Kasey and the Ball

Posted on April 11, 2009 by Thanos

Kasey and the Ball

This one’s somewhat safe for children — I edited out the final minutes where the ball died and was turned inside out and shredded.

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M O O N Spells Moon

Posted on April 10, 2009 by Thanos

M O O N Spells Moon

moon-041009A Shropshire Lad XXXVI

White in the moon the long road lies,
The moon stands blank above;
White in the moon the long road lies
That leads me from my love.

Still hangs the hedge without a gust,
Still, still the shadows stay:
My feet upon the moonlit dust
Pursue the ceaseless way.

The world is round, so travellers tell,
And straight though reach the track,
Trudge on, trudge on, ’twill all be well,
The way will guide one back.

But ere the circle homeward hies
Far, far must it remove:
White in the moon the long road lies
That leads me from my love.

— A E Houseman

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What’s New in Machine Tools

Posted on April 9, 2009 by Thanos

What’s New in Machine Tools

This is pretty amazing, and coupled with some of the powdered metal compression presses, this can clone any part in a few simple operations….

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Tigerhawk and Trailmix: Hawking Obama Up

Posted on April 9, 2009 by Thanos

Hawking Obama Up

Tigerhawk has some speculation today about solving piracy, it’s much like what I said last year. In light of the need to “hawk” Obama up, this does present even more opportunity than the Taliban in Pakistan for Obama to appear strong without any geopolitical ramifications.

Since Obama is already taking the war to our enemies in Pakistan with drones despite the rumblings from Pakistan, this wouldn’t be over the top for him to do. On the other hand, campaigns against piracy can be very problematic and politically cumbersome in their own right, as President Jefferson found out in an earlier era.

UPDATE: Fox News just stated that General Petraeus has announced that there will be “increased US military presence in the Horn of Africa area within 48 hours”.

UPDATE: In the “All’s Well that ends well” department: An Early Military Victory for Obama. Meanwhile the true Military test is really shaping up in Afghanistan, and Al Qaeda is proposing quaqmire.

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Chewey Under the Desk

Posted on April 8, 2009 by Thanos

Chewey Under the Desk

chewey-under-deskChewey’s in her favorite spot under my wife’s desk in this photo, looking at us with her big brown eyes. This is her “don’t club me, I’m just a baby seal” pose, in which she tries to evoke pity to mooch another biscuit…

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Sunset and Moonrise

Posted on April 7, 2009 by Thanos

Sunset and Moonrise

sunset-40809Tonight’s sunset, followed by tonight’s moonrise, taken with a Canon EOS Rebel XTI, the older 10.1 Megapixel model. The newest version is an awesome 15.1 megapixels. Canon EOS 50D 15.1MP Digital SLR Camera (Body Only) You can see the large size of the photos by clicking on the thumbnails, and you should also understand that even these are not the full resolution size of the 10.1 MP moonrise-40809Canon, they are about a sixth to an eigth of the real resolution. To get these shots I’m using a Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM Lens for Canon EOS SLR Cameras with the sun shot at 135mm and the moon at 300 mm.

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Penn on a Trillion

Posted on April 4, 2009 by Thanos

What’s a Trillion?

Penn does get one thing wrong in this video, if you are on the Glen Beck show it’s always going to be Glen who’s the biggest nut. But hey, these are nutty times.

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Spring

Posted on April 2, 2009 by Thanos

Spring

spring

Some flowers snapped while walking Kasey

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Fusion Hope, or Fusion Hype?

Posted on April 1, 2009 by Thanos

Fusion Hope or Fusion Hype?

Glen Reynolds has covered a couple of new fusion developments at Instapundit, and they are definitely interesting, but those hoping for fusion sometime soon might be disillusioned.

I’ve seen this cycle in the past – new breakthroughs ballyhooed, lots of articles, and then… nothing. It always occurs when it looks likely that someone actually might start building a new nuclear fission energy plant, and several of these are on the skids for consideration now. So while I’m hoping for a game changing breakthrough, I’m not counting on one.

Rod Adams, who like I has a bias for off-the-shelf Fission, covers this from a different angle.

If you are hoping for fusion sometime this decade or next, you shouldn’t start holding your breath yet. We do need to keep researching Fusion for energy needs of the latter half of this century, we need to up our Kardashev rating quickly to cope with the coming 9 billion human souls and their needs.

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Sherriff Joe on PBS

Posted on April 1, 2009 by Thanos

Sherriff Joe on PBS

In this segment from a PBS documentary Maria Hinojosa tries to pin Sherriff Joe Arpaio’s ears back on local immigration law enforcement. They have a couple papers in Joe’s area that are gunning for him because he does work with ICE on local immigration reinforcement. The reporter in this segment flounders a bit, and ends up by going “Godwinian”, comparing what Sherriff Joe is doing to what Nazi Germany did.

This is egregiously wrong especially since I can’t recall any illegal immigrants burnt in ovens. Bottom line: if you have to dig out Hitler and make comparisons in a discussion you are definitely on the weaker end of it, and you should always be called on it because it really diminishes the true horror of the Holocaust through trivialization.

You can see the rest of the documentary here, where they actually bring up valid points about the Sherriff’s propensity for populist grandstanding at election times, and the possible effects on response times.

It’s a thorny issue for both sides and the extremes of both parties tend to go overboard on immigration issues – with Janet Napolitano in charge, look for a different approach to the problem. It will be interesting to see in these economic times whether the Democrats downplay the problem or grandstand upon it to distract Republicans from efforts on the economy.

To me it’s wisest at this point for both parties to put this issue aside for now- on the Dem side of the debate the face of the issue has become surly La Raza Reconquistas carrying Mexican flags and wearing Che shirts, on the Republican extreme end the face has become equally surly militia members with ties to the Neo-Confederacy, and never the twain shall meet. This issue harms both parties at this point when it becomes nationalized.

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