"Prop 8 - The Musical" starring Jack Black, John C. Reilly, and many more...

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

Ocean currents can power the world, say scientists

A revolutionary device that can harness energy from slow-moving rivers and ocean currents could provide enough power for the entire world, scientists claim.

By Jasper Copping 

Existing technologies require an average current of five or six knots to operate efficiently, while most of the earth's currents are slower than three knots

The technology can generate electricity in water flowing at a rate of less than one knot - about one mile an hour - meaning it could operate on most waterways and sea beds around the globe.

Existing technologies which use water power, relying on the action of waves, tides or faster currents created by dams, are far more limited in where they can be used, and also cause greater obstructions when they are built in rivers or the sea. Turbines and water mills need an average current of five or six knots to operate efficiently, while most of the earth's currents are slower than three knots.

The new device, which has been inspired by the way fish swim, consists of a system of cylinders positioned horizontal to the water flow and attached to springs.

As water flows past, the cylinder creates vortices, which push and pull the cylinder up and down. The mechanical energy in the vibrations is then converted into electricity.

Cylinders arranged over a cubic metre of the sea or river bed in a flow of three knots can produce 51 watts. This is more efficient than similar-sized turbines or wave generators, and the amount of power produced can increase sharply if the flow is faster or if more cylinders are added.

A "field" of cylinders built on the sea bed over a 1km by 1.5km area, and the height of a two-storey house, with a flow of just three knots, could generate enough power for around 100,000 homes. Just a few of the cylinders, stacked in a short ladder, could power an anchored ship or a lighthouse.

Systems could be sited on river beds or suspended in the ocean. The scientists behind the technology, which has been developed in research funded by the US government, say that generating power in this way would potentially cost only around 3.5p per kilowatt hour, compared to about 4.5p for wind energy and between 10p and 31p for solar power. They say the technology would require up to 50 times less ocean acreage than wave power generation.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/renewableenergy/3535012/Ocean-currents-can-power-the-world-say-scientists.html

Milk and Money

by Andrew Tobias

MICRO FINANCE

Give a guy a fish and you feed him for a day.  Teach him to fish and he starves to death.  Ah, but loan him the money to buy his first fishing rod and not only do you set him and his family on the road to prosperity, you get your loan repaid.  Which you can then re-loan, if you choose, perhaps to a woman who needs to buy a sewing machine.  Or seeds.

 

One of my best investments yields just 2.5% interest (taxable, no less), but allows Shared Interest to catalyze hundreds of micro-loans to poor South African women. 

 

Another group Charles and I support is FINCA, "providing financial services to the world's lowest-income entrepreneurs."  Already working with 700,000 of them in 21 countries, it seeks your help to do more.  Click here.  And don't miss its donation calculator.  See the astounding impact $50, let alone $5,000, can have.  (Gather the kids around to work through the numbers with you.)

 

And here's another great one, backed by eBay:  Microplace.  You can choose to back a micro credit effort anywhere in the world (even the U.S.).  You'll see "examples" of the kinds of borrowers your investment will go to fund, but not be at risk on any specific micro-loan.  What fun!  I just funded a bunch of loans like this one (charcoal) and this one (baking) in Ghana and this one (pig s---) in Costa Rica.  In 21 months (in the case of the Costa Rican investment, some are longer-term, many shorter), I'm even quite likely to get my money back with 1.5% interest.  But if the interest seems silly, another way of looking at it is by comparison with charitable giving, where you not only get no return on your money, you get no return of your money.

 

http://www.andrewtobias.com/newcolumns/081202.html

Win Ben Stein's mind

By Roger Ebert

I've been accused of refusing to review Ben Stein's documentary "Expelled," a defense of Creationism, because of my belief in the theory of evolution. Here is my response.

Ben Stein, you hosted a TV show on which you gave away money. Imagine that I have created a special edition of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" just for you. Ben, you've answered all the earlier questions correctly, and now you're up for the $1 million prize. It involves an explanation for the evolution of life on this planet. You have already exercised your option to throw away two of the wrong answers. Now you are faced with two choices: (A) Darwin's Theory of Evolution, or (B) Intelligent Design.

Because this is a special edition of the program, you can use a Hotline to telephone every scientist on Earth who has an opinion on this question. You discover that 99.975 of them agree on the answer (A). A million bucks hangs in the balance. The clock is ticking. You could use the money. Which do you choose? You, a firm believer in the Constitution, are not intimidated and exercise your freedom of speech. You choose (B).

