Wednesday, April 30, 2003- - -
We got culcher!
In this case I'd say it was Culture, with the capitol 'C'. Community Concerts presented its last performance for this season tonight with The Galaxy Trio. Originally the trio was composed of Lenny Solomon, Moshe Hammer, and Bernie Senensky, but Mark Fewer was a very able substitute for Hammer.
They played a great selection of jazz and classical favorites, all with their own very, very entertaining interpretations. I'm not at all surprised to see that Lenny Solomon lists Stephane Grappelli as a musical inspiration, as he has a similarly playful mastery of jazz fiddle. A very entertaining evening.
@10:40 PM
Stinkers!
Poor Fred. Fred the cat. His real name is Federico Feliné and sometimes we call him Freddy the Felon, but now I see that he could become a true felon. According to a proposed change to the Worland City Code, Chapter 4, Article II, Section 4-9:
(a) Each cat five (5) months of age or older shall be licensed each calendar year. It shall be an offense for any person to harbor a cat within the city which does not have a current license . . ." [emphasis added]
Yes, harboring a cat does sound like felonious behavior. And of course the cat has to be vaccinated for rabies (he is) and must wear a rabies tag and the city license "which plate or tag shall be attached and worn by the cat at all times". This last is our out, as I figure it will be a while before Fred figures out how to attach the tag. Fred doesn't go outside because of all the stray cats (the purpose of the ordinance) and because there's just too much traffic on our street. Making him wear a collar and tags in the house seems pretty silly and I doubt he'd care for it much, so I guess we'll be seeing some felinious behavior from the wee beasty.
@10:15 PM
Fix it. Please!
The good folks at Blogger must be working on the archives bugs today, as my archives have been coming and going like the pizza delivery boy, and I haven't been fussing with them on this end.
Ps. Blast! Attempts to republish my archives are still returning the same old "Error 203:java.lang.NumberFormatException: (server:page)" error message that I've been getting for the last couple of weeks. I didn't do anything. Honest! I didn't touch it. Grrr. . .
@10:04 AM
Yeah, right
About the time I find some redeeming virtue in the ol' Red Star Tribune they greet me with a 64 point type headline proclaiming "U.S. fires on Iraqi Protesters". Of course, the first paragraph of the article says that our troops only fired after they took automatic weapons fire, behavior that really takes the mob past the point of being "protesters".
To be fair, they're only parroting the usual suspects. If you wonder whence this comes, the most egregious headline of the lot is from the World Socialist: "American troops massacre Iraqi protesters in Mosul".
@8:38 AM
Journalistic judo?
Back on April 22nd [link, for what it's worth], I wrote about our petty bureaucrats here in Wyoming and their tendency to hold meetings in the traditional smoky back room, or try to. The latest attempt to limit public access to the public's business was a cheesy set of rules put out by a school board down in Casper.
In preparation for a public meeting the evening of April 22nd, regarding the merger of Willard and Garfield elementary schools in Casper, journalists were told that they may attend, but they may not speak to participants nor attribute statements made during the meeting. Journalists were also to arrive 20 minutes early and stay for the entire session, which ran from 4:30-8:30pm. That last would have been very difficult for the small TV and radio stations where the investigative reporter also delivers the 6 o'clock news and empties the trash cans.
Now if it had been me sitting in the editor's chair I'm afraid I would have staged my usual blitzkrieg [something my bureaucratic colleagues experience from time to time], condemning the school board to censors' hell and refusing to be muzzled or manipulated in any way, shape, or form. I was expecting a major dose of journalistic outrage!
Instead, the folks at the Casper Star took a very low-key approach. They published one pointedly neutral piece in their print edition explaining the school board's rules. There has been no editorializing or OpEd comment since, and there was no coverage of the April 22nd meeting at all, at least that I have seen [although to be fair I've been pretty busy and may have missed it]. If I were suspicious by nature I might even have suggested that the tipped-over-to-the-left 'Red Star' was cutting a lefty school board a bit of extra slack. . .
But while the paper didn't rant about the issue, the Letters to the Editor were filled with outrage, including a letter from one of the smaller news outlets that would be affected by the mandatory attendance policy. With no fanfare, the Casper Star published these letters, but it is their policy to publish all non-libelous letters -- that is nothing the school board could fault them for. In short, in a very low-key way they put out the news. The public provided the respond to the school board's slick move. Of course, I don't know whether this was utterly serendipitous or subtly Machiavellian -- the Casper Star's selection of news and views often doesn't seem to follow any rhyme or reason -- but it appears to have done the trick.
Whatever became of the school board's silly rules, they don't seem to have stuck, as an article in today's Casper Star about another school board meeting on the school merger makes a point to name every name and attribute every statement, and emphasizes the fact that they talked to members of the board and to the public. They don't say whether they attended the entire meeting.
Now it is entirely possible that the school board's rules were ad hoc to facilitate one single meeting, But. There is already a tendency toward secrecy and I had feared that any success in muzzling the press would quickly become SOP for the school board, and would just as quickly spread to other state and local agencies as inevitably as the sun rises. Instead, and assuming they have any shame, the school board has been shamed and at least a little bit of the back room smoke has wafted away.
I should take this as a lesson: There's more than one way to deal with bureaucrats and, as much as I enjoy it, screaming at them isn't necessarily the best way.
@7:12 AM
Tuesday, April 29, 2003- - -
Like shooting Fisk in a barrel
A Denver Post editorial today advocates renewal of the federal ban on assault weapons, trotting out the gun banners' favorite catch phrases: 'It's reasonable.' Sure, it's always reasonable to let people legislate who have no knowledge of the item they wish to control. The fact that the ban focuses on totally cosmetic features and vestigial oddments such as bayonet lugs should tell you how much the folks who crafted the law know about guns. When was the last time you heard about someone sticking up a liquor store with fixed bayonet, hmmm? It's perfectly reasonable to get your panties in a wad over bayonet lugs. 'These weapons have too much firepower for the average citizen.' No, they have no more firepower than many other weapons that simply don't look so scary because they aren't black, and they don't have pistol grips, flash suppressors, or bayonet lugs. 'This isn't an attack on the right to bear arms.' No, it's just an attack on the right to bear some arms, they'll get to the rest later. [Update: Or simultaneously, as this article makes clear.]
And last, a little historic myopia: 'The police will protect us from terrorism.' Yes, just like they protected the folks on Flight 93. They'll protect us from criminals too. That's why places like DC, with the most restrictive firearms laws in the country have such low crime rates, right?
It's not even fun to discuss such things, as I preach to the choir on one hand and to the willfully, or blissfully ignorant on the other. If I were to point out that those banned over-ten-round magazines are still readily available, some will nod and the rest will propose yet another reasonable restriction. Point out that your average shotgun or deer rifle is far more deadly than any of the banned weapons and I'm only asking for yet another reasonable restriction to be proposed. And all of this reasonableness always calls for gun owners to take another step backward, the gun banners never back up an inch.
Well, I for one think it's time they were reasonable and learn a little about what it is they are trying to ban, rather than demanding that we accept reasonable ignorance. [Update dux: Of course, this is one area where I should be careful what I wish for. If the gun banners actually knew anything about guns their legislation might actually start having an effect and I doubt the effect would be what I would wish for.]
@8:39 AM
Blowing off a little steam?
Yellowstone's largest but perhaps least faithful geyser has erupted for the fourth time in a year.
@7:47 AM
Monday, April 28, 2003- - -
How Bizarre
In an idle moment I decided to google myself, if only to see all the horrible things people have been saying about me. [There aren't many horrible things. Oddly, I don't seem to offend people very often, and those I have generally have deserved it. IMHO.] It's amusing to google Swen Swenson, if only because the name is common as dirt. I'm not the singing, dancing Broadway Swen, I'm not one of the myriad 'born on and died on' Swens (thank goodness), I'm not the University of Seattle or the University of Vancouver Swen (that's close enough to commute, it could be the same guy), I'm just the Swen who shows up as an occasional heckler among the blogs. However, I did find this, which I though was mighty peculiar until I realized that you can substitute any name in the URL. Email it to your elderly relatives with suitable edit -- they'll like it.
@10:21 PM
Arrow penetration
Back on January 16th [Sorry, my archives are toast. Again.], I posted portions of an email discussion I was having with Andy Freeman on the relative merits of the crossbow and longbow. In that post I offered my observation that using light-weight arrows, as most crossbows do, is a mistake because they don't penetrate properly. Now in the May/June Successful Hunter Ross Seyfried says ultralight arrows are a horrifying trend:
"Arrows work purely on penetration, and penetration (broadhead sharpness and design aside) depends on momentum (mass times velocity). . . . So the super-trick, ultralight arrows almost instantly fail the penetration tests even on deer and certainly on big game like elk."
It's nice to know that the guy I consider perhaps the greatest living expert on such matters agrees with my observations.
Ps. Screwball Blogger! Ten minutes later my archives have decided to work again. Here's the link to my discussion with Andy Freeman.
@8:58 PM
A nasty mess
An article in today's Rocky Mountain News outlines one of the sexual assault cases at the AFA and illustrates why this is such a difficult problem. It's hard to fault the Air Force for not investigating crimes that aren't reported to them. Likewise, when a crime is reported months after the fact and there is no evidence other than an accusation, I can understand why they would decline to prosecute.
However, there are routes short of prosecution to put a stop to this sort of thing in such a controlled environment. Had some senior officials exercised a bit better judgment in dealing with this situation, they might have avoided being ravaged by the forces of political correctness that are now in full bay.
@8:33 AM
It's an idiot tax
The University of Colorado hospital is charging patients $292 for emergency room exams. The editors at the DenverPost think this is reprehensible. They think it's to screen out uninsured patients. Unfortunately, they don't seem to have asked the hospital why they do this. I rather expect that it's an idiot tax, as you'll notice that they charge even those folks they turn away.
This sort of thing is a problem at emergency rooms everywhere -- people don't want to make an appointment and take time off work to see a doctor, so they go to the emergency room in the evening even though their problem isn't a legitimate emergency, making unnecessary use of a scarce and expensive resource. Charging them for their foolishness seems only fair to me.
@8:13 AM
Hmm . . .
Today's totally unscientific but terribly interesting CalgarySun on-line poll asks: Do you think Canada's marijuana laws should be relaxed? The response so far is running 53.7% 'Yes' and 46.3% 'No'. And need I point out that Calgary is a bastion of Canadian conservatism?
@7:56 AM
Bowyery
By the time I had the garden spaded up and did a couple of other honey does a front had blown in, the temperature dropped, and it was threatening rain. I work outdoors quite a bit and often can't avoid being out in bad weather, so I really don't need any practice being miserable and scratched the fishing idea.
Yet, I couldn't bring myself to sit inside, so I finally screwed up the courage to tackle a nice stave of bois d'arc Osage orange that's been curing in my basement since April of 1999. It started out as a perfectly straight pollarded shoot about 12' long and 4" in diameter that grew down on the Baja Oklahoma side of Lake Texoma. I received it fresh-cut, with the ends sealed. We cut it in two and then split it in half, then re-sealed the staves and put them up in the basement. They lost about 25% of their weight by December of 1999 and each of the four staves took a uniform backset of about 3 inches. Beautiful.
There was a large branch just short of midway up the shoot that left an unworkable knot at that point, so when we cut the shoot in half I wound up with two staves about 6½' long and two just over 5'. Also, when we split the shoot we didn't get it to split right down the middle, so two of the staves are pretty thin, and with the original shoot only about 4" in diameter none of the staves were any too large. Of the four resulting staves, this was the shortest and thinnest, too short and too thin to make a longbow, but just right to make a sinew-backed American Indian shortbow. It will even be a bit long for a shortbow, but then I'll probably use longer arrows and a longer draw than the norm and a bit of extra length won't hurt.
It's always a little scary when I first chop into a stave, wondering whether there is some hidden defect: a worm hole across the grain of the heartwood, a bit of rotten or damaged grain, a deep drying check that the sealing didn't prevent, or some other problem that renders the stave firewood. So I sharpened the stave axe -- I use a cheap old Norlund camper's hatchet of the sort long sold in a blister pack at Kmart -- said my prayers to the bow gods, and slowly worked the bark and sapwood off the stave. And it is beautiful.
The wood has a pleasingly snaky grain with evenly spaced pairs of pin knots, and one larger loose knot about ¼" in diameter. That knot will have to be removed and thus, the finished bow will have a hole through one limb, which is always good for conversation. With the bark and sapwood removed the stave is about 2½" wide and not too badly arched in cross-section, considering that the original shoot was only 4" in diameter. There are no cracks other than a few checks extending an inch or two into either end, and only one small worm hole along the edge of the stave near one end. By the time the tips are thinned and shaped these checks and the wormhole will have been left on the garage floor. Now that I see the back of the bow emerging, I'm having second thoughts about hiding it under a layer of sinew, and thinking rather that it is wide enough to make a self-bow if I do my job properly. We shall see.
The best part of this process is hard to describe, and it is unlike making anything else out of wood. I begin with a heavy, splintery stave that has all the life of a split fence rail. But as the bark and sapwood are removed and the stave is thinned with the axe, it comes alive. The wood begins to ring with each peck of the axe and I can begin to feel the strength of the bow-to-be vibrating in my hands as I release it from it's woody matrix.
And once again I think I know why men through the millennia have named and revered their favorite weapons: Anything so vital, so alive needs a name.
Ps. About mid-way down this web page is a photo of Ishi working a bow stave with an axe, just as I did. [Perhaps getting naked would help, but it was too darn cold.] There are also links at the bottom of the page to several very interesting books about Ishi.
@7:22 AM
Museum blues
In an April 23rd OpEd, Charley Reese is on about the Iraqi Museum:
That museum is one of the five greatest museums on Earth. It contained treasures that are the heritage of mankind. There are 140,000 U.S. military personnel in Iraq. We've protected all the oil fields, north and south. Do you really believe we couldn't have spared two fire teams to guard the irreplaceable artifacts of the beginnings of Western civilization? Of course we could have. Somebody just goofed.
Somebody goofed? Well, yes. A Google search this morning of Iraqi museum inside job yielded 7040 hits, suggesting that it ought to be common knowledge by now that a good deal of the looting took place before we had troops in Baghdad. Reese should consider his silly ass fact-checked, but then he's never let the facts confuse him before.
@5:56 AM
Sunday, April 27, 2003- - -
"We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle."
-- Winston Churchill
@8:37 AM
A Colossal Colon
In today's news Dave Barry explores the nether regions of teaching aids, where he finds The Geraldo!
And it's all downhill from there. I think I'll go see if the walleye are biting.
@8:36 AM
Friday, April 25, 2003- - -
Yes!
Blogger is back. Quick, post something!
@3:06 PM
Libertarians! Libertarians!*
The Casper Star has picked up on the Free State Project. I think it would be wonderful if the 3142 people who have already signed up would all move to Worland, where we could easily dominate city and county politics -- there are about 5250 people in Worland and roughly twice that in the whole county. Realistically however, there aren't many good jobs available and we do tend to take care of our own, so newcomers can have a hard time finding employment. The up-side of this, at least from an entrepreneurial viewpoint, is that we have a well-educated but somewhat underemployed workforce. Entrepreneurs who are willing to put in the work can do very well for themselves here, and most of the successful newcomers to town that I see are those like me who have brought their own employment with them.
My favorite business of this stripe is our health club. The couple who own the club are from Eureka, CA. Both have degrees and strong backgrounds in physical education and athletics, and they purchased the existing but moribund club seven years ago. They now have about 2000 members (and did I mention that there are only 5250 people in the whole town?). We asked how on earth they settled on Worland as a place to start a business and it wasn't so much Worland that attracted them as California that repelled them. The fifth time they had their car stolen/broken into they decided it was time to move. They wanted to buy an existing business in a good safe place to raise children. They've found one.
Due to the large percentage of the population with backgrounds in farming, oil and gas development, heavy construction, and such, Worland's underemployed tend to be relatively mechanically inclined, and manufacturing industries find skilled workers here. (We make a significant percentage of the country's sugar, aluminum cans, and kitty litter!) The BN&SF serves the town, so rail transportation is no problem, although we have only two-lane highways and we are surrounded by mountains, so highway transportation is a bit more of a problem. RT Communications, our local baby Bell, has just started offering DSL service over their new fiber optic system, all recent equipment and pretty much state of the art, so we are very internet ready.
In short, I doubt we'll see a whole passel of Free Staters moving to Worland, as there aren't a lot of job openings. But we can sure be entrepreneur-friendly! We have no state income tax, the sales tax in Washakie County is only 4%, and the cost of living is among the lowest in the nation. A small business can be started here very inexpensively.
*Remember Gary Larson's Anthropologists! Anthropologists! cartoon with the natives scurrying to hide their TVs and stereos? In much the same vein, I'm tempted not to mention that, while 22% of Wyoming's populace works for federal, state, and local governments, another considerable portion are employed by publicly funded projects that amount to little more than working welfare. My favorite among these is the on-going effort to re-contour and reseed all of the state's highway ditches. In many cases there is little noticeable result, other than to replace the vegetation in the ditches with straw. However, it employs a lot of people and heavy equipment, and it is doubtful whether those workers or the owners of that equipment would look favorably on any smaller government movement. Thus, the picture of Wyoming's politics and economy may not be as rosy as the Free State Project's assessment makes it sound. I do like their quote of Nathaniel Burt's Wyoming, however, as it pretty well nails the character and characters of Wyoming:
As anywhere, there are all sorts, but nowhere are extremes of personality more evident and tolerated. A democracy of people who are all individuals, rather than all just equal... The archetypical Wyoming citizen is characterized by the various meanings of the word "ornery." This can mean obstinate, cantankerous, obstructionist, resentful and revengeful, or independent, individualistic, non-conformist, and strong-minded. Even in the late twentieth century, specimens of this character abound outside the radius of Better Business bureaus.
In any case, this orneriness is usually covered with a somewhat superficial facade of smiling politeness, or even joviality. Over the years, outsiders (particularly Easterners used to the snarls of city dwellers), have fallen in love with the good, sweet, innocent lovable, open-handed sons and daughters of the West, only to find out later that there's hard rock underneath. Things like loyalty, respect, consideration, and instant handy response to emergencies and disaster are embedded in the rock, too. Just don't believe everything a citizen tells you.
Yes, if there's one word to sum up Wyomingites it is Ornery, although I'm sure I have no idea what Burt means by that last remark about our veracity [saintly look].
@3:04 PM
Thursday, April 24, 2003- - -
Good clean fun!
Publicola sends a reminder about the .50 caliber/machinegun shoot in Cheyenne Wells, CO, this weekend. Unfortunately, I've only got a couple more weeks of spring turkey season and I've been too busy to go, so I'm going to try to get away for a few days and head for the Black Hills. I just hate having to make such decisions. Heheheh.
Ps. It's the pleasant afterlife of Sus scrofa! This weekend I could go to Cheyenne Wells and shoot machineguns, go to the Black Hills turkey hunting, or stay home and attend Worland's Sport and Gun Show.
Update dux: The best laid plans and all that . . Our next door neighbor's elderly sister has died. Not unexpected, it was from complications due to diabetes and she had been comatose for several days. But the funeral will be tomorrow. So much for turkey hunting this weekend.
@6:56 AM
Frustrated?
Natalie Maines says she spoke out of frustration when she said she was ashamed that Bush is from Texas, so perhaps she can understand that it is frustration with airheads that leads us to boycott the Dixie Chumps' music.
Update: The April 25th Casper Star print edition People in the News section sums it up beautifully:
So what if your straight-laced country music fans hate you? Strip and they might change their minds. Yeah, right.
When you find yourself in a deep hole it is customary to stop shoveling. Given their fan base, I've got to wonder what on earth Ms. Maines was thinking when she made her original disparaging remarks about the Prez. And now appearing nude on the cover of Entertainment Weekly? It would appear that thinking is not in their repertoire.
@4:06 AM
How odd
I find I very odd that we are discovering millions of dollars in cash squirreled away in Iraq, while we also find senior Iraqi officials still hiding in Iraq. Were it me, I'd have stashed my ill-gotten gains somewhere outside Iraq and used my escape plan to be long gone to somewhere without extradition treaties.
I've got to wonder whether this might be a combination of two factors: First, in our fears of terrorists with WMDs, I suspect that we had the exits guarded more heavily than the Iraqis anticipated and second, we stormed the country much more quickly than they anticipated.
@4:05 AM
Hard on peds
According to the Rocky Mountain News, Denver is the second most dangerous city for pedestrians, averaging 23 deaths per year. I don't find that surprising at all. My favorite pedestrian-killers are their crosswalks that cross the interstate highway on and off-ramps. They've got vehicles exiting the interstate at 55-60 mph, barreling around a sharp curve and suddenly finding pedestrians walking across the ramp in front of them. It's bad enough for peds like us who can run to get out of the way, but they must lose a lot of little old ladies. What's worse, this is a design feature of some of Denver's most modern highway construction, including the just-constructed overpasses over I-25 in the vicinity of Coors Field and the Pepsi Center where there is a lot of pedestrian traffic from sports fans. It's as if sidewalks were a requirement of the design but no one ever expected them to be used.
@3:18 AM
Wednesday, April 23, 2003- - -
The InstaPundit makes mistakes?
Darn! He's human after all. Actually, it sounds like he plays the game about the way I do. If I make a typo or some such editorial error and then discover it immediately, I'll fix it. If I don't see the error until the next day I consider it gone to posterity, unless it's an HTML fragment that is fouling up all the preceding posts. However, if the error is substantive, rather than just a typo or code glitch, or if it is brought to my attention by a reader, I post a correction as an update and acknowledge whoever pointed it out to me. I figure I'll never be perfect, but I can at least be honest.
@7:54 AM
L'Obsession anti-americaine
My good friend Duane Groshart is a "real journalist" (and yes those are scare quotes, he's also a real character) who writes a weekly column for the Northern Wyoming Daily News, Out of Bounds. He writes on a broad variety of topics, and always with great humor and warm humanity. He also has that apparently rare gift among journalists of being able to put his own strongly held beliefs aside to write a balanced piece, even when it appears on the opinion page.
Duane's article today is about the war in Iraq and the world's view of the US, focusing on French anti-Americanism. It's a good piece, and it is a great shame that it isn't on-line. However, in my on-going effort to convince people that there really is something in the water hereabouts, I can not let you miss his parting paragraph:
As for the French, I'm a little worried that they might be planning to make a big surplus arms deal that could undermine the balance of power in the world. Think of all the guns that could flood the market. And they would be almost new. Most of them have never been fired -- and dropped only once.
Heheh. That joke has been around since it referred to crossbows, but it still makes me laugh. And laughter is really the best response to the French, don't you think?
@6:50 AM
Tuesday, April 22, 2003- - -
Excellent letter
In today's Denver Post, Lawrence H. Kaufman of Golden writes a letter to the editor in protest of Rep. Joel Hefley's attempts to amend the role of the investigative panel at the AFA, to shield senior officials at the academy from being held accountable for their actions or lack thereof.
Says Kaufman: "Military officials, government officials, officials of all institutions should always be held accountable for their actions or inactions. There is no need for a commission to study that aspect of the scandal at the AFA."
I'm as amazed as Mr. Kaufman that this question would even come up, but then as he points out, this isn't the first time that such investigations have been defused.
@1:10 PM
Almost forgot!
Happy Earth Day!
@8:46 AM
A gentle admonition
"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animated contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your council or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands of those who feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you. May posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."
-- Samuel Adams
What he said.
@8:08 AM
What a contrast
Shiite pilgrims are worshipping at a holy shrine in Karbala, following a ritual that has been banned for decades. The Washington Post captions their article today: "Shiite Pilgrims Worship at Holy Shrine in Karbala" and the New York Times captions theirs: "Elated Shiites, on Pilgrimage, Want U.S. Out." Apparently every silver lining will come with a little black cloud when it comes to the Gray Lady's coverage of Iraq.
@7:43 AM
Gad!
I suppose it was inevitable that an article in today's Casper-Star print edition [not yet on-line] about Kenyan Robert Cheruiyot, who's just won the Boston Marathon, would be captioned: "Cheruiyot of Fire: Kenyans still swift." And to think that I've been accused of being a purveyor of cheesy puns.
@7:29 AM
Time to join the country club
@7:29 AM
Famous again
In a Casper Star-Tribune article not yet available on-line it is reported that former U of Wyo basketball star Fennis Dembo has shot and killed an intruder in his San Antonio home.
My wife and I were fortunate enough to be students at UW for Dembo's final year, and he was indeed a most incredible athlete. He was drafted in the second round and I'm very surprised that he didn't go farther in pro BBall, but from all reports he was also an incredible prima donna who didn't handle the transition well between being a huge star at a small college and being just another pro rookie. From this St Petersburg Times interview and article published just last month, it sounds like he's done a lot of growing up since then. I hope he's okay.
@7:01 AM
Would you like smoke in that back room?
If there was ever a piece of legislation less popular with politicians and bureaucrats than Wyoming's open meetings law, I don't know what it would be. Various state and local government entities have employed a variety of ruses to circumvent the law, some more successful than others. For instance, 'personnel issues' may, or even must be discussed in private, so a lot of meetings seem to feature personnel issues.
Now, in an article not yet available on-line, the Casper-Star tells us of a new and so far unique effort to limit the public's access to government affairs. In a public meeting tonight regarding the merger of Willard and Garfield elementary schools in Casper, journalists may attend, but they may not speak to participants nor attribute statements made during the meeting. Journalists must also arrive 20 minutes early and stay for the entire session, which will run from 4:30-8:30.
We shall see how this little piece of chicanery works out, because I can imagine a number of ways for the media to circumvent the new rules. Most obvious: What is a "journalist?" A 'special to the Star-Trib by. .' report by someone not employed as a journalist would be the most obvious way to cover the meeting. Also, as far as I know there are no bloggers in Casper, but if there were this would be a natural for our medium. After all, what can they do - bar anyone from meetings who has a computer and access to the internet?
If the school district gets away with limiting coverage of their public meeting you can bet that we'll be hearing more of these sorts of rules from other government entities. It's also a safe bet that all such efforts to hold public meetings in private are eventually doomed to failure, thanks to the internet.
If anyone in Casper is concerned about this issue and attends this meeting, today would be a really good day to start a blog!! Then email me when you've posted your report, because I'm dying to know what they want to discuss that's so darn secret.
Update: Here's today's Casper-Star article on the topic.
@5:09 AM
Monday, April 21, 2003- - -
In general, the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other.
-- Voltaire
@8:34 AM
The perfect and the good
Or, as Jim Spencer in today's DenverPost outlines the attitude of one AFA grad: If we can't be perfect we'd as well be pigs. An interesting article, and as Spencer observes, this is an attitude we can't afford to ignore.
@8:21 AM
Symbolic gestures
It appears that the little town of Arcata, CA has passed a city ordinance that outlaws voluntary compliance with the Patriot Act. Situated on the northern frontier of the land of symbolic gestures, Arcata was also one of the first municipalities to pass resolutions against global warming and unilateral war in Iraq.
It seems all very well to promise a legal fight if the feds demand access to their records, but I think our local library has the better idea: They've taken the decidedly non-symbolic route and shredded theirs.
@6:57 AM
Uffda
Someone forgot to tell the farmers that yesterday was Easter. It was also a beautiful spring day and there are fields to plant and irrigate. We went out yesterday morning to walk the irrigation ditches and pick wild asparagus, and the press gang got me. Spent the rest of the day picking up and laying out gated irrigation pipe. Of course, I also went home with a huge sack of wild asparagus, which will taste all that much better for the effort.
Ps. Oh My Me Then! That wild asparagus is good! Once you've had the real thing you'll never again be satisfied with that tasteless stuff they sell at the grocery.
@6:22 AM
Sunday, April 20, 2003- - -
Spin spun
The topic of the 2003 Casper College Humanities Festival will be "Manufacturing Consent: The Media, Spin and Public Opinion." Two days of lectures and discussion will be featured. All will be at Durham Hall in the Aley Fine Arts Center, Casper, Wyoming, April 24th and 25th, 2003. Presentations are free and open to the public. For more information call 307-268-2372.
The lecture topics will include "Jeffersonians vs. Hamiltonians: A Lively Debate," "A Nation at Risk: Is Television Anti-Democratic?" and "Absolutism, Pluralism, and the Meaning of Truth." This all sounds very interesting and I'll have to see if I can get away.
The meaning of truth? Now there's a topic that's kept philosophers wound in knots for millennia. Theory of Knowledge is also a favorite philosophical topic of mine. Incidentally, that link will take you to a very interesting bit: Bertrand Russell discussing Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, absolutely mind-bending stuff. It can be argued that even relatively simple facts are comprised of a potentially infinite assemblage of 'atomic facts', not all of which we can know. Furthermore, when we discuss these facts we aren't really discussing the facts themselves, but rather our perceptions of those facts, which are colored in infinite ways. Bottom line, I think Wittgenstein is arguing that none of us are ever really playing with a full deck when it comes to our understanding of the world, and that includes our leaders and decision-makers. Mix in some disinformation, a little misunderstanding, and a bit of artful spin, and there's plenty of room for disagreement, even between people of infinitely good will.
And unfortunately, not only are we not playing with a full deck, some of us don't appear to be particularly imbued with good will. For instance, the more I think about Colman McCarthy's take on TV's military embeds, the angrier I get. Says he, these imbeds are ". . a further assault on what the public deserves: independent, balanced and impartial journalism. The tube turned into a parade ground for military men -- all well-groomed white males -- saluting the ethic that war is rational, that bombing and shooting are the way to win peace, and that their uniformed pals in Iraq were there to free people, not slaughter them." [emphasis added]
Published on April 18th when the war in Iraq was essentially over, this talk of slaughter seems to disregard the fact that casualties from the war were perhaps the lightest ever suffered in such a conflict, and the fact that the low casualty rate was due to the extreme care our troops took to avoid casualties, even to the point of accepting additional casualties themselves. This is not just dealing with less than all the cards, it is not the balanced and impartial journalism that Colman himself says that the public deserves. It is despicable and outright libelous of the very people who lay their lives on the line, not only for us, but even to minimize casualties among our enemies. It's not subtle spin, it is a Big Lie told Loudly.
@9:01 AM
Saturday, April 19, 2003- - -
There's some good in everything.
In the process of tracking down old pack.soksok.jp, I at least discovered an interesting blog I haven't seen before, Mudita Journal, by Joshua Zader, who's also a bit puzzled by having his blog mirrored. He's a conflicted Objectivist and has put together a directory of Objectivist Blogs that's quite interesting. He's only been at it since December and doesn't get much traffic, so go give him a read. It's good stuff, Maynard!
@3:37 PM
Pfssst!!
My wife just saw a preview for Monica Lewinski's new TV program and reports that Monica appears to have put on a *bit* of weight.
@1:13 PM
Pennies from Heaven
Steve Den Beste discusses the idea of using gravity-powered kinetic energy weapons on the battlefield and concludes that, with exceptions such as the now-famous concrete bomb it isn't practical. It's an excellent discussion of the problem but, of course, the British made great use of gravity-powered kinetic energy weapons way back during the 100 Years War. They called them arrows and fired them in high-arching flights to rain down on their opponents with devastating effect.
I'm not sure what the mid-range elevation of the British arrow flights was, but it couldn't have been much over 1000 feet. Dropping arrows from a plane at that same elevation should achieve the same effect. At that elevation they wouldn't disperse much, and might well serve as a low-tech version of the cluster bomb.
Just as with the concrete bomb, I can imagine that their modern application on the battlefield would be pretty specialized, but consider dropping arrows at night from a stealth plane, on troops in the open. If the plane is silent and the arrows - of whatever material - fell silently, the troops might not even realize they're under attack.
Steve Den Beste replies:
They aren't powered by gravity.
Sigh. What can I say? Steve is a lot like me, he may be wrong, but he's never unsure.
Allow me to explain: If fired at less than about 30 degrees from horizontal an arrow certainly is relying on velocity imparted by the bow, but above that angle the arrow is also being accelerated by gravity during the second half of its flight. In the extreme example of an arrow fired straight up, it comes to a stop in mid-air, turns over due to its fletching, and drops to the earth with more than sufficient power and speed to kill. What could be powering it at that point, if not gravity?
Steve explains the physics well and it's essentially the opposite sort of flight characteristic from a penny: An arrow coming straight off the bow is only traveling about 150-200 fps, and due to the arrow's extremely high 'sectional density' (the term for the ratio of mass to frontal area of a projectile), air resistance is very low in relation to an arrow's weight and gravity is adequate to impart similar velocity. Likewise, an arrow doesn't rely on velocity to penetrate (it never had much), but rather on that same extremely high sectional density. The sectional density of an arrow can be improved even more by using bodkin points, which looked something like a knitting needle. That tiny cross-section, backed up by the weight of the arrow could even penetrate a significant amount of personal armor.
This isn't conjecture, it's historical fact, as a whole lot of Frenchmen found out at Crecy and Agincourt. It's also an empirical fact - I've fired many arrows into the air and they do indeed come down hard and fast, even when fired straight up.
Ps. Hey! Is this different, or what? George Byrd proves that there's truly nothing new under the sun with this link to a WWI French invention, fléchettes. Yep, they're fin-stabilized metal darts that were dropped from airplanes. Supposedly, when ". . dropped from an altitude of 1500 feet, a fléchette could go completely through the body of a horse. . ." Yikes!
PPs. According to this, fléchettes weren't particularly effective in WWI, although a German General von Meyer was killed by them. I imagine that the aircraft of the day couldn't carry much of a payload of anything, but can you imagine a Buf-load of these buggers?
PPPs. Certainly, Steve Den Beste is right, fléchettes would have limited utility and there is considerable question whether they would be a cost effective payload, as opposed to a load of cluster bombs or other explosives. But let's look at some math: My ash-shafted arrows weigh roughly 700 grains. That means there are 10 of them to the pound. So a B-52 could carry roughly 500,000 fléchettes of equivalent weight and effect. With a little fiddling regarding the means of dropping them and the proper altitude, that could translate into one fléchette in every square foot of a 700 x 700 foot area, or a swath 100 feet wide and 5000 feet long. That could be very devastating on troops in the open, without destroying a lot of buildings and infrastructure in the process. Furthermore, unlike cluster bombs or other explosives, there would be no problem with unexploded ordinance. In other words, the anti-personnel version of the concrete bomb.
There! We've come up with the solution to a mostly non-existent problem. But then who would have thought we'd be dropping chunks of cement on Iraq?
[Ayee! My grammar is rolling in her grave over some of the things I've done to the Queen's English in this post. Sorry about that!]
@10:41 AM
Blog flurries
The FusilierPundit is blogging up a storm, with too many interesting observations of late to point to just one. Go take a look!
Ps. Okay, he got me. In this post Fuze talks about using recycled reloading components from a firm in Montana. So I foolishly thought that must be Blowfish, the third of the three companies he lists as purveyors of useful stuff, since Dillon Precision and MidwayUSA are both suppliers of reloading tools and components [and I also highly recommend both]. Hehe. Well, I guess we do need to keep all the guns loaded.
PPs. Too intense? Try a foot-pedal rheostat. Whoa Nellie!
@8:06 AM
Colman, you ignorant slut
Colman McCarthy doesn't like TV's military embeds. Says he, it's ". . a further assault on what the public deserves: independent, balanced and impartial journalism. The tube turned into a parade ground for military men -- all well-groomed white males -- saluting the ethic that war is rational, that bombing and shooting are the way to win peace, and that their uniformed pals in Iraq were there to free people, not slaughter them. Perspective vanished, as if caught in a sandstorm of hype and war-whooping. If the U.S. military embedded journalists to report the war from Iraq, journalists back in network studios embedded militarists to explain it. Either way, it was one-version news." [emphasis added]
Ps. Oh yes, did I point out that McCarthy's article was published April 18th, after the "slaughter" was over? Sorry Bubba, everyone is entitled to their opinion, but you're not entitled to your own set of facts.
@6:56 AM
It looks like Lynn Scarlett is on the job!
How nice to have a few libertarians in high places. Of course, I could be biased, since I'm one of those contractors eager to take up the slack when the bureaucrats are gone.
Ps. Yes, notice that 'archaeologists' are the first group listed for out-sourcing. Bwwaaahahaha!
@6:29 AM
Should have hired Domino's
Folks in DC are upset that they aren't receiving E911 emergency phone service, despite paying for the upgrade on their phone bills. The process of upgrading the emergency phone system is expected to take about 6 months.
Funny, it didn't take Domino's Pizza six months to figure out how to hook a caller ID to the computer and print out addresses of callers, and I bet they get more calls than the 911 system. Want to bet that the pizza guy shows up faster too?
@6:19 AM
No more Molson's, eh?
Toronto - Fleishman-Hillard Canada and Wirthlin Worldwide — in a telephone survey of 1,000 Americans — report that 48 per cent of those polled are “very likely” or “somewhat likely” to try an alternative to Canadians [sic] goods they have purchased in the past.
@6:01 AM
Questions better not asked
A traffic stop, which appears to be part of an on-going investigation, has resulted in the arrest of a Montana man driving a commercial vehicle into Yellowstone Park for possession of marijuana with intent to sell. You can bet that he wasn't selling it to the tourists. We'll see how far this investigation goes. If they push it, they will undoubtedly find plenty of folks who will jump at the chance to make a deal to save their own butts, when the option is a federal conviction. But somehow I doubt they really want to fire a third of the park's employees. Or maybe they do. . .
@5:44 AM
@#%^ Idiots!
Mud-boggers tearing up the countryside is a relatively new phenomenon. What kills me is that when these folks are caught it seems to invariably turn out that they didn't know they were doing anything wrong. They were just out to have a good time and do what they see people doing on TV and in the 4x4 magazines all the time. They are utterly and completely clueless to the damage they cause and how long it will take the area to recover.
@5:24 AM
Very strange
Here's a twisted tale: Supposedly, Dale Wayne Eaton killed Lisa Marie Kimmell and threw her body from a bridge south of Casper, then drove her car 150 miles to Moneta (population 10!) and buried it in his backyard. Either this guy is ate up with the kind of stupid that gives criminals a bad name, or there's a whole lot more to the story than we've heard so far.
@5:05 AM
They Love Us!
At first glance, seeing pictures of ingrates protesting the 'US Invasion' in the streets of Baghdad chapped my hide, but then it occurred to me that this really is a great compliment. One month ago these folks would have been gunned down in the streets if they had dared anything like this, and they know it. Now, they're already acting like San Franciscans. Perhaps they don't love us, but they certainly understand our principles, including the freedom to dissent. More significantly, they trust us to stand by our principles and not to behave as their former government would have under similar circumstances.
Ps. Someone's not been paying attention. Nicholas Kristof says that only the pro-American Iraqis dare go on TV, while the rest seethe to themselves. He also appears to think that biased reporting is actually a public benefit, in one of the more smarmy pieces of self-justification I've seen lately.
@4:54 AM
Friday, April 18, 2003- - -
A week from hell
I haven't been blogging much these last couple of weeks, first because I was concentrating on getting my taxes done - something that can make me a little hard to live with - and then fighting with a client. They cancelled a project I was working on and forgot to tell me, but didn't want to pay me for the work I'd done either. It took a lot of squawking and flapping but we got that resolved today, and I will be paid (I hope). Considering how little activity I've been seeing in the oilfield, this year could be tough enough without being stiffed.
@5:38 PM
Good News
Douglas Chandler forwards a great link from StrategyPage that discusses some of the lessons we've learned in Iraq, including this interesting bit: Apparently the development of the new Stryker LAV is taking somewhat the same route as the development of the Bradley. In the finest tradition of committees everywhere, and in trying to make the beast all things to all people, they're turning the mouse into an elephant. Again. The Stryker is in danger of becoming too large to fit into a C-130. Adding RPG protective armor after the lessons we've learned in Iraq threatens to make it too heavy for the C-130 as well. Consequently, the great old M-113 armored personnel carrier may see a new lease on life. Not that there's anything wrong with trying to make newer, better fighting vehicles, but some things simply can't be improved upon.
Although the factory stock M-113 isn't proof against RPGs either, way back in Vietnam our troops learned to stack sandbags on the surfboard and hang duffle bags & such on the sides to provide the essential 'stand-off' protection against RPGs. How actually effective that was I don't know, although I've heard plenty of tall tales about folks whose duffel-full of undies saved them.
Incidentally, 'stand-off' armor supplements work on the theory that High Explosive Anti-Tank (HEAT) rounds such as the RPG will burn a hole through several inches of something, but they won't burn much deeper through a ball of underwear, or through air, than they will through homogeneous steel armor. The side plates covering the idler wheels of the Abrams and Bradley work on this same principle - detonate the HEAT round before it impacts your armor and, at least in theory, all you'll get is a scorched paint job.
Chortle! Farther down in the same article (April 9th) it says that some of the M-113s being used in Iraq are fitted with the old ACAV chicken plate. This is probably not a bad idea at all, it certainly serves to protect the crew, but in between wars the chicken plate fell out of favor, probably because the armor for the commander's position could make it difficult to rotate the pintle ring supporting the M2. When someone is actually shooting at you I suspect that the pintle ring revolves much more easily.
Ps. Here's an interesting chapter from an on-line book on mounted warfare in Vietnam (even a little before my time!). On page 74 there's a picture of an ACAV with chicken plate - it's the steel plate armor at the commander's position and on either side of the rear deck hatch. I guess they called it that because if you needed it you were 'chicken'? There are several more ACAVs and an M48 (my favorite tank, you could fix one with paperclips and baling wire, which can be important if the war lasts more than three weeks!) depicted on page 76, where you can see that the chicken plate at the commander's position wrapped all the way around the hatch. It was steel about 1/2" thick and there was no mechanical assist for traversing, you just horsed it around. Very heavy.
@5:24 PM
How Bizarre
Angela Jackmin writes to ask if someone has stolen my blog, forwarding this URL:
http://pack.soksok.jp/y/.xew3/
That link is indeed very, very strange. In trying to figure out what this is all about, I noticed too that all of the links in the blogroll on the mirror image site, every single one, links to a mirror image site under the pack.soksok general URL, so if someone were trying to steal blogs, it looks like they've been thorough about it. There's even a mirror image Cato and Reason.
I can understand why someone might want to mirror Cato or Reason, but my head's not so big that I think anyone is trying to save me for posterity. It looks more like someone has some code scrambled somewhere. Whatever it is, it faithfully mirrors each new post as I add it.
Anybody out there have any idea what this is all about?
Angela Jackmin responds:
I've thought about this - perhaps it is allow access through Chinese firewalls? If that is the case, you may have more fans than you realise…
Perhaps I should send my greetings to all the loyal readers out in firewall-land? How do you say 'Howdy!' in Chinese??
Ps. Ah, so! Apparently, pack.soksok.jp is a portal for Japanese web surfers who use cell phones to access the web. Some folks aren't amused at what they consider an infringement of copyright, and by the fact that the repackaging seems to be associated with a lot of pornography.
PPs. Mike Jackmin came up with the obvious next step: If anyone out there is reading this in the pack.soksok.jp mirror image site, would you please drop me an email? I'd love to hear from you, especially since accessing my blog in that fashion doesn't trip my counter, so I have no idea you're there. Thanks!!
@4:09 PM
Tuesday, April 15, 2003- - -
Can't get enough guns?
Good! In that case here's a couple of interesting new blogs, both by Craig Henry. Lead and Gold is 'mostly politics and business', with the occasional whack at mainstream journalism, all good stuff with plenty of links. Then there's boone country, all about eastern hunting and shooting. What more could you ask for?
He's just starting out, but he's got some great stuff, like this discussion of First Handguns. I've got to agree with him absolutely. As much as I like the 1911, it's an expensive and sometimes finicky beast with a complicated manual of arms that takes diligent practice to master. On the other hand, the double-action revolver is inexpensive and about as simple and foolproof as a weapon can be made: 'Aim, squeeze, bang, repeat as necessary'. I would encourage anyone contemplating a first handgun to look at double-action revolvers. I'd rarely recommend the 1911, or any other self-loader as a first handgun, unless the purchaser is willing to lay out the big bucks to get the additional training and put in a lot of extra time to master the weapon.
Because I advocate a minimum of 3000 rounds of studied practice for basic familiarization with any type firearm before it's used for self defense, I recommend a .22 as a first handgun, if only because the indispensable practice ammo is so very much cheaper. You can always graduate to a big-bore later, but it's much easier to learn the basics of proper grip, sight alignment, and trigger squeeze with a .22, without the distraction of recoil and blast the bigger guns create. Besides, you can buy a .22 and 3000 rounds for less than you would pay for 3000 rounds of centerfire ammo alone. Buying matching .22 and centerfire double-action revolvers is probably the most cost effective way to become a handgunner.
Go give Craig Henry's blogs a look. And don't forget to tell him I sent you!
Ps. How Bizarre! I was going to add these links to my blogroll, but blogger is refusing to accept any template changes.
@7:51 AM
Bone Wars
Casper journalist Tom Rea is publicizing his new book, Bone Wars: The Excavation and Celebrity of Andrew Carnegie's Dinosaur. I haven't read it yet, but Rea seems like a perceptive fellow. He's certainly got the academic v. commercial paleontologist schism pegged:
One of the first things he noticed, he told an audience at the University of Wyoming's S.H. Knight Geology Building Thursday, was "a really profound split in the fossil world" between commercial collectors and university scientists.
"A lot of the academics thought the commercial guys were a bunch of greedy hounds who were all out to make a million bucks, and didn't care about anything else," said Rea. "A lot of the commercial guys seemed to think that the academic guys were just out to make a career and a safe salary for themselves off the government."
Yep. Chat with an academic for a bit, and in between whining about the lousy pension fund, the poor university/museum pay, and how he hasn't gotten a raise in a year-and-a-half, he's likely to cast a few aspersions about those 'commercial people' who are only in it for the money and don't care about research. But then he'll have to wrap up the chat, because it's 11am, his office hours are over, and he's going home for the day. Of course, I could be a bit prejudiced, I'm on the commercial side of the fence.
Truth be known, there's some validity to both side's views. The competition for, and commercialization of antiquities has a long, entertaining, and sometimes appalling history. Another very entertaining book on this topic is Url Lanham's The Bone Hunters: The Heroic Age of Paleontology in the American West. It's currently out of print, but should be available in most libraries. It's an eye-opening and very entertaining read.
Just one tidbit from The Bone Hunters: The origin of the term "coprolite" for fossil feces. Back in the 1870s - '90s several big eastern universities and museums were competing to be the first to find and identify new species of fossils, particularly dinosaurs, but also any other species that could be found. Two friends who became bitter arch-rivals in this were Othniel Marsh at the Peabody Museum and Edward Drinker Cope at the Smithsonian. Whoever first identifies and describes a new fossil also has the honor of naming the fossil. Marsh was the first to recognize fossil feces and he named them after Cope.
Ps. Gary and the Samoyeds write:
Maybe you were making a joke and I just missed it. Anyway, "Copr" is classical Greek for Dung.
Hehe. Once again my readers prove smarter than I am. Being relatively ancient but not Greek, I didn't know that, so no, I wasn't trying to make a joke, The Bone Hunters really says that coprolites were named after Cope, but as the book was written 100 years after the fact it may well be an apocryphal story. I do note that my Webster's New Collegiate dictionary 1st edition (which is almost old enough to have been written in Greek, I bought it when I started college) lists the etymology of 'coprophagous' as being from the Greek koprophagos, but gives no etymology for coprolite.
@6:07 AM
Monday, April 14, 2003- - -
Thank goodness they clarified that!
"Use this envelope ONLY for filing form 1040, 1040A, or 1040EZ.
(If you are filing electronically, do not use this envelope.)"
@8:20 PM
Ahh!
Nothing like a couple hours at the health club to impart a nice feeling of moral superiority! And until we do another round with the trainer and increase the weights some that's about all it's going to do for me. I'm sure they've started us off with a standard set of weights and exercises 'for people our age', but I find it hard to believe that even a 45-year-old total couch potato can't press more than 60#.
@11:44 AM
What a surprise
William Raspberry refuses to apologize for being an idiot.
@8:52 AM
What a concept
Fred Hiatt, writing for the WaPo, comes to an epiphany: Truth is an elusive commodity in a totalitarian regime. As Hiatt illustrates, this comes as quite a surprise to some journalists who've been trying to plumb public opinion in Iraq during the run-up to war.
@8:42 AM
Now that's reliable
Reports from our recovered POWs say that when the 'lost convoy' of the 507th Ordnance Maintenance Company came under fire their weapons jammed from all the sand. A Knight-Ridder report in today's Casper Star that doesn't appear to be available on-line says Pfc. Patrick Miller managed to get off three rounds before his M16 jammed. Oddly enough, that's exactly the same number of shots that a friend of mine got off during Desert Storm before his M16 jammed.
It seems to me they ought to be able to come up with a three-shot disposable weapon that costs the government less than $586.
@8:28 AM
Oh, those urban sophisticates
Some folks have been having a good time looking down their noses at the slice of rural life they've discovered doing background on Pfc Lynch. A local company has 12 job openings starting at $5.45 an hour [The Horror!]. That must be as opposed to all those $50 an hour IT jobs that aren't opening in Manhattan, eh? And of course, when you land one of those $50 an hour IT jobs that aren't opening in Manhattan you can buy a house about the size of the Lynch's on Staten Island for only a quarter million, or so. The only difference is, your house will be a 150-year-old wreck while theirs is fairly modern. Then you can spend four hours a day commuting to and from work about the same distance that Mr. Lynch probably covers in his pickup in ten minutes down in Wirt County.
What urban sophisticates tend to forget is that we hicks have satellite dishes and internet connections. We've lived in the city and have friends and relatives in the city. The urban rat race is not nearly the mystery to us that rural life seems to be to most urban folk. And as Laurence Simon's current blog comic quotes Lily Tomlin: "Even if you win the rat race you are still a rat." So when you see the next report from quaint little West Virginia, ask yourself, who's laughing at whom?
@7:09 AM
Things that make you go Hmmmm. . .
The US Army's civil affairs psychological operations unit
How delightfully Orwellian.
@6:27 AM
A fine bit of Jaberwock
Washington Post Editorial - "And that leads to the tragic part of this budget resolution, which is that we've gotten to the point where a $350 billion tax cut looks like a victory for the forces of fiscal restraint."
You know you're living in a topsy-turvy world when "the forces of fiscal restraint" are fighting to keep taxes high. But you know we're winning when the argument is over the size of the "tragic" tax cut. [Those aren't scare quotes, they're crocodile tears. Ed.]
Personally, I'm with those irresponsible spendthrifts who want to give the government's budget back to the taxpayers.
@5:57 AM
Sunday, April 13, 2003- - -
Kalroy is back! He's not posting up a storm yet, but when he gets the dryer fixed I'll be expecting great things.
@12:54 PM
Wouldn't that be nice?
Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Maryland) is proposing to move the federal income tax filing deadline to the Monday preceding election day in November. I'm sure the House will vote on this right after hell freezes over, but just forcing Congress to debate the idea will have them squirming.
@11:15 AM
Iraqi National Museum trashed
This report notes as damning that the Oil Ministry is guarded but the museum is not. Really though, this is probably the proper priority. The oil is immediately vital to the well-being of the Iraqi people, the museum is not. Just as with the potential closing of the Nebraska State Museum, the damage and loss of artifacts in Baghdad is tragic, but if I'm honest with myself I've got to admit that such antiquities, and the study of them, are social amenities that we can't always afford.
@10:52 AM
Douglas Chandler writes:
I was over at the Anti-Idiotarian Rotweiller blog site perusing the comments on the most wanted Baathists playing cards where someone mentioned making a card with a spread eagled nude Helen Thomas photo, I have mercifully managed to get that image out of my mind but how about a deck of cards showing the biggest 55 mainstream idiots on it. I imagine you would nominate Margo, I would like to nominate that morally clueless Jordan of CNN, Helen Thomas, Fisk of the Guardian. Maybe a poll should be taken?
Helen Thomas nude? Thanks. Now I'll be all day trying to get that picture out of my head. The poll is a great idea though. There's several ways it could be done. People could vote for 55 idiots in random order, which could be transformed into a list of the 55 biggest idiots in rank order. Or each person could vote for The One Biggest Idiot they know of and we could assign an Idiot Quotient for each nominee. Picking The One Biggest Idiot would be hard though, with all the excellent candidates.
Off the top of my head I'll nominate Peter Arnett for The One Biggest Idiot, but I reserve the right to change my nomination as events unfold. Molly Ivins and Cal Thomas would be good candidates, but then you get into the question of what constitutes 'mainstream', as opposed to 'The Idiot Fringe'. If you accept Ivins and Thomas, you can run down the list of columnists at the Drudge Report and find 20 more likely candidates.
@10:29 AM
Great news!
Seven American POWs have been rescued from Iraqi forces!
It is wonderful news and I'm sure it's all over the news right now, so I ordinarily wouldn't bother linking to this article unless I had something else to add, but I'd also like to direct your attention to the Ready.Gov advertisement in the center of the above-linked page, and to their new motto: "Terrorism forces us to make a choice. Don't be afraid . . . Be Ready."
Yes indeed. I've berated the Department of Homeland Security for producing in 18 months, in their web site, what should have taken three boy scouts a hard weekend of web design, but they do seem to be getting there. Preparedness and self-reliance are the best antidotes for anxiety and feelings of helplessness. On the home front, preparedness is our best defense against terrorism. This, at least, I think they've gotten very right. Unfortunately, their emergency kit and preparedness plan still lacks a few items I would consider essential for personal security.
@8:56 AM
Shock and Awe
It would appear that the message is getting through. The PRiKs are backing off and I've read some suggestions that the Chinese are using the oil tool to twist their tails into submission.
@8:30 AM
An amazing victory
There's been a good deal of deserved jubilation about the blogosphere of late. I particularly liked this piece by Andrew Sullivan. The war has been brief and casualties on all sides, thankfully, very low. The performance of our troops has been awesome on all levels, and they deserve our praise and thanks. Last, but certainly not least, the Iraqi people now have at least a fighting chance for freedom and democracy. Regardless of what one thinks about the justification for the war, we should all rejoice at the outcome, thus far. But somehow, I can't find much glory in defeating an enemy that fought neither bravely, nor well.
From the news out of Iraq, it is becoming clear that Saddam Hussein and his Ba'ath Party have been more akin to some on-going natural disaster than to a government. They have been a plague and a pestilence, and cleaning them up has been, and will continue to be a grim and dirty business.
@8:29 AM
Saturday, April 12, 2003- - -
Premature Oraculation
Andrew Sullivan has a couple of hilarious sets of his Von Hoffman Awards (I, II), for all the wildly erroneous predictions of disaster in Iraq that have come from the loony left over the last few weeks.
@4:37 PM
Stop taking the media so seriously
Thomas Sowell has some interesting observations.
Ps. When I think about it though, I don't think that the problem is entirely the audience taking the media too seriously. I would think that the majority of us in the blogosphere have shed a lot of illusions we might have held for the mass media, and the spectacle they've made of themselves can't be making too good of an impression on the rest of the population. I think the problem is the media taking themselves too seriously, along with a good dose of condescension for the rest of us.
I would think that finding myself suddenly proven wrong in everything I thought, I would reassess the bases for my beliefs. But I'll not hold my breath waiting for the major media to change their ways.
@2:59 PM
Good Lord!
Take a look at this picture of the tail of Capt. Kim Campbell's shot-up A-10. [via Neal Boortz]
Ps. Capt. J.M. Heinrichs writes:
I'll bite. The A-10 was designed to continue flying despite 'great amounts' of battle damage. Capt Campbell returned in an aircraft which was not about to crash. She was flying using manual controls (no power assist) just as the A-10 was designed. The amount of damage shown in your photo, and others, is interesting but shows nothing to me which says that the aircraft was seconds from self-immolation. I have a book on the de Havilland Mosquito which includes photos of battle damage: one flew though the fireball of an exploding aircraft and returned with a deskinned rudder. Another returned with six feet of one wing torn off. My favourite is the Mosquito which flew through a power line and returned with 100m of copper cable. Looking at the pattern of holes in the fuselage, I would postulate that a SAM (SA-7/14 size) did explode close to the A-10. The pattern of the holes (linear not random) and their varied sizes are interesting, but I would look for an expert in Air Defense weapons to explain the significance. But in the absence of the above, I am not convinced that the aircraft was second from crashing.
On the other hand, Capt Campbell returned in an aircraft which was a pig to fly, physically. She had no power to the controls and the damage would cause assymetric control problems which she would have to fight without assistance. Think of an emergency situation which includes having to drive down the highway at best possible speed with a partially inflated front tire and no power steering: it can be done, but it is not recommended. Which suggests to me that Capt Campbell is a very good pilot.
Yes, a very good pilot indeed, especially since it sounds like she was very near the ground when she was hit and must have got from power to manual controls very quickly.
I've seen the inside of enough airframes to know that there's really not a lot in there that's vital to the craft's flight - a few control cables and hydraulic hoses, but they're relatively small targets, so yes, once she made the initial recovery from power to manual control I doubt there was much danger of crashing, unless something else vital was about the fall off, which is entirely possible. But hey, the pilot who brings back his crippled plane is part of the pantheon of Air Force heroes, and she really did almost get her tail shot off. A great morale boosting story, regardless of how much actual danger was involved.
Thanks for the info about the impact pattern. I was looking at the individual impacts and it looked like two, or possibly three different-sized projectiles, but all in one pattern, like a gigantic duplex duck load - a shotgun shell with two sizes of shot mixed together. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, as the SAM would function in very similar fashion. Interesting.
Hehe. This is rude, but I can see the T-shirts now: "During the fall of Baghdad, my brother Abdul got a piece of tail [picture of very battered brother holding piece of A-10], but all I got was a 500# bomb down my chimney and this stupid T-shirt."
@2:19 PM
Speaking of parallel realities . .
Check out this scene from a tea house in Cairo.
@12:32 PM
Heheheh.
In another NY Times OpEd today, Paul Davies explains the theory of the Multiverse, the idea that there are multiple, parallel realities. Says he, if you push this concept too far, ". . then the rationally ordered (and apparently real) world we perceive gets gobbled up in an infinitely complex charade, with the truth lying forever beyond our ken."
How post-modern.
@12:22 PM
This is a bad thing?
According to the International Labor Organization, Americans now work 1,978 hours annually, a full 350 hours — nine weeks — more than Western Europeans. Writing for the NY Times, John De Graaf seems to think that emulating the lazy Europeans would be a much better idea.
@12:05 PM
Laurence Simon has hitched up the buggy and moved Amish Tech Support!
@11:35 AM
A sad day
My wife is on the local Friends of the Library board. At their meeting this Wednesday, they voted to buy a shredder for the Washakie County library.
Bear in mind that we're dealing with two groups here: The relatively well-to-do with too little to do, who do good works around the community; and the librarians, who are public employees. My wife was surprised that these ordinarily pro-government folks would shred the library's records to deny them to the FBI.
When our Homeland Security people lose the little old ladies in tennis shoes I'd say they've got problems bigger than they imagine.
@10:46 AM
The third oldest profession?
The flap over the CNN/Iraqi connection is interesting, but I can't see how this differs, other than in degree, from domestic journalists writing nice puff pieces in return for good seats on the press plane during an election, or for good seats and attention to their questions at press conferences, or for off-the-record tips and comment at any time on any issue. In all these situations a certain objectivity is being traded for access. Surely you don't think that the reporters who get all the exclusive interviews and secret tips are the ones known for their objectivity, Hmm?? This quid pro quo is so obvious and so long-standing that no one should be too surprised to find it in operation in Iraq as well.
The truly objective journalist may well be more rare that the legendary whore with a golden heart. But most of them fake it pretty well - it's a trick of the trade.
@9:50 AM
Memorial Fund
A memorial fund has been created for the two children of Lori Ann Piestewa. Donations can be made at any Wells Fargo bank. The account was set up by the Hopi Tribe of Arizona.
@8:54 AM
Minnesota Humor
My dad says this is Minnesota humor, but it sounds a lot like North Dakota humor to me:
When Ole moved up north he discovered that he was the only Lutheran in his new little town of all Catholics. That was okay, but the neighbors had a problem with his barbecuing venison every Friday during Lent. Since they couldn't eat meat on Friday during Lent, the tempting aroma was getting the best of them. Hoping they could do something to stop this, the neighbors got together and went over to talk to Ole, eventually persuading him to join their church. The big day came and the priest had Ole kneel. He put his hand on Ole's head and said, "Ole, you were born a Lutheran, you were raised a Lutheran, and now," he said as he sprinkled some water and incense over Ole's head, "now you are a Catholic!"
Ole was happy and the neighbors were happy. But the next Friday was Good Friday. That evening at suppertime, there was again that aroma of grilled deer steaks coming from Ole's yard. The neighbors went to talk to him about this and as they approached the fence, they heard Ole saying, "You were born a whitetail, you were raised a whitetail, and now," he said as he sprinkled seasoning salt over the choice tenderloin cut, "now you are a Walleye!!"
@8:49 AM
Anti-war groups reshape their tactics
Yes, I suppose it would be silly to march around with "Stop the War" signs after the war is over. But now they can protest the war as an historic injustice. Which wouldn't be a bad idea, considering that Historic Injustice is an enormous font of entitlement and moral authority. Reparations anyone?
@8:25 AM
Here's a pretty mystery
Relatives of the 'disappeared' are mobbing Baghdad's military intelligence headquarters where hundreds were rumored to be held in underground cells. But according to Maj. Jack Nale of the US Army's civil affairs psychological operations unit, what they're finding are empty cells and ". . vaults that, mysteriously, had been professionally blown."
Blown during the four days between the time that Saddam's MI corps fled and the US took control? By whom, do you suppose? It could simply be mid-level MI underlings who'd heard about all the gold and jools in those vaults but weren't trusted with the combinations. After the big bosses fled the mid-level rats might well clean up such crumbs on their way out of town. Or, our special forces folks may have scooped up intell files and records that they don't want to claim possession of. Or . . .
And just what does a "civil affairs psychological operations unit" do? Besides enthrall the public with mysteries that is.
@8:09 AM
Friday, April 11, 2003- - -
Well, that sucks
There's nothing in the news yet, but I've received an announcement from a reliable source that the University of Nebraska State Museum is listed in the first round of proposed budget cuts for the University of Nebraska. It appears that the museum will be almost entirely closed, with personnel cuts to include the curators of paleontology, anthropology, zoology, botany, entomology, and parasitology, and the director of the planetarium.
The notice I've received is a bit unclear, as it says these are 'proposed cuts' but also says that a bunch of people, including the curators and directors, have received notices of termination. At least eight of the people to be terminated are also tenured faculty, which raises further questions.
There's also some question of what will become of the collections. I'm not familiar with the remainder of their materials, but I have seen their paleontological collections and moving them would be a mind-boggling task. Only a small portion of the fossil vertebrates they've collected have ever been prepared for display. There are many tons of materials still in plaster jackets just as they were removed from the field, including materials that have been at the museum for over 100 years. The materials that have never been prepared include gems such as the crania of a pair of Columbian mammoth bulls that died with their tusks locked together.
Not only is the sheer tonnage daunting, but of course, much of the material is very fragile and all of it is virtually unique and irreplaceable. Stuffing it all back under the stands at the football stadium for another hundred years would be a great loss to science.
@8:27 AM
What a day
Yesterday morning I was sitting here feeling fat and wishing I had a bicycle in functional condition, when my wife walked in and asked if I'd like to join the health club. So by yesterday evening we were the proud almost owners of a pair of brand new used mountain bikes and a membership in the health club. The bikes needed some work so we're waiting on them, but we spent the afternoon meeting the machines.
They've become diabolically clever at designing this equipment to elicit the maximum amount of pain in the minimum time, but it seems that every machine has six adjustments and the things will hurt you if they're not set up right. They started us out on an easy routine with only about a dozen machines to master, so it will only take a few weeks to learn to adjust them all properly. In the mean time, I'm gratified to learn that the standard program we've been started on is much too easy - I haven't the faintest trace of muscle soreness anywhere. In a few weeks at this rate I'll be able to hang right in there with the high school girls at the gym.
At least I wouldn't be sore if I hadn't then proceeded to take the fat black dogs on a hike out into the badlands west of town. Being water dogs they aren't much entertained by hikes in the hills, but it's still cool enough that they don't suffer from the heat, and I wanted to go out in the badlands to try some fresh handloads. The dogs will happily go anywhere if the alternative is to sit in the kennel, and with their primary sponsors off doing some remodeling at Old Faithful lodge they've been doing a lot of sitting in the kennel. They just don't understand the concept of 'hunting season' and have a harder time coping with the down time than I do.
@7:43 AM
Mitch Berg has moved Shot in the Dark to new digs. And a very nice look it is!
@7:33 AM
Whew!
I think it's safe to look now. I've been doing a pretty good psychic imitation of a five-year-old watching the horror movie from between splayed fingers. I'm horribly repulsed but fascinated by the whole spectacle in Iraq. I don't have anything to add to the discussion except my own bad predictions, but I'm too fascinated by it to pay much attention to anything else.
These last few weeks have certainly shown that there's more than one way to achieve surprise - it's also possible to do the expected in unexpected ways.
Like everyone else, now that the Iraqi army has folded like a cheap tent, I'm wondering what in hell Saddam was thinking. But I'd have questioned anyone who suggested that we'd roll into Baghdad in three weeks with as few casualties as we've had. Somehow, I don't think you can fault Saddam for not believing that would happen either. I've got to think that Saddam thought he'd fight a set-piece 'defense in depth', trading territory bit by bit for breathing room and creating the quagmire that so many thought we'd be walking into. After Desert Storm, I seriously doubted that Iraq would be a Vietnam-style quagmire, but who'd have thought that Saddam's troops would roll up this easy?
@6:39 AM
Thursday, April 10, 2003- - -
"The world is better off without him, but . . ." is a phrase we're going to get tired of hearing in the next few days, as it will invariably lead into an explanation of why, no matter how evil Saddam's regime, we are more evil for deposing him.
I am not at all surprised that much of the rest of the world is less than joyous to discover that the US's military superiority is even greater than they, or we might have imagined. How could it be otherwise? I'm also sure that the audience that was supposed to be shocked and awed extends far beyond Saddam and his cronies and it's nice to know that the message is getting through.
@5:09 PM
Interesting how those folks who shuffled around campus in Birkenstocks and gray wool socks sporting Question Authority buttons twenty years ago can get so very upset when you question their authority now.
@12:01 PM
Some of us are refugees from polite society, others are outcasts
I find all the whoop-tee-doo over "blogging ethics" a bit amusing. I'm of the opinion that in blogging, as in any other form of speech - meaning all verbal and written communication - all the normal rules of civil discourse apply. These range from the criminal statutes against libel & slander to the sort of 'don’t pick your nose in public' rules of polite society that I sometimes unwittingly transgress. Plagiarism falls somewhere on that continuum. I would argue that it rubs shoulders in the libel and slander neighborhood but not everyone agrees.
On the other hand, to ask whether blogging should be governed by journalistic ethics is rather silly for two reasons:
First, come down off that high horse and please send me a copy of the 'professional journalist's statement of standards and ethics' with the bits underlined that explain why Bowling for Columbine is an award-winning documentary and not grounds for professional revulsion. We have national media that feel the need to tell us that they're 'fair and balanced' for Pete's sake! This is like the loaf of bread that's baked in California and shipped out here in the back of a semi. The wrapper says it's Fresh! and technically - professionally speaking - it's true. But that loaf of bread is no more fresh than Bill O'Reilly is balanced. Although it won't say so on the package, you've got to remember that not only is 'fresh' a matter of degree, the USDA standard also allows a certain number of insect parts and rodent hairs in the flour. Journalistic standards obviously make similar allowances.
Second, granting that journalists have professional ethics, one should recognize that there is a certain allowance for rat hairs and insect bits, because professional ethics are just that, the agreed-upon minimum standards of a professional group, the bar beneath which you will not sink. Ethics, in a strict sense, is a matter of professional standards - thus, we speak of medical ethics, legal ethics, or journalistic ethics. Standards and ethics are usually enforced by a professional organization - the AMA, a State Bar, or such, and most people considering themselves members of the profession will be certified by and/or belong to the professional organization, or at least profess to subscribe to its ethics. And of course, these ethical standards are usually written statements.
I say 'usually' advisedly, as the nature of the professional organization and the state of its professional standards varies - it's unsurprising that the State Bar Association and the State Plumber's Board might operate somewhat differently, although maintaining a certain level of professional standards is a central concern for both. It is part of the very definition of 'profession' to be self-governing in this fashion, but the degree and nature of the governing varies greatly.
While I'm sure that journalists have written ethical standards promulgated by various journalistic schools and organizations, from an outsider's viewpoint the closest thing to written professional standards in journalism are the media's editorial policies. The corporation sees that it is in its best interest to maintain certain editorial standards and does so. Likewise, I think most bloggers have standards, sometimes even written statements of one sort or another, but just as with the newspaper those standards are largely self-established and self-policed. Short of those offenses that draw legal action, the reader is left to judge for himself whether the actual content of rodent hair and insect parts is generally acceptable. Thus it might be argued, if sophomorically, that we bloggers do live up to our self-imposed editorial standards every bit as much as any professional journalist. This is no less true for that truth being sometimes dependent on the editorial license to move the bar a tiny bit - just like the pros do.
Bottom line, I'm not a professional journalist. By definition, I can't violate journalistic ethics any more than I can violate medical ethics or legal ethics (I'm not a doctor or lawyer either). Despite what some journalists might seem to wish, there's no such offense as 'practicing journalism without a license'. Committing plagiarism as a blogger isn't a violation of journalistic ethics, it's much more serious than that. It's a violation of common decency.
@8:00 AM
Friday, April 04, 2003- - -
Yes, I'm still alive and taking a much-needed mental break from watching events in Iraq too closely. It's springtime and time to plant gardens and rake the yard, but far too easy to get sucked into a constant round of news channels and websites. Everything else seems too trivial to bother with, but I've nothing to add to discussion on the war. In short, I'm speechless, for perhaps the first time in my life.
@11:13 AM
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