They're upping the ante

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Who ever said three's a crowd?

Each time you donate platelets from August 1 - October 31, 2008, we will scratch off one of 3 boxes on the postcard you receive in the mail to reveal a special gift. (Even if you don't receive a postcard, you will still receive a bonus gift for each platelet donation).

PLUS...

Make 3 platelet donations from Aug. 1 - Oct. 31, 2008 and get 500 Platelet Advantage bonus points. Make 4 platelet donations and get 750 extra points. All donations made between Aug. 28 - Sept. 8, 2008 will receive an extra 50 bonus points.

To schedule an appointment visit us at: www.plateletadvantage.com

Or, call the Platelet Concierge Desk at: 1-866-PL8LETS (758-5387)

If you cannot donate but still wish to participate in bringing life-saving products to those in need, please consider volunteering at your local blood drive. For general inquiries, or for additional information about volunteering, please call 1-800-933-2566.

Eduoard Threatens

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You can see Cristobal as he veers harmlessly off into the North Atlantic, and Dolly as she smashes harmlessly into Monterrey, 'harmlessly' here meaning 'in a way that does not impact my commute.' But. There's trouble brewing in the Eastern Pacific.

Now, quick. If you had to choose between a goofball Manned Mission to Mars and better cyclone intensity forecasting, which would you choose? I don't mean 'goofball' prejudicially.

The MBA explained

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Did you ever wonder how those people got into business school?

Palm-vein scanning on GMAT test takers... targets "proxy" test taking, a fraud in which applicants hire high-scoring imposters to take the exam in their place. Five years ago, federal authorities broke up a ring of six fraudsters who took more than 590 exams, including GMATs, for customers who paid at least $3,000.

I'm enough of a sucker for a free market that this sounds less like a boondoggle to me than if the government were doing it.

I was accused of cheating on my GMAT myself, incidentally.

GMAC*: You're accused of cheating!
Me: I didn't.
GMAC: Well, OK, then.

They did seem like they could use some beefing up in the investigative department.

* -- Graduate Management Admissions Council, not General Motors Assurance Corporation. They felt I had started a section early. The irony was, it was a computerized test. I didn't have any more control over when it started than they gave me. I've been accused of a lot of things -- I've been guilty about 72 % of the time, just so you don't start thinking it's an unfair world -- but this was one of the most puzzling.

Lifestyle changes to mitigate climate change

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Just looking at Greener Choices from the publishers of Consumer Reports.
1. Switch to green power -- did that.
2. Seal and insulate duct system -- I'm a renter. I use New York's infamous steam heat.
3. Drive a fuel-efficient car -- Got no car.
4. Replace an old hot water heater -- Renter!
5. Control heating temperatures -- I do this, which involves a lot of painful valve operation. See 'infamy' above under 'steam heat.'
6. Choose an energy-efficient central air conditioner -- I don't use an air conditioner. I'm thinking of changing that, though, at least for my bedroom. I'll try to get an efficient air conditioner, but that's really number 17.
7. Reduce driving speed and drive evenly -- ahhh, more on this below.
8. Control your hot water heater temperature -- Renter!
9. Tune up and maintain your car -- No Car!
10. Put your computer to sleep -- I turn 'em off.
11. Replace 5 regular bulbs with compact fluorescents -- Could do.
12. Carpool or telecommute to work -- Subway!
13. Control air conditioning temperatures -- No A/C!
14. Choose an energy-efficient washing machine -- My laundry is done by neighborhood Bulgarians
15. Combine errands or ride your bike instead of driving -- No Car!
16. Pump up your tires -- No Car!
17. Choose an energy-efficient room air conditioner -- No A/C!
18. Choose an energy-efficient refrigerator -- Renter! The unit I have is pretty well-rated, though.

OK. So, the checklist is pretty irrelevant to me. It's almost like they want us to urbanize, and I've already done it. All I really have left is to, when I drive, not drive like an asshole. But, I'm not sure I can do it.

Really, I leave 3 seconds of space in front of me and try to keep an even speed, signal and minimize lane changes, but it's hard to feel you're using time effectively when you're much under 80 miles per hour. Has it come to this? I really only drive once or twice a month. Maybe I'll try a trip at 65 mph and see how it goes.

Oceanside

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Now, I'm a returned Peace Corps volunteer. And one of the things that separates us as a class of people is that we're perfectly willing to talk about feces, specifically our own stool samples. It's a subject that comes up a lot over two years of tropical illnesses and strange foods, and after a while it's hard to recover the shame.

My own father developed sewage treatment devices, and I did some graduate work in supervisory control systems for municipal water systems at MIT. I am aware of the enormous waste water system that surrounds me, and I think it's a good thing (not a good a thing as weather prediction, but a pretty good thing.)

So, this idea that a waste water plant be renamed for George W. Bush, in order to remind us how shameful his administration was in perpetuity, makes me furious. I'm really angry. We're going to grow increasingly aware of our various public services as our standard of living declines, and we shouldn't be giving waste water plants names that lead us to expect "failure on... you name the subject."

Isn't there a trading floor that needs naming?

13 Dilbert Strips -- I made a movie

So, I was asked to provide commentary for a bunch of Dilbert strips some friends filmed and to string it all together. This is the result.

Manhattan Losing 6 Starbucks Stores

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Maybe fancy news outlets like the Wall Street Journal are too hot stuff to cover local news, but I think New Yorkers should expect to get at least as much consideration as Baton Rouge.

Right? Here's the PDF list of closings. Note that Manhattan and New York are listed separately. And here's the quote from the Journal:

The list reads like a cross section of the U.S., with closures planned inside shopping malls, near beach resorts, in college towns and off highways. Las Vegas will lose the most stores of any U.S. city, with 13 expected to close. It is followed by San Diego, with 10; Dallas and Baton Rouge, La., each with nine; and Houston, with eight. Starbucks's hometown of Seattle is scheduled to lose seven cafes.

Now, I can't name every neighborhood in Queens, but I can name some. So, here are the boroughs or Queens neighborhoods that I can identify with their closings:
Brooklyn: 1
Douglaston: 1
Glendale: 1
Manhattan: 1
New York: 5
Staten Island: 1
The Bronx remains unscathed. But, the point is, we match San Diego at 10. There are only two in Los Angeles, a municipality of comparable size. I've mapped the Manhattan closures, because I'm compulsive. You'll notice they're bordered by 7th Ave or Broadway to the West, 54th Street to the North, Madison to the East and 34th Street to the South -- the box would actually be much tighter if it weren't for the store in the Herald Square Macy's.

I don't tend to pass any of these locations, but the 9th closest Starbucks (according to Google Maps) to my office and the 50th closest Starbucks to my apartment are closing up shop. So, my options for confusing drink sizes, misleadingly named concoctions and smooth jazz will be slightly more limited by "early next year."

I call on America to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions from electricity production by July 17, 2018

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OK? Are you clear on that now? Incidentally, Al Gore has set the same goal. If you're keeping track at home, that's two of us. I know that it'll be hard to know which of us to credit when it happens, but let's leave that to historians to unwind.

Maybe he's a little more influential.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said he supported Gore's challenge, and said he would fast-track investments in renewable energy like solar, wind and biofuels if elected. "It's a strategy that will create millions of new jobs that pay well and cannot be outsourced, and one that will leave our children a world that is cleaner and safer," he said.

Obama's rival in the November election, Republican candidate John McCain, also backed Gore's plan. "If the vice president says it's do-able, I believe it's do-able," he told reporters.

