally useless in a resonator.

So this gadget is a complete fraud. It won't do any harm, but it most certainly won't do any good. It's exactly as effective as placing a slip of ordinary paper inside your cell phone.

When I started googling to find out if these gadgets were anomalous, I got my second big surprise. First of all, these things are actually for sale out there, at many stores – and for prices as high as $19.99. Oh, my. Then I found one cell phone site (which echoed my poo-pooing the gadget) that said their data indicates that somewhere between 100 thousand and 500 thousand of this brand have been sold – and this is just one of dozens of brands. Double oh, my. Some Chinese scamster is holding his belly in pain...pain from laughing hard at the gullible Americans who plunked down their hard-earned coins for this piece of paper. I wouldn't be a bit surprised to find out the pattern is actually a Chinese character meaning “damned fool American!”

Independence Day...

When I went through public school, we had history classes each year, from the 7th grade through the 12th grade. In addition, I can remember studying some history in the 5th and 6th grades (when one teacher taught us all day), and most likely there was some exposure even earlier. When I talk with young people today, I keep getting surprised at just how little history they are exposed to in today's public school system – and at how “politically correct” that tiny exposure has become.

So yesterday, at work, I wasn't really all that surprised that the three young people I talked to really had no idea what the Declaration of Independence that we celebrate today was all about. They had only the vaguest idea what the document actually said (one of them didn't even know that we declared our independence from the British crown); not one of them had ever actually read it. One of them expressed some momentary interest; the other two were overtly disinterested.

How sad. And, I suspect, not a very hopeful sign for this country's future...

But me – I will celebrate! The first thing I did this morning, as I drank my morning tea, was to re-read (for the umpteenth time), the Declaration of Independence. As always, the final paragraph provoked chills and shivers:

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

If you know even just a bit about the context in which that document was written, then you know that these men were not just throwing words about like a modern-day politician. No, these men, by the act of this Declaration of Independence, were quite literally betting their lives on the notion that a group of upstart colonists – civilians – could successfully repel the most formidable military on the planet. This notion was fantastical dream, backed by spirit, anger, dreams, and damned little in the way of military might or prowess. And yet, they prevailed – and only because these men dared to declare their independence from the British tyrant are we free today.

If you take a few minutes to read the entire (short) text of the Declaration of Independence, and a little more time to read about the context in which it was written, you will likely have the same reaction I do: there are elements in the list of charges against the British Crown that resonate today. That is, some of the specific charges the Declaration of Independence makes about the conduct of the British King have close parallels in the conduct of the U.S. government today. There is, however, one important distinction – in pre-revolutionary times, the King of England's conduct was imposed on the colonies without the permission of its citizens. Today, the conduct of the U.S. government is condoned by its citizens; they control who gets to exercise power.

For me, that last fact is a constant source of both despair and hope...

Thursday Morning Blonde Joke...

Via reader Jim M.:

A gorgeous young redhead goes into the doctor's office and said that her body hurt wherever she touched it.

'Impossible!' says the doctor. 'Show me.'

The redhead took her finger, pushed on her left shoulder and screamed, then she pushed her elbow and screamed even more. She pushed her knee and screamed.

Likewise she pushed her ankle and screamed. Everywhere she touched made her scream.

The doctor said, 'You're not really a redhead, are you?

'Well, no' she said, 'I'm actually a blonde.'

'I thought so,' the doctor said. 'Your finger is broken.'

I can almost feel my wife (who is blonde) kicking me...

Ghost of Political Correctness Yet to Come...

There's one way in which the U.K. is a few years ahead of the U.S.: in their journey down the path of political correctness. The photo at right is what provoked the latest example. Read about it...and weep:

A police force has apologised to Islamic leaders for the "offensive" postcard advertising a new non-emergency telephone number, which shows a six-month-old trainee police dog named Rebel.

The German shepherd puppy has proved hugely popular with the public, hundreds of who have logged on to the force's website to read his online training diary.

But some Muslims in the Dundee area have reportedly been upset by the image because they consider dogs to be "ritually unclean", while shopkeepers have refused to display the advert.

Tayside Police have admitted they should have consulted their 'diversity' officers before issuing the cards, but critics argued their apology was unnecessary.

I can't believe that Muslims are actually so offended by a photo of a puppy. Surely, if that were so, we'd have heard about it long before this. I think a much more likely explanation is that some mullah, totally bemused by his enemy's propensity for cultural suicide, decided to see just how far he could push the boundaries of political correctness. Right about now, he's probably in pain from laughing so hard...

Don't laugh too hard, though, folks – this path is exactly where Obama and the Democrats want us to go...

