Nobel

This has turned out to be a very interesting story. Lots of unexpected takes, ranging from polite conservative congratulations to left wing fury: how dare they trivialize the Nobel Peace Prize by bestowing it on Obama. I understand better now why the committee chose to award the prize to Obama, but I still think it's premature. I'm not upset by it, or offended by it, it's just not clearly justifiable in my mind. The word I've used in discussions several times today is "odd." Hopefully, I'll get up a more thorough discussion tomorrow, but in the meantime...

The Obamas Meet the Osbournes

Well, actually, it's the Spanish First Family. No particular reason for this, but it came to my attention that many of my friends here at the coffee shop haven't seen this picture. It was released a couple of weeks ago to lots of posting at the pop-culture sites like BuzzFeed and BoingBoing. I first saw it at BuzzFeed, I think, but I'm not going to track the post down.

Speaking of Obama, most of the people I've talked to this morning are a little bemused that he won the Nobel Peace Prize. I haven't read any reports or commentary on the issue yet, but I'm hearing from those who listen to NPR that outside the US, this award has strong support. Again, without knowing the particulars, I'm not sure he's actually done anything yet to deserve it. It looks to me like "the soft bigotry of low expectations." As if he's getting the prize simply for not being an ignorant, disinterested, egotistical warmonger.

Walmart Bingo

From Darius Whiteplume's tumblr. If you find this amusing, you may also enjoy People of Walmart. I don't follow the latter site; I find it depressing more often than amusing. On the other hand, I have seen some very funny pictures that others have reposted from that site. For example...

What Is Important

More climate denialism from the right. Upon hearing that PG&E, Exelon and Apple have broken with the US Chamber of Commerce over Global climate change policy, Thomas Donahue announced:

"We are not changing where we are," he said. "We've thought long and hard about what is important here and we are not going anywhere."

Well, Mr. Donahue, I hate to break it to you, but you are going somewhere: the future. What that future looks like is in large part up to the decisions that you and billions of others make in the next few years. What is important to you is apparently an unrestrained ability to make absurd amounts of money. What is important to me and most others is to ensure the planet is still habitable by humans. But far be it from me to criticize your infatuation with little green pieces of paper.

Tide Pool Mass Grave

Elizabeth Gates Dungeness crabs washed ashore at Cape Perpetua as the ocean off Oregon experienced "dead zone" conditions in the summer of 2004. Researchers said today such dead zones will likely occur every summer.

According to an article in OregonLive,

The Pacific Ocean off Oregon experienced low-oxygen conditions for the eighth consecutive summer, Oregon State University researchers said today, an indication that the "hypoxic" conditions that kill crabs and other creatures on the ocean floor are here to stay.

This phenomenon does seem to have become a staple of late summer and early fall Oregon science news. I've always found it a little hard to believe. Our coastal waters are so cold (which means their ability to dissolve and carry gases like oxygen should be high compared to warmer water), and so rough (which means they have plenty of opportunity to contact and dissolve oxygen), that it seems oxygen depletion should be the least of our worries. I'm guessing that eutrophication at deeper levels simply overwhelms the ability of oxygen-rich surface water to mix in. Upwelling of nutrient-rich deep water is characteristic of the PNW coast, and is not a new phenomenon; the annual dead zones appear to be new. I can't help but wonder, though, if it's mostly a matter of scale and severity- a matter of degree- rather than an actually "new" phenomenon.

The picture of the tidepool full of dead crabs is riveting, an image that brings the message home more powerfully than all the articles I've read about this issue.

Poor Birdies

moar funny pictures. Recaption of this one.

Congress Should Lose Its Health Care

...Progressive Magazine wrote: “At present the United States has the unenviable distinction of being the only great industrial nation without universal health insurance."

According to Nicholas Kristof in his column today, those words were written in January of 1917.

There was a lag of 19 years after the Nixon plan before another serious try, and a 16-year lag after the Clinton effort of 1993. Another 16-year delay would be accompanied by more than 700,000 unnecessary deaths. That’s more Americans than died in World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam and Iraq combined.

Yeah, but here's the thing: wars are cool. Maybe if people exploded when they died, we'd be more worried about health care. But the bottom line is "If there's no 'splodey things, we don't care."