What Would You Do?

Me?  I'm pretty sure you couldn't depend on my normally friendly manner.  In fact, I think I'd be thinking quite intensely about my shotgun and how it could best be employed to set this situation right...

Obama Announces Reactor Financing...

Obama is now supporting power generation by nuclear power plants.  Not said in this article (though it's certainly implied by the jobs timetable): whether he's also going to direct his Department of Energy to fast-track the plant's licensing.  This is quite a turnaround in Obama's green positioning, and it's sure to piss off some of this greenie friends...

Hot Tamales! Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar is in the Hoosegow!

Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar captured by a joint U.S.-Pakistani operation.  Oh, more of this, please!

Synthetic Holograms...

Software computes the exposure patterns to create completely synthetic holograms from nothing more than a computer model and a piece of film.  Awesome!

Homemade CPUs...

Here's a nice post (with photos) of some made-from-scratch CPUs (including one made entirely from relays!).  I've often thought of doing something like this myself, just for fun.  I can add one to the list: back in the mid '70s, I worked with Don Tarbell, one of the microcomputer pioneers.  He's most well-known for the Tarbell cassette interface and the Tarbell floppy controller.  I wrote a Basic interpreter for him, which he distributed with the floppy controller and as a standalone product.  Don had an all-TTL homebrew CPU in his offices, something he built in the early '70s just for fun.  At the time, I couldn't imagine anything more intriguing than a project like that...I spent hours with him just poring over the details.  He greatly enjoyed having an interested person to talk about it with...

ClimateGate: Mainstream at Last...

There's a nice piece in the WSJ today.  The lead:

It has been a bad—make that dreadful—few weeks for what used to be called the "settled science" of global warming, and especially for the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that is supposed to be its gold standard.

First it turns out that the Himalayan glaciers are not going to melt anytime soon, notwithstanding dire U.N. predictions. Next came news that an IPCC claim that global warming could destroy 40% of the Amazon was based on a report by an environmental pressure group. Other IPCC sources of scholarly note have included a mountaineering magazine and a student paper.

Since the climategate email story broke in November, the standard defense is that while the scandal may have revealed some all-too-human behavior by a handful of leading climatologists, it made no difference to the underlying science. We think the science is still disputable. But there's no doubt that climategate has spurred at least some reporters to scrutinize the IPCC's headline-grabbing claims in a way they had rarely done previously.

It sure is nice to see this sort of thing in the American press.  It would be even nicer to see more of it...

Bye, Bye, Missile...

The Air Force's Airborn Laser Testbed (ALT) took out a missile in a successful test.  Think about how much technology has changed warfare between Vietnam and Afghanistan – then try to imagine what things like energy weapons, unmanned aircraft, and pervasive networking are going to do in the next few decades...

Potential Lighting Revolution...

The efficiency of CFL with the light quality of incandescant.  Sounds great!

Estonia (and the Other Baltics) Do It Right...

Little Estonia, which I've visited many times, has learned its capitalist lessons better than most.

Better than the clowns in Washington, for sure.  Said clowns should be ashamed of themselves, though I see no evidence of that...

Patterns...

Michael Yon has posted another in his series of outstanding on-the-front-lines reports on the war on terror.  Today he's in Afghanistan with the troops fighting our largest battle to date in that land...

He's doing this wonderful work self-funded.  Please do as I did, and hit his tip jar – we need more of his fine reporting, and we don't get anything even remotely like it from the lamestream media...

Bayh Retiring...

Democratic Senator Evan Bayh is retiring from the Senate, and there's a very good chance that his seat will be filled by a Republican.  He joins a veritable parade of Democratic incumbents who are retiring from both the House and the Senate.  While some have motives unrelated to politics, certainly many of these retirements are motivated by dim prospects in the upcoming elections.  Bayh, for instance, faced a very tough battle this November against Republican Dan Coats in a Republican-leaning state, in the year of Scott Brown.  It seems doubtful that the Democrats will find a candidate who can successfully oppose the very popular and widely recognized Coats.

Even though I've lived through such things before, I'm still somewhat stunned by the rapid turnaround in the fortunes of the Democrats in general and the Obama administration in particular.  At this point, I'd say Obama is going to be lucky to be perceived as well as Jimmy Carter...

America's Cup: USA Wins!

USA 17 (the beautiful hydroplaning trimaran at right, click to enlarge), sponsored by Oracle, has won the America's cup.  Congratulations to all involved!

America, Please Don't Go Here...

The United Kingdom has become the land of politically correct.  Tragic incidents like this one appear in the news there almost daily.  In this case a little girl trapped underwater in a car is left there for almost two hours, even though potential rescuers were on the scene.  Why?  Because safety regulations forbade anyone other than a specialist rescue team from entering the water.  Nobody on the scene even tried to enter the water. 

They'd all been emasculated by the pervasive political correctness in the U.K. today.

