Dogs Found!

Our neighbor just called to say that two local dogs have wandered into her yard.  One looks a bit like an all-white St. Bernard, the other like a black-and-white cattle dog.  Both are friendly; one looks like it may have broken loose from a leash (perhaps thunder-frightened?).  If these sound like your dogs, please drop me a line (email address is in the sidebar at right), or comment on this post.  Either way, I'll put you in touch with my neighbor.

These two doggies just want to go home...

Update: The two doggies have been reunited with their owners.   The way it happened is a great story of neighborhood. 

My neighbor who found the dogs got the phone number for Paula C. from me.  Paula lives just down the road from us, and operates a kennel and dog training facility.  She's also a long-time resident of Lawson Valley, and knows just about everybody here (and most especially she knows their dogs).  Unfortunately, Paula didn't know these two doggies.  Paula called everyone she knew, but none of them knew of these two dogs either.  This was shaping up to be a story with a sad ending...

Fast forward a few hours.  Paula was at her gate, shoveling the rainstorm's mud out from underneath her gate, so she could open it and leave.  While she was working, a car drove slowly by, and the driver hollered to ask her whether she'd seen a couple of lost dogs - a big white one, and a small black-and-white one.  Paula sent them up the hill to see my neighbor, who still had the dogs – and the dogs were reunited with their worried owners.

Turns out the owners live about a mile away.  They weren't home when the dogs got loose, but the thunderstorm happened during that period, so I'm thinking my guess was a good one...

I love happy endings like that!

Slide Rule Humor...

Via a fellow slide rule collector who wishes to remain unnamed:

TEACHER ARRESTED IN NEW YORK

A public school teacher was arrested today at John F. Kennedy International Airport as he attempted to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a compass, a slide-rule, and a calculator.

At a morning press conference, the Attorney General said he believes the man is a member of the notorious 'Al-Gebra' movement. He did not identify the man, who has been charged by the FBI with carrying weapons of math instruction.

'Al-Gebra is a problem for us', the Attorney General said. 'They derive solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on tangents in search of absolute values. They use secret code names like 'X' and 'Y' and refer to themselves as 'unknowns', but we have determined that they belong to a common denominator of the axis of medieval with coordinates in every country.'

As the Greek philanderer Isosceles used to say, 'There are 3 sides to every triangle'.

When asked to comment on the arrest, President Obama said, 'If God had wanted us to have better weapons of math instruction, he would have given us more fingers and toes..'

White House aides told reporters they could not recall a more intelligent or profound statement by the President.

It is believed that the Nobel Prize for Physics will follow.

2010...

Via my mom:

Weather Update...

So far our four-day storm total is 5.24 inches (133 mm).  As you can see on the chart at right (click to enlarge), we received over an inch (25mm) yesterday and last night, and the rain continues as I write this. 

I was awakened several times last night by rain and hail pounding on my bedroom window – we had gusty winds to 15 MPH (about 20 kph) from the southwest, and several thunderstorm cells passed right overhead.  Two of them had powerful lightning strokes, causing very loud thunder (one of our dogs, Lea, is terrified of lightning, and spent hours quaking, pressed hard up against me on the bed).  As if that wasn't enough, my weather radio was alarming every 15 minutes or so, to tell me of a new threat the NOAA wanted to warn me about.  All in all, it wasn't a good night for sleeping...

But no damage was done, so far as I could tell with my flashlight.  And we've got a lovely start to the rainy season, with nearly 11 inches already on the ground.

The wildflowers in the Anza-Borrego ought to be spectacular this year.

Yesterday evening, driving home from work, I saw the streams in Lawson Valley in full flood.  Last night's rains should drive them even higher, perhaps to the highest levels I've yet seen in my ten years out here.  I've heard stories from long-time residents about much higher floods washing out bridges; hopefully that is not happening to us!

A Democratic Insider's View into the Sausage Factory...

My favorite tidbit:

I believe President Clinton provided some crucial insight when he said, "people would rather be with someone who is strong and wrong than weak and right." It's not that people are uninterested in who's right or wrong, it's that people will only follow leaders who seem to actually believe in what they are doing. Democrats have missed this essential fact.

