Clipmarks | bignosemousie's Pops

16 Websites to Super Charge Your English Vocabulary

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 11:35:15 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

It won't be an exaggeration if I say that English is the language of this world. Although Mandarin (Chinese) tops the list of most widely spoken languages in the world, we know that it's English which connects people around the world. Hence it won't harm to get a deeper understanding of this ubiquitous language and work towards improving your grammar and vocabulary.

Visuwords
Visuwords is an awesome visual tool to find new words and improve your vocabulary. When you look up a word in this tool, it shows a neat graph which connects that word to various other words based on different relationships between them. You can hover over each word to get its definition and also zoom-in and zoom-out using your mouse wheel. It's certainly an excellent dictionary plus thesaurus.

Dictionary.com

Thesaurus.com

Definr

Merriam-Webstar Online

MetaGlossary

Thsrs

Wordsmith

BBC Learning English

ESL Quizzes

Ninjawords

About.com's Quizzes

Thinkmap Visual Thesaurus

AskOxford

Urban Dictionary

Alpha Dictionary

Tags: language, english, vocabulary

Jesus was a Community Organizer, Pilate was a Governor

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 20:27:32 GMT

clipped by: dulios
clipper's remarks:

Thank you to my friend Daniel, who has done community organizing from Harlem to LA to Boston. Thank you to Biko Baker of League of Young Voters, who I once interviewed and was immediately impressed by. Thank you to Saul Alinsky, largely considered the father of community organizing (pictured above). Thank you to all of you I don't know, who every day, make the choice to listen to ordinary people's stories and help them link these stories into a template for honest-to-goodness social change.

And, yes, thank you to Barack Obama, for making the choice to be a community organizer so many years ago and for continuing to be proud and loud about the importance of the role of the community organizer for our nation's well-being.

Clip Source: www.feministing.com

Thank You Thursdays: Community Organizers

Thank you to all the community organizers, past and present, who have recognized the ways in which the personal is the political, hearing--in the individual stories of ordinary people--a common thread of struggle deserving of action and resolution. Thank you to those who jump started whole movements (feminism, civil rights, labor) with their audacity and daily, hourly, minute-by-minute courage to knock on doors, sit down with friends and strangers alike, educate, and most of all, listen. Thank you to the community organizers who have targeted environmental racism--making sure that folks aren't poisoned in their own neighborhoods just because they don't have the resources to fight back. Thank you to the community organizers who have targeted civil rights, educational failures, classism, racism, sexism, ableism etc. etc.

Tags: republicans hate poor powerless people

Underwater Photos

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 00:37:05 GMT

clipped by: willhelm

Clip Source: community.livejournal.com

Say wow! the flying jellyfish

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 11:49:00 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: airshipworld.blogspot.com

Last year Festo surprised everyone with their amazing prototype of the Air_ray a manta ray that swims through the air and the b-IONIC Airfish. We reported on it in a great post which was titled "Airships are just like fish in the sky" Festo is currently at the Hannover Messe 2008 and they brought an just as stunning new project with them. We present the Air Jelly, a jellyfish that swims through the air. Currently the information about the AirJelly is only available in German at the Festo Website but the pictures speak for them self, of course we also provide you with a direct link to the autotranslated Page in English about the AirJelly
The Video on the Website of Festo did not work for me so I uploaded it to YouTube just in case you can not see the "Flim" on the Festo website:

Tags: robotics, jellyfish

You shoud be home with the kids!

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 16:38:13 GMT

clipped by: reddogiedog

Clip Source: 710knus.townhall.com

Tags: politics

Most Popular Chuck Norris Facts

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 14:02:29 GMT

clipped by: JammiePetters
clipper's remarks: Amazing !!!!!!!!!! Isn't it ?

Clip Source: www.chucknorrisfacts.com

If you have five dollars and Chuck Norris has five dollars, Chuck Norris has more money than you.

There is no 'ctrl' button on Chuck Norris's computer. Chuck Norris is always in control.

Apple pays Chuck Norris 99 cents every time he listens to a song.

Chuck Norris can sneeze with his eyes open.

Chuck Norris can eat just one Lay's potato chip.

Chuck Norris is suing Myspace for taking the name of what he calls everything around you.

Chuck Norris destroyed the periodic table, because he only recognizes the element of surprise.

