Dorothy D. Hoft, R.I.P.
Gateway Pundit Jim Hoft has written a touching obituary for his dearly departed mother. Worth a read.
Via Power Line.
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July 31, 2009
Inspired Bicycles
Port Aransas fever
This time of year, lots of inland Texans are thinking of the coast and the surf and the Gulf breezes. Course the latter come to us when there's a good low-pressure area off to our west-northwest, sometimes bringing us the only summer rain we get. Anyhow, when we go we stay at the condo. Never have stayed at the little Tarpon Inn, at PortA, with its cavalry-barracks architecture, but lion tamer Clyde Beatty did, and cake-mix magnate Duncan Hines, etc., way back when. FDR caught a tarpon offshore, as many still do, but he slept somewhere else.
Crowley dignified, Gates still lying, Barry won't apologize
This Breitbart video of Sergeant Crowley taking questions from the media is a close look at an interesting and intelligent man. Far from being a chump to lend credence to Barry, he obviously held his own. That thick Boston accent brings back memories. Not all pleasant. I lived there many years ago.
He and Professor Gates plan to meet again, place and topic unspecified. Something tells me Gates is going to be the taught and Crowley the teacher. Maybe next time Gates will be polite when the cops come to call. Meanwhile one of Crowley's black police colleagues had a complaint of his own for Gates. The professor's post-beer statement, on his Web newsletter, is a little pompous and still obfuscating, for the fellow who I think started the whole thing and still refuses to admit it.
Michael Barrone also gives the snob Gates a deserved, good skewering for picking on a "little" guy.
It still amazes me that Barry, whose "stupidly" remark on the case he admitted he knew nothing about has cost him dearly in the polls, still apparently refuses to say sorry. If either of the three clearly should, it's him. Kiss that fifty percent approval goodbye, B. Hussein. You may never see it again.
UPDATE: Crowley and Gates, at least, whatever the latter's refusal to own up, seem to have hit it off rather well.
Tire art
Best use for old tires. Besides selling them. Most of us don't have this much talent. But for them as does: get. it. on.
July 30, 2009
Tisha B'Av
Rain on Red Bud leaves
This works a bit better than the Turk's Cap shot below. It's busier but at least you can see the rain drops on the leaves. The toy tugboat in the background used to be a tub toy. Since relegated to the Back Forty.
Rain on Turk's Cap
A little fuzzy, this quickie snap of our surprise and very welcome morning rain shower. Figured the rain would show up best on this native Turk's Cap "bush" which attracts hummingbirds. This older shot of the plant is somewhat better. I'm glad I don't have to make a living as a photographer.
Beer bust?
I still have no reason to believe that Cambridge, MA PD Sgt. James Crowley will show up at this afternoon's Obamalot- and media-driven "beer summit." Not a single Crowley quote has appeared in any of the multiple cutsie beer stories yet. Not even in the WSJ. What do you want to bet it's a bust?
UPDATE: Okay, I stand corrected. The sergeant showed up. No word on what was said. Maybe later. I don't envy him having to listen to Biden's fractured platitudes, however.
Neda: Still burning
The ultimate curmudgeon
John Bolton on Barry, et al
Pam Geller at Atlas Shrugged does a very nice thirty-minute interview (in three segments) with former Bush admin foreign policy/UN guy John Bolton. I was surprised to learn that the guy whose toughness at the dictator's club always impressed me started out his political career supporting Barry Goldwater. I did not then do any more than stick an AU H20 sticker on my motor bike. But I shared JB's enthusiasm for the man whose political efforts led to President Reagan. Worth your time.
July 29, 2009
Falcon 9 moving along
McGregor, TX (July 29, 2009) – Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) announces the successful completion of qualification testing for the Falcon 9 launch vehicle first stage tank and interstage. Testing took place at SpaceX's Texas Test Site, a 300 acre structural and propulsion testing facility, located just outside of Waco, Texas. [First stage is green; interstage is black; this is the bird that will service the International Space Station when the shuttles are retired.]
UPDATE: But I'm opposed to government handouts for these and other commercial ops. We can see how well that worked for NASA, whose proposed Ares 1--whose capsule spacecraft is a throwback to Apollo and doesn't even have an airlock--already is seeking more tax billions.
Combat in Afghanistan
"The Taliban are very brave, but they are ignorant brutal men who murder locals who do not support them, and brave doesn’t stop bullets." --Michael Yon
Sounds like the Viet Cong. Hope they don't have the Cong's tenacity. So far they seem not to have. But this "good war," as the Dems used to call it, to distinguish it from their "bad war" in Iraq, has a long way to go. Yon's piece shows why. Amazes me, though, that the Brit troops have women medics and rifles. These women aren't inadvertently in combat. They are in it on purpose. Revolutionary.
Jay Janner's photos
Jay, a staff photographer for the daily, has plenty of good ones on his blog. I'd post one but he'd probably ask me to take it down. Since he's put them on the Web himself, it's not necessary. Go see for yourself. Good stuff. No fakery.
Also Ralph Barrera. (I think I've spelled his name correctly, this time. Little inside joke. Very little.) And Brian Diggs and Kelly West. I didn't realize so many had their own sites. Jay's led me to them. Good for them.
Hottest July On Record
That's here, in Centex land, with a probable average high temp of at least 89.4 degrees for the month. Of course the record only goes back to the 1850s or so. The previous record was 89.1 in July, 1870.
Too bad the Indians didn't have thermometers and keep records or we might know more. As it is, unless you're a diehard global warmist, the record's length is not very impressive. But the heat has been utterly oppressive, and the worst may be to come. August generally is the hottest and driest month around here.
And with no named tropical storm yet this hurricane season we can't even count on that to cool us off.
July 28, 2009
Obamacare Derailed, temporarily
Well, as Paul at Power Line (where I got this) more or less said, I hope the Blue Dog Dems are capable of keeping this malarky stopped. I still don't get it. If the rationale is to help the poor, why not help them? Reform Medicaid and Medicare. LBJ had the right idea. His programs were crippled by insane regulations over the years.
So fix them. Do some real work for a change. No need to screw the rest of us. As Megan McArdle says, monopolies don't innovate. Take away competition and our "best health care in the world" goes down the tubes.
UPDATE: Great, new anti-ObamaCare ad, with suggestions from commenters for even better ones. My fav, from Portlandon, is: "Uncle Joe getting a rejection letter for his liver cancer surgery, followed by a gunshot. The letter falls like a feather to the floor at his feet."
The best Air Force in the world
Certainly the most tested. I'm not sure why the video is so badly out of focus. Perhaps it was meant to be played smaller.
Seven Things I Love
Snoopy The Goon says he's tagged me and I have to tag seven others in this venerable blogospheric game. It's a new one for me, but I'm honored to try.
I'll try not to make it too, too sentimental. Inject a little humor here and there, if possible. Here goes. And, except for No. 1 and No. 2, not necessarily in this order.
1) The Creator of the Universe. Who made a few big mistakes here and there, but I know he/she/it tries. And needs all the help he/she/it can get--whether that's in any accepted theology or not.
2) Mr. Boy and Mrs. Charm and the rest of the clan, kith as well as kin.
3) A good night's sleep. Sometimes hard to come by in increasing old age.
4) A good read. Fiction or non-fiction, book or blog post or media article, it doesn't matter.
5) Sitting on the condo balcony at Port Aransas at night every summer watching the twinkling lights on the offshore oil rigs. Just thinking about all that non-Saudi oil makes me happy, even if I don't own a well.
6) Texas. Anywhere (even Houston). Anytime. Rain or shine. Drought or flood.
7) Writing. Anything. I'm presently embarked on a book of Texana, though the research is not going well. A recently completed Civil War novel is piling up the rejection slips. But I'll keep querying agents, and probably try another one of those before long.
And now, as Mr. Goon says, to the victims: Scott Chafin, CGHill, Alan Sullivan, John Salmon, whose comments I can never get to work, so I'll link this and, maybe, he'll see it, JD Allen, MK Freeberg, whose Wordpress comment thingie on "the blog no one ever reads (except me)," keeps rejecting me, so I'll try another link he might see, and Akaky Bashmachkin.
White House meet: Crowley's idea, or Barry's?
I keep seeing Big Media stories about how it was Cambridge Police Sergeant James Crowley who suggested that he and Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Barry smoke the peace pipe Thursday over a, uh, Budweiser? (Jaysus, can't they come up with a better beer? Shiner would be okay. Even Dos Equis would be preferable.)
But, so far, all we've seen, all I can find, is this Monday CNN report with two of the Cambridge PD's black officers backing up the sergeant that the ever-after obfuscating Gates was disorderly. No mention of Crowley shopping for a new suit for the White House meet. I haven't found a single report quoting the sergeant agreeing to this at all.
Makes me think that, so far, it's an Obamalot- and media-driven scam. If not, I wonder what they would talk about? Would Barry and Gates apologize? They both owe Crowley one. Do they have the decency? Nothing they've done in public yet suggests it. Time will tell.
