My Beauty Best Teacher

Painting reflections in water paintings is often a most problematic area for the beginner. They are often illustrated as simply an inverted image of the object above, sometimes misaligned or too idealistic. In other cases, water is illustrated as an area of harsh blue or slate grey, with suggestions of little waves on top. Such a portrayal of water is likely to look naive to the viewer.

Common Mistakes with Painting Water

Realistic Water Painting Rachel Shirley

By drawing attention to painting practices that are the causes of an unsatisfactory painting of water, the artist can begin to make improvements. The following areas are often the culprit of a lake painting that fails to convince.

• Using any blue or grey at hand and painting it neat over the area representing water
• Painting waves on top of the water by using the same brush mark, the same colour and the same size, all over the water surface
• Illustrating the body of water as having a definite edge
• Representing the water as having the same tonal value all over the water’s surface regardless of the surrounding weather conditions
• Painting reflections misaligned to the objects causing the reflections or painting them off true of vertical
• Painting the reflections with the exactly the same colours and tonal values as the objects causing them
• Illustrating edges to reflections and colour areas that may not exist

Tips for Painting Water and Reflections

Although water is a complex subject matter, when it comes to painting lakes, seas and rivers, water adheres to certain rules.

• If a reflection of an object is visible in the water, it will always lie immediately below the object itself. Using a ruler as a drawing aid will help ensure accuracy
• Regardless of the shape of the object, its reflection will be given a vertical aspect due to the texture of the water’s surface
• The colour of the object’s reflection will often be darker or more muted than the object causing the reflection
• Ripples, waves and other surface textures on the water will appear smaller, flatter and more regimented with distance.
• If the light is behind the viewer on a calm day and a uniform sky, the tone and colours of the water’s surface will appear more muted and paler with distance
• The colour of the sky will always appear a little darker and saturated when in reflection.

The Secrets to Painting Water

As with painting any subject matter, careful observation is the key to painting convincing water. The following tips will help:

• When painting reflections, turn the painting upside down to ensure they are truly vertical and lie immediately below the objects reflected.
• Don’t exclude any colour from the palette of water, regardless of how bizarre it may seem, so long as the colour can be perceived in the water.
• Check that the tonal value and colour of the water keys in with the surrounding landscape. For instance, a body of water that appears too dark or too blue will cause the painting to jar. Standing back from the painting and half closing the eyes will help the artist gain an overall view of the painting and how the water fits in. Making adjustments will often be necessary
• Resist the temptation of illustrating every wave and ripple. Using a soft brush or wide bristle brush will help soften any sharp edges and lines.
• Painting water will always involve a certain amount of blending, such as the edges of reflections, ripples and shorelines. Using a wide sable brush is ideal for this purpose
• Using a wet into wet technique is a great way of giving water a fluid look
• If the area of water is unsatisfactory, it pays to wipe the area off with a clean rag, or to let the area dry and to apply a thin layer of oil paint on top in a glaze.
• Using linseed oil and painting water in layers will often result in a lustrous and smoothly gradated area of colour and tone
• To add sharpness to the blue of water, adding a little viridian green to pthalo blue will illustrate a crisp water’s surface on a clear day

Essential Art Materials for Painting Water

Painting water favours some colours more than others. Useful pigments are titanium white, ultramarine, pthalo blue, cerulean, permanent rose and viridian green, although other colours will be seen.

click to buy from Amazon

Good quality soft sables, flat sized 6 and 10 are useful for blending large areas of water. Rounds sizes 1 and 3 are ideal for sharpening up detail. Bristle brushes such as ox hair are perfect for impasto techniques and pasting on large areas. For experimental techniques, linseed oil will add transparency and lustre to the paint for glazing techniques. Impasto medium is ideal for adding body to the paint and making the painting stand out in relief, for example when expressing rough seas and spray.

Links on How to Paint Water

• Painting reflections in lakes
• How to paint a river
• How to paint Lake Windermere
• Books on landscape painting

The prospective artist may purchase an oil painting kit that contains smelly solvents that could cause irritation to the nostrils or skin. This may put off artists who suffer allergic conditions. However, there is a way of practicing oil paint that is friendly to the environment as well as the skin.

Odourless Oil Painting Mediums
 

Oil Painting with Water Soluble Oils Rachel Shirley

Several options are available to the artist who is loath to powerful odours. Although oil painters are known to use Turpentine or white spirits to produce oil washes or to clean the brushes, such industrial cleaners should be dispensed with, as they strip the natural oils from the art brushes and make the room an unpleasant place. Low odour art mediums that are kinder to the environment as well as the skin are more suitable, such as:

• Low odour artist’s white spirits.
• Turpenoid.
• Sansador.

Lathering oil painting brushes in neat washing up liquid or soap after cleaning in artist’s spirits will prolong the life of the brushes.

Water Soluble Oil Paints

Another option is to use watermixable oil paints. Winsor and Newton’s Artisan or Royal Talens’ Van Gough H2Oil are two examples of oil paint that is soluble in water. The properties of watersoluble oils are the same as traditional oil paint, the difference being that the oil medium has been modified so that it breaks down in water. This may make some oil painting purist shudder at the thought of oil and water mixing, but watermixable oils are widely used and are effective.

Water Mixable Oil Thinners

Artisan has a range of forty colors and its own versions of oil mediums to suit. Of course water can be used with Artisan to produce washes, but should be added gradually or the paint might bubble. But because water evaporates quite quickly, the watermixable oil paint is prone to thickening rather too quickly on application, making manipulation a little tricky. To overcome this problem, Artisan’s water mixable oil thinner provides a more oily consistency to the oil paint, making oil painting more like its traditional counterpart.

Water Mixable Oil Mediums



Water Soluble Oils click to buy from Amazon

 It is wise not to use traditional oil and watermixable oils in the same painting, as the differing drying rates could cause stresses in the painting. For this reason, Artisan has developed watermixable equivalents to the traditional oil mediums. For modifying the oil paint, water mixable linseed oil, water mixable safflower oil, water mixable stand oil and water mixable impasto medium have been developed. Some of these mediums will retard the drying time of the oil and add a glossy finish, others will accelerate the drying time.

Varnishes for Water Mixable Oils

Specialised varnishes have been developed for water soluble oils. Again, Artisan varnishes contain no irritants and are odour free, as the varnish is watersoluble. Gloss, matt and satin finishes are available. The varnishing brushes can be cleaned in warm soapy water afterwards.

Odour Free Oil Colors

The artist who suffers allergies or who dislike the high odours of oil mediums may try traditional oils with low odour artists’ spirits, but water mixable oils are a popular choice for artists who wishes to avoid traditional oils altogether.

• Oil Painting Mediums
• Alkyd oils and Liquin
• Books on oil painting
• Oil painting materials

Fredrik Segerfeldt makes the case for water privitization "...Ninety-seven per cent of all water distribution in poor countries is managed by the public sector, which is largely responsible for more than a billion people being without water. Some governments of impoverished nations have turned to business for help, usually with good results. In poor countries with private investments in the water sector, more people have access to water than in those without such investments. Moreover, there are many examples of local businesses improving water distribution. Superior competence, better incentives and better access to capital for investment have allowed private distributors to enhance both the quality of the water and the scope of its distribution. Millions of people who lacked water mains within reach are now getting clean and safe water delivered within a convenient distance..."the argument against it being that"...privatization increases prices, making water unaffordable for millions of poor people. In some cases, it is true that prices have gone up after privatization; in others not. But the price of water for those already connected to a mains network should not be the immediate concern. Instead, we should focus on those who lack access to mains water, usually the poorest in poor countries. It is primarily those people who die, suffer from disease and are trapped in poverty.They usually purchase their lower-quality water from small-time vendors, paying on average 12 times more than for water from regular mains, and often more than that. When the price of water for those already connected goes up, the distributor gets both the resources to enlarge the network and the incentives to reach as many new customers as possible. When prices are too low to cover the costs of laying new pipes, each new customer entails a loss rather than a profit, which makes the distributor unwilling to extend the network. Therefore, even a doubling of the price of mains water could actually give poor people access to cheaper water than before..."
Via Cato.org

The Problem with Painting Ripples in Water

We all know that the Obama administration and the Democrats in Congress have fought to make sure there is no new nuclear power (see my post Yucca Mountain for information on how Obama has defied Congress and shut down the Yucca Mountain project). Obama and the Democrats have also worked to make it more difficult for more energy production through coal. After the Deepwater Horizon accident, Obama and the Democrats put in place an ”arbitrary and capricious” ban on all oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico in waters over 500 feet in depth, a ban that was intended to do “irreparable harm” to businesses.

But perhaps you didn't know that for some reason, since June, the Department of Interior has refused to issue any permits for oil and gas drilling in the Gulf in waters less than 500 feet of depth- effectively banning through administrative decree any drilling in shallow waters.

Via Sweetness&Light, this story is from CNN’s Money.Com:

Stealth ban on Gulf drilling, By Steve Hargreaves, Senior writer
June 25, 2010

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The offshore drilling ban imposed after the BP disaster is only supposed to hit operations in deep water — 500 feet or more. But drillers in shallow water say they haven’t been issued permits since the April 20 explosion. The delay has already forced hundreds of layoffs, and many more could be on the way.

"I’m almost out of business over here," said Paul Butler, president of Spartan Offshore, a small drilling company in Metairie, La.

"The Department of Interior isn’t issuing permits," said Jim Noe, a Hercules executive. "By mid July all of our rigs will be on the beach, and the workers without a job."

That could be a lot of jobs. Jobs are on the line: Deep water drilling, which is currently banned while an investigation into the Deepwater Horizon accident is underway, is estimated to employ at least 35,000 people on both the rigs and in jobs that support them.

Nearly that many jobs (at least 35,000) could also be at stake (lost) over (a ban on) shallow water drilling. While shallow water rigs are smaller and employ only about half as many people, there are almost twice as many of them in the Gulf, according to the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil & Gas Association…

Safety first: An Interior Department spokeswoman said there is no freeze on shallow water drilling. However, she said, new safety procedures were put in place following the Deepwater Horizon spill.

"Companies have to comply before we can issue them permits," the spokeswoman said. "No one has fully complied."

Spartan’s Butler said there was a long delay between when Interior stopped issuing permits and when the new safety guidelines came out. Indeed, the first Interior Department notification to oil companies about the new requirements was dated June 8, nearly two months after the disaster.

Butler said he has been scrambling to get his paperwork in order and hopes that permits will be issued soon…

So, in summary, the ever-expanding federal government, which is increasingly in charge of more and more aspects of our life after voters put Democrats into Congress and the Presidency, decided that it was going to put in place new safety requirements on shallow-water drilling rigs, took two months to publish these requirements, and has been refusing to issue any permits for drilling since it decided to change the requirements, causing the loss of thousands of jobs already and the potential loss of thousands more, all with the intent to drive up the cost of energy so that you and your businesses use less, so that the globe will not warm up in spite of its relatively recent emergence from a Little Ice Age. In summary, idiots that idiot voters elected are putting in place idiotic policies because of idiotic beliefs.

In 2007, Global Warming was the reason behind the lowering lake levels on Lake Superior. Clearly, researchers at the Lake Superior Conference in 2007 agreed, there's a huge threat from global warming- a warmer climate means a warmer Lake Superior. In fact, apparently global warming was so bad back in the hot summer of 2007, that researchers at the University of Minnesota and elsewhere were forced to study whether Lake Superior's low water levels were the result of global warming, and question whether Lake Superior might even disappear unless government took drastic action and controlled every major industry in the United States.

In fact, back in 2007, a United Nations study predicted that Global warming would lower water levels in by 5 feet over the next century. Poor Lake Superior was already called an 'early victim of climate change' by scientists in Duluth, adding that the time to radically change our society away from a free and prosperous one is now. Good thing we have such great politicians such as U.S. Senator Russ Feingold, who seized on this alarmist and populist issue to announce that he will demand swift action to address the reported dramatic drop in water levels in the Great Lakes, including the strengthening of federal power over businesses and individuals, in the hope that by controlling everyone's behavior, the water levels could be raised.

Well, through his actions and the fact that man-made global warming is made-up by stupid watermellons (people who are green on the outside, but red inside) out there, I am happy to say that Lake Superior has been rising ever since Feingold's announcement. It appears the the water levels also go up and down throughout the year, based on seasons incredibly, to the surprise of many scientists who assumed that they were God and controlled the whole world with their new super-modeling computers. The Detroit News story says that "Rising Great Lakes levels may give Michigan a lift", and document the rise in water levels over the last 3 years.

If only data existed that might show that taking a single snapshot on water levels, based on a single time point in a single year, was not the way to radically change our country and give more power to the government. If only, for example, there was a graph showing the average water levels of Lake Superior since 1860, and then we could mock all those who freaked out in 2007 and called for change based on global warming. I personally am eagerly awaiting the correction the UN is sure to issue based on this new data, that will call for radical changes back to the way America used to be, when we were free and prosperous.

Yasmina Zaidman writes:

It might be possible that a government would cross-subsidize water, charging wealthier customers more and poorer customers less, but this is different from charging nothing at all. There are a few problems with any system, public or private, that provides water for free to a large segment of the population: First it eliminates the interest of entrepreneurs, distributors, innovators and investors to find cheaper and more reliable ways to make water available to those who need it most.

• Water–A Chemical Solution: A Global Experiment - Activities - IYC 2011

  Again another part of this International Year of Chemistry and a global water experiment.
  
  "“Chemistry—our life, our future,” is the slogan of the International Year of Chemistry (IYC), 2011. During the year, a global chemistry experiment will be performed by many thousands of school children across the world, potentially becoming the biggest chemical experiment every conducted. Under the theme, “Water: A Chemical Solution,” students will focus on modules that examine the properties of their local water and the technological solutions chemistry makes available to humanity in supplying clean drinking water. The global experiment will promote the goals of the IYC, including generating enthusiasm for science among young people around the world.
  
  Experiment modules can be carried out by children of all ages in schools across all continents because they are adaptable to the skills and interests of students, and use equipment that is widely available at little or no cost. Results will be electronically showcased as an interactive global data map at the end of 2011, demonstrating the value of international cooperation in science."

  tags: education learning science science_teacher

• Chemistry International -- Newsmagazine for IUPAC

  This from a teacher over my website:
  
  "Hey Vicki!
  
  I am writing to you to help raise awareness about a really cool world-wide chemistry experiment that I think students will really enjoy and hopefully help spark their interest in science. It’s a great hands-on project being sponsored by the International Year of Chemistry for all elementary school and high school students, and according to the IYC there is little to no cost to perform the experiments. They are trying to make it a World Record for largest chemistry experiment ever!
  
  To get my message out to teachers and students I’m reaching out to sites like Cool Cat Teacher asking to submit a guest article, so if that is something you would consider I would be happy to send one along for review, just let me know! Thank you!
  
  Sincerely,
  
  Alan Parker"

  tags: education science_teacher science

• International Society for Technology in Education - Blog > Obama Calls on US to "out-innovate" and "out-educate," A Response to 2011 State of the Union

  Patrick Riccards is CEO of Exemplar Strategic Communications, wrote this on ISTE"s blog as part of their response to the state of the union address.

  tags: education learning

• Net Generation Education Project 2011

  The 2011 projects are open for application now! We have quite a few schools signed up to participate and kick off in march. This is the application form and link to information on this excellent Flat Classroom project.

  tags: education netgened flatclassroom

• Sharing in Google Docs just got easier - Docs Blog

  Some big changes including bulk changes have also hit google docs

  tags: education google learning

• Uploading and converting PDF and image files with text to Google Docs : Uploading and exporting - Google Docs Help

  google Docs does OCR!!!

  tags: education google

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

The beginner in oil painting does not need lots of oil painting materials or to spend lots of money. In fact, great oil paintings can be completed by the use of a minimal amount and cheap oil painting equipment. All that is required is careful preparation and shrewd shopping.


Art Equipment for Oil Painting

Many artists use numerous oil painting tubes, which is fine, but the beginner can obtain any colour by merely three primary colours and white. Additional colours will come in handy if the artist does not wish to keep mixing colours to obtain a particular blue or red. Earth colours are also great for adding atmosphere and for monochromatic painting.