John McCain likes to talk about Iraq, and he sounds like a crazy son-of-a-bitch when he talks about Iraq (as opposed to most topics when he sounds like he's parroting wingnut ideology he doesn't buy), but he does identify climate change as an issue we need to address.

Of course, so did candidate George Bush in September of 2000. He even had a plan to implement. Or, you know, a principle. Looking that link up (which took forever -- I was shooting for speech text) I got to read things like "the idea the global ice caps may melt." Now, we just talk about the disappearance of Arctic Sea Ice and the instability of Greenland's ice sheet, and I still meet people who don't believe in anthropogenic global climate change. What was crazy alarmist liberal science fiction 8 years ago is now just another thing that happens in God's creation.

The speech text I linked to is from the New York Times' "dot Earth" blog, and the blogger tries to annotate Gore's speech. However, he gets undeservedly snarky here and there.

Mr. Gore appears to have shifted from his original stance that climate change alone was the “planetary emergency” of our time to the multi-pronged view that including it in a basket of reasons to undertake a nonpolluting “energy quest” makes more sense.

I don't see a shift. I hear him saying, "We have to change our energy production to save civilization, and here are some other nice benefits."

But, the main point is, we need to hear this from someone in power. I'm happy the Democrat and Republican candidates have signed on, but they seem to have largely separated their Senatorial work from their campaigning. If they're both so on board with this, can they go back to their body and get a non-binding bipartisan resolution through the senate?

Ambit's undercut Iderbola

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You can apparently get wind power for less than I do.

gulp

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I do believe we're in for a rough couple of weeks.
GULF OF MEXICO...
DEEP LAYERED TROUGH IS OVER THE E U.S. DIPPING S OVER THE N GULF
WITH A EMBEDDED SHORTWAVE NEAR 28N88W. THIS IS PROVIDING SUPPORT
FOR A STATIONARY FRONT THAT IS ACROSS CENTRAL FLORIDA AND FOR A
1016 MB SURFACE LOW NEAR THE COAST OF TAMPA FLORIDA NEAR 27N83W.
A WEAK SURFACE TROUGH EXTENDS FROM THE LOW CENTER TO 24N85W.
THIS SURFACE LOW ALONG WITH DIFFLUENCE ALOFT E OF THE SHORTWAVE
IS GENERATING AN AREA OF SCATTERED SHOWERS AND THUNDERSTORMS
FROM 26N-29N BETWEEN 82W-86W AND ACROSS THE WRN COAST OF THE
FLORIDA PENINSULA AND THE WESTERN FLORIDA KEYS. ISOLATED SHOWERS
AND THUNDERSTORMS ARE FROM 25N-28N W OF 86W. FLORIDA SHOULD
EXPECT RAINFALL IN GENERAL FOR ABOUT THE NEXT 24 HOURS BECAUSE
OF THE DEEP LAYER TROPICAL MOISTURE AND THE LOW PRESSURE AND
CYCLONIC FLOW OVER THE STATE. SCATTERED MODERATE CONVECTION IS
IN THE FAR SW GULF OF MEXICO WITHIN 30NM OF 20N96W. ELSEWHERE
AT THE SURFACE ACROSS THE GULF S OF 25N...IT REMAINS FAIRLY
TRANQUIL WITH LIGHT WINDS AS A WEAK SURFACE RIDGE BUILDS BACK
INTO THE WRN GULF BY LATE WED. AN UPPER LEVEL RIDGE EXTENDS
E FROM TEXAS/NRN MEXICO COVERING THE GULF W TO 90W.

CARIBBEAN SEA...
AN UPPER TROUGH IS ACROSS THE NW CARIBBEAN DRYING THE AIR NEAR
ITS AXIS THAT EXTENDS FROM ERN CUBA TO THE HONDURAS BORDER AND
KEEPING THE AREA N OF 16N W OF 77W CALM. THE ITCZ IS ALONG THE
N COAST OF SOUTH AMERICA AND PANAMA. A SURFACE LOW IS IN THE
SW CARIBBEAN ENHANCED BY UPPER LEVEL DIFFLUENT PATTERN.
SCATTERED MODERATE CONVECTION IS FROM 10N-13N BETWEEN 76W-80W.
SIMILAR CONVECTION IS ALONG THE NICARAGUAN COAST FROM 11N-15N
BETWEEN 82W-85W. AN UPPER LEVEL HIGH DOMINATES THE ERN CARIBBEAN
INTO THE W TROPICAL ATLC ANCHORED W OF THE WINDWARD ISLANDS NEAR
15N67W WHICH IS ENHANCING THE ACTIVITY ASSOCIATED WITH THE
TROPICAL WAVE ALONG 75W.

ATLANTIC OCEAN...
BROAD UPPER LEVEL TROUGH IS OVER THE E U.S. AND INTO THE FAR
W ATLC WITH A NARROW UPPER RIDGE EXTENDING ACROSS SOUTH FLORIDA
TO 31N75W PROVIDING AMPLE DIFFLUENCE TO GENERATE SCATTERED
SHOWERS AND ISOLATED THUNDERSTORMS FROM 28N-32N BETWEEN 75W-80W.
A STATIONARY FRONT REMAINS W OF THIS ACTIVITY. AN AREA OF
SURFACE HIGH PRESSURE IS LOCATED S OF T.S. BERTHA CENTERED NEAR
28N60W. A BROAD DEEP LAYERED TROUGH IS OVER THE CENTRAL ATLC N
OF 15N BETWEEN 42W-58W WITH A SURFACE TROUGH ENTERING THE REGION
NEAR 30N45W TO 26N50W GENERATING SCATTERED SHOWERS AND POSSIBLE
ISOLATED THUNDERSTORMS WITHIN 120 NM EITHER SIDE OF THE TROUGH
N OF 30N. AN AREA OF SCATTERED SHOWERS AND POSSIBLE
THUNDERSTORMS ARE NW OF THE TROUGH AXIS FROM 28N-30N BETWEEN
50W-53W. AN UPPER RIDGE EXTENDS FROM THE UPPER HIGH IN THE ERN
CARIBBEAN TO OVER THE W ATLC W OF 55W. A LARGE UPPER LEVEL HIGH
IS CENTERED OVER THE E ATLC ANCHORED NEAR 31N23W COVERING THE
AREA E OF 41W.

God is in his heaven, and all is right with the world

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The only really confusing thing about the housing bubble collapse is that its looked like wealthy, well-connected investors had been left holding at least part of the bag.

Thankfully, the President has stepped in and transferred their difficulties to taxpayers, making my worldview whole once more.

Thanks, Mr. President!

I really wish John McCain would slow-roll the screwing up

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So, cigarettes are suddenly bad for Iranians, suggesting they may be bad for Americans, at least those of Iranian descent. This will hamper GOP plans to have Medicare pay for them. The nation is not in a mental recession, and McCain can no longer have surrogates speak for him. Our plan to stay in Iraq forever is at loggerheads with our 'peace dividend,' and awkwardly opposed to the expressed wishes of the Iraqis.

John McCain seems to be collapsing as a candidate. He's just flaming out. Obama's leading by three points in national polls, winning in both... Carolinata? Carolinae? Carolinas, and catching up in Texas. It's looking bad for the straight talk express.

Which is fine. Whatever MoveOn.org will tell you, Greens do not want Republicans in the Oval Office. If Cynthia McKinney doesn't take it -- and I'll point out she's not even included in Pollster.com's 4-way polls, which have Senator Obama over Senator McCain by 5 per cent -- Barack Obama would be my second choice.

