Posts from — April 2016

It’s Hexennacht, but there is no Blocksberg available for dancing down here and it is so soggy that bonfires are out of the question.

Of course the Church grabbed this holiday too and called it Walpurgisnacht in honor of one of their Anglo-Saxon saints, rather than good German witches [Hexen]. The Celts celebrate Beltaine at this time of the year. It is considered the beginning of summer in much of Europe.

Archæoastronomy

While many Canadian public service employees are waiting to get paychecks that are weeks behind after the shift to a new payroll program, in southern Spain about 600 kilograms of Roman coins have been discovered. The uncirculated coins were probably supposed to be the pay for public employees.

Or, the Canadian pay was sent back to 300CE in Spain due to a flux in the space/time continuum [cue the Dr Who theme].

John Boehner thinks Ted Cruz is “Lucifer in the flesh” and he won’t support him if he wins the GOP nomination.

Gee, John do you think that he is even worse than the child molester you replaced as leader of the House Republicans? Is there a particular reason why you haven’t said something about Cruz before?

Drumpf doesn’t know anything about foreign affairs which is not surprising since he has pretty much made himself persona non grata in Scotland, and has offended the more than one billion inhabitants of the planet who are Muslim.

Apparently because misery loves company, Ted Cruz has selected Carly Fiorina as his running mate.

Target is being boycotted because it has said it won’t require shoppers to display their genitals before selecting a bathroom, or something similar. Since this is the work of the “American Family Association” I know that based on past incidents the number of supporters is wildly over-stated, and they will generate astroturf campaigns and ask for money. I’m wondering how any non-governmental organization can legally enforce bathroom sex checks because effective checks would get you listed as a sex offender in every state or sued for sexual harassment.

So the Treasury sets off a cavalcade of wingnut hissy fits by putting a Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill, which rather points out a basic problem as the man she is replacing is distinctly unloved for several of his actions in office. It would appear that any white man is preferable to a black woman.

Meanwhile in Canada, the post office celebrates the 50th anniversaries of Star Trek TOS by issuing a series of stamps featuring the lead characters.

There really isn’t much of interest in what the media chooses to report.

It is ANZAC Day in Australia and New Zealand, which is similar to the American Veterans Day, in that it began as a remembrance of World War I, and has become more generalized over the years.

“Anzac Day commemorates the involvement of Australian and New Zealand troops in a World War I campaign on the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey.” Last year was the centennial of the Gallipoli landing.

The Gallipoli Campaign began as a Winston Churchill [then First Lord of the Admiralty] plan that spun out of control and got a lot of people killed on both sides with nothing much changing, but then, that was quite common in World War I.

Peter Weir made a movie, Gallipoli, which, if nothing else, proves that Sergeant Alvin York, and T.E. Lawrence weren’t the only people who fought in World War I.

[Note: The date is April 25 which April 24 in the US because of the time difference.]

It took 2 minutes to boot Windows 10 when disconnected from the ‘Net. Things do sort of work, but there is a pause, possibly the OS looking for the ‘Net that isn’t there. Solitaire runs, but is jerky and obviously the ads [did I mention that the ‘free’ M$ games in Win10 have ads] aren’t changing.

This wasn’t a really fair test because the only M$ software I use is the OS and Solitaire. Everything else is either open-source or mine.

Saint George is the patron saint of England, Georgia [the country], Bulgaria, Portugal, Catalonia, and the city of Moscow. Orthodox countries tend to celebrate George on November 23^rd.

PETA condemns George for his senseless slaughter of dragons. The YWCA condemns the condemnation and wants to know when PETA is going to volunteer to be DragonChow™

It is UNESCO’s International Day of the Book.

It is also the birth and death day of Billy the Bard, who was a great writer in desperate need of a spelling checker.

Master Shakespeare gave all of the best lines to villains supplying low humor to those who have read the Folio, e.g. Arlen Specter quoting Iago, reputedly in support of Clarence Thomas.

And today marks the 400th anniversary of the death of both Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes known as Western literature’s first novelist for Don Quixote de la Manche.

After my latest encounter with Windows 10 I think M$ is continuing the trend it started by moving Office and Outlook to the Internet, and now moving almost everything online.

Consider 50+ seconds to load the ‘Solitaire app’ and then a request to log in at the XBox gaming site. The difference between the last time I loaded the app and this time, is that I have moved my modem and this box is now on WiFi vice Ethernet. The things that were slow before are now crawling.

Of course, this was after it took 3 minutes to boot up because M$ thought I should choose a background from a series of pictures and gave no option to stop screwing around and bring up the system. Having the time prominently displayed when you are wasting someone’s life just pisses them off. [If you don’t understand why I get so annoyed about wastes of my time – wait until you are my age and you will understand.]

Every time I go to do anything on Win 10 I see the light on the WiFi adapter start blinking like crazy. I think tomorrow I will see what happens when I boot after unplugging from the ‘Net.

She’s the only planet we have, if we blow it, we can’t pack up and move.

Wikipedia has an Earth Day entry, with links to other sites.

Lieutenant HRH Princess Elizabeth

For the first time in a century the US Treasury will be issuing paper currency with a woman on it: Harriet Tubman, anti-slavery activist, to be on new US $20 bill. Old Hickory has been moved to the “back of the” bill.

There is no indication of the presence of any psychedelic-colored bacteria on the new bills…

Houston floods: Disaster zone declared after ‘historic’ rainfall

Texas Governor Greg Abbott has declared a state of emergency in Houston after record rainfall claimed five lives.

Meteorologists said some 17.6in (44.7cm) of rain fell on Houston on Monday alone, levels national officials said were “historic”.

Rivers burst their banks in downtown Houston and 1,200 people were rescued from rising floodwaters.

Close to 70,000 people were left without power in the city, the fourth-largest in the United States.

This is the worst flooding since Tropical Storm Allison in 2001, and may be the worst ever. Steve Bates, Yellow Doggerel Something, lives in Houston. He is on a blog break, and may not have power in any case. Sending “good vibes” and dry thoughts to Stella, Steve, Esther, & Lily.

The BBC reports that “At least 235 people have been confirmed dead and more than 1,500 people injured after Ecuador was hit by its most powerful earthquake in decades.” The US Geological Survey has the technical details of the magnitude 7.8 quake in the ocean trench near Muisne, Ecuador. The quakes in the trench are the result of the subduction of the Nazca Plate beneath the South American Plate. The process created the Andes Mountains and is making them higher.

While I have always believed that a major tremor on one side of the “Circle of Fire” in the Pacific will result in a major tremor on the opposite side, I can’t prove it.