sisu

The return of the natives

Not in MY side yard! Babe and neighborhood tom Orange Kitty go eyeball to eyeball this morning.  The border dispute ended when Tiny and Baby both charged at once, sending the intruder skulking off.

"When they wrote down their notes independently and compared them, Mr. Gallagher said, Mr. Harrison was struck by the reality of the discovery and began sobbing, repeating, 'I saw an ivory bill,'" reports New Scientist re the rediscovery of America's largest woodpecker, long thought extinct. We heard about it first from a classically concise Ann Althouse post last week, given here in full:

Thrilling! A grown man breaks into sobs when he realizes what he has seen. Beautiful!

Ann's laconic poetry was complemented today by TigerHawk's fact-rich, generous prose in a twofer -- a must-read, with lots of pictures, links and witty commentary -- covering the return of the bird plus one we hadn't heard of, even though it's our field:  The return of the American Chestnut. Talk about sobs of joy.  On a field trip to Blue Hill for a course called "Plant Communities" way back when, the instructor had pointed out how these once towering lords of the forest were now cut off at the knees, unable to grow past shrub stature in the wake of the a devastating Japanese fungus that invaded in the first half of the 20th century. The American Chestnut Foundation has developed a hybrid of the American and its feisty but less statuesque Chinese cousin:

Chestnut blight was first introduced to North America in 1904. Like many other pest introductions, it quickly spread into its new -- and defenseless -- host population. American Chestnut trees had evolved in the absence of chestnut blight, and our native species lacked entirely the genetic material to protect it from the fungus.

Unlike the American, Chinese Chestnuts had evolved in deadly combat with the Japanese blight. As TigerHawk notes, "The goal of the hybridization program has been to create a tree that is more than 93% American chestnut, but which retains the Chinese genes that protect the tree against the Asian blight." His post got us to thinking of how the American Chestnut's plight last century reminded us of the MSM's plight today. As we noted in his comments:

The American Chestnut's evolution without the blight to challenge its dominance of the forest called to mind the American Mainstream Media's evolution without the blogosphere to challenge its dominance of the news business:

Unless the MSM gets some new genes -- perhaps the integration of blogs into its own operations that seems to be underway -- it will go the way of the American Chestnut in the 20's.

As we wrote here a coupla months back, "The long-repressed voices of opposition in a free society, now ringing loud and clear through talk radio, cable TV and -- of course -- the blogosphere, will force the left to rethink its arguments or go extinct."

An apple a day

Grapenuts with apple-strawberry mix, bananas and wheat germ served in scalloped glass bowl.  Breakfast cereal doesn't have to be boring anymore.

Apple-Strawberry Mix

Core and coarsely chop 4 apples (Macs are our faves -- not too sweet and not too tart). Put into 2 1/2-quart baking dish and add 2 cups frozen strawberries. Cover and microwave 5-10 minutes on high until apples are just tender (not too firm and not too soft) or otherwise to your preference (time may vary with type of apple).

When you do a Google search for "MacIntosh apple," you don't get this (Hormel Foods photo) but -- of course -- this.

This tasty topping can go anywhere -- breakfast, lunch or dinner.  Suggested servings: on breakfast cereal (top photo), with peanut butter in a sandwich or as topping for ice cream.

They're watching you . . .

Composite atmospheric water vapor image derived from data from the SSM/I instrument on board the F-15 satellite. Water vapor signatures of Hurricanes Kyle and Isadore are in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico. (Global Hydrology and Resource Center)

Have you ever had the feeling you're being watched? Poring over our Site Meter stats this morning, we noticed a visitor presumably in the Bahamas had spent 252 minutes and 13 seconds viewing 57 pages of our humble blog. Even our relatives spend maybe 15-20 minutes max at a stretch. Could this be a Government worker with too much time on his hands?

We typed the IP address -- 209.73.176.136 -- into a Google search and arrived -- yes -- at a Government site, Global Hydrology Resource Center (GHRC), "housed within the National Space Science and Technology Center, a cooperative venture of NASA and many Alabama colleges and universitites."  A little more Googling got us to Andros Island, the likely spot where our visitor sits staring at his computer screen. When not reading sisu, he may be conducting CAMEX field experiments:

The Convection and Moisture Experiment (CAMEX) archive provides data from the CAMEX-3 and CAMEX-4 field experiments. These experiments produced high-resolution spatial and temporal information of hurricane structure, dynamics, and motion [image above].

CAMEX-3 holdings include hurricane research data sets derived from a variety of passive microwave, radar, infrared, visible, lidar, interferometer, electric field, and lightning instruments on board the NASA ER-2 and DC-8 aircraft, as well as surface station instruments on Andros Island, Bahamas.

Just someone with too much time on his hands, or did NASA take The American Thinker's Thomas Lifson seriously when he warned -- tongue in cheek, in case anyone at NASA is really listening -- re one of our tinfoil-hat posts?:

I only hope that the CIA and Department of Homeland Security are paying attention to Sisu.

Questions:  How does a Domain name in the Bahamas (no.bs) square with a Time Zone (UTC:8:00) in the Pacific?  Also, plugging the IP address into Geobytes' locator tool leads to Saugerties, NY. What is the connection, if any, among Andros Island, Saugerties and Pacific Daylight Time?

Update:  Reader Tom Dilatush of JamulBlog has some answers: "There are many ways in which a particular site can be physically distant from the IP provider." Thanks, Tom.  It's nice to have readers who know things we don't.

Don't take anything for granted

Uncommonly beautiful Common Floweringquince (Chaenomeles speciosa), an old-fashioned landscape shrub and member of the Rose Family, frames oil tanker backing out of the Creek with tug assistance early evening.

We were mellowing out in the Friday evening afterglow of our weekly Wall-Street-Journal-online-crossword-puzzle date with cocktails and dinner.

Potato Meltdown in progress to accompany Mary's Secret Baked Haddock for supper.

Potato Meltdown

Steam together two or three quartered purple potatoes and three or four chopped garlic cloves 20 minutes.

Transfer to bowl and coarsely chop.  Add 4 tbsp or more mayo and toss till thorougly mixed.

Mound into a rectangular "cake" (see above photo) on foil-lined baking tin and top with three slices mozzarella.

Broil in toaster oven (or regular oven) c. 5 minutes until cheese is browned and sizzling.

Here's how it looks when it's ready to serve.

Guess what happened, though?  We turned off the toaster oven and enjoyed our lovely supper, but then the smoke detector went off, and the house nearly went up in flames, as the toaster oven didn't really turn itself off after all. We have no idea why. You never know how near the edge your life dangles at any moment.

Update: Good stuff can happen at any moment too.  We belatedly sent a recipe to Carnival of the Recipes #37 at Caltechgirl's Not Exactly Rocket Science (some blog names are more equal than others). In the midst of an InstaLanche, she posted our dinner-in-a-bowl recipe for Salad with Chicken and Sausage. It's a good thing (check our stats).

United Pajamas International

While United Press International and the immediate MSM slept, Roger L. Simon and a few other A-list bloggers and their allies* threw off the covers, jumped out of bed and came up with a business model to turn their hobby into the big megaphone and the big bucks. Check out the link for details:

Charles Johnson, Marc Danziger and I have been sneaking around over the last few months, trying to turn blogs into a business. We have enlisted some others with names familiar to you with the intention of working in two areas -- aggregating blogs to increase corporate advertising and creating our own professional news service.

"I'm out of the closet yet again as the new media project I'm working on with Roger Simon and Charles Johnson went public at the L.A. Press Club on Tuesday," chimed in Danzinger:

Much of what we're working on isn't really grist for public blogging yet. There's some potentially protectable IP, and a lot of business negotiations that are best held out of the public eye. If you're a blogger and interested in signing up to Phase I, which will be -- in simple terms -- an ad network, send an email to join-(at)-pajamasmedia.com [change -(at)- to @] and you'll hear back about some next steps.

The name of their outfit is PajamasMedia -- Pajamas for short, and the name of the future blog portal would be Blog News Service. How could any jammy-clad blogger resist? We sent the email, got all the stuff, signed and scanned the agreement and NDA and returned to sender.  Now all we have to do is sit back and wait for fame and fortune to descend:

Lately when I'm blogging all by myself

In the solitary gloom I call to myself

Hey there, you with the blogs in your eyes

Though he won't throw a crumb to you

You think some day he'll link to you.

