Drunken Sailor

Besotted electorate

The blog is about to go on a mini hiatus and I thought that I should probably pluck a few low hanging fruit before I wander back down the rabbit hole. 

Scarborough Research is a company that analyzes market trends and demographics. I was reading the Washington Post this morning and a Republican concern named National Media Research Planning and Placement has mashed their data and come up with a few graphics regarding which potential voters are imbibing what in America. The link can be found here. An earlier iteration of the findings can be read here.

We can surmise the red, the blue as well as the probability that our respondent will actually vote. Above is another similar but more delineated graphic. Apparently these indicators are so good that 14 out of fifteen best indices of how a person will vote are their choices of wine. Who knew that the sauvignon blanc schism was so vast?

Now it is a Sunday morning and a little bit too early for me to make some crass political generalizations on the basis of this research. You can chomp the data any way you want and the pain cuts both ways.

Republicans favor (gasp) white zinfandel, and, well, look who's downing all the tall forty ounce malts, it's the low turnout dems. But I can point with some pride to the fact that no self respecting progressive would ever quaff something called Malibu Coconut. However the populist two buck chuck denizens are firmly in our corner. Michelob tastes like soap. I could never figure out who drank that stuff. Now I know.

(In the interests of full disclosure I should admit that I am a mostly tee tolling, 56 year old, overweight caucasian whose votes tend to skew left and who favors irish whiskeys, absolute vodka and an occasional microbrewed stout.)

We must find out what the independents are drinking. And may I suggest that you donate a bunch of lite beer to your favorite Republican the next election, they are statistically apt to just stay home.

Kashtin

Los Angeles Art Show 2014

The Blue Heron Gallery will be exhibiting at the the prestigious Los Angeles Art Show 2014 next week, an event which is held at the Los Angeles Convention Center. I am afforded a limited number of passes so if you plan on attending, please let me know and I will see what I can do.

I will be in booth 2006, a booth which I am sharing with fellow exhibitor Stevens Fine Art from Phoenix. This will be one of the finest shows I have ever participated in and the attending galleries are first rate. For more information about the show, here is a link to their website.

I hope to see all of my friends from Los Angeles at the show. I have some very exciting and fresh inventory and it should be good. If nothing else maybe we can grab a meal at Yang Chows.

Keith Whitley - On The Other Hand

Error Message

“What we do not do, as we have said many times, is use our foreign intelligence capabilities to steal the trade secrets of foreign companies." Director of National Intelligence James Clapper

There has been a torrent of lurid information in the last six months delineating the reaches of NSA spying. After our government spent the last year castigating the chinese for spying, it turns out that we have our own microphones firmly implanted up the hindquarters of pretty much every foreign leader, government, company and I daresay human, in the world.

You have to wonder if our spooks ever considered the downside risks of the inevitable disclosure of this kind of information, the kind of espionage reported recently by Der Spiegel? The NSA's TAO hacking unit, sometimes in complicity with security companies like RSA, have managed to trapdoor most of the backbone pipelines of the web. This new occupation is called Computer Network Exploitation (CNE).

The hypocrisy is of course, thick. When you do it, it is evil but when we do it, it serves a vital economic interest. Never forget that we wear the white hats. We only use our superpowers to do good. Does any rational person actually believe that the NSA doesn't aggressively promote United States economic interests?

The backlash to these disclosures has been fierce and is I think going to get worse. You can take the simplistic route and blame Snowden for all this. Some will say that all countries do it and it is not our fault that we happen to be the best at it.  These countries should just grow up. But unfortunately the chickens appear to be coming home to roost.

Boeing recently lost a big jet deal to Saab in Brazil, a country palpably angry over the extent of our spying. It was revealed that the NSA collected financial data from the network of Brazil's state-run oil company, Petrobras in addition to behemoths Google and the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), a European money-transfer cooperative.

 Cisco is now getting cut out of a lot of deals in China, as are Dell, IBM, EMC and HP. Economic snooping is going to end up costing us a lot of business. The U.S. cloud computing industry may lose up to $35 billion over three years if foreign customers decide it’s too risky to store data with U.S. companies, according to Financial Times reports. Forrester Research Inc. estimates that NSA’s Prism could cost as much as $180 billion in lost revenue worldwide. Considering our behavior, you really can't blame anybody for not wanting to play or trade with us.

"We shouldn't have gathered economic intelligence under the guise of security -- not with an ally," said former President Bill Clinton during a recent trip to Rio de Janeiro.

The NSA has even used Microsoft error messages to trap its unsuspecting prey. It is amazing to me that our information providers are now forced to spend so much time trying to figure out how to keep our own government out of our sock drawers. Of course if the NSA manages to get its quantum computer built, no encryption will be unbreakable, no secret will be safe.

Like the unwary frog in the pot we are getting boiled to death by the total surveillance state, one small degree at a time.

Paul Butterfield Blues Band - Two Trains Running

Butter's rendition. As much as I love Kalb, this is the definitive white blues boy version, not getting into the Muddy or James Cotton versions.  Stan always says that you have to favor the father over the sons and he was Muddy's manager for a while, so I will defer to him. Wish Stan all the best, dealing with his share. Amazing guy, not to mention photographer. I miss New York. I think that my New York friends divorced me long ago, most of them anyway.

Phil Everly

Leslie and I had just gotten into the business and were doing a monthly show in Burbank back then, The famous Pickwick show, nothing like it before or since, serious murderer's row of painting and antique dealers.

Lots of famous people used to stop by the Caskey's show. Mick Fleetwood, Streisand, Madonna, Roseanne Arquette were all regulars. Many others.

One day a guy walks by, a bit older and heavy set. I know you, I tell him. Really he said.  Yes, are you in entertainment? He shook his head in the affirmative. Is your name Phil? He laughed. And that is my story of meeting Phil Everly. Chatted for a minute. Very nice, humble man.

Later Richard Carpenter and I saw the Everly Brothers open up for Simon and Garfunkel at San Diego State in what was an excellent concert.

The Everly Brothers hold an important place in the timeline of American popular music. They had to be an enormous influence on the Beach Boys. Their father was a great alternating thumb guitar picker in his own right.

Bye bye, Phil,

Frozen Piss

"The information disclosed by Edward Snowden has been extremely important in allowing Congress and the American people to understand the degree to which the NSA has abused its authority and violated our constitutional rights. On the other hand, there is no debate that Mr. Snowden violated an oath and committed a crime. "In my view the interests of justice would be best served if our government granted him some form of clemency or a plea agreement that would spare him a long prison sentence or permanent exile from the country whose freedoms he cared enough about to risk his own freedom." Senator Bernie Sanders

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I'm not feeling super motivated today but a couple of things have caught my eye.

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Hudgins, an engineer, sent along a link to the following video.

This company is promoting the technology process that I have been talking about. You remember, Solar/electric/desert/ocean=Results in clean water+fuel+removes carbon from air etc. He says "This is where our military budget should be spent."



And sends along this picture.

If Andromeda were brighter, this would be how it would look in our night sky.

Would be very cool but like everything else, one would probably get quickly used to it.

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Staying with the Astronomy theme, Ted sends this along, well, yesterday...

This is like breaking news for me: Just hours ago, a solar flare let loose from the sun and was captured on a video which is posted on Youtube and www.Earthsky.org . This is the first solar X Flare of the year 2014, and will probably produce some awesome Northern Lights tonight. Wish I could photograph those...

Running outside with my trusty Canon SX240hs with long zoom capacity and a handy Eclipse Viewer black plastic, I was able to see it live! Picture is grainy due to the Digital zoom of 80x instead of the 20x Optical zoom.

Must be huge in comparison to our earth. Almost looks like the Hawaiian Island chain.

This is exciting to me, and hope you enjoy the view, too.

Aloha,

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The accent mark sent along the weird stuff that you never knew could freeze article from HuffPo.

Hudg replied with this choice tidbit:

I have a experience with cold that caught me unawares at the time.....
When I worked for Toyota the Japan staff decided that we were going to go to Bimidji, Minnesota in early February 1979 to test various vehicles to see how well suited they were for the climate.  Corollas, etc. We stayed in an 50's era Motel where the cars could park right outside your room door.
The first test was done the morning after our arrival.
The Japan staff gleefully awoke us young engineers at 4:15 am with cry's of "It's -42 degrees, hurry before it warms up".
The test was to put on basic clothes, (No huge stuff, just normal medium coat etc.) go get in our car, record the time and interior temp, start it, turn on the heat, wait until you are comfortable, and mark the four pages of test paperwork accordingly.  (The Japan staff loved subjective ratings. "How happy were you to get warm in your car?" On a scale of one to ten of course.)
I finished and got out of my car and went to go back in my room but the door was frozen shut and I had to take a leak.  So I walked down to the end of concrete walk way in front of the rooms and whipped it out and proceeded to wiz.
This action was accompanied by a quite loud cracking and popping of which I had no clue what the cause might be.  (Remember it was dark)
I finished and went back to free my door and go back to bed.  I was successful.
In the morning I went down the same concrete bit and peered out at the scenery, (we had arrived after dark) then happened to look down and there on the snow were a bunch of yellow pellets about 3/8-1/2 inch long and about 1/8 in diameter covering an area about 3 feet around.  It did not dawn on me the significance of these pellets.
I was shortly joined by the head of the Japan staff (An old hand at these cold tests) and he also looked down.
And then he said to me:  "Ah, someone wee-wee outside last night. Rucky it not freeze before out of dick."
And that is how I know that pee will freeze before it hits the ground at 4 in the morning in Bimidji, Minnesota.

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Not to get too political but you want to know what happens when you put the bible bangers in charge? We get f*cked up situations like this. As the headline from Altenet reads, Pregnant, Brain-Dead Woman Forced to Stay on Life Support to Incubate Fetus -Texas law requires that a pregnant woman be kept alive, regardless of the condition of the baby or her family’s wishes.

