THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER

Lucky us, because it's a Leap Year, and people in charge of such things feel a need to align the calendar with the seasons, we get an extra day today. What will you do with your extra day? In Anthony, a town that straddles the Texas-New Mexico state lines in the western tip of Texas near El Paso, and has since 1988 called itself the Leap Capital of the World, it's time to celebrate--a shindig that continues through Sunday. They claim people come from all over the world. But, then, chambers of commerce are known to claim a lot of things.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hard to believe, as hard as the wind is blowing today, threatening to lift my cap and toss it into the street when I was out and about an hour ago, that the wind actually stopped last night in West Texas, which hampered, but didn't kill, the Texas power grid:

"Texas produces the most wind power of any state and the number of wind farms is expected to increase dramatically as new transmission lines are built to transfer power from the western half of the state to more populated areas in the north."

We didn't know a thing about the emergency at the rancho, nor did any other residential customers. ERCOT's industrial customers absorbed it, as per arrangement. It's nice being on a state-wide grid, unaffected by whatever happens to electricity elsewhere in the country. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 02:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

An intriguing new "culture war" book by Texas Gov. Rick Perry, an Aggie and an Eagle Scout, on the value of the Scouts, who are under political and legal assualt for denying leadership roles to gay men and women. I'm not so sure I agree with the denial, but, as an old Scout myself, who learned a lot and had a lot of fun, I've been pleased to see Mr. B. take to it--and I agree that its civilizing value for boys is unquestionable.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Finally, a laser beam cuts through the convoluted murk veiling Mr. Hope and Change and Chicago political fixer Tony Rezko:

"The significance of this relationship is that it proves that Barack Obama is not who he claims to be – a new kind of politician who will lead us all to the Promised Land. Obama can lie like any normal politician. He can do favors for his supporters who give him money. He can do business with scam artists like Rezko whose illegal activities authorities are still trying to unravel."

Rick Moran even elucidates the tale of that little urban garden Tony's wife helped Barry expand. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The denigrating chuckles long enjoyed about ancient cartographic reports of sea monsters will be stifled as this prehistoric pliosaur is added to the fossil record. At fifty-feet long, he would have brought ocean-going commerce to a standstill, assuming just a few survived into historical times. Smaller (well, thirty-feet-long) cousins, called mosasaurs, once hunted the shallow seas covering Texas. Mo, whose fossil was found in Ohion Creek in Southeast Austin, is in the dinosaur collection at the Texas Memorial Museum--one of Mr. B.'s favorite haunts.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The amazing thing about the Clintons is that they tip everybody off when they're doing something smarmy, as if they really want to be caught. So when Hilarity refused to follow the norm of presidential candidates past and release her's and Bad Bill's tax returns, it was apparent that something was afoot.

Via Instapundit 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I grew up fascinated by William F. Buckley, Jr., especially watching his debating style against socialists in the rare times that he appeared on television. I went from him to Ayn Rand and Barry Goldwater. Then I turned liberal, for reasons I forget, but which probably had to do with Civil Rights, until Reagan's second term began to bring me back to the fold. So I was ready when 9/11 made it a practical necessity. But it began with WFB. He was a great sailor, too, and wrote about it well.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 02:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

One of the coldest mornings in a week or so (it's 37 F at the moment with a wind chill of 32) has a silver lining for Mr. B. He is going to have to sit out half of recess for yesterday's crime of talking too much and acting silly. Now he can serve his sentence on a chilly, windy morning that won't be all that inviting, anyhow. Or so he said. Aiming for cheerfulness, as he has been taught, in the face of adversity.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Okay, that's enough on Barry. Even I am getting tired of writing his name. Besides, I have my domestic tranquility to think of, and I am already being accused of too much cynicism in the face of Barry's niceness. And his hope. Did I mention his hope? Mr. Hope, to be polite about it.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

It's official. Mr. Hope and Change is just a pol, after all, doing the bidding of his corporate campaign contributors--like so many of his predecessors--even as he rails against "the special interests." What would he do without them? Go broke, probably. Hilarity is also a hypocrite, but her pol-ness was established long ago.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Obama may not know much about ground troops, but he's got part of the wild blue yonder covered. Retired Gen. Merrill McPeak, a former Air Force chief of staff, is a key supporter of the candidate he praises for "real gravitas." McPeak is still a bit of a loose aerial cannon, a role he established in the first Gulf War when he stepped on some toes by declaring the campaign the first time air power had defeated a field army. But his presence in Barry's camp shows the junior Illinois senator isn't a total neophyte when it comes to military affairs--despite the fears of other general officers, some Air Force ones included.

