Tuesday, February 02, 2021
January 27-28, 2021 Wind Storm Calamity
Some of my neighbors have problems.
Tree fell, brought down huge utility pole, and this vehicle was in the wrong place.
Didn't even rain that much either!
Initial damage assessment at my house : could have been worse! The dysfunctional gutter (not enough slope) has become a hyperfunctional gutter. Eucalyptus everywhere. At least everything else seems more or less OK.
Here is my Facebook post from the night of February 27-28:
This storm roaring in from the Pacific seems to be even windier than the big storm of January ‘08. Not much rain yet, but sure feisty!
The power went out, so dog-walk time came early - before midnight!
The eucalyptus tree next door has grown like a weed this last decade. Five years ago, during a storm, a big branch shredded off it and would have smashed my car had it been parked in the driveway (but it was away at the time).
Tonight, I put on my bike helmet and rain coat and headed out into the storm with Jasper. I immediately noticed that the eucalyptus tree is shredding some really big branches, some of which are in my yard, some in my driveway, and some in the alley. Surprisingly, even though a big branch is wedged in my hedge, and was suspended just above my truck’s windshield, there was no broken glass and everything seemed to be intact. I reparked the truck in the DMV parking lot. I dragged some of the tree branches into a pile so the garbage truck can get to the bins in the morning.
I saw a SMUD electric utility truck in the alley. We approached. The driver said, “Wait, wait, don’t tell me, your power is out! Love the bike helmet! Sure need it on a night like this. Ha, ha, ha!” I told him about the shredding eucalyptus. He said he’d look into it, but I don’t think he did.
Jasper and I walked around the block in the gale. We didn’t go further. I noticed a downed utility line. Probably not electrical, but better not to probe too closely.
I’m worried the eucalyptus tree might collapse tonight onto my bedroom. It’s kind of leaning that way. In order to avoid the not insignificant risk of great inconvenience or possibly instantaneous death, I will sleep on the couch in the living room instead.
Charm Offensive
Charming!:
According to CNBC's Eamon Javers, many hedge funds are not only surprised by the ferocity of the Reddit rebellion, but also by the low esteem in which the average American holds their industry.
"I'm told the hedge fund industry feels it needs to push back on the massive criticism it's gotten in the wake of GameStop," Javers writes on Twitter. "Says one source familiar: 'A significant amount of time and attention will be spent working to explain the industry's story a little more cogently.'"
As for what this public relations charm offensive might look like, Javers's sources say they expect the industry to offer "examples of ways hedge funds have benefited communities and emphasis on vast array of hedge fund investment strategies -- if there's one you don't like, there's probably another you do."
The Hall of Mediocrities
After Sacramento rainy season rainfall cratered to 28% of normal last month, the recent storms have brought rainfall up to 48% of normal. So, the 2020/21 rainy season has recovered enough to enter the hall of mediocrities rather than the hall of disasters. The closest comparison is to the 1897/98 rainy season, which is remembered by meteorologists for - not a damned thing!
When this storm passes, we'll have a warm-up. We always seem to have a warm-up on February 5th. The Japanese Plum tree in the back yard starts to flower - a harbinger of spring - and maybe a harbinger of a decline in Covid-19 numbers as people start spending more time outside.
We have to do better on the rain, though....
Monday, January 25, 2021
The PBS News Hour Recognized James Chavez Glica Hernandez!
Judy Woodruff narrates. (At the link) It's quite striking!:
As we passed the grim milestone this week of more than 400,000 Americans who have died from COVID-19, we take this moment to remember another five of the extraordinary lives lost.
James Glica-Hernandez was drawn to the stage and became a fixture on the regional theater scene in California's Central Valley. As musical director of the Woodland Opera House for over two decades, he mentored generations of young performers.
Friends described him as bold and unapologetic and someone who inspired people to live authentically. A self-described family man, James was a loving husband, father and grandfather. He was 61.
Peaked On January 11th
Looks like the post-holiday wave of the pandemic peaked about two weeks ago in the U.K., U.S., and Sweden alike - January 11th in the U.S. We're now about where we were just before Thanksgiving (not counting all the people we lost in the meantime).
Undercounting Covid Deaths
This is just sad, but that's how we roll in America these days:
Tens of thousands of Covid-19 deaths are going unreported in the U.S., with far more missed in counties that strongly supported former President Trump, according to new research.
The figures suggest that political leanings have helped suppress the true scale of deaths. In cases where the deceased didn’t have a Covid-19 test, a coroner or medical examiner has the freedom to interpret symptoms.
“There’s potentially latitude to make a judgement call conditional on a set of beliefs about Covid and whether it represents a serious problem or a hoax,” said Andrew Stokes, a professor of global health at Boston University School of Public Health who performed the analysis for STAT.
More than 413,000 people have died in the U.S. with Covid-19 attributed somewhere on their death certificate. The real death toll, as reflected in the number of excess deaths in 2020 compared with annual deaths from 2013 to 2018, is even higher. A separate study, led by Stokes, of 787 counties with more than 20 Covid-19 deaths from Feb. 1 to Oct. 17, 2020, found that while there were 199,124 official Covid-19 deaths in that time period, an additional excess 88,142 deaths weren’t attributed to the virus.
Some of these excess deaths are likely due to factors that were exacerbated by the pandemic, such as overdoses and suicide in response to isolation and economic hardship, or subpar health care in an overrun system. But researchers believe many are Covid-19 deaths that go uncounted. Overall, the true Covid-19 death toll is 31% higher than official figures, according to the study, which has been submitted to PLOS Medicine.
There Are NOT Two Sides To Every Story!
Facts overrule everything, and oftentimes there is just one side to the story, like this business of alleged election fraud. It's taken decades to drag the media to the light, and this understanding must be reinforced. So much has happened in the interim; so much blood spilled - you name it, the Iraq War, Trump fascistic presidency, etc. The only way to stop more blood from spilling and to finally break free from our American Groundhog Day is to hold true to facts.
Be Antifa!
My father was Antifa in World War II, running and gunning across northern Germany with General Patton. Be Antifa!
Friday, January 22, 2021
Weather Change Coming
Please make it rain:
Numerous Northern California cities crushed daily heat records in recent days. The weather service’s Sacramento office tweeted that Wednesday marked five consecutive days for Stockton breaking or tying a record-high temperature mark. The city peaked at an astonishing 78 degrees on Monday, breaking the previous high for that date by 9 degrees.
Downtown Sacramento set new records Jan. 13 (69 degrees, up from a record of 67), this past Sunday (72, up from 70) and Monday (74, up from 70). It also tied a record-high 71 degrees on Saturday.
Wind gusts were also extraordinarily strong, especially in the greater Bay Area. The NWS Bay Area office said it recorded peak winds of at least 54 mph in San Francisco, over 80 mph at Mount Diablo and over 90 mph in the Mayacamas Mountains in the North Bay early Tuesday morning.
It was so windy that it forced the closure of Yosemite National Park.
San Francisco also smashed a heat record Monday, reaching 76 degrees. The previous high for Jan. 18 was just 70 degrees, set 101 years earlier.
Angus Young Interview
Interesting interview about playing in a rock-and roll band - namely, AC/DC.
And other musicians admire him.
Thursday, January 21, 2021
Rio Grande Difficulties - Las Cruces
Interesting article about drought in New Mexico, particularly about Las Cruces:
In the past, the Rio Grande would run through Las Cruces for the irrigation season from February to October. But last year, the river didn’t flow until March, and was dry by September. In 2021, the Elephant Butte Irrigation District (Ebid), in charge of measuring and releasing water to Las Cruces from upstream dams, estimated that water levels will be so low they won’t arrive until June and it will probably be gone again at the end of July.
A finite amount of water flows through the Rio Grande every year, so when there are shortages, every city along the river is affected. Due to climate change, hotter and drier seasons are reducing the snowpack that melts to feed the Rio Grande, and rising temperatures are increasing evaporation from the reservoirs. Because of this, the river has had just seven years with a “full supply” of water in the past 20, and only two in the past decade.
Ballroom Dance Memories
When I was doing ballroom dancing in Arizona in 1982-83, there was a definite hierarchy of dancers. And they are all here! Ron Montez and Liz Curtis were on top, with the other dancers arrayed below. I can glimpse my dance teacher (now known as Margaret Mitchell) and her partner too.
