Category Archives: Blogosphere

Frozen slurpee Waves

150227_slurpee_waves_high_res_nbcnews_ux_1360_900

Mrs. Charm and I were complaining today about how cold this winter has been in Central Texas and how it seems to be continuing with more forecast this week. It could be worse, as this photo off Massachusetts shows:

“The waves captured by photographer Jonathan Nimerfroh are so thick with ice that they’ve drawn comparisons to ‘Slurpees’ and other frozen beverages, but the texture and shape of the wave also suggest a giant, grey tongue, licking the shores of Nantucket.

“Here’s what the photographer had to say about his images: ‘When I pulled up to the beach I could see the horizon just look strange. When I got to the top off the dunes I saw that beginning about 300 yards away from the shoreline the ocean was starting to freeze.

“‘The high temp that day was around 19 degrees. The wind was howling from the southwest which would typically make rough or choppy conditions not so good for surfing, but since the surface of the sea was frozen slush the wind did not change the shape. What resulted was perfect, dreamy, slush waves. Most waves were around 2 feet with some larger sets slushing through around 3 foot or waist high. What an experience to be absolutely freezing on the beach watching these roll in while I mind-surfed them! I wonder if a shaper can make me a special designed slurfboard?

“‘The next day I drove up to see if they melted but beginning that same 300 yards away from shore the water had frozen solid and there were no waves at all. I’ve been asking all the fishermen and surfers I know if they have ever seen such a thing and they have all reported that this is a first, a result of it being the coldest winter we’ve had in 81 years. I guess the people I asked weren’t old enough to remember a colder winter than this!”

Still worried about your carbon footprint and the government’s illusory global warming?

Via WeatherBell’s Joe D’Aleo.

“‘Compassionate conservatism’ is the devil’s urine”

Couldn’t have said it better myself. But, then, I’m not James Delingpole.

“And there was I thinking that one of the key facets of conservatism is that it is a practical and honest creed. It’s not about airy-fairy theories about what might work if only we closed our eyes tight enough and said ‘I believe in Tinkerbell.’ It’s about what actually does work in the real world, as demonstrated by hard evidence.

“…see also: the ban on smoking in public places, introduced to prevent the dangers of ‘second-hand smoking’ which, all serious studies show are non-existent…But hey, the government is going to go ahead with it any way.”

Similar to the FCC’s still secret 332-page plan to fix what ain’t broken, i.e. the Internet. Just wait. They’ll see to it that it’ll be broken soon enough.

Ready to start paying 48 cents per email?

Why the economy can’t get better

For one thing, after today’s FCC dictatorship move, the economy’s major bright spot, the Internet, will henceforth be plagued with the same political uncertainty the rest of the economy has been saddled with under our autocratic president and his selfish party leadership for the past six years.

“Raising the minimum wage was a key agenda item for new House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority leader Harry Reid after their party took over Congress in 2007. The resulting effects on overall employment have been gruesome, to the point where the people who arbitrarily determine such things have absurdly decided, in the interest of covering their tracks, that the 4.5 percent unemployment rate seen during the middle of the past decade is no longer achievable, and that “full employment” is really a rate of 5.5 percent.”

The golfer-in-chief still periodically claims he’s going to get to work on the economy. For the middle class, he says, whatever’s left of it after his previous “get to work.” With any luck he’ll shut up and go play golf. Taking over the Internet should be more than enough to wipe out what’s left of the economy in the next two years.

Via BizzyBlog.

Something else the Democrat news won’t cover

“These documents are a bombshell and show how the Clintons turned the State Department into a racket to line their own pockets,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. Judicial Watch and the Washington Examiner teamed to seek and publish those documents today (July 30, 2014)….

“Mr. Clinton’s office proposed 215 speeches around the globe. And 215 times, the State Department stated that it had ‘no objection.’”

No wonder she said “What difference does it make” about a slain ambassador. To her it was small potatoes next to the bucks she and Slick were raking in.

Just don’t look to read or hear about this in the WaPo, the NYTimes, or any of the alphabet stations. They’re too busy doing feel-good features on Michele & the girls. Whipping up on the GOP presidential candidates. And beating up on anyone who dares question the Worm’s alleged love-of-country—which is a majority.

Via Instapundit.

UPDATE:  Well, to be fair, this new WaPo piece is a start in the right direction, sure enough. Even the subject of this post is starting to leak out.

Mrs Charm is in remission

It’s official. Mrs. C’s oncologist says her latest PET scan shows “no evidence” of the lymphoma cancer she was diagnosed with back in September. So chemo is over and she’s in remission.

The only (literally) dark spot is a reappearance of the “ghost” that first appeared back in December on a CT scan. Although now, with the finer resolution of the PET, the doc says it is not a mass as previously feared but apparently an inflammation of some sort. Mrs. C. is scheduled for a colonoscopy next week to try to be more precise.

For now there’s joy in Mudville. Mrs. C. got to ring the bell at Texas Oncology’s infusion center. It’s the signal for a cancer patient who has successfully completed chemotherapy. There were smiles all around. And plans for her to go back to work in a few weeks, probably for half days at first.

The religion of peace is a religion of war

The ISIS barbarians are not really about the seventh century. Barry and his Muslim-lovin’ chums are lying about that.

“If the United States hadn’t intervened, the Saudis would still openly keep slaves. Islam never became enlightened. It never stopped being ‘medieval’. Whatever enlightenment it received was imposed on it by European colonialism. It’s a second-hand enlightenment that never went under the skin…

“The media reported the burning of the Jordanian pilot as if it were some horrifying and unprecedented aberration. But Muslim heretics, as well as Jews and Christians accused of blasphemy, were burned alive for their crimes against Islam. Numerous accounts of this remain, not from the seventh century, but from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Those who weren’t burned, might be beheaded.”

Muslim raiding and slave-taking continued into the 19th century. Slaves are still prevalent in Pakistan. The Saudis still behead “criminals” frequently. The Democrat news media just doesn’t report any of this and, of course, the Worm never mentions it.

Via Sultan Knish.

The atomic bomb: A rabbit shoot

I well remember Richard Feynman’s performance on the federal commission studying why the Challenger space shuttle blew up on takeoff in 1986. How simply he explained what no one else seemed to know, and thus wrapped up the precise cause spectacularly. On his own.

He died a year later, just 69. So I enjoyed this essay about Feynman, one of the men who built the first atomic bomb and later said of it: “It wasn’t a lion hunt, it was a rabbit shoot.” Just what you’d expect from the man who demonstrated, with a piece of rubber and a glass of ice water, why the Challenger went down.

Via A Brief History.