RiverViewer

Turkish coffee, hands down. After dinner, no doubt. First thing in the morning? Too hard to find, and too small a quantity...but you're right, that stuff rocks out.

^Is it exploiting someone to pay them $10/hour? How do you figure that?

Very cool - it's the the picture's a rolled out circle, going from light at the top, through some colors, to a light blue, then a darker blue in the distance, back to light in the foreground...lots of movement...very nice!

I prefer mud...Indonesian mud...

Regarding the local coffee rant - I've seen the same thing here...when I lived on Ludlow and didn't have time to brew a pot, I'd go to Sitwells for my fix. I'd take my 20 oz mug in and ask to get it filled up. Nothing difficult here - I wasn't asking for it to be pre-warmed, didn't need any cream or sugar, just a cup of joe in my mug. And they never charged the same price twice. A medium coffee there was maybe $1.50, large coffee maybe $2.00...once they charged me $1.50 (girl behind the counter probably wouldn't have bothered charging me at all, but figured she ought to), once $2.00, then the last time I went in the counter person asked the owner, "how much for this?" She said $3.50. I said "what? $3.50? For a 20 oz mug?" She said it was 32 oz. I thought, "why in the hell am I having this conversation with a frickin' coffee shop?" I said, "er, you can see the marking here, it says, '20 oz.' And the last time I was here it was $2.00." And she said they undercharged me the last time, but fine, how about $3. $3, for 20oz of coffee, in my own mug. So I've never stepped foot in there again. I love local businesses, do what I can to support them, but fuck those people. I'll go without coffee before I'll give them any damn money.

Great - thanks for posting them - keep 'em coming! Nicely done...

A 2 da K - I'd guess the dude was looking to take a dump, but couldn't do it with someone else in the room...

^I misread your line as "They talk different, act different, park different" and thought that was absolutely hilarious...

^Amen. Though I would add a third issue, which is really the only one that concerns me - security. I think the economy will be fine, will absorb whatever, and that folks will assimilate and make this a richer America - I just don't think having a wide-open border is wise in the world today. But definitely, not only so what if the face of America changes - I hope it does change, and continues to, because we've never had anything but greater cultural richness from any group that's come here.

Yeah, that could get misinterpreted... Say, any idea what this is? I'm assuming a mosque, but anyone know the name or anything?

That's Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel theory. Basically, the idea is that because Eurasia (including Northern Africa, Southern Europe, the Middle East and on to India and China) is aligned along a horizontal axis, that plants and animals and eventually farming techniques that developed in one area could be exported all along that axis. That meant things like, nine of the ten major domesticable animals were indiginous to Eurasia, and farming ideas that developed in the fertile crescent or in Africa could spread relatively easily. But meanwhile, over here in the Americas, the contiguous land mass is aligned along a vertical axis. That means we have climates ranging from polar, to equatorial, then back to polar. You find yourself a grain, such as corn, that works in the temperate regions of North America, and try to spread that south, and you'll have to contend with vastly different lengths of day, different lengths of growing seasons, different climates, and, in addition, one tiny little funnel in Panama to transfer everything through. All of this meant that the successful species of plants and animals, and later successful farming techniques, would all be largely localized - it was like having a series of islands over here, vs. having one long, contiguous land mass in Eurasia. And the better your farming and animal keeping, the more folks you can feed from one person's work - if one person's work can feed two families, then half the people can do things other than farm. Farming and keeping livestock allows much more human density than hunting and gathering, and you can support churches, governments, builders, soldiers, etc. And eventually develop trade with other groups, develop technology (which can spread effectively to other groups), etc. And by living in greater density, viruses can spread much more effectively. The more folks who die from viruses, the more opportunity there is for those who have immunities from those viruses to reproduce. Over time, just to have been born meant your ancestors were better able to handle viruses over the long haul. And thus, when the Conquistadors landed in Aztec Mexico, his civilization had spent more than 10,000 years farming, growing livestock, living in cities, developing technology, living with (and carrying) viruses, etc. They were connected with a human population that numbered in the hundreds of millions. They had guns, germs and steel. The Aztecs, who had an incredible civilization themselves, had only been at it for what, 500, 1000 years or so? And they were connected with a human population that numbered probably in the hundreds of thousands (I'm guessing - that sound about right?) It's a very interesting theory. I don't believe that everything worked out as neatly and smoothly as he depicts in his book, and I've read a few critiques of it, but I'm sure to a large extent it's accurate. I've never done more than just scratch the surface of the debate, though, so I can't do justice to the counter-arguments. But I'll poke around and see if something pops up.

Definitely a job well done. I got there during the 2nd to last prelude piece - what was that? It seemed a bit...well, I guess I didn't understand why it was chosen. But I wasn't there when it was introduced, so I was wondering what it was. You guys were just reading that stuff down that day? Then that's an even better job than I thought! Thank you very much for participating - it made a beautiful ceremony that much better! If you didn't pull down the video of the flag raising, it includes the first two lines of the Star Spangled Banner (up to just before "and the rocket's red glare") (and it's got a kick-ass bird chirping his head off!) - brings chills, hearing those chords cascade over each other, with the flag going up fast then dropping slowly to half-mast...

That's a great story, great news. Anyone have pictures of the now-cleaned-up cemetery? I should go take some shots myself...

^Indeed... There's tons and tons of stuff I'm completely clueless about. I just like to read about odd stuff for no particular reasons, and eventually some of that stuff comes up, that's all.

^But don't you see, that makes my penis larger than others' penises.

Looks like 27,327 for UC's main campus. http://www.uscollegesearch.org/university-of-cincinnatimain-campus.html

Wow...nothing like a ColDay thread to make you realize how much you need to visit somewhere...

Wow...go Ohio! Can't be many states that beat that...

UC has colleges of pharmacy, medicine, law and business as well...is having all those schools infrequent in larger universities?

Yeah, that's all they were announced as. If you were asking which Bearcat band it was, I couldn't tell you. Well, I could tell you they weren't CCM'ers - it was a little rough in places. But perfect for the occasion.

The next world war (God forbid) will be fought over water. Whoever has the freshwater resources will have incredible power. You've said this before, but I'm not convinced. Desalination is expensive, but not that expensive. It's pretty common already and becoming more so. You can read up on it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desalination Could water resource needs be the cause of a war? No doubt. But a world war? Not unless the world economy and energy supplies tanked first - in which case, it wouldn't be water that caused the war...

Just look at the GDP of America compared to India, and you'll see their recent sucess isn't enough to take the country out of mass poverty and hunger. No doubt - but the counter-argument is to append one word to your last sentence: "yet." And to observe how much progress has been made.

They have infrastructure and stability, and they've had it for a while now. One can't just invent a fully-formed middle class out of aid and policy - they can just provide a stable environment in which private investment can work. And private investment isn't going to go to a country for computer programming and skilled machining when the skills aren't there. Step 1: unskilled labor, build infrastructure and a trained workforce; Step 2: semi-skilled labor, more infrastructure, more education, more training. In a few generations of relative stability, any country and any people can grow into a first world economy. They'll never do it with direct aid, but only with growing an economy, starting with what they can do and growing into what they will be able to do later. At least, that's a different point of view. Is it right? Hell if I know...and is the motivation behind the first world exploitation or growing economies? Depends who you ask. But yes, there most certainly is another side to the argument. There are probably dozens of them.

^^Or you could answer it by saying that the path to a middle class and emergence from famine and hunger is via capitalism - first working for the first world, and then growing the economy. Like India, a former sweatshop capital, and today with growing opportunities for individuals. Or China.

Well, the Hamilton County parks have an admission fee - something like $3/car per season. But yeah, that's pretty nominal.