Heeeeeeeeeere's Charlie!

Well, we now blog with the rich and famous. Here's the video from our guy Seneca. Next time you're on, don't forget to explain what a YARGB is :>). The question is whether we'll have to start a site to put to rest all the vicious Charlie Martin rumors. h/t Tom Maguire.

She shoots...she scores

This is all just good good to be true. Sarahcuda clinches the 1982 Alaska High School Women's Championship with a free throw at the end. And get this.

Hollywood couldn't have written a more dramatic script for Sarah Barracuda than her final basketball game. It was a David-and-Goliath match-up, with Wasilla the underdogs. The state championship was on the line, and Sarah was suffering from a fractured ankle.

"You've got to discipline yourself, you've got to push yourself to the max, so I think she showed that mental toughness," Nelles said.

She played through the pain. The Warriors were leading in the dying seconds, but their opponents were fighting back. Sarah was fouled.

She had the chance to clinch the game, and the state championship.

"Sarah Heath goes to the free throw line...the Warriors are ten seconds away from the 1982 state championship!"

Coolly, she made the throw.

"Sarah's shot is in there! Sarah just aced the game for the Wasilla Warriors!"

The Old Swordsman

McCain and Palin scare the fool out of the pro-Obama supporters and the chattering classes all along the political spectrum because they are authentic and human in their presentation to the public.

Public servants. That is what our leaders are supposed to be. Servanthood, not grandiosity, is the quality that most of us respect and desire in political leaders. That isn’t glamorous, but it is refreshing. Bill Whittle’s eloquent recognition of the authenticity displayed in John McCain’s speech should be preserved in a political science textbook and read by everyone thinking of running for public office. But it probably won’t be. It makes too much sense.

McCain’s speech reminds me of the old story of an middle-aged famous sword fighter who was challenged by a wreckless young man. The older man discouraged his challenger, telling him that there would be nothing to be gained by a fight. When the youth insisted, they began the duel. It didn’t last long, and quickly, the older man had a small nick on his arm. The young man crowed that he had won. The older man said no. The youth pointed out that he had drawn blood and was unscathed. The old swordsman replied, “just wait until you shake your head”.

In several deft, scalpel-like cuts, McCain picked the best running mate for the theme he wanted to run on — the old sheriff cleaning up the town, cut himself off from an administration (of which 70% of the country disapproves), stated his goal of cleaning out the Congressional den of thieves (of which 90% of the country disapproves), and co-opted his opponents theme.

It’s taken a few days for the Dems and chattering classes to shake their heads.

Cross posted as comment on PJM

Update: Added Bill Whittle link.

Sunday Links

Use the Internet 21 times, pay $19,370.

The windiest spot on the planet.

Fighting the real enemy.

Killing cancer with nanoboats.

65 mpg—but only in Europe.

The sustainable political narratives.

You are your walk.

A glimpse of the new Republican party.

Is "junk" DNA the secret of our success?

Let the crowd settle your disputes.

Stalking the central black hole.

Urban sprawl is not the problem.

No free speech if we don't like your speech.

Remembering is like reliving.

Sleep is the new sex.

DON'T KNOW

For Sandy and Theresa

I don’t know how it’s going back home—out here
It’s long been building back up to a kind
Of vehement optimism, weather clear
And cold: blue days like we’ve not seen, fresh winds

Harrying fall in. Quiet, dry yellow light

Rattles the English walnut, and the jays
Uneasy with the change, arrange to fly
Back to ancestral homes up in the pines.
But many central facts I haven’t weighed

Flit in the hills like shadows. And the dream
Hangs on.

God won’t return my calls.


(Desires



Like bees settling into a new hive.)


