House of the rising Moonglum

In a shockingly well thought out move, the Department of the Interior is consolidating all its efforts to permit solar power in the US southwest. The plan is to identify the best sites (lowest regulatory risk, highest energy return) for solar power on federal land, and do a bulk analysis of the environmental impact on those sites. This will smooth the process of permitting for any companies looking to build on federal land. Currently there is under 1GW of solar production US wide on federal land, this plan looks to increase that to between 75 and 100GW. By comparison, total us consumption is about 1TW. This is real progress.

John Hodgman did an excellent sendup of Obama’s geek credentials at the Radio & TV Correspondents’ Dinner. I wonder if this is the first time a sitting president has done the vulcan salute?

I loved the LiveJournal accounts of the mars rovers, but apparently nasa is doing official Twitter feeds of the LCROSS and the LRO.

I’m actually really enjoying it, but really, did they need to give them personalities of eighth grade kids? BFF? Please.

I just saw a very impressive road test of a Ford Fiesta. It answers all the usual questions, like is it green and is it expensive. It also handily points out that 120 hp is really about as much as you want on marble, a corvette will just spin out because it has too much power. The real question is, though, how will it do as a marine landing craft? Who knew the brits were eXtreme?

Seriously, how much did that little clip end up costing the british tax payers? Good lord.

And I thought I was a doomer. ABC News is running a special on the end of the world. I don’t know when I’ll get a chance to see this, but it is nice to see the mainstream media throwing their hats into the ring. If enough people get concerned enough early enough, we might actually be able to see our way to a new economy and energy reality without losing our standard of living. A decade ago I would have not believed it, but it really does seem like people are starting to understand the depth of the problem. On the other hand, maybe we are just in the midst of a recession and when the economy picks up again this will all fall to the wayside.

Important News Citizens!

Slowly raising the temperature of the water in a pot with a frog in it won’t boil the frog. They will jump out. This information will surely change my life and outlook going forward.

Apparently Cheney never thought there was a link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11. Between this and his newfound vocalism about gay marriage, he’s turning into a tree hugging liberal. Next thing you know he’s going to say torture is bad… oh wait, no he’s not.

I read a theory last night that if Obama had announced trials for torture, Cheney wouldn’t be talking at all now. But since he’s shown weakness, Cheney is moving it to the court of public opinion where he has a much better chance.

Ugh. I spent an hour today trying to convince a programmer that version control is a good idea. He had a number of counter arguments, and has me somewhat convinced that he actually is using a version control system. One that involves filename changing and copying files individually from one computer to another. It is unclear to me that he ever understood the advantages of automating that all. But at least he left saying he’ll “think about it”.

Accountability. Trivial change lists. Trivial distribution. Rollback. Remote backup. Remove the fear of rapid development.

What am I forgetting?

I found myself wandering State street this evening (as I seem to often lately) when I passed a street-corner preacher. I was engaged at the time, so couldn’t pick up any tracts nor hear what he was preaching about. For some reason this week I have had a number of discussions about religion so I actually was a little interested when I went back by him stopped for a moment to listen. “And if you are gay you can not get into heaven and will go to hell.”

Talk about blood pressure rising and anger surfacing. I’m not sure what made me, but since I already was heading over to hear what he was saying and maybe chat with him, it just came out. I had to quote some Matthew 19:19 at him, “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”

His response was very interesting. At first he smiled as he caught bible being quoted, then frowned as he realized what part. Then he went back to “fear the lord” and just ignored me. It probably didn’t do anything, but I like to think that it made him think, even if just for a second.

If I could have done anything different it would have been to remember the Romans quote rather than the Gospel: “Love thy neighbor as thyself. Love does no harm to its neighbor, therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.” (Romans 13:9-10) But I only know like three bible verses, so I’m pretty surprised that one came unbidden at all.

On the Colbert Report, Colbert showed Fox complaining about Obama saying that their family prays in private and won’t do a big spectacle. Gretchen Carlson: “This was an interfaith recognition day, why would you [pray] behind closed doors?” Colbert: “Exactly! By closing the doors on his prayers, Obama is letting us down almost as much as Jesus did when he said in the Gospel of Matthew, ‘Whenever you pray, go into your room, close the door.’”

