links: AGW, Jayne Austen, Regdar, GOP self-destruction

Romney: I have great friends who are NASCAR team owners.

GOP fears it's 2012 or never, as demographics moves conservatives toward permanent minority?

Matt Taibbi views GOP primaries as their worst tendencies come to roost.

"The place where Canada figures most prominently into US history is as the ultimate destination of the Underground Railroad. Why does 1812 feature more prominently than that in Canadian patriotism?" http://www.filibustercartoons.com/index.php/2012/02/21/justins-least-favourite-pm/#comment-163151

Krugman latest reference post for the euro crisis.

Latest global warming data: 1998 is still warmest individual year, but otherwise the coldest year in the 2000s in on the order of the warmest years of the previous 20.

Huh, I don't remember when my mother told me Chicago had had a 70 degree December, to my shock. But it was while in San Francisco. 1999 could be a good candidate, and reflecting the 1998 heat. Not that local variations mean much.

Jayne Austen book and gun club. That's not a typo.

The failed attempt to wean D&D covers off of white males.

Life activity

Feb 17-19 I went to Boskone

Friday: Panels on how to read aloud (good), aristocrats in SF (good); filk
Saturday: Joan Slonczewski "hell in high school", creationism, meh for me, then short story writing, meh; hung out; character in hard SF, with a panelist who denies he writes it, meh, went to Song Sequitur instead, fun. Underpinnings (assumptions) of SF panel which was fun, with Jane Yolen, and an entertaining military guy, though he gushed about the Windup Girl. YA panel "why so dystopian?" Optimism and pessimism in SF, which I left early for food.

AWESOME FILK CONCERTS by S. J. Tucker and Heather Dale. Actually the proportion of songs which were outright filk wasn't that high. Still good songs, good singing, and good performances. Individually, then con highlight, then encore, and also a close-up one Sunday.

Boskone's warming up to costumes again.


Song circle Saturday, which was fun. Met an old cousin yesterday at the MFA, also fun, then went to the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA). Holy art Batman, it's huge! Also expensive, $22 to get in, though you get a second visit free. I spent the afternoon just trying to eyeball everything there, actually really using the place would take days.