feste_sylvain

Hey, how many of you have been following the Organization of American States summit?

<crickets/>

Yeah, that's what I thought. (Feel free to stand up for yourselves in the comments.)

There have been a few boots to the head, including the following:

Argentina walked out, upset that nobody wanted to talk about the ~~Malvinas~~ Falklands. The president of Argentina was so frustrated, she was overheard to say "Then why did we even bother coming here?"

The "Central American" nations were unified in calling for the legalization of drugs, to quell their collective highest murder rates in the world. (While "Southern Africa" is technically higher, check the list of the world's countries by homicide rate. 19 of the top 20 are from Brazil to Mexico, and Honduras, St. Kitts & Nevis, Venezuela and El Salvador blow away the next 16.)

The Obama administration was a bit nonplussed by this demand.

Then, everyone but the U.S. and Canada demanded that Cuba be included. It was not just whacko leftists like Venezuela and Bolivia, but also anti-leftists like Colombia and Chile making this call. In this case, Obama seemed sympathetic, not referring to Cuba directly, but complaining that "some positions were set during a different world, based on concerns that are older than I am." So don't be too surprised if we accede to the rest of the OAS on this one. Probably after the November elections (Obama cannot afford to lose Florida).

With China's success in the manufacturing sector, it has gradually been pricing itself out of its own market. As a result, the world's go-to for cheap labor is now Brazil. The various free-trade agreements among the OAS have been very important for this (relatively) sudden influx of hard capital to Brazil. This has naturally upset many leftist governments, but they're losing, and Brazil is winning.

Those are the big things. The summit as a whole is breaking up; Argentina's withdrawal started the deterioration, ironically by taking away the one issue the rest of the countries agree on.

What I would like to see between now and 2015 are: the U.S. backing off the War on Some Drugs, the U.S. (and Canada) allowing Cuba in (as we now have more reason to ban Venezuela than Cuba, but that wouldn't help anything either), and Argentina giving up on the whole Falklands thing. These are the three cases where each country just doesn't see how their position looks outside their own borders.

On Tuesday, at my quarterly dentist appointment^[1], the maintenance dentist detected a cavity under the left abutment of my bridge. There was evidence of decay and "softness", which is not a quality you want around the anchor point of the prosthetic which makes up for your front three teeth.

They wanted me to make an appointment as quickly as possible to have that tooth drilled-and-filled. Thursday proved unfeasible (meeting at work), so I scheduled the appointment for today.

A different dentist at this office does the drilling. Thanks to all the metal in my bridge, he couldn't get a good view from the x-rays that were taken last June, so the hygienist took a couple more from different angles.

But that didn't help.

At that point, the dentist sat down, did a little picking around, then sat back and took off his mask. "I don't think we should do anything today."

Buh?

He explained that, in order to get out the decay and fill it properly, we'd have to move the bridge abutment first. But that couldn't be done without weakening the entire structure. If he tried to get in around the sides of the abutment, there would be gaps and room for further decay anyway.

"So let's just keep an eye on it."

He repeated what his partner said on Tuesday: it's a good bridge, overdesigned and amazing that it has lasted (almost) thirty years, but it's not going to last forever. "You should start looking at replacing it."

Sorry, no, I have two daughters to get thru college first. This thing has to last another ten years.

^[1] Yeah, dentists make you come in twice as often for a while if you skip going to them for fifteen years.

Smoked. Doppelbock.

Rauchbiers can be done delectably or really badly. When done right, there's the hint of wood-smoke that makes certain fish or meats just about the closest thing to paradise. When done wrong, there's a sour tang that makes you wonder whether it's possible for an active beer to turn into malt vinegar.

Bocks, the pride of spring, the "goat that knocks you on your butt", tend to have sweet notes like "caramel" or "toffee" or, in extreme cases, chocolate.

Blending these two in one beer would be crazy, right?

Y'know those chocolate-bacon bars that have no right to work, but instantly become your favorite thing ever? This is like that.

First pour has far more head than I expected; perhaps I should have chilled it rather than going for cellar temperature. But I didn't want to chill the flavors down to where I couldn't detect them all. Well, forget that; this thing is so complex, there is no way you're going to distinguish them all unless you're the kind of person who can detect both vanilla and garlic notes in a whiskey you like.

Which brings us to the body: this is just shy of being called "thick". Perhaps "full" is a better word. This is where the double-bock shows its stuff. This has good mouthfeel, which allows the smoked malts to deliver a coat of flavor. (This is odd for a rauchbier, which tend toward the light-bodied lager styles.)

