Nine eggs sold

"Some wind in the morning, then nice sunny weather. Ground has dried up somewhat. In the evening violent wind & a few drops of rain. The wind actually blew the roof off the small henhouse. Enormous flocks of starlings, some tens of thousands at a time, going over with a noise that sounds like heavy rain. The leaves are mostly down now. Elder leaves just coming down. As I remember it the elms are being stripped much earlier this year than most.

Transplanted the gooseberry bushes. Trust I haven’t damaged them. One or two still had green or greenish leaves, & others were so deep in the ground I had to damage their roots considerably getting them up. The soil there (this end of the garden) is in places pure clay at only 1 foot below the surface. Dug some of this out & lightened the ground as well as possible with sand & turf-mould. Then limed the ground between the bushes & dug in, also pruned the bushes a little. Hope this wind will not blow them all loose again. Added another sack of leaves. [Total on facing page: 3¹/₂.]

9 eggs (probably some of these laid yesterday). Sold 30 @ 4/- a score."

The above quote is George Orwell's diary entry on November 5th, 1939. The Orwell Prize has been posting Orwell's diary entries a day at a time. Each day he writes of nothing but the weather, his gardening and the eggs his hens produce. Soil, fertilizer, rain and eggs -- mundane things that would seem to be of little interest to today's reader.

November 5th, 1939 was in the midst of the Phony War. Germany had invaded and overran Poland and was preparing its attack on France, Belgium and Holland. In fact, while Orwell tended to his garden in England,  General von Brauchitsch was reporting to Hitler on the state of the Germany Army as the Fuhrer considered the starting date for his planned Western Offensive.

During those days Orwell must have felt dread over what he saw on the horizon. With hindsight we know his dread was not misplaced. However, the diary gives no sense of what he thought as he read the day's paper or listened to the news on the radio. He gives no sample of the discussions, fears and hopes that people would have expressed as war loomed ever nearer. Instead, in that diary, he narrowed his world to his garden. It must have been a therapy to him, a quiet corner of his world, a bit of peace to hold onto during the steady drip of disheartening news. 

Eleven soldiers dead today in Fort Hood. The killer was likely just a lunatic. It is just as likely that he wrapped his lunacy in jihadist politics. Is the violence in Fort Hood today a fragment of war brought to our soil, or is it just another side of the pathology that drives serial killers? I don't know, but I have a deepening pessimism, a deepening unease that these times may also be a time of Phony War.

Many years ago I read a translation of a fragment of a Sumerian inscription. It has stuck in my head ever since. Today it seems appropriate: "Look thou about thee and see that all men are fools."

A Passing

The guitarist Peter Bocking has passed away. I wasn't familiar with his musical work. In the blogosphere he was known as PeterUK. The link has a tribute page for him. A fiery and smart commenter.

Duet with one guitar

Cecilia Siqueira and Fernando Lima play a duet using one guitar.

Via neatorama

Piper's fight

A friend of mine has a Granddaughter named Piper. She has cystic fibrosis, a genetic disease that causes mucous to build up in her body, particularly in her lungs. There is no cure for cystic fibrosis.

Three times a day, for 30 minutes at a time, Piper has to use an airway clearing device called a vest as treatment. It helps loosen mucous in her lungs, which helps keep her airways clear and reduces her chances of hospitalization.

From her eyes, it looks like Piper is smiling behind her mask in the picture.

However, Piper and her parents have a lot to be concerned about. She needs a new vest which costs $15,000. Her insurance will not pay for one, and so her parents are trying to raise money to buy her a new vest. Please visit Piper's Fight if you would like to donate or for more information. Portions of any donation will go towards the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

If you run another blog feel free to post to her story. Piper deserves all the people she can get in her corner.

The gaping hole in my childhood

Oh man, my childhood microscope, chemistry set, plastic Babbage's machine, short wave radio, all of it -- even my brother's toy steam engine -- pale in comparison to the wonder known as the Gilbert Atomic Energy Lab.

It included: a U-239 Geiger radiation counter, an electroscope to measure radioactivity of different substances, a spinthariscope to watch "live" radioactive disintegration, a Wilson Cloud Chamber to see paths of electrons & alpha particles at 10k mps, three very low-level radioactive sources (Alpha, Beta, Gamma), four samples of Uranium-bearing ores, Nuclear Spheres (used to visual build models of molecules), the book "Prospecting for Uranium", the "Gilbert Atomic Energy Manual", the comic book "Learn How Dagwood Splits the Atom" and three "Winchester" Batteries (size "C").

A Geiger counter, radioactive samples, a "Dagwood Splits the Atom" comic book and Nuclear Spheres? Yowza! Can you imagine the look on a modern Helicopter Mom's face if her kid unwrapped a present and found that inside?

Details and more pictures can be found at orau.org and American Memorabilia.

21st Century Paper Flip Animation

A creative re-engineering of paper flip animation, although the laugh track is irritating. Be warned -- parts of it are rather crude and it may be NSFW.



VIDEOGIOCO by Donato Sansone from Enrico Ascoli - Sound Design on Vimeo.
 

Oops, I guess I shouldn't have sold that at the garage sale

In 2007 Peter Silverman bought a portrait titled Young Girl in Profile in Renaissance Dress for $19,000. Christie's had previously sold it in 1998. At that sale they described it as a 19th Century German drawing.

Silverman thought there was more to the portrait than met the eye, so he decided to have it examined further. The Paris lab he used to assess it found a fingerprint on it that they said substantially matched a known finger print of Leonardo da Vinci.

The drawing was done by a left-handed person and stylistic mannerisms, carbon dating and the dress the young girl wears in the drawing match 15th Milanese fashion.
 
If verified as a da Vinci the drawing would be worth tens of million of dollars.

Aside from wondering exactly how a da Vinci gets lost, I feel sorry for the poor person who sold such a valuable object. I wonder if they got tired of it hanging in their living room and replaced it with an Alma Thomas masterpiece?  Regardless, finding out you peddled a da Vinci it must feel make you feel kind of like you're the Fifth Beatle.

Telegraph article via Neatorama.

And That's What It's All About...

Narcissism, that is.

This from Algore: "Never before in human history has a single generation been asked to make such difficult and consequential decisions."

What utter piffle.

When the Don Quixotes rule the world

He had scarcely gone a short league, when Fortune, that was conducting his affairs from good to better, discovered to him the road, where he also espied an Inn. Sancho positively maintained it was an Inn, and his master that it was a castle; and the dispute lasted so long that they arrived there before it was determined.  --Don Quixote (pt. I, ch. XV)

Perhaps even more amazing than Obama winning the Nobel Prize is the fact that he was ever nominated for one in the first place. The nomination could have occurred sometime prior to the election, during his Office of the President Elect days, or in the in first few weeks after he was sworn into office.

His college years are a cipher to us. Later he had been a State and Federal Senator for a number of years, serving at both levels with no distinction. He had written no bills and had frequently ducked voting on other bills. He wrote a couple of memoirs. In perhaps his most visible position he -- if you'll pardon my French --  pissed away 140 million dollars of the Annenberg Foundation and with it accomplished nothing of measurable value in the process.

Oh, and he gave some speeches and campaigned.

That is to say, when he was nominated for the Nobel Prize he had done little more than write books and give speeches. He accomplished nothing of substance. Instead he just talked. Obviously what he said, rather than what he did, is what mattered to the Nobel jurists.

Pacifism in a parlor is not a brave thing. After all, there are brutish men with guns and greed loose in the world. What of the real peace makers? Mother Theresa stared down the slums of Calcutta, and Ghandi, who never received a Noble Prize, led a revolution he tried his best to keep bloodless. What has Obama done? 

I listen to Obama and I don't hear much but mush. I hear John Lennon singing 'Give Peace a Chance', or I hear a 'war never solved anything' bumper sticker read aloud in baritone, or perhaps a petition to Free Tibet touted. All admirable sentiments to be sure, but nothing more than sentiments none the less. How will those platitudes lead us from blood to peace in the real world?

Today, upon hearing the news of Obama's ascension into the exalted rank of Peacemaker Supreme, I thought of Alonso Quixano who reinvented himself as Don Quixote de la Mancha. I thought of the foolish old man who was so enamored by the fiction of the chivalric romances that he imagined himself surrounded by giants, kings, castles and fair damsels when the reality was something else altogether.

To the Don Quixotes of the world, and probably to Obama himself, it matters not that all he has done is waste other people's money and vote 'present' when the going gets tough. All that matters is that he talks the talk, that he spins the romantic fictions they want to hear. They are not people to be taken seriously. Don Quixote's earnest obliviousness was funny, theirs is not.

Helloooo visitors from Maggie's Farm. Thanks for dropping by.

But, what if you get turned into this?

Nadine Jarvis is selling a rather unique product. She makes pencils from the carbon of human cremations. She says about 240 pencils can be made from the ash of an average human body. Each pencil has the name of the person foiled stamped on it.

They come in a box from which you can only remove one pencil at a time. You then sharpen the pencils with a sharpener built into the box. This collects the shavings so that, once the supply of pencils is exhausted, the box can be used as an urn for the remains.

It's all rather morbid to say the least, but I suppose the idea is an artistic person can use the carbon from your remains to create a body of drawings as your monument. A graphite on paper headstone. Add to that the notion that the box of pencils has a sort of a life of its own, starting out full and dwindling down to nothing but shavings, and you have an interesting reflection that physical things are born, worn down, and reborn again as something else. Meanwhile the drawings, the artifacts of the wearing down process, are something rather more sublime.

Yet, cynic that I am, I couldn't help but think that the quality of the monument created depended on the skill of the hand wielding the pencil. What if the monument ends up being something like Skull and Lemon, pictured above? However, perhaps that's the message -- what is left behind is nothing but shavings and drawings. The shavings can't be helped, but care should be taken in the quality of the art.

By the way, the Skull and Lemon drawing is from a post Real Drawings by Real Artists at redragtoabull. It was drawn by Harry Adams. Lest we laugh at it too much, or perhaps to add to its humor, it sold for £31.13.

Obama bursts into song

HT: Holger Awakens

Mongolian Death Worm specimen found?

Oh-oh. Have the Japanese beaten the Australians to the capture of a Mongolian Death Worm?

Fear not, as we've seen before, the Mongolian Death Worm research community is rife with clever frauds. This isn't an anatomical diagram of a Mongolian Death Worm. To find out what it is, click on 'Read more' to follow this post below the fold.

Self-determination

Our Gadsden flag predates the Tea Parties. It was chosen as a symbol of the Yargbee's support of Western Values in the fight against Islamic Extremism. The Danish flag in the sidebar is of course from the aftermath of the Moslem rioting over the Mohammed cartoons.

Manuel Zelaya, the legally deposed ex-president of Honduras, returned to that country today in what can be called little more than a coup attempt. Sadly, from the start Obama's administration sided with Latin American dictators, Chavez, Castro, Ortega in opposing his ouster. The situation as summarized in the Wall Street Journal:

Mr. Zelaya was deposed and deported this summer after he agitated street protests to support a rewrite of the Honduran constitution so he could serve a second term. The constitution strictly prohibits a change in the term-limits provision. On multiple occasions he was warned to desist, and on June 28 the Supreme Court ordered his arrest. 

Every major Honduran institution supported the move, even members in Congress of his own political party, the Catholic Church and the country's human rights ombudsman. To avoid violence the Honduran military escorted Mr. Zelaya out of the country. In other words, his removal from office was legal and constitutional, though his ejection from the country gave the false appearance of an old-fashioned Latin American coup.

The U.S. has since come down solidly on the side of—Mr. Zelaya. While it has supported negotiations and called for calm, President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have both insisted that Honduras must ignore Mr. Zelaya's transgressions and their own legal processes and restore him as president. The U.S. has gone so far as to cut off aid, threaten Honduran assets in the U.S. and pull visas to enter the U.S. from the independent judiciary. The U.S. has even threatened not to recognize presidential elections previously scheduled for November unless Mr. Zelaya is first brought back to power—even though he couldn't run again.

To say the U.S. Government's actions surrounding the situation in Honduras is a travesty is an understatement. President Obama, in his slavish admiration for the world's dictators, has turned America's long held principal of support for self-determination on its head.

The Honduran flag in the sidebar is obviously a small gesture, but it is intended as support for not only the people of Honduras, but for the greater principal of self-determination. President Obama would be well advised to bear in mind, as he coddles dictators without regard to American public opinion and tries to ram through his paternalistic agenda, that Americans know full well the meaning of self-determination.

Don't tread on us, and don't tread on our friends and allies.

Is Obama lazy?

For a week the news has been trumpeted far and wide that Obama was making five appearances on the Sunday talk shows. During that same week the ACORN scandal has been growing, culminating in the House and Senate, as well as numerous State governments, stripping ACORN of their funding.

Was there ever any doubt that Obama was going to be asked about ACORN at sometime during his Sunday media blitz? It was, and on ABC this was his answer to the inevitable question:

STEPHANOPOULOS:  How about the funding for ACORN?

OBAMA:  You know, if -- frankly, it's not really something I've followed closely.  I didn't even know that ACORN was getting a whole lot of federal money.

STEPHANOPOULOS:  Both the Senate and the House have voted to cut it off.

OBAMA:  You know, what I know is, is that what I saw on that video was certainly inappropriate and deserves to be investigated.

STEPHANOPOULOS:  So you're not committing to -- to cut off the federal funding?

OBAMA:  George, this is not the biggest issue facing the country.  It's not something I'm paying a lot of attention to.

The answer to this type of question had to be carefully prepared for by him and his staff. It had to have been a question they spent a considerable amount of time practicing answering.  None the less, could Obama have sounded any more absurd and disingenuous?

Was that the best they could do? Is Obama too simply too bored by such minutia to be bothered, or maybe he figures us little people just flopped off the back of a turnip truck and will buy his nonsense? Whichever, it is hard to believe he took his preparation for the question seriously.

The more I watch him, the more I begin to think he might be the laziest President we've ever had.

Well She Only Said She'd Take the 3 AM Call...

... but didn't mention whether anyone would take hers.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk confirmed today that he declined last night to take a call from the U.S. informing him of the decision to scrap planned missile-defense bases in his country.
Two U.S.-based sources close to the Polish government said Thursday that Tusk also rejected a call from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — on the grounds that, as the head of the government, he should speak to the president.

Thank goodness we have such a sophisticated foreign policy now.

The show is real

One of my guilty pleasures is the ever ridiculous Steven Seagal. Imagine my joy when I stumbled across the above trailer for a his new AE show, Steven Seagal: Lawman.  It is a reality show with the premise that, between movies, he's been a Louisiana cop for 20 years. He assures us, "well, the show is real. I mean it's... this is not a joke."

Now Steven, why would anyone ever doubt you?

As I patiently wait for the premier I've been wondering... how much would it suck if, drunker than a skunk in your trailer park, you answered a knock on your door to discover Steven Seagal, dressed like a cop with a camera crew shadowing him, spouting Zen inanities as he arrested you?

Man, talk about a 'Come to Jesus' moment.

Yeeps!

I almost lost the blog screwing around with the templates. Unfortunately, I did lose our links list, so I'm going to have to rebuild that -- I'm open to sites we should link to. I'll have to add some widgets and what-not to the side bar.

ETA: Whew, I got the contributors, sitemeter and the flags back. I was in a panic there for a while. When I blew the blog up I just about had a heart attack. Mrs. Sinistral was wondering why I was laying on the floor in a fetal position, whimpering and sucking my thumb.

Anyhoo... how's it look?

Never Forget.

Musical Face

My last post featured record album covers used as faces.
Now a face used as a musical instrument.

Daito Manabe via Odd Musical Instruments

Weird Corner of the Internet

One thing about the internet is there are enough people on it for some very strange clumps to form from time to time.

The pictures below are from a site called Sleeveface. There are many, many more at the site. It has page after page of pictures of people posing with old record album covers in such manner that the pose and the cover art blend into a single illusion. The care they have taken in not only cleverly staging the pictures, but also matching not only the poses and clothes, but even the wrinkles in the clothes, is quite remarkable.

Squaring the Circle

The blog The Gormogons has a post by Ghettoputer, Doctors and the CIA, that discusses an ObamaCare issue that has also been puzzling me.

Conspicuously absent from the bill is any mention of tort reform regarding medical malpractice. When Howard Dean was asked why such reform was not addressed in the bill he bluntly answered:

"Here’s why tort reform is not in the bill. When you go to pass a really enormous bill like that, the more stuff you put in it, the more enemies you make, right? And the reason that tort reform is not in the bill is because the people who wrote it did not want to take on the trial lawyers in addition to everyone else they were taking on. And that is the plain and simple truth."

It is generally accepted that the real cost of malpractice law suits is not so much the cost of settlements, but rather the need for doctors to practice defensive medicine by ordering the maximum number of tests conceivable in any diagnosis.

ObamaCare attempts to address that problem by establishing boards, agencies and the like that will review medical best practices and mandate the scope of what treatments and tests should be performed (and for those who, like me, are too lazy to read the bill The Gormorgans has a good series of posts where he live blogs his reading of the bill in 100 page chunks).

That is ObamaCare seeks to reduce medical costs by setting up a set of guidelines that will free doctors from the need to do unessential medical procedures to protect themselves from lawsuits. Ignoring for the moment any questions about the wisdom of such a remote "top-down" approach to diagnosis, I wonder how malpractice suits will be impacted by the bill, especially in light of the fact that trial lawyers are such an important Democratic constituent that no attempt to reign them in is even considered?

The obvious answer is that, while the government insurance plan will be shielded from malpractice suits, the private insurers will still be exposed to them. However, it is rather more complicated than that, because over time the private insurers will be rolled into the treatment and testing guidelines mandated by the government. Would all insurers then not be shielded?

What then of the powerful trial lawyers lobby?

I think Ghettoputer might have squared that circle when he considers Holder, and the CIA investigation. The CIA interrogators had acted under Congressional and Justice Department review, yet at this late date the rules can simply be shifted and their cases opened again. Will the doctors end up facing a similar set of fluid rulings?

If they and private insurers are allowed to layer supplemental insurance on top of a government mandated minimum, does Holder and the CIA set the precedence of the rules being redefined after the fact move them into malpractice territory? Will that be the hidden fund the trial lawyers can expect to draw their settlements from?

Roh-oh! Bill might be in trouble again...

...but this time not with Hillary.

In addition, individuals interviewed during the Review identified other techniques that caused concern because DoJ had not specifically approved them. These included the making of threats, blowing cigar smoke, employing certain stress positions, the use of a stiff brush on a detainee, and stepping on a detainee's ankle shackles.

The Political Theater of the Absurd

In Henan Province, China, a local ordinance requires that the road-facing sides of all adobe or brick homes be painted white or blue. This is apparently an attempt to address urban blight by making people improve their properties.

This has translated to grand facades, like the one shown to the left, being attached to decaying houses.

Looking at the picture, I wondered why a poor Chinese villager would spend so much money building such a ridiculous facade instead of just improving their home? Were these facades status projects, a brick and mortar version of a peasant's "Sunday Best", or were they something else altogether?

An article in Weird Asia News sheds some light with the following:

When the time arrives for inspection, the view is always from a passing car and there is no way for those inspectors to know that behind the shining walls lie deteriorating adobe homes. (Whether or not they would care or not if they knew the truth is another issue.)
...
Keeping up appearances often comes at a terrible price. This ordinance is vainglorious and obviously only a band-aid solution to the growing problem of urban decay and neglect. In addition and even more insulting to the local populace, this ordinance is a non-remedy sponsored by wasting taxpayers’ money.
How much better could these funds have served the local peasants and farmers who need financial aid so badly?

Ah, it all becomes clearer. Chinese tax dollars at work under the unerring hand of a bureaucrat. There is a certain mad logic at work; it is the appearance of urban decay that disturbs the passing inspectors, so a bit of whitewash and plaster is all that is needed to solve problem. No doubt the expenses saved go into the nearest deserving pocket.

This post is of course an extreme example; none the less, the problem with large government solutions is that you can't distill the scoundrels and buffoons out of them. Worse, once in place the scoundrels and buffoons become the voice of authority. So, when you need your faucet to stop leaking, like it or not you end up with a two-story monstrosity tacked onto your hovel instead.

What could possibly go wrong?

Mongolian death worm revealed

That's it - I'm canceling my vacation to Ulan Bator.

I recently stumbled across an article detailing the plans for an expedition to locate the fabled Mongolian Death Worm.

What is a Mongolian Death Worm you ask?

The Mongolian Death Worm is a creature rumored to live in the Gobi Desert. It is said to hide in the sand and spring out to spit a fatal dose of acid on its prey (which includes humans). Also, if you try to sneak up behind one of the worms it will jolt you with a lethal bolt of lightning it shoots out of its butt.

This summer two New Zealand TV journalists, David Farrier and his cameraman Christie Douglas, have mounted an expedition to try to document one of the beasts. They have already left for Mongolia. Like most of humanity, I'm waiting with baited breath to hear their results.

The accompanying photo is of the camera man Douglas. I assume the microphone is to catch Farrier's screams as he gets fried by an electric bolt, or whimpers as his face is being melted by acid.

Apparently, much like the Grabazoids in Tremors, the Death Worms are attracted to vibrations, so they plan on blasting off a lot of dynamite to attract them. Sounds like a plan to me. You can read more about their expedition, and even donate to it if you're in the mind to fund oddball scientific endeavors, at their website Death Worm 2009.

ObamaCare -- a return to house calls?

Obama's remarks about the postal service got me thinking... why not combine ObamaCare with the Post Office to form a new Federal Agency to handle both?

It would not only be super efficient, it would also extend much needed, and healthy, competition for not only UPS and FedEx, but also to BlueCross/Blue Shield and other major insurers.

Also, along with your mail, you could get medical house calls to aid you with your coughs, colds, bumps, bruises and end-of-life planning.

Finally, if Obama played his cards right in appointing the first Surgical Post Mistress General, he could solve the problem of African students getting yelled at for asking about you-know-who.

Win-win-win!!!

Analysis of Talking Points Against HR3200 (Healthcare/Insurance Reform)

Old Lurker, a regular on Just One Minute, posted an email he had received listing a bunch of talking points against HR 3200, the House Healthcare/Insurance Reform Bill. The Bill is 1018 pages long, and creates a bureaucracy of commissions, commissioners, task forces, study groups, funding for all of that and, incidentally, some general requirements for public and private health care which will be supplemented by the usual Regulations to be developed by the bureaucracy this monstrosity creates. I have undertaken to compare the talking points in the email with the parts of the Bill it cites for its points.

Here is the first installment:

Pg 22 of the HC Bill MANDATES the Govt will audit books of ALL EMPLOYERS that self insure

Not exactly. This section sets up a committee to study and compare large market self-insured and employee benefit plans, including financial solvency of the employers providing self-insured plans.

Pg 30 Sec 123 of HC bill - THERE WILL BE A GOVT COMMITTEE that decides what treatments/benefits you receive

This is essentially true. The committee will be patterned on the current committee that does the same thing for Medicare

Pg 29 lines 4-16 in the HC bill - YOUR HEALTHCARE IS RATIONED. You can only receive a certain amount of "care" per year

This is inaccurate. The annual limitations specified in this Section ($5,000 per individual and $10,000 per family) relate to co-pays or cost sharing by the insured, not to services covered by the plan.

