Come to the Kingman Island Bluegrass & Folk Festival!!

just say "you had me at canoe rides" ;0

fix it up or move?

sometimes its just nice to get an idea of how "most people" are doing things ;)

from DC Chief of Police: Eagle Cam Live-Streams Wild Bald Eagle Chicks in Washington

its stuff like this that makes me proud to be part Washingtonian...

As we reflect on the tragedy in Boston, I wanted to share something that serves as an inspiration and reminds us of why we are so fortunate to live in America.  The below link takes you to a live camera feed of two nesting Bald Eagles, and their chicks, that have taken up residence in a tree behind our police academy in Southwest.  This camera feed is streamed live on the National Geographic website.  

In times such as these, a simple reminder, such as watching these majestic Bald Eagles, the symbol of our Country’s strength and freedom, can remind us all what America stands for.    

Watch: Eagle Cam Live-Stream

http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2013/04/16/eagle-cam-live-streams-wild-bald-eagle-chicks-in-washington/

 Chief Cathy Lanier

About the Eagles

The nest featured here is about five feet wide and made mostly of sticks. It sits about 80 feet up in a tree on the grounds of the Metropolitan Police Academy. Installing the webcam, provided by National Geographic, was Chief of Police Cathy L. Lanier's idea. She has long been interested in the eagle pair that chose the academy grounds for its home. "It is fitting and exciting that our national bird has made a home on the Metropolitan Police Department's Academy grounds," said Lanier. "We look forward to viewing the eagles in their habitat."

The eagles are thought to be the same pair that has nested in the area for several years, says Craig Koppie, raptor biologist at the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service's Chesapeake Bay field office in Annapolis, Maryland. Koppie is an advisor on the Earth Conservation Corps eagle restoration project, which also oversees a second bald eagle nest in Washington.

Bald eagle nests usually contain one to three dull-white eggs, and the parents take turns incubating them. Eggs hatch in about five weeks, and hatchlings are covered with soft, fluffy, light-gray feathers. “Generally the female stays on the nest while the father’s job is to bring in the food,” Koppie says. Food for this pair of eagles is generally fish—catfish, shad, or perch—plucked from the Anacostia.

At about eight weeks old, the chicks start their flying lessons by standing on the nest edge and beating their wings. Actual flight happens around the 11th week, Koppie says, with the parents circling nearby, often calling loudly. Young birds stay close to the nest for several weeks, continuing to depend on their parents for food.

About the Project

This project begins an initiative called “Wired Washington,” a multispecies, multipartner citizen-science effort led by the police and two local youth groups, Earth Conservation Corps and Wings Over America. The groups' mission is to use habitat mapping and public awareness to protect the wildlife in city neighborhoods. Some of the young people leading the research effort are part of the District of Columbia’s Department of Youth Rehabilitation Service, a juvenile justice agency responsible for providing safe and stable residential and community-based programs to youth who have been committed to its care.

Schoolchildren who are part of the TAGS DC program also will observe and document the eagles’ activity from boats on the Anacostia River. Wired Washington collaborators include the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, the D.C. Department of the Environment, Pepco, Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Rob Bierregaard of the Academy of Natural Sciences at Drexel University. All digital streams and satellite tracks will be stored on hard drives as part of research on raptors in an urban environment.

Earth Conservation Corps is a nonprofit, environmental, youth development program that engages unemployed, out-of-school youths in the restoration of the heavily polluted Anacostia River. Through their environmental service the young people gain pride in becoming part of the solution while learning hands-on workforce and leadership skills.

journalist discover 1/3 of the worlds resources are in illegal offshore holdings

the international consortium of investigative journalist (ICIJ) received 260 gigs of data from off-shore banks.  i can't figure out why this isn't bigger news in the US.

ICIJ estimates that 1/3 of all of the Earth's financial resources are in these illegal holdings. They suggest that the amount of money in these holdings equal the US and Japanese budgets.  Just imagine what that money could do if it was applied to the common good??

“I’ve never seen anything like this. This secret world has finally been revealed,” said Arthur Cockfield, a law professor and tax expert at Queen’s University in Canada, who reviewed some of the documents during an interview with the CBC. He said the documents remind him of the scene in the movie classic The Wizard of Oz in which “they pull back the curtain and you see the wizard operating this secret machine.”

From ICIJ:

"A cache of 2.5 million files has cracked open the secrets of more than 120,000 offshore companies and trusts, exposing hidden dealings of politicians, con men and the mega-rich the world over. 

They include American doctors and dentists and middle-class Greek villagers as well as families and associates of long-time despots, Wall Street swindlers, Eastern European and Indonesian billionaires, Russian corporate executives, international arms dealers and a sham-director-fronted company that the European Union has labeled as a cog in Iran’s nuclear-development program. 

The leaked files provide facts and figures — cash transfers, incorporation dates, links between companies and individuals — that illustrate how offshore financial secrecy has spread aggressively around the globe, allowing the wealthy and the well-connected to dodge taxes and fueling corruption and economic woes in rich and poor nations alike."

Key Links:

• The ICIJ's introduction to the exposé can be found here: Secret Files Expose Offshore’s Global Impact
• How ICIJ’s Project Team Analyzed the Offshore Files

At a Bangkok airport,
Thai police officers and soldiers found
 30 tonnes of war weaponry
in a cargo plane on its journey
from North Korea to Iran.
Photo: AP 

Big early discoveries:  

Inside the shell: Drugs, arms and tax scams

Offshore Documents Solve Mystery of Pre-Civil War Helicopter Deal in Congo

Mugabe 'Crony' Among Thai Names in Secret Offshore Files

 "To analyze the documents, ICIJ collaborated with reporters from The Guardian and the BBC in the U.K., Le Monde in France, Süddeutsche Zeitung and
Norddeutscher Rundfunk in Germany, The Washington Post, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) and 31 other media partners around the world.  Eighty-six journalists from 46 countries used high-tech data crunching and shoe-leather reporting to sift through emails, account ledgers and other files covering nearly 30 years."  

bizarre love triangle

somedays, when i'm writing memos in an effort to save the world, i wonder why we are so divided.

sometimes i think the reason is because we are afraid to love.  i'm starting to wonder if motivation and intent aren't the most important things of all.

i believe evil = greed, ego, selfishness.

i believe man = fear

i believe gods = love

i believe that i can choose to be a god when i choose to love.  in fact, i think the God of Love made the map to bliss pretty clear ...

Matt 22:38-39

i can see if you can get that thing spinning really fast, it would end up as one.  

maybe the bermuda triangle is just the vortex created by love and its closed up because we forgot how ;)