First it was kids, now it's animals!

First it was kids, now it's animals!  Philosophers, that is.  Via my mom, who says she couldn't pick a favorite.  Click on any of them to embiggen them all...

Euonymus oxyphyllus...

Euonymus oxyphyllus, aka Korean spindle tree.  Your morning gorgeous, courtesy of BPOD.

This will definitely get your heart started!

This will definitely get your heart started!  The Boogie-Woogie Twins...

Stress reliever...

Stress reliever...  Via reader Jim M., who swears this works great:

In case you are having a rough day, here's a stress management technique recommended in all the latest psychological journals. The funny thing is that it really does work and will make you smile.

1. Picture yourself lying on your belly on a warm rock that hangs out over a crystal clear stream.

2. Picture yourself with both your hands dangling in the cool running water.

3. Birds are sweetly singing in the cool mountain air.

4. No one knows your secret place.

5. You are in total seclusion from that hectic place called the world.

6. The soothing sound of a gentle waterfall fills the air with a cascade of serenity.

7. The water is so clear that you can make out the face of the Congressman you are holding underwater.

See it worked. You're smiling. You feel better already.

Jim's right – this works wonderfully!

Something new in storage...

Something new in storage: Seagate's Kinetic Open Storage.

Key/value pairs on a disk whose interface is TCP/IP on Ethernet, with a supporting protocol.  Real “storage in a cloud”, not a disk array and file system wrapped with a cloud interface. 

This smells revolutionary to me.

Seagate appears to be making the entire stack open, in the hope of creating a ubiquitous standard, much like TCP/IP is today.  If they pull that off, this will be revolutionary.

I want to buy one.  Right now.  

Kids say the darndest things...

Kids say the darndest things...  This Reddit thread is full of interesting things that kids said.  Most of them also have lots of comments.  It all makes for fascinating reading.  Here's one thing, just to whet your appetite:

I was on a train with mum when I was maybe 4 or 5. I was facing the direction we were coming from and she was opposite me. Then I said 'It's like I'm looking into the past, and you're looking into the future."

Most transparent administration ever?

Most transparent administration ever?  What a crock!

These people have no shame at all.  None.

Sean Hannity is someone I frequently disagree with, but I think his response to the administration's action was admirable...

The kids finally noticed...

The kids finally noticed ... that the actions of The One's administration are going to royally screw them, and they're starting to fight back.

Good luck with that.  Seriously.

I've done a lot of debugging...

I've done a lot of debugging – but it never involved a device whose failure would create an explosion with a three mile radius of total destruction.  Yikes!

Your morning Beethoven...

Your morning Beethoven...

There are moments...

There are moments ... when I think the human race might be worth fighting to keep.

But they don't come often enough...

Over 8 months...

Over 8 months...  That's how long the average unemployed person has been out of work.  Previous post-1950 recessions were far less severe by this measure.

The longer someone has been out of work, the more severe the financial impact on them and their families.  Prior to my retirement, if I had ever been out of work for that long I'd have had to make some extremely difficult choices – such as whether to keep my house, or keep my retirement savings.  For the many two-income families these days, having one spouse unemployed for that long means a big reduction in income, but perhaps less than ruinous.  For single-income families (like ours), it would be worse...

Yup, that's about right...

Yup, that's about right.  Via my mom:

A Harley Biker is riding by the zoo in Washington, DC when he sees a little girl leaning into the lion's cage. Suddenly, the lion grabs her by the collar of her jacket and tries to pull her inside to slaughter her, under the eyes of her screaming parents.

The biker jumps off his Harley, runs to the cage and hits the lion square on the nose with a powerful punch.

Whimpering from the pain the lion jumps back letting go of the girl, and the biker brings her to her terrified parents, who thank him endlessly. A reporter has watched the whole event.

The reporter addressing the Harley rider says, 'Sir, this was the most gallant and brave thing I've seen a man do in my whole life.'

The Harley rider replies, 'Why, it was nothing, really, the lion was behind bars. I just saw this little kid in danger and acted as I felt right.'

The reporter says, 'Well, I'll make sure this won't go unnoticed. I'm a journalist, you know, and tomorrow's paper will have this story on the front page... So, what do you do for a living and what political affiliation do you have?'

The biker replies, 'I'm a U.S. Marine and a Republican.'

The journalist leaves.

The following morning the biker buys the paper to see if it indeed brings news of his actions, and reads, on the front page:

U.S. MARINE ASSAULTS AFRICAN IMMIGRANT AND STEALS HIS LUNCH

And THAT pretty much sums up the media's approach to the news these days, especially if you are a Conservative Republican.

This makes me want to cry...

This makes me want to cry...  You really need to watch the whole thing.  Then think about the state of education in this country...

A disaster on so many levels...

A disaster on so many levels...  James Taranto has renamed ObamaCare: it's now “Vaporcare”.  As Mr. Taranto puts it:

...ObamaCare isn't just a technical failure. And it isn't just an economically unsustainable scheme. Now it's a rhetorical disaster too. Even by the standards of Obama speeches it was terrible. It was so bad, it was the ObamaCare website of political oratory.

Read the whole thing...

Raise the minimum wage...

Raise the minimum wage, reduce the number of jobs.  CoyoteBlog has an easy-to-understand description of why this is so...

Just 35 diskettes!

