THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER

 Thunderstorms from space. People worry about hurricanes, but the flash flooding from a few entrained supercells thundering through your neighborhood also can leave a lasting impression. Peak hurricane season starts in two weeks. The National Hurricane Center says research trying to link devastating weather to global warming is inconclusive, according to al Reuters.

 As for the tropical wave near the Bahamas, meteorologist Bob Rose doesn't expect it to amount to much except maybe bring Central Texas some lower daytime highs if it pushes enough moisture in from the Gulf of Mexico by the weekend. The coast might get half an inch. "Further inland, the showers will become very scattered in nature, with totals generally around 0.25 inches or less. High temperatures next weekend will be mostly in the middle 90s."

UPDATE "Gentlemen, start your generators." TS Chris takes on the Caribbean and the CHN gets to work: " Prepare for widespread power outages, especially in the BVI's and isolated elsewhere if the track stays the course. More after the next advisory. Good luck, be smart, and be safe!! Dave."

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert speaking to northern regional council leaders a little while ago.

"We are determined to win this struggle," he insisted. "We are not willing to forfeit our right to live a normal life, one that is free of terrorism, incessant instability, threat, zealousness and hatred."

He doesn't sound much like a dove, does he? He was until the Hez put his feet to the fire. 

Meanwhile, in the Knesset, Bibi brings the fire to Olmert's back.

"Turning to Arab MKs who earlier referred to the Qana air raid, Netanyahu said: 'When missiles were falling, when an (Israeli) grandmother and her granddaughter were murdered, I didn't hear you…'"

UPDATE  For all the tough talk, the results so far are underwhelming. From Wall Street Journal editorial Tuesday: "Sunday saw more Katyusha rockets (about 150) launched into Israel than any previous day in the war--and Hezbollah is believed to have used up only a fraction of its stockpile. Israeli Defense Forces clearly underestimated Hezbollah's capabilities and overestimated their ability to degrade them from the air."

UPDATE Wednesday. More than 300 rockets fell on Israel, one landing as far south as Jennin, in the West Bank. Israel is not looking much better militarily than politically, but time will tell. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 02:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Bambi, or more likely Bambi's mother, has been in the backyard twice since I put up the lattice to keep the deer out. Either it's the same deer from before, or that one passed the word about the candy (rose bushes) in the backyard. The first return was last Wednesday when a deer in another backyard on the lot line pushed through (or, perhaps, discovered) an aging section of the privacy fence whose nails had come unnailed. I nailed it back up. Then, possibly Friday night, a deer head-butted through the rather thin lattice a hole big enough to get in and out. I made some stronger repairs, after slicing my finger on the broken lattice. The roses are struggling, not only with the triple-digit and dry afternoons, but from being unable to keep a flush of leaves.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I swore to myself when I started this blog that I would not succumb to the pressure to post, especially about the news of the moment. But I already seem to be doing that. That way lies madness, I'm sure, and I am going to try to knock it off by writing about things other than the snooze. 

Trevor Butterworth (love that name) summed it up frighteningly (and at great, but readable length) not long ago. Well, in February.

"...the dismal fate of blogging: it renders the word even more evanescent than journalism; yoked, as bloggers are, to the unending cycle of news and the need to post four or five times a day, five days a week, 50 weeks of the year, blogging is the closest literary culture has come to instant obsolescence. No Modern Library edition of the great polemicists of the blogosphere to yellow on the shelf; nothing but a virtual tomb for a billion posts - a choric song of the word-weary bloggers, forlorn mariners forever posting on the slumberless seas of news."

Nope, not me. No, no, no.

And if you have nothing pressing, after reading the whole thing, you might try the 90 comments on his piece. I'm going to go read a book.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The anonymous milblogger "An Army Lawyer" has an illuminating post on the MSM report on the gay Arabic linguist who was recently discharged from the 82nd Airborne because of homosexual conduct.

"As an initial matter, while the soldier was an Arab linguist, that was not his assignment at the time. He was assigned to the All-America Chorus (i.e. a singer), which is part of the 82nd Airborne Division but with a decidedly different mission.

