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Atlas of hidden water may avert future conflict

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 15:56:50 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: environment.newscientist.com

They are one of the world's greatest and most precious natural resources, yet are entirely hidden. Now, for the first time, a high-resolution map shows where underground aquifers store vast amounts of water.

The map of "blue gold" (pdf format, 4 MB) is the result of nearly a decade of sometimes difficult talks between neighbouring governments, mediated by UNESCO. The hope is that it will help pave the way to an international law to govern how water is shared around the world.

Aquifers are underground layers of rocks or sediments from which water can be extracted – normally by drilling boreholes or digging wells. They hold 100 times the volume of freshwater that flows down rivers and streams around the world at any time.

What the UNESCO map reveals is just how many aquifers cross international borders. So far, the organisation has identified 273 trans-boundary aquifers: 68 in the Americas, 38 in Africa, 155 in Eastern and Western Europe and 12 in Asia.

Tags: atlas, hidden water, future conflict

The Creative Personality

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 08:51:12 GMT

clipped by: einbar
clipper's remarks: "

Creativity is a central source of meaning in our lives. Most of the things that are interesting, important, and human are the result of creativity. What makes us different from apes—our language, values, artistic expression, scientific understanding, and technology—is the result of individual ingenuity that was recognized, rewarded, and transmitted through learning."

Clip Source: www.theispot.com

Clip Source: www.psychologytoday.com

Creative individuals are remarkable for their ability to adapt to almost any situation and to make do with whatever is at hand to reach their goals.

Here are the 10 antithetical traits often present in creative people that are integrated with each other in a dialectical tension.

Creative people have a great deal of physical energy, but they're also often quiet and at rest.

tend to be smart yet naive at the same time

combine playfulness and discipline, or responsibility and irresponsibility

alternate between imagination and fantasy

both extroverted and introverted

humble and proud at the same time

to an extent, escape rigid gender role stereotyping

both rebellious and conservative.

very passionate about their work, yet they can be extremely objective about it as well

openness and sensitivity often exposes them to suffering and pain, yet also to a great deal of enjoyment

Perhaps the most important quality

is the ability to enjoy the process of creation for its own sake

Freedom’s Curse

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 12:09:45 GMT

clipped by: balthazarus
clipper's remarks: Interesting.

Clip Source: www.theatlantic.com

Why Washington’s crusade against swearing on the airwaves is f*cked up

A word is an arbitrary label—that’s the foundation of linguistics. But many people think otherwise

They believe in word magic: that uttering a spell, incantation, curse, or prayer can change the world

Swearing is another kind of word magic

People believe, contrary to logic, that certain words can corrupt the moral order

ability of taboo words to activate primitive emotional circuits in the brain.

In 1978, the Supreme Court, ruling on a daytime broadcast of Carlin’s “Filthy Words” monologue, allowed the Federal Communications Commission to regulate “indecency” on broadcast radio and television during the hours when children were likely to be listening

the impact of taboo words depended on their context

when Bono said in a televised acceptance speech, “This is really, really fucking brilliant

did not punish

did not use fucking to “describe sexual or excretory organs or activities

used it as an “adjective or expletive

Tags: language, swearing

Nutters on the Internet

Sun, 26 Oct 2008 13:45:50 GMT

clipped by: abailart
clipper's remarks: It is sad that so many remain who throw around words of abuse, and treat mental illness as a moral defect.

Clip Source: www.mind.org.uk

If you find the headlines in the tabloids bad, hold your nose: the stench of scapegoats, bigotry and pure ignorance is everywhere on Usenet. The anonymity of the internet means that the fascists and bigots have a free field of fire.

This, from a Usenet discussion on uk.local.glasgow, is one of the less rabid: 'However, anyone with a grain of intelligence would see that as the mentally ill, on the whole, are of no value to society whatsoever, it makes no sense in keeping ... alive against their wishes just to satisfy a bunch of elitist sociopaths.'

(I think he means us; people working to stop the erosion of the rights of users of services.) He rants on: 'In addition, it would save money to execute or euthanise those who are deemed worthless rather than locking ppl [a Usenet contraction of 'people'] up willy-nilly.' So much for the government's television anti-discrimination advertising campaign, the gist of which seemed to be: 'Nutters can be cuddly'.

Tags: mental illness, stigma, discrimination

A woman buys a stranger's foreclosed home and gives it back to her.

Sun, 26 Oct 2008 20:02:51 GMT

clipped by: deadcowkid
clipper's remarks: This is what a real act of random kindness looks like. Go to source to watch video.

Clip Source: www.cnn.com

Foreclosure angel

A woman buys a stranger's foreclosed home... and gives it back to her. WFAA has the story.

Tags: kindness, random acts, housing, foreclosed

Why Obama's impact on world opinion matters

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 02:02:58 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: Easy to say "I don't care what the world thinks," but "you can't fire cruise missiles at the global financial crisis." We're dependent on getting cooperation. And the world is fired up for it.

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

In his endorsement of Mr. Obama, Colin Powell noted that “the new president is going to have to fix the reputation that we’ve left with the rest of the world.” That’s not because we crave admiration, but because cooperation is essential to address 21st-century challenges; you can’t fire cruise missiles at the global financial crisis.