Pg 42 of HC Bill - The Health Choices Commissioner will choose your HC Benefits for you. You have no choice.

The statutory language is ambiguous on this point. The HCC has this duty under Section

142 (a)(1):
QUALIFIED PLAN STANDARDS.—The establishment of qualified health benefits plan standards 8 under this title, including the enforcement of such standards in coordination with State insurance regulators and the Secretaries of Labor and the Treasury.

PG 50 Section 152 in HC bill - HC will be provided to ALL non US residents, illegal or otherwise

Not explicitly, but certainly possibly. Here’s the actual language:

SEC. 152. PROHIBITING DISCRIMINATION IN HEALTH CARE.
(a) IN GENERAL.—Except as otherwise explicitly permitted by this Act and by subsequent regulations consistent with this Act, all health care and related services (including insurance coverage and public health activities) covered by this Act shall be provided without regard to personal characteristics extraneous to the provision of high quality health care or related services.

Pg 58HC Bill - Govt will have real-time access to individuals finances & a National ID Health Card will be issued.

Partly true. Government will have access to National ID Health Card, but Section 163 deals with an electronic system to allow determination of coverage and co-pay in “near real time”. It does not even implicitly give the government the right to record or see an “individual’s finances”.

Pg 59 HC Bill lines 21-24 Govt will have direct access to your banks accts for funds transfer

Not accurate. The system will allow electronic funds transfers to providers and will allow automated reconciliation with “related health care payment and remittance advice”.

PG 65 Sec 164 is a payoff subsidized plan for retirees and their families in Unions & community orgs (example -ACORN).

Not accurate. This Section sets up a reinsurance program for defined group health plans; eligibility for that program is not limited to union plans.
Pg 72 Lines 8-14 Govt is creating an HC Exchange to bring private HC plans under Govt control.

Accurate that HC Exchange is created by Title II (which begins on P. 72., and ends on P. 143). Title II covers all HC public and private health care plans including Medicare and Medicaid. Title II gives very broad powers to HC Exchange. Unless this federal statute is different from all predecessors (not likely), HC Exchange will exercise significant control over all health care plans.

PG 84 Sec 203 HC bill - Govt mandates ALL benefit pkgs for private HC plans in the Exchange

Accurate

PG 85 Line 7 HC Bill - Specs for Benefit Levels for Plans = The Govt will ration your Healthcare.

Accurate that Section 203 specifies benefit levels for plans. It does not expressly specify the power to ration, but that will be a likely result of this system.

PG 91 Lines 4-7 HC Bill - Govt mandates linguistic appropriate services...... Example - Translation for illegal aliens

Accurate that bill requires “linguistically appropriate services”. What this means is not specified, but there is no limitation on who is entitled to this treatment, so illegals presumably would benefit.

Pg 95 HC Bill Lines 8-18 The Govt will use groups i.e., ACORN & Americorps to sign up individually for Govt HC plan

Unclear, but possible and maybe probable under this administration. Section 205 allows the Commissioner to use “…other appropriate organizations” to conduct outreach and informational functions. What is “appropriate” is undefined in the bill.

For just a dollar a day

I snapped the cellphone picture to the left at Florida Caverns State Park. It was a monument to the workers of the Civilian Conservation Corps. The passage through the caverns had been improved by the CCC.

At one point on the tour, to the left of the path you were on, you could see the original passage. It was little more than a crawl space that was two to three foot tall. The guide said the boys cut the larger passage with nothing more than pickaxes, hammers and chisels. They hauled the excess rock out one pail full at a time.

Their pay was a dollar a day, of which they only got to keep $5 a month, the other $25 was sent to their families.

The CCC was a popular and successful New Deal Program. Anybody who has been to a National or State Park has seen the result of their handiwork in the lodges, visitor centers and trails they built. In addition they planted over 3 billion trees, cut miles of road and strung miles of telephone cable.

The program's popularity is such that from time to time calls are made to create a modern version of the CCC. Obama is only the most recent of a long line of politicians, from both parties, who has evoked them as a model for paid volunteerism.

As potent as such appeals may be, that was then and this is now. The CCC was very much a product of the Great Depression. Because of the high level of unemployment of the day, its ranks were filled by young men looking for a pay check. Many of the boys were dirt poor, had little education (an 8th grade average) and few prospects. Further, it was ran largely by the military. It was organized into the same eight districts as the state-side army was, staffed by officers and its camps started out as tent cities and only later were military style built for the workers. They ate in mess halls and discipline was strict.

Still, the young men were happy for the work. Many of them speak fondly of their days in the CCC. If nothing else, three squares a day and a bit of cash lifted their spirits. However, the true effectiveness of the program was in the night classes it offered and the skills it taught. Many of them parlayed their experiences in the CCC into careers. The Justin Oral History Center has a pages with numerous anecdotes for those interested.

In reading about it for this post what stands out is how pragmatic the program was. No-nonsense managers exerted discipline and the boys worked hard. However, what they worked hard at wasn't busy work, rather it was work directed at strengthening the infrastructure of our parks and wilderness areas. To this day we can see the fruits of their labors.

As compelling as the CCC mythology may seem to modern ears, it is hard for me to imagine such a program working today. The thought of a graduate with a degree in the Social Sciences trying to supervise hordes of forced volunteer slackers leaning on their shovels and text messaging each other all day is not a pretty picture, but it is hard to imagine anything else. Hopefully it is a scheme that, while it may get mentioned from time to time, never gets beyond the speechifying phase.

Note: I edited this post to add a title and clarify the final paragraph.

Amazing sand animation, must see

ht: Chicago Boyz

Alligators in Ellesmere Island?

