THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER

I have eliminated the TypePad commenting system and gone back to free comments without vetting or other hassles. TypePad was already rejecting some friends of the house. Then it started rejecting me by requiring different passwords on different days. I finally got fed up with it.

I only started using it to eliminate all the comment spam I was receiving. We'll see if the spam becomes a problem again. I expect some will come back. Hope not too much. If I have to go back to vetting, however, it sure won't be with TypePad. It is a worthless piece of junk.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Wonder why the, ahem, security bureaucracy failed to stop the PantyBomber from boarding the jet? Despite his own father's advance warning?

Other than for the usual reasons of its own ineptitude. Well, No Good Boyo has the explanation. Imagine you are an FBI agent on the receiving end of this: "Hello, I am a senior Nigerian banker. I have important information for you..."

Posted by Dick Stanley at 02:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Another super bird photo from Snoopy the Goon on his recent Arizona trip. The fellow is good!

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Nobody with any knowledge of Texas politics is taking Democrat Farouk Shami's run for governor seriously. For one thing his incumbent opponent, Republican Rick Perry, is too popular. For another, well, when was the last time Texas had an Arab-American Muslim governor? Exactly never.

On the other hand, Shami has ten million dollars of his own money to invest in his campaign. Consequently he's getting a lot of media, free and otherwise. They all quote him saying he's from Palestine, wherever that is. It's not the Texas Palestine. Apparently he's from the West Bank, though no one is sure because he doesn't call it that.

He tells the American Task Force for Palestine, which seems to think he's a Muslim though some Texans think he's a Quaker, that he's for peace and love and equality in the Middle East. Debbie Schlussel thinks he's a clandestine Jihadi in an anti-Semitic package. She cites as partial evidence this column he wrote two years ago for the Houston Chronicle in which he implies that the nasty Israelis are forcing the poor Palestinians to ration water "while Jewish settlers cultivate lush lawns and fill their swimming pools." That's libel enough for me to be glad that Shami's chance of election is exactly nil.

UPDATE:  The daily's Ken Herman did a job on Shami: "The downtrodden minority/victim role is particularly unattractive on a guy who lives in a 24,585-square-foot-home like Shami does."

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

More of Snoopy-the-goon's photographic work fromhis recent trip to Arizona.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The case of Army Master Sergeant and milblogger C.J. Grisham doesn't surprise me. He's in a public dispute with his child's public school in Huntsville, AL, and his command has failed to back him. They were already irritated at his public criticism of Barry's presidential fitness and needling of the Democrat Party.

The Army is a top-down organization and active-duty milbloggers like Grisham walk a fine line between free speech and insubordination. Tits on a boar, I say. If the Army wanted soldiers to have blogs, they'd be issued them. But other milbloggers disagree and they have gone silent through Friday to protest Grisham's situation, which is extensively explained here. Whatever they say in public, I'm sure that's what the Army would prefer active-duty milbloggers do: Go silent. Permanently.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Mainly, it's the price. But there's also the problem of reading them on Shabbat. No loop-holes. Whereas there's no problem there with books. Donald Sensing's analysis here is timely for me, considering my own previous consideration. I've just about decided to ask for a new digital camera, instead. I've been borrowing Mrs. Charm's ever since I managed to destroy my old one.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Cobb, in full cry, offers an interesting history, and some good chuckles, about Black Nationalism and its academic and ghetto adherents: "...plenty of them work, and they work hard. It's just that the work that they work doesn't work."

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

An appropriate place for old Vladimir Ilyich. Apparently gazing wistfully toward Moscow. More.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Are there really all that many reasonably-priced, reasonably-desirable books available for download? And is it easy on the eyes, or like trying to read a standard, flickering video-display monitor?

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)

Rare reader and good Israeli friend Snoopy-the-Goon is at an early-to-rise, late-to-finish photography bootcamp in Arizona this week where the above shot originated. One of his grown children lives in the vicinity. Have fun, STG.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

New research says the so-called Greenhouse Effect, the basis of the IPCC's report and the EPA's new regs on carbon dioxide emissions, not only cannot be verified but violates the laws of physics:

"Thus, scientific support for the man-made global warming hoax slowly collapses while politicians rush to lock in massive international wealth-redistribution in its name. Those pesky 'greenhouse gases' just don't behave in a politically correct manner."

Not that this or anything else is likely to slow down the Democrats mad rush for higher taxes for a "solution."

Via The Seablogger.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 02:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

As Barry prepares to jet off to Copenhagen to promise to continue our descent to the poorhouse by cutting our carbon emissions to make the dictator's club (i.e. the UN) happy, the climate naysaying is mounting.

Statistician, AMS member and blogger William M. Briggs shows the illogic in Barry's logic:

"Diminishing glaciers did not prove AGW; they were instead a verification that ice melts when it gets hot. Fewer polar bears did not count in favor of AGW; it instead perhaps meant that maybe adult bears prefer a chill to get in the mood. People sidling up to microphones and trumpeting 'It’s bad out there, worse than we thought!' was not evidence of AGW; it was evidence of how easily certain people could work themselves into a lather."

Briggs is the self-published author of an amusing book on the law of averages that isn't.

Meanwhile, Canadian businessman Stephen McIntyre, the famous blogger debunker of the infamous hockey stick "proof" for AGW gets a timely writeup in the WSJ.

Even (gasp) cBS is weighing in objectively (what will they think of next) on the hacked emails.

And blogger Megan McArdle, who (cough, spit) actually believes in AGW, notes the real problem with those emails: the major climate model predicting doom ahead could be rubbish. A little item financed in part by (you guessed it) the American taxpayer.

Oops, now there's more climate science faking in New Zealand.

So will Barry notice any of this stuff and unbutton if not completely remove his climate hairshirt and spend more time trying to get our economy back on track? Naw. That's above his pay grade. Apparently.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Bloggers Ann Althouse and Michelle Goldberg argue cogently (well, Ann does) for almost an hour on Bloggingheads and come to three conclusions:

1) We're all talking about Sarah Palin and her book only because she's so darn pretty (if she was plain or even ugly, McCain never would have elevated her to national consciousness), 2) cBS talking head Katie Couric should post the unedited transcripts of her interviews with Sarah, and 3) Sarah is a screen onto which some conservatives can project hope just as Barry was a screen onto which some liberals could project hope.

I have to admit they pretty well work for me, as well. And I'd leave a comment to that effect at Althouse's blog if the stupid Google comment system didn't demand that I verify a word that doesn't even exist! Morons.

Although it should be considered that the "pretty" conclusion doesn't explain why so many of Sarah's fans are women. Including moms with strollers. Does it?

Posted by Dick Stanley at 06:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

I've read the arguments about why this Jihadi jerk shouldn't be tried in federal court in New York, but I remain unimpressed. Surely, if GWB had any plans to have him tried by a tribunal and hung, it would have been done sometime in the seven plus years he was in Gitmo. Since that didn't happen, it doesn't bother me especially that he will now be tried in a civilian court. And if he gets off? Well, then it will just have to be arranged for him to be run over by a bus.

But it's tempting to believe, as Power Line relates, that AG Holder's motive is to see KSM's lawyers run with his "treatment by the Bush administration, real and imagined, [as] the centerpiece of their defense, with the possible result that Bush, Cheney, and others may be indicted as war criminals by European countries or international courts, thereby satisfying the far left of the Democratic Party, which Obama represents."

It's still not clear to me, however, why this couldn't have happened just as easily in a military tribunal.

UPDATE: Two Bush-era lawyers have an argument for KSM's NYC trial that's much better than mine, including that such trials have already happened before:

"Many of Holder's critics appear to have forgotten that the Bush administration used civilian courts to put away dozens of terrorists, including 'shoe bomber' Richard Reid; al-Qaeda agent Jose Padilla; 'American Taliban' John Walker Lindh; the Lackawanna Six; and Zacarias Moussaoui, who was prosecuted for the same conspiracy for which Mohammed is likely to be charged. Many of these terrorists are locked in a supermax prison in Colorado, never to be seen again."

Read. The. Rest.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 05:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Reading of (not actually reading, I have better things to do) the NYTimes' latest sneer at Sarah Palin reminded me of the above bit of their journalistic genius. What prognosticators they were and are! They condemn her lack of experience while they puffed Barry, the candidate with even less experience, and she was only running for vice president. Ah, but, you see, he was in the right party and he went to the right school.

The gang-on continues, with AP devoting eleven reporters to what Sarah said in her new book (which I ordered and expect to have this week). As she notes, eleven reporters could do a lot of important work, but... Naw, too hard.

Via Snoop at Simply Jews, who knows a crystal ball when he sees one. Heh.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 05:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I haven't taken the logo off the sidebar, but I'll get around to it. Sooner than I will waste time writing another 140-character Tweet. What a nothing. This sums it up as well as anything can:

"As a blogging, Facebooking, texting American who values the explosion of democratic user-generated Internet content and its contribution to intellectual debate, political activism, government transparency, entertainment, access to data and community, I can safely say I still see no reason to tweet."

No kiddin'. Twitter is, indeed, useless.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

I have watched Glenn Beck exactly twice, so it's fair to say I don't know much about him, other than what I've read by people who do and don't like him. Some bloggers I like to read consider him evil incarnate. Mr. Fascism. I don't understand that. He strikes me as more of a showman than a politician. So I was not surprised at his bringing together a few score African-American conservatives for his show tonight. That's provocative stuff, when the legacy media and the Democrats who control the White House and the Congress would have you believe that the only authentic black person is a liberal black person. Or a race monger like Jackson and Sharpton.

That's the showman part of Glenn Beck. Find a provocative hook and run with it, to mix metaphors. But it was an intriguing event. The only sad part was there was so little time for the various people to say anything. Some of them, like Maria, the conservative black blogger My Voice on The Wings of Change, whose post on the show tipped me to it in the first place, didn't get to say anything and were upset about it afterward. She's promised a post tomorrow night explaining why she came away from it unhappy.

Well, those kind of cattle calls, where a moderator is trying to herd a room full of disparate voices into a coherent whole, often wind up pleasing no one, including the audience. Which underlines my point that Beck is first of all a showman. He knew what he was doing in being provocative with this one, and he also knew from experience what the result would be, i.e. a lot of displeasure from the participants and the audience. But I have to give him credit for doing it at all. And for leading me into discovering that Cobb is not the main black conservative in the blogosphere. There are plenty more (check the links there) who are also fun to read, such as Adrienne at Motivation:Truth. Especially because they go against the grain.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

"Blogging is no longer worth the trouble. Everything is fine as long as the stories are happy and positive. The military wants happy stories, not honest stories. Everything must be 100% in concert with the Army spin."

Sounds like the aftermath of the Fort Hood massacre. The writer, a career NCO who went by the initials C.J., was finally done in by the Huntsville (AL) Board of Education, the lowest form of American representative government and often the most venal. The principal of the board's Williams Middle School complained to the Army when C.J. got uppity about his children's education and blogged about it. But, let's face it, most independent bloggers must either remain anonymous or retire before using their real name. Free speech has never been free, unless, as C.J. says, "the stories are happy and positive."

Posted by Dick Stanley at 04:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Let's face it, even for dedicated Jihadists, there's a right way and a wrong way to martyrdom. Humor from The Whited Sepulchre.

Via Simply Jews.

UPDATE: Unfortunately, after today's events at Fort Hood, this is no longer particularly funny. My bad.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 04:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Life in the shallow end of the gene pool gets more entertaining by the minute: from the burglar pair who drew their masks on their faces with black markers to the clown who was captured on burglar cam getting into the liquor store (with only a few broken bones) but then being unable to get out. Heh.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Not the fellow on the sign, the "Fighting Sioux" of the University of North Dakota. This one. OKS fired him. But they haven't been able to silence the Comanche conservative. He's even going after the usual liberal suspects who are still battling the American Indian mascot tradition. Racist, you know. Uh huh. Bad Eagle's great, great grandson begs to disagree. And not politely, either. Heh.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The Jewish/Israeli blog carnival Vanity of Vanities is up. Never better, I say modestly, as it has two entries of my own.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 06:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I haven't read this new biography of Rand yet, but the Amazon critics seem to think it's worth while. I'll wait until it's in the library. Which is not very capitalistic of me, but I'm not pure about it like she was. Like most kids I rebelled against my parents' politics, which was conservative. But I wavered.

Then, in college, I discovered Rand's idea of Objectivism and went so far as to bet my Speech grade on an oration about it. The professor disliked her celebration of "reality" so much that he tried to undercut me at the top of the program he printed for our class speeches with a quote from Carl Jung: "People cannot stand too much reality."

Nowadays I agree with Jung. Which is probably why I read so much science fiction. I never read Atlas Shrugged, Rand's most popular (and lately resurgent) novel. I remember some reviewer (just who I forget) paraphrased Shakespeare in calling it "As long as life and twice as tedious." I may never read it. But I still find her interesting and, of course, the idea that capitalism and the mighty corporations it sometimes creates can be heroic. I've been too much of a businessman myself over the years to find the type very threatening. Indeed, to demean the Willy Lomans of the world is to demean the very thing that keeps us free.