"So unless we’re fighting the enemy with show-tunes, discharging this soldier is not part of some 'Sept 10' mentality. Were the soldier actually working as an Arabic linguist at the time, perhaps you could make that argument. But as he wasn’t, you can’t."

What you can do is question the Army's concern about gays in the ranks, at all. Since they are there, have always been there, and probably always will be there. But the Army didn't set the policy, afterall, although it was backed by such as Gen. Colin Powell, who as I remember vociferously denied that it was in any way related to the previous discrimination against minorities and women.  I asked  "An Army Lawyer" in a comment on his site about  why the sexual harrassment rules couldn't be applied to heterosexuals and gays as they are now applied to women soldiers, and will update with his answer.

UPDATE  He responded quicker than I thought he would (or I would have waited before posting), with this: "I see your point. Though I think the analogy to soldiers’ reluctance to accept black soldiers doesn’t quite hold for the reason that introducing the sexual element (as opposed to the more easily surmountable racial element) presents more problems than it solves."

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

John Noonan, co-founder of the milblog OP-FOR, writes in National Review that the elite universities are doing their best to see to it that the ranks of America's all-volunteer military contain few if any of their graduates.

"At Harvard, cadets are forbidden from drilling on campus grounds, the same grounds where George Washington drilled the Continental Army. At Yale, Air Force ROTC cadets are forced to endure a two-hour round-trip drive to the University of Connecticut to attend aerospace-science classes. Dartmouth’s refusal to offer its ROTC cadets even token support was enough for U.S. Army Cadet Command to substantially cut funding to the college’s tiny ROTC detachment."

Which reminds me of this recent speech by a Marine Corps general. 

Nevertheless, as a Heritage Foundation study released last fall shows, the war on terror has attracted volunteers across the income range and, so far anyway, despite no draft, isn't a rich man's war and a poor man's fight.

"The household income of recruits generally matches the income distribution of the American population. There are slightly higher proportions of recruits from the middle class and slightly lower proportions from low-income brackets. However, the proportion of high-income recruits rose to a disproportionately high level after the war on ter­rorism began, as did the proportion of highly edu­cated enlistees."

Noonan posts today on the hate mail his NR article generated.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 03:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"'I am very proud of my brother,' said Ronald Womack, as he spoke from a lectern at Greater Saint Matthew Baptist Church in southeast Houston. 'He sacrificed his life to do an honorable thing. ... He was willing to sacrifice his life to do his job to protect our freedoms.'"

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Pity the children of the slain woman in Seattle whose only crime was working at the Jewish version of the United Way, when a self-proclaimed "angry" "Muslim-American" showed up with a gun. Not to mention the five others he wounded, also women, probably also mothers, at least one of them pregnant.

Just another reminder, whether in USA or the Middle East, how the angry Muslims almost always target civilians.

Brave mujaheed, as Meryl Yourish sarcastically puts it. Indeed.

Mr. Boy's basketball day camp, at the J in Austin, has additional security, and it was comforting the other day at pick-up time to see an off-duty Texas state trooper working his shift. Also the sign at the front gate telling drivers that if they have no member sticker or other proof of legitmate business their trunk will be searched.

No hate murders of Jews here yet, but Central Texas is not immune to the ever-present anti-Jewish virus, though the most visible evidence was a few years ago when swastikas were spray-painted on a new congregation's storefront synagogue.

UPDATE AskMom says "Seattle is already tying itself into a pretzel thinking of excuses for this latest, hometown Jihadist evil" and American Digest has an high school pix of the grinning perp, Naveed Afzal Haq, from the Seattle daily, although I'd rather see photos of the victims and their families.

MORE The scummy shooter has now disappeared into the justice system where I hope he rots. Instead of more on him, although you can read it here, I'll reprint what the Seattle daily said about the dead woman, a mother of two grown children, who apparently was a convert to Judaism 40 years ago:

"Colleagues identified the slain woman as Pam Waechter, 58, of Seattle. Waechter, an assistant director at the federation, died at the scene.

"'This is just an extraordinary shock. We lost a really wonderful colleague, a wonderful friend. It's hard," said Nancy Geiger, the charitable organization's interim chief executive.

"'She was a person everybody loved, everybody enjoyed being with. She was a tireless worker for the Jewish community,' said Rabbi Jim Mirel of Temple B'nai Torah, where Waechter was a past president."

And now, because of some mooj wannabee, who gut shot the other women and tried to do the same to the pregnant one, Pam Waechter is dead. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by Dick Stanley at 02:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Israel Defense Forces seem not to be lacking in leadership, judging by the casualties thus far, and this report by Amos Harel, military correspondent for Haaretz:

"...as in previous battles, many of the fallen soldiers are officers. Of the 33 IDF soldiers killed in the fighting so far, eight of them were officers: three pilots, a deputy battalion commander, a company commander and two platoon commanders from Golani, and a platoon commander in the armored corps." 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Reading the civil war memoir Fighting for the Confederacy, by Longstreet's chief of artillery, Brig. Gen. Edward Porter Alexander, I seem to have come across the IDF's plans for the Hez:

"The first of all maxims for the conduct of a campaign is to oppose fractions of the enemy's army with the whole unit of your own...," Alexander wrote. "The second great axiom in the art is if possible to act against your enemy's communications, without exposing one's own."

Or, in the IDF's case, airstrike Hez's headquarters in Beruit, etc., and hit the airport and the major highways to cut their communications, before launching en masse to oppose "the fractions" in the South.

"The simple fact that no army can subsist for long without daily supplies of food & ammunition from the rear," Alexander continued, "indicates at once the vital importance of keeping its communications to the rear free from interruption."

All the disruption between the rear and the South -- possibly leading to the extinction of the Hez fighter -- could be why Syria and Iran are calling for a ceasefire.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 05:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

And it's only 50 million light years away. You could make it a weekend.

UPDATE  The details, since the original pix has been taken down: Spiral galaxy NGC 7331 is often touted as an analog to our own Milky Way. About 50 million light-years distant in the northern constellation Pegasus...

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If the point of milblogging is to counteract the MSM, the milbloggers are losing, according to a piece in the Wall Street Journal online on J.P. Borda, of Dallas, founder of the more than 1,400-site milblogging group. One of the group's most popular sites, Matthew Burden's Blackfive, only gets about 7,000 unique visitors a day.

"Military blogs receive a fraction of the hits generated by mainstream news Web sites. Mr. Burden's site, for example, receives about 210,000 unique visitors per month, he says. In comparison, Nielsen/Netratings data shows MSNBC.com got 24 million unique visitors last month.

"But milbloggers, who only began online postings in earnest within the past three years, have become increasingly energized and organized in their efforts to counteract existing media coverage. In April, bloggers convened in Washington, D.C. for the first ever milblogging convention."

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

One meteor every five minutes isn't much of a show, but if you have to be up anyway and you can find a pretty clear horizon (nevermind trying to escape light pollution, that's too far to drive) meteorologist Bob Rose has a reminder:

"The Southern Delta Aquarid meteor shower peaks on Friday, July 28th. Go outside before dawn on Friday morning, look south, and you could see a meteor every five minutes or so. No one knows where these meteors come from. They could be remains of a long-dead comet or debris from an asteroid-asteroid collision. Curious fact: There is a debris stream nearly parallel to this one. Earth will pass through it on August 8th, producing the Northern Delta Aquarid meteor shower. It's a mystery, too."

Lotsa mysteries in the naked universe. The meteor "season," so to speak, is just getting underway (see Stardate list of upcomers), so if you don't have to be up around 4 a.m. Friday, it's good to start thinking about making time to do it in the months ahead, to go see a reminder of where you live. The big picture.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"No one -- yet -- has accused Israel of deliberately firing upon itself [in the case of its own seven friendly-fire casualties so far]. Considering the fact that UNIFIL peacekeeping mission was a dead-letter it should naturally be asked why Kofi Annan, as their ultimate commander has seen fit to keep them in a position of danger where their only chance of safety actually depends on accurate targeting by the IDF. Their positions are manifestly so close to the Hezbollah; their convoys so at risk at being confused with mobile Hezbollah forces that only by the grace of God and the accuracy of the IDF have fatalities been avoided until now. They were willing to take the risk. Annan was willing to make the hay. You be the judge of Kofi Annan's competence both in the care of his men and with respect to the accusation he has made against the IDF."

