Things That Make You Go Hmmm... H2O

Hydrogen is an explosive gas. 

Oxygen supports combustion. 

Yet when these are combined it is water which is used to put out fires.

WTF Has Obama Done? - Issue No. 012 - Conservation

I'll be straightforward with you.  If Republicans had their way, our entire country would be a vast, empty and dry desert.  We'd probably go through famine, and our beautiful precious landscape gone within a matter of years.  Thank you God for our democracy!  We live in the land of the free, but it doesn't mean we can take advantage of it and let it die.  

All the Repubs want to do is "drill baby drill" when the oil we drill doesn't even stay in this country.  Did you know that the oil we drill and natural gas we produce in this country are sent to other nations?  Probably not, because most Americans are gullible or watch Fox News - one or the two.  But I'm not here to talk about Oil, I'm here to talk about conservation.

President Barack Obama has not only  managed to achieve 6 broad policies, 3 sources of funding and 8 targeted areas for a total of 17 achievements in regard to Conservation in 3 short years, he has managed to protect our water, landscape, refuges, and our national parks greater than any president has to date.  Today I shall cover 1 from each area.

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Morris K. Udall Scholarship and Excellence in National Environmental Policy Amendments Act of 2009.

The Morris K. Udall and Stewart L. Udall Foundation is an Executive Branch office of the United States Government. The Foundation was established by the Congress in 1992 to honor Morris Udall’s thirty years of service in the House of Representatives. Congress amended the name in 2009 to include Stewart Udall, in recognition of his public service. The full official name of the Foundation is Morris K. Udall and Stewart L. Udall Scholarship and Excellence in National Environmental Policy Foundation. The President of the United States appoints its board of trustees with the advice and consent of the Senate.

• Annual scholarships and fellowships to outstanding students who intend to pursue careers related to the natural environment. A student who receives such a scholarship may be known as Udall Scholar.
• Annual scholarships and internships to outstanding Native American and Alaska Native college students who intend to pursue careers in health care and tribal public policy.
• Parks in Focus, which takes young people into national and state parks to expose them to the grandeur of the nation's natural resources and instill a sustainable appreciation for the environment.
• Host an annual conference or discussion of contemporary environmental or Native American issues.
• A program for environmental policy research and a program for environmental conflict resolution at the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy at the University of Arizona. [Reference-1, Reference-2]

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Increased funding for national parks and forests.

President Barack Obama promised to boost funding for national parks and forests, and a bill he signed on Oct. 30, 2009, has done just that. "Will repair the damage done to our national parks by inadequate funding and emphasize the protection and restoration of our National Forests."

In the latest appropriations bill for the Interior Department, which oversees national parks and forests, Congress approved about $2.7 billion to preserve and improve the tracts of land. That's a $218 million increase over the last National Park Service budget, or about 10 percent, according to the House Appropriations Committee.
 
About $2.2 billion will go to operating the national park system, and about $15 million will support a new grant program for park preservation, among other things.

"This bill demonstrates a concerted effort by Congress and the Administration to restore our national treasures in time for the 2016 centennial of the National Park Service," said Tom Kiernan, president of the National Parks Conservation Association.  [Reference-1, Reference-2]

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Reengaged in the treaties/agreements to protect the Antarctic.

In 1959, representatives from 12 countries came together in Washington to sign the Antarctic Treaty, which is sometimes referred to as the first arms control agreement of the Cold War. Today, 47 nations have signed it. And as a result, Antarctica is one of the few places on earth where there has never been war. Other than occasional arguments among scientists and those stationed there over weighty matters having to do with sports, entertainment, and science, there has been very little conflict.

It is a land where science is the universal language and the highest priority and where people from different regions, races, and religions live and work together in one of the planet’s most remote, beautiful, and dangerous places.

The genius of the Antarctic Treaty lies in its relevance today. It was written to meet the challenges of an earlier time, but it and its related instruments remain a key tool in our efforts to address an urgent threat of this time, climate change, which has already destabilized communities on every continent, endangered plant and animal species, and jeopardized critical food and water sources. - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's remarks at the Joint Session of the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting and the Arctic Council, 50th Anniversary of the Antarctic Treaty [Reference-1, Reference-2]

As promised, I will come back to this topic in another issue.  Please make sure to read the next issue, Issue No. 013 - Employment: Jobs as I continue with
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Posted daily or weekly on BLADE 7184 until Election Day!

