Mug 'n Bun Done

Ok did the Mug 'n Bun today. Indianapolis' "oldest and finest" drive in. The homemade root beer was tasty but way too sweet for my taste. Onion rings were very good and a single order was huge...more than two of us could eat. Burger was a throw away, nothing special about it. No way it will touch Rhea's burger at home in Roswell. Varied menu and some potentially interesting stuff. We ate outside at the covered picnic tables and not in the car but there were plenty of people who were. It was fun to see and it was a change of pace from the regular choices for lunch which are pretty slim on the south side of Indy. Another milestone in the quest for good road food.

Keep the Cheap Sunglasses Handy

This all may seem benign on the surface, just another way to control criminals with non lethal means. The research is being sponsored by the DHS. However, with this administration in charge I can see some serious capacity for abuse...just as the TASER is being abused by some police departments around the nation. Imagine how effective this might be in control anti-war crowds or protesters in general. This is from the Homeland Security Newsletter.

Its inventors call it the LED Incapacitator (L-E-D, as in light-emitting diode). Weapons buffs call it a nonlethal weapon. But test subjects who have buckled and reeled from its nauseating strobe call it other names—none printable.

[snip]

How does the LED Incapacitator incapacitate? By simultaneously overwhelming the subject both physiologically (temporarily blinding him) and psychophysically (disorienting him). A built-in rangefinder measures the distance to the nearest pair of eyeballs. Then, a “governor” sets the output and pulse train (a series of pulses and rests) to a level, frequency, and duration that are effective, but safe. The colors and pulses continuously change, leaving no time for the brain or eyes to adapt. After a few minutes, the effects wear off.

Pretty cool Huh? There are, however, several sentences in the article that might give one cause for some concern.

Output and size can easily be scaled up to fit the need; immobilizing a mob, for instance, might call for a wide-angle “bazooka” version.

Or how about:

“There’s one wavelength that gets everybody,” says Lieberman. “Vlad calls it the evil color.”

Just very interesting, that's all.

Written on an EtchaSketch

It's ugly and a perfect example of how completely incompetent this administration is. Today the Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson asked Congress for a little cover for the mismanagement.

The U.S. will hit its debt limit of nearly $9 trillion in early October, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson told Congress on Monday, and asked lawmakers to raise the limit "as soon as possible." The debt limit is currently $8.965 billion. In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., Paulson said a congressional decision to raise the limit would spare Treasury the need to take special actions that could create "unnecessary uncertainty" for financial markets.

Just add this little number to the pile of other "mismanagement" PostIt Notes that you have on the fridge. You know like war, privacy, conservation, environment, emergency relief, fiscal responsibility...all those. If you think that is bad dwell upon the following over your Cherrios in the morning. You know all the good news that Bush and company have been spouting over the last few years about how strong the economy is and well everyone is doing? Guess what? Big surprise....they have been pumping sunshine up your kilt on this as well. Not only are they lying about Iraq, homeland security, abstinence only birth control, environmental activism and everything else, they have lied about the GDP for the last 13 quarters. They just quietly revised downward the majority of the numbers for the last three years:

-------Old ----New
Q1-04 3.85% 2.96%
Q2-04 4.04% 3.48%
Q3-04 3.10% 3.60%
Q4-04 2.61% 2.55%
Q1-05 3.40% 3.07%
Q2-05 3.26% 2.81%
Q3-05 4.18% 4.46%
Q4-05 1.76% 1.19%
Q1-06 5.58% 4.82%
Q2-06 2.56% 2.44%
Q3-06 1.96% 1.07%
Q4-06 2.45% 2.09%
Q1-07 0.69% 0.60%
Q2-07 3.38%

Can't imagine how the most important measure of our economy was so off over the last few years. Can you? If you look that is 11 out of 13 revised downward. Tell me again how electing the Republicans and GW was going to bring "fiscal responsibility". We are so screwed!

