Monday, March 31, 2014

31 March 2014 We didn’t know at all we didn’t see a thing


Cassi Creek:  Sunny, up to 57°F by 1124.  I’d like to be done with feeding and caring for the wood stove for a while.  Last night’s midnight  feeding was still actively burning at 0700 today.  Since there was frost on the decks I tossed another couple pieces of split wood onto the coals.  The stove is still providing more heat than we need in the office.  I don’t plan on burning wood tonight.
          The article below suggests that the total deaths resulting from the Holocaust must be updated. As hard as that may be to believe, we have little reason to doubt the new numbers.  It also documents the wide-spread refusal to speak up about such atrocities.
Not for the faint of heart
New Holocaust Discoveries

“…The unspeakable crime of the 20th century, more than the triumph of evil, was the sin of the "innocent" bystander.

“It wasn't just the huge killing centers whose very names - Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald, Dachau, Majdanek, Belzec, Ravensbruck, Sobibar, Treblinka - bring to mind the ghastly images by now so familiar to us. It wasn't just the Warsaw ghetto. It wasn't just the famous sites we've all by now heard of that deservedly live on in everlasting infamy.

“Researchers at United States Holocaust Memorial Museum have just released documentation that astounds even the most informed scholars steeped in the previously known statistics of German atrocities. Here is some of what has now been conclusively discovered:

“There were more than 42,500 Nazi ghettos and camps throughout Europe from 1933 to 1945…”








Saturday, March 29, 2014

29 March 2014 Hazy, gray, not underway


Cassi Creek:  The forecast is for rain, possibly thunderstorms, and nearly freezing temperatures tonight.  Tomorrow, cooler than today, falling below freezing in the evening. 
          We both slept in this morning.  It’s hard to plan the day as we don’t know whether we are dining out in a group or not.  Since I’m not planning dinner, it will be essential at some point in the afternoon that we make some decision. 
          The landscaping project is well underway and the preliminary results are quite impressive.  Of course, we now have a large debris pile in the area we refer to as the pit, that has exceeded the amount of debris we had hoped to be able to burn for disposal.  Burning might also beat back some of the Japanese Knot Weed that we struggle to eliminate.  The risk of wild fire has to be considered.  We may simply label it as compost in training.



Friday, March 28, 2014

28 March 2014 Would you buy a used war?



Cassi Creek:  I have no desire to force anyone to use birth control.  That being said, no one has any right to prevent the use of birth  control by others.  Belonging to a church/cult &/or corporation does not extend any right to limit the medical decisions of others, particularly non cult members. 







I can hear the furor centering on a potential linking of birth control and ED drugs. 

Crimea is not worth a single drop of U.S. military blood.  :
           The GOP, which has aimed its lunatic outer fringes at falting Obama for not emptying Afghanistan of U.S. forces, has now decided that reinstating a “Cold War” between the U.S. and Russia would be amusing and financially beneficial to Halliburton and other defense industry corporation. 
          We can’t afford another foreign war, hot or cold.  We definitely can’t afford to transport forces and their organic equipment to Crimea. 
          If the GOP wants another war, they can pay for it our of their personal fortunes and fight it with their members and base.  I hear a lot of anti-Obama BS being hurled.  I don’t hear GOP feat rushing to enlist and to fight in Crimea. 


Thursday, March 27, 2014

27 March 2014  Plenty of fuel and fodder




Toles has the correct position.
I’m beginning to research weather stations to replace the current degrading unit that now provides little useful information.  I look at the data many times each day and lament the gap in my records.



Wednesday, March 26, 2014

26 March 2014 and all the boards did shrink


Cassi Creek:  Another night spent stoking the stove.  Grocery runs into Jonesborough and Johnson City to replenish the yogurt and quinoa supplies.  Brought home rainbow trout fillets for dinner.
          The well is doing its rust & turbidity display.  We’ve never been able to figure out the reason for this event or how to prevent it happening.  Forced regeneration for the filters/R-O tanks this afternoon.  That may help. 


Tuesday, March 25, 2014

25 March 2014 No weather, not here


Cassi Creek:  The weather, outside, is sloppy, dreary, unpleasant.
          But inside there is not reason to believe that those conditions  truly exist. 
The weather station that has dutifly endured heat, cold, snow, hail, rain, and wind is struggling to remain of any purpose.  The external feeds are failing a bit more each day. 
          Today,, the outside temperature has been holding steady at 0.5 °F.  Local reports from other stations suggest that 31-37 may be much more accurate. 
          Likewise, the rain gauge has not registered a drop of water all month.  The wind seems to rarely blow at this location. 
          I’ve recorded local weather data at 15 minute intervals for years.  This station was put into service in 2009.  Five years exceeds the warrantee by four years.  Time to start looking for its replacement.


