Far South of I-10

We went to see cinderella man a few days ago, I thought it was fantastic, my wife didn't care for the violent boxing scenes. Russel crowe might be a violent dickhead, but he can act. I thought one interesting aspect of the movie was how it compared to seabiscuit, another 'true' sports movie that occured around the turning point of the depression. In seabiscuit, it was a horse that helped heal it's owner and jockey and cutaway scenes showed various federal programs helping the nation get back on it's feet. tres pro-roosevelt/government. Cinderella man focused on a man who scorns government help until he is at his absolute nadir, then when he gets back on his feet he pays the government back. Ron Howard seemed to make the point that it wasn't evil corporations that brought on the depression, but maybe just bad luck. It wasn't just the government that got us out of the depression, but hard work and self-reliance. These were two similar themed movies, but...

Something else to make me choke on my cheerios: The Arab TV news network criticized by the new Iraqi government and others for its anti-American bias and willingness to carry the messages of terrorist organizations, including al-Qaida, is headed for the U.S.-Mexico border to document how easy it is to enter America illegally. The best quote was from Minuteman Chris Simcox "Would we allow Japanese or German television to film the unsecured border during World War II?" asked Minuteman spokeswoman Connie Hair. "These people broadcast to the enemies of America. It's not a news story, it's recon." I've been wondering since 9/11 how I can help with defense of this country since I'm too old to reenlist. Maybe it's time to buy a musket and go join the minutemen.

I didn't know you could grow grapes in louisisana, much less make a really great wine, but I just drank most of a bottle of Ponchatrain vinyards ' le trolley' white wine. It was damn good, I don't remember ever drinking a white wine I've actually liked, but this was great. (best drunk chilled according to the friend who is living up in Covington and bought me the wine) Very drinkable, explains any other posting or commenting this evening.

Jerry Pournelle is a science fiction author who is knowledgeable about physics, political science and history, and one of the subjects he often returns to is Anarcho-tyranny: Anarcho-tyranny: in which major crimes and criminals go unpunished because the authorities are unable or often afraid to act, while the police continue to enforce laws when and where it is safe to do so: Murder rages in one part of the city while minor traffic offenders and scofflaws in middle class sections are sent to jail. Cherry picking by police. To me this story demonstrates clearly what seems to be happening. Cash can be confiscated as drug money, and you are considered guilty until proven innocent if you try and get it back. Police don't stop dangerous criminals, but traffic stops and tasering helpless motorists is well within procedure. Administrators at elementary schools must expel students for any infraction. The TSA is a joke, they search the same people over and over, eg if you buy a ...

Glenn Reynolds has an especially good column this week, he discusses war fatique and opposition to the war, and what was most interesting to me was that he mentioned the copperheads of the civil war: Like too many people, these folks see the war as less important than their own immediate political objectives. Better to be President after losing a war than to suffer as a Senator in a nation that's winning, apparently. Well, that's politics. We had the same thing from the Copperheads in the Civil War. If we had less of it in World War II it was because the threat to the Soviet Union turned the hard left into pro-war propagandists instead of the critics they are today. The reason I found the mention of the copperheads so interesting was that I finished reading "Never Cry Retreat" a couple of weeks ago, which is a part of a fantastic series of books that tell the story of the civil war. While reading the book I was struck by similarities between our current situation...

Mark Steyn mentioned the Gitmo Cookbook in a recent column, which is a collection of recipes for the dinners cooked for the Gitmo detainees. I googled that and found the above link to the cookbook and an even better answer from Ann Coulter: American soldiers make do with C-rations. Dinner on an America West flight from New York to Las Vegas consists of one small bag of peanuts. Meanwhile, one recent menu for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo consisted of orange-glazed chicken, fresh fruit crepe, steamed peas and mushrooms, and rice pilaf. Sounds like the sort of thing you'd get at Windows on the World – if it still existed Mark Steyn's column almost reaches the level of bitter cynicism that I feel about this whole subject: Because the jihadi find western culture depraved — and I’m not necessarily in disagreement on that, at least where Christina Aguilera’s concerned — we’re obliged to be extra-super-duper-sensitive with them. Says who? Again, the more one hears the spec...

