marron12

Looks like Royal Street. I think that's Craig Tracy's gallery on the right (next to the parked car with the brake lights). He does some pretty neat stuff with body painting. Look for the human in every photo.

People began to rejoice in their ability to speak freely. Furious debates over the country’s future ensued. In cafes, over cups of coffee and cigarettes, furious arguments were taking place about the direction the rebel-led government would take, voices raised as people tested the new limits of their freedoms.

Still, it was not easy to shake off the idea that the regime was watching. During an interview with a public-sector employee who preferred to remain anonymous, the employee paused as they were asked about their opinion about the new government. They excused themselves and went to the next room, where they threw up.

Returning to the interview with red-rimmed eyes, the employee apologised.

“You ask me if I’m afraid? Of course, I am afraid. I am 53 years old. And in 53 years, this is the first time that I am speaking freely,” they said.

Yeah. And how is it that corporations, or big businesses in general, have elevated themselves to an almost holy status? Why is it murder when Blackrock kills 17 civilians in Iraq (Nisour Square), but not when an insurance company denies an operation that a doctor who's at the top of their field says could save your life? And the hospital helpfully tells you it will cost over a million dollars. For all the non-Americans, that's not an exaggeration.

And even with Blackwater, it was only the individual employees who got convicted. The company just kept going under a different name. And the employees got pardoned later.

Adding to that: I'd like to see the top dogs at insurance companies go through the same thing they put us through. No MRI or CT scan for you. You get ibuprofen and PT because nothing else is necessary. Maybe in a few years you'll get surgery, when the problem is almost hopelessly bad. You get to shell out 5 or 6 figures for it, and no, you don't get to use your millions. You have as much money as someone who absolutely can't afford it. Oh, and that time off work? Unpaid.

And make them pay for the consequences of their actions. How many people like Wilfredo Engalla have there been and will there be? He had lung cancer, but it was misdiagnosed as colds and allergies for 5 years. When he found that out, he sued Kaiser. They forced him into arbitration and dragged out the case so nothing happened until he died, because they thought they would only have to pay half as much that way. In the end, his family got $150,000 (minus tens of thousands in costs to get that far).

Do that to enough people for enough years, and eventually you find out people have a breaking point. Who would have thought.

Do you know what kind of things might get turned down and what would count as a good reason? And if your claim gets turned down, do you have any options other than "go bankrupt or suffer" like us in the U.S.?

I'd take hunting for the right form any day over being told to hork down ibuprofen for what I know is a serious problem, and hope the insurance company might eventually deign to approve an MRI. There's a reason a lot of Americans are out of shape, and it's not just because of desk jobs and junk food.

Interesting article, thanks for the link. I missed owl of the year last year, and the first couple posts this year. It sounds like an awful lot of work, but I love the idea.

I'd like to see an owl eating a porcupine. If it's anything like a camel eating cactus, it's gotta be pretty interesting. Maybe they have a way to pull out the spines.

Interesting pictures, and a very striking owl. How do you decide who gets in the bracket?

I'm curious to see how far the saw whet will get. They're so cute with their giant heads and big eyes. Eagle owls are neat too. Maybe not as classically cute, but majestic.

I had to look up barking owls just now. They really do sound kind of like a dog barking. Interesting that they eat bats. I didn't know there were birds that did that.

Live music does it for me. It's best when I'm close enough to make eye contact with the musicians, and when the audience is into it too. It's a total rush. If I had to pick between music and sex, it'd be music, hands down.

I can relate to the comment about swimming too. I imagine hiking, kayaking, or anything else physical that you really like could give you a similar feeling.

Many whale species feed in the depths of the ocean where prey is plentiful, but where the water pressure is immense. At depth, says David King, a chemist at the University of Cambridge in England, many whales find that “their orifices are jammed shut.” So, to properly relieve themselves, they head toward the surface, where their defecations bring a steady flow of nutrients—such as iron, nitrogen and phosphorus—to a part of the sea where they’re typically in short supply.

Interesting. I never thought about how whales poop before. I wonder how critters that live at the bottom of the ocean do it.

Beautiful. That's an impressive wingspan.

That's a lot of tiny bones in what looks like a pretty short neck (at least from the outside). Also interesting how the blood flow works. You mentioned a little bit about that before, so I got curious and found this:

Also, it has recently been discovered that in the owl neck, one of the major arteries feeding the brain passes through bony holes in the vertebrae. These hollow cavities are approximately 10 times larger in diameter than the vertebral artery travelling through it. The extra space ... creates a set of cushioning air pockets that allow the artery to move around when twisted.

Blood vessels at the base of the head, just under the jaw bone, can also act as contractile blood reservoirs, allowing owls to pool blood to meet the energy needs of their large brains and eyes, while they rotate their heads.