My father-in-law and I grill pork chops with genuine Strickland propane, in wonderful March spring weather. Afternoon highs in the low seventies. Hope you had some very nice meat too.
20030315
20030305
it's like telling them not to swear
Lt Smash reviews General Order Number Zero with his personnel.
See this also.
Lt Smash reviews General Order Number Zero with his personnel.
See this also.
20030303
They oughtta have 'em, too
I noticed a large plastic jug in our kitchen last night, with a label claiming that it contained "Pi-Mag treated water." Beloved wife Barbaloot says she got it from friends of hers, who offer various nutritional and alternative health products.
Her frown must have been in reaction to my facial expression of skepticism.
Later during dinner, after Boy was settling down from a tantrum, he crawled up into his mother's lap and asked for "magnet." Huh?
Barbaloot produced a little plastic shell holding two magnetized nubbled balls, which she rubbed over his back to soothe him.
My skeptical facial expression returned. We proceeded to discuss (quite energetically) these alternative health products, and how I thought they were hucksterism, and she thought I should be more open to possibilities that the white lab smocks don't have all of the answers.
The "infrared" blanket she had put on our bed did, in fact, make the bed more comfortable, though I woke two hours early, rolling back and forth with a splitting headache.
. . . twenty-four hours later . . .
I resume an article where I had left it Friday night, about how very small amounts of normally toxic chemicals or ionizing radiation can make one healthier---hormesis. Sorry, no online link to this article; see The American Spectator, July/August 2002, page 54, "Underdosed" by Tom Bethell. Like the guy in Repo Man says,
I noticed a large plastic jug in our kitchen last night, with a label claiming that it contained "Pi-Mag treated water." Beloved wife Barbaloot says she got it from friends of hers, who offer various nutritional and alternative health products.
Her frown must have been in reaction to my facial expression of skepticism.
Later during dinner, after Boy was settling down from a tantrum, he crawled up into his mother's lap and asked for "magnet." Huh?
Barbaloot produced a little plastic shell holding two magnetized nubbled balls, which she rubbed over his back to soothe him.
My skeptical facial expression returned. We proceeded to discuss (quite energetically) these alternative health products, and how I thought they were hucksterism, and she thought I should be more open to possibilities that the white lab smocks don't have all of the answers.
The "infrared" blanket she had put on our bed did, in fact, make the bed more comfortable, though I woke two hours early, rolling back and forth with a splitting headache.
. . . twenty-four hours later . . .
I resume an article where I had left it Friday night, about how very small amounts of normally toxic chemicals or ionizing radiation can make one healthier---hormesis. Sorry, no online link to this article; see The American Spectator, July/August 2002, page 54, "Underdosed" by Tom Bethell. Like the guy in Repo Man says,
Half-baked goggle-box do-gooders telling everybody it's bad for you. Pernicious nonsense! Everybody could stand a hundred chest X-rays a year. They ought to have them, too.
20030226
Calling for a declaration of war cannot be anti-war
There is a difference, though some will argue there is not, between several Congressional resolutions authorizing the President to use force in Southwest Asia on the one hand, and a declaration of war against an underground organization and its supporting states on the other.
Put me down as one of those who think the Congress should declare the war. Anything less is a delegation of powers to the President that were clearly intended to stay with Congress. It also affords our less honorable members of Congress with the opportunity to hide behind weasel words if the war does not succeed: "We passed a resolution allowing the President to use force to effect A. We didn't say anything about him invading B."
The President, as Commander in Chief, wages the war. He determines how and with how much. The Congress decides whether, and upon whom, the war will be waged. These roles were separated for a purpose.
Of course antiwar leftists are calling, and even suing, to force the President to stop preparations in Southwest Asia, until and unless Congress declares war. As Bigwig suggests, a fine way to silence them is to grant their wish.
If war is the continuation of politics by other means, then the decision to go to war is a political one. A decision of such gravity, of such consequences, deserves the public visibility of recorded votes for the genuine article, the real thing, the full monty.
There is a difference, though some will argue there is not, between several Congressional resolutions authorizing the President to use force in Southwest Asia on the one hand, and a declaration of war against an underground organization and its supporting states on the other.
