Clipmarks | amgumen's Comments

How the East Was Lost

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 06:56:40 GMT

clipped by: willhelm
clipper's remarks: Outstanding article. Hard to find much with which to disagree here.

Today, China is a brash, tough power -- unfree, undemocratic, enthused with nationalistic self-importance, and hosting the Olympic Games with fake-smiles hiding feral teeth. Today, Russia is a cynical authoritarian state, rallying behind a former functionary of the KGB as its "leader" and pushing around smaller nations, like Georgia, to show who is boss. Today, Moslems believe overwhelmingly that America, the liberator of tens of millions of Moslems from godless Communism, is the "Great Satan." What happened?

See how their models are doing

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 04:13:16 GMT

clipped by: amgumen

Clip Source: www.pdfdownload.org

This year appears set to be the coolest globally this century

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 03:12:38 GMT

clipped by: amgumen

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Data from the UK Met Office shows that temperatures in the first half of the year have been more than 0.1 Celsius cooler than any year since 2000.

The principal reason is La Nina, part of the natural cycle that also includes El Nino, which cools the globe.

Earlier this year, one group of researchers suggested that another natural cycle, the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, was likely to hold temperatures steady for about the next decade

All-time great quote

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 07:05:17 GMT

clipped by: willhelm
clipper's remarks: I guess we've all seen these quotes and predictions that look absolutely bizarre or hilarious given our ability to see them historically. I have a feeling this will be one of those quotes.

Clip Source: www.redstate.com

"I looked into Putin's eyes and got a sense of his soul"

Georgian President Vows No Surrender

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 04:09:37 GMT

clipped by: willhelm
clipper's remarks: This is very sad.

Clip Source: www.freerepublic.com

GEROGIA'S President Mikheil Saakashvili today vowed no surrender even as Russian troops pressed deeper into his country and he said the capital Tbilisi was being threatened.

"I think they should hear Georgia will never surrender. Georgia will never surrender."

Mr Saakashvili, who earlier in the day said in an address to the nation that "the majority of Georgia's territory is occupied", accused Russia of a premeditated attack.

"No matter how superhuman a military you have, if you have not been preparing the attack for months and months, for God's sake, how can you mobilise into another country 1,000 tanks within hours if it's not a premeditated attack on a neighbouring country?" he said.

"They are menacing the capital," he said, vowing that the "Georgian people will never surrender freedom and democracy, because democracy is stronger than any of their tanks, any of their bombings, any of their brutal equipment.

"We will go to the end, because we once lost our freedom to Russia."

The New Face of War!

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 21:48:09 GMT

clipped by: boniface

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Cyberspace Barrage Preceded Russian Invasion of Georgia

Weeks before physical bombs started falling on Georgia, a security researcher in suburban Massachusetts was watching an attack against the country in cyberspace.

Jose Nazario of Arbor Networks in Lexington noticed a stream of data directed at Georgian government sites containing the message: win+love+in+Rusia.

Other Internet experts in the United States said the attacks against Georgia’s Internet infrastructure began as early as July 20, with coordinated barrages of millions of requests — known as distributed denial of service, or D.D.O.S., attacks — that overloaded certain Georgian servers.

According to Internet technical experts, it was the first time a cyberattack had coincided with a shooting war. But it will likely not be the last, said Bill Woodcock, the research director of the Packet Clearing House, a nonprofit that tracks Internet traffic.

The Painting of Stones

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 03:27:00 GMT

clipped by: amgumen

Clip Source: www.lithos-graphics.com

Imperial OrbicularJasper

Clip Source: www.lithos-graphics.com

Variscite

Clip Source: www.lithos-graphics.com

Bird's Eye Rhyolite

Clip Source: www.lithos-graphics.com

Spider Web Rhyolite

Clip Source: www.lithos-graphics.com

Lilypad Jasper

Clip Source: www.lithos-graphics.com

Tiffany Stone (Opalized Fluorite)