I like this.

Despite the dual German characters of this beer, I could see this going with an English meat-pie or even a French-Canadian tourtiere. Best drink this before the weather gets warmer, because it will warm you all by itself.

Oh, did I mention the 9.6% ABV? As they say, "the goat that knocks you on your butt". Sweet. Smoky, to the point of savory. I'm going to have some more.

Friday night: Seder. This all went well, with a good dollop of mirth, and more actual Jews at the table than Gentiles. As a minor aside, but one which is still hurting me, I stumbled and tripped over Canterbridgian bricks and really banged up my right knee. It looks like just a scrape, about the size of an apricot's shadow, but it hurts like crazy when I kneel on it.

Saturday: both kids were at Anime Boston, so I took the chance to catch up on my encryption class's lectures and homework. According to my interpretation of my homework scores, I'm doing about B-/C+ work, but this is without taking notes or referring to the lecture slides (the lectures themselves are videos). Therefore, I'm testing only what I remember, and this tells me that I'm absorbing the material. So that's good. Were I taking this for credit, I'd be putting in the extra effort to ace it, but in my home environment, I can maintain this effort level (at the cost of missing some outside-the-home events).

Sunday: Easter dinner at my parents, with my four and my brother's two. This was low-key, for the most part. My teenagers acted like teenagers, mostly polite, but with the occasional hair-trigger awkward bits. Far more amusingly, my brother has the part of The Narrator in a local production of Frank Zappa's "The Tale of Greggery Peccary", which will be performed at noon on Friday, July 13 in Lexington. The score is insane, including a measure in 23/32.

Today, I got my younger's allergy medication in to the school nurse for their trip to D.C. Tomorrow, at 4am, I get to deliver her to the school in time for her middle-school class to clamber onto the bus, and then I have a dentist appointment at 9am. Blear.

I'm really not used to the Red Sox having a "bottom of the order". Building year.

But baseball! Yay!

I calculated everything
Looked at it every way
Considered all the angles
The chance of any break
Accounted all the elements
Every possible mistake
Accomodated every change
But not the Interplay

Considered every consequence
Checked all the times and dates
Calculated everything
But not
The Interplay...

Once upon a late 1970s, a British post-punk band formed around John Foxx. They played moody synthesizers, deeply textured atmospheres, and shock of shocks, you could dance to it. This band was called "Ultravox", but as they started to succeed, their founder found that his art was slipping away from him. So he left, the band replaced him with Midge Ure, and then they became wildly successful.

Foxx himself did all right after that, but pretty much confined to the U.K. His album "Metamatic" showed the contrast between what Ultravox was doing and what he wanted to do, and the song "Underpass" got some radio play in Britain.

He labored that way for a few decades. Think about that. [EtA:] He spent much of the 1990s working in graphic design, to enough success that he's taught it at university.

A couple of years ago, he met up with Benge, a.k.a. "the Maths". Benge collects synthesizers, and has working ones from five decades. John Foxx teamed with him, and hit a new stride. They cowrote a huge number of songs, put ten of them on the album "Interplay", and toured around Britain and Europe. This album mostly has radio-friendly songs which leave little hooks in your brain that you wind up humming all day.

Then they released "The Shape of Things" last month. 16 tracks, but many of them are shorter instrumentals which set a mood, and then let it echo in your head. The songs themselves are darker, with some notable exceptions. For example, "Vapour Trails" is a love song about a new relationship going so fast, and the ecstasy of it that leaves wisps in its wake.

That song is also an exception for another reason: most of the work is much moodier, and deals with the concerns and feelings of an older man.

Someone my age, in fact. [EtA:] No, actually, he's more than ten years older than I. I'm even more impressed.

John Foxx is re-launching his career and finding new success by being who he is now, not who he was then.

Matte Nail Polish, Santorum Brown

Don't forget to read the reviews.

By now, most of us have seen this picture that was flying around the internet:

I called my elder in to look at the picture, and she laughed, as most do.

I then asked her, "Where was this picture taken?"

She paused. "Wait! What's that license plate? Oregon?"

"Yes, that's an Oregon license plate on a Prius."

"And the hipster on the left with the three buttons on his knit cap?"

"...has a hand-print ink-stain at the bottom of his white cotton shirt."

She was picking up speed now: "And that's a nail salon next to a jewelry store!"

She looked at me as we prepared our mutual high-five. We simultaneously shouted:

"PORTLAND!"

