Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

Albert Hoffman died yesterday:

Albert Hofmann, father of the mind-altering drug LSD whose medical discovery grew into a notorious "problem child," died Tuesday. He was 102.

Hofmann died of a heart attack at his home in Basel, Switzerland, according to Rick Doblin, president of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, in a statement posted on the association's Web site.

Hofmann's hallucinogen inspired -- and arguably corrupted -- millions in the 1960's hippie generation. For decades after LSD was banned in the late 1960s, Hofmann defended his invention.

"I produced the substance as a medicine. ... It's not my fault if people abused it," he said.

The Swiss chemist discovered lysergic acid diethylamide-25 in 1938 while studying the medicinal uses of a fungus found on wheat and other grains at the Sandoz pharmaceuticals firm in Basel.

He became the first human guinea pig of the drug when a tiny amount of the substance seeped onto his finger during a repeat of the laboratory experiment April 16, 1943.

"I had to leave work for home because I was suddenly hit by a sudden feeling of unease and mild dizziness," he wrote in a memo to company bosses.

"Everything I saw was distorted as in a warped mirror," he said, describing his bicycle ride home. "I had the impression I was rooted to the spot. But my assistant told me we were actually going very fast."

Three days later, Hofmann experimented with a larger dose. The result was a horror trip.

"The substance which I wanted to experiment with took over me. I was filled with an overwhelming fear that I would go crazy. I was transported to a different world, a different time," Hofmann wrote.

I took plenty of LSD in the Sixties and I don't regret "going where no man has been before." It's not a "drug" in the sense of being an addictive recreational pharmaceutical. It can in fact be overwhelming beautiful or terrifying. LSD is not a drug for those who wish to escape reality. I've written about it before:

One day a friend of mine in London, "Peter," brought some heroine that he had gotten from an American. Peter and I had taken LSD together several time. He did not like LSD as it gave him horrible hallucinations and scared the hell out of him. We took the heroine. Peter was in heaven. He loved the euphoria. Meantime it made me itch and feel nauseous and it gave me horrible hallucinations. I hated it. Peter went on to become a heroine addict and, 40 years later he still is. He was one of the "lucky" ones who could function on heroine. He went on to become a famous dress-designer in spite of being addicted to heroine.

Unlike heroine and the other addictive recreational drugs, LSD is only for adventurers and pioneers. It gave me a good glimpse of both the heaven and hell that are in my own mind and showed me how ineffable the human imagination is. It would take a book to explain and so far very few people who have "tripped on acid" have been able to describe it accurately - except maybe Aldous "Brave New World" Huxley who wrote about his LSD trips in "Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell."

Pic: Hoffmann who doesn't look a day over 70. What a wonderful face. I hope I look as cute as that when I'm a 102.

The triumph of Ward Churchill et al

This graph is doing the rounds in the blogosphere. I found it on the Corner.

I don't take polls too seriously and I also try not to succumb to the doom and gloom message of the MSM yet this does make me feel sad.


















But, being the eternal optimist, I know there's a way out. The GOP must stop being the "can't do" party and start being the "can do" party. By that I mean we have to stop being the preachy moralizing party: "You can't do this and you can't do that." We have to go back to first principles. The Founders didn't nag people about what they were supposed to do and not do. They made a Declaration of Independence and created a Constitution which basically said: "You're free to do and be whatever you want as long as you respect the laws upon which we have agreed to build a civilized society."

Of course it would help if we could first get rid of the commies like Ward Churchill who are brainwashing our kids into Marxist despair and cynicism. But as Jesus said, "Don't resist evil." Fighting evil embroils one in the evil. The only successful way to fight evil is to ignore it and be and do good; be cheerful and positive and spread the good news. America is the only nation in the world where one has the right to pursue happiness.

I don't often fantasize about impossibilities but right now I wish I were 20 years younger and could get out there and inspire our youth with a love of independence, individual sovereignty, self-reliance, freedom and joy instead of despair, defeatism, fatalism and cynicism and the concomitant embrace of government as the solution to human suffering.

