Patch

Pawnee National Grasslands, Colorado

Patch and Rob are slowly making their way home to Cincinnati. This should trip make an interesting story. What are they doing here in Colorado, who knows. Rob is most likely watching sunrises.
Posted By Patches

WASHINGTON -- Congress is poised to pass a law that would make sweeping changes to the nation's system for issuing driver's licenses by imposing stringent requirements on states to verify the authenticity of birth certificates, Social Security cards, legal residency visas, and bank and utility records used to obtain a license.
House Republicans attached the bill to a must-pass supplemental spending package for troops in Iraq without first putting it through the usual legislative scrutiny of hearings and debate.
Lots of folks see this as a privacy issue, but Patches sees this as a danger to democracy. Not the bill itself but attaching it to a bill that must/will pass. This is how our elected officials do things that we don't want done. Republican, democrat, liberal or conservative so many bills like this one that need time for debate, are hidden so no debate is possible. And once passed and it hits home it’s too late. When a bill is not aired out in public, not given time for debate, you can bet it will be the public that gets screwed. This is one of the bad ways on how our government works.
That being said, two things, I would think everyone in general and conservatives in particular would worry about with this bill. One; using terrorism to put us all in jail for our own protection, in other words we all guilty until proven innocent. Two; one more squeeze of big government on our throats. Not to mention ID theft, what a nightmare that would be.
Patches

Glen Canyon Dam, Page Arizona

Patch has Rob and he is safe. They are now in Page Arizona. Patch dosn't have the full story on what Rob has been doing but will post as soon as she knows. Patch says Rob has had an experience, the details should be interesting to say the least.
Posted By Patches

Gerlach, Nv.

Talked to Rob; I'm to fly to Reno, Nv. rent a truck with a car hauler, go to Gerlack and pick him up. What's going on? I don't know. Rob said he will explain when I get there. All he said was that it's been an experience.
Patch
Gerlach, Nv. 1839 air miles from Cincinnati, Oh.
Population; 499
Gerlach, NV; Nearest Hotels, Motels & Lodging
Lovelock, NV56.63 milesReno, NV62.53 milesSusanville, CA70.23 miles (Air miles)
Things to do in Gerlack; Go to Reno
Total Retail Establishments; 2
Posted By Patches

Oil Field

Energy Bill; The bill includes $12 billion in tax breaks and subsidies for energy companies, more than the Bush administration said it wanted. Nevertheless, the White House strongly endorsed the measure and gave short shrift to energy efficiency and renewable fuel.
$12 billion in tax breaks and subsidies? Why and for What?

Liability protection for producers of MTBE, a gasoline additive blamed in groundwater pollution nationwide. It will leave local communities bearing the costs of any MTBE cleanup when oil companies were aware of risks when they used the substance. The use of MTBE was mandated by Congress, but the environmental risk were covered up.

Allows drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

The legislation is more than 1,000 pages long and touches on almost every aspect of energy production and use. It gives a federal board new authority to force improvements in the power grid to avert blackouts. The House bill also extends daylight saving time by two months
President Bush demanded on Wednesday that Congress send a long-stalled energy bill to his desk for signing by the summer, even as he admitted that the legislation would do nothing to lower the rising gasoline prices.
Posted By Patches

Top Left; Heniz Feild (Steelers)
Top Right; PNC Ball Park (Priates)
Bottom Left; Point State Park
Three Rivers (Top- Allegheny, Bottom- Monongahela, Left- Ohio)
Posted By Patches

Gerlach Nevada

Recieved a call from someone in Gerlach Nevada that Rob will contact me sometime later today and tell me whats going on. Oh no, what did Rob do? All I know now is that Gerlach is something like 100 miles north of Reno, Nevada. Willpost as soon as I know more.
Patch

Common Wood Frog

The common wood frog freezes solid every winter and then, come spring, defrosts and mates.

