Whatever critter that was, he was hung.

Sierra storm breaking up

                                                       Yosemite Valley and Half Dome

Mono Lake showers

Double Mountain Fork of the Brazos

I'll pitch my tepee on the bluff right above the fork, thank you.

Jim Baker, frontier badass.

Jim Baker - 1879

With “his warmest friend and constant companion,” a Sharps buffalo rifle.

Some anecdotes from a well lived life:

On Aug. 21, 1841, Baker and another man were hunting across the river from Fraeb’s camp. When they saw the ominous sign of a rising cloud of dust in the mountains, they rushed to the camp. They soon became engaged in a fierce fight with Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho.

Fraeb was one of the first killed. Baker is credited with taking charge after that. During the two-day fracas, four trappers and most of the trappers’ horses were killed. Some estimates claim as many as 100 Indians were killed, but historian William F. Stocks states the number is in fact unknown. According to Stocks, more than 100 horses from both sides were indeed killed.

On August 27, Baker returned to Bridger’s camp with the other survivors. The now-defunct town of Battle in the Sierra Madres west of Encampment, Wyo., gained its name from the conflict, as did Battle Creek, nearby Battle Pass and the Battle Highway.

On another occasion, Baker, who had camped with the Shoshone near what is now Medicine Bow, Wyoming, rescued the daughter of a Shoshone chief when she was kidnapped by a Blackfeet band and returned her to her father. Baker married the young woman in October 1847. The bride presented her buckskin-clad groom with a necklace made of bear claws—an emblem of bravery. 

In 1858, Baker owned and operated a ferry on the Overland Trail crossing of the Green River. In the Denver newspaper interview years later, he recalled that he charged $10 per wagon for the service. Historian Charles Leckenby related in his book, Tread of the Pioneers, that when a competitor moved in nearby, the men attempted to settle their differences by each swallowing a shot of whiskey before taking rifle shots at each other. Leckenby states that Jim Bridger intervened to put an end to this foolishness.

In 1873, he built a two-storey cabin of hand-hewn logs near present-day Savery, in the Little Snake River Valley of southern Wyoming near the Colorado line. The cabin resembled a fort, and for many years, a railing surrounded the second story. Baker raised cattle, using the JB brand.

A Cheyenne Daily Leader report of Jan. 17, 1877, described the nearly 60-year-old Baker as “a frontier character” who was as “gnarled and grizzled as one of the many old pines that have graced the mountain peaks.” His rustic appearance was likely the result of fights with bears as well as men.

Baker died on May 15, 1898, in his cabin. He was buried in the family cemetery at the base of the mountain that bears his name. According to author Leighton Baker (no relation), Jim Baker fathered 14 children by three wives, which was probably his most impressive accomplishment.  On the other hand, if you save a woman from the ministrations of the Blackfeet, she ought to be properly grateful!

A potentially revolutionary space travel system comes to life

The world has received its first glimpse of a gigantic airplane that will serve as an airborne launch pad for putting satellites - and eventually people - into orbit.

The aircraft, which has a wingspan of 385 feet (117 metres) and will be powered by six 747-class engines, is currently being assembled at Mojave, California.

Dubbed the Roc, the megaplane is the brainchild Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who is creating it under start-up firm Stratolaunch Systems.

Initially, the system is intended to deliver satellites weighing up to about 13,500lbs (6,124 kg) into orbits between 112 miles and 1,243 miles (180 km and 2000 km) above Earth.

The plane will climb to 30,000 feet and launch a rocket at high altitude, avoiding the huge fuel costs of launching from Earth. 

In the news report, Scaled Composites president Kevin Mickey says the company has so far built 'roughly 200,000lbs of composite structure' for the vehicle.

A debut test flight is expected in about a year with launch operations beginning in 2018.

Local news fail

Walter's wiggles

More on that crazy switchback trail in the Open Road.

It is in fact in Zion National Park.

A more intimate view

Friday Open Road

TEOTWAWKI battle wagon

Wooly rhino calf discovered frozen in Siberia

The discovery of the baby woolly rhinoceros preserved in permafrost was described as 'sensational' by local palaeontologists in Russia's largest region. 

Experts hope to be able to extract DNA from remains of the extinct creature which was today being handed over to scientists from the  Academy of Sciences in Yakutsk, capital of the Sakha Republic, also known as Yakutia. 

The rhino was found on the right bank of a stream flowing into Semyulyakh River by Alexander 'Sasha' Banderov, a hunter and businessman from  Abyysky district. He and friend Semen Ivanov thought at first it was the remains of a reindeer, before realising they had made a truly historic discovery.

