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~ Featuring ~
Framing Creation
by Tom McLaughlin
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Chinese Aviation Firm Seeking Investment in U.S. Aircraft Makers 
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{ freebeacon.com } ~ A Chinese state-run aircraft and missile manufacturer linked to military programs and past espionage is attempting to purchase interests in major U.S. aircraft manufacturers... According to Trump administration officials, the Aviation Industry Corp of China, known as AVIC, is seeking to gain access to advanced technology through attempts to buy minority stakes in major aircraft companies. The attempts were detected by U.S. intelligence agencies several months ago and reported internally within the U.S. government. One unit that has been tracking the activity is a special Air Force group known as the Office of Competitive Economic Analysis. Spy agencies are concerned about the buy-in effort since AVIC already has made inroads into the U.S. aircraft supply chain by buying aviation support companies and those involved in commercial aviation...
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dummycrats-Democrats Endorse Judicial Tyranny
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by Tom Trinko
{ americanthinker.com } ~ It's very clear that dummycrats-Democrats -- the politicians, not all the people who vote for them -- hate democracy...  dummycrats-Democrats don't believe that power is from the people; rather dummycrats-Democrats believe that the elites, which in the minds of dummycrats-Democrats is made up solely of dummycrats-Democrats, should rule the rest of us. We can see this in the dummycrats-Democrats refusing to accept the results of the 2016 election. We can see it in the dummycrats-Democrats enthusiasm for the administrative state where unelected, unaccountable, unfireable bureaucrats can create thousands of pages of rules and regulations which average Americans have to follow. But we see it most clearly in the panic that dummycrats-Democrats are experiencing over the idea that Trump will be nominating someone to the Supreme Court who will decide cases based on what the law says rather than what they think the law should say....
The 2018 Medicare Trustees Report: Fiscal and Policy Challenges
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{ aei.org } ~ Medicare’s financial outlook has deteriorated in the past year... according to the latest annual report by the program’s trustees. The Medicare Hospital Insurance trust fund is projected to be depleted in 2026, three years earlier than estimated in last year’s report. That understates the policy challenge. Every year, the program relies more on general revenues to cover its costs. In total, Medicare will receive $324 billion in general revenues this year. That will more than double by 2026. Prompt action is needed to put Medicare on a sound financial footing...
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Entire Thai soccer team, coach 
freed from cave after daring rescue, Navy says 
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{ foxnews.com } ~ The dramatic three-day rescue of a Thai youth soccer team that had been stuck in a flooded cave came to an end Tuesday... when the last boy and the team's coach were plucked from the underground cavern -- more than two weeks after they became trapped, Navy officials said. The Thai Navy SEALS said on Facebook all 12 boys from the team and the team's coach were out of the cave. Four rescuers, a doctor and three Navy SEALS remained inside until coming out of the cave two hours later. "All 12 Wild Boars and coach have been extracted from the cave. Hooyah!" the post said. The Navy SEALS later wrote: "We are not sure if this is a miracle, a science, or what. All the thirteen Wild Boars are now out of the cave."...
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We Should Be Very Skeptical of This Jim Jordan Witch Hunt

{ patriotnewsdaily.com } ~ Other than perhaps Devin Nunes and Mark Meadows, we can think of very few Capitol Hill Republicans that dummycrats-Democrats would love to take down more than Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan... Jordan, a card-carrying member of the conservative Freedom Caucus, has been an ardent supporter of the president and a fierce critic of the Robert Mueller investigation. Together with Nunes and other patriots in the House, Jordan has been instrumental in shedding a light on the many misdeeds of the liar-nObama-era Justice Department, thus making it ever more difficult to the dummycrats-Democrats to pull off their legal coup against Donald J. Trump. We’re apparently supposed to take it as coincidence that he just happens to suddenly be facing multiple accusations that he stood by and allowed student wrestlers to be sexually assaulted while working as an assistant coach at Ohio State University. Hmm. For the record, we’re not saying that we flat-out don’t believe the accusations to be true. Perhaps they are. And if they are, then Jordan will have to face the political and, perhaps, legal consequences for whatever his role was in allowing this abuse to go on. We have no problem with that; we’re not in the business of protecting those who protect molesters – not by a long shot. But we are skeptical. Damn skeptical....
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Framing Creation
by Tom McLaughlin
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Smarts Hill
{ tommclaughlin.blogspot.com } ~ It bothers me some that I’ve become attached to an inanimate object: my new camera. Realizing I had left it at our Lovell house and had to do without it a few days, I became mildly depressed. We were heading to Connecticut for my nephew’s wedding and I had to take along my backup camera, a Nikon D7100, which I leave in our South Portland house for just such an emergency. Only last April it had been my main camera and constant companion and my older D60 was the backup. When the new D850 finally arrived after months of waiting, I was infatuated and the D7100 felt like an old girlfriend.
 
