Governor Shingles...

Governor Shingles...  Reader and fellow Jamulian Celeste S. passed along this article by Jim Hughes at the Daily Caller – and how could I not like an article that starts out like this:

As a fourth generation Californian who lived through the first Jerry Brown administration — or as I like to call it, the tunnel-boat scene from Willy Wonka — back in the ‘70s, I always considered a Jerry Brown governorship to be like the chicken pox. It’s horrible, you have to suffer though it, it leaves scars, but the good news is that you can never get it again. Then a friend reminded me that chicken pox can lie dormant for years, coming back as its more virulent, painful, adult cousin: The shingles.

Well, Governor Shingles is at it again.

For those of you who don’t live in the Bronze State (we lost our gold AAA rating a long time ago), Governor Brown and the State Legislature’s Democrat super-majority have been passing an all-out orgy of Liberal spending bills ranging from the bizarre to the absurd. In July, they took time out from building their $98 Billion dollar bullet train to nowhere long enough to address perhaps the most pressing issue of our times: “Gender neutral bathrooms” for K-12 school children.

While I greatly enjoyed Mr. Hughes' style – reminds me a bit of Mark Steyn – the issue he's writing about remains unsettled in my mind.  I posted about this back in August, when Governor Moonbeam Shingles signed the bill into law.

There's a lot of angst about this bill, but it's not at all clear to me how well-founded it is.  I haven't been able to find out exactly how a child's “gender identity” would be established.  A lot of people are assuming (as Hughes is) that it would simply be on the child's say-so.  I don't think even our public school administrators would be that stupid, though I certainly don't rule out the possibility.  More likely, I think, is that some sort of protocol will be established to ascertain the genuineness of a claimed transgendered identity.  If there is such a protocol, and if it's well designed, then I'm actually not opposed to this law – based on my own experiences with transgendered people, detailed in that earlier post.

If, on the other hand, there is no reasonably accurate protocol, and children can simply claim a gender identity – well, then, California's parents have every right to be upset, and we all have every reason to heap scorn upon our bought-and-paid-for legislators and our addled Governor.  Of course, they deserve our scorn in any case :)

Good people...

Good people...  As my long time readers know, I had plenty of differences with George W. Bush's leadership and policies – and plenty that I heartily approved of.  But one thing I never doubted: the fundamental honesty and sincerity of the man.

As an ex-President, though, I don't find any fault at all.  If I were designing an ex-President, I'd come up with something that looked pretty much exactly like him.  And his wife (Laura) is just as faultless as an ex-First Lady.

The two of them appeared on Jay Leno's show sometime recently (which is what the clips at right are).  I started the first clip, figuring I'd get bored and move on in a minute or so.  Instead, I sat mesmerized – and smiling – through the entirety of all four clips.

Why?

I sat and thought about that a bit, as I surprised myself by watching these.  More than anything else, I think it was this: that watching this man and his wife made me feel proud to have had such quality folks at the White House.  It has naught to do with agreeing with his policies, and everything to do with them just plain being good people.  The kind of people I'd like to know, to call friends.  The kind of people I'd like to be.  People I respect and admire.

I most definitely don't have these same sorts of feelings about other ex-Presidents.  Reagan was right up there, in the few years before he disappeared from sight due to his Alzheimer's.  H. W. Bush I have positive feelings about, albeit much less strongly then with G.W.  Clinton?  Uh ... no.  Carter?  Hell, no.  Ford?  Neutral.  Nixon?  No.  Johnson?  No.  Kennedy - we'll never know.  Eisenhower?  I only have a few memories of him as an ex-President, and none of them stand out.  Truman?  Even fewer memories; he died when I was 20. 

Then my thoughts spooled forward in time, to that happy day when Obama is an ex-President.  What will my feelings be about him?  I know enough about his personality to know that it's inconceivable that he'd turn out like G.W.  I'm imagining him as a much more ambitious Carter.  I suspect he's not going to disappear from the world's political stage.  Unfortunately.  I'm guessing that he's got his sights already focused in on a UN Secretary-Generalship, or heading up the IMF or World Monetary Fund.  Something along those lines, where his narcissism and arrogance could continue to disgust us all.  What a thing to look forward to!