But, I worry. I worry that McCain might find some pretext to drop out before the convention, and the fact that he was constitutionally ineligible to run for office in the first place might not be in anyone's back pocket. So, if Huckabee retakes the stage, well, I'll look amazingly prescient, but we may have another Republican in office. His campaign has only been suspended, remember. If the candidate slot opens up, he and Romney will be slugging it out within minutes.

Update: Our judicial system is a joke. This is from the story linked above in re McCain's failure to be born a citizen.

In the motion to dismiss the New Hampshire suit, Mr. McCain’s lawyers said an individual citizen like the plaintiff, a Nashua man named Fred Hollander, lacks proof of direct injury and cannot sue.

Daniel P. Tokaji, an election law expert at Ohio State University, agreed. “It is awfully unlikely that a federal court would say that an individual voter has standing,” he said. “It is questionable whether anyone would have standing to raise that claim. You’d have to think a federal court would look for every possible way to avoid deciding the issue.”

Right? If only voters are harmed, and individual voters do not have standing, who exactly is going to bring suit?

This is a minutiae blog

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So, FotB* Lexiconance has started an apparently anonymous book reviewing site, and done a link exchange. You'll notice that I updated to a far fancier link exchange applet. Anyhow, I got listed under 'minutiae blogs,' along with 'What I Ate For Lunch Today and Why' and 'What I Saw Riding My Bike Around Today'.

O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us
It wad frae monie a blunder free us
An' foolish notion
What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us
An' ev'n Devotion

* -- Friend of the Blog, in a nod to Stephen Colbert

I don't see the Green Party as an alternative. I see it as imperative.

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The McKinney-Clemente acceptance speech is airing on C-Span today at 6:30. This is your official notice that they're the official ticket. From the campaign:

Hello Powerful People: Welcome to the 12th issue of the Power to the People Committee, Cynthia McKinney for President Weekly Update. -- McKinney - Clemente Nominated by Green Party -- Cynthia McKinney won the Green Party's Presidential Nomination at its Chicago Convention, taking 313 of 532 first round ballots in an eight way contested race to lead the 2008 Party's Peace slate. Once securing the nomination, she asked the Convention to also nominate as her running mate, Rosa Clemente, Bronx born activist, journalist, scholar and organizer who helped to found the HipHop Political Convention. Clemente said, "I chose to do this, not for me, but for my generation, my community and my daughter. I don't see the Green Party as an alternative. I see it as imperative." -- Campaign Visibility -- It appears that CSPAN's Road to the White House will carry the Acceptance Speech, today, Sunday, July 13th, at 6:00 pm and again at 9:00 pm. -- Federal Matching Funds -- Cynthia McKinney is a candidate as well for the nomination of the California Peace and Freedom Party, which will resolve is Presidential slate at an upcoming meeting of its state committee. Link to our website and make your donation now. http://supporters.runcynthiarun.org/supporters.cgi This gives us two more weeks now to qualify for Federal Matching Funds. With enthusiastic pushes from McKinney supporters in both Wisconsin and Washington DC, we believe both those have now joined the list of qualifying states, including California, Michigan, New York, Oregon, Illinois, Texas and Washington. If you are from any of these states: Arizona, Florida, Iowa, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Minnesota, New Jersey and Oklahoma Your urgent action to put us over the top is needed now. We also need at least two additional states to enter the mix and help us make a difference. These states' residents have already given $1,000 or more and are on their way towards that goal: Arizona ($2.1k), Conneticut ($1k), Florida ($3.5k), Iowa ($1k), Massachusetts ($1.8k), Maryland ($1.6k), Maine ($3.7k), Minnesota ($4.4k), New Jersey ($3.7k) and Oklahoma ($1k). Colorado, Georgia and Pennsylvania are the next closest to entering the running at the $1k level. (Unaudited figures current through June 30th, 2008; indicates change since last month). -- Joining our Updates list -- To all new readers, thank you for subscribing to the Power to the People Committee Campaign Updates. To all readers, new or otherwise, please encourage your friends and family to join the Campaign Updates list by sending them this link: http://supporters.runcynthiarun.org/supporters.cgi?function=subscribe

A Question on 'America the Beautiful'

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Some puff piece on Ronald Reagan was enthusing about his patriotism, saying he knew both versus to 'American the Beautiful.' I'd always thought there were three. Wikipedia adds a fourth. Or, really, a third.

O beautiful, for heroes proved
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved
And mercy more than life!
America! America! May God thy gold refine,
'Til all success be nobleness, and ev'ry gain divine!

Apparently, I've been singing this song wrong. But, that's not my question. My question is with the line

Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!

Now, when I first learned the song, which I think was Third Grade, although it could have been as late as Fifth, I assumed this referred to our national callousness. Cry all you will, but your grief won't dim the gleam of our cities. However! In my 30s, I came to understand it as aspirational, that one day we would be a nation of whiners no more, and there'd be no tears shed. But, now I'm not so sure.

What do you think?

Tropical Force Winds Sneaking Up on Us

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This is through next Tuesday. So, we probably have a week before they're on Manhattan Island.

Bogeyman Campaigning

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[D]oes all this wrangling over Obama's shift to the center really matter to Democratic voters? Some who follow the minutiae of the daily campaign might care, but the LAT says that most Democrats are too focused on the bigger picture to give it much thought. "When I hear people complaining," one Democratic strategist explained, "I tell them I have one thing to say: 'President John McCain. Three Supreme Court appointments.' That's all I need to say."

Right. Ah... OK. Thank goodness the days of an unaccountable executive are coming to an end. No, but, seriously. Are Republicans the new Al Qaeda?

Minimum Healthy Sex Rate is Thrice per Week

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Thank goodness for Finnish medical research, or we'd never have known.

The Weather's Going to take six hours off

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As of this writing, Sunday July 13th's only got precipitation potential from 2 AM to 8 AM. I'm going to hope that's a bug.

I'm glad somebody noticed

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Secretaries of State Warren Christopher and James A. Baker III oversaw a year-long study of the longstanding tension over war powers between the executive and legislative branches. In a report to be released on Tuesday, they concluded that the 1973 law, which was passed in the waning days of the Vietnam War and which aimed to limit the president’s ability to commit American forces to war unilaterally, never served its intended function and must be replaced.

Seriously. Between this and FISA, you've got to wonder what the point of the laws Congress passed in Nixon's wake really were. If you were wondering why I simply don't care about these 'closing the barn door after the horse is out' mortgage reform laws, it's that until the horse tries to escape again, there's no way to know if they're working.

Bertha's Got a 73 % Chance of being a hurricane in 24 hours

Thanks for keeping an eye on this for me. You're a pal. Of course, I kind of feel like I left you with a tropical wave in the Eastern Atlantic, and come back to a named storm in the Carribean, but I guess it's unfair to blame you.

Mixed News On Platelet Donations

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The link's to the gift cards page. Gift cards start at 20 ppd (that's "points per dollar," a regular single platelet donation is 100 points, or $5,) drop to 16 ppd at 2000 points, max out at 12.8 ppd at 3200 points for a $250 gift card. For 3200 points, incidentally, you could instead get a camera available at B&H for $176. However, it's $260 at Circuit City, a gift card provider.

So, you'll recall that the plan was to rack up 2600 points in platelet donations, then trade it in for a Nano. Now, I bought a Nano, but I can probably find something else. However! Other elements of the plan were called into question. Firstly, I found that the first donation couldn't be a triple.

