Clipmarks | ekorstanje's clips

Europe's Secret Nuclear Weapons

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 18:51:25 GMT

clipped by: ekorstanje
clipper's remarks: I don't think Russia is going to be invading western Europe anytime soon.

Clip Source: news.yahoo.com

Europe's Secret Nuclear Weapons: What Should NATO Do?

Is Italy capable of delivering a thermonuclear strike? Could the Belgians and the Dutch drop hydrogen bombs on enemy targets? And what about Germany - a country where fear of atomkraft is so great that the last government opposed all civilian nuclear power? Germany's air force couldn't possibly be training to deliver bombs 13 times more powerful than the one that destroyed Hiroshima, could it?

Edgar Allan Poe finally getting proper funeral

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 20:54:21 GMT

clipped by: ekorstanje

Clip Source: news.yahoo.com

Edgar Allan Poe finally getting proper funeral

BALTIMORE – For Edgar Allan Poe, 2009 has been a better year than 1849. After dozens of events in several cities to mark the 200th anniversary of his birth, he's about to get the grand funeral that a writer of his stature should have received when he died.

One hundred sixty years ago, the beleaguered, impoverished Poe was found, delirious and in distress outside a Baltimore tavern. He was never coherent enough to explain what had befallen him since leaving Richmond, Va., a week earlier. He spent four days in a hospital before he died at age 40.

Instead, Jerome commissioned local special-effects artist Eric Supensky to create an eerily lifelike — or deathlike — mock-up of Poe's corpse.

'Hitler' skull belonged to woman: scientists

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 18:27:54 GMT

clipped by: ekorstanje

Clip Source: news.yahoo.com

'Hitler' skull belonged to woman: scientists

NEW HAVEN, Connecticut (AFP) – A skull fragment thought to come from Adolf Hitler is in fact that of an unidentified woman, according to a US study that has resurrected questions about the Nazi leader's death.

The bone, bearing a bullet hole, has been held up to support the theory that Hitler shot himself and took cyanide in his Berlin bunker as Soviet troops approached in April 1945.

Wall Street to make money on sick people dying

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 18:58:40 GMT

clipped by: ekorstanje
clipper's remarks: One word comes to mind for these people, Scum!

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Wall Street Pursues Profit in Bundles of Life Insurance

After the mortgage business imploded last year, Wall Street investment banks began searching for another big idea to make money. They think they may have found one.

The bankers plan to buy “life settlements,” life insurance policies that ill and elderly people sell for cash — $400,000 for a $1 million policy, say, depending on the life expectancy of the insured person. Then they plan to “securitize” these policies, in Wall Street jargon, by packaging hundreds or thousands together into bonds. They will then resell those bonds to investors, like big pension funds, who will receive the payouts when people with the insurance die.

The earlier the policyholder dies, the bigger the return — though if people live longer than expected, investors could get poor returns or even lose money.

Why Did People Become White?

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 17:28:19 GMT

clipped by: ekorstanje

Clip Source: news.yahoo.com

Why Did People Become White?

This full kaleidoscope of skin colors was a relatively recent evolutionary development, according to biologists, occuring alongside the migration of modern humans out of Africa between 100,000 and 50,000 years ago.

The consensus among scientists has always been that lower levels of vitamin D at higher latitudes - where the sun is less intense - caused the lightening effect when modern humans, who began darker-skinned, first migrated north.

Frigid 2010 Forecast:Farmers Almanac

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 20:46:38 GMT

clipped by: ekorstanje
clipper's remarks: I can't wait

Clip Source: www.farmersalmanac.com

Frigid 2010 Forecast: How Cold will the Winter Weather Be?

A large area of numbingly cold temperatures will predominate from roughly east of the Continental Divide to west of the Appalachians (see map). The coldest temperatures will be over the northern Great Lakes and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. But acting almost like the bread of a sandwich, to this swath of unseasonable cold will be two regions with temperatures that will average closer to normal—theWest Coast and the East Coast.

Who's paying to kill health reform?

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 19:51:32 GMT

clipped by: ekorstanje
clipper's remarks: Great chart.

Clip Source: www.ourfuture.org

Psychopaths have faulty brain connections

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 19:18:41 GMT

clipped by: ekorstanje

Clip Source: news.yahoo.com

Psychopaths have faulty brain connections: study

LONDON (Reuters) – Psychopaths who kill and rape have faulty connections between the part of the brain dealing with emotions and that which handles impulses and decision-making, scientists have found.

In a study of psychopaths who had committed murder, manslaughter, multiple rape, strangulation and false imprisonment, the British scientists found that roads linking the two crucial brain areas had "potholes," while those of non-psychopaths were in good shape.

