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STICKY POST

Time for a word game...

At some point in time, my blog post on global economic collapse morphed into a word game. Since at least some people here enjoy that, I thought I'd move the game into my sticky post. Rules are very loose: take what the last person said, and use rhymes, homonyms, word transpositions, puns, spoonerisms, etc., to turn it into something else. Including an image is nice, but not required. If you don't know how to insert an image into your comment, I explain that here. Go to the last comment to play. Have fun, but keep it clean please.

Visit to Rural, Northwestern Pennsylvania

Northwestern Pennsylvania is where I grew up. I left the state at age 19 for California, and I haven't lived in Pennsylvania since then. Although I maintained close ties with my immediate family in Pennsylvania, the considerable distance between myself and my childhood home made it difficult for me to develop and maintain a close relationship with my extended family.


My cousin, Deanna

I now live in Ohio which is just West of Pennsylvania. When my brother died this past spring, my cousin Deanna was a great help to me. Among other things, she put me up a number of times when I came to the area for my brother's funeral and to deal with his estate. Deanna is about 70 years old now.

Her husband had a twin sister. He was named Wayne after my dad, and his twin sister was named Dorothy after my mom. Sadly her husband has Alzheimer's now, so he lives in a nursing home. My cousin Deanna visits him almost every day, and spends many hours with him each visit. She even brings weights along with her to assist him with his physical therapy.

At any rate since then we have been corresponding, and we are trying to stay in better touch. To that end, my daughter (Dee) and I drove there for a visit this week. It's about a three and half hour drive from my home. While there we also visited with my nephews, took in an alpaca farm, and had pie in a diner that was decorated with taxidermal displays.

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The politics of flyover country

I have lived most of my life in what's known as flyover country. It's called this because most residents of our coastal cities have never visited this part of America themselves. They have merely flown over it on their way to the other coast.

Some of the visitors to my blog are from other countries. I would assume that many of these people believe they have gleaned some understanding of American culture from watching movies and/or television shows that were produced in America. The catch is that our film exports almost exclusively represent the experiences, values and viewpoints of people living on our coasts (the West Coast and the Northeast Coast). When Hollywood does set a storyline in flyover country, the characters living there tend to either be portrayed in a negative light, or if relatively positive, they are portrayed as being "quirky".

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Albino squirrel at Inniswoods

Just a couple weeks ago I was reading Adele's post on the Rain-Ghost, where she featured several gorgeous photos of an albino squirrel. I had never seen one before, and I really enjoyed her photos.

Then my daughter and I were walking yesterday in Inniswood Metro Garden when a flash of white caught my daughter's eye. It was an albino squirrel! I couldn't believe I was getting to see one with my own eyes. It was nearly sunset at the time and already starting to get dark. But here are a couple photos anyways.

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Man-made Global Warming and the CRU Scandal

I decided to add this parody video to the post. It's about researchers discussing how they can "hide the decline" of global temperatures in the disclosed CRU emails. It features Prof. Mann from Penn State University, an American researcher working closely with the CRU, who has already gained fame for the fake hockey stick chart he developed earlier.



Amusingly this video was produced by "Minnesotans for Global Warming".

What follows is my original post.

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