Born during a thunderstorm in Greenville, Texas, his name is Lightning Medicine Cloud. The Lakota Sioux have a legend that the return of the great white buffalo will signal the dawn of a new age of limited government, fiscal responsibility, greater individual liberty, an end to judicial activism, a strong Tenth Amendment, and peace and love and stuff like that. I think.

Because of his unique colour, the two-month-old calf, still unsteady on his feet, caused over 2,000 Native Americans from across the U.S. to flock to the Lakota Ranch, in Greenville near Dallas, for yesterday's celebrations.

White buffalo are considered to be sacred signs in several Native American religions, and thus have great spiritual importance in those cultures and are visited for prayer and other religious ceremonies.

. . .

The Lakota Sioux believe that Whope, the goddess of peace, once appeared in the form of a white buffalo calf, and the belief is that the goddess will return once four such calves are born, bringing in 'a new age', which some reckon could be the end of the world.

'He's the hope of all nations,' said Arby Little Soldier, upon whose land the calf was born on May 12.

'That night it started to rain and thunder and lightening and hail. But now the red man, black man, white man and yellow man; we've all got to come together as one.'

Lightning Medicine Cloud is only the third of it's kind known and the first male in 150 years. The frequency of a white buffalo birth is estimated at one in ten million. More here and here. Video from KDFW in Dallas below the fold. more...

Posted by: rdbrewer at 05:06 AM | Comments (304)
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I did a lot of reading last month while on vacation (the Kindle once again proved invaluable). Most of the stuff I read was just light escapist junk: thrillers, pulp sci-fi stuff, stuff like that. However, I did bring along some slightly deeper reading as well.

I read Reckless Endangerment: How Outsized Ambition, Greed, and Corruption Led to Economic Armageddon by Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner. In spite of the rather hysterical title, the book actually fills a hole in previous reporting on the mortgage crisis of 2008 and the events leading up to it -- particularly the role played by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. There was plenty of stupidity and heedlessness to be found on Wall Street, no doubt, but much reportage has downplayed or even ignored the ruinous role played by the quasi-governmental agencies. This book does a good job of showing how these agencies spent years building a political machine that would be impervious to regulation -- either by co-opting the regulators themselves, or through a formidable lobbying arm that would tar opponents as being against the "American dream" of home-ownership. The book is far more serious and well-researched than the hysterical title indicates, and I recommend it to people who want a better picture of what caused the mortgage meltdown. (Phil Angelides would have done well to research this topic before issuing his biased report that shunted all blame on Wall Street while nearly completely ignoring the huge rule played by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the fiasco.)

In a book thread some time back we discussed Eric Chaisson's The Hubble Wars, which in my opinion is one of the best technical histories you can find. But that reminded me of another great book about a big telescope: Ronald Florence's The Perfect Machine: Building the Palomar Telescope. Florence does a wonderful job of telling the story of how George Ellery Hale pushed the project through to completion despite many obstacles: monetary, technical, and even mental. (My favorite story from this book is that of Milton Humason, who started out on the project as a mule-driver and ended by becoming an astronomer on the big telescope he helped to build.)

I did a little stargazing of my own while on vacation, by the way, and I once again found Terence Dickinson's The Backyard Astronomer's Guide to be an invaluable map to the celestial highways.

What has everyone else been reading?

Posted by: Monty at 04:20 AM | Comments (119)
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Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question Â…
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

-- T. S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

The Sunday Book Thread will follow shortly.

Posted by: Monty at 03:47 AM | Comments (111)
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Hey don't you have something better to be doing than hanging out here?

No?

Okay then come on in.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:14 PM | Comments (595)
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Happy Independence Day weekend, Moron Nation.

Pyrotechnics. Beach. Booze. Meat on the grill. This holiday is definitely AoSHQ Lifestyle™-certified.

Of course none of this would be possible if not for the brave men and women of our armed forces, many of whom will spend the holiday away from their families and in harm's way. I'll be raising a glass in their honor and praying for their safe return as I'm sure you will.

Additional holiday fireworks below the fold brought to you by the A-10 Thunderbolt II. more...

Posted by: andy at 10:15 AM | Comments (368)
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Morning Morons!

A friend of mine, Mrs. Peel, tipped me this pic and it's old but f'n' awesome.

I hope you are all gearing up for a great weekend. I am planning on BBQ later, then a baseball game tonight, Astros and the Red Sox, with family and friends.

I will be wearing a helmet for most of it. Safety first.

Have a good weekend you goobers, and remember those who are deployed in harm's way, and their families. Especially our moron friends who have that going on right now. God bless em all.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 04:49 AM | Comments (226)
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Got Fireworks?

Well if not, you better get yourself to the nearest fireworks stand just over the county line.

And the good thing is that even if you live in a anti-fun nanny state, you're still no more than a two hour drive away from fireworks freedom of choice. Well except for California - they're just screwed

And on an unrelated note here's the current spot price for coke around the world. Hmm you know we haven't had a Dutch moron meetup yet.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:31 PM | Comments (792)
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I actually have some political news to celebrate.

Back in May 2009, we had the choice to extend the "temporary" sales, car, and income taxes that RINO Sperminator and the Democrats implemented.
The state voted 67-33 no. San Fransisco said no.

The Republicans in the Assembly could have folded to Brown this year, yet found their balls juusssst long enough to let the taxes expire, making any attempt by Brown to "continue" them an attempt to raise taxes.

So now, July 1, the state sales tax drops a whole 1%.

That bears repeating.
In the People's Republic of California, a tax is dropping a whole cent.

Senate President Steinberg was trying to find Republican Senate minority leader Bob Dutton to challenge him to a battle of wits in a last ditch effort to avoid this, but found Michael Ironside waiting for him instead: more...

Posted by: CAC at 05:16 PM | Comments (61)
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I saw this on Twitter. On the eve of the 1996, this puzzle predicted the winner.

But check out how it "predicted it."

Posted by: Ace at 02:05 PM | Comments (192)
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(How about a tiny little bomb to get our fireworksy weekend off to a hot start?)

Powerline has a little post about political compromise. Here's two paragraphs that hit me.

Then there is Abraham Lincoln. Henry Clay had been Lincoln’s favorite politician, a powerful orator who Lincoln himself had twice supported for president. But in 1848, Lincoln supported Zachary Taylor rather than Clay for the Whig nomination. "There is no doubt which of the two men ... Lincoln in his heart, and in the abstract, preferred," wrote the Lincoln biographer William Lee Miller. "There was no comparison."

Lincoln explained himself in a letter, saying, "Our only chance is Taylor. I go for him, not because I think he would make a better president than Clay, but because I think he would make a better one than Polk, or Cass, or Buchanan [all Democrats] or any other such creatures*, one of whom is sure to be elected if he is not."

*at least he didn't call them dicks!

That's something to think about when your deciding which candidate to support in the rapidly approaching primaries. Not to say that you should always go with the mushy, centrist guy but that you should appreciate that we're playing for high stakes and it's better to win slow than lose.

Lincoln - what a squish!

Posted by: Open Blogger at 12:47 PM | Comments (195)
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