Open Thread – Windswept
This beautiful icy windswept scene was captured from a pull-out right on the Seward Highway, heading south from Anchorage. This particular spot is called Beluga Point, named for the formerly plentiful beluga whales that could often be spotted from the shore. Now, the animals are rare and the subject of a lawsuit by the State of Alaska to keep them off the endangered species list. They can still occasionally be seen, looking at first like whitecaps out in the frigid waters of Cook Inlet. The views from the Seward Highway are absolutely spectacular, contributing to its official designation as a “Scenic Byway.”
Here’s a great story about the Tongass:
http://wilderness.org/content/alaska-ancient-rainforest
“Under the new management system, forest products would primarily come from the stewardship and restoration of second growth stands. The change in forest management would also diversify southeast economies, leaving them better able to withstand future market fluctuations.
Beyond these considerable economic benefits, restoring the forest would provide a number of services — such as clean water, salmon, and wildlife habitat — that are difficult to measure, but essential to the communities of southeast Alaska. The Tongass is one of the top ten carbon storing national forests in America, and the sections of old growth forest — with trees that are 700 years old and six feet in diameter — are especially important for carbon storage.”
It’s beautiful, but makes me shiver just looking at it!
I do love nature. It’s full of magical glimpses of perfection, doncha think?
Please pull up a beanbag chair and have a look-see at my new photo blog. Click my name 🙂
I’m SO proud! Western NY has its very own Republican sex scandal!!!
My US Congressman, Chris Lee, resigned today because he got caught hitting on a single woman on Craig’s List while his wife was home in Clarence, taking care of his son. He’s a Republican (yeah, I know…shocker!).
Apparently, he was doing a little shopping in the “Women Seeking Men” section and sent several flirty emails to a woman listed there. He followed it up with a shirtless photo of himself, at which point the woman did a little investigating and discovered that he was NOT divorced, was actually age 46 instead of 39, and a US Congressman instead of a lobbyist. So much for truth in advertising!
A spokesman claimed that his account was hacked but Lee resigned immediately after the story broke, and his official statement included, “I regret the harm that my actions have caused my family, my staff and my constituents. I deeply and sincerely apologize to them all. I have made profound mistakes and I promise to work as hard as I can to seek their forgiveness.” I’m thinking these are NOT the words of an innocent victim of a mean ol’ hacker.
I’ve also read that this was not the first time he’s ‘looked for love in all the wrong places’.
Guess I shouldn’t bother finishing the email I was planning to send to him complaining about his support of the latest right wing Uterine Invasion Legislation. Seems he was perfectly happy legislating other people’s sex lives (he also was against repealing DADT), but didn’t feel the need to keep his own pants zipped when he was away from home. Chris Lee, thy name is hypocrisy!
Hey, if he, along with his political cohorts want to be the uterine police, I demand to know if their doctor ever prescribed erectile enhancing drugs for them, where they were, who they were with (I really don’t give one $hit if they were “looking for love in all the wrong places”, but I do want to know that their partners were of age to consent) and whether or not they were counseled by their minister before they released said erectile enhancing drug via ejaculation. I am sick and tired of and disgusted by the duplicity exhibited by our politicians and I am weary of male people having an opinion and a vote about my female parts.
Thanks for your resignation, Representative Lee. I hope your wife either pu$$y whips you until the day you die or divorces you and makes you pay her handsomely for having had to put up with a piece of crap like you for all of her married life.
These people make me sick.
Yup.
Yay for leenie! You must be so very proud!
Congratulations, Leenie!!!!!!!!!
You had the ONLY Republican capable of feeling shame/embarrassment/dread!! And you are losing him. (One of those mixed blessings, I guess.)
I’d heard he was stepping down to try to stop worse revelations, and I’m hoping he’ll inspire Vitter, Ensign, and – is Larry Craig still there? to do the same.
Also, Jon Kyl of Arizona will not run again after this term. I was so pleased I called Kyl’s and Boehner’s office to wish them good riddance to bad rubbish.
It’s getting better, everyone!!!!!!!!!!
The tide, it must be turning.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_NEW_YORK_CONGRESSMAN_QUITS?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=US
Interesting turn of events. I guess moral turpitude is not so easily denied now. Gives new definition to the sunshine laws – long may they reign.
Lovely photo. And other good news, astounding news. Gabrielle Giffords has begun to speak again. Brings tears to my eyes. Wishing her well on her long, hard road to her best possible recovery.
I am so encouraged to hear the good news!
Perhaps I’m being premature here, but I think – like or not, and certainly unintended – Gabby and Mark have become Real American Heroes. They are people facing challenges that we can relate to and cheer for. And we need some heroes right now.
So …. hopefully our Miss P(registered trademark) will have the good sense to follow Thumper’s fathers advice, and if she can’t say something nice, not say anything at all. Bonus points if you can name the film that came from!
