bahl tuddies

Santorum

2012-01-04T10:28:00.001-06:00

Because the Googlebomb needs to keep going:

http://spreadingsantorum.com/

This should always be the first link that anyone finds when Googling "Santorum"

Aw yeah, bacon snow

2011-07-14T16:45:00.001-05:00

Test

test

2011-02-05T01:21:00.001-06:00

Test

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.7

2009-06-28T14:23:00.006-05:00

Saw the Gourds at Gruene Hall on Friday night. As always, a great show. It's really the perfect venue to see them in. They are self described as music for the unwashed and well read. The venue is the oldest operating dance hall in Texas. No a/c, just fans. Creaky wooden floors. Screen windows. Cheap beer... and a Texas heatwave. They did more covers than normal, including the bluegrass version of Michael Jackson's Don't Stop. What? Too soon? It was one of the more musically brilliant things I've heard recently. They have a new set of artwork for the band. As much of a nerd as I am, I just didn't see myself wearing the t-shirt, which is kinda' Conan the Barbarian meets Attack of the Killer Tomatoes and plays Dungeons & Dragons. Of course I got the bumper sticker, and "Luddite Juice" coozy. Here's the killer Gourd, you can imagine the rest:

On Saturday we worked our way out to the Real Ale Brewing Company 13th Birthday Party. On our way out we hit the new Wimberly Brewing Company for a taster. It's owned by a former SF 49er, Bruce Collie. Unfortunately, I've got to say I'm not impressed.

That's the beers in order. The one that they don't make, is the Real Ale Fireman's #4. Second from the left. You'll notice that it's the only clear one. I don't mind the hefeweizen being cloudy, but most of the rest should be clear. So, here's the blow by blow:

The hefeweizen: Actually, it's not too bad. I'm not a huge wheat beer fan, but it's a decent hot weather beer. Not the SN Kellerweis by any means, but not bad.

Fireman's #4: This is a good light drinking beer by Real Ale Brewing Company. Balanced, not over hopped. Not made by WBC.

The "transitional": He should be embarassed to serve this. Kill it. Kill it with fire. Now! This doesn't even qualify as a bad homebrew. Tons of lactobacter, maybe some acetobacter also. Yuck. Use it as feed for a compost heap. I couldn't take more than a few sips.

The Sunset Blonde: Meh. It's a little sweet. Drinkable I suppose, but again he's got issues with the clarity of his beers.

The IPA: Again with the cloudiness (see below). Beyond that it's seriously off balance with the hops. It seems like he used hops that would be good for aroma and floral notes as bittering hops. It needs a good dryhopping and some lower note bittering hops. I love super hoppy beers, but this is way off. The malts seem o.k., but it's ruined by the way he chose to hop it.

The Porter: This is actually their best beer. It's got some good chocolate flavor. I have to wonder given the rest of the beers whether he got this one right by accident.

I really hope he gets his act together, as I love breweries and want to see them succeed. I think he's a homebrewer with a lot of money. I don't think he actually knows how to brew all that well, or at least he hasn't figured out how to upscale a homebrew setup to a business operation. He needs to hire a good brewer and let them have at it. It's not really here nor there, but he apparently has 13 kids. The oldest is 16. Do the math. That poor woman. He needs to spend more time brewing and less time fucking.

Then it was on to Real Ale Brewing Company. The word of the day was HOT! It was a fun event, but they need to rent a few more tents for an event like this. The owners and brewers were all friendly. We took a brewery tour with their head brewer (Eric "the Tyrant"). There were some over zelaous homebrewers in the crowd, and it was the end of the day, so he got a little sidetracked, but it was fun. There is no such thing as too much stainless steel.

The Rio Blanco Pale Ale was good as always. I got to taste a couple of brews I haven't seen in bottles. I hope their Lost Gold IPA ends up in bottles, because it is the awesome. For now, it's only on draught. Best beer of the day. Up there with the best. They had a dark german wheat-rye that was decent (Dunkleroggen) which was pretty good. Also only on draught. Maybe I needed a lemon wedge with it. The 13th Anniversary Ale is a Belgian, and I guess it's good for a Belgain, but they aren't my thing. I missed out on two of their cask ales, which sucked. I was looking forward to that. All in all, it was a good party, and I'm glad they are doing well.

2009-06-26T18:08:00.003-05:00

So we've been having more than a bit of a heat wave. That means summer beer. I'm not generally a wheat beer fan, but the Sierra Nevada Kellerweis may be the best hot weather beer going. Not overhopped. A little flat in the finish, but its a wheat. That's how they are supposed to be.

The Gordon Biersch Blonde Bock is pretty good. A bit more malty than I like without much floral hops. Still a nice hot weather and easily drinkable beer.

I generally like the Mendocino Brewery beers, and I've liked the White Hawk in the past, but either this batch wasn't treated right or there is some variability. I recalled it having more floral hops, but all I got was the bittering hops on tasting these.

From failblog.org:

2009-06-01T15:39:00.006-05:00

Update: Well, apparently, MTV didn't like people posting their video... That didn't take long. As a replacement I give you "Guido Beach", just in-case anyone wonders why I might have a problem with New Jersey (family members not withstanding). I claim no heritage from that shit-hole. The last minute is pure comedy gold.

Now fixed with the link from MTV...

Sacha Baron Cohen as Bruno at the MTV awards. Eminem is so pissed off he leaves the arena. Brilliant. This should happen to all homophobes...

Update #2: Maybe it was staged, but it's still funny...

MTV Shows

2009-05-26T01:52:00.004-05:00

I just found out yesterday was Towel Day, in honor of Douglas Adams. Read the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. Every year on May 25th. Carry your towel with you. Why?

A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitch hiker can have. Partly it has great practical value - you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you - daft as a bush, but very, very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

- Douglas Adams: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Happy Towel Day!

2009-05-21T22:37:00.001-05:00

wow...

2009-05-17T12:41:00.001-05:00

Because it never gets old:

2009-04-13T14:07:00.001-05:00

It'll get you drunk! (in that 70's style...)

2009-03-19T18:33:00.000-05:00

File this under "had his mind on other things"...

2009-02-26T15:40:00.002-06:00

Maybe I haven't ruined my ears with the years of rock'n'roll....

Created by Train Horn

2009-02-26T15:29:00.004-06:00

And she's a nerd too.... Neko Case's new album comes out on March 3. Get yourself a listen here. The final track is 30 minutes of frog chirping. Redhead. Cusses like a sailor. Nerd. She's my celebrity crush.

2009-02-25T19:17:00.004-06:00

More poky things....

Local wildlife....(Gray Fox)

Yes, there are live armadillos sometimes....

If you are ever driving through West, TX you need to stop here. The Czech Stop. Its about 30 min north of Waco on IH35. It's a little Czech community, of which there are many in Texas. The Spoetzl Brewery in Shiner is another Czech institution. (Shiner Bock for those familiar with Texas). The Czech and Germans were some of the first immigrants to the area. There are often two types of breakfast road food in Texas: either tacos, or kolaches. In West they do kolaches and all of the assorted pastry dishes. They do more sweet kolaches than many places, but they do plenty of sausage and cheese in a baked dough. They also sell a lot of summer sausage. I forget when I found this place. I think it was when I lived in Bonham, and was coming back from a bike race in Waco. Go. On a busy travel weekend there will be a line around the building.

2009-02-24T23:37:00.008-06:00

Don't give me any shit. I know it's empty. It is that good. The Hacienda Sotol mescal is the best cactus squeezin's going. It's better than any premium tequila and much cheaper. Seriously, if you can find it, try it. It WAS their añejo, but the blanco and reposado are both good in their own right, too. Sotol generally has a bit of a bad name, as do most mescals. It is made very similarly to tequila, but from a different cactus. Remember, tequila is a mescal also. It's an appelation (mostly from the state of Jalisco) and requirement that it be from a specific cactus (Blue agave). Sotol is just a different agave from a different region (Chihuahua). Definitely on point.

The Basil Hayden's is a nice drinkable bourbon, and is currently my favorite. It's strong without being overbearing. A somewhat scotch like bourbon.

Zaya is my favorite premium rum. It's from Guatemala. It's a little sweet, but not too much so. Very smooth. It's for drinking, not for mixing. It's in the same league as the Barbancourt 15 or the Fleur de Caña 12.

Believe it or not, Texas makes some good vodkas. I'm not really a vodka drinker, but I like Tito's. It has beaten much more expensive vodkas in taste tests. I think it's grain based and not potato based, which is somewhat of a heresy, but it's vodka. It's not supposed to taste like anything except clean alcohol goodness.
There is also the Dripping Springs vodka, which is a little more rough around the edges. Sometimes, that's a good thing.

2009-02-15T12:57:00.003-06:00

Apparently, the Russians invented break-dancing sometime around 1918... That, or Run DMC figured out time travel...

mash-ups are so much fun...

2008-12-26T21:20:00.005-06:00

We had a small dinner for the baby jebus day. I don't go much for the holiday, but I do love the food. If you are tired of dry cornbread I have two tips: 1) Cook it in a cast iron, and 2) use this recipie: Texas Home Cooking, Jalapeño Cornbread (Jamison and Jamison, 1993, p. 318). It needs no extra oil or butter. It's moist. It's cheesy. It's full of sweet corn. It's yummy. It's the best stuff ever.

I did up a duck for dinner. It came out fucking awesome. I just put some lime, and sage in the body cavity, and surrounded the quacker with red and fingerling potatoes, carrots, shallots, and chicken stock. I did it in the cast iron so that I could use the drippings for gravy, which may be the most wonderful gravy ever. Before:

During:

After 3 hours:

I don't have any pics of the gravy, or Naomi's avacado pie, but they were amazing. It's a good thing I don't eat like this all the time....

As if a picture of gravy would be any good....

2008-12-20T14:25:00.003-06:00

I was out in the field last week, and most of the fish we caught were about this size. This was a darter from the San Gabriel River. I forget exactly what species.

Then we got this one. This was a 1m flathead catfish that we got in a shallow little eddy. It doesn't seem like a river this size should have very many of these. The pics below are of it's mouth, which was huge, and of the little sunfish which was nearly eaten. I would have liked to get a sample from him, but I couldn't bring myself to take this fish for the less than 5 grams of sample that I needed. I should have clipped the adipose fin, but didn't think of it in time...

At the final site for this week's sampling, we found this. What would 14 boxes of pseudoephedrine, with no more than two boxes of any given brand be used for? Hmmm, I wonder. Meth anyone? I will not miss Tehuacana Creek. I feel violated every time I go there.

There's something in the water in Waco (well lithium, but I'm not so sure there isn't something else). I can see a West and South or East and North, or another combination of 90° off direction highways. But really, North and South on the same stretch of road, when you are travelling either due North or South?

2008-12-17T18:50:00.003-06:00

Back in the dark ages, when I rode a BMX bike, this shit wasn't even dreamed of. Check out about 3:15 in where he pulls off a front flip-tail whip. Insane.

