Are you an Information Omnivore?

Pew Research has a new study out on how people use information and communication technology.



You can take an online survey to see where you fit on the spectrum. (FWIW I'm a "Connector", second from the top tier, "Omnivores".)

Here's a direct link to the PDF version of the full report.

"It's quite interesting, and a little disturbing," she said.

If you read the little thin-paper inserts that come with your prescription meds, you'll often find a discussion of "bioavailability." That's the percentage of the drug that actually gets into your bloodstream and does you good.

Ever wonder what happens to the rest?

Apropos of nothing...

Gas

I had to return a library video ("The Matrix") today. I forgot to drop it off on the way to work. I had to work late, so I thought I'd run out after the regular work day and before my evening teaching and drop it off. I HATE being late returning videos, since the library charges a dollar a day.

But first I had to get gas, since the "Fuel It or Push It" light was on.

$3.19 a gallon.

My car gets about 15 mpg. It now costs me about a dollar to drive five miles.

It was cheaper to pay the fine than drive the round-trip to the library.

I dropped the DVD in the after-hours box on the way home.




An early Father's Day tale?

A moment of silence, please. Leo the goldfish has died.

Leo was a good fish, well-loved by my older daughter. He enjoyed blowing bubbles and swimming briskly. He didn't let Thunder, his larger tankmate, bully him out of his share of fish flakes.

We don't know what killed Leo. He turned up missing yesterday morning, and a search of the tank eventually turned up his remains down among the gravel. Thunder, the larger fish belonging to my youngest son, was still swimming. (Note - Thunder is not a suspect in Leo's demise. Goldfish die, and they decay quickly. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.)

So last night I cleaned the tank, thoroughly. I transferred Thunder to a bowl of freshly-filtered water while I boiled the gravel and scrubbed the tank.

But Thunder wasn't looking so good, himself. He was listless, tending to float tail-up. I don't know much about goldfish, but even I could tell that Something Was Not Right with Thunder.

How did we cope before Google? Thunder very likely had swim bladder disease. The cure: Green peas. Yes, green peas are apparently a miracle food for goldfish. Post after post on fish-fan message boards extoll the life-bestowing, heath-restoring virtues of green peas. Green Peas, the Legume of Life.

Chicken soup for goldfish.

So after I reassembled and refilled the tank, and poured the ailing Thunder out of the bowl back into his home, I searched the freezer for a bag of green peas. No luck. The pantry? Success! But since they were far too large for little Thunder to injest, I peeled them open in the hopes that the listless little fish would ingest some of the green miracle mush inside.

Please bear in mind that Thunder is not a fancy mutant goldfish. He's not a lionhead, koi or waikin. He doesn't have flowing fins three times his body length. His eyes do not pop out like marbles. He's a ten-cent carnival prize. A miniature carp. He lives in a ten-dollar tank and eats cheap fish flakes. A grade-schooler's first pet.

But there I was, peeling canned green peas at two in the morning, trying to save him.


Most folks would call me crazy. But Dads understand.



Oh - this morning Thunder looked much better. Maybe there's something to peas after all.

I wouldn't use 'em , myself

Headline: Freight train with shuttle parts derails.

Reminder to NASA brass considering using those booster segments: Apollo 13's O2 tank was dropped about six inches.

Why I love country music

In case you don't recognize him, the speaker is Jeff "You might be a redneck if..." Foxworthy.

(Disclaimer: I was raised up on both kinds of music: Country, and Western.)

Jesus' Last Parable

"My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?"

It is no accident that Jesus quoted Psalm 22 as he was dying. It gives us an important clue about what really happened on the Cross.

You see, the Crucifixion was Jesus' final parable. While Jesus' agony was horrible, how could a few hours of suffering - even scourging and crucifixion - possibly begin to atone for the sins of billions? The simple answer is, it could not, and it did not.

John tells us, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning." Since before time began, Jesus and the Father had shared the closest possible communication. Their father-son bond is the envy of every parent, every child. When Jesus prayed, he always referred to God as his Father. And he prayed out loud mostly for the benefit of his disciples, because he knew that God the Father already knew his heart and mind.

When Jesus was in anguish in the Garden after the Last Supper, he cried out, "Daddy, is there any other way?"

But there *was* no other way. If there had been, would God have sent his beloved Son to the cross?

But the physical agony of the cross was only a shadow of reality. You see, as Jesus hung there in excruciating pain - beaten, bloody, mocked, reviled, humiliated, and rejected by men, "he who knew no sin *became* sin."

His chest heaving in its final spasms, Jesus looked up to His Father.

And God, the Holy One, eternally, perfectly Just and Righteous, looked down.

He did *not* see his perfect, kind, gentle, loving Son, the one in whom He was well pleased. He did *not* see the obedient child who had scampered about Joseph's workshop. He did *not* see the eager student questioning the teachers in the Temple. He did *not* see the gentle healer who gave sight to the blind, made lepers clean, and made the lame walk.

God looked down at Jesus on the Cross and saw only sin.

He saw every sin I have ever committed. Every sin you have ever committed. Every sin ever committed by every person who has ever - or who will ever - put their faith in Christ. He saw hate and anger and murder and lies and deceit and slander and sloth and lust and gluttony and envy and adultery and covetousness and idolatry.

God looked down at Sin, and turned away in disgust.

And Jesus, for the first time in all eternity, was utterly Alone. As that terrible emptiness, the full weight of God's wrath fell on him, is it any wonder that he cried out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

And then he said, "It is finished," because it *was* finished. There was nothing left to do but die.

So that He could rise again...

White House Involved In New Scandal

White House Involved In New Scandal

This is MY President!

h/t Hugh

Peace of Mind

The Heavenly Chorus just gained a new lead. I've got the vinyl Boston LP I bought with my high school Burger King earnings on the turntable right now. I never could cover Boston. The rhythm parts are pretty easy, and the lead parts aren't all that challenging if you have the Tom Sholtz-designed RockMan (or can dial in a close-enough balance of gain, distortion and chorus). I've even got a decent tenor most days. (With a chest cold, a passable baritone.) But Bradley Delp sang on a completely different plane.

