Posts from — December 2012

This is Saint Lucia’s Day for Scandinavians.

It features special treats that are handed out by a girl wearing a crown of candles, Lucia coming from the Latin for light, LUX.

Saint Lucia was an early Christian martyr from Syracuse on Sicily, but her official feast day, December 13, fit perfectly with the local pagan celebration of the Lussi on December 13, which was the Winter Solstice at the time. Yep, more cover to continue the fun mid-winter celebrations by pretending they are associated with Christianity to get the Church off everyone’s case.

It’s 12/12/12. You’ll have to wait just over 89 years until New Year’s Day 2101 for the next ‘triplet’ for a date.

A cold front moved through has it has been chilly along the Gulf Coast, which is not pleasant in an area designed to deal with air conditioning. My rehab had to wait while I bought a new heater for my Mother, as her gas heater was malfunctioning. Of course, almost immediately after I set up the electric heater, the gas heater decided to behave and function normally.

At the rehab, I should be finished this week as a kitchen floor is all I have left. There are several things I want to do, but I won’t because the person moving in would like to get on with their life, and I’m frankly more than tired of working on the place.

It will be another ‘four cat night’ as Ringo has decided that outside is not where she wants to be in temperatures that start with the numbers 3 or 4.

Today I was moving a 220 volt socket, and I hate working with 220 as it can kill you. Regular 110 will give you a jolt, but the 220 is all for high amperage use so I make sure people can’t access the electrical panel after I kill the power to the circuit. I know from personal experience that people don’t read signs, so I lock the box.

I’m as guilty as anyone when it comes to assuming that people understand what I understand, and I should know better.

Reading through all of the ‘sturm und drang’ about the so-called ‘fiscal cliff’ I assume that people know this is theater, and what is being negotiated has nothing to do with the budget deficit.

Digby’s post made me think that I should go into print with my reading of what is happening it establish my basis for ‘I told you so’.

The ballooning deficit was caused by the Bush tax cuts, money borrowed to finance two wars, and the mortgage-backed securities implosion that caused the global financial chaos. The Shrubbery was given a budget with a surplus when he took control, and mismanaged his way to trillions in deficits.

The surest way of reducing the deficit is to get people back to work so they can boost the 70% of the GDP that is based on consumer spending.

The ‘solutions’ have nothing to do with the deficit. The people behind the ‘solutions’ could care less about the deficit, they care about getting their ‘solutions’ enacted into law, and the deficit was available to be used as the ‘reason’.

The backers wants their taxes cut, they want access to the $2.5 trillion in the Social Security trust fund, and they want to government to fade away, rather than regulating them. Their ‘solutions’ have become the Village Conventional Wisdom, so none of the pundit class are actually looking at the effects of these ‘solutions’ on the deficit.

The most important thing to remember is that we are going to have another recession if these ‘solutions’ are agreed to, and the deficit and unemployment will increase. Anyone who doubts that need only look at what is happening in the UK as a result of these ‘solutions’ – a triple dip recession is a real possibility.

More Fluff

Go away!

[Editor: This is the Weasel. It would appear that there was a Maine Coon in his genetic mix, because he is definitely a long-haired cat and the mane/ruff is appearing. I have seen him a few times, but only after dark. This time he was stretched across the door step during the day. Alas I had to settle for my cell phone, but it was the only picture I’m apt to get.]

Silvio Berlusconi is talking about running for prime minister of Italy again, as the Italians are fed up with austerity and moving towards forcing new elections. Just what Italy needs, that rich moron in charge again.

Egyptian President Morsi has revoked his dictatorial decrees, but is standing firm on holding the referendum on the second-hand Islamist constitution the Muslim Brotherhood cobbled together. He is doing this despite the fact that the al-Azhar Seminary that is supposed to provide the interpretation of Islamic law that is fundamental to the new constitution is refusing to act in that capacity. The Seminary has stated that the constitution as written is fatally flawed and needs to be revised before the referendum can take place.

In this country you have the winners of the recent election acting as if they lost while trying to negotiate a ‘deal’ to replace the last deal they made. Meanwhile you have the Senate Minority Leader filibustering his own bill because it looked like the Democrats were willing to pass it.

I’m glad I don’t have much time these days to follow these things. I would just get annoyed.

This has been a sad week on among those on my blogroll as old friends have left for the Rainbow Bridge.

The week started with Kayla: A Life, And A Lifesaver, over at NTodd’s place, and then on Friday, TED AUGUST 1998 – 8 DECEMBER 2012 at Jam’s.

I realize that some people will never understand the attachment that people have for their animal companions, and I feel sorry for them. If you are human and you share your life with another creature for any length of time, a bond will be established. If you look at it objectively, it is quite similar to parenting. You have many of the same responsibilities for the life of your friend, as you would for a child. In return you get love and trust.

Kayla helped NTodd get over a rough patch in his life, and while Ted was the ‘tuxedo terror of Romford’, he had personality.

Even though I only knew them via the ‘Net, I can feel and understand the meaning of their loss.

Happy Hanukkah to my Jewish friends. I miss the latkes and jelly doughnuts my roommates received for the holiday at college. [Their grandmothers were afraid they wouldn’t celebrate or couldn’t get “real” food at that terrible Baptist university.] It was a great break.

