| JFK |
[Nov. 23rd, 2009|01:16 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  pensive | ] |
It's been 46 years since JFK was assassinated. I don't remember the event itself, but I do just barely recall sitting on my mother's lap, watching his funeral on TV with the extended family. I had a frame of reference for that, since my great-great grandmother had died shortly beforehand. I don't think I really understood who the President was, but everyone was sad, and I understood that it was a funeral. A sad, far-off time.
And next spring, there would be the Beatles. |
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| The Smoking Gun |
[Nov. 21st, 2009|10:44 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  calm | ] |
Now you can read for yourself how prominent 'global warming researchers' conspired to falsify results and try to keep the panic alive. In the end, it seems to have been more about money than anything. If you can convince people that there's danger, that gets you funding. |
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| Meanwhile... |
[Nov. 20th, 2009|05:56 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | calm | ] |
I got a tetanus booster, and a pneumonia vaccination. Sore arm is sore :P
*****
I'm missing something here. The murderer apparently purchased the little girl from her mother. I can think of all sorts of things to charge him with, but kidnapping doesn't really seem appropriate.
*****
So, the Chicago Tribune makes their feelings pretty clear with the headline "Roland Burris is a lying snake". I really hope he sues for slander, but I doubt he's quite that brave or foolish. |
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| In the News! |
[Nov. 18th, 2009|11:54 am] |
| [ | mood |
| | cheerful | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Aqua: Bumblebee | ] |
Out of all the articles I've read about the recently-completed 'Food Security Summit', I've yet to see a single mention of overpopulation as even a minor contributing factor to creating a world where famine is the normal condition.
Gotta love the Pope labasting 'opulence' as a root cause of starvation. He'll be selling off much of the Vatican to help feed the hungry, I'm sure.
*****
So, the Senate has just quietly announced that they won't be taking substantive action on Obama's proposed carbon tax until March or so. Whether or not they're entirely serious about the date, it does send a welcome message to the President to put the economy first. I'm filled with schadenfreude when I contemplate the House Dems who went rushing forth to take the most exposed position they possibly could back in June, sure that the country would follow. Brave politicians make for entertaining elections.
*****
It's always interesting to contemplate the gulf between the Senators, who for the most part intend to be President someday, and the Representatives, who for the most part intend to change the world immediately. You'd think that people who have to face the electorate every two years would be more cautious than those who have a six year term, but that's not how it works. Senators tend to look two or three election cycles ahead. Representatives tend to do impulsive things in the first year of their term, then spend the next year trying to explain them away.
*****
Obama offers a moment of unintentional humour when he tries to defend the idea of putting the 9/11 terrorists on trial.
In one of a series of TV interviews during his trip to Asia, Obama said those offended by the legal privileges given to Mohammed by virtue of getting a civilian trial rather than a military tribunal won't find it "offensive at all when he's convicted and when the death penalty is applied to him."
Obama quickly added that he did not mean to suggest he was prejudging the outcome of Mohammed's trial.
I've yet to hear anyone give me a coherent answer as to what possible benefit is supposed to come of these trials. The assumption from the left seems to be that having a trial is itself a benefit.
*****
Sarah Palin thinks Newsweek's cover picture of her is 'sexist' and 'inappropriate'. I'm left to wonder who that is in that picture, posing that way, then.
I'm left to wonder why, as well, that when Newsweek displays a picture of their own magazine cover on their website, the picture is linked from the Christian Science Monitor's website. |
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| Politics! |
[Nov. 18th, 2009|12:33 am] |
| [ | mood |
| | cheerful | ] |
I'm hardly one of Obama's most outspoken admirers. I do nevertheless believe in giving the devil his due, and IMHO the man's trip to China was the best showing there by any American President since Nixon. Unlike every other President for the past 30 years, he didn't try to publicly embarass the Chinese with awkward questions at press conferences, or wanting to meet with political dissidents, or generally trying to appear at odds with his hosts. He conducted himself instead in a dignified and polite fashion, as befits a head of state visiting a friendly nation. This will become a trend, I hope. |
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| Bwahahahhhh!!!!1! eleven !!! |
[Nov. 15th, 2009|11:42 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | chipper | ] |
And the evil New England Patriots lose to the Indianapolis Colts! Virtue is rewarded, and villainy chastised. |
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| Remembrance Day |
[Nov. 11th, 2009|10:48 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  sad | ] |
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,.. |
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| Politics! |
[Nov. 3rd, 2009|06:00 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | Politicky! | ] |
So, I'm sitting watching the Senate on TV while I wait for the election returns to start. Some of the same crowd that worked so hard to get the government to waste hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out the failed car companies back in the spring are now plotting ways to spend more money to encourage people to use public transportation instead of driving private cars. What on earth is wrong with these people? Would it be too much to ask that they have some desired outcome in mind when they legislate, instead of just doing whatever seems most attractive at that monent?
*****
They broke my precinct up, and now I have to vote at the elementary school a few blocks away instead of at the restaurant down the street. They had schoolkids helping out with the peripheral functions of the election, which is nice. One poor kid got tasked to stand by the entrance to the ID-checking table, ask your name, and point you toward the clearly-labelled A-M or N-Z lines about five feet away. I felt sorry for him, because you could tell he knew he had a stupid job. His formative experiences with democracy will cause him to grow up to be an anarcho-fascist, I'm sure.
As is usual in offyear elections, I walked right in and voted. Machines were standing idle. I still think there should be a 'frequent voters' line for national elections where you get to go to the front and vote right away if you vote in the offyears.
*****
I found a magnet while leaving the school :)
*****
I believe the 'global warming' legislation is now effectively dead. The Senate have decided to run a thorough cost analysis which probably means that no general vote can take place before next year, when the campaign season will have started. Pelosi has already expressed her willingness to lose seats in support of the plan, but I doubt the people whose seats are on the line will feel quite so much enthusiasm.
Ban-Ki Moon is going to come lecture Congress on their duty to support the UN's plan, which I'm sure will help his cause a lot :)
*****
So, Jimmy Carter Jr spent the last month or so undermining Hamid Karzai's authority by fussing about the fairness of his election. Now Karzai is who we're going to have to work with in Afghanistan. What a masterstroke of foreign policy :P
*****
Edit: Heh. Obama's announced he'll not be commenting on the election results. :D I lol. |
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| Giant Jellyfish Attack! |
[Nov. 3rd, 2009|01:39 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | cheerful | ] |
Pointed out by ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) loganberrybunny
This is how it always begins: A Japanese fishing boat is destroyed, and the handful of survivors describe a humble sea creature, grown to enormous size. The media rush to interview a professor from the University of Hiroshima, who predicts impending disaster... |
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| Political Musings |
[Nov. 2nd, 2009|12:17 am] |
| [ | mood |
| | contemplative | ] |
I'm bemused by the administration's sudden U-turn on middle eastern policy. It's self-evident that the Palestinians can't be trusted or bargained with, but for his first nine months in office Obama was trying to do exactly that. Now, suddenly, there's a return to normalcy. What changed here? Did Obama finally give in to reason, or (as I suspect) is his position so weak now that Hillary feels able to do as she feels best? |
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| TV Day! |
[Oct. 28th, 2009|09:51 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | cheerful | ] |
Another embarassing climb-down for Obama.
Going after Fox News is proving to have been a serious tactical error. For the last nine months, Fox has been dutifully reporting on the rampant corruption, influence peddling, lies and policy failures within the Obama administration, while all of the other 'news' networks ran puff pieces. Now, suddenly, the other networks are beginning to pay attention to what's going on.
*****
I spent today watching TV, as I'd sworn to do. I got up early to see the Ares 1-X launch, and finally got to, after several delays. I'm glad to see us returning to a sane ballistic re-entry design again. The overall appearance makes me think of a Long March with the strap-ons gone. I was appalled at first when the upper stage began to tumble after separation, but apparently that was intended. I should read up more closely on the program - when I was a kid, that wouldn't have caught me by surprise.
The Hitler Channel had a well-produced documentary about the Manson Murders. The Tate house didn't particularly resemble the actual building, but it got the point across. The rest looked quite good, with the exception of some Christmas lights that weren't available in 1969.
I managed to catch "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!" for the first time in years, thanks to bunnyhugger. Now I'm watching the Serious. Later tonight - scary movies! |
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| Owl Cheese |
[Oct. 22nd, 2009|08:18 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | cheerful | ] |
I know I've gone at least 20 years without hearing 'Telstar' on the radio. Today, after I'd posted that link the other day, it was playing while I was at the store. Jung would nod knowingly.
*****
It rather boggles the brain that the rioters in England, the ones who are using violence to try to prevent this Griffin fellow from expressing his political views, are being described as "anti-fascist". It's like living in the looking glass world.
*****
The Giant Seagull of Melbourne! |
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|
| Three Mighty Wrecks |
[Oct. 21st, 2009|01:00 am] |
| [ | mood |
| | contemplative | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Kansas: Angels Have Fallen | ] |
Three car crashes that have stayed in my mind, in chronological order:
The first one occurred in the early summer of '72, on I-95 through central Florida. We were going to the newly-opened Disney World, in that summer before the oil embargo, blasting down I-95 in my mom's sky-blue Impala at about 85mph or so. I generally read on trips, but for some reason I was looking out the window just then at the rather featureless Florida landscape.
We got passed by a motorhome, one of the first I'd seen. I was used to camper shells, and Airstreams, but this thing was a novelty to me, huge and white and all self-contained. There was a little girl in the back, perhaps six or so (I was ten), sitting at a table with her brother, looking out the full-length picture window at the traffic. She had a Mrs Beasley doll like my cousin Victoria's, and she made it wave to me. I grinned and waved back. She lit up, and then they were past us, streaming south with the rest of the traffic.
I was consumed with envy for the motorhome. No, we couldn't afford one (I asked). That seemed the most amazing thing ever, to be able to sit at the kitchen table while you hurtled down the highway towards your vacation.
It must have been about an hour later that we came on the wreckage in the median. There was no doubt it was the motorhome. The sides had come off and were lying by themselves, crumpled but recognizable. The cab was still in one piece, attached to the frame. A pair of police cars had already arrived, and some policemen were looking in through the windows of the cab. Nobody seemed in a great hurry. The rest of the motorhome, as well as its contents, all the assorted things that a family take on vacation, were spread in a quarter mile fan of debris, all along the wide median. It was obvious even to a ten year old that he'd slewed into the median (blown tire?) then barrel rolled and disintegrated. It must have been impressive. Mrs Beasley was lying face up by the highway, unharmed.
*****
The second was in the summer of 1977. I'd just gotten my driver's licence, and my mom had gotten a Pinto wagon. I'd gone along when she bought it. There on the dealer's lot was a powder blue Mustang II convertible with a white leather interior. I lusted after that magnificently faggy car, but couldn't afford it. I had to make due with a used Pontiac LeMans. It was scruffy looking, but had a 455 CID engine and dual carbs, and could actually break the tires loose in third gear*, so I was mollified.
Later that summer, I was hanging out with my friend Dave in the grape arbour behind the house, when we heard a crash. We ran to the corner to see what had happened. It was the powder blue Mustang. It had run afoul of a '47 Chevy that an old couple down the road owned. The Mustang's frame was broken. The Chevy had a dent in one fender. Nobody was hurt, but the girl who'd bought the Mustang was having an atomic freakout right there in the street (the wreck turned to to be her fault). A good friend's little brother later bought the Chevy, and restored it to factory condition. It may still be on the road.
* I consider it evidence of Divine Favour that I survived owning that car at the age of 16.
*****
The third one was in 1983, on the eve of the Indianapolis Five Hundred. I was driving south on US 31 on my way to my aunt Linda's house. US 31 is a major divided highway most of the way from South Bend to Indianapolis, just like an interstate, except that traffic is allowed to turn directly onto the road.
As I entered Kokomo, it became obvious that there'd been a major accident up ahead. Traffic was moving at a crawl, and northbound traffic had been shunted onto the left side of the southbound lanes. Lots of flashing lights up ahead, like a carnival had broken out in the roadway. We ground slowly south. I saw an axle sitting in the northbound lanes, all by itself. Just an axle, and nothing more. Then I saw an engine block. It had been a V8 engine, I'm pretty sure. There wasn't much left except half of an iron block, sitting in a pool of oil and antifreeze. There were a series of deep whack marks in the road where the block had bounced to a stop. Now we started to encounter debris - the rest of the block, bits of suspension, black sheet metal, white sheet metal, etc. It was still over a hundred yards to the main cluster of flashing lights. The debris grew thicker and suddenly I saw it - the rear end of a subcompact, white with a red tartan interior, sitting there at the stop sign, like the back half of a car poised to turn onto US 31.
The front was missing. It was sheared off cleanly at the door pillars, as though Hassan had chopped it with his giant scimitar. It looked pristine. The glass was intact in the rear window. There was a paper bag of groceries sitting upright on the rear seat. I stared. I'm sure my mouth was open. I was so busy gaping at the back half of the subcompact that I almost didn't notice the fan-shaped splash marks on the road.
The black car must have been going at least 150 when it hit the subcompact. I have never before or since seen a passenger car completely obliterated. The next afternoon, when Patrick Bedard drove his car into the drainage ditch in turn three, and the stunned announcer could only repeat "There's nothing left...", I thought of those hand-sized pieces of black sheet metal scattered all along US 31. |
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|
| Eat all my peanuts, and crack my jacks... |
[Oct. 17th, 2009|01:04 am] |
| [ | mood |
| | cheerful | ] |
So, it seems that the first live trans-Atlantic broadcast on the original Telstar was to have been President Kennedy, but he wasn't ready in time. In consequence, they showed Europe part of a baseball game between the Cubs and Phillies. The Cubs lost. That just seems so appropriate.
*****
And the Quote of the Day Award goes to dakhun, for "Occam's Razor says he's a dumbass". |
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|
| Balloon Debacle |
[Oct. 16th, 2009|03:03 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  cynical | ] |
I need to watch more TV. I'm never aware of cool stuff while it's going on.
I'm convinced it was a hoax. I really don't care how authentic the 911 calls, interviews, etc sounded. The balloon was obviously a major project, and had consumed a good deal of time and money. There's about a zero probability that he didn't spend a lot of time thinking about the volume and weight of that balloon, and understand how to calculate the lifting power of the gas.
At a guess, from the pictures, it held between 25 and 40 cubic metres of helium. Helium lifts roughly one kilo per cubic metre at reasonable temperatures and pressures. That limits the total lift of the device to 40 kilos, at best. Late in the flight, when a cell had ruptured and it had lost between a quarter and a third of its gas, it was coming down. The dry weight of the balloon, without anyone on board, had to have been using up 2/3 to 3/4 of the lift. Being generous, then, that's about 15 kilo of excess lift the balloon has at launch. That's not nearly enough to pick up a normal six year old.
I can't for the life of me credit the idea that the father wouldn't have realized that. There might well be an initial moment of panic when one kid first says that another one was on the balloon, but at some point pretty early on you're going to realize that you're being told something that isn't possible. |
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| Cheese Hammer |
[Oct. 16th, 2009|01:01 am] |
| [ | mood |
| | cheerful | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Tornados: Telstar | ] |
I have this song on a 45 - it remains a favourite. It was somehow just perfect for the times. This is a magnificent video interpretation of it.
*****
My model of Phil Hill's Tipo 156 that disappeared some months back in a shelving mishap turned up tonight sitting in more or less plain sight under the shelves, where I found the rest of the models just after the collapse. Similarly, the bolt that went missing when I was cleaning my fur trimmers a few days back turned up in plain sight, exactly where I was sitting at the time. Some things you can't rationally account for.
*****
Who remembers Good King Snuh? I was looking for an old log file to show a friend, and ran across this parody of Royall Tyler's "On a Ruined House in a Romantic Country", inspired by Snuh's fursuit. It's called "On a Wolf-Shaped Suit, Worn by Snuh".
And this cone-faced Wolf is that which he built,
Exalted Snuh? And see the fur he trimmed,
A labour of Love! These furs that rant so wild,
Rant, not now unconscious of Snuhwolf's suit.
Did ye not see eyes gleaming thro' the holes?
Belike, 'twas Snuh, the Wolf of Noise himself!
What though he makes no post of thoughtful sort,
Yet still he haunts the group where first he stray'd.
And still behind him stalks the roaring mob;
And still on his butt his furry tail is worn.
And 'neath that tail, thro' seams o'erstretched and torn,
His hindward charms gleam an unearthly white;
As when thro' broken clouds at night's high noon
Peeps in fair fragments forth the full-orb'd harvest-moon!
I think it's funny, but then I have an odd sense of humour. |
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