If Missler is correct, and the day is approaching quickly when Israel will attack and defeat her closest neighbors; what is the LORD do behind the scenes to weaken Israel’s opposition? Several issues come to mind:

1. Internal Islamic factions; As many people know, Islam is divided between Shia and Sunni. This fact sprinkles distrust among Islamic nations when they attempt to form coalitions. It is like they are facing a wrestling match with a toothache.

2. Wiping Israel ‘off the map’ may be a lofty goal for some Muslims, but it wouldn’t really solve their problems. So they send their blood and treasure into battle to give land back to the Palestinians? Then what? What do they get in return? Most Islamic regimes are broke, and so are the Palestinians! I would argue that Israel’s neighbors are better off with the Israelis. More doubtful outcome…

3. Inferior military strategy. Psalm 83′s prediction of a regional Israeli victory could easily occur due to Israel’s military superiority and discipline. Time after time in recent history Israel has proved her military prowess both in strategy and tactics. As Israel has embraced western military hardware, often substantially improving capabilities, she retains the upper hand on the battlefield.

4. In a way, it almost seems to me that the Psalm 83 action is foundational of the events predicted in Ezekiel 38-39. If our Russian ‘friends’ and their northern allies are going to attempt to invade Israel, then there must be substantial ‘spoil’ worth the risk. If Psalm 83 is predicting a regional victory for the Jewish state, this would naturally increase their nations wealth. And with the resultant political vacuum, Russia could decide she must act…

Sadly, a tangent implication is of an impotent U.S.. Does our current national debt and popular largess attitude assure anything else?

We have spoken about Mr. Duffy’s character and his disgust for Mrs. Sinico’s “commonplace, vulgar death” and, broadly speaking, behaviour. Why did he enjoy her company in the first place then?

First of all, I would not take it for granted that their relationship was established so that they could keep each other company. In fact, it is easy to notice how their relationship is characterised by loneliness (her first, and only, sentence in the entire story is “It’s so hard on people to have to sing to empty benches”; they met alone, “always in the evening and chose the most quiet quarters for their walks together”), so it only seems reasonable that the author makes Mr. Duffy change his mind on her only after he has been on a walk on his own, confronting himself with “bleak alleys”, “darkness”, a “cold night” and the “shadow of the wall of the Park”, where he sees lovers -that constitute his ‘epiphany’, as he realises that he “has been” and still is “an outcast from life’s feast”, this realisation leading to the ending sentence “He felt that he was alone”.

Even more interesting is the fact that this realisation, which comes suddenly through an epiphany, had in fact been prepared and anticipated by Mr. Duffy’s own doubts (“He asked himself what else he could have done”), which he tries to suppress (“How was he to blame?”), as they would disrupt his habit of thinking highly of himself, but which in the end take over – stylistically, this is highlighted so well by the use of the direct speech/flow of consciousness that repeats “too”, uses synonyms in an increasing climax that is completed by a dramatic pause (“–”) to reveal the man’s fear of being forgotten completely.

A hint of the revelation of this fear could have been found even earlier in the text, when it is clearly stated that Mrs. Sinico and Mr. Duffy’s relationship became deeper after Mrs. Sinico assumed an “almost maternal solicitude” towards her conversational partner, to the point that “She became his confessor.” (and, again, let me point out how this sentence perfectly sums up the woman’s only mistake and her most important characteristic at the same time: only one verb, used as a predicative nominal, underlined by the opposition between the pronouns “she” and “his”; interestingly, the sentence is structured so that Mrs. Sinico is the active subject -she ‘does’ the action- and Mr. Duffy seems to be the receiver, whereas, in the rest of the story, it seems that Mrs. Sinico does not do anything but being a passive receiver of Mr. Duffy’s stories, ideas, theories. Also, notice the resemblance of this sentence’s structure with Manzoni’s character Gertude’s sentence “La sventurata rispose.” [“The miserable/ill-fated woman answered.”], which marks Gertrude’s mistake, that works as the starting point of her story).

Last but not least, I find it fascinating how the whole story gave me a feeling as if I were always waiting for something, and the characters were as well, but this something did not come. Probably it was a suggestion evoked by the athmosphere, which was slow and routine-bound at the beginning, with a hint of adventure obscured by Mrs. Sinico’s passivity in the middle, to become gloomy again, then again exciting when Mr. Duffy reads the news, only to end in the worst sadness and darkness.

In fact, while the very beginning of the text includes word that convey stability and order (in different context, but all belonging to the same semantic group, there are “iron”, “arranged”, “held together”, “firmly”, “evenly”), later on we find a strong presence of words involving novelty (“surprised” is the first emotion felt by Mr. Duffy; “courage”; “exotic”, “exalted”, “fervent”, “excitement”), but when those get too many (“passionately”), the tone turns into something darker and more similar to what it was at the beginning (“troubled”, “cold”, “silence”, “orderliness”), until Mr. Duffy reads the papers and has a bit of a shock (“pushed”, “difficulty”, “quickly”, the assonances in “his stout hazel stick striking the ground regularly” and “his stick struck the ground”), from which he initially recovers (and the language used becomes stronger and visually more striking, for instance “attacked” and “outburst” convey an idea of speed and strength, reinforced by the use of exclamation and question marks), but that in the end overpowers him (as already analysed when talking about the last three paragraphs; for instance, remember about “cold”, “gloomy”, “darkness”, “memory”, “die away”, “nothing”, “silent” and “alone”).

It would be interesting to compare “A Painful Case”’s end with “Frankenstein”’s: in the latter, the monster is “soon borne away by the waves and lost in darkness and distance”; most probably, this end was chosen by Shelley in order to demonstrate the monster’s humanity (he will go and make things right by disappearing from this world) and it is possible that Joyce’s choice of leaving Mr. Duffy meditating about his loneliness serves the same purpose, even if I would not be able to provide any certain evidence of this within the text -apart from the flick of compassion he feels for Mrs. Sinico when he reflects: “Now that she was gone he understood how lonely her life must have been, sitting night after night alone in that room”.

Obviously, the use of words must be analysed in every literary text; however, it is particularly relevant in this story, since the character of Mr. Duffy himself is, in a way, presented as a writer/philosopher: he always has writing material on his desk and he presents himself as a deep, tormented thinker. I would suggest that, in reality, he really is not: please refer to the following passage:

“She [Mrs. Sinico] asked him why did he not write out his thoughts. For what, he asked her, with careful scorn. To compete with phrasemongers, incapable of thinking consecutively for sixty seconds? To submit himself to the criticisms of an obtuse middle class which entrusted its morality to policemen and its fine arts to impresarios?”

Notice that he answers with “careful scorn”: almost as if he were acting. The indirect speech reported gives the reader the impression that he was trying to be as pompous as possible in his wording, which is usually related to either a very formal context, or the attempt to fool and confuse a less educated person. The reference to “an obtuse middle class” seem to suggest that we are facing the second situation: Mr. Duffy is trying to trick Mrs. Sinico into thinking that he is such a good and exceptional philosopher that people are ‘not ready yet’ for his astonishing words.

Undoubtedly, Mr. Duffy had tricked himself way earlier:

“Sometimes he caught himself listening to the sound of his own voice. He thought that in her eyes he would ascend to an angelical stature; and, as he attached the fervent nature of his companion more and more closely to him, he heard the strange impersonal voice which he recognised as his own, insisting on the soul’s incurable loneliness. We cannot give ourselves, it said: we are our own.”

His use of ‘ready-made sentences’ to express his profoundest thoughts (later on, Joyce reports: “…every bond, he said, is a bond to sorrow.”) seems to confirm the hypothesis that he likes presenting himself as a cultured intellectual (and, once again, I would refer to the characterisation of Don Ferrante for a comparison).

He also makes me think about Svevo‘s aforism “È un modo comodo di vivere quello di credersi grande di una grandezza latente” [It is a convenient way to live, that in the belief that you are great when your greatness is latent]: he believes that he can write seriously meaningful things, he believes that he is a very knowledgeable man, he believes that if he made his thoughts known, they would be acknowledged by the wisest… but he never tests this belief ‘in real life’, so to speak. In the end, this is why I dislike his character so much.

But I do not want to spoil what I would dare defining a decent analysis with too many personal and partial comments; let’s sum up. I have found that Mr. Duffy, among his many flaws, mostly is a petty man, who does not want to face reality (he tries to escape Dublin; he stays far from people; he enjoys the company of a submissive person and not of a peer; he does not take the initiative), but who, in the end, can just be Everyman (he is conscious of his loneliness); Mrs. Sinico does not have a strong character, or it is not really shown-, but her sole presence is the starting point of every event; and their relation cannot be called a relationship, a friendship, not even a mentoring project.