Wretchard's great analysis of Annan's accusation that the IDF deliberately killed UN troops.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

4th Infantry Division officers at Fort Hood are rebutting, for the Houston Chronicle, WaPo military reporter Thomas Ricks' new book Fiasco which blames their tactics in 2003 for boosting the Iraq insurgency.

"He charged that the division's wholesale roundup of Iraqi men and boys in Saddam Hussein's home province led to the crowding of Abu Ghraib prison and created a resistance mindset that fueled the insurgency. 'The 4th Infantry was known for aggressive tactics that may have appeared to pacify the northern Sunni Triangle in the short term, but that ... alienated large parts of the population,' Ricks wrote.

"However, Bob Babcock, a former unit historian for the 4th Infantry Division who interviewed 500 of the division's soldiers for his book on the unit's 2003 deployment, A Year in the Sunni Triangle, said he was baffled by the conclusions."

Ricks is fairly baffling himself, saying in book-promoting interviews that he wants the troops to win the campaign in Iraq, yet he titles his book Fiasco, a close cousin to Quaqmire. So which is it? Win the war, or just sell books to Quaqmire's constituency?

"The 4th Infantry, which has called Killeen [Fort Hood] home for more than a decade, was commanded by Maj. Gen. Raymond Odierno in 2003. Odierno is now a three-star general scheduled to become the No. 2 commander of all U.S. forces in Iraq later this year. Ricks was particularly critical of Odierno, quoting fellow officers saying his approach was to bully Iraqis into submission.

"On Tuesday, Odierno said, 'As far as I know he (Ricks) never spent one day in the field with us in 2003-04.' He declined to further discuss the book.'"

Haven't read the book myself, but have noted that Ricks is partial to the Marines and some of his 4th ID critics are Marine officers. Allegedly. Anonymous sources are just anonymous as far as I can tell. They could be anybody. 

UPDATE  What I get for jumping to conclusions. Ricks pours on the named sources, as here, in a book excerpt about the 4th ID, published by the Chron before the rebuttal story. It's worth the read, and after my crack about unnamed sources, I would encourage a reading of it. But I'll stick with my question about Ricks' intent with the book's title, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, which is awfully mocking for someone who says he wants us to help win the campaign.

MORE See the comments below where Ricks stops by--apparently Googling his notices across the ether--to say the Chron has agreed to run "a correction" to Odierno's assertion above. Ricks contends he did spend time in the field with the 4th. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

"Cpt. (Blake) Russell had it all, his family said: an athletic build (he was a quarterback and shortstop at Boswell High School), good looks, a wife and children to whom he was devoted, and wit (he taught his Longhorn sister's parrot to sing the Aggie War Hymn)."

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From a provacative, and readable, Israeli politician's blog, a military veteran member of milblog, of which I also am a proud member. Food for thought as the Jewish state reclaims its security.

"Israel is not the first Jewish state in the two thousand years. The Jews rebuilt their state several time. It lasted sometimes years, sometimes possibly even two centuries. The eternal Rome proved not so eternal, and neither would be Israel. We live, and we die. States expand, and contract, and cease. Societies are in permanent flux. The maximum we can strive for is to make the inter-war periods longer and the wars shorter. That could be achieved. Overwhelming destruction will terrorize the enemy for decades. Mobile penetrating strikes and preemption can make the wars short. Israel just cannot conduct any other wars: low-end Iranian and Egyptian armies have more sustaining power than IDF. Israel only bests her enemies if striking fast, hard, and deep."

Posted by Dick Stanley at 02:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Everything seems to be accelerated these days, even growing up. Mr. Boy tells us there is a "cool table" at basketball camp, where the popular guys sit, and that he is a charter member. "No adults allowed at the cool table." A cool table! I thought you had to be in high school for that, junior high at the least. It's almost like he's joined a fraternity, and he's not even in first grade!

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

National Weather Service infrared satellite image of the Gulf of Mexico shows why big rains are expected by tomorrow, if not before, as far inland as Rancho Rolly Polly. The weather service in New Braunfels expects to be putting up a flash flood watch on Wednesday. But LCRA's Bob Rose thinks the hill country might not get much: "...the latest forecast guidance indicates the heaviest and most concentrated area of rain will occur across the coastal plains region and the eastern half of Central Texas, generally to the east of Interstate 35. Within this area, there will be some potential for localized flooding tonight and Wednesday."

UPDATE Then the patterns shifted and by 8 a.m. meteorologist Troy Kimmel was predicting a quarter inch or less west of I-35 before a shift back to hot and dry. Oh, well. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The black areas in these NASA radar images (taken Friday) are believed to mark Saturn's moon Titan as the only place besides Earth in the solar system to have lakes. Even if they are hydrocarbon lakes of liquid methane or ethane.

"The Cassini spacecraft, using its radar system, has discovered very strong evidence for hydrocarbon lakes on Titan. Dark patches, which resemble terrestrial lakes, seem to be sprinkled all over the high latitudes surrounding Titan's north pole."

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

While some parts of the country swelter, the triple digit days of Central Texas have passed away, and after a few cool nights, we've got a tropical disturbance to watch in the western Gulf, with a chance of some heavy, drought-busting rain. After an unseasonably warm and mostly dry first half of the year we'll take it.

Weather.com says the disturbance has already developed "a small vortex along the Mexican coast near Tampico. Should the vortex move slightly off the coast it could develop before reaching the Texas coast Tuesday. However, if the vortex moves on the coast or hugs the coast development would not be likely. Either way the overall area is moving to the north-northwest and should move into eastern Texas Tuesday with heavy rain."

Troy Kimmel, who teaches meteorology at the University of Texas, expects "the potential of a couple of inches of rain beginning tomorrow (Tuesday) and continuing into Thursday and Friday when rain chances diminish."

Posted by Dick Stanley at 04:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

IDF photo of a 2-seat Israeli F-16 wearing its home colors, and the best roundup of war reporting is still Israellycool. It's early evening in Israel at the moment. This is from one of Dave's earlier posts.

"All that we ask the American administration is to take a moral stance toward the Palestinian people, and the Palestinian suffering and to bear its responsibility as a superpower in this world," he told The Associated Press in an interview. He called on America "to restrain the Israeli aggression and stop it."

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

What's disappearing like home-made mince pies? Why, the Texas ice house, is what. Except I believe a Big Red would be as popular as a Nehi.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 02:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Air Force photo of C5 Galaxy transport, which the MSM has reported are flying into IDF bases replenishment arms for artillery and air strikes, as well as parts to maintain Israel's Fighting Falcons and Apaches, and unloading quickly before the next arrival.

Debka has its own version of why, but we'll have to wait and see if it's corraborated elsewhere: 

"The American airlift to Israel follows the air corridor Iran opened to replenish Hizballah’s stocks on Wednesday, July 19, landing supplies at Syria’s Abu Ad Duhur military airfield north of Homs."

Ynetnews has a good report on the Israeli ground offensive, which quotes the brass naming the  thirteen villages to be taken, so as Wretchard notes, you can plot the advance on a map. 

And the IDF reported Sunday: "Since the beginning of the current operation the Air Force has attacked upwards of 2,000 targets on more than 4,000 sorties.  IDF artillery batteries have fired upwards of 25,000 shells at Katyusha missile launch sites in southern Lebanon."

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

So, as soon as I say I'm going to go easy on the images and worry about copyright, up I throw a University of Texas photo of its McDonald Observatory, in the (Jeff) Davis Mountains of West Texas.

But this is one of my fav places in the Lone Star, where I was fortunate enough to get to go repeatedly in the 1980s and 1990s as a newspaper reporter. So much that when I retired, the editors gracefully awarded me not a gold watch or whatever but two nights at a rancho-hotel in nearby Fort Davis (for observatory visits) which the boy and Mom and I will take advantage of (most likely) next spring.

