Eric's Mighty Band Of Mutants

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November 29th, 2009
04:53 pm cat_macros [hotclaws] [Link]	Who 8 all the turkey? Current Mood: nauseated (1 comment \| Leave a comment)
01:42 am ontd_political [leprofessional] [Link]	The New Inquisition Source: The New Inquisition by LAILA LALAMI November 24, 2009 At a literary festival in New York City some years ago, I was introduced to a French writer who, almost immediately after we shook hands, asked me where I was from. When the answer was "Morocco," he put down his drink and stared at me with anthropological curiosity. We spoke about literature, of course, and discovered a common love for the work of the South African writer J.M. Coetzee, but before long the conversation had turned to Moroccan writers, then to Moroccan writers in France, and then, as I expected it eventually would, to Moroccan immigrants in France--at which point the French writer declared, "If they were all like you, there wouldn't be a problem." His tone suggested he was paying me some sort of compliment, though I found it odd that he would want the 1 million Moroccans in his country to be carbon copies of someone he had barely met and whose views on immigration--had he asked about them--he might not have found quite to his liking. It was only later, when I had returned to my hotel room, that it dawned on me that the profile of the unproblematic Moroccan immigrant he might have had in mind was based solely on conspicuous things. Some of these, like skin color, were purely accidental; others, like sartorial choices or dietary practices, were in my opinion inessential, but from his vantage point perhaps they suggested a smaller degree of "Muslimness." Was this man really suggesting that I was a more desirable immigrant because I did not look Muslim? We had started our conversation as two equals, two potential friends, two writers discussing literature, but we had ended it as judge and supplicant--the former telling the latter whether or not she would make a suitable immigrant. And why on earth did I not say something on the spot? Why did I not ask him what he meant? Instead, I had stared back at him with what I imagine was dumbfounded perplexity, and then changed the subject. Perhaps if I had confronted him I would have been able to remove the sting of the insult that had lain hidden inside the compliment. Was this man really suggesting that I was a more desirable immigrant because I did not look Muslim? We had started our conversation as two equals, two potential friends, two writers discussing literature, but we had ended it as judge and supplicant--the former telling the latter whether or not she would make a suitable immigrant. And why on earth did I not say something on the spot? Why did I not ask him what he meant? Instead, I had stared back at him with what I imagine was dumbfounded perplexity, and then changed the subject. Perhaps if I had confronted him I would have been able to remove the sting of the insult that had lain hidden inside the compliment. In any case, the man's assertion was a purely theoretical speculation. In practice, there is little evidence that even inconspicuous Muslims are fully accepted in France, or elsewhere in Europe. This was made abundantly clear in September, when Le Monde released video footage from an encounter between Brice Hortefeux, the interior minister of France, and Amine Benalia-Brouch, a young Algerian-French activist. Hortefeux and Benalia-Brouch, who were both attending the summer congress of the center-right party Union pour un Mouvement Populaire, were asked to pose for a photograph. A female onlooker touched Benalia-Brouch on the cheek and, in a voice ringing with approbation, said, "[Benalia-Brouch] is Catholic. He eats pork and drinks beer." "That is true," replied Benalia-Brouch, smiling. "He is our little Arab," the woman continued. Hortefeux added, "Very well. We always need one. When there's one, that's all right. It's when there are a lot of them that there are problems." However offensive Hortefeux's statements may be, they are not particularly remarkable. In French politics, anti-immigrant posturing is something of a rite, often performed at the height of election season. When he was still mayor of Paris, and preparing to run for the presidency under the banner of the center-right party Rassemblement pour la République, Jacques Chirac bemoaned the plight of the "French worker," who was driven "mad" by "the noise and the smell" of the immigrant family next door, "with a father, three or four wives, twenty kids, taking in 50,000 Francs in welfare payments without working." After serving a term as president, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing took to the pages of Le Figaro Magazine to argue passionately that citizenship laws needed to replace the "right of land" (jus soli, automatic citizenship for those born on French soil) with the "right of blood" (jus sanguinis, citizenship determined through French ancestry). If such a distinction were not made, he warned, France