How time flies

I can't believe it's already been a week since last I touched my blog. [No wonder everyone stopped visiting last week. Looking at them reminded me a bit of the Doonesbury strips where Mike and his girlfriend started up their website, and watched traffic surge and plummet on a nearly second-by-second basis.]

So, let's play a bit of catch-up.

• Lines being drawn in the sand. Let's see. The Democrats have Bruce Springsteen, REM, Pearl Jam, and the Dave Matthews Band. Oh, and Rebecca Romijn-Stamos. [Extra bonus points for the last one.] It appears that the Republicans have: Brittany Spears, Alice Cooper, and Gene Simmons. Not much of a contest, guys. Sorry.
• Swift-boat idiots. I don't think I need to say anything more than the fine folks over at Pandagon have already said.
• Sign that your party might be in trouble. You're hosting a wine tasting--and there are more non-drinkers than oenophiles at the event.
• Tarnished gold? Regarding the Hamm controversy: I agree with those who think that if video replay is going to be used, you have to use it fairly. When I teach, my re-grade policy is that if you ask for a re-grade, I'm going to re-grade the problem. If you come up net positive, great. But if I catch a mistake that I missed the first time, I'm going to count it, one way or the other. So, if the net result was to show that Mr. Yang deserved the gold, after including both the higher start value and any uncaught penalties, great--give another gold medal. Otherwise, let the results stand.
• Huzzah, Part 1. A friend of mine reports that he can finally call himself a physicist now that he's been published in Physics Review Letters (aka PRL). Of course, does this make me some sort of mutant hybrid--half-physicist, half-engineer--for having an article published in Physical Review E?
• Huzzah, Part 2. In the universe's continuing quest to make my life as complicated as possible, I now have two job offers to deal with. [I'll get around to saying more about this at a later date.]

I suppose that's it for now. Somehow the snark seems to have been sucked out of me for the time being. But, I'll be back and up to my usual obnoxious self before not too long. . . .