romunov’s blog et al

This is the second rat road kill in the last 7 days. During my botany excursions, I saw about half a dozen road kills a week.

I’m looking for pictures of Ivan Kramberger. If anyone has an archive of any, I would most appreciate it. I have an idea for a t-shirt.

You Are 36% Brutally Honest

Honesty is nice, but only when it’s convenient. You rather be nice than honest. You figure it’s important to be honest about the big stuff, but little lies never hurt anyone!

Although I see some problems with the test. For example, after I received 36%, I went back and checked If your friend is wearing a hideous outfit, you’ll let them know. and You would tell a friend about their bad breath / body odor.. I don’t think this is something to give someone hard times about it. It’s bad enough that they’re hiddious/stink.
Nah, just kidding, I never comment on clothes, because as Jesus said, do unto others as you would have them do to you. As I dress… differently, I don’t want anyone’s beef on what they think about my clothes.

Well what do you know, it would seem I can play and sing Knocking on heaven’s door by Bob Dylan. I won’t link to the song, as aliens from Alpha Centauri know it. The things I learn every day… I’ll post a few pics of a moth and kinder surprise I found when sorting my herbarium plants, later in the afternoon.

To people who are not familiar with Futurama.

I’m currently watching a UN session, and Annan is addressing embassadors. He claimed that the situation in Lebanon started when Hezbollah unprovoked launched missiles into Israel. He’s either lying into our faces or is unfit to hold the chair in New York. Unfortunately Bolton is right.

Doh, I finally know how to play and partially sing a friggin song on my acoustic guitar. The “honors” go to Patience by Guns n’ Roses.

I remember, soon after 9/11 when French was considered minor (remember Freedom fries?), my American colleagues were bitching how the French can’t take care of their seniors, as quite a few died die to heat. Well, something similar is happening in the States. Goes around, comes around, I guess.

You may want to check out this one. It is going to air in the afternoon for us euros.

Quite uneventful day. I think I climbed the 100 peak today. I got some “spare” species that I still need to identify (mostly grasses), but other than that, I’m practically done with field work. Phew!

Well, the day turned interesting towards the end. I was eye-balling the maps of the region where I was picking flowers, and I noticed they had a baseball field near where I had been. I went to check it out today to see if anyone will be playing. I’ve been thinking of taking a swing at baseball for quite some time now.
Anyway, asphalt has been layed on a path leading to the field, and a truck has just left. Some guy started piling cardboard boxes as I passed. He ordered me to stop or go down the asphalt. Not wanting a fight I drove off the road to a dirt road leading to the field. When I returned, the guy was still there (I wasn’t there that long, no one was playing and flora around there seemed uninteresting). He again warned me to get off the asphalt because it’s been freshly layed and he doesn’t want my bike tracks in it. I quickly offered him some quick calculations that this is unlikely, because when I came in, a two tone mini van has just left, and there were no marks in the asphalt. During a brief 30s exchange I couldn’t get out of him more than a few words á la “get off the asphalt, I paid for it”. I even asked him what his profession was, but he didn’t comply, uttering the same nonsense over and over again. I felt kinda sorry for the poor guy, so ignorant. He was 35-40. Kinda like a prole in Orwell’s 1984.

I knew there was very little chance of me damaging the fresh asphalt. I have driven a loaded forklift over a freshly laid asphalt and there were no dents. Only wheels that I could imagine that could damage it were in-line skates which are made of harder material.

Four pictures under the fold. (more…)

I still have to organize today’s swag, but if my calculations are correct, I’m about done with my herbarium! It wasn’t that great day, though. I walked for 6 hours and found less than 10 new species. I’ve taken some pictures, too. (more…)

To anyone with a bit of free time, I offer Bleeding The Gulf - The United Nations Sanctions on Iraq. I’ll read it bit by bit, as I can’t spare much time at the moment.

Went to Stari grad (”Old castle”) and I nearly made it to there. It’s about 500m above sea level. It’s not that it’s too high, I was delayed on the rout there. I hope I filled the quota of 10 species/day. I sure found a lot of stuff I couldn’t identify. Damn Lamiaceae. Before I go off to sort the damn thing, I’ll leave you with some pictures. More under the fold. (more…)

It pisses me off that people compare current Israeli doing with former Nazi and Wehrmacht.

One can’t help but think of the Nazis when hearing this news. Not unlike the Ordungspolizei and Wehrmacht in Eastern Europe, the Israeli military has signaled its desire to take collective punishment to a new and horrific level, but then, since few complain and the corporate media cheers them on, this should be expected.

link

How about a big, horrific collective punishment. Ever heard of Hiroshima? Nagasaki? No?

Well, this is funny, via progressreport:

Despite being due over a month ago, the State Department has yet to release its semiannual report detailing foreigners who are “known to be engaging in WMD-proliferation related activities in Iran and Syria.” Under the Iran-Syria Nonproliferation Act, the President must submit the list of foreign persons to Congress “not later than every six months.” However, the last report came over seven months ago in December 2005. Three congressmen, Reps. Barbara Lee (D-CA), Ellen Tauscher (D-CA), and Edward Markey (D-MA), have inquired as to the whereabouts of the report, deeming it necessary for the upcoming vote on President Bush’s nuclear pact with India. Though the State Department could not be reached for immediate comment, rumors persist that it is “withholding the document from Congress because its contents would embarrass the Bush administration” and “could hurt [the] chance of congressional passage of a US-India nuclear energy deal.”

I guess they’ve got nothing. You can bet your ass that if the report would be out and worth something, the admins would parade around with it through tv channels day and night. It looks to me like the administration has experienced a minor hick-up. Let’s hope it persists ’till their stomach is out on the table.

Elevated CO2 levels are turning oceans into sour soups, which spells bad news for a lot of organisms. Some are directly effected by this, and others indirectly. You can see a 300mb pdf report here.

This image may be subject to copyright… maybe.

I got a neoprene (5mm) diving suit, some slippers and gloves (not pictured). Now to get someone to come diving with me.

Yes, this is a body.