If you’ve been following recent press coverage of Obama’s “energy plan”, you’re probably left with the same impression I was - that it’s a utopian generalization that, like much of what he says, sounds nice, yet on closer examination, offers few specifics.

Aside from the fact that a sitting president lacks the power to implement the steps conceivably needed to accomplish the “plan’s” stated goals, it doesn’t even include sufficient specifics to be called a “plan”. Maybe a list of lofty sounding “wishes”, but hardly a “plan” any more than the one proposed by Dilbert’s PHB in one of my recent posts.

That’s not to say that the one actual “plan” he has put forward - inflate our tires - isn’t a real plan. It is. But, like Obama himself, it won’t solve much.

Mike sent this…

Chuck moved to Texas and bought a donkey from a farmer for $100.00. The farmer agreed to deliver the donkey the next day.

When he arrived the next day, the farmer announced, “Sorry son, but I have some bad news; the donkey died.”

Chuck replied, “Well, then just give me my money back.”

“Can’t do that. I went and spent it already.”

“Ok, then, just bring me the dead donkey.”

“What ya gonna do with him?”

“I’m going to raffle him off.”

“You can’t raffle off a dead donkey!”

“Sure I can. I just won’t tell anybody he’s dead.”

A month later, the farmer met up with Chuck and asked, “What ever happened with that dead donkey?”

Chuck replied, “I raffled him off. I sold 500 tickets at two dollars a piece and made a profit of $898.00.”

“Didn’t anyone complain?”

“Just the guy who won. So I gave him his two dollars back…”

Chuck did so well screwing folks in Texas, he moved to California where he became a member of the Legislature..!

This Sunday marks the 58th anniversary of the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance – the world’s premier celebration of the automobile. It’s held each August at the Lodge, on what is often called the best finishing hole in golf, the 18th green at Pebble Beach overlooking Monterey Bay. I haven’t been the last few years, but this used to be an event I rarely missed.

Only 175 of the most prized collector cars in the world are invited to participate in this very competitive event, and to win in its class is an affirmation that the car is the best example of its breed.

The featured marques for the 2008 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance will be the Lancia, Lamborghini and the General Motors centennial. Of special interest will be the return of a 1934 Packard V12 Convertible Victoria. In 1955, San Francisco police officer Marvin Zukor drove the car 100 miles down the California coast to participate in the third Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. On August 17th, fifty three years later, Zukor and his Packard will compete again in the Concours!

Tickets and information about the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance - and the events leading up to it - are available here and on their website. To buy one of these rare automobiles, start here. I like the 2009 Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport. (Hey, window shopping is free!)

Today commemorates the 63rd anniversary of VJ Day. At 6:10 p.m. EDT on August 14, 1945, the United States received word of Emperor Hirohito’s surrender and declared Victory in Japan - VJ Day - effectively ending WWII. As the news spread, celebrations began throughout the world.

One of the most famous photographs ever published by Life - VJ Day in Times Square - was shot on August 14th, 1945. Alfred Eisenstaedt was in the square taking candids when he spotted a sailor “running along the street grabbing any and every girl in sight,” he later explained. “I was running ahead of him with my Leica looking back over my shoulder… Then suddenly, in a flash, I saw something white being grabbed. I turned around and clicked the moment the sailor kissed the nurse.”

The participants in the kiss were never confirmed by Eisenstaedt, whose notes on the photo were not found until after his death in 1995. Life, however, accepted nurse Edith Cullen Shain’s claim to the honor in a handwritten letter to Eisenstaedt 35 years later. Shain was 27 on VJ Day.

Over 20 men have claimed to be the sailor but none has been positively identified. In August 2005, a team of volunteers at the Naval War College claimed the sailor was George Mendonça of Newport, Rhode Island. And Shain once said she believed the man to be former New York City police detective Carl Muscarello, although she later recanted that statement.

But Houston Police biometrics expert Lois Gibson pegged the sailor in the picture as Glenn McDuffie after conducting a thorough forensic analysis in which she conclusively identified McDuffie and excluded Mendonça and Muscarello.

According to the official Dilbert website, this is Scott Adams’ most popular Dilbert cartoon strip…ever. I’m not saying it should or shouldn’t be, but there have been some pretty great Dilbert strips over the years. This might have been the case during the go-go 80s when managers were ruthless, but in today’s more highly regulated, “we care” business environment, not so much. Anyway, I thought I’d put it out there to see what you think…

Here’s something to ask ourselves: Are we being held hostage by foreign oil as we’re been told? Or is Congress the real culprit?

I remember when the Republican led Congress passed a bill to drill, only to have it vetoed by Bill Clinton. Well, here we still are. So in this video clip, Newt Gingrich suggests three things we should do now to dramatically lower the cost of oil.

Is anybody listening?

I’ve always been fascinated by the Old West and its legendary heroes and outlaws. So my interest was peaked when I read this at Ancestry.com.

It appears this census taker caught Billy the Kid (alias William Bonney) and his comrade Charles Bowdre in Fort Sumner, New Mexico, in 1880. Bowdre was killed at nearby Stinking Springs later that year; Billy was killed at Fort Sumner the year after.

Imagine that. Wanted by the law, yet giving his name to the census taker. Perhaps not the wisest decision of his short-lived career…

Many of you enjoyed the last collection of animal images (Animal Kingdom 1), so here’s another, this one including African and marine wildlife. Enjoy!