I mean, to do otherwise would be like … calling Shirley Temple a talentless hack and spotlight hog.
I heard on the tv tonight that Gabrielle Giffords speaking is even better news than you might think.
Apparently, many people with brain damage on the left (where the speech center is located) begin by making speech sounds but not necessarily articulating real words. Some of them never even progress past the sounds to actual words because the damage is so severe. The fact that she said a real word that was used in the appropriate context shows that she not only is able to articulate sounds and put them together to correctly create words, but she has what the doctors called ‘functional speech’. And that is VERY, VERY good news!!! 🙂
That’s wonderful news to hear! Gabby and her Husband are both in my thoughts and such inspiring people.
So I was at my local Neo-Con hardware store the other day, I picked up this interesting informative bit of literature. I really didn’t know there were so many varieties of parts! http://goo.gl/WmkEL
Why doesn’t the US have a press corps that can write articles that summarize a situation as well as this one does?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/feb/09/ben-bernanke-congress
“Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s testimony before the House budget committee on Wednesday largely repeated what he has been saying recently. It was interesting only for its likewise repeated silences which, as so often, spoke loudly. The biggest silence concerned taxing corporations and the rich in the US.
Ben Bernanke’s silence speaks volumesThe Federal Reserve chairman offered no policy to address the grotesque juxtaposition of corporate profits and jobless misery
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Richard Wolff guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 9 February 2011 20.49 GMT Article history Time out: question time is up for Ben Bernanke, testifying before the House budget committee, 9 February 2011. Photograph: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s testimony before the House budget committee on Wednesday largely repeated what he has been saying recently. It was interesting only for its likewise repeated silences which, as so often, spoke loudly. The biggest silence concerned taxing corporations and the rich in the US.
Many sentences were devoted to the burdens of the huge deficits being run by the US government, to the need to reduce those deficits. Otherwise, Bernanke warned, lenders might one day stop providing those immense flows into the US Treasury. But not one word about reducing the deficit by taxing large corporations and the rich.
On Tuesday, Britain’s chancellor of the exchequer announced a modest tax increase on banks in the UK: a “fair contribution”, he said, “to our recovery”. No such idea, let alone any action, in the US.
Instead, we hear pronouncements like Bernanke’s that seem to believe that cutting outlays in the only way to go. The debate then becomes about which outlays to cut. Bernanke makes clear his preferred cuts lie in healthcare. Note that the US already spends more than other developed nations for poorer healthcare outcomes as measured by national health statistics. Bernanke says nothing about lowering government outlays by reducing the profits of drugmakers and healthcare providers. Nor do the possible impacts of reduced healthcare upon the wellbeing and productivity of the US workforce merit any comment or concern from Bernanke.
It is worth remembering that when the US borrows trillions of dollars to cover deficits, a significant portion of that borrowing comes from the large corporations and richest individuals who lend to the government the money that, apparently, they did not have to pay in taxes to that government. I can see the desirability for them of lending at interest rather than being taxed. The matter looks otherwise from the standpoint of the rest of us.”
Sorry, somehow I garbled the cut-and-paste.
Rethugs snorted at the Democrat idea of ending tax breaks for oil companies,it was reported earlier today.
Maybe someone should warm the frigid water so the whales would feel more welcome. Sorta like a house-warming party for Belugas and bring along plenty of snacks for them,too.
Belugas like their crustaceans on ice. LOL
JIMZMUM——Our family always loved going to the Mississippi River to water ski. We locked thru at Keokuk . But always went down stream about 10 miles to get away from the strong current. It made a very long day with young kids at the time, and getting up the next day and go to work. But I’m glad we did it as we all have fond memories of those days. I remember when I pulled our pontoon boat back to our home in Iowa on the 4th of July! Whew!!!!
For those interested in the Kochtopus and the machinations of Ron Paul, this is really a scary look at who gets to testify before Congress, courtesy of Mike Konczal at Rortybomb:
http://rortybomb.wordpress.com/2011/02/09/monetary-policy-hearing-today-or-ron-paul-versus-the-kochtopus/
“What I’m interested in is the dialectical relationship between what Ron Paul is doing and what other people on the Right are doing. By moving the goalposts and the dialogue so far to the Right, and by properly harnessing the people’s mass discontent with the financial system, the crisis and the Federal Reserve, Paul’s activities are going to make the idea of stripping Maximum Employment from the Federal Reserve’s mandate seem downright sensible. He’s going to clear the space for the idea that the regional banks chiefs, instead of being ultra-conservative people who think unemployment is fine and who want a monetary policy that benefits business interests, are “regular folks” who “get it” outside the failed navel-gazing bureaucrats of the Federal Reserve.
He’s also going to make Paul Ryan look reasonable instead of someone who is both uninformed and terrible on monetary policy. In each case he’s building on problems people are experiencing and pushing them further to the right. Do liberals have any type of counter-narrative rather than relying on discredited technocrat expertise?”
