In brief:

• 16:07 Feeling re-invigorated towards the plate-spinning of having multiple research tasks at once. #
• 18:17 Hey @marnanel: @wordnik now points to Shavian.org.uk 'translate' in "Elsewhere on the web" -- check any Wordnik word! #

I often use twitter to mention what's happening or linkdump. I LT here for posterity.

Оригинал   (795×1024)

Оригинал   (726×1024)

here are some cute (angry) squirrels we met in the park:


and something obnoxious that i sometimes do but rarely admit to:

Deadend Margo and I are in Orlando Florida for the holiday. Tommorow we're going to The Holy Land Experience and right after, we'll cross the Interstate to stop in the gigantic Target in Millenia Plaza (shown here under constrution).

 i have a panasonic hvx 200 that my macbook isnt recognizing so i can't upload video. has anyone had any trouble like this?

I had initially planned a relaxing Saturday- meeting Adam for lunch at a Thai place off of Central Square, braving the lines at the post office to mail the last of my Italy holiday cards (including one to Ale, as I couldn't get his strange Thanksgiving email out of my mind), and an evening spent with Jenny drinking Pinot and packing my bag for NYC.

Then the bus company notified me that all buses were being cancelled for the 20th due to inclement weather.

I spend a furious 30 minutes racing around my apartment in a dervish of clean socks, snow boots, cat food, extra water, hats, gloves, jeans, formal coat, Christmas gifts, unwritten letters, journals, books- I managed to cram it all in a bag, cram my hair under a Russian style hat from winters past, and drag the whole mess to South Station to beg for a ride on the 6pm Fung Wah bus, guaranteed to run no matter how unsafe the travel conditions.

It was a 7 hour ride.

I became violently nauseated, then ignored the nausea as my leg cramped up.

My cellphone broke.

The driver stopped somewhere in Connecticut in order to disembark and manually scrape ice from the windshield wipers.

By midnight the passengers were silent, all of us lulled into a white haze of the snow that we hit as it moved opposite our bus, racing to blanket Boston. We crossed our fingers. Someone vomited- one slow choking sound.

But I made a new friend. My seatmate, a woman named Tsamchoe who told me about her childhood in Nepal, her crazy boyfriends in Boston, and her sense, like mine, that Boston is a cold cold place.

We arrived in NYC Chinatown in one piece. We pulled our luggage from the belly of the bus and wheels and sneakers hit the snow. Traffic was a silent affair.

In the lobby, Mameet, a tranchcoat wrapped over her nightgown and glasses slipping down her nose pushed fistful of dollars into a cab window and opened my side door.

The holidays are here.

So if the Christian right is defending Christmas from the insurgents who want to bring it down, does that mean we can expect a Merry Christmas troop surge, followed eventually by withdrawal from Christmas and an attempt at Christmasization of the war? I mean, one day Christmas is going to have to stand up and defend itself. We need an exit strategy from the war against the war on Christmas, or it'll be a quagmire.

History's judgment about the denialists is going to be more scathing than the judgment on the Nazis. At least the top Nazis had the grace to lose their war and either kill themselves or get hanged at war crimes trials. The climate denialists will die in bed.

It's their grandchildren who will have to deal with two or three meters of sea-level rise and possibly famine.

God, the future is going to HATE us. Just fucking hate us. Forever and ever amen.

I wouldn't have a kid now for anything.

Ha, I'm totally getting unfriended a bunch! I must be too negative! Or maybe just too spammy. Too many words. But hey, I wrote them myself!

Do learning styles exist? Do students learn better when their "style" is respected? Turns out...nobody has ever studied this question rigorously. It's fully as empirically grounded as tarot cards. Education: Learning styles debunked. I like tarot cards, but they are inapplicable in certain applications. I mean, there's a reason why they built the LHC rather than relying on ouija boards to confirm the standard model.

Skepticism is great, but it always seems to happen: yet another professional contrarian falls so deeply in love with the sound of his own voice that he goes over Niagra Falls in a barrel. Yes, James Randi has joined the ranks of the denialists.  Randi, Alexander Cockburn, Penn Jillette, Steven Levitt: proof of how easy it is for arrogant people to get rooked by the next sharper comes down the pike.

