Apparently, none known to the White House, so, as McClatchy reports: Obama names conservatives to Legal Services board

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama this week formally nominated Sacramento-based attorney Sharon L. Browne to help lead the Legal Services Corp., whose activities Browne’s fellow conservatives have long tried to restrict.

Another attorney formally nominated by Obama this week, Victor B. Maddox of Kentucky, is also a conservative. Maddox served as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Browne is a Republican and a principal attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation, which promotes limited government. Even so, she voices support for the legal-aid program born amid Lyndon Johnson’s expansive Great Society.

I’m sure that in the spirit of bipartisanship Obama will eventually find a Democrat to appoint to something.

While the North cleans up in the aftermath of Cyclone Laurence, South Australia is dealing fire: ‘Explosive’ bushfire destroys homes

Police have confirmed at least nine houses were destroyed in yesterday’s bushfire at Port Lincoln on South Australia’s Lower Eyre Peninsula.

Firefighters managed to contain the blaze after a cool change hit the area overnight, but not before it destroyed 500 hectares of scrub and grassland and the State Emergency Services headquarters.

Power has now been restored to most of the 6,000 homes that were affected by the blaze.

Near 100° temperatures, single-digit humidity, and gusty winds – everything necessary for flash fires to rip through the countryside. Weather conditions have improved allowing firefighters to begin controlling the fires, but the fire season stretches out for months.

The BBC has the report: Swedish Christmas straw goat burnt

A giant straw goat – the traditional Scandinavian yuletide symbol – erected each Christmas in a Swedish town has been burned to the ground yet again.

The 13-metre (43-ft) high billy goat has been torched 24 times since it was first erected in Gavle in 1966.

The goat was set alight in the early hours of Wednesday morning in the city north of Stockholm.

Once again some arsonist/Grinch has torched the Gävlebocken.

Yes, today is the celebration of the very untraditional Festivus.

If you celebrate I hope all of your grievances were aired and the airing did not involve the Festivus pole being used in an inappropriate fashion.