40 Foot Crocodile Was Real; Moby Dick Was Real; Tom Horn Was Real November 20, 2009

Sereno Compares Dogcroc with Supercroc

Alligators and Crocodiles strike fear in people.  Can you imagine a 40 foot “SuperCroc?”    The Supercroc still holds the title as the largest known crocodile to roam the earth but who knows if there was a bigger one?   After all, University of Chicago palaeontologist Paul Sereno announced the discovery of the fossil remains of 5 ”new” species of crocodile that measure anywhere from 3 feet to 20 feet.  Today, crocodiles can reach as large as 20 feet but that still is but half of the size of the supercroc.  Some of these species are thought to have been able to eat other dinosaurs.    Another example of how mankind does not know everything and has a lot to learn and discover.  Remember that next time you hear of some scientific report that says something is “settled science” or there is a “consensus.”  That does not make it true.  One thing that is true is that at 9pm on Saturday November 21 the National Geographic Channel will be airing When Crocs Ate Dinosaurs as part of their Expedition Week.

On This Date in History: In 1820, the US whaling ship Essex got attacked by an 80 ton sperm whale 2000 miles west of South America. The 238 ton vessel sunk and all died except for 5 men who survived in an open boats for 83 days before rescue….thing is….originally there were 20 survivors….as the 15 died off from exposure and such, the remaining men had a little meal at their comrades expense, if you know what I mean. Not sure that if someone died, someone rang the dinner bell.

A White Humpback Whale

Anyway, this story inspired the tale written by Herman Melville called Moby Dick. Melville’s work was written in 1851 but Hermie didn’t do too well at the book stores. After some early success as a writer, he died in 1891 relatively unknown and not very wealthy. It wasn’t until the 20th century that Melville’s genius and talent came to be known. Nowadays, many academics consider Moby Dick to be one of America’s greatest novels. Melville lived near Nathaniel Hawthorne and dedicated his whale tale to his friend and famous writer. But the book only sold 3000 copies.

Dano In The Right Stuff

The photo above is of course from the famous 1956 movie with Gregory Peck starring as Captain Ahab. It also has Richard Basehart and a cameo by Orson Welles as Father Maple. Another guy who shows up is Royal Dano who plays “Elijah” who was a drifter kinda guy who is pretty scary and prophesies to Basehart the the ship would be doomed by a great white whale. Later, Dano in the early 1980′s is the preacher in The Right Stuff who seems to represent death as he shows up at all of the funerals, test flights and space shots. One other interesting aspect of the movie: the screen play was written by Ray Bradbury and John Huston. Huston also directed.

Greenpeace in Battle

On a related note…on this day at this very moment, a small fleet of ships in a Japanese whaling expedition is on its way to the Arctic regions to hunt whales. They want to get 90 sperm whales among other specimens. I say specimens because whaling is banned world wide under an international treaty. But they can be hunted for research. The official mission of the fleet is for research. Yet, when they left port they left to great fanfare and people of small villages in northern Japan claiming they need to whaling so that they may carry on their thousands of years old culture. Greenpeace isn’t buying the scientific aspect and will attempt to thwart the harpooning of the great mammals. Perhaps Moby Dick will resurface and get a bit of revenge.

Tom Horn

On This Date in History: Tom Horn had worked as a US Army scout, deputy sherrif, and Pinkerton

Horn Looks A Little Heavier and Younger Here

Detective in the 19th Century. When General Nelson Miles had need of a “super-scout” to help track down Geronimo, he called on Tom Horn. It has been suggested that Horn even arranged for Geronimo’s surrender. Horn was no shrinking violet. While working for the Pinkerton Agency, he reported killed 17 men. His reputation was such that on one occasion he reportedly simply walked up to an accused robber and killer and announced that he had come for him. The man quietly surrendered rather than face Tom Horn. But, the detective business wasn’t exciting enough and Horn quit, saying, “It was too tame for me.”

In 1894 he was hired by the cattleman’s association in Wyoming to supposedly combat cattle rustlers but in reality was used as an enforcer against small ranchers and homesteaders who got in the way of the cattle barons. In effect, he was the law for the big shots and served as judge, jury and executioner receiving $300 to $600 for each man he took down. See, Horn didn’t see himself as murderer but instead believed that when men in authority, or even the law, hired him, he would be protected. It usually worked out that way. Horn said, “Killing is my specialty. I look at it as a business proposition and I think I have a corner on the market.” He usually lay in wait for his victim and then made his mark by placing a rock under the victim’s head.

Horn Making The Rope For His Own Gallows

But, the law caught up with Horn who was arrested in 1902 for the killing of a 14-year-old son of a settler the year before. In Cheyenne, the cattle barons paid for his defense and a sensational trial ensued with everyone thinking that he would be found not guilty. That was not to be the case. The prosecution had a legal reporter along with federal officer Joe LeFors and a deputy sheriff got a drunken Horn to supposedly confess to the killing. The “confession” was allowed in court and heard by a jury that was stacked with opponents of the cattlemen. Horn was convicted and on this date in 1903, Tom Horn went to the gallows after making the rope that was used in the hanging.

Steve McQueen’s 2nd to last movie was a biopic called Tom Horn with

McQueen Was a Great Tom Horn

Linda Evans, Slim Pickens and Richard Farnsworth. I guess the moral to the story is that no one is above the law and even if you get convicted of something you didn’t do, perhaps it is a justice of nature for all of the things that you did do but for which you were never caught. You may think that this held true for a certain Heismann Trophy, NFL Hall of Famer who is now in prison in Nevada.

A long bio of Horn. A shorter bio of Horn.

Weather Bottom Line:  Weekend looks great, but seasonably cool.

Alleged hit-man murder caught on camera, shown on TV; Martian Invasion causes panic! October 30, 2009

A MARTIAN INVASION!!!!

In the United States lately, there has been a discussion regarding the amount of violence being shown on TV.  Some groups allege that, in particular, images of violence against women have increased on prime-time tv shows.  The fear is that it may create a more violent society or cause kids to become more violent.  It’s an old argument.  30 years ago when I was in Journalism school at the University of Texas, that was one of the topics covered.  I recall a “true false” question asking if a child was exposed to violence on TV was he more likley to become a violent person.  I never studied for that class.  I don’t think I even came to class except for the tests.  Well, they’ve taken things a bit farther.  The murder of an alleged gangster in Italy, shot dead at point blank range, was captured on video cameras and the footage was shown on TV.  Wonder how that would suit anti-violence groups in the states?  The cops in Italy say they released the video in hopes of catching the shooter.  Imagine what a field day the cable networks would have with that in the US?  Would it create pandemonium on the streets?

Orson Welles did On This Date In History:

A Vicious Invader?

The Martians Invaded on this date in 1938…at least that’s what millions of Americans thought. A young 23 year old radio man named Orson Welles presented a show on CBS radio. He began by saying it was an adaptation of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds. It began at 8 pm. But a whole bunch of people were listening to Edgar Bergen and his dummy, Charlie McCarthy on NBC. Bergen’s routine ended at 8:12 and many switched to CBS. By then the radio-play was already going so they missed the opening disclaimer. Welles’ production had some sort of regular sounding broadcast with a weather report followed by some cheesy music that went on for some time before a reporter broke in with a report (I don’t think they called it “breaking news” then) and he said there were explosions on Mars. Then more music followed by another break in with a hysterical “reporter” describing ugly Martians getting into large machines that rose out of the ground with long tentacles. It reported that the machines fired heat rays and destroyed a national guard unit, dropped deadly gas bombs and they were destroying everything.

People thought it was real. Some went bananas and jammed the highways looking to get out of

Orson So Good He Caused Mayhem

town. CBS had Welles break in and remind everyone it was fiction, but no one listened. The panic was on. Reports of suicides came in but there was no confirmation. Congress naturally had to investigate and found nothing was wrong. Welles thought his career was over. Instead, he got a cinematic contract which led to his production of Citizen Kane which has regularly topped the list as the best movie ever made.

Like Welles, sometimes we create the worst in our mind when, in fact, the best is just around the corner. If you are discouraged or feeling that you’ve made a terrible mistake, keep your head up. You don’t know what the future holds and today’s set back may just be the foundation for tomorrow’s success.

HPC calls for about 1.37" of rain

Weather Bottom Line:  I will dispense with the details.  Rain holds off until tonight. The amount is whatever its gonna be. I’m thinking about an inch, give or take a quarter inch. The HPC says about 1 and a third inches of rain.  We have windy and warm conditions prior to the slow-poke front’s arrival.  As I had explained previously, the main conversion zone is well to our south in the lower Mississippi Valley where they’ve had heavy rain and a few tornadoes.  With the abundant moisture, it seems likely that we will get a fair amount of rain Friday night through probably at least late morning on Saturday. This system is so slow as the parent low to the north winds down, that I might suggest that rain may still be in the area toward midday.  But, it should be dry and cooler for the afternoon and the UL game. Maybe a bit breezy as well.  The kids on Halloween should be dry but with temps in the lower 50′s, it will probably be a bit chilly for the ghosts and goblins…so give them another sheet.

Did Bill Ayers Write Obama’s Book? Is Palin Really a Tax Raiser? Did Mars Attack? October 30, 2008

A MARTIAN INVASION!!!!

The weather turned out as expected. The winds were sufficient to keep the mercury from falling too far on Wednesday morning. The low in Louisville at the airport was 34 and the NWS office was 32. Other areas were similar with many around the freezing mark, a few in the uper 20′s and the cooperative observer at Bradfordsville in the extreme Southeastern part of the viewing area getting down to 24, which seems rather odd but other nearby places around Campbellsviille being 26. I guess the wind wasn’t as strong there. A frosty start Thursday will mark the end of the chilly conditions. We’ll have an inversion over us on Thursday afternoon so the highs will be in the low 60′s but we jump to the upper 60′s and low 70′s for Halloween and that type of regime will continue through the weekend. No rain in sight until the middle of next week.

Louisville's Christina Fougnie Stars in Clancy

Shot In Metro Louisville

Local Movie of Note: Snow White and I had dinner with Jefferson and Kelly Moore the other night. Jefferson Moore is a local actor who, with his wife, have formed a production company. They have made two films that have done quite well world-wide on video and it was adapted into a tv series. It’s called The Perfect Stranger and the two movies are available in Blockbuster or directly from Kellyfilmworks. The movies and series were shot in the Louisville Metro Area with much of the cast being local talent. Coming next is Clancy which is a very heartwarming story. It too was filmed in the Louisville Metro Area and you may recognize some of the cast, including the star, 12-year-old Christina Fougnie. They are working on distribution and it may be in a theatre near you or on TV in the near future. But, if you CLICK HERE you can get a sneak preview. It’s a good flick for the whole family and, while it is quite uplifting, it’s not something that will send the community into hair-raising pandemonium like

Orson Welles did On This Date In History:

A Vicious Invader?

The Martians Invaded on this date in 1938…at least that’s what millions of Americans thought. A young 23 year old radio man named Orson Welles presented a show on CBS radio. He began by saying it was an adaptation of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds. It began at 8 pm. But a whole bunch of people were listening to Edgar Bergen and his dummy, Charlie McCarthy on NBC. Bergen’s routine ended at 8:12 and many switched to CBS. By then the radio-play was already going so they missed the opening disclaimer. Welles’ production had some sort of regular sounding broadcast with a weather report followed by some cheesy music that went on for some time before a reporter broke in with a report (I don’t think they called it “breaking news” then) and he said there were explosions on Mars. Then more music followed by another break in with a hysterical “reporter” describing ugly Martians getting into large machines that rose out of the ground with long tentacles. It reported that the machines fired heat rays and destroyed a national guard unit, dropped deadly gas bombs and they were destroying everything.

People thought it was real. Some went bananas and jammed the highways looking to get out of

Orson So Good He Caused Mayhem

town. CBS had Welles break in and remind everyone it was fiction, but no one listened. The panic was on. Reports of suicides came in but there was no confirmation. Congress naturally had to investigate and found nothing was wrong. Welles thought his career was over. Instead, he got a cinematic contract which led to his production of Citizen Kane which has regularly topped the list as the best movie ever made.

Like Welles, sometimes we create the worst in our mind when, in fact, the best is just around the corner. If you are discouraged or feeling that you’ve made a terrible mistake, keep your head up. You don’t know what the future holds and today’s set back may just be the foundation for tomorrow’s success.

Political Tidbits worth reading:

Used a Ghost Writer?

The weather is quiet so I’m taking the opportunity to bring up a couple of questions posed by some writers of such things. Just some items to consider.

Senator Obama wrote a memoir Dreams From My Father. It has been well received by critics. However, this writer raises the question of who wrote Dreams From My Father? He presents evidence and a point of view that Senator Obama could not have written it and suggests that none other than Bill Ayers wrote it.

Here is the article-decide if the writer Jack Cashill makes his case.

Governor Sarah Palin has run on a record of standing up to the oil companies. She is

Raised Taxes and Cut Hockey?

running on a platform of cutting taxes. The top part of her ticket, Senator McCain, has been charged with wanting to cut corporate taxes. Yet, Governor Palin raised taxes on oil production in her state. This writer raises the question is Sarah Palin a tax cutter? The article suggests that not only did she raise taxes, but did so when the state was running a budget surplus of over a billion dollars and that, in spite of the budget surplus and projected overwhelming growth of tax revenue, she cut some programs…including funding for a local hockey association…by a “hockey mom.”

Here is the article by Alison Fitzgerald-decide if she made her case

I put these types of things in here from time to time because it seems to me that we hear all of these things on TV in commercials and speeches but really don’t get the details or in depth analysis. It makes it difficult to figure out what is truth, what is spin and what is total fabrication. I short, it is my view that the media has done a poor job in providing information to the public concerning this election. These two articles just seem to touch on some issues that may provide some things to consider.

