At Sea Georgetown - Cartgena

Grand Cayman

Greetings from the Celebrity Infinity at sea between Georgetown, Grand Cayman and Cartagena Columbia, cabin 9149. Seas look to be 5'-7', which the ship rides very well in. Uploads are slow, as I get some pictures up, they will be added to my picasa album for the trip.

We left Ft Lauderdale at 5:30PM Sunday, were at sea Monday and arrived in Georgetown Grand Cayman at 8AM Tuesday. Weather was warm and generally sunny for that trip, sometime during the early AM hours of Tuesday, we dodged around the little hurricane that was supposed to hit the coast around Cozumel Tuesday.

We got up on Tuesday, had a light breakfast and tendered in to Georgetown. We were scheduled for the sub adventure at 11:15, but they had seats an hour earlier, so we went out on that. It was a lot of fun for me just because of the idea of being on an actual sub, and we did see a lot of sea life and coral -- or just "solid sea life" I guess and descended to the advertised 100' depth next to "the wall", where the ocean goes from 100' to thousands of feet deep. The nice thing about the sub ride is that if they can't get back to the surface, they refund half your money! We made it back though, so no discount.

My personal view is that glass bottomed boats are actually better viewing platforms because once you get below like 30', the light compression takes out most of the colors except for the blues and yellows. In the clear waters of the Carribean, the reefs are very nice to view from the glass bottomed boats -- and also a little cheaper. Of course you don't get to see 100' on the depth gauge on a GB boat, but I suppose one could view that as being a rather nerdy concern.

Spent the next couple of hours buying a few items arout Georegtown, including a T and hat from Jimmy Buffet's Margueritaville. Nice lunch at "Breezes" overlooking the 5 cruise ships tendered in the bay.

The trip back was a little more exciting than we would have thought. Turns out the hurrcan was generating 5-7' swells, which was on the edge of the limits for re-boarding. They had this brawny greek sailor that is the chief security officer on the ship manning the gangway and directing folks one at a time as the tender and the ship rose and fell at different rates. We got some film that comes close to showing how much, but it was clear that it was a spot that injury was very possible and someone might have even been killed (fall between a 40' steel tender and a 900' cruise ship, and if they come together, they will be able to roll you up and send you home in a tube).

It was really interesting to watch the big greek guy operate -- he seemed to very much know what he was doing -- but it was also clear that the forces of the waves and weight of the ships were something that had to be "worked with" ... the swells got too large at one point and it started to crush the railings on the ramp, so we had to detach. We got on board with no problem, but with more of an adrenaline injection than we would have expected.

Food has been excellent as would be expected. We have talked to a lot of people -- mostly 60+ aged folks on this cruise, and predominately folks that have been on many cruises and many on long cruises. I'd say that so far we like Celebrity just fine, but still kind of talk about Carnival. Might be just because those were the first cruises with the kids, but we liked the idea of the midnight buffet -- which maybe even they don't do anymore.

One couple that we had dinner with was a greek guy and his wife who had been from NY and were now from Ft Lauderdale. He came to the US as a young man to "make his fortune" as painter -- as in contractor, not artist. It sounds like they have been going on 2-3 cruises a year, usually 14 days or longer, so, since he was just about to turn 62, he must have done OK to be semi-retired and cruising.

The internet speeds, especially uplink, are slow ( 20K up, 500K down) and expensive ( .35 a min in bulk). That is an area of cruising that I'm surprised they have not upgraded over the 3 years since we have been out. Could be frustrating to have only something like a netbook or iPad out here.

Infinity and Beyond

Cruise

Sitting in the cabin on the Celebrity Infinity still on the dock at Port Everglades, Ft Lauderdale. We should sail at 6PM on our 14day cruise through Panama. Got on board, got settled in, had lunch, toured the ship and plan to do dinner and show this evening as we head out. Day at sea tomorrow.

Shocking: Bigoted White Tea Party Woman Beats Petite Black Female Reporter - Doug Giles - Townhall Conservative

Shocking: Bigoted White Tea Party Woman Beats Petite Black Female Reporter - Doug Giles - Townhall Conservative

Violence against Tea Partiers is not news ... in fact, in this administration, it isn't even a crime!

As he points out, even though the signs say "socialism now", it is somehow wrong to report much of the left as socialists. "Some are more equal than others"!!

Regressivism

American Thinker: Progressive Feudalism

Great little thought provoking article. The bottom line is that once one moves away from individual liberty AND responsibility, some ruling class must be charged with operating the processes to "make it so". BO, Nancy and Harry are currently installed in that role and quite happy -- removing them quickly may be the only hope to avoid the rest of the decline to a long term feudal America.

