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What's With All that Shaking in Indonesia?

tags: earthquakes, tsunamis, geology I carefully follow the news of Indonesia and other places in the South Pacific Ocean because that's where my research birds come from. So I was listening to radio reports of the recent spate of Sumatran earthquakes with great concern, worried that yet another tsunami would result. But as I listened to these reports, I noticed something else that was unusual; the reporters referred to multiple earthquakes occurring in the region, rather than one quake that was preceeded by foreshocks and followed by aftershocks. So of course, I had to ask the resident…

STEREO Shows Us the Rotating Sun

tags: NASA, STEREO spacecraft, Sun NASA just released a streaming video of the Sun, captured by the twin STEREO spacecraft. The video, in Quicktime format, features 2.5 days of the Sun, and shows it slowly rotating, with solar prominences blasting out into space. The series of images were captured by STEREO from August 16-18, 2007, and then stitched together into a single animation. The prominences that you see on the edges of the Sun were captured in extreme ultraviolet light by the Ahead spacecraft (the one leading the Earth in orbit). And if you watch right to the end, you'll see a…

A Gift from Another Reader

I am amazed and humbled by you, my readers. You have made me feel so appreciated by sending me emails as well as the most wonderful gifts. Recently, one reader sent the entire set of the Lord of the Rings DVDs! I am excited because I have not seen all of the films yet, although I have read the books quite a few times (and I still have my original set of LOTR books from when I was a kid). This particular reader decided I needed the platinum series special extended edition instead of the basic starter series I asked for so I am still watching them -- there's hours of video to be seen on each…

HOLY COW FARTS, Batman!

Welcome to everyone who came here via Daily Kos! Please indulge me by looking around for a few minutes. Daily Kos just linked to a photo and story about NASA that I posted yesterday. According to my statmeter (which I expect will crash any second now), I am receiving approximately 100 hits every 5 minutes, to start. It's so exhilarating that it's almost scary. And best of all, the word from DarkSyde is, my peeps, that Daily Kos will link to Tangled Bank tomorrow in an open thread. This will not generate quite as many hits as today's link, but it's still gonna be quite a party for all the…

Wow!

Thanks everyone for visiting my humble blog -- more than 300,000 people have visited this blog since 12 January! This is the best gift I could have, especially since my hospital discharge date, which was supposed to be tomorrow, was pushed back to the 15th of November. I appreciate your patience with me, especially since I have been unable to regularly access the internet these past months. But I will be back and writing soon. If I add in the numbers of visitors from my original blog, as of this moment, I have enjoyed nearly 450,000 total readers' visits since 4 August 2004, when I first…

Where Should Your Inner New Yorker Live?

I wish I could live on the Upper West Side of NYC but circumstances (finance$) prevent me from doing so. Where should your inner New Yorker live? This test will give you a rough idea, although I doubt it includes my favorite neighborhood in the list (but you all can help me figure out the various answers to the test by reporting your results). You can see my results below the fold. You Belong in the East Village A little bit arty, a little bit punk - you seem to set trends that many people follow. It's likely that you're an academic of sorts, even if it's just on the weekends. Where…

Does the government know what it wants?

From NASAwatch: "How do we motivate students to study astrobiology if this science is not favored in the budget?" asked a teacher. "If they want to work for government money, they must look at what the government wants - not what they think it should want. If they want to work with something the government doesn't want, they'll have to find other money to fund it," Griffin stated." Fair enough. But, how do you motivate students to study astrobiology, or any particular subfield, if the government changes its mind about what it wants on a shorter time scale than it takes to graduate students,…

launch trail in the sunset

From space.com Vandenberg AFB launched an NRO sat on a Delta 4 last night. Launch was scheduled around 8 pm, I had dinner obligations but we sat outside and I was facing the right way, less than perfect angle, but still. Actual launch was 8:33, so I missed the burn, saw the sunset reflect off the trail as it broke up and realised I had missed it. Still a beautiful sight, with a new moon on the horizon over the ocean. This rather nice flickr photo is almost exactly like the view I had, just substitute the foreground with a roofline of a mexican restaurant. I, of course, didn't bring a…

α Cen entering a Maunder Minimum?

