Adventures!

The Adorable Husband has planned a weekend out on the town -- and is refusing to divulge the details, so I assume that I will be offline until Tuesday.

It's making me crazy not to know, but it should be fun!

How to Hug a Baby

This arrived in my email yesterday, and I'm still chuckling. So -- for your edification: How to Hug a Baby. (Note that I have no idea whose pictures these are).

1. First, spy a baby.

2. Then, confirm that the object really is a baby by employing classic sniifing techniques. If you smell wet diapers, this is indeed a baby. Proceed.

3. You will need to flatten the baby before actually beginning the hugging process. *NOTE: the added slobber will assist in future steps by making the baby easier to manipulate.

4. The "Paw Slide" -- slide paws around baby and prepare for close up.

5. If a camera is present, you will need to execute the difficult "hug/smile/lean" maneuver to achieve the best photo quality.

My sister has a mastiff like this one -- although her beast is fawn-colored, and a bit bigger. At his last vet visit, Colonel weighed in at an astounding 209 pounds. Makes my dogs seem tiny in comparison!

I am! I'm not! I am!

Vice President Cheney is insisting that the VP is not part of the Executive Branch of Government. Or, to be entirely accurate, is "also part of the legistlative branch" because of the role as president of the Senate. Thus, he is not subject to rules for the executive branch.

Why? Well, to bypass the rules, of course. Cheney is refusing to comply with a presidential order regarding annual reports on security with the National Archive. All federal offices are required to file reports, based on a presidential order to provide a uniform, government-wide system for safeguarding classified info. Cheney filed in 2001 and 2002...but since then? He has decided that he doesn't have to. He's not "fully part of the executive branch", so the rules doesn't actually apply to him. He has also refused to comply with orders to disclose how much information was begin classified and declassified.

The Vice President's office's refusal to comply with the executive order and the National Archives's request prompted the National Archives to file a complaint with the Attorney General's office. But the Justice Department has not followed up on the Archives's request. [Rawstory]

Isn't that nice? He has 'executive privilege' or 'executive immunity' whenever it suits him, but when it doesn't suit him (as when he's been requested to provide information to Congress regarding his activities and those of his close aides), he claims executive privilege. Nice to have it both ways isn't it?

When the National Archives lodged a complaint with the Justice Department, Cheney's office retaliated:

It has requested changes in the executive order that would abolish the ISOO and
eliminate the ability of the National Archives to appeal disputes to the Attorney General.

At least he didn't shoot anyone.

Joke for Grammarians

[slightly off-color joke to follow]

Harry is getting older, and find that he is unable to...ahem...perform to his satisfaction. Visits to his doctor result in pills and such, but nothing works. Finally, desperately, Harry seeks the help of a local witch doctor.

After much chanting and smoke and incantations, the witch doctor tells Harry, "This is a very powerful spell, so it will only work once every year. Just say '123' and you'll have an erection for as long as you like!"

Harry is very pleased "What about when it's over, and I don't want to continue?"

"You or partner just have to say '1234' and it will go down. But remember--you can't try again for another year!"

Harry rushes home, eager to try the new spell. He spiffs himself up, shaves, uses his best cologne, and climbs into bed next to his wife. Putting his hand lovingly on his wife's shoulder, he whispers, '123' and suddenly is more aroused than he has ever been in his entire life! It worked! Just like the witch-doctor promised!

His wife rolls over sleepily, and asks, "Harry? What did you say 123 for?"

And this, dear readers, is why you never end a sentence with a preposition.

Dog Cooties

Anyone with a dog knows that you have to be careful that you don't inadvertently continue eating with the fingers you just fed the dog with -- sometimes you forget, and suddenly realize that you just picked up another chip with the hand you fed one to the beast with. Eeeu!

Well, I shouldn't cringe away in horror, it doesn't actually gross me out that much, but I know if really gives some people the heeby-jeebies.

We noticed a very strange phenomenon, though.

After dinner, we usually give Uulaq the bits of leftovers (the rest of the rice, or the last few meatballs, that sort of thing) on one of the dinner plates (and no, don't worry, we prety much scald them into an antiseptic state in the dishwasher!). So the Adorable Husband mixes the rest of the veggies in with brown rice with the serving spoon and both of us suddenly realize that we both now consider the spoon "dirty" and, even though we haven't done anything with it but touch the food that we were planning to give to the dog, the spoon had cooties. The spoon went from perfectly fine serving spoon to "touched-the-food-for-the-dog" icky just by intent.

The dog at this point is still outside, hasn't even seen the bowl yet, and we realize that we are both absolutely unwilling to use the spoon again. Same thing a fork or knife used to cut up something. In this case, we had been eating the rice and veggies all mixed up anyway, so it wasn't even that the food was in some sort of weird mixed-up, inedible combination. We had just decided that it was now the dog's leftovers.

Weird, eh?

Annoying Alarmclock

If you're like me, you reached over and hit the snooze a couple of times this morning. Every morning. Or even turned off the alarm entirely and fell back to sleep. (Luckily, I work from home and can't really be "late." Those seven minutes or so of snooze-time are the best sleep of the whole night, if you ask me.

But it does make it a bit more difficult to actually get up and get going in the morning. Well, a designer (Ena) has designed an alarm clock that might actually get even the most snooze-happy people out of bed. You'd have to get up -- the bloody alarm clock is buzzing around like a manic bumble-bee and you have to chase it down. In the air. Perhaps with a net, if you have tall ceilings.

When your alarm goes off, the little ball starts up, levitates, and then zooms around the walls and ceiling until you catch it and turn it off. Unless you happen to keep rocks next ot the bed to throw at the thing and knock it out of the air!

And then, of course, there's Clocky, which runs away and hides when the alarm goes off so you have to follow it around to turn it off.

Seriously, these things were designed by chirpy morning people to torture those of us who don't get going until we've been up for an hour, right? That could be the only reason that people are developing this stuff. They get some sort of sadistic pleasure out of forcing the rest of us to be "morning people!"

History of Western Philosphy

One of the courses that I listen to from the Teaching Company mentioned Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy. I haven't read it (although I just ordered a copy!) and I was surprised that it also came up in a discussion forum just today. One of the quirks of the Internet, I guess.

On the forum, it came up in a discussion regarding admonitions about marriage and how the rules about who to marry, who not to marry, etc were derived. So someone asked the rather odd question of how it was determined to be "bad to marry your brother or sister". Well, we all sort of know this, right? I mean, cultural taboos against incest are pretty deeply grounded. And we all know now that there are some very good physical reasons not to interbreed (the Hapsburg Chin, anyone?), but how has this decision been explained by others?

Well, someone remembered a discussion by St. Thomas Aquinas regarding the topic, and we all were rather amused by the hilarious justification he gives for not marrying your sibling (quoted here from Russell's book):

[According to St. Thomas] Divine Law directs [...] There must be strict monogamy; polygyny is unfair to women, and polyandry makes paternity uncertain. Incest is to be forbidden because it would complicate family life. Against brother-sister incest there is a very curious argument: that if the love of husband and wife were combined with that of brother and sister, mutual attraction would be so strong as to cause unduly frequent intercourse. (H.W.P.p459)

Thomas Aquinas wrote the Summa Theologica, which has commentary on any number of questions and is intended as a teaching tool for theology of the 13th century He's generally considered to be a fantastically smart guy. But the reason he could come up with to bar sibling marriage was too much sex? You have to admit that's pretty funny, and pretty telling about medieval attitudes towards women and men and the natural things they do together!

Ethanol numbers

I've been hearing a lot of advertising for GM "flex-fuel" vehicles, and supported ads for ethanol producers telling us to "go green!" It's a hot topic, and it seems that the verdict really isn't in on whether moving to ethanol as an alternative fuel (E85- - 85% ethanol, 15% gasoline) is a good idea.

It sounds good on the surface, of course -- fewer emissions, using a "renewable" resource vs reliance on fossil fuels (and the necessary reliance on foreign supplies of oil). I'm all for changing what we do if it's really better; I'm not a tree-hugger by any means, but I think we all have a responsibility to use resources better and try to keep our impact on the rest of the world as small as possible. We Americans love our cars, and I think we need to be more careful how we use them and fuel them.

But the ads that I've been hearing have some disturbingly vague information. Most notably, the "Live Green, Go Yellow!" campaign touts that "Ethanol can cost up to a dollar less per gallon and save x dollars a year in fuel!".

Well, not quite. First, in many states, E85 is actually more expensive than gasoline, and it is available in only a few places. In March, the adjusted average for gasoline was 2.30 a gallon, for ethanol, 2.96. The difference was a bit smaller recently, but only because gas is climbing near the 3.50 mark, at least around here.

