Thanks to Towleroad.com for alerting us to one of the finest performances that has ever happened on American Idol. Candice Glover sings "Somewhere" from West Side Story. The song is a favorite of some many people you really have to be spectacular to gain attention with it. Candice not only gain our attention she blew us away. A star is born!
New Yorkers were caught totally by surprised this morning when serious flash floods hit the city. The 2.5 inches of rain came down in just a couple of hours causing serious flooding in New York and Northern New Jersey. Here are photographs from Weather.com.
Republicans and conservatives in Hollywood embraced 'David Stein' with a rare enthusiasm. He was Jewish, intellectual and conservative who hosted great events. Around his table you would find politicians, entertainers and conservative intellectuals.
There was one problem, he was a fraud. 'David Stein' was in fact a David Cole who had spent most of his intellectual career challenging history of the holocaust.
The Guardian reports:
To those who knew him, or thought they knew him, he was a cerebral, fun-loving gadfly who hosted boozy gatherings for Hollywood's political conservatives. David Stein brought right-wing congressmen, celebrities, writers and entertainment industry figures together for shindigs, closed to outsiders, where they could scorn liberals and proclaim their true beliefs.
Over the past five years Stein's organisation, Republican Party Animals, drew hundreds to regular events in and around Los Angeles, making him a darling of conservative blogs and talkshows. That he made respected documentaries on the Holocaust added intellectual cachet and Jewish support to Stein's cocktail of politics, irreverence and rock and roll.
There was just one problem. Stein was not who he claimed. His real name can be revealed for the first time publicly – a close circle of confidants only found out the truth recently – as David Cole. And under that name he was once a reviled Holocaust revisionist who questioned the existence of Nazi gas chambers. He changed identities in January 1998.
"That was when David Cole officially expired," he told the Guardian in an interview this week. "That was the end of Cole. Or so I thought. That was when David Stein was brought into this world.
For 15 years I have been David Stein. Now the genie is out of the bottle. I'm done. I'm finished. I'm not going to try to remain as David Stein.
Cole's brazen reinvention as a social networker and political pundit deceived a roll-call of conservative politicians, filmmakers, journalists and broadcasters who had no clue about his past. A falling out with a friend led to his unmasking in his social circle two weeks ago, when a group of former supporters was shown YouTube clips of Cole's incendiary – and until then forgotten – television appearances in the early 1990s.
As a combative twentysomething with tousled black hair, he was a vilified guest on chat shows hosted by Phil Donahue, Montel Williams and Morton Downey, among others, and was depicted as a neo-Nazi on news shows such as 60 Minutes and 48 Hours.
"My friends are horrified," said Cole, now aged 44 and with greying hair. "They rang and emailed to ask if it really was me. The Hollywood types are the ones hurting the most right now because they could be harmed by this. I'm feeling a certain amount of guilt."
The unmasking shocked and angered the small, tight-knit community of Hollywood conservatives, setting their Facebook groups ablaze and prompting emergency meetings.
Where you find Bald Eagles
You only have to look at the second video below to understand fully the extent of the return of the once endangered Bald Eagle. In Alaska, one afternoon, over 30 bald eagles ended up in backyard! What a sight that must have been to behold!
Since 1728 when the Bald Eagle was named our 'national symbol' (poor Ben Franklin wanted the Wild Turkey), the bird has had it ups and downs.
The eagle was officially put on a list for possible extinction for the first time in 1940. By 1967, there were only 487 nesting pairs in the entire United States. In 1978, all bald eagles were listed as an endangered species. From that low of less than 500 nesting pairs in the Continental United States, there are now an estimated 10,000 nesting pairs.
It has now been removed from the list and there are nesting pairs in 48 states!
THIRTY ELEPHANTS A DAY ARE BEING KILLED IN THE COUNTRY.
Experts say that 25% of all African Elephants live in Tanzania which in the past had one of the most progressive wildlife policies of any African nation. That is not the case anymore. This week new figures emerged which sent shock waves across the wildlife community. The Chairman of Parliamentary Committee on Environment, James Lembeli, told the National Assembly that it is possible that elephants would disappear in just seven years given the current rate of poaching.
The population of elephants in Tanzania has dropped from about 110,000 in 2009 to less than 70,000 in just three and a half years. An estimated 10,000 elephants a year are being killed in that nation by poachers. This month over four tons of Ivory Tanzania was discovered in Hong Kong in containers. Lembeli stated in the speech to Parliament:
"If this poaching trend is left unchecked, obviously the elephant population will disappear in the next seven years, This is a national disaster. The government and its agencies should take serious measures to address the problem."
If a poacher is found in Tanzania, he most often is given a $13 fine! The same poacher can make more off an ounce of ivory than he can gold. Long time Wildlife advocate Iain Douglas-Hamilton says of the slaughter:
There's an enormous slaughter of elephants going on in Tanzania right now. Things are out of hand. There's no protection in numbers for elephants any more than there was for bison in last century when they were all wiped out in America.
The Genderfication of Brooklyn
An author can spend years examining and writing about the changing nature of the world while a simple map can illustrate it in just sixty seconds. BusinessInsider.com has printed thirty-six maps that would help any individual better understand the world. The maps can be global or can just cover Brooklyn!
Here are some of my favorites:
Economic Center of the World
Migration Patterns
Countries with the Most Income Gap (above)
Where Does The Oil Come From For Different Sections of America? (above)
Which Countries Are Dependent On Chinese Economy (above)
Defense Spendings As % of Gross National Product (GNP) (above)
Areas With The Highest Drought Risks
Hurricane Sandy was the biggest (in size) Atlantic hurricane ever to travel up the East Coast and it slammed into New York and New Jersey happen just six months ago. While others states were heavily impacted, areas around metropolitan New York City were devastated. Tens of thousands of homes were destroyed along the coast. It was the worse weather disaster in the history of New York City. New Jersey had its worst hurricane in its history.
Over 250 people died in the path of the hurricane and it was the second most costly storm to every hit America. Only Katrina did more damage in its attack on the Gulf Coast. Hurricane Ike comes in at a close third. An estimated $70 billion was tallied by the all the impacted areas from storm Sandy.
Now Six months have passed and still the devastation is everywhere but progress is being made by the communities. Hospitals have reopened, transit systems are working, shelter is provided for everyone and New York city tunnels are no longer filled with water. However if you journey down to the sea the impact of Hurricane Sandy is still seen everywhere. There are glimmers of rebuilding taking place and some seaside cities will be fully operational by summer.
Boston.com's Big Picture this week did a photo essay on the area six months later.
YOU CAN SEE ALL THE PHOTOGRAPHS, CREDITS AND DESCRIPTINS BY CLICKING HERE>>>>>
If you hope to see a rhino in the wild, you can now cross off Mozambique's Limpopo National Park. Poachers have just killed the very last rhino in that national park. Just ten years ago when Limpopo was formed, there were 300 rhino. Now there is not even one left. Unless drastic action is taken soon, it will be soon the reality in most national parks in Africa.
The Mozambique park ispart of the famous 'Peace Park' that also straddles South Africa and Zimbabwe. The South African portion, Kruger National Park, has seen 180 rhino poached since January 1 of this year. Already there has been 250 rhino killed in all of South Africa.
News24 reports:
The IFAW will later this year partner with Interpol in providing training for customs and wildlife law enforcement officers in Mozambique.
This forms part of a worldwide capacity building initiative.
IFAW has since 2006 trained more than 1 600 government representatives at the forefront of the struggle against wildlife crime in several countries throughout Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Oceania and the Caribbean.
The IFAW director for Southern Africa, Jason Bell, said: "“Cross border co-operation and intelligence-led enforcement are the only way we can halt poaching and trafficking.
"It is too big a problem for any one country to tackle.
"We need range states, transit countries and destination countries to share their law enforcement resources, including intelligence, or we’ll never be in a position to shut down the kingpins of the international ivory trade.
"Poaching and the illegal trade in ivory and rhino horn is an issue of global significance and needs a global response if we are to turn the tables on the killers.
"This cannot happen in a vacuum.
"Consumer nations – China, Vietnam and Indonesia – have to make a concerted effort to reduce the demand for these products in their own backyards because otherwise the battle will be lost."
Middle age seems to get older and older with each new generation. In my childhood, people in their sixties were considered very old. As time progresses, sixties is a prime time now. People now expect to live well into their eighties. Of course, some of that can be chalked up to advance medicine and changing environmental surroundings. Americans are no longer plowing their fields with mules and digging trenches by with a shovel and pick.
However, the science of longevity has grown as people want to seize on to life for longer and longer periods. People who do reach that rarefied level pass 110 are always asked for their secret of life. Some say it is no alcohol and others say they have a glass of wine every day. What is clear is the number of people reaching over 100 is increasing by leaps and bounds. Willard Scott is soon going to have to get a bigger Smucker's jar for his Today Show acknowledgements of those past 100 years.
National Geographic has recently run an article on the science being conducted around aging. Here is an excerpt.
In Calabria the hunt for hidden molecules and mechanisms that confer longevity on people like Salvatore Caruso begins in places like the Ufficio Anagrafe Stato Civile (Civil Registry Office) in the medieval village of Luzzi. The office windows here offer stunning views of snow-covered mountains to the north, but to a population geneticist the truly breathtaking sights are hidden inside the tall file cabinets ringing the room and on shelf after shelf of precious ledgers numbered by year, starting in 1866. Despite its well-earned reputation for chaos and disorganization, the Italian government, shortly after the unification of the country in 1861, ordered local officials to record the birth, marriage, and death of every citizen in each comune, or township.
