Category Archives: Uncategorized

Oops, Sorry For “Accidentally” Destroying Your Mar Mkhayel Home

Oops! We knocked down another house accidentally for the 500th time – let’s go for 1,000! Not.

A Separate State of Mind | A Blog by Elie Fares

While everyone jumped from one pub to the next in Mar Mkhayel yesterday to catch the first game of the FIFA World Cup, there was a woman there standing in disbelief in the midst of her living room, looking over the streets filled with traffic. She was not looking out of a window.

The Facebook group advocating to Save Beirut’s Heritage (link) is trying to propagate the story of a woman who could have died because of the greed of contractors in Beirut who know there’s no law to hunt them, no regulations to constrict them and no one to tell them they did nothing wrong.

Right next to that woman’s house is a 1920s building which as of yesterday does not exist anymore. In the process of demolishing that building, her own apartment’s walls were destroyed in the process. If that woman had been there while those skilled…

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Our Contribution To The Fossil Record

A coffee lid and a stir stick?

The Dish

i1052-5173-24-6-4-f04

Mother Earth has turned our plastic trash into a new type of stone:

Most plastic in the ocean disintegrates into small pieces (which don’t go away, either), but some of it melts into “molten” plastic, and it fuses with all the regular, organic materials below it, forming a super-hard monolithic stone. It was first observed in Hawaii in 2006 by an oceanographer, but geologists didn’t collect the stones until 2012. According to the new study, even though most of the plastic is molten, you can often still identify specific objects within the stone, including “netting/ropes, pellets, partial containers/packaging, lids, tubes/pipes, and ‘confetti.'”

Unsurprisingly, these superhard “plastiglomerate” stones are sticking around:

The resulting materials, researchers report in the journal GSA Today, will probably be long-lived and could even become permanent markers in the planet’s geologic record. “Most conventional plastic is relatively thin and fragments quickly,” said Richard Thompson, a marine biologist…

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George Will Loses The Plot

What I have to wonder about is this: What negative behavior, action, or thoughts did George Will commit to gain notice from his peers that he is now projecting on women that he knows nothing about?

The Dish

In his column last Friday on what he sees as the dangers of progressivism in universities, George Will provoked widespread outrage by expressing skepticism in statistics about campus rape and mocking the Obama administration’s response to the crisis. The line that seemed to really set people off was his allegation that campus progressivism seeks to “make victimhood a coveted status that confers privileges,” which in turn makes “victims proliferate”. In fairness to Will, he wasn’t specifically referring to sexual assault here, and the line has since been widely quoted out of context, but Twitter wasn’t about to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Amanda Marcotte covers the backlash:

Sexual assault victims were so outraged at being told they exaggerated their experiences to get some unnamed “privileges” that they took to Twitter to explain how un-fun it actually is to come out about your rape. Wagatwe Wanjuki kicked it off with a tweet reading, “Where’s my survivor…

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Militias versus mice? US declares rare western Meadow jumping mouse endangered

A rare mouse found in New Mexico and two other western states now has protection under the U.S. Endangered Species Act.

That’s expected to aggravate ongoing battles between the federal government and western ranchers over water and property rights in drought-stricken areas.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Monday listed the New Mexico meadow jumping mouse as endangered.

The tiny mouse lives along streams and in wet areas in parts of New Mexico, southern Colorado and eastern Arizona. Biologists say the biggest threats are grazing and water use and management.

Regional officials with the U.S. Forest Service have acknowledged they will have to put up fences or take other action to protect water sources for the mouse. Ranchers say that could force them to abandon their grazing allotments.

via US declares rare western Meadow jumping mouse endangered.

Egyptian Aak 2014 – Week 23 ( June2 – June 8)

Nervana

Sisi's family 2(Egypt’s First Lady, via Daily News Egypt)

Main Headlines

 Monday

Tuesday

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Plot to take over UK schools by followers of hard-line fundamentalist Michael Gove

goofs

Pride's Purge

(satire?)

Militant extremists from Department for Education in shocking plot to take over UK schools

An alleged plot to take over some schools in the UK and make them adhere to more fundamentalist principles espoused by the radical hard-line zealot Michael Gove is being investigated, it has emerged.

The National Association of Head Teachers said it had received some anonymous letters in February which claimed that a shadowy extremist Conservative group known as the ‘DfE‘ (Department for Education) was trying to take over UK schools and engineer the sacking of head teachers who did not promote the hard-line radical organisation’s fundamentalist ideals.

A spokesperson for the Home Office said the Home Secretary Theresa May was working night and day and doing everything in her power to eradicate the threat from militant supporters of Gove and was actively exploring ways to deport the head of the ‘DfE’ from the cabinet to prevent him becoming leader of the Conservative Party…

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California Chrome Injured Out Of The Gate At Belmont And There Went History.

Longshot's Blog

#3 Matterhorn stepped on California Chrome out of the gate.

California Chrome Belmont Start

California Chrome Belmont Injury

If you don’t think this hurt think again. This poor horse was running on three legs instead of four.

But all of us in the horse racing business know that anything can happen in a race. On this occasion though it is more than sad because this injury alone could have cost California Chrome history.

Imagine a chunk getting taken out your heel down to the bone. Could you run a mile and a half? or a few yards for that matter. You know these horses are made out of flesh and blood like us.

There’s no doubt in my mind that the pain this horse withstood throughout the race was horrendous. I now pray it doesn’t turn out to be a quarter crack which can get quite serious.

And say what you will about owner Steve Coburn, NBC’s antics…

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Dutty Tribal Politics

Jamaica Woman Tongue

images Damion Crawford

Damion Crawford’s “unfortunate” apology is quite inadequate. He takes no responsibility for his words. He “got carried away”. I suppose he was possessed by evil spirits (both JLP and PNP) and ended up speaking in tongues: “Yuh suppose to can look pon a man an” sey a PNP dat enuh, or yuh look pon a woman an’ sey a PNP dat. Some a unnu haffi have on orange fi wi know, cause unnu lifestyle come een like a dutty Labourite.”

11084282-two-cute-cows-and-three-sheep-on-pasture-with-a-wooden-fence-and-landscape-in-background-1Under the influence of the spirits, Crawford highlights a problem that is particularly troubling for politicians who can never be sure exactly how many sheep they have in their pen. Jamaican voters are a slick crew. They follow you up and down on the campaign trial. They wear your T-shirts. They eat and drink with you and, behind, they don’t just ‘susu pon you’, as Bob Marley warned…

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