Creekside Chatter

As partisans and ideologues, to one extent or another, we don’t have carte blanche to propagate lies. In fact, our survival and success depend on creating trust with our readership, and ensuring that the mainstream media can’t ignore the stories we break.  By being upfront about our political ideals, readers can process the facts through their own ideological prisms and then make up their own minds. This process is how it’s been done for fifteen years online, and it has worked incredibly well.  The mainstream media is dying as we are rising, and yet their only explanation for their fate is that Craigslist has stolen their classified advertising.

An interesting commentary on today's media.

At the end of the promenade is the Castillo de San Marcos - the oldest stone fortification in this country. Which, by the way, was never captured in battle. They tried, but they couldn't do it.

But when you’re choosing the images for your scrapbooking page, concentrate on using your artist’s eye. This means looking for photos that show the central image clearly and have a vibrant crispness. You choose a photo that includes the kids, but also offers an interesting angle, a pleasing light, or another distinguishing feature that brings color, visual interest, or lightness and humor to the mix.

This is one of several great tips in this article.

The bitter winter afflicting much of the Northern Hemisphere is only the start of a global trend towards cooler weather that is likely to last for 20 or 30 years, say some of the world’s most eminent climate scientists.

Their predictions – based on an analysis of natural cycles in water temperatures in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans – challenge some of the global warming orthodoxy’s most deeply cherished beliefs, such as the claim that the North Pole will be free of ice in
summer by 2013.

According to the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado, Arctic summer sea ice has increased by 409,000 square miles, or 26 per cent, since 2007 – and even the most committed global warming activists do not dispute this.

The scientists’ predictions also undermine the standard climate computer models, which assert that the warming of the Earth since 1900 has been driven solely by man-made greenhouse gas emissions and will continue as long as carbon dioxide levels rise. 

Hat tip - Instapundit.

This photo of the rotunda was taken in 1891. The large staircase leads to the dining room. This hotel is now Flagler College. From the Florida Photographic Collection.

The January issue of Shades of the Departed Magazine is out and it's a delight for anyone interested in old photographs.

This manatee was photographed at Blue Spring near Deland. In the winter, manatees congregate in the warm waters of Florida's springs and near power plants. This unusually cold weather has hit them hard with an AP story describing the large massing of manatee and other sea creatures at Tampa Bay's Big Bend Power Plant trying to stay warm.

It is cold everywhere. [Insert global warming joke here.] Might as well try to enjoy it.