We were visited by a flock of endangered Wood Storks last week at the pond behind our place. Apparently, South Florida has one of the largest rookeries for Wood Storks anywhere. There are two rookeries relatively close to us. The water was way down last week in the pond and made for good fishing. We also were visited by otters, an osprey and even a pelican!

According to The Daily Caller:

Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams said the alleged “blue wave” Democrats are expecting in the 2018 midterm elections is filled with “documented and undocumented” voters.

“The thing of it is, the blue wave is African American. It is white. It is Latino. It is Asian-Pacific Islander,” Abrams said at a Clayton County campaign office Tuesday in a video obtained by The Washington Free Beacon. “It is made up of those who’ve been told that they are not worthy of being here. It is comprised of those who are documented and undocumented.”

Here’s the link: https://dailycaller.com/2018/10/12/stacey-abrams-georgia-illegal-voters/

For anyone who is confused about the requirement for voter registration, here is the text from the Georgia Secretary of State’s website:

We should not moor a ship with one anchor,

or our life with one hope.

– Epictetus

THE SQUONK.
(Lacrimacorpus dissolvens.)

The range of the squonk is very limited. Few people outside of Pennsylvania have ever heard of the quaint beast, which is said to be fairly common in the hemlock forests of that State. The squonk is of a very retiring disposition, generally traveling about at twilight and dusk. Because of its misfitting skin, which is covered with warts and moles, it is always unhappy ; in fact it is said, by people who are best able to judge, to be the most morbid of beast. Hunters who are good at tracking are able to follow a squonk by its tear-stained trail, for the animal weeps constantly. When cornered and escape seems impossible, or when surprised and frightened, it may even dissolve itself in tears. Squonk hunters are most successful on frosty moonlight nights, when tears are shed slowly and the animal dislikes moving about ; it may then be heard weeping under the boughs of dark hemlock trees. Mr. J. P. Wentling, formerly of Pennsylvania, but now at St. Anthony Park, Minnesota, had a disappointing experience with a squonk near Mont Alto. He made a clever capture by mimicking the squonk and inducing it to hop into a sack, in which he was carrying it home, when suddenly the burden lightened and the weeping ceased. Wentling unslung the sack and looked in. There was nothing but tears and bubbles.

Source: 

 F E A R S O M E C R E A T U R E S O F T H E L U M B E R W O O D S 
( 100th A N N I V E R S A R Y H Y P E R T E X T E D I T I O N )

See it here.

The Wall Street Journal has a really nice photo essay by Alexandra Wolfe of some of the Underwater Photography Awards from the UK. Very interesting and breathtakingly beautiful!

Here is the link.

This week NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information announced that the 2016 global averaged surface temperature of the earth set a new record over the previous record, 2015, by a whopping .07 degrees farenheit. This sounds alarming, and it must be a very complicated job to measure “global average surface temperature”. I’m sure this made tantalizing headlines in all the usual news outlets.

Remembering my high school chemistry and physics classes (dimly), I wondered what the statistical margin of error for this data was. And I had to drill down a couple of pages into the sources to find it, but there it was. The number is plus or minus .27 degrees F over the statistical 20th century average.

Obviously that means that there could have been satistically been a huge decrease in the global temperature as surely as there could have been an equally larger increase! And I wonder if they measured “global average surface temperature” in 1900 the same way that they measured it in 2000 to arrive at that 20th century average?

The bottom line is, you can interpret the results of this data anyway you like to suit your own agenda. Lord knows the “National Centers for Environmental Information” are.

Here’s a link to their data:

http://www.noaa.gov/stories/2016-marks-three-consecutive-years-of-record-warmth-for-globe

“Competitions are only opportunity for inexperienced youth to air precocious propensity.”

Frank Lloyd Wright in his autobiography, writing about architectural competitions.

Here Is the context in the full passage:

“The world has gained no building worth having by competition because: (1) The jury itself is necessarily a hand picked average. Some constituency must agree upon the jury. (2) Therefore the first thing this average does as a jury, when picked, is to go through all the designs and throw out the best ones and the worst ones. This is necessary in order that the average may average upon something average. (3) Therefore any architectural competition will be an average upon an average by averages in behalf of the average. (4) The net result is a building well behind the times before it is begun.

This might seem democratic if mediocrity is democratic ideal in architecture. No. Competitions are only opportunity for inexperienced youth to air precocious propensity.

Moreover, to further vitiate the competitive objective every architect entering any competition does so to win the prize. So he sensibly aims his efforts at what he conceives to be the common prejudices and predilections of the jury. Invariably the man who does this most accurately wins the competition.”

Last week’s bloody drone injury to Cleveland Indians starting pitcher Trevor Bauer’s right pinky put the Indians in a bit of a jam in their starting rotation. So manager Terry Francona did the obvious. He called up 24 year old rookie pitcher Ryan Merritt from the AAA Columbus Clippers to start in a crucial game 5 of the American League Championship Series in front of 50,000 screaming Toronto fans. Just his second start in the major leagues!

Despite looking a bit shell shocked, Merritt proceeded to mow down the Toronto Blue Jay’s best for 4 1/3 innings, putting them in position to unleash their relievers, shut out the Jays and send the Indians to the World Series for the first time since 1997.

Probably the best compliment I heard on Merritt’s performance was from none other than retired Boston ace and 8 time all star turned color commentator Pedro Martinez, who said on air, “I want to start my career over as this guy!”

You just can’t make this stuff up!

The Indians start the World Series next Tuesday with home field advantage against the winner of the NLCS, either the Chicago Cubs or the LA Dodgers.

Here is the coverage on mlb.indians.com.

Go Tribe!

The Maunsell Sea Forts were constructed In the Thames estuary in early WWII to protect the Southeastern coast of England from Luftwaffe raids. They were named after their designer, Guy Maunsell. The technology was later used in the construction of offshore oil rigs. The forts were armored anti-aircraft gun platforms anchored to the sea bed. The forts were decommissioned in 1957, and in the mid 60’s, became home to a series of pirate radio stations until those were outlawed by England in 1967. One of the sites, Rough’s Tower, has been occupied since 1964 and is know as the “Principality of Sealand” which claims independent nation rights as it is located in international waters, although this is unrecognized. 

For more information, look here on Wikipedia. There is a current effort to restore the forts. See Project Redsand for more information.