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Feb. 5th, 2012 04:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwydion* Nevada caucus results, unofficial figures available when I wrote this: Romney 42-3%, Gingrich 26%, Paul 18%, santorum 13%. Yes, santorunm is in the rear, as he should be.
* It looks like the Las Vegas caucus was a mess: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/02/05/troubles-abound-at-special-las-vegas-caucus/
* 86% of Romney Superpac donations are a 100 thousand dollars or over. Citizens United has taken a corrupt system and making it so tragically I have no faith it can ever be fixed.
* This North Korea update is very late, as I am that behind: http://greenwick.livejournal.com/86833.html
* Experimental pie was at least three sections too many, so I'm back to tinkering with the cupcakes. This time I went all sencha, put the lavender directly in the batter, added waaaay more orange zest and some lemon zest, and tried almond extract. I also toned down the cardamom a little, as I used a lot last time. If I'm going to keep doing this I need to get more cupcake pans. I think I like the almond in there, but I used to much and I need to bring the cardamom back up a little. I suspect I put rather too much lavender in instead of not enough like last time. It's still delicious, but I haven't quite reached the fantasy cupcakes I'm aiming for. Tinker, tinker, tinker.
* Rm found. This is spoilery for plot somewhere between now and where I am in Glee. It's called "Santana vs It Gets Better" and speaks to a bunch of issues that have been under discussion outside the Glee fandom world. I particularly like the ways it talks about how not everyone in queerdom has the same story or needs: http://www.gaelick.com/2011/12/glee-santana-vs-it-gets-better/20041/
* I'm having a hard time following the 3rd Doctor's "The Ambassadors of Death," as it only survives as a bad black and white videotape copy that was part of US distribution and the sound is often really bad, to the point I have trouble parsing, even with the TV at full volume. I have no memory of this plot and I suspect I may never have seen it before. It's exciting and frustrating all at once. You can kind of tell they wrote the script for Trautman and then retrofitted it. (Not a job I'd fancy. Pertwee's got a new companion plus the Brigadier and Unit. The original was far future with Jamie and Zoe. Pertwee's Doctor is very different from Trautman's, so heaven knows what they had to do to make that work dialog and characterization wise. Trautman was doing this fae, unreliable thing where he'd fain hysteria and foolishness to trick the villain. Pertwee was doing an "international man of mystery" sort of thing). It's hard to explain exactly why it feels not quite right. It's like the tone and pacing are subtly off, like bits were cut out and replaced with long sequences that don't really add to the whole. On top of these problems, the drastic budget cuts between Trautman and Pertwee (which also led to the Doctor being stranded on earth for a large part of the Pertwee run) mean even by BBC in the 1960's standards, what few effects their are are rather embarrassing. I blame the honchos at the BBC at the time, not the poor bastards trying to make due with what they hsd, but it makes it a little hard to watch. Anyway, I'm very grateful this run was rescued and is no longer amoung the lost, but it's not the best of Pertwee, in case y'all were curious.
* I nearly caught up on lj, last Sunday, but between the physical stress, illness, and sensory overload, I'm drastically behind again. If it's important, PM or email.
* In anticipation of what I expect will be another wave of folks quitting lj, I'd like to mention again that I'm Gwydion on Dreamwidth. If I haven't friended you, give me a heads up: http://gwydion.dreamwidth.org/
* I managed to hook poor Squirrel on the Newsflesh series. Does this make me evil?
* So true: http://thedevilspanties.com/archives/6335
* Chris Hayes talks about how fucked up our prison system is with heartbreaking stats. This is what I've been on about. He starts out talking about Romney, as an intro, but follow the argument about power, politics, prisons, and poverty. It's worth it. There is a pretty good discussion with the author of The New Jim Crow touching on systemic classism and racism and the viscous cycle at the show's site if you are interested as well. I really need to read Michelle Alexander's book, it looks like as she gets into things like macro economics and the way they effected crime figures in the 60's and 70's, and the connection between Reagan's racist Southern Strategy and the "War on Drugs." (http://upwithchrishayes.msnbc.msn.com/ Saturday's show). It's a lot of segments and too long to embed here. Anyway, the intro:
* It looks like the Las Vegas caucus was a mess: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/02/05/troubles-abound-at-special-las-vegas-caucus/
* 86% of Romney Superpac donations are a 100 thousand dollars or over. Citizens United has taken a corrupt system and making it so tragically I have no faith it can ever be fixed.
* This North Korea update is very late, as I am that behind: http://greenwick.livejournal.com/86833.html
* Experimental pie was at least three sections too many, so I'm back to tinkering with the cupcakes. This time I went all sencha, put the lavender directly in the batter, added waaaay more orange zest and some lemon zest, and tried almond extract. I also toned down the cardamom a little, as I used a lot last time. If I'm going to keep doing this I need to get more cupcake pans. I think I like the almond in there, but I used to much and I need to bring the cardamom back up a little. I suspect I put rather too much lavender in instead of not enough like last time. It's still delicious, but I haven't quite reached the fantasy cupcakes I'm aiming for. Tinker, tinker, tinker.
* Rm found. This is spoilery for plot somewhere between now and where I am in Glee. It's called "Santana vs It Gets Better" and speaks to a bunch of issues that have been under discussion outside the Glee fandom world. I particularly like the ways it talks about how not everyone in queerdom has the same story or needs: http://www.gaelick.com/2011/12/glee-santana-vs-it-gets-better/20041/
* I'm having a hard time following the 3rd Doctor's "The Ambassadors of Death," as it only survives as a bad black and white videotape copy that was part of US distribution and the sound is often really bad, to the point I have trouble parsing, even with the TV at full volume. I have no memory of this plot and I suspect I may never have seen it before. It's exciting and frustrating all at once. You can kind of tell they wrote the script for Trautman and then retrofitted it. (Not a job I'd fancy. Pertwee's got a new companion plus the Brigadier and Unit. The original was far future with Jamie and Zoe. Pertwee's Doctor is very different from Trautman's, so heaven knows what they had to do to make that work dialog and characterization wise. Trautman was doing this fae, unreliable thing where he'd fain hysteria and foolishness to trick the villain. Pertwee was doing an "international man of mystery" sort of thing). It's hard to explain exactly why it feels not quite right. It's like the tone and pacing are subtly off, like bits were cut out and replaced with long sequences that don't really add to the whole. On top of these problems, the drastic budget cuts between Trautman and Pertwee (which also led to the Doctor being stranded on earth for a large part of the Pertwee run) mean even by BBC in the 1960's standards, what few effects their are are rather embarrassing. I blame the honchos at the BBC at the time, not the poor bastards trying to make due with what they hsd, but it makes it a little hard to watch. Anyway, I'm very grateful this run was rescued and is no longer amoung the lost, but it's not the best of Pertwee, in case y'all were curious.
* I nearly caught up on lj, last Sunday, but between the physical stress, illness, and sensory overload, I'm drastically behind again. If it's important, PM or email.
* In anticipation of what I expect will be another wave of folks quitting lj, I'd like to mention again that I'm Gwydion on Dreamwidth. If I haven't friended you, give me a heads up: http://gwydion.dreamwidth.org/
* I managed to hook poor Squirrel on the Newsflesh series. Does this make me evil?
* So true: http://thedevilspanties.com/archives/6335
* Chris Hayes talks about how fucked up our prison system is with heartbreaking stats. This is what I've been on about. He starts out talking about Romney, as an intro, but follow the argument about power, politics, prisons, and poverty. It's worth it. There is a pretty good discussion with the author of The New Jim Crow touching on systemic classism and racism and the viscous cycle at the show's site if you are interested as well. I really need to read Michelle Alexander's book, it looks like as she gets into things like macro economics and the way they effected crime figures in the 60's and 70's, and the connection between Reagan's racist Southern Strategy and the "War on Drugs." (http://upwithchrishayes.msnbc.msn.com/ Saturday's show). It's a lot of segments and too long to embed here. Anyway, the intro:
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy