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BabeWatch: Dania Suarez

The Colombian "escort" behind the Secret Service Hookergate

For more pics from NYDailyNews.com:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/secret-service-colombian-hooker-scandal-escort-explosive-scandal-article-1.1064287

A Question of Human Rights

Keeping the F1 Racing Series Out of Bahrain

by Dave Zirin

Edge of Sports

http://bit.ly/IwCluV

On April 22nd, the royal family of Bahrain is determined to stage its annual Formula 1 Grand Prix race. This might not sound like scintillating news, but whether the event goes off as planned is a question with major ramifications for the royal Khalifa family, as well as for the democracy movement in the Gulf kingdom. It will be viewed closely by the US state department and human rights organizations across the globe. From a renowned prisoner on a two month hunger strike to a British billionaire fascist sympathizer, the sides have been sharply drawn.

For the Bahraini royals, staging the Formula 1 race is a chance to show the people that normalcy has returned following last year’s massive pro-democracy protests. In 2011, the race was cancelled to the rage of the royals. Now, the royal family is hoping that the 60 people slaughtered by Bahraini and Saudi forces, as well as the thousands arrested and tortured can be forgotten in the roar of the engines.

For those protesting in the name of expanded political and personal freedoms, the return of the F1 racing series as a slap in the face, given all they’ve suffered in the last year and continue to suffer today. Now the protest movement and human rights organizations are calling upon Bernie Ecclestone, the CEO of Formula 1 Grand Prix, to cancel the race.

Maryam al-Khawaja, head of the foreign relations office at the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, said:

“The government promised changes last year but no changes have taken place because there is no incentive to make them. And tortures are still taking place. The government want the message to go out that it is business as usual. But today armored vehicles went into residential areas for the first time since last year's martial law ended in June. I have heard reports of protesters being thrown from rooftops and others having legs broken. That it is why Formula One should make a stand and call this race off.”

At a mass anti-F1 rally, Ali Mohammed commented to the AP, “We don’t want Formula [1] in our country. They are killing us every day with tear gas. They have no respect for human rights or democracy. Why would we keep silent? No one will enjoy the F1 in Bahrain with cries for freedom from the inside and outside of the race.”

Then there is prominent activist, Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, who has been on hunger strike for more than 50 days. Calls for his immediate release have merged with calls for the F1 cancellation. Protesters are described as holding al-Khawaja’s picture in one hand, and a “no to F1” sign in the other.

1996 F1 champion Damon Hill, who is now a commentator for Rupert Murodch’s Sky News also expressed his concern, saying, "It would be a bad state of affairs, and bad for Formula One, to be seen to be enforcing martial law in order to hold the race. That is not what this sport should be about. Looking at it today you'd have to say that [the race] could be creating more problems than it's solving."

One might think that all of this would pose a moral and ethical quandary for 81-year old Formula 1 CEO Bernie Ecclestone. One would be wrong. The multi-billionaire Ecclestone, the 4th richest man in England, has done little more than roll his eyes. In February, when hundreds were arrested and tortured for protesting on the anniversary of the 2011 uprising, he was asked if the F1 race would be pulled,  He said, “I expected there was going to be a big uprising today, with the anniversary. But I think what happened, apparently, was that here were a lot of kids having a go at the police. I don't think it's anything serious at all.”

In March, Ecclestone said of the plans for Bahrain,  "It's business as usual. I don't think the people who are trying to demonstrate a little bit are going to use anything to do with F1. If they did they would be a little bit silly…The good thing about Bahrain is it seems more democratic there than most places. People are allowed to speak when they want, they can protest if they want to." There is no word as to what color the sky is in Ecclestone’s world or if at the conclusion of this interview, he released the hounds.

Not to shock anyone, but this 81 year old British billionaire has in the past expressed sympathy for Adolf Hitler, and by “past” I mean 2009. During an interview in July of that year, Ecclestone said, "Apart from the fact that Hitler got taken away and persuaded to do things that I have no idea whether he wanted to do or not, he was in the way that he could command a lot of people able to get things done…..If you have a look at a democracy it hasn’t done a lot of good for many countries — including this one.”

This is an ugly twisted old brute, but say this for him: at least he commented when asked about Bahrain. That’s far more that we can say for President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.  As Joshua Colangelo-Bryan, a consultant to Human Rights Watch, wrote, “President Obama... loses his voice when it comes to Bahrain.” This isn't just oversight or happenstance. Bahrain happily houses the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, and has pledged to do so for another 50 years. It appears that this favor has bought silence and that’s exactly why we need to be loud. The call has gone out form inside of Bahrain to call upon Formula 1 to cancel this race. We should do our part.

People can email business@formula1.com and tell them their feeling.  For more information on Bahrain, visit http://witnessbahrain.org.

Dave Zirin is the author of “The John Carlos Story” (Haymarket) and just made the new documentary “Not Just a Game.” Receive his column every week by emailing dave@edgeofsports.com. Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com.

Tommy Lee Speaks Up for Animal Adoption

'I would highly encourage people not to buy animals from a pet store'

Steve Baltin

April 9, 2012

Full Article:

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/tommy-lee-speaks-up-for-animal-adoption-20120409

Before heading out on the road for Mötley Crüe and Kiss' joint tour, Crüe drummer Tommy Lee is enjoying some quiet time at home with his new puppy, Bowie. "He’s got these crazy gray-green eyes. I love David Bowie and it was either Bowie or Bam," Lee tells Rolling Stone. "We ended up going with Bowie just 'cause of his eyes. He looks like Bowie, dude."