July 27, 2009
Truth, please, not beer and apologies
The race-baiter Gates, who I earlier nicknamed Tawana Brawley since it's apparent to me that he's trying to lie his way out of some unpleasantness he caused, is already out there puffing himself up. "This Is Not About Me," says the headline quoting him at Drudge. Of course it's about you, you creep. Race hustler of the year.
His cohort in obfuscation, Barry his ownself, wants Gates and Sergeant Crowley to come sit down, apologize to each other and have a beer. I'm with Professor Jacobson at Cornell. I want the truth, not Kumbaya, and, so far, I'm siding with the Cambridge PD. Policing-while-white has become as much, if not more of a problem then driving-while-black. I've had enough of slime like Gates who cry racism every time things don't go their way or someone calls them on their misbehavior. Besides the cops need all the help they can get.
Cops are the real endangered minority in this country. They are the thin blue line between the law-abiding and the thugs. Cops never know what awaits them when they answer a call. They dare not let creeps like Gates yell abuse at them in public and get away with it. It’s not a long step from people doing that to taking shots at them. That’s, in part, what the disorderly conduct laws are about. And even snobbish, lying Harvard professors have to obey them or go to jail.
UPDATE: Indeed, the Cambridge police commissioner says Big Media got the story wrong from the beginning and continues to report the same primary racial error.
AND: Gates has amended his Inkwell Foundation's 2007 tax return to account for the misrepresentation of $11,000, thanks to the work of blog Riehl World View. There's still the matter of a $6,000 payment to his girlfriend. Naughty.
MORE: Iowahawk (who else?) finds humor in the plight of the Harvard faculty ***hole.
July 26, 2009
Ringworld
Still a favorite, the Ringworld series, which I think of now and again. So when I saw this wonderful book cover repro from Ringworld's Children, I had to post it. I'm surprised the three four-book series isn't packaged to sell as one. Maybe rare reader Veeshir, who also enjoyed the series, has some thoughts on that.
Power outage
It wasn't a brownout for the rancho, just a cutout this afternoon that came back on in less than a minute. Took an hour more time for some people, maybe. Crashed the main computer, of course, in the midst of Mr. B. playing, as he said, "an important duel" in Wizard 101. So he was upset to tears.
This Austin Energy release is from July 18, so it doesn't speak to what happened today. It doesn't even say why the "small piece of equipment" at a nearby electrical substation caught on fire to cause 17,000 customers to lose power. But it's not surprising, given the heat wave (now 23 days above a hundred degrees for July) and the whole town running a/c to the max, not to mention more of everything else electrical because it's not very inviting to go outside. I suppose the brownouts will be here soon enough.
UPDATE: Mrs Charm says it seems to have half-busted the microwave. Again. Still cooks, but the fan doesn't come on anymore. Durn thing is only little more than a year old. Fortunately we know better than to try and get it repaired.
Wooden Boat
Building, launching and sailing a wooden Catboat on Lake Travis. Since she draws just thirty inches, this year's drought is of little concern. I'm envious.
Gratuitous aircraft porn
Pure eye candy for those who like to watch Mirage fighter jocks spar and do victory rolls. Taken from a bad French movie, they say, called Les Chevaliers du Cie (or Knights of the Air) but the aerial is worth watching. And, if you can't get enuff, there's the Swiss Air Force version set to music. Tally Ho!
July 25, 2009
Pedernales "River"
This is one reason Lake Travis is so low this summer. The almost dry Pedernales is one of the major suppliers of water to the lake-reservoir. The other is the Llano River. Haven't seen any current pictures of it lately.
The Disagreement
The beginnings of Winder Hospital, which became one of Richmond's largest in the Civil War, where my great grandfather, a private in Barksdale's Mississippi Brigade, spent several months in 1862.
The post title, however, is that of this historical novel I recently finished about the training and coming-of-age of a young Virginia doctor during the war. Not at Winder, but at Charlottesville General Hospital on the UVA campus. A good story worth your time only if you are captivated by the period. The hero's stuffed-shirt personality and the author's extensive use of the vernacular can be annoying. The hero's clinical detachment serves him well as a doctor but can make him a tiresome human being. Such jarring notes as his disinterest in religion are more modern than nineteenth century.
Now and then I felt trapped in some period memoir, becoming confused by the use of passive voice and multiple parentheticals. One detail, a slouch cap, was silly. A slouch was a hat, not a cap. Nevertheless, I found it hard to put down for long. I did miss the bleeding and cupping, two common treatments of the time to relieve fevers which were later discarded as doing only harm. I suppose the hero would have looked pretty stupid using either one and so they were left out.
