.Saturday, January 31, 2009
News Pictures of 2008
Feb. 4, 2008: U.S. Army Staff Sgt. William Lambert, 30, from Plainview, Ark. shares his rations with an Iraqi boy in Beijia village in Arab Jabour, south of Baghdad, Iraq.
Aug. 3, 2008: U.S. Army Capt. Charles Ford plays a video game with seven-year-old Wa'ad, who lost an arm and a leg to an improvised bomb, during a visit to the child's home near Muqdadiyah, about 90 kilometers (60 miles) north of Baghdad in Iraq's volatile Diyala province.
A Pug puppy is held by an animal rights activist during a press conference on illegal puppy trafficking, in Rome, Thursday, Nov. 20, 2008.
March 2, 2008: Three-month-old African lion cub Chibi lays on a box at Safari Zoo in Gianyar, Bali, Indonesia.
March 2, 2008: One of Tim Osmar's sled dogs looks out of its pen before the start of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in Willow, Alaska.
A four-month-old puppy called "Machu Picchu" is seen in Lima, Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2008. The owners of the animal, a Peruvian Hairless Dog, have offered it to U.S. President-elect Barack Obama. Obama has promised his daughters a new pet for the White House but one of them is allergic to most breeds. The owners of the Peruvian Hairless Dog say it is perfect for kids who are sensitive to dogs.
May 24, 2008: Belarusian Tatiana Litvinchuk holds her cat at an international cat exhibition in Minsk, Belarus.
July 10, 2008: A polar bear stands on a ice flow in Baffin Bay above the arctic circle as seen from the Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker Louis S. St-Laurent. The Louis S. St-Laurent is on its annual voyage through Canada's Arctic that includes patrols through the Northwest Passage. In addition to serving the people of Canada's North the ship is carrying a team of scientists studying climate change and the health of Canada's three oceans.
July 10, 2008: The Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker Louis S. St-Laurent makes its way through the ice in Baffin Bay,. The Louis S. St-Laurent is on its annual voyage through Canada's Arctic that includes patrols through the Northwest Passage. In addition to serving the people of Canada's North the ship is carrying a team of scientists studying climate change and the health of Canada's three oceans..
Take the $20G, Keep Your Stuff
Facing snowballing medical expenses for their two young disabled children, Gregg and Brittiny Peters quipped they might need to sell everything they owned to stay solvent. As the bills tipped $10,000, however, the idea was no longer funny.
So on Thursday, the Georgia couple accepted a winning $20,000 eBay bid for all their belongings minus their house. It came with one catch. The winning bidders, Donnia and Keith Blair of Texas, want the family to have the money, but keep their stuff.
Seems like the perfect happy ending, except the Peters don't want the money. They say the whole idea was to start over, not take a handout.
The decision is out of their hands, the Blairs say.
"They've worked really hard to get those things and we're in a position to help them," Donnia Blair told The Associated Press Friday. "She can just act like they're my storage facility."
The Peters' lives and finances changed dramatically last April, when their 2-year-old son Noah was diagnosed with autism and with sensory and gastrointestinal disorders. Then in the summer, doctors diagnosed their 7-year-old daughter Ayla with juvenile arthritis. They also have a 1-year-old son, Eli.
Special treatment for the two older children costs about $2,000 a month and the Peters are carrying a $1,400 mortgage on their house in a suburban area about an hour north of Atlanta, said Brittiny Peters, a stay-at-home mom whose husband runs a tennis academy for middle and high school students.
They soon began keeping a list of what they could give away — a jogging stroller here, a dining table there.
"Then it kind of hit us both, let's just sell it all," she said, explaining the couple figured "we will buy these things again some day."
They listed approximately $40,000 worth of items on the popular online auction, from DVDs and leather coats, to the king-sized bed where the family had Saturday morning pillow fights, according to a Web site set up by well-wishers trying to help the couple.
The Peters spent Friday morning trying to persuade the Texas family to accept their belongings, which include a 2000 Chevrolet Tahoe. They even tried to retract the couple's bid.
"They are apparently not willing to take our stuff," Brittiny Peters said. "They're purchasing them to give them back to us."
Now they aren't sure what their next step is.
They are also trying to figure out what to do with money raised on the Web site, www.everythingweown.org. They didn't ask for the money and their efforts to return donations have upset some people, Brittiny Peters said.
The Peters are perfectly willing to stick by the bargain. But the Blairs — who wouldn't give details on how they can afford to give away $20,000 — won't budge.
"We've really been blessed the last few years and we saw an opportunity to help," Donnia Blair said.
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So on Thursday, the Georgia couple accepted a winning $20,000 eBay bid for all their belongings minus their house. It came with one catch. The winning bidders, Donnia and Keith Blair of Texas, want the family to have the money, but keep their stuff.
Seems like the perfect happy ending, except the Peters don't want the money. They say the whole idea was to start over, not take a handout.
The decision is out of their hands, the Blairs say.
"They've worked really hard to get those things and we're in a position to help them," Donnia Blair told The Associated Press Friday. "She can just act like they're my storage facility."
The Peters' lives and finances changed dramatically last April, when their 2-year-old son Noah was diagnosed with autism and with sensory and gastrointestinal disorders. Then in the summer, doctors diagnosed their 7-year-old daughter Ayla with juvenile arthritis. They also have a 1-year-old son, Eli.
Special treatment for the two older children costs about $2,000 a month and the Peters are carrying a $1,400 mortgage on their house in a suburban area about an hour north of Atlanta, said Brittiny Peters, a stay-at-home mom whose husband runs a tennis academy for middle and high school students.
They soon began keeping a list of what they could give away — a jogging stroller here, a dining table there.
"Then it kind of hit us both, let's just sell it all," she said, explaining the couple figured "we will buy these things again some day."
They listed approximately $40,000 worth of items on the popular online auction, from DVDs and leather coats, to the king-sized bed where the family had Saturday morning pillow fights, according to a Web site set up by well-wishers trying to help the couple.
The Peters spent Friday morning trying to persuade the Texas family to accept their belongings, which include a 2000 Chevrolet Tahoe. They even tried to retract the couple's bid.
"They are apparently not willing to take our stuff," Brittiny Peters said. "They're purchasing them to give them back to us."
Now they aren't sure what their next step is.
They are also trying to figure out what to do with money raised on the Web site, www.everythingweown.org. They didn't ask for the money and their efforts to return donations have upset some people, Brittiny Peters said.
The Peters are perfectly willing to stick by the bargain. But the Blairs — who wouldn't give details on how they can afford to give away $20,000 — won't budge.
"We've really been blessed the last few years and we saw an opportunity to help," Donnia Blair said.
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Friday, January 30, 2009
Did You Know.......
What is the highest bill of paper currency ever printed by the U.S. Treasury Department?
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According to the Treasury Web site, the largest denominations ever printed were $100,000 gold certificates. They featured the portrait of Woodrow Wilson and were printed from December 1934 through January 1935. They were issued to Federal Reserve banks and were not circulated among the general public.
Today, the $100 bill is the largest denomination available. At one point, the Treasury also printed $500, $1,000, $5,000 and $10,000 bills. These were largely used for bank transfer payments and were discontinued decades ago.
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According to the Treasury Web site, the largest denominations ever printed were $100,000 gold certificates. They featured the portrait of Woodrow Wilson and were printed from December 1934 through January 1935. They were issued to Federal Reserve banks and were not circulated among the general public.
Today, the $100 bill is the largest denomination available. At one point, the Treasury also printed $500, $1,000, $5,000 and $10,000 bills. These were largely used for bank transfer payments and were discontinued decades ago.
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A Dalmatian Pedaling a Bike.. Gold!!!!!!
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That is hilarious! I like the Close Up of it’s butt hopping on the seat…
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Unbelieveable. I thought the dog on the skateboard was pretty fantastic.
