2019

POTD: Musk Thistle

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In the Asteraceae family, this is a Carduus Nutans. Other names are nodding thistle and nodding plumeless thistle. It has been deemed a noxious weed and is very invasive. This was in my yard and I wouldn’t advise stepping on one. ~Vic

Musk Thistle Image
04-10-2019

Picture of the Day

VOTD: Strange Worm

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I posted a picture of this thing in June of 2019. It was taken April 13th. Anybody know what kind of worm this is? ~Vic

Video of the Day

Hans 2021 Song Draft: Round Ten-Pick Seven-Bad Weather-Emily Hackett (2014/2015)

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Tennessee Star Image One
Photo Credit: Tennessee Star

Hanspostcard has a song draft challenge. This is my Round Ten and final pick.

Back in 2014, I happened to catch a wonderful song that played during a commercial on HDNET (movies). HDNET didn’t have normal commercials, they just had clips from movies that it was showcasing, changing each month. I loved the song but, had no idea what the name of it was, other than what I could glean from the lyrics. I desperately wanted to know who the singer was because she had a beautiful voice. I could find nothing, so, I contacted HDNET for help. Her name? Emily Hackett. The song? A Heart Worth Saving (and I wasn’t the only one asking). It is the third track from a short compilation album called Girl Electro Pop, released July 11, 2014 (as best as I can tell). There is no chart information on the album or the song and what lyrics that are on the Internet do not match all of the words she sings. That being said, I was overjoyed to find it and download it.

That brings me to Bad Weather (no chart information on it, either). In digging around for data on Emily, I found a demo video of her singing the song with a guitarist. Then, I found the album it was on…The Raw EP, released July 24, 2015. It’s a beautiful, sad song that reminds me of a stripped down Carrie Underwood piece.

The Virginia Star Emily Hackett Image Two
Photo Credit: The Virginia Star

“I started this song in California when I was making lunch one day at my parent’s house. My boyfriend, Mikey, was goofing around on the guitar and I stopped him like, “What is that? We are writing that. It’s awesome.” It wasn’t until we got back to Nashville, a couple months later that we sat down with our friend Adam James and poured out this song in a couple of hours. It felt so right, we just went with it. It’s one of my favorites I’ve ever written.”

Daily Discovery: Emily Hackett
Songspace
American Songwriter
2014

She was born in Cleveland, Ohio and was in high school in Georgia when she took off with a friend to visit Belmont University. Headed for the University of Georgia, she fell in love with Nashville and interned in the music industry:

“Here I was in Nashville at school. I had no idea that there was this whole world of music where you could have careers. I didn’t realize there was so much to it. It was cool to be studying the music business at college. I thought I could always be a writer and in Nashville, writers actually get to perform.”

Music Spotlight: Emily Hackett
Bethany Bowman
The Tennessee Star
October 17, 2018

Some months ago, I commented on one of Music City Mike‘s blog posts, regarding interviews of local musicians in Nashville. I told him about Emily but, I don’t know if he ever got the chance to chat with her. Give her a listen. She is a different genre from Lissie but, just as talented.

Thanks, Hans, for the invite to participate. Much like the movie draft, picking favorites is a tough go. There is SO much good music out there. I look forward to sharing more in the upcoming 2022 Draft. ~Vic

Official Website
Bandcamp
Reverbnation
Soundcloud

Additional:
Emily Hackett Looks To The Past & Future On “Nostalgia”
(Taste of Country/Sterling Whitaker/08-10-2017)
CMT’s Next Women Of Country (People Magazine/Katie Kauss/11-16-2018)
Cleveland Native Emily Hackett Comes To Beachland (Cleveland Scene/Jeff Niesel/12-04-2019)
Emily Hackett Releases Heartfelt “Handle” (The Virginia Star/Bethany Bowman/05-29-2020)
Emily Hackett Is Creating Magic (The Aquarian/Debra Kate Schafer/05-31-2020)

Demo In The Attic

HDNET Commercial

Royals Cover With Megan Davies

Happy Christmas Cover

Flashback Friday: Ellis Island 1954

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National Geographic Ellis Island Image
Women and children were separated from men
when they first entered the building on Ellis Island.
Photograph by Paul Thompson
Credit: National Geographic

Sixty-five years ago, [today] on November 12, 1954, a Norwegian merchant seaman named Arne Peterssen became the last immigrant to pass through Ellis Island. Later that month, the ferry Ellis Island made its final stop at the island in New York Harbor and the immigration facility closed for good, ending its run as a gateway to the United States for generations of immigrants.