So, what's the problem?

So, what's the problem?  From a collection my mom sent me...

Lake Mattanawcook at sunset...

Lake Mattanawcook at sunset...  Taken by a family friend.  Map...

Flip the channels...

(Updated) Flip the channels...  So says Doug S., friend, reader, former colleague, and mogul-of-everything-Idaho.  I like Bob Dylan, but the people lip-syncing is something I don't get.  Maybe you will :)

Update: Ann Althouse has basically the same reaction I had:

My reaction to the video was: 1. Here's the Dylan song that's used to represent all Dylan songs when you want to reach the largest possible audience with the message that you are playing a Dylan song, 2. I'm hearing the Dylan recording but I'm seeing some TV person mouthing the words, a type of performance that is annoying even when your dearest loved one does it; it's not cute. 3. So there are a bunch of TV people who were willing to go on camera mouthing the words of the entire 6+ minute song. 4. Either show me Bob Dylan with the voice of Bob Dylan or cover the song with your own voice and do it well (not cutesy) or leave me alone.

But she has some theories about why some people like it.  What's most interesting to me about Ann's reaction is that she is far more into culture than I am; it's something she writes about often.  She's roughly my age, too, so it's not an age difference showing...

Realistically colorized historical photos...

Realistically colorized historical photos...  Via reader and friend Simon M.  Some of these, like the one at right, sent chills through me.  Many include a before-and-after version, which are quite interesting to compare.  In some cases, I think the monochrome version has more impact – but I have to say that most of the time its the full color version...

The power of words...

The power of words...   I posted this a few years ago, but it's well worth a re-post.  Via my lovely bride, who's in Indiana caring for her mom...

ObamaCare debacle update...

ObamaCare debacle update...  Because hump day!

Terrified Obama trapped in healthcare.gov web site!  The Onion has the story.  I'll bet it's not too far from the truth...

Obama's approval rate down to 37%.  That's solidly into Jimmy Carter territory, and about the same as Nixon just before he resigned.  Looks like The One is on his way to That One...

Obama hits new lows with Dems.  Well, yeah – the rats have to be thinking real hard about abandoning ship.  Especially those rats with an election coming up next year...

Oh, those wonderful new ObamaCare policies!  In D.C., some on offer cover abortion, but not hearing aids.  Just what your average 60 year old really needed!

Mr. President, tear down this web site!  So says Lamar Alexander, a Republican Representative from Texas, and not someone I normally think of for witty one-liners.  I wonder what Peter Robinson (the Reagan speechwriter who coined the “Mr. President, tear down this wall!” line, and now co-founder of Ricochet) thinks about this appropriation of his line?  Robinson is adamantly opposed to ObamaCare, so I suspect he might be enjoying this...

Have you noticed that the administration stopped calling it “ObamaCare”?  Now it's the Affordable Care Act.  The distancing has begun...

Obama lied and people died.  Let the body count being, says Thomas Lifson.  Accountability is needed...

Can you miss what you never had?  Why, yes.  Yes you can...

When the facts suck ... the lamestream media pulls out its ultimate weapon: 100% fact-free reporting!  And Neo-Neocon heaps well-deserved scorn upon them...

They've known since March ... that healthcare.gov was going off the rails.  They hired a top-notch consulting firm (McKinsey) and then didn't listen to them.  Truth and transparency: they're for the little people...

Wishful thinking won't hold ObamaCare together.  Megan McArdle notes the emergence of something that she (and many others) didn't expect: sober people on both sides discussing the possibility of repealing ObamaCare.  Awesome!

Comically evasive mouthpiece.  That's Ace's formulation, and it's spot on.  I have some sympathy for Jay Carney – the poor schlub has one of the worst jobs in the world trying to make Obama look good.  On the other hand, he could always resign.  Where I in his shoes (and oh how glad I am that I'm not!), resigning would be far less humiliating than watching myself on a YouTube clip like this...

The end of ObamaCare as we never knew it.   All of the proposed fixes, including Obama's, significantly change ObamaCare.  They also create more, and larger problems down the road.  They are political fixes, designed to win elections in 2014 – without regard to the consequences past that magic date.  But if those consequences doom ObamaCare to the dust bin of history, you know what?  I'm ok with that...

