Going Batty

I've had this idea for photographing some bats that live near Canadice Lake. At dusk, I'd hang a cut apple from tree branch. I think they're insect eaters from the little I've seen of them. I think a cut apple would attract insects. My problem has always been that I don't know where the bats are coming from. I've only seen them once, flying over the lake.
Well, I was dragging the dog out of a thorn bush, when I saw a hollow tree. I couldn't see a thing up in there, so I jammed my camera up the hole, and snapped a couple flash shots. I figured I'd find out what was up there when i got back home. Well, lo and behold, there was a bat up there!
Now that I know where some bats roost, I can put the apple close by. Hopefully, that will increase my chances of getting a good shot. We'll see.

The beginning is Moot

This is a phrase I picked up in college. I had the second best computer in the fraternity. An Apple SE/30. With 5mb RAM, and COLOR monitor, through an add-on card and external monitor.That put me high on the list of guys doing all-nighters for programming classes. My room was a 10X10 single, so things were getting pretty cramped. I had to put in a loft for my bed so I wasn’t rolling over onto someone’s homework. Between homework groupies, I had a smattering other visitors who heard me while I slept.

Anyway, that’s about the time I realized that I must be an intolerable person to sleep with. Hard for me to tell, being asleep and all. I’m told that I snore like a train with square wheels. I mumble about crazy things, too. I haven’t sleep walked or yelled at anyone, but I get animated at times… so I’m told.

One night, Chris Kello was pulling an all-nighter coding some jack in the box… tapping away. He says I was pretty quiet most of the night, but at one point, I sat bolt upright, looked right at him and said “The Beginning is Moot!”. Then I snored away for while till he threw something at me. The next morning, he confronted me with the phrase. I professed ignorance, and I didn’t know what it meant until now. The phrase itself is the meaning.

Scientology

I’ve been thinking and reading a lot about the Church of Scientology. Their Home site seems pretty innocuous.  I did run across one or two notions that I found odd.  Operation Clambake says that the civil veneer is just a front for a sci-fi cult that steals your money.

Tom Cruise is the most visible face of Scientology today.  He has done more in recent year to evangelize and advance L Ron Hubbard’s ideas.  He has done a great deal to deafen me to his ramblings in the past few years, too.  He makes enough money to be eccentric.  IMDB Tom Cruise Bio/Salaries
That’s Neverland kind of money.  I suppose we should be happy that Tom isn’t weirding out little kids.  Oh, yeah, there are some offbeat birth rituals in Scientology, and Tom Jr won’t be able to talk to anyone not approved by Scientologists (IE, Catholic Grandparents), and he’ll have a nanny steeped in the art of the “Audit”
I think the thing I really find annoying about Scientology is that they practice the “Study of Truth” through Science.  Science won’t touch any of their myths.  L Ron Hubbard’s creation myths are so fantastic they defy logic… even when taken as allegory.
I’m sorry, but it just doesn’t make sense to me, no matter how I look at it.

Questions

Here is a questionnaire that Scott passed on to me.  What were/would/will you do?
Btw, Scott is over at Perspectives of a Nomad

“What were you doing 10 Years Ago?”
That was the first year I was working at the School district.. Got Strepp throat 3 times that year… so I was spending a good part of my time in bed.

“5 Years Ago?”
2001.  Most of that year was pretty good.

“1 Year Ago?”
Same thing I’m doing now?!  sheesh

“Five snacks you enjoy:”
Snackwells crackers, granola bars,

“Five songs I know by heart but wish I didn’t:”
Theme from the Munsters, pretty much all the songs I want to format off my brain are sitcom themes

“Five things I would do with a LOT of money:”
I’ve had this daydream of driving around looking for folks who need new cars.  You know, the single mother, unemployed guy… all driving a piece of junk…  I’d approach them in a parking lot, and buy them a new car.  Just go over to a dealership and let them pick out a new car.

“Five things I would never wear:”
That pink fuzzy alpaca sweater my mom bought for me.

“Five things I should never have worn:”
That pink fuzzy alpaca sweater my mom bought for me.

“Five things I enjoy doing:”
Fishing, Thought Experiments, photography

“Five bad habits:”
Nicotine, Caffeine, aspartame, interrupting people.

Amber27

Amber27
Originally uploaded by npanth.

I stuff the dog like a turkey with those rawhide twists. Can't help it, she loves them. Well, the cat loves cat treats, too. The minute I pull out a pack of them, though, The dog gives me the look. She's thinking that the big guy isn't doling out the treats. Whine, pout, raise the ears, lie on the ground, get up. Do a slow 360. Rinse, Repeat.

I know cat treats are bad for dogs... but I figure I can get away with it once. I'm not sure, but those two treats could have gone up her nose. They just vanished, so I think she snorted them. If my dog had thumbs, she'd be cutting lines of cat treats while I'm at work.

Double Die

Macro23
Originally uploaded by npanth.

This is what's called a Poorman's Double Die. In 1955, the mint made two errors while pumping out all those pennies. One error messed up the entire date. It looks like 11995555. That's worth a nice vacation for two to one of those sunny places. The double die that I have (several) of is the Poorman's. Just the last 5 is doubled. I can't even make a phone call with the poorman's double die :)

The more things Change...

Scretary Rusk's Address
I was thinking about the parallels that have been drawn between the Iraq war and the Vietnam War. A lot of people are talking about it… and being shouted down by just as many people. So, I decided to try to find some primary documents from the ‘60s. I ran across this speech given by Secretary Rusk. I took the speech into Word, replaced “South Viet-Nam” with “Iraq”. I replaced “North Viet-Nam” and “Communists” with “Terrorists”. Here are some of the more interesting passages I got. It’s a little eerie, actually. Just change a couple proper names and catch phrases, and it could be given to the Heritage Foundation tomorrow.

"Obviously, the first essential in building a durable peace is to eliminate aggression- by preventing it, if possible, and by repelling it when it occurs or is threatened.”

". . . . But the principal Terrorists states remain publicly committed to what they call 'wars of liberation'-the infiltration of arms and trained men. That is the type of aggression by which Terrorists Terrorists set Out to conquer Iraq. It is an aggression which has become less and less in-direct since the closing months of 1964, when Terrorists began to move an entire division of its regular army into Iraq.”

"Four successive Presidents of the United States, after extended study in consultation with their chief advisers on defense and foreign policy, have concluded that the security of Southeast Asia (ed. Middle East), and of Iraq in particular, is very important to the security of the United States. Those who take a different view are at odds with the men who have borne the highest responsibility for the defense of the United States and the free world since the Second World War.”

"In accordance with our national interest in the security of Iraq, the Government of the United States made commitments…”
"The United States cannot run away from its commitments. If either our adversaries or our friends should begin to doubt that the United States will honor its alliances, the result could be catastrophe.”

Ants

Not By Math Alone is an article by Justice O'connor about the apathy in our society today. Most people can't articulate the rights granted to us under the Constitution. They don't understand the weight of a document like the Declaration of Independence. They take an ant's eye view of our country. Ants are an interesting analogy for our society. Not in the literal sense. Here’s what I mean.

We let the “queen ants” run everything, while we go about our daily lives. We gather food, improve the mound, and raise the young. We keep our minds as blank as possible, so we can get to the weekend that much faster. George Lucas’ first movie was about a society much like that. We haven’t reached that dystopia yet. The difference is that we are more complex “ants” and can change.

Why are you watching Survivor, when you could be reading the Bible?

Our government was founded as a secular religion. Our founding documents are its bible. These Truths are Self-Evident. …In order to form a more perfect union. I’m a believer. Perhaps because the beliefs that originated our country come from the Enlightenment, not the Iron Age. Even Jefferson makes more sense to me than most religions. The founding concepts of any great thought movement stand the test of time. Do Unto Others as You Would Have Done Unto You. Love Your Brothers (ed. and Sisters)

The trick is to not cling to the concepts that are just rooted in their time. Human rights as we know them today didn’t exist in either the Iron Age or the Enlightenment.
That’s why I believe in Secularianism, if you will. The Constitution is a malleable document. It’s the first holy text in history that can be revised. Heck, they encouraged us to revise it when we saw fit. The ants have never had it so good. Don't screw it up by ignoring it.

Founding Documents

Russian and Iraqi Collusion

Abc News Coverage
Saddam's Official Docs Foreign Military Studies Office
Cited Document 1117
Cited Document 1950
Fox News Coverage

ABC broke this story and then Fox’s morning show picked it up. That’s where I first heard about it. The ABC story details information from Saddam’s Meeting Minutes. The minutes are posted at the Foreign Military Studies Office. ABC culled information from the documents that imply several things. One is that Saddam was interested in contacting terrorists involved in attacks on the US. Another is that Russia supplied Iraq with the US order of battler before the invasion. ABC hedged their bets, saying that some information was hearsay, other information was supposition. Both cited documents are handwritten accounts, in Arabic. I went over to the official site. It’s great; they have all of Saddam’s secret meeting minutes posted as PDFs. Some are even translated to English.
You know, “Exalted leader picks his nose, groveling general cleans it with a silk hanky” I can’t read 30-40 pages of that just to find out if they finished the donuts before the meeting ended. Luckily, most of the minutes are in Arabic, so I don’t feel obliged to read each one. What I got from skimming the documents was the sense that Saddam was concerned about Iraq’s image abroad. He was keenly interested in military preparedness reports. Seems like run of the mill dictator stuff to me.
Unless I missed a highlighted section, I’m going to go along with ABC on this one. Saddam wasn’t ordering flowers in those meetings, but there seems to be only general interest in befriending Osama Bin Laden. Mostly because they both hate us. Call it a coalition of the willing. I’m sure Fox will make plenty of hay out of this. There are plenty of juicy tidbits in those documents.
Oh, yeah… Russia got caught handing top secret info to Iraq before the US invaded. Seems to me like that’s a big deal, too. I mean, Bush looked into Putin’s soul and called him a good man, right? I’d be pretty hot if I was Bush. His new buddy stabbed him in the back. Putin put our soldiers at risk, for what? Just to piss us off? He can do that just by making a speech.

