Clipmarks | skwirlinator's Comments

The 2008 Miss Russia Contest

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:55:04 GMT

clipped by: BartendingBear
clipper's remarks: Some very attractive contestants you won't be seeing on the Russian Brides Available sites.

Clip Source: englishrussia.com

It’s a good tradition to post the “Miss Russia” contenstants each year here at English Russia. This time the contest was held not in Moscow but in a beautiful city of Petrozavodsk in Karelia.

Saudi Cleric Favours One-Eye Veil

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 11:18:51 GMT

clipped by: thisnamecantbetaken
clipper's remarks: Two eyes are too seductive? Ah, com'on! Why not just ban women outright? Problem solved! Tss!!

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Saudi cleric favours one-eye veil

A Muslim cleric in Saudi Arabia has called on women to wear a full veil, or niqab, that reveals only one eye.

The two-eyed look remains too seductive for Sheikh Habadan

Sheikh Muhammad al-Habadan said showing both eyes encouraged women to use eye make-up to look seductive.

The question of how much of her face a woman should cover is a controversial topic in many Muslim societies.

The niqab is more common in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, but women in much of the Muslim Middle East wear a headscarf which covers only their hair.

Sheikh Habadan, an ultra-conservative cleric who is said to have wide influence among religious Saudis, was answering questions on the Muslim satellite channel al-Majd.

Tags: small wiener syndrome

"Unbepissed" - can you use that in a sentence please?

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:43:07 GMT

clipped by: pcmkrfn

Clip Source: www.weirduniverse.net

New York nerd methodically read the entire unabridged dictionary
Emmon Shea, 37, has just written a book based on his having devoured the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary, 59m words. He said he improved his vocabulary a bit (like "unbepissed," meaning, er, well, "not urinated upon"), and he was sometimes thrilled ("I would wake up and start reading at three in the morning because I was so excited"). But he also got a little deranged in demeanor from time to time, and he learned so many new words that he forgot common ones, and we're still shaky on whether it's possible that someone like this can have a "girlfriend," though he says she exists and was supportive. The Times (London)

Worst-case scenario is approaching rapidly

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 17:10:57 GMT

clipped by: sunstreak509

Clip Source: business.timesonline.co.uk

The credit crisis, which has been building slowly for the past year, is now moving so fast that governments around the world are finding it impossible to keep pace.

On Saturday Angela Merkel, the German leader, criticised last week’s decision by the Irish to guarantee all deposits in their leading banks without consulting other European countries. The Irish Government said that the move was forced on it by the threat of a run on one of its banks. Only a day later Ms Merkel was forced to take almost the same action in almost the same circumstances.

Tags: economy, business, markets

Free-piston engine could be twice as fuel efficient as combustion engines

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 19:41:43 GMT

clipped by: Mohir
clipper's remarks: In conventional internal combustion engines, multiple pistons are connected via rods to a crankshaft that, via the transmission, drives the wheels. Free-piston engines do away with the crankshaft: the pistons aren't connected to anything. Instead, two opposing pistons just shuttle back and forth inside a chamber. To generate electricity, the pistons could be equipped with rows of magnets that shuttle past metal coils to create an electrical current.

Clip Source: nextbigfuture.com

Sandia National Laboratory led by Sandia researcher Peter Van Blarigan that has been testing physical components of free-piston engines which could be 50% efficient. This is about twice as good as current gas combustion engines and about as efficient as fuel cells. Fuel cells are too expensive. He is assembling a complete free-piston engine prototype, a project that he expects to complete within a year.

Piston power: In an unconventional engine design, a rod with a piston at either end shuttles between two combustion chambers. Magnets at the center of the rod move past metal coils (orange) to create an electrical current. Credit: Peter Van Blarigan, Sandia National Laboratory

Tags: technology, energy, fuel

Picture Made With Pictures

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 05:47:48 GMT

clipped by: Charolastra

Clip Source: damncoolpics.blogspot.com

Tags: pictures

Why We Can't Imagine Death?