Calm Before The Storm
This is among the warmest Januarys in Sacramento history. And among the driest too. Changes are coming next week, thankfully. We haven't had a significant rain yet this rainy season, and the rainy season is half over. There are scattered fires present in California. In January. At the height of the rainy season.
At Sacramento Executive Airport, yesterday's average temperature was 12 degrees F higher than average. Stockton's Airport had a high temperature of 72 degrees F: an all-time record for the date.
Sacramento never had a January with an average temperature of 51 degrees Fahrenheit or more until 1970, but because of Global Warming, they are coming more and more frequently: 1970, 1976, 1986, 1995, 1998, 2003, 2014, 2016, 2018, 2019, and maybe 2021 when the dust settles.
For January so far, at Sacramento Executive Airport, 0.27 inches have rain have fallen. Since October 1st, 2.35 inches of rain have fallen, about 28% of normal.
If it rains like crazy next week, maybe can improve our statistics into the just mediocre range.
Been Watching Financial Crisis Videos
This one, from 2008, is interesting. Focusing on Hank Paulson makes for good TV. Things almost stopped working entirely. May we never get that close again.
Sunday, January 17, 2021
Wow, James Was Featured On Wolf Blitzer Last Night
James had a bigger reach than I realized.
And this local article too.
James Stanley Chávez Glica-Hernandez (birthname Teódolo Conrado Arroyo Herrera) born on July 17, 1959, died due to complications of COVID-19 on Jan. 10, 2021 in Woodland, where he resided since 2012.
Glica-Hernandez was the owner of Sacramento Vocal Music and the principal music director at the Woodland Opera House. He also was vocal director at Natomas Charter School’s Performing and Fine Arts Academy where his students meant so much to him.
Glica-Hernandez was a nine-time nominated, and four-time Elly Award winner for musical direction. He has also been nominated four times for a Chesley Award. Additionally, he was a composer, arranger and performer.
Saturday, January 16, 2021
Cinderella City Lives On In Software
When I moved to Denver in 1976, I was awestruck by Cinderella City - largest mall west of the Mississippi.
There are some nostalgic videos of the place online, but there's also this - a rundown of the mall's history, and a virtual reconstruction of it. The mall lives on!
Wednesday, January 13, 2021
There Was A Second Act To The Murder Mystery!
I just stumbled across these two amazing articles by John Dougherty, from 2004, in the Phoenix New Times. My connection here is that, from my days in Tucson, I was on the jury that convicted Alan Robert Terry of second-degree murder. There was a second act of which I was wholly unaware until today:
In December 1981, Connie Thompson was known as Connie Stacy Lynn Lutz. A week before Christmas, the then-24-year-old Lutz was in Pinetop with her biker gang boyfriend, Jimmy Lewis.
They were faced with a crucial decision.
One of their biker buddies had shot to death a 29-year-old paramedic during a traffic altercation in Tucson shortly after midnight on December 17. Later that same day, Alan Robert Terry was at their door seeking help.
Lutz and Lewis welcomed Big Al Terry into their home, provided him a car and later fled with him to California to avoid arrest. Along the way, everybody obtained fake California driver's licenses and identification cards.
Rather than assist police in arresting a fugitive who had fired three bullets into an unarmed man, Lutz went underground with a man wanted for first-degree murder.
Connie and Mark Thompson aren't letting ethics, honesty and honorable public service get in the way of boosting the fortunes of the elder care referral business they run from their Tempe office.
Instead, they are simply abusing their position of public trust to benefit their private business -- even if it means gutting protections for the old, the frail and the dying.
Mark Thompson, 46, was elected to the Arizona House of Representatives from District 17 in 2002. He ran as a "clean elections" candidate and received $31,000 in public funds, of which he paid his wife $2,888 for "political consulting."
After his election, Representative Thompson was awarded a position by House Republican leadership on the Health Committee, a perfect perch to boost the fortunes of his business.
