Snowboarding Crow

Crows and jays are way smart!

Breaking Bad - Cinematography

"Breaking Bad" placed heavy emphasis on point-of-view (POV) shots and stunning time-lapse panoramas, and it's fun to watch them together.

Interactive Property Taxes Map

Full of interesting surprises here.

Nearly Got Side-Swiped On The Freeway Last Night

I was slowly passing a car on the left, and was momentarily in the driver's blind spot, just when the driver decided to make a lane change. We almost collided.

Scary!

Northern New Mexican Accent

Students from Las Vegas give examples of the accent. The funniest part is the accented disembodied voice who takes the fast food order.

JP Brought The Final Breaking Bad DVD

Binge-watched it in two sittings. Need to look at the Commentaries too. Lots of information there.

If Bolivia Has A Satellite In Orbit, Why Don't You?

The Chinese had their recent lunar triumph, and now they help Bolivia into space:

A Chinese Long March 3B rocket on Dec. 21 inaugurated the Bolivian space program by successfully placing Bolivia’s Tupac Katari (TKSat)-1 telecommunications satellite into geostationary transfer orbit, Chinese and Bolivian officials said.

Bolivian President Evo Morales traveled to China to witness the launch, from China’s Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China’s Sichuan Province, indicating the project’s political importance in Bolivia.

...The satellite will operate at 87.5 degrees west longitude to provide Internet and telecommunications connectivity to the estimated 3.3 million Bolivians in rural areas that are currently not connected to the telecommunications grid, according to the Bolivian Space Agency (ABE), which was created to manage the TKSat-1 project.

ABE said the entire program cost $295.4 million, of which $251.1 million was financed with a loan from the China Development Bank. ABE said the loan is payable over 15 years, with no principal payments due until the fourth year after an initial payment of 0.75 percent of the loan.

The annual interest payment is the London Interbank Offered Rate plus 2.7 percent.

The remaining $44.3 million in project funding came from Bolivia’s general treasury, ABE said.

ABE said TKSat-1 services will generate sufficient revenue to fully cover the project’s cost, which includes the satellite’s construction and launch, insurance and a satellite ground station in Bolivia that Morales recently inaugurated.

Hari Kari With Kashkari

The very essence of our dilemmas. The manager of TARP (which I reluctantly supported, but which many people, especially the Tea-Partiers, did not). But, hey, if the GOP wants him for Governor, who am I to complain?:

“Oh, give me a break,” said Kashkari, a former Goldman Sachs executive and U.S. Treasury Department official. “You’re comparing this to Meg? Give me a break.”

Kashkari, 40, is expected to join a small field of Republicans bidding to unseat Brown next year. ... Kashkari, who ran the $700 billion bank bailout known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program during former President George W. Bush's administration, has not yet said if he will run for governor. But he has been laying the foundation for such an effort for nearly a year. He left his job at Newport Beach-based Pacific Investment Management Co. in January, assembled a team of advisers and started visiting food banks, schools and businesses throughout the state.

Kashkari said these experiences, which he has promoted on Twitter and, most recently, a series of newspaper interviews, have both inspired him and aided his understanding of poverty and education. His emphasis on poverty isn’t typical for a Republican candidate, but he said he wants to make it the focus of his campaign.

“I genuinely want to learn what people are facing,” Kashkari said. “I would want to be the candidate fighting for the poor.”

I Hate It When Arts Projects Suffer Setbacks

(From earlier this month.) I don't want Sacramento Ballet to be thrown under the bus:

The California Musical Theatre notified city officials it would not take part in the Studio for the Performing Arts, leaving 25 percent of the project’s ongoing budget unaccounted for. The theater group did not provide an explanation for its sudden departure from the project.

The City Council has pledged $5 million to help renovate the former Fremont School for Adults on N Street into a space for the California Musical Theatre, the Sacramento Ballet and the Sacramento Region Performing Arts Alliance, a combination of the Sacramento Opera and Sacramento Philharmonic. The city’s contribution would come from the $2.5 million it generates for maintaining the Cal-EPA building next to City Hall and another $2.5 million in future loan repayments by the Crocker Art Museum.

...Without the California Musical Theatre’s role in the project, city officials are scrambling to find $67,000 in annual operating income to keep the 49,000-square-foot facility going.

...Still, the city and the arts groups are up against a tight timeline to find a replacement. The Sacramento Ballet’s lease at its current space on K Street expires in August. “We need to be open next fall,” Rich said.

