"Peter Pan" - DMTC - Tuesday Night Rehearsal

Wonderful Profile Of Peter Wagner

On Tuesday, the Sacramento Bee featured a wonderful profile on Peter Wagner, bicycle maker.

Peter was a cast member in the first musical I was ever involved with ("Fiddler On The Roof", Woodland Opera House, 1997). Even then, his bicycles were the envy of Davis!

Like I say, an excellent profile!:

The wacky world of Peter Wagner, perhaps Davis' foremost recycler, is headquartered in an ordinary suburb on the west side of town.

His yard looks like the back lot of an all-clown circus, where he has swing bikes, drifters, sociables, recumbents, trikes, big wheels, velocipedes, unicycles, hand cycles, a 6-foot unicycle, bikes with pedals, bikes without pedals, tall bikes that elevate the rider 8 feet off the ground, and four-seaters. What isn't scattered about the overgrown grass in his front yard can be found in the garage.

Wagner built them all, welding bits and pieces of discarded or donated bikes into functioning, funky, pedal-propelled vehicles. He often enters some of his collection in the annual University of California, Davis, Picnic Day Parade. Several had a small role in a music video recently produced by university students. He and his wife, Jerri, compete in kinetic-sculpture races around California and Oregon, and were married during one weekend event.

Wagner, 58, is an inventor, adapter, bona fide bike wizard and self-described eccentric. He's built around 250 bikes, sold 180 and kept the rest. He makes his living primarily as a substitute school teacher.

Shrimp Maniac

M.: So, how was your vacation at Lake Tahoe?

E.: It was good. I won $90.00 playing 'Shrimp Mania' at 2:30 in the morning. Then C. tried to win on Shrimp Mania, but he started losing, so we went across the street, and he won $200.00 over there.

M.: So, you two won!

E.: No, we lost it all. Oh yes, there is also a lot of snow up there.

M.: Did you meet the bunny?

E.: No, what's his name?

M.: Bailey.

E.: Billy-boy (Tagalog slang for 'gay').

M.: Well, I don't know....

E.: Can I call him "Annie-Annie"? (short for 'bunny-bunny').

M.: You can call him whatever you want!

Home For Wayward Chickens

Joe the Plumber informs me he found a Baby Chicken. He also informs me he was able to evade E. and carefully place the Baby Chicken in my yard.

Preparing For Season 4 Of "Breaking Bad" By Updating My BB Blogposts

I've discovered just how popular the TV series "Breaking Bad" is worldwide, by the number of hits I've been getting on my four Breaking Bad filming location blogposts. It's amazing: this New-Mexico-based TV series resonates with people everywhere, crossing all barriers of language and custom! It's a real testament to the skill of the scriptwriters, actors, and cinematographers (among others) who have brought the TV series to such success!

Hits on my blogposts have been increasing of late, as "Breaking Bad" fans get excited by the approach of Season 4's premiere. So, in order to provide best service to "Breaking Bad" fans, I've carefully gone back reviewed all of the Breaking Bad episodes and re-edited these filming location blogposts (which I had updated only last week anyway, but which always can be improved).

By carefully going back, with an eye to location detail, I've been able to locate several more filming locations.

"Breaking Bad" fans deserve the best! Fans of the landscape of the 'Land of Enchantment' deserve the best!

-----------------

Links to these four "Breaking Bad" Filming Location posts are as follows:

Part 1 - List of Filming Locations
Part 2 - Waldruggie's Locations Revisited
Part 3 - Newer Locations
Part 4 - Season 4 & Unfinished Business

Grouping Kylie Videos By Venue

This is an excellent Kylie fan site! All the Las Vegas YouTube videos are here!

At The Eastern End Of The Port Hills Fault

The crustal breakage continues near the seashore. Presumably the shocks will eventually start heading north, just offshore, following the locations of other small quakes since last September. That should be what it does, but what it's actually doing the last few days is arcing southeast, through Port Levy. I wonder what's going on there?:

A magnitude 5.0 tremor has rattled Christchurch this morning, as scientists say there is now a higher chance of a new large quake in the region.

The tremor, which struck at around 6.27am, was centred 20km southeast of the city at a depth of 6km.

It was followed by a 4.2 magnitude shake at 6.32am.

...Scientists analysing Monday's quakes – yesterday upgraded to magnitude 5.6 and 6.3 – now believe they occurred on another fault 2km to 3km south of the Port Hills Fault, which generated the February 22 shake.

Seismologist Bill Fry said there had been six aftershocks of magnitude 4.0 or greater on or near this fault since February.

Like most of the quakes since September 4, they had been high in energy. However, most of the energy released on Monday was horizontal, compared with vertical on February 22.

"This contributed to the anomalously high shaking intensity of the earthquakes, as the amount of shaking is proportional to the energy released," Fry said.

"The spatial size of the underground rupture area for the magnitude-6.3 quake was relatively small for the amount of energy released. This implies that the fault was very strong."

Visiting United States seismologist Kevin Furlong said Monday's major aftershocks had probably reduced the stress buildup around the eastern end of the Port Hills from the February 22 quake.

It was likely stress had now transferred further east and offshore, he said.

