SoINeedAName

Friday Fun: A Polar BRRR!

 Posted by at 3:27 pm  Politics
Feb 012019
 

There’s an old and wise adage that advises one to not change horses in midstream.  But if you thought I’d heed its wisdom, you’d be wrong!  I had a “Friday Fun” all worked up – but then decided this once in a lifetime (hopefully) record-shattering Polar Vortex needed to be memorialized.  So it was back to the drawing board, which is why it’s so late in getting posted.

Plus it gives me a chance to showcase my old stomping grounds of Chicago, which was brutally hit – like much of the country.

But if you thought sub-zero temps with wind chills of -50 degrees – or more – would stop some idiot adolescent from going outside WITHOUT A SHIRT to throw boiling water in the air to have it freeze instantly, you would be wrong.

But it does make for a pretty photo.

JOHNNY CARSON: It was really cold this week.

AUDIENCE: How cold was it?

Cold enough to actually make light poles shiver!

We’ve all seen lots of pictures featuring the record-breaking weather, so I want to focus on some of the unique phenomena peculiar to Chicago.  But first, an aerial overview of the city showing Lake Michigan frozen along the shoreline.

 

WHY ARE THEY BURNING THE TRAIN TRACKS?

Probably the most surprising thing that was covered was the “burning” of the train track – both Amtrak and Metra.  But actually this is standard practice when the weather drops below freezing.

As one could imagine, brutal cold weather can wreak havoc on the rails with snow and ice clogging the track switchings that are vital to keep the trains running.  The tracks aren’t actually set on fire, as Chicago actually uses a gas-fed system adjacent to the rails to generate heat at its A-2 interlockings – the busiest intersections for switching tracks.  Similar to the gas logs you might have in your fireplace.

And fire is also employed to repair “pull-aparts” where the temperature is so cold that it causes the metal to shrink causing the rails to pull apart.  In those straight-away locations that are not equipped with gas (or electric) heating they use a rope soaked in kerosene.

The four guys in the orange vest in the slideshow above are working on a pull-apart.  You can tell from the black smoke created by the kerosene.

Not to worry – it’s perfectly safe.  Not only does at least one staff person stay on hand to monitor the flames, but the diesel fuel trains use combusts only with pressure and heat, not open flames.

The gas-powered heaters are a little old-fashioned and are only used at A-2 intersections – the busiest interlocking sites.  That’s because the density of the rails makes it difficult to employ more modern technology.  At other locations, electric-powered heating elements and electric-powered hot air blowers are used.

WHAT THE FOG?!?

“Smoke On The Water” … it’s not just the title of a Deep Purple song.

When a very cold air mass moves off the land and blows over the warmer water it creates what’s called “Sea Smoke” or “Sea Fog”.  This happens even if Lake Michigan is iced over – that’s because the Polar Vortex produced temperatures that were significantly colder than the ice.

For about the first 25-seconds of this Twitter video you can get a sense of how cold it must be to create the vastness of Sea Fog/Smoke like this.

KA-BOOM!

I actually experienced an “Ice Quake” on Tuesday – KCMO’s coldest day.

Decades ago Illinois had an earthquake on a Saturday morning when I was in high school that I can still recall.  And I felt that again on Tuesday and checked w/ the neighbors who said they felt it, too – accompanied by a loud “BOOM”!

Apparently these “Ice Quake” or “Frost Quakes” were felt across wide swaths of the Midwest on Tuesday and Wednesday.

When temps tumble below zero it can cause a natural phenomenon known as “Cryoseism”.  It’s an actual seismic event that happens when there’s enough water in the ground that freezes with super cold temps.  This then  cause enough expansion (just like the old milk bottles dairy men would leave on our porches in the old days) to crack the frozen soil causing a “quake”.

But enough of the science lessons.  Let’s enjoy some of the really odd outcomes of this Polar Vortex visit.

 “♫ I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles ♬ … That FREEZE Instantly”

And You Might Have Problems With Your Car – Especially When the Polar Vortex Begins With Freezing Rain

And If Your Car Does Start, Hope You Don’t Get Pulled Over By This Officer

And If You Get Hungry, Do NOT Eat Your Noodles Out On The Balcony

And Lord Help You If You Have To Go To Bathroom

But it also created some beautiful photos, too.  So I’ll leave you with my favorite – a flock of geese in a Sea Fog on the lake.

