Friday, November 30, 2012

Photo of rare, mysterious cat wins competition

By OurAmazingPlanet StaffBolivian wild cat
The photo of the cat, called an oncilla, won a category of a camera trap competition run by the magazine BBC Wildlife. (Photo: Guido Ayala, Maria Viscarra, and Robert Wallace/WCS)
A rarely seen Bolivian wild cat species was photographed by a camera trap in one of the country's national parks, the first time it has been spotted there.
 
The photo of the cat, called an oncilla, won a category of a camera trap competition run by the magazine BBC Wildlife...Read complete article here...

Thursday, November 29, 2012

Traveling Wilburys 'End Of The Line'

photoTraveling Wilburys- last.fm

The winning images from "National Wildlife" magazine's 42nd annual photography competition

by Laura Tangley:    Amos Nachoum, San Francisco, California, First Place, Mammals

Creating this striking image of a leopard seal “playing” with its prey—a recently drowned Gentoo penguin—required nearly as much patience from the photographer as from the predator itself. To capture young penguins wading into shallow water off Antarctica’s Pleneau Island, seals make their way toward shore and sit perfectly still for one to two hours “looking like a typical rock in Antarctica,” says Nachoum, who spent “a lot of time waiting to see this happen.” After ambushing its victim, the seal crawls on its belly back to deeper water, where it catches and releases the penguin again and again before finally devouring the bird.

Gentoo penguib and leopard sealPhoto winners here.

Recovered Hero Dog of Military Family En Route Home for the Holidays

 

SPCA Florida:  Gudrun Mastriano said goodbye Wednesday to the dog who saved her life. Dante, the three-year-old black Labrador who suffered severe snakebites from a cottonmouth, is en route to his military family near Madrid, Spain.

Flight restrictions and increased costs delayed his departure with his family—United States Navy Commander Carl Eierle and Charlotte Eierle.
Dante’s heroic snake encounter further delayed his reunion. Dante was able to travel home for the holidays thanks to the revolutionary Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) he received at SPCA Florida... Continue reading...

Iran’s Nuclear Bomb Diagram Stolen By Mossad Hack – OpEd

  By: .
AP is reporting a breaking news story that officials of a country hostile to Iran (hint, hint) have leaked an Iranian diagram that plots the force of the explosion of a simulated nuclear device:
Iranian scientists have run computer simulations for a nuclear weapon that would produce more than triple the explosive force of the World War II bomb that destroyed Hiroshima, according to a diagram obtained by The Associated Press.
Iran
Iran
The document, produced in 2008 or 2009 is supposed to put the lie to the notion that Iran stopped its nuclear weapons program in 2003, as the U.S. NIE claims...Continue reading...

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Canada set to vote against UN recognition of Palestinian statehood

Karin Laub
The Associated Press

A bid for UN recognition of a state of Palestine is a last-ditch attempt to rescue troubled Mideast peace efforts, a Palestinian spokeswoman said Wednesday, rejecting Israel’s charge that it is an attempt to bypass negotiations. Hanan Ashrawi, a senior Palestinian official, urged the U.S. to drop its opposition to the bid, dismissing Washington’s stance as “pathetic” and harmful to American interests in the region. The Palestinians have come under intense pressure from the U.S., Britain and others to modify the bid but “have not succumbed,” she said. On Thursday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas plans to ask the UN General Assembly to recognize Palestine in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, areas Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, but still controls most access. The Palestinians expect some two-thirds of the General Assembly’s 193 members will accept Palestine as a non-member observer state. The U.S., Israel, Canada and a few others are opposed...Continue reading...

Hikers mauled by grizzly were in wrong place at wrong time

photo    CTV Calgary: A man and woman are recovering in a Calgary hospital after they were attacked by a bear on Sunday while out on a hike near Kimberley, B.C. The pair had been walking in the Cherry Creek area around 3 p.m. when they came across a female grizzly bear feeding on a deer...Read here...

The Flat Earth Society, "Deprogramming the masses since 1547"

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"For centuries, mankind knew all there was to know about the shape of the Earth. It was a flat planet, shaped roughly like a circle, with lots of pointy things hanging down from the underside. On the comparatively smooth topside, Europe sat in the middle of the circle, with the other continents scattered about the fringes, and parts of Africa hanging over the edge. The oceans lapped against the sides of the Earth, and in places ran over, creating currents that would pull over the edge ships that ventured too far out to sea. The space beyond the edge of the world was a dark realm inhabited by all sorts of unholy beasts. Fire and brimstone billowed up from the very depths of hell itself and curled 'round the cliffs whose infinite length jutted straight down to the darkest depths . . ."Continue reading...

'Music As Therapy' - Medical info with humor

..By wisequack  Music As Therapy                                                         While rotating through assorted subspecialties as a medical student, I spent two-months on a geriatric psychiatry ward, a sobering glimpse of my own destiny. Occasionally I would wander into the inpatient’s lounge and tickle the ivories. I am not a great pianist, but given that my audience was seriously medicated and their hearing aids squealed like fire alarms, to them I was Liberace in a labcoat. “Play something from our era, lad” they’d yell, prompting me to delve into my Stones repertoire. They rocked in their rocking chairs, they rolled in their hair rollers. They stomped their canes, twirled their beards, made rude noises and waved their pipes high in the air. Men enjoyed it too. In fact, without realizing it, we were all enjoying an informal session of music therapy.                                                                                                                                                                                                 Music therapy is the skillful use of music to improve the lives of those with cognitive, emotional and even physical needs. Music therapists bop and groove their way through an entire university degree in order to learn how to harness music’s healing powers. They are then hired by families or hospitals and asked to provide good “sound” advice in fields of medicine ranging from palliative care, obstetrics, mental health, geriatric care, substance abuse, autism, oncology, brain injuries and speech impediments...Continue reading...

Smithsonian Wild, digital photos displaying the movements and behavior of animals.

"...The use of motion-triggered 'camera traps' has become an incredibly useful tool  for scientists to answer an enormous range of conservation and ecological questions. Researchers attach these unique cameras to posts or trees, often along forest trails, and when a camera's sensor registers an animal's body heat and movement, a photograph is taken. The studies highlighted here demonstrate the range of applications of this method, and how these cameras give us a glimpse into an animal world that is rarely seen by anyone. You can search the site by following the trail of interesting animals or the lure of diverse sites around the world..."Jaguar
Photo of a Jaguar in Peru from the Smithsonian WILD project.  http://siwild.si.edu/index.cfm?group=canids

Nature Blows My Mind! Optical Wonders of Insect Eyes

Jaymi Heimbuch.

© Kjell Sandved/Getty Images
Insect eyes are a wonder of natural engineering. Anyone can tell that bug eyes are special in a complex way with just one glance at their shape and construction. But when you get down into this marvel of natural engineering, the story gets even more interesting. Most insects have what are called compound eyes. As you've likely noticed, compound eyes are a mosaic-like structure of closely-packed ommatidia. Let's all say that outloud together now, ommatida. According to the handy Biology Online, these are "the structural and functional units of vision" and they vary in number depending on the insect. Some insect species have as few as six while others, like dragonflies, have over 25,000!...Continue reading...

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Kelly Clarkson - 'Catch My Breath'

photo  http://www.last.fm/music/Kelly+Clarkson?ac=Kelly+C

Internal Divisions could Burst Canada's Oil Bubble

Mining at the Alberta oil sands.photo
Mining at the Alberta oil sands.
By Daniel J. Graeber: Provincial leaders in energy-rich Canada are reviewing ways to send oil from Alberta province to eastern refineries in an effort to ensure energy independence. Most of the refineries in the country's east process imported, and more expensive, crude oil. Leaders in the west, meanwhile, have objected to proposals to ship tar sands from Alberta to port cities because of environmental fears. Supporters of the move east say it's a "good story" for Canada, though many of the country's ambitious energy plans on the books are up against fierce opposition. Provincial leaders from Alberta and Quebec last week agreed to set up a working group to examine ways to send tar sands oil to refineries in Quebec, some of the largest in Canada. Pipeline companies Enbridge and TransCanada, for their part, are looking to modify some of their existing pipeline networks to move oil away from the Alberta market, which depends in part on the United States. Greg Selinger, premier for the government of Manitoba, Alberta's eastern neighbor, said the shift east would be "a good story" for booming Canadian oil markets...Continue reading...

The Yenisei River - Russia - 28 photos

Lane Turner: The Yenisei River powers Russian heavy industry and carves picturesque vistas as it flows over 3000 miles from Mongolia through Siberia before emptying out into the Arctic Ocean
A member of the Cryophil winter swimmers club lies on floating ice from the spring melt on the Yenisei River in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk on April 18, 2012. (Ilya Naymushin/Reuters) Photos here.

R.I.P Larry “J.R. Ewing” Hagman

Video from Britain called Avocet & chicks ~ Worcestershire Wildlife Trust ~ RSPB.

 From Wildlife Extra:   http://dearkitty1.wordpress.com/2012/11/26/british-worcestershire-wildlife-photography-competition/

Friday, November 23, 2012

Diving pigs in South China

...Huang isn't doing this just for the LULZ, he's convinced the regimen provides a number of benefits to the pigs and, by extension, himself. He's definitely added interest to the pigs' daily lives and with that in mind, it's not hard to believe the animals eat more, grow faster and exhibit strengthened immune systems... Read here...

Lucinda Williams 'Hard Times Killing Floor Blues'


Listen or download Hard Times Killing Floor Blues for free on Prostopleer

Kenya Helicopter Photo Safari on Vimeo


Kenya Helicopter Photo Safari from Martin Harvey on Vimeo.
A ten day helicopter photo safari in Kenya with Tropic Air. Starting in Nairobi and flying north to Lake Turkana.This is one of the world's ultimate travel experiences.
Additional aerial footage supplied by Tropic Air.
By Martin Harvey
www.wildimagesonline.com and Tropic Air Kenya www.tropicairkenya.com

Music - Africa Union by Parish

James Bond: Every attempted crocodile jump in "Live and Let Die"

imageUnplanned Parachute LandingPosted by  Daryn Hinton, who shared this YouTube video, explains: Ross Kananga who did the stunt of running across the crocodile backs in the James Bond movie 'Live and let Die' was a friend of my brother Darby Hinton & I (Daryn Hinton). Wow he almost got killed a couple of times! Ross was a great guy!!!! Mark Trenchard whose mom was the production manager's secretary in Jamaica posted it to show us. http://boingboing.net/2012/11/09/james-bond-every-attempted-cr.html

Shelter Cat Hero Wins Tales of Greatness Contest


shelter cat wins hero award...“When Pudding jumped off of my chest and ran out of the room I instantly felt a sense of panic thinking that my life depended on this animal and without him I would die,” said Jung. “After minutes of feeling alarmed and helpless, the next noise I heard was the sound of my son’s feet hitting the floor and I immediately felt a wave of relief and realized that this cat had just saved my life.”...Read here...

Thursday, November 22, 2012

"Give Peace a Chance" 1969 single by (John Lennon's) Plastic Ono Band

Twelve rockets hit Israel after truce:
AFP - Twelve rockets fired from the Gaza Strip hit Israel on Wednesday in the first hours that followed a ceasefire agreement ending hostilities in the week-long Gaza conflict, a police spokesman told AFP.
The Israeli spokesman added that the attacks caused no injuries or damage, with the rockets mostly landing in open fields in the south of the Jewish state.
A ceasefire agreement announced in Cairo on Wednesday went into effect at 1900 GMT, requiring both sides to halt fire immediately and for Israel to start opening Gaza's crossings if the truce holds for 24 hours.
Israeli military's Iron Dome defence missile system, designed to intercept and destroy incoming short-range rockets and artillery shells, is launched near the city of Ashdod about an hour after a cease fire was declared between Israel and Hamas, the ruling movement in the Gaza strip. Twelve rockets fired from the Gaza Strip hit Israel on Wednesday in the first hours that followed a ceasefire.
Israeli military's Iron Dome defence missile system, designed to intercept and destroy incoming short-range rockets and artillery shells, is launched near the city of Ashdod about an hour after a cease fire was declared between Israel and Hamas, the ruling movement in the Gaza strip. Twelve rockets fired from the Gaza Strip hit Israel on Wednesday in the first hours that followed a ceasefire...Read here...

