| Humans are best creations; they are most intelligent in all existing species on the earth. With this intelligence they ruled the world and destroyed it too. Here are the 29 pictures which tell our sad past. 9/11 Attack:
In the morning September 11, 2001, two hijacked passenger jets crashed into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. This was no accident, but rather a series of attacks done by suicide bombers engaged with the Al-Qaeda terrorist group. The attacks killed all the passengers on board the hijacked planes, and took away 2,974 innocent lives at the World Trade Center. More than 90 countries lost citizens in the attack, and the stock market was closed for a week. Abu Ghraib:
Beginning in 2004, accounts of physical, psychological, and sexual abuse, including torture, rape, sodomy, and homicide of prisoners held in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq (also known as Baghdad Correctional Facility) came to public attention. These acts were committed by personnel of the 372nd Military Police Company of the United States Army together with additional US governmental agencies. An Afghan Refugee Child Hides From a Dust Storm:
Bhopal India – Methyl Isocyanate Spill:
More than 40 tons of methyl isocyanate spilled from a Union Carbide-owned pesticide factory in Bhopal, India, in 1984, killing more than 20,000 people in the world’s worst chemical disaster. After the spill, these skulls were researched, presumably for the specific effects the gas had on the brain, at the nearby Hamidia Hospital. The chemical injured not only the people who inhaled it, but also nearby animals (at least 2,000 of them) and trees, whose leaves went yellow and fell off within days. Twenty-five years later, with people still claiming injury from the disaster yet little corrective action having been taken, the government of India has called for a study into the long-term effects of the spill. Biafra:
When the Igbos of eastern Nigeria declared themselves independent in 1967, Nigeria blockaded their fledgling country-Biafra. In three years of war, more than one million people died, mainly of hunger. In famine, children who lack protein often get the disease kwashiorkor, which causes their muscles to waste away and their bellies to protrude. Boston Fire:
On July 22, 1975, Stanley J. Forman was working in the newsroom of the Boston Herald American newspaper when a police scanner picked up an emergency: “Fire on Marlborough Street!” Forman rushed to the scene, where multiple fire crews were battling an intense blaze. There was a distress call for a ladder team to the rear of the building to help a stranded woman and child. Forman followed. Buchenwald Camp:
In 1937, the Nazis constructed Buchenwald concentration camp, near Weimar, Germany. Placed over the camp’s main entrance gate, was the slogan Jedem das Seine (literally “to each his own”, but figuratively “everyone gets what he deserves”). The Nazis used Buchenwald until the camp’s liberation in 1945. From 1945 to 1950, the Soviet Union used the occupied camp as an NKVD special camp for Nazis and other Germans. On 6 January 1950, the Soviets handed over Buchenwald to the East German Ministry of Internal Affairs. The SS left behind accounts of the number of prisoners and people coming to and leaving the camp, categorizing those leaving them by release, transfer, or death. These accounts are one of the sources of estimates for the number of deaths in Buchenwald. According to SS documents, 33,462 died in Buchenwald. These documents were not, however, necessarily accurate: Among those executed before 1944 many were listed as “transferred to the Gestapo”. Furthermore, from 1941 forward Soviet POWs were executed in mass killings. Arriving prisoners selected for execution were not entered into the camp register and therefore were not among the 33,462 dead listed in SS documents. Burial Of an Unknown Child:
Burial of an unknown child. This picture shows the world’s worst industrial disaster, caused by the US multinational chemical company, Union Carbide. Burning Monk:
As a protest to the This Monk slow and unreliable reforms in Vietnam, the Buddhist monks have resorted to immolation, such as this Mahayana Buddhist monk, He burned himself alive across the outskirts of Saigon, mainly because of the harshness done by the South Vietnam government to his fellow Buddhist monks. He was re-cremated after he burned himself; his heart meanwhile remained in one piece, and because of this he was regarded as a Bodhisattva by the other Buddhist monks and followers. His act of self-immolation increased the pressure on the Di?m administration to implement their reform laws in South Vietnam. Bushmeat:
Animals from primates to snakes are valuable commodities in the thriving, albeit illegal, worldwide trade of bushmeat, defined as wildlife killed either by commercial or subsistence hunters. With one million tons of bushmeat taken from African forests every year, the already endangered gorilla population-a primary victim of the trade-is in dire straits. This photo shows a gorilla family in southeast Cameroon (minus the alpha male silverback, who managed to get away) that had been slaughtered in their nests by a bushmeat hunter early one morning. Execution Of a Viet Cong Guerrilla:
This picture was shot by Eddie Adams who won the Pulitzer prize with it. The picture shows Nguyen Ngoc Loan, South Vietnam’s national police chief executing a prisoner who was said to be a Viet Cong captain. Once again the public opinion was turned against the war. Hector Pieterson:
