It was a very relaxed day at the polls. The vast majority of voters mailed their ballots in. It took us half the usual time to open the paper ballots, check them off on the checklist, and feed them into the machine.
End of the night, we election workers got an email from our Town Clerk with the results! I'm happy to report that everyone and everything I voted for was victorious!
We have only about 6000 residents (counting children) and probably 3000-4000 of them vote. It's not a hard project, really. But it's rare I vote a perfect ballot. Sweet.
It seems that rumors of steroid use by Putin have been circulating for some time; that can increase aggressive behaviors. Google putin on steroids for more information and more rumors about his health.
We try to comprehend why any one could be capable of doing such things, so we might have clues about how to keep such things from happening. The difficulty is that insanity is not rational.
I stand corrected; such ballgames [Click] have persisted in a number of places, mostly in Britain, but also in Georgia (the country):
Medieval Football:
Calcio Fiorentino – a modern revival of Renaissance football from 16th century Florence. la Soule – a modern revival of French medieval football lelo burti – a Georgian traditional football game
Britain
The Haxey Hood, played on Epiphany in Haxey, Lincolnshire Shrove Tuesday games Scoring the Hales in Alnwick, Northumberland Royal Shrovetide Football in Ashbourne, Derbyshire The Shrovetide Ball Game in Atherstone, Warwickshire The Shrove Tuesday Football Ceremony of the Purbeck Marblers in Corfe Castle, Dorset Hurling the Silver Ball at St Columb Major in Cornwall The Ball Game in Sedgefield, County Durham In Scotland the Ba game ("Ball Game") is still popular around Christmas and Hogmanay at: Duns, Berwickshire Scone, Perthshire Kirkwall in the Orkney Islands
‘We are a huge amount of ants’: the united front of Ukrainian volunteers [Click] Alex Riabchyn, a former deputy in Ukraine’s parliament and an adviser to the CEO of the state gas firm Naftogaz, said volunteers were playing a crucial part in the struggle for the nation’s survival. “We have a series of strong horizontal links. We are good at self-organisation,” he explained. He continued: “Russia has vertical links and strong institutions. Putin says something; Russians obey. In Ukraine, institutions are weak. We are not used to obeying. The state killed people in the Holocaust and the gulags. People here rely on their family and friends.”
In today’s news from Japan there was a report that so far fifty Japanese had volunteered for the Ukranian foreign legion.
Some other headlines from The Guardian:
‘Just a sea of tears’: the group helping anxious mothers of Russian soldiers
Germany unites behind chancellor’s historic U-turn on arming Ukraine
Ukraine refugees given right to live in EU for three years
Rebecca Solnit: It’s time to confront the Trump-Putin network
UN General Assembly votes to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and calls for withdrawal
Thousands of people in cities across Russia have been defying police threats and staging protests against the invasion of Ukraine.
More than 7,000 Russian troops have been killed since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to Ukraine’s presidential adviser. Oleksiy Arestovich, a military adviser to president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said in a television briefing that hundreds of Russian servicemen have been taken prisoner, including senior officers. A Russian army commander was taken to Belarus after being severely wounded, Arestovich said.
In the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, the Russian army claims it has captured the city but its mayor says it is still held by Ukrainian forces.
Success for progressives in Texas while Trump ally suffers major blow
"If I was a bricklayer I'd go and build hospitals. If I was a doctor I'd go out and give people first aid. It just happens my trade is soldier, so I'm going out to fight."
How the Finns Deter Russian Invasion [Click] “If you want ordinary people to make your society occupation-proof, you have to teach them to kill well before they need to do so.”
I use the term foreign legion because that seems most appropriate; the official term is different. BTW, did you know that most of the French Foreign Legionnaires at Dien Bien Phu were German WWII veterans?
Having typed that note about Dien Bien Phu, I looked up the Wikipedia article and discovered that a few months before the eponymous battle, the French carried out a military operation there to interrupt the rice trade through the area and thereby draw out the Viet Minh. Well, they brought out the Viet Minh, all right. Didn't work out very well for them. And the Japanese Navy attacked Midway hoping to bring out the US battle fleet and aircraft carriers; that didn't work out very well either. And now Putin has brought out the Americans and Europeans. . . as well as Japanese, South Africans, etc. while inspiring hatred that will motivate Ukrainians for generations. And trying to do it on the cheap; no way did he use enough troops to control such a large country, even if he were able to subdue it for a while. Hmmmmm... I wonder if the fuel tank filler pipes on Russian trucks are big enough to slide a hand grenade down; helpful South Vietnamese refueling US trucks during the Vietnam war would sometimes slip a rubber band over the handle on a hand grenade, pull the pin, and slip the grenade into the fuel tank. After the Americans figured that one out, their military trucks started to come with smaller diameter filler pipes.
Sounds like it’s time for Donnie to get onto his superyacht and head out beyond the three-mile limit. Which raises the question of whether he has a superyacht, like real gazillionaires. Turns out he DID, [Click] but gave it up for unspecified reasons, possibly financial.
It was a very relaxed day at the polls. The vast majority of voters mailed their ballots in. It took us half the usual time to open the paper ballots, check them off on the checklist, and feed them into the machine.
ReplyDeleteEnd of the night, we election workers got an email from our Town Clerk with the results! I'm happy to report that everyone and everything I voted for was victorious!
Gee--everyone else voted right? That must be quite an experience!
DeleteWe have only about 6000 residents (counting children) and probably 3000-4000 of them vote. It's not a hard project, really. But it's rare I vote a perfect ballot. Sweet.
DeleteIt seems that rumors of steroid use by Putin have been circulating for some time; that can increase aggressive behaviors. Google
ReplyDeleteputin on steroids
for more information and more rumors about his health.
We try to comprehend why any one could be capable of doing such things, so we might have clues about how to keep such things from happening. The difficulty is that insanity is not rational.
DeleteGiven Putin's age, he is most unlikely to have been afflicted with syphilis, which Hitler very evidently was.
DeleteAtherstone ball game returns for 822nd year after pandemic break [Click] Wow! This must be the only such football game remaining. In the Middle Ages such games were well known, not infrequently between neighboring towns.
ReplyDeleteI stand corrected; such ballgames [Click] have persisted in a number of places, mostly in Britain, but also in Georgia (the country):
Medieval Football:
Calcio Fiorentino – a modern revival of Renaissance football from 16th century Florence.
la Soule – a modern revival of French medieval football
lelo burti – a Georgian traditional football game
Britain
The Haxey Hood, played on Epiphany in Haxey, Lincolnshire
Shrove Tuesday games
Scoring the Hales in Alnwick, Northumberland
Royal Shrovetide Football in Ashbourne, Derbyshire
The Shrovetide Ball Game in Atherstone, Warwickshire
The Shrove Tuesday Football Ceremony of the Purbeck Marblers in Corfe Castle, Dorset
Hurling the Silver Ball at St Columb Major in Cornwall
The Ball Game in Sedgefield, County Durham
In Scotland the Ba game ("Ball Game") is still popular around Christmas and Hogmanay at:
Duns, Berwickshire
Scone, Perthshire
Kirkwall in the Orkney Islands
ReplyDelete‘We are a huge amount of ants’: the united front of Ukrainian volunteers [Click] Alex Riabchyn, a former deputy in Ukraine’s parliament and an adviser to the CEO of the state gas firm Naftogaz, said volunteers were playing a crucial part in the struggle for the nation’s survival. “We have a series of strong horizontal links. We are good at self-organisation,” he explained. He continued: “Russia has vertical links and strong institutions. Putin says something; Russians obey. In Ukraine, institutions are weak. We are not used to obeying. The state killed people in the Holocaust and the gulags. People here rely on their family and friends.”
In today’s news from Japan there was a report that so far fifty Japanese had volunteered for the Ukranian foreign legion.
Some other headlines from The Guardian:
‘Just a sea of tears’: the group helping anxious mothers of Russian soldiers
Germany unites behind chancellor’s historic U-turn on arming Ukraine
Ukraine refugees given right to live in EU for three years
Rebecca Solnit: It’s time to confront the Trump-Putin network
UN General Assembly votes to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and calls for withdrawal
Thousands of people in cities across Russia have been defying police threats and staging protests against the invasion of Ukraine.
