1,500,000

Here was the overview of my visitation stats as of yesterday evening, right before I left:

And here is the same plot as of this morning:

A bit over 5 years, a few over 3000 posts, and now over 1.5 million page views. This has definitely been a season of milestones!

Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!

Since Sunday, people using Chrome have been getting a malware warning upon attempting to visit this blog. I'm not terribly knowledgeable about this stuff, but I was able to determine what the likely problem was: a post from nearly two years ago, with a link to another website I won't name- you'll see it in a moment. At any rate, I deleted that whole post yesterday, though it still shows up in a search. But if you were to click  on that link, as I did, you'd be told "That page does not exist."

Note that the OTI post, the first result, is not labeled as a hazard. All the others, hosted at the apparently offending site, are.

I will point out that two Chrome users have told me they were blocked from going to the page, but had no problem reading it in RSS. So there's that option.

Additionally, I did a malware scan (results here, though I don't know how long they'll be cached), and was told OTI was malware-free. I'm not sure how often Chrome updates its "dangerous sites" data base, but I'm hoping it gets cleared up. I'm a little confused... isn't Chrome a Google product? Why would Chrome mark a site (or page) dangerous, but not Google? At any rate, sorry people are having to deal with this, and I hope what I've done already is enough to get it cleared up, sooner or later.

Of course the people having the problem won't be able to read this, either.

"Even More Tragic"

In my previous post on the Arizona shootings, I quoted a comment I had received, but didn't really discuss how thoroughly it shocked and horrified me, leaving readers to find my problem for themselves. After considering this over the last day, I think that it is central to the issue of how mainstream the hateful, eliminationist rhetoric has become, and I want to revisit it. So here's the comment:

"It is a very tragic event. Even more tragic is to blame Sarah Palin and the Tea Party. I do not believe for one second that they endorse democrats being murdered. How stupid to think so. I do not like democratic ideas but I do not want one single democrat to ever be murdered!!!!"

Now think about that. Six people are dead. A congressional representative faces an uncertain future- the damage to her brain was much worse than I imagined a person might survive. The bullet traveled from the back to the front of her left lobe; this was not just a skull-grazing injury. One of the dead was a nine-year-old girl, pictured above, Christina Taylor Green, whose birthday was September 11, 2001. She had been featured in a book named "Faces of Hope," which contained portraits of 50 children, one from each state, born on that fateful day. She was interested in politics as a solution to human and social problems, and was taken to meet Giffords by a neighbor who thought she would enjoy the experience. Ironically, the levels of paranoia and fear whipped up by a certain side of the US political spectrum in the aftermath of her birth date have, without any real doubt, played some role- potentially small, possibly large, we simply don't know yet- in ending this child's life. And that of five others.

So, responding to my comment linking this paranoia, hateful rhetoric, Sarah Palin, the teabaggers, and my own anger and despair at yesterday's events, the commenter acknowledges that it was indeed a tragedy. Then proceeds to say, "Even more tragic is to blame Sarah Palin and the Tea Party." "Even MORE tragic?" Seriously?

MORE tragic that an absolute nobody blogger/facebooker/twitterer makes the exactly same connections as thousands of others who write and go public on the web? MORE tragic that Palin and the teabaggers are asked to take SOME degree of responsibility for an atmosphere of terror, blind rage and bloodlust? MORE tragic that within minutes of the news, Palin and others were pulling down images and comments that people have been warning for the last couple of years would lead to exactly this kind of massacre? Are you fucking serious?

These things are "even MORE tragic" than the simple fact of Christina Taylor Green's cold, dead body? Not to mention the 18 other injuries and deaths? MORE fucking tragic?

And this is exactly the point. I'm sure the commenter didn't even think about what she was saying. She was on autopilot. She has been conditioned by Palin, O'Reilly, Hannity, Beck, Boehner, Brewer, and on, and on and on, to believe that merely impugning the wonderfulness of "people like them" is more tragic, a greater crime, a worse humanitarian crisis, than hundreds of thousands of people dying annually from lack of health care, than millions of children who are mal- or undernourished every day, than tens of thousands of homeless veterans for whom it's well worth shelling out for showy car magnets, but not worth a nickel to actually get them shelter. I'm sure she is quite right that neither she nor her party's leaders "endorse" democrats or other undesirables being murdered outright. However, she has been well trained to understand that when, God forbid, such a thing happens, the appropriate response is to defend the righteous, stay calm, put it out of your mind, and walk cheerfully forward into the the world that is being re-shaped for the right people. The ones like them. The ones who believe the right things, in the right God. The ones who understand that democracy is all about being the ones ballsy and macho enough to kill and take power from anyone with the temerity to stand in the way of the blessed. The ones who understand that civility is for the weak. The ultra-rich and those who are happy to service them and their whims. The ones who understand that "thinking for oneself" is a trick of Satan. Because to react in any other way would even more tragic still.