Yum!

New ice cream named for Stephen Colbert

I'm not a Colbert fan, since I don't watch much TV. And I'm not going to get into the liberal bias of the media here. But vanilla ice cream with fudge-covered waffle cone pieces and caramel?

Yum.

And hey - they could have included three kinds of nuts, but didn't. So props to that.





Ok, look. I'm over 40. Vanilla IS a flavor.

Yum!

New ice cream named for Stephen Colbert

I'm not a Colbert fan, since I don't watch much TV. And I'm not going to get into the liberal bias of the media here. But vanilla ice cream with fudge-covered waffle cone pieces and caramel?

Yum.

And hey - they could have included three kinds of nuts, but didn't. So props to that.





Ok, look. I'm over 40. Vanilla IS a flavor.

Gar - this is just getting SO tedious...

The MS Sslams our soldiers. again. I don't want to spend much to much time on this, but, dangit, it's going to get MSM play despite the fact that it warrants zero attention. The article claims that the military is lowering its standards, wasting no time to get in an editorial jab.

"The Army and Marine Corps are letting in more recruits with criminal records, including some with felony convictions, reflecting the increased pressure of five years of war and its mounting casualties. "

Emphasis added. I'll let you read the article and see for yourself how slanted it is, but here's a sample:

"The Army granted more than double the number of waivers for felonies and misdemeanors in 2006 than it did in 2003."

More than double? Double what? Compared to what? Can we have some real numbers, please? In statgeekspeak, "What's the n"? In MSMspeak, "What's the data, Kenneth"?

Ah, but.

Read down TEN paragraphs to see who instigated this kerfuffle. It's Aaron Belkin, director of the Michael D. Palm center, which Google reveals as a "think tank" apparently dedicated to opposing the (Clinton-era) "don't-ask-don't-tell" US military policy on in-the-ranks homosexuality.

I guess that it's a Bad Thing to let kids who've had a brush with the law volunteer to risk getting their butts blown off, while at the same time...

Nope. Not gonna say it.

Wouldn't be prudent.

A day late and a dollar short, as usual

Click the link above and listen.

Oh-ay. Did that?
Good. Now, I know, it's Far Too Late (i.e., > 30 seconds) for me to have any effect on that particular conversation, but...

1. I LIKE Barney, hokay? Barney is Nice (as opposed to Niiice). You grok the difference, eh?
2. I learned some really useful stuff from a wannabe ethnomusicologist. So I got no gripes on dem, yaknow? Hokay.
3. I put a World Music course online, an' it seems t'be doing reasonably well.
4. Zither an'bone flute, hit can work, maann...

But.

Still.

Sometimes music needs to be used as a weapon of mass irritation.

Ask me about Pete and the laundry, hokay?

Da Game... eh, well, da Halftime Show, eh?

SERIOUS PROPS to the behind-the-scenes folks who made it possible for The Nameless One to play LIVE in pouring rain!!
His unspoken yet obviously heartfelt tribute to Dylan and Jimi... Well done.

Next year, and every year until 2010, some fifty-odd Sociology 202 students will write about how at SB41 a black guitarist paid musical tribute to an amazing black guitarist at the halftime show where for the first time two black head coaches squared off...

And in another thirty years kids will come across that and think, "Huh? What's the deal with skin color?"

And in 2047 someone will actually get a Ph.D. based on whether Prince did or did not play a Chuck Berry lick in his halftime show.

The cost of lessons

Hrmphf.

I'm in a bit of a conundrum. On the one hand, I thoroughly disagree with folks on the left who want America to lose in Iraq so that we will "learn a lesson."

On the other hand, I agree that the spineless, feckless, craven Senators who put their personal political fortunes above victory need to be taught a lesson.

It seems a bit... inconsistent, non?. But is there a difference?

Yes. It has to do with intentions, consequences and outcomes. If several Senators come up short in their fundraising and therefore lose their races in '08, they will probably lose to pro-victory GOP primary opponents. Depending on whether the electorate at large wants victory, the general election will go to either a pro-victory or pro-retreat candidate. If the electorate wants retreat, then the incumbents will defeat their pro-victory primary opponents anyway.

If, however, these Senators notice The Pledge and grow some backbone, then victory is more likely (though not assured, given the pro-defeat media).

The Pledge signers don't want these Senators to lose per se, we want them to support victory. That's the lesson we want them to learn, and soon.

The "lesson" that the Left wants America to learn requires that we first be defeated and humiliated. In the process, the Middle East will become exponentially more unstable, with a failed-state Iraq becoming a training ground for Iranian-backed terrorists, likely war between Turkey and a new Kurdistan (putting NATO in quite a conundrum), and the Saudis and Israelis perhaps being forced to engage Iran militarily.

Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions will die.

Persian Gulf oil production and transport will plummet, sending prices skyrocketing and ushering in a worldwide economic crisis.

But the Left doesn't care about any of those things so long as the US "learns a lesson."

Yes, that's the point.

While buying a stereo system component, James Lileks observed: "A manager had to be called to cancel the transaction, and as the fellow deftly entered in a series of codes I wondered how many skills exist today that cannot be transferred from one job to another. Once upon a time, you made barrels for one guy, you could make barrels for another. But the moment you leave BestBuy, your knowledge of their point-of-sale codes is useless. You can transfer the ability to learn, but not the thing you actually learned. In the end it’s your ability to master the system that’s the skill, I suppose. " (Emphasis added.)

Yes, exactly.

Somebody explain this to me, please

The senate unanimously confirms General Petraus as the new U.S. commander in Iraq. During his confirmation hearings he told them in no uncertain terms that a lack of resolve will only strengthen and encourage the enemy.

And at the same time Senators are scrambling to get on record as opposing the strategy that General Petraus will implement.

