SURF

I spent my high school years at the beach. Went to Newport Harbor High. On the off shore wind Santa Ana's days I would be walking to school and there was this one spot on the cliff overlooking the bay where I could feel the wind heading out towards the ocean. I knew the wind was going to hold up the fast breaking Newport waves for awesome rides. So I would turn around and go back home to hit the waves.( I was in the water every single day all year round. Today my ear canals are some what closed up because of the exposure to so much water in my youth.)

 The next day I would go to the admittance office and my girl friend Nancy Clark, who helped out in there at the time would phony up an admittance pass for me, so I never got in trouble. I also had a back up, there was this hippy lady named Marcia Weed on my block who I would visit. She would call me in sick on those days by impersonating my mother on the phone. "My son David won't be in today, he has a touch of the flu." Jack King,( the principle who was nicknamed "Bring em back Jack" because he would go down to Blackies and catch those who played hooky), I beat you dude!

I was poor so I couldn't afford my own board at first. Then Steve Parkford, the water polo player, gave me his old Ramsey Jay long board. It was red and came with the wagon wheel contraption to tow it behind my  bike. I got up real early when it was still dark out and would tow my board from 45th street to the river jettys in hope of catching a few waves before school. There were no wetsuits back then. So I stayed out in the water during the winter months as long as I could until I no longer felt  my feet because they were so numb from the icy water. If I caught a good wave I would be inspired and stay out even longer in the hopes that there would be a repeat wave...usually never happened. I would shiver for an hour after getting out, all blue and red with teeth chattering and my body twitching trying to get warm.

At Blackie's there were these fire rings that every one would fuel with the fences and wooden patio furniture from the nearby cottages. They had to remove the rings because of the surfers attempting to get warmed up. No police helicopter or quads to stop them. We were mostly out on the beach alone in the mornings to do our mischief.

Surfing hadn't quite caught on yet, so the waves were all ours to enjoy. In fact you got stoked if someone else was out there with you. I wasn't very good at surfing but I enjoyed it just the same. I mastered skim boarding before anyone even knew about it. There were these skimboarding guys at Victoria Beach in Laguna that I had heard about. So I went down there and they kicked me out and told me to never come back. I believe those dudes started the current skim boarding craze of today. I personally started skim boarding myself in 1963.

I was a part of surfing history with my friends. All of us would go on Safari journeys together up and down the coast looking for waves. Mike Grasso had this big converted US Mail truck that we could travel in. It held all of us and our boards along with the food etc.

Scott Clucas, Steve Parkford, Lee Pope, Mike Grasso, David Hargrave, Steve Ward, Mike Rucker, Jim Trapp, Clint Reynolds and myself hung out at 45th street in front of Scott's house. And of course there were the babes. At the time Scott's was the biggest house on the beach. It was this big white house with Japanese roof lines. Because there was no groins yet, I would use Scott's house as a visual marker to know how far I was drifting. I could start at Rivers and pass Scott's house at 45th street fast on those certain days when the current was eating away the sand towards the pier.

There were a few times where the sand disappeared right up to the foundations of the houses on the beach. It was the worst in the winter of 1967. The Army Corps of Engineers would replenish the beach now and then until they put in the first experimental metal groins. Chief Reed of the life guards swore it wasn't actually sand that was brought in. To prove his point he had planted grass in front of his house on the beach. His lawn spoke reams.

I think that the waves changed after the groins went in. It was a much better break before. Although on certain swells the point could break like Hawaiian waves. It would really get some big sets rolling in.

And then there was the Wedge. All of us got bruised and scratched up, but we were never fearful of the bowl. We would body surf the wedge when no one else would on big swells. Looking back now I realize how nutts we truly were...

There was a winter storm that had generated 20 foot plus waves. No one was out because the waves were so powerful and scary. I was just standing there when a drunk Steve Parkford paddled out into them on the red Ramsey Jay. I figured he was going to get killed. He paddled way out there until there was this red dot bobbing up and down. As I watched he caught one of the massive walls and stood up at the top. He runs to the nose and stands there in perfect nose riding pose as he slices the wall and actually makes it across without wiping out. The beach went insane with cheers and hollering...we were all totally blown away. Steve Parkford was the man of steel, he was epic, he was magnificent! The most awesome ride I have ever seen in surfing. And not one cam or picture of this historic ride. But I remember it like it was yesterday. Never have I seen such a thing since. Never.



