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Not gonna happen from this household; we were prepared to drive 45 minutes out to the beach, away from the worst of the ambient light, but the sky’s milky-opaque with cloud cover.
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.
When I was faster i was always behind.
Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?
“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.
They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.
Everybody saw this coming.
Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.
Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.
Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.
I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.
Republicans do not pay their debts.
This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.
Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.
Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.
There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.
So many bastards, so little time.
T R E 4 5 O N
He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!
When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.
These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.
People identifying as christian while ignoring christ and his teachings is a strange thing indeed.
Dumb motherfuckers cannot understand a consequence that most 4 year olds have fully sorted out.
There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.
They punch you in the face and then start crying because their fist hurts.
You are here: Home / Open Threads / Because of wow. / Late Night Open Thread: Count Those Perseid Meteorites, Techies…
Arclite
We drive out to the countryside to watch these every year, but it’s kind of cloudy here today, so not sure if we’ll go or not.
Redshift
Solid clouds here, unfortunately, so I can safely predict the count will be zero.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
Solid San Francisco fog here. Bummer. I haven’t seen the best of the Perseids in yonks.
Omnes Omnibus
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: I have always wondered about this: exactly how long is a yonk?
RadioOne
I was just thinking about the general unpopularity of modern GOP VP nominees. Starting with Nixon in the 1950s, they’ve never been particularly good at picking Vice Presidents. Agnew, whoever was on the ticket with Barry Goldwater, Ford, Quayle, Cheney, Palin…I’d say Paul Ryan is probably in the middle of the pack with the company he keeps.
By which I mean, Paul Ryan s one of the worst possible choices Romney could choose for VP.
Hal
That the meteorite is a source of the light
And the meteor’s just what we see
And the meteoroid is a stone that’s devoid of the fire that propelled it to thee
And the meteorite’s just what causes the light
And the meteor’s how it’s perceived
And the meteoroid’s a bone thrown from the void that lies quiet in offering to thee
-Emily, Joanna Newsom
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
I saw a few, so I am going to get my kids up at about 1am CT and we’ll all stare up for a while. This would be the eastern edge of DFW, close enough to Dallas that the western horizon is lit, but straight up is pretty dark.
Hill Dweller
@Hal: I just watched Joanna Newsom on Austin City Limits.
Gravenstone
Beautifully clear, cool and calm here in eastern WI. Unfortunately, the show is something of a bust. Only saw a couple over about 20 minutes. I’ve yet to see a shower that lived up to its predicted potential rate.
Alison
Local kids heading to the Little League World Series! Pretty cool story :) http://petaluma.patch.com/articles/petaluma-headed-to-little-league-world-series?ncid=newsltuspatc00000003
Martin
@Gravenstone: You need to go to the desert. I lived on the east coast most of my life – and even when out camping in the woods, the humidity blocks much of the light. Then I went camping in Joshua Tree, up at 4,000 feet with 10% humidity, and you could watch the satellites track overhead – lots of satellites. Meteor showers are amazing out there.
Yutsano
@Gravenstone: I wish I had the energy to go look. Unfortunately I’m wiped out beyond recognition.
Steeplejack
@Yutsano:
It’s 10:40 PDT. You need to sack up! And quit mollycoddling those suicidal taxpayers. They’re bringing you down.
mainmati
Love them but very cloudy and moist night so I will create a sumptuous sci fi epiq in my head instead. (As usual.)
Steeplejack
Where is everybody? I’m starting to get that Little Boots feeling, which means I’m about to post “Numa Numa” or I should start cutting myself. Probably the latter.
Guess I’ll finish my champers and hit the sack. Probably no late-night drunken Cole thread tonight, right?
Anne Laurie
@Steeplejack:
I think “we” burned ourselves out getting up so early to mock the Vulture/Voucher Boys.
For a Saturday, we’ve had a unusually large number of posts with an unusually large number of comments…
Yutsano
@Steeplejack: Mmm…still not feeling it. Not even after Dawg time earlier. Sigh. I honestly don’t think I can do this too much longer. But as I recall the Perseids extend over more than one night. I might just run up north and stargaze just because, but tomorrow.
piratedan
@Anne Laurie: well anytime you have a moment to witness a glimpse of the wingnut singularity such as the Romney/Ryan ticket coming into reality, well people are just gonna get excited about it.
dance around in your bones
Well, it’s pretty clear here on the lower left coast where I am, and I’ve seen exactly one meteor in the 30 minutes I’ve been watching.
However, it’s still a bit early here, so I am now watching an early Treme alternating with the Elvis Costello concert Omnes posted earlier. Not too shabby for a Saturday night + 3.
joel hanes
I saw one nice meteor flare over Silicon Valley from my back yard Thursday night, as bright as the circling airliners.
Good luck and godspeed to us all.
We’re going to need it.
[Jiminy Cricket]
Like a bolt out of the blue
Suddenly it comes in view
Gravenstone
@Martin: Spent the summer of ’81 in Prescott, AZ to start my college misadventures. I got very well acquainted with the benefits of dry desert air, with the added bonus of mile plus altitude. Doubt I’ll see the night skies with that sort of clarity ever again.
dance around in your bones
Probably the best Perseids I ever saw was when my husband and I were driving across a few states and stopped in a rest area close to Tucson in the middle of the night. We climbed up on the warm hood of our pickup and just laid there watching meteor after meteor dropping out the sky. ‘Twas awesome. The night was so dark and clear and fucking FULL of stars.
I love the desert.
Martin
@Gravenstone: It’s really amazing for those who have never seen it. No wonder pre-industrial civilizations created so many mythologies around the stars.
Steeplejack
@Anne Laurie:
Probably true. Everybody did get a little overstimulated today.
Well, I did a couple of my Sunday crosswords that posted early, and now I’m off to bed with the Sketcher cat.
Amir Khalid
I envy you all. Kuala Lumpur sits right in the Klang Valley, easily the most urbanized part of Malaysia, and night-time light pollution means you don’t have much chance of seeing anything interesting in the night sky. Worse for me, I live a couple of kilometers, straight-line distance, from the Petronas Towers, both of which are all lit up at night.
Origuy
I should go out later up into the hills to watch the Perseids. After the beer I had wears off.
Tweet from Ken Jennings, retweeted by TBogg:
AA+ Bonds
Should have gone to the Appalachians for the shower :(
Ezra Klein thinks that Erskine Bowles will be the next Treasury Secretary
Probably time for something larger, like a comet
Martin
@Amir Khalid: Your best bet is probably to see the stars at sea. Harder to pick out specific things, because, well, you’re always moving, but it’s a very, very cool experience.
AA+ Bonds
Swift Tuttle: doesn’t even care enough to drop by and say hello in person
suzanne
@dance around in your bones: Thanks to a dust storm earlier in the evening, the desert sky here in Phoenix isn’t too clear tonight.
AGW is giving us the most dust storms I’ve ever seen. It’s like a really shitty present.
AA+ Bonds
Phil Plait says the neat thing about long-period comet impacts is that because of their orbits we cannot keep enough eyes on enough parts of the sky to get much advance warning compared to other potential impactors with known or theorized points of origin
So it’s not all bad
dance around in your bones
@suzanne: I’m up to 5 meteors sighted. Think I’ll call it a night and hope for a better tomorrow.
However, my adult kids are taking off to LA for a Red Hot Chili Peppers concert tomorrow, so I will have all 3 grandkids to ride herd on, so the outlook is bleak.
You might call it a perfect storm.
Maybe once the little buggers are asleep….
Kristine
Went out around 130am. Clear sky. I saw a few bright streaks, but I’m too close to town. Just enough light to wash things out.
Citizen_X
Only saw one, but it was a doozy. Made a beeline straight outta Perseus.
Geoduck
Saw a couple here in the Seattle area, and I didn’t watch that long.
Karen
I know this is off topic but hopefully, this is an open enough thread…
For some reason I saw Cenk Ugyar on YouTube and he was speaking all about Dominionists and how they plan to take over the country and showed actual examples. Hearing about the Dominionists reminded me of “A Handmaid’s Tale.” Then Paul Ryan became Romney’s pick. Maybe it is a lack of sleep but I feel like something in me has snapped. Has anyone here been in this state? Where you just have politics overload and fear has just taken you over? Or am I the only one?
cmorenc
@Karen:
Nope, you’re not the only one. The majority of the time I’m confident that although we’re in for a bumpy ride this fall, team Obama is sharp, nimble, and solid enough to win a clear, though perhaps not landslide victory this fall. Enough to put the election out of reach for the ReThugs to steal it. HOWEVER, there are times this certainty dissolves for a few hours or days, and the possibility that Romney could win fills me with sheer terror. The next bout of uncertainty will be far worse now that Romney’s picked Ayn Rand’s acolyte Paul Ryan for his VP nominee. Those two grinning sociopathic fucks are straight out of an Alfred Hitchcock horror-suspense movie.
gogol's wife
@cmorenc:
I’m thinking Rope, right?
Dennis SGMM
@Karen:
The end of the line for me came in Fall of 2008. The combination of events about which I could do little or nothing combined with the relentlessly shallow coverage of them led me to give up news in general and televised news in particular. There’s tons of information out there and I simply stopped trying to soak it up. Now I devote most of my attention to those things which I can affect (City elections, school board elections, for instance) and I vote and I phone bank for the Democratic party because those are things that I can do. I’m not in a position to affect Dominionists, gun nuts, White Power crazies, Wall Street, and many other things so I just don’t give them much head space.
AHH onna Droid
@dance around in your bones: whoa, dude-did I wake up and it’s 1995 again? iI can think of a few things ill do differently.
oh, and fu android
HeartlandLiberal
It was pretty much cloudless here in south central Indiana.
We woke up at 3:00 am, got dressed, and stood on our upper small deck outside the bedroom. The lights of town to the south of us wash out that part of the sky, and a brilliant 27% crescent moon and Jupiter were glaring through the leaves of the trees at the edge of the property, still low in the east.
But over the trees to the north east, within 10 minutes we saw about 10 meteors, many leaving small, short streaks of glowing light, but one really large one that streaked across a good part of the sky from northeast headed south, and leaving a very bright, smoky trail that lingered for several seconds. Not big enough to report as a fireball, but a very impressive example.
Then we climbed back into our cave to snuggle under our fur skins and compose new myths and songs about the night sky and its inhabitants.
Allen
Crystal clear hear in Portland, darned Moon is a bit bright though.
dance around in your bones
@AHH onna Droid:
They’ve been chili fans for years. Just cuz you’d do it differently don’t mean nothin’.
Also, I believe it’s 2012, the year the world is going to end.
canuckistani
Nothing but M111, the Cloud Nebula last night. But even though I missed the peak of the Perseids, like the comic of the cliche, they’ll be here all week.
Kilkee
@dance around in your bones: I had precisely the same experience 20 years ago in extreme rural County Mayo, Ireland. Drove out to nowhere (quite nearby) with my 12 year old son, crawled up on the ‘bonnet’ and just lay there in the peat-scented darkness. Sublime.
dance around in your bones
@Kilkee:
Even though we know we are just watching specks of dust burning through the atmosphere, it truly is magical; and most especially if we can view them far away from the light pollution of cities.
Sublime, indeed.
RandyG
Not much of a show at a dark sky area (Agua Dulce) about 30 miles north of Los Angeles. I was out from about 1:00am to 2:45am. About 20 meteors in that time, maybe 5-6 good ones, no great ones. I’ve seen more disappointing showers, but also several much better; this might have been about average. Wispy clouds for a while that then cleared. Light pollution from L.A./Santa Clarita to the south and Palmdale to the north gets a little worse each year, but it’s still a good spot to sky watch that’s relatively close by to the city. Clear enough to easily view the Andromeda Galaxy with a little binocular help. I didn’t check any star guides ahead of time, but there weren’t any planets apparent.
West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.)
I ran to the radio to turn it off every time “We’ve Got Tonight” came on — Sheena Easton was very easy on the eyes and had a pretty powerful voice, but it was a bit icky to my then-20’s sensibiities to see her singing about sex with Grampa Rogers.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
Open threadiness: I’ve been waiting for this.
FBI probing Sandusky, booster roles in pedophile ring allegation
Switching to the Olympics, one of my favorite summer events is the modern pentathlon. One of the horses for the “show jump on an unfamiliar horse” part took exception to his rider this Olympiad.
Shelton Lankford
Obama is our best choice, our only choice.
Think about that for a minute. To avoid the policies that would flow from the Mittster/Ryan combo, we have to implicitly endorse 1) Drone warfare, 2) a Crazy-quilt health care system enriching insurance companies, 3) ever-increasing domestic spying, 4) impunity for 9/11, and another 4 years of doing nothing to investigate, 5) Continued centrism, trending rightward, 6) More war, more waste of money on weapons, the threat of nuclear anihilation, worship of militarism at home, etc. etc.
And this is the BEST we can do?
We are screwed. The two-party system sucks.
dance around in your bones
@ Shelton Lankford:
You know what? Screw off, because the alternative to the Incredibly Awful Obama (in your mind) is the Horrifically Insane And Crazy Romneytron and His Blue-eyed Boy.
Jesus Fucking Christ, how anyone can’t see the difference between the two is gob-smacking.
Tony the Wonderhorse
blessings upon this blog
my high school sweetheart and I danced to this at the Halloween Dance, put on by the Spanish Club, just before we broke up. It became “our song”
Olivia Wehagan, I love you :-)