(NYTimes) "Mr. Obama said he was always happy to take calls for his chief of staff — a reference to an incident a few weeks ago when Mr. Hoyer called Mr. Emanuel, who was in the back of a car and claimed he was too busy to talk, so he handed the phone to Mr. Obama.
In meetings, it is not uncommon for Mr. Obama and Mr. Emanuel to engage in teasing banter. One White House official recalls an exchange last week in which Mr. Obama said something to the effect of, “Well, I was going to do that, but I didn’t want Rahm to mope for a half-hour.â€
(NYTimes) – We definitely need more research on why women are not pursuing certain scientific careers, but why isn't this funding being given to social scientists whose expertise it is to study questions of this sort? I find that part puzzling and frustrating.
As some of you know, I’m a huge turtle fan. I just came across this video that should explain why one might become a turtle fan. Although the ones I had when I was little weren’t of this variety, they were this size. Too cute for words.
It’s unusually cold in some parts of Europe and temperatures are expected to be especially harsh this coming weekend. This makes the following even more unfortunate than it would be otherwise: due to conflicts with Ukraine, Russia has cut off gas supplies to several countries some of which rely on Russia for the majority of their needs and have enough supplies for no more than a few days. There isn’t a ton of good coverage* about this out there (yet?), you can read up on some of it here and here (although some information in English already seems outdated when I compare it to reports in Hungarian papers, which presumably have more accurate updates for at least Hungary). Hungary has already shut down numerous industrial plants and has taken other measures to lower usage.
Let’s say you are a country and calculate that you have enough supplies for about three weeks. Your neighbor only has enough for two days and asks for your help. What do you do? (Judging from some of the reports, this isn’t necessarily a hypothetical.)
[*] Feel free to post links to additional coverage that you find helpful. New stories came up as I was writing this post, I suspect/hope that more will be available. (Don’t assume I didn’t search in the right places, there was very little on this when I first started looking for it earlier today. The only reason I even knew to look was a mention by my cousin in an email and a phone conversation later with my Mom. They are both in Budapest so they are following the details and seem to have more to go on.)
Posted in Soc/Pol/Econ|Comments Off on Gas shortage in Europe
"As Charlie Brooker – one of the first people to donate to the Atheist Bus Campaign – says: 'Public transport in Britain suggests there isn't a God anyway, but in case anyone hasn't noticed, or feels isolated for thinking such a thing, this campaign should help.'"
I don’t like seeing you’re when your should be used and vice versa, but the following took it all to a whole new level: in a recent email I received, instead of your, the person wrote u’re. Yikes.
"From the beginning of her work as chief inspector of factories for Illinois she realized the importance of effective administration and all that it implies — a system of alert oversight, a permanent, trained non-political inspectorate, reliable statistics, illuminating reports as the basis of continuous public education"
Armed with my new Canon Digital Rebel XSi, I headed out the other night to check out the Lincoln Park Zoo Lights. (To Chicagoland readers, note that today, Sunday, January 4th is the last day to see them this season.)
For now I just have the lens that comes with the camera, the EFS 18-55. I had a lot of fun trying out some of the settings on the camera on this outing. Given that it was night time and I didn’t have a tripod, most of these shots would have been hard-to-impossible to achieve with my point-and-shoot.
Overall, I think this is my favorite:
The blur was not intentional, in fact, I managed several other shots later that were not blurry, but I like this one that group the most.
Regarding the various lights, this was one of my favorite pieces:
Finally, the most fun unintended result:
Fun times ahead with my new camera!
Posted in Holidays, Photos|Comments Off on Lights, camera, fun