The author obviously put a great deal of work into the tale (recounted in the back pages aknowledging his grants) and so I felt a little guilty at being able to acquire it almost new for one penny plus four dollars shipping. He can thank Amazon for that. One does wonder how the classical writers ever did it, without masters degrees in fine arts, writing workshops and multiple grants.
JK Wedding Entrance Dance
Just a really fun video clip that's gone mega-viral. View count, sez Hot Air, already up to five million. G-d bless the innertubes. No NYC/LA gatekeepers to spoil the fun.
Falcon 9: It is Rocket Science
The first launch of SpaceX's heavy lift vehicle, Falcon 9, may be delayed until fall, but its Falcon 1's orbiting of a Malaysian sat ten days ago was a plus. Fun to have their Merlin engine test facilities just up the road in McGregor, southwest of Waco.
Might not be if they were rattling our windows, but they don't do tests very often. Since their founder Elon Musk is the co-founder of PayPal, I hope my use of that service helps SpaceX, too. Falcon 9 was designed from the start to fly a four-man crew and service the International Space Station once the shuttles are retired.
Good luck, guys. It might not be in your plans but I hope you can beat the Indians and Chinese to the moon.
July 24, 2009
Barry: The Lame Duck President
Whew. That didn't take long. About six months and Obamalot's approval rating is below fifty percent.
Link via The Seablogger.
UPDATE: Texas Medical Association, the largest state medicial society, to Obamalot: No Thanks!
"'The physicians of the Texas Medical Association believe our health care system is broken and needs reform,' [President William] Fleming said in a statement. 'However, we cannot support the current House proposal... While it addresses some of health care’s ailments, it leaves gaping wounds and does not serve Texas patients well.'"
July 23, 2009
Horsehead Nebula
Interesting that this configuration has been out there since the late Nineteenth Century.
"The cover is a very pretty shade of red"
Amazon reviewer's "positive" note after savaging The Rule of Four, a supposed bestseller which, at Amazon at least, drew three hundred ninety-eight one stars versus one hundred fifty five stars.
I haven't read the book and certainly don't plan to now. Since Amazon supposedly is in the business of selling books it seems to have created a monster with this review system. But it's hard not to take more than twice as many bad reviews as good ones to heart and avoid the item in question.
WD-40
Haavard's Tawana Brawley
Not exactly, but close. Mr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., that is. The big shot who decides to argue with a cop and try to pull rank on him. Then, when he's arrested for disorderly conduct, he cries racism. Figures.
What else is new? Barry, our alleged post-racial president, admitting he doesn't know the facts, but immediately siding with Gates. Whoa. The only person looking good here, so far, is the cop. Until his bosses dropped the charges, making Gates look justified. It all would be silly if it wasn't so sad.
UPDATE: The cop's police report with addendum by a second officer who also heard Gates.
AND: VDH-- "There were no winners in this comic tragedy — but one clear loser: last night, the president of the United States."
July 22, 2009
Lake Travis: The Sometimes Islands
Years ago, one of the daily's photographers (I hesitate to guess which one) took a couch out to one of the Islands, propped an Elvis-on-velvet on it and immortalized the droughty geography. This photo is from June. Probably worse now, since there's been no rain to speak of. But there will be. With El Nino returning, the lake will be rising by winter. Probably higher than people want by then.
Abandoned Russian Nuclear Lighthouses
Frozen Charlotte
Late nineteenth century Americans apparently had a courser sense of humor than even we do, debatable as that may seem. Take Frozen Charlottes, unjointed porcelain dolls that cost about a penny, and would sometimes be baked into birthday cakes for children to find as presents.
The Charlotte in question comes from this popular folk ballad about a young woman who set off in a sleigh one freezing night with too little clothing and wound up, well, frozen. Today the one-inch dolls seem to be pretty valuable, at least on E-Bay where prime examples might fetch up to $1,500.
Why bring this up? I just found out that the archeologists excavating Austin's Guytown redlight district in the summer of 2001 (before the appropriate construction there of the new City Hall) found at least one Frozen Charlotte, broken, and tossed into a privy. There's a story for you. Make of it what you will.
Hitler paid for MJ's peroxide treatments
I think this is howlingly funny. Your mileage may vary.
Via Simply Jews.
July 21, 2009
Obamacare
Bobby Jindal's plan looks more sensible (if still complex) than any Barry-Nancy secret one.
We're Martians, after all
Post-9/11 G.I. Bill
July 20, 2009
Starfarers
This was my first Poul Anderson epic novel and it's a dandy. I see why he's one of scifi's revered masters. As previously mentioned about some other such books, the Amazon reader-critics are pretty harsh, for such reasons as it being hard to keep the saga's many characters straight.