  

A brain-dead woman is being kept on life support against hers and her family’s wishes so her body can incubate her unborn baby, Huffington Post reported.
33-year-old Marlise Munoz from Fort Worth, Texas was 14 weeks pregnant when she died of a suspected pulmonary embolism, a blood clot to the lungs, the week after Thanksgiving.
Her husband, Erick, found Marlise at their home and performed CPR before she was taken to John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth.  Electric shocks and drugs started her heart and it continued to beat with mechanical support, but her brain waves were completely flat, with no hope of ever recovering.
As her family planned to say their goodbyes to honor Marlise’s wishes not be kept on life support, they were stunned when a doctor told them the hospital would not comply with the directions, NY Times reported.
The hospital plans on keeping Marlise on life support until her baby is delivered based on an arbitrary law of the Texas Advance Directives Act which states that, “a person may not withdraw or withhold life-sustaining treatment under this subchapter from a pregnant patient.”
Hospital spokesperson J.R. Labbe said he believed the hospital's hands are tied: "We can't withdraw treatment from a pregnant person as the law states,” he told Dallas Culture Map.
This is despite the fact that family members including her husband have publicly stated they do not wish to keep her on life support and have expressed concerned about the condition of the baby.
“That poor foetus had the same lack of oxygen, the same electric shocks, the same chemicals that got her heart going again. For all we know, it’s in the same condition that Marlise is in,” father Ernest Machado, told Dallas News. 

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Great to see Chris Christie throw all of his peeps under the bus in the Bridge Scandal. Remember the scene in the Godfather when Tom Hagen gives Frankie Pants the loyalty lecture and he ends up dead in the bathtub? Omerta. Lets see if the capos crack...

Eva Cassidy - What a Wonderful World

This is the late Eva Cassidy's last performance.

Polar bag of wind

Northern jet stream 1/6/14

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: So, ladies and gentlemen, we are having a record-breaking cold snap in many parts of the country. And right on schedule the media have to come up with a way to make it sound like it's completely unprecedented. Because they've got to find a way to attach this to the global warming agenda, and they have. It's called the "polar vortex." The dreaded polar vortex.
Do you know what the polar vortex is? Have you ever heard of it? Well, they just created it for this week. Actually, there is a piece. I've got a piece in the Stack that actually makes the case that all of this frigid, chilling cold is due to global warming, strange as it may sound, it says. Other wackos are saying it's a great example of climate change, but regardless, the agenda is that we're responsible, we're causing it, we have to pay the price. And so any weather extreme now is said to be man-made, and therefore it fulfills the leftist agenda on this.
Now, in their attempt, the left, the media, everybody, to come up with a way to make this sound like it's something new and completely unprecedented, they've come up with this phrase called the "polar vortex." If you've been watching television, they've created a graphic, all the networks have, and it basically consists of a view of the planet if you are right above the North Pole. They put this big purple blob, or blue blob, or red blob, depending on the network you're looking at, over the entire North Pole, and they call that the polar vortex. It actually sounds like a crappy science fiction movie to me, but anyway, that's what they're calling it. It makes it sound like the jet stream is being forced lower across the United States.

Limbaugh says that the polar vortex is a new political invention. He's, of course, wrong. I started studying it, saw citations going back to 2001, have heard about it being discussed back in 1991. There are a ton of scientific papers extant regarding the phenomenon. Saturn has a hot polar vortex and I don't believe that they are yet a part of the great liberal conspiracy.

A polar vortex (also known as an Arctic cyclone, sub-polar cyclone, Frigid Twister, and a circumpolar whirl) is a persistent, large-scale cyclone located near either of a planet's geographical poles. On Earth, the polar vortices are located in the middle and upper troposphere and the stratosphere. They surround the polar highs and lie in the wake of the polar front. These cold-core low-pressure areas strengthen in the winter and weaken in the summer.[1] They usually span 1,000–2,000 kilometers (620–1,240 miles) in which the air is circulating in a counter-clockwise fashion (in the northern hemisphere). As with other cyclones, their rotation is caused by the Coriolis effect.The Arctic vortex in the Northern Hemisphere has two centres, one near Baffin Island and the other over northeast Siberia.[2] In the southern hemisphere, it tends to be located near the edge of the Ross ice shelf near 160 west longitude.[3] When the polar vortex is strong, the Westerlies increase in strength. When the polar cyclone is weak, the general flow pattern across mid-latitudes buckles and significant cold outbreaks occur.[4] Ozone depletion occurs within the polar vortex, particularly over the Southern Hemisphere, which reaches a maximum in the spring.

Studies published since 2001 suggest a link between extreme weather and the polar vortex, in recent years more research identified interactions with Arctic sea ice decline, reduced snow cover, evapotranspiration patterns, NAO anomalies or weather anomalies which are linked to the polar vortex and jet stream configuration.[12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] However, because these are considered short-term observations (since ~13 years) there is considerable uncertainty in the conclusions. Climatology observations require several decades to distinguish natural variability from climate trends.
The general assumption is that reduced snow cover and sea ice reflect less sunlight and therefore evaporation and transpiration increases, which in turn alters the pressure and temperature gradient of the polar vortex, causing it to weaken or collapse. This becomes apparent when the jet stream amplitude increases (meanders) over the northern hemisphere, causing Rossby waves to propagate farther to the south or north, which in turn transports warmer air to the north pole and polar air into lower latitudes. The jet stream amplitude increases with a weaker polar vortex, hence increases the chance for weather systems to become blocked. A recent blocking event emerged when a high-pressure over Greenland steered Hurricane Sandy into the New Jersey coast and the New York metropolitan area.[20]

You wonder how a venomous buffoon like El Rushbo doesn't get his porcine balloon popped when he engages in these kinds of inventions and falsehoods. Then he runs to the you caught me, I was only kidding card, can't you liberals take a joke? The problem is how easy it is for him to hornswaggle the average Fox/Limbaugh listener.

