Insomniac's Corner

[gotsnowgotslush]

"Citizen Twain"

"Mark Twain is dead, and knows that he is dead...."

Val Kilmer on Tavis Smiley- (Short discussion on the use of the N-word.)

July 22, 2013

The play has at its center Mark Twain and Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the Church of Christ, Scientist —
two disparate historical icons whose lives briefly intertwined when Twain criticized Eddy in the press.

Where: Kirk Douglas Theatre, 9820 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City

When: Ends Sunday. Will play Aug. 21-24 at the Pasadena Playhouse.

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

Coming soon-
Secrets of Wiltshire

What happened to George Washington's coat of arms ?

http://bowinthecloud.co.uk/washington.pdf

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

http://www.closertotruth.com/participants

Confronting Consciousness

Closer to Truth 2013 Season 11
Episode 13: Confronting Consciousness

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

All the wonders that exist on warrior queen's island- warrior queen tells us very little. I watched an episode of Travelscope.

It touched on the wonders of Tasmania, and the sadness of the past. The show did a small segment in Sheffield. The murals!

"Stillness and Warmth" painted by John Lendis in 1986

http://www.sheffieldtasmania.com.au/

comment made- "It can be cold and wet."

A visit with the Devils- and a pretty guide. (name withheld by me!)

http://www.devilsatcradle.com/

http://www.parks.tas.gov.au/index.aspx?base=236

Did she tell us about Hobart ?

Tasmania

"It has been established, through archaeological exploration, that Tasmania was first inhabited between 20000 and 30000
years ago, when the island was still a part of the mainland."

"Tasmania is roughly the size of West Virginia (14974 sq. mi., or 38769 sq. km.), making it the smallest Australian State."

http://ezinearticles.com/?Tasmania-and-Victoria-Australia&id=173024

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

Velvet worms of Tasmania

http://www.polydesmida.info/tasmanianmultipedes/onychophora.html

Tasmanipatus barretti (giant velvet worms!)

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/...ered-species/tasmanipatus-barretti/index.html

"The male, which is much smaller than the female, deposits his sperm in a sac and leaves it on the females back. These can build up
and there are oft many of these spermatophores from different males all over her. Then by sheer jiggery-pokery the packages are
absorbed into the side of her and the sperm swim willy-nilly through her blood until they reach the sperm storage organs, where she
is fertilized."

"One species however has evolved to do without all this silly fornication, and put simply it clones itself … a virgin birth as it were."

"They are also known as peripatus, meaning 'ambler' or 'walker', from the Greek 'peripatein', to walk about." (lil bit phallic- spits out gooey stuff.)

When he finds a hapless individual he rears up and squirts goo everywhere like a primordial spiderman. The victim is stuck fast
by the threads and all the dastardly velvet worm has to do is inject it with its poisonous saliva and suck the gooey insides out.

http://weirdimals.wordpress.com/2009/06/17/velvet-worm/

Does the velvet worm have anything in common with Hallucigenia?
Ediacaran era ?

velvet worms- "...very common during the Cambrian period."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/dna/place-lancashire/plain/A54479253

" They pre-date the dinosaurs by hundreds of millions of years, and show little major change in the last 300 million years."

July 25, 2006

Fossils that look very much like today's onychophorans can be found in rocks 540 million years old.

"When I looked at their brains, I was shocked because I didn't expect to see what I saw," said Nicholas J. Strausfeld of The University
of Arizona in Tucson. "I just felt from their organization that these looked like spider brains, that they had more in common with spider
brains than with other arthropod brains."

Contrary to what most molecular analyses had shown, the computer-generated lineage based on brain microanatomy showed
that onychophorans and the spider/scorpion group were more closely related to each other than thought before.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/07/060725074159.htm

Olde Ones, indeed....

Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms: The Story of the Animals and Plants That Time Has Left Behind
- Richard Fortey
"These are not 'living fossils' but rather a handful of tenacious creatures of days long gone."
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12627411-horseshoe-crabs-and-velvet-worms

Tasmania is the world centre of diversity for the Onychophora, with at least 20 species.

The densest populations of velvet worms seem to be in the open eucalypt forests in the eastern and southern portions of the
Central Plateau. Three species, the Giant velvet worm (Tasmanipatus barretti), Northwest velvet worm (Ooperipatellus cryptus)
and the Blind velvet worm (T. anophthalmus) are listed under the Tasmanian Threatened Species Protection Act 1995.

http://www.parks.tas.gov.au/index.aspx?base=12460

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

Velvet worms- stranger, still

"While keeping several of these live worms in my apartment I was pleased to observe that many of the large females we had captured were
giving birth to lots of baby velvet worms. And yes, you read correctly, they were giving LIVE birth- not laying eggs.

While some velvet worm species have actually independently evolved a true placenta-like connection between the embryo and the mother,
E. rowelli does not supply the developing embryos with anything more than the original yolk in the egg. The eggs hatch within the mother
worm a few days before she “gives birth” to them. The small gray worm in the upper right-hand corner of my drawing is roughly the relative
size and color of a newly born baby onychophoran.

http://xanthopan.blogspot.com/2011/04/velvet-worms.html

A new species of velvet worm is much bigger than any of its cousins

16 July 2011

A new species of onychophora – or velvet worm – from Costa Rica is, at 22cm, about one-third larger than the previous record.
In fact, its baby is larger than adults of most other onychophora.

Peripatus solorzanoi shortly after birth can spin a glue-net to capture prey and defend itself. And like other peripatidae, it has a
placenta and gives birth to live young rather than laying eggs.
(Nourished through this placenta.)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/jul/17/new-to-nature-velvet-worm

News from January 2013; as a co-worker of an Onychophora research project directed by Dr Georg Mayer, University of Leipzig
and most notably Ivo de Sena Oliveira, Andreas Weck-Heimann was able to focus on the disregarded morphological diversity
of velvet worms (Onychophora) by use of the scanning electron microscope ZEISS EVO 50 in operation at the Senckenberg
Institute in Dresden .

We identified a new species and genus from Costa Rica Principapillatus hitoyensis, Velvet Worm. The description of
another new species from Vietnam, Eoperipatus totoro , was published online on Feb 8, 2013.

http://www.senckenberg.de/root/inde...15&abteilungID=7&standortID=2&showPageID=5056

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

*makes revisions*

He moves in with the cops at the cemetery where they watch one of the robbers make the drop and wait for her to show up
so they can arrest her, but when her Rolls Royce arrives, he sees that she has sent a messenger in her place with a telegram
asking him to bring the money and join her— or else keep the Rolls Royce as a gift. He tears the telegram to bits and throws
the pieces to the wind, looking up at the sky with tears in his eyes. She flies away in a jet.

(Hmmm- Works much better with the roles reversed....)

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

June 22, 2013

International Helmet Awareness Day

Wear your helmet!

http://www.riders4helmets.com/why-helmets-matter/

Mother Continues Her Crusade To End Hunt Caps Being Sold In North America

Kemi O’Donnell is a woman on a crusade - a crusade in honor of her daughter, Christen O’Donnell, who tragically passed away on
August 11th, 1998 at the tender age of 12. Even though her horse was only at a walk, and Christen was wearing a traditional
velvet hunt cap, Christen sustained a traumatic brain injury.

What O’Donnell did not realize at the time of Christen’s accident was that a hunt cap is simply a piece of apparel. “Riding is the
only sport that makes a piece of apparel that looks like a helmet with a hard shell, but is unapproved and not manufactured for
head protection,” said O’Donnell. “People do suffer head injuries and die because manufacturers are putting them out there
and making them look like helmets.”

For more than 10 years, O’Donnell has campaigned in an attempt to pass Federal legislation, in Christen’s name to stop
the production and sale of all unapproved equestrian "helmets" in the United States.

http://www.equinejournal.com/index....-to-end-hunt-caps-being-sold-in-north-america

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

*tip of the hat to zumi, for reminding me of this site *

Ava Gardner, Gregory Peck, and 1959 ?

Jul 28, 2013

Lawrence Johnston’s new feature has been described as a “making of” documentary about the book and film version
of On the Beach, but it’s much more than that.

Johnston takes a three-pronged approach: Shute’s life, his crowning artistic work and the science that inspired it are the
bedrocks of Fallout. A rousing opening act account of the evolution of nuclear bombs and the bone-chilling impact of the
Hiroshima detonation sets a scientific context around Shute’s most venerated work. The logical and creative sides of his
brain collided to form a vision of the future that was, as Leonard Cohen famously grumbled, murder, and Shute’s explosive
apocalyptic caution On the Beach whipped the world into fallout frenzy almost a decade before Barry McGuire’s gravelly
pipes warned “there’ll be no one to save with the world in a grave.”

There’s a structural imbalance to Fallout that in many ways works in its favour. The film will appeal to viewers reluctant to
lock themselves into something exclusively about a person, a work of art or a science. Johnston includes a take-home
message about why we should not get complacent about “the bomb,” which might have felt like a half-thought if it didn’t
provide such a fitting synergy with Kramer’s film and Shute’s novel. It also represents a curious reverse cycle: science
that inspires fiction, and fiction that inspires documentary to loop back to the core of the original work’s intent.