would face "an invasion." The "right of blood" definition of citizenship, depending on how it is interpreted, could have ruled out the writer Alexandre Dumas, the footballer Michel Platini, the actress Isabelle Adjani, the physicist Marie Curie, the composer Maurice Ravel, the singer Charles Aznavour, as well as Nicolas Sarkozy, the current president of France, but perhaps Giscard d'Estaing felt his country could have done without any of them. (France eliminated the jus soli definition of citizenship in 1993 and then reinstated it in a limited form in 1997.) In 2002 Manuel Valls, the mayor of Evry and a member of the Parti Socialiste, shot to national prominence when he tried to close down a halal supermarket because it did not carry pork or wine. He claimed the store had to "help us maintain some diversity." Two years before his election to the presidency in 2007, Sarkozy promised he would "hose down" the "scum" of the Paris suburbs, where many of the city's Muslims reside. Declarations such as these cut across party lines and constitute what the French press euphemistically calls dérapages, or blunders. Read rest, nice overview of a disturbing trend... (3 comments \| Leave a comment)
09:57 am ontd_political [volksjager] [Link]	Swiss vote to Ban Minarets (according to exit poles) -Projections from exit polls suggest Swiss voters have backed a referendum proposal to ban the building of minarets. The proposal is backed by conservative Christian groups and by the biggest party in Switzerland's parliament, the right-wing Swiss People's Party (SVP), which says allowing minarets would lead to the Islamisation of the country. There are an estimated 400,000 Muslims in Switzerland, most from the former Yugoslavia or Turkey. Islam is the country's most widespread religion after Christianity, but although there are Muslim prayer rooms, proper mosques with minarets are few and far between. There are just four across Switzerland, and in recent years, all applications to build minarets have been turned down. Fear of extremism Although there is little evidence of Islamic extremism in Switzerland, supporters of a ban say the presence of minarets would represent the growth of an ideology and a legal system that are incompatible with Swiss democracy. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/talking_point/8385151.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8297826.stm (13 comments \| Leave a comment)
11:26 am filkertom [Link]	Black Friday Sale Ends Tonight Such a deal. Thanks to everyone who's purchased so far. I'm working on music today, in between minor chores. Call this one an open thread. (Leave a comment)
09:15 am politicartoons [i] [Link]	click image for background (4 comments \| Leave a comment)
08:07 am rmjwell [Link]	Burlesque Picture of the Day, 2009-11-29 ( You are about to view content that may only be appropriate for adults. ) Tags: bpod, burlesque, photos (3 comments \| Leave a comment)
03:58 pm daily_kos [Link]	The Venus Syndrome http://rss.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/0GKDCTwW-wo/-The-Venus-Syndrome It's that most wonderful time of the year! Christmas decorations are going up all over America. Those colorful little strings of twinkling lights racing down eaves and winding artfully around tree trunks can do more than paint pretty holiday vistas. We can use them as an intuitive probe to look at our nearest neighbor in space and speculate on earth's distant, or not so distant, future. A typical Christmas tree light puts out about one watt of heat and light energy. That's not a lot but it does the job. On that same scale, the incident solar radiation, or insolation, received by earth when all wavelengths are taken into account works to about 250 watts per square meter¹ (usually referred to as just "watts") when averaged over the entire surface, light and dark, from poles to equator. Some of it is reflected back, the rest is absorbed. If you take an introductory planetary astronomy course you'll hear the usual spiel that the earth is in the solar system's Goldilocks zone, not too hot like our sister planet Venus, not too cold like our smaller cousin Mars. It's actually more complicated than that. At 250 watts, the earth is a little too far away, a little too cold, for our liking. By the laws of simple thermodynamics our lovely blue-green planet should boast an average temperature well below the freezing point of water. And the sun is very slowly heating up, roughly 5 to 10 percent per billion years, so ancient insolation was even less long ago than it is now. The earth should have started out frozen solid right down to the deep ocean trenches and it would be a brilliant iceball hanging in space like a snow-white ornament to this day. What's kept that grim fate at bay for billions of years are greenhouses gases (GHGs). If you compare GHGs like carbon dioxide (CO2), water vapor (H2O), and ozone (O3), to non GHGs in our atmosphere like oxygen (O2) or nitrogen (N2), one of the first things you notice is that the GHGs have more than two atoms. That's not a coincidence. The physical arrangement of atoms that make up GHGs allows them to absorb a lot more heat than the simpler compounds. They act on our planet just like windows in your car; they let light through but retain heat, so when you come back to your SUV in a sunny parking after holiday shopping, it's noticeably warmer inside. The Greenhouse Effect saved earth from turning into a snowball and made our world a haven for life, but the same phenomenon pulled Venus into the fiery pit of hell. Billions of years ago, lovely Venus was true to her mythological name, hospitable, inviting, and probably much more like earth. Evidence suggests she had warm liquid oceans and everything else a heat loving anaerobic microbe could want. But proximity to the sun and relentless solar heating evaporated more and more water. Water vapor is a potent heat trapping gas. The temperature rose further evaporating more water, the process fed back, viciously, and eventually the oceans boiled off completely cloaking the planet in thick steam. High in the atmosphere, under the influence of harsh solar UV, hydrogen atoms escaped their watery embrace with oxygen and bled into space. The oxygen combined with left over nitrogen to form clouds of acid. Nearer the now broiling surface, carbon was baked out of the rock and combined with oxygen to form CO2, trapping even more heat. The picture of the surface below taken by a Russian probe (Venera 13) gives an idea of what Venus is like now (Click on any image to enlarge offsite). The horizon is off in the upper right corner. It's every bit as hot as it looks. Today Venus is as dry as a bone under a smothering atmosphere ninety times denser than ours and the planet roasts at 850 F. So hot it snows metal, so hot you wouldn't need a light in a Venusian cave because the walls glow red. Some scientist speculate that if Venus had a robust microbiology early on, microbes might still eek out a living high in the clouds. But any life that resembled even the hardiest terrestrial thermophiles on or near the surface was charred to a cinder. Planetary astronomers don't know for sure when this happened. But it most likely occurred at least 500 million years ago, because that's the last time the entire surface melted and re-solidified in the tortured Hadaean tableau we see now. It may have periodically melted, several times, which means the climate on Venus may have spun out of control over two or three billion years ago when the insolation was not much greater than it is on earth today That brings up a chilling question, no pun intended: could the same thing happen to earth? Yes, and it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. The sun will continue to slowly heat up until our world is forced into a similar greenhouse loop. It may take hundreds of million of years, but it probably won't take much more than a billion. And with a little help, say if a huge source of greenhouses gases were suddenly released, it might happen more quickly than we could ever dream up in our worst nightmare. Climate scientists have found that at the current solar luminosity and continental configuration, the earth is amazingly sensitive to small perturbations in climate. The difference between the warm period we're in now and enough cooling to trigger an ice age is one, tiny twinkling little Christmas tree bulb over each square meter of the earth's surface for several centuries. If the lack of a single miniature decorative light could trigger ice sheets marching down into Indiana, imagine the warming that might ensue if 5 or 10 of them were added? Next week we'll look at the most recent work from the man who is arguably the world's foremost expert in climate science. He worries that, under some of the grimmer assumptions, we may embark on a whirl-wind journey to join our sister planet, in more ways than size and mass, a lot earlier than we think. (Leave a comment)
10:31 am rob_sawyer_blog [Link]	Fan letter of the day http://sfwriter.com/2009/11/fan-letter-of-day.html Carolyn, who handles my little eBay book business (through which I sell autographed copies of my books), received this email today: By the way, I'm reading *Wake* at the moment and absolutely loving it. It's rare to find a book that works at so many levels: compelling narrative, philosophically and intellectually interesting, fantastic characterisation. I'm new to Robert's work and have come via the television version of FlashForward. It's good to find some really good Sci Fi. W00t! Visit The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site and WakeWatchWonder.com (Leave a comment)
02:02 pm daily_kos [Link]	A Purity Test for Democrats http://rss.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/y47m3640X-Y/-A-Purity-Test-for-Democrats The RNC is pushing a purity test for Republicans. True to form, the modern GOP has enshrined an off-the-cuff remark of St. Ronnie the Intolerant and declared that anyone who doesn't leap over at least 8 of 10 newly-created hurdles is no longer welcome at the elephant trough. You don't have to read past the preamble to confirm that the Republicans are now completely in the grip of the most extreme faction of the Beck-heads. WHEREAS, Republican faithfulness to its conservative principles and public policies and Republican solidarity in opposition to Obama’s socialist agenda is necessary to preserve the security of our country, our economic and political freedoms, and our way of life; The whole scorecard of Republicanism is now measured in how strongly a candidate stands against the president. How impressive is it that the long dead host of Death Valley Days is always "President Ronald Reagan" while the sitting president of the United States is simply "Obama"? This is a party not just in opposition to Democrats, but to reality. The idea of the GOP is that this list of "principles" can serve them as the "Contract with America" did the Newt generation over a decade ago. There's a slight problem with that idea. Even assuming that Newt's baby had something to do with GOP advances back then, the Contract at least contained something to do. The Contract with America contained at least eight pieces of proposed legislation. The new purity test? None. As with all things GOP these days, there's not a single new idea in this test. Instead, it's a test of saying no. The rules require that would-be Republicans oppose health care reform, oppose stimulus, oppose amnesty for immigrants, oppose equal rights for gays, oppose protecting the environment, oppose unions, oppose diplomatic solutions, and oppose health care reform (again). There's a tip of the hat to the NRA, but not one, not one, actual solution proposed. Apparently, being a Republican is completely a negative test. You don't have to actually do anything, you just have to agree to oppose the right things. Still, the purity test does provide a convenient check list. You too can be accepted as a Republican if you promise to hate gays, poor people, immigrants, and the environment (which, come to think of it, has been the Republican standard for decades). Out of pure bullet-point envy, I propose that Democrats must also have their own list. Ten litmus tests which every potential Democratic candidate should be able to ace before they ever hope to put (D) after their names. In fact, I'll go so far as to be more pure than the Republicans. If you can't pass every one of these tests, don't bother to sign on. (1) We support the rights extended to Americans extended under the Constitution. All the rights. For all Americans. (2) We support thoughtful, pragmatic solutions that protect American lives, American standards, and American pocketbooks. This includes finding solutions that don't require bombing anyone. (3) We support an America that has diversity in race, thought, background, and religion not out of some hazy idealism, but because it is our nation's greatest strength. (4) We oppose torture in any form, in any place, at any time, for any reason. (5) We support American business, and recognize that an unregulated market is an unfair market, an unstable market, and a market doomed to failure. (6) We support American workers, and know that when workers are allowed to organize they make their jobs, their companies, and their nation stronger. (7) We believe that the reputation of our nation is valuable and must be zealously guarded against those who place expediency ahead of law. (8) We believe in spreading democracy and human rights to the rest of the world by vigorously upholding those ideals here at home. (9) We believe that access to our government is not for sale. Not in the courthouse, not in the White House, and not in the legislature. (10) We believe that the health of our planet is not a zero-sum game, not a game of "you go first," and not a game. Not a particularly detailed set of positions, I know. But then it's not supposed to be. Unlike the GOP, we aren't short of ideas, and unlike Newt, we don't have to dream up a batch of legislation with cute names. We already have real legislation out there that meet these goals. Bills like the Employee Free Choice Act, the Clean Water Protection Act, the American Clean Energy and Security Act, the Affordable Health Care for America Act and many others. But then, maybe 10 rules aren't enough. I left out the Democratic 11th commandment (thou shalt stop supporting Joe Lieberman's bigger-than-the-Snoopy-balloon-in-the-Macy's-parade-sized ego), and I'm sure I've left out plenty of others. Maybe ones that you feel are vital. What are your suggestions? (Leave a comment)
