Category: News

Five and a half years ago, one of the biggest reasons I came to Stanford was that no other university has a band quite like ours. I grew up on their “Controversial Actions” Wikipedia page, and when I found out my HPAC had been one of the brides in the band’s infamous marriage gag at BYU, I gained an admiration for her that no transcript could ever provide. And although many of the Band’s actions may have been tasteless (see: Notre Dame, Oregon, USC), each has stemmed from a legitimate, socially conscious stance (opposing bigotry, environmental destruction and murder and excessive media attention).

It is thus with a huge amount of pride that, as of the ASU field shows, I am now a band writer. The Band comes up with the shows they want to perform, and writers come up with material to bridge the formations and inspire others.

I am also proud to say that I wrote much of this past weekend’s Girls Gone Wild show at USC. The show, which dug into sleazebag GGW founder and USC alum Joe Francis, included entirely factual lines like this:

“USC can’t take all the credit for the successes of its students. After all, it takes a special kind of man to be wanted for sexual harassment, drug trafficking, tax evasion, prostitution, child abuse and disruptive flatulence, but that’s just the kind of captain of industry Joe Francis is.”

But a few things led this show to draw attention across the Internet (Huffington Post, Twitter, etc.) and in our own administration. First of all, there was the fact that god-among-men Jim Harbaugh orchestrated an utter, 55-21 shaming of USC. Confused and distraught, several SC fans then complained about the Band show they booed through.

Their most frequent qualm was that the band formed a soap-on-a-rope in reference to Francis’s prison stays. While the Stanford athletic department approved this formation, during the show the complex arrangement got muddied, and USC fans misinterpreted it. As one USC fan tweeted: “Stanford marching band makes an ejaculating penis.” The Twitter name of that reliable witness? @emmadoes69.

I wish I were making that up. I also wish that her opinion hadn’t mattered, but the USC fans’ inaccurate, angry tweets, combined with their e-mails and phone calls (one man called in saying he somehow saw a formation where a father was having sex with his daughter), have forced our athletic department to pay heed.

I certainly do not envy our administrators who end up having to placate upset audience members any time the band does something offensive (which, if Band had its way, would be pretty often). At the same time, though, I wish they had said, “We truly are sorry you saw a penis (or a man having sex with his daughter)–while the formation was unclear, having talked to band members and seen the footage and formation charts, we trust that they did try to form a soap-on-a-rope.”

At the very least, I wish they had said, “Dudes. It wasn’t a penis. The band’s made penises before, and that was definitely not one.” Or even: “You know what? Joe Francis is, truthfully, kind of a douche. The band has every right to criticize him.” It’s frustrating seeing the representatives for our school having to bend over backward to apologize for things the band didn’t even do, when the majority of blogs, videos and comments on the Internet have been overwhelmingly supportive, often calling the show funny, timely and poignant.

Perhaps it would help if band supporters called in as often as its detractors. Maybe then we would be able to write the Big Game show we wanted to. Instead, we’ve had to remove cheap digs at Cal (example: that their hippies smell bad. It’s such an old, classic, harmless joke that I would be shocked if anyone still found it offensive), as well as our substantial jabs (we had a joke about their athletic department siphoning funds from their academic budget. Problematically, band sided with Cal’s furious professors).

It’s a shame because these cuts are unnecessary, but it’s even more disappointing because tomorrow is the most important Big Game in decades. If not even band can mock Cal for fear of upsetting their fans, who can?

That is, aside from the football team. I hope we go for two every chance we get.

Apart from the Band, one of the biggest reasons I came to Stanford was the rivalry; during Princeton’s admit weekend, I once asked my RoHo if they had one.  His response: “Well, Penn kinda thinks we’re rivals with them, but I mean, there’s just no way they’re on our level.”

The second we stop throwing mud is the second we cease to be rivals with Cal and start thinking we’re too good for them. Our rivalry is fun because in most ways, Stanford and Cal are pretty equal. They can handle jokes at their expense just as we should be able to tolerate ones at ours. It’s college. It’s fun. It’s necessary.

