The world won't end on December 21, but the 2012 winter solstice is
still on the astronomical ... Winter Solstice 2012: Myths And Facts About The Shortest Day Of
The Year
Cassi Creek: Winter has officially arrived.for
the 2012-2013 season. The ages old
celebrations of the solstice are taking place in the northern hemisphere while
the southern hemisphere celebrates the return of summer and longer, warmer
days. The official time was 0612 Eastern
Standard Time (1112 Zulu).
The arrival of winter in the United
States was brutal and disruptive. There
were chain collisions with fatalities due to blowing snow (and driving too fast
for conditions). There were airline
travel cancellations. An immense “spring-like”
storm brought severe weather to the central and Eastern U.S.
The day began with temperatures in
the 50s here in N.E. TN. The central low
pressure at the core of the storm produced hurricane like conditions in many
places. Some of the local storm cells
were moving along the front at >110 knots according to radar measurement. The two counties we call home were among
those with the most severe weather.
Winds that can flip a semi-tractor-trailer rig are higher than I care to
contest for the highway.
The wind began decreasing about 1700
yesterday. The temperature began
dropping slightly earlier. We wound up
staying up until 0130 this morning in order to verify the proper functioning of
the lamps that keep our well filters warm.
That required that the air temperature be at 35°F or below.
There was light snowfall at 1230
AM. The wind was still gusty. By 0700 this morning, we had about .25 inches
of snow accumulated with periods of blowing snow. At 1155, the accumulation is about 0.50
inches. The wind is lighter at ground
level but still audible echoing off the higher valley walls and canyons. The blowing snow continues and the
temperature is 30°F and still dropping toward a predicted low of 20°F.
Our neighbor, Mike, had several
trees blown down, several more broken by gusts.
Our tree damage is much less than his is.
I listened to part of the NRA response
to Newtown. The use of fear to convince
the public that more guns are the answer is foul and exactly what I expected of
the NRA. If teachers are armed, that
will make every teacher an immediate target.
The John Wayne approach can only result in victims that are more
innocent. I don’t know what percentage
of the NRA membership and officials have actually participated in a
firefight. I doubt it is very high. Firefights, for the best-trained members of
the military, are quite capable of creating confusion among the
participants. Add into the mix teachers
trying to defend children while making rapid assessments of strange situations;
and armed guards arriving in the middle of a fight with no clear idea of who
and what; and the stakes suddenly mushroom into a situation that could quickly
result in many deaths by “friendly fire.”
The NRA had a chance to eliminate
their use of fear to generate more gun and ammunition sales. They turned it down. They blame the media, some elected officials,
mentally ill monsters (bad guys with guns), violent video gamers, and everyone
but the NRA (good guys with guns).
Statistics and polls indicate that the number of gun owners –
percentage of population – is decreasing.
Yet gun sales are increasing rapidly.
The only valid conclusion is that current gun owners are buy more
guns. They have been convinced of
impending societal collapse, government confiscation of guns, the impending
loss of sovereignty to the UN, and the need to buy still more guns and
ammunition by a propaganda machine that would has spread stupidity for the
teavangelists and other portions of the GOP base. People who own more guns than they can shoot
in a month were already stripping the shelves bare by Saturday morning after Newtown.
The “bad guy” – “good guy” analogy
is designed to appeal to people who view their selves as the last hope for the restoration
of a nation that never actually existed in the format they want to
recover.
The weather here is cold, frigid,
brutally unpleasant. It is much like the
heart of Wayne Lapier, VP of the NRA.
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