'We were sailing past a ravine and noticed hair hanging on the top of it,' said Alexander. 'At first we thought it was a reindeer's carcass, but after it thawed and fell down we saw a horn on its upper jaw and realised it must be a rhino. The part of the carcass that stuck out of the ice was eaten by wild animals, but the rest of it was inside the permafrost and preserved well.

Alien command post identified

This is most likely where Obama is getting his orders from.

"Agent Obama, report on your progress immediately!"

The new photos of Ceres from NASA's Dawn spacecraft, which is scheduled to arrive in orbit around Ceres on the night of March 5, reveal that a puzzling bright spot on the dwarf planet's surface has a buddy of sorts.
"Ceres' bright spot can now be seen to have a companion of lesser brightness, but apparently in the same basin," Dawn principal investigator Chris Russell, of UCLA, said in a statement. "This may be pointing to a volcanolike origin of the spots, but we will have to wait for better resolution before we can make such geologic interpretations."

Dawn will begin investigating the many mysteries of Ceres — the largest body in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter — in earnest soon enough. After reaching Ceres' orbit next week, the probe will spend about six weeks working down to its first science orbit, getting there on April 23.

Trey Gowdy rocks

Best comment today at Ace's, on Jeb's evolution.

"I called this press conference to update the public on developments in my life. As you know, my position on gay marriage has evolved, and the more it evolved, I thought about it and said 'fuggit,' let's go for the whole burrito, because as another governor once said, that is my reality. So I'm announcing that I'm coming out of the closet, and henceforth will be referred to as 'Jebba Bush.' 

"Thank you, and while I have to run or I'll be late for my make-over and waxing, first I'd like to lead you all in a medley of show tunes."

Holy Frijole! This is cool!

Silly scientist type needs to get some of those long fireplace matches.  They stay lit longer and he wouldn't have to get his face so close to the unpredictable flame.

Under the right conditions, I could imagine quite a flare off, perhaps much bigger than these.  No need to get that close.

Via the Feral Irishman.

In contrast to the confusion displayed by the English leftist in the post below, observe the Nostradamus like accuracy of what Jorge Bush was predicting back in 2007.

It's as if Bush knew what he was doing and where he was going, unlike the current crop of paste eaters in this administration.



This really is a shockingly accurate prediction from a president that most Democrats considered to be dopy and half witted.  I guess you can't judge a book from it's cover.

Via American Digest

A leftist candidate in England gives a radio interview that goes very wrong. Numbers, they're so difficult!

Anticipating obvious questions, and having an answer of some kind - also apparently very difficult.

If the leftists aren't trying to buy votes, as here, with someone else's money, they usually are name calling, like a schoolyard bully.  She never got there because the numbers issue just destroyed her.

Hat tip: SDA

Scary video

I went for an extended stay in the "Green Room" once in my rafting (not kayaking) career, and although it wasn't a big deal, it did emphasize how easily one can get into trouble on a river.  These extreme kayakers are just asking to drown either by getting somehow pinned underwater or by getting knocked cold while one a dangerous stretch of water.  Fun to watch, but even in my most daring stage of life, I'd say, "No thanks!"

Hat tip: American Digest

Natural gas leak blows New Jersey house to smithereens.

If it wasn't bad enough that the Muslims want to engage in Jihad against the West, now the Russians see themselves in a "Holy War," orthodox style, with us as well

This analysis of the situation at the XX Committee is spot on and deeply worrying:

While Russia’s economy remains seriously hurt from sanctions and, even more, the sharp drop in oil prices, the notion that this is taming Putin’s baser urges is not only untrue, it’s more likely the opposite of the truth.

Facts have increasingly been getting in the way of this White House’s messaging, on many fronts, so just as Obama now calls for political bipartisanship, after six years of doing the opposite, all the while ignoring the massive blowout of his own party by the Republicans in Congress that just happened again, for the second time in his presidency, Obama likewise seems to think that a bit of swag, plus a public taunt, aimed at Putin when the former KGB man is down on his luck will have the desired geopolitical effect. This White House does not seem to dwell on the fact that, while the domestic enemy may be politically obstructionist, the foreign enemy has all sorts of Special War unpleasantness in his arsenal, not to mention thousands of nuclear weapons.

If nothing else, the current crisis has demonstrated to Russians, with Kremlin prodding, that the United States remains their Main Enemy that it was for decades, now led by the arrogant and weak Obama, who is hated by the Russian public. The Chekists who run Putin’s Russia, who protested for years that America wanted to defeat Russia’s post-Cold War resurgence, that the U.S. will stop at nothing to bring Russia to heel while humiliating it, have been proved right, at least as far as most Russians are concerned.