One of the nice things about Hanukkah is that there are established “gifts”, so you don’t have to rack your brains about what to get: a card and gelt covers just about everyone.

General background at Wikipedia’s entry for Hanukkah and even more at Chabad’s Chanukah page.

[Note: on the Jewish calendar the day changes at sundown, not midnight.]

A New Neighbor

Can I help?

[Editor: This is Todd, who despite the tuxedo enjoys plumbing, electrical work, carpentry, and, especially, painting. He has been helping me in the rehab of his new home.]

Friday Ark

The seventy-first anniversary of “… a date which will live in infamy…”

The official US Navy site on the Pearl Harbor attack.

There will be a memorial service aboard NAS Pensacola that normally features local survivors of the attack. Obviously there are fewer of them every year.

They have their own license plates, fewer still drive themselves anymore:

Yes, it is the day that kindly old Saint Nicholas fills the footware of good little girls and boys with treats [or his assistants beat the evil out of bad children, depending on the local customs – they didn’t just leave the sticks – in some places they use them.] Don’t forget the carrot if he rides a horse in your area.

He is the patron saint of Russian merchants and pawnbrokers.

The BBC has a nice, concise obituary of the cowboy turned jazz composer and musician who died of a heart attack a week before his 92^nd birthday.

The Dave Brubeck Quartet ruled the college jazz circuit for years, and you couldn’t go a week on a college radio station without having someone request a cut from the crossover album Time Out. The most productive and longest lasting version of the Quartet featured Brubeck on piano, Paul Desmond on saxophone, Joe Morello on drums, and Eugene Wright on bass.

Obviously the two biggest hits were Paul Desmond’s “Take Five” and Brubeck’s “Blue Rondo a la Turk”, but the common theme of the album was the use of unconventional time signatures, 5/4 in the case of “Take Five” and 9/8 for “Blue Rondo”.

I haven’t heard those two cuts for years, and am certainly not musically gifted, but I can still ‘hear’ them when I see the titles. Be aware that listening to the album will draw you in and you will soon be listening to Dizzy, Miles, Thelonious …

John Avlon is a CNN Contributor, which is what CNN calls the ‘pundits’ they have on their staff. He has written a ‘centrist’ op-ed: Beware the fiscal cliff deniers.

An editor included these STORY HIGHLIGHTS:

• John Avlon says a combination of tax increases, budget cuts could harm economy
• He says the fiscal cliff is being minimized by partisans on left and the right
• Newt Gingrich, Paul Krugman among those saying a deal to avert cliff isn’t urgent
• Avlon: This is the kind of extreme thinking that led the U.S. to lose its AAA credit rating

Avlon is not an economist. He has an MBA from Columbia, but has worked as speech writer for Rudy Giuliani and other writing jobs, not in business. His association with Giuliani is apparently enough to qualify him to have space on CNN’s front page.

There is no ‘cliff’. The changes will take months to even be felt. The return to Clinton tax rates will have minimal effect on the economy, as has been studied and shown by multiple groups, including the CBO. The budget cuts will affect the economy, and will force the US back into recession, as we already know from watching the effects of similar cuts in Europe.

It isn’t impossible for two people as politically separate Gingrinch and Krugman to agree on things, especially if what they are agreeing on is factually true. The so-called ‘cliff’ was a creature of politicians, and most of their creatures are mythological.

The level of Avlon’s knowledge is on display in his reference to the downgrading of the bond rating of the US. That action has had absolutely no effect at all. So many people want US bonds that some of them have negative interest rates, i.e. they are paying the US to take their money. Maybe we should have applied for a downgrade years ago. 😈

The problem for Avlon and other centrists is that if no deal is reached and nothing bad happens, people will figure out that they are ‘false prophets’ and should be driven from the land. Avlon doesn’t offer a plan, or even an outline of how to ‘fix’ things, he just wants a deal so that he can continue his cushy job by claiming that he was ‘right’. He shouldn’t worry, pundits never actually pay a price for being wrong.

The BBC magazine did to the work to find out How tall can a Lego tower get?

The average maximum force the bricks can stand is 4,240N. That’s equivalent to a mass of 432kg (950lbs). If you divide that by the mass of a single brick, which is 1.152g, then you get the grand total of bricks a single piece of Lego could support: 375,000.

So, 375,000 bricks towering 3.5km (2.17 miles) high is what it would take to break a Lego brick.

Anyone who has stepped on a Lego brick knows they don’t break easily [and hurt like hell if you aren’t wearing shoes]. That just accounts for the downward force, and any lateral pressure would topple the single stack before you needed a ladder to add bricks to the top.

I know someone who literally has a ton of Lego bricks that represent his father’s collection, and then additions by various relatives. He does create rather large structures.

The BBC reports on what it can in its piece, UN internet regulation treaty talks begin in Dubai.

There is no official public copy of the entire treaty, just individual provisions that are supposedly in the treaty being released by individual countries.

The European Union and Google don’t like what they’ve seen of the provisions, but all they get from the ITU is ‘trust us’.

The treaty is given to the countries on December 3^rd and they are given 10 days to respond. Why not publish the proposed treaty so all those concerned can see what is being proposed? This is like the ACTA treaty that was negotiated in secret, so people couldn’t make informed decisions about its worth.

If you want people to trust you, you should try being transparent in the way you operate.