Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Happy All Hallows E'en!

       This was carved by Daughter-in-Law in Maine!  She may also have been the photographer.

26 comments:

  1. I think that Jack-o-Lantern deserves a First! But it definitely isn't Howard Dean.

    listener--I feel not the least bit left out.

    Cat--I am sure Nigel is just fine, only having an adventure that will be grist for many conversations over the years.

    --Alan

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  2. Proud Mom alert!
    My eldest posted this on his FB page Tuesday morning. And when some of his Friends took him to task about it he held his own and stood his ground.

    "Sandy unfolded almost exactly as predicted by the National Hurricane Center. Good science is your friend. So is the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). One aspect of the politics couldn't be more relevant this morning. When you have a storm that hits 10 states you don't want to be wondering whether the private contractor you bought disaster insurance from (hopefully the platinum rooftop chopper rescue plan!) is coming to your aid or not. No, you want the Coast Guard and FEMA coming to your aid. No private company could realistically afford to keep the right equipment and people standing by for years waiting for a disaster or could immediately scale up to handle a crisis of this size across state lines. States would do a better job than the private sector, but could be overwhelmed depending on the disaster. Of course any agency could always do a better and more efficient job, but there is no substitute for a strong response from the federal level. Protecting the people is one of the core reasons for having a government and it goes beyond the defense budget to natural disasters. This is a clarifying and defining point in the election too. Romney has said in the past that it is immoral to fund FEMA because doing so would increase the deficit (but it's OK to cut taxes that increase the deficit!). Now faced with the devastation in NY/NJ he is backpedaling. Ryan has proposed budgets that slash FEMA funding to help with the deficit/debt and Romney praised those budgets. The debt is a serious problem but cutting off our ability to respond to a disaster is not the answer."

    One guy tried to say that Son had misrepresented Romney's position on FEMA. So Son said how Romney's current position isn't the same as what he said last year, and posted this video clip of Romney speaking about FEMA last year:
    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/29/1152002/-Romney-in-primary-Federal-disaster-relief-immoral

    :-)

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  3. puddle update from Thankful on Tuesday...


    Howdy to all!
    Talked with puddle earlier today... all is good. Only drizzle yesterday, no snow or high winds. Power is out and phone line is too fuzzy to get online, but propane tank is full so she'll be warm.
    Hope everyone is out of harms way.
    hugz,
    Thankful

    October 30, 2012 5:04 PM

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  4. Three hurricanes 1938, 1955, 1969. The announcer in the 1971 documentary still has an identifiable Midatlantic accent; it was very strong in 1938 and still fully developed in 1955. I miss it.

    --Alan

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    1. Dr. Jeff Masters at the Wunderground blog explains here why the loss of Arctic sea ice paved The way for Superstorm Sandy, and why we can expect more of the same.
      http://i.wund.com/auto/iphone/blog/JeffMasters/show.html#blog

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    2. I'd forgotten just how dramatic the newsreels used to be. Th3 1938 hurricane sounded a lot like Sandy, except there seemed to be less preparation.

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    3. Fascinating article. Thanks, listener.

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  5. News report today that an influential Chinese think tank has advocated an end to the one-child policy. Overdue IMHO. See http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_CHINA_ONE_CHILD?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-10-31-06-45-05

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    Replies
    1. I saw that on the evening news. Interesting development. What do you make of it, Bill?

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  6. I got a couple of things done this afternoon. One was going over to the township assessor's office to arrange for a partial property tax refund. I was late filing my senior exemption form last spring, so I didn't get it. But the township assessor's office, whose function is to help people with assessment issues, told me it wasn't too late to file a "certificate of error" to reverse that. So I did. And filed the senior exemption form for next year at the same time.