Ellesmere Island, which lies within the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, appears to have once been the home of alligators, according to the fossil records of the Eocene epoch (see After the Dinosaurs: The Age of Mammals, 2006. By Donald R Prothero. Bloomington (Indiana): Indiana University Press). Alligators cannot tolerate freezing temperatures for long. Such tidbits are of interest to any folks who want to take a long view concerning temperature variations of the earth.

Moving to more contemporary pursuits, Richard Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT, suggests the signature of Greenhouse warming (that the warming should be accompanied by rather large changes in atmospheric temperatures in the tropics) has not occurred. The warming levels that have occurred in the atmosphere of the tropics imply that perhaps only a third of surface warming has been due to the greenhouse effect, and it is unclear how much of that small effect could be attributable to humans. Lindzen says:

This contradiction is rendered more acute by the fact that there has been no statistically significant net global warming for the last fourteen years. Modelers defend this situation by arguing that aerosols have cancelled much of the warming, and that models adequately account for natural unforced internal variability. However, a recent paper (Ramanathan, 2007) points out that aerosols can warm as well as cool, while scientists at the UK’s Hadley Centre for Climate Research recently noted that their model did not appropriately deal with natural internal variability thus demolishing the basis for the IPCC’s iconic attribution (Smith et al, 2007). Interestingly (though not unexpectedly), the British paper did not stress this. Rather, they speculated that natural internal variability might step aside in 2009, allowing warming to resume. Resume? Thus, the fact that warming has ceased for the past fourteen years is acknowledged. It should be noted that, more recently, German modelers have moved the date for ‘resumption’ up to 2015 (Keenlyside et al, 2008).

So should we hope that the political class taxes us to save us from ourselves? Who has lobbied hard for Kyoto? Enron (will we see some revisionist history on that score), Goldman Sachs lobbies fro cap and trade. If Healthcare is a 1000 page bill, how big will a final cap and trade bill be? If a bill is too big to read, maybe it's too big to pass.

Animated Engines

When I was a kid my brother owned a toy steam engine. It was similar to the Wilesco engine pictured to the right. You could connect a belt to its wheel and drive toy pieces of machinery with it. I remember it having a miniature table saw that could cut paper. We chopped up a lot of paper with that thing.

As you can imagine, it vastly entertained a young male's mind. There was an element of danger about it, with its little boiler of scalding water under pressure chugging away and, in our fevered imaginations, always ready to explode at any moment. Thus, we had great respect for the engine's pressure release valve. We fiddled with it endlessly to make sure it wasn't clogged.

However, the point of this post isn't really nostalgia. The other day I ran across a website called Animated Engines. The owner of it has methodically drawn frame by frame diagrams of engines with Autocad, which he then animates (and the speed of his animated gifs can be controlled). He's got 7 types of internal combustion engines, 10 steam engines, and 4 Stirling engines diagrammed. Quite fascinating to see all the approaches to building engines.

It was watching the animations of the steam engines that reminded me of my brother's toy. As much as we played with it, and as much as we fretted over the pressure release valve, watching the animation made me realize I never actually knew how it worked. Turns out the things had some really clever valve mechanisms to spin the drive wheel. The variety of their form is also interesting.

The site is worth spending a bit of time exploring.

What happens in Avaza stays in Avaza

The fireworks, in the picture to the left, are in celebration of the opening of the newest tourist destination on the planet -- Avaza. The 5 billion dollar project bills itself as the next Las Vegas, a must visit destination for the discerning, upscale tourist.

As you plan your next vacation you no doubt wonder, could this be true or is it all hype? Well, the fellow in the picture is President Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov, successor to the dearly departed Turkmenbashi as the ruler of Turkmenistan.

That fact alone should probably be enough to tip the scales solidly into the hype over truth department.

Yes, this is but the latest monstrous building scheme to be cooked up by the leadership of Turkmenistan. It boast of having luxurious hotels, seaside villas, casinos, an artificial island, a ski center and a children's area. However, during its opening ceremonies the hotels were decorated with huge portraits of President Berdymukhamedov, and there was a giant TV displaying his mug, so I wonder about the ambiance of the place. I know nothing speaks luxury to me quite as much as gigantic propaganda posters. I wonder if it has a copy of the Ruhnama in every night stand?

You can read about it here.

While we're obsessing over Michael Jackson...

While we're obsessing over Michael Jackson, according to the blog English Russia, a craze sweeping the Russian blogsphere are Russian Haired Sausages. They're "modding" sausages by sticking hard spaghetti into uncooked sausages and then boiling the whole mess.

They then photograph the result, sometimes decorating them with edible eyeballs and what-not, and post them to their blogs.

The link above includes pictures of some of them, a silly animated gif of a dancing hotdog, and a video instructing you in the culinary art of making Haired Sausages. Myself, I'll take a Hairy Sausage over Michael Jackson blather any day of the week.

Name that party

Gov. Ritter Steered Stimulus Money To Ex-Employer

Which party does Gov. Ritter belong to? Surely there is no need to ask, it's the invisible party, the party whose name shall not be spoken. Shhh.

Of course you know, this means war!

To the extent several websites, most notably liberal Alaska blogger Shannyn Moore, are now claiming as “fact” that Governor Palin resigned because she is “under federal investigation” for embezzlement or other criminal wrongdoing, we will be exploring legal options this week to address such defamation. This is to provide notice to Ms. Moore, and those who re-publish the defamation, such as Huffington Post, MSNBC, the New York Times and The Washington Post, that the Palins will not allow them to propagate defamatory material without answering to this in a court of law. The Alaska Constitution protects the right of free speech, while simultaneously holding those “responsible for the abuse of that right.” Alaska Constitution Art. I, Sec. 5. http://ltgov.state.ak.us/constitution.php?section=1. These falsehoods abuse the right to free speech; continuing to publish these falsehoods of criminal activity is reckless, done without any regard for the truth, and is actionable.

Complete notice here. They have a little list, and I hope Sullivan is on it.

h/t: Conservatives 4 Palin

Isn’t elegance forgetting what one is wearing?

