Future Blogging

Spaceports under construction in the Land of Enchantment!

Nukular Fusion! Yes, let's let the Russians build the first one.

Clean Nukular Fission! Now with Thorium!

Robots from Microsoft!? Go ahead and insert your BSoD joke here. Really, 'cause you're the first to think of it. And, hey, everyone loves jokes from the Windows NT era. More here.

Liquid Body Armor! Via Ace. Way cool.

Anyone's guess if any of these will pan out. My predictions:

Bush in Vienna

Craig Winneker posts about gains in US/EU relations…getting better. But I thought everyone hated us?

A lot of Europeans may hate the war we're waging right now, and that's their right. But business is business and conducting it is everyone's right too.

Speaking of 2008

Howard Roark in Beijing? Well, not exactly.

Olympic stadium proposals. They picked number B11, which kinda looks like a bird's nest.

I don't know…I kinda liked B01. Not sure why, it just says something to me.

Better living thru artillery?

And I wonder, still I wonder, who'll stop the raaaiiinn?

Apparently, China can. And they plan to for the 2008 Olympics using ground based artillery, and airplanes, to seed clouds and make them rain before any precipitation falls on the Games.

Would it scare anyone besides me if our government had an Office of Weather Manipulation? I mean, here in Texas in the heat of summer, it might be nice to make it rain a little more often. But I'll take the heat to know that Mother Nature's not taking orders from Big Daddy Government.

Note to moonbats: Ain't no man-made global warming. The Hockey Stick is a lie. You cannot save the planet because it doesn't need saving. Get over yourself, take a shower, and get jobs if you want to better humanity.

Bad news and Good about the Bird Flu

Bad news? Human-to-human transmission is possible, something we hadn't seen yet.

Good news? It currently takes a LONG exposure for this to happen. So, the NBC Movie of the Week is still a bit dire, even if there was an outbreak it doesn't look like this would shut everything down. Also, the people sharing the virus are still very much alive.

Question: the Bird Flu kills its human host in a manner similar to the Spanish Influenza from 1918, by turning the immune system against the lungs. Since smoking suppresses the immune response in the lungs, could we recommend smoking until we can get a vaccine to everyone? Just a thought. Smoking was pretty prevalanent among men back when the Spanish Flu broke out. I wonder if there are any stats on smoker/non-smoker mortality.

What are moonbats good for?

Well, some of them are darned creative. It takes a lot of imagination and willing suspension of disbelief to hold their beliefs. And every now and again, that gets put into something useful or that could be useful.

Witness the DIY Solar Water Heater, assemble for less than five bucks. Put together by the Sietch Group (and damn, that's a cool name) from parts they found at the dump or being discarded. It might be a cool project for a water heater you could take camping or maybe sailing. They only got about 5 gallons heated to 170 degrees in a couple hours, but like I said – if you were camping or something…

So, I check out their blog to see what else they've got and what they've got is a couple more projects like this one and plenty of left wing tripe. Sad, kinda.

Dave on Murtha

Dave in Texas gets it right about the conservative response to Congressman Murtha. He's got a point. The man did defend our right to call him a useful idiot. Which makes right-leaning folks hesistant to do so.

I don't think this should be the case. If he loves this country, and I believe he does, then he should want us to call him on it when he's steering in the wrong direction. He's one of the guys on the left whose patriotism I don' t question. I just question his vision, his wisdom, his judgement and his compentency to serve in his current capacity. And it would be un-American if we didn't say so.

Ok, break’s over – Back on your heads

Sorry about the light blogging. Work's a nightmare last couple weeks – and will be for the next couple. But since I've got some time this weekend, let's see what we can drum up.

Executive Order

From the office of the President, on eminent domain. (Thanks to Muslihoon) It's a good start.

Over at Volokh, they're not loving it and they've got some good lawyerly reasons not to.

My take and our first Modest Proposal…The real, fair solution to the Kelo Conundrum is to bring market forces to bear on public takings.

Here's what you do:

Jihadi in the city where the heat is on

Huge.

Terror plot stopped. Terrorists were home-grown, reached out to al-Qaida and got a federal agent instead.

Of course, the media is downplaying the role we all know David Caruso played in this.

Ummm….candygram…

Knock, knock.

Yes, Ace. This is one reason to own firearms.

Old but related – Here's another reason: Mountain Lions.

I'm sorry, but if this story were running in Texas the article would degenerate into an argument over which round the Dad should use, .223 or 7mm Remington Magnum.

