JUST SOME POSTS

I am sitting here in my humble abode listening to the rain that has been going on, with intermittent pauses, for hours. That is not all I am listening to. For the better part of an hour, a frog has been trying to set a record of some sort for the loudest sustained croaking. I just read that male frogs croak to announce to other males that this is their territory. They also croak to find a mate. Some frogs croak during the act of mating, depending on the species this croaking can be done by the male or female. So, this guy is either extraordinarily desperate for frog sex or having the best sex of his froggy life. Whichever it is, I hope it is all over soon!

This one has been rolling around in my brain for a while. I was on some online forum a bit ago and we were "discussing" energy, specifically the need and uses of energy to support our modern life. We got to a discussion of electric vehicles and the growth of solar and wind power. I realized with one comment that the person I was "talking" to really did not understand electric cars and power generation. He seemed to think changing all vehicles to all electric would solve all our problems. (FYI, I say "he" as the self-description was a 20-something male college student - I only "know" them from an exchange or two on the forum).  I explained that one problem with that is that electric cars to do not produce any power, they just consumer power. A battery does not produce energy, it stores and releases it. The power has to come from somewhere. I really don't think he had ever thought of that and after a brief exchange, he left the forum.  Batterie...

I am writing this on the morning of the 4th of July. As noted in the title, the 4th of July happens everywhere. What does not is Independence Day. The 4th of July is celebrated in the U.S. to mark the day the 13 colonies of North America declared their independence from Great Britain. But, why the 4th? It is at the top of the Declaration of Independence, the official document that was drawn up by Thomas Jefferson at the behest of the Continental Congress. However, there are a lot of other dates that we could (and maybe should?) celebrate or at least publicize. As you might imagine, I am going to do a bit of that for you now. By July 4th, 1776 the Colonies were already at war with Great Britain. (fyi, for simplicities sake, I am going to follow convention and just refer to Great Britain and her armies as "the British" in most cases) The first shots "officially" fired at British troops by Continental militia were at Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts on April 19th...