‘To transform the emptiness of loneliness, to the fullness of aloneness. Ah, that is the secret of life’

quote by - Sunita Khosla   photo source

Rogue Panda rampage, newly weds arrested for stealing food, and Bull semen spill causes scare and closes highway

Good Afternoon Humboldt County!

I got a late start today. Friends in town. Grab a chair, a cool beverage, and let’s take a quick tour of the news today:

Hoax sign warns Arizona drivers of panda rampage

A wave of "panda-monium" has swept through a northern Arizona city thanks to a mischievous street sign hacker who warned motorists of a "ROGUE PANDA ON RAMPAGE." State transportation officials said Tuesday that a person was able to post the hoax warning by hacking into an electronic message board in Flagstaff, Arizona, over the weekend.

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Bride, groom arrested for stealing food for wedding feast

The hot hors d'oeuvres for a wedding reception in central Pennsylvania were a little too hot, and landed the newlyweds in jail on theft charges, police said on Thursday.

Arthur Phillips, 31, and his bride Brittany Lurch, 22, were arrested on Saturday for stealing groceries valued at $1,049 for their wedding feast that evening, Patton Township Police Chief John Petrick said.

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Bull semen spill causes scare, closes highway

A spill of frozen bull semen bound for a breeder in the state of Texas triggered a scare on Tuesday that temporarily shut down a U.S. interstate highway during the morning rush hour.

The incident began when the driver of a Greyhound bus carrying the freight alerted the fire department he had lost a part of his load while negotiating the ramp on a highway near Nashville.

"We didn't know what it was, but we were told (the canisters) were non-toxic," said Maggie Lawrence, a fire department spokeswoman.  image

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Study says moods and weather go together, East Coast quake sets tweet record, scientists say global warming causing extreme weather

Good Morning Humboldt County!

I’m looking forward to another beautiful day. Have a cup of coffee, or tea, with me while we check out the following weather-related stories:

Moods really are tied to the weather

According to popular belief (not to mention popular music), there's long been a link between mood and weather. Some of us can't stand the rain. Others aren't happy unless we can feel the warm glow of sunshine on our shoulders.

But does rain really make us blue? And does the sun really cheer us up? A new study in the journal Emotion explored this popular belief by surveying nearly 500 adolescents and their mothers and found that for some of us, weather does indeed have a direct affect on our mood.

According to popular belief (not to mention popular music), there's long been a link between mood and weather. Some of us can't stand the rain. Others aren't happy unless we can feel the warm glow of sunshine on our shoulders. But does rain really make us blue? And does the sun really cheer us up? A new study in the journal Emotion explored this popular belief by surveying nearly 500 adolescents and their mothers and found that for some of us, weather does indeed have a direct affect on our mood.

East coast earthquake beat bin Laden (in tweets per second)

Almost immediately after a moderate earthquake shook up the east coast yesterday, people rushed to Twitter — for news and humor. And in that process, they managed something notable: They tweeted more (per second) than they did when news of Osama bin Laden's death broke.

According to an initial statistic posted on the official @Twitter account, the earthquake tweets came in at a rate of 5,500 per second. The bin Laden news, on the other hand, peeked at 5,008 tweets per second (TPS).

Nation's weather extremes may be the new normal

A record-setting winter in much of the country has been followed by more records: tornadoes, flooding, drought and heat. Climate change is largely to blame, scientists say.

Oklahomans are accustomed to cruel climate. Frigid winters and searing summers are often made more unbearable by scouring winds. But even by Oklahoma standards, it's been a year of whipsaw weather.

Residents in Guthrie, Okla., salvage belongings after a tornado in May.… (Sean Mullins, Associated Press)

Time to walk on down the road…

Part IV : 60’s & 70s psychedelic posters on display

  

  

Google images

NEWS ALERT - D.C., N.Y. areas evacuate as quake felt across East

My wife, Shirley, was in a Washington D.C. VA hospital (just four miles from the White House) visiting her brother when the quake struck.

She said the whole building rolled and woke her brother up who had just had an infusion to treat his leukemia. Everything was back to normal pretty quickly she said (phones and such were down shortly). The hospital staff has been on alert since it hit. No injuries reported. A lot of scared people according to Shirley.

On the lighter side (yes there generally is one) some of the staff accused Shirley of bringing the rain (it’s rained since she got there every day) and now an earthquake!

Here’s some details from NBC News:

Hundreds of thousands of people evacuated buildings across the East Coast on Tuesday after a moderate earthquake in Virginia that was also felt as far south as Chapel Hill, N.C. No tsunami warning was issued, but air and train traffic was disrupted across the East Coast.

Parts of the Pentagon, White House and Capitol were among the areas evacuated.