Garrison Keillor hates Unitarians for some reason. Seriously, he's got a huge bug up his ass about them. Whereas it seems to me you have to hunt really hard even to find one. And he's mad as hell at atheists and Jews and he's not going to take it anymore. Over the top, men! Do you want to live forever? We can win the war on the war on Christmas!

Garrison Keillor is a fucking douchebag. God, he annoys the shit out of me. All by himself he's a comprehensive indictment of the NPR-listening American "left".

Meanwhile, in the War Against Atheism, Hill 23443 is once again under attack: Effort to Remove Atheist From Asheville City Council. The NC State Constitution apparently still has a faith test for officeholders! How quaint.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/2/hi/africa/8423773.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/8423773.stm

Madagascar's leader, Andry Rajoelina, names a new PM days after dismissing the man agreed in a power-sharing deal.

Hi Friends and Colleagues,

I am writing to urge you to contact the White House and let President Obama know that you are opposed to BOTH the Senate and House versions of the currently propose health care reform.

Like most of you, I too have been filling out petitions, blogging and Twittering about these underhanded attempts in our Congress to violate women's fundamental Constitutional right to abortion. I understand it has become tiring and seems repetitive, but the fact of the matter is that no one in power seems to be listening to the big advocacy organizations like NARAL, Planned Parenthood or NOW, so I think it is time that folks as individuals make their voices heard. Please keep in mind that contacting our Senators did not stop the most recent anti-abortion amendment being pushed through without the approval of the majority of the Senate. In my mind, this means that it has gone beyond the point of people asking their elected officials to look out for their interests. If these officials were able to adequately represent us, we wouldn't have a small cabal of three or four persons (most of them white men, who will never become pregnant), flagrantly ignoring the procedures of the Senate, while being given the approval of The White House in the process.

So, pick up the phone, fax or email The White House TODAY!
They can be reached here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/CONTACT/

I suggest that folks also write letters to the editors of their newspapers, magazines and television stations and DEMAND that they interview local citizens about their opinions regarding this health care reform and the subversion of abortion rights, because I for one am sick and tired of only reading pieces with commentary by the advocacy groups when again, it seems as though those same groups are not being heard or are not engaging in an effective manner with our representatives. The whole thing stinks and feels very gamed to me. In my experience, the best way to effectively deal with these types of situations is to introduce a third party (namely individuals citizens), who can use the internet or other means so that their voices are actually seen and heard.

Here is a thorough explanation as to how the current Nelson amended Senate Bill will restrict women and trans folks' (FTMs and genderqueers) access to abortions and other reproductive health services:
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2009/12/20/the-nelson-compromise

Here is a look into the pork barrel bribe that was offered to Senator Nelson and the State of Nebraska in exchange for his 60th vote, which came at the expense of reproductive freedom:
http://biggovernment.com/2009/12/19/sen-nelsons-bribe/

Here is a breakdown of why the health care reform overall is horrible for US people and our future health and financial well being:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/12/19/816961/-Why-This-Senate-Health-Bill-Should-Not-Pass

Yours in Feminist Solidarity!

Some great people on my friends-of-friends list. I know at least one of you is friends with each of them, which is remarkable, but it won't stop me from occasionally mentioning how crap some of them are. I mean, that guy is MY AGE, and he writes like he's fifteen. Like he's Holden Caulfield. No, wait. Like he's Bella Swan.

This site is SO dead. All content is loud twitter. I mean, just looking at my f-o-f list, every third entry is loud twitter.

If that's all you do, just be on twitter. Everyone is on twitter. I'm on twitter. There's no reason to be on this system if all you're doing is tweeting.

I wonder why it's so exclusively loudtwitter, and hardly ever scrobbles or tumbles or diggs.

I hate that stuff. I don't read it. It's worth exactly as much as the effort that goes into it, which is none.

like/dislike
34884 diggs!

SO disappointed in Avatar, because Titanic led him to think James Cameron was really progressive and sensitive. I mean, he really got it.

Uh-huh.

Both those movies are about how all problems can be solved by getting fucked by the right white guy. That's how liberation is achieved. Just don't pick the wrong one. Pick the one who knows he's skeeting for your sake, not just his own.