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June 30, 2009
Keyword drivers
One of the five following keyword phrases likely brought you here, according to search analytics at compete dot com:
* Texas fry pans
* Pictures of thunderheads
* Rabbit coloring sheets
* Love is a wild assault
* Dr. Perper's head
Well, I can vouch for the popularity of the last two, which, indeed, correspond to onetime posts. I also recall a picture of a thunderhead from space. But fry pans? Rabbit coloring sheets? Ahem. No, I think not.
Airbus down, again
Cats and dogs
Rain, rain, glorious rain. Boy did it pour this morning. For a good ten minutes, overwhelming the gutters as always, raising anew the question of why we have gutters at all. Water even ponded in the Back Forty. It kept our high temp for the day at no more than 88 degrees. Whoo-hoo.
Mrs. Charm said she had left the "rain magnets" out, meaning the cushions on the aluminum chairs on the patio, and that must be what did it. Uh, actually it was a weak cold front. But, whatever. We'll take it--especially considering that some people missed it altogether.
June 29, 2009
FM 2222
I probably ought to file this under Obituaries as it must have been taken before the road was widened a decade or so ago. Once upon a time, say, back in the late 70s, this was a fairly typical scene around Austin--uncluttered, pristine, and pleasant. The rest of the photos here, while certainly interesting, are more up-to-date and representative. Alas.
Vanities
Mr. Boy went off to four weeks of day camp at the JCC this morning. He rebuffed Mrs. Charm's offer to help him find his group at the flag raising. Being a rising fourth grader he's too big for nanny stuff. He was looking forward to a hot game of Ga-ga, an Israeli form of dodge ball. With a forecast high of 102, it definitely will be hot.
Meanwhile, I was honored to have two posts linked in the new Haveil Havalim, a carnival of Jewish blog posts founded way back when by Soccer Dad. It is, appropriately, the Hot and Humid Edition. Haveil Havalim means Vanity of Vanities, a reference to King Solomon's discovery that materialism for its own sake is a dead end. Or something like that.
June 28, 2009
Rain ahead...
Well, a reasonable chance for some tomorrow night, anyhow, which will feel good after today's hundred degree heat (it's 100 in the city at the moment). But the real chances, according to the federal Climate Prediction Center begin in October and last through April of next year. Thanks to the anticipated return of El Nino, they're forecasting precip to be above normal for that period. After two years of dry, that would be sweet.
Via KVUE's Mark Murray.
Global warming, or politics?
Surprise, surprise. Barry's EPA hasn't done its homework:
"EPA has not done its own evaluation of the global warming theory. Rather, it has relied on analyses by others, mostly the U.N.'s IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report. That report, however, was a political document, not a scientific one."
EPA has, however, quashed an in-house rebuttal of the Dictator's Club. Can't have dissension, oh no. That wouldn't be, uh, scientific.
ObamaCare
Like Barry says, sometimes we'll just have to forgo surgery and take painkillers, instead. What a humanitarian. Does he ask ACORN to give up its eight billion in "stimulus"? Oh, but that's different.
Via DebbieSchlussel.
MORE: Even the Gerbilists say his recent "infomercial" with so cooperative aBC was a flop. Except on one point: he admitted he wouldn't make his own family stick to the public plan. What a man.
June 27, 2009
America from the flight deck
Captain Dave uses his weather radar to thread his A321 through a Southern thunderstorm:
"Before we picked our way through this line-up of Thor's children, the co-pilot told the lead flight attendant to batten down the hatches. I woke the passengers up, using my best imitation of the mythological captain's voice, and told them to take their seats and strap in tight. After I put the PA handset back in it's cradle, I remark to the co-pilot, 'The passengers are probably freaking out back there because of AF447.'"
Good writing. Good read.
Hairnet and giveaway
"As the U.S. House of Representatives [narrowly passed] a climate-change bill, the Australian Parliament is preparing to kill its own country's carbon-emissions scheme. Why? A growing number of Australian politicians, scientists and citizens once again doubt the science of human-caused global warming."
