1.04.2025

What to do without football

You Can’t Just Rely on Football to Get Through the Winter—Can You?


The end of another season looms.

 (I'll settle for the cookies.)

Better late than never

It’s Christmas for the elephants as unsold trees are fed to the animals at Berlin Zoo

“The animals can fight with them, they can rub themselves against them, they can throw themselves over them and do various other things with these fir trees,” he added. “And so we enrich the animals’ everyday lives, which they are very happy about.”

And giraffes. 

1.03.2025

And a timely warning from the New York Times

Cold Snap Is Forecast to Grip Much of the United States


It could be cold in January. In Duluth, MN, it may even get below 0ºF a couple of times. 
This Arctic outbreak is expected to bring a sustained period of cold weather across the northern Plains, Great Lakes, Midwest and East Coast as well.

Break out your warm socks and a good pair of mittens. Mind your ears. 

Hope for snow.

Cleaning up matters from the old year

Missiles Are Now the Biggest Killer of Airline Passengers

The [recent crash] of an Azerbaijan Airlines jetliner in Kazakhstan, if officially confirmed as a shootdown, would be the third major fatal downing of a passenger jet linked to armed conflict since 2014, according to the Flight Safety Foundation’s Aviation Safety Network, a global database of accidents and incidents. The tally would bring to more than 500 the number of deaths from such attacks during that period. 

So if you're making travel plans for the coming year, try to route around the coming wars. 

12.31.2024

Some puzzling numbers, UPI

New firearm regulations are also coming into effect after more than 500 people died in more than 500 mass shootings in the United States in 2024.

United Press International 

If the number of people killed in mass shootings is about the same as the number of mass shootings then not all of the shootings could have been mass, could they?

Accurate numbers are a little difficult to come by here due to inconsistencies in reporting protocols.

From Pew Research:

Though they tend to get less public attention than gun-related murders, suicides have long accounted for the majority of U.S. gun deaths. In 2021, 54% of all gun-related deaths in the U.S. were suicides (26,328), while 43% were murders (20,958), according to the CDC. The remaining gun deaths that year were accidental (549), involved law enforcement (537) or had undetermined circumstances (458).

12.30.2024

Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy

Jimmy Carter: A Declassified Obituary

Washington, D.C., December 29, 2024 – The late President Jimmy Carter, contrary to the views of some critics, was typically focused, knowledgeable, and strong-willed on matters of foreign policy,…

Sometimes I imagine I'm the only person living who voted for Jimmy twice. That's likely not true, but probably close. 

Jimmy Carter was a better President than he's generally given credit for being. Also he was, for a while at least, radioactive. He won a Nobel prize. And took up carpentry.

He lived for a century, and made it better.

Pants or no pants, the game goes on

Chess grandmaster Magnus Carlsen returns to a tournament after a dispute over jeans is resolved

An official fined Carlsen $200 and asked him to change pants, but he refused and wasn’t paired for a ninth-round game, the federation said at the time. The organization noted that another grandmaster, Ian Nepomniachtchi, was fined earlier in the day for wearing sports shoes, changed and continued to play.

Collector or serial killer?

The butterfly collector with more than 4.2 million insects seeks a safe haven

He captures and preserves them in glass covered frames…

12.29.2024

Is California cheating?

Map Reveals Mega Millions Winners Across US


Newsweek
is on the case.

[Wait. One?]

Exposure. Sure.

2 Oregon men die from exposure in a forest after they went out to look for Sasquatch

The 59-year-old and 37-year-old appear to have died from exposure, the Skamania County Sheriff’s Office said via Facebook. The weather and the men’s lack of preparedness led the office to draw that conclusion, it said.

 

Bananas

Dave Barry’s year in review: 2024 was just bananas

How stupid was 2024?

Let’s start with the art world, which over the centuries has given humanity so many beautiful, timeless masterpieces. This year, the biggest story involving art, by far, was that a cryptocurrency businessman paid $6.2 million at a Sotheby’s auction for . . .

A banana.

Which he ate.

“It’s much better than other bananas,” he told the press.…