Very good article in Mother Jones:
http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/reagan-anniversary-david-stockman
“GOP leaders, naturally, are not impressed with Stockman’s take. Grover Norquist, a top conservative strategist and tax-cut champion, all but dismisses him as a has-been: “Sometimes, folks just want back in the limelight.” If Republicans let tax cuts be held “hostage to Democrats cutting spending,” he says, “you’ll never get spending restraint or tax rate reduction. [Stockman] never understood supply-side economics.”
Stockman counters that Republicans’ taxes bad/tax cuts good mantra is disingenuous. “I don’t think those kinds of propositions are appropriate, and you could call them a lie if you really wanted to use rhetoric,” he says. “They can’t say government is too big if they’re saying hands off defense. It’s not responsible to say government is the problem when you’ve embraced 95 percent of the dollars.”
And another very good article, same source:
http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/obama-federal-election-commission
that is a beautiful photo. it looks like New York feels today.
i have been in hibernation. keeping myself to myself pretty much except for checking in here to hang out with my friends. so it was a pleasant surprise to hear from sis this morning telling me about an incident that happened a few days ago but as this incident ended with happy news i forgot about it until now. seems a lady was pursued and slung onto the tracks on the ‘f’ line. she suffered injuries but a man saved her just as the train came roaring in. the man disappeared when the lady was secure. it turns out the man whose name is Derek Oakes is friend of the family.
so i want to say to Derek. “well done my dear. you are a wonderful man and your friends are very proud of you.”
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http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2011/02/watch_out_for_t_1.php
the daily news news article has a video if you want to check it out.:
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2011/02/09/2011-02-09_meets_hero_as_hunt_goes_on_for_psycho_attacker_subway_victim_finds_her_rescuer_i.html
Saw this on IM, Gina Gershon as Old-Whazername in Media Addict on Funny or Die:
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/5bc6d41ec7/sarah-palin-media-addict
Such a lovely photo. It’s hard to believe that the Alaskan government could even consider such a lawsuit. What’s Beluga Point without the Belugas? TCW, I never heard of Raffi before (no kids), so Baby Beluga was new to me (no singing along). And P#6, when I finally get to tour Alaska, I promise to bring a Milepost.
You should reorder your thinking/speaking: Visit FIRST before you begin judging what the “Alaska government” should or shouldn’t do.
“Visit FIRST before” using critical thinking skills, you betcha. You keep on posting and come on up when you can, Zyxomma. Love to have you. Also, too, I’ve seen belugas many times at Bird Point but not once at Beluga Point. I know. And Bird Point has these beluga statues in the sidewalk in case they are illusive in the sea: http://www.alaska-in-pictures.com/data/media/24/beluga-sculptures_4777.jpg
Great photo! Beluga Point has been one of our favorite points since futurexpat? and I first visited Alaska. It is beautiful in all seasons, as is the rest of that portion of the Seward Highway – actually, ALL of the Seward highway!
Safety note: Tourists should seriously consider having a Milepost with them when they tour the Seward Highway. double your pleasure, double your safety!
what’s a milepost?
It’s a large periodical that is put out by Alaska every year. It tells you in detail everything about the roads there, where the best places to pull off the road are (some places can be dangerous), when you are in moose territory, bear territory, where to eat, where there’s gas, etc., etc. etc. It’s your bible if you are a tourist driving in Alaska, and you can often spot the drivers who don’t have one.
And Beluga Point is absolutely beautiful at any time of the year.
“It’s your bible if you are a tourist driving in Alaska, and you can often spot the drivers who don’t have one.”
Amen to that! And it’s great for getting through northern BC and the Yukon, too – also places where the uninformed motorist can get into trouble.
Please don’t drive and read the Milepost at the same time . . . you can often spot the drivers who do.
LOL.
Huh – and here I thought I knew what a milepost was. I thought it was that pole along the highway that tells you how many miles you are from where you started.
thanks Future
themilepost.com
very worthwhile – even if you’re not in Alaska or Canada
Another exquisite photograph! Will there be a From the Mudflats calendar for 2012? I’d buy three.
Okay, I just can’t resist posting one of Littlebird’s once upon a favorite songs.
Let’s sing along with Raffi, shall we?
Baby Beluga
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjUYAom5i4c
L’Shalom,
thatcrowwoman
or even more better, shake your sillies out, also, too!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zhNtMu4nQg
Baaaaay-beee Bah-loooooooo-gah, I wonder how many times I have sung that song, and actually how many times I have covered Raffi’s complete discography.
Our Raffi cassettes are long worn out, but I can’t bear to toss them.
Beautiful picture! We live on a scenic by-way, too. Only except our body of water is the Mississippi River, which is sulking and frozen right now. That river is very dangerous because of undertows and currents around here.
I love that song – and the picture.