The Sweep: What went wrong for Democrats - CNN.com

The Sweep: What went wrong for Democrats - CNN.com:

Why is it that liberals sometimes get a lot more reflective and almost "journalistic" as they face the prospects of "death" (political or otherwise)?

Generally good column, I think one of the things that Gloria misses is that while the common person is MUCH more intelligent than she imagines, they are also MUCH less interested in politics in general, and all but a couple political issues than she imagines.

"And they never stopped talking. Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell gave 107 floor speeches on health care, and 25 speeches on why we shouldn't close the prison camp at Guantanamo. It was the first executive order -- a promise that was not kept, because it became messier than anyone thought. It was supposed to be a hugely popular idea, but within a couple of months, it just flipped: going from an 80 percent approval rating to an 80 percent disapproval rating."

Than ANYONE thought? Well, certainly no messier than rational people that paid any attention thought all along -- but I guess Gloria isn't in that camp. 

So how does such a thing as Gitmo shift like that? Democrats and Gloria assume that such fickle positions must equate to stupidity, while I assert it relates to priorities and attention bandwidth.

Democrats and their friends in the MSM identify something that 95% of Americans don't have any interest in and carpet bomb the front pages, first few minutes of news programs, glossy magazines and even entertainment shows with the "simple message" -- Gitmo bad, Bush stupid, no reason for Gitmo, Gitmo could be closed at any moment without issue. Since people don't care and only one side of the story is being presented, they figure "close Gitmo", why not?

Rhetoric changes to reality as the ruse pays off and a Democrat is elected -- there are very nasty folks at Gitmo, nobody wants them in their back yard, media and Democrats just give up on the issue. They never really cared about Gitmo for anything but a political ploy anyway, why not just drop it?  The people realize that they were snookered -- it happens all the time, this is nothing new. They are marketed to with overblown and false promises more than any set of humans in world history.

They know when they have been "played", and unsurprisingly, they don't like it. They like it even less when the elites that blasted "Gitmo, Gitmo, Gitmo" at the top of their lungs now don't care about it and call the general public "fickle" for "changing their mind". Apparently, folks like Gloria really DO think it is somehow "a mystery" ... or more likely their game is so old and so standard that they forget they are even playing it.

So at the time the president was proposing government solutions to problems, the nation's view of government was bottoming out. Only 20 percent trusted government to do the right thing all or most of the time. Even after Watergate, that number was at 36 percent.

When Dwight Eisenhower was president, trust in government was at 73 percent. Nowadays voters wouldn't trust the government to walk the dog.

How does such a thing happen? For 8 years, we had "the worst president in history" according to the MSM. His "destruction of personal liberty" was UNPRECEDENTED in American history. The world laughed at the US ... at least from the POV of our own MSM. He was running two wars -- one completely wrong and unjust which was "lost already" ... one that was "just" but he was losing because "he had taken his eye off the ball". The world was clear -- replace Bush and the sun was sure to shine. 

We elected the favorite son of the MSM. We win in Iraq using the "surge" he opposed. He sends more troops into Afghanistan, then more again, then he fires his own handpicked general and we are still losing. Dying troops were a major source of hand wringing, protests and charges of "Bush incompetence" before -- now they get barely notice with no analysis whatsoever. 

The economy tanks. Bush is blamed and blamed some more. We are told that if we spend a trillion dollars, unemployment will stay below 8%. It goes to 10%. It holds stubbornly over 9.5%. Bush is blamed some more -- but now the Democrats face a CONGRESSIONAL election and they have held congress for FOUR years. Since they claim no credit for the current economy, but rather blame Bush, can one draw any other conclusion but that they feel that having the opposition party in congress absolves them from responsibility? But wait, how can that be? When the Republicans took over in '94, they were the root of all evil. 

The MSM is convinced that "the problem" is "Tea Partiers and Fox News". Does anyone really have to wonder if the situation was reversed and John McCain was in office, what the MSM would be saying? We don't really need to ... in '92, the economy was far better than it is now, yet the MSM was as hard on the "it's the economy, stupid" as the Clinton campaign was -- which is to say RELENTLESS. 

You bash even the best Republican presidents endlessly (remember Reagan?), then you set the bar for your candidates ... Clinton, BO, impossibly high, and surprise surprise, they fall far short. And the people lose confidence in government. And the MSM wonders.

How BO Lost The Left

Dems turn on Obama over Iraq, Afghanistan, Gitmo | Washington Examiner

Superb Barone column. I think we all know that the BOasims on the left have ceased, but why? Pretty simple -- the left wanted America hurt and Bush completely repudiated. BO may not like America all that much, but he didn't go so far as to immediately pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan and release all the Gitmo folks to do the liberal "news" shows to regale us with tales of torture -- probably 90% imagined, but some of them probably did miss their pet goats.