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I posted this on January 16, 2009
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Cat Ignores Human Help; Escapes On Its Own Terms!
Sequence of events left to right
Try as they might, firefighters could not help a black and white cat stranded on a ledge below a sheer drop into a river drain. But not to worry. The cat ignored firefighters' dangling ropes dipped in fragrant pet food. Instead it chose to leap into the icy waters, where the cat paddled to a ladder bracketed to the drain wall and climbed the ladder rungs up 20 feet to safety. Once on solid ground, the black and white cat dodged all efforts by interfering humans to dry him and ran off.
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You know it’s cold when you can do this:
A 60-ton house moves across a stretch of White Bear Lake from Manitou Island to land in Minnesota on Wednesday.Terry Semple of Semple Building Movers of St. Paul, didn't take the weather for granted. Last weekend, they pumped water onto the ice to make it thicker. Kraemer calculated that the lake level was 2 feet below normal, and said tests showed that the ice sat on about a foot of water and muck. And Denice Semple, Terry's wife, said the company hired an engineer who advised how to distribute the weight enough to keep the house from crashing through.
Randy Larson of White Bear Lake joked that it was the biggest ice house he ever saw.
VIDEO
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What Part of This Clock You Don’t Understand
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This is a clock for those people that paid attention in math class all the way through college.
Each numeral on the clock has been replaced by an equivalent notation. The picture says more than I can.
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There's an explanation of the numerals
1 Legendre's constant http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legendre%27s_constant
2 "An infinite number of mathematicians..." http://derdritte.soup.io/post/6961628/An-infinite-number-of-mathematicians-walk-into
2 "An infinite number of mathematicians..." http://derdritte.soup.io/post/6961628/An-infinite-number-of-mathematicians-walk-into
3 A Unicode character as a HTML entity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode_and_HTML
4 Modular arithmetic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modular_arithmatic
5 The Golden Mean reworked a little http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_ratio
6 Three Factorial (3*2*1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factorial
7 6.99999.. Though a different number than 7, still equals 7 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repeating_decimal
8 Graphical representation of Binary code http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_numeral_system
9 An example of a base-4 number http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_numeral_system 10 A Binomial Coefficient http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_triangle
11 An example of Hexadecimal encoding http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexadecimal
12 The cube root is the inverse of 12^3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cube_root
URL for this document: http://tinyurl.com/a8sg2x
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So you are saying that you didn't pay attention in math class. HaHaHa.
Don't feel bad I only went through algebra
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Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Coffee Filter Uses
1. Cover bowls or dishes when cooking in the microwave. Coffee filters make excellent covers.2. Clean windows and mirrors. Coffee filters are lint-free so they’ll leave windows sparkling.
3. Protect China. Separate your good dishes by putting a coffee filter between each dish.
4. Filter broken cork from wine. If you break the cork when opening a wine bottle, filter the wine through a coffee filter.
5. Protect a cast-iron skillet. Place a coffee filter in the skillet to absorb moisture and prevent rust.
6. Apply shoe polish. Ball up a lint-free coffee filter.
7. Recycle frying oil. After frying, strain oil through a sieve lined with a coffee filter.
8. Weigh chopped foods. Place chopped ingredients in a coffee filter on a kitchen scale.
9. Hold tacos. Coffee filters make convenient wrappers for messy foods
10. Stop the soil from leaking out of a plant pot. Line a plant pot with a coffee filter to prevent the soil from going through the drainage holes.
11. Prevent a Popsicle from dripping. Poke one or two holes as needed in a coffee filter.
12. Do you think we used expensive strips to wax eyebrows? Use strips of coffee filters.
13. Put a few in a plate and put your fried bacon, French fries, chicken fingers, etc on them. Soaks out all the grease.
14. Keep in the bathroom. They make great "razor nick fixers."
OH YEAH THEY ARE GREAT TO USE IN YOUR COFFEE MAKERS TOO.
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Not Funny Anymore!
.I thought I was having a bad day till I seen this and now I don't feel has bad.
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The power of the singing flower
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That's cruel to torment a young infant like that.
Plus, all it's teaching him is if you cry you can have what you want.
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Protective Dog Adopts Chicks.
Indonesia : A very protective dog keeps a close eye on it's wandering adopted kids.
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Otter tours Scotland
A postman who rescued a baby otter on a Scottish roadside took it on a 220-mile tour of the country in his mailbag.Kenny Wilson, 50, of Tweedbank, in the Borders, spotted the cub - named Orla - lying on the A7 near Stow on Sunday.
He stopped his car, popped the animal in his mailbag to keep it warm and then bought it some kitten milk which he fed it through the tube of a ballpoint pen.
"She seemed happy enough and during our journey she kept crawling up my neck looking for more warmth."
He then took the otter with him on a Mini car enthusiasts' rally before taking it to an animal rescue center.
The six-week-old otter was said to be doing well at the Arthurshiel center near St Boswells in Roxburghshire.
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St. Louis odor a mystery but not dangerous
Firefighters and gas company officials in St. Louis said they do not know the origin of a foul odor in the region but tests found it is not dangerous.St. Louis firefighters and Laclede Gas workers said they investigated the odor, which numerous residents of the St. Louis area have reported in recent days, early Sunday and performed tests that verified that the air remains safe to breathe.
"People are wanting us to come out and check to give them reassurances that everything was OK," St. Louis Fire Capt. Robert Keuss said Monday. "We've checked it out and it is not dangerous."
Laclede Gas officials said they have determined that the odor is not natural gas related.
"We may never know where the smell actually came from," Keuss said. "We're telling the residents that it will eventually drift away. We're just hoping it goes away soon."
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Tuesday, January 27, 2009
That's Just Crazy
It may only be one horsepower, but this Fiat Uno certainly gave traffic cops a run for their money as it sped along the motorway with a foal on the back seat. The driver had bought the 260 lbs foal at a livestock market near the Polish capital Warsaw and was driving 150 miles to his farm in the north of the country. By the time police caught up with it driver Hieronim Kapuscinski had pulled over when the car's engine conked out. Inside the car the pony stood waiting patiently to be fed while the driver's two pals - who'd been crammed into the front - checked that the rear seat was secure on the ramshackle roof rack. Police fined the driver 50 GBP for inappropriate use of a car and confiscated the horse until its owner can arrange for a proper livestock transporter to pick it up..
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Cow rides in back of car In Beirut.
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Internet dog feeder
This dog feeder was made in under 1 hour!
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That kid needs to patent that thing and then get a manufacturer on board.
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8 Babies Born to Stunned California Parents
Doctors in Bellflower California methodically delivered a mother's seven babies, five boys and two girls, just as they had repeatedly rehearsed.
Then came the eighth.
The surprising sixth boy and eighth child made Monday's mass birth not just remarkable but historic.
"It is quite easy to miss a baby when you're anticipating seven," said Dr. Harold Henry, chief of maternal and fetal medicine and one of 46 doctors, nurses and assistants who delivered the children by Caesarean section at Kaiser Permanente Bellflower Medical Center. "Ultrasound doesn't show you everything."
Just five minutes after the first birth, the unexpected eighth baby came out at 10:48 a.m.
"My eyes were wide," Dr. Karen Maples said.
It was just the second live octuplets birth in U.S. history.
"The babies are all doing well, and the mom is also doing well," Henry said. "There were no complications from the surgery to the best of my knowledge."
Hospital officials would not release the mother's name nor say whether she had used fertility drugs.
They did say she planned to breast feed all the children.
"She's a very strong woman, so she probably will be able to handle all eight babies," said Dr. Mandhir Gupta, a neo-natologist who cared for the infants.