When Lee and his girlfriend Sofia decided the time was right to bring a four-legged friend into the household, they decided to adopt. "We went to a couple of different shelters and we ended up over at East Valley in Van Nuys and there he was, just sitting there with three other dogs. And we were like, 'Oh my God, we gotta get this guy a home. Who could abandon this fucking thing? This is the cutest thing on the planet. I want to kill whoever let him go,'" Lee says.

Anyone who's ever rescued a dog can empathize with Lee's anger, which is why the drummer is speaking out on behalf of adoption. "The [shelter] is scary. It is loaded with beautiful dogs and I would highly encourage people not to buy animals from a pet store," he explains. "They’re bred for all the wrong reasons, for mostly money and it’s just kind of a bad scene. We ended up going [to the shelter] and I’m so glad we did."

Near death, explained

New science is shedding light on what really happens during out-of-body experiences -- with shocking results.

MARIO BEAUREGARD

SATURDAY, APR 21, 2012

http://www.salon.com/2012/04/21/near_death_explained

This article was adapted from the new book "Brain Wars", from Harper One.

In 1991, Atlanta-based singer and songwriter Pam Reynolds felt extremely dizzy, lost her ability to speak, and had difficulty moving her body. A CAT scan showed that she had a giant artery aneurysm—a grossly swollen blood vessel in the wall of her basilar artery, close to the brain stem. If it burst, which could happen at any moment, it would kill her. But the standard surgery to drain and repair it might kill her too.

With no other options, Pam turned to a last, desperate measure offered by neurosurgeon Robert Spetzler at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Arizona. Dr. Spetzler was a specialist and pioneer in hypothermic cardiac arrest—a daring surgical procedure nicknamed “Operation Standstill.” Spetzler would bring Pam’s body down to a temperature so low that she was essentially dead. Her brain would not function, but it would be able to survive longer without oxygen at this temperature. The low temperature would also soften the swollen blood vessels, allowing them to be operated on with less risk of bursting. When the procedure was complete, the surgical team would bring her back to a normal temperature before irreversible damage set in.

Essentially, Pam agreed to die in order to save her life—and in the process had what is perhaps the most famous case of independent corroboration of out of body experience (OBE) perceptions on record. This case is especially important because cardiologist Michael Sabom was able to obtain verification from medical personnel regarding crucial details of the surgical intervention that Pam reported. Here’s what happened.

Pam was brought into the operating room at 7:15 a.m., she was given general anesthesia, and she quickly lost conscious awareness. At this point, Spetzler and his team of more than 20 physicians, nurses, and technicians went to work. They lubricated Pam’s eyes to prevent drying, and taped them shut. They attached EEG electrodes to monitor the electrical activity of her cerebral cortex. They inserted small, molded speakers into her ears and secured them with gauze and tape. The speakers would emit repeated 100-decibel clicks—approximately the noise produced by a speeding express train—eliminating outside sounds and measuring the activity of her brainstem.

At 8:40 a.m., the tray of surgical instruments was uncovered, and Robert Spetzler began cutting through Pam’s skull with a special surgical saw that produced a noise similar to a dental drill. At this moment, Pam later said, she felt herself “pop” out of her body and hover above it, watching as doctors worked on her body.

Although she no longer had use of her eyes and ears, she described her observations in terms of her senses and perceptions. “I thought the way they had my head shaved was very peculiar,” she said. “I expected them to take all of the hair, but they did not.” She also described the Midas Rex bone saw (“The saw thing that I hated the sound of looked like an electric toothbrush and it had a dent in it … ”) and the dental-drill sound it made with considerable accuracy.

Meanwhile, Spetzler was removing the outermost membrane of Pamela’s brain, cutting it open with scissors. At about the same time, a female cardiac surgeon was attempting to locate the femoral artery in Pam’s right groin. Remarkably, Pam later claimed to remember a female voice saying, “We have a problem. Her arteries are too small.” And then a male voice: “Try the other side.” Medical records confirm this conversation, yet Pam could not have heard them.

The cardiac surgeon was right—Pam’s blood vessels were indeed too small to accept the abundant blood flow requested by the cardiopulmonary bypass machine, so at 10:50 a.m., a tube was inserted into Pam’s left femoral artery and connected to the cardiopulmonary bypass machine. The warm blood circulated from the artery into the cylinders of the bypass machine, where it was cooled down before being returned to her body. Her body temperature began to fall, and at 11:05 a.m. Pam’s heart stopped. Her EEG brain waves flattened into total silence. A few minutes later, her brain stem became totally unresponsive, and her body temperature fell to a sepulchral 60 degrees Fahrenheit. At 11:25 a.m., the team tilted up the head of the operating table, turned off the bypass machine, and drained the blood from her body. Pamela Reynolds was clinically dead.

At this point, Pam’s out-of-body adventure transformed into a near-death experience (NDE): She recalls floating out of the operating room and traveling down a tunnel with a light. She saw deceased relatives and friends, including her long-dead grandmother, waiting at the end of this tunnel. She entered the presence of a brilliant, wonderfully warm and loving light, and sensed that her soul was part of God and that everything in existence was created from the light (the breathing of God). But this extraordinary experience ended abruptly, as Reynolds’s deceased uncle led her back to her body—a feeling she described as “plunging into a pool of ice.”