L to R: The Otto Struve 2.1 meter, the 11-meter Hobby-Eberly in the distant middle, and the 2.7 meter  Harlan Smith, which was used in the 1960s to map the visible side of the moon before the astronauts landed.

The late Harlan Smith, who once gave me a memorable tour of the solar system via one of the small telescopes under the little domes on the right side of the picture, envisioned the Hobby-Eberly but died of cancer before it was finished in 1997. The observatory has a good visitor's program.

I wonder if the cooks still bake cookies for the astronomers who, of course, work the night shift?

UPDATE  Noticed some searchers hunting for the story of the crime at McDonald. Here 'tis: "...one February night in 1970 a McDonald Observatory employee (not a Texan, but an Ohioan newly hired from another observatory!) suffered a breakdown and carried a pistol to the observing floor of the 107-inch [2.7 meter] telescope. He fired a shot at his supervisor, and then unloaded the rest of the clip into the primary mirror. Happily, fused silica is more resilent than ordinary glass, and the big mirror did not break. The craters have been bored out and painted black to reduce any light-scattering effect, and the end result is simply a slight reduction in the efficiency of the telescope. It is now the equivalent of a 106-inch telescope. The incident made the national television news, with Walter Cronkite describing it before a projection showing the wrong telescope upside down." Heh.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Finally found the code for making titles on the sidebar and decided to dub the military photos as coming from Defenselink.mil, which any newspaper or magazine would consider public property so I will, too. I would prefer to be able to caption them, but I'm still hunting for that piece of HTML.

You can tell from the preceding (below) that I have finally learned how to post images and will try not to go overboard and turn this place into a photo blog. On the other hand, I need to start taking my own so as to avoid copyright conflicts, although NASA has a lot of good public domain stuff and I like their work. So site building takes time, but is worth the effort, and even is fun. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As the IDF gathers armor and infantry for a push into Lebanon, it's a good time to hear the Israeli view of why it's necessary, in a podcast interview by Pajamas Media of Israel ambassador Daniel Ayalon. (Podcasting looks like fun. I need to try that sometime, when I finish learning how to make photo captions).

Austin's own Stratfor (subscription, although it was at Google news for a few hours this afternoon before it disappeared) has some details of the armament, including suspected Tel Aviv-range radar-guided missiles, which make Hez a mini-state, terrorism wise, and, as others have noted, good reason for war with their unembarassed suppliers, Iran and Syria.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Boys’ share of college admissions has dropped to 42 percent and is declining steadily. Boys also are responsible for 80 percent of school discipline problems. They are almost twice as likely as girls to be suspended from school, while four out of five high school dropouts are male."

Instapundit provides the link to this new report on the "boy crisis," which has not been especially noticed here at Rancho Rolly Polly, Mr. Boy only being six. But he does have a curious anxiety, "I'm worried I will 'get fired' from first grade because I can't read or write." Not to worry Mom told him, first grade is where you learn to read and write.

Maybe this is normal. His kindergarten certainly was beyond my (1949) experience. All I remember is rhythm band. Mr. B. had to keep a journal for his letters and printing, and Show and Tell was more like Public Speaking 101. Anxiety begins early these days.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 05:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

An old (1968) infantry OCS classmate of mine, actor Tucker Smallwood (Space:Above and Beyond, Contact, etc.) has self published a professionally-edited memoir of his Army and Vietnam days, including his Christmas 2004 return to his old Delta area of operations (whence the cover photo), where he was severely wounded in 1969. It's available in paperback, MP3, and on audio CD. Tucker is frank, sentimental, unafraid of controversy and easy to read or listen to. Check out his preview. You need a copy.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 03:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Earthrise from moon/NASA

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Bigelow Aerospace's July 17 photo of its inflatable habitat in orbit around the Earth with thermal and debris shielding.

The Las Vegas company, which hopes to put much larger inflatable habitats in orbit, hit the jackpot on its first attempt, July 12 -- despite a skewed camera at the launch pad in Russia heightening the suspense in Las Vegas, and then a power failure at Bigelow's contract tracking station in Virginia.

The contrator had to run extension cords to a restaurant across the street, while crews manually pointed their antenna, just in time to hear Genesis I call home.

Things seem to have been smooth ever since, including word that Genesis "is toting a NASA payload – a shoebox-sized experiment dubbed 'GeneBox'– a miniature laboratory that includes sensors and optical systems that can detect proteins and specific genetic activity, according to LiveScience.com. Visit the Bigelow site for video clips of the habitat's interior.

Now, if they can just convince people to live in a balloon, they might really have something.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From the Jerusalem Post:

"IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz is known to be opposed to a ground incursion into Lebanon, which he has said would only be carried out as a last resort. Harel also said that while the possibility existed, the chances the IDF would launch such an incursion were slim."

I'm just an old combat infantryman, but Haluzt seems to be worried more about his casualties than eliminating the Hez rocket launchers. Which he's trying to do from the air and sea, and with massed artillery  and small-unit special operations, rather than in large movements of infantry and armor.

It fits in rather unpleasantly with something else in the JP edition, commentator Daniel Pipes' opinion that the IDF has lost the touch that once made it great, and his conclusion that all of this will mean little in the long run.

"Deterrence cannot be reinstated in a week," he writes, "through a raid, a blockade, or a round of war. It demands unwavering resolve, expressed over decades."

But there aren't any decades left before Iran gets the bomb and gives Hez a really nasty warhead for its rockets, and Nazareth, for instance, is not merely rocketed but turned into glass. Casualties now or nuclear war later?

Israel blogger Meryl Yourish ( who lives in Virginia and may have finally found a job she wants and best wishes to her) notes that Hez has extensively mined the southern Lebanon borderland which would make it deadly to invade even in a Merkava tank. Yet she thinks IDF morale is high, and saves a taunt for Hez bossman Hassan Nasrallah, otherwise known as "Chipmunk Cheeks."

There's a last chance feel to this latest Israeli war on its terrorist tormentors and, hesitant chiefs of staff or no, I hope Olmert's otherwise dovish government takes it while the taking's good.

UPDATE  There's at least one company-grade IDF officer saying battalion or division size invasion isn't out of the question. "'There is a possibility _ all our options are open. At the moment, it's a very limited, specific incursion but all options remain open' Capt. Jacob Dallal, an Israeli army spokesman, told The Associated Press on Wednesday."

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

More on the interesting phenomenon of some civilians and their political and media backers agitating to pull out while the all-volunteer troops want to stay, via the chief findings from a new Stars & Stripes survey of troops in Iraq:

"In the third year of the war in Iraq, with debate flaring in the U.S., American troops surveyed by Stars and Stripes overwhelmingly said the war is worth fighting. Seventy-four percent of Stripes military readers in Iraq who responded to a readership survey said fighting the war for America was 'very' or 'somewhat' worthwhile."

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here at Rancho Roly Poly we are well into week one of basketball camp. The boy seems to like it, and today won an award for cooperation, which is always nice to hear. He also has a crush on one of the teenage coaches. Sort of a crush. A proprietary air when her name is mentioned. A six-year-old's crush.

He could not believe it tonight when Frodo confronted the black riders at the Ford and drew his sword rather than ride away. "Why doesn't he tell the horse to run?" Then the flash flood came and washed the riders away. Sort of like a Texas flash flood -- totally unexpected.

Why Roly Poly? Our most significant, indigenous insect on the rancho, along with spiders, ants, walking sticks, tree roaches, yellowjackets, wasps and bees, is the humble crustacean. Although we tend to see more of them in the winter.

UPDATE  Excellant, copyrighted rendering of the roly poly, with description. Then, the link died, and so I'm replacing it with this one, which has a good photo of the creature.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Charlie, the reserve officer who runs the incomparable milblog OP-FOR, is deploying. Good hunting, Charlie.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The heat wave that has the national media all a'dither is rather old news here in Texas and points north where this NOAA graphic shows we've been having a heat wave since the first of the year. Warmest spring I remember in Central Texas. Whether it's a fluke or proof of global warming, even meteorologist Bob Rose isn't sure.