Primary Colours

The true primary colours are not any red, yellow and blue, but are the colours found in printing ink, which are magenta, cyan and yellow. The true primary colours do not exist in pigment, for a little impurity will always exist, but a close approximation can be achieved. Personally, I have found permanent rose, pthalo blue and cadmium yellow (pale) to be close to the mark, and include them within my painting palette.

Cheap Oil Paints

Briefly, oil paint is graded into two types: artist quality and student quality. The artist quality include organic pigments, which make them more costly. Personally, I have found student quality to be perfectly suited to any oil painting and I have used them extensively. However, I always stick to a recommended brand such as Winsor & Newton or Daler Rowney.

Recommended Oil Painting Pigments

I use the following pigments for my paintings without the need for lots of other pigments:

• A large tube of titanium white
• Permanent rose
• Cadmium red
• Pthalo blue
• Ultramarine
• Cadmium yellow (pale)
• Lemon yellow
• Viridian green
• Burnt sienna
• Burnt umber

Oil Painting Brushes

It is important to have good quality sable brushes for detail and blending. Avoid cheap brushes that have no springiness to the hairs. Round sizes 1, 3, 6 and 10 will suit most oil painting purposes. Bristle brushes can be purchased from DIY stores, but cheap ones that moult onto the painting must be avoided. Flat or round sizes 6, 9 and large is ideal for covering large areas and impasto techniques.

Oil Painting Surfaces

Wood, canvas, card and even paper make suitable surfaces for oil painting so long as they have been sealed with an acrylic primer or gesso size. I use acrylic polymer primer, a water based paint that dries water resistant, that can be purchased from art stores. A two coat application is all that is required, and because it is water based, is odour free and brushes can be washed in warm soapy water. Cheap ready stretched and primed canvas and art boards can also be obtained with shrewd shopping.

Painting Mediums

click to buy from Amazon

Household turps must never be used for oil painting for their powerful odours and harshness to the brushes. Low odour artists white spirits or Sansador or Turpenoid is better. Linseed oil is useful for thinning the paint and adding lustre to the colours. Exploration with other artists's mediums will result in interesting effects. Impasto medium is an alkyd based medium that can be added to oil paint to add bulk for impasto techniques. Liquin is a quick drying alternative to linseed oil, and leaves a matt finish.

Other Art Equipment

Tool boxes with tiered drawers are ideal for storing oil paints and brushes, and can be purchased cheaply from DIY stores. A table easel or drawing board will make oil painting easier. And any non porous item is ideal to use as a palette. A china plate, varnished wood, or even cling film stretched over a surface.

The measures described will make oil painting easier, cheaper and more convenient. Further advice on oil painting materials and step by step oil painting demonstrations can be found on my websites on oil painting.

Useful Links on Oil Painting Materials

• Advice on oil painting brushes
• Advice on buying oil paints
• Types of gessoes for oil painting
• Advice on buying easels
• Advice on oil painting mediums
• Oil painting materials shop
• Books on oil painting

Via Powerlineblog I discover this Wall Street Journal Story A Water Fight Over Luxury Showers:

(Government) regulators are going after some of the luxury shower fixtures that took off in the housing boom. In May, the DOE stunned the plumbing-products industry when it said it would adopt a strict definition of the term "showerhead" in enforcing standards that have been on the books—but largely unenforced—for nearly 20 years.

The showdown is a challenge to President Barack Obama and his energy secretary, Steven Chu, as they try to cajole—or compel—Americans to use water and energy more efficiently. Mr. Chu, a self-described "zealot" for energy efficiency, says he crawls around in his attic in his spare time installing extra insulation.

A 1992 federal law says a showerhead can deliver no more than 2.5 gallons per minute at a flowing water pressure of 80 pounds per square inch. For years, the term "showerhead" in federal regulations was understood by many manufacturers to mean a device that directs water onto a bather. Each nozzle in a shower was considered separate and in compliance if it delivered no more than the 2.5-gallon maximum. But in May, the DOE said a "showerhead" may incorporate "one or more sprays, nozzles or openings." Under the new interpretation, all nozzles would count as a single showerhead and be deemed noncompliant if, taken together, they exceed the 2.5 gallons-a-minute maximum.

In May, the DOE's general counsel, Scott Blake Harris, fined four showerhead makers $165,104 in civil penalties, alleging they failed to demonstrate compliance for some devices.

I particularly enjoyed how the government changed the rules, didn't inform anyone (or didn't give manufactures the years it would take to comply with the new rules), and then fined them. Those are the actions of a tyrannical government that is disconnected from law and human decency, a government that should be opposed and fought.

To summarize, in the name of 'environmentalism' (which is a religion based around a false god that demands sacrifices of energy and luxuries), the government uses a law passed by the Democrats (who controlled Congress in 1992) based on a tortured view of the commerce clause to control the kinds of showerheads that manufactures can build, with the intent on driving these manufactures out of business and stopping Americans from buying the kind of showerheads that they want.

Life less enjoyable, liberty and freedom violated (both the manufactures and the consumers), and pursuit of property denied.

Producing still life art in oils may give the impression that a separate room, shed or studio with ambient lighting must be allocated to quarantine all the mess, odours and creative processes from the rest of the house. Further, a storeroom full of wild and exotic objects must also be a requisite for great still life art. But this need not be the case.

Advice for Still Life Artists

I have found that with the right planning, still life painting can be practiced in a study, a bedroom, corner of a living room or even the garden. Simple objects and minimal art equipment is often all that is required. But where should the artist begin?

