Jeff Baxter, Missile Defense Analyst

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Via the Arms Control Wonk we learn that NASA has chartered a new Exploration Systems Advisory Committee whose members include “Jeff ‘Skunk’ Baxter, Missile Defense Analyst, Beverly Hills, Calif.” As Jeffrey puts it:

Yes, that is “Skunk” Baxter of the Doobie Brothers. How the hell does a guy in a band called the Doobie Brothers keep a security clearance? …. Perhaps our missile defense policy makes more sense if you’re high.

In addition to the Doobie Brothers, Baxter also did a stint with Steely Dan, where on Countdown to Ecstacy he “sheds his outer skin and stands revealed as a Wild Boy.”

Lonnie swept the playroom, and he swallowed up all he found.
It was forty-eight hours ’til Lonnie came around.

I think there’s little doubt that this is the only album I own by a bona fide Missile Defense Analyst.

Wet

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For my one reader who lives in the neighborhood, a weather update: 0.41 inches of rain overnight. That brings us to 1.63 inches for the month – the fourth straight month in which we’ve received more than double our normal rainfall here in Albuquerque.


New Mexico Central Valley rain graph

That’s precipitation for the first three months of the year for New Mexico’s central valley climate division. You can see rather a spike for 2005. April will certainly push the spike up farther once that data is added in. (Data courtesy Western Regional Climate Center.)

The Good and the Not

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As a regular visitor to a minor league baseball stadium, I have always been curious about the difference between those who will make the big leagues and those who will not. In rare cases it is obvious. I was in awe the day I say Pedro Martinez make his AAA debut in Albuquerque. I had never seen a change-up like that here. But usually, to my not-very-cultivated baseball eye, it is not at all obvious.

In today’s New York Times magazine, Michael Lewis has a piece that wanders in quietly – almost like a baseball game, I suppose – through the question:

As Paul DePodesta, general manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, puts it: ”A very small percentage of the players in the big leagues actually are much better than everyone else, and deserve to be paid the millions. A slightly larger percentage of players are actually worse than players who are stuck in the minors, but those guys usually aren’t the ones getting the big money. It’s the vast middle where the bulk of the inefficiency lies — the player who is a ‘known’ player due to his major-league service time making millions of dollars who can be replaced at little to no cost in terms of production with a player making close to the league minimum.” Just beneath a thin tier of truly great big-league ballplayers is a roiling inferno of essentially arbitrary promotions and demotions, in which the outcomes are determined by politics, fashion, misunderstanding and luck. Put another way: the market for most baseball players is hugely speculative, more like the market for, say, new Internet stocks than the market for stocks in companies with healthy earnings. The investors don’t know how to value the assets.

big-ass wings

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Kids with the moral fire and mischief of youth. Nothin’ like it.


angels

The angel on the left is my daughter, Nora. The angel on the right is her friend Kelsey. The people behind them are – well, I’ll let you judge for yourself. I think not angels.

The backstory dates to October 1998, when Matthew Shepard was beaten to death in Laramie, Wyoming. When Fred Phelps, the notoriously hateful homophobic preacher, brought his bile to Laramie to protest at Matthew’s funeral, people were dumbfounded. When he returned to protest again at the trial of one of Matthew’s assailants, Romaine Patterson was ready:
(click through for more)
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5,000 CFS

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Typical flow on the Rio Grande this time of year is about 1,000 cubic feet per second (cvs), but our gangbuster spring has the river flowing about five times average right now. That’s nothing compared to a real river. The Mississippi River at Thebes, Illinois, is flowing at 247,000 cfs right now, and that’s low for late April. But in the desert, we take what we can get, so Lissa and I went up to the Alameda river crossing at sunset this evening to take a look.

Rio Grande at Alameda

Thanks to Google Maps, that’s the Alameda bridges across the Rio. The bottom one, the one that curves, is the new road bridge. They one above it in the picture is the old bridge, which they closed to cars but kept for walkers and bikers and such. It’s the best spot to look at the river, because of the way it hovers over that island in the middle. Only this evening, it wasn’t an island. It’s mostly entirely under water, and the sand bar that you see in the top right of the picture is gone. It’s lovely.

Tendonitis

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After ignoring pain in my right knee for a couple of weeks, I finally stayed off the bike this weekend. In the last two years, the only weekends I’ve gone without riding came when I was traveling and had no bike. Or when I was in bed with the flu.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. There are far fewer weeds in the garden, and a bunch of other necessary chores have been completed. And my knee feels a lot better. But I’m still jonesing for a ride. I’m going to the doctor tomorrow.