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The Senate Speaks

From The Washington Times:

Obama budget defeated 99-0 in Senate
President Obama's budget suffered a second embarrassing defeat Wednesday, when senators voted 99-0 to reject it.

Coupled with the House's rejection in March, 414-0, that means Mr. Obama's budget has failed to win a single vote in support this year.

Hat tip to Zero Hedge for the link.

And the only Senator to not vote (hence the 99) was Senator Mark Kirk (R., Ill.) who is recovering from a stroke.

The dead have risen - and they are voting in Florida

From J. Christian Adams, PJ Media's Legal Editor:

53,000 Dead Voters Found in Florida
I have learned that Florida election officials are set to announce that the Secretary of State has discovered and purged up to 53,000 dead voters from the voter rolls in Florida.

How could 53,000 dead voters have sat on the polls for so long? Simple, because Florida hadn’t been using the best available data revealing which voters have died. Florida is now using the nationwide Social Security Death Index for determining which voters should be purged because they have died.

Here is the bad news. Most states aren’t using the same database that Florida is. In fact, I have heard reports that some election officials won’t even remove voters even when they are presented with a death certificate. That means that voter rolls across the nation still are filled with dead voters, even if Florida is leading the way in detecting and removing them.

But surely people aren’t voting in the names of dead voters, the voter fraud deniers argue. Wrong.

More at the site. There was a big problem with felons and the dead in the 2000 and 2004 Presidential elections. Before the 2000 election, Florida purged 100,000 false voters from their rolls. They tried the same thing in 2004 but the hostile media coverage prevented them from doing this.

Makes me glad that I have the Zombie Killah at the ready.

Glad I moved out of the city

From the Chicago Tribune:

4 Guardian Angels knifed trying to stop Red Line robbery
Four members of the volunteer security patrol known as the Guardian Angels were stabbed while trying to nab a man who pistol-whipped a rider on a Red Line train on the Near North Side, police say.

The four suffered minor cuts during the confrontation around 11:15 p.m. Tuesday at the Clark and Division stop, police said, citing preliminary information.

The Guardian Angels were on the platform, waiting to get on a train, when they spotted a man hitting a passenger and taking his iPhone 4S, police said. They intervened and a second man pulled a knife and cut three of the Guardian Angels on their arms and the fourth on the head, authorities said.

The robbers ran off and grabbed a cab, police said.

Wednesday evening police released CTA surveillance photos of the suspects and asked for the public's help in finding them.

We are getting instances of gang activity in Bellingham and surrounding towns. I cannot imagine what it would be like to live in Detroit or other eastern city. I would certainly have Zombie Killah within reach at all times…

High times in Darby

First off, Darby is located five miles Southwest of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
When I grew up in Pittsburgh, it was a nice small town but it is a hell-hole now.
From the Wikipedia entry for Darby, Pennsylvania:

As of the census³ of 2000, there were 10,299 people, 3,405 households, and 2,393 families residing in the borough. The population density was 12,624.5 people per square mile (4,849.3/km²). There were 3,999 housing units at an average density of 4,902.0 per square mile (1,883.0/km²). The racial makeup of the borough was 36.37% White, 60.00% African American, 0.14% Native American, 0.87% Asian, 0.07% Pacific Islander, 0.51% from other races, and 2.04% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 0.95% of the population.

More (Census data for households):

30.0% had a female householder with no husband present

The resultant crime rate:

The Pennsylvania State Police reported that the crime rate (per capita)in 2011 compared to the per-capita rate for Delaware County as a whole was six times for violent crimes (homicide, robbery, and assault, not including sex crimes), twenty-four times for property crimes (including arson), but only two times for drug offenses (not including alcohol offenses).

From The Delaware County Times:

Robbers help Darby cops make big marijuana bust
A sophisticated irrigation system, commercial grow lights, fans, humidifiers and timers allowed a 52-year-old pot farmer to grow a bumper crop with a street value of about $200,000 in a tiny row house on Glen Avon Road, police said.

Police confiscated 212 pot plants and numerous mason jars filled with potent marijuana buds — worth between $5 and $1,500 each — from Daniel M. Thomas’ home, police said.

If it weren’t for three armed invaders who forced their way into Thomas’ house Monday night, what appeared to be a lucrative pot growing operation would still be in business.

More — from Police Chief Robert Smythe:

According to Smythe, Thomas has lived in the neat row home in the 1100 block of Glen Avon Road, once owned by his late parents, for decades. He’d never been in trouble, as far as Smythe knows, and police had never been called to the house.

More:

According to Smythe, Thomas told him he had hurt his back, had applied for disability and was supporting himself in the interim by growing marijuana.

That is until three black males wearing surgical masks burst into his home at about 9:40 p.m. Monday.

According to Smythe, Thomas and a friend were sitting in the dining room when the armed suspects entered the house. The masked men robbed them of their wallets and cellphones and demanded to know “where the money was,” according to the affidavit of probable cause. Thomas allegedly told the men to take whatever they wanted and the suspects began filling trash bags with weed. They carried the loot out back and began loading it into a truck, according to court documents.

One of the suspects was overheard saying, “We hit the jackpot,” Smythe said.

While the suspects were out back loading the truck, Thomas’ friend decided to take off. He ran to his pickup truck, which was parked out front, then drove around toward the alleyway. One of the suspects was sitting on Thomas’ motorcycle while another was carrying jars filled with pot, the affidavit states.

The friend told police he drove toward the two men. As he did, the suspect holding the jars began shooting at him. As bullets pierced the truck, Thomas’ friend, whose name is not being disclosed, continued toward the suspect on the cycle. He followed him until the suspect lost control of the motorcycle, crashed and fled on foot. The friend drove home, parked his truck then returned to the scene in another vehicle.

I personally don't smoke pot but have zero problems with other people smoking and growing it. There is so much money being made with commercial grow operations that I really wonder who in our government is being bought off and bribed to keep it illegal. The government could raise a lot of revenue by taxing its sale.