MORE: Via Instapundit, the movie made of her book We The Living is now on DVD.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

So far, anyhow, sez the LCRA's Bob Rose. Hope this doesn't mean another early winter, like last year:

"The National Weather Service has issued an [overnight]  Freeze Warning for Kimble and Sutton Counties [west of Fredericksburg] where the temperature is expected to fall to the upper 20s.  A Frost Advisory has been issued for Mason, San Saba and McCulloch Counties where the temperature will fall to the low to middle 30s." 

Only mid-forties expected at the rancho. But that will be cool enough. Near seventy daytime, cooling for Halloween. The goblins will be wearing coats.

UPDATE: Nov. 18-19: It's back in the low 40s at the rancho tonight, after dipping into the 30s last night. Result of the latest cold front to pass through. This time of year they are sporadic. Quickly warms back up, though. Please G-d, give us a normal winter for a change, when it doesn't really stay cold for more than a day or two until January, and then only for about six weeks. Hope, hope.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last place in prime time. Is that a surprise? Beats me. I stopped watching them years ago. Glenn Reynolds thinks it's because of the way they bash or ignore conservative protestors. But that reminds me of a Roger L. Simon piece back in 2006:

"Of course, Blitzer is only a typical representative of his class. Nothing special or exceptional in any way, except for his success and longevity. Now some people call this class the 'liberal media.' I reject that idea and terminology entirely. There is nothing liberal about them at all. They are a rich, privileged class much like the bourgeoisie in a Bunuel movie (or Moliere, of course). What is 'liberal' is only a talking point to preserve their perquisites. Perhaps these values were there at some point, but that was decades ago in another universe. Now the real issues are good tailoring and homes in the country. Nothing should disturb that."

The disturbance has arrived. The viewing audience, well, the surviving portion that has not fled to the Web, is finally catching on and tuning them out. Lefty anti-military they are, for sure, but their sense of elite privilege also comes through clearly. And the CNN version no longer sells. Boo-hoo.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Another interesting Normblog profile, this time on NYC grandmother-of-three Ann Ulanov, a former rare reader I seldom see or hear from around these parts anymore. I would join the crowd and add a comment to her link to it, but I can never get her comment system to work, even though it's TypePad which is supposed to be the same as mine but isn't for some reason. My own is balky enough.

If I could comment I would say, "Ah ha, you work in software. That explains why you change the layout of your blog so often." I also see how well-read and educated she is, which makes me doubly happy that she still touts my book Leaving The Alamo on her front-page sidebar. Though she's never said nor have I figured out why she considers it non-fiction. No matter. I hope she enjoyed it.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

And, not incidentally, the people who use its many varieties. Pictures by Rick Lee of Charleston, WVA.

Via Instapundit.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 02:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Steady showers this morning on a forecast wet day and night through tomorrow. Glad to get the rain, as always, but it will push the pool problems diagnosis by the maintenance guys out until Friday morning at the earliest. Although it will be middle of next week before we can get the replacement parts for the impeller, anyhow. If the impeller is the problem, as rare reader JD thinks, and it now looks to us like it is.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Most modern, academic artists, the ones who get the grants and the publicity, couldn't draw a real cow if their life depended on it. Let alone a real tree. Their work is junk. This is not. And we need more of this natural art of real human experience.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I'm always a sucker for a new rendition of Ringworld, one of the most memorable series I've ever read.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 02:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Comparing the previous solar minimum (June '96 to Sept. '98) with the current one (June '07 to Sept '09) shows something strange is happening to Sol. (Scroll down at the link to the yellow-headlined comparison "latest trend charts" on the right side for the chart of the spotless days in each period). Not that solar science has enough observation history behind it to be sure of much of anything.

Meanwhile, the weather is confirming the old idea that Sol controls what happens down here. When you consider that 1998 was the warmest year recorded globally, and the planet has been cooling ever since, it's not hard to understand why winters are coming earlier and part of the country's northern tier already is covered with snow that is not melting but is increasing. Not that we mind the rain we're getting after our long drought, but you have to wonder. Whatever is going on it seems to have very little to do with the CO2 that has the Democrats hot to tax coal and oil out of existence.

Via the Seablogger. PLUS: Record October cold in Minnesota.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Humor from Neo-Neocon. As she says, it's amazing how few changes Hamlet's soliloquy needed to fit Barry's Afghanistan dilemna:

To surge, or not to surge: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous battles,
Or put down arms against a sea of troubles,
And by withdrawing end them? To retreat: to fight
No more; and by retreat to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To retreat, to leave;
To leave: perchance to lose: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that leaving, what defeat may come
When we have shuffled off this Afghan soil,
Must give us pause: there’s the respect
That makes calamity of a long war;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of polls,
The oppressor’s wrong, the talking head’s contumely,
The pangs of pacifists, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his swift exit make
With a curt order? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary war,
But that the dread that some would cry “defeat,”
That vicious accusation from whose bourn
No politician returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. - Soft you now!
The fair Nobel Committee! Wimps, in thy orisons
Be all my sins forgotten.

Heh. Good luck with that.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm jumping the gun a bit here, promoting former newspaper colleague Mike Cox's new book before my review copy arrives from the publishers. I'm not supposed to be part of his virtual book tour until the end of the month. But when I saw the news that the FTC will begin requiring bloggers  to disclose conflicts of interest (i.e. product freebies), I thought no time like the present.

The AP's claim that "traditional journalism outlets" are required (by their publishers) to return products "borrowed for reviews" is a fantasy. Review copies of books, for instance, are never returned. Indeed, many newspapers have year-end discount sales to their employees of their thousands of free review copies, the vast majority never having been reviewed at all.

I happily review Mike's stuff because he's a heckuva writer and this Texas Rangers book, the twin sequel to a previous one which I also reviewed, promises to be another good one of importance to Texas history. As for the "bribery," I'll undoubtedly buy several more copies to send to friends. But I'll keep the review copy, just like "traditional journalism outlets" do. I assume this disclosure will be good enough. But if it isn't, tough.

Via Instapundit and Hot Air.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 06:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thinking ahead for Airbus aircrews, whose Air India version has way too much time on their hands.

Link via Simply Jews.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 03:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Francis Sedgemore has a nice video of the something-or-other women's unit marching past the reviewing stand at the recent Chinese army hoo-rah. Sure they're carrying guns. But the real message is in their shorts skirts, white go-go boots, and the fact that they're bringing up the rear of the military parade. Obviously the boys are not going to have to rely on the indigenous talent when they go campaigning.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 04:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Cobb does a fine job summarizing a scientific scandal about, what else, human-induced global warming. Seems a goodly portion of the worldwide scare's convincing data was cherry picked:

"Twelve trees whose growth rings were the basis of the conclusions that have shaken the world were selected by a dude named [Keith] Briffa and another dude named [Steve] McIntyre has called him on it. But it took years. Huh what? I mean to say quite plainly that the 'overwhelming majority of scientists' made their conclusion on the basis of a report whose original data was not made available for scientific review. The big bloody secret was that it was twelve measly trees."

It's a complicated argument, in case you're entering it late, but the Register and Bishop Hill also explain it well.

Via Cobb and Random Jottings.

MEANWHILE: Climate science heads are already being sought in the UK.

Anthony Watts posts Briffa's defense, such as it is, and then pithily rejects it.

TREE COUNT: Rereading Bishop, I see there were twelve, ten or five trees depending on which year of research you choose to deplore. Twelve is the more generous. Still measly.

MORE from McIntyre's co-researcher Ross McKitrick: "Whatever is going on here, it is not science." I wonder if it all began as Briffa's attempt to save his job for some reason. You know, make a big discovery, prove his worth? And then Al Gore and his cronies took over. Pols are always looking for a big controversy to justify their existence. Stir in the Dictators Club's IPCC, and the earth is doomed.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 02:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

A favorite photo by freelance Afghanistan correspondent Michael Yon: PJs on a casualty run. I've been helping support him with a little here and there for several years. You should, too. You know?

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

The sunspot drought hasn't ended entirely yet, but these new Earth-size ones are the first in more than a year on the Earth-facing side of Sol. They're a hopeful sign that we may not, afterall, be headed for more ice and cold than usual from the deepest solar minimum in almost a century.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Russian navy howl, actually, this g-dawful navy chorus rendition of the Beatle's Let It Be. They should have been smart enough to just let it be. Tatyana and I may be on the outs lately but I couldn't resist linking to this hoot she put up. Funny as it is, it's a little disconcerting, especially the sailorwomen in their excessive red lipstick, too-tight blouses and F-me shoes doing their 1950s pop-group arm swings. Cultural differences really can be profound sometimes.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Carders is Cobb's timely abbreviation for people who "play the race card." Sort of like Truthers and Birthers. I like it. So does VanderLeun at American Digest. About time these folks were equated with the nut fringe.

On the other hand, Cobb says the Carders are not really nuts, like the Truthers and, arguably, the Birthers. The Carders just need to be corrected to understand not that there is no racism but that "it is not their grandfather's racism." Theophilus Eugene "Bull" Conner, for instance, has been in his grave since 1973.

I'm not so sure. There certainly is racism and some of it, as Cobb says, is criminal. And plenty more is deceitful. But I think some Carders really are nuts. Others, like Sharpton and Jackson, and Carter, do it to make money, by keeping themselves in the limelight. Correcting them would hardly be effective.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

This bit of newspaper jargon, "below the fold," means something on the front page below the folding across the middle of a broadsheet newspaper so it fits in a newspaper rack on the street corner. Which displays the top-half (above the fold) of the newspaper's front page. The phrase is being used incorrectly in blogs. Strange that it would be used at all, actually.

In blogs, rare reader Veeshir tells me, it means to click on the "more" where the post stops on the front page. Which takes you "inside" to read the rest of the post. But, in newspaper jargon, that would be taking "the jump," to the "jump page" inside. So a blogger who wants to use the jargon correctly should say "after the jump" instead of "below the fold." But, given the (frequently justifiable) contempt that many bloggers have for newspapers, I don't imagine the usage is any sort of homage. Maybe that's why it's been redefined.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I used to enjoy Little Green Footballs, back when proprietor Charles Johnson mainly defended Israel against the jihadi Musselmen. Then he began to get rather shrill about people who disagreed with him about evolution. Lately he's become a fulltime assaulter of the Tea Party movement, and tosses around words like racist and white supremacist to describe his enemies. He's become, as one commenter here, puts it, a Kos Kiddie Day Care Center. My blogroll is already full. He won't be missed.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I used to get these all the time until I changed my comment system, which eliminated the spam but also did in several longtime commenters who suddenly couldn't figure out the new system. Bill Peschel had a better, well, simpler, idea. It probably won't work and it takes more time than I'd want to devote, but it's a hoot.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

China's experience with the unintended consequence of their one-family, one-child edict is quite amusing. We've struggled with some of that with Mr. B., of course, as probably any parent of an only child can attest. I took to calling him "your lordship" when he was a Terrible Two. But he's improved.

Via the Seablogger.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

One of these days, I'm going to get through to the link on this Instapundit item:

A GOVERNMENT THAT FEARS ITS PEOPLE: SONIC WEAPONS USED IN IRAQ POSITIONED AT CONGRESSIONAL TOWNHALL MEETINGS IN SAN DIEGO COUNTY.

But, so far, I can't.

UPDATE:  I finally got it to work. Now I'm not so sure I should have linked to it. The headline is correct. But there doesn't seem to have been any intent to harm.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Latest news from Brook Army Medical Center in San Antonio on First Cav's LTC Tim Karcher:

"I have no legs, and I accept that. I do not accept that my lack of legs will limit me. The adventure is re-learning, so that I am not limited.  Some people talk about how brave or heroic this attitude is, but for me it is simply practical. I refuse to let this keep me from living my life to the fullest, and you would too. It's not heroic, it's realistic. I admit, I look forward to moving through this adventure with others who are travelling the same path that I am. Thus far, many have helped me and guided me, and I look forward to inspiring future wounded Soldiers. Leadership doesn't stop at the hospital door."

Some would. So it's nice to hear from one whose leadership doesn't. Good luck, colonel.

Via Op-For.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

New York Times blowhard Tom Friedman wants a country of the elite, by the elite and for the elite. From his viewpoint, it makes good sense. He's already got his. So, as Iowahawk says, Friedman has sent for a division of the Red Army to come take us over. They'll leave him and his elite friends alone, of course. For a while, anyhow.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Cobb links to a piece purporting to list the best rock albums of the past twenty years. I'm not familiar with a single one. Worse than Cobb who at least likes three. I should be ashamed, I suppose, but I'm not.

In fact, I am loading the new IPod Mrs. Charm gave me with the stuff I grew up with: Glenn Miller, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, and Charlie Parker. Next up: Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, Stan Kenton, etc. Stuff I can whistle. I'm too retro to live, maybe...

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I have often, foolishly, commented that the climate modeling of anthropogenic global warming can't be accurate since weather forecasting is so fallible. It's a poor argument, as Andrew Dessler at Texas A&M shows:

"Predicting the weather is like predicting what the next roll [of the dice] will be. Predicting the climate is like predicting what the average and standard deviation of 1000 rolls will be. The ability to predict the statistics of the next 1000 rolls does not hinge on the ability to predict the next roll. Thus, one should not dismiss climate forecasts simply because weather forecasts are only good for a few days."

On the other hand, it's a good argument to say that the climate models are too weak to be trusted, because the physics of the atmosphere isn't fully understood. In other words: garbage in, garbage out.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Get out your 3D glasses for a stirring, and a bit humbling, animation of about ten thousand of the other hundred billion galaxies out there in the black. More here.

Via Millard Fillmore's Bathtub.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

"The bad news is that North Korea can hit the U.S. with nukes. The good news is that they can only hit San Francisco and Seattle."

Via Premier Betty.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

What lengths some people will go to revile a mere confection. Me, I still prefer Twinkies. There's no indigestion quite like the one they perpetrate.

But anything has to be better than these Japanese candy drops that taste like, wait for it, hamburger.

Via Dustbury.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Six years ago Mrs. Charm, Mr. Boy and I bought the rancho from a couple who were moving away from Texas. She was a homemaker. He was an airline pilot who had flown U-2 spy planes before he retired from the Air Force. I won't mention names, they'd probably not like me to.

I've read about the U-2 so I have some idea of what it is like to work in full pressure suit at seventy thousand feet--more than twice as high as jetliners cruise. But, until now, I'd never seen the curvature of the earth from a U-2's cockpit, out there on the edge of the black. Magnificent view really.

Via Flightblogger.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I habitually avoid enterprises that charge for water, as all cruise ships do. In fact, having heard the expression "cruise ship prices" this doesn't really surprise. Sounds awful. Especially the lack of soda pop machines. How declasse can you get?

Via Simply Jews.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I notice that even Instapundit, venerable libertarian blogger extraordinaire, has recently added a little sex to his aggregated links from time to time. Power Line has been doing it forever with their Miss Universe nods, complete with biggerizable thumbnails. I won't go that far on this family blog. But I will link to them. A little spice is nice.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My self-published book of short stories, available for free in pdf in the upper part of the sidebar on the blog's main page, or for a mere eleven bucks in paperbook at the link above it, has a new fan. Lucky for me, he even posted an appreciation on his own blog. Thank you.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

MissMermaid, stormcarib.com's hurricane correspondent from Tortola in the British Virgin Islands, is laid up in the hospital. Her legion of fans are passing the hat and urging purchases of her book Hurricanes and Hangovers.

For a Booksurge product it's doing very well in Amazon sales, and their amateur critics speak highly of it. If you ever wondered what life in the islands was like, she tells it. My interest stems from reading stormcarib every summer for the latest in the latest hurricanes. None yet this year.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 02:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For those who have never been there, or have been but have forgotten what it looks like inside. No Texas blog can have too many pictures of the Alamo. Although I believe this was taken before the souvenir-trinket cases at the far end were removed to a separate building elsewhere on the grounds. Then, the flags of all the states and countries the defenders came from were scrunched into a tiny room to the left of the entrance. They now line the walls here in the outer room. More such pictures, inside and out, old and new, some you've probably never seen, are available here.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

 * Not sure how CGHill gets "Land of Cheerfulness" out of Terra Vigoris, but I like it and the moon shot is awfully nice.

* From wedding meme to divorce parody in one week! Must be an intertubes record of some kind.

* Ann has done some supremely weird things with the look of her blog, but this one is nice. I still can't get into her comments, however. Curse Google forever.

* Tikirobot has some strange stuff, but, so far, none are funnier than this bicycle river jump video.

* Not many people (I would guess) know that the Marx Brothers got their comedy start in Texas.

* And, speaking of Texana, it's pretty cool that my old friend Texas archeologist Tom Hester has given Birdie Rose, who died one day shy of her ninth birthday in 1879, a special kind of immortality on the web.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Gateway Pundit Jim Hoft has written a touching obituary for his dearly departed mother. Worth a read.

Via Power Line.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Amazing, crazy amazing, Brit bicycle stunts. Fun to watch and imagine. But, uh, do? Uh uh. Not me. My thighs could never take it. Not to mention the rest of me. (Makes sense, too, that you would need a special machine to withstand all the punishment.)

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Best use for old tires. Besides selling them. Most of us don't have this much talent. But for them as does: get. it. on.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 02:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Pam Geller at Atlas Shrugged does a very nice thirty-minute interview (in three segments) with former Bush admin foreign policy/UN guy John Bolton. I was surprised to learn that the guy whose toughness at the dictator's club always impressed me started out his political career supporting Barry Goldwater. I did not then do any more than stick an AU H20 sticker on my motor bike. But I shared JB's enthusiasm for the man whose political efforts led to President Reagan. Worth your time.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Jay, a staff photographer for the daily, has plenty of good ones on his blog. I'd post one but he'd probably ask me to take it down. Since he's put them on the Web himself, it's not necessary. Go see for yourself. Good stuff. No fakery.

Also Ralph Barrera. (I think I've spelled his name correctly, this time. Little inside joke. Very little.) And Brian Diggs and Kelly West. I didn't realize so many had their own sites. Jay's led me to them. Good for them.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Snoopy The Goon says he's tagged me and I have to tag seven others in this venerable blogospheric game. It's a new one for me, but I'm honored to try.

I'll try not to make it too, too sentimental. Inject a little humor here and there, if possible. Here goes. And, except for No. 1 and No. 2, not necessarily in this order.

1) The Creator of the Universe. Who made a few big mistakes here and there, but I know he/she/it tries. And needs all the help he/she/it can get--whether that's in any accepted theology or not.

2) Mr. Boy and Mrs. Charm and the rest of the clan, kith as well as kin.

3) A good night's sleep. Sometimes hard to come by in increasing old age.

4) A good read. Fiction or non-fiction, book or blog post or media article, it doesn't matter.

5) Sitting on the condo balcony at Port Aransas at night every summer watching the twinkling lights on the offshore oil rigs. Just thinking about all that non-Saudi oil makes me happy, even if I don't own a well.

6) Texas. Anywhere (even Houston). Anytime. Rain or shine. Drought or flood.

7) Writing. Anything. I'm presently embarked on a book of Texana, though the research is not going well. A recently completed Civil War novel is piling up the rejection slips. But I'll keep querying agents, and probably try another one of those before long.

And now, as Mr. Goon says, to the victims: Scott Chafin, CGHill, Alan Sullivan, John Salmon, whose comments I can never get to work, so I'll link this and, maybe, he'll see it, JD Allen, MK Freeberg, whose Wordpress comment thingie on "the blog no one ever reads (except me)," keeps rejecting me, so I'll try another link he might see, and Akaky Bashmachkin.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

I've discovered that you have to log in twice to get through the Typepad comment system here before it will recognize you. The first time it rejects you. Persist. You will get in on the second try. I have no idea why this is so. I considered moving the blog to Wordpress with Scott Chaffin's help, but decided I had better things to do than fiddle with a whole new system.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Another shameless attempt to game the system. This is a family blog. This is not. Enjoy la difference.

Via American Power.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Nevermind the ease of reading and the low cost of electronic publishing. Amazon reserves the legal right to reach out across the airwaves and remotely delete books from your Kindle wherever you are. Might not be long before the government is examining your reading habits and deleting what it doesn't like.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

...and begging to go higher and faster." Captain Dave, somewhere over the Heartland of the Empire, does it again. Poetically.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

So it seems:

"According to a 2008 survey by Technorati, which runs a search engine for blogs, only 7.4 million out of the 133 million blogs the company tracks had been updated in the past 120 days. That translates to 95 percent of blogs being essentially abandoned, left to lie fallow on the Web, where they become public remnants of a dream — or at least an ambition — unfulfilled."

Via Dustbury, which is still going strong after beginning in, uh, '96? Really?

UPDATE:  Then there's this:

"Of the 12 million bloggers on the Internet, only about 13% post daily, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project. Even fewer -- 10% -- spend 10 or more hours a week on their blogs."

Note that Pew's total blogs (12 million) does not jibe with Technorati's (133 million). Oops!

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

It's the dancer Michael Jackson that I remember. That was years ago, before the plastic surgery and the scandals. He did and still reminds me of Jimmy Cagney, not because I'm old enough to have seen Cagney in person or his movies upon their release. I saw these two (in three clips) on television when I was a kid in the 1950s and the boob tube played lots of old black-n-white movies. What a dancer Cagney was.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The lake she is sinking like a stone, two feet lower than at the link there which was a week ago. I mean fifty-one percent of capacity? Whoa. On the other hand, we've been here before, just three years ago, in fact, and it's not yet as low as it was in 2000. The important thing to remember about Texas, folks, is that, for us, drought is normal.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Here's a funny that I had to read closely to realize that it was actually a joke. It seemed so real. ;-)

(P.S. The ad at the bottom of it should be a joke, but, alas, it's not.)

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

I spent almost all of Sunday reading the comments to this feminist's thoughtful post on why Our Sarah--and her innocent children, for crying out loud--attract so much hatred from so-called feminist women. There were almost three hundred comments when I quit a while ago because my eyes hurt.

After Instapundit linked her, she even picked up some conservative and libertarian commenters (after comment No. 142 or so) and more than a few of them express feminist ideals, which I mostly share. But, as they say, we wouldn't be accepted in the feminist club because we're not Dem pro-choicers (well, I am pro-choice, albeit with reservations). Well worth your time.

Via Instapundit.

UPDATE:  Most amusing thing at the conservative blog Power Line Monday night. Their Beltway parrot, as one commenter put it, writes a sneering post about Sarah and more than two hundred commenters gang up on him. Haw.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

A remarkable, very readable Web-centric piece on Thomas Jefferson, warts and all. His Aunt Judith, his father's sister, was Mr. B's seven greats grandmother.

Via In Search of Jefferson's Moose.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From her FaceBook account today regarding her announcement Friday that she will be resigning:

"The response in the main stream media has been most predictable, ironic, and as always, detached from the lives of ordinary Americans who are sick of the 'politics of personal destruction.' How sad that Washington and the media will never understand; it’s about country."

Heh.

UPDATE:  I laugh at all the "wise ones" who contend that her political career is over, etc. My bet is: She's going to become the campaigner who makes it possible for the Republicans to win back one or both houses of Congress, then use that IOU to take the nomination in 2012.  

Posted by Dick Stanley at 06:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I'm still hopeful. Her resignation eliminates any claims of conflict-of-interest between running for the 2012 nomination and her job as Alaska's governor. The Left will continue to hate and mock her, as this low blow demonstrates. So what's new about their lack of taste? The Right will continue to love her, especially us commoners. The Independents, as always, will get to decide.

UPDATE:  The Puffington Host pulled the mockery at the second link, which was, once again, about Sarah's retarded son. But Michele Malkin captured the page for, uh, "posterity."

Posted by Dick Stanley at 06:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you won't miss Jacko (his best work was years ago) and Farah was never your cup of mocha nor Gov. Sanford of any particular interest, you can still keep up with the Iranian protesters as they get picked off one by one.

Iranian and some Western bloggers always have had the best reporting and aggregating on it, anyhow. Of course, the UN is useless, as always. Heck, it's the Dictator's Club. What, you thought it was the protector of humanity? Only the thug version.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

South Vietnam is what this map reminds me of. Think of the red places as NVA-controlled Indian Country. Places where our forces didn't/don't go for very long. S. Warzistan on the left bottom is where that Predator's Hellfire missiles killed all those Talibani at the funeral the other day. Eighty-something. I expected to be reading of Lefty outrage about that by now. The fact I didn't sorta figures, though.This is Barry's campaign now. He campaigned for it. His Leftist pals wanted it. Now they've got it. Lotsa luck. They're sure going to need it.

I think they're all going to be very sorry before The One's first term is over. Iraq was/is the Left's hated campaign, but it's the one that made the most sense to me. Nevermind the WMDs and all that baloney. The point in going in there was/is that it's in the middle of the Jihadi swamp that needs to be drained. I also believe that whatever success we've had there had more to do with the recent Iranian uprising than anything Barry said in Cairo or anywhere else. (He's too longwinded, too on-the-one-hand, on-the-other-hand, to inspire anybody.) So let's see what he's going to do with Afghanistan. Wallow in the quagmire, I expect. Although that Predator strike on a funeral, of all things, was a good start. Wish we'd had more UAVs in South Vietnam. Apaches are nice, too.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

If such it be. We can only hope. Instapundit's flag is green. Popular Science mag has links to following it all in near-real time, mostly via Twitter (you'll need a free registration) and Facebook (likewise) and others.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This AP report is the most detailed on the automated transmissions from the Airbus to Air France I've seen. It apparently originated in a Brazilian newspaper and AP got it confirmed:

"The pilot sent a manual signal at 11 p.m. local time saying he was flying through an area of "CBs": black, electrically charged cumulonimbus clouds that come with violent winds and lightning. Satellite data has shown that towering thunderheads were sending 100 mph (160 kph) updraft winds into the jet's flight path at the time.