I was reading today's transcript and he came up with this one. Can he really be this stupid or is he merely relying on the stupidity of others?

There are two rescue ships stuck in the ice in Antarctica. Why don't they ever try to get the jet stream to come from the South Pole? You know, it's summer down there now. Why not get the jet stream down there to counter the jet stream from the North Pole. I mean, if we're doing something to cause the jet stream to slow down, let's speed the one up from Antarctica.

Family Triangles

We had an amazing meal this weekend with two other couples at a private residence. One of our dinner mates functions as some sort of executive psychologist and has a roster of very important companies that he counsels. Bob is really good at what he does and possesses a very kind soul. An italian mensch.

Because these were a group of very intimate friends, the conversation wandered over somehow to the delicate area of childhood. My own view has always been that most adults were formed before the age of seven and that most of us are not much more than a big bucket of assorted wounds and neurosis. I've always been a pessimistic, glass half empty kind of guy.

We started talking to Bob about his work in the field and he introduced Leslie and I to the work of Paul Brenner, one of his mentors. Brenner is an ob/gyn who went on to the field of oncology. At some point he earned a Phd in psychology. He now works as a psychosocial oncologist where he sees patients and he also runs cancer, caregiver and grief support groups. The man is on to something big.

Brenner has written the books Health is a Question of Balance, Seeing Your Life Through New Eyes, and Buddha in the Waiting Room.  He has developed an educational process that he calls family triangles. By the way, Brenner also has a blog, one which I have not had adequate time to explore.

Bob suggested that we run through a short exercise with family triangles. You list some positive attributes regarding each of your parents that were valid when you were between the ages of two and twelve. Then you write down the personal needs that your parents left unmet during that period. Bob, in a deft cerebral sleight of hand, showed us how some of our own inner traits were actually formed as coping mechanisms to offset our parents influence. And introduced us to the concept of finding a way to utilize these coping skills in order to understand and modify our behavior. Because the same skills that helped us to survive in childhood can also create their own set of problems.

I have to say that this was one of the most powerful sessions I have ever been part of and the other participant was equally affected. Bob helped us seize on some things that are near impossible for a bearer to identify. We do not typically sit around and dwell on these sorts of pursuits, and I can see how I open myself up to ridicule by even attempting to discuss it. Yet it was a powerful tool that helped me identify some of my own heretofore unrecognized behavior patterns and I really am glad that Bob worked with us.

I see no need to fully illustrate my epiphany or catalogue my newfound inner failures for you. We can talk in person. In any case, I am really looking forward to reading the Seeing your life through new eyes book soon. I want to thank Bob for the session. It seriously opens up a whole new zone of exploration.

Two Trains Running

Let's stroll

Border trouble

The United Nations Refugee somebody or other  is plenty sore with Israel. Apparently about fifty five thousand Eritreans and Sudanese have snuck into the country illegally and the hosts aren't really happy about the situation.

Now there is something different about asking for asylum and demanding asylum. Definitely a difference in tone. The Israelis seem to think that these people are simply looking for better economic conditions and not really political prisoners or what have you. But the U.N. is sticking its nose in. The U.N. has never been exactly fair minded in any matter concerning Israel.

For instance during the 61st session. the year of the Sudanese genocide in Darfur, there were twenty two resolutions condemning Israel but not a single mention or censure of Sudan. I have previously mentioned the uneven behavior of UNESCO regarding the Israelis on the blast. In 1975 the General Assembly adopted the famous Zionism is Racism resolution. If there is one thing that the Europeans are good at, it is waving a chiding finger in Israel's face. These are the emissaries of good, you see. Ultimate do gooders usually too stupid to see that they are being manipulated, or maybe they frankly don't care.

Leaving all those factoids aside, good Israel, bad Israel, I don't particularly care, that's for you to sort out if you want to, isn't it rich that all of these black and often muslim refugees want to settle in the land of the Zionist, apartheid oppressor? How bad is the Zionist, apartheid oppressor anyway? And why don't africans trust other africans? They must think that they will get a squarer deal in Israel.

But Israel is sweetening the pot. Every refugee that gets sent back to the home country gets about $1500, a real payday for these people. Extortion really. We won't leave your hotel until you pay us. But some people are apparently never happy.

The representative for the U.N. refugee agency in Israel, Walpurga Englbrecht, criticized Israel's policy in a statement Sunday. She highlighted a new detention facility in Israel's southern desert that she said appears to operate as a place from which "there is no release."

