The people of Texas, like the people of America and all freedom-loving people around the world, are behind the brave people of Ukraine. Maybe one day, we will be talking to Ukrainians who speak English with a Texas accent and wear big cowboy hats!
Category: Europe
Texas Slang for ENGin buddies ENGin is a wonderful program that connects English speakers with Ukrainians – sort of like pen-pals on Zoom. Conversation practice, cultural exchange, recipes, jokes, stories, friendships…. Very cool, innovative, and impactful non-profit started by Katerina Manoff. Katerina has 5+ years of experience teaching English and managing online language learning programs. […]
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A WLBOTT Caper
[thanks to UC#3 for today’s rabbit hole] Fellow travelers [of both time and space] – I really like capers – both the nonpareils and the large caper berries that are the size of blueberries. I think including the Italian island of Salina to look into caper farming will flange up well with our journey from […]
Wildberries – the Amazon of Russia A fire has broken out at a warehouse in St. Petersburg, days after workers were involved in a brawl at the site, with arson a suspected cause. Despite the encroaching flames, a guard continued to inspect the workers to make sure they were not stealing anything, Baza added. Eventually, […]
Russia is having trouble keeping the lights on. I remember the optimism of the late ’90s, when we naively thought that Russia would be a grown-up country, we would all work together to make the world a more stable place, we could turn our nuclear swords into nuclear plowshares[2]. But greed and lust for power […]
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Baymak, Siberia
In a town of 17,710 people, 10,000 came out to protest the sentencing of an anti-war activist. The protesters were armed with snowballs. The goon squad was armed to the teeth. The unrest on Wednesday – one of the largest reported demonstrations since the war in Ukraine began in 2022 – erupted amid the trial […]
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Friendship Bridge
The Korea–Russia Friendship Bridge is a rail bridge over the Tumen River. It was commissioned in 1959 as a replacement for a temporary wooden bridge. Located immediately downstream from the China–North Korea–Russia tripoint, the bridge is the sole crossing point on the 17 km long North Korea–Russia border. Planks are laid between the tracks making […]
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NIMBY
[thanks to UC#3 for seeding today’s BLOTT] Wind Turbans [ed. note: turbine] are indeed a thing of beauty. Incredible engineering, extremely cost-effective electrical generation, great energy return on investment (EROI). EROIs tend to be higher for recent wind turbines compared to older technology wind turbines. Vestas reports an EROI of 31 for its V150 model […]
We have created an AI-generated collection to honor the bravery of Ukrainian mothers. Slava Ukraini.
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Celebrating Slim Whitman
Think back to Christmases in the late ’70s, and remember the Slim Whitman TV ads (All My Best).“[Slim] was number one in England longer than Elvis and The Beatles.” A little Wikipedia research revealed many amazing facts about Slim Whitman, but here is one of most interesting: Whitman was a self-taught left-handed guitarist, although he […]