Weapons of Mass Destruction

Come and listen ‘bout a man named Sad
Had some weapons that would really make ‘ya mad
Then one day, he was shootin’ up some Kurds…
And up ‘outta the ground comes a Dubya dude
George, that is, Texas D.
Next thing 'ya know, old Sad's a runnin' scared
Kin folk said, Sad, get away from there!
Demascus is the place ‘ya outta be
So he packed up the nukes, and he moved to Syria
Hills, that is… no inspectors, radicals

Well, Saddam’s no moron, right? So what’s he going to do when he knows the US is about to bring the big stick? He hustles all his weapons to Syria before the yanks get their hands on them. Sounds plausible, I suppose. We all know Saddam was cuckoo for nukose. He used chemical weapons on the Kurds and the Iranians. You can’t just flush that stuff down the toilet as the marines are busting down the door. It had to go somewhere. One guy says Syria. Other people think Jordan.

What if Saddam presented his stash to one of his neighbors? Even with full inspections, I think Saddam had some kind of program in the ‘90s. There has to be some fragment of it left behind. Saddam funneled those weapons to… who?. My worst fear is that something winds up here in the US.

The fact that we haven’t found any evidence of weapons just means they’re somewhere else. Regardless of where the weapons are, they need to be found.

Something Fishy

I said in this post that I’ve been watching Fox News, trying to find out what the social Get Out The Vote campaigns will be this fall.

I saw something interesting yesterday about the economy in Europe. Neil Cavuto is touting our economy here in the US. He uses the protests in France as an example of how bad the economy in Europe is. The byline on the screen is “Europe’s Economy a mess: US economy Booming!” I don’t dispute that Europe’s economy has problems… I’m not so sure about the economy over here.

My economy hasn’t been Booming! since the late ‘90s. I just got my social Security statement. It’s true. I can see it right on the page. It takes a little math. A couple cost of living increases… add in a dash of inflation… WHAT!? I’m making less. This stinks. I've worked at the same civil service job for the past 9 years. The salary increases are linear, 3-4% each year. More than "inflation". I haven’t even added in the “factors outside the core rate of inflation”. Like GAS?! How can something that I buy as often as food not get counted as part of inflation? Oh, food isn’t covered in the “core” rate of inflation, either. Add those in, well... I prefer not to, thank you.

Anyway, Looks like Fox is starting a new campaign, right before my eyes. “US economy booming!” I don’t think this one will get as much traction as they think. Even if they compare us to Europe. Saying that we’re better off only works if we are doing well. Watching that while eating a can of tuna doesn’t make me feel good. It just makes me feel sorry for the guy eating a can of cat food.

Looks like the unwritten byline for this campaign will be.
See how bad things could be if you elect Liberals?
I was eating better under the liberals

Signs of the Times

I've been writing about politics, not photography, lately. So, I decided to combine my recent musings with my hobby, and get some political pictures.
Actually, I just wanted to walk the dog and get some pictures of the firetrucks. My local Firehouses aren't open to the public on Sunday afternoons, so I just wondered around each building looking for something cool. These two pictures were literaly taken from the same spot. Turn one way Political commentary, turn the other way, social satire. Too bad I parked on that spot, so I had to move the car before I could shoot any pictures ;) Frankly, I'm a little surprised it started... wouldn't that point be the tip of some vortex leading to Ted Kennedy's bathroom?

Blogging

Blogging isn’t about Me telling you what to think.
Blogging isn’t about you telling me what to think.
Blogging is about ME telling YOU what I THINK!
Bgoglnig wtih a sepllckceehr swols dwon waht I tnihk
Blogging like grammar with yoda mother a ****** doesn’t think.
Bloggingstreamofconsciousnessdoesntmakemethink.
Blogging dirty pictures? What would your mother think?
Blogging about the government? What would your father think?
Gniggolb sdrawkcab ekil icniv ad, tahw od uoy kniht?
Blogging all day makes jack a dull boy, ooh, am I on the brink?

Basically, Think about this.
If a blogger Blogs and noone reads it, is it still funny?
I have a yes or yes answer.

Censure

I’m convinced that the censure motion proposed by Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) is legitimate and should be put forward and supported. No senator saw fit to support this resolution. I think this is wrong. So, I emailed Mr. Feingold with a “go get ‘em!”. I emailed Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Charles Schumer (D-NY) encouraging them to support Mr. Feingold.
I emailed my congressman, Randy Kuhl (R-NY). Yes, he's R-NY, but I still feel the same way, and he is my congressman. Never mind that the house can't censure the president ;) He probably thinks all democrats are idiots, anyway.

I encourage you to write your representatives concerning this issue.
Censure Resolution
Feingold Statement
US House of Representatives
US Senate
I don’t know Mr. Schumer or Randy Kuhl that well, so I wrote more formal letters. Hillary? Russ? Those folks talk my language :)

Mr.Schumer,
I would like to encourage you to support Senator Feingold's resolution to censure the president. I believe that Mr. Feingold's resolution is correct on all points. Now is the time to stand up.
Thank you
James Heaney

Mrs. Clinton,
I am disappointed that you did not support Russ Feingold's censure proposition. We're no longer trying. When the patriot act passes overwhelmingly, the opposition has crumbled. Have you seen the way Fox is Lambasting judges? They called it Tar and Feathering 200 years ago. Time to stand up. As they say on the audio servers
"Announce, Pronounce, Say what counts."
Thank You
James Heaney

ACL Who?

This Post discusses another article… give me a break, I’m no journalist.

They’re talking about Republican strategies for the 2006 mid-term elections. So far, looks like it will be the same old red meat stuff. Gay marriage, Cloning, stuff like that. I’m not so sure, though. I’ve been watching Fox News for the past 6 months trying to figure out what it will be. We both know that any social get-out-the-vote campaign will start there.
I’ve caught one or two things, so far.

Judicial Activism will be a big buzz-word this year. Fox is censuring one judge every 6-8 weeks. The colonials called it a Tar and Feather. Today, we’re not nearly as messy. 6-8 weeks seems like a perfect time span to keep viewers interested, but not overwhelmed. By giving the viewers a 4-5 week interlude between “outrage sessions”, they associate the two stories together without any overlap. I’m not sure what form this one will come in. Something about minimum sentencing guidelines, I’d guess. The ACLU may be involved, too. It’s hard to tell if that’s something organized, or just a pet thing for O’reilly.

It’s hard to evaluate strategies played out on this grand a scale. After all, we just have an ant’s eye view of it all. I could be wrong, but I don’t see the Republicans running on the record this fall.

Shuaiba Refinery

I’m watching a report on cspan about the Shuaiba Refinery in Basra, Iraq. The report was filmed in January, 2006. 2 ½ years after the war began. The Iraqi engineers that were interviewed reported that the pipelines in the refinery works at 85-90% efficiency. 10-15% of the crude oil leaks out of the pipes. Replacement pipe sections have to be bought at the local market because foreign-made parts are not available. The natural gas processing equipment at Shuaiba doesn’t work, so all natural gas is burned off in great pyres. The cameraman wanted to evoke images of Kuwait ’92 by focusing in very close on the fires.
Natural Gas processing facilities wouldn’t help Iraq as much as you would think. Most Iraqis cook with Propane, which can't be produced in the refineries. They didn’t mention where the propane comes from, just that it’s delivered in rusty and decrepit containers, and costs 5 times what it did before the war.
I walked away with the point that the film maker wanted me to. Things in Iraq can be pretty grim. Not to everyone all the time, but to enough people enough of the time. If my gas station was out 2 days a week, and my stove didn’t work 3 days a week, I’d be pretty mad, too.

General Casey, Meet the Press

General Casey is giving an interview on Meet the Press. I feel a little sorry for him. He’s being asked some pointed questions. Tim Russert even pulled out a video from last year, where Casey was saying that we would have far fewer troops in Iraq a year from now. Ouch. I know he’s not a politician, or even a public spokesperson, he’s a 4 star general. I don’t think the administration should have stuck him out there to cook on national TV, but the interview did pose some interesting questions for me.
Casey kept insinuating that the end is near. He was very circumspect about making big predictions. I don’t blame him after seeing last year’s interview. He’s thinking that he may be answering the exact same questions in 12 months. Nuance is not this guy’s forte. Casey said that the insurgency wasn’t “in it’s last throes”, but the nature of the insurgency has changed. The insurgents are now willing to talk. The obvious question followed. Who have you been talking to? Casey sputtered out something about them leaving notes for American troops… and blinked so rapidly, I thought it was the “CINC under fire, need pickup!” signal.
It’s coming apart in other ways, too. At a press conference, Bush told the reporters that the insurgents were getting direct aid from Iran. The press asked the assembled generals what proof they had of this Iranian involvement. With Rummy looking over their shoulders, they curtly said that there was no such evidence.
It happens to people like you and me, too. I’ve tried to keep stories afloat under scrutiny… it didn’t always work for the parents, girlfriend, boss. No reason to think it would work with one or two?! nosey reporters crawling around.
Without wishing the administration any real harm, I am glad to see them in this vulnerable position. I think it is past time for the liberal part of our society to have more of a say in the way we’re governed. November ’06 seems very far away, but I do think that the Democrats will gain seats, perhaps even win one of the houses. It may be cautious optimism, but it’s better than I’ve had in a while.

SunPrincess13

SunPrincess13
Originally uploaded by npanth.

This is the first picture I took with my D70. It's actually the 13th picture, but it's the first image that really showed me why I'd just plopped down a grand on this infernal machine with it's thousand buttons and menues.
AutoISO. When the shutter speed drops below a threshold you set, 1/80 here, the camera automatically raises the "ISO" of the digital film until the shutter speed is fast enough. I took this photo at 1600 ISO, leaning on a bar.
This shot is impossible on my 6006. I never carried any film higher than 400 with me. I was a real Grain Geek. Digital has completely freed me to try shots that I never would have with film. This was a great moment with a great band. The grain geek mentality was shattered like the glass house it was.