Well jolly good for them. Finally some common sense. Not that it will have any influence on our political crooks. Now to see whether the Senate has more honesty. I suspect not. Some think the American electorate will not remember who done this deed when their electricity bills double and the economy craters. I think they will, and the Dems will pay big time.
Hairnet and giveaway is the translation of the bill's cap and trade title by Steve Hayward at No Left Turns who suspects the last-minute bill has so many loopholes for favored (read big contributor) outfits that it will have no measureable effect on "the risks of global warming." But, come on, we can't change the climate. How smart do you have to be to figure that out?
June 26, 2009
Iran, Day Thirteen
If you won't miss Jacko (his best work was years ago) and Farah was never your cup of mocha nor Gov. Sanford of any particular interest, you can still keep up with the Iranian protesters as they get picked off one by one.
Iranian and some Western bloggers always have had the best reporting and aggregating on it, anyhow. Of course, the UN is useless, as always. Heck, it's the Dictator's Club. What, you thought it was the protector of humanity? Only the thug version.
June 25, 2009
Quagmire
South Vietnam is what this map reminds me of. Think of the red places as NVA-controlled Indian Country. Places where our forces didn't/don't go for very long. S. Warzistan on the left bottom is where that Predator's Hellfire missiles killed all those Talibani at the funeral the other day. Eighty-something. I expected to be reading of Lefty outrage about that by now. The fact I didn't sorta figures, though.This is Barry's campaign now. He campaigned for it. His Leftist pals wanted it. Now they've got it. Lotsa luck. They're sure going to need it.
I think they're all going to be very sorry before The One's first term is over. Iraq was/is the Left's hated campaign, but it's the one that made the most sense to me. Nevermind the WMDs and all that baloney. The point in going in there was/is that it's in the middle of the Jihadi swamp that needs to be drained. I also believe that whatever success we've had there had more to do with the recent Iranian uprising than anything Barry said in Cairo or anywhere else. (He's too longwinded, too on-the-one-hand, on-the-other-hand, to inspire anybody.) So let's see what he's going to do with Afghanistan. Wallow in the quagmire, I expect. Although that Predator strike on a funeral, of all things, was a good start. Wish we'd had more UAVs in South Vietnam. Apaches are nice, too.
June 24, 2009
Heat emergencies
"Since June 12, Austin-Travis County EMS paramedics have responded to 37 heat emergencies. Included in the elevated response data for heat emergencies [were] construction workers, patients with pre-existing conditions including pregnancy, also several very young patients."
Meanwhile, the forecast is for more of the same through the July 4 weekend. And probably thereafter.
UPDATE: Thursday's highs at Camp Mabry and the airport were records: 106 at Mabry, 107 at ABIA. The LCRA's Bob Rose says those were the second hottest June days in recorded Austin history, which I might add only goes back to the 1840s or so.
The warmists will say this is Global Warming. That's what they say when it's freezing, too. And, probably, when there's a big sale on at Fry's. Nevertheless, with the ground thoroughly heated after weeks of this, we can expect plenty more records ahead.
Iran death toll
Seventeen is the official number killed in the Iranian election protests, but one hundred fifty is closer to the truth, according to some witnesses on the ground. After today's "massacre," both totals are bound to go higher. The whole thing now looks like a repeat of Tiananmen Square.
UPDATE: So it seems. June 24. Remember the date. Although the open chest wound photo at the second link is (as stated) older--from June 20.
Gerbilism
From journalism to gerbilism in the Age of Obama:
"Gerbilism is an apt term for something that's soft and warm and cuddly, safe and timid, with no sharp teeth and no bite whatsoever."
Haw.
Via Instapundit.
June 23, 2009
Neda: "I'm burning, I'm burning."
From what I've read so far, she was more of a bystander to the Iranian election protest than an active participant. But it's probable that her Bassij assassin singled her out because she was a woman living in a misogynistic dictatorship. There's no doubt that Neda Agha-Soltan is a martyr now--though it may be only to a failed revolution.