They might have been OK with Bush and Cheney not actually being locked up, but they at least wanted to keep heaping abuse on their chosen demons. BO's foreign policy, while still poor, was far more reality based than his domestic policy, so it mostly validated the Bush/Cheney foreign policy. While he has made vast progress in destroying the US at home, he has really not been nearly as visible a disaster abroad as may have been expected. I remain amazed we have not suffered a large domestic attack as yet, but suspect that my amazement will not last much longer.

The uncomfortable truth is that many -- not most, but many -- Democratic politicians and Democratic voters saw political benefit in an American defeat in Iraq. Many, including Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle, then boss of Obama's new chief of staff Pete Rouse, thronged to the Washington premiere of Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11." They tried to give every appearance of agreeing with the "Bush-lied-people-died" crowd and with those who charged that high-ranking officials colluded in systematic torture.

It was a lot of fun while it lasted, up to election night 2008 and Inauguration Day 2009. But then Obama had to govern. Knowing little of military affairs, he retained Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who has loyally served presidents of both parties. Understanding even if not admitting the great headway Americans had made in Iraq, Obama declined to throw it all away.

Appreciating that Afghanistan was critical to protecting Americans, he made a commitment to increase troop levels there in May 2009, reconsidered it from August to November, then restated it Dec. 1, with a commitment to begin withdrawals in July 2011.

In so doing, Obama implicitly confessed that the view of the world held with quasi-religious fervor by the Democratic left was delusional all along. Bush didn't lie, we didn't go into Afghanistan and Iraq without allies and against their wishes, we didn't carry out policies of torture, etc. The effort to cast Iraq as another Vietnam and America under Bush as an oppressive rogue power were perhaps emotionally satisfying but unconnected to reality.

Without saying so, Obama has found himself having to teach this lesson to the Adam Serwers of the world. They don't like hearing it. They're keeping their ears plugged up and their eyes defiantly shut. Their MyObama Web pages are inactive and their checkbooks are closed. They've tuned out of the campaign and many of them won't even vote. The president they helped elect -- and the world -- have turned out not to be what they thought.

This is also a great opportunity to observe the difference between left and "right". Bush was never a conservative favorite and he lost their support with spending in general and entitlements in particular (prescription drug benefit). While I certainly didn't like what Bush did in those areas, I found the alternatives (Pelosi and Reid) to be so horrible that it was very easy to hold my nose.

Gallup Market?

RealClearPolitics - Stocks Gallup Higher

Good column guessing that Monday night's Gallup poll release ignited the markets because the prospects of a Republican take-over in at least the House look all but certain.

Released Monday night, the Gallup numbers demolished the new narrative of the elite mainstream media in Washington, and their prediction that somehow the Democrats are mounting a serious comeback based on frantic Obama campaigning and a slew of multimillion-dollar negative campaign ads.

Kudlow agrees with me that a lot of money in both private and business hands is just waiting for the stupid season to be over here before they jump back in to create new wealth. Why go take risks when you are being demonized by the party in power and being told with every other breath that they are going to tax and regulate you as hard as they can!

What I do think, however, is that highly profitable companies would love to get Washington out of their hair. Anything that even slows down the federal tax-and-regulatory pawing of American firms could conceivably prompt businesses to unleash their massive cash hoard into something that more closely resembles a normal capital-goods-investment and job-hiring campaign -- one that would increase economic growth and reduce unemployment.

Growth! Right ON!!!!

Daniel Henninger: The Only Policy Left Is Growth - WSJ.com

Great article. The bottom line is that maybe the American People have realized after a mere 4 years of mostly Democrat rule that without growth, the people perish. What Democrats realize is that without unions, they have no chance -- they need to get their kickbacks to their union masters and fool everyone else. It was a lot easier when the whole media was in the sack for them -- let us pray the predicted landslide comes to pass!

 The United States doesn't have Eurosclerosis yet, but the Democratic Party does. That's because the party has welded itself forever to the public-sector unions, as the social-democratic parties have in Europe (see the current wave of national strikes in Spain and France). Strong growth has no meaning to the public sector, so its political foot soldiers don't waste time pushing it. Exhibit A is the Obama administration's abandonment of trade deals with Colombia, South Korea and Panama.

