Fault Identification

From the usual source.

Tonight's ADWH Soundtrack

Greg Brown:

people meet somebody new & they leave the rest behind
we can have it all even though our lives are short
the kids they'll get used to it it happens all the time
no one is even surprised any more
'cept you and me babe 'cept you and me

i take my coffee black or with a little cream
i wake up every morning with the sun
i wanted to be your man that was nothing but a sweet dream
i always tell the truth to everyone
'cept you and me babe 'cept you and me

One of the things I love about Pandora is the new artists I'm exposed to.  Mr. Brown is new to me, kinda-sorta, in the sense I don't own any of his music and only became aware of him through Pandora.  But, that said, Mr. Brown is in heavy rotation during After Dinner Whiskey Hour and I like him... a lot.  He's kind of a cross between Dylan, Leonard Cohen, and Tom Waits... which isn't as bad as that may sound.  As far as not owning any of his albums goes... I think we shall rectify that in the near future.

―:☺:―

I've written about the birds at sunset before... and even tried to capture them on video flitting about during After Dinner Whiskey Hour, with marginal success.  Beautiful La Hacienda Trailer Park is the closest thing to a bird sanctuary as it gets in these parts, mainly because we have lotsa trees on the premises and trees are a rare commodity on The High Plains o' New Mexico.  So it follows that we would have a lot of birds... and we do.

We don't have many varieties of birds... we're limited to doves, grackles, the odd crow here and there, and LOTS of little sparrow-like birds of an indistinguishable genus... well, indistinguishable to ME, anyhoo.  When I say "lots" of little birds I mean lots as in a Numbered Air Force of birds.   Watching them wheel about the sky at sunset is most entertaining and they usually assemble in squadron proportions... which is to say multiple flights of eight birds or so.  Sometimes they'll get a Wing together and pass overhead in review, 20-something of them in formation and going god-only-knows-where.  But what's REALLY impressive is when the Bird-General calls for the entire complement of the Numbered Air Force to assemble and zoom around the AOR... several hundred birds strong.  That doesn't happen often but it's a magnificent sight when it does.

Keep in mind this is a nightly occurrence... be it squadron, wing, group, individual solos, or elements of two... and it always happens at sunset.  Sigh... this is just another thing I'm gonna miss when I leave BLHTP behind and move into town.  I'm sure there will be other things to take the place of the nightly air show.  Or at least I hope there will be.

Stuff

First... Michael Ramirez weighs in on what might be the most bizarre pronouncement from an economist, ever:

Well, check that.  Krugman outdoes himself in the bizarre category each and every day... he should have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics, Stand-up Routine Division.  For those of you who may not know what Mr. Ramirez is on about, there's this:

Just last fortnight, for instance, appearing on Fareed Zakaria’s GPS show, Krugman argued, somewhat bizarrely, that preparing for an attack by space aliens would ramp up spending to levels that would drag the US economy out of its downward spiral.

“It’s very hard to get inflation in a depressed economy,” Krugman said. “But if you had a program of government spending plus an expansionary policy by the Fed, you could get that….

“If we discovered that space aliens were planning to attack and we needed a massive buildup to counter the space alien threat – and inflation and budget deficits took secondary place to that – this slump would be over in 18 months. And then if we discovered, oops, we made a mistake, there aren’t any aliens, we’d be better (off).

So, yeah.  "Damn the Aliens... full speed ahead!"

―:☺:―

We're just in from running our errands, which included picking up our last-ever bundle of outsourced laundry.  I know what they say about never sayin' never, but I also know I'll have my very own washer and dryer for next month's laundry.  

Why, yes... laundry IS a once-a-month proposition for me.  Why do you ask?  Bein' retired means having to dress up only rarely or having to actually get dressed at ALL, for that matter.  Besides that I have a HUGE inventory of serviceable tee shirts and levis.

TMI?  Prolly.  Beer me!

See That Kid On the Left?

Buck and Sam, c.1971

He's 45 today.  He's also changed a bit in the intervening years...

Last year in Kandahar.

Happy Birthday, Buck!

Tonight's ADWH Soundtrack

Which is a re-run:

A year or so ago I said this about that...

This is just about the perfect song for a semi-gray May Day.  "Samba Pa Ti" and I go waaay back, from the time Abraxas was first released back in 1970 up until the present.  I've experienced many, many exquisite moments with this tune, beginning when The First Mrs. Pennington and I did numerous turns to this song on dance floors many and varied (including our living room), up until recently when relatively new women and I did the same.  And oh-so-many points in between.  I can't begin to enumerate the emotions this song invokes... but they always involve passion, heartbreak and longing.

All that is still true...plus ça change and all that.  We'll not flog dead draft animals here, but the visions of past lovers this tune calls to mind are SO very poignant.  I suppose if it ever comes to pass that I embark on a "new" love affair I'll roll this tune out at the appropriate moment.  I mean... you can't improve on perfection, now, can ya?

So... that said... Carlos began pickin' and playin' just for ME as the stars began to achieve peak glory in the crystal-clear New Mexico skies tonight.  If there EVER was a time that cried out for company of the soft and cuddly kind...

(sigh)

This Is Different

A 5.9 magnitude earthquake on the EAST coast.  A quake that large is pretty unusual for the area, according to sources quoted in McPaper.  I haven't read of any injuries, so we can play with it.  And then there's this:

Update at 2:48 p.m. ET: Halley Pack, 24-year-old paralegal, was putting on her sneakers in the basement-level gym of her office building in downtown Washington, when the shaking started. She said she didn't realize that it was an earthquake at first," USA TODAY's Fredreka Schouten reports. "I've never been in an earthquake before," she said, standing in her exercise clothes outside her office building at 2:20 p.m. "I thought something was wrong with me, like I had a headache."

The probability of Ms. Pack bein' blonde?  I'd put it at ≥ 90%.

The Twitterati are havin' fun with this, too...

jamestaranto I blame Hoover and Nixon, both of whom were Quakers.

jamestaranto Still waiting for @JonHuntsman to explain the science behind the earthquake. 

wyshynski Remember, East Coasters are totally elitist. We now rejoin the entire West Coast talking down to them about being "quake pussies" ...

andylevy How long before you tweet something really stupid? Oh, never mind. RT @HowardKurtz: How long before the GOP blames the Obama administration?

Heh.

Heh. Plus... Cue Up Tevye

Lotsa 'toons at the usual source today about Ghaddafi's demise and The One's vacation.  Here are two:

I don't begrudge any president a vacation; I DO question Obama's timing, though.  And his choice of vacation spots.

―:☺:―

In other news... there's this from the (other) usual source:

8/19/2011 - Members of Team Minot recreate a historic photograph of the arrival of the first B-52H Stratofortress here Aug. 19. The B-52, named the “Peace Persuader,” had nostalgic nose art painted on the airframe to celebrate the 50th anniversary of its arrival to Minot AFB. (U.S. Air Force photo/Senior Airman Michael J. Veloz)

Note that the airframe's serial number is 0033, meaning this is the 33rd BUFF to enter the USAF inventory.  I think the nose art is very, very cool; click for larger.  Good On the Powers That Be for the hat-tip to SAC... I loves me some tradition!

The B-52 has been in active service for more than 50 years.  Isn't that freakin' AMAZING?  Sad, too, that the world's most powerful country has to keep bombers in front-line service that are way older than the guys who fly them.