Archive for June 24th, 2009
In the pantheon of awesome images of explosions, this has got to rank pretty high. Astronauts floating high above earth in the International Space Station snapped this shot of Russia’s Sarychev Peak volcano in the Kuril Islands busting through the atmosphere on June 12
As NASA scientists M. Justin Wilkinson writes, conditions had to be perfect to get this shot — there must be almost no wind for the plume to shoot so high into the atmosphere undisturbed.
The white stuff at the top of the ash cloud is probably condensing steam. And that halo of clouds surrounding the eruption is what happens when a powerful explosion rips into the atmosphere — the shock wave literally pushed the cloud cover out of the way.
Source and Larger Pic
June 24th, 2009
WASHINGTON (AP) — A mining company was given the go-ahead by the Supreme Court on Monday to dump waste from an Alaskan gold mine into a nearby 23-acre lake, although the material will kill all of the lake’s fish.
The court said that the federal government acted legally in declaring the waste left after metals are extracted from the ore as “fill material” allowing a federal permit without meeting more stringent requirements from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under the Clean Water Act.
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin called the decision “great news for Alaska” and said it “is a green light for responsible resource development.” The Kensington gold mine 45 miles north of Juneau will produce as many as 370 jobs when it begins operation.
But environmentalists feared the ruling could lead to a broader easing of requirements on how companies dispose of their mining waste.
Full Article
June 24th, 2009
Son’s Death Has Iranian Family Asking Why
On Saturday, amid the most violent clashes between security forces and protesters, Mr. Alipour was shot in the head as he stood at an intersection in downtown Tehran. He was returning from acting class and a week shy of becoming a groom, his family said.
The details of his death remain unclear. He had been alone. Neighbors and relatives think that he got trapped in the crossfire. He wasn’t politically active and hadn’t taken part in the turmoil that has rocked Iran for over a week, they said.
At the crack of dawn, his father began searching at police stations, then hospitals and then the morgue.
Upon learning of his son’s death, the elder Mr. Alipour was told the family had to pay an equivalent of $3,000 as a “bullet fee”—a fee for the bullet used by security forces—before taking the body back, relatives said.
Mr. Alipour told officials that his entire possessions wouldn’t amount to $3,000, arguing they should waive the fee because he is a veteran of the Iran-Iraq war. According to relatives, morgue officials finally agreed, but demanded that the family do no funeral or burial in Tehran. Kaveh Alipour’s body was quietly transported to the city of Rasht, where there is family.
Full WSJ Article
June 24th, 2009
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Southern Baptists are facing a membership decline that could shrink the nation’s largest Protestant denomination by nearly half in 40 years, its convention president said Tuesday.
The Rev. Johnny Hunt, a megachurch pastor from Woodstock, Ga., told convention members gathered in Louisville that Southern Baptists need to give more to worldwide missions and attract minorities.
“I really do believe we need a revival,” Hunt said in a 45-minute address to kick off the two-day convention.
The denomination is declining at a rate that could shrink its membership from 16.2 million to 8.7 million by 2050, Hunt said. Total membership of Southern Baptist churches was 16,228,438 last year, down nearly 38,400 from 2007, according to LifeWay, the convention’s research and publishing arm.
Hunt, himself a Native American from the Lumbee tribe of North Carolina, said the denomination needs to work harder to court minorities.
“We need to really join with our brothers of ethnicity in this convention,” Hunt said.
Full Article
June 24th, 2009
A Valley preacher with a worldwide ministry and his wife bought multiple upscale homes with deceptive loan applications, according to a state case accusing a mortgage firm of illegal practices.
Clint Rogers, head of Mesa-based Clint Rogers Ministries, and Angela Faith Rogers are not accused of any wrongdoing in the complaint filed by the Arizona Department of Financial Institutions, which seeks to shut down Scottsdale-based Global Mortgage. The mortgage company handled many of the couple’s purchases and is accused by the state of using illegal and improper procedures.
But the couple’s purchases of more than two dozen homes in Arizona over two years are documented in records turned over by the state to federal investigators charged with looking at mortgage improprieties.
Property records show that they bought homes that the sellers had purchased hours, days or weeks earlier for thousands of dollars less than what Clint and Angela Rogers had paid for them.
That generated hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits for the sellers.
Of 26 homes bought by the minister and his wife, at least 23 went into foreclosure. All were sold for less than what banks lent to the couple, mostly through trustee sales.
Full Article
June 24th, 2009
This website is for those who want to remove the apostrophe from the English language, on the basis that it serves only to annoy those who know how it is supposed to be used and to confuse those who dont.
WHY KILL THE APOSTROPHE?
First, apostrophes are redundant. The number of cases where they make a semantic difference is absolutely minuscule (see below).
