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December 30, 2007
Harry Potter Family Tree
Posted by Dianne at 4:53 PM
December 27, 2007
Truly Sad
RAWALPINDI, Pakistan (CNN) -- Pakistan's former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated Thursday after addressing a large gathering of her supporters.The suicide bomb attack also killed at least 22 others, doctors said. It was not immediately clear if Bhutto died from shots fired before the blast, or from wounds caused by bomb shrapnel.
Her body was removed from Rawalpindi General Hospital late Thursday night, about six hours after the assassination.
President Pervez Musharraf held an emergency meeting in the hours after the death, according to state media.
He said the killers were the same extremists that Pakistan is fighting a war against, and announced three days of national mourning.
Video of the scene just moments before the explosion showed Bhutto stepping into a heavily guarded vehicle to leave the rally.
John Moore, a photographer for Getty Images, said he heard at least two gunshots before the bomb was detonated.
Police sources told CNN the bomber, who was riding a motorcycle, blew himself up near Bhutto's vehicle.
Bhutto was rushed to Rawalpindi General Hospital -- less than two miles from the bombing scene -- where doctors pronounced her dead.
Chaos erupted at the hospital when former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif arrived to pay his respects to Bhutto less than three hours after her death.
Hundreds of Bhutto supporters crammed into the entrance shouted and cried, some clutching their heads in pain and shock. Sharif called it "the saddest day" in Pakistan's history. "Something unthinkable has happened," he said.
Tragic, simply horrible news. May she rest in peace.
Found via CNN.
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December 25, 2007
Merry Christmas!
Posted by Dianne at 11:08 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
December 24, 2007
Where's Santa 2007
Where's Santa right now? Why not pop over to Norad's Santa Tracker and see! ;o)
Update: 8:35 AM: If you have Google Earth you can watch Santa in real time. There's a link from the bottom of the Norad page.
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December 18, 2007
How Santa Works...
In case you ever wondered! ;o)
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What's Next?
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December 17, 2007
Yeah!!
Something to look forward to DVD wise in 2008! I've really missed Dead Like Me!
Hat tip to 10,000 Monkeys & a Camera for sharing the news!
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December 13, 2007
Northern Lights Energy Source Discovered
SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- Scientists think they have discovered the energy source of auroras borealis, the spectacular color displays seen in the upper latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere.New data from NASA's Themis mission, a quintet of satellites launched this winter, found the energy comes from a stream of charged particles from the sun flowing like a current through twisted bundles of magnetic fields connecting Earth's upper atmosphere to the sun.
The energy is then abruptly released in the form of a shimmering display of lights, said principal investigator Vassilis Angelopoulos of the University of California at Los Angeles.
Results were presented Tuesday at the American Geophysical Union meeting.
In March, the satellites detected a burst of Northern Lights over Alaska and Canada. During the two-hour light show, the satellites measured particle flow and magnetic fields from space.
To scientists' surprise, the geomagnetic storm powering the auroras raced 400 miles in a minute across the sky. Angelopoulos estimated the storm's power was equal to the energy released by a magnitude 5.5 earthquake.
Wow! I really want to see this phenomena first hand one day. This is an interesting study to say the least! Ain't science grand? ;o)
Found via CNN.
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A Novel Concept To Deal With Carbon
Today, a company called Skyonic announced a novel new system, Skymine, which uses the carbon dioxide emitted from smokestacks to make baking soda. According to Skyonic CEO Joe David Jones, the system will be powered by waste heat from factories, and will produce food-grade baking soda.Last year, the utility company Luminant installed a pilot version of the system at its Big Brown Steam Electric Station in Fairfield, Texas.
There's still quite a bit of work to be done to make the current system viable on a large scale, but the baking soda idea offers solutions to some of the economic problems posed by other carbon sequestration methods.
Now that's a neat process! I love it when people put their minds to work to come up with a solution that not only makes a useful by product that can be sold for profit so that the process isn't expensive, which is why most companies drag their feet in terms of being green (even though it's been proven time and time again that being green actually cuts costs, but that's a rant for another time), but also cuts down on carbon in the atmosphere!
Found via CNN.
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Scientist: 'Arctic is screaming'
WASHINGTON (AP) -- An already relentless melting of the Arctic greatly accelerated this summer, a warning sign that some scientists worry could mean global warming has passed an ominous tipping point. One even speculated that summer sea ice would be gone in five years.Greenland's ice sheet melted nearly 19 billion tons more than the previous high mark, and the volume of Arctic sea ice at summer's end was half what it was just four years earlier, according to new NASA satellite data obtained by The Associated Press.
"The Arctic is screaming," said Mark Serreze, senior scientist at the government's snow and ice data center in Boulder, Colorado.
Just last year, two top scientists surprised their colleagues by projecting that the Arctic sea ice was melting so rapidly that it could disappear entirely by the summer of 2040.
This week, after reviewing his own new data, NASA climate scientist Jay Zwally said: "At this rate, the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free at the end of summer by 2012, much faster than previous predictions."
Not surprising sadly, but heartbreaking none the less. There are some interesting aspects they are discovering as this proceeds and sadly it may be to late to turn the cycle around. Take the link below to read the entire article.
Found via CNN.
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December 12, 2007
How Geek Are You?
Dianne's Score
Jamison's Score
Posted by Dianne at 11:51 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 5, 2007
Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!
Posted by Dianne at 11:07 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack