The Flying Horse

[flyinghorse]

Today is Christmas Eve Day.

[flyinghorse]

Today in the Finger Lakes region of New York it's partly cloudy and 9ºF (feels like 7ºF). It say it's cold is putting it mildly. And the wind isn't helping at 16 mph. We've had some some overnight but not a lot. New York's lake effect areas have received more. For those of you who are subjected to lake effect snow, it's a product of the Great Lakes and the winds sweeping across them. It is the reason why Buffalo, NY gets so much snow and does Syracuse at the end of Lake Ontario.

???Today in history:
1170: Thomas a Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was murdered in his cathedral by knights loyal to King Henry II.
1845: Texas was admitted as the 28th state.
1890: the Wounded Knee massacre occurred in South Dakota with an estimated 300 Sioux Indians killed by US troops sent to disarm them.
1916: Grigory Rasputin, who had great influence with Czar Nicholas II because of the hemophiliac czarevitch, was murdered by a group of Russian noblemen in St Petersburg.
1940: Germany dropped incendiary bombs on London to set off the "Second Great Fire of London."

>:(Iranian security forces have made new arrests that include the sister of Nobel laureate Shinn Ebadi's sister and a relative of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi in an ever widening crackdown on the reformist movement. Now you see once again what can happen when a major religion is married to the political structure of a country. A good example of why our forefathers wanted to keep religion out of politics and governance. Can you name one country where a religion is a major player in the government that is not a virtual dictatorship?

:-/Have any of you seen the cable TV ads about the fees cable is negotiating with the broadcasters about? This may be a signal of a change in free TV telecasts. The networks are hurting for advertisement, their source of income, due to the competition of cable channels. This could mean higher cable or satellite TV bills as the networks and local stations squeeze more fees from pay-TV providers. The networks might even drop free broadcast signals and become cable channels themselves, which would mean if you don't have cable or satellite TV, you don't have TV. Here where I am, there are several trailers who have antennas on their roofs to bring in free TV. They would no longer have that option. I don't know what can be done about this, if anything. Fox is warning that its broadcasts, that include the college football bowl games, could go dark on New Years for subscribers to Time Warner (that's me) unless they get higher fees. And then there's Comcast Corp., the biggest pay-TV provider, who has bought NBC from GE. No one would be surprised if it would end NBC's free broadcasts. Be prepared everyone. It's coming at your nearest cable operator.

:oFinally, pressure mounts to stop the use of antibiotics in agriculture. More and more Americans are at risk from drug-resistant infections passed on to people from the widespread practice of feeding animals antibiotics. Thanks to interest from a new White House administration and new research tying antibiotic use in animals to drug resistance in people. The overuse of antibiotics has led to a plague of drug-resistant infections, killing more than 65,000 people last year (more than prostate and breast cancer combined). The US used about 35 million pounds of antibiotics in 2008 with 70% going to pigs, chickens and cows. This is a major cause of the surge in killer diseases like TB, malaria and staph in ever-more deadly forms. Dr. Thomas Friedon of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said, "If we're not careful with antibiotics and the programs to administer them, we're going to be in a post antibiotic era." Not surprisingly farm groups and Big Pharma have united to defeat a series of proposed limits on antibiotic use. OK people, it's time to wake up before it's too late and those wonder drugs are rendered completely harmless to drug-resistant infections. Time to start letting out representatives know we want something done about this situation. The next death maybe you or me.

[flyinghorse]

[flyinghorse]

[flyinghorse]

[flyinghorse]

8-)Today it's fair 20ºF (but feels like 13ºF). But that big yellow ball in its pretty blue sky is right here, right now. I had forgotten what it was like to see it shining up there above me. Ooooooh, it's goooood!!

???Today in history:
1813: The British burned Buffalo, New York, in the War of 1812.
1853: the US and Mexico signed a treaty with the US agreeing to buy 45,000 square miles of land from Mexico for $10 million--the Gadsden Purchase.
1903: about 600 people died in a Chicago fire at the recently opened Iroquois Theater.
1922: Lenin proclaimed the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
1972: the US halted heavy bombing of North Vietnam.
2008: Israeli aircraft engaged in relentless attacks on Hamas-ruled Gaza, smashing a government complex, security installations and a top militant's home.

Russia is thinking about sending a spacecraft to throw Apophis, an asteroid, off its path to prevent a possible collision with Earth. If it decides to do so, it will invite NASA, the European Space Agency, the Chinese space agency and others to join its project. The 885-foot hunk of rock was discovered in 2004 and astronomers estimated the chance of hitting Earth to be 1-in-37, but have since lowered the estimate. A 2029 impact has been ruled out when it is expected to come closer than 18,300 miles above us, and experts believe that there is a small possibility of a subsequent collision. I say, do it. Destroy it if possible so we don't have to worry about it again. Plus, it would be a good experience in case of future problems from space.

;DOnce in a blue moon. How many times have you heard this phrase? Well, this New Year's Eve, it will arrive. Those ringing in the New Year will be treated to the so-called blue moon. By definition, it is a 2nd full moon in a month (but it is NOT blue). On Dec 2 we had a full moon and will again on Thursday in time for the New Year's countdown. Jack Horkheimer, director emeritus of the Miami Space Transit Planetarium, said, "If you're in Times Square, you'll see the full moon right above you. It's going to be that brilliant." However, for celebrants in Australia and Asia, the full moon doesn't show until New Year's Day, so they will have a blue moon month in January.

:(Bombs have killed 23 (13 police) in the western province of Anbar in Iraq. It is the worst violence in months in the province that was formerly an al-Qaeda top stronghold. This is the latest in several attacks targeting government buildings and installations in order to undermine Iraqi confidence in the elected government. Insurgents trying to incite sectarian violence also killed 6 at a Shi'ite mourning event north of Baghdad. BUT some good news also--Peter Moore, a British hostage held for over 2 years, has been released in Baghdad and is now in the British Embassy. A case of the more things change, the more they stay the same. I guess we did some good in Iraq--Saddam Hussein and his family/cronies are gone. But will the Sunnis and Shi'ites ever learn to get along with each other? I certainly hope so.

;)Sports:
Wisconsin 20-14 over Miami U as all that Miami speed proved to be no stopper of the big, bad Badgers. And so the Big 10's first foray into the bowl season has gotten off to a rousing success.

Finland's 23-man Olympic hockey team has been announced and Teemu Selanne is headed for his 5th Olympics (Vancouver in February). He has twice been the top scorer at the Olympics and chosen as the best player in the Italian Olympics.

And for tennis fans--Rafael Nadal, world's #2, whose injuries in 2009 raised fears over his long-term future, says he will start the 2010 season "a little bit" worse than last year.

[flyinghorse]

Today in the Finger Lakes region of New York it's cloudy with snow flurries 29ºF (feels like 23ºF). Light snow is expected all day and night. I hope those people in Times Square enjoy snow and cold temps. But then they may be so "fortified" that they won't notice.

???Today in history:
1759: Arthur Guinness founded his famous brewery at St James's Gate in Dublin, Ireland.
1775: the British repulsed an attack by the Americans under generals Richard Montgomery and Benedict Arnold (Montgomery dies).
1857: Queen Victoria decided to make Ottawa the capital of Canada.
1879: Thomas Edison first publicly demonstrated his incandescent light.
1999: the US prepared to hand over the Panama CAnal to Panama at the stroke of midnight.

:oIn Helsinki, Finland, a man dressed all in black went on a shooting spree, killing his ex-girlfriend and four workers at a suburban shopping mall. Then he apparently shot himself. It's contagious. Americans favorite past-time is spanning the globe. Welcome to our world Finland. So much for the better gun control laws of other countries.

:)Jobless claims dropped unexpectedly again last week. They have dropped steadily since the fall, giving hope to the belief that the economy may soon begin creating jobs and the unemployment rate will fall. Furthermore, the number of workers continuing to get unemployment benefits dropped by 57,000 to 4.9 million, also better than expected. I must say that this is heartening news. I don't much care whether stocks are rising. I'm more concerned for the average American worker and this is good news for them. Better days are coming.

8-)Ahem. Come to order please. Lake Superior State University has released its 2009 List of Words to Be Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness. Heading the list are--"shovel ready", "tweet" and all "czars" be erased. Mourners off fallen phrases or words can take heart. Previously banished words/phrases have not remained in the lexiconical grave. There is still life left for "24/7" (2000 list), "happy camper" (1993) and "state of the art" (1993).

Today in Sports
>:(In the It's About Time category--AT&T has announced that it is dropping its sponsorship of Tiger Woods. This man's behavior has been reprehensible and no company that serves women as well as men should condone it by sponsoring him. I'm not naive enough to think that this will make anyone behave better, but at least it adds a measure of punishment for his reckless and trust-betraying behavior.

[flyinghorse]

Sydney Begins Celebrating

[flyinghorse]

Today here in the middle of New York state it's cloudy and 32ºF that feels like 26ºF. OK, not bad for the first day of the new year. And they are only forecasting occasional snow showers for the rest of the day. I can handle that.

Today in history:
1808: a law prohibiting the importation of slaves into the US went into effect.
1863: Pres. Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation that declared that slaves in the REBEL states were freed (but not in the Union).
1890: the first Tournament of Roses was held in Pasadena, Calif.
1892: the Ellis Island Immigrant Station in New York formally opened.
1959: Fidel Castro and his revolutionaries overthrew Cuban leader Fulgencio Batista, who fled to the Dominican Republic.
1984: the breakup of AT&T took place as the telecommunications giant was divested of its 22 Bell System companies under terms of an antitrust agreement.
1994: the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into effect.
1999: the euro officially came into existence with the new year and became legal tender on this date in 2002.
2000: there were no terrorist attacks, Y2K meltdowns, or mass suicides among doomsday cults, but seven continents stepped forward into the New Millennium.
2005: Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman elected to Congress, died at age 80.

Fox and Time Warner Cable have extended their contract for a few hours while trying to resolve a disagreement over fees. Fox is demanding a raise to a monthly $1 per subscriber fee for the cable provider to air their programing. The extension avoids a blackout of the major bowl games on New Years Day. In another fee dispute, Cablevision has not reached a deal to continue to carry HVTV and Food Network in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut and had no expectation of carrying the signals again. This all goes back to a drop in advertising revenue of the networks due mainly to the proliferation of cable. What the equitable settlement is, I don't know, but I how some kind of formula can be worked out as a basis for fees paid to all the networks or free TV via antennas will be a thing of the past.

The gathering of the crowd of spectators for one of the nation's biggest New Year's celebrations--the Tournament of Roses Parade. 1000s of people have been gathering on the route the parade will take since last night for the 121st parade, themed "A Cut Above the Past." The grand marshal will be Chesley Sullenberger, the pilot who landed his plane in the Hudson River. I absolutely love this parade. I am fascinated by the floats which are works of art and their ingenious use of plants to produce that art.

>:(North Korea is calling for an end to hostile relations with the US in the new year. Its official news agency, KCNA, stated, "It is the consistent stand of the DPRK to establish a lasting peace system on the Korean peninsula and make it nuclear-free through dialogue and negotiations." Does this sound familiar? Don't we periodically here the same message every so often between contrary or hostile actions? Frankly, I wouldn't believe them if they said the sky was blue. I'd have to go out and check for myself.

[flyinghorse]

Thought for Today:
"And now let us believe in a long year that is given to us, new, untouched, full of things that have never been, full of work that has never been done, full of tasks, claims and demands; and let us see that we learn to take it without letting fall too much of what it has to bestow upon those who demand of it necessary, serious and great things." --Rainer Maria Rilke, German poet (1876-1926)

[flyinghorse]

Today here in the middle of New York state the temp is 11ºF but feels like -2ºF with light snow . Typical winter, cold with a little snow that is just enough to cover my car and walkway so I don't dare go out. The last thing I need is to take another fall just now. I still haven't fully recovered from the two inside last week.

8-)Today in history:
1521: Martin Luther was excommunicated by Pope Leo X.
1777: Gen Washington's army routed the British in the Battle of Princeton, New Jersey.
1868: the Meiji Restoration re-established the authority of Japan's emperor and the fall of the military rulers, the shoguns.
1870: groundbreaking took place for the Brooklyn Bridge.
1949: Alaska became the 49th state.
1993: Pres. Bush and Russian Pres. Yeltsin signed a historic nuclear missile-reduction treaty in Moscow.
2000: the last new daily Peanuts strip by Charles Schulz ran in 2,800 newspapers.

The United States and Britain have closed their embassies in Yemen. They have faced al-Qaeda threats after announcing an increase in aid to the Yemeni government to fight the terror group. It has built strongholds in remote areas of the poor, mountainous country where the government is weak. Washington and London plan to fund a counterterrorism police unit in Yemen. Britain will host a high-level conference to determine an international strategy to al-Qaeda' radicalization of Yemen. Here we go again. I hope that it doesn't turn into an all-out war again. Sometime we're going to run out of enough troops. I hope that this time, at least, we can keep on the right track--eradicate al-Qaeda.

:-XIraq has announced that it will help victims of the 2007 shooting by employees of the security firm Blackwater accused of firing on innocent civilians to file a US lawsuit. It will ask the US Justice Department to review the criminal case. I hope it works. From what I have read, these guards are guilty as charged. Unfortunately, the prosecution was inept and incompetent and the charges were dismissed on constitutional rights violations.

[flyinghorse]

Today is Drinking Straw Day





Thought for Today:
"To have reason to get up in the morning, it is necessary to possess a guiding principle. A belief of some kind. A bumper sticker, if you will."
--Judith Guest, American author.

[flyinghorse]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Today here in the middle of New York state the temp is 12ºF and lightly snowing continuing through the day with a high of 20. Once again a normal winter day Going with the first 12 days mirroring the 12 months, it means that April will be its usual rainy self.
???Today in history:
1809: Louis Braille, inventor of the raised-dot reading system for the blind, is born.
1896: Utah was admitted as the 45th state.
1904: the US Supreme Court (Gonzalez v. Williams) ruled that Puerto Ricans were not aliens and could enter the US freely, but stopped short of calling them US citizens.
1949: Burma (now Myanmar) became independent of British rule.
1974: Pres. Nixon refused to hand over tape recordings and documents subpoenaed by the Senate Watergate Committee.
2000: Israel agreed to pullback from 5% of the West Bank.
2007: Nancy Pelosi was elected the first female speaker of the US House of Representatives.

It's that time again. Today the US Census Bureau kicks off its once-a-decade head count of the US population. It will prod, coax and cajole our 300+ million residents to fill out their once-every-10-year census forms, that will be mailed to about 120 million households in March.. If you don't fill out the form, you'll get a postcard reminder to do so. If that fails, you will be visited by a census taker by early May. In case you don't know, the Constitution requires a census count every 10 years to draw congressional districts and dole out Electoral College votes to the states. Congress uses it to distribute more than $400 billion each year in federal aid.

In the category of You-Must-Have-Known-It-Was-Coming: Starting today, air travelers from "countries of interest" such as Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Yemen, etc. will be subjected to enhanced screening techniques--body scans, pat-downs and a thorough carry-on baggage search. Also, airports will be directed to increase "threat-based" screening of passengers who may be acting in a suspicious manner. Of course, they don't define "a suspicious manner." So keep a smile on your face at all times, a clean-shaven face, no burkhas, etc. Not that they would engage in racial profiling. Of course not, silly me!!

Take Charge Take Care, a New York City-funded handbook directed toward heroin addicts offers instruction on how to prepare drugs carefully and with care for veins to prevent infection. Of course, the state's top official with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) calls it disturbing. I call is sensible, realistic and life-saving. It is past time for the American public to demand a more realistic policy toward all forms of drug use, from marijuana to heroin. When will we ever learn that you cannot successfully legislate against vice? Didn't Prohibition teach us anything?

[flyinghorse]

[flyinghorse]

Today here in the middle of New York state the temp is 16ºF and feels 7ºF although today's high is supposed to be 22ºF with 70% chance of up to 1 inch of snow. Typical winter brings typical May?

8-)Today in history:
1781: a British naval expedition led by Benedict Arnold burned Richmond, Virginia
1895: French Capt Alfred Dreyfus, convicted of treason, was publicly stripped of his rank. He was later proved to be innocent.
1896: an Austrian paper, Weiner Presse, reported the discovery of a type of radiation by German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen that is now known as x-rays.
1925: Nellie T. Ross became governor of Wyoming and the first female governor in US history.
1957: Pres. Eisenhower proposed assistance to countries the help them resist Communist aggression--the Eisenhower Doctrine.
1970: The soap opera All My Children premiered on ABC-TV.

Just What We Need: Google Inc. is preparing to take the wraps off a new mobile phone in a bid to gain more control over how people used the Web while on the go. Another mobile phone, gee how great! Soon there will be so many different ones for different functions that we'll need a maintenance belt around our waist to hang them all on. Am I the only one who has this feeling that Google is trying to take over the world? In the interest of full disclosure--I don't even own an old fashioned cell phone that only sends and receives phone calls.

???Could someone explain to me why the Arctic ice caps are melting but we are having one of the worst cold snaps in years? Waves of Arctic air have pushed into central Mississippi, Alabama and the Florida Panhandles where they are trying to save their strawberry and tomato crops from hard freezes covering the region. Record snows have fallen in Vermont, with more than 33 inches dumped on Burlington, breaking a single storm record set in 1969. Here in New York, our lake effect snow has covered parts of the state with over 36 inches and more is expected. Forecasters say that northeast Ohio (has 2 feet now) will continue to accumulate more of the white stuff. Global warming where are you now that we need you?

The Producers Guild of America has followed the Oscar's lead in naming 10 nominees for its top film honors: Avatar, Star Trek, District 9, Up, Inglorious Basterds, The Hurt Locker, Precious, Up in the Air, An Education, and Invictus. I have no quarrel with changing the 5 Best Films limit but I would rather see it as a open number. Some years you may have only 4 good films, another year 7, etc. Why does it have to be a specific number? Just use 10 as a maximum of possible films.

:oThe Kepler Telescope, NASA's new planet-hunting telescope, has found two mystery objects that are too hot to be planets and too small to be stars. Each is circling their own star and are 1000s of degrees hotter (how hot? 26,000ºF--hot enough to melt lead or iron) than the stars they circle. These new discoveries don't quite fit into any definition of known astronomical objects. There are two main theories: (1) newly born planets (newbies have extremely high temps) only 200 million years old or (2) white dwarf stars that are dying and stripping off their outer shells and shrinking. "There's going to be all kinds of weird stuff out there," said Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institute of Washington, who wasn't part of the research. "This is an unparalleled data set. The universe really is a weird place. It's fantastic."

;)Thought for Today:
"Wisdom is divided into two parts: (a) having a great deal to say, and (b) not saying it." --Anonymous.