Wishful thinking is not confined to those who think they can change human nature and make a perfect world. Wishful thinking is also engaged in by those who think that getting to the moon will be easy anytime soon.
The other week I was blindsided by Sam (I think it was Sam) mentioning that a new form of rocket had been invented which would make getting to the moon faster and easier. I didn't have my ducks in a row for a ready reply beyond expressing skepticism, since I hadn't read anything along those lines and something that would make getting to the moon much faster would be big news.
Anyway, today I came across this article in NewScientist about a new kind of ion engine that's being researched. I suspect it was an article about this engine research that started the meme that Sam saw about getting to the moon faster than the Apollo astronauts did.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17476-ion-engine-could-one-day-power-39day-trips-to-mars.html
It's an interesting article; and it actually is about a pretty large potential improvement in a type of space mission engine that is actually being used today for a scientific probe that's going to the asteroids. But, but, but. . . the ion engine being used today generates a tiny amount of thrust that is accelerating a very small space probe to a very fast velocity by pushing it for a very long time using solar power.
If you skim through the comments to the article you will find much trash but also some very well reasoned responses that point up the considerable problems associated with using this sort of engine for a Mars mission. And the article is talking about a Mars mission, which needs an engine that provides relatively low thrust for a relatively long time - an engine much like the ion engine described. A mission to the moon needs a very different kind of engine, one that provides a lot of thrust for a relatively short time.
Trying to use an ion engine needed to push a manned space mission to the moon faster than the Apollo mission would require a very large inon engine indeed, or a very large assembly of small engines. And it would not be possible to power those engines with solar power. Such a mission would need a heavy nuclear reactor for power, plus a lot of heavy shielding to protect the astronauts from the reactor's radiation.
It's child's play to shield nuclear reactors here on earth because it's no big deal to surround them with thick shields of cheap concrete or plain dirt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperion_Power_Generation).
The problem with putting a heavy nuclear reactor (even the little 25 megawatt Hyperion reactor weighs 20 tons) plus a long of heavy radiation shielding into a spacecraft is that it costs a lot (a very lot) to put payload into space in the first place. The space shuttle takes about 25 tons to low earth orbit at a cost of about $1.5 Billion per launch, so putting each ton of payload into orbit costs about $60 Million.
Sending men to the moon was an exciting stunt in the 1960's. And sending men to the moon, or to Mars, would still be a mere exciting stunt today. We can do the stunt at very great expense if we want to; but it's a lot more cost effective to send relatively lightweight expendable automated space probes to learn about the moon and the planets until our children or our grandchildren develop technology a lot more powerful than we have today.
As a start we need a truly cheap way to get lots of mass into orbit. Since it's very likely there will some environmental concerns expressed (hah, probably a revolution!) if anyone tries to build Ted Taylor's very potentially workable but very certainly insane Project Orion type booster, that probably means we need Arthur C. Clarke's space elevator.
Orion booster: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion)
Space elevator: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator
Manned space flight beyond low Earth orbit will be nothing but a clever stunt until there is a space elevator or some other practical way of getting lots of mass into low Earth orbit. I suspect that if a space elevator is impossible that mass will be brought to Earth orbit from an asteroid by relatively cheap robots. Or else the robots will move a small asteroid to Earth orbit.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Friday, July 24, 2009
When she's right, she's right
I can well understand why many people dismiss Ann Coulter a cojone busting harpy. Even I sometimes wince at her shrillness when she gets going on TV, even as I mentally replace her outfit with a fetchingly studded leather one and imagine her with a little whip in her hand; despite the fact that I almost always agree with her main points.
But when she's right, she's very right; as she was yesterday in her column about health care.
http://www.anncoulter.com/
As always she gets off some perfect gems of logic. Such as:
"All the problems with the American health care system come from government intervention, so naturally the Democrats' idea for fixing it is more government intervention. This is like trying to sober up by having another drink."
"The reason seeing a doctor is already more like going to the DMV, and less like going to the Apple "Genius Bar," is that the government decided health care was too important to be left to the free market. Yes -- the same free market that has produced such a cornucopia of inexpensive goods and services that, today, even poor people have cell phones and flat-screen TVs."
"As a result, it's easier to get your computer fixed than your health. Thanks, government!"
We already have near-universal health coverage in the form of Medicare, Medicaid, veterans' hospitals, emergency rooms and tax-deductible employer-provided health care -- all government creations."
"So now, everyone expects doctors to be free. People who pay $200 for a haircut are indignant if it costs more than a $20 co-pay to see a doctor."
"The government also "helped" us by mandating that insurance companies cover all sorts of medical services, both ordinary -- which you ought to pay for yourself -- and exotic, such as shrinks, in vitro fertilization and child-development assessments -- which no normal person would voluntarily pay to insure against."
"This would be like requiring all car insurance to cover the cost of gasoline, oil and tire changes -- as well as professional car detailing, iPod docks, leather seats and those neon chaser lights I have all along the underbody of my chopped, lowrider '57 Chevy."
"But politicians are more interested in pleasing lobbyists for acupuncturists, midwives and marriage counselors than they are in pleasing recent college graduates who only want to insure against the possibility that they'll be hit by a truck. So politicians at both the state and federal level keep passing boatloads of insurance mandates requiring that all insurance plans cover a raft of non-emergency conditions that are expensive to treat -- but whose practitioners have high-priced lobbyists."
"As a result, a young, healthy person has a choice of buying artificially expensive health insurance that, by law, covers a smorgasbord of medical services of no interest to him ... or going uninsured. People who aren't planning on giving birth to a slew of children with restless leg syndrome in the near future forgo insurance -- and then politicians tell us we have a national emergency because some people don't have health insurance."
"The whole idea of insurance is to insure against catastrophes: You buy insurance in case your house burns down -- not so you can force other people in your plan to pay for your maid. You buy car insurance in case you're in a major accident, not so everyone in the plan shares the cost of gas."
"Just as people use vastly different amounts of gasoline, they also use vastly different amounts of medical care -- especially when an appointment with a highly trained physician costs less than a manicure."
"Insurance plans that force everyone in the plan to pay for everyone else's Viagra and anti-anxiety pills are already completely unfair to people who rarely go to the doctor. It's like being forced to share gas bills with a long-haul trucker or a restaurant bill with Michael Moore.
On the other hand, it's a great deal for any lonely hypochondriacs in the plan."
"Now the Democrats want to force us all into one gigantic national health insurance plan that will cover every real and mythical ailment that has a powerful lobby. But if you have a rare medical condition without a lobbying arm, you'll be out of luck."
"Even two decades after the collapse of liberals' beloved Soviet Union, they can't grasp that it's easier and cheaper to obtain any service provided by capitalism than any service provided under socialism."
"You don't have to conjure up fantastic visions of how health care would be delivered in this country if we bought it ourselves. Just go to a grocery store or get a manicure. Or think back to when you bought your last muffler, personal trainer, computer and every other product and service available in inexpensive abundance in this capitalist paradise."
"Third-party payer schemes are always a disaster -- less service for twice the price!
If you want good service at a good price, be sure to be the one holding the credit card. Under "universal health care," no one but government bureaucrats will be allowed to hold the credit card."
"Isn't food important? Why not "universal food coverage"? If politicians and employers had guaranteed us "free" food 50 years ago, today Democrats would be wailing about the "food crisis" in America, and you'd be on the phone with your food care provider arguing about whether or not a Reuben sandwich with fries was covered under your plan."
"Instead of making health care more like the DMV, how about we make it more like grocery stores? Give the poor and tough cases health stamps and let the rest of us buy health care -- and health insurance -- on the free market."
That was Ann. This is me again. And I find that I've quoted all of her paragraphs. Every one of them is a gem.
The woman is a national treasure, even without the fetchingly studded leather outfit I can so easily imagine on her lanky frame. . . hmmm. . . perhaps she would be even more of a national treasure without the fetchingly studded leather outfit. I'll have to ponder on that question. . .
Meanwhile, may she bust liberal cojones for a very long time.
But when she's right, she's very right; as she was yesterday in her column about health care.
http://www.anncoulter.com/
As always she gets off some perfect gems of logic. Such as:
"All the problems with the American health care system come from government intervention, so naturally the Democrats' idea for fixing it is more government intervention. This is like trying to sober up by having another drink."
"The reason seeing a doctor is already more like going to the DMV, and less like going to the Apple "Genius Bar," is that the government decided health care was too important to be left to the free market. Yes -- the same free market that has produced such a cornucopia of inexpensive goods and services that, today, even poor people have cell phones and flat-screen TVs."
"As a result, it's easier to get your computer fixed than your health. Thanks, government!"
We already have near-universal health coverage in the form of Medicare, Medicaid, veterans' hospitals, emergency rooms and tax-deductible employer-provided health care -- all government creations."
"So now, everyone expects doctors to be free. People who pay $200 for a haircut are indignant if it costs more than a $20 co-pay to see a doctor."
"The government also "helped" us by mandating that insurance companies cover all sorts of medical services, both ordinary -- which you ought to pay for yourself -- and exotic, such as shrinks, in vitro fertilization and child-development assessments -- which no normal person would voluntarily pay to insure against."
"This would be like requiring all car insurance to cover the cost of gasoline, oil and tire changes -- as well as professional car detailing, iPod docks, leather seats and those neon chaser lights I have all along the underbody of my chopped, lowrider '57 Chevy."
"But politicians are more interested in pleasing lobbyists for acupuncturists, midwives and marriage counselors than they are in pleasing recent college graduates who only want to insure against the possibility that they'll be hit by a truck. So politicians at both the state and federal level keep passing boatloads of insurance mandates requiring that all insurance plans cover a raft of non-emergency conditions that are expensive to treat -- but whose practitioners have high-priced lobbyists."
"As a result, a young, healthy person has a choice of buying artificially expensive health insurance that, by law, covers a smorgasbord of medical services of no interest to him ... or going uninsured. People who aren't planning on giving birth to a slew of children with restless leg syndrome in the near future forgo insurance -- and then politicians tell us we have a national emergency because some people don't have health insurance."
"The whole idea of insurance is to insure against catastrophes: You buy insurance in case your house burns down -- not so you can force other people in your plan to pay for your maid. You buy car insurance in case you're in a major accident, not so everyone in the plan shares the cost of gas."
"Just as people use vastly different amounts of gasoline, they also use vastly different amounts of medical care -- especially when an appointment with a highly trained physician costs less than a manicure."
"Insurance plans that force everyone in the plan to pay for everyone else's Viagra and anti-anxiety pills are already completely unfair to people who rarely go to the doctor. It's like being forced to share gas bills with a long-haul trucker or a restaurant bill with Michael Moore.
On the other hand, it's a great deal for any lonely hypochondriacs in the plan."
"Now the Democrats want to force us all into one gigantic national health insurance plan that will cover every real and mythical ailment that has a powerful lobby. But if you have a rare medical condition without a lobbying arm, you'll be out of luck."
"Even two decades after the collapse of liberals' beloved Soviet Union, they can't grasp that it's easier and cheaper to obtain any service provided by capitalism than any service provided under socialism."
"You don't have to conjure up fantastic visions of how health care would be delivered in this country if we bought it ourselves. Just go to a grocery store or get a manicure. Or think back to when you bought your last muffler, personal trainer, computer and every other product and service available in inexpensive abundance in this capitalist paradise."
"Third-party payer schemes are always a disaster -- less service for twice the price!
If you want good service at a good price, be sure to be the one holding the credit card. Under "universal health care," no one but government bureaucrats will be allowed to hold the credit card."
"Isn't food important? Why not "universal food coverage"? If politicians and employers had guaranteed us "free" food 50 years ago, today Democrats would be wailing about the "food crisis" in America, and you'd be on the phone with your food care provider arguing about whether or not a Reuben sandwich with fries was covered under your plan."
"Instead of making health care more like the DMV, how about we make it more like grocery stores? Give the poor and tough cases health stamps and let the rest of us buy health care -- and health insurance -- on the free market."
That was Ann. This is me again. And I find that I've quoted all of her paragraphs. Every one of them is a gem.
The woman is a national treasure, even without the fetchingly studded leather outfit I can so easily imagine on her lanky frame. . . hmmm. . . perhaps she would be even more of a national treasure without the fetchingly studded leather outfit. I'll have to ponder on that question. . .
Meanwhile, may she bust liberal cojones for a very long time.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
When IPods attack
It was bad enough when vultures were swooping down on walkers in England, and rabid foxes were attacking old ladies in Massachusetts, and mountain lions were dragging down bikers in California; but now even cute little IPods can't be trusted. This one tried to immolate its soccer mom mistress in Washington State.
http://www.kirotv.com/money/20089894/detail.html
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
I especially liked the part where she said that all her kids have IPods, some of them multiple Ipods, and that they listen to them in bed. Turns out her kids might have been safer if she had been letting them take Michael Jackson to bed with them.
In related news: The government just released the results of the latest visa lottery. The visa lottery is a special federal government homeland security program that randomly admits 50,000 potential terrorists into the country each year because its a well known fact that we don't have enough potential killers already living here. Your federal government at work, building a better, safer, more prosperous, America.
http://cis.org/Vaughan/VisaLottery2010
"Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." - Mark Twain, a Biography
http://www.kirotv.com/money/20089894/detail.html
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
I especially liked the part where she said that all her kids have IPods, some of them multiple Ipods, and that they listen to them in bed. Turns out her kids might have been safer if she had been letting them take Michael Jackson to bed with them.
In related news: The government just released the results of the latest visa lottery. The visa lottery is a special federal government homeland security program that randomly admits 50,000 potential terrorists into the country each year because its a well known fact that we don't have enough potential killers already living here. Your federal government at work, building a better, safer, more prosperous, America.
http://cis.org/Vaughan/VisaLottery2010
"Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." - Mark Twain, a Biography
Monday, July 20, 2009
I visited Dolores M in the hospital on Sunday
Linda and I went to Matt K's graduation party on Saturday and met up with Anna M, Jackie J, Bobbie M and other. Matt K is Candy (Jacqueline) K's son. Candy is Jackie J's daughter. I wrote a bit about this a few weeks ago because the invitation to the graduation had me stumped for w while since I had never known Candy as Jacqueline and I never knew her married name.
Anyway, at the party we learned that Dolores M went into Lansdale Hospital on Tuesday or so with shortness of breath. So I visited her on Sunday morning. By now she should have been transferred to Doylestown Hospital for some tests on her heart, since her lungs don't seem to be the problem. We went to Dolores' 70th birthday party a month or so ago, so she's a bit young for that sort of problem; but then she has had a pretty hard life. Her brother Jackie J is also in not such good shape due to neuropathy in his feet. Grandmom L was quite right when she told us, "Don't get old."
At the party Jackie reminded me that Louie Hop, the loan shark who lived two doors down from us on Penn Street, and about whom I've written before, was "differently abled," He was called Louie Hop because he had a club foot. Louie was Medio M's father, and he had three other older sons, Jackie said, which answered a question Don A (usually down in Florida) asked me about in an email a couple of weeks ago.
I liked Louie Hop because he used to walk me down to Babe's for ice cream and lemonade; but what I remember most about him is the image of his wife Florence chasing him around their car trying to shoot him until Pop got her to calm down and give him the pistol. I guess Louie could hop pretty fast with his big built up shoe, because Florence missed with all her shots from the little silver pistol. Pop used to say she wasn't really trying to hit him, just trying to give him a message. It was apparently a pretty effective message since Mom always said that Florence never "sang" anymore after the shooting incident. I imagine Louie slept with one eye open after that.
Meanwhile, I've recently been re-reading the middle volume of William Manchester's The Last Lion, his biography of Winston Churchhill. The book, a medium detailed history Churchill's years as a back bencher in Parliament during the 1930's, is oddly soothing because it reminds one of the fact that the British government in that period was even more obtuse than our current softheaded administration is. Of course, the book is also soothing because I know how the story turns out. I know that the utter disaster Baldwin and Chamberlain and their associated cabinet members did their incompetent best to make possible did not befall. World War II ended up short of utter disaster even if it did result in something like 40 or 60 million deaths. It could have ended lots worse.
Before The Last Lion I read Jack London's Martin Eden, a surprising novel. I'm too lazy to do the research; but I suspect Ayn Rand read Martin Eden pretty closely. Her plot for The Fountainhead is a near ripoff of it, although Fountainhead doesn't end quite so tragically. I'm guessing Jack London was not quite an objectivist, but he was pretty darn close, which didn't stop the lefty writer who did the introduction to the paperback edition I have from trying to present him as a socialist, of all things.
What bosch. Martin Eden flirts with socialism; but he rejects it quite forcefully; and, in fact, some of his internal philosophizing could have come right out of Ayn Rand. I suspect the book influenced Rand and may even have given her the idea for Atlas Shrugged although in the end Martin Eden shrugs with somewhat more finality than John Galt.
Oh, I forgot, in between Martin Eden and The Last Lion I took a little break and re-read John Grisham's Playing for Pizza. What a pleasant little novel. Grisham is such a natural writer. Nowhere near as good or deep a writer as Jack London, but so natural and easy on the eyes.
It's been a while since I wrote about books. Come to think of it I've re-read a half dozen Faye Kellerman novels since I last wrote about books. Faye is a lot better writer, qua writer, than her husband.
Anyway, at the party we learned that Dolores M went into Lansdale Hospital on Tuesday or so with shortness of breath. So I visited her on Sunday morning. By now she should have been transferred to Doylestown Hospital for some tests on her heart, since her lungs don't seem to be the problem. We went to Dolores' 70th birthday party a month or so ago, so she's a bit young for that sort of problem; but then she has had a pretty hard life. Her brother Jackie J is also in not such good shape due to neuropathy in his feet. Grandmom L was quite right when she told us, "Don't get old."
At the party Jackie reminded me that Louie Hop, the loan shark who lived two doors down from us on Penn Street, and about whom I've written before, was "differently abled," He was called Louie Hop because he had a club foot. Louie was Medio M's father, and he had three other older sons, Jackie said, which answered a question Don A (usually down in Florida) asked me about in an email a couple of weeks ago.
I liked Louie Hop because he used to walk me down to Babe's for ice cream and lemonade; but what I remember most about him is the image of his wife Florence chasing him around their car trying to shoot him until Pop got her to calm down and give him the pistol. I guess Louie could hop pretty fast with his big built up shoe, because Florence missed with all her shots from the little silver pistol. Pop used to say she wasn't really trying to hit him, just trying to give him a message. It was apparently a pretty effective message since Mom always said that Florence never "sang" anymore after the shooting incident. I imagine Louie slept with one eye open after that.
Meanwhile, I've recently been re-reading the middle volume of William Manchester's The Last Lion, his biography of Winston Churchhill. The book, a medium detailed history Churchill's years as a back bencher in Parliament during the 1930's, is oddly soothing because it reminds one of the fact that the British government in that period was even more obtuse than our current softheaded administration is. Of course, the book is also soothing because I know how the story turns out. I know that the utter disaster Baldwin and Chamberlain and their associated cabinet members did their incompetent best to make possible did not befall. World War II ended up short of utter disaster even if it did result in something like 40 or 60 million deaths. It could have ended lots worse.
Before The Last Lion I read Jack London's Martin Eden, a surprising novel. I'm too lazy to do the research; but I suspect Ayn Rand read Martin Eden pretty closely. Her plot for The Fountainhead is a near ripoff of it, although Fountainhead doesn't end quite so tragically. I'm guessing Jack London was not quite an objectivist, but he was pretty darn close, which didn't stop the lefty writer who did the introduction to the paperback edition I have from trying to present him as a socialist, of all things.
What bosch. Martin Eden flirts with socialism; but he rejects it quite forcefully; and, in fact, some of his internal philosophizing could have come right out of Ayn Rand. I suspect the book influenced Rand and may even have given her the idea for Atlas Shrugged although in the end Martin Eden shrugs with somewhat more finality than John Galt.
Oh, I forgot, in between Martin Eden and The Last Lion I took a little break and re-read John Grisham's Playing for Pizza. What a pleasant little novel. Grisham is such a natural writer. Nowhere near as good or deep a writer as Jack London, but so natural and easy on the eyes.
It's been a while since I wrote about books. Come to think of it I've re-read a half dozen Faye Kellerman novels since I last wrote about books. Faye is a lot better writer, qua writer, than her husband.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Do Marianne, Dave and the girls know what. . .
Do Marianne, Dave and the girls know what their kittens are doing when they're alone?
http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2003/12/about_our_masco.html#more
Update 7/18 - Perhaps it's good that the kittens are armed. Buzzards are attacking joggers in England.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/5858407/Joggers-hurt-in-buzzard-attacks.html
http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2003/12/about_our_masco.html#more
Update 7/18 - Perhaps it's good that the kittens are armed. Buzzards are attacking joggers in England.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/5858407/Joggers-hurt-in-buzzard-attacks.html
Friday, July 17, 2009
Sam may be in a position to be THE guru on the economy
Sam may be in a better position to know the real state of the economy than the government's economists. This article in the Wall Street Journal says that waste disposal volume is a better measure of consumption, and therefore economic activity, than the government's statistics.
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2009/07/17/using-garbage-to-measure-consumption/
And, in other news, congress and President Obama want to have the government take over the whole health care system. They're going to recruit really competent career bureaucrats to decide what doctor you go to, and what drugs he's allowed to prescribe for you, and whether you are worthy of getting a new hip, and what drugs the pharmaceutical companies are allowed to produce and what research into drugs is permitted and how many nurses to hire for each ward of each hospitals all over the country, and how many minutes of break time those nurses get. . . and, and, and. . . everything to do with health care, including who lives and who is unworthy to live.
Perhaps President Obama and his pals will be able to find bureaucrats as smart as the government rocket scientists who taped over the original pictures of the first landing on the moon.
http://webmail.aol.com/43792/aol/en-us/Suite.aspx
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2009/07/17/using-garbage-to-measure-consumption/
And, in other news, congress and President Obama want to have the government take over the whole health care system. They're going to recruit really competent career bureaucrats to decide what doctor you go to, and what drugs he's allowed to prescribe for you, and whether you are worthy of getting a new hip, and what drugs the pharmaceutical companies are allowed to produce and what research into drugs is permitted and how many nurses to hire for each ward of each hospitals all over the country, and how many minutes of break time those nurses get. . . and, and, and. . . everything to do with health care, including who lives and who is unworthy to live.
Perhaps President Obama and his pals will be able to find bureaucrats as smart as the government rocket scientists who taped over the original pictures of the first landing on the moon.
http://webmail.aol.com/43792/aol/en-us/Suite.aspx
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Windmills as far as the eye can see. . . and then much farther
What with congress and President Obama trying to pass the cap and trade legislation that will add over $1,000 per year in energy cost to your household budget there is again a lot of hot air being generated about wind power.
So I got to thinking about what our everyday world would look like if powered by the wind. It would take about 1,500 big windmills to replace the power generated by the Limerick nuclear plant. When I say big windmills I mean that each of them would be about 600 feet tall, about as tall as the 60 story buildings down in Philadelphia. Those windmills would have droning rotors 400 feet in diameter; and to be efficient they would need to be spaced about a half mile apart (6 times the diameter of the rotors).
So, just to replace one large power plant, we're talking about a line of windmills 750 miles long, or else a square grid of colossal windmills almost 28 miles on a side - 750 square miles of windmills.
If the windmills were built in a single line heading south down the median strip of I-95 you could drive all the way to Florida without being more than 1,200 feet from one of them.
If the windmills were built in a grid pattern they would cover all of Montgomery County, and there would still be about 300 square miles of windmills slopping over the edges into Chester, Berks, Delaware, Bucks, Lancaster and Philadelphia counties. The luckiest people in this area would live in the middle of a grid square, 1,700 feet in each direction from four constantly whooshing windmills, each one mounted on a tower twice as tall as the Statue of Liberty's torch. Most people would get to live much closer to a windmill. Some would get to live right under the whirling blades; but not to worry, even a major league pitcher probably wouldn't be able to throw a baseball high enough to hit the tip of a blade as it whizzed through the air overhead at 200 miles per hour.
On the plus side, I imagine there would be some really neat graffiti on the towers after a while.
whoosh. . . whoosh. . . whoosh. . . whoosh. . . whoosh
So I got to thinking about what our everyday world would look like if powered by the wind. It would take about 1,500 big windmills to replace the power generated by the Limerick nuclear plant. When I say big windmills I mean that each of them would be about 600 feet tall, about as tall as the 60 story buildings down in Philadelphia. Those windmills would have droning rotors 400 feet in diameter; and to be efficient they would need to be spaced about a half mile apart (6 times the diameter of the rotors).
So, just to replace one large power plant, we're talking about a line of windmills 750 miles long, or else a square grid of colossal windmills almost 28 miles on a side - 750 square miles of windmills.
If the windmills were built in a single line heading south down the median strip of I-95 you could drive all the way to Florida without being more than 1,200 feet from one of them.
If the windmills were built in a grid pattern they would cover all of Montgomery County, and there would still be about 300 square miles of windmills slopping over the edges into Chester, Berks, Delaware, Bucks, Lancaster and Philadelphia counties. The luckiest people in this area would live in the middle of a grid square, 1,700 feet in each direction from four constantly whooshing windmills, each one mounted on a tower twice as tall as the Statue of Liberty's torch. Most people would get to live much closer to a windmill. Some would get to live right under the whirling blades; but not to worry, even a major league pitcher probably wouldn't be able to throw a baseball high enough to hit the tip of a blade as it whizzed through the air overhead at 200 miles per hour.
On the plus side, I imagine there would be some really neat graffiti on the towers after a while.
whoosh. . . whoosh. . . whoosh. . . whoosh. . . whoosh
Monday, July 13, 2009
You cannot make this sort of stuff up
There is now a retail store in the Washington, DC train station that sells nothing but Obama merchandise. I wonder if they sell vegetables from the White House garden that Michele and the girls planted a couple of months ago?
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/05/17/cultwatch-union-station-new-york-times/
Meanwhile, in other news: We went to dinner on Friday evening with Mark and Linda L and happened to run into the first night of the Blobfest, which is a cult event in commemoration of the filming of The Blob in Phoenixville. The event has gotten so popular that they now set up bleachers so spectators can watch the running of the blobbers as they flee the theater in panic at the climactic scene where the giant blob emerges through the movie screen.
