Knowing When To Hold My Tongue

I think I am a reasonably bright guy.  But I also think that I generally know when I am in the company of people that are truly gifted. This is such at time.

A collection of former astronauts and the NASA employees that put them in space have signed an open letter calling on NASA to stop endorsing/encouraging opinions that suggest that we are on the cusp of catastrophic global warming. 

As former NASA employees, we feel that NASA’s advocacy of an extreme position, prior to a thorough study of the possible overwhelming impact of natural climate drivers is inappropriate. We request that NASA refrain from including unproven and unsupported remarks in its future releases and websites on this subject. At risk is damage to the exemplary reputation of NASA, NASA’s current or former scientists and employees, and even the reputation of science itself.

The letter is longer, but the above gets right to the point.  Climatology has been inhabited by pseudo-scientists for far too long.  The computer models that such folks have developed have invariably predicted temperature changes that have far exceed reality.

Traditional scientists would have sought to adjust their theories...as expressed by their models...to fit the facts.  The more extreme and vocal climatologists do not follow such a traditional scientific method.

The former astronauts and NASA employees do not say that global warming isn't happening.  They do not say that CO₂ isn't a factor.  They do not say that humanity isn't responsible.

They are saying that process of studying the climate has deviated from the strong scientific basis that used to be the hallmark of NASA endeavors.

I Am Tempted To Post This Once A Day

...until we elect a Congress capable of limiting spending until the deficit is eliminated.

And to respond to the query before it is offered, we can't afford to pay more than 20% of GDP without crippling our economy worse than it already is.  So..no new taxes.

Healthcare Denied

When you hear that people are concerned about government health care systems denying coverage to patients, understand that there is a rational basis for that concern.

When Kenneth Warden was diagnosed with terminal bladder cancer, his hospital consultant sent him home to die, ruling that at 78 he was too old to treat.

Even the palliative surgery or chemotherapy that could have eased his distressing symptoms were declared off-limits because of his age.

So we are just talking about one case, right?  It has to be an outlier, right?

This kind of ‘professional opinion’ appears to be costing more than 14,000 lives each year, thanks to routine discrimination by doctors who assume older patients are too frail for surgery, chemotherapy or radiotherapy. 

This is according to experts at Macmillan Cancer Support, who warned last week that every day up to 40 elderly cancer sufferers are dying needlessly because they are being denied the best treatments. This is particularly true, it says, for patients over the age of 70.

The charity estimates that if the treatment of older patients matched that on offer in the U.S., as many as 14,000 lives could be saved every year.

Nope.  There are rational reasons for not granting government any more power over our lives than it already has.

Josh - Quilt #7

I believe this gets me pretty well caught up with respect to getting all of my quilts migrated from the old blog to this one.  Enjoy!

My beloved bride and I have had the occasion to travel to Battle Creek from time to time over the last couple of years. That city isn't one of our usual destinations, but time changes.

While visiting Cereal City, we poked our noses into the usual collection of stores and found a couple that sold fabric. I realize this must be a shocking development in my tale.

We found this black and white checkerboard.....or is that chequerboard...pattern at one store and I grabbed several yards of it. I didn't know what I was going to do with it, but I grabbed it nonetheless. As you can see, the lines for the checkerboard do not run parallel or perpendicular. The pattern sort of looks like someone dipped their fingers into the wet pattern and moved things around just a bit before the colors dried.


For a while I was playing around with a tessellation quilt pattern. M.C. Escher happens to be one of my favorite artists. He experimented heavily in tessellation patterns using wood block printing techniques as well as the usual ink and/or painting modes. You can learn quite a bit about M.C. Escher and see many tessellations here.

I was going to use pattern called Tessellating Stars by Gyleen Fitzgerald. You can see the general pattern here.

The trick I was going to pull on that pattern was to start with all of the stars being white at one end of the quilt and all of the stars at the other end being black. Then I was going to fade the entire thing from white to black...or vice versa for the contrarians among us....by randomly changing the blocks in each star from white to black. I thought that the checkerboard pattern might make that process more interesting.

As my 3.87 regular readers can attest, I've been working on other quilts and thus didn't really have to commit to anything for some time. But then Shane's quilt was finished and I was ready to start something new.

At about the same time, I found a different tessellating pattern. The pattern named "Under the Sea" was originally developed by Sandi Irish. My well seasoned quilting lady-friends tell me that the other name for the pattern is "snail". Her design started with one fabric in the middle with the colors gradually shifting with each concentric ring. The example in the Fons and Porter magazine I was working from used a type of fabric known as batik. The fabric looks a bit like someone put droplets of water on the colors that caused the colors to run or fade like a watercolor. You can see some examples of batiks here.

The finished quilt by Ms. Irish looked like this:

Sadly, my link to a photo of Ms. Irish's work has gone dark.  However, you can read the entire article and see her quilt in this electronic version of the magazine.

Instead of using so many colors with such a gradual color shift, I decided to be bold. If one can be bold with only two colors in the entire quilt.

My version of the quilt is below. Click for a larger view.


The interesting thing about this pattern is how it appears to spill out over the border at each corner. In reality, the border runs underneath those corner pieces that are instead sewn into position as appliqués. I usually detest appliqué work. But I put up with it this time. Here is a larger view of the corner pieces. Click for a larger view.


This quilt goes to our youngest son, Josh. Although he may have to wait until after the county fair is over. I might enter this one just for kicks.

The Thinnest Of Threads

Makes this illusion possible.  Located at the BMW museum.

Climate Change - Microdata Edition

The news has been filled with reports about how March 2012 was the warmest on record since 1895 or some such thing.

For the record.  It is snowing in southern Michigan right now.  At noon.  Our long term average high is north of 50 degrees F.

And it is snowing in southern Michigan right now.  Brrrrrrr!!

Also for the record, I don't think an April snow indicates anything further than the current temperature.  It certainly is not enough of a trend upon which one might hang their scientific hat.  But I think the same thing about our admittedly warmer than usual March, too.

Into The Great Beyond

Ion propulsion systems have long been a technological daydream.  But now, they may the future of space exploration.

