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Barack Obama has now fired more cruise missiles than all other Nobel Peace prize winners combined
David Burge
via Twitter

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Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
Lester B. Pearson

Pix

Oh. Oh.  Cold War nostalgia looms.  Nice plane though.  Its just a jet engine with stubby wings and a seat on top. 

Like many Russian weapons of the era, it was cheap, simple, reliable and very good.  Anyone who could mount the infrastructure to maintain the plane could afford one. 

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The truth is rarely pure and never simple.
Oscar Wilde

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It is necessary for me to establish a winner image. Therefore, I have to beat somebody
Richard Nixon

My Pix

    Everything under control at the Bank of England, 1993.
    Kodak High-Speed Infrared

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Sure there are dishonest men in local government. But there are dishonest men in national government too.
Richard M. Nixon

My Pix

    Burnside's bridge, Sharpsburg, Maryland, 1996

A deluge of US Civil War books will be upon us as the 150th anniversary passes.  Many will mention this bridge.  I'm not a fan of "what if" when it comes to war.  But many say that had Burnside not become so fixated on this bridge that he forgot about the battle, the Civil War might have ended in on this battlefield in September 1862.  Its a tempting idea, but supposes McClellan would have pressed a decisive victory. This was not in his character.

In any case, to play with such an idea misses the entire point of that war; we had entered an age where it was insufficient to defeat an army, you had to defeat the nation.  Its been the theme of almost every major war since.

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I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.
Thomas Jefferson

Pahlay Ball!

    Wrigley Field, Labor Day, 1988

I watched my first baseball game of the season last night.  Boston beat The Yankees in Florida.  I love baseball like no other sport.  I love the balance of the game, the pace, the lack of a clock, the intensity of the individual contests between batter and pitcher.  Most of all, I like that there's no set duration. You play until at least 51 batters are out.  If that doesn't decide it, they just keep playing until someone wins.  No overtime rules or special tweaks to make it more exciting. 

I also love Baseball for the stadiums.  Wrigley Field (above) was a terrific experience, but my favorite is Dodger Stadium.  Nodding off to sleep on a Saturday night while watching a west coast game is my ultimate comfort food.

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"the trouble with quotes on the internet is that you never know if they are genuine" 
Abraham Lincoln

Marketing Is Hard

Who can keep track of all those stupid flags?

My Pix

Danger in Halicarnassus.  Turkey, 1986.  Damn that's a long time ago.

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Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.
Groucho Marx

My Pix

Some guy hanging around the Vatican Museum, July 1986.  Kodak High-Speed Infrared. 

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God made everything out of nothing, but the nothingness shows through.
Paul Valery

My Pix

Its been a long time, almost a year since I last posted a photo. Last Christmas (09), I scanned everything left from Greece, intending to finish all the Greek photos and post them by end of spring.  Two things happened to thwart my purpose.  First is I was sick enough through the spring, summer and fall that there was no energy for such persuits.  Second, I was unhappy with the scans and due to the first reason, unable and unwilling to re-scan.  Fortunately, I've had more energy since December.  Also, I figured out a better way to scan and work on the photos.  So here is the first of the last batch of Greek photos from 1986.

This one is taken on Paros.

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Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand
Kurt Vonnegut

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Americans detest all lies except lies spoken in public or printed lies.
Edgar Watson Howe

Another Interesting Map

Map of ancestry by county, US Census 2000

Parasaurolophus

The scientists have managed to re-create what this creature sounded like as they found intact skulls.  Imagine hearing this in a dark Late Cretaceous forest.

Fox News

Pix

Artistic mug shots from 1920's Australia.

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There has never been a protracted war from which a country has benefited.
Sun Tzu

WW2

German Paratroopers jumping over Rotterdam, May 10, 1940.  The photo is notable not only for the depicted action, but for the fact that this was the first occasion when combat troops had jumped from an airplane straight into battle.

Martin Luther King Day

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War is God's way of teaching Americans geography.
Ambrose Bierce

Great pun from a Reddit comment.

Mega-Regions

Interesting map, generally agrees with the Nine Nations of North America.  Found floating around the Internets, don't know who made it, but its a nicely crafted map.

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Conservative, n: A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal who wishes to replace them with others.
Ambrose Bierce

PIX

Hanging out on the Brooklyn Bridge.

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Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.
Plato

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Norway - unfortunately, I don't know the source.

Alive Again

As frequent readers may have noted, there have been no updates since April.  I simply haven't had the energy.  However, rather than waiting until I'm better, it seems better to post sporadically rather than not at all.  So on with the show.

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Only the shallow know themselves.
Oscar Wilde

Pix

Somebody hopped out of their car and snapped the dust rising from nearby mountains during Sunday's earthquake in Mexico.