(The correct answer is, of course, the Remington.)

I simply do not understand the mentality of those who feel bad for the predator.

(Yes, it is. Go shoot some gophers with that .223)

I feel bad for this kid that he doesn't have a dad who's willing to load up and kill so that no one in the family gets killed by the beast. Maybe they need to call in Kimberly Bauer.

(No, I'm NOT worried about how big a hole it will leave in the trophy. Use the magnum.)

Oh yeah, and then stuff it. The cat, not Kimberly Bauer. And put it where people can see it and you can bore them with the story. These are the things men do.

(Yes, cowboy, the .30-30 will work just fine. You get the Winchester or the Marlin?)

Yup, it's still a wild world out there. And you're better off loaded for bear.

(Well, now, for bear you're gonna want at least a .300 Win Mag.)

(Yes, you do.) 

So Saddam had WMD after all

And we're only getting part of the story. The rest is still classified. So classified even the NY Times won't publish it.

In an unrelated story, apparently Michael Moore is a little bitch. Maybe he's trying to get a fella to propose…(link via Ace)

One Niner Zero

That's what the scale read today. I've officially lost 40 lbs since February. Round numbers make me happy.

She gets on the elevator with me. She's a big girl, has been since I've known her. Not that it looks bad on her. She asks if I've lost weight.

"I've lost some." I say. I don't want to have the conversation again. Twice this week, I've had remarked to me that I've lost enough weight now. Au Contraire…I have another 20 lbs to go. For my height, gender and age, I just crossed into the healthy weight range. I have a BMI now of 24.9. Those of you familiar with BMI will recognize that I'm 0.1 away from being overweight. The range actually goes from about 160 to 191 for my height. I'd like to be smack in the middle of that. Still, two people that I trust have made the same comment. You're getting too skinny. Sigh.

Look, it's not manorexia here. I'm no Dennis Quaid. I love to eat. Mrs. Right cooks up the good stuff night after night and it takes a HUGE amount of willpower not to eat every last morsel, especially her three-cheese tortellini with italian sausage meat sauce. I'm just counting calories to lose the fat I've been carrying since always. I'm not taking pills. I'm not cutting out carbs, or fat, or protein or even sugar. It's pure and simple old school dieting.

It works for me. You know how fad diets and pills always say "results not typical" in the disclaimer? Well, I cut out about 500 kcal a day and lost a pound or two a week. And you know what? Results freakin' typical. It's normal, sustainable weight loss. I eat about 1800 kcal a day. Someone said I was starving myself. There are people in this world who would literally kill to get themselves 1800 calories in one day.  

And, no,  I'm not about to blow away, I still have 20 pounds to go. The love-handles and Captain Kirk chest are marked for termination.

But I am going to stop telling people that when they ask. From now on, it's I need to lose one more pant size. But I'll tell you guys that. Because round numbers make me happy. So does seeing my toes. And wearing the same size jeans I did in college.  

Modern Love

So, not that it matters to me, having long been taken off the meat market, but this got way more play in the blogosphere than it really deserves. Basically, new book from Sherry Argov says that to get a man to propose to you, you have to be a bitch. Really, she got a whole book out of that.

For background: Ace documents the fight over at Karol's about this topic. Dr. Helen disagrees with the basic premise, as does Eden at JustOneBite.

I read the article and I think I've found the problem, besides of course the sensationalistic phasing. The author uses the term "bitch" to describe any woman who's not a total doormat. Just to clear it up for you, a "doormat" wants you to control her, a "bitch" wants to control you. They exist at either end of a pretty wide bell curve though, and the author knows that but takes her liberties with it anyway. But that's not the real problem with this piece. Here it is, see if you can spot it:

As scary as it sounds, this is precisely the approach women are taught on how to catch a husband. It’s the plight of every "nice girl" who puts everyone else first, puts her own needs last, and doesn't think she is worthy of touching the hemline of her man’s pants….

When I polled men, they all said confident women are in very short supply. And that a confident woman is what they find sexiest. Is it any wonder that confident women are hard to come by? Look around. The average fashion magazine tells women to act like a servant, as if dating were a labor-intensive, blue-collar-job application: “Can you serve a cold beer in trashy lingerie? Do you leave razor-sharp creases in his shirts like employee-of-the-month at the Jolly Roger motel? Do you wear cellophane for him? Are you gardening in stilettos? Are you giving it up doggie-style? If so, he'll drop to one knee and propose …”