2008-12-04T23:07:00.010-06:00

We are in the middle of a drought here in central Texas. A bad one. They keep putting rain 4-5 days out in the forecast. Maybe 5 drops fall out of the sky. Last summer not withstanding (where it rained almost every day in June and July) we are approaching the drought of the '50s.
That red in the middle of the state. That's us. We've gotten about 6" all year. Normal is about 35". And people insist on watering their lawns...

One of the good things about a Texas drought in the fall and winter is the great weather. I've recently been able to find the time to go mountain biking for first regular time in a couple of years. It turns out that there are a few nice trails here in San Marcos. We've got our own version of the Austin Greenbelt. The last couple of weeks have been amazing.

One of the nicer spots on the Upper Purgatory Creek greenbelt

It varies from wide open

To fun through the trees

Back to the open...

In and out, tight and twisty...

Then there are the rocky sections. Yes there's a trail there. There was a time when I'd work on riding that. Not so much anymore.

Oh, and it's Texas, so there are the requisite poky things. It's not a teddy bear cholla, but it wouldn't feel good...

Fall in Texas...

I helped get Kris a bike earlier this year and we actually got her out on a trail that didn't bite her. This is on an un-named trail in town.

A view from the ridge over the Hill Country. There's lots of rocks out there. Not a lot of trail, but a lot of rock.

I may have to start climbing again, Purgatory has a bouldering area. It may turn into the San Marcos Dualathon. Or better yet the San Marcos Tri: mountain bike, climb, float the river.

So far I've found three areas to ride in town. Another couple of weeks and I may shoot for a Sunday trifecta ride....

Hooray Beer!

2008-11-25T22:24:00.007-06:00

Now that the political season is over, it's time for other interests... Here is what I've been drinking lately:

Lagunitas Censored Ale = Dangerously good. It's a great copper ale. Not too sweet. Not over-hopped for the style. Yummy.

Deschutes Brewing Company Black Butte Porter: Nectar of the Gods. This is the best porter EVER. Period. Perfectly balanced. Not too heavy. Recently available in Texas. Now if we can just get AVBC into the state...

Another CA beer recently available in Texas. It's a good example of a Marzen. I'm not sure what makes it different than a Bock, but it sure goes down nice.

It's for a good cause, so I had to pick up a sixer. They are a relatively new brewery out of Fort Worth. A portion of the proceeds goes to protection of endangered and native species. The Texas Blind Salamander is both, and local to where I live. It's o.k., a little sweet and underhopped for my tastes. I want a pale ale to have some bite. Maybe I'm spoiled by my time in NorCal, but Sierra Nevada is a proper pale. It's almost has a belgain flavor with how underhopped it is. Don't be afraid of the hops!

There are a few really good Texas beers which I will get to at some point (Real Brewing Company, Independence Brewing Company, St. Arnolds) and some which I won't since they only serve at the brewery or at bars (wierd Texas laws... Live Oak, North by Northwest, Draught Horse...) and believe it or not, Texas makes awesome vodka (Tito's, Dripping Springs...)

Happy drinking...

2008-11-04T23:42:00.004-06:00

'nuff said.

I believe this is from stevemb. If someone knows who to give credit to, I'll gladly correct.

2008-10-17T20:33:00.003-05:00

I don't know where this one came from, but Obama as Lebowski... Brilliant.

2008-10-09T11:27:00.004-05:00

I've been buried in school so haven't posted anything for a while.
Got this off of DailyKos. I think it summarizes the race pretty well.

2008-06-16T22:56:00.004-05:00

So, I hate the horror movies like The Saw or Hostel. Gratuitous violence is not my thing. However, I do like a good sci-fi thriller or something so campy that it's funny, and as such, I was really hoping the new M. Night. Shyamalan movie, The Happening, would be good. It's not. At all. I'm glad he got away from his twist at the end, but at least Unbreakable was fun. If you have even the slightest bit of scientific knowledge, then you will be nothing but frustrated by it. Is it a plant revolt? Is it the government? Fucking tell a story. Groan. Plants don't cause wind. Plants don't "evolve" on command. arrrrrgh.

2008-05-29T08:18:00.004-05:00

Finally, a biofuel that doesn't use food crops: Sapphire Energy uses algae to make "green crude" which can be refined to gasoline or diesel, and unlike other biofuels the green crude can be shipped in existing pipelines. Read about it here or here. Competition with agricultural land is one of the problems with standard biofuels. That, and even cellulosic ethanol requires growing large stands of switchgrass, which is a highly invasive non-native plant in most areas. I don't know how much dinojuice could be replaced with this process, but it is a start, and should have the potential to be upscaled more than other biofuels.

Since $5/gallon gas isn't that far off, maybe people will start driving less. I think it is going to fundamentally change how we live. Much of the development in the US has been in exburb sprawl. At $5/gal. people will have to live closer to work, and consider other forms of transportation. It screws people who live in rural areas, and those that have to drive, but for the vast majority of people who have made the choice to commute 40-100 miles per day because housing was cheap in the exburbs, it changes that choice, and urban center areas are going to be a lot more desirable, even if there isn't the same amount of space. Europe has been living this way for years. Now is not the time to own in a bedroom community. I think it will fundamntally change San Marcos. Currently we've got just shy of 30K students. The school plans for a full 30K within 5 years. Right now, at least 30% of the undergraduates commute from Austin or San Antonio. That's not going to be economically feasible anymore. Rentals are going to be a hot commodity. Maybe it will get more people in this town out of their SUV's and onto bikes. I think it's already happening... I see more bikes here than I did 3 years ago.

2008-05-23T10:21:00.002-05:00

I know this is old, but fuck it's funny. Shakira and "Danzig" mashup....

Digging out....

2008-05-22T18:37:00.002-05:00

Whew. I am one (re)signature away from the M.S. The graduate college approved my thesis earlier today, but because they didn't like the fact that I put "Dr." in front of my committee member's names on the signature pages I have to get it resigned. I've got all of the signatures except one committee member. He'll be back on Tuesday. Maybe now I can get back to things like working on the house and riding my bike. I'm already starting work on my PhD project, and I have a NSF fellowship going in. This means I don't have to teach labs (which I do actually enjoy, but is time consuming) I do have about 15hrs per week commitment for the fellowship, but it's for more money and less hours than teaching at the university. Actually, I will be teaching, but it will be working with high school teachers and students, and I won't be grading or dealing with discipline. The teacher I'm paired with is already almost done with her MS in Biochemistry, so it will be mostly working with her to work on better ways to get students excited about science.

Anyways what this means is that I actually have a weekend off. I'll be spending the summer doing fieldwork, reading, and developing my PhD project with my advisor, at least on an educational level. The rest of the time I hope to spend riding my bike and climbing. Hopefully, I can also make it to my cousin's wedding and my 20yr high school reunion. Maybe even a vacation, although I do have to deal with a seminar class associated with the NSF grant over the summer. Maybe I'll even make a non-political post or two.

2008-04-17T23:43:00.002-05:00

So I'm trying not to get too distracted by the political BS right not. I'm in the midst of writing my thesis, and I have to give a 45min talk tomorrow... But FUCK ABC!!!!!!!! It took them an hour to get to any question of any substance. Stephaclintonopolis was a former high level Clinton (Bill) staffer, and he was allowed to be a moderator?! Fuck them. He took notes from an interview with Hannity. Fuck them. Obama isn't connected to the Weather Underground. It's a total republican smear. Hannity is a white supremacist jackass who Fox gives a show. He brought the flag pin "issue" up again. What the fuck?!!! First off, a flag pin really is the least you can do. Secondly, why is Obama's patriotism being questioned when Hillary wasn't wearing one either. It's a bullshit manufactured issue. You hypocritical pieces of shit don't deserve to be called journalists! I hope you rot. Both ABC and Fox. Fuck you, fuck you, and fuck you.

2008-04-03T00:24:00.003-05:00

Because I got the award for best graduate student presentation at the departmental colloquium:

That is all...

2008-03-15T11:46:00.004-05:00

Speaking of campaign/media shenanigans...

Obama has been getting all sorts of bad press about his association with a nutjob preacher, who is black, so therefore speaks for all of the scary black people (according to MSM).

BUT:
Huckabee was a candidate for president for 14 months and is a former Southern Baptist preacher, yet wouldn't release his sermons. He doesn't believe in evolution. He supports the anti-gay marriage amendment. He supports the overturn of Roe v. Wade. He thinks the constitution should be changed to make it in-line with the Bible. He doesn't believe in the separation of church and state.

McCain has support from John Hagee and considers Rod Parsley his spiritual advisor. Let's look at Hagee first: Hagee thinks the Catholic church is a "whore" and false religion. He believes in the end days prophecy and that we are nearing them. Now Parsley: He believes that Islam is a "false religion" and that we are at war with them. He makes no distinction between Islamic moderates, and the whackjobs who have warped it into justification for terrorism. (Don't they see their hypocrisy? No of course not...) He believes that Planned Parenthood can be likened to Nazi's. He thinks that we should be prosecuting people for adultery. McCain hasn't had to distance himself from either of these nutjobs.

During the Reagan and Bush I era (as well as Nixon), the Reverend Billy Graham was a regular visitor to the Whitehouse and spiritual adviser. Graham was a confirmed anti-Semite.

My point is that if the MSM is going to take Obama to task about this, then they need to do the same with the conservative white repugnicants who are pushing this shit. I think it is a problem, that religion has made it's way into our politics so insidiously. Any church that promotes political candidates should immediately lose their tax free status. No questions. Religion has to leave our political discourse. Separation of church and state should be absolute. If you can't separate your religious views from your political behavior, then you need to get out of office. NOW. How have conservatives made religion a litmus test for office? I hate them.

2008-03-15T10:47:00.002-05:00

In-case you missed it with all the campaign shenanigans of the past couple of weeks:

The EPA has recently made a couple of decisions which go against all their internal scientists and further show how much BushCo. will politicize anything: First, the EPA denied the right of CA to set their own, stricter, standards on automobile emissions. As CA goes, so goes the nation, and the automobile manufactures don't want that. There is precedent for CA to set their own standards, as they've done it many times in the past. Many other states were awaiting this decision as, they want to do the same thing. Apparently, that's not good enough. By EPA justification, since CA doesn't have problems that are any worse than anyone else's, the administration doesn't think that they have the right to do anything about the problems they do have. This has caused the scientists and legal counsel of the EPA to openly state that they have no confidence in the BushCo. puppet director. Remember this is an issue being pushed by a Republican governor, who actually sees the importance of it, and for all of CA's reputation, it's not that blue of a state. If my memory serves me correctly, other than Grey Davis, CA has had a republican governor for the majority of the past 20 years.
Secondly, the president just directly intervened in the decision on regulating seasonal ozone levels nationwide. Again, going against the scientific and legal council within the EPA. If it wasn't perfectly clear that this administration doesn't care about actually enforcing laws, such as the Clean Air Act, which specifically states that economics can't be considered, because the regulations have to be made on health and welfare standards only. President Bush broke the law (again), by intervening in this decision.
Look, I understand that Pelosi can't actually push impeachment, it has to come from elsewhere in the party. If Bush is impeached, Cheney has to be impeached as well, that puts Pelosi as President, and it would be politically impossible for her to push it. That doesn't mean that we can't have others push it. Wexler and Kucinich have called for it. We need to encourage every Dem in the house to sign on. Cheney first, then Shrub.

