World

73-year-old woman conquers Everest

Suddenly I don’t feel quite so old. After all, I’m a mere 69. Saturday morning a 73-year-old Japanese woman, Tamae Watanabe, reached the summit of Mount Everest. At 29,035 feet (still officially 29,029 ft), Everest is the highest point on earth. Men die there every year, four just last week. Watanabe is the oldest woman … Continue reading »

London’s new tower not my cup of tea

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a roller coaster? No, it’s the “ArcelorMittal Orbit” observation tower in London, focal point of this year’s Olympic park. CNN has posted a photo gallery and story, if you want all the details. Now Europe’s tallest sculpture, the tower is 22m taller than the Statue of Liberty and … Continue reading »

Happy Women’s Day

  March 8 is International Women’s Day

Europe to protest ACTA on Feb. 11

Europe is getting fired up for ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) protests Saturday, February 11. There’s much less activity in the U.S. because our government has already signed the trade agreement. If ACTA is beaten down in Europe, it fails as a whole, so do what you can to support the European protests.

Feb. 12 set as international day of action against ACTA

February 11, 2012, has been set as the international day of action against ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement). See Joseph Hall’s Blog for a history of Internet copyright protection legislation, plus details and links about ACTA, the day of action, and petitions you can sign. The U.S. has already signed the agreement, but we can support … Continue reading »

SOPA/PIPA, ACTA, TTP: Where does it end?

Hoo, boy. I hadn’t even gotten around to commenting on ACTA, the international Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Act, which was enacted in virtual secrecy, but now there’s discussion of a new intellectual property chapter for TPP, the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The discussions are — you guessed it — secret. Call me old-fashioned, but to me “secret” means you’re … Continue reading »

Iran sending drone back to Obama

Wishing everyone a Happy New Year

  It’s that time again. New Year’s Eve. Around the world, 2011 is ticking away, if not already gone. For some it’s a celebration of having survived the old year; for others it’s the joy of a new year, fresh and unsullied. A chance to start over. Or to carry on. Whatever it means to … Continue reading »

Not my idea of a crash landing

I’ve seen video of a lot of crash landings and a lot of so-so landings with partial or no landing gear deployed. The latest, in Warsaw, Poland, this week, is being reported as a crash landing because, I suppose, because the plane’s landing gear could not be lowered. But “crash” doesn’t strike me as the … Continue reading »

I’m number 2,331,808,246 … approximately

Big in the media this week: The world population will reach an estimated 7 billion on October 31. I’m not sure why that’s such big news, other than 7 billion being a nice round number. It’s the sort of thing you’d expect only statisticians to get excited about. Except … except that the rate of … Continue reading »

Gadhafi finally buried

Based on a number of different reports, it seems clear that deposed Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi was probably killed by his captors, not by random crossfire in a gun battle with loyalists as some have claimed. That’s not surprising. He was not captured by a disciplined military unit nor by police, but by a gang … Continue reading »

It’s about damn time!

Finally!! All U.S. troops remaining in Iraq, some 39,000, are heading home and will be out of Iraq by December 31. What took so long? Pres. George W. Bush took his eye off the ball in Afghanistan and our search for Osama bin Laden and sent troops into Iraq in 2003, supposedly because Saddam Hussein … Continue reading »

Gadhafi’s dead, turn on the oil

The Libyan rebels caught and killed Moammar Gadhafi today. I was surprised to hear it only because I had assumed that by now he’d fled the country, possibly with a big pile of those missing shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles. Since he opted to stay in Libya as he’d sworn he would, his capture and death were … Continue reading »

Earth as art, a project of the USGS and NASA

This evening I stumbled across a large collection of satellite photos of Earth entitled “Our Earth as Art; A Landsat Perspective.” Each is a beautiful abstract image — that also happens to be a spectacular color photo of someplace on our planet. There are approximately 130 such images available on the USGS website, which says … Continue reading »

Ransom is ransom

Two American hikers held in Iran for the last two years are back on American soil today, but I’m still asking myself why, with the entire globe available to them, they chose to go hiking along the Iran-Iraq border in the first place. At the very least, it was incredibly stupid. And now that the … Continue reading »

Thoughts on a power outage

Damn, there goes the power. I think. Wait, the laptop is still running. Dummy, it has a battery. Crap, that damn security system. I discontinued the service over a year ago but their stupid box still starts beeping — loudly — when the power goes off and won’t stop until I enter the code. I’ve … Continue reading »

Michelangelo’s David: Which side is the right side?

You never know what you’ll stumble across on the Internet. For me this evening it was the discovery of a fascinating article on Michelangelo’s David. In the opinion of the author, J. Huston McCulloch, the David is not properly oriented in Florence’s Galleria dell’Academia. The view we see most often, shown here, is not the … Continue reading »

Thoughts on Irene

I’ve had the TV on all day, tuned to CNN, watching the news and worrying about everyone on the East Coast. Specifically, I worry about those few individuals I know there. I keep reminding myself that these folks will undoubtedly be listening to their local officials, not CNN news hounds, and will have the best, … Continue reading »

Run, Gadhafi, run

Moammar Gadhafi is probably not a happy camper today. Nobody seems to know where he is, but we know for sure he’s on the run, hiding, probably trying to get out of Libya. It’s one thing, when you’re in power and in control, to announce to the world that you will never leave your country, … Continue reading »

Gold: Not as common as you might have thought

About now I’m wishing I used a theme that supported Asides, because I just heard a fascinating bit of trivia for the first time. As far as I can recall, anyway. I’m using that qualifier more and more as I realize that at my age, there’s a good chance I have heard such-and-such before — … Continue reading »