Monday, March 24, 2014

24 March 2014 Why talk when you can text


Cassi Creek:  The word came by text, indicating that Malaysian Air Flight 370 was presumed to have crashed in the Indian Ocean, resulting in the deaths of all passengers and crew. 
          While the Prime Minister of Malaysia made the first announcement of the change in status for the flight, the families and friends of the passengers were  simply provided with brief messages sent to their cell phones. 
          What insensitivity!  How brutal it must be to receive such a notice in a cold and faceless manner.  Given the amount of lead time, it would have been very easy for the airline to bring in a disaster team capable of providing personal notification for every family member and friend waiting anxiously to hear what they knew but did not want to accept as final reality. 
          Yet, in a world that now prefers to text rather than talk, such brutality is a direct consequence of that preference. 
          The U.S. armed forces manages to send a team to the home of every service person killed or wounded in the line of duty.  The appearance of that team is always unwanted and seldom expected.  But it is personal in nature, providing a face-to-face announcement of loss.  The same face-to-face message should have been delivered to everyone waiting in Kuala Lumpur.  Anything less is not acceptable. 
          Now the search for wreckage and debris will focus in on a smaller area.  The families will most likely push for body recovery.  The recovery of those victims is highly unlikely.  The cause of this disaster may never be determined.

24 March 2014  Why talk when you can text
Cassi Creek:  The word came by text, indicating that Malaysian Air Flight 370 was presumed to have crashed in the Indian Ocean, resulting in the deaths of all passengers and crew. 
          While the Prime Minister of Malaysia made the first announcement of the change in status for the flight, the families and friends of the passengers were  simply provided with brief messages sent to their cell phones. 
          What insensitivity!  How brutal it must be to receive such a notice in a cold and faceless manner.  Given the amount of lead time, it would have been very easy for the airline to bring in a disaster team capable of providing personal notification for every family member and friend waiting anxiously to hear what they knew but did not want to accept as final reality. 
          Yet, in a world that now prefers to text rather than talk, such brutality is a direct consequence of that preference. 
          The U.S. armed forces manages to send a team to the home of every service person killed or wounded in the line of duty.  The appearance of that team is always unwanted and seldom expected.  But it is personal in nature, providing a face-to-face announcement of loss.  The same face-to-face message should have been delivered to everyone waiting in Kuala Lumpur.  Anything less is not acceptable. 
          Now the search for wreckage and debris will focus in on a smaller area.  The families will most likely push for body recovery.  The recovery of those victims is highly unlikely.  The cause of this disaster may never be determined.

“(CNN) -- Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 went down over the southern Indian Ocean, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said Monday, citing a new analysis of satellite data by a British satellite company and accident investigators, and apparently ending hopes that anyone survived.
A relative of a missing passenger briefed by the airline in Beijing said, "They have told us all lives are lost."
The Prime Minister based his announcement on what he described as unprecedented analysis of satellite data sent by the plane by British satellite provider Inmarsat and the British Air Accidents Investigation Branch. He didn't describe the nature of the analysis.
But he said it made it clear that the plane's last position was in the middle of the remote southern Indian Ocean, "far from any possible landing sites."
He begged reporters to respect the privacy of relatives.
"For them, the past few weeks have been heartbreaking," he said. "I know this news must be harder still."
The Prime Minister's statement came after the airline sent a text message to relatives saying it "deeply regrets that we have to assume beyond any reasonable doubt that MH370 has been lost and that none of those onboard survived."



Friday, March 21, 2014

21 March 2014 You know we can’t hide


Cassi Creek:  Climate change, right here in River City
That starts with T, which rhymes with C, and that stands for….  Those of you who know the lyric can apply your own ending to this line.  In conjunction with Toles fine cartoon, it seems appropriate to add another voice.


(note – this is the final performance of this song by the Grateful Dead. 10 July 1990.   Brent Mydland died of an overdose 19 days later.)

From another retrospect:  Last night we went to a performance by Caravan of Thieves.  I highly recommend this band
http://caravanofthieves.com/
Their first set was a very nice cover of the entire Sgt Pepper’s album.  Tremendous energy, had the crowd in their hand from the first note.  Midway through the set, I looked behind me  and got an impossible to prevent flash of the stereotypical PBS pledge drive programming with gray-headed boomers singing along to an aging reunion band.  Couldn’t shake the image but there were no commercials asking for money.
The 2nd set was high energy and mostly their compositions.  They play outside the lines, know how to flow or jerk from one song into the next.  Their instrumentals are fun and acoustic based.  The sound was well dialed in and I found nothing to lament or complain about other than the desire for one more set.
Turned 66 today.  Wow!  It’s a long strange trip from “don’t trust anyone over 30.”  
Gloria, thank you for the best years of my life and the better ones to follow!


