Patricia Heaton's New Series

Patricia Heaton is the first from the Raymond family to branch out into her own series. She stars as a working mom dealing with kids, school, career, and life. I hope she doesn't get the "Seinfeld Curse". It remains to be seen if New Christine will work, but the others who went on to their own series failed fairly quickly. BTW, I care because Patricia is well known as a Republican. This makes her a rare commodity in Hollywood.

http://www.patriciaheatononline.com/patricia/abc_touchstone_deal/index.html#un

Memorable Quote:

"The man who does not read books
has no advantage over the man that can not read them."
- Mark Twain

Save Lives in May

Today is the last day in the world for many people. Here is a site that describes how an asteroid is going to impact earth today, 5/25/2006. That was yesterday. The site is amended for today. This looks very realistc. I am preparing my emergency supplies. :) If I don't see you all tomorrow, you'll know why.

http://www.savelivesinmay.com/

How Big is the Solar System?

Here is a description of the 1,000 yard model. we were lucky enough to see this demonstrated at camp. It is very impressive. Tell your friends. Tell a teacher.

http://www.noao.edu/education/peppercorn/pcmain.html

How Small We Are

This sort of puts us in perspective now, doesn't it?

10 myths in the DaVinci code

Read an article that debunks some of the fallacies from the novel. Don't get too excited by this. Keep repeating to yourself, it's only a movie, it's only a movie ...

http://www.cwfa.org/articledisplay.asp?id=10733&department=CFI&categoryid=cfreport

(and judging by the early reviews, it's not a very good movie! I'll let you all know in a few days)

Ambient Music Websites

I'm a real fan of ambient music. Here are a couple of pretty cool websites dedicated to some less than well known artists:

Mono Website

http://www.age.fm/~sound/mono/e_index.html

Set Fire to Flames
A collection of albums ranging from acid to noise to dark ambient. I like the sound of a band called "Lesbians on Ecstasy".

http://www.alien8recordings.com/releases.php3

More Things to Fear from the Environment

This also from James Hudnall:

Since Global Warming, Climate Change, or Global Dimming aren’t doing enough to scare people into giving up their cars, electricity, etc. the scare-mongers in the environmentalist movement, with the aid of the UN, have a new boogieman for you.

The World Health Organization, along with other health specialists, are blaming electromagnetic fields as being the “likely cause” in up to 30% of childhood cancers, adult leukaemia, depression, brain cancers, breast cancer, and even up to 1/10th of all miscarriages.
Invisible “smog”, created by the electricity that powers our civilisation, is giving children cancer, causing miscarriages and suicides and making some people allergic to modern life, new scientific evidence reveals.

The evidence - which is being taken seriously by national and international bodies and authorities - suggests that almost everyone is being exposed to a new form of pollution with countless sources in daily use in every home.

According to Hudnall:

They have no scientific basis for these arguments. But rest assured, once they get the grant money you’ll see plenty of studies claiming it to be real, using computer models based on a limited understanding of the issue. And the next thing you know, Al Gore will put out a movie.

http://jameshudnall.com/blog.php?/weblog/comments/the_latest_scam/

Who is more dangerous, Doctors or Gun Owners?

Doctors:
1. The number of physicians in the U.S. is 700,000
2. Accidental deaths caused by Physicians per year are 120,000
3. Accidental deaths per physician is 0.171
(Statistics courtesy of U.S. Dept of Health Human Services.)

Guns:
1. The number of gun owners in the U.S. is 80,000,000
2. The number of accidental gun deaths per year, all age groups, is 1,500
3. The number of accidental deaths per gun owner is .000188.
(Statistics courtesy of F.B.I.)

Courtesy of James Hudnall :

http://jameshudnall.com/blog.php?/weblog/whos_more_dangerous/

No word on gun owning doctors...

Study: US mothers deserve $134,121 in salary

A full-time stay-at-home mother would earn $134,121 a year if paid for all her work, an amount similar to a top U.S. ad executive, a marketing director or a judge, according to a study released on Wednesday.
A mother who works outside the home would earn an extra $85,876 annually on top of her actual wages for the work she does at home, according to the study by Waltham, Massachusetts-based compensation experts Salary.com

http://reuters.myway.com/article/20060503/2006-05-03T090712Z_01_N02301962_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-LIFE-WORK-DC.html

Ancient Observatories from Space

Here are Stonehenge, Angkor Wat and other ancient sites as seen from space. Very cool site that also includes a lot of other well known sites, viewed from space.

http://www.spaceimaging.com/gallery/ancientObservatories/default.htm

Life Hacker

Don't Live to Geek, Geek to Live!

This is a compendium of interesting
information for a better life. Sort of like the blog Dataman would run if he didn't have a life. I heartily recommend it. I visit it every day.

www.lifehacker.com

Lyric Wiki

Here is a great site. It is a wiki that contains over 230,000 song lyrics, ad-free. Just the thing to find the lyrics to "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun" by Pink Floyd or maybe "Watcher of the Skies" by Genesis (from back when they were cool).

www.LyricWiki.org

TV Turnoff week

Apparently I missed TV turnoff week. I missed it because I was watching Hockey last night.
Go Sabres!! :) Oh Well, maybe I'll turn off next year.

http://tvturnoff.org/

Thrupp

Thrupp: Get music from iTunes to MP3 players
Thrupp is a program for Macs that automates the process of copying music from iTunes to non-iPod MP3 players and phones. You just drag songs, albums and playlists over from iTunes and Thrupp does the rest - it even keeps playlists up to date if you edit them. And music in AAC or Apple Lossless format is converted to MP3 while it's being copied.

Ask Metafilter

Querying the Hive Mind. Here is a site to ask the question most annoying you and have a group of people offer you answers. Pick any topic, from getting wax out of furniture to investing to highly detailed computer hardware advice. It's all here. It can be very addicting to an inquiring mind.

http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/37230#576887

Seat Guru

Find just the right seat on an airplane. Most major airlines and make/model of aircraft. This is a pretty nice tool for those who travel move than once.

http://www.seatguru.com/

Trick of the trade

Miscellaneous every days trick to help out. Everything from keeping water in a pet bowl to the best way to put on a wet suit.

http://www.tradetricks.org/

Pandora

Pandora is an online streaming music service. Enter the name of an artist you like and they will create an online playlist of similar music. It is a great way to learn about other artists and broaden your horizons.

http://www.pandora.com/

Israel in the Crosshairs

This is a truly chilling article about the history of Israel and the often repeated line "Never Again". The article is written by the always excellent Dr. Charles Krauthammer.

http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/charleskrauthammer/2006/05/05/196337.html

For those of you who won't bother to read the article, I will give a very brief synopsis: for the first time in history, there are now more jews living in Israel than in any other location on earth. As Iran develops atomics to threaten Israel, the population of this country is just beginning to approach 6 million jews. Never again you say?

How can any right thinking person not be on the side of this brave little nation?

Get Rich Slowly

What a great blog idea. Lots of articles about a subject we should all be interested in.

http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/