That's inane. It's easy to flip back a few pages to remind yourself, and the story is worth the effort. The tale's overarching idea, that most of humanity eventually becomes bored with space travel and retreats to study itself, is a shocking thought. Then you remember how we landed on the moon on this very day and forty years later what do we do? Except for our robots (and their contribution, however limited, certainly is worthwhile) we're not even exploring the solar system, let alone the stars.
UPDATE: Indeed, fifty-one percent don't even want to go to Mars. Sigh.
July 19, 2009
Texas: Pre-flood
How bad is our drought? This bad. But I feel sure there'll be major flooding by late fall.
The publishing game
Boy, talk about a gamble. I admit to being more than a little tired of rewriting query letters and reworking a synopsis to suit the needs of various agents I am submitting my Civil War novel to. But I have to say they're in perhaps the toughest racket I've encountered.
Not only do they have to make a time judgment (whether to spend six hours reading 240-plus pages) based on a query letter, a synopsis and the first five pages, they then have to risk their reputation on whether their judgment will make a sale.
Not just to the editors of the publisher they represent, but, once the book is edited, covered, printed, etc., to the reviewers. Who may ignore it. They ignore most books. Then, on to the booksellers. Who may or may not take any copies. They're not required to. And even if they do, there's no guarantee anyone out there in digital and bricks-n-mortar bookstores will buy it. Ever. That is stress. All I have to do is rewrite the query letter.
Your comments
I've discovered that you have to log in twice to get through the Typepad comment system here before it will recognize you. The first time it rejects you. Persist. You will get in on the second try. I have no idea why this is so. I considered moving the blog to Wordpress with Scott Chaffin's help, but decided I had better things to do than fiddle with a whole new system.
Breanne Ashley Nude!
Another shameless attempt to game the system. This is a family blog. This is not. Enjoy la difference.
Via American Power.
July 18, 2009
Heh
Via Girl In Shorts.
Kindle creeps me out
Nevermind the ease of reading and the low cost of electronic publishing. Amazon reserves the legal right to reach out across the airwaves and remotely delete books from your Kindle wherever you are. Might not be long before the government is examining your reading habits and deleting what it doesn't like.
I won't miss Walter
It's heresy, I know. Tough. Cronkite never was "the most trusted man in America," except to those whose opinions he supported blatantly, flagrantly on the air every weeknight on cBS news. Somewhere along the line he must have been a real journalist but it didn't last long.
We all read that LBJ said he knew he had to resign when he "lost" Walter Cronkite on the Vietnam War. A real journalist would have been able to figure out that, shocking as TET 1968 was, it was not a victory for the enemy -- like Uncle Walty and his broadcast pals said it was. Over and over and over. But don't get me wrong. I'm only blaming them for a lack of professionalism. The Pentagon and Congress lost the war all on their own.
UPDATE: I pop off, but this guy does it thoughtfully. Barry, meanwhile, blithely joins the sheep. No surprise.
July 17, 2009
"Flight level 330...
...and begging to go higher and faster." Captain Dave, somewhere over the Heartland of the Empire, does it again. Poetically.
Lake Travis's better days
The moon abandoned
Monday's fortieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing will be a mockery -- of us. It will be followed, with the death of the shuttle-to-nowhere program fourteen months from now, by... nothing. As Krauthammer says: "We came, we saw, we retreated."
UPDATE: Tom Wolfe: "One giant leap to nowhere." And, when I say "us" above, I mean Americans. I wouldn't put it past the Chinese or the Indians to someday land on the moon and stay.
Destiny's Road
I've read so many Larry Niven novels and stories by now that I can't remember them all. This was one of the most satisfying, on a par to my mind with the Ringworld series. Jemmy is a lovable character who always means well and has to be pushed to do bad.
In the end he gives back in the most meaningful way: freeing his people from a tyranny imposed by the colony planet's founders. I don't understand the really savage criticism of the book by a majority of reviewers at Amazon: don't waste your time, big disappointment, a mess, etc.
I agree with some of them that the dialogue was occasionally hard to follow. But reading back over it didn't take a lot of energy and I was soon set right. Likewise with puzzling out a few typos. Sometimes I think the Amazon reviewers are sheep, and this is one of those times. I especially loved the ending, which I reread several times. I hope the amateur reviewers didn't hurt the book's sales and that we see more of Destiny, down the road.
July 16, 2009
Dwindling blogosphere?
