Hapless

From an editorial in today’s WSJ ($) about state governments' booming revenues:

At least 40 states are in the black, and only a handful, such as the Gulf states wrecked by Hurricane Katrina and perpetually hapless New Jersey, are still spilling red ink. In 2005 state and local revenues grew by 10.5%, according to Census Bureau data, and so far this year tax receipts in most states are climbing at close to that level. California’s income tax revenues in April were up an astonishing 55% from last year. Oklahoma is so flush it has exceeded its legal limit on its rainy day fund.

"…perpetually hapless New Jersey…” just nails it, don’t you think?

As the Instapundit would say: heh!

Formative Events

This is the latest in a series of posts about the key events that shaped my life. Search for “formative events” to see them all.

When I first started getting into electronics, the general pattern of my activities was to build a design I found in a book. At the time, hobby electronics stores carried lots of inexpensive paperback books full of designs for various things, mainly based on vacuum tubes (remember, this was the 1960s). In these books you could find designs for power supplies, audio amplifiers, radio receivers and transmitters, and more exotic things like portable radios (very challenging with power-hungry tubes), light-sensitive switches, etc.

From old dead TVs (scrounged from the then-abundant TV repair shops) I’d scavenge the parts needed to build the designs from these books. Not just the obvious electronic components, but even the chassis — I’d strip an old TV chassis down until it was just the steel or copper (if it was a good TV) chassis with tube sockets and lug strips. Ah, lug strips — many of you, even if you’re into electronics, won’t know about these. Back in the 1960s, TVs weren’t made with printed circuit boards — instead, all the components were wired directly together, point-to-point, using either their leads or short pieces of wire. And the “lug strips” were the standard device to do this. They were just short strips of insulating material with a series of “lugs", which were small hoops, like croquet wickets, which you could wrap the ends of leads or wires around, and solder them securely.

Anyway, I’d start with such a stripped-down chassis, and then build my project directly onto it. Looked like hell, but if I did it right it would actually work.

One such project is the subject of this post. It was (or should have been) a very simple project — I wanted to make a regulated, variable 200 to 300 volt B supply (the high voltage supply used for the plate supply in a tube-based design). This would be the basis for other projects I wanted to build, and it would let me build just one regulated supply instead of several.

An aside for those who are electronically inclined: back then, a regulated supply was much more difficult to build than it is today. There was no such thing as the convenient integrated circuits of today, or even zener reference diodes — we had to build the whole darned thing from scratch, and then calibrate it ourselves. When I build an electronic project today, I still marvel at (by today’s standards) the simple little voltage regulators we can get so easily, or the very sophisticated switching regulators — either would have been sheer magic in the 1960s!

The design I’d chosen, out of one of those books of designs, used a couple of the most common tubes I’d find in TVs or radios: the 5U4 dual high-voltage rectifier, and the 12AU7 dual triode amplifier. It was a simple, straightforward design. I found the parts, I built it, and turned on the power. A bright blue arc formed across the top of the 5U4 (which was one of those big, chunky tubes not much smaller than an ordinary light bulb), and there was a sizzling sound — and a bit of smoke. The arc worked its way down the length of the tube, and there was a lould “pop", and then the fuse blew. Meanwhile, my voltmeter (which was monitoring the output) had pegged at something higher than 300V. In other words, the whole thing was a spectacular failure.

Since the 5U4 had disintegrated so spectacularly, I suspected a bad tube was the culprit. I had plenty of 5U4s, so I just popped another one in, replaced the fuse, and tried again. Same exact results. Next suspicion was that despite my careful check and re-check, I’d wired something wrong. So I checked again, against the circuit diagram in the book. Nope, everything was right.

Now what?

For a while, I was stumped. This had never happened to me before. Sure, I’d had projects that had failed to work — but every time the problem was either a mistake in my construction or a bad component (a common problem with scrounged components). This time, however, everything looked like it was correct. And it was such a simple circuit, compared to some other projects I’d built!

So I started troubleshooting in the only way available to me. I couldn’t turn the thing on and start measuring things, because it would self-destruct within seconds. So I started analyzing the circuit, trying to get a clue why the 5U4 would be arcing over. I worked backwards from the symptom (the arcing). Arcing over must mean the voltage was too high. Where does the voltage come from? The transformer. How could the transformer put out too much voltage? Well, this I could test — I unhooked the transformer from the circuit, and tested it in isolation. Sure enough, it was putting out 700 volts instead of the 350 volts called for by the circuit diagram. How could the voltage be exactly double? Ah…if the transformer’s dual secondaries were wired in series instead of parallel, that would do it — but the circuit design clearly showed a series wiring. Could the designer have made a mistake?

A mistake. Yes, the designer made a mistake. I rewired it in parallel, and flipped the power on — my meter showed 250V, exactly what it should have. No arcing, no sizzling, just the warm glow of the tube filaments and the appropriate hum of the transformer.

This silly little incident, though, was the first time it ever dawned on me that I might be able to design a circuit myself, instead of using these books. All the reading I’d done about electronics was focused on understanding how things worked, not designing them. I had a default assumption that only people with years of schooling could possibly understand how to design an electronic circuit. But in the course of troubleshooting that darned power supply, it dawned on me that I was figuring out how to make it work — how to design it. And after that, I built a series of projects that were of my own design — the first real engineering I ever did. The first design I still remember: a simple unregulated high-voltage supply. I had no purpose for it; I just wanted to see if I could do it. It was laughably simple: a full-wave rectifier with an RC filter on it. And even that simple thing didn’t work right the first time — I’d missed a few decimal points when computing the size of the capacitor, and my power supply was horribly noisy (the dreaded “hum” of the vacuum tube days). But it was my design, and eventually I figured out what was wrong and fixed it. I’ve been designing things, with slightly improved success, ever since.

It all started with that mistake.

Smiles and Friends

Konstantin and Vera Stankevich visited us yesterday, the first time we’d seen them since they returned from their epic travels to Estonia, Russia, Belarus, and Italy. We had such a fun visit! Vera and Konstantin were chock full of stories — funny stories, interesting stories, curious stories, adventure stories, and even a herioc ice-cream eating story. It was obvious from their faces and their enthusiasm that they had a wonderful time on the entire trip, even the Belarus part (which we were more than a little worried about, due to the political situation there).

For Konstantin and Vera, part of the motive for the visit was to see Miki, our field spaniel puppy (or “poppy", as Vera would say in writing <smile>). Miki was shy with them for, oh, five or six seconds — then he was his normal bounding, playing, full-of-energy self. Konstantin got a good “group” picture will all three of our field spaniels looking at him — but getting them to stand still for that photo was a lot of work, and a lot of laughs.

Vera presented Debbie with three ball caps — one from Belarus (where “native” ball caps are very rare), one from Estonia, and one from Italy. She had a good story about the one from Belarus. It seems that ball caps aren’t real popular there in the first place, and the few that do exist all seem to be foreign-themed. In desperation, she enlisted all the members of Konstantin’s family (the reason they were in Belarus) to locate one. She painted a verbal picture of hordes of Stankeviches, scouring stores far and wide, in search of the elusive genuinely Belarusian ball cap. And they found one!

