Half-Wit...

Via Jim M. (who seems to have a theme going here):

A man owned a small ranch near San Antonio.  The Texas Dept of Labor claimed he was not paying proper wages to his help and sent an agent out to interview him.

"I need a list of your employees and how much you pay them," demanded the agent.

"Well," replied the rancher, "there's my farm hand who's been with me for 3 years.  I pay him $200 a week plus free room and board.  The cook has been here for 8 months, and I pay her $150 per week plus free room and board.  Then there's the half-wit. He works about 18 hours every day and does about 90% of all the work around here.  He makes about $10 per week, pays his own room and board, and I buy him a bottle of bourbon every Saturday night.  He also sleeps with my wife occasionally."

"That's the guy I want to talk to, the half-wit," says the agent.

"That would be me," replied the Rancher.

Southern Wisdom...

Via Jim M.:

Earl and Bubba are quietly sitting in a boat fishing, chewing tobacco and drinking beer when suddenly Bubba says,

"I think I'm gonna divorce my wife - she ain't spoke to me in over 2 months."

Earl spits, sips his beer and says, "Better think it over...women like that are hard to find."

al Qaeda Shows Us Again...

Shows us their true goals, that is: the elimination (by death) of all the “infidels” or their conversion to Islam.  The latest from Bekkay Herrach, a senior al Qaeda leader:

A senior al Qaeda leader has threatened to attack Germany just days before the nation will go to the polls to choose a new Chancellor.

Bekkay Harrach, alias Al Hafidh Abu Talha al Almani, resurfaced Friday in a chilling new video produced by al Qaeda's al Fajr Media Center and distributed across the major jihadi Web forums. Dressed in an ill-fitting black blazer, blue tie, and shoulder-length greased hair - looking more like a teenager dressed for his first job interview - he slammed Germany for its military presence in Afghanistan and warned that if Chancellor Angela Merkel is reelected on Sept. 27, Germany will be directly attacked.

His previous warning to Germany, on Jan. 17, 2009, coincided with a massive car bomb attack on the heavily guarded German embassy in Kabul that was orchestrated by the notorious Haqqani Network. Four Afghan civilians and an American soldier died in the attack.

Read the whole disturbing thing.

“First Light” on Planck...

The Planck microwave observatory satellite has made it's first observations (see image at right, click to enlarge).  The satellite is sitting out at L2, the second Lagrange point in the Sun/Earth gravitational system.

Wouldn't it be fun if we could introduce an ancient astronomer – say Nicolaus Copernicus or Tyco Brahe – to this new kind of telescope and it's results?

Christians and Lions...

Oh, wait – Christian is the lion:




And yes, it's for real.

Scary News of the Day...

The White House will shelve Bush administration plans to build a missile-defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic, a move likely to cheer Moscow and roil the security debate in Europe.
The U.S. will base its decision on a determination that Iran's long-range missile program hasn't progressed as rapidly as previously estimated, reducing the threat to the continental U.S. and major European capitals, according to current and former U.S. officials.

The findings, expected to be completed as early as next week following a 60-day review ordered by President Barack Obama, would be a major reversal from the Bush administration, which pushed aggressively to begin construction of the Eastern European system before leaving office in January.

Not exactly what I wanted to read while drinking my morning tea.

By and large (and to my surprise), the Obama administration's foreign policy has been much like the previous administration's foreign policy – and I've been supportive of it.

This is a major departure.  With this move and other wimpy responses to Iran's belligerance, we've practically been begging them to make aggressive moves in both the Middle East and in Europe.  Once their nuclear capability is verified, I expect Iran to start experimenting with bullying tactics.  There's a long list of potential “first targets”: Turkey, Lebanon, Greece, Cyprus, and of course Israel.

But the really big question is this: how will Israel react to the U.S. visibly morphing into a laughable wimp in Iran's perception?  Will they unilaterally attack Iran?  My bet would be “yes”...

Biotech Violins – Better Than a Stradivarius?

The secret of the sweet sound of a Stradivarius violin is apparently the fungus in the wood:

Violins made by the Italian master Antonio Giacomo Stradivarius are regarded as being of unparalleled quality even today, with enthusiasts being prepared to pay millions for a single example. Stradivarius himself knew nothing of fungi which attack wood, but he received inadvertent help from the “Little Ice Age” which occurred from 1645 to 1715. During this period Central Europe suffered long winters and cool summers which caused trees to grow slowly and uniformly – ideal conditions in fact for producing wood with excellent acoustic qualities.

Horst Heger of the Osnabruck City Conservatory is convinced that the success of the “fungus violin” represents a revolution in the field of classical music. “In the future even talented young musicians will be able to afford a violin with the same tonal quality as an impossibly expensive Stradivarius,” he believes. In his opinion, the most important factor in determining the tone of a violin is the quality of the wood used in its manufacture. This has now been confirmed by the results of the blind test in Osnabruck. The fungal attack changes the cell structure of the wood, reducing its density and simultaneously increasing its homogeneity. “Compared to a conventional instrument, a violin made of wood treated with the fungus has a warmer, more rounded sound,” explains Francis Schwarze.

Remarkable!

No, No, NO – Don't Break the Internet!

The Audacity of Hos...

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The Audacity of Hos
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Healthcare Protests

Hurt myself laughing...

Quote of the Day...

