Day: December 13, 2022

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It’s one of those perfect icy mornings

There’s an effect that happens when it gets super cold here.

There’s no reason that it wouldn’t happen elsewhere and perhaps it wouldn’t even require super cold temps. It’s about 24° F at the moment. I’ve only seen this when it’s below 25° F.

This effect is where the snow looks like it has rainbow fairy dust sprinkled across it. I’ve tried to capture it photographically but my cameras always miss the nuance.

Scientifically, sunlight is refracting through tiny ice crystals. Since the crystals are at random alignments relative to the observer you get little sparkles of rainbow sitting on top of the snow. It’s beautiful, and I wish I could get a picture of it from my yard to post here. Knowing what causes it doesn’t make it any less beautiful to me.

Since all of my cameras are digital I suspect that the fact that it disappears in photographs may be due to the resolution of the sensors in the cameras. I’m almost tempted to go back to good old fashioned film just to see if I can capture the effect.

I just looked on the web to see if anyone else had been lucky enough to snap of photo of this. Alas, no. There were quite a few pictures of rainbows in snow/ice storms. But none of the rainbow laying on top of the snow.

There’s something magical about seeing a rainbow sparkling across the yard as the sun comes up. The effect itself lasts only a few minutes, you can extend it a bit by changing your angle in relationship to the snow. Getting higher or crouching down a bit will allow you to see the sparkling colors. I’ve spent too much time over the years improperly dressed, shivering, and feeling joy observing this magic of nature. 

If I was primitive, I’d say the rainbow was trapped by the snow and returned to the sky as it warmed up. Like all rainbows, there isn’t really an end, so unfortunately there’s no pot of gold to find. Leprechauns must be too clever to get caught in snow and ice.

Words don’t do it justice. Nonetheless, I’ve tried to share it verbally with you as a reminder, don’t be so busy this holiday season or any season that you miss wonderful things around you all the time.

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Poor Fauci

Victimhood doesn’t look good on Fauci.

I was reminded of this quote:

“A doctor can bury his mistakes, but an architect can only advise his clients to plant vines.” ― Frank Lloyd Wright

Fauci has been backpedaling a lot in recent months. Most recently, in an interview discussing the China lockdowns, his statement, “You use lockdowns to get people vaccinated so that when you open up, you won’t have a surge of infections, because you’re dealing with an immunologically naive population to the virus, because they’ve not really been exposed because of the lockdown.” Has been the subject of a lot of misrepresentation in the non-mainstream press.

(Hey there, I just became a fact checker.)

Yet in an interview earlier in the year Fauci claimed that he “didn’t recommend locking anything down” at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dr Deborah Brix’s book appears to confirm that Fauci wasn’t on board with the lockdowns but then changed his mind.

In more recent interviews Fauci has admitted understanding that extended lockdowns would have wide reaching collateral damage.

I get that at the beginning of COVID-19 there was a lot of data coming in and that as you get more data you are inevitably going to change your approach. What has annoyed me about Fauci is that he always seems to be mealymouthed and hedging his bets.

I admit that I’m biased. I don’t like the man. I don’t trust him, and I wouldn’t let him near me with any sharp objects. I need to be able to trust a Physician. Fauci makes me question his motivation.

The GOP swears “for real,” that they’re going to investigate him. I’m not holding my breath for any substantial outcome of that investigation. 

The White House is saying that Elon Musk changing his pronouns to “Prosecute Fauci” is inciting violence and places Fauci at risk. 

I don’t buy the White House line. In elder times, the villagers would be marching on Fauci’s house with torches and pitchforks, screaming burn the witch! People are not matching on Fauci’s house. Demanding investigations or prosecution is not inciting violence. 

Fauci has in fact buried a lot of his mistakes. Thousands of HIV positive men in fact. There are probably few who remember that it was him who opposed promising experimental treatments, then approved a series of experimental treatments he had direct interest in, whose expense was so burdensome that many people died in poverty or homeless because they had hope a cure would be found before their insurance and bank accounts gave out.

I think it may have taken an act of congress to force Fauci and the FDA to allow other experimental treatments that Fauci didn’t have control over. Fauci is not the hero of HIV research he’s reinvented himself to be.

But like most failed doctors, he was able to bury the majority of his mistakes. The dead have no voice, there are rarely accusations from the grave.

Again, I understand that in ongoing research data changes, and new information forces scientists to rethink their approach or abandon it entirely. This is no doubt true of HIV research too.