Car Photo of the Day: Bulbous & Bug Splattered

A unique machine in many ways. This one (embarrassingly enough) out-ran the E-type at one point in the rally we shared. Mind you, I was in the navigator’s seat and instructed my driver to “catch that car” as I wanted to photograph it, and it ran away from us at triple digit speeds. I’m certain we could have caught it, but my driver was … timid. 😛

He can explain himself in the comments if he feels the need to (you know who you are!)

Meanwhile I’ll leave it to the rest of you to sort out the identity of the machine.

“You can always count on Americans to do the right thing…after they’ve tried everything else.”

Churchill said that. The question remains as to the definition of the “right thing.”

I’ve never felt very well represented by either of the major political parties. If anything I’m a libertarian, but can not bring myself to actually join the party of that name. One thing I do like and appreciate is the peaceful transfer of power that happens at all levels of our government on a regularly, scheduled basis. The schedule itself is occasionally problematic, but the majority rarely achieves the tyranny the Founders so rightly feared. Today is just such a day.

I imagine an Obama Exit Counter will start shortly. Wish is how it should be. 😉

Car Photo of the Day: Name that car.

Yes, I know I still owe everyone my mini-trip report from the weekend, but I’m still wrestling with my photo editing software. I have a case open with Adobe, and perhaps if they can tell me why Photoshop Can’t Save, I’ll post something tonight. Meanwhile here’s a car to ponder, and it isn’t the MG B in the background. This is something you don’t see too often on these shores, but I’m sure John will have them buzzing all around him on the Monte Carlo Historique shortly. Sacre Bleu!

Can you name it?

Safe, But Also Sorry: Security expert Bruce Schneier talks about privacy and property in the information state – Reason Magazine

Safe, But Also Sorry: Security expert Bruce Schneier talks about privacy and property in the information state – Reason Magazine.

A good read, I highly recommend it. I’ve always said that 9/11 was the last airline hijacking that we’ll ever see in our lifetimes. No planeload of passengers will EVER just sit back and watch another one unfold. Never. As such TSA security is an absurd and invasive example of futility. Why bother?

Car Photo of the Day: Fangs of a Snake

I’ve had this image queued up for a while as I figured the guessing game from a few days back would still remain unresolved, but our resident Insane Canine pulled off a win around midnight last night. I also have to present my photos from my Jaguar outing yesterday, but I’m having software issues (more on that later!) preventing an update. Meanwhile, enjoy this gaze into the maw of a Shelby Mustang.

Car Photo of the Day: Double Jaguar Hero Shot

Since you guys are still ruminating over the last guessing game (that post is casting a long SHADOW) I present to you a hero shot of two Jaguars. Garth Norton’s S1 E-type is in the foreground – captured at a perfect moment with a wave from the driver (though the lens flare is a tad annoying), and his wife ahead driving the S2 E-type. A wonderful sunny late summer afternoon in Montana, and taken an hour and 100 miles prior to the Mystery Porsche Driver shown in the still unanswered CPotD guessing game from earlier in the week.

Today is a shockingly sunny January day so I’m going to unwrap the cat and wake it from its hibernation. Expect some photos later. 😉

Pondering Interesting Data

Have a look at this map.

I love maps, and when I was a kid I thought of becoming a cartographer. I can spend hours looking at atlases, Google Earth, etc. In fact I have found Google Earth to be a wonderful companion to reading books about history. You can visualize the terrain the author is describing.

Anyway, I saw this map linked from an article on Reason Magazine’s website: Washington’s Wealth Boom: The D.C. metro area is getting richer every year. That’s a problem for the rest of America. – Reason Magazine. As you can see they were concerned about the concentration of wealth around the nation’s capital.

You see this map paints the wealthiest counties in the USA red. The statistical anomaly I noted was the areas which we tend to think of as “vacation” spots: The San Juan Islands in Washington, The Lake Tahoe region, the areas around Sun Valley Idaho, Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Park City Utah, the Colorado ski towns of telluride, Aspen, Vail, etc. Outside of LA, SF & Seattle they pretty much make up the “rich” areas of the Western US… exclusively.

So does this mean the wealthy are not just vacationing there anymore, but have taken up permanent residence? Or was the data collection flawed? Interesting to think about.

(BTW: Can anyone explain the one county in SE Alaska? I thought the rich folks live in Anchorage?)