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As ALJAZEERA noted yesterday, Iraq's Ambassador to the UN, Mohamed Ali Alhakim, has declared that there is no evidence that the Islamic State "used chemical weapons in Mosul." |
So no chemical weapons used by the terrorist group the Islamic State. |
But chemical weapons were used. |
Seems Islamic State has been targeted with white phosphorus in Mosul, . Objects in A'maq video strongly resembling WP felt wedges. |
Who could have done that? |
And will a certain 'human rights attorney' pretend to care? |
Probably not. |
Meanwhile, did the following happen? |
: has captured an |i army base north of . |
If so, it's not good news for The Mosul Slog. |
But then there's not any good news for The Mosul Slog. |
RUDAW reports: |
High numbers of people have fled from western Mosul over the course of the past day, after heavy fighting near Al Remah Square and Al-Shuhadaa Martyrs Park. |
In the past 24 hours, 12,458 people have fled from western Mosul, the ministry reported, Iraq’s Ministry of Migration and Displacement stated on Saturday. |
Scores of people fled down streets, pushing young children in makeshift carts, and carrying a few personal items. |
Day 145 of The Mosul Slog. And still it continues. |
• The e-mail address for this site is |
Tuesday, October 14, 2008 |
One day God was out walking in the void. He was experimenting with a new idea He had: light. It's rather dark in the void so God decided to make light. |
First, He put it below Him. But He didn't like that effect. Oh, it would have been good for a scary monster effect...but at the time there were no scary monsters, or people, so He moved the light behind Him. He didn't like that either. It cast His shadow out in front of Him...and God has a very big shadow. Then He move... |
As God was standing there looking up, He got a strange sensation in His nose. You know how, sometimes, it makes you want to sneeze when you look up at a bright light, or into the bright sky? Well, that is what happened to God...and God had never sneezed before, or He would have done something about it. |
In any case, God sneezed. Oh my, what a sneeze that was! Billions and billions of tiny God-particles of mucus, moisture, and who knows what else went flying out into the void. Each particle contained a bit of God's DNA, of course. God's sneeze also shattered the light into billions and billions of tiny pieces. They, to... |
In the meantime, all the billions and billions of particles were now frozen balls of stuff...because the void is very cold...which, of course, doesn't bother God in the least. But slowly, over time (and one day of God's time is one-hundred million of our years), the bits of shattered light, which were bigger and heavie... |
1 comment: |
Anonymous said... |
try reading freedom of choice... |
December 13, 2017 |
Let’s minimize traffic accidents |
Khin Maung Myint |
Untitled-1Lately, there were news of traffic accidents in the media almost every day. Most of them happened on the Yangon — Mandalay expressway and most resulted in fatalities. Because of the frequent accidents along that expressway, it is becoming notorious and some even dubbed it “The Death Highway”. |
According to the latest WHO report there were over ten thousand fatalities from traffic accidents in Myanmar during last year; which is quite high. The traffic accidents are undesirable, thus although they cannot be totally eradicated, the lesser would be better. So, we should try to minimize the traffic accidents. |
Some forty years ago, I came to know a traffic police officer. He was a senior officer in those days in his profession, not in terms of rank, but in service and experience. He had attended some workshop seminars and trainings related to his profession, in foreign countries. On one occasion, during a conversation with h... |
He was opening his heart to me, and told me that they were becoming scapegoats for the traffic accidents that were on the rise in those days. He said they were being blamed for laxity in enforcing the traffic rules and regulations. He told me that according to the common concepts, the road safety depends on “the three ... |
The first E, according to him is engineering. That is the engineering aspect of the road constructions. The roads must satisfy the road-safety standards required. The second E is educating the public, drivers as well as the pedestrians, to observe the traffic rules and regulations. The pedestrians need to know certain ... |
In those days, almost all the roads and streets in the cities and towns and the highways all over the country were sub-standards with potholes and damaged or no road shoulders. Also some road surfaces don’t have the necessary camber to drain the rain water, which resulted in the formations of potholes and damages to th... |
The second E, which stands for educating is also important. In most countries, departments similar to our Road Transport Department are responsible for educating and testing the would-be drivers before issuing driving liscences. Most accidents were caused by human errors or negligences or ignorances, thus educating the... |
1. Reckless driving, |
2. Drunken driving. |
3. Over speeding. |
4. Using mobile phones without hand-free equipments while driving. |
5. Falling asleep while driving. |
6. Undisciplined road crossing or jay-walking by the pedestrians. |
7. Ignorance or disregard for road signs and car signal lights on the part of the pedestrians. |
8. Reluctance to use the zebra-crissings and overhead pedestrian passes. |
The third E, is the enforcement, which is the duty of the traffic police and the judiciary as well. Without enforcement, law and order wouldn’t prevail. However, enforcement doesn’t necessarily mean just taking actions. Any other means to make the public to observe the traffic rules and regulations are also effective. ... |
As for the frequent fatal road accidents on the Yangon–Mandalay expressway, which is becoming notorious as “The Death Highway”, they are caused mostly due to the engineering faults. The second cause is due to the human factors. Based on my meager knowledge about road constructions, a perfect road must have an appropria... |
