This morning I had the privilege of attending a mass rally on the national mall in Washington DC. This event was organized by TV and Radio personality Glenn Beck, and was entitled “Restoring Honor”. Many saw this as a follow on to “Tea Party” rallies held in the fall of last year, and I can attest to the large crowds of tea party members in attendance today.

In general I am in favor of not just the concept of “Restoring Honor” to the away Americans conduct themselves, as well as the charity that this rally was intended to support, the Special Operations Warrior Foundation. The rally was peaceful as I had expected, and I did not personally see any dust-ups, trouble makers or people attempting to create problems in the massive crowd.

Like so much of America these days, many in the crowd were eager to make this a personality cult centered around Beck or keynote speaker, Sarah Palin. This was evident within the crowd, though Glenn Beck has admitted he does not see himself as the leader of any “movement”. Likewise there seemed to be a healthy does of what I would call “T-Shirt Patriots” who can attend an rally entitled “Restoring Honor”, yet have no personal plan on how they can improve this nation through involvement, effort or direct action.

The expected revolutionary war Cosplayers were present, though both the George Washington and Benjamin Franklin people looked like their heavy woolen garments were making ready to spontaneously combust in the hot August sun.

There was a great deal of controversy before the rally about Beck’s choice of place and time: The same weekend and location that Dr. Martin Luther King delivered his famous “I have a dream” speech. In reality Beck’s choice may have been a nod to history, but that end of the National Mall is a dreadful place to hold an assembly of any size. This was evident on Saturday as most people had no way to view the main stage or really participate. In the photo above you can see the central area is dominated by a large reflecting pool, meaning everyone was pushed to the sides and under the trees.

On the plus side of the rally, the speakers did not shy away from pointing out religion’s role in the foundation of this country, nor the benefits that a renewed focus on prayer and the Lord would bring to us individually and as a nation. Likewise the message of personal responsibility and necessity for free and critical thinking was a very powerful and in my opinion a positive statement.

In all, a large (maybe 400,000?) well behaved crowd interested in making America a better place. Who could disagree with that?

I have been watching with growing levels of delight as a community of amateur satellite hunters have been tracking one of our nation’s newest space platforms, known as the X-37B.  In this age of internet pundits seeking real time vainglory for themselves, there is rampant speculation what this thing is for, with frequent references to the “weaponization of space“.

Now word from the amateur sky watchers that our toy was able to disappear for a few weeks for some “alone time” away from their telescopes and orbital tracking software.

In May, avid skywatcher Ted Molczan studied the X-37B’s orbit from his home in Toronto and said its behaviour suggested it was testing sensors for a range of new spy satellites.

Since then, the X-37B been arguably the least-secret secret project on the planet, as fellow backyard astronomers joined in the scrutiny, aided by how-to video guides and apps such as the Simple Satellite Tracker.

That is, they did until July 29, when the shuttle disappeared, causing all kinds of consternation and conspiracy theories about its fate.

It took amateur skywatcher Greg Roberts of Cape Town, South Africa, who noticed that it failed to appear as scheduled above his base on August 14, another five days to find it.

Word to the guys with the telescopes, chances that this thing is carrying a weapon are pretty much zero.  You are probably looking at the next generation of space based sensor platform courtesy of your tax dollars and the brilliant minds at the NRO.  When the Future Imagery Architecture (FIA) went down in flames, they decided to try something new, and new is a good word to describe this thing.  Unlike current space based reconnoissance platforms, this thing is maneuverable, recoverable, and can appear over a target by surprise.  Because they can bring it home, they can change out the sensors and re-configure the platform to meet changing mission demands.

As it’s current trip is its maiden voyage, I am sure there are many more tricks this thing has left to employ.  Word to the bad guys, we are still watching.

“What we see as stagflation looming on the horizon in our side-view mirror today, may be full-blown deflation up-close as dollars are hoarded to pay down excessive debt and reduce, reduce, reduce.”

While we have warmed up somewhat in the past week, anyone who lives in San Diego can tell you how cold and gloomy the summer has been. In typical San Diego summer, there is a period in May and June where the cold water off the coast fuels a persistent fog layer that spreads miles inland, keeping the area cooler that the latitude would proscribe and giving rise to what the natives call “June Gloom”.  In most years, this pattern breaks by the 3rd week in June, and gives way to hot, sunny days moderated in the afternoon by a strong sea breeze.

Not so this year.  The gloom was entrenched until mid-August.  One likely explanation is a massively cold area of water in the eastern Pacific.  This is frequently referred to as  La Niña, the cold counterpart to El Niño’s warmer than normal water.

At the moment, science is not able to connect our diminished solar radiation to the cooling of the eastern pacific.  But if the lowered solar output is a driver for this, North America could be in for some unwanted weather patterns.

For starters, it could be very cold indeed over California and Nevada this winter.  With that huge pocket of cold water driving our air temperatures, we could see much lower daily lows than we are used to.  If this acts like the last La Niña, we could see a lack of rain this winter in the southwest, putting further strain on our sources in the Sierra and the Colorado River.?