I wonder just how much effort is being spent to find the home invaders. Mr. Thomas should have spent more time in the gun shop and on the range…

Sounds like a fun read

From Splitsider comes this review:

The Novels of John Swartzwelder, the Most Prolific Simpsons Writer Ever
John Swartzwelder is the J. D. Salinger of comedy writing. The prolific Simpsons writer (he's written 59 episodes of The Simpsons, far more than any other writer, even when the show is quickly approaching five hundred episodes) is as well known to his fans for his eccentricities as his writing.

He was allowed to send his scripts in from home because the other writers couldn't stand his chain-smoking. When he could no longer smoke in restaurants, he bought his favorite booth from his favorite diner and had it installed in his home.

Swartzwelder's final Simpsons was in 2003, and since then he has written a novel a year, all self-published, when realistically, he could barge into any publishing house and declare “I've written 20% of all Simpsons episodes” and be handed a contract. I read all eight of Swartzwelder's novels in a row and have put my impressions together here, hopefully in a way that's slightly less absurdist than Swartzwelder's prose.

The Time Machine Did It: This book is a verbal cartoon; a literary Marx Brothers movie. In its way, Time Machine is actually more cartoony than The Simpsons. There's no pathos, no moral, just screwball, anything-for-a-laugh comedy. The protagonist is Frank Burly, a private detective who freely admits that he's not very observant, which is kind of a problem in his field. To reach his office, prospective clients have to walk past the offices of three more competent detectives.

Burly is hired by Thomas Dewey Mandible the Third, “a scraggly, smelly specimen” who claims to be a multi-millionaire. Mandible woke up one day to find that everything he owned (including his mansion and his stocks) have been stolen, but he has hired Burly only to return a small statue. To prove how serious he is, Mandible gives Burly not just one, but five blank checks.

After some snooping, Burly realizes that it all has to do with a stolen time machine, housed inside of a briefcase and invented by a Professor Groggins, who got the idea from watching science fiction movies (a theme Swartzwelder will revisit in the future). It turns out that the hard part of inventing is actually thinking up the idea. But once things like disintegrating rays and teleporters have been thought up by television writers, building real ones are surprisingly easy.

And like Chekov said, if you introduce a time machine in the first act, it has to go off by the midpoint. Time Machine's most creative scenes are the ones where Burley finds himself trapped in the 1940s. Unlike the later Frank Burly novels, The Time Machine Did It ends with Burly being surprisingly resourceful and clever, actively bringing about the resolution.

Seven more reviews at the site — looks like some fun summer reading.

Swartzwelder has his website here: Kennydale Books
His books are available on Amazon.

Got the tee-shirt

Some people are just plain dense — from the ever wonderful Not Always Right:

Detached From (Digital) Reality
I work for an online retail store. When customers send orders to addresses different from their card, we e-mail them a Word document form. This form requires they fill it out and e-mail it back to us.

Customer: “I don't understand. I've sent this form to you several times now.”
Me: “Sir, I saw your e-mail, but the form wasn't attached to it.”
Customer: “Attached? How do you do that?”
Me: “What program or e-mail provider do you use?”
Customer: “I don't know. I just write e-mails.”
Me: “Well, is your e-mail through Outlook, or is it something in a browser, like AOL, Yahoo, or Gmail?
Customer: “Yahoo.”
Me: “Okay. Well, you need to look for-“
Customer: “Hold up! I don't even have my e-mail open. Why do I need to do this? I used your program and sent you the file.”
Me: “What program, sir?”
Customer: “Microsoft Office. And now it's opening a bunch of files! 1, 2, 3, 4…20!”
Me: “Did you click on our file a bunch of times?”
Customer: “No! I just clicked on what you sent me! Your program is really stupid.”
Me: “Sir, that's not our program. We sent you a document. The program to open it is someone else's.”
Customer: “Well, your 'document' has a virus! There are 20 things on my screen now!”
Me: “It's not a virus, sir. Just close those windows down, and we'll start from scratch…”
Customer: (a few minutes later) “There. I filled out the form. You should have it.”
Me: “Sir, did you save it and attach it to the e-mail?”
Customer: “What do you mean? I filled it out! You should have it.”
Me: “You have to save it and attach it to the e-mail.”
Customer: “That's stupid! Your program should just send it to you!”
Me: “Sir, again, that's not our program. That is just a Word document that you save your information in.”
Customer: “You should use a program that just lets you fill it out and it sends the information.”
Me: “Sorry, our documents don't do that.”
Customer: “This is ridiculously complicated. I'm about to cancel my order!”
Me: “If you wish to do that sir, it's up to you.”
Customer: “I mean, how do you run your business? I have a Master's in Computer Science! If I can't figure this out, who could?!”

Owned a computer store in Seattle for ten years and yes, there are people that stupid out there…

Some good news

From the Bellingham Herald:

DOT: Crews will reopen road to Artist Point this summer
The road to Artist Point will be opened this summer, after being closed all of 2011 because of heavy and late snow.

Washington Department of Transportation crews measured the snow depth and status Wednesday, May 16, and made the determination.

It hadn't been officially announced by DOT as of Wednesday morning, but a Bellingham Herald reporter with the crew relayed the news from the mountain.

No estimated date for reopening the road was immediately available.

Artist Point, at the end of Mount Baker Highway more than 5,000 feet above sea level, is a popular viewpoint that features 360-degree views of Mount Shuksan and Mount Baker. It's a jumping-off point for numerous stunning mountain hikes.

The road to it usually is open from July to the first substantial snowfall of the year in late September or early October.

It has been closed since Oct. 25, 2010.

Very good news — this is a big draw during summer and summer is the busiest season of the four. This is when we make our money for the year and last years revenues were down about 20% — people didn't visit our area.

Nothing tonight

Had to run into town for a meeting and errands. Busy day today and tired.

Internet was down this afternoon — odd as the weather was perfectly clear so there was no rain-fade.

The Laser was once a laboratory curiosity

and now it is ubiquitous.
Meet Graphene — from The Economist:

A much-vaunted new material may change telecommunications
GRAPHENE, a form of carbon that comes in sheets a single atom thick, has gained a reputation as a wonder material. It is the best conductor yet discovered of heat at room temperature and is 40 times stronger than steel. It is also a semiconductor whose electrical conductivity is 1,000 times better than silicon’s. This means it could be used to make devices far more sensitive than is possible now, leading some to predict that it will one day become the material of choice for computer chips. There was little surprise, therefore, when Andre Geim (pictured above) and Konstantin Novoselov, two physicists who were investigating graphene’s structure, won the 2010 Nobel prize for their work.

