Highly likely that he will either select Julian, Amb Rice or AG Lynch, Judith. Those are my three top choices. However, I do think Mayor de Blasio will receive (may already be receiving) considerable vetting.
President Obama and VP Biden are not going to do anything differently than they’ve been doing these past 6+ years … meticulous planning how to sustain the momentum of resurrecting the middle class and eliminating inequity, of any form, in these United States of America.
‘When Aaron Stein was studying nuclear nonproliferation at Middlebury College’s Monterey graduate program, the students would sometimes construct what they thought would be the best possible nuclear inspection and monitoring regimes. Years later, Stein is now a Middle East and nuclear proliferation expert with the Royal United Services Institute (as well as the Geneva Centre for Security Policy and the Atlantic Council). And in April, he told me that the Iran nuclear deal, the broad strokes of which had just been announced, looks an awful lot like those ideal hypotheticals he’d put together in grad school. “When I was doing my nonproliferation training at Monterey, this is the type of inspection regime that we would dream up in our heads,” he said at the time. “We would hope that this would be the way to actually verify all enrichment programs, but thought that would never be feasible.” Stein concluded it would make “an excellent deal” — if the negotiators could turn those broad strokes into a formal, finalized agreement. This week, they did exactly that. The full, final Iran nuclear deal “exceeds in all areas,” Stein said on Tuesday. “It makes the possibility of Iran developing a nuclear weapon in the next 25 years extremely remote.”
This is an astoundingly good #IranDeal http://t.co/eJslZQeYgA by @Max_Fisher pic.twitter.com/jzBIiXhOyz
— The Lovely Plains (@DaRiverZkind) July 17, 2025
The deal requires Iran to surrender some crucial components of its nuclear program, in part or even in whole. Here are the highlights:
-Iran will give up about 14,000 of its 20,000 centrifuges.
-Iran will give up all but its most rudimentary, outdated centrifuges: Its first-generation IR-1s, knockoffs of 1970s European models, are all it gets to keep.
-It will not be allowed to build or develop newer models.
-Iran will give up 97 percent of its enriched uranium; it will hold on to only 300 kilograms of its 10,000-kilogram stockpile in its current form.
-Iran will destroy or export the core of its plutonium plant at Arak, and replace it with a new core that cannot produce weapons-grade plutonium.
It will ship out all spent nuclear fuel.
Iran would simply not have much of its nuclear program left after all this. A shorthand people sometimes use to evaluate the size of Iran’s nuclear program is its “breakout time.” If Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei woke up tomorrow morning and decided to set his entire nuclear program toward building a nuclear warhead — to “break out” to a bomb — as of today it would take him two or three months. Under the terms of the deal, his program would be so much smaller that it would take him an entire year to build a single nuclear warhead…continued”
I have no doubt this is true, and since it’s at the bottom of the previous thread, thought I’d post it again ….
Dear @VP
#HRC just spent $6.6M in #Iowa
You're the ONLY potential candidate who can inspire a grassroots, small $ donation campaign & WIN!
— Bobfr (@Our4thEstate) July 18, 2025
That’s $6.6M in #Iowa, with no realistic challenger (Bernie ain’t, for sure), in July, 2015 - not July, 2016, as an actual Presidential candidate. She can only spend like that because of her mega$$$$ corporate masters.
No @GOP candidate or any of the current declared Dem candidates have what it takes to muster a meaningful, grassroots, primarily funded by small $ donations campaign EXCEPT VP Joseph Robinette “Joe” Biden, Jr. …. Period
I am actually astonished, amk. When I saw the ad buy $$ amount, I was like “WOW, she’s scared sh*&tless!”!!
Why I asked.
Well, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that she is not spending those $$ because of #TheBern, and certainly not because of the other Dem cream puffs, she’s desperately trying to prop up her status before the designated Obama/Biden Legacy Hitter enters the game, i.e., Rock’n Joe, himself.
#TrustBarack … not to drop the ball, but to do this …. to Joe ….
Dear @POTUS
HRC just spent $6.6M in #Iowa
Why?
