Back in the 1980s, Russia had swallowed up numerous “Eastern Bloc” nations. Stalin and succeeding Russian dictators used these nations (and the people in them) to slurp up their natural resources. The Ukraine, once the glorious breadbasket of Eastern Europe, was suffering from food shortages and economic disaster from Soviet policy. The Russians had built a huge nuclear power plant in Pripyat. The city there was much more prosperous than her rural neighbors, housing some of the best scientists and engineers of the country.

Russian leaders were very, very slow to report what happened that fateful day on April 26th. I think it took weeks before we in the United States learned of all the details. We later found out that a power surge within the nuclear reactor facility caused a reactor vessel to rupture, sending explosions and an enormous plume of radioactive smoke into the atmosphere. Russia sent firemen and emergency personnel into the reactor facility to put out the fire. According to some reports, nothing was said to these men about the radioactivity that now contaminated everything. Most of these workers died from radiation exposure or from horrible illnesses later.

The radioactive plume spread across the continent, with most of of the fallout contaminating Belarus, the Ukraine, and western Soviet Russia. My heart just breaks for those people.

They say that the nearby forests were so contaminated that they glowed red. This area is now called the Red Forest.

The Soviets were very, very quiet about the accident. It wasn’t until radiation alarms sounded in Sweden, 1000 kilometers away, that the Soviets admitted something had happened. Politicians in Moscow seemed very non-chalant about the Ukrainian people and their plight. Their stoically encryptic message was this:

There has been an accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. One of the nuclear reactors was damaged. The effects of the accident are being remedied. Assistance has been provided for any affected people. An investigative commission has been set up.

The countries that suffered the worst from the fallout are (in order): Belarus, the Ukraine, Russia, Sweden, Finland, Austria, Bulgaria, Norway, Switzerland, and Greece. The wind blew the radiation into the other countries; rain seeded with contaminants fell and adulerated the soil; the Pripyat River flowed into Europe’s waterways and contaminated the waters. And you know what’s really weird— the name Chernobyl means Wormwood. That name is in the Bible, in the book of Revelation:

And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters;

And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter. Rev. 8:10, 11

Today, the area surrounding Chernobyl is a ghost town. People dropped everything and fled. Everything they owned was contaminated, so they could take nothing with them.

Unfortunately, the people and other living creatures were not unaffected. Thyroid cancer is the leading cause of death among afflicted children. Birth defects threaten future generations. The creatures of the land are contaminated, too, some developing young with crippling abnormalities.

The area of the Ukraine was almost entirely abandoned. Some old timers refused to evacuate. And, believe it or not, the Soviets continued to use the other Chernobyl reactors during an energy crisis! Workers could only work for 5 days before evacuating for 15, otherwise they risked radiation poisoning. Who would even volunteer for such a job?! Oh, but wait, this is Soviet…. no volunteers necessary….

Today, the trees and plants are taking back the once neatly patterned fields and streets. The place is a veritable ghost town. Ukranian officials say that the place will be inhabitable for 20,000 years.

If you want to read more about Chernobyl — from the view of a Ukrainian — check out this fascinating site Kidd of Speed. It’s a little dated now, but it’s a good history lesson. Lord, may we learn from history.

Photo credits: skypy.

Ladies and gentlemen, THAT is a narwhal tusk.

What is a narwhal, you ask?

It’s a sea creature. It is something between a small whale and a large seal. The narwhal has a tusk. It’s actually a tooth gone wild. A front tooth grows like mad and develops into this crazy-long sword. Cartoon images of narwhals show the tusk like a horn, growing out of the creature’s head, but this is erroneous.

This tusk is at The Cloisters in Manhattan. It was on display in the Unicorn Room, a room filled with enormous tapestries of unicorns.

HOW anyone can get a unicorn from a narwhal is beyond me. I’ve heard it said that the “primitive” people got mixed up and thought a narwhal was a unicorn.

But you tell me. Would YOU get these two creatures confused?

Me neither.

So I don’t believe that the people of the past thought that narwhals were sea horses with horns on their heads. I think the unicorn idea is made up, in the imaginations of people, all by their primitive little selves.

The tapestries were lovely, though.

Disclaimer (*sigh*): Just so you know, my comments here are my OPINIONS and are not reviews of any of these apps. This post is in good fun with a sprinkling of common sense mixed in. If you have no sense of humor and are offended easily, you probably want to stop right now and go visit Elmo’s website or Dora the Explorer or something. thank you.

10. Stalqer
I don’t know if this app is available anymore. I looked in the App Store and couldn’t find it. Maybe Apple removed it for, um, obvious reasons… read on…

Stalqer is an app that shows you the current location of your Facebook friends. The ADDRESS location. Like, if your buddy Henry is two blocks away, the app will display Henry’s face and report that Henry is currently at 123 Main Street right now. And the worst part? Others can track you in real time, without your specific Stalqer approval. You don’t have to approve or “opt in” to Stalqer to get on someone’s stalking list– all you need to be is friends with someone on Facebook. Stalqer tracks your location every time you check your email on your phone.

… Yeah, it’s gone. I checked the Stalqer website and the domain is up for sale.

I just have a little question about this…. Stalqer worked because it pulled location data from Facebook locations, so…. even though Stalqer is gone, why does Facebook still track us?

9. MirrorMe
As if we don’t have enough to worry about with global nuclear annihilation, global bankers taking over the world economies, and those holiday pounds we need to shed, there’s MirrorMe. This app shows you what your corpse will look like! How’s that for classy, huh? You can enter in data every day, like how many greasy bacon cheeseburgers you eat, how little sleep you get, how often you get stoned or drunk, and how much you worry about your hangnails… MirrorMe will tabulate all the data and produce an image of what you’ll look like as you age and your death image when you keel over. Some people market this as one of those “this is a good app to make you more aware of your choices.” If people need to see what their DEATH will look like before they make good choices, Lord help them. P.S. People actually paid MONEY for this app. :blink:

8. iFart
I know I really don’t need to elaborate with any explanation on this app. The name says it all: “I’m a moron.” You can choose what “type” of…. *ahem* noise you want to make (Brown Mosquito, Bombadier, and Bye Granny, and The Muffler are just a few of the classiest selections). This app is actually 99 cents in the App Store. It has 21963 Ratings. :-? Unbelievable.

7. Virtual Girlfriend
Not considerate, sensitive or friendly enough to get a real girlfriend? Why bother when there’s the Virtual Girlfriend app! I imagine that the smart guys who have to buy this app had previously purchased creepy app #8….. This app creates a hot babe, a “virtual girlfriend.” Actually, there are a whole bunch of these types of apps at the App Store. What the heck?! Anyway, this app allows you to pick and choose your girl’s best features (next best thing to plastic surgery, I guess). The image will appear on your iPhone screen. You can then place your iPhone on your pillow at night and gaze into her lifeless eyes as she “gently breathes.” JUST.TOO.WEIRD.

6. Love is Not Abuse
This app, supposedly to *help* teenagers realize the dangers of bad relationships, actually does a great job creeping you out. It’s marketed for parents and “simulates the abuse that many teens endure in their dating relationships.” All day and all night on a constant basis, you can throw a “Freaky Friday” moment on yourself and get texts, emails and phone calls from a virtual abusive boyfriend or girlfriend. Yay.

In all seriousness, I realize this app has good intentions: to make parents aware of the stressful lives that dating teens face. But I have an even better idea: don’t let your kids date! Who was the jerk who invented teen dating, anyway?! I once heard a very wise lady say that “nothing good ever comes from teen dating.” I agree. I was a teen, once, so I remember. I don’t think kids need to “practice love” before they get married. For thousands of years, parents have kept a strict watch on their kids’ friends and relationships and it’s really only been the past 40 years that teens have been allowed enormous freedoms. I haven’t seen any benefit, and as a matter of fact it appears that relationship interactions have tanked lower and lower ever since…..

5. Annoy-a-Teen
This app actually doesn’t look too bad…. I MEAN– er, terrible, terrible! This app emits very high frequency pitches at varying pulses or tempos that only teens can allegedly hear. I did hear some of the sounds. Check out the video I found and see if you can hear any of the sounds.

I could see a good use for this app, yes.

4. Creepy Dolls
If creepy app #7 doesn’t appeal to you, maybe try this one. This app allows you to create images of various girls’ dolls– you know, the “Mama” kind of Chuckie doll — and add grotesque and disgusting features like fake teeth, creepy skin coloring, and more. oooooooooooooooooooooook.

3. iVomit
Here’s another winner from the App Store, yes indeedy. You can select various “flavors” and “textures” and away you go. I wonder if there’s a bulk discount if you get this app and end up having to get creepy app #7, as they would seem to go hand in hand….

2. Creepy
Well, at least they’re honest. The app is aptly named. Creepy uses your photo data from Twitter and Flickr to pinpoint your location. Called a “geolocation information aggregator,” Creepy creates a full-fledged map history of where you’ve been. Didn’t you know that your camera harvests your location data when you snap that photo? Yes, indeed! Flickr and Twitter harvest it; Creepy just shows it. Regular digital cameras AND smartphone cameras collect the geolocation of every photo you take. Gee, it’s amazing what these nifty little devices can do, isn’t it?

1. Carrier IQ
Carrier IQ is not an app. Oh, it’s in the smartphones. Like the Hotel California, you can check in any time you want, but you can never leave. Carrier IQ is a rootkit, a secret software program that stealthily records your activity on the smartphone and uploads that data. I blogged about it on my tech blog, TheOlderGeek.com. The iPhone allows you to turn it off (so they say), but Android users are screwed. Even when you “opt out” of data logging, it never logs you out. Nobody knows who is mining all this data and what its purpose is. Now THAT’S CREEPY.

Well, folks, don’t thank me! It’s my pleasure to help you decide what apps to avoid!

It’s a time lapse video taken by the guys at the International Space Station, from April 2011 to October 2011.

I have never wanted to be an astronaut… until now. Man, the views are amazing!

Earth | Time Lapse View from Space, Fly Over | NASA, ISS from Michael König on Vimeo.

No one knows why starlings (also called grackles) flock together like this. There’s even a special name for it: murmuration. The results is a breath-taking black ballet in the sky.

Some girls were paddling along the River Shannon in Ireland and happened to catch starlings in action. You can hear them gasping in awe during the birds’ formations. Wow!

Murmuration from Sophie Windsor Clive on Vimeo.

According to Wired.com,

Starling flocks, it turns out, are best described with equations of “critical transitions” — systems that are poised to tip, to be almost instantly and completely transformed, like metals becoming magnetized or liquid turning to gas. Each starling in a flock is connected to every other. When a flock turns in unison, it’s a phase transition.

Well, we already know what it’s like. But WHY do they do it? I think this is more difficult to answer, something that probably goes beyond mere biology.

This is for all you dog owners: Hill’s Healthy Mobility Challenge. At the Hill’s Pet Nutrition website, you can learn all about the best nutrition for your dog (and quite a number of other things). Science Diet is all I will buy for our little Yorkies, ever since the Chinese melamine in dog food tragedy and since I found out that some dog food will actually starve a dog to death. Some dog food is classified as “food,” but does not contain the necessary ingredients a dog needs to function. Science Diet is top of the line– it has omega-3 fatty acids, EPA, glucosamine and chondroitin sulfate to promote healthy joints (especially important for older dogs).

Science Diet also has lean proteins and antioxidants for good health. My vet says it’s the best on the market, and feeding your dog the best foods helps reduce health problems. That in turn reduces visits to the vet and costly vet bills! So I’m all in!

We really like Science Diet and the pups love it! I heartily recommend it, and if you ‘ve been waiting with baited breath for your moment to get some, definitely check out the website to get a $30 in Hill’s Healthy Mobility Coupon offers for Hill’s Science Diet dog food. And you can also enter a contest to win free dog food for a year! Hill’s is promoting the Healthy Mobility dog fod regimen–try Science Diet for 30 days and see if your dog’s vim and vigor improves. Check out Hill’s Pet Nutrition on Facebook, too, for more updated information.

There I was, innocently scrolling through the headlines: our nation’s economy on the verge of default… mmhmm…. president taking vacation #875 for the year… mhmmm…. Russia and China making rhetorical threats…. mmhmmmm…. Americans beating each other up over parking spaces…. hmmmm….

THEN I SEE THE HEADLINE.

Is this FOR REAL?? Are these people nuts?!

Aliens may destroy humanity to protect other civilisations, say scientists

It’s from a UK news site. It wouldn’t be promoted here because it might give Americans something to do besides beat each other up over parking spaces…..

It may not rank as the most compelling reason to curb greenhouse gases, but reducing our emissions might just save humanity from a pre-emptive alien attack, scientists claim.

Watching from afar, extraterrestrial beings might view changes in Earth’s atmosphere as symptomatic of a civilisation growing out of control – and take drastic action to keep us from becoming a more serious threat, the researchers explain.

This highly speculative scenario is one of several described by a Nasa-affiliated scientist and colleagues at Pennsylvania State University that, while considered unlikely, they say could play out were humans and alien life to make contact at some point in the future.

Shawn Domagal-Goldman of Nasa’s Planetary Science Division and his colleagues compiled a list of plausible outcomes that could unfold in the aftermath of a close encounter, to help humanity “prepare for actual contact”.

WHOA WHOA WHOA. Let’s focus on a few key words here:

pre-emptive alien attack
scientists claim
highly speculative scenario
described by a NASA-affiliated scientist
a list of plausible outcomes
prepare for actual contact

Someone tell me how you can have a “highly speculative scenario” and a list of “plausible outcomes”?

Don’t people have enough video games and movies to keep them entertained?

Why are these guys even bringing this up?
Have there been any conclusive evidences of alien contact?
No.
Have there been any evidences of alien life?
No.
Any evidence of alien life on other plants?
No.
Any evidence that any the zillions of planets we’ve seen can support life?
No.
Heck, is there any real evidence that global warming is from human activity?
No.

This is insane, illogical, makes the brain of any person living in real life go tilt. So they are basically saying: This whole fairy tale that we’ve invented may or may not appear out of thin air, but we should at least THINK that it might happen because we want to be in control whether it does or does not.

The story is written in a way that literally brainwashes you as if real life is a movie or video game. Trilby, Trilby…. Consider the possibilities of absolutely nothing happening…

The dead ringer for the intent of this “highly speculative scenario” is in the final sentence of the news story:

Even if we never make contact with extraterrestrials, the report argues that considering the potential scenarios may help to plot the future path of human civilisation, avoid collapse and achieve long-term survival.

WHY the heck should we consider and plan for something that will never happen, especially when there are so many other things to do???

And avoid collapse of human civilization?!?! What collapse? Are they expecting something to happen?

Unreal.

As a homeschooling parent, I have had my fill of difficult English grammar, year after year after year. :brudder: It’s not been easy, especially struggling through the participial poohbahs and diagramming doldrums… so I can’t say I have much love for the many snarls of English language grammar. But just because something takes great effort doesn’t mean it should be eradicated.

The kids have this saying about the English language, a running gag between us:

The only English grammar rule that does not have an exception is that every English grammar rule has an exception.

:duncehat: LOL. It’s true!

I finally figured out how to label parts of speech when I was teaching my youngest son 8th grade grammar. He’d been struggling to understand why the word “their” could be both a pronoun and an adjective, and how could you tell the difference when labeling?! I realized that when labeling parts of speech, you must look at the entire sentence to determine the word’s intention and placement, and not just interpret the singular word and it’s particular definition.

Yeah, after 35+ years of English, I finally figured that one out! Sheesh!

BUT….

Good grammar and spelling are important!

As a student, I loved English classes in school but struggled with grammar (who doesn’t?!) because it was so difficult to remain consistent and interpret it accurately. English is a crazy amalgam of languages, a mish-mash melting pot of Dutch, German, Latin, French and slang. It was a very loose language until the printing press, when the spelling and grammar was managed by printers who used their own preferred style of writing. Various regions had their own styles of grammar and spelling. Even after the printing press, the language was still extremely flexible. Go read excerpts of Lewis’ and Clark’s journals of their expeditions, and you’ll see what I mean. Talk about creative spelling!

There have been many movements over the centuries to forcefully change English grammar and spelling. One notable modern movement began in 1906 when wealthy steel magnate Andrew Carnegie started an organization called the “Simplified Spelling Board.”

I wonder how TR would have liked changing the way he signed his name to "Theodor Rosevelt."

He wanted to get rid of the effluence of letters in the English dictionary such as the unnecessary silent letters: “e” in “are”; “h” in “ghost”; “hy” in “rhyme changing it to “rime,” and etc. Theodore Roosevelt latched onto it and commanded that the government printing office make the changes immediately. He was voted down by Congress, lol.

In the mid-1960s, another guy wanted to radically alter a great deal of English spelling words, such as change friend to frend, and head to hed. It didn’t go over well in the United States, but the Australian government adopted much of the idea.

I personally prefer to leave traditional spelling and grammar alone, unless there is good reason to alter it. I dislike the social engineering philosophy in general.

I’ll share a MAJOR pet peeve with you, while I’m thinking about it- the metric system. I hate the metric system! For one, it was introduced by a bunch of humanists during the atheistic French Revolution. They’d disliked the Biblical system and wanted to overhaul everything even remotely traditional.

The French Revolution's first act for liberty and tolerance was to eradicate the liberty of thousands of "intolerants."

They even placed a dancing girl on a dais and named her the Goddess of Reason. Not a very good track record of temperance and intelligence, if you ask me.

Anyway, the United States has remained staunchly on the side of the traditional English measurement system. And I hate this push to make everything in my country metric! Our household measuring tools are even metric, and I can’t (and won’t) make heads nor tails of them. I wouldn’t mind it, I guess, if the metric system was on the back of the measuring cups and all as a choice for our European friends, but no– the metric system is on the FRONT of our measuring tools! I have to turn the tools around and hold them in my left hand to use them! :-p I hate that kind of sneaky social engineering. I stubbornly resist! lol! And you KNOW if you go to Europe they don’t have measuring cups with the English system on the fronts and metric on the backs!

Ah, I feel so much better getting that off my chest. lol

I think English grammar and spelling is important. It’s a good discipline. It’s the best method we have to communicate with each other, to make sure that we are all communicating on the same level.

And that’s why I’m proud to be a part of the grammar police. HAHA!!

Apparently, it’s a urine test. The mom can take the test as early as two months to determine the baby’s gender! When I had my kids– oh my word over a decade ago– this was impossible. Has technology advanced so much to determine the gender of the baby? When I was a young person, some of my friends played this kooky needle and thread game to figure out if the baby would be a boy or girl. I don’t remember exactly– you dangle the needle over the wrist; if it moves in a circle, it’s a girl; if it moves in a line, it’s a boy. And that was as technological as we got back then.

And that, my friends, is why the ultrasound was invented.

I had ultrasounds for all my kids. The hubs always wanted to know the baby’s gender, but I always wanted to be surprised. So for half the kids, we found out; for the other half, we kept it a mystery. But today, there’s some concern about the safety of ultrasounds (oh sure, NOW they tell me!). No one really knows if the baby or mom is affected in anyway by the radio waves or isotopes or alien space xeon rays or whatever they do to make that image on the screen. When I had them, the images were very blurry. Even the technician would squint and hem and haw as he tried to figure out what was what. Anyway, I probably would have had fewer ultrasounds if I’d known that no one knows whether they are bad for you!!

Which leads me back to the urine test. This could be a very good, safe gender predictor method. IF it works. I am SO tempted to try this out for myself, just to see if it works. But then again, NO WAY NOT IN A MILLION YEARS.

If you get it, let me know. I’d love to know if it works!!

Apparently, their funding has been hit.

The Mountain View, California, Allen Telescope Array has been switched off and placed into hibernation, as of April 22, 2011.

SETI has always been the brunt of the most hilarious and brutal attacks in our household. I always thought it was the stupidest thing (especially because there is no evidence for extraterrestrial life) and was a taxpayer’s money pit.

According to the MercuryNews.com story:

“There is a huge irony,” said SETI Director Jill Tarter, “that a time when we discover so many planets to look at, we don’t have the operating funds to listen.”

SETI senior astronomer Seth Shostak compared the project’s suspension to “the Niña, Pinta and Santa Maria being put into dry dock. “… This is about exploration, and we want to keep the thing operational. It’s no good to have it sit idle.

“We have the radio antennae up, but we can’t run them without operating funds,” he added. “Honestly, if everybody contributed just 3 extra cents on their 1040 tax forms, we could find out if we have cosmic company.”

Oh BOO HOO!! :whyohwhy:

Here, leezard, leezard, leezard...

The problem isn’t that SETI wants 3 extra cents… it’s that EVERYBODY wants 3 extra cents to run their pet projects. If aliens are REALLY out there, let THEIR alien people pay through the snouts for SETI satellites. As for me, I’d rather NOT talk to an alien. Didn’t anybody see the 80′s TV series “V”?! :egads:

But most of all, we should be searching for intelligent life here ON EARTH, because it seems to be getting rarer and rarer…