See 15 of the Most Bizarre Beard and Mustache competitors

 

From Oddee this morning...

Every two years, the owners of the world's most elaborate facial hair come together for the World Beard and Moustache Championships. From 1990, the championships feature competition in a variety of categories that include everything from the delicate Dali moustache to the outrageous full beard freestyle. This facial-hair celebration is open to everyone and spectators are welcome. On 2007, Brighton (UK) hosted the championships, and the City of Anchorage (Alaska, USA) will host the next one on 2009.
Meet some of the craziest beards and mustaches we've found at the championships.

Click here to see the rest of the facial hair photos.

photos via Oddee

Memorial Day 2009: Who will you remember today?

By Dave Stancliff
Who will you remember on this Memorial Day?
Your Father? Your Mother? Son or daughter? Aunt or Uncle? Grandfather? Or perhaps a cousin? How many of you had family members die in the military service?
Do you remember their smiles? Or the way they became special to you? Their humor? Their dreams? Their loving embrace? The softness of their touch? Or, when they use to take you fishing? All gone now. Just ghosts wearing uniforms.
Memorial Day has been set aside as a national day to remember those who served our country and who are not with us now. They come from generations past when Great-great-grandfather Lucius died fighting in the Civil War, and when your uncle Roger died in the jungles of Southeast Asia.
Memories of loved ones fighting and dying during WW I and WWII. Family albums keep your veterans enshrined. The older photos brown with age and sepia tones give you a glimpse into your family’s history. Uncles with medals, that you will never know, smile uncertainly from beneath helmets.
How fresh is this day to you? Have you recently lost a son or daughter in Iraq or Afghanistan? Did your twin brother die in a place you cannot pronounce? Do you pull out that photo of your mother when she left for her second tour in Iraq and never came back on Memorial Day?
The veterans from WWI are nearly gone now. WW II and Korean veterans are not far behind. Vietnam veteran’s numbers decrease every day. Young men and women still die fighting wars they don’t understand. Their memories still fresh in the 6:00 o’clock news.
Drape American flags from your house in honor of those who died serving their country. Go to the cemeteries and leave little flags there. Have parades and let there be kind words said. Gather in honor of those in your family, and in the nation, who wore uniforms and are no longer here. Gather for those that still wear uniforms, and hold them dear.
Take a moment and remember those loved ones and strangers that died defending this country. They died with your family members and they all became one. We all have someone that was a veteran once, even if it was in generations past. We are all Americans.
We are all a family in the name of freedom. We all believe in our right to say whatever we will. We have fought wars to defend all the rights we hold dear today. So when we have a special day set aside to recall those veterans who are no longer here, we owe it to ourselves to support their memory in some way.
You don’t have to join a parade. You don’t have to do anything to show people you care. But hopefully somewhere in your heart you will wish them well. Hopefully, you will understand that they all died, either during service to their country or years later, as heros.
Don’t let fashionable protests against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan mar this Memorial Day. We gained our independence through their blood. We hold our freedoms today through their blood. Don’t judge them politically to pursue some negative agenda.
Let Memorial Day be a day of peace. Don’t play games with the dead. It’s a day to honor sacrifices. Don’t dirty their memories with your thoughtless words. Dust off that old photo of Grandfather in his funny saucer-like helmet and those leg wrappings.
Tell your son and daughter what a great guy he was. Smile and tell them a story. Make sure your grandson knows his dad was a good soldier and father. Keep the good memories alive. It’s a day when we recognize that freedom doesn’t come cheap. We honor those who paid the ultimate price without judging them. As a nation we honor their memory.
As It Stands, we owe our veterans much more than one day of recognition.

image via Google Images

As It Stands: Amazons, Ants, and the Battle of the Sexes

By Dave Stancliff

Once, a long time ago, there was a nation of women who were mighty warriors and didn’t need men.

They were reputed to have fought the men of Atlantis. These warriors were called Amazons and they disappeared many generations before the Trojan War. Still, their legend lives on into the 21st Century. 

  They worshiped the goddess Artemis, who was said to assume many forms. Today the image of the Amazons has morphed into a symbol for strong women bravely fighting breast cancer.

 Talk about change. I recently read an article titled “Rare All-Female Ant Society That Reproduces by Cloning Discovered” at the Impact Lab website. Now get this, there is (and I’m not making this up) a colony of Amazon ants, all female, who reproduce via cloning!

Click here for the rest of the column.

image via Aha! Jokes

Shock Jock Waterboarded. Now He Believes It’s Torture...

I just wish someone could get Cheney to lie down and get waterboarded! If it's not torture, then blood is not red. The Bush regime has resulted in worldwide attention to the fact that we were torturing people. Despite the Geneva Convention, Cheney and cohorts claim it kept the country safe and it was okay that they changed the rules. No one has ever proven torture works all the time. False confessions often come with pain. Think "witch hunts in Salem."

It's time we reclaim the high road and stop the practice of torture. It goes against most Americans ideals. There are many sophisticated drugs and things to get a person to talk without resorting to medieval torture. Yet Cheney defends it. I'll bet he's reincarnated from one of the torturers during the so-called Grand Inquisition in Europe!

From Donklephant ...

By Justin Gardner

Eric “Mancow” Muller is a fairly popular conservative/libertarian morning talk show host, and he didn’t think waterboarding was torture.