...However, Ron Cunningham, the co-artistic director of the Sacramento Ballet, said he was confident his group could make up the difference. He said the new space will provide the ballet with at least two more studios, allowing the group to expand its class facilities and generate thousands of dollars more each year in tuition.

The Drought That Has Seized Central California Scares Me Like No Other

And today is no different - a record high:

Unseasonably warm weather has made this a Christmas for the record books, pushing the temperature at Sacramento Executive Airport to an unprecedented 64 degrees, according to the National Weather Service.

That broke the previous Christmas day high-mercury mark of 63 degrees, set in 1965, as a trend of clear and dry weather continued across the state.

The record high for downtown Sacramento on Christmas Day is 64 degrees, reached three times: 1892, 1955 and 1967.

While the weather downtown fell just short of that record on Wednesday, topping out at 63 degrees, that temperature still exceeds the historical average for the day, which is 51.8 degrees based on records dating back to 1877.

Tiny Beads

I use facial products with zillions of these tiny beads. Target has useful, environmentally-friendly substitutes at a tenth the cost, but like many consumers, I tend to get the sexier products that smell better:

Tiny plastic beads used in hundreds of toiletries like facial scrubs and toothpastes are slipping through water treatment plants and turning up by the tens of millions in the Great Lakes. There, fish and other aquatic life eat them along with the pollutants they carry — which scientists fear could be working their way back up the food chain to humans.

Scientists have worried about plastic debris in the oceans for decades, but focused on enormous accumulations of floating junk. More recently, the question of smaller bits has gained attention, because plastics degrade so slowly and become coated with poisons in the water like the cancer-causing chemicals known as PCBs.

“Unfortunately, they look like fish food,” said Marcus Eriksen, executive director of the 5 Gyres organization, speaking of the beads found in the oceans and, now, the lakes. His group works to eliminate plastic pollution.

Legs & Co. 1977 Christmas Special

"And They Never Did Find The Other Shoe"

If it was December 23rd, it was time to take E. to Arden Fair Mall. Adding to the urgency was a huge waft of skunk: somewhere nearby.

I was so addled from insomnia that the experience was strangely pleasant. Like being on some sort of drug. I had an unusual amount of patience this year, which was useful. Endless meandering through the aisles, as usual.

As she gets older, and poorer, E. gets pickier and pickier about what she likes. She wanted to be at Sunrise Mall, but who has time to drive over there? I didn't. Besides, was Arden Fair so bad? Yet, an entire mall full of ensembles and there didn't seem to be any suitable clothes in the entire place. Find a more appealing selection over at Goodwill, apparently. Finally, she settled on a dress on sale, but then we had to fight with her long-standing desire to never, ever try on clothes in the stores. She insists on trying clothes on at home, and returning them if they are unsuitable, but then the odds of making a correct initial choice are low, of course. Plus, no returns for these dresses. Store policy. Still, we made a purchase.

Then it was time to find appropriate shoes. At Macy's, we found one suitable shoe, but its match was nowhere to be found in the entire store, and so a purchase was not made.

Ate at the Food Court.

All said, I really like malls. Too bad people buy so much on the Internet these days.

Getting Energized To Stage Manage 'Cabaret' At DMTC

Queen - Somebody To Love

This song made a big impression on me in 1976, during the days I lived in Englewood, Denver's southern suburb. I remember it running through my head on an endless loop, during a long, interminable walk from the end of the bus line, in vicinity of Southglenn shopping center, along Arapahoe Road, to a birthday party held at a restaurant near Interstate 25, near today's Arapahoe Marketplace shopping center. I wonder if the buses go all the way out there these days?

Approaching Penury, But At Least The Car Is Running

Took my car in for yet more repair. In the last two months, I've slammed $3,000 onto the credit card trying to improve auto function. I think it is running better and smoother, with a new radiator, motor mounts, and coil. And not car repair alone: $540 to purchase a used, roto-rooter-type mechanical snake for the chronic, ever-disgorging sewer issue. I can't keep this pace up. I could peg the credit card if I'm not careful.

And I haven't even started Christmas shopping yet....

Politics Is Not Charity

Politics is a civic responsibility we all have, as citizens. Donations to politics, and the "spreading of ideas" should never, ever be tax deductible. To do so establishes a formal privilege to those who politic, and sets them aside in a special, tax-free class. The amorphousness of the 501(c)4 regulations is so unfortunate, because it encourages political hacks and their 'think tanks' to hide among the birdwatchers, community theaters, disease-preventers, and other fine folks whom we do set aside for special treatment with 501(c)3 regulations.

