Flaming telephone pole, Part II

The day after the pole put on its great light show, the telephone company shows up, with a brand new pole on a little dolly hitched behind the truck. The truck[s] have all been repainted to show "Fairpoint" on the doors, rather than the older "Verizon". The telephone guys started out looking like they were planning a pole change, which would put our lights out for another day. What fun. Fortunately, they thought better of it, and decided to do what the electric guys did, namely live with a short pole and just move all their stuff down a little lower. A couple of hours swinging in the air from the cherry picker, on a very cold day, and off they went.

Gaza exit strategy

There are only two exit strategies for a war, victory or defeat. Maybe the best long run strategy for Gaza is to allow the war to continue until there is a victory for one side and defeat for the other? Imposed ceasefires don't solve anything, they just postpone it to another day.

Only blockbusters need apply

The publishing industry is pursuing the big block buster book deals, offering authors six figure advances, and doing massive publicity campaigns to sell the expensively advanced book. Result?
Fewer books published. As a book buyer this is an unpleasant trend, reducing the number of new books in the stores, and limiting them to "mainstream" fiction. Many readers don't like mainstream fiction, they perfer genre fiction or history or biography. It also chokes off the supply of new writers. Few agents or publishers will talk to a first time author attempting to publish his/her first book. That trend goes way back. Best selling author Tom Clancy finally got his "Hunt for Red October" into print via the Naval Institute Press, after the ordinary publishers turned him down repeatedly. If the publishers won't publish first time authors, eventually their stable of published authors retire or die, and then what's to print?
Could this concentration on block busters be responsible for the overall slow down of book sales? Something like this happened to the CD business. The suits running the music business have failed to find new singers, and CD sales have been falling for years now.

Hamas calls down the airstrikes

The Israeli Air Force is running out of targets in Gaza. Not surprising, there is little worth the cost of a bomb in Gaza. According to Fox, the Israeli Army is about to cross into Gaza and kick some ass and take some casualties. And Hamas is still launches rockets into Israel.
The Israeli's would gladly call the whole thing off, if only Hamas would stop launch rockets into Israel. Hamas apparently doesn't care, they are still launching. If they are that stupid, let the Israeli's bomb them back to the stone age.

Ninja Mortgage

Today's Wall St Journal has a front page story "Would you pay $103,000 for this Arizona fixer-upper?" The photo shows a worthless shack, hardly big enough to house a German Shepherd. The story goes one to explain how a sleazy mortgage lender did a $103,000 mortgage with a divorced woman with drug and alcohol problems and no job, and then sold that mortgage to bigger suckers on Wall St. For for list price.

Why does Hamas want Israel to bomb Gaza?

Hamas has been firing rockets into Israel. Granted the rockets are home made and not very powerful, but still, bombarding your neighbor has always been an act of war. The Israelis put up with the bombardment for a few days while asking Hamas to cease and desist. They don't, and the Israelis call in their air force to do a little bombing to send Hamas a message.
Hamas has got to know that firing rockets into Israel is always going to provoke Israeli retaliation. That means that Hamas wants Israel to bomb them. But why? Surely the Gaza strip population is as radicalized as they are ever going to get, they don't need another sirstrike to get them psyched up. Unless Hamas is stuck on stupid (really stuck hard) they know Gaza can't beat Israel in any kind of fight. The Israelis out number them and the Israeli population is highly educated, highly motivated, well organized and well armed. Picking a fight with Israel means certain defeat for Gaza and Hamas.
Can Hamas be stupid enough to think that Israeli airstrikes will get other Arab countries, Eygpt, Saudi, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Jordan to come to their aid? Or the Europeans? Do they crave expressions of international sympathy enough to take casualties? Do they think the incoming Obama administration, already up to its ass in alligators, is going to take their side?
So what is really going on?

Flash, Bang, Zap, and the lights go out

Was just sitting at my desk this morning minding my own business when Flash and Bang get my attention. Loud and bright. I look out the window and see the power pole on the road burst into flames. Followed by more flashing and banging. This pole is serious. I dial 911. Franconia Police are first on the scene with Franconia Fire Dept a minute or two later. Pole is still burning, and gives a tremendous flash and another big bang to welcome the firemen. More smoke. Since the juice is still on (my lights are burning even though my service entrance comes off the burning pole) everyone decides to wait for the power company (PSNH) to show up and turn off the power.
PSNH finally shows up after an hour. Pole is still burning on top. They get the juice off, and for extra safety the linemen connect a shorting cable across all three hot wires, before they take the cherry picker up. The linemen borrow a fire extinquisher from the firemen and put the pole fire out. By this time it has burned the pole halfway in two, below the top set of cross arms.
They don't have a replacement pole, that's handled by Fairpoint Communications (the telephone company). So, since the pole is only burned at the top, they decide to just lower all the crossarms below the burned spot. Cause of fire, one of the hot wires came loose from the insulator and touched the pole and arced to ground.
Four hours later we get the juice back on. That does put some life into a Monday.