December 13, 2011

At the Dark Days Café...

... there isn't enough light to take pictures. So you'll have to amuse yourselves with words. Feel free to talk about whatever topics you like.

22 comments:

MadisonMan said...

Dark? I think not. The earliest sunset was last Friday. It's almost a minute later now!

Peter Hoh said...

Farhad Manjoo has written a provocative column: Buying books on Amazon is better for authors, better for the economy, and better for you..

edutcher said...

As long as we have a home here, our days are never dark.

Anonymous said...

The US debt,beautifully explained

garage mahal said...

Appears to be dark days ahead for Andrew P. Jensen Jr.

The arrest represents a new direction and development in the secret probe of Walker's staff while he was county executive and governor.

The spin from the Sykes/Belling/McKenna tomorrow will be dizzying.

JohnJ said...

Romney up by 15% over Gingrich on intrade.

Hmmm…

Except for our Romney sign out front, the only other yard signs I’ve seen in and around Des Moines are for Ron Paul.

Hmmm…

The Crack Emcee said...

The Ultimate Lesson For Us All

chuck b. said...

I took some pictures before the sun went down.

xnar said...

Forgot to charge the batteries again, eh?

AlanKH said...

George Takei says: Twilight sucks.

Maybe his expectations are too high. Is it okay if teen-girl-oriented fantasy literature is little more than soap opera?

Ralph L said...

the secret probe of Walker's staff
Sounding more painful without warning.

The Crack Emcee said...

No Black Guys (Of Course There's No Black Guys,...)

Gene said...

Dark? I think not. The earliest sunset was last Friday. It's almost a minute later now!

You pose an interesting question. I have no doubt you are right about the earliest sunset having already occurred (for Madison). But the number of daylight hours, I am reliably informed, is continuing to shrink and will continue to do so till the Winter Solstice, December 21st. Leastways that's what they told me in celestial navigation class in the Navy all these many years ago.

I'm wondering if the reason the earliest sunset doesn't occur on the winter Solstice in Madison has to do with where Madison is located in the time zone. I note that here in Los Angeles, the sun doesn't didn't set on Dec. 13th till 4:44 pm. But in Palm Springs, which is much closer to the eastern edge of the Pacific Standard time zone, the sun set at 4:38.

But whenever the sun sets in your town, Happy Solstice.

Jason (the commenter) said...

... there isn't enough light to take pictures.

What, don't people in Wisconsin have Christmas lights?

Beta Rube said...

The John Doe probe Garage refers to is a phony transparently political undertaking by a Democrat DA.

There is unlimited ammo to show the other side engaged in worse (and engages in worse daily) but the DA's in Dane and Milwaukee Counties have no interest in even taking a look at the use of government time and facilities by the Dems.

This will not end well for the anti-Walker folks. There are enough fair minded folks living here to see the heavy handed politicization of the judicial process by and for the Democrats.

Ann Althouse said...

"Dark? I think not. The earliest sunset was last Friday. It's almost a minute later now!"

Thanks for pointing that out! I never noticed that it worked like that. I assumed the earliest sunset was on the solstice and didn't really think about the later sunrise issue. The sunrise continues to get later until the second week of January.

Fascinating!

rhhardin said...

Earliest sunset and latest sunrise don't align with solstice because the sun moves east faster in the winter owing to the earth being closer in orbit.

This shifts the sunrise, noon and sunset equally later and later in clock time.

Supposing sunset on solstice is at 5pm, the previous day it would have been earlier. Supposing sunrise is at 7am, the next day it will be later.

So earliest sunset happens before solstice, and latest sunrise after solstice. The eastward drift at solstice is a bigger effect than the small change in day length then.

Length of day though still depends only on the sun's latitude (called declination).

The opposite happens in June when the sun moves eastward slower than average.

rhhardin said...

More solar geometry: pic of January sunrise in Sydney NSW Australia, looking SE.

The sun rises in the SE in January everywhere, but in Australia it heads north rather than south, giving them a long summer day.

Anonymous said...

More yet on solar geometry is found at
http://www.analemma.com/

which explains that curious skinny figure 8 on the old globes.

Anonymous said...

http://www.wisn.com/r/29987729/detail.html#ixzz1gVsy6F80


Wondering if Wisconsin is different that other states in allowing obviously fictitious names to count on petitions? It seems like it would be hard to draw a line on which names to strike, nevertheless, allowing phony names forces someone else to have to review and challenge all of the petitions thus making the petition process more like harassment.

Curious George said...

"garage mahal said...
Appears to be dark days ahead for Andrew P. Jensen Jr.

The arrest represents a new direction and development in the secret probe of Walker's staff while he was county executive and governor.

The spin from the Sykes/Belling/McKenna tomorrow will be dizzying."

Want to see some spin? Explain how this "arrest represents a new direction and development in the secret probe of Walker's staff while he was county executive and governor" garage.

Ann Althouse said...

Hey, Crack. I went to your link. Interesting video, and you were all: "ALL OF THE GUYS FEATURED IN THIS VIDEO ARE BETA MALES... a bunch of skinny, nerdy dudes “in the friend zone” (Oh, no!) just hanging around, sniffing crouches at a distance, while being used by every one of these girls."

Sniffing crouches?

Seemed to me everybody was standing upright (or sitting).