Hector Pieterson an icon of 1976 Soweto uprising in apartheid South Africa. Dying Hector being carried by a fellow student. He was killed at the age of 12 when the police opened fire on protesting students. For years, June 16 stood as a symbol of resistance to the brutality of the apartheid government. Today, it is known as National Youth Day – a day on which South Africans honour young people and bring attention to their needs. Last Jew Of Vinnitsa:
Picture from an Einsatzgruppen soldier’s personal album, labelled on the back as “Last Jew of Vinnitsa, it shows a member of Einsatzgruppe D is just about to shoot a Jewish man kneeling before a filled mass grave in Vinnitsa, Ukraine, in 1941. All 28,000 Jews from Vinnitsa and its surrounding areas were massacred at the time. Lynching Of Young Blacks:
This is a famous picture, taken in 1930, showing the young black men accused of raping a Caucasian woman and killing her boyfriend, hanged by a mob of 10,000 white men. The mob took them by force from the county jail house. Another black man was left behind and ended up being saved from lynching. Even if lynching photos were designed to boost white supremacy, the tortured bodies and grotesquely happy crowds ended up revolting many. Nagasaki Hiroshima Masroon Clouds:
This is the picture of the “mushroom cloud” showing the enormous quantity of energy. The first atomic bomb was released on August 6 in Hiroshima (Japan) and killed about 80,000 people. On August 9 another bomb was released above Nagasaki. The effects of the second bomb were even more devastating – 150,000 people were killed or injured. But the powerful wind, the extremely high temperature and radiation caused enormous long term damage. Napalm Girl:
The photo shows Phan Thi Kim Phúc (a Vietnamese-Canadian) at about age nine running naked on the street after being severely burned on her back by a South Vietnamese napalm attack. Nile Perch in Lake:
One of the 100 most invasive species in the world the Nile perch was introduced to East Africa’s Lake Victoria in the 1950s, and has wreaked environmental havoc ever since. It’s illegal to possess or sell in some parts of the world, and is thought to have caused the extinction or endangering of hundreds of native species in Lake Victoria. After the fish eliminated much of the algae-eating population, the lake became choked with algae. The perch has also increased local demand for firewood, because their higher fat content drives people to smoke them rather than dry them. Adult perch can grow to weigh more than 440 pounds, and are fierce predators that feed on insects, crustaceans, and other fish-even those of its own species. Pictured here are dead Nile perch on a butcher table waiting for transport to local markets. Nilgunyalcin Child Vulture:
Sudanese child being stalked by a vulture nearby. It is quite obvious that the child was starving to death, while the vulture was patiently waiting for the toddler to die so he can have a good meal. Nobody knows what happened to the child, who crawled his way to a United Nations food camp. Photographer Kevin Carter won a Pulitzer Prize for this shocking picture, but he eventually committed suicide three months after he took the shot. Palestine Father Saving Son:
Images from the video footage of 12-year-old Muhammad al-Durrah being shot dead in the Gaza Strip. The scene was filmed by a France 2 cameraman. Palestinian Refugees:
World Press Photo of the Year: 1976 Françoise Demulder, France, Gamma. Beirut, Lebanon, January 1976. Palestinian refugees in the district La Quarantaine. About the image She was the first woman to win the World Press Photo, and did so on the 20th anniversary of the award. Demulder stated at the time that she hated war, but felt compelled to document how it’s always the innocent who suffer, while the powerful get richer and richer. Palm Oil Deforestation:
Indonesia is home to the world’s third largest tropical forest, but it’s disappearing quickly. Though often illegal, the forests are cut down both for a booming pulp and paper industry as well as to clear land for oil palm plantations, which supply diverse industries from biofuel to soap to cosmetics. Because of deforestation, Indonesia is also the world’s third largest greenhouse gas contributor, behind only the U.S. and China; after the forest is cut down, the carbon normally sequestered in the peatland soil is no longer shielded from being released into the atmosphere. Pollution and Power Lines:
China’s economy has exploded in recent years; so has its pollution problem, leaving no aspect of the country’s environment unaffected. Solid waste often lacks proper disposal, waterways have been polluted, and the air quality has plummeted, largely due to the coal-fired power plants that serve as the country’s primary source of energy. Environmental degradation has gotten so bad that the Chinese government, which doesn’t easily take-or allow-criticism, has admitted that birth defects in the country have increased as a direct result of it, particularly in coal-producing regions like the north, where this picture was taken. Second Largest Oil Spill Ever:
The Ixtoc I exploratory well suffered a blowout on June 3, 1979, in Mexico’s Bay of Campeche, 600 miles south of Texas. The well was not brought under control until the next year, by which time 140 million gallons had spilled into the bay. The only larger spill occurred during the 1991 Gulf War, when Iraq dumped-deliberately-up to 462 million gallons of oil into the Persian Gulf. Segregated water Fountains:
A segregated water fountain with a vastly larger and more desirable fountain for whites, and a small fountain for minorities. Sludge Kingston Tennessee:
More than 1 billion gallons of toxic sludge were released into a Tennessee community when a dam collapsed last December, causing a massive coal-ash spill at the Kingston Fossil Plant, a coal-burning power plant owned by the Tennessee Valley Authority. Coal ash is known to contain dangerous elements including arsenic, lead, and selenium, yet the TVA refused at first to issue any health warnings about contamination from the spill. The agency, which weeks later admitted prior leak problems at the plant, also refused initially to declare as uninhabitable the houses in the area, like the one pictured here, that were physically relocated by all the sludge. Starving Boy:
World Press Photo of the Year: 1980 Mike Wells, United Kingdom. Karamoja district, Uganda, April 1980. Starving boy and a missionary. About the image Wells felt indignant that the same publication that sat on his picture for five months without publishing it, while people were dying, entered it into a competition. He was embarrassed to win as he never entered the competition himself, and was against winning prizes with pictures of people starving to death. The American Bison:
A product of U.S. Army-sanctioned mass slaughter of American bison in the 1800s, these bison skulls are waiting to be ground for fertilizer, most likely in the American midwest. The slaughter was so “effective” that the population of bison in the U.S. is estimated to have dropped from around 60 million in 1800 to as few as 750 in 1890. Tsunami Dead Bodies:
The Boxing Day Tsunami that struck Thailand in 2004 caused approximately 350,000 deaths and many more injuries. View of Floods:
An aerial view of floods caused by Tropical Storm Hanna is seen in Gonaives, Haiti on September 3, 2008. Haiti’s civil protection office said 37 of the 90 Hanna-related deaths had occurred in the port city of Gonaives. -Prashant Vikram Singh (Reasearch India Organization) |
July 17, 2009
The 29 Saddest Pictures in The World
July 13, 2009
Top 10 San Diego Comic-Con Exclusives
If you were lucky enough to get tickets to the show (they sold out online weeks ago, and won’t be selling any additional tickets at the door), then you’re probably already mopping the drool off your chin in preparation for the insanity. But like the Boy Scouts, it’s best to “Be Prepared!” when hitting Comic-Con. If you don’t go in with a plan, it’s way too easy to be sidetracked by big, red, shiny things, as well as get lost (literally) in a sea of people.
Besides oodles of free goodies, awesome stuff for sale, behind-the-scenes panels to attend, and celebrity autographs to snag, Comic-Con is also known for its exclusives. Almost every major company that attends offers some sort of exclusive - a toy, comic or statue that’s only available in limited quantities and only available at SDCC itself. You can view a running list of Action Figure/Toys exclusives, but to help you plan ahead for the show, here’s a list of 10 of the coolest exclusives available only at Comic-Con 2009.
NOTE: Many of the items listed below have limited runs and may sell out quickly. In other words: Move it or lose it!
1. Ghosbusters Venkman & Stay Puft Marshmallow Man Minimates 2-Pack
(Diamond Comics)
Who can resist the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man? Especially when he’s so cute and tiny? This SDCC exclusive set will be available from Diamond retailers throughout the floor. Check with the Diamond Previews Booth for more details.
Ghostbusters Minimates (Diamond)
2. HALO Grifball Spartan Action Figure
(Entertainment Earth/Toys R Us)
This Toys R Us Exclusive available from Entertainment Earth, is the first Halo action figure to be based on the Grifball game. Featuring the Recon armor, this McFarlane Toys figure also includes a bomb, gravity hammer and sword hilt.
Halo Grifball Spartan (Entertainment Earth/TRU)
3. Darth Vader Helmet - Pink Edition
(Gentle Giant)
I know what you’re thinking. A pink Darth Vader helmet?!? Well, besides being pretty unique, this exclusive Star Wars bust from Gentle Giant helps a very worthy cause. For every sale, Gentle Giant will donate $6 (up to $10,000) towards finding a cure for breast cancer, courtesy of the Susan G. Koman foundation. Plus, it’d make a great gift for the GeekMom in your life too!
Pink Darth Vader Helmet (Gentle Giant)
4. Marvel Universe - Captain America
(Hasbro)
Hasbro’s Marvel Universe figures are pretty neat to begin with. Small, nicely sculpted and very articulated. The Comic-Con exclusive features all that, as well as a cool twist. Thanks to a special-edition grey scale deco, Hasbro’s Marvel Universe Captain America figure has that total 1940s look to him.
Marvel Universe Captain America (Hasbro)
5. Transformers: 25th Anniversary Soundwave Special Edition
(Hasbro)
Apparently Transformers are kind of big these days. Might have to do with some movie or something. But if you already have every figure from every possible Transformers toy line currently out, here’s your chance for something old but new. Hasbro’s re-releasing its original 1984 edition of Soundwave, which includes four cassettes: Buzzsaw, Laserbeak, Ratbat and Ravage. Just don’t be surprised if your kids ask you, “What’s a cassette?”
