After a recent heat wave in the heartland, someone snapped this picture of melted streetlights in Stillwater, Oklahoma (temperatures reached as high as 115 F):
Nope, McKibben turned around and blamed the dumpster fire and Global Warming:
The person who took the photo, Patrick Hunter, described the scene: “Being the person that actually took this photo, I’d say that this was due to a fire semi-close by coupled with the unbelievable heat we are experiencing. Still an amazing photo and not fake as many are saying on here. Enjoy!”
Because nobody ever set a trashcan on fire before...
Members of the controversial Westboro Baptist Church showed up to picket at a Seattle-area military base last week, but were confronted with an unusual counter-protest: dozens of people dressed as zombies.
Eight members of the church, known for frequently picketing military funerals and other events as a protest against the progression of gay rights, found themselves confronted with the counter-protest while picketing outside of the Joint Base Lewis-McChord on Friday. The playful counter-protest was launched by Spanaway, Wash., resident Melissa Neace, who spread the word of her idea on Facebook.
“We wanted to turn something negative around, into something people could laugh at and poke fun at,” Neace told The News Tribune. “It was the easiest way to divert attention from something so hateful.”
She recently caused a stir when she unveiled her new perfume ad, starring herself, naked, with only 'tiny men' crawling over her to protect her modesty.
But it appears Lady Gaga hasn't tired of baring flesh for her fans.
The 26-year-old tweeted a snap of herself apparently fully naked, sitting in an armchair, hugging her legs to her chest.
Not nearly as bad as might have been imagined, of course, there are probably 10 cameramen and makeup artists on the other side of the camera.
Despite her penchant for stepping out in little more than underwear (embellished with a variety of eye-catching accessories, naturally), this is potentially the most skin Gaga has ever shown in public.
At the risk of looking too closely, Gaga appears to be wearing a deceptively flesh-coloured thong. She seems to be wearing almost no make-up in the picture, wearing her long blonde hair loose.
The singer has also found time to show her support for embattled stars Kirsten Stewart and Robert Pattinson.
The state Senate voted by a bare majority today to fund initial construction of California's $68 billion high-speed rail project.
The approval was uncertain as recently as hours before the vote. With all 15 Republican senators opposed to the measure and several Democratic lawmakers wavering, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg scrambled to muster at least 21 of 25 Democratic votes.
Twenty-one Democratic senators voted 'Yes.'
The approval was a major legislative victory for Gov. Jerry Brown. Steinberg said the Democratic governor "talked to a couple members" ahead of the vote, while Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, reminded colleagues that the project not only had Brown's attention, but also that of President Barack Obama and House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi.
The bill approved by the Senate authorizes $5.8 billion to start construction in the Central Valley, including $2.6 billion in rail bond funds and $3.2 billion from the federal government. Lawmakers tied that funding to nearly $2 billion to improve regional rail systems and connect them to high-speed rail. That regional money was considered necessary to lobby hesitant senators about the project's potential significance to their districts.
Why are politicians building a train system that next to nobody will ride (I'm from California, remember), and that's going to drive the state even deeper into debt? Concentrated benefits and distributed costs.
But they'll spend a lot of money to build it (putting a lot of people to work doing so), and have a nice shiny, but empty train to run up and down the Central Valley.
I was just bitching complaining to Georgia about a couple of lame safety warnings for fireworks for the July 4 holiday that came down in email from up above. Such warnings are deeply annoying to me, presupposing that I'm already safe,well mostly, and that the people who aren't won't heed the warnings anyway.
Such notices would be much more effective with a suitable example of things not to do. The following video would be an excellent teaching aid. Warning, it's a little NSFW because, well, kids are kind of stupid.
We'll be going down to the beach tonight to observe the highly illegal and completely independent fireworks display put on spontaneously by some of the more adventurous denizens of the beaches. Hopefully, nothing like the above will happen. Pictures later, I hope.
The re-emergence of some vaccine-preventable diseases has prompted the California legislature to consider a bill that would make it more difficult for parents to opt out of vaccinating their kids.
The legislation would require that parents get counseling from a doctor before opting out of immunizations for their children.
The reason I blame Jenny is because she has become an activist against vaccinations. Her war on vaccinations began when her son Evan was diagnosed (possibly erroneously) with autism in 2005. She became convinced by now debunked studies that her son's condition was caused by the mercury compound, thimerosal, used to preserve vaccines. Using her status as a celebrity (Playmate and star of a sitcom) she helped popularize this point of view.
As a result, in 2008, she was awarded the 2008 Pigasus Award for Psuedoscience, by the James Randi educational foundation, for the 'Performer Who Has Fooled The Greatest Number of People with The Least Amount of Effort'.
Last year, the United States saw its highest number of reported measles cases in 15 years, even though the disease was eliminated from the country in 2000, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
One theory behind this rise, according to Dr. Richard Pan, the state assemblyman who introduced the bill, is that the recent trend away from immunizing children. That's why he wants to make it more difficult to bypass vaccine requirements in his state.
