His First Time...

His first time meeting a politician, that is. John C. Write describes the encounter like this (my quote of the day):

The speech was an eye-opener. He referred to no principles, offered no promises, spoke of no future. All he did was say he planned to loot the taxpayers and give the swag to St. Mary's County if elected.

It was like listening to a psychopath. With such innocent charm and cold realism he talked about robbing others and splitting the take with us in the room. There was no sugar coating or double-talk: he nakedly said he meant to take and take and take, and if we voted for him, we would get a cut. He didn't even try to hide his meaning.

Read the whole post.

Five Dozen Taliban Reach Room Temperature...

Via the indispensable Bill Roggio reporting at The Long War Journal:

The US carried out its second Predator airstrike inside South Waziristan today. Unmanned Predator aircraft killed more than 65 Taliban fighters in a follow-on attack near the headquarters for Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud.

The Predator strike aircraft fired three Hellfire missiles as Taliban fighters gathered for a funeral of Khog Wali, a leader in Baitullah's army in South Waziristan who was among six Taliban fighters killed in the first US airstrike earlier today.

Commander Sangeen, a Taliban commander from Afghanistan, was reported to be among those killed in the strike at the funeral. Predators are said to have fired on Taliban vehicles as they attempted to leave the scene of the attack, Dawn reported.

Outstanding!

Employee of the Month...

From Jim M.:

A young guy from Wisconsin moves to Florida ang goes to a big everything-under-one-roof department store looking for a job.

The Manager says, "Do you have any sales experience?"

The kid says "Yeah. I was a salesman back in Wisconsin."

Well, the boss liked the kid and gave him the job. "You Start tomorrow. I'll come down after we close and see how you did."

His first day on the job was rough, but he got through it..

After the store was locked up , the boss came down. "How many customers bought something from you today?"

The kid says, "One."

The boss says, "Just one? Our sales people average 20 to 30 customers a day. How much was the sale for?"

The kid says, "$101,237.65."

The boss says, "$101,237.65? What the heck did you sale?"

The kid says, First, I sold him a small fishhook. Then I sold him a medium fishhook. Then I sold him a larger fishhook. Then I sold him a fishing rod. Then I asked him where he was going fishing, and he said down the coast, so I told him he was going to need a boat, so we went down to the boat department, so I sold him a twin engine Chris Craft. Then he said he didn't think his Honda Civic would pull it, so I took him down to the automotive department and sold him that 4+4 Expedition."

The boss said "A guy came here to buy a fish hook and you sold him a BOAT and a TRUCK?"

The kid said "No, the guy came here to by Tampons for his wife, and I said, Dude, your weekend's shot, you should go fishing."

Bob and the Blonde...

From my mom...

Bob, a handsome dude, walked into a sports bar around 9:58 PM. He sat down next to a blonde at the bar and stared up at the TV.

The 10 PM news was coming on. The news crew was covering the story of a man on the ledge of a large building preparing to jump.

The blonde looked at Bob and said, "Do you think he'll jump?"

Bob said, "You know, I bet he'll jump."

The blonde replied, "Well, I bet he won't."

Bob placed a $20 bill on the bar and said, "You're on!"

Just as the blonde placed her money on the bar, the guy on the ledge did a swan dive off the building, falling to his death.

The blonde was very upset, but willingly handed her $20 to Bob, saying, "Fair's fair. Here's your money."

Bob replied, "I can't take your money. I saw this earlier on the 5 PM news, and so I knew he would jump."

The blonde replied, "I did too, but didn't think he'd do it again."

Bob took the money...

Amazing a capella...

Much more here. Thanks, Dick C...

Obama and Ice Cream with his Kids...

A lot of blogs (and even some news outlets) are giving Obama grief for going out to have ice cream with his two daughters while Iran is unraveling. My readers know well that I have little agreement with Obama in the political sphere, but attacking him because he went out to have ice cream with his kids? Come on, folks, the man has to have some kind of life, and he's got to be a dad to his kids at least once in a while. In this big old world there's never going to be a moment when the globe is totally at piece and there's nothing for the POTUS to pay attention to besides his kids.

So my reaction is a little out of step with the rap he's getting from most blogs. From my perspective, this is one of the most admirable things I've seen him do – taking a few minutes away from what must feel like an all-consuming responsibility to spend some quality time with his kids. Kudos, Mr. President.

Now...please get the rest of your act a little bit together. Someday, your little girls will be grown up – and they'll read the judgments of history about your actions as POTUS. Make your actions the right ones for our country, not just for your party...

An Advertisement From Iran...

He's Come To Save The Day...

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

Back Home...

It's always so good to come home... I arrived early yesterday evening, and had a lazy, comfy few hours before going to sleep – and then we didn't get up until after dawn (very late for us), when our three field spaniels decided we'd been in bed entirely too long. They're very efficient at waking us up – they just walk all over us, jumping occasionally; that's all it takes...

Coming home last night, the best part (as always) was the greetings from my honey, my dogs, and Maka Lea (our little challenged kitty).

While I was away, poor Debbie was suffering through two challenges of her own. I really hated being away while this was going on...

The first one was her recovering broken arm. The cast came off two weeks ago, but she's been in awful pain ever since. This week she finally reached the point where she couldn't stand it any more and started making insistent calls both to the doctor caring for her arm and to our GP. In the end, they diagnosed her as having reflex sympathetic dystrophy (RDS) – basically some nerve damage, most likely caused either by the injury itself, the setting of the bones, or possibly by the initial cast being too tight. The good news is that both the pain and the underlying cause of the pain are eminently treatable. She's now taking neurontin (aka gabapentin), which I picked up on the way back from the airport last night. This drug, originally used as an anti-epileptic, has recently been found to be useful for people suffering from RDS. The prognosis is that in about three weeks she'll start seeing improvement (and the pain should disappear immediately). Fingers crossed on this one...

The second challenge involved Aka, our oldest cat. We've had Aka a long, long time – our best guess is that we adopted him in 1988, 21 years ago. He was a feral kitty in our (then) Chula Vista neighborhood, about six months old, when Debbie captured and tamed him. He's always been aggressive (typical of a feral cat), so he's always lived in our outdoor cattery. For the last years his companion has been Koa, our psychotic kitty. Somehow the two of them became best buddies, inseperable. Aka's been going downhill for months, losing weight and slowly but inexorably getting weaker and weaker. At this point in our lives we've lived through the loss of many of our furry companions, and we've become quite sensitized to the challenges of deciding exactly when the time has come to say goodbye to one of them. Our hearts always tell us to do more and more to try to restore them to health, but our heads tell us that sometimes that's for our benefit and not our friend's. On Wednesday this week, Debbie was very worried about Aka's condition, and took him down to Dr. Christine Wilson, our wonderful vet in Jamul. The folks there got some fluids into him, but couldn't get him to eat (this is quite typical for old or sick cats – they just stop eating). Blood tests brought bad news – Aka was suffering from massive systemic, most likely from a metastasizing cancer or some equally disastrous organ failure. He wasn't suffering, just fading away. Usually Debbie and I face these decisions together, but this time I wasn't home and Debbie made the call on her own (but it's certainly one I agreed with). One of our friends and neighbors (Paula C.) went down to Dr. Wilson's with her, and Debbie held Aka as slipped away...