Second--and more importantly--Ethanol has fewer BTUs than gasoline (about 80K/gallon, vs 109-125K), that is. it has less energy in it. So, your car gets fewer miles per gallon of ethanol than it does for gasoline, despite the higher octane. Estimates range from 25-25% decrease in fuel efficiency. The latest studies from the Energy Dept suggest that the drop could be as high as 40%. (Their tools are here)So that mythical dollar you save on buying ethanol is easily outweighed by the additional gallons you have to buy. It's hard to get actual numbers, since Ethanol is not yet widely used and most cars mix a tank of gasoline in once in a while, but at least one example noted a 17% difference in fuel efficiency running "mostly E85" and 24% using solely E85.

[Businessweek] From General Motors, an ad campaign called "Live Green, Go Yellow" gave America the impression that by purchasing GM vehicles capable of using E85 ethanol, we could help reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

What GM left out of its ads was that the use of this fuel would likely increase the amount of smog during the summer months (as the EPA's own attorneys had admitted in 1995) -- and that using E85 in GM products would lower their fuel efficiency by as much as 25%. (USA Today recently reported that the Energy Dept. estimated the drop in mileage at 40%.)

Newer cars, with computer-managed fuel-injection systems are likely to do better, but even cars designed as flex-fuel vehicles show a definite drop in fuel efficiency. Ok, so it doesn't cost less -- that has never really been a goal of using alternate fuels (although it sure seems to be touted as a benefit in advertising). Does it at least cost less to produce? Early data suggested that it actually was a zero-sum game: it took as much energy to produce a gallon of ethanol as it contained. Newer methods of generating ethanol are not as bad, and there is a net energy gain from ethanol. I was also surprised to learn that ethanol cannot be transported in pipelines like gasoline (it picks up impurities and excess water too easily) and thus must be trucked to processing plants and distribution centers. If you balance the cost of having to drive trucks to haul the stuff, the balance sheet doesn't look as good, either. [Ethanol's Net Energy Balance]

But cost of fuel is not really the driving issue here. Even if it costs you the same to drive with E85, the benefits of cleaner air, etc, would be enough to get people to swap, right? Well, even that is up in the air. E85 use can actually cause more smog during some periods even if it doesn't belch out hydrocarbons and other greenhouse gasses.

But it's the invisible cost that strikes me as more dangerous. If we pursue creating ethanol from food crops (corn, beets, etc) as a primary use, we're going to drive up the cost of food. No one is really sure just how far the ripple effect will go -- but the demands of producing corn, for example, as a source of ethanol have already impacted corn prices and land use. Recently, the UK reported that:

the final figure is equivalent to 1.2 billion litres of bioethanol and 1.35 billion litres of biodiesel. If this were to be produced in the UK, 1.2 million hectares would be required, about 20% of the UK's arable land.

Now, the US has a lot more land under cultivation, as does the rest of the world, so the assumption is that most ethanol/biodesiel will be shipped around the world from producers to users.

So if I sound skeptical about the lovely claims that ethanol is "the perfect plan", I am. Perhaps in the balance, it is a better choice, but the campaign to get it accepted seems to be relying on some pretty shady marketing tactics. Appealing to my pocketbook might get me to look at other options, but when in the end, it might cost more to use it, I'm definitely going to be doing a lot more research first. If a large chunk of the things I buy get more expensive because we shifted land-use, transportation methods, and other costs from oil to cover crops...the benefit of fewer emissions may not be enough to sway most people away from common, (relatively) cheap and familiar gas.

Ages and Ages

Today is our 18th Anniversay -- and as I told the Adorable Husband today, I'd do every single minute again....well, perhaps not the giant flying bug part while living in Georgia, but you know what I mean!

It's odd, really. Most of our peers haven't been together half as long, and many are on their second or even third marriages. We've been very, very lucky, I know that. I still look over in the morning and think, "Damn, I'm lucky I married this man!"

We've actually been together a bit over 25 years. Couple that with turning 41 next week, and attending the graduation party of our friend's daughter (when I remember her when she was TEN) and I'm feeling quite old this week.

I say it in a rather facetious way, because I certainly don't really feel old except for those first few minutes in the morning when I'm trying to get my back straightened out. But in general, I realize that I've definitely hit adulthood with all the requisite responsibilities and stuff. Kind of daunting, actually! I suppose I can get older but I'm not going to grow up. Nya-nya-nya!

The Adorable Husband was on call all weekend, so we are taking time off next weekend to wander around Denver, see the new Titanic exhibit at the museum, go to dinner, that sort of thing. It'll be fun!

Think we didn't notice?

[From ThinkProgress] Attorney General Alberto Gonzales had once again bypassed the Senate and used an obscure Patriot Act provision to appoint an interim U.S. attorney in California. In doing so, he exercised an authority that was specifically banned by a bill that passed both chambers of Congress and passed to Bush on June 4.

That bill, the Preserving United States Attorney Independence Act of 2007, has been on the president’s desk since June 4th. Do you know it seems he just can’t bring himself to sign it? Instead, we were informed yesterday through the Justice Department that the attorney general has used the power that we voted to repeal again.

Well, Bush got what he wanted, and by delaying, he was able to get one more loyal Bush-follower into a public office. The bill was finally signed yesterday. After Gonzales did his spiffy little two-step around the law.

Summer vs Winter Temps

So, I've been wondering: why in the winter does 50 degrees feel warm and we're outside in shorts basking in the pale sun, while the same temperature in the summer is frigid and requires a coat?

This has been a topic of much discussion in the Phouka household this week. We open the house up at night to take advantage of the lovely Colorado summer weather, and the temperature in the house in the morning has been dipping into mid-50s territory. It's perfect sleeping weather, and if we are conscientious about shutting the windows in the morning, the house stays cool enough that the air conditioning doesn't really come on until early evening, even on the 90-degree days. That sun blasting into the house from the west tends to heat things up a bit, but otherwise, it's pretty comfortable. The temp outside was 85, and even at 4pm it was still only 68 in the house.

Anyway, it's pretty dang chilly in the house in the morning, and even cooler downstairs. The Adorable Husband has been exercising in the basement each morning, and enjoying the cool mornings. I had to laugh at him -- if the house was the same temperature in January, say, he'd be bitching to high heaven that the house was like an icebox and refusing to get out of bed in the morning! (Well, me, too, but I tend to like it cooler than he does in general).

But now? When the days are climbing to 90 degrees? It's "refreshing" and perfectly ok that the house is at 56 in the morning while he runs around in pajama bottoms and no slippers.

Well, why does this happen? Obviously, it has to do with perception of "hot" and "cold" compared to the normal environment (I found an interesting explanation here in Hot and Cold Questions), but my body temperature is the same. Do I just get used to it being warmer, so my body thinks that 75 degrees is the "right" temperature instead of 35 degrees? So at some point in the spring and fall my body temperature sensors readjust? What triggers it? Average outdoor temperature? Longer daylight hours? Humidity?

It's all a sensory illusion, of course. 55 degrees is 55 degrees, but the relative difference in what we see as "normal" temperature accounts for the difference. I'd be curious, though, to find out the specific trigger points for when we think 55 is hot vs when we think 55 is cold.

Ice Cream Confessions

The Adorable Husband has insisted that I post this anecdote about myself (since I so gleefully made fun of my sister borrowing a lamp during a power outage). He has made the comment that his family just doesn't divulge that sort of minorly embarassing stuff to all and sundry. Where's the fun in that? My family? Oh, pretty much any bone-headed thing you do is going to make the rounds at every family gathering for years to come.

Many moons ago. the Adorable Husband bought a truly inspired flavor of ice cream: Dreyers Ultimate Caramel Cup. Caramel ice cream, caramel swirl and--the best part--caramel filled chocolate chips.

Mmmmmmm. Caramel-filled chocolate chips. Like teensy little Rollo candies. Bliss.

At first, we ate the ice cream like normal people. But then, in what I now shall call The Perfect Crime, I started to pick out the caramel cups and just eat those.

Soon, this was not enough. I discovered that if I left the ice cream out for just a bit to get soft, I could root through the entire carton of ice cream, eating ALL the caramel cups, and then sort of squish the ice cream back down into the bottom of the container so it looked all normal again. Like I said, The Perfect Crime.

The poor Adorable Husband must have wondered if there was some sort of manufacturing problem, that the top of the container had plenty of chocolate bits, and the bottom half was strangely devoid of anything resembling a Caramel-filled chocolate chip.

Everest vs Mauna Loa

Weird thing I learned today? While Everest is usually first on the list when you ask people to list the "tallest mountain", that's actually--technically--not true.

Mauna Loa is the tallest mountain. Measured from the base of the mountain (which starts on the sea floor), Mauna Loa towers over Everest by about 3/4 of a mile -- at about 30,080 ft. Of course, about 15,000 of that is under water, but the mountain rises as a single slope from the sea bottom to its crown.

A technicality, to be sure, but at least one other site notes that

Geophysical evidence indicates that the full height of Mauna Loa above its base is an astounding 19 kilometers, more than twice the height of Mount Everest above sea level.

