Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth

Allow me to introduce you to Captain Dave:

Captain… May I ask for a ride home, sir? 

Who dares talk to me like that? Twisting in my seat, I see a kid in a pilot’s uniform. A pretty little female, shiny brown eyes, about 15 years old. I began to tell her she has to ride in her assigned seat in the back… The pilot outfit is kind of weird, but in today’s society, nothing surprises me.

Sir, here is my stuff. 

She hands me her airline ID, and other pertinent paperwork. Date-of-birth is 1990. As my British friend Trevor is fond of saying, hang about… I have shoes older than that. I tell her to quit calling me sirand then ask her a few questions about her aircraft (Dash 8-Q400). She gives all the correct answers. Obviously a smart kid to be co-piloting, at her age, a large turbo-prop for a regional carrier. She is small and petite, the perfect size for the torture jumpseat. Plus, she will add some badly needed class to this flight-deck.

On the downside, the rest of us will need to behave and act like gentlemen, if that is possible.

Radar returns…

The digital multi-scan radar is in MAN mode, antenna tilted a quarter degree down as I look at slices of the storms. They bubbled up fast, changing from rising columns of moist air to planetary scale atmospheric water pumps, complete with their own power source… Fearsome creatures of the night. Their tops punched the tropopause with ease and are spreading out in the stratosphere.

Over at two o’clock and 100 miles, a sucker hole… About 30 miles across. But, there is a reason they are called sucker holes. When I was a young night-freight pilot, I found out the hard way. That’s a story for another post… Maybe.

Turning the end of the line…


The lightning flashes are intense and continuous as we five high-flying metal birds turn the end of the line. Bluish-white, spherical explosions of electric light illuminate the storm clouds and our flight-decks. The storm’s outer skins are covered with brilliant electric webs that undulate in the thin, high velocity winds of altitude. It is a sight that few see in their lifetimes. There are no words…

Words fail me- I grew up around the world of flight, and never missed a chance to squander my opportunities to join that fraternity. That is one of my great regrets.

 

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds – and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of – wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew –
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God. 

Pilot Officer Gillespie Magee
No 412 squadron, RCAF
Killed 11 December 1941
 

Poisoning the Well

Althouse: Stirring up rumors that Obama may replace Biden with Hillary Clinton..

It would be a great “game change” — to use the term applied 4 years ago to Sarah Palin.

And — amusingly — it would be Obama taking advice from Sarah Palin, who just a couple days ago said:

[T]he strategists there in the Obama campaign have got to look at a diplomatic way of replacing Joe Biden on the ticket with Hillary. And I don’t want to throw out that suggestion and have them actually accept the suggestion because then an Obama-Hillary Clinton ticket would have a darn good chance of winning.

Don’t you love the role of Sarah Palin in American politics? On the sidelines… looming…

Funniest thing I’ve read today.

 

UPDATE: from the comments-

The only person who despises The Comrade more than Hillary Clinton is Bill Clinton. I’ve had a pet theory for some time that Bill Clinton will bury the fatal dagger when the time comes.

This is great theatre.

Genetically engineering ‘ethical’ babies is a moral obligation, says Oxford professor

Genetically engineering ‘ethical’ babies is a moral obligation, says Oxford professor – Telegraph.

Good intentions? Road to hell? This is Eugenics masquerading as ethics. Who decides what is ‘ethical’?

Ah, it’s an Oxford Professor- my mind boggles thinking of what this aristocrat thinks makes a ‘better’ person. Better soldiers? We can build ’em! Obedient citizens? Coming right up!

Pardon me if the idea of the Saul Alinskys of this world getting ‘hold of this technology is frightening as hell.

via Drudge

Now on WordPress

Changed from Movable Type to WordPress- and it was the easiest port I have ever done. WP was a breeze to install, configure, and get running. That is so different than my experience over the years with MT that I kept waiting for something to fail, go wrong, screw up- and it did not happen. W00t!

Mars Rover Curiosity Landing: 1st Photos from Mars | Space.com

From Space.com

The first shot, taken immediately after landing. W00t!

Early Curiosity photo

 

…and Curiosity’s shadow. On Mars. My mind reels.

Best comment, from Lilek’s Bleat
Watched the Curiosity landing last night. Magnificent. I was disappointed by the first few snapshots. I mean, after the brilliance and multi-fold  technological pirouette of a landing (supersonic parachutes, descent stages, heat shield jettison, retro rockets, skycrane), all we get is Apollo 11 grainy black and white photos akin to cave dwelling scratchings? Honestly, I expected an Instagram.

TechnoChitlins

I can’t think of a better post to restart this blog-

The Gods of the Copybook Headings


AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

 

Boy-howdy, they certainly are