Squaaawk!!! The klaxon horn sounds. You have lost. Outraged, you file suit against the program, charging it is biased and has denied a hearing for your belief. Your suit argues that the "correct" answer was chosen because of a prejudice against the theory of Intelligent Design, despite the fact that .025 of one percent of all scientists support it. You call for (B) to be discussed in schools as an alternative theory to (A).

Your rights have been violated. You're at wit's end. You think perhaps the field of Indie Documentaries offers you hope. You accept a position at the Institute of Undocumented Documentaries in Dallas, Texas. This Institute teaches that the rules of the "$64,000 Question" are the only valid game show rules. All later game shows must follow them literally. The "$64,000 Question" came into existence in 1955. False evidence for earlier game shows has been refuted by scientists at the Institute.

You look for a documentary subject. You know you cannot hope to find backing from the Main Stream Media, because they all fear reprisals from the powerful Game Show Establishment. You seek a cause that parallels your own dilemma, and also illustrates an offense against the Freedom of Speech. Your attention falls on the persecution of Intelligent Design advocates like you, who have been banished from Main Stream Academia.

This looks like your ideal subject. But where can you find financing for such a documentary? You discover a small, promising production company named Premise Media. You like the sound of that word premise. It sounds like a plausible alternative to the word theory. To confirm this, you look both up in your dictionary:

premise noun. A previous statement or proposition from which another is inferred or follows as a conclusion: if the premise is true, then the conclusion must be true. e.g., if God exists, then he created everything.

theory noun. A system of ideas intended to explain something, esp. one based on general principles independent of the thing to be explained. e.g., Darwin's theory of evolution.

Your point exactly! You do a web search for Premise Media. Its co-founder, Walt Ruloff, has observed, "the scientific and academic communities were deeply resistant to innovation, in this case innovation that might revise Darwin's theory that random mutation and natural selection drive all variation in life forms." You could not agree more. Darwin's theory has been around for 150 years, and is stubbornly entrenched. This is a time for innovation, for drawing on fresh theories that life and the universe were intelligently created in recent times, perhaps within the last 10,000 years. How to account for dinosaur fossils? Obviously, dinosaurs walked the earth at the same time as human beings.

Dinosaurs walk the earth at the same time as Alley Oop.

Ben Stein, you are growing more excited. You continue your research into Premise Media. Its CEO, A. Logan Craft, once observed that questions about the origin of Earth and its life forms "are answered very differently by secularists and people who hold religious beliefs." Can you believe your eyes? Craft has depended upon one of your own favorite logical practices, the principle of the excluded middle! This is too good to be true.

By his premise no secularists believe in Intelligent Design, and no people with religious beliefs subscribe to Darwin's theory. If there are people with religious beliefs who agree with Darwin (Catholics, Jews, Protestants, Mormons, Hindus, Muslims and Buddhists, for example) they are mistaken because they do not subscribe to A. Logan Craft's religious beliefs.

He is certainly right about secularists. You think it's a shame he's right, because then the 1968 Supreme Court decision was correct, and Tennessee's anti-evolution law was "an attempt to blot out a particular theory because of its supposed conflict with the Biblical account, taken literally." Therefore, according to the Court, ID was a religious belief and did not belong in a science classroom but in a theology classroom. This clearly would be wrong, because the new approach to teaching ID in schools omits any reference whatsoever to religion. It depends entirely on the findings of scientists who are well-respected within A. Logan Craft's religious tradition. These scientists of course are perfectly free to be secularists, although almost every single one seems to be a fundamentalist Christian. This is America.

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2008/12/win_ben_steins_mind.html

Agriprocessors: The Gift That Keeps On Giving

by Shmarya Rosenberg

Since I last posted on Agriprocessors, shortly after the company was hit with more than 9,000 counts of child labor violations, the company's "former" CEO (and still current VP) Rabbi Sholom M. Rubashkin was arrested on felony immigration and identity fraud charges. That was followed two weeks later by his second arrest on felony bank fraud charges. Rubashkin faces more than 50 years in federal prison, along with more time in state lockup.

Agriprocessors itself was indicted shortly after Rubashkin's second arrest, and the company faces millions of dollars in fines.

Early in November, Agriprocessors declared bankruptcy.  Then, on November 14, the day of Rubashkin's first federal arrest, Agriprocessors missed its payroll, leaving workers – many of them already poor – without money and, in many cases, food. Production ceased shortly after.

Now Agriprocessors' court-appointed trustee, Joseph Sarachek of New York, is trying to restart production and pay workers – at least those workers who play ball with the company.

http://www.jewcy.com/post/agriprocessors_gift_keeps_giving

Think tank condemns Arpaio's priorities

by JJ Hensley

It's the same attack, but from another end of the spectrum.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has repeatedly dismissed criticism of his office and its policies as the work of liberal-leaning media outlets and politicians who are looking to score points by taking on the controversial, conservative sheriff.