On a completely different note, each of my three flights on this trip had an interesting component.

On my first flight (San Diego to Newark), I sat next to a fellow who's family (wife and four kids) was scattered around us, all in middle seats (they were on standby, and so got the worst seats). They were all from Tijuana, Mexico (a large city just across the border from San Diego), en route to Madrid, Spain where he had just gotten a new (and good) job. I had an interesting conversation with him during the trip, but the best part happened just before we landed in Newark. During our final approach, we had an excellent view of New York City and the Hudson Bay area. Two of his sons were in the rows immediately behind us, and we heard them shouting “estatua de la libertad!” – Statue of Liberty. In fact, we had a great view of Lady Liberty. Isn't it interesting that some young (around 8 or 9 years old) Mexican kids recognized it immediately, and were excited to see it? I can't help but wonder how many American kids of the same age would react like that...

My second flight (Newark to Houston) started off about as unexciting as it could – we just sat on the tarmac for almost two hours waiting to take off. Storms were causing traffic delays throughout the east coast, and planes were stacking up at all the major airports, Newark included. Finally we took off, and the pilots managed to make up all but 45 minutes of the delay. The flight to Houston was bumpy, but not exceptionally slow. The landing was something else altogether! We came in steep and fast, and slammed into the ground more forcefully than any other landing I can remember. From my seat I could see the wingtips, and it looked like they bent to within a foot or two of the ground as we hit, then oscillated five or six times before they started looking solid again. Nearly all of the overhead luggage bins sprang open, and quite a bit of luggage spilled out. The plane was a Boeing 767, and the arrangement of the luggage bins was such that most of the luggage spilled into the aisles. So far as I know, nobody was hurt by the hundreds of pieces of luggage that fell out. I ended up with a small suitcase in my lap – it sort of rolled onto me after falling down onto a big suitcase that had already fallen into the aisle. My laptop was in its case in the overhead, and it fell out but was caught by the shoulder strap tangling with the hinge – so no damage was done to my stuff. I'm pretty sure not everybody with a laptop was so lucky. There were some shouts and screams at the moment the luggage fell out, but no panic – and once we figured out that nobody had been hurt, there was much relieved laughter. Everybody helped scoop the luggage back up when the pilot paused on the taxiway and asked us to clear the aisles. By the time we got to the gate, the mood was downright jovial...

On my final flight (Houston to San Diego), the young lady sitting next to me was the most interesting element. She was about my height, extremely thin, with the kind of breathtakingly beautiful face that just stops you in your tracks. She was also one of the blackest people I have ever seen, ebony in the truest sense. The poor girl was terrified – after a while I was able to figure out that this was her first trip by air. She's from Ethiopia, and en route to San Diego to go to school at USD, where she had a full scholarship. She spoke only a kind of broken, pidgin English, but it was fascinating to hear her speak her native language (Amharic) on the cell phone; it sounded quite beautiful to my ears, melodic and lilting. We conversed (or tried to) for the entire trip – she was full of questions about San Diego and the environs, which I tried to answer as best I could. Some of her questions I had no clue about – such as whether there were any Ethiopian groceries or restaurants. Others I could help a bit more on, such as where were good communities to live, what kind of transportation was available, etc. She had absolutely no idea about any of these things, she was simply traveling into something completely unknown to her. If I understood her correctly, her scholarship was related somehow to a modeling contest, something she had won first in Ethiopia, then in Johannesburg, South Africa. The prize was a four year full scholarship (including living expenses) at her choice of four universities: USD, one in England, one in France, and one in South Africa. She said it has always been her dream to one day see America, so given this opportunity to actually live in America for four years, she snatched it instantly. She was the first person in her family (from some remote place in Ethiopia) to ever leave Ethiopia, when she traveled to Johannesburg. Her entire community is all excited about her opportunity in America, and her cell phone calls at every stop along the way were to various relatives and friends back home. She doesn't know anybody in San Diego, but did manage to find a church in San Diego that had some kind of a connection (I never did understand what she was telling me about that) to her church back home, so she's got some people to lean on for help. She's staying with a pastor and his wife for the first few weeks after she arrives, but she's got to find a place to live fairly quickly. Her reaction to all this seemed to be a mixture of excitement and terror, which is easy enough to understand. What a grand adventure, to be sure – but also what a wrenching and uncomfortable thing it must be to be torn from your community and sent halfway around the world to live with total strangers. I came away with a feeling that this very sensible young lady would do just fine. I also had the pleasure of hearing her say something very nice to hear: that she has been overwhelmed by how friendly and helpful the American strangers she's run into have been. She said that Ethiopians could learn a lot about human kindness from Americans...

A Million Frames per Second...

Suppose you've invented a video camera that can capture up to one million frames per second. How would you advertise this marvel of technology?

Why, you'd take cool movies of bullets striking targets, of course!

Where Does the Earth's Magnetic Field Come From?

For most of my adult life, the scientific consensus seemed to be that convection cells in the Earth's core, circulating molten metallic material, induced electric currents and created the earth's magnetic field. There has never been any proof for this consensus theory, however – nor has there been any good alternative theory.

But now a scientist has shown, through calculations, that variations in the observed magnetic field could, theortetically, be explained by electric currents flowing in our salt oceans (which are conductive). Fascinating stuff, and an interesting view of science being made...

Cassini Spots Ring Bumps...

Everything I've ever read about the rings of Saturn says that they are remarkably thin and sparse collections of dust and pebbles, swirling around Saturn in the same plane as the Saturn's satellites. Now I learn that there are mile-high “bumps” in the rings that were predicted by computer models of the rings, but never seen.

Until now, that is. Cassini took pictures!

Light Blogging Alert!

I'm away from home, on a business trip, and my attention will be largely on my work. Airlines willing, I'll be back home on Friday evening.

That is all.

Bumper Snicker...

“We're Not Happy!” - Iranians

The people of Iran (well, some of them, anyway) are not happy about the results of yesterday's elections. News reports are saying that many Iranians believe the election results were faked by the incumbent Ahmadinejad, and that the “reformist” candidate Mousavi actually won (and of course, Mousavi is claiming this). It would be nice to think that this presages some kind of internally-fomented revolution, but I think the mad mullahs are in firmer control than that.

Dang it.

Bumper Snicker...

The G8 Says “Undo It!”