Here at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Seatthle, the very well organised Villanova crowd (who apparently just gave Sean a medal or something), have an intriguing paper on quiescence in α Cen A To cut a long story short, x-ray flux from α Cen has plummeted by almost a factor of 100, suggesting the star has entered a unspotted quiet state, possibly analogous to the Sun's Maunder Minimum, since as a first approximation x-ray activity in solar like main sequence stars correlates with the number of star spots, which anti-correlate with the stellar luminosity (fewer spots, less light…

All Star

Raja has discovered so many stars in Andromeda's halo, extending so far (half million light years, dood) that they had to give him an entire session. Yes, every talk in session 177 on tuesday has Raja Guhathakutra from UCSC as a co-author. Dood. To be fair, Vicky Kalogera acheived the same in session 155 - but that was a poster session with only four slots compared to eight in the oral session. Not bad. And Engelbracht is co-author on 14 of the posters in session 160, but sadly the organisers snuck in an interloper, 160.04 is on silicates in AGB stars in LMC, no Engelbracht. Cruel - that'd…

Merry F#!*ing Christmas NASA - from Congress

2007 year budget to clone the 2006 budget with no earmarks or emergency appropriations This implies no increases for NASA or NSF. "...NASA expects to adjust priorities within the Science, Aeronautics and Exploration appropriations account to manage the impact." This is otherwise know as "find some place to cut". Guess where. Hopefully the American Competitiveness issue will let NASA and NSF be exempt from the flat funding. via NASAwatch "NASA has been informed by Committee staff that the assumption for the full-year FY 2007 joint resolution is expected to be the "current rate," defined as FY…

Moore screws up

Michael Moore, in an interview with Keith Olbermann, joked that "This Gustav [the storm heading towards the Gulf Coast] is proof that there is a god in heaven". Yes, he was joking, and he was laughing, and we all know that it is not proof and isn't even evidence of such a thing, so it's somewhat different than when some fundagelical preacher tries to use calamity as a sign from god…but it's not that much different. It's tasteless to laugh as people are frantically trying to prepare for another dangerous onslaught. Can we agree that it is ironic, but not funny, please? Moore's written comments…

sunspots seen, NOT!

we've been kinda low on sunspots for a while as we hit the inter-cycle low; however, I heard rumours from Iceland that Aurora Borealis had been seen, so I scooted over to Soho to look see UPDATE: nope, still no sunspots Couple of nice spot complexes in the upper left. Haven't checked the polarity to see if they are actually part of the new cycle, but it is likely they are. Now we'll see if they're one off, or start of a trend... Silly me, should have checked the other images, I saw the emission line images and jumped on the magnetogram Duh... Here is the visible light image - no spots where…

I am in yur fibr3s

regurgitating yur data Seawolf class nuclear attack submarine, USS Jimmy Carter - optimised for surveillance with an "innovative ocean interface module" - ie there is presumably a pressurised chamber outside the hull where they can do dry work on wet things. Presumably combined with the Remotely Operated Vehicle interface. And, yes, it will have a robot arm, with a claw! Personally I like the Star Trek style command center lounge. Cable tapping pod - Soviet era From ladlass referring to the four consecutive coincidental underwater cable breaks over the last week, in the Mid East I note…

STFC

UK Science and Technology Facilties Council has a "Delivery Plan" for 2008-2011 STF... They confirm withdrawal from Gemini, but also say they want to negotiate access to Gemini (North), since they are also ramping down the Isaac Newton Group telescopes on the Canaries, which would leave them with acres of glass in the south, but nothing in the northern hemisphere. Y'know half of all the galaxies are in the northern hemisphere... I suspect Gemini would let then negotiate access to the northern telescope, and that bidding will start at $8 million per year. 'Course if the brits wait for a…

Mene Mene Tekel Parsin

NuSTAR lives! NuSTAR is a SMEX class high energy x-ray observatory. It was shut down just at critical design review in spring 2006 by the then NASA associate administrator for Science, due to budget cuts in NASA science. It has now been revived by the current associate administrator for Science, Alan Stern, and comes back to post-review phase B. Launch expected in 2011. The good news is that apparently the funding will NOT come out of the recently announced SMEX request for proposal rounds, that will go ahead with six proposals to be selected for concept study, to be down selected to three…

Silly, Very Silly.