Purchase Living It Forever
http://www.livingitforeverthemovie.com/

More Stuff

he cheated in a cycle race!

Rsweet...It pays to be in religion..Rick Warren's Clout: : in 1993 Warren deducted $77,663, his entire Saddleback Church salary that year, as a housing expense--and paid no taxes at all on that salary. In addition, he claimed a deduction for his mortgage expenses--even though they had been covered by the salary.

Pug  look in your eye
Diet coke + mentos, chinese style
Biker goes over a narrow cliff ledge and then goes practically sideways around the edge!

Belarus Law Prohibits People From Standing and Doing Nothing - NYTimes.com
Former USA Intel Chief Blair: Call Off The Drone War (And Maybe the Whole War on Terror)
One Man's Opinion:
Christian evangelist Rick Warren derides American poor on taxes, even though his church (the 8th largest in the country) pays no taxes: "HALF of America pays NO taxes. Zero. So they're happy for tax rates to be raised on the other half that DOES pay taxes"
Please raise awareness that a U.S. default (which the govt officially refers to as a "delay in payment") has already occurred once before in 1979. The U.S. media is hyping this as the first default ever, which is dividing this nation and its politics even further.

World Reacts To Debt Ceiling Debacle: ‘Irresponsible,’ ‘Worst Kind Of Absurd Theatrics,’ U.S. Politicians A ‘Laughing Stock’

"With the US Senate voting to table the Boehner debt limit bill, the US is only a few days away from running out of cash to pay for all its obligations. Slate is reporting on a fascinating legal hack that could come in handy, described by blogger 'beowulf' back in January 2011. Seigniorage is the extra value added when a government mints a coin with a face value greater than the value of the precious metal contained in the coin. The statute governing the minting of coins contains a section (31 USC 5112(k) ) that authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury to mint and issue platinum coins in any denomination or quantity. To keep the government from running out of money, Timothy Geithner could order a $5 trillion platinum coin struck and deposited at the Federal Reserve. The money could then be used to fund Federal Government operations (blog post contains legal details)."

Bip

"Researchers at U.C. Berkeley have discovered that some of the net's most popular sites are using a tracking service that can't be evaded — even when users block cookies, turn off storage in Flash, or use browsers' 'incognito' functions. The service, called KISSmetrics, is used by sites to track the number of visitors, what the visitors do on the site, and where they come to the site from — and the company says it does a more comprehensive job than its competitors such as Google Analytics."

Stuff

So, I'm teaching my 7 yr old daughter photoshop...
Thank you for trying to conceal my packages, UPS guy. Better luck next time.
This Train (with several engines) was stopped on the tracks and the other engines behind it did not get the signal to stop...and so they proceeded to burn thru the track!
This is what happens when a Train does a burnout\
pic2, pic3
China blasts 'dangerously irresponsible' US politicians over debt ceiling negotiations, warns of catastrophic game of chicken
A little piece of paradise!
Hey the kid wanted a kitchen, so the kid got a kitchen. Pure joy...
11 Christian and Jewish religious leaders were arrested in the U.S. Capitol for protesting against "balancing the budget on the backs of the poor".
my cat likes to sleep like a human
Social Security is on the Republican chopping block for debt reduction, but there's one problem: it has not contributed to the budget deficit. It has a budget surplus.
Paper-cut finder
Well, here's a billion dollars the US can have
There are fewer undocumented immigrants in California because many are now finding the American dream south of the border...

