Fish Fear Me

Odds and ends

A walk-in, walk-off win: The Twins completed a sweep of the White Sox yesterday when Torii Hunter got a bases loaded walk in the 9th for the 7-6 win. Since getting swept themselves in Cleveland, the Twins have won three game series at Milwaukee, at Texas, at home against Toronto, and now the home sweep of Chicago. They are still struggling with injuries, but they are playing smarter and executing much better than a month ago. They now head west to Oakland and the LA Angels and if they can play well out there, they will be in good shape to give Cleveland and Detroit a run for their money. After that the Twins go inter-league for 5 straight series; Washington, Atlanta, and Milwaukee at home, and on the road at the Mets and Florida. That last road trip looks to be a tough one.

Spammer arrested:

A 27-year-old man described as one of the world's most prolific spammers was arrested Wednesday, and federal authorities said computer users across the Web could notice a decrease in the amount of junk e-mail.

Robert Alan Soloway is accused of using networks of compromised "zombie" computers to send out millions upon millions of spam e-mails.

Good. Note that this asshat wasn't just a spammer, but someone who allegedly used zombie PCs and thus stole computer resources and bandwidth from people to make his money. The article says that if convicted he could spend "decades in prison". My vote is for him to serve as tier 1 help desk for the general public for at least that long. Yeah, I'm cruel that way sometimes.

Don't go in the water: Minneapolis is the "City of Lakes" and is an excellent fishery as far as urban areas go in the US. It's been a while since I've fished within the city proper, but over the years I've gotten some nice walleye, crappies, and big northerns out of some of those lakes. They were all catch and release, as I'm not too thrilled about actually eating any of those urban fish, though I will say they always looked healthy and some people do eat them. There are some monsters in those lakes, a few larger than four feet I'm sure, and it's suspected that this lad crossed paths with one on Memorial Day:

Paris Copeland loves to swim. Well, the 9-year-old did love to swim -- until a big fish mistook his ankle for a meal as the boy splashed in Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis this week.

"My poor son," moaned his mother, Westy Copeland. "He adores swimming. Now he claims he's never going back in."

Poor kid. He was more freaked out I think than hurt, with a one inch gash and three tooth marks. Fish bites man is a pretty rare circumstance but it's not unheard of. I've never seen it myself, though I did see a northern take a duckling about five years ago on Flour Lake off of the Gunflint Trail. Kinda makes one think twice about skinny dipping, eh?

Memorial Day 2007

(Grand Army of the Republic Memorial, Lakewood Cemetery, Minneapolis)

I hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable Memorial Day, and takes a moment to honor those who have died while serving the United States. There are some wonderful remembrances that are linked to here and here. For more than 230 years, in peace and in war, men and women have sacrificed their lives for this country, and I am profoundly grateful. May they all rest in peace and honor.

Warning

For the record, you can blame Ken for pointing me to this site. Another method for me to waste time, subject people to my twisted sense of humor, and lower the overall level of quality and seriousness of blogs.

The official seal of the Fish Fear Me blog:

The official seal of the Fish Fear Me wellness program:

The wellness seal is a takeoff on the logo that was used for a wellness program at a company I used to work for. Like a lot of these programs, in my opinion, they go from well-intentioned to nearly totalitarian very quickly. I could do a long and boring post on the background to this, but let's just say that the above just drips with defiance. I'm telling you, drips with it.

Did someone say moron?

Sometimes I have to struggle with posts and sometimes they just fly right into my arms:

 

Lord knows I have no right to claim the title of grammar cop. But if one is going to go and post stuff about how Bush is a moron, one might want to give it the once-over for errors before saving it. If nothing else, it detracts from the message.

Just saying.

Tools

Lorie Byrd takes a look at al Qaeda in Iraq's manipulation of the media and notes:

News of even significant progress in any region of Iraq can be silenced with one strategically placed bomb or beheading. Unfortunately, media manipulation is one aspect of the war the terrorists appear to have mastered.

My opinion on Iraq remains the same: We only lose if we in the US give up or if the Iraqi government fails to come together and agree on the major outstanding political issues among the factions. The former seems more and more likely to me as nearly the entire Democratic party is now heavily invested in Iraq as a failure. They can take that position because most of the American people feel much the same way I think. And I think that's because what Lorie Byrd has concluded is true. Horrific single events and the daily drip, drip, drip of casualties are not balanced out by the media in any meaningful way and knowingly or not, much of the media is playing the enemy's game. She quotes Bill Roggio in her piece:

He cited the way a suicide attack in the Anbar province was reported as an example. “U.S. success in Anbar was immediately negated when al Qaeda conducted a suicide attack in Ramadi in early May, and The Associated Press ‘reported’ that the attack dealt ‘a blow to recent U.S. success in reclaiming the Sunni city from insurgents.’ Al Qaeda conducted the attack to generate such an opening paragraph.”

Mission accomplished.

In a related matter, I had no sooner read that article this morning when I came across this report by AP's Ravi Nessman on Sadr's return to Najaf. Note this little rewriting of history:

Al-Sadr's Mahdi Army fought U.S. troops to a virtual standstill in 2004, but to avoid renewed confrontation he ordered his militants off the streets when the U.S. began its security crackdown in the Baghdad area 14 weeks.

Really? They "fought U.S. troops to a virtual standstill in 2004"? Because you know, that's not how I remember it. I remember that the Mahdi Army got it's collective ass handed to itself and was saved only at the intercession of one Ayatollah Sistani. Hmmm, that's the way the Washington Post saw it almost three years ago also:

Moqtada Sadr, the firebrand young Shiite cleric whose militia had seized control of Najaf's revered mosque, sought to derail the process. He led an uprising that at one time seemed to be gaining strength through much of Iraq's southern Shiite heartland, and his goals, while never entirely clear, certainly did not include multi-ethnic democracy or a U.S. presence in Iraq. U.S. Marines and soldiers, fighting alongside a small and untested Iraqi force, performed bravely for the past several weeks, inflicting substantial losses on the Sadr forces while taking care not to damage the mosque. If the respected Shiite Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani had not intervened, U.S. forces were prepared in the next few days to force a final battle, with Iraqi troops assigned to reclaim the mosque itself. Instead, Mr. Sadr was permitted to go free in exchange for vacating the mosque and ordering his militia to lay down their arms.

Is this a defeat for the government? Mr. Sadr is a murderous outlaw, and Iraq would be better off without him. But it's not certain that Iraqi forces could have prevailed in a final battle, at least not without harming the sacred shrine in a way that would have redounded against U.S. forces and the Iraqi government. Now the shrine has been reopened, thanks to the intervention of Mr. Sistani, who worked in cooperation with the Allawi government and who supports the same democratization schedule as Mr. Allawi and the international coalition. Mr. Sadr cannot be trusted to honor any agreement, but he has failed for a second time to derail the process.

In other words, restraint and respect for the holy site these cowards took refuge in were the real reason they survived. Fought to a standstill my ass.

Tell me again about all those damned editors.

Almost lifelike II

Pardon my skepticism:

Ailing Castro says firmly on road to recovery

HAVANA - Fidel Castro's recovery from intestinal surgery 10 months ago was delayed because the first of several operations he had went badly, the communist leader said in a statement that gave the most detailed account of his health since August.

Castro, 80, said in the Wednesday statement that he is now eating solid food and improving after "many months" of intravenous feeding. It was the most information released about Castro's condition since his Aug. 13 birthday, when he asked Cubans to be optimistic but not rule out possible "adverse news."

Now why in the world would I be skeptical of that? Oh, I don't know...the fact that he hasn't been seen in public for 10 months and yet he's so busy that:

"I don't have time now for films and photos that require me to constantly cut my hair, beard and mustache, and get spruced up every day," he said, evidently referring to the preparation required for some of the official images.

