Saturday, November 15, 2008

Sea Ice Back To 1980's Levels

Owl Gore & His Greenie Weenies Crying Crocodile Tears


It seems that complex global climate issues which are impossible to model with even the most powerful computers and software continue to do whatever it was that they were going to do all along...

In spite of the Craphead Democrats and the United Nations...

Quote 'O The Day

A Weekend TV Script...and Words To Be Remembered


John Wayne: Doc...How long do I have?

Jimmy Stewart: Two months...six weeks...

Wayne: What will I be able to do?

Stewart: Anything you want to at first...

Then later on you won't want to...

So They Actually Think All "Rich" People Are Stupid?

Or Maybe There's Just Not Enough Of Us To Go Around?


This morning finds me trying to make some advance travel plans relating to my latest "forensic injuneering" adventure...this time happening somewhere near the city of Indianapolis, Indiana the first week in December.

I've also been told that I don't have to follow my urge to "slum it" and fly on the cheapest Orbits or Travelocity flight and stay in the Holiday Inn express next to the warehouse district or sleep in a rental car in a grocery store parking lot (don't ask...).

So now I'm looking at nicer hotels in a city I've only visited two or three times in my life and you know the one thing which strikes me as amazing?

The idiots running hotels operated by national chains renting rooms costing hundreds of dollars per night want to charge me a "FEE" for high speed Internet access.

My little Missy the Turbo Pup has high speed Internet access here on the banks of the Mighty Tennessee River on a 24/7 basis, and I'll be damned if I'm staying in any hotel that has the audacity to make high speed Web access an option and charge me extra for the privilege.

Which brings me in a roundabout way back to this morning's topic...swanky hotels with weird ideas about what people with more than the minimum funding are willing to pay for.

More specifically, why do Hotels in big cities (particularly the so-called "convention" hotels) always want to charge extra for things like PARKING and Internet?

Charge extra for PARKING?

How do they they thaink that I arrived at their hotel located so far away from the airport that they don't have a "FREE shuttle service?"

Wagon Train?

Stage Coach?

Ankle express?

And in today's world how do they think that I might be communicating with Pat & Missy the Turbo Pup and my Mom and most of all my Clients and my co-workers?

Carrier Pigeon?

Teletype?

Telegram?

Why don't they just go for broke and put an extra price tag on the toilet paper in my room, that copy of the partisan leftest USA Today newspaper they insist on sliding under my door each morning, and while they're at it they could probably find an accountant willing to charge me for unclogging the sink and bathtub drain after I check out--removing all of my ever greying long hair which fell off of my ever balding head while I wasted time worrying about crap like hotel Internet fees.

Oh...oh.aaaahhhhhhAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH.

Is it just ME?

Even when I'm spending lots of other people's money, unlike our government officials I refuse to waste it just because I have control over its final disposition.

dammit...

Friday, November 14, 2008

The Impact of India's Space Program

Officials at "ISRO's Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre of Thiruvananthapuram" must be quite proud...

So now this afternoon I'm learning that the Drudge Report's linking to this story about India being the FOURTH country to put a piece of hardware on our Moon:

Chandrayaan-I Impact Probe lands on moon
14 Nov 2008, 2035 hrs IST, PTI

BANGALORE: India marked its presence on Moon on Friday night to be only the fourth nation to scale this historic milestone after a Moon Impact Probe with the national tri-colour painted successfully landed on the lunar surface after being detached from unmanned spacecraft Chandrayaan-1.

Chandrayaan-I Impact Probe lands on the moon surface with the national tri-colour painted successfully landed on the lunar surface after being detached from unmanned spacecraft Chandrayaan-1.

Joining the US, the erstwhile Soviet Union and the European Union, the 35-kg Moon Impact probe hit the moon exactly at 8.31 PM, about 25 minutes after the probe instrument descended from the satellite in what ISRO described as a "perfect operation". Miniature Indian flags painted on four sides of the MIP signalled the country's symbolic entry into moon to coincide with the birth anniversary of the country's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, observed as Children's Day.

I'm sorry, maybe I'm just dense or something...but I have to ask this question:

Did the Indian probe actually "LAND" on the moon...or did it--as the name implies--"IMPACT" the moon?

Someone?

Anyone Know?

I guess you can understand my confusion, because years ago when I was learning to fly an airplane my instructor was adamant that "LANDING" the airplane was an intentional act which we spent about 90% of my time practicing, while sitting on, in or otherwise occupying an airplane while it "IMPACTED" something else solid like a tree, the Earth, or even another heavenly body was to be avoided (unless you were from somewhere in the Middle East and/or Muslim...)

Not to stop being stupid now,I also have to admit that a couple of images popped into my mind--literally as soon as I read this story's headline.