Powell added that an Obama election “will also not only electrify our country, I think it’ll electrify the world.”

many Muslims voiced astonishment at Mr. Obama’s rise because it was so much at odds with their assumptions about the United States. Remember that the one thing countless millions of people around the world “know” about the United States is that it is controlled by a cabal of white bankers and Jews who use police with fire hoses to repress blacks

we may find a path to restore America’s global influence — and thus to achieve some of our international objectives

because the world is concluding that Americans can

see beyond a person’s epidermis

Tags: obama, world opinion

Obama assassination plot thwarted

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 22:23:43 GMT

clipped by: boniface
clipper's remarks: It's begun!

Clip Source: www.reuters.com

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Law enforcement arrested two men in Tennessee who had plans to rob a gun dealer to shoot Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and "as many non-Caucasians" as possible, an official said on Monday.

"They wanted to go to a place where they could shoot as many non-Caucasian as they could," the official said, noting that the men first planned to rob a gun dealer. "They also had a plot to assassinate Sen. Obama."

Call Center Workers Quit over McCain Attacks

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 23:00:40 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: At least three dozen workers at a telemarketing call center in Indiana walked off the job rather than read an incendiary McCain campaign script

Clip Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

Dozens Of Call Center Workers Quit Over McCain Attacks

At least three dozen workers at a telemarketing call center in Indiana walked off the job rather than read an incendiary McCain campaign script attacking Barack Obama, according to two workers at the center and one of their parents.

Nina Williams, a stay-at-home mom in Lake County, Indiana, tells us that her daughter recently called her from her job at the center, upset that she had been asked to read a script attacking Obama for being "dangerously weak on crime," "coddling criminals," and for voting against "protecting children from danger."

Tags: mccain, lies

Chopin Nocturne Op.9 - pianist: Yundi Li

Sun, 26 Oct 2008 00:24:00 GMT

clipped by: syncopath
clipper's remarks: one of the best pianists nowadays, especially brilliant in playing Chopin. hope u enjoy -))

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

Yundi Li plays Chopin Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2

[Video]

If McCain were best person to lead country now

Sat, 25 Oct 2008 23:08:43 GMT

clipped by: cptenaud
clipper's remarks: We've Had Two Victories in Iraq (0.00 / 0)
"Mission Accomplished"

Apparently not enough to bring the troops home!

"The Surge Worked"

And still not enough to bring the troops home, but instead have more serving in theater than before 'the surge'!

What's the next catch phrase??

Clip Source: www.vetvoice.com

it would make sense to let bygones be bygones. He is not. He has no vision, no plan, and has resorted to fear and smear tactics. He does not deserve to rest on his hero image as a substitute for lack of any other reason to earn support. There are so many people who mistakenly think a vote for McCain is patriotic and means traditional American values.

Thank you each too, for your service and sacrifices.

Yesterday news came about a young husband in our area, dead of injuries in Iraq. I'm absolutely heartsick, can't sleep. As Barrack Obama said, no soldier's death for his country is in vain. On the same night, McCain said we have to KEEP sending our servicepeople, that if we say Iraq was a mistake we dishonor the memories of those precious ones who've been lost. God bless this soldier for doing his duty, and God bless his family, may they have peace and comfort ... but how will more deaths honor him, "win" or lose.

Tags: mccain, pow

Sarah Palin: Rogue Candidate

Sun, 26 Oct 2008 06:31:05 GMT

clipped by: BartendingBear
clipper's remarks: Once a separatist, always a separatist, I guess.

Clip Source: www.cnn.com

10 days until Election Day, long-brewing tensions between GOP vice presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin and key aides to Sen. John McCain have become so intense, they are spilling out in public, sources say.

McCain advisers have suggested to CNN that they have become increasingly frustrated with what one aide described as Palin "going rogue."

McCain sources say Palin has gone off-message several times, and they privately wonder whether the incidents were deliberate.

A second McCain source says she appears to be looking out for herself more than the McCain campaign.

"She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone," said this McCain adviser. "She does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else.

"Also, she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next leader of the party.

"Her lack of fundamental understanding of some key issues was dramatic,"

"hardest" to get her "up to speed than any candidate in history."

How has McCain been "tested?"

Sun, 26 Oct 2008 08:06:17 GMT

clipped by: oscarrob
clipper's remarks: And so, the point is even more clear-cut than it might seem at first glance: Just because "John McCain sat in a cockpit on a flight deck during the tensest five days of the Cuban Missile Crisis, that doesn't mean he absorbed the slightest bit of wisdom about how to handle a crisis from the top."

Just being a fighter pilot or a POW doesn't mean you are ready to be president. Nobody really is and this whole experience thing, on both sides, is an enormous red herring.

Clip Source: www.slate.com

Sitting on an aircraft-carrier deck in 1962 didn't prepare John McCain for the presidency.

I mean no disrespect for carrier pilots, especially those poised for combat.

t is not at all clear how this experience tested McCai

Here's what the president at the time, John F. Kennedy, did during the crisis.

Kennedy assembled all his top advisers in the Cabinet Room to discuss how to respond. (Lucky for historians, he secretly tape-recorded all these deliberations

All of Kennedy's advisers

urged Kennedy to bomb the missile sites

On the tapes, they sound hysterical

Kennedy remained preternaturally cool

end of the day, without telling more than a handful of his advisers

Kennedy ordered his brother to tell the Soviet ambassador that he accepted Khrushchev's deal—as long as it was kept a total secret, as indeed it was until the tapes came out 20 years later

Kennedy himself contrived the cover story

that he'd stared the Russians dow

Tags: politics, campaign, mccain, obama, election, president