2008-03-13T14:01:00.006-05:00

Molly Ivins wouldn't have voted for her, and I will hold my nose while doing so if she is the nominee. A month or so ago I thought we had two good candidates. The longer this goes on, the more clear Clinton's true character comes out, and I the more disgusted I get. Those that have the chance to vote still, please spread the word.

Molly Ivins: Not. backing. Hillary.

spread the word

2008-03-13T13:39:00.002-05:00

There's a text version of this up on DailyKos if you can't forward the html. It's time to stop the lies.

Subject: The Real Truth About Barack Obama!

As enthusiastic volunteers in the Barack Obama campaign for the Presidency,
we have put together a list of facts about Barack so that you will know the
truth about him. Please follow the links we have included for documentation
of these facts. If you value the truth as we do, please spread this information
via email, blog, or any other means, to everyone you know.

Did you know that Barack Obama is a devout Christian? He has been a member of the same United Church of Christ congregation for 20 years, and was married there to his wife Michelle in 1992.

Did you know that Barack Obama often leads the US Senate in the Pledge of Allegiance?

Did you know that Barack Obama is a strong friend of Israel and has spoken out strongly against anti-Semitism?

Did you know his grandparents from Kansas were part of the "Greatest Generation?. His grandfather served with Patton's Army during World War II, and his grandmother, a real "Rosy the Riveter", worked in a bomber assembly plant back home.

Did you know that Barack Obama was opposed to the war in Iraq from day one, before we invaded, even while he was running for the Senate, and knowing his opposition might be politically unpopular?
"I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world and strengthen the recruitment arm of al Qaeda. I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars." --Barack Obama, 2002

Did you know Obama favors transparency over secrecy in our government? Did you know that Obama worked with Republican Senator Tom Coburn to pass one of the strongest government transparency bills since the freedom of information act? He's calling it Google for Government and you can see the results at www.usaspending.gov. Sen. Obama has also released his own tax returns for public review.

Did you know that after graduating with honors from Harvard Law School, Barack practiced civil rights law and also taught Constitutional Law for 10 years at the University of Chicago, one of the nation's best law schools, where he was consistentl y rated by his students as one of their best instructors? Did you also know that he was the first African-American elected pres ident of the prestigious Harvard Law Review?

Did you know that Barack Obama is an outspoken advocate for women's rights and has been a principled defender of the civil rights of women?

Did you know that despite the grueling schedule of running for President, Senator Obama remains a devoted family man, making time to do things like pick out a Christmas tree with his wife and two young daughters, or hurrying home to spend Valentine's Day with them? Did you know he hasn't missed a single parent-teacher conference while running for President?

Did you know that Barack Obama has a stellar environmental record, including having the highest rating from the League of Conservation Voters (96%) of any Presidential candidate, Democrat or Republican?

Did you know that Barack Obama has been an elected legislator longer than Senator Clinton?

Did you know that Barack is a member of all of these Senate Committees: Foreign Relations; Veteran's Affairs; Health, Education, Labor & Pensions; Homeland Security and Government Affairs?

Did you know that Senator Obama has sponsored or co-sponsored 15 bills that have become law, and has introduced amendments to 50 bills, of which 16 were adopted since he joined the Senate in 2005?

Did you know that Senator Obama sponsored legislation working together with Indiana Republican Senator Richard Lugar, to keep Americans safe by keeping dangerous weapons out of terrorist hands? The two senators also visited the former Soviet Union to inspect the decommissioning of nuclear weapons. Sen. Lugar said of Sen. Obama, "He does have a sense of idealism and principled leadership, a vision of the future."

Did you know that Barack Obama is the only candidate running for president who voted against using cluster bombs in Iraq and the only candidate who supports banning the use of landmines?

Did you know that, as an Illinois state senator, Barack Obama succeeded in passing legislation requiring the videotaping of police interrogations, gaining the respect and support not only of fellow legislators but that of the police, who had initially opposed the legislation?

Did you know that Theodore Roosevelt, Grover Cleveland, Ulysses S. Grant, John F. Kennedy, and Bill Clinton were all younger when they took office than Barack Obama will be?

During election season many emails are circulated about the candidates. Some are true, some aren't. It's often difficult to determine the truth. We encourage you to visit the following non-partisan sites that do a good job of fact checking the candidates.

http://www.snopes.com/

http://www.factcheck.org/

2008-03-12T16:06:00.002-05:00

This shit is just funny: Cracker Plu-ease. It's called "aspirational goods", and whitey is a sucker for it. Well everyone is...

2008-03-05T11:07:00.002-06:00

This is my new favorite blog: Grocery Eats. This cat is in Minneapolis and knows a thing or two about strange food combos. Look around for the Pork House. Could anyone imagine such a wonderful land?! Yippeee......

2008-02-28T10:27:00.008-06:00

So, somehow San Marcos and Texas State University made it onto the Obama radar. Last week, a thousand people or so showed up for Ted Kennedy (for comparison only about 100 showed up for Chelsea Clinton earlier this week). Kristen and I waited in line for an hour or so to get in. I figured it was a last chance to see the last one of that generation of Kennedy. We actually got two Kennedy's. One of the grandsons talked briefly. One of the former governors of Texas spoke (Dolf Briscoe I believe (but it might have been Mark White), who is still a muckity-muck in Texas Democratic party, Texas politics, and very spry given his age (89?)). I was most impressed with Lloyd Doggett, as one of the introductory speakers. I'd hate to lose him representing this part of Texas, but he's be a great pick for VP. Ted Kennedy was o.k. He's no master orator, but he still has some fire, even if he forgot that TxState is the Bobcats, and not the bulldogs. At that point I figured that was all we were going to get, and I was impressed that that many students actually know who Ted Kennedy is. It's not every day a Kennedy comes to central Texas.

Then Monday, it was announced that Obama would be here. I was amazed by how many people showed up! I think the unofficial estimates are 10,000 - 13,000. I didn't think that many people in San Marcos would show up for free beer! I'm sure we had people from out of town, but about half the crowd was wearing TxState garb. San Marcos is only 50,000 or so people. Half of them are students. Don't believe me about the crowd? (update: The local paper has the estimate at greater than the expected 15,000. Any street you could possibly see from was packed...)

Whatever you may think about his politics, you have to admit that it is bordering on a movement. I've been voting since we got stuck with Bush I. Even Bill Clinton didn't get this kind of attention, and I remember feeling pretty good about him (my feelings have changed somewhat, which is why I'm not a Hillary supporter. I'll vote for her if she ends up being the nomination, but I don't see that happening at this point.) The crowd was a mix of everyone. Young, old, Black, White, Hispanic..... Hell, it IS a movement.

I have to admit that I have some hesitation with how enthusiastic people are about him. Mainly because I get suspicious when people like the same things I do, and I have to resist the conspiracy buff in me letting me think that he is some sort of Manchurian Candidate. I don't think he is, but I do think we need to stay open about what his faults are and not blindly support him (like Ron Paul supporters do their guy). Dammit, I've been cynical for so long, it's hard to let go. I've grown up with an intense mistrust of politics, and seen how nasty and deceitful the repugnicants are willing to get. My grandparents were the eternal optimists about politics and future generations. Because of the past..., well ever since Reagan, I've been unable to live up to their optimism. I've been so disillusioned with the past two elections that I don't know what to do with actually feeling like he could do some good. Feeling like I am actually voting FOR someone, instead of voting for the lesser of two evils. Fuck. He's getting to me. I just don't want to be disappointed again...

Anyways, I've never seen a political rally this big. I've been to a couple of smaller ones. None were ever that close, and no one cared enough. Hell, the biggest before Ted Kennedy was actually in Mexico, and by accident. Last night, we ended up being about 15m from the stage. I don't get star struck much. I've met musicians and sports stars. They're regular people. I have to say, that I'm a little in shock having been that close to who I want to believe will be the next president. Dare I hope? Can he repair the damage done by the current administration? Will people believe that the government can work for the people and not Exxon/Mobil/Shell/GM/Halliburton/Boeing/Lockheed? Could this be the moment where we live up to the challenge of JFK and RFK? We lost 40 years of progress because of RFK's assassination, can we finally get back on track?

2008-02-14T00:22:00.001-06:00

It's my favorite city I could never live in...

2008-02-05T11:26:00.000-06:00

Any time a Republican tells you they are the party of fiscal responsibility, mention this. Then tell them to go away.

2008-02-02T22:15:00.000-06:00

Because alien cattle abduction is a growing problem....

Yes, it is the most retarded exercise machine ever.

No you shouldn't listen to everything in the bible. Sometimes it's just bad advice.

2008-01-22T22:25:00.000-06:00

File under no-shit-sherlock. If the media had been doing their job then, we might not be involved in the clusterfuck of Iraq.

Normally they give us stories like this. Do ya' think that getting in shape might reduce your death risk? Certainly not.

At least Grandpa Fred dropped out of the Republican race, and Mitt Romney thinks he's down with the brother-man. Who let the dogs out, indeed.

I hope you don't think there will ever be any real justice in the Enron case. You remember them. The accountants cooked the books in collusion with the banks, they artificially jacked up energy prices and caused energy shortages in CA in the form of rolling blackouts. They folded and $30 BILLION dollars (much in pension investments) was lost. At least one of their top executives committed suicide as I recall (I could be wrong). I guess it was all fake money anyways...

2008-01-21T23:33:00.000-06:00

It's a couple of years old, but it bears repeating that, apparently, the Daily Show's "fake" news is just as good as the networks, just a lot more fun. No big surprise, but what does that say about our real news?

2008-01-18T12:48:00.000-06:00

I love The Onion!

So, I've done it. I've turned in my application for the PhD program. Another four years... Right now I don't see why they won't accept me, but you never know. I'm switching labs if it does all work out. I'm not unhappy with my current lab, but one of my current committee members has funding for at least 3 years, which will hopefully mean not having to teach. I like teaching, but it will be nice to be able to focus on work which will be part of my dissertation. Now I have to figure out something that is actually worth a PhD...

As far as the MS goes. I've got my proposal in. I'm waiting on data to come back on a couple of analyses, I'm finishing up the last bit of work that I'm doing here, and then it will be on to writing. February will be a month chained to the computer.

I've got to get back on the bike, so that I don't go insane or gain 30lbs...

2008-01-09T00:21:00.000-06:00

I just lost respect for Gloria Steinem. Read both the truthdig article and her NYT op-ed. I'm too tired to get into details, but her insistence that gender issues come before race or class issues is a bit offensive, and shows a fundamental self absorption that I can't respect. Let me start by saying that it is amazing that we have both a black and a woman who are not just serious candidates, but the two Dem. frontrunners. However, as an upper-middle class, white woman, she can't say HRC is any more discriminated against than a black man. She buy's into HRC's "experience" lie. O.k. fine, if you are going to discount Obama's experience, then you have to discount Bill Clinton's state experience as governor. And Richardson's. And Huckabee's. And Romney's. And Bush's... Well that should be discounted, it didn't work out so well... but you get my point. Steinem even touts her time as first lady as OTJ training. Bull shit. Be consistent.

