don't tell david duke

(who by the way just attended that holocaust denying conference in iran. hey, don't iranians have BROWN skin????? wonder if duke knew that prior to getting on the big bird and making that trip)

Humans Migrated Out of Africa, Then Some Went Back, Study Says

Stefan Lovgrenfor National Geographic News
December 14, 2006
Humans first moved out of Africa about 70,000 years ago, but 30,000 years later some of them moved back.
That's according to a new study based on DNA evidence from ancient human remains found in Africa.

The study shows that a small group of early humans returned to Africa after migrating to the Middle East.
In addition, the research suggests that the humans' return occurred around the same time that another group of humans left the Middle East and moved into Europe.
"We were rather surprised by the age of the migration back to Africa," said Antonio Torroni, a geneticist at the University of Pavia in Italy.
"We did not really expect that it was 40,000 to 45,000 years old."
"But the age and the fact that the migration had originated in the Levant [a geographical term referring to a large part of the Middle East] led us to link the migration to Africa to that occurring at the same time toward Europe from the same region," added Torroni, who led the research team.
The findings are reported in tomorrow's issue of the journal Science. ....................

Tech Tags: humans africa middle+east

yesterday i wrote james dobson was misquoting and taking out of context

things dr carol gilligan has said and/or written. turns out she's NOT the only one he's selectively quoting OR misquoting. NOW he's misrepresenting dr kyle pruett (of yale university in my HOME STATE)

i for one am wondering why the hell time magazine gave him a column to begin with. the man isn't focused on families he's focused on negativity, hate, prejudice, fear. his heart isn't full of love and understanding (one with think a 'man of god' would possess). it's full of EVIL

focus on the family = focus on fallacies

Scientists fume after Focus on the Family chief Dobson 'misrepresents' work on gays

Filed by RAW STORY
Both scientists cited by conservative pundit James Dobson in a recent Time magazine column are publicly rejecting his use of their research--and are demanding that he cease to use their findings, RAW STORY has learned.
New York University educational psychologist Carol Gilligan, PhD, earlier this week blasted Focus on the Family leader, James C. Dobson, for "twisting" and "distorting" her research in a column published in Time Magazine.
In it, the self-described social conservative wrote:
According to educational psychologist Carol Gilligan, mothers tend to stress sympathy, grace and care to their children, while fathers accent justice, fairness and duty. Moms give a child a sense of hopefulness; dads provide a sense of right and wrong and its consequences. Other researchers have determined that boys are not born with an understanding of "maleness." They have to learn it, ideally from their fathers.
But Gilligan claimed that Dobson distorted her findings, and says that she disagrees with his theory that same-sex couples are unsuitable parents. In a pointed letter to Dobson and released to the press, Gilligan demanded that he apologize and "cease and desist" from quoting her work in the future.
"I was mortified," Gilligan wrote, "to learn that you had distorted my work this week in a guest column you wrote in Time Magazine."
"My work in no way suggests same-gender families are harmful to children or can't raise these children to be as healthy and well adjusted as those brought up in traditional households," Gilligan asserts...........

...............Dr. Kyle Pruett of the Yale school of medicine was equally shocked to discover Dobson's use of his work in the column.
"You cherry-picked a phrase to shore up highly (in my view) discriminatory purposes," he wrote in a similar letter to Dobson. "This practice is condemned in real science, common though it may be in pseudo-science circles. There is nothing in my longitudinal research or any of my writings to support such conclusions."
In fact, Pruett's work suggests the opposite of Dobson's assertions. "On page 134 of the book you cite in your piece," he points out, "I wrote, 'What we do know is that there is no reason for concern about the development or psychological competence of children living with gay fathers. It is love that binds relationships, not sex.'"...............

Tech Tags: carol+gilligan kyle+pruett yale gay james+dobson wayne+besen

WHAT A WITCH

and i DON'T mean that in a glinda (or a rose is a rose) sort of way. i mean it in an elvira gulch, wicked witch of the west sort of way. i'm biting my tongue here. there is SO much more i'd like to say about laura mallory. SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much more Georgia School Board Says 'Harry Potter' Can Stay By GREG BLUESTEIN, AP ATLANTA (Dec. 14) - A mother who fought to ban Harry Potter books from her children's suburban Atlanta school district on the grounds that they promote witchcraft is considering an appeal after the Georgia Board of Education voted Thursday to keep the books on the county's library shelves. The board members voted without discussion to uphold the Gwinnett County school board's decision to deny Laura Mallory's request to remove the best-selling books from school libraries..........
Mallory, whose children attend J.C. Magill Elementary School, has worked for more than a year to ban the popular books from Gwinnett schools, claiming the popular fiction series is an attempt to indoctrinate children in religious witchcraft...........