Stuck in the middle

I posted a comment on one of the (socalled) "conservative" anti-McCain blogs and basically said what I've been saying all along since Mac became our candidate: that he will win by pulling together a new coalition of moderate Republicans and sane Democrats who have been alienated by the MoveOn/Code Pinkers, the Clinton's narcissistic amorality and now Obama's obvious idiocy. I got this sarcastic response:

So what will our new one party system be called?
The American Progressive?
(with various flavors therein.)

I responded:

It won't be a one party system. It will be a three party system. With the winning coalition in the middle and the clowns to the left and the jokers to the right. :)

And it won't be the first time the GOP has had a "progressive" wing. Maybe the new party can be called the Democratic-Republicans. That was good enough for Jefferson and Madison.

Aging Boomers will recognize the reference to Stealers Wheel, Stuck in the Middle With You:

Well I don't know why I came here tonight,
I got the feeling that something ain't right,
I'm so scared in case I fall off my chair,
And I'm wondering how I'll get down the stairs,
Clowns to the left of me,
Jokers to the right, here I am,
Stuck in the middle with you.

How could we go wrong emulating Jefferson and Madison? Oh, yes, I forgot: they were not Christians and are now burning in Hell according to that blog and other petulant fundamentalist religious right-wingers of the GOP.

A riff on McCain - the right man at the right time

My blogging buddy, Dee, commented on my post about McCain taking the high road regarding the NC GOP TV ad about Obama:

My problem is once again McCain is criticizing his own party instead of the Democrats.

Now, I don't have a clue whether McCain started criticizing his own party back in 2000 as part of a deliberate strategy to win over moderate Democrats or if he is simply being true to himself by not toeing the party line - a tactic which has earned him the epithet, "maverick." But, whether it was a deliberate strategy or not, it is working.

Conservatives, like Malkin and Coulter, despise McCain and call him a RINO. By doing so they are alienating many moderate Republicans. The fact is that Mac is a pragmatist not an ideologue. Even Reagan, the ultimate conservative ideologue, did not let his ideology get in the way of practical solutions, i.e. the 1986 amnesty for illegals. Reagan appealed to Democrats not because he was a conservative ideologue but because he was an honest and honorable man who was true to himself and a true patriot.

McCain is not a partisan fanatic and no one can say that he is not a true patriot. Yes, Truman was very leftist in most ways but no one can deny that he too was a true patriot. Maybe McCain is the Truman of our time. When people say to me that 2008 will be a Democratic year, I jokingly say, "Yes, and McCain is the Democrat who will be elected."

In the county in which I live 70% of the voters are registered as Democrats and yet they voted nearly 90% in favor of Reagan twice and for Bush in 2000 and 2004. They voted for a State constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage and also consistently vote against most of the bonds and other measures which our Democratic-controlled State legislature puts on the ballot. Of course the measures are always approved by a two-thirds majority because two-thirds of Oregon's population lives in the "I-5 corridor" which contains all the big cities from Eugene to Salem and Portland. Our county is the only coastal county which is blue-collar.

The biggest city, Coos Bay, is a gritty port. There is nothing picturesque about it so it is not a tourist-trap resort town like all the other Oregon coastal towns. Most of the population is very conservative when it comes to guns, abortion and foreign policy but they are still Democrats who like social services, belong to unions and always elect Democrats to Salem and DC. It's very much like other parts of the country where most of the population is working-class and conservative on certain social issues but liberal when it comes to government.

So of course most of my friends and neighbors are Democrats and we disagree on the role of government but agree on nearly everything else, including who we are going to vote for in November. They will re-elect our Democratic local politicians but will vote for McCain.

Last Friday we had guests for dinner. They have been Democrats all their lives. The conversation that we had is typical of most of the conversations I've had with my Democratic friends and neighbors recently. I'll call my guests Jack and Jill. They are both old enough to have retired but have not done so because they run their own small business and enjoy doing it.

I said: "So since you are both still registered as Democrats, who are you going to vote for in the primary next month, Obama or Clinton?"

Jill: "Neither, we're voting for McCain in November. He's an honest and decent man. Obama and Clinton are phonies."

Me: "Have you heard of Rush Limbaugh's Operation Chaos? You know - vote for Hillary to keep her and Obama fighting?"

Jack: "Yes, I listen to Rush all the time but I could not bring myself to vote for her. And I definitely can't vote for Obama. He represents the worst side of the Democratic Party, the anti-American crazies like Cindy Sheehan."

Me: "So why don't you both re-register as Republicans? You told me that you voted for Bush twice."

Jack: "We've always been Democrats but maybe it's time to go Republican."

Jill: "The problem is there are also some crazy Republicans - especially some of those religious Southerners. I'm against abortion but some of those religious Republicans are too fanatical but, if McCain can change the Republican Party and make it less fanatical, I think I'll re-register."

I had another conversation recently with two of my tenants (whom I will call Jean and Joe.) They are both in their 70s. They are die-hard Democrats. Joe is a Korean War vet. When I first met them, they despised Bush as a "rich, spoiled brat who is out of touch with ordinary Americans and went to war in Iraq to keep his oil business going." They still dislike the war but have conceded that Bush is not an evil greedy man and has done a lot of good. They both own guns and are anti-abortion but think that the greatest Presidents were FDR, Truman and JFK.

Me: "So, Joe, who are you going to vote for: Obama or Clinton?"

Joe: "Neither. The Clintons are crooks and liars and Obama is just another version of Jesse Jackson and he's incompetent and maybe stupid too. We're both voting for McCain in November. He will set the country back on course. Voting for Hillary means getting Billy Blowjob. Never! And Obama will sell us out to the Muslims and we're not ready for a black president yet."

Me: "So, why don't you register as Republicans."

Jean: "No, there too many Republicans who think it's okay to shove their religion down our throats. I don't like people preaching to me - whether it's Democrats like Jesse Jackson or Republicans Tom De Lay. They're both crooks and hypocrites. And neither party will stop the illegal aliens coming in."

(Jean and Joe used to lived in Fresno, California, but left when it was over-run by Mexican farm workers. We've had a huge increase in the numbers of Mexicans moving here recently. Most people think it's because Arizona has cracked down on illegals, and there are too many illegals in California already so they head for the next state, Oregon.)

That's only two of the conversations I've had with Blue Dog "Archie Bunker" Democrats recently but most of the Democrats I know are going to vote for McCain. I know a few rich white liberals who are going to vote for either Obama or Clinton but I don't count them among my friends. Regular working-class Democrats have been alienated from their party ever since the Iraq war started (even though most are against the war) because of the unpatriotic antics of the Bush Derangement Syndrome far leftists.

Maybe it is a "Democrat year" and maybe that Democrat is McCain. He can unite moderate Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats in a new coalition. Most working stiffs don't care much about ideology. They care about jobs, their kids' education and the economy. Most of the Democrats I know are against the war in Iraq but realize that we cannot pull out and must triumph there and they trust McCain to bring the war to a successful conclusion just a Truman ended WWll.

Maybe Mac will also calm down the vicious partisanship in Congress. Most of us don't want to feel that we are at war with our neighbors. Ordinary Americans want to be happy and comfortable not forever bickering. The partisan war really is only of interest to the ideological extremists of the loony left and the fanatical right. Let them have at each other while the rest of us get on with living our lives in peace.

The whole of the West has moved to the left in the past 40 years. Even if another "Reagan" ran (as conservative purists wish) he couldn't win in today's climate. He was hated by the fringe left who have now taken over the Democratic Party. Normally no Republican could be elected when the economy is going down the drain (as it is perceived to be) but Clinton and Obama are seen by many Democrats as unrealistic and impractical far leftists. McCain is the only Republican who can be elected in this climate.

As Chas said to me at the breakfast table: "What's that Rolling Stone song?"

You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometimes you might find
You get what you need.

This country needs McCain right now.

I've been tagged....

....by Matthew K Tabor.