Just 35 diskettes!  Though the box says 48 disks, so I'm not sure what's up with that.  But – a full 16 colors, too!  And it even works with your mouse!  It sounds like the installation is about as easy as it gets:

Just fire up MS-DOS, enter ‘A:\>dir *.exe’ into the command line, and then follow the instructions to install the Obamacare batch files—it should only take four or five hours at the most. You can press F1 for help if you run into any problems. And be sure your monitor’s screen resolution is at 320 x 200 or it might not display properly.

President Obama promises a 6 CD-ROM version by 2016, too.

With this kind of cutting-edge technology, how could an aging geek like me not love it?

Via friend and reader Simon M...

Pie Jesu...

Pie Jesu - Fauré's famous aria from the Requiem in D minor.  This is a beautiful performance of it, but what makes it especially notable is that the three guys singing the parts first met just a few days before this performance.  They got connected on the Internet, through one of the many web services springing up to connect musical performers around the world.

Via my lovely bride...

NGC 6357...

NGC 6357...  From APOD, of course.  Glorious full resolution photo here.

Hear, hear!

Hear, hear!  Brit Hume on what the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party is trying to accomplish.  Well said, and briefly too.

I'm skeptical that the Tea Party wing will ever be able to subsume the rest of the Republicans, though I'd certainly love to be proven wrong on that.  The last time an independent third party ever emerged was before the Civil War, over 150 years ago, when anti-slavery forced formed the Republican Party.  Those folks wouldn't recognize their creation today.  For a new third Tea Party to emerge, there would have to be similar passion and widespread support for the kind of liberty and small government the Tea Party stands for.  Could that passion be the equal of anti-slavery passion?  Certainly not today, and certainly not with the low information electorate we have...

From the Department of Doublespeak...

From the Department of Doublespeak...  Sylvia Burwell is the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and an Obama administration and White House insider.  Here's she's being interviewed (by Al Hunt, a liberal) and is asked what you would think would be an easy question, with a yes-or-no answer.  Hunt asks twice, but never actually gets an answer.

Burwell's response is exactly the kind of content-free political response that makes me distrust every one of these toadies.  Listen carefully to what she says (and doesn't say), then consider what that tells you about whether she's part of a government of, by, and for the people...

4.6033388489...

4.6033388489.  That's the answer to this puzzle, involving monsters, perfectly circular lakes, and rowboats.  Oh, and just a little calculus.  Nick Berry from Data Genetics does his usual nice job...

Scary story...

Scary story.  Identity thieves purchased consumer information from Experian.  Yikes!

Creative advertising...

Creative advertising.  Lots more on this web site.  Some of these are really, really clever...

This smacks of desperation...

This smacks of desperation...  Obama announces a “tech surge” to fix the broken ObamaCare web sites.  That's not what you do to fix a few little “glitches”.  That might be what you do if your technical team is telling you that the web site is badly broken and it's going to take months and months to fix it.  An ignorant and desperate manager, in that situation, might convince himself that the answer is to throw as many smart people as he can.

Large systems that were poorly designed generally cannot be fixed in a big hurry.  Patching symptoms, while a common response, isn't likely to actually fix the problems.  Careful study by experts who are thoroughly immersed in the details of the technology are what it's going to take – and that's not what a new team of “experts” will bring to the party.  At least not quickly, which is the stated goal...

I suspect it will be many months before those web sites are functioning well.  Maybe more – if they're as poorly designed as some suspect, the shortest path to a functioning system may well be to start over...

Fly over Mars...

Fly over Mars...  The short video at right was made from stereographs taken from Martian orbit.  Some snippets are in natural (or near-natural) color; others are in false colors highlighting mineral types, etc.  You'll definitely want to zoom this one to full screen.  Awesome!

Libtards, by Dixon Diaz...

Libtards, by Dixon Diaz.  I've just been introduced to this by my lovely bride.  Here's the motto, from his Facebook page:

We expose and mock the hypocrisy of the Left with op-ed pieces, cartoons and memes. 

What more could I possibly ask?  Here's a sample:

The American Medical Association (AMA) weighs in on ObamaCare...

The American Medical Association (AMA) weighs in on ObamaCare.  Via my mom:

The American Medical Association has weighed in on Obama's new health care package. The Allergists were in favor of scratching it, but the Dermatologists advised not to make any rash moves. The Gastroenterologists had sort of a gut feeling about it, but the Neurologists thought the Administration had a lot of nerve. Meanwhile, Obstetricians felt certain everyone was laboring under a misconception, while the Ophthalmologists considered the idea shortsighted.

Pathologists yelled, "Over my dead body!" while the Pediatricians said, "Oh, grow up!" The Psychiatrists thought the whole idea was madness, while the Radiologists could see right through it. Surgeons decided to wash their hands of the whole thing and the Internists claimed it would indeed be a bitter pill to swallow.

The Plastic Surgeons opined that this proposal would "put a whole new face on the matter". The Podiatrists thought it was a step forward, but the Urologists were pissed off at the whole idea. Anesthesiologists thought the whole idea was a gas, and those lofty Cardiologists didn't have the heart to say no.

In the end, the Proctologists won out, leaving the entire decision up to the assholes in Washington.

I don't know...it looks to me much more like the psychologists have it right...

Another way to pick our pockets.

Another way to pick our pockets.  This time, proposed by the IMF...

Jahar is doing fine.

Jahar is doing fine.  We had a bit of a scare yesterday afternoon, when he managed somehow to pull out 3 or 4 cm (an inch and a half or so) of his suture.  The incision looked fine, but all that suture hanging out didn't.  We ran him down to the animal ER in Kearney Mesa, where we discovered that he hadn't actually pulled any suture out – he had just managed to unravel the loose end.  The vet there tucked it all back in and we brought him back home.


He doesn't much like the “cone of shame” – none of the animals do when they have to wear it.  Without it, though, he'd be worrying away at the incision, and there's no way we could stop him.  He's managed to get it off twice, so we have to keep a close eye on him to make sure it's still on.  Last night Debbie slept down on the floor to keep an eye on him.  She dozed off for a few minutes, and when she woke the little so-and-so had pulled it off!

Here's our souvenir from the surgery – about 20 cm of narrow ribbon.  We have lots of ribbon around the house, but it's all put away now.  We have no idea why on this day (as opposed to the past two and a half years) Jahar decided to eat this particular ribbon.  We've had cats in the house for over 30 years, and had never had anything like this happen before.  There may have been something about this particular ribbon (maybe an odor in the coloring?) that attracted him, or maybe it was just plain chance.  I don't think there's any way we're going to figure that out...

Update: there's something weird going on with the two photos on this post, and I haven't figured out what it is.  They both show up briefly when I reload the page (in any browser), but disappear a few seconds after the page is completely loaded...

Jahar is back home...

Jahar is back home.  He's got a huge incision in his tummy, about 6 or 7 inches long.  It's sprayed with metallic silver as an antibiotic, sort of matches his silver fur.  We have to keep him quiet for two weeks – no running, playing, or jumping allowed.  With just a couple hours experience, we can see this is going to be quite difficult – he wants out of the crate we have him in, in the worst way.

The surgeon bagged up the ribbon he removed, as a sort of souvenir for us.  That's one kind of souvenir I could do just fine without!

Teaching kids how to think.

Teaching kids how to think.  The Economist reviewed a new book: “The Smartest Kids in the World: and How They Got That Way”.  There's lots of interesting stuff in the review, and I've purchased the book.  The review discusses one part of the book, where three American students who are attending foreign schools react to what they find in those schools:

Their wide-eyed observations make for compelling reading. In each country, the Americans are startled by how hard their new peers work and how seriously they take their studies. Maths classes tend to be more sophisticated, with lessons that show the often fascinating ways that geometry, trigonometry and calculus work together in the real world. Students forego calculators, having learned how to manipulate numbers in their heads. Classrooms tend to be understated, free of the high-tech gadgetry of their schools back home. And teachers in every subject exhibit the authority of professionals held in high regard.

This jibes with my own observations of students in (especially) Estonia, but also other Eastern European countries.  They're far more serious about education than the U.S. is.

The author (Amanda Ripley) makes the case for the difference being that the foreign schools teach kids how to think critically, how to apply knowledge (see the video at the link).  I believe that's part of the reason for the success of these schools, but only part of it: those schools also do a much better job of equipping average students with the intellectual tools needed by engineers and scientists.  That is most especially true for mathematics...

The process of science isn't perfect.

The process of science isn't perfect.  To anyone not blinded by their faith in science, that's no surprise.  What might be a bit of a surprise, though, is that the “self-correcting” claims of science are likely a bit overblown.  “Trouble at the lab”, an article in The Economist, does a nice job of explaining the most common kinds of problems.  Some of the areas it explores are precisely those that concern me about the current state of climate science.  This quote jumped out at me:

There is no cost to getting things wrong.  The cost is not getting them published.

That's from psychologist Brian Nosek, who's worried about the number of errors in published psychological studies – but he could just as well be talking about climatology...

Jahar: repaired, out of surgery, and doing fine!

Jahar: repaired, out of surgery, and doing fine!  Dr. Jackson called us with the good news a couple hours ago.  He had to make just two half-inch incisions in the little guy's small intestines, and that was enough to get the ribbon out safely.  He's all closed back up and doing fine in recovery.  There's a good chance, Dr. Jackson tells us, that we'll be able to bring him home tomorrow morning.

Now if we could just figure out a way to keep him from eating anything else like that!

Younger folks might not remember this...

Younger folks might not remember this, but...you used to be able to drive right up to the rim of Grand Canyon in your own car.  Ah, those were the days...

Lamiaceae origanum 'Nymphenburg'...

Lamiaceae origanum 'Nymphenburg', a kind of oregano.  For the nature-challenged: that's the flower, not the butterfly.  Via Botany Photo of the Day...

Jahar: plicated small intestines...

Jahar: plicated small intestines, caused by ingesting a piece of ribbon.  That's not him at right, but rather a photo I found searching on the web.  “Plicated” is from the Latin “to fold”, which you can see is exactly what the small intestines do as they scrunch up around the foreign body.  In the veterinary world, they call this a “linear foreign body”, and it's a common problem with pets.  The veterinary surgeon explained to us that the plication is what happens when friction keeps the foreign body from moving through the bowels, but the intestines keep trying to move it.

Untreated, this is likely fatal – the intestines will eventually be cut through by the foreign body.  Fortunately the treatment is a fairly routine surgery, though it sounds complicated to me.  Basically the surgeon makes several small cuts through the wall of the small intestines, cuts the foreign body (a ribbon, in Jahar's case) into pieces, then extracts them through the same cuts.  Then cuts are sutured, the cat put back together (some combination of staples, sutures, and glue), and then a few days for recovery.  The biggest risk is for infection, caused by the bacteria in any liquid from the bowels that “leaks”, especially if a suture should fail.

Jahar's scheduled for surgery in a few hours, and by early this evening we should know how he did.  The surgeon is Dr. Jackson, at VCA in Kearney Mesa.  These are the same folks who so successfully treated Halala for cancer; we know them, like them, and trust them.  Jahar's in good hands.  Now we just wait...

Puppies!

Puppies!

It should have been called “BidenCare”!

It should have been called “BidenCare”!  The Powerline folks did it again.  Make sure you full-screen it so you can read the subtitles...

Ah, the English and the French...

Ah, the English and the French...  Via reader Simi L.:

True story reported by an English guy who was stopped and asked to give a breathalyzer test...

The English guy lives near Le Bugue in the Dordogne and at the time he was stopped he was as pissed as a fart (in American English, that means “drunk as hell”).

The gendarme signals to him to wind down the window then asks him if he has been drinking, and with slurring speech the English guy replies; “Yes, this morning I was at my (hic) daughter's wedding, and as I don't like church much I went to the cafe opposite and had several beers.  Then during the wedding banquet I seem to remember downing three great bottles of wine (hic) a corbieres, a Minervois and (hic) a Faugeres.  Then to finish off during the celebrations and (hic) during the evening, me and my mate downed two bottles of Johnny Walker's black label.”

Getting impatient the gendarme warns him: “Do you understand I'm a policeman and have stopped you for an alcohol test?”

The Englishman with a grin on his face replies:  “Do you understand that I'm English, like my car, and that my wife is sitting in the other seat, at the steering wheel?”

Saturn from above...

Saturn from above...  In this gorgeous composite of 12 smaller Cassini photos, by Gordan Ugurkovic.  You can download a 4000 x 3200 resolution version, and there are many more of his Cassini photos here...

Megan needs Prozac...

Megan McArdle needs Prozac.  Me, too, after reading her post.  We're out of tricks, out of money, out of time.

The drums of doom beat ever closer...

The ascent of Marxism...

The ascent of Marxism...  Sarah Hoyt in a fascinating post: The Fifty Shades of Marx.  Here's one example, about the concept of “value”.  Marx said that the value of any thing is determined by how much labor was put into it.  That's an idea most progressives would find true, or at least attractive.  The economists notion of value is much different: a thing is worth exactly what someone is willing to pay for it.  Someone who believes the former would govern or judge differently than someone who believes the latter.

Now multiply that by 50 or so “big” Marxist ideas, and you get (wait for it!) modern America.

Ugh.

Kludgeocracy?

Kludgeocracy?  Interesting quote by Steve Teles, in National Affairs.  Here he's writing about the tendency of our Congress to produce incredibly complex legislation:

Every veto point functions more like a toll booth, with the toll-taker able to extract a price in exchange for his willingness to allow legislation to keep moving.

This also jumped out at me:

The easiest way to satisfy both halves of the American political mind is to create programs that hide the hand of government, whether it is through tax preferences, regulation, or litigation, rather than operating through the more transparent means of direct taxing and spending.

The article is full of interesting observations and insights – go read the whole thing...

A week's groceries...

A week's groceries – what they look like in a bunch of different countries.  The Ecuadoran family at right is one example (they sure eat a lot of bananas!).  Some of those piles of groceries look much tastier than others, but they're all interesting. 

Via friend, former colleague, reader, and Idaho mogul-of-everything Doug S. – who we'll be getting together with in November, when work forces him to hold his nose and visit Southern California once again...

Cats and dogs...

Cats and dogs ... and dog beds.  Via my lovely bride...

That about sums it up...

That about sums it up...  Via Peter Robinson, writing on Ricochet, this passage from F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Beautiful and the Damned:

He tried to imagine himself in Congress rooting around in the litter of that incredible pigsty with the narrow and porcine brows he saw pictured sometimes in the rotogravure sections of the Sunday newspapers, those glorified proletarians babbling blandly to the nation the ideas of high school seniors! Little men with copy-book ambitions who by mediocrity had thought to emerge from mediocrity into the lusterless and unromantic heaven of a government by the people -- and the best, the dozen shrewd men at the top, egotistic and cynical, were content to lead this choir of white ties and wire collar-buttons in a discordant and amazing hymn, compounded of a vague confusion between wealth as a reward of virtue and wealth as a proof of vice, and continued cheers for God, the Constitution, and the Rocky Mountains!

How are you feeling about Congress?  Did the shenanigans of the past couple of weeks make you glow with pride?

I thought not.

I didn't know “California” was a verb!

I didn't know “California” was a verb!  Though we did notice, years ago, that in Idaho folks would talk about the “Californication” of certain areas.  Anyway, it looks like the election for governor of Virginia is getting a little more interesting...

ObamaCare: an insult to glitches...

ObamaCare: an insult to glitches...  From this morning's Wall Street Journal, an article with this lede:

The White House set low expectations for the Affordable Care Act's October 1 debut, so anything remotely competent should have seemed like a success. But three weeks on, the catastrophe that is Healthcare.gov and the 36 insurance exchanges run by the federal government is an insult to the "glitches" President Obama said were inevitable.

I keep reading stories about the remarkably low enrollment rates on ObamaCare sites.   Delaware has just one person who made it through.  Several states have none at all.  The best results are just a few thousand people for an entire state.  These are utterly pathetic results for such a major effort, and far, far worse than many commercial insurance sites routinely achieve.