Poachers

Poachers in Zambia have shot the last two white rhinos in the country. One is dead, the other may still survive. The f--ing poachers took the horn of the dead female. Obviously, these are not the last white rhinos around, but the six that Zambia acquired for their game preseve have now all been shot by poachers.

I think we should start actively hunting poachers. Round them up and shoot them in public. It might be a useful deterrent. Or at least, thin their ranks a little bit.

Although, perhaps we ought to target the people buying the black-market animal parts. As long as the market exists, and money can be made, some poacher is going to kill an endangered animal. Powdered rhino horn is primarily used in Asia as an aphrodesiac, and in folk medicine. Pisses me right off that an endangered animal is killed so some jerk can get it up. Let's ship them viagra by the truckload instead, eh?

Supervolcano

Ok, so it wasn't enough to get freaked out about the History channel show, oh, no -- I had to do a bit more googling to see what else I could find out. (Me? Obsessive?)

One of the scenarios in the show was the enormous eruption of the Yellowstone caldera, releasing about 1000 cubic km of material into the atmosphere as it did 640,000 years ago. It tends to erupt about every 600K years, according to the layers in the surrounding park, and an eruption of this size would be catastrophic to life in the US. (To compare -- Mt. Saint Helens burped up only 1.2 cubic km of material. A tiny little blip in the company of the "supervolcanos".

So what else do I discover? That the largest supervolcano caldera ever discovered is in Colorado!

From Wikipedia:

La Garita was the site of truly enormous eruptions about 26–28 million years ago, during the Oligocene Epoch. The scale of volcanism was far beyond anything known in human history. The resulting deposit, known as the Fish Canyon Tuff, has a volume of approximately 5,000 cubic kilometers. That is more than enough material to fill Lake Erie. For comparison, the May 18, 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens was only 1.2 cubic kilometers in volume. The area devastated by the La Garita eruption must have covered a significant portion of what is now Colorado, and ash could have fallen as far as the east coast of North America and the Caribbean.

It was one of the largest known eruptions, if not the largest, to have occurred in Earth's history.

Well. At least it is considered "extinct" at this point. We hope.

Stupid People

I was talking about inept managers and childish executives with my Invisible Friends online. Everyone knows the type: the manager who "doesn't know how to run the copier", or the executive who asks how to get letterhead to print on the office printer, when s/he really means "do it for me because I am a grand-high-poobah and these things are beneath me!" Most of the time it's a power play -- they can demand that someone else do something for them.

My standard response to these is to explain it, once, and then jokingly reply, "Well, I know you're not stupid, you can do it!" And sometimes, not so jokingly. Most people can't figure out a way to reply to that without admitting that yes, they are indeed stupid. They either do it themselves, or find someone else to do it.

Now, I do sympathize with people when faced with a new technology -- but everyone can figure these things out once they've been shown how. Refusing to do it after you've been shown is just trying to be purposely helpless or blatantly arrogant.

A couple of excerts from the Invisible People:

That's my boss. She also believes when you fax a document, you lose it, so you
must make a copy of it before faxing. How she thinks the original document is
transported physically from our machine to another machine is something I should
ask her sometime.

And, finally, this absolutely hysterical exchange recounted by one poster:

"Did your boss ever live in Albuquerque, say around 1990? I ask because at that time my then BF, now DH was working in copy shop. This woman came in & really insisted, vehemently, that she needed to fax her daughter the airline ticket she was holding in her hand.

The daughter, who did not have a fax machine on her end, was sitting by the phone waiting for a physical piece of paper to arrive somehow & allow her to catch her plane. The one that left within a couple hours.

He tried to explain it to her, but she was so insistent that he started to lose his temper. I stepped in (I was waiting for him to get off work) and tried, too. She just would.not.believe us.

She and her daughter truly believed that the ticket would be sucked into the machine & spit out into the phone at the daughter's house. Eventually, I suggested calling the airline & seeing if they could reissue the ticket & have it waiting for her when she arrived, but that was declared a 'stupid' idea and she stomped off in search of a copy shop where they could HELP her.

Boggle.

You mean the movies got it wrong?

I've just given myself nightmares...possibly for weeks. I stayed up late last night watching a show on the History Channel called "Last Days on Earth" -- wherein extremely smart scientists ponder the top threats to the planet and how the earth might end (and, of course, what happens to us when this occurs). Gamma radiation bursts, supervolcanos, asteroids, black holes -- all discussed by the likes of Stephen Hawkings, astrophysicist Neil De Grasse Tyson, and experts in vulcanology, geology, etc.

Sure, there have been disaster movies on SciFi for years about the giant asteroid heading towards earth, or a volcano erupting in Los Angeles or something. At the last moment, while the desperate people on earth watch in awe, the asteroid is destroyed, or the lava is rerouted, or most people excape the giant tsunami. It's a popular genre.

But the reality -- as this History Channel special explains with computer simulations and detailed scientific explanations of the predicted results -- is never so pretty. A massive eruption of the enormous caldera that sits under Yellowstone Park could drop ten feet of ash and sulfuric acid over the entire US and within weeks over most of the globe. The oceans would have the pH of battery acid and the darkness would kill off most of the plant life for many years. And we're about 30,000 years overdue for a massive eruption, if history is any predictor.

A black hole swinging close to our solar system (not as far fetched as it sounds) would give us decades of warning that the earth was going to be destroyed. And not a damn thing we could do about it.

Asteroids are a common movie villain, but the rosy outlook promised by the movie Armageddon isn't quite reality, according to the experts. An asteroid the size of Connecticut is currently plotted to come close enough to the earth in 2029 that it will actually pass beneath the orbit of some of our communication satellites -- and when it returns seven years later, no one knows whether it will hit us or not. If it does -- well, we know how the dinosaurs died off, and if anyone actually survived the firestorm in the atmosphere that would follow such an impact, it would be a short and painful existence. One of the interesting discussions in the show was of the movie-version of an asteroid hitting the earth: everyone standing outside, lookup up as the glowing rock leaves a shooting-star trail across the sky. Nope, according to science. THese things move at hundreds of miles per second, supersonic. We'd never hear it, and if we were anywhere within a thousand mile radius, the heat of the asteroid coming through the atmosphere would fry people instantly. No pretty glowing trails in the sky, just boom!

We can't actually waste much time worrying about this sort of thing, of course. These events are of such scope and impact that there isn't anything we can do to stop them -- and if they occur, there isn't any way for anyone to "fix" things. We can plan and we can have warning systems in place, but these would be world-ending events. Or at least, species-ending events for anything that needed to breathe and eat and drink. Nothing we do will avoid mile-high tides caused by a black hole, or the blasts of gamma radiation that quite literally shuts down our cells. We can't respond to this sort of thing, and the reality is that we shouldn't spend a whole lot of time trying to do it.

Not quite the nice end to the weekend that I envisioned!

Keep an eye out for the show on the History Channel -- or pick up the DVD here. It's interesting, even if it is enough to keep you up at night staring and the ceiling and wondering.

Uitwaaien!

Uitwaaien is Dutch for "walking in windy weather for fun" and boy, have we had windy weather for the last two days!

The house is making faint booming noises each time a wind gust hits, and even the closed and locked windows upstairs are whistling in the wind. The outer edge of a huge storm system is running through Colorado -- no rain, but hurricane winds!

It's died down a bit finally (only about 35 mph gusts, according to the Adorable Husband's weather center thingy) but yesterday evening would not have been a good time to fly a kite or walk a teeny little dog. Keep a hold of small children, too!

Here are a few of the recorded wind gusts:

Berthoud – 101 mph (north of us)
Boulder – 92 mph (just a wee bit east of us
Genesee – 74 mph
Louisville – 70 mph
Greeley – 58 mph
Estes Park – 53 mph

Fun!

We're all royalty

Strange things come up in my online conversations, and this is one of the oddest in a while. A lot of people who do geneaology are thrilled to find that they are related to some noble somewhere, descended from Earl This or Queen That -- and apparently there is statistical evidence that this is probably true for everyone. Apparently, we're all descended from Charlemagne. Or Confucious. Or some poor peasant schlepping about in northern Germany in 300 CE.

A fairly recent notion in biology and genetics is the concept of Most Recent Common Ancestor (MRCA) ; that is, if you go back far enough, there is a common person in everyone's lineage. No, this is not a pitch for a "Genetic Eve" or any such nonesense, it's actually much simpler than that, and computer simulations have suggested that a common ancestor for ALL people of European descent is as recent as 1700 years ago.

Now, I'm the last person to try to explain statistics...they are mostly incomprehensible to me. But a statistician at Yale has apparently done a proof that points back to a common ancestor from about 800 CE. The logic goes something like this: everyone has two parents, four grandparents, 8 grandparents, 16...you get the picture. That number get really really big, really really fast. At some point, it surpasses the actual available population alive at the time everyones great-to-the-40th or whatever grandparents were alive. So, this means that people obviously shared ancestors. So far, so good.

At some point, the statistical count of people and relationships and time and DNA testing and whatever other magic mathematicians use converges on such a small group of people that everyone is somehow related to everyone else.

I get pretty fuzzy at this point. Lots of people have died, right? Not everyone has children, some people have more children than others, etc. But the math is sound, although even the statistician who did the paper admits that ht has probably overlooked a variable or two. But his conclusion? Everyone of European descent is related to Charlemagne -- a random choice of people living at the time that the MRCA existed, but a plausible choice, nonetheless.

Further study (by a gentleman named Mark Humphreys, a profressor a the Sschool of Computing at Dublin City University) has generated computer models that show that everyone in the world is eventually related to the Egyptian Royal house (1600 BCE), and other equally throught-provoking results.

I don't even claim to understand how they got to that conclusion, but if you want more information, here's the blog that I discovered this morning, and another explanation of how it's supposed to work.

Booz2Go

Just what we need -- powdered alcoholic drinks! Woot!

Basically, a little package of drink mix, a little water, and voila! Alcoholic lime-ade! Powdered alcohol has been sold as a "flavoring" in the US for a few years, but it looks like this bunch of Dutch science students have figured out how to powder the stuff and actually reconstitute the alcohol content.

Top it up with water and you have a bubbly, lime-colored and -flavored drink with just 3 percent alcohol content.

"We are aiming for the youth market. They are really more into it because you can compare it with Bacardi-mixed drinks," 20-year-old Harm van Elderen told Reuters.

I'm a bit concerned that the targeted markets is "youth", because it's not technically illegal in the Netherlands to sell this sort of product to minors -- only alcohol in liquid form is covered under existing law. Of course, the legal drinking age in the Netherlands is already at a low 16 years old.

The whole "alcopop" set of products-- sweet, soda-like drinks with the same alocohol content as watery beer -- has been pretty popular in Europe, where drinking ages are lower and punishment for DUI are higher. Personally, the allure of a sweet, fizzy lime-ade-like drink is rather hard for me to figure out. Sounds kind of gross, actually.

Braaaaaiiiinnnss!

Right after we moved into the new house, the beasts had one of their extremely rare fights (this is the one where the Adorable Husband ended up with stitches because he tried to take an eye out on one of those tree-support poles). We didn't often give the dogs soft stuffed anumals, since Uulaq tends to get pretty possessive about them. Well, they had a serious fight over one of the fleecy gingerbreadman-shaped chew toys.

Uulaq loves them, and apparently Rukh went too close to it. Huge vet visit ensued (she bit him through his eyelid, among other things) and after we got everyone back to the house, we went out to search for the offending toy and get rid of it.

It had dissapeared.

We looked everywhere -- no signs of recently dug-up dirt, no holes in the "regular" places, no tucking it behind the bushes or under the porch. We combed the yard for over an hour looking for the thing. We coudln't find anywhere that it might be buried and finally gave up, figuring that one of us int he heat of the moment had probably tossed it, or it was somewhere outside the yard. It had quite simply vanished from existence.

Until yesterday.

Apparently bored with the fact that I sit in my office do not amuse her all day, coupled with guys digging holes in the yard for new trees -- Uulaq has unearthed the four-year-old, dirt and fungus-encrusted chewie man from his not-so-shallow grave under the oak tree. It's all digusting and zombified and lumpy with unspeakable grossness and she looooooves it.

I don't even want to touch the disgusting thing, but she is carefully guarding it's shallow resting place and tries to dig it up every few hours. I know it's unfair, and I should just dig the horrid thing up and throw it away (instead of telling her to 'leave it!' every time she tries to dig)...but it's sooooo gross. I will have to find some gloves and unearth the chewie-corpse and dispose of it. Perhaps by burning. Ugh.

The NEW chewie toys have been dropped completely in favor of Zombie Chewie. Dogs is weird.

We just need another attack!

The new GOP chief in Arkansas, Dennis Milligan, is settling in to a state where Republicans were soundly beaten in the last election. He was elected as the new chair of the Arkansas Republican Party just two weeks ago, and predicts many changes for the GOP in his home state. I can't imagine that a statement like this one is going to help:

He said he’s “150 percent” behind Bush on the war in Iraq.

“At the end of the day, I believe fully the president is doing the right thing, and I think all we need is some attacks on American soil like we had on [Sept. 11, 2001 ], and the naysayers will come around very quickly to appreciate not only the commitment for President Bush, but the sacrifice that has been made by men and women to protect this country,” Milligan said.

I'm having a hard time believing that he actually wants another attack on the US, but his blithe assurance that it would get people to support the president is pretty off the wall. I know a few poeple who believe this sort of thing.
All we "nay-sayers" need is to have more people killed and we'll just realize how Fabulous and Special the boy king is? That we don't already understand the sacrifice of every man and woman who has died in this fiasco? Really? Is that a size twelve shoe you have in your mouth, there, Mr. Milligan? Or do you stand by this one?

Seriously, I have to imagine he's kicking himself for phrasing it that way. I sincerely hope he is.

Invisible Super-Fox

More neighbor stories -- can't help it; the weather is fabulous and we spend a lot of time lounging around on the porch drinking wine and talking to them. (Great neighbors!)

Just outside our culdesac, in a house that was build by the same builder who did ours, a very nice older couple from (we think) California moved in. Great house, they spend a ton of time in the yard doing gardening and that sort of thing. They have a little white westie dog, Baxter (and, since we are terrible with people's names, they are "Baxter's People". (This is not unusual, actualy, when we lived in the old house, we used to know everyone on the block by their dogs -- Ginger's humans, 'the people who belong to Yodie', that sort of thing. We remembered every dog's name, but the people? Well, they better have nametags.)

So, Baxter's Mom (and I use that term guardedly, since I hate it when people refer to themselves as their dogs' "parents", but for the sake of brevity I'll use it here) is a very nice worman, but every single time I talk to her, she has a litany of complaints. There is always something wrong -- with the house, the garden, the weather, you name it, and she has a long, sad, rant about how things are not going properly.

About a month ago, the complaint du jour was that there was a "vicious, attack-cat" hanging around her front yard that was preventing her from leaving the house. OOOOkay. We all got a kick out of this, as the cat in question -- a big gray tomcat -- was fairly friendly.

Last night, K reported that Baxter's Mom had spent a lot of time on the neighborhood computer forum trying to figure out what sort of animal was now spraying on her back porch -- the stone pillars and the barbecue grill just REEKED, and she was at a loss as to what to do. Every night, and it was just awful. She didn't think it was cats, since she had put down Serious. Cat. Repellent and hadn't seen a cat in the yard for weeks, but she didn't know what it was and how to make it stop!

I asked what sort of cat repellent she had bought -- and discovered that she had found something called 'SHAKE-AWAY Cat Repellent Urine Granules' which contain ' (Coyote and Fox Powder) ' -- powdered urine granules from coyotes and fox, both of which we have in abundance around here. Can you see where this is heading?

Our theory is that by putting down the urine powder to keep cats out of her yard, she has actually ATTRACTED either the coyotes who have staked out Erie Village as part of their territory, or the red fox we've seen hanging around the neighborhood for the last few weeks. Probably the fox -- which would have no problem getting into their yard and are known to 'spray' to mark territory.

So, Baxter's Mom basically set up her house as "belonging" to some extra-strong, unknown, and invisible super-fox -- so the poor fox has scented an interloper in his territory, found the "den" of the invisible super-fox, and is going to keep marking it over and over and over until the dastardly invisible creature either shows up to contest his marking, or disappears. And fox urine stinks. It's worse than a cat spraying.

No wonder we've seen the fox hanging around the house lately. We usually don't see them, but we've seen this one male fox loping about just behind the house at least twice in two days.

Not quite what Baxter's Humans had in mind, I'm sure.

And the stuff is nearly impossible to get rid of -- it's marketed as being weather resistant and long-lasting. Oops!

Primping Poodles

Late this afternoon, my neighbor called, "Are you home? I have to show you something!"

After warning her that I was still in sweats and looked dreadful, I said OK and went outside to meet her.

And what do I see? Her golden retriever puppy (well, not quite a puppy anymore, a year old) prancing up the driveway with a red bandanna with hearts on it around her neck, and two matching ribbons on her ears. And, to round out the ensemble, red painted toenails.

She had been to the groomer today.

I just about ruptured something laughing. K explained that she just laughed when she saw "nail polish" on the list of grooming options, and just had to check it. She thought it was hysterical.

Poor Maggie. She didn't really seem to care one way or the other about having red toenails, but she certainly didn't like every human who saw her bursting into slightly hysterical laughter.

