Category Archives: Of Interest

Trump Golf Course Trumped by Wind Farm?

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Donald Trump Angry Over Offshore Wind Farms Near Scotland Golf Course

The Huffington Post   
First Posted: 8/12/11 10:32 AM ET Updated: 8/12/11 01:00 PM ET

When Donald Trump first dreamt about building his $1.6 billion golf complex off the beautiful coast of Scotland, offshore wind farms weren’t part of his plan.

But now it looks like that could be a reality after a $243 million joint venture was announced to construct the European Offshore Wind Deployment Center.

Trump issued a statement against the plans, saying he’d never have invested his own $60 million in the project had he known this would be the outcome,reports the Guardian.

According to Bloomberg, he also wrote in a recent email, “I am very disappointed that Scotland may allow the development of a wind power plant directly off Aberdeen’s beautiful coastline.”

Trump isn’t the first person upset over wind farms.Anti-wind power groups have argued that turbines may cause health problems, and Germany is looking into soundproofing underwater construction sites to protect whales from the noise.

David Rodger, spokesman for the Scotland wind farm project told the Guardian: “We have been in regular contact with the Trump organisation and acknowledge the concern raised.”

to read more, go to:   http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/12/donald-trump-golf-course_n_924756.html

Surveillance Cameras on San Francisco Buses?

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DHS Funds Real-time Spy Cams on SF Buses

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Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
August 9, 2011

The Department of Homeland Security will fund an effort by San Francisco to install real-time video cameras on 358 city buses, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. The existing system, installed a decade ago, stores footage on tape located on each vehicle.

photoDHS’s Imaging System for Immersive Surveillance introduced this year.

The new surveillance system will use a wireless network “that will enable SFMTA personnel to view, download and store the captured video images wirelessly and view them in real-time or through the Internet.”

According to city documents, “the new system will provide real-time viewing of images, inside and outside the bus, by law enforcement officers, emergency responders and other authorized personnel on a real-time basis from a distance of about 500 yards in case the bus is hijacked and used for terrorism activities.”

In March, it was reported the DHS planned to introduce new mobile surveillance technology at train stations, stadiums and streets.

The new technology allows the government to “track your eye movements, capture and record your facial dimensions for face-recognition processing, bathe you in X-rays to look under your clothes, and even image your naked body using whole-body infrared images that were banned from consumer video cameras because they allowed the camera owners to take ‘nude’ videos of people at the beach,” Mike Adams writes for Natural News.

Documents discussing the technology were obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

thttp://www.infowars.com/dhs-funds-real-time-spy-cams-on-sf-buses/o read more, go to:

Gold or Farms?

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Gold hits $1,800; but what about farmland?

August 10, 2011, 12:40 PM

Nothing can seem to get in front of this gold freight train. The December contract gc1u, the most active, just hit an intraday record of $1,801 an ounce and recently traded up $44.40, or 2.6%, to $1,787.60 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. But Jon Nadler, an often bearish gold analyst for Kitco Metals Inc. North America, points out in his morning commentary that some of the so-called “smart money” has moved out of gold.. and into farmland? Read Nadler’s past commentary.

“Amid the chaos and the noise, someone (George Soros) is quietly buying ‘stuff’ you can actually use and which has value way beyond currencies or metals; yep, farmland.” He points to a Bloomberg News story out Wednesday about  investors, including a former bond fund manager, jumping into farm ownership, where returns have averaged 16% annually from Jan. 2008. A fund operated by Soros, whose funds shed gold holdings earlier this year, has also gone into farms. Read more on Soros’s move out of gold.

to read more, go to:    http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell/2011/08/10/gold-hits-1800-but-what-about-farmland/

 

Perseid Meteor Shower Peaking

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fr/spaceweather.com

PERSEID METEOR SHOWER: Earth is entering a stream of debris from Comet Swift-Tuttle, source of the annual Perseid meteor shower. International observers are now reporting more than 20 Perseids per hour, a number that will increase as the shower reaches its peak on August 12-13.

“Last night I witnessed a large and colorful Perseid over my home in Silkeborg, Denmark,” reports photographer Jesper Grønne. A close-up of the meteor shows its vivid color.

John Chumack of Dayton, Ohio, adds this report: “Last night between 10 pm and 6 am I recorded more than 100 meteors using various sky cameras mounted on top of my home and backyard observatory. Moonlight is not preventing us from seeing the bright ones!” He compiled a timelapse slideshowof highlights. “Note how my dome rotates during the observing session,” he points out.

The best time to look is Saturday morning, Aug. 13, just before dawn when the Moon is low and meteor rates are peaking. Some observers will also see the International Space Station, which coincidentally flies over many US towns and cities during the shower’s peak: ISS tracker. Also, be sure to tune intoSpace Weather Radio to hear the ghostly pings of Perseids disintegrating over the US Air Force’s Space Surveillance Radar. It makes a great soundtrack for any meteor watch.

Illuminati Card Game

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Illuminati (game)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Illuminati (game)
Illuminati2.jpg
German Illuminati game components
Designer Steve Jackson
Publisher Steve Jackson Games
Players 2–8 (4–6 recommended)
Age range 8 +
Setup time 1–5 minutes
Playing time 1 to 6 hours
Random chance Medium
Skills required Strategic thought, Deal Making, Bluffing

Illuminati is a stand alone card game made by Steve Jackson Games (SJG), inspired by The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea. The game has ominous secret societies competing with each other to control the world through sinister means, including legal, illegal, and even mystical. It was designed as a “tongue-in-cheek rather than serious”[1] take onconspiracy theories. It contains groups named similarly to real world organizations, such as theSociety for Creative Anachronism.[2] It can be played by two to eight players. Depending on the number of players, a game can take between one and six hours.

to read more, go to:    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illuminati_%28game%29

Peruvian 13 Towers Sun Citadel

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The Thirteen Towers: Peruvian Citadel is Site of Earliest Ancient Solar Observatory in the Americas

Existence of sophisticated Sun cults uncovered by researchers from University of Leicester and Yale University

Article Image and Home Page Image: courtesy of Ivan Ghezzi

13 Towersimage fr/(SAN).

A 2,300 year old solar observatory in Peru has been identified by new research published today (March 1), in the journal Science, by archaeologists from the University of Leicester and Yale University.

