From Ta-Nehisi Coates.
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Correction:
Originally mistakenly tagged “South Carolina” by a blind and incompetent editor.

In a posting below, I find that I misidentified the critters on the dam. They are Alpine ibex, not chamois.

Sigh.

Look closer.

These photographs are being widely distributed on the Internet, with the caprids misidentified as Bighorn sheep.

The location is actually Lake Cingino, a reservoir created by adding a dam and enlarging a small lake in the Valley of Antrona in the Italian Alps.

The animals on the dam are chamois Alpine Ibex, Capra ibex, who apparently frequent the dam face in search of salts that accumulate on the rocks of the dam.

Maurizio Piazzai has a couple more photos of chamois Alpine Ibex on the Lake Cingino dam here.
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Correction:

I had originally misidentified the animals on the dam as chamois, believing that the range of the Alpine Ibex in Italy was still limited to Gran Paradiso National Park. The absence in available photos of any full-horned rams faciliated my misidentification.

This factsheet shows that the current range of Alpine Ibex definitely includes the Valle Antrona.

Thanks to John Burchard for the correction.

Happily, my self-inflicted partition disaster proved easy to get fixed.

I concluded that fixing the problem required using the kind of utility programs only PC repair shops have on hand to get in and eliminate that GRUB Linux boot-loader, so I hauled it down to Dok Klaus in Warrenton.

Klaus had it fixed the same day and only charged me for one hour of service.

As PC problems go, it was ultimately minor. Now I have my entire hard drive to play with.

NYM readers may at least be amused.

It’s like this. I bought a Sony Vaio laptop a good while back. It was a bargain, but it came with Vista installed.

At that particular moment in history, I was feeling experimental. I felt like playing with Linux, and I had a hankering to see if I could possibly adapt to the MAC OS environment, one button mouse, all that. So I got a free copy of Ubuntu and bought a copy of Leopard on Ebay. I had been reading that it was possible to install Leopard on a Vaio with some fiddling.

None of this worked out for me.

Leopard could not relate to the notebook’s videocard, and I simply gave up and installed XP on the second hard drive partition. I wasted hours trying to use Linux, but it was just too much trouble to overcome the absence of a readily available driver for the wireless modem. Linux worked fine. It just could not contact the Internet.

So there I was with 80 gb of my hard drive devoted to a Linux installation I was not actually using. But, hey, I still had about 60 gb with Win XP on it, which was working fine.

But, over time, that 60 gb was beginning to fill up. I trashed the games I wasn’t actively playing and purged several large programs. Then, I started moving all the image files off the PC onto various backup drives. But, finally, I had just installed Lightroom and Visio, and C: was getting close to full again. There were getting to be fewer movable items. I got to thinking last night that I ought to do something about all this.

So I Googled on the phrase “eliminate partition” and, lo and behold, there was a link to a discussion explaining that you could do that by hitting START>Control Panel>Administration Tools>Computer Management>Storage>Disk Management, then all you had to do was right click on the offending 80 gb Linux Partition, and select Delete.

What could possibly go wrong? I thought to myself. Ubuntu goes bye bye. The 80 gb Linux Partition returns to being part of the ordinary C: drive. I have lots of disk, and everyone is happy. So I hit “delete.”

Then I looked at the properties of the C: drive, so I could admire all the great new space I had created.

Hmmm. No change. The only difference was that second partition was now unlabeled.

I guess I need to reboot before the change goes into effect, I concluded. This would be the moment of truth. If I had screwed the pooch, I would soon find out. But, how likely was that?

My keen mind, doubtless impacted by age and senility, had overlooked the obvious consideration that I had installed Ubuntu first, and Ubuntu had put itself in charge of the boot-up process.

So the PC turns off, starts to come up, and GRUB (Ubuntu’s Grand Unified Boot-Loader) starts looking for that now-unlabeled Linux Partition, can’t find it, and sits there… permanently, announcing Error 17.

Error 17 means that GRUB can’t find the partition it’s looking for. It then freezes and sulks.

So, this is how to disable your PC and create a fine opportunity to research sub-operating system levels of PC operation in both Windows and Linux lands.

Blogging will be less frequent for a few days. I’m using an older, slower machine.

Sarah Palin with husband Todd attending the Belmont Stakes

And some anonymous hatchet-wielder at Wonkette accuses Sarah Palin of surgical enhancement. That’s the left for you. Their mind is always in the gutter and they judge everyone by their own standards.

Watch Andrew Sullivan climb all over this one.
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Lori Ziganto notes how the left, as usual, missed the real story while focusing on trivia and spite.

Rachel Larimore, at Slate’s Double X, asked about the primary wins [Tuesday] night, “Where is the rah-rah sisterhood?”

The overriding theme of Tuesday night’s primary coverage was that it was a big night for female politicians. But there is a noticeable dearth of rah-rah sisterhood going on (though the National Review is pretty excited).

She further noted that the only talk amongst the Left, and feminists in particular, regarding this big night for conservative women was rather nasty comments about said women and lamenting that they were conservatives. Icky businesswomen, to boot! One even asked, “Do you still cheer if the ceiling is crashed by two conservative businesswomen?” ...

[A] big part of [the story of ] last night’s primary wins was that Sarah Palin had endorsed most of the winners, indicating that she does, in fact, wield quite a bit of power and has great pull with large segments of the population. Not everyone has to like Sarah Palin, but even those who don’t, should respect her, if only for the fact that she’s changed the national debate at least twice sheerly through her own Facebook postings. She is one of the best spokespeople we have right now. She pulls no punches and talks straight.

So, what is the story circulating among the lefty blogs and now worming its way into traditional media regarding Sarah Palin today? Not the success of the candidates she endorsed, but, rather, her breasts. That’s right. The big question of the day, first promulgated by the always inane Wonkette, is whether or not Sarah Palin had breast implants. I suppose we should just be grateful that it’s not incessant investigation of her uterus again, although I’m sure Andrew “I’ve finally lost my already weak grasp on sanity” Sullivan will work that in somehow.

UPDATE and CORRECTION:

She looks pretty similar to me in this August 2008 issue cover picture

Hmmm. Commenter Funkyphd informs me that the Vogue cover picture I referred to, which is all over the web, is a Photoshop fake. Thanks to Funkyphd.

I fell for it, I expect, because I knew that there really had been a Vogue feature on Palin published about that time.
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So what can we find in its place? How about this 1984 Beauty Pageant picture

and the 0:37 video of her apearance in the swimsuit competition?

The Vytis (Knight) is the national symbol of Lithuania

I’m of Lithuanian descent, and I can tell you that the Lithuanians think of themselves as a knightly nation and identify enthusiastically with their medieval warrior ancestors. In our Lithuanian parish’s elementary school, we spent every art class drawing and re-drawing the Vytis as our nuns explained to us that we descended from the knights of old and should behave just like them.

I did not know that these kind of reenactments went on in Lithuania. I would expect that this kind of thing was not permitted under the Soviets, and represents a recent development.

Here in America, the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) conducts tournaments with knights wearing armor and battling with wooden swords and heavily padded maces. The Lithuanians in the video, on the other hand, are bashing one another highly vigorously using actual metal swords. Since we don’t see anyone being divided into so many parts and losers do seem to survive, I assume the swords used are at least blunt edged. They do put up a good fight though.

3:55 video

The tournament seems to be conducted by a Lithuanian version of the SCA called Viduramžių Pasiuntiniai (Medieval Emissaries). They seem to be doing this every year. Google will translate the web page.

Hat tip to Stasys Daugirdas via Viktorija Daugirdaite Ruskulis.

Correction: I originally (following Google’s translation) translated the organization name Viduramžių Pasiuntiniai as “Medieval Courier.” Aistė Volkytė, witing from Lithuania, advised me that “emissaries” would be the more accurate translation.

Allee Bautsch and Joe Brown

We heard a great deal from democrats, the dinosaur media, and the punditocracy of the left recently about conservative rhetoric and all sorts of supposititious threats of violence to democrats who voted for the health care bill. No actual violence, of course, ever actually occurred.

It turns out, on the other hand, that leftwing violence these days is quite real. Last weekend, Allee Bautsch, an aide to Republican governor Bobby Jindal and her boyfriend were savagely beaten in New Orleans and both were seriously injured.

Nola.com:

The news release issued by New Orleans police Tuesday evening… notes that the 25-year-old female victim and the 28-year-old male victim were attacked in the 600 block of St. Louis Street after leaving an event at a restaurant in the 400 block of Royal Street.