I'd really hate to see America go this route.

Since the story linked above was posted, the little girl has died...

Quote of the Day...

Says Nikki Dowling, who has recently started dating other women:

Hats off to you guys who make picking roses look easy. 

Prior to reading this, it never occurred to me that a woman in a relationship with another woman might experience something closely akin to what a heterosexual man does.  Read it...

Could Israel Attack Iran on Her Own?

Retired Israeli General Dan Halutz has some doubts...

Women Cause Big Government...

Read it and think about it.  Does it match your own experience, no matter how uncomfortable being so politically incorrect makes you feel? 

It matches my experience in the aggregate, for sure.  By that I mean that if you took all the women whose political tendencies I'm aware of, and ranked them on a one-dimensional scale from leftish to rightish, the average would be well to the left of center.  Do that with the men whose political tendencies I'm aware of, and the opposite is true.  I can think of plenty of counter-examples on both sides (Anne Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Sarah Palin; Barney Frank, Harry Reid, Paul Krugman), but still...the overall gender difference is there, and fairly obvious.

So here's the obvious question raised: should repealing women's suffrage be an objective of the libertarian, conservative or tea parties?

Just sayin'...

Tea Party Report...

Glenn Reynolds (aka InstaPundit) has a nice WSJ piece about the tea party convention.  He's a very sober voice in the generally bizarre lamestream media reporting on the event...

ClimateGate: Roundup...

Sheesh, the dam has truly broken.  Investigative journalists all over the world (but lamentably, darned few in the U.S.) are now tearing into the meat of the story revealed by the ClimateGate emails.  Notable recent events:

Steven Goddard uses tectonics (just as I did) to illustrate how scientific consensus has often been wrong.

Dr. Phil Jones, the disgraced scientist and administrator at the center of the ClimateGate emails, has admitted that there has been no detectable global warming in the past 10 years – directly contradicting one of the central assertions of the IPCC report, and of course the heart of preacher Al Gore's fire-and-brimstone claims.

After errors in the IPCC's claims about Himalayan glaciers, African agriculture, Australian and New Zealand's temperature records, and South American rain forest demise, could there be even more that they screwed up?  Yup, and JoNova has the details (in Scandinavia, this time).  Did these clowns get anything right?

The London Times reports on doubts about modern temperature records, focusing on local factor problems such as the urban heat island effect.  Jeez, it's about time!  For several years now, AGW skeptics have been all over this rather obvious foundational problem for the whole AGW theory...

Brian at Six Meat Buffet has a suggestion for the next angle the British press should investigate: just why in the hell the American press has neglected the whole ClimateGate/AGW story...

My Way...

The inimitable Mark Steyn:

I've been saying for months that the difference between America and Europe is that, when the global economy nosedived, everywhere from Iceland to Bulgaria mobs took to the streets and besieged Parliament, demanding to know why government didn't do more for them. This is the only country in the developed world where a mass movement took to the streets to say we can do just fine if you control-freak statists would just stay the hell out of our lives, and our pockets. You can shove your non-stimulating stimulus, your jobless jobs bill, and your multitrillion-dollar porkathons. This isn't karaoke. These guys are singing "I'll do it my way" for real.

Read the whole thing...

President Me!

Excellent:

Landing on a Carrier...

Two part clip from the PBS Carrier series, via my mom:




I watched a good many landings on the USS Enterprise (the “Big E”) when I was in the Navy, deployed off the coast of North Vietnam, in the early '70s.  The technology now is vastly improved, but it's just as difficult and risky now as it was back then...

Cassy vs. Courtney: Cassy Wins in a Knockout!

Cassy Fiano loves a soldier, a Marine who's done two tours in Iraq and is heading to Afghanistan soon.  She's infuriated by Courtney Cook's recent Salon article How to leave a soldier, in which Ms. Cook recommends that other women leave their soldiers while their soldier is on deployment, with a proverbial “Dear John” letter.  Cassy tears Courtney a new one.

I was disgusted by Courtney's piece when I first read it a couple of days ago.  It got me to wondering just how many modern women were so shallow and so selfish that they'd read Courtney's piece with approval – or even take action on it.  Having been deployed myself (though before I was married), it was easy for me to empathize with the soldier on the receiving end of Courtney's cruelty. 

Reading Cassy's piece was a breath of fresh air.  I kept saying things to myself like “Point Cassy!” as I was reading.  At the end I had a smile on my face, for several reasons: Cassy's excellent takedown, the good fortune of Cassy's soldier, and the hope she gave me that the Cassy's in this world outnumber the Courtneys...

We're Watching the Dam Burst...

JoNova has a cool graphic at right, and a nice timeline of the bursting of the AGW dam...

Diary of a Snow Shoveler...

