Posts from — November 2014

It’s the first Sunday of Advent and Why Now? is once again pleased to present the link to the webcam of Gävlebocken, The biggest Christmas Goat in the world [now with a blog].

From Steve Bates of Yellow Doggerel Democratic Views in the comments from 2006:

Why build a giant goat of straw,
Which most of us would scarcely note?
Some, though, defy the very law,
To vandalize the Gävle Goat.

In some years, they used wayward cars;
In others, flaming arrows smote.
This year’s survives, although with scars…
A fact that gets some people’s goat.

A webcam and some watchful eyes,
A flame-retardant second coat,
Should save it… unless Dubya spies
The thing, and claims it’s his pet goat!

– SB the YSS

Via Steve Bates bmaz at Emptywheel looks at the conduct of St. Louis prosecutor Bob McCulloch and his handling of the Micheal Brown shooting.

On CNN Nancy Grace of all people isn’t buying the police officer’s testimony. As she notes, this is the first time she has not supported the police version of an incident. The picture of the cop showing pink cheeks is not how someone looks after being punched by someone the size of Michael Brown, and how the hell does anyone sitting the driver’s seat of a car get punched on the right side of their face? Think about it. Can you turn your face that far around?

The BBC looks at The trouble with the timing of Ferguson decision and wonders Did prosecutors focus unduly on marijuana?

The timing of the announcement couldn’t have been worse. It was after dark so officials couldn’t see what the protestors were doing. The darkness required lighting and torches are an option. People weren’t at work and had time for a few brews before the announcement came.

If Michael Brown was really on a marijuana buzz, he wouldn’t have been reaching for the cop’s Glock – he would have been after the Krispy Kremes. I’m serious. You have a large group of ‘unruly’ potheads – Cheetos and donuts will do the trick. If Brown had a .14 of alcohol instead of THC, I could accept the cop’s story, but I have had too many years dealing with marijuana users to believe the garbage the St. Louis prosecutors are presenting as fact. Read this ABC story on the ‘safety’ of alcohol consumption and a large group of ‘unruly’ drunks.

Just in: the ABC is reporting Police officer who shot Michael Brown resigns.

Yes, it’s the time of year when the Sun dies and must be re-born through an elaborate ceremony that involves some form or type of sacrifice, such as finding gifts for people you can’t stand and smiling brightly as you receive yet another gift based on an urban legend that you actually like truly stomach-wrenching color combinations.

Of course there was a time when the Solstice sacrifices were more visceral and the evergreen was covered in things that pleased only ravens and such, but we have put all that behind us by opting for the possibility of electrocuting one another and causing chaos on the power grid.

What a brilliant idea: moving a large supply of pre-kindling soaked with highly flammable resins into your house, loading it down with petrochemical-based ornaments, lacing it with heat-producing electrical devices, and surrounding the base with cardboard boxes and tissue paper. You just can’t have a traditional celebration without a proto-bonfire in your living room.

I do think that followers of Mithras might want to curtail their typical birthday service in light of Mad-Cow Disease, but global warming will certainly make the services in the oak wood in traditional druidic robes more comfortable.

When you put up your stocking on the mantel and put out the turnips for Gouger, Rooter, Tusker, and Snouter as well as the pork pie and sherry for the Hogfather, you can rest assured the Sun will come up, because it just slipped around back to return the lager it rented.

Enjoy! You have nothing to fear, except that sniveling little creep with the camera/phone at the office party or the eggnog that was put out rather early causing you to suspect that the bits on top aren’t nutmeg. [The pictures probably won’t appear on the ‘Net and the brandy will surely take care of the salmonella.]

A Calendar of Coming Events

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More Cold Weather

Maybe I should reconsider…

[Editor: Froggy is contemplating going back inside as the temperatures are going down again.]

Friday Ark

My view of Thanksgiving was skewed by my Father’s attitude. Having grown up on a poultry farm, he saw the holiday as the culmination of weeks of work “processing” dozens of turkeys to be frozen and readying a few dozen more for fresh delivery. We generally ate ham when he was alive.

Having been on my Grandfather’s farm at this time of year I can understand my Dad’s attitude: our meal was subject to interruption by people picking up a fresh turkey at the last minute. A sale is a sale when you are business for yourself.

Thanks to Fox the WKRP turkey drop isn’t readily available on YouTube, although Hulu apparently has it. Watching it was long a tradition at our house.

Enjoy your meal and try to forget about the world’s problems for a day – they’ll still be there on Friday.

I’m back.

