Life is wasted on the living.
~ Douglas Adams.
~ Douglas Adams.
Friday, December 12, 2008
The Highlands
Click on the photo of Castle Stewart in Inverness to see why we Scots love our Highlands!
Coober Pedy
Coober Pedy is a town located in northern South Australia and is known as the opal capital of the world, as nearly 95 percent of the world's opal supply comes from the local mines. This small town with a population of around 3000 has a unique way of life – nearly half of them live underground.
Read the rest here (and see the photos).
India is trying to block Bangladesh's copy of Taj Mahal
A wealthy film director is spending £40 million to build an exact replica of the Taj Mahal in Bangladesh, but Indian officials are trying to block its constructing, claiming the Taj Mahal, which was completed in 1653 is protected by copyright.
For their part, Bangladeshi officials are incensed by suggestions that the Taj Mahal - which was built by the Emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his favourite wife, Mumtaz Mahal, and completed in 1653 - is protected by some sort of copyright.“I'm not sure what they are talking about,” one said. “Show me where it says that emulating a building like this can be illegal.”
To make his Taj, Mr Moni imported marble and granite from Italy and diamonds from Belgium to add to 160kg (350lb) of bronze. He hopes that his version of the mausoleum will attract tourists to Bangladesh, a country that is well off the beaten track for Western holidaymakers.
Through A Glass Darkly
When one examines the oddities and absurdities about life one finds they are in fact not oddities and absurdities, but that which is 'normal'.
And all that is 'normal' in life is naught save the oddities and absurdities of life.
It is like looking through a glass darkly ... all you see is yourself.
And all that is 'normal' in life is naught save the oddities and absurdities of life.
It is like looking through a glass darkly ... all you see is yourself.
Catholics On Parade
No, it's not the Ku Klux Klan.It really is 'catholics on parade' in the 1950's in Procession de Semana Santa en Sevilla.
Fooled you didn't they?!
Mexican soldiers kill pregnan woman
Soldiers shot to death a pregnant 35-year-old woman after she reportedly failed to stop at a highway checkpoint in the northern state of Chihuahua, authorities said.
Silvia Arzate died after soldiers opened fire on the sport utility vehicle she was driving near the capital of Chihuahua, which is experiencing a surge of violence as drug gangs battle each other and authorities, said the state prosecutors' spokesman, Eduardo Esparza.
The circumstances surrounding Thursday's shooting remain unclear.
Esparza said Arzate, who died of several gunshot wounds, had been carrying a cousin in her vehicle who had been wounded in an earlier gunbattle. Her mother was also aboard, but was not injured.
Silvia Arzate died after soldiers opened fire on the sport utility vehicle she was driving near the capital of Chihuahua, which is experiencing a surge of violence as drug gangs battle each other and authorities, said the state prosecutors' spokesman, Eduardo Esparza.
The circumstances surrounding Thursday's shooting remain unclear.
Esparza said Arzate, who died of several gunshot wounds, had been carrying a cousin in her vehicle who had been wounded in an earlier gunbattle. Her mother was also aboard, but was not injured.
Our readers
Some of today's readers hail from:
Lucknow, Espoo, Madrid, Rome, Nagpur, Jakarta, Zaragoza, Tamuning, Pune, Baghdad, Ahmedabad, Izmir, Paris.
And lest you think Carolina Naturally only has out of state and out of country readers.
The following cities in the Carolinas all have Carolina Naturally readers in them who have dropped by today:
Charlotte, Myrtle Beach, Wilmington, Boone, Cary, Greensboro, Beaufort, Charleston, Raleigh, Wilkesboro, Lumberton, Greenville, Cullowhee, Asheville, Black Mountain, Linville, Highlands, Monroe, Waxhaw, Huntersville, Davidson, Statesville, Moresville, Morris, New Bern, Fayetteville, Columbia, Clemson, Greenwood, Spartanburg, Mount Airy, Farquy-Varina, Hatteras, Robbinsville, Hot House, Saulda, Cherokee, Waynesville, Sanford, Pinehurst, Wagram, Old Fort, and Gastonia.
Lucknow, Espoo, Madrid, Rome, Nagpur, Jakarta, Zaragoza, Tamuning, Pune, Baghdad, Ahmedabad, Izmir, Paris.
And lest you think Carolina Naturally only has out of state and out of country readers.