Put me down as one of those who think the Congress should declare the war. Anything less is a delegation of powers to the President that were clearly intended to stay with Congress. It also affords our less honorable members of Congress with the opportunity to hide behind weasel words if the war does not succeed: "We passed a resolution allowing the President to use force to effect A. We didn't say anything about him invading B."
The President, as Commander in Chief, wages the war. He determines how and with how much. The Congress decides whether, and upon whom, the war will be waged. These roles were separated for a purpose.
Of course antiwar leftists are calling, and even suing, to force the President to stop preparations in Southwest Asia, until and unless Congress declares war. As Bigwig suggests, a fine way to silence them is to grant their wish.
If war is the continuation of politics by other means, then the decision to go to war is a political one. A decision of such gravity, of such consequences, deserves the public visibility of recorded votes for the genuine article, the real thing, the full monty.
Single-parent soldiers
Michael Reagan's radio program this evening discussed the plight of single parents in the Army of One (and the Air Force to which No One Even Comes Close, and so forth). The DoD should contract with accessing members, offering an annuity equal to one-half the value of the services they must provide to enlisted families. If the member makes it through the first term of enlistment (or to NCO status, whichever comes first) without taking on any dependents, the annuity is paid, in the form of a 401(k) with income taxes deferred. Any dependents, oops, no annuity.
Update: link to the radio program's website was corrected.
Michael Reagan's radio program this evening discussed the plight of single parents in the Army of One (and the Air Force to which No One Even Comes Close, and so forth). The DoD should contract with accessing members, offering an annuity equal to one-half the value of the services they must provide to enlisted families. If the member makes it through the first term of enlistment (or to NCO status, whichever comes first) without taking on any dependents, the annuity is paid, in the form of a 401(k) with income taxes deferred. Any dependents, oops, no annuity.
Update: link to the radio program's website was corrected.
20030224
Mark your calendar
The feast day of Saint Gabriel Possenti is 27 February. He is, or ought to be, the Patron Saint of Handgunners.
Update: Kathy Kinsley responds to this with "Ick." I think it has something to do with handguns versus any kind of gun, with which sentiment I disagree. Handguns are inherently less accurate than long-guns. Marksmanship with a handgun is, caeteris paribus, more difficult and thus more daunting to the goblins. It deserves its own term to distinguish it from other forms of marksmanship.
Coyote tells me that the Saint was also a lawyer.
Please drive some traffic, and drop some dollars, at the site for the Possenti Society.
The feast day of Saint Gabriel Possenti is 27 February. He is, or ought to be, the Patron Saint of Handgunners.
Update: Kathy Kinsley responds to this with "Ick." I think it has something to do with handguns versus any kind of gun, with which sentiment I disagree. Handguns are inherently less accurate than long-guns. Marksmanship with a handgun is, caeteris paribus, more difficult and thus more daunting to the goblins. It deserves its own term to distinguish it from other forms of marksmanship.
Coyote tells me that the Saint was also a lawyer.
Please drive some traffic, and drop some dollars, at the site for the Possenti Society.
20030221
Hey, hon, let's get patriotic
Bigwig describes how French kissing has become so, je ne sais quoi. Y'know. French.
Bigwig describes how French kissing has become so, je ne sais quoi. Y'know. French.
20030220
20030219
The sum of Tom Tancredo's fears, and Michell Malkin's fears
Read this discussion about crackdowns versus liberalization of immigration and their impacts on homeland security.
Then read Kathy Kinsley's take on it.
Then mine.
Read this discussion about crackdowns versus liberalization of immigration and their impacts on homeland security.
Then read Kathy Kinsley's take on it.
Then mine.
Close enough for me
Horsefeathers proposes a concise set of principles for foreign policy.
I disagree somewhat with his fourth point:
If our policy does in fact provide our trading partners and ostensible allies "Paradise at our expense," our choosing to no longer bear that expense will adequately offset any economic advantage they have over us. Japanese "steel dumping" should no longer be an problem, for example.
Found this via the Third Hand.
Horsefeathers proposes a concise set of principles for foreign policy.
I disagree somewhat with his fourth point:
We must help our businessmen to win out over our rivals in the great game of commerce.
