Before marriage and after marriage

Online Optical Illusion: The Hidden Tiger

By Boomeryearbook

Do you believe the statement “The first impression is the last impression” is true? Think again. There are various online optical illusions that will prove this quote wrong. When individuals look at an image, they try to perceive it in relationship to something that is most closely related to something they have experienced before. Psychological articles tell us that banking on this nature, creators of online optical illusions have created various illusions to play trick on the viewers.

The ‘The Hidden Tiger’ is one of those online optical illusions that tricks the human eye based on the way the human organizes visual sensory input.

What is your first impression of this online optical illusion? Your first impression may be that it is a picture of a tiger in the woods. You will also see the trees and the grasses. This is where our first impression can prove to be deceptive or incomplete.

Take another look. Do you see anything else? To be more precise, do you see ‘The Hidden Tiger’ in this online optical illusion? Take a closer look and try to find ‘The Hidden Tiger.’

If you still cannot find ‘The Hidden Tiger’, look closely at the tiger’s stripes. Can you now see the ‘The Hidden Tiger’ in this online optical illusion? Most probably yes. Are you wondering how you missed it in the first trial? Well, you are far from alone and there is nothing to worry about. The majority of people looking at this online optical illusion tend to see the “whole” of the big tiger, not the hidden tiger as the way we perceive something is based on matching the perception of the new stimuli and generalizing it to something familiar of which we have stored prior knowledge.

Taking a first look at this online optical illusion of ‘The Hidden Tiger’ demonstrates that first impressions are seldom true; they are more accurately based on past perceptions and not just current stimuli. Thus the human brain’s way of generalizing sensory information provides the source of online optical illusion tricks, and encourages us to take a closer look at what we see in the world around us.

So, after “reframing” how you look at this online optical illusion, do you still believe the statement “The first impression is the last impression” is true? We at Boomer Yearbook would love to encourage you to look again.

image via Google Images

20 Strange and Mysterious Medical Syndromes

Doctors have come across some baffling day-to-day ailments, but few conditions are as strange as these 20 disorders, which range from biological to psychological to cultural in nature.

Foreign Accent Syndrome
Foreign accent syndrome (FAS) is a speech disorder that causes sudden changes in speech pattern, intonation and pronunciation so that the victim is perceived to speak with a "foreign" accent. FAS usually results from severe trauma to the brain, such as a stroke or head injury, and typically develops within one or two years of the injury. Of the 50 to 60 cases that have been verified since 1941, only a few FAS sufferers regained their normal speech pattern, although some experienced success through speech therapy.

900 Boxes of Coffee Laced With Viagra Seized

It's been a strange day for me so this interesting little story seems to fit...

Malaysian authorities have confiscated 900 boxes of coffee laced with Viagra, a newspaper report said Sunday.

Health Ministry officials raided a company in Kuala Lumpur that marketed the coffee as an energy booster, The New Straits Times said. The report did not say whether the package labeled Viagra as an ingredient.

Sunday's report said the 900 confiscated boxes containing some 9,000 coffee packets were worth more than 72,000 ringgit ($20,000). Some of the Viagra-laced coffee had been distributed nationwide, it said.

Click here to read the rest at NBC Washington

Why the State Sovereignty and Secession Movements? The Feds Are Selling Us Into Servitude

by Brian Roberts

Washington is selling servitude.

• We watched as they destroyed the financial sector by forcing banks to give loans to people that could not afford them… then they stepped in to “save the day” by gaining direct control of our financial sector.
• We watched as they destroyed a once powerful automotive industry through excessive regulation and labor union control… then they stepped in to “save the day” by gaining direct control of our automotive industry.
• We listened as they verbally assaulted capitalism when government regulations were to blame.
• We watched as they asked the American people to fund a $1 trillion dollar stimulus bill, they yelled emergency as they slipped cash from our children’s pockets to their political allies.
• We watched, as they worked to destroy the rule of law by arbitrarily dictating revised terms to legal contracts and installing a Supreme Court justice that promotes social justice over rule-of-law.
• We know, they intend to control our children, it’s written in the GIVE Act.
• We know, they intend to control our resources, it’s written in the Cap and Trade Bill.
• We know, they intend control of our very lives, it’s written in the Health Care Bill.
• We know, they intend to control our votes, the 2010 census is now controlled by the white house and the ones registering voters are corrupt
• We watch and wait as they install unaccountable czars for dictating not representing
• We watch and wait as they increase “organizer” funding from millions to billions of our tax dollars. And we wonder how these groups will be used to steal our life, liberty and property from us.

The fifth sentence of the Declaration of Independence states, “But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

A movement based on the 10th amendment is undeniably lawful and moral.
Click here to read the rest at LewRockwell

Meet Samsam the Bubbleman!

How does one go about becoming world famous for bubbles?
Just ask Samsam Bubbleman (aka Sam Heath) who started his love affair with them almost 20 years ago, in 1989.

