SWCAMBORNE

The koi died in Koimageddon a year or two ago. The pond is now an amphibian sanctuary.  Home to a few dozen Water Lilies, a few gold fish, guppies, lots of polliwogs and a nightly frog concert.

Historical Pond Stories and Photos here

Life is Good

“Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain… 

and most fools do.”

Benjamin Franklin

American Statesman

Americans spend $14 surfing for every $1 they spend on presidential elections.

Of course surfing is more fun and many would say more important.

But maybe if we spent more on elections the results would get better.

Sources:

According to Jim Messina, The campaign mananger for President Obama’s re-election: “All in all, the Republicans are ready to spend $1 billion — whatever it takes to defeat President Obama” from a fund raising email received on 4/28/2012.  So extrapolating both sides will spend $2 billion plus

According to Todd Woody in Forbes Magazine on May 7, 2012 surfing is a $7 billion industry:

So presidential elections cost $2 billion every four years and surfing costs $28 billion (4 years times $7 billion)

A 14 to one ratio.

Conclusion:  When one side or the other is complaining about the cost of elections it means that they are getting outspent because their target market would rather go surfing.

One of the best flower photos I have taken in a long time.

Click on the photo and look at it full screen you can see the pollen on the bee’s back.

I’d say National Geographic quality.

Life is good!

In the UK, unlike in the

USA, the royalty never

have to stand for election.

They do however star

in a permanent reality

TV show.

Life is good.

Royal Jelly

The Imperial War Museum

Thanks to the alert reporting and cosmopolitan culinary interests of reader Stephanie M. we have been made aware of the Sconehenge Bakery and Cafe in Berkeley CA.

Good find.  Henges are everywhere.  It may be that there is a genetic instruction set for building them.

Lake Avenue is one of the major streets in Pasadena.  Before the revival of Old Pasadena it was also the main shopping district. Today’s question is: How did it come to be called Lake Avenue when a Google map of the area doesn’t show a lake within twenty miles?  A map from the 1920′s answers the question.

The map was made by the Automobile Club when their slogan was “Good Roads.”  Zooming in on the south end of Lake Avenue we find the answer to the puzzle.

At the south end of Lake Avenue down in San Marino is “Mission Lake.”  It is in what is now Lacey Park near the old mill “El Molino.”  It was probably the mill pond for the mill.  For added fun in the Arroyo, on the left hand side of the small map, are “Busch Gardens” and the Cawston Ostrich Farm.  See a more detailed version of the map on Flickr

The State of Israel was 64 years old this week which makes it about middle aged as nations go.

Happy Birthday Israel

To add a little more historic perspective:

• Israel was founded before the fax machine and outlived it.
• Israel was founded before the cassette tape and has outlived it.
• The same for the floppy disc, the princess phone and the pager.
• Looking at some companies Israel has out lived WT Grant, Polaroid, Wang and Lehman Brothers
• It looks like Israel will outlive Kodak and Sears.  Although both of them were founded when Zionism was only a dream.
• My favorite: Israel was founded before the Boeing 707 flew and it still exists.  Boeing 707′s are not flying much anymore.
• Israel outlasted the United Arab Republic, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, the USSR and Tibet.
• Since Israel was admitted to the UN somewhere near a hundred other countries have been admitted.

Did I miss any?

I was researching an immigration topic and came across this Census Bureau map showing the top ancestry by county in the US.

Two surprises to me were the large portion of the country that is dominated by people of German descent and the category “American” as distinct from “American Indian”  that is prevalent in many parts of the Southeast.

I received an email yesterday from “The Consumer Watchdog Campaign.”  They apparently want the government to impose price controls on health insurance in California.  I was curious how they got my name, since I am clearly not the target market, so I followed the link and found that they had used the voter registration records.

Source Information for your Email Address

Information

Optin Status:Opted InEmail Address:s*********w@m**.comEmail Type:not specified, defaulted to MIMEDate and time signed up:January 26, 2012 at 11:50:44 AM (PST)A description of how your email address was obtained:California Voter Registration Public Records

Political advocates and candidates have used lists of addresses compiled from the voter records for a long time but this was the first time that I have seen one where they used my email address.  Does the county registrar of voters have the right to do that?  What controls are in place.

It feels to me like a divide has been crossed.