 

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Friday Fun: Trump Turns White House Into “White Castle”

 Posted by at 9:52 am  Politics
Jan 252019
 

It was just a little over a week ago that Twitler regaled the NCAA Championship football team – Clemson – with a repast that was hard to believe: Fast food from McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s and Domino’s Pizza because of the Trump Government Shutdown.

Of course, the Innertube could not let that go by – and they had a field day:

And it got worse when he misspelled “hamburger” in one of his Tweets (which was taken down to correct it, so only a screenshot):

Which, of course, led to more mocking by the Innertube:

And topped off by a brilliant Tweet from Burger King:

Knowing of Twitler’s adoration of the Big Mac, one Tweeter imagined the reaction he would have viewing a buffet bursting with burgers …

This forced Sarah Huckabee Sanders to intervene and try to defend him:

While on the topic of sports team visiting the Trump White House, there’s an update.  The 2018 NBA Champions Golden State Warriors had first said they would refuse a visit to the White House – so petty, petulant toddler Twitler retaliated by not inviting them.  But yesterday they relented and did visit the President …

A REAL President (he’s the short guy in the middle).

Yesterday when Mueller called the Grand Jury together on a very rare Thursday gathering, we got a hint that something was up.  So let’s just cut to what makes THIS Friday so freaking Fun … and call it a day!

And here’s the FBI in action:

But if you’re like me and really will probably never tire of watching it, here’s a GIF for you:

And who knew that Roger Stone getting all decked out in his Rich Uncle Pennybags Top Hat & Tails for Twitler’s inauguration would come in so handy for mocking him:

Rest assured, this will NOT be the last shoe to drop!

 

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Friday Fun: Celebrating Cat Critters … and Human Critters, Too

 Posted by at 2:16 pm  Politics
Jan 182019
 

[Apologies for being later than I usually post, but I spent the morning and good part of the afternoon running errands and stocking up for being iced, snowed and frozen in beginning this evening.]

America is very fortunate to have Speaker Nancy Pelosi at the helm in the House – her fierce leadership is a good reason people call her “Ninja Nancy”.

But our pootie critter friends  also want to show off their chops with some of their fantastic Ninja moves that were caught at just the purrfect moment.

ATTRIBUTION:

https://blog.theanimalrescuesite.greatergood.com/ninja-cats/?utm_medium=fk&utm_source=fkk-c4m&utm_term=1022019&utm_campaign=ninja-cats&utm_content=blog-link

https://mymodernmet.com/ninja-cats-hisakata-hiroyuki/

In fact, someone has suggested that rather than Trump’s wall or “steel slats barrier” that a kitten-fortified shrubbery hedge would both be attractive and efficient.

(And as always, the Comments are even more entertaining.)

And meet a cat who thinks the kitchen floor must be made of lava because, with his Ninja-like moves, he avoids touching it at all costs!

 

I wanted to close with a heart-warming story 5to restore our faith in humanity, and I needed to go no further than our own Kansas City Chief’s offensive lineman, Jeff Allen.

A week ago last Saturday when KCMO was dealing with a snowstorm that pummeled the Midwest, Allen’s car got stuck in a snowbank on the way to the big game.

A Good Samaritan by the name of Dave stepped right up and pulled Allen’s car  free – even towing it up the hill.  Allen wanted to thank him, but improperly entered Dave’s phone number on his cell, so only knew that his first name was “Dave” and he drove a Suburban SUV.

So, he turned to the Chiefs Kingdom for assistance with a Tweet:

Through the power of social media, he was able to locate Dave.

And as noted, Dave Cochran is a homeless man – but with a big heart.  So that Suburban SUV Dave used to haul Allen out of the snow also serves as Dave’s home!

Turns out that Allen was not the only person Dave helped that day:

Cochran helped free at least five autos and asked for nothing in return, not even from the guy behind the wheel of a flashy new car.

“I was kind of scared because I’m towing with a ’95 Suburban,” Cochran said, “and he’s driving a brand new 2019 BMW.”

Washington Post

Dave earned the three free tickets he’s getting!

 

Dave said the reward meant a lot to him — he’s a lifelong Chiefs fan, but has never been to Arrowhead Stadium.

“God bless him,” Dave said. “I’ve never been to a football game in my life.”