Very appropriately, there was a fellow across from the theater trying to get people to sign a petition in favor of President Obama's health care plan, which is a cleverly disguised medium sized blob intended to grow to monstrous proportions and devour everything. No one was running from the Obama cultist in panic; but they should have been.
Checking further into the My Obama Store I found that it's a venture of a Jamaican fellow who calls himself Yehmon (http://www.yehmon.com/id31.html). This fellow Yehmon is somewhat of a poet. I found one of his poems right on point (http://www.yehmon.com/id28.html). I may print it out to give to the Obama health care cultist the next time we go to Phoenixville. Or I may bring a CO2 fire extinguisher in hopes of stopping his monstrous project the way Steve McQueen stopped The Blob.
In still other news: Here's a coincidence that may or may not be related to what President Obama, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Representative Barney Frank and their ilk are likely to do to the economy if they pass their plans into law.
On July 10th a lady in Virginia bought my copy of the Foxfire Book, and on July 11th a fellow in Oregon bought my copy of Foxfire 4; so two widely divergent people are suddenly interested in hog dressing, log cabin building, fiddle making, horse trading, berry buckets and other affairs of plain living.
Perhaps I should remove my remaining five Foxfire books from the "for sale" list on Amazon. Within 96 months when all of us peasants are living the simple life Al Gore and Prince Charles want us to live those books may become very valuable.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/just-96-months-to-save-world-says-charles-1738049.html
Meanwhile, in case you haven't noticed, Al Gore's so called global warming has provided unbelievably good weather in Collegeville so far this summer. Here it is July 13th and we still haven't needed to use our air conditioner. The very mild high seventies daytime and high fifties nightime temperatures don't quite qualify for calling this a year without a summer that the sunspot people told us was possible; but if this is the global warming Al and his fellow CO2 fanatic buddies have been harping about for the past ten years I want more of it.
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/05/17/cultwatch-union-station-new-york-times/
Meanwhile, in other news: We went to dinner on Friday evening with Mark and Linda L and happened to run into the first night of the Blobfest, which is a cult event in commemoration of the filming of The Blob in Phoenixville. The event has gotten so popular that they now set up bleachers so spectators can watch the running of the blobbers as they flee the theater in panic at the climactic scene where the giant blob emerges through the movie screen.
Very appropriately, there was a fellow across from the theater trying to get people to sign a petition in favor of President Obama's health care plan, which is a cleverly disguised medium sized blob intended to grow to monstrous proportions and devour everything. No one was running from the Obama cultist in panic; but they should have been.
Checking further into the My Obama Store I found that it's a venture of a Jamaican fellow who calls himself Yehmon (http://www.yehmon.com/id31.html). This fellow Yehmon is somewhat of a poet. I found one of his poems right on point (http://www.yehmon.com/id28.html). I may print it out to give to the Obama health care cultist the next time we go to Phoenixville. Or I may bring a CO2 fire extinguisher in hopes of stopping his monstrous project the way Steve McQueen stopped The Blob.
In still other news: Here's a coincidence that may or may not be related to what President Obama, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Representative Barney Frank and their ilk are likely to do to the economy if they pass their plans into law.
On July 10th a lady in Virginia bought my copy of the Foxfire Book, and on July 11th a fellow in Oregon bought my copy of Foxfire 4; so two widely divergent people are suddenly interested in hog dressing, log cabin building, fiddle making, horse trading, berry buckets and other affairs of plain living.
Perhaps I should remove my remaining five Foxfire books from the "for sale" list on Amazon. Within 96 months when all of us peasants are living the simple life Al Gore and Prince Charles want us to live those books may become very valuable.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/just-96-months-to-save-world-says-charles-1738049.html
Meanwhile, in case you haven't noticed, Al Gore's so called global warming has provided unbelievably good weather in Collegeville so far this summer. Here it is July 13th and we still haven't needed to use our air conditioner. The very mild high seventies daytime and high fifties nightime temperatures don't quite qualify for calling this a year without a summer that the sunspot people told us was possible; but if this is the global warming Al and his fellow CO2 fanatic buddies have been harping about for the past ten years I want more of it.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
I'm baaaack!
It's been a while since I posted a blog because my laptop computer has been acting funny. For some reason it won't let me log into the blogger software.
Here are a few things I've wanted to share.
1. In the You just can't win department: This fellow and his wife installed a nice environmentally friendly windmill on their property, and now the neighbors are whining and the local government made them shut the thing down because it makes a bit of noise. I did find it suspicious that the couple located the windmill 230 feet from their own house, but only 164 feet from the neighbor's house. It's also interesting that the windmill cost them 20,000 pounds but it only saved them 500 pounds a year in energy cost - so it would take forty years to pay for itself, even leaving aside the interest they could have earned on the money they used to buy it.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1187936/Green-homeowner-hit-noise-abatement-order-40ft-wind-turbine-driving-neighbours-mad.html
2. In the You can't win unless you're a government employee department: California has started to pay some of it's bills with IOUs because the state is running out of money due to a spending binge worthy of a sailor loose in Olongapo after 60 days at sea. But here's a funny thing - the state is not paying any of its hundreds of thousands of government workers and government pension benefit recipients with IOUs. The government folks get cash; all others get IOUs. You might be tempted to think that this is because the state is concerned about the government workers because they depend on their salaries to eat; but it turns out that the state is giving IOUs to a whole bunch of other folks who depend on their government check to eat. Fat cat college professors and judges get cash; the blind and the disabled get IOUs.
http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2009/07/01/california-the-haves-and-have-nots/
3. In the None of us humans can win in the long run department: It turns out that we're all doomed after these Argentinian ants consolidate their position globally. The Orkin man had better get ready for battle on a global basis.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8127000/8127519.stm
4. In the Even if you can't win you can live in a certain style before you are eaten by ants: Sometimes a house comes on the market that has an extra nice garden or a very nicely outfitted kitchen. And then sometimes a house comes on the market that has a really special feature. The owner of this house automatically becomes a Count, and his wife becomes a Countess. The house also comes with extra thick walls that won't let in the whoosh, whoosh, whoosh sound of any nearby windmills.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204621904574248540382556988.html
Here are a few things I've wanted to share.
1. In the You just can't win department: This fellow and his wife installed a nice environmentally friendly windmill on their property, and now the neighbors are whining and the local government made them shut the thing down because it makes a bit of noise. I did find it suspicious that the couple located the windmill 230 feet from their own house, but only 164 feet from the neighbor's house. It's also interesting that the windmill cost them 20,000 pounds but it only saved them 500 pounds a year in energy cost - so it would take forty years to pay for itself, even leaving aside the interest they could have earned on the money they used to buy it.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1187936/Green-homeowner-hit-noise-abatement-order-40ft-wind-turbine-driving-neighbours-mad.html
2. In the You can't win unless you're a government employee department: California has started to pay some of it's bills with IOUs because the state is running out of money due to a spending binge worthy of a sailor loose in Olongapo after 60 days at sea. But here's a funny thing - the state is not paying any of its hundreds of thousands of government workers and government pension benefit recipients with IOUs. The government folks get cash; all others get IOUs. You might be tempted to think that this is because the state is concerned about the government workers because they depend on their salaries to eat; but it turns out that the state is giving IOUs to a whole bunch of other folks who depend on their government check to eat. Fat cat college professors and judges get cash; the blind and the disabled get IOUs.
http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2009/07/01/california-the-haves-and-have-nots/
3. In the None of us humans can win in the long run department: It turns out that we're all doomed after these Argentinian ants consolidate their position globally. The Orkin man had better get ready for battle on a global basis.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8127000/8127519.stm
4. In the Even if you can't win you can live in a certain style before you are eaten by ants: Sometimes a house comes on the market that has an extra nice garden or a very nicely outfitted kitchen. And then sometimes a house comes on the market that has a really special feature. The owner of this house automatically becomes a Count, and his wife becomes a Countess. The house also comes with extra thick walls that won't let in the whoosh, whoosh, whoosh sound of any nearby windmills.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204621904574248540382556988.html
Sunday, June 28, 2009
88, 79, 96, 86, 95, 86
All in all, Thursday the 25th was a pretty darn fine day here in the Norristown area, and not just because the daily number in the Times Herald was the highly soothing one recorded in the title of this piece. It was also a good day for smelling the last of the Great Northern Catalpa blossoms, and a good day for appreciating the annual display of the Tiger Lilies, which the stupid books insist on calling Tawny Day Lilies.
What we've always called Tiger Lilies are, of course, day lilies, even though it's hard to believe each one of the thousands (tens of thousands?) of flowers stretching down both banks of the creek is a one day wonder that will wither in the night and be replaced next morning by a new blossom. It's not a one for one replacement, actually. It's more like a chain reaction that builds from a few to an uncountable proliferation of flowers each day, and then tails off slowly over the course of a few days.
But I was talking about Thursday, and how it was a good day; I was not meaning to dwell on the short lives and deaths of a multitude of day lilies. Thursday was also a good day for pondering why one of our cousins seemed to want to talk about nothing except his unconcern about aging when he came by for coffee with me and Jas a couple of Saturdays ago. And it was a good day for thinking over the fact that another one of our cousins made a point of mentioning his purchase of a burial plot when Jas and I called him last Saturday morning.
A burial plot! Burial plots are surely sold to old people, very old people. They're sold to people so old they need a magnifying glass and not just a pair of drug store reading glasses to check the ages of the folks enjoying (in a manner of speaking) their fifteen minutes of fame in The Norristown Times Herald obits. We have some older cousins. We even have a cousin in her mid seventies. But until last Saturday I would have thought we didn't have any cousins of an age appropriate for the buying of a burial plot.
During the conversation with the new burial plot owner we learned that the single plot is meant as a final resting place for two, which necessitated a conversation about the likelihood of ending up in the bottom bunk, so to speak, men being severely discriminated against in the life expectancy tables. We also learned that a crematorium will not simply wrap one in a sheet and shove one into its incinerator - a box is required. Which means that one must choose the box, two boxes actually - one big box and one little box. It was heartening that our cousin found a certain amount of humor in his discussions with the undertaker. He finally settled on the cardboard, excuse me, corrugated box.
What we've always called Tiger Lilies are, of course, day lilies, even though it's hard to believe each one of the thousands (tens of thousands?) of flowers stretching down both banks of the creek is a one day wonder that will wither in the night and be replaced next morning by a new blossom. It's not a one for one replacement, actually. It's more like a chain reaction that builds from a few to an uncountable proliferation of flowers each day, and then tails off slowly over the course of a few days.
But I was talking about Thursday, and how it was a good day; I was not meaning to dwell on the short lives and deaths of a multitude of day lilies. Thursday was also a good day for pondering why one of our cousins seemed to want to talk about nothing except his unconcern about aging when he came by for coffee with me and Jas a couple of Saturdays ago. And it was a good day for thinking over the fact that another one of our cousins made a point of mentioning his purchase of a burial plot when Jas and I called him last Saturday morning.
A burial plot! Burial plots are surely sold to old people, very old people. They're sold to people so old they need a magnifying glass and not just a pair of drug store reading glasses to check the ages of the folks enjoying (in a manner of speaking) their fifteen minutes of fame in The Norristown Times Herald obits. We have some older cousins. We even have a cousin in her mid seventies. But until last Saturday I would have thought we didn't have any cousins of an age appropriate for the buying of a burial plot.
During the conversation with the new burial plot owner we learned that the single plot is meant as a final resting place for two, which necessitated a conversation about the likelihood of ending up in the bottom bunk, so to speak, men being severely discriminated against in the life expectancy tables. We also learned that a crematorium will not simply wrap one in a sheet and shove one into its incinerator - a box is required. Which means that one must choose the box, two boxes actually - one big box and one little box. It was heartening that our cousin found a certain amount of humor in his discussions with the undertaker. He finally settled on the cardboard, excuse me, corrugated box.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Is it 1973, 2001 or 1931?
Here's a chart from reason.com of the recent movement of the stock market that's either scary or heartening, depending on how you look at it.
So far the market's performance over the past 20 months has been about as bad as it was during the 1973/1974 oil crisis and the 2000/2002 tech stock crash; but it's nowhere near as bad as the stock market did leading into the great depression.
We're either doomed, or else we're poised for another spin on the good times merry go round.
http://www.reason.com/blog/show/134405.html
So far the market's performance over the past 20 months has been about as bad as it was during the 1973/1974 oil crisis and the 2000/2002 tech stock crash; but it's nowhere near as bad as the stock market did leading into the great depression.
We're either doomed, or else we're poised for another spin on the good times merry go round.
http://www.reason.com/blog/show/134405.html
Saturday, June 20, 2009
I was born under a waning gibbous moon, Pop was at a Phillies game
I was born 22,303 days ago under a waning gibbous moon. Pop was at a Phillies game, watching the Phillies beat the Pirates 2 to 1. Mercury and Uranus were in Taurus, Venus was in Gemini, Mars was in Leo, Jupiter was in Sagittarius, Saturn was in Cancer and Neptune was in Virgo. The Dow Jones Industrial Average stood at 190. The Dow has done pretty well since the world was graced with my presence.
Mom always said that Pop was at a Phillies game when I was born, which means I was born in the morning of May 28th since the Phillies played the Pittsburgh Pirates at home on the evening of May 27th. If Pop wasn't available to take her to the hospital she had to have gone there on the 27th. Pop would have been home to take Mom to the hospital on the 28th, because the Phillies were away that day playing the New York Giants.
Here's a great website where you can put in your birth date and find out what phase of the moon you were born under. If you put in "planets" and then your birth date it will tell you what signs of the zodiac they were in on that date. Same thing if you put in "Dow Jones Average" and then your birthdate.
http://www.wolframalpha.com/
The website will also do all sorts of math stuff. For instance, if you put in "x cubed + y cubed = 17" it will solve the equation for x and y, graph it, and tell you the implicit derivatives, which you may vaguely remember from near the end of the year in algebra class if you weren't daydreaming. More usefully, it will tell you the probability of drawing a full house in a five card poker hand is 1 chance in 693. Or it will tell you that the probability of drawing specifically three jacks and two aces in a five card poker hand is 1 in 108,900, although I can't imagine why you would want to know that.
Talk about neat! It will also translate Roman Numerals into regular numbers, for those pesky situations when you see a long string of Roman Numerals engraved on the cornerstone of a building and can't remember your M's and D's and X's. Additionally, if you should ever be in a position to supply the cornerstone for a building the website will translate the date into Babylonian or Mayan notation so you can carve the date in a way that will really make people nuts.
http://www17.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=2021+to+Babylonian
And, talk about something that was invented too late. If you're like me you can remember Mom and Aunt Mary getting into a who's who discussion about relatives. One of them would say something like "She's your second cousin. She's Sia Gigette's sister's granddaughter," and you would be totally clueless. This site will draw you a picture of how you're related to someone if you put in things like "grandfather's sister's second cousin."
http://www17.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=grandmother%27s+brother%27s+second+cousin
Update: Alex called today to wish me a happy father's day, probably because Christina reminded him to do so, since he called on Friday evening and talked to me and Linda. Today he reported that yesterday's Tea Party up in Worcester had some interesting speeches but was a bit of a disappointment because it only drew a crowd of a couple of hundred people.
I find it amazing that there should be two hundred people in the most liberal state in the union, a state nicknamed Taxachussetts, who care about the fact that the federal government is on a spending spree that would make ten thousand drunken sailors blush. George Bush was a big disappointment in the government spending and waste department, just like his father; but Barack Obama is throwing around cash in a way not seen since the last time a ten ship carrier battle group of the Seventh Fleet pulled into Subic Bay after 65 days at sea.
Mom always said that Pop was at a Phillies game when I was born, which means I was born in the morning of May 28th since the Phillies played the Pittsburgh Pirates at home on the evening of May 27th. If Pop wasn't available to take her to the hospital she had to have gone there on the 27th. Pop would have been home to take Mom to the hospital on the 28th, because the Phillies were away that day playing the New York Giants.
Here's a great website where you can put in your birth date and find out what phase of the moon you were born under. If you put in "planets" and then your birth date it will tell you what signs of the zodiac they were in on that date. Same thing if you put in "Dow Jones Average" and then your birthdate.
http://www.wolframalpha.com/
The website will also do all sorts of math stuff. For instance, if you put in "x cubed + y cubed = 17" it will solve the equation for x and y, graph it, and tell you the implicit derivatives, which you may vaguely remember from near the end of the year in algebra class if you weren't daydreaming. More usefully, it will tell you the probability of drawing a full house in a five card poker hand is 1 chance in 693. Or it will tell you that the probability of drawing specifically three jacks and two aces in a five card poker hand is 1 in 108,900, although I can't imagine why you would want to know that.
Talk about neat! It will also translate Roman Numerals into regular numbers, for those pesky situations when you see a long string of Roman Numerals engraved on the cornerstone of a building and can't remember your M's and D's and X's. Additionally, if you should ever be in a position to supply the cornerstone for a building the website will translate the date into Babylonian or Mayan notation so you can carve the date in a way that will really make people nuts.
http://www17.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=2021+to+Babylonian
And, talk about something that was invented too late. If you're like me you can remember Mom and Aunt Mary getting into a who's who discussion about relatives. One of them would say something like "She's your second cousin. She's Sia Gigette's sister's granddaughter," and you would be totally clueless. This site will draw you a picture of how you're related to someone if you put in things like "grandfather's sister's second cousin."
http://www17.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=grandmother%27s+brother%27s+second+cousin
Update: Alex called today to wish me a happy father's day, probably because Christina reminded him to do so, since he called on Friday evening and talked to me and Linda. Today he reported that yesterday's Tea Party up in Worcester had some interesting speeches but was a bit of a disappointment because it only drew a crowd of a couple of hundred people.
I find it amazing that there should be two hundred people in the most liberal state in the union, a state nicknamed Taxachussetts, who care about the fact that the federal government is on a spending spree that would make ten thousand drunken sailors blush. George Bush was a big disappointment in the government spending and waste department, just like his father; but Barack Obama is throwing around cash in a way not seen since the last time a ten ship carrier battle group of the Seventh Fleet pulled into Subic Bay after 65 days at sea.
Friday, June 19, 2009
The path to enlightenment
A week or so ago we got an invitation to "Matt's graduation" in Langhorne. A nice handwritten invitation. Sounded great, except that we couldn't figure out who Matt was.
When John and Kathy showed up for bridge on Tuesday we learned that the envelope for their invitation included a return address sticker with the name J. K----. Still no joy. Jas and Kathy knew no K----, and neither did Sam and Deb, with whom they had already checked. Jas was an advocate of a conspiracy theory, namely that the invitations were sent out randomly on the assumption that some would return gifts. Thus I learned that I have a brother even more cynical than I am.
So. . . yesterday I called Marianne, who didn't receive an invitation, not surprising because many in the wide extended family don't know her last name, a thought you should keep in mind since we get back to it later.
Marianne also had no idea as to who a Matt K---- could be; but she suggested that I call Angie out in California on the thought that Matt was probably connected via the R----s. No joy, Angie confirmed what I had suspected, there are no K----s connected with the R----s.
So I went out on the net and found on Facebook a Matt K---- who is graduating this year from a high school up near Langhorne. I sent him a facebook message asking if he's related to the A--------s, the L---s or the R----s, to which he hasn't responded. I also put a message on my facebook page asking if anybody knows a Matt K----. No responses.
So, this morning I left a message on the rsvp phone number, saying that we would be glad to come to the graduation party, if only we could figure out who Matt is.
Then I got looking at that phone number, and I put it into Microsoft's new search engine Bing which came back with the name Jacquelin K---- at the same address specified for the party. I then put that name in Bing and it came back with references to a half dozen Jacquelin K----s, one of which was on LinkedIn in the Philadelphia area. Jackie K----'s profile on LinkedIn told me she works for BMC which finally gave me an Aha moment since I talked with someone who works for BMC at Dolores's 70th birthday party last week.
I just got off the phone with Jackie J--------, who confirmed that his daughter Candy's real name is Jacquelin and she indeed does have an 18 year old son whose name is Matt and who is graduating from high school this year.
Inspector Clouseau couldn't have done the investigation better. And Siddhartha Gautama couldn't have felt much more enlightened after he discovered the middle way than I do at this moment.
When John and Kathy showed up for bridge on Tuesday we learned that the envelope for their invitation included a return address sticker with the name J. K----. Still no joy. Jas and Kathy knew no K----, and neither did Sam and Deb, with whom they had already checked. Jas was an advocate of a conspiracy theory, namely that the invitations were sent out randomly on the assumption that some would return gifts. Thus I learned that I have a brother even more cynical than I am.
So. . . yesterday I called Marianne, who didn't receive an invitation, not surprising because many in the wide extended family don't know her last name, a thought you should keep in mind since we get back to it later.
Marianne also had no idea as to who a Matt K---- could be; but she suggested that I call Angie out in California on the thought that Matt was probably connected via the R----s. No joy, Angie confirmed what I had suspected, there are no K----s connected with the R----s.
So I went out on the net and found on Facebook a Matt K---- who is graduating this year from a high school up near Langhorne. I sent him a facebook message asking if he's related to the A--------s, the L---s or the R----s, to which he hasn't responded. I also put a message on my facebook page asking if anybody knows a Matt K----. No responses.
So, this morning I left a message on the rsvp phone number, saying that we would be glad to come to the graduation party, if only we could figure out who Matt is.
Then I got looking at that phone number, and I put it into Microsoft's new search engine Bing which came back with the name Jacquelin K---- at the same address specified for the party. I then put that name in Bing and it came back with references to a half dozen Jacquelin K----s, one of which was on LinkedIn in the Philadelphia area. Jackie K----'s profile on LinkedIn told me she works for BMC which finally gave me an Aha moment since I talked with someone who works for BMC at Dolores's 70th birthday party last week.
I just got off the phone with Jackie J--------, who confirmed that his daughter Candy's real name is Jacquelin and she indeed does have an 18 year old son whose name is Matt and who is graduating from high school this year.
Inspector Clouseau couldn't have done the investigation better. And Siddhartha Gautama couldn't have felt much more enlightened after he discovered the middle way than I do at this moment.
Monday, June 15, 2009
It's a pity we didn't bring my frog to Death Valley
The Devil's Hole Pupfish is holding up all sorts of solar and wind power projects.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124510519321116631.html#articleTabs%3Darticle
Jas and I tried to visit the pupfish when we drove around the Southwest a few years back; but we never got to see the little fellow because the National Park Service has his hole fenced off like a maximum security prison and you can only get a glimpse of the water is way down in the crack in the rock.
If my frog had been with us he would have leaped right through that chain link fence. Then he would have done an octuple somersault with fifteen or twenty twists on the way down to the water for lunch. Survival of the fittest would have taken care of the rest. By now there wouldn't be any need for the environmentalists to worry about the cute little pupfish and his relatives.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124510519321116631.html#articleTabs%3Darticle
Jas and I tried to visit the pupfish when we drove around the Southwest a few years back; but we never got to see the little fellow because the National Park Service has his hole fenced off like a maximum security prison and you can only get a glimpse of the water is way down in the crack in the rock.
If my frog had been with us he would have leaped right through that chain link fence. Then he would have done an octuple somersault with fifteen or twenty twists on the way down to the water for lunch. Survival of the fittest would have taken care of the rest. By now there wouldn't be any need for the environmentalists to worry about the cute little pupfish and his relatives.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Clipping coupons, eating feline pate', buying diapers
Every so often you run across the phrase "clipping coupons" as in "His widow lived out her remaining years clipping coupons." I've known what the phrase meant; but until today I've never seen a picture of an actual bond with coupons to be clipped.
Here's a picture of a ten year One Million dollar U.S. Treasury bearer bond with some of the coupons still on it. As each interest coupon comes due it becomes just like cash since anyone can take it to a Federal Reserve Bank to redeem it for cash. Then at the end of the term the owner (or anyone who has the bond) can return it to the treasury for the million bucks that the bond itself is worth.
It's called a "bearer bond" because the treasury will pay out the interest and the principal to whoever comes in bearing the coupons and the bond when they're mature.
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYPhrEVoUFhuuCAmL2rVtv6aQ5XxF3-lQ4u6bJFwAGeHSWS3ye_uqlbor83zrafS70SvXcVIw5KetjWd8RdZ5t0G51oAZo6G_QyXHPuzbwdO63_u2BsRHAI9JzFHshKWb4phPbpnY7zns/s1600-h/bond1small.jpg
On a related note, yesterday I had reason to check out the rate of inflation over the past thirty years and also over a variety of prior thirty years periods. Inflation ran at a 4.4% rate from 1975 to 2005. There is a useful mental tool called the Rule of 72. If you divide the interest rate into 72 the answer tells you how fast money doubles if invested at a certain percentage interest rate or how fast its value is cut in half at a certain inflation rate. The Rule of 72 says a dollar lost approximately half of its value every 16 years from 1975 to 2005. A 1975 dollar is worth a bit less than 25 cents in real purchasing power today since it's been 34 years since then. Put another way, if your house was worth $50,000 in 1975 and it's worth $200,000 today its real value hasn't changed.
The worst thirty year period in the recent past for inflation was the period from 1965 to 1995 when inflation ran at an average rate of 5.4%. During that period a dollar lost half of its value every 13.3 years. It's purchasing power was reduced by 75% in about 27 years during that time period.
I think what's been happening down in Washington is setting the country up for an inflation rate even higher than the 5.4% average rate that prevailed from 1965 to 1995.
If I'm right that means a lunchtime can of catfood that costs an old lady $2 today will cost her daughter more than $8 twenty six years years from now in 2035, perhaps much more, and it will cost her granddaughter $32 in 2051. The same thing goes for Depends, Fixodent, Prunes and all the other necessities of old age.
Just so you know, I found the inflation rates I used at the site link below. Other sites give different and somewhat lower inflati0on rates. I was looking for a worst case estimate, so I purposely looked for the inflation calculator that showed the worst picture of what's happened on the inflation front over the last 100 years.
http://www.measuringworth.com/inflation/?redirurl=calculators/inflation/
Here's a picture of a ten year One Million dollar U.S. Treasury bearer bond with some of the coupons still on it. As each interest coupon comes due it becomes just like cash since anyone can take it to a Federal Reserve Bank to redeem it for cash. Then at the end of the term the owner (or anyone who has the bond) can return it to the treasury for the million bucks that the bond itself is worth.
