Reap the Whirlwind

Hi, Guys!

It's been a month since I last posted, 

so I'd best get started before I get toasted.

The Kernal is pleased to report that today's MRI reading at Bethesda, following the PET  and CT scans of December, was reported as "Clean."  This is the result that we, along with many of you, were praying for.  Thank you so much for your prayers!  Once again, they have worked.

This Christmas just passed was certainly a lot different from Christmas 2007 when we had just received the cancer diagnosis.  The Queen and I spent a delightful Christmas week out in Denver with Matt, Mindy, Whitney, Olivia and Tessa.  We returned to Ashburn in the wee hours of 28 December and then celebrated a second gift opening session with the Carlsons and Lees of NOVA.

As I should have no doubt guessed, blogging is its own reward.  Sow the wind and reap the whirlwind...The stylish polar bear pajama bottoms and shorts were Christmas gifts from the family.  The lovely polar bear card, complete with dancing bears when you pull the tab, was from Jean and Joan (and the bears).  The silver polar bear bookmark was an earlier gift  from Apis Melliflora, one of my most loyal readers who lurks around this blog and occasionally comments.  Below is a blowup that I hope you can read...

 

So, write about stuff and it will magically appear.  This new year I think I will spend lots of time writing about the pictures of Dead Presidents on rapidly devaluing US currency...

We here at Polar Bear Central wish all of you and yours a safe, healthy and properous New Year.  Fortunes are made in times like these.  Hooah!

Jean and I wish you all the best from the high ground.  Brother Kirk and friend Denise are coming up the hill!

I Rest My Case...

German zoo: Polar bear mom may have eaten her cub

Nuremberg, Germany (AP) Dec 10, 2008

The Nuremberg Zoo says that one of a pair of twin polar bears has died - and that it is possible its mother ate it.

The twin bears were born three weeks ago to Vera, who is also the mother of the zoo's celebrity polar bear - Flocke.

Flocke had been rejected by her mother, Vera, and was hand-raised by zookeepers.

Vera did not reject the two new cubs born in late November, but the zoo says that the twin cub died Monday.  The cub had not yet been named.

The bear can no longer be seen on a video monitoring the animal's enclosure.  The zoo said Wednesday it is possible Vera ate it.

The zoo says cubs typically have about a 50% chance of survival.  The other cub remains in good health.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press

P.S. From the Kernal:  The mother bear was recently overheard on FBI wiretaps talking to the Governor of Illinois about the chances of being appointed to fill the Senate seat of President-elect Obama.  The price discussed was one million dollars or one polar bear cub.

Rejected cub Flocke is currently under the protection of US Marshals sent to Nuremberg.

Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid!

Hi, Guys!
Recently, the Washington Compost had a brief article about the fruit bats shown above.  They live on an island near Madagascar, in the Indian Ocean, weigh up to ten pounds, and have a wing span of four to six feet.  They are sometimes also known as fox bats.

Perhaps most interesting is that, although they sense the fruit they eat by vision and smell, not echoes like most bats, they choose to go out for dinner after dark, when presumably the fruit is harder to see...

In the daytime, when they sleep, they hang upside down in tall trees.  Because locals often like to kill them for food, they have discovered that selecting tall trees in cemeteries works best, since the natives don't like to go there.

Hmmm....  Large bats from the species Pteropus vampyrus who only hunt at night for things more easily seen in daylight and who choose to live in cemeteries... Sound familiar?

Such creatures have recently been having an unusual impact on my daughters, nieces and even the Queen.  They have been seen spending long hours reading hundreds of pages of what appears to be an advertising catalog for cheap beer.

Then, they have been going out at strange hours (12:01 AM) to see the infomercial made about this beer ad catalog, where they were joined by thousands of screaming female teenagers who had apparently been served this beverage before legally allowed.  The Queen went to see the infomercial at 11:00 AM, where she was joined by only nine other women.  The daughters went back for second helpings.

The basis for all this weird behavior is apparently some dude named Edward, a guy with slightly reddish eyes, pasty white skin and a really bad haircut.  One of my daughters told me that he was among the "Ten Sexiest Men of 2008", a title for which I have yet to be nominated, much less selected. 

Not unlike the Pteropus Vampyrus, this guy has some strange habits - and an inexplicable attraction for women who read beer catalogs.  Also like the huge bats off the coast of Africa, Edward seems to have a penchant for tall trees,  places where he takes his date?

Anyhow, I believe that all real men, not those who have been selected as the sexiest man of any given year, should look into this matter more closely.  It would be bad enough to lose your women to some cheap beer, but to then have them taken into tall trees, only to lose their balance and fall, would be a tragedy. 

Maybe that's why one of the follow-on catalogs was titled Breaking Down...

(Note:  this post was written by a polar bear and edited by a Beluga whale. Please do not complain to the normal author of posts on this blog.  Happy Thanksgiving.  Thank you.)

This and That

Hi, Guys!

That's what a little friend of mine (age 2+) says whenever she sees the Queen and I.  Saw her during a short trip to Ohio last week.

Several items of interest, perhaps.  First, spent two hours on Animal Planet Channel last night, watching back to back episodes of "Polar Bears Uncovered" and "Whale Wars."  Began to think that this channel is designing its schedule just for me and my blog readers...

Learned that polar bears can smell food (alive or dead) 15 miles away.  They are slow in getting there because of their weight, but they keep following their noses until they find the food.  Also learned, to my disgust, that male polar bears often stalk female polar bears and their one or two cubs, waiting for the cubs, who do not yet have the several hundred pounds of blubber insulation, to founder.  The mother polar bear must then move on, protecting the survivor cub, while the male, not normally the father polar bear, then eats the foundered cub.  Only one in six polar bear cubs makes it to their second year...

Also learned that polar bears have occasionally come upon Beluga whale pods that have become boxed into ice pens.  The show reported that up to 40 whales had been slaughtered and eaten by polar bears in one such instance.  It turns out that polar bears can swim the 100 meter Olympic race 10 (ten) seconds FASTER that any human swimmer, including Michael Phelps!

So, how ironic, the Kernal's two favorite critters turn out to be joined at the hip on the food chain...

As to whales, "Whale Wars" was all about "the Sea Shepherds," a group of eco-loonies who attack Japanese whaling ships in the Antarctic, throwing stink and acid bombs onto the decks, and attempting to foul the propellors by throwing heavy rope lines under the ships.  Two of the "Sea Shepherds" leaped aboard the Japanese ship from a rubber Zodiac speed boat, and then wondered why the Japanese crew tied them up and sailed away.  The eco-loonies were looking for the chance to yell "hostages" to the eager international press...

On the cancer front, I recently had another PET scan.  Some unknown activity showed in my neck, so I now must have yet another CT scan with contrast for the docs to examine in early December.  I feel fine and I detected no urgency from the docs, so I suspect all will be fine.  Stay tuned.

Finally, someone threw this over the internet transom the other day and I ordered a case of this obviously needed drug.  I'll let you know how it works, ya think?

PUSHing for Gunnar, Kirk, Jean, Denise and others of you who need our prayers.  See you on the high ground.

Recycling

Hi Everyone!

Just wanted to close this Halloween weekend with some thoughts on recycling.

If you go back to my January blogs of this year, you'll find the picture of me above.  It was the day I was fitted for my radiation mask, the one that mapped my head so that the IMRT radiation beams could be fired at exactly the right spot and at exactly the right millisecond.

You may recall that I was strapped down with this mask attached to the table and my hands and feet bound so that I could not move during the 35 hours of radiation therapy I had, one hour at a time.

My good friend, Lady Josh of Jean's Green and Pink Ribbons, is now undergoing the same sort of radiation treatment, although I don't think she has a mask.  Jean, I think of you and pray for you every day.  There's no reason why your therapy can't be just as successful as mine has been.

And, Brother Kirk, I think of you and pray for you each day as well.  Your chemotherapy has been, and will be, a lot tougher than the 288 hours of drugs in my body.  But your therapy can be, and will be,  just as successful as mine.

May both of you be blessed with strength and courage.   There are a lot of folks out here who are mentioning your name to the Lord each day.  He will watch over you, even on those days when you feel too tired to be strong.  Be strong anyway!

And, at the end of your treatment and after you recover, there are times when you will look back and wonder how you did it.  It was with His help and His strength when yours was not enough.

Plus, you will get to laugh again!  Like last Saturday when we took the local kids and grandkids to the Udvar Hazy Air and Space Museum for their Halloween Open House.  Guess what I wore as a costume?

Let me assure you that, although there were a lot of witches, the Queen and her sister Linda among them, and although there were plenty of Star Wars characters, there was only one guy wearing a radiation mask among the thousands in the place. 

I was asked by over 25 parents to have my picture taken with their children, who found me to be pretty spooky.  I even told a few parents what the mask was when they asked. 

So, despite my aversion to polar bears and whales, you can see that I'm really ecology friendly by recycling that which most would rather discard.

Jean and Kirk, save a souvenir for when you reach the high ground!

Stop Wailing!

Hi, Everyone,

It's been awhile since I've seen you all and the markets are still jumping up and down, so I think I'll pick another topic besides finance for this post.  You know my thoughts on polar bears, but where does the Kernal stand on whales?

Whales are NOT our friends.  Just ask the Digital Architect.  When he was still in high school we had an attractive but totally soaked young lady come to our door in a rainstorm and ask us to help her "save the whales."  We invited her in to towel off, and as she was doing so we explained several things about whales that she perhaps had not known:

1.  Whales are the dinosaurs that escaped into the ocean after that huge comet hit Earth.  They are one of only two fish-like mammals that live in the ocean, the other being dolphins.  By escaping into the water, they survived the extinction of their fellow dinosaurs.  This explains why they are so huge, just like their dead brothers were.

2.  Whales cause more international disputes than any other animal.  Brazil, Japan, American Eskimos, Russians, Iceland and others are continually arguing over which of them has a need and the right to "harvest" whales.  Add Greenpeace to that mixture and there is continuing strife at sea.

3.  Whales are the largest single polluters of the oceans.  Baby whales are born weighing one ton or more and they double their length in one year.  Adult Right Whales grow to up to 60 feet long and weigh up to 80 tons!  Now just how much do you think these beasts have to eat to support that kind of growth and weight?  The resulting waste products sink to the bottom of the sea, bringing forth our common expression, "lower than whale poop..."  Lots of it.

4.  Whales do not like humans.  Didn't you read Moby Dick?  Not only do they not like us, they are also involved in a plot to return to dry land now that the comet dust has cleared.  That's why you often hear or read about a bunch of whales who beach themselves on our shores.  Here is a picture of a platoon of them trying to sneak ashore. They're baaaack!

5.  Finally, whales provide the pretext for the ecoterrorists who wish to prevent the U.S. Navy from training and commercial shipping from doing its job efficiently.  Just last week, the U.S. Supreme Court was asked to rule on the NOAA regulation that says that all shipping arriving in this country must slow to 11.5 MPH within 20 miles of our coastline.  The "Save the Whales " crowd wants that limit moved out to 30 miles from the coast.  Why?

Because only 83% of the whale sightings occur within 20 miles from the coast, while 90% occur within 30 miles.  So, they asking for a 50% increase in slower, more inefficient shipping to gain a 7% increase in whale sightings.  Will this help "save the whales?"  Nope.

For two reasons.  First, since NOAA started the 20 mile limit in 2006, there have been a grand total of 3 whales who have been struck by ships and were killed.  Three whales in two years!  Now there's a crisis!  

Second, no one has yet shown that the ships struck the whales rather than the whales struck the ships.  Remember, whales do not like people.  Remember Jonah and remember Pinocchio! It is said that the whales are too slow to ram ships, yet we have pictures of these 80 ton ex-dinosaurs leaping out of the water higher than Michael Jordan ever could.  They don't look so slow to me.

On the West Coast, the Whale People want the Navy to stop training on the use of new sonar which will detect the very quiet diesel submarines which have been developed by the Chinese and North Koreans.  The Whale People claim that their huge friends become disoriented by the sounds of the sonar and head for the shore to become stranded and die.  That platoon you saw on the beach didn't look very disoriented to me - they were in an attack formation!

They obviously have forgotten that the whales are intentionally coming ashore, usually in the dead of night, to see how far inland they can get before dawn.  That also explains why you read about the occasional whale or two found swimming well upstream in someone's river.  They are the scouts, looking for a place where the rest of the whales can land, hide and rest while learning to walk again.  They're baaaack!