Via my mom, who is buried under the Snovalanche in Virginia:

Diary of a Snow Shoveler

December 8 : 6:00 PM. Finally settled into our new home in Isle La Motte, VT. It started to snow. The first snow of the season and the wife and I took our cocktails and sat for hours by the window watching the huge soft flakes drift down from heaven. It looked like a Grandma Moses Print. So romantic we felt like newlyweds again. I love snow!

December 9 : We woke to a beautiful blanket of crystal white snow covering every inch of the landscape. What a fantastic sight! Can there be a more lovely place in the Whole World? Moving here was the best idea I've ever had. Shoveled for the first time in years, felt like a boy again. I did both our driveway and the sidewalks. This afternoon the snowplow came along and covered up the sidewalks and closed in the driveway, so I got to shovel again. What a perfect life.

December 12 : The sun has melted all our lovely snow. Such a disappointment. My neighbor tells me not to worry, we'll definitely have a white Christmas . No snow on Christmas would be awful! Bob says we'll have so much snow by the end of winter, that I'll never want to see snow again. I don't think that's possible. Bob is such a nice man, I'm glad he's our neighbor.

December 14 : Snow, lovely snow! 8" last night. The temperature dropped to -20. The cold makes everything sparkle so. The wind took my breath away, but I warmed up by shoveling the driveway and sidewalks. This is the life! The snowplow came back this afternoon and buried everything again. I didn't realize I would have to do quite this much shoveling, but I'll certainly get back in shape this way. I wish I wouldn't huff and puff so.

December 15 : 20 inches forecast. Sold my van and bought a 4x4 Blazer.Bought snow tires for the wife's car and two extra shovels. Stocked the freezer. The wife wants a wood stove in case the electricity goes out. I think that's silly. We aren't in Alaska, after all.

December 16 : Ice storm this morning. Fell on my ........ on the ice in the driveway putting down salt. Hurt like ....... The wife laughed for an hour which I think was very cruel.

December 17 : Still way below freezing. Roads are too icy to go anywhere. Electricity was off for five hours. I had to pile the blankets on to stay warm. Nothing to do but stare at the wife and try not to irritate her. Guess I should've bought a wood stove, but won't admit it to her. God I hate it when she's right. I can't believe I'm freezing to death in my own living room.

December 20 : Electricity's back on, but had another 14" of the damn stuff last night. More shoveling. Took all day. The d...... snowplow came by twice. Tried to find a neighbor kid to shovel, but they said they're too busy playing hockey. I think they're lying. Called the only hardware store around to see about buying a snow blower , and they're out. Might have another shipment in March. I think they're lying. Bob says I have to shovel or the city will have it done and bill me. I think he's lying.

December 22 : Bob was right about a white Christmas , because 13 more inches of the white stuff fell today, and it's so cold it probably won't melt 'til August. Took me 45 minutes to get all dressed up to go out to shovel, and then I had to pee. By the time I got undressed, pee and dressed again, I was too tired to shovel! Tried to hire Bob, who has a plow on his truck, for the rest of the winter; but he says he's too busy. I think the he is lying.

December 23 : Only 2" of snow today, and it warmed up to "0". The wife wanted me to decorate the front of the house this morning. What, is she nuts!!! Why didn't she tell me to do that a month ago? She says she did, but I think she's lying.

December 24 : 6". Snow packed so hard by snowplow, I broke the shovel. Thought I was having a heart attack. If I ever catch the son-of-a-gun who drives that snowplow, I'll drag him through the snow and beat him to death with my broken shovel. I know he hides around the corner and waits for me to finish shoveling and then he comes down the street at a100 miles an hour and throws snow all over everywhere I've just been! Tonight the wife wanted me to sing Christmas carols with her and open our presents, but I was too busy watching for the snowplow.

December 25 : Merry Christmas. 20 more inches of the slop tonight. Snowed in. The idea of shoveling makes my blood boil. God, I hate the snow! Then the snowplow driver came by asking for a donation and I hit him over the head with my shovel. The wife says I have a bad attitude. I think she's a fricking idiot. If I have to watch "It's a Wonderful Life" one more time, I'm going to stuff her into the microwave.

December 26 : Still snowed in. Why the hell did I ever move here? It was all HER idea. She's really getting on my nerves.

December 27 : Temperature dropped to -30, and the pipes froze. Plumber came after 14 hours of waiting for him; he only charged me $1,400 to replace all my pipes.

December 28 : Warmed up to above -50. Still snowed in. This is driving me crazy!!!!!

December 29 : 10 more inches. Bob says I have to shovel the roof or it could cave in. That's the silliest thing I ever heard. How dumb does he think I am?

December 30 : Roof caved in. I beat up the snow plow driver. He is now suing me for a million dollars; not for only the beating I gave him, but also for trying to shove the broken snow shovel up his butt. The wife went home to her mother. 9" predicted.