Whale Tale Before Turkey Day November 20, 2007

A couple of notes….after a fine Tuesday afternoon…we go into the tank. Rain on Wednesday and a few t’storms. The Boys at the Severe Storms Center have us barely in a slight risk for severe weather. Data I see at this point doesn’t support that too strongly. It would appear to me that we are at the extreme periphery of the region most likely to get some action because of the very fact that the data is not strong. However, it will be worth while to monitor and you know we will. Big chill on Thanksgiving Day. Flurry or two possible Thursday night but it won’t be significant. I saw a local tv station promoting the possibility. That is just plain silly and you shouldn’t be suckered in. I’ll let you know when its a big deal. For that matter…any time you think there may be something significant, come and check my blog and I’ll give you the real low down. Our regular forecast is mainly just the facts man and no promotion induced hype. But I try to give other details that we may not have space or time to do elsewhere. In this case, you can tell that because I didn’t post the NWS maps, I’m not too enthused….instead I have Gregory Peck…

On This Date in History: In 1820, the US whaling ship Essex got attacked by an 80 ton sperm whale 2000 miles west of South America. The 238 ton vessel sunk and all died except for 5 men who survived in an open boats for 83 days before rescue….thing is….originally there were 20 survivors….as the 15 died off from exposure and such, the remaining men had a little meal at their comrades expense, if you know what I mean. Not sure that if someone died, someone rang the dinner bell.

Anyway, this story inspired the tale written by Herman Melville called Moby Dick. Melville’s work was written in 1851 but Hermie didn’t do too well at the book stores. After some early success as a writer, he died in 1891 relatively unknown and not very wealthy. It wasn’t until the 20th century that Melville’s genius and talent came to be known. Nowadays, many academics consider Moby Dick to be one of America’s greatest novels. Melville lived near Nathaniel Hawthorne and dedicated his whale tale to his friend and famous writer. But the book only sold 3000 copies.

The photo above is of course from the famous 1956 movie with Gregory Peck starring as Captain Ahab. It also has Richard Basehart and a cameo by Orson Welles as Father Maple. Another guy who shows up is Royal Dano who plays “Elijah” who was a drifter kinda guy who is pretty scary and prophesies to Basehart the the ship would be doomed by a great white whale. Later, Dano in the early 1980′s is the preacher in The Right Stuff who seems to represent death as he shows up at all of the funerals, test flights and space shots. One other interesting aspect of the movie: the screen play was written by Ray Bradbury and John Huston. Huston also directed.

On a related note…on this day at this very moment, a small fleet of ships in a Japanese whaling expedition is on its way to the Arctic regions to hunt whales. They want to get 90 sperm whales among other specimens. I say specimens because whaling is banned world wide under an international treaty. But they can be hunted for research. The official mission of the fleet is for research. Yet, when they left port they left to great fanfare and people of small villages in northern Japan claiming they need to whaling so that they may carry on their thousands of years old culture. Greenpeace isn’t buying the scientific aspect and will attempt to thwart the harpooning of the great mammals. Perhaps Moby Dick will resurface and get a bit of revenge.

Martians Invade! October 30, 2007

The weather is great. Look for a few up and downs with a nice evening for Halloween then cooler air for the next few days through the weekend followed by an up time on Monday. Right now a sharp cold front looks to be moving in by next week but the timing is questionable at this time.

On This Date In History: The Martians Invaded on this date in 1938…at least that’s what millions of Americans thought. A young 23 year old radio man named Orson Welles presented a show on CBS radio. He began by saying it was an adaptation of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds. It began at 8 pm. But a whole bunch of people were listening to Edgar Bergen and his dummy, Charlie McCarthy on NBC. Bergen’s routine ended at 8:12 and many switched to CBS. By then the radio-play was already going so they missed the opening disclaimer. Welles’ production had some sort of regular sounding broadcast with a weather report followed by some cheesy music that went on for some time before a reporter broke in with a report (I don’t think they called it “breaking news” then) and he said there were explosions on Mars. Then more music followed by another break in with a hysterical “reporter” describing ugly Martians getting into large machines that rose out of the ground with long tentacles. It reported that the machines fired heat rays and destroyed a national guard unit, dropped deadly gas bombs and they were destroying everything.

People thought it was real. Some went bananas and jammed the highways looking to get out of town. CBS had Welles break in and remind everyone it was fiction, but no one listened. The panic was on. Reports of suicides came in but there was no confirmation. Congress naturally had to investigate and found nothing was wrong. Welles thought his career was over. Instead, he got a cinematic contract which led to his production of Citizen Kane which has regularly topped the list as the best movie ever made.

Like Welles, sometimes we create the worst in our mind when, in fact, the best is just around the corner. If you are discouraged or feeling that you’ve made a terrible mistake, keep your head up. You don’t know what the future holds and today’s set back may just be the foundation for tomorrow’s success.