Two Trillion Tons...

Atlas Is Still Going Strong...

When I was a little boy in the late '50s, the Atlas rocket was under development as both an ICBM and as a means to put satellites and men in orbit around the Earth.  The news stories about it had the same aura of wonder that today might be seen when talking about a manned mission to Jupiter.  There was much uncertainty about whether it would work – and when it did work, much joy and pride.  John Glenn rode an Atlas into space, and for those of us who grew up in that time and were fascinated by early space exploration, that event sealed the Atlas' claim to fame.

The initial Atlas of the '50s evolved into an entire family of rockets.  Together, the Atlas family is by far the most successful set of launchers any nation has ever developed, with hundreds of successful launches and very few failures.  The photo here is of the most recent family member, the Atlas V, which just this week launched a satellite into orbit from Cape Canaveral.   As with any technology that has evolved over many years, the current Atlas doesn't very closely resemble the original.  But if you follow the history of the beast, you'll see that from the first one to the current one, the Atlas models are a series of incremental developments and changes.

A 60 year old rocket.  Who'd a thunk it?

Remembering 9/11...

Eight years ago, it was.  I still think about it every day – usually, for some reason, on the way home from work.  I still remember my shock, and over the next few days, my dawning realization that the radical Muslims were actually serious about killing us all.

These days I feel like a bit of a minority...

In reading many other rembrances this morning, Peggy Noonan's piece resonated most strongly.  A taste:

They've been marked by 9/11 more than they know. It was their first moment of historical consciousness. Before that day, they didn't know what history was; after that day, they knew they were in it.

It was a life-splitting event. Before it they were carefree, after they were careful. A 20-year-old junior told me that after 9/11, "a backpack on a subway was no longer a backpack," and a crowded theater was "a source for concern." Every one of them used the word "bubble": the protected bubble of their childhood "popped." And all of them said they spent 9/11 and the days after glued to the television, watching over and over again the footage—the north tower being hit by the plane, the fireball. The video of 9/11 has firmly and ineradicably entered their brains. Which is to say their first visual memory of America, or their first media memory, was of its towers falling down.

I'd never fully realized this: 9/11 was for America's kids exactly what Nov. 22, 1963, was for their parents and uncles and aunts. They were at school. Suddenly there were rumors in the hall and teachers speaking in hushed tones. You passed an open classroom and saw a teacher sobbing. Then the principal came on the public-address system and said something very bad had happened. Shocked parents began to pick kids up. Everyone went home and watched TV all day, and the next.

And her conclusion:

He remembered after 9/11 those who rose up to fight terrorism. Even as a child he was moved by them. There are always in history so many such people, he said. It is always the great reason for hope.

The whole thing is here.

30...

Yesterday was my 30th (that is, 30₁₉) birthday, and we celebrated Jamul-style.  Our friends and neighbors Jim and Michelle took Debbie and I out for a sushi feast and great company.  Then we went home and enjoyed a quiet, relaxed evening whose main events were feeding the hummingbirds and the dogs, having a nice glass of wine, reading (I'm re-reading Lord of the Rings), and sharing some time together.


My kind of birthday party!

How To Drive In New Jersey...

Via my mom, who has spent most of her life in New Jersey but has recently escaped to Virginia:

Seriously, there are only two things needed to drive effectively in NJ: A horn and a middle finger. Everything else is superfluous, including knowing where you are going.

For those of you who live in Jersey or have lived there, these things may come as no surprise. For those who haven't travelled there before, BEWARE!!! Be Prepared!!!

How to Drive in Jersey

1. You must first learn to pronounce the city name; it is Nork - rhymes with Fork, not New-ark. Also, Trenton is not pronounced Tren-ton, it is Trent-in.

2. The morning rush hour is from 5 AM to NOON. The evening rush hour is from NOON to 7 PM. Friday's rush hour starts on Thursday morning.

3. The minimum acceptable speed on the turnpike is 85 mph. On the parkway it's 105 or 110. Anything less is considered "Sissy." (Just ask the Governor of NJ)

4. Forget the traffic rules you learned elsewhere. Jersey has its own version of traffic rules. For example, cars/trucks with the loudest muffler go first at a four-way stop; the trucks with the biggest tires go second;

5. If you actually stop at a yellow light, you will be rear ended, cussed out, and possibly shot.

6. Never honk at anyone. EVER! Seriously! It's another offense that can get you shot.

7. Road construction is permanent and continuous in all of Jersey. Detour barrels are moved around for your entertainment pleasure during the middle of the night to make the next day's driving a bit more exciting.