Maybe the damned thing will just implode on its own.  That seems more likely than the political process making a dent in it...

Puns in business names...

Puns in business names – with the photos to prove it.  Guaranteed groans...

Light blogging alert...

Light blogging alert...  I'm feeling a bit out of it this morning, after being up very late last night and getting just a few hours sleep.  What kept us up was a “cat emergency” – Jahar, our Savannah cat, ate a piece of ribbon.  We only know this because he vomited up a short piece of it.  We had no idea how much he had (or had not) eaten, and we knew that long, stringy things can be very dangerous when they get into the intestines, so...off we went, down to the emergency vet in La Mesa.

Bottom line: so far as we can tell, he's fine.  But the poor guy (who is terribly stressed by any kind of travel) went through hell last night, and we spent 5 hours waiting for the diagnostics and consultations to get done.  X-rays and an ultrasound exam found nothing to worry about – but then, it's just lucky when they do.  It's still entirely possible he has an undetected length of ribbon in him, so we have to watch closely for a few days to make sure his digestive tract is all working correctly.  Jahar is isolated in our bedroom so we track everything going in and coming out...

The perfect woman...

The perfect woman... Via reader Jim M., who swears this is a true story:

A man was dining alone in a fancy restaurant and there was a gorgeous redhead sitting at the next table. He had been checking her out since he sat down, but lacked the nerve to talk with her. Suddenly she sneezed, and her glass eye came flying out of its socket towards the man. He reflexively reached out, grabbed it out of the air, and handed it back.

'Oh my, I am so sorry,' the woman said, as she popped her eye back in place. 'Let me buy your dinner to make it up to you.'

They enjoyed a wonderful dinner together, and afterwards they went to the theater followed by drinks... They talked, they laughed, she shared her deepest dreams and he shared his. She listened to him with interest. After paying for everything, she asked him if he would like to come to her place for a nightcap and stay for breakfast. They had a wonderful, wonderful time..'

The next morning, she cooked a gourmet meal with all the trimmings. The guy was amazed. Everything had been so incredible! 'You know,' he said, 'you are the perfect woman. Are you this nice to every guy you meet?'

'No,' she replied, 'You just happened to catch my eye...'

Amazing ocean landscapes...

Amazing ocean landscapes...  The one at right is from Norway; many more on this site.  I'd love to visit Norway someday...

Coronal heating mystery solved?

Coronal heating mystery solved?  I've been reading for years about this science mystery – temperatures in the corona (the plasma around the sun) are over a million degrees, and nobody knew where the energy came from to heat it.  Now there's an explanation, involving the sun's polar magnetic fields...

This is classic science at work: hypotheses confirmed or disproved by actual observations.  Unlike, for instance, what passes for “climate science” (largely funded by we, the taxpayers, of course).  In that field the norm has deteriorated to cherry-picking (mostly old) observations, adjusting them in arbitrary and capricious ways, then plugging them into models that spin cotton-candy fantasies seemingly designed to attract more grant money.  These two kinds of science are not the same thing at all...

Goats on cliffs...

Goats on cliffs...  What is it with goats and cliffs, anyway?  Goats seem to have a strange attraction for places that threaten to kill them.  This web site has lots of photos...

Uh oh...

Uh oh...  It's been a while since I last posted a snapshot of the Google Unemployment Index.  The past couple of weeks have seen a spike up, just when (in previous years) we normally see a spike down, mainly because of seasonal hiring.  Similarly, the first of each year we normally see a spike up because of the seasonal workers being out of a job.

What does this mean?  I don't know.  But it's hard to read it as good news...

The One is great at math!

The One is great at math!

He divides the country,
He subtracts jobs,
He adds debt,
He multiplies misery.

The man's a regular four-function calculator!

Via my lovely bride...

Scottie pinwheel...

Scottie pinwheel...  Puppies are involved.  Blow it up to full screen!

Via my lovely bride...

It's embarrassing!

It's embarrassing!  The Washington Redskins have been embroiled in a controversy over their name.  They have resolved the controversy by dropping “Washington” from their name. 

Via my lovely bride...

Dying wish...

Dying wish...

Washington , D.C. an old priest lay dying in the hospital. For years he had faithfully served the people of the nation's capital and was well known among the elected officials. He motioned for his nurse to come near.

"Yes, Father?" asked the nurse.

"I would really like to see Obama and Senator Reid before I die," whispered the priest.

"I'll see what I can do, Father," replied the nurse.

The nurse sent the request, and waited for a response.

Soon the word arrived; President Obama and Harry Reid would be delighted to visit the priest.

As they went to the hospital, Obama commented to Reid, "I don't know why the old priest wants to see us, but it will certainly help our images." Reid agreed that it was a good thing.

When they arrived at the priest's room, the priest took Obama's hand in his right hand and Reid's hand in his left hand. There was silence and a look of serenity on the old priest's face.

Finally, Obama spoke. "Father, of all the people you could have chosen, why did you choose us to be with you as you near the end?"

The old priest slowly replied, "I have always tried to pattern my life after our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."

"Amen", said Obama. "Amen", said Reid.

The old priest continued, "Jesus died between two lying thieves; I would like to do the same."

Tribute to a fallen farmer...