"Ten minutes later, a cascade of problems began: Automatic messages indicate the autopilot had disengaged, a key computer system switched to alternative power, and controls needed to keep the plane stable had been damaged. An alarm sounded indicating the deterioration of flight systems.

"Three minutes after that, more automatic messages reported the failure of systems to monitor air speed, altitude and direction. Control of the main flight computer and wing spoilers failed as well.

"The last automatic message, at 11:14 p.m., signaled loss of cabin pressure and complete electrical failure, catastrophic events in a plane that was likely already plunging toward the ocean."

As usual, this raises more questions. The first big one might be why, if you're flying thru a violent storm would you be on autopilot?

Via Things With Wings.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

When I was twelve in 1956, I got interested in the sinking of a passenger liner called the Andrea Doria off Nantucket. I remember staying up late listening to radio coverage of the rescue efforts for what was the flagship of the Italian Line. That was all there was then, late-night radio.

Today, of course, there's quite a lot of informed speculation available on the Web for almost anything, and so I have been at it, off and on, since word of AF447--including perusing this excellant weather blog analysis complete with plotted storm maps showing the flight path. I got it off the transcript of a Rush Limbaugh conversation with an Airbus pilot. He speculated that the tragedy could have begun with the reported electrical failure which could have taken out their weather radar. But that leaves the question of why/how the electricals failed, considering the Airbus has "four fully-redundant electrical systems."

Snagged this post title from the Seablogger whose speculation centers on a megabolt of lightning combined with hail damage to the flight deck windows, which could account for the reported depressurization. But the weather blog above discounts the possibility of hail. Plenty to wonder about, and, thanks to the Internet, plenty of sources to help in the wondering.

MORE: Mystery deepens. Not so much the bomb threat a few days before the flight, but discovery of the debris trail and fuel slick of miles across the ocean, suggesting the plane's breakup in mid-air. If Airbus wants to sell any more planes, they'd better figure out what caused such a calamity.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It all starts with ACORN, the persistently corrupt and oft-indicted community organizers. Add a dose of the Chicago Way and bingo, there's corruption in Obamalot.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 04:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"When I think of the people with serious physical or mental handicaps who nevertheless work, I find it hard to sympathize with able-bodied men who stand on the streets and beg. Nor can I sympathize with those who give them money that subsidizes a parasitic lifestyle which allows such men to be a constant nuisance, or even a danger, to others."

Thomas Sowell's Random Thoughts.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

And, above all, whatever you do, as Douglas Adams would say (did say, in fact): Don't Panic.

Via Simply Jews.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Except this is not a scene from the 1987 Wim Wenders' movie (an old favorite of mine), but angel statues overlooking the rooftops of St. Petersburg, Russia, in a collection of extraordinary photos of the city.

Via The 8th Circle.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

our browser, which art in memory, mozilla be thy name
onLoad run, thy layout done, exactly like the PSD.
render us fast this gmail thread,
and forgive us our standards violations,
as we forgive those who use IE against us,
and lead us not into quirks mode,
but deliver our content
for thine is the pingdom
and the browser and the glory,
forever and e
            what():St9bad_alloc Abort trap (core dumped)

Via Dustbury. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is an idea I got today from the Seablogger, who is usually a good read. A thoughtful, lately-become-religious fellow. I share his belief in G-d, if not his particular creed. The expression refers to people who are able to go to their own death without continuing to blame others for perceived or actual wrongs. To forgive them, even reassure them, when one's own end is near.

My own father, despite his religious belief, was unable to do it. But I suspect it is not a common thing. Indeed, I've only known one who achieved it. He was a scientist, and so I could presume that he was not religious, since so few of them seem to be nowadays. But, then, I really don't know. If he wasn't, if he had nothing to gain, so to speak, that makes his compassion in death all the more impressive.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Even if you don't believe the globe is warming, painting roofs and roads white, or some other light color, would sure cut air-conditioning bills and go far in eliminating the heat-island effect. Not that I want the rancho's roof white. But I don't have to worry. Simple solutions never appeal to big government. They don't produce new jobs for the bureaucracy or more tax money for pet projects. Still... Painting roofs and roads white. What a concept.

Via Instapundit.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

The Seablogger makes a good point about the liberal media, which explains why FoxNews, the news that liberals and their running buddies in Big Media love to hate, has outstripped CNN and MSNBC combined in viewership: it is not boring. CNN, et al, have the same predictable la-de-da day after day. Comforting to the convinced, I suppose, but not very interesting to anybody else.

I've opined before that this could be one of the biggest problems newspapers have today: they are so predictable. Not only do they all look the same, having the same layouts, the same focus, etc., but they have the same NYTimes and WaPo stories on their front pages. We also know they're all for diversity, multiculturalism, affirmative action, gun control, abortion, illegal immigration from Mexico, and that they just love Barry and Michelle, and distrust Republicans. So where do those who argue with some or all of that stuff--which is a lot of people, altogether--go? Well, the Internet, for one. And FoxNews, for another.

I kind of like it when CNN, et al, attack FoxNews for whatever. That is the way American journalism used to be. Newspapers not only tried to outdo each other, they attacked each other. And made $$$. But that was before credential creep, where every journalist now needs a degree from similar liberal journalism schools to get a Big Media job. Pity them not their decline. They fouled their own nests.

UPDATE:  A perfect example of how in-the-tank CNN is for Barry: You could compare W to Hitler and they'd never bat an eye. Do it to Barry and you get a microphone stuck in your face.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The liberal daily did a fair job of reporting the local conservative-libertarian rally against anticipated higher federal taxes, the pork-barrel "stimulus," and other "change," which tied up downtown rush hour traffic, drawing people (according to the selected quotes) who had never marched before.

There were none of the overhead crowd photos reported in the conservative blogosphere, however--including the estimated more than ten thousand marchers in San Antonio and St. Louis--which readily show crowd size. Instead, there was an enigmatic quote from the state police that they wouldn't estimate the size of the Austin crowd "for safety reasons." Huh? Interesting as it all is, I'm still not convinced that it will amount to much in the long run.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I got a little incensed when I read that the new, improved Dem-led Homeland Security octopus had singled out veterans as potential terrorists. Then I discovered the report was commissioned while Bush was in office and it only suggests that a small percentage of vets might be so disaffected.

And, of course, I recalled Timothy McVeigh, the wacko who the Army didn't trust to allow to be a Green Beret. LGF, who I admire for his pro-Israel stance, has a sensible take on this report which seems to be roiling the never-very-placid waters of the rightwing blogosphere. He thinks the upset is way overdone. Includes a link to a PDF of the report itself and points to other, hardly leftwing bloggers, who agree. Makes sense. I'm convinced. Except for one thing. The report should have been aimed at extremism, not just "rightwing extremism." The obvious political bias is what caused the trouble.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Seems, at twelve thousand years old, to be. So far, anyhow. But there's more to come.

Via The Anchoress.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Instapundit clings somewhat precariously to the military weapons wielded by the Mexican drug cartels to try to show that not all their guns come from the U.S. Fox News, to which he links, has apparently taken his side of the argument.Their concern, of course, is new gun sale restrictions here at home.

The San Antonio Express-News, while conceding that the military stuff probably didn't come from our side of the border, nevertheless makes a convincing case that most of the non-military stuff that has been traced did--much of it from Texas retailers. Michael Yon has uncharacteristly attracted more than a few irritated commenters for wading into the argument. I'm glad he did, though. I know more now about it now than I did before. On the other hand, as Instapundit notes, some of the guns probably have come from Mexican army deserters.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

But the Army did not, and does not, make commercials as good as this Marine one. As the H.E.B. checker-military brat joked one time when she saw my ARMY cap: "Ain't Ready For Marines Yet?" Not on the recruiting score.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A harsh, depressing video via Michael Yon. Until you remember all the comrades of these scum we're eradicating. Someday we'll get them, too.

UPDATE: Or not. A new pro-Jihad magazine in North Carolina, of all places, has to make you wonder.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Or, maybe, I should say, strange search engine results that bring the uncounted millions here.

Mercenary fighter in jeans. Why would these words lead to a picture of George Washington? Beats me.

How to make Texas Alamo out of paper. Hmm. Well, this is somewhat closer to what I had.

Mysterious rocks of the batholic. Now we're getting closer to the truth. So-called.

Do people drown in Canyon Lake? Uh, don't they drown everywhere?

Saloon northern Ontario. No, but you might be able to see it from here.

Saudi road sky eye. I qualified for two of the four. Not too shabby.

Importance of the flag raising in Iowa Jima. This was my fault, sending Iowa to the Pacific. Still.

Comic man falling from sky. I suppose it is comic, if you're in Hamas or Hezbollah.

Jack by the great horn spoon. Very curious, indeed.

The lovely Roberta Vasquez. This is a standing joke here and there by shameless traffic seekers.

I could go on forever. But that's more than enough for now.

Inspiration by Dustbury, who remembers to do it a lot more often than me.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

The climate change sheeple want everybody to swtich off their lights for an hour at 8:30 p.m. tonight in protest. A far better idea would be to leave them on and, instead, watch this video.

Via Instapundit.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 06:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

This is shaping up to be a major disaster for thousands of people. The Seablogger, having lived in the area and his mother still living there, has quite a bit to say about it--as well as correcting some of Big Media's usual laziness. You'd think they could get and read some topo maps. But noooo... Google it, you goofuses.

UPDATE:  The river seems, mercifully, to have crested.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

For those who just can't get enough cowbell in their music, there's finally a genuine solution here.

Via Dustbury.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

More on the B-29s, from Phil Crowther's 6th Bomb Group memorial site. This is from the log of navigator Don Kearney:

"Briefed at 1430 [2:30PM]. Took off at 1732 [5:32PM]. It got dark when we were out just a little ways. The APN-4 Loran inverter was out. Trouble, always trouble. However, the radar did work, although it wasn’t operating on beacon.

"As we passed Iwo, hit some rough weather just north of it. We flew close to the Jap islands going on up to the Empire so that we could check course with radar. We passed within visual distance of Hachijo Jima.

"Heard Birddog 1, a destroyer, talk to 4V705, a superdumbo, about lights.

"We made landfall on the Empire at Omaesaki at 2355 [11:55PM], turned up past the east side of Fuji again. It was easily visible outside the window. Same way we started in the night before last. Way out front Charlie [Lt. Charles Hall, Bombardier] saw a bright red light going down. At first he thought it was a ball of fire but later decided it must have been a B-29.

"As we rolled out of the turn we hit our first opposition, still 15 to 20 miles west of Tokyo...Within a minute we were in it thick. About 15 searchlights picked us up and they began throwing stuff at us. A plane out to our left had 20 lights on him and was catching hell. Still in the lights, we plowed on. We never had less than about 15 searchlights on us at any one time from then on. We flew though the remainder of the target area in a bright cone of lights..."

Read the rest.  Go to the main page at the link, click on Air Crews in the left sidebar, then scroll down to crew #3909, Reamatroid, click on the number, then scroll down and start at the beginning of the log.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Not much doubt here. Amazing the cop did this knowing he was being videotaped. Throw the book at him.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 03:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Via Simply Jews.

MORE:  Whatever you hear, tho, even the best and most widely-read blogs aren't the reason for the newspaper industry's continuing demise. It's more like the death of paper. Just can't compete, economically, with pixels. The former is so expensive, the latter is so cheap. Tho obliging governments can slow it down.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When she started chewing on Sarah last fall, along with the rest of the worthless snooze media, I finally realized that Peggy Noonan wasn't the far-seeing iconoclast I had thought. Now, as the Seablogger suggests, when she can encounter a continent-spanning technology like wi-fi on a jet flight and somehow equate it to garage-level industry, it shows she's just another empty head with a deadline and no original (much less logical) thought.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Via Treppenwitz. More of these funnies here. Also this one.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Used to be (and probably still is) that any appearance at the LBJ Library by PBS poohbah Bill Moyers drew an SRO crowd. Mainly aging, LBJ liberals yearning for the Great Society. They apparently never knew this side of the old Baptist hypocrite:

"His part in Lyndon Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover's bugging of Martin Luther King's private life, the leaks to the press and diplomatic corps, the surveillance of civil rights groups at the 1964 Democratic Convention..."

That's from CBS newsman Morley Safer's memoir Flashbacks. Liberal fascists do make strange bedfellows. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I get these things every five years, thanks to colon cancer running in my family via primary relatives, so I know they're worthwhile. They don't hurt, thanks to the drugs you get. The worst thing about them is the awful preparation fluid you have to swallow by the gallon. Tastes like motor oil.

But I really must demur when some bloggers, including the vaunted Instapundit, say they are foolproof at discovering colon cancer. My father had them for years and they didn't save him. Maybe it depends on the skill of the doc. That would figure. That's why they're called medical "practices."

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I'm actually of two minds on the issue of whether Barry's client Big Media ought to be photographing the flag-draped coffins of fallen troops. On the one hand I do not like censorship, such as Barry's congressional minions are preparing to practice in forging a new law that has the effect of quashing right radio.

On the other hand, the CNN questioner at Barry's first presser put Big Media's real interest out there when he asked if the policy of not allowing photographs of the coffins could be overturned by The One: "Ed Henry with CNN, who asked the President whether he thought the arrival of American coffins at Dover should be accessible to the media to 'show America the real cost of the war....'"

If you want right radio to be allowed, then how can you argue for hiding the coffins? Well, one is free speech, the other is honoring the dead by not turning them into a political spectacle. Plus the coffin policy has been around since 1991. It was not created by Bushitler to thwart the NYTimes and Code Pink.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wind's really picking up at the rancho, gusting to twenty-five thirty-five out of the southeast whence normally cometh our rain-making Gulf moisture. Indeed, the forecast is for thunderstorms overnight. LCRA meteorologist Bob Rose thinks we may get some real rain over the next three days, possibly the most we've had since mid-November.

In fact, Rose, noticing that the southern Jet Stream is becoming more active (and thus capable of guiding Pacific storm fronts our way), is thinking something I was wondering about the other day: that the 2008 drought might just finally get busted later this month into March. If so, it would be by a flood, of course. Floods are the way droughts break hereabouts. But we'll take it.

UPDATE:  By 9 a.m. Monday, according to LCRA's hydrologic system of rain gauges, one-half to three-quarters of an inch of rain seems to be the norm over the area since midnight. Nice to see water ponding in the gutters again.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So, according to Henrik Svensmark:

No sunspots = more clouds = lower temperatures.

The Central Texas winter, which began quite early last year, should be more or less over by March 1. Let's just hope.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Alas, Rancho Roly Poly is just a few miles south of U.S. Rep. John Carter's 31st District. It would be so cool to be represented by the author of the Rangel Rule, which won't pass but if it did, we'd all get to cheat on our taxes like New York Dem Charlie Rangel (not to mention Barry's appointees Tom Daschle and Tim Geithner). Nice try, John. Keep up the meaningful work.

Via Doug Ross @ Journal.

UPDATE:  Then Carter tried the direct approach, asking the House to vote on forcing Rangel to step down from his, wait for it, tax-writing committee. Got that? He writes taxes for us. He just doesn't pay them.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 05:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Scott at The Fat Guy, apparently already suffering from the noise and traffic of San Antonio, although he just recently moved there from Dallas, has taken up a casual comment I made about considering moving to Mason County. He likes winding, dark, two-lane roads, fly-fishing, hunting, and plenty of open spaces and few neighbors. The links he found and the comments he's drawn so far make me wish I could move tomorrow. That's the great thing about these Internets. You can go back to the country and still make a living, if you need to. But, until Mr. B. finishes school (about nine more years) and Mrs. Charm retires, it will probably not be possible for me.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 05:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (1118)

This is Instapundit's somewhat surprising advice for any Jew or their supporters who feel threatened by these mad Musslemen and their scum supporters who invade Jewish neighborhoods with threatening anti-Semitic demos. Fortunately most of this is going on in Britain, Australia and Canada. Gun laws are rather restrictive there. Not so here. Of course the laws differ from state to state on when you're allowed to shoot somebody. Generally speaking the perp has to be stealing or destroying your property on your property. But if it makes people feel better just to have some .45 Long Colts handy for use, it works for me.

MORE:  Thou Shalt Not Kill? Try Nehemiah, chapter four, verse fourteen.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I gotta admit, for sheer elegance nothing beats a few rounds from an SKS, .45 LC and a Mossberg Persuader.

Via The Fat Guy.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Somehow, in the course of showing why Big Media has lost its influence in the Internet Age, Press Think's Jay Rosen manages to make it sound like conservative war supporters get the media grease while anti-war liberals get left out. What planet is this guy on? He starts out belaboring the obvious, then turns reality on its head. If this is what passes for academic journalism these days, no wonder the newspaper industry is falling apart.

Via Instapundit.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Julius's rising and falling Whuffie is a form of constantly-tallied wealth in the reputation economy of the post-USA, Bitchun Society. In this world, all are online, never die (unless they want to) and are free to work ad-hoc at whatever they please. Their Whuffie determines whether they can get a hotel room, a car, or a meal, even whether people will talk to them.

Sometimes Julius's Whuffie is high enough, sometimes it isn't, in his ad-hoc job at Disney World. Either way is entertaining in Cory Doctorow's 2003 Down And Out In The Magic Kingdom, a so-called postcyberpunk novel bringing the Internet to SciFi. One thing's for sure, in my recent reintroduction to SF after years of ignoring it, I've found that I can't take seriously any plot without the Web in it. If you spend a lot of time online, you shouldn't either. It is the future, as much as the present, after all.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It looks like the IDF is close to moving into Gaza, although the ground is wet from recent hard rains, because leaflets warning civilians to evacuate have been dropped and the mobile artillery prep appears to have begun. Good luck, guys.

UPDATE:  So it begins. Tanks, engineers and infantry move into northern Gaza.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

No I don't mean Barry's Hopenchange campaign babble, which he will drop like a hot enchilada when it suits him. I mean the good old American urge to hope. For instance, that the recent economic diddle, however apparently catastrophic, won't necessarily lead to something truly awful in 2009 and beyond.

Like the Depressionistas fear it will. A commenter at the Seablogger also cites a new, despairing Spengler essay that I read but must frankly admit that I really don't understand. So I'll go on being optimistic. And with some good company. As Wretchard says in a similar context, we all have the right to worry, but no one is right to despair. The bears are out in force these days, true enough, but, hey, it just might surprise us all and actually get better.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

Instapundit remembers hearing it on Armed Forces Radio as a teenager in Germany. I was twenty-four in 1968 when it was broadcast from the moon. I was duty officer that Christmas Eve night at squadron headquarters of the Sixth Armored Cavalry Regiment at Fort Meade, MD. The duty NCO and I were transfixed.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 03:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

RocketBoom, an old favorite, was supposed to have died after the departure of, uh, Amanda Congdon, was it? Anyhow, it didn't. This clip on the meme All Your Base Are Belong To Us is pretty funny.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've been considering this for a while now and I've finally decided to give Mr. Boy's mom an anonymouse name of her own, instead of just referring to her as his mom, etc., which sounds sort of like I'm a stepdad, which is not the case. I will even give her a separate category of her own, so I can do posts on her doings, now and then. I did steal the name from the same nice blog where I filched the map of the "soler system," but there it's Mr. Charm, so, their being of different genders, I doubt we'll get them mixed up. In this blogosphere, we all learn from each other. More or less.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November ended very dry, putting Austin in the exceptional drought category, i.e. the worst possible. We're surrounded by an extreme drought area (the red on the map) with no end in sight. Our driest year since 1956. Odd combination: no rain and an early winter of chilly days andfrigid nights. Yech.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 02:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Finally getting around to replacing the Nikon Coolpix S10 VR I had that got run over by a truck back in August. I had set it down on the top of the car while getting some bags in and forgot it was there. Halfway down the highway at seventy-plus I saw something black sail into the air behind us and realized immediately that it was the Nikon in its case.

I turned around and went back to it and ran out in the road to retrieve what turned out to be the cushioned case alone. The camera had somehow come out and smacked into the asphalt. I located it and started to dash out for it just as a semi approached. My prayer didn't work. The truck's front wheel ran over it. Not enough left for a souvenir. So far I like this Canon model the best. It's got some of the same features, has a viewfinder for use in bright sunlight, looks like it will fit in the old case, and it is a lot cheaper. In case it winds up getting run over someday.

Via Instapundit. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

What with the presumed new, federal "green" push for this and that, Cobb foresees lots of need for such non-environmentally-friendly minerals as chromium, copper and arsenic. Heh.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Reality check from Doug Ross @ Journal.

UPDATE:  Meanwhile, the Dems and their state-run media are playing up the stock market jitters (largely over Barry's ascendency) while national output has declined just one half of one percent. But, hey, it's a great time to spend tax money in the name of "job creation," mainly for their buds. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Victor Davis Hanson, a classics professor, wants high school students to have four years of it:

"...such instruction would do more for minority youths than all the ‘role model’ diversity sermons on Harriet Tubman, Malcolm X, Montezuma, and Caesar Chavez put together. Nothing so enriches the vocabulary, so instructs about English grammar and syntax, so creates a discipline of the mind, an elegance of expression, and serves as a gateway to the thinking and values of Western civilization as mastery of a page of Virgil or Livy (except perhaps Sophocles’s Antigone in Greek or Thucydides’ dialogue at Melos)."

He's right, of course, though I don't think I'd want to take four years of it. I only had to take one year, in 1960-61, and I still remember how cool it was to translate text so old yet still recognizable in its human concern. My grandmother taught Latin at Southern Methodist University in Dallas in the 1920s. But that was college. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Mars, it seems, for all its dust, airlessness and radiation, could be a livable place, after all.

Via the Seablogger.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

What a laugher. No science is beyond dispute. Dispute is what science does. Only a pol would say something so stupid.

Via the Seablogger.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Or, rather, the first facillitator of crooks: Barry's apparent nominee for attorney general. Eric Holder, Slick Willie's pardon-adviser. Well, he is black, and all that.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

 A mosaic of astronomical images by Davide De Martin of Sky Factory, explained here. Via Bad Astronomy.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 04:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Nevermind Barry's cult of personality, it's the global warmists we have to fear. The ones who want to remake our economy to resolve their notion of eco-pocolypse. Though Barry apparently will step up offshore drilling, he is also likely to back the EPA's impending enforcement of carbon dioxide reductions (better hold your breath), and maybe buy up Detroit for the UAW to make teenie, weenie greenie cars. (Just so long as the Dems don't require us to buy them.)

Meanwhile the Seablogger, freshly home from a blogged cruise to the Virgin Islands, sees perfidy behind the recent alleged NASA "blunder" in announcing October as the warmest month ever--when, in fact, it was one of the coolest. Anything to promote the Gorebot cult and Nancy Pelosi's green "recovery," don't you know. Big Media may get its long-touted depression yet if Barry and his party deepen the recession. At least we'd have the pleasure of seeing him voted out after one term. Or is he, perhaps, smarter than that? We're going to find out.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Disney's incredibly inept coverup is finally, sadly, but voluminously (and, indeed, artfully) exposed.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

His Holland America cruise ship has "a nice deep sea heave," Alan Sullivan reports, as he sails into hurricane weather out of Miami. The water in the upper deck swimming pools is "jumping and sliding like limbo dancers." He had to pay one hundred dollars for two hundred fifty minutes of Web connection time via satellite, so he's limited in what he can do. But he's already promising photos soon. Click on the blog title at the top of the page to check for the latest post.

UPDATE:  A nautical tracking map shows where his ship, the Noordam, is at the moment. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 03:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hey, Barry did compare himself to JFK--minus the military service, war-hero part, of course:

"The terrorists won’t bother us again
Because everyone on Earth is now our friend
Charisma he has lots
Specifics he has not
But happily we really don’t care here
In Obamalot."

Chuckle. 

Via Don Suber. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

"...let your children overhear you saying complimentary things about them to other adults,"  is a bit of wisdom I've decided to try that comes from Treppenwitz in Israel, in an essay worth a read for the other good ideas as well.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Steven Den Beste, who I think of as the dean of conservative realists in the blogosphere, pretty much speaks for me:

"I think Obama is going to turn out to be the worst president since Carter, and for the same reason: good intentions do not guarantee good results. Idealists often stub their toes on the wayward rocks of reality, and fall on their faces. And the world doesn't respond to benign behavior benignly. But there's another reason why: Obama has been hiding his light under a basket. A lot of people bought a pig in a poke today, and now they're going to find out what they bought. Obama isn't what most of them think he is. The intoxication of the cult will wear off, leaving a monumental hangover."

The gullible are congratulating Barry for "his brilliant campaign." They are presuming, against all evidence, that he will govern as a bi-partisan centrist. They've already forgotten the fellow who flipped the bird to Hillary and Mac, and called Sarah a pig. Who helped ACORN commit vote fraud, intentionally gathered illegal foreign contributions, and etc., ad nauseum.

But me, I'm going to skip derangement and just look askance, stop writing about politics unless it affects me personally, as in whether Barry's coming tax and electricity hikes actually cost me money. Otherwise, I'm going to get back to the original war-supporting, eclectic intentions of this blog.

I'm taking my Holiday from History. Adios. Good luck. You're going to need it.

UPDATE: Well, that's a promise I'm not likely to able to keep. And to give the devil his due, here's a transcript of Barry's victory speech which I finally got around to reading. It's very Democrat, with all the historical Democrat tropes familiar to supporters of FDR and Truman, Carter and Clinton. Maybe he means it. We're going to find out. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posting will be minimal, if any, for a while. My DSL modem is on the fritz. AT&T has promised to come Monday and check the line, if not necessarily replace the modem. The thing's warranty is out, and it seems to be the major difficulty, so I hope they replace it.

If not, I may consider switching ISPs, though that would be a major hassle and AT&T has provided good service up to now. We think a thunderstorm a couple of weeks ago, which knocked out the landline service (which contains the DSL connection) may have been the culprit here. The techs said the line was the victim of a power surge. We were thinking about having the landline disconnected anyhow. We use the cell phones most of the time.

ADDENDUM: Yes, we were disappointed by last night's Texas loss to Texas Tech. But Tech, a longtime in-state rival, played a great game and deserves to be No. 1, even if the BCS computers don't agree. The Horns also beat themselves, with too many dropped passes (and one almost-interception), costly penalties, an OL that couldn't stop Tech's D, etc. Hope Texas stays in the top five. They'll be back.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (1434)

Turns out the chairman of the Democrat Party in New Hampshire may be another phony Vietnam War wannabee. Hey, there are more than thirteen million of them, according to the 2000 census. But why are so many of them Dumbocrats? Oh, right, now I remember. They protested or shirked at the time. But this guy, Ray Buckley, doesn't have that excuse. He was only twelve years old in 1972. Guess he's just another guy who would rather lie than try.

Via Black Five.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My former colleagues in the MSM, at least the ones who still have jobs, have no shame. Their pretense of "objectivity" in reporting is so far from reality that even their defenders can no longer ignore it. They have been bought and paid for by the Democrat party and exist only to please Barry--the most secretive candidate since Nixon. So they drill into each facet of Sarah's life, while ignoring Barry's pathetic, aging fratboy Joey Hairplugs. All the President's Men, this ain't. If it ever was.

UPDATE: Indeed, Big Media's attacks on Sarah are the best evidence that there is no standard of objectivity in American journalism--despite the journalism degree now required to get a job in it.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Best analysis I've seen so far, and there are more than a few out there. Be sure to vote, especially if you're voting for Mac and Sarah. The drumbeat "news" about Barry's juggernaut lead is highly suspect, as per usual in the Dems-media symbiosis. Including longtime Dem pollster Zogby International, to mention just one. Followed by this utterly contradtictory AP poll.

Could be the "news" audience is finally catching on. How else to explain this?

Closer to home, the rancho is in a precinct that, in recent years, has been solidly Democrat--unsurprising in Austin's blue anomaly in a very red state. Yet I have noticed this month quite a number of McCain-Palin lawn signs--a few of them already detached (accidentally?) from their supports. Something is up, and the national polls and the local "news" are not reflecting it.

Via Instapundit. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

According to the propagandists at Associated Press, anyhow, who set a new standard for bias.

UPDATE:  Meanwhile, Mac gives Letterman-the-bore his biggest audience in three years. WUWT?

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (2628)

Fellow Texan Beldar's take on the last formal debate before the looong election is over:

"John McCain did fine at the third debate, but he benefited mostly because Barack Obama's ordinariness became more obvious to more people. More people escaped the mass hypnosis tonight. They sat up suddenly, took a deep breath, and as they watched Barack Obama, do you know what they did next?"

(Check the headline) Heh.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (449)

That's how many watched Sarah's debate last night. We can be sure they weren't tuning in to see Biden. If she gave ole Joe the business, the ones she really made look like fools were Couric and Gibson.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 06:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Come on, now. You didn't really think all that glib, white-toothed rattle was truth-telling, did you? LGF has the biggest one, and a link to some of the others. Check it out. It's for sure Big Media won't tell you. They'll be too too busy, as usual, kicking Sarah around.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The liars in the U.S. Congress snuck plenty of pork into their credit "crisis" giveaway, but none so obnoxious as the one that lays the groundwork for a carbon tax. The global warmists would never be able to get such a thing passed in open discussion, especially not during a recession. So they cheated.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 02:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you have a WordPress site, here's why I either a) never visit it, or b) never comment on it. The login keeps asking me for a different username than the one it accepted from me a week ago. Just when things are working fine, they stop working at all. Pshaw. Keep your stinking WordPress. Count me out.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I didn't watch much of it live. I have seen several clips, and I followed some of the live-blogging, and read the conclusions of others--some of whom thought that, while Barry may not have won, he didn't lose, either. Mr. B.'s mom, whose job it is to watch such things, thought it was a tie. She thought Mac won on content but Barry won on style. Style. Like an Olympic gymnast. Sigh. In some of the clips I saw, he was clearly irritated. I thought it was Mac who was supposed to have the temper?

All in all, I don't think any of these "debates," are very meaningful, since the participants seldom say anything imaginative. Just their stump speech points. Nor do I think they have much impact on the elections. On the Big Media and the soundbite collections, sure, but how many people do they persuade? I think Biden and Palin will be more fun to watch and I won't miss that one.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Hard as it may be to do, these last few weeks of the presidential election are the time to ignore the polls. Many of them will be phony from here on out, as the polling companies weight their results on the Dem side to satisfy their clients, usually partisan-Dem Big Media.

If mystery-man Barry somehow proves more compelling than "reporting-for-duty" Kerry did in 2004, and the turnout on election day is wholly different (packed, for instance, with bright-eyed Dem youth), then the polls might be meaningful. Otherwise, there'll be a repeat of 2004, when the polls showed right up until election day that Kerry was going to take it. Then he lost by three million votes. There's already some indication that Barry could lose by a lot more.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 06:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I had a suspicion the Dems would want to prolong the economic agony as a way to help their presidential candidate. When the economy falters, as the saying goes, the voters turn to the party out of power. Hence liberal Big Media's partisan assertion all year that we are in a recession, despite the lack of statistical evidence for it.

But it never occurred to me the Dems were so cynical as to try to use the bailout bill to benefit the very groups whose radical missions (in pursuing no-money-down minority housing loans) helped create the mess. No, not Freddie and Fannie, but La Raza, ACORN, and the Urban League.

The Seablogger calls it "a kind of creeping civil war, conducted through politics, in accordance with revolutionary theory," which Mac probably knew about and was determined to thwart when he pulled his return-to-the-Capitol-to-look-presidential stunt. Presidential politics has always been fierce, and 2008 seems especially so, though I suppose if we'd lived in the 1850s, in the runup to the real, shooting Civil War, we might think this was all pretty tame.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 06:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Texas Rainmaker, who did not evacuate, has a good post on the storm, the aftermath, and the continued deprivations in the old (1830s-40s) capital of Texas. His photographs tell the story of downed trees and signage, blocked roads and long lines at gas stations and groceries better than words. Our evacuated friends from Kingwood, on Houston's northwest side, are still in Austin, but not staying at the rancho as they have two dogs. A wonder they found a hotel that would take the dogs, but they did.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Not hardly. It was something a lot bigger, a lot nosier, and still necessary after all these years.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I see I'm not the only one who dislikes the new Sitemeter. It's much harder to figure out than the old version, which I was used to digesting at a glance. No more.

UPDATE:  Apparently overwhelmed with unhappy customers, they "rolled back" to the original. Yes!

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

In the verbal rugby at my OCS email group over why we should/should not vote for Barry, his champions have turned to CAPITAL LETTERS to express their indignation that the establishment media is wasting time over Barry's "allegedly" calling Sarah a pig, when it should be discussing "the issues." Good Dems always get exercised when the MSM steps (oh, so, momentarily) outside its habit of criticizing Republicans to criticize one of their nobles. It certainly is one of the few, if not the only times, the sycophantic media has questioned His Holiness.

I side with Treacher on this one. Barry certainly did mean to call Sarah a pig, and his audience certainly picked it up that way. Just as he meant to give Hillary the finger back in the spring when she dared to criticize him in a debate. He folds under pressure. Not a good sign for a wouldbe president. Moreover, after twenty years in the pews of his racist Chicago church, Barry'd probably like to whack Whitey a lot more than he has. But he knows that he can't do that and get elected. So he allows himself to wallow in the safer mud of sexism. As for "the issues," that's the standard Dem dodge, only trotted out when they seem to be in danger of losing. As, indeed, they certainly are. Surprise, surprise.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Too soon to be sure but Lower Colorado River Authority meteorologist Bob Rose says we could be in for heavy rain and strong winds if, after going ashore near Corpus Christi Saturday morning, the remnants of Ike decide to head north to Austin. It's more likely now, as the new track has it coming to us as still a tropical storm. So we'll plan on battening the hatches.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Unlike the ridiculous idea of Sarah's self-destruction, Barry's dumping of aging political plagiarist Joe Biden in favor of, say, Hillary Rodham, doesn't seem so far-fetched. Some otherwise-sane people are betting on it. More likely, I think, is Barry finally accepting one of those town hall invitations that Mac has been extending since, oh, at least June--so I can retire the counter over there on the sidebar.

Via Instapundit.

UPDATE:  Here's Spengler, in the Asia Times, predicting Barry surely will lose without HRC.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Via Texas Rainmaker. No surprise, of course, to most Americans.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Alan Sullivan, the Seablogger, is a good writer and thinker. I don't always agree with him, but I always enjoy reading him. But this time he outdid his usual good work, so I'm posting it. An excerpt:

"The cultural contrasts of Obama and McCain are stark enough, but those of Palin and Obama are even more revealing, because these two are contemporaries: their clash will define America in the Twenty-First Century, while Biden and McCain are figures from a receding past. From this point on, it will really be Palin versus Obama. And she will win, because she is a formed and grounded grownup, while Obama is only a character in his own memoir."

Read the whole thing. Unless you dislike Palin. In which case, what are you doing here?

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I said I might and sure enough I did. Couldn't resist Pajamas TV, so I signed up for the cheapie subscription for three months and enjoyed the RNC dog-and-pony show with conservative/libertarian comment, for a change. Excellant video and audio with rare delays, only two I recall.

Especially liked Fred Thompson's line about how Baby Barry will raise taxes, but not to worry, it won't be your taxes, just business taxes. So, he continued, if you don't buy bread, milk, or gasoline, or get a paycheck from a business, large or small, why, you have nothing to worry about. Heh.

But Lieberman was the best. Interesting wrinkle, having the passionate maverick Dem talk up his friend, the maverick Republican, and his maverick veep. I like the way he starts almost every sentence with "my friends," rather than "my fellow Americans," or some such. Or no salutation at all. Makes you feel like a friend.

Tonight, it's Sarah's turn, and I sure don't want to miss her. I'll be surprised if she doesn't top BB's reported forty million viewers for his Obamacles peroration.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Baby Barry as the corrupted wizard Saruman from LOTR? So says the Seablogger in what some might see as a stretch. But when it works, it works, and it sure works for me.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 02:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Chet Richards, one of the guardians of the theories and memory of the late, great Air Force fighter-pilot and military strategist John Boyd questions this contention of Charlie Martin's in American Thinker re Mac's choice of Sarah Palin for veep. Martin uses the term too loosely, suggests CR who says it's too early to tell. CR's claim that the pick was predictable, however, is probably unique. No one else I know of expected Mac to pick a woman. I think the old Navy fighter pilot, indeed, has generally been inside Baby Barry's OODA Loop for some time now with his sharp, quickly-produced teevee ads. Whether he can stay there remains to be seen.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The incomparable Mark Steyn weighs in on the relative "experience" of Baby Barry vs Gov. Palin:

"Sarah Palin and Barack Obama are more or less the same age, but Governor Palin has run a state and a town and a commercial fishing operation, whereas (to reprise a famous line on the Rev Jackson) Senator Obama ain't run nothin' but his mouth. She's done the stuff he's merely a poseur about."

Read it and weep, Dems. Your historic moment done come and gone. Just like in '04. Heh. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

They're desperate, I tell you. Absolutely desperate over Baby Barry and Old Joe having to face the combination of Mac and Sarah. Faux filmmaker and famous fatso Michael Moore is even celebrating Gustav. He doesn't care how many the storm kills so long as it disrupts the Repub convention. Old news actually, considering all the lies he's told in his "documentaries."

Via Instapundit.

UPDATE:  A quick lesson in how an anti-Palin site was set up by one of Baby Barry's supporters. And, inevitably, she's being dissed for being a smalltown beauty queen. But by another woman?

MORE: MSM: Mac, "the underdog," is taking a big risk with Sarah. Yeah, $7 million worth in 24 hours!

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

The Hilarity Clintonistas are gobsmacked. They should be. So is Reagan's old political director, Ed Rollins. He should be, too. Forget the nattering MSM. They get no votes and, increasingly, influence none.

Via Fresh Bilge.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Funny, and interesting, stuff from the Seablogger and his myriad of commenters.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs is live-blogging on Blogger, apparently as a solution to early denial-of-service hacking of its servers by the Russians. It helps to have a map, and Georgian news agency link, which, along with the blog entries, show that Russian talk of a halt to its invasion is mainly propaganda. Their bombing and killing continue.

