These are breathtaking images: Earth From Above (via O-Dub)!
I’m still sorting through my travel photos while also slogging through some blogs, getting caught up on the news I missed. There were a lot of big stories — ranging from the very sad (Ted Kennedy’s health problems) to the exciting (California’s Supreme Court sanely confirming that all people are created equal) — but those stories have been beaten to death. Here are a few links that cover some quieter events:
- Exits: Annika Sorenstam (golf) and Justine Henin (tennis) are both retiring — Justine is the first tennis player to quit while holding the #1 spot!
- Via Boing Boing is this gorgeous public spaces animation
- beep found some incredible photography
- Chris points to some beautiful underwater footage
- Cute Overload discovered some animal odd couple images
- Bush claims that he’s made great golf-related sacrifices because of his war. But he lies. And he got busted. And mocked.
- And finally, a couple of quotes. These are the kind of take-no-prisoners Democrats I’ve been wishing for all these years!
“While I always appreciate hearing the news from John McCain, he should explain to the American people why almost every single promise and prediction that he has made about Iraq has turned to be catastrophically wrong, including his support for a surge that was supposed to achieve political reconciliation. While John McCain offers his poor judgment in supporting George Bush’s war and a failed foreign policy that has left us less secure, I will continue to make the case for a new foreign policy that deploys all elements of American power — including tough, principled and direct diplomacy. It’s stunning that in such a lengthy written statement, John McCain could not articulate a single new idea that hasn’t been tried — and failed — over the last eight years.” — Barack Obama
The Bush-McCain saber rattling is the most self-defeating policy imaginable. It achieves nothing. But it forces Iranians who despise the regime to rally behind their leaders. And it spurs instability in the Middle East, which adds to the price of oil, with the proceeds going right from American wallets into Tehran’s pockets.
The worst nightmare for a regime that thrives on tension with America is an America ready, willing and able to engage. Since when has talking removed the word “no” from our vocabulary?
It’s amazing how little faith George Bush, Joe Lieberman and John McCain have in themselves - and in America. — Joe Biden
- UPDATE: one more… Bob Geiger: Dead Troops Remembered By President Who Had Them Killed (via Nicole Belle)
Check out this light!
These photos come courtesy of National Geographic (via ODub), where you can find the story of the discovery of the Cueva de los Cristales in Chihuahua, Mexico.
Mexico’s Cueva de los Cristales (Cave of Crystals) contains some of the world’s largest known natural crystals—translucent beams of gypsum as long as 36 feet (11 meters).
Check out this beautiful image of a nicely lit churchyard on DD’s blog — the photo was taken just today, not too long after her arrival in Oxford.
Thousands of naked volunteers pose for U.S. photographer Spencer Tunick at Mexico City’s Zocalo square May 6, 2007. A record 18,000 people took off their clothes to pose for Tunick on Sunday in Mexico City’s Zocalo square, the heart of the ancient Aztec empire (photo by Henry Romero via Reuters). If you’d like to participate in a naked photo shoot (more here), you can sign up here!
A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago is a very cool blog. I don’t know how long I’ve been checking in on a regular basis, but because I’m always finding so many cool things there, I keep going back. The latest treasure I’ve found there is Shorpy: The 100-Year-Old Photo Blog. Shorpy is a “photo blog about what life a hundred years ago was like: How people looked and what they did for a living, back when not having a job usually meant not eating.” It is named after Shorpy Higginbotham, a boy who worked in an Alabama coal mine near the turn of the century. Here is just a very small sample of the photography from Shorpy, which you should already be bookmarking/blogrolling (click on the images to go to the originals and full-sized versions):
I was watching an episode from the second season (1958-59) of “Leave It to Beaver” tonight when I got to the part where Ward reads a note from Beaver’s principal, Mrs. Rayburn. If you freeze-frame the note it says: (see the text of the note if you click through!).
I just ran across this flickr group for HDR (high dynamic range) imaging (a photograpy technique made possible by computers and digital photography). Some of the images are absolutely breathtaking.
more from this photographer
more HDR photography
I gotta get a better camera…
Back on the lighter side of the world, here are a few amusing little tidbits I’ve run across recently:
Cup of Joe Powell points to a game/contest that’s sweeping the blogosphere: in a nutshell, the object is to name Steven Segal’s “next movie.” My favorites are Joe’s Steven Segal in Buffet Under Seige and Steven Segal in My Three Chins.
Shakespeare’s Sister points us to a video of the “final scene from Star Wars acted out using hands.” It’s very clever.
And thanks to Cory at Boing Boing for directing us to this awesome photo of the inside of a grocery store (click on “all sizes” to see a bigger version). It contrasts nicely with the photo of market shelves at the end of a post from Keera titled “About writing about Norway.” Small markets aren’t an option for many of us in the US, but I do enjoy them when I’m in Europe — the lighting tends to be much less harsh, there’s none of that horrible piped in muzik (thank goodness for my iPod!) and I can find what I need without hiking across fifteen acres of linoleum (who the heck needs 15 different brands of kitty litter?!?).