Clip Source: www.lithos-graphics.com

Malachite and Chrysacolla

Clip Source: www.lithos-graphics.com

Malachite

Clip Source: www.lithos-graphics.com

Dendrite

Clip Source: www.lithos-graphics.com

Leopard Skin Jasper

Clip Source: www.lithos-graphics.com

Wonder Stone
Oregon, USA

Clip Source: www.lithos-graphics.com

Ocean Jasper
Madagascar

Clip Source: www.lithos-graphics.com

Zebra Stone

Clip Source: www.lithos-graphics.com

Rhodocrosite
Argentina

Clip Source: www.lithos-graphics.com

Kemmler First to 'Ride the Lightning

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 17:05:47 GMT

clipped by: amgumen

Clip Source: www.wired.com

1890: William Kemmler becomes the first person ever executed using electrocution. It doesn't go well.

The first chair was built by Harold Brown, an employee of Thomas Edison, who happened to be doing a lot of work with electricity in general and was exploring electrocution as a more humane method of execution than hanging.

It also happened that Edison was embroiled in a battle with Nicola Tesla and George Westinghouse over whose electric current would be adopted as the standard. Edison was pushing direct current, or DC, while Tesla and Westinghouse championed alternating current, or AC.

The Colors Of Scenic Stones

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 04:09:15 GMT

clipped by: amgumen

Clip Source: www.colourlovers.com

Imagine if an artist could take millions of years to complete a single painting.

Known under a few names, such as: scenic stone, pictorial stones, pietra paesina, marble ruiniforme, lithographic limestone, and stone Florence (there may be others too), these stones were highly prized in early modern Europe and, before that, Asia, because of the beautiful naturally created organic landscapes.

There are three areas in particular that are known (or were known at some point in time) for these types of stones: Florence, Italy; Jasper, Oregon; and Cotham, England.

Artists also used these stones as a canvas adding their own hand and transforming the natural lines and shapes of the stone’s face with their own paints, like the one on top painted by Dutch painter Hercules Segers, and the other one by Johann König.

Inspiration from Scenic Stones

To the Moon AL

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 19:49:37 GMT

clipped by: Imnclady

Clip Source: www.treehugger.com

“A Generational Challenge to Repower America”: Al Gore’s Energy & Climate ‘Moon Shot’ Speech

Today at D.A.R. Constitution Hall in Washington D.C., Al Gore delivered a speech which outlines his vision of how the United States needs another ‘moon shot’ to solve the intertwined problems of climate change and energy independence. Though he doesn’t come out and say it, he even alludes to peak oil.

Carbon tax should replace large part of payroll tax

We should tax what we burn, not what we earn.

we can start right now using solar power, wind power and geothermal power to make electricity for our homes and businesses.

We’re borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet.

the exploding demand for oil, especially in places like China,

Our entire civilization depends upon us now embarking on a new journey of exploration and discovery.

Once again, we have an opportunity to take a giant leap for humankind.

This Will Blow You Away!

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 19:16:25 GMT

clipped by: abailart
clipper's remarks: I have just seen the clip on the site (only just over a minute long) on the BBC news. Please do have a look, it/s stunning.

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

A new BBC series makes use of satellite technology to create stunning images of Britain from above. Mark Sanders reports.

Andrew Marr presents the series Britain from Above, the first episode of which will be broadcast on Sunday 10 August at 2100 on BBC One.

Tags: britain from above

Geologic Evidence of the Cause of Global Warming and Cooling

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 01:10:27 GMT

clipped by: amgumen
clipper's remarks: The warming over the past 50 years is hardly even noticeable on the 15,000 year graph above. Compare the peaks about every 800-1000 years for the past 10,000 years (since the last full ice age), all are much warmer than what we're experiencing now. In fact the last 1,000 years has been unusually cool for this interglacial period, just looking at the graph it certainly looks like we've been over due for warming (or if our interglacial period is over another full ice age which would be much worse).