Inflation Cuts both Ways

This CNN Story is about the first trillionth of a second after the Big Bang. In that instant, the universe ‘popped’ from the size of a marble to a size larger than we can see with our most powerful telescopes. Our galaxy is 100 million light years across, and we can see galaxies much further away. I'll just say 100 million lights years, and let that represent the ridiculous distances involved.
I suppose more of an explanation will be forthcoming from the experts. In the meantime, I will speculate wildly. I see two problems with this.
My first problem is that matter just isn’t supposed to move that fast. !00 million light years is a long way to go in a trillionth of a second. According to Einstein, the matter bursting out of the Big Bang is exceeding the speed limit… by a lot. The faster you go, the slower forward in time you go, so by the time Big Bang Bits got moving, they were going back in time, causing our universe to get stuck in that first trillionth of a second, forever repeating that explosion.
My second problem may help solve the first. As we wind back the clock to the beginning of the universe, time no longer makes sense like it does now. It bends back on itself for the reasons I was talking about a minute ago. The simplest explanation is that time is twisted to such a degree that the instant before, the instant of, and the instant after the Big Bang all happen simultaneously. Relativity says that there’s no such thing as “simultaneous-ness”, unless you happen to be in the right place at the right time. So, the Big Bang only happened to a select audience, everyone else saw something else entirely. We can’t know what happened in those other cases, because we’re “trapped” in this relative universe. So, time lurched back and forth while all these realities hung in the balance. We exist today, so we can assume things worked out well enough to brew up creatures that can ponder their existence and origins.

I was able to find some more info at the Nasa site. The name of the probe is WMAP. It's been recording background radiation "echos" of the universe since 2001. It's a telescope that doesn't look at a single part of the sky. Instead, it collects radiation like a piece of film. The energy it's detecting is so faint, that it has to absorb energy for a while before it can give useful information.
Here is the WMAP home site at the Goddard Flight Reasearch Center
Here is the press release that AP picked up, which CNN picked up, which I picked up.
They don't address the realitve problem on either site. One of the scientists mentions it, but doesn't expand on it.
Maybe the answer lies in some of the raw results pages. That stuff is way beyond me.

FG

DSC_0010
Originally uploaded by npanth.

Here's a picture of my old Nikon FG. I used this camera for many years before and after "that day".
I decided the plusses of getting high altitude shots out-weighed the obvious risks of putting a camera on a kite. After some experimentation, I was getting shots from 50 feet, just by setting the timer and letting it go. I imagine the pictures were quite spectacular. You see, I never got to find out. Just when things were getting routine, a gust of wind broke the kite line, and the whole thing went flying out over a parking lot. I watched in slow motion as my prized camera swung in a giant arc. The image that remains in my mind is in the same part of my brain that remembers animations of comets hitting the Earth. The impact even looked a little like a comet. My camera split into four parts... Lens, Back, film, and Body. Lens, film, and Back flew like debris, while the body 'bounced' back into the air, just to cut another arc through my heart a few seconds later.
That's when I caught up with the kite line. After gathering together the pieces of my dignity, I reassembled the camera and tried a hesitant shot. CLICK, advance, CLICK.
Yes, it's dusty from sitting on my shelf, but it still works, 15 years after that day.

Capitalism

I’m giving in to the political bug (
Fascism, Communism, Capitalism. Each of these evokes a unique image. For me Fascism evokes images of Hitler, Pol Pot…
Communism evokes Stalin, Lenin, Gorby? Sure, why not.
Capitalism? Hearst, Gates.
Fascism and Communism have a really bad name in this country, and rightly so. I don’t think anyone (who reads) would argue that some forms of government just don’t work. National Socialism, Stalinism, and Mass relocation are deadly, inhuman ways to govern.
As a mediocre Capitalist, I can say this about Capitalism. Our system makes us scratch and compete with each other to climb and stay as high on the economic pile as we can. It’s Darwinian, depending on how willing you are to look at it like that. We compete and measure ourselves against each other, deriving ego from a higher salary, or a newer Ipod.
I think the greatest sin of Capitalism is the disregard for the fallen. We’re more concerned with people higher up on the pile, because we’re afraid to look down. That guy who loses his job just slides down the pile, out of sight. By the time people get to the bottom of the pile, very few people care about them. It doesn’t have to be like that.
As individuals, we’ll usually reach out to help someone in need. I stop to help change tires, volunteer at the animal shelter. Governments are made of individuals, but that type of individual caring gets suppressed in the name of Capitalism. Helping out your neighbor just slows down your climb to the top of the pile. I’m all for money, I value it as much as you do, but isn’t there room in our society for some individual-style compassion? I’m not asking the government to change my tire, just make sure the spare isn’t flat.

Peace as Irony

ach, I keep posting political things on this blog.
Oh, well.This is more of an Irony, anyway.
The administration updated the National Security Report this morning. It's a document I'd never considered important until Pre-emption. After all, before, our policy was to retaliate against attackers. I think it's an integral part of democracies. We need to be attacked first before we're angry enough to wage war.
I can only speak for myself, but 9/11 gave me enough anger to burn the whole world, but it burned fast, and was doused in an ignominious way. Afghanistan had, and has, my complete support.
Then a barrage of administration officials started talking about Iraq. That just seemed to come out of nowhere. Within 3 months, Iraq went from a contained andimpotent enemy to a nuclear power. Rumsfeld and Cheney both said that Iraq was just a few months away from firing missiles at Europe.
After three years of Iraq, I don’t have much of a stomach for the Pre-emption policy. Today, we've solidified our offensive footing. Iran, North Korea, China, and Russia are all on notice.
Why can't Luxemburg invade France? ...Something easy for once.
Anyway, Here's the irony. The Security Report was delivered at the United States Institute of Peace. I know there isn’t a United States Institute of war, but couldn't they a have found a more appropriate place to "Speak Loudly" from? I'm sure he could have gotten the room at the Heritage Foundation, even on short notice.

