Mokka mit Schlag

Tuesday is primary day in New York, and it’s an interesting one. Local term limits, combined with extreme dissatisfaction with incumbents at all levels of government have led to an unusual number of contested elections. Furthermore the continued implosion of the New York State Republican party means that a lot of offices are going to be decided on Tuesday. Registered Democrats should be sure to get out and vote.

The first election is for U.S. Senate, and here the choice is an easy one for all progressives and libertarians: Jonathan Tasini. Tasini’s a labor activist and former National Writer’s Union president with a long record of commitment to progressive causes. He’s been directly involved in protecting the rights of writers and readers from the copyright englobulators of the corporate media. He’s a staunch opponent of the Iraq war, and can be counted on to oppose the national security state that’s been imposed on us by successive administrations, both Democrat and Republican.
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Today I was supposed to be on a pelagic expedition out of Freeport seeing wonderful new life birds like skuas and jaegers. Instead I’m sitting at home blogging and clearing old email. It seems the seas were too high for safety–5-9 foot swells and 10-15 knot winds–so the captain called off the trip. The next New York trip isn’t till December. I’ve already done a winter trip this year so I’ll probably skip that one. Maybe there’ll be another trip next September.
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The server migration at IBiblio broke something I still don’t quite understand. The net effect is that I can’t update anything there or at Cafe con Leche right now. I have a trouble ticket open. Hopefully I’ll get this fixed soon, whatever it is. E-mail does seem to be working, though.

I joined Paul Keim this morning for the Brooklyn Bird Club’s Fall walk in Prospect Park. It was a nice morning with various warblers: American Redstart, Magnolia Warbler, Northern Waterthrush, Black-throated Blue Warbler, Black-and-white warbler, and so forth. We started around 8:00 A.M on the Northwest edge of the park and circled back around to the Vale of Cashmere.

Around 10:30 we had reach Rick’s Place in the Midwood, when Rob Jett came riding by on his bicycle. he told use that Rafael Campos and Philip Pane had spotted a Connecticut Warbler by the zoo. This would be a life bird for several people, myself included, as well as a good bird for anyone, so we revised our route and headed down to the road.
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Unison didn’t take long to rule itself out. It’s essentially a command line application with a weak GUI shell, and full of errors like these:

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After evaluating Chronosync for a month, the evaluation period is up and it’s time to make a decision. To buy or not to buy, that is the question. I think the answer is no. Chronosync is too slow and too complex to justify paying for.
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