: Wood frogs are truly remarkable little creatures. They are the most widely distributed amphibian in North America, even reaching beyond the Arctic circle! They can mature from egg to transformed frog in as little as 45 days (now that's MORPHIN'!). But perhaps their greatest feat is the unique way in which they spend winter, ... frozen solid! Wood frogs are members of a rather exclusive club of vertebrate (back-boned) animals that overwinter on dry land and survive the freezing of their body tissues. World-wide there are only a few species of vertebrates that can tolerate freezing. (Baby painted turtles are the "highest" vertebrates known that can tolerate tissue freezing - yet another story to be told!) Though this feat is "no big deal" to many plants and invertebrates (lots of insects do it), it is a neat trick that enables wood frogs to inhabit many northern environments and frees them from dependence on permanent bodies of water
Posted By Patches

Naomi Halas

NOVA's Science Now current PBS program features a segment on Naomi Halas and nanoshells. Halas is the Stanley C. Moore Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rice University. She also teaches chemistry at Rice. Dr. Halas is developing applications for nanoshells, the gold nanodevices she invented, in early-stage cancer detection and photothermal malignant tumor treatment, among other biomedical applications. The full interview (which takes place at her Texas ranch) is reproduced on the NOVA site. Some highlights from the interview
Posted By Patches

Murrah Building

Ten years after explosives packed in a rented truck smashed into a federal building in Oklahoma City, many hundreds of survivors and families of the dead were among those who gathered to remember at the site today
And what have learned from this? Americans now have high government and religious officials advocating more of this type of violence. Do we citizens protest? Do bloggers go crazy? Does anyone point this out?
As the Supreme Court and Floridian federal courts declined to hear the Schiavo case, Congressman Tom DeLay had these glowing words for members of the judiciary.
"The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior."
How do you think that the Timothy McVeighs of this country will interpret that statement?
Patches

Heather Mills McCartney

The school visit rounded off a busy few days for the star, who recently dropped everything to help a little Iraqi girl who lost a leg in a bomb explosion during the war last year. Zeynab Hamid Taresh travelled to Britain from her hometown of Basra and once Heather heard of her plight she offered to do everything she could to help
Zeynab, maybe the most famous Iraq 11yr old in the world. 17 members of her family were killed by an American bomb in March 2003, which also destroyed her right leg. A Palestinian friend paid for her to go to London to get a prothetic leg fitted
What we don't know about the war in Iraq, oh well there is the price of gas to worry about.
Patch

Also, This from http://raedinthemiddle.blogspot.com/
It's really interesting to see that all attempts of dividing the Iraqi resistance into Sunni and Shia aren't working, and that Iraqis still know who to protest against. It's interesting to see that all the attempts of creating fake enemies to Iraqis aren't working, and that they know what's their national priorities

Marla Ruzicka

This gutsy 27yr old Californian had started the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC) while working in Afghanistan in 2002. She entered Iraq immediately following the fall of Baghdad, and rapidly began organizing a survey of civilian casualties along with my friend Raed. This is still the most detailed attempt to gather specific data about specific victims, and whenever I have read out lists of the dead at protests, such as in Chicago in January, I have always used this data. But this was not data collection for its own sake. Marla held a belief which one who think uncontroversial, that innocent victims in conflict or their families should receive some kind of restitution. Any country that claims to be fighting a "just" war for "moral" reasons, as the US and allies did in the 2003 invasion, should as a matter of course care for those caught in the crossfire. However this is not the case and Marla had an uphill struggle to secure even the most basic assistance for the victims. The US doesn't do bodycounts, and the White House lawyers would never permit an official to talk about compensation for victims and risk opening up the way for liable suits. With the help of Senator Leahy, Marla managed to persuade Congress to set aside a tiny part of the $18.4bn Iraq appropriation as aid for victims rather than for US corporations. In addition Marla helped families to secure the salacia (blood money) payments from the US army, though there are capped at a paltry $2500. She was also involved in helping seriously injured children get treatment overseas and undoubtedly many other projects of which I'm unaware.
Read more here. http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/headlines03/1230-08.htm
Posted By Patches