Well, hell. Who's asking for him to get spruced up every day? How about one day, just one, with some verifiable video footage? Sorry, but this whole thing with odd stills and old video and purported statements, but no one actually seeing him outside of a closely knit group, is just too weird. Even weirder is that the same media that is aggressively skeptical about many other governments is just eating this stuff up and regurgitating it.

My take is still that he kicked off a while ago, but I have no proof of that, and that the "undisclosed location" where he is "recovering" can best be described as a certain type of "walk-in" facility. Val Prieto thinks the bastard is dead also, but a few of the comments there bring up the good point that he may be alive, but mentally incapacitated. I hadn't thought of that, but it could be. Either way, the whole thing smells to me to be preparation for continuity of the totalitarian regime, and a credulous media is aiding and abetting it.

I have no idea when the charade will end, but I'm pretty sure how. At some point this year, I do believe old Fidel is scheduled to come down with a cold.

Of Mice and Men

Mice: Ok, this is hugely amusing to me:

UPDATE: Okay, with around 2,500 votes, there's a very large majority in favor of Jimmy Carter running, and an absolutely crushing majority in favor of not voting for him if he does. I can only conclude that the vast majority of InstaPundit readers either enjoy watching train wrecks, or feel that Jimmy Carter hasn't been humiliated enough. Or, possibly, both.

Haha. And yes, that's exactly how I voted. It's the latter reason for me. I don't hate the man, and could have even felt a bit sorry for him if he'd kept his mouth shut and his ass at home. Instead he has chosen to travel the world and kiss the asses of some of the worst tyrants and thugs this world has had to offer, and criticized the US to audiences abroad. He's free to do so, of course. It's not exactly presidential though, and the result for me is that I feel nothing but contempt for the man. Go away Jimmy.

Men(and women too, of course) : It was announced yesterday that the Ham Lake Fire is 100% contained on the US side. As of this morning, they were making good progress on getting it contained on the Canadian side. There is still a lot of hotspots within the perimeter on both sides and a couple of bad days could cause it to flare up again, but they will be watching it closely and I imagine air assets would be employed quickly if it does.

I've harped on this topic the last two weeks for a couple reasons. One, that part of northern Minnesota is my favorite place in the world, and two, this area has been at risk since 1999 for not just a normal forest fire, but an epic conflagration. That derecho that tore through part of the area in 1999 knocked down an estimated 25 million trees just in northern Minnesota. Some burns have been done over the years, as has some logging on private land around the Gunflint Trail. A tremendous amount of fuel still remains within the BWCA though, and the wrong conditions could lead to a fire that would be pretty much unstoppable and devastating to the area. This one was controlled by hard work, some aggressive and bold tactics, and some luck with the wind on Friday, May 11th. A different wind that day and we'd be talking about far worse losses than we are now, including possibly large swaths of the BWCA.

The good news is that the fire further reduced fuel loads in the woods around the northern 1/3 of the Gunflint Trail and that most homes and resorts were still able to be saved. I feel bad for the people who lost their home and valuables, but no one lost their life or was seriously injured that I know of. That's all pretty remarkable to me, considering the terrain and the volatile conditions. All of the people involved in fighting this fire deserve a big round of applause.

A movie meme(updated)

Ken S. has tagged me with a meme:

Pick out your ten favorite movies, then look them up at IMDb. In the overview at the top of each movie's page, there are "Plot Keywords," usually five of them. (Plus more, if you click the link.) Take the first five, and post them. Then the rest of us get to play movie buff and see if we can guess them.