Found this memorial for a homeless person under a bridge. A touching reminder that the homeless are people too, and that they impact the lives of others just like anyone else. RIP Doug

Scion Driver Gone Wild

Meanwhile:

It's no surprise to anyone that Apple is doing well, but it may be surprising to many that the company is doing better financially than its own home country. Latest figures from the US Treasury Department show that the country has an operating cash balance of $73.7 billion, while Apple's most recent postings show a balance of $76.4 billion....

http://hothardware.com/News/Steve-Jobs-Still-Content-with-1-Annual-Salary/

Boehner Bill

http://www.bing.com/search?q=Boehner+bill&form=AVBTDF&pc=AVBR

TBN And Me

My TBN story:
http://shekinahfellowship.blogspot.com/2010/03/i-own-small-part-of-tbn-in-sense-tbn-is.html

Note:
TBN has  flagged the video connected with the above link. It was a video of Pastor Tilson and his wife on one of the TBN programs. Nice going TBN...

http://shekinahfellowship.blogspot.com/2009/03/1-thessalonians-519quench-not-spirit.html

stuff

Greenwald: "The Norwegian response to the Oslo attack was so glaringly un-American, even though its core premise -- a brave refusal to sacrifice liberty and transparency in the name of fear and security -- was once the political value Americans boasted of exhibiting most."

Banks Want To stop Whistleblowers, in a bill introduced by Congressman M. Grimm (R-NY), employees who strive to reveal corruption at the banks would be penalized unless they report it to their bosses before going public, risking their jobs and giving the corporations a chance to cover their tracks.

Michelle Bachmann proclaims her husband "off-limits." Remember those times she slammed Michelle Obama during the '08 campaign for her supposed un-American views?

Join my Google Circle!

Wow! - The Real U.S. Budget Problem: Defense & War Spending Equal 94% Of All Federal Income Tax Revenues

Ron Paul: I’m An Easy ‘No’ On Boehner’s Plan, Both Sides Fail To Understand America Is Bankrupt

http://sanders.enews.senate.gov/mail/util.cfm?gpiv=2100075890.326012.742&gen=1

New NASA data destroys global warming alarmism

California takes out insurance against US debt deal failure.

US Congressional committee passed bill forcing ISPs to log users entire web history
http://www.zdnet.com.au/us-panel-approves-data-retention-bill-339319469.htm

China is appalled at how reckless US Congress is

King K

"A group of Senators are meeting in secret today, while most people are focused on the 'debt ceiling' issue, in order to try to rush through a renewal of the FISA Amendments Act, which expressly allowed warrantless wiretapping in the U.S. The law isn't set to expire until next year, but some feel that the debt ceiling crisis is a good distraction to pass the extension without having to debate the issue in public. The meeting is being held in secret, but it's not classified, so people can demand to know how their Senator voted."

"Satellite data from NASA covering 2000 through 2011 cast doubt on current computer models
http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-data-blow-gaping-hold-global-warming-alarmism-192334971.html

predicting global warming, according to a new study. The data shows that much less heat is retained by carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere than is assumed in current models. 'There is a huge discrepancy between the data and the forecasts that is especially big over the oceans,' said Dr. Roy Spencer, a co-author of the study and research scientist at the University of Alabama."

Note: the press release about the study is somewhat less over the top.

http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2011/07/26/new-paper-on-the-misdiagnosis-of-surface-temperature-feedbacks-from-variations-in-earth%E2%80%99s-radiant-energy-balance-by-spencer-and-braswell-2011/

A Very Good Free Program From Microsoft

Microsoft Standalone System Sweeper. Microsoft finally has its own offline tool — currently in beta — that lets you build bootable media and scan a system without running the installed (and possibly corrupted) version of Windows. Historically, this capability has required Linux and a third-party app. It's nice to see Microsoft stepping up to the bar and offering its own version.
http://connect.microsoft.com/systemsweeper

Google+ traffic dropping already?

Is there life after death?

All They Got Was A Tshirt

TIL Google tried to sell itself to Excite.com in 1999 for $1 million. Excite said no even after the price was lowered to $750K.

Duly Noted

TIL that at the end of Clinton's administration the United States was on track to pay off its debt AND have $2.3 trillion in savings

TIL that you can donate money to the US Department of Treasury to pay off their trillions in debt.

The old John McCain is back. Slams the Tea Party and urges passage of a debt ceiling increase. “It’s time we listened to the markets,” he said. “It’s time we listened to our constituents. But most of all, it’s time we listened to the American people and sit down and seriously negotiate something.”

Emergency team of 40 eighth-grade civics teachers dispatched to Washington earlier today in a last-ditch effort to teach congressional leaders how the government’s legislative process works.