"So there will be aftershocks from this and they will likely mostly be on or near the fault that ruptured [on Monday], and also possibly further to the east, and also some to the north-northeast, as was the case after February."

He said the first quake had been a trigger for the second, with both showing almost identical movements.

"Although their locations relative to the February event are slightly different – more to the east – I think they reflect the same tectonics," he said.

"Whether we want to say they are the same fault or simply adjacent faults is really semantics to me. They are fault segments that are interacting with each other."

After such an incredible sequence of quakes, the problem now was knowing what "normal" was.

Earthquake scientists had "cut their teeth" on the behaviour of quakes from plate boundary faults such as the San Andreas in California and New Zealand's Alpine Fault but knew far less about small crustal quake sequences like this one.

"We know the plate boundary faults' history and behaviour that, say, every 300 years they do this or that. But with this type of event, we don't know what is normal for the Canterbury region," Furlong said.

"We assumed what we had up to September 4 was normal, but it appears it wasn't normal. We don't know what is the background condition that the Earth is now moving towards.

"Each earthquake sequence is unusual, this one both because of its character and observation.

"It's as well-recorded as any of this size has ever been. We are seeing things about it – things that we don't see in any other place.

"It's aspects of this that makes this [sequence] very important to science and why it's hard to be definite about how it's going to behave."

Geotech Consulting engineering geologist Mark Yetton said he had not seen any obvious surface rupture on the Port Hills from Monday's quakes.

Monday afternoon's biggest earthquake came close to outstripping the magnitude of the deadly February 22 quake.

GNS Science seismologists yesterday reclassified the 2.20pm aftershock as magnitude 6.338, just 0.005 of a magnitude smaller than February's 6.343 quake.

Aerial pictures of the Christchurch area. Photos by DON SCOTT (The Press).


Caption: Timeball Station (at Lyttelton) after the magnitude-6 earthquake.


Caption: Dust rises from the Manchester-Gloucester streets area.


Caption: The unstable rock face behind the Redcliffs School.


Caption: The causeway to Long Lookout Point, showing dust from the destruction that hit the city from the coast.


Caption: The road over to Sumner from Lyttelton.


Caption: Christchurch Cathedral.

"I've Gotta Crow!"

This morning, I heard some fluttering on the back porch. I went outside to find out what it was, and discovered the neighborhood chicken on the roof of my bedroom. It's nearly two stories up there!

What is that chicken thinking? Does the chicken want the flying freedom of the nearby pigeons?

Lord and Master of the Driveway and Alley!

Bailey the Bunny is surprised!

Oh, Boo-The-Freakin'-Hoo!

Last year's disastrous Gulf Oil spill convinced me of one thing: I HAD to stop patronizing ARCO/AM-PM with my business!

I managed to spend some money at AM-PM every single day! It was my favorite business! Given the criminal mismanagement of ARCO with respect to the oil spill, I had to bring all that to a dead stop!

I pretty-much succeeded. In the last year, I've patronized AM-PM maybe three times.

It looks others did the same thing too. The boycott is killing the company, at least in California, and they are beginning to wind things down here. Good riddance, that's what I say!

Monday's Sacramento Bee featured a weepy article talking about how sad all of this is. You won't find me crying!:

When workers dismantled the ARCO corporate logo at the former Arco Arena earlier this year, it served as a fitting symbol of the company's California retrenchment.

Known for selling cheap gasoline and for its 24-hour ampm convenience stores, ARCO has been a dominant player in the state's petroleum industry for decades. It is California's largest gasoline distributor, with more than 20 percent of the market.

But since last year's deadly Gulf of Mexico oil spill, parent BP PLC has either sold off or put up for sale most of its California assets.

..."There's been so much economic pain for them from the gulf disaster that they have been shedding assets and are looking to shed even more assets," said Gordon Schremp, senior fuels specialist with the California Energy Commission.

The divestitures are notable because ARCO used to be one of California's largest companies, and its history is ingrained in the economic history of the state.

..."It hurts my pride to see a company I so adored disappear," said George Babikian, who served as president of ARCO's refining and marketing operations before retiring in 1993. "It was a great company."

Pummeled By Monday's Dual Christchurch Quakes, Andrew Discusses Natural Disasters

Trying to appease the angry New Zealand Earth Gods with conversation:

Andrew:

It looks like the two big shocks bracketed Sumner. Hope you are in a place where rockfalls and falling debris can’t get you.

Marc

Thanks Marc,

I had just flown in from Tahoe and got home to a nice sunny day (though a lot of haze in the air which caused some airlines to cancel flights – from the ash from the volcano in Chile). I had barely been in the house 30 minutes when the first earthquake hit – and then the second one was awful. The house felt like it was being violently thrown up and down and I don’t understand how buildings can put up with that kind of force without major damage. There is some damage though but not too bad. And everything fell off the shelves and walls again!! I think I may leave things on the floor as when I pick them up there seems to be another aftershock!!

I watched in horror as it looked like half of the cliffs fell into the ocean across the other side of the harbour (Godley Head) when the big one hit.