Tip to Kos

Road Time

Updated below:

Dreary and overcast day here in Atlanta so it is just as well I have to travel. Off to the airport and Indianapolis is a few minutes. Had some trouble booking the hotel this week and discovered that there is an Indiana Farmers Convention in town for the first part of the week so it is probably going to be a little crazy. The Hilton did get me a room even though they said they were booked. My platinum status and the fact that I am a regular there probably helped. That's one thing about travel is that the more you do it you gain status with airlines, hotel chains and car rental companies...especially if you are loyal. I almost always get upgraded to first on Delta, regularly get upgraded to a suite at Hiltons for the same rate and almost always get an upgraded car with Hertz. They are all nice to me and I am loyal as a result.

So anyhow, off to Indy for the week and fun with farmers. See you folks later.

BTW saw "No Reservations" yesterday and it was cute, not Oscar material by any stretch but a nice little movie.

Update: Long trip to Indy....thunderstorms in Atlanta delayed our leaving for about an hour and a half so we got to sit on the plane at the gate for the whole time. Fortunately I was in first so I had some refreshment and a couple of tiny bags of peanuts to see me through.
I mentioned a farming convention above but I find out that there is also a big do at the speedway this weekend...The Toro sponsored riding lawnmower races. There are sunburned lawnmower racers and fans everywhere. Who knew?

Home Depot Likes the Hate

I haven't said much anything about this but I think it is about time I touched on it. Atlanta based Home Depot is now telling its customers that if you complain about BillOReilly.com's death threats against Hillary Clinton and suggestions of a terrorist attack against the US Capitol then you are hurting the environment. It is bad enough that Bob Nardelli ex CEO raised millions for Bush during the last couple of presidential elections while he took millions in golden parachute money out of the company while sending its value to hell now we see their corporate communication people actually attempting link complaining about their advertising to hurting the environment. What brass!

Here is the letter Home Depot is sending its customers:

Our advertising campaigns have one simple objective to communicate with audiences in the most effective way possible. The Company is receptive to many forms and styles of media as we seek a balanced representation of programming to reach our customer base. Unfortunately campaigns like this one cause us to take time away from our sustainability goals and address a variance of political views.

It is pretty pain. If you complain about Home Depot sponsoring Bill O'Reilly's hate, then YOU are hurting the environment because you're wasting their precious time.

If somebody in corporate communications doesn't get fired over this then there is something seriously wrong. It is interesting to note that their major competitor Lowe's was notified about the hate and death threats on O'Reilly's web site they immediately pulled their advertising. Home Depot is convenient for me as it is just around the corner and Lowe's is probably 5 miles further across town. Looks like we have a decision to make.

You can follow this whole ugly episode at Kos and Americablog.

Liquid Sunshine

As we used to call it in Hawaii the liquid sunshine is falling in Atlanta this morning. Nice but damp trip the the farmer's market where we scored a beautiful aubergine( I know it is an egg plant but I prefer the French) from the little Vietnamese guy who always has something interesting. We also got what he says is an Chinese Cucumber(Pickling Melon) which will be interesting tonight with the Eggplant Parmigiana. I am now at the point with fresh tomatoes from my few plants that I will make the marinara from fresh tomatoes because they are actually starting to get ahead of my ability to eat them fresh. We had the first "Granny Cantrell" last night and it was lovely. It must be a cousin the Beefsteak tomato only it is a little pinkish on the outside.

Got my walk in this morning just as it started to sprinkle and it was really nice in the light rain. Walking in a warm rain is one of the true joys of summer and too often here in the South we only get rain in the summer accompanied by lightning which is not conducive to a nice stroll.

Madam is talking movie this afternoon so that is probably in the offing and then a little cooking. I have a sponge made that will make a lovely and crusty loaf of fresh bread to go with the aubergine. You have to have something to soak up all of that fresh tomato sauce!

Everybody have a great weekend and we'll check in again. Flying to Indianapolis tomorrow afternoon for the week so it may be from the "heartland".

P.S. I read about a place in Indy that still makes homemade root beer in Saveur Magazine which I am going to try and find called the Mug 'n Bun. It is supposed to be somewhere near the Speedway and supposedly they still have car hops. Could be fun, especially if the homemade onion rings are as good as reported. This week I have a mission other than work which makes it more bearable. Full report later in the week.