Hey, Walpurgisnacht, I got an idea. Tell them to stay home. This isn't Phoenix, the Israelis are pretty serious about keeping tabs who gets in or out and this group may not be the winning demographic. You got over twenty african countries, a ton of other islamic countries that should be happy as hell to help their brethren. Where are they? Why do these people want to throw their lot in with the yids? Its like dogs wanting to sleep with cats, very unnatural. Or is this some trojan horse gambit? And how many restaurant jobs are open for these people to fill on Dizengoff? Here is some more info on the recent demonstrations from Al Jazeera.

Human rights groups say more than 300 people have been arrested since a new law, passed by Israel's parliament three weeks ago, allows authorities to detain migrants without valid visas indefinitely.
Mickey Rosenfeld, a police spokesperson, told Al Jazeera that most of the demonstrators at Sunday’s rally were asylum seekers from Africa who wanted to stay in the country.
"There are thousands of people assembling in central Tel Aviv, and they are mostly Africans who are requesting to stay in the country," Rosenfeld said.
Asylum seekers chanting "we are all refugees" and "yes to freedom, no to prison," were joined by Israeli rights activists during the march.
"We have fled persecution, dictatorships, civil wars and genocides," Dawud, an Eritrean asylum-seeker at the protest, told Agence France-Presse. "The Israeli government must study our requests for asylum and treat us like human beings," Dawud added, declining to give his full name.
He said that demonstrators intended to head for the United Nations refugee agency's (UNHCR) Tel Aviv office and foreign embassies in the coastal city.
"Instead of considering us refugees, Israel treats us like criminals," Dawud said.

You hopped the fence, Dawud. That's illegal.

Shakey Town

Borrego mud caves

Heidi sent these nice shots from an area near Borrego called the mud caves that I know nothing about.

Thai String Ceremony

My friend Michael has a thai wife and a child. They commute back and forth between Thailand and the Bay Area. Michael makes jewelry in Thailand and they were working on their new line this week.

He sent me some wonderful pictures of a buddhist celebration of some kind he attended at a thai farmhouse. I believe the remote setting is near his wife's village.

The monks are served by men as they can not be touched by women.

The thai men mostly hang out by themselves and drink rice whiskey. Look like nice chaps.

At some point in time I believe that there was music and dance.

Ouch.

Afterwards the monks offered blessings with some sort of string ceremony.

Thank you for sharing these, Michael!

This boy, thas boy

Sporting Life

It was quite the day yesterday in San Diego sports. I was helping a friend move his paintings out of a gallery in La Jolla in the morning and listened to the Charger Bengal playoff game on the radio. The underdog Chargers managed to dominate in their win. Given no chance by the oddsmakers, good for them. Next up is Broncos, a team that they split with this season. Don't know how far they will go, their secondary is pretty miserable.

Skyler swats

Afterwards I watched the San Diego Aztecs beat the Kansas Jayhawks at my friend Seymour's house. I watched the game at Seymour's, they played at Allen Fieldhouse, a place they lose at maybe once a decade.

I am an SDSU alumni and have season tickets and this is the biggest win in memory. In what was supposed to have been a rebuilding year, the team is 12 and 1 and plays the best defense in the country. When I look at Coach Steve Fischer I see John Wooden, I really do.

Next year should be really unbelievable as they get heralded recruits Malik Pope and Zylan Cheatham, Kell and Sabo. But this year is long from over and their ranking just moved up to number thirteen in the nation, eight points up from last week.

Spencer had a big day yesterday but I think the unsung hero is Josh Davis, just a rebounding fool.

These guys have this great vibe around them. Rode into Lawrence liked the magnificent seven, cool gunslingers in their black uniforms.

There is a major Big 10, 12 and east coast bias in college sports and nowhere worse than NCAA basketball. The UConns and Syracuse's and Kansas. They forget that we have a few people out here that can play a little bit as well. Like Arizona, the only team to beat the Aztecs this year. They are really great, just drilled us.

Nice of the Aztecs to get on television and show the nation their stuff. Like the Chargers, a little under the radar. might sneak up on somebody.

After the game I was listening to Ted Leitner interview the shy Spencer and wasn't quite ready for what happened next. Ted's voice broke as he announced that Jerry Coleman, his long time radio partner and close friend had died.

Jerry Coleman started broadcasting in San Diego in 1972. I am biased but I loved the man, loved his humble yet knowledgable style, his easy going banter with Ted, Bob Chandler, back to Dave Campbell even. But mostly the easy going Jackie Gleason/Art Carney banter between he and Ted. Loved him better than Scully, all San Diego natives like me are taught to hate Los Angeles early. We have a little chip on our shoulder. But the guy was genuinely great. an even better person.

What did you do today Jerry? You would hear his dog walks and his wife and family and you would get such great stories, sometimes great old yankee stories. Told rather laconically, like you were sitting right up there next to them on an old rocking swing. Ted and Jerry had rhythm, the rhythm you can only develop after years together. Like dance partners. I'll lead, you lead.

Lieutenant Colonel Jerry Coleman was a Marine Fighter Pilot who made it through World War II and Korea, an endeavor that cost him a few years on the Yankees. A talented second baseman, an even better man.

I admit that I cried when I got the news, just like I cried when we lost Chet Forte. You listen to some people every day, with Jerry it was over forty years. Like losing a member of your family.

