cat's in the shop...

*sigh* she's getting old and fragile.  she cracked a tooth 2 weeks ago when trying a different food that ended up too hard for her, and possibly cracked her jaw in the process (well, she is a tiny little 6 pound thing).  so today she's in the vet to get the tooth removed and xrays to see if the jaw is broken or if its just an infection...

whah.

the biggest bullshit about "RIAA vs John Doe" lawsuits...

...is that in spite of saying they're doing it "for the artists", any moneys won from settling those suits (minus the legal fees) has no way of reconnecting to the specific artists who's material was "stolen".  Its not like they really have a "list" of what you copy or have any intention of trying to assemble such a list...

it is nothing but pure profit for the label and the artists continue to get shafted as they always have been.

the new motto:

Science. It works, bitches.

on real science vs "design"

from a review of a very technical article, "Evolution of the Molecular Machines for Protein Import into Mitochondria"...
EvolutionBlog : What Real Science Looks Like:

This, you see, is how real scientists respond to the fact of biological complexity. By rolling up their sleeves and getting their hands dirty. This was a short review article, yet it had fifty-seven references. The authors ferreted out the patterns that were emerging from the hard work done by numerous previous scientists and demonstrated that they point to a clear evolutionary scenario for the formation of these complex machines. They then showed how evolutionary reasoning points towards possible furture research.

Compare that to the way ID folks treat complex molecular machines. They just sit there, slack-jawed, never getting beyond childish bleats about how they're just too darn complex to have evolved. If they respond to this article at all it will only be to dismiss it, unread, as insufficiently detailed for their tastes.

A common refrain from ID folks is that they are not treated respectfully by scientists. One reason for that lack of respect is the fact that there is no respect coming the other way. Countless scientists toil in obscurity to unravel the evoution of one particular set of complex molecular machines. The sheer hard work and brain power leading up to this article is remarkable.

The ID folks don't care. Instead, Ann Coulter publishes a hundred pages or so of wall-to-wall lies about evolution, and William Dembski brags about being her science consultant. Jonathan Wells writes a book called The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design for the right-wing press Regnery. You can be sure it will contain nothing that is both true and important. Michael Behe can only fold his arms and shake his head when confronted with the enormous amount of empirical evidence against his argument (meanwhile making no contributions of his own beyond some breathtakingly unrealistic mathematical models). And the whole lot of them screech, banshee-like, about how ID is going to carry the day, and how Darwinism is just an empty ideology.

Shame on anyone who deals with respectfully with such people.

so what's wrong with my baby...

Maxandra (pictured in the icon - 16 1/2, 6 1/4 pounds - yes, she's tiny) came home today, far more active than most cats are after going through tooth extractions which is always a good sign.

Thanks for the support and concern over the food, but it was a symptom, not the cause.  That the tooth broke is bad and abcessed is bad, and that the kidney stuff was too hard is bad and i'm keeping her off that.  That wasn't the problem.

Something has eaten away a small portion of her already small jaw.  The front right side is disjointed between the front that holds the canines and the side that holds the molars (the cuspid was already removed earlier this year).

3 possibilities exist (which are being tested for and I won't get the results 'til friday and/or next week) - one is a really bad infection from the tooth that caused bone decay; the second a variation on osteo; the third a tumor.

Nothing seems "fatal" by any means as the rest of her skeletal system is in better than average condition (they did chest x-ray to be sure).  She's more active than typical. She's still eating and she's still grooming (a big plus factor - dying cats tend to give up their dignity in that).  I'm keeping her off the kidney stuff for a little longer to keep her eating and get some pounds back on her.  Then I'll try the kidney-supporting "morsels in gravy" and see if she'll eat that, even if just on a part-time basis.

So it's not a "wait and see" for any real problem, but there are still tests to come back.

oh, and i burned my hand on the damn oven tonight...

schmuck.

the 70s - you may hate the music, but it'll keep you awake...

So I discovered this weekend that XM Radio now has the rights to the 70s and 80s complete editions of American Top 40 with Casey Kasem.  Trips through the history of music of 1982, 1980, 1981, 1987, 1971, and 1973 got us through the long hauls of nowhere, and the complete 5 hour (minus commercials) "top 50 songs of the entire 1970s decade" is plenty to keep one driver awake when driving home at midnite.  Simply not knowing "what song are they going to play next", even for songs I hated then and hate now, is enough to keep one going.

Observations...

• sometimes, the countdown would be extremely eclectic, like following up a Juice Newton country-lite song with Rick James's "Superfreak"
  
• the single 45 rpm edit of Pink Floyd's Money absolutely sucks.
• fleetwood mac was definitely an "album" band - few of their songs from Fleetwood Mac or Rumors made it to #1 as a single, none long enough to make that top 50, even though the albums charted up there for months.
• singles got rereleased, and made it to the top 40 on the rerelease, more often back then.  the last time that happened afaik is the rerelease of Bohemian Rhapsody, as a tie-in to wayne's world, but it happened a lot on those countdowns, including "The Monster Mash".
• the jackson 5 were big on the soul chart, but only had 1 hit single on the pop chart top 50
  
• disco took about 12 songs on that top 50.  prog rock took 0.  the arena-rock balled didn't exist yet except in the hands of the Guess Who and Zep, and Zep didn't bother with singles, so really most of what we listen to today from the 70s in "classic rock" never sold on the singles charts.
  
• i was reminded how much AT40 was such a major influence on my ability to remember useless statistics
• there were 18 songs by british bands in the top 50 of the 70s, but paul mccartney (and the beatles and wings), george harrison, elton john, andy gibb, and his brothers in the bee gees, dominated them.
• at the time, Saturday Night Fever was still the #1 selling album of the 70s.  the "classic rock" era would later move Pink Floyd's Dark Side and Fleetwood Mac's Rumors ahead of it when cd sales got figured in, but of course, Kasem had no way of knowing that at the time.  but not until the great burnings when people bought that album just to burn it before stadium rock concerts :)
• La Bamba wasn't filmed yet, so when talking about "The Day the Music Died", Kasem said nothing about the Big Bopper and Richie Valens, only Buddy Holly.  he did tell the story about how the "Court Jester who played for the Queen" was Bob Dylan.
• i've finally gotten objective enough to not get teary-eyed at "The Way We Were".  either that or i'm just too happy with the way we are!
• faireraven can sleep through almost anything...except me changing the station when "I Will Survive" comes up.
  
• the #1 song of the 1970s sucks so bad that nobody plays it today: You Light Up My Life.
  

and the odd note that history just scares you with...

the billboard charts are usually calculated 4 weeks in advance of the magazine's weekly release, with the American Top 40 recorded 2-3 weeks before to give it time to get distributed to the stations.  this format was usually 4 vinyl records (I have a rick dees 4lp set from feb 1984).  As such, sudden changes in the news at the time might not make it to broadcast...

They were running one that was a mere "2 weeks before Christmas" 1980.  As they got to the top ten, he played the great comeback song of John Lennon, "Just Like Starting Over".

and it dawned on me.

2 weeks before Christmas would have been sunday December 14th.

and though Kasem had no possible way of knowing when he recorded such uplifting, positive support for the comeback, John Lennon would already be dead by the time that went to broadcast.

spooky stuff...

feck^2

*2* concerts i really would like to go to are on faire weekends (Porcupine Tree with ProjeKct 6, and Peter Tork with James Lee Stanley).

dammit why can't the good stuff happen in the middle of the week like it does every other time of the year...