Caption Art: PROMPT – a highly detailed woman’s portrait with a cup of coffee constructed entirely from thousands of overlapping ink fingerprints, each fingerprint retaining its unique ridge pattern, dense fingerprints creating shadows and tonal variations that form eyes, nose, and lips, forensic aesthetic transformed into fine art –ar 3:4 –exp 15 –stylize 250 –hd –v 8.1
Bullet Points:
** The oldest of the enemy of energy, the Sierra Club once advocated for emissions-free, reliable nuclear power. The conservation movement might not have become an anti-energy movement if the Sierra Club had stuck to the sense of purpose it had at its founding.
** I read a progressive-bias article recently that touted how Red China and the USA could get along. I want to remind readers of this blog that Red China has been at war aggressively with the United States for many decades now. You can call it a cold war if you’d like to. The US accommodated China, and China continually attacked the US – if that’s your definition of cold, you’re welcome to your opinion. President Trump’s administration is working to decouple the Chinese and American economies even as regional allies such as Australia, South Korea, and Japan are arming up because of the overt threat posed by Communist China. Even Pakistan, which has received billions in direct Chinese aid, is decoupling. China’s relationship with Iran is different these days because Iranian leaders’ lifespans are measured in days.
** Mel Gibson enters the mix.
** From down the shore to Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem without a serious clash of cultures. Jules explains how it happened as she drags the sack for a trip to the Colonies.
** School. Yeah.
** Housekeeping – No new blog on VM tomorrow.
From the Mail Bag:
Q – When we met, I noticed that you wore an Army Special Forces ballcap. Didn’t you serve in the Navy? (The questioner is referring to a lunch meeting that I had with a fellow blogger in Arizona recently.)
A – 32 years ago this month, in 1994, I was a Naval Reservist assigned to CTF-168.0. While a reservist, I sometimes traveled on USGOV orders that included other services and units.
In September 1994, elements of the US Army 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne)—specifically Operational Detachment Alpha (ODA) 076—and a handful of other specialists deployed to Albania at the direct request of the U.S. Secretary of Defense, William J. Perry.
This deployment opened the floodgates for U.S. Special Forces involvement in Eastern Europe after the Iron Curtain collapsed. It was among the very first Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET) missions conducted within former Communist bloc nations. I have a long history with that region, and I still have an office in Athens, Greece. While I agree that reservists are the lowest form of life, I was able to parlay that service into a number of useful evolutions, this being one of them.
Mama Mia
Did dinosaurs make good mothers? There is no telling for sure, but some of the swimming dinosaurs bore their young live rather than from an egg (like a bird), and that is interesting, isn’t it? Polycotylus lived during the late Cretaceous period, approximately 83.6 to 85 million years ago.
Identify the Aircraft
1
Not a well-known aircraft or aircraft company these days.
1,702 built
Identify the Ship
2
3
End
Identify the Aircraft
1 – Caudron C.440
Identify the Ship
2 – USS Mille – Knox-class destroyer
3 – Indonesian KRI Brawijaya – Thaon di Revel-class offshore patrol vessel
Outstanding, ML!
What’s an exceptionally clever piece of art. How does the real artist complete with this?
I would caption this: caressed by many, touched by few.
Or- one lump or two, luv?
It is pretty cool…AI might put artists out of business if any Tom, Dick, or Harry (no, not THAT Harry) can produce interesting art in minutes. We are waiting to complete the new hovel to hang our Jules original…can’t replace real artists.
It’s not just art. It’s also AI music, which is very good, AI films, and other things that are coming online.
Does an artist’s medium make them less of an artist?
It opens up the term, doesn’t it?
It allows people to express artistic ideas without using crayons….
Unless you’re talking about US Marines – then you’re stuck with crayons…
As a food source….
“Lucky”? Depends on which side of the coin you’re looking at, sounds unlucky to me. Pretty sure he was either unlucky (at getting shot/injured) or was a nut going headlong into the fray without much care for his safety. Nonetheless, a SISU type. H/t
***
Sierra Club: Back in the day when I read Backpacker and Outside magazines (actual glossy paper), I enjoyed quite a few of the writers. One article that always stood out was one on the Sierra Club and their support of Nuclear Energy coming off the 3-Mile Island prop-hype. The writer spoke of how misguided the SC was and how ‘corporate’ they were in structure…which every one of these 501c3 shops had to be, a little detail adherents chose to ignore while railing against ‘greedy corporations’.
***
Okay, you had to do it, invoking Jules’ latest with a nod to OC, NJ…now I have thoughts of dad decompressing with reading the latest Grisham on the upper deck overlooking the ocean, mom starting a new puzzle, crabbing in the shallows for a lunch feast, walking the Boardwalk with a fresh tub of Johnson’s popcorn after grabbing a slice at Mac-n-Mancos…and a bunch more great memories. That’ll be in my head all day.
I was thinking of the joke about the one-eyed three legged dog that responds to “Lucky”.
Keep in mind I’m Polish, many are surprised I made it this far without obtaining a Darwin Award.
So Polycotylus (and very probably others) gave birth to live babies, and didn’t just lay a bunch of eggs. I think it’s pretty widely accepted that many dinosaurs were warm-blooded and pretty much every egg-laying creature that’s around today isn’t. It’s an interesting fossil for sure, but in the “that’s cool” sense not the “OMG! WTF?” sense.
I put it into “that’s cool” as well. It’s almost impossible to piece together what was obviously a very complicated biological system from 90 million years ago based on what little we find embedded in fossilized mud.