CNN Story

Ichabod

Ichabod
Originally uploaded by npanth.

Here is Ichabod, now (and then) known as Craig O'brien. We went to this Star Trek Convention back in college. Myrina Syrtis was speaking (never realized that she was that short!) Here we are waiting to get into the auditorium. I was looking for a spot to catch some nicotine, when I looked back and saw this vista. There was Ich in a sea of "normal" start trek fans. Ha! an iconic image of who Craig was (is? Haven't talked with him in quite a while) He was a really interesintg guy, nationally ranked in chess, studying cognitive science, and a deacon in the church of the Sub-Genious. [pause in memory of Bob Dobbs]. Oh, yeah, he was trying to take over the world... not sure how that's working out :) This is a pic that's only good if you know the subject or some of the symbology. Ich's bald because he got side-swiped by cancer. (he had "juevos Plasticos") 108 somehow linked him to a very tongue-in-cheek world domination league.He scared folks a little, and liked it that way. For a person with such a retiring personality to revel in a stranger's blush suited me ok. He was a good friend. I'm going to go see if I can look him up...

Byte-93

Byte-93
Originally uploaded by npanth.

I heralded the future of Apple back in '93. I even kept the magazine.
I didn't even bookmark the page when Apple announced that they were switching to Intel.
That was the golden age of Personal computing. I think we've passed into another golden age, Network computing. Maybe it can even be shortened to Networking, because it's much more of a social revolution than the personal computing revolution. Back then, computers isolated us. Now, I chat with friends all over the world every night on ventrilo. Watch videos that augment the news. Stuff like that. I'm not saying that there wasn't an internet back then, I was all over BitNet back in the '80's. It's just that getting on line back then was a ritual. Now, with just a few clicks, you're gunning down the enemy, while discussing breaking news with a guy in England. I miss the heady days of ripping the package off like a present to see what new magic was coming. :)

Dubai

I’ve been curious about Dubai for the past month. I’ve watched some documentaries that describe the country. It’s remarkable and dazzling. The engineering involved in making the canals of Dubai or the Palm Islands would befuddle the pyramid builders. That is the scale that they are building on in Dubai. Palm Island extends 2.5 miles into the ocean and they have moved enough material to build 20 pyramids. The finest land reclamation experts from Holland join engineers from around the world in racing to complete what will surely be world class wonders in the Arabian Gulf. When all of the ongoing projects are completed, the UAE will have expanded their coastline from 46 to 900 miles.
I’m struck by the hollowness of the president’s assertion that losing the DPW ports deal will harm relations with the UAE. Even if the deal doesn’t wind up happening, Dubai has more than 8 billion dollars pumping through it each week. This particular deal is just one of a continuous stream of projects being undertaken in Dubai.
Palm Island is a great metaphor for me. It’s an enormous island that was built in just 5 years. That’s staggering, considering the amount of work involved. It’s a temporary wonder, though. The island is built on sand dredged from the Gulf bottom. This makes the island very vulnerable to earthquakes and tidal forces, since sand settles very quickly when it’s shaken. The ocean currents distort the shape of the island, making it necessary to perform constant dredging and land reclamation. The whole structure will sink back into the sea a century after maintenance stops. It’s the Nuevo riche World Wonder and the greatest testament to the power of oil. It surpasses conspicuous consumption and my ability to define. I keep feeling that people looking back 500 years from now will think we are hopeless barbarians to allow our resources to be squandered like this. I don’t have a solution. I live in a space 10 times bigger than just about everyone else on the planet. I can only shake my head that I live in a space 10000 times smaller than that guy on the TV.
Palm Island Overview

JJH_13

JJH_13
Originally uploaded by npanth.

This was an accidental picture for me. I snapped a shot because the bear seemed to be asking me to. It was through 2 inches of plexiglass, at an angle, 15 feet over the water. I was very surprised when the shot came out. I guess the moral is to shoot everything and sort it out when you get the roll back. (I took this before I went digital, but I guess it's even more true nowadays)

March-06 Pannus update

March-0602
Originally uploaded by npanth.

Here is the March, 2006 picture update on Amber's Pannus. I'll be posting the past couple months as I can. I've found it to be very hard to track the course of the disease pictorally. The scars seem to dissipate and enlarge over time. They're always in the bottom half of her eyes, which gives Amber a bit of a "looking over her glasses at you" expression.
Her right eye has always had more lessions on it than the left.
The density of the lessions also changes over time.

Caught in the act!

