Nadine Nails It

Nadine Carroll, Posting on Politics for Pros, nails it:

On second thought, Pelosi run amok is a time bomb to expose Obama's weakness, which is weakness, as Dick Morris observed during the campaign.

Who is in charge of the Democratic party right now? Who calls the shots? Results so far say Nancy Pelosi, and that's bad news for the Dems as well as Obama, because she is ultra liberal, power mad and dumb as a sack of rocks, imo. Only a matter of time before the political center of both parties says, whoa, where the heck is she going with all this? When they say that, they will look to President Obama to establish order. If he pretends not to notice, they may draw the conclusion that he does not establish order because he cannot.

Now maybe President Obama will surprise me yet. But so far I see him taking a political win on the cheap by going along to get along. His original talk of 60% stimulus and 40% tax cuts, what happened to that? Nancy Pelosi happened to it, that's what.

Dreaming Tree

My current favorite Dave Matthews Band Song. A very high quality video. Put on the headphones and turn up the audio.


Dave Matthews Band - The Dreaming Tree (Official Music Video) - Click here for funny video clips

Bush Hatred and Obama Euphoria

Peter Berkowitz has an excellent piece in today's Wall Street Journal on the phenomenon of Bush Hatred and its obverse, Obama Euphoria. The entire article is well worth a read.

In fact, Bush hatred and Obama euphoria -- which tend to reveal more about those who feel them than the men at which they are directed -- are opposite sides of the same coin. Both represent the triumph of passion over reason. Both are intolerant of dissent. Those wallowing in Bush hatred and those reveling in Obama euphoria frequently regard those who do not share their passion as contemptible and beyond the reach of civilized discussion. Bush hatred and Obama euphoria typically coexist in the same soul. And it is disproportionately members of the intellectual and political class in whose souls they flourish.

Zombie Warning

Courtesy of Tiger-Hawk.

Second Annual Northwest Motorcycle Roundup at Starkey

Meet the New Boss... Same as the Old Boss

John Stewart nails it. The more we change, the more things stay the same.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Changefest '09 - Obama's Inaugural Speech

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

Michael Cummings on the Transition of Power

This post is worth remembering and preserving. It was posted by my friend, Michael Cummings, on Politics for Pros, a discussion forum on Silicon Investor.

It's remarkable to witness how easy so many are persuaded and manipulated by the media to think a certain way, when the drum beat is constant.

When you ask people why they hate Bush so much, the response you often see is some general statement about how he squandered this or that. How he didn't reach out etc.

The truth is no President has been despised by the left and media as much as Bush has. He dared to do what he said he would do in response to the war on terror. He said it would be a long battle and we would have to be steadfast in our determination, yet many thought they were living in a two hour movie, where the bad guy would be killed in an instant.

The simple truth is whatever President Bush did as Commander in Chief, kept terrorists from our shores for over 7 years. If someone had said a week after 9/11 that was possible, most would have called them extreme optimists.

If there is one thing Bush can be criticized for, it's trying to get along with Pelosi, Reid, Kennedy, Clinton and the other extreme partisan Democrats who care for power far more than they do our country.

So now they have total power - Congress and the Presidency with near super-majorities in each. Let's see how quickly the children running around Obama, who have become accustomed to blaming everything in the world on Bush and accepting no responsibility for themselves, manage the government. And let's also see how the media stays entertained without being able to blame every problem in the world on Bush/Cheney.

Day 1 of the Democrat party war in Iraq starts tomorrow. There is no reason Democrats can't bring the troops home immediately with control of both houses of Congress and the Presidency. Now, let's see how many protestors from the far left will be marching in the streets demanding the troops come home. Let's see how many far left demonstrators will be marching on the Capital when the first error occurs in the war zone. Let's see how the media reports an American casualty in Iraq. And let's see the anti-war SI participants twist their logic in circles, finding every excuse under the sun for Obama to maintain an "occupation force" in the Middle East for another year, when they've been clammering Bush is Hitler and one more death is akin to murder for years.

