yum - oh my goddess

dang, i'm not really a chocoholic, i'm more a grease and salt type (chips chips and more chips) but these do look awfully GOOD

Chocolates That Sate Both Eye And Mouth


By Nancy Lewis Thursday, November 23, 2006; Page VA05
Jason Andelman was the pastry chef at Washington's TenPenh Restaurant for five years, but all that time he had a secret passion: chocolate making. While he turned out exquisite desserts like a dark chocolate tart with salty caramel sauce at his full-time job, he made chocolates on the side.
He left the restaurant in August 2005 to pursue his passion, and since June he has been selling his Artisan Confections from a storefront on Lee Highway in Arlington. There is a small retail counter with an open view into the kitchen......... Not only are these confections gorgeous, they are delicious.
Half of his dozen assorted flavors (including lemon hazelnut and Tahitian vanilla bean) feature artworks by Arlington artists -- they are silk-screened in cocoa butter on acetate and then transferred to the tiny squares of chocolate. The other selections are in dreamy translucent colors. My favorite, and among the most popular, is the salted butter caramel -- it's almost a distillation of that TenPenh dessert..........
and mr andelman's sight: artisan confections

Halloween candies that Andelman made for trick-or-treaters. (James M. Thresher - Twp)

Tech Tags: jason+andelman chocolate artisan+confections

those wild and wacky greeks

this is a rather cool and amazing story

Ancient Greek Computer's Inner Workings Deciphered

Kate Ravilious for National Geographic News
November 29, 2006
When it came to making cogs and gears, the ancient Greeks got there more than a millennium before anyone else, scientists say.
Using advanced new imaging techniques, scientists have reconstructed the gear structure of the mysterious Antikythera mechanism—one of the world's oldest computers.
The researchers also deciphered previously hidden text from the astronomical calculator, which dates back to around 100 B.C.
The new research, which appears in tomorrow's issue of the journal Nature, confirms that the ancient Greeks had developed extremely sophisticated levels of craftsmanship and scientific knowledge.
Under the Sea
The intricate bronze instrument has puzzled scientists ever since it was recovered in A.D. 1901. The device was one of many treasures found in a Roman shipwreck discovered by a sponge diver just off Antikythera island, off the southern coast of Greece (map of Greece). ..........


(and a shout out to "s" the wackiest greek i personally know)

New imaging techniques have helped scientists reconstruct the inner workings of the mysterious Antikythera mechanism—one of the world's oldest computers. A diagram of the ancient Greek astronomical calculator's front gears, for example, is seen here.

The new research confirms the level of sophistication of the breadbox-size device's cogs and gears (one of which is seen inset), which resemble parts used more than a thousand years later.

Images copyright of the Antikythera Mechanism Research Project

Tech Tags: ancient+greece computers national+geographic

update

on this SIGN OF SATAN STORY

thanks to rsm for forwarding to me (i would have posted it sooner, but i was out of commission for a bit. not feeling well.)

i'm glad there was outrage over this. it's a damn PEACE SIGN. who the hell is against PEACE?
Pro-Peace Symbol Forces Win Battle in Colorado Town

By KIRK JOHNSON
DENVER, Nov. 28 — Peace is fighting back in Pagosa Springs.
Last week, a couple were threatened with fines of $25 a day by their homeowners’ association unless they removed a four-foot wreath shaped like a peace symbol from the front of their house.
The fines have been dropped, and the three-member board of the association has resigned, according to an e-mail message sent to residents on Monday.
Two board members have disconnected their telephones, apparently to escape the waves of callers asking what the board could have been thinking, residents said. The third board member, with a working phone, did not return a call for comment.
In its original letter to the couple, Lisa Jensen and Bill Trimarco, the association said some neighbors had found the peace symbol politically “divisive.”
A board member later told a newspaper that he thought the familiar circle with angled lines was also, perhaps, a sign of the devil.
The peace symbol came to prominence in the late 1950s as the logo for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, a British antiwar group, according to the group’s Web site. It incorporates the semaphore flag images for the letters in the group’s name, a “D” atop an “N.”
Other people have said the upright line with arms angled down, commonplace in the United States in the Vietnam War, especially, has roots in the early Christian era, representing a twisted or broken cross.......

picture: Randi Pierce/Durango Herald, via Associated Press Bill Trimarco and Lisa Jensen with their symbolic wreath.

