Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Monday, September 28, 2009
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Something to think about............
Anybody who wants religion is welcome to it, as far as I'm concerned--I support your right to enjoy it. However, I would appreciate it if you exhibited more respect for the rights of those people who do not wish to share your dogma, rapture, or necrodestination.
--Frank Zappa
Mapimà Silent Zone
Four kilometers from San Ignacio, Mexico, in an area also known as the "Trino Vertex" is the Silent Zone or Zona del Silencio. Frequently compared to the Bermuda Triangle -- both are located between parallels 26 and 28 and have similar legends -- the legends say radio waves can not be transmitted in certain areas of the silent zone due to local magnetic fields, aliens, and "earth energy" among other explanations. The story of how these storys came to be is much stranger, and more interesting, than the paranormal legends would suggest.
Via
Hobgoblin's Playground, Nevada
Far off the beaten path in southern Nevada’s Clark County lies an ancient treasure surprisingly few know about: Little Finland, also called the Hobgoblin’s Playground. Dragons and other mythic beasts of yore seem to have turned to stone here, reminding us of times long gone by. Witness these beautiful sandstone formations turn red, orange and golden in the fading sunlight.
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Stunning Views of Glaciers From Space
To a geologist, glaciers are among the most exciting features on Earth. Though they seem to creep along at impossibly slow speeds, in geologic time glaciers are relatively fast, powerful landscape artists that can carve out valleys and fjords in just a few thousand years.
more here
Saturday, September 26, 2009
The Monkey Wrench Gang - Edward Abbey
'Keep it like it was..."
This is the underlying principle beneath Edward Abbey's best-known work, The Monkey Wrench Gang. This rollicking novel, which was the inspiration for the real-life environmental radicals Earth First!, follows four misfits as they fight to protect the beautiful desert southwest from developers by perpetrating acts of "ecotage" (or "ecoterrorism," depending on who you talk to) such as pulling up survey stakes, trashing bulldozers, and blowing up bridges. Whatever feelings you may have about their strategy or their actions, its hard not to get caught up in the humor and the excitement of this farcical adventure.
Read it here
San Bernardino alle Ossa
In 1145 in Via Brolo, Milan, a hospital was built near the Santo Stefano Maggiore Church. The graveyard, filling with bodies from the new hospital, soon proved insufficient. Not long after, in 1210, a little chamber was built to collect the bones from the hospital, and, in 1269, another little church was built near the bone chamber.
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Friday, September 25, 2009
Pororoca - Surfing the Amazon
Twice a year, between the months of February and March, the Atlantic Ocean waters roll up the Amazon river, in Brazil, generating the longest wave on the Earth. The phenomenon, known as the Pororoca, is caused by the tides of the Atlantic Ocean wich meet the mouth of the river. This tidal bore generates waves up to 12 feet high which can last for over half an hour.
VIA
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Monday, September 21, 2009
'Horton Catches the Flu'
'Horton Catches the Flu' is Dr. Seuss's beloved story about Horton, a big hearted elephant who loves all creatures 'tall and small'. One day while wandering around the jungle, Horton encounters Maizy, a lazy-ass chicken who has a nest in the tallest bimbo tree on the entire island of Shmoo.
Full Story
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Blanka Dvorak
"Highly influenced by Francis Bacon, Blanka Dvorak's intensely graphic paintings threaten us all with their nightmare images; very often using tortured, stuffed, collected, flayed and suffering animals to stun her audience, all exuding a kind of carnivorous madness."
more
The Rats in the Walls
On 16 July 1923, I moved into Exham Priory after the last workman had finished his labours. The restoration had been a stupendous task, for little had remained of the deserted pile but a shell-like ruin; yet because it had been the seat of my ancestors, I let no expense deter me. The place had not been inhabited since the reign of James the First, when a tragedy of intensely hideous, though largely unexplained, nature had struck down the master, five of his children, and several servants; and driven forth under a cloud of suspicion and terror the third son, my lineal progenitor and the only survivor of the abhorred line. more
Hallstatt Charnel House
The town of Hallstatt is the kind of Austrian town that the sound of music might have been set in. On a beautiful forested mountain, set by a perfectly blue lake, filled with charming 19th century houses, it is a perfect vision of cheer. Except of course, for the room filled with skulls.
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Saturday, September 19, 2009
Friday, September 18, 2009
Thursday, September 17, 2009
The Dunwich Horror
When a traveller in north central Massachusetts takes the wrong fork at the junction of Aylesbury pike just beyond Dean's Corners he comes upon a lonely and curious country.
