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I'm willing to bet there are no terrorists whatsoever, this is all just mass hysteria, induced by opportunistic politics, grabbing of attention and votes, selling tons of security equipment, services, jobs, contracts, news, etc.

Regarding your bet, don't give up your day job.

Maybe you haven't heard, but an organization called Al Qaeda declared war on the United States, and essentially the rest of the world for not following their blighted form of Islam. You can read some of the goals of their leader, Osama Bin Laden, in Bin Laden's letter to America. As you can see, he has a fundamental hostility to democracy, non-Islamic religious belief, and many of our basic freedoms. He demands that we convert to Islam, give up democracy, drop the separation of church and state, and change many aspects of our culture or he and his minions will keep trying to kill us. He demands that we stop drinking alcohol, charging interest on bank loans, start separating the sexes, punishing homosexuality, oppress Jews, etc.

The sort term goal they have is to overthrow the governments in Arab & Muslim countries to install religious dictatorships to impose their narrow brand of Islam. They also hope to limit the spread of freedom and other "Western" ideas. Ultimately they plan to take over the world in a reborn Islamic super state. It sounds far fetched, but that is their goal. They understand that it might take 1,000 years, and that they are just moving the ball forward.

You can see a limited list of their handiwork below:

The most recent attempted bombing
The Underwear bomber
African Embassy Bombing
9/11 suicide attacks
Bali bombing
Madrid bombing
7/7 bombing in London
Another of the countless bombings in Iraq
Pakistan hotel bombing
Hotel bombing in Jordan
The "shoe bomber", and his current hijinks
Plan to attack Wembley stadium
Plan to bring down seven airliners
Attempted bombing in Germany

PS - In order to cut down on the confusion, a simple rule of them you can use is that "mass hysteria" doesn't tend to leave craters and stip the walls off buildings, collapse buildings, or rips bodies apart by shrapnel.

Breaking news: MinLove reminds us that Al Qaeda still loves us, has always loved us, and many of our best friends, and wants to love us even even more in future! Al Qaeda can only love us. We should meditate on why they do not love us as often as other people. Make your holiday plans now, destinations are filling up!!

"Are you kidding? This so-called "paper" was "co-written" by some Army chemists. If anything, it PROVES the conspiracy theories!"

Not too far from the truth. At the very least, they are in collusion, burning up your tax-dollars to fend off lawsuits on behalf of a private corporation, or so it appears.

And here is the rest of the story...

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2010/10/bee_mystery_unsolved_lead_inve.html

The whole brand was invented by a marketing asshole.

Some people like to fawn over marketing assholes

But why France? Doesn’t vodka come from Russia, or perhaps, in a pinch, Scandinavia? “People are always looking for something new,” says [Sidney] Frank. It’s all about brand differentiation. If you’re going to charge twice as much for a vodka, you need to give people a reason.

Sexual Harassment Panda seems to have been laid off. Even kids pity him.

R. Murdoch has many times claimed liberal media bias of competitors in his market space.

Creating more conservative media certainly paid well for him but it seems to be a bit far fetched to assume that this bias does not reflect his political leanings. Since he perceives his competiors as biased to the left he obviously leans the other way.

Clearly this is not tied to a specific party but rather conservative policies. In this vein Murdoch's media machine was green lighted to support Blair once it became clear he was not to role back the Thatcher "revolution" and was about to pull Labour to the right. This is turn later gave him direct access to the poodle PM.

When I lived in the US I was appalled at what passed as news in your country. How much Murdoch's Fox is responsible for lowering the standards I can not discern but it fell a long hard way from the Cronkite gold standard. I know live in Canada and having access to CBC is like manna for the soul.

Oft quoted as the "paper of record", the Times has a history of faking it.

Jayson Blair ? how about making stuff up for the Iraq war ?

A lot of critics liked it, but quite a few, including Rex Reed and David Edelstein destroyed it. I'm with them, personally. It seems to be fairly polarizing.

