fidlmath

Diana the Spider Wrangler

once more

It's about time someone tried to do something about Florida's disastrous election problems.  It seems that our new governor , Charlie Crist, wants to replace the touch screen machines with optical scan machines which produce a paper trail.   15 counties already have these, and evidently there are no appreciable problems .  FINALLY!!  I'm tired of having to laugh at my own state when the issue is such an important one. 

posted by: mafidl at January 31, 2007 08:31 | link | comments (2) |

Deja vu

Drying my hair - it's colder than usual.  My definition of a cold spell in South Florida?  Haven't had the A/C on for several days.  Deja vu all over again - thanks Yogi.  When I was a little girl there were no hair dryers.  My mother, when I was small, would have me stand on a low chair [bigger, no chair] with my back to the gas stove and dry my hair over a front burner.  Child abuse?  Nothing she didn't do herself.  Choice: dry the hair, or go out in the wintry weather and almost certainly wind up with a bad cold.  Someone said [Ben Franklin? Mark Twain? - sounds like could have been either - according to Google, NO! Plato!! Wow!] "Necessity is the mother of invention."  My hair, my Mom's hair - never was singed, and the house never burned down.  Could someone do that today?  If necessary, I suppose.

posted by: mafidl at January 31, 2007 06:58 | link | comments (5) |

rosellas

Younger daughter, L, is in Tasmania [which is an island state just south of mainland Australia].  One of the most common birds is the Tasmanian Rosella
The Tazzie Rosella has quite different coloring from the mainland varieties.  For instance, here is a Crimson Rosella
which is quite common in eastern and southeastern Australia.  They are all spectacularly beautiful and extremely noisy birds.  There are also many, varied budgerigars [budgies] which we call parakeets.  The first time a flock of them flew down on the grass next to my car, I thought I was seeing things.
Another amazing and lovely bird, which we aren't really familiar with here is the Galah, which I still think looks somewhat unreal - but flocks of them routinely swoop down on grassy stretches in Canberra
I miss them all, and was just reminded of them by L who was looking at a Tazzie Rosella when she called me a little while ago.

posted by: mafidl at January 30, 2007 17:34 | link | comments (7) |

3 again!

Saturday I decided that I was going to make spaghetti sauce and invite a couple of friends over for Sunday eve dinner.  Friday I'd had an appointment with my manicurist, L, a very interesting lady from Nicaragua who would have an engineering degree if her government hadn't decided that she had to join the military in her senior year - so she is here and is an excellent manicurist, takes classes, enjoys her work, is married and a very interesting person.  We were discussing, for whatever reason, the fact that I don't like housework and don't clean my house regularly.  Specifically, the last more or less thorough cleaning was just prior to my pre-New Years party.  So we agreed that maybe I need to entertain more, hence the idea to have people over yesterday.  Unfortunately, L and her hubby couldn't come, but several others, including daughter, J came.  Friend NN helped me by doing some of the vacuuming and clearing off the dining table.  It was fun and now I'm considering having friends over at least once a month so my house gets cleaned regularly.  Hahaha. and why not?!

posted by: mafidl at January 29, 2007 10:00 | link | comments (3) |

Hope?

Despite Cheney, maybe there's hope.  According to Planet Ark, It seems that US consumers, including and, perhaps most importantly, many large corporations are deciding to reduce energy consumption.  Also, many other countries that had not already seen the importance of this are joining in - including Canada's intention to set "new greenhouse gas emissions targets for key industries, including oil and gas, by this spring for implementation in 2010-2015"according to the Prime Minister.
However, among other predictions according to a UN study due out Feb 5, "It is "very likely" that extremes such as heatwaves and heavy rains will become more frequent. Arctic sea ice could disappear in summer by the latter part of the 21st century in some projection. Warming is expected to be greatest over land and at high northern latitudes, and least over the Southern Ocean and North Atlantic.

- Antarctica is likely to stay too cold for wide surface melting and is expected to gain in mass due to more snow.

- A system of Atlantic currents including the Gulf Stream, bringing warm waters northwards, are very likely to slow by 2100 but an overall warming will more than offset any cooling effect. The draft says that an abrupt shift is "very unlikely"."

