Political Signage, Wasted Timeage

What is the deal with political signs? In this time of electioneering, political signs sprout in lawns and highway medians and office parking lot berms more readily than dandelions and crabgrass. Has there ever been a study of how many people actually utilize these signs to determine who to vote for in an election? (Hopefully not very many!!!)

Really what these are for is to cause other people to be angry with you for your choice of political candidate. This has already been determined with regard to bumper stickers:

http://www.blog.newsweek.com/blogs/labnotes/archive/2008/06/16/bumper-sickers-road-rage.aspx

So put a sign on your lawn showing with whom you're affiliating, and your next-door neighbor of the opposite polarity is likely to take umbrage and post his own sign. No sooner than you can say "Hatfields and McCoys", the home with the signs that lean to the right is knocking out windows and sprouting more calibers than Dodge, to make it easier to defend their right to be obnoxious about the Second Amendment -- but don't ask if the homeowner has ever thought about joining the local militia! (He's got more ammo than the local militia anyway.) Next door, the pacifist with the left-leaning signs, who summarizes his patriotism by asserting the doctrinal "don't win a war that we could possibly find a way to lose and turn the country we almost saved from a genocidal dictator into a summer camp for terrorists" is loading up on marshmallow guns (see below) and grazing herbivores on his property to provide biodegradable land mines.

http://cache.gizmodo.com/assets/resources/2007/07/marshshooterbig.jpg

I chuckle Oakdenly when I drive by an untended street corner that has about six dozen political candidate signs. Wish I was back in Ol' Chicago where the signs had an unmistakable ethnic flavor, such as

Bernyzewsczewisch for Assistant County Poultry Inspector
O'Donleighmere: Your Choice for the Sanitary Board
Dunkelbacker: Remembr My Name for the Beer Advesory Council
ZsengZseng: Student Representative for Cafeteria Quality Advisory Panel
D'Shontae Delingus Brown: Vote for Me to Fix your Sidewalk (If You Have One)

So, as we approach The Most Critical Election in Our Nation's History, please don't make your voting decision based on the last street sign or bumper sticker you saw. And we can't afford a filibuster-proof majority; the Senate still has to have some fun, and remember, Everything in Moderation.

Everything in Moderation

Red wine. There's been an ongoing research interest in the health benefits of red wine. Quite recently, another study came out that indicates moderate consumption of red wine is good for a person's well-being. See the link:

http://www.webmd.com/lung-cancer/news/20081007/red-wine-may-cut-risk-of-lung-cancer

And there's a lot more like that on the Web if you search. And those of you reading this may know about that already.

But this symbolized to me the basic simple premise of both our own personal bodily health and that of the planet that we live on. To whit: moderation is good. Over-consumption is bad. Under-consumption is frequently bad, too.

So let's examine the red wine topic in this light.

Good: Glass of red wine with dinner.
Bad: 10 glasses of red wine with dinner followed by a drive home before notable effects of alcohol on mental abilities have dissipated. Bad for physical health due to catastrophic wrapping of Lexus around tree. Bad for mental health due to awful mug shot taken at police station followed by incarceration, loss of driver's license, etc.
Good: Walking ten miles to work every day because of loss of driver's license.
Good: A glass or two of wine with dinner as a healthful habit. Cancer preventative measure, even reduction of blood cholesterol.
Bad: A bottle of wine for dinner three or four nights a week. Really messes with the liver. Family life probably suffers. If already out on the street pushing a shopping cart full of old blankets and aluminum cans, you've got other health problems to worry about, like seasonal hypothermia.

Following the everything in moderation theme:

CARBON DIOXIDE:
Good: Necessary for photosynthesis. Respiratory by-product, indicative of good health because that means that emitter is breathing. Earth in general CO2 balance based on input to the atmosphere contrasted with output from the atmosphere. General CO2 balance good for climate stability. Climate stability good for agriculture. Agriculture good for civilization.
Bad: Too much CO2 emissions from over-consumptive consumerism, road culture, fast-food drive-throughs, excessive use of electronic devices, underinsulated, overcooled (in the summer), overheated (in the winter), inefficiently-lighted housing. Causes increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations, leading to global warming, ecosystem damage, coral reefs degradation, sea level rise, polar bear demise, and generally a host of other effects that I am sad to say it is likely my grandchildren will be dealing with as "normal" on a daily basis.