Actually converting the wonders of graphene into products has been tough. But Frank Koppens and his colleagues at the Institute of Photonic Sciences in Barcelona think they have found a way to do so. As they describe in Nature Nanotechnology, they believe graphene can be used to make ultra-sensitive, low-cost photodetectors.

Photodetectors are devices which convert light into electricity. They are used in digital cameras, night-vision gear, biomedical imagers, pollution sensors and telecommunications. A typical photodetector is made of a silicon chip a few millimetres across onto which light is focused by a small lens. Light striking the chip knocks electrons free from some of the silicon atoms, producing a signal that the chip’s electronics convert into a picture or other useful information.

Silicon photodetectors suffer, though, from a handicap: they are inflexible. Nor are they particularly cheap. And they are not that sensitive. They absorb only 10-20% of the light that falls on to them. For years, therefore, engineers have been on the lookout for a cheap, bendable, sensitive photodetector. Such a device could have many novel applications—wearable electronics, for example. With a little clever engineering, graphene seems to fit the bill.

By itself, graphene is worse than silicon at absorbing light. According to Dr Koppens only 2.7% of the photons falling on it are captured. But he and his colleague Gerasimos Konstantatos have managed to increase this to more than 50% by spraying tiny crystals of lead sulphide onto the surface of the material.

These crystals are so small (three to ten nanometres across, a nanometre being a billionth of a metre) that they are known as quantum dots, because at dimensions measured in nanometres the weird effects of quantum mechanics start to manifest themselves. One such is that the size of a quantum dot affects the colour of the light it best absorbs. The larger the dot, the redder that light; the smaller, conversely, the bluer. This allows Dr Koppens and Dr Konstantatos to span all wavelengths from ultraviolet to infra-red, greatly increasing the utility of any photodetector that might emerge. Infra-red, for example, is important in telecoms and night-vision applications. Visible wavelengths, by contrast, are needed for cameras and solar cells.

This is very cool — it will allow cheap InfraRed cameras (decent ones now start at around $7K and go up and up and up) and better digital cameras.

The abstract is here: Hybrid graphene–quantum dot phototransistors with ultrahigh gain

It is a fun time to be alive!

Wine wine, fruit of the vine

Major wine fraud — fun to read as although I can taste the difference, a decent bottle of $8 red is fine for my table. It's about people and food not some esoteric nuance. Got better things to do with my time, money and nuance.

From New York Magazine:

Château Sucker
Even at Rudy Kurniawan's coming-out party in September 2003, there were questionable bottles of wine.

A score of Southern California’s biggest grape nuts had gathered at the restaurant Melisse in Santa Monica that Friday for a $4,800-a-head vertical tasting of irresistible rarities provided by Kurniawan: Pétrus in a dozen vintages, reaching as far back as 1921, in magnums.

Although Pétrus is now among the most famous wines in the world, it gained its exalted status relatively recently; before World War II, it was virtually unheard of, and finding large-format bottles that had survived from the twenties bordered on miraculous. Paul Wasserman, the son of prominent Burgundy importer Becky Wasserman, is something like wine royalty, but before this event, the oldest Pétrus he had tasted was from 1975.

Nonetheless, two bottles left him scratching his head. The 1947 lacked the unctuousness of right-bank Bordeaux from that legendary vintage, and the 1961 struck him as “very young.” He briefly entertained the idea of “possible fakes”—’61 Pétrus in magnum has fetched up to $28,440 at auction—and jotted, in his notes on the ’47, “If there’s one bottle I have serious doubts about tonight, this is it.”

But in the rare-wine world, doubts are endemic; murkiness is built into a product that is concealed by tinted glass and banded wooden cases and opaque provenance and the fog of history. At the same time, the whole apparatus of the rare-wine market is about converting doubt into mystique. Most wealthy collectors want to spend big and drink famous labels, not necessarily ask questions or hear the answers. Guests at tastings don’t want to bite the hand that quenches them. Auctioneers may not want to risk losing consignments by nitpicking ambiguous bottles. Winemakers don’t like to talk about counterfeiting, for fear of the taint. Also, one thing not high on the FBI’s list of investigative priorities: billionaires getting snowed by wine forgers. It’s clear to everyone on this rarefied circuit that wine fraud is rampant. It’s also clear not many insiders feel an urgency to do anything about it.

A long story but a fun detective story and a good read. Kurniawan did have a good palate and memory.

The reveal:

Which is why what happened on April 25, 2008, was unprecedented. Ten minutes into the Acker auction of Rob Rosania’s Champagne-focused cellar at Cru, a long-haired man entered the room and took a seat near the back. It was Laurent Ponsot, maker of a coveted Burgundy featured in 22 lots in the auction. Domaine Ponsot only started making its Clos St. Denis in the eighties, but the catalogue included Kurniawan-consigned vintages from 1959 and 1945. Barzelay had alerted Ponsot, and told Kapon he needed to pull the lots; Ponsot decided to attend the auction to make sure they were withdrawn.

Emphasis mine — oopsie… And then, there was this:

The FBI had been building its own case against Kurniawan, and had determined that he had been living in the country illegally since 2003, when his application for asylum had been denied. Now concerned that he was a flight risk, they filed for an arrest warrant. At dawn on March 8, a half-dozen FBI agents arrived at his house in Arcadia.

And Busted:

Kurniawan answered the door in his pajamas. The only other person in the house was his elderly mother. Hours later, when the FBI searched the house, they found thousands of wine labels for top wines, including 1950 Pétrus and 1947 Lafleur, Lafite, and Romanée-Conti. There were hundreds of old and new corks, and a mechanical device for inserting them. There were lead capsules and sealing wax and rubber stamps with vintages and châteaux names, such as 1899 and 1900 Latour and 1992 Screaming Eagle. There were glue and stencils and pattern scissors and warm white Ingres drawing paper. There were detailed instructions for fabricating labels for 1962 Domaine Ponsot Clos de la Roche. There were bottles of cheap Napa Valley wine markered with the names of old Bordeaux wines they were apparently intended to impersonate, and there were more bottles soaking in the kitchen sink, their labels ready to be removed.