Sat, 04 Oct 2008 17:57:41 GMT

clipped by: einbar
clipper's remarks: "This position holds that our ancestors suffered the unshakable illusion that their minds were immortal, and it’s this hiccup of gross irrationality that we have unmistakably inherited from them. Individual human beings, by virtue of their evolved cognitive architecture, had trouble conceptualizing their own psychological inexistence from the start."

Clip Source: www.sciam.com

Almost everyone has a tendency to imagine the mind continuing to exist after the death of the body.

Even people who believe the mind ceases to exist at death show this type of psychological-continuity reasoning in studies.

Rather than being a by-product of religion or an emotional security blanket, such beliefs stem from the very nature of our consciousness.

The common view of death as a great mystery usually is brushed aside as an emotionally fueled desire to believe that death isn’t the end of the road. And indeed, a prominent school of research in social psychology called terror management theory contends that afterlife beliefs, as well as less obvious beliefs, behaviors and attitudes, exist to assuage what would otherwise be crippling anxiety about the ego’s inexistence

a small number of researchers, including me, are increasingly arguing that the evolution of self-consciousness has posed a different kind of problem altogether.

Creationist Adnan Hoca's views evolving

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 09:44:30 GMT

clipped by: Fast T friend
clipper's remarks: Confused?

Clip Source: www.turkishdailynews.com.tr

Controversial cult leader Adnan Oktar, who is known for advocating creationism, concedes that Islam and Darwinism are compatible if evolution is seen as the work of Allah. Also, Oktar says he wants to make peace with well-known scientist Richard Dawkins, whose Web site Oktar claims insults his personality

It is possible to be a good Muslim and a Darwinist at the same time, one of Turkey's devoted supporters of creationism, who earlier defined Darwinism as a �deception of Satan,� said at a press conference Wednesday.

The statement may not at first sound extraordinary. However, it came from controversial cult leader Adnan Oktar, who wrote over 200 books under the pseudonym Harun Yahya to prove that Darwinism was the biggest enemy of humankind and that the theory of evolution was false.

It is possible to be a good Muslim and a Darwinist at the same time,� said Oktar, whose influence over a legion of young devotees peaked in the 1990s, at a makeover press conference Wednesday night.

Tags: evolution, creationalism, adnan, oktar, darwinism

Musim father burns Christian daughter alive

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 03:54:17 GMT

clipped by: Antara
clipper's remarks: what can you say?

Clip Source: www.worldnetdaily.com

Muslim father burns Christian daughter alive

Man slices out girl's tongue, ignites her after 'heated debate on religion'

A Saudi Arabian Muslim father cut out his daughter's tongue and lit her on fire upon learning that she had become a Christian.

The child became curious about Jesus Christ after she read Christian material online, the Gulf News reported.

Her father read of her Internet conversation, detached her tongue and burned her to death "following a heated debate on religion," according to an International Christian Concern report.

The father is employed by the muwateen, or Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. The muwateen are police tasked by the government with enforcing religious purity. The man has been taken into custody, and his identity has not been released.

Tags: religion, islam, christianity, another dead girl

Logical Fallacies and How to Spot Them

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 15:01:21 GMT

clipped by: skwirlinator

Clip Source: www.daltonator.net

Logical Fallacies and How to Spot Them

THE STRAWMAN ATTACK:

HOW TO SPOT

HOW TO COUNTER

THE FALSE DILEMMA FALLACY:

HOW TO SPOT

HOW TO COUNTER

THE APPEAL TO AUTHORITY:

HOW TO SPOT

HOW TO COUNTER

THE APPEAL TO FEAR:

HOW TO SPOT

HOW TO COUNTER

THE APPEAL TO THE MASSES:

HOW TO SPOT

HOW TO COUNTER

THE ACHILLES' HEAL FALLACY:

HOW TO SPOT

HOW TO COUNTER

THE AD HOMINEM ATTACK:

HOW TO SPOT

HOW TO COUNTER

SHIFTING THE ONUS OF PROOF:

HOW TO SPOT

HOW TO COUNTER

THE RED HERRING:

HOW TO SPOT

HOW TO COUNTER

Tags: logical fallacies, how to spot them, demand proof

Palin believes dinosaurs and men once coexisted

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 04:56:27 GMT

clipped by: rmowery

Clip Source: www.boingboing.net

Palin believes dinosaurs and men once coexisted

Palin told him that "dinosaurs and humans walked the Earth at the same time," Munger said. When he asked her about prehistoric fossils and tracks dating back millions of years, Palin said "she had seen pictures of human footprints inside the tracks," recalled Munger, who teaches music at the University of Alaska in Anchorage and has regularly criticized Palin in recent years on his liberal political blog, called Progressive Alaska.