The rules:

1. The rules of the game get posted at the beginning.
2. Each player answers the questions about themselves.
3. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5-6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they've been tagged and asking them to read your blog.
4. Let the person who tagged you know when you've posted your answer.

1) What was I doing 10 years ago?

I was living in San Francisco in a house two blocks from Ocean Beach and owned a restaurant in the Sunset district which had been open for 5 years and was at it's peak. It was a good time. I had four wonderful dogs and the prettiest garden on the block.

2) What are 5 things on my to-do list for today (not in any particular order):

1. Change my bed-linen.
2. Do my laundry.
3. Do this tag.
4. Read the news and my favorite blogs
5. Potter around in the garden - it's a glorious sunny day with an expected high of 70F.

3) Snacks I enjoy:

Nearly all fruits and nuts, most sharp and/or stinky cheeses, barbecued oysters, beef jerky (but I prefer the South African version, biltong, because it's moister and juicier) and especially freshly baked bread with loads of butter and a steaming hot cup of milky sugary English tea.

4) Things I would do if I were a billionaire:

1. Pay off the half-million dollar mortgage on my business properties so that I am totally debt-free.
2. Start a fund to promote the ideas embodied in our Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights and Constitution to our own poor brainwashed government-educated kids as well as kids all over the world.
3. Eat more lobster, caviar and oysters and drink more fine wines.
4. Take a cruise to some exotic place once a year. (I no longer fly so the only travel I will do now is by ship.)
5. Maybe buy a fancy car for the first time in my life - something fast and sporty like a Lamborghini.

5) Three of my bad habits:

1. Staying up too late at night.
2. Over-indulging in fancy foods and fine wines.
3. Driving too fast.

6) 5 places I have lived:

1. South Africa (Durban, Bloemfontein, Johannesburg, Cape Town, Heilbron, Pietermaritzburg, Hibberdene)
2. UK (Dumfries, Edinburgh and Glasgow in Scotland; London, Kendall and Cheltenham in England)
3. Florida (Miami Beach)
4. California (Hollywood, Malibu, Berkeley, Oakland and San Francisco)
5. Oregon (the boonies near North Bend)

7) 5 jobs I have had:

1. First job at age 9 - stamping letters by hand in the Post Office every Saturday. Boy, did my hand ache!
2. My favorite job - driving a forklift truck on the docks in Durban.
2. Pharmacy (in 3 different drugstores and 2 hospitals over 30 years.)
4. Owing and operating a restaurant (which meant I did the cooking as well as clean toilets and wash dishes when someone didn't show up for work.)
5. Owning and operating a trailer park, rental apartments and houses and being gentleman farmer (okay that's not a job - it's hard work but it's a pleasure so it's a hobby.)

Now I'm supposed to name 5 or 6 people I want to know more about but I'm just going to tag anybody who reads this because I'd like to know more about everyone who reads my blog.

Cyd Charisse and Tony Martin married for 60 years

Last night we watched Band Wagon, the musical with Cyd Charisse and Fred Astaire made in 1953. I used to be completely in love with Charisse when I was a kid so I decided to look her up on IMdB and found that she was born on 8th March 1921 in Amarillo, Texas and has been married to the same husband, singer Tony Martin, for 60 years.

The beauty I fell in love with when I was a boy.























The way Cyd Charisse, 86, is now with husband Tony Martin, 94.























With the Bushes in 2006 when they presented her with the National Arts Medal.




Dancing in the Dark with Fred Astaire in Band Wagon.



This is the only decent YouTube video of Tony Martin singing - with Barbara Stanwyk in 1940.



Tony Martin singing last year at the age of 94.