Again, I will vote for her if she is the Dem nominee, because we need constitutional triage, but she's not experienced and not a real progressive. She's taken way too much money from the lobbyists. Her husband wasn't either, but was tons better than either Bush he was sandwiched between. Grrr. Sorry. I wish I didn't care about politics....

2008-01-08T19:54:00.000-06:00

So, I'm half watching the New Hampshire primaries, and a few things strike me.
1. Like with Iowa, the Democratic turnout is again shockingly greater than the Republican. Good. It's about time. The reason that the Repugnicants were able to fix the last two elections (Yes, I think there was by far enough chicanery in Ohio and Florida to make that statement) is that those were close elections. If this keeps up through the general election the Repugs. are done. At the national level and state. Good riddance.
2. For the most part the Republicans look like scared old white men. Oh, wait, they are. Now there are some that don't disgust me, and I have to say that unlike our current president, I truly don't believe that the top 3 Republicans (McCain, Romney, Huckabee) are going to purposely drive the country into ruin. Now don't get me wrong. I have serious problems with all of them, and I think that electing another Repug is a huge mistake for the country. BUT, they can all form thoughts and complete sentences, which makes them not total fucking morons. I don't think any of the top three Republicans are truly evil (unlike BushCo).
I respect McCain, but his support for the Iraq war is so entirely out of touch with reality that I am suspect of everything else he says. Romney is just too overtly slick. I'll readily admit that my distrust of Mormons is a personal failing, but I'm universal in my distrust of all overtly religious people. I do have to also admit that the way he balanced the budget in Mass. was good. He closed loopholes, and made corporations actually pay their taxes. I don't trust Huckabee for many of the same reasons. It's true that he's not truly a conservative, and out of all of the Repubs., I think he truly means well. BUT, I'm sorry if you don't believe in evolution, you can't set your religion aside and listen to reason. It's only the second most supported theory in science (behind gravity). I do find some joy in the fact that after years of misrepresenting religion, the Republicans finally have to deal with someone who has actually read the Bible and I think, uses it to make himself a better person, not as a reason to hate and marginalize people. As has been the case for all the "fundamentalists" of the past 30 years. In other words, he's not truly a conservative.
The rest of the Repugs really scare me, but luckily they're not doing well. Grandpa Fred, has gotten a whole 1%. Wasn't he supposed to be the Repug savior? HaHa. Go back to sleep Fred. Guliani? That egotistical fuckface? Hopefully, people are finally seeing through his bullshit. Go away. Ron Paul? Well his supporters have the determination of zombies. They will overlook all his racist and absolutely batshit crazy ideas, just because he talks about the war and fiscal responsibility. Guess what Republicans DO NOT get to talk about fiscal responsibility. When was the last balanced budget delivered by Republicans? Long before I was aware, and that makes it before the 70s. Bush Jr. inherited a balanced budget 8 years ago, and ruined it. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you.
3. I don't trust Hillary. She's taken way too much money from lobbyists. She's no agent of change. If she's elected, it will be 24 years of a Bush or Clinton. That is not good for the country. I'll vote for her if I have to, but she's just triage. Her claiming "experience" is bullshit. She's been in congress for 3 more years than Obama. Before that it was throwing tea parties at the White House. That is not experience. Piss off. Obama was in state government since 1994. That is far more relevant experience. You don't hear people saying Romney doesn't have experience? Richardson and her husband were only governors. You don't get it both ways.
4. Richardson may be the best candidate, but because he is just like every other democratic nominee since 1980, except for Bill Clinton, he can never win. By just like, I mean smart but BORING. That's what has lost us the last two elections. Gore is smart, but not engaging. Kerry is smart but not engaging. IF the Dems had put some some smart AND likable, then it wouldn't have even been close.

I truly think that Obama or Edwards could do a better job, but that any of the Dems, will wipe up the Repug. field. I hope that remains true. They are ALL better than ANY of the Repugs. I was actually heartened watching the Dem. debate last weekend (and catching bits of the Repug one) I may not like Hillary like I do Obama and Edwards, but they are all smart and capable candidates. I think Obama and Edwards are less tied to the corporate money machine, but none of them are truly progressive. Unfortunately, I don't think a true progressive can get elected right now. We need to move the country away from the scared greedy old men of the 50s, but it won't happen in one election.

All that said, I am really glad that a woman and a black man are both seriously considered as presidential candidates. Hopefully, the Dems can keep having double the turnout of the Repugs.

2007-12-14T22:37:00.000-06:00

So, my cousin called me out on recently only posting about aggravating republicans. She's right, but I really am worried about what is going to happen in the next year. I hate republicans. They scare me. I think anyone who can justify support for the current administration is worthy of scorn and humiliation. Expose them as the goat fuckers they are. The democrats aren't perfect, but we need constitutional triage right now, and any of them are better than any of the republican fearmongers. Maybe Richardson or Biden can become the surprise dark horse... Nah, who am I kidding, it's all rigged.

So I've been busy getting my thesis proposal done. It's almost there. I just got the last edits and comments from my final committee member, so the rest of this weekend is trying to get it done so that I can get signature from them first thing after the new year. I'm getting nervous about being able to finish by May. It should still happen, but it's going to be tough. I've got a couple of scholarship applications to get in during the next couple of weeks, and I have to have the PhD application in to the school by the first of February. It's big and scary to sign on for at least for another four years. I'm not 100% on it, maybe 80%. The thought of finishing up at 42 and fighting for post-doc and proffessor positions with people 10 years younger than me is a bit scary. Not being tenured until almost 50... yikes.

This is one of the best pranks on the ID dumbshits I've seen in a while.

Here's a list from the same people of the 50 most loathsome people of 2007.

Anyways, I hope everyone has a good 2008.

2007-12-06T22:49:00.000-06:00

Another "star" Republican to avoid. Mike Huckabee. Sure, he's from Hope, AR. But he was a Baptist Minister, and doesn't believe in the separation of church and state that I think we desperately need. Being religious is fine. Involving religion in education or government is not. It makes it too easy to for government to become based on religion, and that is wrong. Religion should be a personal choice which helps you deal with life. It should never become a reason to stop learning about and questioning the world, which it becomes for too many people. Interpreting any religious text as literal is dangerous. As far as I'm concerned, all of the repugnicants want to turn the country into even more of a theocracy than it already is.

2007-12-06T09:42:00.000-06:00

The system is down.

The system is down.

Please, can we impeach now? The repugs. would be smart if they put up with Pelosi in the White House for 6 months, just to distance themselves from these goat-fuckers. But they're not, and the dems aren't much better...

2007-12-03T15:56:00.000-06:00

Check out this for more reasons not to vote for Ron Paul. I agree with much of what he says, except for the Alex Jones part. Alex Jones is an Austin conspiracy theory fucktard. Like Hunter Thompson with Nixon, I find it healthy to question anything which we might agree on. The man thinks traffic chicanes (used to slow traffic down in neighborhoods) are government mind control experiments.

I wish I could be this optimistic about the fate of the Republican party in next year's election, but I'm not. For two reasons, one that I won't be surprised if BushCo and the Republicans succeed in their tactics scare the American public into another four years of their crap. The Dems have zero backbone, and haven't given me any reason to think they are going to change in the next year. This leads to the second reason, which is that the top Democratic candidates are not the answer. I'll vote for them because I think we need to stop the hemorrhaging of the economy, environment, civil liberties, etc. which the current administration has caused, and getting the Repugnicants out of office is the first step; but Hillary is a political opportunist, and she'll say anything. I don't trust her, and I still think her campaign is going to implode. The only two I can feel good about (Richardson and Kucinich) have no chance of winning. It'll probably end up being Edwards and Obama, but I think they are still part of the corporate money machine. Will this election really send the Republicans back to political obscurity, like the '32 election? I hope so. If we don't have some sort of positive watershed event, we'll end up being a fundamentalist theocracy in 10 years, maybe sooner.

I was talking to some people today, and we got on the subject of how much things have changed since Kennedy. Kennedy had to assure people that he wasn't going to try to turn the country Catholic; that federal monies weren't going to go to the church. Now Romney has to assure fundamentalist Christians that, he is going to support their agenda of eroding the separation of church and state (nevermind the fact that Huckabee is a retired baptist minister). Now Kennedy wasn't perfect, by any means, and I don't pretend that religion hasn't always had at least some hand in American government, but the separation should be absolute. If you are religious, and it helps you live a better life, fine. I encourage it. If you want to send your kids to a religious private school, fine. The church should have nothing to do with public education or government. Period. Ever. It is a private matter. No religious school should ever get public money, and no religion should be taught in public school. Any church that directly tries to influence people's support of candidates should loose its non-profit status, and start paying taxes, and back taxes.

2007-12-02T09:30:00.000-06:00

Lawmakers have come up with a plan to raise the CAFE standards to 35mpg by 2020. It is a step in the right direction, especially since the standards haven't been raised for 30(?) years. I can't believe it's 2007 and an SUV which gets 25mpg is considered to get good mileage. The automakers, of course, are balking at the new proposal. "It'll cost jobs" "We can't do it..." whine, whine, whine... Bullshit. They already have to average 40mpg in Europe. I think it is similar in Japan. American car companies need to get their act together, or they won't be around. What baffles me is, is that Toyota is complaining. They could ship the tooling over for their cars that already meet the standards, get the cars built in the US in two years, and advertise that they are 10 years ahead of the American manufacturers. Does Toyota not import cars to Europe? No, they're there. Do American companies ignore the European market? Nope. Hell, they even own a few of the larger European automakers. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. The US lags behind every developed country in fuel efficiency standards. We lag behind CHINA. If we had a progressive government that wasn't in bed with the oil industry and US automakers, we could easily reach the goals and then some. Reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and strengthen our economy. Why is American business so scared to be the world leaders in innovation again?

2007-12-01T01:12:00.000-06:00

So the people who wrote this test don't know percentages. I got every question right with no extra hints. How is that 98%:

98%ALCOHOLIC

I am 100% alcoholic god dammit! How dare they take that 2% away! Or maybe I just know way too much about alcohol...

So I've been hearing way too much about Ron Paul. Please. He is a conservative fucktard who just happens to talk about getting out of Iraq and being fiscally responsible (in that uniquely Republican way which involves cutting social and environmental funding, yet keeping big business subsidy) He's a trojan. He represents Galveston which is not a bastion of liberalism in Texas. He's accepted money from Stormfront.org, which is a white supremacist web site; David Duke supports him; He doesn't think we ratified the 16th Amendment... Uggggggh. He wants to take the federal government back to the days of Reagan, because that worked so well. How long will we be paying for the savings and loan scandal? It's still gonna be a long time.

2007-10-30T16:42:00.000-05:00

I may have to go to Korea. This looks so wonderfly disgusting, that I need some now. Maybe I should go get some food in me...

