Insomnia dowloads of the week

biography of Brother Dutton of Molokai ...he's an interesting character (a Civil war vet suffering from ptss, alcoholism, a bad marriage etc. who sobered up and went to help an ailing Father Damian). However, I suspect this is a pious book, so it will put you to sleep.

What is it with PTSS? John Bradbourne had a similar background of ptss from World War II, and when he was killed was proclaimed a saint by the locals who loved him (not the more "useful" missionaries who were similarly killed).

-------------------------------
Librivox also has their latest collection of mystery stories for your listening pleasure,
older stories

1. Various. "Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories, Volume 1" · (readers)
2. Various. "Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories, Volume 2" · (readers)
3. Various. "Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories, Volume 3" · (readers)
4. Various. "Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories, Volume 4" · (readers)
5. Various. "Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories, Volume 5" · (readers)
6. Various. "Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories, Volume 6" · (readers)
7. Various. "Short Mystery Story Collection 001" · (readers)
8. Various. "Short Mystery Story Collection 002" · (readers)
9. Various. "Short Mystery Story Collection 003" · (readers)
10. Various. "Short Mystery Story Collection 004" · (readers)
11. Various. "Short Mystery Story Collection 005" · (readers)
12. Various. "Short Mystery Story Collection 006" · (readers)

------------------------------------------
and I never liked Alice in Wonderland, but you can find several different versions of Carroll's various books HERE.

the hidden algebra behind Alice

The trouble with democracy

from the Phil Inquirer:

A bigshot Swiss conservancy group wants the endangered crocs to be released into the wild, but local mayors and barangay leaders are saying no way.

Yeah, it's a bummer that voters don't want their kids to be eaten.

Cat item of the day

headsup BoingBoing

Happy Mid Autumn Festival

It's the mid autumn harvest festival in China

Yes, they celebrate it in Manila (but not here in the Provinces, where there are few Chinese).

celebrate with a mooncake or two or three or four...

mooncake recipe HERE.
or watch this:

Stuff below the fold

Factoid of the day:

• 
  
• In 1940, the actor Cary Grant donated much of his earnings from The Philadelphia Story to a charity that financed the evacuation of British children from London and other cities suffering under the blitz to Canada and the United States.

---------------------------
The Holy Lance (or one of them) can be found at this Armenian Monastery

---------------------------
Turkey's new Ottoman wannabe president visits Cairo as a way to support the Palestinians...

But some tweeters who remember their history aren't impressed. And what about all those Kurds you oppress?

-----------------------------------
Saudi Arabia is arresting human rights activists for "insulting the judiciary"...

----------------------------
Measuring the speed of light...using Jupiter and it's moons.

-------------------------------
Bachman just lost my vote, not that as a Democrat I would have voted for her, but she is now officially into Art Bell (or Jesse Ventura) conspiracy territory.

and she can't even get her conspiracy theories correct: Gardesil causes teenage girls to have sex, it's MMR that causes retardation and polio vaccine that gives you AIDS...

Sigh. I wonder how many of these nuts have seen children die of Measles, be crippled from polio, or die from cervical cancer?

Stop the vaccine, and you won't have to live in Africa to see these problems.

Mark your Calender

the next "End of the world" day will be September 26th, when the earth will be hit by the comet Elenin.

and if that doesn't do it, don't worry: The planet Nibiru is due next year.

Mark Your Calender

September 19th (every year)

is International Talk Like A Pirate Day

via Dave Barry

Video of the day

I can haz cheezberger?

US scientists have developed a strain of green-glowing cats with cells that resist infection from a virus that causes feline AIDS, a finding that may help prevent the disease in cats and advance AIDS research in people. Picture: REUTERS/Mayo Clinic

Craft item of the day

Boost your wifi signal with a beer can.


actually it won't work here, because someone put the wifi up near the ceiling next to a concrete wall that blocks the signal.

Sigh.

but after a year, I finally got an internet wire connection to the bedroom so I can blog downstairs.

Stuff below the fold

Spongebob Squarepants is bad for kids because it makes them ADD.

The results should be interpreted cautiously because of the study's small size, but the data seem robust and bolster the idea that media exposure is a public health issue, said Dr. Dimitri Christakis

by making it a public health issue, they will allow the government to intervene.

Presumably, Bugs Bunny and RoadRunner are okay.
-----------------------------------------

What do you call it when those from a religion that must not be criticized attack a funeral by those of another religion, and then go off to riot?

A sectarian clash.

We see similar headlines in Nigeria, and in the Philippines..

of course, the main target for the haters is innocent people from other versions of Islam or those who actually think Islam is a religion of peace...

-----------------------------

Al Jezeerah allowed this "editorial" linking Michelle Bachman with the 30 years war,

they fail to notice, of course, like most Norwegian Minnesotans, neither she nor her ancestors had anything to do with it.
-------------------------------

and NCR has instructions on anticatholic bashing for dummies.
-------------------------
Factoid of the day:

the Yugas and how the ancients saw the precession of the equinoxes.

------------------------------------

More people attend Christian churches in China than in Europe.


-------------------------------------------

Charice performed the National Anthem at the NFL 911 tribute game,



and then sang "God Bless America" at halftime.

After the original 911, one snotty Brit sneered about why Americans seemed so eager to ask the deity to bless America.
Well, he got the idiom wrong. When someone does you a favor, a common expression is "bless you sir", which means "God bless you for what you have done for me".

The song was written by Irving Berlin, whose family fled the pogroms of Russia....

Craft item of the day

how to crochet a coral reef...
it's also posted on YOUTUBE.

Stuff below the fold

Demographics rule...so should Turkey worry about the Kurds?



-------------------------------------------
Wikileaks scandal causing waves here. None of this is "new" of course, it's just that because of the strict libel law here in the Philippines, you couldn't write such things....

So the newspapers are happy that they now can print all the rumors they already knew about the corruption of a certain lovely ex president's husband...

---------------------------------------------------
Another story revealed is that the US pressured the Philippines into a peace deal with the MILF.

StrategyPage connects the dots and explains why.

-------------------------------------------


AlJezeerah prints their usually pro Muslim story about the conflict...

Worst name for an insurgency: MILF.
Second worst name for an insurgency: BIFF
Teeshirt says: BIFF for the MILF

I say they should sell their teeshirts on Ebay and make a fortune.

--------------------------------------

Photo of the day

A plane flies through the "Tribute in Lights" in lower Manhattan in New York September 10, 2011. REUTERS/Eric Thayer

O God of love, compassion, and healing,
look on us, people of many different faiths
and traditions,
who gather today at this site,
the scene of incredible violence and pain.
We ask you in your goodness
to give eternal light and peace
to all who died here—
the heroic first-responders:
our fire fighters, police officers,
emergency service workers, and
Port Authority personnel,
along with all the innocent men and women
who were victims of this tragedy
simply because their work or service
brought them here on September 11, 2001.

We ask you, in your compassion
to bring healing to those
who, because of their presence here that day,
suffer from injuries and illness.
Heal, too, the pain of still-grieving families
and all who lost loved ones in this tragedy.
Give them strength to continue their lives
with courage and hope.

We are mindful as well
of those who suffered death, injury, and loss
on the same day at the Pentagon and in
Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Our hearts are one with theirs
as our prayer embraces their pain and suffering.

God of peace, bring your peace to our violent world:
peace in the hearts of all men and women
and peace among the nations of the earth.
Turn to your way of love
those whose hearts and minds
are consumed with hatred.
God of understanding,
overwhelmed by the magnitude of this tragedy,
we seek your light and guidance
as we confront such terrible events.
Grant that those whose lives were spared
may live so that the lives lost here
may not have been lost in vain...

Benedict XVI's Prayer
from FatherZ
------------------------

Dave Barry's essay This Hallowed Ground

Tom Shippey lectures

while checking out viking history, I ran across THIS...if you scroll down, it includes two lectures by Tom Shippey

• February 05, 2004
  "From Book to Screen: Problems Tolkein set for Jackson"
  MP3 audio: "From Book to Screen: Problems Tolkien set for Jackson" (67.5MB)
  video: "From Book to Screen: Problems Tolkein set for Jackson" (170MB)
  This lecture was a 2004 Lansdowne Lecture.
• February 7, 2004
  "Beowulf and the Origins of England"
  MP3 audio: "Beowulf and the Origins of England" (39.2MB)
  This lecture was given at the Seventeenth Annual Medieval Workshop.

factoid of the day from the lecture on Beowulf: The American seal almost had Hengsta and Horsa on it (if Tom Jeffereson got his way)...

and this one is amusing

• "Transferring Icelandic Naming Customs to Canada"
  This lecture was part of the Beck Icelandic Symposium 2004.
  MP3 audio: "Transferring Icelandic Naming Customs to Canada" (5MB)

on how folks got their name or nickname.

Musical interlude of the day

again, the wonderful Mary Fahl sings...
the photos are of the Gettysburg battle field in Pennsylvania, over the mountain pass from the Shankesville area.

Notes from a sad day

The Philippines lost 20 of their citizens in the 911 attack.