December 31 : I set fire to what's left of the house. No more shoveling. Called Realtor to sell the lot!!

January 8: Feel so good. I just love those little white pills they keep giving me. Why am I tied to the bed?

Makes me glad to be a Californian...

T-Shirt of the Day...

Black Hole...

What would it be like to be in the vicinity of a black hole?

ClimateGate: McIntyre is on the Case...

Steve McIntyre is all over the Michael Mann whitewash inquiry, and Nature magazine's call for a better way...

Calvin & Hobbes in the Snow...

Great collection of Calvin and his snowmen...

Newly-Released Photos of 9/11...

From the N.Y. police department.  They're just as shocking now as they were over eight years ago...

ClimateGate: In the News...

The hits just keep on coming – and now, increasingly, they're being published in the U.S. mainstream media.  In just this past week, I've seen “skeptic-friendly” articles in the New York Times (!), the Los Angeles Times, the San Diego Union-Tribune, the Washington Post, and on all the major news sites (Fox, CNN, MSNBC, etc.)...  

Flying Pig Moment...

Steve Clemons, writing at the (notoriously, fatuously liberal) Puffington Host, said this:

If current trends continue, this once mesmerizing Camelot-ish operation will be be seen in the history books as the presidential administration that -- to distort slightly and inversely paraphrase Churchill -- never have so many talented people managed to achieve so little with so much.

And he's talking about the Obama administration!

Technology History: Toilet Paper...

Did you know that toilet paper was invented in 1857 – and initially was plagued with splinters?  Do you know what people did before 1857?  Read all about it in this very humerous – and informative – post...

John Murtha: Best Obituary...

This exactly expresses my sentiments, but with writing skills I can't match...

Abraham Lincoln Said...

Some quotes from Abraham Lincoln, via my mom.  They've not lost a whit of their truth in 150 years...

You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.

You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.

You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.

You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down.

You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.

You cannot build character and courage by taking away people's initiative and independence.

You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves.

A Climate Skeptic Defends Amateur Science...

Interesting post.  It contains my quote of the day:

Making a distinction between professional and amateur in science is artificial: what matters is the 'what' of science not the 'who'.

Subversive Activities Registration Act...

The state of South Carolina has a new law on the books: the Subversive Activities Registration Act.  Basically it says that if in any way you support the notion of violent overthrow of the government at any level (even dog catcher), you must register with the state.  There's a $5 filing fee.  And the punishment for failure to register is pretty stiff: fines of up to $25,000 and imprisonment for up to 10 years.

I hope – really, I hope – that the South Carolina legislature is not so naive as to believe that such a law will coerce hardened terrorists into registering themselves.  I'm guessing that what they were really after was a “hook” to let them file criminal charges against someone that law enforcement discovered who was engaged in such activities.

But here's the problem: the language in the statute is so vague, so open-ended, that almost anybody could be ensnared by it.  Just think: have you ever jokingly said something like this: that we'd be better off if a moderate sized metorite smashed the Capitol while both houses were in session?  That'd do it – you're a criminal under this statute (unless you had actually registered!), and you might be going to jail. 

This just begs for a Constitutional challenge on first amendment grounds...

Rain...

Yesterday afternoon and (especially) last night, we got a total of just under one inch (23 mm) of rain.  That brings the storm total to 2.32 inches (59 mm).  The forecast for today has a 40% chance of rain through noon (though it doesn't look like it outside), so we might even get a little more.

The total rain for the year right now stands at 8.66 inches (220 mm) – just about at the 100 year average.  And we're not quite done with the rainy season yet!

If You Had the Common Sense God Gave a Billy Goat...

Via my mom:



Awesome!

Most Bizarre Chemical Reaction Evah!

Retro-Geek: Acoustic Coupled Modem...

Demonstrating an early 300-baud acoustic-coupled modem.  When I first started messing around with microcomputers in the mid-1970s, one of my first acquisitions was an acoustic-coupled modem (a much later model than this one).  Their 300-baud speed was considered state-of-the-art, and I remember reading predicitions that the top-end theoretical speed was in the neighborhood of 700 baud (which a later direct-coupled modem from a company called PMMI actually acheived).  Here's the demonstration:

Pancreatic Cancer Linked to Soft Drinks?

One good friend and several of my acquaintances have succumbed to pancreatic cancer.  It's one of the nastiest, least survivable types.  This study hints that the incidence of pancreatic cancer is higher for people who regularly drink even moderate amounts of soda – most likely because of its sugar content. 

Given the huge quantities of soda consumed in this country (and, I presume, worldwide), this is not good news...

Less Can Be More...

Paul Buchheit (GMail creator) on product design and geek reaction to the iPad.  Thought-provoking stuff that resonates with me...

Dazzle Camoflauge...

Nice article and photos of WWI-era “Dazzle” naval camoflauge...

Hazel for President!

...even though she's Canadian.

