Four for Friday

(Link in blogroll)

Q1 - Replacement: If you had to choose one item from your home to represent you in a photograph, what would you choose?

I'm afraid it would be a stack: a book, a laptop, and a pencil. Yes, it's all symbolic, including the stack instead of one thing.

Q2 - Banking: Do you bank the old-fashioned way--inside your bank's local branch--or do you conduct your banking online or through an ATM machine? Related: Do you bank with a national banking institution (think: Wells Fargo, J.P. Morgan Chase, etc.) or a locally owned community bank?

I go in our bank maybe four times a year, and drive through maybe twice that often. Otherwise, everything is done by EFT or ATM or online. We use a local bank. By intention. I want my money nearby, working in my own community.

Q3 - Global Warming: Historically, support for environmental protection in the United States has been relatively nonpartisan. Republicans pointed with pride to Theodore Roosevelt's crucial role in promoting the conservation of natural resources by establishing national parks and forests, and Democrats applauded Franklin Delano Roosevelt's efforts to include conservation as part of the "New Deal" via the Soil Conservation Service and related programs. Although a majority of Americans believe the seriousness of global warming is either correctly portrayed in the news or underestimated, a record-high 41%, according to new Gallup poll, now say it is exaggerated (and most of those who feel that way are Republicans). The 2009 Gallup Environment survey measured public concern about eight specific environmental issues. Not only does global warming rank last on the basis of the total percentage concerned either a great deal or a fair amount, but it is the only issue for which public concern dropped significantly in the past year (pollution of drinking water and toxic contamination of water and soil ranked highest). Do you believe global warming is a serious problem caused by humans, a natural occurrence, or a bunch of made up hooey?

I think it's a natural phenomena which as been horrifically enhanced by human ignorance and we need to do something about it. Now. [and if these statistics don't prove that many Republicans are clueless about science, I don't know what would]

Q4 - LEGOS: On this date in 1999, LEGOLAND California--the only LEGOLAND outside of Europe--opened in Carlsbad, California. If you could afford to commission (warning: pop-up window ahead) full-time LEGO artist Sean Kenney to make anything for you, what would you ask him to create?

This is so weird: one of my coworkers is currently on her way with her family to visit Legoland in Carlsbad!
Anyway. Having played with Duplos and Legos for years with kids, I'm kinda not interested in having anymore of them around...at least until there are grandchildren. Unless dude can build me a functional robot that cooks good food and cleans up afterwards!