How easy it is to make people believe a lie, and how hard it is to undo that work again! (Mark Twain)
I just learned in the past few weeks that the city of Denver has a basketball team. They are called the Nuggets. Last year I learned that Denver also has a hockey team, called the Avalanche.
At the gym a fellow told me that eleven people were shot in the subsequent downtown celebration after the Nuggets’ win last night. Now they are saying nine. I’ll take their word on it despite the suspicious numbers.
Last Saturday my wife and I, imagining that even in our seventies we are not frail, went on a five-mile thousand-foot hike, climbing Mt. Lagalt. It is but a mile drive for us to get to the trailhead, a wide and gracious uphill climb that at a certain point becomes a narrow and steep climb. It is not dangerous, but the last part, the ascent, is a bit of a challenge. You’ve probably no idea if you are younger, but at our age, the concept of a mile becomes longer than ever before. Each of us were runners in our younger years, and a mile meant nothing. In my best days, not even approaching the really good runners I realize, I was doing 7.5 minute five mile runs, and shorter runs on occasion at 6.5-minute miles. Those were the barriers that I never broke.
Yesterday my wife and I were working on our back deck, she making planters while I tried to clean out a problematic gutter that sits over the ell part of the deck. I had to borrow a 13 foot ladder from our neighbor Tom, but before that thought that an eight foot step ladder was enough to reach a gutter twelve feet high. In fact, the eight foot ladder was enough, but only if once on the highest step I made no movements, used no force and applied no pressure to the various pain-in-the-ass parts of the gutter that clog up every year. (I have an extension ladder, but cannot lean it into the gutter and accomplish anything without damaging it.)
One time on descent from the eight-foot ladder, I said to her:
I would not like it if I fell.
The reason why I cannot tell.
But this I know and know full well,
I would not like it if I fell.
Prior to discussing the Streisand Effect, I am reminded of radio talk show host Dr. Laura Schlessinger, heard on weekdays on SiriusXM channel 111. She is currently 75 years old and going strong. Back before the proliferation of Sirius channels she was usually heard on AM radio. The program was very popular. Even as I was a liberal at the time, and her advice very conservative, I liked her and had very little trouble with her advice, which was stern, sensible and straightforward.
This is purely a personal complaint so don’t read it if you’ve better things to do (and you know you do).
Over our years of traveling we have been many places and gone through customs in every imaginable form. People who work customs are just doing a job, one that is highly routine and boring. They have to look at our passports, run them through scanners, ask us perfunctory questions. No, we are not carrying large amounts of money and have not purchased jewelry, and are not bringing in oranges or yams. We are tourists, and not on business.
If you are sharp of eyesight, you will note a slight uptick in planet temperature from 1880 to 2020. There is a word for this change from 57 degrees to 59 degrees over that 140 year period: Imperceptible. The human body cannot distinguish such slight temperature anomalies.
Continue reading “A shocking graphic presentation of our Climate Emergency”
Target is now taking it in the shorts, so to speak, after going full woke with a line of clothing aimed at gays, transgenders, and most notably, children including infants. This from Epoch Times* Roman Balmakov:
This was Target’s 2023 “Pride Collection,” which included items such as onesies for infants with a bunch of different pro-gay and pro-trans slogans, books for children like “Bye Bye, Binary” and “What Are Your Words?”—which helped to instruct children on using transgender pronouns—chest binders being sold for girls, and female swimsuits that had a “tuck-friendly” label—meaning that the swimsuit has enough additional fabric to cover male genitals, worn by young boys who want to pretend that they don’t have boy parts.
Once again, I am limited for display purposes here by the inability of this iPad to allow me to increase the size of the above image. On a PC it is easily done. Nonetheless, what is being sold here should be obvious, and can be viewed with greater ease by going to the original article. This graph is linked behind that article. CNN Published Blatantly false Claim About Wildfires – There’s No Link to Fossil Fuels At All.
Continue reading “Union of Concerned Scientists: Caught in a big fat lie”
This is our third trip to Chamonix, or first in 2011 as we hiked one-half of the Tour de Mont Blanc*. We came here again in 2016, prior to taking on the Swiss Haute Route (which we completed over a two year period). This year we are here with the freedom of a vehicle, not having to walk everywhere. That said, the vehicle has been sitting in the hotel parking lot for three days now.
We could have driven to Cascade de Dard, a local waterfall. Instead we opted to walk up the thousand feet, our total day covering nine miles. There was a time when such a hike was a small thing, but after ankle surgery and a long period of relative inactivity, it was tough. The ankle hurts at the end of each day, but the next day feels new. It also counts against us that we are in our seventies.
While we travel and hike, we have come across some amazing and free programs that we use regularly. The first is called Seek, put out by iNaturalist. It is available for free at the Apple App Store.
Seek has many uses, but we primarily use it to identify plants. We merely hold the iPhone camera over the plant, whether leaf or flower. It quickly identifies it, giving us the common name, though on occasion it offers only the Latin name.
It does not matter whether you live in a large city or rural area, or as we have discovered if you are in a foreign country. Its database is so massive that if knows every plant and every subspecies. It is truly a wonder to behold. When stumped, it offers “dicot” or “monocot”.
Piece of Mindful 