Hi All,
   I recently took these pictures of my friends cat Norm.  Unlike others in our respected community, I have no talent for giving voice to what the pooties are thinking.  any help would be greatly appreciated.

I saw excerpts of this video from JibJab on the news and laughed my ass off.  Absolutely no one is spared.  For those who haven't seen it yet I offer this post for your viewing enjoyment!  Cheers!

As of today the Big Sur fire also known as the basin complex fire is still burning out of control with 5% containment.

The Basin Complex/Gallery fire that is threatening the small community of Big Sur has grown by 8,485 acres in the past 24 hours.NASA's Earth Observatory has images current as of yesterday.  My thanks to the folks at NASA for their imagery.

The fire in Big Sur also known as the basin complex/gallery fire is still burning our of control.  It's bee at 3% containment for weeks.  There is still 23 miles of terrain to cover before containment is achieved around the perimeter.  The good news is that as of now it looks like the Bsin Complex/Gallery fire will not merge with the Indians fire.  Some folks have elected to stand and fight at Esalen and at Tassajara
I had thought everyone had evacuated, but apparently not.

I was never what you would call a real classical music buff.  I listened to what I liked and ignored what I didn't.  I liked Pavarotti.  His great voice and his joie de vivre moved me.  

I don't know if it is my age wearing on me, the changes I have seen in my lifetime, the chaos that has become our political discourse, or what.

"I beg you,
Leave me restless.
I live with the impossible ocean
And silence bleeds me dry!"

Pablo Naruda

I work nights so watch the news and blog in the morning.  This morning just before I went to bed, I was watching American Morning on CNN and Jomentum was being interviewed by John Roberts.  

I am not an expert in tracking down information like many Kossaks here.  What I am wondering about tonight is given the way the media manipulated information in the leadup to the war in Iraq, how reliable is the information that we are recieving about the Iranians supplying weapons and technology to Iraq?

I don't usually have much good to say about mainstream media or the journalists who work there, so you can imagine my surprise when I tuned into CNN before going to bed after work this AM and heard Anderson Cooper say Global warming is putting the planet in peril and we are the cause.

I watched CNN yesterday morning and a representative of the oil industry said that they would not likely build any new refineries here because we have passed peak oil.  OK, that makes sense to me.  Then I watch CNN again this morning and guess what?  Supposedly they are going to build new refineries but no one knows when and the industry folk aren't telling.   I'm not sure if it is the industry or CNN who can't get the story straight.  Meet me over the fold!

Well it's Mothers Day today and I spoke with the woman who was my surrogate mother after my own mom died. The conversation turned to women in the sciences. You see, Dody had wanted to be an engineer. In high school she took all the necessary math and physics classes (and aced them!) Then she sat for the entrance exam for the Mechanical Engineering program at Michigan Tech, in Houghton Michigan. She aced that exam too. They still wouldn't let her in the program. Why? Because she was a woman.
One of the reasons that we currently face shortages of qualified people in the sciences is because of the ( hopefully outdated ) bias against supporting female students who excel in math and science to pursue degrees in engineering and technology.  I know that things have changed since Dody was a girl. They have changed since I was a girl. ( I was also told I could not be an engineer because of my gender.) Have things changed? If so how much? Has it been enough?

I was watching CNN a day or so after the IPCC summary report on climate change came out.  Rob Marciano had gotten a professor to comment on the results of the report and the implications for species extinction.  I'm sorry I don't recall the name of the professor or his school.  I hope he keeps his job.  The professor repeated that the report indicates that 20 to 30 percent of species on the planet face extinction due to climate change.  Marciano said something to the effect that there were things we could still do to prevent that from happening and the professor, after a pause said that it was too late.  Marciano was beside himself!  He couldn't believe what he was hearing.  He acted for all the world like a kid who has been told he can't have a "do over" in a game.  Unfortunately folks climate change isn't a game and we don't get a "do over".

I am currently taking an ARC GIS class that requires I do a project of my choice.  GIS is a computer generated mapping software that is incredibly powerful, and allows you to create interactive maps that you can actually query!  I wanted to do a project that would allow spatial analysis of climate change, hunger, and conflict.  Guess what!!  Almost every government site that used to offer climate change data as a free download is no longer available.  Conflict data is also hard to come by.  The first couple of sites were just an irritation. Then I started getting creeped out.  Just last week Bu$hco put a new muzzle on climate scientists, and now I can't get climate data?  Oy!  Then I told myself, "I'm new at this right?  I must just not be looking in the right places."

cross posted at Musings

I recently returned to volunteering for a local organization after a hiatus of several months. While I was gone many volunteers had left for a variety of reasons.

When I was younger, local elections didn't interest me at all. That changed for me when I enrolled in my local community college, and became aware that although many of my instructors were liberal or independent, almost the entire administration of the college were very right wing.

cross posted at Musings

I am tired tonight. Perhaps it is the flu. It feels akin to the bone numbing exhaustion that I feel when I consider the endless litaney of abuse of power that we as a nation have experienced over the past six years.

Cross posted at Musings