Morning Walk...

Something was in our yard last night.  I don't know what it was, but the dogs do.  All four of them.  This morning I had all four on leash, and as we walked out of our front door, they nearly pulled me over.  For once they were all pulling – very strongly! – in the same direction.  The usual morning drill is to meander outside in a snarl of leashes, each dog searching for the perfect place to pee.  Not this morning, oh no...

This morning, all four dogs headed straight for the first spot of intense smell, about 40 feet (12 meters) outside our front door.  At that special spot (where I could see or smell absolutely nothing), all four dogly noses tried to get to the same tiny little patch of ground.  They were arranged in a perfect cross, 90° apart, jostling for the best access to that spot.  They seemed neither particularly excited or afraid, just interested.  Only after they'd had their fill of inhaling whatever molecules they could, vacuuming up everything useful – only then did they decide to pee.  Right there, on that spot, one after the other.  There's a message there, but I'm not sure what it is.

The rest of our morning walk was a series of high-speed dashes between other spots that were just as intensely interesting as that first spot.  A trail of them led down our driveway toward our gate.  As we got near the gate, it dawned on me that the dogs were going to straight out the gate and into the hills unless I did something about it, so I started yanking them back.  This was not as successful as it normally is.  Finally I tried a slightly subtler tactic: I pulled them sideways, off our driveway and into our yard.  This worked.  Once I got them going sideways, I yanked them sideways again, and got them headed back toward the house.  Two 90° turns was feasible; a single 180° turn was not. 

The march back to the house was another series of dashes between delicious spots that needed vacuuming.  One other spot became a “pee target”.  I've no idea what made those two particular spots targets, while the others weren't.  I also have no idea what it was that came into our yard, and to within 40 feet or so of our house!

News Overload...

There's so much happening in the world right now...I'm overwhelmed.  I have the sense that we're all witnessing something that potentially is of the same historical import as the fall of the Soviet Union.  It seems like the world's attention isn't particularly focused on the events in the Middle East.  They're in the news, but for a lot of it I have to dig a bit on the inter-tubes.  But the news is there, though it's very hard to be sure what to place credence in.

Libya, Yemen, Iran, Bahrain all appear to have active revolts taking place (though with greatly differing prospects of success).  Gadaffi is slaughtering hundreds of his subjects.  The governments of Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, and UAE are all taking various actions designed to tamp down any revolutionary efforts – though for most of these it's not clear how much those actions were actually needed to maintain the current regimes' power.  Our president says nothing at all about the situation; offers no support, exhibits no leadership either domestically or internationally.  This shames me, as this is exactly the sort of situation in which the world looks to the U.S. for leadership.  Where will the leadership come from?  China?  Russia?  France?

One thing that keeps running through my mind are the predictions of the “domino effect” in the Middle East by a host of neocons in the early 2000s, and by Natan Sharansky.  The scenarios they outlined as likelihoods bear a striking resemblance to what's actually happening...

This morning I read of the earthquake in New Zealand; as I read the death toll stood at 65, with hundreds still unaccounted for.  I visited the city of Christchurch back in the '70s, while I was in the U.S. Navy; somehow my having been there makes the devastation seem a little more real than the typical news report.  There's little any of us can do to help; all we can do is hope for the best...

A New Kind of Internal Combustion Engine...

Reader Dr. Simi L. passes along this video of an OPOC (Opposed Piston, Opposed Cylinder) internal combustion engine.  The video makes clear the advantages of such a design, and they are indeed interesting.  I'd love to see one of these in action!  A word of caution to the viewer: the person narrating the video is the entrepreneur behind its development – so you can fully expect the benefits to be exaggerated and the challenges understated...

Voting With Their Feet...

Americans who are desperate for jobs will move from one state to another to get a job.  Studying the relative movements of Americans between the states is a wonderful summary of the relative economic health of the various states.  Certain businesses are marvelously sensitive to these relative people flows.  One such business is one-way rentals of U-Haul trailers – if more people are traveling from state A to state B than vice versa, U-Haul will charge more for the former in order to cover their cost of returning the trailer.

Reader Doug W. passes along an article that looks at exactly this statistic.  A teaser for fellow Californians:

Good indicators of the outward migration are the prices of U-Haul vehicles. To rent a 26-foot truck one-way from San Francisco to Austin costs $3236, and yet the one-way charge for that same truck from Austin to San Francisco is just $399. Even so, U-Haul has to pay its employees to drive the empty trucks back from Texas.

“Ouch!” says Doug. Ouch, indeed...

Here's another article that looks at the same metric more broadly.  And you can't help but notice that in general, the states that are attracting workers (because they're economically healthy) are the least liberal/progressive...

The Secret Life of the Pilcrow...

Do you know what a pilcrow is?

Wisconsin Kerfuffle...

I've received several emails over the past few days from people wondering why I'm not commenting on the confrontation between Governor Scott Walker and the public employee unions in Wisconsin.  The reason is very simple: I have little to add to the discussion.  But I'm watching with great interest, because I think the outcome of this confrontation is going to be a foreshadowing of the politics of the next year or two.

This sort of confrontation was, I think, inevitable after the 2010 elections.  I certainly didn't expect the public employee unions to simply roll over – they're going to fight back with every tool at their disposal, as we're seeing in Madison.  They have every right to do so.  The interesting element here isn't so much what the unions are doing – rather it's how Scott Walker and the (Republican majority) Wisconsin legislature react.  If they stick to their principles and pass Governor Walker's reform bill, then the conservatives and the Tea Party will have won an important battle in their war on government spending, and their fellows across the country will take great heart.  On the other hand, if they cave in to the public employee unions, the unions across the country will take great heart.  I don't believe the overall war on government spending hinges on the results in Wisconsin, but I do believe that a convincing victory by either side will greatly aid that side.  So I'm watching with great interest, and cheering for Governor Walker... 

Epic Fails: Technology Forecasts...

An amusing collection of forecasts by the experts and pundits of the past – every one of them an epic fail.  These make very clear something that most people figure out if they live long enough: the experts of today have no particular skill at divining the future.

Just as a sample, here's one from one of my personal heroes: Lee de Forest, one of the pioneers of electronics (he invented the first practical vacuum amplifiers, the triode):

While theoretically and technically television may be feasible, commercially and financially I consider it an impossibility, a development of which we need waste little time dreaming.

Heh, as the Instapundit would say...

And Even More Rain!!!

As I write this on Sunday morning, the storm total is just over 4.5 inches (12 cm).  It's quite thoroughly wet outside!

The dogs and I were a little late this morning for our walk; we didn't get outside until about 5 am.  The sky was filled with dark clouds, but there were plenty of places where the starry sky peeked through – including one big hole with a bright moon.  The moonlight lit up all the clouds most beautifully.  Our walk was uneventful; just happy dogs in a freshly washed environment.  Just a few moments after we came back inside, the heavens erupted once more with another brief downpour.  Judging from the radar, we're in for a few hours of that sort of thing...

Rain!!!

Last night it poured – the proverbial cats and dogs.  We got almost 3 inches (7 cm) of rain just last night.  For these parts, that's the stuff of legends. As I write, we're still getting intermittent showers, but nothing like the sustained intensity of last night.  The pounding on our new (and watertight!) metal roof woke me up a few times, and I was glad it did – I flipped on one of our outdoor floodlights and just stared out at the wondrous downpour.

The dogs and I took our morning walk while the downpour was in full swing.  I was all decked out with my waterproof jacket and rain hat; the dogs could hardly have cared less.  The three field spaniels, as usual, had noses to the ground – the wet was all good so far as they were concerned.  And the border collie just went for the pine cones, also entirely as usual.  Outside the door, on the way back in, all three showed their usual incomprehension of why I might want to rub them with a towel.  You could almost hear them saying “Aw, come on!  Just let me in already!  I just know something exciting is happening in there!”

And for three of them, something exciting was happening – but not in the house.  Racer, Miki, and Mo'i are all headed to Ramona today (with Debbie, of course) to compete in an agility trial.  Mo'i hasn't been to a competition in a long, long time – Debbie's taking him only because she knows he'll enjoy it...

NGC 2841...

Via APOD, of course...

Wet Doggy Morning...

I've been a little discombobulated the past few days – my company has moved to a new building, and my first week in the new building is on an unusual schedule for me.  I'm helping one of my team teach a class on our Runbook Automation product, and the hours aren't what I'm used to.  Nobody else seems to think that 5 am is a good time to start, so we're not starting until 8:30 am.  I still wake up at around my normal time (it's habitual; can't help it), so these shifted hours feel hard.  Oh, well.  It's all done on Friday!

We got a half inch of rain yesterday, most of it late in the day and early evening.  This morning it had stopped raining, but the ground was sopping and the sky completely overcast.  The sounds of the morning were completely dominated by our ecstatic frog community.  All four dogs were a little subdued, and very actively sniffing – probably something intimidating visited our yard last night.  I couldn't see or smell any sign of it, but the dogs were all over it.