Chuck Norris can kill two stones with one bird.

Zodiac Killer's Identity Uncovered?

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 02:59:43 GMT

clipped by: Smoke TNT

Clip Source: cbs13.com

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) ― The Zodiac Killer murdered several people, terrorizing the Bay Area and taunting police in the 60's and 70's. The FBI confirmed to CBS13 on Thursday that they are now running laboratory tests on some items that may link a suspect to the killer.

The evidence was given to the FBI by a Pollock Pines man who also claims he recently found the disguise worn by the Zodiac Killer during one of his attacks.

"The identity of the Zodiac Killer is Jack Tarrance. He's my stepfather," said Dennis Kaufman.

Eight years of Dennis Kaufman's life has been consumed with attempting to prove the only father he's known since he was five-years-old is none other than the Zodiac Killer.

Kaufman also claims his stepfather, in a taped phone conversation, indirectly admitted being the zodiac killer.

Kaufman says he compared the Zodiac Killer's handwriting (top lines) and Jack Tarrance's (bottom lines) and says they appear to be similar.

CBS

Jack Tarrance, the Zodiac Killer?

CBS

Tags: crime

Pakistan: Christians living in constant fear and peril

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 03:03:34 GMT

clipped by: Smoke TNT

Clip Source: members4.boardhost.com

Father Emmanuel Asi, secretary of the Catholic Bible Commission of Pakistan and parish priest of a large parish in Lahore, has told the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) that Christians in Pakistan are living "in constant fear and peril".

He cited the example of a 13 year old Christian girl who only recently had been kidnapped and raped by a Muslim man. Such incidents were a regular occurrence, he said. In order to avoid punishment for this crime, the man involved would simply assert that the woman was now a Muslim. He would "marry� her, but then send her away again after a short time. No one could do anything to stop this, since the victims were put under such great pressure by their "husbands" and threatened with death, so that they themselves would confirm in court, in the presence of their parents, that they had converted to Islam. In this way a Muslim man could abduct and rape any woman with impunity, he said.

Father Emmanuel Asi

Tags: pakistan, muslims, islam, islamofascism, rape, women, christianity

O'Reilly Interviews Obama Thursday Night

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 17:15:09 GMT

clipped by: sparlingphoto
clipper's remarks: This should be good...kudos to BHO for finally having the moxie to appear.

Clip Source: www.billoreilly.com

Been Readin' the Idiot Bloggers for Ideas....

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 02:37:32 GMT

clipped by: davboz

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

[Video]

Biden on Palin

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 02:30:46 GMT

clipped by: n2sooners
clipper's remarks: Will the left and their cohorts in the media listen? Fat chance.

Clip Source: blogs.abcnews.com

"The press has been asking me that question and I have not answered it for two reasons," Biden said at a town hall meeting in Deerfield Beach, Fla. "Number one, first of all, I don't know the governor. Everything I know about her, there's no reason not to respect her and believe she's qualified to be the vice president. I’m not going to make that judgment. That's for the people –- for you all to make.

"I know people worry about Biden's style and answering the question, but the truth is, I simply don't know," he added. "And I take her on face value -- she's the governor, that's no mean feat, and she seems to have a strong personal story."

"I have a simple proposition: children are off limits," Biden stated. "Children are off limits. And as my mom would say, we should treat each other -- and in this case, we’ve all been through things with our children, and it’s about common decency -- just treat people with common decency."

Tags: biden, palin, election, politics, children

She is Woman....

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 02:39:49 GMT

clipped by: jatfla
clipper's remarks: This woman is the real deal. However, it seems strange that *they* keep comparing her to Obama instead of Biden.

Biden...on the Foreign Relations Committee, has never made me feel safer because of his contributions. :~(

Clip Source: www.ibdeditorials.com

She Is Woman, Hear Her Roar

"There's a gigantic difference between John McCain and Barack Obama and between me and I suspect my vice-presidential opponent," Joe Biden said while campaigning in Toledo Sunday. "She's good-looking." It's a dismissive put-down we would expect from Biden, one a Republican couldn't get away with.

Obama spokesman Bill Burton was more direct, saying that McCain had irresponsibly put "the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency." This said while he's trying to elect a former Illinois state senator who voted "present" 135 times and who spent just 143 business days in the Senate before deciding he was ready to lead the free world.

