Reiters... Washington's remaining treasures from days gone by.

"Now the conquerers are descending on the American heartland, demanding servile surrender -- or death for all humans."

And I'll say, "Thank you, but I already have a job."

That Pournelle anecdote is brilliant.

Before I read the kit, Yoki - Snow? Sorry to hear that, smog day two here if it helps any, turning fans westward!!

"Death for all humans"?

Hah.

We have Will Smith.

The image I recall from Ringworld is that of the man eternally seeking the base of the arch he saw in the sky.

Miller link/story is good--molecular soup. Mmmm good, mmmm good, molecular soup is mmmm good. Very Califonian, including his father's link to Earl Warren. How did he become involved with Spain, do you suppose?

"The Ringworld is unstable! The Ringworld is unstable!"

I am somehow comforted by the fact that the Soviets always seem to get it first.

I'm sorry, but looking for meaning in the filamentary structure of the cosmos is just a hiccup away from seeing the Virgin Mary in a grilled cheese sandwich.

The hiccup could imply the grilled cheese has already been consumed, however.

:-)

Particularly grilled extra sharp Cheddar...

:-)

Good morning fellows - Yes I don't know if Hitchen's Jewish heritage is relevant, other than the fact that the Tribe is chosen, and Mr Hithens seems to reject this selection...Speaking of breeding, voila que l'epreuve du spectre divin qui s'appellait Barbaro: (argument by analogy viz. Governor Richardson and bilinguals partout) - and my apologies in advance to the statistically averse, so speaking of breeding and being selected, voila: or is the instrument, viola (far as one of those one-letterd changes that shift the entire goddamn meaning), oboe, hautbois - turkey-baster? Ho ho. We are always at wit's beginning, 'xpeshelly quarter after nine on a Thursday.

http://www.drf.com/misc/edit/barbaro/barbaro.pdf

Keep up the cool beans and the potted meat.

I'm still trying to figure out how fungi could use melanin pigment to make a living off of beta rays. The story says you might even grow fungi on the exteriors of spacecraft. http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070521/full/070521-5.html

For the House fans out there Hugh Laurie was just given the OBE by the Queen. This has no relevance to the kit, and having very little knowledge of Science fiction is about as close as I could get to discussing the kit. But I do get to post a picture of Hugh Laurie - sigh. Need to feel good as my lack of understanding of the kit today is making me feel more intellectually inferior than normal.

http://www.cbc.ca/arts/tv/story/2007/05/23/house-obe.html?ref=rss

Whenever I see "artificial worlds", I think of Asimov's Foundation. I've read only the trilogy. Metal planets spring to my mind's eye. I want one of those miniature desktop nuclear incinerators that open automatically when a piece of something is cast toward it.

dmd, how are you feeling? You've been missed.

Stanley Miller interviewed me my last year in high school when I contemplated quite seriously, attending Revelle College at the relatively newish UC at San Diego.

He was quite nice but alarmed at my plan to double major in biology and philosophy. He kept saying, regret, regret, regret...because I did not have AP credits to make that possible. (My school had no such programs.) He kept saying enter as a BS and minor in the other subjects.

Anyway, he did spend time with me. I appreciated that very much. I sent him a letter two years later about CP Snow's two cultures analysis of the tensions in science and humanities. He did not reply. I expect I sounded haughty and special, in that undergraduate way, about my findings.

Well, my goodness, his molecules will recycle into the backbone of all life. Astonishing.

Good morning, friends. Thanks, Dreamer, CP, and JA for the links. Having a hard time pulling them up, but will continue to try. It's my computer.

I saw the interview of the judge from the AI show this morning on ABC, Simon, whatever his name is, and he had the nerve to look "cuddly". And he even attempted a smile when the interviewer said he was just an old softy. It hurt to look at it. Of course, you can tell I don't watch this show.(AI)

Do yourself a favor, and have a great day. Ah, space and science fiction all under one heading. What is the world coming to?

Congrats, Martooni. Morning Mudge, Slyness, and all.*waving* You too, Yoki.

I planted sunflower seeds. I love sunflowers. And tomatoes.

Welcome, Simon D.

God loves us so much more than we can imagine through Him that died for all, Jesus Christ. Peace.

Simon D: contact the authorities re your local water source; it seems to have been contaminated with some not-insignificant amount of James Joyce.

dmd: I suspect House doesn't give a rat's you-know-what about the OBE, but Bertie is beside himself: "What, ho! Jeeves! Wait until Aunt Agatha hears that Her Majesty Herself wants to pin medal on ME!"

RD et al: mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmcheese.

For lunch I'm thinking of having the primordial soup with a side of miraculous grilled cheese.

Many of us owe a debt of thanks, because of what we're doing right this very moment, for the work this man did:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/24/world/europe/24degennes.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

>Maybe civilizations that reach a certain level of technology invariably blow themselves up.

Maybe they just build really spiffy backyard patios with heated pools and enjoy where they're at.

Scottynuke "Liquid Crystals" is fun to say too.

Seriously, one of my chemistry professors specialized in liquid crystals, and felt that they would one day become as important as semiconductors.

RDP: Are you saying the VM did NOT appear on that grilled cheese sandwich? I guess you don't think the shark virgin birth was a miracle, either...

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/09/0925_020925_virginshark.html

So cynical, RD. BTW, I agree with what you said about horoscopes. And yes, it goes without saying.

>I guess you don't think the shark virgin birth was a miracle, either...

With a few exceptions, women are not sharks.

Not to worry, dmd, I'm right with you at the shallow end of the intellectual pool. I know nothing of poetry aside from what little I read during my k-12 years, have only read Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice", know nothing of Chaucer, execpt that he wrote this incredibly heavy book with funny stories in it about Canterbury, and couldn't begin to guess why the poets mentioned so widely in yesterday's boodle were famous. I'm more familiar with the pedestrian stuff like Dr. Seuss, Bennet Cerf and Shel Silverstein, who aren't really poets, but their stuff rhymes.

Dang! How did I miss Niven and Pournelle together right here in my own hometown?

I keep a copy of "Lucifer's Hammer" on my office bookshelf for some reason, sits next to McCarthy's "All the Pretty Horses."

If I had it next to McCarthy's "The Road," then I'd have a theme, wouldn't I?

I was never a big fan of "Ringworld", but "Mote" and "Footfall, were darn good reads.

Ha. I'm highly amused that Niven considers the idea that there the large scale structure of the universe might be an indication of intelligent life. That was what I was trying to convey when I hastily asked this question in the Discussion with Dr. Gardner last week:

"Washington: Joel, how do we know that what we observe in the 'verse isn't evidence of intelligence? We simply may not be smart enough to recognize it, like a Neanderthal looking at a DNA double-helix.

Joel Achenbach: Like what? Like ... stars? Planets? Of what do you speak, stranger?"

Also, any mention of Robert Bussard brings to mind his proposal for a nuclear-powered hydrogen ramjet interstellar drive.

I am such a dork.

Ha, some years ago, I started writing a piece of fiction about a large-scale manipulation of the universe via dark energy, but I started reading Stephen Baxter's "Ring", and decided I needed to think about it a little more.

bc

Good morning all. Jack, dmd...I have oatmeal cookies and juice boxes. Does anyone have a purple crayon?

I read a SF book recently (gift from a friend) and realized that to get through the battle scenes, a scientific mind must be a big help.

Speaking of Miller's Cosmic Cooking, I was put in mind of my guest Kit from last year:

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/2006/07/bcs_cosmic_gumbo.html

Miller was indeed a pioneer and a visionary researcher.

bc

Speaking of science fiction, the Creation Museum opens May 28 in Backwardsburg, KY.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/24/arts/24crea.html

I have no idea how I found this, but I'm still laughing (may not be work safe for some).

kbertocci - Heaven's no, I would never assert that the Virgin Mary did not appear on that sandwich. That is an improvable assertion.

What can be done is to calculate the odds that a random pattern will look sufficiently like a human face to be interpreted as one. (Believe it or not there have been psychological studies on the human tendency to see faces everywhere.) This calculation isn't that hard to do. Given some reasonable assumptions about the number of grilled cheese sandwiches made in North America, it can be shown that it becomes a near statistical certainty that every few months a face is going to show up.

The same thing applies to 'spuds what look like Lincoln and chocolate blobs that kinda sorta resemble angels.

I have a professional interest in patterns, so I've actually done the math.

SCC: "Backwardsburg" should be "YesIReallyDoThinkIAmSoMuchSmarterThanTheyAreBurg".

Um, the link might help: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK8CV-mvw5g

In this commercial, I suppose my PS2 would be played by George Costanza's mom.

bc -- or should I say, "stranger" -- I too thought of your on-line chat question when I saw that "filamentary structure" comment today.

It's one of those things that's so easy to dismiss. But really, how do we know it ain't so?

We had a potato chip in the house last week that looked exactly like Jay Leno. It was delicious.

Byoolin... we visited Dayton, Tennessee, last year--more specifically, the courthouse that held the Scopes "Monkey" Trial. The folks in town all asked us, "did you go see the monkey thing?" A woman selling produce outside the courthouse asked us, "So... did you learn that we didn't come from monkeys?" My son actually engaged her in an argument.

My husband said very politely, smiling, "I kind of side with the monkeys."

[By the way... the courthouse is still in use, including the courtroom that held the trial. The museum in the basement, but really focuses more on the movie about the trial, "Inherit the Wind," than the trial itself.]

Oh my gosh. The Creation Museum website is hilarious. It really looks like something from The Onion. My favorite line, in the section looking for volunteers...

"Have you ever thought about being involved in a bus ministry?"


But seriously, think of how many folks are going to be totally convinced it's all true because the exhibits are built by the same guy who designed the "Jaws" and "King Kong" attractions at Universal Studios in Florida.

The same kind of folks that believe the Bush Administration's theory that "just by saying it I can make it true."

I also like the museum's caution that "Charter Memberships Will Soon be Extinct; Sign up Before May 25!"

if anybody wants to geek out on patterns and randomness, Ramsey Theory is your best bet.(The Scientific American article referenced in this link is especially good.)

http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20020330/mathtrek.asp

Yeah, I was quite a surprised to learn that we are actually descended from chimpanzees...

More like fallen out of the tree in my case... :-)

Hi, Dreamer.

We really *can't* dismiss the possibility, can we?

TBG, that comment from Mr. T is going to make me snort for a good hour.

> Maybe civilizations that reach a certain level of technology invariably blow themselves up.

Or, they invent the internet and cable TV, and spend eternity on the couch.

http://www.10thcircle.com/10/?p=97

bc

The link I posted contains one of the more profound things I have ever read. And remember, this isn't a philosophical assertion, but a mathematical conclusion:

"Somehow, no matter how complicated, chaotic, or random something appears, deep within that morass lurks a smaller entity that has a definite structure. Striking regularities are bound to arise even in a universe without rules."

And a happy May two-four to our Canukistani boodlers...

Want to see patterns and randomness?

Check out my wardrobe. I'm a sort of random outfit generator.

bc

I think bonobos are even more closely related to us. And to think someone from the Creation Museum might misread the word as bonbon and leap to some otherworldly conclusion.

>My husband said very politely, smiling, "I kind of side with the monkeys."

I was in a bar once watching football, and I don't know how we got on the subject but one guy said "I'm sorry, I just don't see how you can believe we came from apes". At that point one of the teams scored and immediately started beating their chests and jumping up and down flexing their muscles, hitting each other and yelling "ug ug ug ug".

I just pointed at the screen and arched an eyebrow. I don't know if it permanently changed his mind, but he wasn't quite so sure anymore.

And with that EF sends me off to lunch with a chuckle and a smile...thanks

I am comforted by RD's quote reminding us that definite structures lurk even within chaos. There is hope for our back room yet. I have no problem accepting the fact that people recognize the Virgin Mary's visage on grilled cheese sandwiches, since of course we know what she looked like. All those portraits. But how do we know when a blob of chocolate resembles an angel?

Lest anyone mistake my reference to astrology last night, I too have no use for it. However, it is useful to know what my "typical" characteristics are, so I can recognize when and why I'm pigeonholed by people who go in for that type of thing.

I read some Larry Niven once, and I think I liked it, but I don't really remember it. That's probably my most coherent comment on the Kit.

Yoki, stay dry, and safe out there. They are telling everyone up here just avoid going to the south today.

Ah, springtime in Canada.

Error... I love that story. That's great.

[And I've spent some time in bars watching football in your neck of the woods, too, but that's a different story from another life.]

Idle thought: Is continuing to refer to Mary as "the virgin" analogous to the old punchline that goes something like, "...but you have sex with _one_ lousy sheep and all of a sudden you're 'Angus the sheep-*$%#er"?

Just wonderin'...

DMD, thanks for the news about Hugh Laurie. I'm a big "House" fan, too. And I'm with ya here in the shallow end of the pool. Maybe we can sit here and dangle our ankles in the water and play pinocle or something.

To answer what I would have thought was a fairly obvious question, who do newspapers continue to print horoscopes? Because readers like them and want them, and if by some accident a newspaper accidentally omits them on any given day, they get outraged letters and phone calls.

I actually think the business about horoscopes is way overblown anyway. Yes, all the critics are "right" that they are stupid and meaningless--but the critics miss the point that most people really don't believe in horoscopes; they just fool around with them. The critics have to take horoscopes seriously, because otherwise they wouldn't be able to complain about how ridiculous they are.

I once made a grilled cheese sandwich and the face on it looked exactly like Randy L. Satterthwaite.

Ivansmom writes:
I have no problem accepting the fact that people recognize the Virgin Mary's visage on grilled cheese sandwiches, since of course we know what she looked like. All those portraits.

Do you mean the Black Madonnas (on the grill too long?)?

http://campus.udayton.edu/mary/resources/blackm/blackm.html

Or the Anglo-Italian Madonnas, such as Giotto's (highly refined white wheat bread?)?

http://www.abcgallery.com/G/giotto/giotto27.html

Or the Orthodox Madonnas with almond-shaped eyes, such as the famed Vladamir icon (sone chopped nut meat thrown into the bread batter)?

http://newsfromrussia.com/science/2003/06/03/47799.html

Or Madonna in concert? (Too controversial, better not go there...)

IIRC, the Madonna was Jewish...

Medical marajuana scientists may yet get the opportunity to grow their own. Government dope just doesn't cut it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/23/AR2007052301451.html?hpid=sec-nations

That rug really tied the room together.

>IIRC, the Madonna was Jewish...

Loomis, that got me laughing. Indeed, you're right, she was. Of course, it has the same general lack of relevance as Hitchins being Jewish.

I wonder if anyone has ever made a grilled cheese sandwich with the face of Richard Dawkins on it?

>I wonder if anyone has ever made a grilled cheese sandwich with the face of Richard Dawkins on it?

If so they probably wouldn't believe it.

*joining dmd and Mudge in the shallow end*

LiT, I agree with you about the scientific mind.

Sorry to do a drive-by boodle, but I must go do Things That Must Be Done Before The Weekend. Which starts tomorrow for me. Yay!

Thanks for the links, xpeshelly to the so-called Creation museum, byoolin.

BTW, when I read your name somehow, I only compute "Khabibulin." Please forgive me for this hockey trespass.

The new musuem in Petersburg, KY will be re-named whenever the war czar is toppled, I'm sure. Agree that Soviets spearhead all things good. Atheists, on the other hand, are a unique life-form. I am interested to learn more about the practices that Adam and Eve employed to domesticate the Mormon Utahraptors, and other assorted avian cousins. Bill Hicks (God rest his soul) has a great routine on such (pardon the lengthy citation and profanity):

"You know the world's 12 thousand years old and dinosaurs existed, if they existed in that time, you'd think it would have been mentioned in the f****** Bible at some point. "And lo Jesus and the disciples walked to Nazareth. But the trail was blocked by a giant brontosaurus... with a splinter in his paw. And O the disciples did run a shriekin': 'What a big f****** lizard, Lord!' But Jesus was unafraid and he took the splinter from the brontosaurus's paw and the big lizard became his friend. And Jesus sent him to Scotland where he lived in a loch for O so many years inviting thousands of American tourists to bring their fat f****** families and their fat dollar bills.And oh Scotland did praise the Lord. Thank you Lord, thank you Lord. Thank you Lord."