Tech Tags: laura+mallory georgia+schools harry+potter witchcraft

d e l u s i o n a l

of course it's ALL the medias fault. the media can't even take pictures of the coffins our men and women are coming home from iraq in, YET it's THEIR (the medias) fault the coffins keep coming

get a grip lady. this is the REAL world. our men and women are DYING and coming home maimed. for WHAT?

Laura Bush Hits Media 'Drum Beat' on Iraq

By E&P Staff Published: December 14, 2006 3:40 PM ET
NEW YORK Appearing on MSNBC this morning with Norah O’Donnell, Laura Bush blamed the media, when asked why only 21% of Americans, in a recent NBC poll, said they approved of her husband's Iraq policy.“I do know that there are a lot of good things that are happening [in Iraq] that aren’t covered," she said. "And I think that the drum beat in the country from the media, from the only way people know what is happening unless they happen to have a loved one deployed there, is discouraging...."There are also good things going on that people don't have a chance to see....Schools that are being built. There are parts of country that are rebuilding....So I'd like to see the media give a more balanced view of it."She added that she hopes for “more balanced coverage by the media” in the future. “I understand why the polls are like that, because of the coverage we see every single day in Iraq. It's not encouraging coverage to be sure.”She said that she knows Americans "support the troops" and she hopes the troops keep that in mind when they see the media coverage. .......

Tech Tags: laura+bush iraq delusional

dr carol gilligan is kicking some focus on the fallacies ass!!!

Dobson slammed on "fiction[al]" anti-gay Time Mag column

By Evan Derkacz Posted on December 14, 2006, Printed on December 14, 2006http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/evan/45527/
NYU prof Carol Gilligan PhD, whose research was cited in Dr. Dobson's recent Time Mag column on Mary Cheney's pregnancy, sent a scathing letter to the head of right wing Christian outfit, Focus on the Family. You can read the letter, in full, below.
Truth Wins Out Exec Director Wayne Besen commented: "Dobson's group is a fib factory that should change its name to Focus on the Fallacies... This organization habitually lies and shamelessly mangles research to support its anti-gay agenda. Time Magazine should immediately withdrawal Dobson's column because it is so riddled with scientific errors that it is essentially fiction."
Dear Dr. Dobson:
I am writing to ask that you cease and desist from quoting my research in the future. I was mortified to learn that you had distorted my work this week in a guest column you wrote in Time Magazine. Not only did you take my research out of context, you did so without my knowledge to support discriminatory goals that I do not agree with. What you wrote was not truthful and I ask that you refrain from ever quoting me again and that you apologize for twisting my work.
From what I understand, this is not the first time you have manipulated research in pursuit of your goals. This practice is not in the best interest of scientific inquiry, nor does bearing false witness serve your purpose of furthering morality and strengthening the family.............

Tech Tags: carol+gilligan james+dobson time+magazine

spreading democracy (AND profanity)

wherever we go

(i'm NOT necessarily blaming the troops for this. they are VERY young, they are in a foreign land. they are fighting an enemy that looks the same as their 'friends'. they are fighting an enemy who had NOTHING against the american troops PRIOR to the troops arrival. they are scared)

BRING THEM HOME NOW

U.S. soldiers lead Iraq children in obscene chant

Filed by RAW STORY
[Note: Teambio.org first brought this video to our attention.]

American troops lead a group of Iraqi children in a profane chant, as seen in a video viewed by RAW STORY.
In the brief, undated video at the site liveleak.com, a U.S. soldier appears atop a military vehicle as another mills about, directing the children to shout, "F*ck Iraq." The youngsters, though smiling, do not seem to understand what it is they are saying.
The soldiers have a laugh, presumably at the childrens' expense, with one at the end heard saying with a chuckle, "Oh God, that was so wrong."........

(link to video in the story link above)

Tech Tags: iraq american+troops

un effing believable

i just cannot fathom this. let's just say the parents ARE innocent...........wouldn't you want those kids in state custody until a more thorough job was done investigating ma and pa? i know i would. a 40 pound 12 year old? no

are there doctor's reports on these kids? did the parents have them under medical care since they were so underweight. is there proof ma and pa were concerned enough to seek help? that's what i want to know. if the answer is no, those kids should IMMEDIATELY be put in state custody. i don't care how nasty that is. it's got to be better than what they had. they'd at least be getting three squares


Parents accused of starving kids win custody
Adopted kids looked like they ‘hadn't been fed in months,’ sergeant says


The Associated Press
Updated: 6:38 p.m. ET Dec 13, 2006
COLUMBIA, S.C. - A couple accused of starving their two adopted children were awarded custody by a Family Court judge Wednesday, the parents’ attorney said.
John and Connie Oliver’s children were taken into state custody Sept. 23 after police found the 12-year-old girl and her then-10-year-old brother unattended at a church playground.
The girl weighed just 40 pounds at the time, and her brother weighed 45 pounds.
The two children had been adopted from an Estonian orphanage and suffer from fetal alcohol syndrome and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, Oliver attorney Doug Brannon argued during a hearing this week. He said the youngsters had gained only a few pounds during their nearly three months in state custody.
The children are to be returned next week to the Olivers in Jonesville, about 80 miles north of Columbia, Brannon said...........

WELCOME TO IRAQ

it is getting worse every SECOND. shop owners in the middle of the day???

just what the hell did we think we were doing when we invaded this country? what the hell did we do?

Gunmen kidnap dozens in central Baghdad
50 to 70 people abducted by men wearing military uniforms, police say


The Associated Press
Updated: 4:05 a.m. ET Dec 14, 2006
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Gunmen in military uniforms kidnapped dozens of people Thursday from a commercial area in central Baghdad.
The attackers drove up to the busy al-Sanak area in about 10 SUVs and began rounding up shop owners and bystanders. Two police officers said 50 to 70 people were abducted.
The assault came nearly a month after gunmen in Interior Ministry commando uniforms abducted scores of men from a Higher Education Ministry office building. The Education Ministry is predominantly Sunni Arab and about half of the victims were released.
The al-Sanak area holds stores selling auto spare parts, small power generators and agricultural equipment. The stores are owned by a mix of Shiites, Sunnis and others and it was not immediately clear why it was targeted............

Tech Tags: iraq abductions

isn't it horrid we judge men in politics by their appearance???

what if..........

Power wear: Men in politics need to strike balance between style, authority, experts say

By Marylynne Pitz Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"After striving my entire career to be judged by my results and my decisions, the coverage of my gender, my appearance and perceptions of my personality would outweigh anything else."
-- Carl Fiorina, former CEO Hewlett-Packardin his memoir, "Tough Choices"
American men who hold public office know that no matter how much they accomplish, their clothing and hairdos will be described, discussed, dissected and yes, dissed.
"Women can have dandruff dripping down their shoulders, but if a man has a run in his pantyhose, everyone notices it," said Robert Bernstein, a retired political consultant from Squirrel Hill who always advised male candidates to pack a spare pair of hosiery...........

......Regardless of the public's increasingly sophisticated fashion sense, Mr. White said, "We have not come very far. It's pretty amazing how men in politics are hemmed in and are pretty conservative."
Mr. Marsh, the Fox political consultant, looks forward to a day of liberation for male politicians, when appearance is not so important.
"All men are looking forward to the day when that is not a staple of the conversation or the coverage." ...............

Tech Tags: politics gender appearance

hallelujah

i love leonard cohen. i have always loved leonard cohen. his beautiful song hallelujah has been covered by a few people.

none so beautifully as jeff buckley's version

(by the way, i loved jeff's father tim buckley too. my favorite by him you ask? GET ON TOP from greetings from l.a.)

jeff and tim i miss you both BUT we all still have leonard.

and oh by the way editor and publisher has a nightly video. check it out.

Tech Tags: tim+buckley jeff+buckley leonard+cohen hallelujah editor+publisher

website of the day

the best page in the universe

well it DID decrease the size of MY penis

oh wait, I DON'T HAVE ONE

what a giant dope this dude is. i hope he realizes that manly men who eat good ol' read meat, good ol' cow red meat and good ol' pig meat are eating soy as well. what the hell does he think cows and pigs eat anyway?

i have been eating soy and soy products for well over half of my life (and i'm NO spring chicken, so to speak) and even though my penis is non-existant, i am NOT overly grrrly-grrrly either.

soy milk formula turning your male babies gay indeed! this is so full of shite........

Columnist claims soy products reduce penis size, make men gay

A column published today on conservative website World Net Daily claims that use of soy products leads to reduced penis size and higher rates of male homosexuality.
In "A devil food is turning out kids into homosexuals," author James Rutz claims that soy raises human estrogen levels, causing the shifts............