The collective cognitive dissonance in the Capitol is astounding.

The Pledge

I say this as one who grew up when Nixon was President. My father supported him. I was skeptical. In college, I opposed Reagan. Later, I volunteered for Paul Wellstone.

The pendulum swings. Read the archives, and you'll know that I these days support a President who is not at all like Carter or Clinton. Read between the lines, and you might guess (correctly) that I support the "surge." In the last election, I held my nose and supported the GOP.

The pendulum swings.

The Pledge.

It's simple.

If you're a Republican Senator running for re-election in '08, and you support the craven, defeatist, dare-I-say-treasonous "Sense of the Senate" resolutions such as the ones proposed by Sens Biden and Warner condemning the President's strategy - and therefore giving aid and comfort to the enemy (hence the "treason" charge) - let this unnoticed post serve to inform you that I will not contribute one dime or one minute of my time to your re-election.

In fact, I just might support your opponent.

Not that you care. I'm just one obscure blogger, right? But take note - there are ten thousand more like me.

for later analysis

Two Hand Tap Guitar Demo - Jon Lukas - Yahoo! Videommm...

Well, THAT was certainly enlightening!

Mystery of world's biggest, yuckiest flower solved

NOT.

"These plants are so bizarre that no matter where you put them with any group of plants, you're going to have a lot of explaining to do," Davis said.

H'lo, Reuters? Anyone?

Tears in my eyes

Holiday travel, late 2006. Oh, man, that HURTS.

Re-fighting the last war

Conscientious Rejector? - Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone From Yahoo! News You'd think it was 1971 all over again. Except it's not.

To the Moon!

YES!!

NASA says it will set up moon outpost by 2024. A quarter-century behind schedule according to Arthur C. Clarke's timetable, but better late than never! Whoo-hoo! As a child of the space age, I'd been starting to get very down lately, thinking that I wouldn't see a moon base in my lifetime.

VERY nice

Unplugged guitar tips - Bammerwiki.

Excellent step-by-step explanation of a complex psychomotor task.

Looming civil war in Mexico?

The Governator was amused by the fisticuffs in the Mexican Congress.

But keep reading. 3,000 dead in a drug war? Oaxaca in ruins because of riots? teh losing presidential candiate leading protest marches, refusing to concede, declaring himself the legitmate leader of the country? Things could get real ugly.

Illegal immigrants are one thing. Waves of refugees are something entirely different.

How about that border fence, eh?

Oh, Sweet Jesus....

In Congo, children are being forced onto the streets.It's beyond heartbreaking.

Dear President Ahmadinejad

I just want you to know that after carefully adjusting my printer to accept special paper worthy of your missive, I took it with me into my reading room to give it the attention it deserved.

Just Too Cool

Whatever your music mood, Musicovery has it covered. Wow.

Works and Days: So Close, so Far

The estimable Victor Davis Hanson once again explains the stakes. Excellent commentary in the comments section, particularly William J. Simmons and the Anonymous comment immediately following.

Find the Cost of Freedom

One of the most powerful and haunting songs by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young is "Find the Cost of Freedom." It's sung acapella; the first time in unision, the second time in soaring CSNY harmony. The lyric is simple:

Find the cost of freedom
buried in the ground
Mother Earth will swallow you
Lay your body down.

We've seen the stickers and t-shirts that read, "Freedom Isn't Free." But what does it cost? Dr. Phil O'Connor, writing at TCS Daily, tells us that from the first shot at Lexington on 1775 up to that sunny September morning in 2001, the average daily military fatality rate was 14.6. This figure of course includes the horrific tolls from the Revolution, the Civil War, both World Wars, Korea, and Vietnam.

From the Revolution through the War of 1812, the Civil War and the Spanish-American war, the rate was about 11 per day.

The rate during the Cold War - from the end of WW2 to the collapse of the USSR - was 6.6 military deaths per day. This includes Korea and Vietnam.


Since 9/11, the average military daily fatality rate has been 1.7.

Freedom isn't free. It never has been, and it never will be. But it's been getting steadily less expensive. Are we still willing to pay the price?

ht: Instapundit

Thompson / Huckabee - You heard it here first

Tommy Thompson declares for 2008 race

Midwestern grocer's son, successful governor, welfare reformer who fought AIDS in Africa, plus a young, popular Southern fellow...

Could work.

From the 'This can't be good' dept...

Siberian bears can't get to sleep - it's too warm.

Okay. Let's just accept that global warming is real. Whether or not it's caused by humans is at this point largely irrelevant.

The question now is, what can we do? Not to stop it, but to cope with it?

Happy Veteran's Day, and Thank You!

I'm not a vet. In 1985 (when I tried to join) the USAF had no use for a four-eyed flat-footed asthmatic. Probably still doesn't.

But my dad and all my uncles (along with most men of their generation) are vets. So are some younger folks of my passing acquaintance.

Their sacrifices - and the sacrifices that continue to be made by the young men and women today who voluntarily don the uniform of this nation - are not taken in vain.

If you're a vet, thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. My children sleep peacefully tonight because you stood - and still stand - watch against their enemies. May God bless the men and women of the United States Armed Forces.

Here we go again

Another round of tit-for-tat in Gaza. Palestinians fire rockets indiscriminately at Israeli civilians. These are the same guys who blow up falafel stands and restaurants with nail bombs.

So the Israelis lob some shells at the rocket launch site. Unfortunately, the shells go way off-target and kill a dozen or so Palestinian civilians. Predictably, thousands march in the streets and demand revenge.

Why is it called "asymetric warfare" and "resistance" when Palistinians deliberately kill Israeli civilians, but an "outrage" and a "massacre" when Israelis accidently kill Palestinian civilians?

Do the Palestinians not understand that if they want peace, all they have to do is stop killing Jews? Of course they do.

It's just that they don't want peace nearly as much as they want dead Jews.

READ THIS

Lileks. RTWT. Just. Do. It.

And eighteen months hence come back, read it again, and ask if he was right.

Quite the day

As the President just said, individually the races were close, but overall it was a thumpin'. And now Rumsfeld is out, to be replaced by the head of Texas A&M University, my alma mater. Hoo boy, the Aggie jokes are gonna start flying.

There were two things the President said that really impressed me. One was when a reporter quoted some of Nancy Pelosi's very nasty statements and questioned whether he could work with someone who had such distain for him. He replied, "I know when the campaign ends and the governing begins."

The other was in response to a couple of questions about a provate meeting last week with a couple of reporters, in which the President gave no hint that he was considering replacing Rumsfeld. He said, "I don't want our troops to think that I'm making decisions of military policy and leadership based on a political campaign."

Very Presidential.

He's Baa-aack!

Bill Whittle, my favorite atheist, has another long-form essay up at Eject! Eject! Eject!

As Glenn says: RTWT.

snnnxxkkk..?

Hey-yo. It's been a week or so. I've just been busy. Work, family, doing a bit of recording, a bit of GOTV volunteering, that sort of thing. (Plus, the new Google toolbar makes it less convenient to blog news stories. Silly Google.)

The Sunday paper said that our embattled two-term senator has moved to within six points of his far-left challenger. Good news; he'd been writen off. Four points is the usual margin of error, and GOTV has often made up the difference. I suspect we'll lose the governor's race, but in the short-to-medium term it's the House and Senate that matter.

I logged on, walked the streets, knocked on doors, talked to my neighbors. Not as many as I'd like, but I plan to make calls tomorrow to the folks I missed today.

Sweet jumpin' jehosephat, this is funny!

Radio guy Hugh Hewitt had a guest yesterday, Andrew Sullivan, who turned what could / should have been a civil discussion into... something else entirely.

James Lileks is a regular on Hugh's show. The show's producer called Lileks to ask what he'd thought of the exchange. James suggested that he go on the air with Hugh and they talk about the weather, with James channeling Sullivan.

Here's the audio

About eight minutes. Classic.

The kinder, gentler Dark Side

Oh, I don't know, it just doesn't work for me.

Warriors

I sleep easy knowing that men such as these are awake and on watch.

Overstress

How did I get here? Hmm. From Malkin's site to MKH's blog at Townhall to Blackfive to instapinch - and a bunch of clicking around there, to this particular overstress story.

The quote that made me LOL: "I want to make the bad thing stop."

If you're not familiar with Rod Machado's "b-b-b-bad thing!" story, let me know in the comments and I'll post it. It'll take two or three people asking for it.

1984 all over again

Yet more evidence that there are two factions battling for control of the US government.

One group stifles free speech by manipulating the media and Internet and by outright threats of violence against those who publish opinions with which they disagree, srpeads lies and disinformation, and incites racist mobs to violent action.

The other group is the Republican Party.

Ich bin ein Dhimmi

The German Opera has cancelled the production of Mozart's opera Idomeno because the new staging might be offensive to certain religious groups. The production features a scene in which the severed heads of Jesus, Buddha, and Mohammed are presented by one of the characters.

The director said that the State Criminal Office stated concluded that "if the Deutsche Oper stages this version of Idomeneo in its originally produced form, it will pose an incalculable security risk to the public and employees."

Golly, I wonder which religious group poses an incalculable security risk when they get offended?

Congratulation, arhabi. You win.

Private rocket fails after N.M. liftoff

Failures are to be expected. It IS, after all, rocket science.

VeggieTales on NBC

So the creators of VeggieTales removed overt religious references in versions of the videos for broadcast on NBC. (BigIdea.com - News: VeggieTales & NBC) Here's how I imagine Bob and Larry might react to the news:

Scene: Bob and Larry on the kitchen sink.

Bob: Larry - we're on network TV! Isn't that great?

Larry: Uh, Bob. We don't have any arms.

Bob (deadpan): We've never had arms, Larry.

Larry: Right! But, uh, they've made us take out the tagline. And Qwerty!

Bob (deadpan): What's your point, Larry.

Larry: But they've taken out those special Bible messages about how you're special and God loves you very much, and Qwerty's Bible verses, and ... and ...

Bob: Larry...

Larry: ...and...

Bob: LArry...

Larry: ...and...

Bob: LARRY!!!

Larry (snapping out of it, brightly): Yes, Bob?

Bob: The videos, Larry. The videos. All those things are in the videos.

Larry: The videos?

Bob: Yes, Larry the videos. Already on store shelves.

Larry (hopefully): Qwerty?

Bob (patiently): That's right, Larry.

Larry: God-made-you-special-and-He-loves-you-very-much?

Bob: Yes, Larry.

Larry: Those special Sunday Morning Values we've known and loved for years are still preserved for years to come in portable electronic media and currently available for purchase at retail outlets nationwide?????

Bob: Larry. StuffMart ordered a train-load of DVDs last week.

Larry: I feel much better. What's for lunch?



cue theme music....

The Looming Tower

If you don't have (or can't take) the time to read Lawrence Wright's The Looming Tower, then at least read the transcript of Hugh Hewitt's two hour interview with the author.

Read it especially if you think you know somethng about the history of al Quaeda, bin Laden, and Zawahiri.

More Propaganda

I'm guessing that reports that Richard Armitagethreatened a Pakistani official were cooked up by the AQ psych-war/media-ops team. It's a terrific tactic to drive a wedge between uneasy allies, especially when they have been very successful at hunting down AQ operatives. Just look at the timing - right on top of a peace treaty between the pakistani government and tribal leaders in the border region, a treaty that has been presented in some quarters as a pact with the Taliban.

Brilliant move, really.

I hope enough people see through it.

Musharraf says he can't comment because of his upcoming book deal. I wonder if AQ has someone inside his publisher's offices, in a position to squash rebuttal of this well-timed wedge attack?

Nah, probably not. That would be giving them too much credit.

