wallpaper All I'm Going to Say About SOTU Today

wallpaper (Clay Bennett) Didn't watch it, haven't read it, haven't read any commentary on it... yet. If it's important, it'll keep. If not, it doesn't matter what I think. Heading home later than normal, and looking forward to finishing Robert Charles Wilson's Blind Lake- nothing like some good character-based scifi (albeit with some good hard science and plausible non-science) to put a days worth of irritating news behind one's self.

wallpaper Pessimism

I have been hoping that Palin's comments regarding "blood libel" (not to mention the Washington Times "pogrom against conservative thinkers") would finally tip the balance in favor of "stupid." She's even getting flack from those on the right. David Frum, for example, said, "She should stop talking now, really." And:

Newt Gingrich, another likely contender for the 2012 presidential nomination, had barbed advice for Palin on ABC's Good Morning America breakfast show. "I think that she's got to slow down and be more careful and think through what she's saying and how's she's saying it," he said.

Granted, Palin's favorability ratings are at their lowest since she entered the national consciousness, but how dumb does one have to be to be unacceptable as a presidential candidate?

Pretty goddamned dumb, I guess. I was reminded of this quote from Gingritch- reported 16 years ago today:

While teaching his history course at Reinhardt College in Georgia a couple of weeks ago, Ms. Schroeder noted, Mr. Gingrich had expressed some thoughts on the subject.

If combat means being in a ditch, he told his class, "females have biological problems staying in a ditch for 30 days because they get infections, and they don't have upper body strength."

Men, he said, "are basically little piglets; you drop them in the ditch, they roll around in it."

And yet, he went on, if being in combat "means being on an Aegis class cruiser managing the computer controls for 12 ships and their rockets, a female again may be dramatically better than a male who gets very, very frustrated sitting in a chair all the time because males are biologically driven to go out and hunt giraffes."

Oh yeah, Newtie is considered a potential 2012 Republican contender too.
wallpaper (Savage Chickens) So 'scuse me; I gotta go kill a giraffe.

Followup: I meant to include a link to Tomasky's comments on Hannity's interview of Palin. Now I have.

...the interview was a predictable exercise in self-justification. She still doesn't know what "blood libel" actually means historically, saying that "blood libel obviously means being falsely accused of having blood on your hands." Maybe Randy Scheunemann can work on that with her one of these days, after she sorts out the difference between South and North Korea.

wallpaper Go Ahead. Ignore It.

wallpaper Wil Wheaton's Tumblr. Followup: I thought this looked like a Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal panel, and it is.

wallpaper Poor, Delicate Flowers

wallpaper This Modern World. BTW, those cross-hairs on Palin's map? Turns out they were meant to represent "survey marks." Hoocoodanode? To which @tbogg commented, "Johnny Cash once surveyed a man in Reno just to watch him die." Another fine quote from the same account came down the pipe just a little while ago: "Compromise in DC: conservatives will tone down the rhetoric and liberals will agree to not be so whiny when they get shot"

wallpaper Another Riveting Paleontology Documentary

wallpaper (Savage Chickens) Dinosaurs are cool, don't get me wrong. And I almost never watch television, so honestly, I don't know if this has even been done (Though I do know BBC did First Life, I don't know if it has aired in the US... well, okay, according to Wikipedia, it has.) But the fact that some extinct animal, or plant, for that matter, isn't a dinosaur, isn't gigantic, and isn't (gasp!) even a vertebrate doesn't mean it's dull. So while I enjoy the above comic, I sort of resent the attitude that spawned it. (This shouldn't be taken as a criticism of Doug Savage, the artist, but rather of broad attitudes in our society.)

wallpaper Have a Secure New Year

wallpaper Clay Bennett

wallpaper Deck Us All With Boston Charlie

wallpaper Deck us all with Boston Charlie,
Walla Walla, Wash., an' Kalamazoo!
Nora's freezin' on the trolley,
Swaller dollar cauliflower alley-garoo!

Don't we know archaic barrel
Lullaby Lilla Boy, Louisville Lou?
Trolley Molly don't love Harold,
Boola boola Pensacoola hullabaloo!

Bark us all bow-wows of folly,
Polly wolly cracker 'n' too-da-loo!
Donkey Bonny brays a carol,
Antelope Cantaloupe, 'lope with you!

Hunky Dory's pop is lolly gaggin' on the wagon,
Willy, folly go through!
Chollie's collie barks at Barrow,
Harum scarum five alarm bung-a-loo!

Dunk us all in bowls of barley,
Hinky dinky dink an' polly voo!
Chilly Filly's name is Chollie,
Chollie Filly's jolly chilly view halloo!

Bark us all bow-wows of folly,
Double-bubble, toyland trouble! Woof, woof, woof!
Tizzy seas on melon collie!
Dibble-dabble, scribble-scrabble! Goof, goof, goof! wallpaper

wallpaper I'm Gonna Be SOOOOO Bad!

wallpaper This is indeed Bad Science... solar panels don't use "fuel" so to discuss their "fuel efficiency" is nonsensical. Make mine anthracite or jet.
wallpaper Anthracite
wallpaper Jet

wallpaper Rain

It has been raining pretty heavily all week, with something of a break yesterday, and a torrential downpour predicted for today. The weather service had issued flood warnings- warm temps and rising freezing levels combined with rain do awful things to the mountain snowpack, namely. send it raging toward the valleys.

It has barely been drizzling today, though it has been raining heavily further north, and I understand Portland is having problems with street flooding and blocked drains.

I have mixed feelings about this: I enjoy vigorous weather, and we don't get all that much of it here in western Oregon. On the other hand, floods can be a royal pain, or much worse. Probably the greatest danger in my neighborhood comes from landslides and debris flows. While here on the valley floor such mass movement isn't an issue, you don't have to go far from where I'm sitting to find places where it would be a serious concern and real danger. And it's not as if, as I said earlier, we have been particularly lacking in the precipitation department recently.

Still, I had my expectations for a roaring downpour, and I can't help but feel a little disappointed. I have a feeling that Randall Munroe at xkcd can relate.
wallpaper