Merry Christmas
musing minds
A Date Which Will Live in Infamy
Early on a beautiful Sunday morning 78 years ago, the world changed.
At 7:55 a.m local. December 7, 1941 the attack begins.
Pearl Harbor Attack
The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor to remove what it saw as a threat to the empire’s southern expansion. The Pearl Harbor attack hurt us badly, but it also hardened our resolve and brought us fully into WWII.
Snopes has some photos that were purported to be found in an old Brownie camera years after the attack. The story was untrue, but the photos are archival and genuine.
The U.S. Navy has a Pearl Harbor site with more photos.
Chris at A Large Regular has linked to this National Geographic Pearl Harbor site in the past. It has a multimedia timeline, survivor stories, a kid’s section, and more.
Veterans’ Day 2020
Armistice Day, Veterans’ Day, Remembrance Day
The 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month…
In Flanders Fields
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe;
To you, from failing hands, we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
Written by Lt-Colonel John McRae (1915)
Journalists and Fact-checking
Earlier today there was a press conference in Las Vegas regarding one or more lawsuits to be filed regarding dead people voting, people who don’t live in Clark County voting in Clark County, and they had an older woman with them who said that when she went to vote she and her roommate were told that they had already voted. She said someone had taken their mail-in ballots and used them. Nevada mailed ballots to everyone whether they asked for one, or not.
After the press conference, David Asman on Fox News was commenting that they were making a lot of allegations but providing no proof at the press conference and that they should have to the journalists. That giving the journalists the proof was necessary. That the journalists were the fact-checkers.
Yes, David. Journalists are fact-checkers. Journalists should go and check the facts as given to them. Not just demand proof at a press conference — which doesn’t seem to happen at all press conferences — but go and independently check the facts as given.
Go and find out if there are instances of the “dead” voting. Go and find out if people who no longer reside in Clark County are recorded as having voted in Clark County. Go and find out if people were turned away at the polls as having already voted when they hadn’t.
THAT is fact-checking, not just getting something from the people who are holding the press conference.
Election Day 2020
It’s Time To “Fall Back” Again
We really do need to get rid of Daylight Saving Time. OR keep it. Just stop switching the times up already.
Arizona doesn’t do it. Puerto Rico doesn’t do it. Hawaii doesn’t do it. They all stick with Standard Time all year long. So should the rest of the country.
Never Forget
The complete list of 2996.
Paul Pansini:
From a profile published in the New York Times on 8/11/2002
Paul Pansini
World Trade Center
His Presence Is Everywhere
Paul Pansini
Paul Pansini loved the excitement of being a firefighter in downtown Manhattan, but his days off meant a great deal, too. Firefighter Pansini, 36, took his son, Paul Jack, now 7, and his twin daughters, Anna and Claire, now 3, everywhere when he was not working. “He was brave enough to even take them to the store,” his wife, Janice, recalled.
Since Sept. 11, the family has, in turn, felt his presence everywhere. “I feel him definitely in my house,” Mrs. Pansini said. The family lives in his childhood home in Tottenville in Staten Island. When they moved there in November 1994, the couple almost tore the century-old house down.
Now she is glad they did not. In Tottenville, they are surrounded by family members who keep his presence strong, including his sister, Loretta Halpert.
Lake George was Firefighter Pansini’s favorite spot in the world. This summer, as Mrs. Pansini packed for their annual vacation to the lake, Claire asked if they were going to meet Daddy there. “I’m blown away by how much they remember him,” Mrs. Pansini said. “I don’t think he knew how much he meant to so many people. He was a very comical person. The love of my life. People keep coming up to me and saying, `I miss him so much.’ ”
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Our thoughts and prayers go out every day to Paul’s friends, family, and coworkers at Ten House. Six men were lost that day from that Firehouse.
Click either picture to embiggen.
New Fridge Install
We got the new fridge but weren’t able to install it right away because it wouldn’t fit through the doorway into the kitchen from the family room. It was just a titch too wide.
So we had the delivery guys take it to the basement and we took the doorway casing off the weekend after the delivery and we were able to bring the fridge up and bring it through into the kitchen!
The basement has a big double door at ground level and there is a paved walkway all the way around from the driveway and then a paved walkway to the front door, which is also a big double door, so there were only the two steps at the front door to deal with.
crossposted from At Sadie’s House
New Fridge 2
The new fridge is finally coming today and we took out the cabinet above the old fridge last weekend in preparation. The new fridge is taller and would come up above the bottom of the doors of the cabinet that was there (you can see it in the photos in the previous post). At some point in the future, we’ll be replacing the cabinets completely and we’ll take out the soffit too.
Edit: Well, the new fridge came today but the opening between the family room and the kitchen is too narrow for the new fridge. SO… we have to remove the casing around the opening this weekend to be able to move the fridge from the basement where it is currently residing in its box to its rightful place in the kitchen.
New Fridge
This is a photo from the album that the original owners left us. It’s the fridge they installed when they built the house in 1987. You can see the trash compactor and the dishwasher as well.
This is a photo I took recently. Same fridge, same trash compactor. Different flooring, different wallpaper. Old Bessie here is still plugging away, but she’s on her last legs. Her compressor makes a lot of noise and she’ll spit out an ice crescent now and then. Right onto the floor. Without being asked for one.
I saw this baby before we’d even seen the houses we had picked out to look at in Tennessee. We knew the houses we wanted to look at but didn’t know if any of them would even turn out to be what we really wanted.
We’d had top freezer models and bottom-freezer models and our last fridge was a dutch door fridge with a bottom-freezer drawer by LG. It worked, but I didn’t like the drawer very much (I didn’t like it with the previous fridge either and that one had one door on top.) We used our upright freezer more than the drawer in the fridge/freezer combo.
Now with this side-by-side. I hate it. I don’t want one ever again. I love the dutch door top. I love the water and ice in the door. That was one of the reasons we changed from the first bottom-freezer fridge we had to the LG dutch door (it had water and ice in the door), the other reason was the old fridge was freezing the lettuce in the vegetable bin and it was freezing things at the back of the fridge above the vegetable bin.
This new fridge doesn’t have the drawer freezer and it does have a flex side so if I need more room for fridge stuff I can use the lower right for it. But I can also use it as a freezer space if I need it. Since I have an upright freezer using only half the freezer space can be just fine.
I’ve done a lot of research looking at the fridges with two drawers and some of the newer side-by-sides, but this style is the one that is going to work for us.
This new fridge is taller and we’ll have to remove the cabinet above the fridge for it to fit. More pictures once it’s in.
Cross -posted from At Sadie’s House