Cartoon of the Day...

You had me at “carcass.” Har!

There's a Lot of BS Out There, Folks...

And American Express is doing their part to maintain the high levels of bullshit in our environment.  Here's an email from American Express explaining why they only allow letters in their passwords (no numbers, punctuation, or other “special characters”).  It's the purest kind of bullshit: information that is the exact inverse of the truth.

Sheesh, Amex, get your freaking act together!

Use ECC RAM!

My colleagues often make fun of me because I shut down and restart my laptop several times a day.  There are several reasons I do this, but one of them is to avoid accumulated memory (RAM) errors due to cosmic rays.  These errors occur more frequently than most people think if your computer doesn't use error correcting (ECC) RAM (and most laptops do not).  Here's an article that explains why this is true, and also gives specific estimates about the frequency of these errors. 

Bottom line: I'm going continue the behavior that I'm mocked for...

New Record for Clock Accuracy...

This new clock is accurate to within one second in 3.7 billion years, or (equivalently) one nanosecond in 3.7 years.  When I first started working in electronics, we thought a clock that was stable to within one millisecond per day was pretty hot stuff.  This new clock is over a billion times more stable...

Rain...

We got 1.42 inches (36 mm) of rain in the Friday/Saturday storm.  More, please!

Special Delivery...

Michael Yon is back in Afghanistan, and has filed his first report of this trip.  It's all about the Air Force crews who resupply the remote outposts in Afghanistan (of which there are many) – and, typical of Yon's work, it's full of evocative photos and detailed information.  He flew with one resupply mission and documents the whole thing...

ClimateGate: New Developments...

The hits just keep on comin':

Yet another egregious error in the IPCC report.  This time it turns out that their claim of AGW-caused 50% reduction in African agricultural production is not based on science at all.

In a good read, Walter Russell Mead discusses why climate science is in trouble.  And of all places, Canada's uber-liberal Globe and Mail publishes a skeptic-friendly piece by Margaret Wente on the great global warming collapse.

Color Photos from 1909 - 1915...

Fascinating collection of early color photography in Russia, by Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii. Click to enlarge the example at right.

The Benefits of Snowstorms...

From TJIC, too short and too monolithic to excerpt:

Apparently the seat of the national government is snowed in and everone is trapped in their houses.

I predict that with government officials unable to govern and convene press conferences, nationwide the economy will be stable and mass layoffs will be put on hold.

…at least until the plows get out there and let the politicians and bureaucrats back into their offices.

As he would say: Har!

Obama Likes Himself Pretty Well, Doesn't He?

NeoNeocon, who has some knowledge in the field, is quite disturbed by Obama's overt narcissism.  Her last paragraph chills me:

I’m not saying it will come to pass in exactly that way, and that Obama will declare himself to be a deity. In fact, I’ll even go on record as saying he won’t. Nevertheless, something is very wrong with this man, and it is growing stronger every day.

Spending $8.57 to save $1...

Gwynnie at Maggie's Farm does the math on the “Cash for Clunkers” program.  It ain't pretty.

Sarah Palin's Speech...

I watched Sarah Palin's Tea Party Convention keynote this morning on YouTube.  Awesome speech, and chock full of points I agree with.  Some nice comedic moments, too, like her one-liner aimed squarely at Obama: “How's that hopey-changey thing workin' out?”  There was relatively little that I flat out disagreed with, or that grated.  In particular, the overt religious ideology that permeated her book was absent.

The woman can sure give a speech.  I'll take her folksy, common-sense style over Obama's supposed oratory magnificence any day of the week. 

Could I support her in a run for President?  Possibly, though I don't think it's likely.  It's impossible to predict now what's going to happen in 2012, though one scenario being frequently batted around is an Obama vs. Palin matchup.  What would I do then?  Most likely I'd be torn between sitting out the election (for lack of a candidate I believed in) or voting for Palin as a way of saying “No more Obama!”

Watching her give this speech gave me another thought, though: it seems at least possible that Sarah Palin will emerge as the leader (or figurehead) of a political movement whose aggregate capability was attractive to me.  It would be, then, more like a team of people running rather than just Sarah Palin.  If that turned out to be the case, I'd find a vote for Palin much less troubling.

One prediction I think is a safe one: Sarah Palin will somehow be involved in the 2012 presidential race (even if not as a candidate), and her presence will make the race much more interesting – and probably more about the issues that I care about than otherwise...

Immortal Human Cells...

The first line of human cells capable of reproducing ad infinitum (hence the label “immortal”) were derived in 1951 from a tumor on the unfortunate Henrietta Lacks.  Her cells have been used in thousands of medical experiments and tests, and they're still in use to this day.  Here's the fascinating story, which is the subject of a new book by Rebecca Skloot.

Do It Yourself: Physics Experiments

Nice collection of do-it-yourself physics experiments...

