I've been sick with a cold and little energy to do much. I've been using this time opening up the Terragen 2 program up again and trying new things.
You can see the more of the new (and older ones) » HERE
g'day Boz
this is the second Sunday in a row its rained
i dont know who organised the weather this year but they sure mucked up the weekends
its only supposed to rain when i am at work or asleep
anyway i took advantage of it to do some stuff on my site and to write this post about it raining so i can write a post
🙂
anyway one of the things i have done is added the photos i took last Sunday (in the rain) to my photo site.
I took a trip to John Forrest National Park (not far from me) and got some misty shots across the valleys. As much as it tested the weather seals on the Pentax K10D, it didnt stop rain falling on the front of the lens and spoiling a lot of photos. The photos are here if you want o go see
http://johndolphin.net/photos/categories.php?cat_id=49
here is a small taste 🙂
This week at the Unique Weekend Challenge is Beatles Lyrics. I went way out on a limb I think with this one:
"Carousel" from Sun King
Here comes the sun king
Here comes the sun king
Everybody's laughing
Everybody's happy
Here comes the sun king
Quando paramucho mi amore de felice carathon
Mundo paparazzi mi amore cicce verdi parasol
Questo abrigado tantamucho que canite carousel
Want to joing the challenge? Click HERE
Oz!
I know I have mentioned to you about one of our democratic candidates, John Edwards, charging outrageous sums of money to make speeches on poverty, and also I have mentioned to you about his $400-$1400 hair cuts.
I couldn't resist to put this YouTube video on of Mr. Edwards primping before he went on air.
Ain't politics grand?
~Boz
Hi Oz,
Two bits of news I stumbled on about our planet today!
The first is about the size of our earth.
Well it seems Geodesists from the University of Bonn have remeasured the size of the Earth and have determined that our planet is millimeters smaller than up to now assumed. Even though that might be only slightly off the mark, they say that the results of their findings are important.
"A combination of GPS and satellite laser measurements will enable the availability of the coordinates from almost 400 points on the surface of the Earth with unparalleled exactness.“
The results are the basis for a new coordinate system for the planet. With this system it would be possible, for example, to determine the track of so-called Altimeter-Satellites within a few millimeters precision. Altimeter-Satellites measure their altitude over the Earth’s surface and can, for example, register a rise in sea level. Deviations from the flight path, however, falsify the result. If the satellite flies higher than expected, the distance to the surface of the Earth differentiates from what is recorded—the sea level appears lower than it really is."
The next bit of news about about an erupting volcano.
Klyuchevskoy, a stratovolcano located in the north central region of the Kamchatka Peninsula, is blasting ash up to 32,000 feet in the air, and has diverted air traffic headed toward the Far East. This is the largest eruption to occur in the North Pacific in a decade. These explosions created a 1,360-mile-long band of ash, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk to the Aleutian Islands, clogging well-used air routes with volcanic ash that prove deadly for aircraft.
Well, just those two items today.
You know I love this kind of stuff.
🙂
Boz
Oz,
As we approach the Live Earth Concert, entertainment news is listing Madonna as the "least green" out of the artists that will be performing.
Who else on the line-up that is considered the least green?
:: The Live Earth celebrities people believe to be the least green:Solo Artist
1. Madonna
2. James Blunt
3. Paolo Nutini
Group
1. Beastie Boys
2. Red Hot Chili Peppers
3. Black Eyed Peas
» More HERE
~Boz
🙂
No, more like a driver who was high on cocaine destroyed an entire cornfield in an attempt to escape from the police.
I wonder if that is how all crop circles came to be?
More on the story
"Leaders are more powerful role models when they learn than when they teach."Hi Oz
I know I pick on Al Gore a lot, but he (and his family) give us so much material.
Al Gore III, 24, was driving a blue Toyota Prius about 100 mph on the San Diego Freeway when he was pulled over at about 2:15 a.m. The deputies said they smelled marijuana and searched the car, Amormino said. They found less than an ounce of marijuana along with Xanax, Valium, Vicodin and Adderall. "He does not have a prescription for any of those drugs," Amormino said.
Gore was being held in the men's central jail in Santa Ana on $20,000 bail.
something i havent gotten the hang of yet (its only been 40 years) is the calling of any male "mate"
and i do mean any male
it could be a neighbour, a work collegue, a stranger on the bus, the guy you just bumped into cos you wernt looking where you were going "sorry mate"
but the oddest (maybe) example i have seen so far was on an adert for a reality tv show, the ones where the tv cameras accompany (real) police on the beat
the officer says "is there anything in the car i should know about"
the suspect says "no"
the scene skips a bit, it is only an add
the officer heading straight for the youngish suspect, hand extended says in an authoritive voice
"listen mate, when i asked about is there anything in the car i should know about, why didnt you tell me about these"
end of add
you have to watch the show to find out what it was and what the reason was
but it struck me funny that a police officer should call a suspect, whom he is not happy with for not disclosing what ever it was, "mate"
only in Australia
lol
Oz!
According to an article in the Denver Post, the percentage of Americans who consider children "very important" to a successful marriage has dropped sharply since 1990, and more now cite the sharing ofhousehold chores .
In a list of what people think is important in a marriage, call me silly, I am really curious how sharing household chores is so important. Teamwork maybe?
Good housing, adequate income, sex, and faithfulness were also listed.
Keys to a Good Marriage: Share Housework
~Boz
Oz,
It has been in the news, but not necesarily front page, that a Hamas affiliated CHILDREN'S program featured a character that much resembled Mickey Mouse. I don't think Disney was too happy about it either. "Farfour," is it was called, had a high pitched voice stated such things as: "You and I are laying the foundation for a world led by Islamists" and "We will return the Islamic community to its former greatness, and liberate Jerusalem, God willing, liberate Iraq, God willing, and liberate all the countries of the Muslims invaded by the murderers."He has also encouraged children to use an AK-47 and grenades on Israelis and Americans. He simulates shooting the AK-47 and throwing the grenades.
Well if that kind of brainwashing wasn't enough, the last episode, which aired just two days ago, Farfur is beaten to death by an Israeli who was trying to buy his land. Farfur calls the Israeli a "terrorist."
In light of the Danish cartoons, can you imagine the outrage, no, the BLOODSHED, if here in the U.S. we had Barney, the adorable purple dinosaur killed by an Islamic terrorist?
FarfourHamas TV Kills Off Mickey Mouse Double
~Boz
This weekend at Unique Exposures, the week-end theme challenge is Going Up the Country.
I chose this rural area in Harford County taken my favorite time of year.
Hi Oz!
Does Australia import a lot of items from China as the US does? If so, I certainly feel the need to share with you our headlines in the case you don't hear of them there - I mean, I think they're trying to kill us here.
It started with the pet food. Beloved pooches and other family pets dying and sick. They traced it back to the pet food that for some reason, we can't make ourselves anymore.
Next it was tainted toothpaste and toys.
Recently it was 450,000 defective tires with one case in Pennsylvania leading to a deadly car accident.
And last, seafood. Which begs the question, what is wrong with our own fish?
Since everything is made there, I am starting to question, is ANYTHING safe?
~ Boz
Hi Oz
Apparently, according to an article in the Financial Post, the mud at the bottom of B.C. fjords reveals that solar output drives climate change - and that we should prepare now for dangerous global cooling.
I am not a subscriber of the Financial Post, and I couldn't read the entire article, but I'd sure love to know the mud-fjord-sunspot-global cooling connection!