It all started with just a single bubble," he said. "I was sitting in a field and a bubble just floated past. I took the word away from the object and just looked at it for what it was. I captured my imagination and I just thought what an amazing thing that was. It's like one of those anomalies of nature that just shouldn't exist."

Samsam Bubbleman now earns a living doing what he loves best. He eventually formed a company called Bubble Inc and now sells mixtures, equipment, clothing (bubble tights?) and performs shows for large audiences.

Photo & text via The Telegraph

The Afghan Crop Currency

The U.S. sent agents to help shut down Afghanistan's opium industry--the business that funds Taliban operations and provides the world's major opium supply. But how can the U.S. win this war?
Click here to see a video on Newsy about what the U.S. is doing in Afghanistan, and the challenges we face if we eradicate their opium crops. It's a Catch 22 if I ever saw one.

Listen to some famous radio broadcasts

Check out these voices from this historical archive
(Example links below)
Listen to some of the most famous speeches and broadcasts of the yesteryear.
Japan Surrenders
Hiroshima News Bulletin
Eleanor Roosevelt
Hitler Opens The Olympics
Click here to hear the rest at Old Radio World

Learn more about how the British live

This is Britain.

We live here. We are called the British people. Find out all about us and the way we live!

This is a guide to Britain written for Americans who may be planning a visit here. Use this guide to help you become familar with the many complex, sometimes strange customs of the British People.

Click here to find a guide to British language, culture and customs which will help to know the people better.

Someday I hope to visit England as that's where my roots are. The Stancliff's have lived in America for nine generations, going back to William Stanclift. Before that we were stonecutters in Yorkshire and other areas.

President Obama faces 30 death threats a day, stretching US Secret Service

President Obama is the target of more than 30 potential death threats a day and is being protected by an increasingly over-stretched and under-resourced Secret Service, according to a new book.

By Toby Harnden in Washington

Since President Obama took office, the rate of threats against the president has increased 400 per cent from the 3,000 a year or so under President George W. Bush, according to Ronald Kessler, author of "In the President's Secret Service."

Some threats to Obama, whose Secret Service codename is Renegade, have been publicized, including an alleged plot by white supremacists in Tennessee late last year to rob a gun store, shoot 88 black people, decapitate another 14 and then assassinate the first black president in American history.

Click here to read the rest at The Telegraph

One in 200 men alive today is a relative of Genghis Khan

An international team of geneticists have found an astonishing statistic; one in every 200 men alive today is a relative of Genghis Khan. These men have the same male Y chromosome as the great warlord Genghis Khan.
Genghis Khan conquered many countries during his reign (between 1162 and 1227) and in this campaign he captured many beautiful women and fathered many children on the way. According to on Persian historian, that within a century of Khan’s birth and his extravagant mating habits had resulted in more than 20,000 children. And now his descendants make about 8% of the men in Central Asia after a genetic study of these men.

Click here to read the rest at Digital Journal

Pete the Pug gets an early start on being a booze hound!

Photo via Imgur

Pollution free cars are coming soon

We are now entering the era of pollution free driving. Car maker Nissan has unveiled the world's first affordable zero-emission car. The car can be easily charged from home (like your cell phone) and will have a range of 100 miles after it is juiced up. Nissan has not announced the cost of this vehicle yet, but they state it will be "competitively priced." The car will be launched late 2010 in Japan, the USA, and Europe.
Last year I wrote a column about another pollution free car "Vehicles that run on air are ready" that got a great reader response. I can't help wondering what happened to "Zero Pollution Motors (ZPM) who had plans to release a new car in America this year.

Blogs that picked up today's column: 'Hot dogs under fire: Study slams an American icon

Check out "Bump's Guide" and you'll find all hot dog related issues and news, and today's column.

See today's column at the American Cancer Society News Circle (look under Recent Hot Dog News)

Read today's column in the Op Ed section of the North Coast Blogthing

Thanks!

Hot dogs under fire: Study slams an American icon

By Dave Stancliff/For the Times-Standard

Posted: 08/02/2009 01:15:16 AM PDT

A $4 billion industry and a piece of Americana are under fire from the American Institute for Cancer Research.

The group filed a lawsuit in a New Jersey Superior Court in Newark against three New Jersey firms on July 22, asserting that hot dogs are hazardous to your health and should carry warning labels on the packages.

Click here to read the rest in The Times-Standard

Amelia Earhart Mystery Solved? 'Investigation Junkies' to Launch New Expedition

DNA Evidence on a Remote Island May Reveal the Truth About Earhart's Disappearance

By CHRISTINA CARON
It has been 72 years since famed aviator Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared while attempting to fly around the world. But the mystery remains unsolved: Nobody knows exactly what happened to Earhart or her plane.

Now researchers at the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, or Tighar, say they are on the verge of recovering DNA evidence that would demonstrate Earhart had been stranded on Nikumaroro Island (formerly known as Gardner Island) before finally perishing there.

