Open Discussion For the Weekend

Mar 29

Posted by

Caterpillars, moths, butterflies, and all creatures great and small,

I goofed with the thermostat yesterday, and woke up this morning cold to find it on 62 when the temp here were down in the 30’s last night.  Fighting a cold now, I might not blog much this weekend.

blue butterfliesdog and catEarlier, while sniffing and sneezing and complaining about sniffing and sneezing, I watched several videos on Youtube about adopted dogs.  They certainly have unconditional love.  Hence, I was thinking it would be nice for those wanting stress relief to share something about their pets on this thread.

AWARDS – AWARDS – AWARDS

Today, Blackbutterfly7 was nominated for two awards.  That brings it to about 7 that I have yet to comply with the rules for acceptance.  It is very humbling when fellow bloggers who I admire greatly find me worthy of blog awards.  Next week I’m setting aside time to comply with the rules of acceptance.  Know that everyone who participates here makes this blog what it is and inspires me.  (Hold on.  Have to blow my nose.)

(Okay.  I’m back.)   We now have over 220 subscribers to the blog, and 108 subscribers to the Youtube channel with 38,971 views.  Thanks to everyone for their support.

RECENT NEWS

  • Just heard that there was an earthquake in Los Angeles.  I called a friend who lives there but got his voice mail.  Here’s sending good, positive thoughts there are no injuries and no damage.
  • Did anyone hear about the road rage karma video?  The video is embedded at the end of this article.
  • On April 8th, Microsoft will no longer provide support for Windows XP.  They could have fooled me.  I tried getting updates back in July last year and discovered that most had been discontinued.
  • Yahoo News reports that Jahi McMath’s mother spoke out yesterday.
  • A 67 year-old Oklahoma woman has been charged with three counts of first degree murder for 3 deaths in 1992.  Just goes to show that what’s done in the dark will come to the light.  Last Spring, the woman’s brother tipped off investigators.  Some people do have a conscience.

What’s On Your Mind?

Peace, blessings, and love,

Xena

butterfly border

 

 

 

Posted on 03/29/2014, in open discussion and tagged , , , . Bookmark the permalink. 86 Comments.

  1. racerrodig | 03/29/2014 at 12:33 am

    “That’s what ya get, It’s all on video buddy……” The jackass in the Ford drives and acts just like my brother. Funny……they both wound up “in the ditch”

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  2. Xena | 03/29/2014 at 1:29 am

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  3. dreamer | 03/29/2014 at 6:05 am

    We felt the earthquake here, about 110 miles to the east.

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    • Yahtzee | 03/29/2014 at 12:49 pm

      dreamer, I hope all is okay with you and your family and friends. I heard that the earthquake caused some power outages a rock slide in one area.

      Xena, sorry to hear you have a cold. I hope you recover quickly and start feeling better soon.

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  4. Yahtzee | 03/29/2014 at 10:41 am

    This has me very concerned:

    $1 Trillion Student Loan Debt Widens US Wealth Gap
    March 27, 2014 (AP)

    http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/trillion-student-loan-debt-widens-us-wealth-gap-23081202

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  5. Yahtzee | 03/29/2014 at 11:07 am

    /large

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  6. Yahtzee | 03/29/2014 at 11:11 am

    Beautiful tribute artwork portraying Trayvon Martin:

    /large

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  7. Jackie Saulmon Ramirez | 03/29/2014 at 11:23 am

    😀 We used to keep our night temps at 60 degrees but I had an uncle that kept his at 55! Yeah, he was crazy! People would come to visit and take their coats off. Five minutes later they were putting their jackets back on!

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  8. Yahtzee | 03/29/2014 at 11:23 am

    Cat adopts baby squirrels:

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  9. Yahtzee | 03/29/2014 at 11:45 am

    “The Oyster”
    (Author Unknown)

    There once was an oyster

    Whose story I tell,
    
Who found that some sand
    
Had got into its shell.

    It was only a grain,
    
But it gave him great pain;
    
For oysters have feelings

    Although they’re so plain.