Stick with the $8 daily plonk and you will be happy. Splurge for $15 for special events and maybe $30 for really special events. Anything more is a serious case of diminishing returns.

These house of cards scams — as well as Ponzi scams — are about as stupid as you can get.
#1) - There is no exit strategy — there is no way to gracefully unwind the scam that you have created and built. Its only exit is down.
#2) - You will always get caught. There is no way to stay small and under the RADAR. #1) will see to that. Eventually, you will get to the point where someone will put two and two together and call your bluff…

Now this could be big

From Your Jewish News — an offshoot of the BC Canadian Vancouver Sun:

Jerusalem hospital shows off vaccine that destroys cancer in 2 shots
Early human test results suggest a vaccine can train cancer patients' bodies to seek out and destroy tumour cells.

The therapy, which targets a molecule found in 90 per cent of cancers, eventually could provide an injection that would allow patients' immune systems to fight off common cancers including breast and prostate cancer.

The first results of trials in people, at the Hadassah Medical Centre in Jerusalem, suggest the vaccine can reduce levels of disease. The human work is so preliminary it has yet to be published in a scientific journal.

This could be incredible if it pans out. The problem with Cancer is that there are several thousand of them and they are all different. We get something that works for a swath of 20 or 30 and the rest of them just get a tummyache and go back to killing their host (never said they were intelligent).

A guaranteed Nobel Prize in Medicine for the team if this pans out.

Let's see now, Jews have about 166 Nobel Prizes and the Arabs have 8.
Says a lot for their love of education and powerful work ethic.

Half Beef

Just ordered my half beef (320 pounds) from Del Fox Meats. This is the company that provided the wonderful rib-eye steak that I had last weekend.

I'll have a full freezer in about a week. That pencils out to about $900 but it will last for a year or more and nicely compares to the beef that retails for $4 to $15/pound.

Salivating…

Nothing much tonight

Worked a lot in the garden today — the raised beds had laid fallow for about five years what with my hip and deteriorating marriage so it is very cathartic to get them back online and stuff planted. Looking forward to eating my first salad.

Got the hops planted (Cascade and Chinook) and ordered tobacco seeds a few days ago. I used to smoke a pipe and do the occasional cigar — I am more thinking of having it around as a trade-good. There is a spot on the south side of the animal barn that gets hammered with sunlight.

Sprayed Roundup on the landscaped areas near the house — cleaning them out and turn Lulu loose in a few days. The county is doing their annual tree maintenance so there should be a lot of wood chips available for mulch soon.

Heading out to the garage (soon to be glass studio) to move some stuff around. I have too much crap (at times, but sometimes it is not enough.)

Born to Run

Nice story on Craig Breedlove at the New York Times:

A Man With an Irresistible Urge to Run Wide Open
Craig Breedlove was practically a household name in the 1960s, a result of his bringing the unlimited land-speed record back to the United States. In becoming the first to officially push the mark past 400 miles an hour, he dethroned a decades-long dynasty of capable British teams.

In 1963, Breedlove stepped into a death-defying struggle among homegrown hot rodders to grab ever-faster speed records. In the process, he became the first to set the record over 500 m.p.h., and only a year later to break the 600-m.p.h. barrier as well.

Today, the persistent British again own the record — now at 763 m.p.h. — and Breedlove, at age 75, is organizing a team for an attempt to recapture it, with a goal of 800 m.p.h. Speaking last fall at the Simeone Automotive Museum in Philadelphia, where he accepted the annual Spirit of Competition award, he told of growing up in Southern California at a time when fast cars were becoming part of the fabric of American life.

He started young:

At 13, Breedlove persuaded his parents to help him buy a 1934 Ford coupe for $75, promising not to drive it until he got a license. To fix up this derelict, he worked in a local body shop for 50 cents an hour. His high school shop teacher donated a supercharger for its V-8.

Breedlove took his coupe to a sanctioned meet on the El Mirage dry lake bed in the Mojave Desert northwest of Los Angeles, where he set a course record of 148 m.p.h. While he would go on to race cars that were far less conventional, he did not turn his back on production cars, setting records in the 1960s with a Cobra Daytona coupe and American Motors AMXs.

Wow — speed of sound is 768MPH at STP — Breedlove is going to be dealing with some major stability problems as well as just getting the thing fast enough.

RIP - Donald "Duck" Dunn

You may remember him from this famous Blues Brothers line:

He was one of the major studio musicians.

His home page and Wiki entry.

An obituary at The Washington Post:

Legendary bass player ‘Duck’ Dunn of Booker T. and the MGs dies in Tokyo at age 70
Donald “Duck” Dunn, the bassist who helped create the gritty Memphis soul sound at Stax Records in the 1960s as part of the legendary group Booker T. and the MGs and contributed to such classics as “In the Midnight Hour,” ‘’Hold On, I’m Coming” and “Sitting on the Dock of the Bay,” died Sunday at 70.

Dunn, whose legacy as one of the most respected session musicians in the business also included work with John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd’s Blues Brothers as well as with Levon Helm, Eric Clapton, Neil Young and Bob Dylan, died while on tour in Tokyo.

News of his death was posted on the Facebook site of his friend and fellow musician Steve Cropper, who was on the same tour. Cropper said Dunn died in his sleep.

Actually, not a bad way to go — on tour and in your sleep. He left a lot of awesome music.

Auction

Got another thing in less than one month. This auction:

PENINSULA PLYWOOD GROUP, LLC - FORMERLY K PLY INC.

It's being held in Port Angeles — a delightful port town about 45 minutes away. Most of the items are of no use to me — I do not need a:

1966 Kimwood Smithway 4-head sander, auto tracking and tension controls, 150 hp on heads, Allen Bradley 1336 plus adjustable frequency drives, scissor lift infeed, powered in and out rollcases, hydraulic unit, accumulating stacker, gravity rolls, blowpipe

But… it's items like this that really pique my interest:

Shop items to include welders, anvil, acorn table, Little Giant 100 lb hammer, drill presses, pattern burner, grinders, steel stock, shop press, vises, tooling, steel tables, chain hoists and jibs, precision measuring tools and hand tools

The acorn table especially…

Welding Rodeo

Now that the good weather is here, the fun events are being scheduled.

There is the Ski to Sea race at the end of this month but I was reminded today that the Bellingham Technical College's 11th Annual Welding Rodeo is this coming weekend — May 18th and 19th. Friday is amateur and high-school teams and Saturday is professional welders. I go to this every year and it is a lot of fun. The College's Culinary Arts program caters the food on Friday so lunch is delicious and cheap.

The week after the Ski to Sea race is the Bellingham Highland Games

It is going to be a busy but fun month.

As for right now, I'm going to get a bite to eat and work in the garden. Lulu is feeling a bit poorly so she is hanging out inside reading.

How about spreading HIS wealth around

France just elected an avowed Socialist as President.
Now the numbers are starting to come out — from the London Evening Standard:

Socialist Hollande owns three homes on the Riviera
France's new Socialist president owns three holiday homes in the Riviera resort of Cannes, it emerged today.

Francois Hollande, 57, who “dislikes the rich” and wants to revolutionise his country with high taxes and an onslaught against bankers, is in fact hugely wealthy himself.

And his Presidential Plan (do not forget, this man is a true Mastermind):

He intends to set a top tax rate of 75 per cent, and to increase France’s wealth tax — moves which have already seen rich people threatening to leave the country and move abroad including to London.

Meanwhile, Mr Hollande wants to pour public money into France’s public services, creating thousands of jobs.

Beneath contempt. Idiot. Pssst — Laffer Curve. You do not have a revenue problem, you have a spending problem.

The only tempering aspect is that this nation was collectively stupid enough to elect him. Politics can be a good emetic as we are finding out…

Quite the list

From Doug Ross:

President Barack Obama's Complete List of Historic Firsts [Updated]
• First President to Preside Over a Cut to the Credit Rating of the United States Government

• First President to Violate the War Powers Act

• First President to Orchestrate the Sale of Murder Weapons to Mexican Drug Cartels

• First President to issue an unlawful “recess-appointment” while the U.S. Senate remained in session (against the advice of his own Justice Department)

• First President to be Held in Contempt of Court for Illegally Obstructing Oil Drilling in the Gulf of Mexico

• First president to intentionally disable credit card security measures in order to allow over-the-limit donations, foreign contributions and other illegal fundraising measures.

• First President to Defy a Federal Judge's Court Order to Cease Implementing the 'Health Care Reform' Law

• First President to halt deportations of illegal aliens and grant them work permits, a form of stealth amnesty roughly equivalent to “The DREAM Act”, which could not pass Congress

• First President to Sign a Law Requiring All Americans to Purchase a Product From a Third Party

• First President to Spend a Trillion Dollars on 'Shovel-Ready' Jobs — and Later Admit There Was No Such Thing as Shovel-Ready Jobs

• First President to sue states for requiring valid IDs to vote, even though the same administration requires valid IDs to travel by air

• First President to Abrogate Bankruptcy Law to Turn Over Control of Companies to His Union Supporters

• First President to sign into law a bill that permits the government to “hold anyone suspected of being associated with terrorism indefinitely, without any form of due process. No indictment. No judge or jury. No evidence. No trial. Just an indefinite jail sentence.”

• First President to Bypass Congress and Implement the DREAM Act Through Executive Fiat

• First President to Threaten Insurance Companies After They Publicly Spoke out on How Obamacare Helped Cause their Rate Increases

• First President to Openly Defy a Congressional Order Not To Share Sensitive Nuclear Defense Secrets With the Russian Government

• First President to Threaten an Auto Company (Ford) After It Publicly Mocked Bailouts of GM and Chrysler

• First President to “Order a Secret Amnesty Program that Stopped the Deportations of Illegal Immigrants Across the U.S., Including Those With Criminal Convictions”

• First President to Demand a Company Hand Over $20 Billion to One of His Political Appointees

• First President to Terminate America's Ability to Put a Man into Space

• First President to Encourage Racial Discrimination and Intimidation at Polling Places

• First President to Have a Law Signed By an 'Auto-pen' Without Being “Present”

• First President to send $200 million to a terrorist organization (Hamas) after Congress had explicitly frozen the money for fear it would fund attacks against civilians

• First President to Arbitrarily Declare an Existing Law Unconstitutional and Refuse to Enforce It

• First President to Tell a Major Manufacturing Company In Which State They Are Allowed to Locate a Factory

• First President to refuse to comply with a House Oversight Committee subpoena

• First President to File Lawsuits Against the States He Swore an Oath to Protect (AZ, WI, OH, IN, etc.)

• First President to Withdraw an Existing Coal Permit That Had Been Properly Issued Years Ago

• First President to Fire an Inspector General of Americorps for Catching One of His Friends in a Corruption Case

• First President to Propose an Executive Order Demanding Companies Disclose Their Political Contributions to Bid on Government Contracts

• First President to Preside Over America's Loss of Its Status as the World's Largest Economy (Source: Peterson Institute)

• First President to Have His Administration Fund an Organization Tied to the Cop-Killing Weather Underground

• First President to allow Mexican police to conduct law enforcement activities on American soil

• First president to propose budgets so unreasonable that not a single representative from either party would cast a vote in favor (“Senate unanimously rejected President Obama's budget last year in 0-97 vote”, “House Votes 414-0 to Reject Obama’s Budget Plan”, The Blaze)

• First President to press for a “treaty giving a U.N. body veto power over the use of our territorial waters and rights to half of all offshore oil revenue” (The Law Of The Sea Treaty)

• First President to Golf 90 or More Times in His First Three Years in Office

But remember: he will not rest until all Americans have jobs, affordable homes, green-energy vehicles, and the environment is repaired, etc., etc., etc.

Quite the legacy 'ya got there Barry. Something to be very proud of.

The 120+ comments on Doug's site offer some additional Historic Firsts.