To the shock and dismay of hopeful Westerners, including nearly all NATO leaders, the hard hit of sanctions has caused Russians to hate the West, not Putin. Most Russians view their war in Ukraine as a legitimate defense of Russians and Russian interests, certainly nothing like America’s aggressive wars of choice halfway around the world, and they are backing the Kremlin now.

As Russia’s economic crisis has mounted, Putin has unsurprisingly turned to fellow Chekists, some of them very like himself by background. They share a worldview which is conspiratorial and deeply anti-Western; they view America as their Main Enemy and now believe Obama is on a mission to destroy Russia. That they will not allow, and they will stop at nothing to halt what prominent Orthodox clerics recently have termed the “American project” that wants to destroy Holy Russia. This volatile combination of Chekist conspiracy-thinking and Orthodox Third Rome mysticism, plus Russian xenophobia and a genuine economic crisis, means that 2015 promises to be a dangerous year for the world. The Kremlin now believes they are at war with the United States, an Orthodox Holy War in the eyes of many Russians, and that struggle is defensive and legitimate. It would be good if Obama and his staff paid attention. This is about much more than Ukraine.

The military's new stackable hand grenade

Via Xbrad

The Scalable Offensive Hand Grenade offers conventional soldiers a new capability. Unlike the standard fragmentation grenade, this design offers mainly a blast effect that can be doubled or tripled to suit the job. It has also been fielded to U.S. Special Operations Command since 2010.

Cabin Porn

Reset! Smart Diplomacy!

Here we see the smartest woman in the world ( after Elizabeth Warren, of course) presenting Sergei Lavrov, the wily Russian Foreign Minister, with a reset/recharge button, symbolizing a new era in US/Russian relations.  This diplomacy is so incandescently smart that Hillary! misspelled the word "reset" in Russian as "recharge," which Sergei immediately pointed out.  I guess the second smartest woman in the world couldn't find a competent Russian translator in all the halls of the State Department. 

Nowadays, consistent with this early display of childish amateurism, Smart Diplomacy has collapsed into complete ruin.  Relations with the Russians are the worst they have ever been post USSR, and we see this written on a prop in a parade in Russia.  Certainly, the authorities had to approve of such a public message to the Americans.

"To be personally delivered to Obama."

If that isn't an expression of contempt and hatred, I don't know what would be, other than a sharp punch in the nose.  

Smart diplomacy indeed!  What complete clowns we have as our rulers.

The rear gunner/observer on an air ship

What a job!

Heh

I know, it's a bit rayciss, but shut up, I'm exercising my privilege.

And pass the Sriracha sauce.

Have a friendly wet nose

Swimming hole of dreams

Your happy daydream for a Tuesday

How many acts of treason has this administration committed?

I'll start: Acting directly contrary to law by arming Mexican drug lords with American weapons, in hopes of creating a false scandal that could then be used as a justification for taking away our 2nd Amendment rights.

Parody has become reality

This administration is a clown car on steroids.

SNL Desert Storm Press Conf (3 34) from Wendy Hall on Vimeo.

How Slim Pickens got his part in Dr. Strangelove

Originally, Director Stanley Kubrick wanted Peter Sellars to play the role of the B-52 pilot, Major "King" Kong, as well as all his others.

However, it was not to be.

Filming of Major “King” Kong’s scenes was scheduled, but on the first day, Sellers arrived limping from a fall he had suffered the night before at an Indian restaurant. A run-through was reorganised for a less strenuous scene “which required Major Kong to move from the cockpit to the bomb-bay area [of the B-52] via two eight-foot ladders.”

Sellers negotiated the first, but coming down the second, at about the fourth rung from the bottom, one of his legs abruptly buckled, and he tumbled and sprawled, in obvious pain, on the unforgiving bomb-bay floor.

The following day, after a medical examination by a Harley Street doctor, it was announced that Sellers could not play the part of Kong. As Southern later wrote:

Once the grim reality had sunk in, Kubrick’s response was an extraordinary tribute to Sellers as an actor: “We can’t replace him with another actor, we’ve got to get an authentic character from life, someone whose acting career is secondary–a real-life cowboy.”

However, Kubrick had not set foot in America for about fifteen years and had little knowledge of possible “secondary actors of the day.” Southern suggested the actor Dan Blocker, who looked like an over-grown cherub and was best known for starring as “Hoss” in the cowboy TV series Bonanza.