UPDATE:  Protein Wisdom has a profile of McPeak which suggests Barry is securely in the surrender-in-Iraq camp, and not just lying to the lefties, like he's lying to the rust belt on NAFTA.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Even the Messiah apparently finds it hard to ignore a McMansion, even if it is in the Georgian style of the slave masters of yore and threatens to undo his reputation for purity and light. Funny how the NYTimes is, thus far, ignoring this convoluted story. Well, not really funny. For the less-convoluted version, go here.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There's still the question of whether you'd really want to do it. But at least now there's a chance if you do. Buy an Air Car, I mean, India's fragile-looking, compressed-air vehicular miracle. The chance, by 2009-2010, to finally thumb your nose at the oil ticks and begin to stop financing terrorism. But  read the whole story, found here. It could be it's just too early, but it's confusing to me.

Via Instapundit 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Tasteless accessory for your pickemup? Of course. But only north of the Red River would a pol (even a Democrat) try to outlaw bad taste. A contradiction in terms, surely, when we're talking about Oklahoma. Now if they would get to work on outlawing championship college football within their state lines, that's a move I could get behind. So to speak.

Via Simply Jews 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

When the devil calls you "the hope of the entire world," the godly will flee from you. Not that it will impede his nomination. Probably help, at least subliminally. But outside the Loon Party, especially out here in flyover country, it could be the beginning of the end for Barry, already dubbed Messiah by more than one apostate.

MORE:  His negative polling already is surprisingly high, not what his publicity would lead you to believe. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The movies were depressing, with their usual nihilism. No wonder fewer watch the Oscars every year, and ticket buyers dwindle--though, in truth, you wouldn't know it from all the attention the blogosphere gave and gave and gave the show. But movies are supposed to touch the heart, not merely the political affiliation. I'm filing this one under obituaries because these lefty varmints are killing themselves. Not that I care, mind you.

UPDATE:  Lowest viewership in history. Still, thirty-two million means the bottom hasn't been reached yet.  

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's now officially one or the other with perennial presidential candidate Ralph Nader. What's not for an old high-liberal, high-pacifist, high-regulation guy like Ralph-o to like in Barry? Ah, but Ralph would miss the adulation of his die-hard supporters, not to mention the useful campaign contributions and enhanced book royalties of another Quixotic run. Too bad he's not likely to draw many votes from the Dem nominee, being such old news himself. "Shut up, Ralph," a friend of mine says every time the vehicle seat belt buzzer goes off. Seat belts were Ralph's work, possibly his last good one. They were rare when I was a boy in the 1950s-60s. Having survived a couple of wrecks because of them, I admit they're a good idea, but I still don't like the daily government intrusion.

UPDATE:  Maybe Nader will be more of a Dem spoiler than I imagined. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Well, almost no guns. His issues statements on his Web site specifically allow for guns for hunting and target shooting. But there was a time, not long ago, when he was for banning all semi-atuomatic weapons, and he's still affiliated with groups out to completely ban handguns for the law-abiding. More free-fire zones for the criminals, that's the ticket. Not that any of this is likely to become known during his "Hope!" and "Change!" revival and marketing campaign. Nor, sadly, is the partisan MSM likely to ask about it. We can only hope that McCain does. Then maybe we'll see if "Yes We Can!" means what Barry's past suggests it will be: a full-court presidential assault on the Second Amendment.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 04:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Global warming threat or global warming bamboozle? Get both sides of the alleged anthropogenic issue, daily. I like this new site by two New Zealand professors so much that I blogrolled it. It's the very thing the poltroonish MSM should be giving us, but, having pretty much come down on the threat side, can't be trusted to do it consistently.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dad's idea of a cowboy birthday theme thwarted, Mr. B. went off with Mom to Party Pig yesterday and picked a G.I. Joe one. We have an M-1 Abrams tank pinata, plastic soldier favors and plastic camoflaged combat helmets for this afternoon's four invitees. There's even an inflatable M-16. I was amazed, but she said he's been trying to do this since he was three. Confessed she had always steered him to something else because, well, this is Austin and she was worried the other Moms might not like it. Decided to be bold this time, now that he and his chums are eight. Told the tale of one political extremist in our old neighborhood who let her kids consume sugar packets at a restaurant but went slightly mad, (yelling "No chemicals!") when one of them tried to eat a packet of Sweet 'N Low. Will have to watch out for offended parents today. Already practicing my "boys will be boys" routine.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I like this intriguing look at how beauty in women is ever the same, even while different. It's about Hollyweird actresses, but we won't let that bother us. Especially not when most of them are the classic ones. I filed it under science, because it's really about genetics.

Via Instapundit 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Still a good ways from reality, the flying car or "fancraft" research and development by Israel's Urban Aeronautics is moving ahead. And up and hovering. See the video here of a remote-controlled demo model in action.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Ring of Dark Matter: You know, that unexplained stuff astrophysicists believe fills the gaps in the whole universe. Discovery by the Hubble Space Telescope in May, 2007, of this ghostly ring, formed long ago from the collision of two galaxy clusters, was the best evidence yet that dark matter actually exists.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You've read the stories. Where the suicide bomber's victims are described as dead or injured. The injured are the ones you think about, wondering what sort of injuries. Cripplings? Of mind or of body or both?

"Just like the shrapnel, the bombing also works its slow but sure way out. But it does so through words."

Gila, one of the injured, works her words out simply, seductively, compellingly, in her blog My Shrapnel.

Via Treppenwitz 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Some journalist. Mr. T. finds the army captain who was Obama's source for his inaccurate statements last night in Austin about the army in Afghanistan. Then, other than merely noting that the captain backs up Barry (why wouldn't he, he was the source) Tapper doesn't question his assertions or bother to get a second source to verify them, or even overtly notice that they contradict Obama's public remarks. Wonder how much ABC pays for lazy work like this. Ace also takes him to task.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 03:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Not that it matters, at least here in the San Francisco of Texas, which is pretty well set as Obama Country for the Texas Dem primary, judging by the bumper stickers and yard signs. But Barry's claim at last night's Dem/MSM dog-and-pony-show (laughingly called "a debate") that our troops in Afghanistan are so desperate that they must capture their weapons from the Taliban is wacko.

From the CNN transcript: "You know, I've heard from an Army captain who was the head of a rifle platoon -- supposed to have 39 men in a rifle platoon. Ended up being sent to Afghanistan with 24 because 15 of those soldiers had been sent to Iraq. And as a consequence, they didn't have enough ammunition, they didn't have enough humvees. They were actually capturing Taliban weapons, because it was easier to get Taliban weapons than it was for them to get properly equipped by our current commander in chief."

First of all, captains lead companies, not platoons. And for various reasons that would be obvious to anyone with minimal knowledge of our NATO vs the Taliban's Russian weaponry--which apparently does not include Barry--nothing they have would be useful to us and vice versa. Different rifles. Different rifle ammo. Different shells. &c. So now we see that the Dems' prospective Pacifist-in-Chief is a bigger boob than anyone thought. Or else his wife (she of the finally-proud-to-be-an-American remark) isn't the only one affected by self-righteousness and the blunders it breeds.

UPDATE: Heh. And Barry's claim flew right over Hilarity's head, as Wretchard points out. These Dems labor in amazing ignorance sometimes.

MORE:  ABC News' Jake Tapper interviews the captain Obama quoted, though does not name him or feel the need to question or corroborate his details, and shows (though Tapper doesn't say so) that Barry (to be charitable about it) garbled the officer's message. For one thing, the captain didn't say fifteen of his men went to Iraq, or that they lacked ammunition in Afghanistan, or raise the crucial Obama detail that they needed captured weapons--only that they had used some of them from time to time. Obama also didn't mention that this information was five years old, occurring in 2003. So, while Tapper concludes that we bloggers have gone off half-cocked, I still think it's a shoddy political performance, and close to an outright lie.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Now here's a shocker. I went to H.E.B. this morning to order Mr. B.'s birthday cake for Sunday. Chocolate cake. Check. Chocolate icing. Check. Last year we did Harry Potter, the year before it was Spiderman, and before that Bob the Builder. So, this year, how about a plastic cowboy and horse or two on top? No cowboys. No cowboys? No cowboys. This is the oldest and largest grocery chain in Texas, found only in Texas (and Mexico), for that matter, and it has no cowboys for a kid's birthday cake? No cowboys. Sheesh.

UPDATE:  Cowboy figures with lassos also are in short supply in local toy stores. Found plenty with six-guns, but then I ran across a shelf of Papo's handpainted knights and decided to go for two more. Mr. B. already has several and enjoys them. All mine were one color. I'm envious of these. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Finally, someone who despises No Country for Old Men as much as I do, even if he is a Marxist. The book, that is. I haven't seen the movie, which this review disparages, sideswiping the book at the same time. He even has a followup, since he drew so much flak for the first one. (If I had a regular reading audience of any size, I might have been shelled more myself. But I don't, so I wasn't, especially.) Therein, also, he excoriates McCarthy's Blood Meridian. As it should be. Faux literary pulp, both of them, with violence the only reason for being.

UPDATE: The battle goes on as Scott waits to see if his fav author's movie wins an Oscar. Which goes to prove (see comments) that Scott is not a true redneck, because a true redneck would not care about the Oscars to being with. Which also proves that rednecks are smarter than a lot of intellectuals think, since not watching the Oscars is the norm now and, indeed, the wave of the future, a rejection of Hollyweird's BS of which I heartily approve. Meanwhile, the flicker won four, which I do not find a surprise. McCarthy's meaningless drivel is right up the industry's nihilistic alley. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Funny how exercised the Chinese communists (who did it in secrecy), ex-communist Russians (who've never done it at all) and the usual assortment of American critics (who can't do a day without whining about something) get over a little out-of-this-world target practice. The Navy's hitting the satellite on the first try, when it was 150 miles high, looked like nice work from here. With the side benefit of warning Iran, Syria, North Korea, etc., that their nuclear missiles won't be immune.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So what is the NYTimes up to? Bashing McCain for something that happened eight years ago, now, before he's even nominated? Why not wait until, say, October? Could it be they want to give Huckabee a better chance, figuring Barry (or even Hilarity) will have a better chance against the Huckster than McCain? For once I agree with CNN: it seems this is more a story about the NYTimes than it is about McCain.

UPDATE:  The fact that the NYTimes offered NO PROOF for its assertion that McCain actually had an affair with a female lobbyist didn't stop the Associated Press from picking up the story and expanding it for its clients. In addition to having no accuracy, they obviously have no shame.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The moon's sky, that is, where robot surveyors from Japan (above shot) and China already are in orbit with India, Russia and the U.S, soon to follow. Something to think about during tonight's lunar eclipse (see below).

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mr. B. went back to school today, where he's learning probabilities, writing book reports and practicing cursive. He was home yesterday with a sore throat, which came with ice cream, popsicles and fruit juice. Today, he'll have to settle for water. But, this afternoon, after baseball practice, there'll be Gatorade.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In case Barry's campaign workers in the Bayou City didn't get the word. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

See the moon turn red tonight, maybe even a bit turquoise. And, if you're near Hawaii, you may get to see the Navy shoot down a satellite at the same time. Eclipse Central is at space weather dot com.

UPDATE: Austin is famous for unviewable sky events due to cloud cover, and tonight, alas, is no exception. Fortunately there are Web cam views at the second link, if clouds are in your way, as well. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Bold Barack Obama

Black lord of Illinois

Battles Bill's brood mare

..... 

There's more classicism here, in which McCain is crowned Thane forevermore. Just as I suspected.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I'm not sure who will win the March 4 Texas primary, where early voting began today, and I can't say I really care. I think either Democrat candidate is, as I have said before, imminently beatable--Hilarity because she has Bad Bill in tow, and Barry (the name Obama went by in high school) because he's a pure lefty populist-socialist whose only compelling asset is his race. Half of it, anyhow. Some think Huckabee could beat McCain, but we'll see. I don't understand why so many Republicans are throwing in the towel against the Dems before the race even begins. Because our former governor, GW Bush, is so unpopular? Nonsense. You could be pardoned for believing that, given that the MSM harps on his negatives every day, but, hey, they have done that for eight years--including the day after he won re-election in 2004 by five million votes. As for Texas, the Democrat primary may get the lefty press ink but it's just a sideshow. No way, their nominee will carry this state in November. Huckabee might do well in the primary, but I believe McCain will prevail, here on March 4, and here again on Nov. 4 and in the rest of the country.

