http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DilbertDailyStrip/~3/23F8RlqsM7Y/

http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2009-11-29/

The recent excitement here over the CPRS/ETS legislation could have a pretty serious effect on the political landscape. It was "interesting" to watch Andrew Bolt reacting to Malcolm Turnbull's interview this morning (transcript of the Turnbull interview is here) in which he pretty thoroughly rubbished the climate-change denial faction of the Liberal Party. Bolt is of course one of the leading lights of that group and was predictably angry, suggesting that the Leader should shut the hell up and do what the minority of his party is demanding.

One thing I quite like about Turnbull is that he speaks his mind, he's more of a "conviction politician" than we've had in any senior post in years. He's a smart guy and it's a pity he's shackled to the social conservatives who run this country. He's willing to stake his leadership and his career on something more important than naked pursuit of power.

A brief diversion: my view of politics has, I think, been shaped in large part by growing up during the Hawke/Keating years. A genuinely reformist government, more socially progressive than most if not quite as much so as I'd have liked, in power from when I was 11 until well into young adulthood. I regard the Howard era as "lost time" when the country spent far too much time looking inward and backwards, and am unsurprised but not exactly happy to see a lot of the same continue under the grey man Kevin Rudd.

One outcome -- which is probably not very likely but would be something I'd quite like to see -- would be for Turnbull to be defeated by Abbott on Tuesday. It'd keep the Liberal Party out of power for at least another decade and might just prompt the split they need. The "broad church" idea only works if there's mutual respect, which there clearly isn't in the modern Liberal Party, and Turnbull could well be the man to found a new economically-liberal socially-progressive party.

He'd never get to be PM but I reckon such a party would steal a lot of votes from both the Liberal and Labor Parties, plus probably a segment of the Green vote -- people like myself who vote Green for their social policy but who have sufficient economic education to be thankful they'll probably never be in a position to have too much influence over economic policy.

Given a credible Liberal Democrat (UK)/Free Democrat(DE) equivalent I'd be resigning my membership in the Australian Greens and switching. I would not be surprised to see such a party pick up some choice metropolitan seats that had previously been considered safe by both sides.

Oh well, a bloke can dream.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap091128.html

Annapurna Star Trails

My phone smart chip seems to have died. Don't call.
Really.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/11/state-losing-jobs-that-obama-could-lose.html

Charles Franklin, political scientist at the University of Wisconsin, recently published a useful graphic depicting post-2001 trends and current unemployment rates in all 50 states, reproduced here:

Starting in the top-left corner, the states are sorted from lowest to highest unemployment rate. At first glance, what’s interesting is that most states are below the national mean of 10.2 percent, because several very big states are above it: California, Florida, Illinois, North Carolina and Ohio being among the top-11 states whose electoral vote totals alone are sufficient to reach the 270 plateau.

Yes, the electoral college...the subject I really wish to raise as it relates to unemployment levels, specifically to ask: How will unemployment levels affect President Obama's re-election chances? Yes, I know it's three years until election day and that the unemployment figures will move between now and then. And yes, they will not move identically in every state, so there will be some re-sorting. But Michigan and Nevada aren't going to suddenly vault from the nation's highest unemployment rates to ten lowest, and vice versa for North Dakota and Nebraska, the states with the two lowest rates.

That said, I decided to scatterplot just the 18 states where the margin last year between Obama and John McCain was 12 points or less, with that margin plotted against the current unemployment rates. (I put the national average of 7.3 percent margin and 10.2 unemployment in there as a baseline.) Here are those 18:


Let's assume the states Obama lost by double-digits, along the left side of the graph, are not going to flip his way in 2012. For the moment--but only for the moment--let's further assume Obama will again carry the states in the bottom-right corner that he won by comfortable margins and that happen to have lower-than-national-average unemployment rates. I realize that just because the average in a state is below the national median doesn't mean there isn't economic suffering in that state, or that that economic pain will not be expressed at the ballot box in 2012. But for a moment, let's set those states aside to focus on the small subset of states I've highlighted with the oval.

These six states--Ohio, North Carolina, Florida, Indiana, Missouri and Montana--four of which Obama won and two he lost narrowly, could again be key bellwethers. Economically speaking, they are a mixed bag of industrial, mining, tourist/citrus, and textile/hogfarming states. The good news for Obama is the general trend among these six--the worse the unemployment the better he did. That is, he's got more electoral room to spare the more he needs it, at least from a standpoint of unemployment rates.

But let's assume Obama loses all six--which means four states net, since he lost Missouri narrowly and Montana by a few points. The net electoral vote loss could be as many as the current, combined 73 electoral votes. (We have to wait for reapportionment to be sure, of course.) Subtracted from his 365 total last year, that would put Obama under 300 at around 292, presuming he holds all the solidly Democratic states that do not appear on the scatterplot because of their wide margins, as well as those in the bottom-right corner which provided him comfortable margins last year and have worrisome, yet below-national-mean unemployment rates.

