June 30th, 2008 by Max
Here is the reaction of [snip] our Nature Preserve Steward (no, we didn’t have one of those in your day), to your photos:
‘It appears to be mating snapping turtles; espectially one of the top pictures. The males do fight and sometimes the females reject males or males interupt other couples.’
So, it seems that you witnessed something that most of us never have the privilege of observing — the more you get out, the more you see! ”
So thank you to that Great Blue Heron who caught my eye and caused me to stop and notice these enormous turtles in this small pond. More mating pictures! My porn collection grows.
Posted in Science | No Comments »
June 29th, 2008 by Max
We’ve had a long long Democratic series of primaries. Ms Clinton didn’t seem to want to give in, even when she had no more battles to fight. No more places to fight. Well, to be fair, she could have hung on and fought at the convention. It wouldn’t have worked and it would have distracted the country from the battle for the Presidency with Mr McCain.
We’ll talk about Mr McCain at another time.
Right now is the time to talk about Mr Obama.
First. It is, notable, it must be noted, that Mr Obama is a black man. Most of the country doesn’t care. The story isn’t that he’s black, but it would have been wrong to let the fact that the first man of African descent, the first person of Afican descent, ever to have a realistic chance to be president of the United States has been selected. Yay for us.
Yay for us for two reasons. Yay because we have selected an African American for the first time and yay because we need him.
Early on in the campaign, people … talking people. TV people, passed on stories or speculation about Mr Obama not being ‘black enough’. We don’t know what that means. Perhaps it underscores the fact that Mr Obama’s father, was from Africa directly and not a descendant of slaves. Mr Obama is no more a descendant of slaves than 90 some percent of American’s are.
That is, of course, irrelevant.
The next reason Mr Obama is important is because he can help us.
And oh boy do we need him.
The thing is we don’t need him because he’s black. That’s mostly irrelevant. We need him because of who he is, not what he represents. We suspect he represents something a little different to everyone.
Here’s what’s important. He’s smart. That’s the most important thing. Its not the only thing. He seems to have a genuiness that is atypical of a politician. Little stories. True stories, of real empathy with real people for no personal gain. Real perceptiveness and yes, compassion, that’s what makes him different.
But here’s why we need someone this bright and someone with this kind of optimistic spirit. After 7 1/2 years of joint rule by the idiot and the dark one, we have to have someone smart smart smart to help us out of the mess.
What mess?
Allow a brief retrospective.
House values all across the country are plummetting down. People, by the thousands, are walking away from their homes. Gasoline prices are skyrocketing! You know it. You feel the fact that they have gone up 10 cents a week seemingly forever! Over a dollar a gallon since this time last year. Over $2.50 per gallon since this president has taken office. Some don’t want to blame him. That’s fine. He’s irrelevant now. But gasoline at $4.21/gal [the highest we've seen as of this writing. Check here next week!] is damaging. Deeply deeply damaging to the country. The consumer is 2/3 of our economy. The consumer is staying home. The new word is “staycation”.
The damage now is being done by these gasoline prices. They slow the economy down, they raise inflation. They used to call this stagflation. Stagflation is bad. This really is worse because it is double inflation. Fuel prices are going up, and the prices of all the things brought to us by fuel are going up too! IT IS A CRISIS!
Oh yeah. And there is a war on in Afghanistan. And yes. There is a war on in Iraq.
One was argueabley necessary. We were, after all, attacked from people based in Afghanistan. The other war is Impeachable! There can be no higher crime than lying to the American people, in order to cause them to support an unjust and unnecessary war.
The midwest is flooded.
New Orleans is still a mess.
46 million people in this country still don’t have health care.
America is 30th in the world in educational success.
America is disdained throughout the world as an idiot country with a cowboy who would be a dictator and despite the craven words of Justice Scalia, we are blessed to have a Supreme Court that stood as the last bastion of Americanism in the American federal government or we should be subjected to worse than “no knock” home invasions and worse than no warrant telephone invasions.
We are getting more stupid and more afraid and more docile than ever in American history and there is only one chance that we can change this in the next four years.
That chance is Senator Barak Obama from Illinois.
Let’s hope we have enough left, to elect him. We need him.
Posted in Politics | 4 Comments »
June 28th, 2008 by Max
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This bird appears to be warming up. Sunning himself in the late afternoon.
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Get lucky! The butterfly is a throw in. Didn’t center it. It moved too fast, but I like it anyway.
