A Christmas Miracle

A sheriff's official says it was "a Christmas miracle" that searchers found and rescued members of a Pennsylvania family stranded in two separate locations in a northern Arizona forest after their vehicle got stuck on a snowy road while trying to reach the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, which is closed for winter.

Once a major winter storm began hitting the region Saturday afternoon, it probably would have been impossible to locate Karen Klein, who had gotten stranded with husband Eric Klein of Easton, Pennsylvania, and their 10-year-old son, Isaac, said Jim Driscoll, chief deputy for Coconino County.

"Our guys are ecstatic. This is a save," Driscoll said of the searchers. "We were able to get a family back together for Christmas. It could have gone very bad very, very easily."

The family got stuck on a forest road after they found State Route 67 to the North Rim closed for the winter but sought an alternate way to reach their destination, Driscoll said.

"Google Maps shows there's a way — but it's impassable," he said, adding. "This is a problem we've had numerous times."

Searchers on snowmobiles early Saturday morning tracked and located Karen Klein, 46, after she walked about 26 miles in search of help before taking refuge in a cabin at a seasonally closed park entrance, Driscoll said.

Other searchers rescued Eric and Isaac Klein Friday afternoon after the 47-year-old father was able to hike to higher ground to get cellphone service to call for help, Driscoll said.

That contact started an air and ground search for Karen Klein, with multiple agencies participating, Driscoll said.

"This is a Christmas miracle," Driscoll said. "We were really beginning to think, especially with the snow coming in ... we pulled out all the stops."

Via twitter. For more go here: https://apnews.com/7cd1dbb017fd4432a6615bdac8cfb507/Sheriff's-official:-Rescue-of-family-'a-Christmas-miracle'

Troll Causes Panic On Virgin America Flight By Naming Wi-Fi Hotspot ‘Galaxy Note 7’

It is all fun and games until somebody gets hurt, right? Luckily no one was injured during a Virgin America flight on Tuesday when the crew suspected one of the passengers of bringing a recalled Galaxy Note 7 on board the plane. There was no Galaxy Note 7 (our full review, pre-explosion events) handset to be found, only a wireless SSID (Service Set Identifier) indicating the presence of one, presumably as a prank gone wrong.

Back in October, the U.S. Department of Transportation banned Galaxy Note 7 devices from flights going into or flying out of the United States after multiple reports of the troubled handset overheating and catching on fire. That includes carry-on and checked baggage.

"We recognize that banning these phones from airlines will inconvenience some passengers, but the safety of all those aboard an aircraft must take priority," Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said at the time. "We are taking this additional step because even one fire incident inflight poses a high risk of severe personal injury and puts many lives at risk."
A passenger on board Virgin America flight 358 from San Francisco to Boston must have thought that airlines would not take the ban too seriously. Whatever his excuse, he exercised poor judgement when he decided to name the SSID on his device "Samsung Galaxy Note7_1097," which caught the attention of other passengers and the flight's crew.

For the rest of the story go here: http://hothardware.com/news/troll-causes-panic-virgin-america-flight-galaxy-note-7-wi-fi-ssid

"Kissinger, a longtime Putin confidant, sidles up to Trump"

"Back in the 1990s, Henry Kissinger, the legendary former U.S. secretary of state-turned-global consultant, encountered an intriguing young Russian and proceeded to ask him a litany of questions about his background.

As Putin climbed the ranks in the Kremlin, eventually becoming the autocratic president he is today, he and Kissinger kept up a warm rapport even as the United States and Russia grew further apart. Kissinger is one of the few Americans to meet frequently with Putin, one former U.S. ambassador recently recalled -- along with movie star Steven Seagal and ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, the likely next secretary of state."

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/trump-kissinger-russia-putin-232925

KLEM TV

linky

Gotham

I'm watching Gotham on Netflix, a prequel to Batman, a re-telling where we see familiar comic characters as children and as young adults. A girl living on the streets is named Cat and we expect her to develop eventually to Cat Woman, but presently she's a street-wise waif who seems to know the underground and rooftops, air vents and water ducts of the city. She steals small valuables and she appears at most all the key locations at the precise moment. Here she is a friend of Bruce Wayne.

