Snowing a bit this morning; DC got a light dusting. See the white stuff? That’s snow. Yeah, I know, wow, omg snow.
(Dusting.jpg uploaded by brownpau.)
how now brownpau
Snowing a bit this morning; DC got a light dusting. See the white stuff? That’s snow. Yeah, I know, wow, omg snow.
(Dusting.jpg uploaded by brownpau.)
(Upper left) U.S. Capitol and a clear, blue sky on a cold Saturday.
(Upper right) Paper plane near a Lunar Module landing leg at the NASM.
(Lower left) AOC workers set up the Capitol Christmas Tree, from Vermont.
(Lower right) Finches in a tree by the NMAI.
The African Violet that won’t quit is still not quitting, and has put out yet another flower. Just one now, though, which makes me wonder if its health is declining.
There was once this blanket that I really hated, because it was cheap and prickly; but Pandora really liked it. That kind of crisp, hedgehoggy texture appeals to her, just like it did to her brother Jasper, who liked to roll around on rough concrete sidewalks. Lately Pandora’s taken even more of a liking to a similarly prickly towel which fell out of my laundry hamper, and she’s been using it as her bed all week.
Also in this set: Pandora sprawled on the floor by my shopping cart, and a nice little macro closeup.
I just ordered a Vietnamese coffee at Miss Saigon and was served this odd drip apparatus. Not sure I understand it fully yet.
(VietCoff.jpg uploaded by brownpau.)
3-in-1: Bid now on GloriaResign.com and receive GloriaResign.net and GloriaResign.org free!
Way back in 2005, when Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo faced scattered street protests and rumors of an EDSA 4 revolution in the works, I registered three domains, completely on a whim:
I really didn’t care about the politics, one way or another, but in the true fashion of an enterprising mercenary I thought of it as a way to get a few quick bucks out of the crisis. I pointed the domains to a Sedo parking page, set a price, and waited for the offers to come stampeding in.
Now, two and a half years later, it’s pretty obvious they did not come stampeding in, and in my laziness I haven’t done enough to effectively market these domains to their target audience. The latest “crisis” has reminded me that I should be selling these valuable internet assets more aggressively, so I have placed them up on eBay for anyone who is willing to pay for them — opposition or administration are welcome to join the auction.
Bidding starts at $65. Don’t miss this chance to be a part of internet history and make a difference in the Philippine political scene or something! And be sure to read my clever and colorful promo copy!
You can really see the shape of this particular cloud system: pulled along by midlevel winds into a long, linear formation.
More info: Cloud Streets.
(Clouds.jpg uploaded by brownpau.)
So a jailed senator being tried for a previous attempted military mutiny walks out of his hearing, joins with his band of rebel soldiers and political supporters, and once again initiates another mutinous standoff in a swanky Makati hotel, with Guingona calling on the people to start yet another EDSA-style revolution.
Bad move, bad timing. As with the Oakwood Mutiny, they’re once again trying to get their message across via the intimidation of foreigners. Plus, from the photos I’m seeing, it’s raining rather hard right now — not particularly conducive to spontaneous mass protest gatherings, and certainly not weather that curries the good graces of all the Peninsula hotel guests who just had to be evacuated into the storm. (Anyway, “Makati Avenue People Power” just doesn’t have the ring that “EDSA Revolution” did.)
Once again, Trillanes is doing it wrong, hoping to goad the public into a widespread protest big enough for the military to decide that it is “the will of the people,” but doing it outside the rule of law via petty grandstanding and scare tactics. He petulantly speaks out from an insubstantial, contradictory platform of threatened violence — all against a political opponent whose wrongdoings, while serious, are of somewhat dubious verifiability, nowhere near the egregiously oppresive kleptocratic tyranny of the Marcos regime.
This might be a good time to hark back to the Open Letter to Trillanes, a.k.a. “We’re not, like, tanga naman.”
More info: Manila Metroblogging, Inquirer, ABS-CBN News, Kelvin Lee, Underside, Amee.
You can also view the rebel soldiers’ website (if its limited bandwidth on free hosting lets you) and get news via free streaming Filipino radio stations.
At the time of this writing, Arroyo’s troops have begun raiding Peninsula Hotel with gunfire, but it’s almost 4AM here in DC and I need to get some sleep. Let me know how it goes.
Update: Gloria smacks down another Trillanes mutiny attempt, then proceeds to systematically squander the political capital gained from this victory by arresting journalists covering the spectacle and establishing a seemingly-draconian but actually pretty ham-fisted curfew over the area, probably to try and quell Friday’s planned protests.
(Mall explosions, congress bombings, multiple typhoons, an earthquake, and now this new coup attempt. I can’t wait to visit again!)
The text message from Mom came around 11:30pm: We just had a strong earthquake here in Makati. I checked the USGS Latest Earthquakes Map and list and found that preliminary data for the quake was already available in an event report: Magnitude 5.8 – LUZON, PHILIPPINES, 2007 November 27 04:27:00 UTC. The reported magnitude jumped to 6.0 once before settling back to 5.8, but the epicenter stayed pretty set in Pangasinan, about 50 km west of Dagupan. The PHIVOLCS earthquake report has the epicenter further west, off the coast, with the Manila Trench as a possible source.
Internet people in the Philippines were still online on various messaging systems, so obviously the quake hadn’t knocked out power. I sent a few friends the info, then leaned back and marveled at the wonders of this age; that I could get earthquake data from monitoring stations around the world scarce minutes after the event, from federal government scientific services freely and instantly available to me on the web and paid for by my own taxes. Thanks, USGS!
Fortunately, no one seems to have been injured. More on the earthquake from Manila Metroblogging, Inquirer, and GMA News.