Clipmarks |

Best Photos from Reuters

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 00:11:19 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman
clipper's remarks: Amazing set of photos

Clip Source: www.shareordie.in

Colours

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 00:20:50 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: awesome-pictures.group.stumbleupon.com

America

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 07:37:56 GMT

clipped by: abailart

Clip Source: suddenworld.com

Tags: us-centricism

How did the Universe Begin ?

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 18:00:06 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: The no-boundary wave function also states that space-time was not what we see today at the outset of universal expansion. “When the universe started out,” Hartle explains, “there wasn’t ordinary space-time. Instead of three space directions, as we have now, there were four space directions. At some point, a transition was made to ordinary space-time.”

Clip Source: www.physorg.com

One of the most interesting questions considered by astrophysicists deals with the start of our universe.

Indeed, there is a great deal of speculation on the subject, with different theories about how the universe began, and what may have existed before the universe came into being.

Several prominent astrophysicists around the world are interested in answering these questions.

“The no-boundary wave function is one theory about the origins of the universe.” The goal of this particular work with Hawking and Hertog, he continues, was to model the universe and see what kind of probabilities exist that the current universe could have originated in a certain way.

The no-boundary proposal predicts that expansion in the early universe would have proceeded smoothly from a moment in time. The idea is that inflation was a feature of our early universe. “It collapsed from a previous large phase, bounced at a small but not zero radius, and expanded again to the large phase we are living in,”

Tags: cosmology

Messed up family tree

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 17:52:03 GMT

clipped by: willhelm
clipper's remarks: If my wife is my grandmother,
Then I am her grandchild.
And every time I think of it,
It simply drives me wild.

For now I have become
The strangest case you ever saw.
As the husband of my grandmother,
I am my own grandpa.

Clip Source: www.dysan.net

Many many years ago
when I was twenty three,
I got married to a widow

who was pretty as could be.

This widow had a grown-up daughter
who had hair of red.
My father fell in love with her,

and soon the two were wed.

This made my dad my son-in-law
And changed my very life.
My daughter was my mother,

For she was my father's wife.

To complicate the matters worse,
Although it brought me joy,
I soon became the father

Of a bouncing baby boy.

My little baby then became
A brother-in-law to dad.
And so became my uncle,

Though it made me very sad.

For if he was my uncle,
Then that also made him brother
To the widow's grown-up daughter

Who, of course, was my step-mother.

Father's wife then had a son,
Who kept them on the run.
And he became my grandson,

For he was my daughter's son.

My wife is now my mother's mother
And it makes me blue.
Because, although she is my wife,

She is my grandma too.

George Carlin Dies at 71

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 07:55:31 GMT

clipped by: carrerinyes
clipper's remarks: Rest in peace George Carlin. He gave us so much.

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

George Carlin dies at 71

The Grammy-winning standup comic and counterculture hero dies of heart failure at an L.A. hospital. Photos | Discuss

Eat Shit and Die

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:12:45 GMT

clipped by: Socratoad

Clip Source: www.alternet.org

Eat Shit and Die: Contaminated Veggies Are the Meat Industry’s Fault

The latest salmonella scare shows that even vegetarians are still at the mercy of the meat industry.

Despite being one of the most grotesquely overfed populations in recent memory, Americans remain preoccupied only with the quantity, not the quality, of their food. They don't mind if scientists inject their french fries with high-fructose corn syrup as long as McDonald's super-sizes their order for a nickel.

Yet, the attitude toward vegetarianism is changing in the United States. While it's difficult to quantify how many vegetarians live within our borders, it's easier to observe the attitude toward vegetarians. Twenty years ago, "What're you, a Commie?" was a typical response to a confession of veggie brotherhood. Nowadays, despite the occasional stink eye, meat eaters at least understand that vegetarianism is healthy, if not a lifestyle particularly suited for them.

Homo Sapiens of many types

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 20:27:50 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman
clipper's remarks: A collection of wonderful portraits. Every single one is stunning and moving.

Clip Source: www.interesno.dn.ua

The Islam you don't hear about

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 05:27:04 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: blogs.usatoday.com

A trip to Indonesia — home to more than 200 million Muslims — reveals a faith that hardly resembles the one Americans have come to know in the blood-soaked years since 9/11.

After the 9/11 attacks, Americans put out a call for moderate Islam. Many Muslims answered that call, but few Americans heard them. Early this month, I traveled to Asia to see what Islam looks like on the ground there, and to listen to what Muslims themselves have to say about their religion, terrorism and the United States. What I found surprised me.

I went to Asia because Islam is by no means a Middle Eastern phenomenon. In fact, Asia is home to most of the world's Muslims. I focused on Indonesia because there are more Muslims in Indonesia than in any other country — roughly three times as many as in Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Iraq combined.

Tags: indonesia, islam, muslims

Niceness

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 07:45:37 GMT

clipped by: abailart

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

For many, "niceness" is a positive value to be striven for. A "nice" person is friendly, non-threatening, and not at all controversial. A "nice" meal involves digestible food, moderately pleasant surroundings, and a conversation that perhaps does not draw the attention of other diners.

For others, that's the reason that they despise "niceness". For them, it carries connotations of a certain indifference to life's rich pageant: an acceptance of blandness; possibly an unwillingness to commit.

There's a telling bit of humour in Jane Austen when the Northanger Abbey character Henry Tilney ruminates on the word.

"It is a very nice word indeed," he says. "It does for everything... now every commendation on every subject is comprised in that one word."

Clip Source: www.wisdomquotes.com

Last guys don't finish nice.

Saul Alinsky:

In truth, politeness is artificial good humor, it covers the natural want of it, and ends by rendering habitual a substitute nearly equivalent to the real virtue.

Thomas Jefferson

Tags: niceness