The Ross Sisters: Hoy, Hoy!

Solid potato salad.  One hardly knows what to say...

Flying Bridge in the Netherlands...

The unique drawbridge pictured at right (click to enlarge) is on the western edge of Leeuwarden, Netherlands.  The locals call it the “Flying Bridge”.  Here it is on Google Maps.

The Unfortunate Sex Life of the Banana...

Read this and you'll learn something – but probably not what you're thinking...

Weatherman Attacked by Pelican...

And I'm not sure which is funnier – the pelican's attack or the weatherman's reaction.  Pelican and weatherman both survive, though the latter declares himself “permanently scarred”...

How to Fail a Test...

If you don't know the answer to a question on a test, what do you do?  Here's a nice collection of some creative answers to that conundrum (one example at right, click to enlarge)...

Oldest Known Bird Ancestor, Reconstructed (Even Color!)...

Scientists from Yale have reconstructed what Anchiomis huxleyi must have looked like (at right, click to enlarge).  A. huxleyi lived in what is today China some 160 million years ago, and is the oldest known feathered dinosaur (and presumed ancestor of today's birds)...

Free Physics Text...

A free, open source physics text, in eBook form.

Declaration of Independence, Remixed...

Pluto Changes...

The Hubble telescope has captured the most detailed images of Pluto ever taken.  There are plenty of mysteries for the scientists to dig into, and some interesting and heretofore unknwn (apparent) seasonal changes discovered.

This reminds me of an interesting comment I saw in an interview I read the other day.  An unnamed engineer at NASA (one of the “renegades” who's trying to change NASA's course) asserted that for the cost of the manned Hubble repair missions we could have launched 5 more advanced space telescopes.

I have no way to verify that assertion, but it gave me an idea that I'm pretty certain is accurate.  The idea is based on the easily observable fact that most of the cost of a mission like the Hubble telescope is in developement: the design of the instruments and the infrastructure on Earth to support the mission.  Actually constructing and launching the mission isn't free, but it's a much lower cost than the development.

So if we're going to develop the next generation Hubble, why build just one?  Why not build, say, five of the things – and launch them a couple of years apart.  By doing this we'd have a relatively long-lived project, reusing the same development and Earth-bound infrastructure.  The years between launches would provide time to “tweak” the design to handle issues raised by earlier missions.

It strikes me that this is very similar to what the U.S. Navy does with ships and boats.  The first ship or boat of any particular class (such as the Los Angeles class of submarines) is followed by some number of almost-but-not-quite identical sister ships or boats – with the design tweaked to fix issues found in the earlier examples, or to incorporate improved technology.  But basically the design is the same, only the details change.

Why not for our unmanned robot space explorers as well?

Retarded Attorneys?

The U.S. Department of Justice is looking for trial attorneys.  Specifically:

The Civil Rights Division encourages qualified applicants with targeted disabilities to apply. Targeted disabilities are deafness, blindness, missing extremities, partial or complete paralysis, convulsive disorder, mental retardation, mental illness, severe distortion of limbs and/or spine.

Yes, really.  You just can't make this stuff up...

Ramirez Nails It...

$104.3 Million...

For the statue at right (click to enlarge), by Alberto Giacometti.

I'm just astonished when I see something like this.  I feel like I must be missing the genes that provoke the excitement and passion that someone must feel, given their willingness to part with that much money to own this thing.

Me, I'd pay someone to haul that thing away if it should somehow end up in my yard or my home.  I'd be afraid it would scare my dogs...

This About Sums It Up...

Via my lovely wife:

Remember when Ronald Reagan was president, we also had Bob Hope and Johnny Cash still with us...

Now we have Obama … no Hope and no Cash!

AGW: Himalayan Glaciers Blackening...

One of the IPCC report's more dramatic predictions was that anthropogenic global warming (AGW) would cause the Himalayan glaciers to disappear entirely by 2035.  Recently that date was shown to be entirely based on a mis-reported study by a single scientist who disavows that result (so much for the IPCC's peer-reviewed science!).  But the IPCC stands by their assertion that global warming is responsible for the shrinkage of the Himalayan glaciers.

AGW skeptics have long asserted that there were many other possible reasons why the Himalayan glaciers are shrinking.  One of the more commonly cited reasons was particulates in (mostly Indian) air pollution reducing the albedo of the glaciers.  Now along comes a study, reported by Science Daily, says that's exactly the case.

This is interesting for two reasons: the direct findings of the study, but also the fact that it's being reported in the mainstream science press.  I suspect that had this study published even just 3 months ago, Science Daily wouldn't have reported it at all, as it doesn't fit the AGW narrative. 

But these days, it's cool to be an AGW skeptic...

It's the Time of Year We Think of the IRS...

