Once again, I'm back to host our regular Sunday puzzle blogging series.  

For those of you participating, please remember the simple rules: don't post answers in subject lines.  Instead, post subjects such as "ACROSTIC 1,2,3" with the answers or suggestions included inside the subject.

I don't have much to say this week.  It's my first official week of being generally unemployed (not a surprise: I've known this was coming since mid-May) which is kind of surreal (not bad or good: just surreal).  This means more time to write puzzles, but also more time to figure out how I'm going to find a new source if income, so, good and bad :)

Puzzle #1 is an easy one, as shown in this photo:

I go through these days when I just can't think of anything particularly meaningful to post that hasn't been said already.  I'm into all the political stuff that's going on, and I'm reading, but my brain just can't think of anything relevant to add.  Sometimes, on days like this, I do photo diaries, usually of birds or of light drawings.

Today, I thought, maybe I should do something about butterflies.

I've just read two diaries up on the rec list right now that just, to me, seem absurd.

First, Angry Mouse extols Kos to do something to put an end to nasty comments about Russert:

These kinds of comments do not reflect the majority of Kossacks.  They are, instead, the crazed and ego-driven rantings of a few people who apparently derive sick satisfaction from the suffering, pain, and tragedy of others.  

While most Kossacks have been vigilant in hiding and condemning such comments, greater action seems appropriate at this point.  

It is time for Kos to put a stop to these people.  It is a poor reflection of this website; it is a poor reflection of this community; and it is a poor reflection of Kos.

In another diary, we've got Melody Townsel telling everyone to "Grow. The. F***. Up," which isn't as much of a problem for me, but I kind of feel like having two diaries up which complain about the behavior of Kossaks in the Russert threads is overkill.

I know I haven't been posting many puzzles lately; summer makes for different kind of brain space.  I have, however, found the time this week to come up with a new acrostic, along with a couple others.  

As usual, remember the simple rules: don't post answers in subject lines.  Instead, post subjects such as "*ACROSTIC 1,2,3*" with the answers or suggestions included inside the subject.

PUZZLE #1 is a simple trivia question, and I don't know the answer to it:

What kind of crab is this?  I spotted it in Wellfleet, MA, and don't know anything about crabs at all.  This may be incredibly easy or not so much so, but I think it's probably an easy one.

Below, I'll include the directions for the acrostics, as well as the other puzzles.

Note: the photos shown here are all clickable, and will bring you to larger versions

I wrote this in November of 2007.  It seems that given the way things are going, it's even more relevant now than it was then.  There's a lot I can add to the mix here: gas prices; the state budget cuts which are terminating my employment at the end of the month.  But really, it stands on its own and though the details may have changed a little, they're still the same basic idea.

Okay.

So.

Poverty.

Let me start by saying that, for a lot of people, it's going to get worse.

I don't mean it's going to get worse before it gets better.

I don't mean it's going to get worse unless we elect a Democratic president.

I mean it's going to get worse.

I'm not making a prediction here.

I'm just going with the odds.

What does this mean?

It's simple.

I've seen comments here and there about how so much of the party favors Clinton for the VP slot.  Some have even suggested that this is the first real test of Obama's leadership, such as illustrated here:

Early on in the debates, it was obvious that people wanted the Dream Ticket and that the two of them had a real chemistry.

Face it-- the Democratic Party is and always has been a house divided. Obama has a chance to show some real leadership here by bringing the party together.

I've seen similar arguments throughout the blogosphere and I think they're misguided.

crossposted to Birding New England

Located on Plum Island, MA, Parker River Wildlife Refuge is, by far, one of my favorite places to bird.  It's not just that there's a huge variety of birds, but that it's very uncommon to find nothing of interest during a visit and so many of the regulars who bird there are willing to share their information readily with other birders.

Take, for example, this american woodcock on her nest:



After the fold I'll be presenting a photojournal of various birds I've seen at Parker River, along with some of my favorite experiences there.

Please note: almost every photograph here is a clickable link to larger versions of the same photo, with details that often include type of camera, type of lens, settings, etc.

This isn't a confession.  I'm not ashamed of my choice and I'm not going to apologize for it.  But things have changed, and they've changed in ways that I don't know that I can fully articulate, though I think most of us know.  If I'd lived in a swing state, I probably would have voted for Gore, but in Vermont I had the luxury of making a protest vote.   The electoral college map wasn't going to change. Vermont was going to go for Gore no matter what I did.  If I'd lived in Florida, Ohio, New Mexico or New Hampshire, I would have voted for Gore.  I didn't have to make that choice.

After the fold, I'll talk a bit about the decision processes that go into this and why they're relevant to 2008.  For those of you in Vermont, the first few paragraphs will be familiar to you.  For those of you who don't, you'll learn some very strange things about the way we choose a governor.

Note: every photo on this page is a clickable link to a larger version of the photo

This week, we took a few days to do some birding in Maine, staying in Wells and visiting a few nearby areas.  Some of our best looks were at Warblers, like this Chestnut-sided warbler, but we also had great looks at some other birds, including two new life birds.  

After the fold, I'll include a trip report with lots of photo links.

I'm an Obama supporter (migrated from Edwards), but I can't help but have some real respect for Clinton in this race.  She's a fierce and powerful opponent and though she's by no means someone I wanted to be President, I understand why a lot of people were supporting her campaign and I have real respect for the intensity with which she ran her campaign, even if I didn't agree with the ethics of all her choices.

Indeed, Democrats can learn a lot from her willingness to fight, fight, fight and fight, without fear of the consequences.

I'd very much hoped, though, that Clinton would exit this race with some shred of dignity about her, some way to show that her supporters that their time and effort wasn't wasted, and something that gave them all a sense of closure.

That opportunity is now gone.

Clinic defense: it's getting up very early on Friday and Saturday mornings and driving to a clinic which performs abortions in order to help the women who are coming to them from medical care get into the clinic without having to deal with the harassment of anti-abortion protesters.

It's challenging work.  It requires you learn to focus on the clients and not react personally to anything the protesters say to you (gay-baiting, race-baiting, threats on your person, etc.).  

When you do clinic defense, you don't even refer to one another by name where it can be overheard because if they have your name, they make the attacks much more personal.

It was difficult work, but it was well worth it.  It taught me a lot about myself, about responding to personal attacks, and it taught me a bit about courage, too.

Chris Bowers reports that the new GOP slogan "The Change You Deserve" is a lot worse for them than you think it is:

Third, it was particularly brilliant to unveil a campaign slogan that is already copyrighted as an advertisement for an anti-depressant.

I don't feel a need to dwell on this.  It sort of speaks for itself on the pure irony level, plus it was discussed in a  front page diary yesterday.

Instead, let's focus on the other possible slogans the GOP could have picked.  ASD has a list of registered slogans that provide all sorts of alternate possibilities:

I like EMLA's "numbs the pain," because it accurately reflects the short-term effect of us all getting drunk and crying into our drinks should McCain win in November.

Back when I was supporting Edwards, one of my major concerns with Obama was in his support for "clean coal."  I wrote about it at the time, over at Green Mountain Daily.  Here's what I wrote:

There's a great diary over at MyDD which outlines some serious problems with an energy bill which is cosponsored by Obama.  The first is a bill to support liquid coal.  From the diary:

We don't know how to sequester mass quantities of carbon dioxide created during coal liquefaction yet. Even once we figure that process out--a solution that will no doubt reduce the net energy output of the coal to fuel process itself--we've still got a dirty fuel that increases greenhouse emissions compared to petroleum.

There's also a draft bill up for discussion that includes a provision which will screw us, as Vermonters, over, along with a lot of other states. 

If you study behavioral psychology, you'll learn about a concept called "the extinction burst."  

The specific example I use when I teach is this:

You've got a child who is throwing tantrums.  In the past, the tantrums have gotten the child attention, which is exactly what the child wants.  Therefore, you have been providing positive reinforcement to that child's behavior.  It's "positive" because you're adding something (attention), not because it's good.  It's "reinforcement" because it increases the behavior.

The much more effective approach to reducing tantrums is negative punishment.  "Negative" because you're removing something and "punishment" because it reduces the behavior.  When we talk about "punishment" in behavioral psychology we don't necessarily mean anything specific; it's just any act in a behavioral context which reduces the frequency of a given behavior.

But here's why many parents don't use negative punishment: the extinction burst.

I don't know if anyone else noticed this, but did you see the McCain numbers from last night?

Indiana:

McCain	   317,837   77%
Huckabee    41,018   10%
Paul	    31,481    8%
Romney	    19,480    5%

Yup.  That's right.  He's their nominee and yet still almost 1/4th of his party is opposing him.  In North Carolina it's even worse:

As a child, I had a dream that terrified me.  It was me, in a bubble, smiling and happy, an imbecile, without a care in the world.  This dream has stayed with me throughout my life.

It wasn't until close to a decade later that I realized that this was what a lot of people think of when they think of Heaven.  Personally, I've grown to think of heaven as something entirely different, but I've never known quite what that means.  Now I'm thinking that it's just a word without meaning; a nice story people tell one another to make their lives down here seem better.

For most of my life, I've consistently believed that it wasn't complicated to believe in science while still holding strong religious beliefs.

I'm not convinced that this is wrong, but I no longer hold it as being something so easy and comfortable to do.  

Don't get me wrong: I love the idea of religion.  I love the idea of afterlife.  I love the idea of having someplace to go when this world is done, or even the idea of returning to this world in a different form, of having a soul which continues on.  

But really, I just don't see it that way any longer.

I think I need to begin this with a story.

by I know there is talk here and there about an Obama/Clinton ticket being the perfect combination.  The problem is that while she brings strong demographic assets to the campaign, but also brings a major political liability to it, in the form of her husband.  

Bill Clinton has made this combination impossible.  It's not because of incidents like him ranting about Obama for 50 minutes or accusing Obama of playing the race card.

Any of those things, in fact, would prove irrelevant if not for one factor:

Absolutely no one can put any control whatsoever on him.  

Per Beta News:

A team of experts headed by security guru Ira Winkler was hired by an anonymous power company to test the security of a power grid's network. The door was practically held open for them.

In a matter of hours, the team infiltrated the grid's supervisory, control and data acquisition (SCADA) networks using simple phishing tools: social engineering and browser exploits.

What sort of special technology did these people use to get the necessary information?  They got employees to hand it to them.  Per Switched:

They relied on human nature to get initial access, finding the e-mail addresses of many of the plant's employees and sending them a supposedly corporate e-mail that indicated their worker benefits were being cut. They were directed to a URL to get more information. That URL was, of course, bogus and simply resulted in the installation of malicious software.