Harvesting honey, don’t forget to leave

Enough for bees to over-winter, —I’ve

Got some stored in the pantry, to sweeten
The autumn air. For bees, I mean. What, sir,

Gives worries legal standing? Who’ll out-source
The reckonings? To labor in the fields

The sun’s been beating on since early May,
Lets guys we knew in high school have a say
About the vintage layout but, in sooth,
While walking in your vineyard I was stunned

I’d learned Euclidean geometry,
The postulates and theorems we all love—

Enough of reminiscing! Could you leave
A Wilson’s warbler, a wood duck or two,
Behind, let mare’s tail cirrus linger on
Above the hills maybe another hour…

There’s time: put on raiment of camel’s hair,
The meat of locusts and wild honey being—



So I returned. The old host in the woods
Was much the same. New doors were opening
To autumn light. It’s not by being shy

That I’ve accumulated several tonnes
(I like the British spelling) of ripe fruit,
All redolent of black current and Bing
Cherry, a brix just under 24, —

With so many pretenders shown the door.
Now long, late summer days, cool evenings, too,
Breach forward toward the barrel aging, but

We can’t be resting on our laurels now
That bay laurel in this heat exudes a smell,
At once piquant and sweet, up in the wood,
And storms assemble, equinoctial,

Patiently waiting out in the northwest
To ruin the harvest of our neighbor. Now —

I’ve mentioned the ambrosias of the rains
Winter will carry in, the year’s deer mice
Battening the hatches as in Robert Burns,

Working up nests of dried grasses and moss
Against the day of difficulty—
What

Prevents our souring on the mix of rain
And wind, is nothing less than optimal
Arrangement of the fallen leaves, the light
That’s all but free among the homing bees,

And soaring turkey vultures, that will win
Their place in heaven, however uncouth

Or ungainly their struggles on the ground
Dining on the unspeakable. Remains
Of these days being parceled out among

Us, the survivors, will beckon us toward
The solstice, as the wine’s laid up, and Juan

Calls us out for the olive harvest, rain
Or subtle shine that in the silvery leaves

Bespeaks a certain reticence, a song
Of water working its way down, the earth

Fissured, but gratified, vine roots at rest.


IX.1.2008

Wednesday Links

Impossible fractals.

The world's fastest train.

Easy to gain, very hard to lose.

A Stasi for England.

3,000 year old beehives.

The British army triumphs in Afghanistan.

Introducing Many-Eyes.

Robots that follow.

The Energizer Bunny credit crisis.

Was this Henry VIII's problem?

Sarah Palin Faqs.

Let's make some up:

1) Sarah Palin saved Obama's butt by finding eight missing states.
2)...

Strange but True

The race has come down to Obama vs. Palin. It's hard to believe that there is a guy out there willing to spend close to 1$B running for the job of small town mayor. Especially when the opposition already has that on her resume. But hey, whatever. If you've got the money, go for it.

Sunday Links

Virus-hewn batteries, in three flavors.

What lurks in the files?

Futurese.

The 5 best password managers.

A cure for deafness?

A cure for diabetes?

A cure for mortality??

How the brain is involved in music.

Why flies are hard to swat.

Why the Hillary supporters are heartsick.

Exploding bacteria for fun and profit.

Pelosi pontificating above her pay grade.

Zoom into concrete.

God bless the Democrats!

8 trillion viruses per square meter.

And now a word from Cassandra

At MyDD of all places.

While the national media and some democrats have had a field day with the Palin VP pick, most Alaskan dems have been wandering around dazed and disoriented, feeling like the rug was pulled out from under us.
My plea is "Don't underestimate her."
....

Sarah is a shark. She is smart, and she is shrewd. However, she comes across as extremely personable; you can't help but like her in person. She is a good public speaker, I've seen better from her in Alaska, and considering how little time she had to prepare for today's speech, I think we'll see much better from her in the near future.
The biggest mistake we can make is to write her off, ignore her, or think she won't bring anything to the campaign. Quit with the jokes and the remarks about how cute and quaint she is. Stop with the pats on the back and the hurr hurr stuff.
The experience debate disappears now, let it disappear. It seems many Dems feel a vindictive need to bring up the experience issue after it's been applied to Obama so many times. Don't. Experience is a non-issue, she won in Alaska by being the inexperienced, outside candidate, and the Rs will, and already have, argued that she has more "executive experience" than Obama anyways. This is an opportunity to take the experience issue off the table, lets take it.
Our job is to remember and remind everyone else that it is John McCain running for President and not Sarah Palin. This means dropping the "old and dying" stuff. The jokes and comments that McCain's VP might become president in the next 4 years. We don't want people thinking about Sarah as the President.
I say this because I believe Sarah could win if she were the one running for President. Sure she's from a small town in Alaska and has only been the Governor for 2 years, but it doesn't matter; she is as of today on the national stage. McCain's campaign will do its best to lead with the pretty, energetic woman and let you forget that he's the one that would sit in the big chair. People will like her, and she will be a name in the Republican party for quite a while now.