Here's a link to the web site of the police force mentioned above.

Harry Reid...

Dennis Miller says it – the way I wish I could:



Oh, ouch!

But Hapless Harry deserves every morsel of this...

War and Decision...

Even though the war in Iraq started just five years ago, there have already been quite a few books about it published. Unfortunately, most of these books have been written by people with a much stronger grasp on their opinions and ideology than on the facts. I've been assuming that we'd have to wait a decade or more before any first-hand material made it through the declassification and publication pipeline – but I've just finished reading one that has made it already: War and Decision, by Douglas J. Feith. Mr. Feith is not an outside observer – he was the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy from 2001 to 2005, and was right in the middle of all the decision making that led up to the war and through the first two years of the war.

This book has received very little attention in the mainstream media, and after reading it, it's easy to see why: the book demolishes the mainstream media's cherished myths about how we decided to go to war against Saddaam Hussein, and about why we conducted the war and its aftermath as we did. The book has the unmistakable ring of authenticity and truth – Mr. Feith is an observer with his own biases, but he writes like a historian, with scrupulous attention to sourcing and citations. Click on the link above to read other reviews of this fine book (not all of them are positive), and to buy it from Amazon if you'd like to. I highly recommend it.

New Moon...

When I walked the dogs this morning, around 4:30 AM, there was a beautiful new moon hanging just above the mountains that form our northern horizon. Our skies have been quite hazy for the past week or so, mainly from dilute smoke from the fires far north of us. This haze gave the new moon a slightly yellow cast, but didn't really hide any detail. The sky surrounding the moon was just barely brighter than the black of the rest of the sky; the moon is still separated from the sun by a large enough angle to put it in the night sky. Probably tomorrow morning it will not be framed by the black of night, but rather by the brightening sky of morning...

Meanwhile, Debbie and I enjoyed several things about this new moon: its large apparent size (an illusion caused by its proximity to the horizon), the very bright “earthshine” (the dark portion of the moon being illuminated by light reflected from the Earth), the moon's appearance much further north than we usually see it (because it's summertime), and the beautiful contrast of the new moon against the almost-black night sky...

Hitched -- Now With Photos!

Tara (a family friend) was at Jim and Michelle's wedding, taking bazillions of photos. At the brunch this morning, she gave away CDs with all the photos on them, and gave me permission to put any I wanted up on the blog.

There will be more later, but here's a first taste:

From left to right, these are:

1. Rodrigo (who gave away the bride) and Michelle, just before Rodrigo walked her down to the arbor.
   
2. Jim, Frank (the minister), and Michelle, during the wedding ceremony.
3. Karen, Michelle, Jim, and me, in one of the bazillion formal photo sessions after the ceremony.
4. Michelle and Jim, during their first dance as a married couple.
5. Michelle, Jim, me, and Debbie, while I was giving my toast.
   

As always, you can click on any of these photos to get a larger version.

Hitched!

Jim and Michelle are married! The ceremony (at Pine Hills Lodge, just outside of Julian) was beautiful, and the festivities carried on until way past our bedtime – we left at 9:30 PM, and many people were still there, dancing and having a good time.

This was the first time I'd ever been the “best man” for a wedding, and I really had no idea what I was expected to do. I'd been told that my job was to (a) give Michelle's wedding ring to Jim at the appropriate moment in the ceremony, and (b) to give a toast during the reception afterwards. So I thought I'd have lots of time to take photos, and I brought my camera along. But actually there were many things that the best man was supposed to do, so I ended up having very little time to take photos!

The first photo above is of Debbie and Jim. We arrived a little early, and Jim had not dressed yet. This is the last photo you'll see in which he looks anything like normal!

There were dozens of people taking bazillions of photos at the wedding. I'm sure we'll be getting lots more photos from other people, and I'll put some of them up here. Our friends Vera and Konstantin were there (with huge happy smiles the entire time), and Konstantin took lots of photos; he's already promised to send me his...

Before the ceremony, we walked through the area where it would be held. Behind Debbie you can see the arbor; that's where the actual ceremony took place. There were over a hundred guests in those chairs (and standing behind them) just a half hour after I took this picture.

Michelle's brother-in-law (Rodrigo) was the man in charge of the male half of the wedding preparations. He rounded up Jim and I, and took us off to a cabin where we made our preparations. Jim changed from his shorts and Hawaiian shirt into his suit, and Rodrigo (who is an expert on men's clothing) made sure our ties were tied correctly, that our suits were correctly assembled, and that our corsages were pinned where they were supposed to be.

Then we had a short break as we waited for the minister to show up. Here you can see Jim standing in the doorway of the cabin, looking just a little nervous and excited. The minister (Frank) arrived a couple minutes later, we all sat down in a screened porch. It turns out that Frank is interested in technology, and when he discovered that he had a couple of geeks in the room with him, he launched into a conversation about new broadband technologies for rural Internet service. That was an unexpected topic at Jim's wedding, but I think it served to relax Jim a bit...

Rodrigo came in and led us all back to the arbor for the ceremony. Jim, Frank, and I arrived at the arbor first, and then we waited for Michelle and Karen (the matron of honor) to walk down. As we waited, we noticed that a cat had joined us at the arbor. It stood right next to Jim, facing the audience, as though he fully expected to be a part of the proceedings! We heard the wedding march first, and then we saw Michelle and Karen – Michelle was beautiful, and simultaneously happy and crying. There were many tears in the audience; all happy tears. The ceremony itself was very short and simple. When the moment came for me to give Jim the ring, I had a bit of trouble getting his attention (as he was completely focused on Michelle, of course) – I had to pull on his sleeve to get him to accept it . But I don't think anyone noticed, and soon the ceremony was over – and Jim and Michelle were officially Mr. & Mrs. Barnick!

This is when things really got busy for me, and the best man duties became numerous. The photographer organized a large number of group photos, always, of course, including the bride and groom. Every time I thought she had taken the last group photo that included me, they would call me over for another one. I think there must have been at least 50 group photos that I was in. Finally they were all done...but then the photographer (Terry) wanted to take a group photo of the entire group – over a hundred people! She went up to a balcony on the second floor of the lodge, and arranged all of us below her. We all had to squeeze together tightly to fit in her picture; to get this to happen, Terry was barking out commands like a drill sergeant, rounding up people from the edges and getting everybody squished together tightly enough.

Finally all the formal photography was done, and we were ready for the reception. All of the guests went inside and were seated, and then Karen and I walked in (and were introduced by a speaker), followed by Jim and Michelle. They had their first dance together as a married couple (very cute), and then we all sat down for dinner. It was quite a scene – Jim and Michelle circulated all through the guests, who were seated at many tables. The head table had about ten people seated, including Jim and Michelle (eventually even they got to sit down!), Debbie and I, Karen, and a few other friends and family. After our dinner, the champagne was poured, and it was time for the toasts to the bride and groom. I was the first; here's what I said:

I first met Jim over thirty years ago, as we served together in the U.S. Navy – and we both still had all our hair. Through all the years since then, he's been my best and closest friend. We've shared many things – work and play, lots of laughter, a few tears...and now we're next-door neighbors out in Lawson Valley, near Jamul.

I've had the privilege of watching Jim grow from a shy, naive kid from Minnesota into an altogether admirable (if somewhat hair-challenged) man from California. I can tell you first-hand that he's had a good life, in many ways an enviable life. But until that wonderful day when Jim first met Michelle, one very important thing was always missing from my friend's life: someone to share it with.

Now, Jim knows me very well. Right about now, he's probably expecting me to say something deeply embarrassing. And you know I could! But...relax, Jim. Instead, I'm going to be serious – at least for a moment – and quote one of my heroes.

Ronald Reagan once said:

“There is no greater happiness for a man
than approaching a door at the end of a day,
knowing that someone on the other side of that door is waiting for the sound of his footsteps.”

Michelle has brought great happiness to my friend Jim, and vice versa.

So today I toast them, and offer this wish: may it always be so.

Karen spoke after me, telling all of us the story of how Jim and Michelle first met. She had us all both laughing and crying. I'll never be able to remember all she said, or do it justice – I'm hoping that someone took a video that we can post. Rodrigo took the microphone after Karen, and before he could speak, someone in the audience begged him not to make us cry any more. He didn't.

After toasts, it was time to cut the wedding cake – and then the music started, and many people got up to dance. Debbie managed to talk Jim into dancing with her, to Chubby Checkers and “The Twist.” When she finished that dance, we were ready to drive home – too much late-night partying for us old folks!

It's Sunday morning as I write this, and in just a few minutes, we're headed back up to the lodge, where Jim and Michelle are hosting a brunch for all the wedding guests.

Wolf Totem

I just finished a most excellent book: Wolf Totem, by Jiang Rong, translated by Howard Goldblatt. This is (amazingly) a first novel by a Chinese writer; the writer's own experiences were the “research”. Most of the novel takes place in China of the 1960s, in the crazy days of Mao Tse Tung. The main character is a student who was forced out of the city and school to go work in the countryside. He volunteers to go to the most primitive place in all of China, to live with the nomadic Mongolian tribes who herd horses, sheep, and yaks.