June 22, 2009
Ringworld's Children
Really a good read, and I'm sorry it's over. The book and the Ringworld series, that is, unless Larry Niven has another one up his sleeve. Probably not, the way this one ended, with the Ringworld moving at near light-speed deeper into the galaxy, and Louis Wu and the Hindmost heading elsewhere. Goodbye, Chmee (Speaker-to-Animals) and Acolyte. Bon voyage.
Clean, but audible hell
That's one reviewer's take on Austin-Bergstrom International Airport for those who want to sleep there. Bring earplus, suggested another. But a third enjoyed his overnight in the VIP lounge. DFW and Houston didn't score much better. Seems to be quieter at San Antone. I didn't know people did this. I have been hit up by the cigarette panhandlers out in front of the baggage area at ABIA. Austin seems to attract panhandlers.
Via Things With Wings.
Democrat Priorities
$8 Billion for ACORN is just handy dandy, but $1.2 Billion for missile defense is too much? Well, at least for the foreseeable future, it will be the East and West coasts that are vulnerable to missiles from Iran and North Korea.
June 21, 2009
Constant CAP
As in, "Sleep tight, America, (Predator's) got the CAP." 24/7
Ensign Wesley Frank Osmus, R.I.P.
U.S. Navy Ensign Osmus has been dead for sixty-seven years, but I didn't know about him until I came across his story reading Shattered Sword, The Untold Story of The Battle of Midway. Now I keep imagining him staring at the Japanese sailor coming at him with an axe as he held onto the chain rail on the stern of Arashi, a destroyer in Nippon's First Carrier Striking Force.
Osmus, a TBD Devastator torpedo-bomber pilot from the carrier Yorktown, had crashed in the sea, been plucked out by Arashi's crew and interrogated by Captain Watanabe Yusumasa. Then Watanabe ordered Osmus thrown off the stern. He grabbed hold of the chain rail; hence the sailor with the axe. Odd that his Web memorial at the University of Illinois makes no mention of his murder, though the 2007 book's authors know it well enough and add: "Watanabe did not survive the war. Had he lived, it is likely he would have met the hangman's noose as a war criminal."
UPDATE: To be fair, I suppose I should link to this, which shows how much things have changed.
June 20, 2009
Barry, you are such a wuss
Young revolutionaries are dying in the streets of Iran, and the president issues a press release about it. The words were good, got to give him that, but they would have sounded a lot more impressive in a speech. But "our" prez had more important things to do today, like take the kids out for ice cream.
Death to Dictators
It may take some refreshing and repeat clicking, but this Iranian blogger's site has good photos and video of the ongoing confrontations. Nice of the regime's thugs to wear red helmets. Makes it easier to pick them out of the crowd.
Via Michael Totten, who also shares the story of freedom-fighting Nebraskan Howard Baskerville.
Transplant
Fix Medicare first. Fat chance. Instead, we get...
Tax Penalties for Thee, but not for She
Funny how Barry's appointees not only fail to pay their taxes but the IRS doesn't penalize them. How does one aquire this amazing coat of Teflon? I suppose being a Democrat helps.
Unhappy Father's Day for Noam Shalit
Three years after Hamas kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, the terrorist group that former President Jimmy Carter recently asked be removed from the U.S. terrorist list, still has not provided his family any news of his health. Let alone agreed to release him or even allow him access to the International Red Cross.
Now the Jewish Community Association of Austin is joining in a JTA e-letter campaign to urge President Obama to not forget Gilad's father, Noam, and his friends praying for Gilad's safe return as former President Carter apparently has. Especially not on this Father's Day.
June 19, 2009
The heat is on
Six days (through Thursday) of triple-digit highs (was only 97 today) with, fortunately, some relief in sight, according to Bob Rose:
A few coastal showers will be possible the latter part of next week, but the majority of the region looks to stay dry. If this pattern develops as currently forecast, we should break out of our streak of 100-degree temperatures the latter part of next week.
