Sample Ballot II: Initiatives Ahoy!

I'm too late for Professor Bainbridge's spreadsheet of California blogger endorsements, but what the heck, I still need to make up my mind on this damnable list of plebiscites. Below the fold: my ballot! Before breaking to Calicentric tedium, though, a few notes:

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yami · 21:58 · 31 Oct 2020 · #
Filed under: California Politics

Cause for Optimism

It's always nice to read about how the left is getting its act together:

Those liberal organizations that already knew how to do politics � the AFL-CIO, the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) and a few others � are doing it better than they have before. Those liberal groups that stayed aloof from elections or phumphered ineffectually are now playing the game like seasoned pros. [...] And most amazingly, all the 527s � ACT, the AFL-CIO, the LCV, the Sierra Club, the NAACP, Emily�s List, MoveOn and 25 others � are working together under the umbrella of a single coalition, America Votes. They meet together, plan together, divvy up turf, parcel out messages, coordinate their mailing and phone banking.

It's about five days too soon to start asking this, but how can we keep these alliances going once we no longer have a common enemy?

UPDATE: It's not too soon to place your bets on the efficacy of the newly synergistic left - The American Street is giving away Jon Stewart's America: the Book to the lucky winner. My bet: Kerry, 284-253, with one smart-ass West Virginian for Dick Cheney.

(link via Kevin Drum)

yami · 12:49 · 28 Oct 2020 · #
Filed under: USian Politics

Ketchup, Forgive Me

I'm eating a couple baked potatoes for lunch today. I brought along the small chunk of cheese remaining in the fridge, but decided to wing it for the rest of the condiments; the office fridge usually has a good selection, often including leftover pats of butter. But of course, past results are no guarantee of future performance, so my choices today were ketchup, mustard, various salad dressings, tahini, and mayonnaise.*

Yes, I ate ranch dressing on a baked potato. Ranch dressing is the new black! It wasn't as good as butter and chives, but it was okay. I feel horribly guilty, though, and hereby resolve to eat a plate full of ketchup for supper tonight.

* Hot sauce is not a legitimate choice.

yami · 12:25 · 22 Oct 2020 · #
Filed under: Food

Fabulousness at the Beach

Since my car still doesn't have working brakes, I'm at work, while a large chunk of the office (including my ride home) finishes the seminal masterwork entitled Proposal to Provide Super Fabulosity to Your Wackily Upscale Beach Community for Only Two Point Five Squillion Zlotys. I cut out some binder edge inserts but there's not much else for me to do.

  • Last week was Earth Science Week! I missed it, too.
  • But as my search requests remind me, it's not too late to miss out on Mole Day 2020! Who knew site logs could be transformed into a helpful calendar app?
  • I signed up with Vote Pair, but it seems there aren't enough wishy-washy Cobb supporters in Ohio to satisfy the insatiable vote-swapping appetites of California progressives.
yami · 19:51 · 20 Oct 2020 · #
Filed under: Diary

AAA Pays Off

I got off the freeway (and might I add that I had just spent half an hour erasing traffic compression waves at 5 mph? I think I might! This rain has been rainy for sure, but it's clearly not in excess of the design storm, for any reasonable choice of design storm. The fact that three lanes were flooded out of commission can therefore be blamed on civil engineers. Bad civil engineers!) - anyway, I got off the freeway, and hey isn't it curious how much I have to step on the brake before stopping? And how I have to step a little more at this light than I did at the last? And how I don't seem to be stopping at all?

Maybe I should've done one of those N-point safety inspections. Or paid more attention to my dashboard light, the one that says "brake" that's usually for the parking brake but was also on all yesterday, but you know how dashboard lights are, always wanting attention like a fucking whiny puppy.

Hell, snapped brake lines are what emergency brakes are meant for! And I cleverly used the parking brake to drive in to the nearest parking lot, which happened to also be my office. I bet it was the most exciting day in the parking brake's life!

AAA is really the best thing ever - unlike conventional insurance companies with tow insurance add-ons, they're too stupid to charge extra for shitty cars. And one free tow justifies a whole year's worth of dues! I'm expecting at least a 200% return on investment here, not even counting the maps.

yami · 18:46 · 20 Oct 2020 · #
Filed under: Diary

Fuck You Too

"Fuck you too, asshole" is supposed to be for the jackass in the SUV who just cut me off... not
goofy U.N. initiatives:

The United States has refused to join 85 heads of state and government in signing a statement that endorses a 10-year-old U.N. plan to ensure every woman's right to education, health care and choice about having children.