The G8 finance ministers just finished their meeting in Lecce, Italy. As usual, they released a statement afterwards. Most unusually, the statement actually contained something very interesting and unexpected:

We discussed the need to prepare appropriate strategies for unwinding the extraordinary policy measures taken to respond to the crisis once the recovery is assured. These “exit strategies”, which may vary from country to country, are essential to promote a sustainable recovery over the long term. We asked the IMF to undertake the necessary analytical work to assist us with this process.

Whoa! The finance ministers want the G8 countries to unwind the remaining portions of the bailout programs once “recovery is assured” (a phrase that could be interpreted in all too many ways).

Unwinding is accounting-speak for "undo". In the U.S., the vast majority of the money from all the bailout programs has yet to be spent – and in some cases, it has yet to be borrowed. Unwinding these programs would mean repaying the borrowed money that has not yet been spent, and abandoning any future borrowing under these programs. In addition, unwinding would include converting any options, warrant, stock, etc. acquired by the government as part of the bailout (for example, the government's majority position in AIG) to cash, to repay the money borrowed to acquire them.

Dare we hope? Would the Obama administration have the good common sense to follow the G8's recommendations? Would they give back the money that they and the Bush administration stole from us?

My bet would be “No way, Jose!” But I would surely love to be wrong on this one...

Bumper Snicker...

Bolton on Israel and Iran...

Today's Wall Street Journal has a fascinating short analysis piece by John Bolton (aka “The Mustache”). His forthright manner and adult analysis stand in stark contrast to the gobbledegook we're treated to by the Obama administration on this topic. His conclusion:

This brief survey demonstrates why Israel's military option against Iran's nuclear program is so unattractive, but also why failing to act is even worse. All these scenarios become infinitely more dangerous once Iran has deliverable nuclear weapons. So does daily life in Israel, elsewhere in the region and globally.

Many argue that Israeli military action will cause Iranians to rally in support of the mullahs' regime and plunge the region into political chaos. To the contrary, a strike accompanied by effective public diplomacy could well turn Iran's diverse population against an oppressive regime. Most of the Arab world's leaders would welcome Israel solving the Iran nuclear problem, although they certainly won't say so publicly and will rhetorically embrace Iran if Israel strikes. But rhetoric from its Arab neighbors is the only quantum of solace Iran will get.

On the other hand, the Obama administration's increased pressure on Israel concerning the "two-state solution" and West Bank settlements demonstrates Israel's growing distance from Washington. Although there is no profit now in complaining that Israel should have struck during the Bush years, the missed opportunity is palpable. For the remainder of Mr. Obama's term, uncertainty about his administration's support for Israel will continue to dog Israeli governments and complicate their calculations. Iran will see that as well, and play it for all it's worth. This is yet another reason why Israel's risks and dilemmas, difficult as they are, only increase with time.

My read of his piece is that he fully expects Israel to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, and sooner rather than later. He sees the Obama administration's stance as accelerating this possibility, rather than delaying it (as Israel must be less certain of U.S. support now than at any time since at least the Carter era, and probably back to the time of Israel's founding). The longer Israel waits, the worse the tactical situation. Mr. Bolton also believes that the inevitable Iranian retaliation for such an Israeli attack will most likely take the form of “unleashing” Hezbollah and Hamas for terror attacks inside Israel.

I'd sure feel better about the Obama administration's foreign policy if we got this kind of analysis, supporting their positions, from someone on the team...

Poster Contest...

Over at Michelle Malkin's place. There's lots more like the one at right...

Bumper Snicker...

Anna's Pull Gs...

The male Anna's hummingbird (a species abundant around our home) turns out to be the record-setting vertebrate in terms of pulling Gs. This happens in the tight turns the males make while showing off to the females. Read all about it here (and watch some cool video)...

What a Great Idea!

I wish I'd thought of this! A school system in New York City is experimenting with the notion of “paying for grades” – offering cash rewards for students who get good grades. I know from my own experiences that kids in general have a lot of trouble connecting their education to their earning potential. This program removes that trouble very nicely: learn something, prove that you've done it (by scoring well on a test), and you get paid. In cold, hard, cash. Wonderful! The young lady at right certainly looks as though she's made the connection between educational attainment and earning potential...

Read more about the program here.

But I can't help thinking that … if they were going to complete the lesson, they'd flash the cash, then deduct the government's share and hand over the remainder. That lesson would do more for the education of these future voters than anything else I can think of...

Doing Business In California...

From serial entrepreneur Nolan Bushnell:

California's government is the problem. The state is business-hostile. It is merit-hostile. It has the highest tax rates and returns less in services to its average citizens. Massive pension abuses are not dealt with.

Worst of all, the state's crazy regulation structure creates uncertainty, cost, and risk in doing business here. The system is chilling to investment and innovation. This is true for businesses of all types, from technology companies to basic franchises.

Many businesses founded elsewhere now try to avoid for as long as possible doing business in California. Meanwhile, I have watched company after company leave the state. And, as you might imagine, it is much harder to get businesses back than to keep them from leaving.

This is so sad for those of us who love California...

I'm lucky enough to work for one of the very few entrepreneurial efforts that's doing so well it still works in California, despite the government's best efforts to prevent it. But there aren't many software startups like this one, and California is going to pay for this foray into brain-dead liberalism. It's not hard to see that the startups are going to go elsewhere – and with them will go the best engine for economic growth that the world has ever seen. A few years from now, the name “Silicon Valley” may refer instead to someplace in Montana, Nevada, or some other business-friendly state. Or worse, in some other country.

An Odd Experience...

I've posted several times before about the Descanso Junction Restaurant. It's one of our favorite places to eat, with terrific food at prices that make it an equally terrific value (kinda nice during this downturn). The decor, the people who work there, and everything else about it contributes to a homey, comfortable atmosphere.

Recently they completely redid their menu, with lots of new dishes we haven't had time to try yet. The first few things we've tried have been really good, and sometimes even surprising. For example, who would have expected top-notch crème brûlée way out in the sticks? Even better, they've been doing very well (despite the recession), and they've gone back to a 7-day-a-week schedule. Woo hoo!

Well, Friday night Debbie and I were up there for dinner. We sat at a booth, and the table (like all the others) was covered with a glass top that has lots of photos, clippings, cards, etc. underneath it. As is my habit, I started reading the pieces – some of them were new to me (the staff there changes them frequently). One review was upside-down from where I sat, so I struggled to read it, very slowly. The review seemed vaguely familiar – and that's when I noticed that it was from this very blog, almost three years ago. What a hoot! And what an odd feeling to see that clipping of my article there.

After thinking about it a bit, I decided not to let the crew know who I was. I really don't want any special treatment, so if I'm still unknown to them, I'd rather keep it that way...

More Dyson...

I just love the way Freeman Dyson thinks. And then when I reflect on his age (85), I'm always astonished. A sampler:

No doubt that warming is happening. I don’t think it is correct to say “global,” but certainly warming is happening. I have been to Greenland a year ago and saw it for myself. And that’s where the warming is most extreme. And it’s spectacular, no doubt about it. And glaciers are shrinking and so on.

