n2doc
n2doc's JournalWant to bet that the MSM will keep calling them "Bush tax cuts" even though they've expired?
Any new deal should be properly called the OBAMA tax cuts. That is all.
90 of the world’s rarest animals are in a North England field
Alasdair Wilkins
In a 360-acre field in the county of Northumberland, there are large beasts ten times rarer than the mountain gorilla and the Siberian tiger and three times rarer than the right whale. Humans haven't even touched them in centuries.
These are the Chillingham cattle, a wild subspecies that has lived in the same field for nearly a millennium. Unlike almost all other cattle in the United Kingdom — and indeed, the world at large — these cattle aren't domesticated, and it's possible but unproven that they might be direct descendants of the wild aurochs that roamed Europe before domestication. The Chillingham cattle are smaller than their domestic counterparts, weighing in at around 650 pounds, and they are so wild that they can't tolerate any direct human contact, as game warden Richard Marsh explains in a recent BBC article:
"No human hand touches them and they receive no veterinary care either... If humans were to handle them, they would change the way in which they smell. This would lead to any such beast being rejected by the herd and they'd kill them... By this time of year they've flattened the grass to the ground and any grass there is still growing will have no goodness - it'll all have gone into the root for next year. Surrounded with a fence means they cannot wander off and find food, so we have to keep them going, probably through to about March, with a couple of round bales of hay a day."
Outside of that indirect feeding, humans have to stay well away from the Chillingham cattle, and it's an arrangement that's worked just fine since around 1240, when it's believed that the field was first enclosed. The Chillingham cattle likely weren't the beneficiaries of 13th century conservation, but rather were protected as part of an effort to keep Scottish marauders out of royal lands. Despite centuries of inbreeding, these 90 cattle — and another 20 kept at a reserve location in Scotland — are still going strong, a sort of biological oasis from the modern ecological world.
http://io9.com/5972076/90-of-the-worlds-rarest-animals-are-in-a-north-england-field
Some New Years Eve Beauty- Lady of Orda Cave
Natalie Avseenko and PHOTOTEAM.PRO undertook a new art-project in Ordynskaya Cave next to Perm city, Russia. Natalie had series of freediving session inside one of the largest gypsum caves. There was dark and cold (the water temperature was around +5C, the outside temperature was -35C), there was no chance to get to the surface and took a breath, there was roof above her all the time. Natalie, holding her breath and overcoming all the challenges she faced with, acted as the spirit of the cave who was kind, with big soul, caring... There is a legend that there is a Lady of the Cave who is very beautiful and charming. The lady is taking care of all the divers entering that incredible "natural cathedral". So, Natalie, literally speaking, had to settle down in the cave and she managed to do that.
more
http://www.behance.net/samebody/frame/6439573
Ordinskaya Cave (also called "Orda Cave"
, located near the Russian city of Perm, is the world's largest underwater gypsum cave, its rich mineral walls lending the cavern an otherworldly beauty that is perfect for a supernatural scene. Photographer Viktor Lyagushkin and PHOTOTEAM.PRO tapped freediver Natalia Avseenko to pose as the legendary spirit who is said to guard the cave. The result is an ethereal series of images that play with water, fabric, and light.
http://io9.com/5972073/ethereal-photos-capture-the-spirit-that-haunts-russias-crystal-cave
Republicans displeased with Obama’s ‘fiscal cliff’ address
by Rosalind S. Helderman on December 31, 2012 at 2:21 pm
Republicans are already pushing back against President Obama’s just concluded “fiscal cliff” address, in which Obama said a deal is near but not yet at hand and urged further pressure on Congressional Republicans.
A top aide to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) tweeted that Obama was making a deal harder with the speech, in which he bragged that he’ll be president for the next four years and stressed that Republicans have already caved on higher taxes for the wealthy. Both comments drew hearty campaign-style applause from his audience.“If Obama’s goal was to harm the process and make going over the cliff more likely, he’s succeeding,” tweeted Doug Heye.
A top aide to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell chimed in that Obama had changed the terms of negotiations in his speech.
“Potus just moved the goalpost again. Significantly. This is new,” wrote Josh Holmes, McConnell’s chief of staff.
more
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2012/12/31/republicans-displeased-with-obamas-fiscal-cliff-address/?hpid=z2
Awww....I'm sooooooo sorry they don't like the President's speech. He's so Mean!
Paul Krugman- Instant Backstabbing: The real reason Obama should never change/cut SS and medicare
Paul Krugman- Well, that was quick. For some time it has been obvious to anyone paying attention what the true GOP budget strategy was: demand that Obama make proposals for entitlement cuts, and then
But it turns out that they didn’t even wait for any actual budget deal. Here’s Marco Rubio yesterday (via Ezra Klein):
The first part is, of course, simply a lie: numerous reports tell us that McConnell did in fact make precisely that demand. And let’s remember this when Rubio makes his run for the White House: we already know that he’s an unprincipled liar. But anyway, you see how it will go — and why the whole notion of settling matters fiscal with a Grand Bargain was always crazy. You can’t make big deals with a totally untrustworthy negotiating partner.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/31/instant-backstabbing/
(emphasis mine)
If America won't change its crazy gun laws... I may deport myself says Piers Morgan
By PIERS MORGAN
PUBLISHED: 19:26 EST, 29 December 2012
I have fired guns only once in my life, on a stag party to the Czech capital Prague a few years ago when part of the itinerary included a trip to an indoor shooting range. For three hours, our group were let loose on everything from Magnum 45 handguns and Glock pistols, to high-powered ‘sniper’ rifles and pump-action shotguns.
It was controlled, legal, safe and undeniably exciting. But it also showed me, quite demonstrably, that guns are killing machines.
Rarely has the hideous effect of a gun been more acutely laid bare than at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, two weeks ago – when a deranged young man called Adam Lanza murdered 20 schoolchildren aged six and seven, as well as six adults, in a sickening rampage.
...
In conclusion, I can spare those Americans who want me deported a lot of effort by saying this: If you don’t change your gun laws to at least try to stop this relentless tidal wave of murderous carnage, then you don’t have to worry about deporting me.
Although I love the country as a second home and one that has treated me incredibly well, I would, as a concerned parent first – and latterly, of a one-year-old daughter who may attend an American elementary school like Sandy Hook in three years’ time – seriously consider deporting myself.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2254758/Piers-Morgan-Deport-If-America-wont-change-crazy-gun-laws-I-deport-myself.html
If Bruce Lee faced forced eviction in China
By John Hannon, Los Angeles Times
December 29, 2012, 6:06 p.m.
BEIJING — The men who barged through Shen Jianzhong's door probably thought it was a routine assignment: Break in and beat Shen's family into submission. Forced evictions to make way for real estate development are an everyday occurrence in China, and the family may have seemed no different from any in that situation.
It was only after they forced open the door, threw Shen's wife to the ground and began to beat her that they learned the 38-year-old Shen and his 18-year-old son are kung fu masters.
"I take Bruce Lee very seriously," said Shen in a telephone interview a month after the incident.
Shen says he does not recall exactly what happened during the fight, but an eight-minute video of the aftermath shows seven of the hired hands piled in a motionless heap in Shen's doorway. Blood pools around the cheek of one; another lies halfway through the doorway, crumpled on the curb. Survivors mill about unsteadily on the street, glaring at the camera.
more
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-china-land-disputes-20121230,0,5651064.story
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