Saw this photo last night and HAD to post it here!
The photo is linked to BabeWalker.com. Babe Walker is the genius behind the fabulous book White Girl Problems.
I found the photo at the White Girl Problems Facebook page.
Not being a Christian, I am very curious to see other people’s reaction to this photo.
Shocking? Offensive? Intriguing? Does it make your blood race? Your jaw drop? Your eyes roll?
I’d genuinely like to hear… especially from those in the fashion and photography business!
This morning, I ran into a blog post about how to name your baby. The author of this blog site, Cappy, has written a series of ‘How To’ articles. They’re delightful. Check them out.
With respect to the How to Name Your Baby blog post, I would just like to add one thing.
I call it my Kindergarten Roll Call Test. It is a good way to weed out ‘clunker’ names.
OK… you are trying to come up with a name for your newborn or soon-to-be-born child.
Imagine a group of 5-year-olds in kindergarten. Their teacher, Miss Niedermeyer, is conducting the roll call.
“Jennifer… Scott… Sarah… David… Michael… Montana Sky… ”
(“You called me WHAT???”)
If in your mind you hear a sound kind of like a game show buzzer indicating a contestant failed… then the proposed name should be discarded.
Let’s try it again!
“Mary… Mark… Anna… Daniel… Constitution… ” BUZZER!!
(There are people in IRELAND who aren’t even called that anymore!!)
The Kindergarten Roll Call Test.
Learn it. Live it. Love it.
TRUST ME… your kids will thank you one day.
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This New Yorker Cartoon by Jack Ziegler is lovingly dedicated to ♠sabbiespurses♠.
Years ago, I was accused by a judge of trying to re-institute debtors’ prison!!
As I have often said, just about every good thing in our society…
…decent prisons, unemployment insurance, children’s aid societies, minimum wage, child labour laws, unions, 40 hour work week, product safety standards, workers compensation boards, youth criminal justice acts, public heath laws, etc…
…ALL of these things were a direct result of how horrible things were 100 – 150 years go.
As Carly Simon sang, “these are the good old days.”
All photos by Conor Cullen. They were taken at Kilmainham-Gaol in Dublin, Ireland.
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This post arose as the result of my reply to a comment by my dear friend Elaine who visited Kilmainham-Gaol.
I ran into these images the other day which fit into a certain theme in macabre photographs… girls floating or suspended.
I dealt with this subject in a post last year.
Sometimes, as in the image above, you see the entire body levitating for no apparent reason.
As in most of these kinds of images, the faces are rarely seen. Either the hair falls in front of the face, or as in the photograph below, the face is hidden behind something.
Often times, the entire body is not seen. Only a part is shown, hovering above the ground or floor.
Bare feet are quite common but, as in the first photo above, not universal.
Are they held up by some supernatural force? Usually. Are they hanging on or from something? Sometimes. More often than not, that is left to the viewer’s imagination.
All seem to evoke a feeling of unease and discomfort.
In other words… they’re creepy.
These chilling images, taken by the gifted and talented Conor Cullen, are of Kilmainham Gaol (Irish: Príosún Chill Mhaighneann), a former prison located in Kilmainham in Dublin. It is now a museum. It has been run since the mid-1980s by the Office of Public Works (OPW), an Irish government agency. Kilmainham Gaol played an important part in Irish history, as many leaders of Irish rebellions were imprisoned and some executed in the prison by the British and latterly in 1923 by the Irish Free State.
Astronomers have probably found the oldest star of the universe, i.e. nearly 13.2 billion years old, and interestingly it is located near to our Solar System.
“We believe this star is the oldest known in the Universe with a well determined age,” Howard Bond, an astronomer at Pennsylvania State University in University Park, who presented the finding on 10th of January at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Long Beach, California, said in a statement.
This proposed oldest star is referred to as HD 140283 and is located at a distance of approximately 190 light years from us. It is known by the astronomers for more than a century. Researchers already knew that the object is almost entirely made up of hydrogen and helium showing that the star was from the early universe but the exact age of the star was not known.
(Artist’s rendering – HD 140283 – approximately 190 light years from Earth)
Bond and the team members, firstly, determine the more accurate distance of the star from the Solar System with the help of 11 sets of observations recorded between 2003 and 2011 using the Hubble Space Telescope’s Fine Guidance Sensors. They then determine the brightness of the star and calculate its intrinsic brightness as the stars’ dimming brightness is always a very good indicator of their age.
Astronomers found that the star is in such phase of its life cycle in which it is draining the hydrogen at its core. They calculated the age of the star to be 13.9 ± 0.7 billion years old. Consider that this age, in the minus side i.e. 13.2 billion years, is not conflicting with the age of the universe i.e. 13.77 billion years.
The age of this star is known with more confidence than the previously known oldest star, HE 1523-0901, said Bond. HE 1523-0901 is also present in our Milky Way galaxy.
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Source: Cowen, R. (2013). Nearby star is almost as old as the Universe Nature DOI: 10.1038/nature.2013.12196
I found this wonderfully amusing article at AddictingInfo.com.
This happened very shortly after I had to take an ultra-conservative acquaintance of mine, sit her down and explain, “It’s President Barak Obama. It’s not President Mitt Romney. It’s not President John McCain. You lost those elections. BADLY! Keep up your far-right ranting and you’re going to lose again… and probably get President Hillary Clinton.”
I thought she was going to have a stroke.
ANYWAY… direct from AddictingInfo.com…
100 Things You Can Say To Irritate A Republican
Conservatives are so easy to anger these days. Even the most insignificant statement can set off their tempers. If you want to enrage a conservative, I suggest saying the following:
1. A Socialist wrote the Pledge of Allegiance.
2. Jesus healed the sick and helped the poor, for free.
3. Joseph McCarthy was an un-American, witch hunting sissy.
4. Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee were traitors.
5. The South lost the Civil War, get over it.
6. The Founding Fathers were liberals.
7. Fascism is a right-wing trait.
8. Sarah Palin is an idiot.
9. The Earth is round.
10. Reagan raised taxes eleven times as President.
11. Reagan legalized abortion as Governor of California.
12. Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency.
13. Ronald Reagan supported gun control.
14. Global warming is real.
15. Republicans hate illegal immigrants, unless they need their lawns mowed or their houses cleaned
16. The military is a government-run institution, so why do Republicans approve the defense budget?
17. The Cold War is over and the Soviet Union no longer exists.
18. Paying taxes is patriotic.
19. Republicans: Peddling the same failed economic policies since 1880.
20. The Republican Party began as a liberal party.
21. The Presidents’ full name is Barack Hussein Obama and he was born in the United States of America.
22. George W. Bush held hands with the King of Saudi Arabia.
23. President Obama saved the American auto industry, while Republicans wanted to destroy it.
24. Hate is not a Christian virtue.
25. Jesus was a liberal.
26. Republicans spend MORE money than Democrats.
27. Tea parties are for little girls.
28. Public schools educate all children; private schools are for indoctrinating children.
29. The Constitution is the law, NOT the Bible.
30. Sharia law doesn’t exist in America.
31. The President is NOT a Muslim.
32. Corporations are NOT people. People are people.
33. Fox News isn’t real news, it’s just a racist, sexist, hateful, right-wing propaganda machine.
34. The Federal Reserve was a Republican idea.
35. Women are equal citizens who deserve equal rights.
36. Women control their own bodies.
37. Abortion is a relevant medical procedure, just ask Rick Santorum.
38. Please use spell-check.
39. It’s “pundit”, not “pundint”.
40. Social Security is solvent through 2038.
41. Health care is a right, not a product.
42. Roe v. Wade was a bipartisan ruling made by a conservative leaning Supreme Court.
43. G.O.P also stands for Gross Old Perverts.
44. The donkey shouldn’t be the Democratic mascot because Republicans are the real jackasses.
45. Barack Obama ordered the killing of Osama Bin Laden. It took him two and half years to do what Bush couldn’t do in eight.
46. Waterboarding IS torture.
47. 9/11 happened on George W. Bush’s watch, therefore he did NOT keep America safe.