    Then I went over to Village Hall to vote. Lines were fairly short. Partially because they had a huge number of voting machines and partially, I'm sure, because I went at the right time -- 4 pm on Halloween afternoon. I skipped the page after page of judicial retention ballots and indeed the judicial elections as well, so there wasn't a lot to vote on. Voted "no" on the state constitutional amendment that would have made it harder to increase government employees' pensions. I think I saw something that suggested all the newspapers in the Chicago area were against it as well.

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  7. ♡ Very excited about becoming a Grammie again in May! ♡

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    Replies
    1. Excellent! Are we shooting for another girl, or will we let a boy into the clan? *grin*

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  8. I have concluded I should be following HuffPost Small Business this election year (and probably after, since I am technically a small businessman). I just found this: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-arensmeyer/new-poll-dispels-myth-tha_b_2018564.html?utm_hp_ref=small-business. (Guess I should ask someone to remind me how to make this clickable.)

    What it come down to is that 52% of small business owners, despite being predominantly Republican, think taxes should be raised on people with more than $250,000 in income. And not just because 95% of them don't fall into that category. Essentially, they want to see the deficit reduced *without* impacting their customers' incomes. And the very rich aren't their customers. Makes sense to me.

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    Replies
    1. To make a link clickable:

      Type < a href=" (with no space between < and a)
      Paste the URL
      Type ">
      Paste the URL again or type explanatory text
      Type < / a > (without the spaces)

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  9. Just saw a status update from Nige, posted a while ago. Soooooooooooo relieved he's safe! My friend and my fan club pres. in the eastern part of Mass. are safe too. Still haven't heard about Lori. Robert gave me her phone number, but calling seems like an imposition right now. I'll wait another day or two, d'ya think? Or would it be better to call Thurs.?

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  10. Hey, great stuff, listener! May, eh?

    Bill--makes sense to me also .

    Dang, can't get the HTML tags to display correctly. someone else here told me how to do it.

    Great photo, a portrait really, of Janis Joplin in the NYT today:


    Janis Joplin 1969, at Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco


    --Alan

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  11. Good to hear about Nigel, Cat.

    Bill--let's see if I can write out how to do he clickable links.

    lead off with a caret thingy:
    <
    followed immediately by
    a space href=
    followed by the complete URL inside double quotation marks
    followed by another caret thingy pointing the other way
    followed by the caption you want to use
    followed by another of the first type of caret thingy
    followed immediately by a forward slash
    followed immediately by
    a
    followed immediately by a caret thingy pointing the other way.

    I think I have it right, although it looks a bit like something is missing. Will check on it after posting this. Here goes a try with your link:

    Bill's link

    --Alan

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    1. Alan, I like your explanation better than mine. It seems more thorough and easier to follow. I especially like "caret thingy:." Erm, for future reference, we usually call them left and right angle brackets, though I may start calling them caret thingies. *grin*

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  12. Yep, seems to work.

    --Alan

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    Replies
    1. Thanks, Alan. I've printed it off and saved it, since I seem to be doing links these days.

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  13. I seem to have become de facto team leader of the NFB Writers Division's FB team.

    As of Sunday, nothing could have been further from my mind. Then Robert wrote asking for help putting up a page and, you know me, ol' Can't Keep Her Mouth Shut Cat, I had to say I knew how to create pages and groups and would be happy to do what I could. More offers of help came in, and they were all milling around aimlessly, so I more or less had to take charge. *sigh* How do I get myself into these things?

    I now have seven people to direct and keep in order, only two of whom I know at all. But, things are going well. The page is created and set so only admins can see it. I've made three job assignments, and those are going forward. One lady didn't actually know how to do what she volunteered to do, so she's out of things for the moment.

    We acquired three new members tonight, just when I thought I had my four ladies safely in hand. I introduced the new members to the group and asked them to tell us about their FB experience, etc. So, we'll see how it all shakes out.

    Once it's all running smoothly, whenever that may be, perhaps I'll be able to bow out.

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  14. Cat ~~ Do people really get to bow out? Well, I guess it has been known to happen, as rare as it may seem. But it's good that things are going well.

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