This Cat and Fox are Simply the Best of Friends (9 pics)


Izismile.com: Living on the shores of Lake Van, near the city of Van, this Van Cat and a local fox are often seen playing together. A local fisherman said he first saw them together when they shared some fish left over from the fisherman. The pair soon began to play together and it has now been over a year since they began this unlikely friendship.Photos here.

China to build world's tallest building - in just 90 days

Clifford Coonan When completed by the end of next March, Sky City in Changsha will be the tallest skyscraper in the world, standing at 2,749ft (838m) high, over 220 floors. And remarkably, they’ve not started building it yet. It took Dubai more than five years to build the world’s tallest building, the 828mBurj Khalifa, but architects and engineers at Broad Sustainable Building (BSB), a unit of the air conditioning maker Broad Group, are confident they can beat that record.  Critics have pointed out that BSB’s construction company has never built anything taller than 30 storeys before, but the builders seem unworried. BSB senior vice-president Juliet Jiang told Construction Week Online that the company’s plan to construct the skyscraper “will go on as planned with the completion of five storeys a day.”...Read more...

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Metric - Gimme Sympathy

  Metric - last.fm

I've a Pain in my Head by Jane Austen

imagehttp://stumptowngirl.files.wordpress.com/2007/02/headache.jpg                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                'I've a pain in my head'
Said the suffering Beckford;
To her Doctor so dread.
'Oh! what shall I take for't?'

Said this Doctor so dread
Whose name it was Newnham.
'For this pain in your head
Ah! What can you do Ma'am?'

Said Miss Beckford, 'Suppose
If you think there's no risk,
I take a good Dose
Of calomel brisk.'--

'What a praise worthy Notion.'
Replied Mr. Newnham.
'You shall have such a potion
And so will I too Ma'am.'
Jane Austen's life times and works explained and discussed.

Melky Cabrera and John Gibbons join forces to help Toronto Blue Jays

Gibbons
TORONTO — New Blue Jays manager John Gibbons is happy to have Melky Cabrera after the All-Star game MVP finalized a $16 million, two-year contract with Toronto.
Cabrera, who completed a 50-game suspension for a positive test for testosterone, was not wanted back by the World Series champion San Francisco Giants.
He’s still a good hitter, on the stuff or not," Gibbons said...Read more...
In this March 1, 2012, file photo,...
Photo by AP
In this March 1, 2012, file photo, San Francisco Giants’ Melky Cabrera poses in a baseball uniform in Scottsdale, Ariz.

Tim Burton's Vincent featuring Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven

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The New Livestock: Rodents of Unusual Size

Photo by Jane Hahn
Grasscutters are prized throughout West Africa for their sweet meat. Farmers raising the rodents in Heifer projects are making as much as twice the income of the average Ghanaian.
                                    By Annie Bergman, World Ark senior writer
As Heifer Ghana got its start in 1999, staff swiftly tackled the challenge of affordably domesticating grasscutters, a wild rodent prized in West Africa for its sweet and lean meat. Since then, Heifer developed an accessible and hugely successful method to raise the rodents to improve nutrition and income among its project participants. Today, demand in West Africa and beyond drives exponential growth in the production and sale of the animals.
ANANG CHARLES, Ghana—She was clearly nervous. Strange people were milling about in front of her house asking questions about her. When she saw the camera, she froze. Her mouth full, food in hand, she didn't know what to do.
So she kept eating.
"She" was an overly large cross between a beaver and a rat, or a Rodent of Unusual Size, to use a popular culture reference. "She" is a grasscutter. And she has no idea that she's helping make the farmers who raise others like her very successful indeed...Continue reading...