People should NOT dress up their dogs in clothes, or dye them to match their purse, or paint their toenails. It's just wrong, people! Wrong! Next thing we know, K will have her in little legwarmers and a doggie sweater and we'll have to stage an intervention!

Scary? You decide

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist Wednesday, May 30, 2007

It's just one of those obscure little unreported-upon conspiracy theory-ready hunks of floating White House detritus, a couple of odd, sticky, foul-smelling documents no one really wants to touch and no one knows quite what to make of, probably means nothing, probably being misread anyway, all a bit overblown and strange and not all that important and not all that different than the way things are now.

Unless, you know, it's not. Unless the violent twinge of queasy paranoia crossed with that uncontrolled bout of colon-clenching sighing you experience is deadly accurate and your radar for all things sinister and Rovean is right on target as you read about the delightfully titled National Security Presidential Directive/NSPD 51 and the Homeland Security Presidential Directive/HSPD-20, wherein it is calmly and furtively revealed that, in essence, George W. Bush owns your sorry ass.

Or, to put it another way, it looks like the Bumbling One just gave himself ever more power. Power to control and dictate the entire government, power to really spread the gospel of happy GOP incompetence, power to command the entire wobbly American universe should some sort of epic -- or not so epic, as the case may be -- calamity strike the homeland.

It goes something like this: Should any "decapitating event" occur in American that somehow incapacitates the D.C. power structure, should "any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions" take place, well then, all power and decision making would devolve to the White House, which would then attempt to orchestrate our very survival and oversee all essential governmental functions with none other than the president himself as, well, Super-Mega Lord Decider. With extra crayons.

You know, a dictator.

Electronic birth control

Seriously. This is from a thread in an online forum that I often read. Parents recounting How to Make Your Parents Crazy.

I am laughing and snorting in a distinctly un-ladylike manner.

Sauce for the Goose

Some teachers in the Albemarle School District in Virginia are rebelling against their managers' orders to hand out to students as young as kindergarten a promotion for a summer camp that advocates a non-theist worldview. The teachers are refusing to hand out the fliers, even though this is the same school district that hands out school-board sanctioned religiously-themed flyers.

This whole hoo-ha has previously resulted in a lawsuit that demanded the right to hand out specifically christian-themed information. Following a decision by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Maryland in response to the lawsuit, the school board must allow all non-profit organizations (Boy scouts, the YMCA, church groups, etc) to have their information sent home with children through the school. It's a convenient way to get info to kids and families.

But you know what? Now that a group wants to hand out flyers that the school board doesn't like, the same people are claiming that it's oppression and offense against Christians.

"They do put a disclaimer there, that the school doesn't' support it, [as they do for all documents]" the representative said. "But we are expected to send this stuff home in childrens' backpacks. It's still coming from me and my classroom."

"I took a stand and did not send it home," the representative said. "Other teachers did the same thing."

So, the teachers are not going to distribute this paricular flyer because they disagree with it. They didn't seem to worry much about offending anyone else's beliefs when they handed out christian flyers, did they? You can't have it both ways.

I have no problem with sending out either flyer. Churches have myriad community programs and information that is valuable. So do non-church groups. If the school is being used as a vehicle to send out "community info" then all groups should have fair access.

Sending these flyers home is a normal part of the school function, btw. Mostly they are for after-school programs, or scouts, or other community offerings -- including religious organizations. But apparently, people want a double-standard here. One standard for 'things we like and approve of" and another for "things we don't like and don't approve of". The school board has a responsbility to make sure that the flyers are from valid non-profit organizations in the community -- so no specious strawmen that 'so...you'd let KKK members hand out flyers?', please -- but they are specifically even-handed about it (based on a court decision!)

From Notes on the Culture war:

Gee, do Christians object to handing our flyers promoting non-Christian events?
Funny, you weren't concerned about how handing out flyers for Christian camps might "violate the teachers' religious beliefs" if those teachers were Jewish, or Buddhist, or Muslim. In fact, when that was the case, all the talk was about how unfair it was for them to refuse to hand out such flyers. Ain't it funny how the attitude changes when the shoe's on the other foot? When Christians do it, it's a brave fight for religious freedom; when non-Christians do the same thing, it's obviously anti-Christian oppression. Quite convenient, that.

Thank You.

To anyone who has served, thank you.

And to all those who have fallen, we remember your sacrifice. Thank you.

Bagging it

You how some days just get away from you and it's easier to just call it a day and not even try anymore? That's today. Seriously.

Both the PM and I are very frustrated with one of our clients -- for a variety of reasons I won't post here -- and our weekly status lunch turned into a generic bitch-bag session. Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with two hour lunches, but when I got in my car and drove away, I realized that I'd hit 40 hours sometime on Thursday and I was just done. finis. over-and-out.

I went home and got re-immersed in my favorite computer game for about six hours. The Adorable Husband was stuck at work until almost 10pm, and I wasn't even aware that it was suddenly LATE. Definitely a completely engrossing game. If I haven't mentioned it before, the game is a PC role-playing game called Oblivion. We have it on the PC and downstairs on the xBox. It's quite nice on the big screen!

He's still at large...

'cause we haven't caught him. Ooh. Please explain that to us again.

Why is he at large? 'Cause we haven't got him, yet, Jim. That's why. And he's hiding. And we're looking. And we will continue to look until we bring him to justice. We've brought a lot of his buddies to justice, but not him. That's why he's still at large." -- President Bush, at a press conference today, responding to a question about why Osama bin Laden has not yet been captured.

Does anyone else feel like we're going in circles? Is that even an answer? Not in any sort of conversation I've ever had.

It's meaningless doublespeak.

"Why is the house on fire?"

"Well, the house is fire 'cause it's still burning, you see. You've got to understand that fire is hot, and the house is burning. And we know that the house is burning. So the house is on fire."

Not a good example

Not only is there a museum showing humans hunting dinosaurs and displaying how creationism is such an obvious and simple explanation for the world around us, religious schools have also joined the pack by showing a dangerous and deliberately ignorant application of "science". It's embarassing, really.

Brian Benson, an eighth-grade student who won first place in the Life Science/Biology category for his project "Creation Wins!!!," says he disproved part of the theory of evolution. Using a rolled-up paper towel suspended between two glasses of water with Epsom Salts, the paper towel formed stalactites.

He states that the theory that they take millions of years to develop is incorrect. "Scientists say it takes millions of years to form stalactites," Benson said. "However, in only a couple of hours, I have formed stalactites just by using paper towel and Epsom Salts."

Not only is Brian Benson wrong, he is sadly, laughably, shockingly wrong. Wrong facts, wrong interpretation, wrong conclusion. Wrong on all counts. It demonstrates not only an ignorance of biology and science, but a complete lack of ability to interpret facts and results. No, being able to make "stalactites" with a paper towel and epsom salts is NOT a correlation to the creation of stalactites in the natural world. Different material, wrong facts about stalactite growth, and absolutely wrong in thinking that this in any way even touches a part of evolutionary science by "proving" anything.

Sorry, kiddo, not even close. Every aspect of his "science" project is a sad, ignorant joke. What did he learn in science class? That he will will be rewarded for contorting, misrepresenting, and misapplying actual science as long as he supports a religious ideology.

And he won a PRIZE for it.

It could have been an interesting science project on how solids dissolve in water, how accretion works, or how water is transported via the paper towel via capillary action. Instead, he claims an easy victory over us poor evolutionists, and is fully supported by his school and the judges of the science fair.

I really do blame the school, btw. The kid's in eight grade. Some level of ignorance about scientific matters is to be expected. But the judges in the science fair? They obviously put their desire to support a specific religious agenda ahead of practicing actual science. Or even recognizing actual science when it walks up and smacks them on the ass. There were some great experiments described in the science fair; apparently they didn't deserve as much attention because they were so mundane.

(Btw, the references below to 'creationism' refer to the current press to teach the christian creation myth in schools as an alterate to actual science. 'creationists' don't seem to be suggesting that we teach the babylonian or incan myths, or any other version, so I'm sticking with the xian mythos.)

If you want to believe in the myths of creation as taught by christianity, go ahead. It's a pleasant story. But it's not science. The arguments for god-guided creation cannot be expressed as any sort of scientific pursuit. You believe it because you have faith. One of the things I hear all the time is that creation science/intelligent design are reasonable, and should be considered. "Reasonable" does not equal plausible. It does not even equal possible. If anyone has actually come up with valid evidence for the creation story, I'm sure the world would love to see it.

Creationists are attempting to play out the argument between evolution and the creationism/ID in the public forum -- public debates, creating museums, by "talking about it" extensively-- because it can't stand up to actual scientific inquiry. Convincing people to accept a simple story because it "sounds good" is not science. "You're wrong because I don't understand it" is not a valid argument.