Digital Magazines
http://www.zinio.com/

This Week In Science
http://www.twis.org/

The Future And You
http://www.thefutureandyou.libsyn.com/

http://www.sciencemag.org/

http://www.sciencedaily.com/

http://www.sciencenews.org/

http://www.scientificamerican.com/

http://discovermagazine.com/

http://www.livescience.com/

http://physicsworld.com/

http://www.eurekalert.org/

TED
The short films are quite comprehensible.

Riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world
http://www.ted.com/

GlobalWarmingHoax

Refuting the Myth of Man-made Global Warming
http://www.globalwarminghoax.com/news.php

"The BBC is reporting that the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit, target of 'ClimateGate,' has released nearly all its remaining data on temperature measurements following a freedom of information bid. Most temperature data was already available, but critics of climate science want everything public. Following the latest release, raw data from virtually all of the world's 5,000-plus weather stations is freely available. Release of this dataset required The Met Office to secure approval from more than 1,500 weather stations around the world. The article notes that while Trinidad and Tobago refused permission, the Information Commissioner ruled that public interest in disclosure outweighed those considerations."

Answers in Genesis is an apologetics (i.e., Christianity-defending) ministry, dedicated to enabling Christians to defend their faith and to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ effectively. We focus particularly on providing answers to questions surrounding the book of Genesis, as it is the most-attacked book of the Bible. We also desire to train others to develop a biblical worldview, and seek to expose the bankruptcy of evolutionary ideas, and its bedfellow, a “millions of years old” earth (and even older universe).

http://www.answersingenesis.org/

License Some rights reserved by Tony the Misfit

"As it turns out, Google didn't only grab the hotspot SSIDs and MAC addresses with its Street View cars. As this article at CNET notes, Google also recorded location data of computers using wireless cards, as well as cell phones and other Wi-Fi devices. Google's explanation is that the data collection was accidental, and they declined to answer further questions from CNET."

Why are they doing that?

Here is why, connect the dots:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/december2006/061206seedmoney.htm
http://www.threadwatch.org/node/9612
http://www.google-watch.org/jobad.html
There is a lot more down this rabbit hole if you do a Bing search etc...

"Russia and its partners plan to plunge the International Space Station (ISS) into the ocean at the end of its life cycle after 2020 so as not to leave space junk, the space agency said on Wednesday. 'After it completes its existence, we will be forced to sink the ISS. It cannot be left in orbit, it's too complex, too heavy an object, it can leave behind lots of rubbish,' said deputy head of Roskosmos space agency Vitaly Davydov."

They do this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/1225482.stm

Space trash:
http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/questions/question22.html

Atlantis safely touched down on the runway at the Kennedy Space Center ending 30 years of the space shuttle program. We talk about the mission, some of the final events,
http://www.talkingspaceonline.com/2011-podcasts/episode-332-30-years-6-vehicles-1-amazing-journey.html

While we are on the subject:
"A prop designer who made the original Stormtrooper helmets for Star Wars has won his copyright battle with director George Lucas over his right to sell replicas. The five-year saga, which ended in the highest court in the land, has stakes of galactic proportions."

How We Got the Bible

Some people think the Bible was all written down about the same time, copied and distributed. But the Bible is not "instant" Scripture and it wasn't all written down around the same time. Instead, the books of the Bible were written over a lengthy period of time by different people inspired by God.

Another misconception about the Bible is that it was merely created by a select few in order to consolidate, gain or maintain power and prestige. Given the adversity faced by the Hebrew people and, later, the persecution suffered by Christians, this explanation is far from plausible. For instance, rather than gaining power or prestige, the early Christians were severely oppressed, while many others were killed – martyred for believing the message of the gospel.

"Transmission" in relation to the Bible has to do with how the contents of the Bible were transmitted through history. If the record of transmission is poor, then the record we have is highly suspect. But if the record of transmission is rich, having a variety of manuscript copies for instance, then we have cause for trusting the reliability of the record.
http://www.greatsite.com/timeline-english-bible-history/

This photograph is 96 years old.

Metal Jeep, Moab, Utah.

The best catch you'll never see in American Football. Aussie player makes a jaw-dropping grab.

"It's only a matter of time before Twitter becomes a ghost town. While Google+ will soon do all the things Twitter does, Twitter can't support a long list of the things Google+ supports. Also on Google+, you can post pictures and videos directly in posts, launch immediately into a video chat, send your posts to nonmembers and even present all your posts marked 'Public' as a blog available to anyone with an Internet."

"Speaking at the CA Expo in Sydney, Australia, former Google CIO Douglas Merrill shared some management tips he learned during his tenure at the search giant. At the top of the list: 'Don't be afraid to do dumb things.' Merrill recalls that 'most of the early Google hardware was stolen from trash and as the stuff they stole broke all the time they built a reliable software system. Everyone knew we shouldn't build our own hardware as it was 'dumb', but everyone was wrong. Sometimes being dumb changes the game.' Another pearl of wisdom from Merrill: 'the more project management you do the less likely your project is to succeed.'"

"Even though it's still only in alpha, it appears as though the forthcoming version of Ubuntu, version 11.10, will be much faster than earlier versions, according to this story. Quoting: 'After installing the OS onto a PC with an Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 at 3.00 GHz and a hard disk drive, we stop-watched boot-up time at 12 seconds — more than three seconds faster than the previous best time we’ve measured.' It looks as if the switch from GDM to LightDM will have a significant impact as Ubuntu gets closer to 'instant on' status."

"Laura Pappano writes that the master's degree, once derided as the consolation prize for failing to finish a Ph.D., or as a way to kill time waiting out economic downturns, is now the fastest-growing degree, with 657,000 awarded in 2009, more than double the level in the 1980s. Today nearly two in 25 people age 25 and over have a master's, about the same proportion that had a bachelor's or higher in 1960. 'Several years ago it became very clear to us that master's education was moving very rapidly to become the entry degree in many professions,' says Debra W. Stewart, president of the Council of Graduate Schools. 'There is definitely some devaluing of the college degree going on,' adds Eric A. Hanushek, an education economist at the Hoover Institution. 'We are going deeper into the pool of high school graduates for college attendance,' making a bachelor's no longer an adequate screening measure of achievement for employers. But some wonder if a master's is worth the extra effort. 'In some fields, such as business or engineering, a graduate degree typically boosted income by more than enough to justify the cost,' says Liz Pulliam Weston. 'In others — the liberal arts and social sciences, in particular — master's degrees didn't appear to produce much if any earnings advantage.'"
 
Vitamins and minerals:
http://i.imgur.com/6dgCS.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/4Urnt.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/9eBYu.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/ZgA0Q.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/FUOTy.gif
http://i.imgur.com/lZohZ.jpg
 
http://www.y-jesus.com/body_count1.php?gclid=CNu5yPKdiaMCFQwTbAodZgM3cg

If you fly, be warned and avoid the sideways DNA invasion that you may be subjected to.
http://macedoniaonline.eu/content/view/17090/56/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIVI5g2y-XQ&feature=related
Yep, these are cheap plastic coffins. Hundreds of thousands of them. Don’t believe it?
Why coffins? Why in the middle of Georgia?
Well, apparently the Government is expecting a half million people to die relatively soon, and the Atlanta Airport is a major airline traffic hub, probably the biggest in the country, which means Georgia is a prime base to conduct military operations and coordination. It is also the home of the CDC, the Center for Disease Control. I don’t want to alarm anyone, but usually you don’t buy 500,000 plastic coffins “just in case something happens,” you buy them because you know something is going to happen. These air tight seal containers would be perfect to bury victims of plague or biological warfare in, wouldn’t they?

http://www.realdiscoveries.com/article-item.php?id=511%3E

Tonight, Norway passed the test. Almost half of Oslo's population gathered in mourning, carrying flowers. The prime minister, crown prince and mayor procaimed that the terrorist shall recieve his punishment in full: a country of continued openness, democracy and love.
Love for Norway
Oslo
Rose rally in Oslo (Norway)

Schuller's Crystal Cathedral may be reborn as Catholic

http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2011-07-23-Crystal-Cathedral-Catholic_n.htm

Jesus Freaks

http://www.prophecyfellowship.org/showthread.php?t=141555

Blackies During My Youth (Newport Beach CA)