CBS News

Well, not only did Dave get three tickets for tomorrow’s AFC Championship game against New England at Arrowhead Stadium courtesy of Allen, but the KC Glass Guys noticed that Dave’s Suburban SUV/Home had three missing windows – not good for a home, given the weather we’ve been having and are going to get.   They put in all three new windows as an appreciation for his good deed!

When Trump continues to plumb the depths of hate, bigotry, misogyny, etc. (and apparently has still not hit bottom), I hope a story like this helps restore our faith in our fellow man.

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Friday Fun: The Sweet Smell of Success

 Posted by at 9:59 am  Politics
Jan 112019
 

Well, the Kossacks (of which I count myself a proud member) over at Daily Kos outdid themselves in sending a sweet smell of success to newly-elected Speaker Nancy Pelosi – and she deserves it!

At the suggestion of Daily Kos founder, Markos Moulitsas, they raised enough money to send 25,000 long-stemmed roses to her!  And at her request, to share them with other Democrats and the largest bulk to patients at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

This was not the first time Kossacks have flooded the office of Speaker Pelosi with roses.  Back in 2010 they delivered 2,600 roses to her, other Democratic staffs and patients at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on her birthday as a “Thank You!” for her efforts in getting the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) passed.

This time the original goal was to raise enough money to send 10,000 roses, estimating that $10 would provide 3 roses.  But they far outstripped their goal raising enough money to send 25,000!

Obviously, no office could hold that many roses, so at Speaker Pelosi’s suggestion, 8,000 were delivered to her office and other Democrats’ offices around the Capitol – and the remainder sent to patients at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

 

As you no doubt can imagine, you don’t just trot into the Capitol offices with 8,000 roses.  It took the planning of military precision to accomplish that feat, with coordination between Daily Kos and Speaker Pelosi’s staff.  And in fact, Moulitsas himself flew to Washington, DC and spent the morning helping carrying crate after crate up to Pelosi’s second floor office – which he described as “A great workout”.  (I’d be drenched in sweat.)

But it did not only involve coordination between the Daily Kos and Pelosi staffs, it took the Herculean efforts of a wholesale supplier and florist preparer to get the job done.

There have been some people who point out that the money could have been better used – and as someone who donated both times, I really can’t quibble with that too much.  But I will also point out that the people at DK raised over $200,000 at ActBlue just for Democratic candidates during the past 2018 election.  So I would say they have a history of being generous donors – as witnessed by the fact that it only took an hour and a half after posting to raise the money for the original goal of 10,000 roses.

The order for the 25,000 long-stemmed roses was placed at the wholesale florist Potomac Floral Wholesale in Silver Spring.  Jeff King, a sales team manager and public relations specialist for the floral wholesaler said, “It was the largest single rose order that we’ve ever received.”

King explained that red roses come in 20-50 different varieties with names like “Red Paris” and “Sexy Red” – but by coincidence, all 25,000 long-stemmed roses were the “Freedom” variety.  A nice happenstance!

They ended up sending 25,000 roses at 89 cents a stem, or $22,000.  BUT that does not include the cost of a local florist processing the shipment for delivery.

When you place a huge order like this, they don’t show up arranged in cute little vases.  The blooms come straight from the fields, wild and packed into large cardboard boxes.  That means someone is hired for picking them up, unpacking them, cutting the stems, removing excessive foliage, arranging them in vases, and delivering them.

That mammoth undertaking of processing 25,000 roses was handled by Angela Brunson of Blue Iris Flowers in Eastern Market.

As anyone who’s ordered flowers knows – it’s the middle-man that takes the biggest cut.  I have no idea how many thousands of dollars it cost to have the florist pick up 25,000 roses, unpack 25,000 roses, cut the stems of 25,000 roses, remove excess foliage from 25,000 roses, arrange 25,000 roses and deliver 25,000 roses – but I’m sure it was a huge sum!

With 8,000 roses in the Longworth House Office Building, it was reported that you could smell them just on entering the building.  Surrounded on all sides by the virtual garden of flowers, Speaker Pelosi exclaimed, “I’ve never seen so many roses in my life.”

At a time when Trump has cast a tumultuous dark cloud over America – and the World – Paul Hogarth, who managed the DK end, said: “We wanted to express our love for all the work she does and how hard Speaker Pelosi worked to get a Democratic majority.”

Founder Moulitsas added, “People wanted to do something nice for once.”

RESOURCES

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/1/10/1825079/-So-we-delivered-soooo-many-flowers-to-Nancy-Pelosi

https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2019/01/09/nancy-pelosi-gets-delivery-roses-thanks-an-online-fundraiser/?utm_term=.d31ccf9b31ca

https://www.washingtonian.com/2019/01/10/nancy-pelosi-freedom-roses/

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/1/3/1823278/-Join-our-Roses-for-Pelosi-effort-and-thank-our-new-House-Speaker-for-her-incredible-leadership

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/03/bloggers-send-nancy-pelosi-260.html

BONUS

As you know, Paul Manafort’s “crack” legal team posted their latest filing on line with the parts documenting he was getting paid for the colluding he was doing while on the Trump campaign “redacted” – well, sort of redacted.

You can view a PDF of their failed filing here:

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/5677512/Manafort-20190108-Dc.pdf

All you had to do was copy/paste it into a word document – and voilà – the whole thing shows up.

It was a pain to reformat it, because it was in  that weird legal formatting, but it did it.  But if you want to see what Manafort didn’t want you to see, you can view it as my Word document on the OneDrive cloud here:

https://1drv.ms/w/s!AvRxVTeLcrBWtPg7S97c6HYuzRomjw

 

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Friday Fun: Last Friday of 2018!

 Posted by at 9:31 am  Politics
Dec 282018
 

Having spent most of the week out-of-town enjoying Christmas festivities with my Aunt up in Illinois, this will be on the brief side.

Hat Tip to Joanne for bringing this to my attention:

A newly discovered blind, worm-like amphibian creature that buries its head in the sand has been named after Trump in hopes he’d change his environmentally disastrous policies.

Its name, Dermophis donaldtrumpi, was selected by EnviroBuild, which is a manufacturer of environmentally friendly building materials in the UK.  They won the right to name the little thing for $25,000 in an auction run by Rainforest Trust – a conservation organization.

There’s an amazing resemblance, don’t you think?

 

As you know, I am a devoted Pootie person who has always grown up with cats.  And by rights, this site has excellent coverage of those critters.  But I’m sure there are also Woozle people who visit this site.  So in the interest of fairness, I thought I would provide some “equal time” coverage for them.

The first is the pure joy of a “I’m-A-Dog” merrily romping in a huge new snowfall:

The next is a heartwarming story of a Christmas miracle, showing the transformation that loving care can do for any sentient creature …

No, this is not some newly developed military miracle helicopter that self-levitates without even using its rotors.

As noted, this is what happens when a camera’s frame rate is in perfect sync with a helicopter’s rotors.

I couldn’t let the last Friday of the year go by without covering what that goose-stepping Joseph Goebbels advisor in Twitler’s inner circle, Stephen Miller (and yes, I know he’s Jewish) recently tried.

Miller thought it’d be a great idea to try some spray-on hair to cover his bald pate.  And when I read all the comments making fun of him, I at first thought rather than mocking him we should solely be focusing our efforts to reverse his hate-mongering policies.

Then I saw the photo:

WHOA!  Just saw the “hair”.  We are going to have to multitask!

With all the Christmas bargains that have been going on – from Black Friday to Small Businesses Saturday to Cyber Monday to post-Christmas sales – I was hoping that Twitler would take advantage of “Mueller’s Early Family Resorts Package” offer for his entire mobster family.

Quite a deal, don’t you think?

We’ll close out the last Friday Fun of the year covering Twitler’s obsession with his “Wall”.

I think if they’re that obsessed with it, they should build it with Hillary’s emails – since they can’t get over them.

And about that $5 BILLION Twitler is demanding.  Whatever happened to Twitler’s promise that “Mexico will pay for the Wall!”?

He must have finally realized the former Mexican President Vicente Fox was telling the truth:

So a pithy way to summarize Twitler’s disastrous first two years occupying the Oval Office can be done in a single sentence:

An early “HAPPY NEW YEAR!” to all.

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Friday Fun: Holiday Edition 2018

 Posted by at 8:03 am  Politics
Dec 212018
 

Since we’re now in “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” I decided I would try to keep it seasonal and lighthearted.

So, to start us off, a little boy unwraps the best Christmas gift he could hope for:

This year the Secret Santa enlisted a homeless man, Moses Elder, in Phoenix to help him distribute his signature $100 bills to total strangers.  All they had to do was show some kindness to the homeless Elf and then be rewarded with their $100.

