More power to their tribe - 2

Interview with Dr. Temple Gradin, Associate Professor of Animal Behavior at Colorado State - an amazing extraordinary woman.

The Arrow of Time

Pictures taken on the same day every year.... a great quick look at life and how they have changed (physically) over 30 years!

Really neat that they have pictures all the way back from 1976. This idea is much better than the sites I have seen where people, thanks to the modern conveniences of digital cameras and phone cameras, take a picture of themself every single day of the year and post it at their blogs. Simply too boring and narcisstic, in my opinion. There are variations on this theme, like a daily photo from Paris or San Fransisco or London or Earth Science picture of the day or the NASA picture of the day... that I enjoy because it is not the same face every day but is like a picture-blog or a plog.. (If people can have vlogs, I think this one's gotta be called a plog!)

Nice graphics at this kinda related page called The Circular Life

Death be not proud - 4

I accidentally ran into a list of unusual deaths on wikipedia today ..

Disclaimer: Everything in brown is directly cut-n-pasted from the wikipedia entry and has not been verified or even re-worded by me.

1. These entries about some really famous people caught my eye.. I did not know this!!

a) 1983 - Tennessee Williams died choking on a bottle cap.--and am surprised this tradition still continues after this..

b) 1849: Edgar Allan Poe, famous American writer and poet, was found on October 7, 1849, at a Baltimore tavern in a state of delirium and wearing clothes he didn't own. He died in a Washington, D.C. hospital early the next morning, his last words being "Lord, help my poor soul." While the official cause of death was listed as "congestion of the brain", the actual cause for his death has been a matter of debate ever since. The current prevailing theory is that he was a victim of rabies.

c) And this is big news to me....
1893: Tchaikovsky, the famous Russian composer, apparently committed suicide after being exposed in a homosexuality scandal. The means of his death is in dispute as to whether he took arsenic or drank cholera-infected water.

d) 1884: Allan Pinkerton, detective, died of gangrene resulting from having bitten his tongue after stumbling on the sidewalk.

e) 1916 : The English satirist, novelist and wit Saki was killed in France, during World War I by a sniper's bullet, having reportedly cried "Put that damned cigarette out!" to a fellow officer in his trench lest the glowing embers reveal their whereabouts.

(Another similar one, which I find both funny and sad at the same time is this one...

1915: François Faber, Luxembourgean Tour de France winner, died in a trench on the western front of World War I. He received a telegram saying his wife had given birth to a daughter. He cheered, giving away his position, and was shot by a German sniper. )

f) 1940: Leon Trotsky, the Soviet revolutionary leader in exile, was assassinated with an ice axe in his Mexico home. His killer, Spanish-born Soviet agent Ramon Mercader, acquired the ice axe in Trotsky's own office after being invited in. After receiving a brutal blow to the head, Trotsky fought and literally took a bite out of his murderer.

g) 1911: Jack Daniel, founder of the famous Tennessee whiskey distillery, died of blood poisoning from a toe injury he received after kicking his safe in anger when he could not remember its combination code. (By the way, did u know the Jack Daniel distillery in TN is in a dry county :))

2. I am going to use those last words when confronted by smart-alecs who think they know it all :)
1864: John Sedgwick, Union general in the American Civil War, was killed by a distant Confederate sniper at the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House. Among his last words to his men were "They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance!"

3. Talk about going away in glory:

a) 1927: J.G. Parry-Thomas, a British racing driver, was decapitated by his car's drive chain which, under duress, snapped and whipped into the cockpit. He was attempting to break his own Land speed record which he had set the previous year. Despite being killed in the attempt, he succeeded in setting a new record of 171 mph.
b) 1953: Frank Hayes, jockey, suffered a heart attack during a horse race. The horse, Sweet Kiss, went on to finish first, making Hayes the only deceased jockey to win a race.

4. There are a few odd-ball entries like

1834: David Douglas, Scottish botanist, who fell in a pit trap, was crushed by a bull that fell in the same pit.

1845: Josiah P. Wilbarger, a Texan pioneer, was scalped by Comanches in 1833 but survived, leaving his skull exposed. He lived 11 years until fatally striking his head against a low beam in his cotton gin....

5. 1990: George Allen, an American football coach, died a month after some of his players dumped a Gatorade bucket on him following a victory (as it is tradition in American Football), resulting in pneumonia.

6. And last but not least... this one has to be the most gruesome on the list. I had kinda read about this somewhere but had not read the details! Uggh....this will revulse you!

2001: Bernd-Jürgen Brandes was stabbed repeatedly in the neck and then eaten by Armin Meiwes. Before the killing, both men dined on Brandes' severed penis. Brandes had answered an internet advertisement by Meiwes looking for someone for this purpose. Brandes explicitly stated in his will that he wished to be killed and eaten.

Hell & Personality Disorders

I took Dante's Inferno Test. Here are the results...



The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Sixth Level of Hell - The City of Dis!

Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	High
Level 2 (Lustful)	High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	High
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Moderate
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Moderate
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very High
Level 7 (Violent)	Moderate
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	High
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Moderate

Go ahead... you take the Test and see how you do!!





The personality disorder test sayeth:

Disorder	Rating
Paranoid Personality Disorder:	Moderate
Schizoid Personality Disorder:	Low
Schizotypal Personality Disorder:	Low
Antisocial Personality Disorder:	Low
Borderline Personality Disorder:	Low
Histrionic Personality Disorder:	Moderate
Narcissistic Personality Disorder:	Moderate
Avoidant Personality Disorder:	High
Dependent Personality Disorder:	Moderate
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder:	Low
-- Take the Personality Disorder Test --

A new blog

I have started a new blog where I will attempt to write 1 post DAILY with each post EXACTLY 200 words.

The first post today is a cathartic rant of sorts but I hope it will be interesting and exciting topics in the near future, while at the same time trying to hone my writing skills and move away from merely providing a series of links from across the internet.

Go now... read the blog. I am hoping it will become a more constructive enterprise (and a more widely read one at that!) than my other attempts at blogging to date.

Update: This effort did not go far!

GoogleTube - II

Even as there comes news of the web reaching a 100 million websites, you know Google has made it when...you see this! If there was a God, she would also Google.. :)

Expected but sad to see that people, including some big companies like Time Warner , have their eyes on Google's deep pockets and going after Google for all sorts of reasons... just like the Ohio pipe manufacturer who suddenly realized after Google took over Youtube that his company was being killed by Youtube because its website utube.com clashes with youtube.com!!! No wonder, Google's lawyers (these two young kids) are having a busy time and trying to "establish a body of legal interpretation that favors the company."

The amazing Youtube Tools collection

Top YouTube videos

The Best Google & Youtube videos

The 1,001 top rated videos from Youtube updated every week

Here is a good video search engine across # of different sites

And this one charts track the most popular video clips from 4 different sources

If you don't have the time to see videos online but can watch it later ... here are 5 Easy Ways to Download Video from Google and YouTube to your Computer

And if you are really interested, you can catch up on all your Youtube news here

And speaking of videos, did not find this one on Youtube but stumbled into it yesterday... (I have a feeling, 'stumbled' is going to be my next best-verb after 'googled' :))...you've got to see this video of a VERY lucky Indian lady!

And though today's the age of videos, sometimes pictures can be very funny too... a few words of ignorance or otherwise bring more laughs and mirth than a funny video or 10 episodes of America's Funniest Videos can (that show should be renamed America's dumbest videos!).

Although, I should say this - With pictures, I find it more and more difficult to be sure if it is photoshopped or not. For eg: see these pictures of a fog in Dubai or these pictures of cloud/sunrise over Mt Helens..or this sand-storm in Iraq or some of the pictures in this ‘Last photo I took’ series.. or this picture of an icy day in who-knows-where! As you will see in this video, even beauty can come from... Photoshop though obviously, beauty may also be caught through some interesting high-speed (super slow motion) videos too!

And now you can watch some Movies online – not sure though how long this site will be on as I am not sure if this site is not in violation of copyright rules!

That’s all for now… more links on some neat sites based on Flickr to be added later.. Enjoy!

October Surprise -- NOT

U.S. Embassy bombings suspect confirmed killed

An al Qaeda operative wanted in connection with the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings was killed in April in Pakistan, U.S. officials have confirmed. DNA tests confirmed Muhsin Musa Matwalli Atwah died in an airstrike by Pakistani forces near the border with Afghanistan, the officials said. The simultaneous embassy attacks in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, killed 224 people.

Aah. just found a plastic.com thread on the subject of an October Surprise!..

You know you want it. Perhaps we've seen a glimpse of it and haven't realized it. But.It. Will. Happen. So, here's the question. Just what will the October Surprise be and when will it drop? Karl Rove says he has it. Is it an OBL video, a terrorist capture, a Democratic scandal, record-low gas pump prices, or a brilliant Iraq plan, or something so surprising we can't begin to imagine it? Place your bets, folks. Because, unlike the breaching of levees and the flying of airplanes into buildings, this can be forseen by everyone.

Blaah... Meanwhile....

The 100th US soldier dies in Iraq this month. And we've pretty much lost count of the # of Iraqi's...

Staff Sgt. Billy Brown, an Alaska national guardsman, is believed to be the first Eskimo killed because of the Iraq war. Apparently, it took 20 men a full day to dig his grave through the permafrost in a town 350 miles north of the Arctic Circle.

Earlier last week... President George W. Bush signed the Military Commissions Act, which suspends the right of habeas corpus for terrorism suspects and grants immunity to CIA interrogators and government officials, such as President Bush, for violations of the War Crimes Act.

VP Dick Cheney has confirmed that U.S. interrogators subjected captured Al-Qaida suspects to a controversial interrogation technique called "water-boarding," which creates a sensation of drowning. Cheney indicated that the Bush administration doesn't regard water-boarding as torture and allows the CIA to use it. "It's a no-brainer for me."

Update: Aah...here comes the back-tracking. The White House denies that VP Cheney was referring to waterboarding when he endorsed a "dunk in water" as a way of getting information from detainees. But then what do you expect of people who "misquote themselves while purporting to display candor."

Meanwhile, some countries try to refute criticism over their treatment of prisoners by saying they are only following the U.S. example on handling terror suspects.

Rummy, who in the past has defended the war on terrorism and called Bush critics names - "Nazi appeasers" - because the world faces a new type of fascism, said last week that those "demanding deadlines for progress in Iraq should "just back off," because it is too difficult to predict when Iraqis will resume control of their country."

And the Bush administration changes semantics but little else with their favorite phrase (No..not "Mission Accomplished" but "Stay the course") being redefined to convey the message that they are more flexible than previously stated. Cut and run is still part of the political rhetoric though...

Aah...good to hear there is a plan - albeit a secret plan! ;)

During a debate with his Democratic rival, Senator Conrad Burns of Montana said that President Bush (who this week compared Iraq to Vietnam) has a secret plan for winning the war, but that Bush is not going to share his plan with the world.

Meanwhile, Bush admin says U.S. has milestones, not ultimatums, for Iraq

Meanwhile, the pre-election name-calling reaches a new low with the Republican National Committe running a T.V. ad in Tennessee in which ends with a pretty, blonde white woman is essentially soliciting African American Senatorial candidate Harold Ford...! (And perhaps not surprisingly, it is that racist George Allen's ad man that is responsible for the ads!

And here is a compilation of all the members of the 109th Congress currently under investigation by the DoJ.

And a friend had written to me earlier about this but I had not realized it was the National Guard giving these cut-outs out - thought it was one family that was dealing with the situation by doing this!

The Maine National Guard has been offering “Flat Daddies” and “Flat Mommies,” life-size cardboard cutouts of deployed service members, to spouses, children, and relatives waiting for them to return.- Boston Globe

Watch this haunting observational film that explodes the myth around the claims that the Iraqis are preparing to take control of their own country. Sean Smith spent nearly six weeks with the 101st Division of the US army in Iraq.

Meanwhile, the conservative news radio continues its blatherings... Limbaugh accuses Michael J. Fox of faking Parkinson's Disease symptoms while campaigning for Congress candidates who support stem cell research.

And last but not least.... read more about all the legal wranglings of this woman who had a bumper sticker that said..."I'm Tired of All the BUSH*T." We all are... but this woman was brave enough to put it on her car and got a ticket for it and is now fighting the system for her freedom of _expression. More power to her...!!!