Buy The DVD Here:
http://www.livingitforeverthemovie.com/

Friend Request

New World Order And The North American Union Set Up Behind Our Backs By Clinton

My wife just came home from Trader Joes with a sealed package of steak for my dinner. The label said, "Product of USA, Canada and Mexico" on it. We are going to be slowly programed to accept the idea of giving up our sovereignty and becoming the "America's" with the "Amero" being our money unit...Usa, Canada and Mexico will be one nation.



http://www.goldandsilverexchange.info/North-American-Union-Currency.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_currency_union
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNkvCErVbI0
http://www.illuminati-news.com/articles2/00260.html
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=15497
http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-mainmenu-26/north-america-mainmenu-36/3313-the-nafta-superhighway-is-alive-and-well
http://www.greatdreams.com/political/superhighway_facts.htm
http://www.nascocorridor.com/
http://www.naftasuperhighway.info/
The enforcers:
http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2009/RAND_MG819.pdf
Do your Google research folks.

Why even mention this? Well this is how it works...The power of one...motivates others...


Oh, the steak was amazingly awesome!

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/fW12P7upc6o/0.jpg

1936

First "Hooklines" Now This...

"Mike Barthel reports on a technique called brick-wall limiting, where songs are engineered to seem louder by bringing the quiet parts to the same level as the loud parts and pushing the volume level of the entire song to the highest point possible. 'Because of the need to stand out on radio and other platforms, there's a strategic advantage to having a new song sound just a little louder than every other song. As a result, for a period, each new release came out a little louder than the last, and the average level of loudness on CDs crept up (YouTube) to such a degree that albums actually sounded distorted, as if they were being played through broken speakers.' But the loudness wars may be coming to an end. Taking advantage of the trend towards listening to music online — via services like Pandora, Spotify, and Apple's forthcoming iCloud — a proposal by audio engineer Thomas Lund, already adopted as a universal standard (PDF) by the International Telecommunications Union, would institute a volume limit on any songs downloaded from the cloud, effectively removing the strategic advantage of loudness. Lund's proposal would do the same thing for any music you could buy. 'Once a piece of music is ingested into this system, there is no longer any value in trying to make a recording louder just to stand out,' says legendary engineer Bob Ludwig, who has been working with Lund. 'There will be nothing to gain from a musical point of view. Louder will no longer be better!'"

First There Was "Hook~lines" Now This...

"Mike Barthel reports on a technique called brick-wall limiting, where songs are engineered to seem louder by bringing the quiet parts to the same level as the loud parts and pushing the volume level of the entire song to the highest point possible. 'Because of the need to stand out on radio and other platforms, there's a strategic advantage to having a new song sound just a little louder than every other song. As a result, for a period, each new release came out a little louder than the last, and the average level of loudness on CDs crept up (YouTube) to such a degree that albums actually sounded distorted, as if they were being played through broken speakers.' But the loudness wars may be coming to an end. Taking advantage of the trend towards listening to music online — via services like Pandora, Spotify, and Apple's forthcoming iCloud — a proposal by audio engineer Thomas Lund, already adopted as a universal standard (PDF) by the International Telecommunications Union, would institute a volume limit on any songs downloaded from the cloud, effectively removing the strategic advantage of loudness. Lund's proposal would do the same thing for any music you could buy. 'Once a piece of music is ingested into this system, there is no longer any value in trying to make a recording louder just to stand out,' says legendary engineer Bob Ludwig, who has been working with Lund. 'There will be nothing to gain from a musical point of view. Louder will no longer be better!'"

"The Wall Street Journal reports that Google+ has added 20 million users in just 3 weeks. According to the article, no other site has recorded such high growth in such a short time period. Twitter did something similar once, but in months, not weeks. It's especially surprising considering that access to Google+ is by invitation only. Why is Google+ growing so quickly?" A recent article at O'Reilly Radar offers a possible answer to this, calling Google+ "the rapidly growing seed of a web-wide social backbone," but one that requires openness from Google to really flourish and supplant Facebook. The growth of Google+ will be helped by their acquisition of Fridge, a startup company focused on group sharing. Meanwhile, recruiters and marketers are already eyeballing the growing social network and licking their chops.

