Weird things on the Gulf Coast

As you may be aware, we are not getting good information about what is happening on the Gulf Coast. The worst case is Galveston Island. Is the entire west end of the island gone? That is the impression that you might get from the media. My thought is that Galveston's mayor is "in over her head". I also have the impression that restoring services is halted on Galveston for some undisclosed reason. Does the Federal Government want to block Galveston recovery? Is it the State of Texas?

"Modfied Cars": the 2006 Nissan Sentra

I have this concept for having a series of modified car pictures to show how some subtle changes could improve some real cars. This is my first attempt at a modified 2006 Nissan Sentra. I think that I can do better, but this is a start.

SiteMeter

SiteMeter tried to migrate to a new site this weekend, but it has not been well-received. They are doing are have done a rollback. My main problem is I don't understand how to use the new site, as it seemed non-intuitive (I am sure that was not what was intended).

The Dallas school superintendent should have been gone before this

The current superintendent of the Dallas Independent School District is in his post due to identity politics. He has a long record of screw ups. The latest should be his last, if logic and reason were an issue in Dallas. Also at work is progressive politics, as Dallas in the midst of a transition into being the Minneapolis of the mid-South. It is not a good thing, but it is what is happening.

"Portable Apps" (U3-style)

I am increasingly excited about having portable apps around that I can run from my 4GB Sandisk Cruzer USB drive. I had not realized that there was a portable version of the GIMP (the Gnu Image Manipulation Program) that could be run without being installed on a PC. I see now that there is also a "portable" version of Blender, the open-source 3D modeling tool. I am working in an environment which seems to be increasingly typical, where you can't install just any software on your work PC. We also cannot bring in our personal laptops, like I could at my last job. So... the answer is "portable apps".

How did we end up here?

Here we are, seven years since September 11, 2001. We now have a Democratic House and Senate and the possibility, although it seems less likely, of a Democratic president. We went into Iraq and seem to have won that war. We seem to be losing "the big one" in Afghanistan, because we are afraid of Pakistan and Pakistan is behind much of what is going wrong. None of that will change, probably, under the next administration. How did we forget about what happened on that fall morning, seven years ago? I still remember listening to Bob Edwards talking about a twin-engined plane having hit one tower of the World Trade Center on Minnesota Public Radio. I was stopped in traffic on eastbound I-694, heading for work in Brooklyn Center. After I got to work, one of our co-workers had his radio turned on and we listened to the events unfold in Washington and in Pennsylvania. We quickly learned that this was a terrorist attack, when the second plane hit the other tower. The rest is history, as you might say. I can only think that the American people wanted this all to go away, and that they thought that by going to the Democrats, they could make that happen. Sorry about that, but that won't work.

Henry Payne, over-the-top

Today's Henry Payne cartoon in the Editorial Cartoons section of Comics.com shows Ted Kennedy and Joe Biden lynching Clarence Thomas. I thought that Henry went too far on this one, showing Clarence Thomas hanging from a tree with Joe Biden holding the rope. It is irrelevant that it is true (a verbal lynching in the confirmation hearing).