Monthly Archives: February 2007

Today’s pretty picture

Posted on February 13, 2007 | Comments Off on Today’s pretty picture

Helix Nebula.jpg

The Helix Nebula in infrared, 700 light years away, in the constellation Aquarius./NASA 

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Posted in Space

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More drought ahead

Posted on February 13, 2007 | Comments Off on More drought ahead

That’s the apparent forecast, according to KVUE chief meteorologist Mark Murray, and the latest data on the El Nino Southern Oscillation, which is oscillating in an unfortunate (for us) direction:

"These trends in surface and subsurface ocean temperatures indicate that the warm episode (El Niño) is weakening. It is still possible for some areas to experience El Niño-related effects during the next month, primarily in the region of the central tropical Pacific."

One supposes that the normal (i.e. non-El Nino) Central Texas spring could still bring us abundant rainfall by the end of May-June, but Mark didn’t seem too optimistic about it when we spoke last night. Lake Travis remains really low, and its manager, the Lower Colorado River Authority, recently took the unprecedented step of denying what remains of its water to Texas rice farmers down on the coast.

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Posted in Weather/Climate

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Nuke waste still a problem

Posted on February 13, 2007 | Comments Off on Nuke waste still a problem

I’m another anti-nuke power guy who’s changed to favoring the technology–stupid though it may be because its waste stays dangerous for many years–but the waste problem remains. No one wants it and until a repository is found, there’s little point in building more plants.

Via Instapundit

UPDATE  Democrat presidential candidate John Edwards, for one, wants the waste stored near the reactor. Build a reactor, store the waste with it. He doesn’t like the proposed federal repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. The site at the link, NEI Nuclear Notes, is a good resource on the whole subject.

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Posted in Science/Engineering, Scribbles

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No green on TV

Posted on February 13, 2007 | Comments Off on No green on TV

Asked what he learned from his visit to the KVUE television station Monday night with the rest of the Tiger Cubs, Mr. Boy said, "You can’t wear green on TV." Chief meteorologist Mark Murray was our host, showing off and explaining the station’s newsroom, studio and the weather forecasting center. They use a green screen background wall for superimposing electronic maps, radar and other images, and Mark had a handy green sheet to demonstrate how wrapping oneself in it below the neck could make your body disappear on the tube. He was pretty calm, when faced with seventeen raucous first graders, for someone who has no children of his own. When we got home, Mr. B. spent an hour or so making up his Valentines for class tomorrow, before going off to bed.

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Posted in Mr. Boy, Weather/Climate

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Iran’s free ride

Posted on February 13, 2007 | Comments Off on Iran’s free ride

Support the troops–except when it comes to Iran, which has killed 170 and wounded more than 600 in Iraq, according to the Pentagon. But the Bush administration apparently has done nothing about it, and now that it is talking about doing something about it, the Democrats are threatening to retaliate–against the administration. Doesn’t anybody here know how to play this game?

UPDATE  Among the arms Iran is sending into Iraq are these .50 caliber Austrian sniper rifles. 

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Posted in Iraq, The War, Troops

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The girl from Mexia

Posted on February 12, 2007 | Comments Off on The girl from Mexia

I wasn’t going to write about the late Anna Nicole Smith, or Vickie, as some of her friends called her. But she was a Texas girl, and so maybe it’s fitting. She liked to be compared to Marilyn Monroe, but, as others have pointed out, Marilyn was smarter and more talented, and she also had an affair with a former president. No, not Clinton. Another Democrat. JudyAnn, of Just Muttering, concluded from watching the talking heads discuss ANS that she "entrusted her business as well as herself to people with the trustworthiness of tumbleweeds." Even one of her former high school teachers doesn’t like to analyze her, except to indicate (via his brother) that people in Mexia (muh-HAY-ah), a little country town northeast of Waco, are kind of ashamed of her. Oh, I don’t know. She wasn’t any trashier than the rest of the mindless celebs of American pop culture. Maybe she was even a little bit classier, if only because, being from a small place like Mexia, where she had worked at a local carryout joint, she probably knew all along what people really thought of her. Hopefully the daughter she left behind, over whom several claiming-to-be fathers are squabbling in hopes of getting some of the money ANS fought so long for from her deceased 89-year-old Houston husband, will be able to grow up with some semblance of a normal life. Hopefully.

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Posted in Scribbles

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Heroes

Posted on February 12, 2007 | Comments Off on Heroes

Fifty of them, from all fifty states, including Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Juan M. Rubio, of Texas.

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Posted in Afghanistan, Iraq, The War, Troops

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