#TheBern NOPE
#TheOtherCreamPuffs NOPE
@VP YUP
https://t.co/YGVADS5ASP
We're waiting :)
If she was what she pretends to be (and the corporate shills are desperately trying to prop), she’d have spent a tiny fraction of that amount at this time.
She is signaling her ‘cache’ is essentially worthless.
She is broadcasting, at 100+ GB channel capacity, that if VP Biden enters the race she’s TOAST.
No other explanation fits the model.
The GOP are going to make combat ‘friendly fire’ look like child’s play.
All a couple of clever digital video folk would have to do for her regarding the GOP is assemble an endless stream of devastating 30 sec YouTube clips of those fools’ rants and they’d go viral in moments if she had the kind of ‘base’ PBO created in 07/08 and VP Biden, most assuredly, is going to soon begin leveraging.
She’s frightened. Her hubby is trembling. Her mega$$$ patrons are trying to determine how much more of their wealth they can ‘off shore.’
it is hard to be pitch perfect in everything…esp with the media looking to exploit every misstep..aka..Obamacare website troubles….
however i will say…that she has had plenty of time to get her group in focus….the President was able to fly under the radar in 2007/2008 because no one gave him a chance…
that was not the case in 2012…between polls and pundit forecasters of doom…and we all remember how folks went ballistic after PBOs first debate with Romney…
i’m trying not to lose my head….
i am not sure if the VP is running…wait time will be over soon
I think she was counting on having the OFA list and they got lazy. Not very smart because she’s had a long time to update and acquire a useful mailing list. Oh, well. I saw an article yesterday that explained that despite her efforts to portray otherwise, her main donors are lobbyists & wealthy donors are primarily funding her campaign.
i think that Hillary is walking a tight rope…she knows that she needs the Obama Coalition to win…HELL she saw the results of 2010/2014…like everyone else…problem: she is not an Obama Coalition candidate…she is not about empowering others…she is about empowering self …sigh…so what can she do….so she walks with the President gingerly…but she comes off as fake because this is not who she is…so then for us we have to look at the long game…like i said…i am trying to not react to everything the media throws out…about either Hillary or Bernie….and O’Malley who is lying in the cut….
if the VP enters the race…it will get real…real fast
It is actually 3 mill Iowa 4 mill New Hampshire and I think this is more about not allowing GOP to drive down her negatives with ads and have spots reserved to counter. Plus this is over a 4 month period bleeding into january and reserving time now is 5x cheaper then it will be in a few months….finally b/c it is primary money you also get discounted rate compared to superpac.
I think he wants to spend time with his grandchildren and go out on top as the best modern duo to to ever occupy the WH….I may be wrong but that how I’ve felt for the pas year.
More than ok with me, Bob….I would be elated…I’ve just had a gut feeling that he isn’t going to run for over a year now. Things may have changed since the tragic death of Beau, but I sense he may want to ride off into the sunset. I hope I’m wrong!
No, Idon, I hadn’t seen this before (I never go to Huff post myself, and I missed it if it was shared here previously). So far I’ve read only the first part, but it is ‘interesting’ that Bill C. is owning up to his mistakes. My first thought is ‘I wonder what’s his real intent?’
smh …. at the Clintons. They don’t often show that they have learned from past mistakes! To date in this campaign of theirs I sure don’t get a sense that there’s any serious *heartfelt* change.
I don’t understand it either, TS. She clearly, IMO, does not really have a sincere commitment to the progress of the average American, and she is *not* a visionary leader (no matter what she or her followers think)!
American sci-fi novelist Philip K. Dick once famously asked, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? While he was on the right track, the answer appears to be, no, they don’t. They dream of dog-headed knights atop horses, of camel-birds and pig-snails, and of Dali-esque mutated landscapes. Google’s image recognition software, which can detect, analyze, and even auto-caption images, uses artificial neural networks to simulate the human brain. In a process they’re calling “inceptionism,” Google engineers sought out to see what these artificial networks “dream” of—what, if anything, do they see in a nondescript image of clouds, for instance? What does a fake brain that’s trained to detect images of dogs see when it’s shown a picture of a knight?
“Dreams” of @Google’s AI are equal parts amazing & disturbing http://t.co/w9swaLz1To https://t.co/22jF0NGWHK via @QZ pic.twitter.com/pRehTvOKLm
— The Lovely Plains (@DaRiverZkind) July 18, 2025
Google trains the software by feeding it millions of images, eventually teaching it to recognize specific objects within a picture. When it’s fed an image, it is asked to emphasize the object in the image that it recognizes. The network is made up of layers—the higher the layer, the more precise the interpretation. Eventually, in the final output layer, the network makes a “decision” as to what’s in the image. But the networks aren’t restricted to only identifying images. Their training allows them to generate images as well. Here’s what it outputs when it was asked to create images of the following objects..continued”
“…According to the contest criteria the submitted images are taken during 2014-2015 and are all created in the “TWAN style”—showing both the Earth and the sky—by combining elements of the night sky set in the backdrop of the Earth horizon, often with a notable scenery or landmark. Known as nightscape imaging (or landscape astrophotography) this is similar to general night photography but with a special attention to the sky, astronomical perspectives, and celestial phenomena. The contest focus on preserving night sky as part of our natural heritage is to support global efforts in controlling light pollution….The contest was open to anyone of any age, anywhere in the world; to both professional and amateur/hobby photographers. About 1000 entries were received and 839 of them were approved for the contest judging. David Malin of the judging panel, a world-known pioneer in scientific astrophotography, explains that “This competition encourages photographers with imagination to push their cameras to their technical limits, and to produce eye-catching images that appear perfectly natural and are aesthetically pleasing.
2015 International Earth & Sky Photo Contest Winners http://t.co/Bb26iIMakZ https://t.co/j4a0xUKGTl by @Dariverzkind pic.twitter.com/UWXJ4LXIga
— The Lovely Plains (@DaRiverZkind) July 7, 2025
Hundreds of nightscape photographers from across the world rose to the challenge, and the panel of nine judges was ultimately faced with finding the best from over 800 images.” TWAN founder and the contest chair, Babak Tafreshi, adds “The sky above us is an essential part of our nature, a heritage for us and other species on this planet. The contest main goal is to present the night sky in this broader context that relates to all of us, while it is also astronomers laboratory to explore the universe. Perhaps from this perspective we can better preserve the natural night sky and reconnect it with our modern life.” ….According to the contest theme of “Dark Skies Importance,” the submitted photos were judged in two categories: “Beauty of The Night Sky” and “Against The Lights.” The selected images are those most effective in impressing public on both how important and delicate the starry sky is as an affecting part of our nature, and also how bad the problem of light pollution has become. Today, most city skies are virtually devoid of stars. Light pollution (excessive light that scatters to the sky instead of illuminating the ground) not only is a major waste of energy, it also obscures the stars, disrupts ecosystems and has adverse health effects…continued”
It is my pleasure, sjterrid. I sometimes ask myself if I’m the only one intrigued by these types of images…but then TOD reminds of the wonderful and eclectic group of people that occupy this space :cool:
“Beth Moon’s images of ancient trees, so stunning in their stature and grandeur, straddle the line between fantasy and reality. For Diamond Nights, she spent many moonless nights in the African bush, making long exposure images of trees shrouded in a blanket of stars. She was inspired by scientific studies that link tree growth to the heavens. The idea was at once romantic and alluring. “The sun is just one star, after all,” Moon says. “That really flipped me backwards”
Africa’s Ancient Trees, Surrounded by a Blanket of Stars http://t.co/FxSUrRJUSB by @DaRiverZkind pic.twitter.com/uZNdpH87Jk
— The Lovely Plains (@DaRiverZkind) July 8, 2025
Trees have long been a subject of Moon’s—her book Ancient Trees is a collection of her stunning platinum print images of the largest, oldest, and most storied trees on earth. For Diamond Nights, she decided to embrace digital photography because the images she wanted to make required a pumped up ISO and drawn out exposure time. She originally thought the series would be black and white as well, but found that she couldn’t sacrifice the color. The result are images of a sky so brilliant they look as though they’ve been meticulously painted as some childlike, awestruck fantasy of the heavens. The title of each image comes from constellations named by the Greeks and Romans, a nod to the long history of human fascination with these natural wonders…continued”
So grateful to you, LP, for bringing these incredible images to us and for sharing your knowledge of how they’re produced. You’ve enriched all of us with these photographic works of art.
