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Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Cheesus Crispus?
|'Cheesus?': Woman Finds Jesus In Bag of Cheetos
A High Ridge, Mo., woman says she has found Jesus in a bag of Cheetos (video: MyFoxStLouis). Kelly Ramey says, "I think I found Jesus on a Cheeto as funny as that sounds."
She bought a bag of a
"I looked at that and I thought, 'Oh my that looks like Jesus on the cross.' It was just like wow," she says.
Family and friends agree with her. Her daughter says, "I thought it was pretty cool." But Kelly Ramey's friend, Sue Edelman, sees something different. "I looked again and I thought a horse head."
Kelly says her husband has a special name for it. "He calls him Cheesus."
The pastor of
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Randy Pausch R.I.P. Oct. 23, 1960 - July 25, 2008)
--Randy Pausch
If you didn't hear or see this, Randy Pausch died Friday July 25th from pancreatic cancer. As a fan of theoretical computer reality aka virtual reality, I knew of Pausch's work. Pausch was a well-liked computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University who specialized in virtual reality. A tradition at CMU was for profs to deliver a "last lecture" as if it were the last one they could give before they died. Since he knew he really was going to die, a month after his diagnosis he gave his last lecture at the university Sept. 18, 2007, before a packed McConomy Auditorium. His last lecture was so compelling, so full of life, that it attracted millions of views online -- and a book deal. Pausch lived long enough not only to complete the book, but also to see it published in 29 languages -- and achieve New York Times Bestseller status. His goal was for his lecture to be a time capsule of advice for his three young children. He was 47. Thank you Randy.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
The Dominant Culture
The Dominant Culture
by L. Neil Smith
Four-time Prometheus Award-winner L. Neil Smith has been called one of the world's foremost authorities on the ethics of self-defense. He is the author of 25 books, including The American Zone, Forge of the Elders, Pallas, The Probability Broach, Hope (with Aaron Zelman), and his collected articles and speeches, Lever Action, all of which may be purchased through his website "The Webley Page" at lneilsmith.org.
Attribute to The Libertarian Enterprise
I remember George.
It doesn't come as much of a surprise to me that for the past eight years, we've had a President whose effective IQ is a smaller number than his age. It's far from the first time—you all remember Gerry Ford—and, judging by current events, it will be far from the last.
However I confess I never expected to have a President whose IQ is smaller than his shoe size. To call George Bush a dickhead is an insult to dicks, since the average little head is smarter than his big head.
Here, after all, is a guy who gave up being an honest drunken coke snargler, just to get laid by the dullest woman to occupy the White House since, well, his mother. Like Teddy Kennedy, he seems incapable of uttering a single coherent sentence, and he appears to have only a passing acquaintance with English, which is like a second language to him.
Whatever else you may think that you know about George W. Bush, however, understand one thing with perfect clarity: he would never have been elected President—nobody would ever have heard of him—if it weren't for the stupidity, incompetence, and arrogance of the Left.
George W. Bush is their creature entirely.
I'm referring here, not simply to the members, activists, and operatives of the Democratic Party, or to their Quisling allies, the various and sundry RINOS and LINOS infesting the so-called opposition parties. They're only the tip of the iceberg, the point of the spear, or some other metaphor plenty sharper in literal reality than they are.
I'm also talking about their ideological scouts and outriders, the politically-correct gatekeepers at the communications "chokepoints" in this culture whose job is to muzzle meaningful dissent, by commission or omission, aided by the network nickel-a-dance news floozies and hairsprayed gentlemen of the evening. They got us into this mess, and there is nothing in their behavioral repertoire that can ever get us out.
If it weren't for them, Ron Paul would almost certainly be the presidential nominee of the Republican Party by now, Barack Obama would be exposed (at best) as just another George McGovern, Walter Mondale, or Michael Dukakis in blackface, a lasting peace with the whole world would be just over the horizon, and Americans would be both prosperous and free, with a glowing future ahead to look forward to.
Gasoline would be a dollar a gallon.
Instead, our would-be keepers in both "major" parties want you to accept a lower standard of living, and begin a long slide back into the Dark Ages (more and more often using "environmentalism" as a justification), because they've damaged the economy worse than it's ever been damaged before, and they haven't got a clue how it can be fixed.
My greatest worry—informed, I freely confess, by little more than the same intuition that motivated me, the first time I ever saw Hillary Clinton on TV, to say, "That woman has the stink of the deathcamp about her"—is that Barack Obama is going to teach the suicidally naive Productive Class of America what everybody else around the world already knows about governments: that they are killing machines, pure and simple, that they exist to serve no other purpose.
That "little more", by the way, is Obama's plan to create a civilian domestic security force larger than the present U.S. military. Can you say "Brownshirts" or "Red Guard"? I thought you could.
Meanwhile, the Libertarian Party, the one organization that might have done something about this mess, crawls through the slime instead, dragged down by the sleazoid opportunist Bob Barr and his socialist ilk.
To my friends on the left: don't bother protesting what I've said here, or what I'm about to say. The world we live in is the world you made. You own the television networks, newspapers, magazines, and the movies.
Every time some Democrat got himself or herself elected over the past half century, everybody in the general freedom movement came to know that we would be in yet another bloody fight to save the basic liberties on which this country was supposedly founded. All you ever want is to take something away from us, our money, our homes, our land, our cars, our guns. Our children. All we want is to be left the hell alone. It's been soul-sapping, wearying right down to the marrow; it has used up our entire lives—and yours—to absolutely no purpose. Your nagging, controlling, thieving, busybody pathology has turned our America into a dung heap of lost rights and squandered opportunities.
There was a time when the concepts that comprise libertarianism—conceivably conveyed by more competent carriers than turned out to be the case—might have saved this country from the fascism under which it presently begins to labor. But it was "liberal" gatekeepers who kept libertarians out of the national discourse, and it is these same "progressives" who are inavoidably responsible for the present ugly mess.
And you wonder why you are so thoroughly despised.
The lamest Republican assertion that Moslem fundamentalists attacked us because "they hate our freedom" is fully matched by Elton John's ridiculous mealy-mouthing when Hillary Clinton's political fortunes began to wane: "I never cease to be amazed," he whimpered and pouted, "at the misogynist attitude of some of the people in this country."
People don't hate Hillary because she's a woman. If they did, they wouldn't have made Oprah Winfrey one of the richest women in the world, or stood with Martha Stewart when she was railroaded by the feds and sent to prison. They hate Hillary, as an individual, because she's a shrill, insatiably power-hungry, fascist bitch, who wants them arrested and locked up if they make their own arrangement with a doctor.
And so is her husband.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Gitmo 'Justice' for US Citizens?
By Robert Parry
July 21, 2008
A conservative-dominated U.S. Appeals Court has opened the door for President George W. Bush or a successor to throw American citizens – as well as non-citizens – into a legal black hole by designating them "enemy combatants," even if they have engaged in no violent act and are living on U.S. soil.
The federal Appeals Court in Richmond, Virginia, ruled 5-4 on July 15 that Bush had the right, while prosecuting the "war on terror," to hold Qatari citizen (and Peoria, Illinois, resident) Ali al-Marri indefinitely as an "enemy combatant."
But some of the court's more liberal judges expressed alarm, saying the legal reasoning that denied al-Marri meaningful due process not only trampled on American legal traditions but could be used to lock up U.S. citizens as well.
"For over two centuries of growth and struggle, peace and war, the Constitution has secured our freedom through the guarantee that, in the United States, no one will be deprived of liberty without due process of law," wrote Judge Diana Motz, a Bill Clinton appointee, who dissented against the court's approval of sweeping presidential powers.
Motz noted that al-Marri has been imprisoned for more than five years, "without acknowledgement of the protection afforded by the Constitution, solely because the Executive believes that his indefinite military detention – or even the indefinite military detention of a similarly situated American citizen – is proper."
Al-Marri's lawyers plan to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the case underscores one of the biggest issues at stake in the November elections: whether Republican John McCain will get to fulfill his promise to appoint more Supreme Court judges like Samuel Alito and John Roberts, who have embraced Bush's vision of an all-powerful President.
Currently, the U.S. Supreme Court has a slim 5-4 majority in favor of limiting Bush's authority to deny basic constitutional rights to people designated "enemy combatants," but the replacement of one member of the majority with another Alito or Roberts would tip the balance and effectively permit the rewriting of the U.S. Constitution.
Though the July 15 ruling was convoluted and did call for a federal District Court to afford al-Marri some more rights, the Appeals Court decision effectively upheld Bush's assertion of nearly unlimited power to have people detained as "enemy combatants."
The ruling suggested that even American citizens – if they are deemed "enemy combatants" – could be subjected to Bush's military commissions, where truncated legal rights make proving a person's guilt much easier than in civilian courts.
Stunned Realization
Previously, the New York Times editorial page and some liberal legal experts had criticized Bush's high-handed approach toward non-citizens, but had assured Americans that the military commissions would not apply to them.
But at Consortiumnews.com, we noted that language buried in the Military Commissions Act of 2006 seemed to cover – indeed even target – U.S. citizens. [See "Who Is 'Any Person' in Tribunal Law? or our book, Neck Deep.]
For instance, one section dealing with penalties stated that "any person is punishable as a principal under this chapter who commits an offense punishable by this chapter, or aids, abets, counsels, commands, or procures its commission," according to the law.
Another clause stated that "any person subject to this chapter who, in breach of an allegiance or duty to the United States, knowingly and intentionally aids an enemy of the United States ... shall be punished as a military commission … may direct." [Emphasis added]
Presumably, Osama bin Laden has no "allegiance or duty to the United States." Such a phrase seems aimed at American citizens.
But it took the Appeals Court ruling – and the blunt language from Judge Motz about denying constitutional rights to U.S. citizens – to catch the New York Times' attention.
