10. Jack Kevorkian

An extremely controversial topic in today?s world, Jack Kevorkian is known for ending the lives of his terminally ill patient?s through assisted suicide. He was a champion for the right and is often quoted saying ?dying is not a crime.? It is said that he allowed 130 or more of his patients to die with his help. Kevorkian created his own euthanasia machines that would allow a patient to die two ways. The first was the ?Thanatron?, which used an IV to inject the patient with saline, sodium thiopental, and potassium chloride. He also used the ?Mercitron,? which involved a gas mask that utilized carbon monoxide. Eventually, his actions were investigated and he was arrested on charges of second-degree murder and served jail-time from 1999-2007, but today is on parole.

Teah Wimberly found guilty in Dillard High slaying

Who lets a baby out naked on a farm?

Fave Comment: You find a naked boot-wearing baby getting a blowjob from a cat adorable? WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU!? ? Fuzunga

Pagans celebrate winter solstice on the wrong day

Pagan worshippers, who braved freezing dawn temperatures to celebrate the winter solstice at Stonehenge, were dismayed to discover they had turned up on the wrong day.

A crowd of around 300 people, wearing traditional costume, met at the mystical stone circle on Monday morning to mark the rising of the sun on the shortest day of the year.

But unfortunately their calculations were slightly out meaning they had in fact arrived 24 hours prematurely.

The winter solstice occurs when the tilt of the earths axis is at its furthest from the sun ? some 23 degrees 26 minutes off vertical ? delivering the fewest hours of sunlight of the year.

Perception is everything ? Living La Vita Loca while the rest of America worries whether they will have a pay check and a home. Is this really the image that Obama wants to project to the American people? How could a President who for one second tires to tell American people that he understand their plight and feels their pain while renting this 7000 sq foot home out?

Some things just look and smell inherently wrong. Paying Senators off for their vote was one. Staying in this over the top rental property while average Americans go belly up is a second.

While millions of Americans lose their jobs and homes, the Obama?s jet off to Hawaii and rent an $8.9 million home for the holidays. While most Americans cannot afford to take a vacation and are doing ?staycations? instead, Barack Obama and family in tow are roughing it up as Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous as We the People foot the expense.

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On September 11th 2001, the governments (1970s) security procedures all failed, and the only good news of the day came from self-reliant citizens (on Flight 93) using their own wits and a willingness to act.

On December 25th 2009, the governments (post-9/11) security procedures all failed, and the only good news came once again from alert individuals:

Schuringa, sitting in seat 20J, in the right-most section of the Airbus 330, looked to his left. "I saw smoke rising from a seat ... I didn?t hesitate. I just jumped," he said.

"I searched on his body parts and he had his pants open. He had something strapped to his legs."

The unassuming hero ripped the flaming, molten object ? which resembled a small, white shampoo bottle ? off Abdul Mutallab?s left leg, near his crotch. He said he put out the fire with his bare hands.

Schuringa yelled for water, and members of the flight crew soon appeared with fire extinguishers. Then, he said, he hauled the suspect out of the seat.

Camel Caravan Crossing the Lybian Desert

Sahara desert - Caravan

The Past Matters to Plants

ScienceDaily (Dec. 26, 2009) ? Its commonly known that plants interact with each other on an everyday basis: they shade each other out or take up nutrients from the soil before neighboring plants can get them. Now, researchers at the University of Michigan have learned that plants also respond to the past.

Emily Farrer, Deborah Goldberg, and Aaron King modeled four years of population fluctuations in four species common to the Michigan dry sand prairie to determine how plants interacted with each other. They found that plants tended to compete, or negatively affect one another, over the summer, fall, and spring; but interestingly the researchers also found that the more crowded together plants were in one growing season, the more their growth was enhanced the following year.

10) Humpback Whales to Leap off Endangered Species List

9) Researchers Love for Wife Leads to MS Breakthrough

Vaccine pitch fest

I t was the year when Twitter came and went ? a fad formed in February and dropped in December, proof that this is the land of the short attention span.

Australia has long been legendary as a nation of early adopters, the ideal test market for gadgets and products. We embraced colour TV, the VCR, the mobile phone, the games machine and the DVD faster than any other outpost of Western culture.