8. Watch carefully for road hazards such as drunks, illegals, drunk illegals, skunks, dogs, cats, barrels, cones, celebs, rubber-neckers, shredded tires, cell-phoners, deer and other road kill, and the Homeless feeding on any of these items.

9. MapQuest does NOT work here -- none of the roads are where they say they are or go where they say they do and all the Turnpike EZ Pass lanes are moved each night once again to make your ride more exciting.

10. If someone actually has their Turn Signal ON, wave them to the shoulder immediately to let them know it has been "accidentally activated."

11. If you are in the left lane and only driving 70 in a 55-65mph zone, you are considered a road hazard and will be "flipped off" accordingly. If you return the flip, you'll be shot.

12. Do not try to estimate travel time -- just leave Monday afternoon for Tuesday appointments, by noon Thursday for Friday appointments, and right after church on Sunday for anything on Monday morning.

Product Recommendation...

If you have dogs or cats (we have four and seven), you may already have an automatic waterer of some kind.  Recirculating water encourages animals to drink, and in our dry climate it's important for them to get enough water.  

For several years we've had a Drinkwell “Big Dog” fountain.  All of our indoor animals took to it immediately, and we've generally been very happy with it.  However, it had one downside that caused me to go looking for something better: it needed regular and onerous cleaning.  The entire unit had to be disassembled, cleaned in steamy hot water, and reassembled – usually a couple times a week.  Less often (perhaps once a month), some mechanical abrasion was needed to scrape off the accumulated scale left by water evaporating from all the exposed surfaces where it had splashed.

In Our Yard...

Well, not really. But the message is accurate.

Come to think of it, the message on this sign is kind of implicit in the area where I live. Nearly everyone who lives near us (including us) owns firearms and knows how to use them.

I think the burglars understand this. There's very little crime where we live...

A Word of Advice About H1N1 (the Swine Flu)...

If you wake up looking like this...
Don't go to work!

If Architects Had To Work Like Software Developers...

That's the title of an excellent post by Neil Middleton. He's poking fun at a phenomenon that many software developers have run into, nearly any time someone who doesn't understand software development has software developers working for them (either as employees or as contractors).

The issue arises, I think, from a simple fact: many people have utterly no understanding of how a computer works. To them, a computer is essentially magic – and the software developers are akin to wizards with limited social skills. Most other engineering professions don't have this attribute, or at least not with the purity that software development has. For instance, when a civil engineer designs a bridge, anybody can understand the process, even if they don't understand the math. They know roughly what a civil engineer does. For software engineering, however, most people haven't a clue what happens between the idea and the finished product – not even in their imagination.

This is the disconnect that Neil writes about. Imagine that an architect had to work with the same level of disconnect with his customers. Here's part of what they might hear:

Please don’t bother me with small details right now. Your job is to develop the overall plans for the house: get the big picture. At this time, for example, it is not appropriate to be choosing the color of the carpet.

However, keep in mind that my wife likes blue.

Also, do not worry at this time about acquiring the resources to build the house itself. Your first priority is to develop detailed plans and specifications. Once I approve these plans, however, I would expect the house to be under roof within 48 hours.

While you are designing this house specifically for me, keep in mind that sooner or later I will have to sell it to someone else. It

therefore should have appeal to a wide variety of potential buyers. Please make sure before you finalize the plans that there is a consensus of the population in my area that they like the features this house has. I advise you to run up and look at my neighbor’s house he constructed last year. We like it a great deal. It has many features that we would also like in our new home, particularly the 75-foot swimming pool. With careful engineering, I believe that you can design this into our new house without impacting the final cost.

The “I believe...” clause in the last sentence above particularly resonated with me. Two jobs ago, when I worked for a CEO who was a stock trading expert but knew utterly nothing about software, I used to hear variants on this several times a day...

Read the whole thing!

Funny Tweets...

I've tried twitter, and my main reaction was to wonder why anyone cares about it. The one useful thing I've done with it so far was to follow the post-election turmoil in Iran.

But now I've discovered the real purpose of Twitter: to deliver one-liners! And at twaxed.com they collect the best of them. Some that made me laugh out loud:

programming is a lot like sex. One mistake and you could have to support it the rest of your life.

Hi. I'm in a staff meeting. There are 83 ceiling tiles in our meeting room. And 8 light fixtures, with 24 fluorescent bulbs. That is all.

I am not a sex addict. I have restless groin syndrome.