Obama is violating a fundamental right.  So says Richard Epstein, scenting out the legal consequences of recent ObamaCare-related events.  Yet another unintended consequence that I like!  This is kind of creepy, the way I keep reading about things related to ObamaCare that make me happy...

30% to 40% of the Federal healthcare exchange system hasn't yet been built!?!  Being an ancient and venerable software engineer and (unfortunately) an experienced software engineering manager – I know that if the manager is saying that, the real situation is far more dire.  They are far, far up the creek and there are no paddles anywhere...

Security?  It's so bad that the experts think they should just shut the damned web site down.  Okay!

Yet another liberal slapped upside the head with ObamaCare.  But she still likes Obama!  I wonder what it would take to change her mind?

Obama breaks ObamaCare to save it.  Megan McArdle notes the triumph of politics over reason, common sense, practicality, and just about everything else...

Obama loses his cool.  As in, his cool factor.  I noted an instance of this a few days ago, while waiting at our veterinarian's office.  Two women also waiting were chatting, and one mentioned that she and her husband were very worried about their healthcare coverage – her husband's employer was dropping healthcare benefits because of increased costs associated with ObamaCare, and when they looked at the California exchange, the prices were shockingly high for policies that weren't nearly as good as the one they are about to lose.  The other woman said “You know, I really regret voting for him.  I thought he’d make things better, but everything is so much worse!”  I smiled for hours after that...

Gaming the system.  This is one of the “tells” of top-down, authoritarian systems: people find ways to get money (or power) by using the rules of the system against itself – a sort of bureaucratic ju-jitsu.  This one takes advantage of the fact that under ObamaCare, nobody can be denied insurance.  So hospitals are now examining the idea of buying policies (at the hospitals expense) to cover those indigent people they've been treating for free.  That way they'll get paid for care they used to absorb the cost of – but it would be a complete disaster for insurance companies (or the taxpayer, after the insurance companies bail out).  We'll see more and more of this if ObamaCare actually gets implemented.  It will be a war: gamers come up with new and creative exploits, the bureaucracy fights back with more onerous rules, layers of auditing, etc.  Any Russian old enough to have lived in the Soviet Union can tell you endless stories about this game.  Let's hope we don't have to go there...

Open-source mathematics...

Open-source mathematics...  Collaboration on the twin primes conjecture.  Reading the story, and how the collaboration actually worked, reminded me strongly of some of the open source projects I've contributed to.  Some of them are exciting, passionate communities, as the mathematicians working on the twin primes conjecture seem to be.  Others are more like personal projects with some interested parties as helpers, and some are almost indistinguishable from corporate projects – mainly because they're funded by corporations.  The Internet, web, and other modern communications technologies make these sorts of collaborations possible, and we all benefit.  Another that comes to mind are the extraordinary musical collaborations now taking place; I especially enjoy the a capella collaborations that are taking place by the hundreds.

Had I somehow known, 40 years ago, that the Internet and web would become what they have, I don't think it would ever have occurred to me that such collaborations would be one outcome...

Filner is the gift that keeps on giving...

Filner is the gift that keeps on giving...  The city of San Diego held an election yesterday to choose a mayor to replace the disgraced (but highly entertaining!) Mayor Bob Filner.  But ... no candidate got 50% of the vote, so now they'll have to have a runoff election...

Now Desert Springs...

Now Desert Springs...  Another California city looking at bankruptcy.  Oh, goody...

LRO images...

LRO images...  A nice, browsable collection of images from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO).  It orbits the moon at just 31 miles (50 km) high, which lets it make oblique photos like the one at right.  They've just added a number of these oblique shots, which give you a much better feel for the surface texture than the standard high-altitude photography we usually see...

Murray Ridge...

Murray Ridge...  A perspective view of a section of the rim of Endeavour Crater on Mars, put together from data collected by Opportunity.  That little robotic rover is still hard at work, nearly 10 years after it landed on Mars.  It's original planned mission time was just three months.  What a bargain that mission has been, if you measure it by dollars/science return!

Beautiful photos...

Beautiful photos...   The U.S. Department of the Interior posts on Instagram.  Lots more gorgeous photos at that link.  Well, I'll be darned...