Dr. George Fischbeck Interview

Brad Paisley's "Geology", From The Album "Your Substratum Makes My Lava Flow"

(h/t Walt)

Educational Aspects Of Epic Rap Battles of History

It's the story:

Our three-level joke system is that we want some jokes that everyone can understand, some middle jokes that most people could get and then those jokes that only a few super nerd, diehard fans will appreciate. What's cool about that is now that the series has developed a fan base of its own, we can see it inspiring young people to learn stuff so they can understand what that joke about Gorbachev was. We didn't get into this thinking we were gonna teach people about history, I think, but we accidentally started to.

The 75 Things Every Man Should Do

No. 75: Bungee jump.

What the hell.

Southwest Weather Changes

The weather forecasts for the next week in the Southwest look intriguing. The low approaching the West Coast will become a cutoff low early next week. By Friday, that will establish a proto-monsoonal circulation that will pump moisture into New Mexico and Colorado in a way reminiscent of last September's colossal flooding situation. The Texas Panhandle is particularly-dry right now, and may be particularly hard-hit. It's always from-pillar-to-post out there on the High Plains!

Tribal Fusion

I didn't realize Nani was back in town. Need to catch the group in performance sometime.

Going After The Climate Cranks - This Weekend In Sacramento

Caught a part of this on the radio.

"A Thing Of Beauty"

As a veteran of the 2003 California Gubernatorial Recall Election, all I can say is, the more choices, the better.

Even before Wednesday's debate started, Idaho Public Television announced that it would broadcast the event on a 30-second delay in anticipation of rampant cussin'. Brown—who wore his customary leather vest and leather hat, has the presidential seal tattooed on his shoulder, two cigars in his right breast pocket, and is missing several prominent teeth—used his closing argument to wave a signed certificate from a "Masai prophet" that confirmed that he would one day be president of the United States. Brown revealed that he supports gay marriage because as a cab driver in Boise he discovered that gay people "love each other more than I love my motorcycle." His closing argument was blunt: "You have your choice, folks: A cowboy, a curmudgeon, a biker, or a normal guy. Take your pick… We're leaving it up to you."

Little Mix - Move

Arizona Nostalgia

A bit of Arizona nostalgia today. This Google Earth shot is of Dr. Tom's Place, a compound where I rented a small room for five years while attending the University of AZ in Tucson. It's directly across the street from the Dillinger House, where members of John Dillinger's gang were captured after a brief fight in 1934. Dillinger was the inspiration for Humphrey Bogart, as the gangster Duke Mantee, in the 1936 movie "The Petrified Forest", which also starred Leslie Howard and Bette Davis.

This article gives more information (although they do get the address wrong):

The Dillinger gang, hiding from its recent East Chicago, Ind., bank robbery, might have enjoyed Tucson weather longer if a grease fire hadn't started in the basement of the Hotel Congress. Flames roared up the elevator shaft, engulfing the third floor. Hotel occupants quickly evacuated, but gang members delayed trying to collect their bags. With the hall blocked by fire and smoke, the gang members retreated to a window, where the Tucson Fire Department rescued them with an aerial ladder. As soon as he was rescued, gang member Charles Makley tipped firemen William Benedict and Kenneth Pender $12 to climb back up and retrieve his bags. That baggage would be the downfall of the Dillinger gang.

...After the 1934 blaze, firemen Benedict and Pender were thumbing through a copy of True Detective magazine and noticed two of the magazine's "wanted men" seemed to be the same as the ones eager to have their luggage rescued. Suspecting they had big-time criminals there, the police set up stakeouts. The work paid off. Makley was captured at Grabe Electric Co., where he was looking for a radio that monitored police calls. The local lady with him was released and cautioned to "pick her friends more carefully."

Next to be drawn into the police net were Russell "Art" Clark and his girlfriend, Opal Long, arrested at a rented house at 327 N. Second Ave. Clark and Long put up a fight until a knock on the head convinced Clark to cooperate.

Karl Rove, Ever The Dirty Trickster

Karl Rove, just the same as ever:

At another time, the Democratic response might have been to marshal doctors’ records to disprove the false claim. Rivals for the presidential nomination might have joined the chorus of faux-alarm. Nothing like that happened. A Clinton staffer told the New York Post, “Please assure Dr. Rove she’s 100 percent,” adding, “Karl Rove has deceived the country for years, but there are no words for this level of lying.” Boom.

White House press secretary Jay Carney was more brutal still. “Here’s what I would say about cognitive capacity, which is that Dr. Rove might have been the last person in America on election night to recognize and acknowledge that the president had won reelection, including the state of Ohio. So we’ll leave it at that.”

...Note that Rove came armed with dates and details about Clinton’s health woes, along with subtle charges that the former secretary of state is hiding something. (She had a blood clot; “They won’t say where.” Oh wait; they said where the very next day.)

That’s the hallmark of the dirty trickster: introduce just enough fact into the story, larded with lies, to get reporters (he hopes) to begin chasing down the details.

On cue Sean Hannity picked up the cudgel, asking on his show last night, “whoever spends 30 days in the hospital these days?” That’s our Fox; debunking Rove in one segment; spreading his lies in another. No doubt some wag at Politico or National Journal (I won’t venture names; the choices are many) is right now preparing a contrarian “Karl Rove is right.”

Of course, it’s not hard to recall when Republicans were minimizing Clinton’s December 2012 health troubles, calling it “Benghazi flu” to make the also-scurrilous charge that she was using her health to avoid testifying about Benghazi. Now the smear is that those injuries were serious enough to disqualify her as a presidential candidate.

We must remember that Rove began his career as a Republican dirty trickster, coming to national attention during Richard Nixon’s notorious 1972 reelection campaign. As John Amato and Dave Neiwert recount in their book “Off the Cliff,” he was the chief executive of the College Republicans, and he made the Washington Post, in a story headlined, “GOP Party Probes Official as Teacher of Dirty Tricks,” for an investigation into a dirty-campaigning seminar he taught young right-wingers.

Lil Jon Vs. Yung Joc - Snap Ur Fingers Cuz It's Goin Down

Always liked this mash-up.

Bakersfield Cat To The Rescue

Best cat ever.

Take Me Back To The Cretaceous

I'm having such strange dreams. Last night, I had a Love Story kind of romance with a dinosaur. Nothing like a love-struck brontosaurus loping across a verdant meadow towards a reunion, accompanied by a lush soundtrack.

The crisis came when I couldn't get her through airport security.

Just before sleep last night, I was channel surfing and caught a portion of 'Rock of Ages'. I bet the seed was planted there.

Happiness

I went to school at the University of Arizona. I lived five years at an address just 4/10 of a mile away from here.

Call Me A Benghazi Truther

How do we know anything happened in Benghazi at all?

There were reports of a CIA action there about the same time. Maybe the news reports were cover for something more interesting. How do we know for sure Ambassador Stevens is dead?

(Remember, most of the conspiracy theories about the Kennedy Assassination hinge on the fact the CIA wasn't truthful in its presentations to the Warren Commission. How do we know anything about Benghazi?)

No Spring Chicken

Ain't She Sweet!

Get A Room

Nearly collided with two chattering, mating sparrows flying in unison down the street. Is that even aerodynamically possible? They aren't even paying attention to traffic.

Kelsey B's "Bombay" Is Out!

Loving Kelsey B's new song (especially the Club Mix)! I always like her collaborations with Phoenix-based DJ Matt Fox.

Sweet - Fox On The Run

I used to call this the 'beeping tractor' song back in the day.

Setting The Stage For El Niño

But NOT there yet!

Can't Imagine How The Accident Happened

Who'd have thought?:

Investigators found nearly two dozen guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition lying around the Arizona home of a 3-year-old boy who accidentally shot himself earlier this year.

The boy apparently pulled a small chair up to a counter where his mother was working on a laptop computer March 3 and found a .32-caliber semi-automatic pistol.

The weapon was in an ankle holster that exposed the gun’s trigger, which police said “could easily be pulled by almost anyone.”

The boy did pull the trigger and shot himself in the abdomen. He underwent emergency surgery and survived the shooting.

...Detectives executed a search warrant the family’s Pima County home and reported 20 unsecured guns scattered throughout the house, including shotguns, rifles, and a Colt .45 handgun in a holster affixed to the headboard in the master bedroom.

The family does own a gun safe, where several weapons were found, but one of the couple’s four children said he knew the safe was unlocked, and another said his father – who is the volunteer fire chief for the Elephant Head Fire Department — didn’t remember the combination to it.

Most of the weapons found in the house were not loaded, police said, but several had rounds in the chamber and others had rounds in magazines.

Sharina Marion told police she didn’t know there were unsecured guns in the home and said she believed the gun safe was locked.

...The Marions told police they taught their children – ages 3, 7, 9, and 10 – firearms safety and that they could handle the weapons only with parental approval.

The 3-year-old had fired weapons under supervision the day before he shot himself at a “church shoot” with other members of their congregation.

"Look What Bigfoot Did To Me"

After "A Chorus Line" on Sunday evening, Steve, Jan, and myself went to eat at Panda Express on Covell Blvd. in Davis. After eating, I was getting back into my parked car when I noticed two young women, late teens perhaps, sitting on the grass next to the street, and near my car. One held a homemade cardboard sign of the sort vagrants typically carry when begging for change at busy traffic intersections. Something was wrong with her hand. And she feebly called out for change.

I asked, "What does your sign say?" She showed me: "Look What Bigfoot Did To Me." She displayed her hand, locked tight in a cast, with the middle finger plastered into a semi-permanent flipping-the-bird gesture. I said, "Bigfoot did that to you?" She nodded and said, "Either that, or a skateboarding injury. Take your pick." I thought this was clever, and started reaching for the change bucket on my car's console, when she said, "Want to see the other sign of the sign?" I nodded, and she showed it. It said something like "I Have No Pants," or "I Need Pants." I looked askance at it, and she lamely explained that she uses it when she's wearing shorts. The slogan made no sense to me. It made my head hurt. I got the impression these girls weren't really pros at this whole begging for money at busy traffic intersections thing. Still, the Bigfoot slogan was clever, so I readily handed over change to these vagrant wannabes.

"The Emperor's New Clothes" - DMTC

Tylar T. (Empress Carlotta the Least) and Jonathan K. (Emperor Maximilian the Most).

Excellent show at DMTC!

Isabella G. and Fiona C. (Sew and Stitch).

Jenna K. (Sinister, the Prime Minister).

Talking John Birch Paranoid Blues

Ed Sullivan wouldn't let Bob Dylan sing this song on his show.