It's called a "bearer bond" because the treasury will pay out the interest and the principal to whoever comes in bearing the coupons and the bond when they're mature.
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYPhrEVoUFhuuCAmL2rVtv6aQ5XxF3-lQ4u6bJFwAGeHSWS3ye_uqlbor83zrafS70SvXcVIw5KetjWd8RdZ5t0G51oAZo6G_QyXHPuzbwdO63_u2BsRHAI9JzFHshKWb4phPbpnY7zns/s1600-h/bond1small.jpg
On a related note, yesterday I had reason to check out the rate of inflation over the past thirty years and also over a variety of prior thirty years periods. Inflation ran at a 4.4% rate from 1975 to 2005. There is a useful mental tool called the Rule of 72. If you divide the interest rate into 72 the answer tells you how fast money doubles if invested at a certain percentage interest rate or how fast its value is cut in half at a certain inflation rate. The Rule of 72 says a dollar lost approximately half of its value every 16 years from 1975 to 2005. A 1975 dollar is worth a bit less than 25 cents in real purchasing power today since it's been 34 years since then. Put another way, if your house was worth $50,000 in 1975 and it's worth $200,000 today its real value hasn't changed.
The worst thirty year period in the recent past for inflation was the period from 1965 to 1995 when inflation ran at an average rate of 5.4%. During that period a dollar lost half of its value every 13.3 years. It's purchasing power was reduced by 75% in about 27 years during that time period.
I think what's been happening down in Washington is setting the country up for an inflation rate even higher than the 5.4% average rate that prevailed from 1965 to 1995.
If I'm right that means a lunchtime can of catfood that costs an old lady $2 today will cost her daughter more than $8 twenty six years years from now in 2035, perhaps much more, and it will cost her granddaughter $32 in 2051. The same thing goes for Depends, Fixodent, Prunes and all the other necessities of old age.
Just so you know, I found the inflation rates I used at the site link below. Other sites give different and somewhat lower inflati0on rates. I was looking for a worst case estimate, so I purposely looked for the inflation calculator that showed the worst picture of what's happened on the inflation front over the last 100 years.
http://www.measuringworth.com/inflation/?redirurl=calculators/inflation/
Thursday, June 11, 2009
We grew up gourmets and never knew it
The yuppies have discovered weeds as gourmet fare. Nine bucks a pound for dandelion! By that measure there's at least ten thousand bucks worth of valuable gourmet salad out there in the lawn right now.
It's hard to believe the author of this article in The Wall Street Journal missed Chima de Rabe. I remedied that with a comment to the article. As I write this I still have two containers of this Spring's rabes in the freezer. And, I happen to be eating a sandwich of boiled ham, rabes that I thawed the other day and a little mayonnaise on slices of Corropolese split loaf. I generally prefer this particular sandwich on a seeded football roll; but we're out of them right now. It used to make Pop crazy when he would see me putting mayonnaise on a sandwich of rabes and ham; but that's not why I still invariably do it.
Also, she specifies two changes of water for boiling Pokes. I can't imagine that Mom or Aunt Mary R did two changes of water, and I certainly never have; which may explain why there have been incidents of rapid necessary movement to the necessaries room related to the consumption of Poke Salad over the years. It's very difficult to resist the temptation to pick larger and larger and leafier and leafier shoots as one gets tired when picking Polks, which also may explain the incidents.
And, she mentions Burdock but doesn't mention that the leaves are poisonous, or at least that's what Mom believed, although the internet seems not to think so. Mom and Grandmom L only used the thick stems of the leaves which they called Cardunes and prepared by battering and deep frying. Next Spring I'm going to pick Cardunes and try to recreate that recipe. As I recall they had a unique flavor somewhat like, but only somewhat like, the battered and fried celery we do at Christmas.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124338226000356493.html#articleTabs%3Darticle
And, since I'm on the subject of food, I should mention that Linda and I ate our first Swiss Chard from the garden on Tuesday, probably the earliest that it's ever been ready for picking. We've been eating lettuce for a couple of weeks; but slugs are multiplying and ravaging it now, probably due to the very rainy weather we've been having for the past week or so.
Finally, if you are one of the few people who still actually, you know, like, read, like, books, you may find this article by Ann Kirshner in The Chronicle Review interesting. She tried out all the current modes of reading and listening to Charles Dickens' novel Little Dorrit to see which she liked better. I can only wish she had gone further into the issue of the differences between sight reading and audio since I find them such distinctly different experiences.
Most interesting paragraph - "Readers are passionate and opinionated advocates for their preferred formats. Flip announced that she reads only hardcovers; end of conversation. "I get it," said Bill, watching me read on the iPhone: "You like your books little." Bob is no Luddite, but he insists that Steve Jobs has bribed me, since the Kindle is so obviously superior. Just wait for the Apple tablet," advises techno-sage Joe. And Judith derides my affection for audiobooks as "not really reading.""
For the record I will only read a hardback if I can't get a paperback. Something about a hardback book intimidates me and causes me to treat it too carefully. I can dog-ear the pages to mark my place or break the binding of a paperback by bending it back to hold in one hand; but I can rarely bring myself to treat a hardback book so cavalierly no matter how cheaply I bought it. And, I find listening to an audio book so different from reading the same book that I will often read an especially good novel immediately after listening to it and vice versa. Also, she doesn't mention the obvious next step, which is to combine audio with a video formatted somewhat like the succession of still pictures that Ken Burns used in his Civil War series on PBS. Soon technology should allow relatively easy mating of period pictures with text. So you could see a street scene related to a passage of audio or a picture of an animal mentioned in an audio passage as you listened, for instance.
http://chronicle.com/free/v55/i39/39b01601.htm
And, really, really, finally, since I've been on the subjects of yuppies, books, reading and cooking; here's an interesting article by Jennifer Reese on Slate about a book about a whole different way to think about cooking. One suspects that Linda will come home to find something really new and different on the table one of these days; but not 'til after she has endured Lobscouse, which I still haven't gotten around to making even though Alex tried it and praised it pretty highly.
http://www.slate.com/id/2219243/pagenum/all
It's hard to believe the author of this article in The Wall Street Journal missed Chima de Rabe. I remedied that with a comment to the article. As I write this I still have two containers of this Spring's rabes in the freezer. And, I happen to be eating a sandwich of boiled ham, rabes that I thawed the other day and a little mayonnaise on slices of Corropolese split loaf. I generally prefer this particular sandwich on a seeded football roll; but we're out of them right now. It used to make Pop crazy when he would see me putting mayonnaise on a sandwich of rabes and ham; but that's not why I still invariably do it.
Also, she specifies two changes of water for boiling Pokes. I can't imagine that Mom or Aunt Mary R did two changes of water, and I certainly never have; which may explain why there have been incidents of rapid necessary movement to the necessaries room related to the consumption of Poke Salad over the years. It's very difficult to resist the temptation to pick larger and larger and leafier and leafier shoots as one gets tired when picking Polks, which also may explain the incidents.
And, she mentions Burdock but doesn't mention that the leaves are poisonous, or at least that's what Mom believed, although the internet seems not to think so. Mom and Grandmom L only used the thick stems of the leaves which they called Cardunes and prepared by battering and deep frying. Next Spring I'm going to pick Cardunes and try to recreate that recipe. As I recall they had a unique flavor somewhat like, but only somewhat like, the battered and fried celery we do at Christmas.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124338226000356493.html#articleTabs%3Darticle
And, since I'm on the subject of food, I should mention that Linda and I ate our first Swiss Chard from the garden on Tuesday, probably the earliest that it's ever been ready for picking. We've been eating lettuce for a couple of weeks; but slugs are multiplying and ravaging it now, probably due to the very rainy weather we've been having for the past week or so.
Finally, if you are one of the few people who still actually, you know, like, read, like, books, you may find this article by Ann Kirshner in The Chronicle Review interesting. She tried out all the current modes of reading and listening to Charles Dickens' novel Little Dorrit to see which she liked better. I can only wish she had gone further into the issue of the differences between sight reading and audio since I find them such distinctly different experiences.
Most interesting paragraph - "Readers are passionate and opinionated advocates for their preferred formats. Flip announced that she reads only hardcovers; end of conversation. "I get it," said Bill, watching me read on the iPhone: "You like your books little." Bob is no Luddite, but he insists that Steve Jobs has bribed me, since the Kindle is so obviously superior. Just wait for the Apple tablet," advises techno-sage Joe. And Judith derides my affection for audiobooks as "not really reading.""
For the record I will only read a hardback if I can't get a paperback. Something about a hardback book intimidates me and causes me to treat it too carefully. I can dog-ear the pages to mark my place or break the binding of a paperback by bending it back to hold in one hand; but I can rarely bring myself to treat a hardback book so cavalierly no matter how cheaply I bought it. And, I find listening to an audio book so different from reading the same book that I will often read an especially good novel immediately after listening to it and vice versa. Also, she doesn't mention the obvious next step, which is to combine audio with a video formatted somewhat like the succession of still pictures that Ken Burns used in his Civil War series on PBS. Soon technology should allow relatively easy mating of period pictures with text. So you could see a street scene related to a passage of audio or a picture of an animal mentioned in an audio passage as you listened, for instance.
http://chronicle.com/free/v55/i39/39b01601.htm
And, really, really, finally, since I've been on the subjects of yuppies, books, reading and cooking; here's an interesting article by Jennifer Reese on Slate about a book about a whole different way to think about cooking. One suspects that Linda will come home to find something really new and different on the table one of these days; but not 'til after she has endured Lobscouse, which I still haven't gotten around to making even though Alex tried it and praised it pretty highly.
http://www.slate.com/id/2219243/pagenum/all
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
We should dig up Margaret Mead and put her head on a pike
While I was growing up in the 1950's and 1960's the anthropologists were falling all over themselves to lecture us about how all those primitive tribesmen out there were peaceful, while we evil civilized people were murderous savages. Now it turns out that this meme that was sold by supposed scientists like Margaret Mead was a lie or at best the result of shoddy research biased by what the researchers wanted to find.
I have some problems with the analysis in this article from the NewScientist; but there was a very interesting factoid buried in it.
"On average, warfare caused 14 per cent of the total deaths in ancient and more recent hunter-gatherers populations."
By that standard modern man is an altruistic softy more akin to Mother Theresa than to Ghenghis Khan. Something like a hundred and fifty million people die each year in the current world. Warfare isn't killing anything close to twenty million people per year, which would be 14% of them. We're pathetic pikers in the killing department next to those "peaceful" hunter gatherers who lovingly polished their war clubs while coming of age in Samoa and elsewhere. Only in a very few top scoring years during the twentieth century did modern man manage to cause anything like 14% of overall deaths through warfare.
Crikey, it turns out that "war inflicted 30 per cent of deaths among the Ache, a hunter-gatherer population from Eastern Paraguay, 17 per cent among the Hiwi, who live in Venezuela and Colombia, while just 4 per cent among the Anbara in northern Australia." I'm guessing the Anbara are afflicted by a poverty of nearby tribes to kill.
The other day at Dolores' 70th birthday party and at a dinner the night before with Jas and Kathy and Bob and Michele N, people were talking about how much better things were back in the good old days. They weren't talking about days quite so far back; but it's useful to remember before engaging in such twaddle that in the really good old days Ghenghis is reported to have said "Man's greatest joy is to slay his enemy, plunder his riches, ride his steeds, see the tears of his loved ones and embrace his women."
I'm betting Ghenghis was a better observer and judge of human nature than either Mother Theresa or Margaret Mead, whether we care to like that fact or not.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17255-ancient-warfare-fighting-for-the-greater-good.html
And, for you sports fans, the scientists have finally explained why it's hard to hit a curve ball. It turns out that a curve ball is hard to hit more because it's spinning than because it's curving.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227114.300-revealed-why-curve-balls-are-so-hard-to-hit.html
http://www.newscientist.com/movie/best-new-visual-illusions-curveball
Hit this curve ball. What's the common thread linking the biographies of the following folks?
Virginia Apgar, Bashar al-Assad, Michael DeBakey, Francois Duvalier, Jack Kevorkian, David Livingstone, Josef Mengele, Albert Schweitzer, Harold Shipman, Benjamin Spock
Meanwhile, in other news, my frog retains his healthy appetite and continues to thrive, unlike this numinous amphibian whose followers obviously aren't providing Him the form of worship He requires.
http://www.kirotv.com/family/19699075/detail.html
I have some problems with the analysis in this article from the NewScientist; but there was a very interesting factoid buried in it.
"On average, warfare caused 14 per cent of the total deaths in ancient and more recent hunter-gatherers populations."
By that standard modern man is an altruistic softy more akin to Mother Theresa than to Ghenghis Khan. Something like a hundred and fifty million people die each year in the current world. Warfare isn't killing anything close to twenty million people per year, which would be 14% of them. We're pathetic pikers in the killing department next to those "peaceful" hunter gatherers who lovingly polished their war clubs while coming of age in Samoa and elsewhere. Only in a very few top scoring years during the twentieth century did modern man manage to cause anything like 14% of overall deaths through warfare.
