Rusted Sky

Sitting while waiting for the little guy's orthodontist appt. to be over, I paged through a back issue of National Geographic. I used to love that magazine, pored over back issues (from the '30s on) that various aunts and uncles had, and learned quite a bit about this and that and other things. Got a subscription in the '90s - and gradually came to realize that the informative magazine I'd enjoyed for so long had turned into more of an ecological advocacy journal than a science, cultural, and geographic information source. Seriously, it was starting to become the "EcoDisaster Centerfold of the Month" journal. If it wasn't a photoshoot on the ship breakers of India, there were spreads on the horrible things our industrial infrastructure was doing to the environment, no matter how benign it may seem. I swear, they could take a simple parking lot and turn it into Dante's Ecological Inferno.

Scientific American has also, to my mind, jumped the shark on ecological issues. Their refusal to do a solid anaylsis of the actual science behind global warming led a long time back to my dropping my subscription (though I occasionally buy an issue because of their hard science reporting, which costs more than a subscription per year, but that's as may be) and I see no reason to renew it soon. (Too many other sources for scientific reportage on the web.)

But I was reading (as I said) a copy yesterday that was focused on water. They went quickly from reasonable scientific reporting to glurge-filled stuff that was designed (or so it seemed) to make you feel guilty every time you turn on the tap.

Yes, I understand that there's plenty of places that don't have clean, plentiful water.

Yes, I understand that there's lots of people who spend most of their day trying to get water for their families, having to walk miles to get nasty water out of a little seep in the ground.

Yes, I understand there's plenty of failed governments that can't provide clean water for their people.

Yes, I understand that where someone in a failed state may have to get by on two gallons of water a day for cooking, we in the civilized world WASTE a hundred gallons or more a day.

Yes, I understand you're beating me over the head with a club so I'll feel guilty about how much water I use, and not use so much. Or maybe be receptive when hit up for money to provide water and sanitation for people in countries so poorly managed that even their governmental looters can't make a decent living.

Yes, I understand AGAIN why I dropped my National Geographic subscription.

I put the magazine back on the pile and thought about it for a time.

How much water I use - or don't use - has no effect on the water supply for someone in Africa. I could turn the backyard into a water park (which the mosquitoes would undoubtedly love, as well as the little guy) and have no effect on some poor woman who has to walk ten miles to get water. (Wouldn't do much for the water bill, though. Actually, it'd do a LOT for it, and not in a way my bank account would appreciate.)

Water, except in times of drought - a condition that's perrennial in Africa - is a commodity that's constantly being renewed. What you flush today will be back in a few months or years. In fact, that coffee or tea you had today? Or that Coke, or bottle of water? Julius Caeser's kidneys saw some of it, and so did the dinosaurs. Water's been circulating on the earth for a LONG time. Some is locked up in ice, some's in the oceans, but it all keeps going around...

As in so many things, the concept of a shortage of a commodity doesn't really apply - what's the problem is the distribution. It's an emotionally appealing argument that because someone can't get water, you should cut back when you've got plenty - but all the guilt in the world about the water you have isn't going to provide a drop of water where there isn't any.

J.

As a kid, I used to love comic books. Back then, of course, they were considerably less expensive - 12 cents for about 32-40 pages, with 80-page specials going for 25 cents.

The 2004 Eisner Awards :: Keynote Speech by Michael Chabon

All along, a key element—at times the central element—of this battle, has been the effort to alter not just the medium itself but the public perception of the medium. From Will Eisner insisting on the artistic credibility of comics in the Baltimore Sun in 1940, to the nuanced and scholarly work of recent comics theorists, both practitioners and critics have been arguing passionately on behalf of comics’ potential to please, in all the aesthetic richness of that term—the most sophisticated of readers.

The most sophisticated, that is, of adult readers. The adult reader of comic books has always been the holy grail, the promised land, the imagined lover who will greet us, at the end of the journey, with open arms, with acceptance, with approval.

