He used our tax dollars to pay for it. He ruined it. Now we’re being treated like trespassers.

Insightful essay by Mike Madrid. It's worth reading. open.substack.com/pub/greattra...

This is an interview of an American singer and actress, Anna Elise LaFrance, in Korea, and I'm a HUGE fan of her work. They loved that she did a Samsung commercial, immediate street cred in Seoul. (I may be partial, she's my daughter, lol) youtu.be/g8q-EA5gTpQ?...

Providing you don't live in a super windy area, this is a great idea to keep your car cool in the summer.

Today's nature is wild fun fact -- Scorpions glow brightly under UV light.

This newborn freshly hatching baby chameleon immediately tests its color-changing abilities while still leaving the egg. Nature is amazing. (its running a test sequence) 🦎 #nature #chameleon

A livestream of a volcano in the Philippines captured a meteor crashing to Earth today. What are the odds? Mayon Volcano, Location: Albay, Luzon, Philippines

WTF?

Fibonacci approaches the golden ratio (about 1.618) Mile/km is very close to golden ratio (about 1.609) It works even as the numbers get larger.

System Administrators are reporting even more widespread Internet outages from Cloudflare than the press is reporting. Businesses and websites are down worldwide. Comments from Sysadmins are reporting outages from almost every country in the world. www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/c...

BLM publics lands are an American treasure. Millions of Americans use these lands annually. They can never be replaced if they are sold off to corporations.

Don't let them distract you. Republicans are trying to sell off millions of acres of your public lands to billionaire developers — all as they take away your benefits. Now is the time to make some noise.

Congrats to Chicago and the new Pope.

Amazon simply noting the new tax on product listings? "Hostile and political act!" according to the White House. Trump is trying to shoot the messenger, let's see if Bezos backs down. (odds are he will.) #tariffs

Guess it's too late to upgrade my solar panels. Trump's new 3,000%+ tariff adds $1,500 in TAX to a $40 panel. #solar #tariffs #greenenergy #prepper #offgrid

The Roman Republic lasted 482 years. Looks like we may blow it in half the time. www.thedailybeast.com/wh-press-sec...

I'm not an economist (although I do have a degree in economics), but it feels like losing MILLIONS of jobs and TRILLIONS of dollars in trade is sub-optimal, to put it lightly. #tariffs

Um — Trump just turned over management of our 🇺🇸 strategic petroleum reserve to a mystery company, who will get $1.4 billion to run it? 🤔 www.devdiscourse.com/article/head...

Those trying to understand the tariffs as economic policy are dangerously naive. No, the tariffs are a tool to collapse our democracy. A means to compel loyalty from every business that will need to petition Trump for relief. 1/ A 🧵 to explain his plan and how we fight back.

I'm old enough to remember when one of our techs would forget to update our 5ESS telecom switches for Daylight Savings Time, and it would crash the network.

I've been obsessed with this painting for years. Just ran across it again, and thought I'd share. William Logsdail (1859-1944) "St Paul's and Ludgate Hill" c. 1887 #art #oilpainting #blueskyart

Must-read: Writer & Nobel winner, Paul Krugman, reveals why he left the NYT. Editorial freedom eroded, bold opinions diluted, & debate stifled. A sharp critique of legacy media’s shift toward conformity. Journalism should challenge, not conform. 📢🔥 #Media #Opinion open.substack.com/pub/contrari...

My daughter is an artist (and actress), and I love what she's doing lately. Her take on the Chinese New Year. Anna LaFrance on Instagram... @annalafrance #art #mixedmedia #blueskyArt #yearofthesnake #snake #creative #chineseart #chinesenewyear

This has the potential to be one of the most influential ideas of our time. Perhaps eclipsing the potential of the Transformer architecture. #LLMs #AI #science #artificialIntelligence

Google Research Unveils Transformers 2.0 --- "TITANS" This may be the bridge from transformers - giving AI models the ability to not just remember, but to 'smartly' forget, as well. Paper: arxiv.org/pdf/2501.006... illuminate.google.com/library?play... #AI #artificalintelligence #google #LLM

Oil on canvas, one of those days when this usually muddy brown Louisiana river looked as blue as the sky. #oilpainting #cloudspainting #louisianalandscape #painting #landscapepainting #riverlandscape #americanart #skypainting #trees #landscape #southernartist #clouds #blueskyart

If you’re ever wondering why wildfire smoke is so bad for you it’s because it includes things like “an entire bicycle”

Another one from today, just a study, and not quite finished. Oil on canvas, 2025 - It's missing something, but it's a good starting point for a larger piece. #oilpainting #art #oiloncanvas #blueskyart #bskyart #southcarolina

This was a quick study I did on this cold rainy afternoon, inspired by some photos I shot in the South Carolina Low Country. Oil on canvas, 2025 #oilpainting #art #oiloncanvas #blueskyart #bskyart #southcarolina

The wind gusts are devastating. Truly a hurricane of fire. Video: @stuartpalley.bsky.social

My current view on politics.

Terrifying. From reports I've seen, they finally decided to leave and are safe. Honestly, I don't know what they were waiting for. #PalisadesFire #WTF

Pomegranates... Oil on canvas. This was a quick subject study. This cold winter afternoon would be a good time to do a larger version. I'm thinking satsumas as a subject, since I have a bowl of them handy. #oilpainting #art #bskyart #painting

"The Last Path Together" Oil on canvas, 2019. An old friend lost his son to the opiate crisis. He showed me a photo of a trip they had taken together to Ireland, some of the last quality time they had together. It inspired to me to paint this for him. #oilpainting #art #impressionism #Ireland

"Rain", oil on canvas, 2019. This one took me far too long to paint, and I'm not sure if it ever felt completely finished. The scene is by Jackson Square in the French Quarter, one of my favorite spots to sit and watch people. #oilpainting #painting #art #frenchquarter #impressionism #bskyart

"Summer in the Foothills", 2022, oil on canvas. This was one of my favorites because I was totally in a flow state painting it. It was a present to my sister. #oilpainting #art #painting #flow #flowstate

This is one of my favorite paintings of all time. It's also one of the oldest, as it was created about 60,000 years ago. Also, the artist was Neanderthal, not a modern human, although many of us share DNA with them. #art #archeology #history

Oceanside, oil on canvas #oilpainting #painting #art

At the Beach. Oil on canvas #oilpainting #painting #art

"Barn". Oil on canvas #oilpainting #painting #art

South Carolina Marsh. Oil on canvas 2023. #oilpainting #art #painting

Another Louisiana landscape. It's one of my favorite subjects. Oil on wood. #oilpainting #painting

"Afternoon in the marsh" 2018, I think. #oilpainting #painting

Still life with oranges and vase, oil on canvas. One of my first paintings. #oilpainting #painting

"Louisiana Marsh" Oil on canvas I'm posting these because I haven't been painting much lately, and these are just a reminder to myself that I should do more.

Detail from one of my paintings of a Louisiana oak tree. oil on canvas

"Crab on the dock" - oil on canvas