***The Winter Contest for March with Timeline***

It's winter weather in much of the country, and March is the month we get to show off our wintry photos!

Here's the timeline for the contest:

Feb. 28--March 5th: Dig into your archives for suitable photos that describe what winter means to you. Food, holidays, parties, sports, whatever works! Or take photos if your environment fits the wintry theme.

March 6th--March 14th: Submissions. Submissions will end when there are 30 photos. Each photographer may submit one photograph unless I open the contest for a second one later on.

Preliminary Thread: March 15th--March 17th

Finals Thread: March 18--March 20th

Then I will post the Winners Thread.

Winter Vegetables

Fennel:


Brussel Sprouts:


Lemons:


Celery:


Purple and Green Cabbages:

Blue Moon

I just got this absolutely hilarious email from the NRCC! (Republican organization)

For our education and edification, I am posting it here:


ATTN: Your Republican Membership has EXPIRED

For the last 2 years, you have consistently stood by House Republicans’ side. You’ve supported the Conservative fight furiously and consistently through every battle we’ve seen, but we have bad news for you.

It pains me to have to tell you that for the first time ever, you’ve failed to renew your Republican Membership and have lost your support streak.

There’s good news though. I spoke with leadership about this special circumstance, and they have allowed us to extend our Membership renewal period to 11:59 PM TONIGHT.

Are you going to renew your 2022 Membership and become a sustaining Republican Member for 2 consecutive years, or have we lost your support to the Left and you are going to let your streak fade away?

RENEW YOUR MEMBERSHIP
EXPIRED

We’re approaching the biggest battle of our lives. The 2022 Midterm Elections will be the toughest election we’ve seen yet, and we need our strongest grassroots supporters on our side.

The Democrats raised over $130 MILLION last year alone. We’re already behind, but with your help, we can close the gap, and take back the Conservative Majority in Congress.

You only have until 11:59 PM to let us know if you plan to stand against the Left and their radical socialist agenda for a 3rd year in a row. Renew before it’s too late >>>

Americans across the country are counting on you. Don’t let them down.

Thank you,

Mark, National Republican Membership Office


Join the Red Wave >>

We May End Up Living in Three Americas if Roe v. Wade Is Decimated--NY Times Opinion

By Mary Ziegler

Ms. Ziegler is the author of “Abortion and the Law in America: Roe v. Wade to the Present.”

In 2019 a wave of anti-abortion laws swept this country — a common enough event in the United States, where hundreds of such laws have passed during the last decade. But these grabbed the public’s attention in a way many others hadn’t. Georgia banned abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy, or about two weeks after a missed menstrual period. Ohio, Mississippi, Louisiana and Kentucky did the same, while Missouri banned the procedure at eight weeks. Alabama went the furthest, banning virtually all abortions in the state.

Though most of these laws were quickly blocked by the courts — they were obviously unconstitutional under Roe v. Wade — the backlash to their passing was intense, especially in Georgia, a major hub of film and television production. Boycotts were threatened. Netflix and Disney spoke out. The actress Alyssa Milano even tried to get a “Lysistrata”-style sex strike off the ground.

Three years later, American reproductive rights are on an even bleaker trajectory. A Supreme Court decision that’s expected to come down this summer is likely to strike down Roe v. Wade, either in deed or in word, making it possible for states with anti-abortion leadership to ban the procedure altogether.



All at the link: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/17/opinion/abortion-florida-15-week-ban.html?campaign_id=2&emc=edit_th_20220218&instance_id=53562&nl=todaysheadlines®i_id=80294139&segment_id=83150&user_id=e6d99470f2be9f1757ca234d98420b03

Waning Gibbous, February 17, 2022.

Flowering Succulents

My wish for DU!

Engineers are building bridges with recycled wind turbine blades.

This is an article that I found on the Verge, a periodical that covers several different sorts of fields. This article was in Science/Energy/Environment.

An excerpt:

On a former train track bed connecting the towns of Midleton and Youghal in County Cork, Ireland, workers recently excavated the rusted remains of an old railway bridge and installed a pedestrian one in its place. The bridge would have been an unremarkable milestone in the development of a new pedestrian greenway through the Irish countryside, if not for what it’s made of: recycled wind turbine blades.

That makes it just the second “blade bridge” in the world. The first, installed last October in a small town in western Poland, officially opened in early January. The engineers and entrepreneurs behind these bridges are hopeful they represent the beginning of a new trend: repurposing old wind turbine blades for infrastructure projects.

It keeps them out of landfills and saves energy required to make new construction materials. When civil engineer Kieran Ruane first saw concept designs for a bridge built with wind turbine blades, he said the idea was “immediately appealing.”

“It was a no-brainer that this needed to be investigated and trialed, at least,” Ruane, a lecturer at Ireland’s Munster Technological University and a member of Re-Wind, the research network behind Ireland’s new blade bridge, tells The Verge.

The rest at the link:

https://www.theverge.com/2022/2/11/22929059/recycled-wind-turbine-blade-bridges-world-first

Closer to full...in black & white