In a July 20 editorial, the Times wrote that the Appeals Court's "decision gives the President sweeping power to deprive anyone – citizens as well as non-citizens – of their freedom. …
"The implications are breathtaking. The designation 'enemy combatant,' which should apply only to people captured on a battlefield, can now be applied to people detained inside the United States. Even though Mr. Marri is not an American citizen, the court's reasoning appears to apply equally to citizens."
Bush's victory in the Marri case reflects his continued insistence that for the duration of the "war on terror," Bush or any successor can exercise "plenary" – or unlimited – powers as the Commander in Chief.
And, since the "war on terror" will go on indefinitely and since the "battlefield" is everywhere, Bush is asserting the President's right to do whatever he wants to whomever he wants wherever the person might be, virtually forever.
In effect, Bush's interpretation of his own powers – allowing him to imprison, torture and kill at his discretion – trumps the Founders' vision that everyone possesses certain "unalienable rights" that a government can't take away.
Despite some reversals in the U.S. Supreme Court – and the loss of Republican control of Congress in 2006 – Bush still sees himself as a kind of a global monarch who gets to decide which rights and freedoms his subjects anywhere in the world can enjoy and which ones will be denied them.MORE HERE
Monday, July 21, 2008
Milestones In Tyranny
by Francis A Ney Jr
FROM: The Libertarian Enterprise
In our nation's not-so-slow march towards fascism, I have a few milestones of note not mentioned elsewhere in our little part of cyberspace.
First, the ACLU has announced that yet another supposed constabulary organization has been caught infiltrating and "investigating" terrorist assemblies. Peace protesters, anti-death penalty activists, and property rights advocates, for example. This time, it's the Maryland State Police.
Cue Gilbert Godfried as Iago the Parrot here. I guess I should be grateful that it was MSP and not the Prince George's County (BANG! BANG! BANG! "Stop, or I'll shoot!") Police. MSP is obviously taking a page from F-Troop: Go after soft targets instead of people that might put your feet in a tub of cement and dump you in Chesapeake Bay.
Fucking cowards, the lot of them.
Speaking of cowards, the leaders of New York's largest street gang deserve no gold-of-valor after they caved in to the strident howls of the New York Post, setting yet another undeserved double-standard for our putative overseers.
Anyone else who did this without the ability to hide behind a badge would still be on Riker's Island. And the same Post and all the other liberal fish-wrap, as well as the traitors in the Brady Campaign would be screaming their heads off about how this is why the Supreme Court was wrong in Heller.
Sorry, a pilot can't fly for 8 hours (12 for commercial ratings) after taking a drink. A paramedic or EMT in New York can't treat a patient for 8 hours after taking a drink. I don't believe it unreasonable to expect that someone carrying a gun stay sober while he does so. A breathalyzer and DWI limits may not be the best way to determine this, but the expectation is valid and I say this as a gun owner and NRA life member. Guns and alcohol do not mix, not even for cops.
Unless you're NYPD, apparently. And I just love the self-righteous indignation from the union, stating that off-duty cops should just call 911 and not get involved. Small loss, since you can't get them involved ON-duty and in uniform half the time, and the other half it's probably not a wise idea anyway.
Next on the hit parade is everyone's second favorite government agency, Thousands Standing Around -oops- Transportation Security Administration.
According to the ACLU, the "potential terrorist watch list" now has over a million names on it. The six or seven people who suck down our tax money writing the TSA blog dispute this with a number of statistical sight gags. Mark Twain was more right then he ever knew.
That's no comfort to people like me, or even Jim Robinson (former Asst AG under Clinton), or the thousands of others who are delayed, harassed and humiliated daily at the hands of small-minded people drunk on power. That includes the unfortunate passenger who was told by an ignorant TSA supervisor in Atlanta that the TSA Standard Operating Procedure was "a national intelligence secret" and if the passenger actually saw it, "you wouldn't be going anywhere tonight."
But don't bother complaining about it. CNN reporter Drew Griffin started broadcasting a series of reports critical of TSA, their policies, procedures, and general incompetence. He is now on the watch list.
Tell me this isn't politically motivated retaliation. TSA spokesman Christopher White may say otherwise, but the timing is too much of a smoking gun. And as long as the list is secret, the methods of inclusion are unknown, and the oversight nonexistent (it took an Act of Congress to get Nelson Mandela off the watch list), TSA has become the fourth famous lie in history, right next to "I'm from the government and I'm here to help you."
That steady "tromp tromp tromp" you hear in the distance are the stomping of jackboots prepared to grind your face in the dust. 1984 and Fahrenheit 451 are soon to become reality, unless we can stop it.
Frank is a computer consultant and professional gadfly. He serves as the Travel Gestapo Editor of TLE.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Americans don't appear to have a clue about irony
Everyone knows that Americans don't understand irony. Soon after moving to England from the U.S., I discovered that my country was universally assumed to be an irony-free zone. I was at a dinner party when irony came up, and another guest launched into a diatribe against Alanis Morisette's song "Isn't it Ironic?" as an example of my compatriots' presumptive misunderstanding: "Rain on your wedding day is not ironic!" he railed.
"Serving utensils are not ironic! What's ironic is that she doesn't understand what irony means!" "No," I replied. "What's ironic is that she's Canadian."
Situational irony is distinct from, but analogous to, verbal irony: Both rely on the tension between a false or misleading appearance, and an underlying, contradictory reality. Alanis and I were both employing situational irony, when reality doesn't conform to expectation. Verbal irony is when reality doesn't conform to your statement. For the record, Americans are capable of employing both. Exhibit A for the defense: the first sentence of this piece. You may not find it ironic, although I will find it ironic if you don't, because I trusted you not to need me to spell it out for you.
Irony depends upon context, and the extra-verbal cues by which we ascertain intended meaning. In this case, the context includes my being American, which until a few days ago I would have considered reason enough to doubt that I could hold such views. Thanks to the recent uproar over the New Yorker Obama cartoon, however, I have learned my mistake. The reason why the cover, depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as flag-burning-Osama-loving-Afro-sporting-Muslim-militant-terrorist-fist-jabbe=rs, has created such a hullabaloo has everything to do with America's understanding of irony. It turns out, ironically, that Americans also think America doesn't understand irony -- or rather that the rest of America doesn't understand irony.
Apparently, my fellow Americans are under the impression that only people from New York are ironic. Everyone else will think that the cover means what it says, because they are too stupid, crass and literal to understand context, nuance, or implication. A pundit on a CBS news program differentiated herself emphatically from the rest of the literal-minded, simplistic nation, explaining: "I get that [it is satire] -- I get that. But I think that there may be people who just look at the cover and see it for what it is."
The New Republic agreed, arguing that the magazine "claimed not to support the allegations they were visually or rhetorically putting forward -- obviously! -- and yet a reader would have to have a fairly sophisticated understanding ... to immediately intuit the intended ironic distance."
Indeed: because that's how irony works. It relies upon a sophisticated-subtle, discriminating, complex understanding that appearances can deceive, that meaning can be oblique. It relies on not taking things at face value.
But increasingly we live in a culture of face value, a superficial world of skim-reading, snap-judgments, and thin-slicing, in which perception is all, and tends only to reconfirm pre-existing attitudes. So let's be clear: Anyone who thinks that the Obamas are secret terrorists is stupid enough to misunderstand the New Yorker cartoon. But that is no reason for shooting the messenger.
Satire -- advanced irony, if you like -- is supposed to be deadpan, and it ought to be dangerous, even inflammatory. Satire is polemical; it should test limits. Satire has faith in the intelligence of its audience, in part because it is itself a humor driven by ideas. The New Yorker cartoon, rightly, does not wink, or nudge the viewer. It plays it so straight that it reminded me of nothing so much as Stephen Colbert's satirical character on Comedy Central's The Colbert Report, the blustering, know-nothing right-wing pundit and Bush apologist whom Colbert himself once described as a "well-intentioned, poorly informed, high-class idiot."
One of Colbert's favorite targets is what he calls "truthiness," which is "truth, unfiltered by rational argument," for those, like Colbert's character and President Bush, who pride themselves on anti-intellectualism: "We're not members of the factinista. We go straight from the gut, right sir? ... We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in 'reality.' And reality has a well-known liberal bias."
Those comments come from a speech Colbert made, in character, before President Bush, at the White House Correspondents' Dinner in 2006. For my money it was one of the greatest moments of political satire in living memory. The only thing more breathtaking than Colbert's audacity was the stupidity of whoever had given him the opportunity to insult the president to his face. It turned out the man in question hadn't seen much of Colbert's show and took him at face value. Now that's ironic.
Friday, July 18, 2008
Thursday, July 17, 2008
List of House and Senate Republicans who voted with George W. Bush Medicare Veto
The issue is not that complicated. The recent reduction in Medicare funding of 10% has caused doctors to stop taking new patients under the Medicare plan, leaving more and more of our senior citizens with no health insurance and little recourse other than they die while wealthy Republicans live. This is a very very REPUBLICAN issue, an example of that we all have suffered for a generation under their cold callous fascist boot. All Democrats voted to override the veto, only Republicans voted against our senior citizens.
This is much like the Senator Phil Gramm foo-pah last week telling us that our economic woes are all in our head. John McCain was about the only Republican to disagree, only because he is in a tight race. All conservative (Republican) pundits and most Republicans in office agreed with Gramm.
Both Texas Senators, Hutchinson and Cornyn did vote to override the President's veto. Cornyn is up for re-election and Hutchinson is on her way to the Governors Mansion. Which by the way, burned down recently.
The 26 Republican Senators Voting For the George W. Bush Veto to Help Deny Seniors Medicare
Allard (R-CO)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Bennett (R-UT)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burr (R-NC)
Coburn (R-OK)
Craig (R-ID)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Domenici (R-NM)
Ensign (R-NV)
Enzi (R-WY)
Graham (R-SC)
Grassley (R-IA)
Gregg (R-NH)
Hagel (R-NE)
Hatch (R-UT)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Kyl (R-AZ)
McConnell (R-KY)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Sununu (R-NH)
Thune (R-SD)
Vitter (R-LA)
The 41 Republican House members Voting for the George W. Bush Veto to Help Deny Seniors Medicare
Akin (R-MO)
Barrett (R-SC)
Barton (R-TX)
Bishop (R-UT)
Blunt (R-MO)
Boehner (R-OH)
Brady (R-TX)
Buyer (R-IN)
Camp (R-MI)
Campbell (R-CA)
Cannon (R-UT)
Cantor (R-VA)
Carter (R-TX)
Cole (R-OK)
Conaway (R-TX)
Doolittle (R-CA)
Duncan (R-TN)
Flake (R-AZ)
Franks (R-AZ)
Hensarling (R-TX)
Johnson, Sam (R-TX)
Jordan (R-OH)
King (R-IA)
Lewis (R-KY)
Linder (R-GA)
Marchant (TX)
McCrery (R-LA)
Mica (R-FL)
Neugebauer (R-TX)
Paul (R-TX)
Pence (R-IN)
Renzi (R-AZ)
Rogers (R-MI)
Royce (R-CA)
Sali (R-ID)
Scalise (R-LA)
Sensenbrenner (R-WI)
Smith (R-NE)
Tancredo (R-CO)
Weldon (R-FL)
Westmoreland (R-GA)
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Update With Aaron James
The ongoing collusion against Aaron
Gabcast! Freedom Shenanigans #5 - Update With Aaron James Under Siege in Winnipeg
The ongoing collusion against Aaron
Monday, July 14, 2008
Is John McCain (McBush) Too Old to be Preseident?
At what point is one too old to be president? How do we know that McBush is NOT in the early stages of Alzheimer's? Would we even be told the truth?
Dr. David Reuben, chief of geriatrics at UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine, said he sees no outward evidence of such a problem with McCain, despite the occasional gaffe.
"As a clinician, I look at whether they appear to be robust, whether their sentences flow, whether their thoughts connect, whether they are easily distractible," said Reuben. "McCain appears to be quite robust."
Reuben said there's very little difference in clinical terms between McCain's age and Ronald Reagan's, who turned 70 soon after he was sworn in for his first term. Reagan managed to avoid the "old" label by often riding horses and clearing brush on his ranch in California. But could seem to be forgetful at times.
However, in Iran-Contra testimony in 1990, ONLY ONE YEAR year after leaving office, he could NOT remember that Gen. John W. Vessey served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for three years in his administration.
In spite of a growing number of memory "gaffes" and occasional disorientation episodes, Reagan's Alzheimer's diagnosis came nearly six years after leaving the White House.
Who was covering this up? Who was really running things behind the scenes? We may never know. However, by just observing McBush on the campaign trail we see that he almost always within speaking distance from his wife Cindy who consistently provides memory clues and corrections for him. Will Cindy be the "shadow" president? What interests does she answer to?
The Six-Pack.
The six-pack is younger than John McCain.
Oddly, it took until sometime in the early-40's for someone to come up with the brilliant idea of packaging drinks ("Dad's Root Beer", to be precise) six at a time. (The concern about the whole fish-killing thing, although widely overblown, didn't kick in until the 1970's.)
So, in other words, what we're saying here is that John McCain is older than what amounts to little more than a system of counting. Fantastic.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Swedes Massively Protest Wiretap Law
Written by Ernesto on July 07, 2008
In June the Swedish parliament passed a controversial surveillance law that gives authorities a mandate to read all email and listen in on all phone calls without warrant or court order. In response to the law, The Pirate Party organized rallies, bloggers and journalists turned into activists, and even Google decided to relocate their servers.
The aftermath of the vote on wiretapping legislation has been turbulent, to say the least. Bloggers have not wasted a minute in their criticism, mainstream media eventually caught up and the newspapers are now running stories and editorials every day. Various viral campaigns have flourished along with grassroots activism and The Pirate Party has hauled full sails to catch the wind that will blow them straight into European Parliament during the elections of 2009.
That's not all. Google and former public telecoms company Telia moved their servers out of Sweden. Belgium says it will sue Sweden since Belgian citizens may be wiretapped without any apparent reason. Anne Ramberg, secretary-general of the Swedish Bar Association, has called for challenges to the law in Swedish and European courts and similar demands have been heard from several other interest groups, like the Journalist's Union. It's FRA hunting season this summer in Sweden!
It is now obvious that the legislation was a deal made between the leaders of the four government parties without full support, even from within their own ranks. Active party members resigned in protest, like Fabian Norlin of the Moderate party who quit on June 24 and instead launched FRApedia, a Wiki covering everything about the law and the authorities.
Meanwhile, the people responsible have not uttered a word in defense of the legislation. They haven't even tried to justify it. In fact, the few quotes that were made referred in smug terms to the nature of the debate and the debaters. Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said "It would be best for everyone if the debate would calm down." Others have called your-rights-online-bloggers "spirited amateurs", sparking even more fury.
During the time since the vote, the Members of Parliament have appeared everything from sad through to ridiculously stupid when trying to handle the turbulence. A representative of the "ridiculous" faction was Liberal Party member Gunnar Andrén who wrote a very upset internal email claiming he hadn't been told by party colleague Camilla Lindberg that she was going to vote against the bill (she was the only member of any of the four government parties that voted against the bill and received much appreciation and media by it). His email was leaked to the press by another party colleague and Andrén was later heard on a recorded phone-call exclaiming that his secrecy of correspondence had been broken and that it was "Gestapo methods". Dude, you just voted for a bill that allows all emails to be read and all phone calls to be recorded. Live with it!
The big shift in public opinion came at the time of the vote when the blogs, who had pushed on the issue for many weeks before the vote, finally found the mainstream media with them, and with that the power to reach the masses. Some 6.6 million emails were sent to the Members of Parliament through an online petition created by daily newspaper Expressen which allowed easy protests to the members. Göran Petterson of the Moderate Party (until 2006 a military officer and one of those in favor of the FRA legislation) wrote on his blog: "Email is a great way to communicate with my voters but then you can't do like Expressen has done now. […] Now, normal emails from the citizens are drowning in these." Clearly, he didn't understand his voters were trying to communicate with him, sending him a clear message of what they thought of him and his party.
This Thursday, rallies were initiated in Malmö and Stockholm by The Pirate Party which gathered more than 2000 anti-FRA protesters. They were in fact parties rather than protests, celebrating that Sweden has become a banana republic. As in the protests before the vote in June, the parties' youth organizations stood side by side fighting the FRA, all ideological differences set aside for what may be one of the most important issues in their political careers.
In Malmö, Peter Sunde of The Pirate Bay spoke at the rally saying "the FRA bill is unnecessary, ineffective, unwanted and last but not least, expensive. The government should listen to the people, as they cannot replace us. However, we have the power to change the government." Meanwhile, in Stockholm, Maria Wetterstrand of the Green Party promised that an abolishment of the FRA bill would be one of their demands in order to form government with The Social Democrats after the elections 2010 while Alice Åström of the Left Party promised to motion this fall to give members of the government alliance parties the possibility to break up the legislation.
The Pirate Bay's Peter Sunde at the Malmö rally
Yesterday, the annual Swedish political gathering in Almedalen began, where ministers, parliament members, journalists, pundits, lobbyists and interest groups traditionally meet during a week on the island of Gotland. The government thought that putting the FRA vote at the back of the spring schedule would make it go unnoticed. Instead, it's the only current political hot topic as the Almedalen week is approaching with the Pirate Party in full presence on site to further push the agenda.
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Who Killed the Constitution?
I have said it before and I say it again, the Constitution is false holy writ for a false religion of Statism. It is inherently hypocritical because its interpretations are not immutable and thus change with each passing generational crises. It gives nothing more than a false legitimacy to the majority to oppress the minority with the hubris of "our might makes right because we followed the law!" The Constitution is also nothing more than the third failed attempt of representative self government by a people who espoused the five foundational premises of the Declaration of Independence.
The Constitution secures few rights and restrains government minimally.
~ Mit
From LewRockwell.com:
Who Killed the Constitution?by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
Today is the official release date for Who Killed the Constitution? The Fate of American Liberty from World War I to George W. Bush (Random House/Crown Forum), the book I wrote with Kevin Gutzman, the New York Times bestselling author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution.
In a sense, our book states the obvious: the United States government today is restrained not by the Constitution but simply by a sense of what it can get away with.
But ours is not the standard right-wing lament about the emasculation of the Constitution at the hands of liberal judges, though such judges receive in our pages none of the superstitious reverence Americans are taught to have for the judiciary. (Mencken once described a judge as merely a law student who graded his own examination papers.) To the contrary, we suggest that all three branches of the federal government, either separately or in collusion, have been responsible for turning the Constitution into just a museum piece, and that conservatives and liberals alike have much to answer for as well.
To hear the Left tell it, the Bush administration is a strange aberration in our history. But bad as the Bush administration is, it is not an aberration, and most of its deformations of the Constitution enjoy bipartisan support. The Democrats have made and will doubtless continue to make equally bold claims for presidential war powers, and Bill Clinton sought measures similar to the Patriot Act in the 1990s.
As I wrote in last year's 33 Questions About American History You're Not Supposed to Ask, "The philosophy of an activist, vigorous executive possessing inherent powers that override congressional prerogative is not a recent development at all, but has been an integral part of the thinking of most of the presidents our historians teach us to admire. Demonizing only one president, as the left is by and large still doing in 2008, is far too timid. So many others merit the same treatment."
We show that Harry Truman's seizure of the steel mills in 1952, for which the Supreme Court rebuked him (though not as sweepingly as the standard account suggests), was based on the same philosophy of the presidency that nearly all twentieth-century presidents held, and was likewise no aberration at all.
Woodrow Wilson is another good example, for more reasons than we can chronicle in this book. As Bill Kauffman puts it, Wilson makes George W. Bush look like a pro bono lawyer for the ACLU. In tandem with draconian penalties for the most harmless statements about the Great War, voluntary enforcement agencies with names like the Sedition Slammers, the Terrible Threateners, and the Boy Spies of America sprang up across the country. Eugene V. Debs made the best of his situation, collecting a million votes for president in the 1920 election while in prison for giving a speech. (A popular campaign button read, "For President: Convict No. 9653.") All three branches of government heartily approved.MORE HERE
Thomas E. Woods, Jr. [view his website; send him mail] is senior fellow in American history at the Ludwig von Mises Institute .
Saturday, July 05, 2008
Breaking News - Aaron James Under Siege?
The Aaron James story is intriguing and infuriating. Look to the side bar for the link to his story and here.
Aaron called afraid and concerned because somebody pounded on his apartment door but didn't announce who they were. Aaron kept silent fearing that if he acknowledged his presence the door would then be broken down and he abducted to the American gulag. His mother then came by the apartment and noted that Winnipeg police were in the area waiting.
The following recording was made in haste and under poor conditions. Aaron can be heard wonderfully. However, your reporter's voice is muffled and we are not sure why unless it has to do with the long distance three way calling connection. In our mind it is best anyway that Aaron can be heard better as it is his story that needs to be told.
Please listen, copy and post on your sites.
Call the Winnipeg police and ask why they are harassing Aaron James 204-986-6222.
Contact your favorite radio host with this story content.
Gabcast! Freedom Shenanigans #4
Friday, July 04, 2008
Why We Mourn July 4th
In 1776, fifty-six men signed the Declaration of Independence declaring that,
"We hold these truths to be self-evident. . ."
What truths were "these truths"?
There were only 5 Truths (premises or foundational principles) articulated as the reasons for the Declaration.
The whole idea and reason for the Declaration of Independence and the subsequently instituted governments of the United States of America rest upon these 5 Truths.
The signers of the Declaration of Independence believed that those who supported these 5 Truths were good people and supporters of freedom.
However, those who opposed the 5 Truths were against liberty as agents of dictators, tyrants and despots.
Which one are you?
Do you believe in the 5 Truths?
Truth 1. All people are created equal by "Nature's God." (No commentary was given about the nature of, or, who "Nature's God" was believed to be. However, knowing who Jefferson was and what he and other founders believed, it can be inferred that the implication was from a Deistic
Truth 2. All created equal people are endowed with certain unalienable rights.
Truth 3. By the consent of the equal people with endowed certain unalienable rights, governments are formed to secure those endowed certain unalienable rights of the equal people.
Truth 4. When any form of government becomes destructive of those endowed certain unalienable rights of the equal people, it is the right and duty of the equal people with endowed certain unalienable rights to replace that government with one that will secure those, endowed certain unalienable rights of the equal people.
Truth 5. Changes of government should not be for casual and changing reasons, therefore, the equal people with endowed certain unalienable rights must declare the causes that make them change governments.
Make no mistake in thinking that this is a light matter. We as a nation are approaching a fork in the road together.
There are those among us who believe that "government" is the source of rights and liberty. They are the modern day Tories, the royalists, and believers in the divine rights of kings. Only today their "king" is the Government.
We have almost come full circle in our experiment in liberty from where we started.
an out of control constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary government that reduced its loyal citizens to property of the State,
a "constitutional republic" form whose substance is a "democratic representative" legislative government that distorts the words, meanings and intent of the Constitution thereby reducing the people to property of the State.
True American Patriots still believe in the 5Truths of Freedom
- To embrace these truths by believing in them and living by them is to be an American patriot, honoring the men and women who fought and died for liberty.
- To infringe or alienate these truths by action or accepting government's actions is to dishonor the patriots who have lived and died for us.
On which side do you stand?
(a)The promise of tranquil security by intrusive government, mouthing words of liberty while taking away rights by regulation forcing you to give up your "fair share" of freedom for privileged benefits that rest upon you as chains of control?
(b)The 5Truths and the certain human rights endowed to an equal people that must not be infringed by your countrymen in your service in government leaving you to live the "animating contest of freedom" in liberty while pursuing the happiness of responsible self-ownership?
If you believe in the 5Truths then generate interest in the 5Truths. Tell others about the 5Truths. Compare our government today to the 5Truths.
Prepare! Prepare! Wake Up! To Arms! The Ameritish are coming!
To understand more please read the following from Larken Rose
Blind Nationalism
Today is a day when millions of victims of a tyrannical regime go out and proudly display their blind loyalty to that regime. The modern celebrations which occur on July 4th make about as much sense as Jews proudly parading around carrying banners of Swastikas.
What, exactly, does the American flag represent? I don't mean what do you WISH it represented--I mean, given how it is used and displayed today, what must it ACTUALLY represent? Well, the nationalistic "pledge of allegiance" says that the flag stands for a "Republic." In other words, millions of children (not to mention adults) are trained to swear allegiance to a FLAG and a GOVERNMENT.
Eeww. How revolting.
A lot of people have told me they think I'm a "true patriot." I know they mean it as a compliment, but I'm not sure why. What is it that I'm being loyal to? It sure as heck isn't the government, or a piece of cloth (the flag). In short, I'm loyal to the idea of FREEDOM--that every individual rightfully owns himself, and that any infringement upon that right (e.g., ALL "government") is an evil abomination.
Now, some people like to imagine that that is what the U.S. of A. is about: freedom. However, I don't see a shred of support for such a claim. A couple hundred years ago you might have been able to make such an argument, but what about today? Most of the country continues to vote for one of two clubs of nationalist socialists, though they use the meaningless names "Democratic" and "Republican." Neither club cares a whit about freedom, inalienable rights, or even the flawed Constitution.
So in what way can the U.S. be called pro-freedom? The tyrants in Washington obviously aren't, nor are the sheep who elect them. In short, if you care about freedom, waving the American flag now makes about as much sense as waving the flag of the Soviet Union. Whatever you WISH it represented, it is now in reality a symbol of tyranny, at home and abroad. Do you really think the symbol that flies over all of the giant monuments to power--the federal buildings--represents liberty anymore?
If you love freedom, as I do, there is no country on earth for you. Every flag, every nation, stands for your enslavement, in one way or another. The megalomaniacs have their tentacles just about everywhere. But what is more sickening than that is how the same people being controlled, taxed, and regulated into economic and psychological ruin will be out in force today, celebrating their purely imagined "freedom." I, for one, can't stand the sight of it anymore, so don't expect to see me at any parades or celebrations.
Unlike 99.9% of this country, I see no reason to celebrate my own enslavement.
But have a Happy Dependence Day anyway. "If you're free and you know it, clank your chains!" ...
Larken Rose
Thursday, July 03, 2008
Bush Fulfills His Grandfather's Dream
The McCormack-Dickstein Committee was established to investigate a homegrown American fascist plot hatched in 1933. In documents uncovered, details of a planned coup in the USA in 1933 by right-wing American businessmen. The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America, (owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell Hse & George Bush´s Grandfather, Prescott) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression.
Prescott Sheldon Bush (1895 to 1972) attended Yale University and joined the secret society known as Skull and Bones. Prescott is widely reported to have stolen the skull of Native American leader Geronimo. As far as I know, this has not actually been confirmed. In fact, Prescott seems to have had a habit of making things up. He sent letters home from World War I claiming he'd received medals for heroism. After the letters were printed in newspapers, he had to retract his claims.
If this does not yet sound like the life of a George W. Bush ancestor, try this on for size: Prescott Bush's early business efforts tended to fail. He married the daughter of a very rich man named George Herbert Walker (the guy with the compound at Kennebunkport, Maine, that now belongs to the Bush family, and the origin of Dubya's middle initial). Walker installed Prescott Bush as an executive in Thyssen and Flick. From then on, Prescott's business dealings went better, and he entered politics.
Now, the name Thyssen comes from a German named Fritz Thyssen, major financial backer of the rise of Adolph Hitler. Thyssen was referred to in the New York Herald-Tribune as "Hitler's Angel." During the 1930s and early 1940s, and even as late as 1951, Prescott Bush was involved in business dealings with Thyssen, and was inevitably aware of both Thyssen's political activities and the fact that the companies involved were financially benefiting the nation of Germany. In addition, the companies Prescott Bush profited from included one engaged in mining operations in Poland using slave labor from Auschwitz. Two former slave laborers have sued the U.S. government and the heirs of Prescott Bush for $40 billion.
Until the United States entered World War II it was legal for Americans to do business with Germany, but in late 1942 Prescott Bush's businesses interests were seized under the Trading with the Enemy Act. Among those businesses involved was the Hamburg America Lines, for which Prescott Bush served as a manager. A Congressional committee, in a report called the McCormack-Dickstein Report, found that Hamburg America Lines had offered free passage to Germany for journalists willing to write favorably about the Nazis, and had brought Nazi sympathizers to America. (Is this starting to remind anyone of our current president's relationship to the freedom of the press?)


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Welcome to a new series we're starting here on the blog! The aim is to have a new entry in this series every fortnight, but more often if circumstances are permitting. We're going to be exploring together a new paper from the previous two weeks that has taken my interest – this could be because it's groundbreaking new work, highly relevant to my current reading or, as in this week's case, is just really damn cool. The aim is to communicate awesome science in such a way that it's accessible to all, but in a more detailed way than seen in popular media.
First things first, today's paper can be found here. All research articles published in the Journal of Experimental Biology are open access six months after publication – so be sure to check back then if you want to read the full article and don't have access currently.
Let's get stuck in! The authors make observations that hammerhead sharks show a variety of cross species morphological (shape) changes, though this hasn't been extensively looked at previously. It stands to reason that these changes in shape may have an impact on how the sharks swim, following the classic moniker "form ever follows function". The phrase was actually coined in the 18th Century by American architect Louis Sullivan and used to describe a variety of natural instances of form-function associations such as a "branching oak" and "toiling work-horse". It has since been considered integral to functional morphology in both living and fossil creatures.