RTWT

Call me crazy, but...

...regarding the Palin experience issue; do the Democrats really want to be running their Presidential candidate against the Republican's Vice Presidential candidate?

I've been increasingly impressed by the tactics of McCain's campaign, and his choice of Palin, while it certainly carries risks because of the national stage is so much larger than the Alaskan stage she's operated on to date, seems like it has netted a lot of positives for him.

As I said in opening, the Democrats seem oblivious that, while jumping on Palin's inexperience as an excuse for Obama's inexperience, they have been maneuvered into comparing their candidate against McCain's running mate? I can't imagine the Republicans ever wasting their time contrasting McCain against Biden in an attempt to try to score points. Such a comparison always diminishes the head of the ticket.

Secondly, as I read the blog comments today, the Republican base seems positively giddy and delighted by her selection. McCain did what Obama did not do with Biden -- McCain energized his base. This was of course important to him, since his base was less than enthusiastic with him so far. It looks like he's got a lot more troops in the trenches now that Palin is on board.

Considering Hillary being shoved out the door by Obama, the choice of a woman was also a very good move. The Democrats seem to be conflating feminism with women in general to try to diminish her, and that too is a mistake in my opinion. The Republicans will never get the feminist wing of the PUMAs, but many women do not primarily identify with conventional feminism. Many women are bound to be impressed by what she's achieved, and diminishing those achievements to diminish Palin will not play well with them.

Finally, today's announcement scuppered any lingering buzz from Obasma's acceptance sppeech.

Of course the final tally of McCain's choice of Palin will depend on how well she performs in the arena of national politics, but so far she seems to have been a solid and clever choice.

Friday Links

How North Korea feels.

Repressed hate.

Cosmic dark matter gets a divorce from regular matter.

McCain's golden opportunity.

25 places to read free books online.

Cold War, the sequel?

Lost cities of the Amazon jungle.

The four horsemen of economic apocalypse.

Evolution smiles on war mongers.

Why the US is in deep denial about the deep doo-doo.

Crows never forget a face.

No more beauty contest of the nuns.

How hate campaigns are run.

Introducing Connections.

Putin: Da Bush made me do it!

Wednesday Links

Is the Taleban winning?

Your dog is smarter than a wolf.

45 beautiful motion-blur photos.

Totalitarian games.

The next President will disappoint you.

9 things you should not buy new.

The oldest dinosaurs.

Bob Marley in the Balkans.

"Requiring" renewable energy.

Algorithms and data structures.

Password-protected websites aren't.

Are elephants better at arithmetic?

Seneca barely misses a riot.

Big Brother in a box—already available in 60 countries.

120 generations in the Harz mountains.

WHO SENT YOU?

Jaime Irons asked for my thoughts regarding polling and the election the other day and this post is a response.

I cannot do better than Jay Cost did on the 22nd with regard to polling. There is no trend. Add Rasmussen to the Gallup results and the answer is the same.

So. What's going on? In my opinion, the malleable portion of the electorate, the inchoate Muddle, has steadfastly refused to be drawn into the political drama this year. The 24/7/365 campaign mode just isn't exciting enough to hold the electorate's attention. Factor in the drop in the main stream media's reputation, plus its drop in readership and viewership levels and "flat line" polling makes even more sense.