Ultimately (and not too far in the future) the same concept could reduce the cost of trips beyond the moon. Slow electric tankers could go ahead of human missions to Mars or asteroids, dramatically reducing the amount of propellant needed to launch crews to those destinations. Eventually, propellants could be manufactured on-site (for example, manufacturing methane and liquid oxygen from the Martian atmosphere). But early propellant caches could create an "interplanetary highway system," similar to the gas stations that allow the terrestrial interstate system to function—and hasten the day that travel throughout the inner and outer solar system becomes routine.

Freedom Works....

....each and every time it is tried.

That is particularly true when one considers the impact of freedom...including free market economics...on the percentage of people living in poverty.  A small hint: the more freedom there is, the fewer people living in poverty.

"Nations in the top quartile of economic freedom had an average per-capita GDP of $31,501 in 2009, compared to $4,545 for those nations in the bottom quartile," says Cato. The rate of extreme poverty is 2.7 percent in the top quartile and 41 percent in the bottom one.

Among many people a generation ago -- and among a few today -- free markets and private property were seen as the cause of poverty. But the number of adherents has dwindled in the face of repeated refutation.

The latest cover story in The Economist magazine is: "Cuba hurtles toward capitalism." Cuba! Even communists eventually have to make peace with reality.

Stanley Fish - Authoritarian - Progressive

If Stanley Fish is a typical "progressive", then apparently being "progressive" and being "authoritarian are not substantially dissimilar positions.  Via Protein Wisdom -

“Progressivism” is, as Fish notes — and as I’ve spent years on protein wisdom demonstrating through my various discussions of identity politics and language — a belief system that, once its kernel assumptions are adopted, will lead fundamentally and inexorably to tyranny. Fish doesn’t call it such, of course. He chooses “might makes right.” But there is no difference. Tyranny and authoritarianism — when lorded over by the “liberal” — is, by virtue of the adopted morality of those running it, both moral and good.

Shane

Originally titled "Ultimate Proof That The Ruskies Have Taken Over Yale", this quilt was made for one of our daughter's former boyfriends.  Shane had studied Russian while at Yale and even made a trip to Russia a few years back.  He remains a really decent person.  We wish him well wherever life takes him.

We came across a series of quilting fabrics that had a Russian theme. The four fabrics are shown below. Click for a larger picture.

   

   

The only problem with buying such fabrics is that you eventually have to find a project where you can use them. Enter our daughter's significant other. Shane is a nice young man on scholarship to Yale who also has an interest in Russia. He reads a lot of Russian novels and for a while was attempting to learn to speak the language. He's even been to Russia as part of a Yale program.
So now that we have a connection from the fabric to a person, we had to fill out the colors for the log cabin pattern. As it happens, Yale operates on a college system. There are colleges within university that have their own separate colors and traditions. You should be able to figure out Shane's college colors from the completed block sample.




My boss's wife is a quilter. He frequently accuses her of cutting up perfectly good material into tiny pieces only to sew it back together into a quilt. Apparently, I'm guilty of that sort of thing.
Once we have all of the modestly garish panels completed, then comes the task of figuring out how to arrange them into an interesting pattern. We opted for the following layout because it reminded me of a Slavic wall hanging that used to be in my grandparents house above the fireplace.




Unfortunately, we gave Shane the quilt for Christmas before I could get some photos of the finished product. So I assigned our daughter to a secret agent mission to obtain the forgotten photos.
In honor of Shane's studying at Yale, I had the lady that quilted the quilt....that's how we say it....stitch a block letter "Y" in the middle of each block. The back is a black sheet. Honest! The flash must have washed out the sheet.




And here is the whole thing. Sadly, Shane is apparently too shy to appear on my blog. Given what else gets posted here, I can't say that I blame him.




The final quilting was done by The Village Quilter in Grass Lake, MI. Give Sue a call if you ever have need of a professional quilting services. (517) 206-5154.

Moving Madness VIII

Ah, the look of hand finished wood.  A classic!

Gavin

Here is one quilt that I was especially pleased to complete.  Not only was it for some good friends, but it also presented a unique challenge. From 2008 we bring you another bit of quilting history.

I was pretty excited to get this next quilt done for a variety of reasons.

One reason is because of the material I used. The pattern of the material included a series of teddy bears, books, and smiling moons that looked a bit like a stuff set up on a child's shelf. This pattern ran along one edge. Above all the clutter was a broad expanse of deep blue with yellow stars. Then the bear/book/moon pattern ran along the opposite edge. You could fold this material down the middle and both sides looked the same.

Silly me, I took a perfectly good material pattern, cut it into strips, and sewed it back together.

The first cut was along each edge. I used those strips for the outside of the block.

The next cut was through the bears. That got used for the next strip towards the center.

The third cut went through the top of the bears. At that point, I started to get some of the stars and the night sky.

The fourth cut was mostly stars, but with enough bear head tops that I just put it in the scrap pile. That left a whole bunch of blue sky and stars from which I made the other half of the blocks.

Here's a picture of the material with the first cut already removed. I used all of the edges for the quilt. There's lots of other stuff left over.

The resulting block ended up looking like this. A close inspection reveals that I left off a couple of strips. The resulting blocks ended up being 12" x 12" rather than 14" x 14". That worked out well for the backing material.

The final result is below with the proud mama and papa to be. The border material was designed by the same person that designed the material used for the panels; Patty Reed. The blocks in the border material were almost the perfect height to provide a 2 inch border.

The second reason I was excited about this project is the stitching used to "quilt" everything together. I was getting kind of bored with just running straight lines down the seams....otherwise known as stitch-in-the-ditch....as well as straight lines across the corners.

To ease my boredom, I bought an 18" wooden embroidery hoop and a chalking tool. I used the chalking tool to trace the inside of the hoop. I then connected each of the circles by drawing in a line tangent to each adjacent circle. Once that was done, it was pretty easy to stitch the cloverleaf/Celtic knot pattern that you should be able to see in the picture below.

Here is the hoop and chalking tool.