Aral Sea

The Aral Sea is actually not a sea at all. It is an immense lake, ( Was 66100 square kilometers) a body of fresh water, although that particular description of its contents might now be more a figure of speech than practical fact. In the last 30 years, more than 60 percent of the lake has disappeared. The sequence of images above, acquired by Landsat satellites, shows the dramatic changes to the Aral Sea between 1973 and 2000.
Beginning in the 1960s, farmers and state offices in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Central Asian states opened significant diversions from the rivers that supply water to the lake, thus siphoning off millions of gallons to irrigate cotton fields and rice paddies. As recently as 1965, the Aral Sea received about 50 cubic kilometers of fresh water per year--a number that fell to zero by the early 1980s. Consequently, concentrations of salts and minerals began to rise in the shrinking body of water. That change in chemistry has led to staggering alterations in the lake's ecology, causing precipitous drops in the Aral Sea's fish population.
The Aral Sea supported a thriving commercial fishing industry employing roughly 60,000 people in the early 1960s. By 1977, the fish harvest was reduced by 75 percent, and by the early 1980s the commercial fishing industry had been eliminated. The shrinking Aral Sea has also had a noticeable affect on the region's climate. The growing season there is now shorter, causing many farmers to switch from cotton to rice, which demands even more diverted water.
A secondary effect of the reduction in the Aral Sea's overall size is the rapid exposure of the lake bed. Strong winds that blow across this part of Asia routinely pick up and deposit tens of thousands of tons of now exposed soil every year. This process has not only contributed to significant reduction in breathable air quality for nearby residents, but has also appreciably affected crop yields due to those heavily salt-laden particles falling on arable land.
Environmental experts agree that the current situation cannot be sustained. Yet, driven by poverty and their dependence upon exports, officials in the region have failed to take any preventive action and the Aral continues to shrink.
Rob would say that Mother Earth would take 40,000 years to do this not 40. In 40,000 years everything can adapt, in 40 years nothing can adapt.
Posted By Patches

Rob is now here?

Rob is sure getting around even if no one knows where he is. Looks like The Great Salt Lake, Utah may of been one place. I wouldn't be surprized as Rob goes to Utah all the time. He has to be hunting UFOs as he is keeping to remote locations. Rob says that light pollution blinds us to the night sky hundreds of miles from any source. Rob says if you want to see the night sky in the eastern US go to Big Bend Campground, Smokehole W.VA. on the south fork of the Potomac River.
Posted By Patches

Rob is now here???

E-Mail from Rob, he is now here? Rob, no one knows where here is, we need a little more information about here. He did say to post this-

Washington Monthly's Amy Sullivan sounds disgusted:
"House Republicans voted overwhelmingly to permanently repeal the estate tax -- at a cost, let's remember, of nearly $300 billion over the next decade.
"So, to sum up: Actual prescription drug relief? There's no money. Armor to protect our troops? There's no money. The funds to back up the mandated reforms of No Child Left Behind? There's no money. Doing away with a tax on super rich kids? Plenty o' cash to spare.

Rob says the wedge between the haves and havenots gets driven in deeper everyday. If Americans vote in a republican Government two or three more times the American middle class will be gone. Where will you be if your job goes to China and at the same time your child gets sick? Bush says that would be your fault for not planning ahead. If you would have listened to him you would be a multi-Millionaire by now. Everyone knows the market will save you. Rob said to checkout these web sites.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/15/business/15pollute.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/15/national/15friendly.html
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0415DealershipCrash15-ON.html

Patch

Fallujah Iraq

This from Riverbend ( Baghdad Burning )” http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/ “
On watching American news TV “I’ve been enchanted with the shows these last few weeks. The thing that strikes me most is the fact that the news is so… clean. It’s like hospital food. It’s all organized and disinfected. Everything is partitioned and you can feel how it has been doled out carefully with extreme attention to the portions- 2 minutes on women’s rights in Afghanistan, 1 minute on training troops in Iraq and 20 minutes on Terri Schiavo! All the reportages are upbeat and somewhat cheerful, and the anchor person manages to look properly concerned and completely uncaring all at once”.
Another observation on reality TV shows: “I have a suggestion of my own for a reality show. Take 15 Bush supporters and throw them in a house in the suburbs of, say, Falloojeh for at least 14 days. We could watch them cope with the water problems, the lack of electricity, the check points, the raids, the Iraqi National Guard, the bombings, and- oh yeah- the ‘insurgents’. We could watch their house bombed to the ground and their few belongings crushed under the weight of cement and brick or simply burned or riddled with bullets. We could see them try to rebuild their life with their bare hands (and the equivalent of $150)…”

Don’t get the Patch wrong, Rob and I were against the war for a lot of reasons, but now we think it’s the United States responsibility to save Iraq for Iraq not for America. There are already plans for permanent military bases and plans for a $700 million dollar embassy, 700 million dollars!!! Not the things you do when you say that you are going to pull out as soon as possible. As all things with the Bush Administration, what ever they say the opposite is closer to the true agenda.
The right wing conservatives have most of the information that Americas receive so muted that we know almost nothing about almost everything. Any news organization that questions what is going on or tries to explain what is going on is attacked as leftist propaganda and un-American. And who reports that? The very news organization that tried to make the original report. Why are we not getting the truth? We won the battle for Fallujah by destroying the city. Have you seen any pictures of Fallujah?
Rob and I still think the underlining reasons for all this is OIL, all the rest ( the World and Iraq are better off without Saddam, Democracy in Iraq and the middle east) is nothing but unintended consequences.
Anyway reading Baghdad Burning will give one something to think about.

