Insomniac's Corner

[gotsnowgotslush]

The Cadogan Hotel (Knightsbridge) offered champagne baths to their clients. February 14, 2012
£6,000 for vintage Perrier Jouet
£8,000 for vintage Veuve Clicquot or vintage Perrier Jouet Rosé
Alcohol does absorb through the skin, but at a slow rate, and very small amounts.
There is a large amount of alcohol in perfume- If you breath the initial fumes, does it go to your head ?

*tip of the hat to David Cobbold

http://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2012/02/hotel-launches-champagne-bath/

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

This week, South Florida has moved part of itself to New England- What does that mean, for windsurfers and swimmers ?

http://www.ripcurrents.com/

What are the warning signs?
»» Change in water color from surrounding water-
(either murkier from sediments, seaweed, and flotsam, or darker because of the depth of the underwater channel where the rip flows)
»» Gap in the breaking waves, where the rip is forcing its way seaward through the surf zone
»» Agitated (choppy) surface that extends beyond the breaker zone.
»»Floating objects moving steadily seaward
»» Temperature of water--water in the rip may be colder than surrounding water.

Dr. Beach: Rip Currents

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9OMIKsTuqY

Atypical rips

What Causes Rip Currents

During the late summer, especially August and September, the Atlantic Ocean really becomes stoked by tropical storms and
hurricanes in the tropical latitudes. Big swell waves can travel for thousands of miles without losing their energy until they
break upon the beach. In these cases, dangerous surf can be produced as well as the life-threatening rip currents. A number
of people have been drowned on the Outer Banks in recent years because they do not understand or recognize these powerful
offshore-flowing rip currents.

Duck Research Pier

The Field Research Facility in northern Duck is known for its 1840 foot long pier and its internationally recognized research.
It’s mission is “Advancing coastal knowledge through observation and discovery.”

http://www.outerbanks.com/duck-research-pier.html

Welcome to the Field Research Facility. Located on the Atlantic Ocean near the town of Duck, North Carolina

Surf-Zone Eddies (WSU &OSU)
Surf-zone eddies (see picture to right) are swirling, spiraling currents that can also form hazardous seaward currents
called "transient rips". The WSUV researchers will measure currents north of the pier with instruments that will provide
the world's first three-dimensional view of beach currents.

These measurements will be combined with computer simulations to shed light on why the eddies form, and how they work.

http://www.frf.usace.army.mil/

Rip currents at Duck persist for weeks or even months at the same places, moving through underwater channels or
breaks in the inner bars. Only a particularly large winter storm (e.g., nor’easter) or hurricane moves and/or destroys
these channels—conduits for the seaward-flowing currents. Some rip currents lasted from May until September-
according to Dr. Robert Dean, a colleague at the University of Florida. This finding contradicts the prevailing view of
rip currents as spontaneous and short-lived events.

A Tale of Caution-
A family from Boston, making their annual pilgrimage to Ocean City, arrived in early evening. The young Kennedy boy was eager to get into the water so his father went to the beach with him after the lifeguards had retired. The lifeguards always close the beach when the breaking waves reach 5 feet or higher. They are off-duty by 6 PM. The surf was high in late August 1995 because of “heavy” weather at sea caused by Hurricane Felix. The father and son walked along the beach until they found an area of lower than average waves. Thomas Kennedy, a 10-year old boy, was only up to his waist when he felt the strong tug of the rip current. His father grabbed his hand and anchored his feet in the shifting sand, but the current was too strong for his grip. The boy’s hand slipped away, and his father watched in horror as his son Thomas was swept offshore to the deep ocean waters; there was absolutely nothing that could be done in this circumstance. The body was later recovered by the U. S. Coast Guard, floating near Ocean City Inlet.

A classic mistake was made by these Bostonians. They entered the water where it appeared to be the safest, but actually walked right into a deadly rip current. This strong, offshore-moving current was literally knocking down the waves. They were in the wrong place at the wrong time. I was interviewed by the Baltimore Sun newspaper and the local press to explain how this terrible mistake could have been made. The father later called me and said he wanted to do something to warn others; he was terribly distraught by this very personal tragedy. He wanted to install signs and diagrams depicting and warning about rips along the Ocean City boardwalk, but the city managers were not in favor of this action. They maintained that rips are quite rare occurrences, and such signs would only serve to scare people and business away from their beach. This episode really stimulated my interest in being pro-active, which eventually lead to the development of a new water tracer for rip currents (see www.ripcurrents.com). There are now warning signs for rip currents at Ocean City, Maryland and most U.S. beaches.
(information and stories on this page- http://ripcurrents.com/ripcurrents101.html)

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

Study for the past thirty years- Why are lightning strikes increasing in frequency and strength ? Human activity.

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

June 27, 2013

At the solar system's edge, more surprises from Voyager

Cruising through what scientists describe as a curious, unexpected charged-particle environment,
Voyager has detected, for the first time, low-energy galactic cosmic rays, now that particles of
the same energy from inside the bubble around our Sun disappeared.

As a result, Voyager now sees the highest level so far of particles from outside our solar bubble
that originate from the death of other nearby stars.

Voyager 1 is 11.6 billion miles (18.6 billion kilometers) from the Sun, poised
to become Earth's first robotic ambassador to the space between the stars.

At 9.4 billion miles (15.1 billion kilometers), Voyager 2 has seen some gradual changes in the
charged particles, yet scientists do not think Voyager 2 has reached the magnetic highway.

http://phys.org/news/2013-06-solar-edge-voyager.html

*tip of the hat, to the sweetheart who keeps some of us amused

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

Do I really need twatter ? It would be nice, not to read things that are almost a month old.

#NSAkidsbooks

Where The Wild Things Are Under Surveillance
Charlotte's web cache

Now, there are pics of altered children's book covers-

And To Think That I Surveilled It On Mulberry Street
The Princess and the Pea Sized Listening Device
There's Waldo!
Horton Hears a You
Everyone Snoops
Charlotte's Webcam

http://www.dailydot.com/lol/nsa-kids-books-photoshopped-darth-prism/

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

Moondog II You The Vandal 1971

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XORKnmo7Q38

http://moondogscorner.de/press/period60.htm

New York Daily Mirror, 1951 June 11

Sidney Fields:
Only Human

He calls himself "Moondog". A sidewalk disc jockey, who squats every night in a 52nd street doorway between eight and six o'clock
the next morning selling his own records, playing his own music in the long, lonely night on strange drums, like a hollow log or gourd.
A big young man of 35, with great dignity and a strange name."It's an Indian name," he says. "When I took it, it just meant a dog
that howls at the moon. Later I learned it meant an arctic rainbow. He can only howl at the moon or at a rainbow.

He can't see them. He's been blind since he was 16.

Musicians often congregate before his doorway theatre and clap their hands and stamp their feet to his drums. Dimitri Mitropolous
was enthralled by his rhythms, Art Ford heard them and played his records on the air.

{more about his life, in the link}

His real name is Louis Hardin. His father was an Episcopalian minister. His father and mother parted when he was a boy.
At 16 Moondog was playing with a dynamite cap. It exploded, and blinded both his eyes. He went to schools for the blind,
got a scholarship to the Memphis Conservatory, where he learned harmony, counterpoint, orchestration, and the organ.
But he quit after eight months and came to N.Y. The first thing he did here was buy himself a front row ticket for a
Philharmonic concert.

(Moondog said)-"I haunted the stage door and the first cellist introduced me to Rodzinski, who allowed me in at all rehearsals.
After three years of listening at rehearsals the Carnegie Hall boss said I had to dress less artistically or stay away. I live and
think and dress in my own way, so I stayed away."

His chief form of musical expression is the Round, a short piece set to a prose poem. He's written at least 60. Gabriel publishes
them and Moondog hands them out to passersby.

