Writer's Block: Pet talk

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Food bowl is empty! FEED US!

RTBTCKI The Home Alone Edition

First my thoughts and prayers are with the miners and their families down in West Virginia. The more I hear about this tragedy the angrier I get because it need not have happened. The coal companies scare the miners with the threat of closing down the mine because they can’t profit from it so the miners are going to lose their jobs and then what? So things get ignored until life is lost and we do the whole “how could they” dance again. There are ways of making these mines safe but it costs money to do so and cuts into profits or makes the mine, temporarily, unprofitable until they can recoup the costs for the equipment. But isn’t a human life worth more than a few more dollars on the bottom line?

Now artists and photographers are starting a class action lawsuit against Google over the scanning of books. I think this might be the time to let this idea go off and lay in a ditch for a bit. Honestly I don’t see the upside to this idea considering how much it has going against it. I think this is turning into one of those “seemed like a good idea at the time” things.

And then there was the ruling by a federal appeals court about the powers of the FCC and the Internet. Sorry FCC, the horse is out of the barn and long gone on that one. It is interesting to see governments retrofit laws and try to regulate the Internet within their borders only to find out how global the World Wide Web really is. Comcast was slowing down the web for those using bit torrent because it was clogging up their bandwidth something fierce. The implications for users kind of suck but I do understand why the ruling went that way.(And there goes my Internet connection as I type this, so who knows when this is going to get posted. Later: It was the lines crew trying to sort out a short in the line so they turned it off and back on. Quite an adventure getting the Internet back.)

The house is very quiet. The cats have found various sunny areas to stretch out in and they are very happy. Peter is off on business. Caroline is off at school so it is just me and the cats. I think I might take some “me” time and do something I want to do before diving into those tasks I have to do. Caroline and I might go off on a short trip this afternoon to the comic book shop and a fabric store on the North Shore.

But first a couple of errands and lunch at my favorite place to have lunch at.

I am grateful for companies that follow up on problems.