seawitch1261's WunderBlog

Least Tern Duet

Posted by: seawitch1261, 3:00 PM GMT on April 30, 2009

I was able to watch and photograph this courtship ritual that took 10-15 minutes. I was about 200 feet away from them so I wasn't intrusive.

I had to change the music even though you can download the song I wanted to use for free. The music is Through the Storm by Dax Johnson.

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Pirates & Deck Chairs

Posted by: seawitch1261, 6:05 PM GMT on April 29, 2009

I may have to rethink my stance that pirates will win over ninjas. At least after this:

A British holidaymaker is being hailed a hero after he thwarted gun-toting pirates attacking a cruise ship - by throwing a deck-chair at them.

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Happy Birthday Israel!

Posted by: seawitch1261, 2:05 PM GMT on April 29, 2009

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Obama's Juggling Act

Posted by: seawitch1261, 1:30 PM GMT on April 28, 2009

Marshall Ramsey of the Clarion-Ledger

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Working Together

Posted by: seawitch1261, 5:26 PM GMT on April 27, 2009

First of all:

Second of all: Stop the blame game! Already there are lines being drawn to start the blame game in case we face the threat of flu pandemic. This happened after Hurricane Katrina and it was not helpful. What was helpful was Americans doing what they do best: Working together.

We saw it this past weekend when Aubie and so many others helped Portlight.

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Lost in the Shuffle

Posted by: seawitch1261, 9:26 PM GMT on April 23, 2009

There are so many great photos loaded daily at Weather Underground. Here are few of my favorites from today:

From Sundown127

From StarDancer

From JasonMac78

From chelleke

8753807 has a nice flickr site. He emailed the link to this video:

Bird in Hand

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Louisiana Brown Pelican

Posted by: seawitch1261, 6:34 PM GMT on April 23, 2009

I uploaded this photo yesterday. What ya think?

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Yom HaShoah

Posted by: seawitch1261, 4:20 PM GMT on April 21, 2009

A few years ago I made a statement to someone that I could comprehend the Shoah. It was a crass statement. As former areas of Ukraine are opened and more is learned about the Shoah there, the more and more I cannot comprehend. My grandfather left the town of Nemirov in 1914. He came with with his father, mother, and brothers and sisters. to this day, I do not know if any of grandfather's uncles, aunts, and cousins were murdered in the Shoah. My grandfather would not speak of the Shoah.

The town of Nemirov was used by the Nazis as a work camp. I have learned that close to 5,000 Jews were shot in cold blood by Nazi soldiers, Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Polish, and other guards. Nemirov was just a small part of the heinous slaughter of Jews in Ukraine. In less than 18 months, 1 and 1/2 million Jews were murdered. The Germans, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Polish, and other guards faced each victim and then shot them mercilessly.

This is the Shoah my family faced:

The small town my grandfather left at the age of 10 no longer exists. It was once a vibrant Jewish town and all that is left is the memories of those who came from there. My grandfather died over 20 years ago and father died 5 years ago. I feel it is my duty to find out what happened to those who didn't have the chance to come to the US.

Perhaps one day, like in Uman seders will once again be held.

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Battle Royale

Posted by: seawitch1261, 7:10 PM GMT on April 20, 2009

Who do you think won?

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True Beauty

Posted by: seawitch1261, 5:20 PM GMT on April 17, 2009

Susan Boyle from Britain's Got Talent

Susan Boyle on Britain's Got Talent
by dwarthy

Shabbat shalom y'all!! Heading home in a few.

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Pizza, Pizza!

Posted by: seawitch1261, 2:27 PM GMT on April 16, 2009

Today, at sundown Pesach ends! And I'm going to have this:

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Got Your Tea Bags?

Posted by: seawitch1261, 5:01 PM GMT on April 15, 2009

Why?

What are you protesting
The contributor to the Letter to the Editor page who advocates participating in a “Tea Party” in Jackson on April 15 in order to “send a message” to the government should ask himself/herself exactly what that message is. As far as I can tell, the message is that people who make the most money are unhappy paying taxes at a rate that is 10 percent lower than the tax rate established by Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. If that is not the message they believe it to be, then the people participating in the Tea Party should ask themselves why they are taking off from work to attend a fake grass roots event orchestrated by an organization supported by right-wing billionaires.

The original Boston Tea Party was caffeinated by a very simple injustice: American Colonists refused to be taxed by a government that lacked any popular representation. That was remedied a few years later in a heroic struggle that stretched from Concord to Yorktown.

So, if you'll excuse the mixed metaphor, what's the beef behind today's protests? The Obama administration is cutting taxes for all except the very richest of Americans. Reduced withholding is already showing up in millions of paychecks.

