It can't possibly be the worst political analogy ever

(Yes, it's taken me two weeks and change to actually start blogging. I will write about grooves and how to get into them later.)

As I watch Mitt Romney's poll numbers slowly sag in New Hampshire under the weight of the rest of the Republican field finally waking up and starting to attack their main opponent instead of each other, driving his numbers into Huntsman and "undecided", I am reminded of the meteorological phenomenon of the "cap", or capping inversion.

Now, I am not a meteorologist, but I think I get the basics enough to allow me to explain my abused analogy. Usually, in the atmosphere, the air near the ground is warmer than the air above it due to radiant heating from the sun on the ground and all us little humans and our quaint cities. This in turn rises as thermal updrafts, and we get clouds, wind, areas of high and low pressure and all sorts of good things. However, if there is a layer of warmer air on top of the air on the ground, it can create a capping inversion and stop that convective effect, since the air on the ground can't punch through the warmer air above it. If you remember back when the air in LA was orange, it was because the hot and dry (and therefore less dense) desert air is occasionally forced up and over the mountains into the Los Angeles basin and just sits there, capping even the mighty convective inversion that LA creates and trapping the exhaust in the city.

In a city, it's bad for your lungs, but in Tornado Alley, it's bad for your house. A capping inversion in the Midwest, particularly during tornado season, usually consists of a layer of hot and dry air sitting on top of the warm, and more importantly, very moist air flowing in from the Gulf of Mexico, and underneath a layer of very cold and dry air flowing down from the Rocky Mountains. Usually, the layer from the Gulf of Mexico rises while the layer from the Rocky Mountains falls, they combine and form the big thunderstorms that the Midwest is known for, but if a capping inversion is present, nothing happens. Clear blue skies for miles and miles, unless the instability in the atmosphere is high enough. If those two layers are extra cold and warm, they can produce enough force to punch through the capping inversion, and then the two extremes mix and produce thunderstorms that practically explode into existence. The most powerful thunderstorms can be produced this way, and this is where my analogy begins.

Right now, we're seeing a lot of atmospheric instability in the Republican Party. Moderates and establishment Republicans see the public backlash against the Tea Party and the Republican actions in Congress to cause gridlock and force through a radical right-wing agenda that the public doesn't want, and are trying to rein in the GOP base; they are our cold, dry air, desperate to get back to ground level and refocus on classical Goldwater and Reagan conservatism. The base of the party, having been spoon-fed paranoid anti-Democrat and anti-progressive news and opinions for the last thirty years, now completely believes that the radical swing to the right and the political brinkmanship of the Tea Party and other far-right politicians is not only the right way to go, but the only truly Republican standpoint; they are our warm, moist air, loaded with energy and ready to start making big changes.

And here comes Mitt Romney, our capping inversion. With his front-runner status in the polls from day one, he's very effectively prevented the explosion that the instability in the GOP would have predicted. He's palatable enough to the Republican elite and his policies are largely in line with their own, so they have no interest in using their might to break up Romney's campaign, while the base has been too busy fighting with each other to bother going after Romney as a motivated whole, which is the only thing that could create the force required to punch through. Over the primary campaign so far, that instability has only increased, with the near-almost-victory of Santorum in Iowa, the rise of Ron Paul, and Mitt Romney's continued inability to act like a real human being all contributing to both establishment GOP nerves about Romney's ability to draw enough of the base in to be effective, and both agitating and motivating the Republican base.

And now, with the "anyone but Romney" field slowly starting to narrow, the instability is only increasing. Santorum's rise to the top in less than a week is a classic example of the instability breaking through the "cap" of Romney's campaign in Iowa, and it looks like Huntsman is breaking through the cap as well in New Hampshire. What remains to be seen is if the metaphorical meteorological wet blanket of Mitt Romney's campaign can be broken through nation-wide before Romney's wins in the primaries start to dampen the base's dislike and bring the instability back down. I believe that it's going to be possible for a nation-wide break-through up until the Florida primary, but if someone can't get the job done by then, the odds are that the base will start to collapse and we'll see nothing but clear blue skies for Mitt Romney.

Because this will certainly be a good use of my time.

In what must be a sure sign of a surfeit of free time, I have decided to take up blogging again, after yet another long absence from spraying the contents of my mind across a virtual page for the Google spider bots to enjoy. If future Internet archaeologists stumble upon this blog (don't think that won't be a real job), the "two weeks of mild activity followed by months of utter silence" pattern will surely indicate brief periods where I deluded myself into simultaneously thinking that I have enough time to maintain a routine posting schedule, that I have anything original or thought-provoking to say, and that someone, somewhere might care enough to read this crap. Sorry, Mom, family doesn't count. You get enough of my mouth as it is.

I have decided to keep the previous content on here, mostly because I believe that old shame should be seen, not hidden, and the old title stays, mostly because I suck at titles and until such a time that a more creative title that isn't already taken pops into my head, this one stays. Most of the stuff that ends up here will be about technology, politics or the video game industry, but some will diverge into the other cruft that I populate my free time with, like the automotive industry or TV or whatever else I feel that I need to say somewhere so I can purge it from my system. Since I have recently obtained my undergraduate degree (something that I will very likely be writing a post about reasonably soon), I should have enough time to post semi-regularly - hopefully at least once a day.

So, a warm "welcome back" to my usual audience of search engine crawlers and NSA subversive-thought detectors, and an equally warm welcome to anyone else who happens to find their way here. I hope that you find my scrawlings informative and entertaining.

Internet actually good for something

how metafilter saved two russian women from potential human trafficking the woman behind the rescue speaks out - The Human Condition Blog - Newsweek.com

I caught the tail-end of this live. Good stuff.

Cue Fear-Mongering in 3...2...

Scientists Create First Self-Replicating Synthetic Life | Wired Science | Wired.com

Of course, it does fuck-all but reproduce, but hey, artificial life! So, we've got that going for us now.

Portal is FREE!

Portal is FREE!

You should get this. Portal is not only free, but it's probably the best demonstration of the way that games can communicate story, ideas and techniques to a player. It's only about 3 - 4 hours long, and the behind-the-scenes commentary you can turn on is incredibly illuminating on how they sit down and actually design these game spaces to communicate to the player.

Or you could be like me and not have anyone to worry about

Top Ten Reasons You Should Quit Facebook - Facebook - Gizmodo

More Reasons Why You Should Still Quit Facebook - Facebook - Gizmodo

The Devolution of Facebook Privacy - Facebook Privacy - Gizmodo

Of course, these days people are actually increasingly trying to reduce their privacy because they somehow equate that with fame - something we have four or five years of faux-celebrities and real celebrities being more famous for giving us a gynecologist's eye view of their bodies to thank - I doubt that this will resonate all that well, but I'll do my part to spread the message none the less.

Stare Decisis. Look it up.

U.S. Supreme Court to Review Game Ratings Law - U.s. Supreme Court - Kotaku

Finally. After every single version of this law across the nation has been struck down, with more photocopies on the way, the Supreme Court will step in to squish all of these short-sighted laws once and for all.