NITROGEN:
Good: Necessary for plant growth, i.e., a nutrient. Important component of fertilizer. Really adored by nitrogen-fixing organisms like legumes.
Bad: Too much nitrogen on the soil, in the water, in the river, and particulamente in the lake and in the ocean. Leading cause (with it's companion nutrient phospate as a secondary cause) of eutrophication leading to reduction or elimination of dissolved oxygen from the water, which is pretty bad for those creatures which respire in the deep.

FISH:
Good: A host of indicators that eating fish is good for health. Fish also useful ecosystem component in the basic workings of the ocean. Menhaden -- super oily, the swimming filter feeder par excellence; can reduce those nasty algal eutrophication patches if left to themselves, and a superior baitfish for sportfish.
Bad: Eating too much fish. Directly, eating too much of the top level predators like swordfish and tuna can cause ingestion of too much mercury (a by-product mainly of coal burning and atmospheric deposition, another indicator of too much CO2 that isn't nearly as publicized as the climate change effects). Eating too much fish causing fishery collapses like everywhere, even the superabundant pollock that masquerades as crab, and even masquerades as actual fish in those fast-food fishburgers. Too little fish can cause downstream ecological effects like causing the starvation of top predators like whales, walrus, puffins, etc.

Summary: Eat mor chikn! (but I'll have more later on what too much chicken consumption can do to the ecosystem, and what we can do about that).

Whither direct-to-DVD?

My question today is: how does one go about finding a good direct-to-DVD action movie, or a good direct-to-DVD suspense/thriller movie?

My followup-question is: are there any?

Apparently the direct-to-DVD market is booming, particularly for sequels with tenuous connections to the original theatrical releases. But there's another category of direct-to-DVD: movies that either didn't make it to theaters despite an A-List cast member (or even a couple) -- usually on account of being stinky* -- or tryout projects for new directors with a cast of relative unknowns, perhaps including a hunky male soap opera star or a slinky, sultry, and hopefully partially clad female soap opera star.

* Admittedly, my interest in this subject was piqued by the DVD cover of "The Babysitters".







That's a nice tummy.

From my perusal at the local Blockbuster, there are LOT of these. How does one ever find one that's any good? (How would you define "good"? someone asks Oakden; well, if I could get Sharon Case in one of these vehicles partially clad or totally unclad, I'd watch it). But still I'd like a plot, decent writing, a twist or two, a good love scene, stuff like that.


Awhile back, Linda Fiorentino starred in a movie that was seemingly like these direct-to-DVD action potboilers, called "The Last Seduction". It got shown on cable TV before someone noticed how good it was and put it in theaters, and Fiorentino probably lost some award nominations because of that. It was a really good movie, a gem; and maybe a couple of direct-to-DVD releases are similar. But how do we find out? How are we supposed to know?

And even more pertinent; as DVD movie rental stores go the way of the dinosaur, how will these movies ever see the light of day? Does that mean many promising movie careers might get stifled before they have a chance to blossom? More importantly, what does this do to the starlet pipeline?

Even as Wall Street stocks tank, there are important questions that have to be answered!

Looking back, looking good

Saw the movie "Iron Man" this summer. Critics raved over it. I guess it's more realistic to have a techno-superhero than a mutant superhero. But anyways, what caught my attention in "Iron Man" were three over-the-shoulder lookbacks. See what I mean:

Leslie Bibb doing great things to a shirt. I'll have to get back to that theme.













Gwyneth Paltrow looking back whilst everyone is looking at her back:

Leslie Bibb doing even better things to a sheet.

Baby it's humid outside

Not everything scientifically useful or informative is found in research journals. When scientists have to explain themselves, its sometimes better to find content where they explain what they do to audiences unfamiliar with subject-specific jargon and symbology.

ON the subject of climate, there's a lot of wondering about what warming does to weather (and a huge amount of misunderstanding thereon). The key interaction is what warming does to water vapor. That's because (and I actually figured this out myself!) water vapor makes clouds and clouds make rain. Usually.

Now, here's what's interesting. For years there has been lots of talk and analysis and reanalysis and reanalyses of satellite temperature data. For those who haven't been following this potent and exciting issue -- and don't think you'll be forgiven if you haven't been -- there's an instrument called the Microwave Sounding Unit (MSU) on satellites orbited by NASA and operated by NOAA -- called polar-orbiting satellites to distinguish them from other kinds, like geostationary satellites. Polar orbiters are basically duplicates, with the same instruments, launched every couple of years to keep the instruments fresh and working. They look at clouds, sea surface temperatures, water vapor, etc. (different instruments do different things, the MSU doesn't do everything).

OK. For awhile, the MSU data analyzed by one particular group was a bastion of skeptics; because it didn't show any warming when there should have been. Then there was a big El Nino. Then there were some corrections. Then other groups -- notably Remote Sensing Systems, led by Dr. Frank Wentz -- did the analysis themselves. There were differences. There were more reanalyses. Finally, in general, there was synthesis. The MSU data shows warming of the lower troposphere. Now there is still some back-and-forth going on about this, but that's peripheral to what I'm writing about here.

It turns out that the instruments measure water vapor a whole lot more accurately and reliably than temperature! One of the first clear indications that temperature trends which were flat or showed cooling were wrong was the fact that water vapor was clearly increasing -- and that don't happen if temperatures are flat or cooling. So now there's not much discrepancy remaining on these salient points.

But what does increasing relative humidity mean to climate? More rain, less rain, where will it rain? So I got the foregoing and the upcoming from this:

Water Vapor, Precipitation, and Evaporation: The View from Satellites (this is a Powerpoint presentation transformed to a PDF)

in which Wentz and company explain themselves to the American Meteorological Society.

So what's been happening to rainfall? Well, if you live in western South Carolina or northern Georgia you might not agree, but rainfall has been increasing. Mainly in places where it rains a lot anyway, very much likely the tropical eastern Pacific. And the central Indian Ocean. And the tropical Atlantic. And the Sargasso Sea. HOW MUCH? Well, between 1 and 2% a decade.

What the intrepid Remote Sensing Systematicists did was to check both evaporation and precipitation trends. See, if it gets warmer, there's more evaporation. More evaporation means more water vapor. More water vapor means more rain. Usually.

And also, it looks like maybe that winds over the oceans are blowing a bit harder too -- which also means more evaporation.

So now Wentz and Co. compared models to data. As they note, there has been tome after tome written about temperature sensitivity to CO2 and warming. But what about precipitation and evaporation? The models say -- looking at the slide -- that precip and evap increase 1-3% per degree Centigrade of global warming, and water vapor increases 6.5%.

But the data show something different: a 6+ % increase for precip, evap, and water vapor. All together. Whilst the models seem to underestimate the precipitation increase significantly. The data say also -- and this is probably where there's a lot of meteorological interest, because the models tend to agree -- that areas where it rains a lot while get more rain, and areas where it doesn't rain a lot will get less. On that last point, 8 out of 10 Australians probably agree that this is getting to be more than a little annoying.

So, right now, the data say that there will be a larger increase in rainfall than the models say there will be. This is also supported by rain gauges. But there's a different bottom line here, I note: water vapor is definitely increasing (remember that part about water vapor being easier to measure than temperature)? As long as that's happening, it's warming up. And as long as that's happening, weather patterns and cloud patterns and rainfall patterns will change. I can pretty much guarantee that. Some people apparently don't understand that warmer oceans and stronger winds over the oceans are a long-term effect that determines the dynamics of the atmosphere, even if there's a lot of short-term variability. So if you think Al Gore's wrong on this, talking to Frank Wentz would probably help improve understanding considerably.

Gilchrest is the man

Bravo to Representative Gilchrest!