A quest is often, among other things, an extended bout of inspired madness. Over the years this quest to break the chains of childish readership has resulted, like most bouts of inspired madness, in folly, and in stunning innovation. In the latter category we can put the work of Bernard Krigstein, say, or of Frank Miller. In the former we can put all the things that got Dr. Wertham so upset, the syringe-pierced eyeballs and human-organ baseball diamonds, the short lived slapping of certain Marvel titles in 1965 with a label that said “A Marvel Pop Art Production,” and all those tooth-gnashing, bloodletting quote-unquote heroes of the post Dark Knight-era.

An excess of desire to appear grown up is one of the defining characteristics of adolescence. But these follies were the inevitable missteps and overreachings in the course of a campaign that was, in the end, successful.

I didn't even bother opening it. It was one of a 6-issue miniseries, with tie-ins to other comics (most likely miniseries also.) So right offhand you're looking at $18 to get the set (if possible) and then the tieins... well, as Capital One says "What's in YOUR wallet?"

Other comics went from a low of $2.99 to $4.99. I just shook my head and walked away. Later on in the speech by Michael Chabon we have this...

"We also know that as the reputation, the ambition, the sophistication, and the literary and artistic merit of much of our best comics work has been steadily rising over the past couple of decades, comics readership, viewed in terms of sales and circulation, has pretty much been in freefall. More adults are reading better comics than ever before; but far fewer people overall. I know that a lot of us worry about that."

And the prices... no, they've pretty much gotten the demographic they wanted, the adult comics buyer who doesn't mind shelling out for complete runs of miniseries, tie-ins, one shots - and is focused on the artwork, and doesn't mind convoluted, intertwining story lines.

But that's a pretty limited demographic, and I can't help but feel their success at getting the adult demographic they wanted is going to be fatal to the classic comic book industry as a whole. (I'm not talking about manga - that's an entirely different kettle of fish.)

You get what you wanted - and find it's poison. That's the breaks...

J.

YouTube - 3000mph Crash - MD21 & D21

Ouch.

The D-21 drones were marvelous pieces of engineering - but at Mach 3 there's little to no time to recover from mistakes. From the comments, the drone's engine failed to ignite, and slammed back onto the carrier.

After that... well, it was quick, at least.

J.

Washington Post Co. looking to sell Newsweek

The Washington Post Co. is putting Newsweek up for sale in hopes that another owner can figure out how to stem losses at the 77-year-old weekly magazine.

The publishing industry has been struggling as businesses cut back on ad budgets during the recession. But Newsweek, along with Time magazine and U.S. News & World Report, faces a particular challenge finding a relevant niche in the age of up-to-the-second online news. Once handy digests of the week's events, they have been assailed by competitors on the Web that pump out a constant stream of news and commentary.

And as it's been made very clear, they've not been able to compete. If they confined themselves to REPORTING the news, then they might have been able to keep their readership. But they weren't being reporters, they were being journalists, pushing their point of view. Their subscription rate and readership's been declining - but they couldn't understand why. They KNEW they were putting out what their customers wanted - after all, THEY would read it!

So Newsweek goes down the tubes. But they'll likely remain ideologically pure - that's the important thing.

J.

IAEA chief focuses on Israel

VIENNA — The head of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency is asking for international input on an Arab-led push to have Israel join the Nonproliferation Treaty, in a move that adds to pressure on Jerusalem to disclose its unacknowledged nuclear arsenal.

Israel, in turn, is suggesting the push is misdirected and the IAEA should focus instead on giving teeth to the nuclear treaty to prevent signatories like Iran from acquiring such weapons.

A country which has nukes, but even under severe aggravation doesn't use them, instead reserving them for a time when their use will be a result of a fight for their national survival?

Or a country that, once it gets nukes, is insane enough to actually go ahead and use what they've got, at once, to destroy another country?

