Four years. We weren't even in World War II for this long. I can't add anything really profound to the debate, but I will repeat something Garry Trudeau had on today's Doonesbury Daily Dose:
"America has been conducting an experiment for the past six years, trying to validate the proposition that it really doesn't make any difference who you elect president. Now we know the result of that experiment."
—Gen. Tony McPeak (retired), member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Gulf War
I would also like to point out that the recent spate of confessions from people our government has tortured might carry more weight if the men hadn't also confessed to assassinating the Archduke Ferdinand.
Finally, not that this should surprise anything, the New York Times is reporting today the White House watered down government reports to influence the debate on climate change:
In a hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, the official, Philip A. Cooney, who left government in 2005, defended the changes he had made in government reports over several years. Mr. Cooney said the editing was part of the normal White House review process and reflected findings in a climate report written for President Bush by the National Academy of Sciences in 2001.
No more than 672 days, 2 hours, and 44 minutes remain in the Bush Administration.
Parker is jumping for joy at the weather:
Today's temperature has already hit 21°C and it's still rising. Also of note, last night was the first night since January 12th that Chicago's temperature did not go below freezing.
Happy spring!
In related news, Ravinia Festival has decided to reconfigure its schedule because of the 17-year cicadas that start singing at the end of May this year. The Daily Parker anxiously awaits Parker's reaction to the bugs.
The overnight low temperature in Chicago has dropped below freezing every night since January 12th. This is the longest stretch of below-freezing nights in at least seven years. It's getting really quite old.
That is all.
One of the side-effects of obedience training I didn't know ahead of time is that Parker is now crate-trained. Since he's also more than double the size he was when I first met him, the crate I had for him was a little tight. So I bought him a new crate, with more than double the footprint of his old one, and with a lot more light and air. Enough light and air, in fact, that I can point the ParkerCam at him when he's in it:
Check for Parker during the day. If I remember to bring the camera to my office when he comes to work with me, you'll get to see him even more often.
Today, however, I'm running around meeting clients, so except for a nice long lunch break at home, he'll be in the crate most of the day. At least I'll get to check on him from the road—and so can you.
For those of you wondering, yes, there is usually a thermometer visible in the picture. The top reading shows the outside temperature.
The clouds broke this evening just long enough for me to see the eclipse. As they say in Boston: wicked cool.
The eclipse will be total from 4:44 pm CT to 5:58 pm, so when the moon rises over Chicago at 5:39 pm it will appear a deep red. (If it appears at all, of course; the weather will likely be cloudy.)
Observers on the East Coast will have a better view; Europeans will get to see the whole thing.
...and I don't mean on the locker-room floor. Just now NPR's Weekend Edition reported on a gym in Hong Kong that uses the kinetic energy from people walking on treadmills and using exercise bikes to power its lights. Neat.
At least one of my friends (ND-D) would be proud of me: as of tonight, all 21 of the lightbulbs in my apartment are compact fluoroescent, and in some cases of lesser luminosity than the ones they replaced. All told, if every light bulb in the place is blazing away, I'm still using less electricity than if only my kitchen and bathroom lights were on before replacing the bulbs.
Plus, unless I live here 20 years, it's unlikely any of them will ever need replacing.
It's a little thing, but if everyone did it, we'd use a lot less energy.
Princeton economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman (sub.req.) points out that serious energy conservation does not equal economic disaster:
[T]he assumption, explicit or implicit, that any substantial cut in energy use would require a drastic change in the way we live...is false. Let me tell you about a real-world counterexample: an advanced economy that has managed to combine rising living standards with a substantial decline in per capita energy consumption, and managed to keep total carbon dioxide emissions more or less flat for two decades, even as both its economy and its population grew rapidly. And it achieved all this without fundamentally changing a lifestyle centered on automobiles and single-family houses.
The name of the economy? California.
I'm David Braverman, this is my blog, and Parker is my 8-month-old mutt.
Here are the main topics on the Daily Parker:
- Parker, my dog, whom I adopted on September 1st.
- Biking. I ride my bikes a lot. Last year I prepared for two Century rides but, alas, my gallbladder decided to explode a week before the first one. I might not have a lot to say until later in the spring, but I have big plans in 2007.
- Jokes. All right, I admit: when I'm strapped for ideas, sometimes I just post a dumb joke.
- Politics. I'm a moderate-leftie by International standards, which makes me a radical left-winger in today's United States. Less than 701 days remain in the worst presidential administration in history, so I have plenty to write about.
- Software. I own a small software company in Evanston, Illinois, and I have some experience writing software. I see a lot of code, and since I often get called in to projects in crisis, I see a lot of bad code. Posts in this blog about software will likely be cross-posted from the blog I'm about to start, Inner Drive Software.
- The weather. I've operated a weather website for more than seven years. That site deals with raw data and objective observations. Many weather posts also touch politics, given the political implications of addressing climate change under a President who's beholden to the oil industry.
This is public writing, too, so I hope to continue a standard of literacy (i.e., spelling, grammar, and diction) and fluidity of prose that makes you want to keep reading.
So thanks for reading, and I hope you continue to enjoy the blog.