The following cities in the Carolinas all have Carolina Naturally readers in them who have dropped by today:
Charlotte, Myrtle Beach, Wilmington, Boone, Cary, Greensboro, Beaufort, Charleston, Raleigh, Wilkesboro, Lumberton, Greenville, Cullowhee, Asheville, Black Mountain, Linville, Highlands, Monroe, Waxhaw, Huntersville, Davidson, Statesville, Moresville, Morris, New Bern, Fayetteville, Columbia, Clemson, Greenwood, Spartanburg, Mount Airy, Farquy-Varina, Hatteras, Robbinsville, Hot House, Saulda, Cherokee, Waynesville, Sanford, Pinehurst, Wagram, Old Fort, and Gastonia.
Scientists create device that can project images from dreams
From the "Oh, Shit it's finally happened ..." Department:
... They can really read our minds!
... They can really read our minds!
And just begs the question ... Can this possibly be true?
A team of Japanese scientists have created a device that enables the processing and imaging of thoughts and dreams as experienced in the brain to appear on a computer screen.
While researchers have so far only created technology that can reproduce simple images from the brain, the discovery paves the way for the ability to unlock people’s dreams and other brain processes.
A spokesman at ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories said: “It was the first time in the world that it was possible to visualise what people see directly from the brain activity.
Darpa, Dronemaker to Brew Algae-Based Jet Fuel
Pentagon way-out research arm Darpa and Predator dronemaker General Atomics are teaming up to try to turn algae into jet fuel. The Defense Department announced the $20 million deal earlier in the week.The idea is to “demonstrate and ultimately commercialize the affordable production” of an algae-based surrogate for JP-8 jet fuel by 2010. The work is going to be spread all over the country, from the Scripps Institutions of Oceanography near San Diego to Hawaii Bio Energy in Honolulu to the University of North Dakota’s Energy and Environmental research center. General Atomics also seems to have pulled down an extra $4 million in Congressional pork money to set up a plant-fuel research facility at Eastern Kentucky University.
Former Nasdaq chairman busted for running a $50 billion fraud
A former Nasdaq chairman has been arrested for stealing over $50 billion through an elaborate Ponzi scheme (the largest ever) run through his private investment fund -- he allegedly ripped off some clients to pay other clients, then recruited (and then robbed) new clients to pay off the last round of losers. The Wall Street Journal says he was turned in by his sons.
In a separate criminal complaint, Federal Bureau of Investigation agent Theodore Cacioppi said Mr. Madoff's investment advisory business had "deceived investors by operating a securities business in which he traded and lost investor money, and then paid certain investors purported returns on investment with the principal received from other, different investors, which resulted in losses of approximately billions of dollars..."
The 70-year-old Mr. Madoff is the founder and primary owner of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC. The firm is primarily known for its business in market-making, or serving as the middleman between buyers and sellers of shares. But Mr. Madoff also oversaw an investment-advisory business that managed money for high-net-worth individuals, hedge funds and other institutions...
Both complaints say Mr. Madoff told his sons he believed losses from his fraud exceeded $50 billion. That figure couldn't be confirmed. But such a loss is plausible, had money been flowing in and out for years: At the beginning of 2008, according to the SEC filing, his operation had more than $17 billion under management.
Such a scheme would dwarf past Ponzi schemes. It would also be nearly five times larger than the accounting fraud that drove telecom company WorldCom into bankruptcy proceedings in 2002.
Albino raccoon
This not a fox but rather a rare albino raccoon that lives in the woods of Rockledge, Florida. A local woman has been lobbying for the zoo to capture it for its own protection.
Michelle Smurl, Brevard Zoo's director of animal programs, said the zoo is not at liberty to trap an adult animal that is thriving in the wild. She viewed photos of the animal and confirmed that it is a white raccoon.
"The raccoon looks healthy, and it looks like it's doing well," Smurl said. "I grew up with white squirrels up in New York, and I was worried that someone was going to shoot them."
Federal Reserve refuses to disclose the recipients of $2 trillion in emergency loans
It's our money and we have bloody well got a right to know where it's going!
Bloomberg News filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Federal Reserve on November 7 to find out who is getting the $2 trillion in bailout money.
The Federal Reserve told them to shove it.
The Federal Reserve told them to shove it.
The Fed responded Dec. 8, saying it’s allowed to withhold internal memos as well as information about trade secrets and commercial information.You think Madoff's $50 billion fraud was something? He's a penny ante operator compared to these guys....
“Notwithstanding calls for enhanced transparency, the Board must protect against the substantial, multiple harms that might result from disclosure,” Jennifer J. Johnson, the secretary for the Fed’s Board of Governors, said in a letter e-mailed to Bloomberg News.
“In its considered judgment and in view of current circumstances, it would be a dangerous step to release this otherwise confidential information,” she wrote.
Biggest, brightest full moon of the year tonight
If you get a chance, check out tonight's full moon. It will be closer to Earth than it's been since 1993 - 221,560 miles away, making it look 30 percent brighter and 14 percent larger than 2008's other full moons.The composite NASA photo above shows how different the size of the moon appears at perigee, the moon's closest point to the Earth, and apogee, its furthest position from us.
From National Geographic:
"Typically we don't have the full moon phase and perigee (the position of an object at its least distance from Earth), coinciding at the same time, so that makes this event particularly special," said Ed Krupp, director of the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, California...
"While high tides happen each month when the sun, Earth, and the moon are aligned, there is going to be an enhanced effect, with the moon being the closest it's been in more than a decade," said Ben Burress, staff astronomer at the Chabot Space and Science Center in Oakland, California.
It's Rummey's fault
Rumsfeld's decision a "direct cause" for POW abuse, says bipartisan Senate report
A bipartisan Senate report concluded that decisions by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld were a "direct cause" of inhumane treatment of POWs.
You know, of course, the only thing that will happen as a result of this report is that the shrub will hand Rummy a medal along with his pardon.The report, endorsed by Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee, is the most forceful denunciation to date of the role that Rumsfeld and other top officials played in the prisoner abuse scandals of the last five years.
The document also challenges assertions by senior Bush administration officials that the most egregious cases of prisoner mistreatment were isolated incidents of appalling conduct by U.S. troops.
"The abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib in late 2003 was not simply the result of a few soldiers acting on their own," the report says.
Instead, the document says, a series of high-level decisions in the Bush administration "conveyed the message that physical pressures and degradation were appropriate treatment for detainees in U.S. military custody."
Web site producer dresses as backup Caps goalie
A 6-foot-7 Web site producer for the Washington Capitals prepared to dress as the team's backup goalie for tonight's game against the Ottawa Senators because of an injury to Jose Theodore.
Brett Leonhardt, who played Division III hockey in college, signed an amateur tryout contract before the game. If he were to actually get on the ice, he would tie the record for tallest goalie ever to play in an NHL game.
1940's heartthrob Van Johnson dies at 92
Van Johnson, whose boy-next-door wholesomeness made him a popular Hollywood star in the '40s and '50s with such films as "30 Seconds over Tokyo," "A Guy Named Joe" and "The Caine Mutiny," died Friday of natural causes.
He was 92.
Johnson died at Tappan Zee Manor, an assisted living center in Nyack, N.Y., said Wendy Bleisweiss, a close friend.
With his tall, athletic build, handsome, freckled face and sunny personality, the red-haired Johnson starred opposite Esther Williams, June Allyson, Elizabeth Taylor and others during his two decades under contract to MGM.
He proved to be a versatile actor, equally at home with comedies ("The Bride Goes Wild," "Too Young to Kiss"), war movies ("Go for Broke," "Command Decision"), musicals ("Thrill of a Romance," "Brigadoon") and dramas ("State of the Union," "Madame Curie").
During the height of his popularity, Johnson was cast most often as the all-American boy.
He played a real-life flier who lost a leg in a crash after the bombing of Japan in "30 Seconds Over Tokyo."
He was a writer in love with a wealthy American girl (Taylor) in "The Last Time I Saw Paris." He appeared as a post-Civil War farmer in "The Romance of Rosy Ridge."
He was 92.
Johnson died at Tappan Zee Manor, an assisted living center in Nyack, N.Y., said Wendy Bleisweiss, a close friend.
With his tall, athletic build, handsome, freckled face and sunny personality, the red-haired Johnson starred opposite Esther Williams, June Allyson, Elizabeth Taylor and others during his two decades under contract to MGM.
He proved to be a versatile actor, equally at home with comedies ("The Bride Goes Wild," "Too Young to Kiss"), war movies ("Go for Broke," "Command Decision"), musicals ("Thrill of a Romance," "Brigadoon") and dramas ("State of the Union," "Madame Curie").
During the height of his popularity, Johnson was cast most often as the all-American boy.
He played a real-life flier who lost a leg in a crash after the bombing of Japan in "30 Seconds Over Tokyo."
He was a writer in love with a wealthy American girl (Taylor) in "The Last Time I Saw Paris." He appeared as a post-Civil War farmer in "The Romance of Rosy Ridge."
Illinois Attorney General asks high court to declare governor unfit
The Illinois attorney general has filed a motion with the state's highest court asking justices to remove scandal-plagued Gov. Rod Blagojevich from office.
Lisa Madigan took the action today (Friday, December 12, 2008), as pressure on the governor intensified to step down.
The motion challenges his fitness to serve and asks that the Supreme Court oust him.
Lisa Madigan took the action today (Friday, December 12, 2008), as pressure on the governor intensified to step down.
The motion challenges his fitness to serve and asks that the Supreme Court oust him.
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