Jindal’s office acknowledged on Monday that Bautsch, his chief campaign fundraiser, was recovering from a broken leg after an altercation with a group of people in the Quarter on Friday night. Bautsch was attacked after a fundraiser for the Louisiana Republican Party at Brennan’s Restaurant, 417 Royal Street, the governor’s office said. ...

New Orleans police say that the incident began about 10:45 p.m. when a group of three to five men made “derogatory comments” to Bautsch and her boyfriend. When the man described as the male victim “turned toward” the group of men, at least one of the men struck him repeatedly. The woman “fell to the ground and screamed,” the news release said.

Police released a description of one suspect, saying he was in his 20s, looked “dirty,” and wore his hair in an auburn-colored ponytail. The man was 6 feet, 1 inch tall with a thin build, police said. He wore a light-colored T-shirt and dark pants.

Officers in the area responded and requested EMS assistance. The woman used her purse as a pillow while waiting for help. Once she was in the ambulance, the woman realized her purse was missing, the release said.

Kyle Plotkin, a Jindal spokesman, said Bautsch had surgery during the weekend and is facing a recovery time of two to three months. According to the NOPD news release, Bautsch’s friend was treated at the hospital for a mild concussion, broken jaw and broken nose.

The attackers were probably persons involved in a radical protest against a Louisiana State Republican Party fund raising dinner taking place at a local restaurant. The Hayride, a local political blog, describes the protesters.

Michelle Malkin is discounting rumors that the couple was attacked for wearing Sarah Palin pins.

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UPDATE —4/17:

Several prominent conservative blogs are reporting today that the victims were uncertain about whether their attackers had any connection to the demonstration and did not identify any specifically political insults from their attackers, including both Michelle Malkin and Ed Morrissey.

Human Events talked to the victim’s mother:

Della Burning, mother of Jindal staffer Allee Bautsch, confirmed that her daughter had been savagely beaten. She refused to discuss whether or not politics were involved (although at one point in the interview she did say the report was “accurate” when New Orleans Police Information Officer said slurs hurled at her daughter during the attack were “political in nature”).

Burning confirmed her daughter’s leg is broken in four places and she has five surgical scars and a steel rod now running from her knee to her ankle with seven screws holding it all in place. She did not fall and break her leg as was reported in the lonely and inaccurate story done by the Associated Press.

Burning also confirmed that the attackers did not rob her daughter or her daughter’s boyfriend.

On the other hand, the local blog Hayride (which covered this story in a lot of depth) is still arguing today that the attack was definitely politically motivated.

I wonder exactly how much of the full story is yet to emerge at this point.

There won’t be a lot of blogging getting done today. We’ve been unpacking for a couple of days, and then arose at 4:30 A.M. this morning to drive up to the Dawn Easter Service at the Old Chapel (also here). Karen was part of the ensemble of singers performing Sacred Harp.

The Old Chapel is an unheated, unelectrified stone structure containing its original furnishings, and is the oldest Episcopalian church built west of the Blue Ridge. The slave gallery is, of course, a feature of ecclesiastical architecture unique to the South. Services began well before dawn and each person in attendance held a small wax taper with a circle of paper to guard the hand from hot wax drippings in the otherwise completely unilluminated old building.

After church, we went back to our old house on top of the Blue Ridge to pick up and transport another load, drove back to the farm, unloaded, changed clothing, and collapsed.

Two Sacred Harp shape note hymns can be heard performed on this 4:32 video

The singers at the Old Chapel this morning performed Green Fields, the second hymn on the video.

Curiously enough, we owe our access to Virginia hunting society to Sacred Harp signing. Karen met the Field Secretary of the Blue Ridge Hunt at a local Sacred Harp rehearsal and one thing led to another.

View from driveway near house looking toward gate

My wife and I had a bit of bad luck. When we moved to Virginia about three years ago, the real estate market was still high, and we had to pay through the nose for our current house. Values have plummeted, we’re a lot poorer than we used to be, and we concluded we would do better to take our losses on this particular real estate deal and move on.

Happily, we have found a new place. We’re moving to a smaller, but much older, house. The good news is that we are leaving six acres and moving to 131 acres, and the new place is a lot cheaper. You go through some stone gates and drive a few hundred yards before you even see the house. Karen was over at the new farm the other day, getting the invisible dog fencing installed, and along came the Old Dominion Hounds, hunting across our new property. (We know them and have been out with them on joint meets before).