Hang a star on that baby. Jerry, you were the best.

Little Miss Can't Be Wrong

lil' darth

Citing serious unspecified "health problems", Wyoming Senatorial candidate Liz "lil' darth" Cheney has decided to quit her campaign and focus on her fledgeling career as a rap artist.

Cheney never really got traction in the state, had serious residency problems and made more than a few major gaffes, including one internecine squabble with her sister that might keep her off the Xmas card list for a while.

Let us hope that she enjoys even greater success as a rapper.

Lil Darth is dope-girl got the shizzle-good thing too-cause her senate run was a fizzle.

Wild Bill's Time Lapse

Genya Ravan

Leave of their senses

San Diego is an expensive place to live. While much of the country is ensconced in igloo like sub zero weather this week, our thermometers have been hovering around 80º.

Many people would like to live here but unfortunately can't afford to. Housing is expensive and water is scarce. But we have the weather, the ocean and a burgeoning biotech sector and everybody seemingly wants to live in paradise. This drives costs up.

During Bob Filner's ill fated reign, San Diego voted in a new affordable housing tax. I have been following the affordable housing debate from a distance and this particular tax seems at first and second glance both usurious and a really bad idea. Talk about killing the golden goose and alienating business and job providers. For some background read this piece in the U.T. by Roger Showley 12/26/13 Housing fee referendum drive starting.

The council voted Nov. 22 with its five Democrats in favor and four Republicans opposed to increase the affordable housing linkage fee. Also known as the "workforce housing offset" fee, it would increase to $5.32 per square foot, up from $1.06 for office buildings, with other rates applying to retail, hotel and other nonresidential development. The annual fee collection is projected to rise from less than $1 million raised this year to as much as $12 million -- enough to produce at least 100 new housing units, according to the San Diego Housing Commission.
Susan Tinsky, executive director of the San Diego Housing Federation, defended the fee increase, especially at holiday time when 125,000 San Diego workers living "at or below the federal poverty line."
"It is unfortunate that yet again we see in San Diego, special interests abusing the political process to overturn a democratic decision," Tinsky said in a statement.
She was referring to three referendum measures relating to the Barrio Logan community plan that will appear on the June 3 ballot as a result of a petition drive backed by shipyards and their suppliers. The council acted on that referendum drive earlier this month.
Tinsky said in an interview that the new housing fees represent a "very small percentage" of the cost of a new building.

I guess significance is all nested in the wallet of the beholder. It sounds to me that it is maybe Ms. Tinsky who is out of touch here.

Greg Stein, senior director of strategic and community affairs at Millennium Laboratories, a biotech firm in Rancho Bernardo, said his company faces a $270,000 housing charge for reconfiguring a 70,000-square-foot office building into a warehouse , and perhaps additional charges if the use changes to meet company needs. The company employs 750 people locally and 500 elsewhere.
"If Millennium assumes that tax will cost us about 10 jobs, then we're one company affecting one-tenth of the outcome the Housing Commission expects to get out of this tax," he said. "The bang for the buck isn't there." He disputed Tinsky's claim that the fee is a small portion of the budget for its new space: "It's not insignificant. We can't finance it -- it's bottom-line cash."He said his company and others might search for quarters beyond San Diego's city borders as a result, although he had not compared all development charges in neighboring Escondido and Poway."Millennium has a long history of supporting community needs," he said, "and we feel our most effective way of helping support and provide for those in need is to provide good jobs."

$270,000 fee for reconfiguring a warehouse? Hello? I have been a developer and believe me, these fees are absolute death. Qualcomm, one of our most important businesses and employers, is being hit with a similar brick; their planned expansion of 1.2 million square feet would have required a $960,000.00 permit fee under the old rates, now they are facing a nearly 5 million dollar hit. All this to provide a measly 100 new affordable housing units. We are going to drive these good companies out of California faster than you can say Sriracha.

I am all for working class rhetoric but Tinsky made a statement that cuts to the heart of things; "The question is what is the voter sentiment for June," she said. "With the Barrio Logan (measures), there's a really strong narrative around having two different referendums pitting the business community against working San Diegans."

Last I checked, Susan, the business community were working San Diegans too. Let's keep them working here. Time to get real.

Sour Suite

Friday Mail

Dave from Japan sent me this info on a new spherical camera.

I don't know if you've heard about this camera, but it sounds pretty cool. One of my students was involved with the team responsible for its creation
 and is bummed it's not available until later in Japan. No more missing a shot. I was surprised when he told me the price. I think it will take a while for 
 it to catch on, but for security cameras. sporting events, nature photography and the future video applications, it could definitely expand the possibilities of the playing field.
 Take care - Dave

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R sent a picture of cousin Terry's house on Long Island. Speaking of which, Buzzy says that it is like minus 32 with chill in Toronto today.

 Bill L sent this over. Don't blink.

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Jonathan forwards the interesting story of the Oculus Rift.

What the Oculus Rift is going to bring to the masses is the ability to do things because we can. "Impossible", "unsafe" or "ridiculous" will be the bywords of the lazy or the boring. There's no reason not to jump off a cliff, so we'll jump off cliffs. Gravity and physics say you can't ride an ant, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids-style, but who is going to listen to gravity and physics when you can ride an ant, preferably while wearing a loincloth and carrying an axe, with heavy-metal music in the background? How many times have you watched a nature documentary and wanted to kick a lion's jerk face while he's attacking a poor little dik-dik? Well, try it, and see what happens.

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WildBill who just had a birthday, recommends this movie.

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Shawn sends over a couple beauts from Thailand. Here and here. Somewhat predictable and shop until you drop. Been there.

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Thai raptor site from Ricardo.

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Kalaheo Ted sends these lovely shots over:

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

As the sun has set in 2013 for the last time... this pair of ducks coming in for a landing on the pond, were so tranquil and relaxed when they landed. To them it's just another day in paradise. 

The white cattle egrets and the rare Moore Hen zipped away from me as I snapped this quick shot of them fleeing in surprise. Made me jump! ha,ha... The Moore Hen makes a lot of noise like a New Year's horn.

And thanks to Patrick Cheung who took this photo of Hong Kong celebrating the new year with fireworks on the harbor crossing. This is a view from the hills of Kowloon, looking towards Hong Kong island. Awesome!

All the best to you and family for 2014.

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Jerry:

Christmas Eve afternoon at Swamis with Jason visiting
from the Big Eye.

Bob DeGoff sent this one over:

The guys at the barber shop asked me what actress I would like to be stuck in an elevator with.
I told them the one who knows how to fix elevators.
I'm old, tired, and pee a lot.

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Jasmine forwarded this, Peyote on the Brain, Is the Secret to Alcoholism and Other Addictions Locked Up in the Hallucinogenic Drugs?

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Keep those cards and letters coming folks!

THE BYRDS - This Wheel's On Fire (1968)

Godsmack

   This portrait looking down on Saturn and its rings was created from images obtained by NASA's Cassini spacecraft on Oct. 10, 2013. It was made by amateur image processor and Cassini fan Gordan Ugarkovic. This image has not been geometrically corrected for shifts in the spacecraft perspective and still has some camera artifacts.The mosaic was created from 12 image footprints with red, blue and green filters from Cassini's imaging science subsystem. Ugarkovic used full color sets for 11 of the footprints and red and blue images for one footprint.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and http://www.nasa.gov/cassini .
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute/G. Ugarkovic

I am sure that most everybody has seen or read about the new Pew findings on Americans' views on evolution and the apparent gap on this issue between Republicans and Democrats. People who identified as the former have became steadily more apt to deny evolution, to think that man has always existed in this present state. In fact the GOP numbers have dropped 11 points in the last four years, from 54% to 43% now denying that humans have evolved over time. People are really digging in.

"These beliefs differ strongly by religious group. White evangelical Protestants are particularly likely to believe that humans have existed in their present form since the beginning of time. Roughly two-thirds (64%) express this view, as do half of black Protestants (50%). By comparison, only 15% of white mainline Protestants share this opinion.
There also are sizable differences by party affiliation in beliefs about evolution, and the gap between Republicans and Democrats has grown. In 2009, 54% of Republicans and 64% of Democrats said humans have evolved over time, a difference of 10 percentage points. Today, 43% of Republicans and 67% of Democrats say humans have evolved, a 24-point gap."

Of course there are a significant number of dems in the anti science creationist camp as well. I am not letting them off the hook. I am not going to go over too much of the nuts and bolts of this whole tortured ground but did want to offer up a few things.

In November a GOP operative wrote an interesting piece giving a counterbalance to the republicans' anti science argument. Mischa Fischer says that more liberals believe in pseudosciences like astrology and the like and so we should cut the young earther repubs a little slack. The article, which ran in the Atlantic is titled The Republican Party Isn't Really the Anti-Science Party - Conservative conflict with science on evolution and global warming has been exaggerated—while liberals get a free pass for their own failings.

Rather long title but you get his point. I am not sure that there is the same partisan split for believing in the occult. Last pol I know who hit the news with astrology was Nancy Reagan and she was certainly no Democrat. Fischer says that it is in fact two to one, dems. Still a bit hard to conflate occasionally reading your horoscope and accepting that the entire fossil record is a satanic conspiracy.

Fischer also lambastes libs for being mean and not so scientific in regards to nuclear power and gmo's and maybe fracking. I think that he is basically full of shit but he probably thinks the same about me. I can give you plenty of scientific reasons to be wary of nuclear power, gmo's and fracking, he just doesn't want to listen. Stewart Brand be damned.

The best thing I have read on the subject is on the frontlines themselves, the comments section of Townhall. These people think that evolution and science are hoaxes and they aren't backing down. read as much as you can stand. For some people stupidity is a badge of honor. Or go back to the Conservative Bible Project thing I posted a few weeks back:

Jesus's recognition that the truth would remain hidden from arrogant "intellectuals" while simultaneously revealed to humbler, more openminded people. This foreshadowed the creation of theories to pull self-centered intellectual wannabees away from God, such as the Theory of Evolution, the Theory of Relativity, the homosexual agenda, the secular culture of abortion, Communism, and countless other liberal and atheistic ideas and ideologies. 