If our policy does in fact provide our trading partners and ostensible allies "Paradise at our expense," our choosing to no longer bear that expense will adequately offset any economic advantage they have over us. Japanese "steel dumping" should no longer be an problem, for example.
Found this via the Third Hand.
20030213
A nice compromise between controlling power and stoppability
The .380 Auto is known in Europe as the 9mm Short. Does that mean the .40 S&M is called the 10mm Shibari over there?
Freudian slip noticed in comments to a post about defensive handguns at DailyPundit.
The .380 Auto is known in Europe as the 9mm Short. Does that mean the .40 S&M is called the 10mm Shibari over there?
Freudian slip noticed in comments to a post about defensive handguns at DailyPundit.
20030211
Idea number 241
I would also very much like the USAF to buy me a PDA. Not that I don't like my present platform, the Palm m500.
A commander some years back shared with us his vision that "someday the Air Force will not issue its airmen rifles, but computers." That vision is coming true haphazardly and unconsciously; we are now required to update dependent information through a website, for example, and we use the execrable FormFlow to prepare travel vouchers (the FormFlow version of the travel voucher still admonishes you to "press the pen firmly so all four copies are legible"---on an electronic form). But the automation has not penetrated deeply enough, and I still need the rifle.
Virtually all Air Force instructions ("regs") are available as PDFs now, downloaded from either a central Air Force site or from a CD-ROM copy. Technical Orders (equipment manuals) are beginning that painful transition from paper to pdf. My career field depends upon a constellation of AFIs, AFMANs, AFHs, TOs, and purpose-built network clients. I already share my schedule with two peers, two managers, three classrooms, and three email lists.
The only reason that all of these files cannot be crammed into 16 MB on a PDA is that the AF simply dumps full-size JPEG images into their pubs, in effect bloating a 300KB document to several MB by adding color photographs, even in a document that will only be printed in black and white anyway. If the AF simply hired some illustrators to take these photos and "compress" them the old fashioned way, Idea number 241 would. be. feasible. Today.
The AF then issues a standard PDA to everybody---Palm or the OS formerly known as Wince, makes no difference---and each office would have one or two cradles to dock them. "Hey, Tony, there's a new 10-2501 waiting for you at your next synch. Look at my notes attached to it. And there's a change 3 for 14P4 dash 15 dash 1!"
Yes, we do verbalize the dashes.
The AF could then stem the explosion in the number of desktop and notebook computers it has to buy, maintain, and replace. Even morale uses of these computers could be reduced---just read and compose emails to Significant Other offline, and they'll be sent the next time you dock. You can still get your Instapundit and your DavidMSC too.
In a small way, I've done this already---four of us bought our own Palm pilots before a recent deployment, and shared schedules, documents, and so forth. Sand didn't bother them (perspiration did---somebody needs to build a waterproof PDA).
If you came here from this post, then you can guess what's coming next.
Either the digital camera snaps on to the PDA, or communicates with it. The PDA uploads the images, calculates the contamination and digests it to a file. I would caution against using a flash memory device to transfer images from camera to PDA, because handling those little devices while wearing rubber gloves is difficult and invites ESD. Wireless would be unwise because RF on an airbase is discouraged. Infrared is cheap and proved, and you won't be using this capability while hostiles are watching you through night vision gear.
When the images are uploaded and digested, you get yourself to the nearest dock and blurt the digested information to the mapping terminal. If the PDA gets slimed, throw it away and restore your backup to a new one.
Then the mapping terminal blurts back to you a password-protected map of where the slime is.
I would also very much like the USAF to buy me a PDA. Not that I don't like my present platform, the Palm m500.
A commander some years back shared with us his vision that "someday the Air Force will not issue its airmen rifles, but computers." That vision is coming true haphazardly and unconsciously; we are now required to update dependent information through a website, for example, and we use the execrable FormFlow to prepare travel vouchers (the FormFlow version of the travel voucher still admonishes you to "press the pen firmly so all four copies are legible"---on an electronic form). But the automation has not penetrated deeply enough, and I still need the rifle.
Virtually all Air Force instructions ("regs") are available as PDFs now, downloaded from either a central Air Force site or from a CD-ROM copy. Technical Orders (equipment manuals) are beginning that painful transition from paper to pdf. My career field depends upon a constellation of AFIs, AFMANs, AFHs, TOs, and purpose-built network clients. I already share my schedule with two peers, two managers, three classrooms, and three email lists.