Why Is He Sending Them? - Charles Krauthammer - National Review Online

Why Is He Sending Them? - Charles Krauthammer - National Review Online:

"What kind of commander in chief sends tens of thousands of troops to war while announcing in advance a fixed date for beginning their withdrawal? One who doesn’t have his heart in it. One who doesn’t really want to win but is making some kind of political gesture. One who thinks he has to be seen as trying but is preparing the ground — meaning, the political cover — for failure."

Well, clearly a bad one. Maybe due to incompetence, maybe due to naiveté, maybe due to fecklessness, probably due to all, but in the final analysis, does it really matter?

Good column by Charles. I think we all know that the Democrats had no stomach for Afghanistan ever ... when it was taking A MONTH back in Nov of '01, they were already concerned about "cost, prospects for victory, etc". The posturing about Afghanistan by Kerry, BO and other Dems about "the right war" and "Bush taking his eye off the ball", were just political posturing of the worst kind. Now we have the worst kind of political posturing with more troops dying to cover an exit by a bad president.

In Democrat philosophy, is it not ALL a "lost cause"? We randomly exist on this random ball in a random purposeless universe, with their best shot at a "purpose" so far being "the most pleasure/least pain possible for the greatest number". Their purpose is inconsistent with their premise for existence. Not very much about "survival of the fittest" would lead one to believe that avoidance of pain and a maximization of pleasure was somehow randomly selected as being salubrious for advancement of anyone or anything.

The nihilistic liberal outlook is at the core of their central tenet: "consistency is not an issue". This worship of the convenient seems to lead directly to some corollaries:

-- Anything hard or painful is not worth doing.

-- Find a small group, and get them to bear the pain ... "the rich" are a current favorite, but "The Religious Right" was recently popular. Historically, Jews, Slavs, Blacks (prior to 1964 for Dems) ... the small groups to bear the pain so the "many" can pleasure themselves.

-- If someone stronger comes along and tries to take your pleasure by force, let them ... then pout. The French were a great example of this in WWII. John Lennon summarized it nicely "nothing to fight or die for".

One realizes that our current leadership is tailor made to be destroyed by Islam. For the Muslim, pleasure in this life is not high on their priority list. They are very clear on what is worth fighting and dying for -- and not at all squeamish about a whole lot of others dying either. They have done away with that nasty concept of "innocence". Those that fail to worship allah and live under sharia are infidels -- convert or die are the only options.

Is BO a Muslim? In the words of Forest Gump, "Stupid is as stupid does". If he persists in playing right into the hands of those that seek our destruction, does it really make a difference?

A conversation with P.J. O’Rourke - NYPOST.com

A conversation with P.J. O’Rourke - NYPOST.com

I love to read PJ ... conservative and NOT boring, a GREAT combination. I'm pretty much on board with adding "contempt for the common" to "consistency is not an issue" ... the "common" includes all things common ... common sense, common people for sure ... I likely need to work on the final form, but I think it is right up there in explanatory power with the lack of consistency in understanding the liberal mind.

The progressive mindset, O’Rourke thinks, amounts to a faith that "if you could just get the smartest people in the world together in a room, then by golly you can figure out a health care program. It’s this kind of contempt for the ordinary person’s expertise and what is best for him or her — contempt for the fundamental principle interest of self-interest that the world rests on — that [Obama] took away from the 1960s in large bags and cartons."

But the ’60s ultimately gave us Reagan. Obama has already given us the Tea Party and useful instruction on just how little can be accomplished by even the most eloquent and appealing of leaders. "We don’t vote to elect good people," O’Rourke says. "Certainly not great people, because they aren’t too great. We hold elections to throw the bums out."

Facebook Data Centers

The Facebook Data Center FAQ « Data Center Knowledge

Interesting to me at least. 60K Servers, $50million+ a year, nearly all Open Source Infrastructure, 1 employee per 1.2 million users. Mostly Rackable (now SGI) and Dell servers.

Farewell Tiger

Tiger

Our special Tiger kitty passed on sometime Tuesday night. Marla found him appearing to be peacefully asleep on the rocks outside the garage, and indeed he was, for the last time. He had been failing since the late winter to spring ... not painfully, just "being old". I'd bet that a urinary tract infection finally got him, but he seemed fine right up to yesterday, and he looked very peaceful.

The boys picked him out from the farm of my aunt and uncle up by Barron and he was a sickly little thing. In some ways he sort of picked them out ... he really wanted to play. He was always calm and always friendly. We got him in the fall of '95 when we moved in to this home, and he grew up with the boys -- he loved to get to sleep with anyone at night or for an afternoon nap. He loved people and he loved attention.

When we were going to take off on a trip, we always needed to know where Tiger was at before we could leave, and somehow he was always missing -- as if it was kind of a fun game for him. After a frantic search, he would come sauntering out from somewhere as if to say "OK, you did your penance for going off without me now". Naturally, when he was found he would get some extra loving before the launch.

His life was about as good as a life could be for a cat. Given our large lot and cul-de-sac, he was able to spend time inside or outside as he saw fit. One of his favorite games was "in and out", where he would go out for just a short time, scratch to come back in, and then maybe do that a couple of times just to make sure we were well trained at meeting his location desires. An entrance petting was required, and in the colder seasons, some comments about cold fur were always in order.

He enjoyed being held and fawned over in any way -- he could be held like a baby with his belly exposed, or drug around by kids in all manner of improper kitty holds, but he never seemed concerned. He seemed to know that he had hit the jackpot in the lottery of cat life, and was grateful. The warm chair, basking in front of a fireplace, but most of all the nice lap were his havens. He was also a good mouser. "Pure bred barn kitty" to the core.

One feels stupid shedding tears over a cat when the world is full of so much pain, suffering and loss of a much more real and human sort. Our pets remain special however -- our affection for them, and what at least appears to be their affection for us is simple, uncomplicated, elemental.

I sometimes think that when we think of "man in God's image" we jump to "reason" as the obvious thing that "makes us different". We like to think of God as "a really wise (smart) version of us", but I sometimes wonder if we don't completely miss the boat yet again, and that God's love for us might be a lot more like our love for pets -- caring, feeding, not really expecting much, happy when there is a positive response, but not really needing that. Just enjoying being a powerful and caring being that can help ... and glad that the creature in care has some appreciation of the gift they are receiving. Tiger excelled at being "more than happy to be here".

Their one to two decade lifespans provide another form of emotional era to our lives. Tiger was here with our boys, now he is gone, and they are off at school. The seasons and the eras change and there is bitter with the sweet. We will always remember you Tiger. Your life marked a mostly sweet time in ours, made even better by your presence.

January 2007

Postbulletin.com: Four years of Democrats is enough - Thursday, September 23, 2010

Dow mid 12,000s, unemployment 4.6 percent, previous quarter GDP 3.5 percent. The Democrats took over Congress.

Democrats and the media will tell you that Bush was entirely responsible for what happened after that, and if that is true, the upcoming election makes no difference. Unless you are terribly happy with unemployment hovering near 10 percent, growth hovering near 1 percent, and the Dow 15 percent below four years ago (more below the high), you may as well "send a message," or stay home.

If Congress makes no difference, Obama will be completely responsible for whatever happens to the economy over the next two years, just as we are told Bush was for '07 and '08. The Democrats told you in '06 that they would deliver "change." Either they just lied because they knew that Congress is powerless, they were clueless, or they were at least partially responsible for what happened since '07. I suspect a lot of truth in the latter two, but in any case, four years is more than enough.

Townhall - Taxing the Rich

Townhall - Taxing the Rich

If tax % are flat, the rich STILL pay more ... 10% of 10K is 1K it is also 10% of 100K. A guy making 100K would pay the the whole income of a guy making 10K in taxes. Better yet, every 10 poorer people are able to contribute as much as one rich person ... which would be a much more prevalent attitude if taxes were a shared cost of a reasonable government rather than a coercive transfer of wealth.

As I've said before, a tax cut is not a handout. It simply means government steals less. What progressives want to do is take money from some -- by force -- and spend it on others. It sounds less noble when plainly stated.

The Media Is a Myth

CNN Political Ticker - CNN.com Blogs

I find this interesting from a couple fronts:

• MN Senator Franken was in the entertainment  business for decades, there were TONS of statements that he made that were objectionable in a ton of ways to many many people. One doesn't even have to resort to the "entertainment". He wrote a lot of "political satire" ... getting a pass on all of it. He didn't have to answer for a single thing ... it was all "entertainment or satire" ... none of his provocative statements were newsworthy.  
• Last I checked, the Comedy Channel and the Bill Maher show are actually "entertainment". Why the double standard? Thousands of potentially damaging Franken quotes were not even local news, let along national news. How can one possibly assert an even handed media when the treatment is so different. 
• The percentage of people in this country that believe in creation being done by a sovereign God is very large. The fact is that "he didn't say how" ... at least in detail, so I'm willing to let evolution be one of his chosen mechanisms. There are many people that have religious problems with that however. My position is that I'm willing to let an omniscient and omnipotent God create the universe and life any way he wants to. I'm sure Bill Maher would have GIGANTIC "respect" for Muslim views on the subject ... which would align with  Christian views. Does the fact that he is completely willing to malign Christian views, yet unwilling to do the same for Muslim prove that liberals only respect those willing to commit violence in defense of their views?