25th Anniversary Soundwave Special Edition (Hasbro)
6. Wonder Twins with Gleek
(Mattel)
Go ahead. I dare you. Say the phrase “Wonder Twin Powers…” and see how long it takes before someone responds with “Activate!” Mattel’s Zan and Jayna two-pack is a long-time coming and sports some great sculpting by the Four Horsemen. Besides cool accessories (a bucket of water with Zan’s face!), this set includes space monkey Gleek as part of the Comic-Con exclusive set.
Wonder Twins with Gleek (Mattel)
7. Ghostbusters Classics Dr. Egon Spengler with Slimer
(Mattel)
Kicking off this ghostbusting new line of highly detailed, articulated figures from Mattel is Dr. Egon and his Proton Pack and gun, along with the only-at-Comic-Con pack-in figure of Slimer.
Ghostbusters Classics Egon with Slimer (Mattel)
8. Silver Astronaut Snoopy Figurine
(Peanuts)
Did you know Snoopy’s been with the U.S. Space Program for 40 years? Well, now you can help celebrate this milestone with one of 400 limited-edition Silver Snoopy figures, featuring the space-faring beagle. Visit the Peanuts booth for details.
Silver Astronaut Snoopy Figurine (Peanuts)
9. Marvel 70th Anniversary Captain America Toon Tumblers Glass
(Popfun)
Okay, this isn’t a toy. Or a statue. It’s a glass. You got me. But these retro-style glasses are too cool not to pick up normally. And this year’s Comic-Con exclusive tumbler celebrates Marvel’s 70th Anniversary (and Comic-Con’s 40th) with 1940s Cap and the classic 1970s Jack Kirby style Sentinel of Liberty.
Marvel 70th Anniversary Captain America Toon Tumblers Glass (Popfun)
10. Luke Skywalker and Han Solo in Stormtrooper Disguise 12-inch Figure Set
(Sideshow)
While a bit pricey ($169.99), this 12-inch Figure Set of Luke and Han in Stormtrooper Disguise is way cooler than paying your mortgage. For availability and more information, visit sideshowcollectibles.com.
Luke and Han in Stormtrooper Disguise 12-inch Figure Set (Sideshow)
Be sure to keep an eye on Comic-Con’s Exclusives! page for up-to-the-minute info on the latest limited-edition items.
July 11, 2009
To Run Better, Start by Ditching Your Nikes
Before the Nikes, before the breathable, antimicrobial running shorts, before the personal fitness coaches, heart rate monitors, wrist-mounted GPS and subscriptions to Runner’s World, you were a runner.
And, like all children, you ran barefoot.
Now, a small but growing body of research suggests that barefoot is the way adults should run, too. So, many runners have been shucking off the high-tech trainers in favor of naked feet — or minimalist footwear like Nike Free, the Newton All-Weather Trainer and the glove-like Vibram FiveFingers.
“People have been running barefoot for millions of years and it has only been since 1972 that people have been wearing shoes with thick, synthetic heels,” said Daniel Lieberman, a professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University.
Strong evidence shows that thickly cushioned running shoes have done nothing to prevent injury in the 30-odd years since Nike founder Bill Bowerman invented them, researchers say. Some smaller, earlier studies suggest that running in shoes may increase the risk of ankle sprains, plantar fasciitis and other injuries. Runners who wear cheap running shoes have fewer injuries than those wearing expensive trainers. Meanwhile, injuries plague 20 to 80 percent of regular runners every year.
But the jury’s still out on whether going barefoot is actually an improvement.
“The running shoe right now is doing nothing for preventing injuries,” said Reed Ferber, director of the Running Injury Clinic at the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Kinesiology. But, he adds, going barefoot has downsides too, and the research so far is still inconclusive. “It’s a total tradeoff.”
Chris McDougall, author of the recent book Born to Run, goes further. “If this were a drug, it would be yanked off the market,” he said of running shoes. McDougall says his own persistent problems with plantar fasciitis cleared up after he started running in Vibram FiveFingers.
What’s so great about going shoeless? It allows the foot to flex and absorb shock, says Tony Post, president of Vibram USA, which makes FiveFingers. With thick heels, people lengthen their strides, landing heel-first and letting the shoe absorb the impact of each footfall. You can’t do that barefoot (try it sometime), so your body naturally falls into a shorter stride, landing first on the outside middle or ball of your foot. As you advance your foot rolls inward; the arch flattens and helps absorb the impact; it then springs back up as you lift your foot and push off the ground.
“In a sense the arch is acting like a leaf spring,” says Post.
Lieberman’s research into human and early hominid fossils suggests that the human body, including the foot, is well-adapted to long-distance running without shoes (.pdf). He hypothesizes that early humans didn’t need speed so much as endurance — just enough to run down herd animals like kudu or eland until they collapsed from overheating.
