When the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Obama last December, it caused an uproar among those paying attention. The NDAA expanded the authority of the US military to detain and deprive of any due process anyone the US Government suspects of being involved with a terrorist organization in any way, shape or form.  Yesterday, the newly-appointed federal district judge Katherine Forrest of the Southern District of New York ruled to preliminarily enjoin enforcement of the controversial “indefinite detentions” provisions in the NDAA. More details from Glenn Greenwald at Salon …

Auf Deutsch hier …

During spring break we took Wally and Cleo on their first over night trip with us. We loaded  them on their trailer and hauled them 100 miles South, to a horse farm near Southern Pines. The weather was great – dry and sunny and in the 60s – so not too hot for some vigorous cantering on the forest trails in the Sandhills.

The only problem we encountered was our mare going into heat as soon as she got off the trailer. The area around Southern Pines is North Carolina’s horse country and there are many breeding stables around … with many breeding stallions. Cleo immediately picked up that scent and went a bit crazy. One morning, a nearby forest fire covered the area in smoke and during that time Cleo was fine because she could not smell anything. As soon as the smoke lifted, she got all excited again.

Wally, our gelding, was fine. He seemed to enjoy the exercise and the change in scenery. I know we definitely did. In the pasture next to our guys were three Tennessee Walker geldings and Cleo and Wally had some friendly “social” contact as well. And we got to talk shop with some other TWH owners – which was interesting, since most of our friends with horses ride quarter horses or other breeds.

Our rig worked our pretty well, too. I had to buy new tires for the trailer before the trip, though. I had my tire guys check them, because two of the tires were real old and showed signs of dry rot. Turns out the tires on the trailer were just regular 4-ply car tires with nowhere near the correct weight rating. So I bought nice D-rated trailer tires. You can’t be careful enough with a horse trailer. A blowout on the highway can be a real disaster.

I also learned to avoid towns as much as possible because stop-and-go with a 10,000 pound rig kills the fuel mileage. On the way back we stayed on the highways and used less fuel even though that route was 20 miles longer. I estimate that we got about 10 miles/Gallon with the loaded trailer. On homebrew biodiesel, of course.

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Happy Earth Day! Today I made biodiesel batch no. 82.* It is still in the processor right now.

Today was a rainy, cool day. It rained all day, and that’s great, because we really need the water. Yesterday I cleaned my two 250 Gal (1000 Liter) rainwater containers. One of them was already 1/3 full late this afternoon.

[Edit: *) that's 82 batches since Aug. 2006]

“A well designed product does not require decorations”

Ferdinand Alexander Porsche gave us one of the most beautiful cars, and one of the most enduring automotive legacies – the Porsche 911.

He passed away today at the age of 76.

Spring is in full swing this morning. It’s warm and a bit breezy, and the forest is bursting back to life.

Noch ein paar Fruhlingsbilder hier …

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März ist Ausnahmezustand hier in NCAA Country – March Madness steckt alle hier an. Besonders hier in North Carolina, wo wir dieses Jahr 4 Basketball teams in der nationalen Hochschulmeisterschaft hatten. Vor ein paar Minuten hat es UNC  in das regionale Endspiel geschafft. Das heisst das Team ist eins von 8 Teams die noch von 68 Teams in diesem K.O. Turnier übrig sind. Die anderen North Carolina Teams waren Duke University (UNC’s Erzrivale) und UNC Asheville – beide sind in der ersten Runde ausgeschieden, und North Carolina State University die heute abend gegen einen der Top-favoriten des Turniers antreten (Kansas U).

Duke, UNC und NC State sind alle super College Basketball Teams und die sind alle hier in 20 KM Radius von einander. Das heisst sie sind auch grosse Rivalen. Insbesondere Duke und UNC, deren homecourts nur 15 Min Fahrtzeit von einander entfernt sind (Duke hier in Durham, UNC in Chapel Hill). Ich muss hier wohl erwähnen dass ich meinen Uni Abschluss bei UNC gemacht habe und jetzt bei Duke arbeite (Wie viele meiner Kollegen).

Drei Wochenende im März sind wir hier alle vom Basketballfieber ergriffen. Ja – naturlich ist es “nur” College Basketball – und nicht NBA – aber die Spiele sind spannend  und die NBA ist sowieso vom Kommerz dominiert. Und so viele Leute hier sind auf die eine oder andere Weise mit einer oder anderen Universität verbunden und habe damit ein Interesse wie ihr ihr Team bei dem Turnier abschneidet.