Now its apparent that another of our traits could be useful to the international marketing industry ? we are early discarders. On television, we lost interest in Lost, Ugly Betty, Heroes, PrisonBreak, 24 and FlashForward long before the Americans.

Back in February, when the media started trumpeting Twitter as the hottest self-promotion tool since the megaphone, I asked a social researcher what he made of it. "Its a classic case of BOFSDT," he replied. That acronym stands for Boring Old Farts Suddenly Discover Technology.

Laz-E-Boy

It would be a shame to throw this brown leather Lazy Boy type recliner away. Somebody could really enjoy this recliner. It belongs to the estate of a deacesed friend and needs to be removed from the home.

Yes, it would be a shame, a damned shame. There?s years of use left in that thing.

Sure, the (p)leather is stained, worn, and torn.

Sure, it smells like the man who sat in it every day for 40 years. And the beer he spilled on it. And the cigarettes he smoked until he finally quit 12 years ago.

Sure, the filth covering the carpet around the chair started on the chair and had to either slide off or leak through it to get to the floor. Over and over.

And yes, sure, there may be dormant spores of Legionnaire?s Disease the former chair-sitter brought back from Philadelphia in ?76, visiting for the the Bicentennial.

As with any new and exciting technology, applications seem limitless. The current generation of photovoltaic cells are wafers around 6 square inches. In contrast, these tiny cells could be mounted on flexible substrates, such as on fabric or oddly shaped surfaces.

As an added bonus, the mass-produced micro-cells will also eventually be cheaper to make and install than current solar power cells. This could finally pave the way for buildings that pay their own energy costs with solar power. Or it could mean charging your iPod on the go from a solar-power-collecting shirt.

Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, was saved from Hitler?s persecution of the Jews by a long-standing Nazi who was fascinated with his work, a new book reveals.

The fate of Freud and his family in Vienna hung in the balance after Hitler?s forces took over Austria in 1938. The psychoanalyst was first protected, then helped to escape to Britain, by Anton Sauerwald, a Nazi who had been put in charge of his assets.

Difficult Decisions on End-of-Life Care

Photo: Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times

related

Growing evidence that the Nigerian man charged with trying to blow up a commercial airliner as it landed in Detroit Friday spent time in Yemen and may have been fitted with customized, explosive-laden clothing there could complicate the U.S. government?s efforts to send home more than 80 Yemeni prisoners currently at Guantanamo Bay.

Since Yemenis represent almost half of the roughly 200 remaining prisoners at Gitmo, new hurdles to their resettlement could spell more trouble for President Barack Obama?s plan to close the island prison while transferring a limited number of detainees to a prison in the U.S. Six Yemeni nationals were returned home earlier this month, and officials hoped more transfers would follow.

Shea points out that if this study turns out to be correct, we can expect the generation coming of age in the next 10 years may have a more "European" attitude toward inequality.

I believe that people who don?t see what Google Wave is for are simply looking at it from the wrong angle. Wave is not a social tool. It?s not Twitter, it?s not GTalk, it?s not Facebook. It was never designed to appeal to the crowds of geeks who are currently trying it out.

Wave is built for the corporate environment. It?s a tool for getting work done. And as far as those go, it?s an excellent tool, even at this very early stage.

It will probably take years before Wave fully penetrates large corporations and replaces the email systems everyone is used to. But it solves so many thorny problems with email that it might well manage to do so, where so many other tentative ?email fixes? have failed.

In the meantime, we should stop judging it as a social tool and start looking at how we can use it for real work. Invite your colleagues to it, and get working.

Hot Air and the Wall Street Journal noticed the Obama Administration dropped a financial bombshell on Christmas Eve:

?The Treasury announced Thursday it was removing the caps that limited the amount of available capital to the companies [Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac] to $200 billion each.

Unlimited access to bailout funds through 2012 was ?necessary for preserving the continued strength and stability of the mortgage market,? the Treasury said. Fannie and Freddie purchase or guarantee most U.S. home mortgages and have run up huge losses stemming from the worst wave of defaults since the 1930s.

?The timing of this executive order giving Fannie and Freddie a blank check is no coincidence,? said Rep. Spencer Bachus of Alabama, the ranking Republican on the House Financial Services Committee. He said the Christmas Eve announcement was designed ?to prevent the general public from taking note.?"

FBI Considered "Its A Wonderful Life" Communist Propaganda

I love Its a Wonderful Life because it teaches us that family, friendship, and virtue are the true definitions of wealth.

In 1947, however, the FBI considered this anti-consumerist message as subversive Communist propaganda (read original FBI memo).

According to Professor John Noakes of Franklin and Marshall College, the FBI thought Life smeared American values such as wealth and free enterprise while glorifying anti-American values such as the triumph of the common man.

The FBI specifically detested the way Mr. Potter was portrayed:

The casting of Lionel Barrymore as a "scrooge-type" resulted in the loathsome Mr. Potter becoming the most hated person in the film. According to the official FBI report, "this was a common trick used by the communists."

How Dirty is your mind?

Breadmaker

Disc Washer/ Scratch Repair Thing

Fondue Set

Any Board Game

Miscellaneous Organizers

Keyboard Vac

Foot Spa

Chair Massager

I agree on one point that Mark Lynas makes in this Guardian piece: China?s cozying of Sudan is dreadful.

New estate bans cats and dogs to protect birdlife

A property developer has banned homeowners from keeping cats or dogs to protect birdlife on nearby heathland.

Residents on a new estate who fail to comply with the ban could ultimately face eviction.

The heathland is home to the endangered Dartford warbler as well as nightjars and woodlarks.

Study Shows Faiths in Two Groups: Strict Teachings, or Rituals and Cults

This question has been exercising University of Oxford anthropologist Harvey Whitehouse for over two decades. He is not the first to note that religions tend to fall into two distinct types -- those based on extensive teachings, such as Christianity and Islam, and those based on iconography and personal interpretations, including most small-scale religions and cults. Whitehouses particular take, though, is to suggest that rituals themselves generate this dichotomy.

Seniors are Americas new Jews

1. Canaan Banana

7. Prince Octopus Dzanie

8. Argelico Fucks

9. Learned Hand

10. Ima Hogg

13. Adolf Lu Hitler Marak

14. Ten Million

19. Jaime Sin

Stunning photographs of animals inside womb

Ladies, we know what?s important to you, and it?s not us. Yes, we?re talking about your footwear and we know full well that you?ll choose a great pair of shoes over a guy any day of the week. But now there?s scientific evidence to prove this.

A recent survey found that a whopping 92 percent of women could remember the first pair of shoes they bought with their own money. That?s a whole lot more than the two out of three women who could remember the name of the person they first kissed.

Amazingly, 96 percent of women have felt sorry about throwing away of pair of shoes, whereas only 15 percent regret dumping a boyfriend.

So men, now you know where you stand. Somewhere well below a pair of great high heels.

What is panic attacks disorder? How to treat panic attack disorders naturally

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says investigators did not have enough information to keep a terror suspect from boarding a flight bound for Detroit and that the system worked as it should have.

Napolitano says that within 60 to 90 minutes of the incident all 120 flights that were in the air at time were contacted to make sure the attempted bombing did not extend beyond the flight to Detroit.

Looks like the steadily growing list of constitutional, ethical and political outrages that constitute the Harry Reid version of Obamacare is sparking a rebellion in the states, as AP reports South Carolinas attorney general plans to investigate the vote-buying that surrounded the proposal in the Senate majority leaders office.

According to AP, South Carolinas Henry McMaster is being joined by the attorneys general of Michigan and Washington state in a suit to determine the constitutionality of the Obamacare proposal. Their initiative was prompted by a request from South Carolinas two senators, Lindsay Graham and Jim DeMint, both Republicans.

Attorneys-general in at least four other states are also considering joining McMasters, according to AP. A move by a group of states to challenge the constitutionality of Obamacare could reinvigorate the efficacy of the 10th Amendment, which reserves  to the states or the people all rights not specifically granted to the federal government.

Wow?Just Wow.