Where to buy gas

Jeff Cohen wants you to buy your gas at Citgo because it's owned by Yugo Chevy, the communist dictator of Venezuela.

Sounds like a good reason to fill up at BP or Speedway to me.

We can only pray

Abbas: Unity gov't will recognize Israel.

Of course, if Syria and Iran follow suit, you'd best get right with God.

UPDATE: The deal fell through. Unity? What unity? We're dealing with a group of people that still can't figure out ow to get the results that Gahndi and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr got.

Assuming they want those results.

Friend of the devil...

A third-rate two-bit tinhorn commie dictator calls the leader of the Free World "el diablo" while the assembled UN "diplomats" laugh at his pathetic attempt at stand-up comedy.

Watching the video, I was reminded of nothing so much as the classic film clip of Benito Mussolini standing on a balcony adressing a crowd. He's jutting his chin out, nodding his head in self-approval and gesturing towards himself as if to say, "Yeah, baby, give me the love, I'm so wonderful, hmm, hmm."

Chavez looks a fair bit like Mussolini, don't you think?

You do know what happened to Il Duce, right?

Women Can't Do Math...Or Can They?

Pew Research Center reports on a fascinating study on a way we might reduce the gender gap in math performance. It's deceptively simple - remind women how smart they are. Read the whole thing - it's an ingeneous experimental design.

Godspeed, Guvn'r.

Ex-Texas Gov. Ann Richards dies As a stick-out-like-a-sore-thumb-in-Aggieland liberal and as a stick-out-like-a-sore-thumb-in-Minnesnowta conservative, I always had a great deal of respect for Gov. Richards.

Probably because she reminded me so much of my Aunt Kitty.

As AK said, there are people who wouldn't say, "sh!t" if they had a mouthful of it. Anne Richards was not one of those people.

She would have made a fine President.

I always liked Dr. K. ... and Queen

Kissinger warns of possible "war of civilizations"

Kissinger gets it. He always has, as far back as I can remember. If you could penetrate that thick-as-the-old-Black-Forest accent, the words and ideas always made sense.

Maybe too much sense for some.

It reminds me, somehow, suddenly, of an old song by Queen from their landmark "Night at the Opera" album. A very obscure track, not even B-side single material. I've never heard it on the radio, not even on a "deep tracks" show.

Side B, track 1: "The Prophet's Song."


Look up the lyrics. Buy the CD and have a listen.

Too lazy?

Here it is, in twelve-part overdubbed harmony: "Ahh, ahh, people can you hear me? ... Listen to the wise - Listen to the wise - Listen to the wise man!!"

And as if in reply the chorus sings, "La la, lala la la lah lahh... Listen to the mad - Listen to the mad - Listen to the mad man!!!"

All that's missing is the laughing and jeering of the head-in-the-sand crowd.

But, a note of hope. The narrator pauses a moment and then sings, "But still I fear and still I dare not laugh at the madman"



As the Wise One said, let him who has ears, let him hear.

It is to LOL

North Korea, Iran, and Syria want terrorism redefined.

I'll bet Al Capone wanted tax evasion redefined, too.

Safer but wiser

5 years after 9/11, many angry at U.S. Some people think that US actions since 9/11 have made the world less secure.

Hogwash.

We were not safe and secure on September 10, 2001. We just thought we were. We didn't really understand the nature of the threat.

Now we do.

We are in fact safer now, though we feel less easy.



We are safer because we DO understand the threat. (At least, some of us do. The Denial-Dhimmicrats still live in blissful 9/10/01 ignorance.)

We are safer because we have a President who is committed to fighting Islamist thugs on their turf, with Marines and A-10s, rather than cleaning up after them on our turf with cops and fire trucks.

We are safer because young men and women who understand the threat and who love this country are willing to risk and shed their blood in its defense, despite the shameful calls for surrender from those who once wore the same uniform.

We are safer because the enemy is reduced in number and capability. Under the previous administration, the enemy grew in capability. In 1993, he blew up 1500 lbs of explosives the parking garage under the WTC. In 1996, he killed US servicemen and women at the Khobar towers with 5,000 lbs of explosives. In 2001, he commandeered four jetliners and killed 3000 Americans in the span of an hour.

Then we woke up.

Since then, what as the enemy been able to throw at us? Car bombs. IEDs. Backpack bombs. And doctored photos and planted news stories. We are winning the military war. We may yet lose the propaganda war.

It is up to those of us who recognize the threat to continue to point it out.



When they are in fact out to get you, paranoia has a certain amount of survival value.

9/11 and Goose Aerodynamics

Watched the first part of "United 93" last night with my wife. Then I carried my sleeping daughter to her bed (she'd crawled into ours) and prayed - hard - that if she ever faced murderous thugs shouting "Allahu Akbar" that she'd fight back with every fiber of her being, shouting, "Isa Akbar!"

Today is nearly a sacred day for me. Like July 4th, there's a lot of red, white, and blue out, and I'm glad to see it. But it's not a celebration. It's a solemn acknowledgement that freedom is never free, that there are those who wish to strip it from us, and that they will unless we resist with all we have.

But still, life goes on, and the view out my window prompts me to write this...

Ahh, fall. The trees across the parking lot outside my window are beginning to show their autumn colors. There's a nip in the air. And the young geese are practicing their formation flying skills.

You've probably seen that geese fly in V formations. This is so that each goose except the lead can surf on the vortex generated by the goose ahead, reducing the amount of energy needed to stay aloft. They maintain a precise relative position to take maximum aerodynamic advantage.

But did you ever notice that the V is almost always asymmetrical? One side is usually longer than the other. Turns out there's a precise mathematical reason for that, too.













There's more geese on that side.

James Tubthumping

Lileks with a grand post on honest work and optimism. Great stuff.

Time to re-read Revelation and Daniel...

American appears in new al-Qaida tape

Just read it.

Then go think a while.

Mo' planets!

