...after they ate Sir Robin's minstrel?

With proportional comment representation, you could have contributed several words to Serge @1.

What would they have been?

That Wikipedia article is worth reading just for the story about what happened to Hans Plüschke, the man who killed Arnstadt.

In other news, the sun rises in the east.

Which is a roundabout way of saying that I could now technically cook a pot pie, as Serge's post free-associated in my mind; all I'd have to do is carry the stove up the stairs from my van. I could probably get the neighbor to help.

Mm. Pot pie.

And hello to all from 4th Street Fantasy.

The circular loop at the bottom of the 2 led in an unbroken line to the downstroke of the 6; it looked like a fancy cursive H.

On days like this the chance of change is slight
we take the hoped-for good with the hard bad;
these noted imperfections of old light

provide no proper guide for damaged sight,
nor helpful hand; though willing lass and lad
tell us that death is not the lord of night

since other forces keep their moments bright
and not all changes lead us to be sad.
These noted imperfections of old light

are simple facts, not signs of hurt and blight.
The signs that fate will catch up to foul cad
tell us that death is not the lord of night.

Our choices do not always turn out right
but we are still entitled to be glad.
These noted imperfections of old light
tell us that death is not the lord of night

It doesn't, it means that he turned it around, reversed it.

The New International Version renders it When the LORD brought back the captives to Zion, with an alternative text of When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion.

That explains so many things ...

National loyalties would compel me to d'Hondt at this point, though it can be a bit of a dog's breakfast to administer. (Another argument against STV is that one ends up with the Hare quota, looking like a complete Burke. But I suppose it's hard Knox all around.)

I'm planning a program at the library, making LED Throwies, and I need about 25-50 leds and batteries. Radio Shack is expensive, and judging by the stock I saw today, it might be hard to come up with enough.

Before I chance ordering them over the internet, is there a good store in New York City that sells that sort of thing? Alternately, I'll take recommendations of places on the internet, but I'd prefer not to deal with shipping and time is getting tight.

I knew I should have toined left at Albuquoique.

I incline towards STV because it provides proportionality while giving voters the ability to pick individual candidates. The Hare quota won't lead to close shaves, at least I d'Hondt think so.

There was a similar case four years ago, almost to the day, in New Jersey. In that one the missing kids weren't found for two days, until they were located in the trunk of a car parked in the driveway next door.

In wilderness Search and Rescue, we start with the last known location, then search in a pattern out from there, covering the whole area, and physically looking in every place large enough to hold the person we're looking for.

Yes, there's a need to knock on doors, to find where everyone was standing at the time and see who saw what. But there's also a need to bring in algorithms from other specialties.

I expect a big part of it is everyone figuring "That's so obvious it must have already been checked." That's right up there with "Someone else must have called 9-1-1."

Everyone: Keep this in mind when you're looking. Maybe form three teams? One to knock on doors. One to sweep the area. One to check lift-threatening locations first before the sweep gets there, and before the door-knockers learn that was the last place someone was seen.

There have been some very sad cases.

What really boggles me about this is that they were apparently able to get away with this requirement for several years before anybody made enough noise for it to hit the media.

My mother has been going through old family photos and documents recently, and has several documents (approximately 100 years old, I believe all on parchment paper) that have been kept rolled up in a cylinder. They are all tightly curled, and one is cracked and torn in the middle. As she keeps pulling them out to show people, the rolling and unrolling is causing further damage. The others are in better shape, but since they all mean a lot to her I'd like to see about getting these properly preserved and mounted.

The Belgians have strong cultural pressures to invent really good voting systems to deal with a deeply divided electorate. They're the go-to guys on the subject, the way the Dutch are for water engineering.

(Interesting trivia via Wikipedia: Sainte-Laguë was also the guy whose back of the envelope calculation on bumblebees became the stuff of meme.)

I conclude that at least some of my neighbors are totally fucking stupid.

I guess I'll see if a friend or co-worker has an aspiring mechanic in the family.

The Irish use the Droop quota for STV, even though it was invented by an Englishman, which says something.

Me, I was taught all this stuff by a Dutchman.

then said they among the heathen,
The LORD hath done great things for them.

The LORD hath done great things for us;
whereof we are glad.

as

"then it was said among the other nations,
'is God glorified in working with these [downtrodden, miserable Jews? really?]'

God is glorified in working with us,
and therefore we are happy.

Which is closer, I think, to the Hebrew.

That's hitting the press now, although the incident happened in 2006, because the inquest is recent.

I was astounded by one headline: Nothing could be done for David: survival medicine expert

But, on reading the story, I discovered that wasn't what the expert had said. He said:

"I doubt that oral water given to him would have been sufficient," Dr Luckin said.

But in cases of severe dehydration, I don't give oral water. It's IV all the way.

Yes, the 000 (Australian equivalent of 911) operators did screw up big time. But so did the people who designed the computer system they were working with:

The court heard the computer system used by the ambulance service had to be overridden if a caller did not supply an address.

Changes to the protocols regarding calls from remote locations still did not provide call operators with a set of questions to ask the caller.

The system did not alert operators if a call had been made before by the same person, unless they had given a street address.

I can see how that would have happened: You can't reach the "Name" screen until you've filled in the "Address" screen. And I can even see why it would have been designed that way: to get help rolling first, while you're getting the rest of the information. But with no "Skip" button on the screen, and no one even thinking about "What happens if it's from the middle of a forest?" everyone was caught up in a set of circumstances where they had to think way outside of their day-to-day routine and make decisions based on experience that they probably flat didn't have.

There was, apparently, lots of blame to go around: School denies knowledge of fatal hike

I agree. People are stupid in what they'll throw away. We're several bookcases, filing cabinets, tables, chairs etc. richer for it (some actually rescued from skips; others were going free).

Hope you find someone who can make good use of the tools.

Always carry a whistle in your pocket. Really.

I also landed smoke machine duty. Smoke machines are nasty things, but, when used judiciously, produce a good effect. This one performed its function, but also was a bit leaky. It was like having to deal with an incontinent dragon.

Sayeth Lee in the previous open thread: "GIF! GIF!"

I have jpeg of me from after the show. During was rather hard, as backstage isn't exactly the best place for photos.

dcb, #53: It's not necessarily stupidity. We're in the process of serious decluttering, and have been freecycling a lot of stuff that's perfectly serviceable -- but not for us, for various reasons. And I have 3 small bookcases that I intend to replace eventually because the shelves are too small to hold anything but MMPBs; they're wood, and very nice, and I'll probably try to sell them on Craigslist first, but if they don't sell, they'll go to Freecycle too. And someone will probably say, "Why would anyone sane get rid of THOSE?"

Fragano Ledgister @ 25:

Very nicely done.

Hilary Hertzoff @ 30:

As oliviacw says at 40, Mouser is pretty good for mail order. My suggestion would be to ask some students studying electrical engineering at a local university. Some of them should know of good, local electronics stores, which, unfortunately, seem to be a dying breed.

Stefan Jones @ 47:

One of the things I absolutely hate about where I live is that I occasionally see perfectly good furniture tossed in the dumpster. Some people set some chairs next to the dumpster, which means that I now have chairs for my kitchen table. But finding something otherwise nice that's had a chance to soak up the lovely dumpster juices is maddening.

I went out to get the papers this morning and all four of them were gone.

Perhaps the wicker basket was a casualty of a domestic dispute?

Now that I think about it a little more, you might also want to look at what American Science & Surplus has to offer. Again, mail order.

Apartment complexes should be pushing Freecycle and Craig's List. Every time a tenant renews a lease, they get a "what do do with your junk" flyer.

It would cost them a few bucks in photocopying fees. They'd more than make up for that in reduced trash fees and work for the staff.

I've also learned that he was found 200 meters off the trail. Which isn't that far, but in a wilderness situation can be just as bad as 200 miles

It seems he was in the Blue Mountains, most of which is pretty open forest, so 200m really isn't very far.

I can testify that given the good visibility in open sclerophyll forest it is tempting to try to head in a straight line rather than along the paths. This can sometimes be a really bad idea, since the cliffs and gullies in places like the Blue Mountains are very steep and often have impenetrable spiky bushes in key locations.

The Blue Mountains are day-trip distance from Sydney, and are not very high at all -- the highest point is at about 3000ft and the ridge-to-valley height goes up to about 2000ft. It still took 15 or so years of repeated attempts for the early settlers to find a way through the mountains [they didn't try asking the locals], and parts of them are sufficiently inaccessible that the 'living fossil' Wollemia nobilis [a grove of quite large trees], escaped notice until 1994.

CHip, #63: Obviously, a vice grip is something you use to keep your vices at arm's length.
*grumble* can't believe I missed that on preview *grumble*

The nearest universities are a few towns over, so electrical students are few and far between.

We're in a temporary location, so I don't want to have too many leftovers (though they'll be handy for future programs).

But I like to do this sort of program, so the sites will come in handy in the future.

I didn't see anything wrong with that, but then I spell tyre-the-round-thing-what-goes-on-wheels with a 'y' and storey-the-level-of-the-building with an 'e', too. But color without a 'u'. I think I need help.

And, er, thank you for the compliment. I don't think I'd wear near as much makeup for a con, though.

Poor Anthony Head. He's a fine and loathsome Uther Pendragon, but gods this is bad.

And, of course, it's nothing like the Arthurian canon. Merlin is younger than Arthur in this version.

Oh, and right now the two medieval guards are shooting craps with modern plastic dice.

FTFM

This movie isn't just stupid, it's painfully stupid. No one with rudimentary knowledge of astronomy or physics was allowed to get anywhere near the screenplay.

The trailer will tell you all you need to know. Starting out, it looks like this will be a routine disaster movie. Then it gets weird. Brain cells die by the millions.

Very few movies or TV shows get the science perfect. Quite a number try, and fall short.

For this film, nobody even bothered.

Here is a PublishAmerica author claiming that Impact infringes on their book.

But seriously, thanks for the heads-up on Merlin. The setup, as described in the TV listings, sounded way dumb but I was going to check out the first episode out curiosity.

Just finished a run of Ruddigore. We're lucky enough to have a rich patron who makes it possible for us to have a full orchestra. Gilbert & Sullivan is unfairly maligned, in my opinion, by too many years of inept tinkly piano backing.

Incidentally, this is the most fun I've had in a production in years. You might be able to guess why.

G&S are not unfairly maligned by me. My only complaint is that I haven't heard enough of it.

Those costumes look wonderful.

I am old.

I have been enjoying True Blood though. And finally going back and watching all those episodes of ST:TOS - and not just the same 5 episodes that Sci Fi shows on ST marathons - has been enlightening.

Merlin has been on commercial free-to-air in Australia a month or more. Trailers looked Quite Silly. On actual viewing Very Silly Indeed. Maybe OK if brain turned off, or assuming AU Arthurian. Worrying that for some might replace actual Matter of Britain, & ‘true’ legends/folktales [cue discussion]. I've plenty other nice things to spend time with; less nice I need to. *zooms elseweb for work, guiltily*

I'm sure you think that your shiny new neat thing is the best thing since sliced bread, but quite frankly I'd rather have my sliced bread than this artistic concoction you've inflicted on me, and I can't digest.

Could you stop being shiny and start being useful again?

Thanks.

"A brown dwarf is the remnant of a dead star," Elliott said. "When a star dies, it packs itself into very, very compressed matter, to steal a line from the film. What happens is this big hunk of dead star hits the moon, and it has the reverse polarity. So it knocks the moon off its axis and changes its polarity. So now it's on a more narrow axis, and it and the Earth are pulling each other closer and closer. We start getting anomalies with gravity lapsing when the moon passes closes to the Earth on its elongated orbit. Gravity ceases to be and people start floating, cars float, the tide change, like going from a 6-foot tide to a 45-foot tide. So there are all kinds of disasters happening."

Err. Yeah. Or something like that.

Mental scars from the recent Robin Hood series caused extreme wariness upon spotting Merlin trailers. Someone said "life is too short to stuff a mushroom"; this mushroom of a series is fairly stuffed, and I won't fill what life's left with it. This here Fluorosphere may be mushy OTOH, but comes stuffed to the gills with a sweet 'n' savoury goodness not altogether false. Though such shows can be of interest looking back later, to see what assumptions, blinkers, fashions of our time we put onto others. Like that 'Christmas in the Year 2000' print from 1900 linked round Yule last year.

The last woman in the original video, Nassima, was discovered during the live taping of a French talk show, when she had the entire panel weeping with mirth. She was in the front row and they overheard her. She has since brought much happiness to YouTube users everywhere.

We got HBO for the Rome series and were about to cancel it when they announce True Blood. Now that they've started in on George RR Martin's epic, I may have to continue subscribing.

I love both the True Blood TV series and book series, but I've started seeing the TV show as visual fanfic. It's diverged somewhat from the book by adding and subtracting characters. Also, the books are first-person stories told from Sookie's POV. She's a much more fun and sympathetic character in the books.

The show is very dark - which I suppose the books are, too. But then, my imagination somehow elided over creepier stuff and I find myself occasionally somewhat squicked out by the show. Still awesome, but if you're going to Netflix the first season, don't watch while eating!

Oh. YES.

(Get to sing one of the best songs in G & S ever, AND get a portrait that will be Halloween décor for years to come? Britches, here I come!)

If you do want to use that photo, please at least use this version, which has the red-eye removed. I look a little less evil that way.

I'm sure I could dig up a reasonably recent photo where I'd be recognizable on the street instead of on the stage if you want.

I also realize that the Fluorospherians who pop up every now and then in my dreams look nothing like their real-life counterparts. Maybe the former are the Other Fluorospherians (although I didn't spot any button eyes.)

I try to look not evil; it gives me a much easier time of actually being evil. Would it be possible to redo the preview thumbnail, though? It cuts me off at the chin. Although, given the quote at the bottom, it could be interpreted as a rather drastic red-eye removal method.

(Note to Livejournal: putting the previous/next links at the top of the page when people have to scroll down to see everything is really, really stupid.)

A word of warning - while the audio's not bad, the video itself is tragically boring; you can't see any of my expressions. Also, skip to the 1:20 point or so, unless you're interested in hearing ST:TNGs Lt. Cmdr Shelby introducing me.

* I was going to say "pimp myself", but that didn't sound right.

John Keats, Sleep In Which In A Manner of Speaking I Just Want To Bleed Most Popular Amazon Purchases Q2 2009

This seems to be performance season. That sounded great.

1) would like to earn some money doing hard physical labor, or
2) knows anyone else who would be interested, or
3) knows where he can hire some day-labor people who speak at least broken English (he has no Spanish)

please contact him: info AT pegasuspublishing DOT com.

Looks like some pretty pictures, though.

In other news: hot water! I still can't move into the carriage house, because my dad helped me tear the wall out of the bathtub to fix the faucet, but ... getting closer!

It was a revelation: (for those who don't know it's a mon-friday feature. A featured writer, some other writers; with less detail, and a poem).

First, I usually dislike the poems. Even when he chooses one I like for content, his delivery irritates me. Today he managed to avoid both of those by, of all things, having a poem by an author I don't like (John Updike, on baseball).

The featured author was... Dan Brown. The explanation of how he started writing was illuminating: He was on vacation, devoured a Sheldon novel and decided he could do that too.

Next was Octavia Butler! With a better thumbnail of her career/self. Last was Erik Maria Remarque (who's birthday it would have been. If I'd not been lost in Squee about Octavia I'd be able to remember if today is her birthday too. If it is.. YAY! Happy Birthday. If it isn't, then save it up until it rolls around again on the guitar).

Strange moments in everyday life. Went out to supper with my dad, sisters, step-mother (they are divorced now, but family is strange), and some other people. One of the other people knocked my new OBEV (to me, rummage sale score; good condistion, $.25) off the counter.

She said, "I think I knocked something down," I said, "Oh, that was my book."

"Oh, you read," in tone much as one might comment that a dog spoke. It was bizarre.

Then she refused to believe I was my sister's brother (she insisted on thinking I was someone from UT, whom my sister was dating). When I said I was he brother I got a dismissive hand-wave, and, "Oh yes, I KNOW all the family."

Oi.

(I checked, it is her birthday. This is the link to the text: after 22 June you will have to go back to find it. If you want to hear it, there's a link but I don't know how long it lasts)

Baseball

It looks easy from a distance,
easy and lazy, even,
until you stand up to the plate
and see the fastball sailing inside,
an inch from your chin,
or circle in the outfield
straining to get a bead
on a small black dot
a city block or more high,
a dark star that could fall
on your head like a leaden meteor.

The grass, the dirt, the deadly hops
between your feet and overeager glove:
football can be learned,
and basketball finessed, but
there is no hiding from baseball
the fact that some are chosen
and some are not—those whose mitts
feel too left-handed,
who are scared at third base
of the pulled line drive,
and at first base are scared
of the shortstop's wild throw
that stretches you out like a gutted deer.

There is nowhere to hide when the ball's
spotlight swivels your way,
and the chatter around you falls still,
and the mothers on the sidelines,
your own among them, hold their breaths,
and you whiff on a terrible pitch
or in the infield achieve
something with the ball so
ridiculous you blush for years.
It's easy to do. Baseball was
invented in America, where beneath
the good cheer and sly jazz the chance
of failure is everybody's right,
beginning with baseball.

Her niece has been recommended to a week-ling class in N. Hollywood. The family can afford the class, but rooming is a problem. They are hoping to find someplace near by with a spare room/couch.

She can make her own way (one way, or another) to/from the class.

Niece is 16, and said to be very level-headed. The friend I know well, and trust her judgement. If anyone here can help, contact me at my "firstname.lastname" at gmail.

I very much hope that the book-sneering lady who won't believe your own account of who you are kin to is not attached in any lasting way to anyone you're going to be spending time with in the future.

I forgot (though the birthday wishes still apply) that Octavia, like Herr Remarque, is dead too.

Ave atque vale, and all that.

Was still squee to hear her talked about on the radio.

Which means, I think, that I am the perfect front for the evil overlord. I even bring brownies into work sometimes.

There is a large nursing home near where I grew up on the edge of the Minnesota River valley. In the mid '70s there were no fences keeping some the residents from wandering into the (for them) very dangerous river valley woods.

When this happened, the police would gather up us kids from the nearby neighborhood to comb the woods. The oldest of the kids would form a flying squad with the police reservists to sprint ahead and check the places where the kids knew the worst pitfalls lurked. The rest of us followed in a more traditional line, beating the bushes... It worked well. They finally fenced the property about '78...

I had a memory.

Soccer is a grind. I have the stamina, but the work is constant.

Baseball is more intense, but semi-episodic. Each pitch has you up on your toes, leaning to the direction the batter seems to be placing the ball.

Then it goes somewhere else; or it doesn't.

That's the spotlight Updike mentions. In those moments time stands still, and it's you, and the ball. Be it a moment at the plate; and the sweet feel of the the meat of the bat hitting the ball, or the floatig moment when the arc of the ball and the cup of the glove are about to come together.

Like swordplay, it's zen.

Or you could just use the second portrait in the Ruddigore album referenced above. I only changed my jawline a tiny bit to make it more masculine— it's rather square already.

On the theater note, those of you who perform, what do you think when you see a tape of yourself? Most of the people I know hate to watch themselves on stage. What I think is "My god, I really am the tallest woman on stage." (I'm only 5'9", with mandatory 2" heels on top of that, but for some reason everybody else we've cast for the last several years is 5'6" and below.)

Unlike 15 years ago (when I wasn't actually fat) I no longer watch video of myself and fret about being a lardass. I was struck by that last video not so much by my fatness as my Substantial-ness. I look pretty solid, and yet still not as much like a big dude in a dress as I had feared.

Otherwise, it's a bit tough. I had to learn stage presence; it did not come naturally. However, all video of me on stage I am performing for an audience and not a camera. I always freak out about how unconvincing I am. Mostly, I've tried not to watch before a performance, so as not to second-guess myself.

And yet the odd thing is... I like baseball fiction. Perhaps it's because a good writer is able to add a human element to the action/inaction on the field.

B. Durbin, I don't even like seeing myself in pictures, let alone video. Our choir stages operas every two years, and I'm perfectly happy to be in the chorus. The dressing-up part is great fun, and I don't feel self-conscious when I'm on stage, but watching recordings makes me cringe.

One of the common features is some sort of race or challenge involving the three presenters using different vehicles. Sometimes this can get rather silly.

Sunday night. it was London to Edinburgh using the technology of 1949.

The fastest production car in the world: the Jaguar XK120.

The fastest motorbike: the Vincent Black Shadow.

And, paradoxically, not the fastest railway locomotive of 1949, but the newest British locomotive of 2009: The Peppercorn class A1 Pacific Tornado.

Despite much manly coal shovelling on the part of Jeremy Clarkson, James May arrived first in the Jaguar. Richard Hammond, bow-legged and creaking, arrived much later.

Yes, it can seem a silly programme at times, but getting stuff like that is worth it.

Yeah, I was that kind of kid.

(*) What does it say about me that I can actually say that? No, don't say it.

It says you have reached the age of reason.

Memory, maybe not so much, but reason, yes.

(*) Is that the one that comes before the age of raisin, when we start getting wrinkled?

Today is the 15th anniversary of my saying that for the first time.

I'd pledge allegiance to one of those, only there's been none for ages. I bet three will sail into view, just as soon as I give up waiting...

Damn, now I have to go and form a band called "Zeppelin Nation".

...without ballooning deficits?

You been representin', baby, I've been votin'
All the good times, baby baby, are not representative of how we might expect your economic policies to average out in the long term, baby,

I'm gonna give you my vote (at least, my number one)...

And..."I pledge a legions* to the flag of the United Skates of America. And to the republic for Witchit Stans**, one naked individual with liberty and just as for all."
___
*Didn't make sense to me, but I was obedient.
**No one ever explained who this gentleman was, or why the whole republic was for him.

On other subjects: music reviewing & the internet.

"Crowdsourcing killed indie rock...you know why? Because crowds have awful taste. People have awful taste."..."It's not the music that's best; it's the music that the most people can stand."

(yes, I know it's "Under God", but when my parents said it in grade school, that phrase hadn't been invented/mandated yet.)

For more on Richard Stans and the Mondegreens...appearing occasionally in a Safire column near you.

American citizenship is a shareholding in a dream. The Pledge of Allegiance is a good summary of it.

Some of us have, at various points, found that dream painful, because the reality does not match up to it. And far too often, there are people who seem to be actively working to make matters worse. But the bitter disappointment that that engenders is a sign of love, too.

Don't let the native-born despair grind down your convert's fervor. We need you to remind us that people choose this citizenship, because that dream does matter.

and @149:
Liar. I bet there was at least one tear in your eye.

Shadow is good, but fastest would be a Vincent Black Lightning (via Beesweb). Access to one: tricky.

For some reason (remember, even the Beatles wore ties on the Ed Sullivan Show) the guys in my high school occasionally put on suits and ties for no apparent reason. This day was one of my concessions to the trend (I don't think I owned a suit at that point; the sweater had to do).

There's a movie I saw a long time ago that had a line about the Pledge. I couldn't find that line, but found another from that movie.

"I love you like the Pilgrim loves the Holy Land, like the wayfarer loves his wayward ways, like the immigrant that I am loves America, and the blind man the memory of his sighted days."
- Arthur Penn's 1981 Four Friends

Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Plame's Lawsuit Against Cheney, Rove

The US Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear a civil lawsuit filed by Valerie Plame Wilson and her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, against Bush administration officials who were responsible for leaking her covert CIA status to the media and attacking her husband for accusing the White House of twisting prewar Iraq intelligence....

One day after Obama was sworn in, as he was signing executive orders ushering in what he called a new era of government openness, the Justice Department quietly filed a motion in federal court to dismiss [the]lawsuit [attempting to] force the Bush administration to recover as many as 15 million missing White House emails, including some from Cheney's office that special counsel Fitzgerald had subpoenaed in connection with the leak of Plame's identity.
....

Last Thursday, CREW revealed in newly released documents that the emails from Cheney's office [had disapppeared conveniently for avoiding the grand jury subpoena that Mr Fitzgerald was supposed to be the investigator who gathered evidence for.... seems to me that Mr Fitzgerald wasn't doing much in the way of due diligence, looking back the whole thing looks like an orchestrated sham whitehousewash....]

One of many interesting things is that they fire the boilers only once per season - in spring, they raise steam, then they keep the boilers hot until fall. I presume this involves banking the fires carefully for the night. Amusingly enough, the FAQ tells you that birthday candles are not allowed on board for fire risk reasons. Straining at gnats and swallowing camels, I think!

In my recent family trip to Dundee, I toured both Unicorn (1846 frigate, never rigged) and Discovery of south polar fame. Discovery no longer has engines, but when it did, they generated a mere 450 hp. Pictures from that will eventually be posted.

Mostly I'm surprised they let me on stage in the first place.

I'm not sure I could ever watch video of myself. I already know I'm screwing so much up.

Serge @ 147:

Happy anniversary.

¡Buen quiceaños!

I'm fairly certain that turkeys are indigenous to New Mexico. There are different species of them, I think, spread from Central America up through at least New England.

That, I posit, is impossible. Sailing works because you can control the boat by playing off forces that can be made to go in different directions (wind in the sail and the directional stability caused by the streamlining of the hull)

(The solar sailing that the outer-space visionaries dream of also works because solar wind and gravity go in different directions and you can play one off against the other.)

But the wind in the airship's sails will go in the same direction as the wind against the rest of the airship, so it will go the same way no matter how you set the sail. So how can you make that work?

This is wrong! This is impossible!

It's past my bedtime, so I am being cranky about unimportant things, but this has always been a pet peeve of mine.

Looking at my garden soil today, I have to say that the perlite, while somewhat muddy, is noticeable. Mind you, it's also fabulous for opening up heavy clay soil. I dug it into the beds when I first built them, along with some organic material. I've added a bit more perlite and organic material whenever I fluffed up a seed bed or added some plants. After 10 years of this, the areas that get changed a lot are so loose that you can use your hands instead of a trowel. That's starting from rock-hard clay. I know from experience in a previous Portland garden that adding organic material alone doesn't do this. The long growing season, mild winters, and damp climate means that organic material breaks down very quickly, leaving you back at pure clay.

I suspect that the mining and processing that produces perlite is probably bad for the environment, too. Sigh.

Can I make use of that picture for my work? With a photocredit of course. I don't have one of wild turkeys yet (I have a page for them, but no picture). It would become part of an electronic encyclopaedia on wild animal health and management (Wildpro).

Agreed. Beautiful.

At least it's better than Kim Stanley Robinson's "Red Mars", which has a pair of characters flying an electric-engined dirigible which gets pushed off course by high winds. They don't have enough power in their fuel cells to steer upwind, but fortunately they have a cargo of windmill generators - they hang those over the side, so they turn in the wind, and connect them up to the engines. And viola!* More power!

*As in, I think this is a bit of a fiddle.

Trying to cello a bill of goods again?

Deb Geisler and Mike Benveniste used to have an entire flock of turkeys that roosted in her yard at night. There was a NESFA meeting at their house where at dusk, the turkeys took off from a running start downhill and then flew up, sometimes managing to land and stay on the tree branches they were aiming at to perch in for the night--half the time they went "thunk" and didn't quite catch hold well enough (if they actually managed to actually even grab onto the branch with their claws) and fell off, and had to try to again.... they were NOT graceful in those endeavors, they were very ungainly!

When I was living in the Bay Area, I once saw a peacock and his hens going down the street. Luckily they used the sidewalk.

Giant robots battle it out (and hump Megan Fox's leg) in this loud and clumsy summer spectacular

Still too much shakycam, though.

SKY news are currently running a loop of some dude in Miami saying portentiously: "On the streets of Miami, an AK-47 is cheaper to buy than a Playstation".

My 8 year old son's reaction: "Hey! Cool!"

Not that you need telling, of course.

(And why would you want to buy a Playstation on the streets anyway? You don't know where it's been....)

That would be great. I'll use it at low-res (about 50KB) but starting with the larger version would allow me to crop it to show the birds in more detail, as well as using the whole picture. Please could you e-mail it to dbourne (at) wildlifeinformation (dot) org (higher file size limit than my other e-mail) and indicate how you want your Photographer/Copyright to appear?

Re. peafowl, we used to have a flock which for a while would set off daily walking up the pavement (sidewalk) a few hundred yards, then turn, wander into a garden, and make their way back home down through all the gardens. Most people liked them, luckily; a few didn't and occasionally complained of flower damage.

For those who haven't yet figured out the goof here -- there are problems with both the Third Law of Motion, and conservation of energy. Lacking an external counterforce, you can't draw enough power from a wind, to move against that same wind. (Boats tacking against the wind get the needed counterforce from the inertia of the water around them.)

Any other birds you need pictures of?

Careful. You can get in treble for saying things like that...

However, this seems like an excellent place to say that, if you are not already subscribed to Michael Roberts's blog about his house, you should be. It's really fun to read how Michael approaches problems, deals with them, and thinks about what to do next. And this from someone who has zero interest in home remodeling.

[this has been an unsolicited endorsement]

For that matter, you don't know where the AK-47 has been, either. That would be more of a worry, it might have been used in a crime. "Gee Officer, I didn't kill that guy, I just bought the gun from a stranger on the streets of Miami".

I doubt things would turn out well.

Apparently not, if you're eight.

How many of you good people might I encounter in Montreal?

If I had a ride, I think I could manage it, so it's more a matter of logistics.

As opposed to indecent???

Seriously, I have a whole list - can I e-mail it to you? I know you take good pictures.

And debcha @ 207--thanks for the link to the volcano photos! Truly wonderful...

Thanks for the reminder about that blog, which I'd meant to bookmark and forgot about.

It makes me feel much more sanguine about the home renovations I'm currently living through. (Though I will be delighted when there isn't a new toilet sitting in the dining room, waiting to be installed and an old toilet sitting--disassembled--in the kitchen.

I will not be at Worldcon this year; much as I'd like to visit Montreal, we can't afford to do it as fans, and the Customs-related* risk for dealers is unacceptably high. Therefore, I will be attending the North American Discworld Convention in Phoenix**, and my partner will be running one of the Pegasus Publishing booths at DragonCon.

I have a few Fluorosphere buttons left, which will be turned over to our Gracious Hosts at FiestaCon. There will probably not be time for us to make more due to our schedule over the next couple of months.

* Not Canadian customs, but the American side. There have been several documented instances of dealers having large portions of their unsold stock summarily confiscated, with no reason given; "because we can" seems to be a not-universal-but-common attitude.

** At least, I hope so, given that we still haven't received any dealer information. They are going to have a table at FiestaCon, and I hope to be able to purchase my dealer tables there.

Author Susan Hassett filed the lawsuit Monday, saying she sent [Elizabeth] Hasselbeck a copy of her "Living With Celiac Disease" book as a courtesy after the TV celebrity disclosed she had the illness last year. The lawsuit says Hasselbeck's book reproduces lists of grains containing gluten along with scientific names of the grains. Hasselbeck's book "includes dozens of paraphrased as well as word for word regurgitations of phrases" from Hassett's book, the lawsuit claims, but it doesn't cite specific examples.

Be interesting to see how that plays out.

Thanks for reminding me; I've been forgetting to sign up.

I'll be there; my first WorldCon, only my second con. And then a month after that, I've decided I'll probably drop by DragonCon. (It's local, or I'd never consider it. But...Lois McMaster Bujold! So I've bought a membership, and will probably use it at some point.)

Is it safe to conclude that HG Wells appeared on the cover of Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band because Paul McCartney was a fan of his? After all, Paul's group Wings got its name from Things to Come's flying fortress, Wings Over the World.

Or am I stuffed full of wild blueberry muffins?

(*) I keep thinking 'data control block', which betrays my professional origins in the mainframe world.

Well there has been concern about sax and violins in the media...

Lots of fun taking pics when you've got very little zoom, but it's not the closest I've gotten to wild turkeys. One just strolled through my apartment parking lot one day, eyeing nervously the cats who hopefully followed it...

debcha @207: Oh, also - the ISS captured photos moments after a volcano exploded.

Home repairs are much more dramatic than I would have expected.

I do have a webcam and entertain the hopes that some form of visual connection may be possible.

A former coworker took photos of them as they paraded across the end of her driveway in a fairly populated suburban neighborhood (Raytown). I speculated that they like it there because people can't hunt them there.

Earl @ 232: The monkey story is not all that surprising; they do have a propensity to do that. I guess it was the politician that made it newsworthy. We could probably do a sub-thread on which politicians would you want a monkey to pee/crap on, but then again lets not.

linkmeister: remember, even the Beatles wore ties on the Ed Sullivan Show
IIRC, the Beatles wore ties \everywhere/ in those days, possibly because it meant they were no longer a Hamburg bar band. I've heard Ringo quoted that he was told he'd have to wear a suit if he joined the Beatles. (He had two from his then-gig, but IIRC they were a little ... loud ....)

re turkeys, Paula neglects to mention the ones that went courting on Deb's handkerchief of a front lawn. Deb describes it as the toms going "heybabyheybabyheybaby"; I hadn't realized that they literally go blue in the face when they're at full spread. Makes one think of all the cartoons and snide comments about men trying to impress women by sucking their expanded guts up into their chests. (John D. MacDonald had a particularly lovely example in The Lonely Silver Rain.)

How fast are they running?

I am worried a bit about the crowds (I prefer much smaller conventions), but I won't know how bad it really is until I get there, so I'm going to chance it and plan to hole up in my room if it gets too overwhelming.

I read the news today oh, boy
About some martians coming to invade
And though the field was rather wide
The ship was kind of cramped
When they got out they were amped
They blew some people up with rays
They didn't notice that the wind had changed
A crowd of people stood and stared
They'd not seen this before
Nobody was quite prepared for lots and lots of blood and gore

I saw the roads today oh, boy
The walking tripods blowing up the towns
A crowd of people jammed the way
But i just had to stay
I could not get away
I love to turn you on.