Well, here is a little more found elsewhere:
"Using computers to conduct what is referred to as a "time series analysis" on the colouration and thickness of the annual layers, we have discovered repeated cycles in marine productivity in this, a region larger than Europe. Specifically, we find a very strong and consistent 11-year cycle throughout the whole record in the sediments and diatom remains. This correlates closely to the well-known 11-year "Schwabe" sunspot cycle, during which the output of the sun varies by about 0.1%. Sunspots, violent storms on the surface of the sun, have the effect of increasing solar output, so, by counting the spots visible on the surface of our star, we have an indirect measure of its varying brightness. Such records have been kept for many centuries and match very well with the changes in marine productivity we are observing.
In the sediment, diatom and fish-scale records, we also see longer period cycles, all correlating closely with other well-known regular solar variations. In particular, we see marine productivity cycles that match well with the sun's 75-90-year "Gleissberg Cycle," the 200-500-year "Suess Cycle" and the 1,100-1,500-year "Bond Cycle." The strength of these cycles is seen to vary over time, fading in and out over the millennia. The variation in the sun's brightness over these longer cycles may be many times greater in magnitude than that measured over the short Schwabe cycle and so are seen to impact marine productivity even more significantly.
Our finding of a direct correlation between variations in the brightness of the sun and earthly climate indicators (called "proxies") is not unique. Hundreds of other studies, using proxies from tree rings in Russia's Kola Peninsula to water levels of the Nile, show exactly the same thing: The sun appears to drive climate change.
However, there was a problem. Despite this clear and repeated correlation, the measured variations in incoming solar energy were, on their own, not sufficient to cause the climate changes we have observed in our proxies. In addition, even though the sun is brighter now than at any time in the past 8,000 years, the increase in direct solar input is not calculated to be sufficient to cause the past century's modest warming on its own. There had to be an amplifier of some sort for the sun to be a primary driver of climate change.
Indeed, that is precisely what has been discovered. In a series of groundbreaking scientific papers starting in 2002, Veizer, Shaviv, Carslaw, and most recently Svensmark et al., have collectively demonstrated that as the output of the sun varies, and with it, our star's protective solar wind, varying amounts of galactic cosmic rays from deep space are able to enter our solar system and penetrate the Earth's atmosphere. These cosmic rays enhance cloud formation which, overall, has a cooling effect on the planet. When the sun's energy output is greater, not only does the Earth warm slightly due to direct solar heating, but the stronger solar wind generated during these "high sun" periods blocks many of the cosmic rays from entering our atmosphere. Cloud cover decreases and the Earth warms still more.
The opposite occurs when the sun is less bright. More cosmic rays are able to get through to Earth's atmosphere, more clouds form, and the planet cools more than would otherwise be the case due to direct solar effects alone. This is precisely what happened from the middle of the 17th century into the early 18th century, when the solar energy input to our atmosphere, as indicated by the number of sunspots, was at a minimum and the planet was stuck in the Little Ice Age. These new findings suggest that changes in the output of the sun caused the most recent climate change. By comparison, CO2 variations show little correlation with our planet's climate on long, medium and even short time scales.
In some fields the science is indeed "settled." For example, plate tectonics, once highly controversial, is now so well-established that we rarely see papers on the subject at all. But the science of global climate change is still in its infancy, with many thousands of papers published every year. In a 2003 poll conducted by German environmental researchers Dennis Bray and Hans von Storch, two-thirds of more than 530 climate scientists from 27 countries surveyed did not believe that "the current state of scientific knowledge is developed well enough to allow for a reasonable assessment of the effects of greenhouse gases." About half of those polled stated that the science of climate change was not sufficiently settled to pass the issue over to policymakers at all.
Solar scientists predict that, by 2020, the sun will be starting into its weakest Schwabe solar cycle of the past two centuries, likely leading to unusually cool conditions on Earth. Beginning to plan for adaptation to such a cool period, one which may continue well beyond one 11-year cycle, as did the Little Ice Age, should be a priority for governments. It is global cooling, not warming, that is the major climate threat to the world, especially Canada. As a country at the northern limit to agriculture in the world, it would take very little cooling to destroy much of our food crops, while a warming would only require that we adopt farming techniques practiced to the south of us.
Meantime, we need to continue research into this, the most complex field of science ever tackled, and immediately halt wasted expenditures on the King Canute-like task of "stopping climate change."
I sure had to think a few times with that last line. "Stopping climate change" does ring odd, thousands of years seem to indicate it always changes.
~Boz
Oz, please forgive the following rant, but you know me, I have to get it off of my chest now and then. 🙂
It seems the major part of the world just love to focus on Paris, Britney, and the next whacko thing Rosie O'Donnell will be doing, and yet, so many REAL headlines get page 10 in the news, if they get a mention at all. I just wish people could stop obsessing about which overpaid athelete is getting caught with drugs or steroids and take a REAL look at the chaos around the globe. What do they think, if they don't read it, or pay attention to it, it will just go away?
Some will march, hold a sign, and scream, "No War!" but how many really know everything that is going on around there, and how much, if left alone in the Middle East at this point would come back to haunt us? I really don't even begin to pretend I know all that is right and wrong there, but there is no mistake that it really is an unstable part of the world. We are supposed to believe Iran's leader means no harm to anyone while he demands his nukes, threatens Israel, and sends his bombers into Iraq , arming Shia rebels, and without it being declared kinda already puts us into a War with Iran - which they do seem to be trying to provoke. Oh, and what a sweet government, they gave their own people 2 hours notice that they were going to ration their fuel down to a 100 litres a month.
Even as war kills, so does silence; In four years, more than 200,000 people have died in Darfur, and more than two million are thought to have become refugees, in a hugely complex conflict that has pitted ethnic groups against each other, and rebels against the Government. The Khartoum regime is accused of raising a brutal militia of Arab nomads called the janjawid to crush the rebels. Perhaps some peaceful solution? China, which buys 65 per cent of Sudan’s oil production, and sells it weapons, has refused to back proposals for sanctions in the UN Security Council. How many articles of Lindsey Lohan's rehabs does it take to divert attention away from such a travesty?
Meanwhile, while we pay like crazy at the gas pumps, another oil rich country, Venezuela is slowly losing its liberties. Their new constitution under Chavez has been written:
No more private property besides your personal belongings. I've read that some one in Venezuela living near Miraflores had "inspectors" came to take an "inventory" of her home (no. of bedrooms, bathrooms, size, who lives there, etc.) The inspectors were Cuban.
The air borne media will have rights to emit only if they serve educative purpose. The state decides which are the educative goals.
The autonomy of Universities is done with. The state will be deciding which careers should be offered and which is the right curriculum to follow.
Decentralization will be done with. Governors and Mayors will be subordinated to special vice presidents. Mayors can be removed almost at will by the National Assembly.
Unlimited reelection - Well this could keep Chavez in power for a long time.
Those of us who can more or less watch and read a free press, choose our career paths, and elect our representatives - if we continue to not pay attention and just immerse ourselves in the gossip side of the news, risk these kinds of downfalls in our own backyards.
A favorite story of many is that cooking a frog by putting it into a boiling pot won't work, it will just jump out, as it notices the boiling temperatures right away. However, if you let it get warm slowly, it won't even know it will be boiled. I suggest that happens everywhere around us, but would add one more element, entertainment. Give the masses something to take their minds off of what is real, and they will be the first to be surprised when freedoms we now enjoy and our precious resources disappear.
We don't have to leave our own countries to see this happening. Our elected leaders, minus a rare few, just play politics, and they use our tax money to do it with. Heck, Bush, some liberals, and big business want to sell our country down the river to Mexicans, no matter how many laws they have to break to do it. It's no wonder here in the USA the percentage of Americans with a "great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in Congress is at 14%, the lowest in Gallup's history of this measure. That's so low, says Newt Gingrinch, that some of their own mothers must not even like them.
Here is a headline that is rather disturbing, "Half the World Will Soon Be in Cities." That's sad, but will anyone really care?
The news is distressing, but it's real. If one buries their head and never notices it, it doesn't mean it will go away. Get real, world!
~ Boz, weary of celebrity nonsense, getting off her soapbox. 🙂
ok Boz this really has nothing to do with Paris Hilton
I am not a fan of Paris Hilton
in fact if all the Paris Hiltons in the world were abducted by aliens
the only consequence would be a raising of the worlds IQ
but i can see this being the next subject line for spammers
or something close
and i know how you hate spammers
so i found this just for you
Yes i did follow your tutorial
thank you
Oz!
I know we have discussed Scientology privately before. I thought you'd be interested in the latest news out of Germany.
It appears that Tom Cruise has been cast to star in a movie as Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, leader of the unsuccessful attempt to assassinate the Nazi dictator in July 1944. German says no to filming it there because Cruise is a Scientologist and Scientology "masquerades as a religion to make money."
I couldn't agree more with Berlin's asssessment of Scientology, and it's nice to see a country willing to tell it as they see it.
More on the story HERE
~Boz
🙂 To my ozzie partner,
I didn't use You Tube much in my other blog, but I didn't realize you were going to find it so difficult. So I thought you might need this little tutorial on how to embed a You Tube console into this Word Press Blog.
It really is rather easy. You don't need to become a member, you don't need much of anything at all, except for the copy/paste function.
Once you are at You Tube and you find the movie of your choice. To the right of it, is this code:
Copy the code within the embed box.
Paste it where you want it to go, when in the CODE tab of your Write page.
For an example, I thought I would embed a movie I remembered we both laughed at. Both of us from rather large countries, we sometimes encounter how Europeans are often awestruck at the distances we have and still in the same country. One such funny video is from tabhowells. Two English friends traveling from Charleston, West Virginia, to Baltimore, Maryland. Not very far for our standards, but these two were quickly bored and made a very funny video to entertain themselves:
~Boz
ok Boz
i know i am not stupid ( i think)
but i was going to follow your lead here and add a funny youtube video
so
i go to youtube
search for a suitable video
find the right one after much searching (youtube is bad news when i get on there)
i click the link post video (seems the right one to click)
i have to join
ok i fill out the fields
Except i seemed to have missed one
so i do it again
still not right grrr
so i do it again
wrong again sigh, i cant make out half the letters in the silly code thing 🙁
finaly i am a member , yipeeee
back to adding the video to the blog
hmmmm, ok now i am lost
click here to set up your blog??
add a blog site??
i dunno
its late
i am off to bed
i will think about it tomorrow
you will just have to wonder what humourous gem you missed out on
lol
Simply put, a love story.
Met online.
Became fast friends and had discussions daily over tea.
Met in person, fell in love, got engaged.
Now married in a bi-continental relationship
Stay tuned!
You can see the more of the new (and older ones) » HERE
Here comes the sun king
Here comes the sun king
Everybody's laughing
Everybody's happy
Here comes the sun king
Quando paramucho mi amore de felice carathon
Mundo paparazzi mi amore cicce verdi parasol
Questo abrigado tantamucho que canite carousel
Want to joing the challenge? Click HERE
No, more like a driver who was high on cocaine destroyed an entire cornfield in an attempt to escape from the police.
I wonder if that is how all crop circles came to be?
More on the story
Copy the code within the embed box.
Paste it where you want it to go, when in the CODE tab of your Write page.
For an example, I thought I would embed a movie I remembered we both laughed at. Both of us from rather large countries, we sometimes encounter how Europeans are often awestruck at the distances we have and still in the same country. One such funny video is from tabhowells. Two English friends traveling from Charleston, West Virginia, to Baltimore, Maryland. Not very far for our standards, but these two were quickly bored and made a very funny video to entertain themselves:
~Boz