Hidden Swimming Pools

Okay, I've made up my mind.  After Ryan and I buy our mansion of a house, we are going to have one of these installed in our backyard.

My friend Jessie posted this on her Facebook wall, and I was mesmerized by the sheer beauty of it.  When you walk out the back door, at first glance you see a very beautiful patio, but what happens next is absolutely amazing.

As the patio starts to sink, water starts bubbling up to the surface.  I mean, out of nowhere a swimming pool starts to form as the patio disappears beneath it.

I want one!  And I'm sure it costs a pretty penny.  You can check them out at HiddenWaterPools.com.

If The World Were A Village of 100 People: Issue No. 11 - Water

This is the 11th poster out of the 20 posters I have shared with you over the past several months.

Every week I have been asking, "What if the world were a village of 100 people?"  And by using statistics based on the spread of the population in the world, Toby Ng Design created these posters as another way of looking at how our world is today. 

If you missed any of the previous issues, click here.

Must Watch: An Unprecedented Event Took Place Two Weekends Ago...

The World's Largest Water balloon fight known to man.  Nearly 9,000 people took part in a battle for the ages.  Using 175,141 balloons, a war with latex and water raged on.  The video below was provided by the Christian Student Fellowship at the University of Kentucky who hosted the event, and I'd have to say it's pretty darn cool.

Water Captured At A Stunning7000 Frames Per Second

You all know how much I love anything to do with Art, or the Art of Photography, and the following video is no exception.

It's another one of  those slow-motion capture videos, that I absolutely love.  Kudos to Romain Glé and Thomas Séon who put this music video together.  There's nothing like water being captured at 7000 FPS (frames per second).  Simply stunning to say the least.

Where Is All The Water? - Continued

Last Monday, when I originally posted "Where Is All The Water?," I didn't realize someone had actually cut off part of the chart.  While doing research for my "Foods That Will Make You Fat" series, I stumbled upon the other half of the chart. This took me by surprise, because I wasn't looking for it. Too Weird.  In either case, here is the other half of last week's post, "Where Is All The Water?".

click to enlarge

Where Is All The Water?

Seriously folks, where is all the water?  If you're from Texas, or any other state in the union for that matter,  you probably haven't seen any rain in 6 months.  While the following chart has nothing to do with the weather or droughts in our area, it is an informative tool on the scarcity of fresh and salt water.  It's astonishing.  

You would be surprised to learn that 97.5% of the earth's water is made up of salt, and the other 2.5% is Freshwater.  Furthermore, most freshwater is unattainable, meaning... we have no way of getting it, because 70% of the 2.5% of freshwater is frozen in polar icecaps.  The news gets even more grim, another 30% of the 2.5% of freshwater available is underground, which is too expensive to tap into, and filter.  So we're left with only a mere 1% of the world's freshwater that is available for human consumption.

click to enlarge

From Russia With Love

Andrei Vishnyakov took Russian model Anatoli Tolik to a lush forest and photographed him while he splashed around in a lake. 

The resulting images are clearly influenced by the work of Abercrombie & Fitch's Bruce Weber, but Vishnyakov’s vision has a bit more bite, don't you think?

More photos of this gorgeous hottie after the jump...

A Huge Water Bomb!

We've all seen water balloons burst - we've either played with them as children, or as adults. But have you seen one burst in slow-motion? 

As with my previous two posts, The following video uses high-definition cameras to capture the destruction of a water balloon.  This time, the artists are The Slow Mo Guys - this is my first time hearing about them.  Regardless to say, they don't burst a regular water balloon, they burst one a thousand times the size - 6 foot, to be exact.  

I actually enjoyed watching this, it was quite entertaining.

The Water Cycle

And this is how life on earth is possible, make sure to share this with all your friends, and yes, even the Christian ones.