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hookem2010

Certifiably Surly
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Everything posted by hookem2010

  1. Travis County's 5th, and first in 12 years record of pacific loon showed up on Towne Lake Friday. By the afternoon, it had flown off, but the many birders looking for it were able to turn up a nearly as rare black scoter (Patagonia picnic table effect). With two little ones in tow, and the help of some friends, we were able to get on it looking down toward the future pedestrian bridge from Longhorn Dam. Striking? Maybe not. But definitely rare for central Texas!
  2. I hope things are getting better. When our first was about 15 months and had recently started daycare, he hit the trifecta of rhino, adeno and RSV + bilateral ear infections and hand, foot and mouth. He had gone to his pedi a couple times and would seem to get better, only to shoot a temp up to around 103 right as our heater died during the first cold front of the year. So after a night in a hotel, we finally went to the ER. Never had to deal with the low O2 sats, but the lethargy and fever was worrisome 2 weeks into the illness. He's fine now. Well, he has hit peak 2 year-old today, actually. But horrible temperament and lack of obedience notwithstanding, he's in great health.
  3. House cleaners came by today, so I decided to get out of their way and see how many species I could see around Round Rock, while lugging the 5 month-old around with me. The answer? 69(nice)! I made multiple stops along Brushy Creek, as well as Rock Hollow, Meadow Lake and Old Settlers Park. Highlights were this eastern screech-owl sunning itself and my first WilCo cinnamon teal. Downy woodpecker conspicuously absent from my list.
  4. As one of those 30-something's, I'm thinking you goddamn boomers timed it just about perfectly. Some of you got to see the moon landing, missed out on participating in Vietnam, maybe had to hide under your desk a little bit during the Cold War, but got to witness some cool music and counter-culture, the environmental movement bringing things like wolves, grizzlies, whooping cranes, bald eagles and Peregrine falcons back from the brink and cleaning up air/water, generally improving racial, gender and sexual equity in the US and improvements toward health and poverty around the globe. You could actually afford to buy houses and shit and places like Austin weren't crowded as fuck. And as you approach your end, you get to witness The End, without concerning yourself too much about crawling out from the rubble. Lucky sons of bitches...
  5. This is mostly boring. Which NWR name got changed, Anahuac?
  6. At this point, 2017 Trump would look like Thomas fucking Jefferson.
  7. I heard talk of a meeting at a major Texas hospital where they discussed if they would need to completely shut down if the Medicaid cuts are enacted.
  8. Can we resurrect Teddy Roosevelt and lock him in the oval office with Trump, Vance and Musk for 15 minutes?
  9. I hate everything. Outside of my family (and basic human rights for everyone, of course), the natural world is just about the only thing I care about. Shocking, yet predictable, rage-inducing, depressing, dangerous, stupid, wasteful, cruel. Fuck
  10. It's one of those weeks where decades happen. But it's every goddamn week. I think we've lived a century in geopolitical time since the inauguration. The planet is also experiencing one of those centuries where epochs happen. Cool stuff, if we weren't experiencing it live, right? The historical AND fossil record are going to be very confusing to whoever unearths it.
  11. I feel you. The pretending really got to me. We're going to not talk politics to protect your feelings while the most unhinged shit that's ever happened in our lifetimes is occurring? Fuck that.
  12. This is my greatest struggle. If it was just me, I'd deal with it. Probably see them less frequently and voice my displeasure when we were together. The kid thing though is tough. Their maternal grandmother is no longer with us and their paternal grandfather is 79 and in a different state. It would be great for them to have a good relationship with grandparents. While they are (usually) good about keeping racist thoughts to themselves, I know those thoughts persist. Thinking they are "just" discriminating against a different shade of non-white isn't acceptable. This is why, more than anything, I just want to have a sit-down to talk things out. It will probably make me angry, but just avoiding the subject altogether and pretending nothing is going on outside of our personal bubble is part of why I think I harbor so much resentment.
  13. I can't imagine being in Antarctica, where you're obviously doing work you really care about, and having to worry about getting fired and being stuck there for months.
  14. They're generally not too overt about it in our presence. There are subtle comments here and there, but historically there was a bit more of what I would describe as casual racism. And seeing what they support, and the make-up of my family, that really rankles me. We have more or less ignored politics since we had a similar falling out around 2020ish, which was less of a deal with Covid and not having kids, so we weren't seeing each other anyway. I don't expect to change their minds entirely, but I'd like them to at least sit down and have a genuine discussion about why previous behavior and current support of a racist president makes me hesitant to spend time with them. This entire time, I've been leaving the door open to have that discussion. It's up to them to accept the terms.
  15. DOGE’s Chaos Reaches Antarctica Daily life at US-run Antarctic stations has already been disrupted. Scientists worry that the long-term impacts could upend not only important research but the continent’s delicate geopolitics. Few agencies have been spared as Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has ripped through the United States federal government. Even in Antarctica, scientists and workers are feeling the impacts—and are terrified for what’s to come. The United States Antarctic Program (USAP) operates three permanent stations in Antarctica. These remote stations are difficult to get to and difficult to maintain; scattered across the continent, they are built on volcanic hills, polar plateaus, and icy peninsulas. But to the US, the science has been worth it. At these stations, over a thousand people each year come to the continent to live and work. Scientists operate a number of major research projects, studying everything from climate change and rising sea levels to the cosmological makeup and origins of the universe itself. With funding cuts and layoffs looming, Antarctic scientists and experts don’t know if their research will be able to continue, how US stations will be sustained, or what all this might mean for the continent’s delicate geopolitics. “Even brief interruptions will result in people walking away and not coming back,” says Nathan Whitehorn, an associate professor and Antarctic scientist at Michigan State University. “It could easily take decades to rebuild.” The USAP is managed by the National Science Foundation. Last week, a number of NSF program managers staffed on Antarctic projects were fired as part of a wider purge at the agency. The program managers are critical for maintaining communication with the infrastructure and logistics arm of the NSF, and the contractors for the USAP, as well as planning deployment for scientists to the continent, keeping track of the budgets, and funding the maintenance and operations work. “I have no idea what we do without them,” says another Antarctic scientist who has spent time on the continent, who along with several others WIRED granted anonymity due to fears of retaliation. “Without them, everything stops,” says a scientist whose NSF project manager was fired last week. “I have no idea who I am supposed to report to now or what happens to submitted proposals.” Scientific research happens at all of the stations. At the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, scientists work on the South Pole Telescope and BICEP telescope, both of which study the cosmic background radiation and the evolution of the universe; IceCube, a cubic-kilometer detector designed to study neutrino physics and high energy emission from astrophysical sources; and the Atmospheric Research Observatory that studies climate science and is run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. (Mass firings are also expected at the NOAA.) “The climate science [at the South Pole Station] is super unique,” an Antarctic scientist says. “The site has so little pollution that we call it ‘the cleanest air on Earth,’ and they have been monitoring the ozone layer and CO2 content in the atmosphere for many decades.” Other directives from the Donald Trump administration have directly affected daily life on those stations. “Gender-inclusive terms on housing documents” have been removed from Antarctic staffer forms, a source familiar with the situation at McMurdo Station tells WIRED. “It asked if you had a preference with which gender you housed with,” the source says. “That’s all been removed.” Staffers have already pushed back. “People have been painting waste bins saying “Antarctica is for ALL” in rainbow, people’s email signatures [have] pride additions, [others] keep adding preferred pronouns to emails,” the source says. “There’s a sense of unease on the station like people have never felt before,” they add. “The job still has to get done, even though people feel like the next shoe can drop at any moment.” That unease extends to their own job security. “There are some people currently at the South Pole that are worried about losing their jobs any day now,” a source with familiarity of the situation tells WIRED. Workers present at the station aren’t able to physically leave until October, and a midseason firing, or loss of funding, would present a unique set of challenges. Sources are also bracing for at least a 50 percent reduction in the NSF’s budget due to DOGE cuts. These cuts are sending Antarctic scientists with assistants and graduate students scrambling. “We didn’t know if we could pay graduate students,” says one scientist. While research is conducted on the continent, scientists bring their findings back to the US to process and analyze. A lot of the funding also operates the science itself: For one project that requires electricity to run detectors, the scientist “was paranoid we would not be able to literally pay bills for an experiment starved for data.” That hasn’t come to fruition yet, but as funding cycles restart in the coming weeks and months, scientists are on tenterhooks. Sources tell WIRED that Germany, Canada, Spain, and China have already started taking advantage of that uncertainty by recruiting US scientists focused on Antarctica. “Foreign countries are actively recruiting my colleagues, and some have already left,” says one Antarctic scientist. “My students are looking at jobs overseas now … people have been coming [to the US] to do science my whole life. Now people are going the other way.” “Now is a great time to see if anyone wants to jump ship,” another Antarctic scientist says. “I do worry about a brain drain of tenured academics, or students who are shunted out.” “The damage caused by gutting the [Antarctic] science budget like this is going to last generations,” says another. Throughout DOGE’s cuts to the federal government, representatives have said that if something needs to be brought back, it could be. In some cases, reversals have already happened: The US Department of Agriculture said it accidentally fired staffers working on preventing the spread of bird flu and is trying to rehire them. But in Antarctica, a reversal won’t necessarily work. “One of the really scary things about this is that if the Antarctic program budget is cut, then they’ll very quickly get to the point where they can’t even keep the station open, much less science projects going,” an Antarctic scientist tells WIRED. “If the South Pole [station] is shut down, it’s basically nearly impossible to bring it back up. Everything will freeze and get buried in snow. And some other country will likely immediately take over. Others share this fear of a station takeover. “Even if science funding is cut back, there is an urgent need for the US to invest in icebreakers and polar airlift capability otherwise at some point the US-managed South Pole station might not be serviceable,” says Klaus Dodds, an Antarctic expert and professor of geopolitics at Royal Holloway University of London. Experts are concerned that countries like Russia and China—who have already been eagle-eyed on continental influence—will quickly jostle to fill the power vacuum. “Presumably it would be humiliating for anyone who wishes to promote ‘America First’ to witness China offer to take over the occupation and management of the base at the heart of Antarctica. China is a very determined polar power,” says Dodds. The political outcome of the US pulling back from its Antarctic research and presence could be dire, sources tell WIRED. Antarctica isn’t owned by any one country. Instead it’s governed by the Antarctic Treaty System, which protects Antarctica and the scientific research taking place on the continent, and forbids mining and nuclear activity. Some countries, including China and Russia, have indicated that they would be interested in rule changes to the Treaty system, particularly around resource extraction and fishing restrictions. The US, traditionally, has played a key role in championing the treaty: “Many of the leading polar scientists and social scientists are either US citizens and/or have been enriched by contact with US-led programs,” says Dodds. That leadership role could change quickly. The US also participates in a number of international collaborations involving major Antarctic scientific projects. A US pullback, Whitehorn says, “makes it very hard to regard the US as a reliable partner, so I think there will be a lot less interest in accepting US leadership in such things … The uncertainty will drive people away and sacrifice the leadership the US already has.” “If the NSF can’t function, or we don’t fund it, projects with long lead times can just die,” another scientist says. “I’m sure international partners would be happy to partner elsewhere. This is what it means to lose US competitiveness."
  16. Leopards continue gnawing on my parents face. Nearly 3 weeks after I told them they need to look in the mirror before continuing our relationship, my dad reached out with a mundane question about the boys, while my mother sent my wife an over-the-top praiseful message about being a good mom, etc. I responded that nothing had changed in the last few weeks, and tacked on an article about the NPS being dismantled and how I would be lucky to take my kids to the national parks like my parents took me. My father responded that they were very saddened by the degradation of our relationship and that mother couldn't even send a loving message without being chastised for it. I let him know they could make me out to be a jerk all they wanted and that loving one another isn't the issue. I am still ready to talk when they want to have a real, albeit uncomfortable discussion about how we got to this point. Pardon me for sharing all this, but I find it somewhat cathartic.
  17. Sorry to hear that. It's been a few years so I don't remember many specifics. But it was one of the premier locations in the world for liver transplants, so they got the roughest shit. Liver patients tend to be incredibly sick, they get very mentally altered, they bleed horribly. And I think usually every organ system gets so fucked by the time they get transplants that it's not like they usually go on to live anything resembling a normal life. They took care of non-surgical candidates as well. And as you noted, watching someone pass of liver disease, alcoholic or not, is a difficult thing to witness.
  18. My wife worked in the ICU unit at Houston Methodist that specialized in liver transplants. Her stories were... unpleasant.
  19. Didn't she play a character who had some organ transplant on a House episode or something?
  20. https://www.vox.com/down-to-earth/401389/trump-doge-fish-wildife-service-black-footed-ferret We're going to extinction real hard. Most things will probably survive the next few years. But the groundwork is being laid to really fuck our last remaining wild spaces.
  21. I'm not sure what's worse. Seeing a thread turn Hot because Trump has issued some new batshit decree or because Incredulity got in a feisty mood.
  22. Yea, I'm all too aware of the plight of basically everything. Shit is bleak
  23. Anyone with the rep John Carter, a person at least answers your call. Not so with Cornyn. I see 0 reason to even attempt to call Cruz. The rebellion is officially underway!
  24. I saw Chris Kluwe being very politically vocal on BlueSky, and thought "Wait the Vikings punter from back in the day when I cared about the NFL?" Eve 6 is also a strong, occasionally political, bluesky follow.
  25. Americans/Europeans have done a bang-up job of extinguishing diversity wherever they go. In 250 short years, we've managed to nearly wipe out 6,000,000 years of evolution in Hawaii. Now, given a final chance of rekindling that flame, we're stomping on the fucking coals. What a goddamn waste.
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