And, the kicker is JESUS IS JEWISH...because his tribe is, because his mother is, and because he did not coin the name 'Christian.'

And, Christ, is not his last name. Simply a Greek word and honorific to mean anointed one.

Martin Luther was horrified that emerging protestants in Germany were labeled as Lutherans....

---
I am transcribing a long and fascinating quote about clematis pronounciation....but am also working and laughing. Later on this choice bit.

----
The potato-looks-like-bulbous-nosed-person theme is of the ages.

For example, my granny would say, "that looks just like Jimmy Durante." Or, she of the trim and freckled Celtic nib of a nose-ett: "that looks like such an EYE-talian nose."

I am imagining that long ago in kitchens, say in Manchester, a potato might remind a peeler as Wellingtonlike.

Similarly, in Germany, a tuber would look like Rudolf I....

In France, Cyrano de B....

so on.

I once made spaghetti and meatballs and while walking from the kitchen to the dining room slipped on a Hot Rod (or maybe it was a Matchbox) and landed flat on my back while the spaghetti and meatballs flew threw air and I swear it looked just like the Flying Spaghetti Monster. That is until it stopped hovering over me and landed all over the front of my favorite shirt. Which of course upset me so much that I took the FSM's name in vain. Cause and effect reversed.

Simon, my wife was delighted when she realized the symmetry with Khabibulin, even if my GAA is an order of magnitude or so higher...

Glacial Acetic Acid is free of water. Wiat, what.

SCC: Wiat=>wait

Gaelic Athletic Association focused on promoting: hurling, camogie, Gaelic football, handball, and rounders

Gay Activists' Alliance dissolved in 1981

Never mind I figured it out: Goals against average (GAA) is a statistic used in ice hockey, water polo, lacrosse, and football (soccer) that is the mean of goals allowed per game by a goaltender.

omni, you used just about every word on that wikipedia page except "disambiguation."

:-)

Now, then, pet peeve time: "ice" hockey. Let there be no mistake - the hockey played on ice is Hockey. Calling it "ice" hockey leaves one open to the mocking laughter of thirty-one million Canadians, and believe me, you don't want that. (It is, for one thing, what drove William Shatner down to the States.)

Byoolin, I think they call it "ice" hockey in order to differentiate it from field hockey. I learned long ago to be very respectful of women with sticks who can run faster than me.

byoolin, What a lucky symmetry - phonetically and substantially...Vas-y Canada, si tu veux! Innocent bystander with the Leafs torpedoed on the last day of the regular season, and given Lord Stanley options between a city where it doesn't snow in Anaheim and a division rival in Ottawa, inclined here to root for the Senators. The team, not the spayed, neutered, and toothless elected representatives we have in Washington.

...oh yeah checking that water supply - more Li2CO3 please with the pepper, Ho ho.

Yup, I'm a wikiloon

Wait a minute,

"At the largest scale it looks like skeins of galaxies and large bubbles of nothing," Niven said."

skeins = spaghetti?
bubbles = meatballs?

The FSM, revealed?

I know this is very silly. My office is permeated by the fragrance of Italian cooking because a bunch of people went out to dinner last night and brought in mega-leftovers. It has gone to my head. Spaghetti on the brain.

About the kit: I thought Ringworld was excellent in Sixteen Candles and Pretty in Pink.

But 'Mudge, the whole point of it is that the differentiation is right in front of us, they have never called field hockey Hockey. Only proper Hockey has recieved the distinction. Thusly the "field" in field hockey should by all rights be enough distinction for all parties.

As any good canukistanian knows.

Dawkins in today's WaPo:
The only alternative - that religion is woman-made - is hard to reconcile with prevailing attitudes of religious authorities to women, which range from patronizing contempt (as in the Roman Catholic insistence that a priest needs testicles to celebrate a valid Mass) to vicious and hostile bullying (as in the Taliban).

In spite of the intriguing ideas of a minority of feminist theologians and mythologists for particular cases, the general answer to the question is surely yes. Religion is man-made.
***

This is old, old Boodle stuff but it goes back ages in Boodle time to an exchange in Latin:

Duos habet et bene pendantes!

KN -- after the grading of papers bloodbath, spaghetti is IN my brain, instead of the grey-fissured jelly that looks like whatever is left of Ted Williams.

I think on his preserved head often, actually....the entire head? Just the brain?
JA -- can you figure this one out?

omni, your mention of the FSM brings to mind the following: from Wikipedia, "FSM is a parody religion," which sort of begs the question, "aren't all religions parodies of each other?" and if not how come? To narrow the evidence I would focus on the so-called "revealed religions" which presuppose a transcendent entity who participates in the immanence of human activities. This understanding of "revealed religion" rules out the notion of an impersonal God, and notwithstanding the practical merits of many Eastern religions that emphasize serentiy and the elimination of desire, the Hindu, Buddhist, and Spinozaist grasp of the divine are not sufficient to account for the possibiility of a personal God, directly before whom the single individual stands in relation as it concerns his or her eternal happiness, to borrow an expression from the Protestant theologian and existential philosopher, Kierkegaard.

Where am I heading with this? Well, nowhere decisive. Kant demonstrated the antimonies of pure reason re: the question of the existence of God in his first installment, _Critique of Pure Reason_ in an effort to reconcile Newtonian mechanics with Christianity, and no finer job has really been done since. Kant's conclusion: you can't prove it one way or the other. Not that Kant is an authority on all matters. For example his epistemology is flawed beyond measure, and is by the way inconsistent with Darwinism - having to assume a snapshot static view of concepts as humans use them as tools. In the internet age, we know this view is not viable. But on the point of the antimonies of proving/disproving the existence of God, he is right on. Can't be done.

Scholars, public intellectuals, evolutionary biologists, like Richard Dawkins, bring no further closure to this open question. The fundamental question that no skeptic has adequately addressed is "why is there something instead of nothing?" Granted one could take issue with this phraseology on the basis of semantics, but the curious imagination embraces the essence of this paradox.

No claims about dogma, no claims about Creator's intentions are neceassry here. Revealed religion is not inconsistent with science.

SCC: FSM = "Flying Spaghetti Monster" or as my niece refers to it, "Lying Pasketti Monstaw"

Loomis, the only latin I know is pig-latin, so could you please translate it.

"Duos habet et bene pendantes" = "He has two, and well hung" - they make special chairs for that sort of examination...

Simon D. -- Fascinating post on Kant. Kant's ethics are perhaps more important that his ontology -- logos or mediation on being -- and way more useful than the stuff about knowing.

The best part of the Categorical Imperative on living rightly is his footnoted critique of the golden rule.

Kant says, that vowing to treat others as WE wish to be treated assumes that the agent or actor thinks that others want what the agent wants. That is pretty dammned presumptious.

I think that reading this footnote was the central moment of my education: made me instantly more thoughtful and on some days, perhaps humble.

We need to ask others how they wish to be treated. (Someone here in A-blogland warned me about the sadistic-masochist problem. OK, not for them. But for the others...I want to ask them how they wish to be treated, rather than assume that they want what I do.

OMG, that is more then I want to know. but I did ask.

In the End Times, during the Cataclysm, but before the Libras come to render judgment, that will be our method of finding out who is actually Canadian. What sport is being placed in this photograph, sir? Anyone who says "ice hockey" will be turned away. So sayeth Bobby Orr.

Did anyone else have WAPO go down? I was unable to pull up the site for a couple of hours. Glad it is back though as everyone seems to be in fine form today.

My two cents worth it is HOCKEY, all other forms require the use of a qualifier, field hockey, ball hockey, road hockey, etc. Canadians are pretty easy going but I think the term ice hockey is pretty much our line in the sand.

I do like watching grass football better than arena football. And wood basketball, as opposed to blacktop basketball.

So it's like Polo. Polo which refers to that thing with the horses that Prince Charles does. The term "Water Polo" involves folks in Speedos kicking at each other in a pool.

Hence the giggling at any mention of "Land Polo."

My favorite sport to watch is Skates.

TBG now you are going to open the whole football/soccer can of worms. :-)

Actually, "can" is unnecessary. Just 'you are opening worms' is sufficient.

H20 Poolo

My birthday falls on the cusp between Libra and Scorpio.