Recently I purchased (on eBay) a Soviet anemometer (a device for measuring wind speed). I couldn’t resist — it was only $4, and it was an interesting looking gadget, typically Russian with its massive, over-built design. When I got it, it came with what appeared to be a manual — but entirely in Russian, of course. I don’t read a word of Russian, so I took advantage of Konstantin and Vera’s visit to get some translation. This turned into something completely unexpected for me: a trip down memory lane for Konstantin and Vera (who both grew up in the Soviet Union) that had them laughing hysterically as they tried to translate the manual for us. At several points Vera was laughing so hard she had to wipe the tears from her eyes. I will never be able to convey the humor of the situation for them, though it seemed plain enough at the time. Mostly it was related to the pompous wording, the unwarranted seriousness of the manual, and the trappings of the Soviet era that just seem so silly today (like the official stamps and signatures page in the manual). When I brought that anemometer out, I never expected it to be such a source of amusement for us — I could throw it away now and it would have been worth 10 times its price just for that experience…

Like me, Konstantin is a shutterbug; they came back with bazillions of photos. I’d seen all but the photos from Belarus before their visit, and those were the ones I was most interested in. Konstantin gave us a “slide show” on his laptop, and I was very surprised by what I saw. I was expecting to see images that were as Soviet-like as the political situation there — but instead, I saw charming old towns, beautiful parks and buildings, and much renovation in progress. It’s very reminiscent of what’s happened in Toompea, the “old town” of Tallinn, Estonia, which I’m very familiar with. Most unexpected! The two photos above right are Konstantin’s, from Belarus, and I would never have figured out what they were without his explanation: they are bee hives! The bears each have a slot cut about where you’d think their belly-button is, and the house has a slot near the top of the door — this is where the bees go in and out. I wonder what possessed the apiarist to make such hives?

Our visit was capped by Konstantin and Vera taking us (Jim Barnick and I; Debbie couldn’t join us as she had another obligation, darn it) to dinner at one of our favorite restaurants: Descanso Junction. We’d eaten there once before with them, but didn’t realize that they’d enjoyed it so much. We had a great meal, but the real high point was the amiable conversation that bubbled along through the whole meal; four friends enjoying each others company. Oh, and there was also Konstantin’s expressive face to smile at — the best, I think, was the oh-so-satisfied and happy look on his face toward the end of the meal, as he said “I like this restaurant” in a reverent tone.

We were very reluctant to say good-bye, but we had to let them start their long trip home (they live over 100 miles away).

Good friends, good times; what more does one really need?

Oh, Man!

When I got up this morning, one of the first things I did was to check the temperature and humidity — and it was 84 degrees and 24% relative humidity. Those are unusual values for an early summer morning; more normal would be in the high 50s or low 60s for temperature, and 40% or higher for humidity. Even stranger — you can see that the temperature hardly varied at all last night. For the first night in a long time, we kept the windows shut, and the air conditioner kicked in several times (very rare at night).

Now today the temperature is at 102 as I write this (it looks lower on the graphs because they’re averaging the readings over an hour), while the humidity is down to just 3%. This is the kind of weather that just sucks all the moisture right out of the plants and organic material. If we have too many days like this, the fire danger will climb to “critical” (right now it’s at “moderate").

And it’s darned uncomfortable to be outdoors — it feels like you’re in an oven, even when you’re in the shade.

But we have to be thankful we don’t live in an area with high humidity; we only have to imagine what this heat would feel like with, say, 90% relative humidity…

Warlord

I’ve just finished the book Warlord, by Ilario Pantano (on Amazon). It is an excellent read on several levels.

Foremost (for me, at least) is the way it articulately presents the war from the perspective of a real modern warrior. I’ve not read anything else like this concerning the war in Iraq. One cannot help but be impressed with the professionalism of our military after reading this.

Nearly as interesting is the glimpse this book gives into Mr. Pantano’s fascinating life. Even though the book is nearly entirely about Iraq, you discover things — quite amazing things — about Mr. Pantano’s other experiences. There’s material for several more books in there!

Finally there’s the major plot component — the story of how then-Lt. Pantano was accused (wrongly) of murder, went through the military justice system, was cleared of all charges, but had his career ruined. It would be a sad and tragic story if it wasn’t for Mr. Pantano’s (and his family’s) admirable reactions and handling of the experience.

It’s very comforting to know that our military has men — more than a few of them, too — like Lt. Pantano.

Read the book. That’s an order!

Alaa is Free!

About six weeks ago, I told you about the arrest and jailing of prominent Egyptian blogger Alaa, and several other less well-known bloggers. And I asked you to participate, with me, in a boycott of all things Egyptian — and to write to the Egyptian embassy in protest.

Yesterday the Egyptian government released Alaa and all the other bloggers. No charges were ever filed. Alaa is now free to resume his activities.

Bloggers are being credited (by the lamestream media, no less) with having organized an effective campaign that succeeded in convincing the Egyptian authorities that they had made a tactical error.

Well, imagine that. I’m delighted to have played a small part in this, and even more delighted that we got a positive outcome. My personal boycott is now over. If you are amongst those friends and family who helped in your own way, my thanks — and share the glory!

Alaa is free!

Damn Them!

Much has already been written about this. Michelle Malkin has an excellent roundup, and Pajamas Media is running another.

Just in case you haven’t heard, here are the salient points:

— Our intelligence teams have been running a brilliant secret operation that used access to Swift (an international financial clearinghouse) to track the funding of terrorist groups worldwide.

— Somehow, some of the most blatantly and militantly liberal reporters on the planet (at the New York Times and Los Angeles Times, of course) discovered this fact.

— The reporters wrote their story, and in the course of doing so intelligence agencies discovered the intent to publish details of the secret effort.

— The government formally and officially asked both papers not to publish this information because it would blow the cover on a valuable operation that had stopped millions of dollars in terrorist funding and had netted at least one top-level terrorist financier.

— The two papers published the story anyway.

And now the operation, blown sky high, will have no further value in the war on terror.

The papers defend this action out of supposed concern for Americans' civil rights. They claim that Americans are having their transactions examined in an illegal fashion.

I claim that those papers have violated a much more fundamental civil right of mine — the right to have my life and property defended by my government. Those publishing houses — bastions of liberalism — are traitors to the American cause of the war on terror.

I would love to see someone in our federal government have the balls to initiate action to punish those reporters and all the editorial staff who approved publishing this story. Those people should be treated exactly as any ordinary citizen who gave the enemy a vital secret would be treated. They should be in jail, for a long, long time.

And what does it say about our country that in many quarters the reporters are being lauded, and treated like heroes? I can think of many implications of that, and not a single one of them is good.

Damn them! Damn them all to hell!

Khobar Towers

Ten years ago, on June 25, 1966, terrorists exploded a huge bomb outside the Khobar Towers U.S. Air Force barracks in Dhahran, Saudia Arabia. Nineteen U.S. servicemen were killed, along with one Saudi. Then-President Clinton said “no stone would be left unturned” in the effort to bring terrorists to justice.

Louis Freeh — the head of the FBI, appointed by Clinton — was given the job of finding the perpetrators and bringing them to justice. Mr. Freeh took that responsibility very personally, and today in an excellent piece in the Wall Street Journal, unfortunately behind the subscription wall, he tells some of the infuriating details of how his investigation was obstructed — not by the Saudis, but by Americans. It serves as a detailed reminder of why we just cannot trust U.S. security to unserious liberal politicians.

I’m going to talk about a few points from Mr. Freeh’s piece, but if you can, please read the whole thing.