The other "undocumented immigrants" - bed bugs

From Wikipedia:

Bedbugs were originally brought to the United States by the early colonists. They thrive in places with high occupancies such as hotels. Bedbugs were believed to be altogether eradicated 50 years ago in the United States and elsewhere with the widespread use of DDT. Some theories are now suggesting that they never really left. One recent theory about the reappearance of bedbugs has to deal with geographic epicenters where the bedbugs are believed to center from. During the investigations of these epicenters, they found two locations where they discovered the apparent epicenters. They are located at poultry facilities in Arkansas and Texas. It was determined that the workers in these facilities were the main spreaders of these bedbugs and carrying them to their places of residence and elsewhere after leaving work. Bedbug populations in the United States have increased by 500 percent in the past few years. It is still uncertain exactly what has caused the resurgence of these bedbugs, but most believe it has to do with the increase in international travel and the use of new pest-control methods that do not affect bedbugs.

What is not said is the workers at those poultry facilities in Arkansas and Texas are mostly illegal aliens from south of the border. And they are not so much "carrying them to their places of residence and elsewhere after leaving work" but bringing them to work in the first place and spreading them to the other workers.

This past weekend I saw two TV news stories about bed bugs.

Bed bugs bite back:

The Orkin Pest Control company says that after 50 years more or less without them, it’s now treated bed bugs in all but three states. And according to the National Pest Management Association, bed bug complaints have increased 50-fold over the last five years. They’ve popped up in apartments, mansions or dormitories in nearly every corner of the country.

Just a few weeks ago, bed bugs nibbled on the traveling cast of a Broadway musical at a Ramada Plaza in San Francisco. Last summer, a young family vacationing at a five-star Westin resort in Hollywood, Florida had the same complaint.

[...]

Experts say the bed bug resurgence started with international travel with bugs probably hitching a ride in suitcases coming from Europe, Asia, the Middle East — places where they’ve been thriving all along. From their new American base, unwary travelers carried them on to other hotels, dormitories, into their homes. And as many people are discovering: once they’re in, they’re hard to get out.

And Dateline did a story:

Bed bugs can live in your new mattress

Bed bugs are in bedrooms, hotelrooms, dormrooms -- but they may also be lurking in mattresses you buy at the store.

When I was a kid in South Africa, bed bugs were common among the "natives" (as the blacks were known in those days) but not among the "Europeans" (as the whites were known in those days) thanks to DDT. I'm not sure where this nursery rhyme originated but kids of my generation used to chant it:

Good night, sleep tight,
Don’t let the bedbugs bite.
And if they do
Then take your shoe
And knock ‘em ‘til
They’re black and blue!

I once had a run-in with bed bugs. In 1992 I went to Italy. I was meeting an old friend from London in Rome. I stayed at a medium-priced hotel. The first night we spent drinking in the hotel's lounge and I drank grappa for the first time. The next morning I woke up with a few itchy bumps. The fact that Chas, who was with me, had no itches, made me think that I had an allergic reaction to the grappa. I also had a horrible headache and vowed never to drink it again.

We spent the next two weeks in Rome and every morning I woke up with more itchy bumps despite the fact that I had not touched another drop of grappa. But Chas had no itches so I did not suspect anything like bed bugs - until just before we left Rome to fly back to New York. That's when I began to suspect bed bugs but I still could not figure why Chas had not been bitten by them.

The itchy bumps began to disappear as soon as we left Rome and no new ones appeared. Then one morning about a week after we got back to San Francisco, I woke up with new itchy bumps. That's when I began to be convinced that they were bed bug bites and that I had brought the nasty critters back in my luggage. They are very difficult to find because they are so small and hide during the day but I did notice some specks of blood on my mattress.

I did some research on the Internet and became completely convinced that my problem was bed bugs. The solution: fumigate the house. I bought every pesticide available but nothing worked. I realized that I had to get rid of my mattress but that's not easy when you live in a city. Also it was a fairly new mattress and I was quite fond of it. The alternative was to seal the mattress in plastic for 18 months until all the bugs, eggs and larvae were dead.

So I wrapped it up with large garbage bags and duct taped it till it was completely sealed. The bites stopped immediately but sleeping on a mattress wrapped in plastic was not much fun.

Top pic: the actual size of a bed bug. Bottom: bed bug bites.

The dirt on McCain

A couple of weeks ago The Politico reported Dems plan $40M hit on McCain:

Wealthy Democrats are preparing a four-month, $40 million media campaign centered on attacks on Sen. John McCain. And it will be led by David Brock, the former investigative reporter who first gained fame in the 1990s as a right-wing, anti-Clinton journalist.

