Sunday 8 November 2009
Posted by marisacat in Divertissements.comments closed
Chishang, Taiwan: Taiwanese pianist Chen Kuan-yu performs a concert in the middle of a rice paddy field
Photograph: Reuters
I so don’t want one… 1 November 2009
Posted by marisacat in Divertissements, Moscow, WAR!, la vie en rose.comments closed
The Dartz Prombron Monaco Red Diamond Edition armoured car sells for one million euros. It has gold plated bulletproof windows, pure tungsten exhausts, speed gauges encrusted with diamonds – and seats made from whale penis leather
Picture: BARCROFT MEDIA
hmm It occurred to me though that Maria and Arnold might want one so I thought I’d google up a fast article on the item… made by a Russian firm, Russo-Baltique.. (proceed to fret, we are being outdone in the gargantuan division – I say, thanks be to someone’s god!)
If four-wheel-drives weren’t politically incorrect enough, a Russian car maker is offering one with whale penis leather trim. By RICHARD BLACKBURN.
A Russian armoured-car builder is boasting that its latest vehicle has seats covered with “whale-penis leather”.
The €1 million ($1.6 million) Dartz Prombron Monaco Red Diamond Edition armoured car has been developed by the same company, RussoBaltique, that built armoured vehicles for Tsar Nicholas, Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky.
On its official website, the company says the whale-penis leather is the same as that used by Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis on the yacht Christina O.
Onassis is rumoured to have had some of the barstools on the yacht, the world’s most expensive at the time, covered in the controversial leather. . . . . .
…it all seems so long ago, but we should be relieved there is continuum! Lest the firmament tear!
For those wondering just how may whales may need to be harvested to outfit the special edition, the answer is not many. The penis of the Blue Whale, for example, can grow up to 2.4 metres.
Maybe they should just ship a whole one, along with the … car. Tank. Whatever it is.
Pretty simple… 23 October 2009
Posted by marisacat in Divertissements, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter.comments closed
Minsk, Belarus: A squirrel reaches for a peanut from the hand of a woman in a park
Photograph: Sergei Grits/AP
but there is so much ugly imagery out there…
Just a thread, should anyone want one…..
What a week… 10 October 2009
Posted by marisacat in Divertissements, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter.comments closed
A rare victoria crowned pigeon hatched out of its shell last month, and is the very first of its kind to have been bred at the London zoo Photograph: Zoological Society of London
This little crew has great cartoon possibilities…
*****
Tuesday 6 October 2009
Posted by marisacat in Brazil - Lula, Divertissements, Viva La Revolucion!.comments closed
October 2 – People relax at Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro [AP]
I am under the weather… so putting up a shot of a day at the beach in Rio. And it does look very lovely.
Well… there is this… quite by accident I clicked on Rigorous Intuition which had appeared to fall fallow many months ago. But by luck there was a new post, from September 3 2009…
There is also a comment from someone who was at the Pittsburgh demonstrations.
At ease… 28 September 2009
Posted by marisacat in Divertissements, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter.comments closed
Two Australian red kangaroos lie in the sun at Sydney Wildlife World. The red kangaroo is the largest living marsupial and Australia’s largest native land mammal, well adapted for Australia’s dry interior. An Australian psychologist had to be rescued from her office after a “frantic” kangaroo crashed through the window and leaped around the room, toppling furniture, reports said.
[Greg Wood/AFP/Getty Images]
It def beats this horrific photograph. Swung thru the air, upside down, suspended from a helicopter… and at the end of the ride is a breeding station. I can see it in a rescue situation, but otherwise….
As for the “news”… what to say.
****
Watching it go by… 20 September 2009
Posted by marisacat in Afghanistan War, Divertissements, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, Pakistan, WAR!.comments closed
From a cat blog… and I see the subtitle for the blog is a quote from Wendell Berry:
“To be sane in a mad time is bad for the brain, worse for the heart.”
That makes sense.
****
What a shock. Spies and counterinsurgency surge in Casablanca. Gambling too… and internet cafes (in Kabul, that is, along with spiraling rents). Don’t mind the roadside bombs.. just the current unpleasantness. We’re not to blame… No.
LAT:
Reporting from Washington – The CIA is deploying teams of spies, analysts and paramilitary operatives to Afghanistan, part of a broad intelligence “surge” that will make its station there among the largest in the agency’s history, U.S. officials say.
When complete, the CIA’s presence in the country is expected to rival the size of its massive stations in Iraq and Vietnam at the height of those wars. Precise numbers are classified, but one U.S. official said the agency already has nearly 700 employees in Afghanistan.
The influx parallels the U.S. military expansion and comes as the nation’s spy services are under pressure from Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal to improve intelligence on the Taliban and find ways to reverse a series of unsettling trends.
Among them are a twofold increase in the number of roadside bombs, a growing sophistication in the kinds of assaults aimed at coalition troops and evidence that a Taliban group has developed an assembly-line approach to grooming suicide bombers and supplying them to other insurgent organizations. snip
And more…
The intelligence expansion goes beyond the CIA to involve every major spy service, officials said, including the National Security Agency, which intercepts calls and e-mails, as well as the Defense Intelligence Agency, which tracks military threats.
And this…
“The Taliban is at its most capable level since 2001, when it was ejected from the country,” said a Defense Department official who has access to classified intelligence estimates. The official, and others, spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.
A long time ago I read in Harper’s, when the war was less than 2 years old, we had only knocked the Taliban off radio broadcasting for a total of two months.
We went to war? For what?
I think only to kill and maim. Blood and glory. Tally ho. Til we fall flat and the Treasury is beyond empty.
The do has oomph… 16 September 2009
Posted by marisacat in Divertissements, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, UK.comments closed
An alpaca, a cousin of the llama, enjoys his straw breakfast at Vauxhall City Farm in London [Photograph: Katie Collins/PA]
… to say nothing of the bee-sting lips…
*****
Weekend… 12 September 2009
Posted by marisacat in Divertissements.comments closed
British photographer Martin Pugh has been named the Astronomy Photographer of the Year. Martin’s Horsehead Nebula, which also won the Deep Space category, was taken with a 12.5” diameter Richey-Chrétien telescope and CCD camera mounted in his garden shed in Canberra, Australia. Martin, originally from Dudley in the Midlands, acquired the picture over 14 nights with a total exposure time of 19 hours [from an Astronomy photography gallery at the Telegraph]
… as the earthly narrative keeps cranking it out…
Sublimely cool… 8 September 2009
Posted by marisacat in Divertissements.comments closed
Polar bears photographed by American wildlife photographer Steve Kaslowski during an expedition to Norway’s remote Svalbard archipelago last month. A marine mammal expert and spokesman from the WWF believes the bears captured on film in the series could be further evidence that the polar bear population in the region is increasing. Marine mammal expert and WWF spokesman, Dr Tom Arnbom, from Stockholm, thinks the bears in these images could be part of only two growing populations in the world
[Steven Kazlowski/Barcroft Media]
The text travelling thru the photo gallery also mentions that polar bear hunting has been outlawed since the 70s… and walrus hunting since ‘52. Norway is careful to preserve numbers of natural polar bear prey.
Works for me.
*******
