shutupshutupshutup

A phrase I hope never to hear again: "The science is settled." Look, mate, if I apply the scientific method to that statement, then I come to the conclusion that it's full of shit. I've already stated here that the Earth may be warming, it may be cooling. I don't know. But I am fairly certain that anthropogenic "climate change" is a snake oil routine designed principally to separate me from my a) money and b) freedoms.

"But thousands of scientists have agreed," you counter. Yes, and not so long ago, "everyone" agreed that God made this world in seven days. It was all written down, you see? Right there in the Bible.

I don't expect the followers of the Religion of Climate Change to recant. I'm not expecting a Mass apology or even a card saying "oops." But in my dreamy dream world, I'd love to have them (hell, even one person) say something like "While I do believe that global warming is happening, and that it's anthropogenic in origin, I am going to continue to collect data and make public that data, because warming or no warming, that's science. In the end, the evidence may not support my thesis."

[crickets]

Over at PJTV there's a clip of 2 skeptics interviewing members of the Sierra Club, Greenpeace and the Center for American Progress about "Climategate." That's all well and good, but there's a bit from the CAP fella (if I recall properly) where he says that the scientists needed to let the public know that global warming was happening. I was thrown for a loop (okay, a small loop... a loopette) by that because I didn't think that scientists needed to get on a box and 'tell the world': rather that they'd make available their data and research and then let anyone who wanted to have a look at it and try to replicate the results. Let politicians and other bloviating types try to spread the news.

I don't know. At this point, I give more credibility to Vince (ShamWow, Slap-Chop). At least he knows he's selling me something, and we both understand the essence of the transaction.

Weekend Women, Better Late Than Never Edition

Nagasawa Masami

The iPod threw out "Ashita Hareru Kana" yesterday, the theme song to an oddly compelling dorama that I watched a year or so ago... Proposal Daisakusen, a tale of missed love and second chances. This, of course, led me to thinking about the female lead of the show, which led me to looking for images, which led me to... oh, just have a look.

All this and trigger discipline, too

So there you have it. Morning coffee, a few minutes in the howling storm of the internets, and the payoff comes in big. Here's to you, World! Here's to you!

What? Another celebration is on the way?

This is the start of a long season, this Thanksgiving to Christmas time of year. It actually slops over a bit past the New Year, but I'm trying not to think that far ahead just now. In fact, I'm doing my best to not think at all. Pre-coffee, pre-party, pre-work. Today is a long row to hoe.

Thanksgiving at the restaurant proved to be exhausting but fruitful, so I reckon it wasn't an entire waste of my life-force. There were good moments and bad, but for the main it was a pleasant time where I made the most honest commitment to sharing good cheer with strangers who had decided to put a part of their celebration in my hands. It was only later, after everyone was gone and all the sidework was completed when I realized I'd made some cash - well more than I'd suspected I'd make - and the day's efforts made a different kind of sense.

And now it's over, but I'm still ragged from it. Sucks not being in my early twenties, I guess. At least as far as body ache is concerned. But as the coffee percolates we move our attentions here in scenic Cornerlot to new celebrations. It's coming up on birthday times around here, where a full seventy-five percent of the residents will celebrate their birth anniversaries within the next month and a little more. It's daunting, simply because of all the collateral activity that is required. Used to be we'd make a cake, sing a song, unwrap a present or thirty and call it "done." Now there are multiple venues involved, the cast list has swollen to nearly ten thousand names, and gifts are trucked in on climate-controlled vehicles.

But it makes for memories, which are the coins of our souls. What we choose to do and how we choose to remember it all, that's what counts. And tips, of course.

I need to effort food for later. Sorry again, Borepatch, but I'll confess that the last few weeks haven't left me the proper time to research and post. The duToit-inspired Weekend Women may morph, or be on hiatus... I don't know. It's important, but if I can't give it the attention it deserves, then neither can you.

More Later.

On Being Thankful

Twelve thousand years ago, the Pilgrims survived a harsh year in Plymouth. Their numbers reduced by nearly eight hundred percent, the remaining settlers gathered to give thanks for being alive, for finally starting to understand the new land they were in, for knowing they had a fighting chance to make it through another year, and maybe a year after that.

That's kind of how I feel this year. We survived. Today, while I'm patrolling the restaurant and dealing with hundreds of happy eating folk, I will be giving silent thanks for even having that much during these lean times. Over the past nineteen months or so we, the keepers and denizens of scenic Cornerlot, have had to endure relative privation as the treasury has dwindled and job opportunities remained distant. Maybe not privation per se, but it's been pretty lean around here.