Sometimes I can't decide if I'm a Libra or not, at other times I sure as hell am a Scorpio, and what about it!?

SimonD, thanks for your thoughtful 1:12.

bc

CP: //We need to ask others how they wish to be treated. (Someone here in A-blogland warned me about the sadistic-masochist problem. OK, not for them. But for the others...I want to ask them how they wish to be treated, rather than assume that they want what I do.//

That would have been me, and it wasn't just about S/M. There are (too) many who will allow, if not encourage, you to treat them in a manner which does not recognize their basic humanity. I'm thinking here of people who have been mistreated until they believe it's the best they deserve, but I'm sure there are others.

Yes, ask everyone how they wish to be treated. But your own inner feelings about the minimum standards of human treatment should also come into play if their accepted standards are below yours.

Marco???

...

Polo!!

...

:-)

OK, this boodle is getting pretty strange. I think I'm going to leave town. Will return on Tuesday, hopefully with a replacement for the old van with the blown transmission. Question to ponder--are all car salespeople, and especially used car salespeople, born as freakoids, or do they have to learn to be so overbearing, unctuous, condescending jerks? Every time we've left a lot, I need to wash my hands. Gack!

ebnut, how can you tell?

I agree DBG and I should not have written in such a way to suggest that only full-blown S/M is the example to proves the exception.

Psychology teaches us that subtle patterns of say, masochism, might underlie a person's stance in the world that does not protect or assume or ask for their full dignity. That is what I meant to say, and the simple text without faces or tone of voice did not carry nuance.

And, I did not mean to dismiss your wise and careful adjustment to what I said a few months ago.

I suspect we agree. I do think that asking or communicating is one way to get closer to clarity and dignity.

I still think that Kant's observation more than 200 years ago was spot-on: don't assume that others want to be treated as you would wish.

CP, I also suspect we're on the same side here, and I did not take offense at anything you wrote.

As for Kant, I suspect he's correct too!

I thought I would be bright and look up hockey as Olympic sport. They should know the real name right?

I was feeling pretty good when I saw that field hockey is 'field hockey' in the list of sports, and then I checked winter sports for real hockey.

For the love of heaven don't go there, just accept that we are right. Because we said so.

Hockey is a game played on ice. Period.

Everything else is 'qualifier' hockey.

Immanuel Kant was a real pissant who was very rarely stable.

A slight aside: Cutter, the old dog, somehow injured his paw. I saw him licking it last night. Today he limped a little until I noticed, then limped a great deal more in an exaggerated manner.

The vet wrapped it halfway to Cutter's elbow, and now Cutter is beside himself at the attention he received while I was paying the bill.

We came home. Limping ostentatiously, he then jumped onto the *new* (undogged) couch and stretched out to cover most of it.

He leaves no doubt as to how he wishes to be treated. I will be chopping filet mignon in the Cuisinart for his dinner.

You are a DBGEM! We are all right, in the trifect or trinity of CP, DBG and I. Kant (who was the one who could drink you under the table?)

Middle child said this long ago and I still love it. She was horrified to learn at a swim meet that the object was to beat the others and come in first! She practiced but refused to compete. "I think it is much prettier when we all come in even. Together is more fairer."

"Qualifier" hockey. I like that.

In that vein, go to http://www.jughead.tv/ and click on "Hockey Song".

Best.Song.Ever.

Hey, all I know is, I don't mess with women with sticks.

Guys with brooms: not so much.

Hey dbG I bashed my toe the other day pretty badly, I don't suppose I could get a little of that filet do ya?

dr, I was trying to stay away from the Olympics as they take their lead from the IIHF!!

EF, depends on how pitiful you're prepared to look! VF post this morning, btw. :-)

>VF post this morning

Thanks.

Apparently I'm looking fairly pitiful walking around like a crab. Now my LEG hurts.

I'm treating myself to a massage at a proper spa tonight. It's only been about 7 years.

I'm heartened that you're taking proper care of yourself. Are you going to ask for the coconut-scented oil?

>coconut-scented oil?

One can only hope they have some. This is my first time there and it's just around the corner, so if it works out perhaps I can get some frequent-flyer dibs.

I'm curious about the hot stone massage!

Peeps in MT know to bow down before the spendor and singular ritual that is HOCKEY.

But, however fine the Calgary Stampede is and was and shall be....MT is first in cowboy science, events, poetry, lore, coffee, according-playing, leather tanning, mountain oyster eating-contests, etc.

---
DBG, I'd like to come back as a dog to your house or Yoki's or Wilbrod's or Raysmom....my house....very nice but I have never given filet to any pup. I can't count when I last had it myself.

I would kill for tri-tip beef points but whenever I ask about it here, blank stares from the nice but rather apprentice/newbie butcher.

I hurt my paw, too. Could you fax me some medium rare, perhaps with a red wine reduction?

It's a dog's life Mudge.

You're all welcome to come for dinner, I'll throw another whole filet on the grill.

If you have a wounded toe or paw, however, be prepared for the young lab to focus her full, absolute and concerned attention on you. She'll sit with her nose an inch from yours, pausing occasionally to touch the bandage (whether that hurts you or not), her brown eyes showing nothing but love and concern. After about 5 minutes, it's more concern than anyone wants to bear. One wants to just yell "Give me a break!" She should be working an ICU.

EF, frequent massage points. Hot stones. I like it.

There was an excellent chiropractor who used massage, right by the Buck Hotel. I can look her up if your local place doesn't work out.

CP, I do spoil the dog (as in, chilled water only), but I draw the line at filet. Raysdad, however, is another matter. When he has spaghetti, he plays Lady and the Tramp with him. The two of them are littermates.

The Economist has a story on the freshly-floated evidence that a comet hit the Canadian ice sheet 12,900 years ago, causing much of it to melt--and much of the rest of North America to burn. No more mammoths, ground sloths, or Clovis Culture. http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9217806

(RD -- watch out as this quote is rather like frills and furbelows, but also floriferous and floribundant and confers felicity on flower-mad fillies)
-----
From Christopher Lloyd, British plantsman and opinionated writer:

Clematis. The correct pronunciation is, unequivocally, CLEM a tis, with a short e and the accent on the first syllable. All the dictionaries are agreed on this, and even _Fowlers Modern English Usage, in a (to me) impenetrable article on "False Quantity", comes down in favour. 'This climber's common fate is to be pronounced cle MATE is,' with the accent on the second syllable and a long a. In America clem MAT is common, rhyming with lattice.

The continentals have a hard time of it. Magnus Johnson (a Swede) confided to Tom that he had to be careful while in the UK, lest he commit the heresy of saying 'clemartis' (the long as is the norm over there). What an intolerant lot we are - the poor man sounded quite intimidated

(CP HERE: paragraph on the families that developed clematis strains including the Jackmans who gave us the immortal and best - my aesthetic - Jackmannii, which should be pronounced as jack MAN eye.)

For the plural of clematis I (and many others) use the same words. I cannot say this is correct, but if enough of us go on doing so for long enough, it will become correct. The English language is overburdened with sibilants, especially in the final syllable of syllables. Crocuses and irises are tolerable, but clematises leaves the tongue congealed and torpid. Imagine 'she possesses 66 clematises'. Most unpleasant.

(CP AGAIN: another segue paragraph. If you must have it, let me know)

The words clematis has both Latin and Greek origins, though the OED tells that it referred to some climbing or trailing plant unspecified but probably periwinkle.

-----
Source:
Clematis by Lloyd, Christopher (Revised with Tom Bennett) Out of print but go here and scroll down to Lloyd
http://www.biblio.com/browse_books/catalog/25472/421.html

Raysmom, that is funny!

Actually, the filet is for later this weekend. Tonight he'll have to make do with the duck stock in the freezer.

Parody is not inconsistent with science.

Well since it is one of those afternoon, I give you this, a man was caught trying to smuggle 700 snakes in his carry on luggage.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/070524/koddities/oddity_snakes_on_a_plane

dmd, if you and Mudge are playing in the shallow end, look for me in the kiddie pool. Which of course explains why I went looking for information on hockey.

There is a point in ones life where one realizes that not only did your children learn everything you knew, they have surpassed you. I should have just listened to Kerric and his fine defense at 1:06. Just don't go telling him. He's going to be all superior-like.

Dave OTC, I guess this is your turf. If we accept the premise of that comet 12,900 years ago (and I have no objection to it, if that's what the evidence says), presumably most human life in North America was wiped out along with the mammoths and bison (presuming the later, smaller bison came from elsewhere and re-populated). So two ideas present themselves:

1) At some point, it should be possible to test soil samples all over NA and sooner or later come up with a "ring" showing approximately how far the damage spread--and from this we might be able to hpothesize an approximate epicenter, yes? And having done that, we might theorize that the further from Ground Zero, the more likely survival became. So if, say, Ground Zero was over Wisconsin, or whatever, people in Peru probably survived, even if there was massive climatological change because of the explosion. Wouldn't there be all sorts of disruptions in the archeological, zoological and anthropoligical record that we'd already have?

2) It would mean virtually much of North America was re-populated within the last 12,900 years, more or less from scratch, depending on how wide the destruction ring was.

The article says something to the effect of "we already know" something happened about 13,000 years ago. How do we know that? What exactly is it that we know?

dr, I'm not in the shallow end of the pool any more. My little doggie hurt his paw so I took him home to tend to it. The poor thing is sitting by the fax machine and looking it it with big, sad eyes. I don't know what that's all about, but it's pretty heart-breaking.

Thanks for the pupdate, Mudge. Faxing filet with a red wine reduction & young female lab as soon as I post this.

Mudge, from the Museum of Civilization in Ottaw on the questions you asked.

http://www.civilization.ca/archeo/hnpc/npvol01e.html

I'll have to look into this supposed Pleistocene impact some more (first I've heard of it), but one thing that strikes me in the article--the contention that the only alternative to an impact is that the Clovis people killed everything else. There is a group of paleontologists (and some archaeologists) that believes this, but the majority (me included) think it's a crock.

As for the impact, first thoughts--Pleistocene extinctions were global, not local, and even in North America there were a LOT of Pleistocene species still around at 9-10K, including 2 mammoth species, 1 mastodont species, and a bunch of ground sloths.

"...and a bunch of ground sloths" Thus spake Dooley.

Such a useful phrase; may apply this immediately to some beloved but typical teen boys.

Thank you.

'Mudge,
The end of the Pleistocene was a time of tumultuous change. Florida is blessed with magnificent fossil deposits, and even one site where people and mastodons, etc. coexisted.

The sort-of dominant interpretation has been that Clovis people were more or less the first arrivals, and they moved across North America in sort of a wave, killing the megafauna as they went. A corollary is the suspicion that when people arrived in a "virgin" region like the Americas, they immediately killed so many animals that their arrival is unmistakeable (this scenario seems to apply to the arrival of people in Australia some 50,000 years ago). Tim Flannery's book on the mammal history of North America explains the scenario well.

However, there's a growing number of human occupation sites that seem earlier than 12,000 years ago.

Then there's the Younger Dryas Event. Vast quantities of water from the Canadian ice sheets flooded into the Atlantic, discombobulating the climate for some 1,000 years. It was cold!!! Apparently Middle Easterners began cultivating crops during this period.

There's also the weird "Carolina Bays"--a huge number of oval-shaped depressions in the coastal plain of the Carolinas. They could be the result of stuff kicked up by the presumed comet that smacked the ice sheet.
http://www.georgehoward.net/cbays.htm

If the comet-hits-the-ice hypothesis gains support, the whole scenario of that critical period will have to be re-evaluated.

Ground sloths...I've had those around here upon occasion. Yes, know that species well!

Garden update: the first purple coneflower has bloomed, the shasta daisies are poppin' and the gardenia buds are fat. Gonna be a nice weekend. Of course, we'll be in the mountains, so I'll have to figure out what's there.

"Tonight he'll have to make do with the duck stock in the freezer."

I first read that as "the duck stuck in the freezer."

[image of a wiggly duck butt sticking out of the freezer door.]

So you've seen my freezer!

At least I was able to backspace to type the word *duck* correctly.

Dooley,
On the Great Extinction, I wonder that those super-nasty short-faced bears went extinct. If I were a Clovis person, I wouldn't want to tangle with them. The grizzlies that more or less replaced them are gentle beasts by comparison.

Proponents of the Clovis people killing everything like to point out that Africa, where people and their ancestors have been around for a long time, still has quite a diverse megafauna.

Islands provide cases of people causing extinctions, especially of elephant birds on Madagascar and a number of species of "moa" on New Zealand. I think the same applies to Cuba. Ground sloths seem to have persisted the thousands of years longer than in Florida.

Thinking in a different direction, it's a pity that Stellar's sea cow no longer exists. It was a North Pacific manatee!

Glad I could help, CP...and some people think paleontology has no practical applications!

Thanks for the reply College-Parkian: thing is after reading Kant, a lot of people read Foucault and then can't stop dropping the same binaries they thought had debunked with terms like "position," "desire," "submission," "dominance," "discourse," and "horseshi'ite."

Agree about the line between the usefulness of ethics and epistemolgy (pedagogy and application) on Kant. However, I think (believe to agree with you) that Rawls gets the last word on the categorical imperative. All things being equal, and they never are, (which Disraeli or Mark Twain first said), ignorance is more likely than principles, and therefore the so-called "veil of ignorance" should dictate how communities regulate themselves. One can never ascertain another's intentions/aims, thus blasting the cat. imperative/golden rule out of the water as being practicable (although preserving the option for altruism). But without foreknowledge of your "position" in society - race, creed, gender, money, etc - then ethics ought to be crafted according to the Rawls dummy variable model. It's not so much that you have to assume the worst about people, but that you should imagine the hypothetically worst scenario (being a poor black dyslexic female and with AIDS, for example) about your own place in society before you go about telling people how they should manage their lives.

Thanks for that link, DMD; it explains quite a lot. Dooley, to summarize what I read VERY broadly, it appears that a) we don't know much at all, and what little we do know is both speculative and controversial, and b) that it appears that humans entered North America AFTER the circa 12,900 event. In other words, there were no humans here at the time of the explosion (or maybe a few, but not enough to have left any trace, and they got vaporized). The evidence seems to indicate that there was a major mkigration this after almost immediately after the explosion, circa 13,000 BP to 10,000 BP. Another way of looking at is to hypothesize that prior to the comet, the northern reaches were just too cold and too unpopulated for human survival. After the comet, the climate changed sufficiently and for the better that human in Siberia pretty quickly came this way and spread down southward through the continent. In short, we may in fact owe a debt of thanks to that comet explosion, otherwise North and South America might STILL be basically unpopulated--and we'd still have an ice age blocking any eastward migration from Asia. (OK, let's not get into any alternate history scenarios about Vikings and stuff.)

But one way or another you dudes sure got your work cut out for you. Lemme know how it turns out.

I had a duck stuck in my chimney once. It was so firmly stuck that it could move enough to cause a lot of noise. We only knew about it because our cat spent two days *staring* at the wood stove, and wouldn't take a break to eat.

We opened up the outside hatch to the chimney, saw pair of dangling webbed feet, pulled on them gently, and the duck flew out the hatch and back down to the Columbia River without so much as a backward glance.

It was one of the funniest things I have ever seen. We all still laugh about it.

Yoki only your first sentence was visible when I saw your post - that made me laugh, good story.

I have cranked the fans full in your direction as we have quite the excess of heat at the moment and applied hepa filters to remove the smog (really, really bad air day).

Yum! Those filet mignons are so tiny that I never get any leftovers, so I prefer T-bones and other cuts of steaks (Mmm, meaty bones!)

I do hear a rumor that if I ever become a major Hero Dog, I might get a whole steak take-out, gratis.

So all I need to do is maneveur the gnome in front of a bus, and then pull the gnome out unharmed. Of course, the problem is Wilbrod isn't that much of a fool and probably would yell at me for letting it happen in the first place and tell me clearly: No steak.

It's a dog's life. We had a good jog today, and I met some degus and baby chinchillas, so now to diligently work on naptime.

There are a number of definite and probable examples of human-induced extinctions on islands, as DotC pointed out. But these are small, isolated populations.

