Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Tattoo’s that fly off you for a Tuesday - and thoughts on the subject

Nearly everyone has a tattoo these days. Once the exclusive art of sailors, soldiers, Marines, and Bikers (in America), tattoos went mainstream in the last decade.

My wife has a tattoo of a frog and turtle hugging on her ankle. It’s in color and looks like a Disney rendering.

All three of my sons have tattoos.  Each of them have multiple tats on arms, back, and chest.

I don’t have a tattoo. I had plenty of chances to get one in the military when I was young, but never let the ink get under my skin...so to speak.

I’m not sure why. I have nothing against tattoos. I think they look cool….on someone else. 

Go here to look up 100s of tat’s at tattooFinder.com

image source

Livermore scientists are busy building a 'miniature star on earth'

Experiment: Scientists hope that their £2.2b 'miniature star on earth' will be the world's first fusion reactor by 2012

It may look like any average building but behind closed doors could lie the answer to safe renewable energy of the future.  

Here at the National Ignition Facility in Livermore California, scientists are aiming to build the world's first sustainable fusion reactor by 'creating a miniature star on Earth'.

Following a series of key experiments over the last few weeks, the $2.2 billion project has inched a little closer to its goal of igniting a workable fusion reaction by 2012.

According to the National Ignition Facility (NIF) team in Livermore, on November 2 they fired up the 192 lasers beams at the center of the reactor and aimed them at a glass target containing tritium and deuterium gas. Read more here

Public Scandal: Did PBS cut Tina Fey's Palin jokes? You betcha

Image: Tina Fey

Et tu PBS? I’m shocked and degusted at the same time.

Censoring Fey’s best lines in her acceptance speech speaks of a Conservative conspiracy among the producers. Everyone involved seems to be a bobble-head doll with a recording – “I don’t know what happened.” Or, “It was not a political decision…” Blah blah blah.

Comedian ripped former Alaska governor in humor prize acceptance speech

Scum slapping: Rangel found guilty of violating 11 House rules

Image: House Ethics Committee Begins Rangel Hearing

A House ethics panel has found Democratic Rep. Charles Rangel of New York guilty on 11 counts of breaking House rules.

This is just another example of how career politicians think they are above the law. Rangel has been getting away with his underhanded dealings for 50 years now…it’s about time someone did something.

The thing that bothers me the most? The worst he’s going to get is a slap on the wrist and then it’s back to business as usual. He’s not going to change his habits after this official mockery of justice. Why should he? If he’s not the poster child for term limits then I’d like to know who else is?

Monday, November 15, 2010

As the suns sets upon another day, it’s glory slowly goes away

Image source

Climbers of the Holy Rocks: Meteora offers more than 50 rocky towers

Climbers of the holy rocks - Meteora, Trikala

Here’s a place for hard core climbers. If I was forty years younger (in my twenties), I would love to climb in this area.

Photographer’s Note:

“Apart from the huge cultural, religious and natural interest of Meteora, it is also one of the best regions in Greece for climbing. More than 50 rocky towers are waiting for those who like this sport. The history of climbing in this place dates back from the ancient times, when the ihnabitants of ancient Aeginio found shelter here, in order to avoid attacks from bandits.”

Photo By Hercules Milas

If you want to read more about the history of climbing at Meteora, just check THIS PAGE.

Kayaking the Thumb – A Field Report on the Experience

Kayaking the Thumb

Kayaking the Thumb

Kayaking the Thumb, Port Austin, Michigan: Photos & Trip Report (2009)

As It Stands: celebrating a quarter million readers in two years

Here’s a big shout out to my Budapest, Hungary viewer. You are my 250,000th reader. Thanks for stopping by today!

Budapest (pronounced /ˈbuːdəpɛst/, also /ˈbʊdəpɛst/, /ˈbjuːdəpɛst/; Hungarian pronunciation: [ˈbudɒpɛʃt] ( listen); names in other languages) is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it serves as the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2010, Budapest had 1,721,556 inhabitants, down from 1980 peak of 2.06 million. The Budapest Commuter Area is home to 3,271,110 people. The city covers an area of 525 square kilometres (202.7 sq mi) within the city limits. Budapest became a single city occupying both banks of the river Danube with a unification on 17 November 1873 of right (west)-bank Buda and Óbuda with left (east)-bank Pest.