Passed along by reader Simi L.:

At the end of the tax year, the IRS office sent an inspector to audit the books of a local hospital. While the IRS agent was checking the books he turned to the CFO of the hospital and said, "I notice you buy a lot of bandages. What do you do with the end of the roll when there's too little left to be of any use?"

"Good question," noted the CFO. "We save them up and send them back to the bandage company and every now and then they send us a free box of bandages."

"Oh," replied the auditor, somewhat disappointed that his unusual question had a practical answer. But on he went, in his obnoxious way.

"What about all these plaster purchases? What do you do with what's left over after setting a cast on a patient?"

"Ah, yes," replied the CFO, realizing that the inspector was trying to trap him with an unanswerable question. "We save it and send it back to the manufacturer, and every now and then they send us a free package of plaster."

"I see," replied the auditor, thinking hard about how he could fluster the know-it-all CFO. "Well," he went on, "What do you do with all the leftover foreskins from the circumcisions you perform?"

"Here, too, we do not waste," answered the CFO. "What we do is save all the little foreskins and send them to the IRS Office, and about once a year they send us a complete prick."

Autism and Vaccines...

Twelve years ago, the Lancet (a British medical journal) published a study by Dr. Andrew Wakefield that linked autism to measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccines.  This has led to legislation to ban the vaccines, civil suits against the vaccine manufacturers, parents refusing to have their kids vaccinated, and a significant uptick in the incidence of these diseases.

For years now, this research paper has been hammered by other scientists as the purest bunk.  The Lancet initially stood by its decision to publish, but now has formally withdrawn the paper.

In a just world, the damaging lawsuits and legislation would immediately stop.  They won't.  I'll bet some of them will still be in court 10 years from now...

The Tunnel...

Via my mom:

Sitting together on a train was Obama, George Bush Jr., a little old lady, and a young blonde girl with large breasts..

The train goes into a dark tunnel and a few seconds later there is the sound of a loud slap.

When the train emerges from the tunnel, Obama has a bright red hand print on his cheek.

No one speaks.

The old lady thinks:
Obama must have groped the blonde in the dark, and she slapped him.

The blonde girl thinks:
Obama must have tried to grope me in the dark, but missed and fondled the old lady and she slapped him.

Obama thinks:
Bush must have groped the blonde in the dark. She tried to slap him but missed and got me instead.

George Bush thinks:
I can't wait for another tunnel, so I can smack Obama again.

Obscura...

According to this web site, “obscura” are wonders, curiousities, or esoterica (though I couldn't find anyone else defining the word this way).  Whatever the correctness of that definition, the collection certainly is interesting.  The “Take me to a random place” at the top right is quite entertaining...

ClimateGate: Roundup...

Here's what's happened in the past couple of days:

The University of Pennsylvania released their initial report on Michael Mann's behavior in ClimateGate.  Steve McIntyre reacts; as you might have anticipated, he's not impressed.  The probe continues...

Eric Raymond and James Delingpole think the ClimageGate fraudsters need to be named and shamed.  Eric believes it's necessary; James is reveling in vindication.  For the record, I'm with James Delingpole: I'm reveling, too (as if you couldn't tell!)...

Steve McIntyre points out that even a primary schoolboy should be able to get facts right – that is, facts that the IPCC got wrong.

The Real Reason Why the Ten Commandments Can't Be Displayed...

Via my mom:

The real reason that we can't have the Ten Commandments posted in a courthouse or Congress is this – you cannot post 'Thou Shalt Not Steal', 'Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery', and 'Thou Shall Not Lie' in a building full of lawyers, judges and politicians ... 'cause it creates a hostile work environment. 

Har!

Revenge of the Wife...

Via my mom:

A police officer pulls over a speeding car.

The officer says, ' I clocked you at 80 miles per hour, sir.'

The driver says, 'Christ, officer I had it on cruise control at 60, perhaps your radar gun needs calibrating.'

Not looking up from her knitting the wife says: 'Now don't be silly dear, you know that this car doesn't have cruise control.'

As the officer writes out the ticket, the driver looks over at his wife and growls, 'Can't you keep your mouth shut for once?'

The wife smiles demurely and says, ! 'You should be thankful your radar detector went off when it did.'

As the officer makes out the second ticket for the illegal radar detector unit, the man glowers at his wife and says through clenched teeth, '**** it, woman, can't you keep your mouth shut?'

The officer frowns and says, 'And I notice that you're not wearing your seat belt, sir. That's an automatic 75 fine.'

The driver says, 'Yeah, well, you see officer, I had it on, but took it off when you pulled me over so that I could get my license out of my back pocket.'

The wife says, 'Now, dear, you know very well that you didn't have your seat belt on. You never wear your seat belt when you're driving.'

And as the police officer is writing out the third ticket the driver turns to his wife and barks, 'WHY DON'T You shut the **** up??'

The officer looks over at the woman and asks, 'Does your husband always talk to you this way, Ma'am?'