This first one is bound to get some sniveling commenter to call me rude or insensitive or even "a racist." It's my best guess as to what our Moon will look like when viewed through binoculars or a telescope from your back yard next week:





And I guess all the bookstores and grade school libraries will have to stop publishing books talking about "cows jumping over the moon" because of the Bovines stature in some India religion/culture...

And while I'm at it, I guess that I should point out that the "Man in the Moon" will never look the same as a result of this week's events...



Feel free to laugh out loud because you know deep inside that this is funny.

So stop sniveling and SUE me if you don't like my humor...

dammit...

Quote O' The Day

The "Founding Fathers" Had It Right...


But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.

In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress.

The proposition that the people are the best keepers of their own liberties is not true. They are the worst conceivable, they are no keepers at all; they can neither judge, act, think, or will, as a political body.

We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other.

Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There was never a democracy that did not commit suicide.

John Adams,
US diplomat & politician (1735 - 1826)



(Can I get a hearty "just Damn" from anyone else this morning?)

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Chance Of Snow On Saturday?

Global Warming In Full Force Here In Eastern Tennessee...


Ever since we moved up here from our little island to the new Turbo Pup Compound on the banks of the mighty Tennessee River, everyone has been telling us about the mild winters they've been having over the past ten or fifteen years.

I'm sitting around scratching my ever greying, ever balding head wondering to myself...

"Could it be...gasp...the results of ... Global Warming?"

Seriously, SOMETHING must surely be responsible for changing weather patterns?

Weather has always been the same everywhere hasn't it?

Everyone knows from being taught in school that the weather patterns--Summer & Winter--have been constant since before the human race invented the Ford Pinto the dinosaurs were wandering the planet Owl Gore was born after the latest immaculate conception the National Weather Service started keeping historical weather data records in the past 150 years
(and the half century since man made satellites have been orbiting the Earth....by the way...)

So any way, in spite of what I've been told by my well intended neighbors and co-workers, I'm expecting a return to above average winter precipitation (read that sleet, freezing rain, AND snowfall) this winter because:

A. I moved here with few socks, even fewer sweaters and nothing much heavier than a windbreaker in my size hanging in the closet by the front door.

B. Average weather patterns are exactly that...AVERAGE...and if you go through a dozen or so years of BELOW AVERAGE temperatures or rainfall or whatever, you're bound to see a number of seasons of ABOVE AVERAGE weather in order to provide the mathematical data required to keep the AVERAGE...AVERAGE.

Get that?

In other words, if your average precipitation is 60 inches in your back yard according to the National Weather service records, and you spend five or seven years getting only 45 inches of rain on your tomato plants, then there is a pretty good posibility that in the immediate future you might find yourself on CNN explaining how that little 3" deep creek in your back yard jumped up out of it's banks and flooded your Gas Grill and your Mother-in-Law's room in the basement when you got the missing 15 inches of rain over the period of one weekend.

That said, I'm looking at the weekend forecast for Knoxville, TN this morning and wishing it looked more like the windy 70 degree predictions for St. Simons Island.

The good news that I've been shopping a couple of times since relocating back into the real world, so in addition to the 2 KW generator sitting unopened in its shrink wrapped box in the basement (left over from my earlier Hurricane contingency preparations), I now have a pair of winter gloves, a Columbia Outdoors Ski Jacket, and a couple more pairs of socks.

The new sweaters are still on the "to do" list, however.

With average snowfall here running about 11.5", and the past few years being roughly half that total, things could get quite interesting for a guy that doesn't even own a snow shovel or a sled.

My feet get cold just thinking about it...

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Thought For The Day Today--Part Deaux

More Disturbing Odorific Emanations Of As Yet Undetermined Origin(s)


"...uuUUrrRRppPPPPPPP"

"False" versus "Wrong"

Anyone But Me Know The Difference?


So I was cruising along this morning shutting down AutoCAD at home--getting ready to head in to the office--when I stumbled across this ASSociated press story about George Carlin winning a comedy award named for Mark Twain (A.K.A. Samuel Clemmons.)

Everything was fine and dandy until I got to the very, Very, VERY last sentence in the story:

"On certain things you'd call him a lefty," Hamza said. "On other things, you'd be surprised how conservative he might be ... He was all for the (Iraq) war until he found out the basis was false [emphasis mine-VRR]."


Yet another perfect example of how the stupid, partisan, lying, useless bastards at the ASSociated Press can't even write an obituary or a posthumous story without interjecting political commentary.

Doesn't this bother anyone but me?

Thought For The Day

Pearls Of Wisdom Spontaneously Emanating From My Bodily Orifices...


Rule #2: Build your company big enough, and with the winking aid of a willing government proceed to produce a product the populace believes that they "need" to continue living and breathing, and said government will bend over backwards and throw infinite amounts of money at you when you TOTALLY SCREW UP AS MANAGERS AND A BOARD OF DIRECTORS threaten to go bankrupt.