Meanwhile, in the operating room, the surgery had come to an end. When all the blood had drained from Pam’s brain, the aneurysm simply collapsed and Spetzler clipped it off. Soon, the bypass machine was turned on and warm blood was pumped back into her body. As her body temperature started to increase, her brainsteam began to respond to the clicking speakers in her ears and the EEG recorded electrical activity in the cortex. The bypass machine was turned off at 12:32 p.m. Pam’s life had been restored, and she was taken to the recovery room in stable condition at 2:10 p.m.

Tales of otherworldly experiences have been part of human cultures seemingly forever, but NDEs as such first came to broad public attention in 1975 by way of American psychiatrist and philosopher Raymond Moody’s popular book Life After Life. He presented more than 100 case studies of people who experienced vivid mental experiences close to death or during “clinical death” and were subsequently revived to tell the tale. Their experiences were remarkably similar, and Moody coined the term NDE to refer to this phenomenon. The book was popular and controversial, and scientific investigation of NDEs began soon after its publication with the founding, in 1978, of the International Association for Near Death Studies (IANDS)—the first organization in the world devoted to the scientific study of NDEs and their relationship to mind and consciousness.

NDEs are the vivid, realistic, and often deeply life-changing experiences of men, women, and children who have been physiologically or psychologically close to death. They can be evoked by cardiac arrest and coma caused by brain damage, intoxication, or asphyxia. They can also happen following such events as electrocution, complications from surgery, or severe blood loss during or after a delivery. They can even occur as the result of accidents or illnesses in which individuals genuinely fear they might die. Surveys conducted in the United States and Germany suggest that approximately 4.2 percent of the population has reported an NDE. It has also been estimated that more than 25 million individuals worldwide have had an NDE in the past 50 years.

People from all walks of life and belief systems have this experience. Studies indicate that the experience of an NDE is not influenced by gender, race, socioeconomic status, or level of education. Although NDEs are sometimes presented as religious experiences, this seems to be a matter of individual perception. Furthermore, researchers have found no relationship between religion and the experience of an NDE. That is, it did not matter whether the people recruited in those studies were Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, Buddhist, atheist, or agnostic.

Although the details differ, NDEs are characterized by a number of core features. Perhaps the most vivid is the OBE: the sense of having left one’s body and of watching events going on around one’s body or, occasionally, at some distant physical location. During OBEs, near-death experiencers (NDErs) are often astonished to discover that they have retained consciousness, perception, lucid thinking, memory, emotions, and their sense of personal identity. If anything, these processes are heightened: Thinking is vivid; hearing is sharp; and vision can extend to 360 degrees. NDErs claim that without physical bodies, they are able to penetrate through walls and doors and project themselves wherever they want. They frequently report the ability to read people’s thoughts.

The effects of NDEs on the experience are intense, overwhelming, and real. A number of studies conducted in United States, Western European countries, and Australia have shown that most NDErs are profoundly and positively transformed by the experience. One woman says, “I was completely altered after the accident. I was another person, according to those who lived near me. I was happy, laughing, appreciated little things, joked, smiled a lot, became friends with everyone … so completely different than I was before!”

However different their personalities before the NDE, experiencers tend to share a similar psychological profile after the NDE. Indeed, their beliefs, values, behaviors, and worldviews seem quite comparable afterward. Importantly, these psychological and behavioral changes are not the kind of changes one would expect if this experience were a hallucination. And, as noted NDE researcher Pim van Lommel and his colleagues have demonstrated, these changes become more apparent with the passage of time.

Some skeptics legitimately argue that the main problem with reports of OBE perceptions is that they often rest uniquely on the NDEr’s testimony—there is no independent corroboration. From a scientific perspective, such self-reports remain inconclusive. But during the last few decades, some self-reports of NDErs have been independently corroborated by witnesses, such as that of Pam Reynolds. One of the best known of these corroborated veridical NDE perceptions—perceptions that can be proven to coincide with reality—is the experience of a woman named Maria, whose case was first documented by her critical care social worker, Kimberly Clark.

Maria was a migrant worker who had a severe heart attack while visiting friends in Seattle. She was rushed to Harborview Hospital and placed in the coronary care unit. A few days later, she had a cardiac arrest but was rapidly resuscitated. The following day, Clark visited her. Maria told Clark that during her cardiac arrest she was able to look down from the ceiling and watch the medical team at work on her body. At one point in this experience, said Maria, she found herself outside the hospital and spotted a tennis shoe on the ledge of the north side of the third floor of the building. She was able to provide several details regarding its appearance, including the observations that one of its laces was stuck underneath the heel and that the little toe area was worn. Maria wanted to know for sure whether she had “really” seen that shoe, and she begged Clark to try to locate it.

Quite skeptical, Clark went to the location described by Maria—and found the tennis shoe. From the window of her hospital room, the details that Maria had recounted could not be discerned. But upon retrieval of the shoe, Clark confirmed Maria’s observations. “The only way she could have had such a perspective,” said Clark, “was if she had been floating right outside and at very close range to the tennis shoe. I retrieved the shoe and brought it back to Maria; it was very concrete evidence for me.”

This case is particularly impressive given that during cardiac arrest, the flow of blood to the brain is interrupted. When this happens, the brain’s electrical activity (as measured with EEG) disappears after 10 to 20 seconds. In this state, a patient is deeply comatose. Because the brain structures mediating higher mental functions are severely impaired, such patients are expected to have no clear and lucid mental experiences that will be remembered. Nonetheless, studies conducted in the Netherlands, United Kingdom, and United States have revealed that approximately 15 percent of cardiac arrest survivors do report some recollection from the time when they were clinically dead. These studies indicate that consciousness, perceptions, thoughts, and feelings can be experienced during a period when the brain shows no measurable activity.

NDEs experienced by people who do not have sight in everyday life are quite intriguing. In 1994, researchers Kenneth Ring and Sharon Cooper decided to undertake a search for cases of NDE-based perception in the blind. They reasoned that such cases would represent the ultimate demonstration of veridical perceptions during NDEs. If a blind person was able to report on verifiable events that took place when they were clinically dead, that would mean something real was occurring. They interviewed 31 individuals, of whom 14 were blind from birth. Twenty-one of the participants had had an NDE; the others had had OBEs only. Strikingly, the experiences they reported conform to the classic NDE pattern, whether they were born blind or had lost their sight in later life. The results of the study were published in 1997. Based on all the cases they investigated, Ring and Cooper concluded that what happens during an NDE affords another perspective to perceive reality that does not depend on the senses of the physical body. They proposed to call this other mode of perception mindsight.

Despite corroborated reports, many materialist scientists cling to the notion that OBEs and NDEs are located in the brain. In 2002, neurologist Olaf Blanke and colleagues at the University Hospitals of Geneva and Lausanne in Switzerland described in the prestigious scientific journal Nature the strange occurrence that happened to a 43-year-old female patient with epilepsy. Because her seizures could not be controlled by medication alone, neurosurgery was being considered as the next step. The researchers implanted electrodes in her right temporal lobe to provide information about the localization and extent of the epileptogenic zone—the area of the brain that was causing the seizures—which had to be surgically removed. Other electrodes were implanted to identify and localize, by means of electrical stimulation, the areas of the brain that—if removed—would result in loss of sensory capacities, linguistic ability, or even paralysis. Such a procedure is particularly critical to spare important brain areas that are adjacent to the epileptogenic zone.

When they stimulated the angular gyrus—a region of the brain in the parietal lobe that is thought to integrate sensory information related to vision, touch, and balance to give us a perception of our own bodies—the patient reported seeing herself “lying in bed, from above, but I only see my legs and lower trunk.” She described herself as “floating” near the ceiling. She also reported seeing her legs “becoming shorter.”

The article received global press coverage and created quite a commotion. The editors of Nature went so far as to declare triumphantly that as a result of this one study—which involved only one patient—the part of the brain that can induce OBEs had been located.

“It’s another blow against those who believe that the mind and spirit are somehow separate from the brain,” said psychologist Michael Shermer, director of the Skeptics Society, which seeks to debunk all kinds of paranormal claims. “In reality, all experience is derived from the brain.”

In another article published in 2004, Blanke and co-workers described six patients, of whom three had experienced an atypical and incomplete OBE. Four patients reported an autoscopy—that is, they saw their own double from the vantage point of their own body. In this paper, the researchers describe an OBE as a temporary dysfunction of the junction of the temporal and parietal cortex. But, as Pim van Lommel noted, the abnormal bodily experiences described by Blanke and colleagues entail a false sense of reality. Typical OBEs, in contrast, implicate a verifiable perception (from a position above or outside of the body) of events, such as their own resuscitation or a traffic accident, and the surroundings in which the events took place. Along the same lines, psychiatrist Bruce Greyson of the University of Virginia commented that “We cannot assume from the fact that electrical stimulation of the brain can induce OBE-like illusions that all OBEs are therefore illusions.”

Materialistic scientists have proposed a number of physiological explanations to account for the various features of NDEs. British psychologist Susan Blackmore has propounded the “dying brain” hypothesis: that a lack of oxygen (or anoxia) during the dying process might induce abnormal firing of neurons in brain areas responsible for vision, and that such an abnormal firing would lead to the illusion of seeing a bright light at the end of a dark tunnel.

Would it? Van Lommel and colleagues objected that if anoxia plays a central role in the production of NDEs, most cardiac arrest patients would report an NDE. Studies show that this is clearly not the case. Another problem with this view is that reports of a tunnel are absent from several accounts of NDErs. As pointed out by renowned NDE researcher Sam Parnia, some individuals have reported an NDE when they had not been terminally ill and so would have had normal levels of oxygen in their brains.

Parnia raises another problem: When oxygen levels decrease markedly, patients whose lungs or hearts do not work properly experience an “acute confusional state,” during which they are highly confused and agitated and have little or no memory recall. In stark contrast, during NDEs people experience lucid consciousness, well-structured thought processes, and clear reasoning. They also have an excellent memory of the NDE, which usually stays with them for several decades. In other respects, Parnia argues that if this hypothesis is correct, then the illusion of seeing a light and tunnel would progressively develop as the patient’s blood oxygen level drops. Medical observations, however, indicate that patients with low oxygen levels do not report seeing a light, a tunnel, or any of the common features of an NDE we discussed earlier.

During the 1990s, more research indicated that the anoxia theory of NDEs was on the wrong track. James Whinnery, a chemistry professor with West Texas A&M, was involved with studies simulating the extreme conditions that can occur during aerial combat maneuvers. In these studies, fighter pilots were subjected to extreme gravitational forces in a giant centrifuge. Such rapid acceleration decreases blood flow and, consequently, delivery of oxygen to the brain. In so doing, it induces brief periods of unconsciousness that Whinnery calls “dreamlets.” Whinnery hypothesized that although some of the core features of NDEs are found during dreamlets, the main characteristics of dreamlets are impaired memory for events just prior to the onset of unconsciousness, confusion, and disorientation upon awakening. These symptoms are not typically associated with NDEs. In addition, life transformations are never reported following dreamlets.

