Take better notes

Man, if I could go back in time and change one thing...well, ok...this wouldn't be very high on the list, but I really wish I took better notes a few summers ago.

I mean, I wrote down what I did (for the most part), but I didn't write down WHY. Why in the hell did I think doing X was a good idea? What was I thinking?

Anyway, as mentioned previously I have a problem with artificial stream experiments. Namely, I did one that sucked. The suckage continues, and it is now threatening to seriously annoy me. Imagine my defense in a month is a shooting gallery. Imagine my artificial stream experiment is a target. Imagine that target being as big as the sky!

Yes.

100th Post

Yes, that's right, I've arrived at the magical, meaningless, 100th post. If I were to collect all these rantings and bind them together and try to sell it as a book, that book would be called:

100 innane little comments about nothing in particular.

However, I think we're going to have to use this post to draw attention to something a little more terrifying.

The U.S. is engaging in torture. There's really no other way to put it. Over the past month the President has engaged in an active campaign to 'define' torture. Put another way, he's engaged in an active attempt to 'redefine' torture. In fact, according to the Geneva conventions currently in place, George W. Bush could be prosecuted for crimes against humanity just based on information he's released to the media!

How did we get here?

9/11. Before 9/11 the Bush administration was rudderless, almost without any popular support, surviving on the basis of a Republican congress, and likely on the way to becoming recognized as a dismal failure.

Enter 19 terrorists. Chaos follows.

Uh...hello? The terrorists won. They got everything they wanted. Our government is slowly destroying everything that made America the envy of the world in the first place. We have no solidarity, we secretly kidnap and imprison people for no reason without even telling them why, we have needless instigated wars in foreign countries, spawning a new wave of hatred.

Let's be clear. After 9/11 there was only 1 rational response: Shrugging it off.

Yeah, close to 4,000 people died, all at once, on national T.V., in the biggest city in the country. I'm not saying we forget that.

But let's be clear, if someone hits you in the face you hit back.

You don't pull out a hand grenade.

There isn't aspect of America that is better now than before 9/11. We're less safe, we've got less rights, and we've got a lot of dead soldiers. We've got a country that is so strongly divided that we can't even talk to each other about certain issues.

I blame Republicans. They could have easily maintained a comfortable lead in the polls of public opinion and in Congress without putting the country through this hell (although they probably couldn't have held the White House).

I blame the Democrats. Throughout the process they never suspected that the Republicans would take things this far. Illegal wiretaps? Torture? Secret prisons? The Democrats have been so shell-shocked by the continuing revelations that they've never organized themselves enough to stop anything.

The country is a mess, and it wasn't 6 years ago.

Remember when our biggest problem was a President with a sex drive?

Death Cab for Cutie

Don't ask questions, just go listen: I will follow you into the dark (youtube video, just listen).

If you are as amazed as me, just check out all the covers of that song that are out there...

And yes, I'm listening to music as I work again.

A little rule for life...

If you can name more athletes who have played for your favorite team (football, baseball, or basketball team for example) than you can name government representatives currently representing your interests in government, then you need to re-assess your priorities.

For example, my favorite team is the Kansas Jayhawks basketball team. Here's the list of current or former KU players that I can recall off the top of my head: Danny Manning, Wilt Chamerlain, Rex Walters, Alonzo Jamison, Jacque Vaughn, Scot Pollard, Jerrod Haase, Greg Ostertag, Kenny Gregory, Billy Thomas, Nick Collison, Kirk Hinrich, Drew Gooden, Paul Pierce, Wayne Simien. That's 15 players.

Guys who currently represent me? Let's see: Chris Chocola (R-In), George Bush (President-idiot), the mayor of my town (omitted for anoyminity purposes), My Man Mitch (Governer, R-In), Condaleeza Rice (idiot, Sec. of State), Dick Cheney (idiot, Vice-Prez), Donald Rumsfield (idiot, Defense Secretary), Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, (idiots, Supreme Court), Evan Bayh (senator, D-In)....and that might be it...

That's 11. So to make this perfectly clear:

I can remember 15 basketball players whose only impact on my life was to cause me angst and joy for a few weeks of the year. I can remember just 11 names of the people who make decisions regarding the basic economic, legal and environmental framework of my world.

Do I even need to explain why I need to re-assess my priorities?

Follow suit America.

I sit in the shadow of oncoming pain...

Yes, I can feel the possibility of a full-blown ulcer/heartburn flareup lingering in my stomach like the twitching of an angry god....

Let me distract myself with a short update:

1. Haven't been writing because I've been busy with a lot of other things. The big one is my dissertation, which will be done by friday. Also trying to sell the house, which will take an indefinite amount of time.

2. I watch a lot of youtube...if you're feeling down, then this video might cheer you up...babies giggling.

3. Yes, it is election time, which means a bunch of worthless ads for canidates who don't give a shit about 'the people'. Democrat, Republican, both worthless...however, the Democrats also have a stronger record on the only thing that matters: The environment. So go Dems.

4. In case you're interested in this sort of thing, the Royal Society Publishing group (Scientific journals) has made the entirety of their journals available on-line for free...for the next few months. If you're wondering, that means you can grab a .pdf of Newton's theory of light (1671), or of Ben Franklin's observations on electricity (175?). And yes, that's just as cool as you might imagine.

5. I want to build myself and electric car. Anyone interested in this keep in touch.

6. I'll be away from Friday till the following tuesday...don't expect a lot of posts during that time.

Later!

What have we here?

Let's not state this too gently: The newest release by Harvey Danger is astonishingly good. I know I toss around a lot of adjectives, but consider this just another case of one being used effectively.

But hey! Don't take my word for it, head over to their website and download it yourself. They've made it available for free!

If you don't like the first song, well, just skip to "Little Round Mirrors", which couldn't be any better.

I don't know how this, releasing music for free thing is going to work out for ole' Harvey, but I certainly like it.

Persistent vegetative state...or not?

Well this article certainly raises some interesting issues. If I get a chance I'll even get into them. Pretty amazing though.

The doom of man

Well, that's kinda interesting. A bunch of photos from Chernobyl. Pretty spooky.

A long weekend...

The weekend was actually way too short, because this was the weekend all my college roomies got back together. This year's meeting was held in southern Illinois (think karst topography) and consisted of 4 guys hanging out in a 12 by 24 foot cabin. Actually, we didn't spend a lot of time in the cabin. We spent a lot of time walking around lakes and trails, fishing and ball-tossing (which for some reason is called Ladder-ball in this wikipedia article).

As all the available video footage will show, I am an expert ball-tosser.

If you hear, from other eyewitnesses, that the available 1 minute video footage shows the sum total of all my makes for the hours we played...well...that's a viscious lie propogated by sore winners.

The highlight of the trip, besides the fact that a trip even happened, had to be the copperhead snake. There we were, walking through cracks in 40-foot tall boulders, when we innocently passed a dead mouse. I believe the first person to the location of the mouse's last mortal struggles called out "Dead mouse!"

Yeah, we didn't think much about it.

After about a half-hour of trying to convince ourselves to leap across a ravine at the top of the 40-foot tall boulders (we never did), we ended up walking back down the same way we came up. My buddy N-Dog (names have been changed to protect the guilty) came around the corner, and almost immediately jumped back.

I guess I gave it away. The dead mouse had been bitten by a copperhead and had run off to die. Eventually the copperhead found the mouse, and we stumbled upon it as it was eating.

Considering I'm an ecologist, N-Dog is a mussel expert, M-Hot has a bio degree, D-Money has a masters in herpetology and Steve Irwin just died in the last week, our response was to be expected. We started filming, we took pictures, we watched excitedly, we reached down and touched it (safely, since it had its mouth full of food), and after it was done eating we made sure it got out of the path (since little kids had been through there all day).

The excitement was so extreme its hard to translate here. The salamanders and crayfish we caught out of a stream on the way back seemed a bit tame by comparison, even though I'm absolutely crazy for salamanders.

Overall this trip was a blast. Mostly it was just fun to hang out, drink alcohol, and bullshit with the guys. I'm really glad that I'll be moving a bit closer to some of them in the near future.


Other than that, the last week has been crazy. My advisor has actually been getting things back to me quickly, which means I've had a lot to do. Plus my laptop died and our house just decided to start falling apart. Great. Add to that my wife's sudden medical issues and...well, the week isn't exactly off to a good start.

I'm working from home. The OIT guys ripped the harddrive out of my laptop and put it into a portable sheath that I can plug into any computer. Theoretically. In reality I can't get it to work on any computer but 1 at the school, and that 1 is in the middle of the lab. These days, I require more solitude than that when I work. On the other hand, at home I have a lot of distractions. Needless to say, I'm having issues. Fortunately I only have a handful of things to get done over the next two weeks, and I'm 80% of the way there already, so hopefully I'll be able to finish out without difficulties.

Last note:
I'm thinking about making this blog public and actually committing a lot more time to it. I haven't decided. I mean, its public now, but it isn't advertised and I don't think it shows up on google or anything. I could change that. I might.

Evolution is a FACT!

I was just reading this article. It basically states that a museum in Kenya is under pressure from evangelical Christians (read: Idiots) who want the museum to stop displaying early hominid fossils. From the article:

"When museums put it out there that man evolved from apes, theologically they are affecting many people who are Christians, who believe God created us," says Bishop Boniface Adoyo, who is leading a campaign against the exhibit.

And check out this beauty:

"It's creating a big weapon against Christians that's killing our faith," he told AFP, calling evolution theory an "insult" and dangerous to youths. "When children go to museums they'll start believing we evolved from these apes.

Well gee, I can't imagine why they might think that. Maybe because it makes sense and everyone who actually studies biology thinks this happened?

This is exactly what creationists do. The evidence overwhelmingly shows that mankind descended from apes. In fact, the evidence is so overwhelming that anyone who understands it is convinced. The only reasonable objection to the evidence to imagine that God created a world with old bones already present (which, as I've state previously, is something I could believe). However, the person quoted in this article is not appealing to that, he's asking that the evidence not be shown at all.

That's just plain stupid. What's obvious is that this person doesn't believe his faith is strong enough to survive a clear look at reality.

If lying is necessary to maintain the faith, then the faith isn't worth keeping.

The reality is that evolution is a fact. That's just how it is. The only real open question is: How did life begin? There's not a real compelling answer to that question yet, although we have some really good ideas.

Oh no...

Steve Irwin is dead.

The world is a little less aware. A little less alive. A little less in the moment. A little less sure of itself. A little less capable of subduing a giant crocodile. A little less passionate about conservation. A little less excited with the idea of seeing a lizard. A little less happy.

Steve Irwin is dead.

The world is a little more cynical. A little more fearful. A little more prepared to ruin nature. A little more willing to kill a crocodile. A little more willing to let it all slip away. A little more sad.

Steve Irwin is dead.

I’m not even suggesting this wasn’t always going to happen someday. The natural world is a big, dangerous, exciting place. The danger was real.

But still….

Steve Irwin is dead, and it makes me sad.

Oh, Oh yes!

First watch this.

Then watch this.

I don't know why. I don't even really know how. I just know I like it.

Another word about generational annoyance

A lot of times people ask me why I don't trust anyone older than me. The reason is simple, and I got to experience again today: Older people think they are superior to younger people. That means they feel justified in not being honest and upfront. That means older people feel superior to younger people...on principle.

There's probably no one on earth who understands how often my angst at this idiocy boils over into full-blown anger (except my wife). Needless to say I have to put up with older assholes all the time.

I'm 28 myself now, which means I'm going to have to start considering a slight change to this rule.

I don't trust anyone older than 25.

Thoughts of the morning.

1. Went and saw "An Inconvient Truth" last night. This is basically about Al Gore's personal quest to get people to deal with pollution and global environmental change. Now, the weird thing is: This is Al Gore. If Al Gore had never run for the presidency in 2000, you could watch this movie and it would be fantastic. The story of one man's quest to change things. And, quite obviously, to change things for the better. Unfortunately, for Al, society has an image of who Al Gore is: A robotic, boring, and ultimately tragic figure (or sore loser depending on your politics). And the partisan differences in opinion about how you see Al Gore are etched in everyone's mind. Personally, I had to intentionally ignore my instinct to think of Al Gore as a publicity grabbing politician, and just try to accept that he is being genuine. The point is that because the movie features Al Gore, the message of the movie will get tossed out by many. We'll spend too much time talking about Al Gore, and not enough time pointing out that the speaker: Has a fantastic command of the subject material, explains it so clearly a 9-year old could understand, and is really funny. The whole point of the movie is that we (aka. Americans and humans in general) are fucking up the planet. And we should do something about it.
I guess I'd give the movie a 7 out of 10. If the speaker had been someone random that we didn't know anything about, or if it had been the CEO of Shell, then the movie would have been much better.

2. Yesterday was the lab's annual bout of shocking a restored stream reach to see what kind of fish are living there. We actually found 4-5 rainbow trout, including a few that were 4-5 inches long. Keep in mind that this stream is very small. The restoration occurred about 7-8 years ago, and it has become somewhat difficult to tell that anything was done. The problem is that the whole watershed is agricultural land, so it doesn't really matter what you do to the stream itself, everything is going to silt-in from agricultural run-off. And that's pretty much what's happening.

3. Writing a page a day for a book is not as easy as it might seem. Yesterday I didn't get a chance until midnight, and I was already exhausted, so I didn't. I'm only up to page 5-6 (I can't remember). I need to get more focused, and I need to write several pages today and tomorrow to make up for the ones I missed this week.

4. TEAM USA LOST TO GREECE!! I'll admit, I thought Team USA would lose, but not to Greece!! I mean, really, Lithuania, Italy, Spain, Argentina....but Greece. Am I still living in the U.S. of A.? This morning a lot of mainstream news agencies are saying that this is surprising given the different strategy that went into picking this team compared to previous Team USA squads. I've said this before, but...They did not change anything!!!!!! I can't even believe people are suggesting that. What was the problem before: Too many egos, not enough role players, nobody with spot-up shooting ability, no decent point guard, no cohesiveness, and terrible passing. Well, this team had 1 role-player (Shane Battier, maybe you could count Kirk Hinrich as well), a slew of stars (LeBron, D-Wade, Melo, Elton, Chris Paul, Joe Johnson, Dwight Howard) and exactly three guys who are great passers (Joe Johnson, Chris Paul, Kirk Hinrich). Oh, and did I mention this team was thrown together a month ago? There probably isn't any one player that Team USA could have gotten that would have changed the basic character of this team. If it were my choice, I would have a team with the Big Three, Chris Paul, Brad Miller, Joe Johnson, Speedy Claxton, Nick Collison, Chris Wilcox, Tayshaun Prince, Sam Cassell and Robert Horry.

That's it. I'm getting back to work.