As a reader, you walk away from this novel with a very detailed picture of the hard, surprisingly complex life of the Mongolian tribes. Their lives were immutably interlinked with the health of the vast Mongolian grasslands and the major creature populations it supported: humans, mice, marmots, sheep, horses, yaks, and...the awesomely fierce Mongolian wolves. Humans and wolves shared the top of the food chain, and had to stay in balance to keep the grasslands healthy. Human culture grew up around that need, with lore and custom finely honed to keep everything working.

Later in the novel, modern technology and an alien culture (the Han Chinese) moved into the grasslands, with technology and an utter disregard for maintaining the grassland habitat. The results are entirely predictable, and very sad. The novel can be read as a withering critique of the central Chinese “management” of Mongolia – which makes it all the more surprising that this book is a runaway bestseller in China, and has not been restricted by the government. In fact, this book has outsold any book ever published in China, save one: Mao's Little Red Book.

Don't miss it – it's simply wonderful.

Wedding Day...

Today my best friend is getting married, and I'm the best man. Jim and Michelle are getting married at a B&B just outside of the town of Julian, up in the mountains. It's a beautiful summer day – blue skies (a little hazy from the fires to the north of us) and not too hot. The ceremony is at 5:30, and we'll probably be there for several hours afterwards.

Blogging will be light, but tomorrow I'll post some photos and my toast to the newlyweds...

Telegram for Mr. Billary...

Your evening smile:


Thanks, SimonM!

A New Scam...

This morning I stopped to fill up my truck at the Jamul 7/11, on the corner of Steele Canyon Road and Campo Road. I started the pump, then got the squeegee and paper towels to clean my windshield and mirrors. Shortly after I started this chore, two young women approached me. I could tell from their demeanor that they were going to try to sell me something; the only question was what.

With big smiles and an earnest tone, they told me that they had the answer to the high price of oil – they could sell me the way to get 150 miles per gallon of gasoline! That's about 9 times better than my truck gets now – with gas at $4.58 a gallon, you have to admit that's an attractive pitch...

They had small plastic bottles – about the size of the liquor bottles the airlines sell you – filled with a dark green liquid. One bottle would treat one tank full of gas (they told me it didn't matter how big my gas tank was), and any vehicle that was so treated would get 150 miles per gallon for that entire tankful. All they wanted was $4.

I sent them on their way, and not in a particularly polite manner. Parasites like this really piss me off. Later, as I was completing my transaction, I watched them sell two bottles of their snake oil to other customers.

There's one born every minute. At least one.

The Rest of the Story...

Well, yesterday Debbie got her LandCruiser back from the independent repair shop. The final bill was $900, just over half the $1,700 estimate from the dealer. From everything I can tell, the workmanship was excellent – as was the communication and straight dealing.

On top of all that, the independent repair shop has a cat. That sealed the deal for Debbie !

So it's time to name names:

The dealer who gave us the outrageous quote for a simple brake job and a minor air conditioning repair (a hose): Toyota of El Cajon. We have been patronizing them for ten years, and just last year I purchased a new truck from them. I think it's fair to say that we were good customers. Were.

The independent repair shop is Rancho Jamul Auto Care, at 13975 Campo Road (State 94). Their phone number is 619/669-2848. They're between the Jamul Post Office and the feed shop, on the same side of the road. I've been driving past them for years and never even knew they were there!

My Guns Are Safe...

At least for the moment, the state or county government can't put an outright ban on guns in place, thanks to yesterday's Heller decision from the U.S. Supreme Court. So naturally my first reaction was “Hurrah!” After the warm glow of affirmed individual rights wore off, though, my next reaction was a bit different:

In other news, 5-4 was bit too close for comfort in my opinion. I was figuring on 6-3 or 7-2, honestly. Sure, this quiz was pass/fail but we were only one heart attack away, my friends. I hate to say it but that one reason is why I’ll hold my nose, get good and hammered, and pull the lever for John McCain. And I’d have to shower after that too.

What he said. It might actually be true that the single most last consequence of any Presidential election is the selection of Supreme Court justices...

April 16, 1178 B.C., Around Noon...

That's when Odysseus returned to Penelope:

The scientists first created a rough chronology of events depicted in the "Odyssey." First, 29 days before the supposed eclipse and the massacre of the suitors, three constellations are mentioned as Odysseus sets out from the island of Ogygia, where he has spent seven years as a captive of the beautiful nymph Calypso. Odysseus is told to watch the Pleiades and late-setting Boötes and keep the Great Bear to his left. Next, five days before the supposed eclipse, Odysseus arrives in Ithaca as the Star of Dawn — that is, Venus — rises ahead of the sun.

Finally, the night before the eclipse, there is a new moon.

Also, the messenger of the gods, Hermes, is sent west to Ogygia by the king of the gods Zeus to release Odysseus and then immediately returns back east roughly 34 days before the eclipse. The researchers conjecture this trip refers to an apparent turning point of the motion of the planet Mercury. (Mercury was the Roman name for Hermes.)

Mercury completes its orbit around the sun in just roughly 88 days, compared with the year it takes Earth to do so. This means that Mercury and Earth are somewhat like two cars moving along separate lanes of a racetrack at different speeds. The effect of these motions is that Mercury occasionally appears to go backward or retrograde in the sky from our point of view, Magnasco explained. This happens for roughly three weeks at a time, about three times a year.

The scientists then searched for potential dates that satisfied all these astronomical references close to the fall of Troy, which has over the centuries been estimated to have occurred between roughly 1250 to 1115 B.C. From these 135 years, they found just one date satisfied all the references — April 16, 1178 B.C., the same date as the proposed eclipse.

Very cool!

Car Repair Blues...

We own a 1995 Toyota LandCruiser with almost 250,000 miles on it – so naturally we have more repairs these days than we did a few years ago. But yesterday Debbie got a real shock at the dealer where we've been taking our vehicles for the past 10 years or so – a routine brake maintenance job was quoted at $1,700, far more than such jobs had cost us in the past.

Debbie was very unhappy with this, but left the truck for repairs anyway. A short while later, she was talking with a friend who confirmed for her how outrageous the quote was, and told her to “Make them stop working on your truck. Take it out of the dealer and take it Dave at Jamul Auto Care.” So Debbie did exactly that, and the initial estimate from them was “less than $500.”

Our LandCruiser is down there now for repair. I'll let you know how it goes...

Quote of the Day...

Via FoxNews:

“CEOs of fossil energy companies know what they are doing and are aware of the long-term consequences of continued business as usual. In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature.”

Spoken yesterday by James Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. He is the highest ranking climate scientist in our government. And he's seriously loony.

Your tax dollars at work.

Programming Languages...

Most programmers have worked with at least a few different programming languages. Those who are as ancient as I have likely worked with many. Some programmers have a nearly religious attachment to their One Right Language; others are less concerned about the language than they are about the algorithms and data structures. I'm definitely in the latter camp.

Recently I came across this web site, which attempts to rank programming languages by the number of programmers who use them – measured indirectly by the number of web searches involving them.

I was not surprised to see Java in the number one slot, nor was I surprised that C and C++ took the next two slots. This measure has those “big three” taking 50% of the total search hits. Everyday experience says this can't be far off the mark, as virtually everyone I know professionally works in one or more of these three languages.

But that is not to say this chart had no surprises for me! I was stunned to see that JavaScript ranked so low. It's almost impossible to write web applications without using JavaScript, web applications surely dominate all application development today, and yet...under 3% of the search hits involved JavaScript. I don't understand how this could be so low.

But even more stunning to me is that Delphi (which evolved from Pascal) and Pascal itself are having a bit of a resurgence in popularity. I did a lot of development in Pascal back in the '70s and '80s; it was the first high level language that I really enjoyed using (I was a real assembly language cowboy back then!). It was also my introduction to object-oriented programming (via Borland's Object Pascal). I'd never have expected them to be on the rise...

One last personal reaction: the chart makes me feel a little old, as most of the languages I've worked in aren't on the chart at all. Assembly language is gone. Remember dBase, anyone? PL/1? Pogo? B? CMSII? And yet...I've worked in 12 of the 20 languages on the chart (counting even casual encounters). Yikes!

Change You Can Be Sure Of...

Oh, Yes...

Here's some political commentary from Hollywood's past:


Hard to imagine seeing something this tasty today!

Hat tip to SimonM for reminding me of this classic – and to YouTube for making video clips so easy to find...

Origin of Corn Flakes...

Now here's something completely unexpected (to me, at least!): several now-common foods were invented for the purpose of suppressing our animal passions. One specific example: the Kellogg brothers invented corn flakes as part of a dietary program, one objective for which was to reduce masturbation and other dangerous sexual behaviors.

No, I'm not kidding. Read more here, here, and here.

I'll never be able to look at corn flakes or graham crackers the same way again!

Murtha and Haditha...

The despicable John Murtha (D) is ... categorized ... by Modern Conservative. Money quote:

Your lies greatly harmed these men, but it has not stopped the cause for which they fought, and for which their comrades fight and die.