(Moondog said)-"I'm writing my commentaries in Rounds. Some of them are quite bitter."
He showed me two:
"You the vandal, plunder the village as you will. The earth-worm will pillage you, the vandal, when you are under."

"School taught he that a ship was an 'it', and not a 'he' or 'she'. But when I went to sea a ship became a 'she'
and 'she' turned out to be a man-o-war."

Moondog - Behold

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfkCEWgXB-A

Behold the willow bows before me but not the oak, I'm uprooting remarked the wind.

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

A Russian rocket crash yesterday (July 1) was likely caused by an emergency shutdown of the booster's engines 17 seconds
into the flight, according to news reports.

Video of the rocket crash from Russian state-run Rossiya-24 television shows the vehicle veering off course shortly after liftoff,
and then breaking apart in mid-air and exploding in a fiery blaze once it hit the ground.

The rocket was carrying 600 tons of highly toxic heptyl, amyl and kerosene fuel, which were spilled when the booster
was destroyed, Russian news service Ria Novosti reported. The burning fuel gives off a poisonous smoke, but officials
said the cloud was being partially contained by rain at the launch site.

Pravda lives ?

http://www******.com/21811-russian-rocket-crash-details-revealed.html

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limit of Markets
- author, Michael Sandel

His latest book, “What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limit of Markets,” examines the repercussions of the trend
toward putting a price tag on just about everything, from palatial yachts to political influence.

Sandel in Central Park
Evening spotlights moral choices, as framed through Shakespeare

Sandel, a master at getting people talking, used the same approach he takes with his popular Harvard course “Justice,”
asking audience members to defend their positions on tough ethical questions.

Unsurprisingly, the opinionated New Yorkers proved they were up to the challenge, quickly and emphatically weighing
in on his first moral quandary: Should people be legally allowed to buy and sell human kidneys?

“The argument is that against background conditions of poverty and inequality, desperate poverty, the choice, the freedom
of choice, that [] recommends the use of markets may not be present,” said Sandel. “The exchange may not really be free;
it may be the poverty consenting, not the will.”

Earlier in the evening, veteran actress Vanessa Redgrave gave voice to the dilemma, reading from a scene from “Romeo and Juliet”
as the apothecary who sells the brokenhearted lover his illegal poison. Said Redgrave, in the words of the impoverished and conflicted
druggist, “My poverty, but not my will, consents.”

“If people are desperately poor,” said Sandel, “consent may not be all that free.”

http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2013/06/sandel-in-central-park/

{gsgs comment}-

In America, homelessness never went away. It is hidden much better, now. America projects the image of wealth, convenience, ease of living.

Casualties of war. Casualties of wealth ? "Collateral damage." Those who decide are suffering from "gold sickness." Does "gold sickness" cause blindness ?

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

July 4th, 2013
Independence Day

Years ago, My Ogre Husband sent a Brit visitor to a hotel, where they would have a superior view of the July 4th fireworks.

The Brit visitor was very surprised, with how extravagant our fireworks displays, are.

Would the UK have a celebration larger than America's celebration, if France was firmly denied ?

1774
Coercive Acts

In response to the Boston Tea Party, Parliament passed several acts to punish Massachusetts.
The Boston Port Bill banned the loading or unloading of any ships in Boston harbor.

The Administration of Justice Act offered protection to royal officials in Massachusetts, allowing them
to transfer to England all court cases against them involving riot suppression or revenue collection.

The Massachusetts Government Act put the election of most government officials under the control of the Crown,
essentially eliminating the Massachusetts charter of government.

July 4, 2013

Will the The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights protect the rights of the common people ?

When I was a child, we pledged allegiance to the flag. I was happy to attend the Veteran's concerts. The flag was on a stand, outside.

When I was a teen, the Republicans waved the flag, claiming they were more patriotic than the Democrats. Cognitive dissonance appeared.

As I got older, the ecology flag was seen in many places. Now, I think of the eco flag, with the θ replaced by a fetus.

I pledge allegiance, to the fetus....

