Feeling a bit better. This will make no sense, really, but, in the ear, nose, throat area I feel like almost a new man. This is a relief since last night I was beginning to wonder if this was something more serious than allergies.
I still have a nice, powerful cough that can’t seem to clear the problem, but only irritates the throat. It is about to get to the point of having that handsome congested resonance to it. I think, perhaps, the tiny/mild fever has subsided. I’m still sniffly, but there is progress. I sound sick when I talk, but that’s not unusual.
I am exhausted. Not tired so much, though I haven’t slept well in the better part of a week, but I did have a decent night’s sleep last night and yesterday I took a blessedly amazing 20 minute nap. I just feel physically tired. And to think I was going to try to go run or ride today. Hah. So there are no grand stories or adventures about the day.
Things to read … because sometimes reading is the grandest adventure of them all.
This is one of those things that popped up ages ago. I read it, kept it, thought about it and never passed it along. (Because how would you find it on this Internet without my help, dear reader?) Since there is never going to be the right time, one supposes, here it is now: The Top 5 Regrets of The Dying
I came to the conclusion pretty quickly, and haven’t been able to change my mind since, that the biggest regrets I have are fairly small in the scheme of things, but they almost always center on something I didn’t do.
Interview: Reporter Kelsey Stein on Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women:
For the next several months, WBHM joins al.com and the Center for Investigative Reporting as part of the Alabama Media Group’s Investigative Journalism Lab. We’re taking a closer look at Alabama’s prison problems.
As part of this project, al.com reporter Kelsey Stein has interviewed many former inmates of the Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women. The prison gained national attention earlier this year after a Department of Justice report detailed cases of rape and sexual abuse at the prison.
Thought so. Food Prices Surge as Drought Exacts a High Toll on Crops:
Surging prices for food staples from coffee to meat to vegetables are driving up the cost of groceries in the U.S., pinching consumers and companies that are still grappling with a sluggish economic recovery.
Federal forecasters estimate retail food prices will rise as much as 3.5% this year, the biggest annual increase in three years, as drought in parts of the U.S. and other producing regions drives up prices for many agricultural goods.
This story really defies excerption and it should be read in full:
Sinkhole of bureaucracy:
During the past 30 years, administrations have spent more than $100 million trying to automate the old-fashioned process in the mine and make it run at the speed of computers.
They couldn’t.
So now the mine continues to run at the speed of human fingers and feet. That failure imposes costs on federal retirees, who have to wait months for their full benefit checks. And it has imposed costs on the taxpayer: The Obama administration has now made the mine run faster, but mainly by paying for more fingers and feet.
The staff working in the mine has increased by at least 200 people in the past five years. And the cost of processing each claim has increased from $82 to $108, as total spending on the retirement system reached $55.8 million.
And that place has nothing on the VA.
Russia’s New Ability To Evade NSA Surveillance Is Either A Crazy Coincidence Or Something Much Worse:
U.S. officials think that Russia may have recently obtained the ability to evade U.S. eavesdropping equipment while commandeering Crimea and amassing troops near Ukraine’s border.
The revelation reportedly has the White House “very nervous,” especially because it’s unclear how the Kremlin hid its plans from the National Security Agency’s snooping on digital and electronic communications.
One interesting parallel is the presence of Edward Snowden in Russia, where he has been living since flying to Moscow from Hong Kong on June 23.
As you might expect, the story concentrates on that one interesting parallel.
Can’t think of a way in which this is a good thing, Obama to Kill Tomahawk, Hellfire Missile Programs:
President Barack Obama is seeking to abolish two highly successful missile programs that experts say have helped the U.S. Navy maintain military superiority for the past several decades.
The Tomahawk missile program—known as “the world’s most advanced cruise missile”—is set to be cut by $128 million under Obama’s fiscal year 2015 budget proposal and completely eliminated by fiscal year 2016, according to budget documents released by the Navy.
In addition to the monetary cuts to the program, the number of actual Tomahawk missiles acquired by the United States would drop significantly—from 196 last year to just 100 in 2015. The number will then drop to zero in 2016.
The Navy will also be forced to cancel its acquisition of the well-regarded and highly effective Hellfire missiles in 2015, according to Obama’s proposal.
So you take two effective weapon systems with a finite inventory and shut down the supply. These are two successful force projection applications being removed from the table with no replacement in site. And if you look at subsonic-to-supersonic evolutionary trends that means your next gen weapon system needs new and more fuel and bigger engines which means larger missiles which means larger platforms and we aren’t upsizing the navy any time soon, either.
This is a mistake.
So is this:
There’s never been a story that makes me long for elementary school again, but this one does. I would show up to school the next day with a shaved head myself. There is an update. The little girl is being allowed back into the school. It isn’t quite sanity that prevailed, since these educators still found themselves in a ridiculous position of voting (three to one!) on the issue, but widespread scorn and cynicism brought about part of the proper resolution. Funny how that works on “educators.”
Some journalism links:
Risen: Obama administration is this generation’s ‘greatest enemy of press freedom’
News in motion: six ways to be a good mobile editor
How USA Today reinvents for the digital world
The Revenue Picture for American Journalism and How It Is Changing
The Growth in Digital Reporting
How many ways can the New York Times find to repackage and sell what amounts to the same content?