Now there looms a fantastic chance for me with Company X, the children are healthy and in good humor, my darling Beloved remains my rock, and the estate feline still purrs away. Yes, it's been a hard year+. Yes, winter looms, somewhere. But today I will give thanks, as I do each and every day, that I have the players I do around me, for they keep the world brightly colored.

Thanks, too, to both of you who read these scratchings. Thanks to my friends online and those in the meatspace - you endure much of me. Thanks to the men and women in uniform who serve not food, but this great nation of ours. And thanks to those Pilgrims who made it. You inspire me.

Climaquiddick

I liked that name best for the Climate Data Scandal of 2009. Is it really a scandal? I guess it is in that a few people have been trying to mess with the data to make a few other people seem like Really Awesome Leader types.

What the hell is the fascination people have with Really Awesome types? I mean, Bruce Campbell is The Man, but if he tries to come in my house without knocking, he's just another goblin (until things get sorted out, of course). And if some career politician from, oh, I don't know, Tennessee starts screaming about how the "earth has a fever," or that the earth's core is "several million degrees," where's the sense in bepedestaling the fellow? Hypothetically, of course, since nobody would be so daft as to make statements like that.

What? Oh crap.

But I'm not seeing or hearing anything about "Climaquiddick" on the news, so... what gives? The press must think me to be monumentally naive to not want to know more about all this. For that, of course, I will refer to the InterWebNetTubes, and all the screaming voices across the globe. Yay internet. I wonder when that'll get shut down... anyone want to put an over/under on when the States gets a Great Firewall?

Or do we already have one...

NO DOUBLE TODAY so my mind is wandering. Tomorrow, though, is Thanksgiving, and that means I'll be in the store, serving food to hundreds of hungry folk all day long. It's okay, though, since our celebration will be on Friday so ha-ha.

I'm getting coffee now. Shut up.

ddoouubbllee

Oh, woe. That's about all I'm good at, these days, is bitching about how unhappy/sore I am. How tiresome. So, in lieu of that, I offer this quote from Jim Treacher:

 "Here comes the hockey stick, geniuses. You did everything you could to make it fit, and so will we."

 Yes, AGW, or "Al Gore's Whoops" is turning out to be one hell of a brouhaha. Borepatch has been analyzing and skewering over the last few days.

It's not the the Earth is or isn't warming or cooling. I'm sure that it's doing whatever it's been doing for a long long time now. But it's been the assertion that we humans are 100% to blame, and that apparently a few choice people are ready, willing and able to guide me and all the other unwashed into a future that seems un-makeable that concerns me. It looks to me as though they want us to return to some preindustrial state, which is kinda retarded. We used to be in such a state, and we clawed and scratched and fought like hell to get out of it, which tells me that it must have pretty much sucked.

Except for a few choice people who were ready, willing and able to guide the unwashed OH, I THINK I GET IT NOW.

Speaking of Borepatch, here's something for him that I couldn't get to over the weekend:

Here's to your half-million words!

Facing the dread.

Saturday's all-hands meeting wasn't so bad. Turns out the owner/management seem to have an idea as to what's happening in the Real World, and they're trying to do something proactive about it, so I guess I have to tip my cap to them. The owner spoke to his assembled minions for about forty minutes, and he didn't come off as being a prick or not aware of things. I don't know the fellow at all, so I can't really say more than he acquitted himself well.

He spoke of the Trinity of Bad Conditions: Poor economy, modified personal behaviors, and increased local competition. He thinks, though, that the economy is getting better (albeit slowly) and so we have to be ready to pounce. I look out my window and wonder if he lives in MA.

Marketing is the thrust of the future. The menu has been refreshed, new advertising has gone out, and now we, as the waitstaff, must form the Third Column and make sure to make the guest's experience so wonderful that he or she will tell two friends who will tell two friends and so on and so on and so on.

Am I energized by this? Am I now eager and ready to go forth and up the ante, as it were, and dazzle the patrons to the point where they bring the whole clan next time 'round?

Of course I'm not. Because that's the approach I've had since Day One of this exile. The sad thing is that I so do not look forward to going back in there. Today's yet another double and I'm delaying and delaying. The money I might make today is so short that to set that against the possible twelve hours I could spend in there... it's no contest. I'd much rather be... I don't know.

I didn't think I was this weak.