This so-called persistence hunting is not as hard as it sounds, Lieberman says. “You can be a middle-aged professor like me and still be a good enough runner to have been a fairly successful hunter in the Paleolithic.”
He’s sure that running barefoot or with minimal footwear is the way to avoid injury. After all, we evolved without shoes.
“If a third of runners had gotten injured in the Paleolithic with runner’s knee or plantar fasciitis, you can bet that natural selection would have weeded them out,” Lieberman says.
Ferber is more cautious. His studies of the biomechanics of running show that a midfoot strike does reduce the initial peak loading force — the impact in the first 25 milliseconds after your foot touches the ground. But your foot sustains a second peak load of three times your body weight about 100 milliseconds later, regardless of whether you’re a heel-first or midfoot-first runner.
“So it’s six of one, half dozen of the other, in that you’ve lost that first peak, which is maybe a good thing,” says Ferber. “But in order to do that midfoot strike, you have to take a shorter stride, so you’re taking more steps per mile. So that could cause injuries.”
Ferber does note that knee osteoarthritis rates are very low in China, where many people wear flip-flops (which also encourage a midfoot strike), and that studies have shown women who wear high heels are at increased risk for knee osteoarthritis. That research doesn’t address running specifically, however.
As for efficiency, Ferber’s studies suggest a midfoot strike might be about 1 percent more efficient — but that’s within the 2 percent error rate of the sensors used to measure human body force, so it’s a wash.
Both Ferber and Lieberman are in the midst of long-term studies aimed at producing more conclusive data about injury rates and efficiency of barefoot or nearly-barefoot running. Ferber’s lab is sponsored in part by SOLE, a shoe orthotics company, while Lieberman’s research is sponsored by Vibram.
The Vibram FiveFingers seem to have a special attraction to geeks, for whom claims of efficiency and scientific research resonate especially well. Silicon Valley entrepreneur Tim Ferriss wrote about the FiveFingers recently, calling them “nothing short of spectacular” in a blog post filled with technical and biomechanical references.
“For me the appeal is the radical minimalization of technology to serve its purpose (conditioning) better,” said Boston-based software designer Glenn McDonald, a self-described “not-very-serious runner” who wears FiveFingers on occasional runs.
How to Run Barefoot
If you’re interested in trying out barefoot (or nearly barefoot) running, keep in mind that it will take your body some time to get used to it. Here are some tips from the experts to get you started.
- Start slow, with quarter-mile runs at most, and build up very gradually.
- Listen to your feet. Don’t try to run with the same gait you use in shoes — shorten your steps and land on the forward part of your foot.
- Keep your head up and your body vertical. Your feet should be hitting the ground almost directly underneath you, not in front of you.
- Ankle and calf strength is key to avoiding injury, so consider Ferber’s four-week barefoot strengthening program before you start (.doc).
- Keep barefoot running to no more than 10 percent of your weekly regimen, especially at first.
- If you’re running completely barefoot, run on a mix of soft and hard surfaces to give your feet time to toughen up.
Finally, don’t try this if you suffer from diabetes or another condition that would affect your ability to feel and respond to sensations from your feet.
“Like any part of your body, you have to build up very, very slowly,” says Lieberman. “If you really pay attention to your body and build up slowly, you’ll be fine.”
For more advice and information, check out Barefoot Ken Bob and Barefoot Ted’s websites, as well as the barefoot running forum on the Runner’s World community site.
As a nerd and a runner myself, I could hardly let these claims go untested. So for the past month, I’ve been running once or twice a week in the Vibram FiveFingers KSO model, with occasional stints done completely barefoot.
Following the advice of experts like Ferber and Barefoot Ken Bob, I started out gradually. To kick things off, I stopped in the middle of a four-mile run one dewy June morning, took off my running shoes, and did a half mile completely barefoot on a smooth, graded dirt path. It felt great, like getting a foot massage on the run. But my tender soles were stinging by the time I was done, and continued to sting for the rest of the day.
My second barefoot run, on asphalt, went more poorly: I tore up the tip of my fourth toe on the rough surface and spent the rest of my (shod) run bleeding into my sock. That was enough to make the attraction of Vibram’s foot gloves clear: They give you much of the feeling of running barefoot, and give the same workout to your arches, Achilles tendons and calves — except you don’t have to worry about injuries from rough terrain.
But by the end of the third week I’d worked up to three or four miles in the VFFs and nearly a mile at a time barefoot. My feet got tougher, but were still happier with the rubber covering, especially on rocky ground and asphalt. Each run felt better than the last, though it’s clear that my calves and my Achilles tendons in particular are not used to this kind of a workout. I suffered from sore tendons and, after one longer run, a sore ankle.