Bringing the dogs back in after a wet morning walk is always a challenge.  Imagine having four very vigorous dogs on short leashes – bad enough already.  Then when you approach the house's front door, of course they all want to go in – so they're madly jockeying for position as I try to unhook them from the leashes.  After that madness is completed, I've got a writhing ball of dogs at the door, but every few seconds one of them gets distracted and darts away – so I've got to call it back, which isn't always easy (depends on the attractiveness, in dogly terms, of the distraction).  On a wet morning like this morning, I've an additional step: I have to dry off the worst of the water with an old towel we keep by the door.  The dogs, naturally, have zero interest in being dried off; in fact, they have no idea what I'm doing, and find the whole process puzzling and distasteful.  So they wriggle all the more!  Eventually I get them somewhat drier and all positioned by the door – and when I slide it open, the four-dog herd goes thundering into the house.

That home entry always follows the same pattern.  Miki, our youngest field spaniel, always is in the lead.  He's driving as hard and fast as he can, heading straight for the bedroom where Debbie is still in the process of waking up.  Miki's arrival on the bed will speed that process up, and make the final result more certain (you cannot remain asleep with Miki bouncing on you).  After Miki, Racer (the border collie) follows slightly behind.  I think it's mostly reflex with him; he sees Miki running, has no idea why, but can't stand to be left behind.  After Racer, it's Mo'i, our oldest male field spaniel, lumbers along.  He's not running, and he's not headed for the bedroom – he heads for the food bowls in the kitchen (just in case they magically filled up with food while he was outside), and then, always disappointed, heads to the water bowl for a prolonged drink.  That could take five minutes.  Finally, at the back of the herd, is Lea – our oldest dog, a female field spaniel.  I think she's actually running flat out, but she's old and creaky, so that isn't very fast.  She usually gets tuckered out before crossing the living room, so she changes course for one of the doggie beds that our house is littered with, and curls up for a nice nap before doing anything more energetic.  It's the same pattern every morning...

Guard Dog...

The other night, as I was getting ready to go to bed, I noticed Miki (our youngest field spaniel) standing just inside our bedroom door, between our bed and a bookcase.  He had a funny look on his face; to me it looked like he was afraid of something and hiding.  I petted him a bit, trying to comfort him, but he wouldn't budge.

A few minutes later, Debbie came into the bedroom and immediately recognized his behavior as “guarding behavior” – he was guarding something from our other dogs.  But what?  We couldn't see anything there that would interest a dog.

After a few mintues of trying various things, we figured out what he was interested in – something behind the books on the lowest shelf of the bookcase (which is right on the floor).  Our first thought was that some little critter had zoomed across the floor and hidden itself behind the books.  We have any number of little critters out here that could do that, ranging from cute little desert mice that occasionally make their way into the house somehow, to less benign things like scorpions and baby rattlesnakes.

Naturally, it was my job to figure out what was behind the books.  Miki watched the proceedings with great interest, clearly eager to get at whatever we'd reveal.  So, very carefully, I started pulling books off the bottom shelf so I could see behind them.  On about the third book, the culprit revealed itself: a wild dog biscuit fragment.  How that little piece of dog biscuit got behind our books, we have no idea.  Nor do we know when that happened – those books haven't been touched for months, so it could have been quite some time.  But Miki's little cold, wet nose obviously led him to the shelf on that day, and he sure as hell wasn't going to let some other dog capture that biscuit!

Of course we let Miki eat his prize, which he did with evident satisfaction...

Camellia...

Via BPotD...

Stardust-NeXT Visits Comet Tempel 1...

After its initial mission was successfully completed, the Stardust robotic explorer had some extra fuel.  After holding a contest for ideas on what to do with this, NASA picked a proposal to revisit the comet Tempel 1, which was first visited by the Deep Impact mission back in 2005.  NASA named this new “bonus” mission Stardust-NeXT. 

After a lot of work and some very tricky orbital mechanics (to keep the fuel use low), on Valentine's Day (Monday) Stardust-NeXT made a successful near pass to comet Tempel 1, collecting all sorts of science data including a spectacular series of images like the one at right (via APOD, of course).

Total cost of this scientifically fruitful mission: less than the cost of shipping Tang to the International Space Station.

Dang!

Niall Ferguson on TV...

Niall Ferguson is one of my favorite authors, with a series of non-fiction books covering a variety of topics in history and economics (often blending the two).  They're uniformly excellent, very readable, and I recommend them often to my friends.

I had no idea that Mr. Ferguson appeared as a pundit on TV (since I rarely watch TV!), but yesterday I happened across this clip yesterday.  In it, Mr. Ferguson (apparently an invited guest on MSNBC) eviscerates the rather obvious pro-Obama position of the talking heads.  He brooks no nonsense, avoids anything resembling platitudes, and absolutely nails them with those pesky things called facts.  Highly entertaining!  I'd really like to see more like this, but I suspect that Mr. Ferguson's career on MSNBC has come to a screeching halt, for he ran completely off the approved narrative rails...

PC in the Military...