A long time back, I saw a saying about how if the other countries in the ME laid down their weapons and stopped attacking Israel, there would be no more war. If Israel laid down its weapons and stopped defending itself - there would be no more Israel.

I see no significant change to make me doubt the truth of the above.

It also makes me wonder - just who would be stupid enough to think that Israel would simply open up and disclose everything they have, and then dismantle it? Oh, wait - didn't we just disclose how many nukes the US has?

Sigh.

We're doomed. The inmates are in control of the asylum.

J.

Redline Overload - Repost - Sgt. Mom - Open Salon

Sometimes, it’s a real pain in the ass, knowing history – kind of like one of those lines of telepaths in Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Darkover novels, who could see all the possible futures, resulting from any deliberate or random action and usually went mad, from it – not daring to take any step at all, seeing all the millions of possible results.

Knowing history is a bit like that. You know what happened before – sometimes many times before - as a result of specific actions or inactions – and even though those baleful results didn’t happen every single damn time, the unfortunate and unlooked for results happened frequently enough to make you jumpy when you start seeing certain things happening one damn more time. And saying, between slightly gritted teeth “No, as a matter of fact, I am NOT paranoid – I just have good pattern recognition!” is of no particular comfort, or defense.

The rest of Sgt Mom's post deals with the reflexive thinking that's become emblematic of liberal thought. It's accepted as unquestionable writ that ALL conservatives get their opinions from Fox News, Glenn Beck, and Rush Limbaugh, never thinking about what they're listening to but simply accepting the (tea) party line unquestioningly.

After all, it doesn't matter how TRUE it is - what matters is the BELIEF - which allows them to completely disregard anything that doesn't come from THEIR properly vetted sources.

Maybe it's all part and parcel of tribalistic thinking - there's your 'tribe', and then there's everyone else. You trust your 'tribe'. You don't trust everyone who isn't of your tribe.

And that's going to be a real big problem...because history (as Sgt. Mom says) is pretty good at predicting what will happen when X+Y+Z are added together.

J.

Unlock 'em all, and the total's $45. Unlock one, and you get $5. Unlock three... uh....

Oh, heck - you do the math. Positive integers only, no fractions for good behavior.

J.

R.I.P. Frank Frazetta, The Artist Of Our Fantasies - io9

Sigh.

RIP.

J.

At Rosemont, Palin Knocks 'Hopey-Changey Thing' | NBC Chicago

Introduced to a video with a narrator that said "she's right here in Barack Obama's hometown," Palin stood before an American flag and took on Illinois and its native son.

"This 'hopey-changey' thing isn't what we bargained for," the former Vice-Presidential candidate told the supportive crowd, adding that she was "glad to be here on the president's home turf."

"I almost feel a little bit sorry for the president," she said. "They expected us to welcome the change. Come November we're going to show them just how grateful we are."

Which they're not going to get.

Simply put - I think the last 16 years have been wasted by the Republicans. After the 'Contract With America' was used to get control of Congress in '94, they basically turned into 'Democrats Lite - Only HALF the new spending!' When the existential threat of radical Islamists came crashing down on 9/11, they did a lot of the right things for a couple of years. But then they started feeling like the Democrats were co-opting the domestic issues narrative, and both got real quiet on the war issues (allowing the Dems to co-opt the narrative THERE) and figured they could buy votes with increased spending, all the while figuring if they just kept their heads low they could stay in power.

That plan fialed in 2006. It also failed in 2008. And now we're reaping the results of letting the Democrats have control.

And that's not working too well for me.

Obama's widely touted 'savings' for Obamacare will run about $150 billion over the next decade. In April, there was a DEFICIT for the month of $80 billion. Tax receipts are down. The economy's still in dire straits. The Republicans are fearful for their jobs - they know that there's a massive groundswell of people deeply dissatisfied with the 'status quo' of the old boy's network in Washington. We're already seeing multi-term incumbents being kicked to the curb in the primaries - I expect we'll be seeing a lot more of that.