That would be nice. Sunday morning is Summer Solstice, after all. Cooler days are coming...
President Pantywaist II
You have to wonder why Barry is so intent on sucking up to Mad Mahmoud that he won't do the heretofore obvious "The American people are with you guys" for the Iran protestors (see the cartoon at the bottom at the link). I mean, it's not like he has to pledge any money or anything. Speaking of money, whose payroll is President Pantywaist on, here? Even the most murderous Chicago wiseguys don't have time for the Mad Mullahs.
UPDATE: Well, he finally said something, though cBS decided not to use it. Whose side are they on? And, then, on Saturday, with the regime's security forces shooting down people in the streets, he said more. Good words, these, just rather late. And too bad they only came in a press release. He didn't care enough to make a speech. What a wuss.
June 18, 2009
Fort Mason
The federal infantry and cavalry forts of Texas were not the palisaded stockades of the movies.
June 17, 2009
Comanches
Comanches: The History of A People is one of Texas historian T.R. Ferenbach's greatest hits and I enjoyed it thoroughly, as much for its Texas and U.S. Army history as for the tale of the destruction of the murderous, wholly unlovable Comanches.
The book was written in 1974, so it's free of Hollyweird indian mumbo jumbo, as well as the hand-wringing, multicultural, everything's-relative claptrap. By the late 1860s, with their ultimate demise plain to see, Comanche chiefs began lying about their nomadic guerrilla-warfare culture which had, for hundreds of years, been raiding, stealing, kidnapping and enslaving women and children, torturing some for pleasure, raping most, and mutilating all.
"The story of the People is a brutal story," Ferenbach writes, "and its judgements must be brutal." No one but their victims ever understood them, especially not the patronizing Quakers whom Washington put in charge of trying to pacify them. The 4th U.S. Cavalry did it best, by using their own tactics to massacre the men and take the women and children captive to the reservations. Ferenbach is sensitive to the pathos of their end. But, by then, the Comanches had slain so many thousands of noncombants, most of them white and black Texans and peasant Mexicans, that few who knew their handiwork would mourn.
Barry's TravelGate
June 16, 2009
The Twitter Revolution
Heh.
Iran's real revolutionary
Zahra Rahnavard, Mousavi's wife, has drawn Iranian women into the streets with her demands for their equal rights.
"I am not Iran's Michelle Obama. I am Zahra, the follower of Fatimah Zahra [the daughter of the Prophet Muhammad]. I respect all women who are active."
The Electric Jet
Computer scientist Edsger Dijkstra invented much of software technology yet only used a computer for email and browsing the Web. He was still writing with a fountain pen when he died in 2002.
Dijkstra once told me that he would never consent to fly on the space shuttle because he didn't trust the software that controlled it.
With the coming introduction of the Boeing 787, we're all pretty soon going to be flying in craft controlled by software. Dave, an Airbus pilot who already does, explains why we shouldn't worry.
But some still do, and, especially since the loss of AF 447, I must admit that I'm one of them.
Iran's green revolution
June 15, 2009
The Belle's cannon
The wreck of French explorer La Salle's ship, The Belle, more than three hundred years ago in Matagorda Bay is one of the compelling tales of Texas history that most schoolchildren here learn. These six to ten foot, dismounted bronze cannon, recovered in the remarkable 1995 discovery and subsequent preservation of the ship's hull and cargo, are just part of the story.
June 14, 2009
Ringworld Throne
I inhaled this third in the Ringworld series in a few days and while I understand the criticism of many of the Amazon reviewers who didn't like it (mostly because author Larry Niven drops you into it without much prep and doesn't seem to be taking you anywhere) I enjoyed getting to know the various hominid species. Read carefully, you soon see where it's going and why. But anyone encountering it alone without having read the previous two would be lost, so it's a very poor starter.