It is an interesting story.

Rob Rhinehart does.

He’s a software engineer in Atlanta who found it hard to find time for all food-related activities.

But he did find time to research what nutrients his body needs to survive and created Soylent, a drink mixture of vitamins and minerals.

Now he drinks Soylent for 90 percent of his meals. He doesn’t find the nutrition drink boring and has actually lost the taste for other foods…although he does say in his blog that he still enjoys sushi.

I’m guessing his taste buds have surrendered…

Or just don’t have the strength to complain.

He couldn’t go to a real restaurant, he just had to drag his poor kid into a bar?

What kind of father is he?

The manager made an exception to allow the man to bring his severely underaged kid in, and the man reacts like a real jerk, having to make up a special order for the kid since (hello, bar, not restaurant) there’s no kids menu. I’m betting he was a real ass about the order, too, making a big deal out of it and causing an undue hardship on the waitstaff who weren’t hired to deal with people under 21 years old.

I’m thinking the manager should never have made an exception for this jerkwad of a father who was so special he had to drag his child into an adults only place instead of going to a real restaurant.

If the worst he got was a line on a receipt that his kid was probably too young to read, then I think he got off lightly, taking a minor into a bar.

I think parents everywhere should be outraged that the father would even think of dragging a minor into a bar instead of going to an actual restaurant. If the manager has to make a special exemption for your kid to be there, then maybe you should just go somewhere else.

The only change I would have made on the receipt is I might have said “fucking needy parent”, because it really was the father who was all needy and special in this case.

God knows I can write about it.  I have lived with it and through it. Divorced it twelve years ago, but it still keeps coming back for more.  Can’t seem to shake that one.  But, no, that is not what this is about.  I could write a whole book on that.  Maybe I will.

This is everyday people we have to put up with.  You know, the ones that test your ability to “keep the faith” if you have it.  You really want to extend the right cross of fellowship up side their head instead of turning the other cheek.

Come on, now.  We’re getting real here.  You know you have felt it, too.  Don’t play like you haven’t.  We are all human.  It’s not wrong to feel it, but it will land you in jail to do it!  Even though an attitude adjustment would do them a world of good.  It’s probably a few years late for most of them.  Their parents missed the boat. But at some point, each person has to take responsibility for their own actions.

Case in point.  The belligerent restaurant customer, nothing is ever right, even though the waitress or waiter is working as hard and being as pleasant as anyone can be.  They get their drinks filled way before being empty, but all they do is bitch and grip at the waitress or waiter.  Never mind there are ten people in their group, making a huge mess.  Then they leave with a scowl and NO tip.

Know what tip I would like to give the main guy?  The tip of my size 15 Jordan cowboy boot, that’s what, but I can’t.  I’ve seen that happen over and over by what we call tourons here in our tourist town. [That's another blog.]

Or the ones on the road.  Bumper to bumper traffic, right?  You can’t go any faster, especially than the persons blocking you in front.  Guess who will be behind you?  You guessed it.  One of those.  Blowing their horn over and over, showing their IQ on their hand by holding it up in sign language and blessing you out.   lol.

What do you do?  Well, I have an extended cab pick-up.  I would like to just back over their shiny little BMW with my off-road mud grips, then pull back in drive and say oops and go on.  But you just gotta laugh.

I look in the mirror, give them a big wide country grin in my cowboy hat, throw my hands to the side and up, and laugh.  Sure does make them mad.  The last one started beating his steering wheel.  Looked like he hurt his poor little hand.  Have to pray for him.  :)

Until next time,

Keep on smiling.  Makes people wonder what you’re up to!

Gary

Kramer had a brand.  He was the crazy, out of the box guy who’d help you overcome a problem in an unconventional way.  He was a fringe entrepreneur and occasional activist.  He was relentless in pursuing whatever was his latest fancy.  He somehow made a living just being himself.  This is increasingly possibly, even for less quirky types.

I can think of at least a dozen people I know personally who somehow live a good life, despite the fact that I’m not really sure where their income originates.  It’s so easy now to sell a product, start a business, market and distribute ideas, and connect with partners, customers and investors.  It’s entirely possible to draw a circle around the stuff you care about, become the guy or gal who’s known for doing and talking about that stuff, and with enough hard work, get a living out of it.  It starts by giving your audience things they like.

