Too Much Truth to This...

Via my mom:

Laugh or cry – you decide...

Congressional Reform...

Our friend Vera S. passed this along:

Congressional Reform Act of 2011

1. No Tenure / No Pension.
A Congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office.

2. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security.
All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people. It may not be used for any other purpose.

3. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.

4. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.

5. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.

6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.

7. All contracts with past and present Congressmen are void effective 1/1/12. The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen. Congressmen made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term(s), then go home and back to work.

This is one of many variations of Constitutional Amendments running around, all the result of the current anger the public (including me!) feels toward their Senators and Representatives.  Some elements of this proposal I'd happily support; others (like 6) are more problematic – there are good reasons why the founding fathers decided that Congressmen needed protection from some law enforcement.

But... 

I think that such attempts to mandate the behavior of Congresscritters are largely missing the point.  Basically these are an attempt to get back to the “citizen government” that we like to believe is what our founding fathers intended.  But the truth is that we've drifted toward our current situation because of the Congresscritters we've elected, not because of the lack of any laws to control them.  The solution is actually simple, and does not require a Constitutional Amendment: we just have to elect the right people.  The Tea Party's successes in the debt-ceiling debate demonstrate quite graphically the power of the vote.  It's remarkable what they've achieved, despite being a tiny minority.

Imagine what they could achieve if they had the majority!

The 545...

My mom sent me an email containing a column by Charlie Reese, along with a poem and a list of taxes.  While the column was indeed written by Reese, it wasn't something published recently (as the email implied) – it was published in 1995 (and actually written 10 years before that!).  The rest of the email was a mashup someone decided to do.

The Reese column is a famous one, and worth reading if you've never seen it.  What I find most interesting about it is that its observations (like those of Mark Twain or H. L. Mencken) are just as pertinent today as when they were written.  Here's the conclusion of Reese's famous column:

We have annual deficits and a huge federal debt because that's what majorities in Congress and presidents in the White House wanted. We have troops in various Third World rat holes because Congress and the president want them there.

Don't be conned. Don't let them escape responsibility. We simply have to sort through 260 million people until we find 545 who will act responsibly.

Go read the whole thing.

Tea Party Anthem?

The music isn't quite to my taste, but the lyrics are:

Not a Good Idea...

Lost Cat!

Sabira Woolley has lost Jua Ini, their 7-year old Savannah cat (click to enlarge photo at right).  Here's her message to everyone:

Lost Cat / Gato Perdido
Reward / Recompensa
7 year old female Savannah cat named Jua Ini. Light yellowish tan with deep orange spots.
Missing since 7/1/11, but she has been reported seen very recently in the area of Castle Peak Lane and Beaver Hollow Rd.
If you see or hear of her, please let us know right away!
Please call us at 619-291-1225 or 858-354-1886!
Or email us at islandfever@islandfever.com
We love and miss her! We can't sleep from worrying about her.
Jua Ini is very wary, and runs and hides from strangers. Please do not chase or grab her.
You can gently and slowly offer her food and water, to encourage her to stick around. If you call us to get her, we'll be there in a flash.
If you help us locate her and we get her back safe, you get the reward (money or a Savannah kitten, or excellent live music).

They live on Lawson Valley Road, north of Skyline Truck Trail, a half mile or so from the stop sign.  Please keep an eye out for their beautiful cat, and contact them if you see it!

AGW Skeptics Triumphant?

Several readers (Larry E., Steve W., and Jessi S.) passed this along.  I'm not sure how much to read into it just yet, but if it's verified it's certainly a very interesting piece of data.

The basic notion is a simple one: scientists have known for a long, long time that the heat energy striking the Earth from the Sun is eventually re-radiated back out into space.  This much is obvious from the fact that the Earth hasn't been heated to the point of incandescence (which it certainly would be if the Sun's energy wasn't re-radiated).

The question has always been, basically, how long is that energy “stored” on Earth before being re-radiated?  That time then determines how hot the Earth gets.

The computer models used by the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) proponents makes a lot of assumptions about this critical factor.  The research at the link shows that one of the key assumptions – and one used by every AGW model – is dead wrong.  This means that the model's results are dead wrong.  And it also means that the model's projections of the impact of manmade carbon dioxide are dead wrong.

I want to see this research verified before I'll feel any sense of vindication.  But I am feeling some anticipation...

Shannon's Law Not Inviolable?

This looks very interesting.  I haven't read the white paper yet, and I don't know how practicable the implementation is, even if the underlying theory is sound.  But I do know this: if it really works and if it really can be built, it changes everything...

Your Orange Juice Isn't What You Think It Is...

De-oxygenation, labeling laws, and flavor packs, oh my...

Noonan: He is a Loser...

Peggy Noonan has some interesting observations on The One.  Her conclusion:

He is a loser.  And this is America, where nobody loves a loser.

Go read the whole thing.

Texting...in the 1800s!

Not on mobile devices, of course – but on the telegraph...

Washington Doesn't Speak English...

Despite being somewhat cynical about politics and politicians, I still occasionally get caught by their manipulative language.  It just happened again, in the debt-ceiling debate.  The Republicans are insisting on the need for spending cuts.  I agree, government needs to get smaller.  But “spending cuts” mean something different in Washington than they do to this country boy...

I thought “spending cuts” means that we'd spend less money in the future than we do today.  Oh, silly me.  It turns out that Washington uses a different definition.  To them, “spending cuts” means a smaller increase than would otherwise be planned.  Even with the “spending cuts”, the Boehner plan would spend more each year than in the year before.  Some “cut”!

Can you imagine anywhere other than the loony bin that is Washington where one could get away with this sort of blatant misuse of common English?  In any business environment, you'd be out on your butt before you could blink.

Rope.
Tree.
Politician.
Some assembly required...

The War in Mexico...

It continues to amaze me how little impact the violence in Mexico seems to have on people (citizens or not) in America.  Even the awareness of the violence is low – I've spoken with any number of people here who had no idea how bad things are just a few miles south of here.  From Strategy Page today:

Mexico’s most violent city, Ciudad Juarez, suffered over 3,100 murders last year. That's 238 per 100,000 population. That's far higher than Baghdad during the height of the terrorism violence a few years ago. In New York City, the rate is 6.5. The most violent American city, Camden, New Jersey, has a rate of 40. Meanwhile, Ciudad Juarez has a new police chief, who cleaned up the violence in Tijuana, a city with the same population (1.3 million), and the same problem (out-of-control drug gang violence.)

Ciudad Juarez' new mayor is famous for “cleaning up” Tijuana.  But that is a very, er, flexible term: last year Tijuana had almost 1,000 murders (including dozens of Americans).  More Americans were murdered last year in Tijuana than in all of San Diego County, by a large margin.

And yet very few people seem to even know about this, much less be concerned about it.  Partly this must be the relative inattention paid by the lamestream media.  Thousands of news clips play every year about American casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan; very few on American casualties in Mexico.  But the lamestream media is driven by what they believe people are interested in.  Are they correct on this one?  Are Americans completely disinterested in the chaos and lawlessness just south of the border?  Sadly, my own experience supports that notion...

The Little Oak...

Very cool time-lapse video of the first 8 months of an oak tree's life:

Inspirational Senior...

Via my lovely wife:

As we get older, we sometimes begin to doubt our ability to "make a difference" in the world. It is at these times that our hopes are boosted by the remarkable achievements of other "seniors" who have found the courage to take on challenges that would make many of us wither.

Harold Schlumberg is such a person:

"I've often been asked, 'What do you do now that you're retired?' Well, I'm fortunate to have a chemical engineering background, and one of the things I enjoy most is converting beer, wine and vodka into urine. Then I piss on photos of The Senate and The House.  I do it every day and I really enjoy it."

Harold is an inspiration to us all...

Doomed...

Megan McCardle is not feeling optimistic about the debt ceiling negotiations.  The lead on her piece:

When I heard that the president was making a speech this evening, naturally I made plans to watch it. After all, our nation is at a crossroads--either we will figure out a way to work together and pass a debt ceiling increase, or we'll be forced into default or government shutdown. I wanted to know what the president had to say at this critical juncture. Now, having listened to his speech, and John Boehner's response, I am left with the same question that is on the lips of every American: why on earth did I bother?

