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To keep my mind off the waiting, waiting, I play bridge. Omar Sharif represented Egypt in the 1964 Olympics for the game of contract bridge, according to one of the more benign rumors circulating about him on the internet. The secular trinity of Google, Google Books, and Wikipedia are uncharacteristically useless in confirming or denying the story, but the fact is, it just can’t be true, because bridge isn’t an Olympic sport. Bridge players have tried for decades to make it one, and in the late 1990s, the Olympic Committee recognized as it as one of two “mind sports,” along... Continue reading

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For them, this IS cuddling. Continue reading

Two in five Americans say they regularly attend religious services. Upward of 90 percent of all Americans believe in God, pollsters report, and more than 70 percent have absolutely no doubt that God exists. The patron saint of Christmas, Americans insist, is the emaciated hero on the Cross, not the obese fellow in the overstuffed costume. There is only one conclusion to draw from these numbers: Americans are significantly more religious than the citizens of other industrialized nations. Except they are not. Read the rest at www.slate.com Continue reading

This is my favourite rendition, by far, of the old Woody Guthrie song, Plane Wreck at Los Gatos Canyon (Deportee). Continue reading

Research & Rescue wishes you and yours a brilliantly joyous holiday season! Continue reading

RIP Blake Edwards, Director of The Pink Panther Films. Continue reading

Brilliant presentation, done completely in Google Docs Continue reading

Received this action alert via e-mail: The FBI estimates that more than 100,000 underage girls are exploited for sex in the Unites States each year. Sex trafficking is a modern form of slavery, yet all too often victims are difficult to identify and trafficked persons are often prosecuted as prostitutes or deported as undocumented immigrants. The Senate has already passed a bill by unanimous consent that would call victims of sex trafficking what they are -- victims -- and establish pilot programs which would provide counseling, education, and basic support for these young women. This bill, the Domestic Minor Sex... Continue reading

Best. Christmas. Video. Ever. Continue reading

Interesting post over at Education Stormfront today. Imagine an alternate reality. In this world there is only one kind of restaurant. Each looks different from the outside but inside they are pretty much identical. They are run by the government as a service because everyone needs to eat. In fact attendance is mandatory until you become an adult. The government provides buses that come around early in the morning and pick everyone up and take them to their restaurant. Now keep in mind the patrons don’t actually get to choose which restaurant to go to. Upon arriving at the restaurant...... Continue reading

When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy.’ They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life. ~ John Lennon Quoted from World of Psychology: John Lennon: Psychodrama of a Gifted Child http://bit.ly/e3fi00 Continue reading

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A quick experiment. Before proceeding to the next paragraph, let your mind wander wherever it wants to go. Close your eyes for a few seconds, starting ... now. Enlarge This Image Viktor Koen And now, welcome back for the hypothesis of our experiment: Wherever your mind went — the South Seas, your job, your lunch, your unpaid bills — that daydreaming is not likely to make you as happy as focusing intensely on the rest of this column will. I’m not sure I believe this prediction, but I can assure you it is based on an enormous amount of daydreaming... Continue reading

Results for Organizations via www.hbdi.com Continue reading

This is quite beautiful: Continue reading

According to City-Data.com, the percentage of Pine Ridge residents living below the poverty line is more than 60%. For children, it's about 74%. The unemployment rate on Pine Ridge is somewhere around 85% (backpacksforpineridge.com) From Aaron Huey's talk at TEDxDU: "The suffering of the indigenous peoples is not an easy a simple issue to fix. It's not something everyone can get behind, the way they get behind helping Haiti or ending AIDS or fighting a famine. The fix, as it's called, may be much more difficult for the dominant society than, say a $50 check or a church trip to... Continue reading

I just signed the pledge to end hunger and a generous Bread for the World member donated $1 in my name to help fight hunger. For every person who signs the pledge, an additional $1 will be donated to Bread for the World. Will you join me? Your voice can make a difference in the lives of hungry kids. Continue reading

Can leadership, diplomacy and institutional design be used to wage peace? Seems like a no-brainer. Historically, there's been a gap between power and leadership. Hopefully a global change in thought will result in a change in the trend. Continue reading

Took a stroll on the main loop at Bandelier, since it was such nice weather. Click on the photo below to access the picture gallery: Continue reading

Hooray for Altair Engineering! Good advice for pet owners and, from the geek side of me, how cool that they made this ad with Solid Thinking! Continue reading

Apparently, even fossilized excrement can give us a great deal of information about the loving habits of ancient beings. Ancient poop is known to geologists as coprolite material. It can be truly fossilized as solid rock, or just preserved in glacial ice, permafrost or dry caves. One geology department softball team I knew proudly named itself the “Coprolites.” Such is geologic humor. Ancient mammoths and other prehistoric animals were well defined by the phrase, “you are what you eat.” And by studying what ancient animals ate — through their intestinal remains or their poop — we can learn about their... Continue reading

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