The best to those who want better policing here. The hell with tax deductibility for any and all think tanks. The waters are real toxic.  This Ben Boychuk is a real tool:

Without a doubt, Americans are the most generous people on earth. Even in a sluggish economy, people are willing to dig deep for a good cause – or just about any cause, come to think of it. Americans’ charitable giving underscores a truth as old as the republic: Government cannot, and should not, do everything. There are a whole host of social functions in this relatively free, mostly open, more or less self-governing society simply better left to private associations – or put more simply, you and me.

Government encourages people to be charitable by letting them deduct their contributions from their taxes. Here’s where things get unpleasantly political, because some nonprofit groups engage not so much in feeding the poor or curing disease, but spreading ideas. And ideas are nothing if not controversial.

...Some self-styled liberals would do away with such nonprofits altogether. Robert Reich, Bill Clinton’s former secretary of labor, groused recently how America’s wealthiest 20 percent benefited from $33 billion of nearly $40 billion in charitable deductions last year. Those rich folks aren’t just giving to think tanks. They’re also underwriting colleges and universities, hospitals, and the arts.

...Oh, but it gets worse. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts Democrat who has set progressive populists’ hearts aflutter, would very much like to intimidate businesses into cutting back their contributions to think tanks whose work she dislikes. Warren earlier this month sent a letter to six of the largest banks in the country, suggesting they “disclose” their contributions voluntarily – or else.

...In the face of charitable persuasion, coercion seems to be all they have left.

Giorgio Moroder Interview And "I Feel Love"

Public radio had a CBC interview with Giorgio Moroder on Thursday night. This is a different interview, a BBC interview, but he discusses the same topic, how he came about making the music of the future. He felt the 'Star Wars' Cantina example was inadequate, so he tried something different, specifically "I Feel Love", which was, in many ways, the point of detonation of Electronica.




The amazing Donna Summer:




And like the best of Electronica, the song is infinitely elastic and adaptable:

Flamenco Arts Studio Burns Down

Very disturbing news from Albuquerque. Plus, it's so close to several Breaking Bad locations:

"Shortly after firefighters pulled out ... the roof did collapse on the flamenco business," said Albuquerque Fire Department spokeswoman Melissa Romero.

Firefighters were able to get a handle on the blaze and prevented it from spreading to nearby businesses.

Excerpts From Fun Review Of Sarah Palin's Book

Yelling back at a book rather than a TV set:

Who holds Christmas in contempt? Who? Where are these people? I'm a secular humanist—there's an award from the Freedom from Religion Foundation on my mantel just inches from my Christmas tree—and here I am, at home on a Saturday morning, baking Christmas cookies for my family. Not holiday cookies. Christmas cookies. I'll be taking some across the street to share with my Jewish neighbors later today. They love Christmas. And no one is trying to "save" Christmas from its heritage.

...I was never a "happy holidays" guy. Christmas was a big deal in my home growing up, and it's a big deal in the home I share with Terry. December is Christmas. I've always wished people "merry Christmas" without really giving it a thought. Ho-ho-ho.

But that's over now.

Sarah Palin and Bill O'Reilly and Fox News and the Family Research Council and the woman who allegedly punched another woman outside Walmart earlier this week for saying "happy holidays" instead of "merry Christmas" managed to break me of the "merry Christmas" habit. I suspect I'm not alone. This constant bitching from the right about "happy holidays"—a perfectly lovely expression that embraces Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, Pancha Ganapati, New Year's Eve, New Year's Day, Hanukkah, the Epiphany, Saint Nicholas's Day, Hogmanay, Twelfth Night, and Kwanzaa—has made one thing clear. Not that there is now, or ever was, a war on Christmas. But that saying "merry Christmas" is an asshole move. Just as conservatives made patriotism toxic during the Vietnam War by conflating it with blind obedience to authority ("My country, right or wrong!"), modern conservatives have made "merry Christmas" toxic by associating it with Christian fundamentalism, religious intolerance, and the politics of imagined persecution.

Unfortunately, the war on Christmas is a game Palin and O'Reilly and Fox News and the Family Research Council can't lose. The more they complain about people saying "happy holidays" instead of "merry Christmas," the fewer people will say "merry Christmas." This will be held up as proof that the war on Christmas is real. But people like me aren't replacing "merry Christmas" with "happy holidays" to be "politically correct," as Palin insists in the introduction to her stupid book, we're doing it because we don't want people to think we're assholes.