Remember this guy?  He's Major Hasan, the Muslim extremist who happened to be an Army psychiatrist – who attacked his fellow soldiers in Ft. Hood just over a year ago, killing 12 of them.

Dorothy Rabinowitz has an excellent piece in today's WSJ discussing the results of the military reports on the incident.  An excerpt:

In this report, titled "A Ticking Time Bomb" and put out by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, there is a detail as dazzling in its bleak way as all the glowing misrepresentations of Dr. Hasan's skills and character, which his superiors poured into their evaluations of him. It concerns the Department of Defense's official report on the Foot Hood killings—a study whose recital of fact made no mention of Hasan's well-documented jihadist sympathies. Subsequent DoD memoranda portray the bloodbath—which began with Hasan shouting "Allahu Akbar!"—as a kind of undefined extremism, something on the order, perhaps, of work-place violence.

This avoidance of specifics was apparently contagious—or, more precisely, policy. In November 2010, each branch of the military issued a final report on the Fort Hood shooting. Not one mentioned the perpetrator's ties to radical Islam. Even today, "A Ticking Time Bomb," co-authored by Sen. Joe Lieberman (I., Conn.) and Susan Collins (R., Maine), reminds us that DoD still hasn't specifically named the threat represented by the Fort Hood attack—a signal to the entire Defense bureaucracy that the subject is taboo.

There is something seriously amiss when the military can't (or won't) see the obvious evidence of our main enemy's infiltration into its own ranks.  The political correctness/multicultural movement is bad enough in the civilian world.  In the military, it puts our warriors unnecessarily in harm's way...

WTF: Weapon of Mass Destruction Found in the U.S.?

I'm not entirely sure what to make of this story.  The Daily Mail isn't exactly at the top of the list of reputable new sources.  On the other hand, the Obama administration would probably behave in exactly the way this article implies they are (hiding evidence of terrorist success), and the lamestream media here definitely has a history of supporting the administration. 

So I'm left wondering...

More Governor Awesome!

I'm still struggling with the concept that this outstanding example of effective government is from freaking New Jersey!

It's hard to imagine a response from a politician I'd like better, to a challenge like this one:

Egypt...

I have so much hope for the people of the Middle East, and at the same time I'm very worried about the bazillion ways this could go horribly wrong...

Peggy Noonan, apparently fully recovered from her Obama spell, has some interesting thoughts.  One paragraph:

And youth trumps age. Egypt is a young nation, median age 24, with high youth unemployment. All revolutions, in the end, are about the young versus the old, because the young are driven by hope and the old by experience. The men who massed in Tahrir Square the first week looked to be aged roughly 16 to 35. A few days into the revolution, I received an email from a friend just back from Cairo. He told me, he'd seen a young man run out of his suburban Cairo house. He was off to the demonstrations, to take part in history. Running after him was his grandmother, who literally grabbed him by the ear and tried to drag him back inside.

Heh. I can easily visualize that grandmother!

The always-interesting Fouad Ajami has a great column, also at WSJ, which concludes:

Umm al-Dunya, the mother of the world, Egyptians and other Arabs call the fabled city of Cairo. It had been there, in that city founded a millennium ago, that Islam fashioned a civilization, made its peace with the world, outwitted and outwaited conquerors.

Egyptians know that this Arab revolution of 2011—and the upheaval has earned that name—had not begun in their metropolis, that it had travelled eastward from Tunisia. When that revolt arrived in Cairo, it found a stage worthy of its ambitions. For decades now, Egypt has been the lens through which Arabs see their history. This is the case today. A new Arab politics has spawned in Liberation Square, a movement of a piece with the modern ways of protest and reform.

It will be said that the great, enduring dilemmas of Egypt—a huge country that has lost out in the game of nations—will still be there. There will be accounts to settle, a struggle between those who were sullied by the dictatorship and those who weren't. The Egyptians will be tested again as to their fidelity to democratic ways. But if this standoff that ended in the demise of the dictator is any guide, the Egyptians may give us a consoling tale of an Islamic people who rose to proclaim their fidelity to liberty, and who provided us with a reminder that tyranny is not fated for the Arabs.

Our fingers are crossed and our thumbs are pressed (as my German friends would say), reflecting our fervent hope for a good outcome from all this turmoil.  We're also hoping that this revolutionary wind keeps right on traveling, across all the thugocracies in the region...

Code of the West...

Via my lovely wife.  There's an interesting backstory.  The code:

1. Live each day with courage

2. Take pride in your work

3. Always finish what you start

4. Do what has to be done

5. Be tough, but fair

6. When you make a promise, keep it

7. Ride for the brand

8. Talk less and say more

9. Remember that some things aren't for sale

10. Know where to draw the line

Lots to like about that...