glaciers Originally uploaded by Joe Gremlin . I'm back from alaska after a tiring 3 day trip. The below photo was taken from the airplane after we leveled off SE of anchorage. I didn't get any good pictures in town, my camera batteries died after taking 2 shots of the limousine they carted us around in. Limo's look much cooler in rap videos when there are bitches, ho's and liqour present. Without that, we just looked like tired travelers in a big car.

I'm in Anchorage for a couple of days for some presentations. Beautiful country, much hillier than louisiana. I'll put some pictures up if I manage to get some good ones, I've got a flicker account and I think I've learned how this interweb thing works. Just a reminder to my future self; don't fly if you have a cold. I thought my ear drums were going to burstduring the landing, exploding with a jet of blood, and I was thinking "must aim ears at uglier stewardess" all the time sweating like a whore in church since it felt like those little animals from star trek II were eating their way out of my head, meanwhile the other stew looked at me as if she was wondering if I'm one of those terrorist al-canadians. Anyway, I made it alive and my ears finally popped, and they gave me a chocalate moose at the hotel, ...so all better now. (a giant, chocalate moose-shaped lollipop)

Sharon over at Perspectacles tells a damn funny story about a posessed dog speaking her name: A year later as I was getting ready for school, my mother said casually, "I don't suppose we ever told you that we had to have Scooter put down last year because he said your name." I choked on my Cheerios. I think I actually sputtered some milk across the table. But that's the dramatic way my mother likes to introduce things. ("By the way, we had to have the talking dog destroyed.") (go read the rest, it's funnier) We never had a posessed animal at our house, but we did have a haunted door, where two of my siblings heard a demonic voice and a maniacal laugh. It was the door that my father added when he converted the garage to a spare bedroom. I was young enough, maybe 10 or 11, that no one in my family told me what was going on, because they rightly thought that they would scare the shit out of me, and I would have never entered that half of the house aga...

Well the first tropical storm of the year is in the Gulf. Since we're now safely 100' above sea level over here west of Houston, hurricanes don't look half as scary. Half as scary is still enough to change me into a shaky-handed old woman, so I typically track hurricanes closer than a pimp tracks his best looking blond Ho. Which means I use the "where's my money bitch" tracking technique. Rather than just watching the weather channel, I also watch the weatherunderground , not only does the weather underground show the same tracking info the weather channel has, they also have the notes of the forecaster under the discussion heading. they also show the raw results of various computer models, usually the official forcast agrees with the majority of the models. But sometimes an outlying model is right. When an outlying model track runs over your house, it is time to pay attention, even if the weather channel guys are transmitting from 500 miles away. The NWS...

Mr Beelzebub over at Free Market Fairy Tales makes some great points about the hipocrisy and waste generated by the renewed live-aid concerts. Go, read the rest. Furthermore, the Beelzebub household (admittedly in the guise of Mrs B) is the proud charitable sponsor of a donkey in Devon, a seahorse in Bristol, and a goat that was sent out on a free holiday to the Gambia (Did it call? Did it write? Did it buggery …) So I don't need reminding that those of us who live in the lap of comparative luxury need to do our bit for those who have to get up at 5am and walk 50 miles to the nearest fag machine, or whatever it is that they do in deepest Africa. Apart from the jokes, the really important point that he makes is it doesn't matter how generous we are, if the people we give the money to are just dictators for life we'll end up just pimping somebody's ride. ("those are bangin' rims Mr Mugabe")

Google maps has a pretty cool feature that once you get a map you can click a link and get a satelite photo of the same spot. Here's a neat example showing a B-2 bomber parked on the ramp: Link to google Maps One possible side effect will be future war planning by our enemies won't require satellites for pre-mission planning, or even paying commercial satelite companies. Imagary will be available for free.