Second book read on the train. During February, I am behind on posting my book reviews. Three more coming up.

This is a hilarious book. It is a “travel diary” describing Sarah Vowells efforts to go and see the sites that relate to the assassinations of Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley. In the process you get a good deal of the history surrounding the time of death of the three presidents. Lincoln is by far the most famous and thus has the most assassination memorabilia scattered around the country and thus the most of the book devoted to him. Garfield, being completely unknown (having served for so short a time) gets the shortest chapter, though a lot of introspection on what it means to be remembered. In addition to educating us on the history surrounding the deaths of these three presidents, we also learn the personal histories of the presidents and their assassins.

All of this comes to us, however, in the rambling style of Sarah Vowell. Which is to say distracted storytelling that jumps from one thought to the next without a care or concern in the world. This leads from hilarious notes about the friends and family that she drags with here on these expeditions (she doesn’t drive) to more somber reflections on the people who care for the museums and sites of such macabre topics. Mostly the book ends up being good old fashioned storytelling rather than a history lesson. But there is plenty of history to pick up along the way.

All in all this is an excellent and rather quick read, all the better for me because my knowledge of Lincoln and Garfield was so limited. (Strangely, since I was really interested in the history of Hawaii at one point, I actually knew a bit about McKinley.)

Probably the most interesting bit of history you get out of the book though are the tidbits of Robert Todd Lincoln’s life. What a strange and tragic character.

I really do wonder how much secrecy is necessary in a democracy. Really, I mean that. If we are expected to be able to vote for the people who are going to make the best decisions, how are we going to know who that is when we don’t know what decisions they are making?

So it appears that someone who just lost his job is complaining that telling the truth risks national security. Really? All this sounds like is sour grapes. He should just be thankful that Obama isn’t charging anyone for crimes committed.

I understand that some secrets are needed, but I really do fear when every little item is classified for “national security”. And Obama is just continuing this trend with (thankfully at least) a few exceptions.

Yet another article showing the progress the EPA is making. I can’t say what a breath of fresh air this is. I don’t know how much of this will actually pan out into policies that are good for our national viability and the environment, but it is nice to see it being talked about at the very least.

Do you listen to Obama’s weekly podcast? (well, video address anyway, what is that a vidcast? a podeo?) This week’s was pretty awesome. He is a pretty awesome preacher, and calmly, in 5 minute sermons each Sunday, calms the hearts and minds of America. (And occasionally of Iran.) Easter and Passover as an excuse to extend foreign relations? That there is some clever talking.

A friend on another blog recently suggested that there was little difference between what Obama is doing now and what McCain would have done as president. I highly disagree, in tone and tenor much more than anything else. I like having a president that tries to let off the steam of mad populism and stamp it out. Having just read a biography of Washington, and seeing how much he worried about the US revolution turning into the French one, it really drove home the point to me that generating fear to uphold your rule is really only going to produce backlash.

But that is a subtle difference that we can’t really know would have been different, given the other choice. A tangible verifiable difference: The EPA has its teeth back. Three items, first an immediate hold on mountaintop removal coal mining. Second, no more unregulated pollutants in streams. Finally and most importantly: greenhouse gasses have been declared harmful to human life. This means that the new administration is now required by law to regulate the release. I simply don’t see any of those things having happened under McCain.

The first space hitchhiker ever was a small bat. Here is a tribute to you, brave, brave space bat.

Here’s an interesting chart that makes it look like the current down market matches the great depression. The problem with this comparison is that if you go back just 6 months in the chart it perfectly matches the other two major bear markets of the past century. “past performance is no prediction of future gains.” That is for sure.

New CD: $12. Wow. I haven’t payed that little for a U2 album since the 80s. Nice. And apparently it is $4 on Amazon for download. I bet they double their sales for a price that low.

I do not think that I will be attending the conference I was invited to at the Hilton Hanoi Opera Hotel. No. Seriously people. It looks stunningly beautiful, but I just don’t think that the Hilton company is allowed to ever open a hotel anywhere in Vietnam. They were very careful with the name though. Reversing the normal word order and throwing Opera in the name.

From now on I want my stock charts from 0. Lets see some absolute numbers. I want to know when we are 90% down from the peak so I can buy me some stocks.

Just saying.