The only reason that all of these files cannot be crammed into 16 MB on a PDA is that the AF simply dumps full-size JPEG images into their pubs, in effect bloating a 300KB document to several MB by adding color photographs, even in a document that will only be printed in black and white anyway. If the AF simply hired some illustrators to take these photos and "compress" them the old fashioned way, Idea number 241 would. be. feasible. Today.
The AF then issues a standard PDA to everybody---Palm or the OS formerly known as Wince, makes no difference---and each office would have one or two cradles to dock them. "Hey, Tony, there's a new 10-2501 waiting for you at your next synch. Look at my notes attached to it. And there's a change 3 for 14P4 dash 15 dash 1!"
Yes, we do verbalize the dashes.
The AF could then stem the explosion in the number of desktop and notebook computers it has to buy, maintain, and replace. Even morale uses of these computers could be reduced---just read and compose emails to Significant Other offline, and they'll be sent the next time you dock. You can still get your Instapundit and your DavidMSC too.
In a small way, I've done this already---four of us bought our own Palm pilots before a recent deployment, and shared schedules, documents, and so forth. Sand didn't bother them (perspiration did---somebody needs to build a waterproof PDA).
If you came here from this post, then you can guess what's coming next.
Either the digital camera snaps on to the PDA, or communicates with it. The PDA uploads the images, calculates the contamination and digests it to a file. I would caution against using a flash memory device to transfer images from camera to PDA, because handling those little devices while wearing rubber gloves is difficult and invites ESD. Wireless would be unwise because RF on an airbase is discouraged. Infrared is cheap and proved, and you won't be using this capability while hostiles are watching you through night vision gear.
When the images are uploaded and digested, you get yourself to the nearest dock and blurt the digested information to the mapping terminal. If the PDA gets slimed, throw it away and restore your backup to a new one.
Then the mapping terminal blurts back to you a password-protected map of where the slime is.
Idea number 372
We have received some constructive criticism of Idea number 354, from none other than an experienced cadre member at a US military NBC training facility.
The portable paper-band contamination tracker fails to satisfy on several counts:
So Cadre one-upped me. "Our people have already stationed the detector paper around the base, as part of pre-attack detection measures. Give us a device that looks at that paper and quantifies the contamination. What do digital cameras cost these days?"
OK. The required granularity would be there. We'd be using an existing resource more wisely rather than procuring a new system with its own expendables. So:
If any readers are familiar with the equipment used to perform complete blood counts, for example, please reality-check me. The software involved in counting colored dots in an image with fixed background color can't be so complex it can't be packed into a high-end notebook, right? Statistical output of an image compressor, such as JPEG?
In fact, might this software be simple enough to run on a properly configured PDA? If so, check out idea number 241.
The challenge to such a system would be porting all of these images back to one location where they can be assembled and assessed. The bandwidth required for hauling around two-meg jpegs would kill a base network; if the assessment function were pushed out to the periphery of the system, closer to where the images are captured, then the message coming from the imager to the mapping software would be a few bytes showing color, concentration, and temperature, a couple bytes identifying the camera, operator, and date/time group, and a couple bytes of location coordinates.
It's also a reason for the USAF to buy me AutoCAD.
We have received some constructive criticism of Idea number 354, from none other than an experienced cadre member at a US military NBC training facility.
The portable paper-band contamination tracker fails to satisfy on several counts:
- Even if the device went out for competitive bid and somebody like Lexmark or Brother won the contract,
Uncle Sugar would still never buy enough of them to cover an airbase with the granularity needed to capture a meaningful
image of the "plume," the footprint of deposited liquid agent. - Of course Uncle Sugar would never put this device out for competitive bid, and would ultimately pay five thousand dollars each, for seventy-five bucks of hardware and a fifteen-dollar expendable paper band cassette. There's a reason I suggested two fax/printer/copier manufacturers as bidders---this device is no more complex than that.
So Cadre one-upped me. "Our people have already stationed the detector paper around the base, as part of pre-attack detection measures. Give us a device that looks at that paper and quantifies the contamination. What do digital cameras cost these days?"