And here's the finished quilt. Notice the material used for the back? As it turns out, Lindsey...on the left....has a new sewing machine and took a stab at quilting. Denis...on the right....and yes, I'm spelling his name correctly....brought it in for me to check it out. I noticed right away that she had used a similar material that was light green instead of light blue. I didn't draw any blood biting my tongue, but it was a close thing. And her quilt was a pretty nice looking quilt, too!

The most important reason that I was excited about this project is that it was for Denis and Lindsey. Just take a look at those two. Don't they look like they are a lot of fun. They are. Trust me. It was great to be able to do something nice for them at this special time in their lives.

Blowing In The Wind

As a part of checking out a number of kinetic sculptures, I came across this interesting piece of work.  If you feel the need, you can purchase one here.

Check Out The Balls On These Guys

Now here is a version of soccer worth watching!

From The Dustbin - Teachers For GWB?

Hrmmm....

A Virginia middle school teacher recently forced his students to support President George W. Bush’s re-election campaign by conducting opposition research in class against the Democratic presidential candidates.

The 8th grade students, who attend Liberty Middle School in Fairfax County, were required to seek out the vulnerabilities of Democratic presidential hopefuls and forward them to the Bush campaign.

“This assignment was just creepy beyond belief — like something out of East Germany during the Cold War,” one frustrated father, who asked for his family to remain anonymous.

Would this seem creepy if it ever happened in the future?

Moving Madness VII

Kind of an ear-full.  But also kind of fun!

Cayden

Yet another in the series of quilts.  This one was for my young nephew.  He is a bit older now, and a pretty cool kid, too!

Along with other things that keep me busy, yes folks, I'm still quilting. As always, click the pic for a larger version.

This quilt was done from my nephew Cayden. We got to meet him a month early in January. The little shaver was scheduled to stay in the oven until February....which is when this quilt was completed.

My beloved bride picked out the pale blue materials. They were a pretty good match, but she was
having a rough time figuring out what to put with them. I decided to go bold with the dark blue and white materials. I think it came out pretty well.

Here's a closer view of one panel.

Historic Power Grab

I have seen quite a few posts about the supposed power grab the Obama administration is attempting via "natural resources preparedness".  As Glenn Reynolds points out, this is nothing new.  Presidents...and heck Congress, too...have been exceeding their Constitutionally limited authority for decades.

Rutherford B. Hayes

In case you missed it, Mr. Obama...or his speechwriters... flubbed a bit of history.

Speaking about the need to develop new sources of American energy in Largo, Md., Obama used our 19th president as a failure of forward-thinking leadership.

"One of my predecessors, President Rutherford B. Hayes, reportedly said about the telephone: 'It’s a great invention but who would ever want to use one?'" Obama said. "That's why he's not on Mt. Rushmore."

"He's looking backwards, he's not looking forward. He's explaining why we can't do something instead of why we can do something," Obama said.

It fact, President Hayes was astonished and impressed with the telephone.  For his era, he was a bit of a technophile.

This whole kerfuffle has introduced some entertaining bits flotsam and jetsam.

Lots more here.

Disgusting

I'm not sure which bothers me more.  Having the media follow the President's pre-teen daughter on vacation, or having someone black hole the media reports about the vacation.

Both represent trends that are not in the best interests of our nation.

Even Sluts Deserve Healthcare

While religion has motivated progress in many areas, it has also exercised repressive and oppressive influence from time to time.  Which is why I question the wisdom of extending some sort of "religious exclusion" for health insurance.

I suppose that a church could elect to not cover abortions for preachers if church doctrine is opposed to such things.  However, they should be compelled to list all of the activities that violate their doctrine and adjust their coverage accordingly.  Opposition to alcohol use comes to mind.

But the line I would draw would be at clergy.  For those that go in for such things, staff and students ought to be considered sinners along with the everyone else.

For those that don't like it, I suppose that we could move to a national a la carte system that separates employment from health insurance.  There are lots of options to be considered.

But allowing religious exemptions?  Next thing you know some "church" will refuse to pay their minority staff as much as their white staff and cite Scripture to justify their actions.

Link for the strip below.  Thanks to my friends in RACS for the pointer.

And since incendiary language appears to be the only way to elicit traffic and comments, expect more in the future.  I respond to incentives!

Hearing Motion

The Singing, Ringing Tree is a very cool piece of art that uses the wind as well as its appearance to make an impression. This sculpture is located near Burnley, in Lancashire, England.

Alyssa

In our continuing series of quilt blogging, we bring the brief tale of Quilt #3.

As my 2.74 regular readers can attest, I took up quilting this year. I have just completed quilt #3 for my nephew, his wife, and their new baby girl. Joe is currently serving in the Marines at Camp Lejune, NC near Jacksonville. He's doing pretty well for himself. I don't know if he is going to make a career out of this, but they seem pretty happy right now.

Following up on my work last summer, I made a baby quilt for the new addition to the family. Once again, I'm using the Log Cabin design. This quilt pattern allows me to run strips of material through the sewing machine rather than having to hand piece everything together. The whole project takes much less time that way.

Seeing as we have a new young lady in the family, I used a bit more pink in this quilt. As always, click for a larger view.

Here is a close-up of one panel:

And finally, here is a close-up of the corner piece:

I had a local stitchography shop machine embroider the logos on a piece of material. I had hoped for more separation so that I could put the chicken, ball, and hooks on a 45° angle. But what I received from them worked well enough.

On to the next one! Only 17 days left until Christmas!!

Are Women More Than Just A Vagina?

I think so.  Others apparently don't.

Moving Madness VI

Another loud one!

Ah The Details

In a continuation of the series on quilts that I have made, we offer the following.

In response to popular request...note the singular usage...we offer the following content for all 5.2 of our regular readers. Also note the recent uptick in readership. I am the envy of every newspaperman in the United States.

As reported a couple of days ago, I finished my second quilt. Two in one year! I hear that is considered to be a pretty decent production rate in certain circles. The photo of quilt number two didn't really give much of a view of the individual panels. Therefore, we offer the following:
 

Click for a larger view.

A couple of mildly interesting notes about these panels.

First is the green and white striped material. As the larger view shows, I cut half of the strips perpendicular to the striped pattern while the other half were cut parallel to the striped pattern. Aside from making sure that the parallel cuts were as parallel as I could get, I didn't do a lot of fussing around with where the cuts were made.

When I was assembling the panels, the strips cut perpendicular to the stripes were put in place before the ones that were cut parallel to the stripes. The result...I hope....is a sort of optical illusion that makes you think that those two pieces are cut from a single section of cloth.

Secondly, take a good look at the yellow material. You probably ought to click on the picture to get a better view. It looks a bit like clouds in the sky. Look a bit closer and see if you see anything in those yellow clouds.

Why Yes! I Want Somebody To Love!

Just a little bit of fun.  Grace Slick probably looked just as good back in the day.

Life Jackets Float

Do you?

Rights From Where?

The folks at Hot Air are taking Markos “Kos” Moultisas to task for his ahistoric perspective on Rick Santorum and the source of rights.  He apparently believes that our rights are created by our government and that "God" isn't mentioned in the Constitution.

The founding fathers clearly believed that rights existed before any government existed and that they...and we...were creating a government to defend those rights.

This is the underlying weakness among many on the left.  They worship government power and believe that the government is therefore omnipotent.  The land of milk and honey was created by government fiat!

What many on the left fail to recognize is that individual rights supercede (or should) governmental whims.  That is why we have a First Amendment to acknowledge our right to protest the government.  Our rights exist despite the best efforts of government, not because of it.  Our Constitution exists to restrict government exercise of authority, not to give it ever greater control over our lives.

Rooster Rings

Located at the deCordova Sculpture Park, Rooster Rings is an absolutely fascinating piece of work.

Gorgeous

 Work from the incomparable John Cox.

Speaking of Quilt Number 2....

In another series of updates, we bring my faithful 2.3 readers....and 59 spam-linkers...the story of my very first quilt.  Brought to you via my personal way-back machine, a story from 2007.

Speaking of Quilt Number 2....


....did I mention Quilt Number 1.

My beloved bride. She's number one in my book. So she ended up being number one as far as quilting goes as well. The following photos are of my very first quilt made for the very first person in my life.

Moving Madness V

Another piece from Eddie Boes.  This one is at Orthodontic Arts in Lynchburg, VA.  Where were all these cool dentists when I was a kid!

I'm Being Followed By A Frost Shadow

Clicky.  Enjoy!

The Difference

As a long time proponent of civility in public discourse, I find the current primary season to be a helpful reminder of how uncivil we tend to be.  The primary case in point is Mr. Gingrich and his use of the name "Obama".

"Obama" does this.

"Obama" does that.

"Obama's policies" caused this.

Etc.

Long time readers of this blog will readily understand that I am not a big fan of Mr. Obama for a variety of reasons.  But for at least the next few months, he is President of the United States.

It behooves one who seeks high office to treat that office with the respect they expect to receive should their candidacy be successful.  It is too bad that Gingrich hasn't figured that out.

The Wind Revealed

Kinetic sculptures in Vail, CO.  Enjoy!

A Different Study

John Cox has posted a series of studies that he wants to use to create a much larger watercolor piece.  I hope he manages to complete this work as the smaller studies are tremendous.

See them all here.

Our Medical Future?

Consider Product X.  It costs a store owner $95 to get Product X into their store.  They sell Product X for for $100 and make $5 per sale; less the cost of their building, staff, electicity, etc.

What happens when they can only get $90 for Product X?  Most store owners would stop selling it.

What happens when someone needs Product X to survive?  Not a very nice question.

But this is precisely what is about to happen in California where the state has decided to cut Medicaid prescription reimbursements by 10%.  It isn't a 10% cut in the margin that the store owner earns.  It is a 10% cut in total reimbursements.


What does this bode for our nation's future?  Nothing good.

I hardly need to point out that we can expect a lot more stories like this one in the future.  Reimbursements currently have some give in them, which allows the highest-cost providers to operate, and the lowest-cost providers to make some profit.  The natural political tendency is to squeeze reimbursements to the level where the lowest-cost providers are pinched--or even beyond.  And the best-case result of this is that in the long-run, the lowest-cost providers get bigger, while in the short term, the disruptions among the higher-cost providers compromise at least some patients' access to care.

Are we willing to put up with that short term disruption?  Not so far, unless the service exclusively benefits the very poor.  Maybe we'll get more willing as the tax bite goes deeper.  But either way, with a dramatic Medicaid expansion on its way, and more and more of the rest of the health care system under the control of the government, the fights are going to get uglier.

A modest warning for language at the link.

New Commandments For A New Age

Victor Davis Hansen has a list of new commandments for our modern age.  Summarize below, but worth a full read.


1) Wealth and poverty are now more relative, than absolute, conditions.

2) Regulators are never the problem; a dearth of regulations always must be.

3) Debt is a mirage.

4) In our new age of diplomacy, being liked trumps being respected.

5) Collective national wealth is natural; private wealth is unnatural.

6) Medieval exemption is not medieval.

7) Victimhood is always sought, never questioned.

8) Neanderthals need nerds.

9) Ideology, for all the protestations of the zealot, is now not to be taken too seriously - not in this age of global leisure and affluence.

10) Owing in our new millennium shall be less stressful than saving.

Now? Really?

Megan McArdle has all the details...you...might...want..about the recent dump of documents from the Heartland Institute.  And I want to point out that on the subject of human induced global warming, Ms. McArdle is a believer.

But the tidbit I want to focus is from Mr. Gleick's mea culpa.

Given the need for reliance on facts in the public climate debate, I am issuing the following statement.

...

I only note that the scientific understanding of the reality and risks of climate change is strong, compelling, and increasingly disturbing, and a rational public debate is desperately needed.

But we have been told that the debate is over.  We have been told that the only "rational" scientists are those that enthusiastically endorse the theory of human induced climate change that results in a global catastrophe.

Only now that this guy's boy-parts are in a vise does he find it necessary to talk about a "rational public debate" and "facts".