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
June 23rd, 2008 by Max
I was looking for my ancient snapping turtle. No luck.
Posted in My New York, Photos | 1 Comment »
June 22nd, 2008 by Max
John Stuart Mill a noted political philosopher of the 19th century said:
“Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative.”
Posted in Politics | No Comments »
June 21st, 2008 by Max
In Deposit after work on Friday. The air was cool. The late afternoon sun was warm and the clouds were leaving. Wildlife was out in rare circumstance. I thought I saw a turtle eating a fish. Now I’m not so sure.
You need to open these pictures up, to get the full value of what you have in front of you. Can you say Gamera?
I’d like someone with science knowledge to let me know if turtles fight, and if this is a fight between two giant snapping turles, or if not, what the heck IS going on here! [Especially #40. I'd be happy to show the larger originals to anyone who wants to see them.]
Posted in Photos, Science | 1 Comment »
June 21st, 2008 by Max
The rest of the day in Deposit was pretty cool too.
The flower and the falcon were from earlier in the day at work.
Posted in My New York, Photos | No Comments »
June 20th, 2008 by Max
Green Heron I saw in Massachusetts
Posted in Photos | 2 Comments »
June 8th, 2008 by Max
A friend put my onto the Quirky Nomads podcast [now called Qn]. I’ve become not only a loyal listener but also a participant.
Here are a couple of links where I am a voice actor in the show:
http://quirkynomads.com/wp/2008/06/06/patchouli/
http://quirkynomads.com/wp/2008/05/06/im-the-person-who-gets-to-decide-not-you/
My roles are short … However I AM a Quirky Minion
Here are a couple more links to shows I particularly liked:
http://quirkynomads.com/wp/2008/05/12/suave-and-professional/
http://quirkynomads.com/wp/2008/05/27/en-flambe/
This is a collaborative bit of writing that Sage put together, that grew on me when I read it.
http://quirkynomads.com/wp/2008/02/07/paper-doors-12/ Part I
http://quirkynomads.com/wp/2008/02/08/paper-doors-2-of-2/
Posted in Arts | No Comments »
June 8th, 2008 by Max
The paper has been running a story about a pair of Merlin that are nesting in Cooperstown. I went there to investigate. I didn’t find the nest but I found the mom:
Posted in My New York, Photos | No Comments »
June 5th, 2008 by Max
Must it always be about Hillary?
She really could have done him some good. A nice old fashioned [yes I said it] old fashioned concession speech with lot’s of “boy it was a tough fight” and some “now lets go get ‘em’s” thrown in.
But no. It was “Go to Hillary Clinton dot com” and tell me what you think I should do.
Pa lease.
If it is about delegates, it seems over.
But this lady’s still singing.
Posted in Politics | No Comments »
June 5th, 2008 by Max
Several years ago, Brian Frederick sent me an email. about this bunch of Neo Conservatives and what they were trying to influence our government to do, and what they were hoping to accomplish after Bill Clinton. It was, they said, a forward looking document, and they claimed to be helping to direct America and the world toward a better future.”
Well, I dismissed it as the silly rantings of the wackiest of the resentful, out of power Republicans. “Come on!” Be realistic. Nobody’s going to go for this. This is outrageous and stupid.
Despite the Clinton impeachment, when he left office America had PEACE and PROSPERTIY, was respected in the world, the U.S. military had the capability to destroy the 4th largest Army in the world in a couple weeks without use of nuclear weapons. We were protecting Muslims in the former Yugoslavia! We were big, and strong and good.
Why would anybody even talk like – let’s extend our power by attacking first? This I said, is “rediculous”
Well, look at this link from ‘right web’. They not only meant it, but so many of these guys, these so called right wing intellectuals were and are in the Bush White House, that looking back it would be inevitable that they would try to do this shit.
Rumsfeld, Richard Pearle, Cheney, Wolfowicz, William Kristol and others, created this real world, to satisfy this looney idea of attack first and be gracious when they thank us for changing their governments.
I’m NOT a consipiracy theorist, however.
These guys just got a gift when September 11 happened. I bet Cheney peed himself.
They made the Project for the New American Century into American foreign policy! Its a fact. You could look it up. Our foreign policy, as posted on the web, in the White House or State Department’s web site was pulled almost exactly from this insane psuedo policy document!
It was a manifestly naive and childish policy in its conception, and it has severely damaged this country. Criminal deception is a high crime.
Bush, Rumsfeld and especially Cheney should still be impeached for the horrors of running this stupid scheme.
American’s need to know about the Project for the New American Century!!! There’s nothing righteous in throwing the first punch
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1535.html
[emphasis added]
| In 1996, Kristol and Kagan wrote what would become a sort of founding statement for the new neoconservative agenda. Published in Foreign Affairs, their article, “Toward a Neo-Reaganite Foreign Policy,” established a number of pillars for a post-Cold War foreign policy agenda, including the maintenance of a “benevolent hegemony” in global affairs based in part on a willingness to use force unilaterally and before crises emerge. They asked rhetorically: What should the U.S. role be? “Benevolent global hegemony. Having defeated the ‘evil empire,’ the United States enjoys strategic and ideological predominance. The first objective of U.S. foreign policy should be to preserve and enhance that predominance by strengthening America’s security, supporting its friends, advancing its interests, and standing up for its principles around the world.” As for potential enemies, the article suggested that ultimately the United States would need to devise an “overall strategy for containing, influencing, and ultimately seeking to change the regime in Beijing.” In the meantime, however, the main enemy was internal. Invoking past efforts to rally the American populace to accept a leading role for the United States in international affairs, the authors argued that “it is time once again to challenge an indifferent America and a confused American conservatism.” They added: “In a world in which peace and American security depend on American power and the will to use it, the main threat the United States faces now and in the future is its own weakness. American hegemony is the only reliable defense against a breakdown of peace and international order. [Can you say war is peace Mr Orwell?] The appropriate goal of American foreign policy, therefore, is to preserve that hegemony as far into the future as possible. To achieve this goal, the United States needs a neo-Reaganite foreign policy of military supremacy and moral confidence.”
Why doesn’t this get more attention.
Oh yeah. One more thing. – Sorry Brian. You were right! |
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Posted in Politics | No Comments »
June 2nd, 2008 by Max
Posted in My New York, Photos | 1 Comment »
June 2nd, 2008 by Max
Posted in My New York | No Comments »
June 2nd, 2008 by Max
Johnny9K suggested we open a column just for Comments and Questions on LOST. What a great idea. I’m so messed up just trying to remember the stories [the writer's strike really hurt my catching up] and the characters, that I’ve totally fallen behind in my guessing the future [so to speak].
John suggests this link. Here it is again.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/research/4266329.html?series=6
Our conversation the other day wound around to this question. If EVERYone has to go back, including some dead John Locke, and little Aaron, will Desmond have to go back too? He wasn’t one of the Oceanic 6, but then neither was John Locke!
And while we’re at it. Why do they have to go back? Is it physics? Is the island/worm hole balanced for just the number of people? When did it get “balanced”? When the hatch blew? What was the result of the hatch blowing? Nothing? Or did I just forget….
Posted in LOST | No Comments »
June 1st, 2008 by Max
http://www.joyhakim.com/videos.html
This woman is fascinating. Joy is her name, and it also seems to describe her approach to learning! I believe she has much to say … just on the subject of how our text books are created if nothing else.
But watch her talk about science and you’ll be rivited.
Posted in Science | No Comments »
June 1st, 2008 by Max
http://www.popularmechanics.com/blogs/science_news/4266162.html
Casimir Effect? Worm Hole? A reference link, that we may go back to repeatedly.
Posted in LOST | No Comments »
June 1st, 2008 by Max
What I’d like to do is invite people to Register. Anyone who registers will begin with “Author” rights. I want to see what happens if we have more contributors.
8 Minutes On High is doing well. The general trend is for more views and more comments. This makes ME very happy. However I would like to make it US. I’d like to make 8 Minutes On High A Community!
So while I appreciate the comments, please continue making them, I’m inviting anyone to Register with 8 Minutes On High. Anyone who does so will automatically begin with “Author” status.
Summary of Roles
- Administrator – Somebody who has access to all the administration features
- Editor – Somebody who can publish posts, manage posts as well as manage other people’s posts, etc.
- Author – Somebody who can publish and manage their own posts
- Contributor – Somebody who can write and manage their posts but not publish posts
- Subscriber – Somebody who can read comments/comment/receive news letters, etc.
I’d love it if we could have some new Editors and even Administrators as well.
No pressure. If you want just to read or comment that is always welcomed. But I’d love to have some more contributors!
Posted in Other People's Theories | No Comments »