Interesting, I was 12 years JCSS providing comm through JCSE. Some wet and muggy places but mostly hot and dry places. I still have a go bag in a foot locker in the garage.
It’s good to keep a go bag available.
I have a stay bag. And a few other items to accessorize it.
🤣Food in the fridge, snacks in the cupboard, beverages of all sorts, decent supply of firewood, running water, fuel, plenty of gear…that’s enough of a ‘stay at home bag’ for us.
“Mama Mia”
so do guppies
And many tropical fish species.
De Wiart was an impressive guy.
*
Altered Images was a hoot back in the day.
– Kle.
I don’t know how “lucky” he was, but he was persistent and that counts for a lot.
Is he an example of making your own luck?
Has to be…and his guardian angel was working overtime.
Total Sidebar (as mine often are)…but found this ‘interesting’:
‘Back in May 2025 a bungling lawyer (first clue) tried to shoot his ex-wife in a restaurant but forgot to take the safety off. CCTV footage showed Matthew Exton storm into the Ohio eatery and aim a gun at his ex before a heroic waiter tackles him from behind. Claims he did not intend to pull the trigger, but pointed the gun at his ex-wife in an attempt to pressure her into speeding up the sale of their former home. He was convicted of attempted murder, two counts of felonious assault and multiple firearm charges and will be sentenced on September 21.’
Never understood DA’s doing this stacked charges as typical, as if attempted murder wasn’t enough. Guess that’s called piling on in case (after last weeks Clancy insanity) some ‘group of men’ on the jury want to acquit the attempted murder charge because this unhinged lawyer was suffering from ‘temporary ex-wife psychosis’, or some such ‘in the moment but clearly premediated’ nonsense, and at least the DA would ‘get him’ on one of the lesser charges. Never made sense…but then again I’m not a lawyer.
There are firearm enhancements (longer sentence, higher security prison, etc.) The felonious assault isn’t likely a lesser-included offense since he likely assaulted other victims. The judge can sentence concurrently or consecutively on the other counts, depending on Ohio law. Pointing a firearm at somebody may or may not be assault with a deadly weapon based on whether or not the weapon was loaded; he may end up with a felony brandishing conviction. It’s important to charge a case correctly.
An assault is an attempt coupled with present ability – so if the firearm isn’t loaded, there is no present ability. Safety on/off doesn’t matter. In this case it would seem that the weapon was loaded.
Thanks for clarifying, makes sense. Just not the way I think…engineers tend to be A-B-C and always in that order.
By the way, my tongue in cheek latter comment was trying to show the absurdity of the Clancy jury, the nine woman and two men, especially now after three of these insane woman shamelessly (shamefully?) came out with unbelievable interviews saying the same about our intrepid Alpha male hero who by normal thinking people SHOULDN’T have ‘gotten past the fact she murdered her three children’ in a premeditated grievous fashion. This same nine jury group would hang this idiot lawyer inside of ten minutes regardless his momentary state of mind.
Another reason to pile on charges is because in many States, serious crimes
like murder result in a wrist-slap 5 years behind bars. So, you charge them with
everything down to jaywalking and public rudeness, to pile up the sentence to
something decent. Because of this, I always want to book thrown at perps.
– Kle.
Good point…which is an indictment on the legal/prison system. Now let’s do judges and parole boards for allowing dangerous criminals out only to do further harm to some innocent person. Consequences matter.
My son was facing some bogus charges. He had an idiot lawyer who I kept kibbitzing.
Finally we were down to one charge and I approached the prosecutor in the hallway and asked what her problem was.
She said that she was angry that I got him off the other charges and he was going to walk and she’d nail him on at least one charge.
I told her that he doesn’t want to walk, he knew he screwed up, but he didn’t want a felony, especially as a minor.
She agreed to a reduced charge. So did he.
He changed his life around.
Nice negotiating, a lesson to all when dealing with DA’s looking for notches.
>”Edward Drinker Cope named Polycotylus from the Niobrara Formation in Kansas in 1869.” Sez Wiki.
What a great middle name. But can you imagine the modern-day equivalents? Jermaine Toker Washington. Ethan Vaper Schwartzman.
Just don’t have the same ring, the same rhythm. We are lesser men living in degraded times. :-(
> Did dinosaurs make good mothers?
Probably some were, but what does that have to do with plesiosaurs? [pedantic snotty little comment of the evening]
—
> Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem
Whew. I thought it was an actual trip to Jerusalem and was expecting tales of being spat upon.
“I wonder if it would not be better if you did.”
https://youtu.be/XFNyUjtQ2A4?si=wFaWxulC0a8qQ3dk&t=58
—
>the Sierra Club once advocated for emissions-free, reliable nuclear power
There is nothing that says environmental groups need to be leftist whackjobs. But unfortunately they’ve been taken over by such. Alas.
In the 90s, Nat Geo photographer Louie Psihoyos, wrote ‘Hunting Dinosaurs’, about his travels in dinosaur country. Marvelous book, stunning photos. His mascot during the trip was the skull of Edward Drinker Cope. Not many men get to take a road trip nearly a hundred years after they died.
‘ Did dinosaurs make good mothers?’ At least one did, Maiasaura, (“good mother lizard”).
Sierra Club, bah humbug
July 1974 They had a big gathering hiking the Mt Zirkel Wilderness Area. Along with other local residents, my father spent two days picking up the trash they left behind.