Thursday, March 20, 2014

20 March 2014 Here be dragons


Cassi Creek:  Dragons graced the edges of old charts and maps, indicating the unknown nature of people and places beyond.  In such times, maps and charts were made as sailors and other explorers pushed the borders forward by actually sailing or walking across those borders and into new places. 
          Today we have charts and maps that cover most of our globe to a degree of accuracy and reliability that astounds even the map users among us.  We can chart the range of change for mountain peaks as they undergo erosion and up thrust.  We can chart the depths of local and remote seas, We can monitor the changes in coastlines and in icepacks, chart the retreat of glaciers, and see the ocean temperatures change. 
          The dragons are still there, lurking, waiting for us to overstep our boundaries by ignoring the extremely fragile atmospheric and oceanic conditions that allow life on this planet to exist.  We’ve eliminated the belief in mythical creatures belching flames and despoiling virgins for the benefit of knights errant.  The dragons of today are found living among us and refusing to accept that science and physics are cruel and unconcerned for the lives of people who ignore the truth about biology, geology, and all the other science disciplines that explain the nature of our world and our universe. 
          Today’s dragons don’t focus on despoiling virgins.  They have a much greater lust that encompasses entire continents and oceans.  They’ll quite happily use our world, abuse and destroy it, and justify it in the name off greed and profit. 
          Here’s just one example of the manner in which today’s dragons far eclipse the behavior of those great scaled flying myths from but a few centuries back.




Wednesday, March 19, 2014

19 March 2014 wind, no rain


Cassi Creek:  Work is well underway on the pool landscaping project.  We are quite pleased at the amount and quality of work over the last two days. 
          We’ve been invite to share dinner with the company’s owner and his family at a local Mexican restaurant owned by members of his family.  This could be a truly memorable meal.  We’ve dined there several times and always enjoyed the food. 
I’m looking forward to the meal. 
          I’m sufficiently bored, now, with the endless repetition of unconfirmed and supposition by every consultant and former something who can be squeezed onto a television set.  Find the plane, find the bodies, and remember that there is a huge world outside the fuselage of one Malaysian Air 777.  I am sorry for the victims and their families.  I’m angry about what is probably a high jacking and multiple murders.  But it is time for some of the 24 hour news cycle to revert back to the inanities that usually occupy broadcast programming


Tuesday, March 18, 2014

18 March 2014 Back to basics again




Cassi Creek:  The e-mail problem seems to be corrected now.  Between Gloria and I, we managed to get com-cast tech support to give us a new set of parameters, changing ports used by Com-cast mail servers.  We can now send and receive. 
          The plumber who will ultimately install the new water heater came by to make sure the new heater would fit and to see what additional hardware would be required.  He turned out to be a libertarian Dead Head.  He’s not from here. 
          The landscaping process is well underway.  That’s going to make a big difference in the back yard.
          Artichokes and Italian sausage with pesto over pasta for dinner.


Monday, March 17, 2014

17 March 2014 Corned beef and hot water


Cassi Creek: Typical 17th March in the temperate latitudes – Rain, snow, cold weather.   Hot and cold running drunks will populate the local bars and roads – any excuse to drink and yesterday was some sort of NASCAR race in Bristol.  Bad driving skills meet intoxication.  Glad I’m not on call in some ER or lab.
          We celebrated the day by ordering a new water heater that should ship around 1 April. 
          We’ll dine tonight on corned beef and cabbage – one of many permutations of the dish. 
          The local fields are starting to green up.  That means lawn mowing won’t be far distant.  Learning where the new crop of rocks has surfaced will be ear and machine alarming. 

          

Sunday, March 16, 2014

16 March 2014 Bad server no tip


Cassi Creek:  rainy, chilly, power loss this morning. 
Windows live mail has been a problem for the past few days.  I can download e-mail but seem to be unable to forward it or reply to it.  I also seem to be unable to simply send e-mail. 
          I’ve been fighting this problem since I discovered that it exists.  That happened about 14 March.  Since then, I’ve reviewed account settings, reset every thing that could be reset to my previous parameters, and finally ran a system restore, hoping to jog the program’s brain.  As of yet, no joy.

          Dinner at Main St Pizza.  Birthday party for a friend – 16 people attending, The restaurant lost the reservation and was not staffed for that sized group.  It was straightend out and we all enjoyed the evening.

The restaurant staff was tipped for their service – the Comcast server is still misbehaving and gets no tip.


Friday, March 14, 2014

14 March 2014 Fire and wind


Cassi Creek:  The temperature is becoming less likely to cause frostbite than previously.  Now the winter advisory has been replaced with a  wind advisory and an elevated fire danger.  This becomes significant because we are surrounded by forest and there is overly abundant litter and brush on-site. 
          We are waiting for estimates for pool deck repairs and other landscaping work.  We’d like to have this done before the trees are fully leafed out. 

          We have no place we have to be today.  

Thursday, March 13, 2014

13 March 2014 Froze right to the bone


Cassi Creek:  While the low temperature this morning was 27 °F, the wind chill made that seem nearly tropical. 
          By the time Loki and I left for the hike with Mike, there was no steady wind, just gusts that quickly found every weak point in insulation and wind blocking.  I normally wear a knit cap that pairs wool with polyester.  Most days, it is almost too warm.  This morning’s wind tore through its protective nature like a hot knife through butter.  I’d debated wearing my Mad Bomber rabbit fur hat, and finally decided not to wear it.  Big mistake. 
          We should gain only about 10 °F during the day.  The high mountains to our south are snow covered down to about 3000 feet of elevation.  Fortunately, we missed the frozen precipitation that threatened us. 
          The wind is still strong enough, at 1120, to moan and whistle through the wires.  That puts the wind speed at about 15-20 knots.  “high lonesome,” indeed!


Wednesday, March 12, 2014

12 March 2014 Tomorrow is forecast to be Much Cooler than today

.

Cassi Creek:  The title says all that needs to be said.  Today required a trip to Johnson City.  One medical and several shopping stops with lunch in between.
          Return trip was made as a squall line blew through with heavy down pours driven by high winds.  
          Now the winds are dying down and the temps have dropped about 30 degrees F so far. 
          Yellow Tail sashimi for dinner.


Tuesday, March 11, 2014

11 March 2014 Shelter from the storm


Cassi Creek:  the sky is blue, the sun is warm, the temp is around 70°F.  Tomorrow is going to be very different.  Winter will filter back in. 
          Coming in from Greeneville yesterday, a groundhog made a rapid and daring dash across the road.  It seemed rather well fed.  I was able to avoid hitting it. 
          What is the weather penalty for demolishing a woodchuck?


Monday, March 10, 2014

10 March 2014 Things that go boom in the night



Cassi Creek:  I’ve been reading about Grant’s 1862 Cumberland and Tennessee River campaigns.  One of the old artillery pieces was called a “columbiad” It was a huge smoothbore piece capable of both high and low trajectory fire. 
Further information can be found here.  http://www.civilwarartillery.com/
Long day beginning at 0500 trip to Greeneville with several stops and several purposes. 
Looked at the short-range forecast realized I needed to split more firewood. 


Sunday, March 9, 2014

9 March 2014 Fucking crazy doesn’t begin to describe her accurately



Cassi Creek:  The idiocy at CPAC just gets more, more prominent, and more and more divorced from reality. 
          Palin took her turn as a rabble-rouser and hate monger.  By way of demonstrating her suitability to hold high (or low) elected office, she called for the U.S. to use special weapons to throw Russia from the Crimean peninsula.
            First she mocked Obama for being weak with Putin, and backed up her nastiness with a bunch of lies about Obamacare and all of the things Obama promised us that haven’t happened in her Barbie Princess Politics world. Obama promised a perfect world and it didn’t happen!
So we got, “Mr. President, the only thing that stops a bad guy with a nuke is a good guy with a nuke.”

          Her un-erudite mutterings bring to mind all the financial misdealing she was found complicit in while bailing out as governor of Alaska.  One supposes she has begun to see the bottom of the funding she used her PAC to acquire from the teavangelists who coughed up millions so she could take a bus trip and skim from her PAC while passing herself off as a speaker/commentator. 
          Barry Goldwater was pointed at for his nuclear weapons policies.  John McCain is somewhat trigger-happy.  However, neither of these politicians can be accused of basing foreign policy upon NRA babble. 
          I personally think Palin is far more likely to order a nuclear weapons launch than anyone who has held office since those weapons became part of our arsenal.  If that doesn’t scare you, I’m not sure what does.
There is a more complete review of CPAC and the lunacy driving it to be found at http://www.politicususa.com/2014/03/08/palin.html


Saturday, March 8, 2014

8 March 2014 Watches reset



Cassi Creek:  DST rolls in at 0200 tomorrow.  Don’t plan to be awake for it.  