Und deshalb geht es hier rund, jedes Jahr im März – in NCAA Country.

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Today, Joachim Gauck was elected the 11th President of the Federal Republic of Germany. The non-partisan consensus candidate of the five mainstream parties (SPD, Green Party, CDU, CSU and FDP) was elected by a majority of 991 votes out of 1228 votes cast in the Federal Convention.

In the previous Federal Convention in 2010, Joachim Gauck (72) was the candidate of the center-left coalition of the Greens and the Social Democrats. In 2010, Gauck lost narrowly to Christian Wulff who became the 10th President of Germany. In February, Wulff resigned after only 2 years (out of a 5-year term) amidst allegations of corruption during his time as Prime Minister of the state of Lower Saxony.

With President Gauck and Chancellor Merkel, two of Germany’s top Government positions are now occupied by devout Lutherans who grew up in the East Germany and were active in the anti-communist opposition under the Communist regime there.

Herzlichen Glückwunsch, Herr Gauck!

Last week the starter on my truck died. I had had some problems starting the truck, but I blamed the old batteries. I installed new(er) batteries, and all seemed fine. Until last week. The starter was dead – not even a “click” – nothing. I was just lucky that we made it home. At the grocery store it almost did not start. Finally at home it was done.

When I added up the cost of towing the truck to a shop, plus a +$200 part plus an hour or so of labor, I became really interested in trying to fix it myself. Even if I could just save the towing and labor and replace it myself. After some research, I figured out that the Dodge RAM trucks come with a very nice Denso OEM starter. A new Denso starter is almost $400. And these starters are actually fairly easy to repair.

A YT video that explains how to get out that starter, got me started on this project. I got the starter out and replaced the  solenoid contacts and plunger. Now the solenoid engaged properly again, but the motor was still not moving. Only smoking. So I took the motor apart as well and god! what a mess!It was full of sticky, oily dirt and could just not move. I cleaned it carefully, but one of the ground wires had come off the brush plate (probably when I took it apart). I used a butt splice to temporarily reconnect it and put it all back together. When I connected the starter to my emergency battery I got the thing to turn. So I ordered a new brush plate from LarryB’s because the brushes were worn down almost all the way. Installing the brush plate was not trivial because the wires are massive, and you have to solder them on to the old contacts. And it was ACC tournament weekend. And I hate soldering. Finally, Laura helped me with the soldering and we got the brush plate installed. last night I put it all together and this morning, I installed the starter, and … it worked!!

See below the fold for more pics and details.

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Raffi Khatchadourian’s in-depth account of the BP DeepWater Horizon oil spill cleanup effort provides an interesting perspective on one of the largest responses ever mounted to a man-made environmental disaster. He uses many war analogies and the whole story has a bit of an “embedded reporter” feel to it. It’s a very sincere account of a reporter who clearly spent a lot of time with the responders at and on the Gulf of Mexico. There are many accounts of how the responders were caught between politics, public opinion and mother nature. Just like in a war.

Personally, I am very much inclined to lay the blame for this disaster squarely at BP’s feet. Their sloppy safety caused this. But based on Khatchadourian’s account, I understand now also that BP did make a good-faith effort at containing the spill and mitigating its effects. I also better understand the choices that were made regarding the use of dispersants. There is just no simple “good guy” – “bad guy” picture when it comes to the containment and cleanup effort.

It has become conventional wisdom that the BP-funded response to the spill was a chaotic and mismanaged affair, driven by corporate avarice, lacking in urgency, and at times willfully negligent of the problem’s scope—the idea being that any organization that had caused such a catastrophe, and that was so clearly unprepared for it, could not in good faith clean up the scene of the disaster. The evidence for this is much like the imagery of heavy oiling: vivid and convincing upon first consideration, but also fragmentary, anecdotal. At the peak of the cleanup effort, forty-seven thousand people were fighting the oil, a community equivalent in size to Annapolis, or the workforce of G.M.—as one federal scientist called it, “a company built in the middle of the night.” In just half a year, the response expended nearly sixty million man-hours, roughly nine times what it took to build the Empire State Building. After the well ruptured, BP accepted help from competing oil companies, and hired the world’s leading oil-pollution specialists to run key operations. The logistical demands on the effort, which spanned the entire Gulf coast—a region of varied geography and political culture—were immense. President Obama was not exaggerating when he announced in June, “This is the largest response to an environmental disaster of this kind in the history of our country.”

