Recently in Living Category

Yesterday was my first visit to The Tonsorial Parlor -- a barbershop/hair salon in Manhattan Beach.

I have been searching for the past 2.5+ years for a good place to get my haircut. I found a guy that did a great job. The salon where he worked was just ridiculously expensive. While he always cut my hair waaaaaaay too short, it was an even, non-lumpy haircut. Then one day, he was gone. The other places I have tried give horrid haircuts.

Yelp sent out an email focused on barbershops and hair salons in my area. As much as I use Yelp, I'm surprised I hadn't thought about using it find a barbershop. The name of this one caught my eye: The Tonsorial Parlor. The reviews were extremely complimentary. One customer writes:

Tonsorial Parlor is a real gem, a cozy, funky, one-of-a-kind fusion of hair salon and barber shop. It looks like something straight out of a Clint Eastwood western, boasts a highly competent staff who charge very fair prices and sits just blocks from the beach. 

Dale, who has cut my hair here for decades, epitomizes the place. He's also a stage and screen actor, a talented musician, a martial arts master, drives a motorcycle to work and serves as a cowboy on cattle drives. He probably could do anything for a living. He CHOOSES to do this. And I choose to drive 30 miles to just to get my haircut here. Now you know why..."

The photos of the shop on the web site were out there cool. It was reasonably priced. I had to visit.

I sent the owner a text message to set up my appointment. Not only did he live up to the rave reviews of his customers, his shop is way cool. He has been in business there for nearly 40 years I think.

This is absolutely one of, if not THE, best haircuts I've ever had. Need a reasonably priced barbershop in the south bay area? You have got to go see Dale!

I have no memory of this, but apparently the US Core of Engineers stopped the water flow over Niagara Falls in 1969 to see how stable the rock bed was.  Flickr user, Russ Glasson, took several amazing pictures of the event:  Niagara Falls with no water falling!  Check his photos out at this link.

Related articles:

• They Stopped Niagara Falls (neatorama.com)

I normally don't like emails that are circulated, but this one, from my FC was cute.

• We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public.
• I asked God for a bike, but I know God doesn't work that way. So I stole a bike and asked for forgiveness.
• The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But it's still on the list.
• Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit; Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
• Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.
• If I agreed with you we'd both be wrong.
• To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research.
• If God is watching us, the least we can do is be entertaining.
• I thought I wanted a career, turns out I just wanted pay checks.
• A bank is a place that will lend you money, if you can prove that you don't need it.
• Whenever I fill out an application, in the part that says "If an emergency, notify:" I put "DOCTOR". What's my mother going to do?
• I didn't say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you.
• Women will never be equal to men until they can walk down the street with a bald head and a beer gut, and still think they are sexy.
• You do not need a parachute to skydive. You only need a parachute to skydive again.
• Hospitality: making your guests feel like they're at home, even if you wish they were.
• I discovered I scream the same way whether I'm about to be devoured by a great white shark or if a piece of seaweed touches my foot.
• There's a fine line between cuddling and holding someone down so they can't get away.
• When tempted to fight fire with fire, remember that the Fire Department usually uses water.
• To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target.

 

I found this TEDtalk, on the Happy Planet Index, by Nick Marks, to be deeply inspiring and brilliantly on target.  It is absolutely worth 17 minutes of your time!  He talks about creating the world we all want to live in without costing the earth in the process.  He claims our current policy and cultural focus on productivity and materialism is flawed for measuring the well-being of a country and its people.

Nick sites these 5 things we should reflect on in our daily lives enrich our personal happiness without costing the earth.  His entire talk is fantastic and has significant implications far beyond saving the earth but could inform our policy on economics, education, health, etc.

1. Connect
2. Be Active
3. Take Notice
4. Keep Learning
5. Give

Related articles:

• TED Global 2010: Nic Marks and Happiness that Doesn't Cost the Earth (worldchanging.com)
• nic marks: the happy planet index (toomanytribbles.blogspot.com)
• The Happy Planet Index: Nic Marks on TED.com (ted.com)
• Building a Greener World through Marketplace Economics and Radical Transparency (worldchanging.com)

I really like going to the El Segundo Antique Car show, held each year near the end of August.  It's free and is sponsored by the El Segundo Police Department, which I think is also cool.  I first went in 2008. I was out of town last year on business and missed it.  This year's show was a little different from the first one I attended.

When I first arrived the sky was overcast with the marine layer which makes for a very nice, diffuse lighting on the cars, perfect for photography.  The sun came out about half way through my visit.  Yikes.  Hot spots reflecting off the vehicles.

At any rate, I had a blast and am getting better and better at shooting cars (or, so I think, anyway—smile).

For this post I am including only a few shots of  hood ornaments, not grills, trunks, engines, or full cars.  To check out my entire collection of photos of automobiles, three albums, click on this link and then select the album(s) you wish to view.  Be sure to click the full screen button in order to view them in full screen, no matter how big your screen is.  (They do look awesome on the huge monitors!)

Click any image below to see a larger version.

About a month ago they measured. This week they installed.

The shutters completely change the feeling of the living room.  Tim likes.

Here you have about 4 hours of worked distilled into 1 minute and 20 seconds. Enjoy.

When the lights dimmed, she looked at me from across the room.  When I approached her, a single spotlight from heaven filled our hearts.  We were in love.  The Oar House, Pensacola, FL.

Related articles:

• P'cola or Bust (timtyson.us)

And I hate it that the front door to the house isn't private property.  Daily, people leave fliers and business cards and unsolicited junk on the door!

This week's big news story:  the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has decided that the government can, without a warrant, sneak onto your property, your driveway, and place a GPS tracking device on your car that tracks everywhere you go.  We no longer have a reasonable expectation of privacy for our driveways, which even delivery people can use.

Shockingly, this ruling is actually getting some media coverage.

Plenty of liberals have objected to this kind of spying, but it is the conservative Chief Judge Kozinski who has done so most passionately. "1984 may have come a bit later than predicted, but it's here at last," he lamented in his dissent. And invoking Orwell's totalitarian dystopia where privacy is essentially nonexistent, he warned: "Some day, soon, we may wake up and find we're living in Oceania."

Source:  Time

Some have pointed out that if you are wealthy, you probably live in a gated community or have gates around your property that would extend your zone of reasonable expectation of privacy.  So only the poor people have less privacy.  But that's OK, isn't it?  I mean, wealthy people don't commit crimes.  Wealthy people don't bilk billions, even trillions out of the unsuspecting.  Enron never happened.  No Bernie Madoff ponzi scheme.  No Wall Street bail out while the captains of capitalism lived off the slaughtered fatted cow.

Besides, privacy died long ago in this country — during the George W. Bush administration, I do believe.  His cronies called it The Patriot Act.  Just the name says "Run!  Don't walk!"  During his administration and the Republican rein of terror, not only were hundreds of thousands of surveillance cameras installed all over this nation, but warrantless wiretaps, "enhanced interrogations," and god knows what else were made the order of the day.

And who are we kidding?  I'd bet my last dollar that the US government routinely snags the GPS satellite data from specific cars at will.  There really is no need to place anything on the cars of serious criminals.  That's so last century.  Only puny local police departments have to actually walk onto someone's driveway to plant a GPS under their car.  The big time crooks already have GPS as part of the most fashionable bling package.

The totalitarian state is here.  Is now.  We live it.  The Constitution and Bill of Rights are just window dressing from a time gone by.

Related articles

• Court allows agents to secretly put GPS trackers on cars (cnn.com)
• Warrentless GPS Tracking Of Your Car Is Legal If You're Not Wealthy Enough To Protect It (dvorak.org)
• The Government Can Use GPS to Track Your Moves (time.com)
• The Government's New Right to Track Your Every Move With GPS (time.com)
• Judge Kozinski Doesn't Track with the Ninth Circuit on GPS and the Fourth AmendmentCalls his fellow judges 'cultural elitists' when it comes to privacy. (abovethelaw.com)

Amazingly, people were swimming in the Gulf before, during, and probably after this storm.  But maybe, it was ok.  I never went down to the water.  If any oil or dispersant were around, it wasn't visible from the hotel room balcony.  Sunday night, the last night of the visit, a big thunderstorm came from the north.  I shot this short video of the storm moving out to sea.