The two species investigated are the scalloped hammerhead (Sphyrna lewini) and the bonnethead (Sphyrna tiburo). It's clearly from the images below that these two species have very different morphology of the T-bar at the head of the animal, which is called the cephalofoil – cephalo meaning head. Previous studies have shown an inverse relationship between cephalofoil pectoral fin area, such as one increases the other decreases. The authors decided to investigate how body shape and cephalofoil area contribute to the swimming style of the sharks.
Four of each species, for a total of eight sharks, were captured and filmed in large swimming pools using a GoPro video camera situated above the water. From these videos, several points across the animal (seen below) were tracked through steady swimming and the areas of the cephalofoil and pectoral fins were calculated. Any lengths were calculated using Total Body Length (TL) to standardise for body size. One specimen of each species was CT scanned so that the 3D shape of the body could be better analysed (see this post for more on CT scanning and how it works!). Parameters such as swimming speed, tail beat frequency and amplitude were measured and analysed.
So what were the findings? Firstly, the relationship between cephalofoil and pectoral fin area proportions was recovered as in the historic studies. This is always reassuring to see, since peer-reviewed science should always be sound and reproducible. Secondly, the two sharks were found to have different body shapes in the anterior region of the post-cranial body, so the equivalent of the "torso" region in humans. The scalloped hammerheads measured in this study had a more laterally compressed "torso", so had relatively taller and thin bodies compared to the dorso-ventrally (top-bottom) compressed "torsos" of the bonnethead sharks. Interestingly, standardised velocity and tail beat amplitude didn't differ significantly between the two species, suggesting each is performing at relatively the same rate. Further analysis showed that the tail segment had the greatest flexion amplitude, as would be expected of tail based propulsion.
Tl;dr: bonnethead and scalloped hammerheads differ greatly in their morphology, particularly in the anterior region of the body. Differences are observed in the morphology of the cepahlofoil (spade-like in bonnetheads vs straight T-bar in scalloped hammerheads) and the anterior body shape (flatter bonnetheads vs taller scalloped hammerheads). Despite these morphological changes, no relative differences are seen in swim speed or undulation frequency, but do differ in undulation amplitude.
This was a fantastic, well-constructed study to read about some really cool animals. It also alludes to there being a "standard" relative speed for shark swimming, similar to how tetrapods move at similar relative speeds (Froude numbers).
Any thoughts on the format for these posts would be appreciate. We can make them snappier, maybe even a bit more visual if I dedicate some more time to developing my own graphics aside from those in the papers.

subset: commoncrawl


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Wendy's Night
February 27, 2018 @ 5:00 pm - 8:00 pm
|Recurring Event (See all)
Wendy's Night
Take a night off of cooking and support New Life Academy.
For every family that mentions New Life Academy when purchasing food at the Woodbury Wendy's between 5-8 pm, Wendy's will donate a portion of the proceeds to NLA.


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4:32pm PT by Kate Stanhope
'Dirk Gently' Adds Alan Tudyk, 'Agents of SHIELD' Alum for Season 2
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency is adding to its ranks for season two.
Alan Tudyk, John Hannah (Agents of SHIELD), Amanda Walsh (Lost Girl) and Aleks Paunovic (War for the Planet of the Apes) have signed on for the upcoming season of the BBC America series.
Tudyk will play Mr. Priest, a ruthless, dangerous and violent bounty hunter working for Blackwing. The sci-fi favorite, whose credits include Rogue One, Firefly and the DC comedy Powerless, is repped by The Coronel Group and attorney Bob Myman.
Hannah is set as The Mage, a powerful wizard who takes great pleasure in doing evil and is seeking to conquer a world not his own. The actor's credits include The Mummy and he is repped by ARG Talent and Artists Rights Group.
Walsh will portray Suzie Boreton, an unassuming, insecure, depressed soccer mom who is selected for an unexpected role by the Mage, and gradually reveals her true, terrifying self to our heroes. The actress, whose credits include Disturbia, Ghost of Girlfriends Past and Sons and Daughters, is repped by ICM Partners, 3 Arts and ETM.
Paunovic rounds out the group as Wygar Oak, a dominating enforcer for the Dengdamor royal family. The actor's credits include Van Helsing and Supernatural. Paunovic is repped by SMS Talent, Trisko Talent Management and Wright Entertainment.
The quartet join the recently cast Tyler Labine (Deadbeat, Reaper) and reunites Tudyk with his Tucker and Dale vs. Evil co-star.
From writer Max Landis (American Ultra, Chronicle) and executive producer Robert Cooper (Stargate Atlantis, Stargate Universe), Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency stars Elijah Wood and Samuel Barnett and is adapted from the popular novels by Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy). The 10-episode second season is set to premiere later this year on BBC America.
Kate firstname.lastname@example.com @katestanhope


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100% of funds raised are donated to Elisha's health fund.
Buy The Documentary
This year three sisters, all vibrant, young women, may have their perfectly healthy breasts removed in the hope of saving their lives. They've all tested positive for BRCA2, a genetic malfunction, and inherited gene disorder that means they are at a significantly higher than normal risk of developing breast and/or ovarian cancer before they turn 50.
They are all now going through the pain and heartache of having to make a decision to remove their breasts now whilst they are young and healthy and have no symptoms of cancer or wait until cancer sets in. Choosing to have both their breasts removed could circumvent what is a family history of women dying young of breast cancer.
One sister has chosen to have a full prophylactic mastectomy to remove her healthy breasts. The other two are struggling with difficult decision making process to bring the future into the present and have their breast removed in order to reduce the risk of developing cancer at a later date.
Watch the trailer:
Pieces of Me provides a human face to the accelerating scientific advancements in genetic identification. The science of genetics is expanding faster than cures or treatments, so what do people do when diagnosed with a faulty gene, knowing that a cure is still far behind?
Buy Pieces of me from Big Sky Publishing
100% of funds raised are donated to Elisha's health fund.
Buy The Book
"My mother always talked to us of death so we would not be afraid. She knew the history of cancer in our family was more than just a coincidence. My grandmother, great grandmother and great aunt all died of breast cancer by the time they were 50. My mother developed breast cancer at 49, her sister at 59. Needless to say, while growing up there was a shadow of awareness that breast cancer was 'in my genes'."
Pieces of Me, by Veronica Neave, is a beautifully written and thought-provoking account of her journey from diagnosis of the BRCA2 'breast cancer' gene mutation to her decision to remove her healthy breasts.
Performer, film director and mum, life for Veronica was always a little crazy and unpredictable. When she tested positive for the BRCA2 breast cancer gene the turmoil in her life reached a new high. The genetic test, combined with her family's history, increased the probability of Veronica one day battling breast cancer to more than 85%. When her two sisters also tested positive for the gene, it seemed the deadly pattern was destined to continue.
"Until a few years ago, my family had never heard of the BRCA2 gene, and now it seems to be everywhere. It's a bizarre predicament, dealing with the concept that it's highly probable you'll get cancer and making decisions on a future that may or may not happen, but could potentially kill you. I was confused and wondering just how much time I really had before fate took the decision away from me?" said Veronica.
The options on paper seemed simple: a lifetime of high maintenance testing, medication, or the more intrusive step of removing her healthy breasts, and possibly her ovaries too, in the hope of prevention.
As she unravelled the information of experts from across the medical spectrum, Veronica battled her own beliefs about sexuality, body image and the thought that her breast removal and reconstruction would be seen as cosmetic 'improvement' rather than a life-saving operation. One thing was certain. The science of genetic identification was expanding faster than cures or treatments and Veronica needed to make a decision now.
On one hand she had been forewarned of the potential risks, on the other, there was no certainty of prevention or a cure. Along the way Veronica shares her choices, insights and fears as she untangles the different perspectives and advice, to eventually find her own way.
Pieces of Me provides a human face to the accelerating scientific advancements in genetic identification. The science of genetics is expanding faster than cures or treatments, so what do people do when diagnosed with a faulty gene, knowing that a cure is still far behind?


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1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup white wine vinegar
1/4 cup fresh lime juice
1/2 (7.5 oz) jar roasted sweet red peppers, drained & diced
3 green onions, minced
3 T. chopped fresh parsley
3 T. chopped fresh cilantro
1 tsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. fresh ground pepper
8-oz block of sharp Cheddar cheese, chilled
8-oz block of Monterey Jack cheese with peppers, chilled
8-oz package cream cheese, chilled
Wisk together the first 3 ingredients until mixture is blended; stir in the diced red peppers and the next 6 ingredients. Set marinade aside.
Cut the block of Cheddar cheese in half lengthwise. Cut halves crosswise into 1/4-inch slices. Repeat with Monterey Jack cheese and cream cheese.
Arrange cheese slices alternatingly in a shallow baking dish, standing slices on edge. Pour marinade over cheeses. Cover and chill at least 8 hours.
Transfer cheese to a serving plate and spoon remaining marinade over the top. Serve with your favorite crackers, (I use Ritz crackers).
Linking with
Common Ground for Be Inspired
Linking with
Common Ground for Be Inspired


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Opus™ is intended for use in medium to heavy traffic areas, the non-directional diamond pattern of Opus™ aggressively scrapes and cleans, while the rubber-edged perimeter entraps dirt and moisture for superior water and soil control. Molded rubber "cleats" on the underside of the mat grip the underlying surface minimizing mat movement.
WARNING: This product can expose you to chemicals including, di (2-ethylhexyl) phthalate and 2 Mercaptobenzothiazole, which are known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm. For more information go to www.P65Warnings.ca.gov.
