September 15, 2017

Bucket news.

1. "An 'improvised explosive device' was detonated on a Tube train in south-west London during Friday's rush hour, Scotland Yard has confirmed... Eighteeen people have been taken to hospital mostly with burn injuries.... Pictures show a white bucket on fire inside a supermarket bag, with wires trailing on to the carriage floor" (BBC).

2. "A Norfolk school that advised teachers to provide buckets for pupils to vomit in during lessons has backtracked, telling parents that 'genuinely unwell' children will receive proper treatment... The bucket guidance surfaced in a document given to teachers at the start of the year at Great Yarmouth Charter academy.... 'We all know children say things like that to get out of work. You never pretend to be ill to get out of work because we expect you to work through it. If you feel sick we will give you a bucket. If you vomit – no problem! You’ve got your bucket. That’s probably all your body wanted – to vomit. If you are really ill we will make sure you get all the attention you need,' the document said'" (The Guardian).

3. "If Roald Dahl had his way, his eponymous 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' hero would have been black, the author's widow revealed. Liccy Dahl said that when her husband first wrote the golden ticket-hunting character of Charlie Bucket in the 1960s, 'he wrote about a little black boy.' 'I don't know why (it was changed). It's a great pity,' Dahl told BBC Radio 4 Wednesday" (NY Daily News).

4. "Prince Harry watched on as school children got soaked during a visit to a conservation project that aims to teach youngsters to value the countryside.... An instructor threw a bucket of water over one shelter as children sat inside it to test whether it was waterproof, and there were shrieks and giggles from the children as water poured through a hole in the roof and drenched them. As children clambered out of the den Harry shook the instructor’s hand and said 'that’s cruel!' One of the children quipped 'we survived'" (Daily Mail).

5. "An ex-fugitive builder who held a complaining labourer in position as his compatriot colleague chopped his ear with a trowel was sued on Thursday.... 'I was working at the ground floor. The colleague was carrying a bucket full of cement from the upper floor. Some of the cement was falling from the bucket onto me. I begged him to carry the bucket with care and walk down slowly. He refused to listen to me. He went up and returned with the builder who immediately seized me. He hit my face with a trowel...'" (The Gulf Today).

6. "[Hillary] Clinton has little doubt that Assange was working with the Russians. 'I think he is part nihilist, part anarchist, part exhibitionist, part opportunist, who is either actually on the payroll of the Kremlin or in some way supporting their propaganda objectives, because of his resentment toward the United States, toward Europe,' she said. 'He’s like a lot of the voices that we’re hearing now, which are expressing appreciation for the macho authoritarianism of a Putin. And they claim to be acting in furtherance of transparency, except they never go after the Kremlin or people on that side of the political ledger.' She said she put Assange and Edward Snowden, who leaked extensive details of N.S.A. surveillance programs, 'in the same bucket—they both end up serving the strategic goals of Putin.' She said that, despite Snowden’s insistence that he remains an independent actor, it was 'no accident he ended up in Moscow'" (The New Yorker).

7."Two Nova Scotians have been charged criminally in unrelated horrific animal death cases — a man who allegedly drowned a litter of kittens in a bucket, and a woman who allegedly left a dog to die in an abandoned car.... 'It's what we refer to as breathlessness — so when an animal is drowned, it's basically the worst sensation you can ever come across is you know you're about to die,' [said Jo-Anne Landsburg, chief provincial inspector for the Nova Scotia SPCA]" (Guelph Today).

8. "How This Woman Retired at Age 32 — and Says You Can Too.... After graduating from the University of Chicago's law school, [Anita Dhake] decided she would work hard until she paid off her debt and saved enough to retire as soon as possible. She did the math, and that meant quitting once she had saved 25 years' worth of living expenses, which she would keep relatively low. She wouldn't have a fancy car or house, but would make up for it with the personal freedom and energy to check off her personal bucket list" (Popsugar).

44 comments:

Danno said...

I didn't kick the bucket, yet.

Ann Althouse said...

Interesting that Hillary put Assange and Snowden "in the same bucket." I guess she learned her lesson not to say that she was putting people in the same basket. Safer to use buckets. Especially with people who leak.

Danno said...

Too funny, Ann. I am hoping Hillary goes away or kicks the bucket.

D 2 said...

After the two hurricanes, I was anticipating by the end of the list, you'd have a quote about buckets of rain and then off to Dylan we go......

rehajm said...

..and how are we today Mr. Creozote?

Mark O said...

Ann's Bucket List.

Bad Lieutenant said...

So chickie baby is 32, she's not going to work anymore, and she's got enough money to live cheap until she's 57. What is she going to do when she's 57, has no money, no social security to speak of, and no work history to get a job at 57? Laslo can explain why she will be too old to prostitute herself successfully.

Darrell said...

Fuck it.

MathMom said...

You forgot, or perhaps didn't know, about flood buckets, which are needed in large quantities by people in the Houston area to help them clean up their houses after the floods of Hurricane Harvey.

David Begley said...

Number 1. Radical Islam will never stop its attacks. This London attack is nothing. Much worse every day in other parts of the world. See the website called Religion of Peace. A total of 197 killed in one week.

MayBee said...

Interesting that Chelsea Manning fell right out of the bucket and into Harvard.

Robert Cook said...

"[Hillary] Clinton has little doubt that Assange was working with the Russians. 'I think he is part nihilist, part anarchist, part exhibitionist, part opportunist, who is either actually on the payroll of the Kremlin or in some way supporting their propaganda objectives, because of his resentment toward the United States, toward Europe,' she said. 'He’s like a lot of the voices that we’re hearing now, which are expressing appreciation for the macho authoritarianism of a Putin. And they claim to be acting in furtherance of transparency, except they never go after the Kremlin or people on that side of the political ledger.' She said she put Assange and Edward Snowden, who leaked extensive details of N.S.A. surveillance programs, 'in the same bucket—they both end up serving the strategic goals of Putin.' She said that, despite Snowden’s insistence that he remains an independent actor, it was 'no accident he ended up in Moscow'" (The New Yorker).

Complete nonsense. Not only does she make the assertions without providing necessary evidence, she doesn't even explain how Assange and Snowden serve Putin's strategic goals, (or explain what those goals are or how she knows them).

Laslo Spatula said...

Speaking of buckets...

Mr. Creosote - Monty Python's The Meaning of Life

I am Laslo.

Tank said...

If you are interested in retiring early, take a look at Mr. Money Mustache's Blog. He lays it all out there.

Biotrekker said...

Whatever you think of Julian Assange as a person, or his activities, he has not, to my knowledge, ever put out FALSE information. Therefore, when he states, categorically, that "the Russians" did not "hack" the DNC or give hime the documents, why shouldn't I believe him vs. Hillary or the CIA , who we know have repeatedly lied?

Known Unknown said...

That's a lot of free/down time without any extra cashflow coming in.

My theory is she will get bored with a financially-tight 'retirement' and go back to work.

Kassaar said...

Eight paragraphs about buckets seems a bit beyond the pale.

David Begley said...

In a tweet, Trump called the terrorist a loser. May and Khan should say the same thing.

tcrosse said...

That's 'Bouquet'

Laslo Spatula said...

'Bucket' are an essential option to be used in Nantucket limericks.

There once was a man from Nantucket

"The earliest published version appeared in 1902 in the Princeton Tiger written by Prof. Dayton Voorhees"

"There once was a man from Nantucket
Who kept all his cash in a bucket.
    But his daughter, named Nan,
    Ran away with a man
And as for the bucket, Nantucket."

I am Laslo.

Robert Cook said...

That's 'Bouquet'

Nice reference to "Keeping Up Appearances."

Henry said...

I lived in the Bucket. That's my bucket list.

Pawtucket, Rhode Island.

Ray - SoCal said...

What would happen if Trump pardoned Snowden and Assange?

Robert Cook said...

"What would happen if Trump pardoned Snowden and Assange?"

Justice will have been done.

Lyle Smith said...

#8 is a money boss. Good for her!

Fernandinande said...

Bad Lieutenant said...
What is she going to do when she's 57, has no money, no social security to speak of, and no work history to get a job at 57?


You didn't read the article - that's shocking.

She invests the money and has more money than when she quit working.

mockturtle said...

That's 'Bouquet'

Beat me to it, tcrosse.

Bruce Hayden said...

@Cook - agreed in regards to Clinton.

What must be remembered is that it was Guccifer 2.0 who tied Russia to the DNC leaked/hacked emails. This was specifically denied by Assange. Turns out that there now appears to be more evidence that Guccifer 2.0 was tied to the Obama White House than to the Russians. For one, the Word templates that supposedly had Russian fingerprints showed being originated by a former Biden staffer.

Of course, if there were a massive DNC security breach, we now have new potential culprits, with the 4 or 5 Pakistanis who did IT (at probably 4X rate of comparable IT workers) for roughly 25, mostly senior, Dem Congress members, led by former DNC chair DWS, who didn't fire the apparent ringleader until he had been arrested trying to flee the country, six months after he had been officially banned from the Congressional network. (Officially, because he still had access through a staffer at another Dem Congressional office). Turns out that the scheme started to unravel when Rep. Becarra left Congress to be CA AG, and the server image delivered to Congress was seen to be completely fake. Apparently, many of these Dem Reps. had their office IT (including email) illicitly moved out of their offices onto a common server (run by the Pakistanis), but the server seems to have been moved off site. AND, uploaded to the cloud through Dropbox. We are talking probably terabytes of Congressional data moved into the cloud, under control of a group of people who probably shouldn't have had security clearances in the first place, due to their close ties to a foreign country (where they ultimately transferred much of their money to, the ringleader was trying to flee to when apprehended, and his wife had already fled to). What we don't know, at this point is where, and by whom, the Dem Congressional data was downloaded from Dropbox and the Cloud - but there is a likelihood that the well regarded Pakistani intelligence service got their hands on it. Keep in mind that the whole thing was run out of the offices of the DNC chair. And it was that very same DNC that was supposedly hacked by supposedly the Russians. They very likely had all her passwords, and many of those leaked DNC emails were likely included in the data uploaded to Dropbox and the cloud. And

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

The story about Roald Dahl could be true, although from what I've read about Dahl, I somehow doubt it. Dahl was not a warm and fuzzy character and would not have reacted meekly to his work being edited in such a manner It certainly is very convenient for his widow to come out with this revelation at a time when being a white male is unfashionable, thereby drawing Dahl posthumously into the circle of white male artists protected from attack because they have all the correct attitudes.

Nobody knows this, but Ludwig Bemelmans made Madeline a Muslim orphan from Algeria, but they changed it, I don't know why.

MikeR said...

"If Roald Dahl had his way, his eponymous 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' hero would have been black, the author's widow revealed."
Beg pardon? This is the same author who made the Oompa-Loompas black pigmies, then changed them to white-skinned pigmies with long blond hair in a later edition because that somehow offended people? And then in the movie, they got green hair and skin like a pumpkin?
That author?
https://www.google.com/search?safe=strict&client=opera&hs=AQZ&biw=960&bih=490&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=oompa-loompas+book&oq=oompa-loompas+book&gs_l=psy-ab.3..0i30k1.24306.25357.0.25677.5.5.0.0.0.0.203.779.0j4j1.5.0....0...1.1.64.psy-ab..0.5.778...0j0i8i30k1.0.PQiQhEJWmhY

Bruce Hayden said...

