Quote of the Day...

Mark Steyn, writing at NRO about Obama's planned intervention in Syria.  The lead:

I see the Obama “reset” is going so swimmingly that the president is now threatening to go to war against a dictator who gassed his own people. Don’t worry, this isn’t anything like the dictator who gassed his own people that the discredited warmonger Bush spent 2002 and early 2003 staggering ever more punchily around the country inveighing against. The 2003 dictator who gassed his own people was the leader of the Baath Party of Iraq. The 2013 dictator who gassed his own people is the leader of the Baath Party of Syria. Whole other ball of wax. The administration’s ingenious plan is to lose this war in far less time than we usually take. In the unimprovable formulation of an unnamed official speaking to the Los Angeles Times, the White House is carefully calibrating a military action “just muscular enough not to get mocked.”

Go read the whole thing.

My father had a semi-serious solution for all these problems in the Middle East: use our nuclear arsenal to turn the entire Middle East into glass.  Then start over.  There are days when I think my father may have been wiser – and perhaps more serious – than I thought at the time...

What the Hell is Happening to My Country, Part 49,931...

Here are two examples of jack-booted bureaucrats trampling the faces of U.S. citizens:

• The ball-busters in the Consumer Products Safety Commission.  When I first heard about this, I bought some BuckyBalls for myself...
• Don't destroy that non-existant wetlands by building a pond (see video below)!

And then there's this: a liberal writer (and former lawyer) penning an article in which she asserts that sex between a teacher and a student shouldn't be a crime at all.  Jazz Shaw (writing at Hot Air) has an excellent retort.

An Annular Eclipse of the Sun...

Down on the surface of Mars, the Curiosity rover looked up to see a beautiful annular eclipse of the sun by the Martian moon Phobos. You can easily see that Phobos is not spherical – it's shaped more like a potato than a ball...

Oh, If Only...

Via my mom:

Imagine...

Imagine a thick steel sphere whose interior is just 6 feet (2 meters) in diameter.  Imagine shoehorning yourself, a companion, and a whole bunch of equipment into this tiny space.  Then imagine that steel sphere is attached to a submarine.  You're floating just a few feet under the surface when something goes horribly wrong, and your now-broken submarine breaks free of the cable holding it near the surface and it plunges toward the bottom, about 1/3 of a mile (1,580 feet, or 480 meters) below.  As your steel sphere – the only thing keeping you alive – rushes down at speeds reaching 40 mph (60 k/h).  You have almost a minute to prepare yourself before it his the bottom, but when it does hit all hell breaks loose.  Your submarine embeds itself in a shallow gully on the bottom.  Equipment and supplies are all over the place, but you and your companion survive.  You have oxygen sufficient for just 72 hours of life, but basically everything else about your submarine is broken.  There's no way you can do anything at all that could get you back to the ocean surface.  What do you do now?

This really happened forty years ago, in August 1973.  I remember it well, especially the timing (just a couple of weeks after the last U.S. combat activity in the Vietnam War).  The plight of the two men trapped deep underwater made news headlines all around the world.  After an international effort got the right equipment and men to the scene, the helpless submariners were rescued.  When they were finally back on the surface and cracked their hatch, they had just 12 minutes of oxygen left.  It was that close.  I know that Hollywood would have made it 12 seconds, but in real life...that is really, really close to the edge.  The photo at right was taken just after a raft picked them up from their sphere...

Under the Ice...

Bigger than the Grand Canyon, this one was just discovered under Greenland's icecap:

We're a long way from knowing even our own planet very well.  Other planets (and even more so other stars) we've just barely scratched the surface.  Literally...

SlightlyLoony's Links...

This is the inaugaral post of a new series: SilghtlyLoony's Links.  They can be on any topic, are not necessarily safe for work, and might induce uncontrollable laughter or chuckling.  Or they might piss you off.

Today's:

For Parkinson's sufferers: a stabilized spoon.  Seriously.

Turns out you can infer the value Obamacare places on your life.

Maybe that's how we are now (Peggy Noonan).

Version control for writers or groups of writers.

Mars may have enabled the creation of life on Earth.

Back Home...

I returned home last night from my trip to Virgina to visit my folks.  It's always good to get back home after a trip, and the more trips I make, the more true that is...

Debbie had a difficult day yesterday: our oldest cat (Pana, at right) had reached the point where it was time to say good bye, and Debbie had to both make the decision and act on it in my absence.  Tough for her, but she did it.  We've waited too long for some of other other animals, and have regretted it for years afterward; she was determined not to let that happen again.  And she didn't.  Little Pana was between 22 and 24 years old, a small all-black cat that was likely part Turkish (because he liked to play in water) that we rescued when he was quite young.  He had a long, happy, and safe life in our home...

This morning I did all my usual chores, then fired up our Kubota diesel tractor for another one: digging a grave for little Pana.  I was surprised when the tractor fired right up, as I hadn't started it for over a year.  But start it did, on the first turn of the starter.  Then I lifted the front bucket and the rear backhoe bucket and started moving toward the grave site.  Moments later I was swarmed with yellow-jackets, especially on my right hand.

They were in full “defend the nest” mode, stinging away as fast as they could.  I got stung quite a few times on my right hand and arm, twice above my right eye, and several times on my back and rear end.  Ouch!  I jumped off the tractor, leaving it running, and ran far enough away to escape the horde of angry yellow-jackets, then killed all the ones still stinging me.

The last time I had something like that happen to me was when I was a child – as an adult, I've only had one or two stings at a time.  I was worried what sort of reaction I might have to so many stings, but now (two hours later) all I have is some localized swelling.  My hand is by far the worst, but I expect it to go down within a few hours.  I've taken Benadryl and iced the hand; all the advice I can find on the web says those are really all I need to do.  Then wait :)

I found the reason why those yellow-jackets were so mad at me: they had constructed a nest under the left rear tractor tire.  When I moved the tractor, I ripped the roof right off their nest.  If some monster came along and ripped the roof off my house, I'd be pissed off, too.  I'd probably let him have it with my “stinger” (in my case, a semi-automatic 12 gauge shotgun).  Tonight, assuming it gets cool enough to slow the yellow-jackets down, I will destroy their nest.

I don't think I'll leave my tractor parked quite such a long time again :)

Ah, Those Irishmen – Such Romantics!

Via my mom:

At the Irish wedding reception the disc jockey yelled:

"All married men please stand next to the one person who has made your life worth living!"

The bartender was almost crushed to death.

Flying Pig Moment...

Is the New York Times finally getting it?

Good Times...

You're a cow.  You've been in the barn all winter, but now it's spring and the pastures are full of tasty green grass.  The farmer comes to let you out to pasture for the first time:



From the Mt. Vernon, Texas News...

Forwarded by reader Simi L. I don't know if this is for real, but...I really don't care. By the way, put down your drink and swallow before reading this...

WHOREHOUSE SUES LOCAL CHURCH OVER LIGHTNING STRIKE!

Diamond D's brothel began construction on an expansion of their building to increase their ever-growing business. In response, the local Baptist Church started a campaign to block the business from expanding – with morning, afternoon, and evening prayer sessions at their church.

Work on Diamond D's progressed right up until the week before the grand reopening when lightning struck the whorehouse and burned it to the ground!

After the cat-house was burned to the ground by the lightning strike, the church folks were rather smug in their outlook, bragging about "the power of prayer."

But late last week 'Big Jugs' Jill Diamond, the owner/madam, sued the church, the preacher and the entire congregation on the grounds that the church ... "was ultimately responsible for the demise of her building and her business -- either through direct or indirect divine actions or means."

In its reply to the court, the church vehemently and voraciously denied any and all responsibility or any connection to the building's demise.

The crusty old judge read through the plaintiff's complaint and the defendant's reply, and at the opening hearing he commented, "I don't know how the hell I'm going to decide this case, but it appears from the paperwork, that we now have a whorehouse owner who staunchly believes in the power of prayer, and an entire church congregation that thinks it's all bullshit."

Quote of the Day...

By Oren Hazi:

This is how we lose our rights. Not overnight in one fell swoop, but gradually, after getting worn down again and again, and after hundreds of mini-panic-attacks, and with ever-ratcheting procedural changes that effectively invalidate the assurances and safeguards that we're given. I give up. The terrorists have won.

Palate Cleanser of the Day...

Just watch:

Sometimes...

...one simply doesn't know what to say!

How To Demolish a Hotel, Las Vegas Style...

This happened 6 years ago, but I just saw it:

I'm So Depressed...

The Filthy Filner saga is over.  No more reliable morning entertainment for me!

Light Blogging Alert...

I'm getting on a plane this morning, bound for Richmond, Virginia to visit my folks.  I'll be back in about a week.  Meantime, blogging will be intermittent at best...

They're All Bozos...

...in the White House...

A Nation of Sullen Paranoids...

That's the title of an excellent piece by Peggy Noonan, and a quote from an unnamed Senator...