Holiday quiz meme, and weird weather stuff

[altivo]

From darkhorseman and songdogmi:
Holiday Fun

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?
Egg nog please, either plain or with rum

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just set them under the tree?
Always wrapped

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white?
Colored but they're those tiny Italian style bulbs now that don't get hot

4. Do you hang a mistletoe?
When we remember, usually a plastic one though

5. When do you put your decorations up?
After December 1

6. What is your favorite holiday dish?
Mince pie

7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child?
Christmas morning. I was a big plush collector even then, and ALWAYS got a new one

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?
Pretty much figured it out by age 9 or so

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?
We join my mate's family on Christmas Eve, and opening presents then is their tradition. I've always waited until Christmas Day in the morning, though, and he and I sometimes exchange special gifts then.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree?
We have a small artificial one, and leave the decorations on it and bag it up during the rest of the year. It lives in the barn loft then. The decorations are mostly teddy bear themed or handmade items.

11. Snow - love it or hate?
Love it. I can always slow down or wait. Never understood people who just have to go go go all the time.

12. Can you ice skate?
Fairly well, yes. Not hockey player style, but basic figure skating.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift?
Best are things that are made, not bought. Like a shirt my mate sewed for me.

14. What's the most exciting thing about the Holidays for you?
Snow and cold, wood fires, time to spend with the animals without hurrying off to work, snuggling by the woodstove, special food, and especially music.

15. What is your favorite holiday Dessert?
Mince pie, fruit cake, or cookies (home made).

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition?
Quiet time. Giving all the animals holiday treats.

17. What tops your tree?
A tiny stuffed koala bear is climbing up the top.

18. Which do you prefer giving or receiving?
Both, and I especially like home made gifts like food, or mittens, or whatever.

19. What is your favorite Christmas song?
The Holly and the Ivy; also The Wassail Song (and yes, I know, both are really pagan.)

20. Candy canes?
I love peppermint but prefer soft mints to hard candy.

21. Favorite Christmas movie? (in songdogmi's version only)
Definitely the 1970 version of Scrooge! with Albert Finney, a superb musical rendition of the story.


Weather weirdness:
A lot of folks have been commenting on the strange weather, all over the US, in the UK, and now even down in OZ. Is it global warming? While I believe global warming is a serious issue and will get worse, I'm not sure that's what we're seeing. The sunspot cycle is bottoming out, there are other natural cycles that may be coinciding. We've just had one of the warmest Novembers on record here, and for the last week, daytime highs have been near or above 60F, which is darned strange. Now since yesterday we've been having little cloudbursts and a lot of clouds, but it's still warm. They say that's about to end. It's raining now, and the temperature is expected to start dropping, turning the rain to ice and then snow after midnight. Tomorrow features a winter storm watch, with light snow in the morning and possible heavy snow or icing conditions by late afternoon. Now that is not unusual for winter here, but those kind of storms usually come later, near or after Christmas. They also don't usually happen a day after the temperature was 61F. Supposedly we could get into single digit temperatures by tomorrow night. That's a heck of a drop for a 24 hour period.

I just had a thought. The Republicans lost control of Congress, Rumsfeld is out, and some members of the administration, even if not Dubya himself, are starting to refer to "the civil war in Iraq." Maybe this sudden change is the result of hell freezing over. *ducks and gallops*

Comments

[zenicurean.livejournal.com]

...are starting to refer to "the civil war in Iraq."

I recently ranted about how the Democrats have put themselves against an impossible challenge by campaigning on a major qualitative change in Iraq policy, but not clearing up amongs themselves what that would actually entail. It seems to me that the Dems, who still must tackle with Bush and the judiciary, can push for pretty much two things.

One is to stay in Iraq, which would ideally entail sending in much more troops and actually do what Rumsfeld couldn't. This is possible even if the Bushistas' mistakes were based on political miscalculations rather than military miscalculations as long as America accepts that it's just essentially going to inherit Saddam's job for the years and decades to come. Namely, suppressing insurgents through violence. This could backfire on the Democrats if the anti-war lobby becomes more powerful.

The other is simply to get out of Iraq, which would save both money and blood, but which would also essentially give up everything America hoped to gain from its invasion, not to mention risk an utter collapse of Iraqi society. The US would end up having lost a stupid war, Iraq would end up in total anarchy, and Iran would end up stepping into the power vacuum and increasing its power as a regional and oil superpower.