But, there are all sorts of things that are not said, which decreases my feeling of alarm. First of all, the people in Greenland love it. They tell you it’s made their lives a lot easier. They hope it continues. I am not saying none of these consequences are happening. I am just questioning whether they are harmful.

There’s a lot made out of the people who died in heat waves. And there is no doubt that we have heat waves and people die. What they don’t say is actually five times as many people die of cold in winters as die of heat in summer. And it is also true that more of the warming happens in winter than in summer. So, if anything, it’s heavily favorable as far as that goes. It certainly saves more lives in winter than it costs in summer.

So that kind of argument is never made. And I see a systematic bias in the way things are reported. Anything that looks bad is reported, and anything that looks good is not reported.

A lot of these things are not anything to do with human activities. Take the shrinking of glaciers, which certainly has been going on for 300 years and has been well documented. So it certainly wasn’t due to human activities, most of the time. There’s been a very strong warming, in fact, ever since the Little Ice Age, which was most intense in the 17th century. That certainly was not due to human activity.

And the most serious of almost all the problems is the rising sea level. But there again, we have no evidence that this is due to climate change. A good deal of evidence says it’s not. I mean, we know that that’s been going on for 12,000 years, and there’s very doubtful arguments as to what’s been happening in the last 50 years and (whether) human activities have been important. It’s not clear whether it’s been accelerating or not. But certainly, most of it is not due to human activities. So it would be a shame if we’ve made huge efforts to stop global warming and the sea continued to rise. That would be a tragedy. Sea level is a real problem, but we should be attacking it directly and not attacking the wrong problem.

Read the whole thing.

My Kind of Brunch...

Debbie is “down the hill” in Bonita to watch her friends compete in a dog agility competition. Next week is her first competition since she broke her arm (it's out of the cast as of Friday, but she's still wearing a wrist brace). She took Race (our border collie) with her, so I'm home with the three field spaniels.

I got hungry around 10 am, so I went scrounging in the refrigerator to see what goodies we might have available. Found some leftover roast chicken: a leg and thigh. Skinned it, and fed the pieces of skin to three very appreciative dogs. De-boned it and diced the meat. Let the dogs clean my fingers and the chopping board (and yes, then I washed them!). In a bowl, combined the diced chicken, a half-cup or so of frozen corn kernels, a can of chick peas (garbanzo beans), a teaspoon or so of mayonnaise, about the same amount of “juice” from the beans, and a generous sprinkle of dried tarragon. Let the tarragon soak up the bean juice, then mixed up the bowls contents until everything was coated and the corn had thawed.

Then I ate it all, while the dogs watched forlornly. Yum.

I did let them clean the bowl and spoon, though, and I was quickly forgiven...

Congressional Motors...

IowaHawk strikes again. Tip of the hat to Doug S. for pointing this out...
Heh: “...even in the choppy waters of a Cape Cod inlet.$rdquo;

Septic Tank Shenanigans...

We just found out that existing law on the books in California mandates septic tank inspections (by state-approved inspectors) and upgrades to ambiguous standards when the inspection results aren't up to snuff. Worse, these inspections will be paid for by us; estimates run up to $650 not including the cost of opening, draining, and cleaning the septic tank. Required repairs and upgrades could run into the thousands of dollars. Note that this isn't a requirement to fix broken septic tanks – this is a requirement to periodically inspect each and every residential septic tank in the state.

Just what we need. More nanny statism, more expenses.

Assemblyman Joel Anderson (Republican from El Cajon) is coauthor of a bill that would repeal this absurd regulation. He needs our support. You can reach him in several ways:

email: anderson@assembly.ca.gov
phone: 916/319-2177
mail: State Capitol, Room 2130, Sacremento, CA 95184

Modern Communications...

Reader Larry E. writes:

I was sitting here thinking how communication has changed so much.

Right now I’m sitting in a room around a table with 10 people. Developers, tech writers, qa. There are at least 5-6 other team members working from their homes at the moment.

In the room there are two distinct conversations going on verbally and at the same time a lot more going on via IM and still others via email. I’m sitting right across from my QA lead and I IM him asking for the updated QA Plan. I tell him that Christophe in France has a patch for our import problem which I got from email and he says, Christophe told him (via IM) and that Christophe is looking the ETL run as well. With a team spread over 5 sites in 3 countries this instantaneous communication is so important.

The other day I realized that when I left home for the USMC, communication with my family and friends back home dropped off to a trickle. Occasional letters and phone calls. Now my son left home for the USMC and even though he is on the East Coast, I hear from him a great deal. He calls me on the cell, text messages and emails. I get emailed pictures occasionally or he just takes a picture on his phone and sends it to me in a message. My son keeps up with his friends still in California via text and sites like facebook.

While it may not be as personal as face-to-face communication, and it is certainly very different, it is communication that would not happen at all without this technology. It enables you to maintain relationships you would not otherwise be able to do so otherwise.

Fascinating. At least from the perspective of someone that didn’t grow up with it.

This is a topic I've often thought about. Usually what brings it to my mind is “talking” (usually by email) with one of our soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan. This always reminds me of my days in the U.S. Navy, and how sawed off from the world we were whenever we deployed to the Western Pacific or Indian Oceans. There were intervals of months when I had no communications of any kind (not even mail!) with friends or family. Often the only news we got was from highly-filtered one-page news summaries sent to the ship's radio room (weekly, if I remember right) and made available in the ship's library. Very urgent family news (births, deaths, etc.) was occasionally sent via U.S. Navy radio traffic; it was a big deal when one of these came in. I remember very clearly the profound sense of isolation while on one of these deployments.

Contrast that with today's military, as Larry points out. Soldiers literally on the front line of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are using cell phones, email, instant messaging, and blogs to communicate with friends, family, and the whole world. They take digital photos and video, and post them up on Flickr and YouTube. I've watched videos of countless battles and actions just hours after they occurred, thanks to these technologies. And certainly our troops aren't cut off from the world in any sense of the world.

Neither are the homeless:

Like most San Franciscans, Charles Pitts is wired. Mr. Pitts, who is 37 years old, has accounts on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. He runs an Internet forum on Yahoo, reads news online and keeps in touch with friends via email. The tough part is managing this digital lifestyle from his residence under a highway bridge.

"You don't need a TV. You don't need a radio. You don't even need a newspaper," says Mr. Pitts, an aspiring poet in a purple cap and yellow fleece jacket, who says he has been homeless for two years. "But you need the Internet."

Amazing!

In my profession (hardware and software engineering), another Internet-enabled phenomenon has been equally revolutionary: search engines and freely available technical information.

Years ago, if I wanted to design a piece of electronic hardware, the starting point was to talk with the hardware resellers and try to convince them that they should supply me with “data books”. These were thick catalogs of the parts from a particular manufacturer, and owning a library of these was an absolutely essential prerequisite for any hardware design work. Today those data books are completely unnecessary. You can look up the parts on any of hundreds of web sites (for hardware vendors), and just click to get a PDF of the data sheet for the exact part you're interested in. It's hard to overstate the extent and importance of that liberation from the data book tyranny – it means now that any individual (not just engineers working for big companies) has wide-open access to all electronic parts.

In software engineering, the Internet has been just as revolutionary. Years ago the only method available for advancing your knowledge of the field was to buy (and read, of course!) expensive texts. Often you also had to buy expensive software development tools as well. These days that model has completely blown up. There are tens of thousands of web sites chock full of interesting and relevant technical information on any conceivable (and sometimes inconceivable!) and arcane software engineering topic. I still buy some books, but it's more for the convenience of at-hand access to a familiar reference than it is for learning. Perhaps an even more profound impact has come from sharing knowledge with others, often through web forums. Now when I run into some kind of unfamiliar problem, or I have a how-do-I-do-this? question, the first thing I do is launch a Google query – and very often this will lead me directly to a solution in a few seconds. In the past, I might have beat my head against the wall for these problems, for hours or even days. Not any more.

This Internet thingie has had quite an impact!

Fire Lookout Tower...

This caught my eye in a U-T article:

The forest service also will have two lookout towers staffed around the clock this fire season, one near Jamul in the south central part of the county and the newly renovated High Point Lookout Tower on Palomar Mountain.

Naturally, being the U-T, there are no more details. I can only think of two lookout towers they might be talking about: Los Pinos and Lyon's Peak. Los Pinos is regularly manned (though not full time), and Lyon's Peak hasn't been used in a long time. Do you know for sure what the plans actually are?

Grab You by the Ankles...

Don't miss today's Day-by-Day cartoon. An excerpt:

Amusement ride operator: “So...can we take you all for a ride today?”
Customer: “What's the ‘Stimulus Surprise’?”
Amusement ride operator: “Hydraulic grippers grab you by the ankles, bend you over, and – let's just say the ride's over when we say it's over.”

Earliest Audio Recordings Ever Found...

These recordings were made 20 years before Thomas Alva Edison made his famous recordings. Unlike Edison's, these recordings were never intended to be played back – the original goal was simply to make a “picture” of sounds. They were made by a French inventor, Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville. The picture at right shows the apparatus he used.

The actual recordings can be heard here.

Hope 'n Change?

Ted Rall is an editorial cartoonist, sometime columnist, and author of the raving liberal lunatic persuasion. He's not someone I'd normally find myself agreeing with. He is someone I'd expect to be a rabid Obama supporter.

So imagine my surprise when I read one of his columns this morning, to find that contained the following (but not out of context!) quotes:

We expected broken promises. But the gap between the soaring expectations that accompanied Barack Obama’s inauguration and his wretched performance is the broadest such chasm in recent historical memory. This guy makes Bill Clinton look like a paragon of integrity and follow-through...

...Obama is useless. Worse than that, he’s dangerous. Which is why, if he has any patriotism left after the thousands of meetings he has sat through with corporate contributors, blood-sucking lobbyists and corrupt politicians, he ought to step down now — before he drags us further into the abyss...

...Obama is cute. He is charming. But there is something rotten inside him...

Whoa, there, lefty. Steady on, there, Ted. And right on!

In my own defense, the reasons behind these quotes are most definitely not the reasons I might use in arriving at the same conclusions.

I guess this is some evidence that Obama is moving toward the “center” (whatever that actually is). Long reviled from the right, he's now starting to be reviled from the “respectable” left...

A Beautiful Idea...

Would eliminating the current state government completely and starting over with a clean slate appeal to you? Until I read this web site, I didn't know such a thing was even possible (at least, not without an actual revolution). The general idea is to call a “Constitutional Convention”, and rewrite the state's constitution from scratch.

Currently California's Constitution requires two thirds of the legistature to vote in favor of placing the question of a Constitutional Convention on the ballot, where it must win a majority of the voters to gain approval. The first part of this is unlikely in the extreme – it's hard to imagine two of the current legislators voting for this, much less two thirds.

However, the voters in California have the power to place propositions on the ballot that would amend the State's Constitution (as we did recently with Proposition 8, which defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman). So the folks at RepairCalifornia.org propose exactly such an amendment proposition, to amend the State's Constitution to allow the voters to directly call a Constitutional Convention.

This would be like a revolution without the guns and tanks. I want to think about this some more, but on a first pass I'm inclined to agree with Peter Robinson:

Will California default, forcing states and municipalities throughout the nation to pay higher interest rates to bondholders? Will it persuade Washington to bail it out, rewarding the Golden State's political class while punishing the citizens of prudent, solvent states such as Indiana or Texas? Or will California cut its budget so sharply that basic state agencies--the California Highway Patrol, for instance, or the Department of Corrections--will be impaired?

None of the answers are pretty.

Yet this financial crisis has produced one beautiful idea.

Jim Wunderman, president of the Bay Area Council, a business group, has begun calling for a constitutional convention. The current constitution, Wunderman argues, is so long, convoluted and encrusted with amendments that Californians ought to toss it out and start again from scratch.

To keep the political class from taking over the convention, Wunderman wants to choose delegates from the state jury pool. Does that sound like placing trust in chance? If so, you've got the idea. Ordinary Californians, redesigning the entire state government.

William F. Buckley Jr. once said, "I would rather be governed by the first 400 names in the Boston telephone book than by the faculty of Harvard University." Me? I'd rather be governed by a few hundred jurors from Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, Irvine, San Diego, Bakersfield, Fresno, Modesto and Stockton than by all the lobbyists and union officials in Sacramento.

It is, as I said, a beautiful idea.

A clean slate. A system of government designed by ordinary citizens, not the political in-crowd. A beautiful idea, indeed...

Muslim Extremists Routed by ... Other Muslims!

This is one of the most hopeful developments I've seen in a long time. Similar things are happening in Pakistan, as well. From the Daily Mail:

The Muslim community turned on extremists in their midst yesterday, telling them they were 'sick and tired' of their behaviour.

The angry confrontation came in Luton, where anti-Islamist protesters brandished England flags last Sunday, before clashing with police.

The latest violence erupted as arguments raged between fellow Muslims shortly after Friday morning prayers in the Bury Park area of the town. Passing traffic ground to a halt as the large group of moderates confronted about a dozen extremists.

As the radical Muslims began to set up their stall, they were surrounded by a crowd shouting 'we don't want you here' and 'move on, move on'.

Angry words were exchanged and scuffles broke out between members of both groups, with the extremists shouting 'Shame on you' and 'Get back to your synagogue'.

The moderates chanted 'Out, Out, Out', and after an uneasy stand-off, police officers were able to persuade the extremist group to leave the area.

More like this, please...

Willow Fire Cause...

You may remember the 60+ acre Willow Fire of May 23 (my post here). Well, a report came out today on the cause of the fire. I've read several news stories about this report (including the UT story here), and they're all a bit ambiguous. About the only thing they seem to be clear on is that the fire was started while a group of U.S. Department of Justice (Bureau of Prisons) employees were firing on the target range.

Hmmm... One wonders what they're firing out there – RPGs?

World Health and Wealth...

Absolutely fascinating...

Quote of the Day...

There is a growing tendency to think of man as a rational thinking being, which is absurd. There is simply no evidence of any intelligence on the earth.

Marvin the Martian
(h/t Little Green Footballs)

Remember...

Remember...

... We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate…we cannot consecrate…we cannot hallow…this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced...

Abraham Lincoln, from the Gettysburg Address...

Remember...

From Cox and Forkum.

14%

Of the prisoners that have already been released from Guantanamo Bay, that's the percentage that are known to have returned to terrorism:

The U.S. has revealed, via a leaked report, that 14 percent of the 534 terrorism suspects released from Guantanamo have returned to terrorist activities. This was not a big surprise, except for the extent of the recidivism.

Comforting, isn't it? Fourteen percent of 534 is 75 – that's at least 75 committed terrorists back on the streets. I wonder who they're eager to exact some revenge from?

It's one of the many challenges posed by the war on terror. Instead of fighting a nation (or an alliance of nations), we're fighting an amorphous group that doesn't wear a uniform. The usual rules for dealing with prisoners of war don't really work – there's no country to repatriate these men to (and many of them have no country that will accept them), and no good way to tell when the war is over. It's repugnant to our sense of fair play just to imprison them indefinitely, yet releasing them is unacceptably risky. Those prisoners that have been released are those thought to be the least dangerous – making the release of any more even less conceivable.

Many Congressmen (even many Democrats) think it ill-advised to remand these men to the U.S. prisons and court system. Why? For this very simple reason: the U.S. courts will not allow indefinite incarceration without charges and conviction. If the prosecutors cannot bring a case, then the courts will order these men released – not because the judges are evil, but because the laws they are sworn to uphold require them to.

So what can be done, if repatriation, release, and transfer to U.S. courts are not acceptable? I've only heard two other courses of action put forth: (1) indefinite incarceration outside the jurisdiction of U.S. courts (such as Guantanano Bay), or (2) summary execution. I'm a proponent of (1). There are many proponents of (2), though none to my knowledge in national political office.

Obama had a bad problem until his recent very clever maneuver. During his campaign, he repeatedly promised to close Guantanamo Bay and end indefinite detainment. Now that he's in office, that's something he clearly cannot afford to do, politically. But he also can't be seen to be reneging on his campaign promise. So what does he do? He arranges for the Democratic leadership in Congress to stonewall his request for money to shut down Guantanamo. This is win-win for the Democrats – for the Democratic Congressmen would definitely have problems with their electorate should they vote to bring the detainees back to the U.S., and now Obama gets to stand up and proclaim his desire to shut down Guantanamo Bay while regretting that he can't get his request approved by a Congress controlled by his own party.

Slick, that Barack fellow...

North Korea's at it Again...

North Korea has exploded a second nuclear warhead, this time much larger than the previous one (and roughly equivalent to Trinity, the first test done by the U.S. in World War II). This test simply reconfirms (for the umpteenth time) the intransigence of the North Korean regime and the utter futility of the past decade's worth of negotiations, deals, and other elements of diplomacy. From the Wall Street Journal's article:

President Barack Obama, in a statement, called the action a "matter of grave concern to all nations" and said North Korea was undermining stability in northeast Asia. "It will not find international acceptance unless it abandons its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery," he said.

The United Nations Security Council scheduled an emergency meeting on Monday afternoon New York time to discuss the North's actions.

But it's unclear whether the U.S. and others will be able to muster a response strong enough to move Pyongyang from its stated goal of becoming recognized as a nuclear-weapons state.

Surely I'm not the only one to whom these diplomatic maneuvers seem like some kind of a comedy routine. At the very least, I'm certain the North Korean regime shares my view – they've been spectacularly successful at manipulating the world's diplomats and the U.N., reaping all sorts of goodies for themselves along the way. They must be rolling in the aisles in Pyongyang, clutching their bellies in pain from their howls of laughter at the unbelievably stupid democratic nations of the world.

Somehow I don't think Obama's statement has them even slightly worried, much less considering adjusting their strategic course:

North Korea's nuclear ballistic missile programs pose a great threat to the peace and security of the world and I strongly condemn their reckless action. North Korea's actions endanger the people of Northeast Asia, they are a blatant violation of international law, and they contradict North Korea's own prior commitments.

Now, the United States and the international community must take action in response. The record is clear: North Korea has previously committed to abandoning its nuclear program. Instead of following through on that commitment it has chosen to ignore that commitment. These actions have also flown in the face of United Nations resolutions. As a result North Korea is not only deepening its own isolation, it's also inviting stronger international pressure -- that's evident overnight, as Russia and China, as well a our traditional allies of South Korea and Japan, have all come to the same conclusion: North Korea will not find security and respect through threats and illegal weapons.

We will work with our friends and our allies to stand up to this behavior and we will redouble our efforts toward a more robust international nonproliferation regime that all countries have responsibilities to meet.
In this effort the United States will never waiver from our determination to protect our people and the peace and security of the world.

Not exactly shiver-inducing rhetoric, that.

I'd suggest something slightly more direct, such as:

Either you shut down your nuclear weapons facilities and open them for international verification inspections, or we will start bombing what little viable infrastructure you have. Our bombing objective will be to cause as much pain to the ruling regime as possible. Oh, and that smoking crater where your television studios used to be? That was just to demonstrate our capability.

I can dream, can't I?

They Don't Even Seem to Notice...

Many times when I'm reading recent climatology research, I'll run across a statement that immediately strikes me as contraindicating anthropomorphic (i.e., human-caused) global warming – but somehow the climatologists just ignore it. In an article I read this morning, it happened again:

For example, during the 'Holocene thermal maximum,' the warmest period of the past 10,000 years, the Arctic average temperature was two to three degrees warmer than it is today, while the global average was only a degree or so warmer.

"But based on lake sediments from Baffin Island, our data show that this area of the Arctic experienced temperatures five degrees warmer than today," said Briner.

Let's see now. One thing they neglect to mention above is that the Holocene maximum was a 4,000 year long period, starting 9,000 years ago. So what they're saying is that for almost half of the past 10,000 years, the Arctic temperatures were about 5°C (9°F) warmer than they are today. I don't think those higher temperatures back then were caused by SUVs and private jets!