The Penguin is a compelling character. He's lame and his associates call him Penguin for fun. He's both obsequious and murderous and a natty dresser besides but with deplorable Goth hair that streaks across his face and always appears to be wet. He's subject to a lot of abuse and dishes it out with a pathologic mean streak, a madness, a combination of extreme masochism and sadism. He switches loyalty several times and has too many close calls with death to be plausible. It's a comic book, after all. His aquiline nose is made up to be purple when cold and wet and abused. He is a plausible penguin, a real man with penguin-like aspects.

The movie has a ridiculous amount of violence, but the thing that gets me about this series is its richness in its settings, it's convincing, the producers do a fine job, and the range of expensive interior design and contrived location, ranging from interiors of great wealth, and imaginative  public spaces, art museum, police station, clubs and bars, expensive apartments, contrasted with fine depictions of the grime of the streets. The costumes are amazing. The imagination never stops. A black woman named Fish is seen in an outrageously imaginative ensemble each scene she appears, and she appears a lot. She is a key character. She too has multiple lives. She actually dies and is brought back to life by another sinister character. Gordon's first girlfriend is wealthy and the interior of her apartment is impressively designed. Beautifully furnished and imaginatively appointed with art. And what is interior design if not a movie set? This same character later shows up with Gordon's enemies wearing a wedding dress that she resented never wearing for a real wedding with Gordon and I must say I've never seen such a beautiful dress. It's perfect. It really is stunning. Penguin's wardrobe is amazing throughout.

But the thing that kills me is miniature models of Gotham that they tease here and there usually only once sometimes twice per episode, each time a different time of day or night and a different section of the city. They're astounding. On the screen they all have a certain tilt-shift quality but without the out-of-focus edges to them. They are the most outstanding models I've seen. The buildings have realistic multiple colors as real building do, age and city grime in the daytime, layers of additional pipes, fire escapes, water towers, air conditioning, wires, and so forth, atmosphere, fog rolling through, vapor flowing out of pipes, while nighttime buildings are lit and glittering extravagantly. One of the elements that arrested my attention is the gorgeous weather occurring in the background. You only get a few seconds of the overview of the city before being taken down to street level and into the action. The combination of matt and model in each of these vignettes is astounding.

What follows is a near portfolio of photos taken of the television screen. It's edited severely with more left out than included. I'm certain I missed some of the best ones. This had to do for a sampling.

KLEM FM

Overheard at Lem's:

William said...

As an adult I've always liked the Pogues, Fairytale of New York..... Gene Autry's version of Rudolph is the first Christmas song I can remember hearing, and as such it holds a special place....... Bing Crosby's White Christmas is the quintessential Christmas Song. That was the song the soldiers listened to during WWII. It was the background music for a lot of poignant Christmas celebrations. It's got echoes and nostalgia, and that's the biggest part of a successful Christmas song. 

December 16, 2016 at 12:56 PM

linky

The song isn't so much a Christmas song as a song set at Christmas. Shane MacGowan sang a duet with Kirsty MacColl. She was the daughter of Ewan MacColl, an English folksinger who wrote "Dirty Old Town" which was another Pogues classic.

I was just now reading about Kirsty MacColl's horrific death at her Wiki page. She was diving with her son in Mexico. When they surfaced, an errant power boat bore down on them. She saved her son by pushing him out of the way by mere inches. She was hit directly and killed. That in turn reminded me of a childhood story. My mother's elderly grandfather and his wife were crossing a railroad trestle bridge when they were caught mid-river by a train. He pushed his wife off the bridge at the last minute but he was hit and thrown high into the air. She survived. He did not. 

Six new mysterious blasts of radio energy are detected from deep space

It may be three billion light-years away from Earth, but this distant constellation could be trying to contact us.

Six bursts of radio waves have been detected from the constellation Auriga, each lasting just a few milliseconds.