That’s a common problem among runners who transition too quickly to barefoot or minimal footwear, says Ferber. He’s seeing many runners jump too enthusiastically into minimal footwear and develop plantar fasciitis as a result.
“Runners are insane — they don’t like to accommodate, they just like to do,” Ferber said.
The key, Ferber says, is to build up ankle strength, transition slowly, and keep barefoot running — like other really taxing parts of training, such as hill work or speed work — to just 10 percent of your overall regimen. (See sidebar.)
Despite the soreness, I enjoy running barefoot — or nearly barefoot. I’m building foot and calf muscles I never know I had, More than that, it just feels fun. And, truth be told, I enjoy the puzzled looks from the people I pass on the trail and the coworkers I terrorize with my freaky rubber gorilla feet.
“We’re designed for persistence hunting, which is a mix of running and walking,” says McDougall. “What’s built into that kind of running is a sense of pleasure. You are designed and built and perfect for this activity, and it should be enjoyable and fun.”
So, like other nerds, I’ll probably keep happily running in the Vibrams, while eagerly awaiting the results from the next running shoe study.
July 7, 2009
Top 10 Possible Reasons Sarah Palin Resigned As Governor Of Alaska
Sarah Palin stepping down as governor of Alaska would usually be a shoe-in for The Late Show with David Letterman’s Top Ten List, but since his recent beat-down in the media and resulting apologies to Mrs. Palin, Dave won’t come within a hundred miles of this story! So, I thought I might attempt to fill the void with “Starcasm’s Top Ten List of Possible Reasons Sarah Palin Stepped Down as Governor of Alaska” – complete with visual aids!
10. She’s fulfilling a lifelong desire to travel the globe, hoping to visit all three continents by the end of 2009.
9. In a continued effort to make her Katie Couric interview seem better
than it was, Sarah will be launching All of ‘Em Magazine.
8. She and 2012 running mate Carrie Prejean have entered an intense two-year program to learn how to answer interview questions in a manner not considered “horrible.”
7. To combat Jon Stewart’s popularity, she will be hosting a humorous current events talk show on Fox News called The Paley Show.
6. She’s just doing her small part to make Barack Obama look bad by increasing the unemployment rate.
5. She has joined the cast of Bravo’s The Real Housewives of Alaska.
4. She’s starting her own lipstick company called Pitbulline.
3. Details are unclear, but she bought a helicopter and a rifle just after she started referring to former son-in-law Levi as “The Wolf.”
2. She stands to make millions doing appearances posing as Tina Fey impersonating Sarah Palin.
And, the number on possible reason why Sarah Palin resigned as governor of Alaska…
1. She’s been cast in yet another remake of the Raquel Welch classic One Million Years BC. The former governor hopes her appearance will help promote two theories: that humans and dinosaurs co-existed and that Sarah Palin looks damn good in a caveman bikini. (Stephen Baldwin will co-star as a young John McCain)
July 5, 2009
This Is Why You're Fat
The Smoker
A half pound ground ribeye, sirloin, prime rib patty topped with Havarti cheese, seven pieces of maple bacon, sauteed onions and smoked pepper mayo.
(submitted by Aliotsy Andrianarivo via facebook)
The Pursuit Of Awesomeness Ice Cream Sandwich
Vanilla ice cream with raspberries and blueberries between two chocolate brownies.
(via yumsugar)
The Potluck Burger
A burger with sliced hot dogs, potato salad, mac and cheese, tomato, ketchup, mustard and mayonnaise.
(submitted by Jeeves)
McSliders
Mini double cheeseburgers with chicken McNuggets for buns.
(submitted by CJ Colace)
Tempura Burger
(submitted by Lucas Cooke)
Magical Rainbow Tower Of Dreams
Ten layers of multi-coloured chocolate chip sponge cake, each separated with a layer of icing.
(submitted by Naomi Rose, Thomas Steer, David White)
The Spamsicle
Deep fried Spam slice on a stick.
(submitted by Clint)
The Lord of the Rings
Foot long hot dog threaded through onion rings, served with cheese and bacon on top.
(submitted by Kristin Brammell via Pink’s Las Vegas)
The Royal Flush
A pile of 3 sunny side up eggs, beans, red chile sauce, cheddar cheese, 4 corn tortillas and 3 hash browned potatoes.
(submitted by Joseph Zobel)
Quadruple Cheese Pie
Bacon mac and cheese pie with Cheez-It crust topped with toasted cheese doodles and Cheese Whiz.
(submitted by Kevan)
June 28, 2009
Debunking Canadian Health Care Myths
Written by Rhonda Hackett
As a Canadian living in the United States for the past 17 years, I am frequently asked by Americans and Canadians alike to declare one health care system as the better one.
Often I’ll avoid answering, regardless of the questioner’s nationality. To choose one or the other system usually translates into a heated discussion of each one’s merits, pitfalls, and an intense recitation of commonly cited statistical comparisons of the two systems.
Because if the only way we compared the two systems was with statistics, there is a clear victor. It is becoming increasingly more difficult to dispute the fact that Canada spends less money on health care to get better outcomes.
Yet, the debate rages on. Indeed, it has reached a fever pitch since President Barack Obama took office, with Americans either dreading or hoping for the dawn of a single-payer health care system. Opponents of such a system cite Canada as the best example of what not to do, while proponents laud that very same Canadian system as the answer to all of America’s health care problems. Frankly, both sides often get things wrong when trotting out Canada to further their respective arguments.
As America comes to grips with the reality that changes are desperately needed within its health care infrastructure, it might prove useful to first debunk some myths about the Canadian system.
Myth: Taxes in Canada are extremely high, mostly because of national health care.
In actuality, taxes are nearly equal on both sides of the border. Overall, Canada’s taxes are slightly higher than those in the U.S. However, Canadians are afforded many benefits for their tax dollars, even beyond health care (e.g., tax credits, family allowance, cheaper higher education), so the end result is a wash. At the end of the day, the average after-tax income of Canadian workers is equal to about 82 percent of their gross pay. In the U.S., that average is 81.9 percent.
Myth: Canada’s health care system is a cumbersome bureaucracy.
The U.S. has the most bureaucratic health care system in the world. More than 31 percent of every dollar spent on health care in the U.S. goes to paperwork, overhead, CEO salaries, profits, etc. The provincial single-payer system in Canada operates with just a 1 percent overhead. Think about it. It is not necessary to spend a huge amount of money to decide who gets care and who doesn’t when everybody is covered.
Myth: The Canadian system is significantly more expensive than that of the U.S.Ten percent of Canada’s GDP is spent on health care for 100 percent of the population. The U.S. spends 17 percent of its GDP but 15 percent of its population has no coverage whatsoever and millions of others have inadequate coverage. In essence, the U.S. system is considerably more expensive than Canada’s. Part of the reason for this is uninsured and underinsured people in the U.S. still get sick and eventually seek care. People who cannot afford care wait until advanced stages of an illness to see a doctor and then do so through emergency rooms, which cost considerably more than primary care services.
What the American taxpayer may not realize is that such care costs about $45 billion per year, and someone has to pay it. This is why insurance premiums increase every year for insured patients while co-pays and deductibles also rise rapidly.
Myth: Canada’s government decides who gets health care and when they get it.While HMOs and other private medical insurers in the U.S. do indeed make such decisions, the only people in Canada to do so are physicians. In Canada, the government has absolutely no say in who gets care or how they get it. Medical decisions are left entirely up to doctors, as they should be.
There are no requirements for pre-authorization whatsoever. If your family doctor says you need an MRI, you get one. In the U.S., if an insurance administrator says you are not getting an MRI, you don’t get one no matter what your doctor thinks – unless, of course, you have the money to cover the cost.
Myth: There are long waits for care, which compromise access to care.There are no waits for urgent or primary care in Canada. There are reasonable waits for most specialists’ care, and much longer waits for elective surgery. Yes, there are those instances where a patient can wait up to a month for radiation therapy for breast cancer or prostate cancer, for example. However, the wait has nothing to do with money per se, but everything to do with the lack of radiation therapists. Despite such waits, however, it is noteworthy that Canada boasts lower incident and mortality rates than the U.S. for all cancers combined, according to the U.S. Cancer Statistics Working Group and the Canadian Cancer Society. Moreover, fewer Canadians (11.3 percent) than Americans (14.4 percent) admit unmet health care needs.
Myth: Canadians are paying out of pocket to come to the U.S. for medical care.Most patients who come from Canada to the U.S. for health care are those whose costs are covered by the Canadian governments. If a Canadian goes outside of the country to get services that are deemed medically necessary, not experimental, and are not available at home for whatever reason (e.g., shortage or absence of high tech medical equipment; a longer wait for service than is medically prudent; or lack of physician expertise), the provincial government where you live fully funds your care. Those patients who do come to the U.S. for care and pay out of pocket are those who perceive their care to be more urgent than it likely is.
Myth: Canada is a socialized health care system in which the government runs hospitals and where doctors work for the government.Princeton University health economist Uwe Reinhardt says single-payer systems are not “socialized medicine” but “social insurance” systems because doctors work in the private sector while their pay comes from a public source. Most physicians in Canada are self-employed. They are not employees of the government nor are they accountable to the government. Doctors are accountable to their patients only. More than 90 percent of physicians in Canada are paid on a fee-for-service basis. Claims are submitted to a single provincial health care plan for reimbursement, whereas in the U.S., claims are submitted to a multitude of insurance providers. Moreover, Canadian hospitals are controlled by private boards and/or regional health authorities rather than being part of or run by the government.
Myth: There aren’t enough doctors in Canada.
