My Pix

Church of the Ascension (1532), Kolomenskoye, Moscow, Russia 1993.
I’m getting deep into the Russian pictures from 1992 and 1993.  Russia was one of the most amazing places I’ve ever visited.  Like a different planet.  I was expecting Soviet drab, but was surprised by the beauty just laying around.  Like this place.  Apart from the rare busload of Germans, Kolomenskoye was the exclusive preserve of the Moscovites. 

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Drawing on my fine command of the English language, I said nothing.
Robert Benchley

TARP Visualized

An interesting series of photos illustrates the American’s bank bailout program.  Get it here.

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A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.
Mark Twain

My Pix

    Admiralty, St. Petersburg, Russia, 1993
    Kodak High-Speed Infrared
All of my photos are on Flickr.

Credit Crisis Visualized

Here is a great video.  More like an animated power point really.  Its 11 minutes long and the best short explanation I’ve seen of the mechanics of the crisis.

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

Post-Collapse Tips and Tricks

There's a transcript here of an amusing talk given by a Russian-American on how to survive after the inevitable collapse of the United States. He draws heavily on the Russian experience after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Here's a particularly helpful passage:

One final transportation idea: start breeding donkeys. Horses are finicky and expensive, but donkeys can be very cost-effective and make good pack animals. My grandfather had a donkey while he was living in Tashkent in Central Asia during World War II. There was nothing much for the donkey to eat, but, as a member of the Communist Party, my grandfather had a subscription to Pravda, the Communist Party newspaper, and so that’s what the donkey ate. Apparently, donkeys can digest any kind of cellulose, even when it’s loaded with communist propaganda. If I had a donkey, I would feed it the Wall Street Journal.

At Sea

Here’s an interesting and honest assessment of the global economic crisis from Democratic Congressman Paul Kanjorski.  He also reveals that one day in September 2008, the US came within hours of a complete economic meltdown.

Ya know, we're not any geniuses in economics or finances... We're representatives of people. We ought to take our time, but let the people know this is a very difficult struggle.

Somebody threw us into the middle of the Atlantic Ocean without a life raft and we're trying to determine what's the closest shore and whether there's any chance in the world to swim that far. We. Don't. Know.

Full story on DailyKos.

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A thing long expected takes the form of the unexpected when at last it comes.
Mark Twain

Fun Facts To Know And Share

There’s a funny post at Gizmodo about what people search for on Google.  There’s a lot more like the image above, some hilarious.

My Pix

    Church and spanish moss, Darien, Georgia, 1989
    Kodak High-Speed Infrared

My Pix

    More orchids in the living room. This is my first picture taken with RAW.  You can tell the difference.
All my photos are on Flickr.

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And no one brings anything 
Small into a bar around here.  
They all started out with bad directions.
Tom Waits, 9th & Hennepin

Circular Logic at Wikipedia

An amusing first for Wikipedia:
"Germany has a new minister of economic affairs. Mr. von und zu Guttenberg is descended from an old and noble lineage, so his official name is very long: Karl Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jacob Philipp Franz Joseph Sylvester Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg. When first there were rumors that he would be appointed to the post, someone changed his Wikipedia entry and added the name 'Wilhelm,' so Wikipedia stated his full name as: Karl Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jacob Philipp Wilhelm Franz Joseph Sylvester Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg. What resulted from this edit points up a big problem for our information society (in German; Google translation). The German and international press picked up the wrong name from Wikipedia — including well-known newspapers, Internet sites, and TV news such as spiegel.de, Bild, heute.de, TAZ, or Süddeutsche Zeitung. In the meantime, the change on Wikipedia was reverted, with a request for proof of the name. The proof was quickly found. On spiegel.de an article cites Mr. von und zu Guttenberg using his 'full name'; however, while the quote might have been real, the full name seems to have been looked up on Wikipedia while the false edit was in place. So the circle was closed: Wikipedia states a false fact, a reputable media outlet copies the false fact, and this outlet is then used as the source to prove the false fact to Wikipedia."


via Slashdot - full discussion here.

I'm posting this for amusement, not to criticize Wikipedia.  My take-away is that there are lazy reporters who don't properly check their facts (what a surprise), and that someone caught the inaccuracy almost immediately.

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Lies are like children: they're hard work, but it's worth it because the future depends on them.
Pam Davis, House M.D.

My Pix

    St. Basil's Cathedral (1561), Moscow, Russia, 1992

    Kodak High-Speed Infrared

Moscow defenses, December 1941

It looks cold and it was.  Many days during December 1941, the temperature dropped to -40c.  This is close to the spot where the Germans penetrated farthest into the Moscow defenses, about 40km north of the Kremlin.  There are several of these tank obstacles marking the spot on the ring road, just east of the road to the airport.

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There's a snake lurking in the grass.
Virgil

My Pix

    Spanish Moss, Darien, Georgia, 1989 - Kodak High-Speed Infrared