Available Colors: Burgundy, Brown, Slate Blue, Hunter Green, Charcoal
Sales Tip: The molded rubber cleats that help keep the mat in place also elevates the mat allowing wet floors to dry underneath
Where to Specify: The non-directional pattern design is perfect for entranceways, lobbies, and other indoor medium to high traffic areas
Shipping Location: Chicago, IL 60638


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Each Friday we will be introducing you to one player on the American Sentinel University team. Everyone works hard to make sure our students reach their goals through supporting students and constantly improving our curriculum. When our students graduate with a relevant, innovative healthcare degree we all win!
Meet Loren Ellison, Institutional Research Analyst
What is your New Year's resolution?
To think positively and read more.
What is your favorite part about your position at American Sentinel?
I love collaborating with people in other departments to come up with questions and hypotheses, dig deep into the data, review the results, and then come up with a plan of action. It's fun to see the impact of different initiatives.
What is your favorite movie?
I've always loved "Dirty Dancing."
What is your favorite quote?
Besides "nobody puts Baby in a corner"? (just kidding). I like Carl Sagan's quote, "somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known."
Growing up, what was your favorite toy?
I really love rocks and gems, and arts and crafts. So, it's a tie between my "Grow Your Own Crystals" kit and the toy when you ironed a bunch of colorful beads into fun shapes.
If you could have any superpower what would it be? Extra credit – what would your superhero name be then?
The power of persuasion and my super-secret code name would be Sally Sway.


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2015 AfDB Annual Meetings in Abidjan: Online registration now open
The 2015 African Development Bank (AfDB) Annual Meetings will take place from Monday, May 25 to Friday, May 29 at the Sofitel Hotel Ivoire in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire. The 50th Annual Meetings for the African Development Bank and the 41st meetings of its soft loan affiliate, the African Development Fund (ADF), will focus on the theme "Africa and the New Global Landscape".
The event, where key decisions about the Bank Group are made each year, is attended by Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors from the Bank's 54 regional member countries (RMCs) and 26 non-regional member countries, and attracts more than 2,500 delegates representing multilateral finance institutions, development agencies, the private sector, non-governmental organizations, civil society and the media. During the Annual Meetings, the Bank's 50th Anniversary will be marked and a new AfDB President will be elected.
What: 2015 African Development Bank Annual Meetings
Where: Sofitel Hotel Ivoire, Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire
Who: Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors from the Bank's member countries, more than 2,500 delegates representing multilateral finance institutions, development agencies, the private sector, non-governmental organizations, civil society and the media.
Registration is now open and you are kindly requested to register for the meetings on the Annual Meetings website
To access the online Registration Form, please use the ID number provided as the reference to your invitation letter. If your organization intends to send one or more representatives, they should kindly complete separate online Registration Forms, using the same Reference Code.
If you encounter any difficulties in registering online, please call (+225) 2026 35 81 / (+225) 2026 25 37, or send a message to email@example.com. Your confirmation letter will be sent to you after you have duly completed the online Registration Form and attached your passport photograph.
A series of documents comprising the provisional programme, the information bulletin and other useful information relating to your participation in the Annual Meetings will be available soon on the Bank's 2015 Annual Meetings microsite.
Annual Meetings Secretariat: Selina Peters, tel. +225 20 26 35 81 or Hildegarde Birara, tel. +225 20 26 25 37; email@example.com
Media contacts:
Olivia Ndong-Obiang, tel. (+225) 20 26 45 84, mobile (+225) 01 56 05 05, email@example.com
Joyce Mulama, tel. (+225) 20 26 58 78, mobile (+225) 46 10 24 49, firstname.lastname@example.com
Follow the 2015 Annual Meetings on Twitter: @AfDB_Group
Official conference hashtag: #AfDBAM2015


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UK Football
Less than 1,000 tickets on sale for UK-Alabama
The University of Kentucky announced that less than 1,000 unclaimed general-admission student tickets are available to the public for Saturday night's home game against No. 1 Alabama.
The tickets cost $75 apiece and cannot be purchased online. Interested fans can buy them over the phone at 1-800-928-2287 or in person at the Joe Craft Center Ticket Office on campus. Office hours are 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Friday and 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday. Any remaining tickets can also be purchased beginning at 5 p.m. at the Commonwealth Stadium ticket booth.


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Basic Calculation
Posted in News on August 12th, 2017
(Comments Off on Basic Calculation)
Hello and welcome, this is an article on the calculation of the slope. Keep tuned to the lesson. One of the more traditional debates in this in the calculation of the slope of a port is if when measuring 1 km it is correct to do so on the ground really traveled the road, or […]


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Starting date for online application registration is 18 March, 2017, Date of application Fee deposit is 19 April, 2017 and the last date for the application submission is 19 April, 2017.
For more information as about total no. of posts, age limit, educational qualification, selection process, application fee, important dates, how to apply etc., regarding this recruitment visit the official website of Telangana Postal Circle www.indiapost.gov.in. On this website online application facility is available.
More and important information for Telangana Postal Circle Recruitment 2017 is given below–
● 1072 GDS Post - Odisha Postal Circle Recruitment 2017
Telangana Postal Circle Recruitment 2017 : 645 GDS Post
Total Post : 645
Name of Post : Gramin Dak Sevaks
Education Qualification : Candidates must have passed 10th Class form any recognized board and School and Must have basic computer training certificate for Telangana Postal Recruitment.
Age Limit : 18 to 40 years old as on 19 April 2017. Age relaxation will be given category wise as per govt. rules and regulation.
Pay Scale : Rs. 25,000/-
Application Fee : General/OBC – Rs.100/- All Other Candidates (ST/SC/Ex-s/PWD) – No
Selection Process : Selection process for Telangana Postal Circle Recruitment is as follows, Merit List and Interview
How to Apply : Eligible candidates can enroll for the notification online from the website www.indiapost.gov.in. Aspirants have to fill the application form and have to make payment and submit the form before the last date.
Advertisement No. : RE/GDS/2016-17
● 1789 GDS Post - Maharashtra Postal Circle Recruitment 2017
Important Dates
Application Online Start : 18 March, 2017
Last Date for Registration : 19 April, 2017
Last Date Fee Payment : 19 April, 2017
Important Links
Apply Online : http://www.appost.in/gdsonline/
Official Website : www.indiapost.gov.in


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Throughout Chile there are native fruits with higher antioxidant benefits compared to the traditional berries from the United States and Greece. Under this scenario, products like the maqui, myrtle and calafate berries are national and have functional properties with major health benefits, making Chile a global power when it comes to antioxidants.
The interest in the study of native Chilean fruits follows a global trend that seeks new raw materials with high contents of antioxidants. In this context, the Instituto de Nutrición y Tecnología de los Alimentos, INTA (Institute of Nutrition and Food Technology) indicates that the calafate, the maqui and the murta, are the berries that concentrate the highest amount of polyphenols, compared to the main berries produced in Chile such as blueberry, raspberry, and strawberry.
The country has native species such as calafate and maqui, fruits with the highest antioxidant power in the entire world.
The study carried out by Fundación Chile and GfK Adimark indicates that incorporating higher value-added products so there is a constant demand of the native berries is needed, which should be attractive and preserve the quality and characteristics of the raw materials. For example, they may be marketed as energy drinks, antioxidants beverage, low calorie dressings, and organic teas, amongst others.
Fundación Chile's Food and Biotechnology Manager, Andrés Barros, states that "Chile has native fruits of high nutritional power, particularly in antioxidants like calafate and maqui, being both the ones that have the highest antioxidant power in the world. In addition to this, being the leading blueberries exporter and a large wine producer, makes us a world power in availability of antioxidant raw materials, which adding value to this, and developing functional products in this area, is the greatest opportunity. "
MAQUI (Aristoteliachilensis Mol. Stuntz)
The Maqui comes from a native tree of the Sub-Antarctic forests of Chile and Argentina, which can be found in our country between Limarí and Aysen, both in the central valley and in the Andean foothills, besides also being found in the archipelago of Juan Fernandez. Its fruit is an edible spherical black purplish glossy berry, which has been ancestrally used by the Mapuche people as a natural remedy due to its many health benefits, standing out as a cure for burns, wounds, tumors, throat problems, diarrhea and as an analgesic and antipyretic. It is strongly linked to the Chilean idiosyncrasy, evoking holidays and childhood memories.
MYRTLE (UgnimolinaeTurcz)
The myrtle is a berry that is distributed in Chile from the Maule to the Region of Los Lagos. Considered an exotic and novel fruit, its versatility makes it an interesting fruit for the development of various products ranging from the development of liquors, jams and preserves, to the preparation of cosmetics and pharmaceutical products. On the other hand, the myrtle is also notable for its leafs, which have interesting healing, analgesic, anti-aging and antioxidant properties, as well as proven anti-inflammatory properties in animal studies.
CALAFATE (Berberisbuxifolia Lam)
The Calafate is a native berry found in Chile from Curicó to Tierra del Fuego, but mainly located in the Chilean and Argentinian Patagonia.
This fruit has many natural properties that many are unaware of. It is considered an excellent natural antioxidant that protects the body from cellular aging due to its high content of polyphenols and flavonoids. It is also a powerful source of minerals and vitamin C. The roots of this species have been used to control fevers and inflammations, stomach pain, indigestion and colitis, and its fruits for its natural pigments. The presence of anthocyanins in the fruit (pigment that gives it its characteristic color) presents interesting opportunities for use as a natural dye.


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This image shows the edge of a giant gaseous cavity within the star-forming region called NGC 3324. The glowing nebula has been carved out by intense ultraviolet radiation and stellar winds from several hot, young stars. A cluster of extremely massive stars, located well outside this image in the center of the nebula, is responsible for the ionization of the nebula and excavation of the cavity. The image also reveals dramatic dark towers of cool gas and dust that rise above the glowing wall of gas. The dense gas at the top resists the blistering ultraviolet radiation from the central stars, and creates a tower that points in the direction of the energy flow. The high-energy radiation blazing out from the hot, young stars in NGC 3324 is sculpting the wall of the nebula by slowly eroding it away. Located in the Southern Hemisphere, NGC 3324 is at the northwest corner of the Carina Nebula (NGC 3372), home of the Keyhole Nebula and the active, outbursting star Eta Carinae. The entire Carina Nebula complex is located at a distance of roughly 7,200 light-years, and lies in the constellation Carina.