The planned campaign is the product of a shakeup in the top ranks of the struggling independent Democratic groups. Brock, now best known as the ex-conservative founder of the liberal group Media Matters, last month quietly assumed the chairmanship of what's expected to be the main vehicle for independent Democratic attacks on McCain, now called Progressive Media USA.

The move comes after the groups that had been expected to spearhead attacks on McCain — the Fund for America and Progressive Media USA's previous incarnation, the Campaign to Defend America — failed to raise the money needed to dent McCain's armor.

"We're a little behind where we need to be," he said.

But after a dinner Tuesday night at the Manhattan apartment of liberal megadonor George Soros, at which Brock and consultant Paul Begala laid out the group's plans, Brock said his group now has commitments worth $7.5 million — almost twice what the Fund for America is expected to report raising in the first quarter of this year. He said the group would begin running ads before it meets its $40 million goal.

Brock suggested that the group could do the work of a press corps that, he says, has "fallen down on the job" when it comes to McCain.
"A void that might be filled, while the Democrats fight it, out by the press is not going to be filled, because the press is in love with John McCain," Brock said in an interview at the Regency Hotel in Manhattan. "It's what McCain is allowed to say without being challenged by facts that will show him to have said something different in the past."

Brock's most recent book is called "Free Ride: John McCain and the Media."

They are going to dig up the dirt on McCain's first marriage, his philandering and subsequent divorce, his involvement with the Keating Five, Cindy McCain's addiction to prescription drugs (and her theft of some of those drugs) and of course McCain's temper.

Questions over an explosive temper still dog the presumptive GOP nominee:

The trajectory of his temper, studied ever more intently as his White House ambitions took shape, includes incidents from his years in the House and in the Senate, leading up to the early days of his current presidential campaign. In 2007, during a heated closed-door discussion with Senate colleagues about the contentious immigration issue, he angrily shouted a profanity at a fellow Republican, John Cornyn of Texas, an incident that quickly found its way into headlines.

Reports recently surfaced of Rep. Rick Renzi, an Arizona Republican, taking offense when McCain called him "boy" once too often during a 2006 meeting, a story that McCain aides confirm while playing down its importance. "Renzi flared and he was prickly," McCain strategist Mark Salter said. "But there were no punches thrown or anything."

According to aides, McCain's frequent comments about his temperament reflect a recognition that the issue persists for some voters and the media. At times he expresses regret about his temper, often tracing it to the same resentments that ignited him as a boy: "In all candor, as an adult I've been known to forget occasionally the discretion expected of a person of my many years and station when I believe I've been accorded a lack of respect I did not deserve," he said at Episcopal.

On other occasions, he has contended that his blowups have served a purpose. In a recent interview with CNN, while referring to his temper as "a very minor thing," McCain declared that voters occasionally want him to vent: "When I see corruption, . . . when I see people misbehaving badly, they expect me to" be angry.

Salter, who has co-written five books with McCain that, among other things, explore the origins of his feistiness, said he thinks McCain's temper first became an issue after an incident in 1989, during McCain's first term in the Senate.

The nomination of a beleaguered John Tower to become defense secretary was already in trouble when Sen. Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, a conservative Democrat who later became a Republican, helped doom it by voting against Tower. A furious McCain, believing that Shelby had reneged on a commitment of support, accosted him, got within an inch of his nose and screamed at him. News of the incident swiftly spread around the Capitol.

"I think it started there," Salter said, though by 1989, many of McCain's colleagues had already heard stories about other eruptions during his two terms in the House.

Part of the paradox of McCain is that many of the old targets of his volcanic temper are now his campaign contributors. Former Phoenix mayor Paul Johnson is one example. In 1992, during a private meeting of Arizona officials over a federal land issue that affected the state, a furious McCain openly questioned Johnson's honesty. "Start a tape recorder -- it's best when you get a liar on tape," McCain said to others in the meeting, according to an account of their "nose-to-nose, testosterone-filled" argument that Johnson later provided to reporters.

But Johnson, who once was quoted as saying that he thought McCain was "in the area of being unstable," today says that he has mellowed, citing a 2006 face-to-face apology that he said he received from his old adversary. "He's not the same guy, as far as I'm concerned," Johnson said. "And nothing has happened during the course of this year's campaign."

Cornyn is now a McCain supporter, as is Republican Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi, himself a past target of McCain's sharp tongue, especially over what McCain regarded as Cochran's hunger for pork-barrel projects in his state. Cochran landed in newspapers early during the campaign after declaring that the thought of McCain in the Oval Office "sends a cold chill down my spine."

It's a long article but definitely worth reading. This bit summed it up for me.

McCain often used his temper as a strategic weapon, that if he "couldn't persuade you, he was going at least to needle you or [sometimes] belittle you or blow up into trying to have you believe you were beneath him, so that you'd be less likely to challenge him. He needed to be the top guy."

Like McCain, I have a violent temper which has gotten me into trouble in the past but, as I grew older, I realized that my temper could be very destructive and I learned to control it. However, being a businessman who has to employ (sometimes irresponsible) people and deal with other (sometimes crooked) businessmen I've also learned that a "show of temper" (without actually feeling the anger) can sometimes work wonders.

Like McCain, I'm mostly an easy-going guy with a wry sense of humor. Stupid people often interpret that as I'm a soft-touch or easily fooled. But, if anyone dares to take advantage of me, lies to me or tries to shirk responsibility, I will unleash my temper to the point where they will fear for the lives. Then I will calm down and carry on as if nothing happened. Controlled anger can be a very effective "strategic weapon."

I've studied McCain enough to understand his character very well as it's very similar to mine. (Like him, I went to many different schools - 14 - because my father moved a lot and that makes for a very independent if somewhat eccentric and defensive character.)

McCain is often misunderstood because has an eccentric sense of humor and does not toe any party line or pander to people. He did not deliberately set out to be a "maverick." He has simply been true to himself and his principles and has not adapted his personality or created a persona to fit with peoples' preconceived ideas.

Soros and his other wealthy Democratic buddies can dig up as much dirt on McCain as they like but they will never be able to impeach his character. He is an honest and honorable man and other honest and honorable people can see that.

600 quakes in past ten days

Unusual earthquake swarm detected off Oregon:

Scientists don't know exactly what the earthquakes mean, but they could be the result of molten rock rumbling away from the recognized earthquake faults off Oregon, said Robert Dziak, a geophysicist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Oregon State University.

There have been more than 600 quakes over the past 10 days in a basin 150 miles southwest of Newport. The biggest was magnitude 5.4, and two others were more than magnitude 5.0, OSU reported.

On the hydrophones, the quakes sound like low thunder and are unlike anything scientists have heard in 17 years of listening, Dziak said. Some of the quakes have also been detected by earthquake instruments on land.

The hydrophones are left over from a network the Navy used to listen for submarines during the Cold War. They routinely detect passing ships, earthquakes on the ocean bottom and whales calling to one another.

Scientists hope to send out an OSU research ship to take water samples, looking for evidence that sediment has been stirred up and chemicals that would indicate magma is moving up through the Juan de Fuca Plate, Dziak said.

We have small to medium size quakes under the ocean here regularly but they are too far away (100 to 150 miles out to sea) to be felt on land.

80 percent of all the planet's earthquakes occur along the rim of the Pacific Ocean, called the "Ring of Fire."














Our quakes are different from the quakes in California which are "strike-slip" quakes caused by the Pacific tectonic plate moving north and rubbing against the North American tectonic plate. Southern California is actually moving north and LA and SF will be adjacent to each other eventually - like millions of years from now.























Strike-slip fault.











The quakes in the Pacific Northwest happen because the San Juan de Fuca plate is sliding under the North American plate. This fault is called a subduction fault. The Cascadia Subduction Zone stretches from northern California to Washington.























Subduction zone.