Best regards,
Andrew

Hi Andrew:

I had seen something in the news that flights had been cancelled in NZ because of the ash, but found it hard to believe, somehow (I mean, that’s halfway around the world!) But then I saw the plume video here, and rethought:

The cliffs falling into the sea: That sounds awful! The news is the Lyttelton Timeball station finally collapsed, for good. A lot of broken buildings in Christchurch are collapsing, for good.

You and your neighbour’s houses are on a lot better foundation (volcanic rock in Diamond Harbour) than many in the Christchurch area (alluvium, subject to liquefaction). If any houses can survive the trauma, yours can!

It’s funny, the little superstitions we employ to try and appease the angry Gods. Don’t pick up those items on the floor, and see if that helps!

Marc

Marc:

Yes, as a plume modeller, you should know how far that kind of stuff can travel! It is funny because on Saturday morning I was hiking at Tahoe and looked across the lake to where a controlled burn was taking place. They couldn’t have picked worse conditions for that burn for exposing people to smoke. I could see the source of the smoke and then it rose just slightly into the air and then levelled off at the height of the temperature inversion (quite low), spreading smoke across a distance of several miles each side of the source. Stable atmospheres are not good for dilution of particles as we all know from our work. And between Chile and NZ, there isn’t a whole lot of anything to intercept the particles so they just carry on moving I guess! My AirNZ flight from Auckland to Chch flew very low to stay below the ash. Other airlines didn’t fly at all.

Best regards,
Andrew

Andrew:

My friends and relatives in Albuquerque, NM, are doing nothing but complaining about air quality, due to the Wallow Fire in eastern Arizona. They are directly downwind of the fire. Similar to the Chilean Volcano/NZ situation (but on a smaller scale), even the considerable distance downwind isn’t enough to protect them.

There are other fires too. A friend went to visit the Chiricahua Mtns. of southeastern Arizona, and found the Horseshoe Fire everywhere.

Meanwhile, life in Sacramento continues on in its frivolous Californian way. I’m painting a porch. I adopted a rabbit this weekend. I put my Albuquerque roots to use in documenting filming locations for the TV series “Breaking Bad”. I went to see Kylie in Las Vegas in May.

The only thing I’m unprepared for is natural disaster, and California has been ominously quiet, of late.

Marc

Marc:

I hope CA stays quiet for some time to come as I need at least one home without earthquake damage!! Mind you, my Tahoe place came perilously close to fire damage when the Angora Fire broke out a few years ago.

Your comments about CA life made me laugh. On Saturday I got stuck in traffic for hours at the Bay Bridge because some guy tried to jump off the bridge.

Have a great week,
Andrew

The Great Escape

Sunday morning at 2:30 a.m. was the last time I had seen Bailey. It was nearly midday Sunday, and Bailey had disappeared.

At first I figured Bailey was in one of the many niches available for a secret bunny to hide, but I slowly realized Bailey wasn't in any of them. So, where was the bunny?

Meanwhile, Joe the Plumber came over, mostly to hang out and talk about himself as I painted the back porch. I wasn't in the best of attentive moods - how am I going to explain this fiasco to Giorgio and Karina? - and so when Joe offered to get some hamburgers, I eagerly bade him well.

I thought I heard a surreptitious noise on the other side of the back yard fence, in the neighbor's yard, but there were plenty of scrub jays and squirrels making surreptitious noises over there. I went into the neighbor's yard and poked around, but found nothing.

When Joe returned, we prepared signs and he papered the neighborhood. We went on two strolls around the block, asking people if they had seen anything. Eventually, we were back in the neighbor's yard, trying to locate that surreptitious noise.

Then we discovered Bailey's Secret Niche. Behind the Savage, Pointy Agave, behind the Thorny Rose, behind the Obscuring Palm, behind the Ivy, there was the narrowest hole in the fence: almost impossible for people to see, but detectable from a rabbit perspective. Bailey slipped through the fence, and ran into the wire mesh placed against the fence on the opposite side for the contigency of preventing dogs from breaking into my yard. So, Bailey had left the yard, but technically was not at liberty. Still, with Ivy draped on both sides of the fence, Bailey was invisible.

Rabbits seem to live in a perpetual dread of being exposed to predators. Not in this niche! Bailey had found relief, and peace.

At least, until Crazy, Pursuing Man located Bailey and blocked that niche from use.

Left: Feeling glum after having his secret spot discovered and blocked off, Bailey goes back into Invisible Secret Bunny mode.

Bailey discovers the hidden wonder world of the garage.

Finally Getting Some Progress Painting The Back Porch This Weekend

The Lack Of Accountability Was A Feature, Not A Bug

How quickly people forget! The lack of paperwork was all part of the Bush Administration's efforts to deregulate the administrative overhead of warfare, which, admittedly, can be extraordinarily burdensome. But it was burdensome for a simple reason: people steal!

Now people want to get all medieval about the theft of hard-earned taxpayer dollars. But that misses the point. The Bushies figured a little theft was OK in the short run, and cheaper, as long as they didn't have to get all those signatures in triplicate, all up-and-down the Pentagon's chain of logistics command. What the Bushies failed to account for, though, was just how long the short run would be, and just how much money could quickly be siphoned away by clever people:

Approximately $6.6 billion in cash was likely stolen after being flown to Iraq during the months that followed the U.S.-led invasion, Pentagon officials said recently.