Then again, this rash of tea parties is being organized not only by the pseudo-journalists at Fox News (with Glenn Beck, Neil Cavuto and Sean Hannity actively stoking the flames) but also by FreedomWorks, a conservative lobbying outfit headed by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey. I suppose it was Armey's constitutional if morally dubious privilege to have built an entire political career out of defending the wealthy.

But are common folks actually going to dump Earl Grey into Santa Monica Bay because they are outraged, simply infuriated, by the marginal tax rate rising 3% for millionaires?

Or maybe they'll do it for some other reason. The FreedomWorks site says the Tea Party movement began in reaction to President Obama's corporate bailouts and ensuing yawning budget deficits. These same conservatives, however, were mum when George W. Bush erased our budget surplus and put us deep in the red by drunken spending on a pointless war in Iraq and by, yes, granting massive tax rollbacks for the loaded country clubbers who fund the GOP (and Armey's FreedomWorks). Another bothersome detail: The bailouts were also initiated by Bush.

Nobody I know is very pleased with the billions ladled out to teetering banks and corporations. Yet a clear majority of Americans are sophisticated enough to know that these bailouts are a necessary evil and are intended -- unlike the lollipop Bush tax cuts -- not for personal profit but rather as a radical, emergency measure to help Americans keep their jobs, their homes and their retirement.

And while way too many otherwise sane Republicans are actively pandering to the tea-bag battalions, some old-fashioned conservatives are calling out the Teabaggers for their silliness. Writing in Fortune magazine, conservative policy analyst Bruce Bartlett, who has a long anti-tax history, says: "The irony of these protests is that federal revenues as a share of the gross domestic product will be lower this year than any year since 1950. ... The truth is that the U.S. is a relatively low-tax country no matter how you slice the data."

Our country's Founders had this very unique proposal which has led to the peaceful transfer of power for the past 233 years. When those stalwarts dumped tea into Boston those years ago, they were protesting a very real injustice. It was an act of rebellion against unfair taxes and tariffs in which the population had no say in the matter.

Since Obama's election, there has been a great deal of fear in this country. A lot of people were worried about their guns being taken away. This concern about 2nd Amendment rights being violated surprises me a bit. Since the 1980's to 2007, when the War on Drugs began, legislation has been passed that has violated more of our precious rights. These acts violate our 4th, 5th, 6th, and 8th Amendment rights. A lot of people aren't too concerned about those rights being taken away, after all, most are to protect those accused of committing crimes.

But see, our Founders were not merely protesting unfair taxes and tariffs. They were also protesting those colonialist who were arrested without charges being named. They were protesting those who languished in prisons and jails for days, months, and years without a trial. They were also protesting the unfair policy of the British government of taking over homes and confiscating property so that soldiers could be quartered.

If you do go to a tea party, why not go further than just than some lame protest against taxes. Why not protest for our other rights to be reestablished? The War on Drugs and other fears have truly fettered our rights. Why not protest against these real threats to our liberty?

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Chag Pesach Sameach!!

Posted by: seawitch1261, 1:54 PM GMT on April 08, 2009

Passover begins at sundown tonight.

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Infrastructure Repairs

Posted by: seawitch1261, 5:04 PM GMT on April 07, 2009

Obama places a great deal of emphasis on repairing our country's infrastructure. None of us really thinks about it too much until it is gone. When Hurricane Katrina slammed onto the Mississippi Gulf Coast, we learned that the trappings of civilization are but a thin veneer. No water, no telephones, no sewage system, no roads in some places, no bridges, no homes in too many cases, and no electricity made me appreciate many things I once took for granted.

Mississippi coastal cities such as Gulfport and Biloxi are still repairing infrastructure damage from Hurricane Katrina. I took these two photos today in D'Iberville. They are repairing the water and sewage system. Since Hurricane Katrina, D'Iberville has had to send a truck out on an almost daily basis for the lift stations. The work carries on.

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Thunder Booms!

Posted by: seawitch1261, 1:32 PM GMT on April 03, 2009

I can't miss the presence of the Air force thunderbirds. Since yesterday, they've been flying over the place I work and their presence is earthshaking, literally. The thunderous boom the jets produce causes the windows to shake. It's going to be a great show Saturday and Sunday.

Yesterday, I show saw the Stratosphere coming in for a landing but didn't have my camera handy.

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Heavy Hail Now!!!

Posted by: seawitch1261, 7:30 PM GMT on April 02, 2009

In D'Iberville Mississippi

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Possible Tornado in Waveland Mississippi

Posted by: seawitch1261, 7:25 PM GMT on April 02, 2009

Reports are coming in that a tornado may have touched down in Waveland Mississippi a short time ago.

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