We're Playing Defense – and That's the Problem...

Peter Munson is a Marine officer who recently returned from a tour in Afghanistan.  He's written a very thoughtful piece, the heart of which starts with this:

Since I returned home, a darkness has grown in me as both I and our nation have failed to live up to the sacrifices of these young men and women. I had no expectation of “victory” in Afghanistan or Iraq, whatever that would mean. Nor did I expect some epiphany of strategic insight or remorse from the nation’s brain trust.

I just found that I could not square the negativity, pettiness and paranoia in the discourse of our country’s elders with the nobility and dedication of the men and women I had seen and served with in Afghanistan.

Over time, as I listened to the squabbling, I realized that about the only thing Americans agree on these days is gratitude bordering on reverence for our military. It troubled me that the sum total of consensus in our discourse is deference toward the defenders of our nation. 

Please read the whole thing...

Chasing Ice...

The largest glacier calving ever captured in images.  Awesome...

Tour of the ISS...

Via my mom.  I have mixed feelings viewing this.  There is a lot of cool, advanced technology on display; fun stuff for any geek.  On the other hand, the video showcases the stuff we've spent a vast amount of money on, with negligible returns.  Sigh.

So God Made a Farmer...

I'm not a fan of Dodge Ram trucks, but I sure do like their SuperBowl ad:

Jerker Line Systems...

Power distribution.  When we think of that term today, what comes right to mind is electricity.  If we think a little harder, we might also think of the petroleum industry as a power distribution system.  Most of us would not think of “jerker line systems”, if for no other reason than we never heard of them.

In the early '60s, my dad, my brother and I took a trip out to the Western U.S. (from New Jersey) in my dad's beat-up 1948 Dodge.  We visited the oil fields of Texas and Oklahoma, and somewhere in those fields we saw several of these jerker line systems in action.  At the time we had no idea what they were called, but it was obvious how they worked: the back-and-forth action of the steel cables, often slithering along the ground, were operating oil pumps.  The motion of the cables made a distinctive sound.  We followed a cable from one of the pumps back to the electric motor that ran it (much like the one pictured here).  In the case of the one we followed, the motor was perhaps 500 yards from the pump – and that single motor was running three pumps.

We thought it was quite ingenious at the time.  It was most definitely low tech; a guy with a monkey wrench and some oil could maintain the entire thing, and it was obvious how it worked.

I wonder how they do this today?  Probably an electric motor in each pump, I'm guessing.  The advent of horizontal drilling has probably greatly reduced the number of well sites, too...

Reality Smacks Lefty Upside His Pointed Little Head...

On Friday, Matt Yglesias published a short article detailing how the tentacles of government bureaucracy made it crazy difficult to start his own small business.  If you recognize his name, you're probably chuckling already – because Yglesias is a well-known lefty blogger and commentator, one who can be relied on to support everything that smacks of big government.

As you might expect, the “rightosphere” has been having a lot of fun with this.  At The Spirit of Enterprise, for example, we have this:

I love when progressive dudes in designer glasses actually have to deal with the government in order to do something and are blown away by the stupidity, waste, and burden of it all. It is as if they have only read journal articles about the theory of regulators and never encountered them in the wild.

More such reactions in these search results...

Shadow Government Statistics...

John Williams has an interesting web site called Shadow Government Statistics, wherein he exposes flaws in the way government presents and analyzes economic and finance statistics.  Here's a good example using unemployment statistics.  Williams includes (in the blue line) long term “discouraged” workers which have been left out of all U.S. government statistics since 1994 (a piece of Bill Clinton legerdemain designed to make the economic picture look better than it actually was).  With those “discouraged” workers back in the stats, the current unemployment rate is really about 23%, not the much rosier 7.9% released as the official number...

English King Richard III Found...

His remains, that is.  Richard III was killed at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, but his remains had been lost.  This skeleton was found last fall under a parking lot; scientists used DNA to positively identify it as Richard III.

Namibian Nights...

Awesome time-lapse video of the night sky in Namibia.  Via APOD, of course...