Proposal would add planets to solar system

I *like* Xena. I do hope they keep it.

Woodworking Methods

Notes & Comments, Woodworking Methods Can't use Furl for some reason, so Blogger is the next best thing.

Everything we know is wrong

Science is a funny thing. Sometimes for every question it ansers it asks three more. And sometimes it turns your whole world on its head.

Universe Might be Bigger and Older than Expected:

A project aiming to create an easier way to measure cosmic distances has instead turned up surprising evidence that our large and ancient universe might be even bigger and older than previously thought. If accurate, the finding would be difficult to mesh with current thinking about how the universe evolved, one scientist said.

Gawrsh.

WAY cool user interface

TED Blog: Jeff Han on TEDTalks
I WANT one of those!

LOL!!!!

Governors bristle at plan to federalize Guard:

Emphasis added:

"'Federalization just for the sake of federalization makes no sense,' said Gov. Kathleen Blanco of Louisiana, a Democrat who had rough relations with the Bush administration after the disaster last year. 'You don't need federalization to get federal troops. ... Just making quick decisions can make things happen.'"

Blanco talking about quick decisions?? ROFL!!!

Paging Mr. Serling, Mr. Rod Serling...

Yaakov Kirschen at Dry Bones Blog: notes the following:

So if we're going to discuss the supernatural I propose that we examine the following weirdness:

The Bible is not a book It is a collection of books. One of the books of the Bible is the book of Psalms. When I went to school we were taught that the book of Psalms is a book of poetry. Actually it's a book of prayers or incantations.

When the war broke out, religious Jews began reciting Psalm 83.

A rabbi, being interviewed on an Israeli TV news show called on viewers to read Psalm 83.

The Chief Rabbinate's governing council in Jerusalem announced that at 6:00 p.m. (Israel time) every day, Psalm 83 is to be recited simultaneously by Jewish communities all over the world.

Turns out that Psalm 83 calls out for Divine help to fight off an attempt to wipe Israel off the map.

Here's the text of Psalm 83.

So what's weird?

Archaeologists have just announced the amazing discovery of an ancient book of psalms by a construction worker who was digging in a bog in Ireland two weeks ago. The book, which was buried and lay hidden under centuries of mud, has been dated to the years 800-1000. Trinity College manuscripts expert Bernard Meehan said it was the first discovery of an Irish early medieval document in two centuries...



Oh, and the book was found 'frozen open' to Psalm 83... With all other pages stuck shut.

REVEILLE

REVEILLE

Watch the whole thing.

The wash of the penguins

Clean penguins return to sea after spill.

Can't you just see them? Waddling, flapping, honking happily, wearing that fresh-scrubbed shine...

Blog value - who knew?

Business Opportunities Weblog | How Much Is My Blog Worth: "

My blog is worth $24,839.76.
How much is your blog worth?

Hat tip to Laura, btw. Forgot to mention that!

Veto #1

President Bush uses his first veto to kill a bill allowing expanded federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.

He's not running for re-election, so the charge of "pandering to the base" doesn't work.

Maybe he really is a man of conviction.

MSM strikes again!

How much more blatant can you get?

Robert Novak says today that he learned Valerie Plame's identity from a source he refuses to name and from Joe Wilson's entry in Who's Who.

He called a number of people in Washington to confirm it, amonth them Karl Rove and an official at CIA. Both confirmed the information. (Presumably, if the identity was secret, the CIA contact would have said, "no comment.")

But look at the AP headline: Novak: Rove was a source in outing Plame

Not "Novak: I got Plame's name from Who's Who" or "Novak confirms Rove was not Plame leaker" or even "Novak: Rove, CIA confirmed Plame's identity".

How can you trust people who spin so blatantly and transparently?

The Handyman's Secret Weapon

Whether in the shop or on orbit, there's no substitute for duct tape.

Fruit is the root of all evil

The Anchoress identifies the source of the world's problems.

It's covered with seeds....

Here they go again

Once again, the forces of gender-PC are running amok.

This time, they're trying to remove a noted researcher - a female researcher - from two national advisory panels (National Math Panel and Nat'l Science Board) because of three articles she published twenty years ago that - gasp! - found differences between boys and girls.

Have these people never been to a kid's birthday party?

FWIW, a female cousin of mine is a Ph.D. mathemetician. Last I heard, she was working for the NSA.

WSJ on why it published The Story

According to the editors of the Wall Street Journal, they were never asked not to publish the SWIFT story. Senior government officials briefed them with some unclassified details, since they knew that the NYT was goign to go ahead and publish it anyway. This is key: They say that if they had known that the government had asked the Times to spike the story, they would not have run it.

Too bad the Times doesn't have their sense of civic duty.

NT06 - Philemon

Paul's letter to Philemon was written while he was in prison. It's an interesting little letter, teasing all sorts of questiosn about the kind of person Paul was, and the interpersonal interactions he had with people on his journeys.

Amidst the personal please, verse 6 sticks out as a universal teaching: "I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ."

It's when we give away our faith that we come to fully understand it.

NT06 - Philemon

Paul's letter to Philemon was written while he was in prison. It's an interesting little letter, teasing all sorts of questiosn about the kind of person Paul was, and the interpersonal interactions he had with people on his journeys.

Amidst the personal please, verse 6 sticks out as a universal teaching: "I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ."

It's when we give away our faith that we come to fully understand it.

The high cost of treason

The Left wants the NYT shut down

Michelle Malkin has a roundup of reaction to the NYT's treasonous publication of yet another legal, Congress-briefed, safeguarged, SECRET intel program that (until today) was helping catch terrorists.

I think I've finally figured it out.

The Times is trying to goad the administration into shutting it down.

The American Left has been braying about how Bush is a fascist dictator, but of course they have had nothing with which to back it up. The Bill of Rights is still in effect.

But if they can get a major newspaper to aid and abet the enemy badly enough, often enough, to get the administration to clamp down, then they can dance around and say, "See? WE TOLD you Bushitler was a dictator!"