Tribute to a fallen farmer...  Kyle Hendrix, a farmer in Monticello, Illinois, recently died of cancer.  He was just 31 years old, and left behind his wife, two young kids, and a community of farmers who loved him.  Those farmers set up a roadside tribute to Kyle, and photographer Matt Rubel captured some beautiful images of it.  Via friend, former colleague, and Idaho mogul-of-everything Doug S...

“Senate Leaders in Striking Distance of a Deal”

“Senate Leaders in Striking Distance of a Deal”  Now there's a scary headline!  Translation: soon we'll know exactly how they're going to screw us this time...

Worser and worser...

Worser and worser...  Megan McArdle is learning more about the ObamaCare implementation, and she's not liking what she's seeing (below are some cherry-picked pieces of her much longer, much more detailed post):

...
This is stunning. It’s far worse than I imagined, and I am pretty cynical.
...
Federal contracting codes, so far as I am aware, do not emit intoxicating gases that might have caused senior HHS officials to decide that it was a good idea to take on the role of lead contractor -- a decision equivalent to someone who has never even hung a picture deciding that they should become their own general contractor and build a house. Nor can those rules explain their lunatic response when they were told that the system was not working -- “failure was not an option."...
Nor can you really blame the Republicans -- an argument that makes sense only if you don’t examine it very closely. It starts by assuming (but never stating) that the administration passed a law that didn't work as written, and then posits a civic duty for the opposition not to oppose laws that they oppose, but instead to help the majority party turn an unworkable law into something more to said party’s liking. This is absurd. Moreover, it’s not even a very good explanation for most of these problems. Maybe CMS turned lead contractor because they couldn’t get more funds to hire private help, but lack of funds does not explain why HHS took so long to write regulations and specifications, keeping insurers at loose ends until as late as this summer, and preventing their biggest contractor from writing code until spring. It does not explain why officials decided to launch a system that was so badly behind schedule, or to keep insisting, against all evidence, that it wasn’t broken. What explains this long train of poor decision-making is some combination of bureaucratic inertia, a desire to hide what they were doing from voters who might not like it and a terrifying insouciance about how easy it might be to build a system of this size and complexity.
...
But given that they didn’t even announce that they were taking the system down for more fixes this weekend, I’m also guessing that it’s pretty bad. Bad enough that it’s time to start talking about a drop-dead date: At what point do we admit that the system just isn’t working well enough, roll it back and delay the whole thing for a year?

Yes, I know what I’m suggesting is a major, horrible task. And I’m aware that since I opposed the law in the first place, people will take my suggestion with a huge grain of salt. Fair enough, but hear me out.

If the exchanges don’t get fixed soon, they could destroy Obamacare -- and possibly, the rest of the private insurance market.
...

Megan McArdle is noteworthy for her calm and sober analysis.  If she's this riled up, it must really look bad to her.

Go read the whole thing...

Urban legends...

Urban legends.  That's what ObamaCare enrollees have become.  We hear about them, but nobody has actually seen one.  Reason has a post on the phenomenon, including the short at right...

Sure looks like fun!

Sure looks like fun!  Does anybody know where this is???

Reduce your income...

Reduce your income.  If you want to lower the impact of the new, higher ObamaCare health insurance premiums, that's the advice from SFGate, a publication of the San Francisco Chronicle.  It's all summed up with this:

You can also consider reducing your 2014 income by working just a bit less.

Say what?

It's all because of some poor law-crafting in the hastily cobbled-together ObamaCare law.  It includes some “cliffs” in the subsidy formulas that cause sudden changes in the amount of a subsidy when your income changes by as little as $1.  That's right – making $1 more can cost you thousands of dollars in subsidies.  So:

People whose 2014 income will be a little too high to get subsidized health insurance from Covered California next year should start thinking now about ways to lower it to increase their odds of getting the valuable tax subsidy.

So now our government is providing incentives to work less.  Lovely.

This is how a welfare state looks.  People pour their creativity into finding ways to game the system, instead of inventing the next iPhone.

Doom.  I feel the doom...

“Mr. President, tear down this wall!”

“Mr. President, tear down this wall!”  I never would have imagined that Reagan's trenchant sentence could be reused.  Well played, sir!

John Hinderaker, at PowerLine, has much more...

Dance of the atoms...

Dance of the atoms – in the world's thinnest sheet of glass, imaged by an electron microscope as it's being bent.  Awesome!

“Never mind.”

“Never mind.”  Scott Adams' all-time favorite Dilbert:

Interview and his top ten list...

Mars, with some changes...

Mars, with some changes.  This photo was taken yesterday by the Curiosity rover, then corrected to make colors appear as they would if the scene were on Earth.  Generally that means it's more blue and less red than it actually would appear to us, were we standing on Mars – but it's more comparable to similar scenes on Earth.  That scene looks like any number of desert places I've visited, and I've never left Earth...

Mosaiculture...

Mosaiculture:

“A refined horticultural art that involves creating and mounting living artworks made primarily from plants with colorful foliage (generally annuals, and occasionally perennials).”  

Despite growing up with and around horticulturists and botanists, I'd never heard of mosaiculture before my mom sent this link along.  Beautiful stuff there, and even more at this search result...

Flying pig moment!

Flying pig moment!  Spotted in an article I read this morning in the dead fish wrapper known as the New York Times:

The research comes with caveats. It is based on climate models, huge computer programs that attempt to reproduce the physics of the climate system and forecast the future response to greenhouse gases. Though they are the best tools available, these models contain acknowledged problems, and no one is sure how accurate they will prove to be at peering many decades ahead.