Tech Tags: peace+sign colorado lisa+jensen bill+trimarco

watch

this video

Baginski - Fallen Art

interview with tomek baginski

ass

giant ass. this dude is one hell of a GIANT ass

everything i have ever read about him makes my skin crawl. every new thing i read about him is worse than the LAST thing i read about him.

Sen. Brownback (R-KS) Blocks Judicial Nominee just because She Attended a Lesbian "Commitment Ceremony" in 2002 for a Friend

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT
Four years ago, Janet Neff went to a lesbian "commitment ceremony" for her friend and next-door neighbor of more than two decades. Now, her nomination for a federal judgeship in Michigan is being blocked by religious zealot and right-winger Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) for no other reason than his homophobia
Janet Neff explained in October that the commitment ceremony did not purport to be a marriage, had no legal effect whatsoever, and that she did not preside or act in any official capacity. But that doesn't seem to be enough for Brownback, who is using Senate procedure to place a "hold" on her nomination. "What I want to know is what does it do to her look at the law?" he said yesterday.Maybe Brownback did not get the memo that his conservative ideology received a resounding kick to the groin a few weeks ago in the elections. Brownback is on the verge of announcing his candidacy for the White House and is apparently trying his hardest to replace Rick Santorum as the Senate's biggest wacko................

Tech Tags: sam+brownback janet+neff michigan federal+judgeship

why do our troops have to be put in a position like this?

a position where, (if their story is correct and i have no reason to doubt it), when they returned fire at some snipers they ended up killing five girls aged 6 months to 10 years. there is NO reason for us to be in iraq. NONE. how many times do i have to say, the iraqis did NOT fly planes into the world trade center, the pentagon and a field in pa. the iraqis had NO beefs with the united states UNTIL we invaded THEIR country.

i am sorry for those five little girls and the soldiers who had to defend themselves

Five girls killed in Iraqi clash

Five young girls have been killed in Iraq during a clash between US marines and insurgents in the western city of Ramadi, the US has said.
A US military statement said militants on the roof of a house had fired on its forces, who responded with tank fire.
It said soldiers searching the building found the bodies of one man and the five girls, one of whom was an infant.
Ramadi, 115km (70 miles) west of Baghdad, is located in Anbar province, a stronghold for Sunni Arab militants.
The youngest female casualty was six-months-old and the eldest was aged 10. Another female at the scene was injured but refused treatment, the statement said.
Fierce fighting
The fighting began after troops discovered an improvised explosive device on the roadside in north-east Ramadi.
The US soldiers say as the bomb was being defused, two Iraqi men took up positions on the roof of a nearby house and began firing at them.
The patrol first identified the men and then returned fire with tank rounds, the statement said.
One of the Iraqi gunmen may have been wounded and removed from the scene by other militants. It said the battle resulted in no coalition casualties.
Lieutenant Colonel Bryan Salas said that the insurgents' actions are felt by all and that efforts are under way to offer available assistance to surviving family members.
The BBC's Andy Gallacher in Baghdad says Ramadi has been the scene of some of the fiercest fighting between marines and insurgents. ..

Tech Tags: iraq marines ramadi

jim webb, my hero!

i am SO happy webb won in virginia. he has ALREADY made me proud and i'm a yankee several states north of him. how wonderful to be able to tell king george he's full of shite (well, in a way that's what he was told).

king george bring webb's son home NOW and bring everyone else's SONS AND DAUGHTERS HOME NOW AS WELL

Son also rises in testy Webb-Bush exchange


By Emily Heil
President Bush has pledged to work with the new Democratic majorities in Congress, but he has already gotten off on the wrong foot with Jim Webb, whose surprise victory over Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) tipped the Senate to the Democrats.
Webb, a decorated former Marine officer, hammered Allen and Bush over the unpopular war in Iraq while wearing his son’s old combat boots on the campaign trail. It seems the president may have some lingering resentment.
At a private reception held at the White House with newly elected lawmakers shortly after the election, Bush asked Webb how his son, a Marine lance corporal serving in Iraq, was doing.
Webb responded that he really wanted to see his son brought back home, said a person who heard about the exchange from Webb.
“I didn’t ask you that, I asked how he’s doing,” Bush retorted, according to the source.
Webb confessed that he was so angered by this that he was tempted to slug the commander-in-chief, reported the source, but of course didn’t..............................

and a bit more from wapo. actually the washington post article has mr webb's quote a bit different. i'm guessing this is the more accurate one.

once again, mr webb you gots you some STONES (and i LIKE that)

Tech Tags: jim+webb iraq+war george+bush

talk about killer bees

this is funny in a way. it's not funny in other ways. i guess it's a good thing.

