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.
Electoral College Follies
Unhappy because your vote in California counted for less than a Nebraska resident’s vote? Think the Electoral College is unfair because a candidate who garners fewer votes still wins the Presidency – twice so far in this century? Imagine how you would feel had you voted for Andrew Jackson.
Postcards From Aleppo
U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power speaking from the United Nations floor to her counterparts representing Syria, Russia and Iran:
“When one day there is a full accounting of the horrors committed in this assault of Aleppo — and that day will come, sooner or later — you will not be able to say you did not know what was happening, You will not be able to say you were not involved. We all know what is happening. And we all know you are involved.”
Aleppo’s population is/was about that of Houston, but people have inhabited it for about 6,000 years longer than Texas. Click here for some “Then and Now” photos from the besieged city.
True Meaning of Christmas… and Bananas
Among the many things that Portland, or Portlandia if you prefer, claims to have originated or is the leader of, is Santacon. Supposedly inspired by the “Santa Rampage” in San Francisco, the first “Santacon,” a pub-crawl of revelers dressed as Santa Claus crowded the sidewalks and streets in 1996. The initial event ended in a standoff with police who barred their entrance into the Lloyd Center shopping mall. Santacon was organized – if ‘organized” is the right word – by a group called The Portland Cacophony Society.