Rising Empire

According to Sharenator/empires, Outside the Interzone is more powerful populous than Vatican City.This is based on the supposed 5029 visitors the blog gets daily. Color me dubious. On the other hand......the idea of the OTI crowd as 3459 people wearing Groucho Marx glasses seems utterly perfect.

She Can See My Blog From Alaska

A screen capture from a few minutes ago.  I've noticed visitors from Wasilla before, and obviously I can't be certain it's the wicked witch of the north or her kin.  But I can hope, and I can joke.

50,000

A few minutes ago, some nice person from Garner, North Carolina became the 50,000th (counted) visitor to this humble blog. C'mon down, and collect your prize! One Internet! (zero cash value) (But thanks, I really am kind of flattered by the number of visitors.)

Mack the Knife

According to this site, Bobby Darin's "Mack the Knife" was the #1 hit when I was born. It's not a song I'm terribly fond of... I don't hate it or anything, I'm just not a big fan of the big band sound, I've heard it too many times- in particular, butchered in karaoke versions too many times- and it just seems trite to me. But it is what it is, so here it is.

The site was running slow when I visited, but with a little patience, it came up.

Shall we call this a meme? I don't do tagging, but if this sort of thing amuses you, see if you can find a YouTube of the #1 song when you were born. Leave a link in the comments, and I'll come over and watch it.

1500

I didn't really set out to put up my 1500th post on the last day of the year, but I realized a few weeks ago that given my rate of posting, that's about when it would fall. Tuesday, I didn't really find anything that engaged me- or at least that I could talk sensibly about. So it looked like 1500 would fall on the 2nd (Interzone is closed tomorrow, and I can't count on a good signal from home). Then yesterday I found all sorts of things to rant about and discuss, so here we are.
This past year has seen an enormous increase in visits; my non-rigorous skimming of the sitemeter stats suggests most of those are coming from Google's image search. But I have quite a number of followers, and I know quite a few others subscribe in RSS. I don't know how to get a tally of the latter, but the point is, there are a number of people who read my blog, but don't necessarily get counted.

It's sort of mind boggling to me that 4000 to 5000 people a month, maybe more, stop by this place to pay attention to me laughing and griping in roughly equal proportion.

I'm flattered and proud. Thanks folks, for making a cynical, morose old curmudgeon feel like he's a part of peoples' lives.

2009... Good Riddance

(Clay Bennett at Chattanooga Times Free Press) Lots of people are wishing each other a "Happy New Year," and I have no problem with that. In fact let me take this opportunity to wish you, dear reader, "Happy New Year!" But many other people are saying "It will be a better year; it couldn't get worse."

Wanna bet?

So I'm a cynic. Sue me.

Delurk Thyself, Spirit in the Shadows!

I'm seeing in various blogs that this weekend all you lurkers- people who visit, but never leave comments- are supposed to leave comments. Hear that? My comment rate is about 1%; for each one hundred visitors (yes, that is tallied, data-logged, and entered into your semi-permanent record), only one leaves a comment. I'm not going to get all fussy about it, but a few more would tickle me... and who knows... I might comment back!

Wouldn't that be special?

Wut?

I have never before had as many as 200 visitors in a day. Right now my count is 315, and that's up from 309 just a couple of minutes ago. Of the last 100 visitors, 86 have come in to an archive of posts from June.

And it's not even noon yet.

This appears to be the picture that's attracting all the attention, but I'm not sure...

(From Pundit Kitchen)

So why is it, six months after I posted it, and when the original is in a really popular spot, that everyone is suddenly breaking down the doors of this little blog? And why has no one left any comment, positive or negative, regarding this?

I don't really understand the internet.

How is it I Don't Remember This?

On the morning of Nov. 3, 1979, at the corner of Carver and Everitt streets in Greensboro, N.C., 40 Ku Klux Klansmen and American Nazis took out shotguns and automatic weapons from the trunks of their cars and opened fire on black, white and Latino anti-Klan demonstrators and union organizers who had gathered at Morningside Homes, a black housing project.

