Window to the World, calling for Wind of Wisdom,
as common sense is a gift to each soul,
as common environment is the inseparable planet,
as common desire is to live in a better world.
Mysterious giant Lego man washes ashore bearing cryptic message - 2007: Netherlands; 2008: England; 2011: US (Florida)



Dutch Lego man, 2007: stood in front of the drinks stall for kids to play with; UK Lego man, 2008: stayed on Brighton Beach for beach-goers to enjoy; US Lego man, 2011: taken into police custody, to stay in jail for 90 days.
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Lifesize Lego Man washes up on Florida beach, taken into police custody
[Oct 27 2011] - Police in southern Florida are scratching their heads over a life-sized Lego man bearing a cryptic slogan that washed up on the beach.
The 8-foot-tall red, yellow and green Lego man was discovered Tuesday on Sarasota's Siesta Key Beach. "It doesn't make sense," said Jeff Hindman, who found the eight-foot-tall, 100-pound fiberglass figure during his morning walk, according to the Herald Tribune.
Hindman said he initially thought the Lego man was beached marine life, but when he dragged the statue out of the water and stood him up, Hindman discovered the ominous message "NO REAL THAN YOU ARE" across the front of the Lego shirt. The figure's back reads "EGO LEONARD" and has the number eight. read more »
William Wordsworth: That nature yet remembers /What was so fugitive!../Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake,/To perish never
O joy! that in our embers
Is something that doth live,
That nature yet remembers
What was so fugitive!
The thought of our past years in me doth breed
Perpetual benediction: not indeed
For that which is most worthy to be blest—
Delight and liberty, the simple creed
Of childhood, whether busy or at rest,
With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast:—
Not for these I raise
The song of thanks and praise;
But for those obstinate questionings
Of sense and outward things,
Fallings from us, vanishings;
Blank misgivings of a Creature
Moving about in worlds not realized,
High instincts before which our mortal Nature
Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised:
But for those first affections,
Those shadowy recollections,
Which, be they what they may,
Are yet the fountain-light of all our day,
Are yet a master-light of all our seeing;
Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake,
To perish never:
Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour,
Nor Man nor Boy,
Nor all that is at enmity with joy,
Can utterly abolish or destroy!
Hence in a season of calm weather
Though inland far we be,
Our souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither,
Can in a moment travel thither,
And see the children sport upon the shore,
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.
- William Wordsworth
Save Ocean, save Earth. UK: no whale meat; Germany: honor Ric O'Barry for dolphins; EU: label oil/ tar sands as carbon-intensive



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Do not bring whale meat home from Iceland, British tourists told - Whale meat on sale at Keflavik airport prompts the Foreign Office to issue a warning to Britons at risk of breaching international law
Up to 70,000 Britons who visit Iceland each year have been given a stiff warning by the Foreign Office not to bring home any whale meat, saying to do so is in breach of international law protecting endangered species.
Penalties of imprisonment or fines up to £5,000 could be meted out by the courts, says the Foreign Office, because importation into Britain and other EU countries is illegal under the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species (Cites). read more »
2011-11-11 remembers end of WWI at 11th hour on 11th day of 11th month of 1918, left 9 million soldiers dead, 21 million wounded



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By the end of autumn 1918, the alliance of the Central Powers was unraveling in its war effort against the better supplied and coordinated Allied powers. Facing exhausted resources on the battlefield, turmoil on the home front and the surrender of its weaker allies, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire, Germany was finally forced to seek an armistice with the Allies in the early days of November 1918. On November 7, the German chancellor, Prince Max von Baden, sent delegates to Compiegne, France, to negotiate the agreement; it was signed at 5:10 a.m. on the morning of November 11. read more »
First space dockings: US Gemini 8, March 16, 1966; Russia Cosmos 186, Oct. 30, 1967; China Shenzhou 8, Nov. 4, 2011



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[2 November 2011] The unmanned Shenzhou 8 craft, launched earlier this week, made contact with the Tiangong-1 space lab at 1729 GMT. The union occurred over China itself.
Being able to dock two space vehicles together is a necessary capability for China if it wants to start building a space station towards the decade's end.
Although no astronauts were in the Shenzhou craft this time, future missions will carry people.
Tuesday's procedure (Beijing time 0029, Thursday) took place at an altitude of about 340km. It was automated but overseen on the ground at the Beijing Aerospace Flight Control Centre. read more »
CIWEM Environmental Photo of the Year 2011 Winner: two children living on very edge of survival, searching through junkyard

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This powerful image of two vulnerable children living on what seems like the very edge of survival has won Chan Kwok Hung from Hong Kong the title of Environmental Photographer of the Year 2011.
The photographer says: "The photo was taken in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal and is of two children who lived nearby to the junkyard with their grandmother. Every day they searched the junkyard for something useful that they can resell for money so they can buy food. If they don't find anything their grandmother blamed them seriously. Unfortunately, they had found nothing for a few days, the little boy felt very hungry. I gave them some money and a biscuit after taking this photo. But who knows who will help them afterwards."
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Photo Gallery: CIWEM Environmental Photographer of the Year 2011 award winners
Photos courtesy Chan Kwok Hung / EPOTY.ORG / Barcroft Media





















