So, let’s start with this:Â I’m not inclined to base my politics or purchasing decisions on what a famous actor might say just because they are a famous actor.
But Matt Damon, in this case, has it right. The situation is absurd. Sara Palin might have the requisite skill set to be a hockey mom or a small town mayor or possibly even to be governor of the 47th largest state (or maybe not). So far in her campaign he has not demonstrated, well, anything except fashion sense, nicelegs, and the capacity to follow the orders of the Republican puppet-masters.  And the McCain campaign has proven nothing but recklessness in selecting her to be the vice presidential candidate.
And the dinosaur thing, well … I’ve concluded that this is just Matt Damon being witty. I can’t find anything that indicates Sara Palin made any kind of statement about believing that dinosaurs lived 4,000 years ago.  But if she did, I too need to know about it.
For those of you who are in the dark (that’s a pun), jeff has been keeping tabs on the black-hole machine known as the Large Haldron Collider being built out at CERN in Switzerland. It goes live tomorrow for its first complete tests and you could, if you choose, be very excited or fearful of this idea.
Or you could shrug it off like a fatalist and say, “whatever.”
A number of people have, with varying levels of seriousness and science, warned about the possibility that this thing could create a black hole that sucks us all in. They’ve crowed about it to such an extent extent that CERN has felt compelled to publish published a LHC risk assessment (a fifteen-page .pdf, none of most of which goes well over my head) which states, in conclusion:
Having reviewed the theoretical and experimental developments since the previous safety report was published, we confirm its findings. There is no basis for any concerns about the consequences of new particles or forms of matter that could possibly be produced by the LHC.
I have a lot fewer books than I did before my last bit of moving around, but even still some of the books I’ve kept (and added to my collection) are unnecessary or are collecting dust. The last time I paired down the collection I did so by dropping off a box of dusty books to a charity who was, I am sure, something less than enormously thrilled to have more dusy, old books.
A couple of weeks ago Bookmooch was mentioned in passing and I checked it out, intreigued. Since then I’ve listed a couple of stacks of books and had a good chunk of those spoken for.  All I have to do is mail them out and I know (or at least I choose to believe) that they are going to someone who will appreciate them. By sending them, I am credited with points which I can redeem by having other people send me books that I want.
At least next time I move my load will be lighter.
Update:Â Â Driving through DuPont Circle with six people stuffed into my Mini, with heads poking out the sunroof, blasting this song and everyone singing this song at the top of his/her lungs will be one of the definitive memories of summer 2008.
Kawaii not. For this week’s webcomic, a series which does not include a plot or a story-line, just a bunch of independent little strips that manage to turn cute on its head every time in four panels. And, if you haven’t guessed, kawaii means “cute” in Japanese.
The author is Meghan Murphy who can use her incredible talents to create things that aren’t punny or silly but sometimes just can’t help herself. Some things just need to be anthropomorphised (and if you don’t believe me, think again).
So there you are; enjoy. Not too much, though, because being that it is a short week you’ve probably still got some catching up to do.
I’m not much of a “sportsman.” I don’t hunt. I respect the rights of people who do (responsibly), and I think that responsible management of natural resources includes some measure of culling.
However, I’m not at all cool with irresponsible use of natural resources. I expect that for some people, hunting wolves and bears could be really fun. Presumably those are people who really enjoy a bear-meat sandwich or wolf steak. And I support the right of those people to do so. This country is big enough to set aside large areas of land where that can take place.
Somewhere in the realm of responsible management of natural resources, it becomes necessary to kill a few top predators to keep an ecosystem in balance. With that in mind, and in consideration of the fact that there are relatively few people to manage some very large swaths of land, aerial hunting might be useful. Not surprisingly, this is exactly what the Federal law allows.
But this is not, in my mind, hunting by any sporting definition. A hunter is already at a substantial advantage because they are using a gun. Chasing from the air also makes a hunter faster and from that angle the animals have no ability to hide. And without firing a shot you could chase an animal around for a little while (scaring the bejeesus out of it with a roaring motor) wait until he gets tired, then land. Walk right up to him an *pop* … bearskin rug.
But in Alaska, the issue keeps showing up on the ballot.
What makes this a controversial issue worthy of repeated public referendums? Because there are people who want to leave home bound for adventure in an exotic and far away country, send some postcards, and then return home with a bearskin rug and a story about the bear they shot. And some of those people would pay good money to do so in a way that assures them of making a kill. Sporting-ness be damned, they want to have the appearance of being a big game hunter. So there’s that. There’s also the fact that people will pay good money to hunt other big game, but top predators like wolves and bears keep the number of moose and caribou in an ecosystem down. Subtract some wolves and you can get more rich hunters to pour money into your state’s tourisim economy. That might not be okay if it didn’t require throwing the ecosystem out of balance to do it. It might also be okay if the people trying to do this sort of thing did not also keep trying to take away the ability of the public to control it.  Certainly that is a different issue, but it is related and creepy.
So, all of this might only be of passing interest if the governor of the state where all this is taking place were not nominated to be vice president.
To restate:Â I’ll support your right to have ridiculous firearms, I’ll support your right to hunt sportingly, but I will not support efforts to circumvent the political process or disrupt it with big money so you can exploit our shared natural resources and disturb a carefully managed environmental balance.
Today Google is launching Chrome, their take on the web browser. That’s pretty cool all by itself so I’ll just let that sink in for a moment.
The Google just made a browser.
Remember what they did to email? And searching? Yeah, this is pretty cool.
Well, anyway, they announced and described it with a comic book that their mailroom accidentally shipped out a bit early (oops). The comic, adapted by Scott McCloud is berry cute and does a damn fine job of conveying some pretty thick computer programming concepts visually such that practically anyone can understand ‘em.
So, if you want to understand what the hype is all about check out the comic. And when you’re done with that, check out the browser. Note: the browser is only available for the Windows platform, currently.
I was craving waffles. I asked around until I found a waffle maker. Next I needed some waffle batter so, I searched google for “waffle recipe.”  And wouldn’t ya know it, the first hit was waffle-recipe.com. (who does this?)
Add a teaspoon or so of vanilla extract to up the yumminess factor
It does NOT make “eight or nine” waffles. Four? maybe.
You’ve got to love the banner, too…
So the idea for a waffle party went off rather well. Everybody had an idea for what to bring that would improve things. Strawberries, orange juice, whipped cream, pomegranite juice, vegetarian sausage, bacon, and champagne (hey, mimosa!).
But really, today was a day to be outside. Well, it was here in the nation’s capital. Things are a little different down in Louisiana.
So while thinking about this, I realized that all that was really keeping me inside was the ability to plug the waffle iron in. It seemed that a waffle party in a park was really feasible with just a little thought and planning. And especially on sunny summer off-days, when everyone has plans, an outdoor brunch would be a great way to start things off before people disperse to go do their thing. But where can I find a publicly accessible power outlet in a park? (side note: plugging “dc park public power outlet access” returns a crazy set of results, none of them having relevance to my quest). Or how about I just use a power inverter to plug it into my car? I may have to alternate between the coffee maker and the waffle maker, but that’s a minor inconvenience compared with having hot waffles in warm sunshine with cold OJ and chill friends.
The outdoor waffle party is doable, folks. Today was just a warm up. It’s coming. Be prepared. Be very prepared.
