Scariest Chart Gets Scarier...

I've posted this chart several times before.  Now that the census jobs have all basically disappeared, you can see that (measured by job loss) this recession is muddling along at the bottom with no obvious recovery in progress.

Trillions of dollars stolen from the tax payers of future generations (to pay back the loans), and absolutely nothing to show for it.  That's your government at work, folks.  Somebody is getting rich on our backs, and it ain't me.

Are you pissed off yet?  Remember this in November.  I'm gonna vote for anyone who supports radical reforms, especially radical reductions in government spending...

A Doggy Morning...

For the last couple of nights, I've been a bachelor again – Debbie is 70 miles away, taking care of a friend who's recovering from knee surgery (and doing fine).  So it's been just me, our four dogs, and seven cats...

Last night, one of our dogs (Mo'i) slept in the living room so he'd be close to the door that Debbie would return through.  Another (Lea) is getting old, so she slept in her own little bed at the foot of ours.  The other two (Miki and Race) hopped up on the bed with me, and we all snored together.

The alarm clock was off for this morning – after a long, tiring week I was looking forward to sleeping at least a little later than usual.  My first memory of this morning is of my hand somehow being immersed in water, and someone was washing it with a washcloth.  I opened my eyes.  Race was watching me with a mischievous twinkle in his eye as he slowly licked my hand.  As soon as he figured out I was awake, he instantly went into “play mode” – gently nipping my nose or my hand, and waiting eagerly for my retaliation.  We horsed around for a few minutes, he and I, joined shortly by Miki.  The two dogs were playing with each other just as much as they were playing with me.  To share their morning joy – the simplest joy, of just being alive – felt like a privilege and an honor, and certainly a great pleasure.

Then I got out of bed.  If you've ever had a dog, you know what that means: that's the signal to your dogs that it's time for the morning walk.  With four dogs, that means pandemonium erupts.  Barking, tails wagging, running back and forth between me and the door until I'm directly in front of it, jostling for position as I attach the leashes, the tension building until the great moment arrives: I open the door!  Four dogs rush simultaneously through the opening as soon as it's 6 inches wide – and somehow they all make it.  Lea is playfully nipping at Mo'i, who is grumbling at Miki, who is straining to be the first out into the yard, in the process running right over the top of Race.  Barking, straining at the leashes in four different directions, tangling them and tying them into knots, running around madly until they find the spot. 

Then...ah, the joy of the morning piss.  The looks on their faces as they relieve themselves says it all: this is as good as life gets.  Lea and Mo'i are very businesslike, serious, and fast – in just a few seconds they're done and ready to go.  Miki takes his time, enjoying every moment of the experience.  Race would like to be done quickly, so he could go about his greatest joy (searching for pine cones), but his bladder is large compared to the size of his squirter, so he's the slowest of all – the torment of waiting mixed with pissing pleasure.

Finally they're all done, and we're off for our walk.  This morning there were no interesting smells, so all the dogs did random things all the way down and back our driveway.  The sun was just rising through a notch in the hills to our northeast; no stars (not even bright Jupiter) were visible.  Haze near the ground made everything fuzzy, like one of those romantic countryside photos.  On the way back, I looked at the work that's been done on our roof.  The soffits are now installed nearly all the way around the house, except for a final trim strip.  It's really quite amazing how different the house looks with this new red roof – it's even a little disconcerting, as this place I've called home for over ten years now has disappeared, replaced but a new, alien home.  But I'm sure I'll get used to it, too.

Back at the front door, now the dogs are all jostling to get back in the house.  Leashes off, and four dogs are waiting, facing the door...waiting for the big moment when the door opens.  Again, once it gets to about 6 inches wide they all somehow get through the opening.  Lea heads immediately for a dog bed, to lie down and rest.  Mo'i and Miki head for the watering dish – a dog needs a drink after such exciting morning activity!  And Race...well, he's racing around the house, looking for an appropriate toy to bring back to me so that I'll throw it for him to chase.  He'd do that all day long if I'd oblige...

Update: The New Roof...

