‘GOP and the City’ mocks MoveOn.com – MoveOn is a bunch of maroons, for sure.
Just some random thoughts:
I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts lately. There are two I look forward to every day. One is The Daily Source Code from Adam Curry, the “Podfather” and former MTV VJ. I must confess I had no idea who Adam Curry was until I heard his podcast back in September. Besides having a generally fun and informative podcast, he’s also a private pilot and talks about flying from time to time. He also introduced me to the Podsafe Music Network, a terrific resource.
The other podcast I never miss is Think Future by Chris Kalaboukis. Chris is a U.S. citizen originally from Canada. His show is mostly discussions of current events and politics from a libertarian point of view. I don’t agree with him on everything, but I enjoy his faced paced energetic commentary. He certainly has a lot of passion.
In my day job as a programmer I do a lot of user interface work, even though I don’t have any native graphical ability of my own. I’m always looking for good reading on UI design, and found a good site today called Flow | State . The writer is coming from more or less the same place as the Presentation Zen website I mentioned a while back, but more focused on application UI. He has lots of good (and bad) examples of UI design.
Somewhere I ran across a link to this shrink’s blog. I don’t know much about mental health practice, but it seems like an interesting line of work for someone with people skills.
In the area of current events I highly recommend the article by Senator Joe Lieberman in today’s Wall Street Journal (Bugmenot friendly registration required). The Senator spells out why “the Iraqi people are optimistic about their future–and why the American people should be, too.”
This week’s dead tree Aviation Week has a good article on the new Boeing 747-8 aircraft, a stretched and updated version of the classic ‘Whale’. It really looks like Boeing has its act together. And to think that just a few years ago it looked like they might just go out of the commercial airplane business all together.
I just noticed that this post qualifies for every catagory except enterainment. So why don’t I mention that the Independant Film Channel showed one of my favorite movies, Local Hero, last night. This is a very relaxing little movie staring Burt Lancaster. Most of it takes place on the West Coast of Scotland. I have the DVD and recommend it highly. I watched this shortly before I moved to England. It motivated me to visit the West Coast of Scotland at the first opportunity. The real thing is even better than the movie.
One note. This DVD was the very first one I played when i first got a DVD player. I nearly freaked out because the sound was very poor. It turns out that the DVD (at least the version I bought years ago) has only a low-fi mono soundtrack. Very disappointing. The sound on IFC last night was much better.
I’ve been keeping this blog since September, but I haven’t told many people about it.
It’s not been a secret. I’ve even picked up a couple of links from established blogs, for which I’m very grateful. But I haven’t talked it up.
Today I installed the new graphic you see above, courtesy of Design Outpost designer Heather Smith.
It’s time to go public with this blog, so I think I’ll start spaming all my friends and relations.
I write about whatever comes to mind, but aviation, current events, and technology are recurring topics. I’ve done one primitive aviation podcast, and have a second in the works.
At least three or four people have read my blog so far. If you are number five, come on in and make yourself at home.
Remember the ‘X’ that CNN flashed over Vice President Cheney the other night? The one that CNN said was a technical malfunction?
It was deliberate. As any child could see.
The amazing thing is that there are people in this world who think CNN is an objective and reliable news orgainization.
I went with she who may not be named to see that Johnny Cash move, Walk the Line . I’m not a big country fan, but I was surprised to find myself enjoying the movie.
I shocked the other members of my party by not knowing who June Carter Cash was. I did like her character though, and I am assured by people who should know that the movie is true to life.
The movie was almost as long as Harry Potter, but it held my attention the whole time. I’m not sure how this movie will play to the 15 to 25 year old market, but old geezers will like it.
Pilots, this is the best TFR site I’ve found:
Hat tip to Javier Henderson on the Mooney mailing list.
Here is a note I posted on my flying club mailing list that may be of interest to other operators of the King KLN-89b IFR GPS:
The FAA is in the process of adding RNAV airways (Q routes) and many RNAV SIDs and STARs (aka ‘Arrival Procedures’ and ‘Departure Procedures’).
I was reading about this on flightinfo.com . One of the posts mentions that according to FAA Advisory Circular 90-100 the King KLN-89b on the Cardinal is not approved for SIDs or STARs marked “RNAV Type A” or “RNAV Type B”.
For an example of an RNAV B departure use airnav.com to see the departures
for Rifle, CO .
I think this is because the King KLN-89b/90b units don’t have enough
memory to hold the new proceedures.
The Garmin 430 in the Archer doesn’t have this issue.
This is something to check in our flight planning.
The LA Times reports that ” Democrats Seek a Unified Message” on Iraq.
The Democrats are of course united on the war, as I saw with my own eyes. They want to cut and run.
The only thing they are divided about is deciding to what degree will they admit to the general public that cut and run is their policy choice in the war on terror.
The irony is that if the Democrat Congressmen who voted to go war would just unite behind the President and the troops then the war would end quickly. These chickenhawk Democrats are now acting as fifth column, actively underminding our military with their calls for unilateral surrender. And don’t kid yourself, the Democrats want to see a surrender. Senator Swiftboat can nuance all he wants, their policy on Iraq boils down to “we’re gettin’ out of Dodge!”.
In point of fact we can expect troop withdrawals to begin shortly after the December elections in Iraq. It’s pretty easy to see that troop deployments can be reduced by at least 50,000 people by this time next year.
Everytime there is a sucessful election it will give heart to the Iraq people to stay the course and stand up to terror.
By the end of 2007 I expect we’ll be down to something like 25 to 50 thousand military people assigned to Iraq.
I expect we will have military deployed to Iraq for many years to come. It’s the sensible thing to do, its not like we need to continue to defend the Fluga gap any more.
The only way the terrorists can win is if Democrat chickenhawks succeed in once again betraying the U.S. military, our allies, and our own people.
Human Events provides some interesting background on Sajida Mubarak Atrous, the woman who recently failed to detonate her sucide bomb in Jordon.
Mrs. al-Rishawi’s family history reveals just how effective the U.S. military has proven to be in eliminating insurgents. Jordanian intelligence has learned that three of her brothers were killed by coalition forces in Iraq. Her brother, Thamir al-Rashawi, a member al-Zarqawi’s inner circle, was killed in April 2004 in Fallujah, when a missile fired from a U.S. aircraft struck his pick-up truck. Jordanian Deputy Prime Minister Marwan al-Mu’ashir described her brother, Thamir, as “the emir [commander] of the Al-Anbar region [of the Iraqi insurgency] in the Al-Qa’idah of Jihad Organization in the Land of Two Rivers. He was the right hand of Abu-Mus’ab al-Zarqawi.â€
Her other two brothers, Ammar and Yassir, died in separate battles with U.S. forces in Ramadi, Iraq, in 2005.
Mrs. Al-Rishawi’s sister had been married to a Jordanian explosives expert, Nidal Mohammed Arabiyat, also killed by U.S. forces in Iraq, according to Agence France Presse.
How well will this be covered by the lamestream media?
You are currently browsing the Jim N Texas! weblog archives for November, 2005.