But it's a treat if you read them in order--especially one after another the way I have without intervening years to cloud the memory. It's also a cliffhanger, which I've read is resolved, and then some, in Ringworld's Children, which appears to be the final book. I hope not. Niven hasn't explored more than a tenth of the available terrain. But maybe he's tired of it. Maybe I will be, too, after number four. But I doubt it. I've put a library hold on it, and hope to have it by Tuesday or so.
June 13, 2009
Cronyism in Obamalot?
"The AmeriCorps IG accuses prominent Obama supporter of misusing AmeriCorps grant money. Prominent Obama supporter has to pay back more than $400,000 of that grant money. Obama fires AmeriCorps IG."
Ahhh, say it ain't so, Barry. Firing people who fine your friends isn't very HopeyChangey, now is it?
June 12, 2009
Obamacare Cadet Surgeons
Doug Ross @ Journal's entry in Michele Malkin's Obamacare Poster Contest.
10 Bizarre Ways to Die
Tennessee Williams died choking on a bottle cap? How do I miss these things? Death certificates, I knew about. Genealogists run across fictional deaths all the time. The ultimate heart attack is recorded, not always the penultimate extensive cancer. But these really are bizarre. Not enough room on most forms to include them. Death-by-deodorant tops my list.
Ringworld Engineers
This second in the Ringworld series was a lot of fun. It was nice to see the old gang back together, except for the missing Nessus the Puppeteer. Even the heroine of the first book has a cameo. If you haven't read these, you should give them a try. I'm only a few decades late getting to them myself. Got an email yesterday that the library has Ringworld Throne awaiting pickup. After that, there's only one left.
June 11, 2009
Stephen Tyrone Johns, R.I.P.
While the crazed shooter, as usual, gets the news, the dead security guard plays second fiddle. Pity. Stephen Tyrone Johns, 39, was a brave man, obviously, and well worth remembering.
Via Simply Jews.
UPDATE: The American Jewish Committee has set up a fund to raise money for his family, which includes a new child.
AF 447's breakup
This photoshopped image, by a commenter on this pilot's forum, shows where the jet's recovered vertical stabilizer apparently tore off--though whether in mid-air or on impact with the ocean is unknown. Meanwhile, previous notions of a superbolt of lightning frying the plane's electronics apparently have been quashed by this updated meteorological analysis:
"* Lightning -- Though in earlier versions of this study I had identified lightning as occurring in this mesoscale convective system, recent evidence from spaceborne and sferic sensors is pointing to the possibility that this system contained no lightning. Soundings do indicate moderate levels of instability, but there are indications in the literature that cumulonimbus clouds in oceanic equatorial regions entrain considerable quantities of drier, cooler air that dampen upward vertical motion in the lower portions of the storm, and in some way this reduces charge separation. In any case it does look fairly likely that we can rule out a lightning strike as being a factor in the A330 crash."
Indicating that turbulence within the storm apparently was the cause of the breakup at altitude unless there was some other factor which only analysis of the debris and/or the voice and data recordings could show.
When the word police are off-duty
I think one reason newspapers are dying, as I've said before, is that the front page has become a one-sided public scold. Any public figure who says anything that's not politically correct can count on getting bashed on the front page until they issue an abject apology.
But it only works one way: you have to offend a liberal. Thus a no-talent bozo like Letterman, late-night prattler on cBS, the smallest-audience television network, can call Sarah Palin a slut and imply the rape of her daughter and the front page remains silent. Letterman, after all, supports abortion. Palin does not. People have noticed and, having other cheaper, more diverse sources of information (such as the Internet) have stopped buying newspapers.
Calculating God
Or "Take Me To Your Paleontologist." This is a good read, not only because it gives some compelling scientific arguments for believing in G-d, but because it deftly shows the silliness of the ever-raging battle between creationists and evolutionists. Neither side is telling the whole truth. Each could benefit from a fair reading of the other. In any case...
Robert J. Sawyer is an easy-readin' writer, but this one ain't all smoothness. The ending is a bit disappointing. The main character suddenly turns into a family-deserting rat. I also got tired of the Up With Canada hoorah and the constant belittling of American health insurance. Barry should meet this guy. But I know the Canucks have their insecurities.
