OT WED 10 JUL 24 ~ Don't Step on a Bee Day
"Words are like bees – some create honey
and others leave a sting."
-- Unknown
"Handle a book as a bee does a flower,
extract its sweetness but do not damage it!"
-- John Muir
July 10, 1985 — In a shocking act of state terrorism on this day French secret service agents who had entered New Zealand blew up and sank the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior as she lay moored in Auckland harbour.
The Greenpeace campaigners had been hoping to disrupt planned nuclear weapon tests by the French at nearby Mururoa Atoll in the Tuamotu Archipelago of French Polynesia.
A herd of elephants has arrived in Newport, Rhode Island, on the first leg of their 3,500-mile journey across the U.S.
“The Great Elephant Migration” features 100 life-sized animal sculptures crafted by the CoExistence Collective, an organization of 200 Indigenous artisans from the Bettakurumba, Paniya, Kattunayakan, and Soliga communities."
https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2024/07/elepehant-family-us/
Open thread so discuss whatever is on your mind.
Comments
ah gutn tog
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Having a front row seat to a road re-paving the past several nights.
It is a loud, dusty mess. Granted, the road was in dire need of repairs
for many years, so it was due. It is amazing to see these huge machines
crawl thru the dusty fog with the flashing lights and constant beep-beeps.
The trippiest part is seeing the worker bees decked out in bright LED lights
marching along with the various machinery. They wear broad brimmed hats
with a circle of white lights (red in the back). The vertical strips on their coats
make them look like animated robots.
question everything
A small project
October 2022 the county started building a new waste water treatment plant less than a mile north of the end of the street I live on. Access to the plant is via a road right behind our street. It's been nonstop construction vehicles from sunup till sundown. Add in the out flow pipeline is going in just behind our houses. It's been nothing but noise for the last year and a half. The project is supposed to be completed in Nov of this year.
The new plant
Digging the trench for the pipeline
I'm great at multi-tasking. I can waste time, be unproductive, and procrastinate all at the same time.
Good morning...
Been touching up the road this AM. We had 2.5" over the last couple of days (thank you, Beryl) and had a bit of road wash. With a road, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. So all is well, except now I've got some hand work to do shaping the weeps and ditches to guide water off the road. Had to take off the bush hog and put on the box scrape, and will need to reverse the procedure this afternoon.
NATO warmongers have gathered in DC. Sure was fun to see their heads explode when Orban traveled around talking peace with Ukraine, Russia, and China. Want to bet he's shunned in DC especially after he meets with Trump? These incompetent ignoramuses want (plan) to start WWIII, and Orban may upset their apple cart (I hope).
Pepe's article is interesting...
The Big Picture behind Viktor The Mediator’s peace shuttle
Take care, and thanks for the OT!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Hola, QMS y todos; thanks for the OT, QMS.
Been doing long hours of physical labor in serius heat for a bit now. Like everything around here, this is a team process and the conjoined workhas been largely non-stop for weeks, so we have decided to spend the day on a mini road trip out to the coast where it will be about 20 degrees cooler. This will also be the longest trip for our new hybrid and the first one with a serious hill involving switch backs, so it will be good training and a start of the real break-in (do cars still nead a break-in??). It didn't come too soon.
The place is something of a shambles with assorted projects in mid-project all over the place including piles of in process this and that, nonetheless, we shall soon be off. In a few hours we will be sitting on a bench along the shore having a picnic and watching the waves. Life is good and the guy behind the curtain is just some hollowman who we will not allow to trouble us for the next 18 to 24 hours. Tomorrow is garbage day and the phantom of DC will be taken to the curb along with the other household trash before we leave.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Good morning, everyone!
We have had no power since Monday at noon at the house. Maybe today...
My office has never been without power more than a couple of hours during storms. This time, power was down for 24 hrs, on for 12 hours, off for 12 hours, so we put in a small freezer there, took the meat from the big freezer at home, and it is now in the office.
People are driving as much as 40 miles away to get fuel for their cars and generators, and for now, the wait time to get gas is 3 hours.
The county tangent to where we live is 100% dark. My county is about 60% dark.
Beryl was, by the time it got to the area, a regular storm. The damage to infrastructure is disproportionate to the strength of the storm.
Because the storm had been extremely downplayed, we folks who are experienced in storm prep did not prep for this.
We will be camping out at the office for now.
Good damn grief!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
saw on the news this AM
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about a million households in Texas are without power.
Getting to be like Ukraine. Bombing aside. Sounds like the
grid there is seriously downgraded? At least you were able
to save the frozen stuff. Good luck.
question everything
It is strange, QMS.
If downgrade was so serious that we can't withstand a mild storm, how was that not obvious ahead of the storm? Then, how do we survive the forecasted multiple hurricanes, guaranteeing at least one Cat 5?
I cannot emphasize enough, there is something very fishy about this.
Oh, well, at least we will be comfy up in the office.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
No power
Been there several times. Opal in 1995, Ivan in 2004, and in 2018, when a squirrel decided to eat my lines. No fun. Just tell yourself that it will not last forever. I always keep what they call "Hurricane supplies." Cans you open without a can opener which you can just throw on a fire outside. Two cinderblocks and a grate makes a fine barbeque. You're a very self-reliant person. No use throwing your hands up and crying. I hope you get it back on soon.
I lived well through
Carla, Ike, and Harvey. I have spoken to some local government officials that say this storm, not even a bona fide tropical storm, did more damage to the county than those powerful hurricanes.
When in doubt, build a fire, take your burger patty, wrap it in foil, put it on the hot coals, turn it after a few minutes, then make your burger, eat.
I was materially prepared, and always am, it is just the mass of people around that were not that makes things difficult. Long lines at the stores and restaurants. Slow traffic. We haven't needed to go to either type of business, but it has affected my brother, my secretary...it just surprised us all.
Well, court is cancelled, appointments are cancelled, lawyers are staying home, so I am enjoying the down time.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Sorry to hear it. It will not get better. Relatively
unfettered "free market capitalism" situated in relatively captive markets will alway tend thus.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
I thought the same thing I think after every
serious storm. What would it be like if the government pulled out every stop to get people back on their feet? Instead of it turning a blind eye to the misery and mayhem and leave people to fend for themselves. With all the taxes people pay and the hundreds of billions sent overseas is that too much to ask? I think not.
And why does the country’s electrical grid go down every time someone drops a hat? And why am I one of the few who asks this question? People from both sides should be insisting that they government does better.
Glad you have somewhere decent to shelter.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt
I'm sure that
they have our best interests at heart.
https://www.404media.co/u-s-nuke-agency-buys-internet-backbone-data/
The camel's nose creeps a little further into the tent...
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
What could possibly go wrong?
And the Russians
will start fragging the bases where they land in 3... 2... 1...
It didn't have to be like this- but the road will be getting bumpier soon.
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
It's not like NATO has not been warned
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the false idea of this being 'defensive' is seriously offensive
to the ROW. Hell to pay is all I can say.
question everything
There will
be hell, and it will be paid.
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
Haven't stepped on any bees but...
...I've been having to crush palmetto bugs lately, when they invade the house. They make a mess too, so I have to use a paper towel, if I have time to get one. They are very fast. Sometimes they escape.
Ms. So informed me the Pu Bao saga took a surprising twist. Lee Jae-yong, the Samsung chaebol (corporate oligarch) was in China on some business, and while there for all practical purposes, bought Pu Bao back from the Chinese for the Everland park for 8 million. Samsung owns Everland theme park. There are a lot of stories of why the transaction is taking place. It is said that giant pandas consume 100K dollars a year in bamboo and the Chinese zoological society which cares for many pandas needs the cash. I think its a smart move by the Chinese. The deal will be concluded in October. In the meantime, there are rumors about what the conditions will be in interim for Pu Bao while remaining in China. Will she get a Korean keeper while waiting? Will they play Korean sounds in the background to make her feel at home?
"Ragnar Baldursson, sinologist and Iceland's former minister counselor to China, Chinese characters contain the DNA of the Chinese civilization." In this video below he talks about the centrality of harmony and trust in Chinese thought-
The wisdom in Chinese characters
This reminds me of couple of alpha hotels from the UK that used to do youtube videos while riding around China on motorcycles. One of their major talking points was "there is nothing magic about Chinese, it's just words, nothing else." Reminds me of the UK's historical talking points "we didn't burn down the summer palace. It's not twue, I tell you! They made it up!"
Thanks for the open thread QMS!
語必忠信 行必正直
8 million seems like a lot of scratch
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for a bear, but is just small change for a gazillionaire
symbolic gesture I suppose?
The calligraphy involved in Chinese characters has
always fascinated me.
Good luck with the palmettos!
question everything
I have to admit
I'm getting hooked on trying to learn and read the characters. My attitude used to be while studying Korean, "oh no, Hanja, way too hard." I'm trying to read the Chinese subtitles on the western Sinologists' presentations. I think this is a better idea, to just let them talk.
語必忠信 行必正直