Go read the whole thing, it's fascinating...

Space Cannon...

Now this is just plain cool.  I particularly like the clever way they came up with to make the thing aimable.  Every other proposal for similar technologies (such as magnetic rail guns) required enormous fixed infrastructure that would permit launching payloads only into a very small range of orbits...

Air America is Put Out of Its Misery...

Several years ago, Al Gore famously helped found “Air America”.  Its objective was to bring quality liberal talk radio to the airwaves to compete with the then (and now) fabulously successful hordes of conservative, libertarian, and independent talk radio shows.  The idea was twofold: to help get the liberal (or “progressive”) message out, and to make a profit.

Air America failed dismally on both counts, from the very beginning.  Though they aired a fair number of liberal talk shows, their audiences were always small – and they've been shrinking for the past few years, even during the Obama campaign when you might have thought interest would be particularly high.  Not so much.

Yesterday the death knell rang; Air America filed for bankruptcy and ceased all on-air operations.  They are dead.

At the same time, talk radio is by far the most profitable and fastest-growing segment of radio in the U.S.  Nearly every day, it seems, a radio station switches from the traditional “disk jockey” format to talk radio, for the simple reason that the audiences on talk radio dwarf those on music stations – and therefore so do the ad revenues (which of course is how radio stations make money).

It fascinates me that despite an earnest, well-funded attempt, liberal talk radio was an abject failure.  One is tempted to say that the failure must mean there aren't many liberals, but clearly that's not the case.  Other possibilities I can think of:

• There aren't enough engaged liberals; those interested enough in politics to listen to talk radio.
  
  
• There aren't enough thinking liberals; they'd rather be told what to do than to think it out on their own.
  
  
• The liberals are all smugly listening to NPR, and can't be bothered to listen elsewhere.

Anybody got any better ideas?

Homeopathic “Medicine”...

You can find homeopathic medicines in any American drugstore, sitting on the shelf right next to real medicines.  Many of the homeopathic medicines use packaging and messaging that looks identical to that used on real medicines – a deliberate, and largely successful attempt to trick you into believing that the homeopathic medicines are real medicines.  Others make claims for their benefits (or efficacy, to use the conventional term) that sound exaggerated, as they are – but many consumers believe that the claims must be true, else the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) wouldn't allow them to say it.  The FDA, after all, closely regulates all drugs.

Therein lies the rub.  Homeopathic medicines are not drugs under U.S. law.  When the FDA was formed, homeopathic medicines were specifically excluded (along with a few other things, but those are stories for another day).  This was a political accomodation made to get the legislation passed, and the decision has never been revisited.

Homeopathic “medicines” can make whatever claim they want to about their efficacy.  The FDA does not check them, nor does anyone else.  The only restriction or regulation on homeopathic medicines is that they can't be dangerous – but there's not much chance of that, as they have virtually no active ingredients.

While the truth about homeopathic medicines is widely known, and information about them is readily available, there are still millions of people who swear by their usefulness, believe in their efficacy, and spend billions of dollars ever year on them.  That completely blows my mind.  Spending money on homeopathic medicine is like burning money, but without the entertainment value.

The British Homeopathic Society describes how homeopathic medicines are made.  If you have even the slightest regard for science, this should be enough to convince you of their fraud.  There's more stuff, equally ludicrous, elsewhere on their site.  Here Matt Parker, writing on the London Times, relates his introduction to homeopathic medicine.  And here's a nice little skit pointing out the absurdities of homeopathic medical “practice”:

Puzzler...

For the past few weeks, the number of readers daily hitting this site has been slowly and steadily growing.  This is after about 18 months of nearly constant readership, except for brief spikes when my blog gets linked from somewhere else (thank you!) or when there's a hot topic (such as ClimateGate) in the blogosphere.  I have no idea why the hits are increasing, as (so far as I can tell) I'm not doing anything different than I've always done.

But in any case: welcome, new readers.  Drop me a line if you've got something you'd like to say, and of course feel free to comment on the posts.  As you can see, my interests range all over the place, though there's allegedly a focus on things Jamulian around here...

Cute Animation...

Here.  Via my mom.