Diane Tran, 17, works two jobs while taking dual-credit and advanced placement classes at Willis High School in Willis, Texas, KHOU-TV reported. Her parents divorced and moved away, leaving her to support an older brother at Texas A&M University and a baby sister who lives with relatives. She lives with the family of one of her employers, the owners of a wedding venue.
Tran told KHOU she doesn’t want to miss school, but is so exhausted sometimes that she can’t make it to her morning classes before attendance is taken. Other times she even ends up missing the day entirely.
“She goes from job to job, from school she stays up ’til 7 o’clock in the morning doing her homework,” Tran’s friend Devin Hill told the station.
Judge Lanny Moriarty warned Tran back in April not to miss any more school; when she missed again last week, he issued a summons and had her arrested in open court Wednesday. Tran was sentenced to a night in jail and ordered to pay a $100 fine.
“If you let one (truant student) run loose, what are you gonna’ do with the rest of ‘em? Let them go too?” Moriarty asked.
He admitted to KHOU after the fact that he didn‘t know the full circumstances of Tran’s situation. He said he might work to have the arrest removed from her record, where it would otherwise remain.
This is just insane. I'll bet there are literally hundreds of under-performing students at the same school, skipping classes routinely, and the teachers and administration have just written them off.
This judge needs a stint in jail the next time he's late for anything. Remember, overwork or need for sleep is no excuse.
Street lighting is transforming communities of insects and other invertebrates, according to research by the University of Exeter.
Published in the journal Biology Letters, the study shows for the first time that the balance of different species living together is being radically altered as a result of light pollution in our towns and cities.
Believed to be increasing by six per cent a year globally, artificial lighting is already known to affect individual organisms, but this is the first time that its impact on whole communities has been investigated.
This study shows that groups of invertebrates living near to artificial lights include more predators and scavengers. This could be impacting on the survival rates of different species, having a knock-on effect on birds and mammals that rely on these species for food. The effects could be affecting entire ecosystems and even humans. ...They collected 1,194 individuals covering 60 species. They discovered that total numbers were more abundant under street lights, where they also found more predatory and scavenging species, such as ground beetles and harvestmen. This was the case during the day, as well as at night, suggesting that the effect on communities is ongoing.
Well, yes, everything affects something. Humans have been lighting the night since we learned how to keep that lightning strike fire alive hundreds of thousands of years ago. Are we supposed to quit because that's helping a few insect predators catch more food? A bug's gotta eat, after all.
Lead author Dr Tom Davies of the Environment and Sustainability Institute at the University of Exeter’s Cornwall Campus said: “Our study shows that light pollution could be having a dramatic effect on wildlife in our towns and cities. We need to be aware of how the increase in artificial lighting is impacting on the delicate ecosystems on which we all rely. Our research shows, for the first time, the changes that light pollution is making to entire communities of invertebrates. We now need to examine what impact this is having on other communities and how this may be affecting important ecosystem services and whether we should change the way we light urban spaces.”
That will be another ₤500,000 please. It's not like the wildlife is anywhere near pristine in cities and towns anyway. At least it's only British money, but I'm pretty sure somebody from the States will jump on the bandwagon as soon as they see it's easy research to do (we don't call them "bug shufflers" for nothing).
I was looking for a song with lyrics "Like Moths to a Flame" that I dimly remembered, and I ran across this; it's only had 2700 hits since 2007, so it hasn't gotten a lot of play. A little (no, a lot) sappy, but a nice guitar solo. What the heck, hit it and give them a thrill. It even satisfies my cutie quota, sorta. And, hey, they're at least 31/32s more Indian Native American than Elizabeth Warren.
A 6-year-old boy was suspended from his suburban Denver school for three days after school officials said he told a girl “I’m sexy and I know it,” a line from a popular song.
D’Avonte Meadows, a first-grader at Sable Elementary School in Aurora, is accused of sexual harassment and disrupting other students, according to a letter the school district sent to his mother after he was sent home Wednesday.
In a bloody battle between two warring neighbors in Australia today, one man's arm was almost severed with a chain saw, while another had a finger chopped off with a Samurai sword.
Surgeons were later trying to save the arm of the chain saw victim, Mark Jorgenson, 29, while his neighbor Troy Thornton, 26, was being treated after losing his finger to the Samurai sword.
Police who rushed to the small town of Minto, south west of Sydney, found pools of blood in the street and Mr Jorgenson crying in pain from his almost-severed arm. Detectives are investigating claims that after the two men argued over loud music and reckless driving, Mr Thornton went to Mr Jorgenson's house with the chain saw.
Loud music and reckless driving? Sounds like any neighborhood anywhere. At least they could have picked the fight over something meaningful, like a girl.
