Rain or shine: VOTE! If you don't, you could give the election away!!

Rain or cool weather means lower Democratic turnout.  Does this mean those without cars don’t show if the weather is not good.

"These findings significantly illuminate the theory in regards to voter turnout. In
particular, these results show that the primary exogenous mechanism through which
turnout affects elections is the composition effect. In other words, when turnout is
increased, newly mobilized voters are disproportionately Democratic.  Furthermore, these results illuminate a question that has been claimed to be unanswerable: If one could increase voter turnout, would it help Democrats? We find that the answer to this question is, resoundingly, yes.”

"The Joke Isn’t on the Democrats?  The Partisan Effects of Voter Turnout"
Alexander Kendall, Political Science, Stanford University
http://web.stanford.edu/class/polisci353/2004spring/reading/kendall_final.pdf

Storms have to start somewhere

Normally in Minnesota, if a thunderstorm develops we hear thunder in the west, we hear thunder overhead, and then we hear thunder to the east.  Saturday evening in Brimson, we heard thunder in the east without ever hearing it in the west or overhead.  In fact, as it was thundering to the east, I saw that the sky was blue to the west.

It was reminiscent of driving through wet pavement, then dry pavement, and then wet pavement again, all within a few minutes.

Or how about the exaggeration in comic books?  Donald Duck pays for a weather forecast and is told it will be clear.  Then his neighbor gets rain with neatly-cut half drops falling on the fence.  Or was it the other way around?  Probably something that would make Donald angry.

More on corporate bureaucracies

I don't write these little nasties because I think all large corporations are bad.  I write them because there are too many commentators who think all government is bad and all private enterprise is efficient.

Sorry, folks there are also efficient governments and inefficient corporations.  The determinant is not the organizational type, but management.  There are plenty of good managers in both government and corporations, and there are plenty of bad managers in both government and corporations.

Anybody who thinks otherwise doesn't read "Dilbert".  Scott Adams bases his characters on real-life people in his various corporate jobs.  See http://www.dilbert.com/about/.  I couldn't find it on his website, but I understand that he gets many contributions from readers about crazy situations that they have encountered.  I do know that I've seen Wally, the slacker, as a co-worker many times in large corporations.

Wow, that was a long introduction to a single minor observation.

I just paid my Verizon Wireless bill online.  At the top of the page is a weather report for Two Harbors MN.  I live in Duluth, a larger city about 25 minutes down the shore with quite different weather.  Several months ago I sent a comment to Verizon Wireless about this, and I received some waffling comment that really didn't bring about any change.

Feeling guilty about the weather

For three Saturdays in a row, rain has been predicted for Brimson from midweek on.  And every Saturday we've had either sunny weather or a mix of clouds and overcast.  We have been overjoyed as far as we were available to be outdoors most of the day.

Our joy is tempered by the concern that every day of drought increases the fire danger.

I thought on Saturday night that rain had started.  I saw some wet spots on a cart and felt a bit of precipitation on my arms.  Apparently it was only condensation because of the air cooling.

Today was another mixed sun and clouds day.  We got lots done.

The Weather Channel is predicting rain for Thursday and Friday for both Duluth and Brimson.  We don't look forward to the return of mosquitos, but they are better than a charred cabin and woods.

Bad news, good news!

The Weather Channel and others predicted rain for today.  But we had mostly blue skies today.  Instead of periodically sitting inside waiting for the weather to clear, we were out and about and chipped a humongous pile of brush.

No rain means that our well level will stay too low to be usable; we'll have to bring water from Duluth.  But because it is so dry there are fewer bugs.  I think we had one fly today in our cabin and zero bugs outside.

Climate change can mean more violent weather.  We had quite a few blowdowns this year.  But, given fallen tree tops and small trees blown over, we don't have to fell bigger trees for firewood.

When life gives your lemons, make lemonade.  But don't put too much sugar in the lemonade, you'll raise your cholesterol.

If you don't like the weather, wait five minutes

Because weather, in the sense of clouds and sunshine, is quite variable in Duluth and many other parts of Minnesota, many people joke about it with the title phrase.

On a larger scale, one can see this with the five-day forecasts. Three days out might be sunny and four days out might be snow. Then later three days out has rain and four days out is sunny. This happens because weather systems are chaotic; an upper wind can change direction pushing a weather system further north or further south, or speed it up or slow it down.

Even within a day's forecast, the weather can vary. The forecast may call for rain and the day starts sunny; carry your umbrella, the clouds haven't arrived yet. Conversely, the forecast may call for sunny and the day starts out overcast. Don't cancel your picnic; the skies will probably clear.

We had a sample of this for the last two days. Yesterday, Friday, was predicted to be sunny, and today was predicted to be rainy. When we stopped at Bixby's yesterday for coffee and our lunch for our cabin stay, the sky was gray, gray, gray. One of our friends kidded about the non-sunny day we had ahead of us. I retorted that it would change.

Sure enough, by noon it was sunny in Brimson. I was hauling some stuff down a trail and looked at the blue, blue sky through the notch in the trees. I almost stopped to take a picture to show our friend.

Today was predicted to be rainy, and it was. But not all day and when it did rain it wasn't heavy. We had many times with no rain or just a light mist. We wore rain jackets outside most of the time, but often they remained dry. On the other hand, we didn't notice the rain much until we looked at our jackets.

Surprisingly, we accomplished more today than we did yesterday, even recognizing we worked outside only in the afternoon yesterday, and both morning and afternoon today.

BTW, we do lots of work in brush and tree cutting, but we also take walks and just stand still enjoying being outdoors.

Or listening to or watching critters. I heard scratching on one of our sheds. Oh boy, has something gotten inside; I thought I had it squirrel-proofed. I walked over to the shed and a red squirrel was splayed out on the vertical service. As I approached, he spun around to face one way looking for escape. Then he spun around the other way. I clucked at him and he dashed down to the ground and ran around the shed. When I got back to the cabin, I heard him making his territorial chatter. So there, big guy!

Minnesota's erratic weather

Reflections on Duluth temperatures being in the 40s today

A long-standing joke about Minnesota weather is: "What do Minnesotans do in the summer? If it comes on the Fourth of July, they go on a picnic."

In the Twin Cities, I remember it being in the high nineties on Memorial Day and being cold and rainy for picnics in August. Almost three years ago to the day, I remember going out on our back porch in Duluth when it was 99 degrees. My arms immediately turned red and started oozing.

A week ago many people were outside in T-shirts. Today some people are wearing medium weight jackets.

It's so disappointingly cold that I have come up with a new greeting: "What did you do this summer?"