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Are There Really Continents of Floating Garbage?

Tue, 01 Jan 2008 12:06:20 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: Even so, this polluted, chemical filled junk is finding it’s way onto our dinner tables.

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

Since stories have started surfacing more recently, many have wondered if the rumors are true. Are there really ‘continents’, or massive floating garbage patches residing in the pacific ocean? Apparently, the rumors are true, and these unsightly patches are reportedly killing marine life and releasing poisons that enter the human food chain, as well. Indeed, the human race has really made its mark. One plastic patch is estimated to weigh over 3 million tons and covers an area twice the size of Texas.

But if there are massive islands of junk out there, why doesn’t everyone already know about it, and why are we doing something about it?

Well, there are several reasons. First, no one is keen to claim responsibility for these monstrosities, which exists in one of the most remote spots on the planet

It’s easy to ignore than deal with, at least in the short term. Clean up is nearly impossible at this point

How Electric Cars Could Save the Grid

Sun, 30 Dec 2007 18:28:06 GMT

clipped by: gingembre
clipper's remarks: Benefits of the "Vehicle to Grid" project being developed by researchers at the University of Delaware

"electric vehicles could do more than provide backup energy. If just a quarter of the nation's cars were electric -- about 50 million cars -- the power capacity of those batteries would be equal to 700 gigawatts, the entire power production capacity in the United States today"

"For the system to have the most value, electric cars need to be equipped with a high, 80-amp/240-volt plug -- something a little more powerful than the plug on an electric dryer. (An electrician can install the corresponding outlet into any home.) But most of the existing electric hybrid cars come equipped with a low, 15-amp, 110-volt plug."

"the low-amp plugs work...but if the electric car owner is selling electricity back to the grid, they want to sell as much as possible. A 15-amp plug could net a car owner about $400 year, whereas an 80-amp plug could net $4,000"

Clip Source: dsc.discovery.com

Backup Power

How Electric Cars Could Save the Grid

buy an electric car and you could receive hundreds, even thousands, of dollars a year, just for plugging it in

The cash benefit is just one of many in the so-called "vehicle to grid" -- or V2G -- project being developed by researchers at the University of Delaware

Their idea is simple: electric cars have to plug into the power grid anyway to get their batteries recharged. Why not use those batteries collectively as electricity "sponges" to soak up and wring out the excess power from utility companies that fluctuates notoriously on any given day?

Utility companies would benefit because they'd have a place to store energy; car owners would receive a fee to participate; and car manufacturers would have an attractive selling-point by which to promote their vehicles

if all of those parked cars were electric and plugged into the grid, the utility operator could automatically draw on the batteries exactly as needed, meeting demand

Tags: alternative energy, automotive, electricity, energy, electric cars, money-savers

Happy New Year Clipmarks!!

Tue, 01 Jan 2008 02:57:02 GMT

clipped by: CarnivalBorn
clipper's remarks: May the year be full of happiness love and prosperity for all of you. Happy New Year

Clip Source: morbidanatomy.blogspot.com

Happy New Year!

All images via the New York Public Library Digital Gallery. What's up with the mushroom motif? Forgotten New Years metaphors? Ideas, anyone?

Timeline Of Art History

Tue, 01 Jan 2008 00:05:22 GMT

clipped by: Socratoad
clipper's remarks: Here ya go, a little treat to start off the New Year in good taste.

Clip Source: www.metmuseum.org

Ancient Near Eastern Art

Sometimes We Becme Prisioners To Our Material Choices

Sun, 30 Dec 2007 13:05:54 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: Of course this is not taking into account the fastest growing debt here in the US which is for necessities such as medical care, food, and gasoline. You know, the ones who simply cannot be helped because they enjoy being poor. Thanks to GW the poor and moderate income families now have much more difficulty using bankruptcy protection. It's called tough s***, whoops, love. On the other hand, compassion flows for corporations like milk and honey. This clip is dedicated to those who get in credit card debt for their wants, not their needs. It's quite easy to become prisoners to our material choices.

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

Many people think about personal finance as an unemotional, detached pursuit, but it's really nothing of the sort. Money is a means to an end, and what you do with it is all about feelings and values.

I won't spend out of habit . . .

We waste money partly because we get into costly habits that are often established before we even get our bearings in the working world.

. . . or temptation.

It's hard not to get sucked into consumerism's endless web.

"Every day, we're bombarded with these messages that are trying to concern us with what we don't have. We need to acquire. We need to acquire now,"

But the products can never fulfill the promise of the advertisement -- to make you feel better or look better."

My spending will match my values.

Do you have those possessions or do you need them?

"We are impulse buyers," said Eileen McDargh, author of "Gifts from the Mountain: Simple Truths for Life's Complexities." "Sometimes we become prisoners to our material choices."

Subcontracting Torture to the Terrorists

Mon, 31 Dec 2007 18:08:00 GMT

clipped by: ouyangwulong
clipper's remarks: You know, something occurs to me when looking at these three lovely destinations: it really does look like we are hiring the terrorists to interrogate potential terrorists.

This is like Milo Minderbinder bombing his own base for the Germans!

Clip Source: www.aclu.org

In the words of former CIA agent Robert Baer: "If you want a serious interrogation, you send a prisoner to Jordan. If you want them to be tortured, you send them to Syria. If you want someone to disappear -- never to see them again -- you send them to Egypt."

Foreign nationals suspected of terrorism have been transported to detention and interrogation facilities in Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, Diego Garcia, Afghanistan, Guantánamo, and elsewhere.

Tags: torture, bush, extraoridinary rendition, syria, terrorism, stupid!

Writing Tips

Mon, 31 Dec 2007 02:57:06 GMT

clipped by: wurdzgurl

Clip Source: www.writingforward.com

Read as much and as often as you can. Remember, every writer is a reader first.

Invest in a few valuable resources starting with The Chicago Manual of Style, Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, and The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition.

Grammar: learn the rules and then break them.

Join a writers’ group so you can enjoy support and comradery in your craft.

Create a space in your home especially for writing.

Write every single day.

Let go of your inner editor. When you sit down to write a draft, refrain from proofreading until that draft is complete.

Allow yourself to write poorly, to write a weak, uninteresting story or a boring, grammatically criminal poem. You’ll never succeed if you don’t allow yourself a few failures along the way.

You are a writer so own up and say it out loud, “I am a writer.” Whether it’s a hobby or your profession, you have the right to this title.

Write, write, write, and then write some more. Forget everything else and just write.

2008: Time to Change Your Mind

Tue, 01 Jan 2008 07:22:20 GMT

clipped by: abailart
clipper's remarks: Wonderful. Just think: you too could be a different person at the end of this sentence than you were at the beginning! May all our life sentences be write.

Clip Source: www.edge.org

The Edge Annual Question — 2008

When thinking changes your mind, that's philosophy.
When God changes your mind, that's faith.
When facts change your mind, that's science.

WHAT HAVE YOU CHANGED YOUR MIND ABOUT? WHY?

Science is based on evidence. What happens when the data change? How have scientific findings or arguments changed your mind?"

"Fantastically stimulating...It's like the crack cocaine of the thinking world.... Once you start, you can't stop thinking about that question." — BBC Radio 4 (2005)

Second thoughts on life, the universe and everything by world's best brains

They are the intellectual elite, the brains the rest of us rely on to make sense of the universe and answer the big questions. But in a refreshing show of new year humility, the world's best thinkers have admitted that from time to time even they are forced to change their minds.

Changes of mind lie at the core of almost every breakthrough in science, art and thought

Consistency is an over-rated virtue

Tags: clear thinking

Growing up in the Universe - Richard Dawkins

Mon, 31 Dec 2007 11:06:49 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman
clipper's remarks: Lectures for Children from a young Richard Dawkins

Clip Source: richarddawkins.net

Richard Dawkins presents a series of lectures on life, the universe, and our place in it. With brilliance and clarity, Dawkins unravels an educational gem that will mesmerize young and old alike. Illuminating demonstrations, wildlife, virtual reality, and special guests (including Douglas Adams) all combine to make this collection a timeless classic

Episode 1: Waking Up in the Universe

Episode 2: Designed and Designoid Objects

Episode 3: Climbing Mount Improbable

Episode 4: The Ultraviolet Garden

Episode 5: The Genesis of Purpose

Praise for 'Growing Up in the Universe':

"Science as epiphany! An instinctive teacher, Richard Dawkins increases our understanding of the universe and provokes our wonder at it in equal measure." - The Most Reverend Richard Holloway, former Bishop of Edinburgh and Primus of the Church of Scotland.

Dawkins's capacity for clear explanation, assisted by excellent and often beautiful illustrations, is formidable."

- Quentin de la Bédoyère, Catholic Herald.

Tags: evolution, science, richard dawkins

Images That Changed The World

Sun, 30 Dec 2007 23:51:22 GMT

clipped by: swampfoxz
clipper's remarks: Some people might be offended or upset by these images

Clip Source: pinguy.infogami.com

Execution of a Viet Cong Guerrilla [1968]

The lynching of young blacks [1930]

Soweto Uprising [1976]

Hazel Bryant [1957]

Triangle Shirtwaist Company Fire [1911]

Phan Thị Kim Phúc known as Kim Phuc (born 1963) was the subject of a famous photo from the Vietnam war. The picture shows her at about age nine running naked after being severely burned on her back by a napalm attack.

Kent State [1970]

Tiananmen Square [1989]

Thích Quảng Đức [1963]

Portrait of Winston Churchill [1941]

Albert Einstein [1951]

Nagasaki [1945]

Hiroshima, Three Weeks After the Bomb [1945]

Dead on the Beach [1943]

Buchenwald [1945]

Anne Frank [1941]

V-J Day, Times Square, [1945]

Casualties of war [1991]