Harrisburg Development Page

Take a look at all the planned developments here in Harrisburg.


Josh at Karns Quality has done some good work collating everything he could find and putting it in one place.

Harrisburg Development Page

It's Arts Fest Weekend!

That of course means PARTY TIME!

And we can also look at some awesome art.

Artsfest

Hope to see everyone there!

Final Cylon Poll

I'm running a poll on who the final cylon in Battlestar Galactica might be. I'm thinking it's Gaeta, based on all the available evidence.




Vote in the poll. It's to the right.

Cafe Fresco's Level Two

So my friends and I decided to check out Harrisburg's new swanky martini spot: Level Two.

You can read more about it over at Harrisburg Nightlife.

Suffice to say, it was a hot fun time. I felt a little underdressed as it is just a very classy place with a friendly (and hot) bar staff.

Non-smoking too.

Check it out.

My Blackberry is all grown up

it made phone calls all by itself last night.

Without any prompting from me.

Good cellphone.

This is apparently a common phenomenon with Blackberries. They'll make phone calls all by themselves, usually to random people in the address book. It's funny actually.

Sushi

I am now a sushi fanatic.

I have to have it like all the time now.

The COOLEST blog EVER

You have to be a special sort of nerd to appreciate this blog, and indeed, I am a special sort of nerd.

It's a blog ALL ABOUT VOLCANOES!

Check it out!

Big Win NC, incredibly Narrow IN

I'm sorry, but it's over for Hillary. If she had not let her campaign be such, and forgive my French, a racist bitch campaign...she'd have had her nomination in March.

but good for her, for winning, narrowly, in Indiana.

PDO Flip

Lucia and Anthony both report that the PDO has flipped to negative (or cool).

It could help to explain the chilly spring in the Northwest and the "stall" in global warming reported on so many skeptic blogs (for the record, I don't think there was a stall.)

The PDO (or Pacific Decadal Oscillation) is a long period climate cycle in the Pacific Ocean, typically in 30 year cycles. It was not discovered until the late 70s, which was when it flipped to positive (or warm). Read through the links and come to your own conclusions as to whatever implications there may be.

The "Pacific Decadal Oscillation" (PDO) is a long-lived El Niño-like pattern of Pacific climate variability. While the two climate oscillations have similar spatial climate fingerprints, they have very different behavior in time. Fisheries scientist Steven Hare coined the term "Pacific Decadal Oscillation" (PDO) in 1996 while researching connections between Alaska salmon production cycles and Pacific climate (his dissertation topic with advisor Robert Francis). Two main characteristics distinguish PDO from El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO): first, 20th century PDO "events" persisted for 20-to-30 years, while typical ENSO events persisted for 6 to 18 months; second, the climatic fingerprints of the PDO are most visible in the North Pacific/North American sector, while secondary signatures exist in the tropics - the opposite is true for ENSO. Several independent studies find evidence for just two full PDO cycles in the past century: "cool" PDO regimes prevailed from 1890-1924 and again from 1947-1976, while "warm" PDO regimes dominated from 1925-1946 and from 1977 through (at least) the mid-1990's. Shoshiro Minobe has shown that 20th century PDO fluctuations were most energetic in two general periodicities, one from 15-to-25 years, and the other from 50-to-70 years.
http://ingrid.ldeo.columbia.edu/%28/home/alexeyk/mydata/TSsvd.in%29readfile/.SST/.PDO/

Major changes in northeast Pacific marine ecosystems have been correlated with phase changes in the PDO; warm eras have seen enhanced coastal ocean biological productivity in Alaska and inhibited productivity off the west coast of the contiguous United States, while cold PDO eras have seen the opposite north-south pattern of marine ecosystem productivity.

Causes for the PDO are not currently known. Likewise, the potential predictability for this climate oscillation are not known. Some climate simulation models produce PDO-like oscillations, although often for different reasons. The mechanisms giving rise to PDO will determine whether skillful decades-long PDO climate predictions are possible. For example, if PDO arises from air-sea interactions that require 10 year ocean adjustment times, then aspects of the phenomenon will (in theory) be predictable at lead times of up to 10 years. Even in the absence of a theoretical understanding, PDO climate information improves season-to-season and year-to-year climate forecasts for North America because of its strong tendency for multi-season and multi-year persistence. From a societal impacts perspective, recognition of PDO is important because it shows that "normal" climate conditions can vary over time periods comparable to the length of a human's lifetime.

Spread This Around

What was that about Rev. Wright?

Battlestar Galactica

First Few Episodes Recap:

1. Roslin is getting cranky. And close to death.
2. Baltar as the Messiah is fucking creepy.
3. Cally got hosed
4. Tory is also fucking creepy, although looking back, her character has always had this dark side. It was her idea to stuff the ballot boxes a-la Florida-style.
5. I am firmly convinced that Baltar's "Inner-Six" is not a figment of his imagination or a manifestation of his guilt at his hand of humanity's destruction, nor is she a Cylon trick. She is something altogether different. Oh, and she's fucking creepy too.
6. Starbuck is not a Cylon.

I'm willing to put money on it that the Final Cylon is Dualla. But we won't find out until late this year or next.

Wow, people are overprotective and dumb

This Article just made me mad.
As a kid, I was allowed to ride SEPTA all by myself. And I was much younger then this columnist's 4th Grader. I believe I was 6.

Long story short: My son got home, ecstatic with independence," Skenazy wrote on April 4 in the New York Sun. "Long story longer: Half the people I've told this episode to now want to turn me in for child abuse. As if keeping kids under lock and key and helmet and cell phone and nanny and surveillance is the right way to rear kids. It's not. It's debilitating—for us and for them."

Online message boards were soon swarming with people both applauding and condemning Skenazy's decision to let her son go it alone. She wound up defending herself on the cable news networks (accompanied by her son) and on popular blogs like the Huffington Post, where her follow-up piece was ironically headlined "More From America's Worst Mom."

You could argue "it was a different time then," but seriously, it was the late 1980s, and crackfiends and other scary people were everywhere.

Yet at the same time in my generation, helicopter parents hovered over their kids and now those kids can't get jobs without mom and dad holding their hands. And they're my age---26! 30 is only 4 years away, folks!

It is OK to teach your kids to watch out for strangers. My mom sure did. Again, it WAS the 1980s. But folks, your kids will not survive in the real world if they are overcoddled and incapable of any independent thought or action. Especially if peak oil pans out to be the catastrophe the catastrophe pornographers keep saying it will. I'll survive. The ones incapable of it will not.

donations

Obama


Judy Hirsh

Dauphin County for Obama!

Yup, I'm a little shocked too! And my home County of Delaware, also for Obama! And if you're not from Delaware County, you won't know how hardcore the Republicans are there!

The whole Keystone Corridor it looks like voted for Obama.

While the vote ended up more or less as I expected, I was secretly hoping for a win. However, my state senate candidate, Judy Hirsh, won huge here. Piccola, I think you should find a beach to lie on in January. You're not coming back to the Senate.

As for the presidential race, she'll, at most, net 10-12 delegates. So far it appears the vote count as of the time of this post is under the 200k threshold she wanted. This means we'll limp on to North Carolina. Hopefully it'll end after that, but it's doubtful she'll win the nomination at this point (as it was doubtful after the Texas state conventions, but whatever.)

In the chance she DOES get it, we need to rally around her so we can beat McCain, as that senile, mean, nasty old man can not be allowed to have access to the US's nuclear arsenal.

Let's Go Change The World!

You know where I'll be tonight.

Capitol Steps, gates open at 630pm.