“Honey, I love you. I’ll see you when this is over.”

----------------------------------------
Bush gives a speech in honor of the passengers who saved the USSenate:



----------------------------------
For me it's personal: One of my classmates was at the Pentagon...
more HERE:

Perhaps a dozen injured were on the lawn, most suffering from blistering, second-degree burns on the face, hands and arms. Some had inhalation injuries; almost all were in shock.

...Frost and Feerick appeared to be the first doctors on the scene. They began using the medical kits, putting in intravenous lines with saline and dextrose drips.

Someone with a badge began yelling that there was a threat of incoming aircraft. An FBI agent ordered the doctors to move. Frost just kept working...For about 45 minutes, Frost worked to stabilize the dozen to 15 patients on the lawn....

Feerick left to establish triage areas in the tunnels leading to the parking lots. Frost moved to treat those with inhalation injuries and those who had been hurt by debris. The stream of incoming patients began drying up.

"This began to bother us - were we in the right place?" Frost said. He began hearing stories about the World Trade Center. "I then understood this was a far greater tragedy than we'd hoped."

For the next several hours, Frost treated firefighters and other rescue personnel.

In late afternoon, Frost remembered to call his wife, Zan. She was frantic, having learned that morning that he had gone to a Pentagon meeting.

-------------------------------------------
Peggy Noonan says it best:

And there were the firemen. They were the heart of it all, the guys who went up the stairs with 50 to 75 pounds of gear and tools on their back. The other people who were there in the towers, they were innocent victims, they went to work that morning and wound up in the middle of a disaster. But the firemen saw the disaster before they went into it, they knew what they were getting into, they made a decision. And a lot of them were scared, you can see it on their faces on the pictures people took in the stairwells. The firemen would be going up one side of the stairs, and the fleeing workers would be going down on the other, right next to them, and they'd call out, "Good luck, son," and, "Thank you, boys."

They were tough men from Queens and Brooklyn and Staten Island, and they had families, wives and kids, and they went up those stairs. Captain Terry Hatton of Rescue 1 got as high as the 83rd floor. That's the last time he was seen.

Three hundred forty-three firemen gave their lives that day. Three hundred forty-three! It was impossible, like everything else.

Many heartbreaking things happened after 9/11 and maybe the worst is that there's no heroic statue to them, no big marking of what they were and what they gave, at the new World Trade Center memorial.

But New York will never get over what they did. They live in a lot of hearts.

They tell us to get over it, they say to move on, and they mean it well: We can't bring an air of tragedy into the future. But I will never get over it. To get over it is to get over the guy who stayed behind on a high floor with his friend who was in a wheelchair. To get over it is to get over the woman by herself with the sign in the darkness: "America You Are Not Alone." To get over it is to get over the guys who ran into the fire and not away from the fire.

You've got to be loyal to pain sometimes to be loyal to the glory that came out of it.

Musical interlude of the day

the singer is Mary Fahl.

Stagecoach Mary take three

Information you can use

UncleOrson tells you everything you need to know about birdfeeders.

-------------------------------------
Fish head terrorism...

via davebarry
actually, here in Asia, they are a delicacy...Lolo always sucks his clean (I give mine to George the Killer Dog).

fish head recipe here.
-----------------------------------------
Twitter and Flicker, the maps


-----------------------------

DIY food dehydrator.

here, we wait for a rainless day and dry them in the sun.
-------------------------------------

Nat Geo best astronomy photos of the year:
Jupiter with moons.

Photograph courtesy Damian Peach

The "Hell Freezes over" post of the day

Someone at the NYTimes writes something good about...Sarah Palin?!

She made three interlocking points. First, that the United States is now governed by a “permanent political class,” drawn from both parties, that is increasingly cut off from the concerns of regular people. Second, that these Republicans and Democrats have allied with big business to mutual advantage to create what she called “corporate crony capitalism.” Third, that the real political divide in the United States may no longer be between friends and foes of Big Government, but between friends and foes of vast, remote, unaccountable institutions (both public and private)....

Strangely, she was saying things that liberals might like, if not for Ms. Palin’s having said them.

“This is not the capitalism of free men and free markets, of innovation and hard work and ethics, of sacrifice and of risk,” she said of the crony variety. She added: “It’s the collusion of big government and big business and big finance to the detriment of all the rest — to the little guys. It’s a slap in the face to our small business owners — the true entrepreneurs, the job creators accounting for 70 percent of the jobs in America.”

This is not news to those familiar with her attempt to clean up the Republican "good old boys" club in Alaska...

Stagecoach Mary and the Sisters

The link below on Stagecoach Mary notes she came west to nurse her childhood friend (and "owner's" daughter who became a nun).

This blog retells the story, but one comment fills in more personal information on Mary's parents: Her mother, a "house slave" got pregnant by a field slave, so the man was sold away...but Mary was allowed to play with the daughter, and learned to read and write...and later, when the daughter became a nun out west, Mary traveled to Montana to nurse her back to health.

Mary had no fear of man, nor beast, and this sometimes got her into trouble. She delivered the mail regardless of the heat of the day, cold of night, wind, rain, sleet, snow, blizzards, Indians and Outlaws.

Mary was a cigar smoking, shotgun and pistol toting Negro Woman, who even frequented saloons drinking whiskey with the men, a privilege only given to her, as a woman. However, not even this fact, sealed Mary's credentials given to her, her credentials boasted that, “She would knockout any man with one punch”, a claim which she proved true.

and if you think it would make a great movie, you are not alone: LINK

This book mentions Mary and the gunfight that got her fired, and three is a biography of her at Amazon (but not on line) and there is more information about both of them HERE. in a book about Catholic schools and hospitals.

Just like the story of the "Buffalo soldiers" is usually ignored in common history, so is the story of how Catholic nuns helped to tame the west.

Many communities actually asked Catholic sisters to come and set up schools and hospitals, not only for the Catholics but for all the people. You rarely read about them but they pop up in unexpected places when you read history, such as finding that the sisters in Santa Fe knew Billy the kid, or Doc Holliday's cousin (Melanie of GWTW was based on her sweet personality) became a nun, or that Brigham Young encouraged the sisters to nurse the local miners.

So Mother Amadeus established not only a school for local settler's daughters in Montana but for the local Indians....the sisters not only faced 30 below winters, poor food, but also the bishop, anti Catholicism with the feds and locals, and culture clashes with Native Americans.

And I find it amusing that when Mary got into a gunfight on the mission, that the bishop ordered her fired, but Mother Amadeus made sure she had other employment...so at age 60 she ended up delivering mail (the second woman to ever get a post office job).

Even back in the good old days, Catholic nuns were not exactly meek and mild brides of Christ...

Hisory stories for your reading pleasure

don't mess with Stagecoach Mary Fields.

a fascinating story but too long to excerpt here. go read the whole thing.

headsup TYWIKIWDBI

-------------------------------------

Defending evil foreigners from religious minorities who were suspected of supporting terrorism...

no, not CAIR: Edmund Burke

headsup TeaAtTrianon

-----------------------------------------------

Great Scott!

but who is "scott"? Freakonomics discusses.
------------------------

Factoid of the day

the Sphinx has a tail! well, I guess that makes sense, since it is half man half lion...

which can be viewed if you approach the Giza complex from the south.

photo from this website of the right foot and tail...


the website has lots of neat stuff on Egypt, including some quicktime panoramas of Giza and other areas.


another factoid: The Sphinx of Mesopotamia has wings.


as did the sphinx that Oedipus overcame in the Greek legend.

Ideas that make you go: uh?

Ten uses for Tennis balls.

Put them on the bottoms and corners of furniture, use them to massage sore muscles, open a jar, use them to buff floors and remove grease from swimming pools...

-----------------------
Here in the Philippines, to buff a hard wood floor, we use a coconut husk cut neatly in half. The fibers won't sratch, and the maids just scoot them around with their feet.


you can buy one here if you are interested, along with the short handled Baguio broom to pick up dust and the

we also have an electric buffer, for the public area which has marble tiles. Yes, it sounds expensive but it's actually not much more than ordinary tiles, and it doesn't stain when the roof leaks.

--------------------------------

we used to use our second rinse water from the washing machine to water our plants when we had a drought in the US: the rinse water went into a sink, so we just put a bucket in there to collect it to use. The problem was that it was a lot of time and effort to do this.

but now Inhabitat says there is a machine to use your used water for the toilet.

it will catch on...Only if it's cheap and easy.

Oh Canada!

We are still waiting for justice in the murder of our nephew, but a strict libel law here in the Philippines means I can't write all the details that is common knowledge but you aren't allowed to say such things.

The strict libel law is one reason that so many politicians get away with stealing "over the table, under the table and with the table".

In the US of course you can accuse any public figure of anything and get away with it.

However,that isn't so in the Philippines, nor in Canada either.
Mrs. Caswell, a Canadian blogger and politician, is still fighting a libel suit in Canada, because she accused someone of "he "grows and uses marijuana, uses cocaine, has misappropriated funds, been disbarred as a member of the Law Society of Saskatchewan, has breached the public trust and misused his office and is a dishonest and despicable person,"

I follow her blog because she is a metis and often writes about the problems facing the First Nation kids in her area, problems similar to that which we faced on reservations in Minnesota.

Apparently, she accused someone of using drugs and being involved in the drug no one bothered to do a drug test of the guy or check if her accusations were true, instead she was sued for libel, and she lost in 2009.

A lot of this sounds like trying to quiet political enemies and whistleblowers working with the minorities in her area.

And, as Mark Steyn and a couple other major writers found, Canada isn't just silencing isn't limited to Metis women politicians in the hinderland but it's human rights folks can hit anyone who dares to say anything against political correctness.

Lake Urmia

a nice film about the problem...if you don't like history just ignore the film and listen to the lovely music.

Stuff below the fold

Floods in the Berkshires and in Broome County NY...and the Philly suburbs....My prayers to friends and relatives in those areas.

--------------------------------


from ThinkGeek:

Today in Geek History: Star Trek first airs in 1966, pioneering a multiracial--and multi-species--television cast. 45 years later, Star Trek is still boldly going. Live long and prosper! \\//,

and Bakingdom has instructions on making your very own Spock cookie.

---------------------------------------------
Crocodiles in the Philippines? Yes, writes the PhilInquirer: they used to be common, and one of the scenes in "Noli me Tangere" is about a man rescued from a croc attack.

the writer also notes that in the Philippines, we have St. Nick and Santa Claus, but some in the Philippines also celebrate San Nicolas de Tolontino on Sept 10th...and this St. Nick doesn't bring presents, but they do give out a cookie in his honor.

DessertComesFirst discusses the cookie HERE...more info at Traveleronfootblog.
------------------------------

American support for the MILF is no secret.

The problem was probably made worse by US colonial policies...

------------------------------
leaving trash behind on the moon...

as one wag put it: well, at least it proves that the moonwalk wasn't faked...
not that it will change the minds of the conspiracy paranoid types.

-----------------------------
Lake Orumieh in Iran is drying up, and locals are worried and protesting. PBS report HERE.
Dr. E, who is active in environmental issues, also has a report, and comments dryly:

The DOE had warned the officials in 1998 we had layed out a road map for the protection of the Lake. Many parts of that project were underway in 2004 . These protection schemes and strategies were later abandoned by the ninth government and only reconsidered recently after serious protests rocked the region. No one can dispute the fact that the environment was never a priority for the government of Mr. Ahmadinejad.

--------------------------------
the RedLake Ojibwe have plans to reforest areas destroyed by the federal gov't overlogging the area in the past century.

In the lawsuit filed by Red Lake, tribal officials say the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs allowed too much clear cutting and they sold timber cheaply to big loggers and timber barons. The tribe says it lost nearly $400 million in timber revenue over the past 80 years.

I was always shocked to see the forest degredation there,..we had protected forest area near the hospital, but in other areas, much of it was scrub pine/straggly aspen with only a few large trees near the roadways.....
----------------------------------------------
Oklahoma has an ebook/audiobook/mp3 library program.

They will send what you want to you via your local library...which should improve the ability to get books in small towns (unlike the coal town in PA which had a good selection of books for their kids going to college, in Oklahoma the library had mainly junk to read, not textbooks/college level specialty type books...I had to buy the books I wanted used from Amazon...which is why I have such a large library with me here in the Philippines).

--------------------------
The Green Global economy Index list...

South Africa is number three, proving that the apartheid laws keeping the locals living their green "traditional" lifestyle (57% below the poverty level) instead of driving around in cars and eating hamburger at McDonalds is good for the planet.

Founder of Project Gutenberg

Michael S. Hart, the founder of Project Gutenberg, has died.

On July 4 1971, after being inspired by a free printed copy of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, he decided to type the text into a computer, and to transmit it to other users on the computer network. From this beginning, the digitization and distribution of literature was to be Hart's life's work, spanning over 40 years.

Project Gutenberg allows those of us with a computer (but a small budget) to download copyright free books for free.

Musical interlude of the day

The article on Rick Rescoria noted:

A picture, taken after the attack started, shows Mr Rescorla, megaphone in hand, guiding staff down stairs to safety.

Workers recalled him singing patriotic songs, including a Cornish adaptation of Men of Harlech as he led them down. So well-drilled were the staff that just three, including Mr Rescorla, died in the attack.

for those of you unfamiliar with the song, here it is:

News from the past

A Blind man and his dog:

I clutched Roselle’s harness and with focus and confidence we headed down the 1,463 stairs to fresh air and freedom. We didn’t know that the worst was yet to come.

My life changed that day because of the beliefs and actions of a few zealots who though they had all the answers and who imagined the murderous violence that destroyed the center of New York City would bend the world to their will. They did not win, however. Love, trust, and teamwork did.

-----------------------------------
When the Airspace was shut down, where did all those incoming planes go?

Remembering Gander.

----------------------------
and the man who predicted 911 (and saved 2600 lives because he insisted on drills on how to get out in an emergency).

The Gratuitous Lady Gaga Post of the day

Stuff below the fold

NPR remembers Father Judge.

On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, Judge rushed with some off-duty firemen to the World Trade Center, which had just been hit by the first plane. Tom Von Essen, who was then commissioner of the New York Fire Department, saw him in the North Tower.

"And he looked really concerned," Von Essen recalls. "We didn't talk. We always talked. We always fooled around. But we didn't that morning."

As it happened, French documentary filmmakers were inside the North tower. Their camera captured some of the last moments of Mychal Judge's life. In the film, says his friend, Father Michael Duffy, you can see the priest standing by the plate glass window, watching the bodies fall on the patio outside.

"And if you look closely at that film, you'll see his lips moving," Duffy says. "Now, for those of us who know him, he wasn't one that talked to himself. He was praying. And absolving people as they fell to their death."

Moments later, the South Tower collapsed. The force of the explosion shattered the windows and flung the priest across the lobby. In the darkness, some firemen stumbled over a body.

"It's Father Mike!" they yelled. They lifted his limp body and gently placed him in a chair. As they carried him outside, a photographer snapped an iconic picture of the developing tragedy.

but no first responders allowed at the memorial service...no clergy or prayers either...




photo: Holy Name Province Franciscan
-----------------------------------

Bomb? No, forgotten mooncakes in a box.

-----------------------------------

another "we're all gonna die and we deserve it" film.

And ALGore approves.
-------------------------------

another day another typhoon...due tomorrow.

------------------------------
US was pushing the Philippines to let the MILF get all their area (ignoring the many Christians who live there and ignoring Philippine sovereigty).

the Supreme court nixed the deal since it was illegal...and no, this is not about religion but about who gets to steal all the money.

---------------------------
a local Review of John Sayles latest film, about the Philippines fighting US occupation...

--------------------------------------
a new panel will investigate the death of Dr Jerry Ortega, killed for opposing mining in Palawan.

----------------------------
survival of the fittest, or the sexiest...

Gift item of the day

HelloKitty Plush Turkey costume

Gobble gobble! This super cute Hello Kitty 8" Plush will steal your heart. She is dressed adorably in a head to toe turkey outfit complete with feathers.

Musical interlude of the day

headsup the westernconfucian

Stuff below the fold

When you've lost Maureen Dowd, you are really in trouble.

--------------------------------
Internet archives now has a collection of 911 films and commentary on their "wayback" machine.

------------------------------------
The Philippines made it into the news again: for a 21 foot crocodile.



and a larger one might be lurking nearby too.
------------------------------------

Wikileaks reveals the reason our lovely ex president Gloria didn't declare martial law in 2005 was that the US opposed it.
---------------------------------

Okie blogger Dustbury posts a Texas joke.

-----------------------------
a couple days ago, a mother jones article blamed the west for the starvation in Somalia.
StrategyPage explains the real problem: it's the Islamic extremists, stupid.

AlJ. reports the same problem:

Al-Shabab fighters, who control parts of the country, withdrew from positions in Mogadishu earlier this month, in what they called a "tactical" move, but they continue to restrict aid into areas they control in famine-hit southern regions

.

---------------------------

Uncle Orson laments the rightwing takeover of the teaparty, instructs you how to use Q tips, and (from his review of the book 1493) gives us the factoid of the day:

Did you know that most of the silver from Spain's American empire went to China?

Musical interlude of the day

Stuff below the fold

Van Gogh's beloved windows have been identified
...

Headsup TeaAtTrianon


================================

the aged Tolkien as Bilbo Baggins.

---------------------------

Geek practical jokes.
---------------------------------

Always take your pill with a large glass of water.

Yeah, lolo ended up with an bleeding ulcer on his esophagus from not taking enough water with his daily aspirin...(we stopped the aspirin and he makes sure he drinks water after taking the pill now).http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
------------------------

The latest ubuntu is Oneiric Ocelot.

Well we all know what an ocelot is, but what does Oneiric mean?
pertaining to dreams or dreamy...

Rice paddy art

headsup oryza

A closer look:

Space photo of the day

a sun halo from Natgeo:Photograph by Shishir Rai, My Shot

One Hundred Years of London Fashion

headsup RGSBlog

Cat item of the day

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

The really big news of the day

The European union is spending a couple million Euros to persuade people to eat bugs.

They are welcome to come here and harvest our cockroach population.

Yum...Broiled cockroaches...and you can wash them down with this recipe for a cockroach cocktail.

----------------------------------
Everything you wanted to know about pruney fingers

headsup DaveBarry.
---------------------------------

IF you live long enough, you will be able to grow your own spare parts.

--------------------------------------
Ghadaffy's Pinoy maids are okay and want to come home, but over 1000 Pinoys are still there, mainly working in hospitals.

--------------------------
Why Typewriters will survive. yeah. They are brownout proof.

Yeah, My mother had to look all over to send a used one to one of the African sisters in Africa for her work...
--------------------------------------
The "let's not be judgemental" article in the news today:

"Suicide bombers in Iraq use suicide bombs strategically as cost-effective, precise, highly destructive weapons," said the study...

No, not Freakonomics, but Lancet...they also found their earlier claim to huge numbers of casualties (released in a rush to influence Bush's reelection) was off by a half million deaths...

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40 years ago in medical school we knew that a strict diet would reverse heart disease (indeed, the heart attack rate went way down in Europe during the starvation years of World War II). The problem is that such a diet is almost impossible to stay on, unless one is a food freak.

What goes around comes around. Again from CNN:

For more than 20 years, the Cleveland Clinic doctor has tried to get Americans to eat like the Papua New Guinea highlanders, rural Chinese, central Africans and the Tarahumara Indians of Mexico.

yeah. Rural Chinese, like Pinoys, die of high blood pressure, Central Africans are malnourhisned and vitamin deficient from eating too much maize (lacking B vitamins) or too much low nutrition sweet potatoes and get cyanide poisoning from taro, and the Tarahumara Indians eat lost of maize and have a high rate of tuberculosis. The dirty little secret is that these low protein diets means lower resistance to simple infections.

from the Seattle Times:

About 20 miles away in Creel, the Jesuit-run clinic is filled with Tarahumarans - adults and children - too ill to walk, much less to run. A staggering 90 percent of Tarahumara children suffer from malnutrition, officials say. About 60 percent of Chihuahua's adult Indians have tuberculosis, said Villafuerte, the pediatrician.

So you won't die of high cholesterol, just pellegra, strokes from hypertension and of course any minor infection that comes your way.
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and the good news: The rice crop this year will be good (at least in Thailand).

Deep blue

I've been busy downloading nature films from the internet.

Here is Deep Blue, about the oceans...both the photography and the music is stunning...

Know Thyself

uh oh

We're gonna need a bigger mug


see more Must Have Cute

Cat item of the day

cat item of the day

In Search of Troy

Someone reposted the classic BBC series In Search of the Trojan war on youtube, in one hour segments. (I had watched it before in ten minute segments and it's worth watching).

Alice

Alice at the PFSC Show 201103

Stuff below the fold

Webecoist has photos of endangered historic sites, including that of Intramuros Manila.

They also have a list of lost civilizations.

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NotCot links to an Italian story of how some folks in Cairo grow veggies in floating containers.


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China's dangerous coal mining may cause disasters.

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Strain: Can you outmaneuver viruses and evolve?

also via notcot

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One big cause of confusion at World Youth day was that too many unregistered local kids showed up.

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and the good news of the day: Yvonne, the runaway cow has been found:

Musical interlude of the day

Yes, the "Jupiter" part of Holst's Planets as a hymn with verses by Michael Perry, sung byAugustana Luth.Church West St. Paul.

Father Z reports that Archbishop Chaput has asked for this hymn during his consecration ceremony for archbishop of Philadelphia.

Stuff below the fold

History mystery: What are the Roman dodecahedrons, and why are there so many of them?

Roman dodecahedra are believed to date from the second and third century AD, and range from 4 to 11cm in size.
(Image Wikipedia)

John Ladd has a theory, and explains it here in fluent Engineereze and exquisite detail...

KTUU translated what he said here:

Placing the dodecahedrons in bowls then adding specific amounts of water would yield exact measurements of water displaced by the objects, allowing small parts to be tested for consistent shaping before use.

While Ladd says displacement measurements would have applications in civilian fields, the most common Roman use would have been military: quality-testing arrowheads and artillery projectiles before use to ensure accuracy.

headsup RogueClassicism, who is a bit skeptical about their claim.