From a purely statistical standpoint, there are enough physicians in Canada to meet the health care needs of its people. But most doctors practice in large urban areas, leaving rural areas with bona fide shortages. This situation is no different than that being experienced in the U.S. Simply training and employing more doctors is not likely to have any significant impact on this specific problem. Whatever issues there are with having an adequate number of doctors in any one geographical area, they have nothing to do with the single-payer system.
And these are just some of the myths about the Canadian health care system. While emulating the Canadian system will likely not fix U.S. health care, it probably isn’t the big bad “socialist” bogeyman it has been made out to be.
It is not a perfect system, but it has its merits. For people like my 55-year-old Aunt Betty, who has been waiting for 14 months for knee-replacement surgery due to a long history of arthritis, it is the superior system. Her $35,000-plus surgery is finally scheduled for next month. She has been in pain, and her quality of life has been compromised. However, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Aunt Betty – who lives on a fixed income and could never afford private health insurance, much less the cost of the surgery and requisite follow-up care – will soon sport a new, high-tech knee. Waiting 14 months for the procedure is easy when the alternative is living in pain for the rest of your life.
June 6, 2009
June 1, 2009
10 Strange Species Discovered Last Year
Every year, biologists brave the world’s deserts, jungles and industrial ecosystems looking for new species.
And what wonderful things they find. It turns out that the real world is totally like the internet: If you look hard enough, you can find just about anything. This year, scientists found caffeine-less coffee plants, tiny seahorses and a 23-inch long bug that looks like a branch, not to mention a strange white slug no one had ever described that was found in a Welsh garden.
Below, you’ll find the top 10 species found and described in 2008, according to The International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University.
At the top of the page you see the world’s tiniest seahorse, Satomi’s Pygmy Seahorse, aka Hippocampus satomiae. Found in Indonesian waters, it’s the reigning champ of lilliputian seahorses, floating around at half an inch tall. (In Wired Science’s informal Cutest Thing Ever rankings, it came in right behind the slow loris.)
Deep Blue Chromis aka Chromis abyssus
The deep reefs of the Pacific Ocean are home to a variety of strange creatures that are just beginning to be described. Named in honor of the BBC program that funded the trip on which it was discovered, this small blue fish was found in Palau, which is hundreds of miles from anywhere.
Ghost Slug aka Selenochlamys ysbryda
This member of the family Trigonochlamydidae was found in a “domestic garden in Canton,” a town in Wales. It’s nocturnal and creepy looking.
Phobaeticus chani
That’s not a stick, it’s the world’s longest insect, measuring in at 22.3 inches total and with a body length of 14 inches. You can find it in Borneo, although we’d rather not.
Charrier Coffee aka Coffea charrieriana
If there’s one thing we’ve been waiting for from the plant community, it’s a caffeine-less coffee plant. Oh, wait, no we haven’t! Caffeine is the coffee plant’s raison d’etre in our book. Biologists say, however, that this Cameroonian freak could be useful in coffee breeding programs to develop a naturally decaf bean. Which is good news, if you’re into that weak stuff.
Tahina spectabilis
Looking for a new metaphor for your new magical realist novel set in Madagascar? The Tahina palm is the answer to your dreams: The plant literally flowers itself to death, going out in a blaze of flowers and fruit. It lives only in one tiny corner of Madagascar and is unrelated to any of the 170 other palm varieties on the island.
Barbados Threadsnake aka Leptotyphlops carlae
The world’s tiniest, quarter-wrapping snake made the rounds of the internet last year and made the ASU’s species list this year. It’s only found in Barbados.
Mother Fish aka Materpiscis attenboroughi
The mother fish is only known from the fossil above, which shows the animal giving birth 370 million years ago. It’s the oldest-known vertebrate to have birthed offspring live.
Opisthostoma vermiculum
This strange Malaysian gastropod has a shell that defies the standard laws of shell twisting. It coils along four separate axes, not three like most of its relatives. It’s no tiny seahorse, but you can’t hold that against it.
Microbacterium hatanonis
Bacteria really can live just about anywhere on else from hot volcanic vents to Antarctic ice. But they are also adapting to the new environments that humans create. Case in point, Japanese scientists found that this bacterial species lives inside hairspray. It still doesn’t have a common name, but seeing as most bacteria live in communities, we suggest AquaNet.
May 28, 2009
May 27, 2009
May 25, 2009
May 19, 2009
Information Overload (courtesy of Xerox)
May 12, 2009
Notebook/Computer - Now THIS is Clever
In this charming four-minute video, a Dutch art student named Evelien Lohbeck transforms an ordinary notebook into a notebook computer.
Lohbeck draws an animated facsimile of YouTube’s home page — which then plays a series of mixed-media clips. The alternating layers of live-action footage and line drawings are beautiful, and beautifully conceived, and the clip itself is sure to draw you in for repeated viewings.