So I'm not giving money to the Republicans (or the Democrats, for that matter) because they've forgotten two things.

#1. Their job is to run the country with a minimum of fuss and mess and bother to the rest of us, NOT to campaing continually for their own jobs by promising massive amounts of government money to all and sundry in an effort to buy votes.

And #2 - when they fail at #1, they MUST be fired. We cannot afford business as usual inside the beltway. Not any more - and never again. That's how we got to a $12-14 TRILLION dollar deficit at this point, with the promise of a LOT more of that to come. We're in hock up to our eyeballs, and the idiots think they can keep on spending because they've still got checks left.

They need to go. I don't care whether they're Dem or Repubs, they need to GO.

J.

Play Cursed Treasure: Don't Touch My Gems!, a free online game on Kongregate

Plus it has fire-roasted screaming crunchy ninjas. Toasty!

What's not to like?

J.

Who I dated for a while back in the day...

Once upon a time there was a tavern
Where we used to raise a glass or two
Remember how we laughed away the hours
And dreamed of all the great things we would do

Those were the days my friend
We thought they'd never end
We'd sing and dance forever and a day
We'd live the life we choose
We'd fight and never lose
For we were young and sure to have our way.
La la la la...
Those were the days, oh yes those were the days

Then the busy years went rushing by us
We lost our starry notions on the way
If by chance I'd see you in the tavern
We'd smile at one another and we'd say

Those were the days my friend
We thought they'd never end
We'd sing and dance forever and a day
We'd live the life we choose
We'd fight and never lose
For we were young and sure to have our way.
La la la la...
Those were the days, oh yes those were the days

Just tonight I stood before the tavern
Nothing seemed the way it used to be
In the glass I saw a strange reflection
Was that lonely woman really me

Those were the days my friend
We thought they'd never end
We'd sing and dance forever and a day
We'd live the life we choose
We'd fight and never lose
For we were young and sure to have our way.
La la la la...
Those were the days, oh yes those were the days

Through the door there came familiar laughter
I saw your face and heard you call my name
Oh my friend we're older but no wiser
For in our hearts the dreams are still the same

Those were the days my friend
We thought they'd never end
We'd sing and dance forever and a day
We'd live the life we choose
We'd fight and never lose
For we were young and sure to have our way...

Ah, Robin. I'll always remember you the way you looked the day you married Terry, and I walked you down the aisle.

Rest in peace.

J.

Watch the trailer for ABC's live-action version of The Incredibles - io9

The program is 'No Ordinary Family'.

Best lines in the trailer -

"You turned my garage into a...

"A lair."

"I have a lair?"

"With Wifi."

Matter of fact voice, no over-the top acting - just... wow. This one should be worth watching. We'll see if it goes anywhere - if they can maintain the sense of fun and humor that comes across in the trailer for a while.

A "Live Action Incredibles" - maybe. But at least it's not on FOX.

Any programs you're looking forward to in the fall season?

J.

Technology Review: New Inks Could Mean Cheaper OLED Screens

Organic light emitting diode, or OLED, displays seem to have it all: energy efficiency and a beautiful, crisp picture that refreshes rapidly. But it's difficult to make them on a large scale, so OLED televisions remain very expensive. Last week, DuPont Displays announced the development of a manufacturing process that the company says can be used to print large, high-performance OLED televisions at volumes that should bring down costs. Using a custom-made printer from Japanese manufacturer Dainippon Screen, DuPont says it can print a 50 inch-television in under two minutes, and testing of the displays shows their performance is reliable--the displays should last 15 years.

But hey - if they bring the price of a 50" down to about $500 - I could see swapping it out. We'll move the 42" to Mum's room, the TV there now to the little guy's room, and his TV to the library, and the library's to... No, we'll just replace the 25 year old set in our bedroom... No, I'll set the 42 up as a monitor... No, dedicate it to the XBox... no...

Ah, I'll figure it out when/if they become available.

But it makes me wonder - if it takes just a couple of minutes to make a 50" screen, with an associated drop in pricing, what's that going to do for the price of smaller monitors, like 24" LCDs? Are we about to see those drop into the sub $100 category?

Technology... gotta love it!

J.

Aerospikes (Henry Spencer; Ben Muniz; Jeff Greason)

Bussard buzz-bomb (Jordin Kare)

Bussard Ramjet (George Herbert; Henry Spencer)

Deep space nuclear bombardment force (Henry Spencer)

Analog computers (Henry Spencer)

Redoing Apollo today (Henry Spencer)

From Space which is a subset of the Yarchive which was found on Metafilter, and subsequently the object of a post on RustedSky.Net.

/self-referential linkages...

Enjoy! (And remember, go to sleep at a decent hour, okay?)

J.

Sorry for that.

J.

"Draw Mohammed Day" - my own little contribution -

Mohammed waiting for a train.

What? I'm no artist? Hell, I know THAT...

And just in case you don't want to play "Where's Mo?" in the above pic - here he is!

J.

Then you know their product descriptions are... interesting. Obvioulsy, they've got a lunatic that they occasionally brain-tap for the crazy, and just how strange WAS that lunatic?

Now you can find out.

The Hack Hustle: The Inspiring Story of the Slacker Behind the Woot-Off

But the real gold is in the descriptions of the items. This man writes them, God help his soul, and we enjoy.

You enjoy too.

J.

FOXNews.com - Top Official Says Feds May Not Process Illegals Referred From Arizona

A top Department of Homeland Security official reportedly said his agency will not necessarily process illegal immigrants referred to them by Arizona authorities.
John Morton, assistant secretary of homeland security for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, made the comment during a meeting on Wednesday with the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune, the newspaper reports.
"I don't think the Arizona law, or laws like it, are the solution," Morton told the newspaper.
The best way to reduce illegal immigration is through a comprehensive federal approach, he said, and not a patchwork of state laws.

What the real problem has always been a lack of will or funding to actually implement federal law in this regard, for whatever reason. But when a state actually goes ahead, makes a law that's a virtual copy of federal law, explicitly detailing how the law will NOT be allowed to use racial profiling to determine who is asked for proof of citizenship, and the feds go ballistic and not only refuse to even read the law much less admit there might be some validity to it - then all I can figure is that there's some really, really crazy people inside the Beltway who are trying very hard to ignore a big problem.

And you've got to wonder - just why? What's in it for them? Why won't they enforce the laws that are already on the books? Why are they objecting so strenuously to Arizona's laws? Why do they even refuse to READ the law?

Kind of makes you wonder how much the payoff is, doesn't it? After all, it IS the Chicago way!

J.

From Drudgereport.com, 9:55 PM, 24 May 2010.

Gold Rising; Speculators buying faster than producers can mine...

Sen. Gregg: Financial Reform Bill Is 'Disaster'...

US Plays Down European Crisis but China Worried...

Immelt: European economy 'teetering'...

PAPER: One false move could set off 'global chain reaction'...

Dow falls 80 points in final 15 mins of trading...

CLEAN UP CONFUSION: EPA ORDERS BP TO 'SCALE BACK' CHEMICALS

RASMUSSEN: OBAMA APPROVAL DROPS TO 44%...

Dem Freshmen Run Away...

And then there's this...

MASS GOV.: GOP opposition to Obama borders on 'sedition'...

Utah: Latest spring snow ever recorded...

Record low of 32 set at Spokane...

AZ gov uses puppet video to sell immigration law...

Kennedy Likens AZ Law to 'Slave Trade'...

Jindal waiting for 'federal permit' to build new barrier islands...