Read more in the New Yorker

I am taking welding lessons Wednesday nights at the local Community College, and so I spent three hours last night welding with a stick welder. At 2 AM, I woke up and I felt like my eyes had burning sand in them. That condition is called flash burn, or arc eye, and it is essentially a “sunburn” on your cornea from the intense UV radiation the welding arc emits. It was painful enough to keep me awake for hours. I took a bunch of Ibuprofen and had a couple of beers to ease the pain. Apparently, raw potato slices are one way to treat this condition, or at least to ease the symptoms. I found that ice cubes on my closed eyelids really ease the pain, too. So this weekend I’ll go to the welding supply store and get an auto-darkening welding helmet. That should take care of the problem.

DEUTSCH hier …

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Spring is here – and so is the Doughman! 9 days ago we had snow, but for the last few days the weather has been warm and spring-ish. And on Sunday I got my team registered for the Doughman race! So it’s definitely time for spring. Sunday I managed to guess correctly the restaurants involved in the 2012 Doughman race and showed up at the right time at the right place (Dain’s Place, of course) for the guerrilla registration process.

Well, OK … so I got the Cuban restaurant wrong, at first. But I figured it out, and I was early enough to run over to the Old Havana, get the required picture and make it before the registration window was done. I had to hustle , but I did it! So my team will be competing in the Doughman, again this year!

This winter has been really mild here in North Carolina, but last night we did get a 1/2 inch of snow.  The ground was pretty warm after a mid-50s day, and so this morning there is no snow on the roads. Even so, there were some accidents and schools are on a 2-hr delay. We expect the snow will be gone tonight, as temperatures will get back above 50 this afternoon.

Wir hatten einen sehr milden Winter hier in North Carolina aber letzte Nacht bekamen wir ca. 2cm Schnee. Da es gestern 12° C warm war, blieb auf den Strassen nichts liegen. Trotzdem gab es ein paar Unfälle und die Schulen beginnen den Unterricht 2 Std später als normal. Der Schnee wird sicherlich bis heute Abend schmelzen, da auch heute wieder die Temperaturen auf über 10° C ansteigen werden.

Noch ein Bild hier …

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Schönen Valentinstag, liebes Deutschland!

• Reporter: Sie haben doch bestimmt eine Liebste Zuhause … oder ‘nen Liebsten?
• Passant: Ich weise diese Unterstellungen zurück!! Unterstellungen sind ein journalistischer Trick …

Ich könnte schwören dass ich bei dem Alten mal Untermieter war!

“Der Globus dreht sich!” Fantastisch!

Is this what the natives do in Norway during those long winters? They drink and swim in the frozen fjords? This guy is nuts! And his videos are really entertaining and well crafted. By far the best storytelling I have seen on YT in a while.

Was machen die Norweger während der langen Winter dort? Sie trinken Vodka und gehen Eisschwimmen. Und jezt filmen sie das alles auch noch. Super Videos hier von einem Norwegischen Ureinwhohner in seinem natürlichen Lebensraum.

Today is Dain’s Birthday and the 5th anniversary of his bar, Dain’s Place! I went there for lunch today and gave Dain a bottle of last year’s barrel-aged Sexual Chocolate stout. Happy birthday, oh Bearded One!

The Great Beer Quest of 2012 was a smashing success! Just look at these four beauties!

Last night at 11PM, I met Oz, Derek and Dan in Hillsborough, they piled into the Beast and we roared over to W/S to Foothills Brewery. We hung out at the release party for the Sexual Chocolate Stout and had several rounds of this year’s release. At 2AM they closed the joint, and we headed out to the sidewalk in front of the brewery. There were about a couple dozen die-hard Footheads (incl us) who set up camp in front of the brewery in the increasing NC winter chill. During the day it was around 60 Deg. F, but temperatures dropped down to around freezing as the night wore on.