The cement concrete surfaces, unlike the asphalt concrete surfaces, create much more frictions. As friction caused the tyres to heat up easily and extensively, the air pressure in them increased to the point of bursting. That will cause the car to swerve uncontrollably and either overturn or collide with other vehicles... |
As for the human factors that cause car accidents, they can take many forms. Reckless driving, speeding, drunken driving, over speeding, falling asleep at the steering wheel while driving, or talking on the mobile phone while driving are the most common causes of accidents. Also failures to check the conditions of the ... |
In conclusion, I would like to suggest that periodical and random checks for alcohol intakes of the drivers be carried out. Speed checks also should be made often and CCTV cameras and speed monitoring sensors that can automatically transmit, via the Internet, the data and images to the nearest highway police stations a... |
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Living walls aren’t just for interiors anymore. As environmentalism becomes increasingly important to a larger number of people, more construction firms are focusing on incorporating plants and trees into their building designs. |
Restoring the Natural Landscape |
The human population is growing, and the world’s megacities continue to expand and consume the natural landscape around them. While planned parks and small-scale tree planting efforts are making some headway in reintroducing plants and other natural elements into these industrially developed areas, some architects, des... |
Anyone who keeps an eye on construction and architecture news has probably noticed a trend toward plant-covered buildings. Residential towers, hotels and even some office or government buildings are being built specifically to accommodate plants of different varieties. In some cases, the building’s plan includes space ... |
Focusing on Eco-Friendly Cities |
Part of the benefit of this approach to building design is that the buildings themselves become part of an effort to clean the air, reduce pollution and introduce more oxygen into busy cityscapes. As much as we want to rely on technology to solve environmental problems, sometimes the natural ways, the old ways, are bes... |
There’s also a distinct aesthetic benefit to this building approach. When talking to clients with a focus on eco friendliness, many project managers find that there’s a desire to visually demonstrate a building’s commitment to the environment. The use of sustainable materials like reclaimed flooring or bamboo can play ... |
As major cities in France, Switzerland, China, Germany, Japan and the United States begin to introduce more vertical forests and other buildings that incorporate nature into cityscapes, chances are that this trend may foment a real movement in the industry. This may call for the inclusion of some new specialty areas wi... |
Jane Austen Quotations |
Jane Austen |
Human nature is so well disposed towards those who are in interesting situations, that a young person who either marries or dies, is sure of being kindly spoken of. |
Riches are a good handmaid, but the worst mistress. |
Take my word for it, if you are in too great a hurry, you will certainly live to repent it. |
There seems almost a general wish of decrying the capacity and undervaluing the labor of, and of slighting those performances which have only genius, wit and taste to recommend them. |
To torment and to instruct might sometimes be used as synonymous words. |
Why not seize the pleasure at once? How many times is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation? |
July 29, 2007 |
The wasted minds of the youth |
In the comments on the quit putzing around post, someone asked during what years is your mind at its sharpest. To a first approximation, before you're 30. That's worth emphasizing, since I don't think it's well known, and learning of it certainly got me going much faster in my studies. * |
For a brief overview, search Ian Deary's Looking Down on Human Intelligence at Amazon, with the search phrase "cognitive ageing" (yes, with an "e" in "ageing"). Then navigate to the following pages for some sobering graphs: 224, 225, 228, 231 (or read the whole chapter if you have library / university access). What you... |
Since crystallized intelligence doesn't diminish for most of adulthood, your ability to acquire and store facts is not a limiting factor on your ability to contribute original insights to whatever it is that you do (assuming we're talking about smart people already). But because fluid intelligence -- your ability to re... |
Technically, this is true more for the fine arts and sciences, which make large demands on your fluid cognitive abilities, and not so much for anything about which you'd say, "OK, this isn't exactly rocket science" or "Well, it's not like I'm composing a symphony here." Still, in your early 20s you don't know exactly w... |
For example, while you could get a PhD in science or engineering and then read a lot of history in your 40s or 50s, it wouldn't be possible to get a PhD in history and then at age 40 or 50 learn intro calculus, genetics, and so on. It wouldn't take just a few months for someone else to teach you -- it would take as lon... |
True, you don't need abstract algebra to understand any of the results that Pinker discusses, but I didn't say you had to do the equivalent of what a math major at MIT would do. Even a familiarity with basic statistics will go a long way to understanding such results, as well as give you the right weapons for intellect... |
So, like physical attractiveness and athleticism, raw fluid intelligence peaks during your 20s. By 30, your brain figures that it's learned most of whatever difficult concepts it must learn, so that continued investment of resources in fluid smarts could be better spent elsewhere. And as I mentioned in the review of Th... |
* In some cases, you could be a late-bloomer, in that you might have no trouble with the GRE, Miller Analogies Test, or other cognitive abilities test you take for graduate-level schooling, whereas you might have done well but not great on the SAT at age 18. If so, then you can probably assume the deterioration process... |