So it seems:
"According to a 2008 survey by Technorati, which runs a search engine for blogs, only 7.4 million out of the 133 million blogs the company tracks had been updated in the past 120 days. That translates to 95 percent of blogs being essentially abandoned, left to lie fallow on the Web, where they become public remnants of a dream — or at least an ambition — unfulfilled."
Via Dustbury, which is still going strong after beginning in, uh, '96? Really?
UPDATE: Then there's this:
"Of the 12 million bloggers on the Internet, only about 13% post daily, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project. Even fewer -- 10% -- spend 10 or more hours a week on their blogs."
Note that Pew's total blogs (12 million) does not jibe with Technorati's (133 million). Oops!
Cavalry charge on the plains
Got to love the chapeau on the lead rider. A Frederick Remington painting via Texas Beyond History.
Plummeting Lake Travis
All our triple digit days means the big lake in the Highlands chain is dropping 1.5 to 2 feet a week now, according to the LCRA:
1) 614.18' set in August of 1951
2) 615.02' set in November of 1963
3) 636.58' set in October of 1984
4) 640.08' set on July 13, 2009 639.53 set on July 17, 2009 (and falling)
5) 640.24' set in October of 2000
But, as you can see, there's still a long ways to go before it's hitting real record territory. Some slight fauna and flora relief is in sight for the weekend, but probably nothing meaningful for the lake.
Via KVUE's Mark Murray.
July 15, 2009
Hole in the ceiling
I suppose the one foot-square hole that developed in a Southwest Airlines jet over West Virginia Tuesday could have happened to any airline flying older planes. The 737-300 is twenty-eight years old, though this plane might be younger. That it happened to my favorite airline, the former "national airline of Texas" is just sad. It fits, unfortunately, into some of their questionable activities of late. Just stick to the no-crash policy, boys. Please.
Noctilucent clouds
The Zionists did it
Via Dust My Broom and Simply Jews.
July 14, 2009
Soto, Sotomayor
I don't know which I like less here, the AP's editorializing in a despicably nasty way, or Judge Sotomayor's obvious dissembling. I still don't think she should be denied a seat on the Supremes. With only one vote out of nine, the only people she's going to injure are the Hispanic-Americans she embarrasses. And, who knows, she might even turn out to be sensible. Other nominated dolts have.
UPDATE: Iowahawk's savage humor on the "wise Latina" in question, however, I entirely approve of.
Purple Sage rain alert
LCRA meteorologist Bob Rose has noticed the area's Purple Sage bushes are in timely bloom:
"As I’ve mentioned previously, these plants, also known as a 'barometer bush' often bloom about a week to ten days before there’s rain in the local area. They seem to have a fairly good track record. Unfortunately, the blooms don’t say anything about the quantity of rain. The last time they bloomed, rain amounts were fairly low. But they did bloom about a week before we got some rain. Could the plants [be] sensing [a] pattern change?"
We can sure hope so. Slight chances of rain, after all, are forecast this weekend through next week.
Free guns, free training
So they say, and the offer looks legit. Not for me, though. I've already got mine.
July 13, 2009
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
Green road not taken
Austin's clean (wind and solar) energy program isn't attracting many takers. Mainly because "green energy" is more expensive than coal or gas. Oh, ho.
This is the part they didn't tell you. Meanwhile all that extra carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is doing plenty of greening with no extra charge at all (unless you believe Al Gore). Ironic, isn't it?
Michael Jackson versus Jimmy Cagney
It's the dancer Michael Jackson that I remember. That was years ago, before the plastic surgery and the scandals. He did and still reminds me of Jimmy Cagney, not because I'm old enough to have seen Cagney in person or his movies upon their release. I saw these two (in three clips) on television when I was a kid in the 1950s and the boob tube played lots of old black-n-white movies. What a dancer Cagney was.
July 12, 2009
Tasers come in pink
JKP, Barsana Dham
Okay all you folks who think of Texas in stereotypical terms. Here's one to jangle your spurs. Southwest of Austin, on the road to Driftwood and not far from Dripping Springs, there's this two hundred acre replica of an Indian holy district.
It's the North American home of the Hindu sect JKP, Barsana Dham. You can almost smell the incense by clicking on the link. Unfortunately, its international leader and swami, Prakashanand Saraswati, has run afoul of the indecency-with-a-child laws, twenty counts worth. So things are not copacetic at the ashram these days. Reminds me of the Russian Orthodox sect's similar problems down in Blanco in '97. It's the freedom that draws 'em, I think. And, sometimes, trips 'em up.
