It's a wonderful life

"Our Wonderful Nature" is a funny clip from a young German film-maker that gives us a glimpse into a world that normally takes place in the blink of an eye.

Researchers to study if out-of-body experiences are real

A group of British, U.S. and Canadian researchers will study whether out-of-body experiences are real, as some people have claimed after surviving cardiac arrest.

In a study run by the University of Southampton's Human Consciousness Project, researchers will examine 1,500 survivors of heart attacks over three years at 25 hospitals in Europe, the U.S. and Canada to determine if the phenomenon of seeing a light at the end of the tunnel or floating above as reported by some is genuine.

To test patients, doctors will place random photographs on shelves higher than the beds in emergency and intensive care rooms, which will only be visible if the heart-attack victims are looking down, the researchers say.

The photos will be confidential and changed routinely, they say.

Harper gets my (scape)goat

A staff member resigned and apologized Tuesday for writing a speech read by Stephen Harper in 2003 as leader of the Opposition that he plagiarized from an address days earlier by then Australian prime minister John Howard.

"Neither my superiors in the Office of the Leader of the Opposition nor the leader of the Opposition was aware that I had done so."

Lippert worked for Harper, then leader of the Canadian Alliance, when the speech calling for Canadian troops to be deployed to Iraq was written and read in the House of Commons.

Lippert, a former policy analyst for economic think tank the Fraser Institute, has announced his resignation from his current position working in the Conservative campaign headquarters.

The apology came hours after Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae accused Harper of plagiarizing from the Howard speech.

PHOTO: M.C. Escher, The Scapegoat from Diamond, S. Anger, Madness and the Daimonic, p. 80

Gay bashing in Vancouver investigated as hate crime

Vancouver police say they are treating an attack in the city's West End as a hate crime, after a 27-year-old man was struck in the face while walking hand-in-hand with another man.

Early Saturday morning, a group of four young men approached the pair, calling out gay slurs. One of the men then hit him in the face with enough force that he fell back on the sidewalk and was knocked unconscious.

Smith's jaw was dislodged and fractured in a number of places, and he's scheduled to go in for surgery Monday, which will leave his jaw wired shut for six weeks.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-I39sn2yL11ltM3SECUSVOM14ar-RZKyfXBgGpjrUe_5Wq6r0QbB5gR1hIntOeKETw6Rlb6zDhbAfwZTkJ109HJai11UdKXgfdUj40RFoMslWYIziUDdcuwKYQp5twwv4CPSwfSWNZk61/s1600/hateistaught.jpg

Michael Moore : Congratulations, Corporate Crime Fighters! Coup Averted!

Film-maker Michael Moore has championed many causes over the years, so you can imagine that he has a few things to say about the recent financial collapse of the U.S. markets. Here is an excerpt from his most recent letter:

Everyone said the bill would pass. The masters of the universe were already making celebratory dinner reservations at Manhattan's finest restaurants. Personal shoppers in Dallas and Atlanta were dispatched to do the early Christmas gifting. Mad Men of Chicago and Miami were popping corks and toasting each other long before the morning latte run.

But what they didn't know was that hundreds of thousands of Americans woke up yesterday morning and decided it was time for revolt. The politicians never saw it coming. Millions of phone calls and emails hit Congress so hard it was as if Marshall Dillon, Elliot Ness and Dog the Bounty Hunter had descended on D.C. to stop the looting and arrest the thieves.

The Corporate Crime of the Century was halted by a vote of 228 to 205. It was rare and historic; no one could remember a time when a bill supported by the president and the leadership of both parties went down in defeat. That just never happens.

... and while you are at his site, you can download his latest film on the state of the world, "Slacker Uprising" for FREE!

Gaia's giant farts may be silent but deadly

Scientists have discovered that millions of tons of a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide are being released into the atmosphere from beneath the Arctic seabed.

Preliminary findings suggest that massive deposits of sub-sea methane are bubbling to the surface as the Arctic region becomes warmer and its ice retreats.

Underground stores of methane are important because scientists believe their sudden release has in the past been responsible for rapid increases in global temperatures, dramatic changes to the climate, and even the mass extinction of species. Scientists aboard a research ship that has sailed the entire length of Russia's northern coast have discovered intense concentrations of methane – sometimes at up to 100 times background levels – over several areas covering thousands of square miles of the Siberian continental shelf.

Gaia, the Greek supreme goddess of Earth, is frequently used to describe the Earth as a single organism.

Around the world in 80 ways

Check out this visualization of air traffic around the world.

How to train your pet rocks

This is a remarkable story of a man who is able to balance rocks in gravity-defying sculptures. Watch the video and you still won't understand how he does it.

Bill Dan is a San Francisco-based balanced-rock sculptor who has demonstrated the art, discipline and craft of rock balancing and balanced-stone stacking around the world. His website includes images of his balanced stones and rocks, links to other rock balancers, information about naturally balancing rocks and world-wide stone balancing and rock stacking traditions.

Couple put on trial in Dubai for drinking juice in public

A 28-year-old Russian female, who visited Dubai on a tourist visa, and a 30-year-old male citizen of Lebanon, a salesman in a local store, were put on trial for drinking juice in a public place in the daytime during Muslim fasting.

The police caught the two people red-handed at a gas station in Dubai, Emirat.ru reports with reference to Gulf News.

In accordance with the Federal Penal Code of the United Arab Emirates, a public intake of food and beverages during daytime hours of the month of Ramadan is forbidden by Article 313. The article stipulates the punishment in the form of either a monetary penalty – up to 2,000 dirhems ($555) – or even a term of up to one month in prison.

The young people told the court that they were not Muslims and were thus unaware of the fact that their actions could be punishable.

People tell more lies in email than on paper

In two studies co-authored by Lehigh’s Liuba Belkin, people using e-mail lied almost 50 percent more often than those using pen-and-paper.

Workers are significantly more likely to lie in e-mail messages than in traditional pen-and-paper communications, according to two new studies co-authored by Lehigh’s Liuba Belkin.

More surprising is that people actually feel justified when lying using e-mail, the studies show.

“There is a growing concern in the workplace over e-mail communications, and it comes down to trust,” says Belkin, an assistant professor of management in the College of Business and Economics. “You’re not afforded the luxury of seeing non-verbal and behavioral cues over e-mail. And in an organizational context, that leaves a lot of room for misinterpretation and, as we saw in our study, intentional deception.”