The KKK and Nazi members shot at anyone who wasn't hiding while four television news teams and one police officer recorded the action. The murderers then got back into their cars and sped away, leaving five people dead and 11 wounded.

(...)

Sixteen people were arrested but only six were brought to trial. And though the murders were caught on camera, all-white juries acquitted the six defendants.

To this day, not a single gunman has spent a day in prison, although in 1985 a civil jury found the city, the KKK and the Nazis liable for violating the civil rights of one demonstrator. The city paid $351,000.

Today, there is no historical marker at the site of the massacre, and the streets have since been rerouted and their names changed so the bloody intersection no longer even exists.

I don't recall ever hearing about this before. I don't know what to say.

Followup: JRepka clarifies a lot with his comment:

I was in the same boat as you -- I read the linked Op-Ed and couldn't figure out why an event that sounds like it happened in the 50s or 60s could have occurred in the 80s (for all intents and purposes), yet not be a major cultural touchstone.

Until my brother (he of the auto-recall) pointed out that next day, November 4 1979, was the day the American embassy in Tehran was seized by "students."

This was in the era of the actual 24-hour news cycle, where you couldn't even get a few hours of major coverage before being swamped by the tidal wave of the major breaking news...

Honestly, I was ascribing this glaring gap in my knowledge to youthful overuse of chemical entertainment. I generally tried to catch some news each day, but by the time this would have hit the media of the day, it would have been totally swamped by the news out of Tehran.

20,000

A couple of minutes ago, this humble blog welcomed its 20,00th visitor! Thanks to all of you who make me feel like I have a voice in this word!

It took 10 months to get my first 10K, but less than six to get my second. I like the trend.

A Very Special Visitor

I generally spend a little time each morning going through my stats counter, seeing where my visitors are coming from and what they're looking for...Nah.... couldn't be....

And if it was her, I can't really imagine she enjoyed her visit.

FIRE!

It is OK to yell "Fire!" in a crowded blog, if it's not too crowded, isn't it? It looks as if fire season is underway in Oregon's forested lands. KGW (a Portland TV Station) is reporting a 300-acre fire near Black Butte, which is a marvelously beautiful cinder cone a bit west of Sisters.

In the Google Earth oblique view, I have highlighted three central Oregon Cascades features: The Butte (not a true butte, but the misuse of the word is epidemic in the PNW), the crest or watershed of the high Cascades, and Green Ridge. (Click for bigger, and note 2X vertical exaggeration). The central Oregon Cascades have been shown by Ed Taylor to sit in a graben; the subsidence of the graben is apparently synchronous with the development of the modern, or "high" Cascades. Green Ridge is the eastern side of the graben, and displacement was shown on the basis of mapping and water well logs by one of my most enjoyably memorable TA's, Rich Conrey. Rich was the TA who taught me how to make thin sections, so I had an opportunity to look at rocks I had collected, rather than just department specimans.

So Black Butte is considered to be a cinder cone that developed on the normal fault that created Green Ridge.

This general area, in the immediate rainshadow of the Cascades, gets enough precipitation to support a magnificent ponderosa pine forest, but when it gets dry it's really dry. Furthermore, when disturbances move through (as one did yesterday), rain often evaporates before it reaches the ground. Lightning associated with such storms, unfortunately, does not. This is believed to be a lightning-caused fire.

So firefighters are very dependent on breaks of cool, wet weather to bring these puppies under control. I'm sure many would be tickled pink for the conditions shown in these pictures from late December... about freezing and snowy:
From a few miles east of Sisters, looking west; Black Butte is about 10 miles away, and the Cascade crest is socked in.
Looking up and NW at the peak from its base. It's subtle in the original image, but with a little tweaking, you can more clearly see what I was trying to capture in this picture: a snowbow!

In honesty, I don't think "snowbows" can even occur. It was barely above freezing at this point, and I suspect snow at higher levels was melting as it fell toward the ground... making this more of a "mistbow" than either a snowbow or a rainbow.

I'd like to note, blooger has decided to rotate every picture I've tried to upload for the last few hours, won't allow me to unrotate them in picassa, and doesn't touch them if I put them in with a pre-emptive rotation- so they come up rotated the other direction instead. I've come up with a tedious workaround, but probably no more posts today. I'm pretty exasperated. But Happy Birthday to my Mom! This is also the one year anniversary of my web counter... this is an obscure little blog, with a few close followers, but it's grown enormously in the last twelve months. Thanks for all your comments and visits.