Good news from Alaska and Utah. Both states are now implementing medicaid expansion after years of GOP obstruction. http://acasignups.net/track/click/1232/336
WOWOWOOOWOWOW, POTUS and girls have gone to the Whitney!
Subject: Travel pool #9 — leaving dinner, visit to the Whitney Museum
Carbone, the restaurant POTUS ate at tonight, is on Thompson Street between Bleecker and W. Houston Street.
Pool passed it on the way back to the press vans from our hold. It had a very old-school Italian vibe. One member of the traveling pool remarked that it looked like a restaurant from The Godfather.
Motorcade was on the move from Greenwich Village at 11:07 pm. A big cheer went up from the crowd assembled along Houston Street as the presidential motorcade went by.
Arrived at the Whitney Museum in the West Village/Meatpacking District at 11:12 pm.
POTUS is visiting the museum with Sasha, Malia and friends, per the White House.
Pool is holding in the vans. —
Nerdy, Girl you are too much! Love the Classic Man one! :-D
Reminded me of this great interview of Jidenna and Janelle Monae from earlier this year.
Janelle mentions POTUS and FLOTUS;speaking about about how t makes her feel knowing that her music has touched them (around 24:40)
The ‘Breakfast Club’ is the best. I’m so glad Angie Martinez left Power 97 to join 105. Back when I was living in Alabama and I used to listen “The Paul Harvey show and for music Ludarcris, before he became an artist…I think he was “Chris Lova Lova” on B103 Atlanta….correct me if I’m wrong.
I see what you’re saying. Tho’ I’m not particularly into the Kendrick Lemarr remix — I much prefer the original Classic Man cut. Really excited about Jidenna though. Looking forward to watching him continue to bring the Swank..:-)
And of course, I’m a huge Janelle fan, so if she’s touching it, it’s gon’ be hot.
Kendrick did get a little grimy…but Janelle is the best. I can’t imagine what the S.Korean president was doing when she performed at the State Dinner a few years ago :cool:
The American media were waiting for Khamenei’s address tonight, hoping he dog the Iran Deal. But apparently he did no such thing, barely mentioning it. LOLz.
So cute. Hi NW.
Congrats Jackie :)
NW :D :D :D :D :D
:)
Hellooooooooo, Jackie.
TGIF Nerdy, Jackie, and everybody! What a week!
:)
furst.
VC still slugging away on the old thread :D
Was not! Was playing the different fridge commercials over and over, okay?
what has gg done to you?
insisted on turning on the TV? :D
wimminz, huh?
#idontknow #toogeneralized #imwomanandidontliketv
Nope :)
But, good morning amk, and here’s a treat for you ….
and a response to one of your snark/ ‘comments’ /snark in the last thread ….
:)
GM
AB.I just hope they all turn out to vote.
So do I, amk!
Trump is doing a spectacular job of firing them up, for sure!!
Having Julian or Joaquin Castro on the ticket for Veep should help also. Hope Joe Biden is giving it serious consideration.
That is why Julian got the keynote at 2012 convention and PBO made him HUD secretary. Prime him up for whoever is the D nominee!
Highly likely that he will either select Julian, Amb Rice or AG Lynch, Judith. Those are my three top choices. However, I do think Mayor de Blasio will receive (may already be receiving) considerable vetting.
President Obama and VP Biden are not going to do anything differently than they’ve been doing these past 6+ years … meticulous planning how to sustain the momentum of resurrecting the middle class and eliminating inequity, of any form, in these United States of America.
Sadly…I have no idea what that classic joke was talking about….I DID, however, get the KFC one!
Me neither DF. Whew! I’m glad I’m not alone :D
Partners:) I’m totally clueless on that one, I’m afraid.
