Friday Random 10

Talking Heads - Born Under Punches
Joy Division - Wilderness
Tlahoun Gessesse - Selamtaye Yedres
Tom Beal - That Girl Isn't Comin' Today
Kinks - Waterloo Sunset
Tune Rockers - Green Mosquito
Mission UK - Wasteland
Kinks - Muswell Hillbilly
Moon Men - Some Kinda Nut
Divinyls - Bullet

Common Loon

My very favorite kind of bird. More here, including great sound files. Large here.

[cross-posted]

Wednesday Wildflowerblogging

Woodland Stars (Lithophragma affine) in Hunting Hollow, Henry Coe State Park.

Sunday Sierrablogging

Evolution country from west of Evolution Lake, Kings Canyon National Park.

Friday Random 10

Link Wray - Jack the Ripper
Minutemen - Glory of Man
Amboy Dukes - Journey to the Center of the Mind
Mekons - Lost Highway
Smiths - What Difference Does it Make?
Los Lobos - Will the Wolf Survive?
Ramones - Born to Die in Berlin/Spiderman
Angelo Badalamenti - Red Bats with Teeth
Wire - 106 Beats That
5.6.7.8's - Dream Boy

Bonus Four:
Los Straitjackets - Time Bomb
Dave Alvin - As She Slowly Turns to Leave
84 Rooms - CIA Man
Kinks - Holloway Jail

And a bonus video below the fold...
More...

Osprey

With a nice, fresh trout in tow. Larger version here. Last year's Osprey here.

[cross-posted]

Wednesday Wildflowerblogging

Sandysoil Suncup (Camissonia strigulosa) at Lobos Creek Dunes in the Presidio.

Basket of Kisses is back!

You can read about the whole thing here. The outage affected Basket of Kisses, Property of a Lady, and JamesBondFanBook.com.

Property of a Lady is still down, although the parent site, DeborahLipp.com, is back up. The Ultimate James Bond Fan Blog is also still down. Both of these are Wordpress installation issues that should be ironed out any minute now.

My entire life history of movie reviews is gone with PoaL, so thank the Gods a lot of them are cross-posted here.

Sunday Sierrablogging

Evening at Ward Mountain Lake, LeConte Divide, John Muir Wilderness.

Wednesday Wildflowerblogging

Cream Sacs (Castilleja rubicundula) along the Serpentine Trail in Edgewood County Park, San Mateo County.

Sunday Sierrablogging

Unnamed lake in Red Rock Basin, John Muir Wilderness.

Friday Random 10

Mekons - Nocturne
Telephone Jim Jesus - Faces All Melted
Wanda Jackson - Hot Dog! That Made Him Mad
Ramones - The Shape of Things to Come
Shonen Knife - On Top of the World
Shriekback - Into Method
Budos Band - Mas o Menos
Dengue Fever - Shave Your Beard
Sonics - It's All Right
Cornershop - Norwegian Wood

Bonus Track:
Feelies - Everybody's Got Something to Hide (Except Me and My Monkey)

Bonus video (in honor of the late Ayatollah) below the fold...
More...

Song Sparrow

Could this guy be this guy? Same neighborhood, one year later.

[cross-posted]

Wednesday Wildflowerblogging

Bush Poppy¹ (Dendromecon rigida) along the Condor Gulch trail, Pinnacles National Monument.




¹As oppposed to Poppy Bush

Most Expensive Prom in History

By now, everybody has probably heard about Constance McMillen being sent to a fake prom while the real one was going on elsewhere.

'Everybody', I trust, includes Judge Glen Davidson, who on March 23 denied the preliminary injunction sought by McMillen. Judge Davidson found that McMillen's case met three of the four requirements, but not the fourth--the 'public interest' test:

...the Court is of the opinion that its failure to grant an injunction in this instance does not disserve the public interest. Defendants testified that a parent sponsored prom which is open to all IAHS students has been planned and is scheduled for April 2, 2010. Though the details of the "private" prom are unknown to the Court, Defendants have made representations, upon which this Court reilies, that all IAHS students--including the Plaintiff--are welcome and encouraged to attend....

You know, judges tend to be a little bit sensitive about parties telling outright lies in their courtrooms. It's just one of those quirky judge things.

In the conclusion of Judge Davidson's opinion:

This case remains active and Plaintiff, is [sic] she so desires, will be permitted to amend her Complaint to seek compensatory damages and any other appropriate relief.

I sure hope they got their money's worth.

Wood Duck, Drake

He's even more beautiful close up, with spots, stripes, iridescences, the works.
[cross-posted]

Here's How It Works, People:

You get to vote in elections (or not vote, but that's your choice). Elections can go either way. Sometimes your candidates win, and sometimes they lose. When your candidates lose, that doesn't mean the results are illegitimate.

The people who do win these elections are then authorized to make decisions on your behalf, even if you didn't vote for them. That authorization continues until they leave office.

Sometimes the winners do things you don't like. The fact that you don't like them doesn't mean those things were done without your consent or representation. You gave your consent when you voted in an election, and you are represented by whoever wins. Unless you didn't vote. In which case, you gave your consent by default.

When this happens, it isn't an abuse of power, or unconstitutional, or tyranny. It's the political system working in an entirely legitimate way. A way you might happen not to like, but the way it was meant to work.

Oh, and by the way? The people do not directly vote on legislation. An opinion poll is not a plebiscite. When Congress passes a bill that a majority of poll respondents oppose, that isn't un-democratic; it's just a different decision about what should be done, by the people whose job it is to make those decisions.

When you claim that any given result of the legislative process is illegitimate just because you don't like it, you de-legitimize the process as a whole. Which you're perfectly free to do, because it's a free country, and people can say stupid things if they want to. But if you do try to de-legitimize the legislative process, you don't get to pretend that the people who designed the process are on your side.

Got that?