Viva La Revolucion!

2007-10-30T14:38:00.000-05:00

Diesel. Diesel. Diesel. If Detroit doesn't get their act together quick. There won't be American cars. This guy doesn't even have a high school diploma and he can make a H2 get double the mileage and four times the horsepower. If one third of our cars were running bio-diesel we could stop importing oil from Saudi Arabia.

2007-10-30T00:39:00.000-05:00

The 86 Rules of Boozing. Learn them. #28 should be #1: If you cannot afford to tip, you cannot afford to drink in a bar. Go to the liquor store. Period.

2007-10-29T12:02:00.000-05:00

I'd like to see this poll redone now (I'm sure it's out there, but I don't have the energy to find it), but it does point out the obvious fact Fox News is the advertising arm of the Bush White House. As of 2003: "48% incorrectly believed that evidence of links between Iraq and al Qaeda have been found, 22% that weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq, and 25% that world public opinion favored the US going to war with Iraq. Overall 60% had at least one of these three misperceptions". When you break it down by network, 80% of Faux viewers believed at least one of those. Now that Bush is Mr. 25% , he's only two points away from Nixon when he resigned (23%) and three points from Truman (22%) for the lowest approval rating ever. He's already overtaken Truman for the largest range of approval rating (T: 87 - 22, B: 92 - 25) How low can he go? People liked Carter (28%) and Papa Shrub (29%) more than him! (Source) Anyone who is a republican after this administration is really stupid. Not that I have any faith that the Dems won't find some way to fuck things up. They probably will and we'll get stuck with Thompson or Romney. Fuck.

Please, pretty please

2007-10-04T10:28:00.000-05:00

So word around the uber-right wing campfire is that if the Republicans nominate Gulianni, they will pull out of the party and support a third party candidate. (BTW, this was decided at the secret meeting that Cheyney went to in Salt Lake last week). PLEASE DO!!!!!! This will splinter the Republican party, allowing the few remaining reasonable Republicans to ditch the religious right, and it will doom the religious right to the marginal status which they deserve. Then the Dems could run an Obama-Richardson ticket and win. I think a black and hispanic are exactly who need to be in charge for once.

O.K. something positive...

2007-10-02T19:01:00.000-05:00

A promising development in cancer research. We all know someone affected. Currently, it's just being tested on skin cancer. The hope is that it can be used on ovarian and pancreatic cancer.

because everyone needs to see this:

2007-10-02T16:38:00.000-05:00

Here is the Daily Kos post

Here is his response to Rush as posted on Daily Kos:

UPDATE: As I was preparing to post this, Brian emailed me his response to Rush’s statement made on the radio today. Here it is in its entirety:

So, Rush Limbaugh called me a "suicide bomber." More slander from the high and mighty sitting in his chair nursing the boils on his ass. I can assure you that I am no suicide bomber and that I can think for myself.

Rush, your phony soldier comments pissed me off. The audacity of someone like you who never had the courage to stand and fight for what you believe in makes my head spin. That is what made me stand up and state my convictions in front of a camera. I wanted to point out that you are wrong. I am not a phony soldier. I believe that we are not doing the right thing for national security by staying in Iraq. We are putting too much strain on our military by extending tours and not giving people enough time at home to rest. We have taken our eye off of the real Al-Qaeda and let them regroup to their pre-9/11 strength. We have not developed a political system in Iraq that would enable the country to stand on its own.

I stood in the sand, snow, dirt, mud and dust of both Afghanistan and Iraq. I spent over a week on a side of a mountain in Afghanistan during Operation Anaconda. I received The Bronze Star medal for my actions during that battle. I crossed the border into Iraq with the first wave of the 101st Airborne. I sustained an open head injury on the streets of Mosul after a vehicle borne IED exploded next to the vehicle I was riding in. I have seen the aftermath of a real suicide bomber. I had loved ones who died in the 9/11 attacks. I have friends and colleagues who returned from the war in body bags.

How dare you call someone like me a phony soldier and a suicide bomber? In the commercial I just taped, I told you unless you had the guts to say something to my face, stop telling lies about my service. Well you haven’t had the guts to say it to my face, but I am waiting and the offer is still on the table.

And another soldier pissed off at that chickenshit chickenhawk Rush. May sir oxy rot in a bath of his own diarrhea !

2007-10-02T09:53:00.000-05:00

Republicans are evil.

I even heard FauxNews try to say that Iran was involved with 9/11. What?

Bush and Cheney are evil.

We are fucked.

I'll be surprised if the 2008 elections go off without big problems.

amazingly, the Supreme Court decided not to hear these cases so the lower court rulings stand.

2007-10-01T15:02:00.000-05:00

So, it's been a while. Been busy. I had to turn in a draft of my proposal to my adviser today, so that has been taking up much of my time. As soon as he gives the word, it goes to the rest of the committee. Hopefully he can get through it quickly.

Patrick O'Grady says it best: "Euro-pro cycling is not a sporting event, but a rolling crime scene." It's a fucking trainwreck and I can't look away. At least some other sports are about to get in the mix. MLB and USADA said, "that there were signs that none of their athletes wiould be found to have been involved in the sprawling distribution network that involved drugs from China." Huh? I'll bet that the signs are that they ARE involved. That or MLB paid enough money to have that evidence disappear. Here Barry. Here Barry....

Anyways, hybrid cars are dead. E85 too. Long live diesel. They have actually shown that people buy the current crop of hybrids as image statements, and that they never pay for themselves in gas saved. Yes, they use a few percent less in gas and burn cleaner, but diesels use somewhere around 30% less over their lifetime, and have higher resale value. Honda is even dropping the Accord Hybrid (It actually gets worse mileage than the standard V6) and they are going to replace it with a diesel. Nissan is introducing a diesel Titan in 2009 I think. Volkswagen makes a V10 diesel for the Toureg in Europe. It has more torque than the Cummins diesel that comes in the Ram 2500. Burns cleaner and gets better mileage. It's about time. These aren't the clackity diesels of the 70s. In January the US switched over to ultra-clean diesel and now manufactures are going to finally start developing them. Audi has been running diesels in their Le Mans race cars for the past couple of years and blowing everyone away. I'm tempted to find an old Canadian 4Runner in diesel... Switch it to biodiesel. Yeah baby...

What republicans are hypocrites?

Has anyone else noticed the similarities between Bush and Ahmadinejad? They are both right wing religious nut jobs. They are both unpopular in their own countries. They both say really, really stupid things. They both have gone against the wishes of the UN. They both rose to power by appealing to a scared, rural, intolerant, undereducated, and fundamentalist religious base. They both believe that they are leading their country to the end of times and the second coming. Ahmadinejad is Iran's Georg Bush... Scary. We are so fucked.

cheers,
J

2007-08-21T12:07:00.000-05:00

I've heard some otherwise smart people say that nuclear power is a potentially acceptable energy source. It isn't. Period. If you thought you could trust the people doing the research on it, read this. They are as trustworthy as those in the oil industry. We CAN'T deal with the waste. There is NO place it can be put safely. Until they can figure that out. It should be off the table completely.

2007-08-20T13:10:00.001-05:00

So, Montreal may be my second favorite city I could never live in. I knew it would be a nice city, but it has a feel that most US cities, that I’ve been to, are lacking. The locals are friendly. It’s young and vibrant, but old world at the same time. It’s a bilingual city, which just by being that, makes it smarter than most of the cities in the US. A significant number of people commute by bike. Downtown has as many people on bike as the campus area near UC Berkely, maybe more. Certainly more than right around campus in Austin, and more than any city I’ve recently been to in the US. The conference was in the heart of downtown, and is really at the heart of the city. I walked through Chinatown from my hotel to the conference center. Old Montreal is just a few blocks on the other side, and easily traveled by foot. While touristy it still has a good feel to it. The area towards McGill University is just back on the other side of the conference, and the Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art is there. Right now they have a show of Bruce Nauman’s work (He went to UC Davis back in the 1970s, I believe). The Latin Quarter (which isn’t particularly “latin” in my definintion) is just a short walk from there. It’s a particularly vibrant area of town, with many restaurants and bars. One of the bartenders at the conference (yes, they serve beer for the evening poster session) pointed me to the Cheval Blanc as a good Montreal microbrewery. It was. Friendly barkeeps, too. I know that once you get out of downtown it becomes a much more spread out city, but cities like Dallas, Houston, and LA would be much better places if the downtowns were as compact and vibrant as Montreal. If they didn’t have such brutal winter here… I mean, they essentially have an underground city for the winter, which means their winters are as brutal as Houston’s summers.

Scientific conferences, for those that don’t know, are the land of the brilliant and poorly dressed. Especially international ones. The no socks with the sandals memo didn’t make it to the Germans. I don’t claim to be the best dresser in the world, but I can usually get reasonably close to matching. I don’t mix green madras with orange stripes. The Swedes did keep up the black metal scientist rep for this conference. There were a bunch of Japanese at the conference. I didn’t expect so many limnologists out of Japan as that. Overall the conference was good. I saw a number of talks that really have me thinking about my work. I also saw some really bad ones. This one woman gave a talk where she said “uh” or “um” over 250 times. I’m not exaggerating. I think I’m underestimating it by a fair amount. I was close to walking out, but something made me start counting. At least once per sentence in a 20 minute talk. I’m not making fun of her. I know she was nervous. This conference is probably the most important one in my field. I’d be nervous too. In some ways I wish I’d given a presentation, but in other ways, I’m glad I didn’t. My poster was fairly well received. Alex Horn (who along with Charles Goldman is one of the patrons of the field) talked to me extensively about it. I’ve interacted with him before on Clear Lake stuff since that was his study site back in the 60s. He certainly fits the mould of the classical limnologist.

So now I’m back and have to prep for a busy semester trying to finish up my work and teach. The next 9 months are going to be brutal, but I’ve got to graduate in May...

