Update from the
Heartland
No.769
5.9.16 – 11.9.16
Blog version: http://heartlandupdate.blogspot.com/
To all,
Jeanne
and I planned a little mini-‘vacay’ around the annual Kansas Book Festival in
Topeka on Saturday. Unfortunately,
Mother Nature did not smile upon us this year. Beginning Thursday evening, it began to rain with the worst
of it coming early Friday morning.
When I got up 02:20, the rain gauge showed 2.25 inches and the lake was
still at its normal level. By
dawn, the rain gauge was up to 4.5 inches and the lake was over the banks and
approaching my threshold for installing our flood panels. We watched and waited. I even made a tour of the watershed
that feeds our lake that yielded mixed results and was generally positive. For reasons I could not determine, the
lake was slow to crest and recede, and more rain was forecast for the evening. So, long story short, we did not get
the dogs to the boarding kennel and did not leave town as planned. Then, the rain started, again, and
added another 2.5 inches. The lake
level rose, again. We were both
already tired from a long day fretting about the flood and how to adjust our
plans. We agreed to take shifts
watching the rain gauge and water level.
By the time my shift started, the rain stopped, the radar looked clear,
and the lake was still short of the threshold for action. We went to bed near midnight with an
agreed to plan; if conditions were acceptable, I would cover the book festival
and Jeanne would stay home with the dogs.
I checked the rain gauge (no change), checked the lake (peaked and
receding), and checked the radar (nothing close). I decided to clean up, get dressed, load the car, and head
out. I could continue his
narrative, but I have probably lost everyone already.
After
all that turmoil and a long drive in the dark, I was actually one of the first
authors to be set up in tent booths erected in the plaza on the north side of
the state capitol building. It was
my first time at the capitol book festival. I was pleasantly surprised by the attendance. I actually sold some books . . . never
as many as I would like, but hey, sales are sales. Folks, young and old, stopped to talk, ask questions, and
showed interest. Then, there are
always a few who seem virtually anti-social. My biggest disappointment was the Wi-Fi set up for the event,
which was just not stable enough to upload credit car purchases. Another mistake I made (in hindsight):
I chose not to take a cash pouch for cash payments. I am still getting the hang of this retail sales
process. Toward mid-afternoon, the
governor showed up to say hi to everyone.
I am not high on the man, but I am respectful of the office he
holds. After a long day (with no
nap), I drove home, which took a little longer since I stopped about halfway to
take a combat nap.
The
flood came at the worst time, but we manage to recover. Unfortunately, Mother Nature ruined
what had been a good plan for a mini-‘vacay.’ C’est la vie. Life goes on. I
must publicly profess my gratitude for everything Jeanne does for us. For those who may be curious, the lake
was back down to its normal level by Sunday.
The follow-up news items:
-- Various aviation information sources indicate the investigators
for the MetroJet Flight 9268 (KGL9268)[724]
incident have begun to reassemble the wreckage, which should enable them, along
with the FDR/CVR and radar data to precisely determine the root cause and
sequence of the in-flight break-up.
The
Republican presidential nominee seems to have found a kindred spirit in President
Rodrigo Roa ‘Rody or Digong’ Duterte of the Philippines . . . just insult people with whom you
disagree or dislike.
On
Friday morning, 9.September, a 5.3 magnitude earthquake was detected in
northwest North Korea at a comparatively shallow depth and likely marked the
fifth test by the rogue nation of its evolving nuclear weapons development
program. Initial estimates place
the yield at 10-20 KT – in the size range of ‘Little Boy,’ the Hiroshima
device.
Libertarian
candidate Gary Johnson stumbled this week when MSNBC reporters asked him about
the situation in Aleppo. He did
not know what Aleppo was; “What is Aleppo?” I was disappointed in that initial response. Yet, I was truly impressed by his
recovery. He owned it, and regretted
his lack of knowledge about the Syrian civil war and refugee crisis. Gary responded in a calm, direct,
forthright manner – a dramatic and refreshing contrast with the insult
deflections of the Republican nominee and the word-parsing obfuscation of the
Democratic nominee. Yet, I dare
say, most of us know what is going on in Aleppo. Many of us can actually locate the besieged Syrian city, or
at least what is left of the city, on a map. The stumble was not an encouraging sign.