Ha! The cat and the dog are starting to get along... well, they're tolerating each other. Twitch, my skittish cat, who's never been "friendly" jumps on my lap, begs for food, Steals the dog's water! I have proof! :)

Network Closet

Joining Flickr has made me go through some of my older photos... guess I'm going to have a couple more sessions with the flatbed scanner again :(
Here are some pictures of a network closet we cleaned up in 2002. This is the second largest closet in the high school, serving the administrative and counseling offices. It turned into an all-nighter because of a couple of big problems with the 7500 router. They needed the network to be up by 7am of course. ugh what a night

Here's the "before" shot


Here are the "after" shots

Correlation

Here's some more brain pain

I’ve been posting a lot of pictures lately. I guess I’m either running out of quality pics, or I just feel like catching up on those thousand words each picture should have.
So, a bit on Correlation.

Northern Hemisphere toilets and hurricanes both spin in the same direction because of the correalis effect. It’s a myth, but it’s such a compelling coincidence, that it draws the eye to watch it, and the mind to explain it. The truth may not be what you want or expect, but it’s true, they’re not related in the way you think. Jung called it Synchronicity. (toilet water spins simply due to the design of the bowl. The correalis effect can only influence big things like hurricanes.) There’s a correlation between the two things, but they’re not caused by the same thing, it just looks that way.

The thing that got me thinking about synchronicity was some conjecture that I heard about how galaxies were formed after the big bang. The best explanation we have so far is that matter, in all its forms, likes to clump together and spin. Sounds simple. Do enough simple things, and you wind up with something complex. Jung called that Gestalt. As little bits of big bang debris combined with other little bits, eventually something like a galaxy emerged. Hurricanes form the same kinds of spirals as galaxies… and flushing toilets. What bowl does the energy of a hurricane or a galaxy spin in?

Well, there are some theories about galaxies. Dark matter and energy are making very good cases for their existence. Some observations we make of the universe don’t make sense unless there is more matter and energy out there than we can see. So we call what we can’t see “dark” matter and energy. Chances are, these forces will wind up being a cosmic version of the correalis effect. Perhaps, a thousand years from now, people will think their waste removal vessels spin that way because of the cosmi-oralis effect?

Not sure what to do with this paragraph, but I like the way it sounds…
The uncountable forces pushing and pulling on uncountable simple objects in a galaxy create this motion through angular momentum and gravity. A comet goes by a planet, and it’s path is changed. A million comets go by a million planets, and a spiral starts to emerge as the larger pattern. This correlates with fractal equations. The smallest form of the equation creates the large form.

Flickr

I joined FlickR to post some more pictures. It's an interesting way to link pictures together in different groups.
Flickr Homepage

Big Bird

This is the first picture I ever took where I focused beyond an obstruction. I was walking through the zoo, and this guy was watching me. I wasn't interesting enough to turn around for, but he wanted to keep an eye on me for whatever reason. The eagle enclosure is covered with a net, so I figured there wasn't a picture there. I couldn't get over the way he was watching me, so I chose a small aperture and took one shot. When I got the roll back, this was the keeper.
I never recorded my shooting info when I was using film, but I remember what I did because of that intense stare. An eagle is a very imposing beast when it's attention is focused on you :)
What amazes me, looking it at it now, is how the exposure came out. Bald eagles are really hard to photograph. I mean... to a camera, an eagle is wearing a black coat and a spaghetti pot on it's head. Either the head is over exposed, or just a dozen other things can go wrong. I have some really rotten pics on my computer that I study before I go to the zoo, just thinking of new camera settings to try.

Hornet's Nest

This hornet's nest is bigger than my head and 20 feet off the ground. Shooting it in the middle of winter seems the better part of valor to me.

Gamma Ray Bursts

Ah, back to something esoteric, if not very innocuous. If you have a low brain pain threshold, feel free to bail.

Gamma Ray Bursts are galactic events that we discovered when we started to look for nuclear explosions here on Earth. We launched some satellites, and trained them back on the Earth. They kept getting readings every couple days, though. Either nuclear bombs were going off all the time, or something else was causing the readings. So, if the events were celestial, they had to be caused by explosions in our own galaxy. Any further away, and the energy released would unbalance Einstein’s E=MC2 equation… It would take so much mass to create the explosions that the universe would be too “heavy”. So, some astronomers decided to map the explosions. Very tough (impossible) to do from Earth, so they launched another satellite. This one was specifically designed to read gamma ray bursts. Turns out, they come from all over the place, not just from our galaxy.

That was a BIG problem. We could see that these explosions were happening all over the place, but explosions that big aren’t covered by modern physics. Either, we didn’t understand something fundamental about the universe, or, well, nothing… we just didn’t understand why these explosions could be so big, but still be seen from all over the sky.

Drum roll!, New theories to the rescue! What if these aren’t really explosions after all? What if these are emissions like we see from black holes (postulated within the last decade by S Hawkins).
Check out a diagram HERE
That would solve the E=MC2 problems. Since the energy doesn’t radiate out in all directions, it doesn’t make nearly as much energy, and needs much less mass. Whew, everyone breathes a sigh of relief. Problem solved, right? Well, we just have to prove it now. That’s not so easy to do. These bursts only last for a day or two, and it’s hard to train a telescope on something that fast. These are people used to looking at things that happened 10 billion years ago and took 100 million years to happen. Oh, yeah, you can only detect gamma rays from space because of our atmosphere. So, here’s what they did. While the gamma ray detector was on alert, several telescopes around the world were put on stand-by. When the satellite detected a burst, they alerted all the telescopes. One day, one of them had a view of that part of the sky. It turns out that gamma bursts come from other galaxies and from nebulae like the Eagle Nebula. That’s the proof they were looking for.