Wildlife Photography by Lisa Franceski

by Lisa Franceski: My photos have been published in National Geographic magazine, graced the cover of Audubon magazine and been featured in many online blogs and publications. And when I tell photographers that my go-to wildlife and birding kit is a Sigma 120-400mm mounted on Rebel T2i, it often takes a second for that information to sink in. I highly recommend this lightweight, variable aperture zoom lens with great reach and range...Continue reading, photos...


© 2012 Lisa Franceski | Lens: 120-400mm F4.5-5.6 DG OS HSM | Shutter Speed: 1/1250 sec | Aperture: f/8 | ISO 400

Animals in war zones - Yahoo

A puppy sleeps under a U.S soldier's hat and rifles in Baquba, in Diyala province some 65 km (40 miles) northeast of Baghdad November 6, 2008. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic (IRAQ)Photo gallery here.

Israeli Women in the IDF (Israel Defense Forces).

Military girls of Israel

elinorjosefSphoto

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Two More Bottles of Wine - Emmylou Harris


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                                                         Emmylou Harris- last.fm

Moonshine and Bluegrass 180 Proof

African Animals Getting Drunk From Ripe Marula Fruit

Herd of 50 drunk elephants ransack village after downing 500 litres of alcohol photo

The Tunnels of Gaza - National Geographic Magazine

Photograph by Paolo PellegrinPicture of a worker emerging from one of Gaza
By James Verini...For as long as they worked in the smuggling tunnels beneath the Gaza Strip, Samir and his brother Yussef suspected they might one day die in them. When Yussef did die, on a cold night in 2011, his end came much as they’d imagined it might, under a crushing hail of earth.
It was about 9 p.m., and the brothers were on a night shift doing maintenance on the tunnel, which, like many of its kind—and there are hundreds stretching between Gaza and Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula—was lethally shoddy in its construction. Nearly a hundred feet below Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, Samir was working close to the entrance, while Yussef and two co-workers, Kareem and Khamis, were near the middle of the tunnel. They were trying to wedge a piece of plywood into the wall to shore it up when it began collapsing. Kareem pulled Khamis out of the way, as Yussef leaped in the other direction. For a moment the surge of soil and rocks stopped, and seeing that his friends were safe, Yussef yelled out to them, “Alhamdulillah!—Thank Allah!”
Then the tunnel gave way again, and Yussef disappeared...Continue reading...
                                                                                                                                                                  

Saturday, November 17, 2012

Nicole Reynolds. "Wonderin" - Vimeo

photo
Changes from Bart van der Gaag on Vimeo.
Changes of the seasons.

Music by Nicole Reynolds. "Wonderin"
From the Vimeo music store.
vimeo.com/musicstore/track/119883?  Nicole Reynold - last.fm

Friday, November 16, 2012

LIVE BLOG: Rockets slam into Israel's south in third day of IDF operation in Gaza

Rocket lands in Gush Etzion, no casualties; Israeli cabinet mulls expansion of draft to more than 75,000 army reservists; IDF: Projectile on Tel Aviv did not hit ground; more than 550 rockets from Gaza explode in Israel since beginning of operation; IDF strikes over 500 Gaza targets; EU's Ashton: Hamas must cease rocket fire, Israel must make sure response is proportionate.              By

GRAD damage in Ashdod
A windshield damaged by a GRAD rocket, Ashdod, Nov. 16, 2012. Photo by Ilan Assayag .             After a relatively quiet night on the Israeli side of the border, Friday morning saw the renewal of rocket fire from the Gaza Strip toward Israel's south. Several rockets hit residential areas in Ashdod; a woman sustained light injuries and a few residents suffered an anxiety attack following the rocket fire. The Israel Defense Forces struck some 150 targets overnight in Gaza. LIVE BLOG

Parachuting cats Swedish cats skydive for pet insurance

imageSwedish Insurance Ad Introduces Skydiving Cats
BY Tom Herrmann The internet loves cats, whether they’re Lol, Nyan or even Skydiving. One of the latest internet sensations comes from an advertisement for the Swedish pet insurance company Folksam, which depicts cats skydiving to R. Kelly’s “I Believe I Can Fly”. Read here.