Unfortunately, the progress bar does not show while downloading this HD video. Be patient. It is working. If you have a slow connection to the internet, be very patient.

We just returned from a very short visit to my hometown of Pensacola.  My FC, favorite cousin, Susan, came down for the visit as well.  We had a wonderful time filled with laughter, good seafood, and great political talk (the FC and I are on the same side of the political coin).  I don't know, it seems the dispersants used in the Gulf, made all of the seafood especially flavorful.  Actually, we made sure none of the seafood we ate came from the Gulf.  This picture, click to enlarge, was taken by the HU at the Oar House, one of my favorite Pensacola establishments.

I recently was in a very large church facility.  My visit had nothing to do with the church.  The event managers had simply secured this facility for the event.  I was sickened by what I saw.

The people of this church have built a mega-multi-million dollar facility.  It was beyond enormous.  The power bill alone would be beyond the entire budgets of the churches I attended as a child.  The facility was so large, I felt as though I were in one of the super malls:  one section had a two story (at least) plexiglass enclosed children's play area with the largest set of the tubes kids can crawl around in I've ever seen in my life, one section was bigger than several Starbucks combined and had that wonderful freshly ground coffee bean smell, large living trees were all about, the "sanctuary" could easily stage any contemporary rock concert, broadway show, or symphony, the gym facilities and enclosed olympic pool were stunning.  And I only walked in and later walked out.  I didn't go exploring the vast hallways to see where they led.

As I walked in, along the right side of a large corridor was at least 12 wireless credit card-based cash registers on rolling carts.  They could be wheeled anywhere in the enormous facility to take your payments.  Who knows what the church sells on Sundays besides their mocha lattes.

I was devastated.  This "place of worship" is a testimony to greed and selfishness, part of the "it's all about me" philosophy that has brought our nation's economy to brink of bankruptcy.

I found this organization to be revolting.  I felt tainted for having been in it.

This is not a church.  It's an enormous business enterprise.  It was built from the ground up with tax-except dollars that gave each contributor a tax benefit.  It can therefore offer its "services" at below market value.

I can't imagine the people of this organization (I can’t bear to call it a church.) living the beatitudes that the savior they claim to follow taught from his own lips.  Instead, I see their Jesus, the Christ, coming into that place and, in a complete rage, ripping out the wireless cash registers and money-making ventures.

How have they so lost touch with the teachings they claim to follow?!  This isn't just hypocrisy or big tax-free business.  This is evil!

And, tragically, I am confident that the vast majority of the people who attend and support this mega-enterprise are good people.  But their organization has lost touch with what the church is all about.

Related articles:

• Anne Rice discusses her decision to quit Christianity (knoxnews.com)

The most unexpected thing: you immediately forget your look at a child, because what you are hearing is the rapturous soprano voice of an adult. Then, at then end, when the host announces her prize, and the tears flow, you realize that she is indeed a 10 year old child.  Jackie Evancho's voice is astounding.

Related articles:

• Meet Jackie Evancho, Your Next Susan Boyle, Sort of (observer.com)
• 10 Year Old Jackie Evancho Possessed By Adult Singing Voice (bestweekever.tv)
• Jackie Evancho Brings Down The House On America's Got Talent [Video] (realestateradiousa.com)
• Jackie Evancho: America's Got Talent Superstar Is Just 10 Years Old (VIDEO) (blippitt.com)

Yesterday I purchased a pair of Vibram FiveFingers, which are all the rage here in Los Angeles. As you can see, they fit like a glove, with each toe in a separate enclosure to enhance dexterity, stability, and balance.  They are made from kangaroo leather, which I didn't even know existed.  To check out these shoes, simply click on the image to the right.

Conrad the Kat was very jealous and then insisted on starring in an epic feature film in which he modeled his own stylish and fashionable footwear.  To watch Conrad the Kat's latest world debut, simply click on the image below.

Related articles:

• Vibram Fivefingers Review (socyberty.com)
• High Five to FiveFingers (ries.typepad.com)
• Barefoot Walking (fitfiend.com)

I just came across the photography and video work of Shaun Reeder. Wow!!

At his site, he comes across as one free-spirited human soul that isn't bound by the force of gravity.  His adventures are stunning.  His music, photography, and videos will probably take you places you will otherwise never go.  In fact, watching his death-defying video work just makes me nervous — to be so balanced, so aware of your location in space, so certain of your center, in such great physical shape.  Even the banner on his site is way cool.

You have to check out his videos which are linked to the image below.  Awesome work!

A few weeks ago I was in Saratoga, NY.  I had landed in Albany and took a cab to the wonderful inn in which I staid.  My cab driver was a young man from Afghanistan, of all places.  We had an interesting conversation about the whole Afghanistan mess.

He echoed what I had heard in the news:  that suitcases literally filled with millions of US dollars (in cash) are flown out of the Kabul airport every day.  This, he says is common knowledge.  It's business as usual.  No one asks any questions.

Juxtapose this against the lavish inequities of poverty and extreme wealth in the city.  It's insanity.  Then, add to this mix the fact that 96% of the $9.1 billion dollars designated for reconstruction in Iraq is unaccounted for.  That's &8.7 billion with a "b" dollars that has vaporized into thin air.  (Read this Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction pdf report.)

Now I realize we are talking about two different countries, but how much has been designated for Afghanistan?  How much is accounted for?

This should be a scandal of the highest order!  This should be bleeding from every headlines in this country. Why do we so rarely hear about this in our media?!  I'm a fiscal conservative.  The Republican party is wailing about the deficit.  Wail about $8.7 billion in missing government funds!!!!  Those are deficit bucks, baby!

But that's not the only interesting part of our conversation.  I expressed to the young cab driver that I didn't know why we were really in their country.  He asked me politely if I wanted to hear his ideas on the matter.  Certainly!

1.  The drug trade coming out of Afghanistan is powerful and lucrative.  He was unsure of the US roll in the drug trade but thought it indeed was involved.

2.  The country is sitting on a fortune in rare minerals the world wants, even needs.  The oil is pretty meaningless.  He thinks this is why Russia was there for a decade and now the US.  Interesting that this has been common knowledge among the people of Afghanistan but only recently has surfaced in the western media.

Our government is out of control and a direct part of the problem!

EVER!

I swear.  I've never had a summer in which I was so cold!

Well, a good friend purchased a 4 door Porsche Panamera for his family. They picked us up as we headed off to Flemings Steakhouse for dinner a couple weeks back. Very nice car.

Today, in the grocery store parking lot I saw my first Telsa. It looks great. Of course, being all electric, it makes no sound at all. Maybe someone I know will buy one of those so Io can ride in it, though it seemed very low to the ground. I guess sports cars generally are.

The fact that this can be done, in total, from storyboard (if they had chosen to) all the way to upload to YouTube, on a $299 device, the iPhone 4, that also happens to make phone calls, is astounding. When Apple makes this all possible on an iPhone Touch and the iPad, they will rock the education market! Be sure to watch it in full screen.

These pencil tip sculptures were all carved by hand by Dalton Ghetti.  Click on any thumbnail to open a slide show of all of the photos.

 

Source:  Damn Cool Pics

So nicely done. Be sure to check out Phil's post on the setup for this time lapse. He includes a 12 minute audio podcast about it as well at: Phil's Blog Post.  Oh, and watch this in full screen mode!

I have made no secret of my support of Larry Lessig's Change Congress effort. In his TED presentation, he clearly articulates the need for it, stating that government of, for, and by the people has certainly withered in our lifetimes. He presents a reasoned case for why changing the way we fund campaigns is essential to the survival of the US democracy!