It soon became clear that Mr. Clinton and his national security adviser, Sandy Berger, had no interest in confronting the fact that Iran had blown up the Towers. This is astounding, considering that the Saudi Security Service had arrested six of the bombers after the attack. As FBI agents sifted through the remains of Building 131 in 115-degree heat, the bombers admitted they had been trained by the Iranian external security service (IRGC) in the Beka Valley, and received their passports at the Iranian Embassy in Damascus, along with $250,000 cash for the operation from IRGC Gen. Ahmad Sharifi.

We later learned that senior members of the Iranian government, including Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS), and the Spiritual Leader’s office had selected Khobar as their target and commissioned the Saudi Hezbollah to carry out the operation. The Saudi police told us that FBI agents had to interview the bombers in custody in order to make our case. To make this happen, however, the U.S. president would need to personally make a request to Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah.

So for 30 months, I wrote and rewrote the same set of simple talking points for the president, Mr. Berger, and others to press the FBI’s request to go inside a Saudi prison and interview the Khobar bombers. And for 30 months nothing happened. The Saudis reported back to us that the president and Mr. Berger would either fail to raise the matter with the crown prince or raise it without making any request. On one such occasion, our commander in chief instead hit up Prince Abdullah for a contribution to his library. Mr. Berger never once, in the course of the five-year investigation which coincided with his tenure, even asked how the investigation was going.

Mr. Freeh’s contempt for Sandy Berger and President Clinton are clear. Who can blame him? The man who appointed him and gave him this solemn responsibility behaved in an appalling, even traitorous, fashion. And if you think the trusty sidekick (Sandy “papers in my pants” Berger) sounds bad above, consider this:

Finally, frustrated in my attempts to execute Mr. Clinton’s “leave no stone unturned” order, I called former President George H.W. Bush. I had learned that he was about to meet Prince Abdullah on another matter. After fully briefing Mr. Bush on the impasse and faxing him the talking points that I had now been working on for over two years, he personally asked the crown prince to allow FBI agents to interview the detained bombers.

After his Saturday meeting with now-King Abdullah, Mr. Bush called me to say that he made the request, and that the Saudis would be calling me. A few hours later, Prince Bandar asked me to come out to McLean, Va. on Monday to see Prince Abdullah. When I met him with Wyche Fowler, our Saudi ambassador, and FBI counterterrorism chief Dale Watson, the crown prince was holding my talking points. He told me Mr. Bush had made the request for the FBI, which he granted, and told Prince Bandar to instruct Nayef to arrange for FBI agents to interview the prisoners.

Several weeks later, agents interviewed the co-conspirators. For the first time since the 1996 attack, we obtained direct evidence of Iran’s complicity. What Mr. Clinton failed to do for three years was accomplished in minutes by his predecessor. This was the breakthrough we had been waiting for, and the attorney general and I immediately went to Mr. Berger with news of the Saudi prison interviews.

Upon being advised that our investigation now had proof that Iran blew up Khobar Towers, Mr. Berger’s astounding response was: “Who knows about this?” His next, and wrong, comment was: “That’s just hearsay.” When I explained that under the Rules of Federal Evidence the detainees' comments were indeed more than “hearsay,” for the first time ever he became interested — and alarmed — about the case. But this interest translated into nothing more than Washington “damage control” meetings held out of the fear that Congress, and ordinary Americans, would find out that Iran murdered our soldiers. After those meetings, neither the president, nor anyone else in the administration, was heard from again about Khobar.

Are you infuriated yet?

When reading a piece of our recent history like this, I often reflect on how it relates to our current situation with the war on terror; the conflict of civilizations between Western secular liberalism and radical Islam. The actions of unserious politicians like Clinton (and his minions) were clearly harmful to us. Their tepid reaction to Khobar Towers, and their reflexive “realpolitik” avoidance of an Iran confrontation, could do nothing but encourage the radicals — as, with hindsight, it obviously has. It’s Chamberlainesque appeasement all over again.

It’s also arguably traitorous. The man who swore he would uphold and protect the Constitution, the man who was our Commander-in-Chief (and I’m disgusted as I write that) — betrayed all of us with his actions. Most of all he betrayed the memory and families of those 19 servicemen killed at Khobar Towers.

And of course this is but one example of Clinton’s betrayal, and not even an extraordinary example. However, I think it is counter-productive to focus on Clinton, as he will not be in a position to betray us like that again (unless the world is so stupid as to allow him to become the Secretary-General of the U.N., an often-mentioned idea in liberal circles). Instead we should focus on how such a dangerously unserious politician came to hold the office of chief executive, and endeavour to avoid those mechanisms in the future.

In todays American politics, if we restrict the discussion to those politicians who actually have some hope of coming to power, the dangerously unserious ones (e.g., Pelosi, Dean, Reid, Kennedy, McCain, Schumer, McKinney, etc.) are concentrated in the Democratic Party. There are some Democrats (most notably Lieberman) who stand out for their seriousness, and there are many Republicans whose politics I have major disagreements with but who are at least serious about the war on terror (e.g., Frist, Hastert, Hunter, etc.).

Personally, I’ve arrived at a mental position that I never thought I would — where I can point to a single issue (defense, including the war on terror) and say “I don’t care how a politican addresses anything else but this.” If they’re serious (in the philosophical sense) about defense and the war on terror, I’ll support them. Even if they want to wall up the border. Even if they’re pro-abortion. Even if they’re pro-union.

Even if.

Laughing Gods

Tip of the hat (again!) to Jim M. for pointing this one out.

The Gods Are Laughing

Tom Harris, National Post (Canada)

June 07, 2006

Scientists who work in the fields liberal arts graduate Al Gore wanders through contradict his theories about man-induced climate change.

Gore’s credibility is damaged early in the film when he tells the audience that, by simply looking at Antarctic ice cores with the naked eye, one can see when the American Clean Air Act was passed. Dr. Ian Clark, professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Ottawa (U of O) responds, “This is pure fantasy unless the reporter is able to detect parts per billion changes to chemicals in ice.” Air over the United States doesn’t even circulate to the Antarctic before mixing with most of the northern, then the southern, hemisphere air, and this process takes decades. Clark explains that even far more significant events, such as the settling of dust arising from the scouring of continental shelves at the end of ice ages, are undetectable in ice cores by an untrained eye.

Gore repeatedly labels carbon dioxide as “global warming pollution” when, in reality, it is no more pollution than is oxygen. CO2 is plant food, an ingredient essential for photosynthesis without which Earth would be a lifeless, frozen ice ball. The hypothesis that human release of CO2 is a major contributor to global warming is just that — an unproven hypothesis, against which evidence is increasingly mounting.

In fact, the correlation between CO2 and temperature that Gore speaks about so confidently is simply non-existent over all meaningful time scales. U of O climate researcher Professor Jan Veizer demonstrated that, over geologic time, the two are not linked at all. Over the intermediate time scales Gore focuses on, the ice cores show that CO2 increases don’t precede, and therefore don’t cause, warming. Rather, they follow temperature rise — by as much as 800 years. Even in the past century, the correlation is poor; the planet actually cooled between 1940 and 1980, when human emissions of CO2 were rising at the fastest rate in our history.