OK. The required granularity would be there. We'd be using an existing resource more wisely rather than procuring a new system with its own expendables. So:
- Control the focus and lighting with a simple, folding (disposable?) plastic frame that holds the camera at a fixed distance and reflects the flash evenly across the sample detector paper. Put a thermometer in a corner of the frame.
- Capture an image of the paper under known shutter speed and aperture, with a known resolution and color depth. Done right, this system could be independent of camera make and model. Just meet the exposure, resolution, and flash specs.
- Imprint coordinates with the image, captured from a GPS receiver. Better yet, snap the coordinates of the paper when it is stationed in the first place, and record the coordinates directly on the paper so it's imaged there, instead of captured later.
- Issue software that sucks the images in from several cameras,
- assesses each image by color of spot, size of spot, number of spots, and
- determines agent type and concentration of deposition, then
- plots the concentration on a base map for the Wing King.
If any readers are familiar with the equipment used to perform complete blood counts, for example, please reality-check me. The software involved in counting colored dots in an image with fixed background color can't be so complex it can't be packed into a high-end notebook, right? Statistical output of an image compressor, such as JPEG?
In fact, might this software be simple enough to run on a properly configured PDA? If so, check out idea number 241.
The challenge to such a system would be porting all of these images back to one location where they can be assembled and assessed. The bandwidth required for hauling around two-meg jpegs would kill a base network; if the assessment function were pushed out to the periphery of the system, closer to where the images are captured, then the message coming from the imager to the mapping software would be a few bytes showing color, concentration, and temperature, a couple bytes identifying the camera, operator, and date/time group, and a couple bytes of location coordinates.
It's also a reason for the USAF to buy me AutoCAD.
20030209
Why I'd rather not fly any more
Penn Jillette talking to a TSA representative after an unpleasant security experience; found via Armed Liberal.
" . . . freedom is kind of a hobby with me, and I have disposable income that I'll spend to find out how to get people more of it."
Penn Jillette talking to a TSA representative after an unpleasant security experience; found via Armed Liberal.
Cafe con piernas
Mind the web filters, y'all.
During a business trip to Chile in 1995, our hosts took us to a coffeeshop whose name translates to "coffee with legs."
There was no seating; all customers stood. The walls were mirrored such that we could admire the young women serving coffee, in dresses that revealed their legs very flatteringly.
Courtesy of dustbury, links to the blogosphere equivalent of cafe con piernas.
Mind the web filters, y'all.
During a business trip to Chile in 1995, our hosts took us to a coffeeshop whose name translates to "coffee with legs."
There was no seating; all customers stood. The walls were mirrored such that we could admire the young women serving coffee, in dresses that revealed their legs very flatteringly.
Courtesy of dustbury, links to the blogosphere equivalent of cafe con piernas.
20030206
Grudging acceptance?
James Rummel comments on my post about the purpose and limits of government.
Update: sorry, yes, it was "grudging realization." Anyway, government has to be intrusive to be effective, but there must be limits to the degree of intrusion, to preserve the faith of the governed that the intrusion is justifiable and should be allowed. The difference between party A investigating party B for a possible violation of party C's rights, and a fishing expedition for A to find something about B, possibly with no party C of any kind.
This does work back to an express libertarian principle, that there has to be a wronged party, a victim. It also means that there must be laws and impartial referees to determine when intrustion is justified, and penalties when the intrusion is not justified but happens anyway.
James Rummel comments on my post about the purpose and limits of government.
Update: sorry, yes, it was "grudging realization." Anyway, government has to be intrusive to be effective, but there must be limits to the degree of intrusion, to preserve the faith of the governed that the intrusion is justifiable and should be allowed. The difference between party A investigating party B for a possible violation of party C's rights, and a fishing expedition for A to find something about B, possibly with no party C of any kind.
This does work back to an express libertarian principle, that there has to be a wronged party, a victim. It also means that there must be laws and impartial referees to determine when intrustion is justified, and penalties when the intrusion is not justified but happens anyway.
I feel left out too
Follow this link to Silflay Hraka, for a proposed new romantic holiday.
It's only days before my birthday.
Follow this link to Silflay Hraka, for a proposed new romantic holiday.
It's only days before my birthday.
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