A collection of flotsam and jetsam from trolling the World Wide Web for your browsing pleasure.
Venezuela News And Views: Reactionary revolutions
No, the title is not an oxymoron.
I came up with it watching the news from France where for the first time perhaps in its history people are rioting in the streets to make sure that nothing changes. (C)havismo is very much a reactionary movement, a look to our past and a desire to go back to “halcyon” days that were never halcyon. In Chavez we have a caudillo, just as those who gave peace to Venezuela by imposing their will.
Controversy Grows Over Brokeback Ban
The Bahamas Plays and Films Control Board banned the controversial gay movie, Brokeback Mountain, not just because of its homosexual content, but because it promotes bisexuality, according to the board’s director, Dr. Olga Clarke.
I spoke to Javaz Turnquest, the chairperson of the Board who said the Board did not ban the movie but rather the distributors in the U.S. simply did not sent it here. Really? Interestingly, the movie was sent and approved last week in Jamaica, the most homophobic country on earth. Brokeback Mountain opened on Friday in a theater in Kingston and another in Montego Bay.
"The board chose to ban it because it shows extreme homosexuality, nudity and profanity, and we feel that it has no value for the Bahamian public," Chavasse Turnquest-Liriano, liaison officer for the control board, said Wednesday. Amazingly, the supposedly "Christian conscious" Board has allowed the 50 Cent movie, "Get rich or die trying" to be shown here.
RGJ.com: 'It's hard to believe it's spring'-Alpine Meadows records most snow in 35 years
An unending series of March snowstorms pasted the Sierra in white, with one Lake Tahoe ski resort reporting more snowfall than during any other month over the last 35 years.At Alpine Meadows, the resort received more than 16 feet of snow at its base lodge since March 1. At Fallen Leaf Lake near South Lake Tahoe, for example, the snowpack went from 39 percent of average on March 1 to 166 percent on Wednesday, Barbato said.
Scientific American: Smart Kids Found to Undergo Delayed Brain Development
The pattern of brain growth during development may figure more importantly than overall brain size when it comes to intelligence. Although such intelligence seems to be genetic, the child-rearing environment may play an even more critical role, the researchers stress. Studies in rats have shown that their cortex thickness depends on richness of experience.
ABC News: Study: Praying Won't Affect Heart Patients
In the largest study of its kind, researchers found that having people pray for heart bypass surgery patients had no effect on their recovery. In fact, patients who knew they were being prayed for had a slightly higher rate of complications.
BREITBART.COM – Forecasts: Northeast Due for Big Hurricane
Meteorologists say conditions _ including warmer temperatures in the Atlantic Basin and cooler temperatures in the Pacific Ocean _ are ripe for the Northeast coast to be hit by a whopper of a hurricane this season.
A Chance Find, and Voilà! Goodbye, Hot Flashes. Hello, Sleep. – New York Times
Those who took 300 milligrams of gabapentin three times a day reported a 54 percent reduction in overall hot flash activity (frequency and severity) compared with a 31 percent drop in the placebo group.
Sculpture made of cans
Women go 'missing' by the millions – Editorials & Commentary – International Herald Tribune
In the past two centuries, those in the West have gradually changed the way they treat women. As a result, the West enjoys greater peace and progress. It is my hope that the third world will embark on this effort. Just as we put an end to slavery, we must end the gendercide.
(Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born Dutch legislator, lives under 24-hour protection because of death threats against her by Islamic radicals since the murder of Theo van Gogh, with whom she made the film "Submission" about women and Islam.
Head of Arab League Pushes Nuke Programs – Yahoo! News
KHARTOUM, Sudan – The head of the Arab League called on Arab states Tuesday to work toward “entering the nuclear club” by developing atomic energy
BERLIN (AFP) – Saudi Arabia is working secretly on a nuclear programme, with help from Pakistani experts, a German magazine reports in its latest edition, citing Western security sources.
This atavistic love of blood and death and, indeed, self-immolation in the name of God may not be new–medieval Europe had an abundance of millennial Christian sects–but until now it has never had the means to carry out its apocalyptic ends….If nothing is done, we face not proliferation but hyperproliferation.
Henry Kissinger said yesterday “ “We live in a period in which most of what we know from history is inapplicable or applicable in limited ways.”
Then he says, Asia today is like 19th C. Europe and the Middle East is like the 17th C. Then there’s globalization which both integrates economically and fragments politically. And somehow we need to synthesize this all in a way the public can understand.
NEW DELHI – Village elders ordered a Muslim man in eastern India to leave his wife after he accidentally divorced her in his sleep, a news report said Tuesday.
In the wake of the cartoon jihad and mosque-on-mosque violence in Iraq, most Americans now think Islam has more violent believers than any other faith. Yet many still view it as a “peaceful religion.”
Psychologists might call this cognitive dissonance — a state of mind where rational people essentially lie to themselves. But in this case, it’s understandable. In our politically correct culture, criticizing any religion, even one that plots our destruction, is still taboo. And no one wants to suggest the terrorists are driven by their holy text. Is Islam the only religion with a doctrine, theology and legal system that mandates warfare against unbelievers?
Chanting “God is Greatest” after the 71-to-36 vote, Hamas lawmakers hugged and kissed Ismail Haniyeh, their teary-eyed prime minister-designate who vowed to not to abandon the fight against Israel.
“The Koran is our constitution, Jihad is our way, and death for the sake of God is our highest aspiration,” Hamas lawmaker Hamed Bitawi said.”
To bolster its campaign, the Iranian government has one of the most extensive and sophisticated operations to censor and filter internet content of any country in the world — second only to China, Hopkins said.
It also is one of a growing number of Middle Eastern countries that rely on U.S. commercial software to do the filtering, according to a 2004 study by a group called the OpenNet Initiative
Canstruction Vancouver