(Image from Revel & Riot, which also has some good background info on DADT) Between the vote for cloture and the actual vote, I got a little confused about what exactly the status of DADT was this morning. However, the actual vote was scheduled at 3 PM Eastern time, or noon here, and it passed. Obama is expected to sign it next week, and according to WaPo, The legislation says the president and his top military advisers must certify that lifting the ban won't hurt troops' fighting ability. After that, there's a 60-day waiting period for the military.So it doesn't go into effect immediately, though I hope the armed services put a moratorium on DADT discharges in the meantime.
From Goddess a Day, "Frigg is the Norse Goddess of the sky, marriage, motherhood, love, fertility, and the domestic arts."
"It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever..."The quote is from The Terminator, of course, but it could apply just as well to the natural world. That doesn't mean it should necessarily be feared, but respected. It doesn't mean that its endless beauty shouldn't be appreciated, just that it doesn't care if we do or not, and that its just as "happy" with "ugly" as "beautiful." Our values don't apply.
Even the big one — demanding a ransom for two stolen nuclear warheads — is 100 million pounds, $280 million. Adjusted for inflation, that’s about $2 billion — or one-eighth of the Goldman Sachs bonus pool.Why rob banks? That's where the money is. And it's more true today than ever before.
On Saturday, I expressed some regret that the weather wasn't as "vigorous" as I had been led to believe it would be. Turns out it was much, much wetter farther north, with local flooding in Washington state, as well as problems in the Portland area, and landslides and road closures all over the place. We had unusually warm weather Saturday through yesterday, then last night a cold front moved through. A bit after noon today, Aumsville, Oregon got whacked.
What a mess. Tornadoes do occur in western Oregon, but they're pretty rare, averaging about one a year. They also tend to be less powerful than the monsters of the plains states and the Midwest. But I'm sure that's small consolation to the people who now need to figure out how to cope with this chaos in the middle of the Holiday season.
From NASA's Earth Observatory, I'm powerfully glad I don't live in Minnesota. It's a beautiful state, and jokes about mosquitoes not withstanding, I've enjoyed camping there during several summers. I think the most enjoyable professional conference I've ever attended was on the philosophy and nature of science in early 1996 (not positive about the year, but about). I wish I could explore the geology of the state more thoroughly. HOWEVER... there are about four to six months of the year I'm really happy to be elsewhere. The following video clip has been all over the place the last couple of days; you're not even safe inside!
Okay, some of what I learned regarding volcanism as an undergrad still holds true. I guess advances in magma genesis by forces of mythological folklore have rendered the whole partial melting and fractional crystallization idea obsolete, but the surface processes of flows and ignimbrites seem to be pretty much unchanged. From I Need It Quickly.
The eruption was initially attributed to Huldufólk elves believed to be angry at mortals for the desecration of their rock dwellings during the winter of 2009. While gifts of sweets to the elves seemed to produce small gaps in the ash that allowed airspace to be briefly reopened, the cloud as a whole lingered. It was only after millions of travelers had already spent days stranded at airports that embarrassed officials finally conceded that another creature was probably responsible.It's official: my understanding of geology and volcanism is out of date.
After ruling out the 300-foot Lagarfljóts worm, investigators concluded that only Grýla—best known for emerging from her cave at Christmastime in search of naughty children to stuff in a sack—possessed the power necessary to generate an eruption of Eyjafjallajökull's magnitude. By then, however, many food items shipped by air had begun to spoil, and a number of world leaders had already missed the funeral of Polish president Lech Kaczyński.
A sea lion decided to take a scenic drive on Route 101 near Yachats yesterday. I had read about this earlier, but I enjoy the photo. Ahh, the stuff we have to endure in this silly state.
Sober in a Nightclub
Bits and Pieces
Cyanide and Happiness
Criggo
This Modern World
“The problem with quotations that you see on the Internet is that it is difficult to discern if they are genuine.”
— Abraham Lincoln
Bits and Pieces
Sober in a Nightclub
Cake Wrecks
The High Definite
The High Definite
Sober in a Nightclub
Blackadder
Calamities of Nature
Or not. Wil Wheaton's Tumblr.
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