Fallout is playing at the Melbourne International Film Festival, where it had its world premiere on July 28.

{gsgs comment- I left out half of the article! Worth reading, if you are interested.}

http://blogs.crikey.com.au/cinetolo...ie-review-from-science-to-art-and-back-again/

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

Filming the apocalypse (05:53)

{video clip on page- "There is a lot of things that threaten their lives...."}

Karl Quinn explores the current fascination of apocalyptic films with Zac Hilditch, director of "These Final Hours", and
Lawrence Johnston, director of "Fallout". Both films will premiere at the Melbourne International Film Festival. 26/07/13

http://media.theage.com.au/entertainment/inside-entertainment/filming-the-apocalypse-4604347.html

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

Some words take a left turn, and-

http://www.snopes.com/language/foreign/hoity.asp

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

Air Force Flying 24 Tons of Cocaine to Miami Because Costa Rica Can't Destroy It On Its Own

Jul. 30 2013

Costa Rica has nearly 24 tons of pure, uncut cocaine sitting around that the country can't possibly take care of
all on its own, so it's inviting its good friend Miami to help out.

So the nearly 24 tons of coke are being transported to Miami by the Air Force.

Members of Costa Rica's Ministry of Public Safety, the Superior Council of the Republic, the Third Chamber of Justice,
the Presidency of the Courts, and a judge will all be aboard the plan as it makes the trip. The country's consul general
in Miami will meet them to ensure the coke is destroyed.

http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/riptide/2013/07/24_tons_of_cocaine_being_flown.php

Costa Rica Snubs U.S. Coast Guard But Welcomes Colombian Navy. Here’s Why:

A recent article in La Nacion explains that the Sherman lacked legislative approval to dock in Costa Rica.
Some legislators feel that the presence of U.S. military forces in Costa Rica goes against the country’s
approach to keeping the peace without an army.

Snubbed No More: U.S. Military Ships To Dock in Costa Rica
July 24, 2013

After a series of previous snubs in 2013 and delayed legislative review, a committee of 42 legislators in Costa Rica
gave the green light to vessels from the United States Navy and Coast Guard to dock in the country. These ships,
which are part of the Joint Patrol Agreement between the U.S. and Costa Rica to combat drug trafficking in the Atlantic
and Caribbean coasts, will be able to dock from now until the end of 2013.

http://news.co.cr/snubbed-no-more-u-s-military-ships-to-dock-in-costa-rica/23580/

They scaled back their presence ?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8794652

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

The difference between privacy and secrecy-

"Privacy is what you do without your partner's knowledge."

"Secrecy is willfully keeping information from your partner, that should likely be revealed."

Having a fantasy about an ex, is a private thought.

Hooking up with an ex (while maintaining a facade of monogamy with your current partner ) is a secret action.

- Twanna A. Hines
@FunkyBrownChick
sex columnist/educator

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

Awww, mannnn-

Serial Experiments Lain Director Ryutaro Nakamura Passes Away

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/new...ts-lain-director-ryutaro-nakamura-passes-away

That, was a really good series.

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

Comic Con blues-

http://digboston.com/boston-lulz/2013/08/trolley-trollop-wondering-woman/

"I can’t help but feel that over the past decade or so, a disconcerting number of the female characters I used to worship have become tainted.
And, trust me, I hate to be “this” girl, but let’s face it, it’s all Hollywood’s fault."

(What about pornland ? Sperms poured on everything.)

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

`Your hair wants cutting,' said the Hatter. He had been looking at Alice for some time with great curiosity, and this was his first speech.

`You should learn not to make personal remarks,' Alice said with some severity; `it's very rude.'

The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this; but all he SAID was, `Why is a raven like a writing-desk?'

`Come, we shall have some fun now!' thought Alice. `I'm glad they've begun asking riddles.--

I believe I can guess that,' she added aloud.

`Do you mean that you think you can find out the answer to it?' said the March Hare.

`Exactly so,' said Alice.

`Then you should say what you mean,' the March Hare went on.

`I do,' Alice hastily replied; `at least--at least I mean what I say--that's the same thing, you know.'

`Not the same thing a bit!' said the Hatter. `You might just as well say that

"I see what I eat" is the same thing as "I eat what I see"!'

`You might just as well say,' added the March Hare, `that "I like what I get" is the same thing as "I get what I like"!'

`You might just as well say,' added the Dormouse, who seemed to be talking in his sleep,

`that "I breathe when I sleep" is the same thing as "I sleep when I breathe"!'

`It IS the same thing with you,' said the Hatter, and here the conversation dropped, and the party sat silent for a minute,

while Alice thought over all she could remember about ravens and writing-desks, which wasn't much.