Old Dominion descends from a private pack which used to be called Mr. Larrabee’s Hounds. Their button bears a griffin because they used to hold opening meets at the Griffin Tavern in Flint Hill. Mr. Larrabee founded his hunt back in 1924, at which time there was a shortage of foxes down in Fauquier County. So Mr. Larrabee imported a male European red deer, and proceeded (in the English fashion) to hunt the carted stag. I’ve run into old people who could remember the stag and the pack of hounds trotting home to kennels, companionably together, down the dirt roads after a day of hunting. Old Dominion’s country today includes the former territory of the Cobbler Hunt, whose MFH before WWII was George S. Patton, Jr. Our basset pack hunts the same territory. Appropriately for a skeptical person like myself, I will be moving to a town called Hume. We are still marveling at having moved so recently to Virginia, and finding ourselves not only hunt members but owners of a fixture. We’ll get to serve port and ham biscuits to the Old Dominion crowd when they meet at our place.

I have already concluded that Confederate forces could very possibly have bivouacked on our place on the way to the Second Battle of Manassas. I look forward to bringing in the metal detecting crowd. I’ll be a short distance from the Rappahannock (the shad and striped bass run into the river in the Spring) and there are brook trout in the upper reaches of the Rapidan. We may be in an economic depression and living in Obamistan, but things could be worse.

Stucco over fieldstone Antebellum Virginia farmhouse

We’re moving deeper into Virginia, leaving our current home with six acres atop the Blue Ridge for a 131 acre farm in Fauquier County not far from the Rappahannock. The moving process is a bit of an ordeal, and I’ll be busy sorting books and packing up breakable collectibles myself for days. Blogging will be intermittent and sparse, I’m afraid, pretty much all week. My apologies.

What world leader is so lame that he requires a teleprompter to address a class of 6th graders?

Hat tip to Gateway Pundit.

Remember Iowahawk’s message from Obama’s teleprompter video?
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CORRECTION:

Photos exist of his Obamatude actually interacting with the kiddies ex tempore. It turns out he brought the teleprompter to use to announce a program incentivizing school districts to adopt federal curriculum guidelines.

(From Dan Riehl’s commenter Ozwitch:)

What is even more disturbing than the need to whip TOTUS out to talk to school kids is the purpose of Obama’s visit to that school. He was announcing his desire to put billions more into his program “Race to the Top” (RttT in Obamaland cutespeak) and also create a means for school districts to bypass the authority of their State Boards of Education in order to apply for federal RttT funds. What is so disturbing about this? One of the requirements of winning this federal grant money is that local school districts must contractually agree to adopt federal curriculum guidelines, even those that have not yet been defined by the Obama Administration. Yup….the federal core curriculum issue rears its ugly head again.

Your tax dollars at work. NPR uploaded a 1:24 propaganda cartoon last November which has recently been noticed and is attracting criticism.

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Peggy Noonan says passage of the Health Care Bill is going to be a catastrophic victory for democrats. Republicans are currently simply waiting for democrats to finish destroying themselves, and she warns them that, with respect to their own coming political accendancy, they should take a cue from the film Saving Private Ryan (1998) and: “Earn this”
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How’s that Global Warming working out for you? Snow covers the United Kingdom from Land’s End to John o’ Groats.
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WordPress is retiring the much-admired Kubrick as its default format theme. Never Yet Melted started out briefly using Kubrick, like just about everybody else.

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Michael Scheuer says Obama Counter Terrorism Czar John O. Brennan in 1998 blocked a CIA operation that could have klilled or captured Bin Ladin.

No hunting today. We’re getting buried in snow atop the Blue Ridge.

Blogging will be delayed for a bit because I’m doing a whole bunch of long deferred PC maintenance. My summer antivirus update never installed properly, so there have been no updates since August. I’m installing (on Maggie’s Farm’s recommendation) ZoneAlarm instead.

OutlookExpress has begun eating my emails when it compresses, so I’m also installing and trying some alternative email clients.

I’m also setting up a domain for a new business entity.

I should get a post or two up later today, after I plow the driveway.

We were buried in the clouds associated with Tropical Storm Ida today, causing satellite Internet connectivity to grind to a halt. Sorry, it just was not working, so I read a book instead.