Historically, Aquincum, originally a Celtic settlement,was the direct ancestor of Budapest, becoming the Roman capital of Lower Pannonia. Magyars arrived in the territory in the 9th century. Their first settlement was pillaged by the Mongols in 1241-42. The re-established town became one of the centres of Renaissance humanist culture in the 15th century. Following the Battle of Mohács and nearly 150 years of Ottoman rule, development of the region entered a new age of prosperity in the 18th and 19th centuries, and Budapest became a global city after the 1873 unification. It also became the second capital of Austria-Hungary, a great power that dissolved in 1918. Budapest was the focal point of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, the Hungarian Soviet Republic of 1919, Operation Panzerfaust in 1944, the Battle of Budapest of 1945, and the Revolution of 1956.

Synchronicity: Vietnam Veteran Shocked By 44 Year Old Coincidence

Vietnam War 1966

Sometimes a coincidence or coincidences can bring to the surface emotions locked away for years and years. It's as if the final part of the jigsaw is finally put in it's place.

This is such a story, first seen in the Star-Telegraph.

Photo - Soldiers Laying Down Covering Fire with machinegun - Vietnam 1966

Sunday, November 14, 2010

As It Stands: America's unstable neighbor poses a greater threat than the Taliban

By Dave Stancliff/For the Times-Standard

Posted: 11/14/2010 01:29:46 AM PST

While our government is busy waging war in Afghanistan, a war on our own border is escalating and resulting in increased American causalities. "We have been at war here since 2003 and unfortunately we are familiar with the concept of death," Col. Bill Meehan, a spokesman for the Texas National Guard, recently told the national press.

Col. Meehan's comment came on the heels of the murder of a National Guardsman, Jose Gil Hernandez Ramirez, 21, of El Paso, who made the mistake of crossing over into the border city of Ciudad Juarez on personal business.

More than 6,500 people have been killed in Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas, since a turf war erupted two years ago between the Juarez and Sinaloa drug cartels.

Another American who made a mistake and paid for it with his life was David Michael Hartley of Texas. He and his wife Tiffany were ambushed after crossing into Mexican waters with their personal watercraft on Falcon Lake, near the southern tip of Texas, on Sept. 30th.

According to a Houston Chronicle analysis of the U.S. State Department's death registry, 48 Americans were slain in Mexico during the first six months of 2010. The U.S. State Department says more than 80 Americans have been killed this year in Chihuahua, the state where Juarez is located. That's already more than the 79 homicides of U.S. citizens in all of Mexico in 2009.

In October, six U.S. citizens were killed in less than a week in Ciudad Juarez, including two students in the latest attack, according to U.S. officials. It has one of the world's highest murder rates, with more than 2,000 people killed this year.

Why are stories like this more commonplace every day? Perhaps because the war, and it is a war, in Mexico is spilling into U.S. territory with frightening regularity. The Mexican Gulf drug cartel has penetrated 270 U.S. cities according to recent Homeland Security reports. Atlanta, Georgia, is a major Gulf cartel smuggling hub according to the DEA and state authorities.

Our government needs to stop acting like the world's police force. We can't afford it. Mexican drug traffickers sell heroin and other drugs in our cities with impunity. What's happening on our borders and in our cities should be priority No. 1. National security should start at home.

Mexico is in a state of siege and shock from the increasing brutality of cartels who show the world who is really in control there. The Mexican media have all but surrendered to these cartels because the government can't protect journalists who dare to report their illegal activities. Freedom of the press is suppressed daily.

Despite this grim drama next door, our politicians have focused their efforts on Iraq and Afghanistan to “protect” our national interests. I question why they downplay this war in Mexico.

It's troubling being next to a country so corrupt its police are suspected of being connected to the cartels they fight.

Americans tourists traveling to Mexico are warned about certain areas, mostly in Northern Mexico (on our borders), acknowledged to be dangerous by both the Mexican government and ours. That is another concession to the power of the cartels, and yet another example of the control they exert throughout Mexico.

The big picture is we have an unstable country next door. An increasing number of its inhabitants flee to the U.S. seeking safety, as well as for financial reasons. Their war is spilling over into our country and our politicians prance around that reality, trying to act like they're doing something about it. The death toll is going up, not down.

This volatile situation is no secret. It's been going on for decades, and despite nice talk between our two governments about lofty trading goals and human rights, the reality is much more sober. We need to protect Americans from the war next store, and that takes money.

As It Stands, what's it going to take to get our politicians to recognize the war in Mexico endangers Americans more than the Taliban?

Trump's Lowest Grift Ever Saved for Holy Week

This is a story about how the devil's puppet, aka Donald Trump, mocked Christianity by selling a book combining the Bible, the Constitu...