Politics; The Ultimate Peril of Academic Ambition

It's not really a secret that I teach Geomorphology at the University level, but what courses and where I'll leave up to the fickle anonymity of the internet. There's not a code of silence that you have to sign along with your first born child and a year of Associate Professor salary in order to work in academe, but there might as well be. If your political views are right of center, for example, it would probably be best to heed the advice of your first amendment lawyer and shut your damn mouth before your political opinions wreck your chances of getting hired by a left-leaning department (pro-tip; most departments lean so far left that they look like Michael Jackson berating a dropped penny on the floor).

Damn you penny!

Got to walk a fine line when it comes to politics, then. I mostly keep my opinions to myself, but participate in like minded groups when I can (quietly). I can pitch group membership of innocuously named groups easily enough without getting myself in trouble, but getting ostracized for loudly being pro-2nd is a good way to get off tenure track. Then again, that's what this blog is for; it's a pressure release valve for things I can't say on campus.

At least until I get tenure, then I can say whatever the hell I want.

One is an Anomaly. Two is a Coincidence. Three is.. Probably Not a Trend.

Scientifically speaking, I guess you'd need about 60 articles or so all pointing to the data and forecasting water woes country wide in order for it to be a trend.Still, water news tends to run dry (heh) right about this time of year and yet I keep seeing articles like this, and this.

When water scientists are talking shortage forecast, without raising alarm bells, they are typically looking at a multi-decadal planning horizon that takes net population increase trend lines (and therefore water consumption trend lines right along with trend lines for increasing efficiency) into account. Gotta make the argument here (which is probably why I'm not an Urban Geographer); if no new resources can be brought online, and increasing efficiency standards can't meet demand, why would city planners keep trying to bring in more population to increase the city's tax base? Money can buy water, it's just that to engineer your way to a solution could take more than most people are willing to shell out for.

And while you can raise the price of gas and milk and most people won't tear their hair out, I know for a fact that politics gets real ugly, real quick, when managers start seriously considering jacking up the price of water to pay for public waterworks to increase supply. Some congress-critter with a smarmy smile and greased back hair will claim his respectable opponent wants to force little old ladies on short budgets to die of dehydration in order to line the pockets of his friendly neighborhood construction company.

Georgia... Sweet, Georgia

The secret lair has moved from its undisclosed location in North Carolina to a second undisclosed location in Georgia. The primary reason for the move is so that I can go to grad school to start on my PhD (which, surprise, I've already started on my PhD!)

Moving kind of sucks. Everything has to be packed just so, everything has to get moved, then unpacked. Meanwhile, there's yards to mow, things to fix, and, oh yeah, school work to be done too. Driving back and forth across a couple of states every weekend is starting to be kind of a drag too.

Then again, at least I'm down here in GA, actually working on getting a PhD instead of thinking/wanting to work on it. The difference between motion and action, then.

Still, I'll be glad when this moving business is over with.

Stupid Name, Cool Service

Just a head's up that services like this exist. Need to get a spare key to your place to someone out of state? Too busy to go by a hardware store? Have a weird key that's hard to get a match on? This seems like a pretty good deal. There's been times in my life where arrangements had to be made on getting a key to a person, and it involved having to hide the damned thing in odd places and giving them directions on how to find it. Seems like this is much more secure.

Shloosl is still a pretty damned stupid name, though, no matter how you slice it.

Doesn't Seem Like a Credible Expert, Does He?

<sarcasm>Joe Biden looking elated after hearing that his advice to his wife on home defense landed her in jail.</sarcasm>

You know, I kind of figured that this would happen.

 People are really ignorant about what the appropriate, narrowly defined corridors are for using a firearm for self defense. This leads to all kinds of wild and silly assumptions about what is and is not legal, and what gun owners can get away with. Let this be a lesson to folk of all stripe; you can't just blast some rounds in the air and expect everything to be copasetic.

At the very minimum, don't take self defense advice from someone who makes their hay by lying for a living.