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Ram Island Light
The older camera had rendered me thousands of great images over five years. It was always within reach, and with its 24.1 megapixel capability I could enlarge images with little blurring if I didn’t crop them too much. Colors were good, automatic focus worked well, and I have several lenses for it. When Nikon introduced the D850 last September — a full-frame DSLR for half the price of Nikon’s flagship D5, and with equivalent capabilities, I had to have it. It’s biggest advantage is that it shoots at a remarkable 45 megapixels. It’s also very fast, has great dynamic range, and enormous versatility in low light.
 
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There are drawbacks though. Because it’s a full-frame camera, I can’t use my older Nikon DX lenses. Well, I could actually, but they would diminish the D850’s capabilities so what would be the point? I had to invest in a new 28-300 millimeter FX zoom lens for another $1000. However, 28 millimeters isn’t quite wide enough for many shots I want to get. I miss the wide-angle function on the 18-270 I used for nearly ten years with my two earlier cameras.
 
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Diving Loon
 
My very first camera was a red plastic box I got for Christmas around 1960. It used 620 film and flashbulbs. I can still remember how they smelled after going off — a scent I’ll never detect again I don’t think flashbulbs are manufactured anymore. I shot off several rolls but they sat in a kitchen cabinet for a long time before being developed, because I didn’t have the money. Processing was expensive. There wasn’t much I could do to frame a shot with that old box, either. I could walk around my subject. I could get up high or down low, but those were the only options.
 
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In the late sixties I worked after school in the camera department of an old King’s Department Store in Tewksbury, Massachusetts where a Demoulas Supermarket now exists. When it wasn’t too busy I would take a 35 mm Minolta SRT-101 out of the display case and admire its workmanship. It was a top-of-the-line camera in those days but at $199.99 it was way out of my reach. For our first Christmas in 1971 however, my wife, Roseann, gifted me with one. That was forty-six years ago and I still have it. Although I haven’t shot with it for perhaps fifteen years and may never again, I do take it out once in a while just to admire its fine tolerances.
 
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In the 5th verse in the Gospel of John he says: “God is light.” The late psychiatrist Scott Peck said once: “Sometimes I think God really IS light,” and I believe he was correct. That’s not all God is of course, but He does illuminate His creation. Without light we see nothing. Some say a camera is a tool for capturing light, but I see it as a way of capturing the play of light on the things He willed into existence, including my loved ones and the world in which we live. Everywhere I go, I’m thinking of how to frame some portion of what I’m seeing around me through a lens. My imagined frame might be a few inches across, a few feet, a few yards, or several miles.
 
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Bug Light
That manner of seeing is especially acute just before and after sunrise, then again just before and after sunset. If there are clouds or mist to filter and reflect light at those times, I feel like I’m in heaven. Living on the side of a west-facing hill in Lovell gives me more opportunities at twilight, especially after a summer thunderstorm. In South Portland, there are several places within a five or ten-minute drive where I can watch the sun before and after it clears the Atlantic horizon before breakfast.
 
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Other mornings I’m at Kezar Lake in Lovell when it’s mirror-like and misty. While checking the properties I care for and it’s not unusual for loons to surface only a few yards from where I’m standing. Perhaps they sense the veneration lake dwellers hold for them because they’re unafraid as I snap frame after frame.
 
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Perhaps I’m so attached to that camera because it encourages me to notice beauty all around me I might otherwise miss.

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Comments

  • Bonnie

    I strongly support Jim Jordan and the garbage that is hitting him is totally wrong and should stop. Rosenstein will continue to abuse his post continuing to be corrupt in not turning over the documents. He gives the impression that he is covering up, hiding something and he knows this.

  • they would like nothing more than to get rid of jim jordan yet it is a fact that rosenstein is not turning over the docs to congress as is their congressional oversight and when they ask he is supposed to do it 

    rosenstein sees himself as i am not sure what but he is surely abusing his post.  

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