Now, we can see that nebulae sometimes create very large, unstable stars. These stars burn 10-20 times faster, and are 100 times larger than our sun. When they die, they collapse into black holes. It’s this process that creates the gamma ray bursts.
So, we’ve solved a problem that’s been bugging us for almost 40 years. Schwing!
If you're still reading, and want some more, try here

What'd I Do?!

More Macros

The pringles guy inspired me to take some more pics of my quartz.
Here's what I have so far.

Leaf

I found some really cool macro pics while surfing this morning. This guy is really getting some close ups... with a pringles can!
So, I decided to post a macro. I took this right after I got my first flash extension cord. I set the flash at -3EV and held it on the other side of the leaf. I should really try this again now that I have a sb600

Rocks

I think I found this fossil at camp in New Hampshire.




I found this crystal on a beach in Maine when I was 12.

Genny C

GennyC's pregnancy

One of the elephant at our local zoo became pregnant in 2004. She had a healthy pregnancy, and I was looking forward to a summer's worth of baby elephant pictures in their new enclosure. GennyC and the zoo invested a great deal of effort and hope in this pregnancy. GennyC's calf was still-born last week. I feel sorry for the loss, both for GennyC, and the zoo.
This is a pic I took of Lilac last winter.

Preying Mantis

Speaking of last pictures...
I found this fellow sitting on my car one day. Took him home , and took a days worth of pictures. Since I didn't know what he ate, I let him go in a tree. Here's the goodbye picture. I'll bet he was glad to see my flash for the last time :)
He was 6 inches long. It's really amazing to hold something so fearsome-looking, that's completely harmless. I had a really hard time enterpreting bug emotions... I'm sure he had an even harder time interpreting human emotions. I hope we both marveled that we were harmless to each other.

Digital Killed the Celluloid Hero

This is my last film picture. I was on a cruise in St. Martin. I took a cable car to the top of a mountain. I'm a sucker for a good landscape. When I got there, every angle had been covered by the postcards in the long row of little shops. So, I turned around and saw this little fellow bouncing around. This is the approach shot. I usually start with a shot that doesn't have the subject in a prominent place. Then, I zoom in and start to focus on the subject. I got the approach, he flew to another flower, looked right at me... I hit the shutter, and Ker-chunk... end of roll! I got in a fast reload. I remember thinking "this is as fast as I can change a roll" I didn't miss the pickup, I was framed up on the flower just as the first negative racheted into place. No bird!. look over the camera, scan around. NO BIRD! It was gone.
This little guy would probably have been a 10-12 shot series, and I think I'd have gotten at least one good shot. I wandered around the mountain top taking tourist photos, then went back down to the harbor marketplace and bought my D70... been digital ever since ;)

Political Thought

I intended for this blog to be about innocuous and esoteric things, but I will try my hand at political thought, at least for this afternoon. I find this month to be a unique turning point for the Democrats, and Republicans.

Tough times for the Republicans.
- Tom Delay is in the Supreme Court (rubbing, ah.. shoulders with Anna Nicole)
- Abermoff is about to “cooperate”.
- Katrina is back in the Headlines.
- The Dubai Worlds Ports deal won’t simmer for 45 days like they hoped.

Luckily, the Democrats aren’t giving then any trouble.

Tough times for the democrats.
- The senate voted 94-6 in favor of the patriot bill renewal. When you can lock the whole opposition in a bathroom, they’re not giving you any problems.
- The Republicans have already raised 3 times as much money as the Democrats for the mid-terms.

So, here we are, 7 months before the mid-term elections. I’ve only voted in one mid-term, ’94. I was voting against the contract with America. I think it’s symmetric that I’ll be voting in this mid-term. ’94 was when the conservative movement really gained the foothold that has led to their complete domination of our government (just look in the Senate men’s room to see what I mean)

I’m not predicting a Democratic sweep. The past decade has taught me not to discount the conservatives in this country.
I suppose I’m saying this: I think it’s time for the liberal part of our society to have more power in our government. Not because they’re any better, but because the knuckleheads in there now can’t seem to zip their flies without HEY HEY

Twitch and Amber

Introducing the Pets... Here are Amber and Twitch, my erstwhile roommates. Amber is a 5 year old German Shepard/Black Lab/Pointer. Twitch is one of those black cats that walked through a pan of white paint... you know, fighter plane markings :) She's 9.
Amber has Pannus which causes the scars on her eyes. She's about 50% blind. She's getting bad hips, too... at least she's still good in the middle. She makes up for her infirmaries with a sweet heart. I think she was abused at some point, because she has a mark on her neck where the collar was too tight, and she's obsessively submissive. I'm no alpha dog, and she still grovels constantly. I've had her for about 8 months.
Twitch... where to start. I've had Twitch since she was 6 months old. She was a stray. She's always been very timid, but a great cat nonetheless. It took her almost 6 months to get used to the dog, but she's starting to come out of her shell now. She's hassling me for treats right now, which she would never do before. I'll sign out to give her a pounce.