Slide Show

To warm your heart in February, Dierk Haasis presents his latest gallery of photographs -- wide-ranging in theme and subject, many taken under the ever-changing skies of Hamburg. See if you can spot the airplane high in the blue, as that image floats by.

Sintra

"The most beautiful village in the world." That was Byron's comment on this little Portuguese town. I found the exact quote in Wikipedia this morning, the words he wrote to his friend Francis Hodgson in 1809:

I must just observe that the village of Cintra in Estremadura is the most beautiful in the world.

I am indebted to Cristina, a pen pal and a teacher of English, who lives in Lisbon, for reminding me of what Byron said. He is one of my favorite Romantic poets, and it's evident that she knows him well, also. When I told her I'd found the Wikipedia article, with a photo of the historic center of Sintra, she sent me a link to Google's gallery -- page upon page of wonderful views of the town's delightful architecture.

State of the Union

The administration lost no time in displaying its power and demonstrating that neither the SOPA nor the PIPA bill's provisions were needed in order to exercise that power, when it seized Megaupload. Glenn Greenwald's post at Salon on this is well worth reading.