Runs in the Family Evidently

Looks like GW isn't the first Bush intent on destroying the U.S. and overthrowing our Constitution. Back in 1933 old Prescott. GW's grandpa and his big corporate buddies tried to do us in. It's from the BBC so you know it is factual, right?

The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America, (owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell Hse & George Bush’s Grandfather, Prescott) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression.

Mike Thomson investigates why so little is known about this biggest ever peacetime threat to American democracy.

We have been warned and warned about letting big business and government mix. There is a reason it is not a good idea. The interests of the corporation and those of the citizens are opposed.

Passing Gas

This is kind of interesting. If this is true and pans out we could have a viable replacement for fuels like liquefied coal and ethanol that won't pollute.

Three Welsh inventors are touting their Greenbox system that would replace car exhaust systems with an emissions capture system. It uses algae to absorb the emitted gases and hold them inertly so that the boxes can be easily transported for centralised processing of the car wastes.

The three [...] have set up a company called Maes Anturio Limited, which translates from Welsh as Field Adventure.

Through a chemical reaction, the captured gases from the box would be fed to algae, which would then be crushed to produce a bio-oil. This extract can be converted to produce a biodiesel almost identical to normal diesel.

This biodiesel can be fed back into a diesel engine, the emptied Greenbox can be affixed to the car and the cycle can begin again.

The process also yields methane gas and fertiliser, both of which can be captured separately. The algae required to capture all of Britain’s auto emissions would take up around 400 hectares.

hat tip to Wadard at the Global Warming Watch

On the Level

OK that was a job but as you can see the left and right drive gates meet as they should in the middle. The job turned out "easier" than I thought since it dawned on me that we just reused the post hole on the right gate post and didn't concrete it in. I was able to detach the rails with the pickets on the right side and work the post loose and out. Added two inches of gravel to the bottom of the hole and reset the post. After reattaching the rails and pickets we were gold. I did have to dismount the right gate and trim 3/8 inch off the edge so the gates would close but that is just fine tuning in my book.

The job took much longer that any of us anticipated but things seem to go a little slower as you get older. Let's hope this fence lasts the same 25 years as the last. next will be the 25 year old deck. Madam and I did it ourselves 25 years ago but I am not sure we have that much spit left. It may be a contractor this time.

Almost Heaven

Fresh homegrown tomato so perfectly ripe it is ready to burst.
Freshly made whole wheat bread.
Mayonnaise.
Fleur de Sel.
Freshly cracked black pepper.
A leaf or two of homegrown basil.
Lift and eat fast before it drips down your chin.
Let's have another!

Justifiable Hatred for Us

As I said in an earlier post I was busy over the weekend and yesterday so I really didn’t get any time to cruise around my favorite blogs until last night. I discovered that I had missed a terrific but emotional discussion on Firedoglake on Sunday night, where an Iraqi medical relief worker who cares for war orphans, Dr. Maryam, told us very bluntly what we didn't want to hear:

Stop telling lies to yourself American. We know that your racist brutal murdering war criminal troops came from your society and reflect its values. We know that because we see how they behave and have to bury their victims. If you are stupid enough to think we feel anything but hatred and contempt for your soldiers and the country that sent them to make war on my people then you are a fool.

As to Saddam bad though he was your country is far worse.

And then there was this:

Irak is a better transliteration. The quote you are referring to is this:

“The only thing these sand niggers understand is force and I’m about to introduce them to it.”

And is from a senior American officer. It is a perfect example of how your troops regard us. Which is why we highlight it.

Dr. Maryam has been in the middle of our created hell since 1991 when the first American bombings began. She has and is seeing the effects of depleted uranium weapons on the children of her country. She has seen first hand some of the estimated 1.5 million Iraqi deaths this occupation as caused and it creates comments like this:

As I am an Iraki and as my job is to treat children maimed and deformed by the weapons your country uses and then prevented me from getting the medicines used to treat those cancers you will forgive me if I tell you that you too are telling lies to yourself. What we know is that when it comes murdering Iraki civilians that there is no difference between the cynical and corrupt party called the Democrats and the cynical and corrupt party called the Republicans. Both are infected with the belief that America has the right to behave as it wishes especially when the people being killed are not white.

Our woefully misguided and criminal leadership has placed our military an absolutely untenable position. Because of our actions we have reduced a whole country that while not the garden spot of the world, was at least reasonably peaceful and civilized. Iraq, before our arrival, was a place where people could go to work each day without fear of being bombed or shot and it was a place where children went to school and grew up to be doctors and scientists and good business people. It was a country with basic services like electricity, water, hospitals and sufficient food. We have created a country today that suffers daily from a violent and brutal civil war where there are multiple bombings, rocket attacks and random murders. Not only have we created this hell hole on earth but we are keeping our soldiers there caught in the middle when every poll of Iraqis tells us that they don’t want us there. Add to this farce the fact that the majority of the American people want our troops home now and yet Bush increases our presence, and does it by sending in incompletely trained troops and troops on short rotation.

Why are we surprised in this situation that a few otherwise sane people are losing it? They are being deployed over and over again into an impossible situation to try to “win” something that is not even being defined by the people sending them there. It’s a miracle that so many of them are able to keep their sanity at all. We are far beyond the point where appeals to honor and duty will turn the tide and soothe their conscience. How hollow do such appeals sound when issued by the likes of Bush and Cheney…men without a shred of honor or sense of duty?

Not only do we need to get out of Iraq for myriad moral and national security reasons but for what has been done in our name as Americans. It is criminal on every level you can imagine. This misbegotten imperialistic adventure is very rapidly destroying the hairspring constitutional balance that has kept us (though not always) from abusing our position of power and acting on our baser instincts. The same idiots that got us into this mess are making noises about Iran!

As we look into the mirror so effectively held up before us by Dr. Maryam we should make a bargain with ourselves to make every effort to eliminate from public discourse the concept that we as Americans, or any other country for that matter, have the right to use force to tell another people what to do with their lives especially while wrapping it in the lies of bringing them “democracy” and “liberty”.

We, as Americans, are complicit in the tragedy that is Iraq and each of us needs to ask ourselves what more we could have done to stop this blundering tragedy. We need to remember as we go along each day with our regular tasks what is being done in our name and for which we will forever more be held to account. None of us can use the excuse that the media is shielding us from the truth and we didn't know...the truth is, it is too unpleasant to know, but we do know.

For every day that we hesitate to hold our elected representatives accountable and allow them to "chicken dance" around doing what is required to end this tragic occupation more people suffer and more people die. Our failure to effect change means more children for Dr. Maryam's hospital and more carnage to fuel her fully justified hate of America and Americans.

Just What the Founders Feared

Pretty much everyone in America agrees on one thing and that is that we are in sad shape. As a matter of fact pretty much everyone in the world feels the same way. Unfortunate as it is, we appear to be stuck with the miserable failure for a while longer and the fact that only about a quarter of the population approves of either Bush or the direction of the country is surely material.

The nation is heading toward a constitutional showdown over the Iraq war. Congress is moving closer to passing a bill to limit or end the war, but President Bush insists Congress doesn't have the power to do it. "I don’t think Congress ought to be running the war," he said at a recent press conference. "I think they ought to be funding the troops." He added magnanimously: "I’m certainly interested in their opinion."

Isn't it nice that Bush would stoop to allow others their an opinion regardless of whether he would ever be compelled to act on anything not mandated by Dick Cheney.

While I am usually disgusted by the coverage of Bush and Cheney in the MSM I was happily surprised by an editorial by Adam Cohen in Monday's NY Times . The title of the editorial is "Just What the Founders Feared: An Imperial President Goes To War". It is a very refreshing thing to read in the 'paper of record'. (free registration required)

But the danger of an imperial presidency is particularly great when a president takes the nation to war, something the founders understood well. In the looming showdown, the founders and the Constitution are firmly on Congress’s side.

This is the kind of writing we should have been seeing all the while. The tenor of the Time's opinion is quite striking and there are no punches pulled. I actually read the article twice, it was such a pleasure and if you haven't I am sure you will find it so as well.

Members of Congress should not be intimidated into thinking that they are overstepping their constitutional bounds. If the founders were looking on now, it is not Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi who would strike them as out of line, but George W. Bush, who would seem less like a president than a king.