Stuart Bowen, the U.S. Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, told The Los Angeles Times that the sum just might be "the largest theft of funds in national history."

The cash was part of a series of shipments totaling more than $12 billion, taken largely from the U.N. "oil-for-food" program and the sales of Iraqi oil. Officials in the Bush administration had hoped the massive pallets of cash would help calm Iraq's civilian population following the chaotic and violent invasion and toppling of Saddam.

The funds -- which were separate from a $53 billion appropriation Congress approved for Iraqi reconstruction efforts -- were cobbled together by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York before being flown to Baghdad and distributed to interim Iraqi ministers, who U.S. officials see as the most likely culprits in the theft: an allegation that's not officially been leveled.

The Pentagon admitted last year that it could not account for over $8.7 billion in Iraqi reconstruction funds, and that about $2.6 billion of it was sent out without any documentation at all.

Investigators said in 2005 that Bush officials apparently neglected to put procedures in place to track the money or hold recipients accountable for its proper applications.

Iraqi officials have since threatened to take the U.S. to court to reclaim the funds.

Oh Come On, Tim Pawlenty Isn't THAT Dull!

Starting with such an unpromising premise, Pawlenty's joke is better than most people could come up with.

Do you want to talk dull? I mean, real dull? In 1975, my friend Walter said "Quick, we're going to the airport to see Scoop Jackson!"

Henry "Scoop" Jackson had just started campaigning for the 1976 Democratic Presidential nomination, and since Walt's father was a newspaperman, we had the inside scoop about his airport press briefing. So, we went to see someone who just might be a true American statesman!

Scoop Jackson made Tim Pawlenty look like Don Rickles and Joan Rivers, combined.

The Coming Of The End

A bit of news:

The California radio preacher who predicted that the end of the world would take place last month is hospitalized following a mild stroke.

Staff at Harold Camping's radio company, Family Stations Inc., reports that the 89-year-old preacher has been recuperating in a local hospital after suffering the stroke on Thursday.

People are strange. It seems to be a common failing of the human race that people can't seem to distinguish the sense of foreboding that accompanies one's own death from the sense of foreboding that accompanies the end of the world. You will die: it's unlikely the world will die anytime soon, though. Yet, in our emotional lives, the two concepts are hard to distinguish.

New Mexico: The Nation's Nuclear Waste Leader Since, Oh, 1945, Or So

Ooooh, the template!:

WIPP has become the only long-term nuclear waste disposal site in the country in part because local officials in Carlsbad lobbied to have a repository built nearby to boost the local economy.

A 1957 report by the National Academy of Sciences recommended getting rid of waste in salt beds and domes as the "most practical immediate solution of the problem." Salt remains an ideal substance for protecting nuclear waste, experts say.

Dyer Went To The Chiricahuas, And Found They Basically Burned Down

A few of Dyer's pictures.



Perimeter of the Horseshoe Fire.

Christchurch Shudders With A 5.5 And A 6.0

Here we go again! It looks like the 5.5 and the 6.0 bracketed Sumner. And so close to Andrew's house!:

The magnitude 5.5 quake struck at 1pm, 10 kilometres east of Christchurch at Taylor's Mistake beach, at a depth of 11 kilometres, and sent people scrambling for cover. It was followed at 2.20pm by a more powerful magnitude 6 quake, centred 10 kilometres southeast of the city and 9km underground.

At least ten people were taken to Christchurch Hospital with injuries due to falling building material after the 1pm quake. Other residents from the devastated city cried in the streets and hugged their children.

Police said there were no reports of injuries following the second aftershock today.

The quakes are the latest in a series of dozens of aftershocks to hit Canterbury following the devastating February 22 earthquake, where 182 people died, and a damaging magnitude 7.1 earthquake last September. The February 22 quake measured magnitude 6.3 and left 100,000 homes damaged - 10,000 beyond repair. Christchurch's CBD was left in ruins, with 900 buildings - many in what has become known as the 'red zone' - expected to be demolished.

...The earthquakes were another blow to Christchurch residents, who found them frightening and upsetting.

"Quite frankly I think they're all over this and they want the sense of normality to return ... my heart really goes out to them."

...Civil Defence has again set up a headquarters at the Christchurch Art Gallery where shaking was so violent those inside feared the large glass windows would burst.

...More masonry fell from the landmark ChristChurch Catheral and there were reports of other buildings - in Lichfield St, in Latimer Square and at the corner of Stanmore Road and Worcester Street - falling down.

A house has fallen from the top of Clifton Hill into Peacock's Valley below as scores of people attempt to leave the seaside suburb of Sumner. Many residents have turned their power and water mains off before leaving the suburb which bore the brunt of today's earthquakes.

A crack through Scarborough Hill has seen the main road to Taylors Mistake cut off as emergency services fear more rockfall could destabilise other clifftop homes. One resident said the area was decimated and that damage to their homes was "far worse" than February's 6.3 magnitude quake.