Woke up, got out of bed
Got my carriage from the shed
Met an artilleryman in the next town
Who had a plan for living under ground
Met a curate raving mad
Hiding in an abandoned flat
Found my way upstairs saw nothing but smoke
Somebody spoke and i went into a dream
Ah

I read the news today oh, boy
A million germs infecting all the war machines
And though the germs were rather small
They somehow killed them all
Now we can finally go outside to places like the albert hall
I'd love to turn you on

dcb: Send me the list. My name as her, with a dot between given and sur, at gmail.

Fox did the same thing to several people in the DeLay/Abramoff scandals.

Marilee @ 233: I was shocked and dismayed to discover the sheer, WTF-worthy level of non-ADA compliance at a hotel my family stayed at (for one night) on a day-trip visit to the Aquarium in Monterey, CA.

Exactly three rooms per floor (above the ground floor) were reachable from the elevator without traversing at least one, and usually multiple, 8-step flights of stairs. The entire central courtyard is circled by zigzaggy up-and-down 'balconies' off which the rooms exit. Very quaint and picturesque (and somewhat Escher-resembling). NOT compliant, not in any fantastical imagining.

Luckily, we only had a bellcart full of luggage to get to a room two flights away from the elevator, and plenty of strong young bodies to hump the bags one at a time. It was still a shock to suddenly come across this at the end of a night drive through the Pacheco Pass, arriving about 10PM, and hoping for a trouble-free night's sleep.

In its defense, it's a quite-old hotel, probably built in the 50s and (going by decor) updated/reworked in the 70s, and not significantly touched since then except for things like paint, wifi, and newer beds.

It was the Holiday Inn Express, for those curious. Though I doubt its nearby (and similarly-aged) competitors do much better. The Intercontinental is much newer, probably fully accessible, and much closer to the Aquarium. Also more than twice the price per-night, so.

My (Toronto-born) husband reminds me that Canada's cities are likely more accessible, on average, than the US, due to their accessibility laws being older.

Hmmm...of course, not all levels of atmosphere move in the same direction at the same speed. If you dropped sails down off the bottom of the ship, into a layer of air moving a different direction, you might be able to steer by playing the two currents off of each other. You'd need a really tall ship, though.

Ooh! You could drop a long line down and run an electrical current through it, and tack against the planet's magnetic field! I have no idea if that would work.

It'd look cool though.

Don't forget to let me know how you want your name to appear for the "Copyright/Photographer:"

Thanks,

Debra

In post 192 on open thread 126 I used italics for a single phrase. On the view all by page, all the text in that post following that phrase is in italics.

Looking at the page source for each, I can see that the /i tag is in a different position in the "view all by" version.

This does not happen every time. I used italics in the following 4 posts, and they all look OK in the "view all by" page.

A relative walked into a Borders yesterday for an NYT and found no newspapers at all. The clerk claimed that the distributor wouldn't supply them any more. Is this happening anywhere else, or is this simply a spectacular example of blame-shifting?

And now, a test: I will close this tag myself

The next one, I will not close at all.

If this theory is correct, this text will be non-italic except when viewed at the "view all by" page.

Yet.

Just checked my e-mail and got them. Thanks again.

A King is "Your Majesty*" or "Sire."

A Prince or Princess is "Your Royal Highness" or "Highness."

A Duke is "Your Grace."

Any writer worth their salt could have looked this up in DeBrett's Peerage and deserves to get kicked in the butt for not doing so.

*This form was adopted in the reign of Henry VIII, prior to that the proper style of address had been "Your Grace."

I got a nice Borders gift card for Christmas, which I made haste to use, since gift cards are often casualties of bankruptcy. I've been a long-time customer of Borders, and I hope they make it.

Crossing my fingers for Borders - I always enjoy stopping in those shops when I'm out of town.

*and the walls and the windows and the plumbing and...

For some reason, pseudonyms seem to be the norm there, hence my secret identity.

What an odd, sad fellow. Genuine talent overshadowed by freakish self-delusion and self-hatred.

Also spotted at the BBC: Stoned wallabies make crop circles in Australia.

I've only stayed in two hotels in Canada and they were both worse than the US hotels I've been in, but they're probably not enough to know in general.

Show a little compassion for Michael Jackson
When he turns up on the evening news
Don’t judge that man or make fun of his tan
Until you’ve walked a mile backwards in his sequinned shoes ...

The chorus continues:

Famous people are weird. They can't help it.
It just goes along with being a star ...

Well, childhood stars especially do tend to have problems later. In Michael's case, he also got hit with a fair bit of family dysfunction all the way back to early days, notably a controlling father/manager.

He was never, ever, in his entire life, been able to do anything normal -- your "average" star could put on a pair of sunglasses and go to the movies, or for a stroll down a beach, or go play a round of golf or go clubbing. Jackson's fans are abso-fricking-lutely INSANE. At the height of his fame, even when he looked fairly normal, can you imagine the reaction if he decided to go catch the premier of a movie with a girlfriend, or go dancing with friends? It would literally have been a riot.

So his entire life, he's been cloistered. Add to that what I suspect were probably managers and agents who weren't looking out for Jackson's best interest.

And ... how much education did he actually get? He obviously never went to college. He was likely taught by tutors ... how good were they? Did they teach him what he really needed to know -- money management and some law and general this-is-how-the-world-really-works? Or did his schooling consist of the bare minimum required by law, and assurance from his handlers that, "We'll take care of you."

I don't know the answer to that, but it's something I've always wondered about whenever he made a dumb move.

He always seemed out of touch with reality ... I think the truth was, the reality he knew -- all he EVER knew -- was not the same as our reality.

It's a shame his life was so screwed up. He truly had an astonishing talent and such an amazing voice.

Ah, character encoding trouble. All of ML's comment pages after, um, 2006 or so? are encoded in UTF-8 and served up to your browser that way. The view all by page also serves up UTF-8-encoded text, however it seems to think that the comments are in Latin-1 (ISO-8859-1). This means that it looks at the individual bytes and converts them from what they would be in Latin-1 into their representation in UTF-8, giving you the effect you noted. This is, of course, annoying.

I've seen blogs that were in UTF-8 where all the old posts had that happen, because the upgrade script thought that of course all the old posts would be Latin-1 and ran amok.

Regarding Michael Jackson:

Michael Jackson's death was the subject of breaking news on CNN the entire time I was having dinner. (I assume that other things happened in the world too, right?)

I think that Cygnet at 283 has the meat of it; he never could have a normal life or even knew what one was, and then when he acted strangely he was made fun of for that too.

He was an amazing singer and dancer.

I remember my father who was in his late 70s at the time, saying "That bastard can dance!" about Michael Jackson.

Have been travelling for 17 and a half hours on three hours of sleep, two cups of coffee, a danish some tunafish and some hummus.

Am getting food.

Will probably be on later, no promises.

"Cardiac arrest is an abnormal heart rhythm that stops the heart from pumping blood to the body. It can occur after a heart attack or be caused by other heart problems."

The Stoopid! It burns! It burns!

The range of reactions I've seen on blog entries in amazing.

On one hand . . . well, no real true-fan mourning, but much wistful appreciation.

On the other hand . . . no-holds-barred visceral contempt for a kiddie-diddler. Some so spiteful I wonder if the posters were once victims.

#294: That is a very good question. Jackson had the money and prestige-power to warp his own life. To what extent did his narcissism compel him to warp his own kids? I really hope they get help, and some breathing room and a chance to be normal.

But it is good to be here (in the hospitable domicile of TomB). I was last in Palo Alto a year ago. I have some places to visit for photos, and am going to be running my intro speech in my head.

Also buying a hat, and generally treating it as something of a vacation.

Re: Michael Jackson, I just listened to Childhood, the song he described in an interview as the most autobiographical one he'd ever written. Mawkish it may be, and far from his best work, but it had me bawling at the second line, to my surprise.

A talented, lonely man. I hope his kids will be ok.

CHip @286: By my estimate "Merlin" - IF we're just basing it on the buildings is 8 to 10 centuries later than the "historical" Uther/Arthur. Which is why I got frustrated with the mixing of styles.

The costuming is inconsistent, I can't decide what century they think this story is set in. It's a hell of a note when Kostner's "Robin Hood" looks more accurate...sigh.

My partner wanted to watch it...I spent the time willing myself not to throw something at the TV set.

Last, but not least, *Arthur* built Camelot, not Uther.

"You've tricked me, Merlin."
"Come, come, Uther. I am a wizard, that's my business."

The small size made it incredible. Everyone went to the same panels, and even though I'm not a writer, I gleaned huge insights into the process, and will be a better reader for the experience. Everyone was willing to take us newbies us their wing, so there was never a lack of conversation partners.

I can't even count the number of interesting people I met, including our hosts and several others from Making Light. The nightly sing-alongs were awesome fun. Patrick, Teresa, and Elise were a joy to watch together, and you missed a group rendition of "City of New Orleans" that will live forever...

I can't wait for next years' 4th Street...

I retreated upstairs and called the authorities, then Paula, who asked after her laptop. It was, of course, gone. I figure the burglar had grabbed it when they heard me moving upstairs and scrammed, thus missing the camera on the floor under the desk, and not getting a chance to go through Margene's office.

Everyone, including the felines, are fine, if shaken. Paula will be back posting here once we get her a computer. Getting real tired of this crap.

So. The dog and I are finally sleeping here tonight.

I grew up on a farm, so I'm pretty sure I would have found the noise here irritating back in the 80's. But after four years in Puerto Rico, I now find it nearly eerily silent.

Also, all up above there, thanks for the karma about my blog. It makes it all easier!

I have to admit, the idea of flying this house around is in fact one of my favorite fantasies. The carriage house would be the shuttlecraft; the big house probably couldn't go dirtside very often. Also, the carriage house has the advantage of a very large cargo bay on the bottom.

It could work!

Any suggestions?

A friend of mine asked me for a list of stories with various characteristics. The one I couldn't come up with was "has no male speaking roles". I can't think of a one. "Female characters with no romantic attachments" were also thin on the ground.

"No romantic attachments": Telzey Amberdon. fx:brooding Ash?

"Has no male speaking parts": Sorry.

Thanks for the suggestions!

Actually there are tons of them if you don't qualify it further into ADULT female characters; Gretel has no romantic attachments, and neither does the unnamed title character of "The Girl Who Trod on a Loaf."

Molly Millions doesn't have any romantic attachments during the present-day story in Neuromancer, but she tells of having had them.

Cherryh is rich turf for female characters with no romantic attachments, actually. Signy Mallory has sex occasionally, but she's never romantically attached in any of the books in which she appears (Downbelow Station, Merchanter's Luck, at least one more that I can't think of now). Raen a Sul hant Meth-Maren has an affair in Serpent's Reach, but it's more of a chess game than a romance, and she kills the guy by the end; her link with Jim is clearly not romantic at the beginning, and ambiguous by the end, but it looks more like a close friendship to me.

I've definitely read stories with no male speaking parts, but can't recall any titles now. Are they supposed to be in Our Beloved Genre, or do other kinds of fiction count?

Fireworks Stand Flickr Set

Oh, gawd, I spent $109.00 on fireworks today.

Most of them are intended as gifts.

Yes, I've become the Cool Eccentric Uncle who comes from out of state with a trunk full of eye candy.

Yes, yes, nefarious porpoises, all that good stuff.

Another story in that collection (I don't remember the title, and my copy is four states away) fulfills your "minimized male roles."

Heck, for interesting short stories with non-standard gender roles, Bloodchild is a pretty good place to look.

Melody @324: I spend more time lurking than speaking here, but I do live in Madison (and work in Verona--are you coming to visit us?). What kind of food are you looking for, and what kind of prices? The Old Fashioned has great burgers, cheese curds, and sandwiches, and isn't super-expensive. El Dorado does interesting Mexican/Tex-Mex/Southwestern food, but costs a little more. The Weary Traveler does tasty hippy-bar-food, and has great atmosphere.

Also, if you're free on Wednesday evening, there is a free concert on the capital square downtown. It'll be packed, but is a great opportunity to see something interesting.

Does Ted Chiang's "Exhalation" qualify? It's a short story told from a non-human/non-gendered PoV & is available for download. Scratching my head to come up with examples of "has no male speaking roles" in gendered settings.

I saw some fireworks at the grocery store today. This being California, they never have any really exciting ones (for good reason). I was surprised to learn a couple years ago that they don't even sell real sparklers here.

Please do not buy anything from poorly-situated fireworks stands.

Finally back home briefly before Fiestacon. I was just in Regina for the week. The trip home was a little less fun than usual.

Then I remember all the other stuff. Nowadays we usually visit a friend who lives next to where her city shoots off their fireworks.

Second night here!

If you look closely and find the fireworks stand's proprietor in the photo, you'll see something that might be a cigarette hanging out of his mouth too.

J Austin @ 341:

I have not heard of this at all. Let me know when they get to testing the instant tornado pellets.

Michael Roberts @ 342:

I've been quiet about it, but I'm enjoying reading your adventures as well.

xeger @ 343/344:

I'm all for having fun setting the right things on fire. The problem is that it's all too easy to set all the wrong things on fire, and much harder to put out.

Everything is a shower of some sort or another, limited to a 10' altitude.

So, little chance of stuff that sets trees on fire.

But still darn cool.

Diatryma @ 317: Huit Femmes has no male speaking roles, as long as you don't mind that it was quite deliberately constructed so.

In the meantime, DDB put up some FABULOUS pics of 4th Street HERE.

Let me know if you're in any of them! He caught me during a magical moment on Sunday when our ML hosts and Elise almost had me in (happy) tears...

The Premise was genetically engineered microscopic humans were seeded onto a planet of puddles and forgotten about. The humans set out to conquer "space" by designing a 2-inch-long "ship" that actually only gets them to another puddle a few feet away... They believe they have conquered "space", but one persons questioning closes the story...

Don't know the author, title, year or anthology it appeared in... any help from The Mighty Assembly? Thank you!

Perhaps best appreciated with the other pantropy
stories, collected in eg this handy volume of "The Seedling Stars" (Arrow, 1972).

I was thinking maybe a good steakhouse one night, Asian another (can't be only sushi, as one of us doesn't care for it), Indian or French or South/Central American one day? Probably only dinner, as the timing will most likely prevent off-campus lunch. Happily, we've been told that there is some good food on site.

Is that free concert every Weds? I believe we have one evening set aside for Slightly Impaired Dominoes (a variant of Drunken Dominoes for people that need to be alert for classes in the morning), but would appreciate other activities. We'll be there the first and last weeks in July. Thanks for the tips - much appreciated!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYykpRRuHQM

Caution, the music is by Philip Glass.

Cadbury.

In other news, one of the most grating voices ever has been tragically stilled. He was the same age as Michael Jackson, oddly enough. There's some suspicion he may have taken a knock on the head during a rough plane landing.

Or to move sideways from "Calista" as "most beautiful", maybe "Freya", semi-depending on whether she is in fact inclined to create frays (either on the upholstery or as general chaos).

I think Mr. Mays performed a valuable service. When you heard his voice you knew it was time to turn off the TV and go outside and play.

President Obama wants your advice on how the government should keep its secrets.

<advt>Edward@351 et al: if a 1972 paperback can't be found on the book services, see Works of Art from NESFA. Unfortunately, I don't recall the names of the other pantropy stories or whether they were included; "Surface Tension" is the most famous, but it's also the last chronologically of a short sequence.</advt>

Melody: rule 1 for Madison is to go to the capitol square (preferably early enough to tour the capitol, which is ... impressive ...) and look around. I'll second the Old Fashioned if you're looking for modest prices; they also had a lot of interesting local-produce plates that didn't look to fit a single stomach. High-end is right next to them: L'Etoile and Harvest(?), which sound like they're out of your budget (can run over $100 for a full meal), but do visit Cafe Soleil in the morning for pastries. (If you're there Saturday ask for Spice Girl Wheels, which weren't selling well enough on weekdays.) If you're interested in beer (and also good modest-priced food) go out the corner opposite State St. to the Great Dane brewpub; they have outdoor seating, which isn't nearly as noisy as indoors. Going down State St. gives you a spectrum; the capitol end has several expense-account places (cf above), but the further half is what you'd expect to see running into a state university. There's a good Japanese place partway down, a tapas place near the capitol end (close to the restaurant in the movie-theater lobby, which has some good stuff, not all well-executed), and a non-Spanish tapas place "Al Fresco" after ~8 on top of the art museum. (Regular-dinner prices looked a bit high, but I had 2 $5 plates and a $5 desert and was content.) There are also \two/ Himalayan places surprisingly near the capitol. Sorry to not have more names -- I get there just for Wiscon and tend to wander rather than targeting. Big point is that if you're not looking for specific ethnicities, there are a \lot/ of places, at all price ranges, that do local produce, a lot of it wonderful -- the cheese is nothing like what is labeled "Wisconsin" in the supermarket.

Share escrow of all US government secrets between the EFF, the ACLU, and Amnesty International, giving them the right to declassify secrets by unanimous agreement.

I blame it on a cheap LA dealer in the 50s who began making his own ads rather than pay agencies.

[0] Typo corrected from 'head waves', although ones head tends to wave in a heat wave...

About those restaurants: for steak, I'd recommend either the Chop House or the Tornado Club--both nice, but the Tornado is a bit more expensive. My favorite restaurant in town is Fresco, on top of the art museum. As CHip mentioned, they do good small plates, but I like their full menu--yes, it's a bit more than some places but significantly less than the really expensive places in town (which CHip also mentioned).

For ethnic, State Street has two Himalayan restaurants, a Turkish place, an Afghan restaurant, and most likely at least one more place that I've forgotten. I also haven't been to a bad Indian restaurant yet. If you want other Asian, Lao Laan Xang is well regarded (on the east side) and I really like the Imperial Garden on the far west side. State street also has at least one combo Japanese restaurant (sushi plus other menu items).

About the concert schedule: a quick google for the concerts on the square calendar tells me that there's one all Wednesdays in July. It looks like July 29 is the last one for this summer.

If you get a chance, take a look around downtown Madison. I really like the town.

There ARE men in Glory Season, actually -- both native and starfaring It's a story that falls under the the What These People Need is a Terran trope (variant of '... is a Honky,' which I linked to).

I should warn anyone else who hasn't clicked through yet that 'wikisafari' is far from a strong enough term for the sort of compulsive link-following that that site, TVTropes.org, tends to inspire in anyone even vaguely geeky.

Two weeks in Verona...I can guess where you'll be, as a good chunk of my friends either work for or have worked for a certain company. Are you or any of your friends knitters? If so, you must stop in at The Sow's Ear.

I can second most of Joseph's recommendations, including Concert on the Square (or Wino's on the Lawn, as my sister likes to call it...lots of picnics featuring a bottle or two of grape). I love the Old Fashioned and the Weary Traveler especially.

My favorite dining clusters are State St. & the Capital Square, Williamson (Willy) St., and Atwood.

The squash curry at Lao Laan Xang is a favorite of mine (my 2 y/o nephow loves it, too). They have two locations, both are good.

For fancy, other options if you are feeling posh: Harvest and L'Etoile (both on the Capital Square). Both do locally sourced, seasonal dishes. (Very Alice Waters.)

For Japanese downtown, I recommend Takara on State, but others prefer Wasabi (just off of state). I am completely in love with the chicken peanut stew on injera bread at Buraka, a west African place on lower state (a few doors down from the Afghani place).

Oh man, my mind is brimming over with "Oh! You've got to try this!" places, such as Monty's Blue Plate Diner (across the street from one of the Lao Laan Xang locations and yet another Himalaya place) or Restaurant Muramoto or...you get the picture.

(I am very much in love with my city, especially in the summer, and can rattle on about it for ages.)

Two good resources are http://www.thedailypage.com/ and http://www.madisonatoz.com/

If you are ever looking for something to do in the evenings, besides the Concerts on the Square is the Memorial Union Terrace, which is a total gem. And there are farmer's markets all over the place, including a big one every Saturday morning at the Capital Square.

Ok, I'm going to try to stop waxing enthusiastic, but feel free to email me with any questions. kayjayoh (at) gmail

Sounds like you Wisconsinites keep the good stuff for yourselves....

Elliot #373: to follow up on "'wikisafari' is far from a strong enough term", they actually have a trope for that. :-)

Also, Re: Teresa's particle on Ferrofluids, you can buy the stuff here. (Scan down for "MagnaView Fluid".) Warning: Various comments found along the way, indicate that ferrofluid permanently stains clothing and such. I also found some pages on making it at home, but it seems that making even lesser-quality ferrofluid is a finicky business.

...become dicktion teachers?

I know they mean "revenge of the fallen" but I can't help reading it as "Rolling On The Floor."

Can't wait to see many of you again, or for the first time (where applicable)!

So...has everybody here got their votes in, yet?

There are some books where the majority of the speaking characters are female such as A Brother's Price by Wen Spencer--the society is one where the gender ratio is many females, one male. The males are kept mostly sequestered...

In Legacy of Chanur the majority of speaking roles are female--the kif is male presumably (not really certain that, though...), Hallan Meras is male and outnumbered, the gods-be-rotten mahe pest Captain is male, the stsho are essentially hermaphroditic, and Hilfy, Chur, Fala, and the two other Chanur or Chanur-sept original crew of Chanur's Legacy, are all female.

The other Chanur books, Pyanfar Chanur and her original crew are all female--but the series has a number of ironic comments involved regarding geneder roles, and Py's husband winds up on the ship starting off as a mix of refugee/guest. The stsho as noted above, are not strictly gendered--the one that Py deals with is "neuter." The gendered ones tend to stay "in the nest" and aren't out in public especially aren't out dealing with members of other species. There are kif (see above), the mahedo'sat are in both genders, though Goldtooth nd the other most promindent of them are male--two ship captains. There is the second in commnd who's female to one of them. The t'ca, chi, knn, etc., "male' nd "female" don't immediately apply to.

There's one human, who doesn't do much talking.

[no, not spam... but I'm spectacularly amused by this take on West Side Story... ]

Even as a Hoosier boy growing up in the 70's in a lily-white community and reading these books in the 80's at an all-male college, it reeked for me when I hit the second or third book, with Amazons, where Tarzan rectifies the problem with their society by teaching the Amazon women to be properly deferential to their men (let alone all the racist stuff throughout the series, but one comes into Tarzan kind of expecting that).

Blew my mind, and it's never been quite the same since.

Or maybe I didn't like Gor enough to continue.

OK, not really Elvish.

But I can't avoid the feeling that PoD could satisfy many of the people who fall for self-publishing scams. They have their printed book, it can even be 'on sale', and how is that different from pubbing a fanzine?

Well, maybe lots of ways, but I've done enough in the world of fanzines that I suppose I could call myself a self-published author. Back in the eighties, I was writing fiction going into fanzines, and PoD tech instead of a half-inch wad of Gestetner paper looks quite possible.

The scams will be scams whatever the printing tech used. But I have a novel written, and I'm not sure how a PoD copy would be any more a breach of Yog's Law than paying to print a stack of paper with a double-spaced manuscript to post to a publisher's slush-pile.

Love, C.

Leaning on comments made at ML over the years as well as my own feelings, I don't think that printing would satisfy that urge. Just going to a printer, whether it's one that does PoD or small runs at a time, doesn't have that same cachet as being a Published Author whose books you can buy at a bookstore. (We know that neither is necessarily true in any meaningful sense, but they don't because they've been had.)

For you, writing for the joy of writing seems to be its own reward. For some others, writing is enjoyable as well or they feel that they have a story they need to tell, but they also want that additional step of being recognized. Not that you don't get recognition from a fanzine, of course, but it's not necessarily perceived as being quite the same.

I will say no more on the topic.

The two Himalayan restaurants on State St. that others have mentioned are:

Himal Chuli -- traditional Nepali and Tibetan food

Chautara -- experimental variations on Nepali and Indian food, run by the son of the couple who run Himal Chuli. Hands down my favorite restaurant in Madison at the time I left (2000), and it seemed to be just as good when I visited four weeks ago...

Also on State Street:
Buraka -- mentioned by Kayjayoh @ 377; it's actually an East African restaurant (primarily Ethiopian and Somali cuisine; the owner is Ethiopian, I think). The actual restaurant is downstairs, below street level, but I think they have tables outside on the sidewalk as well.

Kabul -- the Afghan restaurant (almost?) next door to Buraka.

Sunprint -- down at the University end of the street (State St. runs between the University campus and Capitol Square); good for breakfast/brunch.

I have good memories of El Dorado (not on State St.), as well.

A FEW books about Tesla?

"Is there one in particular that people would recommend?"

That's a tricky request.

To put it bluntly . . . Tesla tends to attract weirdos. A fair amount of what is written about him appeals to conspiracy fans and/or uncritical wonder-seekers. Even ignoring the stuff published on mimeograph, you have to be selective.

That said, I'm pretty sure that this:

http://www.amazon.com/Tesla-Man-Time-Margaret-Cheney/dp/0743215362

(The "people who bought this also bought" list for this is . . . instructive.)

Is the pretty-good book about Tesla I read a few years back. While giving him full cred for his genius and contributions, it doesn't gush, or gloss, or buy into the conspiracies.

As for Tesla attracting the fringe & conspiracy people...

Did you notice that the device shown on the linked book's cover looks like a Dalek?
Coincidence?
Conspiracy?
You be the judge.

Of course, mileage various a LOT among readers--different experiences, different innate and different trained perceptions and expectations and interests and perspectives, etc.

There's a buzz in somebody else deciding that your work is worth the effort of getting out there, whether it's a fanzine or a website.

But having to pay them?

My first publications were outside the fannish mainstream—Blake's Seven fanzines and some stuff for the Tolkien Society—and so I tend not to include the fannish usual as a part of the core definition of a fanzine.

I remember being actually edited. Somebody was going to have to copy-type my text. Now, either I'm incredibly better as a writer, or the text just gets a cut-and-paste from one file-format to another (some headers and footers are added).

It's not, of course -- in fact, I remember someone around here amending Yog's Law with "In vanity publishing, books flow toward the author". The scam is in conflating vanity and commercial publishing -- promising actual distribution through the general publishing system, when (at best) the scammer can provide only the books.

For example: The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face. Roberta Flack may have created the standard, but that was ten years after it was first performed (by the woman who inspired the song, no less: Peggy Seeger, Pete's half-sister).

Most printers don't tell you that you and your book are special; there's no third party giving you validation. The scammers do that, and they misrepresent all their fees as the natural state of things.

I think that most people are basically trusting and trustworthy. Scammers prey on this by saying things that seem reasonable to people who don't know how things work.

D'oh! I knew that. It's kind of like my other left...I am wretched with directionals.

I don't remember when the Farmer's Market opens, because I'm never up that early, but I know it goes until 2. I like going near the end, because you can get good deals on stuff that people don't want to have to pack up and take home. And while you are at the market, you can also stop it at Fromagination (cheese store) and Candinas (chocolate shop----if you are into chocolate, the Madison area have at least 7 fine chocolatiers. Markus Candinas' main shop is in Verona, near where you will be.)
There is also and *actual* west African restaurant open now on Atwood. Africana. I haven't been there yet, but I've heard decent reviews.

If short stories will do, look up When It Changed, by Joanna Russ. I think from memory it meets the #317 condition, it certainly meets the weaker #326 condition.

JHomes.

We had guests for dinner Saturday, and when I managed to oversleep, I went to the next best thing. We have a (fairly) nearby supermarket that has the best produce section in town. It's priced fairly, and it's in air conditioning.

On the Fourth of July, I may cruise down there early to try and snag some treats for dinner. They're having a tomato festival. And our temperatures have moderated to 'normal' summer temps rather than extreme ones.

There will be a gathering of Fluorospherians at Fiestacon/Westercon, on the evening of the Fourth of July, after the fireworks. Lurker Nadia is organizing it. There’ll be cheese and crackers, dip, soft drinks, plus wine and/or tea.

The location will be someone’s hotel room, to be announced early that day. Look for a drawing of a cartoon lightbulb in the various message areas.

Due to the occasion, “1776” may be playing in the background, or your favorite scenes anyway. Of course, you mustn't assume, because I'm the one writing about this, that Nadia fears that, if she were the one to do it, people'd run their quill pens through it.

There will be a gathering of Fluorospherians at Fiestacon/Westercon, on the evening of the Fourth of July, after the fireworks. Lurker Nadia is organizing it. There’ll be cheese and crackers, dip, soft drinks, plus wine and/or tea.

The location will be someone’s hotel room, to be announced early that day. Look for a drawing of a cartoon lightbulb in the various message areas.

Due to the occasion, “1776” may be playing in the background, or your favorite scenes anyway. Of course, you mustn't assume, because I'm the one writing about this, that Nadia fears that, if she were the one to do it, people'd run their quill pens through it.

Obviously, the list has a Point to it; it's hard to find stories that just happen to be all- or even mostly-female the same way so many are all- or mostly-male. I'm interested to see what she does with it.

The penis mightier than the word?

How long?
(I'm whistling to keep myself from making the obvious and salacious joke.)

Dagon surf shop

I tell you, Annette & Frankie's beach movies are getting weirder and weirder.

Hooray! And three cheers for Nadia, who should consider commenting as well as lurking*!

-----
* But only if you want to, Nadia.

The elephant penis [or blue whale penis...] in the livingroom?!

Hmm, I wonder....
Back in the lesbian feminist literature spree of the 1970s and early 1980s, were there any exclusively female SF/F stories/books published?

Or what about Circlet Press lesbian stories?

Mighty Good Road by Melissa Scott which was the last novel that Baen published which she wrote (she changed publishers to Tor), had a lesbian couple as the lead characters, but there were lots of male characters with large roles and speaking parts.

The penis in the livingroom
Of "women's" literature
The smug and privileged knowing smirks
On they whose wills concur.

Of women it is not about
The Subject always males,
Central focused smug and vain
Aught else one sees derails.

The penis in the livingroom
The point of worshipped creed
And Patriarchy's grips stays tight
Behold the sacred seed.

A generation past that fought
To change that ancient war
To battle came Diana's bow
That Woman not be whore.

A generation past and gone,
And what now do we see?
Alito, Roberts, Thomas, No!
Scalia, Kennedy.

Injustices who times reverse
Removing hard-fought change,
With feminism murdered cold
And buried not to range.

The penis in the livingroom
Male privilege rampants fill,
It grabbed and still holds central stage,
And women chattel still.

Thank you once again! My friends were flabbergasted by all of the wonderful info. I didn't even consider some chocolatier visits - they'll be thrilled. We used to visit Chocolat Celeste, a rather nice little shop here in Mpls, but that has fallen by the wayside lately with ROWE.

I was thinking the very same thing.

I once read a review of a book about sex, which had a chart in it illustrating the actual sizes of the various malehoods hanging around the Earth. Yes, the blue-whale penis meant it had to be a foldout map. That'd probably make some gents feel insignificant. On the other hand, I think the review pointed out that human malehood is among the largest in proportion to the body that carries it around.

As opposed to an uninvolved stranger with a mad passion for throwing parties?

You walk up to them and say, "Quick! Word association test! What's the first thing that comes to mind when I say 'dinosaur'?"

He couldn't get one of the whales to help him with that?

I heard a similar story about the special-effects guys for the Dune movie. Apparently, it was pretty hard to tone down the phallicism of those sandworms.

My daughter is going to Oxford for a three-week program and bought a plane ticket for a side excursion to Amsterdam on a whim, without devoting much time to researching it, and is now getting slightly cold feet. How difficult is it for the first-time visitor who's never even been overseas before and doesn't speak any European languages (but has a few years of Japanese)? Are the hostels reasonably safe? Are there places an American traveller can go for help and places to avoid? I'll point her to the thread on living in the Netherlands, but if I recall, that was more about living there than visiting. She's also planning on Paris for Bastille Day weekend, shudder. Her fellow students in this program seem, from her descriptions, to be cookie-cutter Greek-life types, not the type she usually hangs out with, so she was planning to go alone, yikes.

What accounts for the difference between the military and police phonetic alphabets?

Dangerous, but not in the way you're thinking. I went to St Andrews for a year, and haven't spent more than two of the years since then in North America.

...and bought a plane ticket for a side excursion to Amsterdam on a whim, without devoting much time to researching it, and is now getting slightly cold feet.

Perfectly understandable, but entirely unnecessary. Amsterdam is a great place to visit. It's very friendly, easily navigated, and the Dutch are kindly and helpful*.

How difficult is it for the first-time visitor who's never even been overseas before and doesn't speak any European languages (but has a few years of Japanese)?

The vast majority of Dutch people speak beautiful English, and are quite happy to do so. English is all but the second language here - even the Amsterdam city council has adopted it.

Living here, of course I am learning Dutch. But visitors can get along perfectly well without any. It's useful to be able to say a few things like please and thank you, but there are plenty of websites with audio files for those.

Are the hostels reasonably safe?

That I don't know much about, but I think I would have heard if they weren't.

Are there places an American traveller can go for help and places to avoid?

The tourist office, which is called the VVV, sits just outside of Centraal station in Amsterdam. They're a good place to go for assistance and suggestions. She can take the train from the airport to Centraal.

I don't think there are any places in central Amsterdam that should be avoided. Even the red light district at night is more racy than rough.

One thing she should seriously consider is renting a bike. There's a company called Mac Bikes in one of the wings of the train station, as well as many others around town. Biking in Amsterdam is one of the great pleasures of travel, in my opinion.

When is she coming, by the way?

I'll point her to the thread on living in the Netherlands, but if I recall, that was more about living there than visiting.

Pretty much. She won't need to arrange child benefit or deal with the tax authorities, the lucky so and so...

Please feel free to have her email me at abi at sunpig dot com. I'm sure I can suggest a number of interesting and useful things, and as long as she isn't coming when I'm on vacation, I can be an emergency backstop.

-----
* I have never been in need of assistance here and not had it offered.

First, there were the various telephonic alphabets, apparently put forward by telephoine companies, which usually were lists of either forenames or placenames. The military alphabets may have been more designed.

This is a remarkably complete list.

What you Police Scanning page puts forward as a fire/EMS code looks like the standard International Code, used by aviators and NATO. Remember, the idea is to make sure everyone understands the code: it's not to hide information.

The Police codes in the USA seem to go back to the ARRL and Western Union codes.

The NATO/ICAO code has a few words from earlier English-based military codes, but looks clearer for non-English-speaking users.

The earliest British military codes seem to have just given words for a few letters. Hence the Toc H organisation.

It's all as easy as Ack, Beer, Charlie.

Lady Gaga is apparently playing two dates in Amsterdam, on Monday July 20 and Saturday July 25. (Thank you, Google...) If it turns out she's going to the one on the 25th I'll not just be around, but actually in Amsterdam proper (on my bike, natch), and would be delighted to buy her lunch if she's interested.

In any and all cases, she should feel free to email me.

This moose has a "Home Office Wireless Instructions for Radio-Telephony Schemes" pamphlet in front of him, dated July 1950.

It was for the .uk emergency services, and has a modified "Telecom B" phonetic alphabet in it. This must have _really_ confused people transferring in from the military.

The other oddity is the three "Transposition Codes" for sending names, etc over the radio: Code No.2 is ROT13

ObSheesh: Furrfu!

Cadbury.

Standard European train warning: Always be in your own train car when the train comes to a stop. The trains split and rejoin like cellular automata, and your car may be the only one going to your destination. Ok, she's going by plane, it is still useful to know for future trips.

Broodje haring is great, but isn't a breakfast food. Trust me.

Janet -- in case you think abi is more acclimated than your daughter, I'll note I had no problems touring the Hague, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Leiden when I was over for ConFiction (1990 Worldcon). Amsterdam in mid-August was sometimes crowded with tourists, but nobody seemed to be stressing from the heat. The weirdest thing (to a USian) that I remember is the trolley fares being on the honor system.

Jacque, seconding Dave: IIRC the ICAO code was designed to be understandable when spoken and heard by people whose native language was not English; personal names are OK if you're sticking to native speakers, but that doesn't work for air traffic control. Dave wasn't kidding when he called his link remarkably complete -- it even has the RAF alphabet that I remember seeing pieces of in Clarke's Glide Slope

What other words do you need?

Anyone who thinks American culture is homogeneous should read this front page.

(Alas, only the front page is available in PDF, but this is today's paper so you can go to the journal's main page to read the rest.)

Police Chief Jeff Halstead is the fracking scum of the frelling Earth.

I can't agree with Savage telling us what Halstead's words "really meant," but Halstead's own words and behavior say a lot. He seems to have become adept at stereophonic speech--he says the words quoted in Savage's article in one speech, but then, in an appearance at a church in East Fort Worth, claims Gibson wasn't even in the custody of "my [FWPD] employees" when the injury occurred. NOTE: That article has been updated since I originally read it; the first half, above the subhead, "'We've got to talk.'," was added this afternoon. The second half was what I was interested in last night, as it indicated he was really trying to straighten the situation out--to those who hadn't heard his hearty endorsement of his officers' fantastic story of their homoerotic irresistability.

However, since the TABC (Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission) has now admitted that Gibson was in their custody when he had the holy shit knocked out of him, it makes the story even more interesting. TABC officers, who are actually the instigators of these bar "inspections," as well as sting operations on retail operations, mostly stores that sell beer, to enforce laws against sales to minors, have pretty bad reputation. They've recently had an officer arrested for the sexual assault of one of the young female volunteers he used for sting operations. There are other accusations of entrapment and other questionable behavior from 2007-2008 in an ongoing lawsuit. Those are the ones that come immediately to mind; I'm sure further googling will get you more.

I haven't seen much about this in the Dallas Morning News, but the Fort Worth paper, known to be considerably more liberal-leaning, has had ongoing coverage every day, including articles about the national notoriety. One good overview of the general situation, with background info about TABC inspections and some unbiased (IMO) opinions about what happened that night, is a commentary by local columnist, Bud Kennedy. It might give someone from a very different urban culture a bit more idea of how we really are down here, i.e., not necessarily like Dan Savage's stereotype.

Along the same theme, I saw a bit of a documentary (PBS?) showing the preliminaries of a mating of a pair of very expensive thoroughbred horses. Because there was a possibility that the male might break a leg, his rear legs were tied off onto two-by-fours, and a pair of human assistants (one for each leg) were assisting in the docking maneuvers.

And my thought was that if this was what it had been like with Prince Charles, it was no wonder that royal life lost it appeal for Diana.

Toward the end of the show, he used a sentence that I really enjoyed:

"This is a great country, and it wasn't made so by angry people."

Incidentally, that's the hometown paper of the place where I start a 13-week travel assignment this month.

Apparently at least one design could eat mice, which might be bad news for hamster and gerbil owners....

I read those words with alarm. I know better than to lump all Texans, or even all Fort Worth residents, in with that scumbag police chief or those slimeball and possibly murderous TABC officers. Fort Worth has an openly-gay City Councilman, for gods' sake. And I will have you know that I stopped trusting Dan Savage's objectivity a long time ago.

What part of his article are you objecting to? I think his accent-transcription is offensive, especially since he probably didn't hear Jeff Scumbag Halstead talking at all...but his translation seems otherwise accurate. It's OK in Halstead's mind to beat faggots without regard for their survival if one of them touches you in an offensive way, and he supported their statements that such a thing occurred without any corroborating evidence. He's "happy with the restraint that was used," when someone ended up in a coma and may die; that by itself makes him a homophobic shithead who has no business having a badge.

I note that it appears that Chief Scumbag was telling the truth about Gibson's custody; he was assaulted by TABC officers, not FWPD officers, according to the TABC's own admission. Of course, he may have been trying to get people to believe that Gibson wasn't in custody at all, in which case he's still a lying sack of shit even if his words are technically true.

Kennedy's piece doesn't contradict my reading of the situation at all, though I disagree with him when he says that "If neither [the city nor the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission] wants to say that it originated the inspection, that must mean neither agency is proud of the outcome." It doesn't mean anything of the kind. It means neither of them wants to be held accountable, that is, punished, for the crimes that were committed during this savage pogrom. Lying (and one of them must be) to avoid punishment isn't QUITE the same thing as remorse, now is it? In fact if anything it shows a lack of that quality.

Kennedy's account also fails to mention (perhaps to notice) that the raid took place on the 40th anniversary of Stonewall. I don't think it's plausible that that was a coincidence. I think the officers involved (who may not have gotten instructions from any higher authority) decided to show what would have happened had Stonewall taken place on their watch. I want them kicked off the TABC and (where applicable and if they're convicted) put in prison. If Chad Gibson dies I want whoever did it to never again enjoy freedom. My rage is redoubled by knowing that this is vanishingly unlikely to occur, since most jurors believe cops won't lie on the witness stand, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

One other thing Kennedy's account does make clear: it IS, in a sense, a statewide issue: Rick Perry ordered, or appointed the people who ordered, arrests for being drunk in a bar. I guess that's illegal under Texas law, but the arrests started up, according to Kennedy, under Perry's regime. Perry is a known scumbag too, so I guess it's not surprising that he has policies that lead to this kind of grotesque abuse.

Dana Milbank uses his column to compare a new right-wing group to Star Trek, including noting that the American Family Association is boycotting Pepsi because they support homosexuals. I wonder how much Pepsi we have to buy to win. And if they'll girlcott Snapple.

And boy, has the WashPost stumbled because their new media division sent out flyers saying companies and lobbyists could buy reporting.

So they have a few thousand miles of courtship, she makes her choice and the failed suitor helps out.

The amusing thing was the actual mechanics of the coitus. The male's penis bends, and it manages to find the vaginal opening while flopped over.

Evidence of life's little jokes: "Royal Pains" just mentioned Mount Sinai as a destination for an emergency transport.

I also, apparently, said, "fuck" several times in same church.

Which is to say, I did the conference. It was a good time. On a couple of levels it may have been life changing. Certainly it caused me to rethink a few things, gave me some different perspectives on the subject and was; again on several levels, soul restoring.

It's also something I couldn't have done without the support, real and tacit, of the folks here.

So, such victory it might be, is shared with the lot of you. My most heartfelt thanks to one and all.

I ran into KeithS tonight. Rather, he did. It took me a moment to recognize him because, unlike his photo, he doesn't look eeevvvvilllllllll. Not even a mephistophelian whiff about him. He told me that Lee IS around. I was wondering about that, since I didn't see her working in the dealer room. That's because she's not working in the dealer's room.

I can see roasting unpeeled onions. Roast them like corn in the husk, until the interior is cooked and tender, then peel the outer skin off and enjoy the rest.

If the "earth-cooking" advocates were suggesting the papery outer skin should be eaten too... ehhhh, I don't think so. (Wouldn't that turn your tongue yellow?)

But other than that... no.

I was there again a few days ago (and abi was kind enough to meet me for lunch).

I'm happy to confirm that in both cases I found the city to be safe, easy to navigate, and very English-friendly.

A few minor warnings:

The ticketing machines in Schiphol don't seem to like American credit or debit cards, so she should be prepared to go to the counter and pay cash (at a slight premium).

If she's easily shocked, you might want to warn her ahead of time that the wake'n'bake is popular in Amsterdam - I definitely caught whiffs of pot smoke as I arrived in the city at eight am on a Monday. Conversely, if she's adventurous, I've been told that Amsterdam weed is much stronger than what most people are used to. If she's traveling by herself, indulging might not be the smartest move.

And a final warning: once she tries French fries with mayo and ketchup, she may always prefer them to straight ketchup, and then all her American friends will make fun of her (seriously - tried them on my first visit and now that's how I always eat fries).

Not planning on travel any time soon, but inquiring (and radically allergic) minds want to know.

Lunch was a pleasure, though, alas, too brief. But it was a busy week at work. The best I can say is that half a loaf is better than none.

Paula @494:
Are all cafes places where one can smoke weed or is it in select ones?

And here we must introduce the difference between a café, where one gets coffee, and a coffeeshop, where one gets weed.

Coffeeshops are distinguished by a sign in the window, argent, per bend sinister vert*, with the words "COFFEE SHOP"on it in black.

There is occasionally a miasma of marajuana in the air in Amsterdam, particularly in the red light district†. But it's rarely severe.

-----
* Heraldry is not my specialty. Corrections are welcome.

† Note that the red light district does not have prostitutes on the street corners. Everything takes place in windows or indoors. Walking down the street in the red light district is not going to get one mistaken for a sex worker, assaulted, or otherwise bothered.

There was, for instance, a sex-toy shop on the tram route from the conference centre into Scheveningen, not far from the Bad Hotel. Though I doubt I would have gone in even if it had been open when I passed. Today, I passed on in Scunthorpe--times have changed a lot.

But traveling around the Netherlands, not speaking a word of Dutch: no problem.

And once you're in the Euro zone, it's all the same currency. One or two people from further south in the UK, who travelled by way of Belgium, had a few little problems with having to handle another currency.

* New, Softer Approach to Illegal Workers
* Will Resurface Later
* In Which Everybody Gets Corrupted

Since commercial mayo appalls me, and ketchup is (IMO) vile, the idea of combining them is not for me. Good mayo is ok on fries, but the ne plus ultra for me is a good tartar sauce.

Or something like that. And there was something about the troops being the most important thing, which makes me wonder if she's going to join a USO troop and put on a floor show for them.

Very strange press conference.

One wonders what the real reason is.

Her reasons, as stated in her speech, don't make much sense. Coming from Palin, that doesn't mean they're insincere--her judgment and grasp on reality are, after all, shaky, and it may be that she really thinks this won't hurt her--that her fans will blame the nasty liberal media for hounding her, and spend the time until 2012 marveling at what a stand-up gal she is for not wasting taxpayer money. But some people seem to think something more is going on here. According to MSNBC, "Sources told NBC's Andrea Mitchell that it appears Palin is out of politics for good."

This seems to be an outright acknowledgment that she has not actually been doing anything useful in office.

I read that as saying that she'd be forced, forced I say, to run around spending taxpayers' money on junkets, and to ignore her job. Because that's what happens to lame ducks, you know.

WHERE: room 3071
WHEN: after the fireworks.

If I remember correctly, Patrick Connors, CHip and Bruce Arthur were planning to be around, but I haven't heard any confirmation. I've met KeithS and Lee is around although I haven't met her yet. Nadia, who is the person doing all the work for this, said a few more people might show up. Oh, Teresa and Patrick will be there.

WHERE: room 3071
WHEN: after the fireworks.

If I remember correctly, Patrick Connors, CHip and Bruce Arthur were planning to be around, but I haven't heard any confirmation. I've met KeithS and Lee is around although I haven't met her yet. Nadia, who is the person doing all the work for this, said a few more people might show up. Oh, Teresa and Patrick will be there.

I wonder if she's alluding to the various ethics investigations she's subject to at the moment?

I tried to watch video of her speech but she's painful to listen to.

I'm waiting for something to blow up in Alaska government.

Outsiders, so she says, can file complaints and force the state; and her family, to spend millions of dollars, without spending a cent.

What got me was the style.

And there is such a need to BUILD up and FIGHT for our state and our country. I choose to FIGHT for it! And I'll work hard for others who still believe in free enterprise and smaller government; strong national security for our country and support for our troops; energy independence; and for those who will protect freedom and equality and LIFE... I'll work for and campaign for those PROUD to be American, and those who are INSPIRED by our ideals and won't deride them.

I WILL support others who seek to serve, in or out of office, for the RIGHT reasons, and I don't care what party they're in or no party at all. Inside Alaska – or Outside Alaska.

But I won’t do it from the Governor’s desk.

Wha...?

I do this work on hot sunny days so the carpets dry out quicker; to help things along more I opened up the shades and windows. I was sweating and a bit woozy . . . and for a moment thought I was hallucinating when I heard the news.

Jeeze. Palin is the gift that keeps on giving.

Whoa, maybe she killed someone in the governor's mansion!

Oh wait, you mean after you were shampooing the carpets for two hours. Never mind.

I ate some fruit and drank some water so I know I wasn't hallucinating that.

Someone on the Whitechapel blog wrote "Someone found her Planned Parenthood receipts."

I could almost believe something like that.

Does that mean Palin is going to turn into Jeff Goldblum and then into a giant wominsect?

Oregon's Rabbit Lady is getting jail time after a maintenance worker found she was keeping forbidden bunnies in her suite hotel room.

Missing from the linked story: After having her 150 bunnies seized, she broke into the holding facility and took them back. She was busted when someone giving her a ride talked to the police, describing her as being disturbingly enthusiastic about rabbits.

She probably belongs in a mental health facility. No way she's going to get the necessary help in jail.

Why did Sarah Palin get chosen as the VP candidate? Why did so many people, Republicans and Democrats (but especially Republicans) follow Bush and Cheney off a cliff, even when it led to their own downfall? What's behind so many spectacular scandals coming out about Republicans these days?

I have a kind of very speculative theory, way off in tinfoil hat land: Perhaps a lot of prominent Republicans were under some kind of blackmail threat, and in fact that some powerful folks in the party were helping out the people on whom they had blackmail materials. If this is true, it explains some of why Republicans keep having sex scandals, and so often have gay sex scandals. (It's much harder to remain politically viable after you come out, when you're a Republican.) If that is true, then it's interesting to ask whether Palin might have been chosen because someone had some very good blackmail material on her, and some ability to co-opt the selection process. (Note that Palin was a bizarre choice for VP, given the huge negatives (pregnant teenage daughter, ongoing ethics investigations) she carried. Married white women with kids and some political experience are not such a rare commodity in the Republican party that she was the only choice.)

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/31722986/ns/today_people/

When was that, anyway?

That's the funny thing about a democracy; the voters can surprise you.

Other days, you keep on throwing things in, hoping that they'll improve your current results to a point where you're willing to eat the ... stuff ...

Re the Rabbit Lady: I like tis line from the article (emphasis mine):

When the worker arrived, he saw and smelled more than a dozen rabbits.

Erik Nelson: Not pleasant, but I can see the problem with letting stand the "repurposing" of the law behind her conviction. What's really needed is laws against such targeted abuse, behavior that apply regardless of medium.

[/heraldry_geek]

Last summer, my family discovered that the red light district had expanded a bit beyond where it had been when we first visited Amsterdam, it must be sixteen years ago.

We rented an apartment (a very nice upstairs apartment) on a quiet street where, after dark, the girls showed up in the windows with the lights. The seventeen year old was amused, the fourteen year old horrified and the twelve year old curious. (We walked down the street just after dusk, just after the lights went on. The young women smiled and waved at us.) Based on previous visits to Amsterdam, we weren't worried about the street being unsafe, especially as when we had pulled up we had seen other children on the street. It made for a little awkward explaining to do, but I think the parents were more unsettled about things than the kids were.

Years ago, when I came to Amsterdam for the first time, the hotel clerk kindly warned me that if I wandered into the wrong part of town I could get my pocket picked! Considering I was living in the D.C. suburbs, where two German tourists who wandered into Anacostia had recently been *shot*, I wasn't too concerned.

I love Amsterdam.

I lived in Oxford as a student and have visited Amsterdam a number of times. I'd say that Amsterdam is safer than Oxford.

I can also confirm that language is not a problem for tourists. Almost everyone can communicate in English and lots of people have near-native fluency. They are also willing to speak English. It's not like, say, Paris.

Abi's recommendation of MacBike is seconded. I would add a warning to check when they close -- it was earlier than I expected.

Tune in tomorrow for the next episode of As the Worm Turns.

This is a soap opera, right?

abi, #493: You know, you're weren't actually required - or even expected - to warn me about the ticket machines at Schiphol. Really. But I appreciate the thought nonetheless.

I used to think the Bush administration Republican party discipline had some blackmail at its base, but there've been so many "My party has betrayed me" books (afaik with an adverse consequences for the writers), that I'm now inclined to think that the party discipline was a matter of social pressure.

The "Married white women with kids and some political experience" in the GOP that come to mind generally had some policy position or other that made the right-wing activists less than enthusiastic about them.

What seems to have happened is that McCain had to back away from the VP he REALLY wanted (apparently Lieberman) and just picked someone who looked somewhat plausible (Female? Check; Acceptable to the base? Check; Somewhat prominent elected official? Check; Makes me look "mavericky"? Check.) without much thought or investigation.

As time passed, as they got better at dodging criticism, it was less and less necessary for the Republicans to be good at anything else. They didn't have to make politically sensible decisions anymore. The PR guys could take any stupid decision and steamroller the consequences into a smooth road.

What we're seeing now is the moment when the party has become so crazy that even the mighty noise machine can't hide the damage.

We don't need conspiracies to explain McCain's decision to take Palin as VP. He's just that impulsive. And although there's a good chance a scandal is about to break, Palin's pretty damn impulsive, too, and it's also plausible she quit because she's just bored with being governor...

Fred Malek, a longtime Republican fundraiser and Palin ally, played host to the governor and her husband, Todd, less than a month again in Washington and said it was “so clear to me that she was terribly unhappy with the position she was in and the role she was playing.”

He didn’t learn of Palin’s decision until he got a phone call from the governor this morning, when she cited the pressures of a job that had become consumed with FOIA requests and ethics investigations and the demands it taken on her family and national political prospects.

Another prominent GOP source who is close to Palin, who also had no inkling of Palin’s decision to quit until today, said: “Things had piled up pretty steep on her.”

...And that she's egotistical enough to believe this resignation will not hurt her:

Those friends say she plans to give a series of paid speeches, and will also make free GOP appearances, raising money for the party and for issues. She also plans to help other candidates, collecting political IOUs for herself.

Maybe Palin honestly believes she's made a brilliant strategic move.

A happy Fourth to my fellow Americans!

<*squeeka*> <*squeeka*> <*squeeka*>

TL: <*ting*> SARAH.

SP: ... Did somebody call? ...

<*squeeka*> <*squeeka*> <*squeeka*>

TL: <*ting*> SARAH.

SP: ... Who is that?

TL: IT'S THE LORD, SARAH.

SP: ... Right. ... Where are ya? What do ya want? I've been good.

-----

So: Is she going to start building an Ark in her driveway? Have a very special baby?

The line I always liked best from it was probably "You wanna get it outta my driveway? I gotta get to work!"

Ummm, Serge, it's Arthurs. With an "s" on the end. ("The gratuitous s", as Arthur Hlavaty once referred to it.) It's a small thing, but it's mine.

(I am not related to the Daniel Arthur who is also at the convention.)

I've seen you in passing, but haven't had a chance to say hello. Barring unforeseen circumstances, both Hilde and I should be at the party tonight. (I may be bringing some chocolate peanut-butter balls, and some holy-moley-they're-actually-ripe! peaches to contribute.)

And of course the Canadians have brought back the loonies in a big way. And twonies. Yep, they have a loonie-twonie system!*

*No, actually I don't think I'm the first to say that. Saying it anyway. :P

http://www.ehow.com/how_2305759_remove-cigarette-smell-from-wood.html

I would also think, if the polish looked dull after any of these treatments, giving it a good wipedown with lemon oil and then buffing it would restore the shine.

Is it really a big midcentury modern entertainment center? That's what all the image search results are!

The two checks I remember off the top of my head -- Find an inconspicuous spot, and apply a q-tip soaked in rubbing alcohol (just hold it still) for about 10-20 seconds. If the spot is sticky after, you've likely got shellac. If that has no effect, try the same thing (cautiously!) with lacquer thinner ...

General advice -- use a bit of soapy water (dawn+water) to get the worst of the grime off (don't worry about the finish getting dull for now -- it's not a problem, per se, just avoid soaking the wood). I know some folk will say that you should never, ever, ever use something like Murphy's oil soap -- I figure that -clean- is important, and what I'm working on isn't irreplaceably historic, so I often use Murphy's.

Having done that (and you may need to go over the whole thing several times to get the worst of the crap off), you can then use something like naptha or one of the "antique restorative" solutions that get sold at your home despot to clean the finish up some, instead of dissolving the dirt.

A technique I've used with good success on a variety of objects is to then take a decent furniture wax (I think I'm currently using old masters crystal clear furniture wax), and rub in (not -too- hard, since you don't want to cut through the finish... ) generous amounts with extra fine (0000) steel wool (or the white non-ferrous substitutes, especially with tannic woods) -- one coat at least for cleaning/smoothing, and a second much thinner coat for polishing (more coats don't necessarily hurt).

Bear in mind -- this assumes that you're not dealing with something that has major historic value, or suchlike.

There's also a vast excess of advice about refinishing online...

Oh! One other bit of advice that might be useful -- white vinegar, just set in a jar or bowl apparently helps to absorb cigarette smoke.