New Chuck tonight.
BTW- if NBC cancels Chuck, they are officially dead to me.
Fill It And They Will Come
The newly repositioned feeder out front is paying dividends:
Tunch has not noticed yet, but he has noticed the action at the back feeder. In fairness, it has been raining all day so he has not been in the window sunning himself.
Money Pit Update
Our ‘cracked tiles’ turned out to be a collapsing chimney, which is extra awesome because it makes the job twice as expensive and it gives our home insurance and our home warranty a reason to weasel out of paying. At least the roofers’ repairs survived this weekend’s biblical rainstorm. Now we can finally think about whether to fix the caved-in guest bedroom ceiling, or (my preference at the moment) just brick over the room and tell guests that it’s haunted. Our water authority has a line insurance plan that will cover major subsidence problems caused by a broken sewer line out front (awesome!), except for replacing our broken concrete stairs, which are expensive and apparently not covered (less awesome).
One the plus side, if our sprouting herb garden continues to grow at its present rate then in two or three years it will cover the surface of the Earth. Bwahaha.
Early Morning Open Thread: To Serve Man
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Stephen Hawking has convinced the Times Online to beware of drawing attention from Out There…
THE aliens are out there and Earth had better watch out, at least according to Stephen Hawking. He has suggested that extraterrestrials are almost certain to exist — but that instead of seeking them out, humanity should be doing all it that can to avoid any contact.
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The suggestions come in a new documentary series in which Hawking, one of the world’s leading scientists, will set out his latest thinking on some of the universe’s greatest mysteries. Alien life, he will suggest, is almost certain to exist in many other parts of the universe: not just in planets, but perhaps in the centre of stars or even floating in interplanetary space.
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Hawking’s logic on aliens is, for him, unusually simple. The universe, he points out, has 100 billion galaxies, each containing hundreds of millions of stars. In such a big place, Earth is unlikely to be the only planet where life has evolved.
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… Hawking [posits] that a few life forms could be intelligent and pose a threat. Hawking believes that contact with such a species could be devastating for humanity.
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He suggests that aliens might simply raid Earth for its resources and then move on: “We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet. I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach.”
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He concludes that trying to make contact with alien races is “a little too risky”. He said: “If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans.”..
One suspects that Hawking speaks, as the great writer R.A. Lafferty phrased it, “with tongue so firmly in cheek as to protrude from the vulgar bodily orifice.”
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Although from some of the comments after the article, it could be argued as to whether intelligent life has evolved on this planet.
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Lucy and the Football
How many times will this Lucy and the football game be played by various GOP senators before the administration catches on.
Instead of cartoons, why don’t we just look at another kind of drawing:
Since there aren’t enough Democratic votes for cloture, various Republican prima donnas are going to be drawn, like moths to the flame, to the potential fame of being #60. These drama queens will enjoy their moment in the sun as they become the center of media and Democratic attention. And, yes, they’ll often flake out, as narcissists are wont to do.
None of this has anything to do with the administration’s ignorance — they know full well that they’re playing Charlie Brown to the Lucy du jour. Atrios is certainly smart enough to realize this. I’d like to hear his alternative to kissing Lindsey Graham’s ass, because I have no clue what other, better strategy is waiting in the wings.
Sunday Night Open Thread
Don’t forget the Pacific and Treme.
As a side note, this write-up from a Palin rally in Oregon made me laugh and then cry:
Dawn Attleberger of Vancouver said she got a bit rattled as she endured jeers on her way into the event. But it was worth it, she said.
“I’m 51, and I wasn’t interested in politics until she came into the picture,” Attleberger said. “Now I am.”
Palin- the darling of people who neither understand nor care about issues, but want to have a team to root for! We might as well get rid of elections and just decide the winner through the annual House softball game.
Bird Update
I took your advice and moved the feeders all around back. There is an old evergreen there, and I hung one feeder from the tree and the rest on the poles:
And yes, I know the wrought iron needs to be have a long meeting with a wire brush and then a coat of paint. At any rate, within fifteen minutes of the move, I had customers:
I saw a cardinal bee-bopping around on the ground, too.
Now I can move on with my life and obsess about something else.