Two men who had been salvaging windows from the St Johns Church in the central city were reported to have received cuts and bruises and were taken to hospital.

St John staff member Alistair Drye said the two men were okay, but shaken.

"The walls fell down around them," he said.

The church had been severely damaged in February's earthquake and was set to be demolished.

Walls around the outside of the church had "fallen and crumbled" during today's aftershocks, while the roof had collapsed onto the organ and the front of the church, he said.

The tower of Lyttelton's historic Timeball Station fell in today's second quake.

Using binoculars, Lyttelton resident Peter Evans said he could see the remains of the Timeball Station from his back garden.

"You can see the tower has come down. The back roof looks like its collapsed into the building. The top of the tower has fallen off and is lying on the ground. The building has collapsed really."

...In the Liggins St area of Horseshoe Lake, the ground was bubbling with sand spurting out of the ground, as happened in the first two major quakes, a resident said.

...Significant rockfalls have been seen in Sumner and parts of Banks Peninsula and land and cellphone lines were down in many of the beachside suburbs and in the Heathcote Valley.

Liquefaction had been reported across the eastern suburbs and as far away as Kaiapoi, which was hard hit in the September quake.

Sirens were sounding throughout the inner city and helicopters were flying over the red zone.

...Press reporter Marc Greenhill was in Brooker Ave, Burwood, when the 6.0 struck.

He was talking to one of the residents who was trying to clean liquefaction out of his lounge from the 1pm quake when the second one struck.

"The road split down the middle and seven or eight mini geysers spurted liquefaction and water onto the road."

Within a minute the whole street was flooded and several cars were trapped.

Water levels rose above the gutter and across the pavement and up into driveways.

A woman came screaming out of her home as liquefaction silt and water poured out into gardens.

A witness near the Lyttelton Tunnel said the quake dislodged rocks from the Port Hills above, some which looked to be as big as car tyres.

George McKelvey "My Teenage Fallout Queen" (Scopitone)

Introducing Bailey, The Bunny

Bailey, The Bunny

Karina Selvaggio coaxes Bailey to relax.

Later in the afternoon, the Chicken came over for a visit, but no connection was made. Bailey was shy, played the part of a Secret Bunny, and hid.

Don't Waste The Money

M.: That's too bad the car repair was so expensive. Here's $20.00 to help with expenses on your vacation trip to Tahoe this weekend.

E.: Don't worry; I won't waste the money. I learned my lesson the hard way with the penny slots: you have to play ALL the payoff lines on the machine to have the best odds, so it's best not to be cheap and place only the minimum bet.

M.: You are the Green Destiny!

E.: I AM the Green Destiny!

Damned Fine Print

E.: MMMMAAAARRRRCCCCC! It was all arranged! C. found a mechanic in Roseville to replace my starter. All we had to do was tow the car to Roseville. But Triple-A wouldn't do it! They wanted an additional $160.00!

M.: It's probably against Triple-A's rules. Roseville is a long way from downtown. They are probably forbidden from driving past one hundred other closer garages just to tow the car to Roseville.

E.: I spend so much money every month for insurance, and all they do is harass me. Where does it say they can't tow my car to Roseville?

M.: Oh, it's probably there in the fine print, somewhere.

E.: This is so E-STOOPID!

Like They Say, When Elephants Fight....

... the grass gets trampled. But in this case, my money was on the Wal-Mart Elephant. Small businesses and large businesses alike are getting reamed on these fees, and anything that can be done to lower them will help the economy:

By a vote of 54 to 45, the senate defeated a measure co-sponsored by Missouri Senators Claire McCaskill and Roy Blunt to delay a federal directive to banks, forcing them to lower the transaction fees businesses pay to process electronic transactions. The amendment needed 60 votes to pass.

...Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., originally proposed the plan to lower swipe fees, arguing it would provide economic relief to small businesses that he said were routinely being overcharged by banks and forced to pass the cost on to consumers. The measure does allow loopholes for certain small banks and credit unions, but Durbin and other supporters have largely framed the issue as a battle between large, powerful banking institutions and small businesses.

But McCaskill thinks that is a skewed perspective.

“I didn’t see this as David vs. Goliath,” she said. “I saw it as Goliath vs. Goliath. The vast majority of these swipe fees are paid by huge retailers like Wal-Mart and Home Depot.”

Gary Johnson Vs. Actor Reggie Brown

Reggie Brown wins.

If The Tornado Doesn't Get You, The Fungus Will

Hard luck:

JOPLIN, Missouri — The death toll from the tornado that destroyed much of Joplin has risen to 151, and three of the latest victims suffered from a rare fungal infection that can occur when dirt becomes embedded under the skin, authorities said Friday.

Coroner Rob Chappel said the three had been hospitalized with the unusually aggressive infection sometimes found in survivors of other natural disasters. He said it was difficult to identify the fungus as a cause of death since the people infected also suffered other severe injuries.

...A week after the tornado, patients began arriving with fungal infections.

"We could visibly see mold in the wounds," Schmidt said. "It rapidly spread. The tissue dies off and becomes black. It doesn't have any circulation. It has to be removed."

