Entries Tagged 'photos' ↓
August 28th, 2010 — 1389, Caturday, animals, blogging, photos
Originally published on 2.0: The Blogmocracy
This is a tribute to the feline friends of the blogging community:
Here’s Tom, a cute kitten belonging to the parents of Natasha.
More about Tom here and here.
This is Tempy, the favorite cat of Heather Ives a/k/a WebKittyn.
I met this kitty on the food blog Palachinka, while I was looking for more information on шљи̏вовица, a/k/a rakija:
Be sure to read the article itself, an illustrated guide to making šljivovica.
Update: Here’s F‘s beloved cat, T.C.:
Cat photos from mfhorn of Blogmocracy:
Emily
Ferguson
Angel and Ferguson
Angel as a kitten
Cat photo from snork of Blogmocracy:
Snork the cat
Finally, here’s Conservative Cat from icanhascheezburger.com:
December 9th, 2008 — 2008 US Elections, Europe, FAIL, Photoshop, economic collapse, graphic arts, humor, mainstream media, outsourcing, photos, politics
…the sun is about to set.
As you already know, I had little to say about the 2008 US presidential election because, then as now, I regarded both of the candidates, and all their pomps and all their works, as beneath comment.
Even before the election, it was obvious to me that the winning candidate would someday deeply regret having run for that office. Let me go on record that I stand by that prediction.
It has often been claimed that no one can win a thermonuclear war. Be that as it may, there is no question that it is easy enough to lose one! In similar fashion, becoming president of the US at this time is just as clearly a no-win scenario for the perpetrator and all his retinue.
Despite all the empty promises from both sides, there is simply nothing that any US president could do at this point to effect a recovery. A recovery would have to happen on its own, and every day that goes by, it seems that we have less and less to build on, in terms of civil and industrial infrastructure, a functioning civil society, and an informed citizenry.
The mass media and what we call our educational system seem to be doing everything they can to keep the citizenry from figuring out what their supposed betters are about. Oh, and by the way, everything I have just said about the plight of the US goes double for the EU.
The scope of the problem
See for yourself what already happened to a part of the US that lost its productive capacity:
With trees growing up through abandoned buildings, large parts of Detroit have already come to resemble scenes from the grim speculative documentary Life After People.
By now, the US economic decline has spread far beyond Detroit and the Rust Belt.
Think about it: When was the last time you saw the label “Made in USA” on any product, good or bad?
And no, it is not possible to sustain a “service economy” without a viable manufacturing infrastructure. Not that there is a service economy to sustain – the real estate bubble has already burst, the remains of our financial sector are being artificially propped up with money that we do not have and cannot earn, and much of our service sector employment has already been outsourced! It should surprise no one that the unemployment picture is considerably worse than the official figures would lead us to believe (see The really, really bad news about the unemployment rate). Newspapers throughout the US report that state and local tax revenues are shrinking due to declining income and property values.
What is left?
I recently heard yet another self-styled pundit of the US employment scene recommending three areas where there still seem to be some jobs for Americans. The only available jobs are in health care, education, and government work – because they cannot be outsourced.
Wow.
Will someone please explain to me who is going to pay for this health care, education, and government work? Does anyone care to predict what will happen after we go into debt to educate the next generation, knowing that there will be no jobs for them after they finish school?
Where do we go from here?
Good question.
And yes, I do have an answer! My point in posting this is that we need to understand exactly what our problems are, and the true extent of our difficulties, before we can even begin to address them.
What’s the next step? We need to stop wasting tax dollars on bailing out Wall Street. Instead, we need to bring our industrial base back to the US. We need to repeal the tax laws and ever-proliferating regulations that have been strangling US businesses or driving them overseas. We need to make it much simpler and more cost-effective for businesses, especially smaller businesses, to provide jobs for US citizens. That’s the only government “stimulus package” that will work.
No, it is not all under our control. But we can keep the faith and do our best to help each other. As Bishop Antoun of the Antiochian Orthodox Church recently told us, “The Lord will provide.”
Click on any of the above thumbnail images to view the original.
When the image gallery page appears, click again on the thumbnail to see the full-size image.
A large collection of art by 1389, including photography, digital art, and some new fractal images, is available at my online gallery.
Look for free desktop wallpaper, and free tools and textures for Photoshop and GIMP! Yes, they are completely free – public domain, no strings attached.
August 30th, 2007 — Greece, cellular, climate and weather, counterjihad, crime, disaster preparedness, ecoterrorism, incident tracking, photos, security, trees and forests, wildfire
Arson by cell phone?
We don’t have all the evidence in yet, but we need to be asking a lot more questions. Just because a few of the local outbreaks of fire appear to have been caused by simple carelessness does not mean that all of them were.
Greek broadcasting station SKAi reported that arson devices triggered by cell phones were found. Where have we heard of that before?
Photos from Space
Here are some photos from space, showing how widespread these fires are:
Updates:
Technorati : Greece, Islam, disaster preparedness, drought, ecoterrorism, incident reporting, incident tracking, jihadism, photos, terrorism, trees, wildfire
Del.icio.us : Greece, Islam, disaster preparedness, drought, ecoterrorism, incident reporting, incident tracking, jihadism, photos, terrorism, trees, wildfire
Ice Rocket : Greece, Islam, disaster preparedness, drought, ecoterrorism, incident reporting, incident tracking, jihadism, photos, terrorism, trees, wildfire
Powered by Zoundry
May 30th, 2007 — Twitter, animals, art and design, blogging, feeds, humor, meme, photos, social media, tech tips
The folks at twitterfeed.com are providing an automated service that captures your blog’s Atom or RSS output at regular intervals and posts up to 140 characters of each blog post to Twitter. You can post under your existing Twitter ID, or set up a new one for the blog. It’s free and in beta test status at this time.
For a ridiculous example of how this can work, see I Can Has Cheezburger, which is the twitterfeed-powered version of the infamous “LOL” bad-grammar cats macro-meme explosion that has been amusing (or irritating) everyone all over the “intertubes.”
Technorati tags:
animals
blogging
design
feeds
humor
meme
photos
social media
tech tips
Twitter
Web 2.0
May 25th, 2007 — Canada, Florida, animals, humor, immigration, offbeat news, photos, the human condition
May 25th, 2007 — animals, humor, photos, video
(For rolling updates,
please scroll down)
Here’s the latest on Berlin’s lovable mascot:
Technorati : animals, humor, photos, video
Powered by Zoundry
May 16th, 2007 — Australia, Florida, disaster preparedness, ecoterrorism, hurricane, photos, wildfire
Ever wanted a behind-the-scenes view of how professionals approach hurricanes, tornados, dust storms, wildfires, and other dangerous but exciting phenomena? Here you are:
- Wildfires are an ongoing problem. Wildfires at Jacksonville.com offers an entire section of up-to-date information.
- The U.S. National Interagency Fire Center offers wildland fire maps and firefighting information.
- The Weather Channel blog offers the personal experiences of the weather forecasters themselves, as well as the scientific background explained in layman’s terms.
- For storms in the U.S., check out the NOAA Storm Prediction Center.
- The MODIS Rapid Response System offers new satellite views of extreme weather and fire events worldwide, including some spectacular photos of smoke from the recent Florida wildfires.
- TheStormTrack.com offers updated satellite views and current information on hurricanes and tropical storms worldwide.
- For information about winter storms, snow and ice, avalanches, and cold-climate regions, check out National Snow and Ice Data Center.
- For those of you who live Down Under, there’s Australia Severe Weather.
- For storm-chasing buffs, Stormtrack.org offers a library of storm-chasing information, including maps of recent severe weather phenomena.
- Professional storm chaser Warren Faidley’s Stormchaser.com offers data, links, and media information about severe weather and storm chasing, along with some truly wild photos.
Technorati tags:
Australia
disaster preparedness
Florida
hurricane
photos
snow
storm chasing
tornado
weather
wildfire
Powered by Zoundry
May 15th, 2007 — animals, humor, photos, video
(For rolling updates,
please scroll down)
Video of Astro as a baby
Astro, an orphaned Steller’s sea lion, was bottle-fed and became too accustomed to humans. So much so, in fact, that Astro joined an elementary-school walkathon and completed an entire lap. It’s no use taking Astro back out to sea – he does not find enough food on his own and he keeps returning because he gets lonely for human companionship.
Updated 12/22/2007
On August 7, 2007, Astro left The Marine Mammal Center at a whopping 252 pounds and was taken to UC Santa Cruz’s Long Marine Lab, where he is participating in training and metabolic rate and hearing research studies. Researchers at Long report that Astro is settling in well. He is eating almost 25 pounds of fish a day and seems to enjoy learning basic commands, responding to both verbal and whistle prompts. These skills will be necessary to ensure proper care for him as he has more contact with human caretakers in the future.
Astro will likely be transferred to Mystic Aquarium in Connecticut this fall. As one of only five facilities in the world where Steller sea lions can be viewed, Mystic Aquarium has the specialized experience to care for Astro. Not only will he be in an environment with other Steller sea lions, but he will serve as a great educational subject to many people as they learn about the threatened species through him.
Video of Astro leaving The Marine Mammal Center on his way to Long Marine Labs
Also See:
Technorati : animals, humor, photos, video
Del.icio.us : animals, humor, photos, video
Ice Rocket : animals, humor, photos, video
Powered by Zoundry
