Humodour

This one is a bit less surreal but a lot more useful: the US Department of Energy has created a new glass material that is flexible (bends rather than shattering under mechanical stress) and also stronger than steel. http://inhabitat.com/doe-develops-flexible...ger-than-steel/

Yes.

Charity works best when it is symbiotic. There is no requirement for it not to benefit the giving party, IMHO, and logically, really that would be the most desirable outcome.

lol... it's like something straight out of a textbook. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_...R_.3D_301.81.29

That's really cool! I don't know if this is the same discovery (doesn't seem to be), but a few years ago scientists discovered some Bacteria (or Archaea was it?) living trapped between layers of rock beneath the earth's surface. They'd been there for I think hundreds of thousands of years (millions?). I believe they reduced sulphur or something weird. These organisms were breeding and dying like normal organisms, they hadn't been surviving for extended periods of time, just reproducing - which is something unique in and of itself. But the conditions they were living in were, you know, totally alien - they'd basically never been exposed to the outside world before and harvested energy in a manner unlike any other known organism. Ah yes, this seems to be it: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1033...by-the-sun.html They have been isolated from the rest of the world for 20 million years.

That is fantastic. Thank you for posting it, my entire outlook on mankind has brightened Please tell me you're being sarcastic. Please. Nope. Now I did say brightened, not radically altered. In fact you are the one who brought up change. My opinion is there is a long way to go. But I am a positive person, and this is a very positive action. I'm confused what you folks mean by staged? Thousands of Muslims got together to show support for the Coptic Christians. It was clearly an organized event with the media involved. How does that lessen it? So don't you believe them They'll destroy you with their lies They only see the obvious They see the sun go down but they don't see it rise

Well, because he did go on a killing spree and he's an ugly, creepy assdouche pondering why women want nothing with him. His unnatural (read: fugly) looks are almost as obvious as your obsession with me, so I thought I'd just put into words what comes to mind when you look at his pic. So sue me. I think you're pretty narcissistic, but I'm not obsessed with you. Though it would make sense for a narcissistic person to believe such.

I was very surprised and heartened when mental health became a tripartisan mainstream election issue in Australia last year. I like to look on the bright-side a lot of the time. So I'm simply going to say that if an overhaul of mental health treatment in America occurs as a result of this, that will be a very good thing. Americans can't change what has happened, but they can shape what the consequences of this massacre are.

Uhg, who are these religious extremist morons? They sound like pond scum. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/na...0,7559794.story

Guilty as charged, Your Honor! Yeah, mocking people based on appearance is quite fun, if not always "safe". You should try it sometime, maybe when you stop taking yourself so seriously and lording over peeps. (; Thing is, most members of the Ugly Club don't go around shooting up random public servants and, you know, cheating at online games (!), so spare me. Prickface here deserves no respect from me. You said it yourself: most ugly people (and people without eyebrows) aren't serial killers, so why did you bring his looks into this exactly? I don't really give a ****, but it does seem a bit pointless. In fact the whole event fills me with waves of 'meh'. America has too many gun massacres for me to take notice anymore.

I imagine it would be surreal to see a house floating towards you. Poor guys.

Yeah, our ****ing banana prices go up!

All we need now is an epic dust storm to turn the sky and air blood-red. Oh wait, we already had that.

Yeah, they had to evacuate the CBD of Brisbane! That's pretty surreal. To get a scale of the flooding, recently areas larger than France and Germany combined have been under water.

I think this video deserves its own thread... Western Australia, on the other hand, is battling strong bushfires. And no doubt bushfires will pop up in my state in the next two months. Here is the national weather radar loop: http://www.bom.gov.au/products/national_radar_sat.loop.shtml Here is a picture of Lake Eyre: Taken from this article: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/ipad/lake-eyre...6-1225981344559

These floods will cause reasonably severe energy price shocks in Europe. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12124020

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/12...?section=justin

I'm sorry but science is apolitical. Global warming exists whether you choose to bury your head in the sand or not. The real obstructionists are people like WoD who would prefer to pretend life is sunshine and lollipops and all will be fine rather than join those acknowledging the problem and start talking about how to fix it. If scientists are environmentalists it's got nothing to do with a political ideology.

I can think of one thing: remove the average joe's unfounded scorn for and distrust of science.

Hahahaha I was waiting for something like this. Cheers for the laugh. The reason I referenced global warming is that whenever there's unusually hot weather somewhere or some kind of catasrophic weather event it's invarialbly used as proof of global warming. In fact the warmists were going on and on how this was going to be the warmest year on record because the first half was unusually warm. More and intenser weather extremes were and are a predicted result of global warming. While this may seem counter-intuitive to some lay people it is a rather mundane notion among climate scientists. Exempli gratia: http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-12-winter...scientists.html

Chemical comas sound yummy.

My point was that euthanasia has nothing to do with socialism in any way, shape or form. Euthanasia is about as "socialist" as abortion - some people may not like the idea, but it's got nothing to do with the state except insofar as the state might seek to prevent it.

**** Stargate was awesome. I miss it.