Is all of the UK laughing behind our backs ? If the loudest defender of fetuses, in the land, wins the highest office in the land ?

I hope they do not bust a gut, with their guffaws.

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

20 Feet From Stardom just got a thumbs up from Greater Boston TV show.

Merry Clayton-

Clayton tells Billboard that "20 Feet From Stardom" -- the Morgan Neville documentary about her and other notable
backing vocalists that premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival and opens July 5 nationwide -- led directly the
recent release of the Ode/Legacy compilation "The Best of Merry Clayton."

"We got a call from Uncle Lou Adler's office, and he said, 'Y'know, Sony Legacy wants to do a best of,' " says Clayton,
who released three solo albums during the early '70s to capitalize on her notoriety from the Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter."
He said, 'I want you to come up and choose some of the songs, just put in what you like,' and he gave me the honor of doing
that and choosing some pictures for the inner sleeve. We did all that, and I was just so humble and it was done so beautifully.
Y'know, any artist worth her salt would love somewhere in her career to be acknowledged and to know what you did was worthy
of being 'The Best of.' So I'm very proud of this."

http://www.billboard.com/articles/n...clayton-talks-tour-her-best-of-new-recordings

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

I should be reading this-

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
-Karen Joy Fowler

Karen Joy Fowler has written the book she’s always had in her to write. With all the quiet strangeness of her amazing Sarah Canary,
and all the breezy wit and skill of her beloved Jane Austen Book Club, and a new, urgent gravity, she has told the story of an American
family. An unusual family—but aren’t all families unusual? A very American, an only-in-America family—and yet an everywhere family,
whose children, parents, siblings, love one another very much, and damage one another badly. Does the love survive the damage?
Will human beings survive the damage they do to the world they love so much? This is a strong, deep, sweet novel.”

—Ursula K. Le Guin, author of Lavinia, The Unreal and the Real, and the Earthsea Cycle

What am I reading ? This-

The Last Train to Zona Verde
_ Paul Theroux

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

She's a Yankee Doodle teen queen
A Yankee Doodle, do or die
The real deal daughter, serving Uncle Sam
Born on the 4th of July

She's a Yankee Doodle Sweetheart
She has her father's smile and curls
She's loved by people, North and South
Smart, she takes the high road

Huzzah, for those Yankee Doodle Girls!

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

Front page news-

Wimbledon : le titre de Bartoli, "un jour de fierté pour la France"

http://www.lemonde.fr/

Marion Bartoli reine de Wimbledon

http://www.lefigaro.fr/

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

"Hit their tail against the breakwall."

At least 40 people were injured Saturday when a Boeing 777 passenger jetliner bound from
Seoul, South Korea, crashed and caught fire...

The plane reportedly was carrying 291 people. Rachael Kagan, a spokeswoman for San Francisco General Hospital, said 40 people
had been badly injured. Ten of them were in critical condition at San Francisco General, eight adults and two children, she said.

The most notable accident involving a 777 occurred on Jan. 17, 2008 at Heathrow Airport in London. British Airways Flight 28
landed hard about 1,000 feet short of the runway and slid onto the start of the runway.

The impact broke the 777-200's landing gear. There were 47 injuries, but no fatalities.

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

update-
16:50 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- Two people were killed and at least 40 people were critically injured

There were 291 passengers and 16 crew members aboard. Two people were killed, 82 were taken to area hospitals
and 60 were unaccounted for, San Francisco Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White said at an afternoon news conference
at the airport.

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/2-killed-40-badly-hurt-in-SFO-plane-crash-4650259.php

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

Twist of fate-

If only. If only he was driving down some other part of the gated community.
Then he could be home, with his family. Having a great summer. He did not live
to see this 4th of July.

 

[pete]

do you seriously have insomnia this often? you might want to see a doctor, yo

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

Let's Ditch The Royals
TV3 Invites Kiwis to have their say on July 17 with "The Vote"

Fifth episode of TV3’s national debate programme, screening at 8.30pm on Wednesday night.