Doug N. got a memo on faculty recruiting Apparently post-boomer faculty are completely unreasonable in their expectations, and the silverbacks in academia are trying to analyse the new demands. Doug goes straight to the point, the young 'uns want: Not to be treated poorly where they work Have a life, and not be given shit about having a life Not to be told stupid things by clueless senior people Not to be stuck with stupid, obscure or byzantine policies We also want ponies. Freedom, liberty and justice for all. Peace in our times and love and harmony. Really, we do. We learned this…

unthinkables

Cordesman of the CSIS has a presentation on potential Middle East nuclear conflicts From the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Nov 2007, where Anthony Cordesman is a fellow. Iran, Isreal and Nuclear War - 77 page pdf version of a ppt presentation. Some interesting graphics - eg satellite imagery of the Arak heavy water reactor, which the Iranians claim they are now making fuel elements for - sucker is dug in deep. Some of the stuff is scare figures - eg hypothetical 1 MegaTon Iranian strike on Riyadh. No likely that Iran will have a thermonuclear device in the time frame…

tidbits

CNN is surprised at how much astronomers make, and how few there are personally I am surprised at how little paramedics make On an unrelated note, the next Hubble servicing missions launch has slipped at least five weeks, from end of August to early October. Given hurricane season, the delay in putting together the shuttle tanks and to have two shuttles on the pad, it is not unreasonable to expect additional delays. As is, with the need for orbit verification, the next observing cycle is likely to slip into early 2009. Ed Weiler is now permanent as the new associate administrator for…

Friday Fun: Alien vs Winnie-the-Pooh

This is sick, sick stuff. But actually quite funny, really, in a very black humour sort of way. It's a web comic about the creatures from the Alien films invading the Hundred Acre Wood and basically turning all our most beloved childhood characters into monsters. The comic probably goes on a tad too long, stretching out a rather amusing concept to somewhat pointless length. This is the kind of thing where you have to hit the high points immediately and then run for cover. There are, however, a couple of really good lines, like, "Suddenly Pooh found himself in the middle of a gastronomic…

Best Science Books 2009: San Francisco Chronicle

A nice list from the SF Chronicle: Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer by Novella Carpenter A Fiery Peace in a Cold War: Bernard Schriever and the Ultimate Weapon by Neil Sheehan Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City, by Greg Grandin Googled: The End of the World As We Know It by Ken Auletta The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution by Richard Dawkins Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos H. Papadimitriou Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David…

NASA: Computational Modeling Capabilities

NASA's Science Mission Directorate produced a cross-discipline report on medium term needs for computational modeling capabilities; ie what serious iron NASA might want to get to play with report is up here (pdf) Panels from Earth System Modeling and Assimilation; Solid Earth and Natural Hazards; Astrophysics; Heliophysics; Planetary Science and Mission Engineering, considered current and near future needs and desire, scalability and both state of the art of the codes and development issues. It is an interesting read, if you like that sort of thing. Just for fun I did a keyword search:…

Holdren for Science Advisor

ScienceDebate2008 are reporting that John Holdren is going to be nominated as Presidential Science Adivsor, and Jane Lubchenco for head of NOAA. This is good news. John Holdren is a physicist (plasma/fusion physics) with expertise in energy policy, environmental issues and security. Good combo, and, strangely, my pick, way back when (see comments). More Holdren info. Good choice, but Obama is going to need a high up biologist somewhere, since Chu and Holdren are now the top scientists on board and they overlap in expertise. Jane Lubchenco will be in charge of air and oceans. Excellent choice…

christmas song identification needed...

just heard on the radio this morning: it was a live riff on "12 days of christmas" by what sounded like a classically trained male choir. They started mixing up the lines around the 4th verse, and then working in lyrics from other songs (eg "... two turtle doves/and a Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer"); at the end they broke into "I have a dreidle" on the 12th verse, and then worked in a very good "Christmas down in Africa" to finish it off. Audience was enjoying themselves and it was very well done. Must know who did it. Found it! Slowpokes. Straight No Chaser A Capella Men's Choir And,…

Open Access Week: Exploring Open Science

As I mentioned a few days ago, the kind librarians of Brock University in St. Catherines, ON invited me to give a talk as part of their Open Access Week suite of events. I've included my slides for the presentation below. There was a small but engaged group of mostly librarians that turned up. Please don't let the high number of slides deter you from zipping through the presentation. A good chunk of the slides only have a couple of words on them and another good chunk are screen shots of xkcd strips. The slides are in our IR here and on Google Docs here. I'd like to thank Barbara…