A report to be issued today by the libertarian-leaning Goldwater Institute looked at many of the same facts Arpaio's critics have used to assail him in the past year and reached the same conclusion: the Sheriff's Office has out-of-whack priorities that jeopardize public safety.

The report came with a list of legislative recommendations that could check some of Arpaio's authority.

"We are hardly soft-on-crime liberals," said Clint Bolick, director of the institute's center for constitutional litigation. "I think it hopefully tones down the rhetoric and focuses on policy solutions that will help focus scarce police resources and contribute to lowering crime rates."

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2008/12/02/20081202goldwater1202.html

World's oldest living animal discovered after he is pictured in 1900 photograph

As a photograph it looks fairly unremarkable - a tortoise nibbles at the grass in front of a Boer War prisoner and guard.

By Richard Savill and Richard Alleyne

This rare picture of a Boer war prisoner snapped on the remote island of St Helena, has shed light on one of the planets oldest living inhabitants

Jonathan, the tortoise, still alive today

The pictures helps to mark the reptile as the oldest animal on the planet.

Jonathan, the tortoise, is believed to be 176-years-old and was about 70 at the time the black and white picture was taken.

He was photographed during the Boer War around 1900, and his life has spanned eight British monarchs from George IV to Elizabeth II, and 50 prime ministers.

It was taken on the South Atlantic island of St Helena, where Jonathan still lives today, along with five other tortoises David, Speedy, Emma, Fredricka and Myrtle, in a plantation.

The previous oldest tortoise was widely thought to be Harriet, a giant Galapagos Land tortoise, who died in 2005 aged 175 in Australia.

Despite his old age, locals say he still has the energy to regularly mate with the three younger females.

Jonathan, the tortoise, still alive today

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3545540/Worlds-oldest-living-animal-discovered-after-he-is-pictured-in-1900-photograph.html

Oldest Marijuana Stash Found

by Jennifer Viegas

 

Nearly two pounds of still-green plant material found in a 2,700-year-old grave in the Gobi Desert has just been identified as the world's oldest marijuana stash, according to a paper in the latest issue of the Journal of Experimental Botany.

A barrage of tests proves the marijuana possessed potent psychoactive properties and casts doubt on the theory that the ancients only grew the plant for hemp in order to make clothing, rope and other objects.

They apparently were getting high too.

Lead author Ethan Russo told Discovery News that the marijuana "is quite similar" to what's grown today.

"We know from both the chemical analysis and genetics that it could produce THC (tetrahydrocannabinolic acid synthase, the main psychoactive chemical in the plant)," he explained, adding that no one could feel its effects today, due to decomposition over the millennia.

A microscopic image of a cannabis leaf fragment from the sample.

Note how the sample retained its green color.

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/12/03/marijuana-stash.html

U.S. 'Not Getting What We Pay For'

Many Experts Say Health-Care System Inefficient, Wasteful

By Ceci Connolly

Talk to the chief executives of America's preeminent health-care institutions, and you might be surprised by what you hear: When it comes to medical care, the United States isn't getting its money's worth. Not even close.

"We're not getting what we pay for," says Denis Cortese, president and chief executive of the Mayo Clinic. "It's just that simple."

"Our health-care system is fraught with waste," says Gary Kaplan, chairman of Seattle's cutting-edge Virginia Mason Medical Center. As much as half of the $2.3 trillion spent today does nothing to improve health, he says.

Not only is American health care inefficient and wasteful, says Kaiser Permanente chief executive George Halvorson, much of it is dangerous.

Those harsh assessments illustrate the enormousness of the challenge that awaits President-elect Barack Obama, who campaigned on the promise to trim the average American family's health-care bill by $2,500 a year. Delivering on that pledge will not be easy, particularly at a time when the economic picture continues to worsen.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/29/AR2008112901025.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2008112902759&s_pos=

Coffee

by Christoph Niemann

I like coffee so much that I have tea for breakfast: The first cup of the day in particular is so good that I’m afraid I won’t be able to properly appreciate it when I am half-asleep. Therefore, I celebrate it two hours later when I am fully conscious.

I must have been 5 when I first discovered the taste of coffee, when I was accidentally given a scoop of coffee ice cream. I was inconsolable: how could grown-ups ruin something as wonderful as ice cream with something as disgusting as coffee?

A few years later I was similarly devastated when my parents announced that for our big summer vacation we would go . . . hiking.