New homeland security buzz: Bomb-sniffing bees

PHOENIX, Arizona (Reuters) -- Scientists at a U.S. weapons laboratory say they have trained bees to sniff out explosives in a project they say could have far-reaching applications for U.S. homeland security and the Iraq war.
Researchers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico said they trained honeybees to stick out their proboscis -- the tube they use to feed on nectar -- when they smell explosives in anything from cars and roadside bombs to belts similar to those used by suicide bombers.
Researchers in the program, dubbed the Stealthy Insect Sensor Project, published their findings Monday.
By exposing the insects to the odor of explosives followed by a sugar water reward, researchers said they trained bees to recognize substances ranging from dynamite and C-4 plastic explosives to the Howitzer propellant grains used in improvised explosive devices in Iraq.
"When bees detect the presence of explosives, they simply stick their proboscis out," research scientist Tim Haarmann told Reuters in a telephone interview. "You don't have to be an expert in animal behavior to understand it as there is no ambiguity.".........

Tech Tags: honeybees homeland+security iraq explosives

a shout out to my local newspaper

the hartford courant

a series of articles they published (i believe it was a few months back) led to changes in the military. a step in the RIGHT direction i must say.

Mentally Unfit, Forced To Fight
Military Revamps Policy

By LISA CHEDEKEL And MATTHEW KAUFFMAN Courant Staff Writers November 28 2006
The U.S. military has issued sweeping new mental-health guidelines that expand screening for troops being sent to war and set limits on when service members with psychiatric problems can be kept in combat.The changes include a directive that troops who develop mental health problems during deployments should be sent home if their conditions do not improve significantly within two weeks of treatment.Also, service members who are prescribed psychiatric medications less than three months before deploying will be disqualified from being sent to war unless there is evidence the drugs are working and have no significant side effects.The changes - issued by Dr. William Winkenwerder Jr., the assistant secretary of defense for health affairs - are aimed at meeting a congressional mandate prompted by a May series in The Courant that exposed gaps in the military's mental health care system. The series reported that mentally troubled troops were being sent to Iraq and kept there, in some cases with fatal consequences.Winkenwerder had told The Courant last spring that he believed existing mental-health practices were adequate to meet the needs of deploying troops. But in an interview Monday, he said the new policy was an important improvement."The intent is to provide improved and more precise guidance to our clinicians, so that they can make the best possible medical decisions with respect to individuals who might have deployment-limiting psychiatric conditions," Winkenwerder said.............

............The Courant had obtained Defense Department records indicating that service members' mental illnesses were being missed or ignored during pre-deployment screenings. Some of the troops who were deployed with psychological problems later committed suicide in Iraq.The Courant also had reported that some deployed troops were being prescribed potent antidepressants without close monitoring or counseling, and that others who had exhibited clear signs of mental illness were retained in combat.Some family members of soldiers who had psychiatric problems before or during tours in Iraq said they were pleased that the military was changing the way it deals with mental illness...................

Tech Tags: military mental+illness hartford+courant

it IS a civil war and we ARE NOT winning

does not calling it a civil war make the dead come back to life? not only OUR dead, but THEIR TENS OF THOUSANDS OF DEAD?

no it doesn't

and YES it IS a civil war

Dana Priest on Why 'Wash Post' Won't Call Iraq Conflict a 'Civil War'

By E&P Staff Published: November 27, 2006 12:05 AM ET
NEW YORK The Los Angeles Times and, starting Monday, NBC and MSNBC, have adopted the phrase "civil war" to describe the conflict in Iraq. Most other media outlets, including The Washington Post, still prefer phrases such as "sectarian violence." Appearing on MSNBC's "Hardball" with Chris Matthews Monday night, Dana Priest, the Pulitzer Prize winning reporter for the Post, said that it sure looks like a civil war to her. Earlier Monday, E&P's Joe Strupp had asked Leonard Downie, Jr., the Post's executive editor, about that. Downie said, "We just describe what goes on everyday. We don't have a policy about it. We are not making judgments one way or another. The language in the stories is very precise when dealing with it. At various times people say it is 'close to a civil war,' but we don't have a policy about it." Matthews asked Priest about this issue on Hardball. "It seems to me," he said, "the President’s afraid that people will begin to think it is a civil war and not the way he wants to define it, which is we gotta fight them there before they fight us here."............

Tech Tags: civil+war iraq washington+post

a sign of satan???

someone better put down the crack pipe.

how insane is this - not being allowed to keep a wreath in the shape of a peace sign up? i'll tell you. PLENTY insane

i guess we now know who the REAL grinch (unchanged as of yet. his heart is still two sizes too small), bob kearns

ms jensen, don't back down. they are being absolutely RIDICULOUS

Subdivision bans peace sign Christmas wreath
Homeowners association threatens to impose $25-a-day fine

DENVER - A homeowners association in southwestern Colorado has threatened to fine a resident $25 a day until she removes a Christmas wreath with a peace sign that some say is an anti-Iraq war protest or a symbol of Satan.
Some residents who have complained have children serving in Iraq, said Bob Kearns, president of the Loma Linda Homeowners Association in Pagosa Springs. He said some residents have also believed it was a symbol of Satan. Three or four residents complained, he said.
“Somebody could put up signs that say drop bombs on Iraq. If you let one go up you have to let them all go up,” he said in a telephone interview Sunday..............

........Lisa Jensen said she wasn’t thinking of the war when she hung the wreath. She said, “Peace is way bigger than not being at war. This is a spiritual thing.”

oh DO stop by the smirking chimp for another take on this. they have some GREAT photos as well

(lyrics by dr seuss)
You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch. You really are a heel. You're as cuddly as a cactus, You're as charming as an eel. Mr. Grinch. You're a bad banana With a greasy black peel. You're a monster, Mr. Grinch. Your heart's an empty hole .Your brain is full of spiders, You've got garlic in your soul. Mr. Grinch. I wouldn't touch you, with a thirty-nine-and-a-half foot pole. You're a vile one, Mr. Grinch. You have termites in your smile .You have all the tender sweetness Of a seasick crocodile. Mr. Grinch. Given the choice between the two of you I'd take the seasick crockodile.You're a foul one, Mr. Grinch. You're a nasty, wasty skunk. Your heart is full of unwashed socks Your soul is full of gunk. Mr. Grinch. The three words that best describe you, are, and I quote: "Stink. Stank. Stunk." You're a rotter, Mr. Grinch. You're Your soul is an apalling dump heap overflowing with the most disgraceful assortment of deplorable rubbish imaginable, Mangled up in tangled up knots You nauseate me, Mr. Grinch. With a nauseaus super-naus. You're a crooked jerky jockey And you drive a crooked horse. Mr. Grinch. You're a three decker saurkraut and toadstool sandwich With arsenic sauce.

Tech Tags: grinch peace+sign wreath colorado

Malachi Ritscher

is dead. he died a death i don't wish on ANYONE. he CHOSE how he died. he CHOSE a reason for his death. i am so very sorry he decided he had to die to make a point.

War Protestor's Public Suicide in Chicago Went Unnoticed by Media

CHICAGO Malachi Ritscher envisioned his death as one full of purpose. He carefully planned the details, mailed a copy of his apartment key to a friend, created to-do lists for his family. On his Web site, the 52-year-old experimental musician who'd fought with depression even penned his obituary.At 6:30 a.m. on Nov. 3 -- four days before an election caused a seismic shift in Washington politics-- Ritscher, a frequent anti-war protester, stood by an off-ramp in downtown Chicago near a statue of a giant flame, set up a video camera, doused himself with gasoline and lit himself on fire.Aglow for the crush of morning commuters, his flaming body was supposed to be a call to the nation, a symbol of his rage and discontent with the U.S. war in Iraq."Here is the statement I want to make: if I am required to pay for your barbaric war, I choose not to live in your world. I refuse to finance the mass murder of innocent civilians, who did nothing to threaten our country," he wrote in his suicide note. "... If one death can atone for anything, in any small way, to say to the world: I apologize for what we have done to you, I am ashamed for the mayhem and turmoil caused by my country."There was only one problem: No one was listening.It took five days for the Cook County medical examiner to identify the charred-beyond-recognition corpse. Meanwhile, Ritscher's suicide went largely unnoticed. It wasn't until a reporter for an alternative weekly, the Chicago Reader, pieced the facts together that word began to spread.............

