See Paul. I won’t tell you why, but I will tell you this: Drive out of your way if you need to in order to see the film at a theater that will be filled mainly with very Christian Christians. Then, as you watch the movie, pay attention to the audience.

You’ll love the movie, and you’ll love the audience … reaction. Trust me on this.

This is the time of year the Red River floods (or not). This is an item that appeared on Quiche Moraine last year during flood season:

A Simple Assignment
Red River Flood

Mike Haubrich

This was a simple assignment, really. Drive to Lakeville, examine a car for flood damage and send an estimate to the insurance company. It was a car that had been transported from East Grand Forks, Minnesota to Lakeville. It was owned by a married couple with two kids, people evacuated when the Red River crested nearly five feet higher than estimated and swamped the entire city of East Grand Forks. People who were refugees of the 1997 flood.

I watched the flood news on TV. The Red River of the North wrested control from human attempts to subdue it. It called out “This is MY valley, and I will have my way with it this year.” I had not seen such a flood in all of the time I live in the Red River Valley. The flood of 1979 was close.

Read More

Some time ago we had a party in Minneapolis to celebrate the one millionth’s comment on Scienceblogs. Finally, I’ve uploaded the video taken at that party, at the Black Forest Inn.
Continue reading PZ and Greg’s Excellent Party: The Movie →

Reverend Mike gives it a try.

Also, don’t forget that March 16th is St. Urho’s Day!

What? We missed it? I guess I’ll have to save my purple beer for next year.

I will be over by the holy water waiting for an apology on behalf of most of humanity from the nearest religious person …
Continue reading A Christian Perspective on the Japanese Earthquake →

Today is DuWayne Brayton’s birthday. His web site is here, but his best writing is in comments on my blog!

Happy Birthday DuWayne. Many happy returns. Though I actually have no idea what that means, and assume it has to do with gift receipts.

James at Class:M has an important post on the perception and cost of Nuclear Energy: What Fukushima doesn’t change

PalMD at The White Coat Underground has an important rant about iodine, which is much in the news these days for obvious reasons: Saturday Evening Rant, Iodine Edition

Skepchick Evelyn (who also comments here now and then) is writing an interesting series of posts that consist of interviews by her of her dad, an Nuclear Engineer, regarding what is going on in Japan. I think this link is probably the best way to get to them.

Speaking of Skepchicks, you should check out this post. It’s amazing. Yet mundane. You will, like, totally LOL. Hebbo.

The amount of water available to produce floods is at a much higher than average level for Minnesota, including the Minnesota, Red, Mississippi and Saint Croix river drainages, not to mention smaller rivers and streams. As I write this personnel at the National Weather Service are dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s on watches and warnings for this area.

The snow pack has been melting for a few days and continues to do so, and is actually doing it at a nice pace. The melting stops over night as it gets cold, and only slowly resumes until the warmest part of the day, then slows down again. If the melting stays like this, flooding will be reduced. If it rains and gets very warm, we’re screwed.

It will be interesting to see how Fargo and other communities along the Red River react to there being no significant flooding, should that happen. Will the hundreds who have spent thousands of hours messing around with sand bags over the last couple of weeks take credit for stopping a flood that didn’t happen? Will he good citizens of the Red River Valley realize that they spent piles of time and money for something that didn’t happen, and thus, experienced a costly non-flood that would not have happened if the floods were not an issue? What I’m getting at, here, is the prospect that even in years when there is no flood, the threat of a flood is real, and costly, and that cost (monetary, emotional, social) should be considered when thinking about things like “do we move our homes and businesses out of the flood zone?”

The next few days will stay cold at night and not too warm during the day, but tomorrow there will be enough rain to hasten snow pack disintegration. There may be some flooding in spots, therefore, on Sunday. We are expecting more rain mid week, but still temperatures will be cool and Wednesday’s rain may actually fall as the frozen stuff (a.k.a. snow). And, remarkably, next weekend it will snow a bit more, and over the next 10 days, the high temperature will not pass about 40F and the lows will be below freezing almost every night across most of the state.

This means that a) the flooding may end up not being as bad as it could be, if enough snow pack gently melts away and b) the original forecasts, dating back a week or so, of major flooding happening in early April seem right. But do beware: Tomorrow’s rain may be a problem for you, depending on where you live.

Don’t drive into the water. Sounds like simple advice but some of you will, and some of you will ruin your cars or die or some other stupid thing. We have a whole warehouse of Darwin Awards.

Here’s a nice list of flooding related resources from WCCO.