shush now’s Neighborhood

Hello all,

I am in dire need of an original photo that would look nice on our website (church) for our Christmas Eve candlelight service.  It doesn't have to be candles - it could a Christmas tree, fireplace...just something that says "cozy", "calm", "peace", "quiet celebration", etc.

Anyone have one I might borrow/use for a few weeks?

This is completely embarrassing, but here goes:

I've almost never had an oven that wasn't self-cleaning. If I did, it was in one of my early apartments and I didn't stay long enough in the place to bother cleaning it.

So--what's the best (and greenest) way to go about it? I would like to avoid using the super-nasty chemical stuff as much as possible. Any tips?

Thanks!

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This sucks.

He's all settled in with his meds and his babyfuds and some experimental small can fuds too.
Has his own kingdom in the bedroom, but is locked in cos I think morphined kittums belong inside.
And he has a history of deciding to lope off alone when he feels bad.

So he's set up with fuds and live cat nips and a heating pad under his floofy blankie.
(Floofy blankie gets lots of kneading and cuddling on.)

I've been carrying in the Wolfie Cat, who is his buddy, to den up in the bedroom with us at night.
To cut the boredom a bit.
And Motley, who expects to sleep on the bed.
(And everybody loves Motley, who appears to be just stuffed with Cat Charisma.)

So the first time I found Idiot Kitten in there, I assumed he had done the Ninja Kitty thing, and clouded my mind while he slipped into the room unnoticed.
The cat who walks through walls.....
So I just let him nest with all the Big Boys too, since he was sleepy.
(Some times the Big Guys don't like him around since he is much given to unexpected enthusiastic pounces.)
That was yesterday.

So today I was in there opening babyfoods for Boe, talking babycat talk and making babyfud bottle top noises, and then there he was again, inside the room.
Hmmm...
Well Boe actually wants his tasty treats, and him's a shy type, so I pick up the crazy child and chuck him out the door.
Fair enough.
And turn around and he's there again.

Crazy boy has been squeezing through the bottom of the former heater.
(Disconnected, whew.)
Then coming out behind the wardrobe, and crawling under it to get
into the room.
With possible side trip to Narnia, for all I know.

Because he has to be where the people are.
Such a sweetie.

Luckily, it doesn't seem to work the other way.
He saw me look at him, and went all flat and rug-like on the floor, trying to get back under it, but didn't seem to be able to manage it.

Ten minutes later there is a scratching noise out in the hall.
Silmi is trying to figure out where Nikki Kitten went.
I have an image of all the cats ending up in the bedroom this way, like the Monty Python skit with the room full of mailmen and milkmen.

Mobile nativity scene seen in on the road in Mesa.

Awesome.

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Mrs Snowy had other plans for Friday night, so being the grovelling loving husband that I am, I concurred.

I worked in a semi-government department in a former life. I remember one occasion where my boss and I had a meeting with an engineer from the local council regarding changing the electricity tariff of a pumping station that only pumped at night. He said that the council was going to have to pump during the day, and could we verify that the current electricity tariff would be advantageous, or should they change to another tariff. We did our sums and verified that the existing tariff would be the best, even though they would be pumping during the more expensive daylight hours. And so it proved. Until it rained and the council only needed to pump at night again. Because of the foibles of the tariff, this incurred a quite substantial penalty charge. And the resultant hullabaloo was something to observe.

All sorts of “experts” came out of the woodwork with an opinion on who was right in the matter, each arguing from the perspective that advantaged them. One councillor appeared on TV and confidently declared that the council had been assured at the meeting with us that the penalty charge would not apply. Which was a lie. I know because I was there, and the penalty charge was never discussed, because our understanding was that the daytime pumping was to be permanent. Fortunately for the engineer, he had long departed for greener pastures, otherwise I imagine he would have been hung out to dry by the councillors who had acquired such wisdom in hindsight.

So what does this have to do with the current climate change fuss, you may ask. Well everything. I learnt from this exercise that the only people who truly knew what had happened at that meeting were the people who were there. I learnt that those who had a vested interest in a matter weren’t very interested in the truth, but were more interested in cherry picking various snippets of the facts that suited their argument, and ignoring those facts that didn’t.

So it is that climate change denialists are having a marvellous time with the so called “Climategate”. Information from emails obtained illegally is being trotted out as “evidence” that climate change is not occurring. This, on the eve of crucial climate change talks in Copenhagen.

So where does this leave those of us who don’t have the knowledge to make an informed opinion on the matter? We have to get our truth from those whom we trust to give an unbiased opinion. For myself, I trust the people who use the scientific method to arrive at a conclusion. I have to be guided by them because I don’t have the scientific knowledge to make an informed decision from the data. What is being challenged on the basis of the hacked emails is that the scientific method has not been followed. This despite the fact that others have arrived at the same conclusion using different data.

I’m prepared to give the climate change believers the benefit of any doubt. The denialists are fond of saying that they want to be convinced that man made climate change is real. I’m saying that it is up to the denialists to prove that it isn’t real, using their own results arrived at by following the scientific method, and accepted by the majority of the scientific community.

Because if the denialists are wrong, we on planet Earth are toast.  Literally. That’s not a gamble I want to take on my kid’s future.

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Note: To play video messages sent to email, QuickTime\xAE 6.5 or higher is required.

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