Frankly, I sometimes think a lot of Republicans are honestly relieved that they're not the only ones to shoulder the reponsibility anymore.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

To me the Iraq situation is a damned close parallel to the one in Vietnam 35 years ago. I don't think we will gain anything by staying there, and I do think that the anti-war sentiment that has finally found a good toe-hold here will grow, just as it did back then.

The situation in Iraq really IS a civil war. The whole Arab world hates the US for muscling into Arab states and playing bully. I say we need to get out of there. The proposal to let the other Arab countries supervise the reconstruction of Iraq is a damned good one. Let Syria, the Saudis, Jordan, and whoever else is game for it try. At least they won't be able to blame whatever happens entirely on the US.

[darkhorseman.livejournal.com]

The trouble with bailing is... is that we would show that we can be defeated and thus the great satan is weak and they will bring the war here knowing they can defeat us.

The mentality of the fundimentalist (on eather side) is living by the sword. There is no making peace.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

We will not win by staying there either. They will just eat us up a few at a time. The same as they did in Vietnam, and the same as we did to the British back in the 18th century. Remember that war? Same methods.

The folks who see what they are doing as "defending their home territory" almost always win in the end.

I do not believe that the entire Islamic world is at war with the US, or the West, or any other outside entity. Islamic culture consists of the ethic of the desert tribes. They are "counting coup" as the native Americans did, and they traditionally did this by one tribe raiding another tribe. These days the tribes are the Shi'a and the Sunni. Strikes against outsiders like Spain, the UK, or the US are moves of bravado, like boys daring each other to go up to the bear and touch him.

The whole situation with Osama bin Laden was started by Bush Sr. and his intervention in Iraq back in the Gulf War. That stirred up the hornet nest. So what do you do with a hornet nest once it's stirred up? Keep poking it with a stick?

[darkhorseman.livejournal.com]

A hornets nest? I take in some superior firepower and kill all the hornets. I dont like hornets. I stand by we eather pack our bags, tuck our tails and go home and wait for them to come to us and they will and we will fight then or we take the politically correct gloves off and fight the war how it should be fought. War.. I hate to break it to you is not pretty... people die... lots of them... look at the number of casualties in the second world war.

Radical islam is not going to go away and isnt going to be happy with anything short of ruling the world.. that I believe. Convert or die. Sorry I dont like thoes options.

[zenicurean.livejournal.com]

I think if there were a single unified radical Islamism, it'd be pretty much unkillable.

[darkhorseman.livejournal.com]

There isnt but the goals of of the radical factions are mostly the same.

I dont agree with the war in Iraq and I think it was for the wrong reasons.. but if you note usually its refered to as the war in Iraq.. not the war with Iraq. We are not fighting Iraq but we are too pc to say what we are fighting... Islam. Iraq is just the current battle field. If it wasnt Iraq then what Syria? Afganistan again, Turkey? Iran? Here? Sadly it is a world war because we are not fighting a nation or in the boundries of one. Everyone in Iraq could stop fighting right now, sit down for a big circle jerk and love eachother.. the war would spring up somewhere else tomorow. Its not pretty but its the truth. Who threw the first punch.. did we? Did Islam? At this point its irrelevent. We have an enemy and that enemy wants us dead Unfortunatly the war with Islam and in Iraq is going on and it has to be finished.. It wont end in Iraq eather.

There is going to be a winner and there is going to be a loser There is no draw.

[zenicurean.livejournal.com]

The goals of of the radical factions are mostly the same.

You're right in that if we start tallying up Hizbollah, Hamas, Brotherhood of Islam, the Iranian popular revolution, and so on all the way to South East Asia, we can see coherent similiarities much in the vein of internationalist Communism. There are any number of movements out there who preach 1) hostility to Israel and America, 2) conservative Quranic law and 3) national liberation, enfranchisement of the Muslim peoples, and 4) international Muslim brotherhood culturally isolationist in terms of the rest of the world. But where and why they draw their exact inspiration and popular support from, and what enemies they're interested in primarily taking out tend to differ a lot, and that fractiousness can be exploited in fighting them in the countries that they're operating, even if their activities have become increasingly international.

America badly needs to understand the wider Muslim world so it can ally with such régimes that would not exarcebate the problem, but rather contain it.

We are not fighting Iraq but we are too pc to say what we are fighting... Islam.

I very much disagree, actually. I can't see what possible unifying factor a Bosnian Sufist, a Malay Hadhari, a Lebanese Sunni, a secularised Turkish nationalist, a black French Moroccoan, and a Jordanian Shi'ite professional could possibly have that would necessarily pit them in a game of Mortal Kombat against America and Europe.

[zenicurean.livejournal.com]

I just realised your icon does actualy say kafir.

A'ight. Just that not everyone who recites the shahadah is the enemy.

[darkhorseman.livejournal.com]

its off of a photograph of a teeshirt.

[zenicurean.livejournal.com]

It's actually rather cool. (I can, in abstract, get into the whole "taking loaded and pejorative terms and turning them around" angle.)

[zenicurean.livejournal.com]

The whole situation with Osama bin Laden was started by Bush Sr. and his intervention in Iraq back in the Gulf War.

While I'd broadly speaking defend Kuwaiti independece and American action to secure it for whatever oil-based motive, I'm also willing to concede that there's a kernel of truth in here. In fact, it'd be very nice if the Americans could find some way of not supporting the House of Saud and men like Pervez Musharraf.

Very tangentially, there is a cultural backlash happening against domestic political authoritarianism and dictatorship which, like in Iran in the seventies, is based on radical Islamism as a kind of a liberation theology. Islamism is in some ways the new ideology of not-quite-the-poorest, the increasingly educated lower middle classes, whose negative attitude toward America is in some part informed not only by certain theologies-cum-social-theories, but also by the fact that America has lately sought allies among strongly conservative or even reactionary Middle Eastern leaders, in whose interests it is to keep these Islamists down.

[zenicurean.livejournal.com]

Not only can parallels be drawn to Vietnam, they can also be drawn to Yugoslavia. There's not much ethnic, religious, or even national unity to Iraq. This is represented in the scores of movements that are actually doing the fighting, contrary to the War on Terror theory that it's all just one big coordinated movement against vaguely-defined democratic forces. The Bush administration's original plans as to what do do after they've displaced the Baathists seem to have completely and utterly ignored this fact. The theory that they could set up a kind of a broad-based junta representing the Sunni, the Shi'ites and the Kurds was beautiful, of course, but it's as if they never stopped to think about how that broad-based junta could be kept in power.

I'm roughly of the opinion that only the US has both the political will and the sufficient military power to keep the place together for long. What I'm afraid of is political fractiousness. Bringing in more NATO or UN forces will accomplish nothing if the Europeans aren't willing to shoot at anyone, and we're really not; bringing in the Arab countries is an excellent strategy if only someone can guarantee that that these countries can work together, somewhat along the United States' interests, and not just expand the struggle by bringing in their own vendettas and geopolitical agendas. Particularly as many of these countries are very keen on suppressing the Kurds and stopping Iran from exploiting it's authority over the Shi'ites. The Saudis in particular absolutely loathed Saddam. They'd probably absolutely loath an Iranian proxy government, too.

[darkhorseman.livejournal.com]

Its the end of the republican conspiracy ohh no!


And to go from the high 60s to the low 30s overnight thats not good. Its debatable about global warming. The holes in the ozone change size and shape all the time. Nature goes through cycles that can vary over hundreds of years. Now. I do also belive we have fucked the planet over and I learned one important thing as a farmer. Nature will always balance itself. You mess with it and you fight it it will win.. This is why New Orleans is a swamp. It was a swamp a few hundred years ago.. its one now. Its nature balancing itself.
Consider it global warming.. I dont know but nature will balance itself no matter who stands in its way.

[zenicurean.livejournal.com]

Nature will balance itself no matter who stands in its way.

I agree. This is inevitable, as nature is essentially a name for what could flippantly be called the hydraulics of everything.

[darkhorseman.livejournal.com]

Learned it from an old farmer. Guy was atleast 140 years old and his horse about half that. Missing one eye. Old cowboy who was just gonna turn to dust one day he will never die. Could hop on that horse and rope cows like he was my age. I asked him once why my road kept flooding.. I tried everything and couldnt stop it.. it turned into a river. Thats when he told me about nature balancing itself. He told me go out there during a hard rain.. watch where the water goes and where it wants to go. Channel it away from your road but let it still go where it wants.. if it wants to cross put in a crossing.. if it wants to go on one side cut a ditch there... I did what he said and it didnt flood again.

[zenicurean.livejournal.com]

Sounds familiar. Old farmers seem to have a way of cutting through the nonessential.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Nature will balance itself. I agree with this. Unfortunately, we can push the pendulum so far in one direction that nature will swing it back even harder in the other direction to do the equalizing. Can you spell "ice age"? I knew you could. This is the cycle that has been identified. World gets warm enough to melt the ice caps. The arctic becomes a swamp and the seas rise. That rising water level lets the frigid waters of the Arctic Ocean spill over the ridge that connects Alaska to Siberia, where the famous "land bridge" (actually an ice bridge) appears. The cold water entering the Pacific triggers more dramatic climate changes by swapping around a bunch of ocean currents, and pretty soon you not only have new ice caps forming, but glaciers descending down over Canada and Siberia into the temperate zones.

This cycle is identifiable in the geologic record, and has been swinging back and forth at about 10,000 year intervals if I recall correctly, for several repeats. We aren't quite due for the next one, but our greenhouse gas generation could easily trip the changeover sooner than it would otherwise happen.

[darkhorseman.livejournal.com]

It will happen. I think humanity is doomed personally. It all comes down to short sided greed of humanity. I dont care if your a big corporation or someone living in a basement somewhere. You have your excesses that you dont need that hurt the enviroment and the world around you. But just as one person so is the corporation.. it just has more power and ablility to do bad.. and does

[darkhorseman.livejournal.com]

ohh you remind me with the home made gifts. I have a bit of an urge to take up knitting. I tried it a couple of times and wound up with a knot on the top of the needles.

Also had an intrest in weaving and spinning. I had a loom at one time. It was a throw out from the arts department at the museum. A table top version of the big floor looms you operate with your feet. I wonder if my mom still has it.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Heh. Be sure and tell Pokey you are interested in knitting and weaving and spinning. He thinks I'm totally weird or something.

I'm sure you could do all of those. Generally it takes having someone to show you in person. I learned from books, but most people don't do too well at that.

[darkhorseman.livejournal.com]

I see nothing wrong with the idea. My grandmother tried to teach me to knit. I picked up sewing and what not but never knitting. I think back and I think I was making the stitches too tight. And yes Ive looked at the guides and went crosseyed

As for the idea. The truth is I am bored. Im running out of things to read, I dont like watching tv. Im begining to hate computers. My hands are too shakey for electronics, Ham radio is still too expensive, My back is hurting too bad for bodybuilding... Knitting seems logical.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Have a look at the Men Who Knit website.

[darkhorseman.livejournal.com]

Heh most of thoes guys looked like I would expect them to...like me. Nice, sweet and perfectly physically capable of breaking their foot off in your ass if it was nessary.

[dongstyle-ltd.livejournal.com]

The lack of environmental science in the so-called enlightened colonialists of the West made for a paltry contrast against the intuitive relationship that native peoples had. Only eventually did such wisdom as "everything is connected to everything" become possible and then finally acknowledged by such things as the natural laws. I do like the law of entropy- I think it sums things up pretty nicely.

Living in Oz meself, I can attest to the unpredictability of the weather. First, we started with early boilers that had the forecasters saying it would be the hottest summer on record (undoubtedly due to global-warming theories). THEN it started snowing. This November, forecasters have been hopelessly inaccurate about 85% of the time. Lately, some weather commentators HAVE indeed been noting the much larger long-term weather cycles as opposed to the day-to-day, seasonal and things like El-Nino, and so I think the weather we've been seeing is really a mix of the two- the effects of global warming and related environmental effects is plenty apparent but I too doubt that it is sufficient to explain the trends in weather lately.

And we were supposed to have a scorcher today but instead it rained and now the Northerly winds, which were supposed to be hot, are instead friggen freezing! Melbourne's weather, while technically mediterranean, is characteristically unpredictable but this is ridiculous.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

It's still 10C below what it was yesterday O.O
The orange haze was caused by a dust storm from the west that mingled with the low level clouds.

Nasty weather in Australia now describes, Fine and hot/sunny.
We'll have to start recyling our waste water now, the dams are all down very low and the Murray River in SA will run completely dry soon.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

Oh and love the holiday meme :)