...which returns us to that little cluster of states in the bottom-right. We just saw what happened in Virginia, the state closest to yet outside the oval. I know about the contrarian pattern of the VA/NJ off-year election results relative to presidential results, but for the sake of argument let's assume a rejuvenated GOP in Virginia pulls that state back in 2012. That would drag Obama's EV total down to 279, within range of an average-sized size tipping the result in the other direction.

Which means that, if unemployment woes continue, the election could come down to a block of states like Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Iowa. That's not an earth-shattering finding per se. But what it does mean is that Obama had better pay special attention to them now if he wants to insulate himself in a close election. He can afford to lose some, even all of those in the oval...but he can't afford to lose all of those and any near it.

( These are my tweets for the past day... )

"Engel has adduced the distinction between intuitionism and Platonism in mathematics, asking me whether I think that this distinction is "hollow." Some mathematicians take this topic seriously, while others regard it as a problem for philosophers of methematics and not for "real" mathematicians -- the latter being people who do not give the question a second thought. I do not know which mathematicians are right. But I suspect that if we were to consign the question of the ontological status of mathematical entities to oblivion, the progress of mathematics would not be affected.
{ Richard Rorty in rebuttal to Pascal Engel
What's the Use of Truth, c2007
ISBN-13:978-0-231-14014-0
( emphasis mine ) ]

Zing!

makes me wonder which position great war hero Rush Limbaugh and friends would be taking. Or is that a part of the core structural horror of our era! That the embrace of anti-intellectionalism amongst the psuedoConservative is so resounding that they are not too sure which side is the cause of ObamaCare, and thus clearly the IslamoCyrptoZionistKliquiest types we have always been at war with.

{ and which of the psuedoCons would have knee jerked to marxism because the guy was 'engel' and therefore some sort of marx/engel continume of evil liberalism! }

Some Links to SL-related content...

Sexy Losers makes #9 in the top ten webcomics of the decade according to Webcomic Overlook. "Sexy Losers makes the list for being so audacious that in manages to get past the merely repulsive and reaches a strange (and uncomfortable) level that redefines “dark humor.”" In the comments, it's suggested that I should win the biggest douche award, and given how wrapped up I was in the drama that developed over the comic in the past, there's an argument that it is earned. Lesson learned, but the past is forever on the internet. As for the award itself, I am honored but I really don't think it deserves it. There are so many better comics out there, it's hard to imagine why anyone would remember the comic, let alone put it in a best 10 list.

Sexy Losers on TV Tropes. Most of the things here I am guilty as charged. The one I have the most contention with is "There Are No Therapists", as there IS a therapist -- Dr. Lovetalk. She appears in almost all the threads dispensing advice to the characters. Perhaps that should be changed to "There Are No Good Therapists" in line with her inability to make any bad situation any better.

Rocks fall.
Everyone dies.

A few key places were of course closed today, what with it being Sunday, so the booze-hunt has been put back a little. I have ordered tequila, white rum and Cointreau to join the existing stocks of vodka, gin, Scots and Irish whiskies, and rather excessive amounts of wine.

(This on top of the Bailey's and Kahlua acquired yesterday.)

Probably working from home Tuesday so I shall take the time to wander out and obtain more suitable glasses and an appropriate stock of citrus. Not quite sure where I'll find mint though, may have to try a few supermarkets.

(Having decided to learn how to make margaritas I immediately expanded the scope to include mojitos.)

Alarmingly I am looking forward to going to work tomorrow. I am finding myself less-satisfied with my own company than has been true in the past.

We took advantage of the lovely fall day to spend a couple of hours at the playground.

#2 is fearless on the slides, even the steep fast one, but may love the swings the most.

#1 was chosen to bring Biscuit, the class Responsibility Dog, home for the holiday weekend.

So far Biscuit has celebrated Thanksgiving, ridden in the car, gone to the playground where he enjoyed the swings and the slide, and even come along on a grocery shopping trip.

Biscuit is amused by the current trend of selling Brussels sprouts on the stalk. And so am I.

http://welltemperedwriter.wordpress.com/2009/11/29/shattered-temples-part-3/

http://welltemperedwriter.wordpress.com/?p=632

http://waste.typepad.com/waste/2009/11/faibletimbreteintpartitur.html

1. Kierkegaard referred to:

   1. The night in which all cows are black
   2. The defender of the faith
   3. The knight of the woeful countenance
   4. The knight of infinite resignation

2. According to Hong & Hong, who expectorated?

   1. Johannes de silentio
   2. Hilarius Bookbinder
   3. Judge William
   4. Vigilius Haufniensis

3. Coördinate the following lists:

   1. Johannes Climacus
   2. Søren Kierkegaard
   3. Constantin Constantius
   4. Anti-Climacus
   5. Johannes de silentio
   
   
   1. Fernando Pessoa
   2. A porn star
   3. A disappointing method for avoiding impregnation
   4. David Lynch
   5. Another porn star

4. Which did Kierkegaard say?

   1. A pure heart is an excellent thing, and so is a clean shirt.
   2. My strength is as the strength of ten, because my heart is pure.
   3. Purity of heart is to will one thing.

5. Short answer: what is the self?

Could it be that it was not just a pimping for a new reality celebrity TV show, "who wants to be the next heroic war hero defending the free world from the obamanites!" But was all a plot by the very evil obamonites to show how easy staging a coup against Obama would have been. But of course the rushLimbiots suffer the lack of moral courage to follow the 'face of the GOP' into the very combat zone that would free americans from the MarxianistNationalSocialistAlientReptileZionistBolshivikiBankingKonspirakiiUndtKosherDeliWithHalalMarket that ObamaCare has so clearly unmaskes.

Why gosh, if only all of those Going Rouge Rushies had been willing to be half as courageous america would be a free nation right now. And that can only mean that this was an evil Obamanite Konspirakii.

I think the band of poor SOBs that make up The Lightriders principal cast know that I'm trying to screw them over, because they keep finding reasons not to go where I'm sending them. All of chapter 23 has been like pulling teeth. GAH.

On the other hand, revisions to "Bibliotheca Magica" are proceeding much better and I'm actually enjoying the rewrite process, which may well be a first.

I've made the right choice for my SMF audition monologue, and I now have empirical evidence. Mua ha ha. I have no idea if it's going to work or not, but I'm going to have fun doing it.

Something has taken up residence in the fridge. It sort of looks like pizza dough. However, we won't know for sure until madcap_allie comes over tonight and we attempt to actually turn it into pizza. Mr. Darcy says this is Mad Science. All I know is that alcohol will be involved.

Yesterday Mr. Darcy and I drove all over north Olympia looking at land. The best candidate was 20 wooded acres, very private, accessed via an easement that a very pleasant fellow on the next property showed us how to get to. Downside: it's a drainage nightmare and what it would cost to install a septic system is beyond contemplation. OTOH we weren't seriously looking for something to buy yesterday, just getting a sense of the area. I'm making Mr. Darcy pick where we look next and I suspect he'll say the peninsula. Sometime next month, possibly.

Between my tattoo healing, catching and recovering from a cold, Jesse being in Europe for a month, and general craziness, I fell off the workout wagon this month for the longest time in years. Gah. So today I got onboard the elliptical trainer and tortured myself for 25 minutes. Much better. Mmm, endorphins.

Now I do more writing and chores before madcap_allie gets here.

Hopefully bad enough to get Groh shitcanned.

Should know soon, apparently his contract specifies Nov 30th every year as "re-up me or shoot me".

The 'Hoos actually looked decent for about 25 minutes. I'd have taken the under on that.

Google Wave is not a social network.

Google Wave is a Microsoft Sharepoint killer.

As soon as people begin to write document servers that federate with the Wave protocol, Sharepoint will be surpassed. When people start to integrate email servers to their Wave-protocol-speaking software, either Lotus Domino will become one of those as well or it will die too.

Wave is Google's attempt to displace all the document-sharing groupware which limits you to just your organisation. If you use Wave and wave-protocol federation, you can keep some of your documents internal, and share others with your partners, customers, or the public - noone else will be able to do that anytime soon with any of their closed systems.

http://weblog.pell.portland.or.us/~orc/2009/11/28/000/index.html

After too many encounters with the nasty chipseal roads in Clackamas County, and after a series of fenders met their doom due to toe overlap, I decided that when I built up a midlifecrisismobile, it would have 650b wheels and fattish tires. This was helped by QBP dumping some of their 650b wheelsets, which let me buy a pair of wheels at a ridiculously low price, and by a local bike shop selling Panaracer Nifty Swifties at < 20 a tire. So, in the fullness of time (and the fullness of selling things on Ebay, which let me accumulate enough money to buy a nice used lugged frame at a substantial discount from list price) I collected enough parts to assemble a midlifecrisismobile of my very own.

There were 4 things I wanted from a midlifecrisismobile

1. Faster than the xtracycle.
2. NO TOE OVERLAP, DAMNIT!
3. smoother riding on chipseal roads.
4. front-loading, ultimately with a porteur rack, but a handlebar bag would do as a short-term solution.