Perhaps the most telling comment to come out of the Supremes last week was from Justice  Stephen Breyer:

"I don't know anything about this.  I'm not a naval officer.  Why couldn't you work this thing out?  You're asking us - who know nothing about whales and less about the military - to start reading all these documents to try to figure out who's right... I think the whole point of the armed forces is to hurt the environment...On a bombing mission, do they have to prepare an  environmental impact statement first?"

Well, despite his proper concern with the weirdo arguments of the Whale People, I found the good Justice's knowledge of the military and its mission to be just a wee bit disconcerting.

Beware of people who want you to love polar bears and whales.  You'll be safer and glad if you exercise that caution.  And if you hear something big flopping around in your back yard, don't turn on the lights to take a look...

There is some high ground somewhere near you.  Know where it is.

 

Thank Goodness!

Today marks a milestone not seen since the elections of 2006:  the Congress of the United States  temporarily stopped their partisan rancor and childish bickering long enough to actually get done what was required for the good of the Nation.  Hooray!

After Monday's failure to pass the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, our legislators watched the markets erase $1.2 Trillion in wealth, the credit markets begin to tighten further, foreign governments and central banks pleading for American action, and small and large businesses throughout America begging for help.  The Commercial Paper market, the way firms borrow short term without having to float bonds or issue new stock, had doubled interest rates on those notes within two days.  A real wolf was at the door.

The legislator with the best name in Congress, Zach Wamp, Republican of Tennessee, said that he had "voted with his heart against the bill on Monday."  Today, Congressman Wamp made the decision to vote with his brain.  33 Democrats and 24 other Republicans who had opposed the bill on Monday today joined Representative Wamp in becoming "brainiacs."  What a pleasant change...

The President signed the bill this afternoon and SECTREAS Paulson promised to start immediately to implement the purchase and removal from the credit markets the toxic sub-prime mortgage securities as the law now requires.  This will happen over the next several months, not the next several days, so we must not expect that the disaster which has been building since 1977 will be swept away in the blink of an eye.

Several alarming things I have learned in this crisis.  First is that the children of the United States are no longer required to take a Civics Class in high school.  I learned this on the golf course, playing with a kid from the local school.  Now, Civics was not my favorite class in school, but at least I was once exposed to the mechanics of how a bill becomes a law. My golf partner had no clue.  Today's kids apparently only know what arrives as a text message on their phones...

Second thing I learned, to my dismay, is that a Congresscritter, once having voted with his/her electronic card and with the vote closed and the results announced, may then ask his/her party whip in the House to CHANGE THEIR VOTE for the record, as long as it does not change the outcome of the overall vote.  So those 58 brave Members of Congress who decided to vote their brains instead of their heart today, may well go home tonight and tell their constituents that they remained true to their heartfelt principles throughout the week.  

If there was a way for me to discover that my representative had voted one way and then said they didn't, that would seem to me to be an impeachable offense.  But, alas, those minor details are not public in accordance with House policy.

I hope some of you took the opportunity I mentioned in an earlier post to add to your financial portfolios during the Wall Street fire sale this week.  I think I said you needed to act NLT early Thursday, but I didn't explain why.  Wall Street has long embraced the mantra, "Buy on the rumor, sell on the news."  The markets went up on Wednesday and Thursday as buyers were reacting to the Senate's action and rumors that the House was coming around.  Today, when the House passed the bill (the news), the markets dropped off slightly as sellers took control.

I added Goldman Sachs and Apple to my portfolio this week at prices less than half of what they were several months ago.  There are still some bargains left after today's slight drop, but if you want to take advantage, I wouldn't wait much past early Monday.  

Normally, I am very much opposed to market timing as a strategy.  In this instance, I simply see a "bottom fishing" opportunity which I think will be fleeting.

Well, the storm clouds will clear over time and we have apparently dodged this bullet.  Now, let's take the time to relook how we got to this mess, so that "Wall Street Greed" is not seen as the only villain.  It seems to me that there is plenty of "Vote Buying Greed" that deserves equal billing.

Thanks for your many positive comments on my attempts to cut through the fog of this crisis.