The Great Tax Con Job

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 18:53:17 GMT

clipped by: ekorstanje

Clip Source: www.thomhartmann.com

The Great Tax Con Job

A very small niche of America’s uber-wealthy have pulled off what may well be the biggest con job in the history of our republic, and they did it in a startlingly brief 30 or so years. True, they spent over three billion dollars to make it happen, but the reward to them was in the hundreds of billions - and will continue to be.

If a person earns so much money that he doesn’t or can’t spend it all each year, then when his taxes go down your income after taxes goes up. This is largely because there’s little to no relationship between what he “needs to live on” and what he’s “earning.”

Humans Glow in Visible Light

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 17:14:05 GMT

clipped by: ekorstanje

Clip Source: news.yahoo.com

Strange! Humans Glow in Visible Light

The human body literally glows, emitting a visible light in extremely small quantities at levels that rise and fall with the day, scientists now reveal.

Past research has shown that the body emits visible light, 1,000 times less intense than the levels to which our naked eyes are sensitive. In fact, virtually all living creatures emit very weak light, which is thought to be a byproduct of biochemical reactions involving free radicals.

Bankrupted by medical bills

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 16:18:29 GMT

clipped by: ekorstanje

Clip Source: news.yahoo.com

BANKRUPTED BY MEDICAL BILLS

But advocacy groups such as the Cancer Action Network point out that more than half of all U.S. bankruptcies were linked to medical debt -- and most of these people had health insurance.

One such patient is Angela Kegler McDowell of Conway, South Carolina, a small business owner whose insurance company raised her premiums from $293 a month to $804 a month when her breast cancer returned. In January, the company stopped her coverage completely.

"It took my entire life savings," McDowell, 38, said in an interview. Even with insurance, McDowell estimates her cancer treatments cost her $42,000 out of pocket over five years.

Another report issued this week by the nonprofit Commonwealth Fund found that 73 percent of people who tried to buy insurance on their own in the last three years did not because the premiums were too high.

Senate stops funding for F-22

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 19:01:46 GMT

clipped by: ekorstanje
clipper's remarks: It's time we start spending our tax money on things that we really need like health care and not some fighter that we don't need and is too expensive.

Clip Source: thinkprogress.org

Senate votes to strip funding for the F-22.

President Obama had warned that he would veto the defense bill if it included $1.75 billion for the construction of new F-22s. Last week, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, “If we can’t get this right, what on earth can we get right? … It is time to draw the line on doing defense business as usual.” Fortunately, there is still hope for Congress getting things right. Moments ago, the Senate voted 58-40 to strip the F-22 funding from the FY2010 defense authorization bill:

The U.S. has 187 F-22s on hand or on order. The fighter jet hasn’t flown a single mission during the Iraq or Afghanistan wars. And it has trouble functioning in the rain.

Jupiter 'struck by large object'

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 18:22:33 GMT

clipped by: ekorstanje
clipper's remarks: An object could strike here and we might not even know it's coming.

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Jupiter 'struck by large object'

The planet Jupiter shows evidence of having being hit by a large object, either a comet or asteroid.

Powerful Ideas: Military Develops 'Cybug' Spies

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 17:10:52 GMT

clipped by: ekorstanje

Clip Source: news.yahoo.com

Powerful Ideas: Military Develops 'Cybug' Spies

Miniature robots could be good spies, but researchers now are experimenting with insect cyborgs or "cybugs" that could work even better.

The military and spy world no doubt would love tiny, live camera-wielding versions of Predator drones that could fly undetected into places where no human could ever go to snoop on the enemy. Developing such robots has proven a challenge so far, with one major hurdle being inventing an energy source for the droids that is both low weight and high power. Still, evidence that such machines are possible is ample in nature in the form of insects, which convert biological energy into flight.

Website recreates Apollo 11 Mission in Real Time

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 19:27:52 GMT

clipped by: ekorstanje
clipper's remarks: Cool

Clip Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

BOSTON — Families crowded around black-and-white television sets in 1969 to watch Neil Armstrong take man's first steps on the moon.

Now, they'll be able to watch the Apollo 11 mission recreated in real time on the Web, follow Twitter feeds of transmissions between Mission Control and the spacecraft, and even get an e-mail alert when the lunar module touches down. Those features are part of a new Web site from the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum commemorating the moon mission and Kennedy's push to land Americans there first.

The Web site _ WeChooseTheMoon.org _ goes live at 8:02 a.m. Thursday, 90 minutes before the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 launch from Cape Canaveral, Fla. It will track the capsule's route from the Earth to the Moon, ending with the moon landing and Armstrong's walk _ in real time, but 40 years later.