One gripping plot-point is when Betelgeuse goes supernova and Earth is threatened. It's quickly resolved. (Read to find out how.) Then, an hour after finishing the book, I wander over to FoxNews and see a headline about the real Betelgeuse maybe getting ready to explode. Yipes. Quick Googling reassures me that, at six hundred light years away, a supernova there would just be a nice light show. Leaving me to wonder: aren't SciFi writers supposed to be concerned with versimilitude? And Sawyer won a Nebula. To which book, The Terminal Experiment, I shall nevertheless venture next.
June 10, 2009
Ethnic cleansing in Gaza?
So says Pastor Wright, Barry's longtime, forsworn minister of the gospel (so to speak):
"Ethnic cleansing is going on in Gaza. Ethnic cleansing (by) the Zionist is a sin and a crime against humanity..."
Quick, Barry, shove Jeremiah back into his box before people start remembering where you come from.
June 09, 2009
Remind me NOT to eat at Burger King
Two arrows touching, nose to nose
I keep thinking back to the scenes of four pilots on separate flight decks unknowingly converging over the Amazon jungle. The Brazilian 737 pilots are sharing family photographs and flirting with a flight attendant. The American pilots in the Legacy biz jet are puzzling over how to operate a digital camera.
Both groups are at Flight Level 370 (37,000 feet) in normal mode: eyes inside the boat, letting their autopilots, transponders and collision-avoidance gear do the work while assuming that Air Traffic Control has things well in hand. But the Legacy's transponder was on the blink and the controllers were asleep at the switch. Heckuva tale about what happened, here by journalist William Langewiesche.
His father's classic, Stick and Rudder, led me to try flying back in 1974 in a Cessna 150 over South Florida. I was defeated practicing stalls above Boca Raton. Could not get the feel of falling out of my stomach or the picture of disaster out of my head. And it was too expensive. I stuck to scuba diving.
AGW heretic
It doesn't do most people any good to question the assertions of the acolytes of the First Church of Global Warming. Except, uh, when you're a famous physicist named Freeman Dyson:
"The change that’s now going on is very strongly concentrated in the Arctic. In fact in three respects, it’s not global, which I think is very important. First of all, it is mainly in the Arctic. Secondly, it’s mainly in the winter rather than summer. And thirdly, it’s mainly in the night rather than at the daytime. In all three respects, the warming is happening where it is cold, not where it is hot."
You're still mocked and shouted down, of course. But, uh, you know, you don't care. Good thing heretics are no longer burned. Yet.
Wizard 101 angst
Mr. Boy was having a crisis of confidence for about three weeks running over the Counterweight East portion of the Dungeon on multi-player Wizard 101. Over the weekend, he and four online friends finally conquered it. So happy he gave me a hug. Now he's on to Counterweight West and Big Ben.
Reminds me of his first computer game play with Harry Potter software and some moving blocks in a canal. He kept jumping and missing the blocks and falling into the water and having to start over again. High frustration, lots of anger. But he stuck to it and, boy, was he happy when he finally beat it.
June 08, 2009
Boeing 787 Dreamliner
Fifty percent composite airframe (read plastic) and its first fly-by-wire is Boeing's new airliner aborning. If, as some speculate, Air France 447 crashed into the Atlantic May 31 because of lightning-induced electrical problems with its computers, Boeing's robotic Dreamliner could turn into its Nightmare--and ours. But, then, with half the airline market already invested in fly-by-wire Airbus, well... There'll be plenty of pain to go around.
June 07, 2009
And to think I almost bought a Saturn
The Saturn was as close as I ever got to buying a GM product. Thank goodness I didn't:
"...why Saturn flopped: The company had built a popular brand as a sort of feel-good anti-car--vaguely tractor-like, noisy, but made of semi-indestructible plastic by dedicated Tennessee workers and--unique in nearly all of GM--actually reliable. GM threw all this away and filled Saturn showrooms with cars designed to appeal to totally different buyers: rebadged mainstream Opels. They were OK, but creepily overstyled and not so reliable. End of explanation."