Around the Web: Library space, bookstores, education, privacy and more

UTSA opens fully electronic science, engineering library The Future Of Reading Bye Bye, Big-Box Bookstores The Rubik's Cube Conjecture PROVEN! (Do we care?) On Great Myth of the Librarian Grays What Do You Call Facebook For Scientists? Um...Facebook Shutting down social media access: I take umbrage A Personal Librarian For Every Drexel Freshman Free...as in the British Museum Post-publication Review: Is the Dialog of Science Really a Monologue? The line between book and Internet will disappear From Good Study Habits to Better Teaching 7 Things You Should Know About Privacy in Web 2.0…

Harry Potter Book Disguises, Part I

tags: Harry Potter book disguises, satire Do you love the Harry Potter books, but are afraid that you are too old and too professional to be seen reading them? Well, never fear, I have found a few book-sized covers that you can use to disguise your new Harry Potter book from prying eyes so you can read it in public with impunity. I will post a few of my favorite book cover disguises below the fold, one per day through Saturday, for you to enjoy (and to print out, if you wish to use any of them). This first one is a manly-man cover for you shoot 'em up types; Cover by 86. Print Size. Image…

Homer Simpson for President

tags: Homer Simpson, humor, politics, Tonight Show, streaming video As everyone in the entire world knows, America is getting ready to elect a president for the first time in nearly 8 years. Of course, this means that we all are quite excited to have our votes counted this time -- really counted, yaknowwhatImean? -- and we are having fun debating the relative merits of the many candidates we have to choose from. It turns out that most of the candidates are also putting in their two-cents' worth on the topic as well, including Homer Simpson [2:20] Which reason was your most favorite in the…

I'm A Panelist at the European Science Blogging Conference in London

I have more news about the European Science Blogging Conference in London, England. First, we have an official logo (see left)! Second, I just learned that I will be a panelist with two Nature Network Science Blog writers! We will be discussing a topic that is near and dear to my heart; Science, Blogging and the Public. To do a good job as a panelist, I have some questions that I plan to ask you over the next week or so, and I will use your responses to write about those topics and seek more responses from you after I do that so I can refine my knowledge for this panel. The first question;…

Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain ..

tags: war profiteering, KBR, politics, streaming video Ninety-nine dollars to wash a bag of laundry?? That's what it costs a soldier to get his laundry done for him -- because he is not allowed to do it for himself. This war is just one huge mess .. when will this country ever leave Iraq? After KBR and Halliburton have bankrupted the USA? Progressive film director Robert Greenwald was scheduled to testify at a hearing on Thursday, 10 May about war profiteering. He requested to show a few minutes from one of his films, Iraq for Sale, but Republicans refused him. This is what Congress will not…

Gonzo Gets A Brief Reprieve

I am sure that Gonzales is thankful today, despite the fact that a group of conservative Bush supporters are clamoring for his resignation. Why? Gonzo is being granted a reprieve from his coming congressional appearance due to the Virginia Tech shootings. Instead of appearing in front of congress tomorrow, as originally scheduled, he will be appearing on Thursday. Leahy said the shooting deaths of 33 people including a suspected gunman at Virginia Tech was "a matter where our whole nation is going to be grieving tomorrow, and many individual members of both bodies (of Congress) will be…

Post-traumatic Stress Disorder Linked with Increased Pain Tolerance

A recent study by Dutch scientists has found that people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may be less sensitive to physical pain than those who don't suffer from the condition. PTSD patients experience panic attacks, flashbacks, anxiety and depression following a traumatic event. Scans reveals that the PTSD subjects' brains were less active than those of their unaffected counterparts. While other studies have suggested that patients with PTSD may have differences in the structure of certain parts of their brain compared with healthy people, the research team did not suggest a…

Columbus Circle at Night #2

tags: columbus circle, manhattan, photography, NYC, NYCLife Columbus Circle/CNN, NYC, at night. Image: GrrlScientist 2008. [wallpaper size]. If you look closely at the previous picture and compare it to this one, you will find that the tall building on the right in this picture is actually on the left side of the previous image. I am also wondering if you notice how the buildings in the image curve in from both sides, sort of like the city closing in around you? I think this must be an artifact of the camera itself, am I right? Is there any way to fix that, or should I instead plan on…

Mystery Bird: Glaucous-winged Gull, Larus glaucescens

tags: mystery bird, identify this bird, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz "What species of bird was in the shortest Superbowl commercial in history?" [Mystery bird] Glaucous-winged Gull, Larus glaucescens, an image grab from the television in Seattle during the Superbowl 2009 .. this bird was featured in shortest Superbowl commercial ever shown (0.5 sec) -- can you identify this mystery bird? Image: a Tweeters list subscriber, 1 February 2009. [larger view]. Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification. Here's another look [0:03]: And here's the original image…

Atlanta Pharyngufest?

