Discover The Mystery of You

Each newborn child is a mystery about to unfold in the world. And there is always the potential for joy and pain, great good or tremendous misery. To a great extent, much of what the child becomes is contained in the context of the family: Its resources, stability, and

Trump Appointee Wants To Cut Off Bears Ears

In this photo taken April 26, 2017, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke speaks at the Interior Department in Washington. Ryan Zinke is recommending that the new Bears Ears National Monument in Utah be reduced in size and says Congress should step in to designate how selected areas of the 1.3 million-acre site are categorized. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke on Monday recommended that the new Bears Ears National Monument in Utah be reduced in size and said Congress should step in to designate how selected areas of the 1.3 million-acre site are managed.

Zinke made the recommendation as part of an interim report to President Donald Trump on the scenic swath of southern Utah with red rock plateaus, cliffs and canyons on land considered sacred to tribes.

Trump signed an executive order in April directing Zinke to review the designation of dozens of national monuments on federal lands, calling the protection efforts “a massive federal land grab” by previous administrations.

In this June 22, 2016 file photo, the “House on Fire” ruins in Mule Canyon in Bears Ears National Monument near Blanding, Utah. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is recommending that the new Bears Ears National Monument in Utah be reduced in size and says Congress should step in to designate how selected areas of the 1.3 million-acre site are categorized. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

Trump and other Republicans have singled out former President Barack Obama’s designation of Bears Ears, calling it an unnecessary layer of federal control that hurts local economies by closing the area to new energy development. They also say it isn’t the best way to protect the land.

Zinke toured Bears Ears last month on foot, horseback and helicopter and met with

The snails are coming! The snails are coming!

A case in point for this state which also plaguing Florida with pythons and boa constrictors… non-native species that populate and because they have no natural predators, become problems.

Alabama State officials believe that a few of the Amazonian snails were likely dumped into the pond after they had grown too large for a home aquarium. Pet stores sold the snails for years, but that practice is now illegal.

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Amazonian snails approaching Mobile-Tensaw Delta, may be here to stay

Published: Sunday, April 15, 2012, 8:03 AM
Updated: Monday, April 16, 2012, 10:44 AM
By Ben Raines, Press-Register

A clump of Amazonian apple snail eggs clings to a cattail stem at the edge of Three Mile Creek. The Telegraph Road bridge is in the background, which is slightly less than a mile from the mouth of the Mobile River. Despite three years of control efforts, the snails appear to be colonizing the lower reaches of Three Mile Creek, creeping ever closer to the Mobile-Tensaw Delta. (Press-Register/Ben Raines)

MOBILE, Alabama — The snails are winning.

The Amazonian apple snails first discovered in Mobile’s Langan Park in 2008 have steadily expanded their range downstream in Three Mile Creek, ever closer to the Mobile-Tensaw Delta. Biologists contacted by the newspaper said the snails may be here to stay, with a breeding population already too well established to eradicate.

A Press-Register survey this week found the snail’s distinctive pink egg masses in reeds surrounding the U.S. 43 bridge on Telegraph Road, less than a mile from the Mobile River, and as close to the Delta as they’ve been found.
“The farthest I’ve seen them was the trestle at the I-165 bridge, so that’s a little farther down than normal,” said Dave Armstrong, a biologist with the Alabama Division of Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries. “Obviously, they’ve migrated a little farther. That’s not good news.

Armstrong said the snails remain entrenched in the pond at Langan Park despite multiple applications of copper sulfate, which is lethal to snails but not fish and other aquatic creatures. The numbers in the pond are way down from the high point two years ago, he said, but the pond remains a breeding ground.

When wildlife officials realized that baseball-sized Amazonian snails had colonized the pond, their worst-case scenario involved the giant gastropods escaping into Three Mile Creek. Biologists fear the non-native snails because they have been shown to eat 95 percent of the aquatic vegetation in some natural systems, leaving behind murky, algae-filled water.

In the fall of 2009, dozens of snails could be seen clinging to rocks in the riffles below the pond’s dam at the edge of the park. Surveys of Three Mile Creek at the time revealed

Reflective Reflections Reflecting Reflectance; Reflectometer

The following is a collection of thoughts meant to inspire my continued observations, and from which you, hopefully, may take some encouragement and thoughtful repose.

• Having recently attended a Memorial Mass for a former pastor of my parish, I was impressed with a the homilist’s description of the late priest’s latter years. He was in constant pain from injuries – then unknown – which he sustained in an automobile wreck earlier in his life. Though he NEVER ONCE complained, he would let others know he was in pain. Analogously, the homilist referenced the day’s scripture verse, Malachi 3:2b-3a “For He is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap. 3“He will sit as a smelter and purifier of silver.” He recollected how one woman in his own parish had sought to learn about the process of refining silver, and had shared the silversmith said the silver MUST be held IN THE FIRE CONSTANTLY to purify it. She asked, “How do you know when it’s pure?” His reply was, “When I look into it and see my reflection.”

• I have endured hardship in my life, and historically,

Sex, sEx, seX, sex, SEX, SeX, SEx, sEX

This entry is about… SEX!

SEX, SEX, SEX!

It is about sexual intercourse, banging, doing the horizontal bop, shagging, and all the various euphemisms employed to describe the act of coitus.

Last week I enjoyed nice visit with a friend of mine after a after having seen him at confession. We are both Catholic. After we had individually made our confessions to the priest, we continued