"Why does someone in Iowa have to subsidize a stranger's insurance on his second home on The Outer Banks?--James Meridith, CPA
The Prince of Wales noted recently that the land in which Christ and Christianity were born now has "the lowest concentration of Christians in the world — just 4% of the population." Curious. I wonder why.
The signing kerfuffle at the Mandela memorial is like something out of a novel, the ultimate insincerity of form over substance. The guy doing the signing of the speeches did not know how to do it; he signed randomly. The signing organization is offended. And the random signer would rather be thought of as psychotic than stupid.
Golden Oldie:
The Albion handpress, Albion No. 6551, on which William Morris printed his Kelmscott Press masterpiece, The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, in 1896 was sold by Christies, New York. The iron press, manufactured by Hopkinson & Cope in 1891, sold for $233,000.
Ice Piller: In most places on Earth, a lucky viewer can see a Sun-pillar, a column of light appearing to extend up towards the Sun caused by flat fluttering ice-crystals reflecting sunlight from the upper atmosphere. Usually these ice crystals evaporate before reaching the ground. During freezing temperatures, however, flat fluttering ice crystals may form near the ground in a form of light snow, sometimes known as a crystal fog. These ice crystals may then reflect ground lights in columns.
The Age of Liberty being also the Age of Slavery: Of the known 10,148,288 Africans put on slave ships bound for the Americas from 1514 to 1866 (of a total historians estimate to be at least 12,500,000), more than half, 5,131,385, embarked after July 4, 1776.
solstice \SOL-stis, SOHL-\, noun:
1. Astronomy: either of the two times a year when the sun is at its greatest distance from the celestial equator: about June 21, when the sun reaches its northernmost point on the celestial sphere, or about December 22, when it reaches its southernmost point. Compare summer solstice, winter solstice. b. either of the two points in the ecliptic farthest from the equator.
2. a furthest or culminating point; a turning point.
Since the event is seen as the reversal of the Sun's presence and direction, concepts of the birth or rebirth of have been common and, in cultures using winter solstice based cyclic calendars, the year as reborn has been celebrated or new beginnings such as Hogmanay's redding, a New Year cleaning tradition. Also reversal is yet another usual theme as in Saturnalia's slave and master reversals (where a slave might rule the house for the day.)
ety: mid-13c., from Old French solstice (13c.), from Latin solstitium "point at which the sun seems to stand still," especially the summer solstice, from sol "sun" (see sol) + past participle stem of sistere "to come to a stop, make stand still" (see assist (v.)).
The National Climatic Data Center reports "The combined average temperature over global land and ocean surfaces for November 2013 was record highest for the 134-year period of record, at 0.78°C (1.40°F) above the 20th century average of 12.9°C (55.2°F)." Is 134 years an adequate time to come to some theories regarding a 5 billion year old entity?
The New York Yankees will pay MLB $28.1 million in luxury taxes on the team's payroll for the 2013 season.
The Yankees were one of two teams to pay luxury tax bills for 2013. The Los Angeles Dodgers will pay an $11 million bill. Both teams had payrolls of roughly $237 million, but because the Yankees are annual offenders, they must pay at a higher rate. The Boston Red Sox sneaked in just under the tax threshold, finishing the season with a payroll several hundred thousand dollars below the $178 million ceiling for 2013.
The $28 million hit will bring the total Yankee luxury tax payments to over $250 million since the inception of the luxury tax in 2003.
The Yankees are trying to get under the $189 million luxury tax limit for the 2014
For the first time since 2000 the U.S. will not send a president, former president, first lady or vice president to the Olympic Games. But Obama plans to send two prominent gay athletes. Billie Jean King will be one of two openly gay athletes in the U.S. delegation for the opening and closing ceremonies. The other will be hockey player Caitlin Cahow. This is trumpeted as an act by a defiant President Obama, the nexus being Putins' opposition to gays and his diplomatic successes. But the powerful are not defiant, the weak are.
Who was....Charles Dawson?
Stieg Larsson, the author of the bestselling Millennium novels, (Dragon Tattoo) died almost a decade ago. Now his Swedish publisher has asked another writer to pick up where Larsson left off. Swedish author David Lagercrantz will write a fourth book in the Millennium series, to be published in August 2015. Larsson wrote three books out of a planned 10-book series. A partially finished fourth book was tied up in an estate fight.
Saturn's large moon Titan has stable liquid lakes and seas on its surface ... of methane and ethane, still liquid at frigid surface temperatures of -180 degrees C (-292 degrees F).
By the Department of Health and Human Services' own estimates, about 75 million Americans with employer-provided insurance will see their plans canceled.
There is a book out that purports that there are 22,000 homeless children in NYC.
Starting at a base of 105 billion Kwhs in 2007, electricity generation from non-hydro renewable energy resources skyrocketed 120% to 218 billion Kwhs or an increase of 113 billion Kwhs in just 5 years. In 2007, non-hydro renewable energy sources generated enough electricity to meet the annual needs of 10.5 million homes. But by 2013, they were producing power for nearly 22 million homes. Hydro itself produces enough power for typically between 24 million to more than 30 million homes each year.
Geofrey Hill, the British poet, quotes choreographer Mark Morris, a family friend who has worked with Hill's wife, who declared in a recent interview: “I’m not interested in self-expression but in expressiveness.” Hill says he “put perfectly what I’ve been trying to say gropingly and inadequately for years. The idea that you write to express yourself seems to me revolting. The idea that you write to glorify or to make glorious the art of expressiveness seems to me spot on.” Similarly, writing can not be easily taught. “If you’re giving people confidence in writing about what they know then whatever it is you’re doing it has nothing to do with poetry ... You’re providing a kind of therapy.”
AAAAAaaaaaaannnnndddddd......a picture of ice pillers in Finland:
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