Guyon Espiner says:
“It’s absurd that our head of state inherits the position, which is based on the other side of the world and must be an Anglican!
It would be laughable if it wasn’t so serious. Do people realise that we can’t pass any law without the consent of the Queen’s
representative, who is also the Commander in Chief of New Zealand? “Come on New Zealand it’s time to finally grow up, cut
the apron strings and ditch the royals. It’s our country - we need a home-grown head of state.”

http://www.3news.co.nz/TVShows/TheVote/Home.aspx

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1307/S00086/tv3s-the-vote-asks-should-we-ditch-the-royals.htm

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

It makes sense that the larvae of the firefly, would glow in the dark. There are many more fireflies, than there were, when the week started.

I have never seen a glow worm. I have never looked for one, before this. The fireflies seem to like the forsythia bushes.

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

"....born, 1762 in Saint-Domingue to a blackguard French aristocrat named Alexandre Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie and one of his black mistresses."

"....Davy de la Pailleterie took his mixed-race young son to France for a free life and gentleman's education."

"Dumas rose quickly from lowly private to a heroic general leading an army of 50,000 men."

"He's a black man, born into slavery, and then he rises higher than any black man rose in a white society before our own time."
"He became a four-star general and challenges Napoleon, and he did it all 200 years ago, at the height of slavery."
- Tom Reiss

"At one point I had a safe blown up in order to recover an importance piece of the puzzle. He was written out of history,
the Nazis melted the only statue of him, and he was literally white-washed, they painted a blond guy over his image."
- Tom Reiss

http://nypress.com/history-raider-h...ity-and-closure-to-forgotten-hero-alex-dumas/

The Black Count
Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, And The Real Count Of Monte Cristo
Author- Tom Reiss
Nonfiction

Special thanks to Tavis Smiley and NPR​

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

Boston's French Cultural Center hosts 38th Bastille Day celebration
7/14/2013
The weather was mostly cool and dry during the French Cultural Center’s 38th Bastille Day Party on Marlborough Street over the weekend.

http://www.boston.com/names/2013/07...celebration/8ThEefUy3lCwF4wHllhO2J/story.html

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

My weeds are choking out my garden plants. The trees have been growing like crazy. My allergies seem to be getting worse.

Now, my local news channel tells me that the high levels of carbon dioxide, are giving the weeds a leg up.

More pollen, more seeds and earlier.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astr...t_all_time_high_for_past_several_million.html

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

The Night Witches

New York Times
Obit section
July 15, 2013

The Nazis called them "Night Witches" because the whooshing
noise their plywood and canvas airplanes made reminded
the Germans of the sound of a witch's broomstick.

The Russian women who piloted those planes took it as a compliment.
They dumped 23,000 tons of bombs on the German invaders.

These young women were teens and twenty-somethings. Flying only in the dark, they
had no parachutes, no guns, no radios, no radar. They had maps and compasses.

If hit by tracer bullets, their planes would burn like sheets of paper. Their uniforms
were hand-me-downs from male pilots. Their faces froze in the open cockpits.

"Almost every time, we had to sail through a wall of enemy fire." Nadezhda Popova ,
one of the first volunteers who herself flew 852 missions- said in an interview for
David Stahel's book, "Operation Typhoon: Hitler's March on Moscow, October 1941."

The [female] pilot's skill prompted the German's to spread rumors that the Russian women
were given special injections and pills to "give us a feline's perfect vision at night."
Nadeezhda Popova told Mr. Axell. "This, of course was nonsense."

Nadezhda Popova was named Hero of the Soviet Union, the nation's highest honor.
She was awarded the Gold Star, and the Order of the Red Star.

She married her fighter pilot sweetheart, and had a son. Sadly, her husband died in 1990.
Her son is a General in the Belarussian Air Force.

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

New word, for today- NanoBiotechnology
*tip of the hat to the posters in the Cool Science thread*

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

In memory of Leon Botha-

Is it unusual, to die, during the same month, that you were born in ?