The mother checked into the hospital in her 23rd week of pregnancy and gave birth seven weeks later. The babies — dubbed with the letters A-through-H — will probably remain in the hospital for at least two months and the mother should be released in a week, Maples said.
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Then came the eighth.
The surprising sixth boy and eighth child made Monday's mass birth not just remarkable but historic.
"It is quite easy to miss a baby when you're anticipating seven," said Dr. Harold Henry, chief of maternal and fetal medicine and one of 46 doctors, nurses and assistants who delivered the children by Caesarean section at Kaiser Permanente Bellflower Medical Center. "Ultrasound doesn't show you everything."
Just five minutes after the first birth, the unexpected eighth baby came out at 10:48 a.m.
"My eyes were wide," Dr. Karen Maples said.
It was just the second live octuplets birth in U.S. history.
"The babies are all doing well, and the mom is also doing well," Henry said. "There were no complications from the surgery to the best of my knowledge."
Hospital officials would not release the mother's name nor say whether she had used fertility drugs.
They did say she planned to breast feed all the children.
"She's a very strong woman, so she probably will be able to handle all eight babies," said Dr. Mandhir Gupta, a neo-natologist who cared for the infants.
The mother checked into the hospital in her 23rd week of pregnancy and gave birth seven weeks later. The babies — dubbed with the letters A-through-H — will probably remain in the hospital for at least two months and the mother should be released in a week, Maples said.
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Octuplets? No, that's a litter!
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Running for Laughs
Schoolteacher running for world record marathon dressed in a clown costume.A school teacher from Radley is believed to have broken a world record after running a marathon dressed as a clown.
Paul Fernandez, 34, completed the Glouc-ester Marathon last Sunday in full clown costume in 2hr 50min 34sec — more than half-an-hour faster than the Guinness World Record of 3hr 24min.
Mr Fernandez, a biology teacher at Radley College, was second overall in the race out of about 250 runners.
His time has to be verified by Guinness Book of Records officials.
Before the race, the 34-year-old teacher said: "My personal best is 2hr 39min, which I did at Abingdon last year.
"Gloucester is a small marathon and the winner only did it in 2hr 53min last year, so in theory I could be near the front, which could be a bit embarrassing.
"I’m hoping to go 30 seconds a mile slower than my personal best and still come in at under 2hr 50min."
He was struck with the idea after looking at feats of endurance.
Monday, January 26, 2009
That's a classic!!!!
At a high school in Montana a group of students played a prank on the school.
They let three goats loose in the school.
Before they let them go they painted numbers on the sides of the goats: 1, 2 and 4.
Local school officials spent most of the day looking for #3.
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World’s Largest Hanging Basket Of Flowers
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Weighing in at more than a quarter of a ton, the world's largest hanging basket is certainly going to require a lot of watering.
The giant eye-catching floral spectacular measures 20ft by 10ft and took a massive EIGHT hours to winch into position.
It contains over 100 different varieties of plants and flowers and has become the focal point of the £125-a-night Hotel Indigo
The giant basket measures 20ft by 10ft and took engineers eight hours to winch into position over the Hotel Indigo.
The creation, which has been wittily dubbed 'The Hanging Gardens of Paddington', was erected to mark the opening of the plush hotel and took designers, engineers and gardeners over three weeks to create.
Among the wide range of floral offerings on display are orchids, rose, daisies, ferns and conifers.
World's Largest Crossword Puzzle
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As night falls, puzzler enthusiasts gather outside a residential block in Ukraine in an attempt to decipher the world largest crossword.
But unlike your newspaper variety, this puzzle is more than 100ft high and fills the entire external wall of a tall building in the historic city of Lvov.
Clues to the massive puzzle, which is 19 squares across and 34 squares high, have been scattered around the city's major landmarks and attractions including parks, fountains, and theaters.
People gather outside the residential block in Ukraine to try and crack the world's largest crossword
Fake Teen Cop Fools Police, Patrols Chicago for 5 Hours
A 14-year-old aspiring police officer donned a uniform, walked into a Chicago police station and managed to get an assignment — patrolling in a squad car for five hours before he was detected, police said Sunday.
