Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Israeli firm talks up mankind’s recovery from the Tower of Babel

You speak in your language but the listener hears you in his or hers — by phone, via the Internet, or even face-to-face. It’s a linguistic revolution, say the innovators behind Lexifone...Read here...

Tower of Babel by medieval artist Pieter Breugel the Elder. Painted in 1563, it is currently on display at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna (Photo credit: Courtesy Google Art Project/Wikipedia Commons)
Tower of Babel by medieval artist Pieter Breugel the Elder. Painted in 1563, it is currently on display at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna (Photo credit: Courtesy Google Art Project/Wikipedia Commons)
“And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech… And they said, Come, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven… And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower… And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.
“So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.” (Genesis, Chapter 11, Verses 1-9)[link]

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Tex Ritter, Mantan Morelandand & Brook Benton sing about the Boll Weevil

Boll Weevil

Navy's New Laser Weapon Blasts Bad Guys From Air & Sea [video]

:
Navy's New Laser Weapon Blasts Bad Guys From Air, Sea (ABC News)
ABC OTUS News - Navy's New Laser Weapon Blasts Bad Guys From Air, Sea (ABC News)
             No longer the fantasy weapon of tomorrow, the U.S. Navy is set to field a powerful laser that can protect its ships by blasting targets with high-intensity light beams.
Early next year the Navy will place a laser weapon aboard a ship in the Persian Gulf where it could be used to fend off approaching unmanned aerial vehicles or speedboats.
The Navy calls its futuristic weapon LAWS, which stands for the Laser Weapon System. What looks like a small telescope is actually a weapon that can track a moving target and fire a steady laser beam strong enough to burn a hole through steel...Continue reading... [link]

Saskatchewan flood forecast widens

By Emma Graney, The Leader-Post
Sask. flood forecast widens
 The provincial Water Security Agency (WSA) has released its April spring runoff forecast. Photograph by: Tim Switzer , Regina Leader-Post
REGINA — Southern Saskatchewan residents — particularly those around Regina, Moose Jaw, Indian Head and Weyburn — would be well-advised to dig out their rubber boots.
The provincial Water Security Agency (WSA) has released its April spring runoff forecast, which sees those areas at a higher risk of flooding than they were in March.
At-risk areas around Saskatoon, North Battleford, Prince Albert and Spiritwood West have also grown.
Speaking with reporters on Monday morning, Ken Cheveldayoff, minister responsible for the WSA, said it was likely those areas would see some level of flooding this year...Continue reading...

Monday, April 8, 2013

Annette Funicello - Mouseketeer Dies at 70

guardian.co.uk:
Annette Funicello
The pretty, dark-haired Funicello was just 13 when she gained fame on Walt Disney's television club. Photograph: Walt Disney Company/Reuters
        Annette Funicello, who became a child star as a perky, cute-as-a-button Mouseketeer on The Mickey Mouse Club in the 1950s, then teamed up with Frankie Avalon on a string of 1960s fun-in-the-sun movies with names like Beach Blanket Bingo and Bikini Beach, died Monday. She was 70...Read here...
[link]

Lady Margaret Thatcher dies peacefully at the age of 87 after suffering a massive stroke

By Martin Robinson and Simon Tomlinson: Former Conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher has died today after suffering a stroke.Britain's first and only female political leader passed away peacefully aged 87, after suffering from poor health for more than a decade.
Baroness Thatcher had been staying at the Ritz Hotel in Central London for several months, and it is understood she died in a suite there this morning...Continue reading...
Family outing: Lady Thatcher leaves for a lunch with her son Mark and daughter-in-law Sarah on her 86th birthday in 2011
Family outing: Lady Thatcher leaves for a lunch with her son Mark and daughter-in-law Sarah on her 86th birthday in 2011.

A RED, RED ROSE by Robert Burns, sung by Andy M. Stewart

[image]red rose bud in the winter with ice crystals Stock Photo - 15908459 A Red, Red Rose

Alabama Shakes - You Ain't Alone

 [photo]
@ One Eyed Jacks - 1/19/12 || Photo © Jimmy Grotting
http://www.alabamashakes.com/video/

Birds-of-Paradise Project

https://www.youtube.com/embed/REP4S0uqEOc [photo]

Sunday, April 7, 2013

Foreigner "I Want to Know What Love Is"

Picture of Foreigner — Lou Gramm, Ed Gagliardi, Ian McDonald, Al Greenwood, Mick Jones, Dennis Elliott
http://www.last.fm/music/Foreigner

New Delhi: Yamuna River More Toxic Than Ever?

[photo]Taking a bubble bath: A Hindu devotee offers prayers after a dip in the Yamuna River, surrounded by industrial waste, during the religious Karthik Purnima ceremony in New Delhi, India
Taking a bubble bath: A Hindu devotee offers prayers after a dip in the Yamuna River, surrounded by industrial waste, during the religious Karthik Purnima ceremony in New Delhi, India[link]
By Anuj Dewan
New Delhi: The Yamuna River is now considered the most polluted river of the country with a stew of pollutants such as residential waste, industrial chemicals, garbage, detergents and human excreta mixed in it.
The governments of three states Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Delhi have spent around 12,000 Cr. in the river clean-up project, but the river still looks black and white. It looks black because of the pollutants and white because of the chemical foam floating on it...Read here...

Saturday, April 6, 2013

Mumford & Sons 'I Will Wait'


http://www.myspace.com/mumfordandsons

Photographer's disability doesn't stop him from daring to dream

by Jennifer Ngo jennifer.ngo@scmp.com

Parasite Causes Mice to Permanently not Fear Cats - LiveScience

[photo]cat_mouseDouglas Main, Staff Writer: The parasite Toxoplasma gondii is a crazy protozoa that lives in most warm-blooded animals but that prefers to live in cats, where it can sexually reproduce.
To return to its feline haunts, it can manipulate the behavior of mice and other animals it infects. It can, for example, make rats unafraid — even sexually attracted — to the smell of cat urine. (You can't make this stuff up.)...Continue reading...

Unlikely Animal Friends: The Orangutan and the Hound

Unlikely animal friends.