According to Matt Latimer, George W. Bush said this:

If bullshit were currency, Joe Biden would be a billionaire.

Awesome!

Via Powerline...

Sub-Pixel Rendering...

I've run into this a few times before, but this is one of the best examples I've seen.  At left you see two YouTube icons in their natural, tiny state.  If you look closely, you'll see subtle differences between the two – and you'll probably agree that the right-hand version looks better.

At right are the same two icons in a magnified view.  The artist who created the right-hand icon used color to trick our eyes into perceiving crisper letters with better contrast – but without changing the color we perceive.  To the best of my knowledge this process has never been automated (though intuitively it seems like it should be possible); it remains in the realm of art.

To me the process seems almost like magic.  I wouldn't have the faintest idea what colors to try!

Some Healthcare Perspective...

Thomas Sowell has long been one of my favorite conservative commentators.  He happens to be black, and amongst blacks a voice like his is quite unusual.  I just read an excellent piece he did on Obamacare.  A teaser:

There was a time, within living memory, when most Americans did not have health insurance-- and it was not the end of the world, as so many in politics and the media seem to be depicting it today.

As someone who lived through that era, and who spent decades without medical insurance, I find it hard to be panicked and stampeded into bigger and worse problems because some people do not have medical insurance, including many who could afford it if they chose to.

What did we do, back during the years when most Americans had no medical insurance? I did what most people did. I depended on a "single payer"-- myself. When I didn't have the money, I paid off my medical bills in installments.

The birth of my first child was not covered by medical insurance. I paid off the bill, month by month, until the time finally came when I could tell my wife that the baby was now ours, free and clear.

In a country where everything imaginable is bought and paid for on credit, why is it suddenly a national crisis if some people cannot pay cash up front for medical treatment?

Now...go read the whole thing!

Dog Found! Update: Owner Found, Too!

Update:

Pam wrote to tell me that she found the owners of this poor, lost fellow.  Hooray!

Original:

One of our neighbors in Lawson Valley reports that she's found a Great Pyrenees dog that's in desperate need of being reunited with its owners.  Contact her at 619/659-9335 (Pam) or contact Steele Canyon Veterinarian after today.

The photo at right is another Great Pyrenees, not the one Pam found...

They Do Run, Run...

See the lamestream media run.  Run, lamers, run.

Now if only they met the same fate as in the childhood tale...

Click the picture to enjoy the full snarkly goodness.

Via my mom...

Imagine...

TJIC has a story about a bad experience at the post office.  My immediate thought on reading this was “This is the kind of service we can look forward to with Obamacare!”...

Ships at Sea...

When I was in the U.S. Navy last century (in the '70s), we just barely knew where our ship was.  We certainly didn't know where all the ships in the world were.  We frequently encountered other ships – especially private cargo shipping – by complete surprise. 

My, how things have changed. 

Now you can go to a web site and find the location of every ship in the world, along with a lot more information.  For free you can get the position of every ship as of 24 hours ago (in Google Earth!), along with basic information.  For a fee you can get much more detailed, realtime information.  The screenshot at right shows the ships near San Diego as of yesterday.

Amazing!

Gallantry in Afghanistan...

The British award one of their finest, 24 year old Lieutenant James Adamson:

Lieutenant James Adamson was awarded the Military Cross after killing two insurgents during close quarter combat in Helmand's notorious "Green Zone".

The 24-year-old officer, a member of the 5th battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland, revealed that he shouted "have some of this" before shooting dead a gunman who had just emerged from a maize field.

Seconds later and out of ammunition, the lieutenant leapt over a river bank and killed a second insurgent machine-gunner with a single thrust of his bayonet in the man's chest. 

Read the whole thing.

I'd sure like to see more about our heroes in the U.S. press...

Forget Waterboarding – Here's the Real Torture...

U.S. Condemned For Pre-Emptive Use Of Hillary Clinton Against Pakistan

Got Em!

Short report from Fox News:

Navy Seals from US Special Operations Forces conducted a raid in southern Somalia on Monday that killed Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, one of 4 co-conspirators wanted in the 2002 bombing of an Israel owned hotel in Mombasa, Kenya, two senior U.S. military officials told Fox News.

Ten days ago President Obama signed the Execute Order for Nabhan, who since 2006 was on the FBI's list of most wanted terrorists. He was also wanted for the attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Kenya in 1998.

They called it operation Celestial Balance: at least two AH-6 Little Bird helicopters deployed from one of two U.S. Navy vessels near Somalia's coast strafed a vehicle Nabhan was using to go back and forth between meetings.

Intelligence operatives had been monitoring Sabhan prior to the attack. The helicopters passed once, firing on the vehicle, and then circled back around to retrieve the body so they could make a positive identification, according to an official.

The attack in Mombasa took place on Nov. 28, 2002 - involving a suicide bomber that blew up the lobby of the Israeli owned Paradise hotel. On the same day the attackers unsuccessfully attempted to shoot down an Israeli owned Boeing 757 civilian jetliner run by Arkia. They fired surface to air missiles and missed.

Nabhan's Somali group, Al- Shabaab, has links to Al Qaeda.

Excellent!

And thank you, President Obama, for taking action on this.

Quote of the Day...

From Shikha Dalmia of the Reason Foundation, in an altogether excellent post about Obama's speech on health care:

If there was anything bipartisan about the speech it was that he embraced every bad big-government idea from both sides.

Ouch!

Yes.