General

Trapped

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We’ve had critters in the yard in Redondo Beach for the past seventeen-plus years that we’ve owned the house. The ones that we’ve seen (besides squirrels and birds) were mostly possums (including a juvie that wandered into the house one day that was a chore to catch, and one that died out in the yard by the spa and smelled to high heaven). Back when I had a backyard artificial stream running, we heard a growl out the bedroom window one night, back in the nineties, and we shot a flashlight out to see a couple masked faces looking back at us.

When we moved in a couple weeks ago, the new next-door neighbors told us that they thought we had a raccoon nest somewhere, and we heard animals running around on the roof at night.

I called animal control, who told me that I could borrow a trap, with a deposit, but they didn’t have any available, because there was a waiting list. They also said we could call a private trapper. So I did. The first night, he left four traps, and we got a possum. The second night we caught two neighborhood cats. He came by yesterday to release the cats, and take the possum to release it in the wild (somewhere up in the Santa Monicas). The traps were reset and baited (with cat food), and this morning, we had the coon above, and another possum.

Where there’s one coon, I’m guessing there is at least one more, judging from the sounds on the roof. Unfortunately, we’re starting to run up a tab, because he charges fifty bucks per visit, and a hundred per animal taken away. I’m thinking that I should just buy my own traps at this point.

[Evening update]

Between the coons, possums and cats, maybe I should just get some more traps, and set up a neighborhood menagerie. I could charge admission to the kids. I imagine there’s some RB zoning law against it, though.

[Update a few minutes later]

I just checked prices on line, and traps are less than a hundred bucks each, including shipping. I think that’s the way to go before I pay him any more, assuming that Animal Control will come get my catch.

[Monday morning update]

Got another coon last night. I think I’m going to call it quits for now, and if the problems continue, I’ll do it with my own traps. This wasn’t in our budget.

Popular Culture

Hanging On By Their Fingernails

8 Comments

The Tigers seemed determined to blow their lead in the division for the last month, and they managed to do it yesterday, letting the Twins tie them. But they finally shook the dust off their bats and beat the White Sox today. If Minnesota holds on to win against the Royals (as they are ahead currently in the seventh), I guess there’ll be a one-game playoff. So they have one more chance to blow it. They have my full confidence in their ability to do so.

Meanwhile, after blowing their record last week, the Lions have started a new losing streak today. We’ll see if they can top the previous one.

Political Commentary, Space

The Coming Augustine Pushback

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Jeff Manber has some thoughts on the upcoming (and inevitable) backlash against the upcoming Augustine report.

I’m not sure I quite agree on his taxonomy of the opposition. Or rather, the limited degree to which he describes and breaks it down. I absolutely agree that to oppose any policy change simply because it’s Barack Obama’s is senseless, just as opposing the VSE was senseless when it was based on nothing other than the fact that it was proposed by George Bush (though many did that, by their own admission). But the Ares defenders come in (at least two flavors): those who truly believe that it’s a great idea, or at least that nothing better is like to replace it, and those for whom it is a meal ticket. I have much more respect for the former, delude though they may be. I have little for the latter, though their actions are certainly understandable. But they should not pretend that they have anything to do with advancing humanity, or this country, in space.

In any event, nothing good will come from such a backlash. It will either result in a continuation of the current disaster, with not more money to pay for it, and just a postponement of the inevitable, or continued drift and policy infighting. My fear is that the private sector will be collateral damage, if not a direct target.

[Sunday evening update]

Jeff Krukin thinks that political inertia will reign. Sadly, I think he’s right. That’s bad news for the taxpayers, but it’s overwhelmed by other bad news for the taxpayers in general on other larger fronts. And I hope that the private sector will prevail, though I fear it will not. Either way, if he’s right, the government will continue to do little to open up space, and much to prevent it, while spending billions of taxpayer dollars on programs that purport to do so.

Technology and Society

The Singularity Summit

1 Comment

I couldn’t attend (it’s in New York City) but The New Atlantis is live blogging it.

[Update an hour or so later]

More reporting from Popular Science.

[Update Sunday evening]

Phil Bowermaster says that the folks at The New Atlantis don’t seem to understand for whom the bell tolls. Or the applause indicts.

And I should note that I have significant philosophical differences with the good people at the Ethics and Environmental Policy Center, which publishes the magazine. But I say good people, because they have differences with me as well, but still feel that my space policy pieces are important to publish. And in fact I’ve no reason to think that they disagree on that issue.

As I and others have noted before, space expansion and increased human longevity are inextricably intertwined. The latter requires the former, ultimately, and the former allows the latter. Both are fundamental to extropianism.

General, Philosophy, Weird

An Existential Question

20 Comments

This is a sign I saw on the road from Las Cruces to Tucson.

Dust Storm Sign

So. What does it mean?

Is it a description of what might be? That there is a possibility of dust storms? Here, and now, but not other wheres or whens? Or is it (as we were reprimanded by our mothers or English teachers) simply an expression of permission for dust storms to exist? By whom? Our betters in Santa Fe, or Phoenix? These are state-sanctioned dust storms? And they’re not permitted elsewhere?

Or is it more of a Heisenbergian deal? That dust storms simultaneously both exist and don’t exist, and which is the case is determined only when one collapses the wave function by driving down the road to Lordsburg?

I’ll never know for sure, of course, but I can say that I never saw a dust storm on the trip.

Next up (or perhaps other things in between) — a road sign that I liked a lot more, on the American autobahn. There are a few things that the Germans got right.

Popular Culture

Deja Vu

3 Comments

I’m watching Michigan demonstrate why it’s the worst 4-0 team in the country against the Spartans. They seem to be reverting to the team that they were last year. Last week’s win against Indiana may have been their last this season.

[Post-game update — the above was posted in the third quarter]

Well, they almost pulled off another one, like Notre Dame and Indiana, but their luck ran out in overtime.

Political Commentary

Life Imitates Art

20 Comments

The most recent clown to enter that circus known as the US Senate says that Chicago didn’t get the Olympics because of Bush. Just as predicted.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Here’s a non-nutty explanation for the Olympics decision. Don’t expect the administration to learn from the experience, though — as a commenter notes over there, the president is far too intrinsically, almost pathologically narcissistic to change.

And then, of course, there’s also this:

A sense of stunned bewilderment suffused Air Force One and the White House. Only after the defeat did many advisers ask questions about the byzantine politics of the Olympic committee. Valerie Jarrett, the president’s senior adviser and a Chicago booster who persuaded him to make the trip while at the United Nations last week, had repeatedly compared the contest to the Iowa caucuses.

The country’s in the very best of hands.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!