People argue that we should "explore other theories" in an attempt to make creationism more palatable -- I'm all for exploring other theories, but creationism or even ID is NOT a scientific theory. It's not worthy of being considered. People proposing that it be taught as an alternate theory simply don't understand that a scientific theory is not just a nifty idea that might be possible. All the possible permutations of evolutionary theory are not bulletproof -- and I fully support teaching that there are still things that need to be investigated. There are things we don't understand, and the data is constantly evaluated and the details of the theory adjusted as we learn more. This does not make the theory "false" -- recognize that a scientific theory is not "proved true or false", the data either supports it or it doesn't.

If the data doesn't support it, the theory is re-evaluated to express the existing known facts and the new hypothesis is tested, over and over again. That's how science works. Unlike creationism, which comes up with the same result, no matter what the facts are.

Bah. Sorry for the rant.

Necessary?

No, this is not about the War on Terra. I just saw an ad on television for the Volvo S80 (actually, a series of ads -- why do they always seem to show three or four different ads for the same thing one right after the other?) that left me rolling my eyes so hard I think I hurt something.

The ad(s) are for the Volvo S80 Sedan, which has as its tagline "A luxury car that protects the luxury of life". Cue up a dark parking lot and a lone woman walking to her car. A hundred yards away, as a voice intones seriously that she is a "woman alone" she glances down at her key fob...which is blinking rhythmically. "And the S80, with the innovative heart-beat sensor, tells her that there is an intruder in her car." Relieved, she turns back to the light.....

Um, is this actually such a humungous problem that we need to have a heartbeat sensor in the car? I can't say I've ever really given much time over to panicking about whether someone has broken into my car and is lurking inthe back seat. I'm sure it happens -- but designing a sensor to try to detect it? I can see that being useful. I can't find any statistics regarding assaults by intruders lurking in parked cars, but really, you're going to check your keyfob every time you approach you car for a tell-tale blinking, or are you going to look into your car when you get there?

Or the 'accident predictor' feature that lets loose with a shrieking wail if you approach an object too quickly. The ad shows the driver smoothly and effortlessly swerving to avoid the slow-moving truck as the car whoops racously to warn him what he is about to have an accident. Of course, for most drivers, instead of warning them of the imminent threat, the klaxon just tells them "You've had an accident!" . Yeah, right. Oh, I thought -- look! It screams along with you as you have a crash!

Wake of the Plague

My reading list has expanded quite a bit in the last few weeks, with a couple of very interesting books. The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, Einstein by Walter Isaacson, In the Wake of the Plague by Norman Cantor, most of the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher.

The last is sci-fi fluff, but I've been entirely drawn in by the book about the Black Death, In the Wake of the Plague. It's fascinating. It was recommended to me by a fellow air traveler as an interesting book on medieval life, more than a history book. It covers the basics of the bubonic plague outbreak in the 14th century (1347-1350 or so) and weaves it in with fascinating details about the way people lived and how the plague changed society.

Fir example, he whole "not bathing" thing was a result of churchmen deciding that bathing would "open the pores" to the miasma and make you susceptible to plague (it was thought that "bad air" was the cause of contagion). The tapestry industry in Bruge wa sa direct result of the idea that closing off the windows (again, to keep out "bad air") was necessary.

We rely on the descriptions of contemporary records to identify the "Black Death", and the common belief is that it was bubonic plague -- vivid descriptions of black welts and buboes (hence, bubonic plague) on the victims, who died a particularly gruesome death in a matter of a week or so left us with the clear idea that the pestilence that wiped out 20 million people in Europe in the 14th century was, indeed, a form of bubonic plague. But writers also described people who died without these symptoms, often within a few days.

Bubonic plague is spread by fleas, carried by specific species of rats. (For a really detailed description of how it affects the flea, check out Wikipedia. Ugh). But the plague spread too quicky, and in odd patterns, to be entirely dependent on this infested-rat idea. There are a few people who have hypothesized that the "plague" was not plague at all, but a form of anthrax spread by contact with (or ingestion of) diseased cattle -- a topic which also had much contemporary documentation.

In 1984, Graham Twigg argued that the climate made it nearly impossible for rats and fleas to have transmitted bubonic plague. His suggested alternative was anthrax. In 2001, scientists in Liverpool posited that the Black Death was more likely an ebola-like virus, since the human-to-human transmission rate was unsupportable in the fleas-on-the-rate model. Both of these alternative explainations are detailed at Wikipedia: Black Death.

One of the most interesting theories, however, relates to a genetic mutation and seeming immunity to HIV/AIDS in modern times. This got a half-page treatment in Cantor's book, but I happened upon a Science Channel show discussing this mutation -- CCR5 -- and how they had traced it back to people who had contracted the plague and survived. It is related in some way to people who have survived plague and possibly smallpox, and is a promising avenue of research into AIDS drugs or vaccines. Apparently about 15% of caucasians have this mutation, which showed up only a few hundred years ago.

Of course, it's all theory, and there are just as many scientists with alternate hypotheses. But it's fascinating reading, nonetheless. Considering that we we haven't wiped out bubonic and pneumonic plague (although we can treat them now), and the real risk of biological warfare, knowing about how earlier mass deaths occured is pretty critical. I strongly recommend the book -- not necessary for it's scientific accuracy, but for its interesting and engaging coverage of the period.

More info:
Black Death in Western Europe
Shifting Definitions of Plague
Encyclopedia of Death and Dying
About.com

FISA Redux

Congress has proposed an amendment to the current FISA rules to prohibit illegal wiretapping.

The American Civil Liberties Union today cheered an amendment to the House Intelligence Reauthorization Bill that would prevent illegal domestic wiretapping by the government.

The amendment, by Representatives Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Jeff Flake (R-AZ), will reaffirm the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) as the only legal means of collecting electronic intelligence surveillance. The amendment was passed late last night by a vote of 245-178.

If this wasn't so serious, it would be laughable. They're going to pass a bill to prohibit illegal wiretapping. So now, illegal wiretapping will be...you guessed it, illegal!

So the administration, which has engaged in some seriously questionable wiretapping in the War on Terra while it was simply "illegal", will now have to stop because illegal wiretapping is double-plus-really-really illegal.

Basically, they are reaffirming that the original wording of FISA must be adhered to, and efforts by the administration to "modernize" the law by clearing out legal oversights, will not be accepted or tolerated.

I find it interesting that congress is implicitly stating that they believe (know?) that the NSA has performed illegal wiretaps or is illegally monitoring communications they should not be listening in on...and yet all they can manage is to propose legislation to reinforce that it is already illegal. I suppose that every other effort to prevent it has failed, but this just seemed a little bit too 1984 to me. Ooh! Double-plusGood!

Town Fair

A few years after we moved into Erie, the Chamber of Commerce sponsored a "Town Fair" -- those first few years, it was a sad affair with a few local businesses ponying up a little tent and a few brochures to hand out, and the one local restaurant doing a barbecue. The main street in town was blocked off and everyone wandered around for a couple of hours in the scorching heat.

Since then, it's become quite the soiree. Local hospitals and other businesses set up big tents and have raffles, local craftspeople sell their stuff, live music and fireworks -- and a couple thousand people.

It's still scorching hot, of course, but it's definitely worth a stroll through main street to see everyone. This year, they had two days of balloon launches and after-dark concerts.

I don't usually go, to be honest. Even though the fair in the last few years was a far cry from the sad collection of tents that first year, it's not really that fascinating to me. The Adorable husband loves to go and see everyone, and watch the fire department dismantle a car and demonstrate rescues. Eat a little barbecue, watch the kids get pony rides, that sort of thing. So, I did go this year. We parked near our old house (which used to be a prime location for the fair -- we could easily walk to the festivities)...which left me feeling terribly depressed and sad about the whole day.

I had a really hard time selling our old house. I loved it -- and even realizing that we had no need to have a second house, no urge to be landlords, didn't make it any easier to sell. The buyer immediately started renting it out and it's been occupied for the last three years or do. I get really sad driving by and was just devastated when we parked on the corner and realized that the yard is COMPLETELY overgrown -- three and four foot weeds have taken over the entire yard, the hundred or so rosebushes that we had so carefuly planted and cared for and weeded every year were completely buried by the weeds, which in some cases were taller than the fence. No "regular" grass anywhere anymore...just crabgrass and weeds.

Outside the fence, they at least mowed down the weeds, but there isn't a spec of grass anywhere around the elm trees we planted. The flower beds are gone, even the mighty peony that impinged the door every year is buried under the flourishing weeds.

Sigh. I know it's not mine anymore. But if they can't be bothered to do the basics -- like MOW -- how can I assume that they are taking care of the inside of the house? Or doing the basic maintenance that is required to keep a 120 year old house standing year after year?

TASLFWP

That would be "tiny-assed sorry little first world problem", btw.

That is, the woe and horror that currently making my perfectly comfortable and happy life annoying and difficult....which is so unbelievably trivial that it's embarassing to complain about. It's not like I don't have clean water, or food, or shelter, or the basic protection of human rights. No, my particular little first-world problem is exceedingly banal.

Not that that would stop me, of course. Sometimes we just need to whine and complain about the trivialities.

I can't find my favorite pens.

Seriously, they are impossible to find and it seems as if they are being phased out and replaced by roller-ball pens or gel-ink pens. I hate all of these. I spend so much time typing, that my handwriting has become crabbed and tiny and nearly impossible to read if I'm not very careful, and these new-fangled roller-balls and gel-ink pens are simply too smooth. (And, oh, isn't that a reason for woe and horror?). I end up writing in an illegible scrawl. I need a pen that has some resistance to it, more scratchy, heavier ink. Something.

So I have been using Pilot RazorPoint porous point pens (they are like regular felt-tip pens, but have a hard nib made of plastic, so they are fine-lined or extra-fine-lined). We stopped at every office supply place we could find. We finally found a box of 12 black pens and a packet of colored (oy! Pink! and Aqua!) pens but nothing else. Online, I could find them sold by-the-pen, with a whopping eight bucks for shipping, but that's about it.

I am quite unhappy. I bought all the boxes I could find on the assumption that they are going to disappear entirely quite soon and I'll be left with sparkly gel-pens in Fun! Colors! and super-needle-point rollerball pens that render my writing into chicken-scratches.

Woe is me. Oh, woe.

More Youtube fun

I know, I know, everyone searches youtube on their own, but sometimes I just have to pass on some of the funnier ones.

Hallelujah Nuns. Enjoy.

Technology Explained

Have you ever wondered how the cursor actually moves around your computer screen? It's really quite simple.

Super-magnified view of your cursor!

[Make sure to stop periodically, to see what happens.]

School days

I spend quite a lot of time in online forums (Salon's Tabletalk is a favorite) and after talking extensively about school and school projects, realized that if someone referred to going to school "at the U" -- they invariably meant the University of Minnesota. No one could think of another university that was referred to as "the U"...just the UofM.

Which only served to remind me that I don't sound Minnesotan anymore, unless I'm actually saying 'Minna-soh-t'n'. Sigh. I've always believed that we in the midwest have a pretty flat, almost non-existant 'accent' (which is wishful thinking, we all have accents), but I've apparently started sounding more 'western' than 'midwestern'.

I may have to adopt a Fargo accent just to reconnect with my roots! Ya, sure, you betcha!

Falwell

Dr. Jerry Falwell died yesterday. I'd like to be a better person and feel badly about this (and indeed, I feel great sympahty for his family and for their loss) -- but I found him to be a hateful, narrow-minded, bigoted, and hypocritical man. Most certainly, he was not representative of good Christian people that I know. He had a huge impact on evangelical christianity in the United States, there is no doubt of that, but you'd have to do a lot of explaining to make it a positive one, in my eyes.

And so I hope that the afterlife that he believed in is exactly what it should be for a false and arrogant prophet.

21 "Not everyone who says to me, "Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, "Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?' 23 Then I will declare to them, "I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.' (Matthew 7:21-23)

Doh! Moment

My sister called this morning, just checking in and had to admit to her moment of complete and utter stupidity....have you ever had one of those moment where you say something, and just as it passes your lips, you realise it might just be the dumbest thing you've ever said? Or that anyone has every said? And you can't just sort of rewind and make it disappear?

So, she went out to breakfast on Saturday and when she got back, the power was out at her house. It was out for everyone on her side of the street, but the other side apparently worked fine. Work on the lines, or something, and the power company said the power would be back on by 2 or 2:30. Sure! No problem. They went out to see a movie and go grocery shopping and when they got back....still no power.

As it started getting dark, she looked over at the houses across the street, and said to all and sundry, "Well! They have power over there, maybe I should go and borrow a lamp."

It took a full ten seconds before she actually processed that this was a boneheaded sentence, while everyone in the room stared at her with gape-mouthed horror. Doh!

Dog Logic

If you've ever had a dog, you have defintely had a day like this one.

"I Had a Sweet Potato"

If Looks Could Kill

The Queen is visiting, as she has done about once a decade for the past fifty years. As would be expected for visiting royalty, she has been feted and treated like...well, royalty.

But the gaffes are flying thick. Not only did Bush give a starkly political speech at a social gathering, he apparently winked at the Queen. This is apparently Not. Done. (Although to be honest, I have no idea what possible offense this could be!)

What made me laugh about the whole thing was The Look that she shot him. That LOOK should have drilled him dead on the spot. Had the poor Shrub been British, he probably would have just exploded in a puff of smoke. You could hear the 'We are not AMUSED' behind that look, and it had me giggling madly.

Project Woes

Let me say first that I love my current project -- it's interesting, challenging, and just stressful enough to be motivating.

That was yesterday.

Today, the other developer on the project announced that she's taking a leave of absence for the summer and will be leaving in two weeks. This, of course, after my company pulled her "temporarily" off the proejct to deal with fires at another client. By now, she should have been on my project for almost two months. In reality, by the time she leaves, she'll have worked on our project for less than three weeks.

I can't blame her -- I took a sabatical last year and it was the best thing I've done for my professional life in years. She's frustrating with previous and ongoing projects, and realized that she just wanted some time off. Good for her! Bad for us, of course, but we'll manage.

Sigh. So, it's just back to ME, alone, on the project doing the front-end development. The PM for the project is going to pitch in, and it might end up that she and I do this ourselves. Given the past history with the project, the person we get to "fill in" may be a) temporary or b) a novice and on this project that's going to be bad.

We'll just have to adjust the timeframe and deliverable dates. At least I don't have to be the one telling that to the client! I just have to put my head down and churn out a whole lot of code in the next few weeks! Wish me luck!

And they Napped

Have you ever had one of those weekends where you have a huge list of things to do, tons of errands to run, and somehow you end up doing absolutely nothing on the list? That was our weekend. Dragged ourselves out of bed late on Saturday, in time to run one small errand and meander about the house and nap most of the afternoon, and repeated the exercise on Sunday, except we managed to eat lunch before collapsing in drowsy heaps by 3pm.

So we napped all weekend. I think the Adorable Husband managed to mow the grass late tonight, but that's about it.

I can't tell if it's stress, if we're still depressed and just ignoring it, or what. But I'm awfully glad that we don't have kids around who need to be fed and monitored, and that no one is counting on us to do anything that requires more than the basics of effort!

Ullaq's doing much better -- although she definitely has attached herself to the Husband and is pretty much ignoring me. I can't tell if it's just because I'm home all day and she's bored with me, or what. He takes her for long walks (which might be a bit too long, considering that she's getting old and sleeps for HOURS after he brings her back inside) but otherwise we're both around. Maybe she's picked up on the fact that for a few days after we lost Rukh, I was irrationally angry at her -- that she wasn't the one who was sick, that she was still around. I'm not anymore, of course, but I'm still being snubbed.

Bombs away!

Hate pesky squirrels in your birdfeeder or terrorizing your cats? Well, someone took matters into their own hands.

Ok, this video should not be viewed by anyone who loves small furry creatures. I'm pretty sure the squirrel comes out ok.

Pretty sure.

Incomprehensible

I was listening to NPR this week, regarding the House passing a bill extending the definition of hate crimes to include attacks based on gender and sexual orientation.

Apparently this is something that many people object to -- the religious televangelists and neo-conservative groups are trying to paint this as a religious freedom issue. There was a representative from Georgia (I think) who was objecting strenuously to the bill. He claimed that this would somehow stifle freedom of religion. He was going on and on about how passing this bill on national prayer day was in and of itself hateful against Christians.

The primary people against the bill? Mostly religious groups, the "social conservatives",

who say the bill threatens the right to express moral opposition to homosexuality and singles out groups of citizens for special protection.

Umm. ooookay. Apparently these people don't quite get the concept of "hate crime".

According to the Traditional Values Coalition (TVC), Congressional Democrats rammed through the hate crimes bill defeating all 25 Republican amendments, which [included those that] ...ensured Christians would not be prosecuted for expressing religious convictions opposed to homosexuality.

I really need someone to explain this to me. Classing attacks on homosexuals, and hate-speech aimed at gays and lesbians is somehow stifling religious speech? Are the fringe religious groups actually arguing that it is their right to bash gays because they have somehow twisted their scriptures to tell them to? This is somehow a christian behavior?

Maybe I'm missing the point.

Anybody Home?

Helloooo? Helllooo-oooo?

I know it's been about two weeks since I posted at all -- just haven't had the oomph to think about writing anything. I took a couple of days off, and I've travelled a bit for work. Nothing too fun. I didn't realize that I had completely ignored the blog until my sister called to see if we were all right, since nothing new had showed up for weeks.