FLASH: NETWORKS BEGIN TO TURN ON OBAMA...
ABC 'WORLD NEWS' TAKES NEW 'CRITICAL' TONE...
CBS 'EVENING NEWS', HALF OF SHOW ON SPILL, AND WHAT ADMIN HASN'T DONE...
NBC: 'NO END IN SIGHT'

Now we're finding out just how much they DO know. And it's less than expected... go figure.

I look at what's going on, and I wonder if my feelings mirror those of a Roman citizen, looking at the equivalent of newspapers of the time and thinking it looked like the wheels were coming off of the civilization cart. It's worrisome to see all the fingerpointing and handwaving going on - and it seems this administration doesn't have a clue. Everything takes them by surprise, have you noticed?

I wonder if they'll be expecting the results in November?

J.

WHOI : Oceanus : While Oil Gently Seeps from the Seafloor

The funny thing that environmentalists don't seem to understand is that the world is constantly in flux. Sometimes the change is fast, sometimes it's slow, but it's always changing. The environmentalist view of the world seems to be like taking a snapshot of a certain area, and then fighting tooth and nail to make sure that the reality matches what's on the picture - to keep every microclimate as static as possible...

But the world just won't cooperate.

J.

gladwell dot com - blowup

Who can be blamed for a disaster like the
Challenger explosion, a decade ago? No one,
according to the new risk theorists, and
we'd better get used to it.

But I guess if you have too many chains... does the risk multiply, or do they go exponential? And does making the system TOO safe encourage pushing the limits on safety factors?

Interesting speculation, to be sure...

J.

'Top kill' halts flow of oil and gas, admiral says - chicagotribune.com

Reporting from Houma, La.Engineers have succeeded in stopping the flow of oil and gas into the Gulf of Mexico from a gushing BP well, the federal government's top oil spill commander, Adm. Thad Allen, said Thursday morning.

The so-called "top kill" effort, launched Wednesday afternoon by industry and government engineers in Houston, has pumped enough drilling fluid to block all oil and gas from the well, Allen said. The pressure from the well is very low, but persistent, he said.

J.

Then it's only a matter of time until the Progressives here in the US start calling for fiscal responsibility and government cutbacks.

We’re too broke to be this stupid - Mark Steyn, Opinion - Macleans.ca

Back in 2008, when I was fulminating against multiculturalism on a more or less weekly basis, a reader wrote to advise me to lighten up, on the grounds that “we’re rich enough to afford to be stupid.”
Two years later, we’re a lot less rich. In fact, many Western nations are, in any objective sense, insolvent. Hence last week’s column, on the EU’s decision to toss a trillion dollars into the great sucking maw of Greece’s public-sector kleptocracy. It no longer matters whether you’re intellectually in favour of European-style social democracy: simply as a practical matter, it’s unaffordable.

Rats.

J.

The little guy has decided he's tired of Scouting. I keep reminding him that he'll only get out of something what he puts into it, but he's been putting less and less in, so it's time to find something else.

Anyone have an opinion on the .: The Civil Air Patrol cadet program?

We've thought about other possibilities - he's not interested in sports (downright adverse to them, in fact) and church youth groups are a possibility. Karate - eh.

I don't want him to end up a recluse like I did in my teen years - it's darn hard to break out of that mold once you pour yourself into it, as comforting as it might be.

So - any thoughts? Suggestions?

J.

Hot Air » Study finds increased government spending results in unemployment

Don't color Veronique de Rugy shocked, shocked to find that government spending crowds out private investment, but the results of the new study by Harvard Business School will certainly shock some Keynesian academics and high-ranking government officials. Instead of providing a stimulating effect to the economy, government spending creates pressures on private industry to reduce staff and investment.

Isn't that odd?

J.

Zombie - The Stench of Elitism Hung Heavy in the Air

From Code Pink to One-World-Government supporters to Tea Party folk to libertarians - they turned out in the rain to protest side by side.

Wow. Obama IS a Uniter, not a Divider!

J.