Schmidt said the infection is sometimes seen in survivors of mass trauma such as the 2004 tsunami in Indonesia.

Chihuahua Does 'Pirates'

Silly fun at Zooey Deschanel. Here is my entry

One Is The Loneliest Number

So, Newt Gingrich's entire campaign staff quit. Something about his lack of discipline. I know disappointed Republicans (like K.) consider him to be a liberal these days: the worst species of Beltway resident imaginable to conservatives. But still, Newt remains in the running.

It's hard to run a campaign all by yourself, but by clearing out the arena of all distractions first, Newt can grapple with the hydra-headed Washington beast, alone, Teddy-Roosevelt-like, and earn whatever accolades he can that way, gladiator-style. Just ask Mel Gibson, who has struggled in much the same way down in Hollywood.

Then again, Mel Gibson talks to himself these days through the medium of a Beaver-like puppet, so maybe he's not the best role model either.

Stopping Wallow May Be A Bit Easier Now

The Wallow fire burned through the entire forest; essentially, from one side to the other. There's less fuel present at the lower elevations on the other side, and the winds are said to be dying down, so maybe they can start getting a handle on this.

Fire perimeter on June 8th:



One side benefit is that archaeology may be easier to do in the area now that the vegetation has been vaporized. There are likely old Indian trails in the area - Coronado may have traveled on one of these trails to reach the Zunis at Hawikuh in 1540 - and the trails and other archaeological sites may be easier to spot than heretofore.

But the cost is horrible! It takes a while for vegetation to grow in this dry climate, and it won't be restored to anything like its former beauty in my lifetime, or another lifetime appended to it.



Carbon monoxide in the smoke plume is evident all the way to Iowa.

Narcotanks

I'm increasingly-worried that the cross-border arms trade, fueled by marijuana heading north and Second-Amendment-crazed loons sending guns south, will eventually allow Mexican Mafiosi to attempt a forceful takeover of the United States.

Narcotanks are a worrisome development on this path:

MONTERREY, Mexico — Soldiers on patrol in a Mexican border town discovered a warehouse where armor-plated "tanks" were being prepared for the Gulf drug cartel, a military source said Monday.

The patrol came across the warehouse when they clashed with a group of armed men in the town of Ciudad Camargo, in the far northeastern state of Tamaulipas. Two of the gunmen were killed in a firefight, while two hid inside the warehouse.

...The trucks were covered in steel plates one inch (2.5 centimeters) thick, strong enough to "resist the caliber of personal weapons the soldiers use," said the source.

The air-conditioned armored vehicles were equipped with portholes where snipers could open fire from and remain protected.

...The vehicles, locally known as "monsters," can even resist fire from a heavy .50 caliber machine gun and can only be destroyed with anti-tank weapons, according to the military.

The home-made tanks are used in clashes with other drug cartels as well as to protect drug shipments.

In recent years, soldiers deployed in the northeastern Mexican border region have confiscated 109 home-made armored vehicles -- including one dubbed the "Popemobile" because it carried an armored cabin similar to that used to protect Pope Benedict XVI in foreign trips.

Ghost Ships

John noticed this:

This would have popular with Techies, if Tech had been in Benecia...

Exactly! It looks like amazing fun!:

Getting inside the ships was usually not straightforward, and sometimes impossible. MARAD locks them down tight, but there are so many possible entrances that persistence often paid off. One of the first orders of business each trip was finding a place to sleep. The ships are often stinky from mold, mildew, PCBs, and decay, so a room with windows that opened was preferable. We typically slept in the captain’s room where we found comfy couches, convertible beds, lots of space, and plenty of light during the daytime.

Service With A Smile

Here at work, we occasionally test the effectiveness of exhaust-control systems of various vehicles. To that end, we store several barrels of standardized vehicle-certification fuel in the garage, but since we don't test vehicles all the time, the fuel generally just sits in its barrels for long stretches of time.

This morning, the Fire Marshall made a workplace inspection, and he was unhappy with the idea of idle barrels of fuel just laying around the garage. Get rid of the fuel, he ordered.

So later, when I rolled into the parking lot, D. was out there, rolling a barrel of automobile fuel around. He asked: "Would you like some fuel? It's high-quality 'cert' fuel. It's free!"

In these troubled times, it's nice to have someone roll some fuel up to your car and give it away.

The big challenge will be giving away the barrel of ethanol fuel, which is appropriate only for flex-fueled vehicles (FFVs). There may not be enough of those vehicles at work that can use it.

But we're resourceful. I'm sure we'll think of something....

You See, It's Like This....

For some reason, J. can't quite hear the transition. It's not THAT hard: just do it like Tina Turner does it....

Escalation In Libya

NATO tightens the ratchet:

In a sudden, sharp escalation of NATO’s air campaign over Libya, warplanes dropped more than 60 bombs on targets in Tripoli on Tuesday, obliterating large areas of Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi’s Bab al-Aziziya command compound.

In response, Colonel Qaddafi posted an audio recording on Libyan state television vowing never to surrender or accept defeat. “We welcome death,” he said. “Martyrdom is a million times better.”