Too bad they aren't so honest in all their warmist propaganda climate change reporting...

Veterans: 1, President StompyFoot: 0.

Veterans: 1, President StompyFoot: 0.  They're not going to take it any more!  Veterans today stormed and took several memorials in Washington D.C.  The best coverage I've seen is at Legal Insurrection.

Frost flowers...

Frost flowers.  These are new to me – “flowers” made of ice extruded from long-stemmed plants or pieces of wood.  They mostly form in the fall, when there are wet plants and freezing temperatures.  Here's a Wikipedia article on them, and several collections of photos and information, here, here, and here.

The Hindenburg...

The Hindenburg, including lots of photos I've never seen before, like the lounge at right...

Juggling, of a different kind...

Juggling, of a different kind...

More warmist hyperbole? Maybe not...

More warmist hyperbole?  Maybe not...  Last night I read an article about possible short-term global warming mitigation strategies ($?) in the latest Science News.  These strategies are all things other than reducing carbon dioxide.  One statement in the article caught my eye as seeming unlikely:

Cleaning up methane, black carbon and other short-lived warmers requires no new technology and would improve air quality, an added benefit that could save millions of lives annually while boosting agricultural productivity.

Millions of lives annually?  Really?  Does air pollution kill that many people?  I was skeptical.

But in some quick searching around on the Intertubes, I found a lot of support for this assertion.  The estimates vary (see here, here, and here), but they're all in the millions of people annually.

So not hyperbole, it appears.  And that's more than enough reason to support the air pollution cleanup, without even considering the global warming mitigation aspect.

The worst air pollution I've personally experienced was in Mexico City – and I'm perfectly willing to believe that soup causes many premature deaths each year.  From what I'm reading, there are several cities in China that are substantially worse.  I would think those places would be trying to solve the problem already...

It's the Monster Mash!

It's the Monster Mash!  Your Sunday morning palate cleanser.  Puppies are involved...

Jamul Casino, one step closer...

Jamul Casino, one step closer.  Governor Moonbeam's office has now certified that the Jamul Indian Tribe has met the requirements of the Tribal-State Gaming Compact.  This is one more step along the road to the casino's approval.  Full story here (from East County Magazine, which has been doing a bang-up job on the casino story), the certifying letter here, and the Jamulians Against the Casino (JAC) marked-up letter here...

These casinos sometimes seem like an unstoppable force, and the reason is obvious: they feed a steady stream of campaign contributions to our elected officials.  Only when a significant (to the elected officials) number of voters objects, or there is a legal victory, can opponents prevail.  So far, the Jamul Indians have failed in every attempt they've made – the only such example of Indian tribe failure that I'm aware of.  Yet they keep trying, over and over again – I suspect because they know the odds are with them...

Finally!

Finally!  Rockets like I thought they would be like, when I was a kid back in the '50s and '60s.  You'll want full screen on this one.  From SpaceX:

On Monday, October 7th, Grasshopper completed its highest leap to date, rising to 744m altitude. The view above is taken from a single camera hexacopter, getting closer to the stage than in any previous flight.

Grasshopper is a 10-story Vertical Takeoff Vertical Landing (VTVL) vehicle designed to test the technologies needed to return a rocket back to Earth intact. While most rockets are designed to burn up on atmosphere reentry, SpaceX rockets are being designed not only to withstand reentry, but also to return to the launch pad for a vertical landing. The Grasshopper VTVL vehicle represents a critical step towards this goal.

Grasshopper consists of a Falcon 9 rocket first stage tank, Merlin 1D engine, four steel and aluminum landing legs with hydraulic dampers, and a steel support structure.

Note: you can see on the video that they capture this shot with a remote-controlled hexacopter.  I bet SpaceX is a fun place to work!

Land of the Free?

Land of the Free?  The inimitable Mark Steyn has a new piece posted at NRO that concludes:

I wonder what those Japanese and Australian tourists prevented from photographing bison or admiring a geyser make of U.S. claims to be “the land of the free.” When a government shutdown falls in the forest, Americans should listen very carefully. The government is telling you something profound and important about how it understands the power relationship between them and you.

The National Park Service should be out of the business of urban landmarks, and the vast majority of our “national” parks should be returned to the states. After the usurpation of the people’s sovereignty this month, the next president might usefully propose a new Charter of the Forest.

I've been thinking about Nineteen Eighty-Four a lot, recently...

Blithering idiots, busily blithering...

Blithering idiots, busily blithering...  So a week or so ago, I read the story about the U.S. returning the ancient rhyton (at right) to Iran's cultural heritage chief – who was delighted to receive it.  The general wisdom was that the gesture portended some sort of “thaw” in U.S. – Iranian relations. That's all of a piece with The One's uninformed and arrogant foreign policy, and I didn't think about it any further.

Until this morning, that is, when I read that the rhyton was a fake, and not even an ancient fake – it's probably less than 20 years old.  Furthermore, the U.S. government knew it was a fake – they seized it originally because it was a fake.

I can only think of two possibilities here:

1.  Incompetence on a gigantic scale, perpetrated by blithering progressive idiots.

2.  Diabolical cleverness, delivering a head fake to tweak the Persian noses.

Given The One's propensity to appoint blithering idiots, one of those seems much more likely than the other...

ObamaCare has raped her future...