Papoon, Papoon for President!
There is no-one to blame!
Papoon, Papoon for President!
You know he's Not Insane!

One-quarter of the Firesign Theatre succumbed to leukemia. Peter Bergman apparently worked for Digital before heading out to Los Angeles to make his fortune in surrealist improvisational comedy. He was responsible for the internal computer workings of Springhead, the electronic president, and Dr. Memory in "I Think We're All Bozos on This Bus".

He also worked closest with fellow Firesign Phil Proctor, recording several comedy duo albums with him (including the twisted "TV Or Not TV"). Together, they co-wrote the play "Americathon", which was twisted by Hollywood into a movie in 1979; it was both surreal and eerily prophetic.

I'm extraordinarily glad that I managed to catch the Firesign Theatre on their "Alimony Tour" in 1994. I'm way more rattled by this than I expected to be. I had been looking forward to his usual campaign for president as the nominee from the Surrealist Party, whose web-page was traditionally in Esperanto.

I really hope his epitaph reads, "Not Insane".

I managed to stay up to 11pm last night, but woke up at 5:30am anyway.

It's not like I'm sleeping poorly. Okay, I slept poorly on Saturday night/Sunday morning, but that was because I had stuffed myself on very spicy food the night before. But other than that, I've been sleeping just fine; it's just that I fall asleep early and wake up uselessly early.

Maybe I'm simply in the wrong time zone. I should investigate Halifax, Cape Breton, or maybe St. John, eh?

Rabbit rabbit!

I was rudely woken at 5:15 by my daughter's school announcing the first snow day of the school year. Now I can't get that song by the Who out of my head.

Have I mentioned that my sleep schedule is screwed up already? I've been waking early and falling asleep early. But hey, at least my blood pressure is normal.^[1]

^[1] That was not a non sequitur; I had to cut back on caffeine to keep my blood pressure down.

With the announcement today that Boston Red Sox knuckleballer Tim Wakefield is retiring at the age of 45, all baseball-loving couch potatoes instantly aged five years.

It's that time of year, so I'll slap this up.

Send me a Valentinr! Despite my cynicism, they make me happy!

The usual disclaimer: The possibility exists that some ebul hacker will steal your fame, fortune, family, and fudge. In the three or four years that I've been using this, I haven't even received any spam traceable to this, but I may just be too boring for them.

Get your own valentinr

From Enthusiasms, British (nay, English) journalist Bernard Levin reminds us:

If you cannot understand my argument, and declare ``It's Greek to me'', you are quoting Shakespeare;
if you claim to be more sinned against than sinning, you are quoting Shakespeare;
if you recall your salad days, you are quoting Shakespeare;
if you act more in sorrow than in anger, if your wish is father to the thought, if your lost property has vanished into thin air, you are quoting Shakespeare;
if you have ever refused to budge an inch or suffered from green-eyed jealousy, if you have played fast and loose, if you have been tongue-tied, a tower of strength, hoodwinked or in a pickle, if you have knitted your brows, made a virtue of necessity, insisted on fair play, slept not one wink, stood on ceremony, danced attendance (on your lord and master), laughed yourself into stitches, had short shrift, cold comfort or too much of a good thing, if you have seen better days or lived in a fool's paradise -- why, be that as it may, the more fool you, for it is a foregone conclusion that you are (as good luck would have it) quoting Shakespeare;
if you think it is early days and clear out bag and baggage, if you think it is high time and that that is the long and short of it, if you believe that the game is up and that truth will out even if it involves your own flesh and blood, if you lie low 'til the crack of doom because you suspect foul play, if you have your teeth set on edge (at one fell swoop) without rhyme or reason, then - to give the devil his due - if the truth were known (for surely you have a tongue in your head) you are quoting Shakespeare;
even if you bid me good riddance and send me packing, if you wish I was dead as a door-nail, if you think I am an eyesore, a laughing stock, the devil incarnate, a stony-hearted villain, bloody-minded or a blinking idiot, then - by Jove! O Lord! Tut tut! For goodness' sake! What the dickens! But me no buts! - it is all one to me, for you are quoting Shakespeare.

HCG "Diet": pregnancy hormones in homeopathic doses allow dieters to get by on 500 calories per day, lose weight.

"End" of MMR/Autism link, except to True Believers

City Council Earmarks Flow to Brain Scan Group
The president of the foundation, Dr. Patrick J. Kelly, a retired New York University neurosurgeon, acknowledged that the potential of his work, which focuses on the early detection of tumors, has not yet been proved. “It just makes sense,” he said in a recent interview. “Can I demonstrate that scientifically? No.”

Perhaps inspired by TV favourites such as Doctor Who and Ashes to Ashes, nearly a third of Britons (30%) believe that time travel is actually possible. The results were revealed in a survey, launched at the start of National Science and Engineering Week (11-20 March) by Birmingham Science City, which aimed to see just how blurred the lines between science and fiction really are.

Other findings included:
1. Over a fifth of adults incorrectly believe light sabres exist.
2. Nearly a quarter (24%) of people are wrong in their belief that humans can be teleported.
3. Nearly 50% of adults wrongly believe that memory-erasing technology exists.
4. More than 40% of people incorrectly believe that hover boards exist.
5. Nearly one fifth (18%) of adults have the incorrect view that they can see gravity.

A study claiming an exponential rise in child sex trafficking was made up.

An hysterical article accused plastics of toxically causing all sorts of diseases, but every listed disease has alternate plausible explanations. No cause but correlation was cited.

A study which "proved" that women of African heritage are unattractive is fatally flawed.

While not denying global climate change, James Taylor examines many global warming predictions which were spectacularly wrong.

A Billion Wicked Thoughts: two neuroscientists reach a psychological conclusion by reading fantasies on the internet. They poll some people in a ridiculous leading fashion, and are ultimately disowned by their governing board.

Fracking studies trying to show natural gas worse than coal profoundly flawed. Even the Department of Energy disagrees.

A Chinese study purports to see brain differences in those with "Internet Addiction Disorder"

The Center for Science in the Public Interest condemns salt and calls for government action, even as the American Journal of Hypertension released a full study showing no correlation between salt and blood pressure in otherwise healthy people.

French homeopathy giant Boiron sues an Italian blogger for claiming that their product with no active ingredient has no active ingredient, and that the ingredient it claims to have diluted out of existence does not exist at all.

Pesticides on produce! Eek! But despite what the Environmental Working Group claimed, the actual amount of pesticide on produce was less than one percent of a dangerous dose, in the worst case cited.

Bob Jones Christian schooling uses textbook which tries to explain electricity, fails, and gives up.

Despite the World Health Organization's announcement in May 2011, a comprehensive study finally shows that cell phones do not cause cancer.

Daylight Savings Time: still stupid

Democrats and Republicans even on being anti-science; differ only over issues. For example, Republicans tend to be anti-evolution, while Democrats are more likely to be anti-vaccine. Except for the HPV vaccine, because Republicans link that to premarital sex.

The United Nations' International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) routinely cites publications which haven't even been peer-reviewed. World experts on malaria, hurricanes and other topics are excluded because of their skeptical views; while a relatively small clique does the actual writing, including activists from the World Wildlife Fund.

The New Hampshire primary is tomorrow.

The ads should stop then, right?

Right?

Right?

I didn't do this Reading List thing in 2010, and I now am sorry that I didn't. So here's the list for 2011:

( Italics for books I'm currently reading )

Asimov vs. Heinlein: Which Future? / Fri 10:00 PM moderator

Reading SF/F to Your Kids / Sat 10:00 AM

Reading: Amidon, Linzner, & Sakers / Sat 4:00 PM reader

Forensic Science and the Courts / Sat 5:30 PM

Politics in Science Fiction / Sat 10:00 PM moderator

The Year in Bad Science / Sun 10:00 PM moderator

It's Only a Game / Mon 1:00 PM

Now, to get a hold of the panelists on the panels I'm moderating, and my co-readers for the reading segment.

I spent four hours this afternoon on the yard, and it isn't done yet.

But I couldn't go on, and it got dark. Well, dusky. Too dark to work.

Using a 30cm Irving saw, I was able to break down the large oak limb in the northeast side of the yard, and get the various branches hauled off into the woods. The main limb, that I had to roll to the border.

I also hauled out the pine limbs on the west side, and the oak on the southwest side. There are still two major oak limbs on the east and southeast sides, but they'll wait until tomorrow.

I also raked the north, west, and half of the south sides of the yard.

Despite this being the first SNL after Rick Perry's brain-freeze, I won't be watching it tonite. I'll probably record it for later.

I'll be lucky if I can keep awake past 9pm.

My shoulders ache.

When I came in, I discovered that my teenage daughter, whom I did not have assist me with the other rake in the yard because she has exams to study for, did not study. Now she'll have to do that tomorrow, and won't be able to help then, either.

But after exams, she's raking the whole yard. Don't tell her yet. I want it to be a surprise.

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feste_sylvain

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