The Thirteen Towers of Chankillo have been discovered to span, almost exactly, the annual rising and setting arcs of the sun when viewed from two specially constructed observation points.

The existence of this observatory predates the European conquests by 1,800 years and even precedes the monuments of similar purpose constructed by the Mayans in Central America.

Chankillo is a large ceremonial centre covering several square kilometers. It was better known in the past for a heavily fortified hilltop structure with massive walls, restricted gates, and parapets. But the purpose of a 300m-long line of Thirteen Towers lying along a small hill nearby had remained a mystery. New evidence now identifies it as a solar observatory.

And the researchers go further-pointing to evidence of an ancient Sun cult participating in public rituals and feasts directly linked to the observation and interpretation of the seasonal passage of the Sun.

to read more, go to:  http://www2.le.ac.uk/ebulletin/news/press-releases/2000-2009/2007/03/nparticle.2007-03-02.8855875843

Historic Contact: Celts & Pawnee Indians

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 This article is from:   http://onter.net/news.html

The Pawnee Americans is an obscure 1925 article recently brought to our attention by a reader. Author Mark E. Zimmerman cites archaeological finds along major riverways throughout mid-America as well as Native American ethnographies to theorize Celts, who came to America long before Columbus, had children with the ancestors of a Pawnee tribe, the same one mentioned by Von Del Chamberlain in his 1982 book When Stars Came Down to Earth: Cosmology of the Skidi Pawnee Indians of North America illustrated with a map of the Milky Way preserved on a tanned elk hide. (NY Times article on Adler Planetarium show “Spirits From the Sky” in late 2000). Although Zimmerman believes these “long heads” slowly migrated from the eastern seaboard, through the Ohio River valley to what is today southeastern Nebraska and northeastern Kansas, perhaps more conveniently, Celtic sailors well may have navigated the inland waterways to bring their Ogham and European archaeoastronomy to southeastern Colorado and the Oklahoma Panhandle. Zimmerman’s 13 page article, highlighted and including our map, below, has just been added to our online PDF bibliography. You may download the 1.2 MB article directly here. Alternatively, for an overview of this and more, watch Celts & Indians on our videos page.

Zimmerman refers to a tribal elder Lenni Lenape historian and the Walum Olum, tree bark pictographs to aid in recalling song verses. More about the largely ignored, Native American ethnographic record on this, can be found at Frozen Trail, a web site describing Norse travels across an ice bridge from Greenland to Labrador. At the bottom of this external web page are links for more about the controversy regarding this artifact, discredited and discarded by much of academia, still simmering in 2008.
satellite map showing selective mid-American riverways and locations

 

Facts About Meditation

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7 Fascinating Facts About Meditation

The Huffington Post      First Posted: 7/15/11 08:25 AM ET   Updated: 7/28/11 08:09 PM ET

Over the last decade, interest in the science of meditation has skyrocketed. We now know more than ever before about just how meditation affects our minds and bodies. Increased research has led to a plethora of fascinating discoveries: Take, for instance, the fact that meditation can prevent heart disease. Or that it reduces stress. Or that it can significantly lessen ADHD symptoms, and in many cases, beats medication.

Still, much is left to be discovered. We know more but we definitely don’t know everything. While we wait for science to catch up with ancient wisdom, check out this slideshow on the complex effects of the simple act of focused breathing.

 

It Makes Your Brain Plastic
1 of 8

Quite literally, sustained meditation leads to something called neuroplasticity, which is defined as the brain’s ability to change, structurally and functionally, on the basis of environmental input.

For much of the last century, scientists believed that the brain essentially stopped changing after adulthood.

But research by University of Wisconsin neuroscientist Richard Davidson has shown that experienced meditators exhibit high levels of gamma wave activityand display an ability — continuing after the meditation session has attended — to not get stuck on a particular stimulus. That is, they’re automatically able to control their thoughts and reactiveness

Standardized Tests Bad Indicator of Student Performance

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(Oh, and why is this a surprise?????)

Article:

Standardized Tests’ Measures Of Student Performance Vary Widely: Study

Proficiency Analysis

First Posted: 8/10/11 09:30 AM ET Updated: 8/10/11 10:06 AM ET

by Joy Resmovits

The United States has 50 distinct states, which means there are 50 distinct definitions of “proficient” on standardized tests for students.

For example, an Arkansas fourth-grader could be told he is proficient in reading based on his performance on a state exam. But if he moved across the border to Missouri, he might find that’s no longer true, according to a new report.

“This is a really fundamental, interesting question about accountability reform in education,” Jack Buckley, commissioner of the government organization that produced the report, told reporters on a Tuesday conference call.

The report, written by the Education Department’s National Center for Education Statistics, found that the definition of proficiency on standardized tests varies widely among states, making it difficult to assess and compare student performance. The report looked at states’ standards on exams and found that some states set much higher bars for students proficiency in particular subjects.

to read more, go to:   http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/10/standardized-tests-standards-vary-widely_n_922908.html

The term “proficiency” is key because the federal No Child Left Behind law mandates that 100 percent of students must be “proficient” under state standards by 2014 — a goal that has beenuniversally described as impossible to reach.