View of Immaculate Conception Church

A shot of the Immaculate Conception Church from across the corner.

As you can see from the crane truck to the left of the flowering tree, the Church is undergoing renovation.  The roof has needed work and the interface between the stone outside and the brick inside also needs work.  Every weekend a second collection adds to the amount to pay for this renovation for one of the most interesting building in Lowell.

Regards  —  Cliff

Today in History

Someone noted two events that took place today:

May 8, 1945:  NAZI Germany surrenders, Cold War starts.  May 8, 1954, the fall of Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam, arguably an anchor date for "the Second Indochina War."  While the '45 result told us we were almighty, the second led us into something telling us the opposite—that we cannot solve it all by force of arms.  Did we learn?

Interesting insight.

More interesting in that it was from a retired Navy SEAL.

Regards  —  Cliff

British Reject AV

British local elections included a national referendum on what they call Alternative Voting (AV).  That is as opposed to First Past the Post (FPTP) voting (what we do).  Alternative Voting is where one ranks the candidates in order of preference and then when the first combing is done the bottom person drops out and those ballots are awarded to the voter's second choice and so on until someone gets 50% of the vote in the district.

The issue of AV reminds us that here in Lowell we have a committee of residents, from the Neighborhood Groups, looking at ways to increase voter participation in our fair City.  They will soon be holding hearings and looking for input.

(I would like to note that for elections like those in Lowell, where there are a group of folks running for a number of "at large" seats, I favor bullet voting.  Bullet Voting is where the voter gets the same number of votes as there are eventual winners.  The voter may use those bullets any way he or she favors.  Nine can be given to one candidate, say Rita Mercier.  Or, three can be given to Rita and three to Joe Mendonça and three to Patrick Murphy.  Or, they can be spread out over nine different candidates.)

The Brits rejected the AV idea soundly, 67.9% to 32.1%.  The details can be found here.  Note it is the BEEB.

The other big news is that the Scottish National Party (SNP) picked up enough seats to form a government in the Scottish Parliament.  Per the BBC, the SNP's victory was humbling to "Labour in one of its traditional heartlands and paving the way for a referendum on Scottish independence."  That would be interesting.  If Scotland goes, is Quebec next?

On the other hand, in Wales the Plaid Cymru suffered losses.

Regards  —  Cliff

It's Official—Osama bin Laden is Dead

That is to say, al Qaeda has confirmed his death.  The translation of the statement, released yesterday, is summarized here.  (Full English Translation here.)

Also noted in the original article is an upcoming audio from the late Osama bin Laden, recorded just a week ago.

The statement confirms that Osama bin Laden had recorded a new audio statement one week before his death and that it will be released soon.  Al-Qaeda members also promise a series of further attacks which ‘will even make the hair of babies turn grey’, and call for Pakistanis to rise up against their government.

As for the further attacks, weren't they going to do that anyway?

Regards  —  Cliff

The Environment/The Future

My Middle Brother, who sees me as an environmentally insensitive Republican (On this week's Pew Trust Survey—which I didn't much like—I was a Libertarian) sent this along, having received it from a friend.

I am glad he did.  This is one of those pieces that looks at the big picture of Environmental depredations.

The author is Mr George Monbiot and the venue is The Manchester Guardian.  The title is

Let's face it: none of our environmental fixes break the planet-wrecking project / All of us in the green movement are lost before the planet's real nightmare:  not too little fossil fuel – but too much"

The article seems to say that technology is the enemy, because for every problem there is someone with a more sophisticated technological solution.  In Mr Monbiot's view, a solution which does even more damage to the environment.

All of us in the environment movement, in other words – whether we propose accommodation, radical downsizing or collapse – are lost.  None of us yet has a convincing account of how humanity can get out of this mess.  None of our chosen solutions break the atomising, planet-wrecking project.  I hope that by laying out the problem I can encourage us to address it more logically, to abandon magical thinking and to recognise the contradictions we confront.  But even that could be a tall order.

And that is his bottom line.

On the other hand, we are a species that uses tools and creates new options.  Thus, for us, technology is the way out.  It is who we are—that and opposable thumbs.

The key take-away for me is that when there is talk of climate change there is not talk about what it means in terms of humans and possible futures based upon changes in climate.  Climate change is not the end of the world.  I doubt you can even see the end of the world from there.  It is, however, about adaption, and that is what we as humans are good at.  Lets talk about the problem and if it is a problem and what hedges we need in case it is a problem.  Let us talk about adaptations needed by us to cope with the range of possible futures.

The loss of much of Boston to rising sea levels would be a terrible thing.  To just give up because of it would be a tragedy.

Regards  —  Cliff

Republican Candidates for 2012

My Middle Brother sent me an EMail with an item about polling being done regarding Sarah Palin and Donald Trump:

A new survey of likely voters indicates that in a hypothetical match-up between former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and billionaire Donald Trump, a majority would choose suicide over either candidate.

The poll, conducted by the University of Minnesota’s Opinion Research Institute, shows Mr. Trump drawing 21%, Gov. Palin 18%, and various forms of suicide 61%.

The original of this Andy Borowitz report can be found here, somewhere.♠

It is satire.  But still, my comment back to my Brother was:

My position remains that Obama wins in 2012 and therefore the Republicans should nominate a woman for president and an Hispanic for VP. Seems like the thing to do, unless Herman Cain is available for VP.

My thinking is that if we are going to whiff and we know it, we should give the voters a chance to look at some non-standard options from our side.  It would cost us nothing and it would give all of the voters a chance to think about us in new ways.

That leads to this blog post from The Other McCain on the Republican Party's "Reality TV Show" Thursday last.♥ 

Here is the embedded video clip from that blog post with Pollster Frank Luntz talking to likely Republican Primary Election voters:

OK, so Businessman Herman Cain is too good to be true or not a "serious" candidate, as opposed to our former Governor, Mitt Romney, but he generated a lot of enthusiasm amongst Republican Primary voters in South Carolina.  Probably a bunch of Tea Party attending fuddy-duddy red-neck WASPs.♦  But still, voters.

The Spring of 2011 is the time to think about POSSIBILITIES, to have DREAMS, to HOPE, to envision CHANGE.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  Check 6 May 2011.
♥  I was in class, taking a final.
♦  Except maybe for that lady down on the first row, toward the left end.

Campaign Spoof

I am assuming this is a spoof.  I am giving all credit for discovering this to Doctrine Man, a presence on Facebook.

Somewhere out there in the Empire State is Assemblywoman Jane Corwin.  She is running to fill a vacant US House of Representatives seat (26th New York).

You can go to this web site, that purports to be her campaign web site.

This appears to be her real campaign website.

This is why you buy up ALL the domain names.  The alternative explanation is that this is a clever ploy to make your opposition look like jerks.

"Row well ... and live."

Regards  —  Cliff