ObamaCare has raped her future.  So says Ashley Dionne:

My name is Ashley Dionne and I’m a 26-year-old recent graduate from Michigan.

The phony Obamacare signup poster boy made me want to send a message about how Obamacare is really affecting people.

I graduated from The University of Michigan in 2009. In my state, this used to mean something, but even with a bachelor’s I was told I was too educated and wouldn’t stay. I watched as kids with GEDs and high school diploma’s took the low-paying jobs for which I applied.

I went back to school and got a second degree and finally found work at a gym. I work nights and only get 32 hours a week for eight dollars an hour. I’m unable to find a second job at this time.

I have asthma, ulcers, and mild cerebral palsy. Obamacare takes my monthly rate from $75 a month for full coverage on my “Young Adult Plan,” to $319 a month. After $6,000 in deductibles, of course.

Liberals claimed this law would help the poor. I am the poor, the working poor, and I can’t afford to support myself, let alone older generations and people not willing to work at all.

This law has raped my future.

It will keep me and kids my age from having a future at all.

This is the real face of Obamacare and it isn’t pretty.

The comments are interesting, too...

Opt out of Google Shared Endorsements...

Opt out of Google Shared Endorsements.  Google is about to share product endorsements you may have made in advertising.  This may include your photo.  If you don't like this idea, just go to this link, scroll down to the bottom, remove the check mark from the box, and click “Save”.  Done.

This has been a public service announcement.

California leads the way...

California leads the way – in confusing legislative decisions.  On the one hand, Governor Moonbeam vetoed a ban on certain types of rifles, making him look like a friend – albeit a very unlikely friend – to gun rights advocates.  On the other hand, he signed AB 711, which bans lead ammunition for hunting.  The California hunting community views this as effectively a ban on hunting, as there is no non-lead ammunition available for hunting.

Rigatoni con la Pajata...

Rigatoni con la Pajata...  I like to eat, and I've often said I've never met a cuisine that I didn't like.  That may have changed this morning, as I read this story about Neanderthals – and others – eating chyme.  I'd never even heard of chyme before!  Or Rigatoni con la Pajata.  Warning: you can't unread this...

California leads the way...

California leads the way – in environmentalist wacko twisted pretzel legislation and litigation.  Also in the use of lard as a fuel. 

Read this: your temperature will rise, your eyes will burn, your head will explode, and you'll start looking for real estate in another place.  Any other place...

Dead parrots...

Dead parrots.  Chris Muir at Day-by-Day is on my wavelength...

Mysterious gravitational anomaly...

Mysterious gravitational anomaly.  Sometimes, but not always, when satellites pass close by the Earth their speed changes by an unexpected amount – as if the mass of the earth was variable on very short time scales.  Scientists are stumped.

Say, I wonder if they've tried to correlate these anomalies with when Congress is in session?  Maybe having that many empty skulls in one place distorts the Earth's gravitational field.  It certainly distorts my equanimity!

Anarchists in Jamul!

Anarchists in Jamul!  Reader and fellow Jamulian Celeste S. made my morning with an email this morning:

I got a kick out of your post showing people actually inside the national parks and monuments in D.C., while they are supposed to be closed due to the government shutdown. No need to look that far for defiant citizens. We are alive and well right here in Jamul.

About five years ago, my children and I would take bike rides in the open space south of the highway at Rancho Jamul drive. It was really cool to be following my kids on my bike, watching them ride through fields of wild flowers in the spring and alternatively getting their backs covered in mud during the winter. We saw deer, a golden eagle, ducks, coyote and a bunch of other neat stuff. As a homeschooling family, we would bring our backpacks with us, bike to a pond out there which had a rowboat on it and do our reading or another subject while floating. We did all of this with the greatest respect for the area, as we realized how amazing this opportunity was. Then Fish and Game purchased the area. All was okay for about a year, then the signs went up. No trespassing. We still rode in the area, keeping on the trails. Then one day while there, I heard it - the sound of shackles, or a Gator motor - same thing, approaching. The F& G man told us we can't be there, didn't we see the signs? We had to get permission. So we tried to do this by email which ended with them just not responding anymore.

So, boy was I glad when this shutdown happened! Monday morning I told the kids,"Get dressed, we're going for a ride!" And ride we did. It is still unbelievably beautiful, quiet and soul filling. And hey, no one bothered us:)

I'll send you a picture of our dog, Hansi, in the area, as he was always a part of our rides and we took him this time too.

Defiance, even in the absence of red cones.  I have the best readers!

Hansi, King of the Rock!

Hansi, chilling with the goldfish...

How best to secede from a state...

How best to secede from a state.  I've been amused by, but have mostly ignored, the various votes of different places to secede from the state they're in.  For instance, several counties in California and Colorado have voted to secede and form a new state, free of the raging progressive politics their citizens dislike.  I know that it is incredibly unlikely that they could ever succeed in their secession, not least because they have to have the approval of both the state they're leaving and the U.S. Congress.

But Eugene Kontorovich, writing at the Volokh Conspiracy, points out that there is another way: secede and join another, already existing state.  While there is clear governing law for forming a new state, things aren't nearly as clear-cut for a transfer of land from one state to another.  The state being joined need not even be adjacent to the new piece (look at Michigan!).

Maybe Jamul could secede and join, say, South Dakota?

60% of Americans say “Throw the bums out!” about Congress...

60% of Americans say “Throw the bums out!” about Congress.  Only 60%???