The neck-slicers and suicide bombers will now be able to better conceal their financial dealings. I'm sure they'll express their gratitude by killing the Times's staff last.

Bush forced her to get an abortion?!?!

Blogger Freeman Hunt absolutely shreds an astonishing WaPo op-ed. Not to be missed!

You can sleep when you are dead

Mrs. Olsen is rolling, absolutely ROLLING, in her grave.

Click on the TV. You'll understand.
ht:HH
linkage: Anne and The Anchoress

Bill Whittle is back

My favorite atheist pilot/philosopher has a new post up at Eject! Eject! Eject!. It's typical Whittle, in desperate need of editing (sorry, Bill, but it's true). But also typically, it is well worth the effort.

RTWT

Striking a blow for sanity

The President of the University of North Dakota warns the NCAA to back off its capricious and arbitrary P.C. stance on team nicknames.

Jesus is a four-letter word

The MPAA gives a PG rating to a Christian-themed film because its evangelistic message might possibly be offensive to some.

Hey, here's a news flash for ya - the Gospel IS offensive. Nobody likes to be told they're going to Hell and need Jesus to be saved.

Nobody likes to be told they have cancer and need surgery, either.

Frankly, I wish they'd given the film an R rating - then maybe more kids would sneak in to see it.

UPDATE: Here's a related post (ht:HH) on "preachy," overtly Christian movies. He's got a point.

The Jihad-ehs

James Lileks riffs on how a liberal might react to the roll-up of the Canadian terror cell.

Welcome to Hell, Mr. Zarqawi

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi killed in air raid

Is it wrong to rejoice at the thought of a man spending eternity in Hell?

No. Not when that man hacked the heads off of innocent victims while chanting "God is great."

Not at all.

Burn, baby, burn.

Invitation to a vivisection

Hugh Hewitt interviews Paul Campos.

Campos is a law professor in Colorado and a sometime columnist for the Rocky Mountain News.

Hewitt is a law professor, A-list blogger, and nationally syndicated radio host.

Campos took a swipe at Hewitt in a recent column.

What was that Mark Twain said about not picking a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel? Hewitt invited Campos on his show. The Marines have a saying: If you find yourself in a fair fight, you have not adequately prepared.

Hewitt was prepared.

Campos got his posterior anatomy handed to him on a silver platter, and didn't even realize it. He was expertly sliced, diced, julienned and pureed. This interview - if you can call a public vivisection an interview - should be required reading in cross-ex classes.

As professor Glenn says, RTWT.

UPDATE: Welcome, Hewitt readers! If you liked this, you might like some of the rest of the stuff here. Please go to the effort of leaving a comment - it gets lonely out here on the long tail.

The Euston Manifesto

The Euston Manifesto is a declaration by folks on the left end of the political spectrum that demands examination and respect. I heartily endorse its main points - rejection of anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism, a willingness to hold up to examination the historic failures of Communism, absolute rejection of terrorism as a valid means to political ends, and a summary rejection of terrorism's apologists.

I differ with a few details having to do with the fact that I'm on the center-right rather than the center-left. So personally, I couldn't sign on.

But those who do have my respect, because we agree on the important things. And on the less-important things, we can agree to disagree and work toward mutually acceptable solutions.

Democrats, are you listening?

Hold your nose and pull the lever

Dangitall, Hugh. I hate to admit it, but you're probably right. As crummy as DeWine is, Sherrod Brown would be worse. You convinced me that majorities matter with "If It's Not Close". I really wished DeWine had had a real opponent in the primaries. He impresses me not in the least. By in comparison, Brown is downright scary.

Better to hold your nose in the voting booth than cut it off.

The Lawn Ranger!

Atlas Shrugs: Iraq: Loving this American Soldier HT: MKH@HH

Power Corrupts; Powerpoint corrupts absolutely

The Gettysburg Powerpoint Presentation

Learning by teaching

One thing I love about teaching is that I always learn something new. Sometimes it's a new piece of music that a student wants to learn, so I have to learn it, too.

Sometimes it's an insight into how I taught myself to play, which enables me to explain something I wasn't able to explain before. That happened this week.

I've been playing for a long time - 30-odd years. I was in band in jr high and high school, so I learned how to read music, and how to count and clap. I've listened to a LOT of different styles of music, with some fairly complex harmonies and rhythm structures. And back in the day, I'd play in public for hours at a time.

So a lot of what I know is so deeply internalized that I have forgotten how I know it.

Case in point, some fingerpicking twiddly bits I do. This week, working with a student, I suddenly realized how to explain it, how to break it down into bite-sized chunks for a beginner.

When I really thought about how I had learned these bits, I realized that I had spent hours playing with very small movements. For example:

-------------------
-------------------
----0--0--0--0---
--0--0--0--0--0--
-------------------
-------------------

with the thumb on the 4th string and the index finger on the 3rd string.

I also spent a lot of time doing this:

-------------------
----0--0--0--0---
-------------------
-------------------
--0--0--0--0--0--
-------------------

with the thumb on the 5th string and the 2nd finger on the 2nd string.

Hours, mind you. Hours spent doing this. Sitting on that legal-pad-yellow corduroy bedspread - the kind that leaves stripes in your cheek when you take a nap on it.