Origins of Some Sayings...

...and some other things.  Via my mom:

There is an old Hotel/Pub in Marble Arch, London , which used to have a gallows adjacent to it. Prisoners were taken to the gallows, (after a fair trial of course) to be hung.

The horse drawn dray, carting the prisoner, was accompanied by an armed guard, who would stop the dray outside the pub and ask the prisoner if he would like ''ONE LAST DRINK''.

If he said YES, it was referred to as ONE FOR THE ROAD.

If he declined, that prisoner was ON THE WAGON.

They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families used to all pee in a pot & then once a day it was taken & sold to the tannery. If you had to do this to survive you were, "Piss Poor", but worse than that, were the really poor folk, who couldn't even afford to buy a pot, they "Didn't have a pot to Piss in" & were the lowest of the low.

The next time you are washing your hands and complain, because the water temperature isn't just how you like it, think about how things used to be.

Here are some facts about the 1500's:

Most people got married in June, because they took their yearly bath in May and they still smelled pretty good by June. However, since they were starting to smell, brides carried a bouquet of flowers, to hide the body odor.

Hence the custom today, of carrying a bouquet when getting married.

Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water..

The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it. Hence the saying, "Don't throw the baby out with the Bath water!"

Houses had thatched roofs, thick straw piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Hence the saying "It's raining cats and dogs."

There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom, where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top, afforded some protection. That's how canopy beds came into existence.

The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying, "Dirt Poor." The wealthy had slate floors, that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on floor to help keep their footing.

As the winter wore on, they added more thresh, until, when you opened the door, it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entrance-way.. Hence: a thresh hold.

In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day, they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight, then start over the next day. Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while. Hence the rhyme: ''Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot, nine days old''.

Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon, to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could, "Bring home the Bacon." They would cut off a little, to share with guests and would all sit around talking and ''Chew the fat''.

Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning & death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.

Bread was divided, according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or ''The Upper Crust''.

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination would sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of ''Holding a Wake''.

England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So, they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a bone-house and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, thread it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell.

Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night, (the graveyard shift) to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be, ''Saved by the Bell '' or was considered a ''Dead Ringer''

And that's the truth.

Now, whoever said History was boring ! ! !

I was unable to verify any of these with a few minutes of searching, though I did run across an etymology site that dismissed the “threshold” story here as mere “folk etymology”.  True or not, they're all entertaining...

Weather in Lawson Valley...

The NOAA weather forecasts for yesterday were rather intimidating – up to 6 inches of rain, gusty winds to 60 MPH, possible thunderstorms with inch-diameter hail...yikes!  But we had none of that, though the weather has been interesting nonetheless.

First, the rain.  As I write this, we're at 2.4 inches (62mm) for the three-day storm (see the top graph at right, click to enlarge).  More is definitely coming, today and tomorrow.  As you can see from the graph, we had a couple brief periods of heavy rain, and then last night a long, steady, slow accumulation.

The barometric pressure is falling very quickly as I write this, indicating a storm front is passing through (see graph at left, click to enlarge).  You can also see the two downward blips from the earlier waves in this storm.  The pressure at the moment is the second-lowest I've recorded in over 7 years of data collection.  The record-holder occurred just last month, concurrent with the heavy rains we received then.

Finally, here's the NOAA radar from just a few minutes ago (at right, click to enlarge).  The scale at the left of the chart shows intensity of rain vs. color.  We don't often see large areas of “heavy” rainfall on our doppler radars, but in this series of storms these areas have been commonplace.  Yesterday there were some smaller areas trending toward the purple of “extreme” rainfall rates, but I forgot to take a snapshot of them.  Watching these radar images over time one can visualize the path that the storm cells are taking; for this storm, the cells moved from the WNW to the ESE.  Most of the intensity seemed to be knocked out of them by the time they reached Lawson Valley (which is indicated on the radar display by a circled plus sign to the right of the words “San Diego”).

I wonder what we'll see over the next couple of days?

How Hitler Might Have Received the News that Scott Brown Won...

Tax the Rich...