If, as they say, the pen is mightier than this sword, then a few more articles like this might change a few additional minds in the Senate and we can begin to dismantle this imperial presidency.

They Have a Plan

Every time I think the current misadministration has reach the pinnacle of "fuck you America" they manage to top it. Consider that the White House has come up with a plan to insure continuation of government in the event of a disaster that affects the normal malfunctioning in Washington but they won't tell anybody what the plan is. That's weird as hell!
What can possibly be so secret in this plan that it can't be shared with members of Congress that are on the Homeland Security Committee?

As a member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, DeFazio, D-Ore., is permitted to enter a secure "bubbleroom'' in the Capitol and examine classified material. So he asked the White House to see the secret documents.

On Wednesday, DeFazio got his answer: DENIED.

"I just can't believe they're going to deny a member of Congress the right of reviewing how they plan to conduct the government of the United States after a significant terrorist attack,'' DeFazio said.

What kind of plan from hell have Bush and Cheney come up with that they don't want known? Even spookier to consider is what we can do about it. What if the plan is unconstitutional? Is there something we can do? Is the White House is above the law in this matter? The real question is what will the Congress do about it. Do they have more hearings or do they actually do something?

How Deep the Well?

You frequent visitors may have noticed that I have not recently dwelt upon the sordid world of Iraq, Bush and Cheney. There is a reason beyond being frightfully busy. Long before we invaded Iraq and even long before Bush was not elected the first time I have been pouring emotion into the political scene. I didn't start this blog until '04 but I was dumping energy into what was going on long before 2000.
I came to realize a few days ago that I was having an "energy crisis" of sorts. I feel just as strongly about what needs to happen in America to put us back on track that I always have. I feel even more strongly today than I did 5 years ago about the tragedy of Iraq. I am an order of magnitude more committed to doing what I can to mitigate global warming through personal action. I just seem to feel that I have been pushing the weight uphill for so long that I just want to throw a couple of chocks under the wheels and take a break. That's bad.
It's bad on several levels but mostly because I have no excuse to step aside for a few breaths. I am not bloodied nor arrested. I am not shackled and tortured and I should be redoubling my efforts to add my voice to the growing chorus of "No, we have had enough!". You don't give up when the tide has turned and it surely has. I truly believe the worst of the worst are at their end game and know it. Why else the self destructive obstruction in the Senate? Why else the open defiance of Congressional subpoenas? Why else the moving goal posts for critical appraisal of the Iraq "surge".
Well, enough of that! I am still here and know what needs to be done. Let's just say I had to reload and leave it at that.

All Fenced In

Sorry for the relative quiet around here but daughter and son in law volunteered to replace the 25 year old cedar picket fence on both sides of the house this weekend. The rest of the back yard is chain link but Madam required the part that faced the street to be cedar picket. So that is what we have been doing for the last two days. We had planned to do it all in one day but getting the old fence posts out of the ground proved a bigger job than planned. Anyhow, we got everything but the pickets and the drive gate done yesterday. The daughter took a couple of hours off today and we finished all of the pickets and she returned to work leaving yours truly the drive gate.

I constructed the two drive gates and put all the pickets on and then proceeded to mount them. No problem mounting them... it is just that they don't meet in the center by about an inch and a half. In other words one side of the fence is higher by an inch and a half than the one on the other side of the drive. Bummer! It is going to take some creative carpentry to solve this one.

Monkette is not going to be happy!

Fungus Amongus

The local historical society is doing surveys of all the old cemeteries here in Roswell and yesterday madam called me down to the old Methodist cemetery where they were working. She said I wouldn't believe the variety of mushrooms that were growing in and around the tombstones. I grabbed the camera and she was right. I spent a couple of hours and took over a hundred pictures of the different types that were present. The rain over the last week must have been the trigger for the explosion.
The top one is Ceasar's Amanita I think and is edible. However it is very similar to the Fly Amanita which is poisonous and I am not an expert. They are pretty though. Next down I think is a Strangulated Amanitopsis which is also supposed to be edible...again I am not expert enough to try it. Next down is what I think is another Amanita called the Blusher which is also supposed be very edible. Thing is the Amanita family is also the family of the Destroying Angel and the Death Cap which are the cause of about 90% of all mushroom poisonings and it is probably wise to avoid all the members of the clan. Finally, at the bottom is an unknown but very pretty little fellow. This is only a very small sample of the variety of fungi present. I was amazing.