Subduction quakes are the ones most likely to cause tsunamis and there are tsunami warning signs and sirens all along the Oregon coast.




















HT Chas' Compilation.

Swimming in the Devil's Pool in Zimbabwe.

Patty sent these pictures to me by email. They show people swimming in the Devil's Pool at the edge of Victoria Falls. [It is not the highest or the widest waterfall in the world but is regarded as the largest based on a width of 1.7 kilometres (1 mi) and height of 108 meters (360 ft), forming the largest sheet of falling water in the world.]

I was so amazed that I decided to do do some fact-checking. Apparently during the dry season from September to December, due to low water levels, it is possible to swim at the edge of the falls. From Hoax-Slayer:

A series of compelling photographs showing people swimming at the very brink of a high waterfall are currently circulating. At first glance, the activity looks extremely dangerous and foolhardy. Some commentators have suggested that the images are fake.

However, the photographs are genuine and they do indeed depict a swimming hole known as the Devil's Pool at Africa's magnificent Victoria Falls. The Victoria Falls are located on the Zambezi River and border the African nations of Zambia and Zimbabwe. There are many other photographs and videos of people swimming in the pool on many different websites along with first-hand descriptions from visitors. A description posted on the Every Day Is Sunday website notes:

We wanted to see Victoria Falls from the Zambia side. We managed to get a free trip from our hostel and were told from people that we had met in Cape Town that there were swimming holes near the falls. We did not realise how amazing this would be. The swimming hole was called Devil's pool. We went to the spot to meet a guide, and for $5 each, he took us first on a long walk to get to this place. The falls were right beneath us, and as we were crossing the water you could feel the current underneath your feet. The first steps were a ledge that you had to manouver carefully step by step. We then walked for about 15 mins across the top of the falls, to a first swimming hole, but he said the second one was better. We decided to carry on. It was incredible! We swam over to an island and then walked over these rocks to a pool that was literally, literally on the edge of Victoria Falls!!! As we jumped in, there was a rock at the far side that stopped us going over. It was exhilarating being right on the edge of the falls. As we bent over the rock we were on the top of Victoria falls, one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World. We were right on the edge.

Although certainly not for the faint of heart, swimming in the Devil's Pool is probably not as dangerous as it appears in the photographs. A natural rock ledge reduces the current and stops swimmers from being swept over the edge. As the email notes, the pool is only safe to use at times of the year when water levels are comparatively low. At other times when more water flows down the river, the ledge does not offer enough protection for swimmers and the pool is inaccessible.

And here's a video of some brave man nut jumping in. Shudder!

Zimbabwe and the tribal politics of Africa

The dominant tribes in Zimbabawe are the Shona and the Matabele. The Shona live in central and northern Zimbabwe and comprise 70 percent of Zimbabwe's 13 million people. The Matabele live in the southwest and are around 15 percent of the population. The remaining 15% is made up of many small tribes who have very little influence on politics.

The Shona were in Zimbabwe long before the Matabele arrived in 1834 when they were fleeing from South Africa where the Zulu king, Shaka, was waging war on all his neighboring tribes. The Matabele settled just north of the Limpopo river making the area their new country, Matabeleland.

The Shona have always regarded the Matabele as intruders and, as recently as 1980, with the aid of North Korean military advisers, Mugabe's Shona tribe decided to "ethnically cleanse" the Matabele tribe. From seven to ten thousand Matabele were killed. The West ignored the attacks at the time because Mugabe was a hero to Western leftists since he had toppled the "white racist" regime of Ian Smith.

The reason why Mugabe has been in power for so long is because he is revered by his Shona tribesmen and the Matabele and the other small scattered tribes have never had enough political influence. But the latest elections show that even the Shona are now fed up with Mugabe.

Tribal allegiances are still very powerful political forces in Africa but they started to break down in South Africa about ten years ago and now seem to be losing their stranglehold on politics in Zimbabwe.

Having been born and raised in this tribal atmosphere (as a member of the White Tribe of Africa, the Afrikaners) has made me allergic to group identity politics.