Messing things up in the process.
Sorry!
FIXED!
November 9, 2008
November 8, 2008
Nathan Sawaya’s Lego sculptures at portfolio.com
I’ve written about Lego sculptures and sculptors before, but never linked to Nathan Sawaya’s Lego sculptures.
Well, for one thing, I don’t think they existed the last time I wrote about Legos (in 2002).
Here’s an article on his sculptures from portfolio.com. (The media show at the first link is from the same source.)
And here’s Sawaya’s Web site – brickartist.com: the Art of the Brick.
Enjoy.
November 7, 2008
November 6, 2008
Patrick Moberg’s 04Nov cartoon
Patrick Moberg’s 04Nov cartoon
Succinct. (Can a cartoon be succinct? Perhaps I should say, To the point.)
Obama, however, will probably be grey too by the end of his terms.
Check out patrickmoberg.com
Name the New White House Puppy!
We were watching Obama’s acceptance speech and he was talking about Sasha and Malia and I said to his nibs, “And they get a PUPPY!”
… the next thing Obama said was, “and you have earned the new puppy that’s coming with us to the White House.”
Well, now there’s all the yammer about what =sort= of dog they should get and whether it should be a pound puppy or not.
What to name the puppy? is the next question.
Well, here are some ideas from the New Yorker, including “Checkers”:
I think they should name it “Chesapeake” and call it “Chess,” as a fitting counterpoint to “Checkers.”
‘Jurassic Park’ author, ‘ER’ creator Crichton dies – CNN.com
'Jurassic Park' author, 'ER' creator Crichton dies – CNN.com
RIP, Michael Crichton.
Crichton drove me nuts some times. His skepticism of global climate change and global warning encourage the nutcases.
STATE OF FEAR (2005) was lecturing and personal lobbying at its worse. The science wasn’t true and Crichton based his story on “information” that wasn’t.
Jeff Masters, chief meteorologist and co-founder of wunderground.com* reviewed the book and the science. Read it and see why my teeth grind when I think of that book.
That said, Crichton entertained me over the years. His tales were gripping. He was a smart guy who knew a lot and knew how to weave what he had into intriguing, page-turning books. He helped pay his way through college writing novels, medical thrillers. In 1969, Crichton won an Edgar for A CASE OF NEED, written under the pseudonym Jeffrey Hudson, probably because of its subject matter: abortion. (We’re talking 1968 here.)
ANDROMEDA STRAIN, JURASSIC PARK and ER are fitting legacies.
RIP.
*(Weather Underground, a weather service of which our uphill neighbor, not William Ayers, is president of the BoD.)
November 5, 2008
Exceptionally disappointed in San Francisco voters
Exceptionally disappointed in San Francisco voters, though.
With Obama, Prop 8 (and eleven other state propositions), twenty-two city measures and assorted supervisor/congresscritter/&c. decisions, the Registrar says
of the 477,651 registered voters,
237,843 ballots were cast.
49.79%.
That’s pathetic, and doesn’t even take into account those folks who couldn’t be bothered even to register, let alone vote.
There’s never been anything false about hope.
I watched this whenever I felt like it was all an impossible quest.
Thank you, will.i.am.
Proposition 8 Passes. On to Plan B.
Election Results – November 4, 2008 – California Secretary of State [map showing how the state voted, county by county. Illuminating!] Update: The CASoS has taken down the map, alas. The above link now points only to the text results. Update: The map is back
Proposition 8 passes.
95.7% of the precincts partially or fully reporting as of 7:49A. Yes:52.1% No:47.9%
Update: 96.4% precincts partially or fully reporting as of 9:23 a.m. Yes: 52.2% No: 47.8%
I can’t tell you how disappointed I am. The only saving grace is that Prop 22 passed in 2000 by 61.4% to 38.6%. Saving grace: the gap has closed as much as it has in eight years. Now written into the state Constitution, the only way to un-do the amendment is by a similar vote by registered voters. The Legislature can’t undo a Constitutional amendment (not that they could even rescind Prop 22 when they tried — Schwarzenegger vetoed the bill).
Could voters come to their senses and reversed the amendment when some more time passes? If we cut the difference from 12.8% to 4.1% 4.4% in eight years, could we bring this to the ballot again in five years and have it pass?
Maybe.
Seems funny to me that amendments to the Constitution take only 50% +1 of the vote but raising taxes takes 2/3ds approval. Perhaps Constitutional amendments should also have that threshhold, but please not until we’ve rescinded this mean-spirited, unfair and wrong amendment some time in the future.
Or, alternatively, we can go to Plan B, as soon as everyone’s regrouped.
Plan B: Change state law so that all legal schmegal dealing with joint tax filing, hospital visitation, inheritance, health benefits, time off for sick family, adoption, &c. for couples is based solely on civil registration at City Hall or the county courthouses.
Let churches marry whom they please, and let it be solely between a man and a woman, if that’s what the church deems, but church marriages will not be valid registration for the government benefits accruing to couples. Only a civil partnership registered at City Hall or the county courthouse will have legal status, and civil partnerships will be available to heterosexual and homosexual couples.
November 4, 2008
My bets on the election …
OK. So it’s only a bet in Huffington Post’s “guess the election” contest, but this is what I tossed in the mix. (Wishful thinking may be in play. …)
Huffington Post was asking for electoral college breakdown (by numbers), popular vote breakdown (by percentages), House and Senate breakdowns (by numbers) and (as the tie-breaker for the woo-hoo! contest winner), the percentage breakdowns in the Minnesota Senate race.
My bets:
Electoral College: Obama 340 McCain 198
Popular Vote: Obama 54.1% McCain 42.2% Other 3.7%
House: Dem 246 Rep 189
Senate: Dem 59 Rep 39 Other 2
Minnesota Senate:
Franken 45%
Coleman 42%
Barkley 13%
Maureen Dowd – Bring on the Puppy and the Rookie
Bring on the Puppy and the Rookie
Worth the signing on for.
[...]
The Obama girls, with their oodles of charm, will soon be moving in with their goldendoodle or some other fetching puppy, and they seem like the kind of kids who could have fun there, prowling around with their history-loving father.
I had been amazed during the campaign — not by the covert racism about Barack Obama and not by Hillary Clinton’s subtext when she insisted to superdelegates: “He can’t win.”
But I had been astonished by the overt willingness of some people who didn’t mind being quoted by name in The New York Times saying vile stuff, that a President Obama would turn the Rose Garden into a watermelon patch, that he’d have barbeques on the front lawn, that he’d make the White House the Black House.
Actually, the elegant and disciplined Obama, who is not descended from the central African-American experience but who has nonetheless embraced it and been embraced by it, has the chance to make the White House pristine again.
I grew up here, and I love all the monuments filled with the capital’s ghosts. I hate the thought that terrorists might target them again.
But the monuments have lost their luminescence in recent years.
[...]
Well said, Maureen Dowd. Well said.
Read the whole thing.