October 30th

Because I suppose I should post something. I wonder if I’ll get back into this blog at all… we shall see. Meanwhile:

Monty Python turns 40 this week

Shamelessly stole that blog post title from Andrew Sullivan. I’m ok with it. Because this video rocks:

It’s not “Friday Monty”… but it is pseudo-Monty.

Ladies and gentlemen… Mike Blowers

I like the Nate Silver shout out thrown in there.

Google will rule the world

Google Wave:

Nail on the head…

…why I haven’t really posted for a month. (Well, that and grad school is, well, hard.)

11 year-old interviews Obama

This is pretty cute. They’re homeboys:

Friday Monty

Because it’s been 3.7 years since the last one:

Explanation

So… the internet’s been crazy slow at work for the last two and a half weeks. Like, dial-up slow. Basically I’ve been too annoyed to bother taking the 10 minutes per post it was taking. Thus, the lack of updates.

Starting tomorrow I’m off work. This could do two things. It could either increase posts because I have reasonable internet speeds, or it could continue to lead to ridiculous gaps between posts because I’m off doing something cool (or stupid). Time will tell.

Friday Monty

Hmm… bad news. I’ve missed the last two. But I’m bringing it back to life, because Friday Monty’s not dead yet… its feeling much better. (It’s just late).

Gut check

From Ezra’s column:

The visceral reaction against anyone questioning our God-given right to bathe in bacon has been enough to scare many in the environmental movement away from this issue. The National Resources Defense Council has a long page of suggestions for how you, too, can “fight global warming.” As you’d expect, “Drive Less” is in bold letters. There’s also an endorsement for “high-mileage cars such as hybrids and plug-in hybrids.” They advise that you weatherize your home, upgrade to more efficient appliances and even buy carbon offsets. The word “meat” is nowhere to be found.

That’s not an oversight. Telling people to give up burgers doesn’t poll well. Ben Adler, an urban policy writer, explored that in a December 2008 article for the American Prospect. He called environmental groups and asked them for their policy on meat consumption. “The Sierra Club isn’t opposed to eating meat,” was the clipped reply from a Sierra Club spokesman. “So that’s sort of the long and short of it.” And without pressure to address the costs of meat, politicians predictably are whiffing on the issue. The Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill, for instance, does nothing to address the emissions from livestock.

The pity of it is that compared with cars or appliances or heating your house, eating pasta on a night when you’d otherwise have made fajitas is easy. It doesn’t require a long commute on the bus or the disposable income to trade up to a Prius. It doesn’t mean you have to scrounge for change to buy a carbon offset. In fact, it saves money. It’s healthful. And it can be done immediately. A Montanan who drives 40 miles to work might not have the option to take public transportation. But he or she can probably pull off a veggie stew. A cash-strapped family might not be able buy a new dishwasher. But it might be able to replace meatballs with mac-and-cheese. That is the whole point behind the cheery PB&J Campaign, which reminds that “you can fight global warming by having a PB&J for lunch.” Given that PB&J is delicious, it’s not the world’s most onerous commitment.

Oh Republicans

Only one answered the “birther” question directly:

Recover from Monday

Peaceful. Awesome. Make sure you watch it fullscreen in HD.

Speaking of polls

A corollary to the last post. These trend lines are probably worse for Obama than the approval trend lines.

Cherry picking

Greg Mankiw thinks “the honeymoon is over“:

From Rasmussen:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Sunday shows that 29% of the nation’s voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty percent (40%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -11. That’s the first time his ratings have reached double digits in negative territory….The President is now seen as politically liberal by 76%. That’s up six points from a month ago, 11 points since he was elected, and the highest total to date. Forty-eight percent (48%) now see him as Very Liberal, up 20 points since he was elected.

Maybe it is time to invite the Blue Dogs over to the White House for a beer.

Mankiw’s trouble started with the words: “From Rasmussen”. A more balanced look at how things are going for Obama (which includes Rasmussen’s 7/24-26 Approval Poll):

Good for Obama? No… the trendlines are converging. Damning, with a -11% spread? Certainly not.

Warming reducing cloud cover

Well, this isn’t good:

In a study published in the July 24 issue of Science, researchers Amy Clement and Robert Burgman from the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science and Joel Norris from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego begin to unravel this mystery. Using observational data collected over the last 50 years and complex climate models, the team has established that low-level stratiform clouds appear to dissipate as the ocean warms, indicating that changes in these clouds may enhance the warming of the planet.