Yup.. completed the 63rd orbit on this piece of rock hurtling around the sun.
Sometimes the cycles can be bumpy, sometimes they go by without anyone noticing they did.
But the fact is.. I didn't get any wiser. That's a piss-poor result.
And yeah... I forgot to buy a piece of cake to celemabrate this inauspicious occasion. So shoot me. Never liked desserts anyway.
I would have liked spending the morning listening to Chris Hayes on UP, but as with YouTube, it makes my damned notebook crash, and no, haven't found the solution to the problem yet. It's a never-ending source of annoyance to me.
It was the second half of yesterday's broadcast that would have interested me. Regarding Wikileaks culprit Bradley Manning and how he has been treated in confinement for the past two years. Other news reports make me think he's being held in Russia or Rumania, but would have liked to hear what the round table had to say about it.
My notebook, hereafter named 'Crash', did let me hear an interesting clip by Rachel Maddow on the shut-down of the internets in Syria, and as she is thorough in deconstructing news and getting to real issues, she mentioned something that caused me to prick up my ears very early this morning. About how a woman in Eurasia was looking for scrap metal to sell and enhance her meager existence, found a cable and chopped it through with a shovel to hopefully find copper in it. It happened to be the internet cable that served three countries, and shut it down for 12 hours.
Her relating this in a somewhat amusing way as introduction to the main part of her lead story on friday really made me sit up and take notice. Because, for some time now, we have copper thieves in our capitol.
Seemingly, copper is so scarce in the East, it became lucrative to find cables with copper in them and chop them up for sale. So it has become not unusual to hear the traffic reports on the radio, only to learn that one subway line or the other in Vienna has been shut down, as copper thieves struck and cut off and stole cables, and that prevented them from running. It's been expensive, alternate transportation is provided, and the affected line is usually back up and running within the course of the day.
I've found such reports oddly annoying, but thought it was some sort of local trend.. Seemingly not. Well, you learn something every day, as they say.
Am avidly following a story about an ex minister of the interior who faces up to ten yeas in prison for peddling influence in the EU parliament to some characters who were posing as lobbyists, but in reality were British journalists. The guy is a master of spin. His conservative party members have been wingeing on... and on... and on about it. 'Well, he didn't actually sell anything.'
What part of influence peddling do they not understand, hey?
So has we been learning? Nope, don't think so. To me it seems like we're just a bunch of reptilian brains, stuck on a rock which is hurtling around the sun every 365 days. And just about as dumb.
And elsewhere... Johne Bonehead, Miss Lindsay and newly minted NH senator Ayote form a formidable trio of dunderheads going after Susan Rice, whom, by the way, I do NOT like. For personal reasons. For a supposed diplomat, she always has a tone that is strident, bullying, and agressive. To learn that she has six hundred thousand dollars invested in the Keystone Pipeline company only sealed the deal.
Whatever Obama may think... her (lack) of style would not be advantageous for the rest of the world. Hillary Clinton is a master of diplomacy, in my humble opinion. Am sure she does some strong-arming, but is perceived as a true diplomat. When Susan Rice opens her mouf... I cringe.
And lastly, the Russian government had to step in and calm the superstitious folks down, according to the NY Times. Because many people there believe in the Mayan calendar thing and think the world will end near the end of the month. Wheeeee!
We got through the Y2K scare... when all the computers would die on Jan 1, 2000... and we got through all the idjits who have predicted the end of the world since I can remember.. I remember going to a cobbler as a child who was a Jehova witness. (Remember when people actually had their shoes repaired???) And he would shake his head and be dispirited and tell me that the world would end soon. We were living under threat of nuclear war, so I thought it might be possible... But not for the reasons he thought. (Cuban misslile crisis, anyone?)
Well, there've been a lot of idjits of that ilk around for ages.... Peter's neighbor's wife was... is... one of them. And sometime in the Eighties, they were certain... the world was gonna end. She worked in a bank and had tenure. So she quit her job without notice, dissolved their joint bank account, which makes no sense, because I never heard you needed money to get into heaven, and took the children to the temple to wait for the big event.
Which, as we know, didn't happen. And her husband had a ball-busting time to get her re-instated in her job, and get things back on track.
Am sure there are many people in Russa... and elsewhere.. spending their rubles and money and having a last fling before 'the end'.
Actually, I don't think I'd mind much if it did. The planet would still revolve around the sun every 365 days or so, and possibly.... maybe... some new form of life would form that was actually intelligent.
Without the lizard brain and greed, and hate. I'd be just fine with that.
And yes, I know... I'm getting old and cynical... but if you take a look about you... it really isn't difficult to draw such conclusions.
So... take a piece of chocolate virtual cake that I didn't buy. And many returns of the day to everyone.