I drove a Ford pickup and a Jeep Cherokee, but otherwise have stuck to Volkswagens and Hondas. Whew.
Via Instapundit.
Kofi Annan, warmist
I was willing to hear out the warmists on their Chicken Little bit until the Dictator's Club weighed into it. I mean, come on, this is the outfit whose human rights council is run by tyrants who spend its time condemning Israel, while its Muslim members oppress women, gays, Christians, Jews, etc.
Now comes that paragon of corruption, Kofi Annan, issuing a phony little warmist addendum that draws a sneer from an expert that it is "a poster child for how to lie with statistics...worse than fiction." Isn't it about time somebody figured out what's going on here? It ain't science, that's for sure.
June 06, 2009
AF 447: Informed speculation
Now that the Brazilian air force's media-assisted "debris trail" has been debunked, it's probably best to ignore whatever the mainstream media produces on the disappearance. But several good sources remain. One of the best is the (mostly) informed speculation at Airliners.net. Best weather analysis still is here.
UPDATE: Well, make that debunked, and then resucitated with more detail than before.
Hot plasma
Sol may be quiet in terms of sunspots, but its solar prominences are cooking right along.
June 05, 2009
Pulling an Airbus's plug
Bad things can happen when the Airbus's electrical systems go out:
"Simply, the Airbus 330 is one of the few commercial aircraft that is completely fly-by-wire [i.e., fully automated by computer]. The Airbus 320, of Hudson River fame, has mechanical backups, but the Airbus 330 and 340 don’t."
So when their computers quit, what's left? Exactly nothing. Not much. Except, uh, prayer.
Michele to wear Hijab?
That's a, more or less, logical question after Barry's Cairo hymn to most things Muslim. He forgot things like oppression of women, gays, and Christians. Or so it seems to this astounded supporter. Me, I'm coming to love the guy. He is a one-termer if there ever was one.
History lessons
Barry can, indeed, be eloquent, and bold, when he chooses to be. Get this Cairo lesson for Muslims:
"Around the world, the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries, and anti-Semitism in Europe culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust. Tomorrow, I will visit Buchenwald, which was part of a network of camps where Jews were enslaved, tortured, shot and gassed to death by the Third Reich. Six million Jews were killed – more than the entire Jewish population of Israel today. Denying that fact is baseless, ignorant, and hateful. Threatening Israel with destruction – or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews – is deeply wrong, and only serves to evoke in the minds of Israelis this most painful of memories while preventing the peace that the people of this region deserve."
It probably won't change anything, but you've got to give him an A for effort.
June 04, 2009
Geography-challenged
Lege chuckle
Not because this last-minute amendment to a passed bill to let state Rep. Wayne Christian (an allegedly conservative Republican) rebuild his beach house on Ike-swept Bolivar Penninsula is particularly unusual. But because, in fact, this is just the sort of thing that gets smuggled into law in the last "chaotic" days of every biennial session. The last days are always "chaotic" because the Lege likes them that way. So much easier to slip stuff through when there's so much going on that no one is likely to notice until it's too late. Heh.
Via Lone Star Times.
The downside of wind energy
You knew there was one, didinja? Despite the Dem and Gorebot focus on wind and solar?
"Sometimes wind production can drop suddenly. On February 26, 2008, wind production in the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) dropped from over 1700 MW down to 300 MW within a three hour period.Traditional power plant operators, who would normally provide more power on short notice, failed to provide power as promised. ERCOT was able to avoid blackouts by asking large industrial customers to cut back on power use. These demand-response customers get reduced electric rates in exchange for cutting power on short notice."
Cutting back on power doesn't mean they do without. Oh no. They crank up their fossil-fuel generators. Keeping up the green pretense. Or, as TFG says, by golly we're still getting those wind energy brochures in our mailbox.
June 03, 2009
AF447 Update
This AP report is the most detailed on the automated transmissions from the Airbus to Air France I've seen. It apparently originated in a Brazilian newspaper and AP got it confirmed:
"The pilot sent a manual signal at 11 p.m. local time saying he was flying through an area of "CBs": black, electrically charged cumulonimbus clouds that come with violent winds and lightning. Satellite data has shown that towering thunderheads were sending 100 mph (160 kph) updraft winds into the jet's flight path at the time. "Ten minutes later, a cascade of problems began: Automatic messages indicate the autopilot had disengaged, a key computer system switched to alternative power, and controls needed to keep the plane stable had been damaged. An alarm sounded indicating the deterioration of flight systems. "Three minutes after that, more automatic messages reported the failure of systems to monitor air speed, altitude and direction. Control of the main flight computer and wing spoilers failed as well. "The last automatic message, at 11:14 p.m., signaled loss of cabin pressure and complete electrical failure, catastrophic events in a plane that was likely already plunging toward the ocean." As usual, this raises more questions. The first big one might be why, if you're flying thru a violent storm would you be on autopilot? Via Things With Wings.
Sunspecks
Scientists are getting so desperate for the return of sunspots that they are now counting sunspecks. The one on the left is fading away, the one in the middle is a "dead pixel," an artifact of the SOHO spacecraft, and the two on the right are the latest candidates for sunspots. I'm wondering if the lack of activity will mean a cooler-than-usual summer. Well, I can dream, anyhow, as our daytime temps at the rancho climb steadily into the 90s.
Via Watts Up With That.
Airbus down
When I was twelve in 1956, I got interested in the sinking of a passenger liner called the Andrea Doria off Nantucket. I remember staying up late listening to radio coverage of the rescue efforts for what was the flagship of the Italian Line. That was all there was then, late-night radio.
Today, of course, there's quite a lot of informed speculation available on the Web for almost anything, and so I have been at it, off and on, since word of AF447--including perusing this excellant weather blog analysis complete with plotted storm maps showing the flight path. I got it off the transcript of a Rush Limbaugh conversation with an Airbus pilot. He speculated that the tragedy could have begun with the reported electrical failure which could have taken out their weather radar. But that leaves the question of why/how the electricals failed, considering the Airbus has "four fully-redundant electrical systems."
Snagged this post title from the Seablogger whose speculation centers on a megabolt of lightning combined with hail damage to the flight deck windows, which could account for the reported depressurization. But the weather blog above discounts the possibility of hail. Plenty to wonder about, and, thanks to the Internet, plenty of sources to help in the wondering.
MORE: Mystery deepens. Not so much the bomb threat a few days before the flight, but discovery of the debris trail and fuel slick of miles across the ocean, suggesting the plane's breakup in mid-air. If Airbus wants to sell any more planes, they'd better figure out what caused such a calamity.
June 02, 2009
Air France Flight 447
Back in the day, Air Force pilots used to joke about "Air Chance." Some civilians still mutter darkly about the fly-by-wire, automated Airbus, although this apparently is its first major crash with passengers. For now the proposed explanation for the disappearance of Flight 447 over the mid-Atlantic, is severe turbulence, a possible lightning strike and hail damage.
Yet airliners are designed and pilots are trained to handle weather. It's tempting, in this day of terrorism, to assume it was a bomb. Reports of simultaneous electrical failure and loss of cabin pressure suggest something like that. But they'll have to find the wreckage, and hopefully the black (actually orange) flight data and voice recorders before we will ever know the cause for certain. If then.
June 01, 2009
Guns on campus defeated
Not surprisingly, commonsense has failed the Texas Lege, that notable bastion of insipidity, and the concealed-carry-on-campus bill that passed the Texas Senate never made it out of the House. It has officially failed for the session. Might be brought back. Might not. Wouldbe campus killers take note: You're still good to go. Nobody will shoot back and, as always, the cops won't get there in time to stop you.
Truism