I heard yesterday that we may still have about 10 years to stop this. I also heard today that Hummer and large SUV sales are down - I hope that's true.  I'm very interested in the GM prototype I mentioned in my last post - the Hy-wire.  The problems are: it's not ready for consumers yet, there may be a safety issue with frontal collisions and, last but not least, it seems as though the initial price might be prohibitive for most of us.  How about our govenment being serious enuf re environmental issues and offering large tax breaks and or/ up front stipends to help consumers buy them?  Pie in the sky? 

posted by: mafidl at January 29, 2007 09:22 | link | comments |

Is Cheney an alien or schizophrenic?

According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness: "Schizophrenia interferes with a person's ability to think clearly, to distinguish reality from fantasy, to manage emotions, make decisions, and relate to others." There are other possible interpretations for Cheney's  interview with Wolf Blitzer.  Carl Hiaasen, celebrated columnist for the Miami Herald states:
"There are several possible explanations for the vice president's bizarre performance:

• He's crazy as a loon.

• He's a compulsive liar.

• He's gotten his prescriptions mixed up with Rush Limbaugh's.

Whatever the clinical reason might be, Cheney continues to float blissfully through a smug and surreal fog."

Despite many Republicans' [including GW's]as well as Democrats'  opinions on the war in Iraq which range from "heading to slow failure: [GW] to "the situation there was ``dire.''" [from Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, soon to be commander of U.S. forces in Iraq]. 

Oh, I know, another possible condition would be that maybe he's deaf - but I guess he'd have to be blind, also, or just have blinders on.

"Without cracking a smile, Cheney told Blitzer that ''the world is much safer today'' because Bush took military action against Iraq."  I wonder how many people believe that today?  I'd guess not many.

posted by: mafidl at January 29, 2007 08:58 | link | comments (5) |

and finally

3 posts - ye gods - too much caffeine!  Here is an article on different names for poop.  My younger daughter used to have such a list - but more colorful, on the wall opposite the commode in her bathroom.  It may or may not have had a beneficial effect on the process, but did provide entertainment during that.  What made me think of it was that it was in my Bookmarks and I was searching for another one, which I haven't found.  Maybe someone reading this post might know how to find  it.  There was an article, somewhere, recently, about a new car, a prototype, which is a hybrid and will use a gasoline engine only to charge the battery/batteries on which the car runs.  Except I'm not even sure about whether the main source was battery or something else.  It seems it would only use gas infrequently and would solve many of our fuel problems.  I believe it is being developed by either Ford or GM and will a great improvement over the current hybrids.  If anyone knows what it is, please leave me a comment or Momail me about it.  I did just find an article through Google that might be it - and the fuel is hydrogen, not battery.  I didn't remember the fact that safety might be an issue because of the design, so maybe this isn't it.

posted by: mafidl at January 26, 2007 12:33 | link | comments (3) |

Mystery

My house sometimes swallows objects.  I'm convinced of this.  I decided, just before I wrote the previous post, to download ["hotsync"] my Palm PDA onto my computer.  Actually, it is a 2 way operation and produces messages, occasionally, that are, at best, confusing [CRS moment - can't recall the exact word I wanted there instead of confusing - s&%t!]  I do have a point - these small computers require the use of a small stick, called a stylus, which is, frequently, temporarily missing.  This time, however, the bloody thing seems to be permanently missing.  I took it out to correct a password for the NY Times online, since the one in the computer seemed wrong and I had to acquire a new one.  Then I figured out which USB port the cable required.  There are several of these, one of which is occupied more or less permanently by the device for my cordless optical mouse.  Anyhow, by the time this was accomplished, the bloody stylus was and remains out of sight.  Not on the coffee table where the laptop is, not on the floor around it, and yes, I allowed for the fact that I might have kicked it - no cats around to blame, and not in/on the chair cushions - gone, vanished, a small frustration.  Luckily, I somehow managed to acquire a package with a couple of spare styli [correct plural?] and shall go see if I can find it.  Hmmmm.  [It showed up, after all - sorry for maligning you, house]
Speaking of spelling leads me to grammar.  An article in the Miami Herald this morning details a new requirement for the FCAT - a test given in Florida to grades 3-11, which is designed to reinforce reading and math skills.  The following statement was made by a principal and former English teacher:
''High school English teachers often feel that when students come to us in ninth grade, they shouldn't necessarily have to teach grammar. They should know what a noun or verb is,'' LaCasse said. ``That's not always the case. If a student understands grammar, it only makes sense that you're a better writer.''
Is it me? or is his first sentence somewhat unclear and seems to imply that the students should be teaching the grammar? and in the other sentence the last half should read "it only makes sense that he or she is a better writer."  Maybe he's part of the problem? BTW I do agree with his sentiment, do not like having to use he or she, but they is incorrect, so I always fuss about this usage.  Oh, and I know that my grammar and usage in my posts is almost certainly not correct - many runon sentences, among other problems.  However, I expect more of an English teacher - who is, of course human, too.  Enuf already.

posted by: mafidl at January 26, 2007 12:06 | link | comments (1) |

Just the facts, ewe

This article on the front page of yesterday's NY Times caught my eye.  It seems that various groups, today, are, perhaps, too sensitive to a perceived slight.  In this case it concerns the research of a scientist on homosexuality in sheep - specifically mentioning that about 8% of rams seek male sexual  partners rather than ewes.  Apparently that isn't so unusual.  I've heard that some of the primates at my local zoo exhibit homosexual behavior - although it could be due to the unnatural living circumstances of being in a zoo. The researcher claims that  his goal "is to understand the fundamental mechanisms of sexual orientation in sheep. Other researchers might some day build on his findings to seek ways to determine which rams are likeliest to breed"  From PETA to gay rights groups to blogs - his story was, evidently distorted and caused outrage.  When he responded, answering individual email messages, many of the outraged backed off.  His goal is not, as his detractors assumed, to find a "cure" for homosexuality.  I think I do have a point here: how often do we jump to a conclusion based on our interpretation of what someone seems to be saying rather than thinking about it first and realizing that first impressions might be wrong?  However, as a psychiatrist states at the end of this article:

Paul Root Wolpe, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania and a senior fellow at the university’s Center for Bioethics, said that although he supported Dr. Roselli’s research, “I’m not sure I would let him off the hook quite as easily as he wants to be let off the hook.”

By discussing the human implications of the research, even in a somewhat careful way, Dr. Roselli “opened the door” to the reaction, Dr. Wolpe said, and “he has to take responsibility for the public response.”

posted by: mafidl at January 26, 2007 10:55 | link | comments |

Voodoo med

Finally picked up the new med from the vet.  It's not what I thought it would be - some sort of cortisone - but an antibiotic, Metronidazole, which according to one source on Google "... eliminates bacteria and other microorganisms that cause infections of the... gastrointestinal tract ..."  We're hoping that this is what has caused his problem.  It's a liquid that has to be kept in the fridge.  After the first 1 cc dose, this evening, when it wasn't cold, Voodoo swallowed and gulped for a minute or so - even tho' I gave it in 2 lots.  I'm hoping if it tastes bad it will be less so when cold.  The good news is he only gets it once a day.
Now to other matters.  The dung beetles are apparently hybernating again.  It's been pretty dry and so now there's a lot of dog caca*.  It happened a few weeks ago, then we had some rain and the little critters were, obviously, back, but now ...  I think that people unwittingly become spoiled and may even think that the reason their dog's contributions don't stay around is due to some higher power.  They're supposed to scoop.  Oh well.  Just be careful where you walk.
I am alternating between enjoying my teaching and wishing to be elsewhere - any elsewhere.  I think it's at least partly a function of how much sleep I get - recently not much.  I need to convince myself to go to bed by, say 10 or a bit earlier, since I get up at 6:15 and often awaken a bit earlier than that - then there doesn't seem enuf time to go back to sleep.  OK, self, begin to commence to get ready to go to bed!
*an irreverent, possibley irritating video popped up when I was looking up caca on Google  not for the easily turned off: http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/doodoocaca.php

posted by: mafidl at January 23, 2007 20:09 | link | comments (3) |

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