The boy did not have a gun, never issued any tickets and didn't drive the squad car, Deputy Superintendent Daniel Dugan said.
Assistant Superintendent James Jackson said the ruse was discovered only after the boy's patrol with an actual officer ended Saturday. Officers noticed his uniform lacked a star that is part of the regulation uniform.
Police said they were investigating how the deception went undetected for so long in what they described as a serious security breach.
Police didn't identify the boy because of his age. He has been charged as a juvenile with impersonating an officer.
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The boy did not have a gun, never issued any tickets and didn't drive the squad car, Deputy Superintendent Daniel Dugan said.
Assistant Superintendent James Jackson said the ruse was discovered only after the boy's patrol with an actual officer ended Saturday. Officers noticed his uniform lacked a star that is part of the regulation uniform.
Police said they were investigating how the deception went undetected for so long in what they described as a serious security breach.
Police didn't identify the boy because of his age. He has been charged as a juvenile with impersonating an officer.
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Google's Rumored GDrive May 'Kill' the PC
Google's rumored "GDrive," a service that would enable users to access their PCs from any Internet connection, could kill off the desktop computer.
The GDrive, unconfirmed by Google, is reported to launch this year, with tech news sites calling it the "most anticipated Google product so far."
The Google drive would shift away from Microsoft Window's operating system, in favor of "cloud computing," where storage and processing is done in data centers. Users would no longer have to rely on their computers' powerful hard drives.
Home and businesses have been turning toward web-based services, such as e-mail — including popular services Hotmail and Gmail — and photo storage, such as Flickr and Picasa. Users would no longer have to worry about their hard drives crashing, since data would be saved on the Web, and can be accessed from any machine.
With the GDrive, a PC would be a device acting as a portal to the Web, enabling users to think of their computer as software rather than hardware.
Google refused to confirm the GDrive, but acknowledged the growing demand for cloud computing.
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The GDrive, unconfirmed by Google, is reported to launch this year, with tech news sites calling it the "most anticipated Google product so far."
The Google drive would shift away from Microsoft Window's operating system, in favor of "cloud computing," where storage and processing is done in data centers. Users would no longer have to rely on their computers' powerful hard drives.
Home and businesses have been turning toward web-based services, such as e-mail — including popular services Hotmail and Gmail — and photo storage, such as Flickr and Picasa. Users would no longer have to worry about their hard drives crashing, since data would be saved on the Web, and can be accessed from any machine.
With the GDrive, a PC would be a device acting as a portal to the Web, enabling users to think of their computer as software rather than hardware.
Google refused to confirm the GDrive, but acknowledged the growing demand for cloud computing.
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At 111, Henry the tuatara becomes a first-time dad
Henry, the famous 111-year-old tuatara from Invercargill in New Zealand, has finally become a dad. Nine of 11 eggs laid by his lover Mildred hatched at the Southland Museum at the weekend, with the remaining two due last night.The baby tuatara, whose ancestors go back 220 million years, were all running around and doing well, chuffed museum tuatara curator Lindsay Hazley said.
Henry, a resident at the Southland Museum and Art Gallery since 1970, hit the world headlines in March when he finally proved to be a dad at age 111. Mildred subsequently laid 12 eggs, with 11 surviving.
Henry had been uninterested for the entire time he had been in captivity. He had been well-known for his aggression and for 15 years was kept in solitary confinement because he did not get on with other tuatara. But after a cancer growth was removed from his bottom he finally got in the mood.
Mr Hazley said he was "over the moon" that Henry had finally become a father. "After 36 years of looking after Henry I was chuffed about the mating, then the eggs hatched and now, after nurturing them for 223 days, we have got the results."
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Sunday, January 25, 2009
Relationships Between Children And Dogs
Dogs offer wonderful companionship for children and often give them a sense of responsibility and security.
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