It took 6 seconds for him to change his mind:

Witnesses said Muller thrashed on the table, and even instantly threw the toy cow he was holding as his emergency tool to signify when he wanted the experiment to stop. He only lasted 6 or 7 seconds.

“It is way worse than I thought it would be, and that’s no joke,”Mancow said, likening it to a time when he nearly drowned as a child. “It is such an odd feeling to have water poured down your nose with your head back…It was instantaneous…and I don’t want to say this: absolutely torture.”

“I wanted to prove it wasn’t torture,” Mancow said. “They cut off our heads, we put water on their face…I got voted to do this but I really thought ‘I’m going to laugh this off.’ "

This is another thing I don’t get about arguments from the right…cutting off somebody’s head is MURDER. Torture is meant to make somebody suffer physical or emotional trauma. True, it could eventually lead to murder, but it’s not the same as killing somebody.

Next up, Sean Hannity? Actually, even though he said he’d do it, I doubt he will. Because he has to know by now that he wouldn’t last very long and would literally have to lie about how he felt. Nobody can beat this technique, and especially not rich, right wing talk show hosts.

By the way, if you want to watch the video of this, go here

Image via Donklephant

Newspaper industry struggling to survive in this depression

From News Cycle...

Here is a running tab of number of people who have lost their jobs in 2009 through job cuts at newspapers and wire services.

The vast majority reflects layoffs, but some are from buyouts offered by news organizations or jobs lost because of a newspaper ceasing operations.

In April, 1,381 people were laid off from newspapers in the United States. At least 3,943 people lost their jobs in newspapers in March.

Here is a list of the newspapers that cut 1,492 people in February. Here are the newspapers that reported 2,114 layoffs in January.

text via News Cycle Image via Google Images

Can a dog bowl start a fire? Test shows idea does hold water

From the Seattle Times...

By Maks Goldenshteyn

Turns out, blaming a fire on a dog water bowl isn't as goofy as it sounds.

A Bellevue Fire Department investigator said earlier this week that he suspects a house fire started when a partially filled glass bowl, resting in a wire stand on the home's deck, concentrated the sun's rays like a magnifying glass.

There was nothing else in that area of the house — no smokers, no electrical devices — that could have caused the fire. The blaze last Sunday destroyed the deck, badly burned the adjacent kitchen — and left some people wondering if the investigator was serious.

"People were trying to guess as to whether or not he had lost his mind," joked Lt. Eric Keenan, the Fire Department's community liaison officer.

So Keenan grabbed his old college physics book and started working out the scenario on paper.

"I thought, 'You know what, I think he's got something.' "

text and image via The Seattle Times

Interesting Marijuana Posters from the History of Medicine

  

 

all images via The History of Medicine

Staying home Memorial Day? Take a virtual tour of Pompeii instead!

By Michael S. Cole, M.D.

It is my opinion that Pompeii is the most important archeological site anywhere. Almost every other ancient urban site is simply the remains of a ghost town, long ago deserted by its citizens who carried away with them everything of value. Prior to the eruption of Vesuvius, Pompeii was a thriving city. Then it was buried with so little warning in 79 A.D. that Pompeii was literally frozen in time.

If we want to know details about what life was like in a Roman city during the first century, I think by studying Pompeii we can get the very best perspective with the least speculation. We can understand how the privileged rich man and the ordinary slave lived from day to day in the Roman Empire during the time when Christianity was beginning to spread throughout the Mediterranean. A better understanding of life in Pompeii, a city with both Roman and Greek influence, can help us to better understand many of the writings of the New Testament.

Click here to go on a virtual tour of Pompeii.

text and image via The Cole Family

Have scientists found the fabled 'missing link?'

Somehow I never figured the missing link to man would have a tail! Not being a scientific type myself, I don't fully understand why they feel this is the much talked about missing link. I'll go a step further...

I doubt if there is a missing link, but everyone is entitled to their opinion.

From the Daily Mail...

By David Derbyshire
Last updated at 6:10 PM on 21st May 2009

Her name is Ida, she is three feet tall and if scientists are right, she could be a common ancestor of apes and monkeys - and you.

Researchers yesterday revealed the beautifully preserved remains of the lemur-like creature who died in a lake 47million years ago.

Scientists claim she is an important 'missing link' in mankind's family tree and will shed light on a crucial part of evolution.

Read the rest of the story here.

photo and text via the Daily Mail Online

Shirley and I recently spent a day at Glass Beach...

 

ATTENTION SEA GLASS COLLECTORS! THERE'S A WEB SITE FOR YOU! READ ON...

Shirley and I are grinning happily as our blogger buddy "Feather" takes this photo. Feather lives in Ft. Bragg, where Glass Beach is located, and has amassed a really impressive treasure trove of photos! She was also kind enough to show us the best spots to look! A lot of people go to the wrong areas and think the glass is all gone. Not so. You just have to know where to look. Link below...

Meet Feather at Sea Glass Lovers She took all of the photos shown here.

I enjoy looking for stuff and it was fun having Millie (right) along. It was a great day.

  

bb

LEVI VAN VELUW: he's growing with his landscape art

 

Levi van Veluw´s photo series are self-portraits, drawn and photographed by himself: a one-man-process. His works constitute elemental transfers; modifying the face as object; combining it with other stylistic elements to create a third visual object of great visual impact. The work you see therefore is not a portrait, but an information-rich image of colour, form, texture, and content. The image contains the history of a short creative process, with the artist shifting between the entities of subject and object.

Click here to read the rest.

Press Release and art via Levi van Veluw