Palin has more executive experience actually running a government than Barack Obama and Joe Biden combined.

For working moms across America, that may be the only experience she needs.

Fred Thompson Speaks on Service to Our Country

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 06:18:43 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: She is from a small town, with small town values, but that's not good enough for those folks who are attacking her and her family.

Some Washington pundits and media big shots are in a frenzy over the selection of a woman who has actually governed rather than just talked a good game on the Sunday talk shows and hit the Washington cocktail circuit. Well, give me a tough Alaskan governor who has taken on the political establishment in the largest state in the union -- and won -- over the beltway business-as-usual crowd any day of the week.

Let's be clear ... the selection of Gov. Palin has the other side and their friends in the media in a state of panic. She is a courageous, successful, reformer, who is not afraid to take on the establishment.

Sound like anyone else we know?

She has run a municipality and she has run a state.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/02/thompson.transcript/index.html

Excerpt of Fred Thompson below:

Clip Source: www.cnn.com

Sen. Thompson: Tonight our thoughts are still with our friends and fellow citizens in the Gulf Coast area, and our thanks go to those who have worked so hard to keep them safe. There can be no more important work than this.

But what we are doing at this convention is also important to our country.

We are going to nominate the next president and vice president of the United States of America.

We do so while taking a different view of our country than that of the other party.

Listening to them you'd think that we were in the middle of a Great Depression; that we are down, disrespected and incapable of prevailing against challenges facing us.

We know that we have challenges -- always have, always will.

But we also know that we live in the freest, strongest, most generous and prosperous nation in the history of the world and we are thankful.

Speaking of the vice presidential nominee, what a breath of fresh air Gov. Sarah Palin is.

Tags: rnc, fred thompson, gov sarah palin, john mccain

Palin files ethics complaint against self in 'troopergate'

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 14:02:48 GMT

clipped by: jatfla
clipper's remarks: Well, this is different!

Can we rehash some of Bidens questionable ethics questions sometime? With his history, I know there there. As a matter of fact, I know very little about him other than he's on the Foreign Relations Committee. Can I hold him accountable for our crummy "Foreign Relations"?

Clip Source: www.mcclatchydc.com

Palin files ethics complaint against self in 'troopergate'

Gov. Sarah Palin wants a state board to review the circumstances surrounding the dismissal of Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan -- taking the unusual step of making an ethics complaint against herself.

The lawyer, Thomas Van Flein, also asked the state legislature to drop its own investigation into the Monegan matter. He says the Personnel Board has jurisdiction over ethics.

"Governor Palin believes it will find no conceivable violation of the Ethics Act," her complaint says. She wants the investigation "to put these matters to rest."

Wooten had been disciplined over complaints brought by the family that included tasering his stepson, illegally shooting a moose and telling others that Heath would "eat a f***ing lead bullet" if he helped his daughter get an attorney for the divorce.

Wooten warned his ex-wife he was going to get her and Palin, the complaint says.

Today's word of the day: Hendiadys

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 15:52:07 GMT

clipped by: enbar
clipper's remarks: A "hendiadys" (fr. Gk. "one through two") is a literary figure in which a pair of concepts in a subordinate relationship are presented as conjoined. Examples: "nice and warm" instead of "nicely warm"; "sound and fury" instead of "furious sound"; "pain and toil" intead of "painful toil"; and so forth. First spotted in Robert Alter's footnote to Genesis 5.29.

Clip Source: en.wikipedia.org

Hendiadys

Hendiadys (a Latinized form of the Greek phrase ἓν διὰ δυοῖν hen dia duoin 'one through two') is a figure of speech used for emphasis — "The substitution of a conjunction for a subordination". The basic idea is to use two words linked by a conjunction to express a single complex idea.

The typical result is to transform a noun-plus-adjective into two nouns joined by a conjunction.

For example, "sound and fury" (from Act V, Scene V of Macbeth) seems to offer a more striking image than "furious sound". In this example, as typically, the subordinate idea originally present in the adjective is transformed into a noun in and of itself.

"The kingdom and the power and the glory" (from the Lord's Prayer) extends the principle, transforming the idea of a "glorious, powerful kingdom" into a sequence of three nouns joined by conjunctions.

Tags: language, literature, words, bible, cie100