I should note that I saw this on CBS News, so it had closed caption.  I could only find it as a YouTube video that does not have CC – so CLICK ME to read the story:

Some Secret Santa Trivia Tidbits: The original Secret Santa tradition actually started in Kansas City decades ago.  I’m not sure if the one in this story is the same guy, since it’s filmed in Phoenix, or if others have adopted it in other cities.  Either way, it’s a nice tradition.

https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article223203095.html

https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/12/20/us/ap-us-secret-santa-missouri.html

UncleBee at Daily Kos wrote a fantastic parody of that traditional Christmas poem we all enjoy – but in an updated, political version.  Paying heed to the Fair Use Doctrine, I’ll just quote a few stanzas – but the entire version is a very enjoyable read!

‘Twas the Night Before Drumpf’s Mess

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/12/16/1819509/–Twas-the-Night-Before-Drumpf-s-Mess

 ‘Twas the night before Christmas when through the White House,

The occupants panicked, wond’ring which fire to douse.

The smocking guns hung by the chimney with care,

In hopes maybe no one would think to look there. 

 

The Traitor Tots trembled with fear in their beds,

While visions of jail time danced in their heads. 

And Twitler rage-tweeted his usual crap

While Melania eyed him like he had the clap.

 

When in the Rose Garden there arose such a clatter,

Dumpster spilled all the cheeseburgers off of his platter.

He waddled to the window and opened the sash,

Hoping maybe it was Russians delivering cash.

Staying in a Christmas motif but also adding a political overtone, former mayoral candidate in Minneapolis, Tom Hoch, elected to put up a sign recognizing Twitler’s accomplishment of racking up 89 criminal indictments from his administration … in less than two years – which surpasses Nixon’s count.  (The “Trump Is A Traitor” letters are 4-feet tall and in Christmas colors of red and green – so not a bit subtle!)

But ending on more positive notes, if you’re still in a quandary on what decoration to use to top your Christmas tree, someone has come up with the perfect ecumenical option: Notorious RBG!

And I can’t think of a better Santa Claus than a surprise visit by Pres. Obama handing out gifts to kids at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, DC:

So Happy Holidays to All – And Safe Travels

 

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My Tutorial WRT the Updated WordPress Posting

 Posted by at 5:01 pm  Politics
Dec 162018
 

As I suspect for you guys, having done a few posts you get a feel for how long it will take you to get it done.  But I was in for a surprise with the newWordPress posting format.  Added at least an hour!

Looks like you guys are getting up to speed, and I hope I am, too.  But the biggest change is everythingis done in “Blocks”. 

Probably like you do, I write my article’s draft as a Word document, and when I want to insert a photo, GIF, video, etc. I just put the title of it on the next line.  And I learned that every new paragraph or “Enter” is like adding a “Block”.

So in a new “Block” I click the “+” sign off to the left,  and then select from the options what kind of Block I want to add:

And where the graphic is to come from.  (I should note I’ve not had good luck on directly uploading it from my hard drive, so I select “Media Library” and that process is like the old way.)

Then when I’m done with the draft, I just copy/paste it into WordPress.  Easy-Peasy.

The first thing I learned with the new WordPress 5.0 (Gutenberg) edition is that it automatically puts each paragraph in a “Block”.

It took me forever to figure out how to enter graphics – and you know how I love to use graphics.

The good news is that it does provide an Option to use the old format, called “Classic Editor”.  But it requires that a plugin (amazingly enough, called “Classic Editor”) be added.

Classic Editor

And here is a Tutorial on how to install plugins:


I checked, and at this point it is not installed, so we’ll be using 5.0 (Gutenberg) unless TC installs it – or agrees to let one of us install it.

It actually had a steeper learning curve than I had anticipated – at leastfor me.  And if you read the Comments about it, it does NOT appear to be a popular transition.

But I found two tutorials that are pretty good.

Tutorial 

This one is pretty good:

WordPress 5.0 Is Out! This Ultimate Cheat Sheet Has All You Need to Know About It

This one is good and not too detailed:

Gutenberg Blocks: What They Are and How to Use Them in WordPress

This is also a pretty straightforward one:

WordPress Gutenberg Tutorial: How To Use The New Block Editor In WordPress 5.0

The next one is a little funkier to follow – but has some solid info:

WordPress Gutenberg: A Step-by-Step Tutorial (for Bloggers)​
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