“How big a man is he?” Stanley asked.
“Bigger than John Wayne,” I said.
We looked up his picture in a copy of The Players’ Guide and Stanley decided to go with him without further query. He made arrangements for a script to be delivered to Blocker that afternoon, but a cabled response from Blocker’s agent arrived in quick order:
“Thanks a lot, but the material is too pinko for Dan. Or anyone else we know for that matter. Regards, Leibman CMA.”

Hoss as Major Kong?!  I can't believe he turned down that role.  Tells you a lot about the tenor of the times that he would see it as too political.

Anyway, continuing:


Unwilling to delay filming, Kubrick recalled an actor he had met when he was set to direct Marlon Brando in the western One-Eyed Jacks:

Kubrick had noticed the authentic qualities of the most natural thespian to come out of the west, an actor with the homey sobriquet of Slim Pickens.

Born Louis Bert Lindley in 1919, “Slim” Pickens was a cowhand who worked the rodeo circuit from El Paso to Montana, sometimes competing, sometimes carrying out the deadly work of rodeo clown–that’s the guy who distracts the bull long enough to get any injured rodeo riders out of the arena.

Pickens never seemed agile enough to me for the job of a bull fighter, but maybe in his youth, and before injuries...

Except for the occasional stunt work on location, Slim had never been anywhere off the small-town western rodeo circuit, much less outside the U.S. When his agent told him about this remarkable job in England, he asked what he should wear on his trip there. His agent told him to wear whatever he would if he were “going into town to buy a sack of feed”–which meant his Justin boots and wide-brimmed Stetson.

When Pickens arrived at Shepperton, Kubrick sent Southern over to see he was all right. The writer cheerfully cracked open a bottle of Wild Turkey to set the mood, and asked Pickens if he had settled into his hotel okay, and if everything was fine and dandy. Slim took a big slurp of his drink, wiped the back of his hand against and mouth and replied:

“Wal, it’s like this ole friend of mine from Oklahoma says: Jest gimme a pair of loose-fittin’ shoes, some tight pussy, and a warm place to shit, an’ ah’ll be all right.”

They had their man.  The rest is history.

Hat tip to American Digest 

The only Obama speech I could ever enjoy.

San Francisco timelapse

I was just in the city on Saturday night at a concert with the youngest daughter.  I'll need to have her watch this later.

Mondays, they're like that.

Why are those pretty pieces of green paper in your wallet worth more than a similar size of toilet paper?

They are, aren't they?

Oh look, the purchasing power of the dollar has declined 97% since the Federal Reserve was established!

Oops.

The propaganda effort in support of the fiat money system has been enormous over the decades, and has been quite successful. Former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan once told Ron Paul on occasion of his semi-annual testimony in Congress that he believed “we have had extraordinary success in replicating the features of a gold standard“. We are quite sure he was aware that this is actually not the case. And yet, apart from Ron Paul, no Congressman would have even thought of questioning this absurd assertion. One would think that the fact that the US dollar – one of the world’s “better” fiat currencies – has lost 97% of its purchasing power since the Fed has been in business speaks for itself. Mises has already shown in 1920 that socialist central economic planning is literally impossible. No rational economy can be centrally planned. Central banking simply represents a special case of the theorem of the impossibility of socialism, applying to the financial sphere.

Maybe we should go back to tally sticks, but then again, you wouldn't want to be left with the short end of the stick!

B-25H “Barbie III” showing 75mm M5 gun and 4 Browning 50 cal feeds

Whistling Death crosses the Golden Gate.

I thought karate guys were supposed to be super coordinated?

I want one.

The glaciers are coming back

Per Spaceweather:

 Officially, there are four numbered sunspot groups on the sun. Good luck finding them. They are almost invisible in today's image of the sun taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory.  Most analysts believe that Solar Cycle 24 is just past maximum. That doesn't mean sunspots will instantly vanish, but more almost-blank suns--and truly blank suns--are in the offing as the solar cycle slowly descends toward lower activity in the months and years ahead.

Let that sink in. Just past maximum!

Since it is really the sun's activity level that determines our weather, and not SUV's or cow farts, we might be in for some cold weather for awhile.

Which causes the warmists to have to fake the data to support their jihad against prosperity and freedom.

Wombats, the new pet sensation

Actually not, this is just Patrick the Wombat absorbing his daily ration of female attention.

At 84 pounds (38 kg) and 29 years of age, Patrick is the world’s oldest and largest known living common Wombat (Vombatus ursinus). Patrick has lived nearly his entire life at the Ballarat Wildlife Park in Victoria, Australia. He was hand-raised by the owners after being orphaned as a baby.