Summers in Italy had one serious disadvantage: no books, or, I should say, almost no books. I had my own two little shelves of books I reread over and over and over, and then, over (why I can still quote On the Banks of Plum Creek almost word for word today), and I had whatever book arrived from my mother's weekly American book club, which varied ( Read more... )

....ANOTHER oil rig explosion in the Gulf?

Also, in case you weren't feeling depressed enough, Hurricane Earl is continuing to barrel along with sustained winds of 140 mph.

Clearly, we are all in severe need of Muppets:

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Shorter New York Times: The salt water aquarium trade is killing the Florida Keys!Full disclosure: I used to hang out with a few people involved in this trade, usually over wine coolers and beer and panic over tests. So, yeah ( Read more... )

A collection of pictures from the dust storm in Sydney, Australia.

My last day in New York was simply too gorgeous to be spent inside. So I switched my plans at the last minute and headed to the Saratoga National Battlefield instead. As a recovering historian, I have to admit that battlefields as battlefields hold little interest for me. I mean, yes, yes I know that the Second Battle of Saratoga was a critical ( Read more... )

Manatee, bald eagle removed from Florida "endangered" status and moved to "threatened" status; Panama City crayfish and gopher tortoise moved to "endangered" status.Oddly, of all of these, I know the least about the Panama City crayfish -- this oddly because I tend to focus more on invertebrates than vertebrates. But onwards ( Read more... )

Ok, this annoys me.

About a week ago I was chatting with phoenix_alpha about various things when the subject of dolphins came up for one reason or another. He asked if scientists could explain why dolphins and whales strand themselves on beaches, and I told him, truthfully, that scientific consensus remains divided on the subject. In fact, one of my LJ less ( Read more... )