“Tax the rich!” is the frequent rallying cry of the liberal left.  Somehow, in a way I've never fathomed, it seems more fair to them to take a higher percentage of income as tax from people who earn more.  This is styled as a “progressive” tax, because the income tax rate gets progressively higher as your earnings go up. 

The progressive income tax is certainly not unique to America, but we have put our own perverse twists on it.  The twists that have affected me personally include not only the progressively higher tax rates as my income has grown over the years, but (in recent years) the elimination of tax credits.  For example, our tax code has long had a tax credit for the interest paid on home mortgages.  In more recent years, that tax credit is removed for people whose income crosses a certain threshold.  Removing a tax credit is effectively the same thing as paying a higher tax rate.  An inverse example is the so-called “Earned Income Tax Credit”.  With this glorious example of progressive income redistribution, people who make below a certain threshold not only do not pay any income tax at all – we send them a check!   This used to be called welfare.

We have a lot of things like this in our tax code.  The net effect of them is to steepen the progressivity of our tax code.  When you earn more income, you pay a lot higher tax rate to the thieves federal government.

Here's an interesting real-world story that illustrates the ultimate effect of such progressivity...

Air Drop into Haiti...

The U.S. Air Force is on the job.  This was taken yesterday in Haiti...

Recognizing Faces...

Most humans have an amazing ability to recognize faces – more specifically, the ability to see a face – even at a distance – and be able to identify the person who owns that face by name.

I have part of that ability – the faces that I know, I can recognize from a very low resolution image (as in from a distance, or from a photo where the face is just a bit bigger than a dot).  Compared with most people, though, I only recognize a few faces.  I've seen studies that documented the average person's repertoire of recognized faces at well over 1,000.

The People's Seat...

Scott Brown won!  Awesome!

It feels a bit like the coyote caught (and ate) the roadrunner, or the Poe visitor didn't return – something that just wasn't supposed to happen, something you thought couldn't possibly happen.  And yet it did.

Nowhere in these United States is there a more liberal state than Massachusetts – it's justifiably famous for its liberality.  This is the state that gave us not only Ted Kennedy, but Barney Frank, John Kerry, and a long list of other “progressive” celebrities.  This is a state where the Democrats have a 3:1 advantage over the Republicans, who have merely a token place in state politics.  It's basically a one-party state, with a political machine second to none in the country.  In that state, Scott Brown won!

Scott Brown gave an excellent victory speech last night.  This lad has a real future in national politics.  In fact, there are some interesting parallels between him and a certain former young Senator from Illinois.  But back to the speech...  Here are a couple of my favorite moments:

Let me tell you when I first got the feeling something big was happening in this campaign. It was when I was driving along and spotted a handmade, Scott Brown yard sign that I hadn’t actually put there myself.

This little campaign of ours was destined for greater things than any of us knew, and the message went far beyond the name on the sign.

It all started with me, my truck, and a few dedicated volunteers.  It ended with Air Force One making an emergency run to Logan. I didn't mind when President Obama came here and criticized me - that happens in campaigns. But when he criticized my truck, that's where I draw the line.

And his wrap-up:

I go to Washington as the representative of no faction or interest, answering only to my conscience and to the people. I’ve got a lot to learn in the Senate, but I know who I am and I know who I serve.

I’m Scott Brown,

I'm from Wrentham,

I drive a truck, and I am nobody’s senator but yours.

That wrap-up sounds an awful lot like something a Tea Party candidate might say, should they win an election.  More of that, please, Scott – and with your actions, not just your rhetoric...

The distribution of votes within the state's districts is interesting.  Coakley won in the four largest urban centers (Boston, Springfield, Worchester, and New Bedford) and in a few other districts.  Scott Brown took everything else, and he took the rural areas with especially high margins.  If this were a state that had a history of close races (say, New Mexico, or Colorado), then you'd interpret this as a slight shift from former Democratic victories.  But in Massachusetts, where Democratic candidates for statewide office routinely win every district, this is a stunner – and it doesn't look anomalous, as it follows the usual pattern of Republican strength in the hinterlands and Democratic strength in the urban warrens...

The pundits are beside themselves with joy.  Scott Brown's victory gives them oodles of juicy new material to chow down on.