(see news stories covering "mortgage crisis", "financial meltdown on Wall Street", and now the plight of American Auto Makers.)


Corollary #1 (See Rule #2 above): If you produce a product the populace just wants (like $150 tennis shoes or Bluetooth or satellite radio or HD TV's) instead of "needs" (like cars or gasoline or their own $350,000 house on a $50,000 salary), you better not count on the government to do anything for you except what the US Constitution allows and then they might take a backhoe and dig a pit to bury your bleached bones when the vultures get through picking through your remains.

(you think that if Mozilla/Firefox or Apple's stock went down the crapper tomorrow Pelosi, Reid, Frank, et. al would give any more of a damn than when Virgil Rogers' company called "Industrial Energy Systems" hit the skids in the late 1990's?)

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Thought For The Day

Little Kernels Of Wisdom...From My Wrinkled Brow To Yours...

Rule 1: A Dumbass, In Spite Of Honorable, Altruistic Intentions...

Is Still A Dumbass At The End Of The Day.


Corollary 1 (See Rule 1 above):. A Dumbass can be taught.

Sadly, a highly educated IDIOT has little chance of overcoming his/her magnanimousness.

Monday, November 10, 2008

?

"?"

Since I'm Not Inclined To Say (Write) Anything Nice

I Guess I Won't Say (Write) Anything At All This Morning

Sunday, November 09, 2008

Echos From History

President Reagan Had It Right In 1964


http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/ronaldreaganatimeforchoosing.htm
(click on this link, then click play on the video)

Pizza Oscar

YES, I Am A Freaking Culinary GENIUS!!


Well...I did it, and it came out quite well if I do say so myself.

By "It" I mean I produced a white pizza based on Crab, Chicken, asparagus, and Mozzarella Cheese with a white cream sauce for dinner last night.

I also produced one of my standard mushroom, black olive, and pepperoni Pizzas just because it was Pizza night here on the banks of the Mighty Tennessee River and we were having our next door neighbors over as test victims of the new pizza making process.

First...a little history on the name of dishes with the surname "Oscar"--Chicken Oscar, Steak Oscar...etc.--on your local restaurant menu.

According to this web site, the original dish named "Oscar" was actually a form of Veal Oscar and was named for King Oscar II of Sweden who spent his time wandering around in Norway and Sweden until about 1907. King Oscar liked a dish which featured breaded fried Veal medallions, covered with crab meat and Asparagus spears, smothered in a cream sauce.

The rest, as we all like to say IS HISTORY.

So any way, by looking around the WWW it became apparent to me that the common elements of dishes called "Oscar" were lump crab meat, asparagus, and some sort of sauce (Alfredo or Bearnaise) placed on top of a base meat.

I figured that instead of a base meat I would just use a Pizza crust, and here's what I included in last evening's masterpiece:

  • Three TBSP good extra Virgin Olive Oil
  • Knorr Bearnaise Sauce (or make your own sauce if you want to torture yourself)
  • 1-1/2 cups lump crab meat--preferably fresh from your local sea food market, drained well and spritzed with lemon juice and sprinkled with Old Bay Seasoning.
  • One large chicken breast, sprinkled with Old Bay Seasoning and cooked in a skillet in some butter and bacon grease until done medium, then sliced into 1/4" thick pieces.
  • One can Green Giant Asparagus (or par-boiled fresh Asparagus or even better yet...WHITE Asparagus which is what I read that the Good King Oscar liked on his Veal)
  • One pound of good whole milk Mozzarella--sliced (please don't use that store bought plastic cheezy stuff you buy pre shredded in ziplock bags--get yourself a big block of Mozzarella and a sharp knife and do a little work while you're cooking.)
  • 1/2 cup Shredded Parmesan cheese
First I made my basic Pizza Crust (which takes a couple of hours to put together and rise), then on top of this dough rolled out and formed into a nice round shape on a well seasoned pizza stone I first drizzled my EVOO (extra virgin olive oil) and smeared it around with my fingers.

Next I placed my big thick slices of Mozzarella cheese around the crust and olive oil in a nice uniform pattern, then I loaded the sliced chicken pieces around on top and spread the lump crab meat all around over everything (just barely avoiding taking a bite of the raw crab--can you say Sushi?)

Finally I laid out the pre cooked canned Asparagus spears around the top of the pizza radially-- like the hands of a clock--and smothered everything with my warm Bearnaise sauce.

After cooking everything for about 20 minutes in a 550 degree oven, I pulled both pizzas out to cool for about five minutes, cut them into slices, and then we all CHOWED DOWN.

I'd have taken pictures if I hadn't been lazy, but I was lazy so I'm sorry to report that there is no photographic evidence of the event.

So sue me...I guess...