In this rant, The EU Referendum wonders why the European council of ministers has over ruled the European Union’s high court and put The People’s Mujahideen of Iran on its list of terrorist organizations. After all, The People’s Mujahideen of Iran opposes the Iranian government and supposedly most European governments would like to see the government in Iran change. So why are they overruling their own courts to call it a terrorist organization?
This week’s essay of the week is all about Shakespeare’s King Lear. I like the play so much that any half way decent essay on it is bound to catch my attention.
I just can’t see buying most gadgets that are designed with pets in mind. They all seem like such a waste of money.
But I have to admit that I can see the appeal of buying a Cat Cam.
For those who have not heard about it, A Cat Cam is a digital camera that is strapped to the collar of a cat. It on a time controller and it takes pictures from the cat’s perspective as often as you want (from one second to every eight hours). Thus, you can get a pretty good idea of what your cat has been up to if you so desire.
This is one of the trips that a cat named Mr. Lee took. Unfortunately, the author heavily edited the selection of photos so you don’t get quite as detailed view of Mr. Lee’s trip as I would like. But it is still cool.
The Cat Cam is not really ready for the market yet, but I can see it becoming a big thing. Who has not wondered what the cats are getting up to when they are out and about?
This has been all over the net, so I have been trying to avoid it myself. But it is kind of hard to avoid something like this…..
Before trial began yesterday in the case of the D.C. judge who sued his neighborhood dry cleaners after they lost his pants, the most extraordinary fact was Roy Pearson’s demand for $65 million in damages.
That was before Pearson, an administrative law judge, broke down while testifying about the emotional pain of having the cleaners give him the wrong pants.
That was from the Washington Post and it really does not need much commentary.
The cynic gives with eyes averted, and doubts when he hopes, because most of all he fears dissappointment–that is loss of control.
I think I made it clear, when I presented to you the sprouting change, that danger threatened the sprout from every side. I intimated the militant ranks of people who would not take a Click Here to continue reading.
All this focus on death in the rant and essay of this week made me think of this passage from Job.
Since this week’s Essay of the Week is about death and society it is only right that this weeks rant should be about society and death. And so we present a British Inspector’s rant on the indignities that modern regulations force on the dead and the grieving.
This week’s essay of the week aggravates me and inspires me at the same time. It aggravates me because it takes a promising idea and does not do it justice. But it inspires me because it has gotten me thinking about why I don’t think this essay handles the subject properly and how I would do it differently.
And what is the subject of this aggregating and inspiring essay? Properly speaking it is death and the foundation of society. But in one the first ways in which the essay goes wrong the author of the essay (Joseph Bottum) elects to call the essay Death & Politics. He thus gives a rather mundane gloss to a serious issue.
Flaws aside, the inspiring aspects of this essay make it worth putting up with the aggravation that it contains.
Much of the US is operating under drought conditions as this story from USA Today demonstrates. This drought is afflicting parts of the country that are not use to prolonged dry spells. From the USA Today article…
This drought has been particularly harsh in three regions: the Southwest, the Southeast and northern Minnesota.
Severe dryness across California and Arizona has spread into 11 other Western states. On the Colorado River, the water supply for 30 million people in seven states and Mexico, the Lake Powell and Lake Mead reservoirs are only half full and unlikely to recover for years. In Los Angeles County, on track for a record dry year with 21% of normal rain downtown since last summer, fire officials are threatening to cancel Fourth of July fireworks if conditions worsen. On Wednesday, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa urged residents to voluntarily cut water use 10%, the city’s first such call since the 1990s.
In Minnesota, which is in its worst drought since 1976, the situation is improving slowly, although a wildfire last month burned dozens of houses and 115 square miles in the northeastern part of the state.
The Southeast, unaccustomed to prolonged dry spells, may be suffering the most. In eight states from Mississippi to the Carolinas and down through Florida, lakes are shrinking, crops are withering, well levels are falling and there are new limits on water use. “We need 40-50 inches of rainfall to get out of the drought,” says Carol Ann Wehle of the South Florida Water Management District.
Despite a recent storm, water hasn’t flowed in Florida’s Kissimmee River, which feeds Lake Okeechobee, in 212 days. The district has imposed its strictest water-use limits ever in 13 counties, cutting home watering to once a week and commercial use by 45%.
Of course, this is adding fuel to people’s global warming concerns. But to my mind, the really scary thing is how much worse this could get using only the historical record as a guide. As The Weather Guys point out in their blog….
But as bad as this drought is, it can’t hold a candle to the disastrous Dust Bowl of the 1930s. For example, in July 1934, an incredible 63 percent of the USA was considered to be severely to extremely dry, compared to just 18 percent this April, according to the National Climatic Data Center.
Just because we live in a traditionally wet area, does not mean we should assume that we are safe from really bad droughts. And I count the dry summers that we have suffered from in the past as being really bad droughts.
Most people don’t realize how many people risk their lives on a daily basis just so that people will not be inconvenienced. Electrical transmission capacity in the US is so tight that a lot of people would be seriously inconvenienced if lines were taken down for maintenance. That means some people have to work on high voltage lines while they are live.
This video gives you an idea of how they go about it.