Insults of the Day

“He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know.”
Abraham Lincoln

“I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.”
Mark Twain

I feel so miserable without you, it’s almost like having you here.”
Stephen Bishop

Ruby, AZ … A Ghost Town

Great Pics of a Ghost town near my town

Ruby

When the Spirit moves us… We go camping out here.

Deserted beehives, starving young stun scientists

Deserted Beehives, Starving Young Stun Scientists
By Dan Vergano and Patrick O’Driscoll
USA Today
Tuesday 01 May 2007

“The bees were gone,” David Hackenberg says. “The honey was still there. There’s young brood (eggs) still in the hive. Bees just don’t do that.”

Beekeeper

On that November night last year in the Florida field where he wintered his bees, Hackenberg found 400 hives empty. Another 30 hives were “disappearing, dwindling or whatever you want to call it,” and their bees were “full of a fungus nobody’s ever seen before.”

The discovery by Hackenberg, 58, a beekeeper from Lewisburg, Pa., was the first buzz about a plague that now afflicts 27 states, from the East Coast to the West. Beekeepers report losses of 30% to 90% of their honeybee hives, according to a Congressional Research Service study in March. Some report total losses.

Now a nationwide investigation, congressional panels and last week’s U.S. Department of Agriculture scientific workshop swarm around the newly named “colony collapse disorder.” Says the USDA’s Kevin Hackett, “With more dead and weakened colonies, the odds are building up for real problems.” (MORE)

Thai Buddha Images for the Days of the Week

Buddha Days

From very early times, Thai laypersons have assigned traditional styles and attitudes of Buddha images to specific days of the week. A devotee might keep in their house or work place the image assigned to his/her birth day of the week. This is purely folk belief. The image’s attitude or posture portrays different events in the Buddha’s life, according to parables that were written well after he entered parinibbana around 543 BC. During his lifetime Buddha did not encourage believers to create statues in his image. He did allow the wheel of Dhamma law to be created to remind his followers of spreading the virtues of Dhamma. Buddha images assigned to represent the Days of the Week were derived much later. At a temple these images are arranged on a long counter at which believers pay respect by dropping coins in collection dishes. The sight of a Buddha image brings a sense of peace; It gives the hope that one may attain the same pure joy that emanates from the figures. (MORE)