His election came a year after Connie Thompson, 47, was appointed by then-governor Jane Hull to an obscure regulatory board that oversees nursing homes and assisted living facilities. The post gave Connie Thompson an inside track into structuring regulations that directly affect the family business.
From these two positions of public trust -- the legislator and the regulator -- the couple are in position to craft laws and regulations to benefit their business while, not coincidentally, stripping protections for the elderly out of state law.
Once a Bad Ass Biker, always a Bad Ass Biker!
Rehabilitating the Eaglet
After the chick fell, Kaersvang sprang into action, making her way to the base of the tree. When he raised his head and she realized he had survived his terrible fall, she knew he needed help. One of his wings hung limply by his side: he was clearly injured. She immediately phoned the California Raptor Center, then Yolo County Animal Services. Officer Breckenridge retrieved the eaglet and delivered him to the UC Davis Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital, which partners with the CRC in treating birds of prey.
Liz Cheney Sees an Opening
Republican civil war. I like it!
The resolution says "Congresswoman Cheney's condemnation of President Trump and her support for President Trump's impeachment have been used multiple times by Democrats as justification for a truncated impeachment process that denies the president due process" and that her "personal position on issues does not reflect that of a majority of the Republican Conference and has brought the Conference into disrepute and discord."
The Warmonger Caucus is trying to reassert itself. That’s why Tom Cotton didn’t go for the riot (a smarter guy than Josh Hawley) and that’s why Liz Cheney is making noise now.
The Republican three-legged stool - anticommie warriors, economic types, and antiabortion fanatics - completely fell apart when Orange Twitler came along. And it’s going to be a long road back.
A Russian was once asked what it was like when the Bolsheviks took power. He described it as taking an aquarium, running it through the blender, and making fish stew. And what would the end of communism be like? The opposite process, whatever that meant.
Same with the Republicans with their stumpy stool. Good luck with that.
Biden Appeals to Our Better Natures
Rachels's missive:
Who We Are
On January 6th Joe Biden addressed the nation in his first speech as our official President-Elect, as Trump fanatics sacked the Capitol. Biden appealed to our better natures, proclaiming: “Let me be very clear: The scenes of chaos at the Capitol do not reflect the true America. This is not who we are.”
I both felt comforted and inspired by his speech -- yet also understand those who are saying that yes, this is who we are, and we need to confront it.
One of the refrains that the rioters spoke on January 6th was “This is 1776!” This invocation of revolution also made me think of President Trump invoking an Executive Order for a 1776 Commission to promote “patriotic education” in September 2020.
It came about in response to the 1619 Project, “an ongoing initiative from the New York Times Magazine that began in 2019, the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery [which] aims to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative.” Trump declared that the Project was the best example of how “[t]he left has warped, distorted and defiled the American story with deceptions, falsehoods and lies.” In announcing his commission, he proclaimed that “America’s founding set in motion the unstoppable chain of events that abolished slavery, secured civil rights, defeated communism and fascism and built the most fair, equal and prosperous nation in human history.”
After bemoaning cancel culture, Trump announced that “[t]he only path to national unity is through our shared identity as Americans.” He "authorized White House budget director Russ Vought to cancel federal workforce trainings that use 'critical race theory,' and in fact had a tip line set up."
I find it extremely ironic that Trump used depictions, falsehoods and lies to fire up a mob to defile the American Capitol while they defined themselves as revolutionaries and patriots while using any means necessary to support their leader’s fascist aims.
I also find a difference between Biden saying “This is not who we
are” and Trump dictating a “patriotic education.” I have found Biden consistently acknowledging and addressing the issues in the nation. He was not saying that this does not exist, but this is not the whole of us, and calling on us for better. As he said:
"The words of a President matter, no matter how good or bad that president is. At their best, the words of a president can inspire.
At their worst, they can incite."
Biden spoke to inspire, and to both call out and call an end to Trump’s inciting violence. His words may be aspirational, but I do not think they deny reality -- they call for us to see the ugliness but not let ourselves be defined by it. Both words that inspire and incite can be performative -- through their being spoken, they call a reality into being. In saying “This is not who we are,” Biden makes us look at the reality and who we want to be, and calls on us to act to bring that into the world.
Today President Trump will be impeached for a second time. There are some that say that it should be put aside for national unity. I believe that the crimes that have been committed need to be addressed for us to be able to go forward. Trump has been threatening that it will be divisive and dangerous to go forward with impeachment because it will cause great anger. Keeping him in power out of fear of what people will do is surrendering to a terrorist.
This is not who we are.
Efficient Benghazi
Quote at Talking Points Memo:
TPM Reader SC: “This is a Republican Benghazi, except that not only does the Republican Party get to be the cavalry that didn’t show up they get to be the terrorists, too. Very efficient.”
Archiving Parler
This is awesome!:
But the quick thinking of a self-described hacker by the name of donk_enby and a host of amateur data hoarders preserved more than 56.7 terabytes of data from Parler that donk_enby and open source investigators believe could be useful in piecing together what happened last Wednesday and in the weeks and months leading up to it. donk_enby was able to scrape and capture and archive nearly the entire content of the website after it became clear that hundreds of Trump supporters had uploaded potentially incriminating photos and videos of themselves to the platform, many filming from inside the Capitol itself.
When news of donk_enby's archival efforts broke, several viral tweets, Reddit posts, and Facebook posts claimed that she had captured private information, scans of drivers licenses and IDs, and other highly sensitive information. She said those posts are “not at all” accurate.
“Everything we grabbed was publicly available on the web, we just made a permanent public snapshot of it,” donk_enby told me.
Nevertheless, with the FBI, state and local law enforcement, and open-source investigators looking for media from Wednesday's attack, the archive could be highly useful to a whole host of people.
“I hope that it can be used to hold people accountable and to prevent more death,” she said. “I think people should be allowed to have their own opinion as long as they can act civilized, on Wednesday we saw what can happen if they don’t.”
RIP, James Chavez Glica Hernandez
Oh, this is sad news. Covid-19 is the worst. James was musical director for most shows over more than two decades at Woodland Opera House. His ready smile, energy, and sense of fun will be sorely missed. It's truly the end of an era at the Woodland Opera House.
Erik Daniells, Amy Shuman, and Jeni Price are in this video.
This tribute video says it all:
As it turns out, I hadn't had much contact with James over the last decade. We quarreled on Facebook, of all things, about former Congressman Alan Grayson of Florida. I thought Grayson's pugnaciousness was a good model for national Democrats. James disagreed. As things eventually proved, Grayson was corrupt. I'm willing to concede the point to James. In any event, faced with coarsening of the Republicans, Democrats had to get more pugnacious. We both won.
Tuesday, January 12, 2021
In An Elite Class
Looks like the Covid-19 pandemic is resolving into the UK/USA/Sweden vs. Everyone Else.
It's Not Over
It's still not clear whether Trump's coup has failed. It's ongoing. Congressional executions didn't happen Wednesday, January 6th, but they still might. This putsch was well-planned. Time to get firing squads ready.
Thursday, January 07, 2021
Confused Guy
As Orwell noted, totalitarian movements will spin the truth so fast it makes your neck crack. Orwell himself was caught in one of those moments. He was suddenly branded an “enemy of the people” and forced to sleep in Barcelona cemeteries during the Spanish Civil War when his militia lost a power struggle. It happens all the time in these movements. More confused guys coming:
But some who participated in the violence are a bit miffed at the rumors claiming they're actually antifa. In a tweet this Wednesday, pro-Trump activist Brandon Straka said that he saw no evidence that antifa was present at the "Stop the Steal" rally that turned violent.
"Also- be embarrassed & hide if you need to- but I was there," Straka wrote. "It was not Antifa at the Capitol. It was freedom loving Patriots who were DESPERATE to fight for the final hope of our Republic because literally nobody cares about them. Everyone else can denounce them. I will not."
Ha, Ha, Ha!
The more Republican the county in the general election, the more their turnout dropped in the special election:
Claustrophobia
I like this lede over at Daily Kos:
Inside the White House, Donald Trump has done everything short of threatening to lock Mike Pence in a room with a woman in his efforts to pressure his supposed #2 into conducting some first grade treason.