Similarly, the fact that water vapour constitutes 95% of greenhouse gases by volume is conveniently ignored by Gore. While humanity’s three billion tonnes (gigatonnes, or GT) per year net contribution to the atmosphere’s CO2 load appears large on a human scale, it is actually less than half of 1% of the atmosphere’s total CO2 content (750-830 GT). The CO2 emissions of our civilization are also dwarfed by the 210 GT/year emissions of the gas from Earth’s oceans and land. Perhaps even more significant is the fact that the uncertainty in the measurement of atmospheric CO2 content is 80 GT — making three GT seem hardly worth mentioning.

But Gore persists, labeling future CO2 rises as “deeply unethical” and lectures the audience, “Each one of us is a cause of global warming.” Not satisfied with simply warning of human-induced killer heat waves — events in Europe this past year were “like a nature hike through the Book of Revelations,” he says — he then uses high-tech special effects to show how human-caused climate changes are causing more hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, floods, infectious diseases, insect plagues, glacial retreats, coral die-outs and the flooding of small island nations due to sea level rise caused by the melting of the polar caps. One is left wondering if Gore thinks nature is responsible for anything.

Scientists who actually work in these fields flatly contradict Gore. Take his allegations that extreme weather (EW) events will increase in frequency and severity as the world warms and that this is already happening. Former professor of climatology at the University of Winnipeg Dr. Tim Ball notes, “The theories that Gore supports indicate the greatest warming will be in polar regions. Therefore, the temperature contrast with warmer regions — the driver of extreme weather — will lessen and, with it, storm potential will lessen."

This is exactly what former Environment Canada research scientist and EW specialist Dr. Madhav Khandekar found. His studies show there has been no increase in EW events in Canada in the past 25 years. Furthermore, he sees no indication that such events will increase over the next 25 years. “In fact, some EW events such as winter blizzards have definitely declined,” Khandekar says. “Prairie droughts have been occurring for hundreds of years. The 13th and 16th century saw some of the severest and longest droughts ever on Canadian/American prairies.” Like many other researchers, Khandekar is convinced that EW is not increasing globally, either.

On hurricanes, Gore implies that new records are being set as a result of human greenhouse gas emissions. Besides clumsy errors in the presentation of the facts (Katrina did not get “stronger and stronger and stronger” as it came over the Gulf of Mexico; rather, it was category 5 over the ocean and was downgraded to category 3 when it made a landfall), Gore fails to note that the only region to show an increase in hurricanes in recent years is the North Atlantic. Hurricane specialist Tad Murty, former senior research scientist Department of Fisheries and Oceans and now adjust professor of Earth sciences at U of O, points out, “In all other six ocean basins where tropical cyclones occur, there is either a flat or a downward trend.” Murty lists 1900, 1926 and 1935 as the years in which the most intense hurricanes were recorded in the United States. In fact, Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami, has stated that global warming has nothing to do with the recent increase in hurricane frequency in the North Atlantic. Murty concludes, “The feeling among many meteorologists is that it has to do with the North Atlantic oscillation, which is now in the positive phase and will continue for another decade or so."

In their open letter to the Prime Minister in April, 61 of the world’s leading experts modestly expressed their understanding of the science: “The study of global climate change is an 'emerging science,' one that is perhaps the most complex ever tackled. It may be many years yet before we properly understand the Earth’s climate system.” It seems that liberal arts graduate Al Gore, political champion of the Kyoto Protocol, thinks he knows better.

Institut Pasteur (Paris) Professor Paul Reiter seemed to sum up the sentiments of many experts when he labelled the film “pure, mind-bending propaganda.” Such reactions should certainly cause Canadians to wonder if Nobel Prize-winning French novelist Andre Gide had a point when he advised, “Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it."

- Tom Harris is a mechanical engineer and Ottawa director of High Park Group, a public policy company.

SEA LEVEL FALLING, POLAR BEARS STABLE, ICE CAPS THICKENING …

- - -

"I can assure Mr. Gore that no one from the South Pacific islands has fled to New Zealand because of rising seas. In fact, if Gore consults the data, he will see it shows sea level falling in some parts of the Pacific.” - - Dr. Chris de Freitas, climate scientist, associate professor, University of Auckland, N.Z.

- - -

"We find no alarming sea level rise going on, in the Maldives, Tovalu, Venice, the Persian Gulf and even satellite altimetry, if applied properly.” — Dr. Nils-Axel Morner, emeritus professor of paleogeophysics and geodynamics, Stockholm University, Sweden.

- - -

"Gore is completely wrong here — malaria has been documented at an altitude of 2,500 metres — Nairobi and Harare are at altitudes of about 1,500 metres. The new altitudes of malaria are lower than those recorded 100 years ago. None of the “30 so-called new diseases” Gore references are attributable to global warming, none.” — Dr. Paul Reiter, professor, Institut Pasteur, unit of insects and infectious diseases, Paris, comments on Gore’s belief that Nairobi and Harare were founded just above the mosquito line to avoid malaria and how the mosquitoes are now moving to higher altitudes.

- - -

"Our information is that seven of 13 populations of polar bears in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago (more than half the world’s estimated total) are either stable or increasing..... Of the three that appear to be declining, only one has been shown to be affected by climate change. No one can say with certainty that climate change has not affected these other populations, but it is also true that we have no information to suggest that it has.” — Dr. Mitchell Taylor, manager, wildlife research section, Department of Environment, Igloolik, Nunavut.

- - -

"Mr. Gore suggests that the Greenland melt area increased considerably between 1992 and 2005. But 1992 was exceptionally cold in Greenland and the melt area of ice sheet was exceptionally low due to the cooling caused by volcanic dust emitted from Mt. Pinatubo. If, instead of 1992, Gore had chosen for comparison the year 1991, one in which the melt area was 1% higher than in 2005, he would have to conclude that the ice sheet melt area is shrinking and that perhaps a new Ice Age is just around the corner.” — Dr. Petr Chylek, adjunct professor, Department of Physics and Atmospheric Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax.

- - -

"The oceans are now heading into one of their periodic phases of cooling.... Modest changes in temperature are not about to wipe them [coral] out. Neither will increased carbon dioxide, which is a fundamental chemical building block that allows coral reefs to exist at all.” — Dr. Gary D. Sharp, Center for Climate/Ocean Resources Study, Salinas, Calif.

- - -

"Both the Antarctic and Greenland ice caps are thickening. The temperature at the South Pole has declined by more than one degree C since 1950. And the area of sea ice around the continent has increased over the last 20 years.” — Dr. R.M. Carter, professor, Marine Geophysical Laboratory, James Cook University, Townsville, Australia.

- - -

"From data published by the Canadian Ice Service, there has been no precipitous drop-off in the amount or thickness of the ice cap since 1970 when reliable overall coverage became available for the Canadian Arctic.” — Dr./Cdr. M.R. Morgan, FRMS, formerly advisor to the World Meteorological Organization/climatology research scientist at University of Exeter, U.K.

- - -

"The MPB (mountain pine beetle) is a species native to this part of North America and is always present. The MPB epidemic started as comparatively small outbreaks and through forest management inaction got completely out of hand.” — Rob Scagel, M.Sc., forest microclimate specialist, Pacific Phytometric Consultants, Surrey, B.C., comments on Gore’s belief that the mountain pine beetle is an “invasive exotic species” that has become a plague due to fewer days of frost.