What city depopulation are you talking about?

You could also read this report to be a strongly in favor of cities. Urban/Rural living is much more likely to be a sterile airconditioned monoculture than city living.

http://nymag.com/news/features/35815/
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/new-york-citys-superior-health/

BP is handling the spill because the government does not have the technology/resources necessary to handle it better. Google is a totally different situation though. They are acting in an arena where there is little government oversight/regulation at present, so the responsibility falls entirely on them to "do the right thing" from a moral standpoint, and they appear to be failing, once again, to act in the public's best interests. It's my opinion that this is yet another example of why government oversight of privacy standards is not only a good idea, it's a necessity.

Sure, why not...

"I see you!! I see what you are doing!!! Return to the night!"

48M as international aid, eh? Wow, generous. Just to put that in context, that's less than the combined annual salary of David Letterman and Regis Philbin.

This is rather stupid, considering the director of Downfall watches them and likes them. In fact, in his own words "I think I've seen about 145 of them! Of course, I have to put the sound down when I watch. Many times the lines are so funny, I laugh out loud, and I'm laughing about the scene that I staged myself! You couldn't get a better compliment as a director." http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2010/01/the_director_of_downfall_on_al.html

Well... The article also ends with the director saying "If only I got royalties for it, then I'd be even happier." But removing the videos from youtube wouldn't help him with getting royalties, so yeah. It is rather stupid. He'll probably get less money now since the videos were essentially free advertising for the movie.

This is rather stupid, considering the director of Downfall watches them and likes them. In fact, in his own words "I think I've seen about 145 of them! Of course, I have to put the sound down when I watch. Many times the lines are so funny, I laugh out loud, and I'm laughing about the scene that I staged myself! You couldn't get a better compliment as a director." http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2010/01/the_director_of_downfall_on_al.html

You were significantly less full of crap than other newspapers. We will miss you. :'-(

Really, what about this glorious, titanic, cosmic pile of festering turds?

Way ahead of you

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2009/12/michael_bay_does_that_which_he.html

This is why god doesn't talk to us anymore.

-b

No research or objective evaluation of empiric data used as a basis for this claim; pure conjecture.

Research and data are available in the link to another article which makes essentially the same point.

If things are that simplistic what happens with a child that receives no praise? Or different sort of praise for different tasks? Or praise one day and none the other.

Yes, the research included a control case. I previously saw this idea in an article that is now only available for subscribers. The evidence is clear: praising children based on effort is effective, while praising for intelligence is highly counterproductive.

You wrote: "They aren't so much competitions as they are organizations who try to determine which students have best displayed future potential for their fields. It's not like a one-on-one "science off" where two students try to one-up one another with their mastery of arcane mathematical facts; it's a bunch of students, all of whom are amazing in their own right, versus panels of distinguished judges. You don't "compete" beyond the fact that an organization can't give an award to everyone - in fact, some of my best friends are the ones that I met through these competitions."

More from:
http://www.share-international.org/archives/cooperation/co_nocontest.htm
"""
Kohn defines competition as any situation where one person's success is dependent upon another's failure. Put another way, in competition two or more parties are pursuing a goal that cannot be attained by all. He calls this 'mutually exclusive goal attainment' (MEGA).
Kohn goes on to define two distinct types of competition. In 'structural competition' MEGA is an explicit, defining element in the nature of the interaction. For instance in a game of tennis there can be only one winner. The same is true of beauty contests, presidential elections, and wars. Everyone knows they are out to beat the others though the rules of engagement may vary considerably between events.
Intentional competition' is a state of mind, an individual's competitiveness or his proclivity for besting others. Anyone can go to a party determined to establish him or herself as the most intelligent, the most attractive, etc. Similarly, in school, the work place, and on teams people can try to beat others whether or not anyone is formally keeping score and declaring winners and losers.
One place where competition cannot exist, according to Kohn, is within oneself. Such striving to better one's own standing is an individual, not interactive matter; it does not involve MEGA. Of course some people cannot imagine pushing themselves without the possibility of 'winning' or the threat of 'losing', but this by no means implies that all motivation is dependent upon competitive frameworks. Throughout history countless large and small accomplishments have been achieved simply out of an individual's desire to do better without any thought of beating others. Such striving for mastery cannot be confused with competition.
"""