Clip Source: www.globalwarminghoax.com

"In a Newsweek article (August 13, 2007), author Sharon Begley states “Current warming is 10 times greater than ever before seen in the geologic record. The chance that warming is natural is less than 10 percent.” Every competent geologist knows that this statement is totally false and contrary to vast amounts of well-established data. Global climates have warmed about 4-7° F in a series of ~30 year cycles since the Little Ice Age 400 years ago, all with no correlation with atmospheric CO2, yet the author claims that “the pattern of warming has a human fingerprint.” What is needed to bring clarity to the issue is not rhetoric like this, but a hard look at the huge amount of geologic data that shows we’ve had climate changes 20 times greater than the past century in a fourth of the time."

Temperature changes over the past 15,000 years (central Greenland).
Red lines represent times of sudden warming, blue lines represent times of rapid cooling

What Causes Meteor Showers?

Sat, 26 Jul 2008 06:44:03 GMT

clipped by: amgumen

Clip Source: geology.com

Figure 1: A composite image of meteors from the Geminid meteor shower of 2007 produced by astronomer Erno Berkó. Over four nights, he captured 123 meteors in 113 photographs, then composited them into this single spectacular image. This image clearly shows that the meteors are streaming from a point (know as a "radiant") near the constellation Gemini. Image copyright by Erno Berkó.

How Many Showers, How Many Meteors?

How Do Comets Produce Meteor Showers?

How to Observe a Meteor Shower

Figure 5: Simplified diagram of Earth approaching a comet's dust trail. In this diagram you are looking down onto the Earth's North Pole. Note how the morning side of Earth will plow into the dust but the evening side will be somewhat shielded. This is why there are often more visible meteors after midnight - you are then on the side of the Earth that is plowing into the dust.

Global Warming Scientist Comes Clean

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 02:17:01 GMT

clipped by: willhelm
clipper's remarks: 1. The greenhouse signature is missing. We have been looking and measuring for years, and cannot find it.

Each possible cause of global warming has a different pattern of where in the planet the warming occurs first and the most... We have been measuring the atmosphere for decades using radiosondes: weather balloons with thermometers that radio back the temperature as the balloon ascends through the atmosphere. They show no hot spot. Whatsoever.

If there is no hot spot then an increased greenhouse effect is not the cause of global warming.

2. There is no evidence that carbon emissions cause significant global warming. None. ...

3. The satellites that measure the world's temperature all say that the warming trend ended in 2001, and that the temperature has dropped about 0.6C in the past year

4. ice cores show that in the past... half a million years, the temperature rises occurred on average 800 years before the accompanying rise in atmospheric carbon.

Clip Source: www.powerlineblog.com

David Evans was a consultant to the "Australian Greenhouse Office" from 1999 to 2005. He is a former global warming alarmist; however, he is also a scientist who goes where the evidence leads him. In this important article in The Australian, he blows the whistle on the fraud that many of the world's governments are in the midst of perpetrating:

When I started that job in 1999 the evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming seemed pretty good: CO2 is a greenhouse gas, the old ice core data, no other suspects.

But since 1999 new evidence has seriously weakened the case that carbon emissions are the main cause of global warming, and by 2007 the evidence was pretty conclusive that carbon played only a minor role and was not the main cause of the recent global warming. As Lord Keynes famously said, "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?"

Tags: global warming, climate change, scientism

Bowerman's nose

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 04:46:49 GMT

clipped by: amgumen

Clip Source: flickr.com

Bowerman's nose is a huge rock almost in the top of a torr close to Manaton. Devon.
The rock has a curious sharp, and It seems really the face of a man watching from the appropiated angle.
The posible origin of this name is from the celtic: " vaw maen" , the great stone.
however the legend tells of Bowerman, a Norman hunter, who with his pack of hounds disturbed a coven of witches while chasing his quarry and knocked over the witches cauldron.
Next time he went hunting the witches decided to punish him.
One of then turned herself into a hare and led him on a exhausting chase and eventually felt from his horse into a bog. Before he had sunk futher than his waist the witch turned him into a stone.

Clip Source: flickr.com