Small Tornado Warning
California is not known for tornadoes. So when a warning was issued:
Small tornado warning issued in Tehama County, residents urged to seek shelter.My thoughts turned to this:
A Crime Far Worse Than Watergate
Donald Trump is a traitor, and so is anyone who supports him.
Posted by Marc Valdez on Monday, January 4, 2021
Ladybug Appears
Jasper’s love interest, Ladybug, makes a rare appearance as she prepares to go on a trip to Grandma’s.
Wednesday, January 06, 2021
Wednesday, December 30, 2020
RIP, Dawn Wells
Sad to hear:
Dawn Wells, who played the lovable castaway Mary Ann Summers on "Gilligan's Island," died in Los Angeles on Wednesday from Covid-19 complications, her publicist Harlan Boll confirmed to CNN.
She was 82.
Born in Reno, Nevada, Wells represented her home state in the Miss America pageant in 1959.
That opened the door for her to start a career in Hollywood where she appeared in a multitude of television shows, including "77 Sunset Strip," "Maverick," "Bonanza," "The Joey Bishop Show" and "Hawaiian Eye."
She beat out 350 other actresses to nab the role of girl-next-door Mary Ann on "Gilligan's Island," which aired on CBS from 1964 to 1967 and later in syndication.
A New Beaked Whale Species?
Cool Stuff!:
"The Perrin's beaked whale [has] teeth … right at the end of the rostrum, they're right at the end of the jaw," Henderson said. "And so when we started looking at the photos, we realized that the teeth are further back, so they couldn't be Perrin's. And then when we started to look at other characteristics, including different color patterns and its size …. it's like a jigsaw puzzle. Once we started putting all the pieces together, we realized that not only was it not Perrin's, but it really didn't seem to match any of the other characteristics of described beaked whales."
Life Expectancy Plummets
Death statistics for 2020 don’t look so good. Three-year drop in life expectancy, Covid was third leading cause of death, illicit drug-quality issues caused many deaths, and less auto traffic didn’t lead to fewer highway deaths (maybe because the maniacs just drove faster and more carelessly when traffic declined):
This is the deadliest year in U.S. history, with deaths expected to top 3 million for the first time — due mainly to the coronavirus pandemic.
Final mortality data for this year will not be available for months. But preliminary numbers suggest that the United States is on track to see more than 3.2 million deaths this year, or at least 400,000 more than in 2019.
U.S. deaths increase most years, so some annual rise in fatalities is expected. But the 2020 numbers amount to a jump of about 15%, and could go higher once all the deaths from this month are counted.
That would mark the largest single-year percentage leap since 1918, when tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers died in World War I and hundreds of thousands of Americans died in a flu pandemic. Deaths rose 46% that year, compared with 1917.
COVID-19 has killed more than 318,000 Americans and counting. Before it came along, there was reason to be hopeful about U.S. death trends.
The nation’s overall mortality rate fell a bit in 2019, due to reductions in heart disease and cancer deaths. And life expectancy inched up — by several weeks — for the second straight year, according to death certificate data released Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But life expectancy for 2020 could end up dropping as much as three full years, said Robert Anderson of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Evicting The Neighborhood Bats
They are trying to evict responsibly. Nevertheless, the freeway is home to thousands of bats, plus many birds. (I’ve listened to them myself with my ‘Bat Finder’). Local populations will take a major hit:
Why did Caltrans bolt hundreds of upside-down traffic cones to the underside of the W-X freeway in downtown Sacramento? The answer is almost as odd as the sight of rows of orange cones clinging like bats to the belly of a concrete bridge.
In fact, the whole endeavor involves actual bats.
Thousands of bats and birds and even some owls reside in the crannies and crevices of the elevated freeway. Caltrans has decided to evict them so they won’t be in the way of a major upcoming Highway 50 widening project.
Each cone covers one of the structure’s “weep holes,” the holes that allow moisture to drain out of the bridge deck during the rainy season. Those weep holes have been serving another, informal, purpose: Birds and bats use them as entrances to hideaways in the structure where the bats roost and the birds build nests.
Workers screwed a short plastic tube to the narrow end of each cone, then they duct-taped a short plastic sheath to the end of the tube. Bats and birds who are inside the structure can exit the bridge through the center of the cone, the tube and the plastic sheath. But they cannot get back in because the sheaths’ sides press back together, closing up.
“It’s an ingenious way that is inexpensive, easy to make and install,” said Caltrans biologist Shawn Duffy, who is advising on the project.
Evicting the bats and birds means those species will not be around to nest or reproduce in the structure during the upcoming construction period, Duffy said. “We don’t want them having their young while we are working on it. They might abandon their young, which we don’t want them to do.
“You try to approach it with the idea that you are going to prevent any harm to these creatures that are using the structure, with the idea they can come back and take up residency again” as soon as the project work finishes in each bridge section.
Damned Dry
Rainfall totals have improved somewhat this dreadful 2020 rainy-season-so-far in Sacramento, but still, we are far, far behind, at about 32% of normal. It does give me a bit of solace, however, to know that at this point in the rainy season, the following years were even drier: 1878, 1883, 1905, 1910-12, 1917, 1923, 1930, 1939, 1956, 1958-59, 1976, 1980, 1986, 1999, 2013.
Monday, December 28, 2020
Octopuses Observed Punching Fish, Perhaps Out of Spite, Scientists Say
I understand. We all get tired of fish:
In fact, this antisocial fish-punching phenomenon – which scientists term "active displacement" of fish – occurs in the midst of collaborative hunting efforts, in which octopuses and fish team up to chase and trap prey together.
Sunday, December 13, 2020
Chirality in "Breaking Bad"
"Breaking Bad" is so elegant.
In "The Cat's in the Bag," Walt tells his students about chirality: mirror-image molecules. Two chiral molecules can contain the same atoms, but behave utterly differently from one another.
The staircase at DEA Headquarters (in Albuquerque's Simms Building lobby) descends to the left, like most spiral staircases do. The staircase in the Superlab, however, descends to the right. For right-handed people, the Superlab staircase would be uncomfortable to use.
Law enforcement and criminality are chiral worlds.
I'm Choked With Rage About This Vote Steal Shit
I can't believe that a person I thought was a friend, a lawyer, believes all this stuff. Here's a screen cap from November 14th post (which I didn't notice until Dec. 10th). I'm the fellow he describes as "naïve." Fuck him.
Sacramento Far Behind The Mark Again
(Dec. 11):
So, I looked back in weather records, back to 1877, to see where 2020 stands. To my surprise, dreadfully-dry rainy-season starts aren't all that uncommon. The ends of the years 1910, 1911, 1917, 1958, 1959, 1976, 1986, and 2013 had similarly bad starts. Still, it looks like only 1911 had a worse start than 2020 has.
Mother Nature had better start getting serious with the rain here.
(Dec. 13 update, after the rain): Now we're about 37% of normal! Keep going!
Titanic Factoid
I ended up watching some National Geographic TV specials about the world’s most interesting subject, the Sinking of the Titanic. I learned a factoid I hadn’t even thought about before. Even though it took 2 hours and 40 minutes after striking the iceberg for Titanic to break into two halves and vanish below the waves, it took only five or ten minutes for the wreckage to reach the ocean bottom more than two miles deep. A waterlogged steel boat doesn’t float, it sinks, and fast too, with the stern in particular shredding into pieces as it raced through the cold, dark water. For some reason, 108 years later, that speedy death plunge really bothers me.
Noem and Newspeak
South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem:
"The only reason you know who I am today is because the liberals have been busy kicking me in the head for all the decisions I've made for my people in South Dakota. But let me tell you, my people are happy. They're happy because they're free."
From George Orwell’s “1984”:
“Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.”
Albuquerque Monolith
It's here, it's there, it's everywhere!:
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The mystery continues — another monolith has been spotted.
This time, the monolith was found in Albuquerque. Mayor Tim Keller tweeted a photo of the monolith Monday morning, which appears to be near Pan American Freeway and Montano.
Sorry For Not Posting Of Late
I've been rewatching "Breaking Bad" and did not want to disturb concentration. Found some fun new things for my February Salvador Dali talk for SWPACA (which unfortunately will be remotely).
Visited the zoo a couple of times.
Had a Covid scare, but apparently it was a false alarm.
Been working quite a bit with Dan.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)