For Arizona voters

I got this from Sandy Bahr from the Sierra Club. This is the craziest AZ ballot proposition yet, and that's saying a lot.

The witching hour is fast approaching; don't let Election Day become the 'Day of the Dead.'
Vote no on Prop 105.
If Prop 105, the so-called "majority rules" amendment passes those deceased who remain on the voter rolls would be counted as automatic NO votes. Is that fair?

http://proposition105.cmail2.com/l/565647/46tt6i3j/r

Happy Halloween

Be safe & have fun, everybody!

Help Esha Momeni

I came across an article on the L.A. times web site about Esha Momeni, a Los Angeles grad student who was detained while visiting her home in Iran supposedly because of her political activities for women's rights there. Amnesty International asks that as many people as possible send letters to the Iranian government as soon as possible asking for her release. Believe it or not, these letters work much of the time. Take a minute or two today and write an e-mail for Esha.

See Author Alan Weisman at ASU in Tempe

I wish I could go, but for folks in AZ, this should be very interesting:

A penetrating, page-turning tour of a post-human Earth

In The World Without Us, Alan Weisman offers an utterly original approach to questions of humanity's impact on the planet: he asks us to envision our Earth, without us.In this far-reaching narrative, Weisman explains how our massive infrastructure would collapse and finally vanish without human presence; what of our everyday stuff may become immortalized as fossils; how copper pipes and wiring would be crushed into mere seams of reddish rock; why some of our earliest buildings might be the last architecture left; and how plastic, bronze sculpture, radio waves, and some man-made molecules may be our most lasting gifts to the universe.October 29, 2008 - 7 p.m.Murdock Lecture Hall <http://www.asu.edu/map/interactive/?campus=tempe&building=MUR>Room 101http://www.worldwithoutus.com/http://www.worldwithoutus.com/about_author.html

Thanks to Jon Findley for posting that info.

I believe I recommended this book way back, but if I forgot to, this is also a chilling Halloween read! ;-)

Great Halloween Book for Kids

Getting into the spirit of the season? Tired of your routine bedtime stories and if you have to say "Goodnight Moon" one more time you will scream? Then run - run, I say- to your nearest bookstore and pick up Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich by Adam Rex. We've had it for a year now and we read it all year round, but especially now it is perfection. Here is an excerpt:

And that's not even our favorite. We like the pages about the Phantom of the Opera who can't get "It's a Small World" and "The Girl From Ipanema" out of his head. Or, "Godzilla Pooped on My Honda" is a classic, though obviously scatalogical (photo included). Anyway, for kids 4 to 12, and grownups, it's a must have.

What election?

I'm stressed. I can tell because my nails are a complete mess. Can we just fast forward now through the next two weeks? And what is this feeling - hopefulness? The people now know who the real Barack Obama is, Sarah, and they seem to like him. Thank goodness.

Anyway, I'm voting in AZ because we're still not perma-Californians. Which means I can't vote against the California anti gay marriage bill but there's one of those in AZ too. Actually, the Arizona ballot is chock full of bad ideas, like prop 105. And Bob Lord is in a statistical dead heat with John Shaddegg! So, AZ Voters, vote no on just about everything, except for 202 and 300. And maybe my vote will matter on something. Wouldn't it be awesome if McCain lost Arizona? A girl can dream. I'm going to get this ballot in the mail. Yay, voting!

The Sequoia Saga

From Sequoia National Park and Aftermath


Maybe it was doomed from the start. Back in May, we went camping with my sis and bro-IL outside Kings Canyon National Park and had intended to spend part of the trip home on a detour through that park and Sequoia National Park/Monument. But THEN, james left his jacket - and wallet - on a rock at the camp site. Of course, we were all out of cell phone range, and, through a series of half-received messages and near-misses, we spent a good portion of the day on a wild goose chase. (James said it would have been very funny to have footage of us from above.) We vowed to return to Sequoia before the pass was snowed in.

