Kyūdō: 弓道 is the Japanese style of Archery.

Via Ratak Monodosico.

This photo actually comes from a 1975 Warn winch ad and is believed to have been taken on the Black Bear Road near Telluride, Colorado. There are some really scary roads out West.

Via Fred Lapides.

Pasilobus sp.

HuffPo, last August, linked a slideshow of macro photos of unusual spiders described as taken in the neighborhood of Singapore by Nicky Bay.

Nicky Bay blog

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Oddly enough, the same photograph appears in two version, 1 and 2, on the web attributed to Melvyn Yeo, who also specializes in macro photography in Singapore.

Who is plagiarizing whom?

Old Picture of the Day says:

Today’s picture is from 1937, and it shows a White House police officer. This was after a shooting competition, and this officer had the top score. I am surprised however that in 1937 the officers would not be carrying more significant fire power . . . like maybe a Colt 1911 or a Tommy Gun.

Back in the old days, police officers could shoot and a six shot .38 Special revolver was thought perfectly adequate, even for defending the president.

Remember the 1950 attempt to assassinate Harry Truman by Puerto Rican terrorosts?

[Griselio] Torresola had approached a guard booth at the west corner and took White House police officer Leslie Coffelt by surprise, shooting at him four times from close range and mortally wounding him with a 9mm German Luger. Three of those shots struck Coffelt in the chest and abdomen, and the fourth went through his tunic.

Torresola shot police officer Joseph Downs in the hip, before he could draw his weapon. As Downs turned toward the house, Torresola shot him in the back and in the neck. Downs got into the basement and secured the door, denying Torresola entry into the Blair House.

Torresola turned his attention to the shoot-out between his partner Collazo and several other police officers. He shot officer Donald Birdzell in the left knee.

Birdzell could no longer stand and was effectively incapacitated (he would later recover).

Torresola stood to the left of the Blair House steps to reload. President Truman had awakened from a nap to the sound of gunfire and looked outside his second floor window. Torresola was 31 feet (9.4 m) away from Truman’s window.

At that same moment, Coffelt left the guard booth, propped against it, and fired his .38-caliber service revolver at Torresola, about 30 feet (10 m) away. Coffelt hit Torresola two inches above the ear, killing him instantly. Taken to the hospital, Coffelt died four hours later.

Via Ratak Monodosico.

Not really a new species, this is merely a cane toad trying to eat a bat. He is destined to fail as the LA Times reports.

Via Ratak Monodosico.

Furry photos at the Telegraph.

Via Madame Scherzo.

Slate has a feature on the elegaic architectural photography of Ben Marcin who has made recording portraits of solitary surviving row houses in Baltimore into a personal métier.

According to an article in the Baltimore Sun, there are roughly 16,000 vacant homes in Baltimore that the city plans to restore or destroy to replace with green spaces and housing redevelopment over the next 10 years. Many of the homes to be torn down are row homes, built in the late 1800s.

Photographer Ben Marcin lives in a Baltimore row house with his wife, Lynn. Several years ago, Marcin, a self-taught photographer who bought his first camera at 27, began noticing lone row houses in the blighted sections of the city. “For me it was a fascinating sight: a solitary structure, well over 100 years old, sometimes 40 feet tall and less than 20 feet wide,” he wrote via email. “An amputee shorn of its former neighbors, yet still retaining architectural details and other touches, proclaiming the heights of an earlier era.”

Marcin began photographing the individual homes during his visits to the desolate neighborhoods. He edited them into a series he calls “Last House Standing.” Many of the homes in the series are still occupied, though the city of Baltimore plans on using eminent domain to demolish largely vacant blocks.

Hat tip to Fred Lapides.

Fourteen old photos.

Hat tip to Fred Lapides.