There's a consistent pattern amongst these research reports that just doesn't add up:

1. Climatologists doing actual research (as opposed to bulding computer models) consistently find historical data indicating that (a) the Earth's climate has broad long-term natural swings, not caused by human activity, (b) the Earth's climate has smaller short-term swings that correlate well with the sun spot count, and (c) patterns of climate change that don't jibe with the patterns found in the models.
2. Climatologists “back-testing” computer climate models consistently find that the models don't match reality. In back-testing, the researchers take data from some past period (say, 2,000 years ago), feed it into the model, and check to see if the model successfully predicts what happened afterward. If the model did succeed in such predictions, you'd have some reason to believe that by feeding in today's data you could predict what will happen down the road. It's the gold standard used for testing all models that have the ambition to predict the future. Nobody has built a climate model yet that survives back-testing.
3. Climatologists building computer climate models consistently throw out (or arbitrarily “adjust”) data that doesn't produce the results they believe are correct. The two glaring examples I know of are (a) tossing out satellite based atmospheric temperature measurements, and (b) adjusting historical temperature records before feeding them into their models.
   

How on earth can these scientists make statements like the one I highlighted above, and yet go on propounding the notion of impending climate doom caused by anthropomorphic global warming?

I just don't get it...

Remember...

Psalm 2008-2012

Forwarded by reader Simi L.:

PSALM 2008-2012: FIRST BOOK OF DEMOCRAT

Obama is my shepard,
I shall not want.
He leadeth me beside still factories.
He restoreth my faith in the Republican Party.
He guideth me in the path of unemployment.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the bread line,
I shall not go hungry.
Obama has anointed my income with taxes.
My expenses runneth over my income,
Surely, poverty and hard living will follow me all the days of my life.
The Democrats and I will live forever
in a rented home.
But I am glad I am an American,
I am glad that I am free.
But I wish that I was a dog,
and Obama was a tree.

Remember...

Remember, today, those men and women who have given their lives that we might be free. Sullivan Ballou, killed in the first Battle of Bull Run (in the U.S. Civil War), was one of them...

The Goode Family...

I might have to watch this show!

The Prandtl-Glauert Effect...

I'm sure most of you have seen this photo, or ones like it, showing a cone-shaped cloud of condensation around an aircraft. Some people I've met are skeptical that these photos are real; they suspect photoshopping.

They are most definitely real – they're caused by a well-understood mechanism: the Prandtl-Glauert Effect (sometimes called the Prandtl-Glauert Singularity). I'm lucky enough to have seen this a few times myself, a few times at air shows, and a couple of times while in the U.S. Navy watching exercises involving fighters.

There's a very detailed (but no heavy math) explanation here, and a Wikipedia page here.

But the real reason for this post is to point you to a web site that's chock full of beautiful photos of the Prandtl-Glauert Effect – the best collection I've found...

Al Qaeda Kidnaps Obama's Teleprompter!

In this morning's news:

In an audacious raid Friday, al-Qaeda terrorists managed to slip past White House security and seize President Obama's teleprompter. Their demands were released in a grainy video, which apparently showed the president's teleprompter, bound and blindfolded but unharmed, while heavily armed masked men stood behind it, quoting from the Qur'an. The content of their demands is not being released.

President Obama, visibly shaken, attempted to address the White House press corps on his own. "Words, uh, um, I, uh, heh-heh, well..."

"We need a verb!" shouted David Gregory of MSNBC.

(read the whole thing)

An enjoyable bit of satire, that; courtesy of the folks at The People's Cube. At least, it was until I realized that I wasn't sure it was satire until I remembered what web site it was on...

Willow Fire...

There were an amazing number of news stories yesterday on the small (60 acres) and never very threatening Willow Fire. Even the Associated Press and Fox News picked up the story! I guess it must have been a slow news day.

In the end, there were two minor injuries and no structures damaged or lost. Roughly 60 acres were burned. The news reports are a bit sketchy on concrete information, but based on those reports and a few educated guesses, here's a rough map of the burned area.

Hope Sabers and Obi-Bam...

Mark Steyn at his best (and that's pretty darned good!). Here's just one of many demonstrations of his wit, as he talks about an ad he spotted in a Vermont newspaper, for job openings with a stimulus-funded community organizing group:

Of the eight new positions advertised, the first is:

"ARRA Projects Coordinator."

Gotcha. So the first new job created by the stimulus is a job "coordinating" other programs funded by the stimulus. What's next?

"Grantwriter."

That's how they spell it. Like in "Star Wars" – Luke Grantwriter waving his hope saber as instructed by his mentor Obi-Bam Baracki ("May the Funds be with you!"). The Grantwriter will be responsible for writing grant applications "to augment ARRA funds." So the second new job created by stimulus funding funds someone to petition for additional funding for projects funded by the stimulus.

Deprogramming a Liberal...

Very interesting article at American Thinker, by “Robin of Berkeley”, about the transition of a self-described “rabid liberal” into a conservative. It reminds me of Neo-Neocon's series of articles on changing, but much more condensed. Here's a taste, but do go read the whole thing:

As I educated myself, I started thinking and rethinking. I'd wake up in the middle of the night with the sudden realization that deeply held beliefs made no sense. Take the anti war stance of the left. Noble and sanctimonious and all that. But how easy it is to sit back and preach peace when you have an army defending you; to rail against the U.S. when you are protected by free speech laws; to demonize Israel, when you've never lived through the murderous pogroms of Tsarist Russia or the Holocaust. How hypocritical to lambast Big Business while you are making money from their stocks in your mutual fund portfolio (that is, until Obama took over). And how ludicrous to admire Chavez, Castro and all things socialist, when the closest experience you've had to standing on a bread line is queuing up for goat cheese/arugula pizza at Whole Foods.

And this love affair with Radical Islam -- what's up with that? I had previously thought of Islam as a quaint, folksy religion. But when I started actually reading about it, especially Dr. Phyllis Chesler's illuminating books and web site, I realized extremist Muslims were advocating some seriously scary stuff, like destroying Israel and the West. I had been oblivious of the horrendous treatment of women: the honor killings, beheadings, genital mutilation. It now seemed like the height of naivety, if not masochism, to embrace with open arms people who want to kill you. While as a liberal I was socialized to believe everyone was good, all cultures were the same, and We Are The World, We Are The Children, I began to understand that evil exists. The emergence of evil always offers warnings signs, and we ignore them at our peril.

Hopefully we'll see more of this as the liberals start seeing the effects of the Obamanations being foisted upon us all. That's my idea of hope and change!

Quote of the Day...

By John Pitney (a political scientist at Claremont McKenna college):

Arnold's governorship was supposed to be an action movie. Now it's a disaster movie.

Truth.

An Adult Speaks...

