The wind turbine in the back yard

I built this with PVC tubing and scrap wood, it's suitable for generating electricity, just needs to be mounted to an alternator or a generator. Getting the electricity into usable form is more complex and expensive than making a giant pinwheel like this, but you have to start somewhere, and it's nice to watch on windy days.

Quote of the day

" Today we're a nation of tattooed barbarian "consumers" with no impulse control, a swollen sense of entitlement, ruled by a set of authorities ranging from one G.W. Bush to the grifter-billionaire pantheon of Wall Street CEOs...."

Jim Kunstler   October 13, 2008

Quote of the day

" I’ve been pointing out that the dictatorial powers Paulson has sought would accrue to the next Treasury secretary, who might well be Phil Gramm. I’ve been trying to come up with a liberal-leaning name who might seem equally horrifying to Republicans, and the only one I’ve come up with is … me."

Paul Krugman  Sept. 23, 2008

Update: 10/16/08

I posted this quote just three weeks before Dr. Krugman received his Nobel award for his work in economics, makes this comment seem a bit less tongue in cheek. He has said that he doesn't have the temperament  for government work, though he's done it before, could he refuse to serve if tapped by Obama? Time will tell.

The Deadly Mantis

This Praying Mantis flew into my yard today, it's manner of flying is striking to see and immediately caught my attention.                                                                                                                                                               

Yikes, lady! Don't bite my head off!

Aspen Gold

As promised about two weeks ago, I said the aspen would be turning, here's the evidence.                  

The picture above is from Fremont Pass, south of Leadville, CO.

This one's near Buena Vista.

As is this one.

 No aspen here, I couldn't resist this dramatic peak on Fremont Pass, I think this is Quandary Mountain.

Impressive needles on the ridge line of what I presume to be Quandary Mtn.

Republicans has got Dignitude

I'll just let this speak for itself. OK, I can't confirm it isn't photoshopped, but it would violate the spirit of this blog not to post this tasty find.

Flat Tops Wilderness

I took a short trip to northwestern Colorado last week to visit one of my favorite unspoiled areas of the state, I'm talking about the Flat Tops Wilderness, there isn't much there (in the way of civilization), and that's how I like it.

Frost has touched these ferns among the aspen here, in a couple of weeks the aspen will quake and exhibit their gold.

This photo was taken on a hike near Marvine Creek where I was camping.

Eight miles later, Big Marvine Lake, there's no road to this place, you get here on foot or horseback. Area outfitters have a nice business of bringing campers and fishermen up here on horses, dropping them off, then picking them up a week later.

I was struck by the image of these pines growing on the sides of this sheer cliff face, there can't be much room on those ledges. They appear to be good sized trees, 20 to 30 feet tall, I should think.

On the opposite side of the lake is another cliff at some distance, it's hard to judge the height of this feature, the scale of everything in the back country is a bit alien to a city dweller, but I have topographical maps that seem to indicate an elevation  gain of 1000+ feet. I was too tired to climb it anyway.

Gitmo on the Platte-link

The city of Denver has prepared for the worst by converting a municipal warehouse into a makeshift prison in advance of next week's Democratic Convention. They were going to have razor wire on top of the pens but that idea was nixed, too reminiscent of the Gulag, I suppose.

Wall Street Journal publishes opinion piece by Hillary

Rather than linking to this opinion piece I'll just post the whole thing here, for educational purposes only.

August 6, 2008

No Crisis Is Immune
From Exploitation
Under Bush

By HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON

August 6, 2008; Page A15

Tucked away on the Cayman Islands sits Ugland House, an unassuming, nondescript building of modest scale and size. However, according to a recent report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), this five-story office building is home to more than 18,000 corporate entities, nearly half of which have U.S. ties.

In the past few years, the number of corporations flocking to places like the Cayman Islands to evade U.S. taxes has exploded. One of these companies, former Halliburton subsidiary KBR, has used offshore tax havens to avoid paying hundreds of millions of dollars in federal taxes. To no one's surprise, instead of cracking down on KBR, the Bush administration has rewarded the company in April of this year with a 10-year, $150 billion contract in Iraq.

There appears to be no crisis, tragedy or disaster immune from exploitation under the Bush administration. The examples of the waste, fraud and abuse are legion -- from KBR performing shoddy electrical work in Iraq that has resulted in the electrocution of our military personnel according to Pentagon and Congressional investigators, to the firing of an Army official who dared to refuse a $1 billion payout for questionable charges to the same company. In another scam, the Pentagon awarded a $300 million contract to AEY, Inc., a company run by a 22-year-old who fulfilled an ammunition deal in Afghanistan by supplying rotting Chinese-made munitions to our allies.

But the fraud and waste are not limited to the war. In the weeks after Hurricane Katrina, for example, FEMA awarded a contract worth more than $500 million for trailers to serve as temporary housing. The contractor, Gulf Stream, collected all of its money even though they knew at the time that its trailers were contaminated with formaldehyde.

While touting fiscal responsibility, President Bush and his administration have lined the pockets of political cronies like Halliburton and Blackwater. While calling for earmark reform, the president has allowed no-bid and questionable contracting throughout the federal government to dwarf earmark spending by a 10-to-1 ratio.

If we're going to get serious about putting our nation's fiscal house in order, let's talk about putting an end to billions in no-bid contract awards to unaccountable contractors. Let's talk about the number of lucrative contracts and bonuses being paid for duties never performed, promises never fulfilled, and contracts falsely described as complete. And let's talk about reforming the federal contracting system so that we can take on the real waste, fraud and abuse in our federal government.

I've proposed a comprehensive overhaul to root out corruption in no-bid contracts and other shady deals. Reforms must include the following:

- Instead of rewarding companies that exploit tax shelters and incorporate in tax havens, let's ban the federal government from contracting with companies that hide profits offshore.

- We should put in place safeguards so that contracts are awarded to responsible companies that abide by the law and complete the work they're hired to do.

- Let's put a stop to the disgraceful practice of giving bonuses to contractors for work never performed, which has been allowed to happen in Iraq and throughout the federal government according to the GAO and inspectors general.

- We need to increase transparency and competition in the contracting system, and to stop the ideological privatization of critical governmental functions.

In 1941, as the U.S. mobilized and entered World War II, then Sen. Harry Truman proposed and chaired the Senate Special Committee to investigate the National Defense Program. Over the course of three years, Truman set about investigating a president of his own party in order to discover and eliminate wasteful and fraudulent spending. By some estimates, the "Truman Committee" saved the American people some $15 billion -- more than $165 billion in today's dollars.

Truman took on the war profiteers because he understood that when the lives of Americans hang in the balance, we cannot afford to misuse even a single dollar. In the Democratic Congress, we've proposed a new Truman Committee to address the waste, fraud and abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan that has already taken place, a proposal stymied by the president and his allies. And my proposal would prevent waste, fraud and abuse in future contracting.

Of course, we need far more than a Truman Committee. We need the Truman spirit in the White House, where the buck finally stops.

Sunroof

I'm calling this a sunroof even though it's not in a car.

Here you can see the underlying structure, I modified steel straps to create the brackets that tie right into the house's roof trusses. I feel this will hold up well under a normal load from snowfall (say two feet), but I'm not so sure about an extra large dump, I've got some ideas to improve the load bearing ability of this roof in that case.

If today's Congress had presided during Watergate-link

Just go to the link.

Greenwald Explains What Happened-link

It will never stop being jarring that Pulitzer-Prize-winning revelations from the New York Times that the President and the telecom industry were committing felonies for years culminated in the full-scale protection of the lawbreakers and retroactive legalization of the criminality by the "opposition party" which controls the Congress.

That's Glenn's sad reflection near the end of his column last Saturday, 7/12/08. He starts with a blurb for Jane Mayer's new book, ""The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals". The tenets of Jane's book add fuel to the raging bonfire of evidence that the "Rule of Law" has gone by the wayside in this country( as it applies to the executive branch), aided and abetted by a compliant Congress.

Go

Read

Submitted without comment-link

Click on the images (2) for larger, easier to read versions.

A fishing trip

I enjoyed a short fishing trip near Buena Vista, CO on July 1, 2008.

Here's the view looking into Taylor Park from tht top of Cottonwood Pass just west of Buena Vista.

The Contiental Divide

That's Taylor Reservoir.

A nice Rainbow Trout from the reservoir.

R.I.P.

Fuck, Shit, Piss, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker and Tits.

George Carlin is dead and Carrot Top still lives.

Behold, my super awesomeness!

Ever wonder which superhero you're most like?

Your results:
You are Superman

Superman 70% Green Lantern 70% Spider-Man 65% Batman 65% Supergirl 65% The Flash 65% Hulk 60% Robin 57% Catwoman 55% Iron Man 50% Wonder Woman 35%

You are mild-mannered, good, strong and you love to help others.

Click here to take the "Which Superhero are you?" quiz...

Enema Memorial

AP photo

LOL!  This statue was just dedicated at the Mashuk-Akva Term Spa in the Russian city of Zheleznovodsk. If you can't make it out it's an enema bulb being hoisted aloft by three angels, there are many spas like this in the Caucasus Mountains that are known for their mineral waters which are said to provide beneficial enemas. To your health!

R.I.P. Bo Diddley

It's been good knowing you.

Dick Cavett in N.Y. Times- link

Great article in the Times by Dick Cavett, delivered in the style of James Wolcott. The link will take you to the article, he's got some hilarious comments about the speaking styles of General Petraeus & Ambassador Crocker during their visit to a joint session of Congress last week, as well as some remarks on the contents of their talks.

Here's a sample:

I find it painful to watch this team of two straight men, straining on the potty of language. Only to deliver such . . . what? Such knobbed and lumpy artifacts of superfluous verbiage? (Sorry, now I’m doing it…)

I guess he's alluding to what he thinks they're full of. Check it out, if you haven't already done so.

Elizabeth Edwards-link

Follow the links to a huge smackdown of John McCain's health care policies my friends.