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Daylight Saving Time getting longer?
Our brilliant government at work yet again. While debating amendments for an energy bill, two alternatives were proposed to help reduce US oil consumption. The result? No new regulations to actually reduce oil usage, but how about extending Daylight Saving time by two months instead?
A House committee voted on Wednesday to expand U.S. daylight-saving time by two months to help reduce energy consumption, but rejected a plan to shave total U.S. oil demand by 1 million barrels a day.
Both proposals were offered as amendments to be tacked on to a broad energy bill that was debated by the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
The panel agreed in a voice vote to move the start of daylight-saving time in the United States — which occurs when clocks are turned forward by one hour — one month earlier to the first Sunday in March. The end of daylight time would be moved back one month to the last Sunday in November.
[…]
The committee voted down, 39 to 12, a separate amendment to require the federal government to find a way to cut U.S. oil demand by 1 million barrels a day by 2013. The amendment offered by Democrat Henry Waxman of California aimed to reduce imports of crude oil.
Lawmakers with automakers in their districts led the fight to defeat Waxman’s proposal, arguing it was backdoor way to require U.S. mini-vans, sport utility vehicles and pick-up trucks to improve their fuel efficiency.
Oh, the horror! My god, can you imagine what this world would come to if we actually had to improve the fuel efficiency of our cars and trucks? The environment would improve and oil profits would drop — it would be a disaster of unmitigated proportions!
Ugh. Idiots.
Instead, we’ll just muck around with our clocks to make summer seem longer…kinda. Resonsibility’s overrated anyway. Why actually do something when you can procrastinate and ignore the problem?
“Bitch” by Pigface from the album Easy Listening… (2002, 3:10).
Limerick for a Swan
When I dropped into the #flickr channel today on lunch, the denizens were tossing around limericks for the various regulars. Cygnoir hadn’t been graced with one yet, so I managed to come up with the following:
Cygnoir’s on a poetry kick
but finding a rhyme for her nick
isn’t easy to do
so I hope when I’m through
she’ll laugh ‘staid of aiming a kick!
Not bad for coming right off the top of my head. :)
Just a hint, really
So Assemblage 23 is playing at the Vogue tonight, and I’ve been tossing around whether or not I want to go — balancing the desire to see a decent band with the fact that it’s on a Wednesday night.
So what’s the first track that iTunes chooses at random when I turn it on after getting home from work?
Assemblage 23 ‘Divide’.
Sometimes I think this computer knows me far too well.
Update: No matter how well my ‘puter thinks it knows me, I’m still feeling the effects of my neighbor keeping me up until around 3am on Sunday night/Monday morning. 8:40 in the evening, I’m yawning, and my eyes are drooping. No mid-week concertgoing for this boy…at least, not this week.
“Divide” by Assemblage 23 from the album Failure (2001, 6:01).
Happy Birthday, Mom!
Today’s my mum‘s birthday!
And, of course, I’m sure that she’s 29. Again. ;) That’s just the way it works, right?
Happy b-day, mom!
Memory Maps
As far as memes go, this is one of the best I’ve seen yet. After discovering Google Maps‘ new satellite-view option, Matt Haughey took a screenshot of his childhood neighborhood and used Flickr‘s annotation feature to mark it up with memories of his growing years. This inspired the memorymap tag and the Memory Maps group — and I’ve added four Memory Maps covering my younger years.
This first one is an overview of the South Muldoon Road area, where the majority of my growing years were spent. Covers two neighborhoods, two houses, and two elementary schools.
The second shot zooms in a bit on one of the two neighborhoods, and covers from first through third grade. We actually moved to the other neighborhood in the middle of my third grade year, but parents kept me at the same school to finish out that year as it was still within easy driving distance. Not quite as many memories on this one as on the next, as I was much younger then.
Shot number three covers everything from fourth grade until I moved out of my parents’ house after high school graduation. Lots of memories buried in this one — friends houses, play spaces…make sure to check out all the notes on the photo for some fun stories.