Hmmm, I don't think I can pick a true top 10, there's so many. But what the hell, I'll give it a shot. In no particular order:

1. Cop / Bridge / Prejudice / Chase / Voyeur
2. Based on Ed Gein / Woman in Jeopardy / Taxidermist / Disturbing / Deliberate Cruelty (this should be easy)
3. Graduate / Gorilla / Dysfunctional Family / Alcoholic Mother / Chimpanzee (All I can say is WTF?)
4. Loser / Overweight / Car Accident / Organized Crime / Jealousy (this could be a tough one)
5. Free Spirit / Thanksgiving / Post Office / Mail /Mother Daughter Relationship
6. Bronx New York / Lawyer / Mob Boss / Cop Killer / Gore
7. Playboy Centerfold / Warfare / LSD / Bugle / Campfire
8. Phone Booth / Shot in the Head / Telephone / Key / Romance
9. Beautiful Woman / Director cameo / Biplane / Gun / Illinois (this one should be easy)
10. Prostitute / Bath / Kiss / Railroad Station / Death Scene (ok, whoever gets this one wins the grand prize)

I have to say I don't understand some of those keywords, but there they are. Guess away. I'll give you a hint though, the newest of those movies is later 90's.

Update: Nightfly did his own keywords that made more sense so since I have a minute this afternoon, I'll do the same. Revised clues below:

1. Cop / Prejudice / Murder / Voyeur /Police Chief
2. Leaving this one alone, c'mon guys.
3. Graduate / Dysfunctional Family / Alcoholic Mother / Virgin / Daughter
4. Corrupt Cops / Car Accident / Bridge / Partially Deaf / Jealous
5. Holiday / Post Office / Trial / Single Mom / House
6. New York / Mob Boss / Cop Killer / Exile / Wedding
7. Playboy centerfold / War / Surf / Boat / Mission
8. Books / Secret / Assassin / Bird / Hunted
9. Ken already got this one-North by Northwest.
10. Wild West / Railroad / Showdown / Prostitute / Harmonica (This one is probably a bit obscure so I'll add it was from a genre that came about in the mid-60s)

Hope that helps.

5/20-Ok, for the record:

1. In the Heat of the Night
2. Psycho
3. The Graduate
4. Cop Land
5. Miracle on 34th Street(1947)
6. The Godfather
7. Apocolypse Now
8. Three Days of the Condor
9. North by Northwest
10. Once Upon a Time in the West

I have a lot of favorites and this list is somewhat arbitrary. If you ask me again in three months there might be a couple different ones there. I get the feeling that last one is a bit obscure for most people. It is however, my all time favorite western.

Ham Lake Fire-Thursday 5/17

Crews are continuing mop-up operations within the perimeter and working to finish containment lines in the US. The Ham Lake Fire as of last night is estimated at 65% contained on the US side and 35% contained overall. There has been little growth on the US side this week as damp weather has allowed the firefighters to attack the fire directly. Some crews have even been released from the US side, particularly crews from urban areas(I thought I had read that someone had seen a St. Louis Park, my home city, crew up there but I can't remember where) that had been providing structure protection. There is an updated map up at Inciweb.org here along with the latest news in detail.

On the Canadian side where it known as Thunder Bay 37, weather has also helped firefighting efforts, but the situation remains serious. There are now three 20-man US hotshot crews in Canada assisting the Ontario MNR and additional Canadian resources continue to arrive.

While we can relax a bit and start to assess what's been lost on the US side, as long as that fire is burning north of the trail and conditions remain dry it's still a threat. I'm not sure of the fuel loads on the Canadian side, because despite all of my trips to the area over the years, I've never actually been on the other side of the border in that area. I imagine it's similar to the US side but I don't know. If it is, keep in mind that this fire raced about 13 miles in one day a week ago. If they can hold it west of Little North Lake and no new fires pop up, things will look pretty good for the Gunflint. But I'm not going to entirely relax until that east side of the fire is contained.

An amusing(to me) side note and a bit of BWCA trivia: When they started kicking out perimeter maps I noticed a lake in the southwest corner area named Japanese.