8. "How This Woman Retired at Age 32 — and Says You Can Too.... After graduating from the University of Chicago's law school, [Anita Dhake] decided she would work hard until she paid off her debt and saved enough to retire as soon as possible. She did the math, and that meant quitting once she had saved 25 years' worth of living expenses, which she would keep relatively low. She wouldn't have a fancy car or house, but would make up for it with the personal freedom and energy to check off her personal bucket list" (Popsugar)

Have a fraternity brother, who had an economics degree, and worked as an actuary, do this in his mid. 50s, despite never having made all that much money. Being a loyal Dem, he voted for Obama, of course, and failed to forsee the crash that cut into his nest egg. Survived that though without having to go back to work. Still, he seems happy, biking, skiing, and traveling through much of the last decade. One obstacle that he faced that that woman apparently did not, was helping his two kids get through college. And during the two decades from the time she retired and he did, he and his wife raised the two kids. Otherwise, if he had stayed unmarried and childless, I have no doubt that he had the discipline and knowledge to probably done what that woman did.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

. "An 'improvised explosive device' was detonated on a Tube train in south-west London during Friday's rush hour, Scotland Yard has confirmed... Eighteeen people have been taken to hospital mostly with burn injuries...."

Pathetic. This effort won't even get the guy who plays "Imagine" on the piano to turn out and it certainly won't cause the French to turn off the lights on the Eiffel Tower. I'm sure the terrorists will do better next time.

MikeR: I knew Dahl didn't have proper 2017 attitudes toward race, but I didn't realize the Oompa-Loompas were originally black pigmies. So this is looking like a rear-guard action by his widow to prevent Dahl's books from being hauled out of the bookstores and libraries by today's witch hunters.

As it is, I expect "Gone With the Wind" -both book and movie -to be unavailable soon.

n.n said...

The animals were aborted outside of State-approved abortion facilities, and, worse, the abortionists may have with premeditation and malice avoided the death tax.

Lewis Wetzel said...

I like #8 because it points out what it really means to be wealthy. Dhake is able to live on her capital, she doesn't have to work to maintain herself in the style she has chosen. Somehow people have come to think of earning a lot of money as being the same as being wealthy. If you can live on your capital you are wealthy, if you have to work for a living -- even if you are very well paid -- you are a worker.

tim in vermont said...

Yeah, #8.

DavidD said...

Hillary:

" ... 'except they never go after the Kremlin or people on that side of the political ledger.' "

Excuse me? Which side of the political ledger is that, Hillary?

Did the Russians suddenly switch sides with the fall of Communism?

And which side in the US is anti--anti-communism?

Limited blogger said...

Once during my childhood we built a fort. In order to test that it was 'rock proof' I went in the fort and the others threw stones at the structure. In short, it was not 'rock proof' and I suffered a nasty gash in my scalp.

Lewis Wetzel said...

There is a hidden lesson in economics in #8. Since her retirement, Dhake has earned about $110,000 by investing, and about $400 from blogging.

Amexpat said...

Buckets of rain
Buckets of tears
Got all them buckets comin' out of my ears

Christy said...

I took the #8 route. Then I had a stroke just before Lehman Brothers crashed and made some very bad choices in staging funds. I, who'd saved 25 of my income almost my entire career, was pretty much wiped out. The best laid plans....

walter said...

Bucket violence in London!
Hammer violence in France!
Menards is a killer supply store!

Lyle said...

Christy,

Sorry to hear that.

rehajm said...

I spent 5 minutes with #8. She has some good ideas but there's some problems too...

-She says she gave herself a head start with tax return money. IOW she hasn't been living according to her plan of 4% annum but something different.

- She does get a dividend yield which will help if she adds that to her 4%.

- Does she say anywhere where she lives? If she plans on pulling only 4%/year for future living expenses on that nest egg it definitely isn't Chicago or Sydney anymore.

- She's been fortunate with her timing as equity returns have been in her favor and inflation has been low. However a bear market that hits the nest eggs by 15% or 20% in the next few years and suddenly she'll have to be pulling 10% or more to maintain her standard of living instead of the 4% she was planning. Equites likely won't be able to keep up. That's a serious hole in the bucket where now she's living like a widow on a reverse mortgage.

I suspect she'll have to go back to work...



Char Char Binks said...

Of course Charlie Bucket was black. He came from a family that was chronically unemployed, his only hope for success and happiness was the largesse of the rich white man, and he had the winning card.