The British Called - They Want Their Guns Back

Incredible Landing on the Hudson

US Coast Guard Vessel Traffic Service caught this video of the landing of a US Airways jet on the Hudson River and the first minutes of the rescue. It's amazing there was no loss of life. My hat is off to the pilot of that plane. The Plane appears at approximately 2:03 into the video.

Hope for Even a Mutt

Artist Shepard Fairey, widely known for creating the Barack Obama "Hope" image, designed a poster for a new Adopt-a-Pet.com campaign that seeks to shed light on the animals up for adoption at shelters across the country.

The nationwide effort features a poster created by Fairey -- the man TIME magazine named "Icon Maker" of the year -- that's modeled on his Obama "Hope" poster. "The image I created for this print reminds me of a dog I had as a kid, a mutt named Honey," Fairey said. From Pet-Product News.

Sheesh. What's next? Are folks going to dictate what kind of breakfast cereal the Obama kids should eat? As the owner of a papered standard Poodle, I have no problem whatsoever if the Obamas want to get a purebred dog.

How Do You Like to Travel?

This, courtesy of The Agitator. It seems Eric Massa (D-NY) wanted to make a point about the merits of electric cars. He wanted to drive an electric car from his district to his swearing in at the Capitol. The problem? The car didn't have sufficient charge to get all the way to D.C. Representative Massa came up with a unique solution.

Massa drove one fuel cell car while a hybrid SUV towing an additional SUV followed along. Once he got half way, he switched to new fuel cell car. The empty fuel cell was then towed back by the first SUV. As he continued on his journey, the second SUV followed. Once Massa arrived in DC, the second SUV then towed the second fuel cell car back to NY.

We’re too tired to do the math, but even Al Gore might agree that the emissions released into the air for this stunt were far more than they would’ve been had he strapped on a hard hat and drove a bulldozer to DC.

In the fashion of politicians everywhere, he failed to recognize the absurdity of his stunt.

Squirrel Crisps?

Ann Althouse calls attention to the latest dining craze in the U.K. This takes the reputation of British food to a new level.

Cajun squirrel is the brainchild of Martyn Wright, 26, who said he was inspired to enter when he saw squirrel on a restaurant menu.

"This gentle Cajun flavouring will be delicious for the public and although the idea might sound bizarre, it really works," he said, while underlining that no squirrels were harmed in making the crisps.

PETA will surely be happy.

Train to Brig

Shortly after arriving an hour late in Geneve due to a delayed takeoff at Heathrow, Kelsey and four friends from WSU were on the train for the 2 1/2 hour ride to Brig. Click on "View Larger Map" at the bottom to see the full route.


View Larger Map

Kelsey is Off to Switzerland!

After much planning on her part, Kelsey left Walla Walla Thursday, January 9, 2009, for a semester of study at the University Centre Cesar Ritz, in Brig Switzerland. I'd planned on driving her to Seattle to catch her British Airways flight to Heathrow, but all mountain passes were closed due to avalanches and mudslides, and the longer route through the Columbia River Gorge was impossible as I-5 in Lewis County was flooded and under water. She flew out of Walla Walla on the 11:20 am Horizon flight, and connected to BA048 leaving at 6:40 pm for Heathrow. After a short layover in London, it was on to Geneve and then the train to Brig.

Bon Voyage Kelsey!!!

The Stone

Turn up your speakers...

Palouse Winter

The winter wheat lies under the snow, ready to resume its growth. Meanwhile, the motorcycle is tucked away, safe in the garage, waiting for spring. Deep winter is here.

Photo courtesy of visualdetail.smugmug.com

The City Where the Sirens Never Sleep

I grew up in a smallish town near, Ann Arbor, Michigan. My little town was 45 miles from Detroit. My father grew up in Detroit, graduating from Cooley High School. His parents, my grandparents, lived between Seven and Eight Mile Road, just off the John Lodge freeway. As a child, I visited them often. At Christmas time, my mother took us to J.L. Hudson's Department store, where an entire floor was dedicated to a fantasy world, the walk through which ended wit a visit with Santa (that's Hudson's on the upper right, when the historic building was demolished in 1998). The Detroit I knew as a child is gone now, replaced by vacant lots, decaying buildings and a deeply dysfunctional local government that featured Coleman Young and recently-convicted Kwame Kilpatrick as mayors.

Matt Labash of the Weekly Standard has written a simply exceptional piece on the City. The link to the article at the Weekly Standard website is here. However, they may move it to archives so a link to where I found the article on my favorite "metablog," Politics for Pros, is here in case the Weekly Standard link goes down.

From the article:

"Precisely what caused all this mess is perhaps best left to historians. Locals' ideas for how it happened could keep one pinned to a barstool for weeks: auto companies failing or pushing out to the suburbs and beyond, white flight caused by the '67 riots and busing orders, the 20-year reign of Mayor Coleman Young who scared additional middle-class whites off with statements such as "The only way to handle discrimination is to reverse it," freeways destroying mass transit infrastructure, ineptitude, corruption, Japanese cars--take your pick.

"What's clear, though, is that Detroit has failed, that it's broken and cracked. It is dying. But it's not yet dead. Although it has lost over half its population since 1950, 900,000 people still live there. I went to Detroit to experience a cross-section of those who live between its cracks, who either choose or are stuck with living among the ruins."

The article got me thinking, so I dug further. Anyone interested in the decline of this once great city and the lessons that might be learned from might want to check out Detroitfunk.com, which includes links to some incredible sites, including Fabulous Ruins, a site that features photos of deserted auto plants and formerly great but now ruined architectural landmarks. For an interesting look at how Detroiters view their city, read some of the forums at Detroityes.com.

Lebash came to Detroit as a result of his friendship with Charlie LeDuff. LeDuff was a successful journalist with the New York Times, who went back to his hometown to report on the battles there. He produces videos that can be found on YouTube and the Detroit News Web Site. An example, featuring the heroes in the Detroit Fire Department who battle fires, often in vacant buildings, and who recently lost one of their own in one such fire, is below. Walter Harris, who is featured in the concluding seconds of the video, was killed when the roof of an abandoned house collapsed on him as he fought an arson fire.



As we throw billions of dollars at a failed US Auto Industry, with no assurance that the team of management and labor comprehend the reasons for the problems that face the industry, it would be well to consider the lesson of Detroit with an eye to averting future similar disasters.

Pandora

Several days ago, my college age daughter introduced me to Pandora. Anyone who enjoys music should check into this incredible website. The site is the result of the Music Genome Project, an assembly of musical attributes or "genes" that make music similar or dissimilar. From the Pandora website:

"Together we set out to capture the essence of music at the most fundamental level. We ended up assembling literally hundreds of musical attributes or "genes" into a very large Music Genome. Taken together these genes capture the unique and magical musical identity of a song - everything from melody, harmony and rhythm, to instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, and of course the rich world of singing and vocal harmony. It's not about what a band looks like, or what genre they supposedly belong to, or about who buys their records - it's about what each individual song sounds like.

Since we started back in 2000, we've carefully listened to the songs of tens of thousands of different artists - ranging from popular to obscure - and analyzed the musical qualities of each song one attribute at a time. This work continues each and every day as we endeavor to include all the great new stuff coming out of studios, clubs and garages around the world."

The Pandora site does for music what Neflix does for movies (ever notice how Netflix suggests films you might like based on your prior rental history?) This is much the same.

More on Pandora from Wikipedia.

People's National Radio had an interesting piece on the Pandora and Netflix algorthims. Find the sound file Here.

Check it out. You won't be disappointed.