If you’re known for providing something others value – even if it’s just good jokes on Facebook – you can generate a following.  You can offer to write a book, if your fans will pledge the money via Kickstarter.  You can ask for donations to keep producing whatever it is you produce.  You can sell your services to people all over the world with very low transaction cost.

Before long, apartment buildings could be full of people who don’t commute to an office every day, but instead spend their hours doing an assortment of bizarre and interesting projects.

The classic racketeer wanders into a business place and observes to the owner, “Nice place you got here, be a shame is sumfin’ happened to it. Youse could pay my boss some dough and he’d make sure it didn’t.” The patent troll sends a letter from a lawyer telling a business owner, “You are using our overly broad, probably invalid patent-protected intellectual property without a license. Pay us half of what you’d pay a lawyer to defeat our dubious patent or we’ll make your life hell.”

It sure looks like extortion, doesn’t it?

Now patent cases that are actually filed are the tip of the legal iceberg; most patent trolls get their protection money in response to that lawyer letter because for a business, mindful of profit, it’s the cheapest solution. No one knows, by definition, how many or what percentage of demands actually get filed as lawsuits. But the number of patent infringement cases filed is skyrocketing.

Patent Troll Lawsuits Explode

In the bar chart, the blue portion represents lawsuits brought by entities that have themselves developed the ideas behind the patents. Those are claims defending their own research and development. That’s Apple v. Samsung, for example. You can see that those kinds of lawsuits are level or even in decline.

The red portion of the bar chart are lawsuits by “Patent Assertion Entities,” “PAEs” or patent trolls. Those kinds of lawsuits, patent troll lawsuits, have doubled in each of the last two years and are on track to double again in 2013. They now represent almost two-thirds of all patent litigation.

Because for extortion to work, regrettably, sometimes “da customer just won’t loin until sumfin’ bad happens to him.” You have to burn down a few businesses to make the rest appreciate the value of paying dough to the boss. Patent trolls have to go to court to make the threat of those lawyer letters work. Patent trolls hire their lawyers on a contingent fee basis. The victims, the targets, the marks? They have to pay by the hour.

So how big a problem is the PAE shakedown? Research suggests PAE lawsuits were associated with half a trillion dollars of lost wealth to the victims from 1990 through 2010, mostly in the technology sector. What makes the shakedown worse is that  very little of this loss represents a transfer to small inventors. Instead, it implies reduced innovation incentives. And as the chart above implies, the problem is getting worse. Sure, there are genuine heroes like NewEgg, who refuse to pay extortion money, and have kicked some patent troll butt. But not everyone can afford the fight.

But the worst impact of the patent troll plague isn’t the transfer of money; it’s the stifling of innovation. A new business can’t succeed in the face of an extortion demand. As Salmon documents and others have reported, the plague of patent trolls is keeping innovators from innovating. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak famously started Apple, one of the most successful companies in history, from a garage. Today, the new start up would have been nibbled to death by patent trolls in the first three years.

Ira Glass, of This American Life, ran an excellent program recently on the collateral damage from patent trolls. The transcript is available.

Felix Salmon, at Reuters, suggests some legal solutions, including anti-trust and unfair trade practice laws. But those are modest weapons, at best.

WC suggests that the extortion character of PAE tactics implies the obvious solution: RICO. A violation of RICO occurs when a person commits two or more “predicate offenses” – a list of federal and state crimes – within a ten year period. Extortion is on the list of crimes. Most PAEs write their demand letters hundreds of times a week. The PAEs know their claims of patent are invalid. It really is extortion, and RICO really does apply.

And the reason to use RICO is that Congress gave prosecutors some real legal teeth in that law. Pretrial seizure of property, forfeiture of property, treble damages, serious jail time. Just one or two high profile RICO convictions and patent trolls will vanish, sent to the same legal purgatory as domain name squatters a few years ago. Even a few indictments would stem the rising tide of PAE extortion.

Sure, this is just part of the solution to the patent troll plague. And it should only be applied to the PAEs who have made extortion their business model. Other elements of the solution involve getting Congress to act, getting the U.S. Patent Office to be more rigorous (which involves Congress giving the Patent Office more money) and re-thinking the whole idea of software patents.