First piece of news? They somehow extracted a double from me. Well, oops. That brought me to 500 points. One hundred for the donation, 50 for the double, one hundred for the Sunday and 250 for no discernable reason whatsoever. Now, they might be giving me the first four fifteenths of my 750 point four-donation-before-August bonus early. But, I suspect it's just arbitrary, especially as I can no longer find a reference to said bonus on their site.

Now, I was going to give last Sunday and this coming Sunday, to get the "week of July 4th" bonus twice. However! Despite the clearly stated rule that I can give platelets every three days, I'm not eligible to give again until July 14th, 16 days after my last donation. I don't know why this is, but there's probably a longer unpublished delay between triple donations. This, however, is a huge problem, as it means I can't get my 750 point bonus for four donations. I'll try to clarify the rules, and if need be just do a single next time.

More wild weather in the forecast

Just passing this on....

Dear Rionn, According to a new report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), climate change will likely lead to an increase in extreme weather in the United States. That means more droughts, heavy downpours, excessive heat, and intense hurricanes. Not good. We hope to alert 100,000 people to this NOAA report within the next 48 hours. If each of us tells 5 people, that's within easy reach. Please use our tell-a-friend tool to help educate your friends and family about this critical issue. The report projects: Abnormally hot days and nights, along with heat waves, are very likely to become more common. Droughts are likely to become more frequent and severe in some regions. Hurricanes will likely have increased precipitation and wind. We will need everyone's voices to solve the climate crisis, starting with yours. Start a conversation today. Sincerely, Cathy Zoi CEO www.wecansolveit.org

WeCanSolveIt.org |  Privacy Policy |  Subscribe |  Unsubscribe |  Contact Us |  About

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Secretary Rice: Anthrax Attacks Justify Torture

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Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, speaking with Google employees in Mountain View, Calif., in May, said, “after Sept. 11, whatever was legal in the face of not just the attacks of Sept. 11, but the anthrax attacks that happened, we were in an environment in which saving America from the next attack was paramount.” She added, “there has been a long evolution in American policy about detainees and about interrogations...we now have in place a law that was not there in 2002 and 2003.”

I... If, as Senator Leahy believes, the US Government itself was behind the Anthrax attacks... There's no comment, I am just still occasionally shocked by the shamelessness of this administration. Really, though, I guess their choices are to ride it out or go to their secret bunker and turn their lugers on themselves.

One Million Per Cent

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Inflation in Zimbabwe is estimated at one million per cent. I know there are a lot of horrors talked about there, but this one seems imaginable. So, imagine living with one million per cent inflation.

Zimbabwe's central bank stopped posting inflation figures in January, when it stood at a relatively modest 100,580%. A loaf of bread costs 30 billion Zimbabwean dollars.
...
Vending machines, which take coins, fell out of service in Zimbabwe years ago. A single soda would require the deposit of billions of coins. Imported from South Africa and in very short supply, a Coke sells on the black market for around 15 billion Zimbabwean dollars. Civil servants mostly get paid through direct deposits into bank accounts, which limit withdrawals to 25 billion Zimbabwe dollars a day.

Say 'hi' to Bertha

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I'm going away for a few days to celebrate our nation's throwing off the yoke of the dirty, dirty brits, but the 'tropical wave in the far east Atlantic' has gone from low probability of becoming a tropical depression to medium probability. There's (as always) some chance this could become a Category V Hurricane bearing down on Sandy Hook, so can you keep an eye on this for me?

Thanks.

Remind me why we have economists again?

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From Slate:

The New York Times leads with a look at how a growing number of economists now believe that current economic woes aren't going away in the near future as tight credit and trouble in the job market could continue until late next year.

Hey! Look! Shinola! Let's step in it!

No, no, that was definitely shit. Not shinola at all. Really shouldn't have stepped in that.

I mean, we let economists call themselves scientists because they're supposed to have predictive models. I'm pretty sure that without a predictive model, you're not a scientist. So... shouldn't this number have grown between 1997 and, say, 2002, and just been holding steady since then? Well, OK. Maybe into mid-2003. But, by a few months after the Invasion of Iraq, everything that's hurting us now was in place. Economists should have been predicting disaster then, when we could have mitigated it.

What if I promise not to post about the Dow again for a month?

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It's a good thing the Dow is in the hands of the free market and too big to manipulate. Otherwise, I might suspect something.

You'll recall I laid out different dates that different Dow closings would regress us to. And we seem to be stuck in September of 2006. There's an interesting point in that a 'bear market' is defined as a market close 20 % lower than the high market close. Roughly -- that's good enough for our purposes. On October 9 of 2007, the DJIA had its highest close ever, 14,164.53. Twenty percent lower would be 11331.62, 50.64 points lower than today's close of 11,382.26, 18.39 points lower than yesterday's (quarter end) close of 11,350.01, and only 14.89 points below Friday's close of 11,346.51. By 9:32 this morning, the index stood at 11,236.68, having lost over 120 points in 2 minutes, and it lost 175.87 points in one 84-minute period, and 58.95 in another 32-minute period -- this amount of volatility ending up within 51 points of, but out of, 'bear territory' three days in a row implies that something is forcing it.

A conspiracy theorist would infer a forcing mechanism. Not me; I know it's just the wisdom of the markets.

Slate's hiring surrogate mothers in India

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Just following up. I didn't view the video, because I generally don't view videos. But, I'm tracking the zeitgeist.

How clean is my electricity?

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You'll recall that my electricity comes from Iderbola's wind farms. But, this is informative as to how New York City and Westchester (50 % nuke, 0 % coal) stack up against the rest of the nation (20 % nuke, 50 % coal.) Wind, or other 'non hydro renewables' such as giant gerbil wheels, are at 1 % here, 2 % nationally. So, signing up for Iderbola can make a difference.

Look how little emissions we have here! This really makes nuclear power look attractive. The Wall Street Journal had a sales bit on it yesterday. Al Gore's concerns regarding proliferation aside, we have a serious waste disposal issue with nuclear as well as a sourcing issue going forward. Also, I live near Indian Point, so I know how highly the NRC values safety.

Mark Jacobs, of the Indian Point Safe Energy Coalition, said the “… lack of comprehensiveness …” in the [NRC relicensing application] process does not protect the public.

The 11 Best Foods You Aren’t Eating

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I feel I'm justified in just taking the whole list from the New York Times, as they simply took it from Men's Health. I might feel differently if I thought they'd notice.

1. Beets: Think of beets as red spinach, Dr. Bowden said, because they are a rich source of folate as well as natural red pigments that may be cancer fighters.
How to eat: Fresh, raw and grated to make a salad. Heating decreases the antioxidant power.
2. Cabbage: Loaded with nutrients like sulforaphane, a chemical said to boost cancer-fighting enzymes.
How to eat: Asian-style slaw or as a crunchy topping on burgers and sandwiches.
3. Swiss chard: A leafy green vegetable packed with carotenoids that protect aging eyes.
How to eat it: Chop and saute in olive oil.
4. Cinnamon: Helps control blood sugar and cholesterol.
How to eat it: Sprinkle on coffee or oatmeal.
5. Pomegranate juice: Appears to lower blood pressure and loaded with antioxidants.
How to eat: Just drink it.
6. Dried plums: Okay, so they are really prunes, but packed with cancer-fighting antioxidants.
How to eat: Wrapped in prosciutto and baked.
7. Pumpkin seeds: The most nutritious part of the pumpkin and packed with magnesium; high levels of the mineral are associated with lower risk for early death.
How to eat: Roasted as a snack, or sprinkled on salad.
8. Sardines: Dr. Bowden calls them “health food in a can.'’ They are high in omega-3’s, contain virtually no mercury and are loaded with calcium. They also contain iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, zinc, copper and manganese as well as a full complement of B vitamins.
How to eat: Choose sardines packed in olive or sardine oil. Eat plain, mixed with salad, on toast, or mashed with dijon mustard and onions as a spread.
9. Turmeric: The “superstar of spices,'’ it has anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer properties.
How to eat: Mix with scrambled eggs or in any vegetable dish.
10. Frozen blueberries: Even though freezing can degrade some of the nutrients in fruits and vegetables, frozen blueberries are available year-round and don’t spoil; associated with better memory in animal studies.
How to eat: Blended with yogurt or chocolate soy milk and sprinkled with crushed almonds.
11. Canned pumpkin: A low-calorie vegetable that is high in fiber and immune-stimulating vitamin A; fills you up on very few calories.
How to eat: Mix with a little butter, cinnamon and nutmeg.

