Clipmarks | righthand's Comments

Mother duck's 'bird brain' saves ducklings

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 17:31:49 GMT

clipped by: swampfoxz
clipper's remarks: But the duck, a female (he thinks it was a mallard), wasn't about to give up that easily. Making sure she still had Petersen's eye, she waddled up the road about 20 metres and lay on a storm sewer grate.

Petersen watched and thought nothing of it.

"But when I started walking again, she did the same thing. She ran around and grabbed me again."

It became obvious to him then that something was up.

So when she waddled off to the sewer grate a second time, Petersen decided to follow.

"I went up to where the duck was lying and saw eight little babies in the water below. They had fallen down between the grates."

Clip Source: uhoh.org

Mother duck's 'bird brain' saves ducklings

She grabs police officer by pant leg to lead him to her brood trapped under grate
Nicholas Read Vancouver Sun

Ray Peterson, Special to the Sun / Mother duck shows police officer where her ducklings fell through a grate into a sewer underneath the Granville Street Bridge.

Don't mention "bird brains" to Ray Petersen, because after what happened this week, he won't hear a word of it.

Petersen, a community police officer for Granville Downtown South, was walking in the 1500-block Granville Street (directly under the Granville Bridge) Wednesday morning when a duck came up and grabbed him by the pant leg. Then it started waddling around him and quacking.

Ray Peterson, Special to the Sun / Mother duck shows police officer where her ducklings fell through a grate into a sewer underneath the Granville Street Bridge.

"I thought it was a bit goofy, so I shoved it away," Petersen said in an interview.

But the duck, a female (he thinks it

Tags: mother, duck

The Tour de France on Google Maps with Street View

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 21:24:54 GMT

clipped by: rj3sp
clipper's remarks: The tour de France 2008 can be followed on Google Maps with panoramic images of the route provided by the Street View feature.

Clip Source: www.letour.fr

Tour de France 2008

Running from Saturday July 5^th to Sunday July 27^th 2008, the 95^th Tour de France will be made up of 21 stages and will cover a total distance of 3,500 kilometres.

Clip Source: blogoscoped.com

Google Street View Live in France

Google Street View – those panorama photos part of Google Maps – has now been released for France, as second country in the world after the US. However, the pics taken are just from the Tour de France route, as Luka from the French Zorgloob blog explains. The faces of people are blurred as they are in other Street View locations nowadays, Luka explains.

Clip Source: maps.google.fr

Clip Source: fr.youtube.com

[Video]

Clip Source: www.zorgloob.com

Google StreetView en France !

Tags: tour de france, google, google maps, street view

MN judge finds against WalMart in 2 MILLION labor violations

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 06:14:55 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: Will WalMart ever stop leeching American workers?

Clip Source: www.truthdig.com

Wal-Mart may face up to $2 billion in fines after a Minnesota state judge found a total of 2 million contractual violations by the retail giant.

The judge also ruled on Monday that Wal-Mart owed $6.5 million to 56,000 current and former employees because of contractual violations, including a failure to give workers promised rest breaks at least 1.5 million times. The judge also found that Wal-Mart managers in Minnesota had systematically broken the law by having employees take in-house training while off the clock.

“It’s only through a decision like this that Wal-Mart can be held to its contractual agreements and to complying with Minnesota law.”

Tags: walmart

What is Life?

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 00:00:07 GMT

clipped by: tidbit2
clipper's remarks: this talk influenced me deeply
to turn my life around some time ago
a powerful message from a pioneering man
there is a goldmine of his material for free through the net including videos at the other end of the youtube link
http://jiddu-krishnamurti.net/
http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/
peace

Clip Source: ie.youtube.com

[Video]

Tags: profound

Monkey lonley hearts

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:25:30 GMT

clipped by: wiganfootie

Clip Source: www.generallyawesome.com

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prime_mate

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New NSA Spying Decision Undermines Arguments for Telecom Immunity

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 03:35:39 GMT

clipped by: BartendingBear
clipper's remarks: Seemingly, this effectively cuts executive power off at Georgie's knees.

Clip Source: www.eff.org

Today, Chief Judge Vaughn Walker of the Northern District of California, issued an opinion in Al Haramain v. Bush, one of the cases challenging the NSA warrantless wiretapping program. The Court found that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) preempted the state secret privilege. This important decision is particularly timely, as it undermines key arguments for telecom immunity on the eve of the Senate vote on a FISA bill, set for next week.

The good news is that the Court held that "FISA preempts the state secrets privilege in connection with electronic surveillance for intelligence purposes and would appear to displace the state secrets privilege for purposes of plaintiffs’ claims." The Court rejected the expansive view of executive power promoted by the government, holding that the President's authorities under Article II of the Constitution do not give him the power to overrule FISA.

What Every American Should Know About the Middle East

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 06:40:31 GMT

clipped by: sparrow
clipper's remarks: a VERY brief and oversimplified primer on the Middle East that is well informed, well written, and really worth the read !

worth highlighting :

"What’s depressing is the fact that this only took me 30 minutes to write, and you 2 minutes to read. Yet most people in the United States, including those in the media, the house of representatives, and probably even the Pentagon, lack even this cursory level of knowledge about the region."

Clip Source: dmiessler.com

What Every American Should Know About the Middle East

Most in the United States don’t know much about the Middle East or the people that live there. This lack of knowledge hurts our ability to understand world events and, consequently, our ability to hold intelligent opinions about those events.

Not all Arabs are Muslim. There are significant populations of Arab Christians throughout the world, including in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Northern Africa and Palestine/Israel.

Shia Muslims are similar to Roman Catholics in Christianity. They have a strong clerical presence via Imams and promote the idea of going through them to practice the religion correctly. Sunni Muslims are more like Protestant Christians. They don’t really focus on Imams and believe in maintaining a more direct line to God than the Shia.

People from Iran are also known as Persians, and they are not Arabs.

The country with the world’s largest Muslim population is Indonesia. ²

Tags: education, civilization, politics, religion, islam, american, arab, middle east, muslim

Before Abortion was Legal

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 20:51:03 GMT

clipped by: dulios

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Repairing the Damage, Before Roe

The familiar symbol of illegal abortion is the infamous “coat hanger” — which may be the symbol, but is in no way a myth. In my years in New York, several women arrived with a hanger still in place. Whoever put it in — perhaps the patient herself — found it trapped in the cervix and could not remove it.

Almost any implement you can imagine had been and was used to start an abortion — darning needles, crochet hooks, cut-glass salt shakers, soda bottles, sometimes intact, sometimes with the top broken off.

It is important to remember that Roe v. Wade did not mean that abortions could be performed. They have always been done, dating from ancient Greek days.

What Roe said was that ending a pregnancy could be carried out by medical personnel, in a medically accepted setting, thus conferring on women, finally, the full rights of first-class citizens — and freeing their doctors to treat them as such.

Tags: abortion, illegal abortion, roe, supreme court

Sami Al-Hajj Freed from Guantanamo!

Fri, 02 May 2008 03:34:07 GMT

clipped by: dulios
clipper's remarks: Finally!

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Cameraman freed from Guantanamo

A cameraman from the al-Jazeera television station has been freed from US detention in Guantanamo Bay, the channel says.

Sami al-Hajj had been in US custody for more than six years. He was detained in Afghanistan in 2001.

He is now returning home to Sudan, al-Jazeera says.

"We are in a state of high expectation and we are overwhelmed with joy," said Wadah Khanfar, managing director of al-Jazeera's Arabic service.

There was no immediate US comment.

Mr Hajj was freed from Guantanamo and was being flown to Sudan, al-Jazeera said, quoting unnamed sources.

The channel said that he was expected to arrive in Khartoum shortly.

Mr Hajj was working as a cameraman for al-Jazeera when he was arrested by Pakistani troops near the Afghan border in December 2001 and later handed over to the US military.

He denied the allegations against him and his employers at al-Jazeera say the charges are politically motivated.

Tags: sami al-hajj, guantanamo, al-jazeera, war on terror, afghanistan

An American in Albania

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 17:13:38 GMT

clipped by: CrazyRedHead
clipper's remarks: ...The Albanians of Montenegro were lucky, I thought as we approached the customs agents, to live under Josip Broz Tito's relatively lenient communist system in Yugoslavia instead of suffering Enver Hoxha's full-bore Stalinist regime just a few miles away in Albania proper. Hoxha, who ranks among the most thoroughly oppressive tyrants in history, made Tito's dictatorship look libertarian....