Nowhere has the lamestream media displayed their lack of talent for reporting on science as they have on global warming. The reporting that I’ve read has, to date, been astonishingly one-sided — especially when you compare it to the pronounced debate underway in the scientific community. This piece doesn’t come anywhere close to balancing the overall coverage…but it sure is refreshing to see something like this in the press…

Who's Your Daddy?

Tip of the hat to Jim M. for this gem…

When someone puts in for Child Support, the proper thing to do is to find out who the father is and see why he is not providing support. The following are all replies that Dallas women have written on Child Support Agency forms in the section for listing father’s details.

Or putting it another way....Who’s yo Daddy!

These are genuine excerpts from the forms. Be sure to check out # 11 - it takes the prize and # 3 is runner up.

1. Regarding the identity of the father of my twins, child A was fathered by Jim Munson. I am unsure as to the identity of the father of child B, but I believe that he was conceived on the same night.

2. I am unsure as to the identity of the father of my child as I was being sick out of a window when taken unexpectedly from behind. I can provide you with a list of names of men that I think were at the party if this helps.

3. I do not know the name of the father of my little girl. She was conceived at a party at 3600 Grand Avenue where I had unprotected sex with a man I met that night. I do remember that the sex was so good that I fainted. If you do manage to track down the father, can you send me his phone number? Thanks.

4. I don’t know the identity of the father of my daughter. He drives a BMW that now has a hole made by my stiletto heels in one of the door panels. Perhaps you can contact BMW service stations in this area and see if he’s had it replaced.

5. I have never had sex with a man. I am still a Virginian. I am awaiting a letter from the Pope confirming that my son’s conception was immaculate and that he is Christ risen again.

6. I cannot tell you the name of child A’s dad as he informs me that to do so would blow his cover and that would have cataclysmic implications for the economy. I am torn between doing right by you and right by the country. Please advise.

7. I do not know who the father of my child was as all blacks look the same to me.

8. Peter Smith is the father of child A. If you do catch up with him, can you ask him what he did with my AC/DC CDs? Child B who was also borned at the same time.... well I don’t have a clue.

9. From the dates it seems that my daughter was conceived at Disney World; maybe it really is the Magic Kingdom.

10. So much about that night is a blur. The only thing that I remember for sure is Delia Smith did a program about eggs earlier in the evening. If I’d have stayed in and watched more TV rather than going to the party at 146 Miller Drive, mine might have remained unfertilized.

11. I am unsure as to the identity of the father of my baby, after all when you eat a can of beans you can’t be sure which one made you fart.

Yep, you guessed it right. We are all paying taxes to support these dim bulbs. Is this a great country.....or what!

And that’s about 'nuff said on that topic!

Summer Solstice

For anyone located in the Northern Hemisphere, as I am, today is the longest day of the year (in the Southern Hemisphere this is the Winter Solstice). The scientific term for this phenomenon is solstice. The actual solstice (the moment when the earth’s tilt is pointed directly at the sun) occurs about 10 minutes from the moment I’m writing this post, at 5:26 AM Pacific Time (12:26 PM UTC).

The solstice is also the day (again, in the Northern Hemisphere) when the sun rises and sets closer to north than on any other day. In fact, at any location north of the Arctic Circle, the sun never sets today. At my location (near San Diego, California) the sun will rise this morning at about 58 degrees east of north (estimated by Brunton compass); tonight it will set at the same angle west of north. Our view of both sunrise and sunset here is a little distorted by the fact that we live in a valley and are surrounded by mountains — we can’t see the actual horizon in any direction.

Many people believe that summer is when the Earth is closest to the sun, and winter when it is furthest. A simple way to prove to yourself that this is not true is to consider that right now (summer for us) it is winter down in the Southern Hemisphere. The Earth can’t simultaneously be at its closest and furthest from the sun! In fact, nearly all of our seasonal climate variations are caused by the tilt (about 23 degrees) of the Earth’s axis, relative to its orbit around the sun. There is a tiny variation caused by distance; tiny because the Earth’s orbit is almost perfectly circular. There’s also a tiny effect caused by the precession of the Earth’s axis (i.e., its angle of tilt changes slightly), and a few other even smaller effects — but all of those smaller effects are trivial when compared to the effects of the simple tilt.

Visions Dancing

This post is related, in a very tangential way, to the series of “formative events” posts I’ve been making. But what I’m discussing here is not, in and of itself, a formative event.

Remember the famous line from “Twas the night before Christmas"? …visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads

Well, there are no sugar-plums dancing in my head.

I have long been envious of people who are skilled at making sketches of real-life scenes, especially faces and animals. Once, long ago, I decided to pursue this skill — I bought a book called “Drawing on the Right Side of Your Brain” (which came highly recommended by a friend who could draw), and some appropriate paper and pencils. I sat down with the book, getting just a few pages into it when the author asked me to do a simple exercise: she wanted me to visualize the letter “L” in my mind’s eye, and then rotate it. It was clear from the prose that she never expected anyone to find this difficult.

I found it to be impossible. I cannot, no matter how hard I try, visualize an “L", much less rotate it. I can’t visualize anything else, either. As far as I can tell, I have no “mind’s eye”.

For a few years after I made this discovery about myself, I often asked other people about their ability to do this exercise with the “L” — and not one of them ever expressed any difficulty with it. I’ve also asked my doctor about it — actually two doctors, at different times. Both of them gave me an odd look; one of them asked if this was a change. Both told me not to worry about it.

More recently, I’ve done some “research” on the web, and I’ve found a few references to this phenomenon — it seems to be uncommon, and associated with autism, poor visual memory (e.g., faces), disinterest in the visual arts, and low scores on spatial reasoning tests. So far as I know, I’m not autistic. I do have a very poor memory for faces. I’m very interested in some visual arts, particularly photography, drawing, and graphics. And I’ve got 99th+ percentile scores on every spatial reasoning test I’ve ever taken. Nothing I’ve read on the web, however, points to any particular cause for being unable to visualize.

I’ve often wondered how (or if) the absence of visualization ability has impacted my life. One thing I’ve read in several places is advice to people with “visualization disability” that they avoid careers like engineering that supposedly rely on visualization. That would have been tragically bad advice to me — I’m all about engineering, and I can’t imagine a career I’d enjoy more, or be more competent at. I’ve also wondered whether my brain developed in some other way to compensate for the inability to visualize — or even whether development in another area caused the inability to visualize.

For a period of a few years, I was really bothered by this inability. Now, though, I find it more curious than anything else; just another one of those things I’d really like to understand. And if I ever want a sugar-plum, I know I’ll just have to go out and get one!

Early Memories

One of my 11.5 regular readers asked for a discussion of my early memories, where “early” means around four years old. That’s easy — I have almost no memories from when I was that young.

I should be careful here — it’s not that I have a big blank in that part of my life. It’s more that I don’t have many crisp, specific memories. I do remember feelings, having been part of certain kinds of activities (though not specific instances of them), and of course the people who were an important part of my life.

With that caveat, here are all the specific early memories I can muster up right now:

The Flagpole: my parents are skeptical that I can remember this, as I would have been very young (still an infant, perhaps), but this is one of my clearest, most vivid early memories. I’m looking out a window (I think it’s my bedroom window), and a long truck backs up to the spot where the flagpole is to be set. The flagpole is a tall (perhaps 35') white wooden pole, very traditional. The truck stops, and my father appears. With him are a familiar farm worker (who goes by the moniker Chalky), and two men I don’t know. The pole is worked upright by means I don’t know, bright white against a saturated blue sky. I have no idea why this memory is so vivid; there’s no hint of any emotional context that would account for it.