UPDATE: I have been asked whether I, like this fellow, intend to vote in our open primary for one of the Dems, just to keep them unresolved until their convention. I thought about it. But I can't do it.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 04:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Doing a bit of housecleaning, I discovered a dead link at one of our earliest postings concerning the origin of the rancho's name of Roly Poly. Therein was linked a wonderful drawing of the humble terrestrial crustacean which the artist apparently has removed from the Web. So I thought to find a new link and discovered a few interesting facts about the roly poly (perhaps best known by its unromantic name of pillbug), including that they breathe through modified gills, come in a bewildering two hundred species, and not only look like miniature armadillos, but their scientific name actually recalls the armadillo: Armadillidium vulgare. Though I see nothing exactly vulgar about them, unless you tend to the squeamish. Otherwise, a perfectly Texan critter.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

One of the best Civil War books I've read is Elizabeth Brown Pryor's "Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee Through His Private Letters." Still reading, actually. The letters are new, recently found in a bank vault and released to Pryor by his descendents. The Texas chapter, "Odyssey," chronicles in his own words, his time with the Second Cavalry "in the paradise of the Texans" right before the war. Details such as his horse, Bald Eagle; feeding frogs to his pet rattlesnake; and an audience with "Ka tem a se, the head chief of the Southern Comanches" invalided by pleurisy on his buffalo robes, attended by "his wives & suitors," his shield, bow and quiver nearby, as is his war horse, ready to be slain if the Comanche chief dies to carry him to the happy hunting ground. A new Lee. A step down from the Marble Man, but a leap up in humanity.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It makes me grin, just thinking about the fight between Hilarity and Barry. It was the Dems who invented the "women and minorities" canard. As in the joke headline: "World Ends Tomorrow, Women and Minorities to Suffer Most." Now the Dems are twisting in the wind. Which will it be: the woman or the minority? Can't be both. Got to be one or the other. So choose, already. Tough cookies for you.

UPDATE:  As Victor Davis Hanson shows, for the white male, it is quite beyond parody. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Too pretty to miss. I still think, thunderstorms or no thunderstorms, this thing would be a lot more fun to travel in than any cruise ship or jetliner--unless you were in a hurry, of course. But, still.... 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 06:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I've declared a personal moratorium on reading/watching any more MSM accounts of people shooting up American college campuses--and the pathetic candlelight vigils held afterward with their ritual tears and lame-o remarks. They are all the same. Only the names change. "I never thought it could happen here," etc., is the equivalent of "it sounded like a freight train" about tornadoes. These places are run by morons who have turned them into free-fire zones for any wacko who wants to be profiled in the media, maybe even get a Hollyweird biopic, if he slays imaginatively enough. Last year it was Virginia Tech. This year it's Northern Illinois. One more reason--in addition to the expense and the liberal indoctrination--not to send your kid to college. In fact, it would be better to take the money saved and invest it in stocks and bonds. By the time he was forty, he could retire.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 06:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Mr. Westergaard and wife are in hiding, threatened with death for his drawing of this cartoon. Which gives me the chance for a little solidarity with free speech. I recall even the liberal daily printed this one, the least offensive of the bunch, it seems to me. And quite benign compared to the anti-Jew cartoons that regularly appear in Arab newspapers and magazines. So hang in there, Kurt. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 06:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Nor all water suitable for microbial life. So seems to be the early conclusions of Spirit and Opportunity's explorations on Mars. But they're not definitive, and more work by more rovers is yet to come. The great thing is that it's all been done by robots, and relatively inexpensively. Someday, when humans do set foot on the Red Planet, they'll land at spots that have been thoroughly investigated and found to be the best candidates for habitation.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We're the colony. So when Mexican President Calderon visits, he ignores our president and congress, and visits his colonialists who send home each year double the money Mexico makes from tourism:

"And while he assured the audience at Harvard that he has no interest in sending more Mexicans to the United States and that he only wants to protect those already here, you’d have to be incredibly naïve to believe that. Mexico has no real economic incentive to secure the border and stop the cash flow."

And, so far, we have no president or congress willing to do it, either. So how does it feel to be colonized, eh amigas y amigos? Ya Basta!

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Via Cobb.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 05:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The commenters at Mark in Mexico are trying to figure out what happened to him, missing as he has been since July, 2007. He wrote enough about Mexican official corruption to easily, and fairly, believe that someone in a high place could have decided to eliminate him. Journalists go missing in the Mexican MSM all the time, after all. Click on the comments at the bottom of the linked post to see what progress the commenters are making. None, so far. Maybe you can help.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 05:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was at the Honda dealer last week getting the rice-burning CRV its 80,000 mile checkup so I saw the Roger Clemens appearance before Democrat dingbat Henry Waxman's dog-and-pony-show on CNN. I didn't actually listen. I preferred the Outlaws on my MP3 player. But I noticed from the body language that Clemens, the Longhorns ex and Houston Astros ace, was consistently defiant, and Waxman, a political bully of consistently ill repute, was more weasel-like than usual. Now he's sorry, in a manner of speaking. I'll say. He sure is.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 03:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

While the suckers hustle down to the elementary schools to vote for Obama-rama and CHANGE, the real action is out where Hilarity and Slick Willie are passing out "campaign contributions" to the Democrat Superdelegates. Buying their votes, get it?. And I thought the Texas Lege had cornered the market on legal political graft. These Democrat Superdelegates will vote for the one who bought 'em at the proper time and that one will get the nomination. 'Course we'll have to wait to see which candidate gives out the most bucks. Barry and Michelle must figure they will. "Yes We Can!" But I'd bet on Hilarity, because, I mean, think about it: Every minute those old Clinton retainers from '92-'00 who want to get their jobs back are out beating the bushes for more bucks.

UPDATE: Strange that there's no mention of the bought-and-paid-for part here.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Nice town, Lampassas. Just a few score miles northwest of the rancho, actually. The snickup referred to, to use Mr. Boy's term, is by the federal government, of course: A government temperature sensor right smack in the middle of the urban heat island. Brilliant. Result? An artificial warming trend. One more part of the Global Warming Scam beloved by politicians, like Al Gore, who have nothing better to do. Like closing the border or winning the war. A previous example shows Lampassas is not alone.

Thanks to Rene's Apple.

UPDATE: Despite such obvious flaws in the ointment, the Californicators want to teach GW in the schools.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Despite all the fancy, tax-raising promises of this or that by the Dems, the presidential race will be a referendum on the war, particularly the Iraq campaign for which the Lefty Obama-rama already has plans:

“'Obama will immediately begin to remove our troops from Iraq,' says a statement on the senator’s Web site. 'He will remove one to two combat brigades each month, and have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months. Obama will make it clear that we will not build any permanent bases in Iraq. He will keep some troops in Iraq to protect our embassy and diplomats; if al Qaeda attempts to build a base within Iraq, he will keep troops in Iraq or elsewhere in the region to carry out targeted strikes on al Qaeda.'”

As Michael Totten says, the hedge at the end only means he'll eschew counterinsurgency for a return to smart bombs and civilian casualties. This is why I think the Dems are headed for defeat. The lefties want to cut and run, they always have. But I'm betting no one else does. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 02:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There've been many newly-discovered candidates in recent years for solar systems like our own, but this latest, the work of researchers from eleven countries (led by Ohio State) and published in the journal Science, appears to be the best of the bunch--finding the giant gas planets sufficiently far from the sun to leave room for rocky planets like Earth. If so, then the home planet would be alone no more.

UPDATE:  Indeed, many, if not most, nearby sunlike stars may have rocky, Earthlike planets. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Fifty-three hundred square feet cruising at 130 mph up to 12,000 feet high, the Aeroscraft, a whale-shaped helium airship, is a long way from the explosive Hindenberg. Now, with Defense Advanced Research Project Agency funding for a militarily-useful version, Aeroscraft may finally get off the ground. Sure would be a lot more comfortable than the faster but cramped aluminum sausage.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

91  Sharia is Englishe as tea and scones,

92  So everybody muste get stoned.

93  The pilgryms shuffled for the door

94  To face the rule of the Moor;

95  Poets, Professors, Starbucks workers

96  Donning turbans, veils and burqqas.

97  As they face theyr fynal curtan

98  Of Englande folk, one thynge is certan:

99  Dying by theyr own thousande cuts,

100  The Englande folk are folking nuts.

101 BURMA SHAVE

From Iowahawk's brilliant, fractured Chaucer: The Tale of the Asse-Hatte

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

....Yes, We Can!"