...............Now, I'm a health-food guy, a fanatic who seldom allows anything into his kitchen unless it's organic. I state my bias here just so you'll know I'm not anti-health food.
The dangerous food I'm speaking of is soy. Soybean products are feminizing, and they're all over the place. You can hardly escape them anymore.
...
If you're a grownup, you're already developed, and you're able to fight off some of the damaging effects of soy. Babies aren't so fortunate. Research is now showing that when you feed your baby soy formula, you're giving him or her the equivalent of five birth control pills a day. A baby's endocrine system just can't cope with that kind of massive assault, so some damage is inevitable. At the extreme, the damage can be fatal...............

Tech Tags: soy soybeans homosexuality james+rutz penis+size

beach bum over at

ramblings of a lexington parrothead pegged it right. he said this would happen.

our BUDS (where by the way, MOST of the 9/11 bombers/terrorists came out of and where women can't drive.) over to saudi arabia have THIS to say (and it sure as shite sounds like a THREAT to me):

Saudis Give a Grim What If Should U.S. Opt to Leave Iraq

By HELENE COOPER
WASHINGTON, Dec. 12 — Saudi Arabia has told the Bush administration that it might provide financial backing to Iraqi Sunnis in any war against Iraq’s Shiites if the United States pulls its troops out of Iraq, according to American and Arab diplomats.
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia conveyed that message to Vice President Dick Cheney two weeks ago during Mr. Cheney’s whirlwind visit to Riyadh, the officials said. During the visit, King Abdullah also expressed strong opposition to diplomatic talks between the United States and Iran, and pushed for Washington to encourage the resumption of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, senior Bush administration officials said.
The Saudi warning reflects fears among America’s Sunni Arab allies about Iran’s rising influence in Iraq, coupled with Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. King Abdullah II of Jordan has also expressed concern about rising Shiite influence, and about the prospect that the Shiite-dominated government would use Iraqi troops against the Sunni population.
A senior Bush administration official said Tuesday that part of the administration’s review of Iraq policy involved the question of how to harness a coalition of moderate Iraqi Sunnis with centrist Shiites to back the Iraqi government led by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.
The Saudis have argued strenuously against an American pullout from Iraq, citing fears that Iraq’s minority Sunni Arab population would be massacred. Those fears, United States officials said, have become more pronounced as a growing chorus in Washington has advocated a draw-down of American troops in Iraq, coupled with diplomatic outreach to Iran, which is largely Shiite.....................

Tech Tags: saudi+arabia iraq sunni shiite king+abdullah dick+cheney

no no no and no

this isn't right. and yeah, one of the people in charge of investigating charges the air force pressures new recruits religion-wise, was in this video. what's wrong with THIS picture? AND it was filmed IN the pentagon????? holy shite

(it's not the fact one is religious and in the military. i have no issues with that. it's the preaching and the you believe what i believe or you'll go to HELL that makes me vomit)

Inquiry Sought Over Evangelical VideoDefense Department Asked to Examine Officers' Acts Supporting Christian Group

By Alan Cooperman Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, December 11, 2006; A03
A military watchdog group is asking the Defense Department to investigate whether seven Army and Air Force officers violated regulations by appearing in uniform in a promotional video for an evangelical Christian organization.
In the video, much of which was filmed inside the Pentagon, four generals and three colonels praise the Christian Embassy, a group that evangelizes among military leaders, politicians and diplomats in Washington. Some of the officers describe their efforts to spread their faith within the military.
"I found a wonderful opportunity as a director on the joint staff, as I meet the people that come into my directorate," Air Force Maj. Gen. Jack J. Catton Jr. says in the video. "And I tell them right up front who Jack Catton is, and I start with the fact that I'm an old-fashioned American, and my first priority is my faith in God, then my family and then country. I share my faith because it describes who I am."
Pete Geren, a former acting secretary of the Air Force who oversaw the service's response in 2005 to accusations that evangelical Christians were pressuring cadets at the Air Force Academy, also appears in the video. The Christian Embassy "has been a rock that I can rely on, been an organization that helped me in my walk with Christ, and I'm just thankful for the service they give," he says.
The 10-minute video is on the group's Web site, Christianembassy.com. The organization was founded nearly 30 years ago by the late Bill Bright, who also founded Campus Crusade for Christ. The Christian Embassy Web site says the group holds prayer breakfasts each Wednesday in the Pentagon's executive dining room and organizes small groups to help military leaders "bridge the gap between faith and work."..........

Tech Tags: defense+department evangelical+christian pentagon christian+embassy

i haven't seen borat (yet)

but i will. i think mr cohen is very funny and inventive. i also think he's VERY hard to watch. da ali g show always made me feel uncomfortable. i can think of many instances, but watching those people in that (arizona, i believe) little bar sing 'throw the jew down the well' just had me CRINGING. yet instead of yelling out to 'borat' to get off the stage or telling him we don't sing songs like that in america, ALL of those audience members ended up SINGING THAT DAMN SONG along with 'borat'.

i don't care how much alcohol one has had or if one was 'duped' into an interview or a songfest or whatever or if one was told this will NEVER be shown in america...., TAKE EFFING RESPONSIBILITIES for your EFFING ACTIONS. if you are a misogynist and a racist well then, THAT'S WHAT YOU ARE. don't try to sue someone for pointing it out

L.A. judge sides with "Borat" against frat boys

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - As the esteemed Kazakh television journalist Borat Sagdiyev might say: "High Five. Sexy Time. You Lose."
Two college fraternity buddies shown guzzling alcohol and making racist remarks in the "Borat" movie have lost their bid for a court order to cut the scene they claim has tarnished their reputations, court papers revealed on Monday.
The students sued the movie's distributor and producers last month, saying filmmakers had duped them into appearing in "Borat" by getting them drunk and falsely promising the film would never be shown in the United States.
At the time the suit was filed, a judge denied the pair's request for a temporary restraining order that would remove footage of them from the film, but the plaintiffs were given a another chance to seek an injunction at a hearing last week.
The South Carolina college students lost again when Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Joseph Biderman ruled they had failed to show a reasonable probability of success on the merits of their case or that money damages alone would be insufficient to resolve their claims.
Arguments on the latest motion focused mainly on the future DVD release of the hit movie, "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan."
The faux documentary, distributed by 20th Century Fox, has already grossed more than $120 million at the North American box office after six weeks in theaters............

Tech Tags: borat lawsuit frat+boys racist misogynist

be VERY careful who your four year old hugs

isn't this THE most ridiculous thing you have EVER heard of in your ENTIRE life? a four year old accused of SEXUAL HARASSMENT for hugging a teacher? what a load of horse shite. these people (the administration) should be ASHAMED of themselves.

preschooler suspended

Texas child suspended after hugging aide
Administrators say pre-kindergarten student’s action was ‘inappropriate’

WACO, Texas - School administrators gave a 4-year-old student an in-school suspension for inappropriately touching a teacher's aide after the pre-kindergartner hugged the woman.

A letter from La Vega school district administrators to the student's parents said that the boy was involved in "inappropriate physical behavior interpreted as sexual contact and/or sexual harassment" after he hugged the woman and he "rubbed his face in the chest of (the) female employee" on Nov. 10.

DaMarcus Blackwell, the father of the boy who attends La Vega Primary School, said he filed a complaint with the district. He said that his son doesn't understand why he was punished........

Tech Tags: sexual+harassment preschooler absurdity

now even our allies in iraq are dissin' us

why the hell are we still there? why are we allowing our men and women to perish or be maimed?

why are we spending BILLIONS AND BILLIONS AND BILLIONS THERE, when we need it HERE? (katrina is just the tip of the iceburg)

why why why

Iraqi President Denounces U.S. Strategy on Security

By KIRK SEMPLE
BAGHDAD, Dec. 10 — President Jalal Talabani said Sunday that the American program to train Iraq’s security forces had been a repeated failure and he denounced a plan to increase the number of American advisers working with the Iraqi Army, saying it would subvert the country’s sovereignty.
Mr. Talabani’s remarks, in an interview with Western news service reporters that was summarized and distributed by his office, amounted to an extraordinarily harsh denunciation of a central American strategy in Iraq and challenged a major recommendation by the Iraq Study Group in Washington. He is the highest-ranking Iraqi official to criticize the report, adding his voice to those of Iraqi leaders who have disagreed with some of its recommendations.
American commanders have poured more than $12 billion into training and equipping Iraq’s security forces and have tied a withdrawal of American troops to success in these efforts. But Mr. Talabani ridiculed them. “What have they done so far in training the army and the police?” he said. “What they have done is move from failure to failure.”.............