Imagine what he could do if he had another four years…

Well that was a bust

Had a leisurely breakfast and then spent 90 minutes driving down to the Amateur Radio Hamvention and Fleamarket. Got there around 1:30 and found everybody packing up their vehicles and all the tables taken down and stowed. I was there two years ago and it ran until around 3:30 or so so I figured we would have some time to browse.

Next year.

On a plus note, we discovered this place: Del Fox Meats.
Picked up two ribeye steaks for $4.99/pound and they were probably the best steaks I can remember. We went to the counter, they brought out the round and sliced off our order while we watched. I cooked them on my Traeger, let them rest for five minutes and Oh. My. God.

They also sell half-beef so I am driving down sometime in the next week or two to pick up one. Grass fed, grass finished. Fill my freezer for $2.79/pound.

We took the back roads coming back home. Life is good.

RIP - D.C. Cox

Just found that a good friend had passed away three weeks ago. Never met him fact to face but we emailed back and forth quite a bit over the years. I knew he was having health issues but his death (at 63) came as a surprise.

There is a nice obituary at the Wisconsin Baraboo News Republic:

D.C. Cox
Durlin C. Cox, 63, of Baraboo, passed away peacefully on April 25, 2012 at the Casa De La Luz Hospice in Tucson, Ariz. D.C. was born Feb. 27, 1949 in Baraboo, and was the first born of Orville and Darlene (Burris) Cox. He graduated from Baraboo High School and went on to study at the University of Wisconsin. D.C. owned and operated his business, Resonance Research, building and supplying Van de Graaff generators and Tesla coil inventions to businesses and museums around the world. He was blessed with great intellectual ability and creativity. D.C. served his country as a Sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps during the Vietnam era. He was kind in spirit and a generous uncle. He will be remembered for his scientific mind and pioneering spirit in the world of research, inventing, electronics and physics; his accomplishments as a demolitions expert; his skill at the billiard table and love for the game of pool; his passion for the martial arts, holding a 10th degree black belt in Judo; his love of piloting airplanes, snow skiing and his enjoyment of great cars.

I have a large coil which I built with some parts I purchased from him and with a lot of his tips and suggestions. Have never run it since moving up here — I'll have to put it together and do a nice long run in his memory. The neighbors already think I'm a bit strange…

Staring down the barrel

I will feel a little bit more comfortable in a few days.
From SpaceWeather:

CHANCE OF FLARES, EARTH-DIRECTED:
NOAA forecasters estimate a 75% chance of M-class solar flares and a 20% chance of X-flares during the next 24 hours. Any eruptions are likely to be geoeffective because the source, sunspot AR1476, is directly facing our planet.

Just like a venomous snake — gorgeous but deadly. I had written about AR1476 a few days ago here. It is now staring at us point blank — I love auroras but another Carrington would really cramp my style…

Here is a realtime chart of the last three days from the GOES satellite:

As famed Seattle Restaurateur Ivar Haglund would say: Keep Clam
More on Ivar here

Gear Acquisition Syndrome

As a long time sufferer, I can sympathize with people's problems.
Not only computers, I also collect metalworking stuff, photography stuff, music stuff and now, embarking on a Ham Radio collection.

The people at the Guitar Squid website have put together a 12-step program for G.A.S.:

Guitar Squid’s 12 Step Program for Gear Junkies
G.A.S. is a major problem for many guitar players. Thousands suffer from the syndrome each year, most often seeing the effects through a slimming of wallet size, and in the problems it causes in their relationships with significant others. G.A.S. is a growing problem that should probably be stopped before it gets out of hand. Well, maybe … the results still aren’t that conclusive. Whatever. We’re here to help!

Do you suffer from G.A.S.? Are you a gear junkie? The Squid put together a 12 step program specifically for you. Here’s a guide describing the 12 step process to recovery, along with some of The Squid’s notes to show you that while the road to recovery may not be easy, it’s a process we all have to go through.

Visit the site — well done!

Just wow

Today is the first really great weather this spring — got up to 74° and not a cloud in the sky.

There is a place a few miles up the road where there are great thermal upwellings. A bunch of hang glider people have the key to the logging roads for the mountain and frequently you will see many people in the air (they land at a County Park two miles up the road.)

Today we were sitting outside having our usual pre-dinner martini and there were eight Bald Eagles riding the thermals just chillin' and hanging out. Got the binoculars and spent 30 minutes watching them.

Word

Swiped in full from Velociworld

The Coriolis Economy
JP Morgan has announced $2 billion in losses in the last six weeks. I knew Jamie Dimon was a douche bag when Bill Pullman played him in Too Big To Fail.

Once again our populist purveyors of prevarication will blame this on capitalism run amok. But these Wall Street greedheads aren't capitalsits in the strict sense of the word. They are crony capitalists. They donate in extremely egregious amounts to Democrat politicians who in turn feather these cronies' nests with bailouts when their insane gambles invariably go tits up. Risk management was replaced by moral hazard decades ago, to be sure, and chickens don't roost in foxholes, but Wall Street didn't crash in 1987, it belched, shed its prototype versions of extreme risk like junk bonds, and grew again. Now it is merely a collection of miscreants who move in and out of government service in between stints on each others' boards, awarding each other tens and hundreds of millions in salaries and bonuses.

Who are the true capitalists? Main Street. The strip malls of America. Not the mega-malls with their pricey chain stores. The moms and pops, the crazy couple who quit their corporate jobs to open a Murphy bed store. The lady who has a $1200 a month rent nut selling fucking birdseed. I admit I cannot fathom the business models of many of these people, but I know and have known many of them, and they struggle, but they manage to pay their mortgages and rents, educate their children, and somehow save a little bit. They are insane heroes to me.

And they used to prosper at times, and hire, and provide jobs. This is all funneling down the toilet now, counter-clockwise I suppose. It is a Coriolis economy. If you work for a Fortune 500 now, enjoy it. I can see the target on your back from here. And I wouldn't put too much faith in your defined-contribution plan, either. There is not a major corporation now that isn't neck-fucked, and borderline criminal. When many of them implode, possibly as early as August, the last people left will be the human resources screwheads and the diversity counselors.

My advice? I don't have any. Other than stay out of the way when Wall Street and Main Street finally find themselves facing off in the octagon. Wall Street's only MMA move is to withhold credit. Main Street's only MMA move is to hide their money in a mattress. Learning a trade might be useful. I'd opt for plumbing, because hot's still on the left, and there will be a ton of shit flowing downhill very, very soon.

What he said…

Gorgeous day today

We were planning to drive up to Canada today but I doubt if we will make it out of our driveway.

Not a cloud in the sky and 68° — spending the day working in the garden and doing some deferred maintenance at the farm.

Just hanging out…

Radio Hamfest and swap-meet tomorrow south of here — that will be the extent of our travels.

Merchants of Despair

Just finished reading this and it is an incredible read. The author — Robert Zubrin — has written an impeccably researched and documented (49 pages of citations for 248 pages of text) work on the pseudo-scientific 'theory' that the key to solving the worlds problems is to cap or reduce population growth despite boots-on-the-ground solid evidence that the more people living, the better off everyone is. Yes, there will still be people living in abject poverty as long as there are corrupt governments but even these people are enjoying better medical care, access to technology, better food, better opportunities for education, a longer lifespan and much lower infant mortality rates.

Thomas Malthus was the first person to voice this toxin back in 1798.

There is a nice interview of Dr. Zubrin at Frontpage Magazine:

Merchants of Despair
Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Dr. Robert Zubrin, president of Pioneer Astronautics and a Senior Fellow with the Center for Security Policy. A well-known innovator in the fields of aerospace and energy, he has a PhD in Nuclear Engineering, 10 patents, numerous publications, and 8 books, including The Case for Mars and Energy Victory. His latest book is Merchants of Despair: Radical Environmentalists, Criminal Pseudo-Scientists, and the Fatal Cult of Antihumanism.

FP: Dr. Robert Zubrin, welcome to Frontpage Interview.
Let’s begin by you telling us what you mean by “the cult of antihumanism.”

Zubrin: Thanks Jamie.
Antihumanism is a belief system which holds that humans are destroyers, essentially vermin whose activities, aspirations, and numbers must be severely constrained, and that therefore someone must be empowered to do the constraining. Essentially it is an argument for tyranny, oppression, and ultimately genocide.

FP: Why would anyone choose to embrace such beliefs?

Zubrin: Well, you must understand that such arguments have always been gratifying to those seeking to enhance their power or justify their oppression of others. Therefore they use their positions of influence in society to make them fashionable, or “politically correct,” to use an originally Stalinist term that is now all the rage.

FP: It appears that much of modern-day environmentalism is antihumanist, as you’ve defined it, but antihumanism has been around for some time, right?

Zubrin: Yes. In the book I trace it back 200 years, starting with Malthus, the seminal founding father of the theory of limited resources, and then trace it forward through its subsequent development through numerous interrelated forms, including Darwinism, eugenics, German militarism, Nazism, xenophobia, the population control movement, environmentalism, technophobia, and most recently, the incredibly demented climatophobic movement, which seeks to justify mass human sacrifice for the purpose of weather control.
There was a time when humanity looked in the mirror and saw something precious, worth protecting and fighting for—indeed, worth liberating. But now, we are beset on all sides by propaganda promoting a radically different viewpoint. According to this idea, human beings are a cancer upon the Earth, a horde of vermin whose aspirations and appetites are endangering the natural order. This is the core of antihumanism.

FP: Tell us about Al Gore’s antihumanism.

Zubrin: Al Gore is trying to turn antihumanism into a global cult. Just have a look at this quote from his book An Inconvenient Truth:

“The climate crisis also offers us the chance to experience what very few generations in history have had the privilege of knowing: a generational mission; the exhilaration of a compelling moral purpose; a shared and unifying cause; the thrill of being forced by circumstances to put aside the pettiness and conflict that so often stifle the restless human need for transcendence; the opportunity to rise…When we rise, we will experience an epiphany as we discover that this crisis is not really about politics at all. It is a moral and spiritual challenge.”

In short, the purpose of the global warming crusade is not to change the weather, it’s to organize a mob in support of totalitarian policies.
It is revealing that Gore chose the words “An Inconvenient Truth” as the title of his book. That phrase could be the virtual chorus line for all the antihuman movements for the past 200 years who used pseudoscientific arguments to demand that people harden their hearts to the human misery the purported to be necessary. I.e.

Thomas Malthus: It is an inconvenient truth that “the Irish must be swept from the land.”

Charles Darwin: It is an inconvenient truth that “the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races throughout the world.”

General Friedrich von Bernhardi (German General Staff, author, Germany and the Next War, 1912): It is an inconvenient truth that “war is necessary because it eliminates the weak.”

Madison Grant (Author, The Passing of the Great Race, 1916): It is an inconvenient truth that “indiscriminate efforts to preserve babies among the lower classes often results in serious injury to the race…It is an inconvenient truth that “the laws of nature require the obliteration of the unfit and human life is valuable only when it is of use to the community or race.”

Henry Fairfield Osborn (1932): It is an inconvenient truth that “overpopulation and underemployment mat be regarded as twin sisters…the United States [with 112 million people in 1932] is overpopulated at the present time.”

Rudolf Hess (1933): It is an inconvenient truth that “National Socialism is simply applied biology.”

Adolf Hitler (1941): It is an inconvenient truth that “the law of existence prescribes uninterrupted killing, so that the better may live.”

Fairfield Osborn (author, Our Plundered Planet, 1948): It is an inconvenient truth that “the problem of the pressure of increasing populations…cannot be solved in a way that is consistent with the ideals of humanity.”

Paul Ehrlich, (author, The Population Bomb, 1968): It is an inconvenient truth that “the population explosion is an uncontrolled multiplication of people…We must shift our efforts from the treatment to the cutting out of the cancer.”

John Holdren and Paul Ehrlich, (authors Global Ecology, 1971): It is an inconvenient truth that “when a population of organisms grows in a finite environment, sooner or later it will encounter a resource limit. This phenomenon, described by ecologists as reaching the ‘carrying capacity’ of the environment, applies to bacteria on a culture dish, to fruit flies in a jar of agar, and to buffalo on a prairie. It must also apply to man on this finite planet.”