During May and June of next year, Tighar will launch a new $500,000 expedition, continuing the archaeological work it has been doing on the island since 2001.

"We think we will be able to come back with DNA," said Tighar's Executive Director Ric Gillespie, who is working with two DNA labs in Ontario, Canada, Genesis Genomics and Molecular World. "We were out there in 2007 under the impression that in order to extract DNA we would need to find a piece of a human, and we didn't find anything like that. But we did find what's best described as personal effects of the castaway that died there."

Photo and story via ABC News online

Pen pals: Giraffe and goat form unlikely friendship when kept in same enclosure

They'll always have a very different outlook on life.

But even though Gerald the giraffe is rather lofty and Eddie the goat is more down to earth, they are the perfect pairing.

They have formed an unlikely bond after Eddie was placed with 15ft Gerald as a short-term solution to keep the giraffe company at Noah's Ark Zoo Farm in Bristol.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1203459/Pen-pals-Giraffe-goat-form-unlikely-friendship-kept-enclosure.html#ixzz0MxBM5QNG

Republican moms for marijuana: 'Time to legalize is now'

It will take conservatives and women to help turn tide against pot prohibition

By Jessica Peck Corry, For the Colorado Daily

BOULDER, Colo. — As a Republican mother committed to legalizing marijuana, political life can be lonely. But while many in my party whisper about the Drug War's insanity, we should shout it from the rooftop: the time to legalize is now.

Calling for a new approach doesn't make me a pothead. In fact, while I freely admit to having previously smoked marijuana -- as do more than 95 million other Americans, including our last three presidents -- I choose not to be an active marijuana user today.

While opponents may argue that legalization is all about a bunch of twentysomethings wanting to get high, the debate deserves a more respectful and truthful analysis.

Take medical marijuana. On July 20, Colorado's Health Board voted down a proposal that would have effectively shuttered the medical marijuana dispensaries serving as crucial sources of legal marijuana across the state. As a result, courageous patients, including AIDS survivor Damien LaGoy, will not have to take to dangerous streets to obtain marijuana.

Instead, the state's nearly 10,000 patients can continue their existing relationships with dispensaries, many of who deliver to the homebound and hold extensive knowledge about the benefits and side effects of specific strains.

Click here to read the rest at the Colorado Daily.com

photo is of Jessica Peck Corry

Why Asians Are Good At Math, Finally, A Legit Theory

Whether you admit it or not, being raised in America, we all know the racial stereotypes that have traversed through our colorful history.

For Asian Americans, we are all good at math right? It’s a stereotype, but a good stereotype right? Despite my frequent ramblings, political correctness concerns me little. Instead, I am interested in the roots and explanations to social phenomenon that we humans, out of ignorance, simplify with racial stereotypes.

What do people really think about the Asians-good-at-math stereotype? Oh, I know, it’s because they’re smarter. Well, no, if we accept Asians are good at math because Asians are smarter, we fall into the same whirlpool of ignorance the Conquistadors used to justify their dominance over Meso-Americans or 19th century American slave owners who believed African slaves could only become civilized through hard work. Fortunately, Malcolm Gladwell’s most recent book, Outliers, has shed some light on the Asian math stereotype.

To continue reading click here at Chinese & Japanese

Massachusettes police chiefs legalize marijuana

By J.D. Tuccille
Civil Liberties Examiner

Police chiefs in towns like Auburn and Clinton, Massachusetts would undoubtedly deny that they have any interest in legalizing marijuana, but that's what they've effectively accomplished.

Bent out of shape by the details of Question 2, the decriminalization measure that voters passed in November, those law-enforcement officials have announced that they won't bother issuing tickets to people caught smoking marijuana.

The new law, in effect since January, replaces criminal penalties with a $100 fine for possession of less than an ounce of marijuana. The text of the law also forbids any repercussions whatsoever, from denial of student loans to inclusion in a criminal record to consideration during applications for status as an adoptive parent.

But in what is likely a clever sleight of hand by legalization advocates, the law, by pulling arrest off the table as an option, deprives police officers of any means to compel people caught with marijuana to show identification. Anybody willing to say "Donald Duck" to a cop who nabs him with a joint and asks for a name can escape even the $100 fine.

And that's a good thing.

Marijuana is now not only de facto legal in a few Massachusetts communities because police find the requirements of decriminalization too demanding, it is now effectively sanction-free in the entire state for anybody willing to face down a cop.

The added benefit is that the state will not be collecting much revenue from those fines. Anything that denies resources to the government is a good thing.

Governments never had the right to tell consenting adults what they can and can't buy from and sell to each other, or put into their own bodies. We're not quite at the point where politicians are willing to concede that point. But we're getting closer when police simply throw up their hands and effectively allow people to exercise their rights unmolested.

Article from the National Examiner