He could have had that without shredding his credibility if he'd be willing to have an adult conversation with people that are of a different point of view.

Marble Madness IV

The first in a series from Eddie Boes of Eddie's Mind.  You can check out his YouTube stream for more.

 

This piece of kinetic art is on display at Columbia Basin Pediatric Dentistry in Kennewick, WA.

How Rich Is Too Rich?

Megan McArdle had a recent post regarding income inequality that is worth reading.  She offers no conclusions, but I think her perspective is worth considering.

The Price Of Discovery

So what is the price for discovering new drugs? 

$43 million?  Probably too low.

$800 million?  Sounds plausible.

Between $4 and 11 billion?  Per drug.

Read the whole thing from Megan McArdle.

Then think about why drugs cost what they do.  Don't forget that all those folks living in countries with nationalized health care systems don't pay anything to cover research costs.  Just production.  Imagine how much less we would be paying if they were paying their fair share.

War Is Ugly

I was reading the news at the gym last week.  They had a story about a reporter that had died in the fighting in one Syrian city.  She only had one eye.  I don't know her name.

The point of her reporting was that the Syrians were pummeling the city and killing indiscriminately.  She said something the the effect that there were no military targets there.  Specifically, she said there was no "base" there.  The stateside reporter reminded her that the Syrian Free Army was in the area.  The reporter in Syria blithely dismissed that and went on protesting that they were killing innocent civilians.  After all, the SFA didn't have a "base".

Why was she surprised?  This is a war.

The wars of the 20th century were truly civilized when compared with the rest of human history.  It was common practice to kill and enslave until all your enemies were dead or enslaved.  The line from the original Conan the Barbarian movie was the rule.

To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.

There was no letting up.  There was no avoiding civilians.

This is the sort of war that non-Western, non-democratic cultures routinely practiced.  The stark difference between the two is what should make the practice of war by Western, democratic cultures all the more unique.

Do they not teach history in journalism school any more?

Uniting Citizens

The discussion about funding political campaigns and the recent Citizen's United case contains a couple of important myths.

Myth 1:  The Citizen's United case invalidated the reporting requirement for political contributions.

Those requirements are still in place.

Myth 2:  The Citizen's United case unleased wealthy individuals to give unlimited amounts of money to political groups/campaigns.

Truth:  The Citizen's United case let corporations give unlimited amounts of money to political causes.  That is new.  And I'm not convinced that it is good.

But we ought to have a national discussion that is based on the facts.  Not the myths.

Wishing

A modest check behind the scenes.  I have removed the sailors trying to sail around the world.  Their attempts have been completed and I have yet to find others worth following.  I wish the current batch of sailors all the luck in the world on their travels.

I have added a link to my Amazon wish list.  Hopefully, my family will figure this out soon!

Putting The Pieces Back Together

Just what can a putty made from stem cells do?  Mend broken bones.

In days.

Living with access to modern medicine is truly amazing.

Moving Madness III

I remember watching this one as a kid.  How cool is this!  Everyone love Sesame Street.

Spring Or Fall

The recent events of the so-called Arab Spring have been heralded as an age of advance within the Arab world.  I remain skeptical of such predictions due to the significant influence of jihadists, Islamists, the Muslim Brotherhood, and similar terrorist/extremist groups across the region.

Is this really the dawning of a new age?  Is this really an Arab Spring?  Or perhaps it is an Arab Fall, complete with an Indian Summer's false promise of warmth before the deep cold of winter.

A United Nations delegate from Libya’s newly formed government told a human rights panel that gays and other groups threaten “reproduction of the human race,” drawing a stern rebuke from leaders of the international body.
...

But the harsh stance against gays voiced Monday has some critics wondering if the new government ushered in by the so-called Arab Spring is any more tolerant than its predecessor.

"Today's homophobic outburst by the new Libyan government, together with the routine abuse of prisoners, underscores the serious questions we have about the new regime's commitment to improving on the dark record of its predecessor, and about its pandering to Islamists in its ranks," U.N. Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer said.

Now after listening to the news from Washington State on NPR over the last few days, I think it should be obvious that we in the U.S. still have issues with respecting the right of gays to be treated as equal citizens. Not everyone is overjoyed at the prospect of the gay marriage law just signed by their governor.  Pure as the wind driven snow, we ain't.

But we are headed in the right direction.  While the Middle East appears to loping along in the wrong direction at a fairly fast clip. 

Dive Right In?

 It is always worth the time to see where we've been so that we can know where we are going.  Read the whole thing.

Black athletes were playing for Clair Bee at Long Island University by 1933, but KU didn’t put a black player on the court until LaVannes Squires joined the team in 1952. McLendon admitted to Katz that skin color wasn’t the only obstacle standing between him and a spot on the Jayhawks—though quick and cerebral, McLendon had been cut from his high school basketball team three times. He was a former lifeguard and an excellent swimmer, though, and he expected to ace the mandatory swimming test required for his degree. But when McLendon showed up at the on-campus pool to work out, he found it half empty. He was told it was drained every Wednesday.

McLendon came back on Thursday, and found the pool empty again. Nobody had told him the pool was segregated, perhaps because no colored student had tried to swim there before. The school’s passive-aggressive trick exposed a weakness he could exploit—a fear of direct confrontation. “You’re going to have a pretty big water bill,” McLendon told the attendant. “Because I’m going swimming every day.”

Quilt #2

A side note, this is actually a post from August of 2007 that was first published in my Dain Bramage blog.  I am trying to get all my quilts onto the new blog for easy reference, sharing, etc.  You will see more of this in the coming weeks.  I hope.  Garrett's a few years older now and a pretty cool kid.

One of my co-workers got married last year. And this year he's a brand new dad. Funny how that sort of thing works, isn't it?

At any rate, as a modest token of congratulations, I made this quilt.

Click for a larger view.

Update: We finally have photos of the little squab and his quilt. This is Garrett. He's sleeping on the quilt.....which is pretty obvious. I'm told it makes a great play area, too. As always, click the photo for a larger version.

And this is Garrett, laughing his fool head off. He's one happy little baby.

