1.01.2011

Seriously, darlin'...

...the only reason we have a holiday called New Year's Day is so we can watch lots of football games. If it weren't for football games we could skip the whole thing. 

Also I am making a big pot of my patented black bean and raisin soup. 

Apparently this...

New Year's Eve Sausage Drop - Elmore, Ohio

...was was regrettably canceled in 2010.

Intake


Photo abstract: Phil Compton

1/1/11 and things are looking up

Alzheimer’s Therapy Focuses on Care - NYTimes.com

Dementia patients at Beatitudes are allowed practically anything that brings comfort...

Once, Ms. Alonzo said: “The state tried to cite us for having chocolate on the nursing chart. They were like, ‘It’s not a medication.’ Yes, it is. It’s better than Xanax.”

 

But maybe, on some few uncommon days, we might still see Kodachrome skies

For Kodachrome Fans, Road Ends at Photo Lab in Kansas - NYTimes.com

PARSONS, Kan. — An unlikely pilgrimage is under way to Dwayne’s Photo, a small family business that has through luck and persistence become the last processor in the world of Kodachrome, the first successful color film and still the most beloved. 

That celebrated 75-year run from mainstream to niche photography is scheduled to come to an end on Thursday when the last processing machine is shut down here to be sold for scrap.

12.31.2010

I don't remember why we're talking about this but anyway let's not

129 years on, no pardon to Billy the Kid - Yahoo! News

SANTA FE, New Mexico (AFP) – New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson Friday refused to pardon Wild West outlaw Billy the Kid...

A whole new kind of New Year

New Year's Eve? There's an App for That - DNAinfo.com

MANHATTAN — Ringing in the New Year? There's an app for that....

... the free Times Square Official New Year’s Eve Ball Drop App...will live stream the countdown straight to users' iPhones, iPads and new-edition Androids.

 

12.30.2010

But it's enough to scare Glenn Beck

The Worst Clichés of Politics From 'Tax-and-Spend' to 'Maverick'

For the past two decades, the ideological divide in America has been between Republicans who call themselves "proud conservatives" and Democrats who stammer, "Well...um...er...I don't believe in labels." When pressed, most of these skittish Democrats invoke the fig-leaf term "progressive" to describe themselves rather than the more familiar and descriptive moniker of "liberal.
After a campaign year in which the Democrats lost 63 House seats and seven Senate seats, it is safe to call this the worst rebranding effort since Blackwater -- the scandal-scarred security contractor -- tried to transform itself into Xe Services. Nobody is fooled when liberals put on this bargain-basement camouflage.

 

Best protest sign ever



Cryptome on Wikileaks

Wikileaks Rest in Peace

The original Wikileaks initiative is dead, replaced by a bloated apparatus
promising 260,000 cables at slower than a snail's pace. At the rate of 20
cables a day it will take 13,000 days to finish -- some 35 years.

The original merits of Wikileaks have been lost in its transformation into
a publicity and fund-raising vehicle for Julian Assange as indicated in the
redesign website which billboards him.

Its once invaluable, steady stream of documents, packaged in its own, no-frills
format, is now a tiny dribble of documents apparently regulated by a compact
with a few main stream media which amplify the material well beyond its
significance. Days go by when nothing new is offered except outpouring of
manufactured news about Assange and a slew of trivial news and bombastic
commentaries for and against the initiative.

 

12.29.2010

Wet

From Drop Box


Photo: Lynn C Dot
Taken with my camera phone in Vancouver, WA

Bushcare

UNDERNEWS: New Iraq constitution provides better healthcare than America

Current - Article 31 of the Iraqi Constitution, drafted by your right-wing Bushies in 2005 and ratified by the Iraqi people, includes state-guaranteed (single payer) healthcare for life for every Iraqi citizen.

12.28.2010

Discovery

It turns out that if I stand in the middle of a room long enough eventually I remember why I'm there. This is a big thing, really huge. It means that now, instead of wandering aimlessly back and forth, all I have to do is stand still and all will be made clear. Saves a lot of energy.

I wonder if I can read a book while I'm waiting.

Slalom duck


And then it warmed up to 20ยบ so we went to the beach.

12.27.2010

Harley

Photo: Phil Compton

OK! Some other time!

Close call. I was just getting ready to go out on a purely optional, highly postponable errand, clomping through the kitchen in my unlaced boots, when I glanced out the window and saw a huge cloud of snow blow across the neighbor's back lawn, propelled by an enormous blast of no doubt icy cold wind and I said to myself, what's the friggin' hurry here? 

Next: Get groped at the Gap

‘Homeland’ security coming to hotels, malls | Raw Story

WASHINGTON – The United States is stepping up security at "soft targets" like hotels and shopping malls, as well as trains and ports, as it counters the evolving Al-Qaeda threat, a top official said Sunday.

And by the way, why do sentences like this get written when the very next paragraph - the very next sentence, in fact - names the "top official" as Janet Napolitano? Why can't we just have Janet Napolitano in the first sentence and be done with it? 

Just asking.

Dude, why can't we just have a little snow and get on with it?

Lotta Snow | Talking Points Memo

Like Broadway for aspiring actors, the avenues of New York crush the dreams of even the most talented snow.

Some blizzard


I give it four inches, although it's a little difficult to be sure because it was (and still is) very windy, so there are low spots drifted to a foot or more and higher spots blown almost bare. All the streets are plowed, traffic is moving normally although there is not so much of it because the schools and some of the stores downtown are closed. So for a blizzard this was not much to get worked up about.

Spare us the purple prose, please

Huge Blizzard Snarls Travel and Transit in the Northeast - NYTimes.com

Through the afternoon, the storm grew into an adventure. The snow came down in great sweeping curtains, drifting over parked cars and park benches to be sculpted into aerodynamic shapes.

Everywhere, the winds whispered and moaned in their secret Ice Age language....

Right. That would be in Manhattan. Here, not so much, although it did eventually snow and - I'm just peering through my frost-etched windowpane (sorry, reading too much NYTimes) - there looks to be maybe four inches on the ground. It looks like light snow (yes, I will go inspect it more closely in time but I'm still working on my emergency cup of coffee so it will be a while before I get outside) and it's blowing pretty hard, so probably it is drifting some, somewhere.

The bad news about snow cover is that it's, well, cover, of course, but the streets are plowed, the kiddies don't have to go to school (at least one teacher I know will be grumpy because she's not getting a snow day out of this), and all in all it doesn't look like much to get excited about, here.

 

12.26.2010

But baby it's still cold outside

Bundle Up, It’s Global Warming - NYTimes.com

THE earth continues to get warmer, yet it’s feeling a lot colder outside. ...

How can we reconcile this? The not-so-obvious short answer is that the overall warming of the atmosphere is actually creating cold-weather extremes. 

And yes it does make sense. Read the article at the link.