Fast forward to fall, Saturday, September 6, 2008. We decide to attempt a day trip since the winter is fast approaching. We get a decent-ish start and get to the park at around 11:30. We enjoy a stop at the Visitor Center on the southern side of the park. We purchase a few souvenirs and head up to see the main attraction and reason for our visit, Sequoiadendron giganteum, the Giant Sequoias.

About two thirds of the way up the mountain, on a very narrow, very steep, very windy road, the Prius suddenly flashed three or four warning lights. Since they seemed to refer to the stability control which Greg was confident we would only need if we were going fast and braking suddenly on a slippery wet road, and as the car seemed to be otherwise operating normally, we decided it would be safe to keep going. We got to the Giant Forest a few minutes later (breathtaking - I barely remembered it from a family trip in the late 80s) and made it safely to the Giant Forest Museum. We turned off the car in the hopes that whatever the issue was, it would reboot itself and all would be well. We spent about an hour at the Gaint Forest Museum, which used to be one of hundreds of buildings in the Giant Forest until they tore just about all of them down (Suprisingly, pavement is bad for trees! Imagine!).

We got back to the car and turned it on...and ALL of the warning lights turned on. Plus, no start. Greg tried to see if there was ANYTHING we could try, but no, the car is like the opposite of user-servicable. So we started to try to figure out how we could get out of there. There is no cell phone service in the park, BTW. We had the Toyota roadside assistance, but we soon found out that only the first $100 of a tow is covered - and one quote came in at $1200. I spent an hour or so on the ranger's phone. She was so nice.

Finally they found us a company willing to come up for us, for what ended up being $380 ($280 for us). Amelie in the meantime read a whole chapter book, became a Junior Ranger, played hangman with the park ranger, and we all went for a nature hike. Where we saw bears. OK, that part was awesome.









So the guy gets there 2 hours later (right on time) and loads up the car, and we all pile into the seatbeltless truck cab with him and his girlfriend (cozy). Amelie on my lap, we head down that same, windy road, and not the straighter, RV-friendly long way back towards Fresno. Greg made friendly conversation. I hoped the guy was a good driver. At least he did go slowly.

About 8 PM we made it back to Visalia which was the location of the nearest Toyota dealer. We dropped off the car and had our friendly driver drop us at the closest non-hourly hotel which fortunately was a new Marriott. The people there were very nice, we walked a block to downtown Visalia (cute) after checking in, and got some actual food for the first time all day.

We got back to the room and settled in for the night. Luckily there was an Avis in town with Sunday hours since we didn't intend to wait around until Tuesday (or later) for the car to be ready. We got back at about 3:30 and it turns out my anxieties about the cats not being fed were unnecessary as they had not waited long to bust open their food container on their own.

We got the car back today. What went wrong? Greg's still not sure if the guy told him it was a short, or disconnected, or what, but basically they reset it and supposedly it's fine now but we're talking about Mini Coopers. I'm not the optimal Prius owner at the moment anyway, and he says he will "never trust that car again" - so, where does that leave us but kbb.com?

Anyway, that's my story. Thank you for sticking with me through my vent. Check the album above for some nice pictures of some trees.

Just Checking

If, like me, you heard about the scientists "trying to re-create the Big Bang" this morning and thought "I hope they don't mean actually, because that might be bad," then this is for you.

Update: link fixed. But it's ok, we're still here.

Young Republicans in Love

I totally had this poster on my wall in high school - but the McCain/Palin ticket denying the truth about the Bridge to Nowhere (she wanted it until there was an outcry against it) just reminded me of it, and one google search later, there it is. God bless the internet.

And I never knew this was a Matt Groening creation so thanks to the guy who posted the picture for that info.

The OTHER Palin in the Race

Republican Doubletalk

For anyone who doesn't really get the full hypocrisy of the Republican party, this is required viewing:


and, heck, this too:


and why not this.


Same old party, led by McSame and the classic Rove campaign.

Sad news on Frosted Mini Wheats

For anyone still looking for them, Kelloggs says the vegan organic FMWs are officially discontinued. Maybe we can get a letter writing campaign going. After the election I might think about it. Right now...bigger fish to fry.