If this TED talk by toxicologist Susan Shaw isn't depressing and a powerful call to arms, then nothing is.

She begins by mentioning the chemical industry, which is all but completely unregulated, and how many chemicals can be found in our bodies.  In Europe, the numbers are vastly, vastly lower.  The worst offender:  flame retardant.  It's in everything you can imagine (your clothes, cars, furniture...), including your blood stream now!  At least we are less likely than the rest of the world to spontaneously combust!

But her talk is on the deadly cocktail that is the chemical dispersants and the oil combination designed to cause the oil to drop to the bottom of the Gulf so we don't see the damage it is doing.  Apparently the deadly dispersants make the oil vastly more likely to enter the organs of body through the skin.  We don't even know all of the compounds in the dispersants because the chemical industry is not required to disclose them by law.  What a revolting shock!

Our US government has completely failed to protect people.  What good is it?!

I just get so angry at what we as Americans tolerate without a second thought!  Such short-sighted, live for the comfort of the moment idiocy!

I find it so unspeakably maddening that important, reflective, intelligent voices of reason such as Susan Shaw's, are ignored in mainstream media because the influence peddlers would prefer we receive a steady diet of buffoons like Sarah Palin!  Dear god!

Related articles:

• TEDTalks: Susan Shaw: The oil spill's toxic trade-off (huffingtonpost.com)
• "Toxic Chemicals Industry Designs PR Campaign for Survival: Exclusive Leaked Footage!" and related posts (naturalpapa.com)
• Cancer panel: Unregulated chemicals pose serious risk (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

Periodically, the wealthy Republicans begin salivating over all of the money in the Social Security system. They want to dump it into the free market because, as everyone knows, when we privatize non-profit administered funds into a for profit model, the wealthy can get even wealthier. (I personally believe that's why the Republics are pushing the "charter school" movement too — all of that money in the education budget could be lining the pockets of wealthy entrepreneurs.)

Just imagine: Where would today's elderly Americans be if the Republican party had gotten its way during the hideous Bush/Cheney years (the later stating that "deficits don't matter") and pushed the Social Security system funds into Wall Street!? What idiots! MoveOn.org has a great response to the top 5 Social Security myths, since the Republicans are at it again. The 5 myths they address are listed below. Check out the facts about each myth at MoveOn.org's article.

1. Myth: Social Security is going broke.
2. Myth: We have to raise the retirement age because people are living longer.
3. Myth: Benefit cuts are the only way to fix Social Security.
4. Myth: The Social Security Trust Fund has been raided and is full of IOUs
5. Myth: Social Security adds to the deficit

Senior citizen's, don't let the shameless Republicans lie their way into convincing you to lose your benefits. Vote Democrat in the November elections.

The level of detail is amazing.  Notice the earring on the ear on the top helmet.  Click the picture to view other equally amazing helmets.

Source:  LaughingSquid

Normally, when I travel, I keep pretty busy.  But this past trip, when I arrived at the hotel, I did a quick digital checkin and then flipped on the TV —a rare thing. I couldn't find anything of interest; so, I left the TV on HBO with some crazy vampire thing, TrueBlood, about to start. I had some passive knowledge that HBO had a series about vampires and thought it ridiculous.

They played two episodes back to back. So awesome! I'm now completely hooked! I bought the first two seasons at the iTunes store (Season One, Season Two) and have now caught up.  Unfortunately, HBO has not released any episodes in the current season (three).  Season four has been scheduled for production.

HBO has a brilliant marketing campaign for the series, including bottles of "TrueBlood" that can be purchased. I particularly like this iPhone wallpaper, a special bandage just for vampire bites for "fang bangers." If they sold these, I think I would purchase a box as a conversation starter!

Alan Ball, of American Beauty and Six Feet Under (both of which I loved!) is the creator and producer of the series. I think he also is one of the screenwriters for this series, which is based on the book series by Charlaine Harris. However, a quick internet search reveals that the HBO series includes at least one additional character not found in the novels.