For the last in the series, we move a few miles north to my high school (the best six years of my life! Um…wait…nevermind…). Without being able to zoom into classroom-view resolution (which isn’t likely to happen, as it would involve ripping off the roof of the school), I’ve done the best I could to point out pertinent bits.
Fun to do. Not a bad way to revisit the old stomping grounds, either, since I can do it from the comfort of my apartment here in Seattle! ;)
“Thorns (Distant Vocals)” by :Wumpscut: from the album Born Again (1998, 5:50).
Living in a Theocracy
How in the world can people justify going to war to free people from religious oppression, and at the same time, condone and encourage religious oppression here at home?
Here’s an outrage for you. There’s a growing movement among pharmacists and even doctors to refuse to provide legal and necessary health services.
Let’s start with pharmacists. In at least 10 states, they have refused to fill prescriptions for birth control, citing moral and religious beliefs. In so doing, they have incited a nationwide outcry by women (and their men) who rely on such basic medical services.
…Some pharmacists “just say no” to filling the prescriptions. Others don’t offer these women alternative locations where they can get them filled. A few zealous pharmacists have actually gone off the deep end and refused to return the prescriptions to the women for whom they were written. That’s obstruction — someone who is licensed by the state to provide a medical service (to wit, the pharmacist) has instead barred a customer from obtaining that service.
I’ve been seeing more and more stories about this lately, and find it absolutely outrageous. How much longer before the extreme right-wing pushes too far?
Hopefully, not much.
“Flesh ‘n Blood” by Oingo Boingo from the album Best o’ Boingo (1989, 4:09).
Google Maps plus Satellite photos
Wow.
Put your address into Google Maps. Zoom all the way in…then click the ‘Satellite’ link in the top right.
Freaky cool.
The House of the Rising Sun
Nobody’s sure yet — and, in truth, we may never be — but there’s at least a good possibility that archaeologists in New Orleans may have found the House of the Rising Sun.
This winter, a nonprofit organization called the Historic New Orleans Collection decided to expand. The organization, which runs a museum and research center, owned seven buildings in the heart of the French Quarter but needed another to serve as a vault. The group bought a one-level, ramshackle parking garage on Conti Street — pronounced KAHNT-eye — and announced plans to tear it down.
The purchase was serendipitous. If just about anyone else had bought the lot, no study would have been conducted. But the organization — dedicated, after all, to Louisiana history — wanted to know the story behind its property. It asked a scholar at the University of Chicago and a New Orleans archeology firm called Earth Search to perform an excavation and document search.
[…]
The archeologists, who plan to launch a more exhaustive study on Tuesday, found that a hotel called the Rising Sun appeared to have operated on the site from the early 1800s until 1822, when it burned to the ground.
In an 1821 advertisement from the newspaper La Gazette, a company called L.S. Hotchkiss explained that it had taken over the hotel but offered reassurance to customers: “No pain or expence [sic] will be spared by the new proprietors to give general satisfaction, and maintain the character of giving the best entertainment.”
The next sentence: “Gentlemen may here rely upon finding attentive Servants.” Similar language, Gray said, was used in old bordello advertisements to make it clear — without explicitly saying so — that extracurricular services were available.
And there’s more in the linked article, of course. Just neat.
Also of note, and a page I want to revisit later: this listing of 250 different recordings of the traditional tune. It’s pretty slow, and would take a while to trawl through, but there’s a wealth of stuff there I’d love to listen to.
(via MeFi)
“Train” by Pigface from the album A New High In Low (1997, 24:18).
Countdown…
…one month ’till my birthday. May 3rd, I hit 32.
And before you make any cracks, it would do you good to realize that with a little practice, it’s amazing how fast us old fogeys can scoot along in our walkers, and canes just give us an extra couple feet of reach when whuppin’ you young whippersnappers.
Oh, and as long as I’m being amusingly un-subtle, here’s my Amazon wishlist. Just in case. ;)
“Phorever People (Tee’s Flying Dub)” by Shamen, The from the album Phorever People (1992, 8:41).