This portrait of Stephan's Quintet, also known as Hickson Compact Group 92, was taken by the new Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) aboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Stephan's Quintet, as the name implies, is a group of five galaxies. The name, however, is a bit of a misnomer. Studies have shown that group member NGC 7320, at lower right, is actually a foreground galaxy about seven times closer to Earth than the rest of the group. NGC 7320 is 40 million light-years from Earth. The other members of the quintet reside 290 million light-years away in the constellation Pegasus. WFC3 observed the quintet in July and August 2009.
Huge waves are sculpted in NGC 6537, the Red Spider Nebula, a two-lobed nebula some 3000 light-years away in the constellation of Sagittarius. This warm planetary nebula harbours one of the hottest stars known and its powerful stellar winds generate waves 100 billion kilometres high. The waves are caused by supersonic shocks, formed when the local gas is compressed and heated in front of the rapidly expanding lobes. The atoms caught in the shock emit the spectacular radiation seen in this image.
A small region inside the massive globular cluster Omega Centauri which boasts nearly 10 million stars. The stars in Omega Centauri are about about 16,000 light-years from Earth, and are between 10 billion and 12 billion years old. The majority of the stars in the image are yellow-white, like our Sun. These are adult stars that are shining by hydrogen fusion. Toward the end of their normal lives, the stars become cooler and larger. These late-life stars are the orange dots in the image. Even later in their life cycles, the stars continue to cool down and expand in size, becoming red giants. These bright red stars swell to many times larger than our Sun's size and begin to shed their gaseous envelopes. After ejecting most of their mass and exhausting much of their hydrogen fuel, the stars appear brilliant blue. Only a thin layer of material covers their super-hot cores. These stars are desperately trying to extend their lives by fusing helium in their cores. At this stage, they emit much of their light at ultraviolet wavelengths. When the helium runs out, the stars reach the end of their lives. Only their burned-out cores remain, and they are called white dwarfs (the faint blue dots in the image). White dwarfs are no longer generating energy through nuclear fusion and have gravitationally contracted to the size of Earth. They will continue to cool and grow dimmer for many billions of years until they become dark cinders. All of the stars in the image are cozy neighbors. The average distance between any two stars in the cluster's crowded core is only about a third of a light-year, roughly 13 times closer than our Sun's nearest stellar neighbor, Alpha Centauri. Although the stars are close together, WFC3's sharpness can resolve each of them as individual stars. If anyone lived in this globular cluster, they would behold a star-saturated sky that is roughly 100 times brighter than Earth's sky. Hubble observed Omega Centauri on July 15, 2009, in ultraviolet and visible light.
This image from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope shows the diverse collection of galaxies in the cluster Abell S0740 that is over 450 million light-years away in the direction of the constellation Centaurus. The giant elliptical ESO 325-G004 looms large at the cluster's center. The galaxy is as massive as 100 billion of our suns. Hubble resolves thousands of globular star clusters orbiting ESO 325-G004. At the galaxy's distance they appear as pinpoints of light contained within the diffuse halo. Other fuzzy elliptical galaxies dot the image. Some have evidence of a disk or ring structure that gives them a bow-tie shape. Several spiral galaxies are also present. The starlight in these galaxies is mainly contained in a disk and follows along spiral arms. This image was created by combining Hubble science observations taken in January 2005 with Hubble Heritage observations taken a year later to form a 3-color composite. The filters that isolate blue, red and infrared light were used with the Advanced Camera for Surveys aboard Hubble.
This portrait is the most detailed view of the largest stellar nursery in our local galactic neighborhood. The massive, young stellar grouping, called R136, is only a few million years old and resides in the 30 Doradus Nebula, a turbulent star-birth region in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way located some 170,000 light-years away. Many of the diamond-like icy blue stars are among the most massive stars known. Several of them are over 100 times more massive than our Sun. The image, taken by Hubble on October 20-27, 2009, spans about 100 light-years across.
Hubble's Advance Camera for Surveys (ACS) recently took this image of galaxy NGC 4522 in the Virgo Cluster. Backdropped by many other more distant galaxies, the impression given by NGC 4522 is that it is flying apart. A phenomenon called ram pressure stripping is mangling the galaxy as it hurtles through a region of hot x-ray emitting gas at 10 million kilometers per hour- stripping away its own gas content. NGC 4522 is some 60 million light years away.
The star cluster Pismis 24 lies in the core of the large emission nebula NGC 6357 that extends one degree on the sky in the direction of the Scorpius constellation. Part of the nebula is ionised by the youngest (bluest) heavy stars in Pismis 24. The intense ultraviolet radiation from the blazing stars heats the gas surrounding the cluster and creates a bubble in NGC 6357. The presence of these surrounding gas clouds makes probing into the region even harder. One of the top candidates for the title of "Milky Way stellar heavyweight champion" was, until now, Pismis 24-1, a bright young star that lies in the core of the small open star cluster Pismis 24 (the bright stars in the Hubble image) about 8,000 light-years away from Earth. Pismis 24-1 was thought to have an incredibly large mass of 200 to 300 solar masses. New NASA/ESA Hubble measurements of the star, have, however, resolved Pismis 24-1 into two separate stars, and, in doing so, have "halved" its mass to around 100 solar masses.
The photographer itself - a crew member aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis captured this still image of the Hubble Space Telescope above the Earth, as the two spacecraft continued their relative separation on May 19, 2009 after having been linked together for the better part of a week during the STS-125 mission. During the week five spacewalks were performed to complete the final servicing mission for the orbital observatory.
In 2004, Hubble created the deepest visible-light image of the Universe and now, with its brand-new camera, it is seeing even farther in the same region. This image, taken by the HUDF09 team with the new WFC3/infrared camera on Hubble in late August 2009, during a total of four days of pointing for 173,000 seconds of total exposure time, is the deepest image of the universe ever taken in near-infrared light. Nearly every smudge and bit of light in this image is a separate galaxy made up of billions of stars. The faintest and reddest objects in the image are galaxies that formed 600 million years after the Big Bang. No galaxies have been seen before at such early times. The image was taken in the same region as the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (2004), and is roughly 2.4 arcminutes wide. Again, I invite you to step outside some dark night in the future and gaze up at the sky, knowing that every bit of apparent darkness above is really filled with the faint light of these billions of faraway galaxies.
In January 2002, a dull star in an obscure constellation suddenly became 600,000 times more luminous than our Sun, temporarily making it the brightest star in our galaxy. The star, called V838 Monocerotis, has long since faded back to obscurity, but observations of a phenomenon called a "light echo" around the star have uncovered remarkable new features over the following years (this animation covers two years' time). The light echo is light from the earlier explosion echoing off dust surrounding the star. Light from the outburst traveled to the dust and then was reflected to Earth. Because of this indirect path, the light arrived at Earth months after light from the star that traveled directly from the star.
In early January of 2000, Hubble took this image of Galaxy Cluster Abell 2218, and its massive amount of "gravitational lensing". Abell 2218 lies some 2 billion light-years away in the Draco constellation and is so massive that its enormous gravitational field deflects light rays passing through it, much as an optical lens bends light to form an image. These magnifying powers provides a powerful "zoom lens" for viewing distant galaxies that could not normally be observed with the largest telescopes. The visible "arcs" are the distorted images of very distant galaxies, which lie 5 to 10 times farther away than the lensing cluster itself.
About 55 million years ago, a star near the dusty lenticular galaxy NGC 4526 exploded into a supernova, seen as a bright spot at lower left. In 1994, the Hubble Space telescope caught the weeks-long explosion as the light from it finally reached the Earth, and we called it Supernova 1994D, a fairly typical stellar explosion. The host galaxy also known as the Lost Galaxy lies in the background and is part of the Virgo Cluster.
Also around 55 million light-years distant, we see here the colliding Antennae Galaxies (NGC 4038/NGC 4039) - a pair of interacting galaxies that lie in the constellation Corvus. The two spiral galaxies started to fuse together a few hundred million years ago making the Antenna galaxies the nearest and youngest example of a pair of colliding galaxies. Nearly half of the faint objects in the Antennae are young clusters containing tens of thousands of stars.
This image, taken by the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), represents a small section of a larger mosaic - the sharpest view ever taken of the Orion Nebula - a picture book of star formation with massive young stars that are shaping the nebula and pillars of dense gas that may be the homes of budding stars. The bright glow at left is from M43, a small region being shaped by ultraviolet light from a massive young star. Astronomers call the region a miniature Orion Nebula because only one star is sculpting the landscape. The Orion Nebula has four such stars. The Orion Nebula is 1,500 light-years away, the nearest star-forming region to Earth.
A nearly perfect ring of hot, blue stars pinwheels about the yellow nucleus of an unusual galaxy known as Hoag's Object. This image captures a face-on view of the galaxy's ring of stars, revealing more detail than any existing photo of this object. The entire galaxy is about 120,000 light-years wide, which is slightly larger than our Milky Way Galaxy. The blue ring, which is dominated by clusters of young, massive stars, contrasts sharply with the yellow nucleus of mostly older stars. What appears to be a gap separating the two stellar populations may actually contain some star clusters that are almost too faint to see. Curiously, an object that bears an uncanny resemblance to Hoag's Object can be seen in the gap at the one o'clock position. The object is probably a background ring galaxy.
