A Cuppa Here's my prediction for 2012 and why the democrats shouldn't worry at all about the midterm elections.
During the midterms the GOP is going to fuck itself in the ass while the insane part of the party they took advantage of to get press coverage this year tries to influence the nomination process. This will cause them to lose races that they should win (either because they cave and put out whackjob candidates, or they try to put up reasonable candidates and the looneies put up independent candidates and split the right wing vote.)
This will cause the RNC to try to distance itself from the clinically insane. In response they'll break off from the GOP and start the Tea Party.
The Tea Party will put up Palin as their candidate in 2012. The GOP will put up someone sane - Elizabeth Dole comes to mind - and once again the right wing vote gets split and Obama gets another 4 years by default.
If Palin outperforms the GOP candidate, the GOP then dies and in 2016 we get a Tea Party candidate (unless he's been caught banging men, this will probably be Beck) running against Hillary.
anti-climate science but pro-climate change worry? I was amused to recently read and sympathize with a story on abrupt climate state transitions someone posted on Facebook, and realize that for all my anti-climate sentiment, I'm totally worried about climate change as a potential major global disaster for the 21st century. I just don't talk about it much because what I get hooked by and want to write about is people being stupid, not my vague worries about the future, and I see lots of stupid in climate science.
My worry is AGW triggering the next ice age, rather than it continuing to get slowly warmer. This is because I don't trust the science, so I don't believe their warming models. When you don't trust models, look to history. And global temperature history is really frightening - the Earth spends much of its time in Ice Ages, it transitions into them rapidly (perhaps as short as years to decades), and we're like 8000 years overdue for the next one!
Global warming people worry about a few feet of sea level rise and a few degrees C temp increase. I worry about ice a mile thick over Chicago and Canada, Scandinavia, Russia, and the Northern quarter of the US completely wiped out. Way worse. And if it's a bi-semi-stable equilibrium, AGW may kick us into the other state. Or for all we know, it could save us by moving us to a new point - we don't know. But if we're going to worry about something, I say we worry about an abrupt end to the Holocene.
Most of the studies and debates on potential climate change, along with its ecological and economic impacts, have focused on the ongoing buildup of industrial greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and a gradual increase in global temperatures. This line of thinking, however, fails to consider another potentially disruptive climate scenario. It ignores recent and rapidly advancing evidence that Earth's climate repeatedly has shifted abruptly and dramatically in the past, and is capable of doing so in the future.
Fossil evidence clearly demonstrates that Earth's climate can shift gears within a decade, establishing new and different patterns that can persist for decades to centuries. In addition, these climate shifts do not necessarily have universal, global effects. They can generate a counterintuitive scenario: Even as the earth as a whole continues to warm gradually, large regions may experience a precipitous and disruptive shift into colder climates.
This new paradigm of abrupt climate change has been well established over the last decade by research of ocean, earth and atmosphere scientists at many institutions worldwide. But the concept remains little known and scarcely appreciated in the wider community of scientists, economists, policy makers, and world political and business leaders. Thus, world leaders may be planning for climate scenarios of global warming that are opposite to what might actually occur.
It is important to clarify that we are not contemplating a situation of either abrupt cooling or global warming. Rather, abrupt regional cooling and gradual global warming can unfold simultaneously.
On the plus side, whatever happens will almost certainly be good for seasteading :).
A family friend of mine is moving back to the area and is looking for a place to live Part Time Dad , employed, responsible, dependable, lots of references Looking for a house or duplex. 2 bdrm. Garage is a necessary must .
Please contact me if you know or hear of anything. Thank you!! RhiannonMai
The Commission for the Prevention of Violence Against Women, in partnership with Take Back Santa Cruz and Noel Murphy, invites you to participate in a vigil for Nichole Schrock on Friday, January 8 at Ocean Street and Broadway Avenue.
E-mail from Noel Murphy and Take Back Santa Cruz with information:
Nikki Schrock was shot and killed last Friday while working at the 7-11 on Broadway.
As a single parent she left behind a 2 year old daughter. Her daughter will have to say that is where my mommy was murdered. We would like for her to be able to say that is where the community gathered to honor her life.
Come join us for a one hour meditative candlelight vigil. Friday January the 8th in front of the 7-11 on the corner of Broadway and Ocean from 6-7.
We will be filling the space with positive reflective energy. We are going to band as a community to remember and reflect. We encourage people to invision a Santa Cruz safe for every member of our community. Together we will remember Nikki and create unity.
This vigil has been properly permitted by the city of Santa Cruz and supported by the Commission for the Prevention of Violence Against Women.
bleh. I'm depressed. I've been feeling negative in some way or other since the egg retrieval. It just sucks and is awful. :P Not the end of the world, I still do have fun with Patri for awhile each day, my mood naturally rises when I'm coaching, and I'm getting done what I need to, but its hard.
Every mood takes on a life of its own, and I feel like I've always been this way and its never going to change (depression, as noted). I also feel like I should be able to fix it with all the work I've done, but then I remind myself that depression is similar to mania. Depression feels normal to me, so I take it personally, but hypomania doesn't, so I see it as illness. So I'm reminding myself that this is illness too. And not something that I can just make better, even though I can make it a little better.
My body still hasn't normalized, so here's hoping that its something to do with the IVF and I'll be feeling better shortly. I'm not on IVF meds, but my body is still bloated, and I've got some unusual skin dryness on my face. The babysitter congratulated me last night because she thought I was pregnant.
I called and left the psychiatrist a message, but mostly just to bookmark: it would be silly to do anything now when my body is under the influence of so much else. Also, if this does turn out to be depression that my body is producing and not just IVF related, there's not a whole lot that the doctor can do, because anti-depressants might make me manic. If its really bad we might try an anti-depressant in combination with a mood stabilizer.
Suggestion for OKCupid Dating sites should allow people to check what kind of contact they would a) like to receive b) like to give. For example, you might have a list on your profile page like this:
chat via IM chat via phone have coffee have lunch have dinner have drinks rollerskating iceskating hiking walk in the park walk on the beach etc.
You might also have a list for physical contact:
kiss on the cheek kiss on the hand kiss on the lips hold hands brief hug long hug etc.
Someone browsing your profile could see your list, and check those items that they would be willing to give to you. You would receive a notice that the person would like contact with you, and proffer up their list of ways they would like to be contacted. If you match, then those choices on which you both matched would be revealed. You might also allow people the ability to put up custom contact preferences. Of course, there should be a way to turn off or limit the number of notifications. I often browse through a lot of profiles, many of whom I wouldn't mind contacting in some fashion. But I only contact those few that seem highly likely to respond.
Winston Churchill once said that for every minute of a speech he would spend one hour preparing. By those calculations a 45 minute presentation would have taken him around six and a half working days to complete. That may be long enough for a seasoned orator like Winston, but for most people I think you need a lot longer. It usually takes me around two weeks to prepare a new talk, pulling 12 hour days. So that’s easily two or even three hours per minute. If you haven’t done the research or put in the hours, it’ll show in the quality of your slides, the quality of your argument and the quality of your delivery. In short, the more time you put into your talk the more polished and professional it will be.
Posting this even though the "who pulled over your teenager" rhetoric grosses me out. If a relative of mine is driving around at midnight, that relative is a moral adult whatever the law says and I don't feel more or less worried about him than I do about any other adult I am related to. If he isn't an adult why the #%#$ is he driving a car at all, let alone driving in the middle of the night?
Naoshima or bust! Here I am sipping a G&T last night with Matsuri-kei star Doddodo in the Misono Building, a strange labyrinth of countercultural bars (there's one for Gothic Lolitas, one for stuffed rabbit enthusiasts, and so on).
Today I'm heading round the coast in the Daihatsu Naked with Yoyo and Hisae. We'll lunch in Kobe then head across various headlands, spits and peninsulas to Shikoku, lodge somewhere near Takamatsu, then take the first ferry on Saturday morning to Naoshima. Here's the SANAA ferry terminal on that island:
Finally, a reminder that I lecture at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto on Tuesday. It's open to the public, and begins at 10.40am:
Momus lecture: My Life in Art Tuesday, January 12th 10:40 a.m. - 12:10 p.m., including time for questions & discussion w/ students. Soshikan Conference Room (創思館コンファレンスルーム, next to the clock tower) Ritsumeikan University, Kinugasa Campus, NW Kyoto, close to Kinkakuji Some simultaneous translation into Japanese will be provided. Open to the public. Map.
Examine the role resolution plays in how we see, hear, taste, and feel, and how our minds synthesize sensations into a coherent (if sometimes incorrect) understanding of the world. For one night only this After Dark event features a special installation of the Cubatron by Bay Area artist and engineer Mark Lottor. A visually stunning and surprising favorite of music and art festival audiences, the Cubatron is a 3D light sculpture made from 8×8 foot modular cubes, each containing 1000 individually programmable RGB LEDs. Viewed from any direction—even underneath—the Cubatron’s thousands of programmed pixels paint exquisite arrays of color that cascade in spectacularly dynamic patterns. It’s just one small part of Exploratorium After Dark – Resolution on Thursday evening, January 7, 6-10pm. This event is included in the price of admission to the Exploratorium.
I'm Healthy! My doctor's replacement has yet to set up shop so the pharmacy sent me to the other doctor in our neighborhood for my Not Go Crazy Pills prescription.
Her office was going nuts. As she told me later everyone gets sick after the holidays and she wasn't exactly prepared for a rush of not only all her patients but all my doctor's patients as well.
So, I had to sit over two hours in her waiting room. Once I saw her, I realized I know her, in that "hey, how are you" kind of way that happens in neighborhoods. We caught up on some general quartier gossip and then she gave me an exam.
It turns out I have the blood pressure of an athlete. She asked me if I play football. My blood pressure results always astound Rome Girl and I given that I drink and smoke every day and eat pork chops and bacon as much as possible.
The good news on all this is that I've now had two doctors tell me that my occasional chest pains are simply panic attacks and that my heart rate and blood pressure are in tip top shape.
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
variantvortex's Friends Page