But the first one I understand. 😊 partner
wimminz/smh
Yup! that would be me on the left. :-)
I am more like the lady on the right……wish I were more like lady of left though.
you know, this is the truth
‘When Aaron Stein was studying nuclear nonproliferation at Middlebury College’s Monterey graduate program, the students would sometimes construct what they thought would be the best possible nuclear inspection and monitoring regimes. Years later, Stein is now a Middle East and nuclear proliferation expert with the Royal United Services Institute (as well as the Geneva Centre for Security Policy and the Atlantic Council). And in April, he told me that the Iran nuclear deal, the broad strokes of which had just been announced, looks an awful lot like those ideal hypotheticals he’d put together in grad school. “When I was doing my nonproliferation training at Monterey, this is the type of inspection regime that we would dream up in our heads,” he said at the time. “We would hope that this would be the way to actually verify all enrichment programs, but thought that would never be feasible.” Stein concluded it would make “an excellent deal” — if the negotiators could turn those broad strokes into a formal, finalized agreement. This week, they did exactly that. The full, final Iran nuclear deal “exceeds in all areas,” Stein said on Tuesday. “It makes the possibility of Iran developing a nuclear weapon in the next 25 years extremely remote.”
The deal requires Iran to surrender some crucial components of its nuclear program, in part or even in whole. Here are the highlights:
-Iran will give up about 14,000 of its 20,000 centrifuges.
-Iran will give up all but its most rudimentary, outdated centrifuges: Its first-generation IR-1s, knockoffs of 1970s European models, are all it gets to keep.
-It will not be allowed to build or develop newer models.
-Iran will give up 97 percent of its enriched uranium; it will hold on to only 300 kilograms of its 10,000-kilogram stockpile in its current form.
-Iran will destroy or export the core of its plutonium plant at Arak, and replace it with a new core that cannot produce weapons-grade plutonium.
It will ship out all spent nuclear fuel.
Iran would simply not have much of its nuclear program left after all this. A shorthand people sometimes use to evaluate the size of Iran’s nuclear program is its “breakout time.” If Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei woke up tomorrow morning and decided to set his entire nuclear program toward building a nuclear warhead — to “break out” to a bomb — as of today it would take him two or three months. Under the terms of the deal, his program would be so much smaller that it would take him an entire year to build a single nuclear warhead…continued”
I have no doubt this is true, and since it’s at the bottom of the previous thread, thought I’d post it again ….
That’s $6.6M in #Iowa, with no realistic challenger (Bernie ain’t, for sure), in July, 2015 - not July, 2016, as an actual Presidential candidate. She can only spend like that because of her mega$$$$ corporate masters.
No @GOP candidate or any of the current declared Dem candidates have what it takes to muster a meaningful, grassroots, primarily funded by small $ donations campaign EXCEPT VP Joseph Robinette “Joe” Biden, Jr. …. Period
wow. and the campaign season hasn’t even started yet. / smh, smh
I am actually astonished, amk. When I saw the ad buy $$ amount, I was like “WOW, she’s scared sh*&tless!”!!
Why I asked.
Well, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that she is not spending those $$ because of #TheBern, and certainly not because of the other Dem cream puffs, she’s desperately trying to prop up her status before the designated Obama/Biden Legacy Hitter enters the game, i.e., Rock’n Joe, himself.
#TrustBarack … not to drop the ball, but to do this …. to Joe ….
:D
She’s already blown through $18.7M.
Her 2008 campaign closed with $20M debt.
Yikes! Think about what this country could do for its citizens if we didn’t have the cancer on our democracy of unlimited $ in politics.
YUP!
She’s frightened, meta.
If she was what she pretends to be (and the corporate shills are desperately trying to prop), she’d have spent a tiny fraction of that amount at this time.
She is signaling her ‘cache’ is essentially worthless.
She is broadcasting, at 100+ GB channel capacity, that if VP Biden enters the race she’s TOAST.
No other explanation fits the model.
The GOP are going to make combat ‘friendly fire’ look like child’s play.
All a couple of clever digital video folk would have to do for her regarding the GOP is assemble an endless stream of devastating 30 sec YouTube clips of those fools’ rants and they’d go viral in moments if she had the kind of ‘base’ PBO created in 07/08 and VP Biden, most assuredly, is going to soon begin leveraging.
She’s frightened. Her hubby is trembling. Her mega$$$ patrons are trying to determine how much more of their wealth they can ‘off shore.’