After a $1,000 doctor’s appointment [emergency room], my neighbor got 4 prescriptions that cost over $200 and was released with pneumonia. He actually saw a doctor for 15 minutes, but you get charged just for walking in the door, not what they do for you. There are walk-in clinics in the area, but you have to pay them when you walk in, which most of the people who would use them can’t do. Even if you have a regular doctor, s/he will send you to the emergency room if you need an appointment in less than two weeks.

Florida under the Republicans rejected the Medicaid expansion, so my neighbor doesn’t have insurance to cover the costs. He falls in the gap that the expansion was designed to cover, so he isn’t eligible for the insurance subsidy program.

What a marvelous system we have 😈

I’m dealing with a neighbor’s medical problem, so I don’t know when I’ll be back on-line.

CNN is reporting on the unrest in Ferguson after the grand jury refused to indict the police office in the Michael Brown shooting.

CNN had part of the grand jury testimony that contains a far different version of the encounter, than what was the official version. It looks fairly obvious to me that someone lied to the grand jury, but the prosecutor didn’t challenge it.

People are in the street and they are angry.

The BBC reports Regin, new computer spying bug, discovered by Symantec

Symantec says the bug, named Regin, was probably created by a government and has been used for six years against a range of targets around the world.

Once installed on a computer, it can do things like capture screenshots, steal passwords or recover deleted files.

An interesting target list: Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Ireland. Another opus from the fun-loving team that brought us Stuxnet? Perhaps someone a bit closer to the Emerald Isle?

_______________

The grand jury still hasn’t reached a decision about the Ferguson shooting, but they are erecting barricades in the area, rather than the Christmas decorations that everyone else is putting up.

Ordinary people, like Michael Brown’s father, are asking for calm, no matter what decision the grand jury takes. For some reason I get the feeling that if more than three people of color gather in Ferguson after the decision, it will be called a riot by local officials.

It was afternoon and I was on my way to a chemistry class. I had stopped for a drink of water when the news came over the speakers in the classrooms.

For those who weren’t alive at the time: remember what you felt on September 11, 2001 for a taste of November 22, 1963. It was a massive change for the worldview of my generation and it marked the beginning of a period of disruption and decline in the civility of American society. Arthur had died and Camelot fell.

At his inauguration John Kennedy made the point: “If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.”

The colors of my world will never be as bright as they were on November 21, 1963.

So, after getting buried under about six feet of snow, another two to three feet fell in a band south of Buffalo. It is certainly annoying, but not as bad as the 1977 blizzard which affected more of state with constant white-out conditions that shut down most of the upstate [anything north of New York City].

People have forgotten that you have to acclimate to the cold before you start shoveling, because your body tends to send blood to your extremities in the cold and reduces the supply for your internal organs. You need to achieve a balance before you start anything as strenuous as clearing wet snow, or you risk a heart attack.

Unfortunately before the crews can load the snow into the trucks and dump it into the lake, it is going to warm up and start melting. This will probably cause local flooding and set the scene for the worst – snow falling on ice covered roads after the melting. In addition the piles of snow are going to have ice shells over them. The people who don’t manage to get the snow off their roofs are in line for major damage even if the roof doesn’t collapse under the additional weight.

Remember – no matter how bad things seem to be, they can always get worse…

It’s hard to believe I’ve been doing this for a decade.

I did bulletin boards, USENET, and LISTSERV before the rise of blogs, but this seems to be more compatible with my temperament. Andante got me started, and I wish she had survived to be here. Like Jim and Melanie, she was taken too early because of our dysfunctional health care system.

Thanks for dropping by, even if you don’t want to comment.

Truce

Let’s ignore him

[Editor: Property and Excise actually touching without anyone getting clawed. This rare event brought to you by blankets on the futon and freezing temperatures.]

Friday Ark

I heard and saw all kinds of trash talk from Repubs about how Zero was going to violate all kinds of laws with his executive order on immigration, but all he announced tonight was the enforcement priorities for the Department of Homeland Security regarding undocumented immigrants. Every prosecutor in the US can decide what criminal cases will or won’t be tried, so it defies logic to insist that the head of the Executive Branch of the US government doesn’t have the same power in dealing with government regulations.

Let’s be clear, it is not a crime to enter the country without getting the proper paperwork. There is no such thing as an ‘illegal alien’. Undocumented immigrants aren’t tried for being in the US ‘illegally’, they have a hearing before an administrative law judge for failing to comply with the appropriate rules and regulations. They don’t get attorneys, bail hearings, or any of the other requirements of a criminal trial. They don’t face prison time if the judge rules against them, they are deported. They didn’t break a law, they failed to abide by the rules.