Crikey, it turns out that "war inflicted 30 per cent of deaths among the Ache, a hunter-gatherer population from Eastern Paraguay, 17 per cent among the Hiwi, who live in Venezuela and Colombia, while just 4 per cent among the Anbara in northern Australia." I'm guessing the Anbara are afflicted by a poverty of nearby tribes to kill.
The other day at Dolores' 70th birthday party and at a dinner the night before with Jas and Kathy and Bob and Michele N, people were talking about how much better things were back in the good old days. They weren't talking about days quite so far back; but it's useful to remember before engaging in such twaddle that in the really good old days Ghenghis is reported to have said "Man's greatest joy is to slay his enemy, plunder his riches, ride his steeds, see the tears of his loved ones and embrace his women."
I'm betting Ghenghis was a better observer and judge of human nature than either Mother Theresa or Margaret Mead, whether we care to like that fact or not.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17255-ancient-warfare-fighting-for-the-greater-good.html
And, for you sports fans, the scientists have finally explained why it's hard to hit a curve ball. It turns out that a curve ball is hard to hit more because it's spinning than because it's curving.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227114.300-revealed-why-curve-balls-are-so-hard-to-hit.html
http://www.newscientist.com/movie/best-new-visual-illusions-curveball
Hit this curve ball. What's the common thread linking the biographies of the following folks?
Virginia Apgar, Bashar al-Assad, Michael DeBakey, Francois Duvalier, Jack Kevorkian, David Livingstone, Josef Mengele, Albert Schweitzer, Harold Shipman, Benjamin Spock
Meanwhile, in other news, my frog retains his healthy appetite and continues to thrive, unlike this numinous amphibian whose followers obviously aren't providing Him the form of worship He requires.
http://www.kirotv.com/family/19699075/detail.html
Monday, June 1, 2009
Fawning slaves, unrepentent revolutionaries, socialists and bourbon
There were quite a number of unkind comments about my frog last week at Sam and Deb's anniversary party.
I'd like to point out a few facts for the record.
1. Doug spent some time at the party trying to teach his dog Roxie to bite socialists. Yet all of the socialists at the party remained unbitten at the end of the evening after the bourbon and the beer ran out. My frog has understood since birth that it's his duty to bite socialists, as any socialist who cares to put his finger near the water in the frog bowl will quickly learn.
What's more, my frog's cousins have an entire socialist city terrified. And they're too tough for the wimpy authorities of an entire left coast state, as you dog lovers will learn if you play the video at this link. Dogs have the mentality of fawning slaves; my frog is an unrepentent revolutionary. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/05/25/eveningnews/main619543.shtml
2. David mentioned finding it strange that I write about my frog as though he were a touchy feely pet. My frog is plenty touchy feely. He takes great interest in me when I give him his occasional food pellet, and he gets touchy feely whenever I put a finger within a couple of inches of the water, perhaps because he mistakenly thinks I'm a socialist.
3. In the course of the party I learned some pretty disgusting things about the eating habits of both Doug's Roxie and of Liana and Catherine's cute little Shih Tzus. If my frog is a coprophagist he is at a minimum discrete about it. What happens under the rocks in his bowl stays under the rocks.
4. At 23 years old my frog can benchpress a rock that outweighs him by several times, and he does it whenever I forget to feed him for a few days. Also, in his younger days, he demonstrated the ability to eat an entire tadpole almost as big as him in only two days. Plus, he can broadjump about 30 times his length, and he can highjump about 10 times his length, or at least he could a few years ago when he last escaped from the tank. Finally, he can hold his breath for at least twenty minutes, which is the longest I've ever had the patience to watch him closely. Tell me about your canines when they can do any of those things.
Update: Linda informed me that I may have unjustly identified Doug and Jenny's dog Roxie as a devotee of coprophagy. Linda says it is Rebecca and Matt's dog that goes in for pungent eating. Linda further said the women at the party all agreed that it's only logical that the girl dogs don't indulge and that only boy dogs are filthy pigs.
I'd like to point out a few facts for the record.
1. Doug spent some time at the party trying to teach his dog Roxie to bite socialists. Yet all of the socialists at the party remained unbitten at the end of the evening after the bourbon and the beer ran out. My frog has understood since birth that it's his duty to bite socialists, as any socialist who cares to put his finger near the water in the frog bowl will quickly learn.
What's more, my frog's cousins have an entire socialist city terrified. And they're too tough for the wimpy authorities of an entire left coast state, as you dog lovers will learn if you play the video at this link. Dogs have the mentality of fawning slaves; my frog is an unrepentent revolutionary. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/05/25/eveningnews/main619543.shtml
2. David mentioned finding it strange that I write about my frog as though he were a touchy feely pet. My frog is plenty touchy feely. He takes great interest in me when I give him his occasional food pellet, and he gets touchy feely whenever I put a finger within a couple of inches of the water, perhaps because he mistakenly thinks I'm a socialist.
3. In the course of the party I learned some pretty disgusting things about the eating habits of both Doug's Roxie and of Liana and Catherine's cute little Shih Tzus. If my frog is a coprophagist he is at a minimum discrete about it. What happens under the rocks in his bowl stays under the rocks.
4. At 23 years old my frog can benchpress a rock that outweighs him by several times, and he does it whenever I forget to feed him for a few days. Also, in his younger days, he demonstrated the ability to eat an entire tadpole almost as big as him in only two days. Plus, he can broadjump about 30 times his length, and he can highjump about 10 times his length, or at least he could a few years ago when he last escaped from the tank. Finally, he can hold his breath for at least twenty minutes, which is the longest I've ever had the patience to watch him closely. Tell me about your canines when they can do any of those things.
Update: Linda informed me that I may have unjustly identified Doug and Jenny's dog Roxie as a devotee of coprophagy. Linda says it is Rebecca and Matt's dog that goes in for pungent eating. Linda further said the women at the party all agreed that it's only logical that the girl dogs don't indulge and that only boy dogs are filthy pigs.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
We live in an age of marvels
What will they think of next. Here's a new product that will help kids get their homework done.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/5343111/Ball-and-chain-to-force-children-to-study.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/5343111/Ball-and-chain-to-force-children-to-study.html
Friday, May 29, 2009
Girls gone wild
Susan Whatshername seems to be suffering from Post Dramatic Stress Syndrome as a result of all the attention she's been receiving since she wowed the judges and the audience with her performance on Britain's Got Talent. According to this article in The Sun, Susan has a bit of a mouth on her. I think her mouth should be washed out with whatever they call soap over there in Blighty.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/tv/britain_got_talent/2451169/Susan-Boyles-two-four-letter-rants-in-one-day-Britains-got-Talent.html
And in equal opportunity news, Brenda Lee, a reporter and self proclaimed Roman Catholic Priestess, showed up in in a self described cassock at the Los Angeles airport and got into a bit of a tiff with the Secret Service because they wouldn't let her give a letter to President Obama. Besides getting mad at the Secret Service, she also got mad at the Associated Press photographer because she thought he was trying to take a picture up her dress when they carried her away to the funny farm for observation.
Come to think of it the Secret Service guys were just doing their job; but maybe she's right about that Associate Press photographer. Maybe he was trying to take a picture up her dress, the pervert.
The whole situation sounds quite stresful. I hope she's not suffering from Post Photographic Stress Syndrome.
http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Reporter-Dragged-Kicking-and-Screaming-From-Near-Air-Force-One-.html
Consider yourself warned that if you follow the links that are contained in the story about Brenda Lee you will find some strange stuff that is only believed in isolated parts of Georgia and in Reverend Wright's church in Chicago.
But, one sometimes finds gold amidst straw. The paragraph at the bottom of Brenda's latest article in the Georgia Informer about Catholic Priests exercising modern day Droite de Seigneur privileges is. . . is. . . is. . . let's just say that paragraph is startlingly inventive. I hope Brenda writes more before the aliens come back to get her for more experiments.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/tv/britain_got_talent/2451169/Susan-Boyles-two-four-letter-rants-in-one-day-Britains-got-Talent.html
And in equal opportunity news, Brenda Lee, a reporter and self proclaimed Roman Catholic Priestess, showed up in in a self described cassock at the Los Angeles airport and got into a bit of a tiff with the Secret Service because they wouldn't let her give a letter to President Obama. Besides getting mad at the Secret Service, she also got mad at the Associated Press photographer because she thought he was trying to take a picture up her dress when they carried her away to the funny farm for observation.
Come to think of it the Secret Service guys were just doing their job; but maybe she's right about that Associate Press photographer. Maybe he was trying to take a picture up her dress, the pervert.
The whole situation sounds quite stresful. I hope she's not suffering from Post Photographic Stress Syndrome.
http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Reporter-Dragged-Kicking-and-Screaming-From-Near-Air-Force-One-.html
Consider yourself warned that if you follow the links that are contained in the story about Brenda Lee you will find some strange stuff that is only believed in isolated parts of Georgia and in Reverend Wright's church in Chicago.
But, one sometimes finds gold amidst straw. The paragraph at the bottom of Brenda's latest article in the Georgia Informer about Catholic Priests exercising modern day Droite de Seigneur privileges is. . . is. . . is. . . let's just say that paragraph is startlingly inventive. I hope Brenda writes more before the aliens come back to get her for more experiments.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Vive La France
Here's an excellent video from Reason.tv that gives you an idea of what to expect after President Obama makes this country more like France.
http://reason.tv/video/show/773.html
Veronique de Rugy has it exactly right. It's one thing to visit France; but another thing entirely to live there.
And, in other news, here's a preview of a scary new movie. Warning, it has violence, hysteria and a brief appearance by Vice President Joseph Biden.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6duTolZMGmI
http://reason.tv/video/show/773.html
Veronique de Rugy has it exactly right. It's one thing to visit France; but another thing entirely to live there.
And, in other news, here's a preview of a scary new movie. Warning, it has violence, hysteria and a brief appearance by Vice President Joseph Biden.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6duTolZMGmI
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Who is John Galt, er, Tom Golisano?
When lifelong committed lefties like tom Golisano start talking and writing things that could have been pulled from the pages of Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged you know things are getting tense on the taxation front.
The irony, of course, is that once Golisano gets established as a Florida resident he will immediately start voting for new tax and spend laws that will eventually make Florida as dysfunctional and corrupt as New York.
Interesting quotes:
"Politicians like to talk about incentives -- for businesses to relocate, for example, or to get folks to buy local. After reviewing the new budget, I have identified the most compelling incentive of all: a major tax break immediately available to all New Yorkers. To be eligible, you need do only one thing: move out of New York state."
". . . the top 1 percent of earners account for about 50 percent of state revenue and are the ones who can and will leave. "
"Like I said, I love New York. But I'm not going to pay any more for the waste, corruption and inefficiency that is New York state government."
Wesley Mouch, er, Barack Obama, better get on this quick. Surely he can find some way to chain Tom Golisano and the other rich traitors to their homes in high tax states. President Obama should consider getting congress to pass a new law making it illegal for people to move across state lines without permission. It wouldn't be hard to draft such a law since the old USSR had one whose language can be copied. Or, President Obama could have his attorney general get a copy of Atlas Shrugged and just copy the Anti-Dog-Eat-Dog Bill or the Equalization of Opportunity bill that Wesley Mouch put into effect.
You can read the whole thing at the link below.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/05202009/postopinion/opedcolumnists/adios__new_york_170074.htm?&page=0
Hat tip to Kathry Jean Lopez of National Review whose post on The Corner led me to this New York Post column.
The irony, of course, is that once Golisano gets established as a Florida resident he will immediately start voting for new tax and spend laws that will eventually make Florida as dysfunctional and corrupt as New York.
Interesting quotes:
"Politicians like to talk about incentives -- for businesses to relocate, for example, or to get folks to buy local. After reviewing the new budget, I have identified the most compelling incentive of all: a major tax break immediately available to all New Yorkers. To be eligible, you need do only one thing: move out of New York state."
". . . the top 1 percent of earners account for about 50 percent of state revenue and are the ones who can and will leave. "
"Like I said, I love New York. But I'm not going to pay any more for the waste, corruption and inefficiency that is New York state government."
Wesley Mouch, er, Barack Obama, better get on this quick. Surely he can find some way to chain Tom Golisano and the other rich traitors to their homes in high tax states. President Obama should consider getting congress to pass a new law making it illegal for people to move across state lines without permission. It wouldn't be hard to draft such a law since the old USSR had one whose language can be copied. Or, President Obama could have his attorney general get a copy of Atlas Shrugged and just copy the Anti-Dog-Eat-Dog Bill or the Equalization of Opportunity bill that Wesley Mouch put into effect.
You can read the whole thing at the link below.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/05202009/postopinion/opedcolumnists/adios__new_york_170074.htm?&page=0
Hat tip to Kathry Jean Lopez of National Review whose post on The Corner led me to this New York Post column.
Monday, May 18, 2009
The wisdom of the ages
We ignore folk wisdom at our peril.
For instance: I've always remembered Pop as saying that you shouldn't plant your garden until May 20th because of the danger of frost. Sam, on the other hand, has always claimed that Pop's edict was that you can plant anytime after Mother's Day. We've gone around about this for years; and for years Sam has maintained that I've been planting too late.