But application of racketeering laws to the patent troll plague would be a start.

The quality of mercy is not strain’d/
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest/
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes

Portia is asking Shylock to forgive Antonio his debt. The gist of the quote is that if one is merciful then not only is the forgiven blessed, but so is the forgivee.

I had to re-read the quote after watching this week’s episode of Mad Men to see if I can figure out why the episode’s writers – husband and wife team Andre and Maria Jacquemetton - chose the phrase. Who in Mad Men is in the position to forgive?

My first thought was Sally. Remember from last week, Sally caught Don inflagranti with neighbor and friend Sylvia Rosen. Instead of talking things through, she dashed into her bedroom in tears, while Don was desperately trying to control the situation by offering his daughter impotent platitudes like he was just “comforting” Mrs. Rosen and that Sally just doesn’t understand. This week we learn that Sally’s good at holding a grudge, refusing to come over to Manhattan.

Of course Don feels guilty, but he cannot betray his image of perfection, and does not try to reach out. On the phone with exwife Betty, he’s petulant when he learns that Sally’s stood up her dad yet again. When he finds out that she’s interested in boarding school, he’s only too happy to offer financial support, so that Sally could be out of sight and out of mind.

After being dropped off at the boarding school for an overnight trial, Sally meets up with a pair of mean girls who intimate that there will be some hazing going on. Initially I felt bad for Sally, who was trying her best to fit in, but then I remembered that Sally’s pretty bad ass when she wants to be and that those girls would do right by not underestimating her – after all, she’s Don Draper’s and Betty Francis’ daughter – and both Don and Betty are known for grinding their opponents into dust if need be.

Sally’s slumber party is another chance for us to see Glenn Bishop again. Glenn’s an interesting character because he’s evolved from that creepy kid who pined for Betty into an okay guy. He comes along with a buddy and the kids get high and drunk. Glenn comes to Sally’s aid and punches his friend in the stomach when he makes some grody passes at Sally. I was struck at just how good the friendship is between Sally and Glenn – and how he of all people was always there for her – a consistent presence.

On the drive back home, Betty and Sally experience a slight thaw when Betty shares the good news: Sally’s got an in with the boarding school. And then she makes a bid for Mom of the Year by offering her daughter a cigarette. Betty smirks that her father’s probably given her a beer, to which Sally spits out, “My father never gave me anything.”

While alienating himself from his daughter, Don’s also doing his best to distance himself from the other important women in his life -namely Megan and Peggy. Megan doesn’t feature all that heavily in this episode, but she does play the part of the cuckold wife well. But it’s Peggy that Don’s tussling with – and things get ugly.

Don’s never been all that keen with Peggy’s friendship with her new mentor Ted. If nothing else, Don is a possessive, greedy, jealous little boy (in fact, twice in the episode we see Don in a fetal position – I practically expected him to suck his thumb). He likes to have his possessions, and one of them is Peggy – or Peggy’s creativity. He bristles at the growing flirtation between Ted and Peggy – which to be fair, is getting ridiculous. Ted’s infatuated with his protegé, making eyes at her, and allowing her very good idea for a St. John’s Aspirin ad to spiral out of control – the original $15,000 budget has ballooned to $50,000 because Peggy’s idea for a kid aspirin commercial is a take off Rosemary’s Baby, and it requires a large cast of actors.

Don does two things – he manages to save the account and torpedo Peggy’s chances at a Clio – no one can accuse him of acting badly even though he does. When the clients balk at the growing costs of the ad, Don swoops in and shares a secret: Ted is so fond of this account because it was the last idea for the late Frank Gleason – Ted’s former business partner who dies of cancer. The client is suitably impressed and ups the budget to $25,000 and leaves happy. Don quickly diffuses Ted’s anger by rightly pointing out that Ted’s judgement is severely impaired by his affection for Peggy.

Things ain’t over yet though – Peggy has one last confrontation with Don, in which she accuses Don of resenting Ted for being a good man. Don tries to be implacable, but Peggy has the last word, calling the guy a monster. Ouch. As justified as she is, I was a little taken aback at Miss Olsen’s ugly missive. Don has some serious introspective thinking to do, and he curls up into the fetal position on his couch.