From a speech Dick Cheney delivered last night to the American Enterprise Institute:

Another term out there that slipped into the discussion is the notion that American interrogation practices were a "recruitment tool" for the enemy. On this theory, by the tough questioning of killers, we have supposedly fallen short of our own values. This recruitment-tool theory has become something of a mantra lately, including from the President himself. And after a familiar fashion, it excuses the violent and blames America for the evil that others do. It's another version of that same old refrain from the Left, "We brought it on ourselves."

It is much closer to the truth that terrorists hate this country precisely because of the values we profess and seek to live by, not by some alleged failure to do so. Nor are terrorists or those who see them as victims exactly the best judges of America's moral standards, one way or the other.

Critics of our policies are given to lecturing on the theme of being consistent with American values. But no moral value held dear by the American people obliges public servants ever to sacrifice innocent lives to spare a captured terrorist from unpleasant things. And when an entire population is targeted by a terror network, nothing is more consistent with American values than to stop them.

As a practical matter, too, terrorists may lack much, but they have never lacked for grievances against the United States. Our belief in freedom of speech and religion … our belief in equal rights for women … our support for Israel … our cultural and political influence in the world - these are the true sources of resentment, all mixed in with the lies and conspiracy theories of the radical clerics. These recruitment tools were in vigorous use throughout the 1990s, and they were sufficient to motivate the 19 recruits who boarded those planes on September 11th, 2001.

The United States of America was a good country before 9/11, just as we are today. List all the things that make us a force for good in the world - for liberty, for human rights, for the rational, peaceful resolution of differences - and what you end up with is a list of the reasons why the terrorists hate America. If fine speech-making, appeals to reason, or pleas for compassion had the power to move them, the terrorists would long ago have abandoned the field. And when they see the American government caught up in arguments about interrogations, or whether foreign terrorists have constitutional rights, they don't stand back in awe of our legal system and wonder whether they had misjudged us all along. Instead the terrorists see just what they were hoping for - our unity gone, our resolve shaken, our leaders distracted. In short, they see weakness and opportunity.

There is more content in this single speech than I've heard in all the fine public words Obama has emitted since taking office. Do read the whole thing – the man is a terrific antidote for the Obama blues...

Obama Man Can...

Just Sayin'...

Some ponders:

Only in America do drugstores make the sick walk all the way to the back of the store to get their prescriptions while healthy people can buy cigarettes at the front.

Only in America do people order double cheeseburgers, large fries, and a diet coke.

Only in America do banks leave both doors open and then chain t he pens to the counters.

Only in America do we leave cars worth thousands of dollars in the driveway and put our useless junk in the garage.

Only in America do we buy hot dogs in packag es of ten and buns in packages of eight.

Only in America do they have drive-up ATM machines with Braille lettering.

Why does the sun lighten our hair, but darken our skin?

Why can't women put on mascara with their mouth closed?

Why don't you ever see the headline 'Psychic Wins Lottery'?

Why is 'abbreviated' such a long word?

Why is it that doctors call what they do 'practice'?

Why is lemon juice made with artificial flavor, and dishwashing liquid made with real lemons?

Why is the man who invests all your money called a broker?

Why is the time of day with the slowest traffic called rush hour?

Why isn't there mouse-flavored cat food?

Why didn't Noah swat those two mosquitoes?

Why do they sterilize the needle for lethal injections?

You know that indestructible black box that is used on airplanes? Why don't they make the whole plane out of that stuff?!

Why don't sheep shrink when it rains?

Why are they called apartments when they are all stuck together?

If con is the opposite of pro, is Congress the opposite of progress?

If flying is so safe, why do they call the airport the terminal?

The Voters Speak...

...but I sure wish they'd send a coherent message!

A few years ago, California's governor Arnold Schwarzenegger asked the voters to approve a series of propositions that would slash the state's expenditures, mainly by reducing services provided by the state. That series of propositions lost at the ballot box. So Arnie said, very publicly, “The voters have spoken!” – and went on a spending binge that made the recalled Gray Davis look like a miser.

Yesterday, Schwarzenegger asked the voters to approve a series of propositions that would raise the money to pay for this spending binge. These propositions lost by a wide margin (the one winning proposition in the table at right would limit lawmaker's salaries if they couldn't pass a budget).

Now don't get me wrong – I'm absolutely delighted that these propositions went down in flames, and I'm hoping (seriously!) that it leads to a bankruptcy in California. I think that's likely the only path that will lead to some badly needed replacements in the team of loonies up in Sacremento.

But think about the message that “we, the people” have just sent Sacremento. We've said “give us all those expensive benefits and programs”, but “we don't want to pay for them”. Rather a juvenile pair of messages, wouldn't you say?

Which is why I sometimes despair about the long term viability of democracy. Armed anarchy sometimes seems like an attractive alternative...

Jamul Culture...

Both the title and the photo are from Steve K., a fellow Jamulian and reader. He, I, and about a bazillion other Jamulians have been getting a kick for the past few days from this sign. It's along route 94 (map), just north of Jamul.

Extra Senses...

Here's an idea that I've never heard before: use modern technology to give humans more senses. For example, how would you like to be able to simply feel which way was north?

For six weird weeks in the fall of 2004, Udo Wächter had an unerring sense of direction. Every morning after he got out of the shower, Wächter, a sysadmin at the University of Osnabrück in Germany, put on a wide beige belt lined with 13 vibrating pads — the same weight-and-gear modules that make a cell phone judder. On the outside of the belt were a power supply and a sensor that detected Earth's magnetic field. Whichever buzzer was pointing north would go off. Constantly.

"It was slightly strange at first," Wächter says, "though on the bike, it was great." He started to become more aware of the peregrinations he had to make while trying to reach a destination. "I finally understood just how much roads actually wind," he says. He learned to deal with the stares he got in the library, his belt humming like a distant chain saw. Deep into the experiment, Wächter says, "I suddenly realized that my perception had shifted. I had some kind of internal map of the city in my head. I could always find my way home. Eventually, I felt I couldn't get lost, even in a completely new place."

The effects of the "feelSpace belt" — as its inventor, Osnabrück cognitive scientist Peter König, dubbed the device — became even more profound over time. König says while he wore it he was "intuitively aware of the direction of my home or my office. I'd be waiting in line in the cafeteria and spontaneously think: I live over there." On a visit to Hamburg, about 100 miles away, he noticed that he was conscious of the direction of his hometown. Wächter felt the vibration in his dreams, moving around his waist, just like when he was awake.

I suspect I'd really enjoy that belt...

Read the whole article, it's all very interesting...

Race and the One-Armed Handler...

Debbie is just starting to get back into her agility dog training. Here are a few clips of her working with Race, our border collie puppy...

Hummingbirds!

On the feeders in our front yard:



We're currently using “hummer juice” at the rate of three to four quarts a day. Soon it will be time to make 5 gallon batches!

Hint: if you've got a high-speed Internet connection, try hitting the “HQ” button (lower right on the player above, but only after you've started playing the video) to get the high quality version of the video...