I wish I could take some pictures for you, but it's kinda dark right now.  Last night when I got home from work, I could see that Chris (our contractor) had been hard at work.  There is a big pile of fabricated soffits, gutters, and other stuff I can't identify in front of our house.  All across the front of the house, the soffits are installed, minus a trim strip that I suspect will be the last thing to go up.  It really looks good, especially compared with the old, tired paint job that used to be visible. 

The latest word is that the actual roofing panels will be complete next Wednesday.  Because Chris has a vacation coming up, that means the project won't be completed until early September – later than originally planned, but so far as I can tell only due to factors completely outside Chris' control...

Rancho Jamul Auto Care...

I've blogged about Dave and the guys at Rancho Jamul Auto Care before.  We've been taking all our vehicles there now for several years.  They continue to delight us with their straight-talking, hard-working ways.  Nobody else (especially the danged dealer!) touches our three Toyotas.

One thing we didn't expect from Dave was that he'd enter the modern world of the Internet and web.  But we've just learned (via Doug S.) that Dave now has a web site.  What's next?  Free wi-fi while we're waiting for our cars (just kidding, Dave)?

Millar Ranch Road Revolt!

Via Doug S., this story that involves two of my colleagues from work (at Service-now.com).  Millar Ranch Road is a rural road in East San Diego County.  There's a stretch of it that was in notoriously bad condition, and the government hadn't done anything to fix it for years.  So a bunch of local citizens – including Operations guru Aaron B. and wizard developer Bow R., both of whom live off of Millar Ranch Road – got together and took matters into their own hands.

Our company has a culture of “can do”; it's one of the things I love about working there.  These guys are demonstrating that attitude way outside their professional specialties!

Without further ado, the Millar Ranch Road Citizen's Revolution:

What Would Happen If...

...the earth stood still, stopped rotating?  Fascinating, but I'm sure glad it's not going to happen!

The 800 Lb. Elephant in the Room...

Is Oracle.  Through their recent purchase of Sun Microsystems they acquired ownership of the Java programming language.  Google uses a variant of Java (but not from Sun/Oracle) in their Android cell phone operating system – it's the primary development platform there.  Now Oracle is suing Google for patent infringement.  Here's the news and here's James Gosling's reaction (perhaps NSFW)...

Who Doesn't Want to Save Kids' Lives?

If you read this blog, then you already know that I'm no fan of the unions.  The report below covers a recent flap wherein the teachers' and nurses' unions come down squarely against saving kids lives.  Seriously.




The only solution that comes to mind through my anger is high-velocity lead...

One in Eight...

One in eight children born in the U.S. are the progeny of illegal immigrants...

Tiny Sculptures...

The mind boggles.  Artist Dalton Ghetti, in Connecticut, sculpts teensy tiny little things on the tips of pencils.  I'd have to have a magnifying glass to even see these things!

I can see at least one huge advantage he's got over most sculptors, though: his entire sculpture collection would fit in a shoebox, with room left over...

The Point of No Return...

An outstanding long article by Jeffrey Goldberg in Atlantic on the situation in the Middle East, mainly Iran vs. Israel.  There's far too much good stuff there to excerpt meaningfully, but here's a small sample:

Rahm Emanuel suggested that the administration is trying to thread a needle: providing “unshakeable” support for Israel; protecting it from the consequences of an Iranian nuclear bomb; but pushing it toward compromise with the Palestinians. Emanuel, in our meeting, disputed that Israel is incapable of moving forward on the peace process so long as Iran looms as an existential threat. And he drafted the past six Israeli prime ministers—including Netanyahu, who during his first term in the late 1990s, to his father’s chagrin, compromised with the Palestinians—to buttress his case. “Rabin, Peres, Netanyahu, Barak, Sharon, Olmert—every one of them pursued some form of a negotiated settlement, which would have been in Israel’s own strategic interest,” he said. “There have been plenty of other threats while successive Israeli governments have pursued a peace process. There is no doubt that Iran is a major threat, but they didn’t just flip the switch on [the nuclear program] a year ago.”

Emanuel had one more message to deliver: for the most practical of reasons, Israel should consider carefully whether a military strike would be worth the trouble it would unleash. “I’m not sure that given the time line, whatever the time line is, that whatever they did, they wouldn’t stop” the nuclear program, he said. “They would be postponing.”