While the source of the waves remains unknown, some suggest they mysterious bursts of energy could be a sign of alien life trying to contact us.

Ps. Are we going to need a bigger wall?

Via Drudge: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4061990/Are-aliens-trying-contact-Earth-Six-new-mysterious-blasts-radio-energy-detected-deep-space.html

"Hillary Clinton and Huma Abedin are pictured together for the first time since losing election, after a five-hour meeting at the failed candidate's New York office"

"Hillary Clinton and top aide Huma Abedin spent five hours together inside the former presidential candidate's Manhattan office on Thursday

The pair chatted and Abedin smiled as they walked out of Clinton's office after spending five hours together

Abedin and an unidentified woman walked Clinton to a waiting vehicle and sent her on her way with a box of documents

The sighting marks the first time Clinton and Abedin have been pictured together since Clinton's conceded the presidential election to Donald Trump

Suggests that rumblings among some in Clinton's circle against Abedin are being ignored by the former Secretary of State 

Abedin and pervert estranged husband Anthony Weiner are understood to still be sharing an apartment despite him being probed by FBI for underage sexts" 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4059868/Hillary-Clinton-Huma-Abedin-pictured-time-losing-election-five-hour-meeting-failed-candidate-s-New-York-office.html

Amazon Reviewers Are Trolling Ivanka Trump

Linkage

As Spinelli might say, they are going full Inga.  Never go full Inga.

A family is suing to get daughter to play in the boys basketball team.

 As a sixth-grader last year, Sydney Phillips earned a spot on the girls basketball team at St. Theresa's School in Kenilworth. By the end of the season, she was picked as an all-star player.

This year, however, Phillips learned in October that St. Theresa's was dropping the team because not enough girls were interested. Phillips and her parents quickly approached the school, seeking some options and finally requesting their daughter be allowed to play on the boys team.

After meeting with several school officials, without success, Sydney's father, Scott Phillips, decided to take it to another step. He filed a suit against the school and the Archdiocese of Newark seeking that they be required to allow his daughter to play on the seventh-grade boys team.

"I'm not looking for money. I just want her to play basketball," Scott Phillips said...

In the lawsuit, Phillips says the school and the archdiocese do not have a specific rule prohibiting Sydney from playing on the boys team.

St. Theresa's, in the legal brief responding to the lawsuit, states Sydney Phillips' application to play on the boys team was filed late, a claim Scott Phillips says is not true.

Sydney has attended St. Theresa's since pre-school. She is the student council treasurer and an altar server, the lawsuit states.

Via Drudge: http://www.nj.com/union/index.ssf/2016/12/girl_sueing_school_to_join_boys_basketball_team_af.html#incart_2box_nj-homepage-featured

Villager in China uses grenade to crack open walnuts for 25 years

BEIJING - A hand grenade was used to crack walnuts for 25 years by a villager in China who had no idea what he was using until he saw a photo of a grenade on a leaflet handed out by local police.

The man from Ankang, in China's Shaanxi province, saw that his walnut cracker looked similar to a grenade pictured on a leaflet warning about forbidden explosives, according to Huanqiu.com. 

According to villagers, the man used the grenade specifically to crack open the nuts.

People have been commenting on social media site Weibo about the man's lucky escape. 

One user wrote: "Why would a friend gift him a bomb?"

Another said: "It's more stable than a Samsung phone."

Via Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/nottheonion/comments/5jwv6l/villager_in_china_uses_grenade_to_crack_open/?st=IX210CGK&sh=8eb3b031

connect the dots

Random.

Must there be a reason for everything? 

KLEM FM

linkage

If you like chemistry (and science in general), please check out a post over on my blog called "The Chemical History Of A Candle." I put it over there because I have several posts about Michael Faraday already and I wanted to keep them together as a family.

Whose that Mom?

Just about ready to pop a present for Christmas this former athlete was also married to a champion. Know for taking on five at a time. She was at the top of her game but is retired and living a happy life as a wife and Mom.

Whose that Mom?