Odourless Oil Painting

The still life artist is spoilt for choice when it comes to modern innovations in oil paint, designed to make it easier for painting in any situation. Low odour artist thinners, for example make high odours in a confined space a thing of the past. Sandador, Turpenoid or artist spirits, for example are kinder to the environment, the brushes and the olfactory senses. The artist may alternatively opt for water-soluble oils, such as Artisan, which can be thinned with water instead of spirits for glazing (or washes). Artisan provides a water-mixable counterpart to all the traditional oil painting materials, including linseed oil and impasto medium. At the end of the session, the paints need only be cleaned in warm soapy water rather than spirits.

Tailored Art Surfaces

Producing large still life as did Matisse and Cezanne is an immensely satisfying experience, as this allows expressive and loose brushwork. However, not all households have the facilities to permit the production of, or the storage of such large artwork, in which case, the artist may purchase, artboards, stretched canvases or oil painting pads in handy sizes from stationers or hobby shops. Dimensions are usually in imperial, and which will fit standard picture frames. Anything from 8”X 10” (203mm X 254mm) to 16”X 20” (406mm X 508mm) are ideal for quick still life sketches or paintings to spice any living room wall.

Setting up a Still Life Painting Station

Cleaning up the art equipment at the end of a painting session need not be a messy business if the artist uses a disposable palette. Simply stretch some cling film over a stiff surface via bulldog clips and affix onto a backing board along with the painting. This will keep the artist’s hands free for the painting. The cling film can be folded inwards and disposed of cleanly. Alternatively, the palette can be covered with a Tupperware lid and kept in a cool place. The oil paints will remain workable for up to three days or so.

The painting or backing board can be affixed onto a lightweight easel or tabletop easel, which provides an angled support for the painting. Some easels come with storage compartments for the art materials. The artist will surprised at how much can be stored in a small space, which could also be a tool box or art bin, ideal for the still life artist’s compact studio.

The still life setting needs only a stable surface and a good light source. Natural light from an adjacent kitchen window onto a tabletop cannot be beaten, but a mobile desk lamp or candles grants the artist complete control over where to place the light in relation to the objects. Blutac or small pieces of sticky putty can be used to affix unstable objects, such as spherical fruit onto the tabletop when arranging the composition.

Simple Materials for Still Life Painting

But the artist need not purchase everything mentioned to begin still life painting. I have often completed oil studies by the use of two brushes, three colours, a small canvas and no mediums. The artist may purchase additional materials as to requirement or to achieve a particular effect. This means still life oil painting remains a realistic pursuit regardless of the funds, storage capacity available and can be practiced cleanly.

Relevant Links

• Demonstration on how to paint strawberries
• Oil painting flowers wet into wet
• Oil painting advice for the beginner
• Books on how to paint flowers
• Art materials

We all have them. But many of us run from controversy. But there are times when people who are leaders are doing the wrong thing. They are hurting people. They are saying things that are untrue. 


Doing the right thing is often not popular. In fact, Mark Twain said,

"In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.- Notebook, 1904"

It is a struggle when there are issues requiring that people take sides. In fact, in most cases, I think it is best to keep a focus on the main thing. In your school, the main thing should be the students and helping them become successful in life both academically, physically, and emotionally. It shouldn't be who is the principal. Unless that person is doing great harm to the main thing... then it is time to do something.


I stay away from people who are always negative and hate anyone in leadership. These negative people don't stand for anything but stand against everything. You rarely hear what this person believes because if he/she made a statement, the person would have to defend it. They spend their time tearing everything down. These demolition doo-dah's are always singing a song of negativity, hatred, and unkindness. I don't have much use for them. It is a dangerous tune that is often in many blogs, 

"Everybody here hates me. No one understands me. No one appreciates me." 

Guess what? Every teacher at your school feels that way. The best way to feel appreciated is to start meting out some appreciation of other people. Life isn't all about you. It should be about your students.


But when I see people I know and have known for a very long time suddenly speak out against someone or something, I listen. When I see longtime supporters of an organization get the attention of others that a great wrong is happening, I take a second look. You should too.


So, as I ponder situations and things, I started writing in the tub on my ipad. I couldn't stop and didn't until the water had gone frigid and the family was hollering at me from the den to watch our new favorite TV show (Terranova.) I thought I'd take today and share you these unrelated kernels of thoughts that came to me from the hot water of life. If you like them, I'll start sharing other ones.


These quotes are all mine.

---

We like to blame victims for their shame. Because if we can convince ourselves that they were the reason for their fate, we can also convince ourselves that we shall never share it. 

The backstabber unleashes a silent, hidden poison that flows back through the miles into his own coffin. 

Unforgiveness is the sewage of the soul. 

Liars emit confusion like a mating bird emit pheromones. Both are looking for someone to sc:%#.

The manipulator silently rips from his hands the very thing he wishes to possess. 

I believe I will look back upon my earthly meanderings and realize that my brightest moments ignited during my darkest journeys. For heroism is not born amidst comfort and ease but pain and tragedy. There is no heroism where there is no trial and heroes are made by the height of their ascent. Climb a hill and you are a human. Climb a mountain and you are brave. Wake up in hell and ascend to glory and you are epic. 

The thing is that when we have a paper cut we whine. How are we ever going to do anything great when we run at the first sign of controversy? We want to be great but we don't want to pay the price. We'd rather be comfortable on a cushion than called to climb a mountain.  

When I teetered upon the ledge of the abyss between safety and suffering is when I found the most solid foothold. For in that precarious moment I was steadied by the Precious Master.  

When the world has schizophrenia and you manage to hold onto your last wit and do the sane thing, history will call you wise. Wisdom is never judged accurately by peers but by posterity.  

 

 We idolize patriots and heroes for their willingness to give up an anonymous life of comfort for a life of torment. Hated by their peers and hunted by their prey, these men only had their praises sung after their ears were deaf with decay. We romanticize their lives, which were, most likely, as close to hell as most humans can be and live to tell about it. Authors are lonely, actors find it hard to find genuine friends, and politicians give up their privacy but patriots and martyrs give up everything. 

 It is easy to romanticize a person living in a hut on a hill 100 years a go when you're sitting in a warm bathtub with a full stomach reading your Ipad worried if you'll drop it in the tub. 

Photo Credits: Big Stock

Climate change (global warming) is caused by the sun. This may be a shock to you, but strangely enough, the same sun that causes the earth to grow warmer in the summer and colder in the winter also has long-term variations that cause long-term variations in the global temperature. Oh, I know what you are thinking "Humans are causing global warming by driving SUV's and being evil towards Mother Earth and the solution is to adopt Communism." But the truth of the matter is that humans and our actions are probably one of the smallest variables involved in 'climate change'. That doesn't mean that we can pollute as much as we want, but it does mean that most of what environmentalists say and do and believe isn't right either.

It's pretty simple once you become educated. Here is an article from Dr. Harrison “Jack” Schmitt, former US Senator from New Mexico, a geologist, and a former Apollo Astronaut (read his book Return to the Moon: Exploration, Enterprise, and Energy in the Human Settlement of Space), that was found in the The Science and Environmental Policy Project weekly newsletter:

THE CENTRAL ROLE OF THE SUN IN CLIMATE CHANGE
Policy makers at the head of government in the United States and elsewhere apparently want to believe, and to have others believe, that human use of fossil fuels accelerates global warming. They pursue this quest in order to impose ever greater and clearly unconstitutional control on the economy and personal liberty in the name of a hypothetically omnipotent government. There exists no true concern by the President or Congressional Leadership about the true effects of climate change - only a poorly concealed, ideologically driven attempt to use conjured up threats of catastrophic consequences as a lever to gain authoritarian control of society.

There has been an absolute natural increase in global surface temperature of half a degree Centigrade per 100 years (0.9 degrees Fahrenheit) over the last three and a half centuries. Observational climate data and objective interpretations of those data strongly indicate that nature, not human activity, exerts the primary influence on this current long term warming and on all global climate variations. Human influence through use of fossil fuels has been and remains minor if even detectable. Claims to the contrary only find support in highly questionable climate models that fail repeatedly against the reality of nature. What, then, stimulates historically and geologically observed, sometimes slow and sometimes radical, changes in climate?

The primary alternative hypothesis to human-caused global warming is natural climate change driven by the Sun. Unfortunately, the "human-caused global warming" or “carbon dioxide forcing” hypothesis has become embedded in the minds of otherwise strong teams of observational scientists and their publication outlets. They cannot entertain any other alternative to enhance and amplify variations in the natural heating of the Earth by the Sun - nor can they prove their own hypothesis of human-caused global warming.

As many scientists have documented, the position and orientation of the Earth in its orbit around the sun, and the Sun’s variable influence and activity, determine weather and climate. Seasons vary because of changing solar energy input in annual response to the varying orientation of Earth’s Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Indeed, the Earth’s 23-degree inclination to the rays from the Sun and its annual orbit around that star guarantee large seasonal changes away from the equator. Further, variations in solar radiation received by the Earth correlate with short-term variations in Earth’s weather, based on the slow movement of loops called "Rossby waves" in atmospheric jet streams.

Observations by astronomers over the centuries, as well as studies of tree rings,stalagmite layers, and other pre-historic and geological records, have defined an 11-year sunspot cycle superposed on a number of longer climate cycles. Much modern research documents that the sunspot cycle also correlates with variations in stratospheric winds13 and ozone production, cosmic ray flux, ionospheretroposphere interactions, and the global electrical circuit that exists between the ionosphere and the Earth's surface.

Correlations of records of seasonal changes, solar activity cycles, and local and regional rainfall oscillations all confirm that in some way radiation emanating from the Sun drives changes in weather and climate. Solar interplanetary magnetic fields, whose polarity varies every 22 years or twice the sunspot cycle, may play an additional role as their strength varies directly with increases and decreases in numbers of sunspots.

As a further natural demonstration of the importance of the Sun in determining climate variation, the well-documented solar shielding effects of atmospheric ash and aerosols from volcanic eruptions document the tie between solar irradiance and at least short-term climate swings. Particularly illustrative have been eruptions such as Huaynaputina (1600), Tambora (1815), Krakatoa (1883), and Pinatubo (1991).

More broadly, geological and planetological observations show that major perturbations in climate relate to the position and orientation of the Earth in its orbit around the Sun. For example, as Serbian mathematician Milutin Milankovic pointed out in 1941, as have many others since, initiation of the major ice ages on Earth correlate with a 23,000-year precession cycle, a 41,000-year obliquity cycle, and a 100,000-year eccentricity cycle in the position of the Earth relative to the Sun. Cyclic variations measured in oxygen isotope ratios that correlate with the growth of ice sheets and biogeochemical responses closely reflect the 23,000-year precession cycle. Also, a half-precession cycle appears to be related to the dynamics of the East African Equatorial monsoon. In addition, the 41,000-year obliquity cycle shows strongly in North American marine depositional records.

Climate cycles related to internal solar activity are superposed on long-term orbital cycles. For example, the Medieval Warm Period (800-1300) and the Little Ice Age (1400-1900) correlate, respectively, with very active and very passive periods of recorded sunspot activity. As a fairly recent example of solar influence on climate, the Little Ice Age occurred during a 500-year long sequence of three deep reductions in sunspot frequency. The coldest temperatures came during the last of these minima, a 70- year period of exceptionally few sunspots (the Maunder Minimum). The Medieval Warm Period, (when the Vikings colonized Greenland, glaciers retreated, and farmers could at least survive) also correlates to repeated multi-century long, high sunspot frequency. Since the end of the early 1900s, peak values in sunspot activity rose steadily until 1960, leveling off at higher than normal values until apparently starting to fall about 2000.

The 11-year sunspot cycle repetitions are superposed on a number of long-term cycles of past highs and lows in solar activity. For example, the Gleissberg cycle has imprecisely defined periods of 90±30 years in length. More energetic sunspot activity in the Gleissberg cycle may correlate with temporary decades of warming, such as in the 1930s and 1990s with the reverse being true in the 1810s and 1910s. Analyses of tree rings, lake levels, cave deposits, tree ring variations in cosmic ray-produced isotopes (14C and 10Be), and oxygen isotope ratios record what appear to be other long period solar cycles, specifically, 2400, 1500 years, 200, as well as the Gleissberg cycle.

Many advocates of human-caused global warming agree that solar cycles show correlations with regional climate variations; but, absent a proven amplification mechanism to enhance small solar energy (irradiance) variations, they reject nature in favor of fossil fuel burning. These reviews all document broadly accepted relationships of weather and climate with many different repetition cycles in solar activity, ranging from significant but random solar flares affecting jet stream tracks, to the 11-year sunspot cycle, to the long-term Milankovic orbital repetitions discussed above.

Specifically with respect to the last 120 years, the correlation of measured solar energy input variations with global surface temperature and sea surface temperature is very strong. The statistical correlation of solar irradiance with air temperature has been about 79%. In contrast, during the last 50 years, the correlation of measured carbon dioxide increases with global surface temperature has been only about 22%. This directly contradicts the assumption that carbon dioxide has had a large influence on climate in the last 50 years.

Since the end of the last Ice Age 10,000 years ago, the increase in total energy from the Sun has been about 0.6 watts per square meter, an increase of less than 0.05% over an average total of about 1367 watts per square meter. On shorter time scales, total variations reach about 3 watts per square meter, or 0.22% from the average. Considering the actual amount of possible atmospheric heating (30% ofincoming solar energy is reflected to space), this variation results in a third to a half a degree Centigrade(0.6 to 0.9 degree Fahrenheit) global temperature change over seven years, that is, a half solar cycle.

Various natural mechanisms for visible, infrared, and UV light reflection, adsorption, emission, and water vapor feedback determine the net solar heating effect on the Earth. Global atmospheric circulation moderates the short-term solar energy inputs, particularly upward convection of oceanic heat and water vapor in the large scale equatorial Hadley Cells that span latitudes from 30ºS to 30ºN . Ocean circulation overall moderates the long-term transfer of solar energy around the globe.

Evidence for the existence, if not the nature, of a means for amplifying solar energy-solar magnetic field interactions with Earth comes from the oceans. Determination of the total contribution of the oceans to heating of the atmosphere, using three independent observational measures of oceanic heat flux, shows that the oceans' heat contribution to be five to seven times larger than variations in total solar energy input.

Additional support that an amplification mechanism exists comes from recent observational data on variations in stratospheric water vapor concentrations over three decades. These data suggest that decreases in water vapor have contributed to amplified sea surface cooling since 2000 while increases between 1980 and 2000 accented surface warming. This relationship may correspond with stratospheric cooling and lower water retention due to lower than average solar energy input since 2000.

Climate change driven by the Sun constitutes a strongly competitive, purely scientific hypothesis to the climate modeling-political hypothesis of human-caused global warming advocated by climate modelers and their acolytes in the science, media, and political establishments. Solar influence ranges from significant but random solar flares affecting jet stream tracks, to the 11-year sunspot cycle, to the 22- year magnetic cycle, up to the long-term Milankovic orbital repetitions discussed above. The current decade or longer period of cold winters in the northern United States and Europe coincide with a relatively prolonged reduction in sunspot activity below even the norm for a minimum in the 11-year cycle.

Actual observations show that climate varies in response to natural forces and that human burning of fossil fuels has had negligible effect over the last 100 years. Lets us hope that State and national policy makers taking office in 2011 and 2013 will understand the facts about natural climate change and the fictions about human influence on change before taking enormous constitutional and economic risks - and before liberty and incomes suffer further erosion.

This is the whole article, although I have edited off the footnotes which document the research. You can believe this sort of logic, or buy into the pseudo-religion backed by computer modeling produced by the Al Gore's of the world.

The title of this post isn't mine- Ralph R. Reiland came up with it in his post which I will talk about. But it's a great title- in my mind, I see the American economy hitting an iceberg around 2007 and start taking on some water, enough that it badly listed by 2008 and went into a recession. The iceberg was too much federal spending that soaked up savings and investments, too many federal government policies that encouraged bubbles in investing and housing, and increasing regulations that choked off economic growth, especially in small businesses, and signaled to business owners that now was the time to play it safe and not take risks and create jobs. The tip of this iceberg of federal policy ripped a large hole in the Titanic of the US economy, and soon the boat started to dangerously take on water.

Although I'm no expert of this, I imagine that once your boat hits an iceberg and takes on water, you have two options. Option one is to continue moving forward and patch the hole- in other words, keep America's booming private economy and remove the harmful regulations and policies that caused the damage. Option two is to stop moving and widen the hole, by which I mean to attack private business and those who are successful in it and put in place more harmful policies. Oh, I guess there was a double-secret third option too, and that is to turn the boat around and try to ram the boat on the iceberg again, this time with the intent on sinking the whole thing. For a while, I thought that Obama and the Democrats were just intent on going with option 2, but it looks like they are honestly considering circling back on that iceberg with the goal of sinking the economy of the United States for good.

President Barack Obama was once named by me as Captain of the US Titanic Spending (see my complete list of Obama nicknames)- and now he's going after that iceberg again!

Here are some parts of the article by Reiland called Obama: Circling back to the iceberg:

Only 26 percent of the public approve of President Barack Obama's handling of the economy in the latest Gallup poll, conducted Aug. 11-14, while a whopping 71 percent disapprove. That's down from Obama's previous low point of 35 percent approval on this top issue.

The public's growing dissatisfaction shouldn't be surprising. Going back to 1890, reports the National Bureau of Economic Research, the only U.S. president with a worse record than Obama in job creation in his first two-and-a-half years in office, measured in terms of percentage change, was Herbert Hoover, presiding over the emergence of the Great Depression.

"Official unemployment is 9.1 percent," stated a New York Times editorial on Aug. 15, decrying the nation's jobs picture, "but it would be 16.1 percent, or 25.1 million people, if it included those who can only find part-time jobs and those who have given up looking for work." "Keeping the economy going and making sure jobs are available is the first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning," Obama said back in March. "It's the last thing I think about when I go to bed each night."

Now, nearly six months later, the White House reports that Obama is working on a new strategy for job creation that will be unveiled after he returns from vacation. The task of coming up with a jobs plan that works shouldn't be all that terribly difficult. All Mr. Obama has to do is reverse what he's done and change what he thinks.

First, by the government's own numbers, small businesses have created 64 percent of the net new jobs in the U.S. economy over the past 15 years.

In fact, that understates the role of small business, since the vast majority of America's medium-sized and large businesses began as small businesses. The Heinz corporation began when 16-year-old Henry Heinz grated piles of horseradish at home, using his mother's recipe, and sold the bottled product door-to-door in Sharpsburg out of a wheelbarrow.

Yet since Obama took office, employment at federal regulatory agencies has jumped 13 percent while private-sector jobs shrank by 5.6 percent. Second, 39 percent of small-business owners said in a Chamber of Commerce survey in July that ObamaCare was either their greatest or second-greatest obstacle to new hiring....

...Additionally, 84 percent of small business owners in the survey said the economy is on the wrong track, 79 percent view the current regulatory environment as unreasonable, and 79 percent believe Washington should get out of the way of small business, rather than offering a helping hand (14 percent).

In its first 26 months, reports The Heritage Foundation, the Obama administration imposed new regulatory rules that will cost the private sector $40 billion. In July alone, reports Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., federal regulators imposed a total of 379 new rules that will add some $9.5 billion in new costs.

Bottom line: What's required from Obama is a complete about-face, the shelving of his flawed economic philosophy and a reversal of his counterproductive policy prescriptions.

For those who want to see which way the United States is going under President Obama and his progressive policies supported by the new progressive Democratic Party, watch this movie- Titanic (10th Anniversary Edition).

R. Todd Johnson writing in Friends of Ethiopia:

Outside of direct relief aid and some of the amazing health and education research and development, much (perhaps most) of what is done in the developing world through non-profits and NGO's, could actually be accomplished through a business model, even if it would be harder to raise investment funding. Instead, someone begins selling tax subsidized and donor subsidized water pumps in Africa, because it is easier to raise the funding through tax deductible donations rather than through the rigors of proving out the business model for investment dollars, with the great result of increased deployment of inexpensive water moving technology in the developing world to aid rural farmers, but the negative results of (1) killing the market for future indigenous entrepreneurs attempting to sell water pumps at a profit and (2) locking a potentially valuable distribution channel in a non-profit, making it difficult for other for-profits to use.

A friend of his an entrepreneur in answer to a question about how he was doing stated:

"Africans don't see a reward system in place for being entrepreneurial. In fact, they view it as a matter of survival, not an opportunity to lift themselves out of poverty. Rather, what they learn at a very early age, is that in order to make good money, they should learn to speak English incredibly well and then maybe, just maybe, they can get a job driving for an NGO. In a few years, if they play their cards right, they might be able to land an NGO job as a project manager and even advance further."

More here

Professor Stephen Commins addresses the options for services delivery in Africa, with an emphasis on water supply, an area covered earlier "...In the case of water and sanitation services in African urban locales, there is a widespread acceptance that the 'model' for water and sanitation services that has worked in developed countries cannot be adapted in the short to medium term for developing countries, especially in Africa...The potential roles of independent providers and their relationships to utilities vary considerably - influenced particularly by existing supply, capacity and attitudes. The second is the informal nature of many Non-State Providers and the lack of definitive information on the effects of formalization on the creative and responsive nature of their service. The tension around the issue of formalization is central to the discussion of a number of other thorny issues concerning Non-State Providers..."