Gilchrest unloads on know-nothings

As a rule, the Wolfs (it is not proper to pluralize the surname Wolf as Wolves, I point out in passing) have not cleaved to any particular political affiliation. That is why I have counseled others to be aware of the weights that they bring to their assessment of issues, and to make measured responses. Having a political affiliation that forces and contorts one's own ability to consider issues on facts and merit is a very considerable weight. It is like those creationist-minded individuals who must be so affiliated to their religious ideal of piety that they disbelieve the evidence of their eyes and think the Grand Canyon could form in years, not millennia; or those climate change skeptically-minded who don't understand the lessons of paleohistory that atmospheric carbon dioxide has been the major thermostatic determinant of Earth's climate state.

From what I read of Representative Gilchrest, he has been a public servant, and his weight (shall I offer "burden"?) has been to be part of a Republican party that seems to add on more and more weights of policy positions, until like a prize racehorse the races can no longer be won or run. So a positional mouthpiece such as his primary opponent takes out someone who has measured, not reactive, responses. It would serve the Republican rightists right if their chosen spokesperson loses the strongly Republican district that Gilchrest represented so ably (in the Democratically gerrymandered map of Maryland -- a device that I detest when either side employs it) -- his district was unusual in that it favored a Republican, and so losing it would serve the hardlinists right.

Gilchrest was a warrior for the estuarine needs of the ailing Chesapeake Bay. One would hope that perhaps there would be a place in an Obama administration for a man who knows how to serve the people and not service a political philosophy that does not recognize the value of reconsideration, reevaluation, and refinement.

Define unusual

Let's see: 100-year floods happen about once every 25 years, 100-year El Nino events happen twice a century, and we have a hurricane of the century about every other year. (Even more now that there are such large coastal populations that tend to notice when their houses get washed away en masse.)

But the Cubs winning the World Series? Now that's an unusual occurrence. I felt bad when the White Sox made the playoffs, because that hadn't happened for 102 years. So the problem is, the thirst of history for milestones has now been satisfied by this convergence of Windy City baseball teams. It is now not necessary for history to amend its balance sheet with another event of similar unlikelitude. Plus, the Cubs think that the Dodgers that they beat in the regular season are the same as the Dodgers now; I say it ain't so, Manny. Plus, Derek Lowe had a big part in dispersing the gloom of the Red Sox curse, so he does not need to satisfy history either, having already done so, therefore he felt no obligation to pitch badly in Game One. And he didn't.

So unfortunately I believe that the Gods of Chance and Circumstance are smiling elsewhere, this year on the city with the sunshine guarantee, St. Petersburg, Florida. How many of you knew that the Tampa Bay Rays played in the Tropicana Dome in St. Petersburg, not Tampa? Apparently not many Tampa Baynians (or is it Tampites -- don't go there, NO don't go there! OH sorry you already did) don't know either. I for one, having experienced the Floridian climate in all its aspects for a few years, can't believe that they actually play baseball outdoors in daylight in August in Miami.

For all its glory and history and friendliness, Wrigley Field, despite the ivy on the walls, doesn't impart much of a homefield advantage. When the wind is blowing out, all balls carry. But the weirdness of the Trop apparently does, just like playing the caroms off the Green Monster at Fenway. Still, maybe Zambrano can recapture the magic; home field didn't mean much to him either when he pitched the no-hitter. (Update: he didn't. Wait 'til next decade, Cubbies.)

Yeah, I like sports. Speaking of which, I'll soon have a post on why I hate ESPN.

In other news: I didn't expect to have another asteroid post so soon, but an astronomer just discovered (after almost 9 years of observations) that a strange dumbbell or dog-bone asteroid -- Kleopatra by name -- apparently has moons. Now, ever since it was discovered that Ida had a moon by the Galileo flyby --



The little guy is Dactyl. If it were possible to stand on this moonlet, it would be possible for a baseball pitcher to throw a ball into orbit around it. Actually, Dactyl is so small it probably would be possible for a pitcher to throw a pitch to Ida, because the velocity of the pitch would probably exceed Dactyl's escape velocity. Don't know how well C.C. Sabathia would fit into a pressure suit, though.

-- I've suspected that other asteroids had to have moons. There's just too many of them up there not to have chunks experiencing the occasional gravitic capture or recapture. But it's neat to see that those depictions of asteroid fields from "The Empire Strikes Back" or "Galaxyquest" have a bit of truth to them.

Two Companions Found Near Dog-Bone Asteroid