It was then that I realized that, on some subjects, the Israelis and Americans are still talking past each other. The Americans consider a temporary postponement of Iran’s nuclear program to be of dubious value. The Israelis don’t. “When Menachem Begin bombed Osirak [in Iraq], he had been told that his actions would set back the Iraqis one year,” one cabinet minister told me. “He did it anyway.”

A Perseid Sort of Morning...

My start this morning was a half-hour or so later than usual, so I didn't get outside with the dogs until nearly 4 am.  By that late hour, my old friend Orion was well up in the eastern sky, and the Milky Way was tilted over toward the northwest.  I knew that tonight was the most intense night of this year's Perseid meteor shower, so I kept a sharp eye out – and was amply rewarded.  In the course of a 10 minute walk, I saw six bright meteor trails.  All but one moved from nearly straight up moving down to just north of due west.  The outlier moved from overhead to the southeast, passing right by bright Jupiter.

When the dogs and I got nearly to the end of our driveway, Race (our border collie) suddenly went on full alert: hackles raised, aggressive stance aimed back toward the house, and subterranean rumbles.  Then it was on to the full alarm bark – awesomely loud at 4 am.  I thought at first that some large animal was out and about, and that somehow Race (and not the field spaniels) was the first to notice.  But it turned out to be Debbie, out in the yard with a flashlight.  The field spaniels all seemed to know that it was her and it was ok, but Race was quite alarmed.  Then Debbie, laughing, made some friendly noises so he could recognize her, and then Race practically yanked me off my feet trying to go see her...

Crepuscular Rays...

Via APOD, of course.

Here in Lawson Valley, we occasionally get nice displays of such rays at sunrise.  In our case, they're caused by the shadows of the mountain peaks to our northeast...

Lakes Entertainment Numbers: More of the Same...

Lakes Entertainment has released their 2010 Q2 results.  The Jamul Casino project is mentioned in the same way as the last few reports – they appear to just be slowly writing the thing off.  There's not an optimistic word (from their perspective) in the report.  With each such report, the prospect of an actual, physical Jamul Casino grows more remote...

Woo hoo!

The Wikipedia Song...

If you use Wikipedia, you need to listen to this.  Beautiful!

Giant Methane Bubbles Caused Bermuda Triangle Disasters?

I've no idea whether this is serious or not.

Those Were the Days...

There was a time, not so very long ago, when a boss or owner could speak his mind plainly to his employees.  Shaun Usher at Letters of Note somehow found a collection of memos demonstrating this; they make fascinating reading.  Here's one example from the collection:

Tiger Oil Company
MEMORANDUM
Date: January 11, 1978
To: All Employees
From: Edward Mike Davis (Owner)

Subject: Idle Conversation

Idle conversation and gossip in this office among employees will result in immediate termination.

Don't talk about other people and other things in this office.

DO YOUR JOBS AND KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT!

Awesome.  I'm filled with envy for those earlier, more candid, less politically-correct times...

Now This is How to Quit Your Job...

This sequence of photos was emailed to her boss – and all her colleagues – by a girl announcing that she was quitting her job.  I can only aspire to such a hilarious and effective way to quit an awful job.

It's also a hoax, dang it.  But it's still funny as hell.

How to Cut the Deficit, Painlessly...

Well, painlessly for the taxpayer, anyway.  As Byron York points out, taxpayer savings of $40B to $47B annually could be generated simply by freezing government workers' pay until it comes into line with what non-government workers are paid to do similar work.  This is at least conceivable, politically – particularly if the Democrats are soundly thrashed in November.

What I'd really like to see happen, though, is that government workers' total compensation (pension included) is capped at parity to non-government worker levels – and average less – say 80% or 85%.  For the good of our economy, government jobs should be unattractive.  The only high-paying government jobs should be in the military.

Of course there's no way that any Democrat – or the vast majority of Republicans – would ever go for my proposal.  The thoroughly-entrenched bureaucratic special interests will see to that...

Pollster on the Democrats Position for November...