TGIF and More

Whew....what a week. You'll notice the dearth of posts here and the lack of late night ones especially. Started up a new client this week and this always begins with 1 day of high level training and then we start the business definition where we figure out how they want to use our product and how and where we are going to get the data we need to do our job and what we are going to do with the output. This is typically sitting in a conference room with the business and database people and chasing down data fields in multiple databases that we have decided we need. Very exciting stuff. The typical business definition is anywhere from 3 to 6 weeks of this. We did the entire thing in one week for this client. Granted they are not using all of the functionality in the product but it was still a beast of a job. One big help in this client's case was that virtually all of the data we need is in a single data warehouse which was very nice.

Anyhow, now we go away and write up the results into a project definition and then go back to the client in a week or so and get it signed off. Once that happens we can actually start the real work. Next week should be a little slacker( I won't have to roll out of bed at 5am and get dressed and commute to the client everyday) so things should be a little more normal around here.

Firefox Weirdness

Had another episode of Firefox Weirdness this afternoon and the only solution was to create a new profile again. It was the same problem I had a few months ago where Firefox would just freeze or hang and after a few seconds come back. I noticed that during these freezes the firefox icon would disappear from the task bar and then reappear a few seconds later. This was really frustrating when you were trying to type in a comment box and the letters you type would not appear and then all of a sudden you get a whole sentence squirting out.

Fortunately creating a new profile is quite easy the key though is to save all of your settings before you do. All of the user data is conveniently stored in the Mozilla folder in the application data folder of your documents and settings folder.

At minimum you need to save your bookmarks.html, cookies.txt, history.dat, hostperm.1, key3.db, signons2.txt files. There is detail on this in the Mozilla knowledge base with all the details and why this file and not that one. Make a copy of these files from the profile that is currently in use and put them in a temp directory. Close down Firefox completely and run Firefox from the command line with a -P or -Profilemanager switch and create the new profile and then exit. Go back to the profile directory and find the new profile folder and copy your saved files into it and then you can restart firefox and you should be right where you left off except that you will have to add any extensions like the Google tool bar that you were using.

Seems I am having to do this every few months to get rid of the weirdness.

HE Gassed His Own People

Bush used the excuse of Saddam gassing his own people as one of the reasons he was such a bad man and just had to be removed. How does it feel George to know that the same reason can now be used to justify your removal from office?

From the Washington Post(registration required)

The Federal Emergency Management Agency since early 2006 has suppressed warnings from its own field workers about health problems experienced by hurricane victims living in government-provided trailers with levels of a toxic chemical 75 times the recommended maximum for U.S. workers, congressional lawmakers said yesterday.

A trail of e-mails obtained by investigators shows that the agency's lawyers rejected a proposal for systematic testing of the levels of potentially cancer-causing formaldehyde gas in the trailers, out of concern that the agency would be legally liable for any hazards or health problems. As many as 120,000 families displaced by hurricanes Katrina and Rita lived in the suspect trailers, and hundreds have complained of ill effects.

I personally think someone needs to be held criminally liable for this and I think Bush and Chertoff should be at the head of the list.

They Called Us Nuts

Take a look at this from Live Science - "Organic farming is often regarded as inefficient. But according to a new study, it could yield up to three times as much food as other methods that have come to be considered conventional."

"If farming were to switch to organic agriculture on the current amount of land that is being used for farming and livestock production, then that system could produce enough calories to feed the world without requiring people to change their dietary habits," said study team member Catherine Badgley, a research scientist at the Museum of Paleontology, University of Michigan.

Badgley and her colleagues admit that organic farming is labor intensive. But their review of yield data for the past 30 years on different agricultural methods found that in developed nations, yields were almost equal from organic and conventional farms. Developing countries—where farmers may not have access to expensive fertilizers—could almost triple their yield by using organic methods without putting extra farmland into production.

I have tried to be an organic gardener since the seventies and in the early years all of us were considered nuts for thinking that it was serious to consider it viable on a large scale. So there!