Note also that:
"Studies Find Reward Often No Motivator: Creativity and intrinsic interest diminish if task is done for gain"
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/motivation.html

Also, as was pointed out to me by Hans Moravec when I hung out in his lab, good research involves taking risks, and coping with repeated failures. He suggested that he was as successful as he was (and he is brilliant and a thought leader in many ways) because he failed a lot early in life. :-) Now that you have a reputation to protect, you may find this difficult.

See the ideas outlined here to see more on why I am concerned about this (as a parent for my own child):
"How Not to Talk to Your Kids"
http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/ [multiple pages]
"Dweck had suspected that praise could backfire, but even she was surprised by the magnitude of the effect. "Emphasizing effort gives a child a variable that they can control," she explains. "They come to see themselves as in control of their success. Emphasizing natural intelligence takes it out of the child's control, and it provides no good recipe for responding to a failure." In follow-up interviews, Dweck discovered that those who think that innate intelligence is the key to success begin to discount the importance of effort. I am smart, the kids' reasoning goes; I don't nee

The physics is correct, but the causality is backward! Weight loss and gain DRIVE exercise, not the other way around.

The energy balance equation is simple: energy in - energy out = energy stored as fat. In more detail, we could write: F - (B + E) = S, where F is energy from food, B is energy spent by your basal metabolism (keeping warm, digesting, etc), E is calories burned from exercise, and S is energy stored as body fat. As the article argues, E is much smaller than B, but there's more to it:

We typically turn this equation into an inference: if you eat more, you have to exercise more to keep your weight stable (ie, to keep S=0). But that inference contains several assumptions. It assumes that B is a fixed, and it assumes that E is controlled by the will.

As some posters have argued here, the basal metabolism B adjusts depending on what you eat, or on how much muscle mass you have. I'm not going to argue against that assumption. The more important assumption to consider is that E is driven by the will.

Before his recent book, Gary Taubes wrote an article on exercise and weight loss for "New York" magazine: http://nymag.com/news/sports/38001/index3.html. In it, he documents some of the research behind the exercise-weight loss problem, and he strongly argues that exercise IS NOT controlled by the will.

He argues that we have the causality backwards: weight loss/gain drive exercise, not the other way around! People who do a lot of exercise (eg long-distance runners and cyclists) have a metabolism that is continually burning down their fat stores. They absolutely have to something with all that available fuel, and hence they are compelled to be in motion all the time. They're jumpy and wiry. They just can't help it. Of course, they get hungry and eat, but their bodies don't store the fuel, and eating just leads to a greater need for exercise.

Conversely, people who are prone to gain weight have bodies that refuse to burn calories, and suck every bit of food out of the bloodstream and store it as fat. There is no ready fuel available, so such people have no energy, and no natural propensity for vigorous motion. They're happy to be standing still.

In other words, people's tendencies to lose weight or gain it are CAUSING exercise or inactivity, no the other way around!

I find the argument compelling, especially since there are so many weight-loss studies that show you can't fight your body's natural tendencies: simple calorie-deficit diets always lead to weight gained back (with a bonus!). Matter is much stronger than mind, especially when that mind is encased in (and maybe a function of) the body's matter.

Alejo

Perhaps could help further a gay pogrom, Iraq-style:

http://nymag.com/news/features/59695/

The example is particularly ironic, being that there has never been any evidence that shoes are good for peoples feet, and there is ample evidence that shoes are bad for people feet.

