The place where the world comes together in honesty and mirth. Windmills Tilted, Scared Cows Butchered, Lies Skewered on the Lance of Reality ... or something to that effect.
The border between The Republic of the Congo and Rwanda has had a lot of nasty things happen over the years. Well, it seems it will continue into the future, too. There's this lake, called Lake Kivu, part of the freshwater lake system bordering Rwanda and The Republic of Congo. This lake has a 'problem', in that it appears it could actually explode.
Scientists can't say for sure if the volatile mixture at the bottom of the lake will remain still for another 1,000 years or someday explode without warning. In a region prone to volcanic and seismic activity, the fragility of Lake Kivu is a serious matter. Compounding the precarious situation is the presence of approximately 2 million people, many of them refugees, living along the north end of the lake.
Vodacek likens the contained pressure in the lake to a bottle of carbonated soda or champagne. "In the lake, you have the carbon dioxide on the bottom and 300 meters of water on top of that, which is the cap," he says. "That's the pressure that holds it. The gas is dissolved in water."
When the cap is removed, bubbles form and rise to the surface. More bubbles form and create a column that drags the water and the gas up to the surface in a chain reaction
The question is, and what's really unknown, is how explosive is that?", Vodacek says.
A man will spend the rest of his life in prison after he was found guilty in what prosecutors said was a case of scaring a 79-year-old North Carolina grandmother to death.
Above is an 18th century "witch bottle," used to fend off evil spirits.
Discovered at a construction site in the London borough of Greenwich, this example is particularly rare because it's still corked. Retired chemistry professor Dr. Alan Massey analyzed the bottle and its curious contents.
From Fortean Times:
(The bottle) contained 12 bent iron nails (one of which pierced a small leather heart), eight brass pins, 10 adult fingernail pairings (sic) (not from a manual worker, but a person "of some social standing"), a quantity of hair and urine with traces of nicotine, indicating it had come from a smoker. There were also traces of sulphur, then known as brimstone, and what is thought to be navel fluff. The brimstone recalled the passage in Revelation where the beast and the false prophet were "cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone".
We all know dogs like to smell just about everything, including other animals' poo. Now scientists have figured out how to put the canines' odd pastimes to work to help sniff out the dung of endangered rhinos in Vietnam.
The collected dung will help scientists to figure out how many Javan rhinos, also called Rhinoceros sondaicus, remain in the wild. The rhinos were considered extinct on mainland Southeast Asia until hunters in Vietnam killed one in 1988. Now two remaining populations exist, with an estimated 10 individuals in the forests of Vietnam and between 28 and 56 such rhinos on the island of Java, Indonesia.
Prosecutors requested life sentences Saturday for an American student and her former Italian boyfriend accused of killing a young British woman in Italy.
I’ve just found a remarkable 1963 study from the Archives of Ophthalmology in which 24 blind participants took LSD to see if they could experience visual hallucinations.
It turns out, they can, although this seems largely to be the case in blind people who had several years of sight to begin with, but who later lost their vision.
Those blind from a very early age (younger than two years-old) did not report visual hallucinations, probably because they never had enough visual experience to shape a fully-functioning visual system when their brain was still developing.
Italian police on Saturday arrested a Pakistani father and son accused of helping fund and providing logistical support for last year's terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, authorities said.
Remarks of President Barack Obama Weekly Address Saturday, November 21, 2009
Hi. I’m recording this message from Seoul, South Korea, as I finish up my first presidential trip to Asia. As we emerge from the worst recession in generations, there is nothing more important than to do everything we can to get our economy moving again and put Americans back to work, and I will go anywhere to pursue that goal.
That’s one of the main reasons I took this trip. Asia is a region where we now buy more goods and do more trade with than any other place in the world – commerce that supports millions of jobs back home. It’s also a place where the risk of a nuclear arms race threatens our security, and where extremists plan attacks on America’s soil. And since this region includes some of the fastest-growing nations, there can be no solution to the challenge of climate change without the cooperation of the Asia Pacific.
With this in mind, I traveled to Asia to open a new era of American engagement. We made progress with China and Russia in sending a unified message to Iran and North Korea that they must live up to their international obligations and either forsake nuclear weapons or face the consequences. As the two largest consumers and producers of energy, we developed a host of new clean energy initiatives with China, and our two nations agreed to work toward a successful outcome at the upcoming climate summit in Copenhagen – an outcome that leads to immediate action to reduce carbon pollution. And I spoke to young men and women at a town hall in Shanghai and across the internet about certain values that we in America believe are universal: the freedom of worship and speech; the right to access information and choose one’s own leaders.
But above all, I spoke with leaders in every nation I visited about what we can do to sustain this economic recovery and bring back jobs and prosperity for our people – a task I will continue to focus on relentlessly in the weeks and months ahead.
This recession has taught us that we can’t return to a situation where America’s economic growth is fueled by consumers who take on more and more debt. In order to keep growing, we need to spend less, save more, and get our federal deficit under control. We also need to place a greater emphasis on exports that we can build, produce, and sell to other nations – exports that can help create new jobs at home and raise living standards throughout the world.
For example, if we can increase our exports to Asia Pacific nations by just 5%, we can increase the number of American jobs supported by these exports by hundreds of thousands. This is already happening with businesses like American Superconductor Corporation, an energy technology startup based in Massachusetts that’s been providing wind power and smart grid systems to countries like China, Korea, and India. By doing so, it’s added more than 100 jobs over the last few years.
Increasing our exports is one way to create new jobs and new prosperity. But as we emerge from a recession that has left millions without work, we have an obligation to consider every additional, responsible step we can take to encourage and accelerate job creation in this country. That’s why I’ve announced that in the next few weeks, we’ll be holding a forum at the White House on jobs and economic growth. I want to hear from CEOs and small business owners, economists and financial experts, as well as representatives from labor unions and nonprofit groups, about what they think we can do to spur hiring and get this economy moving again.
It is important that we do not make any ill-considered decisions – even with the best of intentions – particularly at a time when our resources are so limited. But it is just as important that we are open to any demonstrably good idea to supplement the steps we’ve already taken to put America back to work. That’s what I hope to achieve in this forum.
Still, there is no forum or policy that can bring all the jobs we’ve lost overnight. I wish there were, because so many Americans – friends, neighbors, family members – are desperately looking for work. But even though it will take time, I can promise you this: we are moving in the right direction; that the steps we are taking are helping; and I will not let up until businesses start hiring again, unemployed Americans start working again, and we rebuild this economy stronger and more prosperous than it was before. That has been the focus of our efforts these past ten months – and it will continue to be our focus in the months and years to come.
Clearing the air is always the best tactic -- if not immediately, then in the long run. Consider this now: You need to make a decision about letting a secret see the light of day. That's not an easy thing for you, because you can usually see both sides of the issue. Plus, you don't like betraying confidences. Use that keen intuition of yours to make the choice, and above all else, don't feel guilty if you decide to let the cat out of the bag.
The border between The Republic of the Congo and Rwanda has had a lot of nasty things happen over the years.