What I got was

• No toe overlap.
• Front-loading (though the joy of a high trail (==low rake) fork means that the front wheel really wants to flop off to one side or another. If I'd ever learned how to ride no-handed, this would have been a serious flaw, but as it is it’s just an annoyance.)

What I didn’t get, was

• Speed. In the city/suburbs, I was getting (in 200-odd miles of test riding in the last week and a half) about ¼th mile an hour faster than the xtracycle. ¼th of a mile an hour is nothing to sneeze at, of course — If I could increase my moving average from 13mph to 13.25mph, that would cut 25 minutes of travel time off a R200 — but when I tried to ride the midlifecrisismobile on an actual R200, it ended up riding so slowly that I couldn’t even make the 80-km control before closing time.
• Smoother riding. Now, I don’t know if this is an artifact of the wheels or if it’s an artifact of the shorter wheelbase of a bobtail bike, but those chipseal roads really pounded my arms and bottom when I was creeping up and down the county roads this morning.

Now, I can probably live with a rough ride if I get it in exchange for a considerably faster bicycle, but a slower bike that has a rougher ride than the xtracycle? Um, no. My grand plan is that the midlifecrisismobile will be for riding those longer and more vertical brevets, and that plan will just not work if the d-mned thing runs so slowly that I can’t even make to the controls on time.

So it’s down into the basement with the midlifecrisismobile while I try to decide what to do with it. I have the original pair of 700c wheels off my Trek (rear wheel replaced with a 135mm axled wheel for the xtracycle, front wheel replaced with a generator hubbed wheel [originally from Amazon as a christmas present, then swapped for a fully built generaor wheel thanks to ebay and the ibob list]) and I could swap then in instead (after replacing the rear axle with a 130mm one to fit the modern frame) and see how they work out. I suppose I could move the xtracycle frame over to the new bicycle, then do a wheel swap to put the 650b wheels under the trek. And if worse came to worse I could just sell the parts on on ebay — the vast majority of the midlifecrisismobile is used parts, so I'd probably break even on the deal.

But, feh. It’s still annoying. It’s nice to not have to overlap, but maybe the way to do that is to get a cyclocross fork and rerake it to within an inch of its life. But I'm afraid the 650b’s are going to hasve to go.

http://www.ibabuzz.com/oaklandraiders/2009/11/28/raiders-hof-semifinalists/

http://www.ibabuzz.com/oaklandraiders/?p=8508

Former Raiders among the 25 players who named as semifinalists for the Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2010

WR Cliff Branch, 1972-85: Al Davis campaigns hardest for Ray Guy, Jim Plunkett and Tom Flores, but Branch is the guy with the biggest gripe. A regular-season and postseason star. Contemporaries included Lynn Swann and John Stallworth, both in the HOF. I’d take Branch over either one.

WR/KR Tim Brown, 1988-2003: There are going to be some surprised people in Raider Nation when Brown doesn’t make it in his first year. Like it or not, there are a lot of voters who look at Brown’s stats and don’t see enough wins or a defining moment. They consider him like a 28 ppg scorer on a bad NBA team. Someone has to put up the numbers, even if they don’t mean all that much.

If Cris Carter wasn’t a first-ballot pick, neither is Brown.

RB Roger Craig, 1991: Gained 591 yards, averaged 3.6 yards per carry, scored one touchdown and had no run longer than 16 years in an end-of-the-line season after piling up terrific rushing-receiving numbers with the 49ers. That wouldn’t stop the Raiders from putting him their media guide should he be inducted _ which he won’t in 2010.

P Ray Guy, 1973-86: Two problems _ there are simply too many voters who will never vote for a punter. Ridiculous, of course. It’s a huge part of the sport, and you can leave it to Canton visitors to bypass his bust if they’re offended. Then there’s the “There goes the neighborhood” issue. Guy’s career stats are being obliterated by Shane Lechler, the heir to his legacy in silver and black. That makes the voters think, “You mean we’ll have to put in another punter some day?

CB Lester Hayes, 1977-86: Never clear as to why Hayes isn’t taken more seriously as a candidate. Think Charles Woodson is having a great season for the Packers this year? It’s not even close to what Hayes did in 1980 _ the single best season any defensive back has ever had. “The Judge” had 39 career interceptions and made five Pro Bowls.

WR Jerry Rice, 2001-04: In 2001 and 2002, Rice caught 175 passes for 2,350 yards and 16 touchdowns following two sub-1,000 yard season playing second-fiddle to Terrell Owens in San Francisco. In 2003, Rice finally started to show some age, catching 63 passes for 869 yards. He turned 41 that season. Those numbers are looking pretty good to the Raiders about now.

Look for Rice’s bio in your Raiders media guide next year, and deservedly so. Two great years and a turn-back-the-clock playoff game against the Jets following the 2001 season (9 catches, 183 yards, one touchdown) added to his legacy.