weather warnings and more

As my split second attention span moves into storm chasing (shameless plug: http://www.ruminationsofthunder.com/ ) I'll leave the more important things to the professionals.

http://www.zombiewarning.com/

The Saga of Biorn

I love this.  In its honor, I will talk like a viking the rest of the week.  By Odin's Beard, watch it!!!

Story
Biôrn, an old Viking, is determined to reach Valhalla, the warrior's afterlife full of excessive drinking and debauchery. To gain entry he has to die honorably in battle, but he discovers that the right death isn't so easy.

Credits
A film by: Benjamin J. Kousholt, Daniel D. Christensen, Mads Lundgaard Christensen, Jesper A. Jensen, Jonas K. Doctor, Steffen Lyhne, Pernille Ørum-Nielsen, Frederik Bjerre-Poulsen, Jonas Georgakakis

The Fall of the Empire

Tradition and some historical accounts contend that Roman Emperor Nero fiddled while Rome burned.

Photograph by Bettman/Corbis

http://doublejack.me/post/3353733784/the-republican-strategy

I want to stay out of politics.  I hate politics.  On the other side of it, I quit a good paying job to finish school to become a teacher.  Now, I can feel that dream going south by the hands of some newly elected officials.



I read a paper about the fall of Skywalker, and there was a quote from Plato:

Plato: Totalitarian or Democrat? describes Plato's distress at the inability of those he backed during the aristocratic revolution to fix the problems of the democratic regime: "Up till now he had assumed that everything could be put right only if the gentlemen gained control.  Now he realized that 'gentlemen' could behave worse than the demagogues of the proletariat."7  Plato himself, in letters written long after the fact laments, "I thought the new regime would substitute the reign of justice for the reign of injustice…And I saw these gentlemen within a very short time make the democracy they had destroyed seem like a golden age!"

http://www.sagajournal.com/apsystemworks.html

Public servants typically don't make much money, there pension is a joke.  Teacher's don't make money, in the private sector, they could easily double or triple their income, but they do something they love.  Stop the government from making a failed education system that much worse by cutting teacher's pay, wiping out pension, and cramming as many students as they can into one teachers classroom.  This isn't the way to work out of an economic depression, this is the way you make the empire fall.

quote

"We are fascinated by the darkness in ourselves, we are fascinated by the shadow, we are fascinated by the boogeyman."
Anthony Hopkins

Reykjavik, Iceland is warmer than I am right now.

It dropped to -16 (that's degrees Fahrenheit, Kyle) after a foot of snow fell the last couple of days. 

Paxatony Phil can kiss my powdered donut, I think this is the beginning of Fimbulvinter.  Three successive hard winters that prelude the end of the world.  They say it will snow in all directions (I watched it snowing up in the white out conditions Tuesday), although it's supposed to be spring in another month and this is supposed to last three straight years. 

Not to yell, but the eternal night of Reykjavik, Iceland had 41 degrees F this morn with a light gentle rain.  The local radio stations are throwing boiling water outside to see if it explodes, just like the Artic Circle.

So fellow writers and readers, before you turn into a Jackcicle, here are the steps of hypothermia.

1. You start shivering (that means that your body is trying to warm itself up).

2. Your heart rate gets faster and your breathing is much faster than usual.

3. Your hands and feet turn white and cold (your body takes blood away from your finger and toes and uses it to keep the heart and other organs warmer).

4. You start to act confused.

5. Your lips or skin start to turn a blue color (that means that the hypothermia is getting worse).

6. Some people with hypothermia feel hot and start taking off their coats.

Then it happens, here is some info about what happens from http://outsideonline.com/outside/magazine/0197/9701fefreez.html

There is no precise core temperature at which the human body perishes from cold. At Dachau's cold-water immersion baths, Nazi doctors calculated death to arrive at around 77 degrees Fahrenheit. The lowest recorded core temperature in a surviving adult is 60.8 degrees. For a child it's lower: In 1994, a two-year-old girl in Saskatchewan wandered out of her house into a minus-40 night. She was found near her doorstep the next morning, limbs frozen solid, her core temperature 57 degrees. She lived.

The article also goes on with a fictional account of what happens.

Wikipedia also has some interesting facts:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothermia

In the final stages of hypothermia, the brain stem produces a burrowing-like behavior. Similar to hibernation behavior in animals, individuals with severe hypothermia are often found in small, enclosed spaces, such as under the bed or behind wardrobes.

Stay warm.  Winter may still be continuing.

For more weather information, check out my other blog:
www.ruminationsofthunder.blogspot.com

Today's happy thought

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