People love online video these days. In some cases, it has even begun to replace old-fashioned TV watching as users connect their PCs or web-enabled set-top boxes to their TV sets and get the best of both worlds. But it’s a tough world to make a living in for video sites, not only are they struggling to bring in revenue, they also have to keep content creators, aka TV networks, happy. Put all of these things together and you get another case where a video site cuts off access to a device and, surprisingly, this time it isn’t Hulu, it’s YouTube.

Starting with next month, users of a line of set-top boxes going by the name of Popcorn Hour are left without access to everyone’s favorite chat-video site in what the manufacturer, Syabas Technology, believes to be a somewhat arbitrary move. The company says that it had an agreement with YouTube to access the content through the API the video site offers and the devices have had YouTube videos for more than a year now. Syabas claims that YouTube has changed its Terms of Service (ToS), which it was in its rights to do, so that third-party manufacturers like itself are being blocked from accessing the videos, if they don’t pay up anyway.

YouTube wouldn’t comment on this particular case but has issued a statement that applies to it, “Since July of 2008, YouTube’s … (read more)

The Seattle Times Editorial Board penned a piece promoting the same outdated, irresponsible, and damaging neoliberal trade model that was at the center of protests that shut down the WTO almost ten years ago.  Seattle responded!  See the original editorial, with several responses from CAGJ members and allies, below.

While everyone is going agog over 3D technology, Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto once again goes against the flow. For him, not everything has to be in 3D…

Dark Void (PS3, Xbox 360, PC) may have been delayed by Capcom to 2010, but there’s no reason to delay even gameplay videos for it. And we have o…

Reports have been coming in that folks who purchased the God of War Collection on the PS3 have been experiencing freeze problems. Are you one of them?…

New Skeptics Circle is up at Beyond The Short Coat

Its simple but there is a lot of good reading in there! Include one from yours truly! Have a blast!

The next Skeptics Circle is right here at Effort Sisyphus!

UPDATE (December 1): I am afraid that I will be unavailable to work on this tomorrow. So I have to close this circle for submissions now. Sorry if you were trying to pop out one last entry, but have strength! The next circle is only 2 weeks away.

We’ve seen a few ridiculous cases whereby local governments claim copyright on a law, but it’s still stunning to see what’s going on in Liberia. Tom sends in the news that no one knows what the law covers in Liberia, because one man, leading a small group of lawyers, claims to hold the copyright on the laws of the country and won’t share them unless people (or, rather, the government of Liberia) is willing to pay. Oh, and did we mention that the US government paid for some of this?

The story is a bit convoluted, but apparently, Liberia hasn’t really had a full copy of its laws, as they were mixed and matched in “incomplete sets” throughout different libraries. A professor at Cornell had begun a (free) project to compile the country’s laws, but after he died, a group of lawyers in Liberia took over the project — and were given $400,000 by the US Justice Department. The lawyers then “numbered, bound, and indexed” all of the recent laws, and claim that because of that, they now own the copyright on it.

While perhaps copyright law is different in Liberia, most places have rejected “sweat of the brow” arguments for copyright. If you didn’t create the actual content, you’re not supposed to get the copyright. You don’t get a copyright just for compiling the work of others without adding anything new. If this lawyer wanted to get paid for the work, he should have negotiated that upfront. Instead, he’s holding the country’s laws hostage, and asking for $150,000 to $360,000 to turn them over to the government.

What’s really amazing is that this guy is currently serving as Liberia’s justice minister. The work he did on the laws happened before that, and he claims that he’d give up the laws for free, but that the other lawyers he worked with will not.

Perhaps Liberia should just start from scratch and create all new laws, wiping out the value of these particular locked up laws.