Like the slow drip. . . drip. . . drip of Chinese Water Torture, uh, Chinese Intensive Interrogation, Sam's constant negative feedback and Al Gore's incessant harping about global warming have weakened my allegiance to my own remembrance. So here I am on May 18th with all my carefully nurtured tomato and swiss chard and zucchini and cucumber plants already set out in the garden; and Linda mentioned this morning that they're predicting possible frost tonight.
Now, in a proper world, a mob of us peasants would rise up and go on a rampage with our shovels and rakes and hoes. We would put a dunce cap on Sam and equip him with a set of flimsy wings with which to stir the air over the tender tomato plants. And we would then storm off to capture Al Gore, the false Shaman, so as to render him down for fat to fuel smudge pots. The renderings from Al would fuel a lot of smudge pots and thus save a lot of crops.
But. . but. . . unfortunately we can't do those things, just yet. . . because the folly of the whole global warming hysteria has not yet become clear to enough of the population.
So instead we are reduced to reliance on our own singular efforts. In my own case I'm okay; because it happens that yesterday Linda replaced the living room drapes. The lining of the old drapes is a very thin material which will make perfect plant caps. You can bet that I'll be cursing later today as I go about tenting all the plants.
Meanwhile: in other news, Alec Baldwin has the Filipino segment of the great global multicultural community a tad upset. Alec was joking the other day about importing a Filipino mail order bride for breeding purposes; and it seems that Ramon Revilla, a senator in the Phillippines, was not amused. He threatened to open a big can of whup-ass on Alec.
For myself, I wasn't terribly offended by Alec's remarks about mail order brides because I'm not Filipino. But I was wondering how it is that Alec didn't get some negative feedback from the Gaia community for wanting more children, they being bad for the environment and all. And that got me to wondering how it is that Baldwin is still here in the United States. As I recall Alec was one of the lefty idiots who threatened to leave the country in the event George W. Bush was re-elected back in 2004. Why is Alec Baldwin still here in the U.S. spouting his racial hatred? Shouldn't he be, like overseas somewhere, like maybe in The Phillippines?
And another thing. How is it that President Barack Obama's continuance of George W. Bush's evil war in Iraq has not caused lefties like Alec Baldwin to go ballistic? Back before the recent election I distinctly recall being reminded that the war in Iraq was evil and that it was moreover causing terrible problems because it was costing $8 Billion per month.
Well, here we are, well into President Barack Obama's new Hope and Change regime, and Barry has found time to spend like many trillions of dollars on Hopey Changey stuff; but somehow he hasn't found time to end the war in Iraq, which was just funded by Obama's Democratic Party controlled congress for another eight months at the rate of, uh, $8 Billion per month. Surely the left still cares about that $8 Billion per month.
And surely President Obama wasn't lying back during the campaign when he constantly promised to end the war in Iraq and do a whole bunch of other Hopey Changey stuff like close the evil and illegal prison down in Guantanamo Bay where President Bush put all those misunderstood sons of liberty who our military captured in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Thinking about President Obama has me remembering some old wisdom of Aunt Mary R's. During virtually any discussion of politicians she would remind you that "they're all whoremasters." She couldn't get away with saying that today of course because calling Barack Obama a whoremaster, or criticizing him in any way, would quickly be denounced as racism by the baying leftist pack, he being half Kenyan and all.
If President Obama was half Filipino, apparently, anybody could go on national TV like Alec Baldwin and joke about buying one of his daughters with a credit card on EBay and having her shipped to his home for breeding, and none of the politically correct crowd of race hustlers would turn a hair.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D988KQ001&show_article=1
Update: In other news, our pal Alec Baldwin has suddenly discovered that he hates Detroit cars and wants to see U.S. auto workers out of work after shilling for Chevy Tahoes for years. And he goes on and on about global warming despite the fact that he wants to wants to buy and import a Filipino to make another carbon spewing offspring. Do the United Auto Workers Union and the National Organization for Women know about this guy?
http://planetgore.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MmU4YzVlYWExNzMxOTU2NDlhMDA2MjgyM2FjMTg5ZGM=
Hat Tip to Greg Pollowitz, of National Review's blog Planet Gore, who evidently has a strong enough stomach to keep a closer eye on Alec Baldwin than I do.
For instance: I've always remembered Pop as saying that you shouldn't plant your garden until May 20th because of the danger of frost. Sam, on the other hand, has always claimed that Pop's edict was that you can plant anytime after Mother's Day. We've gone around about this for years; and for years Sam has maintained that I've been planting too late.
Like the slow drip. . . drip. . . drip of Chinese Water Torture, uh, Chinese Intensive Interrogation, Sam's constant negative feedback and Al Gore's incessant harping about global warming have weakened my allegiance to my own remembrance. So here I am on May 18th with all my carefully nurtured tomato and swiss chard and zucchini and cucumber plants already set out in the garden; and Linda mentioned this morning that they're predicting possible frost tonight.
Now, in a proper world, a mob of us peasants would rise up and go on a rampage with our shovels and rakes and hoes. We would put a dunce cap on Sam and equip him with a set of flimsy wings with which to stir the air over the tender tomato plants. And we would then storm off to capture Al Gore, the false Shaman, so as to render him down for fat to fuel smudge pots. The renderings from Al would fuel a lot of smudge pots and thus save a lot of crops.
But. . but. . . unfortunately we can't do those things, just yet. . . because the folly of the whole global warming hysteria has not yet become clear to enough of the population.
So instead we are reduced to reliance on our own singular efforts. In my own case I'm okay; because it happens that yesterday Linda replaced the living room drapes. The lining of the old drapes is a very thin material which will make perfect plant caps. You can bet that I'll be cursing later today as I go about tenting all the plants.
Meanwhile: in other news, Alec Baldwin has the Filipino segment of the great global multicultural community a tad upset. Alec was joking the other day about importing a Filipino mail order bride for breeding purposes; and it seems that Ramon Revilla, a senator in the Phillippines, was not amused. He threatened to open a big can of whup-ass on Alec.
For myself, I wasn't terribly offended by Alec's remarks about mail order brides because I'm not Filipino. But I was wondering how it is that Alec didn't get some negative feedback from the Gaia community for wanting more children, they being bad for the environment and all. And that got me to wondering how it is that Baldwin is still here in the United States. As I recall Alec was one of the lefty idiots who threatened to leave the country in the event George W. Bush was re-elected back in 2004. Why is Alec Baldwin still here in the U.S. spouting his racial hatred? Shouldn't he be, like overseas somewhere, like maybe in The Phillippines?
And another thing. How is it that President Barack Obama's continuance of George W. Bush's evil war in Iraq has not caused lefties like Alec Baldwin to go ballistic? Back before the recent election I distinctly recall being reminded that the war in Iraq was evil and that it was moreover causing terrible problems because it was costing $8 Billion per month.
Well, here we are, well into President Barack Obama's new Hope and Change regime, and Barry has found time to spend like many trillions of dollars on Hopey Changey stuff; but somehow he hasn't found time to end the war in Iraq, which was just funded by Obama's Democratic Party controlled congress for another eight months at the rate of, uh, $8 Billion per month. Surely the left still cares about that $8 Billion per month.
And surely President Obama wasn't lying back during the campaign when he constantly promised to end the war in Iraq and do a whole bunch of other Hopey Changey stuff like close the evil and illegal prison down in Guantanamo Bay where President Bush put all those misunderstood sons of liberty who our military captured in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Thinking about President Obama has me remembering some old wisdom of Aunt Mary R's. During virtually any discussion of politicians she would remind you that "they're all whoremasters." She couldn't get away with saying that today of course because calling Barack Obama a whoremaster, or criticizing him in any way, would quickly be denounced as racism by the baying leftist pack, he being half Kenyan and all.
If President Obama was half Filipino, apparently, anybody could go on national TV like Alec Baldwin and joke about buying one of his daughters with a credit card on EBay and having her shipped to his home for breeding, and none of the politically correct crowd of race hustlers would turn a hair.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D988KQ001&show_article=1
Update: In other news, our pal Alec Baldwin has suddenly discovered that he hates Detroit cars and wants to see U.S. auto workers out of work after shilling for Chevy Tahoes for years. And he goes on and on about global warming despite the fact that he wants to wants to buy and import a Filipino to make another carbon spewing offspring. Do the United Auto Workers Union and the National Organization for Women know about this guy?
http://planetgore.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MmU4YzVlYWExNzMxOTU2NDlhMDA2MjgyM2FjMTg5ZGM=
Hat Tip to Greg Pollowitz, of National Review's blog Planet Gore, who evidently has a strong enough stomach to keep a closer eye on Alec Baldwin than I do.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Mangia, mangia, tuta cosa
Forget about buying cookbooks. Clara Cunnicciari will teach you to cook for free. I'm going to serve Linda her poor man's meal one of these nights, right after I remember to make lobscouse.
The best part about Clara is that she's so absent minded. In her pepper and eggs video she said she never uses a cutting board; in this video she pulls out a cutting board. Also, in this video she tells the same story twice within a couple of minutes. Plus, she makes you cringe from the way she's handling a knife; it's surprising she still has all her fingers at 91 years old.
She'd better hurry and make all the videos she wants to make before the nanny state people take away her knives and disconnect her stove.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OPQqH3YlHA&feature=channel
The best part about Clara is that she's so absent minded. In her pepper and eggs video she said she never uses a cutting board; in this video she pulls out a cutting board. Also, in this video she tells the same story twice within a couple of minutes. Plus, she makes you cringe from the way she's handling a knife; it's surprising she still has all her fingers at 91 years old.
She'd better hurry and make all the videos she wants to make before the nanny state people take away her knives and disconnect her stove.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OPQqH3YlHA&feature=channel
Wow! Even the Spender in Chief is starting to get it
"We can’t keep on just borrowing. . . We have to pay interest on that debt, and that means we are mortgaging our children’s future with more and more debt.”
What a shocking statement! And what's even more shocking is that it wasn't made by some dreary economist or some boring anal-retentive accountant. It was made by none other than President Barack Obama, the Spender in Chief, the Guns and Butter Guy, the Damn the Torpedoes, Full Spend Ahead Guy. And he made that statement a few days after he signed the largest deficit spending budget in all of recorded time.
Duh!
And double duh!
Last year the man promised not to increase taxes on anyone earning less than $250,000. And he promised expensive goodies to every special interest group this side of Pluto. And 53% of you all elected him on those promises. And here we are, less than four months into his time in office, and now he tells us that chickens have an unfortunate tendency to come home to roost, to borrow a colorful phrase.
Here's a news bulletin for you. President Obama can tax every penny that the rich earn and it won't pay for more than a small down payment on the trillions and trillions of new spending bills that Nancy Pelosi and her pals in congress passed and that he quickly signed into law, breaking another one of his promises, which was that his new Hope and Change administration would post all new laws on the internet so everybody could see what he was doing.
The government can only pay for its spending in three ways. It can tax, it can borrow, or it can print money. It's already taxing at near the limit of what it can without dipping into the pockets of the middle class and the working class for a lot bigger chunk of their earnings. It's already borrowing at about the limit of what it can without causing those pesky foreigners to demand higher interest payments on the already existing huge government bond debt. And it's already printing at the rate of about a hundred billion per month.
For now the Obama economy appears to be working; but it's working like an old car whose radiator is overheating while it's driving on the level. The minute the world economy begins to recover from the recession interest rates are going to shoot up fast and high. That will choke off the recovery. Google stagflation if you have time to learn a little about economics and rational expectations and negative feedback.
Meanwhile, you can read all about President Obama's sudden discovery of basic economics in the Bloomberg article I've linked to below.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aJsSb4qtILhg&refer=worldwide
What a shocking statement! And what's even more shocking is that it wasn't made by some dreary economist or some boring anal-retentive accountant. It was made by none other than President Barack Obama, the Spender in Chief, the Guns and Butter Guy, the Damn the Torpedoes, Full Spend Ahead Guy. And he made that statement a few days after he signed the largest deficit spending budget in all of recorded time.
Duh!
And double duh!
Last year the man promised not to increase taxes on anyone earning less than $250,000. And he promised expensive goodies to every special interest group this side of Pluto. And 53% of you all elected him on those promises. And here we are, less than four months into his time in office, and now he tells us that chickens have an unfortunate tendency to come home to roost, to borrow a colorful phrase.
Here's a news bulletin for you. President Obama can tax every penny that the rich earn and it won't pay for more than a small down payment on the trillions and trillions of new spending bills that Nancy Pelosi and her pals in congress passed and that he quickly signed into law, breaking another one of his promises, which was that his new Hope and Change administration would post all new laws on the internet so everybody could see what he was doing.
The government can only pay for its spending in three ways. It can tax, it can borrow, or it can print money. It's already taxing at near the limit of what it can without dipping into the pockets of the middle class and the working class for a lot bigger chunk of their earnings. It's already borrowing at about the limit of what it can without causing those pesky foreigners to demand higher interest payments on the already existing huge government bond debt. And it's already printing at the rate of about a hundred billion per month.
For now the Obama economy appears to be working; but it's working like an old car whose radiator is overheating while it's driving on the level. The minute the world economy begins to recover from the recession interest rates are going to shoot up fast and high. That will choke off the recovery. Google stagflation if you have time to learn a little about economics and rational expectations and negative feedback.
Meanwhile, you can read all about President Obama's sudden discovery of basic economics in the Bloomberg article I've linked to below.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aJsSb4qtILhg&refer=worldwide
Thursday, May 14, 2009
It's a great time to be alive; but a pall is settling over the world
Mark Steyn recetnly gave a great speech at Hillsdale College. Here are a few paragraphs:
""Give people plenty and security, and they will fall into spiritual torpor," wrote Charles Murray in In Our Hands. "When life becomes an extended picnic, with nothing of importance to do, ideas of greatness become an irritant. Such is the nature of the Europe syndrome."
The key word here is "give." When the state "gives" you plenty—when it takes care of your health, takes cares of your kids, takes care of your elderly parents, takes care of every primary responsibility of adulthood—it's not surprising that the citizenry cease to function as adults: Life becomes a kind of extended adolescence—literally so for those Germans who've mastered the knack of staying in education till they're 34 and taking early retirement at 42. Hilaire Belloc, incidentally, foresaw this very clearly in his book The Servile State in 1912. He understood that the long-term cost of a welfare society is the infantilization of the population.
Genteel decline can be very agreeable—initially: You still have terrific restaurants, beautiful buildings, a great opera house. And once the pressure's off it's nice to linger at the sidewalk table, have a second café au lait and a pain au chocolat, and watch the world go by. At the Munich Security Conference in February, President Sarkozy demanded of his fellow Continentals, "Does Europe want peace, or do we want to be left in peace?" To pose the question is to answer it. Alas, it only works for a generation or two. And it's hard to come up with a wake-up call for a society as dedicated as latterday Europe to the belief that life is about sleeping in."
The entire speech is here: http://www.hillsdale.edu/news/imprimis.asp
""Give people plenty and security, and they will fall into spiritual torpor," wrote Charles Murray in In Our Hands. "When life becomes an extended picnic, with nothing of importance to do, ideas of greatness become an irritant. Such is the nature of the Europe syndrome."
The key word here is "give." When the state "gives" you plenty—when it takes care of your health, takes cares of your kids, takes care of your elderly parents, takes care of every primary responsibility of adulthood—it's not surprising that the citizenry cease to function as adults: Life becomes a kind of extended adolescence—literally so for those Germans who've mastered the knack of staying in education till they're 34 and taking early retirement at 42. Hilaire Belloc, incidentally, foresaw this very clearly in his book The Servile State in 1912. He understood that the long-term cost of a welfare society is the infantilization of the population.
Genteel decline can be very agreeable—initially: You still have terrific restaurants, beautiful buildings, a great opera house. And once the pressure's off it's nice to linger at the sidewalk table, have a second café au lait and a pain au chocolat, and watch the world go by. At the Munich Security Conference in February, President Sarkozy demanded of his fellow Continentals, "Does Europe want peace, or do we want to be left in peace?" To pose the question is to answer it. Alas, it only works for a generation or two. And it's hard to come up with a wake-up call for a society as dedicated as latterday Europe to the belief that life is about sleeping in."
The entire speech is here: http://www.hillsdale.edu/news/imprimis.asp
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
A trillion here a trillion there
First a warning. The five minute video at the post below is about a very boring subject and your share of the loot they're talking about is only $30,000, so it may not be worth your time.
I'm not the most careful person in the world about balancing our checkbook; and I'm even less careful about doing anything that can be called budgeting; but it's just a little shocking to find out the the Federal Reserve doesn't regularly balance its multi-trillion dollar checkbook. And it's even more shocking that the Federal Reserve doesn't keep track on who it sends the trillions to and how much it gets paid back.
http://zerohedge.blogspot.com/2009/05/federal-reserve-can-not-account-for-9.html
And, in lighter news: The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article about Italian bicycle racing, which, unsurprisingly, is far more manly and authentic than the sissified French variety.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124209602462609577.html#mod%3Darticle-outset-box%26articleTabs%3Dcomments
I'm not the most careful person in the world about balancing our checkbook; and I'm even less careful about doing anything that can be called budgeting; but it's just a little shocking to find out the the Federal Reserve doesn't regularly balance its multi-trillion dollar checkbook. And it's even more shocking that the Federal Reserve doesn't keep track on who it sends the trillions to and how much it gets paid back.
http://zerohedge.blogspot.com/2009/05/federal-reserve-can-not-account-for-9.html
And, in lighter news: The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article about Italian bicycle racing, which, unsurprisingly, is far more manly and authentic than the sissified French variety.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124209602462609577.html#mod%3Darticle-outset-box%26articleTabs%3Dcomments
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Fry me kangaroo brown, Sport
The title of this science article was too good to change. Gino's in Norristown may have been way ahead of the curve on reducing greenhouse gases. They were rumored to be serving kangaroo meat hamburgers way back in the 1960's.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080811074908.htm
And, in related news: it turns out that cows are 25 percent less gassy if you're careful what you feed them. I could have told them that.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090507145752.htm
And, proving that some scientists aren't getting enough brain food in their diets, these fellows just discovered that you gain weight if you eat more.
Their stunning conclusion - "To return to the average weights of the 1970s, we would need to reverse the increased food intake of about 350 calories a day for children (about one can of fizzy drink and a small portion of French fries) and 500 calories a day for adults (about one large hamburger)," Swinburn said. "Alternatively, we could achieve similar results by increasing physical activity by about 150 minutes a day of extra walking for children and 110 minutes for adults, but realistically, although a combination of both is needed, the focus would have to be on reducing calorie intake."
I would sure love to have a couple of pieces of the pizza that the mildly chubby kid in the picture is scarfing down. I bet he would love it even better if it had pepperoni on it.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090508045321.htm
Finally, in completely unrelated news: Antiques Roadshow junkies can find a virtually unlimited number of appraisals to waste time watching at pbs.org. And those who are truly desperate can find unlimited timewasters at hulu.com
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080811074908.htm
And, in related news: it turns out that cows are 25 percent less gassy if you're careful what you feed them. I could have told them that.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090507145752.htm
And, proving that some scientists aren't getting enough brain food in their diets, these fellows just discovered that you gain weight if you eat more.
Their stunning conclusion - "To return to the average weights of the 1970s, we would need to reverse the increased food intake of about 350 calories a day for children (about one can of fizzy drink and a small portion of French fries) and 500 calories a day for adults (about one large hamburger)," Swinburn said. "Alternatively, we could achieve similar results by increasing physical activity by about 150 minutes a day of extra walking for children and 110 minutes for adults, but realistically, although a combination of both is needed, the focus would have to be on reducing calorie intake."
I would sure love to have a couple of pieces of the pizza that the mildly chubby kid in the picture is scarfing down. I bet he would love it even better if it had pepperoni on it.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090508045321.htm
Finally, in completely unrelated news: Antiques Roadshow junkies can find a virtually unlimited number of appraisals to waste time watching at pbs.org. And those who are truly desperate can find unlimited timewasters at hulu.com
Thursday, May 7, 2009
At least the recent monsoon didn't drive any of these into the house
Little ants are busy making a nest in our mailbox and box turtles are fleeing in panic to higher ground. Both the insects and the reptiles are reacting to the fact we've had over six inches of rain here in the past week or so. Yesterday they could have filmed a Bollywood celebrate the coming of the monsoon dance number on our lawn. This morning they could have filmed a new Godzilla versus Mothra movie down at the creek, co-starring the insane goose that spent an hour or so maniacally splashing under the bridge.
I haven't seen any of these (http://news.aol.com/article/giant-spiders-invade-town/466956?icid=mainmaindl1link4http%3A%2F%2Fnews.aol.com%2Farticle%2Fgiant-spiders-invade-town%2F466956) yet; but I'm keeping a wary eye out.
In other nature news, the bad linear growing bamboo is making an unbelievably vigorous break for freedom this spring. Shoots are coming up all over the place in an area about fifty feet in diameter around the main clump. It's an impressive but, I fear (hope?), futile effort. As soon as the ground dries up, if it ever dries up, I'll introduce those new shoots to my friend John Deere. Hopefully the box turtles will all be wise enough lay low. I really don't want to know if Mr. Deere can beat his existing fifty or so yard record for flinging half of a turtle.
In completely unrelated news, my barber at the Quick Cuts this morning was, I think, Charlie Jiggs great grandson. My unsureness comes from the fact that he was a little confused as to whether his grandfather was a part time barber and he had never heard talk of the Redpeppers or of a cousin Gussie P. So he may be descended from another Charlie P in Norristown. He's going to send me his email address so I can send him a picture of the Redpeppers to show his uncle Steve. There was a Stevie Jiggs in Pop's generation as I recall, brother to Frankie, Louie and Charlie; but I don't think we ever met him.
In still other news, I bought a couple of red sweet pepper plants at the Redners. I fear my garden is going to be as overcrowded as always again this year, even though I've almost doubled its size. I have 16 tomatoes, six zucchinis, four cucumbers and a whole bunch of swiss chard to squeeze in there. And that assumes I give Sam, Jase and Marianne some of the truly excessive number of cherry tomato swiss chard plants that I started from seed as an insurance policy against cutworms, rabbits, groundhogs, rampaging birds, etc. There's no worry about the deer since I'll be fortifying the new larger garden as well as last year's circle.
Update: I just introduced the cute little ants to Mr. Raid. Au revoir little ants.
And, I just opened an email from Don A down in Florida that included this link to the worlds neatest train set. If Naz has access to the internet he will go nuts over this train layout. Well worth the five minutes or so. This train set is as elaborate as the Barbarossa plan.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN_oDdGmKyA&feature=player_embedded
I haven't seen any of these (http://news.aol.com/article/giant-spiders-invade-town/466956?icid=mainmaindl1link4http%3A%2F%2Fnews.aol.com%2Farticle%2Fgiant-spiders-invade-town%2F466956) yet; but I'm keeping a wary eye out.
In other nature news, the bad linear growing bamboo is making an unbelievably vigorous break for freedom this spring. Shoots are coming up all over the place in an area about fifty feet in diameter around the main clump. It's an impressive but, I fear (hope?), futile effort. As soon as the ground dries up, if it ever dries up, I'll introduce those new shoots to my friend John Deere. Hopefully the box turtles will all be wise enough lay low. I really don't want to know if Mr. Deere can beat his existing fifty or so yard record for flinging half of a turtle.
In completely unrelated news, my barber at the Quick Cuts this morning was, I think, Charlie Jiggs great grandson. My unsureness comes from the fact that he was a little confused as to whether his grandfather was a part time barber and he had never heard talk of the Redpeppers or of a cousin Gussie P. So he may be descended from another Charlie P in Norristown. He's going to send me his email address so I can send him a picture of the Redpeppers to show his uncle Steve. There was a Stevie Jiggs in Pop's generation as I recall, brother to Frankie, Louie and Charlie; but I don't think we ever met him.
In still other news, I bought a couple of red sweet pepper plants at the Redners. I fear my garden is going to be as overcrowded as always again this year, even though I've almost doubled its size. I have 16 tomatoes, six zucchinis, four cucumbers and a whole bunch of swiss chard to squeeze in there. And that assumes I give Sam, Jase and Marianne some of the truly excessive number of cherry tomato swiss chard plants that I started from seed as an insurance policy against cutworms, rabbits, groundhogs, rampaging birds, etc. There's no worry about the deer since I'll be fortifying the new larger garden as well as last year's circle.
Update: I just introduced the cute little ants to Mr. Raid. Au revoir little ants.
And, I just opened an email from Don A down in Florida that included this link to the worlds neatest train set. If Naz has access to the internet he will go nuts over this train layout. Well worth the five minutes or so. This train set is as elaborate as the Barbarossa plan.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN_oDdGmKyA&feature=player_embedded
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Why indeed?
President Obama has gone out of his way to kill the Washington D.C. education vouchers program despite the fact that he is sending his own daughters to a private school and despite the fact that he has fought to shower money on virtually everything else in the country.
Veronique de Rugy of National Review linked to an interesting short video in which the mother of one of the children affected, a woman who marched for Obama, asks "Why?".
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NzU2YzFjMTBlMTA4NDk2Zjk4N2Q4MDE2YzVmOTNkMDY=
The state of inner city public school education in this country has been far worse than merely shameful for decades. City governments and the the state and federal governments spend more and more while the inner city public schools achieve less and less. Meanwhile the teachers unions and other special interests fight any program, such as education vouchers, that attempts to do something concrete and measurable about the problem. It's hard to avoid coming to the conclusion that the teachers unions and the politicians who control education are actively working to ensure that inner city people remain uneducated. At very best the teachers unions and city politicians don't give a damn.
Veronique de Rugy of National Review linked to an interesting short video in which the mother of one of the children affected, a woman who marched for Obama, asks "Why?".
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NzU2YzFjMTBlMTA4NDk2Zjk4N2Q4MDE2YzVmOTNkMDY=
The state of inner city public school education in this country has been far worse than merely shameful for decades. City governments and the the state and federal governments spend more and more while the inner city public schools achieve less and less. Meanwhile the teachers unions and other special interests fight any program, such as education vouchers, that attempts to do something concrete and measurable about the problem. It's hard to avoid coming to the conclusion that the teachers unions and the politicians who control education are actively working to ensure that inner city people remain uneducated. At very best the teachers unions and city politicians don't give a damn.
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