Recently, Nike went to visit the Olympic running teams with bags of shoes in tow, and were sent away because the runners did not want them, nor did the coaches. So, they invented the Nike Free, which is designed to be like not wearing a shoe at all. Makes your mind spin.

Turns out, the shoes they've been marketing all these years were hurting the people who bought them. Of course, Nike always knew that their product wasn't good for their customers... they spent years trying to find scientific evidence that shoes are good for you in some fashion, without success. So, they made them fashion accessories and kept things quiet.

http://nymag.com/health/features/46213/

Keep pimping those shoes, Miguel!

I liked the show... but they they still need some thinking writers.

They don't need writers. What they need is more lens flares. You can't have a Sci-Fi show without them, ya know?

You should pay more attention ;-) Here's a couple I've unearthed with very little digging : "Is the iPhone a Failure? Maybe!", "The iPhone is a Beta Product", "iPhony - Why Apple's new cell phone isn't really revolutionary", "Why the iPhone is a ripoff", "THE LONG VIEW: Why the iPhone will fail", "iPhone Fever: Not Everyone Buys the Hype", "Apple should pull the plug on the iPhone" and "Apple iPhone Doomed To Failure -- Windows Mobile 7 Plans For 2009 Leaked"

It's easy to point and laugh now, except that all those people are still making predictions as analysts.

I did say along the lines of SLAPP. Not SLAPP directly.

Like I said, depending on what she's blogged about in the past, one could argue that being forced out into the open has diminished her chances of seeking gainful employment compared to when no one could just google her name and find that Liskula Cohen is a psychotic skank ho ...

Liskula Cohen was still the blogger, right?

But as others have pointed out, the blogger will have no stance in court with her suit against Google, as Google is obviously required to follow a court order, not to mention that following such court orders are specifically mentioned in the terms of service for that particular service.

But a counter suit against the model could work. Might work. I'm not a lawyer, obviously, but I would think that a good lawyer could cook up some argument that being forced out into the open has diminished her chances of seeking gainful employment compared to when no one could just google her name and find that Liskula Cohen is a psychotic skank ho ...

So, you're making the argument that the woman called a skank brought a frivolous lawsuit... while simultaneously Googlebombing her name. You realize that, as she rises in the Google search results for the term 'skank', that's proof of harm and proof of the validity of the defamation lawsuit, right?

I did say along the lines of SLAPP. Not SLAPP directly.

Like I said, depending on what she's blogged about in the past, one could argue that being forced out into the open has diminished her chances of seeking gainful employment compared to when no one could just google her name and find that Liskula Cohen is a psychotic skank ho ...

Liskula Cohen was still the blogger, right?

But as others have pointed out, the blogger will have no stance in court with her suit against Google, as Google is obviously required to follow a court order, not to mention that following such court orders are specifically mentioned in the terms of service for that particular service.

But a counter suit against the model could work. Might work. I'm not a lawyer, obviously, but I would think that a good lawyer could cook up some argument that being forced out into the open has diminished her chances of seeking gainful employment compared to when no one could just google her name and find that Liskula Cohen is a psychotic skank ho ...

So, you're making the argument that the woman called a skank brought a frivolous lawsuit... while simultaneously Googlebombing her name. You realize that, as she rises in the Google search results for the term 'skank', that's proof of harm and proof of the validity of the defamation lawsuit, right?

I did say along the lines of SLAPP. Not SLAPP directly.

Like I said, depending on what she's blogged about in the past, one could argue that being forced out into the open has diminished her chances of seeking gainful employment compared to when no one could just google her name and find that Liskula Cohen is a psychotic skank ho ...

Liskula Cohen was still the blogger, right?

But as others have pointed out, the blogger will have no stance in court with her suit against Google, as Google is obviously required to follow a court order, not to mention that following such court orders are specifically mentioned in the terms of service for that particular service.

