10 Thoughts for September 11, 2014

1. It's 9/11.
2. A cluster of very large solar flares have occurred the last several days.  Right now the prediction shows that for the next several nights, the visible edge will between Seattle and Portland, but that might dip lower by Friday night because of the confluence of a pair of flares.  We'll see.
3. By the way, if you're an Apple fanboy, by all means, get the iPhone 6+.  For the first time you'll be able to rotate your screen.  Comes in handy when you're reading certain things.  And, the more of you there are out there with NFC devices, the faster mobile payments will become widespread, benefiting the rest of us.
4. Ray Rice should have been banned indefinitely, months ago.  The NFL didn't need to see the second video, to know that Rice had knocked unconscious another human being.  If he had viciously cold-cocked a stranger, he'd be in jail and banned from the NFL.
5. Survela updated its database with the latest gmail address leaks.  I'm still good, except of course the Adobe breach, but I've long since dealt with that.
6. Don't be surprised if Portland State goes into Pullman and beats Washington State.  The Cougars are one-dimensional on offense with a meager 44 rushing yards in two games.  Meanwhile, PSU sports a 3-star (low on stars probably because he's 5'-7" with 4.5 speed) senior running back from Junipero Serra High School whose former teammates included George Farmer and Marqise Lee.  
7. I happened to be online and working on stuff, when the Oscar Pistorius verdict was being read.  There are some things you wouldn't know if you watch the news. For one, it took several hours for the reading of the verdict, with multiple breaks in-between, including lunch, and she's still not done, at least insofar that she has yet to render her punishment.  Also, the judge was amazing.  She took great pains to break down each and every argument from both sides, rendering her judgment of the validity and pertinence of every single piece of information placed into the court room.  It didn't take much to figure out where she was going early on, though, because she kept pointing to the prosecution's misalignment of facts to the time line, making their case of murder implausible and improbable.
8. Speaking of gun accidents, you can't have gun accidents in schools, if you don't have guns in schools.
9. Cats and dogs cooperating.  Just not my dog.
10. Apparently I was wrong...Republicans DO WANT US BOOTS ON THE GROUND IN SYRIA.  I find this perplexing, because 18 months ago flip-flop John McCain said, "The worst thing we could do is put boots on the ground [in Syria]", with many other GOP going so far as to state that they did not want air strikes in Syria -- this mind you, coming before they began complaining this past week that Obama hadn't done enough.  What a bunch of clowns!