International Brackets

Today's Tids Issue 3,052

Opening Stuff:

 

While driving west across the bridge from here yesterday, I looked up at the receding sun behind a giant cloud. I saw a very bright smiling mouth and two eyes, each with powerful, gleaming, well defined rays beaming to earth below. I thought, that could easily be the face ot God. Then I remembered earlier in the day passing a funeral home; how I was impressed by the very long line of mainly young people waiting to get in. I was reminded later that there had been a young beautiful woman who had recently died, a woman who lived in Sanderstown, Sanderstown, where those beams from above were focused. I just thought I’d pass that along. Probably means nothing.

 

Republicans and people with brains will rush to the polls out of the single fear that if the Dems take the House, Nancy Pelosi will be in charge.

 

You have to wonder if this Ukraine thing is just one more element of March Madness. I can see Putin having brackets of his own, only his have Russia versus Ukraine, versus Belarus, versus Georgia, versus Latvia and Lithuania and Estonia. Then, maybe Poland and Turkey.

 

The Question:

What were the ten top disasters in Space Programs?

 

The Headlines:

--AMA Docs Find “Grace Period” Rule In ObamaCare That may Have Them Paying For Patient Care.

--Putin Issues Sanctions Against US Officials; NATO Begins Military Exercises In Bulgaria; Obama Goes On Ellen Show.

--Mt. Gox Finds 200,000 BitCoins In Discarded (Electronic) Wallets.

--US Coast Guard Budget Crunch Has drug dealers Back A Sea.

--Harvard, Dayton And North Dakota State Head Upset List On First Day Of NCAA; ND State Disrupts 83% of Brackets Vying For Billion Bucks.

--Vanishing Plane Hunters Still Focusing On Area West Of Australia.

 

How about a sip of dark Roast to toast Howard Schultz, the Chairman of Starbucks, for his giving $30 Million to help the men and women returning from the wars! How many billions are wasted on frivolity and excess that could be transformed by private people into helping others?

 

When the sculptor finished his work, he said, “That’s a relief”!

 

While President Obama got down to serious prepping for the Putin confrontation on the Ellen show, It appears that Putin is wakening to the dangers to his dominance by the presence of FaceBook and Twitter. It is expected that it won’t be long until he shuts them down. He can own the TV stations and newspapers, but he can’t control the opinions of dissenters in cyberspace.

 

RI is sinking and a lot of it it is due to unions starting way back when textile companies left, and continuing through to the demise of manufacturing. The only people left to organize were in the biggest industry supported by taxes, Government. Basically a no growth industry, income and benefit demands increased annually until there was no more money. So now faced with reality, the Unions stubbornly acquiesced to some cuts, that is, if the membership voted for them. So these Union heads devised a system that among other things said, “Ballots not returned will be counted as a ”Yes”! One of the first ballots out went to a dead person! The beat goes on.

 

I talk to a lot of younger families who only buy the basic TV stations and get everything they want through streaming, on Netflix or other services. It’s just the way it is, and only the start of the way it’s going to be.

 

Talk of the over suspension of Black students is prevalent among news reports today, all implying that the suspensions are not deserved but somehow due only to race. What a country.

 

People who buy cars in Winter should wait to late spring until complaining about not getting advertised miles per gallon. Cold reduces efficiency. BTW, new technology makes large cars as efficient as those super mini’s and automatic transmissions as fuel efferent as standard. A well maintained car will sustain it fuel efficiency as it ages. Also additives will not improve gas mileage and may hurt the engine. New fuel injected engines do not require frequent air filter changeovers. And, EPA estimates are no guarantee of getting the mileage efficiencies promised. Just incase you are being told something different

 

Some people think that the “Green” people have put sanctions on the USA, preventing us from sending the oil an gas to Ukraine and Europe which would neutralize the strengths of you know who.

 

Reading Between the Lines Movie Reviews:

--I think the SiFi movie Divergent may be ok, with a bit of reality making the plot in the future believable. The world is divided into two groups based on virtue. A group called Divergents are considered not fit for either. When word about destroying all divergent is heard, out heroine rallies together the others to fight for their lives, as they say.

--I like Muppet movies mainly because I liked the rainbow song. In this one, the crew is on a world tour only to find themselves embroiled in a criminal caper where the evil one is a dead ringer for Kermit.

--In “God Is Not Dead” a radical professor on the first day of philosophy class orders the class to write a paper disavowing the existence of God…or they will fail. Our hero a devout Christian is torn, hold to his beliefs, of fail. When he nervously tells the prof he won’t do it, an angered teacher challenges him to present researched, intellectual arguments proving the existence of God. How does he do?

 

The Answer:

#10 is the crash of the high altitude test vehicle X-15 and the death of pilot Michael Adams; 9. Sous was destined to failure from the beginning when it could lock onto the space station and upon returning was blown into an submerged in an icy lake. Surprising to all, the Cosmonauts survived. 8. Gemini * Rolled uncontrollable after a failed docking maneuver, with pilot Armstrong near black out. 7. Apollo 1 where Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee died in a fire. 6. Voskhod 2 was the first space walk mission, but the rentry failed nearly killing the men. 5. Soyuz 1 hurled to earth after mechanical failures while orbiting. 4. Soyuz 18a failed on take off, and faced a peak of 21.3 G force before parachutes deployed and upon landing near a mountain cliff, a small bush snagged the chute and saved the ship from plunging over. 3. Soyuz 11 was the first mission to board a space station. However upon entry a valve blew and the men died from high altitude decompression. If they had worn their space suits, they would have lived. 2. After a 16 day stay in space the ship gliding to descend suddenly disintegrated killing seven. 1. Challenger as we know exploded upon take off.

A little weekend traveling music:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSFLZ-MzIhM

Have a good one, E-v-e-r-y-b-od-y!