TGIS. – as in winter Solstice!

Yes Thank God It’s the Solstice ( and Friday ) but it could have stood for Sony too as we’ll see.

So today Friday 19th December 2014 is the winter solstice, the day during which the day time is shortest in the year. I am one of those persons who feels the relationship to natural cycles and my sleep pattern is affected every year between half fall to pass the Solstice. Nothing dramatic, mind you, I sleep earlier and a bit less than normal, that’s all! Still, this morning, I got up at quarter to 05h00 feeling expectancy in the air for example.
The light cycle will not balance for a long time yet but the simple fact of knowing that we have tipped the orbit once more into a new year ( which could be counted from any given day really ) is softly reassuring. From here on the nights will shorten and the days lengthen which as a mainly diurnal animal I appreciate fully. 😀

So Sony, it could have been because as all readers certainly know by now, the corporation, that was under a hacking attack ( presumed Chinese ) over a movie “The Interview” that had the main character in Korea and linked to the assassination of leader Kim Jung-Un.  Today, Sony desisted and a flurry of reactions world/Net-wide ensued. Paulo Coelho, the excellent author of the Alchemist offered on his Twitter account to buy the rights off them for a 100, 000 $ or Euros, not sure.
Revealing salaries of the head honchos was minor but the hackers were apparently very serious, up to threats against the company and its employees and their families which is despicable to be polite.
http://deadline.com/2014/12/sony-hacker-executive-salaries-michael-lynton-amy-pascal-1201305434/
http://www.engadget.com/2014/12/06/sony-pictures-employees-email-threat/
North Korea said one thing and its contrary all through, no surprise there.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/07/us-sony-cybersecurity-northkorea-idUSKBN0JL05120141207
But the decision drew the ire of stars and even the US President. Here’s why : A multi national corp has made a geo-political move. Depending on how you read the events, China/North Korea/censorship of any kind won! In that light, the USA sort of lost face in a case involving a Quebec comic strip turned script then movie by a Japanese firm that badly involved them. The Internet may not have profited excepted as security will rise some more but the DPRK did and of course, the basic rights of free expression lost big time even with the good Paulo trying to save them.
https://twitter.com/paulocoelho/status/545983166667063297/photo/1
Be it real or virtual terrorism, what you surrender of your liberties to fight it is already part of its victory!

Funny bit about a weird weapon! The Fairchild Thunderbolt A-10 is not a looker to the point where the crews serving and servicing it affectionately took to calling it the Warthog like the ugly African wild boar creature. But, the A-10is a war hog and hound and pound for sure. With its huge upward positioned jet engines delivering power to deliver a fat payload under the stubbish wings, with its inherent ruggedness replacing good looks and a big rotating cannon firing out of its nose, the A-10 is the reliable close air support dragon of the US armed forces.

But some other plane is engulfed in trouble that costs money so that in February, the brass was ready to dump the Warthog to put the saved monies in the uncertain future marvel.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/02/dod-aims-to-scrap-a-10-to-keep-f-35-alive-in-new-budget/
And by June and by Jove, they had done so to the despair of the soldiers and airmen.
http://www.stripes.com/news/us/house-panel-votes-to-scrap-a-10-warthog-1.288117
Except that by the time high flyers were trying to stamp out the ISIL ants and anthill, someone finally figured out that a bird in hand is worth two in the bush and that the plane that will one day fly if the temperature is not too high so its fuel stops working just couldn’t bomb the morons today! Facepalm, huh?
http://www.janes.com/article/46851/pentagon-spending-bill-protects-a-10-boosts-f-35-buy
That was on December 10 and by the 16th the thunderbolts began showering down on Da’esh as if Thor himself was sending them.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2014/12/16/the-a-10-jet-carries-out-its-first-airstrikes-against-the-islamic-state/

Pretty good reaction time for an old warrior, wouldn’t you say?

Finally on a less serious tone, yesterday saw a solstice ritual of sorts with the People Awards as in the magazine.
That’s not my cup of tea but the name got my interest for I had in fact mistaken it for the People’s Choice Awards.
http://vote.peopleschoice.com/#!/home/all

If you don’t know, the latter is a result of ( Gallup, free advert to signal the relative serious of the outfit ) polls on who are mainstream America’s favorites ( which can potentially interest as disparate folks as entertainment fans of course but also amateur sociologists and even foreign intelligence analysts ( from a poor land ) while the former only represents the opinion of people paid by People to hang out with such rare famous people that it warrants the capital as being not so much awarded as slipped in the palm of the hand smoothly so that the recipient can have added value to their status thus reinforcing both the periodical’s business and that of its subject if not subjects?
https://www.tumblr.com/search/PEOPLE+Magazine+Awards

To boot, they all call each other friends throughout the select event. The honorees are a star studded parterre, the comfortable ( -looking, after all, I wasn’t there ) sofas, settees and assorted glorified benches and couches from which they lazily but admittedly with some if varying degree of relative majesty, ascend the low-laying platforms and babble compliments as sincere as the two weeks thy took to write them only to disappear with the smug smile of a resolute ingenue. A tad disgraceful if you ask me! Add my uncanny ignorance of pop status unless body parts get flashed ( Kim ) or severed ( Paul Walker ) to the mix and it got weird fast. A few minutes into  attempting to follow, a guy appeared that was suave and strange, talking as if trying to sooth a particularly moronic Dalmatian ( yes, that’s an oxymoron, two even ) empty phrases worthy of a social worker running for office. I have strictly no idea who he was ( some famous bloke of course ) but I honestly began wondering if he had this : parked in the theater’s lot. Let’s hope not!
Apart from Jennifer Aniston, J-Lo and Nick the emcee of everything general public Cannon, the only one I remembered was when someone announced Nicole Ritchie and I thought ; -Nicole Ritchie? The little thing that made second track noises ( condos, barks, etc ) behind the lanky honey rake thin princess bee hatch on that useless TV show? So i refrained an desire to go pee to see if it was as much or more fun than watching and to my complete surprise, something scrawny and dark came out and I concluded : -“Huh? Could be!” I’m still not sure.

The cut-off point came as they awarded the Sexiest Woman Alive ( IIRC ) to a blond so generic if decorative that I’m pretty sure every guy’s had one which seemed a bit careless. Well, I can confirm having heard her acceptance speech impediment that contrarily to me, People Magazine did not compute intelligence in sexy!

So that, considering that apart from the music ( Maroon5, and 5 seconds of summer, probably an Illuminati plot with the numerology there but both made sweeter noise than the chitchat ) my non-sexy intelligence had been insulted enough, I turned off the Idiots’ box, and went to bed with a book which considering how early I rose for the solstice’s dawn was a brilliant idea!

Good evening all, Tay.