Sputnik: I remember my father taking me outside in the early evening to see Sputnik. This would have been in October, 1957, not long after my fifth birthday. We walked out into the field toward the highway from our house, and looked to the west in the twilight. Somehow (I presume via a newspaper) my father knew just where to look in the sky. Right on time, we spotted the bright little dot moving across the sky. But the most vivid memory I have of this is of being excited, and looking up at my father’s face — and seeing fear (or something I interpreted as fear) and concern painted there. That was the first time I had ever seen such a thing, and it was profoundly shocking to me. My father was very quiet; he picked me up and carried me back inside, hugging me tightly all the way back.

Cigarettes: My mother smoked until 1964, when the U.S. Surgeon General issued the first official report detailing the hazards of smoking. Before that, she would often stop the car at local stores and send me inside to buy her a pack or two of cigarettes. I can still remember the packages, the raw smell of the tobacco, and her eagerness to get the packs from me when I returned. Oddly, I have no memory at all of her either actually smoking, or of any ashtrays around the house.

Injury: My brother (a year younger than I) and I were out in a field, digging a “foxhole”. I had a shovel; my brother had a garden rake (the kind with short, solid steel teeth). For some reason my brother decided to swing the rake over his head — and instead of digging into the ground, it dug into my head. The result was (a) much pain, (b) a flap of skin detached from the top of my head, and (c) a whole lotta blood. I ran into the house, where my mother took one look at me, shrieked, had me hold some kind of a rag on my head, and threw me in the car for the 20 minute ride to Dr. Garwood’s office in Crosswicks. I remember Dr. Garwood taking a very quick look at me, and then spending some time with my mother to calm her down. I think my mom thought I was a dead kid walking. I don’t recall getting stitches in that wound, but I think I must have. I do recall the resulting bandages, and my mother being torn between hugging me and wanting to punish me severely for whatever stupid thing I’d done to acquire this injury.

Electrical Experiments: Gertrude Ames, a sweet and wonderful woman whom I still remember with great fondness, would often babysit us when both of our parents had to be away. On one such occasion, when I was perhaps 6 or 7 years old, Gertrude was working in the kitchen of our house, and I was there with her. For some reason I decided it would be fun to unfold a paperclip and insert the two ends of it into an electrical socket — with my bare hands. All I remember is a bright flash, a popping sound, smoke, an awful smell — and my right hand being quite badly burned. It hurt, and I was terrified. Gertrude was perhaps 15 feet away; she was there in a flash, picked me up, figured out in seconds that I was fine except for the burn, and hugged me tight until I stopped being so scared. Then she put me down and commenced a very stern lecture on the general stupidity of little boys, especially this one — and I could see that she was very scared, herself. The remains of the paperclip were still sticking out of the electrical socket, and she dampened a dishtowel and used that to bat at the paperclip until it fell out. Then she started crying, took me into our livingroom, put some ointment on my burns, and called my mother. I got another lecture when my mom got home <smile>. The most vivid parts of this memory are of Gertrude’s face and the various intense emotions her very open face displayed during this incident.

Reading Ah Ha: When I was quite small, my mother would sit me on her lap with a book open so we could both see it. Then she’d read out loud, occasionally following the words with her fingers (for my benefit, of course). One day she was reading from a book of fairy tales. We were on a page with a color plate of a goose, wearing a blue bonnet and carrying a basket of eggs. As she read aloud, her finger walked along the words — and I noticed that every time she said “goose” her finger pointed at a word that looked the same each time. The big ah ha! had struck — it dawned on me that those funny squiggles on the page corresponded to the words she spoke aloud. I was very excited upon this discovery, and it’s mainly that excitement that I can remember now. I know as she read, on that day and others, I started putting more and more words together with the writing, and I also remember pestering both my parents to explain road signs after that. But “goose” — that was the first word I ever “read"…

Brushing: My father would often sit in a big chair, and put a kid upon his shoulders, armed with a hairbrush. We’d sit there and brush his hair (he actually had some back then), while he’d make exaggerated moans of pleasure. I loved doing this.

Illness: My parents have no memory of this, and are skeptical that it actually happened. My memory is of being in the bedroom that I shared with my brother Scott, on a hot summer day. I was so small that getting into bed was a challenge. Scott and I were both in bed, sick. The most vivid memory is of the nature of the illness: we vomited, and the vomit was full of corn kernels.

Culvert: One of the fields on our farm, not far from my grandparents' home, had a drain with a culvert that led about 150' from within the field to near the creek that ran through our farm. This culvert was made from large terra cotta pipes, and until I was about 8 I could fit through these pipes. One day, on one of my earlier ventures into this pipe, I got stuck right in the middle — in the stretch where it was completely dark. And I was totally by myself; for whatever reason I had decided to make this particular journey on my own. The most vivid memory here, of course, is the fear — when I discovered I could neither move backward or forward, I went straight to totally terrified, out of my gourd. I don’t know how long that lasted — probably just seconds — but it’s still one of the most purely scary things that’s ever happened to me. After I got done being terrified, I discovered that my belt loop had gotten snagged on a root sticking through a joint in the pipes — once I worked that out, I had no further problems. But I never went back into that culvert alone again.

Fossil: My uncle Donald (my father’s brother), who lived on the farm with us, was sort of an amateur scientist; he was interested in a wide variety of things. Amongst those interests were fossils, and our farm, it turns out, was a rich source of a wide variety of fossils. But on the particular day of my memory, I didn’t know any of that. I saw my uncle — a generally dour and unapproachable guy whom we kids were a little frightened of — walking in a freshly tilled field, carefully watching the ground and occasionally picking something up. I saw him put something in his pocket, and I got curious — so I gathered up my courage and walked over to see him. To my surprise, he was eager to share this with the little kid (me), and he patiently explained what fossils were, and how you might recognize them. We then started searching together, and he found a few right away that were very mysterious to me — they were sponges, whose fossils don’t look much different than any other rock to the uninitiated. A little further on, though, he found a very different kind of fossil — some kind of sea worm — that had a sharply delineated shell that I could clearly make out. My uncle said this particular fossil looked like it might be better if we split the rock, so I followed him back to his house, and together we cleaned the rock, set it up on an anvil, and he used a chisel and small sledge to crack it. The split rock revealed about four inches of an intricately detailed, twisted sea worm shell…and I was hooked on fossils. He and I spent a lot of time together on fossils in the following years; eventually (just before I left home after joining the Navy) I worked with him using a microscope (which I have now inherited) to examine and classify the fossils we found. That first experience, though, remains amongst my vivid early memories — I think because of two things, roughly in equal measure: the discovery that Uncle Donald had some redeeming value, and the sheer adventure of “discovering” that worm fossil inside a rock from our own field.

I’m sure that I have some other early memories rattling around in my brain, but those are all the specific ones that occur to me now…

Father's Day

Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there. By choice and preference, I am not a father in the sense that term is used on this day — my “parenthood” of our numerous animal companions, and innumerable lame ideas doesn’t count. But that fact doesn’t hamper my ability to appreciate and honor the many real fathers out here, and I’ll raise a glass to them all tonight.