The intro to the HBO series is fantastically evocative and exquisitely sets the tone for the series! The music, with its cajun influence, is awesome.  I bought some of the tracks at the iTunes store.  The small town setting in Louisiana is compelling and authentically done. The symbolism is nothing short of brilliant. The religious overtones are, as they should be, nothing short of disturbing. The set design, lighting, casting, and costume design are flawless. This series is exceptionally well done!

Related articles:

• HBO's 'True Blood': Season 3 Goes 'Twilight' (with a twist) (beliefnet.com)
• How HBO has pushed back the boundaries of modern television (guardian.co.uk)
• HBO Gets More Sookie (observer.com)
• HBO "True Blood" Season 4 (popcrunch.com)

I haven't posted much to my blog lately because I have been intensely busy, mostly with traveling, writing, and physical therapy.  And I have made some minuscule effort to avoid the computer as typing at the keyboard seems to train wreck my bad shoulder!

Recently, well, over the past several days, I used my Navigon application on the new iPhone as I traveled.  This application is awesome on its own.  On the iPhone 4, the app looks beyond gorgeous and functions with a level of smooth precision I had not noticed before.  I love it!

I use the app with the TomTom car kit.  I didn't give a second thought to using the car kit with my new phone, just assuming it would work fine.  Wrong!  The iPhone 4 is not as thick as the iPhone 3Gs, and this fact caused some connection issues.  Apparently the car kit needs the extra thickness to snap the phone firmly into the connector.  I even noticed a "rocking lever" that seems to need pressure to deliver electricity to the iPhone 4, which is not thick enough to press the lever.

The iPhone 4 appears to snap into the car kit fine.  But it does not get an electrical charge from the connector.  After some wiggling/pressing, each time I used it, I managed to get the phone to seat itself enough to get the charge.  Having electricity is essential as running a GPS app on the phone would otherwise very quickly deplete the battery.

I also noticed some wonderful updates to the Navigon application since last I used it.  I downloaded the panoramic 3D map information which adds more realistic display information.  And, for those who are not familiar with the Navigon app, I totally love how it implements highway signage information as you approach the signage.  It looks so realistic, just as the signs actually look when you arrive at them.  This feature takes so much guesswork out of navigating complex junctions.

The applications functions fantastically well in the background with the new multitasking iOS4.  And I also completely love the intuitive interface and GUI design.

On my recent trip to the Atlanta metropolitan area, I confess to finding the speed limit warning a bit annoying.  You can set the interval to 5, 10, 15, etc. miles per hour over the speed limit.  The application knows the speed limits and will say "Warning" while displaying an exclamation mark in a yellow triangle at the bottom corner of the speed limit sign indicating the actual speed limit.  In the top center I have the app showing my current, realtime speed.  This is invaluable information when traveling in unfamiliar areas.  But I knew the speed limits in the Atlanta area, had the interval set to 5mph, and the traffic was, as the traffic tends to do in Atlanta, speeding maniacally down the intestates.  So I heard "Warning!" every minute or so as I drove.  With my shoulder, I couldn't reach to adjust the interval while driving.

I'll have to update my TomTom car kit when they make one designed for the new iPhone 4.  But, I highly recommend the Navigon GPS application!

Related articles:

• On the road with the latest Navigon MobileNavigator (tuaw.com)
• Best iPhone Navigation Apps (brighthub.com)

Today we went walking along the beach and plopped our beach chairs surf side to enjoy a moment of sunshine and the cool ocean breeze. When I sat down, I noticed I had a glob of tar near the heal of my foot. And since I had forgotten to wear my "official beach shoes," I was going to have a very hard time getting the tar glob off.

While seated I frequently rubbed my heal in the sand. No help at all.

So, when I got home, I Googled "remove tar foot" and saw two suggestions:

• use olive oil and a toothbrush
• use regular white (not gel) toothpaste on a wet washcloth

All of the toothpaste here at the house is gel;  so, I got the olive oil out and the tiny new toothbrush my dentist gave me when I had my teeth last cleaned.  The tedious process took about 20 minutes, but it worked.  Below are the pictures documenting the trauma. Consider this my own personal exhibit of "Crude Awakening" that I blogged about before.

The tar (combined with the beach sand) becomes hard and is completely stuck to the skin.  I couldn't even scrape it off with a sea shell.  It has the dank tar smell.

The Tar Glob Proper

The Tools for the Procedure

Twenty Minutes Later

This is quite the week for tar.  The city of Manhattan Beach is in the process of redoing the slurry on the streets (that black tar goo with little tiny pebbles in it).  They just did the two streets by the house.  It's incredibly messy.  The workers also got black tar on the grass by the side of the house.  Not happy as that oil spill will probably kill the grass.

Oil is gushing freely into the Gulf of Mexico today as BP is trying to cap the well again.  And I just read an article online about the potential of a massive methane gas bubble from all of the methane gushing from the well in the Gulf (40% is methane gas and 60% is oil) rising from the Gulf and causing the extinction of all life on earth as methane gas is deadly.  She claims the sea floor around the gushing well is rising for about a 5 mile radius.  I hope the author is a crackpot.  If not, at least BP was kind enough to only kill all life on one planet in the solar system.

Check out the link at the bottom for a more detailed description of the methane gas theory including a link to the original article.

But the greatest tragedy of all was the realization that I have lived here in Manhattan Beach for about 2.5 years now, and today was the first time I've actually sat out on the beach.  That will be rectified this summer!

Related articles:

• Happy Sunday! The BP spill could trigger a methane explosion, mass extinction (crunchgear.com)

No wonder cancer is rampant in our world today.  Unbelievably, by the time I was born, 134 atomic bombs had been detonated on our planet:

• USA:  87
• Soviet Union:  38
• Great Britton:  9

And, horrifying as it may be, 2,053 atomic bombs have been exploded on the planet through 1998 with over half being detonated by the US.

NPR's Robert Krulwich reports that in 1962, shortly after the discovery of the magnetic Van Allen radiation belts were discovered, the US military exploded an atomic bomb in outer space to see if they could disrupt the Van Allen belt to use it as a weapon against the USSR.  The project, named Starfish Prime, produced an astounding light show in the heavens.

I can think of little that could be so irresponsible and nothing that better demonstrates the evil nature of the military industrial complex that runs this nation.  Those military officials and scientists discover something they do not understand and then want to see if they can blow it up.  This is insanity.

What other lunatic experiments have the unknowing people of the earth been victimized by because of this military experimentation?  I have no doubt that thousands have died and probably will continue to die of cancer as a result of these bomb tests and god knows what else (biological experiments, etc.).

View the interactive graphic of when, where, and by whom the atomic bombs were detonated.  Source:  CTBTO

Related articles by Zemanta

• The Rainbow Bombs (greg.org)
• Exploding H-Bombs In Outer Space (milkandcookies.com)
• US detonated a nuclear bomb in space in 1962 (slashgear.com)
• Mapping Nuclear Bomb Explosions (neatorama.com)

An excellent photo essay entitled Crude Awakening, by Jane Fulton Alt.  Here are two samples...

I eat out a lot, no r-e-a-l-l-y a lot. And one the things that really frustrates me with today's restaurants is portion size and cost. Frequently a dessert will cost about $7 and be of an obscene size, large enough for two people. This actually disgusts me as it promotes eating too much and is wasteful. I've shared my thoughts about this before as I almost always am boxing up lunch for the next day from a full portion size of leftovers.

Last weekend I ate at the Macaroni Grill. I've eaten here before, but this visit was different. The menu had changed. The food was exceptionally tasty, of reasonable portion size, and reasonable price. Dessert was under $3 and also a reasonable portion size.

I was delighted. I shared my enthusiasm with the manager who was glad to hear it, fearing that the new menu would receive a poor response.

This is something I wish all restaurants would do. Congratulations to Macaroni Grill for being the first to do the right thing!