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Erik Estavillo is one avid gamer. So avid in fact, that he will not hesitate to take you to court if you get in the way of his pursuit of happiness wi…

This 2 part article offers 25 tips for Adobe Photoshop, carefully selected to give you increased efficiency and a set of timesaving techniques when using the program. With focus placed on practicality, this compilation delivers many of the overlooked- and little known tricks present in the most popular image manipulation tool.

1. The Quicker Way of Opening Documents

In Photoshop, you are not forced to rely on the upper menu bar to open documents. You can double click on the blank workspace and this action will pop the Open dialog up.

2. Scrub Opportunities

Many vital functions in Photoshop are controlled by sliders, like the opacity of Layers or the opacity of the Brush you are using. It is a little known fact that the majority of these sliders are adjustable by scrubbing the mouse over the name of the desired command.

3. Isolation by Visibility

To make one particular Layer visible and render all the other Layers temporarily invisible, hold down the Alt modifier key and click on the visibility toggle of the Layer you want to isolate. Repeat this action to toggle its function back and forth.

5. Image Size and Canvas Size

Ctrl + Alt + i invokes the Image Size dialog, while Ctrl + Alt + c invokes the Canvas Size dialog. Though Image- and Canvas Size values are intuitively related, they are practically separate from each other. You are free to place an image on the canvas if the image is bigger than the canvas and vice versa.

4. Creating Groups Using Selection Columns

To create a selection column of any number of Layers, first select a Layer to define the top of the selection column, then Shift + select a Layer to define the bottom of the selection column. You can go the other way, as well, defining the bottom first. This is an efficient method to declare elements of a Layer Group. To create the Layer Group itself, rely on the Ctrl + g hotkey combination with the selection column active, or you can select the Folder icon on the Layer Palette with the selection column active.

5. Efficient Layer Stacking

While creating the stacking order by drag and drop seems to be an intuitive method, it has disadvantages. If you grab a Layer and start to modify its position in the stack, you will not be able to evaluate the result until you release the Layer. Modifying its position in the stack with the hotkey combination Ctrl + Brackets gives you immediate feedback of every possible position. It also is a more fluent way of arranging Layers, as Photoshop tends to demand pixel precise accuracy if you want to place a Layer on the top of the stack manually. This becomes much easier with the hotkey combination. If you add the Shift modifier key to the Ctrl + Brackets command, then the Layer will jump right to the top or to the bottom, depending on the command.

6. Efficient Layer Cycling

The hotkey combination Alt + Brackets lets you select a Layer in the stack. If you want your fresh selection to include your previous selection(s), then add the Shift modifier key to the Alt + Brackets command. If you need to select all Layers with minimal effort, you can rely on the Ctrl + Alt + a hotkey combination.

7. Instant Fills

The Alt + Backspace hotkey combination fills the current Layer with the active Foreground color.

The Ctrl + Backspace hotkey combination fills the current Layer with the active Background color.

If you add the Shift modifier key, then the Fill will affect only the opaque pixels of the Layer. Shift + Backspace will bring up the Fill dialog panel.

8. Quick Access to Shadows and Highlights

The Dodge and Burn tools are excellent solutions for defining the shading extremes of any colored region. These tools do fall under the same category and are accessible by the hotkey o or by the hotkey combination Shift + o, depending on the last tool you have used from this category.

9. Creating New Layers

The Ctrl + Shift + n hotkey combination creates a new, empty Layer. The Ctrl + j hotkey combination duplicates the Layer which is currently selected.

10. Mask On

The hotkey d resets the Foreground color to Black and resets the Background color to White. This is useful when you want to paint Masks, as the White value will reveal the affected portions of the Mask, while the Black value will render those invisible.

11.  Revert Command

The hotkey F12 invokes the Revert command, which will discard all edits you have made since the last save. This is useful when you are unhappy with the current state of the document, as you would be forced to close- and open the document again without this function.

12. Selection Actions

Selecting portions of the image defines the regions you want to amend your edits on. There are selection related hotkeys that are worth knowing. Regardless if you are using the Rectangular Marquee Tool, the Lasso Tool or the Pen Tool to define your current selection region, the following hotkeys do apply. To add to a selection region, start a fresh selection with the Shift modifier key pressed. To subtract from a selection, rely on the Alt modifier key while drawing the selection. The modifier key combination Ctrl + Alt will pick up intersections between selection regions and will give you the intersection itself as a selection. As long as you keep the mouse button pressed while defining selection boundaries, you are free to position the center of the selection on the screen, using the Space modifier key.

Stay tuned for more, in part two!

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Dark Helmet alerts us to the news that our good friend Lily Allen is back in the news discussing file sharing again. Tragically, it does not appear that she’s used her “time off” to better understand copyright issues very much. Unlike nearly everyone else who complains about copyright infringement, she’s apparently “all for” infringing on her copyrights, just so long as you pay someone — even if it’s the guy on the street selling the counterfeit CDs. Seriously:

“If someone comes up with a burnt copy of my CD and offers it to you for £4 I haven’t a problem with that as long as the person buying it places some kind of value on my music.”

Yes, so while some musicians have said they’re fine with non-commercial file sharing, but are against anyone selling their unauthorized works, Ms. Allen seems to have taken the opposite approach. Counterfeit all you want, just as long as you profit from it. Yeah. Someone should explain to her the difference between price and value, and also the benefits of word of mouth marketing. But, it doesn’t seem like she’s much interested in actually understanding this stuff, so if you want to help her understand, maybe go set up a shop selling burned copies of her CDs, and see what happens.

Of course, if we take this seriously, it shows how little she’s thought this through. Her earlier complaint was that when people file share, they don’t provide money back to the artists and the labels. Of course, when counterfeiters are selling on the street, the same thing is true, but suddenly it’s okay? At what point does the world realize that Ms. Allen doesn’t know what she’s talking about?

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The big red VZW is going to be the first in the US to get the new Omnia2. The Omnia2 has been out around Europe for a while now, but it seems America is next on its tour bus to get a CDMA Omnia2 with its awesome features for a great price. VZW—America’s biggest network(3G,Subscribers)—will get the Omnia2 on December 2nd for a really great $200 price tag with a contract of course which is still about the best price.

This phone does not only look good, but the specifications are even better and it has something no other Windows Mobile phone has. This phone is special because it is the first AMOLED phone to ever run WM, for the people that do not know what that is, AMOLED is just the best period. The only problem is that it is still a resistive screen. The phone has an 8GB internal memory base, which makes it 1 hand over the HD2, but the screen is still 3.7inches so the HD2 wins.

This phone has some great things. VZW bands, 3.7inch WVGA AMOLED screen, 8GB internal memory, Wifi, Gps, Bluetooth, 800Mhz processor, and a pretty good 5MP camera. The phone will ship with 6.1, but shortly get a 6.5 upgrade.

I should be one of the first people getting one for a review and I will do some video—If I can—and I will compare it with the TP2, HD2, Droid1, Droid2, Imagio and maybe even the TG01 if it is out for VZW yet.

WM

Back in July, we wrote about how a company named Volomedia had gleefully announced that it had patented podcasting. The patent itself (7,568,213) seemed ridiculously broad, obvious and covered by prior art. On top of that, it was difficult to see how it passed the current (though, perhaps not for long) “Bilski” test for what can be patented.

It looks like the EFF has decided to be proactive about this and is looking for prior art with which to bust this particular patent. In the comments on our original post about this, reader Marcel de Jong, noted that Dave Winer described audio enclosures for RSS in a blog post in January of 2001 — nearly three years before this patent was filed. Hopefully that is rather compelling prior art, but if anyone has any more info, please send it over to the EFF.

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The blog reviewed here is ‘We’re Only Human‘ by Wray Herbert.

Appearance and Design

At the time of writing on the left hand side of the title pane the initials APS and the words ‘Association for Psychological Science’ appear while to the right is the title – ‘We’re Only Human’. The APS initials appear at the bottom of the screen also. However I wasn’t able to find an about section. A quick google search reveals a bio on Wray Herbert who is described as having 25 years experience in writing about science and medicine and writes in a number of prestigious publications. On the right hand pane there is a link to podcasts which leads through to a website for the Association for Psychological Science. The right hand pane also contains links to past months in the archives as well as links to previous posts and an RSS feed. The background for the site is dark red, with the articles containing black text on a beige background and a brown paint-like theme running in horizontal and vertical strips across this background.

Content

Herbert writes about articles that appear in the journal Psychological Science and effectively weaves them into a narrative through devices such as the personal anecdote and the discussion of popular films. The articles typically are a few paragraphs long and summarise the material in an easily ‘digestible’ form. Herbert also covers evolutionary psychology in a number of articles also.

• The blog starts in May 2006 with an article on crossword puzzles and Herbert interprets an imaging study with altered activity in the visual and temporal cortices during task completion. There were a number of articles that I found interesting
• This article discusses research suggesting some characteristics of eye gaze in a sample of older adults and the suggestion that gaze can be a means for regulating emotions
• This article looks at a study examining the performance of autistic children and adults on cognitive tasks in comparison with a control group
• This article looks at a study examining the effects of loneliness in young and older adults
• An article on a study showing a link between the readability of instructions for exercise and the likelihood of carrying out exercise in a student population
• An article on the possible evolutionary benefits of positive emotions
• An article on research into different patterns of  internet use in adolescents with different health effects
• An article on a study looking at the relationship between walking backwards and vigilance!
• An article on a study looking at meaning making and Kafka

Conclusions

The blog is an accessible means for keeping a finger on the pulse of some of the psychology research that is coming out and which features in the journal ‘Psychological Science’. The research is varied and the articles effectively convey the meaning of the research.

Twitter

You can follow ‘The Amazing World of Psychiatry’ Twitter by clicking on this link

Podcast

You can listen to this post on Odiogo by clicking on this link (there may be a small delay between publishing of the blog article and the availability of the podcast).

TAWOP Channel

You can follow the TAWOP Channel on YouTube by clicking on this link

Responses

If you have any comments, you can leave them below or alternatively e-mail [email protected]

Disclaimer

The comments made here represent the opinions of the author and do not represent the profession or any body/organisation. The comments made here are not meant as a source of medical advice and those seeking medical advice are advised to consult with their own doctor. The author is not responsible for the contents of any external sites that are linked to in this blog.

I’m wondering if there’s more to this, because it seems rather “un-Google-like.” The makers of a set top box that can display internet content are complaining that Google is blocking them from displaying YouTube content, unless they agree to “partner” and commit to buying lots of ads (the amount is in dispute). If this sounds quite a bit like the ongoing battle between Hulu and Boxee, you might be right. However, in that case, at least you could sort of understand the (misguided) thinking behind it, since Hulu is owned by the colossally short-sighted content companies. But what’s Google’s excuse? If all these set top boxes are really doing is accessing free internet content and formatting it better for a TV, why stop it? They’re really no different than accessing content via a computer and a browser — it’s just that the “computer” is a set top box and the “browser” is formatted for a television. That shouldn’t require a special agreement, or any sort of ad buy commitment. Update: Received a confused and angry email from YouTube PR linking us to the very Wired article we linked to and demanding we add their PR statement (which is already in the Wired article). However, it does not actually answer the questions raised or change the point of this post. The fact that YouTube restricts set tops from accessing the content still does not make sense.

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Filed under: Coupe, Performance, Dodge, Police/Emergency

We like police cars. Seriously. Just not when they’re filling our rearview mirrors, blue-and-reds ablaze. Then, our fanboy status diminishes markedly. In the meantime, however, we get pretty jazzed when a department does something a little different and cool. This week’s example comes from the Broward County Sheriff’s office, which appears to have added a fully-marked Dodge Challenger R/T to its fleet. Decked out in the BSO’s familiar green-and-white livery, the muscular Mopar looks like it means business, ready to take down speeders and bust up meth labs with aplomb. We totally want to see it in person the next time we’re down in South Florida — just under our own, friendly terms. Thanks for the tip, Lee!

[Source: Law Officer Connect]

Pull Over: Broward County Sheriff gets a full-dress Challenger R/T originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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At the request of a few, I’ve filmed the landscape and portrait QWERTY keyboards.

This feels like a very good set of keyboards so far, so it may even be a decent upgrade from the Touch Pro or older keyboarded devices…

If there’s anything else you want filmed, let me know!

Thanks to Clove and WMPowerUser.com for the device.

Sherwin Siy (one of the few people who actually was allowed to glance briefly at parts of the proposed ACTA treaty, though under strict NDA) has written about yet another letter sent by the entertainment industry to the government in support of ACTA. This letter includes pretty much everyone who benefits from abusing copyright laws and is afraid of the internet:

Advertising Photographers of America
American Association of Independent Music (A2IM)
American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA)
American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP)
American Society of Media Photographers, Inc. (ASMP)
Association of American Publishers (AAP)
Broadcast Music, Inc (BMI)
Commercial Photographers International
Directors Guild of America (DGA)
Evidence Photographers International Council
Independent Film and Television Alliance (IFTA)
International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE)
Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. (MPAA)
National Music Publishers Association (NMPA)
NBC Universal
News Corporation
Picture Archive Council of America (PACA)
Professional Photographers of America (PPA)
Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)
Reed Elsevier Inc.
Society of Sport & Event Photographers
Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA)
Stock Artists Alliance
Student Photographic Society
The Advertising Photographers of America
The Walt Disney Company
Time Warner, Inc.
Universal Music Group
Viacom Inc.
Warner Music Group

Funny… isn’t it, that all these companies and industry groups are supporting a deal that no one’s seen yet? Oh wait… that’s because many of them have seen it and actually have had a hand in creating it. But what’s really damning is that no where in the letter do they explain why this is actually needed or how it will do anything valuable. Instead, it’s a pure faith-based letter saying “if you pass this secret treaty, good things will happen.” I don’t know about you, but generally, I prefer there to be actual proof and evidence that restricting consumer rights around the world actually leads to some sort of real benefit.

Tellingly, they don’t respond to any of the points we raised earlier. This is not a treaty to help people or the economy. It’s a deal to try to sneak through a system for propping up an obsolete business model by companies who don’t want to adapt.

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“There is definitely a shortage of pumpkins and it’s really due to a smaller yield this year. The pumpkin yield nationwide was down 70 percent, so that’s a huge reduction in what we’re used to,” said Vivian King of Roundy’s Supermarkets.

This is potentially bad news for pumpkin pie lovers like Pat Moore. Moore said that he just had pumpkin pie at his niece’s birthday and will be disappointed if the shortage prevents him from having more.

“We like pumpkin pie and everyone was commenting on how delicious it was, so it would be missed if there’s a shortage,” Moore said.

– WISN News, Milwaukee, “Bad Pumpkin Harvest Could Affect Thanksgiving Dessert Plans”

Sweet Jesus. Hide your children. Lock the door. Good. Now lock it again. If Pat Moore smells pumpkin anywhere near your family, he will eat them.

I don’t mean to be an alarmist, but I used to work with Pat Moore. He had the cubicle next to mine. Seemed like nice enough guy, into golf and boats, that sort of thing. We used to take smoke breaks together. But one time, I remember, we walked down to Roundy’s to pick up a pack of cigs, and while we’re walking through the store, Pat stops dead in his tracks and just stares at this bin of pumpkins. His eyes go all googly and he starts muttering to himself. Something about ample harvests, sweet round lovelies, and then all of a sudden he raises his arms and screams, “All my crusts shall be filled!”

I didn’t think anything of it at the time. Someone’s always flipping out at Roundy’s. It’s just that kind of place. Besides, Pat seemed totally normal otherwise.

The next year Pat’s wife left him right at the end of October. So we decided to invite him over to our place for Thanksgiving, you know, to cheer him up.  We figured if he got a load of my family, then he might not mind being divorced and completely alone.

Now, this was back in ’02, year of the Great Pumpkin Famine. As you well remember, it devastated everyone’s dessert plans. The cans of filling disappeared from store shelves in September. The pumpkin bin at Roundy’s stayed empty through October. Many pumpkin farmers jumped out their windows. Fortunately, most of them lived in ranch-style homes. But their state of desperation was not lost on us. Come the week of Thanksgiving we thought long and hard about how we were going to get by. We had heard reports of people making pie with nettles and shoe leather. My Estonian barber told me he had fought the Soviets for fifteen years in the Baltic forests subsisting solely on salted dog turds, which, he assured me, tasted just like pumpkin pie.  But we swallowed our dignity and settled for blueberry filling. Sometimes we must be thankful for very little.

The day of Thanksgiving, my extended family rolled in. I say rolled because my Aunt Blanche, in the years prior to her stomach stapling, had to be wheeled in on a dolly, while cousin Elmer had taken to wearing roller skates to family events ever since his head injury. Uncle Poot arrived true to form, farting the national anthem and in his customary overalls whose baggy depths concealed loaded firearms.

Then Pat Moore showed up.  He had a crazed look. He said he had just come from his niece’s birthday. “Guess what? They had pie there. It was pumpkin pie. I ate it. Little girls don’t deserve pumpkin pie. Pat Moore deserves pumpkin pie. We will be very disappointed if something prevents us from having more pie.”

Sure, I was a little unnerved, but I felt sorry for the guy. Everyone was hard hit by the pumpkin famine, I told him. It was only natural to be upset. And here I gently inserted that this Thanksgiving, given such dire circumstances, we would be concluding the meal with blueberry pie.

At that moment I saw the switch flip in Pat Moore.

We tried to proceed with the meal like everything was normal. But Pat just stared at his plate. Not even Uncle Poot’s racist jokes could trigger a reaction. Cousin Elmer, oblivious to the tension, chirped: “Hey, Pat doesn’t eat turkey. Just like Elmer. Elmer only eats ham!” Pat slowly looked up, his eyes swelling as they took in cousin Elmer’s orange protective helmet. “Pumpkin?” Pat intoned, raising his finger to Elmer’s head. “Pumpkin.” And with that, he dove across the table and, with a gruesome efficiency, tore poor cousin Elmer’s head clean from its shoulders and devoured it whole. By the time Uncle Poot had fetched his gun from his overalls, Pat Moore was gone.

In the days following Thanksgiving, brigands could be seen roaming the suburbs. Looting the wilting jack-o-lanterns from their neighbors’ doorsteps, lopping the hands off homeowners clinging to their gourds, plundering autumnal cornucopias in window displays, the pumpkin gangs ravaged the Midwest on their campaign of terror. Their leader: a man named Pat Moore, a savage man, a man like you and me, a lover of pumpkin pie. Give thanks that he doesn’t find you.

If you have tips on the the location of Pat Moore and his Thanksgiving marauders, write to P.G. at [email protected]

Coal exports are the heroin trade of the carbon world – the fossil fuel that James Hansen and others tell us we have to stop using urgently if we’re to have any chance of avoiding catastrophic climate change.

I’ve been in Australia this week, and a friend briefed me on this amusing story: Newcastle in Australia handles more coal exports than any other port in the world. A $900 million project to develop an existing coal loading facility into the world’s largest facility was approved in 2007 in the face of an extended community campaign against it by climate change groups.

A few months ago the consortium developing the project quietly applied for a variation to their planning consent – to raise the height of the whole island two metres. Why? to protect it against sea level rises expected as a result of climate change.

There is a delicious irony in there.