Picture of the Day
Quetrupillán Volcano is one of many in Chile’s lakes and volcanoes region. This landscape of fuming volcanoes and emerald green lakes, ancient forests and steaming hot springs lies in central Chile, between northern Atacama – the driest place on Earth – and southern Patagonia. Settled thousands of years ago by the native Mapuche people, the area has ten volcanoes, scores of lakes and white-water rivers, and ten national parks and reserves. Photograph by Robert B. Haas, National Geographic.
Filed under News
Quote of the Day
“We got any Darwin fans in the house?”
— Baba Brinkman, a performer at Rock Beyond Belief. The gathering marked the first time the U.S. military hosted an event expressly for soldiers and others who don’t believe in God.
Filed under News
April 2, 2012 – 262 days Until Baktun 12
Survivalist Tip: For some reason, biologists decided to jump from E to K when naming vitamins. It’s almost as senseless as the Jewish rite of circumcision, but at least no helpless babies are butchered so their already-overweight grandmothers can have something else to eat. Vitamin K is known as the clotting vitamin because, without it, well…blood wouldn’t clot. Vitamin K also helps maintain strong bones in elderly people. Therefore, it – like all the other vitamins – is a critical piece of your survivalist cache. It’s found mostly in leafy green vegetables, such as kale and spinach, but also in broccoli and cauliflower. Fish, liver, meat, eggs and some cereal grains also contain Vitamin K, although in smaller amounts. In the chaotic aftermath of the apocalypse, you may find yourself in the struggle for survival over food, water and chocolate. There’s a good chance you’ll have to beat the crap out of someone just to stay alive. Healthy intakes of Vitamin K, therefore, will prevent you from bruising and bleeding easily. The ancient Mayans had strong bones and tough skins thanks to a healthy, vitamin-rich diet. It’s why their descendants are still alive today and more than ready for the start of Baktun 12. If they’d maintained a diet of communion wafers and red wine like Roman Catholic priests had wanted them to do, they all would have died out long ago!
Filed under Mayan Calendar Countdown
Today’s Notable Birthdays
If your birthday is today also, “Happy Birthday!”
Actress Rita Gam (The Thief, Klute, Midnight) is 85.
Singer – songwriter Warner Mack is 74.
Singer – songwriter Leon Russell is 70.
Actress Linda Hunt (The Year of Living Dangerously, NCIS: Los Angeles, Silverado) is 67.
Former professional baseball player Reggie Smith (Boston Red Sox, St. Louis Cardinals, LA Dodgers) is 67.
Baseball Hall of Famer Don Sutton (5th highest record of pitching strikeouts – 3,569; LA Dodgers, Houston Astros, Milwaukee Brewers, California Angels, Oakland Athletics) is 67.
Singer Emmylou Harris is 65.
Actress Pamela Reed (Junior, The Clan of the Cave Bear, The Right Stuff) is 63.
Singer Keren Woodward (Bananarama) is 51.
Filed under Birthdays
On April 2…
1513 – Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León landed on the mainland North America, near what is now St. Augustine, FL, which would become the first permanent European settlement in the future United States.
1805 – Author Hans Christian Andersen was born in Odensk, Denmark.
1792 – The U.S. Congress authorized the first U.S. mint in Philadelphia, PA.
1840 – Author Emile Zola was born in Paris, France.
1872 – G.B. Brayton of Boston, MA, received a patent for the gas-powered engine.
1875 – Walter Chrysler, founder of the Chrysler Corporation, was born in Wamego, KS.
1889 – Charles Hall patented aluminum on this day.
1896 – Madison Square Garden in New York City hosted the season premiere of the Barnum and Bailey Circus and featured a Duryea horseless carriage.
1902 – Esther Morris, the first woman judge elected in the United States, died in Cheyenne, WY.
1902 – The first motion picture theatre opened in Los Angeles. The Electric Theatre charged a dime to see an hour’s worth of entertainment.
1917 – President Woodrow Wilson asked Congress for a declaration of war against Germany.
1917 – Jeanette Pickering Rankin, the first woman elected to Congress, took her seat as a representative of Montana.
1956 – Two very successful daytime dramas, The Edge of Night and As the World Turns, premiered on CBS-TV.
1969 – The Milwaukee Bucks of the National Basketball Association signed Lew Alcindor for a reported $1,400,000 five-year contract. Alcindor soon changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabar, and his team changed their name to the Los Angeles Lakers.
1972 – Actor Burt Reynolds appeared nude in Cosmopolitan magazine. That issue of Cosmo became an instant collector’s item and an additional 700,000 copies had to be printed.
1982 – Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands in an ill-fated attempt to reclaim them from Great Britain. The brief war cost England 256 lives and Argentina 750 lives.
Filed under History
The Missing 20th Century: How Copyright Protection Makes Books Vanish
This chart shows a distribution of 2500 newly printed fiction books selected at random from Amazon’s warehouses.
This is an interesting graph I saw on Linked In today. Paul Heald, a law professor at the University of Illinois, was curious how copyrights apply to older works of literature in the new digital age. In other words, if an outfit like Amazon publishes a long out-of-print book in digital format, can the author – or his or her heirs – claim copyright infringement? In a speech he gave to the University of Canterbury on March 16, Heald pointed out that most books published since 1923 have copyrights. But, he also noted that there are just as many books with copyrights in the first decade of the 21st century as there were in the decade from 1910 to 1920. It’s a significant observation with a global impact, considering how the publishing industry is moving more and more towards digital formats. As always, it seems standard laws can’t keep up with technological advances.
Filed under News
Picture of the Day
Flowers line the steps of a cathedral in Girona, Spain, along the Costa Brava region, for last year’s “Temps de Flors” festival. The annual spring gathering sees an explosion of colorful flowers that clutter Girona’s patios and gardens and surround a number of public buildings. This year’s event will be held May 12 – 20. Photo courtesy David Adamson.
Filed under News
Quote of the Day
“We are updating our economic model, but we are not talking about political reform.”
– Marino Murillo, a top government official in Cuba, after Pope Benedict XVI visited the communist nation and called for a more open society.
Filed under News
Chief Writing Wolf 