UPDATE:  Indeed, Georgia calls B.S. on Russian and media reports:

"Russian occupation forces are fully operational in Georgia with at least 12,000 troops throughout the country, many of them outside of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. This is in no way represents a 'halt to military operations' or a 'halt to war' as many media outlets are reporting."

Posted by Dick Stanley at 05:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I knew the first time I got one of these new malware creations in the email that I hadn't signed up for it because I despise CNN. The second time I read some of the "headlines," stuff designed as grabbers, like the death of an entire major league baseball team in a plane crash. I Googled the item just to be sure, found nothing and spiked the email. Dustbury is getting a lot more of them than I am.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

First it was FireFox freezing all the time. So I switched to IE7. Now it's refusing to load some pages, including my own here, throwing up "abort" messages. LGF says it's somehow related to Sitemeter. Swell. Well, there's always Safari, I guess. Or Opera, if push comes to shove. Could we please go back to Web 1.0? At least it worked, most of the time.

UPDATE:  Seems to be fixed. Except for visits to Sitemeter, itself.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

A selection of search engine requests that bring some folks here:

Cow appreciation day Always glad to oblige.

How to extend battery leads for electric trolling motor Trust me, you really don't want to do that.

He influenced millions beyond his time He did, too. As opposed to some about whom this is said.

Texas Longhorn scroll saw pattern I could use one of those.

Honda single overhead cam exploded view This is something I definitely hope to avoid.

Alexander Fullerton The Gate Crashers One great book I heartily recommend.

Juridiction trasnslator english to arabic open porn free software Uh, uh, not here. Next door, maybe.

Which city in Texas is the first word that was ever spoken on the moon ? Hint, it starts with H and it's not Hereford.

Inspired by Dustbury.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The Dinosaur Media continues to ignore the Edwards-Hunter sex scandal which every supermarket shopper is aware of and the conservative blogosphere has been chewing over for five days. Thus the DM is merely making itself look ridiculous. Not to mention double-standard. Even their Brit subsidiary, with a lot less to lose politically, is upstaging them. The "progressive" blogs--the so-called netroots, or nutroots if you disagree--also are out to lunch, so far.

UPDATE:  Well, Fox is in.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 02:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm not sure this tool is much better than using a box cutter (which is cheaper) or even a pair of stout scissors. But it's an option. I have noticed that the clam shell wrapping has become somewhat easier to open, on some packages at least, by getting your thumbnail between the seams and prying it apart. Presumably it's the manufacturers who are making it easier to do that.

Via Instapundit.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Soothing little Bach piece here, though I wonder at the guy's armature, bent over the way he is. That's it for a while, as we fly off to California this evening. See y'all next Saturday.

Via Rene's Apple.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 02:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Or just about any other of those clodhoppers some young women wear today. At least this is cute. Not enough for Miriam, but Anne likes 'em. Me, too. Sorta.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 03:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I don't like reading it, and so I don't write it. And that's one reason I won't write an obit-hymn for George Carlin, who I think mainly contributed to the coarsening of our culture. If you disagree, you can join in the wake here, but to paraphrase some of the commenters there, he seemed to have become just an old liberal ranting at conservatives; I thought he was brilliantly funny when I was twenty-five, but I grew up. He didn't.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Gracias to Ace of Spades HQ for linking to this picture of bluebonnets. My Sitemeter is recording what (for me) is an unusual amount of traffic. Only a few hundred or so, thus far, but that's about twice what I normally see by this time of the day. Ace averages something like thirty-three thousand hits a day--he had more a million in May--so when he links to you you're bound to notice it.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When I was a daily journalist I had to get used to Associated Press stealing a few paragraphs from my articles, slapping their own (frequently wrong) headline on the result and calling it journalism. It wasn't their journalism. It really wasn't mine, either, just parts of mine. But that was the way they did business. Still do, as far as I can tell, except now they've bought into (heck, they lead it sometimes) the Bush-bad, war-bad, economy-bad narratives. So I have to laugh when these frequently-inaccurate thieves threaten to sue over bloggers partially quoting from and linking to their stuff. This is probably the best solution: boycott 'em. This is a funny reply. This is a nice roundup. And this is worth thinking about. People in glass houses, etc.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 03:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Texas, Louisiana & Mississippi have the only coasts where oil drilling is allowed--overlooking an estimated eighty-six billion barrels of oil. Enjoy your high gas prices, folks. Better sell the Volvo.

Via Rene's Apple.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Afterall, he's getting away with murder in Iraq, and the Bush administration and Congress ain't doing nothin', while Barry talks about a sit-down to understand Mahmoud's pain.

UPDATE: So, when Bush does the only thing he ever does about this matter, i.e. talk, he manages to enrage Barry, Hilarity, Nancy, etc. For why? Because they won't do anything, either, and don't like to be reminded. Such unanimity.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It might, in terms of old media's successful migration to the Internet, and new media's survival. So click on the ads, the ones some popular software is designed to squelch, and buy something now and then. Because, for the most part, paid subscriptions don't work, and so without the ads paying the way, poof, no more Web media.

Via Instapundit 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Some sort of tragedy appears to have befallen Instapundit's family. All we can do is wait until he posts about it.

UPDATE: "Doesn't appear to have been anything serious."

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Case you tried to leave a message in the past twenty-four hours, or so, and found it impossible, it was because Yahoo's hosting service had a system-wide problem going on. It seems to be fixed now.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sometimes when you can't do a piece exactly the way you want, giving up and just summarizing the main points is about all you need, as Cobb shows.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hating their parents, for instance. Really? Marijuana, they say. Oh, please. Sarah Silverman. Who? This list has been getting a lot of play across the 'sphere. But it's bogus. Only liberals need take it seriously. If even them.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

More Burkean than, for instance, Gingrich: "To movement conservatives, McCain represented heresy. But to the conservative movement, he represented a return to home truth." --Jonathan Rauch

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This day in history: Democrat attacks black children with fire hose, dogs, and clubs, then jails them!

Via Instapundit 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 02:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Comrades. It's Laika the Space Dog, Hero of the Soviet Union (which, unfortunately, collapsed before the selfless mutt could return) with an official May Day signal to Obamunists, etc. Roll the tanks!

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Had a nice chat this morning on Skype with Snoopy the Goon in Israel. It was almost like visiting the country itself, though, of course, I never left my chair in the study at the rancho. Mr. Goon, who prefers to remain anonymous, reminded me that I have said I want to visit in person, and I do, but there are too many complications at the moment. Mr. B.'s mom is afraid of going, hostage, I think, to the MSM's drumbeat of rockets and suicide bombings. Like the way they cover Iraq, all blood and guts, and no in-between. I doubt she would let me take Mr. B. by himself, and otherwise arrangements would have to be made for taking care of him while I was gone. So, for now, an actual visit will remain no more than a future intention. But Skype brought me a little closer. My voice, at least. About fifty kilometers (thirty-one miles) from Jerusalem, in fact.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Even a box cutter couldn't penetrate the blister pack Miriam at Miriam's Ideas recently encountered on a product from Amazon. She finally got the staff at her local hardware store to get the plastic packaging off the product. Mr. B. and I have struggled with this as well. I had heard the problem was being solved by the manufacturers. Apparently not.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

More, inevitably, on Barry, the Chicago hate-America crowd (Ayers & Wright) he surrounds himself with, and his nutty wife who talks about how he will save our souls, whether we like it or not:

"The primary question in my head about Obama is beginning to move beyond 'Is this guy a lightwight?' to a simpler one: 'Is this guy simply a walking lie, in a deep way and on multiple levels?'"

Either that or, like his terrorist pal and racist thug minister of twenty years, he's truly creepy. At best, I think, we can all Hope to Change the subject. Go ahead Dems, save your party from collapse. Pick the lying Hillary.

MORE:  Occurs to me, reading these comments and links at Instapundit, that what Rev. God damn America was up to yesterday at the National Press Club might have been getting even with Barry for falling asleep in church once too often. But, hey, the NAACP loved it. They sure have changed.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 02:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

More from the Seablogger's tour of the West: A Montana landscape with bird box in foreground. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 04:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The only thing I could legitmately use a sewing machine for would be sewing some of the missing buttons back on my shirts. But there's hardly enough missing to justify buying one, much less paying $300 for a computer-driven one.

But it's tempting. Embroidery, for instance. The computer ones store digital templates, apparently. You can even design your own embroidery on your PC and run it through. I got on this idea from an ad at Miriam's Ideas. Then found this cool site that shows how a sewing machine works. I never used one. But I watched my maternal grandmother run a mechanical, push-pedal model years ago. I can still hear it and smell the lubricating oil.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You'd think, the Civil War being over for, what?, one hundred and forty-three years, that the old North-South division would be healed by now, or at least papered over. Especially since immigration has seen to it that only a small fraction of the population (including me) can still claim ancestry to either side.

Uh-uh. Southern Appeal points out in commenting on this Newsweek column lamenting the "savage, unsophisticated" South's influence in national politics, that the split resurfaces in the MSM with every presidential election. It's a handy excuse, if you're a Northern liberal, as much of the influential MSM is. No Northern liberal has won  the presidency since JFK in 1960--and it's becoming obvious, even to the most obtuse, that neither Barry or Hilarity is going to break the mold.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Reading the History of the 29th Massachusettes Infantry Regiment, 1861-65, last night, I came to the part, in the summer of 1862, where they were assigned to the Irish Brigade. The 29th went through the battle of Antietam, or Sharpsburg, with the Irish. But they were transferred to another brigade right before Fredericksburg in early December. Putting the book aside for a bit, I went Web wandering and chanced upon this touching clip from Gods and Generals, at Southern Appeal, on the Irish Brigade's fateful charge at Fredericksburg. It took about fifty percent casualties. The 29th was luckily held in reserve throughout the battle.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Cavorting elk, as the Seablogger puts it, on Yellowstone Lake. Just one of several good ones, including some he shot himself, on in a brief Panoramio photo trip through the park I've never been to. Is it too late to go, I wonder? Probably. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Hag Pesah Sameach!

Picture (a photo?!) courtesy of Simply Jews 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Bill Roggio, embed blogger/journalist in Iraq, for instance: Fair play? From the NYTimes? You've got to be kidding.

Via Instapundit 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Interesting how radical a departure the blogosphere sometimes takes from the specific wording of a police press release that "foul play is not suspected," to "found dead, probably murdered," in this case of an Austin man who ran a charity for Gaza children said to be mainly interested in teaching them to hate Jews.

Via Instapundit, who also decided, against the police evidence, to call the death "suspicious."

UPDATE:  Solomonia has now linked to the police release and changed his headline to "probably suicide." Of course, the police could be wrong, but with no evidence to the contrary... 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Glad to see somebody is trying to save it. I rather like XP, but I clung to Windows 98 until support for it was almost non-existent. I hope to do the same with XP. Microsoft doesn't like you to do this, of course, but doing it is more common than not--especially when Windows Vista already has spawned a book of workarounds for its various headaches. Yech.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Among them, ah, yes, the famous ungrateful English. But these ones do have an excuse:

"Like many other Germanic and Scandanavian tribes, the English have been cowed by self-doubt in recent decades, and have turned from be[r]serking empire-hurlers into a nation of social workers, drones and emigrants." 

Actually, they have many more than just one excuse. Quite a lot, really.

Via Simply Jews 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 02:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The killing of the Shaw boy--by all accounts a straight arrow with promise--by an illegal Mexican immigrant gangbanger just out of jail, is very sad. But, hey, L.A. is a "sanctuary city" with a Hispanic mayor and a liberal daily who both promote illegal immigration from Mexico. Undocumented workers, they want us to call them. When they work. Most of them do, here. Taking jobs whites don't want, they like to say. Bull, I say. But the street beggers here are always black or white. Never Hispanic. Gangs? A few. Nothing like East L.A., of course, but where else is like East L.A.? Calcutta, maybe. But while Austin is not officially a sanctuary city for illegals, that is definitely the political preference. This stuff is getting way out of hand, and, like so many other American trends, the backlash seems to be getting strongest in California. Maybe Shaw's death will do some good, so to speak. Bless his heart. Cobb, who prefers Mexican national to illegal immigrant (might as well be specific) has a lot more.

UPDATE:  Austin, indeed, is not a sanctuary city in the sense that police jurisdiction over them is limited, but is in the sense that no public services may be denied them based on their illegality. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"As far as I could tell, I was the only black man in the company, a source of shame for me, but, hey, let's face it: pretty good job security. After a while I realized I didn't even have to hide the Tetris games."

Much better than the rewritten autobio that was finally published. More true-to-life, you know?

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If the weekend show that starts today wasn't on the other side of town, I might actually drop by to see the satire master of the Web. As it is, I have Mr. B. to tote around to Little League stuff and etcetera. So I'll wait to read his followup post on how he found our fair city.

Meanwhile, you shouldn't miss this profile of the show's host, Continental Club owner Steve Wertheimer. For a hole-in-the-wall that's hard to turn around in even when it's not crowded, CC is an international legend. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Little Miss Attila seems to agree with Cobb, who says talk about race never works. He says it's because we can't get past our own self-interest. She would like to see a national shut-up about race, instead of the conversation Barry implies we're going to be having with him until November. As Cobb says, everyone else can rest easy, this is just a black-white thing. Lucky them. Barry has no choice, of course, having painted himself into a corner with what Hitchens calls his thug priest. He now has to run as a black candidate. But we don't have to listen to him. LMA, meanwhile, finds that some white kids are helping to undermine the ancient division by undercutting the famous racial slur. They go around calling each other "my niggah." It's all in the spelling, and the pronunciation. I agree with LMA, however, that Jeremiah Wright, Minister Farrakhan and O.J. Simpson are worthy of the original spelling and pronunciation.

Via Baldilocks 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You can believe the usual prevarication of the Democrat house organ MSM ("the pastor flap") that poor ole Rev. Jeremiah Wright's words were cherry picked or taken out of context by that nasty Fox News, whose alternative, contradictory voice they cannot stand. Or you can take the time to hear him out, in complete context, in his post 9/11 America-Had-It-Coming Memorial service. Courtesy of an obviously-angry Filipino, Wretchard of the Belmont Club, who mourns fifteen compatriots, ordinary folks lost in the Twin Towers.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 06:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I agree with VDH that, if you think racial attitudes are divisive now, just wait, as he predicts, til you see the outcome of the Dems' Pennsylvania primary and the legacy of Obama's defeat for the presidency. I always thought the fellow might be nominated but never believed he could win the general election. That should be obvious now that he's taken to preaching to us about slavery and oppression and making offhand remarks about "typical white people." He was a novelty before, a black man running for office promising to transcend race. Now, with his refusal to disassociate himself from his anti-American, racist pastor, he's just another black scold in the JJackson, ASharpton race hustler mode, and white people aren't going to buy it. Oh, some of them will, sure. But there aren't enough of them to elect Barry. And the resulting black anger could be shocking--or would be if we hadn't already had the preview that started it all, the "KKK of A" rantings of Barry's paranoid pastor of twenty years and counting.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Russians aren't just having trouble with democracy, folks. Passover is coming. So they've decided to turn back the clock on anti-Semitism and warn Christians to hide their children. Isn't that special?

Posted by Dick Stanley at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The Seablogger, whose income has long been derived from his stock market investments, urges the rest of us, whose current income may be derived from 401K retirement accounts, not to panic this week as Wall Street goes wacko. "Keep calm, don’t throw good money after bad, or vice versa."

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This, to me, is one of the most interesting aspects of the controversy over Sen. Obama and Rev. Wright--which might cost the O man the Pennsylvania primary. The famous television hostess was a Wright parishioner until she left the black-liberation theology congregation in South Chicago. Obama, whose half-white background would seem to make his membership more intellectual than emotional, never left. Cobb says we're unfairly focusing on Barry's membership, when we should realize that BLT is pervasive in the black church and not unusual at all. Then why did the easygoing Oprah see that it was not to her advantage, but Barry, the supposed unifying architect of "hope" and "change," did not?

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I always enjoy Victor Davis Hanson, but never more so than when he's comparing America's present to its past:

"Our 1972 Olds 98 (my dad bought it used) in terms of reliability, comfort, ease of driving, and safety was a relic, a deathtrap, a clunker compared to a 2007 Honda Accord or Toyota Camry. None of these considerations appear in statistics about income, unemployment, purchasing power, etc. After all, how do you measure the value of a lap-top with wifi, or the notion that you can sit at Starbucks and have a 10-million volume library at your fingertips? What does one pay for that privilege?"

He mentions a 1930s family with its wood-burning stove and prize-possession radio. Reminded me of my Mississippi grandmother, who still had both in the mid-1950s. I wonder, though, whether Americans today don't just take their affluence for granted and get upset when they can't afford more? Making the entitlement "promises" of a Barry or Hilarity attractive.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Get educated. Hell, get churched, as Cobb might have said, but didn't. Classic stuff here. A fun read.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 06:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Global warming threat or global warming bamboozle? Get both sides of the alleged anthropogenic issue, daily. I like this new site by two New Zealand professors so much that I blogrolled it. It's the very thing the poltroonish MSM should be giving us, but, having pretty much come down on the threat side, can't be trusted to do it consistently.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 09:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I like this intriguing look at how beauty in women is ever the same, even while different. It's about Hollyweird actresses, but we won't let that bother us. Especially not when most of them are the classic ones. I filed it under science, because it's really about genetics.

Via Instapundit 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

91  Sharia is Englishe as tea and scones,

92  So everybody muste get stoned.

93  The pilgryms shuffled for the door

94  To face the rule of the Moor;

95  Poets, Professors, Starbucks workers

96  Donning turbans, veils and burqqas.

97  As they face theyr fynal curtan

98  Of Englande folk, one thynge is certan:

99  Dying by theyr own thousande cuts,

100  The Englande folk are folking nuts.

101 BURMA SHAVE

From Iowahawk's brilliant, fractured Chaucer: The Tale of the Asse-Hatte

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My eyes have been bothering me lately. Getting old. Maybe I need to eat more carrots.

"A sliced Carrot looks like the human eye. The pupil, iris and radiating lines look just like the human eye...and science shows that carrots greatly enhance blood flow to and function of the eyes."

These kind of forwardings around the Web usually just get deleted. But I read this one.

Via Hodgepodge from the Geranium Farm 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Artist John Cox, of Cox & Forkum fame, brings the war on Islamic facism to the world of comic books. Matamoros is not Captain America, fortunately, but it's just as accessible. Maybe more so. I've ordered my copy. Matamoros, by the way, is Spanish for Moor-slayer.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

There was a time, long ago in my vanished youth, when I would see these words painted in white on the sides of old barns on major arterial roads all over the South and as far north as Illinois. Dew on the Kudzu reminded me of it in a piece on the aging tourist attraction on Lookout Mountain, TN. The mountain, with its Lover's Leap, drew my paternal grandparents on their Chattanooga honeymoon in the winter of 1904. I know because I still have a little sewing kit with a yellowed plastic cover over a fading colored paper insert on the top that my grandmother kept as a souvenir. Rock City opened later, in 1932, and it's still trying to keep up with the times. Most of its painted ads have also vanished as the old barns have fallen down, but the place now has a Website, and a Webcam. Looks overcast this morning, up there in the clouds.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The blogosphere--criticizing the NYTimes' chief cretin columnist Bob Herbert--boldly goes where few have gone before:

"Are doctors humiliated when patients show up and expect them to palpate and attend to their naked body parts?"

Beats me, but I hope not. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I seem to have lost my "I Stand With Israel" banner on the top left of this site's first page. Indeed, Jack Lewis dot net, from whence the banner came, seems to be off the air, as well. I had noticed that JL previously had tried to limit people using the banner, but now it's gone completely. I'll have to hunt around for a substitute. I've tried uploading thumbnails for the sidebar but no luck so far. I'm either too inept or Movable Type is too obtuse. Or something.

UPDATE:  Then it returned, at least temporarily. Links to a dogs and cats site, now, instead of Lewis's.

MORE: Three days later, it's still wavering. Sometimes it's there, sometimes it isn't. I'm going to have to start seeking an alternative, I guess. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Instapundit has an interesting post on the actions of sheriff's deputies in Denver, enforcing a court order. He takes pains to post both sides, the complainants and the cops, but then he can't resist ending it with a swiping bit of irrelevance more worthy of a snarling liberal than a dispassionate libertarian: "I doubt they'd have gone this route in a fancy neighborhood nearly as quickly as in a trailer park."

As an old cop reporter who has frequently been infuriated by police behavior, I must say they'd have to be terminally stupid not to treat a trailer park differently than a fancy neighborhood, considering they're statistically a lot more likely to be gunned down in the former than the latter. That Prof. Reynolds--whose good stuff I read every day--doesn't seem to realize this doesn't speak too well of his understanding of law enforcement. Or is it just another example of the blogosphere's tendency to go off half-cocked? 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 03:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Columbia University, denying an Iranian report that some professors are enroute to Tehran to apologize to Mahmoud-the-mad for insults on his recent New York visit, includes an interesting little slap:

"We ask that a clarification be added....and that verification of the facts even during the era of Google's news value-neutral, digital age continues to be warranted."

Ah, yes, let's bemoan the end of the days when the gatekeepers got to decide "news value." Boo hoo.

Via Simply Jews 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

No, she's not from Texas. But here's a Miss America candidate we can all get behind, a real Utah National Guard medic and Afghanistan veteran. Outlaw 13 at Guidons, Guidons, Guidons! shows how. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 07:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

My old Army bud Chuck Waldron and I like to recall our eight to nine months as platoon leaders in the Sixth Armored Cavalry Regt., 1968-69, before going to Vietnam as light-infantry advisors to SVN militia. Among other things we guarded Nixon's inauguration, though me and my guys got to sit in the warm armory while he and his had to be outside in the cold. I know he'll be interested in this Civil War enthusiast's plan to spend this year tracing the then-new regular Army regiment's activities through their annual returns for 1862. I wonder when the unicorn shoulder patch was authorized? Before, or after, the regiment served here in Austin under Custer in 1865-68 as post-war federal occupiers?

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Beldar, our favorite "trial" lawyer--even if he is in Houston--says it's time for us Texans to shell out for our fav GOP candidate, even if it 's just $25. In order to have any say in choosing the nominee, that is, since the choice is likely to have been made by the time the Texas primary rolls around. He's for Fred, of course, and makes a good case. I may be just a little too liberal for Fred since I still like Rudy. But I agree with him that the Reps are going to run the table on the Dems next year, whichever candidate is chosen.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Cobb vows to be funnier, skewier, in '08. I can relate. Also to his dismissal of a certain overcrowded city to our north as Fart Worth. But while I agree that Houston is an armpit, I would disagree that it's the one of the South. That label still goes to Atlanta, still the place everyone down South has to go through even on the way to hell.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Some forget the historical significance of Dec. 25--other than being Christmas Day--as in Gen. Washington's crossing of the Delaware River in 1776 to attack the mercenary Hessians at Trenton, N.J. Well, Fred Thompson remembers, and he wants us all to commemorate the date by exercising our Second Amendment rights (thus far, anyway) by buying guns. Just think, we were one capsize away from losing our first president, who had this penchant for standing up in overburdened boats.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

A shameless effort to attract hits, via Simply Jews and Linky Love. If you don't understand, don't worry.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 06:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Scott, The Fat Guy, is lamenting his newly-acquired healthy change of life. It sounds awful, especially the colds, the headaches and the insensate right hand. I did the diet already, I didn't drink to begin with or gamble, but I was steeling myself to start exercising again, take cholesterol-reducing pills and quit smoking. Maybe the last three require a rethink.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 01:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As one of the recent commenters at Mark in Mexico says, the last post in July was politically provacative enough--a Puebla state reservoir lined with toxic sludge--to make you think the proprietor might have joined the list of Mexico's involuntarily disappeared journalists. In any case, the blog has been inactive for so long now that the spammers are trying to take it over. It had become so popular that it was regularly cited by Instapundit, so it's hard to believe that it would just stop, without an adios, and its author vanish into cyberspace.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Akaky outdoes himself in this essay on the unexpected death of a young friend. A pavane, indeed.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Seablogger has become the land blogger, selling his cabin cruiser and moving ashore:

"It is a burden shed, but also a grief acquired. I shall not forget this day."

I can't quite imagine selling the family sloop, a mere pocket cruiser, and I've never even lived on it. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Seablogger says he feels dirty everytime he uses Google now. LGF notes the search giant's latest political move, leaving up anti-Semitic videos on YouTube but taking down a reasoned anti-Jihadi speech by Robert Spencer at Dartmouth--who has a link to the video elsewhere, though I must say it's of remarkably poor quality and so echoey it's hard to understand his words. These kinds of games can kill a business, even one as big as Google--the fifth most valuable corporation in the U.S. with a market value of $217 billion. Me, I'm making it a point to use other search engines, such as Yahoo, Ask, and MSN.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 12:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here's three tips for getting the most for your gas money at the station: Pump first thing in the morning, pump slow, and don't pump when the tanker truck is delivering the stuff. Sounds good.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 11:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Making the 1998 ban on Internet taxes permanent failed. Instead, it's to be four more years (House) or seven more (Senate), meaning they now need to work out a compromise on the length. Hope they split the difference. But why not permanent? Pols just never met a tax they didn't like, at least a little.

Posted by Dick Stanley at 08:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I enjoy reading Cobb, a conservative black engineer, and descendent of a freed black Union soldier in the Civil War, who is decidedly not one of the race hustlers so prevalent these days. Particularly like his current post on who's a race sell-out and who isn't. And this remark by one his commenters:

"If you keep your credit clean, and save some money, you will have an easier time managing your financial life in America. If you don't commit crimes and treat people ethically so they don't sue you, you won't have to worry about the justice system. Them's the rules."

Yep. Worth the read. 

Posted by Dick Stanley at 02:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)