There's a lot of discussion of wrapping prosciutto (yuppie bacon) around the prunes. Of course, I eat prunes by the handful, so I don't see the need. The discussion thread also recommends purslane, which I'm excited to try.

I want my Malechem

Thanks to Yarn Frog Studios

I Want My Malechem.

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Mr. Bush, render those deniers!

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Through really no fault of my own, today I was exposed to Roy Spencer, a University of Alabama at Huntsville Principal Research Scientist and climate change denier. And you'll recall my fascination with these people. Roy Spencer insists that

After 12 years of receiving no compensation for my writings, I was eventually asked to write global warming related articles for TechCentralStation.com (now TCSDaily.com). That website advocated science, technology, and free markets, and was indeed partially funded by oil interests. While I no longer write for that web site, over a three year period I augmented my "day job" salary by an average of 5% by writing articles. The views expressed in those articles were consistent with the views I had expressed for twelve years for no compensation. (Quite frankly, since I supported the ideals promoted on TechCentralStation.com, I really didn't care who funded it).

The dirty little secret is that environmental organizations and global warming pessimists receive far more money from Big Oil than do global warming optimists such as myself.

Right? So, what makes these people dissent so deceitfully? I mean, follow the link. There's no question that Roy Spencer, at least, is lying instead of merely being wrong, although the argument is technical enough (relying as it does on your ability to run a climate model at home) that he can still walk around in public. But, I believe that he's not getting paid for it. I have a new theory.

(a) The deniers tend to focus on radiative forcing as the explanation for the increase in the climate's resident heat, when they're forced to confront the issue.

(b) That's obviously nonsense. Unless the Sun is edging toward nova or there were some nonsolar radiative force being applied to the earth.

(c) We'd know if the Sun were getting ready to blow. All sorts of stuff would happen -- there'd be a pretty excited magnetic signal, for one thing, and its shape would be changing. I think. I'm not a solar physicist. Anyway, I'm pretty sure there'd be clues.

(d) That radiative forcing is heating the climate up and the Sun is not going to explode suggests another radiative forcing. Nothing natural is around to do this, suggesting the forcing is artificial. Climate change deniers are implying that space aliens are attacking our planet with a slow cooker.

(e) Climate change deniers, therefore, want us to come to the conclusion on our own that we're being attacked by an alien race with planetary attack capabilities. They want to give us time to reflect on this long enough that we're prepared to capitulate.

(f) That there actually are radiative aliens is as absurd as any non-greenhouse-gas explanation for heating. I'm not particularly interested in whether molecules in some other part of the universe started to self-replicate and become more complex*. However, that these complex self-replicating molecules started attacking us with radiative weapons beggars my credulity.

(g) Climate change deniers want us in a, um, capitulant state in the absence of aliens for some other reason.

(h) You would want a population in a capitulant state (no, see, I use it twice and it becomes a word. Why doesn't Firefox's spell checker understand that?) if you were inclined to invade it.

(i) Climate change deniers are working on behalf of a foreign power intent on invading the United States of America. If I had to guess, I'd say China, but it's possible Saudi Arabia might strong arm Russia into doing it. That's a geopolitical relationship I'm having a little trouble parsing.

Now, so, I think I've proven to any rational reader than climate change deniers are agents of a foreign power. As it happens, the Supreme Court may be pressuring the Pentagon into letting our Guantanamo inmates go. So, that's available, is all I'm saying.

* -- I'm aware this may make me a bad person, but then again there are stronger arguments for that. And I think it's a valid enough question that we should publicly fund research into it, maybe out of a central pot of funds for Critically Reasoned Answers and Concepts in Knowledge. A 'CRACK pot' fund, if you will.

RAND Reports

link (via TPM Muckraker)

Remember those RAND Reports? They're getting unsquashed!

Prepared from over 200 interviews conducted by military historians, the report attempts to avoid controversial elements of the conflict, often unsuccessfully.

Tee hee.

All the action seems to be in the Eastern Pacific

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Tropical cyclones seem to be forming in the Eastern Pacific, instead of the Atlantic. This is good, because that's farther from me, but it's odd. We've got, as of this writing, Tropical Storms Cristina and Boris roiling around off Baja, and another tropical depression forming. If this gets to be three simultaneous tropical depressions, that may be a July record for the Eastern Tropical Pacific. Wikipedia's Tropical Cyclones Portal only goes back to 2003 for timelines, and shows that Bud, Carlotta and Daniel just failed to make it in 2006.

In any case, we're going to keep our attention firmly focuses on the Atlantic. As of a month ago, the level of activity in the Eastern Pacific was supposed to be below normal, with 11 - 16 storms. It's already looking like September out there.

update:This didn't happen. The last advisory has been issued on Cristina. Still, I'm having trouble believing we'll get to January with only 13 more storms.

EVE was incredibly overengineered

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The link's just to WALL·E's IMDB page. I want to point out in passing that now to view trailers, you have to sit through an advertisement. So, previews are apparently now considered informational, instead of promotional. If you're keeping track at home, I did not watch either.

WALL·E's a wonderful movie, and there's a lot for engineers, although more in the realm of emotionally satisfying moments than actual information or interesting puzzles. It salubriously (for our culture) keeps children's interest focused on robots, space flight, chromotography, ecology and other places children's interest should be focused. However, there's a flaw that seems sort of central.

You'll recall that the Simpsons movie had this element that taxed one's physical intuition -- that Homer Simpson could use the same process to ride the inside of a large arc that he used on a much smaller arc without any sort of nod to the increased centrifugal force he'd have to supply. And WALL·E has a similar sort of flaw, but more on a product development or systems engineering level than a physical level, which is that the Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator (EVE) is grossly overengineered.

EVE's role is to scour the surface of planets for vegetation. WALL·E's is to pick up garbage, and compact it. But, they're from the same point in technological development -- Engineering has apparently been pretty static in the 700 years WALL·E's been picking up garbage. She flies, and he doesn't. Well, OK. Maybe he's not supposed to pass an obstacle without dismembering it, and his maintenance costs are much lower. But, she can also fly through space. She's dropped off and picked up by a giant spaceship! In her normal course of events, she's never even in vacuum!

Now, even this I can allow, because the people fly through space in the same vehicle they land on earth with, which seems a little suspicious. So, it's an animated movie that's supposed to be accessible to children, and this is probably just simplified. It wouldn't really forward the story to add reentry vehicles, so maybe EVE does need to move herself back and forth from the planet to somewhere else. Well, forth. There'd be a narrative problem if she could get herself back, but it's possible that we're meant to understand that she transported herself to Earth through space.

