Geopolitical Journey, Part 8: Returning Home | STRATFOR - and remember the Pearl Harbor attack

Geopolitical Journey, Part 8: Returning Home | STRATFOR

===============
Maybe some Europeans disregard or dismiss now the importance of USA (who saved their asses more than once).
But I say that USA is also the dream of freedom for many (most?) people from around the world. Despite all the problems and mistakes.

Whoever "You" are: "Don't tread on me!"..."Don't mess with me!"..."Don't provoke me!"..."Don't [F] with me!"..."Don't attack me!"...Coz if you do, you'll have a rude(r) awakening, and you'll see that I [USA] can do much more than...mass-print "Wal-Mart dollars". :)

"Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto is portrayed at the very end of the 1970 film Tora! Tora! Tora!, and in the 2001 film Pearl Harbor, as saying after his attack on Pearl Harbor, "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."^[1] The supposed quotation was abbreviated in the film Pearl Harbor (2001), where it merely read, "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant."


"In The Reluctant Admiral, Hiroyuki Agawa, without a citation, does give a quotation from a reply by Admiral Yamamoto to Ogata Taketora on January 9, 1942, which is strikingly similar to the famous version: "A military man can scarcely pride himself on having 'smitten a sleeping enemy'; it is more a matter of shame, simply, for the one smitten. I would rather you made your appraisal after seeing what the enemy does, since it is certain that, angered and outraged, he will soon launch a determined counterattack.""
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isoroku_Yamamoto's_sleeping_giant_quote

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Pearl_Harbor

http://www.zazzle.com/thank_you_us_navy_postage-172842548723945705?rf=238693463283865848

Cool shades of blue: Great Smoky Mountains National Park - maximum card from USA

"The Great Smoky Mountains are a mountain range rising along the Tennessee-North Carolina border in the southeastern United States. They are a subrange of the Appalachian Mountains, and form part of the Blue Ridge Physiographic Province. The range is sometimes called the Smoky Mountains or the Smokey Mountains, and the name is commonly shortened to the Smokies. The Great Smokies are best known as the home of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which protects most of the range. The park was established in 1934, and, with over 9 million visits per year, it is the most-visited national park in the United States.^[1]

The Great Smokies are part of an International Biosphere Reserve. The range is home to an estimated 187,000 acres (760 km²) of old growth forest, constituting the largest such stand east of the Mississippi River.^[2][3] The cove hardwood forests in the range's lower elevations are among the most diverse ecosystems in North America, and the Southern Appalachian spruce-fir forest that coats the range's upper elevations is the largest of its kind.^[4] The Great Smokies are also home to the densest black bear population in the Eastern United States and the most diverse salamander population outside of the tropics.^[5]

Along with the Biosphere reserve, the Great Smokies have been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The U.S. National Park Service preserves and maintains 78 structures within the national park that were once part of the numerous small Appalachian communities scattered throughout the range's river valleys and coves. The park contains five historic districts and nine individual listings on the National Register of Historic Places.

The name "Smoky" comes from the natural fog that often hangs over the range and presents as large smoke plumes from a distance. This fog, which is most common in the morning and after rainfall, is the result of warm humid air from the Gulf of Mexico cooling rapidly in the higher elevations of Southern Appalachia.^[6]"

^{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smoky_Mountains}

==========================================

Please visit:  http://smilingsally.blogspot.com/

Geopolitical Journey, Part 7: Poland | STRATFOR - and a horse maximum card from Poland

Geopolitical Journey, Part 7: Poland | STRATFOR

I like very much not only WHAT George Friedman has to say, but HOW he says it.
"Le style c'est l'homme".
Meaningful and enjoyable reading! :)

========================================================

This is the only maximum card that I have, so far, from Poland. But there are so many more interesting Polish stamps, postmarks and postcards that could be used to create interesting  maxicards...:)

Is it the same breed of horse on the stamp and on the postcard? I don't know. Do you? Only an expert could say. Anyway, I like it as it is, even if there might be different breeds. What I wouldn't like, though, would be if the breeds are clearly VERY different - then it would look awkward. :)