Clip Source: www.michaeltotten.com

“Mister, where are you from?” said a little girl.

“America,” I said.

“Yay!” The kids cheered.

Albania is fanatically pro-American, which is perhaps a bit counterintuitive to many Americans since it is at least nominally a Muslim-majority country. The conventional assumption that Muslims hate Americans everywhere isn't true.

“You should have seen President Bush’s face when he came to Albania,” an ethnic Albanian man later said to me in Kosovo. “All over Western Europe he was met by protests, but the entire country of Albania turned out to welcome him. He was so happy. You could see it on his face.”

Albanian pro-Americanism resembles that of both Poland and Iraqi Kurdistan. The unspeakably oppressive communist regime pushed Albanians strongly into the U.S.-led Western camp

More kids tugged at me and wanted their pictures taken. It was overwhelming, and more than a little bit startling.

Tags: europe, albania, politics, america, travel, photography

House Resolution Calls for Naval Blockade against Iran

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 19:04:17 GMT

clipped by: rustajb
clipper's remarks: Can we just kick all of AIPAC out of America now please! Can we just replace them with a Pro-US lobby instead and keep out of the interests of these crooks. This blockade is an act of war pure and simple.

Clip Source: www.globalresearch.ca

America’s powerful pro-Israel lobby pressures the US Congress

H.CON.RES 362 calls on the president to stop all shipments of refined petroleum products from reaching Iran. It also "demands" that the President impose "stringent inspection requirements on all persons, vehicles, ships, planes, trains and cargo entering or departing Iran."

Analysts say that this would require a US naval blockade in the Strait of Hormuz.

Since its introduction three weeks ago, the resolution has attracted 146 cosponsors. Forty-three members added their names to the bill in the past two days.

AIPAC's Endorsement

AIPAC has been ramping up the rhetoric against Iran over the last 3 years delivering 9 issue memos to Congress in 2006, 17 in 2007 and in the first five months of 2008 has delivered no less than 11 issue memos to the Congress and Senate predominantly warning of Irans nuclear weapons involvement and support for terrorism.

It is not a secret if it is...

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 18:42:42 GMT

clipped by: tidbit2

Clip Source: www.netvibes.com

link»It is not a secret if it is...

Jul 03, 2008 09:00:23 GMT

It is not a secret if it is known by three people. - Irish Proverb

A wise man makes his own decisions

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 18:43:21 GMT

clipped by: tidbit2

Clip Source: www.netvibes.com

link»A wise man makes his own...

Jul 02, 2008 09:00:22 GMT

A wise man makes his own decisions, an ignorant man follows the public opinion. - Chinese proverb

Speak English Please: No more buzzwords

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 17:02:58 GMT

clipped by: kmcolo

Clip Source: www.cnn.com

LONDON, England (AP) -- British bureaucrats have been warned: no more synergies, stakeholders or sustainable communities.

The Local Government Association, whose members include hundreds of district, town and county councils in England and Wales, on Friday sent out a list of 100 "non-words" that it said officials should avoid if they want to be understood.

The list includes the popular but vague term "empowerment;" "coterminosity," a situation in which two organizations oversee the same geographical area; and "synergies," combinations in which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Officials were told to ditch the term "revenue stream" for income, as well as the imprecise "sustainable communities." The association also said councils should stop referring to local residents as "customers" or "stakeholders."

"Why do we have to have 'coterminous, stakeholder engagement' when we could just 'talk to people' instead?" he said.

Tags: jargon, english, language, buzzwords

Weekends slow weight loss

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 12:37:19 GMT

clipped by: kmcolo

Clip Source: esciencenews.com

Saturday can be the worst enemy for our waistlines, according to researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. They found that study subjects on strict diet and exercise programs tend to lose weight more slowly than expected because they eat more on weekends than during the week. The investigators report their findings in the advance online publication of the journal Obesity.

Tags: diet, health