I slept for quite a while in the back of the truck, on a comfy mattress under the camper shell, while the others hung out and claimed our spot. We ended up 12th, 13th, 14th (me) and 15th in line :)

There was a fair amount of drinking going on and for quite a while the cops were pretty lenient and nice to us. But then some (probably tea-totalling) Lieutenant showed up and ordered the others to crack down and by 5:30 all booze had to be disappeared. Bastards! One kid got a damn ticket for pissing on a dumpster. A f@#$&’n ticket!

But besides the law-enforcement harassment, the quest was a success. We got our beers – the finest Imperial Stout on the East Coast in a limited bottle release … four bottles per person. Oz and I gave Jamie (the brewmaster at Foothills) a big hug. This was the first ever successful beer quest for us Durham Footheads ever (at the regular release in January). We tried in 2009 – only to return empty-handed! Last year, we were successful at the first Summer Beer Quest for the bourbon barrel aged Sexual Chocolate Stout release. But camping out for beer in the summer is one thing. Camping out for beer in January – even in NC – is only for the true Footheads. So, finally we did it and succeeded! Cheers!

some pics below the fold …

[Update] Check out the news coverage on CNN … and then there is this guy …
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Kawah Ijen Sulphur miner (photo by Jean-Marie Hullot)

Michael Glawogger’s film “Ghosts” on AlJazeera is a fascinating portrait of the sulfur miners at Kawah Ijen – an active volcano in East Java, Indonesia. It’s a quiet film with authentic voices and eerie, haunting images of men scraping sulfur from the smoking mouth of the volcano and carrying their heavy baskets out of the caldera and down the mountain.  The men discuss bar brawls, music and the dangers of their job: “I can tell you exactly how it happened with a friend. He was breaking off chunks of sulphur. He suddenly slipped and fell into the boiling sulphur and was burned to  death.” Ghosts is part of AlJazeera’s series “Working Man’s Death” – an “unflinching portrait of physical labour in the 21st century”.

(Blackout template by Zachary Johnson)

Today’s unprecedented Internet protest against SOPA/PIPA censorship laws was a huge success. Thousands of websites observed a “blackout” and even Google displayed solidarity and has forms posted for contacting lawmakers. So far 13 Senators – mostly Republicans – have withdrawn their support for PIPA. This is not a partisan issue. Rather, this issue pits techies against Hollywood special interests. The Democrats apparently are so beholden to Hollywood interest that they are handing this debate to the Republicans. On a silver platter. In an election year.

Wednesday, Jan. 18, some significant parts of the Internet will go on strike. The websites will only show one page related to the protest against the SOPA legislation the US Congress is considering. This law would allow the US government to shut down any site if there is any suspicion of copyright infringement. If the site is outside the US, the government could force ISPs to block access to the site. SOPA is stupid and dangerous. Except for the part where they could send Justin Bieber to jail because of his YouTube vids. That I like.

Today Wikipedia signed on to the strike. Wikipedia will be blacked out all day on the 18th to protest SOPA. So students, better get your papers done tomorrow! Other internet heavyweights also joined the strike: Reddit, Tucows, Cheezburger Network (Failblog, DailyWh.at) and WordPress have joined the cause. Some other media have noticed and they are writing about this. Great! The pressure is on and the SOPA proponents are feeling the squeeze! Let’s kill that abomination of a bill. SOPA must not pass!

… and no end in sight. Despite his promises, President Obama has not closed the beacon of injustice that is the prison at Guantánamo bay. Arond this week’s 10th anniversary of the opening of this facility, the story of one of its former inmates, Lakhdar Boumediene, has been making the rounds:

In 2001, Lakhdar Boumediene was falsely accused of being an al Qaeda operative while working for a humanitarian aid organization in Bosnia. Even though Bosnia’s highest court found no evidence against him, the U.S. government kidnapped Mr. Boumediene and sent him to Guantánamo, where he remained for 7 ½ years without charge or trial. (ACLU)

Boumediene also wrote a short, poignant OpEd on the NY Times:

When I arrived at work on the morning of Oct. 19, 2001, an intelligence officer was waiting for me. He asked me to accompany him to answer questions. I did so, voluntarily — but afterward I was told that I could not go home. The United States had demanded that local authorities arrest me and five other men. News reports at the time said the United States believed that I was plotting to blow up its embassy in Sarajevo. I had never — for a second — considered this.

Gitmo must be closed and all cases reviewed! More info at the ACLU …