Rain Gryphon

Never, in all my life, did I expect to see OPEC as the good guys. Yet here they are, trying to keep us from destroying the world economy through our obsession with carbon. Obviously they're doing it from self-interest, but that's okay. If more nations acted from enlightened self-interest instead of principle, the world would be a better place.

In the end, what's so incredibly frustrating about the 'global warming' people is their insistence on a prescriptive solution. Their goal *must* be accomplished through sacrifice, and no other way. They've borked suggestions for increasing global albedo through manipulating cloud cover, for using orbital reflectors (my personal favourite), and now for carbon capture.

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I'm developing an interest in Ogam script.

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The glaciers of Mercury. Didn't see that coming.

More lakes on Mars!

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Helen Reddy has died. I feel so old.

So, a targetted fix for atmospheric CO₂. Assuming it works, it's an absolutely perfect solution. It's cheap (possibly even profitable with time); it's entirely transparent to the consumer, requiring no changes in behaviour; it turns atmospheric CO₂ back into petroleum feedstock (no mention in the article of the pioneering work Ye Olde Nazis did in this); it can be implemented piecemeal, requiring no multi-national coordination; and best of all, it adds another tool to our armamentarium. Our ability to steer the environment is increased, rather than decreased, by this method.

...and I love the phrase "the chalky calcium carbonate pellets".

And, of course, the Greens are in a lather to stop it. Because the Green agenda never was about "global warming", or "carbon footprints", or saving the world. It was entirely about economic and social control. A cheap, quick fix is a disaster to them.

Transgendered Lions.

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Unaccountably, there saeems to be something of a fashion for building stabbing robots.

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I can see Charles Manson as a guest star on "Futurama", re-programming Bender.

I was unaware that there was once a special car for women. Personally, I'll have to differ with the author - I think that's quite a nice-looking car, much sleeker and racier-looking than the average 1950s car, and most of the commentators seem to agree. I love the comment to the effect that the only way it could be more awesome would be if it had a rocket launcher.

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Another American child raped by illegals. The kicker is at the end, where they reveal that this is the third one this month.

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NASA finally has a proper budget and mission again, and the Space Council is being revived! Also, the POTUS is open to the idea of launching Congress into space! :D

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This may have been the case for some time, and I just haven't noticed, but all of the local grocery stores seem to carry fresh shiitakes now. When I was little, mushrooms were something that there were one kind of, and they came in a can. Produce in general has gotten so much more varied in my lifetime.

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Dinosaurs came from Britain. And I applaud the return of ornithoscelida. The entire ornithiscian/sauriscian dichotomomy always seemed very arbitrary to me.

If it does become necessary for Trump, like Lincoln before him, to temporarily suspend certain legal and Constitutional protections to bring the press and the courts to heel, I wonder what the long-term effects will be? Society recovered pretty quickly in 1863, but then again, people (the literate ones, at least) in that age were better educated, and, it seems to me, possessed of rather more common sense as well^1. I'm not sure we'd pick up the thread that easily again.

Americans have been heavily indoctrinated to see the Constitution as somehow uniquely wise and infallible, a document that can apply equally to all places and times, and without which nothing good is possible. It's like America's version of Kim Il Sung, in a way. Removing its divine status, even though it were necessary to save America, is going to badly undermine a lot of people's belief system. Hopefully it won't come to that.

I tend to wonder too, now that I think about it, whether America's origins as a Protestant country make us more susceptible to that "sola scriptura" sort of mindset. There's a great similarity between the way the Constitution and the Bible are treated as being above the need for justification.

^1 If this were a drinking game, and I'd tossed back a shot for every one of my liberal friends and acquaintances who muttered darkly these past few days about America "forgetting history", I'd be at the hospital having my stomach pumped.

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Under certain conditions, dead bodies can form blue crystals.

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English Monarchs. Magnificent site about the Kings and Queens of England, together with related historical topics. I've spent the better part of the day poking around in here. I recommend it highly. I haven't even begun to poke at the subsite Scottish Monarchs.

I had no idea that George I was such a rotter!

I live in a country where people think it's important to control how someone else sits on a couch. Seriously. As many problems as we have, and this^1 is what a certain portion of the country thinks is a pressing issue. It's no wonder things got as fucked up as they did.

^1 And, of course, the all-important "best movie" awards. Musn't forget those.

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The celebrated Giant Geiger Counter of Ooty! It seems odd to me that the elements would be installed horizontally rather than vertically, but I suppose if the array is large enough, it will still be directional.

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The next building over but one just had their transformer explode as I was typing. Despite the fact that there's a building blocking my direct line of sight, the reflected flash still lit up my windows. These apartments, like a microcosm of America, have just been falling apart these past few years. I keep saying I'm going to move, and I never do.

Oh, my! It's possible, if you're a duck or a fish, or something small enough, to swim from the Atlantic to the Pacific through the States, using only natural waterways! Stuff like this fascinates me! I feel ten years old when I learn something like this.

If you're familiar with the belief that evil spirits can't cross running water, this has some interesting implications for that as well.

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Soon, the Pandas will overun us...

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Watching the Cubs can turn gay people straight. I never suspected that. I didn't watch 'em enough, I guess.

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When I think of 'man cave', I'm generally thinking of something a bit more comfort-oriented than an actual hole in the ground.

I'm really kind of nonplussed by all of the presumably intelligent people having a freakout over the fact that their voice-activated TV listens to everything that's said, and not just commands addressed to it. How on earth do these people think that voice recognition is supposed to work, anyway?

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I haz a Birb!



I really love this picture, and the artist only charges $15, too!


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Canadian man saved after being mistaken for a Seal.

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Terrorist was plotting to set off the Yellowstone Caldrea. That's probably not even possible at any level of effort short of what a large government could summon, but I'll give him points for ambition.

It has been a day of wonders! When I awoke this morning, little did I suspect that I would hear the comet singing its song - https://soundcloud.com/esaops/a-singing-comet .

I've also learned today of the existence of active asteroids - http://www.astronomy.com/news/2014/11/tail-discovered-on-long-known-asteroid .

Most amazing to me, though, is the fact that vascular plants apparently use mycorrhizae to share nutrients, hormones, and possibly information. http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20141111-plants-have-a-hidden-internet .

This is the sort of thing that I would never have expected in a hundred years, and yet here it is, going on all around me. I've known all my life that you can't dig a hole in decent soil without finding mycelia, but I never once suspected that they might be doing more than just mindlessly breaking down compost. There is so much around us of which we are unaware.