At the Pentagon in northern Virginia, a low rumbling built and built to the point that the building was shaking. People ran into the corridors of the government's biggest building and as the shaking continued there were shouts of "Evacuate! Evacuate!"The quake even broke a water main inside the Pentagon, flooding parts of two floors, NBC reported.

Centered some 90 miles south of the nation's capital, the quake was a magnitude 5.9, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

Skydiving Pug, iconic Japanese cartoon cat gets museum, and the oil market smells a rat in Libya

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Odin looks like a rock star skydiving with his best buddy!

Good Morning Humboldt County!

Pull up a seat, grab of cup of Joe, and let’s go: My Pug Millie insisted I post this video of Odin the Pug (she thinks he’s hot).

Iconic Japan cartoon cat gets his own museum

He's a small, blue robot cat from the future who's been the inspiration for an animated TV series, served as Japan's cartoon cultural ambassador and is beloved around the world.   graphic

 

The Oil Market Smells A Rat

Libyan rebels, we are told this morning, have captured Col. Muammar Gaddafi’s stronghold in the Libyan capital, Tripoli.

On the news this morning, the Dow rallied 125 points and is close to 11,000 again after Friday’s late-day sell-off.

Nothing like a little regime change to take our minds off the prospect of total economic collapse this morning, eh? So far the undeclared Libyan war has cost the US alone an estimated $6.6 billion – a drop in the bucket of a $3.8 trillion annual budget. But the oil market is sniffing a rat.

With two drawn-out, unaffordable, imperial wars already under way...in addition to the three covert wars in Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan...how long’s it going to take and how expensive will it be to “wage the peace” in Libya now? Getting Libya’s 1.3 million barrels a day of light sweet crude production back online will be no small task, either.

Time to walk on down the road…

‘Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky’

quote - Rabindranath Tagore

Fortune-telling scam rakes in millions, weird food festivals, and Ferry captain stuck on toilet while ship goes aground

Good Morning Humboldt County!

Thanks for stopping by. Pull up a seat and have a cup of coffee, or tea, with me as we look at today’s headlines. The first story is a cautionary tale for those who think fortune-telling is legitimate. Most of the time it’s not:

8 charged in alleged $40 million fortune-telling scam

Prosecutors say a family of gypsies amassed $40 million in a fortune-telling scam, warning victims that if they didn't follow their advice, terrible things would happen to them or their loved ones. The Sun Sentinel reported that one victim, a bestselling author, gave an estimated $20 million.

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The weirdest food festivals in the world

From launching tomatoes to heaving tunas, people love to throw food, and some of the most spirited annual events offer an excuse to do so.

Slideshow: World’s weirdest food festivals

La Tomatina food festival in Buñol, Spain (right), is the world's largest food fight, with tens of thousands of people throwing more than 250,000 pounds of overripe tomatoes at one another.

Ferry runs aground after captain stuck in toilet

A Finnish ferry has run aground while its captain was stuck in the bathroom. One member of staff managed to slow the island-hopping tourist ferry down, but the vessel, carrying 54 passengers, slammed onto a rock near the shore of Helsinki, the Finnish coastguard said Friday.

The captain got stuck in the bathroom because of a jammed lock and yelled for help, the coastguard said.Some passengers were bruised and tableware was broken in the incident. The coastguard is investigating whether the captain's actions amounted to criminal endangerment. "He was stuck in the toilet. As soon as the staff member got the door open, it was too late," said Jan Sundell, head of investigation.    image

Time to walk on down the road…

As It Stands: ‘Flash robs’ - the evil evolution of ‘flash mobs’

                                             

   By Dave Stancliff/For the Times-Standard

        Posted: 08/21/2011 02:30:25 AM PDT

The first time I heard the phrase “Flash Mobs” in 2003, instant images of flashy gangsters came to mind.
Then I read an article about them. It described a bunch of fun-loving young people meeting in public places to do goofy things like dancing on a street corner to a Michael Jackson tune.
The first flash mob was created in Manhattan in May 2003, by Bill Wasik, senior editor of Harper's Magazine. His first attempt was unsuccessful after the targeted retail store was tipped off about the plan. Waik was persistent and set up a second flash mob on June 3, 2003. He sent participants to preliminary staging areas – in four prearranged Manhattan bars – where they received further instructions about the event and location just before the event began.

As the people gathered in the lobby and mezzanine of the Hyatt hotel they told curious salespeople they were shopping for a "love rug" and they made all their purchase decisions as a group. At the prearranged time, 200 people simultaneously applauded for about 15 seconds.

 
The flash mob was born. Over the years, I followed various flash mob events like Worldwide Pillow Fight Day (or International Pillow Fight Day) on March 22, 2008. Nearly everything I read about flash mobs indicated they were a fun thing to do and non-violent.