I combined the two motions:

-------------------
---0------0------
-------0-------0-----
-----0------0--------
--0-----0--------0--
-------------------

Looks a lot more complicated, but it's just switching back and forth. You can simplify it, though, by not worryng about the fingers - just play them together:

-------------------
---0---0---0---0---
---0---0---0---0---
-----0-------0-----
--0------0-------0-
-------------------

Get comfortable with that, and then play the fingers one after the other:

------------------------
-----0----0----0----0---
----0----0----0----0----
-------0---------0------
--0---------0---------0-
------------------------

Do the same thing while fingering a C chord:

------------------------
-----1----1----1----1---
----0----0----0----0----
-------2---------2------
--3---------3---------3-
------------------------

Now, remember that thing called a hammer-on? Do that with your middle finger, on the 2nd fret on the 4th string (keep fingering that C chord, though, so you arch the 3rd finger over the 4th string):

--------------------------
-(1)-------------------------
--------------------------
---0h2----0h2----oh2----0h2--
-(3)-------------------------
--------------------------

Now when you put all those simple things together, you get this:

-------------------------
----1------1---1-----1---
----------0---------0----
-----0h2--------0h2------
--3----------3---------3-
-------------------------

That's a very neat country-sounding twiddly bit that sounds a lot more complicated than it really is, once you break it down. (It's also the foundation for "The Boxer" by Simon & Garfunkle.)

Chocolate Covered Broccoli

Museum Technology blogger Richard Urban of Musematic uses the phrase "Chocolate covered broccoli" in a very interesting post on an unrelated subject to describe the typical educational games found in museum displays (and elsewhere, as I can well attest).

I happen to LIKE broccoli (especially with cheese sauce), but the analogy is apt and vivid.

A prayer for commencement

The school where I work jsut had commencement. Predictably, a member of the faculty sent an email to the administration, staff, and faculty complaining about the fact that there was a prayer. So in the spirit of intellectual syncretism, I offer this non-denominational prayer.


Oh, great celestial Father or Mother or otherwise supposedly Eternal and Beneficent Being or Beings, who may or may not exist (and if you don't exist, please disregard this prayer):

On this occasion, a celebration of knowledge and learning, it seems appropriate to many of us (though not all) to acknowledge You ("you" being used as a generic non-gendered second-person-personal pronoun implying neither singular nor plural status) as the source of knowledge and learning.

As it is written in one text that many (though certainly not all) consider sacred, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,"

and in another, "He grants wisdom to whom He pleases, and whoever is granted wisdom, he indeed is given a great good,"

and in another, "One must possess knowledge about action; one must also possess knowledge about prohibited action; and again one must possess knowledge about inaction,"

and in yet another sacred text, "Inna-godda-da-vida, baby."

Although Your existence cannot be scientifically proven, it cannot also be disproven, and so prudence dictates that it might not be such a bad idea after all to to ask Your blessing - should You be disposed to do things such as give blessings, as described in many (though not all) religious tradtions, which this is not one of, being simply a voluntary ceremonial event, albeit one that's being held on the taxpayer's dime, but then just about everyone here is a taxpayer, and demographic studies show that most Americans believe in You in some form - on those persons among those gathered here who are willing to receive such a blessing from your hand or hands (we certainly would not want someone to receive a blessing that they did not want, and so we offer this opt-out clause).

In the name of Bob and the Flying Spaghetti Monster,

Yeah, Whatever.

The more we know, the less we know

Hidden Star Explains Supernova Oddity, well, sort of, maybe.

God of wonders beyond our galaxy, indeed.

The more we know, the less we know

Hidden Star Explains Supernova Oddity, well, sort of, maybe.

God of wonders beyond our galaxy, indeed.

Popetown

Catholics fail to block "Popetown" in Germany

Of course they can't persuade the local stations to not air insulting cartoons.

They aren't making death threats.

There ain't no doubt, I love this land!

God Bless the U.S.A.!

As Mary Katherine Graham says, "Heck yeah! We pray, we race, and we recognize the benefits of aggressively marketing ourselves to others who like racing and praying, by way of the hood of a speeding Chevy. We are Red America and we are not ashamed."

Preach it, sister!

Nuts about blogging

Southwest Airlines has a blog! ht: Randy at Boeing.

Circular reasoning?

Fossil Suggests Snakes Evolved on Land

It's the first time scientists have found a snake with a sacrum, a bony feature supporting the pelvis, he [Hussam Zaher of the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil] said. That feature was lost as snakes evolved from lizards, and since this is the only known snake that hasn't lost it, it must be the most primitive known, he said.

Catch that? Since we already know that snakes used to have legs and lost them through the process of evolution (having smaller / shorter / no legs confers a survival advantage, right?), a snake with a sacrum must therefore be more primitive. Nothing like assumptions that define the meaning of the evidence, eh? Of course, one couldn't possibly call this evidence for Gen 3:14 being accurate, could one?

A very good day, indeed

It's Good Friday for us Christians.

A holy day; a solemn day. But a Good day? Yes. Oh, yes.

It is good to reflect on the agony Christ endured on our behalf. Not merely the agony of the Cross (from where we get the term excruiating), though that was severe enough.

But Christ's real agony was knowing that God - Father - Abba (Daddy!!) - had turned His face away from the Son He had loved since before the beginning of the world. "He who knew no sin became sin" on our behalf, and the Holy God turned away in disgust.

That is why Jesus cried out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" and then, "It is finished." For at that moment, it WAS finished, for all time. "For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, that all who believe in him might not perish, but have eternal life."

A very good day, indeed.

May your Good Friday be blessed.

Well, Gawrsh!

Some Immigration Marchers Pay High Price Some folks are getting fired from their jobs or suspended from school for taking off without permission to protest in favor of flauting immigration law. Of course, as soon as the advocacy groups sponsoring the marches get involved, the employers cave and the skippers get rehired. I wonder if people have ever gotten canned for skipping out to attend, say, a "Legalize Marijuana" rally, and then gotten rehired because NORML came calling? (For the record, I'm not in favor of legalizing pot.) I love this quote by a marcher:

"'We have to change the way the American people think about us,' Ortega said. 'We are here to work and to make our lives better.'"

Well, Senor Ortega, I'd say that members of your groups are doing a mighty fine job of changing the way Americans look at you. Yup. Flying the Mexican flag above an inverted US flag, chanting "La Raza!" and "Reconquista!", carrying Che banners, signs that read "Anglos are the illegal immigrants," beating up counterprotestors that just want to see the law enforced ... yup, you're changing the way people look at you. Not for the better, I'm afraid.