The Hatter was the first to break the silence. `What day of the month is it?' he said, turning to Alice: he had taken his watch out of his pocket,

and was looking at it uneasily, shaking it every now and then, and holding it to his ear.

Alice considered a little, and then said `The fourth.'

`Two days wrong!' sighed the Hatter.

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

"That's a bit embarrassing! Emma Roberts 'turned away from bakery' after trying to queue jump to get a popular Cronut"

(She said that she did not know the queue was so longggg.)

Jimmy Fallon gives her the first Cronut that she ever tasted, and one for her mom.

21st birthday for her. And a candle on her Cronut, on the show. She made a wish! (What did she wish for ?)

She reminds me of Buffy the Vampire Hunter, when Buffy started getting cynical and jaded.

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

There is life in the old rag, yet-

The truth about industry books is that they rarely interest those who live and breathe outside of the industry in question. In other words, people on the street rarely clamor for tours of the office buildings above them. The rare ability not only to lead the reader in, but induce him to want to stay and peer into the filing cabinets is what makes Boris Kachka's first book Hothouse something of a masterpiece of business biography. Kachka, the 37-year-old contributing editor of New York Magazine, has created a thrilling, addictive, and intricate history of one of the literary world's most fastidious houses, Farrar Straus & Giroux.

Soundclouds of the Underground: The Postlife Edition

These days, music truly lives online, with an infinite number of websites dedicated to hosting tunes for the laptop-wielding masses. However, the web's bottomless pit of blogs isn't the only place to troll for mp3 treasures—some of the newest and most exciting (Internet-friendly) artists can be sought out via Soundcloud, the online stage that allows musicians to promote and distribute their music to fans and friends across the globe.

Casting Call: The Grapes of Wrath

Economic hardship, devastating unemployment numbers, an unpredictable climate, American farmers struggling to compete with big business—all sound familiar? While it may read like recent news headlines across the United States, it's actually the plot of John Steinbeck's 1939 novel, The Grapes of Wrath, which remains relevant almost 75 years after its publication.

http://www.interviewmagazine.com/film/casting-call-the-grapes-of-wrath/

Would Andy Warhol be proud ?

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

1978 Roman Polanski runs away to France
1978, Brooke Sheilds's mother sold Brooke's naked ass for the Pretty Baby film.
1979 Brooke Sheilds was selling Calvin Klein jeans
It should not have happened.

2013

A 40 year old man suspected of killing a California woman and her young son before fleeing with her 16-year-old daughter was killed
in the Idaho wilderness Saturday, and the teen was found safe, authorities said.

200 police sent to save her.

http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/new...Idaho-wilderness-for-missing-teen-4722254.php

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

Breaking Bad in the 1980s

August 13, 2013

James Lee DiMaggio deceives his best friend, kills his best friend's wife and son. Abducts the daughter, and forces her to flee with him.

"....the elder DiMaggio (James Everet DiMaggio) served prison time for beating two people in a motel room after the three had allegedly
shared crystal methamphetamine on Christmas Eve 1989."

"....the elder DiMaggio was also accused of beating another woman and her boyfriend with a baseball bat because they may have
owed him money."

James Everet DiMaggio involves his 16 year old son in his crimes-

Aug 10, 2013

"....the man we now know as 40-year-old James Lee DiMaggio, was someone who she knew as 16-year-old Jimmy DiMaggio. Back then,
they both attended El Cajon High School and he gave her this message from his dad, at school."

"I was walking to my locker and his son said, my dad is out, and he said to let you know he'll be waiting for you after school."

The victim of his father, went into hiding for the past 18 years. She left her high school the very day that James Lee DiMaggio made
that threat about his father, James Everet DiMaggio. She changed her name, moved, and became a nurse.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-hannah-anderson-dimaggio-20130812,0,7616065.story

http://www.cbs8.com/story/23101843/like-father-like-son-dimaggios-dad-had-violent-past

A person's teenage years are an extension of the growing years of childhood. The teen's brain has not finished developing.
Did James Lee DiMaggio live a childhood in a violent household ? Did James Lee DiMaggio sample meth, from his father ?
Did James Everet DiMaggio persuade his son, James Lee DiMaggio, to sell and distribute meth in his high school ?
1967, My classmates and I were shown a film during Health Class. It was an old black and white film and the
teens in the film wore old fashioned clothes. It was a drug education film. All the street drugs were named.
I paid attention when they put a spotlight on a young teen girl. The film makers communicated the idea
that the drugs she was taking, had her living under an illusion. The girl thought she looked clean, and
was dressed in an acceptable manner. The teen thought she communicated in a lively and vivacious
manner. The truth was that her hair was greasy and messy. Her face was spotted with pimples
and blotches. Her clothes were dirty and wrinkled. She did not come across as friendly and
warm. The teens that she spoke to, were alarmed and disconcerted by the way she was
expressing herself. She was being influenced by an early version of meth. Lost her mind.

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

Blue Moon, will be here soon-

http://www******.com/22404-blue-moon-science-august-full-moon.html

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

2011
What the return of "The Goddess" meant to the people of Aidone, the
modern-day Sicilian town where the Morgantina dig site is located.

The goddess is a marble-and-limestone statue that was displayed for 22 years at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles,
which bought it for $18 million in 1988. Initially thought to be Aphrodite, experts now believe the statue is actually Hera,
the Greek goddess of marriage. And that wasn't the only mistake related to her heritage. Scholars eventually convinced
museum officials the statue had been swiped long ago from Sicily.

The goddess's long-awaited return to Morgantina was a triumph for the small Sicilian town, which threw a massive party in celebration.

"Everybody dressed up in Greek clothing and had a procession through the ancient site," recalled Reagan, the former Duke student who
was there when the goddess returned. "They were very excited. The people are very proud of that site and their past and history."

Detective work by the American team was key in proving that the bowls, ladles plates and other implements long on display at the Met
in New York City had also been pilfered from Morgantina. They helped prove it by matching an inscription on one of the silver pieces --
the name 'Eupolemos,' -- to a land deed found at Morgantina.

At the request of Italian authorities, a team of American archaeologists spent three summers in the late 1990s digging up a 2,300-
year-old house on a Sicilian hillside. They were seeking proof that silver objects on display at a prominent American museum
had been plundered from the ancient site.

http://today.duke.edu/2012/04/morgantina

A terracotta head depicting the Greek god Hades that the J. Paul Getty Museum acquired in 1985 is being voluntarily sent back
to Sicily, the museum has announced.

Getty officials said that the museum has worked with officials from Sicily during the last two years to determine whether it would be
appropriate to return the artifact.

In joint research with local archaeological authorities, the Getty determined the Hades mask was looted from the site’s sanctuary
of Demeter and Persephone in the early 1970s.

Morgantina is the same heavily looted archaeological site in central Sicily where the Getty’s former statue of Aphrodite was looted
around the same time as the Hades. The Getty acquired the statue of Aphrodite from Symes in 1988 for $18 million.

Since that statue’s return, experts believe it represents the goddess Persephone or her mother, Demeter, who were worshipped
in the ancient city.

Persephone and Hades are closely associated in Greek mythology. Hades abducted Persephone at Largo Pergusa, not far from
Morgantina, and required her to return to the underworld for several months every year, an explanation for winter.

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/ja...-getty-museum-hades-sculpture-sicily-20130110

Art News del 24 Aprile 2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSyZJxXFJ7s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4b-eTAGHLw

http://aidone-morgantina.it/

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

This has a pretty good picture of the statue that depicts the Goddess of Morgantina

http://www.vivienna.it/2011/06/13/aidone-il-rientro-della-venere-dea-demetra-di-morgantina/

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

August 26, 2013

Dark Horse Comics Is Resurrecting Joss Whedon’s “Firefly”

On Friday, August 23rd, Dark Horse quietly released the above graphic to their website along with this teaser of a press release:

see- Graphic on page (in link)

Joss Whedon’s beloved Firefly series and Serenity film’s lifespan may have been short-lived, but managed to produce one of the
most dedicated fanbases in the history of modern science fiction. Dark Horse is proud to be able to keep Mal and his crew flying
with new comics and products. Look for the hashtag #WheresSerenity over the next few months on our Twitter, Facebook and
Instagram pages for exclusive news on the future of the franchise at Dark Horse!

http://www.buzzfeed.com/donnad/dark-horse-comics-is-resurrecting-joss-whedons-firefly

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

" Eighty-nine years ago Monticello first made a quinine medicine for high fever and malaria. The first order was written on an order tab
with the number 666.

The product worked. People asked for the product by its order number and it started to be called "that 666 product". The name 666 stuck,
and as Monticello created more products, they also became part of the 666 family. It was not until about 15 years ago when the movie-
"The Omen" was released, that the numbers by themselves came to have an evil context. Monticello had not answered ten questions about
the name during the 70 years of its existence up until that point. However, it was always Monticello's belief that the mark of the beast "666",
was not evil unless it was written on human skin. According to the bible, if this number was put on your skin it would show you had given up
your Christianity and been marked for identification."

http://www.deuceofclubs.com/write/schmeg1.htm