2007-08-14T09:03:00.000-05:00

So, I haven’t had the chance to post after the Tour… Honestly I’ve got to say it hurt a little. I was really hoping for a clean tour after last year and the early part of this season. It was wide open. It could have been the most exciting tour in years, and in many respects it was. Much of the excitement was for the wrong reasons. Fuck you Vino! Fuck you Kash! Fuck you to all the others who thought they could get away with it. I really WANT to believe that all the doping is someone in the LNDD has it out for cycling (and they do need to have all certifications pulled until they fire the people who are leaking information to the press….) But I don’t. Two people on the same team get popped for blood doping. Shit, at least with EPO, HGH, Testosterone there’s a CHANCE of getting away with it. How dumb are you?! If they do a blood test, they can tell pretty easily if you’ve got someone else’s blood in you. You want to prove you’re innocent? The first statement out of your mouth should have been, “Do a blood test right now!” The cells live for 60-120 days. If it came up negative, then you’d have a case. Otherwise get out of cycling you dumb jock. No better than a fucking football player, you. I don’t know what to think about Rassmussen. They didn’t catch him actually doping, but he missed two out of competition tests, and lied about where he was. It doesn’t look good. Again, you dumb fuck, in this day and age, you know how bad that looks. If the Tour was really that important to you, do the paperwork. I want to believe that you were robbed of a legitimate win, but Floyd is innocent too…. Yeah right. Do I think Contador, Evans, and Leipheimer are clean? I don’t know. Contador is suspicious. He may have won this tour clean, but I’ll bet we find out in a year that the “A.C.” in the Oparacion Puerto documents is him. It doesn’t look good when a bunch of male cyclists are going to see the same Spanish gynecologist. The top three were really a ways ahead of everyone else. I’ve seen a number of things saying how they all had unrealistic power output on the climbs, comparing it to the heyday of EPO in the early 90s. I can see the human body progressing a ways in 15 years. Remember they used to think that running a 4 minute mile was impossible. Now, that’s slow. I can see a few people getting to that level with the right training, and a few more with some “help”. Discovery Channel had said they weren’t continuing sponsorship of the team after this year, and now the team is walking away. Giving up a ProTour license, even when they were mostly there in talks with a couple of sponsors. I don’t know what that says. Either they really don’t like the state of top professional cycling, or someone might get too close to the truth. I hate being a cynic about it, but I’m not left with much choice. I hope the riders can find jobs next year. Another rant about the LNDD: it sure looks to me that they are the only lab who finds dopers. I don’t trust them because of it. There are only two answers. Either they are the only ones doing the job right, or they are fixing data. Neither answer is good, but I just can’t bring myself to accept them when they can’t deal with their leaks to the press. If you are holding someone’s livelihood and career in the balance, you need to have irrefutable proof, and they don’t. I’ve said it before, in criminal investigation, their data would get thrown out of court. They don’t follow their own protocol. They have the same people analyze the A and B samples. They don’t follow manufacturers protocol on some of their equipment. Even if their results are good, it opens the door for questioning. And they don’t seem to be doing anything about it, which is suspicious. Arggh!

I have a web acquaintance who recently passed his one year anniversary of getting hit by a drunk driver (on his bike). His posts about it got me thinking about me getting hit. Someone on his blog claimed some of the mental stuff he’s dealing with is PTSD. I’d buy it. I think I probably still suffer a bit from it. It’s been 5.5 years for me. There are a number of reasons why I don’t ride as much as I used to. One of them is getting hit. Sure, I’ve got school keeping me busy and I can walk to campus, but I got tired of being angry on the bike. I really tried to get back into it after getting hit. Not racing. I’m done with that, but living my traveling life on the bike. It was one of the things that kept me going, wanting to ride again. As can be seen from the first part of this post, I still love the sport (even if I’m mad at the upper professional levels of it). It’s been a hobby and a profession of mine for much of my life. Bikes and science are what I have done, and what I love. I pedicabbed because I knew it would get some of my fitness back, and it did. I got back to where I was commuting much of the time on bike (through the intersection that I got hit in). I had been riding and commuting for almost 15 years before getting hit. I know how to ride in and with traffic, and I’d had close calls before. But, a couple of years after getting hit, I realized I can’t relax on the bike anymore. Maybe “can’t” isn’t the right word, but I have a hard time. What used to be one of my escapes and one of the things that kept me mentally grounded, was now something that caused stress. It’s been very painful to come to that realization. I’m trying to accept that until I live somewhere where I can mountain bike a lot, I probably won’t ride a lot. Maybe I can prove myself wrong, and find the time sooner…

So, I’m currently in Montreal, for a conference of limnology geeks. This is my first time here, and I’ve got to say I’m impressed with the city. The weather is beautiful. They have dedicated parts of streets for bikes. Not just a lane on the side, but a separate part of the road which is designated for bikes. Behind a curb. People walk around town. I haven’t explored much, but for a city of over 3 million people, it doesn’t feel spread out. Similar to San Francisco in many ways, but older so it’s probably the other way around. Compact, with a number of distinct districts. It’s not exactly cheap, but then the Canadian dollar has gotten stronger (or more likely, the US dollar has gotten weaker). They’ve got a little “Chinatown” (quotes because it’s really more Asiatown. The Vietnamese and Koreans are lumped in too). Had some great Vietnamese food for lunch. Neither English or French are the common language in that district. I’ll probably explore old Montreal a little on Wednesday. They’ve got a mountain park in the middle of town. The St. Lawrence river is the port. Two (at least) well respected, in my field, universities (McGill and UQAM). It’s too bad winter comes around, because so far I like it. The food has been good. Even the conference coffee is decent. The beer, well if you are in Montreal, you drink Molson. I haven’t felt the need to go out to the bars yet, so I don’t know if there are microbrews yet, but there have to be. It’s a big city. I got a 6 pack of Unibroue Fin Du Monde and it tastes like homebrew. STRONG, but yeasty. Not what I was expecting, but decent. Not what I usually drink. I prefer more hops to more alcohol.

must go pretend to be smart...

J

2007-07-19T10:31:00.000-05:00

College Republicans are soooooo stoopid. The depth of their hypocrisy knows no bounds:

Untitled from huffpost and Vimeo.
If you go to the post you'll see a number of comments still blaming Nader. Let's get this straight people: Yes, I believe it was 3% of Floridians voted for Nader, enough for Gore to have overcome the election fixing that the Repugnicans did. However, there is no telling if all of them would have voted for Gore, had Nader not been in the race. I believe the blame lies squarely on the 12% of DEMOCRATS who voted for Bush! (oh, and on Gore, and 4 years later, Kerry for running completely incompetent campaigns) So let's stop blaming Nader, and start looking at the quality of the candidates we've chosen over the past 30 years:
Carter: his presidency is considered by many to be a failure (not me), but he is by far the most socially active living ex-president. (score = +1)
Mondale: can you say boring incompetent campaign? (score = -1)
Dukakis: again, can you say boring incometent campaign? (score = -1)
Clinton: o.k. not boring, charismatic, quite probably and ass hole, but he was our ass hole (read Hunter Thomson's "Better than Sex")(score = +1)
Gore: Boring! No one to blame but himself. Probably not an ass hole. Florida election was fixed (score = -1)
Kerry: Boring. Smart, but boring. Ohio election was fixed (score = -1)

So that's 2:1 boring. The sheep are a lot more accepting of a charismatic dick head, than a boring nice guy.

The current crop will most likely shake up, since career ending dirt will almost certainly be dug up on somebody, since they're starting the campaign well over a year before the election. Hillary doesn't have anything close to Bill's charm. I also think there are far better feminist candidates who are male. She's too much like Feinstein, and I don't trust either of them. Obama's got the charm, but a lack of experience on the national scale (not that W had any experience other than running an oil company, a baseball team, and a state into the ground.) I think this country is still way to bigoted to elect a black candidate. Edwards... something just feels wrong about him. Richardson doesn't have the name recognition. The little bit I know about him I like, but again not charismatic enough to pull himself out of the hole he's starting off in. Kucinich looks like a cartoon character, but he does have a young, attractive wife, with a tongue piercing. The rest of them I don't know. I'd like to see an Obama/Richardson ticket (in either order), but that would need a lot of people overcoming their racism against blacks and Mexicans.

If you really want to be scared about our world go here. So much of it has already happened.

Mountain bikers are doing well so far this year at the Tour. Rassmussen is in the lead (Former world champion mountain biker) Cadel Evans is positioned well going into Saturday's time trial, and the Pyrenees on Sunday. Right now I'd say the top 9 all have a shot, but Rassmussen needs to get a whole lot more time ahead, because the Chicken does not have a good history with time trials. Leipheimer will have to step it up in the next mountain stages. He's probably the best time-trialist in the top 9, but he's going to have to crack some of his competitors and at least finish with the leaders on all of the mountain stages. I don't know if the French will put up with a third American in a row winning the Tour.

And just in case you thin the bible is all good, go here.

later

2007-07-15T00:45:00.000-05:00

So, I was listening to NPR a couple of days ago, and they were talking about a Bush press conference where he was talking about the link between Iraq and Al Qaeda, and Helen Thompson (Thomas?), the senior White House correspondent that the bushies tried to kick out of the front row a couple of years ago, said (and I believe I have the quote right), "Mr. President, you do realize that Al Qaeda wan't in Iraq until we were, don't you?" She rules. I haven't been able to find a video of it, but I wan't one. I don't think he does realize it. If he does, he doesn't care. Or Cheney doesn't care. Both of those goat-fuckers need to be impeached. They've done so much to deserve it. Crimes against the constitution. At least some are starting to call for it with Cheney.

I can't believe that anyone believes anything that comes out of their mouths. Chertof's "hunch" that Al Qaeda is planning something. The recent report that they are stronger than since 9/11. My hunch is: bullshit! I'm not surprised that Faux News is really biting on that one. They should be strung up for not stopping at Afghanistan.

More crap from the bushies: The former Surgeon General says he was muzzled. He had to mention Bush at leas three times per speech. Additionally, he was told not to go to the Special Olympics, because the Kennedy's were involved and you wouldn't want to help "those people". Excuse me. It's the Special Olympics. It's supposed to transcend politics. I guess nothing does with those jackasses.

I love it when right wingers who make their careers get caught in their hypocrisy. David Vitters (R-La) was one of the DC Madame clients. In my best Nelson voice: Ha Ha!

Speaking of the Simpsons, the movie comes out soon. I think it will be a trip up to Austin to the Alamo Drafthouse. Why every movie theater isn't on this model is beyond me. Food and beer during the movie... Mmmmmm. Beer.

So the Tour de France is about to get interesting. We've been through the first week of crashes and are hitting the mountains. Tomorrow might see some fireworks, but Tuesday and when they hit the Pyrenees next weekend, things should shake up a bunch. I don't think Levi's going to do it, although he's got a chance. Vino would certainly be an interesting winner. Back in the day he used to attack just for the hell of it. Exciting to watch, but not going to win the Tour. I'd like to see it happen. Cadel Evans? The first Aussie winner? Maybe.

laters...

2007-06-19T15:28:00.000-05:00

I don't smoke pot, but I don't think it should be illegal either. It clogs up the justice system, and does less harm than my drug of choice, alcohol. (It just puts me to sleep instantly.) Apparently, there's a former Texas narcotics officer who agrees. He's selling videos about how to hide your stash during a search. He's releasing his second one.

I was going to link to an update of this, but it's dissapeared off the AP site. Hmmm. Anyways, why can't the press (and the Democrats) get some balls, and expose the current administration for what they are: The WORST administration since Nixon, and possibly ever. I was really happy when Jimmy Carter said it, and really upset when he started crawfishing about it. Stick you your guns, man.

2007-06-10T22:27:00.000-05:00

It's hip-hop about bikes. I'm still really not sure what a "Scraper Bike" is. The Trunk Boiz are from Oakland.

More tech for the lazy alcoholic: The Beerbot. Now I don't even need to pour my own beer. If it will make a whiskey-water then I'm in trouble.

