Oddities and Awesome abound!
:: The slow-blogging manifesto.
Yeah, that’s all I got this week. I wasn’t around as much this week as usual for surfing Teh Interweb. More next week, though!
Impeach! Impeach!
I’ve seen a bit of discussion around the few left-wing blogs I still read in which folks offer predictions as to if, and therefore when, a Republican Congress will impeach President Obama. So, my take is this: it won’t happen in 2011 or in 2012, simply because if the Republicans take Congress this year, they — and the media that crowns every political development in the United States as great news for Republicans and further evidence for the notion that the US is a “center-right nation” — will see President Obama as mortally wounded, and they will bank on being able to easily beat him in 2012.
Now, if they’re in control of Congress and President Obama wins a second term — the latter of which still seems fairly likely to me — then I think the probability of a Republican charge to impeachment on some kind of weird grounds is almost a certainty. Why? Because having a Democrat in the White House makes Republicans just insane.
Share This Post
Sunrise over Orchard Park
The sunrise sky was particularly striking one morning last week, so I aimed my phone over my shoulder and snapped a picture. Yeah, it’s all blurry and stuff, but the colors are the important thing here. We get beautiful sunrises and sunsets here. (I think I read somewhere that Buffalo is the only major city east of the Mississippi where you can see the sun set over water, owing to its position on Lake Erie.)
Share This Post
I am deeply suspicious of you.
Where are the Vulcans, anyway?
Something for Thursday
The future’s pretty cool!
Earlier tonight, I was sitting at my desk, sipping a cup of tea, while I used my portable personal computer to watch video that was streaming wirelessly in my home. The video I was watching was live coverage of something happening. The event I was watching was taking place five thousand miles away: a bunch of people rescuing 33 miners from the hole more than 2000 feet below the ground where they’ve been trapped for more than two months.
This event is really, really amazing. I can’t think of any other words for it. First of all, those miners themselves are astounding. They kept their heads and their wits about them for two months, especially at the very beginning when they were likely the most terrified and confused about what was happening. And the rescuers — they didn’t rush things or stab in the dark. They studied the problem, thought about it, and came up with the best possible plan. Which they then executed perfectly.
Watching today’s rescue unfold, I was thinking of the movie Apollo 13, and the true-life events surrounding it. That, too, was a case of people trapped in a life-threatening situation in a place where they could not be easily reached; that, too, was a case of people working together in a staggering display of teamwork to solve the problems to bring them home. Both the tale of the astronauts and the tale of the miners show what humans can accomplish when they’re at their best.
Congratulations to everyone involved. What an amazing story!
(I’ll bet that rescue capsule is very soon the most popular exhibit in whatever the biggest museum is in Santiago, Chile!)
Share This Post
Ten Thirteen
Happy Birthday, Chris Carter!
I think it’s about time I started re-watching The X-Files.
Share This Post
A Random Wednesday Conversation Starter
Punking
Castle is just such a good show. It really is. I’ve sung its praises before, but I really loved last night’s episode. It revolved around a murder in the New York City steampunk community, and among the show’s usual strengths — wonderful dialogue, great chemistry in the cast, et cetera — I liked the depiction of the steampunk community. Basically, Castle did not take the easy way out and depict steampunk as a geeky, nerdy, uncool thing.
Now, I’m not the world’s biggest fan of steampunk; I like a good steampunk tale as much as anybody, but I don’t love it more than other stuff. But steampunk is cool and fun, and Castle made it look…cool and fun, right down to Castle’s pitch-perfect definition of steampunk to Detective Beckett:
[Steampunk is] a subculture that embraces the simplicity and romance of the past and at the same time couples it with the hope and promise and sheer supercoolness of futuristic design.
How perfect is that! I can’t help but wonder how, say, the CSI shows would depict such a steampunk club. They’d no doubt make it a creepy, eerie, nasty thing that only people with horrible social skills could embrace. Kind of like how they depicted furries and “sploshers” and midget conventions and lots of other stuff.
Kudos to Castle! Best show on teevee.