Pew survey results released in October showed that 46 percent of Republicans said there was "no solid evidence" the earth is warming; just 26 percent of Democrats shared that view. Relativity, global warming, evolution, gravity, all bad. Province of arrogant intellectuals. There is a great quote about god and reason in the Thomas Jefferson book.

Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.
Thomas Jefferson

And there is this article from David Graham at Atlantic today.

"One possibility is that respondents who identified as Republican and believed in evolution in 2009 are no longer identifying as Republicans. Fewer scientists, for example, are reportedly identifying with the GOP, and the overall trend is for fewer Americans to call themselves Republicans. But both Gallup and separate polling from Pew found approximately the same party ID in 2009 and 2013.
Another is that the rise of "intelligent design" education has helped to swing younger Americans against evolution. Yet the age breakdown remains similar in 2009 and 2013, with respondents ages 18 to 29 most likely to believe in evolution.
What does that leave? Maybe the gap represents an emotional response by Republicans to being out of power."

Are we not getting pulled back into the dark ages? Stand up for science and reason. God can take care of herself.

Stratus

Onward into the future

Time to get off this spacey stuff. My family is starting to worry. I am back to work today, the whole last month was such a timeout, if not a total waste, tomorrow is exactly one month since the shoulder surgery. Got to read and never get dressed all day some times and just totally checked out. Very nice thing to do once in a while if you can afford to.

With Christmas and New Years and the weekends and recuperation, I believe that this is the most unproductive month in memory. Which I have enjoyed although bill paying the next two months might prove to be a real feat of gymnastics. I think I can pull it off still, although another month might have proved impossible.

I really appreciate and want to publicly thank my Doctor, Mike Skyhar from Core Orthopaedics at Scripps Encinitas. A potential five month rehab became a very short stint due to his great care and extreme competence. Let me know if you want to watch the op video. Pretty calm until the fourteen minute mark, then all hell breaks loose when he starts boring into the tendon.

Anyway I am close to being back, about 70% from full mobility. I am working out with a great friend and personal trainer, John Colombero and simply feel really good.

Of course the person that deserves the most thanks is Leslie, who was awesome throughout, always there with everything I needed. and extra sweet to boot. Thank you, honey.

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We had a great New Years Eve with our pals at R & D's. The theme was New Orleans. R made muffalata sandwiches, a humongous prime rib and potatoes. I boiled crawdads and shrimp and whipped up an industrial strength batch of cocktail sauce. Leslie made her patented crabcakes. Bri brought along two delicious salads, one of which near brought me to my knees.

The accent mark offered a ton of stuff including a brie and these incredible super concentrated cherries from Vennissimo. Connie made the most scrumptious beignets which her wonderful husband Dixon expertly placed in his portable deep fryer and then dusted them with powdered sugar. Jerri brought party favors and champagne, not to mention Frank, who looked great and I think really enjoyed himself.

I think everybody brought champagne come to think of it. We also swigged a bottle of D's prized pinot noir, the Papapietro Perry of some fantastic vintage.

Afterwards we lit off some pyrotechnics I purchased the last time I drove through Bluewater in New Mexico that were beyond insane.

Love my friends, kind, considerate, smart and competent, to a person. Our New Years bash's tend to circulate to different houses every year, with one notable exception. I have to thank all our hosts and friends, all great people, not to mention cooks, except for moi, of course, who is merely kept around for cheap comic effect. The women were all beautiful and the men trés charming. R & D knocked themselves out, with food and flowers, the house was so beautiful. Love you guys. All of my peeps.

Here's a picture of the house.

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Earlier in the week we had dinner with Morgan and Brigitte and their friend Roz was in town. Delicious meal as well. We drank a bottle of my friend Ed Vivanco's ancestral rioja, Castle Vivanco from northern Spain. Soft and epic!

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So that's it. Hope that you enjoyed yourselves as well. good health to all, hope that our country and world can get its act together a little better.

Private Number

Killing Time

I was reading up on the concept of time the other day and was introduced to the concept of entrainment, a concept I found most interesting.

The eminent dutch philosopher, mathematician and scientist Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695) was one of the great fathers of horology. He invented the most accurate clock of his time, the pendulum clock, in 1656. Huygens noticed that when he had two pendulum clocks in proximity to each other that eventually they would synchronize their swings and tick at the same time. He called this phenomenon odd sympathy.

These coupled oscillations are what is now known as entrainment. Independent bodies that end up finding a synchronous frequency. Outstanding. The technical reason is this happens because energy is transferred between the two systems when they are out of phase and they produce negative feedback. They eventually assume a more stable phase relationship, and the amount of energy gradually reduces to zero. Ask and I will give you the hippie version later.

Other harmonic relationships are also possible besides total synchrony, they can be asymmetric, where the system with the greater frequency slows down, and the other speeds up, and they can also give rise to what is known as a "death state"where the clock finally stops. By the way, in Huygens's initial example the energy was found to have been transferred by the wooden mantle that the clocks were both sitting on.

Huygens discoveries regarding resonance are now used in many common modern applications, from hearing aids to pacemakers.