Monthly Archives: April 2009

Elissa beating into the wind

ELISSA_at_sea.jpg

As close as the little "barky" can get to the wind, anyhow. You can expect to see more of these, as I have always been a sucker for sailing, even though I don’t do it anymore meself.

Texas wildfires

We thought the smoke in the air yesterday was the usual spring influx from the Chiapan farmers of southern Mexico burning the scrub off their fields to prepare for planting.

But it was actually coming from the northwest, above Fort Worth, where the drought-induced wildfires have burned-out a couple of small towns. Since some one hundred ninety-nine counties are affected so far, the governor has called for help from the national guard and FEMA. More wildfires appear to be burning around the Fort Hood area which is closer to the rancho but still a comfortable distance. Forecast rain tonight and tomorrow will help, if it shows up.

President Pantywaist

Well, at least one Euro was unimpressed with Barry’s first around-the-world whirl, to say the least:

"So The One retired triumphant, having secured a massive contribution of 5,000 extra troops – all of them non-combatant, of course – which must really have put the wind up the Taliban, at the prospect of 5,000 more infidel cooks and bottle-washers swarming into the less hazardous regions of Afghanistan."

Not to mention his brilliant, mid-tour non-response to the North Korean missile launch: 

"President Pantywaist is hopping mad and he has a strategy to cut Kim down to size: he is going to slice $1.4bn off America’s missile defence programme, presumably on the calculation that Kim would feel it unsporting to hit a sitting duck, so that will spoil his fun."

Well, we already knew Barry was President Thin-skin and all that goes with that little defect. But it’s nice to read some news about him for a change. Only odd that we have to go across the pond for it.

MORE:  Bowing, or licking Saudi Muslim King Abdullah’s boots? I say bowing, but you never know. As one commenter at the link said, we can be pleased it was not a curtsy.

Those fighting frogs

While Barry dithers over a pirate hostage-taking, the original surrender monkeys go to battle stations.

UPDATE:  The price of dithering. More hostages taken in another U.S.-flagged vessel. Meanwhile, humor via the Seablogger, as Barry reaches out to the "moderate pirate community." Yeah, that’ll work.

MORE: Barry must have finally gotten the message, because the Navy has freed the first hostage.

Texas tall ship: Elissa

Lower_topsails_in_Galveston_Channel.jpg

I used to have one of her commemorative key rings, picked up on a trip to UTMB when I was a medical writer. It gave metal detectors at the courthouse fits when I forgot to remove it, so I stopped carrying it. But I didn’t forget the Elissa. One of these days, I might even get to take a ride, though I’ll leave climbing the rigging to the younger ones.

Chron’s new money-maker: sex

I knew some newspaper executives would figure out a way to make money on the Web. I just didn’t stretch my imagination as far as the Houston Chronicle did. Of course, the money is yet to be made and some readers already think it is just tacky.

Via The Brazosport News.

Testing, testing

This on-purpose power outage in California is ominous. Mainly for how easy it was to create. We had an outage last night at the rancho. No idea why. Just another reminder of how fragile the infrastructure really is.