wallpaper Not Telling.

I need to just stop reading press releases. Seriously. They either piss me off or disappoint me. This one does both:

New model for how Nevada gold deposits formed may help in gold exploration

So silly ol' me, I kind of assumed this might tell me something about a new model for Nevada (Carlin-type) gold deposits, and how this might help in exploration for such deposits. HA! Here's the closest it gets:

The team relates formation of the gold deposits to a change in plate tectonics and a major magma event about 40 million years ago. It is the most complete explanation for Carlin-type gold deposits to date.

So after reading what is, to be fair, not a bad summary of what Carlin-type deposits are- though redundant for me- the press release ends with that. Five minutes wasted. Sigh. This is my theory, which is mine, and it is, as follows, mine: Brontosauruses were narrow at the end, much, much thicker in the middle, and then thinner again at the other end.

Thanks, perfesser.

wallpaper Just What We Need

A bunch of "celibate," decrepit old white guys in dresses giving us relationship and marriage advice. Just remember, free advice is worth exactly what you pay for it.

By the way, I've been having exasperating connectivity problems the last week few weeks, and I see no indication it's likely to get better soon. Forgive the spotty posting, but my compulsion is to get through my reading first, then and only then going back and communicating what I've found interesting. Instead of having six to eight hours to get my reading done, I've been having three or four hours for that, and three or four hours to hop around to different wifi systems, while my stupid computer demands that I dial a connection- despite the fact I have never dialed a connection. Like I say, frustrating.

wallpaper Spoiled Meat?

Feed it to prisoners! (Something about killing two birds with one stone here)

wallpaper Punny Nose

Every now and then, my nose taps into quantities of... fluid... that are unimaginably enormous. I swear, I don't consume enough liquids and solids to account for the quantities of... stuff... that pour from my face. Seriously, it feels like a contradiction of the conservation of mass. I don't feel sick; I suspect it's just allergies. Still, when the constant wiping has worn the skin to the point it's starting to feel scabby, I'm just miserable. This has been going on since New Year's eve, and it is, at this point, officially old. I still try to find some humor in it; that's just my way of dealing with things that annoy me. Without further ado, here are some of my favorite comments about this frakking Oceanus Nasalus:

• Old Faceful is in full eruptive mode;
• It's the Energizer Runny: it just keeps going, and going, and going;
• It may look like water, but it'snot.

It's been clear and cold since last Wedneday, but today we're having a light drizzle. I'm hoping that whatever is in the air gets washed out. My face hurts.

wallpaper 150 Years Ago Today

South Carolina became the first state to secede from the Union, starting a war that was to claim over half a million lives, to maintain their right to own human beings.

A war, I'm afraid, that we're still fighting today.

wallpaper "No One Could Have Anticipated..."

The go-to phrase for the new millennium.

• No one could have anticipated Bin Laden was determined to strike inside the US
• No one could have anticipated New Orleans was so vulnerable to a major hurricane- though my first-term geo prof spent 10-15 minutes discussing said vulnerability... lecturing in Oregon, not the southeast... in 1981.
• No one could have anticipated attempting to privatize social security would drive down the ratings of the president trying to do so.
• No one could have anticipated deregulating banks, investment firms and insurance companies would lead to fraudulent lending, use of the loans as investments, and overconfident insurance of those investments, leading to an economic crisis.
  
• No one could have predicted that reneging on numerous campaign promises and continuing policies created by a deeply unpopular predecessor would tarnish the glow of a promising new president.
  
• No one could have anticipated...
  

Yada, yada, yada, I could continue this list for the better part of the day and still have examples left. But the one I wanted to get to was this:

• No one could have anticipated that not enforcing safety regulations, administering agencies tasked with enforcement with members of the regulated industries, and allowing lobbying for exemptions by the same industries, in a potentially phenomenally dangerous and destructive activity could lead to, well, phenomenal destruction.

Via NYT's Green Blog:

“The containment story thus contains two parallel threads,” the commission staff wrote in a summary passage in their 39-page reconstruction of the four-month effort to kill the Macondo well. “First, on April 20, the oil and gas industry was unprepared to respond to a deepwater blowout, and the federal government was similarly unprepared to provide meaningful supervision.

“Second, in a compressed time frame, BP was able to design, build and use new containment technologies, while the federal government was able to develop effective oversight capacity. Those impressive efforts, however, were made necessary by the failure to anticipate a subsea blowout in the first place,” the report concluded.

Headline, 2040: "No one could have anticipated the drastic sea-level rise and increasing severity of extreme weather events."

Yeah, no one could have anticipated. Shame, that.