Category: Random Thoughts
What doesn’t fit elsewhere
A Very Google Christmas
Google, everybody’s favorite invader of privacy – well, maybe tied with Amazon – has a holiday gift for you. Click here for a no-cost – other than your personal information – tour of Christmas windows in New York. Enjoy!
New Career Opportunities
The state of California estimates there are 102 million dead trees within its borders. Beetle infestation and a lack of water from the state’s five-year drought – climate change? – have rampaged through the forests like a plague. Add to that unrelenting fire suppression, in large part to protect property owned by people who think a home in the woods is the way to commune with nature. The forest is filled with dead and dying trees that otherwise would have been recycled by fire.
The state is paying as much as $1,000 each to have dead trees felled and removed. Logging is again a growing industry. It’s also the most dangerous. Loggers are more likely to meet their demise on the job than any other occupation.
Read about one contractor who can’t keep up with the demand for his services.
Freedom of the Press
The First Amendment to our Constitution allows Breitbart News Network to publish whatever dreck they choose. It also works in the other direction. Companies are free to spend their advertising dollars wherever they choose. Some are now paying attention to where third-party agencies place their ads. Kellogg’s, for example, decided it no longer wants its brand associated with the right-wing “news” site.
Careers in Higher Education
In his first three years as head football coach of the University of Oregon, Mark Helfrich led the Ducks to wins in the Alamo Bowl and Rose Bowl and losses in another Alamo Bowl and the College Football National Championship game. A 4-8 record in the 2016 season was made more dismal by a loss to the Oregon State Beavers. An old sports adage is you can’t fire the players, so you fire the coach. They did.
Better Start Making Plans
“Famed theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking has some grim news for humanity: We have 1,000 years to get off Earth or we’re totally screwed.”