I confess that the person Obama most reminds me of is Bob the Builder.

Well, sort of. Of course, they use their charisma very differently. BtB is a can-do fellow, not a nanny-stater like Obama out to tax Scoop, Muck and Wendy to pay Spud to do it.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Republic nominee-to-be John McCain says he relies on Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator from my birth state of South Carolina, to keep him informed on Iraq. If, as some are speculating, McCain chooses lawyer Graham to run as his VP, Graham's new employer, the Air Force, will have to send him home again. Shouldn't be a problem, of course.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

No, tell me it ain't so. Surely not. I mean the gang that couldn't predict the collapse of the Soviet Union (not to mention lately asserting, counterintuitively, that Iran is NOT building an A bomb) surely knows whether the world's chief terrorist died at Tora Bora or not? Or have they just denied it all this time to make Bush look bad? And now wish to help their anti-war buds of the Dems make their case for election? That sounds more reasonable, for them, anyhow, rather than just more of their usual schtoopidty.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I suppose it was inevitable, the Web being what the Web is. But I had clean forgotten the possibility of Skype attracting spam. Until a few moments ago when Sex Bomb attempted to insert her? its? self into my Skype address book. Offered the opportunity to do so, I declined. I hope that's enough. Time will tell. It always does.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

To get red roses delivered in Saudi Arabia on Valentine's Day you need to have them arrive early in the morning or in the middle of the night before--if you can find a florist willing to risk his business and, perhaps, his life. Valentine's Day is a sin amongst your enlightened Saudi Muslims, the Wahhabi kind. Also known as the tolerant Religion of Peace, dontcha know.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Without his teleprompter, and his fluid script of high-mindedness, BHO is just another angry lefty:

"The name of my cousin Dick Cheney won't be on the ballot. That was embarrassing when that news came out. When they do these genealogical surveys, you want to be related to somebody cool."

Guess we're not really all one big, lovin' American family, afterall. Eh, Barack?

As for this, at his campaign office in Houston: Hey, Barack, even Fidel thought Che was a moron.

UPDATE: The "inappropriate flag" 'tain't official, says Mr. O., as if that explains everything.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 02:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

My eyes have been bothering me lately. Getting old. Maybe I need to eat more carrots.

"A sliced Carrot looks like the human eye. The pupil, iris and radiating lines look just like the human eye...and science shows that carrots greatly enhance blood flow to and function of the eyes."

These kind of forwardings around the Web usually just get deleted. But I read this one.

Via Hodgepodge from the Geranium Farm 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I don't know what it is with dogs, but Mr. B.'s new Little League team is The Scrappers, whose mascot is a bulldog. Last year's team was the Muckdogs. The Scrappers had their first practice last Saturday, in which their throwing and catching was pretty impressive, but they didn't get around to any hitting so remains to be seen if they'll be high-scoring.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Used to be a buzz was when an aircraft flew over a few hundred feet above the ground. So it seems a little silly to call a Russian Tupolev bomber's overflight of the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier in the Pacific Ocean a "buzz" when the lumbering, 55-year-old propeller-driven bomber stayed 2,000 feet above the steel beach. Or is it just a wire service's attempt to embellish a story of the so-called new Cold War?

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Good sail this afternoon. Partly cloudy, warm, gusty 5-15 mph winds. Just cruising along. It's a good thing I kept my outboard engine maintenance manual, because I bought a new Mercury 2.5 hp yesterday from regular reader Steve who keeps a Hunter sloop on my dock at Anderson Mill. I gave the trolling motor a try, but it proved to be a bigger headache than an outboard. Maybe. It seems like forever since that fateful day before Thanksgiving that I found that the trolling motor didn't have enough oomph to stop the sloop going backward and drive it forward, and so the sloop kept going backward and crashed into the dock behind mine close to the shoreline. With all the cold and rain since then, and almost six weeks of cedar pollen in the air keeping me inside, I've had time to think it over and decided to go back to an outboard. Even the 2.5 easily made the sloop reverse direction this afternoon, and then gallop out of the marina into a headwind.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