(I love this part....)

'Only when he's drunk.'

ClimateGate: the British Media is on the Case...

The liberal Guardian is all over the CRU's Phil Jones for hiding data not supportive the the AGW hypothesis.  The word is that Phil Jones is toast – his temporary suspension is about to become permanent...

ClimateGate: the Emails Were on a Single Server...

The AGW proponents have been floating the notion that stealing the ClimateGate emails had to be the result of an incredibly sophisticated effort that only a state-sponsored organization could pull off.  In other words, they're saying it had to be spies.  The main reason they say this is because they believe the emails had to have been collected from numerous email servers.

Oops.  The emails were all on one server.  A server that students could easily have hacked into.

Coulda been almost anyone.

Do It Yourself Sous-Vide Cooking...

Sous-vide cooking sure sounds good – hi-tech cooking!  I just might have to try it...

ClimateGate: McIntyre is Amused...

Steve McIntyre is amused because one of the sources for the IPCC's WG2 report was a boot cleaning manual.  Yes, really.

The First Killer Nano-Product?

Liquid glass - put an easy-to-clean, anti-bacterial coating on anything.

A Trillion Dollars...

The Obama administration throws around quantities of trillions of dollars the way LBJ used to do with millions.  But how much money is a trillion dollars?  It's really hard to wrap your brain around it, as a trillion (1,000,000,000,000) is not a number we often run into.

So I came up with a couple of mind exercises to more intuitively understand it.

First, imagine you were going to buy some cars for $25,000 each – enough cars to use the entire trillion dollars.  Further suppose that you bought one car every minute (wow!).  How long would it take for you to spend that trillion dollars?  The answer: just over 76 years.

Ok, that's a lot of money.  But how big a pile would it make?  Suppose you got your trillion dollars in $100 bills - in that case the pile, packed as tightly as you could, would occupy just over 450,000 cubic feet.  That would be a pile 100 feet long on each side, and 45 feet high – the size of a block full of large houses.  The pile would weigh a little over 10,000 tons.

That's a lot of money.

When Obama talks about a budget running a $1.8 trillion dollar deficit, that's the kind of debt he's obligating the American people to pay off...

Dishonest Science...

For years now, the AGW skeptics have cited a glaring omission from the models that the AGW proponents rely on: stratospheric water vapor.  Scientists have long known that water vapor is by far the most effective “greenhouse gas” – its effects dwarf those of carbon dioxide.  The AGW models predict a positive feedback runaway based on carbon dioxide, and completely ignore any feedback effects (positive or negative) from the water vapor.  This seems stupid on the face of it, though you'll never get an AGW proponent to agree with that.

So now comes along a study that supports the AGW skeptics position on stratospheric water vapor – and look how the mainstream science media reports it: as if it was a big surprise.

That's just plain dishonest.

Mandates...

Thomas Sowell has an excellent piece on those pernicious mandates that politicians so love...

NASA's New Direction...

Big caveat here: this is all subject to Congressional approval, which is very far from certain – NASA's political entanglements run very deep.

But having said that, while I'm very happy to see the Moon/Mars programs killed (along with their supporting “big booster” technology), I'm very disappointed to see extended support for the worthless International Space Station (ISS), and no expanded support for the unmanned program.  Basically the manned program's funding is simply moving from Moon/Mars to ISS (a no-op), and from government to private lifters (a good thing)...

AGW: the Chinese are Skeptics...

Al Gore needs to make a few trips over to Beijing – the Chinese appear to need some “reeducation”...

World Wildlife Fund is a Government Organization?

Some interesting points about WWF, whose reports were heavily leaned on by the IPCC.  Hmmm...

Global Warming is Dead?

Walter Russell Mead seems to think so...

Maxine Waters: Blithering Idiot...

It never ceases to amaze me that congresscritters like this can get re-elected, over and over again. It's as though her constituents enjoy being the standing joke, or enjoy smashing their face into a wall.

Another take on it might be as a demonstration of the power of incumbency:

Political Ad...

I don't know whether to cheer this newly released political ad (for coroner of New Orleans), or to smash my face with a hammer...



What do you think?  Is this the greatest political development evah, or should we just give up and nuke the place?

Lech Walesa: The US is Moving Toward Socialism...

Lech Walesa has some chops on this subject:

Rarely Seen Photos of Famous People...

Interesting.

That's Pablo Picasso at right...

NASA's Future...

Interesting article about rebellious NASA engineers and alternative paths forward...

ClimateGate: IPCC's Shame...

The British media is taking the IPCC to task.

Optical Illusions...

Nice collection of good optical illusions.

Salute to the Spirit Rover on Mars...

From XKCD.

Special Forces at Work in Afghanistan...

From StrategyPage.

A BlackHawk extracts some of our Special Forces guys from a peak in Afghanistan. 

Sure am glad we have rough men like that...