The Midnight Sun

It's one thing to know a fact. Sometimes, it's quite different to experience it.

Matt has just returned from Canada. He told a story about the first morning up there. He woke up to bright sunshine from outside. Looking over, he saw his friend Clifford sitting up on his sleeping bag with a confused look on his face. Clifford was staring at his watch. When Matt asked what was wrong, Clifford said something must be wrong with his watch, since it was indicating barely 5:00am, and it was light outside. As Matt and Clifford talked about it, one of the other guys on the trip (who had been up there on past trips) piped up and said, "Hey, guys! You're in Canada! It gets light early up here. Go back to sleep!"

I remember Vicki (a friend who lives in Anchorage) talking about playing ball games well into the late hours during the summer, since the sun doesn't go down until late. It makes sense, and I know how it happens, but it's still a jolt to really LOOK at the numbers. So, here are some sunrise/sunset times from yesterday, June 21:

Anchorage: Sunrise - 4:22am. Sunset - 11:43pm. That means that (if it's fairly clear) it won't get dark until well after midnight! But hold on, it gets more interesting ...

Fairbanks: Sunrise - 2:59am. Sunset - 12:48am. That's having the sun above the horizon for 21 hours and 49 minutes every day!

The real shocker was looking up the numbers for Barrow: Sunrise: None. Sunset: None. Daylight: 24 hours, 00 minutes. And, tacked onto the bottom of the climate report in a most matter-of-fact manner was this little note: "The next sunset is August 3rd."

(Just for the record, all times are from the National Weather Service's daily climate reports.)

Is "Bill Me Later" Safer Than Credit?

A little note appears on the sidebar of page 26 of Money magazine's July 2007 issue.

Apparently some websites have started offering a "Bill Me Later" option for those who don't want to put their credit card info online. The problem is that unless you read the fine print, you may not know that you're actually applying for a revolving line of credit when you select this option. This line of credit has an interest rate of 19.99% and late fees of up to $39.

To top it all off, less than 1% of ID theft cases begin with online transactions. Credit cards are also protected from fraud. But 8% of ID theft cases begin with stolen paper mail!

Asking for "Bill Me Later" really doesn't protect a thing, and could cost you big bucks.

"Let's be careful out there."

Stupidest Bumper Stickers

Here are my nominations for the stupidest bumper stickers, along with my comments.

"You cannot simultaneously prepare for war and prevent it." Actually, any country which values it's freedoms MUST simultaneously prepare for war while working diligently to prevent it.

"If you can't trust me with a choice, how can you trust me with a child?" I'm sorry, but if your choice would be to destroy that child (born or unborn), we (as a society) cannot trust you with either the choice or the child, I'm afraid.

I'm sure there will be more. Stay tuned.

Gesundheit!

Am I the only person who objects to the practice of saying "Gesundheit!" or "Bless You!" when someone sneezes?

This common response to a sneeze is rooted in superstition. At one time, people believed that life was escaping through the nose, the soul was thrown out of the body during the sneeze and was susceptible to capture by Satan, or perhaps that the body was trying to cast off a demon in a sneeze. These ideas are patently absurd, and yet the blessing to ward off such events is still repeated.

Of the two, however, "Gesundheit" is marginally acceptable, since it translates more or less as "to your good health". Wishing someone who suffers from a cold or allergies "good health" is a pleasant thing to do, and I guess it doesn't matter that it's done in German.

But saying "Bless You!" after someone sneezes is just silly. Stop it!

The US minnows

An interesting take on the US Presidential campaign from the BBC:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6725393.stm

The Gravel road has some potholes ... or one big crackpot.

The new Gravel HQ is up and running in SL. Astro has been working hard, it's obvious. About the time the last HQ was taken down, he had me make a sign for "Mike ... on the 2nd Amendment". Of course, second amendment rights are important to me, so I stopped by the new HQ last night to get the scoop on Mike Gravel's stand on that topic. Here's the full text of the notecard that is dispensed:

==Senator Mike Gravel==
==On the Second Amendment==
* While Senator Gravel fully supports the 2nd Amendment, he believes that fundamental change must take place with regards to gun ownership.
** The senator advocates a licensing program where a potential gun owner must be licensed as well as properly trained with a firearm before they may own one.

I'm not sure how one reconciles "fully supports" with the restrictions in the second paragraph. Politicians don't seem to have trouble with obvious logical impossibilities, but I do. Especially when they're this obvious.

I want to ask the good people of Alaska where they dug up this loonie, but they would ask me where we got Mr. Brownback, and I don't have an answer.

Update: After doing some checking, I found out that the people of Alaska didn't raise this goofball, they failed to stop him at the border. Turns out he's from (yup, you guessed it) Massachusetts, and he moved to Alaska specifically to get himself elected to the US Senate. He's no longer an Alaskan, either. Once they kicked him out of office, he moved back to a place that suits him better ... Arlington County, Virginia.

Post on Mormon Coffee

Excellent post on the "Mormon Coffee" blog today, referencing an article in today's online version of Christianity Today.

Here's the link to the post, which contains a link to the article:
http://mormoncoffee.blogspot.com/2007/06/really-what-is-mormonism-most.html

Mitt Romney and I may disagree drastically theologically, but he's probably closer to my feelings politically, culturally, socially and values-wise than any other Presidential candidate out there. Those who might vote for someone else solely based on Mr. Romney's religious views, (or even worse follow Dr. Dobson in his attitude toward Rudy Giuliani and skip voting entirely) have automatically given impetus to people who want to take this country in a very, very bad direction.

I especially liked the quote from Marvin Olasky: "If he faces Hilary Clinton, I'll vote for him in a Utah minute."