We're converts, here at the rancho, to Skype, the Internet phone service that works with video cameras so you and your interlocutor can see each other as you talk. My cousin Jerry in Dallas, a ham radio operator since the 1930s, got me onto it, and I talked my out-of-state sisters into it. So the four of us have now had conversations and video visits weekends since the middle of January from one end of the country to the other. The camera and a headset (or a microphone) are all you have to pay for. Skype is a free download, and so are the calls, if you have broadband, of course. The video's a little jerky sometimes, but it's still more fun than a phone call--and cheaper. Jerry talks to his son in England all the time. Maybe I can interest Snoopy the Goon in it. It would be fun to talk to Israel.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A light echo, about six light years in diameter, from the first recorded stellar flash in the Milky Way.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

It was bad enough that they had to weld an expedient steel cage around it to keep RPGs, one of the most ubiquitous weapons in the Middle East, from destroying the Stryker utterly. Now the Army, in a burst of true dumb, has created a version called the MGS which has a 105mm gun and enlarged turret on top of it, blocking crew exits from two forward hatches and eliminating the vehicle's air-conditioning. Not only is it a sauna on wheels, but it's a death trap. It's also now too heavy and too bulky to easily fit into a C-130, scrapping its original reason for being: air transportability. You might suppose the all-volunteer force would have eased this kind of bureaucratic stupidity. You would be wrong.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Obama-rama, the Keep Hope Alive candidate who is already leading his enthralled leftie audiences in Jesse Jackson-like chanting, is the presidential pick of most of the kids in Mr. Boy's second-grade class. Mr. B., whose occasional rebellion in the behavior department masks his generally-conformist nature, says he also is for the O man because "he gives good speeches." But you shouldn't take any significance from this, despite the fact that most kids this young are merely parroting their parents. This is Austin, the San Francisco of Texas, which always can be counted on to be majority Democrat, whatever the issue, while the rest of the state reliably votes Republican. Of perhaps more significance is the class consensus on Hilarity: Says Mr. B.: "She only cried to make people feel sorry for her." The class wasn't fooled.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Finishing "A Thousand Splendid Suns" got me interested again in Afghanistan, which I admit had fallen off my radar as of late. Just in time to find out that things look bleak. Nothing like the days when the Taliban was in charge, but apparently sliding back in their direction. NATO isn't owning up to its promises, Canada is getting antsy, the Bush administration is promising a few thousand more Marines. This is supposed to be the Dems favored campaign, well Hilarity's. Obama, last we heard, wants to retreat everywhere and invade Pakistan. Nowadays, he says nothing. What would McCain do? Shift troops there as they are withdrawn from Iraq? One brigade at a time? At least we know he won't give up.

Via Soobdujour. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Alas, outlaw icon Willie Nelson seems to have joined the Truthers, questioning what made the Twin Towers collapse. Not all that surprising, I suppose. He came out for Dennis Kuchinich in '04, after all.

Via Scott at The Fat Guy. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 06:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

One of Mr. B.'s classmates and fellow cub scouts, is half-Chinese, so, it being the Chinese New Year of late, the kid recently brought some Chinese candy in nice little red paper packets with golden dragons on them, one for each kid in the class. Nice thing to do, even if some of the candy was so old the rice paper wrapping had congealed. It was still tasty, apparently, as Mr. B. wolfed it all down in a flash. I was reminded of it reading this funny post at the House of Eratosthenes about some not-so-bright American teens getting Chinese character tattoos without checking to make sure they really say what they're supposed to be saying.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Texas has changed in many ways in the past thirty years, as the population has grown and grown, but some things haven't changed at all. Such as the Legislature's flaunting of its own rules, particularly on voting for bills and amendments. Lawmakers supposedly are forbidden to push the buttons of the voting machines for their absent colleagues, but they certainly do, as shown rather comically in this good video report from KEYETV Austin that's making the angry-taxpayer email-forwarding rounds. What's rules for thee and me ain't no rules at all for them. Thank goodness they only meet every two years. Better would be every four years. Best of all would be never.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My Blogrolling blogroll, she has disappeared. Whence, I know not. All I get is "a fatal error has occurred." Apparently so.

UPDATE:  Then, it returned. Thankfully. I don't know how to create one permanently,