How a hamster packs his lunch —
Monthly Archives: January 2015
Cats
Friday Catblogging: Still Landing on Her Feet
by JOHN ADAMS •
Here’s a feline who slips, but still lands right-side up. (The coat she’s wearing is a garment sometimes prescribed for animals to reduce their anxiety.) Coat notwithstanding, she sticks the landing.
Poll, Weird Tales
Friday Poll: The Blackburn Ghost
by JOHN ADAMS •
In England, an occasionally nutty place, there’s a tale about a ghost in Blackburn, and now there’s video of that supposed apparition.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a video about ghosts quite like this one. The videographer proclaims that
This terrifying video shows the moment a ‘ghost’ appears on a deserted road – and CHASES after a car.
The petrifying three minute clip shows a car approach a mysterious white creature from behind as it walks along the road between Blackburn and Belmont in Lancashire.
The dread creature then turns and heads TOWARDS the vehicle as a passenger scream [sic] at the driver to reverse as fast as possible.
The horrified passenger can be heard yelling in Arabic: “Move the car backwards.
What do you think?
Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 1.16.15
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning, Whitewater.
Our Friday will be mostly cloudy but mild, with a high of twenty-six. Sunrise is 7:21 AM and sunset 4:47 PM, for 9h 26m 17s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 20.5% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1991, Pres. George H.W. Bush tells the nation that Operation Desert Storm had begun. The next morning, the New York Times published news of the American-led campaign to drive the Iraqi Army from Kuwait:
WASHINGTON, Thursday, Jan. 17 — The United States and allied forces Wednesday night opened the long threatened war to drive President Saddam Hussein’s army from Kuwait, striking Baghdad and other targets in Iraq and Kuwait with waves of bombers and cruise missiles launched from naval vessels.
“The liberation of Kuwait has begun,” President Bush said in a three-sentence statement confirming the start of the attack that was read by his spokesman, Marlin Fitzwater, shortly after the raids began.
Later, in a televised address to the nation from the Oval Office a somber Mr. Bush said that after months of continuous diplomatic overtures had failed to produce movement by Iraq, the United States and its allies “have no choice but to force Saddam from Kuwait by force. We will not fail.”
Google-a-Day asks a geography question:
What area with nearly 2 million life forms was created to protect the wildlife of the country with the largest economy in Africa?
Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 1.15.15
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning, Whitewater.
Thursday in the Whippet City will be a mostly sunny day with a high of twenty-nine. Sunrise is 7:22 AM and sunset 4:46 PM, for 9h 24m 34s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 29.3% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1967, the first Super Bowl ends just as it should have, Packers 35, Chiefs 10:
The First AFL-NFL World Championship Game in professional football, later known retroactively as Super Bowl I and referred to in some contemporary reports as the Supergame,[2] was played on January 15, 1967 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles, California. The National Football League (NFL) champion Green Bay Packers defeated the American Football League (AFL) champion Kansas City Chiefs by the score of 35–10.
Coming into this game, considerable animosity remained between the AFL and NFL, thus the teams representing the two rival leagues (Kansas City and Green Bay, respectively) felt pressure to win. The Chiefs posted an 11–2–1 record during the 1966 AFL season, and defeated the Buffalo Bills, 31–7, in the 1966 AFL Championship Game. The Packers finished the 1966 NFL season at 12–2, and defeated the Dallas Cowboys, 34–27, in the 1966 NFL Championship Game. Still, many sports writers and fans believed any team in the older NFL was vastly superior to any club in the upstart AFL, so expected Green Bay would blow out Kansas City.
The first half of Super Bowl I was competitive, as the Chiefs out-gained the Packers in total yards, 181–164, to come within 14–10 at halftime. But Green Bay safety Willie Wood’s 50-yard interception return early in the third quarter sparked the Packers to score 21 unanswered points in the second half. Green Bay quarterback Bart Starr, who completed 16 of 23 passes for 250 yards and two touchdowns, with 1 interception, was named MVP.
It is the only Super Bowl to have been simulcast in the United States by two networks: NBC had the rights to nationally televise AFL games, while CBS held the rights to broadcast NFL games; both networks were allowed to televise the game. The first Super Bowl’s entertainment largely consisted of college bands, instead of featuring popular singers and musicians as in more recent Super Bowls.
Google-a-Day asks a question about arthropods:
What type of arthropod appendage is comprised of a single series of segments attached end-to-end, rather than branching into two?
Animals, Science/Nature
How to Swim in Sand
by JOHN ADAMS •
It helps to be a sandfish or a shovel-nosed snake —
Politics
Even Smaller Government Can Be Intoxicating for the Vain
by JOHN ADAMS •
Many people who serve in government get up, go to work, do the best they can, and then go home again at the end of the day. That’s as work should be: simple, consistent, and humble.
It’s many, but not all, who live this way.
For a few in office, even a relatively small government (town, village, rural county, etc.) presents a daily struggle with vanity, self-serving pronouncements, and grandiose contentions.
That there are vast cities elsewhere does not prevent a proud person from falling victim to small-town vanity. Once ensnared in the minutiae of the near, the level-headed perspective of seeing and judging from afar means nothing to a person like that.
There may be many reasons that some people become small-town squires, and slip into a world self-promotion on a public tab.
I’ll suggest two reasons in this post.
First, even in a small town, local government may control millions in annual expenses and public property. That’s more than most people control privately, and more than they will likely ever control.
For self-promoters who seek office, the relatively greater scale of government compared against ordinary residents’ lives is a heady, intoxicating experience. A town may be small, but even then it will have a budget probably larger than most household budgets, and many business budgets.
The weak-minded get caught up with the idea of government-as-bigger-and-better, even in small places.
Second, people fall sway to self-promotion when they have nothing greater than themselves to promote. Conservatives, liberals, moderates, libertarians: if they arrive in government with a firm set of principles to advance, they’ve insulation from the warm, dangerously attractive glow of self-advancement.
If, by contrast, they arrive with views easily discarded for the sake of continuing participation in a small circle, they’re already susceptible of name-dropping, line-jumping, and self-serving.
Once they start down this path, they’re the office-seeking equivalent of nicotine fiends, and they just can’t get enough…
Anderson, Cartoons & Comics
Getting used to
by JOHN ADAMS •
Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 1.14.15
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning, Whitewater.
Midweek in Whitewater brings mostly cloudy skies and a high of nineteen. Sunrise is 7:22 AM and sunset 4:45 PM, for 9h 22m 53s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 39.7% of its visible disk illuminated.
There will be a public information meeting today from 4:30 to 6 PM on the reconstruction of George Street.
It’s Nobel laureate Albert Schweitzer’s birthday:
The son and grandson of ministers, Schweitzer studied theology and philosophy at the universities of Strasbourg, Paris and Berlin. After working as a pastor, he entered medical school in 1905 with the dream of becoming a missionary in Africa. Schweitzer was also an acclaimed concert organist who played professional engagements to earn money for his education. By the time he received his M.D. in 1913, the overachieving Schweitzer had published several books, including the influential The Quest for the Historical Jesus and a book on the composer Johann Sebastian Bach.
Medical degree in hand, Schweitzer and his wife, Helene Bresslau, moved to French Equatorial Africa where he founded a hospital at Lambarene (modern-day Gabon). When World War I broke out, the German-born Schweitzers were sent to a French internment camp as prisoners of war. Released in 1918, they returned to Lambarene in 1924. Over the next three decades, Schweitzer made frequent visits to Europe to lecture on culture and ethics. His philosophy revolved around the concept of what he called “reverence for life”–the idea that all life must be respected and loved, and that humans should enter into a personal, spiritual relationship with the universe and all its creations. This reverence for life, according to Schweitzer, would naturally lead humans to live a life of service to others.
Schweitzer won widespread praise for putting his uplifting theory into practice at his hospital in Africa, where he treated many patients with leprosy and the dreaded African sleeping sickness. Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 1952, Schweitzer used his $33,000 award to start a leprosarium at Lambarene. From the early 1950s until his death in 1965, Schweitzer spoke and wrote tirelessly about his opposition to nuclear tests and nuclear weapons, adding his voice to those of fellow Nobelists Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell.
Google-a-Day asks a question about classification:
Under modern classification systems, in what clade will you find birds?
Nature
What’s Up for January 2015
by JOHN ADAMS •
Books
One of the Scariest Books Ever Written
by JOHN ADAMS •
Film
Film: Around the World in Four Minutes
by JOHN ADAMS •
Via The Atlantic.
Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 1.13.15
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning, Whitewater.
Following some early morning snow showers in town, we’ll have a mostly sunny Tuesday a high temperature of seventeen degrees. Sunrise is 7:23 AM and sunset 4:44 PM, for 9h 21m 15s of daytime. The moon is in its third quarter.
Whitewater’s Parks & Rec Board meets at 5:30 PM this afternoon.
Why is there a crater in Antarctica?
It’s not because of this —
But, rather, because of this —
On this day in 1922, a radio station gets its new call letters:
1922 – WHA Radio Station Founded
On this date the call letters of experimental station 9XM in Madison were replaced by WHA. This station dates back to 1917, making it “The oldest station in the nation.” [Source: History Just Ahead: A Guide to Wisconsin’s Historical Markers, edited by Sarah Davis McBride]
The current WHA (970-AM) programming schedule is available online.
Google-a-Day asks a baseball question:
Willie Mays began his professional career in 1948 with a team that has what three letter in the middle circle of their logo?