Tech Tags: jalal+talabani iraq john+abizaid

i love me some nico and lou reed

and the rest of the velvet underground, but 155,000?????? well not in this lifetime (for me that is) or the next

congratulations to mechadaddy though on this purchase

Velvet Underground Rarity Sells on eBay

By VERENA DOBNIK

NEW YORK (AP) - Forty years after it was made, The Velvet Underground's first recording has become a financial hit - in cyberspace. Bought for 75 cents four years ago at a Manhattan flea market, the rare recording of music that ended up on the influential New York band's first album, "The Velvet Underground & Nico," sold on eBay for a closing bid of $155,401.
The buyer is a mystery, only identified by the eBay screen name: "mechadaddy."
But a greater mystery endures: How did the 12-inch, acetate LP end up buried in a box of records at a flea market?
Warren Hill, a collector from Montreal, bought the record in September 2002 at the flea market, according to an article written by his friend, Eric Isaacson of Mississippi Records in Portland, Ore. in the current issue of Goldmine Magazine.
Isaacson helped Hill decipher the nature of the lucky find.
"We cued it up and were stunned - the first song was not 'Sunday Morning' as on the 'Velvet Underground & Nico' Verve LP, but rather it was 'European Son' - the song that is last on that LP, and it was a version neither of us had ever heard before!" Isaacson wrote............

a documentary: nico icon

Tech Tags: velvet+underground nico lou+reed ebay

i didn't know princess diana was a terrorist

why else would the united states bug someone's phone calls unless they were suspected terrorists? that's what i ask (or ax as i like to say) myself

US bugged Diana's phone on night of death crash

Mark Townsend and Peter Allen in Paris Sunday December 10, 2006 The Observer
The American secret service was bugging Princess Diana's telephone conversations without the approval of the British security services on the night she died, according to the most comprehensive report on her death, to be published this week.
Among extraordinary details due to emerge in the report by former Metropolitan police commissioner Lord Stevens is the revelation that the US security service was bugging her calls in the hours before she was killed in a car crash in Paris.
In a move that raises fresh questions over transatlantic agreements on intelligence-sharing, the surveillance arm of the US has admitted listening to her conversations as she stayed at the Ritz hotel, but failed to notify MI6. Stevens is understood to have been assured that the 39 classified documents detailing Diana's final conversations did not reveal anything sinister or contain material that might help explain her death.............

Tech Tags: princess+diana scotland+yard cia dod+fayed american+intelligence

the word of the year

and it's a DAMN GOOD WORD too

`Truthiness' Is Named Word of the Year

- By ADAM GORLICK, Associated Press Writer Friday, December 8, 2006
(12-08) 14:04 PST Springfield, Mass. (AP) --
After 12 months of naked partisanship on Capitol Hill, on cable TV and in the blogosphere, the word of the year for 2006 is ... "truthiness."
The word — if one can call it that — best summed up 2006, according to an online survey by dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster.
"Truthiness" was credited to Comedy Central satirist Stephen Colbert, who defined it as "truth that comes from the gut, not books."
"We're at a point where what constitutes truth is a question on a lot of people's minds, and truth has become up for grabs," said Merriam-Webster president John Morse. "`Truthiness' is a playful way for us to think about a very important issue."
Other Top 10 finishers included "war,""insurgent,""sectarian" and "corruption." But "truthiness" won 5-to-1, Morse said..............

Tech Tags: truthiness stephen+colbert merriam+webster

it's that time of the year again

WINTER SOLSTICE


how cool would it be to spend it in newgrange? wicked cool, that's how cool











Ancient Irish Tomb Big Draw at Winter Solstice

John Roachfor National Geographic News
December 7, 2006
From December 19 to 23—if the weather cooperates—20 lucky people a day will crowd into an ancient Irish monument's main chamber. There, they'll bathe in 17 minutes of light put off by the rising sun on the shortest days of the year.
This year about 28,000 people applied to take part in the ritual at the Newgrange monument, located in the Irish countryside in County Meath, reports the Brú na Bóinne Visitor Center (Ireland map).
The Stone Age monument dates to around 3200 B.C., making it 500 years older than the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt and a thousand years older than England's Stonehenge.
Archaeologists believe the grass-covered mound in Ireland is a "passage tomb." A tunnel runs to a cavelike chamber, where the remains of the dead were placed. (Related video: "Ireland's Mysterious Newgrange Tomb".) ...................


The mysterious Newgrange passage mound—part tomb and part sun temple—is Ireland's biggest archaeological attraction. Every year thousands enter a lottery for a chance to bathe in winter solstice sunlight in the prehistoric monument's main chamber.Photograph by Martin Gray/NGS

Tech Tags: winter+solstice newgrange+monument ireland

the nutmeg grater: going back#links

the nutmeg grater: going back#links

movie review

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