Welcome to Saturday's Potluck - 12-17-2022
“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”
Pablo Picasso
It has been one of those weeks. Sunday morning the potential 1 to 3 inches of snow turned into 12 inches of heavy tree branch breaking snow. Followed by power interruptions. Call from a neighbor, plans were already being made when to grade the driveways - Monday. By noon low voltage problems, prompted a discussion with the power company to determine if we were part of the known outages. Yes, our cooperative was answering calls with a real person to ask pertinent questions and obtain detailed information.
Decided to check how much snow I needed to shovel to inspect switches in the well house. Good fortune the afternoon heat had melted the snow right in front of the door. When I stepped in the building smoke was rising from the gray panel box for the well. Quickly turned off the master switch and the smoke subsided.
I was lucky, house electricity was back on full strength the next day. The well was functioning by Thursday when the colder weather arrived. It is much easier to run hot water from the tap to bucket out to frozen water troughs than to melt snow, followed by heating on the stove. Used the soup pots more this week than the past two years of cooking.
It makes one a bit reflective. In total there was a visit by well technicians, electricians, lineman and plow operator. Nearly every man who came by to help was in the age bracket to be conscripted into the armed forces of Ukraine if a citizen. The plow operator is in his late 70's would most likely be skipped. The country is losing 2 generations of men being sent to the battlefields.
Our leaders and accomplices deserve to be haunted every moment with the feeling of their victims and images of the carnage they have instigated and continued.
Time for Ukraine talks ‘not right now’ – White House Russia Times Dec 16, 2022
It is not yet time for Ukraine to negotiate with Russia, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan argued in an interview on Friday. His comment came after Henry Kissinger – who held the same post in the early 1970s – said talks should happen sooner rather than later.
“We don’t know where this is going to end up,” Sullivan said of the conflict, speaking at the Carnegie Endowment think tank in Washington. “What we do know is that it’s our job to continue to sustain our military support to Ukraine, so they are in the best possible position on the battlefield, so that if and when the diplomacy is ripe, they will be in the best possible position at the negotiating table.”
“That moment is not right now,” he added.
Biden Kills Senate Resolution to End Yemen War Consortium News December 14, 2022
Living in the natures world can mean constantly adapting to extremes.
Humans alter their enviornment into multiple realities. This house plant grew from a leaf collected off a Jade Tree at the San Diego Zoo Koala exhibit in the 1980's.
Situational awareness is a skill worth learning. (Think I just spooked the fox checking out the chicken house. Spotted his tracks yesterday morning.)
I wish you all Happy Holidays. I probably wont be checking in today. Need to tackle the drive to the hay barn for a couple of loads.
What is on your mind today?
Comments
Good luck with all the snow!
Hope you get everything back in order. Glad to hear the well pump is fine.
We're turning cold here late next week just in time for Christmas. Hope everyone can stay warm.
Trade day was a bust, but enjoyed the stroll and visits.
Thanks for the OT!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Love the snowy wagon wheel scene
Brings me back to quiet times on the farm.
Thanks for posting!
question everything
Electric Cooperatives
Electric Cooperatives are so much better than electric companies. The local electric company here in town got gobbled up by Florida Power and Light. The first thing they did was to increase the price in some cases by 3X what they were charging before. Our cooperative has pretty much stayed the same for the last five years.
Hola soe. Sorry ot hear of the weather relted/caused
grief, including "simple things" like shoveling. Hoping for the best of luck and such with your repair/restore/maintain projects and chores.
"Time for talks" becomes more and more fictive, across the board, (white rabbit and mad hatter check and synchronize watches) as more and more of the globe becomes evermore certain that EU=NATO=US/5 Eyes == untrustworthy (in the extreme) imperialists permanently locked into a failed socio-economic behavior paradigm. In essence, this shit is what we got until the world ends.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Interesting essay on peer reviewed studies
https://experimentalhistory.substack.com/p/the-rise-and-fall-of-peer-review
TL:dr it’s not what it’s cracked up to be. Most reviewers don’t look at the numbers behind the reports which the essay says is the nuts and bolts of studies.
Has anyone heard anything about the great blizzard that hit the Rockies recently? We are in the arctic blast this week. It’s 11 this morning and warming up to 20. It wasn’t bad yesterday on our walk and I even took my gloves off. Sam loves the cold and snow.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt
I'll be talking with my sister this evening
and will ask. They've had quite a bit of snow already.
Interesting essay on "peer review"
Not surprised to see it deflated.
I never had much respect for the concept as it sounds to me like pomposity personified.Just who are these off-screen characters and how did they get to be so authoritative? Taken literally, the term means guys like the guy being reviewed. Hmmmn. Well, "experts" have to eat, too, and are not immune to corruption. In context, the term invariably is intended to suggest both credibility and accuracy -- like the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval -- giving my skeptical nose the whiff of bullshit.
It is part of the universal crisis of credibility that gets more critical as the decades go by.
The quest for reliable sources goes on. Sneering at the Deconstructionists is always self- satisfying, but bullshit is extremely hard to eliminate. Life can be a real bitch.
My peers all agree with me on this.
I cried when I wrote this song. Sue me if I play too long.
In this vein if anyone is interested
Here’s another essay on fraudulent studies.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt
This invitation sums up the Ukraine situation quite well.
AOC being AOC
re: AOC
She's right about Musk. She also has turned into a go-along Democrat...if she was ever anything else.
Finally some useful aid is being sent to Ukraine. /S
Good morning, soe, et al!
I remember those days when I had to thaw frozen water troughs. I miss my horses and cattle, but not that particular chore.
I am fortunately in an electricity co-op. Always people to chat with by phone, always kept in the loop about repairs and estimated time the grid comes back to life.
Biden sucks. His choice to go after petrodollar protection at the price of mass starvation of children in Yemen guarantees his future in Hell, and a likely Nobel Peace Prize.
There may come a day when AOC stops passing herself off as a progressive, and publicly admits she is a neo-Nazi.
Hope everyone stays warm and cozy during these cold days.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
It has been
a good week. Surgery was Monday, ditched the walker on Wednesday, got back on my stationary bike Thursday, and am cruising along through PT now. A big change is that I decided to try using my TENS unit for pain control, this time (along with my normal CBD). It works amazingly well at preventing breakthrough pain, and has allowed me to get much further ahead on the recovery. I’m already halfway through weaning off the opioids, and will be done with them altogether by tomorrow night.
In short, I’m absolutely gobsmacked at how well it is going. I’ve found that in the first few days after surgery, the biggest source of pain is from irritation of the patella- I would get intense shooting/stabbing pains when I flexed the joint, and that has been the discomfort that has limited most PT exercises. Setting up the TENS to conduct current through the patella has completely stopped that, and that was unexpected. That’s what has made it possible for me to get back on the bike on the 4th day post surgery. Amazing.
Conclusion: I waited far too long to get this done. The future looks great from here!
Everybody be safe out there.
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
Glad to hear it. Hope you have continued success. n/t
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
You and your surgical experience
are amazing, ufs!
Walkers are for the little people, amirite?
I had the day off, thought about doing nothing, but instead, scrubbed the kitchen, swept the floor in half the house, am now headed for the laundry room.
In the background is tv shows from the 60s and a bit later. Civilization, and First Civilizations, both PBS series when PBS was good.
We made enough chili con carne last night to have leftovers tonight. It was one of the best batches we have ever made, with Dear One taking the chef spot, me the sous chef spot.
It is going to get really cold, even down to freezing, later on this week. Although we will be in Galveston, it will only be 5 or so degrees warmer there.
It is winter, after all.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Clown world
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt