My brother, Dan, sent this from where he's staying in Afghanistan.  It's a lengthy commentary by someone in the Navy apparently in a position to know what went down when the American captain of that hijacked vessel in the Indian Ocean was rescued by Navy SEALs on April 9th.

From: Jack Kaltenhauser <arizseabee@gmail.com>
Subject: Navy 3 Pirates 0
To: "Jack Kaltenhauser" <arizseabee@cox.net>
Date: Monday, April 27, 2009, 7:29 PM

I'll just tell you what I found out from my contacts at NSWC Norfolk and at SOCOM Tampa. 

First though, let me orient you to familiarize you with the "terrain."   

In Africa from ... Read More »

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The Town Crank

Last night I took the family to see Riverdance at the PAC in Appleton, WI, just up the road from us about 10-12 miles.  Everything, absolutely everything about the show was splendid.  I loved the numbers geared towards an American audience that were added to the "basic" stuff we all know from the Riverdance video.  In particular the "duel" between three Irish dancers accompanied by the violinist and two jazz tap dancers accompanied by a soprano sax player.  It was like a non-agressive "West Side Story", with the two sides trading dancing licks...and even imitating each other at one point.

Michael Flatley may have a bit more "presence" on-stage, but his replacement was more approachable, I think, besides being just as good a dancer. I know, I'm not qualified to judge; but man! When he was "dueling" with the jazz tapsters, he did a jump and clicked hi ... Read More »

To really fight global warming, just change how cows are made!  I kid you not.  From the Gannett papers today:

Dairy cow of future may pass less gas

The Associated Press • April 14, 2009

The U.S. dairy industry wants to engineer the “cow of the future” to pass less gas, a project aimed at cutting the industry’s greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by 2020, industry leaders said Monday.

The cow project aims to reduce intestinal methane, the single largest component of the dairy industry’s carbon footprint, said Thomas P. Gallagher, chief executive officer of the U.S. Dairy and Dairy Management Inc.’s Innovation Center in Rosemont, Ill.

The project involves adopting innovative practices and technologies One area to be explored is modifying the dairy cows’ feed so they produce less metha ... Read More »

Governor Rick Perry of Texas for President!  This bit of video shows Governor Perry voicing strong support for House Concurrent Resolution 50 reaffirming the intent and purpose of the 10th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution.

Are you more apt to follow the Timber Rattlers (attend games more frequently perhaps) now that they are affiliated with the Milwaukee Brewers?

(published 13-Apr-2009, Appleton Post-Crescent)

Well, no, to tell you the truth. I've been to a couple Rattlers' games in past years with the Cub Scouts when I was a Cubmaster. I've been to one Brewers game, a couple Appleton Foxes games years ago, and I managed to see one Milwaukee Braves game when I was a lad. It's like with the Packers: since we canceled our cable TV subscription in '99, I have not watched a complete Packer game. The last one was when the Packers lost to Denver in the Super Bowl. I don't miss it. I'd rather play a game than watch it. I've played lots more softball than I've watched baseball games. I've golfed a lot more than I've watched tournaments on TV, though I do miss the Masters. For me, the best spectator and participatory sport is politics. As ... Read More »

I was chatting with my friend, Nick, the other night and he mentioned that the public debt in these United States is around $60 trillion.  I hadn't thought that it was quite that high, but I'd done a little noodling with loan amortization using a somewhat smaller figure as the total public debt.  The numbers are not encouraging.

All right, first the assumptions:

• U. S. population: 300,000,000
• Average family size: 4 individuals
• Total public debt: $50 trillion

If we treat that $50 trillion figure as the balance due on a mortgage, we can project what the payments will be by plugging in a few figures into a financial calculator:

• Principal: $50 trillion
• Number of monthly payments (30 years): 360
& ... Read More »
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The Town Crank

The concert was wonderful.  I was allowed officially to make a recording of the concert with my little Olympus DS-30 voice recorder.  I placed it down stage right on the Lawrence Chapel stage and was able to get a very good recording.

Here are the songs in "raw" form.  That is, they've just been extracted from the original recording with no special fade-in or fade-out, so I apologize in advance if the sound starts and ends rather abruptly in some of them.

The only recording that really didn't turn out was the first number of the evening performed by the youngest choir, the Ragazze.  The two girls playing percussion instruments were just a few feet from the microphones; so the percussion sort of drowns out the first song: Gahu.

There were 6 choirs (!) and a total of 21 songs.

Ragazze Choir

< ... Read More »
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The Town Crank

I hope this is published before Saturday: letter to the editor of the Appleton Post-Crescent:

Full disclosure again: I'm a proud parent of a member of the Lawrence Academy of Music Girl Choir, so I'm biased, all right?  But I think I'm biased in the best way.

I attended a Girl Choir concert for the first time last December and I was completely bowled over by how terrific it was.

The five choirs each sang three or four songs, from Brahms to Pablo Casals, Holst to Mozart, and Grieg to Vivaldi; and they all joined forces for a wonderful finale that involved over 240 girls on-stage accompanied by two pianists performing a four-hand Gypsy dance piece from Serbia!  It was heavenly.

Now comes their spring concert, "Folk Songs and Fairy Tales".  The same five choirs will be joined by the very youngest performers in the Ragazze ... Read More »

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The Town Crank