CircleCount helps you better understand Google+

2013-05-13 19:58:32 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

facebook.com - News Organizations' Ties to White House
By Armed Mommy (www.facebook.com/ArmedMommy ). Uploaded May 13, 2013
facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=161384000704621 

Comment:
1. Virginia Moseley is actually "vice president and deputy bureau chief at the network’s Washington bureau" at CNN (since Nov 16, 2012)
http://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2012/11/16/virginia-moseley-joins-cnn 
http://now.msn.com/virginia-moseley-new-cnn-bureau-chief-is-married-to-tom-nides-of-obama-administration 
3. David Rhodes is "President of CBS News" (since Feb 2011)
cbsnews.com/8301-18564_162-7329695/david-rhodes 
5. Ben Sherwood is "President of ABC News" (since Dec 3, 2010)
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/ben-sherwood-named-president-abc-news/story?id=12304254#.UZDrNtFLW9c 
2. Tom Nides is"... more »

2013-05-12 03:24:22 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

ucsd.edu - The Keeling Curve - Special note on May 9, 2013 reading
By Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego. May 10, 2013
http://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu/special-note-on-may-9-2013-reading 

May 10 Comment: NOAA has reported 400.03 for May 9, 2013, while Scripps has reported 399.73. The difference partly reflects different reporting periods. NOAA uses UTC, whereas Scripps uses local time in Hawaii to define the 24-hr reporting period. If Scripps were to use same reporting period as NOAA, we would report 400.08 for May 9.

Comment:
There's something abnormal with the data. Based on this graph (as reported by Scripps): http://bluemoon.ucsd.edu/co2_400/mlo_one_week.png 

1. There's no daily average for May 8, and coincidentally there's what seems to be a series of 10 outliers from May 7 at 21 PM up to May 8 at 8 PM.... more »

2013-05-11 00:27:21 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

washingtontimes.com - Bloomberg, Obama and liberal media muzzled about gun crime decline
By Emily Miller (The Washington Times). May 9, 2013
washingtontimes.com/news/2013/may/9/miller-bloomberg-obama-and-liberal-media-muzzled-a 
Justice Department data shows massive decease in firearms homicides

Excerpt:
<<The reason they are hiding now is because they don’t want the public know that crime has gone down at the same time that gun ownership and carry permits have increased. The have — until now — been effective in hiding these facts.
On the same day that Justice released its report, Pew Research Center released a new poll that found that 56 percent of Americans believe gun crimes is higher now than 20 years ago and 26 percent thought it was the same. Only 12 percent knew that it was lower. The most dramatic decline was in the mid-1999s, but hassteadi... more »

2013-05-10 23:03:57 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

archive.org - History Begins at Sumer. Chapter 3 - Father and Son
By Samuel Noah Kramer (Assyriologist). 1956, 1981
http://archive.org/details/HistoryBeginsAtSumer 
The First Case of Juvenile Delinquency

If juvenile delinquency is a serious problem in our day, it might be consoling to know that things were not too different in ancient days. Wayward, disobedient, and ungrateful children were the bane of their parents thousands of years ago as well as today. They roamed the streets and boulevards and loitered in the public squares, perhaps even in gangs, in spite of the fact that they were supervised by a monitor. They hated school and education and made their fathers sick to death with their everlasting gripes and complaints. All this we learn from the text of a Sumerian essay, which was only very recently pieced together. The seventeen clay tablets and... more »

2013-05-09 00:23:20 (2 comments, 1 reshares, 1 +1s)

theatlantic.com - Study: People Who Are Famous and Successful Have Shorter Lives
By Lindsay Abrams. April 18, 2013
theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/04/study-people-who-are-famous-and-successful-have-shorter-lives/275078 
Earning an obituary in the New York Times is generally a good marker for above-average longevity, as long as that success in life isn't accompanied by fame.

Comment: There are many possible confounding factors in that study that haven't been corrected.

