FALL FOLIAGE 2014: Week 8. Gone....

I should have posted two pictures, a before leaf blower, and one after. There's green in this picture; there wouldn't have been if I had taken the picture before spending several hours blowing leaves around.

Here's last year's photo, same time, same station. I could have easily posted it again here, with no one the wiser. The one significant difference between this year and last is the neighbor's pear trees. In last year's photos, they were both bright red; this year they have just begun to turn.

Last week's picture is here; you can continue to click back in time from there.

SELF-DRIVING CARS: Saving Lives AND Energy. The IEEE is flacking for autonomous vehicles again.

I found this comment somewhat amusing: "Robocars driving together in platoons will use half the fuel that today's vehicles do."

They already exist ... we call them 'buses'.

ISRAEL’S RESPONSE TO TERROR: relax gun laws.

HOW SPACEFLIGHT affects men and women.

(click to enlarge)

The gist: "both sexes are 'pretty much screwed' if they spend too much time in space."

NEW MEASURE OF PROSPERITY aims to go beyond GDP to include not only conventional indicators of economic strength, but also metrics that correlate with self-reported happiness.

Thanks, but no. I don't want any measure that could affect my economic prosperity to include any subjective measures that activists can can corrupt to their own goals.

AL SHARPTON: "Only the little people pay taxes." Little people and the dead.

DEAD ON ARRIVAL: An A-10 retirement plan.

Since the Warthog is a close-air-support tank-killer; why isn't it in Iraq and Syria right now?

DEMOCRATS' DIVERSITY: old, white, and dull.

Beneath Obama are Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, both in their 70s. The Golden State is represented by Dianne Feinstein, 80, Barbara Boxer, 73, and Jerry Brown, 76, who was a new face when elected the first time in 1974.

The hot young faces belong to the Republican Party, which is (slowly) becoming more brown and more female, and which may appeal to the young and the restless.

The Democrat party has become the party of the 'old guard', fighting to retain their control.

FLYING DONUTS: A new kind of airplane.

HMM. The United Arab Emirates put U.S. Muslim organizations on their terrorist list. Do they know something we don't?

Probably.

OBAMACARE REPEAL IS MORE LIKELY, and the GOP needs an alternative.

[C]onservatives should push Republicans to have an alternative plan ready to pass should the Supreme Court strike down the federal subsidies — a decision that should come by late June.

If Republicans do not have an alternative to present when confronted by the political backlash, they will most assuredly buckle. Putting Republican leaders on record supporting one of the key aspects of Obamacare would almost certainly extinguish any glimmer of hope for repeal.

ObamaCare will surely die; if not by the Supreme Court, then by 1000 cuts. Republicans need to take the initiative and prepare the battlefield starting now.

INCOME TAXES: The rich don't pay just their fair share; they pay almost all.

Come April 15th, thank a rich guy.

D.C. POLICE: We plan years in advance to steal your things.

If only it were just the D.C. police....

WASHINGTON EXAMINER: Is this the political map of the future? It looks to me like the blue areas are urban minorities (principally blacks) and their patrons, the gentry liberals.

GET READY FOR SOME HARDBALL: In Scathing Letter to Obama, Former FBI Assistant Director Slams Holder as "Chief Among Antagonists" in Ferguson.

The grand jury decision is due any day now; whatever the outcome (likely riots), it will be directly attributable to Eric Holder.

IF IT WORKS, PREPARE FOR LAWSUITS: Pfizer’s quit-smoking drug Chantix suffers FDA setback.

Every drug has side effects. Chantix is remarkably effective, which is why I suspect it's being 'set up' for future lawsuits.

AND SOME AREN'T HUMAN: Vogue's new digs are reportedly swarming with rats.

Heh.

EXPLAIN TO ME why a do-nothing Congress is bad.

MILWAUKEE POLICE CHIEF unloads on black community leaders over violence.



"Sit down and shut up!" is beginning to make a comeback....

OOPS! Probe into IRS scandal may have recovered up to 30,000 Lerner emails.

Hmm. Perhaps ms. Lerner might want to reconsider a deal with the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to testify in return for immunity from prosecution....