July 28, 2007 |
Say what you will about record executives... |
At least they had enough sense to keep a lid on Mariah Carey's slutty and overly percussive tendencies. Remember when she cast aside her earlier manager and crew, and proceeded to go full-out skank for 1997's Butterfly, her music being sucked into the hip-hop vortex? The first CD I ever bought was her 1993 Music Box, w... |
Age may account for some of the discrepancy: she was 23 in "Dreamlover" and 27 in "Honey." That may sound unfair -- "hey, she wasn't even 30, let alone 40 or 50!" -- but the early 20s and the late 20s really do have a different feel. Guys begin their 20s as complete losers and end that decade having at least secured a ... |
So think what you want about slick record execs who bully around their stars rather than give them free rein -- sometimes they know what they're doing. |
Related: This reminds me of what happened to Shakira, although in her case she didn't slut it up nearly as much, but still comes off as much more cynical than before. For a pleasant reminder of what she was like at her peak, see the video for "Moscas en la casa" from her MTV Unplugged appearance in early 2000. |
July 22, 2007 |
The 40 Year Old Virgin: It's about the woman, not the guy, changing her ways |
This movie is not to be taken as a realistic depiction of how things are, but rather how the writers believe they ought to be, which Half-Sigma says is also true of Knocked Up by the same writer-director Judd Apatow. And while there are many enjoyable aspects of The 40 Year Old Virgin, including plenty of good sight ga... |
Let's start with that. For a good overview, you should peruse Personality in Adulthood by leading researchers Robert McCrae and Paul Costa, who were instrumental in forming the Big Five model of personality traits. It is a very easy read for laymen, all key findings having been distilled into semi-stand-alone chapters ... |
The skeptics may be wondering how that could be possible -- but the key is that it is true, whatever the causes, and the finding is the result of longitudinal studies spanning decades and examining large numbers of people, so it cannot be dismissed out of incredulity. Still, to make sense of this seemingly counter-intu... |
Now, personality traits obviously change during life before 30, but since The 40 Year Old Virgin focuses almost exclusively on the lives of 30 and 40-somethings, the foregoing will be good enough to move on. We get a hint of the lack of realism when Andy (the title character) is encouraged to practice hitting on a girl... |
Andy's meekness also presents a problem for the story arc that has him being promoted from a help desk assistant to the floor manager of an electronics store, due to his unexpected prowess as a salesman. This also boosts his self-confidence and makes him appear higher-status than he would be in real life. Note also tha... |
However, these two instances are failures at showing life as it is, and again the point is more to show how we ought to behave. Even there, though, the movie has two unbelievable events that also derive from the belief in the ability of middle-aged adults to easily and lastingly alter their temperament. One is a side-s... |
Later, Jay forgets to take off the condom he'd used to fuck another woman the night before, and his girlfriend dumps him. He unwittingly impregnates his girlfriend, who then quickly decides to forgive him and take him back. Jay learns the lesson that sex complicates a relationship, that he should be devoted to his woma... |
The idea that conceiving a child with an inveterate skirt-chaser will magically make him settle down and act responsibly is a joke, albeit one that manages to deceive many women into standing by their Lothario boyfriends. Remember, they're not a married couple coping with adultery; the boyfriend is just a letch. I'm no... |
But worse still is the suggestion that Andy ought to seek out a relationship with Trisha (not the skank he used as flirtation practice). Throughout every stage of their relationship, Trisha reveals more and more red flags that should send shy guys looking for a decent woman running for the hills. First, she has three k... |
If Trisha were younger, we might believe that she'd seen the light and grown out of her wild youth, but the actress who plays her is 45 and looks it. If up through age 45 she's managed to spurn guys like Andy in favor of having unplanned kids by biker dudes who leave her afterwards, it's very unlikely that she'll be ab... |
So how in the hell are they going to succeed in dieting for longer than a few weeks? What she would experience is misleadingly called "yo-yo dieting," when a better analogy would be a spring that's stretched away from its resting state but then soon snaps back to where it wants to be. Guys like Andy would be rice-cakes... |
I already hear the laughs, but let's be serious: only someone with no self-respect would choose a long-term relationship with a semi-good-looking woman like Trisha, who viewed you as a dieting supplement to help her control her weight, rather than an average-looking girl who had fallen irrationally head-over-heels for ... |
Besides, it's not true that there are few women who value virginity in a husband -- well, few in most of the developed West, that's true. But David Buss' seminal cross-cultural survey of mating preferences (PDF) showed that, far more than any other variable, a preference for virginity varied the most. Subjects rated th... |
It's worth repeating that this variable varied more than any other -- despite variation around the world, men were pretty uniform in valuing "good looks" highly, and women "good financial prospect." So if you're an ugly girl or an unemployed guy, it's going to be rough finding a mate of any quality no matter where you ... |
This more fitting and realistic alteration of the story could take the form of either him importing a mail-order bride from China or Taiwan, or to make him more dignified perhaps a wife from the more developed Ireland. Or, given the prominence of Andy's two South Asian male co-workers in the story, they could have fixe... |
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