Wednesday Words

Annnnd... it's Wednesday again! Thanks to last week's participants, who came up with some fun suggestions for additions to this crazy language we call English. I do have a few questions for you all... would this be more fun if I actually listed all the entries that came in for the previous post, or is the link back to the short post and comments enough? Would it be more fun if I withheld the comments until the next post, then put them all up at once? I know that sometimes I just feel, "Wow, there's no way I'm going to top that one!" then don't even try. How about voting on the suggestions? Just tossing out some ideas here... I'd like to get a few more folks playing. The two or three players we get each week come up with such great definitions, it seems there must be even more.

And with that quick quiz, here are this week's five would-be words:

10,000

A few hours ago, some kind soul from Poland graced my humble blog with its ten thousandth visit. Well, its ten thousandth counted visit... as you can see from the bar graph, I didn't add my counter until July. But based on the growth curve, it seems unlikely that the number of visitors prior to that time would shift the arrival of #10,000 by more than a few days.No biggie, really... many of the blogs I read get 10,000 visitors per day. So this isn't much of an accomplishment, but more of a milestone that I've been pleasantly anticipating.

Six Random Things

Dean Wormer has tagged me...

The Rules:
1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
5. Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

Six random things about me-

1) I have worked as a newspaper boy, a babysitter, painter, sheep herder, in a pinball & video arcade (at the time when Breakout was a big hit), a pizza delivery boy, in a landscaping nursery, making nuts, bolts and other metal thingies at a machine shop, lab tech in a veterinary lab, field worker and lab tech in forest soils ecology, yard & landscape maintainence, geology field worker, reporter, geology camp cook, biology and general science teacher (high school), science education instructor, eucational consultant and contractor, short order cook at a local beer/burger joint, field trip leader, biology lab TA (college level), and that's just what I remember. That's also not including volunteer work, which list would be almost as long. Right now I'm unemployed, and my family supports me.

2) This is not the first time I've been tagged, but it is the first one I've completed. (Darius, I will get to yours, probably this weekend)

3) The same guy who tagged me with this awarded me as a "Superior Scribbler," over two months ago. I somehow missed that until just last week, and haven't yet composed an acceptance speech. I'm really pretty tickled about it.

4) I dislike sports, noise and crowds, and somehow all these end up going together. I'm also don't like cars, for a whole lot of reasons, but I recognize that they do have their uses. Unlike sports, noise and crowds.

5) I'm agnostic; I don't believe I can know anything meaningful about the existence or nature of God. And I believe that is a valid philosophical position, not just a lazy one.

6) I'm one of only a few people I know who really appreciates western Oregon rain. I generally describe it as gentle, soothing, affectionate and/or serene. I don't think most people see it that way. It also smells beautiful. But I do miss midwest thunderstorms.

I tag:

DCap
Micgar
Dr. Monkey
Kris
Garette
Greg and Kris

All of these folks are either relatives or followers... so I'm going to skip rule 5 and pretend I didn't see it. I promise I won't be hurt or offended if the tag victims choose not to notice this.

Wednesday Words

The second of the three weekly series I've been contemplating for a while. To prevent web crawlers from leaving reams of comment spam, most of you have probably encountered the Captcha tool: a picture (not text) of random letters distorted to make them difficult for computers to recognize. On rare occasions I've seen real words, but mostly they're just random letters. Surprisingly often they look like they might be words. Almost.
A dinnertime request or offer, or the female parent of a potato.
Onomatopoeia for what you do after eating too much gas-producing food. "After the baked beans last night, it was just one fancher after another."
The domain name for the server at the Feline Institute for Advanced Studies.
A particularly scary male antagonist (generally in film).
Dies in flames, but ritheth again from the atheth. With a lithp.

I've got 40 more of these stinkers I've been accumulating, and I'm confident I'll find them faster than I go through them. If I've misdefined any of these, or if you think of a better way to express their use in a sentence, feel free to comment. You might even find a good captcha word in the process.

I See Spam People

One of my much-loved bloggers recently made her comment policy explicit. I hereby follow her example:

ALL COMMENT SPAM WILL BE DELETED.

I am deeply irritated by advertising, and one of the great joys of the blogosphere is that you can get away from it. I will not host Google's ad (non)sense on my blog, and I will not allow anonymous spammers to use my space for their own enrichment. A number of people have posted links in comments that are relevant and interesting- and that's wonderful: another perk of the bogosphere. But I won't have commercial BS on my site.