I have no explanation for this picture. Maybe it is an obscure joke, maybe it is photographic evidence of some hideous punishment from Mao's Cultural Revolution. The title of this post is a Yves Saint Laurent quote. Who knows, maybe it is just elderly fashionistas who have finally gone 'round the bend.

I have no idea. Any guesses?

Afghan War Rugs

After the 1980s Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and to the present day, Afghan weavers have incorporated imagery of modern weapons into their Oriental rugs.

To the left are details from some of the rugs, from top left to bottom right, crouching infantry, a bomber, a retreating tank and a missile.

A wealth of information about rugs of this style, thir history, a blog, numerous images, as well as war rugs for sale, can be viewed at the site: warrug.com (which is where I got the pictured details from).

Both Soviet and present day Coalition forces are represented. There are also "War on Terrorism" rugs, which, according to Sergeant Major Herbert A. Friedman a psyops specialist, appear to draw heavily from propaganda leaflets distributed to the Afghans. The side by side comparisons of the leaflets to the rugs are convincing (sorry, I had to link inside a frame to get to that page so the site-wide navigation is broke on that link).

It is a fascinating and informative site. I'm sure many of the rugs are just cranked out for the troops in country, and Lord only knows the politics of whoever is weaving them, but the rugs do have a beauty about them.

Democrats In Control I

A thousand words worth. The data is taken from the Department of Labor UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE WEEKLY CLAIMS REPORT and represents the total increase of Ins. Unemployment (SA) plus Extended Benefits plus Extended Unemployment Compensation 2008

The period covered begins January 31 and continues through June 13. The data represents the increase in unemployment, not total unemployment. The total unemployment numbers (and the unemployment rate) are published by the BLS in Employment Situation Summary the first week of every month. The current rate is 9.4% and my bet is that next week's report will take it to 9.7%.

The weekly reporting by state media, such as Associated Press, focuses on the "top line" number regarding initial claims. A more interesting story would report the astonishing increases in Extended Benefits both "standard" and those covered by EUC 2008. Employers have reacted to the results of the November election with a fair degree of alacrity. The Democrats have provided ample reason for them to continue to trim - with a meataxe.

Beat the Morons

[This will be revised and extended]

The current economic situation provides an opportunity to test economic forecasting skills in a period of rather high uncertainty. The challenge is to come closer to the advance BEA estimate of change in GDP for Q2 '09 than the median of the Bloomberg survey of economists. The BEA advance estimate will be announced on July 31 at 8:30AM EST. The current BEA news release contains what amounts to a primer on factors affecting the GDP plus links to more extensive explanations. Following are links to data sources that I have found helpful in formulating estimates of how the economy is performing.

BEA Table 1.1.5. Gross Domestic Product

BEA Table 2.1. Personal Income and Its Disposition

BLS Employment Situation Summary

Fed H.8 - Assets and Liabilities of Commercial Banks in the United States

BLS/Commerce Weekly Unemployment

Railfax - comparison of weekly car loadings.

DAILY TREASURY STATEMENT

Other Statistical Resources for Economics

The best laid plans of mice and men...

Inspired by Obama, I had decided it was time for me to end my meddlesome ways and cease my Ugly American antics. Thus, to support our Dear Leader, I thought I would conduct some hot dog diplomacy of my own.

I planned on inviting somebody from the Taliban, hopefully Mullah Omar if I could find his email address, to my house for a little good ol' Fourth of July hot dog munching, fireworks, and a bout of apologizing for the U.S. of A. To the left are the franks I had picked out. I'm certain they would have been appreciated by my new Taliban friends.

Alas, CNN is reporting that Obama may be rethinking his earlier invitation. It now looks like, in keeping with his new posture of being "shocked and appalled" by the thuggery of the Iranian rioters, that the hot dog diplomacy has been called off. However, the invitations that have gone out will not be rescinded. So I guess hot dog semi-diplomacy is kinda, sorta, somewhat still on the table. Maybe.

Now, what am I going to do with three cases of Hebrew Nationals and a gallon of mustard?

Mullahs have feelings too

The United States said Monday its invitations were still standing for Iranian diplomats to attend July 4 celebrations at US embassies despite the crackdown on opposition supporters.
President Barack Obama’s administration said earlier this month it would invite Iran to US embassy barbecues for the national holiday for the first time since the two nations severed relations following the 1979 Islamic revolution.
“There’s no thought to rescinding the invitations to Iranian diplomats,” State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters.
“We have made a strategic decision to engage on a number of fronts with Iran,” Kelly said. “We tried many years of isolation, and we’re pursuing a different path now.”

Spit. What's wrong with these people. I mean our government and the nutcases who dominate its policies. "Strategic" policies, no less. It's disgusting.

To live or to just be alive, that’s the question.

Then at Towhid Square the scene changes drastically. The streets to Azadi are blocked. But this time, people don’t change their path. They fight for it. There’s a shower of stones. Tear gas. Fire. People jam the sidewalks. The battle scene is huge. We cannot see the limits but it extends to nearby street. My student is keener to go forward than I am. Her mother could persuade her to stay home for two days, but now allows her to go out on the most dangerous day. The people shout, ‘Down with the dictator’. The anti-riot police are also throwing stones. People don’t run back anymore. I grab a broken brick and throw. I’m amazed. I never thought I’d do it. I should practice. It was a very bad shot. I grab another one, the size of a pomegranate and keep it with me, hiding it behind my back. My feeling is a mixture of a university teacher and a hooligan.

If we want to go forward we need to pass through tear gas. So we ask a car to give us a lift. Then there is an attack. They cannot tell enemy from other people although they want to show everything is fine and they’re only after trouble-makers. There is a woman who is being beaten. She’s horrified and hysterical but not as much as the anti-riot police officer facing her. She shrieks, ‘Where can I go? You tell me go down the street and you beat me. Then you come up from the other side and beat me again. Where can I go?’ In sheer desperation, the officer hits his helmet several times hard with his baton. ‘Damn me! Damn me! What the hell do I know!’

One person's account of a day in downtown Tehran. I wish her good luck. Read the entire post: A Day in the Life.

Basij building blown up

A poem

At Kamangir

Iran, I weep for you tonight

I weep for the 8

I weep for the hopes of millions dashed to the ground.

Tonight the night sky is devoid of stars, except one.

The Persian sky has turned from the green to black

and the world watches,

and I pray.

Iran, O Great Persia,

I weep for you tonight,

yet amidst the charcoal ballots

“a tender shoot, like a root out of dry ground”.

“Despised and rejected”… by many

Misunderstood and misrepresented… by more

“No beauty or majesty to attract us to him”

(like a politician),

“He will not shout or cry out,

or raise his voice in the streets.

A bruised reed he will not break,

and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out.

In faithfulness he will bring forth justice;

he will not falter or be discouraged

till he establishes justice on earth”.

He wept over Jerusalem long ago:

“If you, even you,

had only known on this day

what would bring you peace

—but now it is hidden from your eyes.”

He weeps for you tonight, O beloved Iran,

for the millions,

for the 8.

A bloody, barren tree stands,

neglected on the outskirts of Tehran,

with a placard nailed to it:

“Where is My Lover?”

The lone star descends tonight

pierced arms open wide for embrace

walking the streets of Tehran,

searching for His Lover…

eager for their honeymoon called Freedom

The Colors of Tsarist Russia

Prior to World War One, a Russian photographer named Prokudin-Gorsky developed a means of taking color photographs. He did it by taking three monochromatic pictures, each with a color filter, and then recombined them by projecting specifically colored light through them. The result are some extremely striking color photos of bygone days that we're used to seeing in shades of gray.

Supported primarily by his job in a metal works, he established his studio in 1901 to perfect his process. His break came in 1908 when he photographed Leo Tolstoy.

This brought him to the Attention of Tsar Nicholas II, who funded his scheme of traveling throughout the Russian Empire and making a photographic record of what he saw.

More of his remarkable photographs, as well as further details of his life, can be found at Socyberty in the post The Incredible Century Old Color Photography of Prokudin-Gorsky (H.T. Neatorama).

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Vanderleun .

60 years of doubleplusgood

Sixty years ago this week George Orwell's 1984 was released. You can read it online here. My favorite scene in it has always been the one below, when Winston meets his neighbor Parsons, as faithful a Party member as there is, in a holding room in the Ministry of Love.

This is the chapter where Room 101 is introduced. We don't know what it is at the time. We won't know until the rat cage is strapped onto Winston's head. Parsons had spent years savoring his Victory Gin, appreciating his Victory Cigarettes, and worrying about the enemy of the day. However, in the end, he ended up with his own version of the rat cage, and a bullet to the back of his head, all because he doubted in his sleep.

As sad as Winston's end is, Parson's is infinitely sadder. Sleep and its dreams as the betrayer -- the most sublime of all Thought Crime.

'Are you guilty?' said Winston.

'Of course I'm guilty!' cried Parsons with a servile glance at the telescreen. 'You don't think the Party would arrest an innocent man, do you?' His frog-like face grew calmer, and even took on a slightly sanctimonious expression. 'Thoughtcrime is a dreadful thing, old man,' he said sententiously. 'It's insidious. It can get hold of you without your even knowing it. Do you know how it got hold of me? In my sleep! Yes, that's a fact. There I was, working away, trying to do my bit -- never knew I had any bad stuff in my mind at all. And then I started talking in my sleep. Do you know what they heard me saying?'

He sank his voice, like someone who is obliged for medical reasons to utter an obscenity.

"Down with Big Brother!" Yes, I said that! Said it over and over again, it seems. Between you and me, old man, I'm glad they got me before it went any further. Do you know what I'm going to say to them when I go up before the tribunal? "Thank you," I'm going to say, "thank you for saving me before it was too late."

'Who denounced you?' said Winston.

'It was my little daughter,' said Parsons with a sort of doleful pride. 'She listened at the keyhole. Heard what I was saying, and nipped off to the patrols the very next day. Pretty smart for a nipper of seven, eh? I don't bear her any grudge for it. In fact I'm proud of her. It shows I brought her up in the right spirit, anyway.'

He made a few more jerky movements up and down, several times, casting a longing glance at the lavatory pan. Then he suddenly ripped down his shorts.

'Excuse me, old man,' he said. 'I can't help it. It's the waiting.'

He plumped his large posterior into the lavatory pan. Winston covered his face with his hands.

'Smith!' yelled the voice from the telescreen. '6079 Smith W! Uncover your face. No faces covered in the cells.'

Winston uncovered his face. Parsons used the lavatory, loudly and abundantly. It then turned out that the plug was defective and the cell stank abominably for hours afterwards.

Yaaaay! Yay yay!

Here's one for the "something you don't see every day" department* -- an ad with bubbly Japanese school girls hopping about and pretending to cut their wrists with color-coordinated toy suicide knifes. I must say the bubbles add a nice touch of zaniness to the whole thing, as if it were in need of more zaniness.

*Then again, maybe you do see it every day if you watch a lot of TV in Japan.

Revisiting

Way back at the end of November, 2005, I put up a post here at Flares titled "The Captain and The Sarge - Carpetbaggers".  It was about a memorial I'd discovered while out walking in Malmo, Sweden.

There reason I mention it now is that the daughter I was out strolling with that fine day is once again in Malmo, this time for an extended stay.  She'd come upon the memorial again and makes a point of going to see it with anyone she strolls with but had forgotten the story behind it.  So I went and searched out this post to send her so she'd know the story.

It turns out that nearly three years after that post had long since been forgotten a friend of one of the widows of the crew somehow found it and was kind enough to leave the link to Flygmonumentet vid Anten.  I just discovered this today and thought some of you may enjoy it.   Be sure to click the "In English" link at the bottom and wander around.  More info there than I was able to provide.  And mystery.