These days Ellis Island is a national symbol remembered in sepia tones but, while it was in active service, the station reflected the country’s complicated relationship with immigration, one that evolved from casual openness to rigid restriction. “It was not a great welcoming place for immigrants but, it was not a place of horrors either,” says Vincent Cannato, author of American Passage: The History of Ellis Island.

Until the end of the 19th century, individual states handled immigration with rules varying by jurisdiction. [T]hen, immigration soared. In light of the influx, the federal government decided in 1891 that it had to take charge.

New York was immigration’s epicenter. Some 75 percent of the country’s steamship traffic came through New York Harbor and so did 75 percent of the nation’s immigrants, according to Cannato. New York state ran an immigration facility called Castle Gardens at the tip of Manhattan but, the new federal Office of Immigration wanted an intake and inspection station in a more controlled location. It selected Ellis Island, a three-acre spot of land in the harbor between New York and New Jersey […].

The immigrants who eventually passed through Ellis Island started their journey by buying passage on a steamship, usually sailing from Europe. Between 1892 and 1924, 12 million people successfully traversed this highly efficient conveyor-belt immigration system. Most immigrants were processed through Ellis Island in a few hours and only 2 percent that arrived on the island were prevented from entering the United States.

[T]his era of mass immigration came to an end with the passage in 1921 and 1924 of new laws that severely limited immigration by establishing quotas for individual countries and requiring immigrants to obtain visas from American consulates. Since most official immigration screening now happened at U.S. consulates abroad, Ellis Island became increasingly irrelevant. The facility, which had once teemed with thousands of hopeful immigrants, transformed into “a major center for deportation and for holding enemy alien spies,” says [Barry] Moreno. “It was like night and day.” President Eisenhower quietly closed Ellis Island in 1954.

How Ellis Island Shepherded Millions of Immigrants Into America
Rachel Hartigan
National Geographic
November 13, 2019

Hans 2021 Song Draft: Round Nine-Pick Eight-In Sleep-Lissie (2010)

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Lissie Fan Art TV Image One
Image Credit: fanart.tv

Hanspostcard has a song draft challenge. This is my Round Nine pick.

This, and my last pick, will feature two women that are a little less known in the music world. I skipped right over the 2000s (only so many choices) and hopped into the next decade. I happened to catch this song while listening to the University of Texas @ Austin’s radio station (a station involved with SXSW). I was hooked and I went looking for it…and her. Elisabeth Corrin Maurus or Lissie is a singer-songwriter out of Rock Island, Illinois.

“I always sang, since I was little and wrote poems in high school. I sort of taught myself to play guitar lines to the poems and stuff. In high school, it seems like everyone has more drama than any other time in their life, [so] that was the time in my life where I really leaned on music as a way to stay sane…”

Interview With Lissie
Scott the Intern
Pop Culture Madness [Web Archive]
February 11, 2008

In her senior year, she was kicked out of high school (she spit in a teacher’s face) and had to get a GED, elsewhere. Then, she hit the road, troubadour-style. She attended Colorado State in Fort Collins and liked to open for other traveling acts. After a short time in Paris, she moved to Los Angeles, met Betsy Hammer and scored an introduction to Brooks Arthur. Hammer & Arthur took her to talent manager Guy Oseary and he got her to producer Glen Ballard. She can be heard singing in the movie Have Dreams, Will Travel (Dream It Out Loud) and performed at the wedding of Demi Moore & Ashton Kutcher in 2005 (Oseary’s referral). In January 2008, she opened for Lenny Kravitz (via a hook-up on MySpace).

Lissie Zimbio Image Two
Photo Credit: Zimbio

The third track from the album Catching A Tiger, In Sleep was released in April of 2010 and the only chart it showed up on was the UK iTunes Single of the Week. The album did manage to make it to #5 on the Billboard Folk Albums & Top Heatseekers charts and, #34 on the Independent Albums chart. The album’s first release was in the UK and hit the US two months later.

“Not to be mistaken for Lissy Trullie, […] Lissie Maurus deals in sun-kissed pop-blues straight from Laurel Canyon.

Her 12-track debut conjures images of highways and horses, with Lissie’s smoky tones echoing Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks.”

CDs of the Week: Eminem and Lissie
Rick Pearson
London Evening Standard
[Web Archive]
June 18, 2010

Give her a listen. I think she is fantastic and her two band members are outstanding, as well. They are all over YouTube and, in live recordings, her bassist is sitting down, keeping the drum/cymbal beat. Talk about multitasking. I’ve included the studio version of this that has more drum work on it and a possible synthesizer. I’m also including her version of Go Your Own Way. which actually charted in the UK in 2012. The studio version sounds like it has a cello in it and is part of the soundtrack from the movie Safe Haven. She has been very busy.

Happy Halloween, Y’all! ~Vic

Additional:
Interview: Lissie (Stereofox/06-12-2013)
Lissie (CTN Music Interview/12-22-2008/Web Archive)
Lissie and Her Connections (The Uncarved Blog/Ken Chawkin/05-11-2019)
Lissie Catching A Tiger Review (BBC Review/Mike Diver/2010)
Local Q&A: Lissie (Chicago Tribune Metromix/Matt Pais/11-09-2009/Web Archive)
Rock Island Native Lissie Hits Billboard’s Charts (Quad-City Times/David Burke/05-09-2008/Web Archive)

Official Website

Live Recording On ARD

Studio Version

From Discovery of Witches

Snapshots Sunday: Halloween Local 5.0

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There is always some kind of decoration in this town. Got some new shots and some older shots. ~Vic

Uniquitiques Boo Image One
Uniquitiques Store
Boo!
11-01-2020
Click for a larger view.
Graveyard Image Two
Graveyard
11-02-2019
Click for a larger view.
Death Pumpkin Image Three
Dead Pumpkin
10-22-2019
Click for a larger view.
Second Graveyard Image Four
Another Graveyard
11-01-2020
Click for a larger view.
Venom Pumpkin Image Five
Someone is a Venom fan.
11-05-2019
Mask Skeleton Image Six
Skeleton offering masks.
10-30-2020
Witch Image Seven
Just hanging out.
10-10-2021
Click for a larger view.
You're Next Image Eight
You’ll be next.
10-30-2018
Click for a larger view.

POTD: Tulips

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Pl@ntNet seems to think this is a Didier’s Tulip or Tulipa Gesneriana. There are so many tulip variations, it would be difficult to narrow down any particular one. There are lots of hybrids. They are all in the Liliaceae family. ~Vic

Didier's Tulip Image
04-10-2019

Picture of the Day

POTD: Lilium

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This is definitely a lily or Liliaceae but, what species? It could be a Candidum or, possibly a Longiflorum. It’s nearly impossible to tell even with Pl@ntNet. There are just too many varieties and hybrids. It’s beautiful, though. ~Vic

Lillium Image
Hanging out over the fence.
06-05-2019
Click for a larger view.

Picture of the Day

Chris Thomas: Chemtrails

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A Forum Blog Post From: The Chris Thomas Files

Chemtrail Activist Post Image One
Image Credit: Activist Post

At the end of 2009, the British government very reluctantly acknowledged that they were chemically seeding the atmosphere “as a means of combating global warming” (see later).

However, the dumping of chemicals into the atmosphere goes back many years. For more details of this and the underlying reasons, see my book, written with Dave Morgan, called Project Human Extinction (sadly, out of print) which has chapters and appendices detailing the use of chemicals and biological agents either as weapons testing or population control. Also see numerous articles on the internet which detail the kinds of chemicals that are being dumped into our atmosphere by both military and civilian aircraft.

The first use of air-borne biological agents was by the Japanese in 1941 and 1942 when they sprayed the Chinese mainland with bubonic plague from aircraft. This spraying from aircraft was noted by the American Military who began their own testing programmes on their own populations. In 1949, the US Army began a 20 year programme of simulated germ warfare attacks against American cities, conducting at least 293 open air tests. These are the first known use of “chemtrails”.

The effect of the chemicals was studied by the vivisection of farm animals, most notably cattle and, this is the actual reason for the animal mutilations which have been blamed on UFOs. They are nothing to do with UFOs, with the military involvement being confirmed by a secret FBI investigation published under the Freedom of Information Act a few years ago.

Added to this biological weapons use is the deliberate destruction of the bee population. Bees are the planet’s primary pollinators but, are not needed for Genetically Modified crops. Therefore, as far as the GM companies are concerned, if there are no bees, no crops will grow and people will turn to GM to feed themselves. I have a personal experience of this, in that, in September 2009, I woke up to find the sky over my house had a grid pattern of chemtrails. In that September, there had been a glut of fruit and an extremely high wasp and bee population. Three days after the grid pattern chemtrails, there was not a bee or a wasp to be seen. Nexus magazine published a letter of mine at the time of this incident which produced a crop of letters from others confirming similar experiences. A similar letter was published in Nexus in October of last year (2010) written by someone in Yorkshire giving exactly the same story…a grid pattern of chemtrails with a noticeable death of bees.

The problem does not only relate to bees. [A]ll insects have been affected and this is one of the major reasons for the decline in bird numbers as there are not enough insects for them to eat. There’s a simple way of checking this. Twenty years ago, if you drove anywhere rural at night, you had to wash the windscreen, headlamps and radiator grille of the car to clear off all of the dead bugs. [T]his is no longer necessary as there are no longer enough insects to cause this problem.

Bumblebee Image One
05-31-2019

So, what is the purpose of chemtrails? There seem to be several reasons apart from the testing of biological weapons. From some of the chemical analysis reports I have read, some of the chemicals are specifically designed to reduce soil fertility. In other words, to destroy the production of food crops. Again, this seems to tie in with the wants of the GM companies.

However, there is also the question of population control. In 1992, The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development Earth Summit took place in Rio de Janeiro. Out of this summit came the Biodiversity Treaty and Agenda 21. The stated aim of these agendas is to reduce the world’s human population to “a sustainable 500,000,000” (five hundred million…see The Georgia Guidestones). Given that the official world population figure puts the global human population as around 6,500,000,000 (six billion, five hundred million) it means that the global population must be reduced by six billion people by the year 2050, the date given at the summit, that is 350,000 people per day or 128 million per year.

The way in which chemtrails work in respect to the Rio Summit is to make people susceptible to illness. The chemicals sprayed are designed to give people the “first half” of an illness. [F]or example, some of the chemtrails have contained chemicals which affected the lungs. This lung weakness then made the body more receptive to illnesses such as Bird Flue, Avian Flue (different strain to bird flue) and Swine Flue. The “second half” of these illnesses would be given either by further chemtrails or by annual flue vaccinations (or Covid?).

To return to climate control…

We have had steadily climbing global temperatures since 1850. [T]his is an undisputed fact. However, the reason for this temperature rise is not anthropogenic (man-made). Despite Al Gore’s infamous hockey stick graph (which has been legally proven a fake…Al Gore “averaged out” the actual figures to give a deliberately misleading graph) which most people have assumed to show actual climate change, the truth is (from official and Met Office figures) that, when temperatures began to rise in about 1800, the cause of the rise was due to increased sun activity.

Between the years of about 1450 and 1850, the average global temperature was below freezing. In 1850, the temperature began to rise above freezing and continued climbing until 2000 where temperatures stopped rising. Since 2000, global temperatures have actually dropped slightly, by only about 0.1 of a degree, so, we do not have “runaway global warming” caused by human production of carbon dioxide. [W]hat we do have is an increase in Sun activity since the early 1800s and this increased Sun activity stopped in 2000 where the Sun entered a period known as a Maunder Minimum (see my book Synthesis for more detail on this…still in print). The Friends of the Earth produced their own figures for annual carbon dioxide production and found that “human activities” produce about 26 million tonnes whilst the Earth naturally produces about 980 tonnes.

Chemtrails Activist Post Image Two
Image Credit: Activist Post

The British government has stated that they are “chemically seeding” the atmosphere to combat global warming. The main ingredient of this “seeding” is water vapour, or by another name, clouds. The argument is that by increasing cloud cover, global warming can be combated by reflecting the Sun’s heat back out into space. But, cloud cover actually causes global warming by trapping hot air close to the Earth’s surface. As an example…think of a winter’s night, the sky is clear and we have a severe frost. The following night is cloudy but, there is no frost as the cloud cover acts like a duvet and holds the heat close to the surface (see reports and studies by the likes of Professor David Bellamy for more detail on this).

So, the British government policy of cloud seeding will not combat global warming but, will, in fact, increase it. Why would they want to do this? In order to make us believe that global warming is happening and that all of the other ludicrous policies that go with their strategies are necessary and to keep us in a state of fear[?] [A] population living in fear is easily manipulated, their health suffers and the process of consciousness reintegration is slowed, if not stopped.

In summary: The reason for chemtrails is population control and population reduction as well as promoting GM crops. In addition to the use of chemtrails, there is the fluoridation of drinking water. This is not natural Calcium Fluoride, as most believe, but, chemically produced Sodium Fluoride (Hexafluorosilicic Acid), a known carcinogen and the cause of many other health problems. It is more toxic than lead. The increased uses of pharmaceutical drugs […] are known to be harmful. The British Medical Association states that in Britain, 250,000 people per year are hospitalised by drug reactions of which 10,000 die every year. The American Medical Association states that in America 136,000 people die each year directly from adverse effects of prescribed drugs. The AMA also states, in its 5 year study published in 2008, that medical treatment (of all kinds) is responsible for killing two and three quarter million people per year in America alone. [T]he global death rate is probably in the region of 10 million at least. This is a long way from the Hippocratic Oath“First, do no harm!”

© Chris Thomas 2011

[Original Posting/Mount Zion 144 Ning Forum Blog Post 2011/Defunct]
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See Also:
Documents Prove Chemtrails (USA Watchdog/Greg Hunter/10-25-2015)
Geoengineering Watch