Black & White Photo color photo
Saturday, April 23, 2011
More U.S. Soldiers Killed Themselves Than Died in Combat in 2010
For the second year in a row, more American soldiers—both enlisted men and women and veterans—committed suicide than were killed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Excluding accidents and illness, 462 soldiers died in combat, while 468 committed suicide. A difference of six isn't vast by any means, but the symbolism is significant and troubling. In 2009, there were 381 suicides by military personnel, a number that also exceeded the number of combat deaths.
"If you think you know the one thing that causes people to commit suicide, please let us know,” Army Vice Chief of Staff General Peter Chiarelli told the Army Times, "because we don't know what it is." Story Here
Check out this amazing time lapse video of Milky Way
Terje Sorgjerd, the photographer behind the viral video The Aurora, has done it again. Sogjerd captures the Milky Way over El Teide, Spain’s highest mountain.
Filmed between April 4 and April 11, 2011, the individual frames were shot using a Canon 5D Mark II with a Canon 17mm TSE, Canon 16-35mm II, Canon 24/1.4II, and Sigma 12-24mm.
GO HERE TO SEE VIDEO Image via Vimeo screengrab
A poem by Ogen Nash…
The centipede was happy quite
Until a toad, in fun,
Said, "Pray, which leg goes after which When you begin to run?
That worked her mind to such a pitch,
She lay distracted in a ditch,
Considering how to run.
15 Bizarre Mental Delusions other than the ‘Birthers!’
When you are delusional, you lose the ability to distinguish reality from fantasy. You know, like the “Birthers” right now. Sufferers stumble through life, constricted by pseudo-worlds of their own making. Although the term was first coined in 1977, symptoms of delusion have been recorded for over 150 years.
1. Capgras Delusion
In the heat of an argument it’s normal to want to disown your parents or kids, but for the sufferer of Capgras delusions that feeling never goes away. It’s commonly caused when the “wire” that connects the visual section of the brain to the emotional section is damaged. As a result, the sufferer sees their loved ones but no emotional response is triggered; they truly believe that the person in front of them is nothing more than an imposter.
Read about the other fourteen mental delusions here.
'Birther' claims force GOP leaders to take a stand – fact or fiction?
It's the conspiracy theory that won't go away. And it's forcing Republican officials and presidential contenders to pick sides: Do they think Barack Obama was born outside the United States and disqualified to be president? Story Here
Donald Duck Trump is talking like a presidential candidate and is actually leading top Republicans like Mitt Romney and former Gov. Mike Huckabee in the polls. OMG!
I think the Republican Party better get their collective heads out of their asses and ignore the “Birther” mania coming from the extremists. If they want to maintain any credibility in the upcoming 2012 elections they should cut the ties with the wackaloons who ignore facts and reality. Some Republicans frontrunners are admitting they know the president was born in Hawaii. Even Tea Party favorite, Michele Bachmann, grudgingly let go of the myth on TV recently:
“When ABC's George Stephanopoulos showed a copy of Obama's birth certificate to Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, who was ambivalent at first, she said: "Well, then, that should settle it. ... I take the president at his word."
But that’s not going to stop those who simply hate Obama. The Republican Party is at a crossroads of credibility with the American public. Those who rise to the top and become viable contenders will have to cut ties to the vicious myths surrounding the president’s birthplace, unless they want to alienate Independent voters who don’t play the “Birther” game.
Meanwhile, oh what a circus this is shaping up to be! When you have clowns like “The Donald” in the main ring it’s going to be a show to remember.
As It Stands, I recommend not sitting in the front row when the fun starts because there will be much fecal matter being thrown about during that three-ring performance.
Guest Opinion: Class Warfarin: Dosage
Why Americans are not upset by the steady siphoning of wealth from the many to the very few is a question that confounds, more confounding than probing into America's love affair with the automobile because class and conflict are words, like Lord Voldemort, that cannot be uttered. Unfortunately, we are gladly feasting on what makes this silence possible.
by Joseph Natoli
“It’s crazy, but when I hear talk of “class warfare” in these Obama days we are in, I think of the rat poison Warfarin and the insidious way it kills.
Warfarin, according to our Delphic Oracle – Wikipedia – is the most widely prescribed anticoagulant drug in North America. Some thirty five years ago, I used it on my Oxley Holl’er West Virginia farm to poison a swarm of rats that had settled under the house for the winter. It’s got some persuasive talking points: one, the rats don’t eat it, croak and rot in place – under the house – but feed on it for days, wander away from the house seeking water, drink and die, and two, wise and closely observing rats can’t connect eating the poison and eventual death. They go on munching away while observing in the distance the death throes of their buddies. Maybe the expression “die like a rat” in some kind of loathsome, dark and mysterious way derives from this.” Story Here
The idea of class struggle and class conflict is foreign to American culture. We are all brought up to think we are one big, happy family.
—Howard Zinn
Every violent reform deserves censure, for it quite fails to remedy evil while men remain what they are, and also because wisdom needs no violence.
—Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
If you think you’re free, there’s no escape possible.
-Ram Dass
Friday, April 22, 2011
Kobe and Pau = KaPow! Lakers swat Hornets 100-86, take series lead
Bynum continued to be a big factor, scoring 14 points and pulling down 11 rebounds. Kobe was Kobe and scored 30 points. That’s the 80th playoff game he’s done that in now. Wow! Only one other player in NBA history exceeds that number. Can you guess who? I’ll give the answer tomorrow with a short update on this post.
Go Lakers!
(4/23) The answer to the question is: Michael Jordan (who else?)
Ira Einhorn: Earth Day co-founder killed, composted girlfriend
Ira Einhorn was on stage hosting the first Earth Day event at the Fairmount Park in Philadelphia on April 22, 1970. Seven years later, police raided his closet and found the "composted" body of his ex-girlfriend inside a trunk.
A self-proclaimed environmental activist, Einhorn made a name for himself among ecological groups during the 1960s and '70s by taking on the role of a tie-dye-wearing ecological guru and Philadelphia’s head hippie. With his long beard and gap-toothed smile, Einhorn — who nicknamed himself "Unicorn" because his German-Jewish last name translates to "one horn" —advocated flower power, peace and free love to his fellow students at the University of Pennsylvania. He also claimed to have helped found Earth Day. Story Here
Austrians hail a 'fairy-tale find' of medieval riches
A man turning dirt in his backyard stumbled onto buried treasure — hundreds of pieces of centuries-old jewelry and other precious objects that Austrian authorities described Friday as a fairy-tale find.
Austria's department in charge of national antiquities said the trove consists of more than 200 rings, brooches, ornate belt buckles, gold-plated silver plates and other pieces or fragments, many encrusted with pearls, fossilized coral and other ornaments. It said the objects are about 650 years old and are being evaluated for their provenance and worth. Story Here
Gold at all time high: Fear, uncertainty driving gold rush
Uncertainty about the economy's strength, fears about rising prices, worries over global instability. Investors are facing an onslaught of headlines, from inflation to turmoil in North Africa, that is driving them into the arms of gold.
The precious metal blew past $1,500 an ounce this week to record levels in dollar terms, rising for six straight sessions. The precious metal is still trading below its inflation-adjusted peak of about $2,200 an ounce, however.
There are no guarantees that gold prices will keep rising from historic levels. For now, though, just about all the forces that have traditionally pushed gold prices higher are in place. Story Here
I knew others felt the way I do about the upcoming Royal Wedding…
Dreading the Wedding by the Headlines…
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Float through a gallery of Zeppelins from their golden age of travel
New Graphene Material is Paper-Thin and Ten Times Stronger Than Steel
You know, of course, that this must be alien technology which we have just recently cracked.
Area 51…X-Files…have all hinted at it and now...
Researchers at the University of Technology Sydney have created a new material that is lighter, less dense, harder, and stronger than steel. But this material isn’t one of those breakthroughs that only sounds good on paper. It is paper, and it could be a game-changer for materials science if it can live up to researchers’ hopes.
[ Read Full Story ] Via
The Man Who Leaves Roses on Edgar Allan Poe's Grave Every Year Has Disappeared
One of the best pieces of arcana of American letters is the man known as the "Poe Toaster." Every year on January 19 (Edgar Allan Poe's birthday), the toaster appears in the Baltimore graveyard where the author is buried and leaves a half-empty bottle of cognac and four roses. No one knows his identity or his motives. Last year, for the first time in 60 years, the mysterious man did not show up. Last night, he failed to show up again, leaving many to think that the tradition is now over.
Poe is one of my favorite American authors, and when I was in high school I memorized every verse of “The Raven.” I probably could still rattle off at least half of it…Once upon a midnight dreary…
'Weird Al' Yankovic gets permission to 'perform this way' after Lady Gaga dustup
Ooh, don’t worry, I’m okay…Hey, I just perform this way…
Lady Gaga has a sense of humor after all. That’s nice to know because I’m a huge Weird Al fan…
On Wednesday Pop & Hiss, the LA Times’s Music blog… reported that Lady Gaga denied permission for parodist "Weird Al" Yankovic to satirize her anthem, "Born This Way," according to a lengthy post on his blog.
Dubbed "I Perform This Way," the man who turned Michael Jackson's "Beat It" into the gluttonous ode "Eat It" -- among dozens of others -- planned on poking fun at all things Gaga and donating sales from the video and song to the Human Rights Campaign.
But before Weird Al fans got ready to picket the Queen of the Monsters, it turned out her manager was responsible for nixing the song, without sending it to Gaga first. Yankovic didn't actually need Gaga's permission, but he extends the mutually beneficial proposition as a courtesy -- his parodies have always fallen under "fair use" in matters of copyright law.
Yankovic wrote in an updated post that Gaga's manager apologized -- and that Gaga loves the cover.
Royal Maddness: Would you pay $800 for a friggin Jellybean?
All I can say is Barnum and Bailey would have been proud of this royal circus wedding!
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Lakers even Series 1-1 – Bynum comes up big, Kobe sucks
Especially Lamar Odom who was just named 6th Man Of The Year by the NBA. A well deserved honor for a guy who has been a key for the Lakers during the last two championships.
Kobe was practically non existent. He made a lot of bad plays, and had his lowest playoff scoring game since…I can’t remember when! His defense on the Hornet’s Chris Paul was his only saving grace. He did make it tough for the New Orleans speedster.
Go Lakers!
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