Regarding Last Week's News

Hear All About It

YouTube® added a Vuvuzela Button on it's video player that entertains you with a vuvuzela tune.

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2nd Attempt

Sunday Funnies .... Albeit, If Only It Were

Deleted Post

if you visited here earlier, you'll now notice that I deleted the post shown below. The embedded script was making the rest of the webpage jump around too much. The globe in the pic below is a visitor tracker and revolves. As the globe revolves it shows you your readers from different parts of the planet all waving at you. Kinda nifty. But obviously, the tracker was designed to be used in the sidebar instead. Revolver Maps

"You're doing a heck of a job, Brownie"

FYI

Yesterday, a New Orleans federal judge struck down Obama's six-month moratorium on deep-water drilling. On the surface, it seems the moratorium would deprive a lot of people who live in the Gulf region of their livelihood. Workers on the drilling rigs as well as the workers that service and ferry the supplies to the drilling rigs. Therefore the federal judge in New Orleans struck down Obama's oil drilling ban to be neighborly, or maybe he just didn't care about the pelicans.

There are two types of oil platforms operating in the Gulf. There's a drilling platform (Deep Water Horizon), and the other type is a production platform which moves in after the drilling platform sails off from the same spot. I've mentioned before that just about the only tv that I watch is news networks, and I heard the following on the Rachel Maddow Show at MSNBC. There are 3600 production oil platforms operating in the Gulf waters. Off all the tiny dots in the map shown above, less than 40 of those tiny dots represent deep water drilling platforms. Obama's moratorium was on deep water drilling platforms. All 40 of them.

Best ESL School in Waikiki

I came across Central Pacific College on a back street in Waikiki. This is all new to me, too, as in, what the heck is that?

ESL ..... English Language School. I had to look that up.

Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should....

Chrystal McClear

After reading the Rolling Stone article that's behind Gen. McChrystal's firing, I don't especially agree with the negative nature that the media attached to what was said. For example:

Here's McChrystal's bombshell that's been the headline on the news.....

According to sources familiar with the meeting, McChrystal thought Obama looked "uncomfortable and intimidated" by the roomful of military brass.

However when the same quip is read with the sentence preceding it in the same Rolling Stone article.....

The general first encountered Obama a week after he took office, when the president met with a dozen senior military officials in a room at the Pentagon known as the Tank. According to sources familiar with the meeting, McChrystal thought Obama looked "uncomfortable and intimidated" by the roomful of military brass.

It doesn't quite pack the same sting does it. In only his first week in office, it's understandable that Obama was perhaps a little in awe in the presence of the nation's top generals.

The other quip taken out of context....

"Obama clearly didn't know anything about him [Gen. McChrystal], who he was. Here's the guy who's going to run his fucking war, but he didn't seem very engaged."

Now cited along with the two sentences that preceded it in the same paragraph.... 

Their first one-on-one meeting took place in the Oval Office four months later, after McChrystal got the Afghanistan job, and it didn't go much better. "It was a 10-minute photo op," says an adviser to McChrystal. "Obama clearly didn't know anything about him, who he was. Here's the guy who's going to run his fucking war, but he didn't seem very engaged."

Obama probably didn't get around to reading Gen. McChrystal's Facebook page.

Source: Rolling Stone Magazine

Even though he had voted for Obama, McChrystal and his new commander in chief failed from the outset to connect. The general first encountered Obama a week after he took office, when the president met with a dozen senior military officials in a room at the Pentagon known as the Tank. According to sources familiar with the meeting, McChrystal thought Obama looked "uncomfortable and intimidated" by the roomful of military brass. Their first one-on-one meeting took place in the Oval Office four months later, after McChrystal got the Afghanistan job, and it didn't go much better. "It was a 10-minute photo op," says an adviser to McChrystal. According to sources familiar with the meeting, McChrystal thought Obama looked "uncomfortable and intimidated" by the roomful of military brass.The Boss was pretty disappointed."

The Dunning-Kruger Syndrome

.... in which an incompetent person is not aware of his or her own incompetence.

The Saudi Arabia of Lithium

.... Here

A Well Seasoned Wok

Happy Aloha Friday. I'm in the middle of bottling some Ala Wai water to sell over the Internet. I'll finish up this post after I get back ....

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I've owned this wok for many many years already but unfortunately Mr. Wok cannot handle his duties anymore. "Handle" .... I bet you missed that. At any rate, the bamboo handle developed a fissure about a year ago, and as washing water got into the fissure, the wood fibers started to swell apart, and as the wood fibers swelled, the fissure only got larger and more water leaked into the hull, and so forth. Didn't pay much attention to that fact, since the flatten out part of the bolt where the bolt or tang is riveted to the side of the wok, is stainless steel. I think the riveted part is a known as a flange.



How in the tarnation does a bolt, or at least its shaft, turn into wrought iron while it's flange is visibly stainless steel? Also, you've seen those anodized woks. They're all for nought. This wok is the way a wok should be. Its walls are thin to give you more control of the heat. Lift it off the gas burner and it starts to cool immediately. Turn up the flame and it distributes the heat instantly. Granted this particular wok isn't the authentic carbon steel versions that a tradesman hammered for hours into shape but it has or had everything else going for it.

Sunday's Pan Pacific Parade

On closer examination, it ain't as easy as it may seem.

Hawaii's contribution to the Pan Pacific theme consisted of a number of judo clubs. Quite a few dojo's (judo clubs).

Every so often these flag bearers would stop and wave their giant flags horizontally a foot above the heads of the onlookers. Nice kind interaction with the crowd.

I've seen snare drums, taiko drums, conga drums, bonga drums, etc., in parades before, but up until now I've never seen pan drums? As a matter of fact, an entire brigade of panners. Pan drums as in "Pan" Pacific, LOL, just thought of that.

I surmise that the general idea behind these plastic footware is to give an impression that the dancers are bare footed.

On my way over to the parade, I found this wallet on the other side of the crosswalk. So I went try give the wallet back to the owner who I figured must have just crossed the street in the opposite direction. I was able to find a picture ID in the wallet. Ended up chasing a guy that fit the general description from the back view. After I yelled out his name, he turns around and now I'm fairly positive its the same guy as pictured on the photo ID. But the owner turns 180° around and keeps on walking as if a panhandler was trying to accost him. I kept calling him by his name. But he keeps walking away even faster. Finally tracked the wallet's owner down tonight. Turns out he lives just 2 apartment buildings from me.

Guarding the paraders, a Kiriko. One at each end of the parade. The crew mainly local was pushing it on wheels. Traditionally, you lift it up on your shoulders for the entire length of the parade route for the sheer joy of it.