steeleydock: Cab Thoughts 6/4/14

Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.--de Tocqueville

The Darvaza gas crater, nicknamed by locals "The Door to Hell," or "The Gates of Hell," definitely falls into the latter category—and its sinister burning flames are just the half of it. Located in the Karakum Desert of central Turkmenistan (

Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/giant-hole-ground-has-been-fire-more-40-years-180951247/#mcYqfKr0d0meYOXQ.99
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In Turkmenistan a group exploring for oil opened a huge pocket of gas which promptly collapsed and created an open crater. Hoping to stop the escaping gas, they lit it--like a flare at a well-site--with the hopes of burning it off. Called the Darvasa gas crater, it has burned for forty years.

The mammoth first appeared in Europe about three million years ago, having evolved from a common ancestor that it shared with the Asian elephant. They survived episodes of intense cooling even though most of Europe was covered with thick sheets of ice. Numbers would slowly recover as conditions improved. The exception was the last ice age, which began 100,000 years ago and ended about 12,000 years ago. Survivors were probably killed off by hunters.

Who was....Ghulam Ahmad? Bonus...John Alexander Dowie?

John Dowie from wiki.

drilling on top of a cavernous pocket of natural gas w

Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/giant-hole-ground-has-been-fire-more-40-years-180951247/#mcYqfKr0d0meYOXQ.99
Give the gift of Smithsonian magazine for only $12! http://bit.ly/1cGUiGv
Follow us: @SmithsonianMag on Twitter

he Darvaza gas crater, nicknamed by locals "The Door to Hell," or "The Gates of Hell," definitely falls into the latter category—and its sinister burning flames are just the half of it. Located in the Karakum Desert of central Turkmenistan

Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/giant-hole-ground-has-been-fire-more-40-years-180951247/#mcYqfKr0d0meYOXQ.99
Give the gift of Smithsonian magazine for only $12! http://bit.ly/1cGUiGv
Follow us: @SmithsonianMag on Twitter

Drugs, prostitution and smuggling will be part of Italy’s GDP as of 2014, and prior-year figures will be adjusted to reflect the change in methodology, the national statistics office, Istat, said. They have a national stats office! The revision was made to comply with European Union rules, it said.

Re: the Rodger's murders in California: Before the murders, police interviewed Elliot Rodger and found him to be a “perfectly polite, kind and wonderful human.” Of note, the family said they were opposed to guns.

The American classics To Kill A Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men and The Crucible have been dropped from the British required English reading list.

Golden Oldie:
http://steeleydock.blogspot.com/2013/04/diversity-and-non-sequitur.html

After thousands of years of unwitting domestication, brewing yeasts — the microorganisms that ferment a brewer’s grain, water and hops into beer — are as diverse as the beer they make. Two research teams, from White Labs and a Belgian genetic laboratory, are mapping out their diverse genealogy, creating the first genetic family tree for brewing yeasts and the beers they make. The laboratories have sequenced the DNA of more than 240 strains of brewing yeasts from around the world.

"Jesus was here, in this land. He spoke Hebrew," Netanyahu told Pope Francis, at a public meeting in Jerusalem in which the Israeli leader cited a strong connection between Judaism and Christianity.

"Aramaic," the pope interjected.

"He spoke Aramaic, but he knew Hebrew," Netanyahu shot back.

Blessed are the peacemakers.

Eduardo Galeano’s “The Open Veins of Latin America” has been a canonical anti-colonialist, anti-capitalist and anti-American text in South America. It has been taught all over the world, especially in the U.S.. It was the book Hugo Chávez, Venezuela’s populist president, put in President Obama’s hands the first time they met, calling it “a monument in our Latin American history.” But now Mr. Galeano, a 73-year-old Uruguayan writer, has disavowed the book, saying that he was not qualified to tackle the subject and that it was badly written. “Reality has changed a lot, and I have changed a lot,” Galeano said in Brazil, adding: “Reality is much more complex precisely because the human condition is diverse. Some political sectors close to me thought such diversity was a heresy. Even today, there are some survivors of this type who think that all diversity is a threat. Fortunately, it is not.”
Oh, well.

Chocolate maker Cadbury Malaysia, a part of Mondelez International Inc., on Monday recalled two chocolate products after they tested positive for traces of pork DNA, the Nikkei Asian Review website reported.

Gordian Knot: Meaning: An extremely perplexing puzzle or problem. From a Greek myth where King Gordius of Phrygia tied an intricate knot; whomever could untie it would be the future lord of Asia. After many frustrating attempts to untie it, Alexander the Great finally sliced the knot with his sword. Thus, to cut the Gordian knot means to solve a puzzle in a powerful, decisive manner.

Competition for influence in royal houses resulted in an interesting twist in the Kremlin. So fierce was the struggle for advancement among the aristocracy that Ivan the Terrible, looking for his third wife in the absence of a willing European princess, sent agents to the provinces to select a collection of healthy but obscure young women for the position. The girls were brought to the palace, where they were questioned, examined and then paraded before the tsar in a so-called "bride show."
This allowed for a chance of a health heir away from the inbred families and guaranteed that no aristocratic family would gain disproportionately from the marriage. It developed into a common practice.

AAAAaaaaaannnnnnndddddd....a picture of the Darvasa Gas Crater (aka "The Gates of Hell"):

steeleydock

Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Cab Thoughts 6/4/14

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