July 11, 2009
Giving up on the black boxes
The U.S. Navy has stopped searching for the flight deck and data recorders that went down with the remains of Air France 447 in the Atlantic off Brazil. French surface ships gave up Friday, though a French submarine continues to prowl the depths, and there is talk of more searching begining July 14. So, with still no clear proof of what happened, let the speculation continue in earnest.
Beyond grievance peddling
Diplomats or terrorists?
CNN and AP call them Iranian diplomats, the posers Barry released from incarceration Thursday. The Weekly Standard and National Review insist the Irbil Five are terrorists, Quds Force commanders from Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards.
As such they coordinated attacks that killed hundreds of American troops in Iraq. We ought to be able to rely on Big Media to give us such detail of Barry's latest suckup to the mullahs. But we can't.
Instead, Big Media is peddling another report on Bushitler's alleged awful spying at home. Groan.
Via Power Line.
Space Elevator Games
It ain't rocket science. In some ways, it's harder. And never more so than this year. The August 5 games have come a long way since the tether was held up by a crane-on-wheels. This time it's to be held up by a helicopter hovering four thousand three hundred feet (one kilometer) above the Mojave Desert at Edwards AFB where the space shuttles land. For that reason alone, we're likely to see it on television and YouTube and elsewhere. So get your background here and here and here.
July 10, 2009
Sarah has deeply disappointed her enemies
"She's like the ex-girlfriend they're SO over, never want to see again, have already forgotten about -- really, it's O-ver -- but they just can't stop talking about her."
--Ann Coulter.
Or filing frivolous ethics complaints, after first issuing a press release about them. But of course.
UPDATE: Willie Brown's take: Sarah Palin, political genius.
Happy Birthday, Nikola
Belated, of course. About sixty-six years belated, but who's counting? I'm still waiting for some smart cookie to figure out how to transmit electricity wirelessly. Nikola ran out of money with it, alas. So far, we haven't even figured out how to store electricity. Problems, problems. Come back Nikola, all is forgiven.
Via Simply Jews.
First-Person Shooter Disease
Protest
Great sign here: "Government Healthcare: The Efficiency of FEMA & the Compassion of the IRS."
Not to mention penny-pinching, rationing, and probable loss of choice, timely care and treatment advances. If the Dems were honest about this, they would rejuvenate and expand Medicaid for the poor and leave the rest of us alone.
Ares 1-X
They're stacking this baby down at KSC for what is billed as a test flight "later this year," mainly to see how the first stage works. I'll believe it when it happens. But I hope it flies eventually, before the Dems have spent all the available money on ACORN and pork. Because this is the rocket that will take us back to the moon to build a base where we will build a ship for Mars. Theoretically. In the space game the way NASA plays it, you should never count your space flights until they're launched.
Via SlashDot.
July 09, 2009
Attention Surplus Disorder
This phrase, which I found in Neal Stephenson's Anathem (a book I gave up on reading, by the way, as just too abstruse for enjoyment) was meant to be humorous. But I think it accurately describes a little known condition which I've long had, sometimes to my detriment: Too many ideas, too little time.
Aztec flower wars
Reading T.R. Ferenbach's Fire and Blood, a History of Mexico, I encountered the Mexica (or Aztec as they are called in English) concept of flower wars. Which made me think of the San Antonio Fiesta's Battle of The Flowers.
The Mexica version was the fifteenth century pursuit of thousands of prisoners for human sacrifice to the bloodthirsty Aztec gods. The San Antonio one, which began in 1891 as an April 21 salute to the heroes of the Texas revolution, has become a chamber of commerce event where floats are decorated with flowers.
In early years the Texas participants threw flower petals at each other. Otherwise the only apparent connection between the two is that some San Antonians undoubtedly are descendents of the Mexica. But, to my cluttered mind, it's a strange coincidence that probably bears scrutiny.
July 08, 2009
Lake Travis still falling
The lake she is sinking like a stone, two feet lower than at the link there which was a week ago. I mean fifty-one percent of capacity? Whoa. On the other hand, we've been here before, just three years ago, in fact, and it's not yet as low as it was in 2000. The important thing to remember about Texas, folks, is that, for us, drought is normal.
Unimpressed
When I saw this on Drudge, I thought, "Wow, even the Russkies think he's a phony." Well, maybe. It could also be the famous Russkie racism. But, then, Medvedev probably just knows a gasbag when he hears one. The caption I voted for here was "This is going to be easier than I thought." And it would be, too, except by next week Barry probably won't remember his name. And.
July 07, 2009
Code Pink in Honduras
Boy, the Lefties are just eating this up. They always wanted to hug Castro, Ortega and Chavez, and Barry is their new high facilitator. Whoop-de-doo. But Code Pink better watch out. Riot police down there will beat the pee out of protestors who don't do as they are told. Ain't no ACLU to come hold your hand or PC-enforcing media to badger the police chief for you down there.
July 06, 2009
MJ's world funeral concert tour
Here's a funny that I had to read closely to realize that it was actually a joke. It seemed so real. ;-)
(P.S. The ad at the bottom of it should be a joke, but, alas, it's not.)
Sarah, the "hate receptacle"
I spent almost all of Sunday reading the comments to this feminist's thoughtful post on why Our Sarah--and her innocent children, for crying out loud--attract so much hatred from so-called feminist women. There were almost three hundred comments when I quit a while ago because my eyes hurt.
After Instapundit linked her, she even picked up some conservative and libertarian commenters (after comment No. 142 or so) and more than a few of them express feminist ideals, which I mostly share. But, as they say, we wouldn't be accepted in the feminist club because we're not Dem pro-choicers (well, I am pro-choice, albeit with reservations). Well worth your time.
Via Instapundit.
UPDATE: Most amusing thing at the conservative blog Power Line Monday night. Their Beltway parrot, as one commenter put it, writes a sneering post about Sarah and more than two hundred commenters gang up on him. Haw.
The honeymoon is over
Well, someone had to do it. We know the affirmative-action-loving, PC-enforcing Big Media won't. Not to the First! Black! President! Barry's going to make President Grant look like a choir boy.
UPDATE: Well now, here's a new bit of corruption that didn't make it into the book. Barry sure moves fast when it comes to stealing. Hey, it's the Chicago Way!
July 05, 2009
Should America ban the burqa?
Times Wastes Too Fast
A remarkable, very readable Web-centric piece on Thomas Jefferson, warts and all. His Aunt Judith, his father's sister, was Mr. B's seven greats grandmother.
July 04, 2009
Sarah: Happy Fourth!
From her FaceBook account today regarding her announcement Friday that she will be resigning:
"The response in the main stream media has been most predictable, ironic, and as always, detached from the lives of ordinary Americans who are sick of the 'politics of personal destruction.' How sad that Washington and the media will never understand; it’s about country."
Heh.
UPDATE: I laugh at all the "wise ones" who contend that her political career is over, etc. My bet is: She's going to become the campaigner who makes it possible for the Republicans to win back one or both houses of Congress, then use that IOU to take the nomination in 2012.
Carbon Dioxide Mapping
You might think, with all the AGW hysteria, and the Dems rushing to double our electric bills, that the whole globe would be saturated in CO2. You would be wrong. Sure, this satellite mapping of the earth's atmospheric distribution of carbon dioxide is a year old. But it's also the first one ever made, and was assembled from data collected between '02 and '08. The first one ever made. Think about that for a minute. I'm no great hand at graphics, but it sure looks to me like the major culprits are California and China. So how about it Speaker Pelosi? How about starting by doubling your energy bills?
Via Baby Troll.
July 03, 2009
Run, Sarah, run
I'm still hopeful. Her resignation eliminates any claims of conflict-of-interest between running for the 2012 nomination and her job as Alaska's governor. The Left will continue to hate and mock her, as this low blow demonstrates. So what's new about their lack of taste? The Right will continue to love her, especially us commoners. The Independents, as always, will get to decide.
UPDATE: The Puffington Host pulled the mockery at the second link, which was, once again, about Sarah's retarded son. But Michele Malkin captured the page for, uh, "posterity."
"Traitor to the Earth"
The NYTime's shrill economist Paul Krugman is the latest shouter to accuse AGW critics of insufficient fealty to the planet. As if we had any place else to go, thanks to our greedy pols who effectively killed the space travel program after Apollo. Henceforth, we got low orbit "travel," and no more.
Here's an easy-reading answer to Krugman, et al. Reminds me of a chat I had with a local meteorologist friend not long ago. He's often told me how the best computer forecast models struggle with predicting Texas weather more than a few days out. The atmosphere is just too complicated.
Yet he believes in AGW predictions out to fifty years because "those are different models." Smile. I suspect, since he can see as well as me that temperature data since 1998 has conflicted with the predictions, his belief has more to do with the politics of his employers who pay his salary. As for Krugman, well, he's been predicting economic collapse since, oh, 2001. How's that coming, Paul?
Via Fresh Bilge.
I don't do height well
So this view from the 103rd floor of the Sears Tower makes my palms tingle and my toes curl. Ouch.
Via Drudge.