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Archeoblog had a similar question about this large holey pot:


The Montreal Gazette suggests it was a "gliraria", used to store live dormice until it was time to eat them.


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Mary Beard explains why combining academics and babies is a challenge:

I have tried writing articles with two kids under 3. It isnt about just the official maternity leave. What you need to write good articles and books in my subjects is uninterruptted thinking time. So what blights your productivity for a good while are the trips backward and forwards to feed the baby, the fact that you can't go to all those seminars you used to go to (people forget about you and what you might be doing), and you certainly cant go to conferences (unless you fancy sitting in the bog and expressing the milk for what seems like hours on end, while everyone else is networking).

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The latest cure all: Virgin coconut oil cures Alzheimer's disease.

Actually we cook with it all the times, since it is cheap and gives a nice flavor to food. But I always worry because in the US we are told it is a saturated fat that will raise cholesterol.

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The UKGuardian reviews Madonna's new film:

Whatever the crimes committed by Wallis Simpson – marrying a king, sparking a constitutional crisis, fraternising with Nazis – it's doubtful that she deserves the treatment meted out to her in W.E., Madonna's jaw-dropping take on "the 20th-century's greatest royal love story".

you mean you didn't like it?

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NatGeo has an article on collecting and identifying new species in Asian food markets.

It's unlikely anyone's ever complained, "Waiter, there's a new species in my soup." But the situation isn't as rare as you might think.

A monkey, a lizard, and an "extinct" bird have all been discovered en route to the dinner plate, and now a new shark species joins their ranks, scientists report.

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Dr. William Wolff, who with a collegue invented the colonoscope, has died.

Many people are now alive thanks to their invention.

Family news

The black dog is in heat and the three male dogs are going crazy over her...they were barking last night and woke me up. I thought there was an emergency, so went out to check things, and only found that the half grown puppy had gotten himself locked upstairs in the laundry room (we have a gate on those stairs).

So the next time you hear about animals going crazy when there is an earthquake, take it with a grain of salt.. I checked: the only earthquake was miles away and this morning, not last night.

It's been raining every day too, but that is normal.

Ruby has a sore throat, Chano has a backache, and lolo and I are over our colds, although we still wheeze at times.

Help for The most important Decision of the day

where to put the smiley face instructions from
from BehindTheGrammar:

The Day of the Disappeared

From the UKTelegraph: A family member lights butter lamps during a commemorative service during the 28th International Day of the Disappeared, in Kathmandu

Picture: REUTERS

The International Red Cross announced that August 30 was the international day of the disappeared.

to remember those who go missing due to conflict or war.

website of the day

the cheezeburger site has added another item (that makes 54, not all safe for work).

It is vacation photos, and some of them are lovely.
this one is of Victoria Falls

Stories below the fold

Older dad's sperms may increase risk of Autism.


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Ghadaffy's atrocities now noticed, but they were not exactly "new" news.
StrategyPage, whose podcasts are excellent on the background of today's wars, has now expanded into videos:



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a related item: How cellphones get around internet censorship and expose what's really going on.

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Is dark matter an illusion?


heh. First the "god particle" now DARK MATTER is questioned.

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atlas obscura has articles on a Water goblin shrine in Japan and PinkTentacles has an article on the giant catfish behind Japanese earthquakes, including many fascinating handblock prints of the beast from the 1855 earthquake.

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Wikileaks has been controversial,
but a recent leak that included the names of confidential sources could have endangered lives. This crosses a line, and means that those involved could be jailed for homicide if one of these sources ends up killed.

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Mexican massacre was not political: the owners didn't pay extortion money. and the victims were not targeted, merely women attending an afternoon bingo game...those who set the fire may not have known there were so many inside the building.

I'm not surprised:
A Lot of the political kidnappings and murders and terrorist bombs here in the Philippines are also about money: terrorists have lost many of their outside funding due to the "war on terror" watching bank accounts, so grab an Italian and get paid. And of course, most of the political murders (including our nephew and of course the Amputuan massacre in the south) are actually about who gets elected so that they can control all that government money.

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The black plague might have been caused by....the black plague.

The epidemiology is different, perhaps because many cases were pneumonic...and it might have been due to lack of previous contact with the bug (the previous Pestis epidemic was the Justinian plague 800 years before) or due to the malnutrition from the start of the little ice age.

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Heh. Clarence Thomas is not a dunce.

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Here I agree with Maya Angelou:
... when I saw the statue, I thought it was Mao not King...maybe because the sculptor was best known for his statues of Mao...
but it could have been worse, as this statue and this statue prove.

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YUM Frankenhamburgers.