So, if the “dying brain” is not responsible for NDEs, could they simply be hallucinations? In my opinion, the answer is no. Let’s look at the example of hallucinations that can result from ingesting ketamine, a veterinary drug that is sometimes used recreationally, and often at great cost to the user.

At small doses, the anesthetic agent ketamine can induce hallucinations and feelings of being out of the body. Ketamine is thought to act primarily by inhibiting N-Methyl-D-aspartic acid (NMDA) receptors, which normally open in response to binding of glutamate, the most abundant excitatory chemical messenger in the human brain. Psychiatrist Karl Jensen has speculated that the blockade of NMDA receptors may induce an NDE. But ketamine experiences are often frightening, producing weird images; and most ketamine users realize that the experiences produced by this drug are illusory. In contrast, NDErs are strongly convinced of the reality of what they experienced. Furthermore, many of the central features of NDEs are not reported with ketamine. That being said, we cannot rule out that the blockade of NMDA receptors may be involved in some NDEs.

Neuroscientist Michael Persinger has claimed that he and his colleagues have produced all the major features of the NDE by using weak transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) of the temporal lobes. Persinger’s work is based on the premise that abnormal activity in the temporal lobe may trigger an NDE. A review of the literature on epilepsy, however, indicates that the classical features of NDEs are not associated with epileptic seizures located in the temporal lobes. Moreover, as Bruce Greyson and his collaborators have correctly emphasized, the experiences reported by participants in Persinger’s TMS studies bear little resemblance with the typical features of NDEs.

The scientific NDE studies performed over the past decades indicate that heightened mental functions can be experienced independently of the body at a time when brain activity is greatly impaired or seemingly absent (such as during cardiac arrest). Some of these studies demonstrate that blind people can have veridical perceptions during OBEs associated with an NDE. Other investigations show that NDEs often result in deep psychological and spiritual changes.

These findings strongly challenge the mainstream neuroscientific view that mind and consciousness result solely from brain activity. As we have seen, such a view fails to account for how NDErs can experience—while their hearts are stopped—vivid and complex thoughts and acquire veridical information about objects or events remote from their bodies.

NDE studies also suggest that after physical death, mind and consciousness may continue in a transcendent level of reality that normally is not accessible to our senses and awareness. Needless to say, this view is utterly incompatible with the belief of many materialists that the material world is the only reality.

Excerpted with permission from “The Brain Wars: The Scientific Battle Over the Existence of the Mind and the Proof That Will Change the Way We Live Our Lives.” Courtesy of HarperOne.

Mario Beauregard is associate research professor at the Departments of Psychology and Radiology and the Neuroscience Research Center at the University of Montreal. He is the coauthor of "The Spiritual Brain" and more than one hundred publications in neuroscience, psychology and psychiatry.

Significa 5-15-12

The Freemont Experience is a likable attraction for downtown Las Vegas, but a more ambitious plan was to put a full-sized Starship Enterprise from Star Trek there:

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Konformist Book Club: Urville

From Amazon:

Urville, the capital of a large island province, has a population of nearly 12 million, making it the one of the most significant cities in Europe. It is also entirely imaginary. Gilles Trehin, an autistic man with exceptional creative talents and an obsession with large cities, conceived and developed Urville over the course of 20 years. He shares his vision in this beautifully illustrated guide to the city, which he renders convincingly real in nearly 300 drawings of different districts of Urville. He describes, in remarkable detail, the architectural styles of its individual buildings and provides historical, geographical, economic and cultural information. This includes historical figures and cultural anecdotes grounded in historical reality - Trehin accounts for the effects of the Vichy regime, the Second World War and globalisation on his imagined city. This book offers fascinating evidence of and insight into the creative power of the autistic mind and will be of interest to people with autism and without.

To read more on Urville:

Steampunk began as a radical satirical form of fiction, but today it encompasses much more. What precisely is steampunk? As the editors of Steampunk Magazine explain, steampunk is “a vibrant culture of DIY crafters, writers, artists, and other creative types, each with their own slightly different answer to that question”. By its diverse nature, steampunk resists definition. Furthermore, in the ever evolving nature of steampunk, “as each new iteration of the idea be­comes more ambitious, the mutations are delightfully limitless and unpredictable”...

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FeedBack: Christ's disciples' remains 'discovered'

If you actually want to understand what these symbols mean, you first need to understand ancient symbology. No one involved in this project seems to have a clue and thereby all assertions about symbols and their interpretations are without any factual support.

I will demonstrate that this image purposely portrays the merger of both a fish and a vessel and it is Hebrew, not Christian. To fully understand what this image represents, it must be viewed correctly with the "ball" at the bottom, just as it was drawn. Changing its position breaks the meaning of the symbolic code. Consider that the ball is the sun rising above the horizon at the spring equinox. The fish/vessel is the constellation Pisces, and thereby this shows the spring equinox sun, rising into Pisces, which is how you determine the current age on the zodiac.

This image would then represent a zodiacal/astrological time stamp pointing to the second temple period, which was at the start of the age of Pisces. The fish thereby represents the constellation Pisces, and the vessel shape holds the "waters" of that age. Water symbolizes the flow of deeds through time, and a vessel holds a measured quantity of water (or other liquids like wine and oil). The measured period of time is the 2160 years of the age of Pisces, which ended in 2001. This image is a perfect symbolic code for the age of Pisces and the time and deeds (waters...) it represents.

The second temple period was the 11th 360-year cycle on the Hebrew calendar. That is why the Dead Sea Scrolls were buried in exactly 11 caves, during the 11th cycle, which is also symbolized by the 11 stars in Genesis. The 11th cycle was also the beginning of the age of Pisces, and it is well known that the zodiac was used by those who buried the Dead Sea Scrolls, as well as other groups throughout the region.