The world is a dangerous place, and today that danger went up a notch.  Our erstwhile allies, the Russians, have decided to lease a powerful Akula / Project 971 nuclear powered attack submarine to India for an extended period of time.

India has been working steadily towards a home grown (and at some point for sale on the export market) nuclear submarine.  A significant part of establishing the INS as a credible submarine force is developing the operational doctrine that goes with a nuclear boat.

The Russians have agreed to lease for 10 years attack submarine K-152 known as the Nerpa.  When re-crewed for the INS, it will be know as the INS Chakra.  This 10 year lease indicates that India is not just going to train and experiment with this powerful platform, but will likely deploy it on operational patrols.  The lessons learned operating this sophisticated machine will rapidly boost the INS’s proficiency for the day when their own subs come on line.

Akula submarines are armed with four torpedo tubes that can fire Russian type 53 torpedoes or SS-N-15 Starfish missile, with an additional 4 tubes that can launch Russian type 65 torpedoes or SS-N-16 Stallion missiles.  The Nerpa likely has an additional 6 “static” tubes attached to the hull, but it is unclear if these will be removed prior to it’s delivery to India.

Akula submarines are among the more quiet of the Russian navy, and could possibly evade some less sophisticated detection systems.  We assume the US Navy is more than up to the task of finding Akula’s anywhere they sail, but for India’s prime enemy, Pakistan, an Akula is possibly too stealthy for them to detect.

While the chances of India threatening the US are remote, this is a clear sign of an escalating arms race in south Asia, which is being driven by the Iranian weapons programs.  The lease and likely operational deployment of the Nerpa / Chakra is a clear threat to Pakistan, and will likely prompt further anti-submarine technology purchases by Islamabad.

Overslept last night (despite the iPhone alarm I set) and woke up around 1 am. Not a problem: got the brisket out of the smoker, double-wrapped it, put it in the oven (at 200°) and went to bed.

Got up this morning at 6 am. Cleaned out the smoker’s firebox completely; the coals are on a grate, and I had been shoveling out ash from time to time, but this let me get everything cleared out. Likewise, replaced all the aluminum drip pans in the smoker itself with fresh clean pans. Lit a new set of coals in a chimney, then pulled the last smoking items — three bone-in turkey breasts and a leg of lamb — from the ice chest where they had been marinading since…Thursday night? Friday morning? I don’t remember.

I marinaded two of the turkey breasts in white wine with fresh basil and various poultry-type seasonings (sage, marjoram, rosemary, salt, pepper); the other turkey breast I marinaded in the same brisket marinade I on the brisket. All three turkey breasts have thick peppered bacon strips fastened via toothpicks as a way to help keep them moist early on; I will remove the bacon towards the end to allow the skin to brown and to help get the internal temperature up. The leg of lamb I marinaded in red wine, fresh chopped onions, fresh basil, garlic, salt, pepper, and olive oil; I’ve actually saved some of the marinade to baste it with while it’s smoking. They’re all on the grill now:

Right about now — the morning of — is when I start worrying that no one will show up. Sandra, my sweet wife, tends to worry the opposite: that everyone will show up. But we always get a great turnout, and Sandra always has a wonderful time once the first person walks through the front door.  ..bruce w..

Last batch of brisket has been in smoking since about 3 pm this afternoon; I plan to take it out around 11 pm and put it in the oven. At that point, I’ll let the smoker rest until early tomorrow morning, when I’ll start on the three turkey breasts and the leg of lamb. Sandra and I also got the downstairs set up (folding tables, folding chairs).

I have no photos to reflect the progress made as of this evening, so I’ll just stick in a gratuitous cute dog photo above.  ..bruce w..

Bit of a short night. I was up until nearly 1 am tending to the brisket, then got up at 4 am to add more coals and move the briskets around a bit, then got up at 6 am to take the briskets out of the smoker. Here they are:

I double-wrapped each one in heavy duty foil, then stuck them in the oven at 180°, where they’ll cook until tomorrow afternoon. Actually, I may pull them out of the oven early tomorrow afternoon and stick them in an insulated cooler, so as to free up the oven for other uses. Also, I’ve made arrangements with a friend from church who lives nearby to use her oven for some of the briskets, since I can’t fit ten foil-wrapped briskets into our double ovens. ..bruce w..

Answer: Thursday night. I lit the first batch of coals in the smoker roughly an hour ago and will be putting the first batch of brisket in shortly. Of course, with five minutes of my lighting the coals, it started raining, but the rain has been generally light. Also, I have a welding blanket (new purchase) to help keep the heat in the smoker overnight. This first batch of brisket will cook the longest, so I’m starting with the largest/thickest briskets.

Here’s one fresh out of the marinade:

After patting both sides off, I apply a dry rub to both sides:

And here are the first three briskets, starting their long journey to 4 pm (MDT) on Saturday:

Since I’m going to be up for a while, I’m going to start the turkey and lamb marinading.  ..bruce w..