Congrats Mer Haskell on your Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature nomination. Well done, and well deserved. And, I believe, this isn't your first nomination. :)
The writer's life. Well, she might have gotten good exposure for her poetry at the wedding – to all the people who will never buy a book of poetry.
Aw hell. Amazon to collect sales tax in Ohio. Well, it was good while it lasted. I guess now I'll start ordering from other outlets (Amazon wasn't always the lowest, but with free shipping it could be the total lowest price, not any more.)
"Ellen Pao’s long legal fight against her former employer Kleiner Perkins isn’t over… Pao and her legal team filed a notice of appeal in her gender discrimination and retaliation case against the high-profile venture capital firm…" I guess their attempt to buy her off with the offer to waive the million dollars worth of legal fees she would owe KP for losing the first stage of her fight didn't work. (Grokked from Annalee Flower Horne)
"A completely new alkaline battery is rated to generate 1.5 volts, but once its output drops below 1.35 or even 1.4 volts, it effectively becomes useless to many devices… It’s important to note that while 'dead' batteries typically have 80 percent of their energy remaining inside, Batteriser doesn’t suck these cells completely dry… Let’s say you buy a new battery. You use it for a month and its voltage drops to 1.4. It’s now ostensibly dead at 1.4 volts, but if you slip on a Batteriser, its output increases to 1.5 volts for another month." How miniaturizing old tech can provide new life to an old business. In this case, extending the life of disposable batteries by 8x using a device that will cost around $2.50. And it'll fit in the current battery compartments. I'm going to have to watch for their Indigogo campaign. (Grokked from Dan)
The cavalry is making a come back in the Special Forces. Turns out, a horse or mule is much better in back country than anything else. You may or may not know about this. From what I heard, the Northern Alliance was skeptical of accepting American help to fight the Taliban, until that charge down the hill by Special Forces, most of whom didn't know how to ride very well. That showed the Afghanis that Americans could be trusted and that we wanted in the fight (also that we were crazy as hell). At the next battle, the soldiers held the Northern Alliance back as they called in air strikes on the Taliban forces that were dug in. Nobody saw or heard the planes who dropped the new JDAMs from miles away and decimated the entrenched tanks and heavy weapons (here's a more sanitized version, the NA may have been ragtag, but they had been keeping the Taliban at bay for a decade, draw your own conclusions). That cemented our alliance and gained cooperation of the Northern Alliance. (Grokked from Janiece)
What's holding the economy back? The rich aren't spending nearly enough. Okay, well, the nearly rich or as this article calls them "HENRYs, or high earners not rich yet." Those "Americans who earn $100,000 to $249,999 a year…" Apparently they aren't feeling like they're on solid ground, yet. Because, unlike their richer "peers" they don't make most of their money in the stock market. An interesting article for a couple of reasons. First, yes, consumer spending is a large portion of our GDP (70% according to this article). Also some insight on how the rich see themselves (note that a quarter million dollars a year is someone who is not rich yet). (Grokked from John Scalzi)
Air America now in America. The FBI has set up front companies to operate an air force that is spying on us all. Not only with the use of Stingrays (which I had heard about a while ago), but apparently they're also doing video surveillance. Sure you can trust the government, just ask the nearest Indian or whale.
Oh look, Fox News finally wants to talk about the Duggars. "Fox News host Megyn Kelly… (a)fter playing a CNN clip noting that several Republicans have posed for pictures with Josh Duggar in the past… lambasted the media for 'trying to make this the problem of the Republican presidential field.'" It's all about the politics and I'm sure the Duggars are the real victims here (well, actually, some of them are because Josh molested his sisters).
"Melting ice in the Arctic is creating opportunities for access to oil and gas, and shipping lanes. But the area is still mostly frozen and navigating the inhospitable region on top of the world still requires an icebreaker, the heavy duty ships that are able to crash through massive layers of ice." And we've got one heavy icebreaker left, and she's at least 10 years past retirement. You know all those supposed "hawks" in Congress, they wouldn't know what actual security was if they had a map and two sherpas to help guide them find it. I'm sure the business sector will supply some real soon now. Not.
Photographer David Jay's Unknown Soldier series. The price of war and the cost of our freedom. It's my wish that every politician who espouses in favor of more war, or from whose lips tumbles the easy phrase "last full measure of devotion" (or its kin) should see these. (Grokked from Janiece)
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