Sometimes the cycles can be bumpy, sometimes they go by without anyone noticing they did.
But the fact is.. I didn't get any wiser. That's a piss-poor result.
And yeah... I forgot to buy a piece of cake to celemabrate this inauspicious occasion. So shoot me. Never liked desserts anyway.
I would have liked spending the morning listening to Chris Hayes on UP, but as with YouTube, it makes my damned notebook crash, and no, haven't found the solution to the problem yet. It's a never-ending source of annoyance to me.
It was the second half of yesterday's broadcast that would have interested me. Regarding Wikileaks culprit Bradley Manning and how he has been treated in confinement for the past two years. Other news reports make me think he's being held in Russia or Rumania, but would have liked to hear what the round table had to say about it.
My notebook, hereafter named 'Crash', did let me hear an interesting clip by Rachel Maddow on the shut-down of the internets in Syria, and as she is thorough in deconstructing news and getting to real issues, she mentioned something that caused me to prick up my ears very early this morning. About how a woman in Eurasia was looking for scrap metal to sell and enhance her meager existence, found a cable and chopped it through with a shovel to hopefully find copper in it. It happened to be the internet cable that served three countries, and shut it down for 12 hours.
Her relating this in a somewhat amusing way as introduction to the main part of her lead story on friday really made me sit up and take notice. Because, for some time now, we have copper thieves in our capitol.
Seemingly, copper is so scarce in the East, it became lucrative to find cables with copper in them and chop them up for sale. So it has become not unusual to hear the traffic reports on the radio, only to learn that one subway line or the other in Vienna has been shut down, as copper thieves struck and cut off and stole cables, and that prevented them from running. It's been expensive, alternate transportation is provided, and the affected line is usually back up and running within the course of the day.
I've found such reports oddly annoying, but thought it was some sort of local trend.. Seemingly not. Well, you learn something every day, as they say.
Am avidly following a story about an ex minister of the interior who faces up to ten yeas in prison for peddling influence in the EU parliament to some characters who were posing as lobbyists, but in reality were British journalists. The guy is a master of spin. His conservative party members have been wingeing on... and on... and on about it. 'Well, he didn't actually sell anything.'
What part of influence peddling do they not understand, hey?
So has we been learning? Nope, don't think so. To me it seems like we're just a bunch of reptilian brains, stuck on a rock which is hurtling around the sun every 365 days. And just about as dumb.
And elsewhere... Johne Bonehead, Miss Lindsay and newly minted NH senator Ayote form a formidable trio of dunderheads going after Susan Rice, whom, by the way, I do NOT like. For personal reasons. For a supposed diplomat, she always has a tone that is strident, bullying, and agressive. To learn that she has six hundred thousand dollars invested in the Keystone Pipeline company only sealed the deal.
Whatever Obama may think... her (lack) of style would not be advantageous for the rest of the world. Hillary Clinton is a master of diplomacy, in my humble opinion. Am sure she does some strong-arming, but is perceived as a true diplomat. When Susan Rice opens her mouf... I cringe.
And lastly, the Russian government had to step in and calm the superstitious folks down, according to the NY Times. Because many people there believe in the Mayan calendar thing and think the world will end near the end of the month. Wheeeee!
We got through the Y2K scare... when all the computers would die on Jan 1, 2000... and we got through all the idjits who have predicted the end of the world since I can remember.. I remember going to a cobbler as a child who was a Jehova witness. (Remember when people actually had their shoes repaired???) And he would shake his head and be dispirited and tell me that the world would end soon. We were living under threat of nuclear war, so I thought it might be possible... But not for the reasons he thought. (Cuban misslile crisis, anyone?)
Well, there've been a lot of idjits of that ilk around for ages.... Peter's neighbor's wife was... is... one of them. And sometime in the Eighties, they were certain... the world was gonna end. She worked in a bank and had tenure. So she quit her job without notice, dissolved their joint bank account, which makes no sense, because I never heard you needed money to get into heaven, and took the children to the temple to wait for the big event.
Which, as we know, didn't happen. And her husband had a ball-busting time to get her re-instated in her job, and get things back on track.
Am sure there are many people in Russa... and elsewhere.. spending their rubles and money and having a last fling before 'the end'.
Actually, I don't think I'd mind much if it did. The planet would still revolve around the sun every 365 days or so, and possibly.... maybe... some new form of life would form that was actually intelligent.
Without the lizard brain and greed, and hate. I'd be just fine with that.
And yes, I know... I'm getting old and cynical... but if you take a look about you... it really isn't difficult to draw such conclusions.
So... take a piece of chocolate virtual cake that I didn't buy. And many returns of the day to everyone.
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