That changed this year. I’ve noticed an ominous trend for flash mobs. They’re getting violent. They’re often politically charged too, and are reshaping parts of the world like the Middle East.
The so-called “Arab Spring” couldn’t have happened without tech smart young people organizing political protests with social media tools like smart phones and the internet. They called for a universal flash mob against their oppressive governments.

The evolution of flash mobs has brought the common people a new way to get their word out. That’s the good news. The bad news is an increase in mass civil disobedience - outright criminality- in countries like England and the U.S. The recent riots in London were fueled by mobs protesting the death of a man shot by the police. But criminal elements took advantage of their sheer numbers and set out on a path of destruction and looting.

A notorious gang boss was observed by police standing on a corner in Manchester, talking into his cell phone. He was flanked by teenagers dressed in black. Police reportedly suspect that he orchestrated the riots and looting.
 The criminals stayed one step ahead of the police by staying in cell phone contact and reporting every move the police made. It was a slash and grab orgy that stunned the British people at first. Now their reclaiming their neighborhoods from the hoodlums who trashed them.
 

It seems like every good technological advance, like cell phones, has a dark side when people abuse it. What started out as harmless fun is now the tool of revolution and increasingly a tool for crime.
Sure, there’s still fun flash mob activity. It’s the increasing reports of flash mobs gone bad that concern me. For example the violent flash mob that recently gathered (June) in Philadelphia causing fear and mayhem.
The 27-year-old online editor for The Onion, a satirical newspaper, had her leg broken when she and her friends were attacked by a group of 40 teens looking for trouble. They also hospitalized a man with major injuries.
 In cities like Chicago, Milwaukee, and Philadelphia we’re seeing a new and violent kind of flash mob — gangs of young men suddenly converging to harass or attack unsuspecting pedestrians or to “flash rob” a local merchant. They quickly disperse before the police can respond. (Recommended reading - 8/14 Associated Press article, “From bling to lingo, US inspires UK gangs.”)
What’s causing these violent flash mobs? There’s more ethnic diversity than ever before. Racial tension; gangs; historically hard economic times; desperation, rage, hopelessness, frustration; high, unrelenting summer temperatures and short tempers; and easy access to drugs and guns are all possible explanations.
As It Stands, it looks like my initial reaction to the phrase “flash mobs” so long ago was almost intuitive.

Websites carrying this column:

#1 Broken Controllers – #2 TV Deck – Browsing Eureka #3 Interceder – Flash Mobs

Today’s question: is Idiocracy replacing Democracy in our society?

Did you ever see "Idiocracy," the 2006 sci-fi comedy set in an utterly dysfunctional nation 500 years in the future? Here’s a summary:

“The premise of "Idiocracy" is that a guy named Joe, with a "perfectly average IQ," is selected — along with a prostitute — for a hibernation experiment that inadvertently keeps him asleep until 2505, when he awakes to a world where, as the prologue explains, evolution "began to simply reward those who reproduced the most and left the intelligent to become an endangered species."

The result is a trash-strewn society in which crops are watered with a sports drink called Brawndo, people have names like Frito and Mountain Dew, and the most popular form of entertainment is a reality show called "Ow, My Balls," which consists of footage of a man repeatedly getting whacked in the groin.

Meanwhile, Costco is where you go for toilet paper and a university education, and IQs are so low that "average Joe" is considered a genius.” – source           

                                           Idiocracy in the News:

“The latest issue of the Economist has an article about the business-sabotaging effects of the battles in Washington, headlined "American Idiocracy." A recent blog post on the Psychology Today website was headlined "Idiocracy: Can We Reverse It?" Meanwhile, it's popping up in causal conversations, Internet comments and, most notably, on Twitter.”  - source

           Idiocracy entertainment:

“Judging by popular culture in 2011, it's hard not to wonder if 500 years was a too optimistic prediction, since "Jersey Shore" just might make "Ow, My Balls" look like "Masterpiece Theater." But mainstream entertainment has been the domain of idiocrats for a long time. A bummer of more recent vintage is the way our political system has followed suit.”  - source

                                                              Idiocracy in our Government

“What else can you call it when Congress gets the nation's credit rating lowered thanks to toddler-like stubbornness over an issue that many of its members barely seem to grasp? Put simply, fearing idiocracy isn't a matter of being liberal or conservative. It's a matter of not being an idiot. At least in theory.” – source

                                     Idiocracy – the downfall of society:

“Maybe it's naive to think that ideological opponents can be brought together by a common fear of mass stupidity: Call it idiocraphobia. After all, the downfall of society is in the eye of the beholder; for every progressive who sees the "tea party" as the equivalent of Costco U., there's someone waving a Gadsden flag who earnestly believes Michele Bachmann emerged from a time capsule to protect babies from being named Frito.”  source