The symbology of that image is not Christian, but instead a symbolic time code pointing to the age of Pisces and related details. That is also the true source of the fish symbolism used by early Christians and later recast by Church leaders to hide the astrological source and associations with those most call the “Essenes.” Visit my website (SevenStarHand.org) and download a free copy of my ebook to learn the basic rules for this ancient symbology. They prove all previous interpretations are erroneous, though both a fish and a vessel were correct guesses.

You have discovered something that none of you understand and now I bring proof of the correct solution to this mystery. Sadly for religious leaders, it completely exposes pivotal ancient lies…

This image provides key proof that Christian assertions about the fish and related symbology have always been wrong. I’ll publish more details soon.

Here are more insights:

Dead Sea Scrolls' Burial Secret Completely Exposes Ancient Lies
http://www.i-newswire.com/dead-sea-scrolls-burial-secret/81149

Here is Wisdom...

Buddy Page
aka
Seven Star Hand

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Awesome Quotes: Watchmen

"I heard a joke once: Man goes to doctor. Says he's depressed. Says life is harsh and cruel. Says he feels all alone in a threatening world. Doctor says, 'Treatment is simple. The great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go see him. That should pick you up.' Man bursts into tears. Says, 'But doctor... I am Pagliacci.' Good joke. Everybody laugh. Roll on snare drum. Curtains."

Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach

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April 15th (ironically, better known as income tax day) marked the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic.  Here are 10 facts you probably didn't know about The Titanic...
Source:
http://news.yahoo.com/100th-anniversary-titanic-10-things-didn-t-know-232200873.html

* On the evening of April 14, the first-class passengers on the Titanic enjoyed a ten-course meal that included oysters, poached salmon, sirloin of beef, lamb with mint sauce, chocolate éclairs and waldorf pudding. According to Armchair World, a different wine was served with each course, and coffee and cigars accompanied by port and distilled spirits were available with the last course.

* The Titanic had its own newspaper. According to the Natural Science Center of Greensboro, The Atlantic Daily Bulletin was printed daily and included news articles, the latest stock prices, horse-racing results, society gossip and a daily menu.

* The massive ship had some unheard of amenities. A Discovery Channel article details perks such as an onboard Turkish bath, libraries, a squash court and a heated swimming pool. The luxury liner even had an infirmary with an operating room.

* While the Titanic boasted some of the wealthiest people in the world on board, two famous men of that era didn't make the trip. According to Discovery.com, financier J. P. Morgan and famed chocolatier Milton S. Hershey had planned to sail aboard the ship's maiden voyage but canceled at the last minute.

* Less than a month after the tragedy, silent film actress and Titanic survivor Dorothy Gibson starred in the film "Saved From the Titanic." According to Stageclick, the actress reenacted her personal story of the tragedy, complete with the actual white silk evening dress she wore on that fateful night. The film was a hit in America and England, but the only known prints were destroyed two years later in a fire.

* Many artifacts from the Titanic were salvaged. The Titanic Museum in Massachusetts houses The Titanic Historical Society's collection, which includes a lifejacket, lifeboat flag, luncheon and dinner menus, a square of first-class stateroom carpet, letters and postcards written on board, first class china and a bridge bell.

* According to UK's Mirror, a violin alleged to have belonged to Titanic bandleader Wallace Harley was recently discovered. While tests are being done to prove its authenticity, if sold it would break the record for a Titanic artifact, post office keys that were sold in England for £101,000 in 2007.

* The former home of one of the most famous Titanic survivors is now a museum in Denver. The 1910 home of socialite Margaret Brown - known after the tragedy as "The Unsinkable Molly Brown," is open for tours and workshops.

* The last remaining survivor of the Titanic died in 2009. Millvana Dean was only nine weeks old and the youngest passenger on the ship when she was put on a lifeboat and saved. According to The Guardian, her death at age 97 came just a month after "Titanic" stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet helped pay her nursing home expenses.

* Many sources have pegged the band's final song as "Nearer My God To Me." But in a 1912 interview with The New York Times, surviving crew member Harold Bride said the band played the hymn "Autumn" as the ship went down.

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YouTube Movie of the Week
Lego Star Wars: The Padawan Menace

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfFpvaP87UU

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'Nobody has seen Tupac's body': Suge Knight reveals he is not sure rapper is really dead...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2133123/Tupac-alive-Suge-Knight-stuns-fans-suggesting-rapper-dead.html

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Stoner Cooking

Magic Bullet Egg Nog
http://www.buybullet.com/recipes.php?recipe=eggnog&category=drinks&name=Egg%20Nog

Nothing says, "Holiday Season" like creamy, delicious egg nog. Dazzle your guests with this quick and easy home brew.

Ingredients

 3 eggs
 2 Tbs sugar
 pinch of salt
 1 - 1/2 cups milk
 1/2 tsp vanilla

Preparation

Start by... adding all the ingredients to the Tall Cup and blend with the Cross Blade until smooth (about 8 seconds).

Then... Pour into a sauce pan and over low heat, warm the mixture making sure to stir it constantly.

When... the mixture has thickened remove it from heat. Cover and refrigerate until well chilled.

Serving Suggestion

This recipe serves 2, double or triple the ingredients (and use the Blender Attachment) for more servings.

Tip!

Add a shot of rum and a sprinkle of nutmeg to each serving for a classic holiday cocktail.


The Original Potato Salad
http://www.bestfoods.com/recipe/detail/6609/1/the-original-potato-salad

It's made with Real Mayonnaise, just like mom always made!

 • 2 lbs. potatoes (5 to 6 medium), peeled and cut into 3/4-inch chunks
 • 1 cup Hellmann's® or Best Foods® Real Mayonnaise
 • 2 Tbsp. vinegar
 • 1-1/2 tsp. salt
 • 1 tsp. sugar
 • 1/4 tsp. ground black pepper
 • 1 cup thinly sliced celery
 • 1/2 cup chopped onion
 • 2 hard-cooked eggs, chopped (optional)

1.Cover potatoes with water in 4-quart saucepot; bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes or until potatoes are tender. Drain and cool slightly.

2.Combine Hellmann's® or Best Foods® Real Mayonnaise, vinegar, salt, sugar and pepper in large bowl. Add potatoes, celery, onion and eggs and toss gently. Serve chilled or at room temperature.

Also terrific with Hellmann's ® or Best Foods ® Light or Canola Cholesterol Free Mayonnaise.

Cost per recipe*: $3.09

Cost per serving*: $0.39

*Based on average retail prices at national supermarkets.

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Japan comes up with some great ideas, and here's one of them: neko cafes, where patrons can hang out and pet cats while sipping coffee.  This is an idea that should be an easier sell than sushi.  Sadly, they may be shutting down due to laws combatting exploitation of animals, even though the cafes were never meant to be the target of the laws:

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/04/17/uncertain-future-for-japans-cat-cafes/

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Food Porn of the Month:

From the UK, Pizza Hut is offering a "Hot Dog Stuffed Crust" pizza with a mustard drizzle.  Meanwhile, back in the USA, Burger King is test marketing a bacon sundae in Nashville:

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'The Voice': New Bible translation focuses on dialogue
Bob Smietana, USA TODAY
4-15-12
Full Article:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/story/2012-04-15/the-voice-bible-translation/54301502/1

The name Jesus Christ doesn't appear in The Voice, a new translation of the Bible.

Nor do words such as angel or apostle. Instead, angel is rendered as messenger and apostle as emissary. Jesus Christ is Jesus the Anointed One or the liberating king.

That's a more accurate translation for modern American readers, says David Capes, lead scholar for The Voice, a complete edition released this month by publishing company Thomas Nelson. Capes says that many people, even those who've gone to church for years, don't realize that the word "Christ" is a title.

"They think that Jesus is his first name and Christ is his last name," says Capes, who teaches the New Testament at Houston Baptist University in Texas.

Seven years in the making, The Voice is the latest entry into the crowded field of English Bible translations.

Unlike the updated New International Version and the Common English Bible — both released last year — much of The Voice is formatted like a screenplay or novel. Translators cut out the "he said" and "they said" and focused on dialogue.

So in Matthew 15, when Jesus walks on the water, scaring his followers, their reaction is immediate:

Disciple: "It's a ghost!"

Another Disciple: "A ghost? What will we do?"

Jesus: "Be still. It is I; you have nothing to fear."

"I hope we get people to see the Bible — not as an ancient text that's worn out — but as a story that they participate in and find their lives in," Capes says.

The title for The Voice came from the New Testament book of John and from the Greek word logos. It's usually translated as "word" in verses such as John 1:1, which reads: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God," in the New International Version, one of the most popular English translations.

In The Voice, that passage reads: "Before time itself was measured, the Voice was speaking. The Voice was and is God." Frank Couch, the executive editor and publisher of The Voice, says that translation better captures what logos means...

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Milestones

THE Paul Krassner, Konformist Kontributor, friend and idol, has turned 80:

Matt Groening reveals that Springfield in The Simpsons is based on the city near his hometown in Oregon


Pat Summitt retires as Tennessee women’s basketball coach, won 1,098 games & 8 NCAA titles

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/pat-summitt-to-step-down-legendary-tennessee-womens-basketball-coach-won-1098-games-8-ncaa-titles/2012/04/18/gIQA2CK2QT_story.html


The DARPA Robotics Challenge is looking for machines to help the military, but insists it's not to develop killer robots (as if the military would want machines to kill humans!) but rather to do things like drive vehicles, replace broken machinery, and snuggle:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2402846,00.asp

Jack Nicholson turned 75.  In honor of his birthday, Life Magazine released on its website unpublished photos taken in 1969 of the soon-to-be megastar:

http://life.time.com/culture/jack-nicholson-unpublished-photos-1969/


Jamie Moyer, 49, becomes oldest pitcher to win a MLB game:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/04/18/150876220/take-that-kids-jamie-moyer-is-oldest-pitcher-to-win-an-mlb-game


Layne Staley, lead singer of Alice in Chains, has been dead for a decade:

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/04/how-alice-in-chains-found-the-most-memorable-voice-in-grunge/255469


The New York Mets turn 50:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/sports/baseball/mets-at-50-the-good-the-bad-but-mostly-the-ugly.html


Which of the following honors should a man pursue more:

1. Going to Cleveland for induction in the prestigious Rock Hall of Fame

2. Getting a blowjob from Lana Del Rey

Say what you will about Axl Rose, but the crazy SOB sure has his priorities straight...

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/report-axl-rose-is-dating-lana-del-rey-20120409


Best Buy has lost it's CEO, and as CNet puts it: "Best Buy would still need a miracle to avoid the fate suffered by the likes of Good Guys, Circuit City, and CompUSA, let alone return to its go-go days. The problem is less anything that Best Buy did or didn't do than the fact that times have changed and there's no going back."

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-57411933-92/worst-of-all-worlds-for-best-buy


Viking robots found life on Mars in 1976, scientists say:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/47031923/ns/technology_and_science-space


Bubba Watson wins the Masters:

http://www.ajc.com/sports/watson-works-wonders-and-1411084.html


Phil Humber tosses MLB's 21st perfect game:

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/white-sox-rhp-phil-humber-222948392--mlb.html


Arkansas fires coach Bobby Petrino following scandal:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57411010/60-minutes-icon-mike-wallace-dies-at-93


Viktor Bout, the Russian arms dealer known as the ‘Merchant of Death’, was sentenced to 25 years in prison...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/9189852/Merchant-of-Death-Viktor-Bout-sentenced-to-25-years-in-prison.html


San Francisco restaurant Sam Wo, made famous by San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen and the "Tales of the City" novels of Armistead Maupin, closes after 100 years:

http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/21/11321018-san-franciscos-world-rudest-waiter-restaurant-sam-wo-shuts-after-100-years


Lollapalooza 2012 lineup headliners: The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jack White, The Black Keys and, batting cleanup, Black Sabbath:

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/lollapalooza-2012-lineup-black-sabbath-chili-peppers-jack-white-20120411

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RIP

Thomas Kinkade, one of America's most popular painters, 54.  Stop drinking the haterade, all you dissers!  "What people were responding to was the way his paintings made them feel. We used to call it a 20-second vacation on their wall. People wanted to put themselves into the picture in their imagination. He wanted to give people a way to celebrate the good things in the world around them and visually take a little break in what they contend with day-to-day."

http://www.mercurynews.com/los-gatos/ci_20385235/brother-says-painter-thomas-kinkade-battled-alcoholism


Amplifier maker Jim Marshall, 88
As Nikki Sixx of Motley Crue put it: "You were responsible for some of the greatest audio moments in music's history and 50% of all our hearing loss......"

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_blog/2012/04/marshall-amplification-jim-marshall-dies.html


Ferdinand A. Porsche, Designer of the 911, Dies at 76:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/06/automobiles/ferdinand-a-porsche-76-dies-designed-celebrated-911.html


"60 Minutes" icon Mike Wallace dies at 93:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57411010/60-minutes-icon-mike-wallace-dies-at-93


Dick Clark of American Bandstand:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/19/arts/television/dick-clark-tv-host-and-icon-of-new-years-eve-is-dead-at-82.html


Levon Helm, co-founder of The Band, dead at 71:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/19/showbiz/obit-levon-helm/index.html


Jonathan Frid, ‘Dark Shadows’ Star, at 87:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/20/arts/television/jonathan-frid-ghoulish-dark-shadows-star-dies-at-87.html

Theories behind the lack of present-day "contact"

Why are we not already widely aware of non-Earth civilizations and beings?

Seven theories behind the lack of present-day "contact"

Full Article:

http://www.naturalnews.com/035420_human_beings_invasive_species_intelligent_life.html

• Theory #1 - Earth has been declared a "non-intervention" zone and all non-Earth civilizations have agreed to stay "hands off" while simply observing our planet and our species. This would, of course, imply some sort of galactic governing body, which is a fascinating subject all by itself.

• Theory #2 - There are no advanced aliens in the galaxy. We are the only intelligent life in the universe. God help us if this turns out to be true, as there will be nothing to stop human-led corporations from pillaging and destroying entire worlds if inexpensive space travel technology can be developed. Imagine Jupiter renamed "Planet Microsoft, Inc." Technology without ethics is extremely dangerous.

• Theory #3 - There are aliens, but they just haven't noticed us yet. Maybe they only get around to checking each life-supporting planet every 50,000 years or so, and since our entire civilization is only about 10,000 years old (or so), we haven't yet showed up on their radar. Our use of nuclear weapons -- a series of events easily visible from space -- has only taken place in the last 75 years or so. The light from such events has only begun to reach many advanced civilizations that might be gearing up to take action against Earth as a result.

• Theory #4 - Our own present-day human species was created by non-Earth beings genetically seeding or altering native primates in order to create a more intelligent race for some purpose that we don't yet know about. (A slave race of obedient workers, perhaps? That trait seems to have been made quite prominent among present-day humans...)

• Theory # 5 - Extraterrestrials know all about us, but they're waiting to see if we will destroy ourselves first. If we somehow get through the next couple of hundred years without decimating our own planet, then perhaps they will make contact. This is a question of species maturity -- are human beings mature enough to even bother being contacted? Or are we still just fair-skinned apes who beat each other over the heads with sticks and rocks while poisoning our own planet and destroying life? Earth's "advanced weapons" are a joke in a galactic sense, and our focus on weapons and war only proves how stupid we are when it comes to wisdom and maturity.

• Theory #6 - Extraterrestrials are already here, and they're already taking over with some sort of nefarious infiltration agenda. Remember the "V" television series? Yeah, lizard people and all that... The "David Icke theory."

• Theory #7 - Earth has already been claimed as "property" by one of the non-Earth races, and they will soon come to the planet to claim its resources. If you think about it, if earthlings had the technology of faster-than-light space travel, wouldn't we run around the Milky Way staking claim to all the valuable planets we could find? And the most valuable planets of all, it seems, would be water planets, as water is really the "gold" of life (as we know it) in the galaxy. A big blue planet like Earth would look like a valuable gem floating in a sea of mostly inhabitable rocks. Every advanced civilization in the universe would want to "own" Earth if, indeed, ownership was still one of their functioning tendencies.