Called I Zwicky 18, this galaxy - some 59 million light-years distant - has a youthful appearance that resembles galaxies typically found only in the early universe. Hubble has now found faint, older stars within this galaxy, suggesting that the galaxy may have formed at the same time as most other galaxies. I Zwicky 18 is classified as a dwarf irregular galaxy and is much smaller than our Milky Way Galaxy. The concentrated bluish-white knots embedded in the heart of the galaxy are two major starburst regions where stars are forming at a furious rate. The wispy blue filaments surrounding the central starburst regions are bubbles of gas that have been blown away by stellar winds and supernovae explosions from a previous generation of hot, young stars. A companion galaxy lies just above and to the left and may be interacting with I Zwicky 18.
Just weeks after NASA astronauts repaired the Hubble Space Telescope in December 1999, the Hubble Heritage Project snapped this picture of NGC 1999, a nebula some 1,500 light-years away from Earth, in the constellation Orion. The Hubble Heritage astronomers, in collaboration with scientists in Texas and Ireland, used Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) to obtain this colour image.
This image of the ancient open star cluster NGC 6791 was taken in early 2008. Studying the dimmest stars in the cluster, astronomers uncovered three different age groups of stars. Two of the populations are burned-out stars called white dwarfs. One group of these low-wattage stellar remnants appears to be 6 billion years old, another appears to be 4 billion years old. The ages are problematically out of sync with those of the cluster's normal stars, which are 8 billion years old. Located 13,300 light-years away in the constellation Lyra, NGC 6791 is one of the oldest and largest open clusters known, containing roughly 10,000 stars. Also interesting to note are the numerous distant galaxies far beyond our Milky Way Galaxy that are visible between the crowded mass of stars.
This object is a billowing tower of cold gas and dust rising from a stellar nursery called the Eagle Nebula. 7,000 light-years distant from us, the soaring tower is 9.5 light-years or about 90 trillion kilometers tall. Stars in the Eagle Nebula are born in clouds of cold hydrogen gas that reside in chaotic neighbourhoods, where energy from young stars sculpts fantasy-like landscapes in the gas. The tower may be a giant incubator for those newborn stars. A torrent of ultraviolet light from a band of massive, hot, young stars [off the top of the image] is eroding the pillar. The column is silhouetted against the background glow of more distant gas. The bumps and fingers of material in the center of the tower are examples of stellar birthing areas. These regions may look small but they are roughly the size of our solar system. The blue colour at the top is from glowing oxygen, the red color in the lower region is from glowing hydrogen. This image was taken in November 2004 with the Advanced Camera for Surveys.
This is the sharpest image ever made of the large "grand design" spiral galaxy M81, or Bode's Galaxy made with Hubble data acquired over a two-year period. A spiral-shaped system of stars, dust, and gas clouds, the galaxy's arms wind all the way down into the nucleus. Though the galaxy is located 11.6 million light-years away, the Hubble Space Telescope's view is so sharp that it can resolve individual stars, along with open star clusters, globular star clusters, and even glowing regions of fluorescent gas. Bode's galaxy is about 70,000 light-years across - slightly smaller than our own Milky Way, estimated to be 100,000 light-years in diameter.
The "Retina Nebula" is in fact, a dying star named IC 4406. The left and right halves of the Hubble image are nearly mirror images of the other. If we could fly around IC 4406 in a starship, we would see that the gas and dust form a vast donut of material streaming outward from the dying star. From Earth, we are viewing the donut from the side. This side view allows us to see the intricate tendrils of dust that have been compared to the eye's retina. Gas on the inside of the donut is ionized by light from the central star and glows brightly. Light from oxygen atoms is rendered blue in this image; hydrogen is shown as green, and nitrogen as red. One of the most interesting features here is the irregular lattice of dark lanes that criss-cross the center of the nebula. These lanes are about 24 billion kilometers wide, and are like an open mesh veil that has been wrapped around the bright donut.
This image shows a handful of Bok globules (dark clouds of dense dust and gas) within a larger mosaic image of the Carina Nebula assembled in April of 2007. The clumps of dark clouds are nodules of dust and gas that have resisted being completely photoionized by the strong ultraviolet radiation of nearby young, bright stars. The globule at right is nicknamed "the caterpillar" - its glowing edge indicating that it is in the process of photoionization by the hottest stars in the cluster. the Carina nebula lies some 7,500 light-years away from Earth.
Resembling a rippling pool illuminated by underwater lights, the Egg Nebula offers astronomers a special look at the normally invisible dust shells swaddling an aging star. These dust layers, extending over one-tenth of a light-year from the star, have an onionskin structure that forms concentric rings around the star. A thicker dust belt, running almost vertically through the image, blocks off light from the central star. Twin beams of light radiate from the hidden star and illuminate the pitch-black dust, like a shining flashlight in a smoky room. The Egg Nebula is located 3,000 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus. This image was taken with Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys in September and October 2002.
The gas giant Saturn, seen at full-tilt in November of 1999. Saturn's orbit lies some 1.2 billion kilometers (about 67 light-minutes) away from earth. The planet itself is roughly 9.5 times wider than Earth and its rings - composed of 93 percent water ice - extend out to 120,000 km above its equator, averaging approximately 20 meters in thickness.
The tattered remains of a supernova explosion known as Cassiopeia A (Cas A), the youngest known remnant from a supernova explosion in the Milky Way. This composite image shows the Cas A remnant as a broken ring of bright filamentary and clumpy stellar ejecta. These huge swirls of debris glow with the heat generated by the passage of a shockwave from the supernova blast. The various colours of the gaseous shards indicate differences in chemical composition. Bright green filaments are rich in oxygen, red and purple are sulphur, and blue are composed mostly of hydrogen and nitrogen. Cas A is located ten thousand light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Cassiopeia.
"The Grasshopper", or UGC 4881, is a stunning system consisting of two colliding galaxies. It has a bright curly tail containing a remarkable number of star clusters. The galaxies are thought to be halfway through a merger - the cores of the parent galaxies are still clearly separated, but their discs are overlapping. A supernova exploded in this system in 1999 and astronomers believe that a vigorous burst of star formation may have just started. This notable object is located in the constellation of Lynx, some 500 million light-years away from Earth. UGC 4881 is the 55th galaxy in Arp's Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies. This image is part of a large collection of 59 images of merging galaxies taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and released on the occasion of its 18th anniversary on April 24th, 2008.
Part of the famous "Pillars of Creation" formation in the Eagle Nebula, this eerie, dark structure, resembling an imaginary sea serpent's head, is a column of cool molecular hydrogen gas (two atoms of hydrogen in each molecule) and dust that is an incubator for new stars. The stars are embedded inside finger-like protrusions extending from the top of the nebula. Each 'fingertip' is somewhat larger than our own solar system. The Eagle Nebula is 7,000 light-years distant from Earth.
Tightly wound, almost concentric, arms of dark dust encircle the bright nucleus of the otherwise nondescript galaxy, NGC 2787, in this image created by the Hubble Heritage team. Astronomer Marcella Carollo (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich) and collaborators used Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 to collect the data in January 1999.
This object, nicknamed Gomez's Hamburger, is a sun-like star about 6,500 light-years away that is nearing the end of its life. The "hamburger buns" are light reflecting off dust and the "patty" is actually the shadow of a thick disk around the central star, which is seen edge-on from Earth. The star itself, with a surface temperature of approximately 18,000 degrees Fahrenheit (10,000 degrees Celsius), is hidden within this disk. However, light from the star does emerge in the directions perpendicular to the disk and illuminates dust above and below it.
Seen here is a very thin section of a supernova remnant caused by a stellar explosion that occurred more than 1,000 years ago. On or around May 1, 1006 A.D., observers around the world witnessed and recorded the arrival of light from what is now called SN 1006, a tremendous supernova explosion caused by the final death throes of a white dwarf star nearly 7,000 light-years away. The supernova was probably the brightest star ever seen by humans, and surpassed Venus as the brightest object in the night time sky, only to be surpassed by the moon. It was visible even during the day for weeks, and remained visible to the naked eye for at least two and a half years before fading away. Today we know that the shockwave of SN 1006 has a diameter of nearly 60 light-years, and it is still expanding at roughly 6 million miles per hour.
The Cat's Eye Nebula (NGC 6543), about 3,300 light-years distant, shows a bull's eye pattern of eleven or even more concentric rings, or shells, around the its center. Each "ring" is actually the edge of a spherical bubble seen projected onto the sky - that's why it appears bright along its outer edge. Observations suggest the star ejected its mass in a series of pulses at 1,500-year intervals. These convulsions created dust shells, each of which contain as much mass as all of the planets in our solar system combined (still only one percent of the Sun's mass). The view from Hubble is like seeing an onion cut in half, where each skin layer is discernible.
ESO 593-8 is an impressive pair of interacting galaxies with a feather-like galaxy crossing a companion galaxy. The two components will probably merge to form a single galaxy in the future. The pair is adorned with a number of bright blue star clusters. ESO 593-8 is located in the constellation of Sagittarius, the Archer, some 650 million light-years away from Earth.
This image is called the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, and it is by far my favorite Hubble image. Starting in late 2003, astronomers pointed Hubble at a tiny, relatively empty part of our sky (only a few stars from the Milky Way visible), and created an exposure nearly 12 days long over a four-month period. The result is this amazing image, looking back through time at thousands of galaxies that range from 1 to 13 billion light-years away from Earth. Some 10,000 galaxies were observed in this tiny patch of sky (a tenth the size of the full moon) - each galaxy a home to billions of stars. Go outside tonight, take a ball-point pen with you, and hold it up in front of the night sky at arm's length. The tip of your pen is about 1 millimeter wide, and at arm's length, it would cover the 10,000 galaxies seen in the Ultra Deep Field image. That's how unbelievably massive the visible universe is. By way of comparison, to really put us Earthlings in our place in the Grand Scheme, please have a look at another famous image, thePale Bule Dot - a photograph taken of the Earth (the tiny pale speck, top center) by Voyager 1 in 1990 from 4 billion miles away (about 6 light-hours). I will finish with the words of astronomer Carl Sagan about this Pale Blue Dot: "That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar", every "supreme leader", every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there - on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam."