Some Things Never Change.

In the 1890s, bicycles were all the rage, thanks to the demise of that awkward monstrosity with the big front wheel. Everybody was buying the new designs which used two identical wheels, and two brothers in Dayton, Ohio took advantage of the fashion by opening a successful bicycle repair shop featuring their own versions.

The two brothers, Orville and Wilbur Wright were interested also in what was commonly considered science fiction: a machine that would fly like a bird, so they spent all their spare time working tirelessly on the challenge.

Meanwhile, the U.S.War Department and the Smithsonian Institute funded their own experiments on the idea and Samuel Langley from the museum was in charge of the government money. While Orville and Wilbur were working on their experiments at Kitty Hawk, S,C. with their bicycle tools, Langley hired a team to put together his flying machine and a launch pad on the Potomac River in Washington (this might be considered the first aircraft carrier, except that there were no actual aircraft to carry). Both Langley flights ended up pretty much the same way:

Notice the downward trajectory of the "aeroplane" and its landing:

Back in Kitty Hawk a few days later, The Wright brothers celebrated a soft landing:

Cost to the taxpayer for the Langley flights: $70,000 (millions in today's dollars).

Cost of the Wright brothers' flights: $1,000 of their own money. Cost to the taxpayer: $0.00--zero.

Some things never change.

Watch Hillary.

If you like watching Hillary Clinton, don't stop now--there's lots more coming.

I especially enjoy watching her in her head-nodding mode, as in her famous "listening tour" when she ran for the Senate in New York, or whenever she sat listening to Bill pushing hot air for the crowds. Her head would nod continuously, and if you keep your eye on her, it becomes almost comical.

What's wrong with her neck?

If she was an actress in a show, the director would have to ban such nodding from the scene because it's over the top, too much. "You're indicating," he'd explain, which is a basic faux pas taught in Stagecraft 101. "We want to keep the focus on the main character. The scene is not about how much you understand and agree with the speaker. Nod on the high points, not through the entire scene. It's distracting."

Now, Hillary has bestowed upon us an agreement to attend a congressional hearing to investigate--I forget--some or other of those shenanigans she's always hiding, anyway.

Watch her. Watch how it works. Her legal eagle already declared that her time before the investigative committee will be limited to one session, so we're down to a few hours of Hillary on the hot seat, and the clock starts ticking when the gavel falls. First comes a speech from the committee chairman, tick tick tick. Then, Hillary makes an opening statement, the longer the better for her, tick tick tick. Then inquiries supposedly begin but, first, each political hack scheduled to ask questions will start with a time-consuming speech because, after all, the whole nation is watching, and these hacks must keep their own re-elections always in mind. No doubt voters in his or her district are tuned in.

A typical government committee.

Only a few questions will penetrate this peacock parade to reach clean air, and Hillary will be able to bat them away with long, evasive answers full of speechifying that add up to essentially nothing, aside from eating up the clock. If one of the hacks sums up the courage to ask a specific follow-up question that heats her seat too much (which could happen), Hillary can always throw a hissy fit, as when she threw her arms up and said, "What difference does it make?" at the last hearing she attended, which she coupled with--yup, you guessed it--.a "let's-move-on" speech.

Uh-oh, looks like she's upset. This will strike fear into the hearts of all the politicians in the room. What will the media say about this dramatic outburst? Hillary might be president someday soon, with lots of powers to oppose their re-elections--not to mention that she is actually, at this very moment, still married to William Clinton, who is working on his wife's behalf to re-enter the White House and check out the interns. Bill has many many very very rich friends--also known as political campaign donors. And, George Stephanopoulos might brand the interrogators as a bunch of bullies on ABC next morning.Yikes!

The investigative hearing might have been interesting up to that point, but it will rapidly grind down to a tiring ooze of political posturing from all sides.

Then, tick tick tick--bam--DING-A-LING-A-LING--the gavel will come down. Time's up and everyone goes home. The final result, most likely, will be another long expulsion of flatulence out of Washington.

This may be depressing, but at least it's interesting. And, don't forget, surprises happen sometimes. Meanwhile, if you miss Hillary's entertaining head-nodding show, you could get one of these Bobblehead Hillarys for your dashboard:

Available at Amazon for $19.95.

The Children's Pool: Blubberasses on the Beach.

Way down south by the sea in La Jolla (in California, that is), there's a sweet little cove originally dubbed "The Children's Pool," because it was perfect for the kids, sheltered from violent surf, with waves rolling on a shallow bottom. It is small enough so that no child can be lost on the beach and you could reach either end of the beautiful cove in 5 seconds if your child needed help. The breakwater wall construction was paid for and gifted to the city by Ellen Browning Scripps  in 1931 specifically so the children would have a perfect beach to play on and swim.

Seals, too, loved this cove with its comfy rock formations.

And the kids loved the seals, so fascinated that they would cavort and shout to see the seals react. These childish shenanigans alarmed the environmental crusaders--the little shits were chasing the seals away, they thought.

So the Powers That Be posted a lot of rules restricting the people's behavior--no running towards the seals or shouting. But, of course, no one could control the children's celebrations. So, the authorities decided that the seals needed protection. They were anxious to coddle nature, excepting, of course, the nature of children, which was a lower priority.



Thus, The Children's Pool was closed to swimming in 1991 because of "continuously high fecal coliform counts." In other words, it was full of shit and became a sanctuary for seals. They roped off humans from all approaches to the water and relegated them to 20 feet in the back of the cove, where you are free to stand in the hot sand and take pictures of nature at work--no swimming, kids.

One San Diego resident told me that the trained seals at the famous aquarium at Sea World are the cream of the crop. Any seal too fat, lazy or otherwise unattractive is taken out to sea and dropped off near La Jolla so they can take advantage of The Children's Pool.

Don't imagine a delightful proliferation of seals swimming, smooching and jumping off rocks. The population lays on the sand all day like giant slugs on a bed of wet dirt. You can stand on the cliff above watching for thirty minutes without detecting any movement beyond the twitch of whiskers or the lazy flop of a tail. In fact, some of them may be dying or dead right before your eyes. It's hard to tell, until they start rotting.



Thirty feet above the cove, an extravagant new lifeguard station is under construction. Whose lives will they be guarding?

Children have been pushed off to adjacent beaches where the surf knocks adults on their asses and, if you're downwind, the stink from The Children's Pool (still so named) stings your nostrils.

Pretty soon, the lifeguards will probably be assigned to feed the seals by hand because the poor animals are too fat to fish--welfare for seals.

Won't that be nice? You can watch the seals swallow fish and see and smell the remains ooze out the other end.

Ah, nature.

Never mind the children, why didn't Michelle Obama put these blubberasses on a diet.

Thomas Jefferson Carried a Gun.

Here's an interesting quotation from Thomas Jefferson, compliments of Tammy Bruce in one of her excellent books ("The New American Revolution," "The New Thought Police," etc):

"A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun, therefore, be the constant companion of your walks."
                                                                                                    Thomas Jefferson
Hmm, maybe he was onto something.

Book Review: Race?

Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond.

Yali, a native politician in Papua New Guinea in 1972, struck by the volume and variety of goods and technology unloading from ships in his country, asked the author, "Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo, but we black people have little cargo of our own?"

The author dismissed the racist answer out of hand--namely, "Because white people are superior." Instead, he was inspired to embark on a detective's journey back through 15,000 years of human history, a fascinating journey for anyone interested in wondering. How did all our ancestors, those cave and/or jungle people get to all the different continents, and why are some successful and some still trapped in primitive societies?
This book is ceaselessly fascinating, all the way through Ice Ages and land bridges, and discussions of race are always off the table. In the author's view, the presence of natural resources, especially good farmland and the presence of manageable herd animals have made a huge difference (milk and meat in your backyard and grain in your field) The mention of "Germs" in the title refers to the exchange of diseases between the newly inhabited continents. For a cogent companion to this book, see a related essay by Thomas Sowell in his book, "Black Rednecks and White Liberals," which addresses underdevelopment in the African continent. Read it all.

Even if you believe the conclusions of the famous book, "The Bell Curve," which  charts racial intelligence, wherein the Jews and Japanese are the gold medal winners, any experience with a variety of people and races will render these charts irrelevant to living in the real world. The charts will tell you nothing about the next person who walks into the room. No group identity can refine your own judgement.
There is NO SUBSTITUTE FOR INDIVIDUALISM--in any society.

Forget race, take the journey through pre-history and read this five-star book.

Revolution!

Revolution and revolutionaries seem very romantic, especially to young people whose bloodstreams still rage against boring parental lectures and mundane family obligations--you know--the stuff you endured as a child and teenager, all of which would be useless in the commercial world of T-shirt art.

Imagine a T-shirt saying, "Help your Mom--Do the Dishes."
Get that T-shirted guy to a clinic!

But, here's a T-shirt design of a hot-blooded revolutionary that really works:

It's excellent artwork on Che Guervera, a revolutionary in Cuba, circa 1959, very romantic, especially since he's looking up--as if seeing a distant vision from the gods.

Here's a shot of Che in real life, after the revolution:

It  doesn't look like he's consulting the gods, but, after all, he had a lot of government power at that point, and he was very busy.

Here's some artwork by me on another famous revolutionary:

Oops, not a classic--he should be looking up--and I took some liberties by giving him a beret.

 Here's how he really looked after he lost his red hair, although the portrait artist may have flattered him a bit.

It's Thomas Jefferson, one of my favorites, pictured not very long after the American revolution.

Jefferson waged war to establish a nation based on individual liberty, even for individuals who happen to be rich.

Che Guervera waged war to establish a nation based on forcing the rich to share their wealth with the poor, until there was no more.

Both of these firebrands won their wars.

So, choose your revolution--then choose your country:

,

The United States.

Or Cuba.

And, do us --and the world--a favor, whichever you choose:

Go there.

The Parasites.

Government is a parasitic organism.

All governments are made up of people whose food, shelter and clothing are dependent on the productive workers of society. Chiefs of tribes, presidents of the United States, and old-time brutal conquerors, all, feed off the honest labors of their subjects. Their tendency to build empires may be driven by the inflated egos of its leaders, but territorial expansion becomes a necessity over time.

The parasites of government eventually run out of hosts. They run out of supplies when the victims of their plundering die out, give up working or give up on life itself.

This takes time. It took the most parasitic form of government--Russian communism--about 75 years to collapse into social and economic chaos. But, of course, like maggots on a corpse, Russian government will rise again.

The parasitic personalities of government don't really care about this inevitable collapse because, in the meantime,  it provides them and their families with a fine living, and it will be many years before everything turns to shit.

And, their subjects will love life enough to keep on working, even though they know that their work is supporting despicable parasites.

Take heart, though, a lot of people are fighting against this parasitic organism.