Then there's her conclusion:

That was what I kept thinking about as I watched tonight's speeches. These guys are out of ammunition. They don't even have any good arguments left to fire at each other. Which I think means we're hosed.

That's pretty close to my own take, which really boils down to this: not one of these bozos in a position to actually do something is sincerely looking out for the country; instead, it's all about the political positioning.  Washington is broken, and broken bad.  Incremental fixes aren't likely to work.  What we need is a revolution.

Read the whole thing.

Terror Threat Levels...

Reader Doug S. sends this along.  It claims to be written by John Cleese, but I have not been able to confirm that.  Not that it really matters!

ALERTS TO THREATS IN 2011 EUROPE : BY JOHN CLEESE

The English are feeling the pinch in relation to recent events in Libya and have therefore raised their security level from "Miffed" to "Peeved." Soon, though, security levels may be raised yet again to "Irritated" or even "A Bit Cross." The English have not been "A Bit Cross" since the blitz in 1940 when tea supplies nearly ran out. Terrorists have been re-categorized from "Tiresome" to "A Bloody Nuisance." The last time the British issued a "Bloody Nuisance" warning level was in 1588, when threatened by the Spanish Armada.

The Scots have raised their threat level from "Pissed Off" to "Let's get the Bastards." They don't have any other levels. This is the reason they have been used on the front line of the British army for the last 300 years.

The French government announced yesterday that it has raised its terror alert level from "Run" to "Hide." The only two higher levels in France are "Collaborate" and "Surrender." The rise was precipitated by a recent fire that destroyed France 's white flag factory, effectively paralyzing the country's military capability.

Italy has increased the alert level from "Shout Loudly and Excitedly" to "Elaborate Military Posturing." Two more levels remain: "Ineffective Combat Operations" and "Change Sides."

The Germans have increased their alert state from "Disdainful Arrogance" to "Dress in Uniform and Sing Marching Songs." They also have two higher levels: "Invade a Neighbor" and "Lose."

Belgians, on the other hand, are all on holiday as usual; the only threat they are worried about is NATO pulling out of Brussels .

The Spanish are all excited to see their new submarines ready to deploy. These beautifully designed subs have glass bottoms so the new Spanish navy can get a really good look at the old Spanish navy.

Australia, meanwhile, has raised its security level from "No worries" to "She'll be alright, Mate." Two more escalation levels remain: "Crikey! I think we'll need to cancel the barbie this weekend!" and "The barbie is canceled." So far no situation has ever warranted use of the final escalation level.

Hummingbirds...

Ordinarily I wouldn't think of a wide-angle lens as being appropriate for taking photos of hummingbirds – instead, my instinct would be to go for the telephoto.  But the combination of a couple of things changes the equation.  First, a multi-megapixel sensor (12mp, in this case) means that your subject can be a relatively small part of the photo and still be at an acceptable resolution.  Second, when the hummingbirds just don't care that you're 4 inches away, the wide angle lens suddenly is much less of a problem.

There's another slightly subtle benefit of a wide angle lens.  It's very obvious if you have two photos of the same subject side-by-side, one taken with a wide angle lens and the other with a telephoto lens.  The wide angle photo looks more “natural”, more “three dimensional”, while the telephoto picture looks “flat”.  The photo above was taken at a distance of 6 inches, with a wide angle lens.  It's a good approximation of what you'd see if you were out there eyeball-to-eyeball with our little hummer lady. 

Now if the orioles would only let me get this close!

Realtime Satellite Data on Google Earth...

When I was a kid in the '60s, trying to find the position of a satellite meant hours of detective work in the library, and only for those few satellites whose ephemeri (positions) were made publicly available.  Here's a web page that gives you a Google Earth view with the positions of thousands of satellites layered upon it, updated every 30 seconds.  At right is what it looked like a few minutes ago in my neck of the woods.  Awesome!

Robotic Seagull...

The flight is surprisingly natural looking.  I want one!