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Counting down

Day 7 of no home internet.

My fingers were twitching, but I’ve mostly reverted back to mid-80s mode. I’ve read a couple of books, doubled the NYer/week rate, and watched the Netflix that were sitting on the mantle. I think the methadone that is the iPhone 4S has kept me from getting an iPad or Clear or switching to Verizon. Though the latter was probably affected by their FIOS website not working and putting me on hold for 10 minutes before I hung up.

Charter claims they’re going to come out on December 14 and “bury” a cable. I am sure that this will end in tears. But hey, I can haz a $25 credit. Hint: that won’t even cover what I have to bribe Peet’s, Starbucks, and McDs to give me “free” internet.

Update: If the Verizon FIOS availability function says, “I’m sorry, I can’t find that address. Call 1-800-xxx-xxxx to find out if your area is served by FIOS.”, that means, no, it’s not served by FIOS. Straight from the Verizon rep’s mouth. That’s right. It won’t tell simply tell you that your area is not covered, it’ll give what looks like an error and have you call Verizon on the phone to find out that “can’t find your address” means “not available.”

Decline and fall

“Augustus was sensible that mankind is governed by names; nor was he deceived in his expectation, that the senate and people would submit to slavery, provided they were respectfully assured that they still enjoyed their ancient freedom.”

–Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chapter 3, 1776

“Always scribble, scribble, scribble! Eh! Mr. Gibbon?”

–William Henry, Duke of Gloucester, upon receiving the second volume from the author, 1781

Passing it on

Bent

Bent

Vientos de Satán

“There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands’ necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge.”

— Raymond Chandler, Red Wind, 1938

Sometimes autumn is subtler here.  And then Southern California decides to blow off some steam… with a Beaufort Force 9/10.

Force 10 (AKA storm, AKA whole gale):

“Trees are broken off or uprooted, saplings bent and deformed. Poorly attached asphalt shingles and shingles in poor condition peel off roofs.”

Surveying the damage

There's a car under there...

Ripped out of the ground

Fall foliage in So Cal.

Not the worst of it. Hill was blocked, as was Woodbury in two places, and Michigan. Worst of all, it took out my internet!

Seasons

People speak of LA not having seasons, but it does. It’s just subtler. The pups and I ran up to the top of the trail on Lake this morning, and Pasadena is ablaze in changing leaves. Not that much different than Kentucky looked a few weeks ago. Most of the color comes from the native sugar maple (I think it’s native, there’s a lot of it in the mountains). The live oak will stay green all the winter. If barrenness speaks winter, we don’t get that here.

You can drive up to the Sierra if you want some truly stunning foliage, but that’s true of most any other major city. If you live in NYC, you have to drive up to the Gunks or Dacks to see it.

The days are sunny, warm, but with that touch of crispness, and nights are cool. There was snow on the mountains before Thanksgiving, right above the house, and there will be again. In a month or two, I’ll be able to drive 45 minutes and going skiing before work.

Subtle seasons, and I don’t have to shovel snow. Works for me.

And I confess, I still get spring fever here almost every day. Fall fever, I guess, today.

90 years and half a world

Color photos taken in Russia pre WW1:

Original here.

And the H dog in 2004:

Suggestion

If you’re a blog comment spammer, kill yourself. Do it now. Shoot yourself in the face.

Ha ha, just kidding.

No, I’m not really kidding. Kill yourself.

(RIP Bill Hicks)

Torch, pitchfork, tar, feathers. Check.

Fire Bernanke. Fire Geithner. No one who has ever worked at GS should ever be allowed to work in government again. They shouldn’t be allowed to show their face in public, but I’ll settle for barring them from government.

And when I say “fire,” I mean “arrest.”

If you’re too big to fail, you’re too big to exist.

Update: For what it’s worth, as a non-economist, I think the Fed did the right thing in not letting the world economy collapse into a true second Great Depression. But if you’re the lender of last resort, you ought to make profit on the risk you’re accepting, you ought to use the opportunity to escort the thieves from the temple, and you ought to change the rules so that it can’t happen again. Take this opportunity to re-institute Glass-Seagal, sic the anti-trust division on all the big banks, and generally get agreements to restructure things so that this can’t happen again, and the scoundrels are not rewarded.  And by “you”, I mean, we, the people, who are on the hook for the trillion dollar bailout, and will end up paying for it for years.  It might be true that the banks have paid back those loans, but they’ve also taken the profits and given themselves huge bonuses.

Those ill-gotten bonuses and profits should have gone to the taxpayer who took the risk (whether they wanted to or not), and not to the bozos who caused the problem.

Talk about moral hazard. Or rather, don’t talk to me about moral hazard when we’re talking about a homeowner walking away from an underwater house. The banks would, and have, done so without looking back. But it’s just good business when they do it, and a “moral hazard” when the common folk do.

Tagged

Quote of the day, 27 November 2011

“We are alone, absolutely alone on this chance planet: and, amid all the forms of life that surround us, not one, excepting the dog, has made an alliance with us.”

— Maurice Maeterlinck, My Dog 1906

Space X

Quote of the day, 22 November 2011

“Again, I always go to sea as a sailor, because they make a point of paying me for my trouble, whereas they never pay passengers a single penny that I ever heard of. On the contrary, passengers themselves must pay. And there is all the difference in the world between paying and being paid. The act of paying is perhaps the most uncomfortable infliction that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us. But being paid,- what will compare with it? The urbane activity with which a man receives money is really marvellous, considering that we so earnestly believe money to be the root of all earthly ills, and that on no account can a monied man enter heaven. Ah! how cheerfully we consign ourselves to perdition!”

— Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chapter 1

Quote of the day, 21 November 2011

“There are those who argue that everything breaks even in this old dump of a world of ours. I suppose these ginks who argue that way hold that because the rich man gets ice in the summer and the poor man gets it in the winter things are breaking even for both. Maybe so, but I’ll swear I can’t see it that way.”

— last written words, and maybe last words, of William Barclay “Bat” Masterson, gunfighter, gambler, criminal, U.S. Marshal, and journalist.

Quote of the day, 20 November 2011

“Long exile from Christendom and civilization inevitably restores a man to that condition in which God placed him, i.e. what is called savagery. Your true whale-hunter is as much a savage as an Iroquois. I myself am a savage, owning no allegiance but to the King of the Cannibals; and ready at any moment to rebel against him.”

— Melville, Moby Dick, Chapter 57

This is what it looks like, today

If for some reason you think this is justified, you can watch the whole thing.

Your right to peaceably assemble for the redress of grievances, and how you may do it, and what you may say, will be defined by the police power of the state, backed by its political establishment and the business elite. They will define “acceptable” forms of public protest, even (and especially) public protest against them. This is the way it is now[…] Public protest shall be polite, quiet, and invisible, and that is the way they will let us be free.

Tagged