Since 1994 scientists at the University of Calabria have combed through these records in every one of Calabria’s 409 comuni to compile an extraordinary survey. Coupling family histories with simple physiological measurements of frailty and the latest genomic technologies, they set out to address fundamental questions about longevity. How much of it is determined by genetics? How much by the environment? And how do these factors interact to promote longevity—or, conversely, to hasten the aging process? To answer all those questions, scientists must start with rock-solid demographic data.
“Here is the book from 1905,” explained Marco Giordano, one of Giuseppe Passarino’s young colleagues, opening a tall, green ledger. He pointed to a record, in careful cursive, of the birth of Francesco D’Amato on March 3, 1905. “He died in 2007,” Giordano noted, describing D’Amato as the central figure, or proband, of an extensive genealogical tree. “We can reconstruct the pedigrees of families from these records.”
Cross-checking the ledger entries against meticulously detailed registry cards (pink for women, white for men) going back to the 19th century, Giordano, along with researchers Alberto Montesanto and Cinzia Martino, has reconstructed extensive family trees of 202 nonagenarians and centenarians in Calabria. The records document not only siblings of people who lived to 100 but also the spouses of siblings, which has allowed Passarino’s group to do a kind of historical experiment on longevity. “We compared the ages of D’Amato’s brothers and sisters to the ages of their spouses,” Giordano explained. “So they had the same environment. They ate the same food. They used the same medicines. They came from the same culture. But they did not have the same genes.” In a 2011 paper the Calabrian researchers reported a surprising conclusion: Although the parents and siblings of people who lived to at least 90 also lived longer than the general population, a finding in line with earlier research, the genetic factors involved seemed to benefit males more than females.
The Calabrian results on gender offer yet another hint that the genetic twists and turns that confer longevity may be unusually complex. Major European studies had previously reported that women are much likelier to live to 100, outnumbering male centenarians by a ratio of four or five to one, with the implication that some of the reasons are genetic. But by teasing out details from family trees, the Calabrian researchers discovered an intriguing paradox: The genetic component of longevity appears to be stronger in males—but women may take better advantage of external factors such as diet and medical care than men do.
In the dimly lit, chilly hallway outside Passarino’s university office stand several freezers full of tubes containing centenarian blood. The DNA from this blood and other tissue samples has revealed additional information about the Calabrian group. For example, people who live into their 90s and beyond tend to possess a particular version, or allele, of a gene important to taste and digestion. This allele not only gives people a taste for bitter foods like broccoli and field greens, which are typically rich in compounds known as polyphenols that promote cellular health, but also allows cells in the intestine to extract nutrients more efficiently from food as it’s being digested.
Passarino has also found in his centenarians a revved-up version of a gene for what is called an uncoupling protein. The protein plays a central role in metabolism—the way a person consumes energy and regulates body heat—which in turn affects the rate of aging.
“We have dissected five or six pathways that most influence longevity,” says Passarino. “Most of them involve the response to stress, the metabolism of nutrients, or metabolism in general—the storage and use of energy.” His group is currently examining how environmental influences—everything from childhood diet to how long a person attends school—might modify the activity of genes in a way that either promotes or curtails longevity.
"Nearly 5,000 elephants have been lost in the northern zone of Congo between 2009 and 2011," said Mokoko.
A shocking report has emerged from Africa. AFP is reporting that the population of the Forest Elephants of Central Africa has dropped by an astounding 62% from poachers. The crisis deepens on a daily basis for African wildlife. The report says
Poaching on an "industrial" scale has slashed the elephant population in the countries of central Africa by nearly two-thirds, a group of international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) said on Friday.
"A recent study shows that the population of forest elephants has dropped by almost two-thirds or 62 percent in the past 10 years, victims of large-scale ivory poaching," the group of eight NGOs said in a statement.
"The situation is dramatic and worrying. It's very dangerous," Jerome Mokoko, assistant director of the Wildlife Conservation Society, told reporters at a news conference in Brazzaville.
"Nearly 5,000 elephants have been lost in the northern zone of Congo between 2009 and 2011," said Mokoko.
He added there were 80,000 elephants in the Central African Republic just 30 years ago but their number has been reduced to just a few thousand. "The Democratic Republic of Congo alone is home to 70 percent of the elephant population of central Africa. But now there are only between 7,000 and 10,000 elephants in the DRC," Mokoko said.
Jules Caron, head of communications for the World Wildlife Fund in central Africa, said the elephant poaching situation had changed "dramatically." "We are no longer talking about small-scale poaching but poaching on an industrial scale, all run by highly organised and well-armed gangs of international criminals," added Caron.
The NGOs said poachers were seizing on weapons, especially Kalashnikov rifles that have become widespread due to several civil wars flaring in the region.
"The ivory trade begins and ends in south-east Asia, notably China and Thailand, respectively the world's biggest consumer and the world's biggest legal ivory market," Caron told AFP.
He called on heads of state to "take on the fight against poaching, criminal activity surrounding animal parts and illegal trade in wild species."
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