Freeze!: Canadian Wildlife Caught On Camera

AmazingPlanet StaffMealtime?
Nose to noseCredit: Waterton Lakes National Park/Parks CanadaA cougar and skunk standoff. Who will emerge victorious? More photos here.

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Rat kill in Galapagos Islands targets 180 million

A project to eradicate 180 million rats from the Galapagos Islands by air dropping poison bait is gathering pace.
The invasive Norway and black rats were introduced by whalers and buccaneers at the beginning of the 17th century Photo: Alamy image
QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — The unique bird and reptile species that make the Galapagos Islands a treasure for scientists and tourists must be preserved, Ecuadorean authorities say — and that means the rats must die, hundreds of millions of them.
A helicopter is to begin dropping nearly 22 tons of specially designed poison bait on an island Thursday, launching the second phase of a campaign to clear out by 2020 non-native rodents from the archipelago that helped inspire Charles Darwin's theory of evolution...Continue reading...

Lucinda Williams - 'Copenhagen'


                                    Lucinda Williams

The greatest moonshine story never told

Great read, you have to read about Jed.
"Jed" holds a bottle of moonshine.  Photo by Rick Armstrong
Copyright 2012 Capitol Broadcasting Company
  By Rick Armstrong, producer: Let's face it, moonshine can be funny. Even if you've seen it a hundred times, Otis Campbell's voluntary incarceration at the Mayberry Jail is a guaranteed belly laugh. Every time Andy or Barney helps Otis into his cell and reads him a bedtime story, it cements North Carolina's colorful legacy as a big moonshine state. Moonshine is how NASCAR was born; souped up cars carrying gallons of whiskey and outfoxing the revenuers – then racing each other on homemade dirt tracks. Of course, moonshine stories accounted for many great films and countless country songs, mostly by Willie Nelson and George Jones...The real story of moonshiners isn't the music or the movies it inspired or the hard driving sport it fostered. Behind the "legend" is generational alcohol addiction, prison, broken marriages, fatherless children , homelessness and ruined, wasted lives.
"Forget about moonshining, because God knows there's nothin' in it but headaches, heartaches and you name it... that's it." – Doc King, Famous Moonshiner Read complete story here.
Listen or download Steve Earle Copperhead Road for free on Prostopleer

Group rescues lost pets after Sandy



AP/Craig Ruttle Shaggy is handed from a National Guard truck to personnel after the dog and his owner left a flooded building in Hoboken, N.J. photo
CNN's Randi Kaye reports on efforts to rescue abandoned pets left behind during Superstorm Sandy.

A needle in countless haystacks: Finding habitable worlds - Ariel Anbar

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Published on Nov 8, 2012 by   View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/a-needle-in-countless-haystacks-finding-habitable-p...

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

What Gaza rocket attacks look & sound like in southern Israel

Posted on lizrael updateThe mainstream news isn’t reporting it, or when they do, they’re not giving you much of a personal picture. Whether it’s their job or not, or they’re fatigued or not, or this is what the readership wants or not – well, it leaves it up to the rest of us to paint the terrible but personal picture.
The rocket attacks from Gaza, produced by Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and company, are raining down on southern Israel on a daily basis now – actually, make that hourly. Despite an unofficial ceasefire that ended with 13 new rockets courtesy of Islamic Jihad. Yesterday saw over one hundred rockets, which have hit buildings and caused casualties in residential areas...Continue reading, pictures and video

Hobo Bill's Last Ride- Merle Haggard

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Merle Haggard - discography

Donna the Deer Lady, "Please Move The Deer Crossing Signs"

Donna, Radio Caller, Wants Deer Crossing Signs Moved So Deer Won't Cross Highways
Donna, Radio Caller, Wants Deer Crossing Signs Moved So Deer Won’t Cross Highways image