Bong & Booze for Granny

Gulf Oil Plume Is Not Breaking Down Fast, Study Says:

New research confirms the existence of a huge plume of dispersed oil deep in the Gulf of Mexico and suggests that it has not broken down rapidly, raising the possibility that it might pose a threat to wildlife for months or even years. MORE.

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Between April 20 and July 15, 2010, a generally accepted estimate of nearly 5 million barrels (200 million gallons) of crude oil emerged from the wellhead drilled into the seafloor by BP from the now-destroyed Deepwater Horizon drilling rig. Now that the flow of oil has been stopped, the impact of all the spilled oil and natural gas is still being measured. The current moratorium on deep water remains in place as reports from varying scientific groups are at odds about the extent of the remaining oil, and some fishing restrictions have already been lifted. As BP finalizes its work in killing the well, here is a collection of photos from around the Gulf of Mexico over the past couple of months, as all of those affected enter the next phase of this event. (42 photos total)

Now that the oil well is capped… – The Big Picture – Boston.com.

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Afghanistan War News Updates — August 20, 2010.

U.S. Iraq Troop Withdrawal ‘In Name Only’ As Country Faces Uncertain Future – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty © 2010.

Alert 5 » Blog Archive » New Yorkers warned of F-16 overflights, Thunderbirds are coming.

Afghanistan’s Most Dangerous Job: Finding IEDs .

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Shoplifting rates are soaring, at least among the grabby progeny of New York state mayors and former mayors. On the last day of July, Byron W. Brown Jr., the 19-year-old son of Buffalo mayor Byron W. Brown, was nabbed stealing $58 worth of clothing and iPod accessories from a bargain apparel store. Four days later, Caroline Giuliani, the 20-year-old daughter of New York city ex-mayor Rudy Giuliani, got popped trying to lift $100 worth of lip gloss, lipstick, and other cosmetics from a Sephora on the Upper East Side.

Once you start paying attention to the latest shoplifting news, it quickly seems as if America is in the throes of an egalitarian epidemic, afflicting the sleepy, the forgetful, the disorganized, the formerly beautiful, and the insufficiently inconspicuous alike. Amongst the greater population, however, shoplifting is suffering from a slight recession. According to the National Retail Security Survey, a joint project of the National Retail Federation and the University of Florida, retailers lost $12.7 billion to shoplifters in 2008 and only $11.7 billion in 2009. That’s an 8% plummet in a single year.

On the one hand, this downward trend makes perfect sense. The economy’s improving. And retail security’s no joke.

READ HERE.

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Chinese Infantry: Paratroopers Land In Tibet.

The World’s Real Winners – .

Timely and All-Time Best & Worst Lists .

A link between pesticides and attention disorders? – Wellness .

Young woman lying on sofa & holding burning cigarette (photo by Fitz W. Guerin).

Very few women smoked at the turn of the century, because smoking was seen as immoral and a sign of bad character. This was very frustrating to tobacco companies. As George Washington Hill, president of American Tobacco said in 1928, convincing women to smoke “will be like opening a new gold mine in our front yard.” But, tobacco companies dared not advertise to women, for fear of sparking public outcry.

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The truth behind America’s ‘civilian militias’ .

Scinetists reveal why introverts prefer being alone

Bees fare better in town than country .

Close up macro photographs of tiny jumping spiders turn them into ferocious monsters .

FOX News – U.S. – U.S. – Salvagers to pull rare World War II plane from Calif. reservoir 6 decades after it crashed .

Mystery of the Atlantic’s missing plastic flotsam .

Traditional Chinese medicine could boost cancer treatment .

Pesticide exposure in the womb could cause attention deficit hyperactivity disorder .

BBC World Service – News – Striking a Chord: songs that speak to a generation, country or culture.

What our mothers and grandmothers were doing! hahahahhahahhaa

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Access : Neurogenomics: Parental influences run deep : Nature Reviews Neuroscience.

The neuroscientist paralysed by love – .

Granny happy with her bong and booze!

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And many of the atrocities Japanese troops committed were seen by Japanese officers simply as a way to improve morale by letting the troops take out their frustrations on the locals. After all, the women raped and men murdered were not Japanese. So what did it matter? This racist attitude influenced everything the Japanese soldier did. When fighting the formidable American soldiers and marines, the Japanese were particularly enraged. How could these non-Japanese dare to actually defeat us? A combination of frustration and contempt caused Japanese soldiers to be even more vicious. Prisoners often received particularly harsh treatment. Not just because they were non-Japanese, but mainly because the Japanese did not consider surrender an option. So if foreigners surrendered, they were not real men, not real soldiers. They had disgraced themselves and deserved whatever bad treatment the Japanese could come up with. This led to things like using prisoners for bayonet practice, or live subjects for Japanese army doctors to practice surgery on.

At the end of the war, before the atomic bombs were dropped, the Japanese high command sent orders to all commanders of prisoner of war camps to be prepared to kill all their prisoners on short notice, especially if enemy forces were nearby. The Allies became aware of this order, and when the Japanese finally agreed to surrender, the Japanese were told to rescind the “kill all prisoners” order, or else.

Nearly a million Allied troops were preparing to invade Japan when the surrender was announced. These troops were overjoyed. And here’s why.