The other major plot line has Pete versus Bob Benson – the smiley, handsome, really creepy guy that sort of just hangs around the office like a bat. Last week we got the impression that Bob’s dropped his facade a bit and made a pass at Pete. Pete’s not thrilled with Bob and tries to sell him off to Duck Philips, who tells Pete that Bob’s an enigma – a self-made facsimile of an ad man with a spotty and murky history. So apparently Pete’s been caught in another shit storm – like Don, Bob’s got a secret pass that Pete’s privy to, and like Don, Bob’s faster, smarter, smoother, and better than Pete – but Pete’s smart enough to know not to try and out maneuver Bob like he did with Don. The two then forge an uneasy but mutually beneficial alliance. And I still think Bob’s up to no good.

Ken Cosgrove is also in this episode – though he acts more as a conduit for Pete getting ahead. Ken’s on a hunting trip with the rowdy guys from Chevy and one of them pulls a Dick Cheney and shoots the poor guy in the face (at least Ken doesn’t apologize). Wearing an eyepatch like a cartoon pirate, he tearfully begs Pete to take over the account, which Pete’s only too happy to do – but is forced to work with Bob, which sets off the weird codependant relationship the two embark on.

“The Quality of Mercy” is another solid entry into an otherwise pretty good season. It went by quickly and none of it dragged – it’s interesting because at this point, I’ve finally decided that Don Draper is no longer an anti-hero, but a villain. I’m pressed to find any redeeming qualities in the guy.

So I’m still trying to figure out who is supposed to be the forgiven in this episode. It may be Don who screwed over Sally, Megan, Ted, and Peggy. It may be Bob, who is at the mercy of Pete – who has also some apologizing to do to his ill mother. It could also be Ted who is carrying on this adolescent flirtation with Peggy despite being married, and at the cost of his professionalism.

Here are some interesting/fun notes I caught:

• Joan didn’t have much to do in this episode, but I vote for her as MVP of “The Quality of Mercy” due to Christina Hendricks’ hilarious Jewish mamala impression when performing for Don in Peggy’s and Ted’s ad pitch for St. John’s.
• Don’s going back on his word with Ted and going after Sunkist shows him in a particularly despicable light – I’m hoping Ted doesn’t do some magic tricks on his end and get Mitchell Rosen pulled from the National Guard, and therefore vulnerable to the draft.
• Post weight gain Betty has gained a lot of maturity and gravitas and has become an altogether thoroughly more enjoyable and admirable character as a result.
• Megan’s beautiful, but as evidenced from her work on her soap, she’s not exactly a great actress.
• I always suspected that once Ted’s and Don’s ad agencies form their unholy alliance that Peggy will be caught in a nasty crossfire – and boy was I right. The only option Miss Olsen has is to quit – she’s powerful enough at this point to be able to walk away to another high-paying gig, and I think for her sanity, she should exercise this option.
• Sally going to boarding school is a problem because that could translate to less Kiernan Shipka in the final season – something I’m just not happy about.
• What is the deal with Rosemary’s Baby? There are clues dropped all over the place (you need a dustpan and a broom to pick them all up) but I don’t know what to make of them. First we have Megan wearing the late Sharon Tate’s iconic shirt (and Tate was the wife of Rosemary Baby director Roman Polanski), then we have Sally reading Ira Levin’s famous horror tale, in this episode we’ve got Peggy and Ted and Don and Megan (sounds like the title of a late 60s sex comedy) going to see Polanski’s film, and finally we have Peggy and Ted pitching an ad idea spun off from the movie. I think it’s more than just a way to subtly clue us in on the time.
• And speaking of which, the writers handled the inclusion of Jacqueline Kennedy’s second marriage to shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis very clumsily – it’s almost as if they wanted to have Don break the fourth wall and remind viewers, “Hey folks – remember it’s 1968″ but they thought a sneaky way to do that would be to have Don correct Betty when she refers to the former first lady as “Jackie Kennedy,” by intoning, “Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.” I swear, I think I caught him winking at the camera.

So what did you all think of “The Quality of Mercy”?

There are those times when going for it is all  you’ve got. Going for it works especially well when you’re well grounded and have a good support system. If, however, you are going for it from a sense of desperation or from a lack of caring about the outcome of your leap, that is a different matter and rather than holding your nose, closing your eyes and taking the jump, you’d be much better off stopping to take a moment to evaluate the situation; it could be better to think before you act. Acting in haste might seem courageous or necessary, but hasty actions have a greater chance of ending ill and not well. It may even be better not to act at all, or perhaps it may be better for you to act, but to have another jump on the problem. Taking a moment to think could well lead to a happier outcome – you can create a plan; even if planned in that moment, any plan is better than blind action; you can take a moment to ready yourself and take a breath, you can enlist aid or communicate your plan to another. So isn’t even a moment of thought a better choice than leaping without thought?

Photo: Kim White/Getty Images (Illustration By: Elena Scotti)

It’s been about a week since Facebook announced their plans to introduce hashtags to the platform. Supposedly, this feature has gone live and is being rolled out to users slowly. I don’t see anything. Nothing. My account is EXACTLY the same. What’s up with that? I want to play.

A message to Facebook:

#DearMrZuckerberg,
#PleaseUpgradeMyFacebookAccount #ThatisAll #SmallRequest #BigFan #ImImportantEnough #OkayNotReally #ButUpgradesShouldBeFaster #AndTwitterDidItFirst #TwitterFeelsCoolerNow #NeverStopTweeting #ZuckerbergWillNeverSeeThis

#Preash
Britt (#FacebookingSince2007 )

I’m not sure if this will work, but I will try. I know I write mainly about nature and events going on in Palm Coast and surrounding areas. However, Joe and I own a company in Palm Coast, J & H Junk Removal, LLC. We help people reclaim their space by removing unwanted items, as well as doing handyman service.

In 20111, Joe and I both left and or were let go from a company we worked at for several years. We were both cooks, I the sous chef at the time. Due to the economy and cut backs, they let Joe go and within a few months, I was forced to leave as well.

That year we spent checking out where we live. We were terrified, since no one was hiring, and if they were they either wanted you to work alone and or for very little pay. (I actually looked back on my teenage taxes and found out I was making slightly less in my teens then what they are offering now. I am 48 and a skilled cook.)

Well, after taking many walks, kayaking, and biking ourselves around Flagler County, we started noticing the trend. The horrible reality of foreclosures. We would look in the windows of emptied homes and see junk everywhere. Abandoned and neglected properties were popping up to quickly.

One day late 2011, we decided to start our own business. Hence, J & H Junk removal and Handyman service was created. Visit us on www.jandhjunkremoval.com.

We started our business January 2012, and made a quick and correct decision to join the Flagler Chamber of Commerce. www.flaglerchamber.org. We were asked to check out all three of the leads groups the chamber has to offer, and we decided Friday’s TGIF was for us. The largest of the groups, and when you start out, and are shy, the scariest. Needless to say, we are not so shy anymore, and know every member. We hang together, go to functions together, and basically help each other out both for business and in many cases personally.

Anyway, more about what we do, please hit the chamber chat button above. This is a recent interview Joe and I did at a local radio station. www.WNZF.com in Chamber chat. I hope you have a few minutes to listen.

Thank you

Heidi Tassone

lots of hugs.

Saw this yesterday, and I thought it was brilliant.  This is a “kind of sort of” remake of “The Devil Went Down To Georgia” by the Charlie Daniels band, a country song released in 1979.

The language is a little gritty, just like the people of New England, which I mean in a good way.

By William Holt | The Lookout

http://news.yahoo.com/video/couple-charged-5-000-finding-193500016.html?format=embed&player_autoplay=false

A Canadian couple who recently stumbled upon a 400-year-old skeleton is now saddled with a $5,000 bill, the Star reports.

Two weeks ago, Ken Campbell of Sarnia, Ontario, came upon some bones while digging postholes in his backyard. His wife, Nicole Sauve, encouraged him to unearth the rest of the skeleton.

Ontario police, who cordoned off the area, called up forensic anthropologist Michael Spence to examine the site. Spence told the Star that the skeleton is likely that of a 24-year-old aboriginal woman who died in the late 1500s or early 1600s. Spence then contacted the Registrar of Cemeteries, which told Sauve that she and Campbell would have to hire an archeologist to examine the rest of the backyard—at their expense.

According to the Star, property owners are legally responsible to pay for such an assessment “if human remains are found on their land.”

Stuck with a $5,000 bill, Sauve appealed to the mayor of Sarnia but has yet to get a clear answer about whether the government will pay. According to the Star, she might be able to make a request to the Registrar of Cemeteries to cover the costs.

Sauve told the Star that people have been telling her if they wind up in a similar situation, they won’t risk getting a bill by telling the authorities about their finds.

“This is awful,” said Sauve. “God forbid you have a murder victim, and you cover them up.”

Chapter 8:19 when I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces you picked up?” They said to Him, “Twelve.”

Chapter 8:20 “When I broke the seven for the four thousand, how many large baskets full of broken pieces did you pick up?” And they said to Him, “Seven.”

Chapter 8:21 And He was saying to them, “Do you not yet understand?”

The disciples showed their lack of faith in failing to remember how He had multiplied the loaves and the fish before. Isn’t that typical in our lives how easy it is to forget all the blessings and how Jesus has taken care of all of our needs. Today remember what Christ has done for you!!!

Related articles

• Commentary On The Gospel Of Mark Chapter 8:8-10 (studyoftheword.com)
• Commentary On The Gospel Of Mark Chapter 8:11-13 (studyoftheword.com)
• Commentary On The Gospel Of Mark Chapter 8:16-17 (studyoftheword.com)

A fully-inflated balloon envelope at Moffett Field, California. The balloons are 15m in diameter when fully inflated, but they do not inflate until they’ve reached float altitude in the stratosphere. Photo courtesy of Wired’s Jon Shenk.

For more of Jon Shenk’s photos at Wired, click here.

Up until someone tried to cut off Egypt from the rest of the internet-enjoying world, I hadn’t been aware that we used cables to make the internet work. The more I think about it, the more I realize what a horribly naive conception that was. The WiFi in my house only goes so far — heck, even the WiFi at Stanford only goes so far. Apparently, we can’t beam internet like we can beam cell phone signals.

There are about 5 billion people in the world who don’t have reliable internet access, if they have it at all. Forget the device you’d need to connect, they can’t even be connected in the first place. (A map of the internet cables of the world can be found here.)

The internet cables of the Atlantic. Photo courtesy of TeleGeography

Project Loon, so-dubbed for its lunacy, has been testing hot-air balloons laden with solar-powered payloads. (For the non-techie, a payload is the box that gives you internet). The balloons also carry a host of computers, communication devices, and GPS equipment, as well as solar panels to keep it all running and rechargeable solar batteries for when the sun isn’t out.

A number of their balloon conquests have landed in unintended places, but Wired reports that Rich DeVaul, who founded the project, has found no reason to stop trying. Now, the aeronauts running the balloons can predict where the balloons will travel with a few wind measurements. And apparently, Google can successfully beam internet from the balloon to houses within a 12 mile radius — if they have the appropriate receiver.

First of all, this project is awesome. There is no denying that if the entire world could connect wirelessly, we should definitely do it. The main constraint is the air balloon. Google acknowledges this, and even if they can successfully share the internet it has a long way to go.

But my main questions are about these balloons’ longevity. Arguably, a school of internet-hauling hot air balloons should follow the jet stream, and the air and wind patterns that have been in place for thousands of years. In my imagination, the balloons would move around the world like a conveyor belt, evenly parsing out internet to everyone interested.

I’m not sure that logic completely follows through, because air moves faster in some places than others. There are bound to be dead zones. One would think ocean currents would also move around the globe smoothly, yet there’s a giant patch of rubble in the midst of the Pacific. Clearly, there are a few dead zones in the circulation of water. It’s entirely possible that we just haven’t seen the same with air, and in a few decades there will be a dead zone at the earth’s surface where internet balloons have come to die.

Then there’s the theory that the jet stream is going to shift once climate change really takes effect. Scientists reported just this week that changes in the jet stream may behind a massive iceberg melt in Greenland last summer. No one can say what the jet stream will do next. And meanwhile, who wants to trust climate change with the world’s internet connectivity?

That said, is it really any better to connect continents deep under the ocean?  The deep sea is full of vents and earthquake zones and creatures that we can’t even imagine. I can’t begin to think of whether internet by air or internet by sea would be more prone to terrorism. If it’s in the air, then it belongs to no country. No one can anyone control it or deny anyone else access.

What’s more, the hot air balloons carry solar powered internet. I can only imagine how much power running the internet requires…and I don’t think it’s running on solar panels.

If there’s no other way to connect the rural 5 billion — the Central African Republics of the world landlocked and conflict-plagued — what choice do we have besides sending our wired connections into the sky?