Next week at this time I'll be in lovely downtown Atlanta, staying at the Renaissance Atlanta Hotel. If we're going to have a Pharyngufest, probably the best time would be Saturday, 12 July, and somewhere not too far away from the hotel. Anyone interested? Any locals want to make suggestions for good meeting places? We need something that isn't too noisy, that serves good refreshments, and offers exemplary Southern hospitality, 'cause that's what I expect when I go to Georgia. If nothing else, the hotel has two bars, and I suppose we could hit one of those. If anyone wants to suggest better…

800 Hidden Plastic Jars

The other day somebody hid a geocache a short bike ride from my house at a spot where, I now know, an orienteering-themed fraternal order was founded in 1930. Today I rode out and became the second person to log the cache. And coming home I realised it was my 800th find since I started 8 years ago! My geocaching stats reveal a hobby that starts as an obsession and mellows out into an on-and-off thing. Finds no 1-100 took 2 months. 101-200 took 8 months (because of winter). 201-300 took 3 months. 301-400 took 4 months. 401-500 took 7 months. 501-600 took 1 year. 601-700 took c. 2½ years. 701-…

Quaint Local Pronunciation

My boss at the Academy of Letters used to head the National Archives. Here's a story he told over coffee the other day. Some decades ago a delegation of Swedish archivists was driving across the American Midwest to visit a Mormon microfilming facility. Stopping in a small town for lunch, they noticed that it had an unusual name in a Native American language. At a fast food restaurant, the head of Stockholm's town archives asked the cashier, "Excuse me miss, we're from Sweden and this place has such an unusual name. Could you please tell me how to pronounce it?" The young lady stared at him…

Peter Köhler Show

My brother-in-law Peter Köhler is not only a very nice guy, but also a successful artist. He regularly exhibits his work at Magnus Karlsson's gallery, one of Stockholm's most prestigious venues. Peter's next show there is scheduled for 9 Jan. through 7 Feb. and is titled "Black Magic". "A study visit to the Museum of Witchcraft in Boscastle, Cornwall -- where Peter Köhler was given access to the museum's collections, photo archives and library -- and repeated travels in China form points of departure. Peter Köhler works with spontaneous figuration and improvisation, but some of the…

Climate sensitivity, again

There's much tweeting going on of Real Global Temperature Trend, p18 – Now how high is climate sensitivity? Here’s the answer of the world’s 13 leading climate experts! especially by those blessed to be in the magic 13. However, I like Jonathon Gregory's answer: It’s a good question but I don’t place any confidence in gut feelings, so my answer would be the likely range of the AR5. I found Kahneman’s discussion convincing in “Thinking, fast and slow” of the ways in which intuition misleads us, and in particular that experts are overconfident. Refs * If We Don't Know Where The Jobs Are To…

Subprime fun

Reading the torygraph business section I came across Deutsche Bank in ownership court row: "An American judge has prevented Deutsche Bank from repossessing 14 homes because the bank could not prove it owned the defaulting mortgages involved... Pooling involves taking hundreds if not thousands of mortgages, putting them in one unit, and then selling parts of that unit to others. As a result, it can often be unclear which bank actually owns the individual mortgages. Judge Boyko had ordered lawyers acting for Deutsche Bank National Trust Company to prove the lender was the ultimate owner of the…

Introducing the Aardvarchaeology Store

Those free Nigerian scam t-shirts never materialised, but still, the affair prompted me to get some excellent merch art made and set up a web shop. A good thing about this is that now I can offer all three designs submitted by Jim Allen, Stacy Mason and Joe Hewitt! Dear Reader, hie thee over to Ye New Shoppe and check out the wares! If there's any item you're missing and onto which one might conceivably stick the art, then please tell me and I'll try to add it to the lineup. Now I want you guys to send me pics of yourselves wearing Aard t-shirts and/or swigging beverages from Aard mugs!