Hi R****,
It was great seeing you and your husband the other day! Your son looks so big! The reason I?m writing to you today is a small matter of concern, mainly your dog. I?ve seen the way he?s been looking at my Fifi and I don?t like it. I can?t afford to take care of puppies right now so please make sure he stays away from my dog.
Hope to see you soon!
J****

R**** ********* 22 August at 14:23
Hi J****,
Ranger isn?t an outside dog and only goes outside to do his business on the other side of the house from your yard. If he?s ever outside of the yard, he?s always on leash, so he shouldn?t bother your dog.
Cheers,
R****

J**** ***** 25 August at 12:42
I warned you about your dog! He raped my baby and now Fifi is pregnant! I told you I can?t afford puppies, so I expect you to cover all costs. I?ll drop the vet bills off tonight.

In a wonderful quirk of coincidence December 31st, 2009 is not just New Year?s Eve. It?s not just the end of a decade. It?s also a night of a blue moon? in partial eclipse.

A blue moon occurs when there are 13 full moons during a calendar year rather than 12. This is the result of the fact that the lunar cycle is slightly shorter than our calendar months, meaning there is an ?extra? full moon every 2.7 years.

The peak of the shadow this time round will be at 19:22:39 UTC (that?s also known as Greenwich Mean Time or UK time) and will be visible in most of Europe, Africa, Asia and Australasia. So as a very generalized guide:

And as if the decade?s end/blue moon/partial eclipse wasn?t freaky enough, get this: it occurs on the final day of the International Year of Astronomy.

Theatrical Trailer - FRAUD

The 86-year-old governor of a southern Indian state resigned Saturday, a day after a television news channel broadcast a tape allegedly showing him in bed with three women, an official said.

Gov. Narain Dutt Tiwaris office has denied the allegation, denouncing the tape as fabricated.

Tiwari, a veteran governing Congress party leader in Andhra Pradesh state, sent his resignation letter to the Indian president on Saturday, citing health reasons, a state official said on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to talk to reporters.

The scandal hit as Andhra Pradesh is engulfed in social unrest. Outrage over a delay in creating a new state there erupted into violent demonstrations in several cities earlier this week.

Pressure mounted on Tiwari to quit after the tape allegedly showing him in bed with three women was broadcast Friday, prompting the opposition and womens right groups to hold street protests in Hyderabad, the state capital, demanding his resignation.

Their three-year-old daughter, Madison, had been diagnosed with a brain tumour and they were $35,000 (£21,000) in debt.

But when they heard what the caller had to say, they broke down in tears, hardly able to believe their ears. He was a mysterious, high-rolling Las Vegas gambler who had been choosing needy families to give them his winnings. "You have been chosen," the voice told the Keglers. "Im flying you to Vegas, and Im going to win your money for you." What followed seemed like a dream. A stretch limousine to the airport, first-class flights and a Rolls Royce to their 8,000 square-foot suite in the Palazzo hotel. There, Mr Kegler, 48, and his wife, 29, were met by their benefactor, who promptly staked huge amounts of his own money in a marathon card session.

Peter Schiff Was Right 2006 - 2007 (2nd Edition)

Proponents of sex education classes that focus on encouraging teenagers to remain virgins until marriage are hoping that the rescue plan for the nations health-care system will also save their programs, which are facing extinction because of a cutoff of federal funding.

The health-care reform legislation pending in the Senate includes $50 million for programs that states could use to try to reduce pregnancies and sexually transmitted disease among adolescents by teaching to them to delay when they start having sex.

Under the federal budget signed by President Obama, such programs would no longer have funds targeted for them.

"Were optimistic," said Valerie Huber of the National Abstinence Education Association, which is lobbying to maintain funding for the programs. "Nothing is certain, but were hopeful."

Critics of sex education programs focused on abstinence, however, are fighting to permanently end funding, saying there is clear evidence that the approach is unsuccessful.

Is this how the magic happens?

While digging for fossils in Pakistan, paleontologist Philip Gingerich of the University of Michigan discovered the fossil skeleton of a 47-million-year-old pregnant whale with her fetus positioned for headfirst delivery?a surprise since modern-day whales are born tail-first to prevent drowning. The clear implication: Ancestral whales may have given birth on land.

