Clipmarks | arifsali's clips

Obama's speech seen by 38 million-plus viewers : The most watched in US political history

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 02:42:43 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

NEW YORK - Barack Obama's audience for his acceptance speech likely topped 40 million people, and the Democratic gathering that nominated him was a more popular television event than any other political convention in history.

More people watched Obama speak from a packed stadium in Denver on Thursday than watched the Olympics opening ceremony in Beijing, the final "American Idol" or the Academy Awards this year, Nielsen Media Research said Friday. (Four playoff football games, including the Super Bowl between the Giants and Patriots, were seen by more than 40 million people.)

His TV audience nearly doubled the amount of people who watched John Kerry accept the Democratic nomination to run against President Bush four years ago. Kerry's speech was seen by a little more than 20 million people; Bush's acceptance speech to GOP delegates had 27.6 million viewers.

Tags: obama, history

Dead Sea Scrolls go from parchment to the Internet

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 23:07:08 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: www.cnn.com

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- More than 2,000 years after they were written, the Dead Sea Scrolls are going digital as part of an effort to better preserve the ancient texts and let more people see them than ever before.

The high-tech initiative, announced Wednesday, will also reveal text that was not visible to the naked eye.

Over the next two years, the Israel Antiquities Authority will digitally photograph and scan every bit of crumbling parchment and papyrus that makes up the scrolls, which include the oldest written record of the Bible's Old Testament.

The images eventually will be posted on the Internet for anyone to see.

Tags: bible, internet

Universcale: The Worlds We Measure Using Our Infinite Yardstick

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 20:56:50 GMT

clipped by: arifsali
clipper's remarks: Pardon if this is posted already but the Flash presentation at the source is just awesome.

Clip Source: www.nikon.com

We are able to view all entities, from the microworld to the universe, from a single perspective. By setting them up against a scale, we are able to compare and understand things which cannot be physically compared.

Today, using the electron microscope and astronomical telescope, we can see the objects which we have not been aware of its existence before. Are you able to fathom, or even roughly grasp, these sizes?

See our Universcale and experience the sizes of various objects.

Tags: universe, flash

A-Space: Social-networking site designed for the super-secret world of spying

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 17:05:40 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: www.cnn.com

When you see people at the office using such Internet sites as Facebook and MySpace, you might suspect those workers are slacking off.

But that's not the case at the CIA, FBI and the National Security Agency, where bosses are encouraging their staffs to use a new social-networking site designed for the super-secret world of spying.

"It's every bit Facebook and YouTube for spies, but it's much, much more," said Michael Wertheimer, assistant deputy director of national intelligence for analysis. The program is called A-Space, and it's a social-networking site for analysts within the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies.

Instead of posting thoughts about the new Avenged Sevenfold album or Jessica Alba movie, CIA analysts could use A-Space to share information and opinion about al Qaeda movements in the Middle East or Russian naval maneuvers in the Black Sea.

The new A-Space site has been undergoing testing for months and launches officially for the nation's entire intelligence community

Tags: social networking, spy, cia, fbi

Sexual Harassment in Egypt

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 18:01:18 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: www.menassat.com

A recent study by an Egyptian women's rights group claims that a whopping 83 percent of Egyptian women have been exposed to sexual harassment of some kind. Various groups have launched media campaigns to raise awareness, but some of them appear to be blaming the victims.

In June this year, the Cairo-based Egyptian Center for Women's Rights (ECWR) released an alarming study on sexual harassment in Egypt, describing the issue as "a cancer-like problem."

According to the survey, 83 percent of Egyptian women and 98 percent of foreign women said they had experienced sexual harassment.

More than half of the Egyptian men questioned for the survey, 62 percent, admitted to having harassed women, and 53 percent of them blamed the women for "bringing it on."

These shocking statistics have shocked a number of groups into taking action, embarking on media campaigns to raise awareness of and advocate against sexual harassment.

Tags: egypt, women, study

Lightning at Sunset

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 18:55:47 GMT

clipped by: arifsali
clipper's remarks: This may be a repeat as it appears to be popular; saving it for my records.

Clip Source: flickr.com

Tags: photography, photo

Sarah Palin and the Jewish community

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 17:43:07 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: www.jpost.com

Biden, of course, was the more conventional pick - especially for the Jewish community.

senator

is one of the most well-known and respected politicians among American Jewish leadership.

Palin is another story. She is an exceedingly odd choice for a party which has spent the better part of the past year loudly exclaiming that it was reaching out to Jewish voters

First, Palin has absolutely no foreign policy experience

Palin has never visited Israel and besides signing a pro-Israel resolution passed by the state legislature, she has apparently never spoken out or focused on the Jewish state.

ON DOMESTIC issues she is totally out of step with public opinion in the Jewish community.

The Jewish vote in 2008 has been a hot topic of conversation in the media. John McCain's fist major decision of this campaign - picking Palin for his running mate - leads us to believe that the Jewish community's concerns are not so high on his priority list.

Tags: politics, united states, jews

'Rare' mammoth skull discovered

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 04:06:24 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

The "extremely rare" fossilised skull of a steppe mammoth has been unearthed in southern France.

The discovery in the Auvergne region could shed much needed light on the evolution of these mighty beasts.

Many isolated teeth of steppe mammoth have been found, but only a handful of skeletons exist; and in these surviving specimens, the skull is rarely intact.

Palaeontologists Frederic Lacombat and Dick Mol describe this skull specimen as being well preserved.

It belongs to a male steppe mammoth (Mammuthus trogontherii) that stood about 3.7m (12ft) tall and lived about 400,000 years ago, during Middle Pleistocene times.

The animal was about 35 years of age when it died, the researchers estimate.

The steppe mammoth is of vital importance for understanding mammoth evolution.

It represents the transitional phase between an ancient species known as the southern mammoth and the more recent woolly mammoth.

But comparatively little is known about this intermediate stage of their evolution.

Tags: archaeology

Obama Answers Republican Ridicule

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 16:58:33 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: www.cbsnews.com

Republicans have spent days heaping scorn on Barack Obama, with Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin leading the way

Today, Obama fired back.

Obama said the St. Paul gathering won't discuss issues because it reminds voters of Republican failures on many fronts.

"You haven't heard a word about how we're going to deal with any aspect of the economy that is affecting you and your pocketbook."

"Not one time did I hear the phrase middle class pass their lips," he said.

How many of the Republican delegates, 93 percent of whom are white, are familiar with community organizers is debatable. More than half have a net worth in excess of $500,000

"I've been called worse on the basketball court," he said. "It's not that big of a deal."

Tags: politics, united states

Scientists catch cells in the act of remembering

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 21:54:50 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: www.iht.com

Scientists have for the first time recorded individual brain cells in the act of summoning a spontaneous memory, revealing not only where a remembered experience is registered but how the brain is able to re-create it.

The recordings, taken from the brains of epilepsy patients being prepared for surgery, demonstrate that these spontaneous memories reside in some of the very same neurons that fired most furiously when the recalled event was first experienced. Researchers had long theorized that this was the case but until now had only indirect evidence.

The new study, experts said, has all but closed the case: Remembering, for the brain, is a lot like doing.

Tags: science, brain, discovery

108 Meditation Techniques

Tue, 17 Oct 2006 02:22:19 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: www.meditationsociety.com

108 Meditation Techniques

This is our list of 108 different meditation techniques. The hyper-linked (underlined) meditation techniques are currently online, and we are always adding more in the Featured Technique section. In the near future, we hope to have all of the techniques online, but until then we appreciate your patience.

Tags: spirituality, meditation, religion

Buddhist Cave Art

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 16:49:58 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: www.paulstravelblog.com

The Ajanta caves, set in a bend in the Waghur River, a day's travel east of Bombay

The Ajanta caves are cut out of the cliff itself, with rock chiseled away to form spectacular interiors of monasteries and shrines

High relief composition at Ajanta

Paintings at Ajanta

Ellora Caves

Statuary, Ellora

Tags: art, buddhism, india

Burying Alive Three Teenage Girls is A CRIME, you morons!

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 14:01:11 GMT

clipped by: arifsali
clipper's remarks: The fact that this guy (who is defending such a crime under the guise of tribal custom) is in the government, is despicable.

Clip Source: www.dawn.com

ISLAMABAD, Aug 29: Balochistan Senator Sardar Israrullah Zehri stunned the upper house on Friday when he defended the recent incident of burying alive three teenage girls and two women in his province, saying it was part of “our tribal custom.”

Senator Bibi Yasmin Shah of the PML-Q raised the issue citing a newspaper report that the girls, three of them aged between 16 and 18 years, had been buried alive a month ago for wishing to marry of their own will.

The barbaric incident took place in a remote village of Jafarabad district and a PPP minister and some other influential people were reported to have been involved. The report accused the provincial government of trying to hush up the issue.

Ms Shah said that the hapless girls and the women were first shot in the name of honour and then buried while they were alive. She also said that no criminal had been arrested so far.

Tags: pakistan, crime, honor killing

Historic Speech by Barack Obama at 2008 DNC

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 22:10:23 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

Barack Obama spoke to an audience of 84,000 at Mile High Stadium, on August 28, 2008 in Denver, CO.

[Video]

Tags: obama, yes, we, can, change

Cosmic crash unmasks dark matter

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 21:56:16 GMT

clipped by: arifsali
clipper's remarks: It looks as if it is being seen through lots of little lenses. And each of these lenses represents a piece of dark matter.

Astronomers used the Chandra X-ray telescope to map ordinary matter in the merging clusters, mostly in the form of hot gas, which glows brightly in X-rays.

As the two clusters that formed MACSJ0025 merged at speeds of millions of kilometres per hour, hot gas in the two clusters collided and slowed down.

However, the dark matter kept on going, passing right through the smash-up.

The latest astronomical observations suggest that dark matter makes up some 23% of the Universe. Ordinary matter - such as the galaxies, gas, stars and planets - makes up just 4%.

The remaining 73% is made up of another mysterious quantity; dark energy, which is responsible for speeding up the expansion of the cosmos.

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Striking evidence has been found for the enigmatic "stuff" called dark matter which makes up 23% of the Universe, yet is invisible to our eyes.

The results come from astronomical observations of a titanic collision between two clusters of galaxies 5.7 billion light-years away.

Astronomers detected the dark matter because it separated from the normal matter during the cosmic smash-up.

The research team are to publish their findings in the Astrophysical Journal.

They used the Hubble and Chandra space telescopes to study the object MACSJ0025.4-1222 - formed after an incredibly energetic collision between two large galaxy clusters.

Each of these large clusters contains about a quadrillion times the mass of our Sun.

A technique known as gravitational lensing was used to map the dark matter with Hubble.

If an observer looks at a distant galaxy and some dark matter lies in between, the light from that galaxy gets distorted.

Tags: science, astronomy