"The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter." —Mark Twain
The small ball on the left represents all the water in the world (1.4087 billion cubic kilometres) including sea water, ice, lakes, rivers, ground water, clouds, etc. The slightly larger ball on the right represents all the air in the atmosphere (5140 trillion tons). The climate change deniers’ main argument is that mankind’s footprint is […]
Every time Donna and I visit our son and daughter-in-law and grandchildren in Las Vegas, I promise myself I’m going to write a blog entry about Las Vegas as a place to live. People have odd ideas about the place, but I think if they could see the neighborhoods where residents live, they’d realize what a […]
I heard only parts of Senator Barak Obama’s speech yesterday. But I heard enough to make me want to read the entire transcript. We’re told that Obama’s speech was born from the political need to counter right wing media (read: all media) hysteria over the firebrand comments of Obama’s pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, but along the […]
You know, I always thought it odd that the Bush administration would tolerate a non-political independent-thinking military leader like Admiral Fallon, commander of U.S. Central Command. It’s so uncharacteristic of the “surround me with yes men” mentality of George W. Bush and his sycophants. Well. It appears Bush is getting ready to replace Admiral Fallon with a […]
This morning I added several new reference links to my browser’s favorites list. When I’m writing (yes, even writing for friends via this humble blog), I look things up, including things I’m pretty sure I know. Like the title to this entry. Is “on” supposed to be capitalized? No. I thought not; now I’m sure. I drew the […]
There’s always been a strong strain of puritanism in military leadership, perhaps nowhere stronger than in the U.S. Air Force. The latest expression of it is the outright banning of blogs and blogging on USAF computer networks, including USAF-operated internet cafes at bases worldwide. For years now, the USAF has filtered liberal and progressive web sites […]
Oh, my. One night in the squadron bar, another lieutenant colonel and I had a long, beer-fueled discussion about fellow F-15 pilots who’d died in crashes. The guys who didn’t eject in time. The guys who flew into the ground or water, or who were instantly killed in mid-air collisions. And we concluded that there […]