48. Republicans invaded Iraq for oil, so Iraq should be allowed to invade Texas to get it back.
49. Separation of church and state is in the Constitution, it’s called the First Amendment.
50. Muslims are protected by the Constitution, just as much as Christians.
51. Barack Obama is the first African-American President, get over it.
52. The Oval Office is NOT a “whites only” office.
53. America is a nation of immigrants, therefore we are all anchor babies.
54. The white race isn’t disappearing, it’s evolving.
55. God is a particle.
56. Evolution is real.
57. The Earth is 4.54 billion years old, not 6,000.
58. The Founding Fathers did not free the slaves.
59. The Revolution was NOT fought over slavery.
60. Paul Revere warned the Americans, NOT the British.
61. Federal law trumps state law.
62. The Civil War was about slavery, NOT state’s rights.
63. Corporations care more about profits than they do about people.
64. Getting out of a recession requires government spending.
65. Glenn Beck is a nut-job.
66. Republicans: Paranoid since 1932.
67. Republicans don’t want to pay for your birth control, but they want you to pay for their Viagra.
68. Republicans actually NEED Viagra.
69. Fox News is owned by an Australian and has a Saudi prince as an investor.
70. Republicans complain about immigrants taking American jobs, then freely give American jobs to foreigners overseas.
71. Republicans hate communism, so why do they refer to themselves as red states?
72. Labor unions built this country.
73. Republicans hold America hostage as a political strategy; the temper tantrum throwing kind of political strategy.
74. Jesus was a Jew, not a Christian.
(Remember this guy? That’s OK… no one else does)
75. When Republicans see black, they attack.
76. Inside every Republican is a Klansman or a Nazi waiting to bloom.
77. Republicans only care about children BEFORE they are born.
78. Republicans are hypocrites, they’re just too stupid to know it.
79. The Christian-Right boycotts movies that have violence, and then promotes guns and insurrection.
80. I think therefore I am NOT a Republican.
81. Republicans that oppose gay marriage are most likely in the closet themselves.
82. Churches should stay out of politics, or be taxed.
83. People are too poor to vote Republican.
84. Democrats think for themselves, Republicans form think tanks to do it for them.
85. Republicans hate education because they couldn’t hack it in school.
86. Greed is one of the seven deadly sins and Republicans wallow in it.
87. A little socialism on the Left is better than a little fascism on the Right.
88. The current corporate tax rate is the lowest in 60 years, so stop whining about it being too high.
89. Republicans: Anti-Gay Marriage, Pro-Lesbian sex.
90. Republicans: Terrorizing the American people since 1981.
91. Republicans have their own terrorists, just look up Timothy McVeigh.
92. Republicans love outsourcing, just ask the Chinese Communists.
93. The Republican answer to the oil spill was to apologize to BP, a foreign oil company.
94. Democrats will be working hard to bring jobs to Americans, while the Republicans tea bag each other in the middle of the aisles.
95. Voter disenfranchisement is immoral and un-American, that’s why Republicans do it.
96. Republicans would let your house burn down unless you pay them to put it out.
97. Democrats want to take care of the sick. Republicans take their credit cards and then deny them medical attention.
98. Republicans say teachers are union thugs, then proceed to rape and mug the entire middle class on behalf of corporations.
99. Republicans think rape isn’t a crime, but miscarriages are.
100. Republicans are idiots and arguing with them is a waste of time!
Bottom line? If you want to anger a conservative, tell them the truth.
This is something I ran into at Cracked.com (one of the funniest websites EVER)!
It’s all about sex and booze and fruit flies.
(Set ’em up, Joe!)
For many of us, failed relationships and alcohol go together like New Year’s Eve and also alcohol. That’s one of the pressures of being human; we have our big brains and big emotions, and we need big containers of liquor to forget the bad feelings they churn up. But surprisingly, humans aren’t the only creatures that do this.
Since fruit flies are very sexual beings in the first place, researchers wanted to find out what would happen when they were sexually rejected. This happens often with them, because female fruit flies are prudish things, as they don’t like having sex a second time after they’ve recently mated. If a second male tries to mount her, she’ll kick and run away, as you can see in the video below. Because hey, Mama fruit fly didn’t raise no ho.
After the flies had their time with the female, the researchers gave both males who had been rejected and those who’d gotten lucky the option of eating normal food or food spiked with alcohol. While the happy fruit flies had no preference for either option, the rejected fruit flies were significantly more likely to eat the alcohol-infused food.
And yes, at a basic level, it’s for the same reason you do it. Alcohol triggers reward chemicals in fruit fly brains, and when they don’t get that satisfaction from sex, they’ll get it from a bottle. Or a huge meal of alcohol-soaked food, in this case. And, with that, we’re going to estimate that it will be 48 hours before some depressed college kid tries to eat a pizza he has soaked in gin.
(“And now, I’m gonna play all the Radiohead songs I know at the same time.”)
Thanks again to that gang of zany madcaps over at Cracked.com!
The last evening of Bug Shot 2012, I was in the “toy room” helping clean up. I had set up an aquarium for photographing aquatic insects the first night and hadn’t put it away, so I scooped everything out of it and was about to pick it up and dump the water out when I saw this clinging to the outside:
What a crazy cool caterpillar! I believe it is a curve-lined owlet caterpillar, Phyprosopus callitrichoides. It comes as no surprise that this is a woodland species. Can you imagine how hard it would be to see one of these on a tree?! I happily snapped a few shots, then I took it outside before I finished my cleaning.
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Reblogged from C.L. Goforth’s amazing blog The Dragonfly Woman
There is a lesser-known super villain in the DC pantheon who goes by the nom de crime…
Her human progenitor is/was Dr. Harleen Quinzel, a psychiatrist assigned to Gotham City’s Arkham Asylum for the criminally insane.
It was there that the young Dr. Quinn met and began treating super villain and Batman nemesis the Joker.
Dr. Quinn eventually falls for the Joker and becomes his accomplice and on-off sidekick/lover.
I love Harley Quinn. She’s a whole lot of fun!
Aside, perhaps, from Catwoman, Harley Quinn is by far my favourite DC gal.
Here’s to you, Harley!
You’re the best!
Vampyre Fangs 