The Newport Aquarium In a Leap Second

You got extra time tonight. They are going to reset the Atomic Clocks around the world! They will be adding a leap second to all the time in the world. The Isotopes that run the clocks have all agreed to stop their decay for one second between 12:00 midnight 2008 and 12:00 morning 2009. There will be a one second stutter. Time enough to savor this posting about the stuff I liked and photographed at the Newport, Oregon aquarium.

Tales of the Drive About:Seven : EAGLES and HAWKS

The highway between Klamath, Oregon and Bend, Oregon is in most places a tunnel of trees. Trees in the bazillion numb my senses, so that I was alert enough to see the bird off to the side of the road sitting on a spire of a tree, was a miracle. We are used to seeing red-tailed hawks on telephone poles and fence posts along the roads of Oklahoma. This bird was some what larger than that.



Yep it was an eagle. Sitting there, ignoring the traffic, was an eagle. So I turned around and drove back to take pictures. Second miracle, the bird was still there.



Car's honked as I diligently tried to get close enough. The Eagle stayed put.



Thirty some shots latter, I decided to let him be. So I left him on the spire beside the road and went on my way.



A week or so later I was driving down a highway in Eastern Nevada. The land was covered with 8 to 10 foot scrub. The 15 feet tall abandoned telegraph poles were the highest perch anywhere in the vast flat expanse we were traveling though. Sure enough there were eagles perched on the poles. So I tried to get several pictures. Some photos came out.



A few hundred miles further on we entered Utah and some farms lands.



Down the road in front of a farmers house I notice two large birds in the cottonwood trees in his front yard. One was a Bald Eagle.




The other was a very large hawk, I think.




He (she?) was antsy, and left soon after I started taking pictures.





The hawk left. But the eagle stayed.





And the Eagle stayed, and stayed and stayed.





So finally I left. Imagine, having a Bald Eagle just hanging around in your front yard.

So I need the help of those who know. I recognize the mature Bald Eagle of course, but are the other two eagles show immature Bald Eagles or Golden Eagles or what? Also, that's an awfully big hawk. What kind is it? It is in the SW corner of Utah.
Thanks for the help.

Drive About Stories: Six : Six Words

By Carol Memmott, USA TODAY
Could you sum up your life in six words?
Writers took the pithy challenge in Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure from Smith Magazine, edited by Rachel Fershleiser and Larry Smith (Harper Perennial, $12, paperback original).

This online publication's request for quick memoirs (sixwordmemoir.com) garnered 15,000 submissions; 800 made the book.

Here's what some of the more famous contributors wrote:

"Well, I thought it was funny." Stephen Colbert

"Me see world! Me write stories!" Elizabeth Gilbert

"Secret of life: Marry an Italian." Nora Ephron

"Fearlessness is the mother of reinvention." Arianna Huffington
"Relatively famous parents, very low self-esteem." Molly Jong-Fast

"Revenge is living well without you." Joyce Carol Oates

"Born bald. Grew hair. Bald again." A.J. Jacobs

"Fifteen years since last professional haircut." Dave Eggers

"Mushrooms. Clowns. Wands. Five. Wig. Thatched." Amy Sedaris

And now for my own:

"I lived well, I lived unseen."

Those who know me well will recognize those six words as a form of my life's philosophy.

So my fellow readers and bloggers what are your six words of a life summation?

Tales of the "Drive About" FIVE Being Thankful

On this day of giving thanks across my county, let me add my meager gratitude's as well.
I am thankful for my wife of 41 years and her great tolerance of our difference in temperaments.
...for my children which have added so much to my life




...for my country and my freedoms there in to say and do and travel and be dang near anything I want
...for the land I live in from, sea to shining sea and for all the people in between who voted for and seized the future rather than the past

...for all the beauties of life and God's grace that give eyes and soul to see them

...and for the insight that this is not all there is.

For these I give Thanks.

P.S.

I also give thanks to spellcheck which makes my writting look not too ignorant.

Tales of the "Drive About" FOUR : Name That

Name this Star Wars character.

Addendum:

How about Admiral Ackbar?

Tales of the "Drive About" THREE....Blow

Oklahoma Windmills

Are these machines made in America?
Do we export "wind dollars" to pay for them?



Old Style California Windmills

How long must a windmill generator function before its utility erases the invested carbon cost to make it, transport it, and set it up?



Palm Springs Wind Field

Dead birds, dead bats, all a feast for the ground scavengers who then become more locally prolific. Pollution Free?



Lots of smaller ones? A few large ones?
What's the life span of a windmill?
Why are oil men so interested in wind power?
Show me the money trail!


New Mexico Twirlers


My brother, the Oklahoma rural electric company CEO, notes that when he needs electricity the most, under a very hot August high pressure dome, the wind does not blow. Making it is one thing. Transporting it is another. Saving it for a windless day?

Tales of the "Drive About":TWO....Don't Tread On Me

The flag above was flying by a small New Mexico cafe high on the Great Divide of America.

In their forties, fifties maybe, dressed in ball caps (one said 'Idaho' across the front) and old denim jackets eating their pie and drinking coffee, the conversation went something like this (Parts are gone, couldn't hear it all):

Can you beleive all the hate.....black man for sure....Obama won't get much done...want to help make him fail.... somthing like war ...for sure....Militias are recruiting like the devil......gad damn fools....McVeigh was just the first...I feel sorry for Oklahoma...that's really where it started you know...yes ....man it was....those teddy bears on that fence...Pogo....yes....if it weren't for the winters, I'd just stay up here....why AK-47s...good for nothin else....those old fools...stupid f***s...want some of my apple pie....

Then they noticed that I seemed to be listening, turned their heads and lowered their voices.

Tales of the "Drive About": ONE

On The Road, nope can't use that one, let's see, OK, during my drive about...that's it tales of the "drive about". Sounds kind of Aussie like, but what the hey.



So I huff and I puff my way with two bags and a computer up the flight of stairs to our second floor hotel room. Look at the view, she says. I do like she says. That's what I do you know, what she says that is.

The view to the East is of two mountains. The one over the bougainvillea (red flowers) is Mount San Jacinto.

The one between the fan palm fronds is Mount San Gorgonio.

Sometime 36 to 38 years ago I climb to the top of both of these mountains. They are about 10,000 and 11,000 feet. She and I backed packed up and spent the night on each of these peaks. I always did delight in following her up the trail when she was wearing her short shorts.

It is only 1,200 feet here at the hotel and we are both resting a bit before we go back down the one flight of stairs and get the rest of the baggage.

The Principals Committee Principles

The Principals Committee sounds like something a school Superintendent put together to discuss academic and discipline problems at all the schools within a district. But alas it is even more sinister than that.

Yes, I'm supposed to be on a "drive about" headed towards the Very Large Array telescope in New Mexico, and locations West. Family priorities however have delayed the start of such and thus I am here venting about the world I live in.

Yes, the "Principals Committee" is not what it sounds like. Little is these days, at least to these jaded old ears. Irony is of course that principal and principle are homophones (and to my conservative constituency those aren't same sex telephones). The mnemonic, "The Principal is my Pal" has almost always guided me to a correct usage of the two words, but in this case the problem may be that the principals have trouble with the principles.

NYT Monday, Nov. 10

"WASHINGTON — The United States military since 2004 has used broad, secret authority to carry out nearly a dozen previously undisclosed attacks against Al Qaeda and other militants in Syria, Pakistan and elsewhere, according to senior American officials. "
.............
"In 2006, for example, a Navy Seal team raided a suspected militants’ compound in the Bajaur region of Pakistan, according to a former top official of the Central Intelligence Agency. Officials watched the entire mission — captured by the video camera of a remotely piloted Predator aircraft — in real time in the C.I.A.’s Counterterrorist Center at the agency’s headquarters in Virginia 7,000 miles away."
...............
" The 2004 order identifies 15 to 20 countries, including Syria, Pakistan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and several other Persian Gulf states, where Qaeda militants were believed to be operating or to have sought sanctuary, a senior administration official said. "
.............
"Administration officials said that Mr. Bush’s approval had paved the way for Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates to sign an order — separate from the 2004 order — that specifically directed the military to plan a series of operations, in cooperation with the C.I.A., on the Qaeda network and other militant groups linked to it in Pakistan.
Unlike the 2004 order, in which Special Operations commanders nominated targets for approval by senior government officials, the order in July was more of a top-down approach, directing the military to work with the C.I.A. to find targets in the tribal areas, administration officials said. They said each target still needed to be approved by the group of Mr. Bush’s top national security and foreign policy advisers, called the Principals Committee."

The entire story in context maybe found at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/10/washington/10military.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&th&emc=th

I'm not surprised at this. Only surprise is, that they were able to keep it out of the papers and off the cable news. What I want to know is does it have Congressional oversight. Invading other countries, even the sh** a** ones is an act of war, actually it is: AN ACT OF WAR! Last time I remember reading the Constitution, that was the responsibility of Congress. Now you might say I am quibbling. I mean, I want our enemies attacked and destroyed anywhere in the world, but not necessarily at any cost. If it cost us our Constitution to protect our Constitution then that is not acceptable That is to say, if the Principals destroy our Constitution why then are they any different from others trying to destroy our Constitution? Er, that is, it seems that would be a bad Principle for the Principals to follow. Would it not?

What Next?

What's Next?

Tuesday night was a vindication of 30 years worth of personal and professional effort.
I slept late Wednesday morning. I was exhausted from the tension.
Then I find that even on this day of triumph, I'm accused of being an ignorant racist. Should never try for satire on a blog I guess.

Now that the election is over, so am I. Well, for a while that is. I'm taking a sabbatical. OK, it is a vacation. Going out to New Mexico to the VLA for a time and then over to the Heard Museum in Arizona. After that I'm headed to the Agua Mansa cemetery in California to visit Louis Robidoux's grave and then his mill site. Then to Laws, California and its RR museum and up to the lava fields where Captain Jack and his Modocs fought. A few days later I'll be at Newport Beach to stay at the Hotel named for Sylvia Beach, the Paris bookseller. After that, time with my family in Springfield Or. and then, dang it, I'll turn around and come home. Slowly I think.

Obama Picks Terrorist's Son As Chief Of Staff

This is the guy.

I just couldn't help that headline. I know it is bad, but it is TRUE. I love it!
The following is done with my tongue firm clamped between my teeth and in my cheek.
So I guess ole John McCain was on to something and didn't even really know it.
Pallin should have know this!



Obama Starts Shaping His Team, Offers Rahm Emanuel Top Spot
By MARK MOONEYNov. 5, 2008

"President-elect Barack Obama has asked Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., seen here conferring with Obama in 2006, to serve as White House chief of staff.(Charles Rex Arbogast/AP Photo)
Obama offered the job of chief of staff to Rep. Rahm Emanuel, ABC News' Jake Tapper reported today.
Emanuel, a veteran of President Clinton's administration and a close political ally of Obama's from Chicago, hasn't immediately given his answer.
Obama likes that Emanuel knows policy, knows politics and knows Capitol Hill and has told associates that he knows Emanuel will "have his back," ABC News' chief Washington correspondent George Stephanopoulos said of the offer. ..."
Whole story:http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/story?id=6188783&page=1



Of course Emanuel is the Jewish ballet dancing son of a known Irgun Terrorist!
"Emanuel was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1959. His father, the Jerusalem-born Benjamin M. Emanuel, is a pediatrician and was a member of the Irgun, a militant Zionist group treated as a terrorist organization during British rule.[3][4][5][6] His mother, Martha Smulevitz, worked as an X-ray technician; she was the daughter of a local union organizer,[1] and would herself become a civil rights activist; she was also once the owner of a Chicago-area rock and roll club.[6] The two met in Chicago in the 1950s.[7] Emanuel's older brother, Ezekiel, is a noted oncologist and bioethicist, and his brother, Ari, is a high-powered talent agent in Los Angeles and inspired Jeremy Piven's character Ari Gold on the HBO series Entourage.[1] Rahm himself is also the inspiration for the character Josh Lyman on The West Wing.[1] He also has a younger sister named Shoshanna, fourteen years his junior.[1]
When his family lived in Chicago, he attended Bernard Zell Anshe Emet Day School, a Jewish day school. After his family moved to Wilmette, he attended public school: Romona School, Wilmette Junior High School, and New Trier High School.[7] Emanuel was encouraged by his mother to take ballet lessons as a boy and is a "graduate of the Evanston School of Ballet". He won "a scholarship to the Joffrey Ballet" but turned this down to attend Sarah Lawrence College, a liberal arts school with a strong dance program.[8][1] He graduated from college in 1981, and went on to receive a master's degree in Speech and Communication from Northwestern University in 1985. While still a student at Sarah Lawrence, he joined the congressional campaign of David Robinson of Chicago."
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rahm_Emanuel



I guess all my Republican friends were Right (pun intended), Obama didn't wait long to show his true colors (pun intended) and trot out Rahm Emanuel.



Wait a minute, Emanuel, isn't that just a jewish spelling of the Christian word Emmanuel?
"...they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us."
Well how about Rahm, after all he is the son of a know Terrorist, Rahm must have a hidden meaning.
Try, "..."The merciful", or "compassionate one" ..." No Way!
You mean Barrack chose as his first appointment a guy named, "The merciful, compassionate one, God with us"?
Well, it has got to be some kind of deceit, Right? (pun intended)
Good Lord what will the guy do next?

Society Yearns for Good and Simple Things

"On the earthen floors of their rounded hogans, Navajo artists sift colored sand to depict the four seasons of life and time. Their ancestors have been doing this for centuries. They draw these sand circles in a counter-clockwise progression, one quadrant at a time, with decorative icons for the challenges of each age and season. When they near the end of the fourth season, they stop the circle, leaving a small gap just to the right of its top. This signifies the moment of death and rebirth, what the Hellenics called ekpyrosis. By Navajo custom, this moment can be provided (and the circle closed) only by God, never by mortal man. All the artist can do is rub out the painting, in reverse seasonal order, after which a new circle can be begun. Thus, in the Navajo tradition, does seasonal time stage its eternal return."

The Fourth Turning:

In Summary:

"A Crisis arises in response to sudden threats that previously would have been ignored or deferred, but which are now perceived as dire. Great worldly perils boil off the clutter and complexity of life, leaving behind one simple imperative: The society must prevail. This requires a solid public consensus, aggressive institutions, and personal sacrifice. "

"People support new efforts to wield public authority, whose perceived successes soon justify more of the same. Government governs, community obstacles are removed, and laws and customs that resisted change for decades are swiftly shunted aside. A grim preoccupation with civic peril causes spiritual curiosity to decline. A sense of public urgency contributes to a clampdown on “bad” conduct or “anti-social” lifestyles. People begin feeling shameful about what they earlier did to absolve guilt. Public order strengthens, private risk-taking abates, and crime and substance abuse decline. Families strengthen, gender distinctions widen, and child rearing reaches a smothering degree of protection and structure. The young focus their energy on worldly achievements, leaving values in the hands of the old. Wars are fought with fury and for maximum result."

"Eventually, the mood transforms into one of exhaustion, relief, and optimism. Buoyed by a newborn faith in the group and in authority, leaders plan, people hope, and a society yearns for good and simple things. "

---Description of the (then) upcoming Forth Turning by Strauss and Howe 1996

Tomorrow we begin again.