Posts from — November 2014

The lake-effect snow falling on and around Buffalo, New York is the big story today. Yes, it’s a lot of snow. Yes, people die shoveling it. Yes, heavy wet snow can cause roofs to collapse. All of that is true, but what is also true is that while this is early, it is not unusual for it to happen in Buffalo.

There is a lot of snow, some say over 6 feet, because Lake Erie is still open water, making it possible for the wind to pick up a lot of moisture as it heads for shore. The amount is reduced as more of the lake freezes.

Buffalo and Watertown on the east end of Lake Ontario, are always at the top of the list for snowfall in New York State.

Meanwhile it is a fraction above 32°F at 11:45PM in Cinco Bayou, but no snow is forecast.

CNN reports that the Senate vote on the Keystone XL pipeline failed to get the required 60 votes to proceed. The Republicans will bring it up in the new Congress in January, knowing that Zero will veto it and they don’t have the two-thirds majority to override the veto.

The ABC reports that the Philae probe detected organic molecules. Given that it is generally believed that comets are the detritus of the founding of the planets of the solar system. The discovery of organic molecules on a comet would tend to indicate that the building blocks of life were present when the planets were created.

That grand jury in Missouri still hasn’t announced a finding.

The current temperature at 11:30PM is 31°F, which is a lot of fun.

Missouri seems to be doing just about everything possible to create a riot following a decision by a grand jury. There has been no decision, but the governor has declared a state of emergency, put the National Guard on stand-by, and put any response in the hands of the county, rather than city police officers.

The problem in Ferguson was caused by a police over-response to protests, and now they are preparing to max out the response to any demonstrations following the decision of the grand jury.

What happens if the grand jury indicts the police officer and the KKK protests? Is the Klan going to be subjected to the same tactics that were used in earlier protests?

All of these public announcements about steps that are being taken are just raising the temperature of a volatile situation. You need to prepare for trouble, but you don’t announce your preparations. That’s how you attract the trouble makers.

One of the more popular breeds of cats in France is the Norwegian Forest Cat which is similar to the Maine Coon. The breed standard accepts toms up to 25 pounds, so larger versions are obviously out there. They are long haired which makes them look even larger that their large bones and muscular body account for on the scale. At a distance a male Forest Cat with an amber mackerel tabbie coat would look a lot like a tiger, and they have large paws for walking on the snow. From personal experience with Maine Coons, they don’t look like normal domesticated cats when they are outside and not near something that would help you gauge their size.

The Prime Minister of Australia, Tony Abbott, is probably regretting hosting the G20 summit in Brisbane. He started out claiming he was going to ‘shirt front’ [confront] Vladimir Putin over the Ukraine and the downing of flight MH-17, but it was Canada’s Stephen Harper who actually did it. Then he objected to including language about climate change in the formal statement for the meeting, but was overruled by US and European Union representatives.

Putin left early because of all of the criticism about the Ukraine, but Abbott’s summit was almost as bad. He probably wished he could have left early.

The batteries on the Philae lander have run down, but it was able to send back most, if not all, of the data that it was designed to collect. It isn’t clear if the solar panels will recharge the batteries, or if they were merely designed to extend the life of the batteries by providing additional power when it was active.

Is This Florida?

Turn up the thermostat!

[Editor: Tadpole is atop the grill next to my Mother’s house to avoid the wind.]

Friday Ark

It was 55° at midnight and that was the high for today with the low somewhere in the 30s forecast. It drizzled all day so the sun didn’t warm anything, and cleared out tonight to radiate away all of the stored heat. We have freeze warnings and watches on tap for the next two days, so cat blogging will definitely be delayed.

This BBC article about the Scottish National Party activated by inner 8-year-old. I snicker over the first sentence: “Nicola Sturgeon is to formally take over the leadership of the SNP from Alex Salmond.” I hope no one else understands why.

So Zero announces his support for ‘Net Neutrality and heads explode.

AT&T announced that it was going to stop installing fiber to about 100 cities because the rules are ‘uncertain’. They are ignoring the fact that the rules are uncertain because they and the other media moguls sued to overturn the old rules. They also fail to explain how the rules affect a decision to make their network faster and cheaper to operate with much greater capacity which would give them a competitive advantage … oh, wait, they don’t compete so they don’t need any advantage.

Ted Cruz has announced that ‘Net Neutrality was “Obamacare” for the Internet. Sorry, but Obamacare for the Internet would require everyone to pay a private corporation and be connected to the ‘Net, and hit them with a tax penalty if they didn’t comply. It would probably also block any public options, and provide for religious exemptions for those who believe it is a tool for Satan.

The European Space Agency’s Rosetta project to land on a comet is at a minimum a partial success. The BBC reports – Rosetta: Waiting game after comet lander glitch.

The planning for the mission started a quarter century ago, and was launched a decade ago. It managed to rendezvous with the comet after traveling about 60 billion miles, and then released the Philae landing module.

The rockets that would have help hold the lander to comet didn’t work, and. apparently the ‘harpoons’ that were supposed to anchor the lander to the comet didn’t fire. The speculation is that the lander bounced at least once before settling on the comet.

Some data has been received, but there is a half-hour delay caused by the distance between the vehicles and earth. Now there is a waiting game to get the data to find out more about the condition of the lander and its functions.

Update: The lander apparently bounced several times and is in an area with shade on some of its solar panels which will limit its available power. Other than that, and the fact that it isn’t firmly rooted to the comet, it seems to be OK.

At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918 the guns fell silent. The Great War, The War to End All Wars, was over…for a couple of decades.

The red poppies of Flanders fields became a symbol of that war and the veterans that returned from it. Known as Remembrance Day in much of the world, the poppies will be in evidence. Remembrance Day observances have more in common with the American Memorial Day as a day to honor those who have died in war.

First called Armistice Day in the United States, the name was changed to Veterans Day, and its purpose changed to honoring those who are serving, or have served in the military. The change was made to avoid a conflict with the existing Memorial Day observance that goes back to the Civil War era.

Because this is the centennial of the start of World War I, there is as special display in London, The poppies at the Tower of London, that was created from over 800,000 individual handmade ceramic poppies representing the British dead from the war. They were placed in the ground by thousands of volunteers.

A heart felt salute to everyone who managed to survive basic training. We can hope that sooner, rather than later, there will be no need for another generation to put on uniforms.

I got an e-mail supposedly from ‘Google+ All Domain Mail Team’ at postmaster @ googleplus.com.us telling me to sign in to my e-mail account using the link they provide. The thing is, their link goes to www.lllearners.com; I have no connection to Google+; and I don’t do webmail.

One of the lamest phishing expeditions ever.

The BBC reports that the US Postal Service employee information was hacked. The only non-employees who might affected are those who use the USPS call center, rather than the ‘Net site or local post offices.

Finally they provide some coverage of Joan Clarke, woman who cracked Enigma with Alan Turing. She was one of several women who worked on the project that are almost unknown to the world. Some of her story is told in a new film that was just released.

The BBC had a short video, Royals commemorate Remembrance Sunday, that was of interest to me basically because Queen Elizabeth seems to have much better balance than either her husband or eldest son. If you watch the three mount the steps, and back off, the Queen is confident in backing, but both Phillip and Charles are unsure of where they are when moving backwards.

That was for me the most interesting thing on the news sites.

There really isn’t much going on that is new. It is possible that the media is still burned out by their irrelevant election coverage. Well, we held an election and almost no one came. In a lot of places the choice was between a Democrat running like s/he was a Republican and a Republican. Since Democrats didn’t really have a candidate in the race, they didn’t bother to vote.

No one really cares about the political ads for candidates, so the money would be better spent getting people to the polls.

We are waiting for the next cold front to move through. It has been generating very windy conditions in Alaska and about to bury Alberta in winter momentarily, so it is coming. My weather is due to begin warming some Monday, but it will only last two or three days before the temperature drops again.

Moms Are Moms

Mom, please stop!

[Editor: Tadpole isn’t thrilled that Ms Underhouse decided to groom him. This is the cat version of the handkerchief/spit procedure.

Friday Ark

I was so bummed out about the election that I forgot about Bonfire Night, the commemoration of the Gunpowder Plot. I now understand why Anonymous wears Guy Fawkes masks.

Of course, in the US only Republicans think that blowing things up will solve anything, but they are consistent in advocating the use of force for everything that happens. That’s why they get along with the Likud Party of Israel so well.

Another reason it slipped my mind was that I was reading a book suggested by Steve Bates: Three Bags Full. It is the story of an investigation of the death of a shepherd in Ireland by his sheep written by a German. I liked it and it occupied me most of the day.

Anything was better than contemplating four more years of the Fraudster-in-chief. At least he won’t get to appoint three Florida Supreme Court Justices, thanks to the failure of Amendment 3.

Well, at least Amendment 1 passed and Amendment 3 failed. Those were my ‘wins’ this time.

Amendment 2, the medical marijuana initiative got 57% of the vote, but you have to get 60% to pass an amendment.

After all of the noise about anger with incumbents, that’s how people voted in Florida in the final analysis, for incumbents. Sad really.