My Check List for Metal Detecting

Once I went metal-detecting without my GPS. Luckily the site was not far from my home and I found only one object worth collecting, so I could mark the spot with a stick and return after dinner to get the coordinates. Another time I forgot my rubber boots and was confused by my detector's strange behaviour until I realised that I was wearing heavy steel-capped workman's shoes that triggered the detector at a distance of decimeters. These days I have a checklist that I use to pack for metal-detecting. Here's what I need to bring when going into the field. Metal detector (!) Batteries Spade…

I'm an expert (on wiki)

Why is a Stoat like a Bus? Because you wait days for a post and then 3 come along at once :-) Its been ages since I've posted any wiki stuff (ahem: apart from Citizendium, tangenitally). Mostly because the climate side of wiki is very quiet and I spend my time merrily blocking people for 3RR. But in a vaguely climate-related issue, the 2nd Ed Poor RFA (oh how the mighty are humbled; which is sad, and I'm not crowing, I mean it) I am explicitly recognised as an "Expert" (its in findings of fact #4, if you really want to know). Not that its going to get me anywhere on my annual appraisal, since…

Global Warming - Scientific Controversies in Climate Variability

Is the title of an International seminar meeting at The Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm, Sweden September 11-12th 2006. Sounds like an attempt at a sexy title. However, the list of presentations doesnt look good... ironically, under why this meeting is a bad idea it says This meeting is not intended to be a skeptics vs non-skeptics confrontation - which it won't be, cos its packed with skeptics (with a few exceptions). Quality control appears to be poor, since they have let in Zbigniew Jaworowski. And all this is being organised by an NMR specialist. [Update: if you haven't…

Hopeful Buttons Again

Time to ask the regulars to push some buttons again. (You do realise that this is just an experiment in behavioristic psychology?) On average, this blog sees about 90 daily visits from returning readers. If, on average, the blog's regulars visit the site only every second day, this means that I have about 180 steady readers. Yet at the moment, Aard has only been favourited by ten people on Technorati and graded by twelve on Bloggtoppen. See those buttons below my profile, top left? Go, kids, go! Push the buttons! Push, push, push! Buttons, buttons, buttons! If you do, I will absolve you of…

Developed and Developing Countries Agree

So says a recent poll from PIPA. They agree on exactly what, you ask? "Human activity, including industry and transportation, is a significant cause of climate change" says 79% of the globe. Nine out of ten say that action is necessary to address global warming. A substantial majority (65%) choose the strongest position, saying that "it is necessary to take major steps starting very soon." Interestingly enough, India does not seem to share the rest of the world's opinion (not to mention the findings of the latest IPCC report) and comes in at only 49% agreement! Not good news politically…

Peter Gabriel's Biko

I found this on Youtube and wanted to share it with everyone. It's a video for the song Biko, by Peter Gabriel. Stephen Biko was a South African anti-apartheid activist who was killed by the police in 1977 while in custody. I was at the Amnesty International concert in Chicago in 1986 and heard Peter Gabriel perform this song live. It's incredibly powerful. And if you ever get a chance, rent the movie Cry Freedom, which is about Biko and Donald Woods,a white journalist who escaped South Africa to tell his story to the world. It's an profound movie, with Denzel Washington and Kevin Kline…

Absurd Sentence for the Penis Pump Judge

I'm just stunned by this. The famous penis pump judge was sentenced to four years in prison today - four years. That strikes me as an absolutely ridiculous sentence for such a minor offense. I was sure he would get probation and that was it. The fact that he lost his job, his pension and his public reputation is punishment enough. He's become a national laughingstock and is utterly humiliated. What good does this sentence do for anyone? Are they trying to deter the vast numbers of other judges pining away from a penis pump? I just don't get it. The only one who actually saw him do it was the…

Clerks 2

I've been eagerly awaiting the release of Clerks 2, and it finally came this weekend. I haven't seen it yet, but I will. This is one of the rare movies that actually will get me to go to the theater to see it. I'm a huge Kevin Smith fan. And seeing this review from wingnut Debbie Schlussel just makes me want to see it even more: The film is garbage. It's depraved, disgusting, and demented--all of which reflect the same on its writer/director, the now-worshipped idol of the slacker set, Smith. The movie is a celluloid monument to the continuing decline of America--and civilization in general.…

Stranded!

Well, I was trying to get home from my talk in Stillwater (more about that later), but the weather did not cooperate. We're having one of those spectacular midwestern summer storms — a watery deluge, non-stop lightning so close and so bright it blinded me, a threat of tornados, etc. Since I couldn't go faster than 10mph on the freeway, visibility was nonexistent, and word was that the storm was traveling in exactly the same direction I was, I decided maybe I should bag this travel stuff and found a no-name motel somewhere. If you hear that Clearwater, MN was demolished by tornados overnight…