No, but reallly. These boys represent some of the best minds -- with a range of necessary skills -- out there in the blogosphere. Their concept may not be ready for public blogging yet, but as Roger said in a return email to our query:

Well, the cat seems to be pretty well out of the bag at this point.

Cats? Pajama Games? The signs are lookin' good.

Update:  Mustn't forget the bottom line.  Roger adds:

Those interested in possibly investing in this enterprise, contact Our Man in the Silicon Valley (where else?) -- Tim Oren.

Follow the money. "When will old man Hasler break down And come up with our seven and a half cent raise?"

*A blogger can blogroll a king.  Here's the A-list:  Glenn Reynolds, Power Line, Charles Johnson, Hugh Hewitt, Roger L. Simon, Tim Blair, Marc Cooper, Marc Danziger, Wretchard and Larry Kudlow.

"To define the problems and propose solutions"

"I have a duty as President to define the problems and propose solutions," declared GW at his press conference last night, disagreeing with the premise of a journalist's question re recent falling poll numbers.

TigerHawk heroically live blogs GW's press conference last night so you -- and Glenn Reynolds' hundreds of thousands of readers -- don't have to:

Terence Hunt, AP: Are you frustrated because a majority of Americans don't agree with your approach on Social Security and energy?

Bush: I'm not surprised that people do not want to face these tough problems that we have blown off for twenty years. But I have a duty as President to define the problems and propose solutions. The longer we wait, the more expensive the solution will be for the younger generation of Americans.

TigerHawk: I think Bush is pretty loose, and pretty effective in this. Yet another invitation to the Democrats to propose ideas -- he clearly is trying to define the Demos as not willing to do anything other than obstruct.

TigerHawk's "question of the night":

Is the proposal to means-test Social Security [in which benefits would grow faster for lower-income retirees than they would for wealthier ones] fundamentally serious, or is it meant to be so offensive to statist Democrats that they will trade away personal accounts in order to avoid means testing?

Let's hope so.  Means testing smells to us -- as it did to Mrs. TigerHawk -- like welfare. While the Democrats seem uninclined to concede personal accounts, right on cue the very thought of GW's "sliding scale benefit formula" had them flailing in horror:

"All the president did tonight was confirm that he will pay for his risky privatization scheme by cutting the benefits of middle-class seniors," said Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada and Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, the top Democrats in Congress.

We tried watching but kept falling asleep, only to reawaken briefly during several replays of the very same moment we'd caught earlier. Thank you, Mr. TigerHawk for rewarding our slothfulness [Welfare for me but not for thee? -- ed], and -- as Lucianne says -- "Thank you, Mr. President for tackling the most boring and important subjects in political life."

Waking and sleeping, we were tuned in to FOXNews. They carried the press conference live and rebroadcast several times throughout the night, but did you know the MSM (do they still call it that?) almost didn't carry it at all [via WSJ Morning Brief]?:

When the White House told the broadcast networks about it with less than 24 hours notice, only ABC didn't balk at interrupting its prime-time lineup, Variety reports. The other three big networks were looking at the fact that Thursday was the first night of the May sweeps period -- when ratings are used to set future advertising rates. Industry insiders tell Variety that "NBC was the first net to cave" in to peer pressure, suggesting to the White House that if it moved the press conference to 8 p.m. from the original time of 8:30, it would likely cover the event. Yesterday afternoon, the administration did just that.

Who says this White House is inflexible?

April showers, May flowers and all that

The Moss Pinks (Phlox subulata, lower left together with yellow-flowering Dandelion, Taraxacum officinale), had a horrific winter a year ago. There was practically nothing left of them last spring. But we replanted, and now, after a kinder, gentler winter, they're in the pink of health. Tiny and Baby are more interested in catnip (Nepeta cataria), of course, and at the moment are ready to come inside for kitty treats.

Those who are ready to call it a day and throw in the towel because of human-induced "global warming" should, like New Englanders, wait a minute. Each winter gives way to a new spring that always astonishes.

Update:  Animals now boarding the Friday Ark at Modulator.