Rope.
Tree.
Murtha.
Some assembly required.

Full Moon Blogging...

I woke up a little early this morning, about 2:30 AM, and wandered out to our livingroom to check my email. My eyes were still adapted to the darkness, but I was startled by the view out our front windows: the yard was lit up quite brightly, enough to see colors clearly (especially green, for some reason). An acacia that is about 75 feet from the house is in bloom, and the pink flowers against the dark green leaves could be seen easily.

This lighting is the combination of a beautiful full moon and a crystal-clear desert night. We've seen it many times before, but it still surprises and delights...

Now, just an hour and a half later, the moon is skimming the southern horizon. It's not really low in the sky, it's just that our southern horizon is formed by some hills, and so is quite high in the sky. Trees and shrubs are now shading almost the entire yard from the moonlight, but there's still one puddle of light on my livingroom floor, entering through a “chink” in the wall of leaves. One of our cats (Maka Lea) is playing with the spot of light, as it's moving a bit with the motion of the leaves. Cats have excellent night vision, so that spot probably looks even brighter to him than it does to me.

Another half hour and the moon will disappear from my view. But I'll be driving to work before sunrise, and I suspect I'll get a nice view of the moon setting over the Pacific. Something to look forward to on my early commute!

Fire Suppression Assessment...

All of us who live or work in the San Diego Rural Fire Protection District (East Otay, Jamul, Descanso, etc.) should have received a mailer from the District by now. The flyer that comes in the mailer is titled “Fire Suppression Assessment”, and there's a mail-back ballot and envelope in there as well.

Basically this mailer is trying to sell us all on the idea of a new tax, proposed at a rate of $120 per year, per residential parcel (or a little more or less, depending on the type of parcel you have). If 50% or more of the property owners (weighted by the amount they'd pay) approve, we've got a new tax. The pamphlet uses a good portion of its ink emphasizing the limitations on how this money could be spent, and the fact that it's only authorized for 30 years.

The last few years have brought a series of wildfires to our parched area, and every property owner in the area is righteously concerned about the ability of our fire departments to suppress fires around our property. So I'm sure that everyone receiving one of these mailers is doing the same thing I've done – carefully considering whether the new tax makes sense from your personal point of view.

Here's my perspective.

The short answer: I'm voting no.

The longer answer:

There are fundamental problems with our firefighting organizations that have nothing whatever to do with money. The most significant of these issues, to me, is the patchwork-quilt nature of the dozens of organizations involved – local, municipal, county, state, and federal, with overlapping or adjoining areas of responsibility and a mish-mash of chains of command and communications. Aside from the sheer organizational madness of this in the chaos of a major fire, there's another problem: capital expenditure control. Fire fighting teams need things that are very expensive – helicopters, planes, fire trucks, fire stations, etc. By having a patchwork-quilt of organizations, the ability to raise capital in the first place is wildly variable, and of course there's no coordinated control of it. Throwing more money at one group in this disjoint mess strikes me as missing the point altogether. In the current scheme, I have no confidence at all that the money will be spent wisely, or even in a way that would benefit me.

One little nit-picky observation that inclines me to distrust the District's fiscal judgment: the one-page pamphlet is printed in full color on the front, black-and-white on the reverse. It looks like it might even have been printed on a color laser printer. However they did it, they spent thousands of dollars making it color, for no good reason. That's thousands of dollars that could have been used for something that actually would make my home safer. That's not a good example of thriftiness with my tax dollars...

Then there's the standard bureaucratic deceptions that always seem to accompany such a proposal. For starters, there's the assertion that the money can only be spent on fire suppression. This is a piece of boilerplate in assessments like this, so laughably (and demonstrably) untrue as to make you think that the bureaucrats who wrote it must all be laughing in a smoke-filled room somewhere. Three things happen to such directed funds in the real world: (1) bureaucrats often simply ignore the rules, (2) bureaucrats pull a classic bait-and-switch by changing the rules after the voters approve the new tax, and (3) the bureaucrats obey the rules, but reduce the general fund budget allocated for the same purpose, thereby freeing up $1 of general fund for every $1 of directed fund received – which is, mathematically, the exact same thing as saying that the new tax goes straight into the general fund. There are no protections against any of the three classic bureaucratic fund dodges in this code.

Then there's the assertion that this tax will last “only” 30 years. When's the last time you saw any such tax actually disappear? I'd estimate the probability of this tax disappearing at approximately zero percent. I'd estimate the chances of it being both (a) increased, and (b) extended to infinity at approximately 100%. On those grounds alone, I'm strongly inclined to say “no”.

My ballot is in today's mail, with a big, fat, “no” on it...