Saving The Future - Saving The Past

We all have personal perspectives and interests that motivate our efforts.  One of my personal perspectives is Alzheimer's or old age dementia.  I watched my grandmother disappear before my eyes.  I watched the husk that remained live on for close to five years.

If you can call that living.

I see the early signs of the same thing happening in my dad.  I experience some early-early signs of the same thing in myself.

It is not possible to look forward to the day when long honed perception and perspective disappear in time's grey haze without experiencing an inexorably rising sense of terror.

We do not currently have a cure for dementia.  One of the reasons why I so urgently advocate for a free market for health care is that other health systems stymie research and innovation.  The first costs to be cut in every nationalized health care system are those associated with the research of new technology.  The cost of providing existing technology to existing patients naturally declines over time as patents expire and product efficiencies are identified.

Future patients needing future technologies?  Current patients being maintained by current technology but hoping for a cure?  Lives unborn in need of a cure that does not yet exist?  Nationalized health care systems have a one size fits all response.

Fuck 'em.

Yet I still have reason to hope that our recently enacted plethora of federal boards, committees, directors, chairpersons, and other august personnel of medical wizardry may yet move slowly enough that a cure for my small concern may arrive before the gates of innovation are closed.

Via Glenn Reynold's Instapundit comes word of a recent discovery of a new application for an old anti-cancer drug.  The WSJ has a decent write-up as well.

A widely available cancer drug has shown remarkable success in reversing Alzheimer's disease in mice, raising hope of a breakthrough against incurable dementia in humans, US researchers said Thursday.

Mice treated with the drug, known as bexarotene, became rapidly smarter and the plaque in their brains that was causing their Alzheimer's started to disappear within hours, said the research in the journal Science.

"We were shocked and amazed," lead author Gary Landreth of the Department of Neurosciences at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Ohio told AFP.

"Things like this had never, ever been seen before," he said.

Faster, please.

Oh Just One Kiss, Oh Baby One Last Kiss...

Via the very talented John Cox.

The title of this post was inspired by this.

Moving Madness II

Small scale.  Bamboo sticks for runs.  You could make this at home!

Riding Or Pushing

What happens when there are more people riding in the wagon than there are people pushing the wagon?

Almost half of America pays no federal income tax.  Yet dependence on federal spending is at an all time high.  Farm subsidies, college loans, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and welfare have grown so far over the last 40 years that we may soon discover what happens when we plumb the depth of Lady Thatcher's wise observation regarding the difficulties encountered when we run out of other people's money to spend.

At the very least, we are going to find out what happens when our spending on social programs exceeds the available income for the average citizen.  Click the image for the full report.

Sadly, the theoretic Chinese curse hoping that one lives in "interesting times" applies.

How To Make It Big

Via Don Surber:

No matter who you support this year, you have to admit Mitt Romney went about becoming president the wrong way. Instead of wasting his time learning how business works and building a multi-billion-dollar company that really did save or create hundreds of thousands of jobs, Mitt should have lived off his daddy’s fortune like Jack Kennedy. Chasing skirts and molesting teenage virgin is a lot more fun than figuring out how to revive an old business.

Instead, Mitt Romney gave his inheritance to charity. Who does that anymore?

...

Hard work though. Who does that? Small wonder the public is so suspicious.

Mitt isn't my guy this year.  I'll be voting for Gary Johnson in the Michigan primary.

But I do respect Mitt's business experience and his commitment to the real world.

Violent Solutions II

"Anyone who clings to the historically untrue - and thoroughly immoral - doctrine that "violence never solves anything" I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and of the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler could referee, and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk, and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedoms."

- Starship Troopers, by Robert Heinlein

Moving Madness I

This thing is huge!

This run is located at the House of Marbles in Bovey Tacey, Devon, UK

Not A Murderer After All

Marine Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich was accused of leading his squad the slaughter of 24 Iraqi civilians in 2005.

Some may remember of US Representative John Murtha infamously declared that the Marines had overreacted and killed "innocent civilians in cold blood."  In making this pronouncement, Mr. Murtha severely undermined the ability of these Marines to receive a fair trial.

Eight Marines were charged with varying charges that ranged up to unpremeditated murder as well as plain old murder.  The charges against seven Marines were ultimately dropped.

Staff Sergeant Wuterich recently entered into a plea agreement that concluded his case.  He plead guilty to failing to maintain adequate tactical control and making a "negligent verbal order".

In a court martial, only the prosecution may initiate a plea agreement.  Given how poorly the prosecution had fared against SSgt. Wuterich's codefendants, and given the exculpatory evidence presented during his trial, the prosecution was looking at a complete loss on all charges.  They opted to offer an end to the agonizing process that SSgt. Wuterich had been going through.

The facts of the case are that the Marines were attacked by insurgents using an IED.  They further received incoming fire from the houses that they ultimately cleared.

And the "insurgents" were known for employing many tactics that involved secondary attacks following an IED attack, and hiding among the civilian population for the purpose of causing civilian deaths due to American responses.

The Marines at Haditha responded to an obvious ongoing threat in accordance with their training.

This was what war looks like.  It isn't easy, or pleasant, or nice.  It is downright nasty.

People have to make snap decisions.  They get to live with the consequences while the rest of us practice our Monday morning quarterbacking.

Perhaps a bit more appreciation for the perspective of the people we ask to fight for our freedom is in order.

The deaths of those Iraqi civilians remains a horrible tragedy.  The responsibility for that tragedy rests with the "insurgents" that fought using tactics that violated the Geneva Conventions and every decent religious tenet on the face of the planet.

Where Diversions Lead

I had a chance to watch a bit of the movie "Fracture" earlier today.  Anthony Hopkins is one of the stars.  His work is always great.  Unfortunately, it wasn't enough for me to recommend the movie.

However it was enough to cause me to do a little reading about one feature of the movie; a kinetic sculpture. It appears for only a few fleeting seconds, but it is a thing of wonder.

That naturally led to the discovery of some other kinetic sculptures.  I will be sharing some of these nuggets with you in the coming weeks.  Stay tuned!

If I never grow up, then I'd love to earn my living creating this kind of art.

Why We Fight

Today in Afghanistan, young women can learn to box.

Have their photo taken.  Sadly, reflections of Afghan women appear to be the dominant photographic mode.  This is an improvement of sorts, I suppose.

Be rescued from life threatening living conditions...caused by husbands and their families, sadly enough.

Learn to play music!

And here is the price we pay for their liberation.

There is a price for freedom.  When we free others from bondage, we ensure freedom for ourselves.

Let us be grateful for their service and for the freedom they bring the world.


The Taliban created the conditions where a woman could not be photographed without her husband or father's consent.  Where no woman would have learned boxing....or reading or writing or mathematics.  Where women were considered property on par with livestock and often treated with less consideration than livestock with the approval of the former government.  Where music was banned.

Let us not abandon those who teeter on the edge of being the victims of oppression before their oppressors have accepted liberty as the legitimate objective of humanity.
All the photos may be viewed here.

Fresh From The Sea

"Fish, and plankton, and sea greens, and protein from the sea. It's all here. Ready! Fresh as harvest day!"  Box - Logan's Run 1976


Scientists have discovered a way to generate ethanol by designing a custom e. coli that breaks down seaweed at temperatures that are close to ambient.  Other ethanol processes require the application of large amounts of heat.  This reduces that energy benefit from the resulting fuels.  There are some studies that indicate that creating ethanol from corn actually consumes more energy than is present in the resulting fuel.

As the story indicates, algae is still a better alternative to seaweed processed by e. coli.  But if we can come up with seaweed based fuels, then what other options can we discover?

We Are From The Government...

...and we are here to screw you over!

At least, that seems to be the case when Freddie Mac, a wholly owned subsidiary of Uncle Sugar chartered to improve the opportunities for people to buy homes, decides to invest in complex derivatives that would pay Freddie Mac more if homeowners were unable to refinance at lower interest rates.

Stop and think about that for a second.  The people that run Freddie Mac make millions of dollars.  Their Congressional chartered organization is supposed to improve accessibility to market rate mortgages.  They then take the investment position that pays more money to Freddie Mac (and thus the Freddie Mac executives) if people are not able to refinance their homes from higher interest rates into the much lower current market rates.

Conflict of interest?  Anyone?  Bueller?

Any folks wonder why I distrust the government and want it reduced in size and scope.

Spike Lee Or Bill Cosby

Words to heed, but Via Meadia wonders.  Will the people who mocked and scorned Bill Cosby for trying to help families and kids do better now turn on Spike Lee?

See what Mr. Lee had to say at the link.  Or the link at the link.  Or something.




The larger point being that the pursuit of education is the single most successful activity that one can perform.

Baby It's Cold Outside

One of the most significant reasons for my skepticism regarding human induced global warming is data.  More specifically, that there is data that suggests that our climate is less sensitive to changes in CO₂ than the more pessimistic climate models suggest.

She argued it is becoming evident that factors other than CO2 play an important role in rising or falling warmth, such as the 60-year water temperature cycles in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

‘They have insufficiently been appreciated in terms of global climate,’ said Prof Curry. When both oceans were cold in the past, such as from 1940 to 1970, the climate cooled. The Pacific cycle ‘flipped’ back from warm to cold mode in 2008 and the Atlantic is also thought likely to flip in the next few years.

Pal Brekke, senior adviser at the Norwegian Space Centre, said some scientists found the importance of water cycles difficult to accept, because doing so means admitting that the oceans – not CO2 – caused much of the global warming between 1970 and 1997.

One of the other reasons for my skepticism is the evident lack of "science" being practiced by some of the more vocal "scientists" that are hyping the potential impact of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.  The seem to prefer dismissing legitimate skepticism rather than to offer a serious response.

Natural Rights

"Ah yes, [life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness]... Life? What 'right' to life has a man who is drowning in the Pacific? The ocean will not hearken to his cries. What 'right' to life has a man who must die to save his children? If he chooses to save his own life, does he do so as a matter of 'right'? If two men are starving and cannibalism is the only alternative to death, which man's right is 'unalienable'? And is it 'right'? As to liberty, the heroes who signed the great document pledged themselves to buy liberty with their lives. Liberty is never unalienable; it must be redeemed regularly with the blood of patriots or it always vanishes. Of all the so-called natural human rights that have ever been invented, liberty is least likely to be cheap and is never free of cost. The third 'right'? - the 'pursuit of happiness'? It is indeed unalienable but it is not a right; it is simply a universal condition which tyrants cannot take away nor patriots restore. Cast me into a dungeon, burn me at the stake, crown me king of kings, I can 'pursue happiness' as long as my brain lives - but neither gods nor saints, wise men nor subtle drugs, can ensure that I will catch it."

- Starship Troopers, by Robert Heinlein

Don't Ask, Don't Tell

Powerline has a great follow up to my recent post about Warren Buffett's tax-paying habits.

Mr. Buffett's rejoinder? Shut up.

Apparently, when a successful billionaire investor like Warren Buffett demands changes to the tax code, the rest of us are expected to bow, scrape, and make the usual subservient intonations.  We aren't supposed to ask questions about the purported facts in support of those proposed changes.  We are supposed to defer to our "betters".

Screw that!

First Mr. Buffett and his secretary can release all of the tax information that supports...or not...the current rhetoric.  Then we can have a discussion about how whether the facts support...or not...the proposed policy.  Then we can have a discussion of how that policy change would affect the rest of the country.

If Mr. Buffett wants to be a personal example for policy change, then he can accept all of responsibility that goes along with being such an example.  And that does include more than a modest amount of scrutiny regarding his personal life.

The other option is that he could pay the $1,000,000,000 he currently owes the federal government.  He could write an additional check because he thinks he should be taxed more.  And he could write a bigger check for his secretary so that she isn't one of those "people who got the short straw in life" in his eyes.

Until that comes to pass, I have some advice for Mr. Buffett. He should be familiar with it.

Shut up.

The Myth Of A Free Buffet

Or a free Buffett...one of the two.

After months of the seemingly fallacious assertion that Warren Buffet pays a lower tax rate than his secretary, we finally have some facts to work with. 

The ever astute Mrs. Megan McArdle-Suderman has looked things over and found....surprise!....perhaps someone is stretching the truth a bit here.  Or comparing apples with bananas or kiwi or something.  She has a link to the original ABC report.

The summary?

While it is difficult to justify the exact percentages, it is pretty easy to see that those pushing the Buffett-secretary myth are comparing his secretary's total tax load (including payroll taxes, including the part paid by Mr. Buffett's company) with Mr. Buffett's cap gains tax rate (but not including the corporate taxes paid by his company).

Cherry picking has done been done.

A couple thoughts via Glenn Reynolds.  Mr. Reynolds had a secretary at Dewey Ballantine that made $50k per year back in the 1980s.  Mr. Buffett's secretary, Ms. Debbie Bosanek, only makes $60k today.  Not only could Mr. Buffett voluntarily pay more in taxes if he feels he is under taxed, he could also voluntarily bump Ms. Bosanek's paycheck if he feels that she is one of "the people who got the short straw in life."  Even a 90/10 split would be an improvement over the current situation for Ms. Bosanek.

Not that $60k in Nebraska is anything like a truly short straw.

The cold hard fact is that the number of super-rich that pay lower income tax rates than their secretaries is quite slim.  The number of the super-rich hedge fund managers that benefit from the "carried interest" rule is an order of magnitude smaller.  Changing the law so they pay income tax rates instead of the capital gains rate might be a good idea.  Doing so will not raise enough money to spit at when compared with our current deficits.

I'd love to have both people release their complete tax information so that we can truly compare apples to apples.

Even better would be to have Mr. Buffett put his money where his mouth is by writing bigger checks to the U.S. Treasury and to his most worthy secretary.  I'm betting that it will take pigs in the sky and ice in Hell before either happens.

Violent Solutions

"My mother said violence never solves anything." "So?" Mr. Dubois looked at her bleakly. "I'm sure the city fathers of Carthage would be glad to know that."

- Starship Troopers, by Robert Heinlein

Weeeee....Weh Weeeeeeeeee!!!

They might as well be pinwheels.  Don Surber has the news about 14,000 abandoned wind turbines.

Now erecting a wind turbine is not an inexpensive proposition.  And building one isn't either.  So how does it make any fiscal sense to abandon 14,000 wind turbines in some of the prime wind power generating locations in the world?

Because there is no profit in maintaining them.

Government subsidies encourage fabrication and erection.  But once those subsidy spawned profits have been reaped, once the low hanging fruit has been plucked, how can a company justify spending money on an enterprise that continues to lose money?

If only they were small enough that you might hold one in each hand.....

Go get 'em Maxwell!

Hard To Do With An Ebook

As John Scalzi says....

An Errant Tweet Is All It Took?

Perhaps Snoop Dogg would be better off keeping certain comments to himself.

• “Snoop Dogg to W.H.: Legalize pot,” the Politico today, in a post time-stamped 6:34 AM EST, and highlighted by Matt Drudge.

• “Drug dog busts Snoop Dogg’s bus,” CNN today, in a post time-stamped 3:42 PM EST.

Both Ends Against The.....

....middle?

A little link love for Tom Briscoe.

I think he is on to something here.  Both the Tea Party and Occupy movements are frustrated with the government covering for corporations, "too big to fail", bailouts, etc.  Neither side is particularly enamored with the way corporations get the government to create near monopolies as well as shielding them from the liability of their mistakes.  I think there is some common ground here.

The primary difference seems to be that the Tea Party folks recognize that corporations have a legitimate function, but that they should rise and fall based on their own merits rather than be government fiat.  The Occupy folks regard corporations as being illegitimate.

Based on the tweets on Twitter and Facebook entries made via their cell phones.

The solution remains to have a smaller, more effective, and more transparent government. If only the Occupy folks could get on board with that idea.

Just Disgusting

This sort of thing just drives me around the bend.

Ms. Marion B. Tasco is slated to retire after her 6^th term as a Philadelphia coucilwoman.  She will then begin her 7^th term as a Philadelphia councilwoman.  Her "retirement" will earn her $478,000.

Pitchforks, tar, and feathers were invented for just such an occasion.

Media Bias - Smaller Scale

I ran across this article about a small, New York based, public TV station a while back.  The author maintains that he saw repeated incidents of bias on the part of station employees and managers during his time on the staff.

With my own eyes, I saw producers laughing and cheering at TV news reporting the assassination attempt on President Reagan. 

While by not no means definitive, it does provide an interesting insight into some portion of the media.  This is the sort of thing that begs for an undercover investigation!

BOCE Photography

Arthur S. Mole was one of the greatest producers of the large scale photography of human activities.  Specifically, he organized large crowds into visual sculptures.

This image from Parris Island naturally drew my attention.

You have to click on the image to appreciate the scale of coordination needed to create this image.  Another interesting note, these Marines and recruits were under the command of Brigadier General Pendleton when this image was created.  The Marines' largest base, located in California, was named after General Pendleton.

More on Mr. Mole's photography here.

Map Of All Maps

When it comes to esoteric geekery, cartography yields the field to no other subject.  Slate recently published a review of what they claim may be the best American wall map....ever!

You can go to the creator's website and see more for yourself.  And perhaps even buy a copy.  The spent years working on it!  That ought to be good for a couple bucks.

The Utility Of Religion

History does not record anywhere at any time a religion that has any rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help. But, like dandruff, most people do have a religion and spend time and money on it and seem to derive considerable pleasure from fiddling with it.

-Time Enough For Love, by Robert Heinlein

Pick A Spending Cut

There is a guide to the GOP candidates and their potential federal spending preferences over at the 10^th Amendment Center.

Sadly, Ron Paul is the most prolific as well as the most specific candidate when it comes to spending cuts.  Gary Johnson continues to be my candidate of choice even though his spending proposals are not as specific.

Mr. Obama is not listed.  Primarily because despite his protestations to the contrary, he has no intention of limiting federal spending.