Jack's Back

The bulldog was out digging up bricks again. That dog cracks me up -- this husky English Bulldog, mouthing these big bricks, digging them up around one of the city trees. The dog goes wild for'em. I laughed; I can't help it, the dog is funny -- bricks as chew toys! I asked the owner what the dog's name was, and the guy said it was "Jack." Jack's a stitch.

It's frickin' hot, and is slated to be hotter still tomorrow (and more humid).

I'm gonna make something good for dinner tonight. I'm motivated because my lunch kinda sucked today, so I'm hungry.

Bad haircuts and good philosophy

This piece in the NYT amused me...

The Phenomenology of Ugly

Bikini Zeitgeist

I was going to post this the other day, but didn't get around to it...

A Brief History of the Bikini

"Brief."

And then I saw this today...

Bikini Strippers Protest Church in Ohio

And felt I kind of had to post it, now. Some kind of bikini zeitgeist at work, here. But, like with so many things, reality intrudes and then you actually can see the bikini-clad Ohio strippers behind the tantalizing headline (in this video clip) and then it's just plain sad and horrifying, across the board.

Way to go, Portugal!

Once again, Portugal puts itself on the front end of progress (first it was their drug legalization program circa, what, 2001? And now with renewable energy)...

Portugal Gets A Clean-Energy Makeover

[A]ggressive national policies to accelerate renewable energy use are succeeding in Portugal and some other countries, according to a recent report by IHS Emerging Energy Research of Cambridge, Mass., a leading energy consulting firm. By 2025, the report projected, Ireland, Denmark and Britain will also get 40 percent or more of their electricity from renewable sources; if power from large-scale hydroelectric dams, an older type of renewable energy, is included, countries like Canada and Brazil join the list.

The United States, which last year generated less than 5 percent of its power from newer forms of renewable energy, will lag behind at 16 percent (or just over 20 percent, including hydroelectric power), according to IHS. 

Obama's plan has the US getting 20-25 percent of its power from renewable sources by 2025. Weak. Portugal went from getting 17 percent to 45 percent of its power from renewable sources in 5 years.

At some point, there will be head-scratching here at home, as we watch the rest of the world move forward on this, and we continue to belch about how it can't be done, it's unrealistic, blah blah blah -- the usual propaganda of assimilation lines we hear. At some point, even here, the critical mass will be achieved, right?

If the United States is to catch up to countries like Portugal, energy experts say, it must overcome obstacles like a fragmented, outdated energy grid poorly suited to renewable energy; a historic reliance on plentiful and cheap supplies of fossil fuels, especially coal; powerful oil and coal industries that often oppose incentives for renewable development; and energy policy that is heavily influenced by individual states.

Indeed, the powerful lobbies are likely to be the biggest obstacle, as it's probably always been, once Big Oil and Big Coal got in the driver's seat on our country's energy policy.

Day of the Locust

Man, it was all about the cicadas today -- hearing them buzzing in the trees, and seeing one at the bus stop, just sitting on the sidewalk. I nudged it with my shoe and off it flew. And then, later, on the bus, I saw this gal on there (who looked like a young Joan Cusack) wearing a brass (?) cicada ring! I saw it in passing, thought "Man, she's got some serious bling going on, there." and then when she went to get off the bus, she rested her hand on one of the seats, and I could see it in detail -- this cicada ring that covered about two knuckles' worth of finger, with three purple stones set on it, running along the cicada's back. Otherwise, she was professionally attired, but that ring was fierce!

The city's been plagued with mosquitoes and horseflies. Not sure what's up -- maybe all the rain we've been getting, but I've never seen the city so beset with bugs before, in all my years here. There are plenty of dragonflies, too, but not enough to keep up with the plagues of mosquitoes lurking about. And they're aggressive, too -- they just come diving at you. None of the usual meandering mosquito dance; no, they just fling themselves your way. If Americans are really lucky, malaria'll come back in a big way in the States (it's been on the upswing, anyway). As it is, we have West Nile Virus to contend with, already. Good times!