"For the first 6 months of the year, the US as a whole, including Texas is off to the warmest year on record," Rose of the Lower Colorado River Authority, said in an email. "Austin is having it's second warmest year on record, while Dallas, Waco and San Antonio are all experiencing their warmest on record.

"It will be interesting to see how long this trend continues.  I'm not sure if it's global warming or not, but weather conditions across [Central Texas] have certainly been [showing] a warming over the past few years."

This is not exactly the way I wanted to get a photo or graphic up on the site (I'd prefer having the text with it instead of as an extended entry, and not have the image bleed off the right side of the hole for it) so I'm still working on that.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Iraq the Model's Mohammed Fadhill explains.

"The key point in this strategy is to keep the half-solution alive. This method proved successful in keeping the despotic regimes in power for decades and these regimes think this strategy is still valid. What makes them this way is their interpretation of international comments which came almost exactly as they always do; calls for restraint and urging a cease-fire which they (Iran and her allies) think will mean eventually going back to negotiations which they know very well how to keep moving in an empty circle."

What it really boils down to is the insanity of half measures when dealing with terrorists. You either go for victory or you accept their war of attrition, a slow death of a thousand cuts. But even if the Olmert government knows that - and it surely does - will they have the courage to push on through the usual condemnation?

Everyone in the blogosphere, it seems, apologizes before noting something DEBKAfile has up. The conventional wisdom is that DEBKA is not always accurate, but the Israeli open-intelligence site certainly is interesting and has many readers, and now has a good active map that shows what's within the range of some of those thousands of missiles that have been raining on northern Israel since last week, almost one-a-minute at times.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

 Having some trouble trying to coax a photo into this entry. Will try again later. It's about the only kind of elevator I find exciting, one that I'll be checking in on now and then.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I had hoped to be teaching Mr. Boy how to sail by now. Instead we're selling our 1985 Catalina 22. Despite being a native Texan, Mr. B. is at an age when he doesn't like to be out in the heat. In fact, he started basketball camp today, which is conducted in an air-conditioned gym.

But even when it was good, cool weather, back in the spring, I couldn't coax him to go out to the lake and it's been months since we visited the marina. Not cost-effective, paying a slip fee without using the thing, especially on retiree income when other expenses are beckoning.

Tried to give the boat gratis to my brother-in-law in Virginia, but being landlocked, he declined. So we have an ad up at sailtexas.com, a good site for news of the coastal and lake racing schedules, for which the Catalina 22 has its own group, BTW. Take a look. Wanna buy a boat?

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Pajamas Media is still the best source for news on the Israeli-Lebanese-Gazan war, with Truth Laid Bear the best for links to Israeli and Lebanese bloggers. Must be some Gazan bloggers there somewhere. TLB will have them.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

 "Archaeologists and others working to restore the submarine recovered six years ago from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Sullivans Island have found evidence the forward hatch may have been opened intentionally on the night the sub sank."

The question is was the hatch opened before the Hunley sank, or as it began to sink and the crew tried to get out?

Via Strategypage, which I don't blogroll only because many of the sites on the blogroll already do. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The photo under the search box on the right should be captioned but I haven't yet figured out how to do it. "Dust Patrol" is what I named it, a Defense department photo of troops in Iraq found on Strategypage.

I was lucky to get the photo up. I'm still struggling to figure out Movable Type. It took a patient tech at Yahoo to help me get the site up. I had filled out one too many system boxes and filled that one out incorrectly. The tech said to leave it blank. Worked good after that.

As for my blogroll, those are not folks who have linked to humble me, just blogs I like to read and so put up for you to read if you care to. They have a political resonnance, which I have only supplemented with the "I am Pro-Victory" graphic below the blogroll. There're similar ones I like and may switch them around from time to time, but I think one is enough. It is the most elegant one. Click on it to see what it is all about.

UPDATE I finally figured out how to caption the photos under the searchbox, at least generically, as coming from Defenselink.mil, and started rotating them a few days at a time. Or maybe every week? 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)