09:56 am cspowers [Link]	The Fantastic Mr. Fox Last night I went to see The Fantastic Mr. Fox, based on the children's book by Roald Dahl. I'd never read this particular book, but Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was one of my favorite books as a child. And yet, somehow I wasn't looking forward to the movie. There was something about the trailer that kinda put me off. So I went in with very low expectations and was very pleasantly surprised at how entertaining this movie is. People who've read the book say that it mostly stays true to the original book, in terms of the animals having to work together to survive. But the movie has been modernized and updated to fit better into the times. (e.g., the animals all have digital watches, etc.). Like Dahl's other stories, there are some interesting themes for adults to ponder. In The Fantastic Mr. Fox, there seems to be a running theme about whether people can really change themselves or are destined by fate to be a certain way. There's also some thematic stuff around learning to work together even if you find the other people annoying. The nice thing about the movie is that it doesn't preach at you about these things. The lessons are borne out in the events of the plot. George Clooney and Wallace Wolodarsky do bang up jobs playing Mr. Fox and his partner in crime, Kylie (some sort of small rodent-like animal I can't quite figure out.). Meryl Streep is kinda lost in the Mrs. Fox role. She just doesn't have much to work with. Bill Murray does a great job playing Mr. Fox's character foil, the ever practical if curmudgeonly Badger. The most amazing thing about the movie is the style of the animation. I don't know what you'd call it exactly. It's like something you'd see in the very early days of television. It looks to be stop motion animation using puppets rather than clay figures. This old-school style was complemented by an overall visual style in the sets that was reminiscent of the 20's and 30's style of story telling. And it was a beautiful movie visually. (Leave a comment)
02:16 pm cat_macros [molly_brown] [Link]	I captioned this on the cheezburger site last night (Leave a comment)
12:14 pm daily_kos [Link]	Your Abbreviated Pundit Round-up http://rss.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/5OYHBWD1ffM/-Your-Abbreviated-Pundit-Round-up Sunday ~~funnies~~ punditry. Nicholas Kristof: John’s story is not so unusual. A Harvard study, to be published next month in the American Journal of Public Health, suggests that almost 45,000 Americans die prematurely each year as a consequence of not having insurance. John may become one of them. If a senator strolled indifferently by as John retched in pain, we would think that person pitiless. But isn’t it just as monstrous for politicians to avert their eyes, make excuses and deny coverage to innumerable Americans just like John? NY Times editorial on public option: We got to this juncture because, in an already overheated political debate, no issue has drawn more demagoguery and less rational analysis than the public option. And while both political parties exaggerate what a public plan could do, Republican critics are particularly divorced from reality. NY Times on food stamps: A program once scorned as a failed welfare scheme now helps feed one in eight Americans and one in four children. Andrew Rivken on climate emails: "We won the war — the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize, and climate and energy legislation is near the top of the U.S. agenda," Dr. Curry said. "Why keep fighting all these silly battles and putting ourselves in this position? John L. Marshall, MD (oncologist): In the extensive debate over health-care reform, we have heard little discussion about the enormous cost of cancer care. (Some of the only voices to broach the subject are those fearing "death panels.") But at this moment, when a significant shift in the health system in this country is possible, we must ask some difficult questions: Does it make sense to support cancer care at the current levels in the United States? Who should determine the value of care? Clarence Page: Are storm clouds brewing on the horizon for Democrats? That’s the bad news for Dems from a source that usually prefers news that makes Republicans look bad. When voters were asked if they will "definitely vote" or not in next year’s congressional elections, the latest weekly tracking poll commissioned by the decidedly liberal Daily Kos shows a growing enthusiasm gap in favor of Republicans. (Leave a comment)
12:34 pm johnny9fingers [Link]	( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. ) (Leave a comment)
10:28 am doonesburyc [thermaland] [Link]	Sunday 29 November 2009 Tags: roland, sunday (Leave a comment)
04:56 am filkertom [Link]	And the Pursuit of Happiness Fascinating, fun blog at the NY Times. Check out the latest installment, "Back to the Land". Tags: activism, food, news (1 comment \| Leave a comment)
09:53 am smallship1 [Link]	Freebie If you feel that some sort of writing software might help you as a writer and don't want to pay £££, you might like to know that this has just popped up. Yes, I know NaNoWriMo is almost over, the timing could have been better, but there it is, and I offer the link for what it's worth (no hurry; FDAD doesn't have a time limit). Personally, I view writing software rather like occult jewellery and such--it's stupid to think that it will do the job for you, but it's just as stupid to dismiss it as rubbish purely because you are so intellectually disciplined and brilliant that you can write a bestseller first draft on the backs of old envelopes in the dark. If it helps, if it makes you feel you can do it more easily, then by all means use it, and the Weatherwaxes of the world can go stuff themselves. (3 comments \| Leave a comment)
03:52 am wyld_dandelyon [Link]	Flying Free Well, I did it. The rough draft of Clockwork Dragon isn't finished; there's some holes that need filling (with little red notes in the text so I don't forger) and some research to do still, and the climax and denouement to write, and maybe a prologue too, since I'm starting to think that the very short prologue is really the start of a different story--but I have more than 50,000 words that I'm happy with, as first drafts go. And I did it all in November. It feels good. I wasn't about to follow the conventional NaNo advice that "all first drafts are crap, so all that matters is typing as fast as you can". So if I hadn't "won", I wouldn't be crying. But it feels good that I did reach this goal, and with enough time to spare that I didn't have to worry about weird inconsistencies, like the NaNo website changing the date on me at 11 p.m. instead of midnight, and the NaNo website counting my text at more than 300 fewer words than my word processor counted. Some days I spent more time on Google than on writing new words. Or asking people things. Trying to imagine clearly how stuff I've never done looks and feels, trying to gauge what a character would find when locked in a long-abandoned spot, to try to use to escape, and reasonable outcomes for those attempts--and whether some of the attempts might prove more lethal than the plot calls for (and what to do about that). Other times I leapt forward, skipping whole chapters when I wasn't sure what needs to happen for the plot to move forward, and going to crisis points, critical events that I knew had to happen. I found that less uncomfortable than I thought it would be. And I reached the goal, even after deciding to go with the hardest of three potential projects. So it feels good! Next, I think I'll spend a little time filling in the holes in the worldbuilding, and go through and make sure that the chapters are in the correct order for the timeline issues that getting the chapters actually written revealed. I'm not going to stop writing new words, but I think they'll flow better with some of this other stuff resolved. And, of course, I want to catch up on other writing projects. The snakeskin story is my first goal; I also promised to do a 12-drummers story which is due in early December. And I want to finish the sparkly sea-serpent story too. And then there's that story I decided really was a narrative first draft of a short story, rather than a piece of flash fiction. And Fireborn, I can't forget that! I want to organize my thoughts, what I've learned from NaNo so far, but for now-- Wheeeeeeee! Current Location: my life Current Mood: accomplished Tags: clockwork dragon, nanowrimo, writing (5 comments \| Leave a comment)
09:43 am smallship1 [Link]	At last Thanks to Vue and Poser, I have finally managed to construct a version of an album cover idea that's been bugging me for the past thirty years. Seriously. It's not right, of course--the hair's wrong, the pose isn't quite what I wanted, and so on--but at least it's out there now and I can let go of the damn thing. brain falls apart (2 comments \| Leave a comment)
03:00 am lukeski [Link]	Luke Ski's Annoying Daily LJ Twitter Post 17:13 And so Black Saturday begins. Hope it's as profitable as last Saturday. Wonder how many Star Trek episodes I'll get through today. # 18:07 Star Trek ep. "The Devil In The Dark" Crew hunts down a giant sausage pizza, without antacid. Speaks to the heart, well, the a-horta anyway. # 18:41 @wormquartet Does that make "Serenity" Joss Whedon's cover version of "Dead Fraggles"? # 19:00 Star Trek ep. "Errand Of Mercy" I'm having a tough time taking any of these Klingons seriously. # 20:58 Up to $122 for today, 4 hours to go. How are you? # 22:34 Star Trek ep. "City on the Edge of Forever" How about a parody of Al's Eddie Vedder song, called "My Captain's In Love With Edith Keeler"? # 23:56 I don't think I'm going to be able to come up with 25 "Dark Lords" for the MarsCon 2010 Dementia Track t-shirt. May need to go another dir. # 06:21 @danharmon Does the stork have rocket feet? # Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter (Leave a comment)
09:51 am sinfest_mod [misery_chick] [Link]	(2 comments \| Leave a comment)
03:00 pm snopes_dot_com [Link]	Greyhound Park Closure http://www.snopes.com/critters/crusader/greyhounds.asp Alert warns that dogs not adopted after the closure of the Dairyland Greyhound Park will be euthanized. (Leave a comment)