My personality test results came back. They're negative.

Just looked up "assiduity" on dictionary.com; definition: "obsequious solicitude." Next up: finding a synonym for "Fuck you, dictionary.com"

When peeing on someone, the element of surprise is everything.

There are 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who have regular sex.

If men had their periods, they would brag about the size of their tampons.

Talking of crap tv, I would rather watch cat vomit slide down the screen than watch the stuff on TV now!

I am absolutely going to dropkick my work computer out a freaking window today. It is not cooperating AT ALL.

Here's To The Heroes...

Happy Labor Day!

The Bridge to Somewhere...

A couple of miles down the road from my home, on Lawson Valley Road, there's a little two-lane bridge over the Lawson Valley Creek. It's been inspected, and it's falling apart. So San Diego County is going to replace it.

Sounds perfectly ok, right? It's such an ordinary sort of thing for a Department of Public Works to do. You'd think they'd have pre-packaged plans for such a thing on the shelf, and all that would be required would be a little adjustment for the local circumstances. Get funding, take the tweaked plans, assign the right people and equipment, and then go build the bridge. Simple.

Ah, but you forget. There's a government involved. Simple, it seems, is just unacceptable.

On the San Diego County web site, there's a page for this project. There's nothing on it except for six links to PDF documents, which you can download (and if you live in Lawson Valley, I encourage you to do so). The documents include:

• Notice of Intent (NOI)
• CEQA Initial Study (IS)
• Mitigated Negative Declaration (MND)
• Natural Environmental Study (NES)
• Visual Impact Assessment (VIA)
• Water Quality Report (WQR)

Some of this government-speak must be translated for us normal humans. The CEQA is the California Environmental Quality Act. A Mitigated Negative Declaration is a document saying that a project has potential environmental impact, but they're going to be addressed by actions (the “mitigations”) that are part of the plan – so in the end there will be no environmental impact.

A question that immediately occurs to Lawson Valley inhabitants who live east of the bridge (that includes me!) is this: how the heck are we going to get in and out of the valley while this new bridge is being built? And how long will that take?

Well, the plan says that building the new bridge will take 18 months (really?), and that one lane will remain open while they build it.

The image at right is from the 36 page Visual Impact Assessment. It's the same as the photo above, but the new bridge is shown. I'm not sure how they made this – it could be an artist, or it could be some kind of computer-generated thing. In any case, someone went to a great deal of trouble to produce it. Then they never showed it to any of the people to whom it might actually matter, like the inhabitants of Lawson Valley. I only found this by accident, and the review period was up weeks ago. You'd think if they were going to go to all this trouble, they might have done something obvious like mail it to us denizens. Sheesh!

In any case, you can see that they're going to straighten the road just a bit. There are more modern-looking rails and the crash-absorbing “bumpers”. It's just a silly little bridge.

I'm still having trouble absorbing the notion that we taxpayers had to pay for a Visual Impact Assessment. This one was made by Vicki Estrada, of Estrada Land Planning. I'm afraid to ask what it cost – and even more afraid of what this cost is multiplied by the hundreds of projects across the county...

But the Visual Impact Assessment is dwarfed by the 154 page Natural Environmental Study. The diagram at right is one of many in the study. I learned a lot just by glancing through this study. For instance, I learned that in 2002 the county paid Nelson Olivas to visit the bridge site and determine that there was no nearby breeding habitat for the Arroyo Toad. Then in 2003, the county paid Nelson Olivas to visit the bridge site and determine that there was no breeding habitat for the Southwestern Willow Flycatcher. I read the 17 page “Wetland Determination Data Form” included in an appendix (fascinating stuff). Then there's the two page plant species list, listing about 60 species observed near the bridge – I'm sure we paid someone to take that inventory. Oh, and let's not forget the six page restoration planting plan.

By comparison to the preceding, the 17 page Water Quality Report is a model of brevity and conciseness. Even so, its actual content could easily be distilled to just a few sentences. Basically, it says that the new bridge will not have any significant impact.

Doesn't this seem like an awful lot of time and trouble (and money!) considering that we're talking about a teeny little country two lane bridge? In the end, all these studies and reports accomplished nothing whatsoever that I can see – the county is going to build a new bridge just as it would have done without the studies. A few “best practices” guidelines – like businesses use every day – would have covered things like erosion mitigation and recovery planting. This just seems horribly excessive, and a case of bureaucracy trumping common sense. These sorts of studies are the kind of thing I'd expect if you were going to build another Coronado Bay Bridge – and then I'd be lauding them for taking proper precautions. But for a little country bridge? Come on, folks...