"The Wall Street Journal reports that Google+ has added 20 million users in just 3 weeks. According to the article, no other site has recorded such high growth in such a short time period. Twitter did something similar once, but in months, not weeks. It's especially surprising considering that access to Google+ is by invitation only. Why is Google+ growing so quickly?"


A recent article at O'Reilly Radar offers a possible answer to this, calling Google+ "the rapidly growing seed of a web-wide social backbone," but one that requires openness from Google to really flourish and supplant Facebook. The growth of Google+ will be helped by their acquisition of Fridge, a startup company focused on group sharing. Meanwhile, recruiters and marketers are already eyeballing the growing social network and licking their chops.

This is called humanity.


TIL in 1897, a team of Swedes attempted to reach the North Pole via hot air balloon. They disappeared but decades later their remains were discovered, along with chilling photographs documenting their last days.

Corporate Tax Holiday in Debt Ceiling Deal: Where's the Uproar? -- Matt Taibbi

Little Kid Giving Up His Baseball Will Bring A Tear To Your Eye

An open letter to servicemen and women regarding supporting WikiLeaks in the US military: "The idea that high-ranking individuals in the United States Armed Forces have connected 'human rights' with 'anti-military' is, to me, horrifying."

"This Senator is going to fight back. I was not elected to the United States Senate to make devastating cuts in Social Security, in Medicare, in Medicaid, in children's programs, while lowering tax rates for the wealthiest people in this country."

TIL BP Built an Artificial Island in the Arctic to Bypass Offshore Drilling Regulations. Plan: Drill 2 Miles Down then 8 Miles SIDEWAYS.

2 out of 3 Americans may vote against their current member of Congress, highest dissatisfaction in 22 years.

Bernie Sanders congratulates Republicans sarcastically for their victory on behalf of the rich.

TIL John O'Hurley who played J. Peterman on Seinfeld is a co-owner of the real J. Peterman catalog and helped bring it back from bankruptcy.

More Corporate Tax Breaks are coming. It's all part of the $3 trillion "Debt Reduction" plan, which will remove your Home Mortgage Deduction and gift that to US Corporations with even lower tax rates.

Sinkholes - nature's equivalent of a chair pull


Just some table salt. [SEM]

Important Repost: TIL 2/3 of Americans live in a Constitution Free Zone

Pedestrian Bridge

"JPC — the pure java PC emulator — has now been upgraded to JPC2, and can run WindowsXP inside the Java Applet sandbox.""The Lightweight Portable Security distribution was created by the Software Protection Initiative under the direction of the Air Force Research Laboratory and the U.S. Department Of Defense. The idea behind it is that government workers can use a CD-ROM or USB stick to boot into a tamper proof, pristine desktop when using insecure computers such as those available in hotels or a worker's own home. The environment that it offers should be largely resistant to Internet-borne security threats such as viruses and spyware, particularly when launched from read-only media such as a CDROM. The LPS system does not mount the hard drive of the host machine, so leaves no trace of the user's activities behind."

"The first top-to-bottom audit of the Federal Reserve uncovered eye-popping new details about how the U.S. provided a whopping $16 trillion in secret loans to bail out American and foreign banks and businesses during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression."

Calvary Chapel Remembered

Regardless of your political beliefs, this is pretty awkward.

New Court Filing Reveals How The 2004 Ohio Presidential Election Was Hacked

When I get a call from a number I don't recognize...

Haven & Hell: The World’s Largest Refugee Camp - It's so big that 70,000 people are having to live outside it (With Photos)

This is Nepal

I am a man

Dispatch From a Sinking Island - The tiny nation of Nauru is in big trouble. Multinational corporations -- & then the nation itself -- strip mined the once tropical isle into oblivion for its phosphate

Spotted in Brooklyn

Sugar zoomed 125x 


Bioluminescence in the Gippsland Lakes

TIL the hottest pepper in the world is the Trinidad Scorpion Butch T pepper; it is so strong that those who handle it have to wear protective gloves. While preparing the Butch T one should wear a chemical mask and or a body suit to defend against fumes given off in the cooking process.

Fukushima city sows flower power sunflower seeds to decontaminate 'hot spot' 


Corporate America's sunshine patriots: 29 public companies have more cash on hand each than the U.S. Treasury - but they won't spend it to create jobs

Venezuela tops world oil reserves