To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?
Larry Chen, a 27-year-old photojournalist, discovered a hive of 50,000 bees inside his California home last week, ABC News reports.
Rather than wipe out the colony, Chen decided to call a specialist who would simply relocate the bees.
The video Mr. Chen created is actually a great look at a wild hive -- one inside the wall of a human home, but still wild. That the colony was saved it marvelous. Bravo, Mr. Chen and well done Mike "The Bee Guy!" (12 July 2012)
The Freeh Report was released today and it is damning. It is an indictment not only against the honor of Joe Paterno and officials in the administration at Penn State, but against their souls. These people covered up child abuse. Indeed, they enabled it for years. If there is a hell, Sandusky certainly has a spot reserved in it. However, the rapes of many of these boy are on the heads of Paterno and these other officials as well.
The Paterno family has been calling for the truth to emerge. It has. It is hard to accept that your father was a monster who enabled a monster. Jay Paterno, the son of Joe, has called the report "one opinion, one piece of the puzzle." That is denial, of course, but perhaps understandable coming from a son. If anyone else holds fondness now for Paterno, they need to look deep inside themselves and see the monster within.
12 July 2012
Addition: 16 July 2012: My father-in-law just forwarded a cartoon to me and I thought that I'd include it here.
I have been listening to a bit of sports radio of late, something that I don't normally do that much. I've been interested to see the reaction to the Freeh Report in this media forum. I've heard nothing praising Paterno, which I find interesting. Indeed, the reaction has been strongly negative, which I see as positive. They are basically taking the view that Paterno enabled the rape of children to protect his image. Bravo.
Mark Gongloff of The Huffington Post wrote a great article today about the Libor Scandal that is unfolding right now and why it may -- perhaps will -- come to dominate the headlines going forward. Indeed, it has the potential to affect the upcoming elections and perhaps solidify the push for banking reform in the US.
Michelle Manetti at StyleList.com wrote a piece on why cleaning your bird feeders is important and how to do it. Apparently, diseases can spread through feeders that are not kept clean. From the original writing:
There's nothing sweeter than watching a feathered friend stop by your window to have a snack from a bird feeder. But it's important to clean feeders once a month to avoid serious diseases that can accumulate. To keep your backyard friends happy and healthy, you'll want to try this non-toxic cleaning tip!
First, remove the feeder from its hook. Empty any seeds from the feeder. If the feeder has removable parts, detach them. Then, add a teaspoon of liquid soap to a bucket of water big enough for the feeder to soak. Soak the feeder in the solution for ten minutes. Next, use a scrubbing brush and gloves to remove any stuck-on dirt. Then, rinse the feeder in clean water. Empty the bucket and fill it with clean water and four cups of vinegar. Soak for one hour. Finally, rinse the feeder again with clean water.
We have taken our feeders down for the year to avoid a repeat bear visit. However, I have a plan to hang them safely next year. And now, I'll keep them appropriately clean as well.
Paul Krugman wrote a great op-ed in the NY Times detailing some of the differences between current Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his father, former Michigan governor and presidential candidate George Romney. An excerpt:
Once upon a time a rich man named Romney ran for president. He could claim, with considerable justice, that his wealth was well-earned, that he had in fact done a lot to create good jobs for American workers. Nonetheless, the public understandably wanted to know both how he had grown so rich and what he had done with his wealth; he obliged by releasing extensive information about his financial history.
But that was 44 years ago. And the contrast between George Romney and his son Mitt — a contrast both in their business careers and in their willingness to come clean about their financial affairs — dramatically illustrates how America has changed.
...
And there’s another contrast: George Romney was open and forthcoming about what he did with his wealth, but Mitt Romney has largely kept his finances secret. He did, grudgingly, release one year’s tax return plus an estimate for the next year, showing that he paid a startlingly low tax rate. But as the Vanity Fair report points out, we’re still very much in the dark about his investments, some of which seem very mysterious.
...
One more thing: To the extent that Mr. Romney has a coherent policy agenda, it involves cutting tax rates on the very rich — which are already, as I said, down by about half since his father’s time. Surely a man advocating such policies has a special obligation to level with voters about the extent to which he would personally benefit from the policies he advocates.
Yet obviously that’s something Mr. Romney doesn’t want to do. And unless he does reveal the truth about his investments, we can only assume that he’s hiding something seriously damaging.
The Vanity Fair article mentioned regarding his money is Where the Money Lives by Nicholas Shaxson. Michael Kranish and Scott Helman had done a previous article at the magazine last February titled The Meaning of Mitt.
Considering all the Sturm und Drang over President Obama’s plan to allow the Bush tax cuts to expire on income over $250,000 you’d think that Republicans and Democrats had hugely different ideas about where to set tax policy in 2013. But in reality the fight is entirely over how much wealthy Americans should pay in taxes going forward.
That won’t stop Republicans from characterizing Obama’s plan as a broad-based tax increase that will particularly harm small businesses. But as Obama noted when formally reintroducing his plan at the White House Monday, he and Republicans agree that tax cuts for all income under that level should be extended.
So what’s the real difference between the parties on this issue? The liberal group Citizens for Tax Justice broke down the numbers (PDF) in a way that clarifies what (and whom) the fight is really about.
CTJ looks at the numbers from a baseline that assumes all the Bush tax cuts will expire at the end of the year. From that perspective, Obama and the GOP are both proposing large tax cuts — Republicans just want much larger ones for the very wealthy.
But the baseline doesn’t really matter. As you can see, for 99 percent of taxpayers, there’s almost no bottom-line difference between what the GOP is proposing and what Obama’s proposing.
The entire fight is over how much the top one percent of earners should pay in taxes.
The narrowness of that difference won’t quiet the political turmoil. Democratic leaders have coalesced around Obama’s plan. But if they decided to move the line from $250,000 to $1 million, the fight will be no less pitched. Republicans will go to the mattresses to protect those tax cuts no matter where Democrats propose cutting them off.
Let's hope that the president and ohter Democrats frame this issue well and stick to their guns.
Since at least one of our cats suffers from feline herpes virus, I thought I'd post some information on the disease. The insurance company that we use for our cats has an often-informative blog on animal illnesses. The post for feline herpes virus can be found here. This post also details the maledy of conjunctivitis, which is often a part of suffering from feline herpes virus. Another blog post details information on corneal ulcers which are also often related to the virus.
We dose our cats using powdered oral lysine, dusting their food with it for about four weeks every four to six months. When the discharge coming from one of our cat's eyes increased greatly, we start another cycle. This has always taken care of that issue and will hopefully prevent corneal ulcers from forming.
I have been told by several reputable authorities that many if not most cats that come from a shelter, especially kittens, carry the feline herpes virus. The stressful environment and close quarters that shelters entail make it easily transmitted. Your cat can live a long and relatively pain-free life with the virus, but knowing how to deal with this can help make this so.