When I look at the coming election, my thoughts turn to Bill Clinton and his grabbing a candidacy which no one (in 1991) wanted to tackle, due to the conventional wisdom concerning George H. W. Bush's extraordinary popularity following the first Gulf War. That same lack of desire manifested itself on the Republican side this time with McCain taking his best shot because his age made it his last shot.

Accross the aisle, Hillary Clinton seriously underestimated both her unpopularity among Democrats and the resources available to her opponent. MoveOn made good on its boast to have purchased the Democrat party by mobilizing the ACORN/SEIU elements which Dean had successfully used in the 2006 election to pick up 12-16 seats which the Republican's failure to deal effectively with ethics issues had left vulnerable. The ACORN/SEIU thugs were very successful in the caucus states this year, beginning in Iowa and putting the race effectively out of Clinton's reach on Super Tuesday.

In my opinion, the outcome of the election will depend upon the inchoate Muddle learning the answer to the question posed in the title. If they come to realize that Obama was selected by Bill Ayers in 1995 as a front man for the theft and misuse of funds meant to improve the atrocious schools in Chicago, then John McCain will be sworn in in January. If the media and the Copperhead faction of the Democrat party succeed in concealing the fact that Obama owes his "career" to leftists and slumlords like convicted felon Tony Rezko, then there is a good possibility that Obama will win.

That's not the cheeriest of news but there are signs that the coverup of the Ayers/Obama relationship is beginning to unravel. As you read about Obama's role in the Chicago Annenberg Challenge please remember that he assumed the presidency and chairmanship of CAC in roughly the same period that Ayers hosted a cocktail party celebrating his "entrance into electoral politics". That isn't a coincidence. Nor is Obama's reluctance to highlight the only executive experience to be found in his entire brief but lackluster life an oversight.

UPDATE: of course, I could have just linked Barone. If I had read him first. Serendipty is always serendipitous.

Monday Links

Putin reads the West.

Iran's manned space program.

How people really decide.

Sex, violence, glamor, and Islam.

3D printing for the masses.

Russian loves Putin.

Why no medium-sized black holes?

Qinetiq's solar-powered plane flies at night, breaks the records.

US warships bringing baby food.

The face of aggression.

Jihad in China.

Robots riding the thermals.

Obama picks Joe Biden as VP candidate

CNN reports that it's Biden for Veep. The Video from a couple of days ago shows him saying he's "not the guy". It's interesting that he chose to tell an untruth. He could have said nothing. He could have been evasive. He could have joked about cameramen parked outside his house. He could have done all kinds of things. Instead he tells an untruth. Hmmmm. Biden and his mouth. This will be interesting.

Wednesday Links

Conway (the inventor of the Game of Life) has proven: even the slightest amount of free will implies inherent indeterminacy in the universe.

Beavering away to kill the queen.

Not your father's cartoon.

Not your father's Kosovo.

Magpies can recognize themselves.

Echoes of Berlin, 1936.

How to teach an old rat new tricks.

The future of elections.

Rebellion of the slave ants.

What to do in the Twin Cities when you're dead.

Charging the cartoonists.

Why gay genes exist.

Sunday Links

The fundraising survival kit.

The Hillary Clinton memos.

Moving the money jobs to India.

Lakes in the Sahara.

Our Georgian options for dummies.

The genetic map of Europe.

The neurology of magic.

How attitudes have changed in Hollywood.

The cure for cancer?

Is it time for Poland to get the bomb?

Self-growing nano-fabrics.

Overheated warming warnings.

Friday Links

The new authoritarian nationalists on the march.

Pyramids of the future.

Rat-brained robots.

Is college a waste of time and money?

Introducing Nodal.

Is military success hiding subtle failure?

The invisibility cloak.

Never say die.

Was Bigfoot found?

Big Brother Britain.

The 10 truths of Economics.

Wednesday Links

Buff up your T-cells.

Old media caught at their usual double-standard.

How to demo your startup.

Drill and conserve—why is this hard?

Bigger cheaper solar cells.

How to find the work you love.

Witches, goblins, and Nazis.

The brain unmasked.

The ultimate of bridges.

Confessions of a risk manager.

The brain's fairness detector.