Friday, March 7, 2014

7 March 2014 I can see for miles and miles



Cassi Creek





The bear says, “ Surrender Palin!”
          There is little possibility that this particular bear will respond to anything short of a 2x4 applied over its head. 
          What excitement there must be among the teavangelists who will once more fall prey to the machinations of Bachmann and Palin as they milk their supporters for yet another pretend run for office.  After all, the coffers must be nearly empty.  Never fear, the gullible base will gorge on the misinformation spread by Fox News and bemoan their inability to roll back the calendar to the Antebellum days. 
          All this cartoon needs is a sign proclaiming, “ Pay no attention to the mad women behind the curtains.”


Thursday, March 6, 2014

6 March 2014 What they manage to recall they remember incorrectly


Cassi Creek: 




Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. 
This is, of course, a paraphrase of someone else’s words.  That in no way diminishes its veracity. 
          We currently see the GOP blaming the invasion of Crimea by Russia on Obama.  Included in the finger pointing and outright failure to understand the history of the region and/or its populace, we find the GOP trotting out the invasion of Poland in 1939. 
          While there are direct similarities to the “invasion to protect ethnic Germans from being repressed by bordering nations, there are also historical factors that the GOP seems too willing to overlook. 
          Ukraine has been an unwilling conquest of the Russian Empire and/or the Soviet Union for centuries.  The possession of Ukraine by one foreign power or another is also tied to the need for a warm water port to allow commercial and naval ships to find safe harbor. 
          In some ways, I believe that the Crimean populace may well wish to be back under the Russian flag.  History has yet to answer that question, but the Black Sea port on the Crimean Peninsula has always been and will remain a huge factor in the resolution of Putin’s latest land grab.


Wednesday, March 5, 2014

5 March 2014 Those Russian uniforms just fell out of the sky



Cassi Creek:  Up at 0500 this morning in order to make an 0800 dermatology appointment.  Made it there on time, only to be told my appointment was at 1000. 
          I was subjected to nearly two hours of Fox News in the waiting area.  Fortunately, my Fox BS vaccination seems to still be functional.  Incredible that anyone who can pour water out of a boot can believe the crap they pretend is news. 
          Those who believe Fox News fail to see how the GOP and teavangelists are calling for military action in Ukraine while attacking the administration for not having pulled our troops out of Afghanistan.  Perhaps they think a U.S. force should be dropped into Ukraine to push the Russians out of the Crimean peninsula.  We can’t afford to take care of the veterans from our previous and current was but the GOP is prying the doors of Mars temple ever more widely open. 
          This region of Europe is not a good place to invade.  The geology, topography, and climate defeated Bonaparte and Hitler.  Our tanks are no better in deep mud than were Hitler’s, our troops no better able to march and fight in foul weather of spring or winter. 
          The GOP claims Putin is lying about neo-Nazis in Ukraine.  Put may be lying about many things.  Ukraine gleefully jumped at the chance to play its own role in the Holocaust.  The good Ukrainians need very little encouragement to round up their neighbors for execution.  I don’t see any reason to believe that the culture has changed. 
          Putin can have Crimea.  We lack the ability to oppose him militarily. 


Monday, March 3, 2014

3 March 2014  From a hooch to the hobo jungle
Cassi Creek:   Actually, that should read “from a foxhole…”

          The NY Times article reinforces the existence of a class war being waged in the U.S.  The Harvard, Yale, Stanford, admission slots don’t usually go to the sons and daughters of blue collar workers. 

Meanwhile, in the underbelly of eastern Europe:
In Crimea, more Russian troops arrived, surrounding military posts and other facilities and taking effective control of the peninsula from Ukrainian authorities. What they planned to do next remained unclear. In one ominous incident, a Ukrainian Defense Ministry spokesman said the commander of Russia's Black Sea fleet boarded a blocked Ukrainian warship and issued a threat.
"Swear allegiance to the new Crimean authorities, or surrender, or face an attack," he said, according to the spokesman, Vladislav Selezne”

Lacking the nuclear weapons once deployed by the USSR in Ukraine, it very unlikely that the blatant seizure of the Crimean peninsula can be reversed by force of arms.  The Russian military still wields a very big stick. 

          There is, of course, a sizeable demand coming from the GOP for the Obama administration to intervene and repel the Russian forces.  These demands are yet another demonstration of the lack of connection between the GOP and the real world.  We lack the military manpower to replay the Cold War.  Nor should we attempt to enforce a military response using our troops or NATO’s.