But, she has a blaster. She's rather seriously armed, and has a sort of a hair trigger. There's no suggestion that any other engineered object is similarly equipped. We see a pretty broad overview of the state of human civilization, and she's the baddest ass in it. Not only did her designers expect her to be in hostile situations, but they expected her to be in unambiguously hostile 'shoot first and ask questions later' situations. Her job, again, as is implicit in her name, is to collect plants. I'm not saying you'll never run afoul of locals in that pursuit, but it seems a bit much to give every probe that much destructive power.

All of this means that she's really hard to stop when she... well, there's a school of thought that one should unnecessarily give away plot points. And, it is a wonderful movie. Recommended!

America Divided Over Whether Paul Wellstone Was Assassinated

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On the one side, there's me and apparently the authors of the book "American Assassination." On the other is everyone I talk to about it, but I've only talked about it with people twice -- Thinking about the Anthrax/Leahy episode stirred it up again. A couple of years ago, I was out with some friends and casually mentioned the assassination of Paul Wellstone. One asked, "Why do you think Senator Wellstone was assassinated?" I was floored! I thought everybody thought Paul Wellstone was assassinated!

So, at dinner tonight with three people, I tried again: "There's this thing I think Americans believe, but no one ever talks about, so I thought I'd ask you if you believed it. Were one or more of Donald Henry Rumsfeld, Richard Bruce Cheney or George Walker Bush complicit in the death of Senator Paul Wellstone?" It's not just that the answer was 'no', the very question seemed unfamiliar to them. I was accused of being a conspiracy theorist! Are not new conspiracies uncovered every day? A simple reciting of the news would make one sound like a conspiracy theorist.

So, Wellstone? Anyone?

Tom Lehrer on YouTube

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If you're like me* you often find yourself singing a little Tom Lehrer tune, like "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park", "So Long, Mom", "Oedipus Rex" or "National Brotherhood Week." He's on YouTube! Some guy took video of him in the 60s doing songs and posted them. I actually had no idea what he looked like before tonight -- he was on the cover of "An Evening Wasted With Tom Lehrer," but very, very small.

* Incidentally, that's how I picture you. Identical to me, in every way. You read my blog, I read my blog. All I really know about you is that one thing you have in common with me, so it's natural for me to assume that everything else true about me is true about you. The keys, by the way, are in the bowl by the door. Where they always are. Try to spend a little less time looking for them tomorrow.

Save almost 17 % on your next two rail purchases!

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See? It's not a bad deal the way I say it, but it's just wrong the way they say it. The deal is, 

Buy a railpass (between 4/24/2008 – 7/15/2008) and you will get a credit for 25% of the value of that railpass. You can apply this credit to your next rail purchase made by 12/15/2008. Your second purchase using your credit must be at least twice the value of that credit.

If anything, you can save up to 50 % on your second rail purchase. You don't save anything on your next rail purchase.

Europeans.

Improving Tropical Cyclone Intensity Forecasts should be a bigger priority

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[National Hurricane Center director Bill] Read said he's satisfied for now with the $3 million the government is spending this year for research into improving intensity forecasts. 

Ah... isn't that about 4 minutes of the Occupation of Iraq? It's nice to have a billion-dollar-a-day boondoggle to compare things to. You could buy every man, woman and child ice cream every day for less than the cost of our Middle East misadventures.

On the one hand, improving hurricane intensity forecasts would save the government much more than $3M/year. On the other...

Predicting a storm's intensity is much harder for meteorologists than estimating where it will go. Since 1990, forecasters have reduced by more than half their errors in predicting a storm's path, but over the same time the accuracy of their intensity forecasts has remained virtually unchanged."To really get after that you're talking tens of millions of dollars, if not more, to reach an ambitious goal," Read said. "We've made a steady gain in the improvement of the track forecasts, and we haven't figured out how to do that yet for rapid intensification."
That could take between five and 10 years, he said.

So, say there's some thing I don't know how to do. Say, build a pocket desalinator for seawater. Or train parrots to defuse bombs. I estimate it'll cost me tens of millions of dollars, if not more, and between five and 10 years. Heck, I'll stop Climate Change, although any beneficial effects will take place after my tenure as director. It's not like the NHC is going to spent $50 million dollars on a hurricane intensity forecasting widget and install it over the course of the next decade. They currently have no idea what'll work.

But, the government should be spending money and time on getting an idea of what will work.

update:I've thought more about this. And, running water is nice and all, but isn't the primary benefit of living in a technological civilization that we can predict the weather?

Can we call it the CSFB plan?

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So, you recall when Credit Suisse bought First Boston, they renamed themselves 'CSFB,' to be palatable to the American people. After the invasion of Iraq, foreigners stopped caring how we felt, so in 2005, CSFB's foreign overlords decided to rerebrand themselves 'Credit Suisse.'

Banking lobbyists wrote a bill for a huge transfer of wealth from the American Taxpayer to their clients, which is their job. And it looks like it'll pass. But, I would ask that we stop calling it 'the Credit Suisse plan', and start calling it 'the CSFB plan.' We have to remember a time when America owned its own investment banks!

NJTransit may not fully 'get' the web

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So... follow the link. In a new tab! What are you, still using IE6? While we're on the subject, remember MDI interfaces? You'd have one big frame, and little document windows inside it. I'm not sure if I'm explaining this in an accessible way, but it's how MS Office worked until Office XP, and how every application using the document ('MDI' means 'multidocument interface') metaphor, i.e. that there's a particular file which contains a particular set of data, used to work. The other day, I was sort of wishing that I could 'tile' all of the documents I was working on in a particular application, and realized that I wanted MDI back.

Anyway, we're not talking about that. We're talking about New Jersey Transit. Pick two stations. I chose from 'New York Penn Station' to 'Denville,' but I suspect it won't matter. Submit the form and view your fares.

Now, the asterices are a little confusing. The first asterisk explains to you what off peak means, which is valuable to know. But! That footnote has a footnote itself, which also uses a single asterisk. I don't think I've ever seen that before. It's my habit to look for footnotes on the bottom of the page, in which case the asterisk would have meant that the price is for five days in the future and you have to call to get the current price, which would have been absurd. No, instead, the first asterisked footnote gives you a number to call if you can't interpret what they mean by off peak. Its own asterisked footnote tells you, essentially, "Psych! That's not the real number!"

NJ Transit is apparently changing phone numbers, which has to happen every now and then. In this case, they're shutting off their toll-free service, which I'm not going to tie back to the housing-bubble-collapse-driven New Jersey budget crises because of my incredible focus. But, the current number is in the (second) footnote. Like most people who get a number off the web are going to call it five days hence, but for you pathologically fast callers, they'll give a little more information.

Can we rejoin the Commonwealth?

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So, after recalling that the government had simply decided not to investigate its possible role in the Anthrax attacks on Senators Daschle and Leahy, it struck me that the investigation into the death of Senator Paul Wellstone -- who was threatening to derail the march to the invasion and occupation of Iraq -- did not end satisfactorily, 'satisfactorily' here meaning 'with the President, Vice President and Secretary of Defense shackled in a cell.'

Thanks largely to Joshua Micah Marshall's work at Talking Points Memo, this tendency simply to not investigate its own suspected misdeeds became pretty apparent during the US Attorney scandal, and is now a little less tenable. But, in 2002, the press totally took it in stride.

When I lived in Kenya, Scotland Yard came to investigate the death of Minister of International Cooperation Robert Ouko, whom the Kenyan government insisted had shot himself, stabbed himself, hanged himself, set himself on fire and threw himself out of a helicopter. Even Robert Mugabe has allowed various investigations to point the finger at his cronies, and from the third world here and there, you hear stories of investigations unconvering government misdeeds, and you wonder, "Why would a kleptocracy investigate itself at all?"

I think it's the Commonwealth. We're a former colony of the crown of England! Can we still get in?

PS Home prices are down to 2004 levels. This seems to be chugging along pretty quickly. Maybe they'll get to 1997 before President Obama takes office, keeping the blame focused where it belongs. Yeah, I'm aware that's cynical political thinking. And, I'm still hoping President Pelosi takes office first.

A recent spate of terrorist attacks?

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Terrorist attacks are not completely imaginary -- whether the Bush League was complicit in 9/11 or not, it definitely happened -- but most plots that we hear about are in large part made up by our government, from the Tang Bombers to the plot to blow up the Sears Tower. So, I was a little non-plussed by the "Overheard in New York" casual reference to "[T]he recent spate of terrorist attacks [after which] the TSA decided to stop allowing liquids past the security gate."

I don't think the Department of Homeland Security releases information on non-imaginary attacks -- actual terrorist activity like the suburban DC sniper, the Oklahoma City bombing or the Unabomber don't lead one to want to occupy oil-rich countries -- so we're left with Wikipedia. So far this year, Wikipedia's classified two incidents (in Kirkwood and DeKalb) as terrorist attacks, both lone American gunmen (only one an Army basic training dropout on psychopharmaceuticals) carrying no known hot liquids. If you extend the time frame to a full year ago, you only add what Wikipedia calls 'fake grenades' that really exploded at the Mexican Consulate in New York City.

I know the "Overheard in New York" quotes can be kind of old, but the only spate I can remember is when people were seeing Anthrax in every packet of white powder. I want to point out that weaponized Anthrax presents the same danger now it did then. Do you know where your Cipro is? Where's the eternal vigilance, people? It's the price of liberty*! Incidentally, Senator Patrick Leahy at least now seems to think the Anthrax used in the letters to him and Senator Daschle came from our own government.

So... what's up with this spate reference?

* -- looking this up, I found on Bartleby an intellectual predecessor quote from Demosthenes, which is a pretty cool feature. I thought I'd share:

There is one safeguard known generally to the wise, which is an advantage and security to all, but especially to democracies as against despots. What is it? Distrust.

More moronism

there's no link -- see the last post.
And, you have to really like data. But, if you look at how each
percent loss will push back the calendar on the Dow's inexorable
march to infinity, it becomes clear that the gains are a bunch of
very dense run-ups spaced in time. And, so, we can expect very dense
run-downs. Although, they may all be strung together.

Percent Loss	DJIA	Last time the Dow was lower
1	11,723.94	09/28/06
2	11,605.51	09/25/06
3	11,487.09	09/11/06
4	11,368.67	09/07/06
5	11,250.24	08/15/06
6	11,131.82	08/14/06
7	11,013.39	07/21/06
8	10,894.97	07/21/06
9	10,776.55	07/17/06
10	10,658.12	11/10/05
11	10,539.70	11/04/05
12	10,421.28	11/01/05
13	10,302.85	10/27/05
14	10,184.43	05/13/05
15	10,066.01	11/02/04
16	9,947.58	10/26/04
17	9,829.16	10/25/04
18	9,710.74	11/21/03
19	9,592.31	10/03/03
20	9,473.89	10/01/03

Moronic Focus on the Dow Jones Industrial Average

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OK. I totally understand that the Dow Jones Industrial Average means exactly what it means -- some arbitrary composition of the values of the 50 companies Rupert Murdoch feels are most representative of large public companies -- and nothing else. And focusing on the DJIA (to its friends) has blinkered us to many persistent intractable economic problems. I'm really going to try to stop talking about it.

But, it's so fun watching the line bounce between its technical levels! It's simple! And we get the false sense that our finger is on the pulse of the economy, and we should encourage our policy makers to harrumph smokily together and further beggar the American people in order to gin up this index.

It is, of course, inconceivable that the Dow could lose another 306 points (2.6%) and pass the 52-week low of 11,508.70 or even to close just 102 points (0.86 %) down and pass the March 10 close of 11,740.. But, if it did -- and, I assure you, tongue in cheek, that this is extraordinarily unlikely -- the next 'technical level' it would have to break through would be the last previous lower close, which was 11,727.34 on October 3 of 2006. I really don't predict we'll hit the Bush 43 Presidency low of 7286.27 from October 9 of 2002, but we could pass where the last president left us at 10,587.59 on January 19, 2001, as my DJIA predictions have two bases, neither of which are grounded in what one might call equity analysis:

1. The Dow'll hang around each even power of ten for about 10 years
2. The Bush League is a bunch of incompetent liars, and any sort of gain anyone has made under this presidency is an illusion born of their gymcrackery.

Get Smart Movie: Missed by that much

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So, the Get Smart movie is wonderful, really. They've totally reinvented Maxwell Smart as someone who, while lacking the slick, amoral affect of a movie secret agent, can shoot, fight and dance competently with almost unbelievable listening comprehension in several languages. The story, really, is about a morbidly obese intelligence analyst who gets himself in shape to be a secret agent with the mission of bringing human understanding into espionage work. It's really very inspiring.

The movie falls down when it tries to reattach to Get Smart, the TV show. The bits with the cone of silence and Agent 13 in a tree are funny, but distract a little from the story. I found particularly jarring the catch phrase "missed [it] by that much." I'll explain, if you're not familiar with the TV show.

Often, Max's genitals would get shot at or nearly punctured by something or other. There would be a moment of tension, Max would gingerly check his groin, and report back wtih "Missed by that much," holding up his thumb and index finger. That last bit's important, because in the movie, he uses the catch phrase twice, but doesn't hold up his fingers. "That' refers to nothing. The movie's trying to elevate a little -- they're not penis jokes -- but you simply can't say, "Missed it by that much" without holding up your thumb and index finger. It's jarring to the audience.

So, I'd recommend the film, but only if you're willing to forgive the failing of wanting to refer to the original beloved series a little too much.

George Carlin is dead

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Who will protect us from the censors?

1Sky & 350

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Now, I've made fun a little of 350 and maybe seemed a little cynical about them. So, I want to be absolutely clear that I think activism and outreach -- which these sites do -- are essential to changing our culture to slow climate change. I'm not optimistic about saving civilization, but I totally think it's worth trying, and I value their efforts.

OK?

So, I volunteered to be a local leader for 1Sky. I'm having a problem with local activism as my political party has no presence to speak of in my community, so it's, well, not much of a party. I literally know 0 other Green Party members in Manhattan, and it's fair to say I know a lot of people. I was thinking of jumping ship to anarcho-syndicalism, but I don't know how much more popular that is, and it's really not electoral. I have been doing a little volunteering with MoveOn.org, which infamously blames the Green Party, instead of Socialists or continuously inebriated mouth breathers for humanity's 2000 defeat in the US presidential election, but inviting people to a election season training tonight, I realized that there was no way I could not end up plumping for another party's presidential candidate if I kept up with them.

I can't work for a party with no one in it, and I can't work for an opposing party, so I'm left with nonpartisan organizations. It's not like I can give up political activism altogether. I'll let you know how this goes.