Second, they are wasteful. Tremendous amounts of money are spent every year by businesses on proof readers, part of whose job is to put apostrophes in the ‘correct’ place – to no semantic effect whatsoever. And the rest of us sit there clicking thru with Microsofts grammar checker, trying to work out if its telling us the truth or not about whether we really need an apostrophe there.
Third, they are just one more tool of snobbery. People who imagine that nonstandard apostrophe usage represents a ‘falling of standards’ tend also to assume that means they can look down on ‘illiterate’ people who dont follow the rules. You know, illiterate people like Shakespeares editors.
Fourth, current technology (text messaging in particular) makes it timeconsuming to use them. Why give ourselves this stress when itll make no difference anyway?
Fifth, they actually impede communication and understanding. Since so many people these days arent certain about how apostrophes work semantically its hardly going to help even if a proof-reader puts them all in the ‘correct’ places in some text.
Sixth, they are a distraction for otherwise reasonable and intelligent people. If youre the kind of person who does know and care about the ‘correct’ usage of apostrophes, think how much time you waste fretting over examples of ‘misuse’ when the very fact that you spotted the error means that you knew what they were trying to say in the first place. Are you a teacher who has marked a student down for apostrophe misuse? Shame on you, if so, for prioritising form over content.
www.killtheapostrophe.com
June 24th, 2009
Posterous lets you post things online fast using email. You email us at post@posterous.com and we reply instantly with your new posterous blog.
If you can use email, you can have your own website to share thoughts and media with friends, family and the world.
I’m thinking for those that want to share photos, but aren’t really sure how to do it or intimidated by photosharing websites, this is a pretty good way to start. Just send the pictures to their Posterious email address, and then send the link to friends. I think it would also be a good place just to stash a bunch of potapouri.
June 24th, 2009
A. School
B. Girl Scouts Troup
C. Church
D. Mary Kay
Answer
I have to admit, I didn’t see that “r” the first time around.
June 24th, 2009
An emergency call for firefighters to respond to a traffic crash ended in a cautionary tale for everyone who cooks food when the firefighters got a second call to put out a fire — back at their own station house in Waipahu.
Full Article
June 24th, 2009
- I watched a little bit of that Superstars battle thingy on ABC last night. It was a surprise seeing T.O. get eliminated on the first episode, and man oh man, was he paired with one bona fide B.
- Also on ABC was a special episode about teen pregnancy. Wow. One of the girls was pregnant with triplets. I’m thinking having a pregnant teenage daughter is probably one of the top three fears of a father.
- A Texas teenager from Longview was in that group that ABC followed.
- In that ABC News Primetime special they showed just how different sex education is taught in Texas and Massachusetts. But I think it was a bit skewed because the program in Massachusetts appeared to be in a public school, and the Texas school appeared to be private. WifeGeeding was able to give me some input regarding the Longview schools since she’s familiar with the area.
- It appears there’s a big debate regarding sex education and abstinance, that it has to be one or the the other. I don’t understand why both can’t be taught.
- I have a very good friend in NY, and we often talk about how interesting it is that even though we both live in the same country, it’s as if we live in two different worlds.
- I prefer to mow the lawn during the work week, I rather spend my weekends not doing chores.
- I found out some people add pumpkin and yogurt to their dog’s food, but I don’t know why.
- During lunch yesterday I stopped by the Home Depot near my work to pick up a few things. I was standing in the self checkout line and a pregnant lady was giving a bunch of attitude, I mean a bunch of attitude, towards an older Asian lady because she thought she cut in line, but in reality, there were two lines. I couldn’t help myself, so I butted in and stated that there were actually two lines. Preggers came back with some response that she has been standing in line for a while and knows there’s just one line. I replied telling her that since I’m ahead of her, I’ve been in line longer, and noticed that two lines did actually form. The Asian lady then stepped behind me, and I actually allowed her to check out ahead of me.
- Dang. . . Nixon really didn’t like the idea of a black and white couple.
- Prison, Feces, Corrupt Guards and Lap Dancing
- Unlike the rest of America, I never made a Who’s Who list. Back in high school, that made me really bitter.
- I was also really bitter I never scored high enough on standardized tests to get me in honor classes or gifted and talented classes. The honor students got to read or do assignments that seemed pretty cool and prepared them better for college, and just for being in the honors class each student got ten points added to their six-weeks average. I hear the work wasn’t that much more challenging, and of course, those extra points helped them regarding class rank.
- I once went to my high school counselor and asked if I could get placed in a gifted and talented class. His response, and this is word for word, “But you aren’t gifted or talented.”
- One thing that kept me motivated through high school was a silly little saying that a math teacher would say and that she had on her wall, “Success isn’t measured by the IQ, but by the I DO.”
- Grace
June 24th, 2009
