Curious Creature

The History Channel just aired a 2-hour program about the Dust Bowl in the 1930s in the central United States called Black Blizzard.  What struck me most during the program was the description of a series of massive storms that hit on April 14th, 1935 known as “Black Sunday”.  The History Channel had computer recreations of what this looked like.  Here is an image from the show (and the History Channel website) showing one of the storms approaching.  Inside the car are a reporter and photographer who, after stopping and taking pictures of the approaching storm, are trying to outrun the storm.

During the show they also showed several real photographs of the storms of Black Sunday and doing a quick search on Wikipedia produced one spectacular photograph of a storm as it approached Spearman, Texas:

Here is another photograph of a storm as it approaches Stratford, Texas.  This photo is perhaps even better than the one above as the buildings are closer to the camera and give a better scale to the size of the storm:

According to DirecTV’s listing there is another showing of this program on 10/25 at 2:00PM Central Time.  It is definitely worth watching.

I’ve been using Evernote for awhile now.  The Windows client is pretty good.  The editor supports ordered/unordered lists, font types, color, etc.   All of the expected things in a rich text editor are there.

At the same time the Mac client is really awful.   The latest update has some new icons, etc. but they haven’t improved the editor functionality.  There is no ability to create lists as in the Windows client.  Given that the Mac development environment, which comes with the OS, has the source code to the TextEdit application I’m not sure why the Evernote folks can’t duplicate that functionality in their client.

To make things worse the Web client now has more editor functionality than the Mac client.   Guys, if you’re not going to at least have parity between the clients why are you bothering with the Mac client at all?

Update:  OK.  So apparently the Mac client does support lists….just not directly.  I found out that creating a note with a list in the web client results in the list being maintained in the Mac client.  When you add more items to the list numbers/bullets (I assume…I didn’t try bullets but numbers do work) increment automatically (and decrement if you remove items).   There just is no way to create these directly in the Mac client as of yet.  Very weird.

Update 2:  Ok.  According to this forum posting the Evernote folks are going to address this in the next Mac client release.  Great to read this as it might mean not having to run Windows in VMWare Fusion to get the better desktop client.

If anything this presidential election has been an eye opener.  And these days it’s becoming kind of scary.  With the world economy tanking the McCain/Palin campaign is stoking fear in their supporters with the “palling around with terrorists” crap.   We are now hearing regular shouts of works like “terrorist”, “treason”, etc. coming from the people in the crowd.  What the hell is going on in this country?

At McCain’s townhall meeting with supporters today in Minnesota we heard various ridiculous statements like the guy who is afraid of raising his still-to-be-born child in an Obama presidency because of the potential choice of judges.  Ummm…what?  We then heard a woman say that she doesn’t trust Obama because he’s an Arab.  Today McCain finally said enough is enough and told his people that Obama is a decent guy and they should be respectful.  But why should he have to say that at all?  What is going on with these people?  What are they reading?   Who are they talking to to get these ridiculous ideas?

Also over the last few days we’ve been seeing ridiculous video like this:

or this:

He’s got the bloodlines? I’ve read about Obama and he’s an Arab?

Does the old woman at the McCain rally in Minnesota today know that in order to be President of the United States you have to be a natural born citizen?

Does the much younger woman in the first video above who says “He’s got the bloodlines” include white women from Kansas in the 1960s as Arab terrorists?

Do the idiots in the videos who say Obama is a Muslim know that he actually is a Christian? Why does that make a difference in the first place?

This kind of complete, willful, ignorance is ridiculous but also scary at the same time. I’ve got no problem with people who disagree with Obama on a policy standpoint but the rest of it is just crap. And to see the McCain/Palin campaign using these tactics is just digusting to me. It’s un-American and John McCain should be ashamed of himself.

This from the lead federal prosecutor of the Weathermen/Weather Underground in the 1970s:

Although I dearly wanted to obtain convictions against all the Weathermen, including Bill Ayers, I am very pleased to learn that he has become a responsible citizen.

So there you have it.  The lead prosecutor on the case is pleased to learn that Ayers has become a responsible citizen in the last 20-some years.   Is he “putrid and pathetic, partisan, and beyond the pale.” too?

Just wondering…

Just to make sure everyone is on the same page: Barack Obama has been ‘palling around with terrorists’ because:

1. He sat on a board with William Ayers, former member of the Weather Underground.
2. He also launched his political career in the home of Williams Ayers, former member of the Weather Underground
3. Because William Ayers was a member of a radical Leftist group (the Weather Underground/Weathermen) during the Vietnam War, which opposed the Vietnam War and tried taking action against the US government in a series of bombings, he is (note is….not was) a terrorist.

OK?  Good.  We’re all set.

Now whoever believes that is BATSHIT CRAZY.   Let me suggest the article on Wikipedia about Bill Ayers and point specifically to what he’s been doing since 1984.

1. Ayers brings almost $50 million to Chicago for school reform projects via the Chicago Annenberg Challenge in 1995.
2. In 1997 he is Citizen of the Year in Chicago for his work on that project.
3. He is a member of the board of the Woods Fund of Chicago, a philanthropic organization dedicated to anti-poverty issues.

To put it mildly he’s been a model citizen.

Let’s also note the section of the Wikipedia article which discusses  Barack Obama’s relationship to Ayers which, while friendly, doesn’t imply friendship.    The McCain campaign keeps wanting to say they’re friends because at some point Obama, or someone in his campaign,  said that Ayers and Obama are on friendly terms.  Barack Obama isn’t “palling around with terrorists” because Bill Ayers isn’t a terrorist and Ayers and Obama don’t see each other socially on a regular basis.

Now lets talk briefly about Sarah Palin.  She “pals around with” her husband Todd presumably since they are married. Todd was a member of the Alaskan Independence Party for seven years.  Let’s take a quick look at the AIP and their founder, Joe Vogler.
I’ll quote the founder:

“I’m an Alaskan, not an American. I’ve got no use for America or her damned institutions.”

Let’s also take a look at the Goals of the AIP and pay particular attention to goal #2:

Become a separate and Independent Nation.

Hmm…become an independent nation…..how Confederate of them.

How about this quote, also from Vogler:

“My government is my worst enemy. I’m going to fight them with any means at hand.”

The man was a veritable treasure-trove of good quotes.

I say was because Vogler disappeared in 1993. His remains were found in 1994 and there was a confession that he was murdered during a plastic explosives deal gone bad. According to Wikipedia the chairwoman of the AIP says that he was executed, by the US government no less. Allegedly the government assassinated him because he was about to appear before the UN, at the invitation of Iran. Yeah Iran. Interesting isn’t it?

What is even more interesting is that Sarah Palin shot a video of congratulations for this group to be played at their convention: in March of this year. She even says “keep up the good work”.

So to recap:

1. Sarah Palin is married to Todd Palin – former member of the secessionist Alaska Independence Party
2. Sarah Palin sends a nice video to the AIP during their convention telling them to “keep up the good work”.
3. AIP is formed by a guy who wants to secede from the United States and is willing to do anything required to do so.
4. Founder of AIP wants to appear before the UN at the invitation of Iran.
5. Unlike Bill Ayers Vogler did this stuff his whole adult life until his disappearance. One guy becomes and education reformer while the other wants to secede from the United States.

And Barack Obama is the one palling around with terrorists?