Patch
Have not heard from Rob yet today, if I get any news I will post it as soon as possible.
Posted By Patches

A Lenticular Cloud

Peter Michaud, a public information officer for the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii, took this picture of an unusual cloud formation above the islands. It is called a lenticular cloud, due to its lens-shaped appearance. These clouds are formed by so-called mountain waves of air created by strong winds forced over high mountains
Super Cool Picture, some say UFOs use these clouds to hide in, Rob and I don't think so.
Patch
Posted By Patches

Rob is now here?

Now where is this place? Rob is sending e-mail by phone, he will not read any e-mail sent to him or read this blog, as he knows I'll get Hampton after him. If Hampton tells him to come home he'll come. Rob is somewhere in the southwest and he has to be looking for UFOs. I checked all the UFO sites and there is no recent activity, so he's most likely wasting time. But he has that 51 caliber rifle and I'm sure that he wants to shoot at one, big mistake Rob.

Patches
Posted By Patches

Edwin Armstrong

Radio's premier inventor, Edwin H. Armstrong was responsible for the Regenerative Circuit (1912), the Superheterodyne Circuit (1918), the Superregenerative Circuit (1922) and the complete FM System (1933). His inventions and developments form the backbone of Radio Communications as we know it. Armstrong doggedly continued to pursue his research. He had early set out to eliminate the last big problems of radio -- static. Radio then carried the sound patterns by varying, or modulating, the amplitude (power) of its carrier wave at a fixed frequency (wavelength) -- a system easily and noisily broken into by such amplitude phenomena as electrical storms. By the late 1920's Armstrong had decided that the only solution was to design an entirely new system, in which the carrier-wave frequency would be modulated, while its amplitude was held constant. Undeterred by current opinion -- which held that this method was useless for communications -- Armstrong in 1933 brought forth a wide-band frequency modulation (FM) system that in field tests gave clear reception through the most violent storms and, as a dividend, offered the highest fidelity sound yet heard in radio. But in the depressed 1930's the major radio industry was in no mood to take on a new system requiring basic changes in both transmitters and receivers. Armstrong found himself blocked on almost every side. It took him until 1940 to get a permit for the first FM station, erected at his own expense, on the Hudson River Palisades at Alpine, N.J. It would be another two years before the Federal Communications Commission granted him a few frequency allocations.
When, after a hiatus caused by World War II, FM broadcasting began to expand. Armstrong again found himself impeded by the FCC, which ordered FM into a new frequency band at limited power, and challenged by a coterie of corporations on the basic rights to his invention. Facing another long legal battle, ill and nearly drained of his resources, Armstrong committed suicide on the night of Jan. 31, 1954, by jumping from his apartment window high in New York's River House. Ultimately his widow, pressing twenty-one infringement suits against as many companies, won some $10 million in damages. By the late 1960's, FM was clearly established as the superior system. Nearly 2,000 FM stations spread across the country, a majority of all radio sets sold are FM, all microwave relay links are FM, and FM is the accepted system in all space communications.
Posted By Patches

The Wye Oak, Maryland's State Tree and the largest White Oak in the United States, toppled June 6, 2002 during a thunderstorm in the village of Wye in Talbot County on Maryland's Eastern Shore. Believed to be more than 460 years old, the beloved tree was purchased by the State Maryland in 1939, and was declared Maryland's State Tree in 1941. The purchase marked the first time in American History that a government agency purchased a single tree for preservation. The Wye Oak was one of Maryland's greatest living symbols and was older than the State itself, the Wye Oak was the largest white oak tree on record, both in Maryland and the nation. It measured 31 feet, 10 inches, in circumference, stood 96 feet tall, and had an average crown spread of 119 feet. Among its impressive characteristics were massive buttresses or "knees" at the base which helped support this huge tree

Posted By Patches

Rob, I went to see Hampton over the weekend and Hampton said for you to get your butt back to Tennessee to see him, then back home to Patch. He also said that your not to go anyplace without Patch to keep track of things and keep you out of trouble.
Patch

Posted By Patches

Rob was here on 4/8 & 9/05
Where is here?
Patch

Posted By Patches

Sandhill Crane

To learn more about Sandhill Cranes go here.

http://www.michiganaudubon.org/bakersanctuary/crane.htm

Patch
Posted By Patches

Rob

Recieved an e-mail from Rob today, and he said this is where he is at. Where is this place? And what the heck is Rob doing there? He doesn't say. I'm sure he's chasing UFOs and the reason he didn't take me is that he is going to shoot one if he can. Rob, do not, I repeat, do not shoot at UFOs.
Patch
Posted By Patches

California Condor

BIOLOGY OF THE CALIFORNIA CONDOR Gymnogyps californianus
Classification The California condor, Gymnogyps californianus, is a member of the family Ciconiidae, or "New World vultures." The closest living relative is the Andean condor, Vultur gryphus, found in South America. Other members of the family include the turkey and black vultures. Originally classified in the order Falconiformes with eagles, hawks, falcons and Old World vultures, the New World vultures have recently been shown to be more closely related to storks and belong in the order Ciconiiformes.

Range; During the Pleistocene Era, ending 10,000 years ago, the condor's range extended across much of North America. At the time of the arrival of pioneers, the condor ranged along the pacific coast from British Columbia south through Baja California, Mexico. By 1940 the range had been reduced to the coastal mountains of southern California with nesting occurring primarily in the rugged, chaparral-covered mountains, and foraging in the foothills and grasslands of the San Joaquin Valley. Today condors are being reintroduced into the mountains of southern California north of the Los Angeles basin, in the Big Sur vicinity of the central California coast, and near the Grand Canyon in Arizona.

Habitat; California condors require large areas of remote country for foraging, roosting, and nesting. Condors roost on large, trees or snags, or on isolated rocky outcrops and cliffs. Nests are placed in shallow caves and rock crevices on cliffs where there is minimal disturbance. Foraging habitat includes open grasslands and oak savanna foothills that support populations of large mammals such as deer and cattle. Condors may fly 150 miles a day in search of food.

DescriptionColor; - Males and females are similar in appearance. Adult condors have a mostly bald head and neck. The skin of the head and neck is colored in shades of pink, red, orange, yellow, and light blue; becoming more intensely pink/orange during times of excitement and in the breeding season. Feathers are mostly black except for white underwing linings. Juvenile birds have dusky black heads and bodies with limited white underwing linings. At hatch, chicks have light pink and orange skin and are covered in off-white down which is quickly replaced by gray down.

Size; - California condors have a wing span of about 9.5 feet. Adult condors stand at a height of 45-55 inches and weigh 17 to 25 pounds. Males are generally slightly larger than females.Talons - Unlike birds of prey, condors do not have sharp talons capable of killing or grasping objects.

Beak; - The condor's beak is long, sharp, and powerful. It can pierce the hide of a horse. Condors use their beaks to tear the flesh from carcasses, and to touch, feel, and explore their surroundings. Condors have been observed using their beak to remove foliage from trees to create better roosting sites, and manipulating rocks and other objects in caves to improve the nesting area.

Voice; - The condor has no syrinx (voice box), but communicates with a combination of hisses, growls, and grunts. There is also a well-developed system of communication through body language.

Crop; - The crop is a pouch like enlargement below the throat where food is stored and partially digested before it enters the stomach. In one feeding an adult California condor can take in as much as 3 to 4 pounds in its crop. A crop can be seen as a bulge in the upper chest area of a condor.

Senses; - Condors have keen eyesight to help them spot food from great heights. The color of their iris changes from tan to red as the bird matures. Condors do not have a good sense of smell and do not use it to locate food as do turkey vultures. California condors have good hearing.

Air sacs; - Condors have air sacs located under their skin in their neck and throat regions. When agitated or excited they inflate these sacs which gives them a larger more impressive appearance.

Life span; - It is not known how long condors live, however the oldest California condor in captivity was born in 1966. An Andean condor in a zoo in Italy died recently at 71 years of age. Scientists believe that condors in the wild did not live to much over 40 years of age.

Patch