Including my own father, who made a most surprising phone call to me yesterday — but you’ll need some context to understand why it was surprising.

My parents retired a few years ago to a home they built in south-central New Jersey (I know, I know, that’s direct evidence of some serious mental instability, possibly of a dangerous kind). There are four of us kids; I’m the oldest. Compared to many people I know, I grew up in a “Leave It To Beaver” kind of home — loving, honest, hard-working parents; no divorces, no drunks, no abuse; lots of positive experiences that I look back on now with much gratitude. But my father has never been a demonstrative man — always approachable, enjoying his children’s company obviously and enormously, these things certainly. But he’s always been a little uncomfortable getting a hug from his adult boys, and rarely does a conversation ever touch on an emotionally charged subject. We all knew our father loved us — of this, there was never a smidgen of doubt — but we weren’t likely to hear that very directly.

Well, yesterday my dad gave me a call. He billed it as a “reverse Father’s Day” call and then he said, straight up, that I was a wonderful son, that he was proud of me, and that he loved me. That’s very much out of character for him, which is why I was so surprised. But as I absorbed what he said, and his evident good cheer, I had an intensely emotional moment. Of the very best kind, I think…

I love you too, dad. Happy Father’s Day, from a son who couldn’t be prouder to have you be his father…

Vent

It doesn’t get much better than that.

So says Michelle Malkin at the end of her current Vent on “Hot Air", which is all about the flapadoodle surrounding Anne Coulter’s latest book, “Godless”. Michelle’s point (which you’ll have to watch the video to understand) is right on. Don’t miss it!

BTW, if you’re not familiar with Vent — it’s Ms. Malkin’s recent venture into video blogging. It’s updated daily, and is often quite good. It is the only video feature of any kind (on television or the web) that I watch every day.

And Anne Coulter can be “shameless” around me any time she wants to be!

Ah, Home

Yesterday afternoon I headed home from my week on business in San Francisco. My company’s offices are on the Embarcadero, and I was flying from Oakland. In the past I’ve taken a taxi; they’re expensive (around $60), and the timing is subject to the whims of traffic. This time I took the BART (there’s a station a block from the office) and a shuttle bus from the Oakland Coliseum exit to the airport — just under an hour, from the time I left the office until I hit the security line, and $5.35. I think I’ll be doing that from now on!

I actually left the office an hour or so early, hoping I could catch an earlier flight than I’d booked, but this was not to be. When I got to the airport, I discovered two things: all the air conditioning in the airport was down (and it was a hot day), and every Southwest flight to San Diego was delayed. Not exactly my favorite combination. By the time my original 4:45 departure time rolled around, the Southwest folks had mostly caught up — I ended up leaving just 15 minutes late. Normally I don’t look forward to the airplane seat, but this time, after the stultifying heat of the airport, the airplanes seat was wonderful — it had a fan!

And that plane took me to San Diego, in luxurious air-conditioned comfort, where my lovely bride picked me up at the airport. We had a “catch up” conversation on the way home, sharing some laughs. I missed those. And finally we drove onto the home stretch, into Lawson Valley — painted in the abstract pastels and stark silhouettes of dusk in the desert — and to our little house. Inside, I was welcomed back by three deliriously happy brown dogs, each in their own fashion. Mo’i practically knocked me over, nibbling frantically on my ear, making funny little grunting noises. Lea looked all excited, got low to the ground, and kept running away and returning for some more petting. And little Miki (whom I was worried might have forgotten me) was all over me, squeaking and squirming, and so obviously beside himself with joy that I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. My face was very wet before he was done with me…

It’s funny how little things about home can seem so good after you’ve been away for a while. Our shower, for instance — nothing really remarkable about it, but it does work very well, pouring huge quantities of our well water all over you when you turn it on. Nothing like the feeble squirts from the (perfectly normal) hotel shower. Ah, I enjoyed that shower.

And much else. There really is no place like home…

Broasted Chicken Cafe

The hotel I’m staying in (tonight’s the last night!) has remarkably little to commend it, though it’s not actually awful in any particular way — just rather uniformly mediocre and uninteresting. About the best part of it is the restaurant on the ground floor; I’ve eaten there each night this week and had a very pleasant, quality meal each time. I’d particularly recommend the smoked chicken pasta.

But tonight I decided to take a little walk through the immediate area to see if I could find something a little different for dinner. I was actually a bit early for many restaurants; about 4 PM. I’d left the office early to work in the quiet of the hotel room, only to find a rather raucous get-together was happening in the room next to mine. Sigh. So an early supper would make a good escape.

I walked a few blocks uphill on Market Street, away from the Civic Center, just enjoying the walk and waiting for some eatery to catch my fancy. A small cafe; neat and uncrowded, advertised in big letters on a metal sign over the door “Broasted Chicken Cafe” — I happen to be a fan of broasted chicken, and the place looked like it might be safe to eat in (several others I’d passed were not so highly qualified), so I stepped inside.

A fellow who appeared to be from somewhere in South Asia — perhaps Sri Lanka, or southern India, or even Thailand — greeted me very pleasantly and prepared to take my order. I looked over the menu above the counter, and to my surprise didn’t see a single item with broasted chicken. There were some tasty looking panini, wraps, soups, and salads on the menu, but not one item with chicken, much less broasted chicken. Also no broaster in sight.

So I asked the fellow behind the counter where the broasted chicken items were. He looked at me as though he’d just discovered he was in the company of a lunatic, and thought that a bit worrisome. With a very thick accent, he said: “No chicken! Panini, wrap, soup, salad, very good. No chicken! No chicken!"

"But…", I said, “the sign outside says 'broasted chicken'.” I should have known better than to question him.

"No chicken sign!", he said, looking worried — and then he ran out from behind the counter and right out the door, beckoning me to follow him. He pointed to the tiny little sidewalk sign — a small folding sign with a chalkboard on both sides — and repeated “No chicken sign!"

So I pointed up to the large sign over his door that said “Broasted Chicken Cafe” — and I couldn’t resist; I said “Chicken Sign!"

My fellow looked at that sign, squinted, and tilted his head sideways — looking for all the world like someone who had truly never seen the sign over his door before. He looked surprised. Then he looked at me and said, definitively, “No chicken!"

And went back inside. Where I followed and meekly ordered a ham and swiss panini and some potato salad. Both were outstanding; I actually went back for more potato salad, which was absolute spudly perfection.

But it wasn’t broasted chicken.

Facing Down the Man

Forwarded by SimonM…

Never Argue With A Woman

One morning, a husband returns after several hours of fishing and decides to take a nap.

Although not familiar with the lake, his wife decides to take their boat out. She motors out a short distance, anchors, and takes out her book.

Along comes a game warden in his boat. He pulls up alongside the woman and says, “Good morning, Ma’am. What are you doing?"

"Reading a book,” she replies (thinking, “Isn’t it obvious?!").

"You’re in a restricted fishing area,” he informs her.

"I’m sorry, Officer, but I’m not fishing, I’m reading."

"Yes, but you have all the equipment. For all I know you could start at any moment. I’ll have to take you in and write you up."

"If you do that, I’ll have to charge you with sexual assault,” says the woman.

"But, I haven’t touched you,” says the game warden.

"That’s true, but you have all the equipment. For all I know, you could start at any moment."

Have a nice day, ma’am,” he said…and quickly left.

