33 Unbelievable Places To Visit Before You Die. I Can't Believe These Actually Exist On Earth...

Underwater Waterfall ... how can that possibly be ..

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So many other-worldly places exist right on our planet, and we never even knew about it. Here are 33 landmarks that look like paintings and scenes from science fiction movies.


http://distractify.com/culture/32-surreal-places-that-actually-exist-on-earth-i-cant-believe-this-isnt-photoshopped/

The Science of Why We Don't Believe Science

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"A MAN WITH A CONVICTION is a hard man to change. Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point." So wrote the celebrated Stanford University psychologist Leon Festinger (PDF), in a passage that might have been referring to climate change denial—the persistent rejection, on the part of so many Americans today, of what we know about global warming and its human causes. But it was too early for that—this was the 1950s—and Festinger was actually describing a famous case study in psychology.

Festinger and several of his colleagues had infiltrated the Seekers, a small Chicago-area cult whose members thought they were communicating with aliens—including one, "Sananda," who they believed was the astral incarnation of Jesus Christ. The group was led by Dorothy Martin, a Dianetics devotee who transcribed the interstellar messages through automatic writing.

Through her, the aliens had given the precise date of an Earth-rending cataclysm: December 21, 1954. Some of Martin's followers quit their jobs and sold their property, expecting to be rescued by a flying saucer when the continent split asunder and a new sea swallowed much of the United States. The disciples even went so far as to remove brassieres and rip zippers out of their trousers—the metal, they believed, would pose a danger on the spacecraft.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/03/denial-science-chris-mooney

Sometimes toooo much is still not enough ....

A Minnesota couple who allegedly claim to be Scottish aristocrats are on the run, accused of claiming public assistance benefits while living on their $1.2 million yacht and driving a $30,000 Lexus.

Andrea Chisholm, 54, and Colin Chisholm III, 62, allegedly collected more than $167,000 in welfare, food stamps and medical assistance across two states over a period of around seven years, according to a complaint filed with a Minnesota State court.

For the past month, Hennepin County Sheriff's department has been searching for the couple who are still at large, according to a statement issued by the Hennepin County Attorney, Mike Freeman.

"Mr. ... sorry. Lord and Lady Chisholm the third, are fraudsters of the first degree," Freeman said. "These folks ripped off the system."

http://abcnews.go.com/US/couple-allegedly-claimed-welfare-food-stamps-living-12/story?id=23112223

It Saves Millions To Simply Give Homeless People A Place To Live

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It is cheaper to give homeless people a home than it is to leave them on the streets.

That’s not just the opinion of advocates working to end homelessness, nor is it the opinion of homeless people themselves. It is a fact that has been borne out by studies across the country, from Florida to Colorado and beyond.

The latest analysis to back up this fact comes out of Charlotte, where researchers from the University of North Carolina Charlotte examined a recently constructed apartment complex that was oriented towards homeless people.

Moore Place opened in 2012 with 85 units. Each resident is required to contribute 30 percent of his or her income, which includes any benefits like disability, veterans, or Social Security, toward rent. The rest of the housing costs, which total approximately $14,000 per person annually, are covered by a mix of local and federal government grants, as well as private donors.

In the first year alone, researchers found that Moore Place saved taxpayers $1.8 million. These savings comes from improvements in two primary areas: health care and incarceration.


http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/03/24/3418140/charlotte-homeless-study/

I'm willing to believe what any Koch-sucker tells me (says the tea party)

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Report: China Could Generate 80 Percent of Its Energy From Renewables By 2050

The idea that China, the world’s largest producer of greenhouse gas emissions, could generate a significant portion of its energy from renewable sources might seem like a distant dream, but according to a new report, it’s not so far off. [Video Below]

China’s Future Generation, launched at the Wilson Center on February 19 and produced by the World Wildlife Fund and Energy Transition Research Institute, forecasts that China could reach 80 percent renewable electricity by 2050 at far less cost than continuing to rely on coal, which currently accounts for 70 percent of power generation.

A Renewable Future?

In the report, lead author William Chandler and his team estimate China’s electricity supply and demand on an hour-by-hour basis through 2050 using a model specially developed for assessing the effects of different power choices. The “China 8760 Grid Model,” as it’s called, projects results under four scenarios: baseline, high efficiency, high renewables, and low carbon mix.

http://www.newsecuritybeat.org/2014/03/report-china-generate-80-percent-energy-renewables-2050-cost-coal/#.UzcHs9VdWSo

As we drill baby drill, the rest of the world thankfully is starting to get the idea ...

Greenpeace: Climate change increasingly threatens security

Anyone who thought climate change was something happening far away, to someone else, should think again. According to the world's leading scientists, climate change is an increasing threat to human safety around the world.

In a new report to be published in the end of March by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is expected to conclude that climate change puts lives, cultures and well-being at risk and can fuel forced migration, violence and conflicts. Their detailed report suggests that climate change will increasingly shape national security policies.

Already last month, US Secretary of State John Kerry named climate change as a security threat, calling it "perhaps the world's most fearsome weapon of mass destruction".

If that sounds familiar, that's because that phrase was already made famous by former IPCC Co-Chair Sir John Houghton a decade ago. In the context of former US President George Bush and former UK Prime Ministry Tony Blair leading an illegal war against Iraq on the pretense of Iraq having weapons of mass destruction, he pointed out that anyone truly worried about weapons of mass destruction and terrorism, should fight climate change.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/03/greenpeace-climate-change-incr-2014328144640118231.html

Twitter is basically just having a conversation with yourself hoping that someone else will join you

One House Republican’s Latest Plan To Undermine Climate Research

After years of attempts at cutting the agency’s funding, House Republicans want the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to focus more on predicting storms and less on studying climate change.

The House is set to vote next week on a bill that would force NOAA to prioritize its forecasting over its climate research. The bill, introduced last June by Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-OK), wouldn’t require NOAA to stop its climate research, but it would require the agency to “prioritize weather-related activities, including the provision of improved weather data, forecasts, and warnings for the protection of life and property and the enhancement of the national economy.” Among other things, it would direct the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, NOAA’s research and development arm which studies weather, climate and other environmental forces, to create new weather programs, including one focused on tornado warnings.

Bridenstine, whose home state of Oklahoma was ravaged by severe tornadoes last year, said that the bill’s intent was to “protect lives and property by shifting funds from climate change research to severe weather forecasting research.”

But though scientists are still trying to determine what, if any, impact climate change has on tornadoes, science has shown that climate change is a driver of other forms of extreme weather. Bridenstine is also a known climate denier who last year asked President Obama to apologize to Oklahoma for investing in climate change research.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/03/29/3420703/noaa-bill-more-weather-research/

I believe these people are suicidal ...

The Last Link Between America's Plutocratic Past and Present Has Left Us

Let us pause now to pay our respects to Bunny Mellon. She died in mid-March on her Virginia horse-country estate. But no tears, please. Bunny — nobody called her by her given name Rachel — lived a long and rich life.

Very long. Very rich.

One hundred and three at her death, Bunny Mellon spent every year of her century-plus life in luxury. Her grandfather had made a fortune off Listerine, her father off Gillette. She became wealthier still. In 1948, she married Paul Mellon, the only son of Andrew Mellon, one of the richest men in 1920s America.

Paul and Bunny would spend over 50 years together, shuttling between their horse farm and an assortment of other homes in Antigua, Paris, New York, Washington, Nantucket, and Cape Cod.

One obituary describes Bunny Mellon as "the last standing true American aristocrat." Bunny's life actually holds a deeper historical significance. At her passing, she represented the last link between America's original plutocrats, the gang that ushered in the Great Depression, and our contemporary plutocrats, the crew that gave us the Great Recession.

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/22751-the-last-link-between-americas-plutocratic-past-and-present-has-left-us