#Hillarygeddon is imminent :)
They also just make a lot of dumb mistakes.
it is hard to be pitch perfect in everything…esp with the media looking to exploit every misstep..aka..Obamacare website troubles….
however i will say…that she has had plenty of time to get her group in focus….the President was able to fly under the radar in 2007/2008 because no one gave him a chance…
that was not the case in 2012…between polls and pundit forecasters of doom…and we all remember how folks went ballistic after PBOs first debate with Romney…
i’m trying not to lose my head….
i am not sure if the VP is running…wait time will be over soon
I think she was counting on having the OFA list and they got lazy. Not very smart because she’s had a long time to update and acquire a useful mailing list. Oh, well. I saw an article yesterday that explained that despite her efforts to portray otherwise, her main donors are lobbyists & wealthy donors are primarily funding her campaign.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/07/hillary-clinton-fundraising-bundlers-lobbyists
i think that Hillary is walking a tight rope…she knows that she needs the Obama Coalition to win…HELL she saw the results of 2010/2014…like everyone else…problem: she is not an Obama Coalition candidate…she is not about empowering others…she is about empowering self …sigh…so what can she do….so she walks with the President gingerly…but she comes off as fake because this is not who she is…so then for us we have to look at the long game…like i said…i am trying to not react to everything the media throws out…about either Hillary or Bernie….and O’Malley who is lying in the cut….
if the VP enters the race…it will get real…real fast
I so agree. VP Joe has the ability to straighten out both the Hillary and Bernie campaigns real fast.
It is actually 3 mill Iowa 4 mill New Hampshire and I think this is more about not allowing GOP to drive down her negatives with ads and have spots reserved to counter. Plus this is over a 4 month period bleeding into january and reserving time now is 5x cheaper then it will be in a few months….finally b/c it is primary money you also get discounted rate compared to superpac.
#hillbot
:lol: I’m ridinwithbiden …but he is not going to run…
I agree with you LP - I don’t think VP wants the job. He’s seen close up what it does to those who take it on.
I think he wants to spend time with his grandchildren and go out on top as the best modern duo to to ever occupy the WH….I may be wrong but that how I’ve felt for the pas year.
Sorry LP.
VP Biden will be the 45th President of the United States of America.
Hope that’s ok with you.
More than ok with me, Bob….I would be elated…I’ve just had a gut feeling that he isn’t going to run for over a year now. Things may have changed since the tragic death of Beau, but I sense he may want to ride off into the sunset. I hope I’m wrong!
This is one of the things that bothers me about Clintons - I too often hear about the unwise way they (or their surrogates) handle money.
Did you see this, I find it just weird. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bill-clinton-is-sorry_55a83397e4b0896514d0e220?
No, Idon, I hadn’t seen this before (I never go to Huff post myself, and I missed it if it was shared here previously). So far I’ve read only the first part, but it is ‘interesting’ that Bill C. is owning up to his mistakes. My first thought is ‘I wonder what’s his real intent?’
Idon, is the article for real? I mean, it isn’t meant as a series of satirical apologies?
It’s real - trying to fight what hasn’t yet been said.
smh …. at the Clintons. They don’t often show that they have learned from past mistakes! To date in this campaign of theirs I sure don’t get a sense that there’s any serious *heartfelt* change.
Other than the perks of the WH and AF1 I do not understand why Hillary wants to be President. Guess it’s a power thing - or whatever.
I don’t understand it either, TS. She clearly, IMO, does not really have a sincere commitment to the progress of the average American, and she is *not* a visionary leader (no matter what she or her followers think)!
American sci-fi novelist Philip K. Dick once famously asked, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? While he was on the right track, the answer appears to be, no, they don’t. They dream of dog-headed knights atop horses, of camel-birds and pig-snails, and of Dali-esque mutated landscapes. Google’s image recognition software, which can detect, analyze, and even auto-caption images, uses artificial neural networks to simulate the human brain. In a process they’re calling “inceptionism,” Google engineers sought out to see what these artificial networks “dream” of—what, if anything, do they see in a nondescript image of clouds, for instance? What does a fake brain that’s trained to detect images of dogs see when it’s shown a picture of a knight?