When I was 21 I worked as an intern at a magazine. The art director and I would brew a gigantic pot of coffee around 9 a.m. to help us get through the day. The pot would simmer in the coffeemaker, and through evaporation the coffee strengthened noticeably at lunchtime. In the evening hours, the remaining coffee had turned to a black concoction with a stinging smell and tar-like taste. We endured it without flinching.

When I was 10 I still hated coffee, but fell in love with the ritual of making coffee. My parents were thankful enough about me fixing them coffee every morning that they overlooked my first clashes with brewing technology.

http://niemann.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/02/coffee/

Scientists Mate Same Sex Polar Bears and Along Came Knut

Rosie's Renegade Humor Blog

"Humor is something that thrives between man's aspirations and his limitations." Victor Borge

The folks at Japan's Kushiro Municipal Zoo tried unsuccessfully to mate two polar bears, but did not realize that they were both female until last week.

Tsuyoshi and Kurumi are the resident bears. Tsuyoshi was identified as a boy three months after she was born and no one bothered to check after that.

Zookeepers and researchers gave all kinds of excuses for trying to make a lesbian out of Tsuyoshi:

1. She was too furry
2. We couldn't detect a boner, but what do we know?
3. Bears always squat when they pee
4. Manual checks are not practical
5. We were hesitant to anaesthetize Tsuyoshi to make sure
6. Polar bears have outies (navels)

Kurumi was not amused and began to growl the theme song from Yentl.

 

http://www.rosevalenta.blogspot.com/

Activitea... (see what I did there)

TBWA was commissioned to come up with a lovely little packaging number for a hip & healthy restaurant chains in-house teabags. Each one has a different sporting activity hanging off the string, lovely idea! (spotted at adsoftheworld.com)

http://www.thedieline.com/blog/2008/09/activitea-see-w.html

Oberlin artist offers legless Santa and crazed tree in latest display

OBERLIN -- A northern Ohio artist known for envelope-pushing holiday displays is back -- with Santa Claus in a wheelchair being pushed down stairs by a crazed tree.

The Santa in Keith McGuckin's installation at the Oberlin Public Library has no legs because of an accident involving alcohol and some power lines. An accompanying narrative explains that the tree later goes off to a strip club with money from Santa's Salvation Army kettle.

McGuckin's holiday creations have been raising eyebrows for years. His 2006 gingerbread Nazis drew so many complaints he was forced to remove them from a hardware store window.

http://www.wkyc.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=102280

Bathed in the poo of Christian love

Once in awhile I'm mildly grateful for Bill Donohue's tone-deaf faux outrages over random shit he seems to select by throwing darts at a wall.  The latest outrage demonstrates conclusively that Donohue is not a smart man, and probably uses faux outrage to deflect attention from his IQ deficiencies.  There's no way to coyly lead up to the punchline on this, so I'll just say it straight---Donohue is outraged at a Catalonian tradition that dates back hundreds of years because it offends his love of obsequious ass-kissing of authority.  The tradition is far cooler than any American Christmas traditions.  They take little statues (usually of peasants) of people squatting and taking a shit and put them in nativity scenes.  I fail to see how you get more awesome than that.  It's great, so naturally Bill Donohue is against it, and is raising a fuss because a California museum is displaying an artist's take on it involving political and sports figures.

Spanish artist Antoni Miralda's exposition "Poetical Gut" at Copia, a food, wine and arts museum in Napa, Calif., features ceramic figurines of the pope, nuns and angels with their pants down, squatting over their bowel movements.

The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, a 350,000-member group based in New York, has written to the museum's board of trustees to say it finds the show offensive.

"When it's degrading, everybody knows it except the spin doctors who run the museums," the group's president, William Donohue, said Sunday.

It must be weird to have a brain that does no thinking but yet can churn out faux outrage at breakneck speed.  Neurologists should study Donohue. 

While to American eyes, the automatic reading of this tradition is about taking the piss out of religious authority, the tradition is not actually about that at all, according the museum director.

In a tradition that dates back to the 18th century, Catalonians hide caganers in Christmas Nativity scenes and invite friends over to try to find them. The figures symbolize fertilization and the hope for prosperity in the coming year, according to Joan.

"It's really only a game," he said. "The caganer is not supposed to steal Je-sus' spotlight in the manger scene. But it's logical that when traditions like this are exported they can be misunderstood."

I will continue to secretly believe that this is merely an excuse to cover up sheer awesomeness.  Kidding!  I believe the guy. 

http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/comments/bathed_in_the_poo_of_christian_love/

Robin Williams on Obama’s Election