Moral of the story: Never argue with a woman who reads. It’s likely she can also think.

Moonbat Encounter

Yesterday morning I left my hotel room at about 5:30 AM, and headed for the Starbucks in the lobby — my usual routine on this business trip. I got my coffee and pastry, wandered over to a table, and proceeded to set up my laptop so I could read the news while I drank my coffee.

Sitting next to me was a slight man, perhaps in his late 20s or early 30s. He glanced at me once, then again, and gave me a sour sort of look. Over the next few minutes, he repeated this, looking more and more agitated and disturbed — and I was starting to wonder what sort of a nut I’d managed to choose a seat near. More about Ethel Merman, perhaps?

Finally this fellow couldn’t stand it, and he spit out a single word that apparently summed up everything he was feeling so intensely: “Fascist!"

Moi, fascist? There are many unkind things one could say about me and be perfectly accurate. Accusing me of being a fascist, though, would not be one of them.

Engaging with this guy (whom I was starting to think of as a full-on loony) didn’t seem like a particularly attractive option, but…I was very curious about why he labeled me as a fascist. So I asked him, very politely, “Why do you think I’m a fascist?"

In response, he nodded and glanced toward my chest. On my shirt I had a small pin of the American flag, something that’s been a normal piece of my business attire since shortly after 9/11. So I asked: “You think I’m a fascist because I have an American flag pin?"

And that set this guy off on a moonbat rant that lasted for a minute or so, non-stop, at the end of which he got up in disgust and (thankfully!) left. His voice started out low, but by the end of his rant he was quite loud, and several other patrons started to look a little worried. Most of his rant consisted of a string of assumptions, all derived in the end from my flag pin. I will not be able to recall them all perfectly, but the general gist of it was something like this: because I wear a flag pin, I must be a mindless, jack-booted, racist, UN-hating, rich Republican. Republicans are all low-IQ, pollution-loving, evil rapists who long ago corrupted representative democracy in America into its current form, where all policy is dictated by some combination of Karl Rove, Enron, and Exxon, which are all fascist organizations. Therefore I was clearly a fascist. Well, at least it was clear to him!

By the end of this rant, he was red in the face, yelling, spitting a bit, and had lost any semblance of control over his emotional state. He was really quite agitated when he left. And those two questions really are the only things I said to him to provoke this — well, that, and my unforgiveable sin of wearing an American flag pin.

From some perspectives, this was an amusing little interlude; a run-in with a nutjob that really had no larger meaning.

From a different perspective, though, it’s more disturbing — a window into a mindset fervently held, but so different than my own that I have a great deal of trouble comprehending it. A fellow citizen of this country, who believes, apparently, that any open expression of patriotism — love of my country — is something to be despised. A fellow citizen who seems to be convinced that he lives in the land of evil, with his life controlled by operatives of the devil and is totally out of his control.

That was yesterday morning. Now I’m about to go down to Starbucks again for this morning’s coffee. I wonder what awaits me there today?

The Big City

Big cities are not exactly my favorite kinds of places — I’m pretty much a country bumpkin at heart. There are many things about big cities that I just plain detest. But some things about them are downright wierd, and sometimes even funny.

This morning I got up around 5:30 AM (late for me!) and headed down to my hotel’s lobby, where there was a Starbucks. I bought my coffee and a pastry, and sat down at one of the high tables on a ridiculously tall stool. My plan was to sip my coffee and read the news online (I had my laptop, and the hotel has a free WiFi service). As I was waiting for my laptop to boot, a very scruffy looking fellow — a homeless guy, I think — hailed me as if I was his long-lost buddy, and immediately started in on a lengthy discourse about Ethel Merman. Clearly he believed this was the most important topic in the universe, and nothing I could do or say would dissuade him from this belief.

At first I tried to be polite in my attempts to disengage, but eventually I ended up just telling him directly “I’m going to read my news now, and I am not going to listen to you or respond to you.” And I sat down to do that. My scruffy guy was completely unfazed by this — in fact, my disengagement seemed to give him new energy in his Ethel Merman monologue marathon. So I listened, unwillingly, to his highly detailed knowledge of Ethel Merman’s childhood on Long Island, while I tried to read the Wall Street Journal editorial page.

It was challenging.

After my coffee and pastry, I walked outside and immediately down to the train station — the “Muni”. It’s a subway, really, with big stations that aren’t very crowded. The train ride from my hotel to work is only a couple of miles — and yet on that short ride this morning, I saw more unusual people than I’d see in a couple of years in the country area where I live. Hell, probably more than a lifetime in the area where I live!

The odd folks that I recall include:

— A man who appeared to be in his 60s (or even older) was stationed in the Civic Center train station, playing an unrecognizable tune on a guitar with only two strings still intact. He hummed along with his guitar playing, and his humming was missing a few strings, too. He had short-cropped white hair except for a long ponytail that was dyed a brilliant, almost neon orange; his face had the good cheer and wholesomeness of a Santa Claus. He didn’t have the appearance of someone who was impoverished or homeless — he had nice clothes and looked healthy enough — but he had a little sign next to a plastic bucket that said “Your coins are my salvation.” Thing is, that sign was done at some kind of professional graphics outfit — it looked like a piece of classy marketing literature.

— A pair of young women were on the train I climbed into, dressed identically and sitting together; their outfits and makeup seemed calculated to make them appear older than they really were. They spent the entire train ride (thankfully it was a short ride!) pointing to various riders and loudly discussing whatever they felt like discussing. Usually this involved speculations about sexual orientation, sexual experience, sexually transmitted diseases, or…you get the idea. Most people just ignored them. I won’t repeat what they said about me. The little old Chinese lady sitting next to me laughed and laughed at all their ranting, and kept begging to be their next target.

— A pair of young men (late teens, most likely) dressed in the current fashion: pants with a crotch at knee level, pant leg bottoms all gathered at their ankles, and their waistbands lowered to mid-butt level with a few acres of their loud boxer shorts showing. They were speaking to each other in what appeared to be a hybrid of English and grunts, using many more gestures than one would ordinarily see. I was just a few feet from them, and could hear them clearly, but I could not understand a word they said. Whatever it was, it was serious stuff, to them, at least. But it got a lot less serious when one of them somehow got hung up on his clothing as he tried to get on the escalator — he fell and his trousers ended up entirely around his ankles. That got an appreciative chuckle from all my fellow commuters within sight.

— A middle-aged fellow with a distinctly professorial air, unless you happened to be walking behind him. He was wearing dress pants and a dress shirt, cardigan and a bow tie, with dressy loafers. But as he walked, and his soles became visible to those behind him, you could see in big, neat white letters “EAT” on his left sole, and “SHIT” on his right. Classy.

— As I exited the Embarcadero train station and made it back into the sunlight, an older man pushing an old-fashioned ice cream cart came to a halt in front of me. Right in the path of the commuters streaming out of the station, he set the brakes on his cart, and opened up the freezer compartment. Inside, I could see, there wasn’t any ice cream — just a collection of junk that was uniformly bright and shiny. Pieces of brightly colored bottles, polished bits of metal, some ribbons from gift packages, and so on. He rummaged about for a moment, then closed the freezer, unset his brakes, and moved on along. The entire incident took perhaps 45 seconds, and accomplished nothing whatsoever that I could see. But the fellow seemed to be happy with the world…

And that’s just one trip!