The Club of Rome (authors Mankind at a Turning Point, 1974): It is an inconvenient truth that “the world has cancer, and the cancer is Man.”

Alexander King, (founder, The Club of Rome, 1990): It is an inconvenient truth that “DDT…has greatly added to the population problem.”

Quite a bit more at the website and the book is an incredible read.

I knew fragments of the story but Dr. Zubrin has pulled them together.

Check your local library if you don't want to spend the money for the book but read it. You will have your eyes opened…

Another article on Vidal Sassoon

Quite the Man.
From Tablet Magazine:

Vidal Sassoon, Streetfighter
Rabbi Israel Elia, head of the venerable Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in London’s Maida Vale district, remembers the day when he met Vidal Sassoon, one of the congregation’s most celebrated sons. Elia had been quietly working in his office on a spring morning two years ago when an anxious colleague relayed the news that a film crew had gathered outside the building. The rabbi went to investigate.

“At the head of the crew, there was a smartly dressed man with delicate, graceful features,” Rabbi Elia recalled yesterday. “He walked over to me and introduced himself as Vidal Sassoon. He was making a film about his life and career.” Pointing to an annex at the side of the synagogue, Sassoon explained that the building had housed the orphanage where he spent his childhood.

“So I took him inside,” Elia said. “He told me, ‘I want to show you where my dormitory was.’ We entered a room and he looked around. He was excited: ‘Yes, this was it, this was the dormitory.’ I looked at him and said ‘Vidal, your dormitory is now my office.’ He threw his arms around me and hugged me, telling me about the kindness of our community, how his accomplishments would not have been possible without that generosity.”

Early life:

Sassoon was still in diapers when his father walked out on his mother, Betty. Destitute and unable to cope, Sassoon’s mother learned that there was an orphanage at the Spanish and Portuguese synagogue, approximately two miles away. One day in 1933, she turned up with the young Vidal in tow and placed him in the care of the oldest Jewish community in England.

His streetfighting:

In the immediate post-war years, London’s Jews faced a new threat from the remnants of British Union of Fascists, a Hitlerite party led by Sir Oswald Mosely, whose black-shirted followers had regularly clashed with Jewish immigrants in the East End during the 1930s.

Sassoon recalled England’s hostile political atmosphere earlier this year: “Anti-semitism was absolutely rife,” he said in a podcast for the Holocaust Memorial Museum. “I mean, it was nothing for another kid to say to you, ‘Dirty Jew.’ And although England was a good place to be, especially with Churchill and the fight against the Nazis, there was always that sense of the Jews being second-class citizens.”

In 1947, the fascists again began menacing London, this time under the tutelage of Jeffrey Hamm, head of an organization of thugs calling themselves the “Association of British Ex-Servicemen.” For Sassoon, this was not a fate to be accepted lying down.

As a response to Hamm’s provocations, a gathering of young Jews known as the 43 Group—named for the number of people in the room at their founding—announced that the fight back had begun. Among them was the slender, if wiry, Sassoon. As Hamm’s followers gathered on street corners bellowing that “not enough Jews were burned at Belsen,” Sassoon and his comrades, armed with knives, coshes, and knuckledusters, set about breaking up fascist meetings. In another interview, Sassoon remembered turning up for work one morning with a black eye. “I just tripped on a hairpin,” he explained to the worried customer who had just settled into a barber’s chair for a haircut.

Emphasis mine — I love it! And he didn't stop on the streets of London:

In 1948, as the British Mandate was drawing to a close, Sassoon arrived in Palestine where he joined the Palmach in the fight for Israel’s independence. In the manner of the young men and women who had flocked to Spain in the previous decade to fight on the Republican side during the Civil War, Sassoon’s decision to participate in the Zionist struggle for independence, like that of the other volunteers who came from Europe and America, was rooted in a commitment to Jewish pride and honor.

“That was the best year of my life,” Sassoon later told a British newspaper. “When you think of 2,000 years of being put down and suddenly you are a nation rising, it was a wonderful feeling. There were only 600,000 people defending the country against five armies, so everyone had something to do.” Sassoon served in combat. “I wasn’t going over there to sit in an office,” he told the Jewish Chronicle. “I thought if we don’t fight for a piece of land and make it work, then the whole Holocaust thing was a terrible waste. But this way at least we got a country out of it.”

That is some serious stones…

Holy crap that was fun

Just got back from the meeting. There were about 40 people and six other graduates from my Radio class. The President started off with about 45 minutes of a very well run administrative meeting with a couple presentations from other members. Mostly the upcoming Ski to Sea race. We broke for ten and then proceeded to do a lab on Digital Radio Communications (Packet Radio).

There were three “Go Boxes” with Packet Radio systems set up and wired inside and we also used the main radio shack and the emergency van. I ran a multi-line BBS for ten years and the Packet system reminded me a lot of the various mail networks that pre-dated the internet, specifically FidoNet

The club meets at the Whatcom County Search and Rescue headquarters so all of this equipment was there for us to use.

We spent about an hour working with the equipment sending traffic back and forth. The instructor for my group was a lot of fun and really sneaky — when we were focused on the computer screen, he would come around and nudge the frequency off a bit or unplug part of the equipment and then have us diagnose why we could not connect successfully.

My first on-air use of my KF7VNY callsign.

No more posts today

We are going out for an early dinner and then off to my first meeting with the Whatcom Emergency Communication Group. They are the ones that ran the Amateur Radio class that I took and of the local Ham clubs, they are the ones that are closest to what I am interested in.

There is a monthly meeting tonight at 19:00 and since I am planning to work with them at the upcoming Ski to Sea race, I need to be there. The race is on May 27th, a little over two weeks away. For a fun read, check out the story of one of the first participants: Harvey Haggard

Lulu and I are heading up to Canada tomorrow to do some shopping. Buying two 'normal' toilets (I am on a septic system and need a good flush — the two that came with the house are 40 years old and non-standard. Parts are not available to maintain them.) and stopping at the Abbotsford IKEA and Costco for some kitchen smallwares and furnishings.