Poo Pumper

This photo pretty much says it all:

What Is Wrong With You?

Scott Adams asks a question that I've long wondered about -- why do so many people like horror movies?

By process of elimination, I assume fans of horror flicks are imagining themselves as the killer, thinking how cool it would be to disembowel attractive teenagers. Jeezus-frickin-christ! There are millions of these psychopath movie-goers. And they look just like normal people.

I wonder how many times in my life I’m at a store, for example, swiping my debit card, and the cashier is looking at me and thinking “It sure would be fun to drive a spike through his forehead and make a vest from his skin.” It probably happens more often than I’d like.

Do you enjoy horror movies? If so, what the f*ck is wrong with you?

I don't watch horror movies at all -- the idea of spending my money or my time to get frightened just has no appeal at all. If I want to be frightened, Alphonse can do the job! But I never thought of the possibilities that Scott Adams did. Go read the whole thing!

Quote of the Day

From Amy Alkon, writing at the Advice Goddess:

What should I call them, terror-bunnies?

Don't miss the rest of it!

Fire Danger...

About a year ago, the Horse Fire burned to within about three miles east of our home (the photos in this post are from that fire). That's the last major fire that burned close to us. In October 2003 we had the enormous Cedar Fire (and two smaller simultaneous fires) that burned all around us, but no closer than about six miles. In July 2002, the Pines Fire looked like it might be a serious threat, but in the end came no closer than about 15 miles. In January 2001, the Viejas Fire burned to within a mile to the north of our home. I was in Estonia at the time, and had the special experience of seeing "Lawson Valley in flames" across a CNN video (Lawson Valley is where we live). By the time I found out about the fire, Debbie had evacuated herself and our animals, and had quite an adventure while doing so.

So we have some history of nearby wildfires in the past six years. Our rainy season this year wasn't very rainy at all -- it's the lowest amount of rainfall in 130 years of record keeping (whereas last year was the second-highest!). This is mixed news. The lack of rain means that all the dead brush (the primary fuel in the chaparral) is as dry as the proverbial bone, and that of course increase the risk. However, the lack of rain also means that the new brush growth this year will be much lower than normal, which means less new fuel is being added.

Now we're entering our long, dry summer season (temperature highs are forecast at well over 100°F all week). The usual cycle here is that the chaparral will dry out all summer, and then by around September our fire danger will be very high until the first rains, which usually come between late December and early February. This year, the onset of the risky period is pulled forward to right now because of the lack of rainfall and the already-dry chaparral.

But that doesn't actually mean our risk of wildfire is unusually high this year. There actually are some factors working in our favor -- most especially the fact that in nearly every direction around us the fuel load has been burned off within the past six years. Our biggest risk isn't that someone starts a fire right in our valley -- no, the big risk is that a fire starts outside our valley, possibly many miles away, and then is blowin into our valley by the Santa Ana winds that come from the northeast and east each summer and fall. Best of all, in the most risky directions -- the direction the evil Santa Ana winds come from -- all the fuel was burned off by last year's Horse Fire.

There are still some fuel-laden paths that a wildfire could take into Lawson Valley, but they're not the most likely ones. The path that looks most risky to me starts just south of Descanso and follows the Japatul Valley just south of west from there to a point just east of Loveland Reservoir, then turns south into Lawson Valley. That path has not burned in many years, and there are (to my knowledge) no firebreaks constructed anywhere on it. There is a good defensive point along the crest of Gaskill Peak and the nearby hills, and the generally narrow path that constrains the blaze is easier to battle. Nonetheless, this path could be taken by a Santa Ana driven wildfire, so we'll be carefully watching any fires that start to the north-northeast of us. The other available paths are all much less worrisome. A wildfire could move north from Deerhorn Valley, but winds from that direction are rare. There's also plenty of fuel between us and the towns of Jamul and Rancho San Diego, but a wildfire would require strong winds from the west to drive that to us, and such winds are both rare and usually moisture-laden (unlike the bone-dry Santa Ana winds).

So we enter our fire season this year with an unusual combination of risks, some higher than usual and some lower. It's difficult to peg the overall risk, but my unscientific, intuitive take is that our overall risk is no worse than it has been in the past few years...

Chatter

ABC News is reporting that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has an intelligence document warning of an Al Qaeda "summer spectacular" -- and that the situation is reminiscent of the "chatter" we have all heard about in the summer of 2001, just before 9/11. The report also contained specific warnings about Al Qaeda plans to attack Glasgow and Prague airports and airport infrastructure, and this report was passed along to UK and Czech officials two weeks ago. U.S. officials are not denying the report, though Secretary Chertoff has said that the DHS has no specific information about attacks aimed at the United States.

In Czechoslovakia, the UK, and Germany, the terror alert level is now at its highest level. The failed Glasgow bombing appears to have been timed for a moment when the airport was full of women and children. Two of the perpetrators (including the leader) were doctors, and UK residents.

The usual multi-cultural/politically correct/liberal line is that the West brings terrorism on itself by fostering despotic regimes with citizenry mired in hopeless poverty. Oops -- that line doesn't seem to fit the facts here. Let's see if we can figure it out -- what is there about these UK doctors that might have provoked their terrorist activity? Hmmm, let me think now -- could it have been the fact that they were radical Islamic fundamentalists who believe that all infidels must die?

There have been many reports from independent credible sources that the damage we have done to Al Qaeda is extensive -- many of its senior leadership has been killed or captured, and the rest are in hiding or on the run. The war in Iraq has been a huge drain on Al Qaeda, both in blood and treasure. Nevertheless, they are an enemy who will fight to the death, and these things that we would see as defeats and setbacks are seen much differently by them. They believe that each jihadi we've killed has gone to his glorious reward for his service to Allah -- and it drives them on all the more. So the recent "chatter" isn't inconsistent with a damaged Al Qaeda at all -- it's exactly what we should expect from a culture that emphasizes glorious death in jihad, and believes in both divine intervention and magic. A "summer spectacular" is just the sort of thing you'd expect them to cook up -- and they really don't need all that much of an organization left to pull it off. Remember, 9/11 was perpetrated by 19 men armed with box-cutters and some minimal flight training -- and a set of religious beliefs that encourage them to kill themselves in the course of killing "infidels".

"Infidels" would be you and me, of course.