But a counter suit against the model could work. Might work. I'm not a lawyer, obviously, but I would think that a good lawyer could cook up some argument that being forced out into the open has diminished her chances of seeking gainful employment compared to when no one could just google her name and find that Liskula Cohen is a psychotic skank ho ...

I did say along the lines of SLAPP. Not SLAPP directly.

Like I said, depending on what she's blogged about in the past, one could argue that being forced out into the open has diminished her chances of seeking gainful employment compared to when no one could just google her name and find that Liskula Cohen is a psychotic skank ho ...

Liskula Cohen was still the blogger, right?

But as others have pointed out, the blogger will have no stance in court with her suit against Google, as Google is obviously required to follow a court order, not to mention that following such court orders are specifically mentioned in the terms of service for that particular service.

But a counter suit against the model could work. Might work. I'm not a lawyer, obviously, but I would think that a good lawyer could cook up some argument that being forced out into the open has diminished her chances of seeking gainful employment compared to when no one could just google her name and find that Liskula Cohen is a psychotic skank ho ...

Can the outed blogger sue the model for something along the lines of SLAPP? Well, obviously you can sue for anything, but is it likely to have the suit stand up in court?

Depending on what she's blogged about in the past, one could argue that being forced out into the open has diminished her chances of seeking gainful employment compared to when no one could just google her name and find that Liskula Cohen is a psychotic skank ho ...

Liskula Cohen was the blogger, right?

Sorry, I don't see the benefit at all. Good shoes let you walk it lots more places without having to worry about watching every step for broken glass or other hazards, worrying about it becoming too cold and getting frostbite (which tends to affect the feet first), for those in colder climates (which is lots of people in industrialized countries), worrying about it getting too hot and burning your feet (which is lots of people in hotter climates, such as Arizona where I live and many places near the equator), etc.

I think the difference is what we mean by "good shoes". The best shoe would be one that protected you from the things you describe, while still allowing you to use the nerves and muscles in your feet to do what they're meant to do.

Fine, if it's really cold, I need to keep my toes warm. The rest of the time, I'd really prefer to be in sandals, or barefoot. Hot asphalt can be uncomfortable, but your skin develops resistance (just like a beginner guitarist's fingers).

Good shoes also provide proper support and eliminate back pain.

This is the important bit. Evidence is mounting that all that support and padding do more harm than good.
http://nymag.com/health/features/46213/

Running around town without shoes makes about as much sense as walking around in a hot, sunny environment without a hat and sunglasses, or in a cold environment without a coat and gloves. You can do it, but why? So you can inflate your ego because you managed to "go without" while no one else made that sacrifice?

Everything's a compromise between sacrifices. Everyone else was sacrificing their posture, and their awareness of the ground beneath their feet. That's a valid choice of course. But probably in most cases one that wasn't consciously made.

It's quite amazing when you try it, how much variety there is in the ground you walk. I urge you to try it - it makes walking fun again.

And here I thought the following was true:

http://digg.com/tech_news/RIAA_Keeps_Settlement_Money_Artists_May_Sue

http://www.boycott-riaa.com/facts/truth

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2008/02/riaa_what_settlement_money.html ...and there are more on this topic. And while it's unquestionably true that these articles are talking about the settlements from fileshare software companies and not settlements from individuals, I see no cause to believe that the money collected is passed on to the labels (or the artists) at all. Do you have any indication that the RIAA actually passes the money they collect on to the labels? You are aware of the RIAA collection web site yes? (https://www.p2plawsuits.com/) People have been known to use that site when paying their settlements. A single point of transaction for all settlements ostensibly run by the RIAA.

I can't claim to have absolute knowledge of the fact, but it would appear that the RIAA does indeed pocket the money taken ostensibly to fund additional litigation and other legal activities.

Guess:
http://www.alhazan.com/images/sonny-bono.jpg
http://nymag.com/images/2/daily/entertainment/07/11/01_bono_lgl.jpg

You are very much correct. THe large corps DO have large in-house apps for managing their money. I never said that they did, which you keep saying that I did. What i DID say was that Office, and specifically Access and Excel (the rest is fluff), allows them to A) analyze large amounts of data by directly integrating Office with aforementioned in-house applications 2) communicate and secure this data across the intranet, allowing each dept that needs to touch/alter/view the data have at it with ease 3) automate the before processes to derive some sort of outputs and 4) either aggregate those outputs for management review or 5) use the outputs to enter new data back into the in-house apps, automatically. In other words, Office is a tool for collaboration and automation of data handling. NOT managing money. CERTAINLY not advanced statistics or financial model designs - though it is very capable of handling simple every-day statistics and financial models. I wouldn't use it conduct a risk analysis, but I routinely use it to analyze the entire bond market universe worth of Bloomberg market data for price/rate changes and calculate their potential impacts on my firms holdings. In fact, that feature alone - Anyware RealTime is the name - (Bloomberg terminal integration plug-in) is an Open Office killer. You just can't compete with the business tools that Office has. It has nothing to do with formula functions and only slightly to do with scripting capabilities. Open Office does indeed allow rather extensive programming since it can incorporate not just Basic, but java as well. Wonderful for IT apps, but overkill for non-IT applications. VBA was specifically designed to make every day tasks done with the suite easy and automatic, saving much much time. The fact that you think keeping accounting records in "ledgers" was the one thing that held back the degradation of our financial institutions shows YOUR blissful ignorance of the situation. I've already addressed where you should be laying the blame. Guns don't kill people. People kill people. I will point you once again to http://nymag.com/news/business/55687/. What you are arguing is a point I actually agree with. Some progress shouldn't be shared because people who don't understand it fully can still use it to harm others, sometimes MANY others. It all started with the printing press and this unrestricted sharing of knowlege with people who didn't develop or deserve it it has led to all of societies problems today. But, it is nothing we can ever do anything about, so while you can make snide remarks about MS causing the world to collapse, recognize it for the easy forum target that it is, not actual reality.

Alcoa denies it
An Icelander responds
The same Icelander talks about what the "hidden folk" mean to Icelanders

Urgh. No, that's not TRUE - what was done was the following: the site was checked for artifacts of cultural significance and all that. For example, from an article in New York Magazine:

As for Alcoa, their rep believes Lewis is likely referring to a law regarding environmental-impact assessments. The assessment includes an archaeological survey to ensure no important artifacts or ruins are destroyed, and the site's history is also surveyed to see if it was ever named in any Icelandic folklore. And yes, some of that folklore involves elves.

Alda Sigmundsdóttir has some more background in these two entries in her blog, too, for those interested.

Start here. Then google JP Morgan, Bear Stearns, AIG, Lehman Brothers, Royal Bank of Scotland. I am amazed this is even in dispute.

I know you are joking, but disciplining children for lying might not work.

The Vibram Five Fingers and several other "interesting" footwear choices are mentioned in this article from New York Magazine called "You Walk Wrong": http://nymag.com/health/features/46213/. It covers much of the same ground as TFA, but with better artwork (various bare feet made up to look like they're wearing shoes) and more about regular walking (as opposed to competitive running).

Haven't tried them myself, though. My $90 Mizunos, chosen after a running store employee filmed my gait, are in their third year of having completely eliminated chronic knee pain. But I'm tempted to try the Vibrams just for looking nerdy and starting conversations.

You Walk Wrong

Check out You Walk Wrong for additional reading

There's currently another post on the front of Slashdot today describing an 'Ark' where biologists are collecting amphibians in the rainforest to preserve them until a cure can be found for the fungus that is decimating their populations and threatening thousands of species with extinction.

In this scenario, Craigslist is the fungus, the newspapers are the amphibians, and this eBook reader is the 'ark'.
The death of the American newspaper is one of the unintended consequences of a benign technological development: free classified ads.

Seth

Skyscaper farming is nothing new on /.

Plants (especially plants like alfalfa or grasses as depicted) have massive root systems requiring literally tons of soil to be healthy.

Grasses may require a lot of soil but not all crop plants do. Some grow quite well hydropnically. From TFA linked to: "After a strawberry farm in Florida was wiped out by Hurricane Andrew, the owners built a hydroponic farm. By growing strawberries indoors and stacking layers on top of each other, they now produce on one acre of land what used to require 30 acres." The article "In "Urban Farming," Crops Grow in Skyscrapers" says "More than 100 crops can be grown indoors by taking advantage of a technique called "hydroponics," where plants grow using mineral nutrient solutions instead of soil."

Falcon

I'll probably have to skip this movie. I love Cowboy Bebop, but keanu reeves is one of the absolute worst actors of all time. I mean that both as serious and funny. So with a light heart I'm going to go find a bottle of cheap vodka to wash away the idea.

Can anyone explain to me why good actors such as Heath Ledger die, OD, or whatever but people like keanu don't? If the man had any honor as an actor he'd step down and let some one who can act take the part.

Oh, and here's to hoping Bruce Willis is cast as Jet. The voice may not be right but the look would be. Oh, and if Halle Barry is in the movie in any way I'm leading the boycott.

Actually, Gladwell himself characterizes his writings as journalistic. i.e. He doesn't claim the ideas he present in his books are all his own.
To quote from the recent NYMag piece http://nymag.com/arts/books/features/52014/ about him, 'His job, as he describes it, "is to be this intermediary between the academic world and the public."'

• children education
• altruism is hardwired
• logs SOX, HIPAA compliance
• content aware image resizing
• development to management
• become an IT manager
• children and lying, being able to openly and strongly disagree with someone is a sign of respect. Its a also a sign of trust, a sign that I believe my relationship with them will not change in a negative way just because I have a different opinion (I accidentally lost the Slashdot thread that discussed this article)
• female attractiveness
• which colors are best for your eyes
• bad guys get more girls

Talking to you is a little like talking to Bryon York, another right-wing jackass who knows exactly zero about the subject under discussion.

Yep, and I've seen programs touting that that area of NY is way overdue for a hurricane to hit there. You think it was bad when NOLA flooded...it will be bad there, they have the same nightmare scenario as we do down here.

Some links here and here from NYC and this one that details in 1893 where a whole island off the cost disappeared....

I do have to guess....that emergency response will be a bit better for NY than it was here...just my guess.

Are you sure about this? Of course, it "makes sense", just like it makes sense that calorie restriction leads to weight loss. And yes, it has been said many times, so it must be true too.

To counter this assertion, I recommend a cool article by Gary Taubes (a scrupulous science writer with a low-carb bent) in "New York" magazine. In it, he presents evidence that exercise per se doesn't lead to weight loss.

What he does say, which I find interesting, is that people are born with a certain level of activity built in. Some people are nervous rabbit-like types like me, and they never gain weight (I eat lots, and exercise little). Other people are calm and sedentary, and tend to gain weight. What he points out is that thin people are prone to be active, whereas fat people are prone to inactivity. This is an observed correlation.

At this point, we will often jump to infer a causal effect from the correlation: we will conclude that it proves that exercise leads to weight loss. This inference is especially tempting because it meshes with the energy-balance theory of weight loss.

But Taubes cites a very thorough review of exercise-weight studies, in which the Finnish authors decided the problem was "more complex" than people think. People who exercised sometimes lost weight, sometimes gained. The cause-and-effect connection isn't really there.

Hawking may not be the first author that comes to mind when looking for a children's book, but my 10 year old daughter really enjoyed Lucy and Stephen Hawking's book Georgeâ(TM)s Secret Key to the Universe.

See http://nymag.com/family/kids/39565/

Probably:

http://nymag.com/health/features/46213/

From the looks of the thing I'd say this is even more appropriate.
"Number Five, is Alive."