02:25 am coffeeem [Link]	What I Did at Darkover Grand Council, Day 2, by Emma Breakfast buffet (biscuits with apple-cinnamon jelly! blintzes!). Panel on "Staying Focused," in which we described all the things that distract us. g Reading from Claim, at which someone got the oblique contemporary political commentary. (g) Lunch--crabmeat pizza! Awesome! Guest of Honor question and answer session (I got to talk about Shadow Unit--yaaayy! An hour out in the lobby talking to the folks with their spinning wheels, asking about equipment and techniques, and about one woman's marvelous portable wheel, a Merlin Tree Hitchhiker. Present from twistedchick delivered: a moebius shawl-scarf in the most delicious autumn colors. Just what I needed for the chilly parts of the hotel! (Thank you--it's gorgeous, and I'm so sorry you weren't able to be there.) Quick, back to programming room! for a panel on what writers owe to the audience. Then, autograph session! tammypierce signed more books than I did. Well, okay, she's written more books than I have. g But I signed lots. Admired a splendid beaded coyote-head brooch...and its owner gave it to me. (!) Clear the room--time for Regency dancing! Susan did a great job as dance mistress. Only got in two dances, one completely new to us, before we had to dash to drop things off in the room before dinner. Where I discovered that Will had bought me the hat in the dealers room that I described as "The Wicked Witch of the West goes to the Ascot races." I wore the hat to dinner. g Good takeout Chinese, in excellent company, and some cloudberry liqueur, which was astounding. Then quick e-mail check before the Clam Chowder concert, which was hilarious and beautiful, usually simultaneously. France had brought her scissors with her to the con, and gave me a haircut, which means 2009 was bookended by GAFilk and Darkover, and haircuts from France at each one. Ahh, symmetry! After that we darted back down to the first floor where most of the con membership was warming up for the Saturday night midnight performance of the Hallelujah Chorus in the lobby. A hundred people standing in a hotel lobby singing the Hallelujah Chorus, in parts, all the way through, is worth the trip all by itself. Oh, and I met an attendee on a Segway equipped with a seat...also a stick horse head and a pair of coconut shell halves mounted on the right side near the hand grip to make hoof clops with. I forgot to ask him if he's named it. Now I should go to bed. There's more fun tomorrow. Current Location: Timonium, MD Current Mood: sleepy Tags: conventions, cool stuff (10 comments \| Leave a comment)
06:22 am daily_kos [Link]	Sunday Talk - BROKEN News!!! http://rss.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/0hJUGKnWIBc/-Sunday-TalkBROKEN-News!!! On the heels of several embarrassing "production errors" that have recently occurred, Fox News Channel this week instituted a new zero tolerance policy. And while it's probably a little too early to deem this new policy a success, 193% of Republicans surveyed say it's working like gangbusters. However, not everyone is convinced. Some wonder whether these snafus make Fox look more like Sesame Street than a real news operation. (Leave a comment)
12:59 am rob_sawyer_blog [Link]	Star Trek opening-credits mashups http://sfwriter.com/2009/11/star-trek-opening-credits-mashups.html I'm a huge fan of the dying art of TV opening credits; my hero growing up was Jack Cole (who did The Six Million Dollar Man, The Night Stalker, The Incredible Hulk, The Bionic Woman, Planet of the Apes, Ironside, The Rockford Files, Ellery Queen, and others). Here are some cool mashups for various Star Trek series, creating new title sequences set to the theme music of other shows: First Set Second Set Enjoy! Visit The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site and WakeWatchWonder.com (Leave a comment)
01:12 am ontd_political [sailorangei] [Link]	Indonesia minister says immorality causes disasters Oh good smeg, not this crap again... --------------------------------- Source A government minister has blamed Indonesia's recent string of natural disasters on people's immorality. Communication and Information Minister Tifatul Sembiring said that there were many television programmes that destroyed morals. Therefore, the minister said, natural disasters would continue to occur. His comments came as he addressed a prayer meeting on Friday in Padang, Sumatra, which was hit by a powerful earthquake in late September. He also hit out at rising decadence - proven, he said, by the availability of Indonesia-made pornographic DVDs in local markets - and called for tougher laws. According to the Jakarta Globe, his comments sparked an angry reaction on the internet, particularly among those who followed him on social networking site Twitter. Why focus on public immorality when there was so much within the government, one respondent reportedly asked. More than 1,000 people died in the Padang earthquake, which toppled hundreds of buildings in and around the city. Padang lies to the south of Aceh province, which was devastated in the December 2004 Asian tsunami. Indonesia lies across a series of geological fault-lines and is prone to frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. ---------------------------------------- Wheel of Morality, turn turn turn... Current Mood: bitchy (76 comments \| Leave a comment)

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Eric Coleman, Curmudgeon