Lockerbie, Again...

This story just keeps getting worse and worse. Two new factoids today.

First, it appears that the medical opinions asserting that Al Megrahi would likely die within 3 months were bought and paid for by Libya. On Al Megrahi's initial examination, doctors gave him 10 months or more to live. That just wouldn't do, you see, because Scottish law allows release on compassionate grounds only when the prisoner has 3 months or less to live. This was not an obstacle to the Libyans, who simply found more, er, understanding doctors. For a fee, of course. Read all the disgusting details here.

Second, we discover today that the U.K. government has been keeping Obama informed about Al Megrahi's release every step of the way. There were no surprises for Obama. And there were no vehement protests or objections beforehand – those came only when the Obama administration was surprised by the American reaction to Al Megrahi's release. Read all the despicable details here.

Sidenote: all the investigative reporting seems to be coming out of England. Note to U.S. newspapers: have you noticed that the U.K. newspapers are actually making money, while (as we, at least, have noticed) you're going broke? Do ya think that maybe, just maybe, the fact that the U.K. papers actually do some real reporting might have something to do with it? Just sayin'...

I have a little vignette that keeps running through my mind, wherein someone in the White House receives a call from 10 Downing. The caller (presumably a Prime Minister's functionary) says “Good morning, chaps! Just wanted to let you know that we're about to release the Lockerbie bomber, that Al Megrahi fellow. Heads up, as you say.” And the response is something like “Top of the day to you, George. Thanks for letting us know. We have no problem with that.”

It's that last bit that is really gnawing at me. What sort of American would think that releasing Al Megrahi to the Libyans was ok?

Houston, we have a problem...

Obama and the Left...

Jane Hamsher isn't the sort of blogger you'll find me quoting (or linking to!) very often. She's a prominent leftie blogger, a confirmed and vocal “progressive” whose politics are somewhere to the left of Lenin's.

In a post yesterday, she aired her frustration over Obama's tight control of the rhetoric and actions of leftie organizations. She says those organizations are in the “veal pen” – being fed (funded) by the Obama administration while being tightly penned in by the Obama administration's threats to withhold funding if they don't behave well. She concludes with this:

If these groups, if these liberal leaders, let Jones just hang there while Glenn Beck pounds his chest and celebrates the scalp, we have no liberal institutions. What we have are a bunch of neoliberal enablers who have found a nice comfortable place in the DC establishment that they don't want to jeopardize, a place on the new K-Street gravy train that they don't want to lose. Dropping Van Jones from their rolodex is a small price to pay.

If there is going to be a serious progressive movement in this country capable of standing up for health care against an industry that spends $1.4 million a day on lobbying, we can't just look to the members of the Progressive Caucus and say "hey, you, get something done." They need cover. They need to know that they will be supported. And people like Van Jones who have given their lives to causes we say we value like prison reform and environmental advocacy need to know that they will be defended, and not handed over to Glenn Beck as an acceptable casualty in the battle for K-Street dollars.

So to all you liberal organizations in the "veal pen" -- this is your moment of truth. I get all your emails. And the next Common Purpose meeting is probably on Tuesday. If you can't get it together to at least put out a statement of support for Van Jones and condemn the White House for using him as a sacrificial lamb to right wing extremists that will devour us all if left unchecked, it's time to add "proudly liberal only when it doesn't matter" to your logo and be done with it.

Looks like the Obama rose doesn't look quite so good to the lefties any more...

Reflections on Labor Day...

From the wit of Mark Steyn:

But to this future of vast, unstoppable, ever-expanding wealth, the champions of the oppressed have come up with an ingenious solution: global poverty! We need a massive Poverty Expansion Program if we're to save the planet. "I don't think a lot of electricity is a good thing," says Gar Smith of San Francisco's Earth Island Institute. "I have seen villages in Africa that had vibrant culture and great communities that were disrupted and destroyed by the introduction of electricity," he continues, globally warming to his theme and regretting that African peasants "who used to spend their days and evenings in the streets playing music on their own instruments and sewing clothing for their neighbours on foot-pedal powered sewing machines" are now slumped in front of "Dynasty" reruns all day long.

George Monbiot, celebrated doom-monger of Britain's Guardian, agrees: "It is impossible not to notice that, in some of the poorest parts of the world, most people, most of the time, appear to be happier than we are. In southern Ethiopia, for example, the poorest half of the poorest nation on Earth, the streets and fields crackle with laughter. In homes constructed from packing cases and palm leaves, people engage more freely, smile more often, express more affection than we do behind our double glazing, surrounded by remote controls."