Tech Tags: malachi+ritscher war+protest chicago suicide immolation

i know we're not seeing the total truth

there is NO WAY we are ever going to be ALLOWED to view the TOTAL TRUTH in iraq. hell, we're not even allowed to see our men and women coming home in boxes.

John Roberts Tells Kurtz: Iraq Worse Than Media Shows


By E&P Staff Published: November 26, 2006 3:40 PM ET
NEW YORK CNN's John Roberts, recently returned from a month-long visit to Iraq, was interviewed by The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz for his CNN "Reliable Sources" program on Sunday. Much of the talk concerned media treatment of the war, starting with complaints by U.S. soldiers, and then the overall media coverage.Roberts revealed that despite some charges to the contrary, military personnel did not have a problem with the coverage and, in fact, the situation on the ground is an "absolute mess," worse than the media has shown. "The amount of death that's on the streets of Baghdad for U.S. forces and for the Iraqi people is at an astronomical level," he said. "So, to some degree, what we're seeing is sanitized."..........

Tech Tags: cnn john+roberts iraq war

sliding toward an abyss

NOT my words but the words of an iraqi woman

Calls for calm as crowd stones Iraq PM

By Mussab Al-Khairalla and Alastair Macdonald ReutersSunday, November 26, 2006; 12:30 PM
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The motorcade of Iraq's prime minister was pelted with stones on Sunday by fellow Shi'ites in a Baghdad slum when he paid respects to some of the 200 who died there last week in the deadliest attack since the U.S. invasion.
The anger in Sadr City, stronghold of the Medhi Army Shi'ite militia, boiled over on the third day of a curfew imposed on the capital by Nuri al-Maliki's U.S.-backed national unity coalition as it scrambled desperately to stop popular passions exploding into all-out civil war between Shi'ites and the Sunni minority.
"It's all your fault!" one man shouted as, in unprecedented scenes, a crowd began to surge around Maliki. Men and youths then jeered and jostled as his armored convoy edged through the throng away from a mourning ceremony for one of the 202 victims of Thursday's multiple car bomb attack in Sadr City.
Subsequent reprisals against Sunni mosques and homes and three days of sporadic mortar fire among Baghdad neighborhoods have kept the city's 7 million people locked down at home, fearful of what may come when the traffic ban ends on Monday.
"Every time there's a curfew I feel civil war will erupt very soon," said Baghdad housewife Um Hani after three days indoors. "I feel the situation is sliding toward an abyss.".............

Tech Tags: iraq civil+war al-maliki

stop by and say hello to

ministry of love.

the following is on their blog:
The goal of this blog is to collect 315 copies of Orwell’s 1984 and send them to every member of Congress who voted for the Military Commissions Act of 2006.We can be reached at unpersons@gmail.com Big Brother is watching you.

(and i think it's a kind of cool idea)

'that dude from spinal tap'

outsmarted our secretary of education

She lost to (in the words of outraged Wonkette emailers) either “David St. Hubbins of Spinal Tap” or “Lenny from Laverne and Shirley”

............Dear Editor,
Last night, I was shocked to discovery that US Secretary of Education, Margaret Spellings, is a moron. A right-wing zealot who rallies against gays for, well, being gay, and the state of Connecticut for failing to embrace No Child Left Behind (because we all know that when it comes to public education in this country Connecticut is where the problem lies), sure. But an incompetent tart incapable of working a signaling button, unable to divine from a fairly simple clue what is actually being asked, and failing to apply simple logic when wagering on a Daily Double? Again, I was shocked!....................

Tech Tags: jeopardy margaret+spellings michael+mckean

i really CAN see one side of this agrument

saying they cannot accept the dvds because OTHER special interest groups may then demand their points of view be distributed as well. THEN i got to the part where big oil companies already GOT to the national science teachers association. sounds like someone already has their agenda
absurd!!!

Science Teachers’ Organization Refuses To Accept Copies of Inconvenient Truth

In tomorrow’s Washington Post, global warming activist Laurie David writes about her effort to donate 50,000 free DVD copies of An Inconvenient Truth (which she co-produced) to the National Science Teachers Association. The Association refused to accept the DVDs:
In their e-mail rejection, they expressed concern that other “special interests” might ask to distribute materials, too; they said they didn’t want to offer “political” endorsement of the film; and they saw “little, if any, benefit to NSTA or its members” in accepting the free DVDs. …
[T]here was one more curious argument in the e-mail: Accepting the DVDs, they wrote, would place “unnecessary risk upon the [NSTA] capital campaign, especially certain targeted supporters.”
As it turns out, those supporters already include “special interests,” including Exxon-Mobil, Shell Oil, and the American Petroleum Institute, which have given millions in funding to the NSTA. And while the NSTA showed no interest in helping educators get copies of Al Gore’s movie (which scientists gave “five stars for accuracy“), it has distributed oil industry-funded “educational” content, like this video produced by the American Petroleum Institute:...............

Tech Tags: inconvenient+truth nsta oil+companies

i wonder how many of these parents

care what types of movies or television shows their kids watch. i wonder why these parents have an issue with teaching their kids how rape affects families. how evil and horrid it is.

yet parents usually don't give a flying yoo hoo about their kids watching movies with lots of violence (more times than not, against women) and drug use. give that kid a book and wow, parents get all righteous (about what i sure don't know)

ms angelou's book does in NO way glorify rape or the abuse of women. these are high school students and they are certainly old enough to be exposed to REAL LIFE

Fond du Lac Parents Want Angelou Book Banned From High School

About 80 Attended Meeting On Book
POSTED: 10:44 am CST November 25, 2006
UPDATED: 12:26 pm CST November 25, 2006
FOND DU LAC, Wis. -- Maya Angelou autobiography is causing concern at Fond du Lac High School, where some parents want the book banned.
Sophomores in advanced English classes read "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings." Some passages describe Angelou's rape and unwanted pregnancy.
School Superintendent Gregory Maass said one set of parents objected to the book, so the school assigned their student an alternative book.
Maass said they weren't satisfied and want the book removed from the curriculum entirely.
The school had a meeting this week about the issue. About 80 people attended -- including parents, teachers and principals -- but no decision was made...........

Tech Tags: maya+angelou high+school book+banning

a document signed in blood

your blood and my blood as well.

when someone is tortured chances are they will admit to just about anything you want them to, whether they did it or NOT.

let's look at it from another angle. how are the men and women who actually perform this torture going to fit back into society when they return home? think about that

Rumsfeld okayed abuses says former U.S. general

Reuters Saturday, November 25, 2006; 11:45 AM
MADRID (Reuters) - Outgoing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld authorized the mistreatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, the prison's former U.S. commander said in an interview on Saturday.
Former U.S. Army Brigadier General Janis Karpinski told Spain's El Pais newspaper she had seen a letter apparently signed by Rumsfeld which allowed civilian contractors to use techniques such as sleep deprivation during interrogation.
Karpinski, who ran the prison until early 2004, said she saw a memorandum signed by Rumsfeld detailing the use of harsh interrogation methods.
"The handwritten signature was above his printed name and in the same handwriting in the margin was written: "Make sure this is accomplished,"" she told Saturday's El Pais.
"The methods consisted of making prisoners stand for long periods, sleep deprivation ... playing music at full volume, having to sit in uncomfortably ... Rumsfeld authorized these specific techniques."
The Geneva Convention says prisoners of war should suffer "no physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion" to secure information.
"Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind," the document states.
A spokesman for the Pentagon declined to comment on Karpinski's accusations, while U.S. army in Iraq could not immediately be reached for comment.........

Tech Tags: rumsfeld torture abu+ghraib general+karpinski

cool website of the day

where the truth lies