    Now, did he berate
    
The harsh workings of fate
    
That had brought him

    To such a deplorable state?

    No! He said to himself
    As he lay on a shell,
    “Since I cannot remove it,
    I’ll try to improve it.”

    And the small grain of sand
    
That had bothered him so
    
Was a beautiful pearl

    All richly aglow.

    Now the tale has a moral;
    For isn’t it grand
    
What an oyster can do

    With a small grain of sand?

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  10. Yahtzee | 03/29/2014 at 12:11 pm

    “The Power of Love” – pan flute

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  11. Yahtzee | 03/29/2014 at 12:35 pm

    Hey, racerrodig,

    I have a place you can try out if you have a motorcycle. First you have to get a ticket to Bolivia, however.

    The mirror of the sky: Salar de Uyuni, the world’s largest salt flat

    Due to its large size, smooth surface, high surface reflectivity when covered with shallow water, and minimal elevation deviation, Salar de Uyuni makes an ideal target for the testing and calibration of remote sensing instruments on orbiting satellites used to study the Earth. In addition to providing an excellent target surface the skies above Salar de Uyuni are so clear, and the air so dry, that the surface works up to five times better for satellite calibration than using the surface of the ocean.

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  12. mindyme62 | 03/29/2014 at 2:16 pm

    So many interesting things here today! I’m so glad Jahi was allowed the chance for life by going home. Love the inspiring videos!!

    the Road rage thing, I have mixed feelings. The lady was indeed ‘passing’ folks while she was in the ‘passing’ lane and it doesn’t appear the road was an interstate highway. She has stated she was planning to make a left hand turn, shortly. It still seems she could have gotten over and just let the jerk pass. It also looks like after he did pass her on the right, that she sped up (maybe I’m wrong).

    Having said that, both of their actions could have caused an uninvolved person to be injured. Florida law says you can’t use a device that isn’t hands free while driving yet having a video of folks behaving badly is certainly helpful when needed.

    Happy Saturday Everyone!

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    • towerflower | 03/29/2014 at 8:39 pm

      I’m not so sure who was the worst danger on the roads, a pissed off driver who loses control or the woman was alone in a vehicle with her cell phone out filming the event going down……after all she wasn’t exactly paying attention to the road while filming.

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  13. Yahtzee | 03/29/2014 at 4:03 pm

    Oooh….I just came upon these photos:

    Stunning Macro Photos of Dew Drops on Dandelions

    Stunning Macro Photos of Dew Drops on Dandelions

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    • dreamer | 03/30/2014 at 1:50 am

      Thanks Yahtzee, those are stunning!!!

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    • racerrodig | 03/30/2014 at 10:44 am

      As far as art is concerned, Nature outdoes man at every turn…..you just have to look.

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    • Yahtzee | 03/30/2014 at 12:01 pm

      dreamer and racer,

      Aren’t we fortunate that advances in photography and the internet have made possible these beautiful photographic offerings?

      I have always been a nature girl at heart, having visited many National Parks in the Northwest and Southwest on family camping trips as I was growing up.

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  14. Yahtzee | 03/29/2014 at 4:15 pm

    Egg Painting in Bali:

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  15. Xena | 03/29/2014 at 4:48 pm

    Can’t get us down because …..

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  17. Yahtzee | 03/29/2014 at 10:43 pm

    “1 million jars of peanut butter get dumped in landfill”

    http://www.thestate.com/2014/03/29/3356771/did-you-hear.html?sp=/99/101/

    Excerpt:

    Nearly a million jars of peanut butter are being dumped at a New Mexico landfill to expedite the sale of a bankrupt peanut-processing plant that was at the heart of a 2012 salmonella outbreak and nationwide recall.

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  18. Yahtzee | 03/29/2014 at 10:46 pm

    Thought I would repost this for anyone who missed it:

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  19. Xena | 03/30/2014 at 12:36 am

    What was that in his hand?

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  22. Yahtzee | 03/30/2014 at 8:30 am

    Good Morning to all of you!

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  23. Yahtzee | 03/30/2014 at 8:44 am

    Do you think all of us will chat today as much as this bird from Norway?

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  24. Yahtzee | 03/30/2014 at 10:00 am

    Please read this article. It echoes the hopes and dreams of any mother. It also tells the story, often told by African American mothers who have lost their sons unnecessarily.

    “He was my only child. He was raised with love and learning and a clear understanding of right and wrong. I have been without Jordan now since Thanksgiving weekend 2012, without him last Christmas and on his birthday in February.

    I never got to take his prom picture or see him graduate from high school. I can tell you all about him, about his easy smile, his first girlfriend and his plans to join the Marines. I can tell you how he loved his dad’s gumbo, and how they both rooted for the New York Giants.

    But you can never really know my boy, because an angry man, who owned a gun, kept it close at hand and chose to demonstrate unbridled hatred one balmy evening, for reasons I will never understand. These laws empowered his prejudiced beliefs and subsequent rage over my son’s own life, his liberty and pursuit of happiness.”

    — Lucia McBath (in photo with her son Jordan Davis)

    Quoted on Democracy Now! here:
    http://bit.ly/1oGMjm2

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    • shannoninmiami | 03/30/2014 at 4:49 pm

      so unfair. it’s so unfair for anyone to steal someone’s life and have the audacity to call themselves the victim. it’s unfair to allow these ppl to claim self defense when the one they killed wasn’t afforded the same defense. the law shouldn’t allow the right to shoot someone and make up any ol thing as an excuse, much less make the state disprove the idiotic excuse is wrong. a killer should be forced to prove their excuse is valid not the other way around. if the killer is big, brave and assertive enough to take someone’s life they can defend themselves again in court. just like a prosecutor is forced to prove an accusation to convict someone, the killer needs to prove their accusation against their victim. the victim isn’t being defended in court they’re being accused of trying to kill the killer so shouldn’t they have a defense too?

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  25. Yahtzee | 03/30/2014 at 10:15 am

    “The Nation: Why are students protesting Wendy’s and Publix?”: Answers to that question and more, with all the latest press from the Fair Food front!/strong>

    http://ciw-online.org/blog/2014/03/nation-take-part-post-tour/

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    • Yahtzee | 03/30/2014 at 10:23 am

      This article gives more background info to the struggle:

      Labor Takes Historic Stride Forward as Walmart Joins Fair Food Program – See more at: http://civileats.com/2014/01/17/labor-takes-historic-stride-forward-as-walmart-joins-fair-food-program/#sthash.UqCBuWDd.dpuf

      Excerpt:

      The struggle for labor justice in the fields of the United States—and perhaps far beyond—took an historic stride forward yesterday. At a folding table in a metal-clad produce packing shed beside a tomato field in southwestern Florida, two high-ranking executives from the giant retailer Walmart, which sells more groceries than any other company in the world, sat down beside two Mexican farmworkers and signed an agreement to join the Fair Food Program.
      – See more at:
      http://civileats.com/2014/01/17/labor-takes-historic-stride-forward-as-walmart-joins-fair-food-program/#sthash.ZPy0SpcC.dpuf

      Originating as a solution to the atrocious working conditions in Florida’s $650 million tomato industry, which included several cases of abject slavery, the Fair Food Program was created by the Coalition of Immolakee Workers (CIW), a human rights group based in Immokalee, Florida, the state’s largest migrant workers’ community.

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      • Yahtzee | 03/30/2014 at 10:29 am

        Here is an past article about The Coalition of Immolakee Workers (CIW) Anti-Slavery Campaign.

        http://ciw-online.org/slavery/

        Excerpt:

        The CIW’s Anti-Slavery Campaign has uncovered, investigated, and assisted in the prosecution of numerous multi-state, multi-worker farm slavery operations across the Southeastern U.S., helping liberate over 1,200 workers held against their will.

        The U.S. Department of State called the CIW a “pioneer” in the worker-centered and multi-sectoral approach to slavery prosecution, and hailed the CIW’s work on some of the earliest cases of slavery as the “spark” that ignited today’s national anti-slavery movement.

        Since those early cases, the CIW has continued shape the national movement against slavery, between playing a key role the passage of the 2000 Trafficking Victims Protection Act, being appointed by the Florida legislature to the Statewide Human Trafficking Task Force, and co-founding the national Freedom Network USA and the Freedom Network Training Institute (FNTI).

        Through the FNTI, the CIW trains state and federal law enforcement and non-governmental organizations throughout the U.S. on how to identify and assist people held against their will in slavery operations.

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  26. towerflower | 03/30/2014 at 10:57 am

    Xena, you talk in the OT about the animals we own. I have several and my son also a love of them which adds to the count. We have 1 dog, 4 rescue cats and at one time my son would help foster feral kittens to socialize them for adoption, 2 turtles (you know the type that you get from a carnival as a prize, they are no long small), a bearded dragon…a cool lizard that will sit on your shoulder and it doesn’t grow to huge sizes, and finally 2 diamond doves…..I love the cooing of the birds.

    But I think I’ve gone through the entire pet groups fish, birds, reptiles and mammals. The most unusual one was a hedgehog that I named Prick.

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    • Yahtzee | 03/30/2014 at 11:12 am

      You are a wonderful animal lover, towerflower 🙂

      Bearded dragons are cool.

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      • towerflower | 03/30/2014 at 7:32 pm

        They are cool. I like their size, they are just right. I’ve seen people get on iguana kicks but fail to realize how big those things get. Same with some of the snakes, now thanks to careless owners and add in a hurricane and now we have iguanas overrunning S. Florida and snakes overtaking the Everglades.

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        • dreamer | 03/31/2014 at 2:01 am

          I’ve seen some those shows where they are called out to capture the snakes in Florida. I hear they are heading west…..I’m on the first plane out of here if one of those gigantic pythons show up in my yard. I guess we have snakes here the desert, haven’t seen one yet, and don’t care to. Lots lizards and gecko’s, don’t like them either. You’d probably find me in 72hr lockup for a mental check if I saw a snake or large reptile.

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    • Xena | 03/30/2014 at 5:02 pm

      towerflower,
      Bless your heart. You’ve had and have quite a collection of living creatures.

      Reptiles are interesting. I’ve never had one as a pet. We have toads around here and several that got into my basement window well. I’ve opened the window several times to see if they want out, but they seem very happy where they are. They have made it through 3 winters thus far.

      Once I considered getting a ferret but was then told that I would need 2.

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      • towerflower | 03/30/2014 at 11:29 pm

        Never had a ferret but I have been tempted. I’ve had rabbits but the hedgehog was neat. They are litter box trained and eat cat food along with crickets and meal worms. I’m always tempted by the unusual and with most I go for the ones that no one else wants….the runts. They always have a forever home, the only time I ever gave away something was my two parrots, cockatoos, because of my son. When he was little he was too tempted by them and I knew that they would take his fingers off as they didn’t like children. I tried child fencing to keep him out but he was getting to the point where that didn’t stop him and the cages were too large to hang them.

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        • Xena | 03/31/2014 at 10:11 am

          towerflower,
          Sorry to hear about the birds.

          I contemplated getting a parrot once, but like the ferret, I didn’t move on it. It was a time when my life was so busy that I had to face reality of not having sufficient time to really care for more than our one dog.

          Now that my life is not that busy, and with just one dog, I’m tired. LOL!

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  27. Yahtzee | 03/30/2014 at 11:32 am

    “Earthquake Rattles Yellowstone National Park, No Damage Reported”:
    A 4.8 magnitude earthquake rocked Yellowstone National Park in Montana early Sunday, but there were no immediate reports of damage.

    http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/earthquake-rattles-yellowstone-national-park-no-damage-reported-n67196

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  28. Yahtzee | 03/30/2014 at 11:40 am

    Xena,

    I hope you get over your cold and feel better soon!

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  29. Yahtzee | 03/30/2014 at 12:38 pm

    Family fighting to stay on monument land

    http://www.nativetimes.com/index.php/life/people/9714-family-fighting-to-stay-on-monument-land

    Excerpt:

    Across the West, few American Indians remain on lands that have become iconic tourist destinations managed by the federal government.

    WUPATKI NATIONAL MONUMENT, Ariz. (AP) – Before an expanse of grassland and pueblo ruins in northern Arizona was declared a national monument, it was home to hundreds of Navajos whose ancestors returned to settle the area after a forced march to an eastern New Mexico internment camp.

    Slowly, the Navajo families left Wupatki National Monument too, either voluntarily or under pressure by the National Park Service, which sought to eliminate private use of the public land it managed. Only one Navajo woman remains.

    When 89-year-old Stella Peshlakai Smith dies, her residency permit dies with her, ending forever the Navajo presence at Wupatki.

    The Peshlakais have vowed to fight for the land surrounded by the Little Colorado River valley, snow-capped mountains and towering mesas, where their sheep once grazed freely. Support for the family is mounting among state and tribal officials, but it’s up to Congress to decide whether they can stay.

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  30. Yahtzee | 03/30/2014 at 1:16 pm

    This just amazes me!

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    • towerflower | 03/30/2014 at 7:47 pm

      While the SYG fight discussions have made the news lately, loss of tourism hasn’t been an issue. There is a lot more to Florida tourism than Disney World, not to mention the snow birds still migrate south during the winter months.

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      • Xena | 03/30/2014 at 8:40 pm

        towerflower,
        I heard that cruises leaving out of Florida have seen a decline. Since I don’t live there, I really don’t know if that’s true. One thing for sure is that I won’t be visiting Florida.

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        • towerflower | 03/30/2014 at 11:35 pm

          I couldn’t find anything specific about the cruise lines but I did find this site:

          http://www.visitfloridamediablog.com/home/2014/02/14/governor-rick-scott-announces-2013-another-record-year-for-florida-tourism/

          There is quite an industry with the cruise lines here with just about every city with a major port having them. The biggest thing that makes the news with these are the boat sicknesses that people seem to get and a few that broke down leaving passengers without plumbing, ac, and the such. I’ve never taken a cruise yet and with my luck I would end up on one that broke down. lol.

          But Florida has been getting quite a bit of bad press lately, I won’t argue with that.

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          • Xena | 03/31/2014 at 10:07 am

            towerflower,
            I am torn. On one hand, I don’t want to see people laid off or losing their jobs. On the other hand, I want Florida to straighten out its act and if boycotting tourism is the only way of doing that, then —– I’m torn.

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          • towerflower | 03/31/2014 at 11:25 am

            Yes, we have gotten quite a bit of bad press in relation to high profile cases. But I really don’t blame Florida entirely. There are quite a few other states that have the same SYG laws but yet it is only our cases that seem to get all the news. Dunn’s and Alexander’s cases were all on the press’s minds due to Z’s case and it was his case that brought out the SYG controversy even though he didn’t use it. But I do agree that the law needs tweaking.

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  33. Yahtzee | 03/30/2014 at 11:52 pm

    Shootings by Police Protested in Albuquerque

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  34. shannoninmiami | 04/01/2014 at 3:00 pm

    http://news.yahoo.com/jury-white-officers-falsely-arrested-black-teen-171348170.html?soc_src=copy

    this just infuriates me! the justice system has absolutely no regard for maltreatment of minorities! we have here another trial with an all white jury rendering a nonsensical verdict and a pittance in compensation for a violent attack on an innocent civilian by the tax paid civil servants that are supposed to protect him. again it’s a young black male who’s been attacked by police. again police get away with physically harming and publicly humiliating an innocent person. and then when the victim has means & will to fight back he gets a trial that’s inherently unfair. we know through out history that an all white jury can’t be trusted to treat a black plaintiff equal to a white plaintiff. why can’t this be addressed??? it’s not fair!

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  35. Yahtzee | 04/01/2014 at 8:22 pm

    8.0-Magnitude Earthquake Hits Off Chile; Tsunami Strikes Coast

    http://abcnews.go.com/International/strong-earthquake-hits-off-chile/story?id=23151710

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