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Late Late Night or Early Morning Reads

Posted: December 27, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: American Gun Fetish, education, Environment, Foreign Affairs, Great Britain, nature, open thread, Political and Editorial Cartoons, science, SDB Evening News Reads, Second Amendment | Tags: , , , |13 Comments »

Click for more images.

Hello y’all…

I guess my self imposed break from writing the evening reads post is over…I’ve got a few links that I have saved over the last couple weeks, so away we go!

This photograph is of the Milky Way seemingly falling into a waterfall, from the Telegraph picture of the day gallery…click image to see more cool pictures.

In connection with our Milky Way, you may find this interesting…2013 should be the year of the Comet, or comets:  ‘Brighter than a full moon’: The biggest star of 2013… could be Ison – the comet of the century

At the moment it is a faint object, visible only in sophisticated telescopes as a point of light moving slowly against the background stars. It doesn’t seem much – a frozen chunk of rock and ice – one of many moving in the depths of space. But this one is being tracked with eager anticipation by astronomers from around the world, and in a year everyone could know its name.

Comet Ison could draw millions out into the dark to witness what could be the brightest comet seen in many generations – brighter even than the full Moon.

The Comet Ison will show it’s brilliance in November of 2013. But…there is another comet making an appearance earlier in the year.

Another comet, called 2014 L4 (PanSTARRS), was discovered last year and in March and April it could also be a magnificent object in the evening sky. 2013 could be the year of the great comets.

Now some cartoons, this are focused around the gun-control debate.

Cagle Post – Political Cartoons & Commentary – » Cold Dead Hands

Cold Dead Hands © Mike Luckovich,The Atlanta Journal Constitution,politicians,guns,weapons,rights,freedom,violence,gun debate 2012, nra

Wayne LaPierre – Truthdig

Dedicated Public Servant – Truthdig

http://www.truthdig.com/images/cartoonuploads/dedicatedpublic_500.jpg

Okay, moving on…to a few links that have absolutely nothing to do with “politics.”

One about a new Tower of London Raven, named Jubilee:   Tower of London’s Jubilee raven released

Chris Skaife, the tower's raven master
Seven of the tower’s eight ravens were supplied by the Somerset breeder

A raven given to the Queen to mark the Diamond Jubilee has been released at the Tower of London.

[...]

“Raven Jubilee is doing very well and has now been trained to come out of his cage and meet all the visitors,” Chris Skaife, the tower’s raven master, said.

“But it takes years for the birds to really get to know members of the raven team and for us to get to know them and their idiosyncratic ways.”

He added: “They are the most pampered birds in the country – and one of the most intelligent.

“They gang up on small children with crisps at the tower – but they don’t like cheese and onion – so they’ll open the packet and dip the crisps in water to get rid of the taste.”

One about study habits in relation to success in mathmatics: Motivation, study habits—not IQ—determine growth in math achievement

It’s not how smart students are but how motivated they are and how they study that determines their growth in math achievement. That’s the main finding of a new study that appears in the journal Child Development.
[...]
“While intelligence as assessed by IQ tests is important in the early stages of developing mathematical competence, motivation and study skills play a more important role in students’ subsequent growth,” according to Kou Murayama, postdoctoral researcher of psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles (who was at the University of Munich when he led the study).
And one about a stinky-ass flower:  World’s smelliest and largest flower blooms in Brazil
A titan arum is displayed at the Inhotim Art Institute and Botanical Garden in Belo Horizonte on December 26, 2012 Enlarge A titan arum (Amorphophallus titanum), also known as “corpse flower” or “corpse plant” due to its odor, is displayed at the Inhotim Art Institute and Botanical Garden in Belo Horizonte, in the Brazilian southern state of Minas Gerais, on December 26, 2012. Hundreds of visitors are flocking daily to the garden to watch the rare blooming of the world’s smelliest and largest tropical flower. Hundreds of visitors are flocking daily to a botanical garden in southeastern Brazil to watch the rare blooming of the Titan arum, the world’s smelliest and largest tropical flower. Also known as the “corpse flower” because of a smell likened to rotting flesh, it began blooming on Christmas Day and is already beginning to close, botanist Patricia Oliveira told AFP.
There is something primeval about that flower…makes me think of dinosaurs, not the real imagery of those large creatures, not the fossil remains…but the cartoon version of dinosaurs from the first Fantasia.
Enjoy….and think of this as an open thread.
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13 Comments on “Late Late Night or Early Morning Reads”

  1. JJ Lopez Minkoff says:
    December 27, 2012 at 10:01 pm

    Have a great evening, btw, did you see that Stormin’ Norman has passed away?

    • JJ Lopez Minkoff says:
      December 27, 2012 at 10:16 pm

      And then there is this news: Newtown shooter Adam Lanza was not wearing body armor during massacre- The New Haven Register – Serving New Haven, Connecticut I still think something is very strange about the lack of information coming out…something stinks…like the flower blooming in Brazil.

