Some Sunday Worship

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spinner-dolphins-hawaii_89672_990x742 National Geographic Photo of the Day: "Intelligent Travel" Photograph by Brian Skerry, National Geographic

Spinner dolphins return from foraging to a bay off Oahu, Hawaii. Garrulous and gregarious, spinners gather in groups that can number in the thousands.

(source)

NATURE.

Still the best show on Earth.

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Some Sunday Morning Worship

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Some Sunday Worship

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Alaskan Otter Couple"One of the funniest moments was when I discovered two otters that looked like a couple," says Your Shot member Roman Golubenko. "They were taking care of each other like a loving couple, and they were turning to me as if to get captured for a family portrait." (source of photo)

This just makes me MELT. DO YOU HEAR ME??? MELT, I SAY!!!

I'm butta... I'm like the squaw on the cova of Land O'Lakes.

NATURE. It's still the Best Show on Earth.

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The Best Show on Earth

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I love this. Thank you to my dear friend and stunning correspondent in the U.K., the "butterfly", Lorraine, for this wonderful contribution.

We're a part of this great big beautiful world. Not the owners of it. And the sooner we start behaving that way, the better. Nature. It's still the best show on Earth.

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Nature; Still The Best Show on Earth...

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And when I'm OUT IN IT, it's the closest I feel to whatever it's all about...

(Thank you for the inspiration yesterday, Melissa. Thank you.)

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There's Safety in Canopy

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"Looking into Another World"

Photo and caption below by Fred An

"This is the great Japanese maple tree in the Portland Japanese Gardens. I tried to bring a different perspective of this frequently photographed tree."

*** National Geographic's Photo of the Month

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Natural Gas Fucking (that's it, shoot the messenger)

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"Gasland" Director Josh Fox Arrested at Congressional Hearing on Natural Gas Fracking

The Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Josh Fox was handcuffed and arrested Wednesday as he attempted to film a congressional hearing on the controversial natural gas drilling technique known as fracking, which the Environmental Protection Agency recently reported caused water contamination in Pavillion, Wyoming. Fox directed the award-winning film, "Gasland," which documents the impact of fracking on communities across the United States, and is now working on a sequel. Fox says he was arrested after Republicans refused to allow him to film because he did not have the proper credentials. "We wanted to report on what happened [at the hearing]. I was not interested in disrupting that hearing. It was not a protest action," says Fox. "I was simply trying to do my job as a journalist and go in there and show to the American people what was transpiring in that hearing, so that down the line, as we know there will be a lot of challenges mounted to that [Pavillion, Wyoming] EPA report—and frankly, to the people in Pavillion, who have been sticking up for themselves and demanding an investigation into the groundwater contamination—and to make sure that people could view that in a larger forum than usually happens."

We're poisoning ourselves.

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Some Sunday Worship (I'm certain there are goats in heaven.)

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This is so fricking cute I CAN'T STAND IT. When the goats jump and rear up? (no frisky comments on the rear up, bishes) - I could just squeal. (no frisky comments on the squeal either, bishes... What a bunch of pervs you guys are...)

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The "Beagle Freedom Project" - What A Bunch of Total Badasses (and the peeps who rescued the dogs aren't so bad either...)

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In the heartwarming video below, a group of beagles rescued from a research laboratory in Spain experience sunlight for the first time. The 72 beagles arrived in Los Angeles last week, after they'd been saved by the Animal Rescue, Media & Education's (ARME) Beagle Freedom Project. On its web site, the Beagle Freedom Project describes itself as a "mission to rescue beagles used in animal experimentation in research laboratories and give them a chance at life in a loving forever home." Huffington Post writer Laura Hibbard spells out the intense deprivation the puppies have suffered: ARME's Beagle Freedom Project spokesman Gary Smith said the beagles, all between ages 4 and 7, had lived in cages their entire lives. "We've been told they lived one per cage in rooms of 10 beagles, but they never had any physical interaction with one another," Smith told the station. "They've been in kennels since they were rescued about a week ago, but aside from that, they've spent most of their lives locked up." (source)

It's good to remember that there are A LOT of good people out there doing good things.

When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion. ~ Abraham Lincoln

(Thanks for the great quote, Don! And Abe, of course.)

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Some Sunday Worship

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Pardon me, But, did you know that sea otters hold hands (paws) while they're sleeping to keep from drifting away from one another? Well, they do.

And I could just DIE! COULDN'T YOU DIE??? BECAUSE, I COULD. (Jesus Christ, they're so fucking cute! AAHH!! I know they'd rip my face off, but I want to SMUSH THEM IN MY GOD DAMN FACE!!)

And besides all the cooing and squealing bishes on here, check out what goes down at 1:20 in. You'll die. TRUST ME. (YOU'RE GONNA FUCKIN' DIE!!)

Sorry. I'll stop yelling now. They just melted at least a year of bitterness off me. And you know what? I'm kinda thinking it might be worth it to lose part of your face to hug one of those little assholes.

So, I do declare... (sorry, I have to yell one more time.)

SEA OTTERS FOR ALL MY FRIENDS!!!

(that means you guys.)

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We, The Owners... of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect UNION...

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So, Will and I are watching this FANTASTIC Ken Burns' series right now that we checked out from the library (speaking of "fantastic" - remember the "library"?) and it reminds me how very proud I am to be an American. "NATIONAL" parks and "libraries"?? Something for a classless society? Well... How wonderfully social and evolved of US. Narrative begins 1 minute in.

Ken Burns' The National Parks: America's Best Idea

THE NATIONAL PARKS: AMERICA'S BEST IDEA is a six-episode series produced by Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan and written by Dayton Duncan. Filmed over the course of more than six years at some of nature's most spectacular locales – from Acadia to Yosemite, Yellowstone to the Grand Canyon, the Everglades of Florida to the Gates of the Arctic in Alaska - THE NATIONAL PARKS: AMERICA'S BEST IDEA is nonetheless a story of people: people from every conceivable background – rich and poor; famous and unknown; soldiers and scientists; natives and newcomers; idealists, artists and entrepreneurs; people who were willing to devote themselves to saving some precious portion of the land they loved, and in doing so reminded their fellow citizens of the full meaning of democracy.

Oh, and John Muir? TOTAL badass if there ever was one.

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Some Sunday Worship

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You may have seen this little guy recently: A rare albino seal pup with ginger-colored fur was abandoned by the colony in Tyuleniy Island, Russia. He was hiding beneath logs when the photographer spotted him. “The poor seal is almost blind and so was unlikely to survive in the wild,” said the photographer, who was with staff from a dolphinarium who took it into their care. (source)

I could melt where I stand.

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