“Oceans” from the “Fresh Wine for the Horses” album by former Catherine Wheel lead singer Rob Dickinson. I can’t explain what’s happening in the video or how it relates to the song except it apparently involves a mermaid who doesn’t know she’s a mermaid, and a guy in a wetsuit stalking her in Palm Springs…

I like the song. And I found it interesting that the entire video was shot on a Nokia N93 camera phone! Curious how it was done?

James sent this Cam Cardow political cartoon from The Ottawa Citizen. Given the apparent success thus far of Obama’s “All Sizzle” campaign strategy, it’s a natural!

Mt. Vernon, TX - In this small Texas town, Drummond’s Bar began construction on a new building to increase their business. Almost immediately, the local Baptist church started a campaign to block the bar from opening with petitions and prayers. Work progressed right up until the week before opening when lightning struck the bar and it burned to the ground.

The parishioners were rather smug in their outlook after that, until the bar owner sued the church on the grounds that it was ultimately responsible for the demise of his building, either through direct or indirect actions or means. The church vehemently denied all responsibility or involvement in the building’s demise in its reply to the court.

As the case made its way to trial, the judge reviewed the briefs submitted by both sides. At the preliminary hearing, he commented, “I don’t know how I’m going to decide this, but as it appears from the paperwork, we have a bar owner who believes in the power of prayer and an entire church congregation that does not…”

Thanks Mike!

As Arthur C. Clarke told us, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” So think of Irish magician Keith Barry as a technologist, an elite software engineer of the human brain. Witty and direct, he celebrates human cleverness even while he’s hacking it.

In this 2004 TED presentation in Monterey, California, Barry shows us how our brains can fool our bodies. Then he involves the audience in some jaw-dropping (and even a bit dangerous) feats of brain magic.

At just under 20 minutes, you may think it a bit long. But I believe, once you get into it, you’ll be hooked. Enjoy!

TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It began in 1984 as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader. The annual conference now brings together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes). The TED website makes the best of these available to the public. Free.

I’m trying to stay in tune with the presidential campaigns but, like many, I find myself dozing off. The things I’ve been waiting to see — some “sizzle” from McCain and some “steak” from Obama — should have become more evident by now, yet remain obscured behind the media’s love affair with Obama.

As John Dickerson wrote in an article more than a year ago, the perception that Obama was “all sizzle and no steak” remained despite efforts by his handlers to change it.

“The huge crowds and stirring but vague reform rhetoric don’t give voters anything they can take home in their pocket. This has lead to some high-profile failures—at a health-care forum in Nevada and with firefighters in Washington—in venues where audiences wanted to hear specifics about ideas that will change their lives. Obama’s rhetoric makes this task more difficult. He presents himself as a paradigm-shifting candidate, which means people are expecting to be floored not just by his charisma but by his ideas.”

Dickerson pointed out that, in the polls, Clinton did far better than Obama on questions of experience, leadership, and capacity to handle a crisis, trouncing him by more than 30 points among Democrats looking more for strength and experience. Worse for Obama, when voters were asked the question in the abstract whether he had enough experience for the job, only 30 percent of respondents said yes in a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll. On the same question, Clinton scored in the 70s. Yet Obama received his highest marks in polls from people who thought he was new, fresh, and inspiring. In the end, Democrats chose the latter.

And not much has changed. Obama’s skill at eloquently “reframing the question” to convince Democrats that charisma trumps experience seems to be keeping his ball in the air. But an empty suit—albeit a charismatic one—is still just sizzle and no steak.

Which leads me to my latest bumper sticker, sent to me by James. It pairs well with my McCain sticker, don’t you think? Maybe I’ll stick them both in my side bar. Hmmmm…Reminds me of the 80s Wendy’s television commercial. “Where’s the beef?”

I was depressed last night so I called Lifeline.

Got a freakin’ call center in Iraq.

I told them I was suicidal.

They got all excited and asked if I could drive a truck…

Thanks Pat!

The brand spanking new Airbus 340-600, the largest passenger airplane ever built, sat in its hangar in Toulouse, France without a single hour of airtime. Enter the Arab flight crew of Abu Dhabi Aircraft Technologies (ADAT) to conduct pre-delivery tests on the ground, such as engine runups, prior to delivery to Etihad Airways in Abu Dhabi. The date was November 15, 2007.

The ADAT crew taxied the A340-600 to the run-up area. Then they took all four engines to takeoff power with a virtually empty aircraft. Not having read the run-up manuals, they had no clue just how light an empty A340-600 really is.

The takeoff warning horn was blaring away in the cockpit because they had all 4 engines at full power. The aircraft computers thought they were trying to takeoff but it had not been configured properly (flaps/slats, etc.) Then one of the ADAT crew decided to pull the circuit breaker on the Ground Proximity Sensor to silence the alarm.

This fools the aircraft into thinking it is in the air.

The computers automatically released all the brakes and set the aircraft rocketing forward. The ADAT crew had no idea that this is a safety feature so that pilots can’t land with the brakes on.

Not one member of the seven-man Arab crew was smart enough to throttle back the engines from their max power setting, so the $80 million brand-new aircraft crashed into a blast barrier, totaling it.

The extent of injuries to the crew is unknown, for there has been a news blackout in the major media in France and elsewhere. Coverage of the story was deemed insulting to Moslem Arabs. Finally, the photos are starting to leak out (click thumbnails to enlarge). Link

Thanks Mike and Michael!