Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Cory reviews varley's Red Lightning. I wrote about Red Thunder somewhere below.
Well, enough time-wasting fun blogging for me, back to doing chores.
Well, enough time-wasting fun blogging for me, back to doing chores.
Oil at $74/barrel. Sheesh.
I'm probably a net winner. I get a bit of income from a family oil lease. But I also currently have an hour commute, so it cuts both ways. This -should- be driving innovation and alternatives, but I'm not seeing much yet, maybe because I don't follow energy policy publications as closely as I used to.
Gas went up 27 cents a gallon today - I remember when gas was 27 cents/gallon.
I'm probably a net winner. I get a bit of income from a family oil lease. But I also currently have an hour commute, so it cuts both ways. This -should- be driving innovation and alternatives, but I'm not seeing much yet, maybe because I don't follow energy policy publications as closely as I used to.
Gas went up 27 cents a gallon today - I remember when gas was 27 cents/gallon.
Funny Abramoff story about the making of Red Scorpion. Via Volokh.
New job is going well. I'm papered over in reams of non-disclosure agreements, so I am limited in what I can say about the tests we grade, but the best line today in answer to "Why did the wildlife biologist have to be physically fit?" was "So she can catch that fucking monkey."
New job is going well. I'm papered over in reams of non-disclosure agreements, so I am limited in what I can say about the tests we grade, but the best line today in answer to "Why did the wildlife biologist have to be physically fit?" was "So she can catch that fucking monkey."
Monday, April 17, 2006
DoubleDownRob:
Oh, and happy Easter/Spring Pagan Reproductive Festival/Bunny Logoed Spring Corporate Holiday to you all.
4.16.2006 11:35am
Oh, and happy Easter/Spring Pagan Reproductive Festival/Bunny Logoed Spring Corporate Holiday to you all.
4.16.2006 11:35am
Just finished Sons of Camelot by Leamer whose Kennedy Women I enjoyed last year. I'd seen this book at half price books, figured that was too high, found it at my local library. If this were still last night I could write down some of the trivia I learned, but by now I've forgotten.
Sirhan Sirhan: palestinian terrorist? Did the war of terror start in 1968? Sure, one can harken back to the shores of tripoli and Stephen Decatur (how is that pronounced?) but I'd thought Sir Han was just a lone nut (and lone nuts are often cover for mob hits.)
Much of the book is just more of the pattern - money, political office, cheating,
and endless varieties of deathdefying recklessness.
Skiing trips where you break the same leg you broke last year, crazier (Ted doing that ski jump in 1960 to show off) until somebody dies.
Plane crashes, car crashes, mountain climbing, jealous husbands, picking fights with guys with guns and guys with nukes.
Charities for profit, charities for charity's sake.
Between this Kennedy book and some Hillary books I've been reading, I have a better take on Watergate, the Saturday Night Massacre, why Archibald Cox was fired by Bork for being a Kennedy agent, in conjunction with the FBI as Deep Throat. Not that I'm ready to give up 30 years of not liking the GOP, but I'm more aware now of how I and the country were conned. It could be said that the Kennedys robbed Nixon of the presidency twice, 1960 and 1974, with a little help from Nixon. Goldwater claims that the 1952 slush fund that led to the Checkers speech was legitimate money - I haven't sorted out yet whether Goldwater is a reliable source. Enough on that for now.
Another tidbit:
Airline deregulation was one of the early 70s era experients in returning to markets.
What I learned was not only was the bill sponsored by Ted Kennedy, the idea came from a guy named Steven Breyer. Whodathunkit?
Also [finished] reading The Bouviers. Nice job by a cousin, of saving the family history that Black Jack Bouvier wanted to burn and hide - he, John Davis, started saving documents and planning the book when he was just a kid. So many great men (women) get famous doing things they decided to do when they were kids - but we don't pay much attention to those kids, the ones with world-changing insights. So they, we, grow up bitter, lonely, a touch jaded. My favorite example is Farnsworth, who invented TV when he was 14 and plowing behind a mule.
The Bouviers have a pretty compelling story of their own - vast fortunes won, lost, given away. Drexel money, nuns, founders of colleges for blacks and indians, a Philadelphia Story of a cabinet maker whose decendent marries a prince.
By next week I'll have forgotten more of the details. Gotta say, though, snobs.
Give me Bess Truman or Mamie Eisenhower.
I've been getting a lot done, by my slothful standards, but I also have a lot of downtime where I read. Or did; I am now employed full time with an hour commute each way (uphill thru the hail)unless I flunked the post-training test today.
So I gotta go home and get some sleep; that's the hard part, not going to the club like I usually do on a monday. [I went anyway and am sleep deprived.]
Sirhan Sirhan: palestinian terrorist? Did the war of terror start in 1968? Sure, one can harken back to the shores of tripoli and Stephen Decatur (how is that pronounced?) but I'd thought Sir Han was just a lone nut (and lone nuts are often cover for mob hits.)
Much of the book is just more of the pattern - money, political office, cheating,
and endless varieties of deathdefying recklessness.
Skiing trips where you break the same leg you broke last year, crazier (Ted doing that ski jump in 1960 to show off) until somebody dies.
Plane crashes, car crashes, mountain climbing, jealous husbands, picking fights with guys with guns and guys with nukes.
Charities for profit, charities for charity's sake.
Between this Kennedy book and some Hillary books I've been reading, I have a better take on Watergate, the Saturday Night Massacre, why Archibald Cox was fired by Bork for being a Kennedy agent, in conjunction with the FBI as Deep Throat. Not that I'm ready to give up 30 years of not liking the GOP, but I'm more aware now of how I and the country were conned. It could be said that the Kennedys robbed Nixon of the presidency twice, 1960 and 1974, with a little help from Nixon. Goldwater claims that the 1952 slush fund that led to the Checkers speech was legitimate money - I haven't sorted out yet whether Goldwater is a reliable source. Enough on that for now.
Another tidbit:
Airline deregulation was one of the early 70s era experients in returning to markets.
What I learned was not only was the bill sponsored by Ted Kennedy, the idea came from a guy named Steven Breyer. Whodathunkit?
Also [finished] reading The Bouviers. Nice job by a cousin, of saving the family history that Black Jack Bouvier wanted to burn and hide - he, John Davis, started saving documents and planning the book when he was just a kid. So many great men (women) get famous doing things they decided to do when they were kids - but we don't pay much attention to those kids, the ones with world-changing insights. So they, we, grow up bitter, lonely, a touch jaded. My favorite example is Farnsworth, who invented TV when he was 14 and plowing behind a mule.
The Bouviers have a pretty compelling story of their own - vast fortunes won, lost, given away. Drexel money, nuns, founders of colleges for blacks and indians, a Philadelphia Story of a cabinet maker whose decendent marries a prince.
By next week I'll have forgotten more of the details. Gotta say, though, snobs.
Give me Bess Truman or Mamie Eisenhower.
I've been getting a lot done, by my slothful standards, but I also have a lot of downtime where I read. Or did; I am now employed full time with an hour commute each way (uphill thru the hail)
So I gotta go home and get some sleep; that's the hard part, not going to the club like I usually do on a monday. [I went anyway and am sleep deprived.]
Thursday, April 13, 2006
I have new office space, so I will be able to order dsl and get back online at some point, yay, at which point blogging may resume.
Monday, April 10, 2006
France surrenders to terrorists again.
State taxes average 3600 VT to 1500 (TX) with IN in the middle at 2,000.
Google ad points to a kennedy site - i might want to find it again thus this entry.
http://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
http://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
Thursday, April 06, 2006
Currently reading:
My 12 years with JFK by Evelyn Lincoln. I knew Lincoln was JFK's competent loyal secretary, handling phone calls, shorthand and typing. I didn't know her father was a congressman and she was in law school when she got the job. She says she picked JFK, when he was still in congress, because she'd decided he was going to be president. Unclear if that's hindsight talking. Good book, readable. It's from the camelot school of kennediana - no hint of scandals or bimbos.
Finished that, finished Ruffles and Flourishes, by Liz Carpenter, Lady Bird's press secretary, reading Johnny We Hardly Knew Ye by O'Donnell, Kennedy's "Irish Mafia" assistants.
So lately it's been:
My 12 years with JFK by Evelyn Lincoln
Ruffles and Flourishes, by Liz Carpenter,
Johnny We Hardly Knew Ye by O'Donnell
A Beautiful Mind, the John Nash story
Vernor Vinge
Tucker Max
The triumph and tragedy of Lyndon Johnson - Califano
With No Aplogies - Goldwater
LBJ book by Ronnie Dugger
How Stella got her groove back
Reasonable Doubt
Red Thunder
John Varley Reader
Brad Smith's Unfree Speech
Stories of Economic Genius
Bought 8 more kennedy-era books today, $10.
Fennimore Cooper's The Pioneers,
The Truth about Hillary Clinton
American Evita
17: Joe Kennedy: the mogul, the mob, something something.
At this rate I might read 50 books again this year - soon, with a job and a new computer, I'll have less time for reading.
My 12 years with JFK by Evelyn Lincoln. I knew Lincoln was JFK's competent loyal secretary, handling phone calls, shorthand and typing. I didn't know her father was a congressman and she was in law school when she got the job. She says she picked JFK, when he was still in congress, because she'd decided he was going to be president. Unclear if that's hindsight talking. Good book, readable. It's from the camelot school of kennediana - no hint of scandals or bimbos.
Finished that, finished Ruffles and Flourishes, by Liz Carpenter, Lady Bird's press secretary, reading Johnny We Hardly Knew Ye by O'Donnell, Kennedy's "Irish Mafia" assistants.
So lately it's been:
My 12 years with JFK by Evelyn Lincoln
Ruffles and Flourishes, by Liz Carpenter,
Johnny We Hardly Knew Ye by O'Donnell
A Beautiful Mind, the John Nash story
Vernor Vinge
Tucker Max
The triumph and tragedy of Lyndon Johnson - Califano
With No Aplogies - Goldwater
LBJ book by Ronnie Dugger
How Stella got her groove back
Reasonable Doubt
Red Thunder
John Varley Reader
Brad Smith's Unfree Speech
Stories of Economic Genius
Bought 8 more kennedy-era books today, $10.
Fennimore Cooper's The Pioneers,
The Truth about Hillary Clinton
American Evita
17: Joe Kennedy: the mogul, the mob, something something.
At this rate I might read 50 books again this year - soon, with a job and a new computer, I'll have less time for reading.