The house is pretty quiet with just one beastie, and Uulaq is pretty damn depressed. She just mopes around the house, running to a window when someone drives by, and then just laying down when she realizes it isn't Rukh. I think she realizes that he's not coming back, but even so, we (the humans in the household) are not satisfactory replacements. She doesn't even want to play with the neighbor's dog, Maggie.

But, we're doing pretty well and life is slowly falling back into place. I'm still working from home, and loving my project (even spending a few days in Baltimore). Busy, and just stressed enough for it to be motivational, and not freaky.

Thanks to everyone who sent a nice card or note. We really appreciate your kind thoughts and wishes.

Goodbye

We euthanized Rukh tonight. It was time.

He was a great dog.

#^#@^&^

Well, we got the xray results for Rukh yesterday -- much worse than we expected. We stopped all the meds earlier this week, because they were just making him nauseous, and we weren't too hopeful that they had been doing any good.

Not really. His xrays look awful. What was a dozen small spots and a few dime-to-nickel sized spots only a month ago is now dozens of tumors, some a few inches across. If the chemo did anything to slow it down, it wasn't much. It's just too aggressive.

He still seems to feel ok, but he's not getting up to eat and drink unless we prompt him, and even then he's having a hard time getting up on his own. I think he's just getting weaker, since he's not getting enough oxygen. That, and laying about all day just makes him stiff. But he still wags his tail, and still wants to go outside, although he's sleeping most of the time and even a short walk taxes him too much. He's working pretty hard to breathe, even just going out into the back yard.

He really deosn't have a whole lot of time left. The Adorable Husband thinks a week, maybe two, before he's having a hard eough time breathing that we aren't going continue. It's scary not to be able to catch your breath, and I won't do that to him.

Damn. Just...damn.

Snow Update

Remember the three-minute scrolling warning that we were going to have a Blizzard! Oh, no!

Not.

One.

Flake.

Killer Chickens

Using some very interesting new technology, scientists have been able to analyze the protein codes in the fossilized bones of a 68 million year old T-rex. DNA evaluation is usually impossible because the fossilization process simply doesn't preserve it well.

So, relationships between bones is usually done by other types of analysis -- shape, size, age, etc. Rather subjective, and very dependent on the amount of remains there are. Given that fossilization is (despite the popular belief from Jurrasic Park) a rare process. Most animals die and their bones rot and disappear. But this new technology can find molecular-level similarities in bones that clearly show how bones are related to one another.

There's a lot of detailed molecular biology involved in how they figured this out, but:

The first results, described in today's issue of the journal Science, show that the collagen protein in T. rex bone is extraordinarily similar to that of the modern chicken, confirming current thinking that dinosaurs' nearest cousins are birds.

I don't know what else they tested against, but as they continue to use this particular method of comparison, I'm sure the data store will expand and they'll have more and more samples to compare against. It's a neat start. I'll be curious to see how all this data pans out. The article here details how they are trying to use this new technology, adn how it's being tested.

Or course, I have to admit that getting some level of confirmation of the theory that dinosaurs are the ancient ancestors of modern chickens actually makes me rethink just how scary a T-rex was -- and, having seen chickens in action, it actually ratcheted it up a notch. Chickens are not docile, friendly creatures, not at all! Imagine a huge T-rex with the personality of a chicken and dagger-sized teeth. Scares me.

Warning Overkill

So, spring snow storm. No biggie. Except that this notice takes about three minutes to scroll over the top of the television screen for "the National Weather Service has issued a Winter Storm Warning for....

LARIMER COUNTY BELOW 6000 FEET/NORTHWEST WELD COUNTY- OULDER AND JEFFERSON COUNTIES BELOW 6000 FEET/WEST BROOMFIELD COUNTY- NORTH DOUGLAS COUNTY BELOW 6000 FEET/DENVER/WEST ADAMS AND ARAPAHOE COUNTIES/EAST BROOMFIELD COUNTY- ELBERT/CENTRAL AND EAST DOUGLAS COUNTIES ABOVE 6000 FEET- NORTHEAST WELD COUNTY-CENTRAL AND SOUTH WELD COUNTY-MORGAN COUNTY- CENTRAL AND EAST ADAMS AND ARAPAHOE COUNTIES- NORTH AND NORTHEAST ELBERT COUNTY BELOW 6000 FEET/NORTH LINCOLN COUNTY- SOUTHEAST ELBERT COUNTY BELOW 6000 FEET/SOUTH LINCOLN COUNTY- LOGAN COUNTY- WASHINGTON COUNTY-SEDGWICK COUNTY- PHILLIPS COUNTY- INCLUDING...FORT COLLINS...HEREFORD...LOVELAND...NUNN... ARVADA...
BOULDER...GOLDEN... LAKEWOOD...LONGMONT...AURORA... BRIGHTON... CITY OF DENVER...DENVER INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT...HIGHLANDS RANCH... LITTLETON...PARKER...CASTLE ROCK...ELBERT...FONDIS...KIOWA...
LARKSPUR...BRIGGSDALE...GROVER... PAWNEE BUTTES...RAYMER... STONEHAM... EATON...FORT LUPTON...GREELEY... ROGGEN...BRUSH... FORT MORGAN... GOODRICH...WIGGINS...BENNETT...BYERS... DEER TRAIL... LEADER...AGATE...HUGO... LIMON...MATHESON...FORDER...KARVAL... KUTCH...PUNKIN CENTER...CROOK... MERINO...STERLING...PEETZ... AKRON... COPE...LAST CHANCE...OTIS... JULESBURG...OVID...SEDGWICK... AMHERST...HAXTUN...HOLYOKE 430 PM MDT THU APR 12 2007

The scroll one of the channels was even longer.

Faster! Faster!

Remember sitting down to a game of Monopoly with your family? Or Parcheesi? Or an hours-long game of Risk? Apparently we were a slower, better-focused group of people then.

Parents are lobbying game manufacturers to "shorten games" because, they claim, they take too long to play and kids aren't having fun.

Michelle Hastings admits she's sometimes cheated to get through a game of Candy
Land with her 5-year-old daughter, Campbell. The board game can take just too long, she said. Disney Monopoly is another big offender.

"A game like that, it could literally take you days," said Hastings, of Holliston, Mass. "A lot of times, you don't play games because they take so long." Board game makers are heeding pleas of parents like Hastings and introducing games tailored to busy lives and shorter attention spans that take only about 20 minutes to play

So the game-makers are releasing "express" versions of the games. Some have nifty electronics to speed things up, others are just simplified to make the game move faster and be easier to play. There have always been "fast" games (Uno, Go Fish, Crazy 8s), but not everything has to be at light-speed!

Best of all for busy parents and kids, the games are brief and they're packaged differently so they can be taken along in the car."It's analogous to a kid picking up his Game Boy for 10 minutes," said Chris Byrne, an independent toy consultant based in New York. "Yet it involves the whole family."

Easier. Faster. Is this really a good thing? C'mon -- not everything in life is instantaneous and not everything should be "easy". This trend actually kind if disturbs me. Everyone has made up rules to a common game to get it over quickly if you really don't have time; but to demand games that are shorter because they take longer than 10 minutes to play? Seriously, do parents really want to teach their kids that a) everything can be done quckly and if it's not fast then it's not valuable and b) they should always be able to "win"? This is where I put on my child-free hat and criticize parenting: kids really do need to learn that they don't always win, that some things do need work and practice and attention to do properly. It's not enough to try. You have to succeed. The world really doesn't give a damn about your fragile self-esteem. [turn off harpy-mode]

Methinks that the demand for faster games has absolutely nothing to do with the kids' attention spans and abilty to play. It's the parents who think things take too long. (As evidenced by the opening paragraph of the article.) Kids can sit and do the most inane things for hours on end, they are perfectly capable of playing a game lasting an hour. Or at least, I certainly remember doing so. I remember playing cards with my dad for a couple hours (he taught me cribbage -- great for math!) and spending the afternoons playing Monopoly or Life with my friends. Scrabble should not be a 10 minute game. Well, maybe it can be, but that's an entirely different mode of leisure, in my book.

And books! If everyone is used to 10-15 minute bursts of entertainment, how on earth are we going to teach them to appreciate books? It takes most people a few days to finish a long novel...if their entire childhood is spend on fast-forward, will kids every learn to enjoy that?

I'm one of the highest-input-requiring people that I know -- I have to have something to read while sitting the carwash or waiting in line to get the mail. I read while I watch television (how's that for a bizarre twist?). I have a ton of hobbies that are tedious and time-consuming in a way that only a zen master can appreciate (a 24x36" cross stich piece on 36ct linen, anyone?). I multitask by default. I feel let down when movies are only an hour and a half long. I really don't get the weird "must be connected must be amused must be entertained" vibe that I get from alot of people. I really have a hard time being passively entertained. Sit in front of the tv and just watch? Not likely.

Apparently, I'm weird.