Separated at birth?

Sargent Schultz: "I know nothing!"

Eric Holder when asked about Border Agent Brian Terry's death by a firearm supplied by Attorney General Holder's Justice Department:

"When you were informed about that within 24 hours, did anyone inform you or allude to the fact that the weapons found at the scene were from Fast and Furious?" Issa asked Holder.
"No," Holder replied. "I didn't know about Operation Fast and Furious until the beginning parts of 2011 after I received that letter from Senator Grassley, I guess at the end of January and then that was about Operation Gun Runner. I actually learned about the Fast and Furious operation in February of that year."

 

Now that I have declared the primary over, i will tell you the exact outcome of the general election

Romney 323 electoral votes
Obama 215 electoral votes

Romney in a landslide.  Actually, it is Gallup's prediction, but it seems about right.



It turns out there is one really good predictor of how a state will vote.  If a sitting President has a higher approval rating than disapproval rating, the state almost always goes for him.  Conversely, if the disapproval is higher than the approval, it votes against him.  So there you go.  Gallup says it.  I say it.  You can pretty much turn off all the talking heads right now and turn the back on after the polls close on November 6 and listen President elect Romney give his speech.

Sorry all of you political altruists and purists

But Romney just won Florida. And likely with it the nomination.

Get ready for the conspiracy theories to pop up again

Some newly released tapes from Air Force One after Kennedy was shot are sure to re-ignite all of the conspiracy theorists.  What will really stir them up is the 42 minutes of tapes that were not released originally by the White House Communications Agency.  There are also some poignant moments such as when LBJ and Lady Bird try to console Rose Kennedy on a condolence call.  However, the previously withheld audio transmissions and the part about USAF commander and Kennedy opponent General Curtis LeMay is what will set everyone off:

The full audio of transmissions from White House Communications Agency (which captured the tapes) that day includes 42 minutes edited out of the original public version. It's likely to peak the interest of conspiracy theorists who are already asking why this material was cut out of the original.

Then-Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Curtis LeMay had been a frequent opponent of Kennedy's. His whereabouts on the day of the assassination has always been a mystery.

In the newly public audio, we learn that LeMay was airborne, even as JFK's body was being flown back to Washington. And an aide to LeMay tried urgently to reach his boss.

"General LeMay," the aide said, "is in a C 140. ... He's inbound. His code name is Grandson. And I wanna talk to him. ... If you can't work him now, it's gonna be too late, because he'll be on the ground in a half-hour."

Historian Robert Dallek suggests doubters will wonder if the aide's comments about not reaching LeMay within 30 minutes may be "too late" could have some sinister meaning. "I'd doubt these tapes will put the conspiracy theory to rest," he says. "They continue to believe it was a conspiracy and again, they just can't accept the proposition that a lone wolf, a single, and someone as dysfunctional as Lee Harvey Oswald, could have carried off this assassination of the president."

Record setting winter

It has been great in my neck of the woods this 'winter'. Although it started out rough with measurable snow before Halloween - in fact, a bunch of towns had to cancel trick or treating. By and large, though, I have barely seen snow and it has topped out north of 50 in three of the four weeks in January. With all of the anomalous weather, I was not surprised to learn that a new record temperature was recently set. Negative 81 degrees Fahrenheit in Jim's River Alaska. Better them than me.

Wouldn't it be cool to look in on the world's longest running scientific experiment?

Well, now you can via webcam.  This particular experiment has been going for the past 85 years.  It seems that one Professor Parnell in the Physics department at the University of Queensland wanted demonstrate that fluid mechanics applied to all fluids, including brittle ones like tar pitch, even if they move VERY slowly,  So he heated up the coal derivative and put it in a glass funnel that he had pinched shut.  Three years later in 1930 he cut the end off the funnel.  Starting on that date the first drop started to form.  More than eight decades later, about one drop per decade has fallen into the beaker below.  If my math is right, that would make tar pitch more than 100 billion times more viscous than water (all right, that would be their calculations, but some of my best ideas are other people's).  Alas, Professor Parnell only lived to see the first drop fall in 1938 and was dead before the second one dropped in 1954.  Well technically, he didn't see it actually fall.  In fact, no one has ever seen a drop of tar pitch hit the beaker.  Keep looking to the webcam and you may be the first!

You do not compute

Lost in Space ran from 1965 to 1968.  It was set way in the future: 1997.  And a bit of trivia, although several of the TV show stars had cameos in the 1998 big screen remake, who was the only one to reprise his original role?  That would be Dick Tufeld.  He was the voice of the robot in both the TV show and the movie made three decades later.  Mr. Tufeld had a storied career.  He had roles in many shows including "The Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" and "The Time Tunnel."  More importantly, he was an iconic voice for fifty years of media broadcasts starting with "Space Patrol" on the radio in the 1950s and going all the way through "The Simpsons."  His was the voice that opened "The Wonderful World of Disney."  His voice could be heard on, introducing or during commercials for a myriad of TV shows during the golden age.  He also was the voice of game shows like "The Jokers Wild" and was the announcer on the "It's Garry Shandling's Show."  Sadly, Mr. Tufeld just died at the age of 85.