I just posted again at " 100 words or Less Nessman " in the comments section. What's interesting to me about writing short fiction like that is the hard part is to stop writing. There is still a flow of words that come out almost unbidden. I haven't tried to write anything non- technical for so long I figured that the source of words would have dried up for lack of use, like in a Willie Nelson song. It's also kind of neat to edit something to 100 words and still make the point that was originally made in several hundred words. Oh well, back to work. Some of my family are coming to visit for the weekend, I've got to finish cleaning before they get here. Too bad I don't have one of those scarves that Lucy always wore when doing housework...stylish.

I finally got to see the revenge of the sith. I might mark myself as an uber-geek, but I really liked it. There were some sucky clunky parts (who made Natalie Portman so ugly and why?). But you had to love Yoda crawling through a tunnel to escape, I wasn't sure if it looked more like bruce willis in Die Hard ("come out to the coast, we'll have some laughs) or a typical scene from Star Trek in the Jeffries tube. The main thing is that Lucas created a fairly plausible story that showed all the things that were implied back in 1977, such as 'Vader was created when fighting Kenobi in Lava', or 'Palpatine killed all the Jedi'. It wasn't perfect, but it did a much better job than I expected given all the whining and gnashing of teeth I've read about. Also I liked that I got to see the film, since I got sent offshore unexpectedly the day it was released, I was slightly worried that I'd get killed offshore and my tombstone would read: loser-who ne...

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

I've been watching Lawrence at Is full of crap participating in the 100 words or Les nessman competition, so I posted my own 100 word story to their contest today in their comments section (ya gotta go look at the picture there): As the air temperature dropped, the hairs on his forearm stood up. The course flannel of his uniform was scant protection from the chill of the downdraft, but it was all the protection he’d get on this assignment. He struggled to get the rapidly forming tornado in the frame of his camera, but it was difficult since the descending vortex was coming straight down at him. His camera and netpod were ripped from his grasp, pajamas torn from his body as his limp form spiraled upward into the worsening storm. Pajamamedia weather services’ first death in the line of duty. [yeah, well kinda sucky, but exactly 100 words isn't too easy]

When I was in england last month I stopped off in london to do the tourist stuff, and I got a couple of pictures at the Horseguards parade. The picture that I'm in (not shown here), I tried to take next to the horse without petting the horse like everyone else was doing. I ended up with a picture of me and the horse turning to look at me and saying "what's up with the non-petting" like a giant dog. A giant dog with a soldier holding a sword on its back. . Strangely enough, I noticed over at vodkapundit that he has pictures of the same guard on post from his visit to london. (looks like it anyway) Anyway, here's another picture that I liked, I took it on the Victory, looking aft from the front of the ship: . The ship is in Portsmouth, where I spent a whole day. I think it would have been better to take a tour from London, I saw one tour advertised for Portsmouth, Stonehenge and the south which was about as much as my train fare from Newark to Portsmouth. O...

Kelly over at suburban blight has a question: Is it better to work at a job you don't like for more money, or work at a job you love for less money ($10-15k less)? I think that if there is something that you know you love, and people are willing to pay you money (not just beer) to do it, then you should do it. To me, the hard part is finding some vocation that you love and are good at that will actually pay the bills. (apparently sitting and drinking in strip joints doesn’t count as a vocation) On the other hand, if it is a choice between a job you like and a job you don’t really like too much that has a short commute and pays more, then you have to go with the more money plus more time at home, not in traffic. The difference isn’t the money, it’s the like versus the love. All jobs are slightly unpleasant in some way, that’s why they’re called jobs, not fun. On the gripping hand, I would never suggest anyone do a job th...

This may be a historical first. I'm blogging from offshore on the drilling floor of an operating oil rig. [A quick check on Google for offshore, blogging, oilfield turns up a lot of hits, mostly from the left "it's about oooiiiillll", so I may be first.] who-hoo first at something.