      • JJ Lopez Minkoff says:
        December 28, 2012 at 1:45 am

        Sandy Hook affidavits remain sealed – Connecticut Post

        Had the extensions not been granted, three of the affidavits, along with an inventory of any potential evidence seized, would have been available for public inspection on Friday.

        The initial 14-day sealing period for the remaining two would have expired Monday and Tuesday.

        Sedensky said in his applications that the affidavits contained information “not known to the general public” and that premature disclosure would “seriously jeopardize the outcome and success of the investigation” by “divulging sensitive and confidential information” known only to investigators.

        Although no arrests have been made and “none are contemplated,” Sedensky also said the possibility has not been ruled out, and that releasing the information would make it difficult to solve crimes that others might have committed.

        Read more: http://www.ctpost.com/policereports/article/Sandy-Hook-affidavits-remain-sealed-4150259.php#ixzz2GKYFBuUi

        • JJ Lopez Minkoff says:
          December 28, 2012 at 1:48 am

          Fuckwad: The Sandy Hook Horror Begs Us To Have The Courage To Do Nothing – Forbes

          Here is what America must have the wisdom and courage to do about the Sandy Hook incident: nothing—nothing at all.
          It is a progressive fantasy that the world can be made perfect if only we pass enough laws and hire enough bureaucrats. It can’t be. Laws can only impact the conduct of the law-abiding. And, sane, law-abiding citizens don’t commit mass murder.

          [...]

          But wait a minute! The idea of a suicidal madman walking into a school and shooting little children dead is absolutely terrifying.

          Yes, exactly.

          Although Adam Lanza did not yell “Allah Akbar!” as he pulled the trigger, he might as well have. His act was a terrorist attack. What he did was no different than hijacking an airliner and flying it into a building filled with innocent people. His intended victims died, he died, and his act attracted a lot of media attention.

        • JJ Lopez Minkoff says:
          December 28, 2012 at 1:50 am

          Is assigning armed guards to defend every school in the country (as suggested by the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre) a logical response to the Sandy Hook incident? No. All it would do would be to make Adam Lanza’s form of terrorism work. Posting guards would be hugely expensive, and it would merely make a guard the first target for the next Adam Lanza.

          Despite his nutty recommendation, Wayne LaPierre is not the problem. The NRA is not the problem. The threat to American society regarding Sandy Hook comes not from the political right, but from the political left.

          Progressives are now seeking to exploit the Sandy Hook tragedy to further their long-standing agenda of disarming the American people. Their first target will be high capacity magazines (e.g., clips that hold 25 rounds of ammunition), but their ultimate goal is to ban and confiscate all privately owned guns.

  2. bostonboomer says:
    December 27, 2012 at 10:17 pm

    Thanks so much for the cartoons! I really needed a laugh. Going to read now…

  3. bostonboomer says:
    December 27, 2012 at 10:21 pm

    Wow, that’s a strange plant. And those NRA cartoons are hilarious, especially the first one.

  4. ecocatwoman says:
    December 28, 2012 at 4:51 am

    Woodhill certainly has his finger on the pulse of progressives – NOT! Apparently he views progressives as delusional, naive & mean mommies who tell little boys to wash behind their ears & that they can’t have M&Ms for breakfast. Take away all guns, legislate behavior because a law stops lawbreakers? Who is delusional in this equation? Sounds like Woodhill to me. I’d recommend he see a therapist about his paranoia complex. Not only is that column the most ridiculous piece of crap I’ve ever read, but the fact that Forbes would publish it is beyond believable.

    Thanks for the explanation about the first photo. I couldn’t figure out what the heck it was when it was first posted here. The night skies still fill many of us with wonder, much like our early ancestors. It’s such a shame that such a large percentage of us live in cities where manmade lights dim the wondrous lights in the sky. Makes me wish there was a desert nearby where I could view the sky unfiltered & laid bare. I must admit that full moons truly delight me, werewolves or not!

    As a crime show junky (Castle & NCIS in particular) the Newtown story sounds as if the investigators are trying to build a case on someone else that will lead to a prosecution. Of course, that makes no sense based upon what the world has been told. The shooter is dead. Adam seems to have had no friends as an adult so it seems unlikely there was a co-conspirator. Your gut feeling, jj, is starting to spread to me that something is fishy. This just isn’t being handled like a normal mass shooting. Forgive me for using “normal” – no offense meant. Each incident is horrible in its own way, this one worse because of the victims, little children were killed. There have been so many of these monstrous actions that my fear is that Americans will soon become numb to them all. At least, apparently, those on the right certainly have since gun ownership trumps people’s lives, hopes, dreams. They can’t seem to understand that amassing a personal arsenal of bigger & bigger guns to “protect” oneself is, in itself, a sign of mental illness. Certainly not the same as a rock or butterfly collection.

    • NW Luna says:
      December 28, 2012 at 3:38 pm

      Love the photo too. It’s a time-lapse exposure, so you get enough light to see the surroundings, and the night sky is light up more intensely also. Magical.

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