Google trains the software by feeding it millions of images, eventually teaching it to recognize specific objects within a picture. When it’s fed an image, it is asked to emphasize the object in the image that it recognizes. The network is made up of layers—the higher the layer, the more precise the interpretation. Eventually, in the final output layer, the network makes a “decision” as to what’s in the image. But the networks aren’t restricted to only identifying images. Their training allows them to generate images as well. Here’s what it outputs when it was asked to create images of the following objects..continued”
This is not someone getting ready to retire :)
Tick Tock.
Tick Tock ….
God’s Speed Jilly :-)
love my next FLOTUS
“…According to the contest criteria the submitted images are taken during 2014-2015 and are all created in the “TWAN style”—showing both the Earth and the sky—by combining elements of the night sky set in the backdrop of the Earth horizon, often with a notable scenery or landmark. Known as nightscape imaging (or landscape astrophotography) this is similar to general night photography but with a special attention to the sky, astronomical perspectives, and celestial phenomena. The contest focus on preserving night sky as part of our natural heritage is to support global efforts in controlling light pollution….The contest was open to anyone of any age, anywhere in the world; to both professional and amateur/hobby photographers. About 1000 entries were received and 839 of them were approved for the contest judging. David Malin of the judging panel, a world-known pioneer in scientific astrophotography, explains that “This competition encourages photographers with imagination to push their cameras to their technical limits, and to produce eye-catching images that appear perfectly natural and are aesthetically pleasing.
Hundreds of nightscape photographers from across the world rose to the challenge, and the panel of nine judges was ultimately faced with finding the best from over 800 images.” TWAN founder and the contest chair, Babak Tafreshi, adds “The sky above us is an essential part of our nature, a heritage for us and other species on this planet. The contest main goal is to present the night sky in this broader context that relates to all of us, while it is also astronomers laboratory to explore the universe. Perhaps from this perspective we can better preserve the natural night sky and reconnect it with our modern life.” ….According to the contest theme of “Dark Skies Importance,” the submitted photos were judged in two categories: “Beauty of The Night Sky” and “Against The Lights.” The selected images are those most effective in impressing public on both how important and delicate the starry sky is as an affecting part of our nature, and also how bad the problem of light pollution has become. Today, most city skies are virtually devoid of stars. Light pollution (excessive light that scatters to the sky instead of illuminating the ground) not only is a major waste of energy, it also obscures the stars, disrupts ecosystems and has adverse health effects…continued”
Spectacular!! Thanks for sharing the beauty of our world captured so memorably, LP.
My pleasure, Judith!
LP, I wanted to add my thanks for all the beautiful images you share with us.
It is my pleasure, sjterrid. I sometimes ask myself if I’m the only one intrigued by these types of images…but then TOD reminds of the wonderful and eclectic group of people that occupy this space :cool:
I love the interesting information you bring here. I was amazed at some of the photos when you clicked on the link and got to see all the photos.
“Beth Moon’s images of ancient trees, so stunning in their stature and grandeur, straddle the line between fantasy and reality. For Diamond Nights, she spent many moonless nights in the African bush, making long exposure images of trees shrouded in a blanket of stars. She was inspired by scientific studies that link tree growth to the heavens. The idea was at once romantic and alluring. “The sun is just one star, after all,” Moon says. “That really flipped me backwards”
Trees have long been a subject of Moon’s—her book Ancient Trees is a collection of her stunning platinum print images of the largest, oldest, and most storied trees on earth. For Diamond Nights, she decided to embrace digital photography because the images she wanted to make required a pumped up ISO and drawn out exposure time. She originally thought the series would be black and white as well, but found that she couldn’t sacrifice the color. The result are images of a sky so brilliant they look as though they’ve been meticulously painted as some childlike, awestruck fantasy of the heavens. The title of each image comes from constellations named by the Greeks and Romans, a nod to the long history of human fascination with these natural wonders…continued”
So grateful to you, LP, for bringing these incredible images to us and for sharing your knowledge of how they’re produced. You’ve enriched all of us with these photographic works of art.
Ditto!!! Thank you, LP!!!
bbl … sup prep ….
#TrustBarack
#LetsRollJoe
Love that “#LetsRollJoe” !!!
:)
So very kind of you to say, Jackie-TY
LP, I love the beautiful and stunning images you bring to us!
Thanks for indulging my fascination with photography, Maryl :)
Good news from Alaska and Utah. Both states are now implementing medicaid expansion after years of GOP obstruction. http://acasignups.net/track/click/1232/336
Montana will be next if it hasn’t done it already.
Watching Driving Miss Daisy with James Earl Jones and Angela Lansbury on PBS.
so sad :(
Yay!
WOWOWOOOWOWOW, POTUS and girls have gone to the Whitney!
Subject: Travel pool #9 — leaving dinner, visit to the Whitney Museum
Carbone, the restaurant POTUS ate at tonight, is on Thompson Street between Bleecker and W. Houston Street.
Pool passed it on the way back to the press vans from our hold. It had a very old-school Italian vibe. One member of the traveling pool remarked that it looked like a restaurant from The Godfather.
Motorcade was on the move from Greenwich Village at 11:07 pm. A big cheer went up from the crowd assembled along Houston Street as the presidential motorcade went by.
Arrived at the Whitney Museum in the West Village/Meatpacking District at 11:12 pm.
POTUS is visiting the museum with Sasha, Malia and friends, per the White House.
Pool is holding in the vans. —
Pool is holding in the vans. —
And no doubt - pool is whinging in the vans.
‘Cuz that’s how we do! :-D
Go Family!
Nerdy, Girl you are too much! Love the Classic Man one! :-D
Reminded me of this great interview of Jidenna and Janelle Monae from earlier this year.
Janelle mentions POTUS and FLOTUS;speaking about about how t makes her feel knowing that her music has touched them (around 24:40)
The ‘Breakfast Club’ is the best. I’m so glad Angie Martinez left Power 97 to join 105. Back when I was living in Alabama and I used to listen “The Paul Harvey show and for music Ludarcris, before he became an artist…I think he was “Chris Lova Lova” on B103 Atlanta….correct me if I’m wrong.
Ha! Yep - Chris Lova Lova…It was 97.5 instead of V103, but you got it. :-)
You seen this new Jidenna video that just came out with Kendrick Lamar?
Jidenna has that Camp Lo
Fosnworth Benley vibe. I dig his music…
I see what you’re saying. Tho’ I’m not particularly into the Kendrick Lemarr remix — I much prefer the original Classic Man cut. Really excited about Jidenna though. Looking forward to watching him continue to bring the Swank..:-)
And of course, I’m a huge Janelle fan, so if she’s touching it, it’s gon’ be hot.
Kendrick did get a little grimy…but Janelle is the best. I can’t imagine what the S.Korean president was doing when she performed at the State Dinner a few years ago :cool:
Enjoying the hell out her performance, I’m sure! :-D
He and President Obama always seemed to enjoy each others company. This is one of my favorite pics of them
:-D Bromance goin on there.
Kinda like Medvedev
and Cameron :lol:
Might as well go ahead and put the Classic Classic man right here to offset Kendrick’s griminess :-D
:)
The American media were waiting for Khamenei’s address tonight, hoping he dog the Iran Deal. But apparently he did no such thing, barely mentioning it. LOLz.
Our beautiful Second Lady has touched down in South Korea:
This guy really gets twitter. lulz
He must the best grandpa ever, Meta!
What a sense of humor :)
LOL! <3
What a hoot :D
I’m off to hunt some sleep - sweet dreams if you’re already in dream land!
Hey - is GG still with you?
Hi Theo. No, she’s been back for over a week now - I got a bit more than a doctor’s visit. :D :D Have you booked your dates east yet?
Yes - will email you later today with details.
It’s not like they are FOOLING ANYONE …. but, it’s always wise to make it crystal clear to the FOOLS (that try).
Good night TOD
Yup, they’re running scared, as evidenced by Bill’s mea culpa @ the NAACP confab…
Buona notte a tutti!
Good night, TOD!
LOL! I can think of at least two of my friends who would say “Which street?” :-D
Morning!
http://theobamadiary.com/2015/07/18/early-bird-chat-551/