Tags: palin, republicans, vp nominee, dinsaurs, religon

Crowd Jeers Suicidal Jumper To His Death

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 11:48:09 GMT

clipped by: thisnamecantbetaken
clipper's remarks: What is wrong with people?!? That poor, poor boy.

Clip Source: www.news.com.au

Crowd jeers suicidal jumper to his death

JEERING onlookers goaded a teenager in Britain to jump to his death, undermining police efforts to talk him down, and then took pictures of the body.

spectators allegedly shouted to him: "How far can you bounce?",

As Mr Dykes hesitated for three hours on the ledge while police unsuccessfully tried to reason him out of taking his life, teenagers who had gathered below shouted "Jump" and "Get on with it"

Then after Mr Dykes lay in a crumpled heap on the pavement the same hecklers rushed out from behind the police cordon to take photos of the body.

17-year-old Shaun Dykes

was believed to have been suffering from depression and struggling to overcome a relationship breakdown.

"Negotiators were working with the man threatening to jump and it was their job to talk to him in the hope of changing his mind.

"We really need the public to work with us, not against us. It was a very disappointing situation."

trippin' fractals

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 12:13:42 GMT

clipped by: zadoz
clipper's remarks: chill out with this gallery..... i'm going back 4 more

Clip Source: www.enchgallery.com

Tags: fractals

A question science can't answer?

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 10:49:55 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: scienceblogs.com

"Can anybody think of a question science can't answer?"

"Is there a God?" shot back a boy near the window.

"Good," said Mr. Campbell, an Anglican who attends church most Sundays. "Can't test it. Can't prove it, can't disprove it. It's not a question for science."

I despise that chicken-hearted answer. There are two reasonable ways to address that. One is to accept the usual open-ended, undefined vagueness of the god entity and point out that the reason it can't be answered is that it is a bad question — it's not even wrong. Science doesn't answer it, but then no discipline can, because it's a garbage question like "what color are invisible elephants?" If that's what window-boy intends with his petty little gotcha, he deserves to have the inanity of his idea disparaged.

The other approach

pin the question down. What god? What actions has it taken in the natural world? How does it influence us specifically? Then you can tackle that god with science by testing the purported effects it has

Tags: religion, science, atheism, god

We're all going to be rich!

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 09:38:19 GMT

clipped by: Fast T friend
clipper's remarks: Afterwards, they can accept the check from Mr Oktar, run down to the local bank and cash it, and use one trillion dollars to resolve the current financial crisis, seven trillion can be sunk immediately into the American educational system, and they can send the change left over to me as a reward for coming up with this brilliant plan.

Clip Source: scienceblogs.com

A controversial creationist who successfully campaigned for Richard Dawkins' official website to be banned in Turkey has offered a multitrillion- pound challenge to scientists.

Adnan Oktar said that he has "issued a call to all evolutionists" that he will give "10 trillion Turkish lira to anyone who produces a single intermediate-form fossil demonstrating evolution" - a sum roughly equal to £4.4trn.

I had to look up the exchange rate. That's $8,010,890,000,000. Eight trillion, ten billion, eight hundred and ninety million dollars. I could live reasonably comfortably on that.

Instead, though, I'm going to suggest something that will help out the entire country. The US government should immediately send a plane to pick up Mr Oktar, bring him to our country, and take him on a guided tour of the Smithsonian and the American Museum of Natural History, accompanied by Niles Eldredge, Kevin Padian, Jerry Coyne, Sean Carroll, and the entire scientific staff of those museums.

Tags: evolution, creationalism, hilarious?