I must admit to feeling a fair bit of schadenfreude about the Paris Hilton fiasco. I've never been in jail, but I'm sorry, I can't help but laugh a little. The poor little rich girl is upset that the law actually applies to her. Yes the sentence is tough, but she was given a second chance with probation. Don't piss off the judge. She's not getting a long sentence because she's famous. She's getting a long sentence for the crime because she though her fame meant she didn't need to obey the terms of her parole. Now can it stop taking up the entire news cycle?

Speaking of cycle. Daniello Di Luca won surprised everyone and won the Giro di Italia. I hope he was clean, because it was a great race. The top climbers in the world tried to crack him, and just couldn't. Gilberto Simoni did the fastest climb (in vertical distance per time) in a race ever. Faster than Armstrong or Pantani ever did. Still Di Luca didn't crack. 23 year old Andy Schleck showed that he may be the future of the sport. Best young rider and second place. For those that don't know, long stage races like the Tour, Giro, and Vuelta, generally don't suit young riders. Being able to race for three weeks at a top level takes some age and maturity.

Not much more to say for tonight...

2007-05-22T18:25:00.001-05:00

So I don't know if anyone who isn't a cycling geek is following the Floyd Landis hearing about him doping during last year's Tour de France. What a bunch of amateur mobsters. On all sides. Personally I think they're all guilty. Nobody gives me any reason to think otherwise. As soon as there is a new test, there will be people finding new ways to get around it. I want to think that cycling is getting unfair attention about doping, and I do think that sports like baseball, football, soccer, and hockey dope more, but cycling at that level is dirty. Not everyone, but the guys at the top. Hell, half the mid ninety's Telekom team is admitting it, including Bjarne Riis, the winner of the 1996 Tour de France. He told them they can come get the jersey. Now he owns and manages a team: CSC. They've been dirty for a long time. Merckx got caught a few times. Patrick Lefevere, who now manages a team, admitted taking speed in his day. I haven't heard it yet, but it wouldn't surprise me if Indurain, one of the classiest cyclists ever had doped. He won the Tour five times in a row. (Riis beat him in 1996). With the 1996 tour if they decide to take the title away from Riis, second place was Ulrich (implicated in Operacion Puerto, and persona-non-grata in the cycling world currently), third place was Richard Veinrique (implicated in the Festina Affair) They'd have to go pretty far down the standings to award it to someone who might not have doped.

Even so, USADA and WADA (the United States and World Anti Doping Associations) are also a bunch of ass holes. If this were a criminal prosecution, all of their evidence would be thrown out of court. The lab didn't follow protocol, and even the manufacturer of their machines said they didn't know what they were doing. For professional athletes, cyclists are by far under the most scrutiny. They need to be available not only after and before the races for blood and urine tests, but also ANYTIME the WADA wants. If they miss a test then they get suspended as if they were positive. Let's see a baseball or football player put up with that. Sorry Barry, I know it's late and you just finished playing a double header, but you hit two home runs, and we need some pee and blood. (BTW, Bonds is guilty) Dick Pound and the rest of those jackasses need to be strung up for all the leaks of information, and the attempt to try this in the court of public opinion before the data is all in.

It hurts that my favorite sport is being ruined by money. They have to start an unlimited class, or start a season of amnesty, and then get really strict on people who dope, or we're just going to have to accept that some people will cheat, and do the best to catch them. At least riding a bike is still fun.

On to politics, so Monica Goodling testified to congress this week. Somehow they gave her immunity. What did she do? She played the "I'm just a girl" card. Oh come on. You were hired into a position you weren't qualified for, because you went to Liberty University (started by Jerry Fallwell, consistently rated one of the worst Law Schools, but has a strangely high percentage of graduates in the current administration) and would be willing to ask inappropriate questions in interviews. Things like: "are you a Democrat or a Republican?" Even if it was under the direction of Bush/Cheney/Rove/Gonzales, you still deserve to go down. Why won't this ship sink? Lie after lie after lie. How even die hard Republicans can support anything that comes out of their mouths is beyond me. Easily the worst administration since Nixon. In a few years we might see them as worse. Goat Fuckers! It's too bad that Carter started crawfishing on that statement.

Must stop ranting...

J

2007-05-22T18:01:00.000-05:00

So I got a few seconds to flip channels yesterday after the cable guy set things up here at the house, and I saw what may be the best thing ever on some ESPN offshoot. Not just demolition derby, but demolition derby with combines. Big tractors running into each other, in the mud. Wow...

2007-05-16T22:40:00.000-05:00

This is off my favorite blog:

Check out this animation about the end of the world.

So I've been to a couple of donut shops lately, and it seems like the concept of the"bakers dozen" has been lost. When you buy a dozen, you are supposed to get one more out of the box to eat on the way to the meeting/work. Hell, you're the one picking them up. You get one for flying. Both Shipley's (an area chain) and my favorite place Mrs. Johnson's don't do the bakers dozen anymore. That's just wrong.

Colbert was on fire last night. This poor boy had to learn about global warming. Of course, according to Faux News this is a bad thing that he was required to watch "An Inconvenient Truth". It's about as simplified as you can get for explaining global climate change... Grrr...

I've closed on the sale of my house. Friday, I close on the purchase. Now, if I can keep from fucking my back up before the move, it should go smoothly. I've been filleting a bunch of fish for my project, and the bench I have to use is low so I have to stoop over. The back doesn't like that. I've got about 100 more to go...

I'm out...

Wow!

2007-04-24T15:20:00.000-05:00

Check this out! If they ever decide to get into sharking pool or darts, we're in trouble.

J

2007-04-18T17:05:00.000-05:00

Well, I agreed on a contract to sell my house. It sold in under two days for over asking price. The Austin real estate market is treating me well. It'll be sad to leave, but I'm not going far and I've wanted to get out of living in a city for a while. I've already picked out a new place in San Marcos, and am having it inspected on Saturday. Bigger, nicer, close to school. Ugly color, but the seafoam is growing on me. After the inspection we'll work out the final details.

2007-04-13T18:31:00.000-05:00

R.I.P. Kurt Vonnegut. The author who brought us The Slaughterhouse Five, Galapagos, Cat's Cradle, and Breakfast of Champions passed away on Wednesday.

At least they are subpoenaing Roves e-mails. Sink damn you sink.

J

2007-04-09T23:30:00.000-05:00

So, I had to go to the Mega-Lo-Mart the other day because that's were we have our tax-exempt paperwork for the project. I hate the place. Some people get road rage, I get big-box rage. But I did find a couple of things that made me giggle.

1. Jingoistic Energy:

The tag line on the back says "Keeping Americans Strong" and it's got the Pledge of Allegiance with the under god in all caps. The religious right really wants to forget that it wasn't in the pledge until the 1954, and that the writer of the original was a socialist who left his church because it promoted bigotry.

Even better on the energy drink front:

The flavor is "Steven Segal's Asian Experience" There's so many things wrong with that.

Take that...

2007-03-29T22:27:00.000-05:00

bitches! It's only the end of March and I've already got my Teva tan started:

There's a reason I live in Texas.

Now this is my kind of diet: The Beer Drinkers Diet.

Just to make your skin crawl a little: The top 10 Big-Brother companies.

So, I'm selling my house. I'm going to buy another one in San Marcos, since I'm there all the time anyways. I hate commuting and I'm never here in Austin. It's going to be weird not being in Austin, but hopefully it will help simplify things for me, and since I'm contemplating the PhD program at Texas State, it will be for more than just a year or so. It goes on the market in a couple of weeks, so I've got to get things cleaned up and looking a little nicer. Then I've got to quick find a house in San Marcos. You get a lot more for the money down there, and the rental market is better down there, so I should be able to rent it out after I'm done, if I'm not staying in the area. But the end of May is going to be nerve wracking, normally house closings are at the end of the month. In addition I've got to start doing my own field work and can't miss that sampling at Lake Amistad. Oh yeah, and I've got class work to do also... Sleep, I'll see you in June.

2007-03-25T19:14:00.000-05:00

I only wish they could have made fun of Bill Gates with this: iRack

Just got back from Amistad. Good trip, but rough. I want our boat back. Hopefully it will be done by next trip. Not the roughest I've seen it, but in the borrowed boat it felt like it was tamping the lungs into the colon. The first day was nice:

The cabins we stay in used to be part of a TB sanitarium, where people with TB used to go to recover in a dry climate. When the lake was filled in 1968, this building was in the floodplain, so NPS didn't let this building be rebuilt. I like old abandoned buildings. The walk to the building was a hike through a bunch of pokey things.

It will be a shame when the project is over and I don't get to stay here anymore.

It's great when republicans get caught in their hypocrisy

2007-03-11T21:11:00.000-05:00

We all know Ann Coulter is a homophobe bitch, and the fact that she wasn't booed off stage when she called John Edwards a "faggot" is sickening, but do you really expect anything else from the conservative right? Closed minded goat fuckers. Because of this I think it is great when they get caught not doing their research. Last summer it was Ted Haggard doing speed with a gay prostitute, now it turns out that their latest poster child for the war is a former gay porn star. My bet it that the conservative right starts tripping over themselves to get away from him. They might get gay on them... Where the hell are we going and why am I in this handbasket?

how do people do it...

2007-03-09T18:37:00.000-06:00

I don't see how anyone posts daily. Well, I said it would be irregular. Don't expect fully coherent thoughts. The allergies have been kicking my ass the past week. New sudafed just doesn't work. Give me the stuff they make speed out of. At least that shit works...

Anyways, what have I done? Well a couple of trips to Amistad. We had to use another boat last time because our boat's motor died when being used by another group in the department. I won't say he killed it, but it is the second boat that has died on him. Now he has his own. Our boat does get a lot of hard use, so the motor may have been on its way out. Maybe we are lucky that it didn't die when we were in the middle of Amistad and out of cell phone range.

I'm waiting to hear on a grant that will hopefully fund most of my research. They were supposed to make a decision on funding a few weeks ago, but the budget for USGS has been held up. They keep saying we should know in a week. This is how this process goes. Hopefully soon.

This may be the best thing ever: When robotics meet alcoholism.

So we lost a Gallo over the weekend. E & J Gallo, for all their other faults (Thunderbird, bad jug wine...) did help create the US wine industry. He was 97.

So Scooter Libby got convicted. He's a prick, the Republican/Faux News spinmeisters need to be shot, and he didn't take down Cheney. HOWEVER, he is the fall guy. Cheney is the evil one. Fucking shadow president. In twenty years it will come out that he gave bush the black eye, not the stupid pretzel. The fucking neocons are going to destroy the world. They refuse to see beyond their own massive paychecks. And the fundamentalist ones really want to bring on armageddon so they can have their end of days rapture. Sick fucks.

2007-01-31T22:13:00.000-06:00

I have to start on a sad note. Molly Ivins died today. Her attitude is one of the reasons, that I accepted moving to Texas nine years ago. True Texas liberals are some of the greatest people in the world. Molly Ivins, Bill Hicks, Anne Richards, Jim Hightower... Three of them are dead. Who's stepping up to the plate? Lloyd Doggett? Not outspoken enough. Kinky Friedman? He's the reason we still have a Republican governor, which I am still pissed off about, and doesn't support the separation of church and state enough. (He does have the one show of Austin City Limits that was never broadcast, supposedly because he said some offensive things. I don't know in what way they were offensive) Now if we could just get rid of the asshole conservatives.

So, I'm teaching one A&P lab this semester and my students seem nice, but they don't seem to be listening to my warnings of how much information they have to absorb for this class, and I have my doubts about whether they are even getting the background material. I did my fair share of goofing off during my first couple of years of college, and maybe it was different at UCD, but the amount of information we're asking them to know isn't unreasonable. A lot, but not unfair. The first quiz average was lower than I wanted, and it was all review from basic biology. They get a lab sheet each week, which is what the quiz and practicals are written off of. It is their study sheet. If it's not on there, it's not on the tests. I've already gotten a couple of comments from students wanting me to make the next quiz easier. "Can't you do multiple choice or matching?" They don't want me to write that kind of quiz, because I can make them harder than a fill in the blank. Now I feel old.

I haven't had a chance to do much fact checking, but if you want to see some of the lies in the bible, go here. Now the bible is a good story, but that's it. The new testament was compiled for political purposes, hundreds of years after Jesus lived. There were many other gospels that were left out (or stamped out) because they did things like promote the quest for individual knowledge or hold that women were equal to men. And it's still being used for political purposes... Fucking Constantine.

Have you been following the Scooter Libby trial? I haven't gotten to as much as I'd like, but it's not painting anyone in a good light. I like how the defence is trying to blame the administration. I'm sure that's making some people squirm. Now Bush is getting implicated. Sweet. I need this t-shirt. See more at OneHorseShy. Why do we have to suffer until 2008 with BushCo? I don't want Bush impeached without Cheney going down also, but the whole lot needs to go. Have you seen the similarity between the current rhetoric on Iran and what was said about Iraq? (the transcripts should be up tomorrow on MSNBC) We all know they were lying then. Don't let them get us into another great distraction in Iran. If they had been willing to talk to Iran a few years ago, they would have prevented the current situation. But, they aren't interested in that. It's all part of their plan.... Fuck, now I'm a conspiracy nut. I hate that, but those goatfuckers don't make it easy to resist.

Oh, and if you want to know the moment when your favorite TV show jumped the shark, now you can.

Boston shut down by Aqua Teen Hunger Force posters

cheers,
J

2007-01-26T19:04:00.000-06:00

Just got back from a few days of doing fieldwork at Lake Amistad. Luckily we mostly missed the rain. We didn't miss the cold. It only rained a little on the first day, but we were sweating bullets on the way out, driving through pouring rain. The rain pretty much stopped once we got there, but high 30's on a lake at 40mph on a boat with no windbreak is fucking cold. The second day was beautiful, but even in the low 50's it's uncomfortable when you are moving... I wish a picture would do justice for Goodenough Springs. This was the third or fourth largest spring in Texas when the reservoir was filled in 1969. Now it is 20m underwater. In the wintertime it still releases enough water to make a boil on the top of the lake. The water from the spring is 68°F, while the lake is significantly colder right now, so the warm water pushes it's way to the surface. This goes away in the summer, when the lake water is warmer than the spring. A picture doesn't show the effect at all... It's cool. I'll leave it at that.

This is just what I need. Christ, if they ever start putting small batch bourbons in these, I'm in trouble. Like I need any more portable bourbon... hic. The flask might bruise my hip, and everyone will think it's an energy gel. Why does Jesse ride slower and fall down more after he has a energy shot? Oh it's a shot alrighty. I get surly when you question me about it....They even market it for biking.

Take something pure and simple like the bicycle and ruin it. This is not a bicycle it belongs in a kinetic sculpture parade. And besides it's a tricycle.

Religious nutcases have too much time on their hands. How about go out and live Jesus's word, by helping people, instead of putting out lists of gay bands? Hypocritical sacks of shit. However, I am interested that both Metallica and TED FUCKING NUGENT made their lists. The Nuge? I dare you to go to his ranch (outside of Waco btw) and tell him that. He's as much of a homophobe as the dumbshit who made the list. And, he really, really, really, likes guns. He really does. Some of the other ones are funny. Does anyone really listen to Frankie Goes To Hollywood anymore? I mean if you are going to post a list of "popular music", you might want to keep it to things that the kids might be listening to, whatever your agenda... Oh, and their list of o.k. bands is really short and includes Cindy Lauper.

Werd... J

2007-01-18T18:01:00.000-06:00

Well it was really more ice/slush tubing. We found a hill by Kristen's house that was fun to slide down. I did manage to protect the beer. Everything has melted off...

Break was effectively extended a week by the ice storm. For those that are in places where ice and snow are regular things, in Texas if more than three flakes fall out of the sky everything shuts down. And you want it to, because you don't want to be driving with those idiots who've never seen ice and think that 70mph is still a reasonable speed on the highway when it is iced.

So I'm back to teaching A&P this semester. I was going to IA, Reservoir Ecology this semester, but no one signed up for the course. That's fine, it would have been nice to be teaching a graduate course, and I think we could have come up with a good class project. I can scare undergrads again. Only one section. The rest of my (lowly paid) time will be continuing work on the Amistad project. Other than that only one class this semester. Aquatic microbial ecology. I'm actually looking forward to it, since that is a bit of a hole in my knowledge. One of the groups of bacteria that the professor studies, are the main group that methylates mercury, although he doesn't look at the mercury aspect of the group.

I'm not into conspiracy theories, and I can poke holes in this all day long, but it is interesting. Was 9/11 an insurance scam? It's long. I hope not, because if it is, we're a lot more fucked than I'd like to hope we are. Not that we aren't being fucked by Bush & Co. already, but I refuse to believe that they really are that evil. I know that at EVERY step they have made wrong, self-serving, pigheaded decisions. Finally, even his own party is starting to distance themselves from the insanity. I'm more than a little tired of politicians and pundits refusing to acknowledge that it was the US that destabilized Iraq. Yeah, Saddam was a jackass. He was horrible to his own people. But he wasn't a threat to us. Never was going to be. If Shrub really wanted to effect the region, we would have stopped at Afghanistan, and would concentrate on that like we did Japan and Germany. If we could have taken the 10+ years to show that peoples lives were getting better in Afghanistan, people would start seeing through the fundamentalist lies. All the last 6 years have done is give fundamentalist Muslims an imperialist enemy to hate. At every step along the way, we play into their rhetoric, and do exactly what gets them more converts. The current Iraqi government is a sham. It's obvious that it is a puppet government. I hope that people in this country start seeing through the neo-con views, and begin to see that Bush & Co. are just as much fundamentalists as those in the middle east. Fundamentalism is wrong. The flavor doesn't matter. Fundamentalism breeds fascism.

So, if you follow cycling at all, the anti-doping crusaders are looking more and more rediculous. Now the French are trying to bust another for his asthma medicine. I still think they need to come up with the unlimited class. If you get caught doping, you get bumped into it permanently. I don't support doping, and I'm sure there are cyclists who do cheat, but I do think cycling has been unfairly targeted. I think track, baseball, football, soccer, etc. are all at least as dirty, if not more-so, but the press (at least the press I follow) concentrates on cycling. I'm not going to blindly support Lance, Floyd, Tyler, Jan, Ivan, or any of the others, but come on. The French are just pissy, since they haven't had a contender in the Tour for years. It wouldn't suprise me if it comes out that Floyd was framed. Oparacion Puerto is one of the most bungled investigations ever. I think that it is wrong that a lot of careers were derailed on speculation. Bust people if you have proof. Just because an athlete may have talked to a certain doctor is not reason to suspend them.

anyways, rant off for today....

J

2007-01-16T13:05:00.000-06:00

It's rare, but it does snow sometimes in Texas. It's funny how when you don't deal with snow all the time, it makes people happy. I don't know how much will stick, probably not much or for long. I think it's supposed to warm up in a day or two. I think I must go skiing behind a truck....

2007-01-09T15:37:00.000-06:00

Went caving over the weekend. It seems like we've been working on the Blowing Sink project for years. Oh, right, it has been two years. I want to go in a different cave. For those that don't know, Blowing Sink is a cave that goes down to the Edwards Aquifer, and this is a project Bev has been leading. We've been working on stabilizing a passage so that the City of Austin can get better and safer access for scientists to study the aquifer. Also, the fire department wants to use the cave as a training cave for their cave rescue program. It's in a less consolidated formation, and the passage we are working on was succeptible to collapse. We've poured approximately 2000lbs of concrete in the passage. Each pour consists of about 3-4 trips of hauling equipment, building forms, and finally mixing concrete in small buckets to pour into the forms. The pic below is from a previous trip. That's Mark from the city on the left, Nathan in the front, Bev on the Right. I forget who is in the back. This is about 90ft underground. Yes, this is what I do. (Well when I can)

This is a pic that my friend Trevor took. I like it:

The new pit transportation for your next lawnmower race: Cruzin Cooler
Oh yeah, we all need one. You can even get a trailer for it (Thanks Naomi).

This is probably the calmest I've ever seen Lake Amistad (The reservoir where I do my fieldwork, on the border between Texas and Mexico. Thats Texas on the left and Mexico on the right):
Glass all day. Days like this, fieldwork is easy. I know there will be payback... Next time the waves will be crashing over the bow.

cheers,
J

2006-12-27T17:12:00.000-06:00

Just because I think more people should know about some of the craziness behind Scientology:

The Fishman Affidavit.

Read about thetans, Xenu, and how he brought us to Teegeeack. Really it's a bunch of gibberish. A poorly written science fiction story. I need to find a reference, but I've been told that Hubbard started the "church" as a joke between him and a friend about how easy it is to get religious tax shelters.

J

2006-12-27T14:42:00.000-06:00

Well, we lost a couple over the weekend. I can't say either of them were "good" people, but they both had a large impact on our world:

James Brown

President Gerald R. Ford

At least Ford was no sata... er, I mean Cheney. Cheney and Kissinger may be the two most evil men alive in our country. I wonder how long it is before Cheney joins Kissinger on war crimes charges? How did such an evil man get the Nobel Peace Prize?

I want Bush impeached as much as anyone, but I don't want them to do it unless they are going to take Cheney down also. I guess Bush is only a heart attack away from actually being president.

J

2006-12-24T18:56:00.000-06:00

I'm not a big fan of christmas, but I am a fan of bikes (thanks Jilltron).
The Nutcracker Suite played entirely on bicycle parts:
music:
http://www.createdigitalmusic.com/sounds/specializednutcracker.mp3
video:
http://www.specialized.com/bc/microsite/holiday/index.html

2006-12-23T21:03:00.000-06:00

Here's a time waster:
http://www.linerider.com/

I can't believe this is from Texas. I know the drug war is a total failure, but I'm not sure what to think about this:
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/122206dntexdrugtips.2b266e6.html

Speaking of postitive drug experiences:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYmfS170NKQ

Yeah, yeah, I'll figure out how to post the video later. Bill Hicks was the most brilliant comedian of my generation.

J

Semester is over!

2006-12-21T15:34:00.000-06:00

Well, not really a lot to say here. Just the first post