It's been a while since I've canoed this part of the BWCA, but I've been through the area a couple of times and I knew that lake as Jap Lake. I even double checked my old maps at home. Criminy, I thought, did PC even make it up to the BWCA? When did this happen? I had wondered about the name before and had heard that it was actually an acronym for some early settlers in the area, so the correct name was JAP Lake, for John and Addie Paulson. According to this, the name was changed to Japanese because it was perceived as racist. I don't know if that's actually true, but it's certainly plausible. That BWCA wiki also says that the name was again changed, not sure when, and it's now Paulson Lake. I noticed  today that the new maps of the fire perimeter now show the correct name.

And that ladies and gentlemen, is your BWCA trivia for the day.

Ham Lake Fire-Monday 5/14

Perimeter map 5/13-0900

 

(MNICS map. The full size pdf is available here)

A fairly good weekend on the US side of the border, considering the wind situation at times. Much of the growth in the fire has been reported on the Canadian side. The following are excerpts from Inciweb.org and the perimeter shown on the map above may not be perfectly accurate, but it should be close enough to use for reference if you wish. The fire is now listed as 20% contained and Inciweb shows 949 personnel on scene, though media reports consistently have referred to 600 or so. I don't know if that's because they don't include support personnel or Canadian firefighters or what. Amazingly, no deaths or serious injuries had been reported through yesterday as far as I know. With as volitile as this fire has been, I think that's just outstanding work by everyone involved.

They received a small amount of rain last night and some lightning, so it was a mixed bag. This entry at the Tuscarora News blog says that the north end of the trail reported only .1" but that the center may have gotten more like .5".

On the Canadian side, where it's being referred to as "Thunder Bay 37", it appears that another fire 20 miles north of Thunder Bay was mostly under control and so about 130 firefighters who arrived from British Columbia on Sunday night would be deployed to work on Thunder Bay 37. Earlier reports this weekend suggested that the second fire had diverted some resources from "37". US and Canadian teams are coordinating resources and efforts.

The following is from Inciweb.org and you can get the full details here. Most of the lakes mentioned are visible in the perimeter map if you want a visual reference.

Current status: American aerial and ground resources are being utilized in a unified effort with Canadian counterparts. The American operation is being managed by Paul Broyles' Type 1 National Incident Management Team (IMT). The Canadian Type 1 IMT will be in place mid-day at Sandstone Lake in Ontario.

Good progress was made on the Ham Lake Fire yesterday. Significant direct-line progress was completed on the south flank of the fire finger from the Iron Lake area to Gunflint Lake. A burnout of the same area was completed late yesterday evening. This flank did move some to the west toward Bedew Lake. The east flank of the finger held. A burnout was completed on the northern part of the east flank of the finger yesterday. An additional burnout maybe completed today if winds are favorable. Yesterday's winds pushed the fire north to Saganaga, Spoon, and South Arm, Northern Light lakes. The south, the southwest, and the west flanks of the fire continue to hold. There is one spot-over on the southwest flank that will need to be addressed today.

Canada will continue to focus on three geographic areas: 1) east flank, where a burnout is tentatively planned for today from south of Beulah Lake toward Little Gunflint Lake; 2) structural protection in the Saganaga Lake area; and 3) securing the north end of the fire between Saganaga Lake and Spoon Lake. The Canadian IMT evacuated seven Americans from the Canadian side of the border on Saganaga Lake (Red Pine Island) yesterday. Nine structures were lost Thursday on the north side of Gunflint Lake in Canada when the fire made its wind-driven run.

Incident plans for today: Today, suppression resources will be further securing and holding containment lines, and providing continued structural protection in the Gunflint and Loon lakes areas. Last evening's precipitation will allow crews to utilize direct attack tactics. Crews will complete and hold the burnout from Gunflint Trail or use direct tactics to secure the perimeter from Gunflint Trail to Gunflint Lake. Crews will also continue line construction from Gunflint Trail north past the east end of Mayhew Lake to Topper Lake to South Lake on the east side of the fire in coordination with the Canadian IMT. In addition, crews will construct direct line south from the Gunflint trail to contain the finger that has burned to the south of Rush Lake. Fire suppression actions will be initiated on the north end of the fire near Saganaga Lake.