McCainization on FISA

there's no link
There was an article in Slate a few years back about how The Bush Administration dealt with its political opponents. It would say some crazy thing, the opponent would genteelly agree, then the Bush League would be all, "you really believe that crazy thing?" And the opponent would be like "yeah." This is how Hillary Clinton ended up insisting that preemptive war was a great idea.

And no one has suffered this worse than McCain. In 2000, he was a crabby somewhat corrupt former war hero senator would would say obvious truths, such as you can't spend a trillion dollars twice or Dubya is totally unfit to be president. In the last 8 years, he's famously come around on the Bush tax cuts, supported the nuttiest military action on record, started to advocate for torture and gone from a campaign finance reform activist to only being able to run because the FEC's understaffed. Other people are keeping track.

And with McCain, it looks like an obvious case of trying to get the President's support in order to get the support of the President's supporters. So, fine. He's now totally unappealing both to his 2000 supporters, who must be appalled at the way he's cozied up to an administration that sleazed him out of the race that year, and the continuously inebriated mouth breathers who apparently form the majority of our electorate, who remember him as the 2000 guy who caused problems.

But, what on God's green Earth is going on with Congress? How did they get McCainized? Seriously, I can conceive that there's simply some good argument against impeachment that's yet failed to get through my skull. I concede that it's pretty thick. But, yesterday's FISA bill compromise is just ridiculous. In the last 7+ years, legislators have seen that there's going to be no reciprocity if they give in to Bush on some issue, so why all the capitulation?

At the beginning, it looked like repetitive application of a clever realization about how media and politics interact. But, now? It's starting to look like Star Trek mind control slugs.

Are we all doomed?

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Just looking around the 350 web site, this question caught my eye. I know that surprises you.

If we're already past 350, are we all doomed?
 
No. We're like the patient that goes to the doctor and learns he's overweight, or his cholesterol is too high. He doesn't die immediately—but until he changes his lifestyle and gets back down to the safe zone, he's at more risk for heart attack or stroke. The planet is in its danger zone because we've poured too much carbon into the atmosphere, and we're starting to see signs of real trouble: melting ice caps, rapidly spreading drought. We need to scramble back as quickly as we can to safety.

That metaphor misses the mark a little. The planet's like that patient. We're more like a deadly skin infection. Or gangrene. Maybe we're like gangrene. I would, I guess, rewrite the answer a little.

If we're already past 350, are we all doomed?
 
No. You are, but we expect some survivors. While the planet will become considerably less hospitable to human life, the more quickly, decisively and effectively we act now, the larger the size of the greatly reduced population of the future.

Many traders believe the market is stuck in a range between 12000 and 13000

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The Dow trimmed its losses to finish down 131.24 points, or 1.1%, at 12029.06, off 9.3% on the year. Many traders believe the market is stuck in a range between 12000 and 13000 -- a level it hasn't touched in a month -- because key questions about companies' balance sheets and the health of the economy remain stubbornly unresolved despite fervid efforts by chief executives, central bankers, and other officials.

"Right now, the market really is a pinball bouncing between these technical levels," for the Dow, said Chris Johnson, president of Johnson Research Group, in Cincinnati.

I'll bet you a dollar it's not.

Slick New Features at the National Hurricane Center Website

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So, the NHC shows you views of the Atlantic, and cyclonic activity in it. This we had last year. What you're seeing there is a tropical wave. 

Don't worry! Conditions are unfavorable for development. How do I know, you ask? there's a new mouseover feature.

if I click it, I load the graphical tropical weather outlook, with my little cyclone circled.

And on which I can zoom in.

In other news? The Dow's flirting with 12K again. Dow 10,000's probably a year away.

FYI: 350 launched

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Yay! Let's all work together and stop global warming! Go, Team!

Seriously, I'd encourage everyone to adopt their positive attitude. It just warms the heart.

Apples from Subway make me suspiciously happy

There's no link.

So, I went to Subway for lunch, and I made it a meal, adding a sugary soft drink* and a "fit side." I chose the apples. This is a 2.4 oz packet of "sweet red and tart green apple slices." Those aren't actually types of apples, but they're apple colors and flavors.

I like apples, and I was pretty happy with my packet. The ingredients read "Red Apples, Green Apples, Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C) , Calcium." Those all sound like fine things.

It's surprising to get a side at a fast food place that doesn't seem remotely dangerous, and that has an expiration date a week away. So, I'm well pleased. My distrust of Subway -- even to this day I occasionally mistake one of their restaurants for an actual subway entrance, which makes me distrust them -- gives me some pause, but I'm happy.

One thing I learned from the back of the packet is that Subway is a registered trademark of Doctor's Associates. According to Wikipedia, it has always been thus. But, it does go well with their post-Jared push to position themselves as healthy food.

* -- I had an Arnold Palmer, half lemonade and half iced tea, a concoction I picked up at the Shake Shack.

The most important blog experience of our time

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The title's a Schizopolis reference.

The link's to a post by "Fabius Maximus" about the newly explicit statement by the Saudis that they're going to be limiting oil production in order to have oil for later. This seems prudent, but of course it's a little hard on a growing oil-based economy. Still, go Saudi Arabia. I'm almost never on the Saudis side, but it does seem like a good policy.

Really, it just amused me that the author referred to another of his blog posts as "perhaps the most important of the 177 posts on this site." He gave me a choice to read it, "[o]r just wait. Your newspapers will discuss it, eventually."

Government Provided Fun for Kids!

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You might not expect the United States Patent and Trademark Office to have kids' pages on its web site, but that's just because you're close-minded. It makes sense! Maturity is really a process of ceasing to wonder about things that don't directly concern you. Kids are all little engineers, wanting to know how things like trains, quartz crystal displays and representative democracy work. The USPTO is full of this sort of thing, so there's a natural consonance.

So, take a look. I'll wait.

Had enough? Did phrases like "Below are diagrams explaining how to read these notations," not reawaken your childish sense of wonder?

Obviously, this page is meant for adults who shamefully can't intuit how to navigate patent and trademark archives. My guess is that it's labeled "kid's pages" so that the USPTO can't be accused of condescending to inventors. The informations's there, but as unto Christ, one must come unto the USPTO as a child.

Update: Platelets and Obesity

Apparently, the New York Blood Center doesn't let your first platelet donation be a triple, so I only got 100 points today. I already bought a Nano, though, so I need a new point goal. I could use a cot. But, let's see. 100 points for today, 350 points for July 6th, 300 points each for two other Sundays before August 1st, that's 1800 points with the 750 point four-time bonus. 1600 points gets me a 71 Piece Pneumatic Air Tool Kit. That sounds cool, but are air tools like air guitars?

Also? I'm no longer obese. I weighed in at 244# today, which corresponds to a BMI of 28.9. Still supraöptimal, but I'm on my way.

Hey what have I found

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FOR MANY HOURS ARTHUR HAS NOT BEEN PRODUCING SUFFICIENT ORGANIZED DEEP CONVECTION REQUISITE OF A TROPICAL CYCLONE. IN ADDITION...THE SURFACE CIRCULATION HAS BEEN ENCOUNTERING MORE RUGGED TERRAIN WHILE PROCEEDING SLOWLY SOUTHWESTWARD...AND IT HAS BECOME POORLY DEFINED AND ELONGATED AND MIGHT NOT EVEN BE CLOSED. THEREFORE...THIS WILL BE THE LAST NHC ADVISORY ON THIS SYSTEM.

Really? It's almost like we got an early tropical storm just to have one. Like whoever makes hurricanes wanted to make a point about their not being constrained between June 1 and November 30.