The ground gets higher, and the brier-bordered stone walls press closer and closer against the ruts of the dusty, curving road. The trees of the frequent forest belts seem too large, and the wild weeds, brambles and grasses attain a luxuriance not often found in settled regions. At the same time the planted fields appear singularly few and barren; while the sparsely scattered houses wear a surprisingly uniform aspect of age, squalor, and dilapidation.
Without knowing why, one hesitates to ask directions from the gnarled solitary figures spied now and then on crumbling doorsteps or on the sloping, rock-strewn meadows. Those figures are so silent and furtive that one feels somehow confronted by forbidden things, with which it would be better to have nothing to do. When a rise in the road brings the mountains in view above the deep woods, the feeling of strange uneasiness is increased. The summits are too rounded and symmetrical to give a sense of comfort and naturalness, and sometimes the sky silhouettes with especial clearness the queer circles of tall stone pillars with which most of them are crowned.
more
"Something to think about"
If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.
--Rene Descartes (Principles of Philosophy)
Rare tongue-eating parasite found
A rare parasite which burrows into host fish before eating and replacing their tongues with itself has been found off the Jersey coast.read more here
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Sheffield Museum of Anaesthesia
Sheffield has one of the largest historical collections of anaesthetic apparatus and equipment in the UK.
A selection of items from the museum is presented, offering a unique insight into the evolution of the specialty of anaesthesia over the past century.
There are two main anaesthetic museums, one in the anaesthetic department at the Northern General Hospital, and the other in the anaesthetic department at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital.
Visit
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Mount Dragon - The most dangerous place on earth
Mount Dragon: an enigmatic research complex hidden in the vast desert of New Mexico. Guy Carson and Susana Cabeza de Vaca have come to Mount Dragon to work shoulder to shoulder with some of the greatest scientific minds on the planet. Led by visionary genius Brent Scopes, their secret goal is a medical breakthrough that promises to bring incalculable benefits to the human race. But while Scopes believes he is leading the way to a new world order, he may in fact be opening the door to mass human extinction. And when Guy and Susana attempt to stop him they find themselves locked in a frightening battle with Scopes, his henchmen, and the apocalyptic nightmare that science has unleashed...
Friday, September 11, 2009
ADX Florence (Florence, Colo.) -- Where 'Maximum' Isn't Enough
Hey kids, welcome to SuperMax prison. Anytime you hear the term "supermax" and you're not dealing with feminine hygiene products, something bizarre is afoot.
ADX is a prison intended for the worst felons the country has to offer (such as Ted Kaczynski). It and prisons like it are the most hardcore penitentiaries we have before we have to resort to calling in Tina Turner and making Thunderdome a reality.
Where ADX differs from the average hellhole is that it is a control-unit prison. For 23 hours a day, inmates get to experience solitary confinement. There's no communal cafeteria where awesome fights break out, there's no laundry room where deals get made, and there's no shower room, so everyone is free to drop the soap as much as their little felonious hearts desire. For that one remaining hour a day, they get to go outside and have some exercise. Alone. It's entirely possible for an inmate at ADX to serve a life sentence without ever having contact with another prisoner.
Prisoners are served meals in their cells. The room is mostly poured concrete which ensures the furniture can't be moved or even humped comfortably. The toilet will shut off if someone tries to plug it and showers work on a timer to cut back on potential flooding and inmates singing Ace of Base while they lather up, which is just inhumane.
ADX Florence is officially as interesting as forever being stuck in an episode of "CSI"; it's the same thing over and over again.
Via
ADX is a prison intended for the worst felons the country has to offer (such as Ted Kaczynski). It and prisons like it are the most hardcore penitentiaries we have before we have to resort to calling in Tina Turner and making Thunderdome a reality.
Where ADX differs from the average hellhole is that it is a control-unit prison. For 23 hours a day, inmates get to experience solitary confinement. There's no communal cafeteria where awesome fights break out, there's no laundry room where deals get made, and there's no shower room, so everyone is free to drop the soap as much as their little felonious hearts desire. For that one remaining hour a day, they get to go outside and have some exercise. Alone. It's entirely possible for an inmate at ADX to serve a life sentence without ever having contact with another prisoner.
Prisoners are served meals in their cells. The room is mostly poured concrete which ensures the furniture can't be moved or even humped comfortably. The toilet will shut off if someone tries to plug it and showers work on a timer to cut back on potential flooding and inmates singing Ace of Base while they lather up, which is just inhumane.
ADX Florence is officially as interesting as forever being stuck in an episode of "CSI"; it's the same thing over and over again.
Via
Slot Canyons of the South West
Utah has the densest population of slot canyons in the world, due to the eroding soft sandstone found in the state. Although most people have heard of two or three slot canyons, there are actually over one-thousand slot canyons south of Highway I70 alone. Outside of Southern Utah however, slot canyons are a rare find.
Via
Thursday, September 10, 2009
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