The Fires Down In California

They’re bad enough to form a near-fog by late afternoon here, in the Rogue Valley (remember there are actually some mountains between).  Here is a report from on-scene.  That weapon (a chain-fed grenade launcher) absolutely couldn’t be the one that had the nasty habit of blowing up on the people operating it, I’m sure.  I couldn’t have been seeing reports about it.  For anyone wanting to know more detailed reports of conditions to contact numbers, this page should serve.

 

Hopefully the flames won’t get up this way.  This may sound like sheer self-centredness, but this is a yearly danger we live with.  No one knows what the changed weather patterns mean in terms of that.  The weather conditions in this little valley are actually unique on the West Coast, so conditions elsewhere on the West Coast mean precisely nothing regarding the Rogue Valley.

–Glenn

On Judgment

I could nearly even try to stay with the subject today.  However, there are a couple of other things I’m going to babble about that are fairly important (like not going to warez, and don’t think everything or maybe anything I write about is third hand, told to me) today, like some fairly obvious moves by the government.  It’s been 30+ years since I was even associated with it, so I feel a trifle more secure.

 

However, this post is about the line between humor and pathos and the ability to judge between.  I am absolutely not advising anyone to contact the purported victim in the last link; it could all too easily be a new variation on the infamous 419 scam, which is detailed in the article linked (basically, someone has a lot of money and they’re offering to give you some if you let them have access to your bank account).  [As for phishing, it’s easy.  If it’s too good to be true, it is.  What you miss will be far outweighed by what you gain.]

 

About a quarter of this country’s [the USA] population is admitted to be poor by the government.  Oddly enough, a fraction of them were once in the $100,000 a year plus bracket; football heroes (or whatever), and so forth, although most are functional illiterates.  Yet still in the political rhetoric of this country there is a continual referencing to the individual’s worth in terms of wealth–in terms of property, tangible or not.  Without the poor there is no wealth, and some I think need wealth as much as others need power.  Each separation we make that allows us to disassociate–to tell ourselves that we could never be there or do that thing–is a lie.

 

Most of the homeless are psychotics who can’t stand to live in places where their living is managed.  They’re happier fending for themselves.  Most of those who live in cities would have no idea of how to live without the city’s infrastructure.  Intelligence is unproven as a virtue.  As we have defined it, it amounts to puzzle-solving on a 2-dimensional framework, by means of a mandated referencing system.  Use language incorrectly and your message is incorrect.  That means that changes to language are actively resisted as threats, and that means that governing entities can never accept change well.

 

But that’s mere and empty rhetoric.

–Glenn

A Truly Different Hiding Place…

Make sure you don’t rustle after a bank robbery…talk about dirty money.

–Glenn

Being overweight might not be so bad after all…

“Another important way to prevent osteoporosis, according to Raisz, is to exercise.

“The standard recommendation is a half an hour a day for adults and an hour a day for kids, but anything is better than nothing,” he said. “Try to walk at least a half a mile a day, and engage in a weight-bearing exercise of some sort.””

 

So if you’re overweight, you get the weight-bearing exercise…although I rather think there’s a possibility that wasn’t quite the intention of those who wrote the rather attractive article in question.

–Glenn

“Dead Air”

This is about a Slate post; I commented on the site as well.

The article was cleverly titled, since it fitted not only the subject but the article itself.  It also shows what the usual columnist expects of news, the major thing involved evidently being predigestion.  And complaining about Andy Rooney’s relevance is like complaining about lack of privacy in a public bathroom; it simply goes with the territory–look at John Dvorak over at PC Mag.

We’ve come to an age where we’ve–perhaps irreparably–confused news with its presentation.  Then again, of course, think of the millions of people in this country who think the president is elected by popular vote.

–Glenn