Go ask Alice

"I spent almost three hours playing on Neopets while my dad had an extremely boring meeting," blogged TigerHawk's daughter -- a girl after our own heart -- for Take Your Child to Work Day. (TigerHawk photo)

There's Alice, there's the looking glass.  The only thing missing is the rabbit.  Perhaps he disappeared down the Neopets hole? 

Don't rush me

A Wall Street Journal online poll this morning asks why Apple has a small share of the PC market. Knowing why we ourselves haven't taken a bite of the Apple since giving up on a totally inadequate Apple notebook during grad school days, we voted with the majority:  People are reluctant to change.

Why don't more people use Apple?  According to this unscientific WSJ online poll, it's not because "Microsoft has competed unfairly" (7%), as Apple lovers claim, and it's certainly not because "Buyers prefer Windows features" (9%) [What features? --ed].  It's old-fashioned inertia:  "Buyers are reluctant to change systems" (46%).  That's certainly true of us.  We went with Windows -- 98, NT and then XP -- years ago for reasons blogged here, but it looks like those reasons have outlived their usefulness.  The only thing holding us back now is laziness. This is the second time we've blogged about Apple this morning.  Do you think it's a sign?

"It leaves Windows XP in the dust"

Apple Computer's new Tiger operating system debuts tomorrow. From the online blurb at apple.com: "Meet the world’s most advanced operating system. Again. Instantly find what you’re looking for. Get information in an instant with a single click. Mac OS X Tiger delivers 200+ new features which make it easier than ever to find, access and enjoy everything on your computer.

"It leaves Windows XP in the dust," says the Wall Street Journal's Walter S. Mossberg in "Tiger Leaps Out in Front" (subscription only), a rave review for Apple's new edition of the operating system for its Macintosh computers that "finally solves the missing file problem," [who knew?] and introduces other features, including a "Dashboard" that offers quick access to stock quotes, yellow pages, flight data and other information. It goes on sale tomorrow:

The new release, called Tiger, is the latest version of Apple's excellent Mac OS X operating system. Its key feature, called Spotlight, is the first universal, integrated search system ever offered as part of a mainstream consumer PC operating system. In seconds, Spotlight can peer inside e-mail, office documents of all kinds, photos, songs, address books, calendars, and all manner of other files to see which ones match a search term you type in.

Along with a similar built-in search capability Microsoft is working on for its next version of Windows [c. 18 months down the road], Spotlight could spark a major change in the way people use computers. Instead of hunting for documents or clicking on programs, people may now start activities by searching for relevant files and then opening them as needed.

On the downside:

In my tests, on three different Macs during the past couple of weeks, Tiger performed generally well. Installation took about an hour and went smoothly in each case. None of the computers ever crashed, and every program I tested worked fine, despite the change in operating-system versions.

The only significant problem I noticed was that the computers seemed to run into slight, but greater-than-normal, delays from time to time. Certain functions, like Spotlight searches and the updated Safari Web browser, were very fast. But with other tasks, I noticed more spinning beach-ball icons, Apple's symbol for delays, than I had with the prior Panther version of the Mac operating system.

Apple acknowledges it will need to tweak Tiger to eliminate the delays, and it promises to address the problem within a few months.

More mouth-watering details (file under "They saw us coming"):

Spotlight even finds words inside Adobe's PDF files. It also can search on the data stored inside music and photo files, such as the names of artists and camera information. If picture files are found, thumbnails of them are displayed right in the list, and you can view them in a slide show.

With the press of a single function key, a new translucent screen appears that holds large, stylish icons for useful little programs you might want to get to quickly. These programs, called Widgets, include a dictionary and thesaurus; a calculator; a weather display; a calendar; a language translator; a weights and measures converter; a stock tracker; an electronic yellow pages program; and a flight tracker.

The search thing is huge, especially for Windows XP users like us.  Whenever we do a search within Windows, we hold our breath, as perhaps 40% of searches lead to a frozen window.  To get back to normal, we have to log off and on again, losing our place and our temper. Like Adam, we're tempted. This may just be the moment to take a bite of the Apple. We'll be looking to Susan at Mind of Mog for cues. She's been talking about Tiger for months and will be the first on our blogblock to take it for a ride.