The Pleistocene megafauna included hundreds of species worldwide, that all went extinct within a few thousand years. Carnivores you don't have to worry about--they die of when the herbivores die. But that's a whole bunch of herbivores, a huge global diversity. Lots of elephants (maybe 10-20 species across 4 families) on five continents, plus the aforementioned ground sloths (30+ species, but some were on islands), giant camels (1-2 species), glyptodonts, Irish elk and stag moose, giant kangaroos and wombats (there's good eatin' on a wombat), long-horned bison, aurochs...the list goes on. And a lot of the megafauna isn't exactly "mega"--how about the dozen species of pronghorns, the half-dozen species of horses, or numerous peccaries and tapirs? And the 300-lb giant beaver that was common in the Great Plains?

While there is lots of evidence that humans ATE mammoths, etc., there is not much evidence that they actually KILLED them. The best evidence is embedded spear points in a few localities, plus the famous European cave paintins depicting hunts.

I think that most scientists have not actually tried to stab an elephant to death with a spear--I'm betting it's pretty difficult. As one archaeologist described the cave paintings, "Maybe they killed one mammoth and talked about it for a thousand years." Even with trains and guns, Americans didn't manage to wipe out one bison species in North America in 200 years (almost, but not quite).

Overkill advocates that acknowledge this point to mass-kill sites, where bunches of horses fell off cliffs (presumably driven over the cliffs by people). Maybe--but that brings to mind Clovis people trying to herd hundreds of giant beavers over all those abundant cliffs in Illlinois and Iowa.

Yoki, you must have had DUCK SOot

Thank you, Dooley, for the splendid visual image of Clovis people trying to herd hundreds of giant beavers over the abundant cliffs. That's what I'll take with me today, and probably for a long time to come.

>And the 300-lb giant beaver that was common in the Great Plains?

OMIGOD... please don't tell me they have any groundhog relatives.

Simon D. -- You know your "theory of justice" stuff. I like what Rawls and Bruce Ackerman had to say, expecially Ackerman's application of Rawls to a liberal state. Yes, if we all stood in line behind a veil of ignorance and took potluck on where we end up on the great totem pole of life, I think we would design a system that included a preferential option for the poor, the ill, the weak, the voiceless.
--
Raysmom: a bevy of bats attacking gnats rising off pond water.

Frosti: Alliums fading, so spring is nearly past. In the brief gasp that is early summer, the roses are beginning in earnest. To the Arboretum on Friday, I think. A friend called to say that early day lily scapes are up.

Hi all! Backboodling to try to catch up.

Simon D, I'm confused about your using the word "antimonies" (twice) in your 1:12. Antimony is an element. I looked it up on Webster and in a thesaurus and I'm stumped - what meaning did you intend with this word? Thanks.

Dooley, I would imagine you'd have to be pretty hungry to try and stab a wooly mammoth to death single-handedly.

I've seen spear-throwers, which can work almost as well as bow and arrows, but only at close range.

I'm visualizing a scenario where people who had offended the tribe were sent forth to face justice in the form of woolly mammoths, like gladiators.

If they survived and bagged a mammoth for dinner, then all was forgiven. If not, the tribe saved the expense of death penalty appeals.

But we're judging from our civilized chairs.

I believe that the Clovis people would have studied the behavior of the animals in their environment...I'm sure they would have come up with a way to take a wooly mammoth down if such a way existed. And it'd seem silly for them to come up with such insights and then hunt them to extinction as well.

My guess is maybe a zoonotic was introduced in North America with the climate changes, which helped wipe out the megafauna.

For instance, African lions can and do die of canine distemper.

I suggest rabies as an EXAMPLE of a zoonotic disease that could be spread with humans and dogs coming into the New World (and bats).

Dogs could have bred and then passed them to coyotes, foxes, wolves, skunks, bats, etc.

http://www.who.int/rabies/epidemiology/en/
The genetic diversity of rabies virus throughout the world is not well known.

It appears that bats may carried related rabiesviruses that are not as virulent to humans as pure rabies... but they can also carry rabies.

Megafauna, being long-lived and existing in small, rather stable populations have good immune systems, but they are not going to adapt very quickly to a new virulent disease. As a result, such a population could go extinct, especially with stresses of climate change and habitat changes.

And yes, elephants can contract and die from rabies.

http://www.elephant.se/rabies.php

It is possible a rabid elephant could have infected her entire herd through aggression or through being nursed by relatives.

We cannot know what Wooly mammoth were like and if they were as gregarious as elephants.

Error F, re your groundhogs. Can you borrow a terrier for a few weeks? Might that help.

Air gun?

Wheezy: In Kantian philosophy "antimonies" are contradictory statements.

Wheezy, http://www.answers.com/topic/antinomy - your research finding this term under/dis-used is no coincidence; it really has little currency outside archane and narcisistic discussions about philosophy...

Thanks Simon D. and Shiloh - that explains why I couldn't find the word in a dictionary - it's really antinomy, not antimony.

Never mind, says Emily Litella.

Does this refer to us?

"In a surprising refutation of the conventional wisdom... the University of Chicago's School for Behavioral Science concluded that more than one-third of the U.S. population is neither entitled nor qualified to have opinions.

"'...[W]e found that many of the opinions expressed were so off-base and ill-informed that they actually hurt society by being voiced,' said chief researcher Professor Mark Fultz.... "[O]ur research shows that American society currently has a drastic oversupply of the kinds who don't have any good or worthwhile thoughts whatsoever. We could actually do just fine without them.'"

-- http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/study_38_percent_of_people

Our late English spring continues, and I have the fire going to take the chill off. Our daylilies have leaves and nothing more, but I have been offered my pick of all I can divide at a neighbor's house and will take my chances at what colors they turn out to be. It is early enough I shall have bloom this year.

How do I want to be treated? A much more complicated question than it appears at first blush. And more obvious in the breach, perhaps. Something to consider when opening the wine I was given today. Such a surprise, and the giver must have made some effort to find out what I might appreciate. The typical gift for the favor that was done would be a "delicious bass" or some venison jerky.

Not to change the subject, but Frosti will be disgusted with the latest lawsuit news - the family of Cardinal's pitcher Josh Hancock who died a couple of weeks ago when he slammed into a wreck on the highway which was being set up to be towed, while drunk and on the phone, is suing the restaurant which had served him, the tow truck company, and others. I think it was a very lucky thing that the tow truck operator and the owner of the wrecked car were able to jump out of the way when they saw Hancock's SUV barrelling at them, or they would have died, too.

I'm just surprised the family didn't sue Ford and the highway department, too. Or maybe they did, the suit was just filed today and no details are available.

The arcane and narcissistic are not limited to philosophy, but may occur with regularity in blogs.

But then, I may neither be entitled or qualified to express that opinion.

Wheezy-I knew finding true tales of the amazing NOT suing would be difficult, but I'm beginning to wonder if I'll have enough material to make annual updates.

Here the city council of our county seat sued the law firm they thought didn't sue the library construction company soon enough, or for enough. The amount in dispute was $2,800. The city lost and is now out costs of $7,400. Something makes me think a little negotiation between all the parties could have resolved the difficulty without court involvement, even with a bunch of attorneys as one of the parties.

Shiloh, you are right to remind us. Bloviating happens. Every body's front yard and sometimes in posts, also.

Off to enjoy the rare evening outside. Frosti, the peonies have dropped trow. Sad but too much happiness would be as hard to bear as sadness.

About the colors not matching...I seldom see an ugly color in flowers. A friend sent me ten fans of what she promises are Hyperion (from Iowa, Kimballton that land of Danish peeps), so I am hoping for lemon-yellow tall scapes and a scent. At mid-life it is the scents wafting that keep me gardening and sane. And interesting enough, I don't like perfume.

Here's a copy of the suit:

http://www.kmov.com/news/070524_hancocklawsuit2.pdf

It's really quite funny - it claims repeatedly that Hancock's intoxiation was "involuntary."

Your town lawsuit sounds like one of those truly tiresome things where people sue "on principle" even when, obviously, it's not in their own best interests.

If it makes you feel any better, I have not sued (or even taken any damages offered for) a slip and fall on someone's front porch that smashed my wrist, being rear-ended, and my daughter getting a serious cut on a school "stream-walking" expedition which required layered stitches and left a huge scar. These were all clear-cut cases of us being klutzes (including being rear-ended, actually) and it didn't seem right to make anyone else pay.

Frosti, that's ridiculous, isn't it? And I expect $7,400 isn't an inconsiderable sum in the city budget. I hope they learn a lesson.

>How do I want to be treated? A much more complicated question than it appears at first blush.

Well, frosti I don't know about you, but flowers and chocolate would be a nice start.

CP, I've pretty much given up on the groundhogs. I'm sort of hoping they've given up on me, and very much hope they don't invite any ancient 300lb relatives over for the holidays.

To the Achenblog, a great big *hug*. Because of you, I'm looking like a big yellow sunflower, and striking up the band with lime green. Thanks so very much.

"(being a poor black dyslexic female and with AIDS, for example) Simon D...

perhaps you can explain that statement for me? I felt bad reading it, perhaps your explaination will offer some solace?

Hey, Error - how's it going?

Cassandra - that's great about the shirt! Are we to understand that someone sent both lime green and yellow? Wow.

Gotta go be chauffeur for a while - back later.

mostlylurking, I found the Calvin & Hobbes strip I was thinking of. I had remembered it as two separate cartoons; I guess subconsciously I knew it was only one. Let's see if this link will work:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0836213122/ref=sib_dp_srch_pop/102-8520029-6082565?v=search-inside&keywords=need&go.x=12&go.y=16

Well, no, I guess that doesn't work. (Sorry!) It's not nearly so funny without the artwork, but here's the text:

Mom: Any good mail today?
Dad: Mm. Not really.
Dad: Here's a "You're not covering the cost of all these mailings" charity request.
Dad: You got a "You're not attractive enough" women's magazine with an article on swimsuits that minimize all your body flaws.
Dad: Here are some "You're not stylish or ostentatious enough" catalogs...and coincidentally, an invitation to go deeper in debt from a credit card company.
And here's our news magazine to identify the trend of the week we're missing...and I got a hobby magazine featuring new equipment I ought to have.
Yikes.
Dad: Why do I get the feeling that society is trying to make us discontented with everything we do and insecure about who we are?
Mom: I suppose if people thought about real issues and needs instead of manufactured desires, the economy would collapse and we'd have total anarchy.
Dad (fierce look on his face): So pitching this junk would make me some kind of terrorist, huh?
Mom: Yep. It's our patriotic duty to buy distractions from a simple life.
Calvin (coming into room): Hey Mom, I saw a bunch of products on TV that I didn't know existed, but I desperately need!

http://picayune.uclick.com/comics/ch/1993/ch930131.gif

Cassandra, I love sunflower seeds, too. I found something called sunbutter which I like too-- apparently it's for the peanut-butter allergic.

I've never had sunflowers to grow, but they're fun flowers-- they go so TALL! I guess now would be the time to plant them, if I can find a handy spot with full sun.

William Blake's poem:

AH, SUNFLOWER

Ah, sunflower, weary of time,
Who countest the steps of the sun;
Seeking after that sweet golden clime
Where the traveller's journey is done;

Where the Youth pined away with desire,
And the pale virgin shrouded in snow,
Arise from their graves, and aspire
Where my Sunflower wishes to go!

Happy Birthday wishes to Bob Dylan. He turns 66 today. Here's one of my favorite songs of his. (Elvis did an excellent version of it.)

Tomorrow is a Long Time

If today was not an endless highway,
If tonight was not a crooked trail,
If tomorrow wasn't such a long time,
Then lonesome would mean nothing to you at all.
Yes, and only if my own true love was waitin',
Yes, and if I could hear her heart a-softly poundin',
Only if she was lyin' by me,
Then I'd lie in my bed once again.

I can't see my reflection in the waters,
I can't speak the sounds that show no pain,
I can't hear the echo of my footsteps,
Or can't remember the sound of my own name.
Yes, and only if my own true love was waitin',
Yes, and if I could hear her heart a-softly poundin',
Only if she was lyin' by me,
Then I'd lie in my bed once again.

There's beauty in the silver, singin' river,
There's beauty in the sunrise in the sky,
But none of these and nothing else can touch the beauty
That I remember in my true love's eyes.
Yes, and only if my own true love was waitin',
Yes, and if I could hear her heart a-softly poundin',
Only if she was lyin' by me,
Then I'd lie in my bed once again.

Copyright ©

Yes, sunflowers are delightful. Unless, of course, they are the dreaded Mirror Sunflowers of Ringworld.

It's great to hear about your new shirt, Cassandra. I got a big smile on my face reading your reaction to it. Very cool!

My heart skipped when I saw the title of Joel's column, for I will be at Balticon this weekend with the entire yellojkt clan. I travel to science fiction conventions under my own name, so you need to identify yourself as boodler if you run across a camera wielding red-head with thinning hair. I fully intend to get my copy of Footfall autographed.

One day I was bored at work and used the solar flux value to determine what wavelength the black body radiation would be from a Dyson Sphere around the sun at 1 AU. I don't remember the results, but it was reasonably temperate. Maybe dark matter is billions of Dyson spheres barely in the infrared.

I find it odd that Pournelle is most known as a co-author and a computer pioneer rather than a writer in his own right. I think Niven is the idea man and Pournelle sings harmony, but I may have them confused with Simon and Garfunkel.

On the topic of megafauna, my brain is being image-cootied with a mental picture of a mash-up between 'Breakfast of Champions'and 'Galapagos'. Don't press me any further on it.

Congrats, Yoki, on the addition to your family.

kb, that's excellent - glad you found it. I don't think I'd ever seen that one.

Yoki, we're having snow flurries here too - well, not really, it's just the seeds from the cottonwood trees. Very strange and slightly annoying.

Beautiful day, though. It's Bob Dylan's birthday and also my son's! I got him the new Tolkien book, which he hadn't heard of. Thanks, omni.

byoolin, your post about opinions has me laughing. But I think the boodle is a fairly well-informed bunch, for the most part.

dmd, I watched the hour-long special for the Bob and Doug show - and it is funny. The movie is like most movies made from funny TV bits - not quite as good.

I love sunflowers too - will plant some this weekend, and get my moonflowers out. I have some little daylilies flowering - I think they're Stella d'Oro. I have some big lemon-yellow ones that have buds already. Mainly I need to trim things back. Again.

Joel's link to Pournelle's bio site is okay, but all computer geeks of a certain age miss his Chaos Manor columns in Byte which are still linked to on his ur-blog:

http://www.jerrypournelle.com/mail/mail465.html#scandal

Jerry's view on climate change seem to be non-consensual.

Ha - pj and I posted about Dylan's birthday at the same time! Coincidence? That is a beautiful song - I remember it as a Rod Stewart song (from the early 70's, when he was really good.)

Yeah, that was funny, mostlylurking. Happy Birthday wishes to your son, too. Rod Stewart's version is on the Every Picture Tells a Story record isn't it? What a great album! I'll have to put that on next.

>Chaos Manor columns in Byte

yello, ain't that the truth. I think I still have a few of those around. I wonder how many of those projects would be considered a threat to security if you were to publish them now.

Heard about Dylans's birthday on the radio. There are so many great songs, but the one that seems to come back across different times of my life is "Tangled Up and Blue".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxQIV74kEiE

I've always liked The Indigo Girls' version, on their 2 disk live tour album.

Wilbrod,
The idea of megafauna dying wherever dogs arrived is kind of intriguing.

If it's dogs, then dingos --> Australia (circa 50,000 years ago) and dogs --> the Americas (perhaps 12,000 years ago) could conceivably be comparable.

I like Dooley's beaver-jump theory. The pishkun method of obtaining bison was pretty successful. I recall an incident where elk hunters, presumably by accident/stupidity, applied the pishkun method.

Thinking of extinction-by-disease, Portland, Oregon has at least a couple of giant American chestnuts.

Slate has a nice photo album of Dylan pictures today. I can never tell whether photos of him circa '63 are objectively iconic or, rather, my own view of him from that time just projects SIGNIFICANCE.

Daughter has to be at school by 4:45 am tomorrow to ride a bus to Busch Gardens for some sort of choral shindig. I was smart enough to ask her dad yesterday to take her (yes!).

And... I made a best friend for life by calling the neighbor whose daughter also is in the chorus to offer hubby as a chauffeur for her daughter as well in the morning. And now said neighbor will pick up both girls when they arrive at 11 pm tomorrow!

I feel like such a wheeler-dealer!

I enjoyed backboodling tonight! There were several times I just...well, there's no other way to say it....laughed out loud!

Mudge - thanks, the whole "let me know how it turns out" sums it up for me. I really love the boodle. Someone will clear it up sometime.
Also, thank goodness...Kate lives! You really worried me with your thoughts about her getting killed off...yes, she's been annoying lately, but she's an integral part of the show. I would have had to question my commitment to the show if she had been summarily dispatched!

Yoki - the duck story will stay with me... what a great story. I can't help but imagine how the faithful beagle would have dealt with that situation.

Dooley - "maybe they killed one mammoth and talked about it for a thousand years" - I don't know how to express how comforting that was for me. Not to mention how funny it was....

PJ - I've never been a Dylan fan, but your 9:35 post makes me think that is a failing in me that I need to rectify.

yellojkt - your 9:45, "breakfast of champions and Galapagos" cracked me up.

Slyness - is purple coneflower another name for echinacea? If yours are blooming, it must mean mine are right behind. Our echinacea, joe pye weed and hydrangeas are ready to burst. I love this time of year.

Take care all...

"I should have just listened to Kerric and his fine defense at 1:06."
Posted by: dr | May 24, 2007 04:22 PM

Alas, while Kerric has admirable faith, reason, religion, and facts on the side of the righteous - The other side has arrayed wild-eyed fanatics with roller skates, wooden sticks and even (you've heard of this, right? Pool-bottom hockey? It's actually very cool [albeit a little whacky]) snorkels and swizzle sticks.

Alas, just like "Kleenex" doesn't mean Kimberly-Clark anymore, "hockey" doesn't necessarily mean "ice" anymore.

I sympathize, I truly do! I'm still fighting the losing battles against "infer = imply" and "people are decended from monkeys". Oh, and, "Camden Yards" is NOT where the Orioles play baseball. (It's "Oriole Park" at Camden Yards, for those who care about these things!)

HEY! Don't spread that idea around, Dave o'the Cooties, or they'll ban me from visiting zoos, even though I got my rabies vaccinations!

Elephants are weird anyhoo-- they're more like SUVs on legs with huge nose-tails than real animals.

Maybe those hairy elephants got confused by their noses and walked backwards over cliffs?

Today, the promise of good news for the poorest anyway...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070525/ap_on_go_co/minimum_wage

Cool, Al Gore on the Daily Show again, this time hawking "The Assault on Reason."
Interesting (if very brief) discussion regarding news, media manipulation, and politics. Can't say I'm learning anything new, but at least it's a frank discussion.

Loved the Boodling regarding a possible comet impact 13,000 years ago, and likely issues for flora and fauna of that era. That's a key era for North American fauna, very interesting stuff.

"300 lb. Beavers" would be a great name for a rock band. Their first album would be "Dam Mississippi." Maybe their next one would be "Who's Lodged in There?"

bc

Umm... Al Gore needs to tread carefully when he speaks of assaults upon reason. I truly believe him to be an intelligent and honorable man, but he (and those around him) have occasionally let their fervor outrun their rational thought.

(I've been guilty of it meself. I knows it when I sees it!)

Speaking of human extinctions, Jared Diamond made a quick guest appearance in a bit on the "Colbert Report."

bc

"Dave o' the Cooties."

Tee hee.

TBG, you're a quick-thinking wheeler-dealer, all right. My kiddo figured out how to wangle a trip here out of his employer - I never have gotten the hang of that. So he'll be visiting in a couple of weeks, as well as getting certified in something or other.

Meant to mention that Liz's Celebritology Chat had quite a bit of discussion about Pride and Prejudice - various versions, etc.

yellojkt, did you see that more Studio 60 episodes are being aired? (Why?) Hope you have a great time at the geekfest, er, science fiction convention.

Re Dylan's birthday, or the other rock etc musicians whose songs are posted here: I pay no attention to the words in any song. The Marriage of Figaro or Rigoletto, where I don't know the words even though I know the story, and When I'm 64 or The City of New Orleans, are equivalent -- I like the tunes. I can recognize a song or symphony or piano sonata from hearing a couple of seconds, but have no idea what the words are. Just how my brain works, I think. (Is that right- or left-brained?)

I was giving a bit of thought today to a censorship issue. Achenbach, most of the regular 'boodle-folk (including me, kind of, sometimes), and the WaPo.com staff appear to think that it's perfectly reasonable to place some limits on the way that opinions are expressed in this forum. And yet, I found myself in more-or-less complete agreement with Marc Fisher
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/23/AR2007052301635.html
while he tried to hammer the "free speech" point home. [For those that haven't read it, the piece describes a food server at the Univ. of Md. who refused to serve a patron whose T-shirt bore sentiments that the server considered offensive.] "What's the difference?" I asked myself repeatedly, out loud. Peopled stared and moved away from me.

I think I've put my finger on it. This (the Kit & 'Boodle) is not a public accomodation. While it may theoretically earn some money from ad revenue, it's basically a money-loser that WaPo uses in the hopes that it will lure some of us to do SOMETHING that might actually result in income, somehow, sometimes. They've (Achenbach & WaPO, I mean) never made any promises that this would be a rose garden or even that they would provide us a bed or a meal, and have, in fact, promised us (in the "FULL RULES") that they retain the right to co-opt our most sensitive thoughts and sell them for profit, without attribution, if the mood should strike. And we've all accepted that state of affairs with relative equanimity. This is a private club, with all of the arbitrary unfairness that could entail.

The UMd food court is a different deal, I think. Once the health & safety of the employees and other patrons is settled, I'm not sure that workers have any legitimate right to deny food or lodging to prospective patrons in what is pretty clearly a public accomodation. Hey, there are lots of other jobs in the world, maybe serving the obnoxious public isn't for everyone!

Of course, the issue in the UMd case didn't seem so much to be the manner in which the opinion was expressed (which is ALWAYS the only issue here in this forum) but rather, seemed to be primarily about the opinion itself. That's a pretty huge difference.

OTOH, I think UMd has the ability to decide who can and can't patronize its food courts. It's a public facility, but that doesn't mean anything goes. However they don't keep monitors out there, so it's arguable that when someone who would be refused entry slips through, it's up to the servers to make the initial judgment.

LTL-CA: Nice try, but no cigar. Actually, It's UMd that's telling the food court (in this case, it's a particular collective which runs a particular snack joint in the food court) workers that they don't get to make those decisions based strictly upon objectionable opinions.

Anyway, the "public accommodation" issue comes up in the courts regularly, and is virtually always decided in favor of free access unless the "private" service provider can show that they do, in fact, restrict their clientele (most relevantly, their income stream) to their members.

Of course, if we want to get silly about this, the person who was refused service was, in fact, a UMd student.

Anyway, I certainly don't care too much about a crunchy snack bar in College Park, Maryland. My broader concern was why I think that the 'boodle and the UMd snack bar are different. I really do think that there's a difference, and I'm trying to wrap my head around it.

But the more I think about it, the more that I think that there really isn't a difference. I think it's quite possible that the rules here are the same as the rules there.

They're not allowed to refuse service to anyone strictly because their opinions are objectionable. The staff of the snack bar has been told so.

The 'boodle has never (in my memory) never refused access to anyone strictly because their opinions were objectionable.

It's all in the presentation.

I dunno, Bob S. I think people are sometimes chased away from this blog because of their opinions, even when those opinions are expressed in a fairly benign manner -- usually newcomers to the blog. I also think people who have proven themselves to have the "correct" opinions are given more flexibility in how they express them. (Which means I *do* agree with your statement, "This is a private club, with all the arbitrary unfairness that could entail.")

Tom fan, to test that hypothesis, my gosh, I believe I or another long-time boodler will attempt to blog under an alias hawking unpopular opinions in a benign (but unrecognizable) manner and see if that gets us lynched.

But Wilbrod, you've corrupted the outcome by announcing your intention! :)

Wilbrod - I've actually considered that very thing before, but it would've made me feel just a bit dirty!

(Interesting, the Achen-ethics!)