Euronation
YouTube - Euronation (video) by European Gold
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Short Sharp Science: Best illusions: Masked face conceals a kiss
NewScientist
Best illusions: Masked face conceals a kiss
.... Short Sharp Science: Best illusions: Masked face conceals a kissTuesday, May 24, 2011
3 Classic Novels. 22 Minutes. Why Not?
3 Classic Novels. 22 Minutes. Why Not?
By CHARLES McGRATH
Published: May 23, 2011
Elevator Repair Service has nothing to do with elevators. It’s a theatrical troupe whose main job lately has been to stage unusual readings of classic American novels. Book in hand, the actors recite the text and pretty soon start behaving in ways that indicate how they’ve been taken over by it.The group has so far done the first chapter of Faulkner’s “Sound and the Fury” this way, as well as a version of “The Sun Also Rises,” by Hemingway, and most famously, a full-length, word-for-word performance of the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel “The Great Gatsby,” which, as “Gatz,” had an acclaimed run at the Public Theater last fall.
Over the weekend, as part of the centennial celebration of the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, the Fifth Avenue headquarters of the New York Public Library, the troupe presented a simultaneous mash-up of all three novels in brief performances in the library’s periodical room. “The Sound and the Fury,” “The Sun Also Rises” and “The Great Gatsby” in just 22 minutes? Why not? We all have short attention spans these days.
.... Elevator Repair Service Performs at New York Public Library - NYTimes.comBBC News - Tepco confirms extra partial fuel rod meltdown at plant
BBC News
Tepco's announcement came on the same day that a team from the United Nations' atomic watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), kicked off a visit in Japan.
.... BBC News - Tepco confirms extra partial fuel rod meltdown at plant
23 May 2011 Last updated at 23:59 ET
Tepco confirms extra partial fuel rod meltdown at plant
Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) has confirmed the meltdown of extra fuel rods in reactors at its damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant.The company said that the rods were in its Number 2 and Number 3 reactors.
...Tepco's announcement came on the same day that a team from the United Nations' atomic watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), kicked off a visit in Japan.
.... BBC News - Tepco confirms extra partial fuel rod meltdown at plant
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Yugoslav War Memorials | HOW TO BE A RETRONAUT
HOW TO BE A RETRONAUT
Yugoslav War Memorials
‘During the 1960s and 70s, thousands of monuments commemorating the Second World War – called ‘Spomeniks’ – were built throughout the former Yugoslavia; striking monumental sculptures, with an angular geometry echoing the shapes of flowers, crystals, and macro-views of viruses or DNA. In the 1980s the Spomeniks still attracted millions of visitors from the Eastern bloc; today they are largely neglected and unknown, their symbolism lost and unwanted. Antwerp-based photographer Jan Kempenaers travelled the Balkans photographing these eerie objects, presented in this book as a powerful typological series. The beauty and mystery of the isolated, crumbling Spomeniks informs Kempenaer’s enquiry into memory, found beauty, and whether former monuments can function as pure sculpture.’
.... Yugoslav War Memorials | HOW TO BE A RETRONAUTWednesday, May 18, 2011
In Japan Reactor Failings, Danger Signs for the U.S. - NYTimes.com
Hidden Dangers
In Japan Reactor Failings, Danger Signs for the U.S.
By HIROKO TABUCHI, KEITH BRADSHER and MATTHEW L. WALD
Published: May 17, 2011
TOKYO — Emergency vents that American officials have said would prevent devastating hydrogen explosions at nuclear plants in the United States were put to the test in Japan — and failed to work, according to experts and officials with the company that operates the crippled Fukushima Daiichi plant.
Venting was critical to relieving pressure that was building up inside several reactors after the March 11 tsunami knocked out the plant’s crucial cooling systems. Without flowing water to cool the reactors’ cores, they had begun to dangerously overheat.
.... In Japan Reactor Failings, Danger Signs for the U.S. - NYTimes.comTuesday, May 17, 2011
Top Ten Donald Trump Failures
Top Ten Donald Trump Failures
Donald Trump is very proud of himself for forcing President Obama to release his birth certificate, ending the debate over whether he was legally fit to lead the country. But not everything the Donald has put his name behind has succeeded. TIME takes a look at some gambles that went bust
Venezuela resorts to rationing amid new blackouts
Venezuela resorts to rationing amid new blackouts
The government blames transmission line failures, but critics such as guest blogger Miguel Octavio point to government inefficiency. Last year Venezuelans endured blackouts for months.
Nothing exemplifies the mismanagement of Venezuela more than the electricity crisis. Through a series of missteps and the lack of investment, Venezuela continues to be mired in an electrical crisis over a year and a half after it began. We have gone from blaming El Niño, to saying the problem had been solved, to now saying it is the increase in use of electricity that created the problem.
A while back I wrote this post to show the timeline of contradictions by the government, and I have actually been updating it given all that is being said. So, if you are interested in the problem, that post is dynamic, as I add news links to it. Check it out.
What is interesting is that, despite the vice president’s claim that “the growth in demand” is one of the main culprits of the electrical problem, data shows otherwise, as at least peak demand was higher in 2009 and 2010, due mostly to lower temperatures this year.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Haitians eat dirt cookies to survive
Haitians eat dirt cookies to survive
This is not a joke:
YouTube - Haitians eat dirt cookies to survive
Friday, May 13, 2011
Britain Demands Sealed Oral Accounts of Irish Conflict - NYTimes.com
Britain subpoenas confidential accounts of Irish Troubles
By JIM DWYER
Published: May 13, 2011
As the war in Northern Ireland was reaching its end in the late 1990s, two interviewers set out to collect memories of the conflict from men and women who had been involved as paramilitary fighters in some of the era’s most violent and grim episodes.The interviewers, working for an oral history project at Boston College, brought two tools: a digital minidisk recorder and a promise of confidentiality. In exchange for candor, the people being interviewed were assured that the contents would remain sealed until they were dead.
Now, however, authorities in the United Kingdom want oral histories that were given to Boston College by two members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army for an investigation into murders and kidnappings committed nearly 40 years ago.
.... Britain Demands Sealed Oral Accounts of Irish Conflict - NYTimes.com
Thursday, May 12, 2011
China tells living Buddhas to obtain permission before they reincarnate - Times Online
From
August 4, 2007
China tells living Buddhas to obtain permission before they reincarnate
Tibet’s living Buddhas have been banned from reincarnation without permission from China’s atheist leaders. The ban is included in new rules intended to assert Beijing’s authority over Tibet’s restive and deeply Buddhist people.
“The so-called reincarnated living Buddha without government approval is illegal and invalid,” according to the order, which comes into effect on September 1.
The 14-part regulation issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs is aimed at limiting the influence of Tibet’s exiled god-king, the Dalai Lama, and at preventing the re-incarnation of the 72-year-old monk without approval from Beijing.
.... China tells living Buddhas to obtain permission before they reincarnate - Times OnlineChina bans time travel
China bans time travel
April 3rd, 2011 by Olivia | Posted in Entertainment, NewsFrom QQ:
Now there’s an interesting trend in China’s film and television industry: more and more time-travel themed dramas are made and aired. In these time-travel based TV plays, usually the protagonist is from the modern time and for some reasons and via some means, travels through time and all the way back to the ancient China where he/she will constantly experience the "culture shock" but gradually get used to it and eventually develop a romance in that era. Though obviously the Chinese audience is found of this genre of shows, the country’s authority -General Bureau of Radio, Film and Television, to be exact, is not happy about this trend and calls a halt to the making of this type of drama.
.... "No more time-travel drama", authority says it disrespects history | ChinaHushMonday, May 09, 2011
As States Battle for Cash, Insurance Concerns Grow - NYTimes.com
Seeking Business, States Loosen Insurance Rules
By MARY WILLIAMS WALSH and LOUISE STORY
Published: May 8, 2011
Companies looking to do business in secret once had to travel to places like the Cayman Islands or Bermuda.Today, all it takes is a trip to Vermont.
Vermont, and a handful of other states including Utah, South Carolina, Delaware and Hawaii, are aggressively remaking themselves as destinations of choice for the kind of complex private insurance transactions once done almost exclusively offshore. Roughly 30 states have passed some type of law to allow companies to set up special insurance subsidiaries called captives, which can conduct Bermuda-style financial wizardry right in a policyholder’s own backyard.
Wednesday, May 04, 2011
CIA Chief Leon Panetta interview by Jim Lehrer | PBS NewsHour | May 3, 2011 | PBS
Leon Panetta interview by Jim Lehrer
Watch the full episode. See more PBS NewsHour.
CIA Chief Panetta: Obama Made 'Gutsy' Decision on Bin Laden Raid | PBS NewsHour | May 3, 2011 | PBSTuesday, May 03, 2011
Expiring eBooks are Wrong for Libraries
Tell HarperCollins: Limited Checkouts on eBooks is Wrong for Libraries
Change.org:
On March 7, 2011, the publisher HarperCollins instituted an expiration policy on eBooks that are licensed to libraries. Under this new arrangement, eBooks would "self-destruct" after being checked out 26 times. This would require libraries to re-purchase the eBook if they wanted to continue to make it available. Libraries across the country are boycotting future purchases of HarperCollins eBooks, but our voices alone will not change their policy. We need your help.As Cory Doctorow wrote, "the durability of eBook is a feature, not a bug." To place a cap on the circulation of eBooks in order to "simulate" the wear and tear of a physical book is not only insulting to readers, but this video shows how easily it can be proven wrong with physical books.
The significant advantage of eBooks for libraries is that it allows people to borrow books from home and read them on their computer or ereader. When the book is due to be “returned” to the library, the file is rendered inert and the next library user can check out the eBook. Limiting a book to 26 total checkouts means that it could be there one day and gone the next, leaving that 27th borrower in limbo as the library assesses whether to re-purchase the eBook. If left in place, this policy would threaten public access to eBooks by making them disappear from the virtual shelf.
Please join us in voicing your opposition to this policy of self-destructing eBooks.
To see if libraries are still boycotting HarperCollins, you can visit the website Boycott HarperCollins.
Sunday, May 01, 2011
Mitt Romney Haunted By Past Of Trying To Help Uninsured Sick People | The Onion
Mitt Romney Haunted By Past Of Trying To Help Uninsured Sick People
Romney claims he wishes he'd never aided helpless sick people.
BELMONT, MA—Though Mitt Romney is considered to be a frontrunner for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, the national spotlight has forced him to repeatedly confront a major skeleton in his political closet: that as governor of Massachusetts he once tried to help poor, uninsured sick people.
Romney, who signed the state's 2006 health care reform act, has said he "deeply regrets" giving people in poor physical and mental health the opportunity to seek medical attention, admitting that helping very sick people get better remains a dark cloud hovering over his political career, and his biggest obstacle to becoming president of the United States of America.
....Mitt Romney Haunted By Past Of Trying To Help Uninsured Sick People | The Onion - America's Finest News Source
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