Excerpt:
<<People who were both successful and famous died earliest. The average age at death of performers and athletes, 77.2 years, wasn't exactly young, but it was younger than those who had achieved success in other fields. Businesspeople and their ilk lived longest. In fact, their average age at death, 83 years, was higher than the national average for 2010 of7... more »

2013-05-06 21:58:10 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Weinberg, Dawkins, and the universe
This is a great discussion exploring all kinds of questions, especially touching on some points of contact between physics and the 'grand' religious or quasi-religious questions, including the issue of fine-tuning of physical constants, anthropic selection from a larger reality, what we know about the early universe from experiments, and what we think we know. Its clear from the thunder in the first few minutes that they've angered the Gods....

In case you weren't aware, Steven Weinberg is one of the main co-fathers of the Standard Model, a Nobel laureate, and wrote the book (all 3 volumes) on quantum field theory, so as someone very familiar with the currently most fundamental frameworks he's among the most trustworthy and well-prepared to discuss these matters.

One of the physical issues they tackle early on is... more »

2013-05-05 13:14:03 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

bfi.org.uk (British Film Institute) - Tea Making Tips
Sponsored by The Empire Tea Bureau. 1941
youtu.be/vnvYymrCn4g (10 min 2 sec)

Video blurb:
<<Welcome to the world of a national obsession and a place where people say 'orf' instead of 'off'. Tea connoisseurs will benefit from the six golden tips for making the perfect cuppa, as well as countless other handy hints (never store your tea next to cheese, for example). There's an assessment of the pros and cons of various teapots and words of wisdom about the tea bush itself. 

Slightly grotesque methods for producing tea en masse are demonstrated - it was wartime, after all - and tea had to be produced by the oceanful. As such, there are some top tips for cleaning that hard-to-reach tap in your tea urn. Remember: "a dirty tap means dirty tea". (Robin Baker)
more »

2013-05-05 15:20:07 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Global Warming -- The Current Status: The Science, the Scandal, the Prospects for a Treaty. By Richard A. Muller

Energy Biosciences Institute Seminar - Richard Muller (Seminar)
By Richard A. Muller (Professor, Dept. of Physics, UC Berkeley). September 21, 2010
youtu.be/UcqbTRTZoGU (1 h 7 min 32 sec)

UCBerkeleyEvents - UC Berkeley Distinguished Teaching Award-winning Physicist Richard Muller, whose expertise spans astrophysics, geophysics, ice ages and death stars, discusses "The Current Status of Climate Change"

Lecture (same subject):

Global Warming -- The Current Status: The Science, the Scandal, the Prospects for a Treaty
By Richard A. Muller (Professor, Dept. of Physics, UC Berkeley). October 1, 2010
youtu.be/VbR0EPWgkEI (52 min 12 sec) (berkeleyearth.org)

Abstract: Recent events in the field of... more »

2013-05-01 07:02:27 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Étienne-Louis Boullée, 1728 - 1799  (album with 278 photos)
Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France (BNF)

Comment: Due to the low pixel count (aka pixel resolution en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_resolution#Pixel_resolution) of many of the pictures, I strongly recommend to zoom in the slide-show page, so that the first photo fills all the available space of your screen (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Page_zooming); this action can be performed pressing "ctrl" & "+" on Windows or "cmd" & "+" on Mac OS.  There's additional information on the images in their file names, visible when the "photo details" option (on the left side) is open.

Related webpages:
bnf.fr - Étienne-Louis Boullée [French]
By Daniel Rabreau, Christophe Morin and Gaël Lesterlin (autors).http://... more »

2013-04-24 05:33:08 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

youtube.com - Salvage - Pilot Episode (1 h 35 min 4 sec)
By Mike Lloyd Ross (Columbia Pictures). Aired on ABC January 20, 1979
youtu.be/MykpNI8ABU4 | en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvage_1 

Comment: The way they find to generate thrust reminds me of the proposal of sequentially detonate a series of thermonuclear explosions in front of the back end of a spacecraft to propel it (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_pulse_propulsion). Don't be too harsh in judging this series, take into account that it was produced more than 34 years and probably with a relatively small budget and created to please the taste of the American audience of that time. I would consider "Jettison Scrap and Salvage Company" to be the spiritual forefather of Ellon Musk's SpaceX, at least both have the same goals: "we can do it better and much cheaper than NASA, our space travels can beec... more »

2013-04-22 02:51:50 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 1 +1s)

plus.google.com - Have Human Society and Religion Coevolved Together like a Host-Parasite Relationship?

<< Host–parasite coevolution is a special case of coevolution, which is defined as the reciprocal adaptive genetic change of two antagonists (e.g. different species or genes) through reciprocal selective pressures. In the particular case of host–parasite coevolution the antagonists are different species of host and parasite.[1]>>
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Host-parasite_coevolution 

<<In his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins coined the term memes to describe informational units that can be transmitted culturally, analogous to genes.[33] He later used this concept in the essay "Viruses of the Mind" to explain the persistence of religious ideas in human culture.[34]>>en... more »

2013-04-21 21:53:18 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

2013-04-18 21:42:25 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

There’s a lot less sperm around than most people realise

...or watch a mind explode when it finally realises what alternation of the generations means. Hayfever sufferers will soon be watching pollen counts in the northern hemisphere as plants start reproducing. But all that pollen isn't plant sperm and this has been known for over a century,

So why does the idea it is hang around?

http://aobblog.com/2013/04/theres-a-lot-less-sperm-around-than-most-people-realise/

2013-04-21 00:58:45 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 2 +1s)

phys.org - Why not marry your cousin? Millions do
By National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent). April 25, 2012
phys.org/news/2012-04-cousin-millions.html 
The health risks of marrying a cousin have been grossly overstated, says a new book.

Excerpt:
<<In 'Consanguinity in Context,' author and medical geneticist Alan H. Bittles of Murdoch University in Australia examines common misconceptions about cousin marriage from legal, cultural, religious and medical perspectives.

Marriage between cousins is taboo in much of the Western world. In the United States, 31 of 50 states outlaw marriage between first cousins, or allow it only under certain circumstances.

Although cousin marriage is banned in much of the US, the practice is tolerated and even encouraged in other parts of the world. In South Asia and the Middle East, for... more »

2013-04-17 12:55:30 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

cnn.com - 5 viral stories about Boston attacks that aren't true
By Doug Gross (CNN). April 16, 2013
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/04/16/tech/social-media/social-media-boston-fakes/index.html 

<< On Google+, one of the users who shared the image followed it with "poor little girl..got killed in boston..):" By Tuesday, it had more than 500 comments and had become a "What's Hot" post on the site -- appearing in the feeds of all users who haven't turned off that feature.>>

Comment: OMG! Google, why did you let me miss that crap? Could you spam it back to my stream?

<<Reports flew around social media, mainly Twitter, on Monday that police in Boston had shut down cellular networks to prevent an attacker from using a cell phone to detonate another explosive. At least one media report quoted an unnamed... more »

2013-04-17 13:52:01 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

runnersworld.com - Inner Workings - Race Fee$
By Jason Stevenson. August, 2011

Are today's road races overpriced— or undervalued?
The answer may surprise you

Related article:
runnersworld.com - Why Are Road Races So Expensive?
By Marc Chalufour. July 29, 2011
runnersworld.com/races/why-are-road-races-so-expensive?page=single 
We look at how the road racing culture is changing

URL related G+ post: 
plus.google.com/114605547533973731226/posts/AJphHB92Wkk 
_______________ 

2013-04-16 20:20:21 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 1 +1s)

guardian.co.uk - UK refuses to admit US embassy cables obtained by WikiLeaks are genuine
By Richard Norton-Taylor. April 15, 2013
guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/15/uk-us-embassy-cables-wikileaks 
High court hears government will not confirm or deny that documents are authentic in Chagos Islands case

Excerpt:
<<It was made clear that the refusal was intended to protect the government from the charge that it imposed a Marine Protected Area around the Chagos Islands in the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) to prevent the islanders from ever returning to their homeland.>>

<<A US embassy cable published in the Guardian in December 2010 quoted a senior Foreign Office official, Colin Roberts, telling the Americans that as a result of imposing the marine reserve, there would be no "human footprints" or "Man Fridays"o... more »

2013-04-14 15:37:46 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

7billionworld.com - 7 billion people on 1 page
We recently reached 7 billion people in the world.
On this page you can see every single one of us. One by one.

Excerpt from comments:

Justin Moore Apr 12, 2013
Ummmm....is it just me or is the color-coding on this a little bit racist?
_________________ 

Justin Moore Apr 12, 2013 (edited)
+Denis Labelle Setting aside my previous objection that the color coding is obviously racially inspired (black for Africa, red for "the Americas" and yellow for "Asia"), in response to your last comment we don't know when the moment was. "The website" is FOS on that point. That's just one person's totally made-up and arbitrary timestamp set around the time demographers started saying that, yes, there were now at least 7 billion people.__... more »

2013-04-12 08:35:36 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

cornell.edu - CRS Annotated Constitution - Amendment II
Analysis from the Congressional Research Service - Bearing Arms
Legal Information Institute (Cornell University Law School).
law.cornell.edu/anncon/html/amdt2_user.html#amdt2_hd1

Excerpt:
<<Supplement [add to text at end of section:]

It was not until 2008 that the Supreme Court definitively came down on the side of an “individual rights” theory.[1] Relying on new scholarship regarding the origins of the Amendment, the Court in District of Columbia v. Heller[2] confirmed what had been a growing consensus of legal scholars – that the rights of the Second Amendment adhered to individuals. The Court reached this conclusion after a textual analysis of the Amendment,[3] an examination of the historical use of prefatory phrases in statutes, and a detailed exploration of the 18thcentu... more »

2013-04-11 06:23:46 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

cbc.ca - Quirks and Quarks - Big Dogs Die Young
By Dr. Daniel Promislow (guest) and Bob McDonald (host). April 6, 2013
cbc.ca/quirks/episode/2013/04/06/april-6-2013/#1 
Audio file: cbc.ca/quirks/media/2012-2013/qq-2013-04-06_01.mp3 (9' 37'')

Normally, large mammals live longer that small ones.  The common example is that elephants can live up to 70 years, whereas mice live only 4.   Dogs, however, seem to defy the norm - having a larger body is costly in terms of longevity.  New research by Dr. Daniel Promislow, a Canadian Professor of Genetics at the University of Georgia in Athens, has determined that big dogs age at a faster rate and are more prone to typical age-related illness earlier on than small breeds.  He and his colleagues propose that cancer is more common in large dogs, as a consequence of humans breeding dogs for size over the last 150 year orso. ... more »

2013-04-09 02:20:55 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

wikipedia.org - Non-profit Charity Evaluators
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charity_evaluator 
charitynavigator.org | charitywatch.org | guidestar.org | givewell.org 

<<A charity evaluator is an organization, normally non-profit, that focusses on assessing charities. They attempt to bring things like skepticism and business best practices to the field of philanthropy.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charity_evaluator 
Auditing charities
The Toronto Star reports on some of the difficulties and revelations of auditing charities as described by Charity Intelligence Canada (CIC). The authors call it "concerning", for example, that one in five of "Canada's top 100 charities" refused to release their full audited financial statements to CIC. Moreover, one quarter of the "top 100 charities" store at least 3 years worth of funding (that is,th... more »

2013-04-08 06:22:18 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

youtube.com - "Il ventre dell'architetto" / The Belly of an Architect
By Peter Greenaway (director and writer). 1987
youtu.be/SbN0pmWtDZs  (1 min 55 sec)

Comment: My previous post has reminded me of "Il Ventre Dell'architetto" (for obvious reasons), in my opinion, the most accomplished work of Peter Greenaway's films. The soundtrack by Wim Mertens is also rather good.

Selected scenes and soundtrack:
Il Ventre Dell'architetto (1 min 55 sec)
Il Ventre Dell'architetto (5 min 2 sec)
Il Ventre Dell'architetto (3 min 9 sec)
Greenaway - Il Ventre Dell'Architetto (Letter To Boullée) - Excerpt.mp4 (2' 34'')
The Belly of an Architect: What else would there be? (1 min 29 sec)
Belly of An Architect -- Peter Greenaway (1987) (3 min 54 sec)
The Belly Of An ArchitectSo... more »

2013-04-08 04:18:19 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

youtube.com/user/franckyOtedesc - Auditorium Oscar Niemeyer (Ravello)
By Oscar Niemeyer (1907-2012). 2000 - 2010
youtu.be/PhQIRNo-kpU  (5 min 2 sec)
Video by Franco di Capua (franckyOtedesc). Feb 25, 2010
facebook.com/DiCAPUA.Channel 

Comment: People keep referring to this building as an eye when it's clearly the linear representation of the cochlea of the inner ear (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochlea), once unfolded and shortened, with its oval window (the large glass wall: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oval_window), scala vestibuli (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scala_vestibuli), scala tympani (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scala_tympani), and its round window (the rear round window: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Round_window). Besides, it's an auditorium, not a movie theater. Alternatively, the glass front wall could represent the eardrum (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eardrum), and theaud... more »

2013-04-06 04:07:37 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

youtube.com - "Don't Judge Me!" (0:46)
By Steven Crowder. October 26, 2012
youtu.be/sSxDE1QCHA4#t=46s 

"but judging anyone lowers me to the lowest common denominator."
— DS

- What an oxymoronic statement. Do you realize that with this comment you're judging implicitly those who judge the others? If you are so against judging others why do you judge the "judges"? [i.e., judgmental people]


Original full ad (roll down the page): 
dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2223316/Lena-Dunham-says-time-Obama-US-election-video-paid-Presidents-campaign.html 

URL source G+ post: 
plus.google.com/115792072191029967365/posts/cGi51fnaPc6 
URL source G+ video (via +Ken MacMillan):
plus.google.com/115234319467908018169/posts/jKiLWJ8ynsR 
__________________ 

2013-04-05 05:24:32 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

Speaking a tonal language (such as Cantonese) primes the brain for musical training

Researchers at Baycrest Health Sciences' Rotman Research Institute (RRI) in Toronto have found the strongest evidence yet that speaking a tonal language may improve how the brain hears music. While the findings may boost the egos of tonal language speakers who excel in musicianship, they are exciting neuroscientists for another reason: they represent the first strong evidence that music and language – which share overlapping brain structures – have bi-directional benefits!

2013-04-04 11:11:28 (14 comments, 0 reshares, 9 +1s)

-flickr.com - Minor Protest Title: 267_6766 "Non-therapeutic Circumcision"
By DB King. October 11, 2005 (Washington D.C.)
Source: flickr.com/photos/bootbearwdc/51682205 (license terms below)
Minor protest in front of Washington Convention Center in connection with the American Association of Pediatricians annual meeting

Excerpts from Wikipedia:
<<Circumcision is probably the world's most widely performed procedure. Approximately one-third of males worldwide are circumcised, most often for reasons other than medical indication. The WHO estimated in 2007 that 664,500,000 males aged 15 and over are circumcised (30% global prevalence), almost 70% of whom are Muslim. Circumcision is most prevalent in the Muslim world, Israel, South Korea, the United States and parts of Southeast Asia and Africa. It is relatively rare in Europe, Latin America, parts... more »

2013-04-04 18:55:17 (40 comments, 0 reshares, 9 +1s)

-flickr.com - Minor Protest Title: 267_6766 "Non-therapeutic Circumcision"
By DB King. October 11, 2005 (Washington D.C.)
Source: flickr.com/photos/bootbearwdc/51682205 (license terms below)
Minor protest in front of Washington Convention Center in connection with the American Association of Pediatricians annual meeting

Edit:  I've expanded the post with further quotes.

Excerpts from Wikipedia:
<<Circumcision is probably the world's most widely performed procedure. Approximately one-third of males worldwide are circumcised, most often for reasons other than medical indication. The WHO estimated in 2007 that 664,500,000 males aged 15 and over are circumcised (30% global prevalence), almost 70% of whom are Muslim. Circumcision is most prevalent in the Muslim world, Israel, South Korea, the United States and parts of... more »

2013-04-04 09:44:59 (13 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

-flickr.com - Minor Protest Title: 267_6766 "Non-therapeutic Circumcision"
By DB King. October 11, 2005 (Washington D.C.)
Source: flickr.com/photos/bootbearwdc/51682205 (license terms below)

Minor protest in front of Washington Convention Center in connection with the American Association of Pediatricians annual meeting

Excerpts from Wikipedia:
<<Circumcision is probably the world's most widely performed procedure. Approximately one-third of males worldwide are circumcised, most often for reasons other than medical indication. The WHO estimated in 2007 that 664,500,000 males aged 15 and over are circumcised (30% global prevalence), almost 70% of whom are Muslim. Circumcision is most prevalent in the Muslim world, Israel, South Korea, the United States and parts of Southeast Asia and Africa. It is relatively rare in Europe, LatinA... more »

2013-03-31 01:22:55 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

wikipedia.org - Dark Ages (historiography)
By Wikipedia editors. Retrieved March 31, 2013
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ages_(historiography) 

Comment:  I don't usually post excerpts taken from Wikipedia articles, but this time I rather do an exception due to the widespread misinformation around this topic and my lack of better references (i.e., other than those provided in this article). 

+Teodor Poparescu: "So, in Renaissance, Christianity has disappeared?! This is one of those dumb memes that doesn't even worth debating..."

- I fully agree with you.  This seems to be one of those memes made up by someone with a deficient grasp of history of civilizations.  It's funny that a person who considers itself a rational thinker and supporter of science won't try to compare its preconceived ideas and prejudices with informationfrom... more »

2013-03-30 20:22:45 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

dailyrecord.co.uk - Celebs' bodyguard smuggled gun that killed Ian Langford into the UK
By Stuart Macdonald (Th Daily Record). September 25, 2012
dailyrecord.co.uk/news/crime/celebs-bodyguard-smuggled-gun-that-killed-1342389 

GLOCK pistol was brought into Scotland by ex-US marine Steven Greenoe who worked as a bodyguard to stars such as Madonna and George Clooney.

Excerpt:
<<Langford, 32, was shot dead by his pal John Tomney at a house in Wishaw, Lanarkshire, last year.
It can now be revealed the Glock pistol was brought into the UK on a flight by Greenoe, who has also protected Matt Damon.>>

<<Greenoe, 38, bought Glock pistols in North Carolina, broke them up and hid them in his luggage before flying to Manchester airport.
Last November, his accomplice Steven Cardwell, 31, of Liverpool, was jailed for selling the... more »

2013-03-28 17:12:55 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Your Deceptive Mind - The Trap of Grand Conspiracy Thinking

2013-03-26 10:15:37 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Milton Friedman - The Welfare Establishment (9 min 49 sec)
Uploaded by LibertyPen. 1977-78 [only right speaker sound]
youtu.be/QJEP1BzSeMQ 
Excerpt from Milton Friedman Speaks
freetochoose.net/store/product_info.php?products_id=152 

Related video recording:
Milton Friedman - Middle Class Welfare 

URL related G+ posts: 
plus.google.com/115288001414266277268/posts/T8Q765T5tXG 
plus.google.com/103355654726888136925/posts/CuSXBiaFkzB 
plus.google.com/114605547533973731226/posts/iptmxRquvCH 
_________________ 

2013-03-25 22:07:08 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

+Thoeun Kong: "+Zephyr López Cervilla I don't do the statistics myself, but you're trying to compare gun deaths to helmet deaths here. I'm just being facetious about it."

- I used the example of the helmets to exemplify that a statistical correlation (helmet ownership is positively correlated with having suffered a motorbike accident) doesn't necessarily imply a cause-effect relationship (helmets as a cause of motorbike accidents) (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation). Likewise, a positive correlation between higher rate of gun ownership and higher risk to be shot with firearms doesn't necessarily mean a cause-effect relationship.  
For instance, jewelers and goldsmiths are more likely to suffer firearm attacks than most other professionals.  This also correlates with a greater rate of gun ownership, which they use to protect themselvesfr... more »

2013-03-23 19:25:57 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

rae.es - tiara
By RAE (DRAE 21st edition). 1992

tiara.  (Del lat. tiāra; este del gr. τιάρα, este del persa tara. ) f. Gorro alto, de tela o cuero, a veces ricamente adornado, que usaban los persas y otras gentes de Asia antigua. || 2. Tocado alto, usado por el Santo Padre, con tres coronas que simbolizan su triple autoridad como Papa, Obispo y Rey, y que remata en una cruz sobre un globo. || 3. Dignidad de Sumo Pontífice.

— RAE. tiara. Diccionario de la Real Academia Española, 21ª. edición, 1992
_______ 

Vs. DRAE 22nd. edition, 2001:

tiara. (Del lat. tiāra, y este del gr. τιάρα).
1. f. Gorro alto, a veces ricamente adornado, que simbolizaba la realeza en el antiguo Egipto y otras monarquías orientales.
2. f. Triple corona que usaba el Papa como símbolo de su autoridad como papa,obispo y rey.
3. ... more »

2013-03-21 17:04:31 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

The Skeptics' Guide To The Universe - Ep. 400 - Meteorite Fossils
By Steven Novella et al. (theskepticsguide.org). March 16, 2013
http://theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=1&pid=400 

Excerpt (from 11 min 34 sec, to 12 min 15 sec):
"People were claiming that they were burnt by meteorites, and that there were fumes, weird fumes that even caused one to pass out apparently and had to be taken to the hospital. And right there that's gotta raise some skeptical eyebrows because meteorites generally are not hot, they're traveling in space in the close to absolute zero so after a brief little journey, fire journey through the atmosphere isn't going to make that much of a difference, and it doesn't conduct heat very well … they are not hot, they are generally pretty cold.  And the fumes, the whole thing with the fumes issill... more »

2013-03-20 07:43:30 (1 comments, 1 reshares, 1 +1s)

youtube.com - North Texas Explorer - The Chicxulub Crater
By Geologist Devin Dennie (host). Uploaded March 13, 2007
The Chicxulub Crater (4 min 57 sec)

Related paper: 
- Robertson DS et al. Survival in the first hours of the Cenozoic. Geological Society of America Bulletin (2004) vol. 116 (5-6) pp. 760-768 ugcs.caltech.edu/~presto/cenozoic.pdf 

Related G+ posts:
plus.google.com/114605547533973731226/posts/bpdDM7hSsbW 
plus.google.com/114605547533973731226/posts/hbEzaLrMKxf 
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2013-03-20 08:02:42 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

cosmiclog.nbcnews.com - Congress hears options for asteroid defense: Pay now or pray later
By Alan Boyle and Ali Weinberg (NBC News). March 20, 2013
http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/19/17373781-congress-hears-options-for-asteroid-defense-pay-now-or-pray-later 
NASA says it needs more money to protect the planet from asteroids. NBC's Stephanie Gosk reports.

Ali Weinberg is an associate producer with NBC News in Washington.
Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor.

Excerpt from comments of related G+ post 1:

Zephyr López Cervilla Mar 20, 2013 4:12 AM (edited)
Actually, they might have saved themselves if they had sought for shelter inside a church:

- Robertson DS et al. Survival in the first hours of the Cenozoic. Geological Society of America Bulletin (2004) vol. 116 (5-6) pp. 760-768u... more »

2013-03-19 08:12:31 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

guardian.co.uk - Thanks to Rand Paul, libertarian politics is more popular than ever
By James Antle. March 18, 2013
guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/18/rand-paul-2016-libertairan-best-chance 
Rand Paul is the fresh face of US politics, and he's using his influence to change GOP policies on drones, defense and more

Comment 1: I'm posting this article mainly to share the following comments that were posted below,

Leofwine 18 March 2013 6:55pm
@Whitt- Actually, on the issue of gay marriage, I think libertarians are kind of not on the same page as social liberals. The liberals I know approve of gay marriage and believe government should "legalize" gay marriage. However, none of them believe that polygamous marriage should be legalized. In other words, they still believe that it is government's job to tell us which kinds... more »

2013-03-18 12:31:28 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Planetary Engineering, Restoring the Circumglobal Equatorial Current
By Magdi Ragheb (mragheb.com). October 14, 2010
http://mragheb.com/NPRE%20475%20Wind%20Power%20Systems/Global%20Climatic%20Change%20and%20Energy%20Use.pdf 

Excerpt pages 58 to 74

- Ragheb M. Global Climatic Change and Energy Use. mragheb.com (October 14, 2010) pp. 1-97
http://mragheb.com/NPRE%20475%20Wind%20Power%20Systems/Global%20Climatic%20Change%20and%20Energy%20Use.pdf 
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ABSTRACT
An analytical model is developed for etimating the heat fluxes in the lower and upper parts of the atmosphere that would result from possible increases in the carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations and the ensuing temperature changes.  For a doubling of the CO2 concentration by volume, the heat flux to the troposphere is estimated to increase by 22 percent, and for aquadr... more »

2013-03-12 22:50:36 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

caltech.edu - Survival in the first hours of the Cenozoic.
By Robertson DS et al. 2004
Geological Society of America Bulletin (2004) vol. 116 (5-6) pp. 760-768
ugcs.caltech.edu/~presto/cenozoic.pdf 

Excerpt:
INTRODUCTION

<<The pattern of differential survival among nonmarine vertebrates across the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) boundary is one of the outstanding problems in paleontology. As Alvarez (1997, p. 14–15) stated, ‘‘Many smaller land animals survived, including mammals, as well as reptiles such as crocodiles and turtles.

No one really understands why these animals escaped extinction.’’ Powell (1998, p. 174) noted, ‘‘No one has yet been able to explain under any theory why the crocodiles and turtles survived and the dinosaurs did not.’’ As Fastovsky and Weishampel (1996, p. 411) put it, ‘‘The pattern ofselectivity—that is, w... more »

2013-03-11 04:11:10 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 1 +1s)

guardian.co.uk - Three Democratic myths used to demean the Paul filibuster
By Glenn Greenwald (The Guardian's columnist). March 10, 2013
guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/10/paul-filibuster-drones-progressives 

The progressive 'empathy gap', a strain of liberal authoritarianism, and a distortion of Holder's letter are invoked to defend Obama

Excerpt:
<<Yesterday, the Nigerian-American writer Teju Cole, in an interview with Mother Jones, said the key fact about US drone killings is that what "we're facing here is an empathy gap". He added:

"Killing a bunch of people in Sudan and Yemen and Pakistan, it's like, 'Who cares - we don't know them.' But the current discussion is framed as 'When can the President kill an American citizen?' Now in my mind, killing a non-American citizen... more »

2013-03-10 00:10:42 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Temperature over the past 11,000 years.  

Nice going, 20th century!

Read some pull quotes and a link to the new paper in Science:  http://www.contriving.net/link/b4