With the addition of the Ady Gil, however, the Sea Shepherd can use its tremendous speed to shake any tail and do a little reconnaissance of its own. The Japanese have confirmed that two vessels will be used to track the SS ? but we assume that second one is still with the rest of the whaling fleet. ?Once we unite with our other vessel we should be in a position to seriously turn the tables on this Japanese security ship that is stalking us,? said Captain Paul Watson.

The aptly Christmas Tree worm does not care if it?s 10 days until Santa shoots down the chimney or 200. It features two chromatically-hued spiral structures that are most commonly the only thing seen by divers. In actuality, these multicolored spirals are merely the worm?s highly-derived respiratory structures.

Unlike your Christmas tree, these beautiful spirals are are gorgeous death traps that serve one purpose: catching prey and pushing it towards the mouth. ?Each spiral is actually composed of feather-like tentacles called radioles, which are heavily ciliated which allows any prey that are trapped in them to be transported straight towards the worm?s mouth. While they are primarily feeding structures, S. giganteus also uses its radioles for respiration. It is because of this that the structures are commonly called ?gills?.

Four percent of adults worldwide using cannabis: Lancet

early four percent of adults around the world use cannabis, even though the drug raises many major health concerns, according to a paper published in The Lancet.

Photograph by: Christopher Furlong, Getty Images

PARIS - Nearly four percent of adults around the world use cannabis, even though the drug raises many major health concerns, according to a paper published in The Lancet on Friday.

It cited figures from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, which estimated that in 2006 there were 166 million users of cannabis aged from 15-64, or 3.9 percent of the worlds population in this age category.

"Acute adverse effects of cannabis use include anxiety and panic in naive [first-time] users, and a probable increased risk of accidents if users drive while intoxicated," it says.

Some evidence has emerged that levels of THC found in seized cannabis have risen in the past two decades, says the study.

SERMON FOR THE WEST by ORIANA FALLACI ( R.I.P)

It was in 1774 that John Adams reminded how the "most sensible and jealous people are so little attentive to government that there are no instances of resistance until repeated, multiple oppressions have placed it beyond a doubt that their rulers had formed settled plans to deprive them of their liberties."

And thats not merely to "oppress the individual or a few," the father of the Constitution added, "but to break down the fences of a free constitution, and deprive the people at large of all share in the government, and all the checks by which it is limited."

Mr. Adams, of course, would have been labeled a "right-wing extremist" or a "militia maniac" by todays "progressives" in Congress who have been working so assiduously to soil the fabric of America. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid would dismiss Adams sentiment as "un-American" and tap dance around its implications of unconstitutional freelancing.

You just cant make up how brazen this crowd is. One week ago, President Obama quietly signed an executive order that makes an international police force immune from the restraints of American law.

On Wednesday, however, for no apparent reason, President Obama issued an executive order removing the Reagan limitations. That is, Interpols property and assets are no longer subject to search and confiscation, and its archives are now considered inviolable. This international police force (whose U.S. headquarters is in the Justice Department in Washington) will be unrestrained by the U.S. Constitution and American law while it operates in the United States and affects both Americans and American interests outside the United States.

Video: Jim Rogers On Fox Business ? Greenspan and Bernanke = Disaster

Airline bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was barred from Britain

Former student who allegedly attempted to blow up US jet had UK visa request refused in May

THE son of a prominent Nigerian banker, who allegedly attempted to blow up a transatlantic flight over America, was barred from returning to Britain earlier this year.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, graduated from a university in London last year but his visa request was refused in May when he attempted to apply for a new course at a bogus college.

Abdulmutallab, described as a devout Muslim, attempted to ignite an explosive device on a plane from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day after shouting about Afghanistan.Bomb materials had apparently been sewn into his underwear, an authoritative American report said.

The incident led to increased security at UK airports and delays of up to five hours for passengers in Britain yesterday.

In 2009 the world?s macrophotographers- both amateur and professional- continued to capture breathtaking images of the arthropod microscape.  I?ve been bookmarking insect photos from around the web that catch my eye, and after spending some time this week reviewing the candidates I?ve selected nine favorites. Wow. These are the images from fellow photographers that most captured my imagination over the past year.