President George W. Bush's administration withheld its signature because the statement included a reference to "sexual rights."
[...]
The Cairo support statement was signed by more than 250 global leaders in all fields, including leaders of 85 nations, 22 former world leaders, notably Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, and 24 Nobel Prize winners.

The government leaders included those of the entire European Union, China, Japan, Indonesia, Pakistan and more than a dozen African countries.

Pakistan. No, really, George Bush, fuck you. Seriously, fuck you.

yami · 22:14 · 14 Oct 2020 · #
Filed under: Feminism, USian Politics

Ergonomics Loves My Desk

So, desks. My desk at home doesn't have drawers; it's not so much a desk as a repurposed side table.

My desk at work has two columns of drawers. No desk I have ever worked at, that had two columns of drawers, has ever had a sufficiently wide knee cubby. Do the same people design desks who design women's shoes? I'm not unusually fidgety but man am I ever sick of banging my knees.

yami · 17:22 · 14 Oct 2020 · #
Filed under: I Hate Everything

Evolutionary Psychology Goes to the Dentist

I had a couple thoughts stuck up in my jaw during my root canal the other month; Rana's just dislodged one. Ahem: Going to the doctor/dentist requires that we place an immense amount of trust in someone who is, in most circumstances and for most purposes, a total stranger. Over the bulk of human history, this is an unusual situation, to say the least - yet we're expected to deal with it without qualm.

Rana describes learning to "dial in and out of apathy" and I think this is an apt description; it certainly resonates with my own approach to dentistry and gynecology (I'm an okay patient too). But I also find it eerily reminiscent of the feelings of disconnection described by varied victims of varied tragedies, from losing a close loved one to being raped. Which isn't to say that rape and dentistry are particularly similar, but the human brain has an interestingly limited set of coping strategies.

yami · 17:36 · 11 Oct 2020 · #
Filed under: Uncategorized, Ineffable

Weekend: Music, Injuries

  1. Via Three-Toed Sloth via Crooked Timber, it's a cat research review.
  2. Saturday night, I See Hawks in LA was live at my old dorm. I'd never heard them, or of them, before, but they were billed as "bluegrass/folk/rock" so I got all excited. Of course I forgot that these words mean different things to people not raised by an old-time string band. In the rest of the world, "bluegrass/folk/rock" means "country for a different demographic" and not "Fairport Convention but with banjos and verve".

    But, after getting over a deep-seated sense of righteous indignation at a world that refuses to conform to my taxonomy, I quite enjoyed the show. Lead singer Robert Waller employed that classic bluegrassy style on the calling out across a parking lot side of singing; it worked most of the time, though the slower harmonic numbers didn't get the careful blending they needed. It was a stripped-down ensemble, two guitars (dobros?) and bass, which supported the tunes (and they were fun tunes, a few quite catchy, with words and everything!) but really cried for ornamentation. Had the fiddler and drums been along - had I known there was a fiddler and drums - I probably would've snagged a CD. Maybe next time.
  3. Persimmons. Yum.
  4. My awesome backyard neighbor has been hinting that I should try my hand at prickly pear jelly from her prickly pears, so I could share the results. I gave it a go, and aside from having little prickles floating round the kitchen for a week, I burned my thumb on the hot jelly syrup last night. Rather than finishing the jelly anti-botulism preservation, then, I held ice on my hand for a couple hours (sugar syrup is hot). Now I've got three little jars of jelly (which really did gel!) in the fridge, rather than in the cupboard where I wanted them, and a bandaid on my thumb where I didn't want it at all.

    Prickly pear jelly: tasty, but not at all worth the trouble.
  5. I just now cut my finger on a yogurt lid. I will not rest until all ten fingers have bandaids!
yami · 12:36 · 11 Oct 2020 · #
Filed under: Music, Diary

If Only I Could Sniffle

I discovered today that I'm allergic to something at the office - what I thought was a combination of tiredness and post-lunch eyestrain was actually sinus clogging that disappeared within two minutes of going outside for a walk. Bah.

Medical exemption from office duty? Or more spider plants?

yami · 21:00 · 7 Oct 2020 · #
Filed under: Personal