Me, I'm focused on a few near-term effects that are obvious:

• The healthcare reform bill, in anything even remotely resembling its current form, is dead.  This is for two reasons: the direct effect of Scott Brown's 41st filibuster-enabling vote, and the indirect effect of the election on all the incumbent Democrats coming up for election in November.  While Obama may choose to ignore the message from the voters in this election, you can bet your sweet bippy that the Democratic congresscritters will not.
  
  
• We're going to see a sudden and dramatic change in the modus operandi of the Democratic regime – because they now understand that no congressional seat is safe.  If Scott Brown can claim the “liberal lion's” seat in the liberal haven of Taxachussets, then any Democratic seat is at risk, not just the wobbly ones.  This will translate directly into less radical, more moderate behavior on the part of the Democrats – possibly even something recognizable as genuine bipartisanship.  Not because they want to, mind you, but only because the alternative is political death.

A couple of months ago I was feeling very pessimistic about the course of the federal government over The One's first term.  I'm feeling ever so much better about this now...

Exciting Election!

I'm looking forward to watching the returns from Brown vs. Coakley tonight, much more so than last November.  The latest polls have Brown ahead by 9 points, but the track record of the pollsters is so bad that I don't think this actually has much meaning, other than to be pleasant for Brown supporters to gaze at.

Meanwhile, the funniest thing I've read all morning is this, from Neo-Neocon:

Brown is the male Sarah Palin—with a law degree.
Coakley is the female John Kerry—without the charm.

Har!

Torrential Rains?

Not so much.  We did get 0.35" (9mm) of rain last night, and no unusual winds – a far cry from the rather alarming forecast.  As late as 6pm last night, my weather radio's alarm went off, and the NOAA warned me of flash floods, locally heavy downpours, and winds to 60 MPH.

Um, no.

Oh, well...

As many before me have observed, when the weather forecasters can't even tell me what's going to happen over the next few hours because the weather is too complex for their models, how can I have faith that their longer term weather models are correct?

Dementia...

Well, not really.  But here are some tricky brain-teasers.  Try not to read ahead to the answers.  Via my cousin Mike:

Below are four (4) questions and a Bonus question to test your perception, reasoning and the quickness of your logical processing.  They are stated simply so you should try to answer them instantly. To assure the accuracy of the results, you should not take your time, but instead, answer each of them immediately.  OK?

First Question:

You are a participant in a race. You overtake the second person. What position are you in?

Answer: If you answered that you are first, then you are absolutely WRONG! If you overtake the second person and you take his place, YOU are in second place!

Try not to screw up next time. Now answer the second question, but don't take as much time as you took for the first question, OK?

Second Question:

If you overtake the last person, then you are...?

Answer: If you answered that you are second to last, then you are...WRONG again.  Tell me Sunshine, how can you overtake the LAST person??

You're not very good at this, are you?

Third Question:

Very tricky arithmetic! Note: This must be done in your head only. Do NOT use paper and pencil or a calculator.   Try it.

Take 1000 and add 40 to it.  Now add another 1000.  Now add 30.  Add another 1000. Now add 20.  Now add another 1000.  Now add 10.  What is the total?

Answer: Did you get 5000?  The correct answer is actually 4100.  If you don't believe it, check it with a calculator!

Today is definitely not your day, is it?  Maybe you'll get the last question right...  Maybe...

Fourth Question:

Mary's father has five daughters: 1. Nana, 2. Nene, 3. Nini, 4. Nono, and ??? What is the name of the fifth daughter?

Answer: Did you Answer Nunu? NO! Of course it isn't.  Her name is Mary you idiot! Read the question again!

Okay, now the Bonus round, i.e., a final chance to redeem yourself:

A mute person goes into a shop and wants to buy a toothbrush. By imitating the action of brushing his teeth he successfully expresses himself to the shopkeeper and the purchase is done.  Next, a blind man comes into the shop who wants to buy a pair of sunglasses.  How does HE indicate what he wants?

Answer: It's really very simple  He opens his mouth and ask for it...

Does your employer actually pay you to think??  If so, do NOT let them see your answers for this test!

I'm certainly not showing my answers to my boss. I don't think he reads my blog...