Can
anyone imagine Winston Churchill singing the praises of Adolf Hitler? There is zero doubt that Hitler had
extraordinary leadership qualities to be able to convince, coax, cajole,
dominate and oppress an entire, civilized nation, and convinced virtually the entire
professional military leadership to go to war for his purposes. Churchill was a student of leadership,
and an accomplished national and international leader in his own right over
many decades, including two (2) world wars. He recognized Hitler for what he was. He knew what the German dictator had
accomplished, and he also understood long before the negative traits became
clear to the world the danger the mercurial German leader represented to
Germany, to Europe and to the World.
And yet, Churchill never
praised the German dictator for anything, not even conceding the good completed
like the Autobahn highway network and making the trains run on schedule. I wonder what other dictators the
Republican nominee admires?
One
additional thought: apparently all you have to do to get on the good side of
the Republican nominee is flatter him.
OMG, what lays ahead for us all?
News from the economic
front:
-- The European Central Bank (ECB) announced no changes to
its monthly asset-purchase program of €80B (US$90B) will continue until at
least the end of March 2017, if necessary. The ECB continues to fight stubbornly low inflation (growth).
Comments and contributions from Update no.768:
Comment to the Blog:
“The SpaceX rocket failure seems pretty much par for the course of
vastly expanding a field of endeavor quickly. Given the nature of the
investigators, we shall never know whether the object you described has any
significance. My personal opinion is that an operation of this magnitude ought
not to be in private hands. The oligarchy sees only potential return on
investment and does not concern itself with cost to others.
“I see Colin Kaepernick as wise to do his protesting in a very
public place and situation. Otherwise, he could become one more unarmed black
man shot by the police, as so many have been. Alternatively, he could be
attacked with dogs as the peaceful pipeline protesters in North Dakota have
been or with pepper spray as were protesters at a peaceful rally on a college
campus in California a year or two back. Nobody believes Mr. Kaepernick speaks
for his football team, but no police officer is unwise enough to take revenge
on him in a full stadium with cameras recording every square foot of it. He is
merely following the example of Muhammad Ali and others who have used their
prominence to further their cause. The shame of it is that the cause has not
advanced more since Ali made his stand.”
My response to the
Blog:
Re:
SpaceX. Interesting perspective .
. . certainly not devoid of truth, it seems to me. The NTSB should be doing the investigation . . . as they do
with railroads, ships, highways and aircraft; but, as we know, even the NTSB is
not removed from political influence, although by law, it is supposed to be
beyond politics.
Re:
Kaepernick. While I agree in part,
I cannot agree with the premise anyone can say whatever they want whenever they
want and in any circumstance they wish.
Muhammed Ali spoke for himself; he represented no one else except
himself. But hey, apparently, that
is just my opinion . . . and that don’t matter a hoot for nothin’.
Another contribution:
“Don't know if you saw this, but they shut down 37 of the 4,200
deep wastewater injection wells in the state. From what I can tell the ability
to pinpoint the wells causing the problem is not nearly that precise.”
URL:
My reply:
Thx
mate. That was what I was
referring to, without direct citation, regarding the shutting down of some of
the wastewater injection wells.
Pinpointing . . . exactly, they can identify an area, but when there are
more than one such wells in the area, precise location becomes nearly
impossible.
A different contribution:
“Thanks for another informative piece. While 768 did not directly raise the question
of why a reluctant vote for Trump is wiser than a reluctant vote or any vote
for another Obama, I mean Clinton, I have a logical reason that at least by
implication 768 invites:
“We may not know exactly what Trump will do, but we do know what
Hillary will do (more executive Obama orders, more disrespect of the
constitution by our Supreme Court, more illegal aliens on our welfare roles and
in our hospitals having free babies, more votes for the federal nanny state,
more disrespect from our enemies, more questionable Clintonian shenanigans,
more taxation of what is left of our nation's producers, more voters dependent
upon government, etc., etc., etc.). I am willing to take a chance on the coarse but refreshingly
independent Republican businessman even though the Repandcrats in charge of the
GOP are quite willing to suffer the above results of a Clinton victory so that
they can have a few more years in Washington. Of course, the Clinton worshippers and the timid Trump
fearers will follow the main stream media's urgings that we must not have a man
like The Donald in the White House when we could have the first female
president there, a nice mother with some political experience and only a few
scandals per decade behind her.”
My response:
Well
done! You have made a valiant
attempt to draw my vote into the public domain. First, I have NOT decided who I will vote for in the coming
election. Second, I want to retain
an open-mind to the greatest extent I am able for as long as possible. That said, the closest I’m going to get
to a vote declaration prior to the election is my words in the Comment section
of Update no.767. Let it suffice to say that you are far
braver than me. We are conducting
a national job interview, and we only have four candidates and a mandatory
requirement to pick one for the job.
The current incumbent is barred by the Constitution from remaining in
the office he has occupied for nearly eight years.
. . . the last word on this thread:
"One last thing: I wish I could think that a vote for the
Libertarian would not help Hillary, but I am a realist in that regard."
Yet, another contribution:
“Thank you again Cap.
I am sorry for the loss of your friend Lieutenant General Frank Emmanuel
Petersen, Jr.
“The quake in your region, is another sign to me that Donald
Rumsfeld was a genius in stating (or restating from the works of others):
"Reports
that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because
as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also
know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we
do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don't know we
don't know."
And that would be the water injection you refer to below, involved
in the fracking process. I might
also refer to Donald Rumsfeld's quote related to the spraying of Naled to
contain the Zika Virus, as large kill offs of bees and other insects (and what
else?) appears to be happening due to trying to kill the mosquitoes.
“That's it for now, hope to contribute more later...”
My reply:
Thank
you for your kind words. He was a
good man.
Rummie
certainly popularized the “unknown unknowns” in contemporary culture, but he is
not the originator of the logic.
Re:
wastewater injection. The issue,
as I understand the geologic processes, is actually the wastewater disposal
from the fracking process injected far deeper than the recovery zone. There are certainly “unknown unknowns”
with that process.
Re:
Zika spraying. Insecticide is like
that . . . kills everything and only by dosage regulation they hope to avoid
killing humans.
Contribute
more when or if you wish.
. . . a follow-up comment:
“On Zika spraying, my concern is that we do not know the long term
health effects on humans from the insecticide, but also equally important, do
try to kill possible Zika carrying mosquitoes, there is now collateral damage
to bees and many other species, including effects on plant life, that has an
ecological impact that could be more dangerous than Zika, considering
statistics, long-term changes, and the ‘unknown unknowns.’ I would even say there is enough we do
now know, if bees are killed, that we should seriously consider what we are
doing spraying these insecticides. I believe industrial diseases and our efforts to control
nature or add scientific methods for our own benefit, is counterproductive and
may be the reason we see things like the cancer disease high measured per
capita.”
. . . my follow-up reply:
Well
said. A couple of little related
factoids . . . The SS used Zyklon-B
in the extermination camps; Zyklon-B began as an insecticide developed by the
German chemical company I.G. Farben.
Another one: the U.S. military used Agent Orange herbicide that was
widely used in Vietnam; it was considered safe; we now know it was not. A large number of veterans exposed to
the stuff in theater developed fatal diseases. One last example: broad scale usage of DDT in the 50’s &
60’s likewise produced un-intended consequences for humans exposed to the
stuff. The collateral damage to
good, beneficial insects was catastrophic. The list could go on.
There are good and historic reasons to be suspicious of the Zika
insecticide dispersal. The
government undoubtedly believes the risk of Zika infection is greater than the
health risk of the insecticide they are using.
. . . a follow-up, follow-up comment:
“Thank you Cap for bringing this to light, for all that can see
it. Good information.
“If spraying for Zika was being done in my area, I also would be
concerned for pets. I've always
been concerned over many of the chemicals we use all around our homes and
yards, and tell people do not even use basic cleaning supplies in your home
unless well ventilated and one considers wearing rubber gloves (our skin is our
biggest organ, absorbing everything in contact).
“I have not had time but would like to do some R&D on Zika's
origins too.”
. . . my follow-up, follow-up reply:
We
should all be concerned . . . the smaller the creature the less tolerant of
neurotoxin exposure they are. I’ve
never been a proponent of general spraying, quite like carpet-bombing, i.e., indiscriminate collateral damage, unless the intention is to eliminate all
living things in an area.
This last contribution
for this week:
“Good day my friend from a country I know you love - a country
that had a very serious earthquake recently. Yes, we experienced one in Cyprus and Germany too - they can
be very unnerving. Well, here in
Venice the temperature was 34 degs C when we arrived yesterday . . . something
of a shock after U/K weather.”
My response:
Well,
we learn something new every day.
I did not know England, Cyrus or Germany experienced perceptible earthquakes.
Enjoy
your holiday in Italy.
My
very best wishes to all. Take care
of yourselves and each other.
Cheers,
Cap :-)
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