This week is shaping up to be a hot one. Storms every day, but they're doing nothing to lower the heat.

Symbolic

Interesting piece today on NPR about how symbolic thinking paved the way for human civilization.

Happy 65th Birthday, Fat Man.

Weird to think of the span of days between those two bombings, an eternity and an eyeblink, the changing of the world forever, in a bang and a whimper.

Worst Paintings

Oh, I love this...


15 Worst Paintings of All Time

The Museum of Bad Art! Bahah! Painting is one of those things that people think they can do, like anybody can do it. Until they actually try, and create something ghastly. There are some laughably bad paintings in that collection above.

Colonized and "The Aviator"

"The Colony" sounds like an intriguing show...


http://www.salon.com/entertainment/tv/the_colony/index.html?story=/ent/tv/heather_havrilesky/2010/08/07/the_colony_apocalyptic_reality_show

Also, I watched "The Aviator" yesterday, and enjoyed it well enough. Scorcese's man-crush on DiCaprio continuing. How many movies has he directed Leo DiCaprio in, now? Anyway, I kept wondering why the Ava Gardner was so leaden in the movie, and then I realized it -- Kate Beckinsale. She's just not a good actress. She's so wooden that I am constantly forgetting who she is, any time she shows up in a movie -- she has a very generic kind of beauty to her and her performance chops aren't there, so she's just a flatliner -- and for her to be playing Ava Gardner, lordy. Cate Blanchett was great as Katharine Hepburn, however -- but Blanchett is a good actress, and you could tell she was enjoying that role. The cameo with Jude Law as Errol Flynn was well-chosen.

"Look at me. I'm Ava Gardner. I'm ACTING. It says I'm Ava Gardner in the script, so there you have it." (WHAT emotion is Kate Beckinsale communicating in this still? Blankness? Vapidity?)

Bike

I loaded about $130 worth of groceries on my bike (using the handlebars to carry a few extra bags). That's about right for the milk crate I have on the back. This old lady saw me loading it and said "Well, it looks like you know what you're doing." I told her it was fine so long as I didn't hit any potholes.

I had the boys to one of the playgrounds earlier today. They were having a blast. Now they're playing with trains. Terribly cute.

It's fucking humid today. Hot-n-humid. We're supposed to get storms all next week, but the temperatures will stay hot. Woo hoo!

There's a puppy pug in our building -- its name is "Gnocchi" -- that's very cute! The thing is so tiny. I'm no fan of pugs, but "Gnocchi" is a great name for a dog like that, somehow.

Winston Churchill and UFOs

This news story amused me...


Winston Churchill Ordered Cover-Up of UFO Sighting

Amusing that such a stalwart like Churchill was tied to something UFO-ish. Bahah! Whatever they'd seen, it had dismayed Churchill enough to put a 50-year delay on releasing the information. Lord knows what it was, but it's still funny.

Happy 65th Birthday, Little Boy.

We're all still in the shadow of that first blast.  There are nearly 23,000 nuclear weapons out there these days. It's probably only a matter of time before another of these goes off, likely by a nonstate entity. Or perhaps tactical nukes used by a state against another state. Either way, it's going to be ugly. And more nations are still wanting to join the nuclear club, which only increases the likelihood of something happening.

Heath Ledger Junior?

Ledger (l) and Gordon-Leavitt (r).

One thing that weirded me out in "Inception" was how much Joseph Gordon-Leavitt resembles Heath Ledger. The guy's going to likely gobble up parts that would have gone to Ledger. I mean, what does it matter? Ledger's dead. But still, that they'd find a current actor who so closely resembles Ledger, and have him star in a Christopher Nolan movie, I couldn't help but wonder if Nolan had originally wanted Ledger for the part Gordon-Leavitt played.