Last weekend we got to hang with Marnie & James while Greg went to the Indy race VIP-style in Sonoma. We checked out Fairyland by Lake Merritt in Oakland and then took Linda on the express public transit tour of San Francisco (ferry from Jack London Square, Streetcar to Pier 39, Cable Car to Union Square, and BART back to Oakland). Fun!

More photos here.

File This Under "Things Appropriately Named"

Newsweek reports that there is a type of oil exploration called "fracking":

Central to that development is the use of fracking fluids. Largely unregulated,
they've been employed by the energy industry for decades and, with the exception
of diesel, can be made up of nearly any set of chemicals. Also, propriety trade
laws don't require energy companies to disclose their ingredients. "It is much
like asking Coca-Cola to disclose the formula of Coke," says Ron Heyden, a
Halliburton executive, in recent testimony before the COGCC. Despite its
widespread use and somewhat mysterious mix, fracturing fluid was deemed in 2004
by the Environmental Protection Agency as safe for the environment and
groundwater. Dave Dillon, the COGCC's top engineering manager, says nearly every
one of Colorado's 35,600 wells are "fracked" and that a minimum of 100,000
gallons are used per well, resulting in millions of gallons pumped into the
ground each year. And since it's typically pumped far below groundwater tables,
Congress exempted fracking fluids from the Safe Drinking Water Act in 2005.

Obviously this predates the coinage of "frak" on Battlestar Galactica - but, god, how appropriate.

The Lame McCain Campaign from This Modern World

This and more at Salon.com. I really like the background banner - "He'll get those kids off your lawn."

Drunk History

Drunk History on Funny or Die. Historical experts discussing their favorite events in history while completely wasted, and those drunken descriptions being acted out by the likes of Michael Cera and Jack Black. This is at least a PG-13. People cuss when they're drunk.

Emirates A380 in town

The Emirates Air humongous A380 is giving tours over on Imperial at LAX. We'll see how much noise these suckers make when they lift off. Some of the older planes seem to be the worst offenders. I think that's a New Zealand Boeing 747 in the foreground, for perspective. Ooh, it's gone now, and I'm about to drive by there.

Update: Greg, who is now "Mr. Boeing" says:
In your blog you called the plane in the foreground a 747 not a 47. Probably a 777 2 engines no hump. Seems too wide to be a 767 but may be. 757 is skinny.

I knew that about the hump but the feed was grainy. Anyhoo, it's back at the museum after tooling around the runways I suppose. No noise yet. It will probably take off at 3 AM or something.

Update to Update: Greg and Amelie went by later on and it was back. They took these pics.

Twilight is no Buffy

I am always up for quality Young Adult lit. I love Harry Potter (although it is flawed - Hermione hardly got to kick any butt at the end, ok...tangent!), and Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials series is the BEST. Oh, and UnLunDun rocked. Right now I have The True Meaning of Smeckday on my night stand. Anyway. So we recently rented Penelope (very cute modern fairy tale) and one of the features was a preview of the Twilight movie. I only watched the first 20 seconds because I could tell it wasn't going to a very Amelie-appropriate place. I've also been hearing about this series from the internet, in Comic Con coverage, and in my Borders e-mails. I was going to check it out, first, literally, from the library, and then since the waiting list is months long, from my BOMC2 subscription. I had added it to the queue (it's like Netflix for books) but not to the top. Then this article, and these discussions that followed, convinced me to drop it. How insipid Bella sounds! I guess sometimes the Mormon housewife in an author is going to come through.

It's funny, because I did get kind of an ick vibe when I saw the teen vamp carrying the girl around like a baby in the preview, and I was looking for a good place for a dispassionate take on the whole thing. You get too many gushing reviews for something like this on Amazon. So here it is, thankfully in time to save me 10 bucks. I'll rent Buffy instead, thanks.

Random Photos

OK, I'm just putting these out there because I'm too lazy to do more. Enjoy (click for the whole album)!

2008_07

PETA, Forest Whitaker, and True on being Veg

Is PETA backing off the in-your-face stuff? This is so sweet!