Tom brings up this little tidbit from Chris via rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated:
"He [Karl Rove] then tells Bruce [Boxleitner], “I just wanted to tell you that I’m a big science fiction fan, and that Babylon 5 is the best science fiction television series *ever*.”
Then there’s a pause, and he adds….
“And the President thinks so too.”"
I can’t respond better than Chris did.
"God have mercy! President Clarke…er…Bush is a B5 fan? This shakes me to the core."
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I was reminded by Oliver that Challenger happened 17 years ago today. Sigh. It still leaves me sad and speechless.
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The Warp Core restarts #
The Warp Core by John Martellaro has returned to Apple Links with "Apple’s Chess Game with Microsoft: Check!" Woo hoo!
More Warren Zevon #
Warren Zevon is profiled in this beautiful and respectful portrait in the New York Times. Nice to see one of the great American songwriters getting some of the respect he deserves." [Alwin]
Darn right. Thanks for that, Alwin.
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I propose an ad-hoc non-organization #
garret mentions in passing that he’s one of the few ‘red-blooded american boys who can’t even tell you who’s *in* the superbowl.’ There are others, and I propose we call the collective rabble RBABWCETYWITS for short. Of course it can include red-blooded american girls, too. But I bet you all don’t get as many strange looks when you don’t know who is playing in the superbowl. At least, that is my working hypothesis.
Of course, rbabwcetywits is not a very good name, it isn’t very short and certainly isn’t easy to remember – though I suppose it could be construed to be Welsh derived. Anyway, there is a small group of us that only know who this year’s contestants are because multiple persons (of both genders) keep informing us – frequently coupled with the phrase, ‘I just can’t believe you don’t know this….’
I propose that this dispersed band of rbabwcetywits (boy, that just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?) should aggregate itself (loosely). A group of allies, if you will. Football weary allies.
"[W]hat hypocrites smile more today than the Corporate Spokesperson, the Advertiser, the Copyright Attorney, the Political Hack, or the General at the Podium? All kinds of punishment if you take the name of the Brand (whether of Corporate or Governmental construction) in Vain. So, says the Satirist, “It reminds me of story about a donkey who ….”
We are going to have to be better artists if we are to avoid the various Digital Rights Acts that protect the intellectual property — the property stolen from the commons — of the Smiling Hypocrite in Power. Instead of quoting, citing, cutting and pasting, learn to write via allusion, fable, parable, cock and bull story. When the punishment for libel was the cropping of ears, the pillory, the cross or the gibbet, our best role models talked of what? A bushel basket. A torn coat. A Beggars Opera. A tub tossed by a whale. A made-up character named “Sporus,” or “Atticus.” A king with the ears of an ass. A dog and bone. A boy and a pot of beans. A cat and her boots. My foolish, literal-minded, pig-ignorant (mortarboard wearing) friends: Do you think that this was all in fun?
When they outlaw the link we will have the allusion." [Wealth Bondage]
Today is Andrea’s third bloggaversary! Blogday. Whatever we are calling those things.
"I‚m not a fan of George Bush. But if he proposes a mission to Mars in his state of the Union speech˜as the Guardian reports he may do˜then I still won‚t be a fan of George Bush, but I‚ll be hugely excited about the mission to Mars.
It‚s time to do it. We‚re way behind on space travel." [inessential]
Exactly.
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Warren Zevon turns 56 today #
Today is one the birthday of one of my favorite songwriters. Warren Zevon found out that he has inoperable lung cancer last September. Today he turned 56. Happy Birthday, Warren!
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Satellite of Love News (MST3K – scroll down) +
Aargh, bite me! I guess I should round up all those Mystery Science Theatre 3000 video tapes I made if we aren’t ever going see them again.
"SUPREME COURT DEALS BLOW TO PUBLIC DOMAIN
In a decision that might have implications for the future of MST3K reruns or video releases, the Supreme Court on Jan. 15 upheld lengthier copyrights, protecting the owners of movie copyrights, and seriously damaging the concept of “public domain.”The 7-2 ruling in the case of Eldred v. Ashcroft, while not unexpected, dashed the hopes of Internet publishers and others who wanted to make old books available online and use other old creations without paying high royalties.
It also put an undetermined number of MST3K episodes effectively out of reach of a TV network that might choose to air them, or video distributors that might want to release those episodes commercially on video or DVD.
The rights to the films featured in most MST3K episodes were purchased for only a few years and, in the majority of cases, those rights have expired, and will have to be renewed before the episodes can be shown on TV or released on video and DVD. In quite many cases the rights owners have set prices prohibitively high; in a few cases they are apparently doing so to suppress the episodes in which their property was ridiculed." [via BoingBoing]
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Heh. garret recalls quite correctly that I abstained from the habañeros when Andrea, André and I were there this summer. International hospitality, good friends and all that, but whole habañeros are ‘a chile too far.’ Green chile sauce that will etch glass is fine, I love chiles. But, as of a couple of years ago, I draw the line at whole habañeros. Especially when in New Mexico, the very belly of the chile beast. Besides, I actually had to speak the next day. All Andrea and André had to say was, ‘I will.’
The difference an ‘i’ may make [NYTimes] +
Joseph Turow thinks how we use the ‘I’ in ‘internet’ makes a difference. He might be right, imo. [more] [via Got Caliche?]
Our son, Ian, is 15 months old today. Happy day, little toddler of mine!
Permalink titles in the RSS feed +
Ah ha. Having links in the titles does it. But you already knew that, didn’t you? All you specification reading, standards compliant types.
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YA permalink change +
I have moved the permalink back to the end of the title. This in the hope that the RSS feed entries regain their titles.
Caricaturist Albert Hirschfeld Dies at 99 [NYTimes] +
"Hirschfeld, whose witty and graceful drawings appeared on the pages of The New York Times for seven decades, was known for instantly recognizable caricatures of Broadway and Hollywood stars. His pointy pen strokes showed Katharine Hepburn with hardly any eyes at all and talk show host Leno with a massive chin."
What an iconic artist. His work will be missed.
Stones Self-Organize into Circles [SciAm] +
"…The team found, using computer simulations, that the two main mechanisms are lateral sorting, which moves stones and soils to regions that have high concentrations of similar particles, and squeezing, which stretches stones into longer lines by causing movements within a pile of rocks.
Freezing and thawing of the ground influence both of those processes, and their relative strengths determine what the final pattern looks like. For instance, polygons arise when squeezing is strong enough to counteract the effects of lateral sorting." [more]
Patterned ground has been known about for a looong time. Finally getting some math behind the models brings this into the realm of becoming a tool. We have problems with artifacts moving all over the place through time (a technical term
). With some modeling, we could talk about how much integrity remains. Better yet, I suspect size is a major determinant of movement. This could be promising.
I had no idea I was such a misanthrope +
Reading the various takes on High and Mighty: SUVs–The World’s Most Dangerous Vehicles and How They Got That Way causes me to reflect that Sturgon’s Law may apply here, ie., that 90 percent of all drivers are crap, not just SUV drivers. We just notice the SUVs as they are about to impact us. And three-quarter ton Ford / Dodge / Chevy diesel pickups with a sticker of Calvin peeing on something. (Don’t forget the big American flag, now tattered.) And kamikaze Hondas. And violet-haired ladies that can’t see over the dashboard of their ‘73 Caddy. All pushing the yellow light at 20 mph over the posted limit.
Of course none of that includes thee or me. I should mention that I do have a SUV, btw. I like to think (rationalize?) that a 2002 Toyota 4 Runner is on the fringes of such vitriolic tarring. Feathering is a dealer option. I don’t use my cell phone while driving either. Does that put me in the other ten percent? Probably not in some eyes. Oh well.
[later:] dave is thinking along some of the same things I am (how people react to things, zero-sum solutions, reporting and reactions to the war protests) and sums up some his observations better than I can my own:
"I can choose to get upset by that, get angry about it. Anger comes from fear. Do I live my life in faith or in fear? If I live it in faith, what does that say about this? Well, I guess it says that people do things like this, and that’s okay. They think men should have less testosterone, and people who drive SUVs have psychological problems. But they’re not really much different from me, and I think some pretty harsh things about people too from time to time, especially when I’m acting out of fear. So I shouldn’t focus on all the mean, petty and silly things people say, and just be grateful I have the opportunity to share this brief time and space with them. I should focus on my own soul and see how I can work to make it live more in the light of faith than the darkness of fear. And while it may be cold right now, it’ll get warmer."
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day +
Today is the observation of the birth of Martin Luther King, Jr.. In some parts of the US of A it is a three day weekend. Other states, not. I have never really accepted why that is.
Back in the swing of things +
On the home front ˜ Ian is napping, the washing machine is trying to remove tons of dirt from Audrey’s field clothes and I’m not getting a whole lot accomplished (and that’s OK).
Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits. –unknown [Walt Kelly/Pogo?]
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+ Douglas Herrick, 82, Father of the Jackalope, Is Dead [NYTimes]
Sigh. They don’t make ‘em like that anymore.
+ Ouch!
garret gets one of those ‘old boots suck in snow’ lessons I seem to relearn every couple of years. It is one of those time-dilation moments when you realize that you’re still upright, but your feet are in the air in front of you. Hmm, this is going to hurt… Usually I manage to get one knee under me with a Herculean effort. Must. Move. Faster. Prevent. Injury. Crash. <Expletive Deleted>. Thus, I end up unable to walk for a week when I slam the knee (and why is it always the bad knee? cause it’s the one you fall on.) into the ice below me instead of just impacting on a considerably better padded area of my body.
+ IgMetPetMommy returns
Audrey is back home from her field work and has retired to a well deserved night’s sleep in a real bed. Tomorrow we’ll clean and put away mountains of gear while Ian shows off his bipedal skills to a very receptive audience. I’m not sure which one of us is happier she is back.
IgMetPet stands for Igneous and Metamorphic Petrology, btw.
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