More than 7,000 Russian troops have been killed since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to Ukraine’s presidential adviser. Oleksiy Arestovich, a military adviser to president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said in a television briefing that hundreds of Russian servicemen have been taken prisoner, including senior officers. A Russian army commander was taken to Belarus after being severely wounded, Arestovich said.
In the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, the Russian army claims it has captured the city but its mayor says it is still held by Ukrainian forces.
Success for progressives in Texas while Trump ally suffers major blow
BBC headlines:
Airbus joins rival Boeing in cutting Russia ties
'More than 100' Scots volunteer for Ukraine fight
Scots!
Deletehttps://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-60589580
"If I was a bricklayer I'd go and build hospitals. If I was a doctor I'd go out and give people first aid. It just happens my trade is soldier, so I'm going out to fight."
"Rebecca Solnit: It’s time to confront the Trump-Putin network"
DeleteYes, please.
How the Finns Deter Russian Invasion [Click] “If you want ordinary people to make your society occupation-proof, you have to teach them to kill well before they need to do so.”
ReplyDelete“Mexican smuggling gangs have sawed through new segments of border wall 3,272 times over the past three years,” the Washington Post reports. [Click] Heck, that’s only about a thousand times a year, or three times a day.
ReplyDelete😳 Impressive.
DeleteThat's a fair number of angle grinders; presumably Home Depot sales are good.
DeleteWe try not to shop at Home Depot anymore. After learning that the leadership are DT supporters, we prefer Lowe's.
DeletePutin’s War Unites Eastern Europe in Alarm [Click]
ReplyDeleteI am deeply impressed with the world citizens volunteering for the Foreign Legion to fight for Ukraine.
ReplyDeleteI feel a strange compulsion to rip up sheets and roll bandages.
DeleteI use the term foreign legion because that seems most appropriate; the official term is different. BTW, did you know that most of the French Foreign Legionnaires at Dien Bien Phu were German WWII veterans?
DeleteHaving typed that note about Dien Bien Phu, I looked up the Wikipedia article and discovered that a few months before the eponymous battle, the French carried out a military operation there to interrupt the rice trade through the area and thereby draw out the Viet Minh. Well, they brought out the Viet Minh, all right. Didn't work out very well for them. And the Japanese Navy attacked Midway hoping to bring out the US battle fleet and aircraft carriers; that didn't work out very well either. And now Putin has brought out the Americans and Europeans. . . as well as Japanese, South Africans, etc. while inspiring hatred that will motivate Ukrainians for generations. And trying to do it on the cheap; no way did he use enough troops to control such a large country, even if he were able to subdue it for a while. Hmmmmm... I wonder if the fuel tank filler pipes on Russian trucks are big enough to slide a hand grenade down; helpful South Vietnamese refueling US trucks during the Vietnam war would sometimes slip a rubber band over the handle on a hand grenade, pull the pin, and slip the grenade into the fuel tank. After the Americans figured that one out, their military trucks started to come with smaller diameter filler pipes.
DeleteSelect Panel Lays Out Potential Charges Against Trump [Click]
ReplyDeleteAND Capitol Rioter Pleads Guilty to Seditious Conspiracy. [Click]
Sounds like it’s time for Donnie to get onto his superyacht and head out beyond the three-mile limit. Which raises the question of whether he has a superyacht, like real gazillionaires. Turns out he DID, [Click] but gave it up for unspecified reasons, possibly financial.
Germans Seize Russian Billionaire Alisher Usmanov’s Mega-Yacht [Click] Donnie, you’re just not in the game! (And never were.)
DeleteUkraine authorities say seized Russian tanks don’t need to be declared on tax form [Click] But if you would like to, go ahead!
ReplyDeleteVermont students protest the lifting of school mask mandate
ReplyDeletehttps://www.wcax.com/2022/03/02/montpelier-students-protest-lifting-mask-mandate/
I know that VT*Grand (now 14) also doesn't want the mask mandate lifted.
New Justice Department ‘KleptoCapture’ unit targets Russian oligarchs’ yachts and other assets [Click] None too soon.
ReplyDelete