An Amazing and Slightly Terrifying Photograph

The Drudge Report posts a photo of a storm that must've hit Miami this evening. It's truly an amazing photograph. 

Another Book on the Reading List

Dang. It's always something.

First it was William F. Buckley's new autobiography, which awaits my perusal following Motherless Brooklyn.

And now, it's Roger Kimball's The Rape of the Masters: How Political Correctness Sabotages Art.

Q&A with Kimball is available on the National Review's Web site. I read the article looking for excerpts to post here and found that exercise to be fruitless, primarily because I enjoyed it all and don't feel like quoting out of context.

I am not currently a subscriber to either The National Review or The New Criterion. I have a feeling I ought to be a subscriber to both.

All that comes before in this post is an example of what a little late-night Web surfing can do; I was going to link to Rich Lowry's Tuesday article, "W.'s Double Binds," which begins:

Sometimes a political figure becomes so hated that he can't do anything right in the eyes of his enemies. President Bush has achieved this rare and exalted status. His critics are so blinded by animus that the internal consistency of their attacks on him no longer matters. For them, Bush is the double-bind president.

It's an interesting article and kind of fun, even if you're not a rabid right-winger like I am.

Weekend Parties & Photos

This weekend was full; Saturday night I hosted a grill-out party; it was fun, and it went late, but I think the mosquitoes ate more than the people did — and the people ate a lot. In fact, the party spilled over into Sunday morning. Folks went home, and then some of them came back tonight for round two. Too bad that work beckons in the morning for everyone.
 
I've decided that a digital camera is in my future. As well as a Mac. I've wanted one for a while now, but the lure of iPhoto and the other iApps is too strong to resist once one's actually considering a digital camera. Plus, OS X rocks.
 
I don't know that I'll take the G5 plunge now or wait for the new G5 iMac. I'd rather have the pro machine with the 23" HD monitor, but justifying it in terms of hobby-like photography is tough.
 
But the real problem is with the camera. I'm conflicted; I'd like a small and portable camera, because I figure I'll get more use out of that type of camera; I have an old Eos Rebel that I love, but it's big and bulky and difficult to travel with. Not the kind of camera you can take with you and snap photos any old place. It's what I might call a "destination camera." The sort of camera that requires constant planning for its use. You take it with you when you're going someplace where you're sure you want pictures. So I'd like the portability of something smaller.
 
I'd also like, however, to get the resolution and picture quality that's available from nice lenses and mondo-megapixel cameras. Additionally, everybody and his brother is making digital cameras nowadays; sifting through all the different models to find one that's appealing may take some serious time.
 
I've looked at cameras from Canon and Minolta, and I've read good and bad things about both. But that's just scratching the surface. I've used a Kodak EZShare, but it's a couple years old.
 
Several of you out there have digital cameras, I'm sure. Your comments are welcome and would be of some assistance as I begin the trek into the wilderness of digital camera-buying land.