In Ethiopia, male life expectancy is 42.88 years. George was born in 1963. That may be why the cheery peasants in the fields are cracking up with laughter. They know that even if he moves in tomorrow, they'll only have to endure his column in The Gamo Gofa Times-Herald for another year or two. No wonder they're doubled up and clutching their sides. It's not just the dysentery from the communal latrine.

Read the whole thing...

Dude!

This needs no commentary:

Following the Money...

My own thinking about abortion has been focused on the moral issues. Here's a film that (from the trailer) appears to be mainly focused on something else: the money that Planned Parenthood is making from performing abortions, and how that allegedly distorts their behavior.

I have no idea about the truth of these particular claims; it's not something I've ever tried to dig up some facts on. I did a little digging this morning, and found several sources saying that Planned Parenthood performs approximately 300,000 abortions per year (in the U.S.) and receives about $700 million dollars per year for those services. That makes them quite a large business, and there's certainly enough money to affect people's behavior.

Food for thought, on an aspect of abortion that has relatively little to do with its morality...

O-M-G!!!

Updated:

I just discovered that the trees have responded to the EarthFirsters:



Original post:


Somebody please tell me that this is some kind of a put-on. 'Cause, you know, I'd sleep a lot better if I knew for sure that people like these didn't walk the earth with me...

The Cats In Our Lives...

Anyone who has spent much time with a cat will enjoy these videos. I've spent almost 30 years with an average of about 8 cats, so you can imagine how entertaining I found them! Via Super Tremendous:

Van Jones “Resigns”...

I used the scare quotes in the title because only the most naive amongst us would believe that Van Jones voluntarily quit his job. There's no doubt in my mind that he was asked to – very forcefully, with no real alternative.

The lamestream media has, once again, been carrying water for The One. Aside from the renegade outlets like the Wall Street Journal and Fox News, there hasn't been a peep from them on the subject of Van Jones. The White House did their best to help them out by announcing the Van Jones resignation at midnight on Saturday on a long holiday weekend.

I don't even know how to be snarky about these things any more – it's not like they're sneaking around doing this behind our backs. They're doing it right in front of our faces! This behavior is leading to the strengthening of a dichotomy that's existed for a long time: the politically informed vs. the politically ignorant. This used to be almost the same thing as saying those who listened to the news vs. those who didn't. What's different now is that even if you do listen to the news, you won't be very well informed – because the “news” from the lamestream media more closely resembles a stream of propoganda than it does actual information. These days, if you want to be politically informed, you really need to read the Wall Street Journal and a selection of political blogs (leftie, rightie, and libertarian). People who did that are completely unsurprised by the Van Jones resignation.

The best commentary on this affair I've read so far comes from blogger Jim Treacher:

If the mainstream media didn't prove its own irrelevance during the Rielle Hunter scandal, this clinches it. An advisor to the President of the United States, a man in charge of tens of billions in taxpayer funds, is resigning because of a scandal that has not been covered by most news outlets. Now they have to do the same dance they did when John Edwards confessed to his affair: "Looks like we have no choice but to talk about this now. Let's cover the story as if we've been covering it all along, while explaining it for the people who don't know about it because we're their only source of news."

So long to the lying, racebaiting, communist Truther in the White House. Correction: So long to a lying, racebaiting, communist Truther in the White House.

Tell it, brother!

Update:

Here's some more, with snark, from Scott Jacobs (blogging at Patterico):

The question remains, however: How the holy monkey-fuck did this guy pass the vetting process? Is the White House that stupid? Or could it be that they didn’t find anything wrong with his words because they agree with them – after all, would crazy talk sound crazy if you agree with it?

I mean, I’m sure to other truthers a phrase like “the first time fire ever melted steel” sounds perfectly rational, you know what I mean?

Edit – Looks like it hit the wires at about 12:10am Eastern. Yeah, there’s no way people at the White House were trying to bury this…

Update: The WaPo has a story now, with the following awesome quote from Van Jones:

“On the eve of historic fights for health care and clean energy, opponents of reform have mounted a vicious smear campaign against me. They are using lies and distortions to distract and divide,” he said (emphasis added)

Smears? Lies? Distortions? Asshole, there were video cameras. We can watch you say the stuff we are claiming came out of your noise hole.

As I’ve often said in the past: “it isn’t slander if it’s true”.

Heh!!