...With the repeated bombing of his Tripoli compound, Colonel Qaddafi has become a fugitive in his own capital, unable or unwilling to appear on television and forced, so NATO and people in the rebel underground in Tripoli have said, to stay constantly on the move in the hope of cloaking his whereabouts from NATO.

His isolation has been compounded by signs that support for him has ebbed in wide areas of Tripoli, and growing numbers of high-level defections, from the top ranks of the government and the army.

...A senior NATO diplomat said on Tuesday that the daytime barrage in Tripoli was consistent with the steady escalation of attacks in and around the Libyan capital by allied warplanes and, more recently, armed helicopters.

“It’s a continuing sign that the pressure is increasing all the time,” said the diplomat. “There’s a psychological aspect to the campaign, and we’re sending a clear message: There is only one way out, and that is to go.”

Fantasy Role Play

It wasn't supposed to work out this way:

LAS CRUCES - A Holloman Air Force Base mother has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for spending hours online, playing World of Warcraft until late in the night as her young daughter "withered away" from malnutrition and dehydration, in the words of federal prosecutors.

...From noon to 3 a.m. the month the little girl died, the computer showed "continuous activity" as her mother chatted online with friends from the online fantasy role-playing game. Less than an hour before Brandi Wulf was found dead, her ribs "prominent," her teeth appearing "black and decayed," her mother was online, doing just that, court documents state.

..."I'll never get to see her grown up ... That weighs on my heart. That was my little girl," Christie said slowly, with difficulty, her shoulders hunched, the chains on her wrists shaking.

Wallow

From Southwest Coordination Center:



Kate decides to rattle my cage:

Marc:

I noticed you had mention of the big fire in AZ on your website—I don’t know if you’ve seen these images, but I thought they were impressive.

I reply:

Hi Kate:

I’ve been hiding my head under the pillow trying to avoid news of this fire. The reason is that it’s so big and so fast-moving, and there’s just about nothing that will stop it. It’s almost burned it’s way completely through the forest, into the juniper woodland and grassland on the other side, in the Little Colorado River Valley. The fire might slow down, just because there will be less vegetation. On the other hand, maybe it won’t: maybe it’ll just burn all the way across New Mexico too!

Arizona forests are unusually vulnerable to these fires, not only because lots of people are present in these forests, and because it is so dry, and so windy, but because unusual conditions in the spring of 1919 created an unusually-dense undergrowth for a ponderosa pine forest. In that fateful spring, favorable weather and lots of rain and snow permitted every seedling to sprout. EVERY seedling!

Ninety years later, you can still track where each and every pine cone hit the forest floor that spring of 1919, because dense clusters of teensy-weensy 90-year-old trees no bigger round than your wrist are everywhere in the forest. The Forest Service never had enough money or incentive to clear out tens of thousands of square miles of these clusters. So, Arizona forests are sitting ducks for fires. I’m pretty pessimistic: perhaps in the long run, ponderosa pine forests along the Mogollon Rim are incompatible with civilization.

Scary pictures!

From GeoMac, here is a map:

From NASA:

Anthony Weiner, And All That

Weiner was being groomed for a major leadership position in the Democratic Party. Too bad he threw that all away. I don't think he should resign, but the pressure to do so will be intense. His constituency may forgive him. On the other hand, they may not forgive him. It depends on what else is out there.

The most disturbing element in all this is that Andrew Breitbart is strengthened. That guy is pretty evil when it comes to defaming and lying about people. But that's what happens when Congressmen act in a frivolous manner. Evil triumphs!

You Know It's Bad When You Can See The Plume On The Large-Scale Weather Satellite Pictures

Arizona's Wallow Fire is cutting through the forest like a hot knife through butter. It's going to come blasting into New Mexico, and there is precious little to stop it.

Paper Dolls

Noel writes:

I was looking for super hero paper dolls for Noah and came across this.

Oh, what fun! I can’t think of a better role model for an impressionable kid (is anyone more diligent in community support?) than good ol’ Gus Fring!

Recent Devaluation Of The U.S. Dollar Coincided With GOP Dominance

Just sayin':

Obama Can Raise The Debt Ceiling On His Own Authority

Just cut the GOP out:

Some observers, including Garrett Epps, who is a legal scholar, and Bruce Bartlett, who is not, have argued that Section 4 of the 14th Amendment makes the debt ceiling invalid. That Section reads, in relevant part:

The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law…shall not be questioned.

That’s it, at least for the relevant parts. The only Supreme Court case law on it concerned whether government could renege on debts it made (no), and thus whether it applies to non-Civil War debts (yes).

...Now, what if Obama does as Epps suggests and just issues more debt? It’s perfect from his perspective: he doesn’t cave, pleasing his base (and anyone who cares about good policy), while ensuring that there is no default.

But it is also perfect from the Republican leadership’s perspective. They don’t cave; they don’t increase the debt ceiling; and they can rail against Presidential imperialism, Obama’s socialist-Muslim dictatorship, etc. And if I am right about standing, no one ever has to bring this to a head because no one has standing to sue!

Good For Huntsman To Skip Iowa

The small states that generally lead the presidential primary schedule like to flaunt their own importance, but they also secretly fret about their own potential-irrelevance. Still, no presidential candidate is bound to enter any primary they don't think is salient to their campaign, and it's good to remind the early-primary states of that fact.

Jon Huntsman doesn't want to enter the Iowa caucuses, for sound reasons, and that's OK. And I agree with him regarding ethanol: it's a cancer on American politics. Best to do without subsidies, but Iowans thrive on those subsidies. Good to remind the Iowans of their compromised status:

Former Utah Governor and Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman now says he will not compete in Iowa for his potential presidential run -- and leaders in Iowa aren't thrilled by his open snubbing of the state.

As ABC News reported over the weekend, Huntsman spoke to a crowd in New Hampshire:

"I'm not competing in Iowa for a reason. I don't believe in subsidies that prop up corn, soybeans and ethanol,"Huntsman said, according to multiple news sources at the event.

Huntsman, the former ambassador to China, continued, "I think they destroy the global marketplace.... We probably won't be spending a whole lot of time in Iowa. I guess I understand how the politics work there."

Gorilla, The Lucky Kookaburra

The folks in Brisbane are all aflutter over a lucky kookaburra:

Nicknamed Gorilla, the plucky kookaburra was struck by a car on the New England Highway near the NSW town of Scone a week ago and after being nursed back to health in Brisbane, will be flown home by an RSPCA volunteer in the next couple of days.

...The man whose car hit Gorilla said he noticed two kookaburras darting in front of him just before he collected one at 100km/h.

Miraculously, apart from a cut wing, Gorilla was unhurt.

...RSPCA spokesman Michael Beatty said there was an excellent chance the birds would be reunited.

"It is a bit of a happy ending for a love story," he said. "Kookaburras mate for life and from all indications this guy had a partner so we were always trying to get him back to where he came from."

"Kookaburras are territorial, but even though their territories are quite large (several kilometres), he should be able to find her again."

Motorist Bruce Wham thought he had killed Gorilla but when he went to remove the bird from his grille the following day he saw him stir and called the RSPCA.

Still Shakin' In Christchurch

They had yet more aftershocks from the September and February quakes in the vicinity of Christchurch, Canterbury, South Island, New Zealand:

Cantabrians have been shaken by two earthquakes this morning, forcing some stores near the epicentre to close.

The first earthquake struck near Rolleston at 9.09am at a depth of 15 kilometres and measured magnitude 5.5.

...The Canterbury Quake Live website reported the shake was the sixth largest since September 4's magnitude-7.1 quake.

It was followed by a magnitude 3.8 tremor at 11.41am. This 10km-deep shake was centred in Weedons, about 4 km away from Rolleston.

GNS Science duty seismologist Brian Ferris said the 5.5 tremor was "within the forecast we expected".

...Fay Burson, manager of bottle store Henry's in Rolleston, said she probably lost more stock during today's shake than in February's magnitude-6.3.

...Burson said September's earthquake was much worse.

"We had minor damage, nothing compared to our first one of course."

...Spectators and players at a rugby tournament for four to 16 year-olds in Rolleston saw the ground "roll" during this morning's aftershock.

The tournament, involving 42 teams, kicked off just before the tremor struck, but it did not stop the players for long, Rolleston Rugby Club president David Egan said.

"Everyone stopped and looked, then carried on. Everyone's come to expect them now."

Some people reported seeing the jolt hit the ground, he said.

"They could see it rolling, heading towards the clubhouse. It hit the car park first and lifted some vehicles off the ground, then hit the clubhouse."

...People reported feeling the quake in Hawarden, Akaroa and as far away as Dunedin and Nelson.

Adapting To The Chicken

The two young women riding by on bicycles gaped in disbelief and slowed to a halt. One asked: "Is that your chicken?" I replied: "No, the chicken starting coming around last Friday." She replied: "That is HILARIOUS! That's a leghorn chicken! Persuade her to stay in your yard and she'll lay eggs for you!"

The chicken is adapting to the neighborhood, and in turn, the neighborhood is adapting to the chicken.

Later, I heard a big chicken commotion next door. I saw the chicken run up the roof on the shed next door, pursued by an aggressive cat. The panicked chicken leaped from the rooftop over the fence, landing onto a branch of the oak tree hanging over my back yard, and then blundered through the tree's canopy and fluttered into the comparative solace of my back yard. The chicken quickly accustomed herself to the yard.

Cute creature!

Kylie Minogue - "On A Night Like This/All The Lovers" - 'Aphrodite' North American Tour

Kylie Minogue - "Put Your Hands Up (If You Feel Love)" - 'Aphrodite' North American Tour

Kylie Minogue - " Better The Devil You Know" - 'Aphrodite' North American Tour

Kylie Minogue - "Looking For An Angel" - 'Aphrodite' North American Tour

Kylie Minogue - "Confide In Me" - 'Aphrodite' North American Tour

Kylie Minogue - "What Do I Have To Do?" - 'Aphrodite' North American Tour

Kylie Minogue - "I Believe In You" - 'Aphrodite' North American Tour

Kylie Minogue - "Illusion" - 'Aphrodite' North American Tour

Kylie Minogue - "The One" - 'Aphrodite' North American Tour