Making Change...

I've blogged (months ago) about an experience much like this one.  Scary...

Investors Prepare for Euro Collapse...

It seems unlikely that this is a good omen...

The Pigs Are Flying!

Wolf Blitzer is the flying pig in this story.  Wolf's efforts at political reporting are noteworthy in the main only for their rigorous hewing to the progressive political narrative.  He must have skipped a day on his meds for this one, as he executes a very nice takedown of Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the Democratic Party's National Chairman and acolyte of Nancy Pelosi.  In this segment, she wriggles very hard, trying to misportray Paul Ryan's proposed Medicare reform – and she appears to be very surprised that Wolf is not being the lapdog he usually is:


Wolf, you should try this more often.  After a few dozen such efforts, you might just be able to regain a little respect from your fellow citizens...

By the way, the comments on the YouTube site are quite funny.  The first one:

About effin' time a journalist kept the light on the cockroach.

Periodic Table of the Elements, Reimagined...

And awesome.

Ryan...

I'm not sure I've ever heard a politician's speech that I liked more:


This caught me completely by surprise.  I've never actually seen Paul Ryan deliver a political speech before; I've only seen him in action on the floor of the House, or in committee hearings. 

I'm surprised by how completely natural he sounds (and appears) while in front of a crowd.  I had the sense that I was hearing and seeing the real Paul Ryan, not his political persona.  It wasn't a performance, it was him.  Even Governor Awesome can't pull that off; when he's working a crowd, you know he's performing.  And Romney?  I've never seen him not performing.  I don't know about you, but I find the idea of meeting the person (vs. the performer) quite ... refreshing.

His spontaneous and natural interactions with the audience were particularly telling.  He reminds me of the very best teachers I ever had (those were, unfortunately, very few and far between).  He wasn't just giving a speech, he was actually listening and reacting with his audience.  He was having a conversation.  An adult conversation.

His ability to reduce some of the complex ideas around the financial condition of the country to short, easy-to-digest sentences, things that anyone could understand.  In that ability, he reminds me a bit of Ronald Reagan.  There's another Reaganesque quality about Ryan as well: the cheerful, optimisitic disposition, and his civility.  Even when he's ripping someone's argument to shreds (like the famous clip with Obama), he's smiling and friendly.  Yup, Reaganesque.

Really I can't find anything to criticize about this speech.  At least for this audience of one, it was everything I always hoped for in a political speech, but so seldom find: humor, drama, ideas, belief, commitment, and fire in the belly.

My estimation of Ryan as a political force is rising, and quickly.  I'm starting to feel optimistic despite my best efforts to remain depressed about our future.  I haven't quite risen to the heights that Rachel has obtained, though...

Watch This!

You'll feel smarter.  Unless you're one of the people in the video, that is...

Simple Home Remedies...

Via my mom and some additional sources on the web:

1. If you are choking on an ice cube, don't panic. Simply pour a cup of boiling water down your throat and presto. The blockage will be almost instantly removed.
2. Clumsy? Avoid cutting yourself while slicing vegetables by getting someone else to hold them while you chop away.
3. Avoid arguments with the little woman about lifting the toilet seat by simply using the sink.
4. For high blood pressure sufferers: simply cut yourself and bleed for a few minutes, thus reducing the pressure in your veins. Remember to use a timer.
5. A mouse trap, placed on top of your alarm clock, will prevent you from rolling over and going back to sleep after you hit the snooze button.
6. If you have a bad cough, take a large dose of laxatives, then you will be afraid to cough.
7. Have a bad toothache? Smash your thumb with a hammer and you will forget about the toothache.
8. You only need two tools: WD-40 and Duct Tape. If it doesn't move and should, use the WD-40. If it shouldn't move and does, use the duct tape.
9. If you can't fix it with a hammer, you've got an electrical problem.
10. Some people are like slinkies: not really good for anything, but they bring a smile to your face when they're pushed down the stairs.
11. Never, under any circumstances, take a laxative and sleeping pills on the same night.

100,000 DPI...

I used to think that 600 dots-per-inch (DPI) color laser printers were fantastical, futuristic devices, printing 360,000 dots in every square inch.  Researchers at IMRE have completely blown that resolution away by inventing a technique for printing at 100,000 DPI (that's a trillion dots per square inch!).  Awesome!

Sloan Digital Sky Survey...

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey has cataloged some 400,000 galaxies (each with billions of stars), including their locations in the universe.  Below is a video made by “flying” through a simulation created from this data.  It's the best 3D visualization of our universe that I've ever seen...

Notice...

A Dog Named Beau...

Two of our field spaniels (Mo'i and Lea) are getting to be ancient in dog years.  They're still healthy, but old enough that each day could be their last.  We give them lots of special attention these days, as you might imagine.  Recently I've often thought of Jimmy Stewart's famous poem about his dog Beau, which I'd only seen in writing before.  I just ran across his recital of it on (of all places) the Johnny Carson show:

Ryan...

Several readers inquired about my thoughts on Romney choosing Paul Ryan as his running mate.  Overall, I'm positive about it.  One article I read summed up my feelings pretty well with a single short phrase: “A grownup has shown up.”  That's what I like about the choice of Ryan – it signals Romney's intent to have an adult conversation with the voters about actual solutions to vexing, politically intractable problems like the ballooning costs of retirement and healthcare entitlements.  Ryan is a “wonk” who gives evidence of actually understanding how capitalism works, a rare trait in a national-level politician, and one to be cherished.  I also like the intellectual contrast between the Romney-Ryan ticket and the Obama-Biden ticket.  I think Obama's intellectual powers are vastly overrated, and Biden, of course, can just barely remember to breathe.  Romney and Ryan, on the other hand, are actual thinking, sentient beings. 

There is one big concern that the Romney-Ryan ticket poses for me, however.  It seems clear that the only way they can win is if they have the adult conversation...and the voters respond like adults.  With over half of all Americans now on the dole to one degree or another, I'm not so sure that's going to happen.  I console myself with this thought: better to find out now if America is doomed, rather than a few elections down the pike.  Given the choice of Obama-Biden or Romney-Ryan, if the voters choose the former, I'll know there is no hope at all for our future.  Knowing that this November will give me more time to figure out where else I would rather live...

Now, my blog girl Rachel has a bit more enthusiasm for Ryan's selection – so much so that it took her three posts to get it all out of her system.  Put down your coffee first, and then read this in order: one, two, and three.  She shows several Iowahawk tweets, including the one at right which had me rolling on the floor and clutching my belly...

I Miss Newark...

Now there's an unlikely sentiment!  Via my mom:

I was in Florida....and I saw a bumper sticker on a parked car that read 'I miss Newark.'

So I broke the window, stole the radio and left a note that read, "I hope this helps."

Curiosity: More Photos!

What with the “brain transplant” going on, I didn't expect more photos to be forthcoming, but there was a whole batch of them yesterday.  Some of them have been stitched together in a high-resolution panorama (at right, click to enlarge), which is fun to browse.  This is still, obviously, an incomplete view of the floor of Gale Crater around Curiosity.  I'm especially looking forward to the first high-resolution composites of Mt. Sharp.

Also in today's “Curiosity mail” is the photo at left.  This one is showing a high-resolution view of an area scoured by the sky crane's rocket exhaust.  It's been “white-balanced”, which means the colors are not what the camera actually captured, but rather what they'd be if the scene was illuminated by pure white light.  By white-balancing the image, the scientists can see the rocks the way they would look if they were on Earth.  This makes it much easier for them to make identifications and comparisons.

Meteorites!

While walking the dogs this morning at around 2:30, I saw 11 meteorites over about a five minute span.  Very nice!  Most of the ones I saw straddled the moon, in the northeast.

The dogs didn't care, naturally :-)

Quote of the Day (the Second)...

It's my blog, and I can have two quotes of the day if I want to!  This one is from my blog girl Rachel Lucas, writing about a new TV show called Honey Boo Boo:

You watch that trailer for that show and tell me that a benign, all-powerful God created mankind and has been in control of its development since then. I defy you.

Ah, Rachel ... you crack me up, even while I'm agreeing with you that all hope for the human race is lost...

Quote of the Day...

This comes from Jesse Walker, writing at the Reason Hit & Run blog:

That is not a sign that we are not doomed. It is a sign that we've been doomed for a while.

Cheerful, isn't he?  Go read why he's so optimistic...

Fire Resources: HPWREN Cameras...

In the 2007 fires, we got our best near-realtime information from the Lyons Peak HPWREN cameras.  At this writing, the HPWREN camera network has been greatly expanded (compared with 2007), and in the past few days another site has been added that's particularly valuable for folks near Jamul: the Los Pinos site, a few miles east of Barrett Lake.  If you're not familiar with these locations, I've created a map that has markers for all six HPWREN camera sites that may be useful for Jamul area residents during a wildfire.

How Do You Eat Corn-on-the-Cob?

There are, apparently, two distinct ways that people eat corn-on-the-cob.  Some people work back-and-forth, chewing all the corn in a row and only then rotating the cob.  Others eat in a spiral, rotating the cob all the way around while chewing off a narrow stripe and only then moving the cob a bit sideways.

I was actually surprised when I read the above – the only way to eat corn-on-the-cob that had ever even occurred to me was the second method.  The first method seems to me somehow ... unnatural.

This post postulates a causal connection (or at least a strong correlation) between the way one eats corn-on-the-cob and two other things: the way one prefers to approach mathematics, and the way one programs.  This is a very strange idea.  Strange, but interesting...

I'll Prove It!

Via reader Jim M.: