Thursday, January 23, 2014

Brrrrrr! Negative temps and lower wind chill. Thursday miscellanea.

We are hibernating for another day.  It is much too cold to do anything outside.  We got about another inch of snow yesterday so we feel lucky.  Others only a few miles away are still digging out from Tuesday's snow.  Hope you all are staying warm and safe.

I found this interesting piece early in my trip through the 'net.  I am not surprised by the efforts to challenge climate science in courts or in legislative bodies using smear tactics but little or no contradictory scientific evidence.  I am fascinated by the history of the Heartland Institute.  Huffington Post has a list of articles concerning Heartland here.

We knew that last year was a bad one for rail accidents involving oil tankers.  We didn't know it was this bad.  Moving volatile, flammable, or toxic materials from anywhere to somewhere else by any means will always be dangerous but we seem to be giving the corporate interests a get out of responsibility free card.  Accidents may be accidents but the people who own the infrastructure should be responsible for cleaning up after the accidents.

I read this article to Mom after commenting that these guys sounded like us discussing phones or some other gadget.  We have simple tastes and simple needs but everything out there seems to have loads of functions and features we don't want and won't use.  We made the mistake of saying as much in front of my younger sister who immediately informed us of how useful the web surfing or other features can be.  You can look up an address or a phone number or play a game while waiting for whatever, etc., etc., etc.  We print out directions from the computer before we leave home.  We write down phone numbers we might need on paper and take it with us.  We don't play on the phones.  "Simple" seems to be a concept our modern consumer society doesn't understand.

These are sentiments I can totally agree with.  We have commented here that the old definitions of privacy are dead and no one has come up with anything to replace them.

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