MX!

Debbie ran Mo'i in an agility competition in Escondido this weekend. On Sunday they double-Qd, and the Q on the standard course was the last one that Mo'i needed to get his Masters (MX) title. He's the second field spaniel ever to get that title, and because he already had his Masters Jumpers (MXJ) title, he's the first to get both!

The photo at right is an old one of him leaving a tunnel at top speed. I wasn't there on Sunday, but Debbie tells me he was a very happy dog during the run. And even happier afterwards, when he was showered with treats...

Now Debbie and Mo'i are working on the top title that any agility dog can get: the Mach. To get a Mach, a dog must have 20 double-Qs and 720 points. Right now Mo'i has 6 double-Qs and over 100 points – they're on the way!

Happy Father's Day!

My father still walks this earth – a little more slowly than he used to, but still going. He's no stranger to challenges, having lived through the Great Depression, been a soldier in World War II, married for over 50 years, helped to raise a family of four children, and weathered some very tough times in his career. Through all of it that I can bear witness to, he's been steadfast, optimistic, and reliable – and full of imaginative stories, nearly always cheerful, blessed with a wonderful sense of humor, curious (and respectful of curiousity), and unreasonably encouraging to his kids.

I love him more than I can find the words to say...

My father lives some 2,500 miles away from me, so I don't get to see him as often as I'd like to. For the past few years he's been coming out to California each summer, so that he and I can take a two or three week trip together. We've had some memorable hiking and four-wheeling trips in search of wildflowers, a passion that he and I share. Several of these trips I've blogged about (to the San Juan Mountains, Big Sur, and Mt. Lassen). We'd planned a trip this year, but some medical treatments he's taking forced us to postpone it. We're hoping that either this fall or next summer he'll be well enough to take another one...

Meanwhile, today is Father's Day – a day for all children to honor and cherish their dad. In my dad's honor this year, here's one of my favorite poems about fathers:

Only A Dad

Only a dad with a tired face,
Coming home from the daily race,
Bringing little of gold or fame
To show how well he has played the game;
But glad in his heart that his own rejoice
To see him come and to hear his voice.

Only a dad with a brood of four,
One of ten million men or more
Plodding along in the daily strife,
Bearing the whips and the scorns of life,
With never a whimper of pain or hate,
For the sake of those who at home await.

Only a dad, neither rich nor proud,
Merely one of the surging crowd,
Toiling, striving from day to day,
Facing whatever may come his way,
Silent whenever the harsh condemn,
And bearing it all for the love of them.

Only a dad but he gives his all,
To smooth the way for his children small,
Doing with courage stern and grim
The deeds that his father did for him.
This is the line that for him I pen:
Only a dad, but the best of men.

Edgar Guest, 1916

One of the best of men, indeed. Happy Father's Day, dad!

American Spirit...

Updated (again):

One of my commenters makes it clear I miscommunicated. When I talk below about the Iowa flooding being worse than the Katrina flooding, I don't mean the human toll (which was much worse in Katrina). I am instead talking about the actual amount of water – the flood itself.

Updated:

Some excellent live flood-blogging (with video) here.

Original Post:

Unless you've been hiding under a rock somewhere, you know that Iowa is experiencing a massive flood. In fact, it's a “500 year flood” – of a size we'd expect to see only once every 500 years or so. Hundreds of square miles of land are flooded, and the flood waters are just starting to recede. Lots more photos here. The Cedar River was the worst; it crested at 32 feet over flood level. Thousands of homes were flooded, thousands of people evacuated, tens of thousands of acres of farmland were flooded and their crops ruined. By any reasonable measure, this flood was worse by far than the infamous flooding that Hurricane Katrina provoked in New Orleans, less than 1,000 miles to the south.

As if that wasn't enough, Iowa also suffered through a series of awful tornadoes in and near the flooded areas. The people of Iowa have been put through the wringer this week, that much is for certain.

Note the complete absence of whining, or reports of looting, or of screams for help from FEMA, or of complaints about inadequate federal assistance. The airwaves are not filled with pleas for donations. Not one squawk about how this is all Bush's fault. Instead (though there's little reporting of it in the mainstream lamestream media), there's a series of inspiring stories about people infused with what I'll call the “American Spirit” – the “can-do”, self-reliant attitude that launched these United States. There are many stories of people simply helping their neighbors in need, any way they can. I haven't heard a peep about Iowans believing they're victims – no crying out for help from these folks. They're just pitching in, administering first aid when needed, making sure that order prevails, and (already!) beginning the clean up and repairs. Farmers are already talking about replanting crops.

TigerHawk makes similar observations:

The thing is, though, the people of eastern Iowa seem to be stepping up in the Iowa stubborn way. I have seen any number of man-on-the-street interviews, and nobody is complaining. They all seem to be working to solve their problem, which is not surprising because Iowans do not complain about tragedy. They complain about hot weather and dry weather, but not tragedy. And I have looked for reports of looting and come up empty so far.

Katrina has become a metaphor for many things beyond natural disaster, including governmental and individual incompetence (depending on your point of view). In Iowa there is a 500 year flood, but the people are not paralyzed, whining, or looting. There will be no massive relief effort from around the world, and nobody will step up to help Iowans except for other Iowans. Yet years from now, there will be no Iowans still in FEMA camps.

The difference is not in the severity of the flood, but in the people who confront the flood.

Then over at Ace of Spades, Russ (from Winterset, Iowa – about a hundred miles from the flooding) writes this:

You may have heard that Iowa is experiencing catastrophic flooding this week. In addition to the flooding, we had a tornado on May 25 that wiped out more than half the town of Parkersburg and another tornado this last Wednesday that hit a Boy Scout campground along the Missouri River in Western Iowa, killing four scouts. The total body count of the tornados and flooding around the state has risen to 15, and we've got hundreds of millions of dollars in damage lying underneath the brown floodwaters. That's not even considering that we may lose 20% or more of the corn crop from delayed planting and some of the seeds that did manage to get planted drowning in the saturated soil. We'll soon be to the point where corn can't be replanted (it can only go so far into the fall before the frost kills it, and usually if you haven't gotten your corn in by now, you're gonna switch the ground to beans instead), and that'll throw a mother of a wrench into the corn price works.

The one thing I'm proud of right now is the absence of voices coming from my state cursing FEMA and President Bush for not "preventing" this tragedy. Compared to the opera we saw in Nawlins' in the aftermath of Katrina, it's nice to see people suck it up and get to work rebuilding their homes & businesses when Mother Nature takes a giant dump on them.

...

The one thing I'd like to address quickly is the NCAA track athletes who helped fill sandbags and try to save neighborhoods in Des Moines this week. Drake University in Des Moines is hosting the NCAA track & field championships this weekend, and there are literally hundreds of athletes who finished their events and immediately went down to the river to help anyway they could. We've got Northerners, Southerners, Easterners & Westerners (and Conservatives, Liberals & Libertarians, I'm sure) all pitching in to help Iowans save their homes and businesses. Next time you see some college athlete in a "revenue sport" acting like a horse's ass, remember these kids and know that not all athletes are self-centered and spoiled. I know that for every memory of a house or business befouled with floodwaters, there will be another warm memory of a stranger who showed up out of nowhere and asked "What can I do to help?" God bless 'em.

American Spirit in action. Finally, here's Kathy from the Cake Eaters Chronicles, writing about the Boy Scouts who immediately swung into action after their camp was devastated by a tornado:

While the whole thing is just horrible, I have to think that if it was a pottery camp organized by Kumbaya-singing hippies, things might have been much, much worse. They probably would have had the kids out on the front porch, to witness the awesomeness of Mother Nature, and there probably would have been more casualties and more deaths. If you go up to either of those news links, you will view interviews with many scouts who were there, and the common thread was yes, we found shelter, we prayed to God to spare us, then when the storm passed, we were on our feet with our First Aid kits at the ready and started applying pressure to bleeding wounds, and started digging out people who were crushed by walls, ceilings and debris. A few kids even broke into a shed where there was an ATV and chainsaws and went out to the main road and started clearing up the fallen trees so that the emergency vehicles could get in to help the wounded. How amazing is that? The majority of these kids are under the age of fifteen and they had the presence of mind to deliver first aid and to make sure that ambulances could get in? That's freakin' phenomenal. When most kids their age would be running around like headless chickens, crying and screaming for the benefit of the cameras, these young men were doing what needed to be done, and I have no doubt there would have been more fatalities if not for their swift action.

Her post is much longer and covers several related topics; read the whole thing here.

Unlike Michelle Obama, I've been proud of America for a long time. Unlike the aftermath of the Katrina disaster, the stories coming out of the American heartland's awful floods are a good example of the source of my pride.

I made a donation to the Boy Scouts of Cedar Rapids this morning. They are already at work, helping their neighbors. Though they haven't asked for any additional help, I'm certain they'll put it to good use. There won't be any stories of wanton waste and massively stupid relief efforts from that quarter...

A Day at the Flag Shop...

Never let it be said that the Germans can't poke a little fun at themselves – and the Palestinians at the same time...

Enjoy...